Except for the fact that VOIP only works in places with free wifi or where you have the keys to access the wifi. On the other hand, a cellphone works pretty much everywhere.
http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/ConnectingTheDots.htm
Note the underlying issue... the Iranian Oil Bourse and the ability for Middle Eastern nations to sell oil in "non-dollar denominated" currencies. Oil is the gold of the twenty-first century. Our currency here in America is completely dependent on oil, so much so that it has become known as the PetroDollar. If OPEC starts selling oil in Euros, our dollar is finished and our economy with it.
I see what you mean. It really is very full featured and does a lot more than simply play music and videos. There isn't much there that is all that attractive to me because I already have a Blackberry that does what I need it to do in terms of email, maps and mobile internet access. However I can see the attractiveness, sort of. It seems sort of silly to have the Touch and the iPhone as seperate products. If you're already dropping $400 on the Touch, it seems like a ripoff that you don't get a phone with it.
Buy.com has 2GB Creative Zen's on sale for $80. It looks like the Zen can use SD cards and those are readily available in 32+GB sizes. Is the iPod really worth all of the hype? Is it really worth $400? Is it really twice as good as the $180 32GB version of the Zen?
This is a complete wild ass guess on my part, but given the way the corporate world works, I'd think that six weeks is probably how long it takes from the decision to release it to the point where it gets uploaded to the right place to be downloaded. It shouldn't take that long, but a corporation like Microsoft is huge. They probably have to fill out forms for everyone. Which server is going to be. Which web page it is going to be linked. Who is responsible for supporting it once it goes out. Etc. Etc. Etc.
I haven't had an MSDN subscription for a few years now, but my experience with the program has been that they ship out the disks quarterly. If you have the full developer subscription, you get EVERYTHING, and EVERYTHING is a lot of disks. Alphas, Betas, RCs and all of the programs in every language that the program is available in. It wouldn't surprise me if MSDN subscribers already have Vista SP1.
I'm reminded of installing the OSX 10.5 upgrade on my MacBook. The first time estimate told me that there were over four hours remaining on the install. At about twenty-five percent complete that estimate was down to two hours. I'd think that given that we are now in 2008, the fact that time estimates on CPU intensive tasks are always wrong should be codified into the geek knowledgebase at this point.
Followed by something to the effect of, "We have determined the problem to be caused by Microsoft Windows. There is no known solution at this time. Please make sure your patches are up to date."
What exactly needs to get done? Ron Paul is coming from the position that the Federal government already does way too much and that it has exceeded the powers given to it by the Constitution. If anything a complete gridlock in Washington for the next four years would be a great thing.
This conversation is going to go in circles for decades. There are documented cases of "miracle" cures where people believe that God comes down and makes someone better after doctors tell them that they don't have any chance to live. There are cases where people get cancer and the doctors swear that they are going to die but then six months later they are cancer free. There are so many things that go on with the body that can't be explained using scientific methods, yet they are documented to have happened.
Whether it works in tandem with other effects or not, if you want to know whether something works, the fundamental way to do it is to have some people do it and some people not, and see what happens to each group.
The thing about Eastern medical traditions is that they are about a way of life. You can't just have people try on a way of life for a couple of weeks and then measure results. Serious tai chi practioners talk about practicing for ten years and still considering themselves new and inexperienced with the art. Diseases develop over many years and are influenced by many different factors.
That kind of thinking does come from the scientific method for testing hypotheses, which you seem to reject as inapplicable to "holistic" practices.
It isn't that the processes are incompatible. My contention is that you can't use the model used to evaluate the effectiveness of a drug to evaluate the effectiveness of things like qigong and accupuncture. You need long term studies done over the course of at least a decade if not longer. Most importantly, you need a group of practitioners who have learned from a master who really knows what is up and is passing along the correct teachings. So much of tai chi and qigong have to do with concepts of jin and other "immeasureable" components that are passed along by a master. Proper acupuncture requires proper diagnosis and a certain innate sensativity on the part of the practitioner. The solution for "back pain" in two different individuals could be completely different based on their physiology and a myraid of other factors.
There is no evidence of this either (whatever "stagnation" is supposed to mean anyway)
Stagnation and flow through the meridians can be measured by using an electrical current. Different meridians provide different levels of resistance and the measurements can be referenced over time to determine the effectiveness of the treatment. In one day I received the results of some blood tests from my Western doctor and had my meridians measured by my acupuncturist. Both of them identified problems with my immune system and liver function based on two completely different diagnostic methodologies.
When all is said and done, it's all relative to the individual who decides for or against a particular treatment. How do you measure something like intuition and feeling? People are quite capable of perceiving their own physical and mental states. They can determine if something is working or if it isn't. There isn't a single path to walk on the road to good health, much like there isn't a single way to post to Slashdot. I'm writing this using IE7 on XP. You might be using Firefox on Ubuntu, or Safari on OSX. We can argue all day long about which way is better and more valid than the other, but at the end of the day, we both end up with our posts on Slashdot. Health is much the same way. If the Chinese and Indians have managed to eek out hundred year life spans despite the inability to scientifically validate their methodologies, maybe there really is something there that the scientific tools and methods simply aren't capable of measuring yet. Like I said, this conversation can go in circles for decades. Eventually it will be realized that "chi" is real but not accessible to everyone because not everyone has the A) the access to a master who can pass along the teachings in a useful way and B) the time to practice diligently enough to realize results.
If you're coming into contact with someone who claims to be a tai chi master with one breath while in another breath claims to not believe in chi, I don't think you're talking to a real master. It's so ridiculous as to not even be worth debating. It's kind of like meeting someone who claims to be a Christian, but who doesn't believe in Jesus. The two are pretty much inseperable.
I agree with what you're saying about recognizing and not fearing everything that comprises the experience of life. I think you're pretty right on about enlightenment. It seems to me that when you're doing instead of thinking about doing, you're getting close.
However, teachers are helpful as well, and as long as that is true, someone must, at some point, speak what they know. Or speak towards what they know in a way relevant to the listener, to be more exact.
I agree with this. My own experience is limited, so take it all with a grain of salt. I think the purpose of the teacher is to help the student realize that what they seek is really within themselves. Once that realization has been reached then it is up to the student to continue to cultivate what they find within themselves, and to identify the source of what is there.
You start from a base of joy, peace, healthy center. But then, the question is still, what to do?
Again swallow some salt here, but I think what it comes down to is realizing that we are all interconnected. Our own joy and peace is contingent upon the world around us. You can't hang out and meditate and be relaxed if you have bombs blowing up around you. You can't cultivate life if you don't have food, clean water and shelter from the elements. You can't have tranquility if you are constantly being disturbed by starving people who are stealing from you to feed themselves.
4. Acupuncture has not been reliably shown to have any efficacy, beyond a placebo effect, concerning the treatment of any disease.
It seems that you're looking at acupuncture and determining its effectiveness based on whether or not it can treat diseases. You will have a hard time understanding the benefits of accupuncture if you view it based on that perspective. Acupuncture is used to stimulate circulation in the body. According to the "eastern" view of medicine, disease comes from stagnation in organs and meridians. Acupuncture is at best a preventative treatment that helps to bring balance to the body. Once the disease has set in then it is too late. The big difference between "western" and "eastern" philosophies is that in the Western world we work ourselves to death and then try to deal with the effects of the diseases that develop. In the Eastern world they try to prevent the conditions that lead to diseases in the first place. You can't try to understand tai chi, acupuncture, qigong, meditation and a healthy diet in a vacuum where they are seperate from each other. That kind of thinking comes from the Western, "Take pill X for symptom Y for Z amount of time." way of dealing with the body.
Tai chi masters make poor engineers because they believe stability comes from mystical chi. If they kept an open mind (I know!) then they might expand their realm of knowledge and make contributions to engineering, biomechanics and other disciplines. Scientists and engineers who study civil and mechanical engineering can tell right away that the bow stance is stable because of general engineering concepts that are equally applicable to a building, a person, an animal or a tree.
It could be argued that conversely, engineers make poor tai chi masters because they are constantly searching for a constant state, empirical like explination to describe a dynamic, evolving state. I don't know any tai chi masters who would claim that stability comes from mystical chi. Granted I only know one tai chi master, but he knows that stable stances come from years and years of practice that develop the muscles and tendons to the point where they are strong and supple. The concept of chi and meridians are simply terms used to describe what takes place in the body, just like inches, centimeters and angles are used as measurements to describe how to build bridges and buildings.
As a tai chi practioner I can tell you that the concept of chi is very real and absolutely perceivable. I can't hook myself up to the Chi-A-Tron 2000 and show you that I can channel 2.7 Chi-A-Volts through my body, but I don't need to. The great thing about working with chi and cultivating a strong body and peaceful mind is that either people get it and they get with the program, or they don't get it and they waste time that they could spend getting it on refusing to get it, and demanding that those who do get it try to "explain" it in such a way that they will believe.
something we have not articulated in the west with our scientific predilections yet, and something that the eastern descriptions of which leave me unsatisfied as well.
I have been reading a lot about Zen Buddhism lately (Thomas Cleary's translations) and something comes to mind when reading what you wrote. There is a saying that states something to the effect of, "As soon as you start looking for it (Zen), it starts slipping away." There is a Daoist saying that touches upon the same essence, "He who speaks does not know. He who knows does not speak." My own third party, multi-hundred year time span removed from the root explination understanding goes something like this... "An experience can only be experienced. Once you try to explain the experience, the experience itself is gone. When you think about an experience, you are thinking about the past and losing connection with the present."
but it is definitely a different state of mind than normal, that allows for much faster and truer reaction speed to any given situation when "active". and the better you are, the more you can "turn it on" at will.
It might help you to develop a deeper understanding to consider that perhaps instead of turning one particular thing on, what is really happening is that everything else is being turned off.
I'm mostly joking when I say this, but AA is a game to glamorize life in the infantry. Your average Mac and Linux user is much too wise to end up in the infantry.
Having played AA, I would think it would turn people off to the Army. The speed at which you die on a new map playing against people who have had a few days to familiarize themselves with the map is astonishing. I have to imagine it's kind of like being a grunt in Iraq when an ambush happens. "What? I'm getting shot at? Oh, I'm dead? Okay... time to wait for the next round.." ????
Consultant - it's entirely what you make it, but it's generally not an easy or secure life.
I agree with this. I spent the last seven years consulting. It was always feast or famine. Some pay checks I'd pull down $3500 after taxes for two weeks of work. Other times I'd pull down $1300 for two weeks. I'm currently doing DBA work at one of my previous clients. The pay isn't as great but the stability can't be beat.
How did you transition into management? I've been in IT for ten years at this point and I spent the last seven of those years consulting. I truly believe that as a consultant I developed the project management skills that would make a good manager. I've worked for two great bosses and my first boss shared your perception that the job of the IT manager is to shield the department from the politics so that they can get their jobs done. My last boss was a great mentor and excellent all around business person. My current boss sucks ass and is almost never here, and when he is here he is taking credit for everything else the rest of the department does. That is what is driving my desire to go into management because I realize that if my current chimp of a boss can get it done, so can I.
My biggest obsticle seems to be the lack of a degree. You say that you find a degree to be unnecesary. Do you say that because you've managed to get into management without one?
As someone who buys gold I am glad that the gold farmers are there. I've only bought gold on two occassions but I feel it well worth the $50 I spent. My time is worth so much more to me than $50. I buy it because of the grind and the pressures on my time are such that when I play the game, I want to be able to play the game and not spend my time playing catch up farming motes of whatever to craft item X that I need to get stat Y up to point Z so that I can run instance $ without getting owned by mob *. I barely play the game any more because I don't like the mindset it cultivates. I spend a good portion of my day doing a task to acquire the things that I need to live (food, shelter, etc.) Keeping up with those things generates a certain amount of stress... albeit a stress that I can handle, but a stress none the less. The allure of then spending another hour or more acquiring the necessities for some avatar in a virtual game world is just more of the same... grind, grind, grind to acquire some new toy. Isn't there enough of that in the world already?
I agree with you. When I original heard about WoW I figured, "Cool... I'm going to be gathering resources, building barracks and helping fight the good fight." That was obviously a misconception on my part. I'd be happy if they stopped releasing expansions and built that kind of functionality into the current world. Of course it will never happen because it would completely change the dynamic of the game and making questing too difficult in the middle of a war zone.
The way I see it, if you want to get wasted on your own dollar, in your own home, and can do it without impeding on the public at large, then go for it. But if people want to wander around the streets (on foot or in a vehicle) while under the influence, then they deserve to be thrown in jail and treated like criminals. Keep the drugs and their effects out of the public sight, and I could care less.
So you would have it treated the same as alcohol then? That seems to be what you are saying. I have a similar position, if you are coming from where it seems like you are coming from. I believe that there are laws to deal with the side effects of drug use and abuse. Whether those laws cover driving under the influence, public intoxication, or all the way to assault, burglary and whatever other fallouts there are from the use and abuse of drugs. Because all of those laws are on the books there don't need to be any laws to specifically address the use and possession of the substances themselves.
I agree with your point about the campaign failure to communicate the steps. The war on terror is a great example. Ron Paul's belief and one that I tend to agree with is that by withdrawing our troops from the Middle East we will remove a huge source of recruiting propaganda for the Islamic militants. The problem is that he doesn't take the next logical step. He doesn't explain to people how they will be safer. He doesn't explain what will be done to counter-balance all of the negative karma that we've built up over there. In some ways he is almost taking up the Democrat, "anything but Bush" chant. He is a good communicator and a much better than average communicator. Unfortunately he is not a great communicator and he does not seem to have anyone on his staff who is either. Ron Paul has tapped into a lot of half formed ideas, and I'm sure that many of them are fully formed in his own mind but without directed questioning from friendly moderators in some sort of debate like format, those ideas will never be manifest in any sort of meaningful way that will allow potential voters to properly absorb them.
Of course neither one of them is smart to use. We could debate the pros and cons all day. There are vaporizers that just heat the plant to the point where the THC is released and you don't inhale any particles. Unlike alcohol, no one has died from marijuana poisoning. Based on the simple fact that you can't smoke yourself to death but that you can drink yourself to death, I'd say that alcohol is far more dangerous than marijuana.
Slashdot Mirror
He probably allowed his coverage to lapse and didn't get COBRA in the interim period.
Except for the fact that VOIP only works in places with free wifi or where you have the keys to access the wifi. On the other hand, a cellphone works pretty much everywhere.
http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/ConnectingTheDots.htm Note the underlying issue... the Iranian Oil Bourse and the ability for Middle Eastern nations to sell oil in "non-dollar denominated" currencies. Oil is the gold of the twenty-first century. Our currency here in America is completely dependent on oil, so much so that it has become known as the PetroDollar. If OPEC starts selling oil in Euros, our dollar is finished and our economy with it.
I see what you mean. It really is very full featured and does a lot more than simply play music and videos. There isn't much there that is all that attractive to me because I already have a Blackberry that does what I need it to do in terms of email, maps and mobile internet access. However I can see the attractiveness, sort of. It seems sort of silly to have the Touch and the iPhone as seperate products. If you're already dropping $400 on the Touch, it seems like a ripoff that you don't get a phone with it.
Buy.com has 2GB Creative Zen's on sale for $80. It looks like the Zen can use SD cards and those are readily available in 32+GB sizes. Is the iPod really worth all of the hype? Is it really worth $400? Is it really twice as good as the $180 32GB version of the Zen?
This is a complete wild ass guess on my part, but given the way the corporate world works, I'd think that six weeks is probably how long it takes from the decision to release it to the point where it gets uploaded to the right place to be downloaded. It shouldn't take that long, but a corporation like Microsoft is huge. They probably have to fill out forms for everyone. Which server is going to be. Which web page it is going to be linked. Who is responsible for supporting it once it goes out. Etc. Etc. Etc.
I haven't had an MSDN subscription for a few years now, but my experience with the program has been that they ship out the disks quarterly. If you have the full developer subscription, you get EVERYTHING, and EVERYTHING is a lot of disks. Alphas, Betas, RCs and all of the programs in every language that the program is available in. It wouldn't surprise me if MSDN subscribers already have Vista SP1.
I'm reminded of installing the OSX 10.5 upgrade on my MacBook. The first time estimate told me that there were over four hours remaining on the install. At about twenty-five percent complete that estimate was down to two hours. I'd think that given that we are now in 2008, the fact that time estimates on CPU intensive tasks are always wrong should be codified into the geek knowledgebase at this point.
Followed by something to the effect of, "We have determined the problem to be caused by Microsoft Windows. There is no known solution at this time. Please make sure your patches are up to date."
What exactly needs to get done? Ron Paul is coming from the position that the Federal government already does way too much and that it has exceeded the powers given to it by the Constitution. If anything a complete gridlock in Washington for the next four years would be a great thing.
Whether it works in tandem with other effects or not, if you want to know whether something works, the fundamental way to do it is to have some people do it and some people not, and see what happens to each group.
The thing about Eastern medical traditions is that they are about a way of life. You can't just have people try on a way of life for a couple of weeks and then measure results. Serious tai chi practioners talk about practicing for ten years and still considering themselves new and inexperienced with the art. Diseases develop over many years and are influenced by many different factors.
That kind of thinking does come from the scientific method for testing hypotheses, which you seem to reject as inapplicable to "holistic" practices.
It isn't that the processes are incompatible. My contention is that you can't use the model used to evaluate the effectiveness of a drug to evaluate the effectiveness of things like qigong and accupuncture. You need long term studies done over the course of at least a decade if not longer. Most importantly, you need a group of practitioners who have learned from a master who really knows what is up and is passing along the correct teachings. So much of tai chi and qigong have to do with concepts of jin and other "immeasureable" components that are passed along by a master. Proper acupuncture requires proper diagnosis and a certain innate sensativity on the part of the practitioner. The solution for "back pain" in two different individuals could be completely different based on their physiology and a myraid of other factors.
There is no evidence of this either (whatever "stagnation" is supposed to mean anyway)
Stagnation and flow through the meridians can be measured by using an electrical current. Different meridians provide different levels of resistance and the measurements can be referenced over time to determine the effectiveness of the treatment. In one day I received the results of some blood tests from my Western doctor and had my meridians measured by my acupuncturist. Both of them identified problems with my immune system and liver function based on two completely different diagnostic methodologies.
When all is said and done, it's all relative to the individual who decides for or against a particular treatment. How do you measure something like intuition and feeling? People are quite capable of perceiving their own physical and mental states. They can determine if something is working or if it isn't. There isn't a single path to walk on the road to good health, much like there isn't a single way to post to Slashdot. I'm writing this using IE7 on XP. You might be using Firefox on Ubuntu, or Safari on OSX. We can argue all day long about which way is better and more valid than the other, but at the end of the day, we both end up with our posts on Slashdot. Health is much the same way. If the Chinese and Indians have managed to eek out hundred year life spans despite the inability to scientifically validate their methodologies, maybe there really is something there that the scientific tools and methods simply aren't capable of measuring yet. Like I said, this conversation can go in circles for decades. Eventually it will be realized that "chi" is real but not accessible to everyone because not everyone has the A) the access to a master who can pass along the teachings in a useful way and B) the time to practice diligently enough to realize results.
If you're coming into contact with someone who claims to be a tai chi master with one breath while in another breath claims to not believe in chi, I don't think you're talking to a real master. It's so ridiculous as to not even be worth debating. It's kind of like meeting someone who claims to be a Christian, but who doesn't believe in Jesus. The two are pretty much inseperable.
I agree with what you're saying about recognizing and not fearing everything that comprises the experience of life. I think you're pretty right on about enlightenment. It seems to me that when you're doing instead of thinking about doing, you're getting close.
I agree with this. My own experience is limited, so take it all with a grain of salt. I think the purpose of the teacher is to help the student realize that what they seek is really within themselves. Once that realization has been reached then it is up to the student to continue to cultivate what they find within themselves, and to identify the source of what is there.
You start from a base of joy, peace, healthy center. But then, the question is still, what to do?
Again swallow some salt here, but I think what it comes down to is realizing that we are all interconnected. Our own joy and peace is contingent upon the world around us. You can't hang out and meditate and be relaxed if you have bombs blowing up around you. You can't cultivate life if you don't have food, clean water and shelter from the elements. You can't have tranquility if you are constantly being disturbed by starving people who are stealing from you to feed themselves.
It seems that you're looking at acupuncture and determining its effectiveness based on whether or not it can treat diseases. You will have a hard time understanding the benefits of accupuncture if you view it based on that perspective. Acupuncture is used to stimulate circulation in the body. According to the "eastern" view of medicine, disease comes from stagnation in organs and meridians. Acupuncture is at best a preventative treatment that helps to bring balance to the body. Once the disease has set in then it is too late. The big difference between "western" and "eastern" philosophies is that in the Western world we work ourselves to death and then try to deal with the effects of the diseases that develop. In the Eastern world they try to prevent the conditions that lead to diseases in the first place. You can't try to understand tai chi, acupuncture, qigong, meditation and a healthy diet in a vacuum where they are seperate from each other. That kind of thinking comes from the Western, "Take pill X for symptom Y for Z amount of time." way of dealing with the body.
It could be argued that conversely, engineers make poor tai chi masters because they are constantly searching for a constant state, empirical like explination to describe a dynamic, evolving state. I don't know any tai chi masters who would claim that stability comes from mystical chi. Granted I only know one tai chi master, but he knows that stable stances come from years and years of practice that develop the muscles and tendons to the point where they are strong and supple. The concept of chi and meridians are simply terms used to describe what takes place in the body, just like inches, centimeters and angles are used as measurements to describe how to build bridges and buildings.
As a tai chi practioner I can tell you that the concept of chi is very real and absolutely perceivable. I can't hook myself up to the Chi-A-Tron 2000 and show you that I can channel 2.7 Chi-A-Volts through my body, but I don't need to. The great thing about working with chi and cultivating a strong body and peaceful mind is that either people get it and they get with the program, or they don't get it and they waste time that they could spend getting it on refusing to get it, and demanding that those who do get it try to "explain" it in such a way that they will believe.
I have been reading a lot about Zen Buddhism lately (Thomas Cleary's translations) and something comes to mind when reading what you wrote. There is a saying that states something to the effect of, "As soon as you start looking for it (Zen), it starts slipping away." There is a Daoist saying that touches upon the same essence, "He who speaks does not know. He who knows does not speak." My own third party, multi-hundred year time span removed from the root explination understanding goes something like this... "An experience can only be experienced. Once you try to explain the experience, the experience itself is gone. When you think about an experience, you are thinking about the past and losing connection with the present."
but it is definitely a different state of mind than normal, that allows for much faster and truer reaction speed to any given situation when "active". and the better you are, the more you can "turn it on" at will.
It might help you to develop a deeper understanding to consider that perhaps instead of turning one particular thing on, what is really happening is that everything else is being turned off.
Having played AA, I would think it would turn people off to the Army. The speed at which you die on a new map playing against people who have had a few days to familiarize themselves with the map is astonishing. I have to imagine it's kind of like being a grunt in Iraq when an ambush happens. "What? I'm getting shot at? Oh, I'm dead? Okay... time to wait for the next round.." ????
I agree with this. I spent the last seven years consulting. It was always feast or famine. Some pay checks I'd pull down $3500 after taxes for two weeks of work. Other times I'd pull down $1300 for two weeks. I'm currently doing DBA work at one of my previous clients. The pay isn't as great but the stability can't be beat.
My biggest obsticle seems to be the lack of a degree. You say that you find a degree to be unnecesary. Do you say that because you've managed to get into management without one?
As someone who buys gold I am glad that the gold farmers are there. I've only bought gold on two occassions but I feel it well worth the $50 I spent. My time is worth so much more to me than $50. I buy it because of the grind and the pressures on my time are such that when I play the game, I want to be able to play the game and not spend my time playing catch up farming motes of whatever to craft item X that I need to get stat Y up to point Z so that I can run instance $ without getting owned by mob *. I barely play the game any more because I don't like the mindset it cultivates. I spend a good portion of my day doing a task to acquire the things that I need to live (food, shelter, etc.) Keeping up with those things generates a certain amount of stress... albeit a stress that I can handle, but a stress none the less. The allure of then spending another hour or more acquiring the necessities for some avatar in a virtual game world is just more of the same... grind, grind, grind to acquire some new toy. Isn't there enough of that in the world already?
I agree with you. When I original heard about WoW I figured, "Cool... I'm going to be gathering resources, building barracks and helping fight the good fight." That was obviously a misconception on my part. I'd be happy if they stopped releasing expansions and built that kind of functionality into the current world. Of course it will never happen because it would completely change the dynamic of the game and making questing too difficult in the middle of a war zone.
So you would have it treated the same as alcohol then? That seems to be what you are saying. I have a similar position, if you are coming from where it seems like you are coming from. I believe that there are laws to deal with the side effects of drug use and abuse. Whether those laws cover driving under the influence, public intoxication, or all the way to assault, burglary and whatever other fallouts there are from the use and abuse of drugs. Because all of those laws are on the books there don't need to be any laws to specifically address the use and possession of the substances themselves.
I agree with your point about the campaign failure to communicate the steps. The war on terror is a great example. Ron Paul's belief and one that I tend to agree with is that by withdrawing our troops from the Middle East we will remove a huge source of recruiting propaganda for the Islamic militants. The problem is that he doesn't take the next logical step. He doesn't explain to people how they will be safer. He doesn't explain what will be done to counter-balance all of the negative karma that we've built up over there. In some ways he is almost taking up the Democrat, "anything but Bush" chant. He is a good communicator and a much better than average communicator. Unfortunately he is not a great communicator and he does not seem to have anyone on his staff who is either. Ron Paul has tapped into a lot of half formed ideas, and I'm sure that many of them are fully formed in his own mind but without directed questioning from friendly moderators in some sort of debate like format, those ideas will never be manifest in any sort of meaningful way that will allow potential voters to properly absorb them.
Of course neither one of them is smart to use. We could debate the pros and cons all day. There are vaporizers that just heat the plant to the point where the THC is released and you don't inhale any particles. Unlike alcohol, no one has died from marijuana poisoning. Based on the simple fact that you can't smoke yourself to death but that you can drink yourself to death, I'd say that alcohol is far more dangerous than marijuana.