Month: May 2014
Dr. Kevin Sabet Considers The Consequences Of Marijuana Legalization
See my previous large post in which this accentuates: “Even Casual Marijuana Use Shows Significant Brain Change“
In “Reefer Sanity“, Dr. Kevin Sabet considers the consequences of marijuana legalization. He uses a plethora of research — drawn from his almost two decades of work and policymaking in this area — to argue that the United States should not legalize marijuana with all of its attendant social costs, nor damage the future of marijuana smokers by prosecuting and jailing them. Rather, he contends we should shift our emphasis to education about the newly revealed health dangers of marijuana use, as well as focus on intervention and treatment. In short, he argues for trying these evidence-based reforms first.
(Via The Foundry) Marijuana legalization poses a significant health risk to America’s youth—and many parents have no clue about the consequences, says a former Obama administration drug policy adviser.
“Today’s marijuana is not the marijuana of the ‘60s, ‘70s or ‘80s. It’s five to 15 times stronger,” Kevin Sabet said in an exclusive interview with The Foundry. “I think a lot of Baby Boomers’ experience with pot—a couple of times in the dorm room—they don’t correspond to what kids are experiencing today.”
Sabet, a former senior adviser at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, wrote the book “Reefer Sanity: Seven Great Myths About Marijuana” to shed light on the marijuana legalization movement.
He pointed to Colorado, which has operated with de-facto legalization for five years, as a case study. By 2011, Denver had more medical marijuana shops than Starbucks or McDonalds.
The state has more kids using marijuana, he said, resulting in more kids in treatment and higher rate of car crashes. There have even been two deaths tied to marijuana use, including one involving domestic violence.
“Legalization in practice is a lot scarier than legalization in theory,” Sabet said. “It means a pot shop in your backyard, mass advertising and commercialization and greater health harms.”
In the book, Sabet takes on the myth that marijuana isn’t addictive. He said one in six kids who try marijuana will become addicted—the same as alcohol. That’s because young people are vulnerable than adults.
“There are more kids in treatment for marijuana today than all other drugs, including alcohol, combined,” Sabet said.
Oxford Professors vs New Atheists: Evidence, Faith and Knowledge
Chris Jervis interviews scientists, theologians and philosophers John Lennox, Keith Ward and Alister McGrath on the meaning of faith in Christianity. Is Christian faith blind? Is it against evidence? Lennox, Ward and McGrath respond to many claims made by the New Atheists, like Richard Dawkins (author of The God Delusion) and Christopher Hitchens (author of God is not Great).
Canada On Verge of Banning Christians from Professional Life
Watchmen News has a great article in regards to this important case that will be heard by the Supreme Court in Canada:
An intense struggle is happening in the realm of professional licensing in Canada. The religious freedom of Christians and others is colliding on a grand scale with the “equality rights” of the LGBTQ identity group, and as the tide turns in favor of equality rights, we are starting to witness socially accepted ostracism of Christians by professional bodies.
On April 24th, the law society of Canada’s largest province voted against admitting among their ranks graduates of Trinity Western University, for the sole reason that the school’s community covenant, which students (and teachers) voluntarily sign upon admission or hiring, reserves sexual intimacy for heterosexual marriage. Nova Scotia followed suit, wording their rejection as approval on the condition that TWU change its community covenant or allow students to opt out. In British Columbia, where the school is located, the law society voted on April 11th to admit TWU graduates to the bar, but momentum is building for the law society to reverse that decision in a special meeting on June 10th.
[….]
Christians Are the New Racists
Just a few years ago, it would have sounded absurd to say that Christians who believe in traditional heterosexual marriage are akin to racists. Today this opinion is quite seriously held by an increasing number of our most prominent lawyers. B.C. Bencher Cameron Ward put it this way: “I remember that in the 1960s some people in the deep south of the United States were made to feel unwelcome at lunch counters, at the fronts of buses and, indeed, in some universities…TWU’s community covenant is an anachronism, a throwback that wouldn’t be out of place in the 1960s.” Other Benchers asked “whether we would have the same debate over discrimination against other equity-seeking groups, like women, people with disabilities or racial minorities.”
What is perhaps most concerning about these comparisons of Christianity to racism and other heinous intolerance is that they lead directly to the belief that Christians are simply not capable of practicing their professions without imperilling the rights of minority groups. Just as they would feel justified in excluding those who hold racist or misogynistic beliefs from positions of influence, so many Benchers also found it right and good to exclude Christians from the legal profession. For such lawyers, Christians have become synonymous with bigots who represent a public threat.
[….]
The current developments in Canada bring to mind a quote from Princeton Professor Robert George, who recently warned Catholics in Washington, D.C. of a nascent persecution of Christians in our society:
To be a witness to the Gospel today is to make oneself a marked man or woman. It is to expose oneself to scorn and reproach. To unashamedly proclaim the Gospel in its fullness is to place in jeopardy one’s security, one’s personal aspirations and ambitions, the peace and tranquility one enjoys, one’s standing in polite society. One may in consequence of one’s public witness be discriminated against and denied educational opportunities and the prestigious credentials they may offer; one may lose valuable opportunities for employment and professional advancement; one may be excluded from worldly recognition and honors of various sorts; one’s witness may even cost one treasured friendships. It may produce familial discord and even alienation from family members. Yes, there are costs of discipleship—heavy costs…(more)
With the above context in mind, Moonbat asks a series of questions: “Why are the liberals who command the government–media establishment constantly ramming homosexuality and even transsexuality down our throats lately?” Here is an answer he gives that makes sense, and why Liberals [proper] are using gay-leftists like the Palestinians are using “refugees”… for political purposes/gains.
Moonbattery continues:
Answer the second question and you have answered the first. Sexual perversion has been fundamentally transformed into a “civil rights” issue not merely to advance the cultural Marxist divide-and-conquer strategy, but to attack the Christian religion.
The campaign against Canada’s Trinity Western University is illustrative:
On April 24th, the law society of Canada’s largest province voted against admitting among their ranks graduates of Trinity Western University, for the sole reason that the school’s community covenant, which students (and teachers) voluntarily sign upon admission or hiring, reserves sexual intimacy for heterosexual marriage. Nova Scotia followed suit, wording their rejection as approval on the condition that TWU change its community covenant or allow students to opt out. In British Columbia, where the school is located, the law society voted on April 11th to admit TWU graduates to the bar, but momentum is building for the law society to reverse that decision in a special meeting on June 10th.
For TWU to renounce this covenant under pressure would be for it to renounce the faith upon which the school is based. It would be moral suicide. That’s why liberals are trying to force this to happen.
Very likely, TWU will be destroyed, either as a Christian institution, or as a university:
With same-sex marriage legalized, the public debate is now strongly weighed against Christians who believe in traditional marriage [i.e., literally all Christians, by definition], and they face rapidly mounting charges of unreasonable intolerance. During the April 11th debate by the B.C. law society (read the transcript online), some Benchers considered TWU’s covenant discriminatory because it requires gay students to abstain from intimacy “even within a legal marriage,” and because it prevents gay students “from being married by the State, a right that was hard fought and hard won.”
Nothing could be more quintessentially liberal than sanctimoniously screeching the words “discriminatory” and “intolerance” to justify intolerant discrimination against Christians.
As equality rights [i.e., homosexual privileges] have been gaining ground, religious freedom has been on the retreat. Many lawyers now argue that even a private religious school like TWU must not be allowed to “discriminate” in its hiring practices by choosing teachers who abide by its moral tenets or by expecting students to conform their behavior to the beliefs that the school espouses.
Ominously, the case is heading toward Canada’s Supreme Court, where leftists hope to achieve a major victory over Christianity.
Much like the polygamy case in Canada, so too will we be watching what the outcome is in Canada. I wonder how long it would take for unrest once Christianity is outlawed, i-f it is outlawed.
Democrat Showing His Affinity to Prejudicial Positions and Terrorism
An interesting aspect of this video I had previously watched but did not know about is that this New Mexico Democrat candidate, Alan Webber, was endorsed by a domestic terrorist. The Lonely Conservative points it out for us:
If Webber was a Republican talking about a female Hispanic Democrat we would never hear the end of it. He’d be called a racist who is waging a war on women. But this guy will get a pass. Oh, and he also has ties to the Weather Underground and has urged empathy for a sex offender.
It amazes me how these radicals get professorships. The guy who endorsed Webber, Mark Rudd, is described a bit at the Free Beacon thus:
Mark Rudd, a leader and founder of the domestic terrorist group the Weather Underground, which has advocated for the violent overthrow of the United States and committed multiple bombings of public buildings in the late 1960s and early 1970s, endorsed Webber in April. Rudd’s wife Marla Painter hosted a campaign event for the Democrat that month.
[….]
Webber tried to distance himself from the endorsement, saying, “of course I denounce terrorism.” However, the candidate praised Rudd for being a “proponent of non-violence” and a teacher at Central New Mexico Community College in Albuquerque.
Another terrorist from those days is Kathy Boudin, who is also a professor, as FrontPage Magazine notes: 
In her parole hearing, Boudin — a veteran of the terrorist Weather Underground — claimed that she participated in the robbery because she felt guilty for being white…
[….]
Former Weather Underground radical Kathy Boudin — who spent 22 years in prison for an armored-car robbery that killed two cops and a Brinks guard — now holds a prestigious adjunct professorship at Columbia University’s School of Social Work.
Another guy I know who was a radical terrorist, who brutally tortured women, and ordered the deaths of individuals via his soldiers. Here are some issues with Maulana Karenga (AKA, Ron Kerenga, the founder/inventor of Kwanzaa), via my post on KWANZAA:
The Los Angeles Times described the events:
“Deborah Jones, who once was given the title of an African queen, said she and Gail Davis were whipped with an electric cord and beaten with a karate baton after being ordered to remove their clothes at gunpoint. She testified that a hot soldering iron was placed in Miss Davis’ mouth and placed against Miss Davis’ face and that one of her own big toes was tightened in a vice. Karenga, head of US, also put detergent and running hoses in their mouths, she said.”
From my same paper, originally written to my then 5th-grade son’s teacher and all the parents in the class, is this updated Ann Coulter, likewise, points out the bottom line:
It is a fact that Kwanzaa was invented in 1966 by a black radical FBI stooge, Ron Karenga — a.k.a. Dr. Maulana Karenga — founder of United Slaves, a violent nationalist rival to the Black Panthers. He was also a dupe of the FBI.
In what was ultimately a foolish gamble, during the madness of the ’60s, the FBI encouraged the most extreme black nationalist organizations in order to discredit and split the left. The more preposterous the group, the better.
By that criterion, Karenga’s United Slaves was perfect. In the annals of the American ’60s, Karenga was the Father Gapon, stooge of the czarist police.
[….]
United Slaves were proto-fascists, walking around in dashikis, gunning down Black Panthers and adopting invented “African” names. (That was a big help to the black community: How many boys named “Jamal” are currently in prison?)
It’s as if David Duke invented a holiday called “Anglika,” which he based on the philosophy of “Mein Kampf” — and clueless public school teachers began celebrating the made-up, racist holiday.
HE is now a Professor and Chair Department of Africana Studies California State University, Long Beach.
People pay A LOT of money to indoctrinate their kids.
The Woody Show Responds to P.C. B.S. (Update via GayPatriot!)
Video Description:
I do not usually listen to radio, outside of talk radio, if I listen to music it is my iPod or Pandora. But my wife likes to listen to the radio. We have settled on 98.7, and I have been pleasantly surprised with the commentary by the morning crew, The Woody Show.
Just a couple of days ago they have had to respond to “trigger words” that some modern feminist (really, a graduate student) had her feelings hurt over. A great response that I want to share with my larger audience.
UPDATED
Firstly, one should view my resources on this: my chapter in my book, “Gnostic Feminism: Empowered to Fail“; Some great quotes in the second half of this post, “Obama Gives Highest Civilian Medal To Eugenics“; and a VERY recent post on #YesAllWomen, “Why Not Discuss Elliot Rodger’s Secularism? (Misogyny Claims)“.
While there are great quotes below, and I may update my “Feminism Quotes” with VtheK links, this is still my favorite:
The Feminist Dictionary, published by the University of Illinois, gives the following definitions:
- Male: “… represents a variant of or deviation from the category of female. The first males were mutants… the male sex represents a degeneration and deformity of the female.”
- Man: “… an obsolete life form… an ordinary creature who needs to be watched … a contradictory baby-man.”
- Testosterone Poisoning: “Until now it has been thought that the level of testosterone in men is normal simply because they have it. But if you consider how abnormal their behavior is, then you are led to the hypothesis that almost all men are suffering from ‘testosterone poisoning.’”
(Cheris Kramarae and Paula A. Treichler, eds., Feminist Dictionary [Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1986], cf. male, 242; cf. male, 246; cf. testosterone poisoning, 446.)
Here is the UPDATE via Gay Patriot:
Feminists are blaming the Men’s Rights Movement for the murders committed by psycho whackjob Elliot Rodger in San Diego; primarily on the basis that wedging Rodger into the “War on Women” narrative is useful to the feminist left’s agenda; and admitting that he was a deranged sociopath is not. A typical, albeit mild, response is from the Washington Post’s Caitlin Dewey.
Rodger’s misogynistic rhetoric seems undeniably influenced by the manosphere, and his manifesto has kicked off a loud debate about how modern society treats women, online and off. If there was ever a time to take a closer look at online misogyny, it’s now.
….the Women’s Movement has produced some extremely hate-filled feminist rhetoric that is widely embraced by the progressive left.
- “I feel that ‘man-hating’ is an honourable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them.” ~ Robin Morgan, Ms. Magazine Editor
- “To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he’s a machine, a walking dildo.” ~ Valerie Solanas
- “I want to see a man beaten to a bloody pulp with a high-heel shoved in his mouth, like an apple in the mouth of a pig.” ~ Andrea Dworkin
- “Rape is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear” ~ Susan Brownmiller
- “The more famous and powerful I get the more power I have to hurt men.” ~ Sharon Stone
- “The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race.” ~ Sally Miller Gearhart
- “All men are rapists and that’s all they are” ~ Marilyn French
And there is more. Much, much more. It’s not limited to a few websites at the back of the internet; deranged feminist misandry permeates academia, politics, and pop culture. Entire cable networks like Lifetime and Oxygen are devoted to spreading the message that men are terrible. Womyn’s studies programs exist at every major university. A feminist professor or politician can express the idea that the world would be better off without men and be praised as a visionary, but let a man say the same thing about women and he’s branded a hater and bigot….
Hillary’s Hurdles (H.H.) ~ Hurling Toward the Presidential Abyss
Obama, No Executive Backbone or Experience (Giuliani LOLs)
This comes by way of Gateway Pundit — both videos. And they are related. Watch Giuliani lay out what Obama is lacking [above], then listen to Executive Director of the American Legion parrot Giuliani [below].
Coincidence?
Or observation conclusions based on evidence?
Videos Exemplifying Overconfidence Leading to Embarrassing Failure
Here are three funny videos I came across this week that deal with “over-confidence” leading to a major fail in some manner.
More on this third video from The Washington Examiner:
…She must not have been paying close attention.
Three days earlier, Tony D’Aleo, the chapter president of Vietnam Veterans of America in Brown’s hometown of Jacksonville, told local Fox station WAWS that “we have members in our chapter that have been three and four years waiting for a claim. They’re going to die. They’re honestly going to die.”
Brown also represents Gainesville, where earlier this month three VA administrators were placed on leave following the discovery of a secret mental health waiting list similar to those found at other VA facilities across the nation. Thomas Wisnieski, director of the North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System, says the list was not “secret” per se, but that he did not know about it until investigators unearthed it during a hospital visit.
In other parts of the state, complaints are pouring in. Thomas Fiore, who works for the VA police department in South Florida, blew the whistle on clinics in Miami. Fiore alleges malfeasance ranging from drug dealing on hospital property — “anything from your standard prescription drugs like OxyContin, Vicodin, Percocet, and of course marijuana, cocaine, heroin” — to patient abuse in VA nursing homes.
Fiore was instructed to stop investigating these claims by hospital administrators. He was later reassigned from the VA police department to a clerical position….
OR how about this zinger of an over-confident statement applied to someone else by our State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psak, via Gateway Pundit:
Reporters today mocked and laughed at State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki when she tried to push that Barack Obama “did not give himself enough credit” for his disastrous foreign policy.
One reporter laughs and asks,
“Russia still has annexed Crimea. Iran, there’s ongoing negotiations. Is that the success you’re talking about?”
Some more laughs at the expense of other peoples fails:
Bob Beckel’s Head Explodes Over Obama’s Ineptitude!
See more at The Blaze:
WH Outs CIA Agent ~ Recalling the Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame Debacle
(Compare the above remarks [around the 1:08 time marker] to that of the video of Richard Armitage [below-right])
What a difference a sitting President makes. I wonder if my old (“old” – in years and history) nemesis thinks of this? We may never know. Anyhew, the Obama White House released a name mistakenly included in a list meant for the media. The Washington Examiner explains WHY this is relevant.
Valerie Plame doesn’t deny that blowing the cover of the CIA station chief in Afghanistan is a serious matter. It’s just that, discussing the issue at a Wednesday evening forum sponsored by The Atlantic, Plame seemed to view the outing of the CIA’s top spy on the front lines in the Afghan war as more of an embarrassment than an outrage.
“My understanding is … it was a military aide who compiled this list of those that were greeting the president when he came,” Plame said. “Colossally stupid, but I think it was inadvertent. It was an error … really stupid. The White House apparently has said that they’re going to do an investigation, and they’ll find someone who’s really embarrassed at the end of it.”
The leak, if that’s what it can be called, happened over the weekend as President Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan. In a routine email to the press, the administration included a name with the description “Chief of Station” after it — a clear reference to the ranking CIA official in Kabul. It’s hard to imagine a more sensitive assignment in a more dangerous place, and blowing the station chief’s cover — in an email to 6,000 reporters, no less — will surely have repercussions.
The White House quickly explained that a mistake had been made, but did not offer any details. Top officials announced that White House counsel Neil Eggleston, a veteran of many Washington investigations, will “look into” the matter. “It shouldn’t have happened,” deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken told CNN on Tuesday. “We’re trying to understand why it happened. In fact, the chief of staff, Denis McDonough, asked the White House counsel to look into it, to figure out what happened and to make sure it won’t happen again.”
Many observers seem satisfied with the White House’s explanation that the incident was just a regrettable error. And that is indeed what it appears to be. But such assessments represent a remarkable change in tone from the discussion several years ago, when the George W. Bush administration leaked Valerie Plame’s identity as part of a bitter fight over the origin and direction of the Iraq war. Back then, it was quite common to hear the words “traitor” and “treason” used to describe top Bush officials involved in the controversy.
There’s no doubt the Bush officials deliberately revealed Plame’s CIA connection, if not her name, to the press. But the Plame leak could be characterized as inadvertent in one sense: the leakers, both in the State Department and the White House, did not know that Plame’s status at the CIA was classified when they mentioned her to reporters. That is why no one was ever charged with leaking her identity; they did not knowingly and deliberately reveal classified information. So in that sense it was all a mistake. Yes, it was inadvertent, colossally stupid, an embarrassment — but it was a mistake.
In fact… so relevant is this case, that Plame herself has hit the circuit (she and her husband gravitate towards press) saying there is no comparison. Hmmmm.
…This is a man [Colin Powell] who allowed the spending of millions of dollars in a witch-hunt of a law-enforcement investigation even while personally knowing that his own top aide had been the one who inadvertently leaked the name of a second-tier CIA agent with a dishonest and histrionic husband. One word from Colin Powell, and the “Valerie Plame” case would have come to an end with no prosecutions, but with a few days, maybe just one or two news cycles, of public admonishment of his office for its carelessness. But no… Powell remained silent, thus settling some score with vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and his boss, Vice President Richard Cheney — letting Libby twist in the wind for an alleged cover-up of a non-crime for which Libby himself wasn’t even responsible, but for which Powell’s aide Dick Armitage was culpable instead. (Libby was convicted on a highly dubious perjury charge, based on a years-old conversation with newsman Tim Russert that Russert remembered differently. This was the same Tim Russert whose own memory had been shown to be horrifically wrong in another major court case, but who suddenly was supposed to be perfectly inerrant. Meanwhile, famed newsman Bob Woodward produced notes that Woodward himself said might tend to support Libby’s recollection — but no matter.)…
(American Spectator ~ editors note: sounds the same to me. See also: “The Lost Scandal” and “Scooter Libby’s Bigger Picture“)
The New York Daily News reports the following:
Valerie Plame chided the Obama White House for being “colossally stupid” in accidentally releasing the name of the CIA station chief in Kabul.
“What an error of huge proportions with tremendous consequences,” she said Wednesday on CNN.
But Plame, the CIA operative outed during George W. Bush’s administration, warned against those drawing a “false equivalency” between her situation and the recent press office mistake.
“Apparently some low-level either military and diplomatic officials put the name down on this list that was given to a reporter who submitted it as a pool report,” she said of the Obama failure, whereas “my name was intended to be leaked in retaliation against my husband, who was a fierce critic of the Bush administration and the Iraq War.”
State Department official Richard Armitage is believed to have been responsible for leaking Plame’s status as a covert operative to the press in 2003. Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff Scooter Libby was convicted of obstructing the federal investigation into the disclosure but no individual was actually convicted of leaking the classified information that blew Plame’s cover.
Larry Elder discusses the Movie, “Fair Game,” and the real story of Joe Wilson & Valerie Plame:
Video Description:
Firstly, I want to than J. White (http://www.thevastconspiracy.com/), where the original audio file came from.
Secondly, while this is an old story and review of a 2010 movie, “Fair Game.” The White House’s recent outing of a CIA covert operative and how the media and White House reacted to it. Why? Because when the shoe was on the other foot, or more specifically, Bush’s foot, the media went MAD!
For more clear thinking like this from Larry Elder… I invite you to visit: http://www.larryelder.com/
Taking Care Of Your Kids Has Become A “Right-Wing” Issue
VOLUME Warning at the very beginning (the “Daily Caller” intro):
Curious about his MANGRIA? Here is the link.