READER COMMENT EXCERPTS

NH COP SUSPENDED FOR SUPPORTING POT LEGALIZATION

If it's not illegal for Officer Jardis to be a member of LEAP then he shouldn't be experiencing any pressure. After all, the law is the law.

Would we accept this kind of discrimination if it were based on race or gender or sexual orientation? Of course not. Then why should we accept it when it's based on the officer's courage to oppose tradition and publicly disagree with his superiors on a matter of policy - regardless of what that policy might be?

Too many good cops feel the need to keep their personal opinions about the ineffective and destructive prohibition to themselves until after they've retired and will only then speak up against it. At that point their opinions are disregarded.

We need to encourage all of our employees to speak up when they disagree with us. We need to challenge tradition and be prepared to oppose it when we find it wanting.

And how more wanting can a policy be than that for more than seventy years it has completely failed to eliminate marijuana from this country and which is now costing taxpayers $40 billion a year and causing the arrest of 800,000 people a year and the brutal murders of 6,000 people every year?

LOS ANGELES DA LETS COPS OFF IN ABUSE OF PROTESTORS

When the government refuses to discipline out-of-control police beating up demonstrators, there's only one solution: sue. There have been some famous examples in DC where the city ended up paying serious damages to people who were doing nothing more than exercising their constitutional rights. Some of these suits against the policy can include permanent limitations, as enforced by the court, on police behavior. - Richard Bell DC

CONSERVATIVES BLOCKING HEALTH INSURANCE CONRIBUTE TO 45,000 DEATHS A YEAR

Reportedly there are 100,000 deaths in American hospitals each year from preventable errors. Also, there are other reports online that 21,000 Americans die each year from aspirin overdose. Perhaps Himmelstein and Dr. Steffie Woolhandler might think about what they can do to stop the deaths of the 100,000 that die in hospitals each year.

BALLOON BOY

Good stuff re the Balloon Boy's balloon. Though without the calculations, I said the same thing to myself when I saw the shape of the balloon (clearly no load at bottom) and first got a view of the balloon that let me establish scale (too small). If one knew the dad's and mom's history with TV (quickly done with Google), it should have been totally clear that, not only was there no kid in the balloon, but that the whole thing was a hoax.

For what it's worth, the shape of the balloon (if fully inflated) duplicated the shape of the "flying saucers" used in a 1950s science fiction movie "Earth Versus The Flying Saucers" The flying saucers attack DC and the clever scientist comes up with some sort of electromagnetic beam that makes the saucers crash into various DC monuments and buildings. The aliens' space suits were black and made them look like neckless robots with a thick flexible skin. - Hugh Sprunt

JUDGE SAYS FOURTH AMENDMENT DOESN'T APPLY TO E-MAIL

According to Steve Buttgereit at Slashdot, the original author stated: "In the course of re-reading the opinion to post it, I recognized that I was misreading a key part of the opinion. As I read it now, Judge Mosman does not conclude that e-mails are not protected by the Fourth Amendment. Rather, he assumes for the sake of argument that the e-mails are protected but then concludes that the third party context negates an argument for Fourth Amendment notice to the subscribers. I missed this because the reasoning closely resembles the argument for saying that the Fourth Amendment doesn't apply at all, and I didn't read the earlier section closely enough. That's obviously a much narrower position, and I apologize for misunderstanding it the first time in the quick skim I gave it."

MULTIYEAR ARCTIC ICE VANISHES

I served a couple of years on an icebreaker in the 1960s. A detail left out is that fresher ice is easier to break through. As I recall the reason is a higher salt content. The salt slowly settles out. We were careful not to slam into the pretty blue ice. It could put a hole through out very thick hull. - John

HOW TO STOP USING SO MUCH TOILET PAPER

Yes, we use way too much toilet paper. One major factor could be the size of the average butt keeps growing but let's not go there. Instead let's save money and the Earth and be clean at the same time. Get serious and add bathroom bidet sprayers to all your bathrooms. I think Dr. Oz on Oprah said it best: "if you had pee or poop on your hand, you wouldn't wipe it off with paper, would you? You'd wash it off."�Don't worry, you can still leave some toilet paper out for guests and can even make it the soft stuff without feeling guilty.

FLOTSAM & JETSAM: TIME FOR A LITTLE MODERATION

That program makes such eminent good sense that I'm nearly dumbfounded that almost none of it appears on track to be enacted.

It's clear, coherent, practical, and fiscally responsible. In a word, moderate.

But I'm developing a distinct impression that for the Washington political establishment- the people who really run the country- the top priority is building permanent military garrisons in Central Asia and the Middle East.

This is plainly not what the electoral majority had in mind when the elected Barack Obama and gave Congressional majorities in both houses to the Democrats.

I can't say that I've ever seen the bait and switch game played so blatantly in American politics.

My patience with Obama is nearing an end. He started out with a clear majority of Americans supporting his administration. And nearly any effective executive can pick up another 5-10% of the American people simply by acting decisively and boldly.

A FINE ARGUMENT FOR DRUG LAW REFORM

I have doubts about the "legalize, then tax" argument for marijuana law reform. One of the reason illegal drugs are profitable is because of their black market nature. If pot were legalized, its price would drop, and governments probably wouldn't get the tax revenue they'd expect.

Furthermore, marijuana is relatively easy to grow on your own, so I'm not sure about the profitability of a legal pot industry. Granted, there are lots of people who might buy industrial marijuana for convenience, just like most people buy bread from a store instead of making their own. However, there could be money in the sale of newly legal equipment for pot use - vaporizers and so forth.

In short, I don't see legalizing marijuana as a way for governments to make money, although they would definitely save money by doing so. Still, it's amusing to imagine strolling down the bong aisle at Wal-Mart someday. - xilii

As the director of Novus Medical Detox Center, I have read many studies that say there is no long-term effect of using marijuana and many that said that there were. However, I do know that the common trait of people coming to Novus for detox is that almost all of them started smoking marijuana and many are still smoking it. - Steve

NORTH AMERICA'S LARGEST INDUSTRIAL UNION AND WORLD

This is exciting news, with lots of questions as well. Many developers in the US have attempted to copy Mondragon's success - just without co-operative ownership. Maybe MCC's involvement can change that.

Another exciting aspect of the Mondragon system that is often missed is the multi-stakeholder ownership structures of many of the co-ops. For example, Eroski, the second largest supermarket chain in Spain and member of MCC, is jointly owned and controlled by workers and consumers, many of the agricultural co-ops are joint worker and farmer co-ops, etc.

This is a real challenge to the US co-operative movement, which is largely based on the interest of one stakeholder group. MCC's example has the potential to resolve some of the conflicts that we have in our lives as workers and consumers.

Many have tried to bring Mondragon to America. Maybe Mondragon and the Steel Workers can get us a step closer. - Erbin

Wow! Just wow! The second step toward anarcho-syndicalist practice. With those two groups supplying the energy, I think we might be going to see something new under the sun. "When tyrants tremble, sick with fear And hear their death-knell ringing, When friends rejoice both far and near, How can I keep from singing?"

GOOD NEWS DEPT: LOOKS LIKE WORLD WON'T END IN 2012

The Mayans always called it the end of an era as well. It's the end of one long 5200 year cycle. But, since it's a cycle, its also the beginning of the next 5200 year cycle. Trust a bunch of westerners to misinterpret and call it the latest installment of "the end of the world." After all, its been a whole nine years since the last time this bunch of semi-educated monkeys we call 'humans' got all worked about the end of the world because of a calendar. - Samson

The first time I encountered claims about 2012, it was not called the end of the world, but the beginning of a new era.

Scientists have been measuring the progress rate of the total human knowledge about the universe by tracking how often the amount we know doubles and graphing that rate as a curve. The curve is logarithmic which means that the frequency with which our knowledge doubles is increasing dramatically (and if you understand the old story about the inventor of the chess board asking for one grain of wheat for the first square, 2 grains for the second, 4 grains for the third and so on until all the grain in the world was accounted for long before square 64 you will know just what that means).

2012 is the year that graph is projected to approach infinity. Every day our knowledge will be increasing so much that it will be impossible to keep up with. In other words 2012 just could be the year our possibilities become limitless and everything will change in ways that are incomprehensible to us now.

Does that give anyone an idea of why so many call it the end of the world? If our knowledge base does increase that fast and ways of getting that knowledge into each human brain come about, it could finally mean the end to the superstitious religious nonsense that is holding us back from true human progress. Those who are heavily invested in such nonsense are certainly going to see it as the end of the world. - Henry Fnord

BIOFUEL LAWS HAVE FATAL FLAW

Biofuels do not "inadvertantly encourage" deforestation. Biofuels require deforestation. Millions of acres of Amazon rainforest will be leveled to make room for sugar cane ethanol projects. Millions of acres of Indonesian rainforest will be leveled to produce palm oil-based bio-diesel. Likewise with corn (and switch grass, and whatever else) ethanol in North America. The production of such 'renewable fuels' crops -- with huge areas given over to single crops species -- will be the greatest cause of damage to the environment ever. Saying that this stuff is 'environmentally friendly' and 'sustainable' is PR or, rather, BS.

THE END OF POLITICS

You socialist idiot. It's thanks to imbeciles like you that we have the largest federal government/debt in the history of the human race. It's thanks to people like you that the US has over 70 trillion in unfunded liabilities, and the unsustainable, self-destructive welfare state that exists today. It's thanks to people like you that poverty and voter payout continue to persist. It's thanks to people like you that fairness and morality and justice are usurped for marxist centralization and coercion. You disgust me, you progressive, fascist, brown-shirt drone. FDR was a disgrace and a traitor to the constitution and the country.

TRADITIONAL NEW ENGLAND PREP SCHOOL TO DUMP ALL BOOKS

The time to read is any time: no apparatus, no appointment of time and place, is necessary. It is the only art which can be practiced at any hour of the day or night, whenever the time and inclination comes, that is your time for reading; in joy or sorrow, health or illness. - Holbrook Jackson

It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it. - Oscar Wilde

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. - Henry David Thoreau

My concern about all of this "electronic" text may seem a little 'Orwellian' to you, viz. just look how easy it is to change any text to conform to the current religico-political ideology/ I've read that during Soviet times, editors had to go back and change the text of hard copies to conform to the latest ideological Zeitgeist. With our 'e-publications' does this not make it so much easier to change history"? - Adolf

Rest assured that although Cushing has decided to take such an outrageous step, other elite preparatory schools are quite baffled by their decision and have no plans to follow. As a parent of a student at one of the most prestigious schools, I have seen nothing but astonishment and head shaking as we try to understand or grasp the motivation behind this. Most parents agree, as do many if not all students that I have talked with, that if this was a decision made at their own school they/we would seek admission elsewhere. I highly doubt that any other school will follow Cushing example. Maybe Cushing should replace all their teachers with online classes ?

OTTAWA RECYLING FOOD WASTE (AND MORE)

Limousine liberals love the idea of trucking garbage around. Their fuzzy, wuzzy thinking does not recognize the fact that, hey, trucks, fuel, insurance, workers all cost money moving all that garbage about. Plus the fuel use contributes to pollution.

HEROIN FOR HEROIN ADDICTS PROGRAM IS WORKING

Back in the '60s or so, Britain used to provide heroin to addicts, all 1200 of them in the country at the time. Britain followed the lead of the US, the UN and other nations in terminating this treatment modality, and their drug using population mushroomed enormously.

Criminalizing drug behavior by end-users means grossly inflated prices. Almost all addicts have to commit crimes to support their habits. One of the easiest crimes for them is to addict others, and become small time pushers. With legal drugs there is no such incentive.

A DISAPPEARING TRIBE

To elaborate upon a point often omitted in such stories, the Akuntsu tribe's land is being bull dozed by Mennonite contractors, clearing land to expand Mennonite farming operations that more likely than not will be contractually obligated to Cargill. It is not just the Akuntsu tribe that will soon disappear. Rainforests, though occupying less than 5% of the earth's surface, provide habitat to over half of all of the world's species. In a short time, the once vibrant and dynamic eco-system will be converted to a near mono-culture of GMO crops and palm oil plantations. And on it continues...

PASSINGS: RUTH & SAMMIE ABBOTT

Meredith Hooker, Montgomery County Gazette, 2002 - Interstate 95 could have split the City of Takoma Park when the road was proposed during the 1960s. But Sammie Abbott wouldn't let it happen.

Wrong. I-95 was always planned to run to Takoma Park's south. The highway that was to go through the Abbott's residence was inside the Beltway I-70S as proposed in the initial North Central Freeway engineering report dated October 1964 (option #11 "Railroad East- Sligo") - which inexplicably deviated sharply from the JFK Administration's November 1962 report for a transportation system with fewer highways then proposed in the 1959 plan, and more rail transit: regarding the highways this meant replacing the 1959 plan's proposed trio of north-south radial freeways with a single 2 into 1 "Y" schematic with its upper left and lower segments running tightly along the existing RR-industrial B&O Metropolitan Branch RR" - Douglas A. Willinger

OBAMA BACKS MAJOR RESTRICTIONS ON FREE SPEECH

This law would be a problem for the US. Freedom of religion does not take precedence over freedom of speech and does not include freedom from rational debate. Freedom of religion means you are free to practice whatever religion you like, privately, without having a state religion imposed on you. it does not include the right to impose your religion forcibly on others by passing laws to that effect. It does not mean that having a rational discussion about the relative merits of a religion can be made illegal by defining said discussion as blasphemy.

CANADIAN STUDY RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT SWINE FLU VACCINE

Ann-Cathrin Engwall, a Swedish PhD in molecular cell biology, has suggested that the reason for these new findings could be that the cell-mediated generated immunity is not as well developed due to continuous flu vaccination programs which tend to prevent natural immunization. Several components of different influenza viruses could be recognized as similar or the same and thus cause a cell-mediated immune response even if the virus is categorized as "new". This is of course not what pro mass vaccination people want to hear. Therefore even in Sweden, where they want to vaccinate the whole population, they try to "hush" conclusions like that.

MASS MEDIA PIMPING FOR THE WHITE HOUSE

I see nothing wrong with promoting the idea of national, state, or community service. As long as they don't make it a law, I see nothing wrong with the president promoting this idea. This is very similar to the freak out over Obama's speech to schoolchildren and his supposed desire to indoctrinate them! A little on the loopy side. Isn't there anything better to criticize?

SCALIA THINKS JEWS GET BURIED UNDER CROSSES

Being neither a Usanian nor a monotheist of any sort I think I am fairly neutral here. The US Constitution says only (Amendment I): "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." You have to understand what "establishment" meant to your 18th-century forebears. The Church of England was the official religion in the country of the same name. One could not hold public office without being Anglican; the 26 senior Anglican bishops sat automatically in the legislature; the monarch had to be Anglican by law (and still does). That was "establishment" in the vocabulary of the American revolutionaries. Compared to that, the planting of the odd cross here and there is so trivial - and so irrelevant to the rights of free speech, free assembly, and security from unreasonable police action - that one has to wonder if the mass reaction against religious symbols isn't a way (engineered by some, unconscious in others) to avoid important issues. Why does a crucifix raise more protest than the tasering of harmless people? - Axel, Montreal

15 REASONS TO GET OUT OF VIETGHANISTAN

We are in Afghanistan to be militarily close to the Caspian basin to make sure the US gets its share of the oil there. We are not there to save the Afghani people or spread democracy or any other noble cause. Articles like this are really disinformation, since they give seem to give credence to our being there for noble, if misguided reasons. We are there for one primary reason. Oil. Secondarily, war makes some a handsome profit for a small connected few at the expense of the many. The fact that both civilians and our military get killed is not relevant to the decision makers.

THE DANGERS OF POSITIVE THINKING

Have you read John Sarno's books, such as Healing Back Pain. He argues, to some extent, that positive thinking may make us sick, in that positive thinking means repressing fear, anger, anxiety. Though he's not trained in neuro-science, he's describing the findings of neuro-science and explains that the brain deprives oxygen to certain tissues or nerves in an attempt to protect itself from negative emotions. I can't understand why the brain goes to such elaborate devices, but in part it's because we're trained to think positively and be nice little children. The brain has been conditioned and is doing what it's been taught.

Fortunately, the treatment doesn't require confronting everyone or everything that makes us angry; it does require us training our brains to grow up, in effect. I don't think the idea will catch on, though, because there's no opportunity for profit in this approach to healing. Sarno tells his back-pain patients to give up physical therapy and pharmaceuticals and thinks most of us can manage without psychotherapy, and most definitely no pink ribbons. Somehow I can't see us putting black ribbons on everything in sight to remind our brains to accept fear, anxiety, anger instead of throwing them off on our bodies or to move to the bigger picture, some other sector of society. Positive-thinking is much more capitalistic-friendly. - Sherry Stanley

WHY MURDOCH AND AP ARE FULL OF IT

My bet on what this is: Murdoch wants to take a marginal piece of Googles' ad revenue. It's flawed logic that the music industry works under (suing cover band or bars unlicensed to play music. Suing Girl Scouts for singing Happy Birthday) that there is no such thing as free promotion. Murdoch wants to capture some revenue most likely by lawsuit and his posturing in the media is intended to soften up the people who will consider his future case.

Resolution by law suit would be difficult. In most states people can travel over private land unless no trespassing signs are visible.

The robots.txt file is the net equivalent of a "no trespassing sign." Google and other search engines generally abide by this, so Murdoch and AP have no reasonable complaint. I suspect are unlikely to prevail in court, as their demands are counter to the prevailing practice and culture of the Web.

Let us not forget that AP tried to demand copyright payments for the use of any string of five or more words that were found in one of their stories. I believe that these novel demands are sheer extortion. AP would also have to pay for any string of five or more words that someone else had used. Because it is nearly impossible to write meaningful five word strings that no one else has used, AP would be required to pay hundreds, if not thousands, of others for a 500 word story.

The time required to research the owners of each five word string, and come to contractual agreement for use, would mean that no story could be published before it was ever so stale.

In my view such blatherings are nothing but corporate thugishness. The only chance that the complainers have is by buying legislators to create such law. - m

RECORD HIGH NUMBER OF FORECLOSURES

There are pickup trucks filled with evicted persons' appliances and household goods parked up and down my street. It seems the only form of employment these days is vulture. - St Louis Blues

A SMALL PIECE OF WALL STREET FINALLY COMES TO TRIAL

Of course, there are a few elements that happened to make that economic 'perfect storm' happen.

First, Dubya's administration with its massive tax breaks, war mongering, and payouts to theocratic wonks doubled the long-term national debt, caused the U.S. Dollar to be devalued, and caused foreign investors to start looking for more stable places.

Second, Congress' demand to banks that sub-prime loans be available to lower income people.

Third, Lenders loaning money for 125% of the home value.

Fourth, the actual worst element, was to sell sub-prime loan paper bundled as high-quality investments.

Why is it that we only 'go after' some poor (or not-so poor) slob, rather than getting management people that set policy. Sure, we all say "The pen is mightier than the sword", but we don't seem to care what people do with them - as long as the right people make some profit. - Da Theorist