My comments elsewhere

Now that alcohol is legal throught most of the US you don't see liquor manufacturers killing each other over distribution rights - something that was common during Prohibition.

As for the whole "society of addicts" counter to leagalization I would like to remind everyone that during the early 19th century (when opium and the like was legal) GB and the US enjoyed the greatest increases in wealth and quality of life in pretty much the whole history of mankind.
And they did it half stoned at an average of 125 doses per person per year.

The problems in Latin America aren't exerbated by those who want drugs, but by those who prevent us from getting them peacefully.

Well that and our (the US) assumption that Central and South America are our own personal palyground.

Darth Cheney caught on tape.

Sounded like you could hear Rehnquist's respirator while delivering the oath today. For a brief moment I had the image of W as emperor Palpatine and Cheney as Vader - to make it even more vivid, as the band played the first couple of notes immediately after it sounded like they were going to play the Imperial March (albeit for only half a second). Absolutely hilarious (I guess you had to be there).

The speech, well it wasn't so bad as political speeches go - long but not too long. He could have cut half that crap out and would have had something concise and possibly even stirring. Instead he pads it with trite phrases. As Bill O'reilly says, pithy.

And if you're spending $40 mil on your parade and NINE freakin' balls, the least you can do is shell out for a priest who can write an interesting "prayer" and not fill it with a bunch of grandstanding. Its kind of hard to fulfill God's will when he hasn't exactly made it clear what he wantsin, oh the last two millenia. A transcript of his prayer would be "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Equal Opportunity, Jesus, Obey God, Civil Rights, Jesus, Jesus, One Nation Under God, Jesus, Amen".

Don't let politics triumph economics.

The loss of the groton base would amount to the loss of 25,000 jobs and $2.5 billion to the state's economy.

Economic impact is not one of the eight criteria being considered in formulating the initial base closure list -

other than cost-savings to the Pentagon.

Ray Hackett Norwich Bulletin

Sorry Ray but the economic impact is one of the things considered. The impact on the WHOLE country. Groton is only one small part of the United States.

Reasons to close the base

1. Groton Subbase finished 246th out of 354 of US bases in quality of life.
2. We (the Navy) have one third more training facilities than we need.
3. The Navy's looking to cut its sub force down from 52 to 40 subs, most of which will be stationed on the west coast. That means we need to lose 17 subs from the Atlantic fleet. There just happen to be 17 subs up here in Groton.

Why should we keep the Subbase open?

1. uhm, taxpayer subsidies to the state and city governments of CT.

Reciprocity

From the National Review Online

This is a letter in response to by Jonah Goldberg at the NRO (one of several in the same vein).

• 
  "After I was captured, my hands were tied behind my back . . .I was thrown on the water board, where under questioning the enemy would drown you till the verge of losing consciousness. . . I was confined to a three by four foot tiger cage with a coffee can for a toilet. . . I was repeatedly dragged from my cage for more beatings and interrogation. . . I was deprived of any food for five straight days.
  . . . that is only part of what EVERY U.S. Navy and Air Force pilot and flight crew goes through in survival school. . . We do this to our own people for training but we can't do it to terrorists?Incredible."

So let me see if I understand Jonah Goldberg's reader's letter's intent.
Japanese treatment of American POW's and Chinese during WWII - Torture

North Vietnamese treatment of American POW's during the Vietnam War - Torture

Americans doing the same to Iraqi/Afghani POWs (excuse me "Enemy Combatants") - Perfectly justified in the name of the Greater Good.

Can anyone come up with an instance in which American POW's were tortured and our government said that was a perfectly acceptable thing to do to them? If we as a nation didn't like it when this stuff was done to us, then why would we consider it ok to do to others?

When fighting monsters, one should take care not to become one.

Dangerous drug criminal get what he has coming to him?

Whatever happened to the maxim "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" ?

What happened to the 'Christian Morality" that some are so found of saying this country is founded upon? What the hell happened to plain old Christian charity? What happened to "judge not lest ye be judged"? We put thousands in jail every year for indulging in a vice - no harm to others, they just like being stoned. Wouldn't that be something best left to God to sort out? Still, most of these people get off light. After a few years in the pokey they get to go home.

But not all, not some like Jonathan Magbie.


This dangerous criminal was such a flight risk the judge would not waive the requirement that he show up at his scheduling hearing, issued an arrest warrant for him, and allowed no bail.
Magbie, 27, had been paralyzed from the chin down as the result of being hit by a drunk drive when he was four (Magbie, not the driver was four).

Magbie was sentenced to 10 days incarceration in late September- he died four days after starting his sentence.

Why don't we start off the new year right and get the federal government out of state's business.

Support Medical Marijuana Reform in your area.