Thursday, June 23, 2011

Earth with Rings

Pretty neat thought experiment.


Sunday, June 5, 2011

It's Over; We lost. No Wait... We Lost, but it's NOT Over?

A bunch of ex-politicians and policy guys say that the War on Drugs is lost.  It is and it has been.  On the matter of the legalization of marijuana, the "science" is settled.  Those who continue to support legalization are on par with the flat earthers or birthers.  These are folsk whose commitment to a view exists entirely independent of observed reality.

40,000 fatalities in Mexico.  The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world (n.b., some doubt China's figures, so maybe we're number two?).  The trillions of dollars down the drain.

This isn't a matter of debating whether or not substance abuse is "good."  It's a matter of the fact that prohibition is far WORSE than substance abuse.  By a long shot.  It's not even close.

Now, this report will come to nothing.  We deserve the government we get because it's the government that we vote for.  Not even California has managed to legalize marijuana, and it's pretty safe to say that the waste of blood and treasure will continue until the entire United States wakes up.  The world will likely follow.  Other nations would probably love to stop watching their citizens die in the tens of thousands due to our tilting at windmills, but the US exerts tremendous pressure on their governments to toe the line.

It's a sad, sad state of affairs.  Think of what good could instead be done with those lives and that money.  This is a global tragedy of huge proportion - dwarfing all the tsunamis and earthquakes combined.

If you've been voting for those who support prohibition, shame on you.