Leap Day 2004
"Nobody--neither a mugger nor a group of suits in some capitol building--nobody has the right to initiate force or commit fraud in pursuit of personal or political goals." -- Bob Newland
#
I saw
The Passion of The Christ yesterday afternoon. I was
underwhelmed. It had its glorious moments, and I loved the
music, but it was mostly, as my wife put it after seeing the
previews, two hours of misery. It started in the Garden of Gethsemane
and ended in the tomb, after the rock was rolled into place, with
frequent flashbacks to well-known prior events in Joshua's
life. Though it portrayed the Jewish high priests as heartless, and
the mob as a mindless mob, it was the Roman soldiers who came out as
truly evil, gleefully whipping the silent Jesus to near death, and
continuing to torture him as he dragged his cross through the city. I
wished I had been there with my M1A so that I could have shot those
soldiers.
The story pretty well followed the Bible starting at
Matthew 26: 36.
The entire torture scene, long and bloody, appears in
Matthew 27: 26 as, "Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he
had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified," and in
John 19: 1 as, "Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged
him." My Presbyterian Sunday School teacher, thankfully, never told me
the meaning of "scourged". Now I know.
#
Hemphasis -
version 1.01 -- Spring 2004 is now complete. They're doing a
college tour giving away copies (it's paid for by advertisements). You
can
get a paper copy for $3.50. Make sure to read
Stupid, Crazy, or Malicious? Why do the politicians continue to oppose
industrial hemp? by Hemphasis publisher Bob Newland
(pictured).
Politicians, "law enforcement" zealots, and unprincipled, dishonest business interests have teamed up to create public policy which is insane and immensely counterproductive, then attempt to justify it by bragging about the damage their policies have caused. Having shifted the world's most beneficial agricultural product into the realm of "drugs", they then suggest that their miserably failed drug policy is a thing of beauty, and only lacks our agreement that hemp is "drugs" in order to have achieved complete success in preventing illicit drug use.
Their arguments defy characterization. "Absurd" is simply inadequate.
There are four categories into which those who oppose industrial hemp production fall. They are: uninformed, stupid, crazy, or malicious. There are no other possibilities.
...
Industrial hemp growing in a field has tall straight central stalks, with little branching except for a few short branches at the tops, containing the flowers and seed bracts. Planting hemp with 1/2" to 6" spacing creates a race for the sun among the crop, wherein each plant puts all its energy into keeping its top in the sunlight. More seeds, more stalk, more hemp, more money.
Cannabis plants being cultivated for the black market are spaced at least several feet, often yards, apart. Naturally, such plants put out many branches and many leaves laterally, because there is no competition from nearby plants. Careful growers will trim the central stalk to encourage branching. The branches each produce buds and flowers, the places of prime THC concentration in the plant. More buds, more money.
Cannabis for the black market being cultivated in a hemp field would be more obvious to any observer (especially those who fly over fields in helicopters) than cannabis being grown anywhere else. Its shape and color differences would render it about as obscure as a stolen red Lamborghini on a used car lot in Kadoka, So. Dak.
We can teach even a South Dakota Highway Patrolman to discern the difference between cannabis being grown for seed or fiber and cannabis being grown for the black market in less than 10 minutes. Anyone who uses the excuse that law enforcement officers can't tell the difference as an excuse to keep hemp illegal is stupid, uninformed, crazy, or malicious, and will see nothing silly about saying:
"If keeping hemp illegal keeps just one child off 'marijuana', it's worth it."
# Alan R. Weiss at Rational Review - SCOTUS among us - commentary on the recent 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court that cops need a search warrant "particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized" before tearing your house apart.
Well, well, well. The infamous 9th Circuit Court of Appeals finally got one right, and the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS, sort of sounds like scrotum) in a NARROW vote (5-4) upheld the Constitution, specifically the 4th Amendment.
This time.
5 votes to 4.
THAT is how razor thin your rights are in this country. One bloody vote away from being -- what? Destroyed? Held in abeyance? What IS the word to describe the constant pressure, the inexorable tide, the repetitive nausea of the United States Gooferment -- OK, I'll pick a word -- ablating the Bill of Rights?
Sliver by sliver, piece by piece, the supreme artifact of the Founding Fathers is being ablated, ground down to dust, by the three generations now in power in this country: the Oldies of World War II, the Baby Boomers of the Post-War, and the Generation X'ers.
# L. Neil Smith at Rational Review - Review: A Drug War Carol - some incestual appreciation for the anti-drug-war graphic novel by Susan Wells and Scott Bieser.
Let me end this with another disclaimer. I don't do drugs.
...
But I live by the immutable principle that nobody has a right to tell anybody else what to do. And the War on Drugs spilled over long ago, when cops started treating school children like slaves, to be pushed around and chivvied about, when they donned masks and Kevlar like the cowards they have become, to smash into people's homes in the night, terrorize their families, kill their pets, and ransack their possessions.
Last night we passed some poor fellow who'd been pulled over by the police and I knew all over again what it must have felt like to watch Nazis beating somebody up and being helpless to do anything about it. They were searching his car with a dog, a practice which -- like metal detectors -- should be outlawed under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. The Founders didn't give a damn about what technology was involved, they simply didn't want the cops to know what was in your pockets.
In the end, I guess it's the childishness -- the malevolent, anal, infantile perversity -- of the War on Drugs that offends me most. That some ignorant, illiterate, uniformed dork with a Hitler moustache and a stupid haircut believes he has a right to rifle through somebody's car, somebody's private possessions, as if they were his own, and to ruin that person's life over a goddamned vegetable makes me want to vomit.
# Guy Smith's GunFacts site now includes an Assault Weapons Ban - Briefing Book (24K PDF). [geekwitha.45]
This booklet is designed for mass printing and distribution to media, politicians, and the public. It covers the federal "assault weapons" ban and debunks the myths behind the origin and effect. Prints on two sheets, two sided, 8.5" X 11". Kino's can produces these for pennies each. Print, single fold, center staple. Space is left to include your own contact information.
