Yesterday I wrote an opinion comment that marijuana should be legalized.  I'm certainly not alone in thinking that.  Paul Armentano is the deputy director of NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) and the NORML Foundation. He is the coauthor of Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?  Click here to hear his thoughts on how to end the deadly drug war in Mexico. 

He writes:  "Albert Einstein declared, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” He wasn’t describing the federal government’s nearly century-long war on drugs but he might as well have been.."

Why shouldn't the American Government benefit from these sales rather than the cartels and the government employees on the take...quite likely there are many playing both sides.

On the Internet, click here, there are instructions on how to grow marijuana hydroponically.  Naturally, since it is available to one and all, there is a disclaimer that the instructions are not to be used anywhere that it cannot be legally grown.  It follows that anyone who would break the law and buy and use illegal marijuana would certainly be honest enough not to violate that disclaimer, right?

Now really, America, how long will this farce be allowed to continue while the cartel gets richer than the Mexican government, and stronger than its army?  Do we really have our priorities right when more Americans die fighting the cartels over something as ridiculous as killing our people to try to prevent people from legally gaining that which they have had no problem obtaining illegally?  Wake up America!  Get your heads out of the sand before it is too late.

ANOTHER SLIPPERY SLOPE ARGUMENT

Recently I read an article from MSNBC which said that medical marijuana is now a target of thieves.  "Critics say the heists and holdups prove that marijuana and crime are inseparable, though marijuana advocates contend that further legalization is the answer."  Click here for the whole article.

Naturally, our anonymous author has taken only two facts and made 'scientific' conclusions.  These two facts which   no one seemed to challenge, the fact that as long as marijuana is illegal, people will go out of there way and risk danger to steal.legal marijuana. Would there be less theft if there were legalized marijuana?  One might look back at the precedent since Prohibition was repealed.  Those who lack money seem not to attack the manufacturers but are more apt to rob the stores which sell it. 

Since marijuana is a hemp variety, it grows naturally and doesn't require a manufacturing plant.  One might speculate that no more would have the acreage to grow their own than those who would invest in illegal stills for making hard liquors.  What then would happen?  Those zealous souls who insist on being their 'brothers' keepers' would have less to control.  Traffickers would earn less since they wouldn't be able to inflate the costs.  Criminals would have to go into some other criminal activity...which has never seemed to be a problem for their ingenuity.  On the upside, the government would save a great deal of money since the cartels would cost us less in  revenue for American   ATF agents.  Since the zealots are more interested in controlling the activities of others, of which they disapprove, they are not concerned with cost to the taxpayers, i.e, government expenditures.  Politicians and law enforcement might earn less kickback monies.  The taxpayers might pay less for feeding corruption.  When will we, the taxpayer, reach the end of that road?  Will it ever happen?

AT LAST! A BIPARTISAN SPARK WAS LIT

Carl Hulse wrote in the Times, today, "The Senate approved and sent to President Obama on Wednesday what Congressional Democrats hope will be the first in a series of bills spurring employment by providing tax breaks and other hiring incentives to businesses.  The measure, approved on a bipartisan vote of 68 to 29, would give employers an exemption from payroll taxes through the end of 2010 on workers they hire who have been unemployed for at least 60 days. It also extends the federal highway construction program and takes other step."

The Stimulus Bill was passed in a bipartisan way though what is heard from the 'other side' these days would not indicate that they had passed one when Bush was in office,  They now make it sound like one of the worst decisions the Democrats ever made.

Fingernail biters must be having a good meal about now, waiting to here how the Democrats plan to finesse the Healthcare Bill through. Someone whose name I did not catch (obviously not a Democrat) said that this was all silly because everyone knows that most people have health care covered by their jobs.  Where has this person been for the past few years as fewer and fewer employers offer benefits or full time employment?  How do these people get into office, let alone on television where the audience is unable to discriminate between the wise and the fools?

TODAY, TRUTH IS A TREASURE HUNT WITH NO CLUES

"Trust me" are words frequently heard.  Woe to the person who responds without fact checking.  Not only did there used to be an industry rule for good newspapers to have three, proven sources before a story was printed, I doubt anyone even remembers that it was so once.. Fewer and fewer people read newspapers and more people watch talking heads and believe them...no fact checks required.

But the absence of truth is not limited to journalists, politicians and the like.   It is ubiquitous.  Today, the truth is interpreted rather loosely.  I recall having been quoted inaccurately by a colleague.  When I asked her why she misquoted me, (she admitted that she had changed the words I had spoken) and said, "I know that is not what you said but I knew it was what your meant."  When the old parlor game of telephone was played, the reason that by the time the last person was whispered to, there was not a bit of accuracy to the message first whispered.  People don't hear words with the same meanings attached and distort what they hear without realizing the distortions.  This is patently why no one should ever be found guilty on eye witness accounts alone months or years after a crime.

Yet, somehow, what is going on in politics today seems not at all that innocent.  Even when video tapes are played of what they had previously said, they can still deny the truth.  When there are enough versions of 'truth' being spread around, people will choose the 'truth' they most want to hear.  Those who believe if something is written in a book, newspaper, or on the Internet, it HAS to be true, poor deluded souls.  There are those who sincerely believe that an officer of the church can only speak the truth.  This is why so many people refused to believe their children who told them they had been sexually molested by priests.

Others sincerely believe if one has taken an oath, that is proof that whatever they say is the truth, as though perjury is a figment of someone's imagination,  that people don't lie to manipulate others.  The joy of the sociopath is that, without a conscience, they can lie most believably.  That is how many sociopaths have risen to corporate summits.

Shock is my only visualization of Diogenes in Washington, D.C.   What joy it would be to find an honest man there...like finding a diamond in a pile of manure.  Actually, I can make a distinction between the few who make statements and subsequently realize that they were not fully informed, or missed salient arguments and change their positions.  I think we can all respect those people but not those who blatantly lie and deny ever having thought differently.  While the Republicans made hay over Kerry's presumed flip-flopping.  Michael Moore could make a documentary on their lies alone.

LITTLE FOCUSED-ON RESISTANCE TO HEALTHCARE BILL BEING PASSED

Greed, pay-offs, excessive profits and many other elements have been talked about as some of the resistance to passing the Healthcare Bill.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists 14,500,000 people working in healthcare in the US.  These people fear that, since most people's care is paid for by insurance, they could be not only out of jobs, less likely, than that they can be out of pensions if their insurance companies go bust.

The fear of losing a job, losing insurance, or losing one's pension or retirement is a very serious fear.  The non-profit insurance companies are the ones with the greatest fear as they are in the red, unlike the for-profit companies who make billions in profit.Yet I have only heard it brought up, not in the media, but from employees of  the non-profits.  The worst fears have already.happened.  People hang onto what they have for fear that, if they don't, it won't be there for them when they need it...little realizing that is the great cry of the many for whom it ceased to be there due lack of job, money, pre-existing condition, or other numerous loopholes the insurance companies use to keep the money sent them as profit rather than paid out for the health of the subscriber. Even if the bill passes, the public will not see change for a few years. At the rate the government moves, most of us will be dead of old age by the time we see implementation.


There are many interesting notions on the public table that never make it to the politicians. I don't know who Mark Cuban is, but his blog has an interesting proposition. Click here   A single payer system would ultimately work well as it does in other countries but it would take years in the US to find jobs for the thousands who work for the for-profits or to help merger those employees with a government run agency.

THE AMERICAN TALIBAN

The Governor of Utah is a misogynist and terrorist.  Charging that women are guilty of homicide for miscarriages, as though someone other than the woman knows what is happening to her body.  Miscarriages happen for many reasons as any proper obstetrician will attest.  However. Governor Utah signed into law a bill charging women and girls with murder for miscarriages if caused by "intentional or knowing" acts.  An article written by Rose Aguilar states:  "...the true intent of the legislation and addresses those situations in which the termination of a pregnancy is intentional and is not conducted at a physician's direction."  All women who fear losing total control of their bodies and lives to these power-Nazis should read here Who decides what is within a woman's control?  Is this the only solution to Utah's problem with pregnant women who do not wish to become parents?.  Who decides what is intentional or knowing?  Is to be a judge or jury of her peers?  Is this what America has come to be?  "Democratic Senator Ben McAdams, one of just four of 29 senators who voted against both pieces of legislation (three Democratic female senators voted for both), says the revised bill still sets a dangerous precedent that would "open up a Pandora’s box" of unintended legal consequences that will be hard to reverse. "Even the word 'knowingly' will result in unintended consequences," he told AlterNet".

Indeed, in today's world we have learned a lot but we have not accurately learned to know what is unspoken in anyone's mind.  Hopefully, somewhere in this country there will be wiser people who will see that this Bill is overturned or rewritten to something enforceable with .little room for error.  I can only pray it doesn't reach our seemingly clueless, unfair and unbalanced, current Supreme Court .

OF CHOICE, I'M NOT WILLING/ABLE TO GIVE UP COMPUTER CONTACT WITH THE WORLD

Someone on BBC recently did an experiment (finding only two families who would participate) of people willing to give up their Modems for a week, in South Korea.  For this article by John Sudworth, click here.  While I don't have current statistics on Americans using the Internet, Sudworth wrote: " A recent survey showed that 68% of South Koreans get their news from the internet, compared with just 32% who still read newspapers."

I'm not in South Korea but I find I must use mine similarly.  I rarely do shopping in a store; other than groceries, most shopping is online.  I no longer look up information in books, I go online for dictionaries, definitions of phrases, translations for foreign words , tutorials on many subjects (often found on youtube.com by doing a subject search), checking medical information, description of prescription drugs, and the list goes on and on.  If I am without a computer I feel like an amputee.

Remarkable is that I don't seem to have any more free time than people who don't bother with computers.  After being with these people for a while I realized how information-challenged they are.  I haven't subscribed to a newspaper in 10 years because I read newspapers from all over the world online.  I could say that I did it to save trees but that is only a side benefit.  I learn more and don't have all that paper to tie up for the trash pickups.  Many foreign newspapers have an English version.  I find the perspectives printed from other countries expands my thinking.  Al Jazeera is very interesting to me.  Note the list of continents or countries on the left hand side of the screen from which you can choose.

Now that postage stamps have gone up to 44 cents, it saves money to pay online.  People think that paying shipping makes it more expensive to shop online but they don't realize that places like Amazon that don't have store front rents.can charge less, which defrays the shipping fee if you don't get free shipping for buying more than $25.  Many forget that it costs money to drive, pay for parking in some cases, and there is more time spent to do shopping more than 5 miles from home.  Additionally, certain services done on phone are now costing $5 per transaction (airline tickets,  some utilities, etc) whereas, on line there is no charge.

However, while saving money is a boon, it is hardly the major reason for turning to a computer for many of the things we used to have to leave home to do.  I may not live in South Korea but I'll bet I am one of the millions of Americans whose computers get just as much action.  It really makes the old ad slogan 'let your fingers do the walking' have real meaning today, doesn't it?