Slashdot Mirror
US Open Government Initiative Enters Phase Three
circletimessquare writes "The Obama administration opened a discussion forum in January of this year which has become an electronic suggestion box. It is now entering stage three, following brainstorm and discussion phases: the draft phase, in which the top subject matter is codified into suggestions for the government. 'Ultimately, the visitors advanced more than 3,900 ideas, which in turn spawned 11,000 comments that received 210,000 thumb votes. The result? Three of the top 10 most popular ideas called for legalizing marijuana, and two featured conspiracy theories about Mr. Obama's true place of birth.'"
I'm fairly certain they're still ignoring the issue that the most people were interested in changing, legalization of marijuana.
http://CryoLANparty.com/ A lan I'm staff on!
Not sure if that's a brilliant idea or not, but surely removing it from schedule 1 status is the right thing to do.
That Nixon-era policy makes classifies it as having "no medicinal value" and is considered "highly addictive". Both are jokes.
The status above cocaine gives law enforcement more incentive to go after potheads than Colombian smugglers. Ridiculous.
Ahh, once again, the power of the internet proves that the majority of people are pretty stupid. Of course, we already knew that because of Myspace. Yay glitter!
Seriously, from all the important topics available for discussion, they care with marijuana legalization and President's birth place?
I'm sure most people don't know that marijuana is the most common cause of acute psychosis in adolescents.
Hmm. Our economy is a disaster. We have two wars going on with no real plan to get out of either. We have a health care problem in this country that nobody has proposed a meaningful solution to. The national debt is increased every year with no end in sight. We have multiple states on the verge of financial ruin. Our national infrastructure is falling apart in many ways and places. Our education system is falling behind further every year.
And several critical countries around the world are increasingly unstable; including one that is developing nuclear weapons and ICBMs that could reach our country.
And for some reason marijuana is an important issue? Are you kidding me? I don't see how it could possibly be more relevant than any of the issues I already listed. If we could solve all of them, then I would be comfortable with our national government looking into this "marijuana issue" (whatever the hell the issue is). But until then I don't see why it merits the time of our government.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The article gets it right in saying it is a "suggestion box." All we can do is suggest to our rulers what we want them to do: they still get to decide. This is still not democracy. It's barely even a democratic republic.
If you want real democracy, please consider joining the Metagovernment project which is a collective of projects working to make governance a truly open system for everyone.
Also, consider attending Participation Camp. The virtual meeting started this morning, and there will be a brainstorm session tomorrow morning (1500GMT, ie 11:00 AM Eastern).
I think I see a flaw in your cunning plan, Mr. President: The people who voted for you are also online. And dear god, are they stupid. Don't feel bad though; The ones that voted for the other guy aren't any smarter. -_- But then, what did you really expect? Given a choice between democracy and educated civil discourse, or a large smack of porn and screaming matches, 9 out of 10 internet users prefer the latter. And the 10th one was a cat walking over the keyboard.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
"Visitors could flag off-topic comments", says the NYT article.
I wonder if the off-topic commenters were then told they had "bad karma".
Explicit comparisons (see the article) of this scheme with Wikipedia, echoes in it of Slashdot — I suppose all of this will be taken by the "birthers" (so active there, we read) and other wingnuts as yet more evidence of a nefarious conspiracy toward the construction of a socialist caliphate.
is so that elections aren't about a 'controversy' like Obama's birthplace. A republic works reasonably well if the citizens participate in it. Few of you can comment with any authority on that last statement.
What's scarier though, is that Obama's birthplace is, at this point in his presidency *still* an issue. Getting those voters participating some other way is critical.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
It's not surprising people want to get get high.
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So when is one of Obama's relatives going to buy him a Cadillac so Jack Klompus can start the impeachment hearings?
Let's just hope Biden didn't steal anyone's marble rye.
Simple. If you can remove the politicians. Completely. And it still works, or works even better. :)
I know it will happen. I just wonder when. :)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I understand you wish to choose your fights, Mr. President, and you are saving your ammo for the Health Care battles ahead. But trust me, if you do the right things on the above issues, you will have an army of support on the progressive side that will overwhelm your opposition on Universal Health Care.
I can see the fnords!
I'm one of those alien believer nutjobs.
Okay, I don't think of myself as a nutjob, but who does right?
I think however, when discussing an 'Open Government' and how to be an open goverment, it shouldn't really be suprising that people were asking for information that if it exists (If, just because I think 'they are out there' doesn't mean I think they've puttered around watching our dumb asses unless theres some form of intragalatic 'Simple Life' we're in) is probably classified to absolutely all hell and back or simply gets destroyed.
Do I think the goverment has UFO info? Yes, it does, but its probably something like 'Pilot reported seeing lights in the sky' or 'We haven't seen shit Mr President, there is nothing out there that we've found'.
I highly doubt they are hiding a bunch of stuff, its just too long and too hard to do it on a global scale without more 'proof' slipping out.
With all that said, isn't this kind of request more in tune with what the point of the website was than say all the legalize it posts or other random crap? I mean, requesting info on things that the goverment won't tell us about is kind of the point of the site right? So these 'nutjobs' really are using the site for what its for, which most of the people who posted things that would be considered intelligent on other topics utterly missed the point. It was a place to discuss gaining access to information about UFOs, JFK conspiracies as well as actual important things that matter in transparency.
You can make fun of the 'nutjobs', I will too, some of the theories you hear about fringe topics are just so insane you can't help but break out into uncontrollable laughter when you hear them.
I just feel its important to note that at least they were on topic to some extent. The should have been discussing how to add transparency and openness in general, not basically use it as a public submission for for FOIA requests.
Oh and for the record, just freaking legalize it and save everyone the time and effort, if nothing else maybe we'll stop being it brought up at the slightest excuse :)
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I used pot so I know.
It dumbs down people who use it.
I stopped early, once I realized what it was doing to me and how I was going around and trying to convince everybody it wasn't a problem.
Pot is to humans, like catnip is to cats.
Seriously, from all the important topics available for discussion, they care with marijuana legalization and President's birth place?
Of all the important topics available for discussion, yes, the internet users who happened to hear about this and cared enough did choose those. The only people who still care about Obama's place of birth congregate online. This is not a good example of american mentality, unless you define american mentality as what you run into in the dark corners of the net.
I have a few guesses at some of the other items that were high on the list
-What's at area 51 really?
-Who shot JFK really?
-Did we actually land on the moon?
None of which are concerns for most americans.
I'm sure most people don't know that marijuana is the most common cause of acute psychosis in adolescents.
I'm sure I don't care, and I'm also sure that even though I have no desire to see it legalized, that's a terrible reason to keep it illegal for everyone who is not an adolescent.
The non-static pages on the site, which was outsourced to "mixedink.com", just produce an endless busy icon, with the word "thinking". OK, bad vendor choice.
I googled this out of interest.
Has the theory that the "Certificate of Live Birth" is a forgery been proved false anywhere?
Based on the images the immediate impression from the pictures is that something IS wrong with the certificate:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/07/19/image6.jpg
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/07/19/image10.jpg
http://i349.photobucket.com/albums/q393/colbstuff/image7.gif
(Disclaimer: "biased source" is not an argument, as any source positive or even neutral to Obama would obviously not carry this regardless, hence by definition the only possible source would be a biased source)
I am simply interested in hearing if there are views that justify these differences between Obama's certificate and any other certificate issued in the period based on image analysis. Links would be welcome.
Don't tax us for your healthcare program or we will cut employees.
**Hell socialists would love that. More ditch digging jobs.
i hadn't the foggiest about this plain old text/ html bullshit
i'll be sure to use this arcane knowledge if i submit again
apologies
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Would have been much easier to just write:
"I'm an idiot"
Try voting for something worthwhile on OGD: http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/5814-4049
The irony of this is, twofold: One, this is the administration that that had added a huge increase to tobacco taxes, and these people think that the government is actually going to legalize marijuana? Hah hah hah! Good one.
Two, it's just sad that our country's main concern is legalizing some drug that's major benefit is to get people high. While marijuana has a lot of medical uses, and banning it is pointless, it's just pathetic that nobody cares about inflation, an overzealous foreign policy, the sick demented system of child "protection" services ruined to scam parents and ruin the family, the court system being a guilty-until-proven-innocent fiasco where the court orders you to prove your innocence and you have to pay for court costs, drugs tests, psych exams, and etc. to prove your innocence, and freedom from censorship. Nope, us Americans gotta have our weed! Gotta get high so we won't have any other problems to worry about, just pretend they don't exist with a nice pipe in front of us.
I guess there is also a third point of irony: Weed stupifies you, you'd think the government would favor deregulating it so they could tax it to the sky's limit and get more money off of you that way, while having a bunch of people too high to care about the other rights the government keeps taking away.
and give rise to revolution or a strong man who throws out all the rights in the republic to reestablish order, leading to autocracy
if you aren't explicit about the whole democracy thing, you wind up with an aristocratic elite with a firm grip on the government. study the history of all republics, this is a natural evolution. for all of its flaws, democracy has a feature which trumps everything else: it manufactures legitimacy. the will of the people is consulted, and the government is chosen from that will. the people are happy they have their say. there is always malcontent, in any system, but it is held at a minimum in democracy
without the explicit consultation democracy provides, the will of the people and the agenda of the ruling class begin to drift apart over time. simple miscommunication and entropy can be the culprit, no real malice, although there's always enough of that around. mistrust and illegtimacy is the result, and social stability decays, eventually leading to outright revolt or an incredibly weak government that gives way to a strong man and autocracy who reestablishes order, but at the cost of all the precious rights you look to a republic to guarantee
so you're stuck with democracy. it provides stability. a republic without democracy isn't stable, it decays
and i really have to wonder what makes you so distrustful of your fellow man. some sort of blind conceit on your part probably, a personal failure of yours
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I hope a drunk hillbilly runs you off the road, you lose some limbs, a kidney, get a pin in your hip, and end up with 200k of medical bills and the inability to ever get out of your chair and do another bit of work to earn your pay for the rest of your life. Then when you get wheeled out of the hospital, I'd love to see the look on your face and reality sets in... that 200k was just for your stay... You have a lifetime of expensive medical needs... you will never have a job to pay for it all... there will never be enough charity to pay it all... and it wasn't your fault. At that moment, I will spit in your face. You deserve no less, sir.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Okay, I'll bite.
I agree if you don't have car insurance and your car gets smashed up, too bad. I shouldn't have to carry insurance for your car either, you protect your car, I'll protect mine. That is fair. Doesn't work well, but I'm for it. You'd have to make it legal to shoot random idiot drivers on the spot as well but hey, thats not a bad idea either.
I'm all for taking warning labels off of places that common sense should do, like lawn mowers that tell you not to pick them up and use them as hedge trimmers.
However, I do have a problem with the idea of that doctors can not help people. Take the whole hypocratic oath out of the process so we can realize these people aren't there to help us, they are there to make money. Stop allowing companies to use government funded medical research to produce patented products. Basically make the entire medical industry normal citizens instead of giving them special perks (including a higher status level in society) for 'helping people' because thats not what they are doing. Allow me some actual form of retribution or way to actually punish them if any form of malice occurs, malpractice insurance is basically a get out of jail card.
Of course, we'd probably end up with a lot fewer doctors if treated them like we treat our garbage men, car mechanics and IT people wouldn't we?
Yes. I do expect you to pay for it, if it is something that a majority of our country thinks we should do. Thats the reality of living in a civilized society, the majority rules, regardless of what you want, sorry. In many ways if done right it really is easier and cheaper for everyone if we all do it together. Corruption ensure thats practically impossible, but thats true with pretty much any system, people are corrupt.
As for financials, again I agree.
Lost a bunch of money? Too fucking bad. I shouldn't be bailing your dumb ass, our your company out. The company I work for isn't getting bonuses for running its business worse than a grade school lemonade stand. To go along with that however, I damn sure expect a way that I came make the bastards who lost the money pay for what they've done. $50k can literally make or break most families in America. Give them 50k and they can make a few intelligent choices and live nicely regardless of just about any existing financial situation. Take 50k away from most Americans and they'll be in such a sorry financial state that they can not function. These guys lost billions. Do you know how many chunks of 50k we're talking about. Do you realize how many families that equates too? That have been ruined? They suffer, and I'm not allowed to torture these bastards to the point of death, heal them, repeat 50k times and finally execute them in public, with all the other people that do this sort of work in the front row? I'd almost expect you to throw in their families as well, just to ensure that they can no longer harm the gene pool in any conceivable way.
Of course, you wouldn't expect people to actually be able to hold you truly accountable in your life, would you? Your employer never let you make a mistake? How much cheaper is your health insurance because your employer subsidizes a portion of it?
I realize how you feel and what you're saying, but do you realize what the implications of what you are saying actually are? Is your life truly so perfect that you are impervious to harm and will never need a little help after something mind numbingly unexpected happened? I really don't want things to be 'fair' as life without society would dictate, it would seem to me to be a very difficult life and probably wouldn't really leave me much time to bullshit with trolls on slashdot.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
As a person with an addictive personality, I have to say it's my opinion that legalizing all drugs is a very bad idea unless the government is willing to pump a steady stream of unlimited drugs into the population for free...all drugs. If not, then the war on drugs, the war on addiction really, will still need to be fought. The people who cause problems for everyone else with their drug use will still be looking for a high.
That being said, I'm not completely against marijuana legalization, although it won't be the panacea many make it out to be. You won't be able to grow it, after all, you cannot make your own liquor. The government can't tax something you grow easily. And, in my first-hand experience there are definitely affects of long term use yet to be realized.
add a few more, real and imagined
and marijuana is still less harmful than alcohol and nicotine. do you really want to stack the health effects of marijuana you list against the health effects of nicotine or alcohol?
and so its not logically coherent to have nicotine and alcohol legal, and thc illegal. ban all three, or legalize all three. that's the only logically coherent position. a sound pharmacological understanding of the relative effects of the three drugs leads to the inevitable conclusion that making one of the three illegal is arbitrary, and really nothing more than a racist historical artifact from when marijuana was a scary loco weed that mexicans used. the frontier judge's daddy meanwhile was a proper german or irish drunk: familiarity. therefore, legality. no other good reason exists for marijuana's illegality than historical xenophobia. certainly not pharmacological science
i can see meth permanently banned and the DEA waging war on that drug forever. same with cocaine, same with heroin. the addictiveness of these drugs is off the charts, combined with long term incapacitation (unlike nicotine, which is extremely addictive, but doesn't incapacitate). you can't work. you can't have a relationship. you can take meth, cocaine, and heroin and turn someone who would otherwise have a productive life into a zombie that forsakes the difficulties of your average relationship and your average job in order to feed a need
but marijuana? its lightweight
please. this isn't about legalization of all drugs, just marijuana. and please don't suggest legalizing marijuana means we have legalize far, far worse substances. that's like saying allowing gay marriage means we will have to legalize bestiality and necrophilia. fear mongering bullshit
just legalize marijuana already. keep the hardcore substances banned. its simple pharmacological common sense
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Three of the top 10 most popular ideas called for legalizing marijuana, and two featured conspiracy theories about Mr. Obama's true place of birth.'"
What a great country the US is (and I mean it sincerely) considering the nearly three hundred million idiots that inhabit it
If you lose your job because of your absolutely woeful ability to spell and write a cohesive block of text and then fall critically ill you will change your tune.
You types always do.
Let me guess you are a middle class twenty something borne out of middle class white collar parents and have cruised through middle class high schools into college and out into the world of IT weighed down by the fevered ego and irrational belief that it was all made possible only through your own rugged individualism and determination against all odds(TM)?
Such a pity.
I'm all for legalizing pot but if they do it I'd want to see some pretty big requirements about where you can smoke it. The second hand smoke from it would be a lot bigger problem than normal cigarettes.
1. Everyone is entitled to as much healthcare and medical treatment as they can afford
2. Get hurt or sick and need money for treatment? That's what insurance is for. You can buy insurance from a private company. (Advice: might want to get that on your house and car too while you're at it)
3. Oh you don't have insurance? Well I guess that was pretty stupid of you not to get insurance, eh?
4. If you're too poor to pay for insurance or too stupid to buy it before you get sick, well then you can always go to a private charity or a church or something and maybe they'll help you out.
5. If they don't help you out, well then... guess it was really dumb not to get insurance?
Well, no, that's what insurance is for in a Third World Country (which the United States now is...) I don't care what its GDP is, the high level of people living in absolute poverty, the unemployment rate, the homelessness everywhere, the USA is now a Third World Country, period.
In a First World Country you have Public Health Care for all citizens.
You also get unemployment benefits.
There are many great First World Countries out there.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
How are you going to tax me on a plant I can grow in my closet? Go on, tell me, I need a good laugh... this herb isn't doing it, man.
So, I'm middle class income. I bought health insurance, disability insurance, life insurance, etc. I also buy supplemental insurance to cover anything that the primary health or disability insurance doesn't cover, so I'm fully, 100% covered for any contingency like the one you described above.
Now, I get in the accident and have 200k for hospital stays (fully covered), lifetime income (fully covered), and lifetime health insurance (fully covered). Now my neighbor who never bothered with any of that ends up in the same condition. Are you arguing that despite the fact that he didn't take any of the precautions I did, he should be entitled to it? And who should pay for that? The government? Why then did I bother then to get covered?
If the government is going to cover us all, we might as well do away with private insurance. Yay! I was tired of paying those disability and supplemental insurance premiums anyway! I'm absolutely sure the government would have a better run system that costs less. There's no way this agency could go bad, it would have just one mission: helping the people. The executive branch would always make sure only the best non-partisan people were appointed to head this agency and the money would never be misused. And efficiency? It's logistics and operations would be the envy of every private business out there. And jobs, lots of jobs, this is money that is much better spent here in government, the number of jobs created is far more than all those private insurance businesses employed anyway. Bring it on!
is not empty pronouncements followed with "or else!"
any moron can say "don't conceive a child you didn't mean to!" "don't get addicted to nicotine!" "don't gamble all your money away!" "don't not have health insurance!"
"you did?"
"oh well!"
any idiot can say these things
but this is not morality
a true moral compass is what your policy is about people who cross these thresholds of bad behavior
beware social policies that are more cruel than the the supposed "crime" someone committed. some people actually believe in a "morality" that makes society implicitly more immoral than those who do immoral acts. some supposed vanguard of "morality" proscribe punishments worse than the "crime" they are punishing. a true moral society always punishes people less than the magnitude of their crime. crime feeds crime. so if you are exceptionally harsh relative to the crime someone committed, you are actually pumping more cruelty into the system. thereby breeding more crime
for example: "you don't have health insurance and you broke your arm? oh well! sucks to be you!"
you don't want society to have a common fund for such people? ok
but what your ignorant ass doesn't realize is that not paying to have the uninsured guy have his armed fix costs society a hell of a lot more. if the guy is the sole breadwinner int he family, now you have a family starves, that can't afford to educate its children resulting in people with no marketable skills, that forces people to turn to crime in desperation to feed themselves, to become beggars. this is a hell of a lot more expensive than just fixing the uninsured guys arm
but i know people like you. out of your ignorant blind selfishness for not agreeing to a common fund to fix the guys arms, you'll look down your nose at him as he is forced to therefore beg in the street, unemployable
there's a lot of blind ignorant types like you in the world. and your selfish ignorance costs society a hell of a lot more than the uninsured, that's for sure
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
but a little self-destruction is good for you: wipe away the memories after a hard week's work, unwind with friends in pointless banter... social drug use of reliatvely weak drugs liek alcohol or marijuana is a social lubricant that serves to promote a mentally relaxed and balanced and healthy and happy society
but apparently you subscribe to the grim puritan model of hard work all day followed by penance
i didn't know life was a penal colony. or rather, why some sadists/ masochists like you think it should be
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Of course you're describing exactly the system that the US has already. How clever of you.
Except you've omitted one tiny fact: the US system costs the US government (and thus US taxpayers) approximately 4 TIMES MORE per citizen than socialized systems, and the quality of care is demonstrably lower.
You don't do socialized medicine because it's kinder to poor people (although it is)
You don't do socialized medicine because it creates a healthier and more productive population (although it does)
You don't do socialized medicine because it removes the profit motive (i.e. denial of care) from the healthcare equation (although it helps to do this)
You do socialized medicine because it's cheaper.
Anyone who tells you that socialized medicine is more expensive, and/or will lead to a poorer standard of care, either works for a US insurance company, or is willfully ignoring all the evidence from every other industrialized 1st world country, or, like you I suspect, is just a fsckwit.
I'd just throw in the towel. That I survived at all was a fluke. Since none of that gives me any right to make demands on others for my healthcare, and I can't take care of myself, there is only one graceful thing left to do.
In the country where I currently live, a high profile politician tried an online suggestion box, specifically stating they would base their party program on it.
Predictably, the suggestion box was rapidly filled with exactly the populist crap you expect to be posted on an unmoderated, anonymous political forum: insults, trolling, racist and xenophobic rants, spam, flame wars and advertisements.
Politicians: do not go online just for the sake of looking modern, hip and in touch, you just end up showing just how much out of touch you really are.
I don't want my politicians to be modern, hip and in touch, I prefer them to be more mature than I am.
Starting a comment off with bigoted slurs against rural people is hardly the way to win people over. But here it is, marked +5 insightful no less.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Wow, you're a douche.
Seriously. Douche.
What happens to the guy who spent 20 years paying his insurance costs while working for a single company, never getting sick a day of those 20 years, then you suddenly get laid off due to downsizing? Losing your insurance benefits, you walk out frustrated with your box of crap off your desk and you get hit by a bus. Damn son, you shoulda had insurance.
Or how about that single mother of 2 who works 2 jobs and has to decide between insurance and having a house, getting utilities, and feeding her kids. Too bad her husband died in Iraq and her family passed away from congenital heart disease and cancer. But you know, it's all her fault.
Your incessant whine about how people are stupid for not having insurance or should "have more money" as if cash can just appear out of nowhere is ridiculous. You say people should go to night school to earn more money. Do you realize that night school costs money and, I dunno, some vital resource called sleep?
Jesus. I thought I was an arrogant, selfish son of a bitch and then I read this shit. But hey, let's let the company set their own costs so that a simple checkup costs me $200. Perfectly legit since only people who deserve to be healthy can pay for it.
I'm absolutely sure the government would have a better run system that costs less.
Actually, the medical systems in countries with socialized medicine or socialized medical insurance do run better and cost less. Steve Jobs wouldn't be able to buy himself a new liver like he just did, but the aggregate health outcomes would be vastly superior. There's a reason that the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate in the first world.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
I've lived in other countries and I have to say I don't think those other countries hold a candle to the U.S. when it comes to treating diseases, illnesses, or injuries; however, they do in some cases have better health care "systems" with a greater focus on prevention.
Even if the other countries do manage to do it with fewer costs and a better system, I don't have faith that whatever emerges out of say, the latest health care reform push will actually end up costing us less and be better even if it ends up being full-blown social medicine, do you?
... *technical* chief technology officer ????
An advanced technology degree, preferably in EE/CS/CE should be required
for this position.
Obama's chief tech officer is a NY Law School Professor.
Will our next Surgeon General be a copyright lawyer perhaps ????
So registering on the site isn't https. I know this isn't credit card information but still, I wonder how many people use the same password for this as they do their email. Too easy to snoop such a high profile web server.
>How are you going to tax me on a plant I can grow in my closet?
When you can go to the farmers market and buy four pounds for five dollars, the fifth dollar being the tax, you're not going to bother with closet horticulture.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
The better way is to mark up your paragraphs as paragraphs by wrapping them in <p>...</p>.
Tax on electricity and water bills? I hear that growing weed requires a lot of both.
Brits have plenty of hooligans, I'm afraid...
they are called "chav"s nowadays
>How are you going to tax me on a plant I can grow in my closet?
When you can go to the farmers market and buy four pounds for five dollars, the fifth dollar being the tax, you're not going to bother with closet horticulture.
Weed at a dollar a pound and a $0.25 tax per pound? Heh. The weed you're smoking to come up with figures like that probably sells for $100 per quarter ounce.
I've lived in other countries and I have to say I don't think those other countries hold a candle to the U.S. when it comes to treating diseases, illnesses, or injuries; however, they do in some cases have better health care "systems" with a greater focus on prevention.
Even if the other countries do manage to do it with fewer costs and a better system, I don't have faith that whatever emerges out of say, the latest health care reform push will actually end up costing us less and be better even if it ends up being full-blown social medicine, do you?
That's the problem. The US treats *everything*, even if "wait and see" is the best decision. That's the profit motive at work - more medicine for the patients. But more medicine usually makes you sicker.
It wouldn't be a problem if patients were smart enough to treat themselves, but then they would be doctors.
Information asymmetry messes up markets.
African-Americans are more likely to have lower education levels (due to high crime rates in their schools, which is caused by the vicious cycle of poverty, racism, and non-blacks fleeing black schools which causes the schools to ghettoize). I bet people with low education levels are more likely to be racist.
Hispanics and Asian-Americans had no reason to discriminate for McCain and Obama, but they might vote for a Hispanic or Asian-American candidate.
Or maybe African-Americans feel that race is an issue, because they feel they have been discriminated against more?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Almost one million arrests per year ? 50 to 100,000 people or so in jail at any one time for possession ?
Do you have a reliable source for any of that? Those numbers are thrown around by the pro-pot-propagandists all the time, but they never have good sources to back them up.
And being arrested while under the influence in public and charged with possession is a far, far different thing than being arrested "just for possession". In case you haven't noticed, most law enforcement officers don't have x-ray vision; they need a reason to search someone. If that person was at home or otherwise not attracting attention they wouldn't give the police reason to search them.
In other words, marijuana enforcement is, in application, quite similar to alcohol enforcement. Pot just has a faster growing lobby (no pun intended).
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
btw: I have a friend that used to smoke pot every single day. He is now in a psychiatric hospital with a severe psychosis and paranoia. If you want to fsck up your brain, do it alone. Don't mislead other people
There's no way to know if you friend wouldn't have developed psychosis anyway. It's likely that if he had no access to pot, he would have become addicted to another substance. It's also likely that genetic factors have to play.
By equivalence of argument, alcohol should be banned to, since it's addictive and has horrendous side-effects for chronic use. Stuff like fetal-alcohol syndrome (brain damaged kids), brain damage, and complete degeneration of the individuals life. I have alcohol in my fridge right now, and it gets touched once in a blue moon. For some people, if they touch alcohol, they may as well be injecting heroin. The difference is genetic, and the results are truly sad.
But we don't ban alcohol, because many people enjoy a little bit every now and again, and it's fine. Same goes for pot.
Perhaps the situation for people like your friend, is to understand why it happened, and then take proactive steps for other at risk individuals. Understanding is what that brain on the top of you head is for.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
"VOTE, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country."
â" Ambrose Bierce
America wants to read their new president's long-form birth certificate and college transcripts, stoned.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
You reek of a socialist control freak.
The UK gov did the same here and even though some points ( extra national holidays I think ) got something like 700,000 votes, it was still completely ignored.
Just an excuse for the gov to look they are "down" with the IT literate proles. Load of fecking lip-service cack!
Hope the US does it properly, the UK one is a big waste of taxes and time!
Yes. The current definitions stand as:
A Republic is "Of the people for the people," and a democracy is "Of the politicians for the people."
So you are saying that your next door neighbor DOESN'T deserve to be covered because he has a Forrest Gump IQ and can only seem to hold down mundane minimum wage jobs?
Fact of the matter is, not everyone has the same opportunities. It isn't about how much "effort" you put into it. If no one informed you, life isn't fair and we all aren't on equal ground. By default no one person is more deserving than another. Measuring who deserves what, based on what opportunities are afforded to them is naive at best.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Legalizing Marijuana might make the Taliban switch to growing pot to fund their intense interest in the anatomy of the neck, as well as the abrasive behavior of the whip. Then again these buggers are so dumb they cannot even read the Koran.
of any other government in the world in what way?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"I strongly prefer that we tax vices, not necessities."
Agreed, the US alone spends $100 Billion/yr just to enforce pot prohibition, the DEA recieves $10 billion/yr of that directly, again this is just for pot. Pot is the largest cash crop in the US in dollar terms (yes bigger than corn, cotton, wheat, etc). Take that $100 billion/yr plus the tax bonanza on legal pot and fix the health system or something useful. Once the US legalises pot the rest of the western world will follow.
One american is arrested for pot every 18 seconds. And yes, he is getting sick and tired of it!
Citation
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Just because you can doesnt mean you will. If i'm not incorrect one can grow tobacco too, and think how much people spend on (taxed to hell) cigarettes.
there is malcontent in any system, but in a democracy it is kept at a minimum because the people's will is explicitly addressed
in any republic that does not do this, an entrenched aristocratic elite develops and the agenda of that elite and the people begin to drift apart
then you have revolution
or a weakened government, allowing for a strong man to come in and dissolve all of your rights so as to reestablish order, autocratic order
so you really need to be a democracy, for the legitimacy and social stability that creates
and i don't know how or why you or anyone thinks the usa isn't a democracy. i believe barack obama was just elected by the people of the usa
for saying that, i am now awaiting of course the typical incoherent rants about media mind control and corporate money controlling everything
no folks, the usa is not an oligarchy, no, its not a corporatocracy. it has plenty of room for improvement and to get financial influence out of the system of course, but it fares no worse in regards to undue financial influence than any other government in the world today or any that has ever existed, or any you could dream up. money is a horrible corrupting influence on all governments, and it takes real hard effort to curb that, not some magical ideological statement you think has occured to no one else before except you
painting a dystopian picture and trying to equate it with what we currently have is some sort of weird desperate attempt on your part to vindicate your failed perceptions
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
let's assume, for a moment, that your description of our current system is (snicker) accurate
so what, in a few of your words, would be a superior system to the current system in the usa?
it's easy to paint a horrible dystopian picture and try to equate it with reality. this is just creative propaganda on your part
its far harder to actually propose a superior workable solution
so put your money with your mouth is, out with it: what, in your mind, is a superior system?
anyone can criticize anything, its easy. very few can actually build something better
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Weed at a dollar a pound and a $0.25 tax per pound? Heh. The weed you're smoking to come up with figures like that probably sells for $100 per quarter ounce.
You do realize that retail price is far far lower when it's not a black market good, right?
For marijuana, legalize and tax it using the tax funds toward drug rehabilitation and education. Provide prescription access to heroin in ways that have been proven in other countries to cut down on use. For the harder drugs, take them by a case by case basis and approach it in an intelligent, non-kneejerk, manner that addresses the real issues.
There was some talk of him running for president as a Republican in 2012.
Check out:
http://www.garyjohnson2012.com/
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Although in general people should be responsible for themselves, there are so many problems with your rant I can't begin to cover them all.
1) Are current model is if you get heart disease without insurance, you have the operation anyway, run up hundreds of thousands in debt, then declare bankruptcy, leaving all the paying health care customers to make up the difference. Good luck with passing a law restricting health care to only those who pay fully in advance!
2) Not all diseases are directly caused by behavior. Some people are genetically predisposed to cancer, diabetes, and even obesity, and will contract diseases no matter how healthy their lifestyle. I'm sorry, but "Born with a congenital medical condition? Well, you should have picked better parents, asshole!" doesn't really cut it.
3) Your philosophy of "do whatever it takes to pay for your own health care" seems to encourage armed robbery, murder, kidnapping, drug dealing... whatever it take to afford it. Faced with committing a crime or dying, most people would choose to do the crime. After all, if they fail, they won't live long in jail anyway.
4) It is human nature to not place a high value on preventative care, and only seek treatment when symptoms start to have a tangible effect on their life. It is in the best interests of all of us to subsidize preventative medicine, e.g. vaccinations. I agree that not all procedures should be subsidized. The Oregon Health Plan sorts all procedures by cost/benefit ratio, then draws a cut line based on available funds. A national health plan would need to do the same; we simply cannot afford to take extraordinary measures to prolong the life of everyone. Note that we already have a system that rations scarce donor organs, e.g. one cannot get a liver transplant if they have a history of alcohol use.
5) Demand curves for medical services are the most inelastic imaginable. The free market simply doesn't work to keep medical costs in check. (When was the last time you heard of someone shopping around for an emergency room?) Individuals paying out of their own pocket must pay whatever the supplier demands. The consumer would be better off with a system in which medical goods and services are purchased in bulk by a large enough player to lean on suppliers and drive costs down, the way Walmart does with everything it sells.
6) There is a fine line between being true to libertarian ideals and being an asshole.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
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I'm only mildly interested in the question of marijuana legalization, but it seems to me that the parent is correct - the gov't IS ignoring the legalization issue raised in the open government forum. What's flamebait about that?
I didn't say it was different. I said that it wasn't created by some saint for a higher purpose, but rather negotiated by a bunch of people who were already on the top of the heap and felt that it would help them stay there. It was created in the manner that it was created for the enrichment of a few people and the maintenance of their dynasty, and it worked.
It's not an effective democracy because it wasn't created by people who believed in democracy. It was created to be an ineffective democracy and sold to a bunch of rubes who didn't know better.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
but i don't see a valid opinion about the founding of the usa. you could spin the same tired cynical crap about the founding of any country in the world. with you, i just see a personality disorder at work: typical tired hysterical cynicism. your words speak less about the actual founding of the usa, and more about your own spastic mind
it's all a big trick! by big corporations! the sheeple believe anything!
zzz
retarded. not even very original
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
When I saw the words "sheep" and "wolves", I was certain that the word "sheepdogs" would inevitably follow. Dodged a bullet, there. Whew.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
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I have a serious chronic condition. I have a very comprehensive health insurance (pretty much everything) and can go to any hospital I want - I actually live close to the "model" hospital for one of the biggest medical technology companies in Europe and the world, and it _is_ impressive. I've never used it, except for dental. It just so happens that the public hospitals are the state of the art (when it comes to the healthcare, though not always on the buildings) and I never felt the need to get out. I'm skipping on the resort-style amenities, of course, but I don't really care. Also, I had to wait a couple of months for an elective surgery, but all the important stuff was available when needed.
You probably haven't lived in the right countries. I can assure you that there are "free" healthcare systems in the world that are as good as the US private one.
Which is why there's absolutely no such thing as endemic gangsterism in Russia, and no one lives in fear of the Mafia. After all, you could just shoot back!
Yes, very polite.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Resources are not unlimited, whether it be land, minerals, health care, or whatever. You can't give everyone everything. What if a certain type of lifesaving cancer treatment was discovered that works with 100% efficacy but costs $150 million dollars? Would everyone 'deserve' that for essentially free from the government except for only the wealthiest who could afford to pay it?
Society needs a basic safety net, but I don't believe everyone should be entitled to, say, a premium amount of coverage on everything. One of my relatives works for social services and she says it makes her sick to see the way people take advantage of the system. In fact, she sees a majority probably abuse it. There are lots of people having kids because they get more benefits for each additional kid they have. In many cases there is little incentive for them to go hold down a regular job (even if they have the ability) because that would mean a loss of state-sponsored benefits. I don't like the fact that my government incentivizes laziness. I realize it's a difficult problem, because some people do need the benefits, which is why I am in favor of some benefits of this nature, even if they will will be abused.
But no, I don't think everyone should be put on 'equal ground'. Basic safety net? Yes. Everything you could ever need in life fully covered? No. How do you even separate need from want? Even the poorest people in America seem to have ipods, TV's, Xbox's--all kinds of things in that would be unimaginable a generation ago.
Nice... forget the fact that socialized medicine will institute a rationing program (it does everywhere itâ(TM)s applied). So when your 60 years old and some bureaucrat tells you that you canâ(TM)t have a life saving procedure because your too old and have lived your life and the money needs to be spent on the younger generation, will you still sing the praises of the socialized system?
When socialized medicine creates the largest governmental body in the country with costs getting out of control and waste rampant with the country sinking even further into debt, will you still sing the praises of socialized care?
When you are told that you have to wait 3 months for an operation to cure your cancer and by the time your turn comes up your cancer is now terminal, will you still be singing the praises of the socialized system?
Lower standards of medical care are not kinder to the poor.
Socialized medicine does not create a healthier population; it kills the ones that are sick so the perception is that the population is healthier.
The profit motive helps to encourage innovation, grow the practice of medicine, and the people get better doctors, better care and better technology.
Socialized medicine IS NOT cheaper. Look to England, France, and Canada for your examples. They have to close hospitals, deny care if its too expensive, and tax at least 50% of your income. Look it up, itâ(TM)s not difficult to find. Socialized medicine is expensive, repressive, and fundamentally dangerous to patients.
I neither work for an insurance company and I have researched this topic too much to be uninformed. You are the fsckwit you socialist dillhole.
You know, if weed were legal, I'd probably smoke it. Or, since I hate smoking things, cook it into ridiculously chocolatey brownies. Not habitually, just occasionally, kind of like how I drink--infrequently, but not never. The primary reason I don't consume THC in any form is the ridiculous legal sanctions against it. Yes, it does deter me.
'Course, I don't think I'd run around trying to seduce white women and listening to jazz, as Anslinger feared, but I do think I'd consume it then, when I don't now. But then, we'd also have a much less intrusive police state, far fewer prisoners and a much better place to live. If only those things were valued as highly as a few paranoid people like me not smoking a joint every once in a while.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Wow, you're awesome. Someone writes a post advocating self-reliance and responsibility, and you want to spit on accident victims.
Wow... This says it ALL:
Thank you for explaining to all the socialist control freaks out there that liberty is about personal choice AND RESPONSIBILITY. It is not about reckless abandonment and hedonism... It is simply about allowing one to choose their own life and everythign about it, but at the same time making the individual responsible for their choices. The converse of liberty is the government controlling your personal life so that you don't need to take responsibility.... "it's not his fault, he couldn't have known better because the shroud of government was protecting him." Blah.
You left out the most important one: you should have been born into a wealthier family.
The prevailing definition of socialized medicine created by the American Medical Association is the same as the socialized banking model created by the American Bankers Association. The AMA can game Medicare and Medicaid, the ABA can run to the government whenever they screw up the financial system. Both love their carefully nurtured form of socialism and therefore rail against replacing it with an accountable system.
"Old bag" has more than one meaning.
ShieldW0lf and circletimessquare! It's Hyberbole-Spewing Slapfight Day on Slashdot! Honest arguments need not apply!
Speaking as someone who has known a few potheads, in my experience, the only people who've had lasting psychological effects--dullness, inattentiveness--are people who didn't only smoke weed. The people I knew who only smoked weed are just as sharp now, years later, as they were before they started smoking.
Anecdotes, of course, are not data. But as someone you're citing as a source, I want to tell you that you're wrong.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
"It needs to perform actions that might not directly be popular with the people (elections, I'm looking at you)"
this exhibits lack of faith in the common person. this is your failure, not the common people's. an appeal to some sort of elite group who somehow knows better for what the people need than the people themselves is logically false, and exhibits anti-democratic and authoritarian instincts on your part
please cure your self of this woeful ideological failure
no one, absolutely no one, knows what is better for the people than the people themselves. to think some sort of special class of people knows better, is somehow better indoctrinated into a special clique according to arbitrary reasons, is the root cause of most suffering in this world: "we are better than the common people"
fucking evil bullshit, on your part. examine and reflect upon this failure of yours
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"I'd like to ask the slashdot community if they've ever heard of anyone who wanted it having trouble getting pot (or almost any common street drug for that matter)."
That was my experience growing up. It was far easier to get pot than beer when underage. By making it illegal, you are basically making pot the drug of choice for people under 21.
If it consumes so many medical resources that it costs $150 million to treat a single case, then perhaps *nobody* deserves it. Those resources could probably be put to use treating one thousand cases of *other* illnesses.
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
I suspect that the reasons are:
1) People who want to legally do it because IT IS EVERYWHERE and its usage seems quite high.
2) People who know somebody criminalized either in jail or were in jail who have a HARD time getting employment especially in this economy when about 1/5 are unemployed (don't believe the skewed stats, look it up.)
3) People who want LESS Crime in their area
4) Realists and True Libertarians (they are not the same thing.)
5) People who want it for medical reasons
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Sorry, but you're wrong. He is not a "government expert" as some have tried to claim.
As you have shown, he works at UCLA. In case you didn't notice, the UCLA is not a government facility. It is a state school.
You pointed to the government-funded research that he has done; though that statement is accurate, it does not make him a government employee or a "government expert". He has obtained federal money to support his research, as many, many, many other scientists in this country have also done. The National Institutes of Health provide funding for many research projects, including the one that I am on. However our NIH funding does not in any way make myself or my boss "government experts".
For those not familiar with the mechanisms at work here, let me point out that at most, if not all, large research institutions (universities and the like), federal research dollars are paid to the institution on behalf of the grant awarded. Essentially the institution receives X dollars for professor Y on a given time frame. The institution then pays professor Y directly for his research costs based on those X dollars, after taking out money for expenses that professor Y is obligated to pay the institution for.
In other words, even though a researcher has grant money from the NIH, they are seldom paid directly by them, and at no point does that situation automatically make them a "government expert".
Therefore, unless he has been specifically appointed to a position within the government; the claim of him being a "government expert" is patently false.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
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Yeah thats all and good, except it does not work, because it drives out doctors and overwhelms the ones already there. Both of my UK grandparent died on wait lists for simple operations.
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all of human political history, all of the world, not just the west, is defined by malice, trickery, gross incompetence and manipulation
people who are reflexively cynical at the lowest common denominator level are laughable only because they think these tired common thoughts are original, and worse, they think these "revelations" are deep. they speak of feeble minds who actually swallowed weak lies to begin with (my government is noble! dear leader is impervious!). they speak of the somehow dramatic and amazing grand discovery that the truth is **shock** **gasp** not everything in my government is all honey and roses! then of course, it becomes the alternate retarded theme: it's all doom and gloom!
no. how about the world is populated by assholes, AND virtuous people, and our government actually represents some of the best of humanity, and some of its worse
nah, this is impossible, its too balanced a view, right? it has to be all doom and gloom, right? completely mindless negativity is the ultimate deep revelation! pfffffft
the issue is not that you have some sort of grand revelation to tell us about the west (why the west? in the east everything is gold and diamonds? wtf?), the issue is why are you so low iq that you believe your thesis is some sort of amazing original thought that no one else realizes? that an overarchingly cynical view of the government is somehow some unique concept that no one has thought of before?
get this... deep dark secret... bad things happen in our government and we shouldn't trust them completely! corporations act irresponsibly! and... hold on to your socks... they get away with it sometimes! no fucking way!
money corrupts people! oh my gosh! i've been so enlightened!
zzz
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Well, when the government employs the researcher instead of the researcher taking on the research on his or her own accord, that researcher becomes a government researcher for all intents and purposes.
Health Freedom is almost as popular as Freedom itself.
Well, when the government employs the researcher instead of the researcher taking on the research on his or her own accord, that researcher becomes a government researcher for all intents and purposes.
Did you actually read what I wrote?
Though even if you want to (very inaccurately) call someone a "government researcher" just because they are funded through an NIH grant, you would still be even more inaccurate to call them a "government expert".
And of course if you start throwing around labels like "government researcher" that casually then you likely don't know much about how scientific research is funded in this world anyways.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
No, I admit I'm gaining knowledge, but the fact remains that the government wanted to discover marijuana's harms, and instead the researcher they employed found that marijuana's not as harmful as they believed at first. That's when this relationship becomes fuzzy at best, as the government is far less than ready to admit the findings of this research they paid for.
Health Freedom is almost as popular as Freedom itself.
you believe in some magical arrangement of people and *poof!* corruption disappears. the best you can do in this world is minimize corruption through constant hard work and vigilance. there is no structural solution to a problem composed of simple human weakness. anything made by a man, can be broken by a man
"Small minded folks like yourself will always be led around unable to see what's going on and unable to acknowledge at anything except the most superficial and intellectual level that things don't need to run this way, and will think nothing of wrapping themselves deeper and deeper into a dependent situation for short term rewards. That's what makes YOU a sheeple who empowers the malicious through small minded ignorance."
hi. i'm over here if you'd like to talk to me. that's a fascinating rant against some sort of bogeyman in your head, but i'm sorry, i'm not that bogeyman, nor did i suggest anything that would indicate i'm this bogeyman. but i bet that little self-righteous rant felt good, huh?
"Try living in a few foreign countries and emotionally digesting just how entirely arbitrary the rules you live by are and how easily they can be changed. Try walking in some other peoples shoes... blah blah blah zzz"
ego masturbation session over? ok, good. now: some day it might help you in this world if you could try to synchronize your high holy indignation with actual subject matter at hand
good luck to you kid! xoxoxoxoxoxox
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Why are you continuing to try and pick apart this little bit of the claim?
I don't get it, unless you seek to somehow de-legitimize the work he did on the subject paid for by the government.
I would have thought the more interesting part is what the research actually revealed.
Pardon me if you are just a pedant.
Regards.
This applies equally well to any other conspiracy theorists, but I happen to have references handy for the UFO studies...
The US Government did organize a massive project, collecting data on UFO reports, called Project Blue Book. The project ran for almost 18 years, collected over 12,000 eyewitness reports, and concluded that UFO sightings likely did not represent visitation by extraterrestrials. The source reports have been made public under FOIA requests (and are readily available on the internet), and generally support the conclusion that the VAST majority of sightings are the result of misidentification of normal phenomena in the skies.
However, there are those pesky 6% of the reports which were categorized as "unknown". The UFO enthusiasts tend to see these reports as evidence of alien spacecraft visiting Earth, since the Air Force couldn't come up with a convincing conventional explanation for these reports. The skeptics maintain that the "unknowns" are simple cases of not having enough detail to determine exactly what the witnesses saw. More anecdotal evidence doesn't do much to sway opinion for either group.
Unfortunately, there's no easy way to prove definitely whether or not any particular UFO report is made up, or a hallucination, or something ordinary that the viewer can't identify, or something really unusual. Lots of nominally reliable witnesses have seen strange lights in the sky, from pilots, to astronomers, to US Presidents.
Then there are the claims that Blue Book was simply a disinformation campaign, and that the "real" UFO knowledge is stashed somewhere else. Obviously, there's no way to disprove that the US government is hiding some information somewhere. Unless you're willing to believe in a massive, well-orchestrated conspiracy involving multiple governments though, it's hard to believe that some really compelling evidence wouldn't have leaked somewhere.
The Wikipedia article on Project Blue Book that I linked to above has lots of links to more information, including the prior projects Sign and Grudge. The "Project Blue Book Archive" at http://www.bluebookarchive.org/ looks interesting, but I haven't had a chance to look through it in any detail.
the fact remains that the government wanted to discover marijuana's harms
That may or may not be true, we would have to find the details of the funding mechanism that was used for that study.
While I am by no means an expert on pot, I do know NIH funding fairly well (though I wouldn't call myself an expert on it, either as there are legions of people who know a lot more than I about that as well).
What I can tell you is this. There are numerous funding mechanisms through the NIH. The NIH itself is divided into several different institutes that each have their own budgets; most funding applications go to one of those rather than the NIH itself. We could speculate on which of them would be most likely to fund this but that isn't as important as the fact that the NIH has these subdivisions that handle grant applications.
That said, the subdivisions review applications on regular schedules for new research. Many of these applications come in from established researchers who are looking to renew their ongoing work, or extend it in new directions. Others are coming from new researchers who are just getting going after finishing their PhD work. Yet others come from groups of researchers. The commonality of these applications is that they are generally not responses to the NIH saying "we want to answer this specific question", rather they are researchers who are effectively saying "I have done some work on X, with Y more dollars I can extend it to Z". The subdivision of NIH will review these applications against each other and a committee of scientists who do related work will evaluate the applications and score them for funding determination.
Yet other applications do come in as a response to the NIH or a subdivision saying "we want to answer this specific question" or "we want to explore new techniques for this specific problem". This is a funding mechanism that was particularly popular immediately after the stimulus bill was signed by President Obama and the NIH was awarded significant short-term money on top of their annual budget.
the government is far less than ready to admit the findings of this research they paid for.
You are correct that the government - by way of the NIH - paid for that research. We don't know what the mechanism was for that funding or what the goal of it was. And just because the NIH paid for the research does not mean that it endorses the findings or that the government agrees with them. That is a separate matter.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Oh I know what the goal was. It was to prove that marijuana causes lung cancer, which they found the opposite to be true. Huge blow to government prohibition of marijuana. You keep seeing research from the Hutchinson Institute (I think that's the name) supposedly proving all sorts of harms associated with marijuana nobody else in the world seems to be discovering. I wonder who's funding them? I have my theory that they couldn't trust real science to demonize marijuana since it's not that dangerous to begin with, and they had to move to private institutions where it's easier to formulate false research.
Health Freedom is almost as popular as Freedom itself.
6) There is a fine line between being true to libertarian ideals and being an asshole.
I see it as more of a thick, blurry line. There are some very positive 'libertarian ideals', but the most fervent/loudest libertarians seem to be the ones who espouse the less positive aspects most - like the idiot you're responding to.
Oh I know what the goal was. It was to prove that marijuana causes lung cancer
Do you have a source for that claim? Do you have access to the grant application that was funded by the NIH? I haven't seen it; so if you have it, please share it. I described the most common funding mechanisms of the NIH in another post; please read it if you are not familiar with how NIH work is funded.
which they found the opposite to be true
I'm pretty sure the opposite of causing lung cancer would be curing lung cancer. I don't know of any study that has had lung cancer patients start smoking pot and found them to be cured.
research from the Hutchinson Institute (I think that's the name) supposedly proving all sorts of harms associated with marijuana nobody else in the world seems to be discovering
I'm not familiar with their work. Could you provide a source for this?
I wonder who's funding them?
I don't know who is funding them, I am not familiar with them. You seem to believe yourself to be familiar with their results, please show them so we can discuss the matter in better detail.
I have my theory that they couldn't trust real science to demonize marijuana since it's not that dangerous to begin with, and they had to move to private institutions where it's easier to formulate false research.
Ah hah. A conspiracy theory. Now if only you had some actual data to backup your theory.
Which really, with no data, is at best a hypothesis. If you knew more about scientific research you would know that.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
You'll have to watch the interview I posted in an earlier post to get a sense of the research that was done and the reasons behind it.
THC kills off bad cells before they become cancerous, and reduces the size of cancer by killing off cancer cells. It's all in the interview.
Hutchinson Institute are the same people who recently said marijuana causes testicular cancer and that it damages DNA. At least I think they were involved in the latter. I could be wrong.
There's no theory to the government's 70+ year old crusade to keep marijuana's benefits a guarded secret. They knew in the 70s that THC prevents cancer cells from forming, but they still try to claim that marijuana causes cancer.
Health Freedom is almost as popular as Freedom itself.
6) There is a fine line between being true to libertarian ideals and being an asshole.
You're right. Very fine line. In fact, come to think of it, it's so fine I've never seen it at all. I know very few people who are true libertarians and not assholes, largely because to be a true libertarian in the US means failing to think through the results of your chosen policies to their logical conclusions.
Yes, I do know that there are libertarians who do think things through and are not assholes. But they're a very small minority; not even their Presidential candidate in '08 fit that description.
Sort of a shame the Administration can't follow laws sponsored by the POTUS when he was a mere Senator.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Goldman is being rewarded by the market for making the right moves a year and a half ago in the mortgage market.
Or, perhaps, they are being rewarded for having had so many of their alumni in the Administration that oversaw the creation of a need to distribute billions and billions in taxpayer dollars.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Unfortunately the current business model would have to be rewritten to account for legalization. At this time we have neither the resources or the desire to change our business model at this time. Current profit centers are acceptable, and still in the growth phase. Change to the prevailing market could present risk to the existing profit stream, as new competitors enter the market, and existing market reorients around legal consumption rather than organized suppression.
The current business organization would likely need to be scrapped in contemplating such a far reaching business model. At this time it is not a viable consideration for development.
Sincerely,
The Executive Staff
So while there is no doubt that the administration brings a certain bias to the table, it's also hard to overlook the fact that any crack team of financial wizards is likely to include a Goldman alum.
Wizards? Under their guidance, we got where we are today.
Given that the nation did not benefit but they are still paying massive bonuses at Goldman Sachs, one can only wonder who the intended beneficiary of their "crack team of financial wizards" http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0820-06.htm was.
It does not appear to have been the taxpayer.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Wizards? Under their guidance, we got where we are today.
True that. One would hope that they've learned their lesson, but I digress.
Given that the nation did not benefit
Don't you think this is at least debatable? People sure weren't complaining when these guys were giving them cheap capital to buy speculative housing and gigantic SUVs. We're all in this together. Goldman was one of the few big firms to see the mess that was brewing and take action against it, which is why they are still here. Would you rather have those guys in charge or the old executive team from one of the failed investment houses?
Now, I'll be the first to point out that these massive sales of treasuries benefit brokers like Goldman tremendously, and that there can indeed be a conflict of interest. However, I'm not willing to let the government be its own broker, and I'm not willing to take a hands-off approach to the recession - which is after all what happened in 1929.
It's hard to reconcile this with my belief that we need to de-leverage and reign in the deficit, but my hope is that the policy makers will persue these policies in better economic times. Am I being naive? Maybe... but I don't want a depression, either.
As for the bonuses at Goldman, it shouldn't surprise you that money is flowing their way. Rich people are putting their money in the hands of the one big investment house that survived the storm... is that a surprise? I may be biased living in New York, but it looks to me like common sense. I'm all in favor of the outrage directed towards the AIG bonuses, where you had a failing firm giving out piles of government money to the same executives who destroyed the company. The situation at Goldman is very different. You have a firm which did not fail giving out money to the people who have helped bring it its most profitable year in history. Not only that, but Goldman is one of the firms with a smart bonus system, where you have to actually stay with the company in order to receive your bonus. That simply doesn't generate any outrage in my mind.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
People sure weren't complaining when these guys were giving them cheap capital to buy speculative housing and gigantic SUVs. We're all in this together.
I would disagree about "we're all in this together".
I am of the opinion that the easy credit was a response to the loss of jobs caused by inequitable and unbalanced free trade and the diversion of income out of the American economy from the middle class and working poor into stasis in the holdings of the top 1% or, worse, into building new factories to take yet more American jobs.
In short, the housing (and SUV buying) bubble occurred because of a decision by the Fed and their cohorts in banking, Wall Street, and the Republican Party to use easy credit to replace income from jobs that were being lost in the manufacturing and service sectors. The American people's addiction to Madison Avenue's guidance was used to conceal what was actually being done to them.
I suspect that the primary regret that the Goldman Sachs alumni in that last Administration as well as the membership of the Fed have is that they could not sustain the illusion of a functional economy until after a Democratic Administration had taken office - which was inevitable given the Iraq revelations, DOJ corruption, et al.
But that failure, too, was a function of the fact that we are not "all in this together"; that last Administration flat out refused to regulate the hedge funds and rein in the speculation - to include the creation of artificial scarcity - in hydrocarbons which was hammering the American people; indeed, the Administration added to the upward consumer price pressure by increasing food prices through the diversion of corn products into an inefficient ethanol production system.
The resultant surge in prices - particularly energy, but pretty much all consumer prices - tipped enough mortgage holders over the edge to reveal the underlying corruption and lack of value in the highly leveraged mortgage financial instruments.
The point at which the conscious decision to drive our economy with easy credit and flaky mortgages - and profit from the leveraging of those bad mortgages - can be discerned by reading this Bush speech http://www.hud.gov/news/speeches/presremarks.cfm given in June of 2002. In it, Bush brags of having put the arm - the Presidential arm - on Fannie Mae with the result that "about $440 billion" in "capital" was "created".
From a pragmatic perspective, the last Administration and their Republican cohorts in Congress were all about economically raping the American economy and our Treasury. They did a good job, too. Goldman Sachs should be proud; but then again, they have some experience at it; John Galbraith observes their contribution to the crash of 1929 in his book The Great Crash, 1929.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
If the government is going to cover us all, we might as well do away with private insurance.
That's the only thing you said that wasn't trollishly ignorant. YOU DON'T HAVE UNLIMITED INSURANCE! Not your hospital policy, not you car insurance. I found that out when I was allegedly covered 100% by homeowner's insurance, and my house was burglarized.
I had cataract surgery in 2006, that procedure would have been fully covered if I'd gone with the old fashioned single focus lens instead of the new multifocal, but I'm still paying on doctor costs insurance didn't cover. I had a vitrectomy last year for a detached retina, and I still owe the hospital $600, and that was outpatient surgery.
After that surgery I needed prescription eyedrops for a while, and my co-pay was the same no matter where I bought them or what the vendor's actual price was. There is no free market when it comes to medical care.
Government CAN work, so long as you elect the right people. My city owns the electric company, and although it gets no other funding except customers' electric bills, we have the state's cheapest and most reliable electricity.
The difference is, Ameren's customers can't fire their CEO, while CWLP's can.
Free Martian Whores!
Just because you disagree with the poster's viewpoint does not mean you should tag his posts as troll - especially when there is no opinion expressed. You may want to review the moderation definition, dumbshit. Since some people really love the negatives:
None of those apply here, shit-for-brains. You clearly are not qualified to moderate if you cannot separate your opinion from reality when you are asked to moderate. Kindly do us all a favor and opt-out for the rest of eternity.
I don't disagree with you, except that you are looking at this as if the "American people" have been victimized. I simply disagree. Every President since Bush Sr. has been pro-Nafta and pro-Greenspan economic policy. Economic policy under Bush Sr, Clinton, and Bush Jr has been nearly indistinguishable. This is not something that was slipped under American's noses... Americans love their "cheap shit from Walmart". If Americans cared about manufacturing jobs, they would have bought American goods which cost a bit more - but they didn't. There's so little demand for American-produced goods that you can't even find an American producer for most consumer goods anymore.
Do our "leaders" (Wall Street or Washington) have a borrowing problem? Yup... but you know who else does? The refinance-happy, credit-card abusing, home-equity loan, leased SUV loving American public. We have a horrendous savings rate. We are just as likely to crash and burn as Wall street when we hit an economic bump in the road. Everyone is leveraged as much as they can get away with, not just the Wall Street crowd.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
you understand why you can't race 100 mph down the highway right?
because you put other lives at risk
you do understand that, right?
well guess what: there are a ton of behaviors, including some of your examples above, where if you fuck up, society is the one who has to pay for it
just because you don't understand that, doesn't mean your opinion is valid. it simply means you're a selfish bastard, who doesn't care if someone else has to clean up your mess, or you're a stupid bastard, who doesn't understand all of the cause and effect involved
polygamy: every woman taken off the market represents some other man who won't get a woman. that guy with 10 wives represents 9 guys who don't get any wife
lots of children: i actually agree with china's policy, i think that should be enforced on the world. but there's a still a lot of space. give it a century or two
firearms: any protection firearms grant are balanced out by a hell of a lot more innocent people being shot. ban them
nicotine: you don't see how society ratchets up the penalties for smoking continuously? i, society, we have to pay for that shit. we have every right to exact financial penalties on smokers. why do i have to pay for their healthcare?
meth: you realize meth permanently fries the mind right? again, i have to pay for this shit. of course, its expensive the policework banning that shit too and people still get it anyways. but less than who would get it were it free and legal. its cheaper to wage eternal war on meth than allowing it, and having to pay for the housing and food of tons of useless brainfried zombies
skydiving, bungee jumping, and racing cars: racing cars generates cash. skydiving too. bungee jumping too. these activities pay for themselves. when some asshole breaks his arm skydiving, we have to pay for it, but these activities also generate enough economic activity to more than reimburse society for that
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Just legalize it already. It's insulting to treat the American people like children - this is a freedom that we were born with and no governing body has the right to take away a personal choice such as this.
Alcohol and cigs are much worse for your mind and body so don't even try to say marijuana should be illegal.