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Bob what part of the great white north are you from.
Kend , really, get informed. Stop spewing nonsense. Energy East, as it is called, is facing mounting opposition. As far as the West goes, the pipeline construction companies have packed up and left. You may think it's all about money, the First Nations don't. It's about stopping the wanton destruction of the environment.
So-called "conservatives" live in a world of constant fear. They live in a fantasy world of their own creation. In their artificial quest for "purity" they leave no stone unturned, They deem everyone else as tainted and with "imperfections" as compared to their "pure" selves, Thus the "other" has no right be it civil, natural, God-given or even constitutional, and has no right to exist. This minority lives in a stringent and narrow world, full of themselves. Sadly, conservatives, rather authoritarians, live in a world of hate! Forgive me for being so blunt, but this is so sad to me.
What this world needs is love, pure, unadulterated love.
Bob as you know there is very little opposition. The reason they are blocking it is they are shaking down the oil companies. As soon as they get paid there will be no problem. Of course we have to do our due diligence to make sure it is going to be built safely. Let me guess BC?
Chuck, anytime time you inject 50 million a day to a country with 35 million people it is huge. There is 100,000 Americans living in Alberta alone so this isn't just Canadians who are going to who are going to benifit. You have to understand that the keystone oil is just going to replace oil brought to the gulf from Nigeria and Venusaula in ships. Any logical person can see a pipeline is much safer then a ship in the Gulf or a train. I am not sure where or how gas prices will go up that makes no sense. What environmental damage are you talking about, I don't know of any here. All land here is 100% reclaimed.
I don't know the answers to the rest.
Other than possibly Alberta, there is huge opposition to building pipelines to ship oil in Canada. Kend is not in touch with what is happening in Canada. We've been blocking the building of a pipeline to the Pacific and now we are blocking the building of a pipeline to the East. We want the tarsands shut down as they are our biggest polluter and contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
Also, too many Americans still don't get it that the XL pipeline is for shipping oil to Texas to be sold to foreign interests, not Americans.
Regulation & control are only one aspect of marijuana in modern America. I live in Colorado where medical marijuana has been legal a few years, and recreational marijuana is now legal too. There are some problems: (1) all pot business has to be cash because banks & credit cards involve federal jurisdiction, but pot is federally illegal; (2) modern pot has been refined to increase the hallucinogenic THC content; it is much more potent than the wild ditch weed version; (3) usage is increasing in high school age kids (50% have tried it); that can affect academic performance, and it can lead to trying stronger (illegal) drugs; (4) there is evidence that habitual pot use is connected to psychoses and dysfunctional behavior in some people, which can result in tragic consequences -- for example when pot users are parents of children; (5) pot sales have heavy state taxes, which generates ~$100M extra revenue per year; the tax covers the cost of regulating it and provides justification for legalizing pot; (6) pot use can affect judgement & response times, hence it adds risk for driving vehicles; the state is adding blood THC as a DUI metric.
I suspect that people were already aware of these issues (and more). imho, the issues that can create victims (such as children and non-users) cry out for control. Hence, one of the challenges of making marijuana legal is figuring out how to address these attending factors. I suspect that nobody wants the responsibility or liability for unintended consequences. The pot story is not much different from that of alcohol.
Kippopp -- I'll bet Kathy V does not that what we are discussing is the root cause of her problem. That is, the economic policies of ronnie boy.
Back to the details. Just to understand what you are saying I have a new way to reword what I have asked previously. Is the debt clock just a measure of those T-securities?
I do not disagree that the federal debt is based on a law. What I want to know is why you call it an obsolete law?
Are you aware of the passage out of Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" that Thom uses from time to time? He talks about a stick of wood has no value until it is made into an axe handle. When you speak of fundamentals, is that the type of fundamental you are referring to?
Kend -- Are you aware of the fact the last November before the election only 83% of Americans knew which party controlled the House of Representatives.
As much money as the oil oligarchs give to our media 70% should not be a surprise. We have a lot of commercials for gasoline that are not evern trying to sell their product.
Kend -- Is that $50 million cost really just profit that cannot be harvested?
Why would a US voter want to provide profit to Canada when the XL Pipeline will raise the price of gasoline in the US according to Trans-Canada?
The XL pipeline will only provide 56 permanent jobs according to the CEO of the company running the XL pipeline. Every train that ships the oil requires 2 engineers. That sounds like a big reduction in the number of jobs in the US.
How much of the oil is shipped by trains under the purview of Buffet?
Is anyone using the double lined train cars?
I am sure the oil oligarchs would like to hide as much of the environmental damage that tar sands does as possible underground.
Reply to #23: Stella Jane, I beg to differ. I will never deny the importance of people with horrendous medical issues, having medicine that is non-toxic and that brings them some relief. But that is a long way from being the ONLY issue of consequence regarding the use of cannabis, unless you don’t care about living in a free society as opposed to a fascist police state.
Beyond that, the many uses of industrial hemp would comprise a long, long list. The alternatives it offers would solve many of our environmental problems. This is a multi-faced issue with far-reaching implications. - AIW
So Kend doesn’t touch the stuff! Maybe you should, Kend; judging from your posts, you could use something to clear the cobwebs out of your head.
Reply to #11: OU812, I really couldn’t care less whether you like smoking pot or not. But you need to stop eating all that nitrate-polluted meat because it is rotting your brain.
The hell marijuana subculture is “behind” me! It’s still very much alive, as it has been everywhere I’ve lived since the sixties. Only someone as out-of-touch as you obviously are would make such an unfounded claim. What a load of crap.
Sorry; the parallel you attempt to draw with alcohol doesn’t cut it. Alcohol requires way more processing than pot. You don’t yank the grapes off the vine and stick ‘em in a wine glass, silly! That’s a lame, stupid argument. And alcohol should be strictly regulated because it’s a helluva lot more dangerous than pot, something you and Kend both conveniently ignore. This is an issue of monopoly, not public health and safety. Some people are determined to make big bucks off this weed and it ain’t for our benefit, so screw ‘em. It’s not like alcohol or tobacco; it doesn’t have all the health risks associated with those things; there isn’t one health issue I’ve heard or read about that can be linked to pot use, beyond the inevitability of a few individuals who seem allergic to it (a tiny minority). The Transportation Safety Administration can't even prove it has a negative effect on drivers! So you can just kiss my ass with that bullshit, lady. And fuck the DEA. They’re just a bunch of thugs.
There is only ONE legitimate reason to regulate the vices people enjoy, and that's if those vices generate a cost to society. Both alcohol and tobacco cause hundreds of thousands of deaths each year, unlike marijuana; not to mention all the healthcare costs associated with alcohol & tobacco! Even in its natural, unprocessed form, tobacco is poisonous. The poor Mexican children who have to harvest that crap become deathly ill just picking it, because of all the toxins absorbed through their skin. Anyone who says tobacco is comparable to marijuana is an idiot.
I will continue buying my stash from people I like and trust, NOT from the oligarchs. I’d sooner quit this vice than hand my money over to those greedheads.
I can live with a reasonable amount of regulation. But what Republicans in Washington are pushing goes well beyond reasonable. And what the Democrats want is barely acceptable, dictating who can grow and how much, and “Don’t you sell it or else!” Fuck them too. Their rules are unenforcable. How are they gonna keep track of everyone who grows it and how much they’re sharing or selling?! Yeah good luck with that.
OU812 smugly assumes that I’m bummed out over something we liberals should be “blaming” ourselves for. Hardly. This has ZERO impact on my life, lady. I need only continue doing the same old thing I’ve been doing for decades: buying it from my friends, and friends of my friends, smoking it in the privacy of my home and the homes of my fellow pot connoisseurs. No skin off my ass. Sorry to disappoint.
What pleases me about these developments is that for the first time in nearly a half century of pot use, I’ll no longer have to worry so much about getting busted for “possession”. And THAT is something to celebrate! - AIW
As per todays discussion on the show re. WWIII:
"The Islamic State terrorists are portrayed as an enemy of America and the Western world. Amply documented, the Islamic State is a creation of Western intelligence, supported by the CIA and Israel’s Mossad and financed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar."
Check out 'The Engineered Destruction and Political Fragmentation of Iraq. Towards the Creation of a US Sponsored Islamist Caliphate'
...and; 'Millions of Evangelical Christians Want to Start World War III … to Speed Up the Second Coming'
Please observe that personal opinions about use or non-use are of no importance.
What matters is that there are people who use this for healing themselves and they have a right to use the KIND of food / medicine/plants that help them heal. Green immature marijuana plants with no THC are used as medicine for seizures, and TOPICALS actually fix /heal /sooth the body while the mind appreciates that feeling.
I HAVE THE ANSWER to Thom's initial question, which the rest of you seem to have forgotten whilst bickering among yourselves.
I was a voracious reader of Comic Books as a young'n. Until I was 9 years old, my grandparents lived in the same apartment building as my folks & I, and they had a luncheonette, and sold comics, and always brought me home the latest ones. I was ESPECIALLY fond of Superman, and THAT'S how I know what world the Conservatives live in.
It's called the BIZARRO world, where everything is the opposite of the REAL world. That's where the sun rises at night, and sets in the morning, where men bite dogs, and where tax cuts create jobs. NOWHERE ELSE!
There has been, in recent decades, what has been called a "Green Scare" in the U.S. where environmentalists, some "vandalous", i.e., destructive of the property of polluters and environmental abusers, sometimes on a grand scale, but many entirely peaceful protesters and whistle blowers, were given inordinately long prison sentences or placed on a "no fly" or other black list, apparently for their environmentalist motives.
"Capture" of government by business seems to be conservatives' purpose, not the supposed reduction or elimination of government. They want only to eliminate the democratic character of government, i.e., government's capacity to serve the people, not government itself.
Indeed they couldn't even function or exist themselves in the entities and roles they created without government. There could not be any business or even be any any private property rights without government supporting and enforcing them and the laws founding them - and these are the only roles they want government to fullfill, none that serve the people in any way.
Thus they are not against government, like they say. Rather, they are against democracy and democratic government.
Canada is very different when it comes to the energy business than the US. The country not the land owner owns 100% of the mineral rights. Canadians can use the surface only. So all Canadians benifit from the royalties so there is very little opposition when it comes to our energy business. The groups you talk about are very small and are largly funded by Americans. Ironically the Rockerfellers donated 7 million for anti oilsands ads. Thoms making this out be be a much bigger deal up here than you think.
What is important here is that you know that Canada ships about 450,000 Barrels per day of oil via rail to the US. I have warned you about it many times here on Thoms blog. Warren Buffets railway is the one that transports it. Hummm didn't he donate a ton of money to Obama's campaign? That wouldn't have anything to do with the President's opposion to Keystone would it. Nooooo. Well maybe.
Even though 70% of Americans approve of Keystone and every state it runs though has approved it. After six years there still isn't a decision made. It's no big deal I guess it only costs your favorite neighbor and biggest trading parnter about 50 million dollars a day.
ac4zi, they are what in social psychology is called the "Authoritarian Personality", i.e., they're suck asses looking for a powerful father figure to suck up to and completely obey.
Dear Thom,
The thing you have to remember is that Fox News is not really a news organization, but a religion, and the Reverend Bill O’Reilly, is not really a news man but a minister. Think about it; as a religion there doesn’t have to be any proof or facts on what they say is true, it’s all just a matter of faith. How else would you explain how people be taken by stories that are so preposterous, other than that these people are stupid and or ignorant of the facts. Princeton University did a study that found that people who exclusively watched Fox church, knew less on what was going on in the world than people that watched NO news at all. The reason being, these people are so misinformed.
I read the book “The Conservative Mind” in an effort to see where these people are coming from. According to this book, conservatives believe in “traditional values” or should I say, fundamentalist Christian values such as slavery, women not having the right to vote, antiabortion, marriage only between a man and a woman, small government and libertarianism, which I guess means----no Social Security, no Medicare, no government hospitals, roads, bridges, parks, libraries, or schools. It seems that the military is ok and it is better to spend our nations treasure on war then the public welfare. Should I also mention that welfare cheats and immigrants are biggies with them along with any progressive thinking.
This article about Merck and the MMR vaccine was only published in the Canadian Huff Post, not the US edition. Wonder why?
Merck Has Some Explaining To Do Over Its MMR Vaccine Claims | Lawrence Solomon
They never wanted a "level playing field." As usual, they are only interested in hogging all the American pie, which is why Marijuana was made illegal in the first place. They can't monopolize Marijuana, which is another reason they want it illegal. Pigs, pigs, pigs, all of them.
You misspelled the word, "offense." Don't you have spell check in your computer system? Being that you can't spell, I'd wonder about your thinking concerning Marijuana as well. No offense, sir.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Ukraine
It doesn't mean "middle" it means "borderlands".
Denmark,
I forgot to mention, along with the DEA and ATF, bring in the IRS to catch tax evaders as well. The figures you mentioned are for all illegal substances, not just Marijuana. If you think legalization is better, go for it. But with legalization comes regulation, and all the rhetoric in the world won't change that. Sorry.
Ou812 ~ What planet do you live on? Seriously? We had MAXIMUM "government involvement" when the plant was illegal. What do YOU call an average spending of $40 Billion every year to stop someone from burning a plant?* What do YOU call the largest prison population in the history of humanity? I call that MAXIMUM GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT!
Now the only thing we want government to do is to regulate sales and tax them. We do not want them to determine who sells what. That is how we got the black market in the first place. If the government is really good at doing anything--especially when run by the right wing, it's to protect the viability of the black market. Just another example of crooks protecting crooks and oppressing the honest hard working citizens and using them as scapegoats. What ever happened to the 'level playing field' and the 'power of the free market;' or, is all that rhetoric just BS; and, only applies to rich and powerful corporations--screw everybody else?
* http://www.drugsense.org/cms/wodclock