Obama Chokes on Marijuana

President Obama's experiment Thursday with an otherwise traditional town hall format flecked with questions posted and voted on at whitehouse.gov was a useful experiment with interactivity. But it was a relatively small step forward, and the online crowd did not provide much of a disruptive alternative to topics Obama certainly would have been asked about anyway.

How did the tech president do? Fine. He genuinely took popular questions and he certainly took many of the top-rated ones. His answers were long, which meant he took only five of the 104,000 questions submitted and, more important, only a tiny fraction of the approximately 1,000 questions that the public seemed truly enthusiastic about.

But it wasn't exactly as if he took penetrating, unanticipated questions from "Open for Questions," which the administration set up two days ago to solicit questions in advance. In fact the only subject that might not have otherwise been addressed came from an organized campaign to ask Obama his position on legalizing marijuana.

Obama obeyed the spirit (and letter) of the event by entertaining the question while blunting the troll effort that had put it to him: "No, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy," he said to laughter in the room.
Other than that bit of comedy relief how exactly would it have differed if this town hall were to be entirely scripted by the White House? They would have touched many of the same subjects — health care, veterans, outsourcing — and Obama would have given his regular stump points.

That's more or less what happened.

Obama's First Online Town Hall: Drama-Free OKness | Epicenter from Wired.com

Change my ass! I'm insulted as an American that the President would only offer a one liner on the marijuana issue...I'd even give it a reverse Michelle Obama. "Up to this point I was a proud American..."

I'd rather see 10 bridges to nowhere built than see another penny wasted on marijuana enforcement. The hell with the money gained from taxation. What about the money saved at every level of government from not enforcing, prosecuting and/or incarcerating people for smoking weed?

I'll even play devil's advocate here for a second..."What about all those poor cops across the country who would lose their Federal funds they use to buy new cop cars and weapons to chase all the potheads? Some of them might even lose their jobs!"

I say fuck em'. Welcome to the real world. I hear they need cops in Mexico.

I say now is the time for public outrage on this issue. Are we going to let the President give 40% of the population lip service? I certainly plan on giving him my two cents. I'm tired of spending billions of dollars on this when there is no measurable progress. It's not working no matter how much money we throw at it. It's simply time to move on. Prohibition doesn't work.

The 5 Most Ridiculous Bill O'Reilly Moments

This NSFW video is really funny, but has some naughty words....

The 5 Most Ridiculous Bill O'Reilly Moments

Is it time for Vermont to Privatize Rest Areas?

The Douglas Administration will permanently close three interstate rest areas that were temporarily closed earlier this month.

The facilities in Highgate and Hartford and the southbound rest area in Sharon will either be torn down or sold. We should emphasize it's the southbound Sharon rest area-- not the northbound which is a memorial to Vietnam Vets.

The Randolph rest area will close later this month but will re-open next year. And in July the state plans to reduce the hours of operation at the state's 17 other rest areas.

This plan is expected to save the state $1.5 million a year."

Rest Area Closures Permanent

Here we go with another round of Rest Area roulette. Whenever the budget gets tight the first thing the politicians go to cut are the rest areas. When times get better they are then the first ones to lament the disadvantage we are put at when we don't have rest areas to direct travellers to local attractions. There seems to be no consistentcy on this issue and it appears to transcend party lines. When you think it couldn't get any more bizarre, we spend enough on the Veterans Rest Area to renovate the rest of the existing rest areas.

I would like to put forth the notion that the state has had enough chances to screw this simple task up. We live in a state with a tourism driven economy and we can't seem to all get on the same page to point travellers in the right direction. When you visit other states, it's easy to see how we've missed the boat. I think that we could partner with the private sector or simply put it out to bid and get far better results at a better cost to the businesses and taxpayers of the state. Closing more rest areas simply isn't a good return on our already stretched dollar.

Google Gets Power!

Every year, Google Inc. invites a group of global A-listers to its own Davos-style conference to think big thoughts. The event, called Zeitgeist, tends to be as pretentious as its name—captains of industry, finance, and government chattering onstage in front of about 400 of Google’s friends and customers about the fate of the internet and the world.

The 2008 version bordered on the surreal. The stock market was tanking, the bond market had flatlined, and the price of gold was surging to its biggest one-day jump in nearly a decade, an indication that investors everywhere thought the global economy was going to hell.

Yet here was Eric Schmidt, Google’s chairman and CEO, on a sparse stage at the company’s Mountain View, California, headquarters, in a green-energy love-in with his counterpart at General Electric Co., Jeff Immelt. The pair bathed in the glow of each other’s affirmation, convinced that the two companies, working together, can save the planet.

 

While my mind is racing about the cost savings and green impact that would result from a smart power grid, there’s one sore spot that keeps resurfacing. I think its the Republican in me that keeps wincing. Here’s the rub….

According to our deeply ingrained capitalist ideals, any time the government becomes involved in dictating what businesses should do, we come one step closer to socialism. Yet when a company succeeds too much we call it a monopoly and step in and break it up or we regulate it into a very small profit margin. I’m all for leveling the playing field when a company becomes so dominant it stifles competition, but when we create a monopoly, or break one up, we stifle innovation. It becomes impossible to change the status quo. For, example, our electrical distribution system is still running on systems developed 50 to 75 years ago. Thomas Edison would at first be proud of his accomplishments, but then horrified at the lack of progress and innovation since his original discovery.

Once this monster has been created, it is very difficult to institute any kind of meaningful change. Since the profits are low and closely regulated, there aren’t really the deep pockets one might expect to fund massive reconstruction of the grid or to spur innovation. The only other alternative is to turn to the private sector. The problem is that you can’t lure the private sector to invest somewhere that has intense regulation and built in low profit margins. This is what makes this Google/GE partnership so interesting. GE has the technology and Google appears to have the cash and the gumption to get this project started.

So far, so good. The other piece of this puzzle is the government. The Obama administration has so far said all the right things about energy policy, but this is not an issue that will take care of itself in 4 or even 8 years. The government needs to be in this transition for years to come. As we decease our dependency on fossil fuels and continue to move towards electric vehicles, we need to start now to ensure that the grid is able to handle the new demand efficiently and more importantly profitably. This is going to require a huge change in the way the bureaucrats in Washington regulate, as well as a huge change in the way utilities implement new policies. Both of these mechanisms are ill-suited to foster any kind of real change because they are bogged down in a sea of red tape. If every step of the way is going to have to be studied in-depth by the utilities and the government. The technology will be old by the time we’re done the permitting processes. A serious change from the top down is required. The Obama administration can step in and streamline the process if they can get support in Congress. The question is will they be able to do enough to make investing from the private sector attractive or should the grid simply become another inefficient government agency? I can hear the cries of Socialism already….

The Mark Cuban Stimulus Plan - Open Source Funding

If you have an business idea you've been kicking around for a while, now might be the time to give it the float test. Mark Cuban, entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, would like to hear your business idea. If it passes his muster, he will provide the start up capital you need.

While there are a few caveats, there is also a lack of the restraints usually required to obtain venture capital. Cuban thinks that he can leverage some of his wealth to stimulate the economy. If he funds start ups that create jobs (one of the requirements)they will put meaningful investment, that has tangible results, into motion. The theory is that these start ups will also spur innovation and free up lending by creating new business that traditional investors will want to back.

It all sounds a little too good to be true, but it is an opportunity that you may never have again. Nothing is free, but the terms that Cuban demands aren't unreasonable. Some folks, as you see by posts on his blog, are very leery of posting their ideas on public place. This is an opportunity for some people, but many are too stuck in the traditional way of thinking to realize what they are being offered.

You can read more and decide for yourself here...

The Mark Cuban Stimulus Plan - Open Source Funding

Michael Phelps Caught On Video Doing Bong Hits?

Olympic great Michael Phelps has acknowledged "regrettable" behavior and "bad judgment" after a photo in a British newspaper showed him smoking marijuana.

In a statement released to The Associated Press, the swimmer who won a record eight gold medals at the Beijing Games conceded the authenticity of the exclusive video published Sunday by the blog Blogging Vermont Style.

Phelps acknowledges photo showing Olympic swimming star smoking pot - ESPN
While this isn't really "shocking" news, it does go to show how badly we are losing the war on drugs. It also highlights the ridiculousness of marijuana prohibition. Come on now, you wouldn't see people freaking out if there was a picture of him totally shit-faced at a night club with a table full of empty drinks. I know the first thing that comes to mind is..."Well that's legal". While that may be factually correct, the social reality just doesn't pan out. Alcohol related arrests and prosecutions make up a huge percentage of the law enforcement expenditures in this country. The medical cost associated with health care for alcohol related problems is likely second only to the cost of tobacco related care. Yet, there's another legal product. Are you seeing the pattern here? Is there any sane reason for marijuana prohibition if a large percentage of the population is already using it? Obviously, by the Phelps saga, it shows that use is rampant in all sectors of the population. Also consider the tax revenue that could be generated. Look at how the industrial sector could benefit from hemp related products. Talk about going green....

It's Okay To Drink From The Toilet...

We reported this invention back in September 2007. I was doing some house cleaning on the blog and I came across this post and I found it as interesting now as it was then. This device could have a huge impact on developing nations where infrastructure is poor or non-existent.

I went to the company website to get an update and found that you can purchase one of these devices for $230. While that may sound expensive, consider the uses. It would certainly be a great addition to any emergency preparedness kit and if you're a camper or hiker, this is a no-brainer...