magekillr

http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/why-is-marijuana-illegal/

Here's Krugman explaining why Greece is [bleep]ed and why Britain isn't (hint, it's because Greece was on the euro and Britain wasn't). The EU should stay strong, but I think the euro zone should be scraped. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/why-isnt-britain-in-more-trouble/

Pulling out of the European Union would be foolish. Getting rid of the euro currency, however, could be a good idea. That's one problem with Clegg's eurocentrism: he wants the UK to adopt the euro. Most of Spain's problems right now are because of the lack of control over currency.

I'm still not sure of the cause, but: http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/deepwater-horizon-disaster-directly-links-h Thanks, Halliburton! It seems deregulation, once again, was a big problem.

The Guardian endorses the Lib Dems, usually they support Labour. The Guardian is one of my favorite papers, tied with the Financial Times, Haaretz and Dawn: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/30/the-liberal-moment-has-come

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g5gnWbqZ9SqBHvSYqJeE2AT5KebwD9FD3SV81 Adding on, BP and oil companies opposed regulations because, GASP, offshore drilling wouldn't be profitable with them in place: http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/04/27/27greenwire-bp-other-oil-companies-opposed-effort-to-stiff-38887.html Not only is this supposed to surpass Exxon Valdez in the amount of oil spilled, but I expect it to far surpass the amount of cost in damage. I think it's safe to say that this is an ecological apocalypse and it's going to destroy the fishing industry on the Gulf Coast and cost billions (perhaps a trillion) to clean up as best we can. It can't be completely cleaned up, and you can't fix species extinction. Of course, the dirty f***ing hippies like myself warned Obama not to take up support of offshore drilling as a plank on his energy policy. He could have used this disaster to catapult his energy and climate change agenda, but now he's stuck defending offshore drilling; he now owns it. Maybe he should listen to the environmentalists next time. He still can use it to launch his energy policy, but rather than mocking and scorning Sarah Palin and her minions, he's part of that crowd. I only have one thing left to say, and it's a quote from Bill Maher: "Every [wagon] who ever chanted 'Drill baby drill' should have to report to the Gulf coast today for cleanup duty." Discuss the disaster and energy policy as you will; climate change ties into that.

Cameron clearly won that debate because of the Lib-Dem position on immigration. Their position is more or less my position, but it's not a position that's popular. Most people are nationalists, no matter what the facts of the matter are. Clegg edged out early, but had a hard time defending their position on immigration.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4695848&page=1 http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2008/~/media/Files/rc/reports/2008/1124_latin_america_partnership/1124_latin_america_partnership.pdf http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/us/26borders.html http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28880483/ http://cbs13.com/national/mexico.us.guns.2.947011.html Etc, etc etc. Of course making our gun laws stronger now wouldn't make much of a difference now that they have access to the Mexican army's armories... I don't think you understand how lax our gun laws are lol.

Have you noticed the Narco-state down south where the drug cartels have weapons stronger than the Mexican army (mostly due to America's lax gun laws which allowed Mexico to smuggle AK-47's and the like, which allowed them to take over military armories)? Have you also noticed that America consumes more drugs than any other nation per capita? Those drugs get here some how, matey. Al Capone didn't make his money smuggling alcohol cross-border; he made it right here at home. I agree with most of what you said, but I'm not sure what America's lax gun laws have to do with it exactly. The Mexican drug cartels armed themselves by smuggling assault weapons across the border during president Bush's two terms because he didn't reinstate the assault weapons ban that was in place during Clinton. With this extra stock in weapons, they took on the military and raided their armories. Now they're armed with weapons that are on par with the military, and far outmatch the police forces. That's why the violence has kicked up so high down there. Of course the violence would still be there anyway, but they could be handled before. Now it's basically a narco-state.

Half of a gram? Lol. Do you mean half of an ounce? That's a reasonable amount. It's plenty to smoke, and it removes any suspicion of intent to sell. Have you noticed the Narco-state down south where the drug cartels have weapons stronger than the Mexican army (mostly due to America's lax gun laws which allowed Mexico to smuggle AK-47's and the like, which allowed them to take over military armories)? Have you also noticed that America consumes more drugs than any other nation per capita? Those drugs get here some how, matey. Al Capone didn't make his money smuggling alcohol cross-border; he made it right here at home.

lsd IS acid, and why shouldn't it be legal? This actually interests me now. What are the risks of LSD? What are the benefits? How does the trip compare to marijuana? Salvia? Risks: 1.) Psychosis. It's fairly rare to occur, but it can happen. It's much more likely if your family has a history. Some studies have also linked marijuana and the triggering of this, so, take that for what you will. 2.) Flashbacks. In my honest opinion these don't occur as often as people say. I think it's sensationalism, personally. Those are the two MAJOR risks, other than making bad decisions whilst under the influence. I should note that another risk is knowing where the LSD came from. You need to know the person selling it to you, otherwise you could be given LSD made with other chemicals that have more risks than those listed. All of those risks would probably be gone completely if the drug was sold commercially; it's hard to get it in its pure form from drug dealers. It doesn't "put holes in your brain" like a lot of those anti-drug commercials state. It's also not addictive, on par with psilocybin mushrooms (as in it's not addictive at all). Contrary to popular thought in the drug world, marijuana is addictive; those two substances are not. I wouldn't call being high on marijuana a trip, though lol. I've only really tripped on weed once, and I think it was laced with something. The room was spinning and the Earth was tilting back and forth. As to the trip itself, you just hallucinate, colors are more intense (like waves), noises are distorted, etc. A friend of mine claimed she saw purple hippos dancing inside of her fridge while on LSD.

You're asking me to take away the entire context of the debate, Saruman. Of course you can't say that what you said is racist without any context. On its face without any context, "welfare queen," "thug," "boy," "uppity," etc are ALL racially neutral words. However, people who have been exposed to racism and know it when they hear it, know that welfare queen is a pejorative that has racial and sexual connotations; the user is trying to paint the only people on welfare as black women, thus this is why we should end it. It's not really about "lazy people who refuse to work," although that phrase also has racial connotations in most cases. The word thug is constantly used when describing criminal black people; very rarely is it EVER used to describe white people. Limbaugh has referred to Barack Obama as "a Chicago thug," and he knows exactly what he is doing. He's putting a picture into his white listeners' minds about a scary black man who is a criminal. The word boy, not racist, right? This depends on the context. When a white person calls a black person "boy" in a condescending fashion, they are most certainly being racist. Why? You don't call a black man a "boy," unless you're intending to harken back to the racist language of slavery, and then segregation, when all black men were called "boy" as a prejudiced pejorative. Rep. Geoff Davis said this about Barack Obama: That phrase is racist, and anyone who understands the context would know that. Uppity. Again, not racist, right? Again, look at the context. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland said this about Barack Obama: Uppity is this sense is racist because the user is saying, "how dare those black people! Who do they think they are, having wealth and being educated? They should know their place." That's what I read when I read Rep. Lynn Westmoreland's statement, and that's what 99% of black people would read as well. So you're asking me to remove the entire context from your language, Saruman, which is not possible. When I read people yelling about illegals and how they're ruining the country, I read that as "those Mexicans are taking our jobs, taking away our [white] culture, and should get out so that REAL AMERICA can flourish." That's another one of those racially connotative phrases that Sarah Palin loves to use. "Real America." They're of course speaking about rural towns that vote 75% Republican who haven't seen a person of color in a decade. That's what they mean when they say "real American." They're not talking about citizens, they're talking about anyone who isn't of color. No, I don't. Frankly I have no idea who Rep. Westmoreland is, nor who Rep. Davis is, but you can be rest assured that I do know that they hold such racist views that they're daring enough to use code words in public; they use code specifically to get around the radar of people who don't know the connotations of the words like Seph (and I'm not saying that's her fault). I also don't know Kreig personally, but once again, based on the language he used here, my supposed "assumptions" rang true later on in the thread when he exposed how he really feels. Like Shadow said, the really sad part is that he doesn't think he holds racist views. Same with the GOP. They can claim they're not just a racist party of old white men, but sometimes they just cannot help themselves and are much more open about it. This is why you have the passing of this bill. The national party knows that this bill is going to kill their long-term electoral future, but then again the GOP never does have any foresight for their actions. They never think about the repercussions of their actions, just knee-jerk reactionary legislation. Lindsey Graham knows it, and that's why he's pissed off at Harry Reid for moving it ahead of climate change legislation. He knows that in an election year that the GOP will NOT be able to contain themselves, and he would rather do it in 2011, an off-year. That's asking me to take away the context, Saruman. You're playing coy right now because you know what I'm saying is the truth. There isn't 11 million Polish-Scottish-French Canadian undocumented workers in this country. You know damned well certain that's not why Arizona passed this bill. They're a border state: take the five seconds to think that through. How many Polish-Scottish-French Canadians do you know who live below Arizona and are hopping the border? Look. You can believe that we have a problem with people coming here illegally. That's fine. I have a problem with it as well, although I suspect my problems with it aren't the same as yours. However, your expressed support for this bill, mixed with the language you've used, has made it clear that there's a racial underlying to your opposition to immigration. This is a racist bill, and it's not going to solve any problems. Hell, a lot of the Republicans in power do not want this bill actually enforced. The entire point is to wink and nod at their base. I expect this law goes out with a 'wink-wink, nudge-nudge' to every law-enforcement entity to refrain from any enforcement. I mean, it's been a legal requirement in Kennesaw Mountain, GA, for every household to own at least one gun for what, thirty years, and there's never been anyone charged with an offense against the ordinance. That wasn't the point. The point was to give a wink to gun nuts like Kreig and get them excited to come out and vote in the election. Same with this bill. Although I suspect there was a little bit too much meat on this bill, and there will probably be a lot of law suits against the state police. This is assuming they'll ever be able to enforce it, as it could be struck down in the courts before it even comes to be the law of the land. I also expect Latinos to be harassed like all hell on election day to reduce their turnout at their polling places.

I honestly don't see how that is racist, considering that I have not heard of "queen" being used as a racist term. On the contrary, I've seen it used in order to ridicule homosexuals, but that isn't racism, my friend. How much have you read about the Civil Rights Movement? Or the establishment of the welfare state, what little there is, in America? I can understand why you wouldn't see that being racist on its face, but it is. Why did you take away the "welfare" part of the phrase, Serephurus? That's 75% of the meaning behind it. Queen represents woman, and welfare means black. This is a common term used among racist people accusing black women of overpopulating welfare while they're buying t-bone steaks and driving Cadillacs. It was especially popularized during the late 1970's and most of the Reagan-era. Read up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen#Gendered_and_racial_stereotypes It depends what you mean about self-reliance. Education and health care should absolutely be provided for in this country, and it's a tragedy that they're not not. Providing everyone with the means to a solid education has been proven to increase the state's GDP, reduces crime (outside of business criminals, that is), improves health, lowers teen pregnancy, etc. The "goods" are absolutely endless. Providing everyone with health care through state control of pricing has been shown to be the only way to keep health care costs down. If you think it's someone's fault that they can't afford the ridiculous costs of health care in this country, and you want them to be self-reliant...well, I'd say maybe you just haven't dealt with the evils of our health care system yet and can't truly empathize. One reason, I think, for these increased costs is due to the increased cost of medical school, which thusly takes out the number of doctors in our system (decreasing supply) and forces them to over-charge to compensate. Again, that problem would be solved with free (or inexpensive) education. My mate isn't even a citizen of Spain but paid like 500 euros for his master's per semester. There are honest and non-racial oppositions to the welfare state; some people are against it on principle alone even if they admit that it works best for income equality. However, the opposition to it is rooted in racism. The other being, well, blaming the poor. That's ridiculous on its face because poverty is cyclical. It's a lack of empathy, really. http://www.hks.harvard.edu/inequality/Seminar/Papers/Glazer.pdf And if you don't think that this study has any merit, just look at the polling about Obama. Most people think he's just helping the poor or minorities, and isn't caring enough about the white middle class. It's sad, but it's a true reality. People who gloss over this are naive, or are doing it on purpose and refuse to come to terms with it; others are understandably ignorant, but I would expect them to understand once they're shown the connotations many words and phrases carry. I completely agree with you. We cannot let everyone and anyone in, especially because I believe in free universal education and health care. This would be a huge burden on the state, and it would be impossible to let everyone and anyone in. However, we need to provide paths to citizenship for people who are already here. They're not going anywhere, and if you deport them, they will be right back. A border fence is a ridiculous idea. I'm not saying you're suggesting that, but it's been voted on in Congress as a way to make it harder to get in. It would just waste money and resources. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you want to improve this, you should support a weakened dollar. The reason we import so much more is because the dollar is overvalued, giving us a lot of purchasing power. Decreasing the value of the dollar would reduce the cost of our exports, create millions of jobs, and reduce our massive trade deficit (something that exploded because of St. Ronnie Reagan). Of course it would be foolish to argue that we should do this on purpose, it should be done with natural means. I welcome China to flood the market with everything they've bought up. It would be great for our economy. Depends on the issue for me. This is an honest disagreement. I do not think a lot of the states can handle many of the issues that people think that they can. This is why a lot of our regulations in this country are useless and stifle competition. They're simply not enforced in the conservative states, or in corrupt states the regulators are bought off. This is far harder to do on the federal level, which is why I don't really support many regulations/issues being taken up by the states. Glad to hear it. It's not enough to say "well something has to be done so that's why I support this!" No. You do it right, or you push it in the right direction to follow up later (which is how I felt about the health care bill. horrible legislation, but it established that health care is a right...which is in the right direction). Yeah, these references are awful, aren't they? In Europe a liberal is a libertarian, thus you have the Liberal Democrats (libertarians merged with social democrats). In this context, I mean economically liberal, on par with someone like FDR. I mean supporting economic equality, raising taxes on the richer to help the poor out, programs to get the poor educated. This is why southern populism works well. Bill Halter is scaring the hell out of the Republicans in Arkansas for this very reason. He's coming out swinging, and if he wins his primary against Lincoln, it's game over. The Republicans have no chance against a southern populist. The south used to be liberal in the sense that there was a lot of class warfare; the populist southern white workers against their corporate overlords. You will see that almost immediately the backlash formed against the anti-poverty programs when Civil Rights legislation passed in the '60's despite the fact that, contrary to myth, they worked quite well and actually lifted a lot of people out of poverty, black and white alike. It's why certain people made the assumption that the poor and black in New Orleans during Katrina were all on welfare rather than the truth, which is that many of them are members of the urban working poor.

Yep, I did, and I edited that out because I've been yelled at by the mods before for flaming. I edited it out so they wouldn't delete the entire post like they have in the past. If they didn't delete posts, I'd have gladly left it right there. Let's count the people who I've accused of being a racist and/or holding racist tendencies in this thread, shall we? You. Kreig. That's it. When you said I "accused everyone who disagreed with me of being a racist/xenophobe/bigot," who else am I supposed to assume that you're talking about, lovey?

Oh, and also, I noted that liberals can be opposed to loose immigration because of their support for a welfare state, but that can be racist as well, depending on their language; especially if it were a country outside of the US, a country that is not very diverse. For example, the entire south used to be pretty liberal, except when it came to equality. With the signing of the Civil Rights legislation in the 1960's, the Democrats basically gave up all of their southern support. This is why a lot of local regions in the south are dominated by Democrats, but you won't see very many on the national circuit. A lot of people in the south support the welfare state, but that changed when it meant that the minorities would have access. This is why most opposition to the welfare state is racist in its roots; terms like "welfare queen" have a racial connotation, and I'd suspect a person using that of being a racist. Same with constantly berating the "free loaders on welfare." When people say that, you can be rest assured that 90% of the time they're talking about people who are not white. It's why they're so hell bent against taxes. They see it as taking from white people, and giving it to minorities. To prove my point:

Lol. It's not that you don't agree with me. How many times do I need to go over this with you? It's your language. If you're going to argue that Kreig isn't a racist, then you probably have the same racist leanings that he does. Different ideas? You can have different ideas, lackey. It's how you express your "different ideas." The author of this bill has expressed support for white supremacy. Kreig has expressed support for racial profiling. It's consistently observed in academia that people who are "tough on crime"--something you profess to love--also have racist tendencies. The fact that you support this bill only builds support for that. For example, many liberals are opposed to a loose immigration policy. Why? Because you can't let everyone in and simultaneously support a welfare state. That doesn't make them racist in their opposition. You, on the other hand, use different language. It's like a dog whistle. Oh noes! Stop demeaning me by calling a spade a spade! ^That is demeaning. I'm sorry that I'm intolerant to your intolerance, babe, but that doesn't mean I'll erect racist laws preventing you from expressing yourself. You can be free to be a bigot all you want, but you will be shunned from society by people like me. That is the beauties of freedom of expression, and freedom of speech. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Anti-hate speech laws in Europe should be eradicated. They are abusive of the fundamental right of freedom of expression, and only keep the bigots underground, fomenting. Who is "us" in this case? The racists versus the not-racists? I thought it'd be easier to end on the note that even Tom Tancrendo, notable anti-immigrant (legal and illegal, by the way) believes this bill went too far to make my point, but apparently not.

Regarding the taxation of marijuana: Will a lot of people grow it out of their basements/closets? Yes, and this should be legal so long as you have a license to do so. However, it's not going to be as big of a problem as you think, Shadow. Look, it's not that hard to brew your own beer, to roll your own cigarettes, or even to grow your own tobacco. So if none of these things are particularly difficult, especially rolling your own cigarettes, why are corporate alcohol and tobacco such lucrative businesses? Simple: people like convenience. This is observable in other areas as well. Why don't many people have their own gardens? Sure, a lot of people do, but by and large they buy at the grocery store or farmer's market. Hell, why do people go to BARS rather than just buy beer/wine/liquor for their houses? Bars are very expensive, yet people still drink there. It's just for convenience, man. And I know one thing is for sure, one thing that's in competition with convenience is legality, and most people are not going to risk their own skin obtaining the drug through illegal means when there's a damned corner store selling it over the counter.

Of course marijuana should be legal. Shrooms should also be legal. I do not advocate for the legalization of all drugs, not yet at least; that is my end goal, though. However, I do advocate that ALL drugs, ALL, should be decriminalized. That's step one. Step two is to legalize drugs such as marijuana, psilocybin mushrooms, ecstasy and LSD/acid. The remainder of the drugs shouldn't be legalized outright, but should be decriminalized. Eventually, once the education of the American public about drugs has gotten better, the remainder should then be made legal.

Gosh, I feel like I'm flooding this thread, but I just keep finding oodles of new goodies to show the supporters of this bill: http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/judge-napolitano-arizonas-new-immigr Yeah yeah, crooks and liars is a liberal blog founded by John Amato. Look who they're citing, though: Judge Napolitano of Fox News. Expect an increase of violent crime after the passage of this bill. Just like with the drug war, police forces will be strained and forced to choose: go after people who are here illegally and possibly encounter many people who are here legally in the process, or go after actual crime (go after teenage pot smokers or actual violent criminals).

I'm sure the bill's sponsor isn't a racist, he's just trying to control the problem: http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2007/09/russell_pearces_willie_horton.php

Well considering they pay sales taxes, gas taxes, and would pay estate taxes if they owned a house (indirectly if they rent), that would prove you wrong on that claim alone. Second, I have evidence, you do not: http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2008-04-10-immigrantstaxes_N.htm http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18077009/ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9615621 That's from 2010 alone. Here's one from 2006: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/04/12/undocumented_workers_contribute_plenty/ Where's your evidence? The answer is that you have none; you have nothing but claims that are based on knee-jerking xenophobia and not grounded in fact and reason. The fact is, they pay more or less just as much in taxes to fund their local schools and services as any other citizen, and get less in return. You can argue that they aren't paying anything federally (outside of Medicare and SS), but neither does 50% of America because they're too poor. Moreover, SS and Medicare/Medicaid make up the bulk of the budget anyway. Adding on to that even more, their income levels are pretty small, so it's likely that you would see little increases in federal revenues when they get added to the stream. You've demonstrated your racism, as stevepole pointed out. You can say that you don't have malicious racist tendencies, perhaps, but you do express racist beliefs. You've also expressed your support for racial profiling, which is unconstitutional and racist. That's where you're wrong. It is VERY hard to get here legally. That's why there's such a big push to get immigration reform through the federal government. These people WANT to be citizens, but they're unable to because of our ridiculous laws. It's not as easy as just taking a test. You think anyone who wants to come here can be like, "Where is that test for me to take?" If it were that easy, we wouldn't have this problem. I wouldn't be surprised if they know more about our government and civics than most Americans. Oh, and here's a foreshadowing of what will be a regular occurrence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSzxjd3B8Ik And you know that this bill went too far when Tom Tancrendo thinks it went too far: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/04/26/tancredo_says_arizona_law_goes_too_far.html

I've had a lot of thoughts about sleeping with a man just to see how it is. I'm not gay, and I don't think I'm bisexual, but I've definitely thought about it.

And why should marriage, a social construct created by society, be defined by anything but it's creators? It's just a tool to be employed when useful and it's definition altered at will. Because the kids (if they have kids) will suffer from a divorce. Not only that, but you're breaking your promise. There's nothing more in the world that ticks me off than divorced parents. As a child of a mother who divorced her first husband, I completely disagree. Her relationship with my step-father isn't really a good one, and personally I wish they divorced. You don't think forcing each other to stay together "for the sake of the children" could have a reverse effect? I think it's more damaging for a child to grow up in a broken home with parents who don't love each other than it is for them to divorce.

If I ever get married, I will absolutely be signing one, even if she makes more money than me or has more of a net-worth. It's not a trust issue, it's protecting yourself. I'm going to quote romy because she put it better than I could:

Are you kidding me, dude? Everyone racial profiles, and in a lot of cases it helps? You're a prime example of why our court system is clogged to hell and disproportionately convicts black people. Next you're going to say that it's a great idea if we racially profile at the airport for Muslims...you know, to prevent terrorism! You're right, there is problem...namely, they don't have the same legal protections at their working place that you and I do, and their families are broken apart when parents of children get deported. That is a problem. Jesus christ. How does that solve the problem? This is completely economically infeasible, as I posted earlier. Do you know how much it costs per case to actually deport someone? Why do you want to waste tax dollars to reduce our GDP and break families apart, when it won't even solve the problem? This is why any talk about "fiscal sanity" from the right-wingers is nothing but. You're making claims from knee-jerking xenophobia, not anything based on facts and logic. Leaches? Talk about dehumanizing racist [cabbage], you're perhaps the worst on this thread. They pay taxes, they don't get a lot of the same services that citizens get, how are they leaches again? A lot of them are in the lower income bracket, so even if they were citizens they wouldn't be paying that much more in taxes than they are now. Lol, wow, if racially profiling is a politically correct issue to you, then I'm not sure how far your ability to offend really goes. So much for following the constitution, jackass. This bill violates the 4th amendment, and possibly also violates the 5th and 6th amendments as well. And 1_man_army is correct about a national ID system. Terrorists and criminals will continue to be able to obtain -- by legal and illegal means -- the documents needed to get a government ID, such as birth certificates. Two, it would create a system of internal passports that would significantly diminish the freedom and privacy of law-abiding citizens. You talk about Social Security numbers, and you're exactly right. This is exactly why we shouldn't limit our freedom anymore than we already have. There's a lot more reasons to be against such a system, but it can be summed up as such: it's an economically infeasible solution which reduces our freedom and liberty, and doesn't even solve the problem.