Potable Wine
Filed Under Cloud gazing | Leave a Comment
In an era of supposed enlightenment, marijuana still remains on the fringe — Dude, that needs to change.
Newt Gingrich, however, does appear even worse after a couple of tokes — some changes require way more.
Pot is the weaker sister — the big headline in this story was marijuana, but alas…
A Rhode Island lawmaker is due in court following his second arrest on marijuana possession charges.
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Police say they found marijuana and a smoking pipe in Watson’s vehicle, along with an opened beer can and two unopened beer bottles.
Smoke gets blamed for shit that just ain’t so.
(Illustration found here).
Living in the very midst of the pot-growing center of the universe makes a discussion about marijuana as dumb as a stump — pack that in your pipe and draw hard.
The discovery of weed in the mid-1970s was the second greatest single event in my life, changing attitudes, outlooks and how life actually works — no, this ain’t Kansas no more.
Marijuana is not the evil, the bad guys are those who not only don’t smoke, but hate those who do and wish horrible things upon smokers are the culprit — marijuana needs legalization.
And a good chunk of US peoples feel the same.
From CBS:
President Obama’s live, online chat slated for Monday afternoon is intended to focus on issues raised during last week’s State of the Union address — but his online audience seems to be much more interested in marijuana policy.
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Sorting the questions by popularity reveals that 18 of the 20 most popular questions, according to YouTube, have something to do with marijuana policy, including the legalization of marijuana use, the cost of the war on drugs and other related issues.
Questions about marijuana policy have dominated multiple online engagement efforts from the Obama White House.
In fact, the second-most popular question for today’s “hangout” comes from a retired police officer with the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) — just as it did in Mr. Obama’s 2011 YouTube chat.
And from Slate: In 1969, 12 percent of Americans thought pot should be legal. That percentage grew to the mid-20s by the late 1970s, passed 30 percent in 2000, and hit 40 percent in 2009, according to Gallup. A surprising October poll showed support at 50 percent, with just 46 percent against.
Lawmakers and other nefarious types are not paying attention, however.
Here in California, a ballot-box vote is on tap this November.
And about time:
A recent poll reveals that California voters, by a 62% to 35% margin, with 3% unsure, support a ballot initiative to regulate marijuana like wine.
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Voters in California will have an opportunity to take that new approach this November with the Regulate Marijuana Like Wine Act of 2012 (RMLW), which will allow the state to regulate and tax marijuana and hemp.
The California Attorney General has projected “savings of potentially several tens of millions of dollars annually to state and local governments of the costs of incarcerating and supervising certain marijuana offenders,” as well as potentially generating “hundreds of millions of dollars in net additional tax revenues related to the production and sale of marijuana products.”
Law enforcement buys it, too.
And why don’t you?
Lifestyle Changes for the Everyone
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Sunrise this morning was a cool blue eastern sky here on California’s northern coast — so far a much-warmer winter, and a much-drier season than normal.
Old-time local folks say a throwback to the 1960s.
And as a guy working a liquor store, people do discuss the weather.
Comments border on the incredulous for the misery of the rain and cold we experienced only a few days ago as we’ve had nothing but beautiful skies lately — our own taste of a changing environment.
Although sharp sunlight this morning, the weather here is expected to return to ‘normal‘ tomorrow with rain and colder temperatures. The real climate for this neck of the woods could be considered “heavy drizzle” — coastal areas tend to be that way, instead of heavy, down-right rain, it’s just spattering wet 24/7.
Resided for several years in Pismo Beach (on the California coast about midway between LAX and SFO), and the overall weather for both are near-about the same, except up here it’s much-colder and wetter.
This winter has been different for most of the US — warm.
On this amazing time to be alive motif, one can also include the weather, which in reality covers a lot of shit, and one in particular, ‘energy,’ a build-in, self-generating climate-change-creating piece of literal machinery.
We couldn’t have one without the other — the influence of ‘energy‘ has been the fatal factor on the weather.
The most-likely-insurmountable problem facing mankind right now is what I call the ‘Double-Bitch-Bang‘ — climate change and “peak oil,” or its overall equivalent, “resource depletion” — and the rub of the matter is there’s no real big scream to do something.
Ironic humanity: Civilization requires more and more energy, and with that comes more and more climate change, and thusly, bad weather.
In reality, the weather is indeed a throwback, but not from any known time frame.
The brainiacs pose it better — from NASA:
The difference between weather and climate is a measure of time.
Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere “behaves” over relatively long periods of time.
When we talk about climate change, we talk about changes in long-term averages of daily weather.
And that’s the entire point of climate change — it’s not about some far off place, but right outside everybody’s front door.
Odd how some folks have known for some time about global warming.
From USATODAY last week on a new government map and the abrupt-subtly of a warming planet:
“It is a good thing the government has updated the map,” says Woodrow Nelson, director of marketing communications for the Arbor Day Foundation.
“Our members have been noticing these climate changes for years and have been successfully growing new kinds of trees in places they wouldn’t grow before.”
And the people who deny climate change are just dumb, or belong to the Republican party, or in most denier cases, are both — from LiveScience: Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, the study found. Those ideologies, in turn, stress hierarchy and resistance to change, attitudes that can contribute to prejudice, Hodson wrote in an email to LiveScience.
So not only does humanity have this enormous problem with actual survival, but there’s this entire cross-section of society that’s hindering any solutions — we be f*cked.
And in an age of a long-list of bad shit happening all at once, humanity is in for a rough ride.
And all this bubbling shit is intertwined — from the abstract of ‘Oil supply limits and the continuing financial crisis‘ (pdf):
Since 2005, (1) world oil supply has not increased, and (2) the world has undergone its most severe economic crisis since the Depression…
The expected impact of reduced oil supply combined with this reduced leverage is similar to the actual impact of the 2008–2009 recession in OECD countries…
If this should happen, based on these findings we can expect a continuing financial crisis similar to the 2008–2009 recession including significant debt defaults. The financial crisis may eventually worsen, to resemble a collapse situation as described by Joseph Tainter in The Collapse of Complex Societies (1990) or an adverse decline situation similar to adverse scenarios foreseen by Donella Meadows in Limits to Growth (1972).
And how are people going to respond when the time comes.
What to do? — RT took to the streets of New York to find out:
Global warming is not only wearing out our planet’s environment, but also the minds of global leaders trying to find solutions.
Legislators are introducing more and more bills to help curb the effects of climate change.
RT’s Lori Harfenist found out on the streets of the Big Apple that ordinary Americans are ready to give up something to fight global warming — but certainly not everything.
Things like quitting hairdryers and walking distances less than two miles instead of driving actually meet no resistance, but as for drying clothes on the line instead of using a spin-dryer and taking a shower for less than a minute — these things met with much less understanding.
One woman even told Lori that people “are cold and selfish”.
She said “they do not care about the planet unless it affects them personally”.
“Unfortunately that is the world we are living in”, the woman said.
Changing personal habits of energy consumption can clearly seem depressing — but might become obligatory, if global warming really does continue to affect our planet.
We all have our thoughts on those in the playground.
Action Jackson
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Using Osama bin Laden as a kind of verbal bookends, President Obama jumped on reality with a touch of a man-up pose in his state-of-the-union speech last night, calling on the US to “restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.”
The 65-minute speech was called “feisty,” and “combative,” and in true political reality, was indeed a well-heeded campaign start-up — Obama’s leaves this morning to start the November ball a-rolling.
(Illustration found here).
Obama even had the flag carried by the US Navy SEAL team that assassinated Osama last year: “Some may be Democrats. Some may be Republicans. But that doesn’t matter. Just like it didn’t matter that day in the Situation room…All that mattered that day was the mission. No-one thought about politics…”
And he pounded it home:
“Each time I look at that flag, I’m reminded that our destiny is stitched together like those fifty stars and those thirteen stripes.
No-one built this country on their own,” Obama said.
“This nation is great because we built it together.
This nation is great because we worked as a team.
This nation is great because we get each others’ backs.
And if we hold fast to that truth, in this moment of trial, there is no challenge too great, no mission too hard.”
In this he laid the groundwork for the next eleven months — the real man-up ruler of the US can only be the guy that got Osama bin Laden, and it will surely not work if anyone else takes the reins of power, so vote for me!
And boxed in between the warmongering, Obama slapped at income inequality and the Republicans who have produced the situation — the president proposed big shifts with the US tax system, like for instance, a minimum 30 per cent effective rate on millionaires.
Which prompted Mitch Daniels in response to whine: “No feature of the Obama presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favour with some Americans by castigating others,” Daniels said, according to excerpts of his speech.
In other words — leave the rich alone.
And this tweet via Aljazeera English: “RT @theonlyadult: Osama Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive. #obama2012 #sotu”
And as if on cue, early this morning U.S. Navy SEALs popped into Somalia to grab two kidnapped aid workers — an American and a Dane — in a daring helicopter raid reminiscent of the Osama attack.
Before news broke of the rescue, Obama told Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, “Leon, good job tonight. Good job tonight,” at the State of the Union address.
Election 2012 is gonna be a dandy, action-packed pile of hollerin’ bullshit.
False on the Face
Filed Under Bullshit, Lying | Leave a Comment
Political lying as an art form:
Take last Thursday’s Republican debate in South Carolina.
Hundreds of G.O.P. voters applauded as Newt Gingrich blasted CNN’s John King for raising an accusation about marriage and sex in presidential politics.
These same voters, I have no doubt, would have cheered Gingrich for doing just that in 1998 when he led the charge to impeach President Clinton for his dalliance with a younger woman who worked in his office — or technically, for lying about it, but you see the point.
When Clinton did it, Republican voters called for his impeachment; when Gingrich does it and defends himself, they cheer for him.
A lie is the truth until its not.
And tonight, President Obama will go on TV with his third state of the union message, reportedly carrying a theme of a “a fair shake for all,” but in the actual state of the country, the shaking is from the bottom up.
Supposedly, all kinds of diverse shit will be included in the message, especially any and all important points to consider in his re-election bid — Obama’s scheduled for a three-state campaign trip starting Wednesday.
Here we go…
Accordingly, the prez should do some bullshitting himself — via The Daily Beast:
Obama should—without mentioning them by name—take a couple of whacks at Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.
This is a time, with Romney on the ropes and the leading GOP candidate (Gingrich) “enjoying” a roughly -35 point approval-to-disapproval rating, to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.
Play some head games.
Have some fun.
Do—if I may—some dozens.
Not “your mama is so fat” dozens, obviously.
But talk some smack.
Drop in one or two that the Republicans will attack as undignified to the occasion.
Put them on the defensive, make them sound whiny.
Trust me, David Plouffe: independents will like it.
They sure didn’t like what you wanted to do last summer (capitulate).
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If those things aren’t happening, the speech was a political failure.
And the Brits say no laughing.
From the Telegraph:
But any attempt at levity might come off badly.
There’s a reason why over 600,000 people participated in the South Carolina primary: the state’s unemployment rate is 9.9 percent and folks are angry.
Many are suffering in a recession that has run so long it must now be called Obama’s.
Gallup gives him a job approval rating of 44 percent but CBS reports that only 29 percent of the country thinks America is headed in the right direction.
As cold winds blow over the Northeast and hurricanes hit the South, attitudes are likely to harden.
I’ve been travelling across America for nearly a decade and I’ve never known such pessimism.
Gas price increases are making it harder to numb the pain with consumer spending.
And what can be bought is made by child labour in China – a country that now owns roughly $1.16 trillion of America’s spiralling debt.
The big thing, though, Mr. President, is try and not to bullshit with bullshit.
More Real Than The Real — Really
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A horse walks into a bar in South Carolina, the bartender asks: Why the long face?
A newt peed on me, answers the horse.
The chaotic mess of the GOP primary is finally over and Newt Gingrich urinated on everything.
In shame of Republicans, half-crazed Steven Colbert humiliated the entire process by shoving the way-ugly of current US politics back in every straight-face that chimes democracy.
(Illustration found here).
In a land where up is really down, US peoples are laced up the asshole and remain income-challenged, wealth-challenged, and debt-constrained with nowhere to go — and no one to lead them there.
The GOP has no face and no real policies, and they’re tracking nobody — even across the aisle, President Obama is not leading, but just continuing to follow.
A bit of 2012 insight from the LA Times:
The pertinent question raised by Colbert’s attention grab on the day before South Carolina’s primary vote is why the four remaining Republican candidates are not drawing crowds as big and adoring as Colbert’s.
Yes, Colbert is a celebrity.
He’s an expert entertainer.
And it’s not too hard to get a few thousand college kids to skip class on any day of the week.
But four years ago at this point in the campaign, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were pulling in crowds as big or bigger.
John McCain was packing the gymnasiums pretty well too.
And, later in the campaign, Sarah Palin proved she could rock an arena.
This year’s candidates are avoiding big events because they do not want to be photographed in half-empty halls.
Gingrich actually refused to speak to the GOP leadership conference because so few Republicans showed up.
Instead, voters have most often been invited to meet the candidates in the cramped confines of restaurants where a few hundred or even a few dozen people can look like a lot on TV.
An example of this small-scale café campaign is Newt Gingrich’s schedule for voting day: 8 a.m. at the Grapevine Restaurant in Spartanburg, 10:45 at Tommy’s Ham House in Greenville, 3:30 at the Chik-Fil-A in Anderson and 5:45 at Whiteford’s Restaurant in Laurens.
One wishes Colbert/Stewart would actually be on the ballot in November — Obama would then have to actually lead, really talk the talk, or get punk’d.