Sunday, January 16, 2011

A Couple of Interesting Pieces

First, an op-ed by Carl Hiassen about the terrorists operating in a neighboring country. The single most effective thing that we, as a nation, could do to gut the Mexican cartels is to legalize marijuana. But that won't happen, because the War on Drugs is a massive crack pipe for law enforcement. Without the War on Drugs, they'd have to do more real policing instead of Gestapo-like night raids. More significantly, without the War on Drugs, the confiscated money that the cops have become addicted to would dry up.

Then there is this article in today's Times on the Stuxnet virus, though, to be frank, there is not a lot in the article that is new if you have been following this story from when the news first broke in the tech blogs.

(H/T for the first one.)

6 comments:

  1. Lying Bastards
    I was raised a Republican and always thought my dad was right about pretty much everything, until high school when I really began to read and question things. Yes, this was during the '60s and weed was surprisingly a big catalyst in this process. We were actually forced to watch movies like "Reefer Madness" and some scary shit about LSD and deformed babies, and several damn smart people whom I admired at the time were very vocal in pointing out the obvious and not so obvious lies and propaganda that was being aimed at us. I did some more research, and I discovered that our own Government had a long, rich history of lying to the people, and as I have matured I have seen first hand how the press ALWAYS gets it wrong, and you pretty much can't trust anybody. Almost. Thankfully there are some honorable people still left, but you rarely get to hear their voices over the loud ceaseless clammor that passes for the news media today...

    Ya gotta do your own research, and don't forget that EVERYONE has some kind of agenda!


    I stumbled accross this article written by the NYT back in April '08, I don't know how I missed this at the time (gotta get a subcription!) but it pretty much confirms what I said at the time...
    Sorry, you'll have to manually type in the URL, couldn't get the linc to work, but this article is worth it, it will definately piss you off!

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20generals.html

    Now here we sit, saddled with trillions of dollars of debt, the rich assholes that feed off the govt./military teat have gotten much, much more wealthy, our economy is in the tank, and thousands of families have suffered the needless death or maiming of loved ones who served honorably in a dishonorably started war. Back then, the only people I can remember calling the shrub on his lies were branded as traitors and crackpots, and even (gasp) liberal elites! Kieth Olberman, Michael Moore, and many more whom I feel were the real patriots at the time, were vilified on Fox and marginalized or even ignored by the MSM, while they continually put these manipulative, currupt, money grabbing so-called military experts on the news and allowed them to advance the administration's propaganda to justify the war. The MSM became afraid of being perceived as unpatriotic, and really failed the American people, and continue to disappoint to this day. We are now in my humble opinion living in a world where the government is totally controlled by the military-Industrial Complex and the very rich, our Congress is pretty much bought and paid for. Unfortunately, the great unwashed horde of poorly-educated, mouth-breathing boob-tube watching "patriots" have no idea they are being manipulated by the media thru false outrage and controversy, fear-mongering and hatred. They vote against their own best interests, their own freedoms at times, and continue to do so.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lying Bastards
    I was raised a Republican and always thought my dad was right about pretty much everything, until high school when I really began to read and question things. Yes, this was during the '60s and weed was surprisingly a big catalyst in this process. We were actually forced to watch movies like "Reefer Madness" and some scary shit about LSD and deformed babies, and several damn smart people whom I admired at the time were very vocal in pointing out the obvious and not so obvious lies and propaganda that was being aimed at us. I did some more research, and I discovered that our own Government had a long, rich history of lying to the people, and as I have matured I have seen first hand how the press ALWAYS gets it wrong, and you pretty much can't trust anybody. Almost. Thankfully there are some honorable people still left, but you rarely get to hear their voices over the loud ceaseless clammor that passes for the news media today...

    Ya gotta do your own research, and don't forget that EVERYONE has some kind of agenda!


    It is time to end this stupid "war on drugs", and spend the money wasted by the DEA on re-hab and drug treatmenrt facilities.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Watched an episode of "Cops" last night. A guy inside his car buys a small amount of weed from the undercover. It looked like 10 other cops roll in for the arrest, one police vehicle running into the front of the criminal's car. They proceed with the take-down. In handcuffs, the buyer says, "What about where you hit my car?" to which the PD says, "We're seizing your car, it's no longer yours, you'll have to buy it back."

    What rational person can look at this, from the standpoint of freedom, and not want to scream? What policeman would want to participate in this? After the video faded out, you could hear one officer say, "Great job tonight guys." I would like to think that a lot of officers realize that this part of their job is futile, but it is their job, after all.

    DISCLAIMER: I have never tried marijuana. I don't think smoking marijuana is good. Neither is tobacco or alcohol, both of which I infrequently use. What I'm trying to say is that freedom is good, so I will drink an occasional glass of wine, because I am free to do so. Let's get rid of this idea that people cannot decide what's good for them or not, because next, they'll be coming for my pizza.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Comrad Misfit- Thanks for the linc...Now regarding weed, I happen to have gloucoma, with half of my optic nerve gone from one eye, a third gone in the other. Along with the presciption eye drops I take every day to keep the pressure in my eyes down, I also partake in medicinal MJ which drops my pressure down another 5 or 6 points...my eye doctor has agreed that my eyes have stabalized and I am not getting any worse, but I'll be damned if I will go blind to obey some stupid prohibition based on lies and propaganda. We also need to look at hemp, it is a huge cash crop that we are not utilizing, Henry Ford built a car out of it, oil from its seeds is considered one of the healthiest, rich in the good cholesterol and very low in the bad...check out this wonderplant and all what we are missing due to this BS war on drugs.

    ReplyDelete

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