Legalizing marijuana answer to government’s $ problems?

In Response to Legalizing marijuana answer to government’s $ problems?
http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2009/05/07/is-legalizing-marijuana-the-answer-to-the-governments-money-problems/#comment-975956


From a straight-edge kid, YES!! Absolutely, YES!!! Drug legalization is a way to solve financial difficulties, a very good way. The European nations that have legalized or severely decriminalized marijuana have increased state revenues, had better luck at getting people into drug rehab that actually works, and they have not had the moral failings that American conservatives often eschew when talk about legalization comes up. If we legalized marijuana that would free many thousands of people from American prisons, primarily blacks and latinos, who's only crime was having some marijuana on them when they got pulled over and weren't rich or white enough to get a good lawyer or fair treatment. The cost of prisons would go down and there would be more money for education and health care, things that actually matter.

I don't have time to write as much as I'd like to on this subject at this time, but this is a lost cause. America will legalize marijuana it's just a matter of now, or when Gen Y finally takes the political reins away from the baby-boomers and yuppies from Gen X.

Reponse to Republican Commentary on CNN.com

Commentary on CNN.com: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/04/rollins.republicans/index.html

Quote Mr. Rollins:
"We are a party that needs ideas, new leaders and an inroad into young people and their thinking. That doesn't mean we have to abandon our old ideas or quit fighting the president's policies when we don't believe in them."

Response:
If you want an inroad to young people you are going to need to abandon your old ideas and quit fighting the president's policies. Young people overwhelmingly vote progressively, and voted for President Obama. Young people these days have grown up in an increasingly diverse country, going to public schools where they learn from students with other cultural backgrounds. This leaves them with an affinity with those who are from a dissimilar background and provides them with the ability to accept others who are different than them. The Republican party has long been opposed to diversity issues and still uses the tactics of race-baiting and blaming minorities for this countries problems. When Republicans can bring something new to the table and give up their old ways of discrimination then maybe just maybe they may be able to split off a little of the youth vote from the Democrats.

In addition to the discrimination method that the Republican party likes to run with, there is the current ploy to call all of the plans the democrats have socialism. That worked in the 50's and 60's when people in this country were afraid of Communist Russia but in this day in age with the strongest communist dictatorship being North Korea and the only other one being Cuba this tactic isn't going to scare anyone. Also the fact that most of the things that Republicans are calling socialism, like national health care, social security, and welfare are already instituted and much more heavily funded in almost all other industrialized nations. What Republicans term socialism the youth of today see as equality and fairness, you know those things that you try to instill in your children when they are young so they don't grow up isolated, alone, and bitter. I think that Republicans have forgotten that. So when you outgrow your old and tired rants on "socialism", what we today call equity, fairness, and human rights, you may be able to get a few more youth votes. Until then good luck with trying to win future elections without becoming more moderate.

Obama Energy & Environment

In response to Energy & Environment: Of the People, By the People
but also some of my more general thoughts on the subject.

Electric cars are not advanced technology; they predate internal combustion engines by more than a few years. One thing that the new administration could push for before the US auto industry is bailed out is for the auto industry to be required to reinstate their scrapped electric designs. In the early 1990's when California's Air Resource Board (CARB) mandated that car companies who wanted to sell vehicles in California had to make zero emissions vehicles all the car companies created electric vehicles all of which would have enough charge to do the vast majority of driving a typical American does in a day. After the CARB reversed their decision due to auto industry influence the car companies repossessed almost all of the electric vehicles they had been leasing and scrapped them. There were many designs that were perfectly economically viable if manufactured in mass quantities. These designs included not only cars by the US auto manufacturer's but also the international auto-makers. If the new administration wants a change to the auto industry they should require that all major auto manufacturers’ that want to sell vehicles in the US be required to make zero emissions vehicles. And require the US auto industry to reinstate scrapped designs that were previously manufactured and have been shown to work well. Here is a short list of vehicles that were scrapped Chrysler TEVan, Ford Ranger EV, GM EV1 and S10 EV, Honda EV Plus, Nissan Altra EV, and Toyota RAV4 EV. The Obama administration should also offer tax incentives and credits to upstart car companies that specialize in alternative fuel vehicles such as Miles, ZAP, Tesla, and REVA. By doing this the new administration is encouraging entrepreneurialism and innovation over the stale business as usual that doesn't seem to be helping our economy at all.

As far as alternative energy one thing that the Obama administration needs to do is make sure that the alternative energy infrastructure is regionally sensitive. By this I mean take advantage of what each region can provide as far as alternative energy and not just put solar panels and wind farms around the country. The Pacific Northwest for instance has two kinds of environments, the western wet cloudy side of the Cascade Mountain Range and the eastern dry sunny side. Wind farms and solar power work quite well on the dry sunny side of the Cascades as well as wind farms in the plains. These don’t work quite as well on the west side of the Cascades, but what does work well is micro-hydro and micro-wind. Alternative energy needs to be planned regionally and not wholesale. Coastal regions should specialize in tidal power farms. The desert Southwest should specialize in solar concentrating power, not in solar panels which would be better suited to the Midwest. In the American West geothermal should be more heavily explored. The Midwest should look into biomass energy using livestock waste. For now the Appalachians should develop clean coal technology until that too can be phased out for cleaner forms of energy. As for nuclear, nuclear should become increasingly part of the renewable energy portfolio until someday when we can take advantage of space-based solar farms. Nuclear should become entirely the province of the federal government because of the security needed and no one group in the government is more heavily involved in nuclear energy than the US Navy. I believe the US Navy should be in charge of building and operating a new generation of nuclear power plants in the United States. The Navy has over 5400 reactor years of accident-free experience since they launched their first nuclear submarine in 1954. Today France provides around 80% of its energy from nuclear power and has never had any major incidents. Nuclear power is far safer than coal in regards to the amount of uranium released into the environment, nuclear power releases zero uranium into the atmosphere per year, whereas just in the US coal burning releases about 1000 tons of uranium into the air and about 2500 tons of thorium which is also radioactive. As for the problem of nuclear waste I believe that science can provide an answer to this problem. There is a constant stream of discoveries of new forms of life that can live and actually thrive in extreme environments; these creatures are known as extremophiles. There are some extremophiles that are radioresistant to nuclear radiation and actually need these environments to survive. These bacteria could be used to consume our radioactive wastes and make nuclear energy even more “green”.

In response to building efficiency, if the new administration requires that all new federally funded buildings and renovations be LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified by the US Green Building Council then that will address not only energy efficiency, it will address environmental and human health issues as well. Many municipal governments have required that all new city funded buildings be LEED certified. Another way to promote this is to provide tax incentives to businesses that specialize in “green” construction or design. There could be incentives for engineering, architectural, and construction companies who have a certain percentage of their designers become LEED Accredited Professionals.

Prop. 8 Hate

Gay rights is the major civil rights issue for my generation, Generation Y. What passed in California last week in the form of Prop. 8 is legalized bigotry, the institutionalization of discrimination and hate. The basis for this is that a group of people are different and therefore should not have the same rights as everyone else. This country has experienced this many times in the past and I'm sure it will continue into the future because deep down people are always afraid of things that are different. It's just so sad that people who have until very recently been the oppressed overwhelmingly voted to oppress others because they are different. I'm talking about African-Americans, they overwhelmingly supported the passing of Prop. 8. Of course they were probably scared into it by their churches, churches being the primary supporters and fundraisers for the "yes" on Prop. 8 side. But you'd think that a people so recently openly oppressed and still to this day not so openly oppressed would be able to see discrimination easily and vote it out. But, I guess that's not the case. Even Gov. Schwarzenegger, a republican recognized that this is the same thing that African-Americans had to deal with, he said, "It's the same as in the 1948 case when blacks and whites were not allowed to marry. This falls into the same category."

I think the saddest part of this is that there is already a ban on gay marriage in 42 states with 30 of those having state constitutional amendments banning it. But the fact that something like this has passed in California which is supposedly a "liberal stronghold" shows how entrenched bigotry is in the people of this country. That's why I want anyone who reads this to go to as many Prop. 8 protests as you can, there will be at least one in every state. Go here to find out where your local protest is going to be, tell as many people as you can about it, and take as many friends as you can.


Prop. 8 protest in Portland:
Portland State University - 1020 SW Naito Pkwy Portland, OR 97204 South Park Blocks Near the Farmers Market


Watch Keith Olbermann's Special Comment about Prop. 8

Here they go again

Republicans have been working on their "Get out and stop the Vote" drive lately.

In Georgia county elections offices have been sending out letters telling people, "This office has received notification from the state of Georgia indicating that you are not a citizen of the United States and therefore, not eligible to vote." That's ok though because they give people a week to prove that they are citizens by providing a birth certificate, passport, or naturalization papers. But it doesn't really help when they write the letter on Oct. 2nd and send the letter out on Oct. 9th. 50,000 thousand Georgian voters have been flagged because of mismatched personal information and 4,500 have been told they can't vote because they are not citizens, both US born and naturalized citizens. Who is behind this new system that purges citizens from voting rolls, oh that would be Georgian Republican Secretary of State Karen Handel. In addition to just plain kicking citizens off of voting rolls Federal voting laws say that voters can not be purged from the voting rolls within 90 days of an election. So, Mrs. Handel is breaking federal law as well and this case is probably going to be the second case to end up before the Supreme Court concerning voting this season. Georgia is also being questioned about their request for over 2 million social security numbers to verify registered voters, which is more than any other state, even though Georgia is the 9th most populous state.

In Ohio this year, we've already had a voting issue taken before the Supreme Court. In this case the state Republican party sued the Democratic secretary of state in order for her to generate a list similar to that in Georgia. She refused on the basis it would disenfranchise voters hundreds of thousands of voters. The case made it's way up to the Supreme Court where the GOP lost thier case.

In Florida, the Republican secretary of state had the system implemented and for a three-week period in September 75% of the new registered voters were flagged for mismatched personal information due to typographical and administrative errors. Why are these people not fired then?

In Wisconsin, the Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen sued the state election board because they would not implement the new "voter supression system" that republicans had gotten through in Georgia and Florida. The board conducted a test and found that 22% of the voters were flagged including 4 of the 6 members of the state election board.


As you can see Republicans do not want you to vote mainly because if less people vote they tend to win. This is because people from populous counties where many people register have more information to enter and get mixed up. Populated areas tend to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. There's just something about living next to different people that leads you to thinking everyone is equal I guess, versus living in the boonies and being afraid of anything that is "different".


Information from CNN.com
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/26/voter.suppression/index.html

Joe the dumbass liar (not plumber)

First off, his name isn't even Joe, it's Samuel, I blame McCain for perpetuating that lie.

1. Doesn't have a plumbing license or an apprenticeship because he didn't complete the work.

2. Didn't have any actual plans to buy the small business he works for

3. The annual income of the business is only $100,000 a year, actual taxable income even less. Even if the business did make $250,000-$280,000 like "Joe" said, after proper business deductions it would only end up having a taxable income of $150,000-$200,000, which is still under the limit of the top tax rate increase that Obama proposed.

4. Joe the plumber donated $100 to the McCain Campaign before he even went and talked to Obama. Reported on Keith Olberman - MSNBC Oct 21, 2008

One more reason why conservatives are douchebags and morons, as if there weren’t enough already

U.S. Representative Bill Sali (R-Idaho 1st Congressional District) on the floor of the house, referring to the passing of the increase of the minimum wage:

"As a freshman Congressman, the likely passage of this measure has taught me a new principle: The force of Congress can be brought to bear and justified to suspend those natural laws which would otherwise control important matters. The well-intentioned desire of Congress to help the poor apparently will not be restrained by the rules and principles of the free market that otherwise do restrain American businesses and workers. Apparently, Congress can change the rules that would otherwise affect the affairs of mankind."

"So, Mr. Speaker, I have asked my staff to draft a measure I call the Obesity Reduction and Health Promotion Act. Since Congress will apparently not be restrained by the laws and principles that naturally exist, I propose that the force of gravity by the force of Congress be reduced by 10 percent. Mr. Speaker, that will result in immediate weight loss for every American. It will immediately help reduce obesity problems in America. Weight loss will also help to promote the overall health of Americans as we have been vigilantly advised by our health care."

"Mr. Speaker, I thank this body for the education I have received from the passage of this bill. Since the basis for the use of Congress's power is the same with both measures, I would also ask that everyone who is supporting the measure before us consider becoming an original cosponsor of the Obesity Reduction and Health Promotion Act, and I have a copy."

"So much for the decorum of Congress."



First off, reducing gravity only reduces weight, it does not reduce obesity, obesity is the measure of fat content in a persons body. If you reduce gravity that makes people lighter and affords them to have less muscle mass and more fat. It makes you less healthy, that's why astronauts have to exercise 3-4 hours a day. If you wanted to make people healthier you could increase gravity a little.

Second, Free Markets are NOT based on Natural Laws. Free markets are a badly constructed human economic policy. Their inventor Adam Smith even claimed that they would eventually fail because you can't expect constant growth forever. A Natural Law is something that occurs naturally in nature and does not change throughout the universe, such as Newton's Three Laws of Motion. Laws of motion are applicable to anywhere in the known universe and even anti-matter is subject to Newton's Laws.

Thirdly, there is no decorum in the house or senate because of people like you, so, so much for decorum indeed douchebag.

Ronald Reagan the Liberal?

Yes, you read that correctly. Apparently the patron saint of the GOP was a liberal democrat before he was brainwashed by new wife Nancy Reagan's father. That's too bad, he would have turned out to be a much better president if he had stayed a liberal.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJDhS4oUm0M

United States National Health Insurance Act HR 676

Tell your congresspeople to support HR 676. Below is the short email i sent to my congressman.

I would like to urge you to support Representative John Conyers Jr.'s bill, HR 676, also known as the United States National Health Insurance Act, which advocates for a single-payer health care system to be set up in the United States. Health care is an important issue to all people and should be considered a guaranteed human right. Supporting this bill wouldn't hurt you politically in extremely liberal Portland and is what your constituents want and what we deserve. I for one don't mind paying more in taxes to make this country a better place.

Thank you.

A Real Explanation of the Employee Free Choice Act

Ok, so a lot of you have heard or seen commercials that conservatives are running about how democrats want to take away your right to secret ballot elections. First off it's only secret ballot elections for unions, most people have probably heard that. Second, it's only for the first election that determines whether or not employees want a union and thirdly it's only taking away a secret ballot election if a majority of employees have already signed check cards, check cards being the cards that people sign saying that they want to start a union. The secret ballot elections are still held if less than 50% (majority) and more than 30% have signed check cards. If over 50% of the employees have signed check cards that shows that they want a union, so there is no need for a secret ballot election, this Act is just taking out one step so that it is easier for people to start unions.

So like most of you already thought, those douchebag conservatives are up to something tricky when they claim that democrats are taking away your right to secret ballots. It's not an out and out lie, it's a word twisting, taking things out of context lie. Figures, those jerky assholes.

Colin Powell Endorsement of Barack Obama

I think that everyone should watch the video of Colin Powell endorsing Barack Obama for president.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/2726572927265729

Anyone who is a moderate and hasn't made up their mind about who to vote for should see Powell's wonderful argument about why Obama is a better choice for today than John McCain. We need more people like Colin Powell, who use their minds instead of their "guts" to make wise, logical decisions. I think Colin Powell fucked up pretty big when he went to the UN back before the Iraq war to push the whole WMD line. But the guy has said on many occasions he feels bad about what he did, and i sincerely think he is, and i think he was probably lied to and was not told about how the evidence was made up or 20 years out of date. Plus Colin Powell has been doing a lot since he retired from the Bush administration to make up for his mistakes.