Eugene Volokh has his typical measured response to the Bill Bennett gambling affair. I guess the thing I don’t get in this whole “scandal” is why on earth, if you had $8 million to blow, you’d play slot machines, perhaps the worst expectation game in the casino, excluding keno. As a corollary, I think anyone playing more than 25¢ on slots is insane. (That this number corresponds to the highest denomination slot I’ve ever played is only a coincidence.)

Now, admittedly, I’m something of a blackjack afficianado (although I’d have to say my play is rusty as of late), which is almost always the best bet in the casino if you know what you’re doing and have a decent bankroll. But baccarat or craps would pay off better than the slots anywhere, and most places (although perhaps not Vegas) you’d be better off playing roulette or one of those silly new-fangled games. Plus, for the most part the slots bore the crap out of me; I simply can’t imagine how anyone could blow $8 million playing slots, as they’d probably keel over from sheer boredom. Crazy.

Happy Fun Pundit explains this much better than I did.

JerkSauce helpfully passes on word that Canada now has more proven oil reserves than Iraq.

To commemorate this event, I have an announcement for my friends at IndyMedia: the Straussian neoconservative cabal has a new slogan: 89-30 or bust!

Actually, I think we’ll just wait for the Albertans to secede. Much cheaper than sending a few H2’s with TOW launchers on top across the Montana frontier.

Malcolm Hutty at Samizdata links to news today that Britain joining the euro may have a high price: it could spell the end of the country’s National Health Service, according to a report published by the European Central Bank; he views the news as a gift to the Conservative Party:

One can imagine the glee with which [Tory leader] Iain Duncan-Smith will seize upon this report: he will be able to simultaineously portray [Labour’s] Foundation Hospitals policy as unduly timid, with the full weight of the ECB as ‘independent experts‘, while also saying that the NHS is only ‘safe in Tory hands’ because of the government’s committment in principle to joining the Euro. After all the kerfuffle on IDS’ leadership in recent days, I shall be reserving my judgement on his capabilities to see whether he makes real capital out of this absolute gift from Europe.

This could be a major bombshell—and perhaps the death-knell for further British integration into the European Union.

Conrad thinks that Steven Den Beste’s philosophy of blogrolling post was a tad verbose, and promulgates the following personal policy:

Rule No. 1: There are no rules.

Rule No. 2: When in doubt, see Rule No. 1.

That’s more or less mine, although my regressive recipriocity gene (perhaps left over from my youthful flirtation with being a Democrat) suggests that blogrolling me will almost certainly lead to your being blogrolled. And it helps if you ping Weblogs.com when you update, because otherwise you’ll end up stuck at the bottom, coincidentally down near Steven Den Beste.

Steven Taylor at PoliBlog takes an early look at the 2004 presidential race. An interesting, but easily-overlooked, factor to note is that, due to the decennial reapportionment, if Bush wins the states he won in 2000, he’ll pick up seven extra electoral votes due to the continuing population shift to the Sun Belt states.

Alec Saunders is upset that U.S. drug czar John Walters has been making veiled—in the sense that something stated blatantly can be called “veiled”—threats about Canadian plans to decriminalize possession of small quantities of marijuana. (I’m too kind to make jokes about this perhaps explaining Jean Chrétien’s behavior on the world stage, except I’d be more likely to blame it on crack cocaine.)

Over the past decade I’ve come to the conclusion that the drug czar post makes its occupants into complete imbeciles. It turned Bill Bennett into a compulsive gambler, Barry McCaffrey into a national joke, and John Walters into a lame ripoff of Marlon Brando in The Godfather. Now Canucks can join in the fun of ridiculing the office. It’s the drug czar’s world, we’re all just living in it…

On a related note, Dean Esmay wonders why America can’t have a rational debate on drug policy. Me too.