Miscellaneous ramblings written as my soul endures a long dark tea-time
This article got me thinking - what is worse: a President who protest his innocence of lying by arguing about what the definition of "is" is, or one who wants to protest his innocence of torture by arguing about what the definition of "torture" is?
Read the second to last paragraph and you'll realize that times really have changed, and when brute force is substituted for intelligence it is definitely a change for the worse.
I guess I'm going to have to read the book to get the real facts, but this Alternet article reveals more staggering figures on how the USA wastes staggering resources busting people for petty drug charges. Over 600,000 arrests a year for simple possession of pot - not dealing or trafficking, just possession. That's one an a half times the population of Oakland getting a criminal record every year. Okay, I'm ignoring the possibility of multiple arrests of the same person but even so. And the combined figure for all pot (not other drugs, just pot) arrests at over 800,000 per year exceeds all violent crime arrests.
Isn't that just mind numbingly crazy? Does anyone see the huge problem with this? Never mind the economic arguments - that legalizing pot could add $30-odd billion in tax revenue to the governments coffers, and remove a $100+ billion source of revenue from the criminal underworld.
This country has jumped the shark.
Yes, that's right - I'm saying "The United States of America aka Team USA has JUMPED THE SHARK". I hear that phrase applied almost every day to some thing or other and a few weeks ago I started realizing it applied most appropriately to the USA. The signs are everywhere and if you don't see them you have jumped they shark with Team USA too.