Marijuana Laws.

The Huffington Post recently reported that "the federal government" (the article did not specify what office or branch) ruled that cannabis had no accepted medical purpose. This, from people who've likely never smoked it and/or experienced its nausea-reducing effects on themselves or observed it in other people. No, these bureaucrats, most of whom I'm certain have no medical or even science degrees, have taken it upon themselves to declare what should or should not be prescribed.

You know, when between 70% and 80% of every state in the union approves of medical marijuana being made legal, you'd think that there might be politicians everywhere clamoring all over themselves to be the first one to endorse legalization. Aside from Ron Paul, I don't know of any prominent Republicans who are even bothering to address the issue. For the most part, major Republican players remain firmly opposed to marijuana for medical, recreational, or spiritual use. Could there be a deeper reason?

Here's a thought: In 1972, Richard M. Nixon declared his "war on drugs." At the time, he was firmly opposed in the war on Vietnam, and one thing every unpopular president loves to do is throw up a war and drum up national crisis in order to bolster bad polling numbers. But in Nixon's case, I believe it went deeper. Many of Nixon's opponents were hippies - long-haired bead-wearing young people who were smoking cannabis on a regular basis. How to go after these pot-headed peaceniks? Why, by taking away their weed, that's how! And in 20 years' time, who knows? The lack of marijuana could spark a war-mongering right-wing revival.

What happened? 22 years later, 1994, Bill Clinton watched his Democratic majorities in both the house and Senate disappear, as Republicans took control with their "Contract with America." The Republican revival was on!

Coincidence?

We should be cautious before drawing any conclusions, here. Correlation does not imply causation. It could entirely be just happenstance. But it doesn't necessarily need to be true, does it? What needs to be true, is that certain Republican party leaders believe it. If they think that legalizing pot will cause the hippies to come back, and result in more recreational-use-inspired liberalism to boot them from office, it would explain their stubborn refusal to bow to the overwhelming majority of their constituents.

Now, obviously smoking pot doesn't make you a liberal, any more than taking oxy contin makes you a conservative. But if politicians believe that such mind-altering drugs can indeed alter the mind in just this way, it would explain a great many things, wouldn't it?

Especially not legalizing and taxing, and thus boosting the economy, and jobs, and treasury revenues, at a time when our government is so desperately in need of a balanced budget, and a thriving economy.

To help end the Great Depression, prohibition of alcohol was ended. It worked. Yes, a war helped, too, but the recovery began before the war did. So isn't it time our government woke up and legalized cannabis? Like now, when it's so bloody obviously the right thing to do?

Eric

Some Brewer Observations

A break from my usual stuff, even as the political right is trying so desperately to keep the fat cats from going on a much-needed diet while simultaneously playing chicken with the debt ceiling and the global economy which depends upon it. No, this time I'm bringing my number-crunching powers of observation to bear on our Milwaukee Brewers, and why they can't seem to win a road game against any team other than the Florida Marlins.

First, let's recognize that the problem is offense. Par-value offense or defense is 3 runs. The Brewers meet or exceed par offense in Milwaukee, but not in other cities. At home at Miller Park, our offense is unbeatable. Six of our regular starters are batting over .300 (Lucroy, Braun, Rivera, Fielder, Morgan, Weeks) while two more are batting over .290 (Betancourt and Hart). Even most of our starting pitchers are batting over .300 at home (Narveson, Greinke, Gallardo). At home, the Crew hits the damn ball.

But something happens when the team goes on the road. Apparently, aliens come down and kidnap the regular team and replace them with mannequins that resemble them somewhat. Away, only two players bat over .300 (Nyger Morgan, and, of course, Ryan Braun). Even Prince Fielder's average drops to .272 on the road (down from .326 at Miller Park). But the biggest disappointment when the team travels is Jonathan Lucroy. That man bats a whopping .364 at home, and an appalling .216 on the road! Next up on the disappointment list would have to be Yuniesky Betancourt, who bats .295 at home, and flirts with the Mendoza line at .191 when travelling. Corey Hart, who bats .293 in the home court bats a disgusting .230 when away. We might be tempted to brand Braun as the only player who can hit on the road, and even he takes a slight dip, batting .338 at home, and .306 on the road.

Jesus, that fucking sucks!

But amidst these foul-smelling numbers, one shining star does emerge. Nyger Morgan! At home, he bats a very nice .316. But when away, he does even better! A .333 average on the road!

I say, Nyger starts every road game.

What about pitching? So far as I can tell, it's worse on the road as well, but not markedly so. Each pitcher gains one ERA point when travelling. Randy Wolf has the lowest downside, with an ERA of 2.78 at home and 3.75 away. Gallardo pitches 3.47 at home, and 4.39 in alien ballparks. Narveson does 3.91 at home and 4.93 on a road trip. But Zack Greinke is the biggest disappointment, showing 4.26 at home, and 7.77 while away. Granted, that's only because of a couple of bad outings, but they were road outings.

Inexplicably, the bullpen seems affected as well. Kameron Loe, the apparent go-to guy in the eighth inning, has an ERA of 4.22 at home, and 5.19 away. John Axford has a sparkling ERA of 0.82 at home, but 5.02 on the road (Most of that thanks to the Yankees debacle.)

But again, there are some nice exceptions. Sean Marcum pitches 4.13 at Miller Park, and 2.26 everywhere else! (If only he could start every road game!) Tim Dillard pitches 7.36 at home, and 3.38 when sleeping in hotels. But the biggest difference, making me wonder why the hell he doesn't get more time on the mound, is La Troy Hawkins. At home, his ERA is a fantastic 0.75. And on the road? His ERA is 0.00!!!

Okay, La Troy Hawkins is definitely our set up man on the road!

So what's going on here? Could it be that when these guys are away from their wives and kids and not getting laid that they do worse? It's certainly possible, and if so, plane tickets for player's families might be a relatively cheap investment in road wins, especially down the stretch. The other thing (and I don't have solid numbers to back me up on this, but it seems true) is that hitters seem to swing outside the strike zone on the road. The number of walks the team gets isn't significantly higher at home than on the road, but there are sure a lot more strikeouts when the Crew takes a road trip! Almost double, in fact! How to correct this? Well, chiding from coaches has never worked. In 30 years of watching baseball, I've learned you can never coach a player into being more disciplined at the plate if that S.O.B. is determined to swing at shitty pitches. But what a coach CAN do (which is entirely within Brewer tradition) is put a game within a game. On the road, any player who strikes out by swinging at a pitch outside the strike zone scores a "shitlist point." The three players with the most shitlist points after a road trip have to pay for the next team party.

The Brewers win when they play with good ol' fashioned Milwaukee gemutlichkeit. Let's add some of that to the game by making a game out of doing the right thing at the plate, and winning on the road, especially for the hitters.

Eric

Law & Order: L.A.

Law & Order Los Angeles. What a great idea! A perfect continuation of a winning franchise guaranteed to win viewers.

Except now, NBC has announced that after only one season, it's cancelling the show. The reason? Poor ratings.

Only a board of network executives could be that stupid.

Nielsen ratings, the real governing body of all things viewed on television, is conducted by installing ratings boxes in various homes around the country, and monitoring what it hopes is a representative sampling of television viewers throughout the nation.

It isn't, of course.

You see, Nielsen ratings are a dinosaur -- a sad, holdover remnant of a bygone entertainment era, every bit as irrelevant today as radio dramas were yesterday. How outdated are they? Put it this way: They didn't begin incorporating numbers including new video technology such as TiVo until 2005, five years after it became widely used. And these new figures aren't even used in the ratings system. Why? Because advertising firms have pressured Nielsen into not using them! They know that if corporations see just how much people are dodging their commercials, they'll insist on paying a lot less, television stations profits will drop through the floor, and every ad agency will get dropped like a hot coal.

But what about even newer technology? What about Hulu? Or Netflix? The Free TV Project? Program streaming on every other network website? More people watch television this way inside coffee houses on their I-Pads than ever before, and these are the ones with the kind of free time to be able to watch television. But Nielsen doesn't include these figures either. If they did, they'd see that networks could charge way more for internet ads, and make up the potential difference in lost revenue. But, no, Nielsen insists on only monitoring people who sit in front of their living room big-box, and for this reason, Jerry Springer will always have artificially higher numbers than Law & Order: L.A.!

Meanwhile, a bunch of grey-haired executives in NBC, who probably grew up watching Happy Days and I Love Lucy, are making the mistake of presuming that their biggest television hit is actually a loss -- because the old, outdated system of tracking is saying that the numbers are low.

Meanwhile, an entire segment of internet-streaming viewers are screaming "What the fuck?!" over the news that their favorite show is getting cancelled. What a travesty!

This is dumber than Dr. House driving a car through his girlfriend's bay window!

Now, there's an even bigger point to be made here. These are the kinds of corporate execs who, thanks to the Citizens' United ruling, can donate massive amounts of funds to whatever political campaign they want. Yet they make billions screwing up so badly, they can't even keep Law & Order L.A. on the air! I guess it's true what they say: In the entertainment industry, one fails upward.

Are these the kind of people you want to see having the biggest say-so in our political process?

I say, rip that power away from those fuckheads and give it back to the people where it belongs!

(They'll just have more money to spend on luxury yachts, that's all.)

Eric

Sell Your Gold - NOW!

I've been taking a brief hiatus from blogging, as it does take up a lot of time, and leading up to a final exam, I wanted to make sure I passed it (which I did). But oh, the things that did transpire during that time. I'd like to take a look at Paul Ryan's spiel on healthcare reform. I'd also like to examine the ruling of Wisconsin court justice Maryann Sumi. But for now, let me simply issue a recommendation to all investors out there:

Sell your gold now!

Why? It's simple, really. Since Obama's election, conservative media outlets have been touting the buying of gold, mostly on the grounds that they think Obama will destroy the dollar, and that gold will be the safest investment for the future. It's a version of the golden rule -- whoever has the gold makes the rules -- but in truth, the conservatives who push gold were likely heavily invested in gold to begin with before they started pushing it as an investment strategy.

Historically, precious metals investing has been a good hedge against inflation. Buy gold or silver, and as the dollar devalues and prices go up, you end up retaining the same spending power safely. Then, when the economy stables, you sell the gold or silver at a nice profit, though in fact you are not really making a literal profit, but are only breaking even in terms of buying ability.

But this latest spike in gold and silver prices is caused by something else. It's not inflation, because we don't really have a big problem with that (except with gasoline prices). And it's not an unstable economy, because it's been showing signs of recovery for quite some time now. No, this spike in precious metals prices has been caused solely due to the Tea Party movement. Convicned that Obama is about to ruin everything, or that Obama is the Antichrist, or some other disaster involving Obama is impending, they buy up all the gold and silver they can, preparing for the cataclysm to come. Demand goes up, supply stays the same, so the price jumps. Basic economics.

Problem is, the feared chaos will never get here. The economy is stabilizing. The disaster predicted with healthcare reform did not happen. Transitions to hybrid and electric vehicles will soon make higher gasoline prices less relevant. And best of all...

Obama is the president that got Osama Bin Laden!

That marks the end of the big push for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our troops will begin to come home. The biggest budget-buster of all time, initiated by George W. Bush, will finally cease to drain the lifeblood out of the nation's pocketbook. We will have a balanced budget before Obama's second term is over, with a budget surplus, just as it was under Clinton.

In other words, there is no more reason to panic.

That means the wise investors are selling their gold -- while the price is still high. With the panic over, and the storm clouds of impending disasters having blown by, we see sunny skies. The price of gold is about to DROP. FAST!!!

Oh, maybe gold will continue to climb just a bit more over the very short term. The pan-Arab revolt to democracy still has a lot of people worried, particularly in how it will play out in Egypt and Syria. And the brouha with Netanyahu over the Israeli borders will rattle a few nerves. But the fact remains that America is stabilizing, China's never going to take over, the national budget will cease to be upside-down, and the dollar will be secure.

So clear is this future that Republicans can't find a decent candidate to challenge Obama. Many Republicans don't want to. They don't dare! Face off against an incumbent who saved the economy and killed Bin Laden? No way! Who'd want to run into THAT buzz-saw?

So if you've invested in gold, now's the time to sell. Take your profits while you still can!

And watch while all the tea-partiers, who will refuse to sell in their anti-Obama delusions, take a huge loss when the price tumbles.

Eric

Herman Cain: Your Next Republican Presidential Candidate

Since before 2008, Republicans have lacked something they desperately need: A candidate. Now, they've got one.

Meet Herman Cain. He's smart, articulate, a successful businessman, an absolute conservative. Former CEO of Godfather's Pizza. Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Radio talk show host. Bachelors degree in mathematics and Masters degree in computer science. He's also a Southern Baptist, and an opponent of abortion in all cases, including rape and incest. The religious Right loves him. The Tea Party loves him!

Best of all, he's black.

We've seen it happen before: A party desperate to unhorse a sitting president will pick a candidate who contrasts well against that president's primary strength. Thus, in 2004, when the "war on terror" was the overriding issue, General Wesley Clark, who didn't really want to run, was a serious candidate, and the nomination eventually went to John Kerry, a military veteran.

Now we'll see this sort of thing happen with the political parties turned around.

He's the ideal candidate, except for one, teensy, little thing. He's picked a fight with the IRS. He wants something called the Fair Tax, which is a kind of national sales tax. He wants to return to the Gold Standard. Were it up to him, all estate taxes, capital gains taxes, and income taxes would be abolished.

Yeah. Good luck with that.

Every charity that receives donations from the wealthy who are motivated by write-offs will oppose the guy. Every big-time banking and accounting firm that builds its industry upon our current tax system will oppose him. Subchapter S corporations, which already pay no taxes, will have no real reason to support him. A lot of people with a lot of money will oppose the guy.

He's the African Steve Forbes.

But the disenfranchised with Obama will flock to him. He can easily eclipse other novelties, like Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin. He will win nomination. If somehow he flummoxes the nomination, he'll be the ideal Veep. He holds the promise of unifying the Republican front, of winning over some moderates, and splitting the black vote.

This hope is likely misplaced. Obama has faced this sort of candidate before. When running for the U.S. Senate, Republicans put their trust in another black conservative, named Alan Keyes. A former ambassador, Alan Keys was smart, eloquent, handsome, and a darker shade than Obama. But the black voters of Illinois weren't taken in. Obama not only beat him, he crushed him.

You see, contrary to popular conservative myth, black people are not stupid. They know when they're being pandered to, and they feel insulted when conservative special interests put forth a black candidate, as if they would all simultaneously abandon Dr. King's dream and vote on the color of skin rather than the content of character. There could only be one Jackie Robinson. There could only be one Rosa Parks. There is only one Barack Obama. African Americans already have their champion.

But the Tea Party doesn't know this, nor shall they. The entire movement is all salt and almost no pepper, all cream and no coffee. They'll look to Herman Cain as their savior.

Well, ya better hold on to that dream, people.

Eric

New Pro Life Commercial

I have a lot to say about many things. Like, for example, how everybody should stop jumping to conclusions about whether Bush-era-style water-boarding was used to kill Bin Laden. But for now, I've got something more important to grouse about. Yes, more important than whether Obama used torture.

This past week, I've noticed on NBC's Nightly News and other outlets a brand new pro-life commercial, and it really has me pissed off. I've included the video of the commercial here, so that you can see what I'm talking about.

Basically, the video says nothing I disagree with, until they come to the all important point about brain activity being present at seven weeks. Then, the motherly voice says, "Who knows? Maybe he's even thinking."

Oh, it's ON now!

I've posted before about how the brain defines the being in my online book, "It's The Brain, Stupid!" So I'm perfectly prepared to deal with the issue of brain development as it pertains to the abortion debate. You can read my full argument here. In it, I repeated the claim about the earliest brain activity of any kind being present at seven weeks, but I point out how that early brain activity means very little. The cerebral cortex, which governs movement, doesn't form until the 10th week, resulting in sudden and dramatic fetal movement. The cerebellum, the all-important area of thinking, cognition, reasoning, and experience, doesn't form until the 20th week, or 4.5 months in. The half-way point.

So for this commercial to come along and say, "Maybe he's even thinking," is just flat-out misleading. And it's a deliberately calculated attempt at misleading to boot. Lying is one thing. "Obfuscation of the truth" is even worse. The morons who made this commercial knew they were occulting the facts, and didn't care. What hubris!

In particular, I want you to focus in on the blunt admission of how 7 weeks is the earliest brain-wave activity point. Do the math. That's almost two months. Meaning that very early term abortion can still be done upon a fetus with ZERO brain activity whatsoever.

By thy own lips do I condemn thee!

This means not only that it is irrefutable that early-term abortion should remain LEGAL and PROTECTED, but that any objections to morning-after pills have no scientific basis. Those who deny morning-after pills to teenagers are therefore monsters, those who deny such pills to rape victims are rapists themselves.

And there's REALLY no damned excuse for opposing embryonic stem cell research! I, for one, am sick of scientists being forced to dump billions of dollars down the primrose path of regressing adult stem cells down to an undifferentiated state, as if that technology were anything other than setting any treatment back ten to twenty years!

Conceptionism is dead! Long live neural-developism!

As the woman says in the commercial, "What was I thinking?"

Hell, I don't know, lady. What were you thinking?!

Eric

Give The Pres. Some LOVE!

Osama Bin Laden is dead. Sweet, isn't it? The heart and soul of Al Quaeda is extinguished, terrorists can forever mourn their loss, and Americans can celebrate their victory. For that matter, Afghanistan has a real shot at a lasting government, and may well experience the first permanent steps towards liberation of women in... well, ever!

So now I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. For all the brave talk about Americans being united, and this victory being a bipartisan one, I'm still waiting to hear it. Just one compliment for President Obama.

Come on! Just one, teensey, weensey, little compliment? Can any so-called "conservatives" say it? Come on, say it with me, "President Obama did good." It's not hard! You can say it! Really! "The President did good!" Each time it gets a little easier. "President Barack Hussein Obama did a good thing in killing Osama Bin Laden."

Better yet, I'd like just one tea-party member to say, "You know, maybe I was wrong about Obama."

Hell, I'll say it: I was wrong! Yes, I was wrong about Bin Laden being already dead. I claimed that he was long ago killed, and that we would forever be fighting a ghost. Now, in light of new evidence, I'm forced to recant, and admit my mistake. And I'd made a second mistake with it: I thought the troop surge in Afghanistan was probably a mistake. I thought maybe it was a desperate gamble on Obama's part to try and get Bin Laden, and likely wouldn't work. Well, lo and behold, it DID! And I'm forced to admit that Obama's gamble paid off, and that the troop surge, which Obama did in defiance of his own party, was a good idea. I was wrong.

You know, it's a rather healthy thing. "I was wrong." It feels good to say! Maybe that's because those three little words are what makes science possible. Because in science, oneself being right or wrong doesn't matter. One's ego doesn't matter. All that matters is Truth. (And notice, I say Truth with a capital letter "T"!) So in saying "I was wrong," I'm really doing the most important thing that anybody can do in the pursuit of truth, and that's bow to the evidence.

Some people don't want to bow to the evidence. Already they're saying that Bin Laden isn't really dead. People also say that Elvis isn't dead. Or that we didn't land on the moon. Or that Obama is the Antichrist. Or that global warming is a hoax. Or that evolution didn't really happen.

Our culture really hasn't emphasized enough how important being wrong is. It's good to be wrong now and then! The ability to admit that you're wrong is the heart and soul of all Truth-seeking. It is the Alpha and Omega of maturity. It is the one trait absolutely essential for true intelligence.

Strange that so many people don't have it.

Even stranger that so many people go out of their way not to have it, and violently throw it away if it happens to fall right into their lap. Rather than admit they're wrong, they'll ignore birth certificates, become activists, proffer conspiracies or even build massive fake museums in Northern Kentucky, all to insulate themselves against the Truth, and having to say those three, small, all-important words: "I was wrong."

Why not just wear a dunce cap and save yourself the trouble?

So yes, everybody, I was wrong! And I say it proud!

Now, to all you Obama-haters: Your turn.

Eric