Artillery shell is shot down by U.S. laser...

[Forthe]

Mak do you truly believe the US is hated in the middle east just because "it's a large, prosperous nation"? You need to do some reading on what has been going on there since wwII, specifically how your governement likes to get involved in everything. Including supporting terrorists\guerrillas (depending on what side of the fence you are on), this always seems to come back to haunt you as you seem to have to return to overthrow your allies later on.

So now that Iraq has agreed to the UN resolution whats next? If Iraq fully complies with the resolution do you think Dumbya is just going to walk away? I'm betting no but I guess anything is possible. How he then justifies the invasion should make for an interesting read.

Dumbya seems to be floating the idea of messing with North Korea already, maybe a backup scenario if the Iraq invasion falls though. Next on CNN we'll be listening to how <insert whoever the leader of North Korea is, I have no idea and it ain't worth doing a web search> is a homicidal maniac that must be stopped. Its time for change in the North Korean Government!

[Nick]

Bravo Hoarmurath!

[Voronwë]

1. i doubt iraq will cooperate in the end to our satisfaction. but if they do, good. we get what we want and save 500 billion dollars.

2. military conflict with North Korea is not on the table at all, nor will it be. We have been going the route of diplomacy here, and are working with Japan, China, and Russia to get that straightened out. even though they are part of the AXIS OF EVIL!

[Mak]

Forthe- I didn't mean to imply that the US was lilly-white so far as international relations go. I know our tendancy to meddle. My point was more about the tendancy of evil men to demonize someone or some country in order to gain and keep their power, and that diplomacy is not the answer with regards to men like Saddam Hussein.

I honestly think that the US could do everything in it's power to satisfy someone like Hussein or bin Laden and still be criticized for something. Can you really picture someone like bin Laden going, "Ok boys, they agreed to our demands, let's pack up shop and go home."? No- bin Laden gets his power from leading his troops against an enemy. The US is simply the most convenient.

Edited to add: The Iraqi Parliament has unanimously rejected the UN proposal, so those that were assuming this would all just go away with Bush looking goofy are seemingly not going to get your wish.

And nobody has anything to say anything about that poor Nigerian woman? I guess Bush wanting to remove a psychopath from power is a greater evil than a rape victim getting her head caved in with rocks.

[Voronwë]

Mak: the Iraqi parliament has as much say on this matter as i do.

earlier today Hussein agreed to cooperate with the UN resolution. we'll see to what degree.

everybody is expecting him to try to fuck around on this at a later date, no doubt. we shall see.

edit: clarified misstatement about conditionality of iraqi agreement.

[Winnow]

Mak: the Iraqi parliament has as much say on this matter as i do.

They must have a lot to say then! I know what you meant!

[Nick]

I think it's fairly obvious that Saddam will fuck the U.N around. It's what he is best at.


Only time will tell....

[Mak]

Mak: the Iraqi parliament has as much say on this matter as i do.

Yeah, you're absolutely right on that. And now after all that Hussein seems to want to comply. Regardless, I still think the best course of action is to remove him from power. We'll see how it all plays out.

[Lalanae]

Thank you Reagen. All those hundreds of billions of dollars spent on hare brained stupidity while people in your own country suffered the extremes of poverty were really well spent. Now you can shoot artillery out of the air in case Mexico starts to shell California.

Don't forget to thank Reagan for creating the mindless turd of a beaurocracy that is the DEA. What a great place to funnel billions of dollars.

Then the brain fart that was trickle-down economics. Nice way of fucking the middle & lower classes while giving breaks to his rich DC & Hollywood pals.

I hate Reagan. I don't feel a bit sorry that his mind is literally mush now.

[Fallanthas]

Thank you Kyoucan for pointing out that under Reagan, poor people were suffering while defense spending increased. Of course, not being from the U.S., you couldn't be bothered to know that the poverty line in this country still allows one to own a car and two color TV's......


I love it when people suck up media shit like that without asking any questions.

[Xyun]

I love it when people suck up media shit like that without asking any questions.

Irony at it's finest.

[Nick]

DRUGS ARE BAD XYUN YUO ARE GOING TO TEH HELL SIR

[Mak]

Don't forget to thank Reagan for creating the mindless turd of a beaurocracy that is the DEA. What a great place to funnel billions of dollars.

The alternative being better, right? Uncountable tons of hard, life-threatening drugs flowing out onto the streets without restriction is a good thing for you?

[Xyun]

The alternative being better, right? Uncountable tons of hard, life-threatening drugs flowing out onto the streets without restriction is a good thing for you?

Why yes it is, thanks for asking!

[kyoukan]

Thank you Kyoucan for pointing out that under Reagan, poor people were suffering while defense spending increased. Of course, not being from the U.S., you couldn't be bothered to know that the poverty line in this country still allows one to own a car and two color TV's.......

Unless you are saying that every family in the US can afford a car and two color TV's I have no idea what your point is. Other than the fact you enjoy listening to yourself talk. Talk talk talk.

[kyoukan]

The alternative being better, right? Uncountable tons of hard, life-threatening drugs flowing out onto the streets without restriction is a good thing for you?

Well the alternative to the DEA is not "uncountable tons of hard, life-threatening drugs flowing out onto the streets." In case you haven't caught on yet, posting like an over-reacting drama princess isn't going to take you very far around here.

You have a DEA that spends 100's of millions a year arresting and siezing drugs with a smaller street value than what their yearly budget is. People are sitting in your prisons with longer sentences for having a bag of coke in their jacket pocket than people that are there for 2nd degree murder and sex crimes. You have the largest percentage of your population in the world incarcerated.. the number two country is Russia with LESS THAN HALF the percentage the US has. A majority of your convicts are in on narcotics charges.

Guess what, I can STILL walk down almost ANY street in ANY US city and pick up a 8 of coke or a bag of weed in under 10 minutes. As I can in ANY city in the world.

The money that investigating, arresting, charging, trying, convicting and incarcerating this ENORMOUS amount of people absolutely DWARFS the cost of things like social programs and free drug rehabilitaion facilities.. Even clean and safe facilities for addicts that want to use to get them off the streets. This is not to mention education about drug abuse (beyond ineffective and absurd Nancy Reagen sez: JSUT SAY NOE! campaigns). Also, cleaning up your urban areas, that are quite frankly war zones and shockingly hazardous for a country that claims to be civilized and industrial.. and giving them something to live for beyond their crack pipes and heroin needles.

But no, better to give half a billion a year to the DEA and hundreds of billions a year to the courts an penetentiaries in order to clog up the system with millions of people by stopping the drug problem at the easiest and most guiltless level; the end users.

[Mak]

Wait- did YOU, of all people, compare me to an "over-reacting drama princess"? You? And then you proceed to write a five paragraph reply to a two sentence post? I've been reading this board since it's first few days online- I am well aware of your tendancies toward political histrionics.

DEA is not about busting some college kid for having a couple of joints in his pocket. DEA couldn't give a shit about that kind of thing. DEA is about intercepting cargo tankers full of Cambodian heroin and bound for west coast port cities in the US and Canada. DEA is about assisting small countries like Haiti in getting control of their drug issues, including other things like smuggling, slave labor, kidnappings, prostitution, illegal gambling, arms trafficking, bribery and extortion, which are all ancillary crimes to the drug industry. DEA is about supporting law enforcement agencies that have to worry about local and state jurisdictional issues.

Also, treatment programs and shelters are fine to a point, but many drug users don't bother to use such services even when available, or don't stay with it if they do. At some point you do have to make an effort to remove the drugs at the source.

DEA may not be winning the war on drugs, but to not fight it at all would be so much worse.

[Lalanae]

The alternative being better, right? Uncountable tons of hard, life-threatening drugs flowing out onto the streets without restriction is a good thing for you?

And thats not happening now? LOL Get a clue! I could buy crack in a half an hour, and its only that long cause downtown is 25 minutes away.

[Lalanae]

Several years ago for a speech class I did some research for a paper on legalizing majijuana. Before I go farther, note that I am not a smoker, I just feel that it made no sense to illegalize something that is far less destructive than a legal substance, alcohol. I ended up writing on the decrimilization of all drugs after seeing the facts.

A couple months ago, John Stossel had a special on the so called War on Drugs. It was by far the most brilliantly contructed piece of journalism I have ever seen. He covered every possible angle of the drug problem and consequently showed that the DEA is absolutely ineffective and that decrimilization of drugs would be the most logical way to go.

He even interviewed people such as a top ranking female attorney, a Catholic inner-city Priest, and a former top ranking government official (I want to say millitary, but don't recall off-hand) that feel strongly that drugs should be decriminilized.

Here is the audio version (MP3 or RealMedia) and transcript (scroll down)
http://highwire.stanford.edu/~straffin/dp/

I recommend you listen/read it. His logic is flawless, his coverage of the issue seamless.

And Mak, it does address how pointless and even destructive the govt's attempt to get rid of drugs at the "source" is. If you do not care to listen to it, I'll make a new post highlighting all the points.

[Lalanae]

Move to Canada and you don't need to worry about that kinda shit. You can then concern yourself with more important things like beer.

Can I move in with someone in Canada?

[Nick]

Take some mushrooms and go back to the garden.

[Mak]

Lalanae,

I listened to the 40+ minutes of the Stossel piece. It wasn't bad, but I wouldn't characterize it as flawless. Frankly, I sensed 'agenda' throughout the story and he certainly didn't seem to give equal time to both sides of the issue. As we have all seen from the 48 Hours report on EQ a couple of weeks ago, a reporter with an agenda can present 'facts' in a very skued manner and can be very selective in whom they choose to represent a particular viewpoint. I did find some interesting points that warrant further cogitation- the police chief from Detroit saying that "we can't arrest our way out" of the problem, for instance. But, I think Stossel might have gotten different opinions from other police departments elsewhere if he'd have asked.

I don't really see why Stossel chose to spend so much time trying to make me feel sorry for Columbian farmers. If he was advocating legalizing marijuana, and it's my opinion that he was, why concern himself with cocaine farmers? I can appreciate that life is tough for them but I'm assuming they managed to somehow survive before the cocaine trade. I suppose one can argue that it was an example of how money is wasted by the US in it's drug war, but even if we were to legalize marijuana the war on harder drugs would still continue, and probably with even more vigor.

Also, I don't think it's really fair to compare a country such as Netherlands to the US. It goes beyond simple percentages and per capita figures. The sheer size of the US compared to the Netherlands creates entirely different social dynamics, etc. and I don't really think one can apply what works there and necessarily get the same results here. Even in Stossel's report he mentions that despite legal marijuna in Amsterdam there is still an active illegal market for harder drugs. Figures I've seen say that Europe's over-all drug problem is on the rise with relation to harder drugs. One could very easily make the argument that readily accessible marijuana in Amsterdam leads to increased experimentation with the 'forbidden fruit' of harder drugs.

All in all I can agree with you that it is ridiculously easy to buy drugs of any sort in this country. I think that's unfortunate. I do still think, however, that an effort needs to be made. A billion dollars a year for the DEA is fairly small when talking an annual US budget of about 2 trillion dollars. I know for a fact that DEA efforts have made inroads in stemming the drug flow to smaller cities and towns throughout the country, so for me it's money well spent.

Do I think some kid should go to jail for having a joint in his pocket? No. Fined, yes, but I'll assume that we agree that jail for small time dope issues is harsh. I am curious to know, however, just how many casual pot smokers are actually in jail, as it's my guess it's lower than people would think. (Quick search indicates that in Florida, only 93 people are in jail for simple marijuana possesion out of 63,000 people incarcerated, and many of those are repeat offenders or have plead down to that from a more serious charge.) I could even be talked into true medical marijuana if it wasn't a perfectly healthy stoner trying to convince me of it each and every time.

I will continue to believe that we should make it as difficult as possible for the drug manufactures and wholesalers to ply their trade in this country. But thanks for the opportunity to think about it.

[Drasta]

i say ...legalize pot and tax the living hell outta it.... 1 joint ...20 bucks + 20% sales tax

[Lalanae]

This is an issue of what is logical and what has no foundation in logic. I have little patience for those who have "opinions" but dont even have the self-respect to figure out WHY they have an opinion or what the foundation for that opinion is.

and he certainly didn't seem to give equal time to both sides of the issue

He addressed all of the US's "solutions." You "sense" agenda, but yet it is the US government that absolutly refuses to even DISCUSS the issue or research the possibility of reform. Its the US government that sticks their fingers in their ears and says "lalala" when people point out that the DEA, for its billions invested, and almost 20 years of labor, has not worked.

I don't really see why Stossel chose to spend so much time trying to make me feel sorry for Columbian farmers. If he was advocating legalizing marijuana, and it's my opinion that he was, why concern himself with cocaine farmers?

First of all, the program was on drug decrimilization, not marijuana legalization. All drugs. Maybe you zoned out ("lalala?") after the opening segment on majijuana in Amsterdam, but the program was clearly about drugs in general. Also you seemed to have zoned out when he was clarifying WHY we should be concerned (NOT "sorry for") with Columbian farmers. Let me break it down for you.

1) As we destroy their opium crops, the farmers move deeper into the rainforest. This means continued destruction of the rainforest. If you dont understand why this is a big deal go to http://www.rainforestweb.org/ and read about why rainforests are important to us all.

2) Another environamental concern which also has direct human affects is the use of pesticides (and now herbicides which still use toxic surfectants). Saturating South America has lead to the destruction of more than just opium or majijuana plants, but the general poisoning of the habitat, its animal species and the farmers and their families.

3) Columbia is in an economic crisis, and just like the poor inner city kids who see the wealthy dealers, they are going to go with whatever makes the most money. If drugs WERE NOT ILLEGAL they WOULD NOT be worth so much money. Here in lies the whole premise of the program. The US GIVES DRUGS ITS HIGH DOLLAR VALUE by making it harder to obtain.

You know that commercial where the wine racks in a winery all collapse? The guy simply raises the price of what wine is left and smiles. Its simple economics. Just see that guy as a cartel and the broken bottles simply being destroyed crops.

It goes beyond simple percentages and per capita figures. The sheer size of the US compared to the Netherlands creates entirely different social dynamics, etc. and I don't really think one can apply what works there and necessarily get the same results here

Thats really stretching it. Social dynamics in one Western country compared to another are not all that different, especially when we are speaking of a general human need for escapism. Maybe if you could actually pose some real examples or give a real argument rather than "I think" with no foundation, I could actually address something here.

Figures I've seen say that Europe's over-all drug problem is on the rise with relation to harder drugs. One could very easily make the argument that readily accessible marijuana in Amsterdam leads to increased experimentation with the 'forbidden fruit' of harder drugs.

Not according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs & Drug Addiction http://www.emcdda.org/. Form the 2002 annual report: "Cannabis use increased markedly during the 1990s in most EU countries, particularly among young people, although in recent years its use can be levelling off in some countries. Cocaine use may have increased in recent years in some countries, although this trend is less clear."

Key words "may have" and "this trend is less clear." Also, you cannot make a correlation between a rise in one drug to the use of another without something to back your postulation up. The old "gateway drug" theory is a propaganda tactic that assumes by eliminating "soft" drugs such as marijuana people wont use hard drugs. Thats just silly. First of all if this were TRUE, alcohol and cigarettes should be outlawed immediately. They would be the REAL gateway drugs. Secondly, can you say that if you eliminate soft drugs people wont just go directly to the hard stuff? No, you can't. Therefore, your argument is ineffective.

I do still think, however, that an effort needs to be made. A billion dollars a year for the DEA is fairly small when talking an annual US budget of about 2 trillion dollars. I know for a fact that DEA efforts have made inroads in stemming the drug flow to smaller cities and towns throughout the country, so for me it's money well spent.

Quickly let me address the $$ issue. You shouldnt be so flip about a billion dollars just because of its relation to the overall budget. That money could be spent on EFFECTIVE programs, or not paid by taxpayers at all.

Now I have to ask you, why do you feel like this is such an important issue to you, the drug use of other people? Many people take these drugs recreationally, and while I do not personally agree with mnd-altering drugs to escape, I don't feel that it is my place to tell them they can't put what they want in their own bodies. You should be more concerned with alcohol, which has a greater chance of actually having an affect on YOUR life via drunk drivers. If you want to be righteous and monitor peoples personal lives, at least pick a vice that kills INNOCENT people. Don't concern yourself with the heroin addict that chooses to kill himself slowly or the Wallstreet playboy who like a little cocaine with his martini. In the wors of the great social commentator Voltaire, "We must tend to our own gardens."

I am curious to know, however, just how many casual pot smokers are actually in jail, as it's my guess it's lower than people would think.

*Sigh* Missed the boat again. In Stossel's report he was talking about the fact that jails are full of those who *sold* drugs, not just possession. Incarcerating someone for selling drugs is stupid for 3 reasons: 1) Cost to taxpayers 2) Not a violent crime and not a theft crime 3) Someone is just going to take their place on the street. It doesn't have a positive effect on society. As illustrated, the role of dealer would not be such a coveted one if it weren't for the money. And until the US reforms its policy, drugs will carry that large price tag and dealers will have the money and power that they want.

Next time, please listen to the program a little better and don't post unless you have something to back up why you think what you do. Just havin' a feeling about something usually means you're following the great propaganda herd.

Also, please refer to the the 2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse
http://www.samhsa.gov/oas/nhsda/2k1nhsd ... apter5.htm and you will see that since the DEA existance, drug use has not fallen. In many cases it has risen sharply. The DEA claims they are there to keep drugs out of the hands of young people, yet they haven't done a damn thing have they?

[Nick]

It's quite simple really.....

------
Do I think some kid should go to jail for having a joint in his pocket? No. Fined, yes
-----

You're a retard.

[Krimson Klaw]

just tax it and your *fine* is taken care of. viola. I would imagine violent crimes surronding selling drugs would drop to zero if it were not illegal, not to mention saving tons of taxpayers cash for having to incarcerate these guys. I know I know, it's weird for a conservative to have this view, but it makes sense. It's no different than aclohol in my view. Prohibition was a violent time as well. Not many people getting blasted for smuggling/selling moonshine these days.

[Dregor Thule]

First of all, and it's rather hard to say this, I agree with Kyoukan for the most part. Where I disagree is that while this really doesn't mean jack shit now, it's the groundwork for other potential systems/uses. The only reason we're even hearing about it now is to help gain public support, therefore more military funding. If I lived in the States that is...

I'll also field Xanupox's comment on why such a large percentage of the popullation of Canada lives close to the US/Canada border. There is an environmental phenomenon we like to call the Canadian Shield. What this is is an area of land, going from northern Quebec, through northern Ontario, and up in the North-West Territories basically. This land is generally harsh, rocky land, mostly clay, and generally a pain in the ass to cultivate and build upon. That's the largest reason why we stay to the south. Add in climate changes the further north you go, distance from major waterways, economic reasons, cost of development, and amount of people actually in this country and space needed, and yea, it becomes more and more questionable as to why we'd want to heavily popullate the northern areas of our fair country.

That's not to say its a barren wasteland devoid of human civilization. People live there, they do just fine, just not the same levels as those to the south. I'll refrain from commenting much on the western provinces and just make some guesses, since I've never been further west than Ontario, but you'll notice that they do indeed go further north there. In Manitoba, Winnipeg is situated much further north compared to most of the popullation in Ontario. Alberta has both Edmonton and Calgary much further norther than the popullation of Ontario as well. BC, well, if I had to hazzard a guess, it being predominantly forests, not to mention those things we call the Rocky Mountains vetoing the eastern border of the province, it made sense to settle along the coast for the most part, an idylic place for cities to grow, as was common sense for the most prosperous settlements initially to be near the major waterways.

And if you're wondering, yes, you're still on STFU. Someone quoted your dumb ass, and I'm actually kind of glad they did.