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• Al Sharpton Debates Whether Herman Cain is ‘Authentically Black’

  October 9, 2011 at 3:43pm

  Al Sharpton is a truly loathsome bottom dweller who is not fit to shine the shoes of a man like Herman Cain.

• Hip-Hop Mogul Joins Others in Calling For the Rich To ‘Pay Their Fair Share’

  October 1, 2011 at 2:26pm

  Tax revenues are not the problem.

  Government spending is the problem.

  Raising taxes -on anybody- without first controlling government spending is throwing good money after bad.

  Closing unreasonable tax loopholes used by the wealthy is a topic for consideration but is neither the same thing as raising taxes nor is it a solution to the budgetary crisis. If super-rich individuals or businesses are paying high-priced tax attorneys to evade legitimate taxes already in the IRS code, this needs a close look. Talk about RAISING taxes on the rich merely because they are rich is un-American nonsense spouted by ignoramuses.

• Obama’s Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett: The Point of Government Is to Give People a Livelihood so They Can Provide for Their Families

  September 30, 2011 at 7:19pm

  This seems to be a well-meaning woman who is just not very smart and doesn’t seem to be adequately educated for the position she holds. Careless use of language strongly suggests careless or confused thinking. Thus to speak of “giving people a livelihood” does indeed suggest a profoundly mixed up, possibly even incoherent world view. It is extremely unfortunate that people like her insist upon peddling their victim and grievance mindset. They seldom use language that inspires people to work hard, be responsible, take care of themselves, improve themselves, etc. Their perspective is invariably one of class warfare, oppressors and victims, entitlement, and victimization. This has a poisonous effect on everybody, including those they claim to want to help.

• Critics Say Bank Should Not Be Allowed To Expand Unless It Does More to Help Community

  September 30, 2011 at 8:54am

  Nobody, not even Jesse Jackson, could possibly be THIS stupid. Redistributing the wealth takes many forms. One of them is lending money to people who cannot pay it back. Another is providing services to those who cannot afford them. All of this is affirmative action finance. It could be called Share The Wealth.

• German Intelligence to Spy on…’Islamophobes?’

  September 27, 2011 at 8:11pm

  In reply to Chet Hempstead.

  I have no doubt that every word of the above is absolutely true, and that such Muslims are at risk for scapegoating for many reasons, only one of which is the homicidal religious fanaticism of a handful of radical Muslims.

  Nothing would help them and Muslims in general more than a far louder, more public, consistent, and repeated denunciation of violence committed in the name of Islam than we have thus far encountered. It is frequently claimed, with some justification, that many Muslims have indeed spoken out against religious fanaticism. Though true, it misses the point.

  The point is that a great many infidels, of whom I happen to be one, think they not spoken out anywhere close to as much as they should. Many have not spoken out at all.

  The homicidal religious fanaticism of a handful of radicals + the sinister silence, or relative silence, or tepid reaction of the majority of Muslims to such criminal behavior, is the formula for much of what some people insultingly and misleadingly call Islamophobia. There is nothing phobic or irrational about distrusting people whose religion seems to some of them to justify horrific murders of defenseless and innocent people, many of them other Muslims. All of the political correctness and shaming and scolding in the world will not be enough to cause people to close their eyes to such behavior – including the behavior of insufficient condemnation by the Muslim majority..

• German Intelligence to Spy on…’Islamophobes?’

  September 27, 2011 at 7:52pm

  If Muslims would just learn to behave themselves, the imaginary ailment called Islamophobia would soon remit of its own accord.

  Muslims are the cause of Islamophobia. Yes, yes, of course we know that ALL Muslims do not go around murdering people in the name of Islam. We know that the great majority of Muslims are not engaged in, and claim not to believe in, such atrocities. We are well aware of that. There is no need to reiterate it.

  What needs emphasis, apparently, is that SOME Muslims are killing people in the name of Islam. These are the Muslims causing the Islamophobia. They may be few – but they are the ones getting all the bad publicity and making others suspicious of Muslims.

  Besides killing people in the name of religion, some Muslims exhibit notoriously bad manners and arrogance towards their host countries. Muslim immigrants -some, not all, but some- have a way of making demands, expecting respect they have not earned, mooching on public services, refusing to assimilate, and just in generally acting and talking like jerks. This causes citizens of their host countries to develop unfriendly feelings towards them, not so much because they are Muslims, but because they are jerks.

  If Muslims would just clean up their act and start behaving themselves, everything just might be peachy. It would certainly be a lot better.

• Topping the White House’s New Online Petition Site? Marijuana Legalization

  September 27, 2011 at 1:34pm

  In reply to hyjyljyj.

  “Legal cannabis, since it’ll cost < 1/4 of what it now does, will definitely result in an overnight switch to the taxed product by tens of millions of Americans. The insane overpricing is due to illegality. Why risk arrest if it's right in the liquor store?"
  ————–

  Should the above scenario pan out, cannabis will then be (1) cheaper and (2) easily available. This will lead to more use and more problems. No one denies that resources are required to maintain the legal threshold of stigmatization. The argument is that stigmatization is worth the cost.

  Nothing that is illegal can be said to be normalized sociologically. This dynamic also operates in the realm of so-called assisted suicide, many of whose advocates are really attempting to normalize the practice by means of law and government sanction.

  The medical effects, short and long term, of cannabis have not been adequately studied. Your personal experience is just that: your personal experience. In addition, there is no reason for anyone to take your word for it that you are OK. Maybe you are not OK and just think you are.

  I did not introduce a homosexual Straw Man. I merely compared the compulsive need of a small group of homosexuals to normalize their orientation to that of a small group of (usually very heavy) cannabis users to normalize their habit by means of decriminalization.

  It's not an accident, I think, that NORML is called NORML. I realize that cannabis users are unaware of this and

• Topping the White House’s New Online Petition Site? Marijuana Legalization

  September 26, 2011 at 5:54pm

  A subgroup of potheads suffers from a compulsion to normalize marijuana use in the same way that a subgroup of homosexuals suffer from a compulsion to normalize homosexuality. The compulsion to normalize can itself assume the status of an addiction and can consume enormous amounts of effort and resources. Such individuals sometimes go to truly remarkable lengths on behalf of their cause.

  The Wikipedia entries on cannabis and related topics are surprisingly objective for a controversial topic like this. The bottom line is that we really don’t know much about the actual effects of this drug and its delivery through inhalation. Interestingly, one reason -which I did not know- it that it is difficult to obtain research grade cannabis because of legal restrictions! Such studies as there are tend to cancel one another out. Truly rigorous long-term studies simply do not exist.

  Arrests and conviction for simple possession are increasingly rare, in many venues non-existent. Few who are opposed to full legalization would be opposed to decriminalization of possession with intent to use. But full legalization resulting in widespread easy availability would be a social and medical experiment on an enormous scale, the results of which we simply have no way of knowing.

• Topping the White House’s New Online Petition Site? Marijuana Legalization

  September 26, 2011 at 5:28pm

  In reply to thesnark.

  All quite true. Marijuana can most definitely cause psychological and physical dependence in some users, precisely as alcohol and certain other drugs can. The majority of people can drink alcohol and use cannabis occasionally or socially without dependence or addiction – but everyone cannot do this. There is widespread ignorance and denial concerning the known ability of cannabis to promote psychological and mild physical dependence in some users. The consequences of such dependency can be wide ranging and extremely severe, as the individual’s entire life begins to revolve around the substance. There are many reports of some correction between cannabis use and grave mental illness, though whether the relationship, if any, is causative or merely correlative is unclear. The long term effects of cannabis on the brain and other organs are almost completely unknown, because almost completely un-investigated in depth by modern scientific methodology. There is virtually NO scientific information on the acute and chronic effects on the lungs and other organs of inhalation consumption. It would naive and foolish to assume that no such effects could possibly exist.

  The pot lobby is extremely vociferous and persistent. Unless other Americans, those who have serious concerns about all aspects of legalization, speak out and make themselves heard, it is only a matter of time until this drug becomes more widely available than ever, with unforeseeable consequences for individuals and soc

• Topping the White House’s New Online Petition Site? Marijuana Legalization

  September 26, 2011 at 5:13pm

  The Pot Lobby cuts across all political groups, though the most vociferous decriminalizers are on the Left and are usually serious potheads themselves. They rationalize their psychological and physical dependency on the drug by politicizing its use, which they regard as an unalienable right and a low intensity protest against the bourgeoisie – to which, of course, more than a few belong themselves. Their fixation on legalization has many of the qualities of a delusion a la Captain Ahab and the White Whale. Republicans and conservatives who smoke tend to be less dependent and addicted, less militant, and more likely to argue the societal cost-benefit angle. Serious conservatives are opposed to legalization.

  The fantasy that decriminalization, taxation and regulation will produce desirable results ignores the obvious fact that the drug is widely available now sans regulation and taxation and supposes a vain thing, namely that current users are going to obey the law and buy taxable cannabis instead of tax tree cannabis. This is absurd. All that these steps will do is make the drug far more widely and easily available, lead to more use, and create still more people psychologically and physically dependent on it. The long term effects of the drug and the potential carcinogens and other toxic agents in the smoke have not begin to be explored scientifically yet, because it would be politically incorrect to do so. Potheads are certain this is a safe drug, for obvious reasons.