Change it Again, Uncle Sam

Obama promised change. People liked that idea and voted for him. Now a whole bunch of the liberals who voted for change via Obama have gotten upset because he has not changed direction, just speed.

A minor misunderstanding.

Bank of the Americas Pay Back

Bank Of America Repays $45B In Bailout Funds : NPR

Bank of America Corp. said Wednesday it has repaid the entire $45 billion it owed U.S. taxpayers as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

If the government would have bailed me out to the tune of $45 billion I would have gladly repaid them 99.9% of it the very next day.

Death by Prescription

Overdose deaths from painkillers skyrocketing in Ontario: report - The Globe and Mail

Painkillers are causing twice the number of overdose deaths in Ontario than they were two decades ago, a precedent-setting study has found. Most of the people these opioid-related drugs are killing got them through a prescription and had seen a doctor in the month before they died...

The study found prescription opioids kill, on average, 300 people in Ontario each year. HIV/AIDS, by comparison, kills 100 people annually; H1N1 has killed 100 people in Ontario so far. Other illicit drugs cause few overdose deaths by comparison.

Because 'prescription' means safe. Because 'Doctor recommended' means 'no worries'.

Opioids are hard core drugs. They also work extremely well. As most heroin addicts will attest to, there ain't nothin' in the world another fix won't cure.

Relatively small study, though. Just Ontario. Still, it means that prescription opioids killed more people in one Canadian city last year than marijuana killed world wide last century. How many of those people who were prescribed that medication would have been better off had they received a non-lethal medication?

Losing Faith

Even the Wall Street Journal admits that our money means very little.

James Grant Mourns the Loss of the Gold Standard - WSJ.com

In ancient times, the solidus circulated far and wide. But it was a tangible thing, a gold coin struck by the Byzantine Empire. Between Waterloo and the Great Depression, the pound sterling ruled the roost. But it was convertible into gold—slip your bank notes through a teller's window and the Bank of England would return the appropriate number of gold sovereigns. The dollar is faith-based. There's nothing behind it but Congress.

But now the world is losing faith, as well it might. It's not that the dollar is overvalued—economists at Deutsche Bank estimate it's 20% too cheap against the euro. The problem lies with its management. The greenback is a glorious old brand that's looking more and more like General Motors.

What I Like About the Obama Crowd

What makes the liberal base better than the conservative base?

Barack Obama - Salon.com

Tom Hayden, the liberal activist best known for his work in the '60s, when he helped found Students for a Democratic Society, was once pretty enthusiastic about Barack Obama. Back in March of 2008 he had the first byline on an article in the Nation -- also attributed to Bill Fletcher Jr., Danny Glover and Barbara Ehrenreich -- that began, "All American progressives should unite for Barack Obama."

Now, though, after the president announced his decision to send an additional 30,00 troops to fight in Afghanistan, Hayden's had enough. His latest piece for the Nation begins with a very different sentiment than the one he expressed not two years ago. Now, Hayden says, "It's time to strip the Obama sticker off my car."

Conservatives got Bush elected and, on average, spent the next eight years standing up for all of the crap he did even when it went completely against the conservative values they had initially said Bush stood for. The acted as buffers for the crimes of a mad man.

The liberal base pushed hard for Obama, got him elected, and then felt screwed. While some do apologize for his sad excuse for a liberal agenda*, plenty feel betrayed and have withdrawn their support. Too little too late, perhaps. But at least they admit to getting suckered. We all get suckered now and again. People of integrity admit it.

* Even I will stand up for Obama. Like when right wing tea bagger nut jobs call him a Marxist, I stand up for the guy and let them know that Obama has shown as much love for big business capitalism as Reagan did.

USA Not as Corrupt as I Thought

New Zealand tops Denmark as world's least corrupt nation | U.S. | Reuters

New Zealand topped the table with a score of 9.4 after coming second last year. In second place was last year's leader, Denmark with 9.3 followed by Singapore and Sweden tying at 9.2 and Switzerland at 9.0...

Britain came 17th in the list and the United States was 19th with a score of 7.5.

Hey, our government is only one quarter corrupt. Isn't that awesome?

Now we can aspire to end that corruption and become more like Singapore.

Portland will soon have two medical-marijuana smoking lounges

Portland News - – OregonLive.com

The Cannabis Cafe will be the second public place for medical-marijuana patients to get together. On Oct. 1, Steve Geiger opened Highway 420, a small lounge at the back of his pipe shop at 6418 S.E. Foster Road...

The pot lounges are the first of their kind in the nation, said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the national NORML. California has dispensaries where medical marijuana can be purchased, but only Oregon will have public places where people can socialize and use marijuana.

Oregon continues to fascinate me. Turns out that you can get a card to grow marijuana, you can get a card to use marijuana, but you can not sell marijuana in Oregon.

So how about pharmaceutical companies can be licensed to make medications, people can get prescriptions for medications, but nobody can sell medication? Patients can still chip in to cover the cost of ingredients, just like they can help cover a grower's costs. The pharmeceutical industry would love that.

As for the Cannabis Cafe, it makes me slightly uncomfortable. In order to go there, you have to have a medical-marijuana card. No problem. In fact, very smart idea. But you also have to belong to NORML. So it isn't really so much a cafe as a private club. NORML wants pot legalized, not just medical-marijuana. Isn't it possible that a medical-marijuana patient might not condone recreational use?

Not saying a place like this shouldn't exist. But if a state allows medical marijuana, shouldn't it also allow for a reasonable way for patients to get it?

As medical-marijuana use continues to legitimize states will have to deal with some cold facts. Like if it is a prescribed medication, why can't people get it in a drug store? Since medical studies have shown it to have no ill health effects, why can't anyone buy and use it like aspirin, cough syrup, or laxatives (all of which have higher overdose rates than marijuana)? And why can't a person write off their hand blown three foot glass bong as a medical expense? Those things aren't cheap! My mom shoots her insulin at the dinner table at the restaurant because she has a prescription for it and needs it. Shouldn't medical marijuana users enjoy the same privilege? Or are they expected to stay at home all the time so if they find they need to medicate themselves they don't end up breaking the law? Or will they have to only go to places like the Cannabis Cafe where their healthy friends can't join them for dinner?

Good luck to Portland's new medical-marijuana social scene. Brave new territory at the end of the Oregon Trail.

Is It Progress?

Marijuana legalized in Breckenridge

So what? It's still illegal at a state and federal level. So if you pot smoking snow boarders and skiers get picked up at the resort town, make certain you get picked up by the local police and not the sheriff's department, state patrol, or an undercover DEA agent in drag.

House passes health care reform bill

As the only industrialized nation without universal coverage, this should make me happy, right? Except to get it barely passed they had to restrict coverage for abortions and fall to their knees to suck some insurance industry cock. Yet we still won't have universal health care. Instead the government just mandates that everyone have insurance. The Democrats who pushed this through are a bunch of spineless sacks of crap and the Republicans that tried to block it are even worse.

As for the price tag, let's get this nice and sparkling clear. Those who support the bill use the more accurate number of $1.055 billion while those who want to gripe round up to $1.1 billion. Sorry, but simply rounding up by $45 million seems irresponsible. Luckily no sane person can really comprehend that much money. It's all just numbers.

For you conservative folks screaming for tort reform as part of a health care package, I hope the medical and insurance lobbyists are sending you a nice, big kickback check for pushing their personal agenda.

Buggar all this.

Mass Marketing

Goldman One-Ups Gordon Gekko, Says Jesus Embraced Greed

"The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest," Goldman’s Griffiths said Oct. 20, his voice echoing around the gold-mosaic walls of St. Paul’s Cathedral, whose 365-feet-high dome towers over the City, London’s financial district. "We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all."

I distinctly remember this story as part of my childhood Sunday School lessons. The story of Jesus going to the temple, hanging with the money lenders, and saying, "You guys are alright."*

Jesus wants you to give him your money** and business takes it from you any way they can and wants government to take it from you and give it to them. Business has to use a second party because they just aren't as cool as Jesus. If they were, you'd just give them your money.

* For those unfamiliar with The Bible, the story actually has Jesus smashing their tables. Matthew 21:12

** For those unfamiliar with The Bible, Jesus wants your soul and wants nothing to do with your money. Matthew 22:21***

*** For the record, this Matthew guy was a sandal wearing hippie heeb who hung out with Yeshua bin Yosef, a man executed for issuing terroristic threats against the government.

Remember, Remember the 5th of November

This November 5th - Multi Freedom Candidate Mass Donation Day



Remember, remember, don't get suckered this November.

Sucker yourself!

Give money. Lots of it. To people who will stand up and fight for what you believe in. As long as you believe exactly what they do. Even when they get elected and change their minds. To people who wear suits because they are expected to. To people who wear smiles because they have been told to.

Support psuedo-libertarians for psuedo-revolution!

Or buy a Vote Jake button.

Obama the Pot President?

Pot Will Save Us

In order to save itself from financial oblivion, the state of California seems inclined to just do it. Just say yes. To become Amsterdam.

It may be the biggest thing to come out of the financial meltdown. We won’t get meaningful reform of the banking system, but we’re going to get legalized pot...

So forget health care. Obama is going to be the pot president. Hell, Franklin Roosevelt, in his Depression, saw the end of prohibition.

So the nation elects a black President and pot gets legalized (at least in California, maybe). It's a really good idea to legalize. I'm all for it. Hitching it to Obama is a bad idea. A really bad idea. Lay this one on Schwarzenegger. Let the Republicans have this win. Calling Obama the Pot President is just more fodder for the good-old-boys (and girls).

Like those folks in my home town who thought drugs came to town because of a single black family moving in. It had nothing to do with it being the late 1960's and the town's position at the intersection of a couple of major interstate highways. Nope. It was dem coloreds. Honest injun.

Californians Contemplating Legalization

Once again providing the leading edge in the marijuana issue...

Push to Legalize Marijuana Gains Ground in California - NYTimes.com

State lawmakers are holding a hearing on Wednesday on the effects of a bill that would legalize, tax and regulate the drug — in what would be the first such law in the United States. Tax officials estimate the legislation could bring the struggling state about $1.4 billion a year, and though the bill’s fate in the Legislature is uncertain, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has indicated he would be open to a “robust debate” on the issue.

In addition to the California politicians weighing the issue, three ballot initiatives aimed at legalization are quickly gaining the signatures needed to put them before the citizenry in 2010.

The federal government maintains its position of prohibition of marijuana for recreational use. They also maintained the prohibition of marijuana in all of its forms, raiding California clinics and arresting medical marijuana users, up until this year.

Given the previous time line, if California decides to legalize, they only have to put up with federal intervention for about 13 years. Or until an anti-prohibition President is elected. Or until they say to hell with those bastards on the other side of the continent and break away to create the first incarnation of my proposed secessionist government, Nuevo Sodom.

Note: I've recently been wondering... if a person has a marijuana prescription, can they go to the dispensary and ask for the less expensive generic version of OG Kush?

Free(er) Market Economics

There are ways in which free market economics really can work for the benefit of Americans.

Cartels Face an Economic Battle - washingtonpost.com

Stiff competition from thousands of mom-and-pop marijuana farmers in the United States threatens the bottom line for powerful Mexican drug organizations in a way that decades of arrests and seizures have not, according to law enforcement officials and pot growers in the United States and Mexico.

If they ever fully legalize in the United States those mom-and-pop operations will be forced out of business by big American cartels conglomerates. Most likely due to vaguely stated regulations passed by the US government at the behest of the corporations under the guise of 'consumer protection'.

* Image at right, world's happiest marine destroying Mexican crop.

Can't Keep a Good "Dog" Down

When my dog developed a tumor and I was faced with huge veterinary costs, I chose euthanasia. He was a dog. A well loved dog that I still miss, but a dog none-the-less. Pet owners are often forced with these hard choices.

People can choose for themselves. While I might end up choosing euthanasia for myself some day (and might put on a dog collar and beg for it just to have some fun with the situation), there are many who choose to fight and have done so for many years. They are not dogs.

Ian Pearl: I Am Not a Dog

I was the first wheelchair-bound student "mainstreamed" in the schools of Broward County, Florida. I became a poster child for the Muscular Dystrophy Association and president of my high school class. I entered college in 1990 with plans to work in politics and patient advocacy, but at 19, I had a severe setback and I was confronted with a stark choice. My survival would require a machine to breathe and round-the-clock nursing care.

A breathing machine usually means life in a nursing facility. But my father's small business had health insurance from Guardian Life Insurance Co., which promised "Solutions for Life." The health policy had no lifetime benefit cap and covered home nursing care. Relying on that contract with a 149-year-old company, I decided to go on a mechanical ventilator for the rest of my life.

Since then, I've endured life-threatening medical complications and long hospitalizations. I've lost my privacy and ability to travel. But I never regretted my decision to live, to continue to learn and write, and to share in the lives of family and friends.

After decades of medical emergencies, we still weren't prepared for the latest crisis -- this one created by the same insurance company that once saved my life. Guardian abruptly withdrew our health plan from all policyholders in New York where my father's business is based. Guardian offered a 'replacement' plan with low benefits and no home nursing benefits. They knew that I would never survive with such a plan, but they didn't care.

Suspecting that this action was related to the high cost of my care, we filed a lawsuit and have asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to enforce existing federal laws and require Guardian to continue my health plan. Without federal intervention, I will lose this insurance, and that would be a death sentence.

Our lawsuit uncovered insurance company documents that confirmed my suspicion that I'm a target of discrimination. The documents revealed Guardian had compiled a "hit list" of its costliest members, including patients with muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, brain injury, and paralysis. Guardian executives referred to us all as "dogs" and "trainwrecks," and they debated how and when to dump us from the rolls. Laws prohibited the cancellation of the individual members with serious chronic health problems, so Guardian opted to cancel the plan for all members of this specific health plan in New York, an action that violates federal law.

This is a call to arms for all the pro-lifers out there. Give up on the abortion clinics for a couple of weeks and go chant in front of Guardian Life Insurance Co., home of the broken promise and the privatized death panel.

Now excuse me while I fantasize about letting others make all my choices for me.