Musings of a minor megalomaniac
The numbers are in, and guess what? Things are changing for the better, despite ongoing Federal Government stupidity on the topic…
…while ushering in the beginning of the end of a costly, massively corrupt, and wholly counterproductive war on a largely beneficial plant.
I suppose maybe it’s time to get started bulldozing every Confederate-related monument and cemetery in the country and try to pretend like our Civil War never happened. Apparently that project is now underway, and the people pushing it appear to be naive enough to believe this approach might do some good. So, consider what just happened in Charlottesville, VA last weekend and try to imagine a positive outcome. Now we are obliged to talk about it, with the POTUS leading the chorus.
Despite actually knowing very little about the man himself, I hate the fuck out of Donald Trump – thought he might be a useful idiot in his current role, and the right idiot for the job, at this time in history, given the binary choice. From a politician or political perspective, at least he has the cojones to not always attempt being politically correct. Political correctness, whether it is being done to assuage special interests, coddle foreign despots or mollify the general social stratum is not now, nor has it ever been a “good” idea. It only serves to exacerbate and prolong the controversy it purports to address. Perhaps PC indifference even was/is a big contributor to getting us here in the 1st place.
The social issues subsequently engendered by slavery (and all forms of bigotry and discrimination, for that matter) will not be helped by attempting to block out history. Currently fashionable attitudes and responses to this state of affairs fundamentally constitute censorship from the left meeting hate on the right. There is nothing wrong with a historical monument or statue, whether you like or agree with what it stands for or not. There are some very popular monuments and historical sites in Germany and eastern Europe that represent dark periods of evil just as bad or worse than what our Confederacy and it’s heritage stand for here.
Statues, memorials and history itself set the stage. Those things are useful remembrances to bygone days. Painful as they may be, they’d be better served in a museum, pointing the way forward in law and and justice. The principles of social equality have been firmly established through our courts and legislatures. Attempting to influence the status quo by taking down statues or beating up skinheads is woefully self-delusional and a direct incite to violence. The reformers and haters have equal enmity for the other. That problem really only exists on a personal level. It becomes a completely different problem when institutionalized or combined in like-minded mobs. We solved the institutional part a long time ago.
The only way this gets better is after the individuals harboring it grow old and die. I say “Death to the Haters!” Preferably due to natural causes. Time heals all wounds.
Felt compelled to post something today, despite being rather depressed about the whole idea, for some reason. Not sure if it’s my sense of the country going to shit, freedoms being chipped away faster than ever, or some other thing or combination of things, but anyway, as far as what’s important and really matters on the topic:
Nothing, really. Same ol’ shyt. Just more of it, seeping into every nook and cranny of our daily lives. I was in on the ground floor as an IT pro when it really took off in the mid 90’s, so my perspective could be considered somewhat credible. The question to me now is: are we going in the right direction? With Net Neutrality rules following other recent right-wing political initiatives, One has to wonder…
Assuming some current Cyber issues all really boil down to politics, (the answer to my question posited here) let’s take for example, the Russian election meddling issue. Or Russian election “hacking” as has been erroneously characterized in the fake news and even from podiums in our most hallowed high government chambers: WTF? Who is naive enough to believe the Russians don’t have aspects of their own national security at stake in our election outcomes? And just how short-sighted do you have to be not to expect them to do anything they can to apply influence towards those outcomes with one of the few means they have available? You can be absolutely sure the CIA is monitoring Russian political activities looking for anything they can exploit to OUR advantage – and actively doing so at every opportunity.
What is the big difference between a Russian social media/fake news campaign, and the conventional campaigns waged here at home by the candidates themselves? Technically nothing, except who is doing it. And that you cannot control. But it sure does seem to make great fodder for politicians always ready to seize upon anything they can twist to their own ends. Maybe they are just afraid of the unknown, because let’s face it, the level of technical understanding on the topic of “hacking” is pretty darn low for probably 99.999% of the population, politicians included. So goes the Russian hacking nonsense: A huge issue garnering intense focus from idiots in Washington D.C. who actually know little or nothing about the topic, generally speaking.
Follow the money. Then consider all the other Internet-borne security threats we face today: Spam, Phishing, Identity Theft, Credit Card Fraud, etc. It’s all about easy money. And what’s the “easiest” money in the world? Why taxes, of course! And there we are full circle back to politics. So conservatives favor giving the Telecoms more leeway in how the Internet is managed, giving more control and thus greater market advantage to the C-levels in the business. AT&T and their ilk just love it when the government allows them to stack the deck in their favor. More profit buys more lobbying. Round-and-round we go…
Fuck security – there’s money to be made!!
Fortunately I didn’t get around to reading this until later in life:
The Emperor Wears No Clothes, a book about the history of Hemp in the U.S.A.
It’s fortunate from my perspective, because learning I’d been systematically lied to by any number of influential people in my life including teachers, politicians, medical practitioners and indeed the government establishment itself, probably would have resulted at some point in me being incarcerated in the miserable mess of a prison system sitting beneath what we call justice in this country today.
This blog post is just my little better-late-than-never contribution to help preserve Jack’s legacy. Jack Herer was obviously a great visionary with the nads to go up against hopeless odds for what he believed was true and right. As long as I’m around, these pages will at least represent a timely token gesture towards him on my part, as we enter the Trumpomania era. Hell, Trump’s been doing the Dance Naked since well before the inauguration. So it appears once again, common sense, truth and justice will be defined by avaricious businessmen with little regard for what is truly right or valuable.
It should be interesting to see the new administration’s upcoming clashes with the will of the people in this country. Perhaps that will has already in many respects, been usurped by the election itself. Politics aside, the relatively few studies sneaking through over the past couple of decades have shown the drug’s therapeutic benefits pretty conclusively. With climate change knocking hard on the door and cannabis legalization already in place in a majority of states and many more in the making, we got some ‘splaining to do behind Federal DOE, DEA and FBI doors. DEA began the long, uphill backpedal. Amazing.
I used to go about the workplace(s) making small talk that inevitably touched on business and politics. One of my favorite quips was “I hate Corporate America almost as much as I hate The Government.” Now I’m not so sure those two things are all that much separate and distinct entities. Anything supporting the Federal Cannabis Ban topic in all it’s misinformed stupidity is simply morally indefensible. Despite still being at it to this day, the days where Corporate America enriches itself through Government market control at the expense of it’s citizens’ general welfare are numbered. Anyone remember “pharma bro?” Nobody will use Insys’ garbage if they can can get the real, pure, unadulterated product as nature intended from a plant they can grow themselves quite easily.
The brazen SOB’s at GW Pharma over in the UK even have the gall to attempt market-cornering tactics with legislative moves in states that are not presently even exploring MMJ initiatives. It is anathema to the most fundamental principles on which our free-markets are supposed to be based. I can’t wait to witness the fall of Big Pharma. Unfortunately, it will probably be preceded by implosion of the entire healthcare system as we know it today.
People just wanting to feel good and relieve pain should not need to mortgage their futures to drug companies for that purpose.
Just to clarify this post was stupid.
Courtesy DNEWTON from BITOG:
Let’s start here:
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/crimestats/
It’s also important to understand how the FBI defines “violent crime” for what it is, and isn’t … In the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Violent crimes are defined in the UCR Program as those offenses which involve force or threat of force, taken from here:
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/cri…e/violent-crime
Please note that not all violent crime uses firearms, and in fact, the definition is not predicated on the use of any weapon. While predominant, weapons of any sort are not a requirement for quantification of the event in the “violent crime” definition. For example, forcible rape may not have any weapon present at all; it may be achieved by physical brute force. Same goes for “aggravated assault”; physical beatings do not necessitate a weapon, or could be a non-firearm weapon such as a baseball bat. Roberies can also be committed with a knife as well as a gun. Etc, etc. … The thing to understand here is that not all violent crimes encompass a firearm. Firearms are inclusive in the group, but they are not exclusive to other methods of inflicting “violent crime”.
In addition, few folks know about the BJS, which actually has even “better” data:
http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=31
There is GREAT data here:
http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4616
Did you know that slightly less than 60% (it varies a bit year to year) of ALL gun-related deaths are suicides? Yes – well more than half of ALL deaths caused by firearms are self-inflicted. And of those, the majority are Caucasian elderly men. Suicide is sad to be sure; any loss of life is undesirable. But it kind of puts things in perspective, does it not? If the firearm were not available to the person, they likely would have found another cause to inflict fatal harm.
There are always some notable gun-related crimes that make newsworthy events; typically the school shootings, etc. Often those are committed with guns that were procured legally at least in the first-person cycle. You’d never know it by news promotional standards, but violent crime committed with “assault weapons” is a VERY SMALL fraction of “violent crime”. Super-duper small, in fact.
And what of accidental gun-related deaths? This is one of my favorite topics because it is simply S-H-O-C-K-I-N-G when folks see the math for the reality of what it is. Hold on to your seats, because I’m going to take you on a wild ride here … You are way more likely to die from interaction with the medical profession than you are to be shot to death from an accidental discharge of a weapon. Think I’m wrong? Then you don’t know me well, because data rules in my world; facts are what I live my reality by. Consider these facts:
Doctors:(A) Number of physicians in the US are around 700,000.
(B) Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year are 120,000. (This number could be larger according to the AMA article, but I used the conservative number.)
(C) Accidental deaths per physician rate is about 0.171
Statistics courtesy of several sources:
https://www.bls.gov/bls/overview.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm
JAMA vol 284, #4; B. Starfield – MD/MPH
Gun Owners:
(A) Number of gun owners are around 80,000,000. (Yes, that’s 80 million)
(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, for all age groups, is 1,500 events. The number of homicides via firearms per year is about 12,000. Suicides account for nearly 57% of all gun deaths, per the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
(C) Accidental deaths per gun owner are .0000187
(D) Intentional deaths per gun handler are .00015
Statistics courtesy of multiple sources:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00046149.htm
http://www.tincher.to/deaths.htm
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/dataonline/
https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr
Now let’s do the math:
Iatrogenic death divided by accidental gun death = exposure risk factor
.171 / .0000178 = 9144
And so, statistically, the medical profession is approximately 9,000+ times more dangerous than gun owners when you look at accidental deaths. Even if you consider homicide by guns, you are MUCH, MUCH more likely to be killed by a health-care provider than a gun. Homicide (as well as violent crime) has been going down for 20+ years, and does not even make the top 15 causes of death annually in the US! Yet, the third leading cause of death in the U.S. is iatrogenesis! (Iatrogenic causation is that which is induced in a patient by a physician’s action, treatment or therapy.)
– If you fear the thought of going into a theater or restaurant where someone may be carrying a handgun, then you need a serious reality check, because you’re so very much more likely to be killed accidentally by the guys and gals with the stethoscope hanging around their neck than the person with the Colt on their hip or Glock in their purse.
– If you fear that more guns and gun permits means more crime will occur, then you need a serious reality check, because violent crime has been on a downward trend for decades while personal protective rights being exercised have been on the continual rise.
– If you fear that access to guns means more kids will die, then you should really concern yourself with the white, older, man who seeks to end his own life.
– If you fear being a victim of a gun crime and live in an area with very strict gun laws, you should move because you are also statistically in an area with higher crime rates. The states/cities with the tightest gun laws also tend to have higher incidents of gun-related crimes (CA, IL, NY, NJ, MD …).
Use these links to find TRUTH about the topics, and leave the lies and distortion to the media, folks. The best weapon may well be an informed mind!
Thus endeth the lesson in reality. I now return you to your regularly scheduled rhetoric.
Re; “Megan Came to Visit” – five posts down…
So I see one of the victim’s fathers from last Friday’s shooting rampage is distraught about this, demanding more gun control. He also wants to meet with the other victim’s parents so they may begin addressing some vague concept about how their children’s deaths “will mean something.” What their children’s death means – just a wild guess – is the killer’s parents are careless, irresponsible assholes. Here’s the synopsis:
Only (spoiled) child of divorced lawyers goes berserk. Ya think?
Stupid parents strike again. And don’t forget the old random chance factor. Nobody is immune to it. Being in the wrong place at the the wrong time has always been an unfortunate fact of life and death for those affected by it. Shit happens.
Blaming guns and lack of gun control is like blaming starvation on food that doesn’t exist. Alot of these type problems laid at society’s doorstep simply would not exist if parents put a little more effort into raising their offspring. Attempting to deflect responsibility for this tragedy in this way isn’t doing anyone any good.
