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Nice Planet XI: Stop the World, I Want to Get Off!

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Re: Nice Planet XI: Stop the World, I Want to Get Off!

Even this article is a bad choice for them IMHO. Smart counsel would have said keep your big ****ing mouths shut until this is over. A simple, "we disagree with the ruling and are in the process of appealing."
 
Re: Nice Planet XI: Stop the World, I Want to Get Off!

Gawker's commenters went downhill once it went to an all-politics format. Far too many trolls, bad trolls on top of that.
 
Re: Nice Planet XI: Stop the World, I Want to Get Off!

Handyman said:
Well At Least Now they Admit It!
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Not blaming you Handy, but unfortunately for their readers, Jezebel focused on only the most sensational, but the most important parts of the full article.

When the General Assembly convenes, it also will have to contend with the startling fact that four states and the capital city of the world’s most zealous drug enforcer have fully legalized marijuana. “We’re confronted now with the fact that the U.S. cannot enforce domestically what it promotes elsewhere,” a member of the U.N.’s International Narcotics Control Board, which monitors international compliance with the conference’s directives, told me. Shortly before Oregon, Alaska, and the District of Columbia added themselves to the legal-marijuana list, the State Department’s chief drug-control official, William Brownfield, abruptly reversed his stance. Whereas before he had said that the “drug control conventions cannot be changed,” in 2014 he admitted that things had changed: “How could I, a representative of the government of the United States of America, be intolerant of a government that permits any experimentation with legalization of marijuana if two of the fifty states of the United States of America have chosen to walk down that road?” Throughout the drug-reform community, jaws dropped.

As the once-unimaginable step of ending the war on drugs shimmers into view, it’s time to shift the conversation from why to how. To realize benefits from ending drug prohibition will take more than simply declaring that drugs are legal. The risks are tremendous. Deaths from heroin overdose in the United States rose 500 percent from 2001 to 2014, a staggering increase, and deaths from prescription drugs — which are already legal and regulated — shot up almost 300 percent, proving that where opioids are concerned, we seem to be inept not only when we prohibit but also when we regulate. A sharp increase in drug dependence or overdoses that followed the legalization of drugs would be a public-health disaster, and it could very well knock the world back into the same counterproductive prohibitionist mind-set from which we appear finally to be emerging. To minimize harm and maximize order, we’ll have to design better systems than we have now for licensing, standardizing, inspecting, distributing, and taxing dangerous drugs. A million choices will arise, and we probably won’t make any good decisions on the first try. Some things will get better; some things will get worse. But we do have experience on which to draw — from the end of Prohibition, in the 1930s, and from our recent history. Ending drug prohibition is a matter of imagination and management, two things on which Americans justifiably pride themselves. We can do this.

Let’s start with a question that is too seldom asked: What exactly is our drug problem? It isn’t simply drug use. Lots of Americans drink, but relatively few become alcoholics. It’s hard to imagine people enjoying a little heroin now and then, or a hit of methamphetamine, without going off the deep end, but they do it all the time. The government’s own data, from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, shatters the myth of “instantly addictive” drugs. Although about half of all Americans older than twelve have tried an illegal drug, only 20 percent of those have used one in the past month. In the majority of those monthly-use cases, the drug was cannabis. Only tiny percentages of people who have sampled one of the Big Four — heroin, cocaine, crack, and methamphetamine — have used that drug in the past month. (For heroin, the number is 8 percent; for cocaine, 4 percent; for crack, 3 percent; for meth, 4 percent.) It isn’t even clear that using a drug once a month amounts to having a drug problem. The portion of lifetime alcohol drinkers who become alcoholics is about 8 percent, and we don’t think of someone who drinks alcohol monthly as an alcoholic.

It is also not a certainty that legalizing drugs would result in the huge spike in addiction that Kleiman predicts. In fact, some data argue against it. The Netherlands effectively decriminalized marijuana use and possession in 1976, and Australia, the Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, and New York State all followed suit. In none of these jurisdictions did marijuana then become a significant health or public-order problem. But marijuana’s easy; it isn’t physically addictive. So consider Portugal, which in 2001 took the radical step of decriminalizing not only pot but cocaine, heroin, and the rest of the drug spectrum. Decriminalization in Portugal means that the drugs remain technically prohibited — selling them is a major crime — but the purchase, use, and possession of up to ten days’ supply are administrative offenses. No other country has gone so far, and the results have been astounding. The expected wave of drug tourists never materialized. Teenage use went up shortly before and after decriminalization, but then it settled down, perhaps as the novelty wore off. (Teenagers — particularly eighth graders — are considered harbingers of future societal drug use.)

The lifetime prevalence of adult drug use in Portugal rose slightly, but problem drug use — that is, habitual use of hard drugs — declined after Portugal decriminalized, from 7.6 to 6.8 per 1,000 people. Compare that with nearby Italy, which didn’t decriminalize, where the rates rose from 6.0 to 8.6 per 1,000 people over the same time span. Because addicts can now legally obtain sterile syringes in Portugal, decriminalization seems to have cut radically the number of addicts infected with H.I.V., from 907 in 2000 to 267 in 2008, while cases of full-blown AIDS among addicts fell from 506 to 108 during the same period.

The new Portuguese law has also had a striking effect on the size of the country’s prison population. The number of inmates serving time for drug offenses fell by more than half, and today they make up only 21 percent of those incarcerated. A similar reduction in the United States would free 260,000 people — the equivalent of letting the entire population of Buffalo out of jail.

When applying the lessons of Portugal to the United States, it’s important to note that the Portuguese didn’t just throw open access to dangerous drugs without planning for people who couldn’t handle them. Portugal poured money into drug treatment, expanding the number of addicts served by more than 50 percent. It established Commissions for the Dissuasion of Drug Addiction, each of which is composed of three people — often a doctor, a social worker, and an attorney — who are authorized to refer a drug user to treatment and in some cases impose a relatively small fine. Nor did Portugal’s decriminalization experiment happen in a vacuum. The country has been increasing its spending on social services since the 1970s, and even instituted a guaranteed minimum income in the late 1990s. The rapid expansion of the welfare state may have contributed to Portugal’s well-publicized economic troubles, but it can probably also share credit for the drop in problem drug use.

Decriminalization has been a success in Portugal. Nobody there argues seriously for abandoning the policy, and being identified with the law is good politics: during his successful 2009 reelection campaign, former prime minister José Sócrates boasted of his role in establishing it.
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Re: Nice Planet XI: Stop the World, I Want to Get Off!

Today in the Crazytown Gazette.

Kevin Swanson, the pastor courted by Ted Cruz who has repeatedly called for the execution of gay people, including just minutes before speaking with Cruz at an event last November in Iowa, dedicated a radio program last week to attacking the Girl Scouts for supporting women’s and LGBT rights, saying that the group’s leaders are worthy of death.
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Re: Nice Planet XI: Stop the World, I Want to Get Off!

#ManInTree

Seattle Police Dept. ‏@SeattlePD Mar 22
.@heyjessibrown There will likely be traffic impacts in the area, but issue appears to be between the man and the tree.


(emphasis added)
 
Re: Nice Planet XI: Stop the World, I Want to Get Off!

Oh fer crissakes......GROW UP KIDDIES!

Emory University in Atlanta is under siege at this hour from a chalk-wielding Donald Trump supporter who caused a massive outbreak of micro-aggressions among frightened students.

Terrified collegians are hunkered down in their safe spaces – traumatized by whoever wrote “Trump 2016” and “Accept the Inevitable: Trump 2016” on campus sidewalks.

“That was a bit alarming,” one panicked student told The Emory Wheel. “What exactly is inevitable? Why does it have to be accepted?”

Another student whimpered that she did not feel safe.

“I’m supposed to feel comfortable and safe [here],” she told the campus paper. “But this man is being supported by students on our campus and our administration shows that they, by their silence, support it as well…I don’t deserve to feel afraid at my school.”
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Re: Nice Planet XI: Stop the World, I Want to Get Off!

johnnypohlfan said:
UND professor ignores email regarding upcoming ROTC training on campus, gets panties twisted when said training occurs.

Claims she will continue to call 911 every time she sees the ROTC doing drills. Says they "Have created terror," on campus.

Overreact much?
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OK, I'm as ready as anyone to bash some overreacting English prof, but in reading the full story, it's a little easier to understand. She looked out her office window and saw armed men on the quad. Given the events worldwide of late, I'd be tempted to call the cops too. It sounds like the exercise wasn't well reported to all on the campus and the University has admitted they should do better in alerting folks to the activities.
 
Re: Nice Planet XI: Stop the World, I Want to Get Off!

Why does ROTC even still exist? It made a little sense when we had a draft. Now? Zippo.
 
Kepler said:
Why does ROTC even still exist? It made a little sense when we had a draft. Now? Zippo.
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Disagree. The ROTC program has produced a lot of productive citizens. It's still a legit way to help pay for college and have a guaranteed job upon graduation. Your perception is that it disproportionately "forces" the poor and less intellectually gifted into military service to get ahead. However, I would rather see someone go through ROTC than take out $50,000+ in loans.

Fortunately, neither was a choice I had to make.
 
Re: Nice Planet XI: Stop the World, I Want to Get Off!

goldy_331 said:
OK, I'm as ready as anyone to bash some overreacting English prof, but in reading the full story, it's a little easier to understand. She looked out her office window and saw armed men on the quad. Given the events worldwide of late, I'd be tempted to call the cops too. It sounds like the exercise wasn't well reported to all on the campus and the University has admitted they should do better in alerting folks to the activities.
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Ah, no. She's in Grand Forks. If she looks up she'll probably see a drone from the AF base flying overhead too.

Just another example of someone who may be bright, but is b a t s h ! t crazy, and thus we've had to park them in academia.
 
Re: Nice Planet XI: Stop the World, I Want to Get Off!

FadeToBlack&Gold said:
Disagree. The ROTC program has produced a lot of productive citizens. It's still a legit way to help pay for college and have a guaranteed job upon graduation. Your perception is that it disproportionately "forces" the poor and less intellectually gifted into military service to get ahead. However, I would rather see someone go through ROTC than take out $50,000+ in loans.

Fortunately, neither was a choice I had to make.
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I knew a kid who had to make both choices. Failed the physical exam (which he had like two years to get ready for) and was kicked out. Evidently you have to repay past tuition if you get dropped from the program.
 
Re: Nice Planet XI: Stop the World, I Want to Get Off!

Spartanforlife4 said:
I knew a kid who had to make both choices. Failed the physical exam (which he had like two years to get ready for) and was kicked out. Evidently you have to repay past tuition if you get dropped from the program.
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I used to play softball with a guy who attended the Air Force Academy. He told this funny story of how he got booted from the AFA during his third year, about one week prior to the point where even if you didn't graduate you had to then serve as an enlisted personnel for four years (according to him). He did not have to make restitution to the Air Force for his education, but that's a different situation than ROTC.
 
Re: Nice Planet XI: Stop the World, I Want to Get Off!

Spartanforlife4 said:
I knew a kid who had to make both choices. Failed the physical exam (which he had like two years to get ready for) and was kicked out. Evidently you have to repay past tuition if you get dropped from the program.
Click to expand...

The running joke when I was in school was "2 and screw," which evidently was down from "3 and flee." I have no idea whether this had any factual basis or was a campus legend like "4.0 if your roommate gorges out").
 
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