Author: Mark Draughn

  • Evil Lawmaking: License Suspension

    Continuing my series of articles on bad, sloppy, or downright evil lawmaking, I’d like to talk a little bit about how much states love to suspend or revoke people’s driver’s licenses. A suspended license is a branch of a problem I mentioned earlier: Free Punishment. A suspended license is just a database entry and a… Read more

  • Jury Duty: The Prosecutor Speaks

    A few months ago, I posted a followup to my Jury Duty series in which I expressed my curiosity about whatever happened to the defendant, whom I called “Jose.” I had been unable to find out what sentence he received. Well, one of the prosecutors (I think the one I referred to as the “blonde… Read more

  • Towards a More Transparent Government

    This sounds like a good idea to me: Oath of Presidential Transparency For Open, Transparent, and Accountable Government I, __________________________, candidate for President of the United States, pledge to the American Public that, if elected President of the United States, my administration will be fully and robustly committed to open, transparent, and accountable government principles.… Read more

  • Wind and Rain!

    In the time-honored journalistic tradition of running with a story because we’ve got pictures, here are a few shots I took on my 3-hour drive home after the storms we had yesterday. A Rare Moment of Speed Tree Down On Road and Power Lines Bigger Tree Down on Road Line Down on the Road Update:… Read more

  • Have You Been Trying to Reach Me?

    I upgraded to Microsoft Outlook 2003 a few weeks ago, and I just sort of assumed that if anything went wrong there’d be error messages or something. It turns out that Outlook and the Windypundit mail server aren’t talking to each other. I didn’t notice because I have about half a dozen email accounts coming… Read more