Sunday, November 04, 2007

It’s a Reasonable Argument

Drew Carey has a series of videos on Reason TV (a libertarian site) which deals with public policies regarding various stupid laws. In this one he talks about Medical Marijuana. If you’re wondering why I have been championing legalization lately it’s because I know someone with a serious illness who uses medical marijuana, and he tells me its the best thing he uses to stop the paid. He has crippling pain that makes it almost impossible to walk or sleep well. But marijuana makes his legs feel loose and somehow it makes it possible to get a good night’s sleep.

Everyone knows someone who smokes pot at some level. It’s no more dangerous than alcohol. It’s probably safer. Yet its treated as this major drug by the feds.

For a long time I was against legalization because I felt we didn’t need more drugs in our society. But the fact is, humans need some kind of way to deal with things. Legal drugs are a huge industry. When you realize how huge it is, you can see why they wouldn’t want something like cannabis legalized. People could home grow it. It’s a weed and easy to do. This drug probably cuts into potential business for the pham companies. If it were legal, it would probably really cut into their trade.

But the fact is, many states have made medical marijuana legal. And the Feds (starting with Clinton who was president when many of these laws passed) have ignored the laws and have persecuted businesses that sprang up to supply the drug to people. In other words, the feds have ignored the will of the people. And they have trampled on states rights.

Now a lot of conservatives like to make fun of medical marijuana users as a bunch of stoners, but that’s not really true. You have to get a prescription to get it in these states. Sure, there are probably fakers. But the same thing happens with other prescription drugs.

If someone is really a conservative and believes in liberty, they have to be concerned about the way the feds are trampling on people’s rights. They should also be concerned about the huge waste of tax payer money prosecuting these easy targets when there are more serious drugs out there they should be worries about.

UPDATE: Britain decriminalized pot and lo and behold, use of the drug dropped 20 percent. Take away the rebellion aspect and it stops being so cool.

Saturday, November 03, 2007

Half-Life in 60 Seconds

Hilarious cartoon showing the two Half Life games (sans the episodes) in 60 seconds. Right now I am playing Bioshock which is magnificent. And getting ready for Crysis. The demo of that blew me away. Best graphics ever. It’ll be out in a week or so for real. 

No Comment

Defeatist Watch

The surge is working according to even anti-Bush sources.

More than four months after U.S. forces completed a 30,000-strong force buildup, the death toll for both Iraqis and Americans has fallen dramatically for two months running.

U.S. commanders credit a new tactic of putting troops into neighborhood bases and of signing on disaffected former enemies as new allies in the fight against the most radical elements in both the Shiite and Sunni communities, especially al-Qaida in Iraq. Anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr also has called a cease-fire, a move seen largely responsible for the drop in sectarian murders.

On Feb. 23, when the death toll

So what were the Democrats prediction earlier in the year? Nothing good. They tried to actively block it, in fact.

Rep. Jack Murtha (D) says that he has figured out a way to stop Bush’s so-called troop “surge” before it is completed, while still maintaining Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s pledge not to cut off funding for “troops in the field.” He tells MoveCongress.org in a Web cast this morning that he plans to attach strings to the president’s $100 billion war funding bill that will effectively force the Administration to stall the troop increase.

Are they going to change their tune and claim it was their idea all along?

The CD is Dead?

It just might be if this proves a success.

Radiohead made and estimated $10 million so far from their new album, by making it free to download, but merely asking for donations.

Personally, I think this kind of model may become standard for a lot of things, not just music. And that would be great. 

Time Marches On

My computer has one and a half terrabytes worth of disk storage. Three 500 gig drives. Each one cost less than $200.

Back in the 80s, things were different.

Imagine how things might change in another 20 years. One can only imagine. 

It Keeps Getting Worse

Just when you think they can’t get any more annoying, the GW hysterics crank it up another notch. This one from England.

Britons must swap their wasteful habits with food for the thrifty approach of previous generations by buying less and eating leftovers if the UK is to play its part in averting climate change, shoppers were warned yesterday.

The call for a “cultural” move against overshopping was made by Joan Ruddock, the Environment minister, after research showed Britons threw away one third of their food, at an enormous hidden financial and environmental cost.

Annually, the UK dumps 6.7 million tonnes, meaning each household jettisons between £250 and £400 worth of food each year. Most of the waste – which nationally costs £8bn – is sent to landfill where it rots, emitting the potent climate- change gas methane.

Ms Ruddock, the minister for climate change, warned that, although many people had not made the connection between scraping food into the bin and climate change, waste food presented a bigger environmental problem than packaging. “We cannot fail to do what is necessary,” she said.

“The Minister for Climate Change”? This is what happens when agencies are created to “fight” something. Endless nimrods come out of the woodwork issuing edicts about the dangers of poppycock and horse feathers.

Methane is created by rotting biomass. However, as much as humans throw away, many more tons, perhaps incalculable amounts, are created by nature as dead animals and plants rot in forests and country. And let’s be clear, there is a lot more land where human beings don’t live, then places where we are. More humans live in cities. Cities take up a small amount of land compared to everything else.

But alarmists will find everything to be causing global warming. I’m waiting for them to tells us we should breathe slower because we emit CO².

Oh, and this is utter BS. The exact opposite happens as they describe it. The earth was much hotter during the dinosaur eras and there was an insane amount of life.

Friday, November 02, 2007

Un-PC Comic Book Ads

Back in the day, ads could get kind of funky.

Will we be LOST?

Bush wants the Law Of the Sea Treaty passed in the senate. This treaty would basically give up US sovereignty in the oceans, cripple our navy and let the UN dictate to us what we can and cannot do in the oceans. Ronald Reagan rightly rejected this treaty. Clinton signed a revised version but the Senate didn’t ratify it. Now Bush has sent it to the Senate a second time, not that Democrats have taken over. The last time he sent it, Bill Frist had it killed.

What would this thing do? Lots of things you would expect Bush to avoid. Instead, he is doing his Nixon imitation again and trying to placate his haters. A futile gesture. The treaty would:

• Impair and restrict the necessary operations of the United States Navy, such as boarding ships engaged in terrorist-related activities.
• Create a global tax which would go to the U.N.
• Give the U.N. the power to create a multi-national court system and to enforce its judgments.
• Force companies seeking to mine or fish to get a U.N. permit, and pay a fee of $250,000 and unspecified levels of royalties and profit-sharing.
• Give the U.N. the authority to set production controls for ocean mining, drilling and fishing, regulate ocean exploration, issue permits and settle disputes in its own new “court”.
• Create a new U.N. agency that would have the right to compete directly with private companies in those profit-making activities
• Provides new avenues for environmental activists to pursue legal action in both U.S. and international courts. Including the new U.N. court.
• Create the risk that the United States may lose control of its environmental laws.
• Plus, the L.O.S.T. enforcement body is a Council of 36 nations, the majority of which are not friendly to the United States.

Bush is making a Jimmy-Carter-sized mistake if he gets this thing passed. And of course, the Dems are stupid enough to sign it because they love the U.N. in all its corrupt and decadent glory.

It would be yet another step toward a one world nanny state that the U.N. and certain elites would like us all to kowtow to.

Tell your senator you are opposed to this bill. Tell them now.

Music Map

Find out who the top artists and albums are in your state. It may surprise you.

The Beatles and Led Zeppelin cameup in the top two of a lot of states I checked.