Stupid

Stupid is as stupid does I guess. I read today that last year (2007) there were 739,000 (that's seven hundred thirty nine thousand!) arrests for marijuana. There were also 91,000 related felonies. The (one year) cost of this foolishness is estimated at one billion dollars. Our jails and prisons are full of people incarcerated for pot related "crimes." I'm sorry, but no matter how you look at it, this is STUPID! We have known for years that the deleterious effects of marijuana are nowhere near as bad as we are being told, and certainly nowhere near as bad as the effects of alcohol which is legal. Even when Nixon banned pot it was in spite of the reports he received which said it was not all that harmful. Virtually every study of marijuana done since that time have said the same thing. So why do we insist on making pot possession a crime and locking people up for years because of it? The only conclusion I can come to is that we are STUPID! Our prisons are overcrowded and we are building new ones year after year. A disproportionate number of blacks are incarceratead (probably Hispanics too), due in large measure to our absurd laws about marijuana. I believe it is true (I am not sure of this) that we are currently spending more money on prisons than on college and university education. This is STUPID! The facts about marijuana are not hard to come by. There are many books and articles on the subject. Some of them go much further than just marijuana and insist that all drugs should be legal as the current situation is no different than prohibition which, as you know, was a dismal failure. Well, the war on drugs is a dismal failure, a failure far worse than prohibition. But still it continues year after year wasting billions and billions and taking up time that could be better spent working on true crime. The drug "problem" is in reality a medical problem that our apparently less than bright Congress has insisted on making a political problem. Why is this? Because they are STUPID! Obama may, I sincerely hope, have some understanding of this situation, and perhaps might even try to do something about it. Hillary Clinton I am pretty sure will maintain the status quo, as no doubt would John Edwards. So Obama, and yes, the audacity of hope.

It seems most everyone is still digesting the results of the South Carolina primary. It's mostly about how bad Bill Clinton has behaved and the issue of race, race, and more race. I guess no one knew that Obama was an African American until Bill Clinton pointed it out. Bill and Hillary want to win the nomination and they want Hillary in the White House. Obviously they are going to use whatever advantages come their way, just as all other candidates would do. Trying to convert the race card into a Clinton dirty trick I think is missing the point. Obama is an African American and the media are not going to let anyone forget it no matter what Bill and Hillary do. Do we have to be reminded of how the Brafia has handled the Clintons for the past fifteen or sixteen years? Remember Starr? Gingrich? Rove? Barr? Remember the impeachment for a non-crime? Remember how the Clintons were accused of every crime known to man, including murder? So even if the Clintons are using the race card to their advantage that surely pales into insignificance compared to what they have had to put up with. Obama is an African American. The Clintons can't change that. Hillary is a woman and they can't change that. To the Brafia, however, Hillary is not merely a woman, she is the personification of evil, a witch who cackles and secretly eats children for breakfast, fair game for every sleazy roviating scheme they can think of. Speaking of dirty tricks, you ain't see nothing yet, wait until we actually have candidates. Rove and the swift-boaters are licking their chops just thinking of what they can do with Hillary. But rest assured, they won't spare Obama if he's the candidate. He won't stay African American for long. In the hands of the Brafia and Rove he'll become the jungle bunny, a spook, a jigaboo, a drug-crazed Muslim lusting after white women, a secret agent of the Taliban working to overthrow our innocent nation that loves everybody and just wants to spread democracy and joy around the world (let's see, almost 4,000 dead American troops, 30 or 40 thousand maimed, two or three million Iraqis displaced from their homes, probably a million innocents killed, a trillion or more dollars totally wasted). And no end in sight. But I digress. The Democratic candidate, whoever it is, is going to be subject to the most vile accusations and falsehoods that can be created in the brain of Karl Rove and his little band of evil pranksters. Be prepared.

LKBIQ:
"A Christian is a man who feels
Repentance on a Sunday
For what he did on Saturday
And is going to do on Monday.
Thomas R. Ybarra