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Friday, August 31, 2007

BREAKING: Craig Resigning

He's formally announcing his resignation from the Senate tomorrow, it seems. So now we wait and see who Idaho's governor appoints to fill the rest of his term.

Rez, Plz (Or "How I Learned to Stop Slacking and Love the Blog")

It has been a long year since I last touched this blog, and during the time... well, little has changed about me. Eight months of democratic rule in Congress has done little that I had hoped, but hey, at least we have a minimum wage hike, right?

One year of silence, a communications blackout from the twisted genius that authored this blog only to let it fall before it could truly be established. My sounding board for my insanity, home to my outrage, core of my hope for the future. The place where I wax poetic about the corrupt realm of politics ("many blood-sucking insects").

But no more. I have said it before, but this time I mean it: never shall I fall silent again, lest the grave take me from this world. Even then, I would hope there would be a meaningful message in the end of my time on this Earth. But let us not speak of such depressing possibilities. There is much afoot that needs addressing, many wrongs which need righting.


I guess it strikes me at how sad it is that the Republican Party is so full of closeted homosexuals at the top. Strange to ponder how a person could be a gay Republican and be accepted by the party, so long as they follow the subtle (or often times not-so-subtle) anti-gay party agenda set by the leadership. The hypocrisy required is just staggering, and it makes you wonder why these men just don't come clean about who they are instead of trying to maintain an unhealthy lifestyle in the closet, soliciting sex from strangers in public restrooms.

The Craig situation both sickens me and excites me. It is sickening in the way the G.O.P. calls for his head and forces him out of his position for something as personal as his sexual orientation. There's nothing wrong with homosexuality that I can identify, and I believe that they should leave his sexual preference out of things. So he was busted for trying to hook up with a stranger in an airport restroom. What the hell are they doing wasting police resources trying to catch gay people, not in the act, but in the attempt to even make contact. I would call that entrapment, as he didn't commit any lewd acts to be charged with.

On the other hand, it's exciting that Democrats might have a chance in Idaho because of this. Not necessarily because of Craig being gay, but because of his impending resignation and the flaws of his potential replacements. Idaho Republicans could very well slaughter each other in the primary for the seat, just because there are more Republican politicians in Idaho than positions they could possibly fill without engorging the size of the state government.

I feel good about our chances in an Idaho Senate race for a change, and may well be contributing to Larry LaRocco's campaign this cycle.


Speaking of campaign contributions, I'm seriously considering making a contribution to Senator Obama's campaign for the presidency, and I'm also considering small contributions to Gary Peters for MI-09 and Mark Shauer in MI-07. Chances are that I'll be living in one of those two districts when I move back up to Michigan in early November, and I would like to do my part to secure Congress out of Republican hands.


Which reminds me. I'm moving back up to Michigan from Dayton, OH. The move isn't finalized yet, but it will be happening before the year is out, probably in early November as stated above. If you need to be in the know, you will be. If not, you can find out the details after the fact.


That's all for now. I'll be back, I promise.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Marijuana's Bad, Mmmmkay?

Growing up like I did, with illicit substances always around the house in the hands of my stoner parents, I guess I have a hard time understanding -- even though I haven't smoked since I was a high school Junior -- what exactly should make my parents criminals and marijuana illegal. How can something less damaging than alcohol with more legimate medical uses be considered a dangerous narcotic?

This brings me to another one of my random, off-the-wall theories: should marijuana be used to treat menopause? Or better yet, hash brownies? Because if marijuana acts enough like estrogen that males can begin to develop breasts after enough exposure (supposedly), then why exactly aren't we using it to treat women with hormonal imbalances across the spectrum? Imagine it, hash brownies -- pot and chocolate -- being used to treat women for entire spectrums of problems, relatively naturally! Or maybe I'm just talking out of my ass -- I'm not a chemist or a biologist. But if I'm right, think of the potential! :-P

It just always struck me as funny that even the big three illegal drugs -- marijuana, heroin, and cocaine -- all have legimate medical uses. Novacaine is a synthetic form of the main painkiller in cocaine, and it replaced the use of cocaine in modern medicine. Heroin is a derivative of morphine. Then there's pot, the seeming wonder drug. A myriad of uses is possible with the most harmless of the big three, and I really wonder why we don't just give up the stupid war on hash. What good has that part of the Drug War ever really brought us? Although I'm in danger of sounding like every other pothead legalization advocate -- or as they call themselves, the "anti-prohibition" movement -- I really do think we need to give it up and make weed a regulated substance, complete with sin tax.

I mean, imagine the revenue for state and federal governments from sin taxes on weed. And yes, there would be so many more people who might use it recreationally due to relaxed fears of being screened out of jobs and custodial rights by drug tests; but is that a bad thing? They would be regulated with the strength of their pot under strict control, much like we control the various proofs of alcohol. Let people do with their bodies what they want: you're not going to stop someone from drinking or smoking by enacting draconian laws and punishing them far beyond their crime. You're just creating a lot of bad will towards the law and the government. If the general consensus becomes that there are laws that are unjust and they deserve to be broken, then they will be. But when, then, should people stop ignoring the law? Total freaking anarchy, am I right?

I know I can't be the only one to see this? Are there really that many authoritarians who want to see draconian legislation and bans on (mostly) harmless substances like marijuana maintained and expanded?

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Iraqinam?

There's nothing that bothers me more than the twisting of historical fact into political rhetoric to justify a certain course of action. I've been watching President Bush use our withdrawl from Vietnam to justify not withdrawing from Iraq for years, and however you feel about the war, the analogy just doesn't fit. As the article linked states, "Asia didn't go Communist. Our Asian allies didn't abandon us. Rather, the Vietnamese began to fall out with her Communist allies."

And the boat people I understand, but the killing fields? Sorry, but that was Cambodia, not Vietnam. Sheer historical fact twisting, misrememberance, and idiocy. I just can't stand that sort of thing.