I just had one of the worst bad beats I've ever experienced. I put down $20 on a 6 max .25/.50 NL table. Second hand I get KQ, both clubs. Some guy before me raises to $2, I call from middle position, and the button calls. Flop comes 9TJ, two clubs, for the nut straight, and a high flush draw. The raiser bets $3, I raise to $10, late position folds, first guy reraises to put me all-in. Of course I call. He's got rockets, and one is a club. Turn is a low club, fine, I got a flush. River... You guessed it, a club.

Opponents of the war in Iraq often ask what good can come of it, or has come of it. They always conveniently forget things like free elections in Iraq with 8 million voters, elections in Lebanon with Syria basically getting kicked out of the country, Qaddafi renouncing his search for nuclear weapons, coming soon elections in Egypt (though they probably won't the fairest elections on record), and woman can vote in Kuwait, among various other breakthroughs in the Middle East. Some would say those things would have happened anyway, but that's obviously not true, or some of those things would have happened at various points over the years. Instead they all occurred due to the domino effect of freeing Iraq from Saddam, and allowing the average citizen in the region to see what could happen if they get rid of their despots. The area is as close to general freedom and peace as it has ever been. This is not a good thing, it is a great thing!!! I, for one, favor world peace, and sometimes you gotta go to war to establish real peace. Should we pull out of Iraq before the job is done, the entire region will likely be thrown in to chaos, with the strongest thug winning power and the chance at lasting peace a figment of the past.

Every once in a while I run across a news article or opinion piece with information that makes me want to find all the left-wingers arond, shove it in their face, and scream, "Ha ha you idiot, I was right, you were wrong as usual." This makes me also want to include cuss words and insults, though I won't here. Basically hte deal is that New Zealand is thinking about pulling out of the Kyoto Accords because it's going to cost them at least one billion dollars to comply, and will destroy their economy. Most European countries that signed Kyoto are not only spending tons of extra money to comply, but pollution has actually gone up! Bush and his science advisors said all this would happen and that was why we weren't going to sign Kyoto. I agreed, what they said made a lot of sense, and I did not want to see our economy destroyed just to make people in other countries think better of us. Liberals in this country, however, belittled the decision, acting as if Bush was now personally responsible for destroying the planet. Well all of those people can kiss my ass now. The United States has actually reduced pollution during the period that the Kyoto countries have spent themselves in to submission and raised their pollution rates while trying to comply with a plan that makes little economic or scientific since.

Let this be a lesson to you. Just because someone says something will save the world doesn't mean it's true. Ands just because a terrorist claims he was tortured, doesn't mean it's true, as several left-wing Senators found out when they visited Guantanamo last week instead of relying on hearsay and reports from former inmates. This sort of thing makes sense to me, don't trust till you verify, but so much of the left hats Bush with such a passion that they blind themselves to reality in their push to make Bush look bad at all costs. Even the lives of millions of Iraqis matter little compared to the humiliate Bush goal.

If seperation of Church and State is so unyielding that the Supreme Court won't allow a display of the Ten Commandments in a courthouse, then shouldn't it also be illegal for us to use tax dollars to buy Korans for prisoners in Guantanamo? It seems our government is getting in to religion a fair amount in that instance. Not only are we supplying the books, but we're training soldiers to deal with them under the proper religious laws.

Also I see a bunch of people whining that Texas, one of the places displaying the Ten Commandments, is violating them by allowing the death penalty. Of course the original 10 said, "Thou shalt not murder." It's only bad translations and leftist thinking (not leftists, but leftist thinking) that have changed the wording to "kill." Personally I'm gonna go with the version that was supposed to be handed down by God, instead of the version that King James approved. Murder is bad, but killing can be good and necessary. I was indirectly responsible for the killing of a cow yesterday because I had a hamburger. Thankfully the cow was not murdered.

In honor of the SCOTUS Kelo decision, which does away with the concept of private property rights in this country, despite an Anglo-Saxon tradition that goes back nearly 1000 years to the Magna Carta, some people are suggesting that we all send packages of dirt to everyone involved. The list includes all the justices that voted in favor of ignoring the 5th Ammendment, as well as the city manager and sveral others in New London, CT, the city that became the focus of the fight.

This is a letter from a former P.O.W. held by the North Vietnamese.

The Guantanamo Bay prisoners are possibly the best treated prisoners of war in the history of humanity.

A group is attempting to convince a town to use the power of eminent domain to build a hotel on the property that currently holds the home of Supreme Court Justice David Souter. A taste of his own medicine, I suppose. It would be pretty damn funny is Souter's property is seized and turned in to a hotel because the hotel pays higher taxes.

Get GoogleEarth. It's cool. Very cool.

Regarding the 10 Commanments in civic buildings, and the recent almost incoherent Supreme Court ruling on the subject, I'm a bit perplexed. Apparantly you can do it in one state, but not in another, or something like that. To me it shouldn't really be a big deal. Showing the 10 Commandments is like displaying a part of our history, but that doesn't mean it's a tacit endorsement of religion. There are statues of women wearing togas in a lot of civic buildings. Are we encouraging women to wear togas? There are statues of Greek gods and goddesses in a lot of civic buildings. Are we therefore endorsing worship of Zeus? Greek mythology is a religion, is it not?

It might be different if a courthouse Judge points to the 10 Commandments and says, "I'm sentencing you based on how many of these you broke," but for the msot part the tablets are just on display in a lobby and threaten no one, no more so than a statue of Aphrodite causes people to start sacrificing lambs.

I jsut wrote my state senator, representative, and US representative to urge them to pass legislation putting strict limits on eminent domain powers. Basically I'd like those limits to reflect the limits that are in the Constitution and are being ignored. Where it says public "use," I was them to define that as being used by the public. Higher tax revenue is not a use, and a Pfizer facility is not public (unless they let people camp out in their lobby, or play little league baseball in the atrium, or even allow the public to use their restrooms). Higher revenues are a pblic benefit, which is very different from use.

At any rate, write your elected officials. I just googled "how do i write my senator" or something like that, and found a nice place with everything I needed.

It's been said that in order for a third world country to leave its third world status, it must recognize private property rights, among other things. Now that the U.S. no longer has private property rights, are we a third world country?

Boortz also points out that Ed Klein, the guy that wrote the book on Hillary that I was dissing last week, had been set up to do interviews on all the major talk shows, just like any political author would after releasing a new book, but suddenly all those interviews, except the one on FoxNews, have been canceled. Could it be the vast left wing conpsiracy at work again? Either Hillary is behind this, or the left-wing media decided not to promote a work that makes her look bad all on their own. Either way, it's yet another example of left-wing bias in the mainstream media. You can bet that if a book unfavorable to Bush comes out, the author gets his/her time on air.

Boortz had an interesting point on his website today. Children in Iraq are being vaccinated against smallpox. Why? It's been eradicated and does not exist outside of the lab. Could it be that the leadership of Iran has decided to use smallpox in biological warfare? Why else would they vaccinate against a disease that no one gets anymore, ever?

Several Senators and Representatives toured Guantanamo Bay this weekend, and several of the Democrats on the trip said things like, "It seem like they've really made progress, it's a good thing we started investigating this stuff." It never seemed to occur to them that perhaps Guantanamo was always a well-run facility and the difference is that now they are seeing it for themselves instead of relying on hearsay from people that want the military to look bad.

Today I wrote the following to the AJC:
"For a professor of law, letter-writer Patrick Wiseman shows little understanding of the Constitution in his support of the Kelo v New London decision. My point is illustrated in his use of the words, "public purpose." He cites this as reason to support Kelo, but the Constitution uses the words "public use," which is a completely different animal. Supreme Courts have, like Wiseman, stretched "use" to "purpose" or "benefit" over the years, but that only makes the judges that dissented show even more honor towards the Constitution. They are ignoring precedent to make the correct decision, and go with what the words are supposed to mean, not what activist judges have changed them to over the years. Maybe Wiseman should read through the Constitution and the Federalist Papers again before he teaches any more law classes."

In response to this:
"The hand-wringing over the Supreme Court's decision in the New London eminent domain case is completely out of proportion to what the court actually decided.

It has long been the rule in eminent domain cases that any exercise of the eminent domain power that serves a legitimate public purpose is constitutionally valid; it has also long been the rule that courts should defer to local judgment on what counts as a legitimate public purpose. All the court did in the New London case was to affirm these two longstanding principles.

That the four most conservative members of the court would have ruled otherwise shows that it is they who are the "activists" on the court. In a democracy, the presumption should be that local legislative judgment controls, and that such judgment should be overturned by a court only when a constitutional principle is violated. However one feels about the judgment of the New London City Council --- and I believe that it was arrogant, misguided and destructive of the security interests of property owners, and I will accordingly never choose to live there --- it violated no federal constitutional principle. Had the court ruled otherwise, it would have been "activist" in the worst sense.

PATRICK WISEMAN
Wiseman is a professor of law at Georgia State University."


What a silly man, using any excuse to support a decision that is obviously backwards when one considers the correct wording of the 5th Ammendment.

Here is Clarence Thomas' dissent on the Kelo eminent domain case the SCOTUS ruled on yesterday. If, after reading it, you do not see that Clarence Thomas has a fine mind, nuanced, but at the same time held to a strict and consistent philosophy, then you are nuts. The guy rocks! I wish all the judges were like him in that respect. I don't mean I want all the Justices to have his same views, I just wish they all had basic philosophies that they stick to, instead of allowing emotion and personal desire to rules their decisions. I also wish just one more had agreed with Thomas this time.

George Bush would get GIGANTIC props from both the left and the right if he got on national TV and said that he disagrees with both Kelo and the proposed Flag Burning Ammendment. I don't know many people, left or right, that like Kelo, and I've only run in to a few on the right that like the flag burning thing.

This is almost mind-blowing. The Foreign Minister of China, while visiting Israel, said that his government will never allow a regime like Iran's ruling party to achieve nuclear weapons. This is very significant in several aspects, with the first in my heart being that China actually has opened diplomatic relations with Israel. I'm sure they had relations before, but the fact that the Foreign Minister discussed support of an item of such importance to Israel while visiting Israel is phenomenal! In addition, the mere fact that China, now the biggest player on the world stage next to the U.S., has expressed concern about the spread of nuclear weapons gives hope for the future of humanity. Maybe we won't all die in a nuclear war!

My Dad related to me a fascinating story about my family, as researched by my Aunt Sharon, the geneologist of our relations. I'm not sure of the details, but the gist of the story is that my Grandfather left Poland for the U.S. in 1914 (or 1917, I can never remember which), and left his brothers behind. One of them moved to France at some point and had a wife and kids. He came to the U.S. to visit my Grandfather, and while he was here Germany invaded France. He was unable to get back to his family, and was never able to find out what happened to them. Years went by, and through her research my Aunt got involved with Yad Vashem, which is the Israeli Holocust museum, memorial, and research center. I guess theymust have some sort of program to help reconnect families that were split by the Holocaust, and through this she discovered that we still have living relatives in France. The French relatives had no idea what happened to my Grandfather's brother, they never knew that he lived on here in the U.S. It took more than 50 years, but one family split by the evils of Hitler finally found some of the answers they've been looking for.

I'm not going to politicize this in any way, except to ask how someone could still compare Guantanamo Bay to real evil after reading stories like this.

Amazingly the Supreme Court has upheld the widening use of eminent domain to seize property for public use. CNN's writeup is here. I'm flabbergasted that this was supported by the liberals on the court, with all the conservatives dissenting for a 5-4 tally. Most of the time when eminent domain is invoked in the manner the court ruled on, it is to increse tax revenue to a local government by selling the land to a private developer. This is such a sop to big business that it makes the liberals that support it in to giant hypocrites. They are saying it's ok to steal proerty from poor people to give to big businesses. When Bush's tax cuts are said to steal money from the poor to give to the rich (which is not true, since tax cuts merely allow people to keep more of their own money), it's called greedy and evil. Why is it ok to steal property from the poor to give to the rich? It's yet another inconsistency out of multitudes on the left. Thank god at least four justices decided to stand up for the rights of individuals over the collective of local government and big business. If only one more judge had the integrity, and the basic understanding of English that it takes to realize how unconstitutional this is.

Tomorrow I have an interview to work for another department here at the Fed. Not only does it pay more, but the job description looks vastly more interesting than my current position, as well as being far more appropriate to my own skills and attributes. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Here's an interesting analysis of the oil situation here in the U.S. I can't speak for the author's conclusions, but I did learn a lot more about the oil importing industry than I previously knew.

The left wing just loves to cite polls as evidence of truth. 65% of Americans polled by some random agancy say that the war is not worth it? Well that means it's not, because the American people always know, rigtht? Bush has a 55% disapproval rate? Well there's your smoking gun, time to impeach.

How about this one: 36% of poll respondents feel that terrorist prisoners in Guantanamo Bay are being treated too well, and 34% feel they are being treated jsut about right. Only 20% feel they have been treated unfairly. What does that tell you? Not a whole lot, it's just a poll, but if you want to take it as a truth, as the left does any poll that is unfavorable to Bush, then we're doing a great job in Guantanamo, and the people fele the non-torture that is going on there is apropriate.

If we did follow Geneva conventions for these prisoners (who are not uniformed soldiers and thus do not fall under any of the Geneva accords), then we could hold them without recourse for as long as the war continues. It's ironic, therefore, that the left wing is all about Geneva when it comes to not playing loud music, but ignore Geneva when they call for allowing lawyers, and giving the terrorists their day in court. Either you follow Geneva all the way, or not at all. Since they aren't soldiers of a sovereign army, I say let 'em rot as long as they may be a danger to U.S. citizens.

Have you read about the proposed flag burning amendment? I'm not a fan. What it actually says is that Congress shall have the power to prohibit the physical desecration of of the flag....

Beyond the obvious freedom of expression outrage I'm feeling, there's also a sense of fear of appropriating even more power to the Federal legislature. My fear is compounded by the ambiguousness of the wording. We see every day how the Supreme Court manages to find new ways of reading the Constitution to justify previously unconstitutional laws or regulations. Who is to define physical desecration? What if you allow your pet to poop on it, or turn it in to a shirt, use it for a bedspread, a bikini, an armband? Who defines what a flag is? Is it only a real, live, made to be flown flag, or does an image count? In what ways is Congress allowed to prohibit it? Can Congress decide that townships should use eminent domain to seize the property of desecrators because it serves the public interest to take these elements out of society?

Is the flag really important enough to merit a constitutional ammendment? Are people burning all that many now? Make it an ammendment, and suddenly it will become the tactic of choice for activists of all sorts, from naive college hippies to Islamic fundamentalists, from PETA freaks to union strikers.

It's a very bad idea in every way I can think of. A bordering on evil idea. I'd have to guess that elements of the GOP are behind this, and I'm ashamed. Good thing I'm not really a Republican, the social conservatism keeps me from carrying a card. I'm just waiting for one of the South Park guys to run for office. I'd take Arnold, but I'm not yet willing to remove the domestically-born provision we have.

Here's an article by Steve Forbes on immigration policies in the U.S. His gripes center around the fact that we seem to be doing everything we can to make legal immigration a real pain in the ass, while allowing illegal immigration to become ever more easily achieved. This, of course, doesn't make sense, and, in a perfect world, would be the opposite. Of course any time you complain about illegal immigration, you get idiots saying things like, "But my grandparents were immigrants!" Some people don't understand the difference between legal and illegal immigration. Those of us who do are increasingly frustrated by the policies of the TSA and the INS.

Today is the start of event #22 at the World Series of Poker. This one is a $1500 buy-in NL holdem tourney with no rebuys. Why do I care? Boss 4x flew out to Vegas for this one. It starts in 5 minutes. I've been keeping up a bit with the WSOP on Toa of Poker, where the blogger has been live-blogging the entire series of tournaments, but he's competing in this one, too, so there should be less updates. What he has said so far is that it's possibly got the highest number of participants of any tourney so far, and that Phil Gordon was quoted as saying, "Look at all the dead money out there." My boss certainly falls in to that category, but I wish him well regardless.

People like to complain about the wage gap between men and women, with various feminist groups leading the pack. Anecdotally I've never had a job where men were paid more than women for the same work, nor have I ever had a job where a man was promoted over an equally deserving woman. Am I saying there's no gender discrimination in America? No, just that I haven't seen any in my professional life.

Recent surveys have highlighted why the difference in average wages for men and women differ. When asked what was most important about a job, a large number of women said, "flexibility," and a large number of men said, "money." Does it surprise you that the group that thinks money is more important than flexibility makes more money? If I'm an empoyer looking to fill a position with internal candidates, and one person says they will do anything for the right money, while the other wants the option to get paid less to work less, I'm probably going to be thinking the person that wants more money is going to be a more dedicated worker, no matter the gender.

The more I read about the new book on Hillary Clinton, the more disgusted I am. I don't like Hillary much, and I think I've made that very clear, but some of the stuff in this "expose" is just simply beyond reasonable discourse. Once again, thank god the author is a left-winger, I'd be even more upset if a conservative had written this trash. Of course you and I btoh know that if a book came out with similarly ridiculous and "didn't need to be said" items, the left would be applauding the author for not being scared to speak up. Well just about everyone on the right I've seen talking about this book that trashes a favorite of the left thinks the book is disgusting. It's all about integrity, and the guy who wrote this crap doesn't seem to have any.

It's a sad day for fans of space travel. The newest Cosmos ship was lost shortly after launch. I don't know yet if that m,eans it blew up, or just went missing, or what, but I'm disappointed. The Cosmos is, or was, a light-sail spacecraft, which science-fiction fans can tell you means that it deploys a giganticly, very thin sail almost like an umbrella whcih it uses to catch light-rays for propulsion. I don't know the science that well anymore, but I believe it somehow uses the photons that are hitting over such a wide area as a propellant, just like a ocean-bound sailing ship uses a sail to catch wind. Theoretically this means almost unlimited speed, as it can continue accelerating forever, even in depths of interstellar space. I think that's the theory, anyway. Hopefully they'll track the ship down. I was especially interested in this launch because it's a private group doing it, and it only cost $4 million. That's cheap enough that they can try again if this one is lost. I hope they, or someone else, will soon.

This article is an impassioned plea against the planned "Freedom Center," a chronicle of the wrongs humanity has done to humanity, and a subtle suggestion that the victims of 9/11 had it coming. Of course the people planning the Freedom Center say it will be a source for discussion and reason in a time of extremism, but it looks like a condemnation of Western culture to me, and no amount of spin will make it appropriate for Ground Zero.

I had the second class of Financial Accounting yesterday. All we did was go over the homework from the week before. I had been anticipating learning as much new information this week as last, but I'm not complaining. If all of grad school is this easy, it's gonna be a breeze. Unfortunately I know it won't be that easy, but at least I've got a breather before I jump in to the tough stuff. I register for fall semester in just a couple of days. I realized I can't schedule any weekend classes bacause I have weddings every other weekend leading up to a final one on New Year's day.

Morgan Spurlock, the man who brought us Supersize Me (and inspired me to go to McDonalds immediately after seeing the movie), has just begun a TV show. In the first episode he and his girlfriend attempt to live on minimum wage for a month. Here's a review. I have it recorded at home, but have yet to watch it. According to the review, they ran in to several difficulties, including having a hard time finding a job that pays as low as minimum wage. They also left out several things, like why 39% of his paycheck was deducted (for medical insurance, perhaps? We don't know, because he doesn't mention it, but if even a close to minimum wage worker is getting decent health insurance, then anyone who is willing to work hard ought to have no problem getting health care), or whether he gets the earned income credit.

Speaking of taxes, I understand tax revenues collected by the government have gone WAY up this year, primarily due to the tax cuts Bush made. Of course as soon as he is out of office the Dems will try to get rid of those tax cuts and revenues will go way down.

I went to a wedding this weekend. I've been to two really large, expensive weddings, and this was the second. There were at least 200 people, possibly closer to 250, and dinner was filet mignon and grouper (loved the filet, the fish was ok, and that's really saying something considering how I usually feel about fish). The participants were James Freedman-Aponte of Puerto Rico and now D.C., and Stephanie Killgore. Both are old friends from college.

I left work Friday in plenty of time to leave for Florida at our scheduled departure time of 1 pm. Unfortunately the car we were supposed to be taking was in the shop getting a new water pump. When we arrived at 4:00 pm to pick up the supposedly fixed car, Smiley, the owner/operator of the vehicle, noticed the hood was open While paying he asked about that. No one seemed to know, and we were about to drive off when someone remembered that they decided to replace the water cap on the radiator and had sent out an employee to go to NAPA Auto Parts for the cap. Damn good thing Smiley asked, or they would have let us drive off without that part, which really tells you NOT to go to this place for car repairs anymore. I also found it strange that when replacing a water pump, they obviously didn't bother to examine the cap until after they told Smiley the car was fixed. If I was fixing anything to do with the coolant system, I would check the cap at the start. The owner came out an apologized and gave Smiley a bunch of pointless concessions. Anything short of free labor on all the repairs would have left me disatisfied, but it wasn't my car. We asked if we could leave mine in the parking lot there so we wouldn't have to waste another hour driving back to the apartment and then south again, and they agreed. Then they woke me up with a phone call Saturday morning asking me why my car was parked in their lot. I'm not sure how they got my number, though I may have gotten an oil change there in the past, so perhaps that's it.

After a couple of hours of watching Smiley drive 80 while I was anxious as hell to get to St. Petersburg, I made him pull over so I could drive. Then we flew. Can't believe I didn't get a ticket! Got in around midnight, threw our crap in the hotel room, and walked the four blocks to the bar where we were told our crowd was hanging out. That crowd consisted of a whole bunch of guys from my frat, and assorted girlfriends/wives. Mostly just guys, though. I had a few drinks, then they kicked us out around 2 when bars have to close there. I had just started a beer and the security guy said I had to leave that floor, but could finish the beer in the outside ground floor area as long as I did not leave the premises. He lied because the guard at the bottom of the stairs rudely grabbed the beer from me and threw it away. There was no arguing. All I wanted was 10 damn seconds to chug it down. Since it was really only 1:55, I should have had five more minutes anyway. Had I ever planned to be in St. Pete again, I may have taken my protest further, but instead I will just boycott the city. Anyway, we walked back the hotel and hung out in the parking lot for a while. One group of friends went to a strip club and then a casino, but I decided to stick around the hotel and get some sleep.

I got out of bed around noon on day 2. I'd already been awakened by the aforementioned phone call, the hosuekeeping staff, who kept coming back even after I signed a sheet saying that I had chosen not to have my room cleaned that day (and later found out that one of the guys I was sharing the room with signed the same form, so obviously they didn't pay any attention the first few times I told them to go away) as well as very loud drilling from the floor below, which was being renovated. Nice of the hotel to put us in such a quiet spot. I went downstairs and found some friends in the pool. Went back upstairs to get my bathing suit, and then swam for a bit. A few of us had lunch in the hotel restaurant, and then it was back to the pool. All of the sudden everyone I knew at the wedding showed up, along with some beer, and we had a fun afternoon. Then it was upstairs to shave, shower, and get dressed. It was black tie optional, so I wore a dark suit with a lavender french cuffed shirt with spread collar and a blue stripped tie. Got lots of compliments. The ceremony was great, mercifully short, and gave me my first look at the maid of honor, who I found to be rather attractive. Though a bit lacking in finger food, the period between the ceremony and the reception did offer excellent pepper jack cubes and along bar lines. I skipped the line by sneaking to the side and grabbing some beers.

The reception was pretty lavish, and came with a nifty story. Stephanie's maternal grandfather was a navigator in the RAF and was slated to be married in late December 1943. His plane was shot down over Germany in early December 1943, and ended up hanging upside down from a church steeple with a bunch of gun-toting Nazis running around below. His main concern was how to explain to his fiancee why he was going to miss the wedding. A couple of years down the road, and several POW camps later (including the one featured in the movie The Great Escape), he got back and got married. Later on he emigrated to Australia where he rose to the level of Vice Air Marshall and was in charge of the Australian Air Force's medical services. He spoke briefly, and sounded incredibly distinguished. Actually the speech reminded me of a recording from the 1950's. He just had this old school dignity that you don't hear too often anymore.

There was one special segment of the evening where every brother from the frat posed for a huge group shot. I'm not sure what the count was, but there had to be at least 40 of us, ranging from one guy who was a junior when I was freshmen all the way down to people who were in high school still when I graduated college. All the girlfriends and wives took a lot of pictures of that one, and then we mortified James by surrounding him and yelling our victory chant, which is full of a lot of bad words. Luckily it's almost unintelligible when 50 people are yelling it, so no one got offended. Dinner, dancing, drinking, and one maid of honor's email address later, my crowd split in to two groups, one leaving for a casino, and my group heading to a room for more drinking and socializing. I ended up passing out around 2.

Got up at 9 Sunday morning and went to the brunch downstairs. YUMMY!! James and Stephanie got their big send-off at about 11:45, and a Rolls Royce took them to their destination (the honeymoon is a Mediterranean cruise, I don't know what happened after they got in the Rolls). We packed and took off soon after, arriving in Atlanta around 7 pm last night.

Speaking of being critical of Bush, him and his brother Jeb really need to back off this Schiavo thing. She's dead, her brain was mush, leave it alone. You aren't going to find out anything about her initial collapse that was not discovered 15 years ago.

Read this to find out what a real torture center is like. I wish this would lay to rest the claims that Gitmo is like a Gulag, but I doubt it. Here's a sample:

Marines on an operation to eliminate insurgents that began Friday broke through the outside wall of a building in this small rural village to find a torture center equipped with electric wires, a noose, handcuffs, a 574-page jihad manual - and four beaten and shackled Iraqis.



Incidentally, I was at a wedding this weekend and asked someone if they ever read my blog. He said he looked at it, but isn't interested in politics, and described my blog as, "blah blah blah, I love Bush, blah blah blah." I'm tired of that attitude from people. Seeing as liberals are supposed to be all nuanced, they are surprisingly black or white about everything. Let's just say, for instance, that I know a guy that I don't consider a friend, but I don't dislike him either. I hear someone else saying this guy likes to steal money from homeless people. Well I may not love this guy, but I also don't think he steals money from homeless people, so I defend him. That does not mean I love him, or even like him, it just means that I know him well enough to know he doesn't steal money from homeless people. Bush is the victim of ridiculous accusations on a daily basis from many people, and even if I don't love him, he's my President, and I'm going to defend him from ridicilous accusations. If people stopped making so many unfounded verbal assaults on the guy, then I'd have more time to criticize him for legitimate concerns. A perfect example is Fahrenheit 9/11. It's ridiculous that Bush set up 9/11 with Saudi oil people, but that was Moore's basic assertion. The right spent so much time defending him on that front that they had little energy left to say, "Hey, there are still some problems here, even though what Moore said is completely wrong." So stop attacking Bush in a nonsensical manner, and you'll see me, other conservatives, criticize him for legit things more often.

An Australian named Douglas Wood was just freed from captivity where he was being held by terrorists. He was freed by American soldiers after they got a tip from an Iraqi citizen who was fed up with foreign insurgents doing this sort of thing. The torture was rather mild by American standards. Instead of touching his Bible, or making him look at pictures of naked women, all they did was slaughter two of the other histages like pigs and scare the crap out of the guy. Good thing they didn't make him listen to bad music, he may not have made it out with his good taste intact.

After seeing this stuff, I really want to slap the next liberal that whines to me about all the awful things we are doing to people in Gitmo. All those people did was kill Americans, that's no reason to want to keep them from doing it again.

Some kid died on one of Disney's rides the other day. This ride is supposed to simulate a rocket launch in to space, so you get the feeling of experiencing 2 G's max, which is nothing. Despite the fact that doctors have said there's no way the ride caused the kid's death, unless he already had some health problems and shouldn't have been on in the first place, CNN had an expert on calling for some sort of standardization of amusement park rides. More nanny state crap. First they came for the playgrounds, but I don't use them so I didn't speak out. Then they came for the amusement park rides, but I don't go to amusement parks, so I didn't speak out. Then they came for cars, but mine is a piece of junk, so I didn't speak out. Now they've come for my stapler because someone stapled their finger, and now I can't attach two pieces of paper together anymore.

Silly advancement of mine, right? Not really. Twenty years ago no one would ever imagine that monkey bars would be banished from the vast majority of playgrounds, but now it's hard to find them anywhere. If you're going to standardize amusement park rides, well sports cars cause a lot more deaths, so let's only allow cars that can't go faster than 60 mph.

I was bit wrong in my previous entry. The offending museum with the left-wing tilt is being built on the 9/11 site in addition to a proper memorial. Even so, such a museum does not belong in that place, paid for with taxpayer dollars. There are plenty of place they can build a temple to anti-Americanism, and Ground Zero is not one of them.

I don't know if you've heard about the theft of the Ground Zero memorial by left wingers, but check this out. To sum up, the people in charge, backed by George Soros, are turning the Memorial not in to a memorial of the people that died when they were just trying to work, or the people that died trying to save lives, but instead in to an anti-American hate fest full of all the bad things that the U.S. has been responsible for, with little or no mention of the tragedy it's supposed to be memorializing. Here's the original column, written by the sister of one of the pilots whose plane was captured and steered into a tower, revealing how the memorial has been hijacked by left wing interests, and turned in to something disgusting.

I need to work on my money management in poker. After the $400 I won a few weeks ago, about $100 was taken out to pay some money I owed, and the rest got dribbled away. I finished 4th in a $50 tourney where 3rd would ahve paid $90. I finished 5th in a $20 tourney where 4th would have paid $36 (and 1st $180). Finally I was down to my last $6. I threw it in to one last $5 tourney with 167 people. Ended up finishing 3rd for $106, and should have been 2nd for $150, but the other guy caught a lucky break when his A-10 beat my A-Q.

Why is it that very religious Christians are typically treated with scorn by our media, and very religious Muslims have praise heaped upon them for their convictions?

Turns out there might be more substance to this G-8 Live-Aid thing than I thought. Bob Geldof said he considers Robert Mugabe to be a Castro-like thug, and that he knows serious reform is needed in many African countries before the average citizen can get out of poverty.

I attended my first grad school class today, Financial Accounting. It was a bit confusing, but I think I can get it. The most confusing part is the thing about debits and credits. To me a debit is a minus, but not in accounting... I think. Not so clear on it yet, I need to study. At the end of the class the professor says, "Congratulations, you've just finished the first semester of undergrad accounting." Yea me!

It's official. The right wong of the blogosphere does have integrity. I've been searching and have yet to find a well-known right wing, or South Park wing, blogger that is anything but digusted with that Bill raping Hillary allegation that I posted one erlier. True or not, that is something that happened 30 years ago between a husband and wife. It's certainly no else's business now, and did not need to be printed. Again, thankfully it came from a well known liberal media guy (former editor of Newsweek and the New York Times editorials), and not a conservative. Otherwise it would reflect badly on all conservatives. I haven't had time to check the left wing blogs, but I'm sure they are upset about the report in between comments about how Bush rapes children in Africa, or some such other beyond ridiculous statement you see in the comments on blogs all the time.

Did you know that one of the Army's guidelines for handling a Koran is that you must use gloves when carrying one? This is because non-Muslims, or infidels, are considered unclean. I'm not unclean, and I'd be willing to bet the average Islamist fanatic smells a lot worse than I. I think we're taking this respect for other religions a little too far. Perhaps the other side should be required to show some tolerance, a little tit-for-tat. I doubt they carry Bibles with gloved hands. In fact there are many incidents of Islamists destroying Christian churches and Jewish Temples, and not even once has there ever been an apology, or even an acknowledgement of a wrong being committed. It's one thing to hold yourself to higher standards than others, but it's a whole other realm when you allow tolerance to lead to suicide, and right now we seem to be on course to tolerate ourselves to death.

I think I've written before on DDT and how the banning of DDT int eh 780's has caused the death of millions due to malaria, which has been on it's way to the dustbin of history thanks to DDT and it's malaria-carrying mosquito killing ability. Some estimate as many as 50 million deaths due to malaria and other mosquito-carried illnesses that could have been prevented had DDT not been banned. I just ran across this quote from a researcher. Pay special attention to what the 'environmentalist' said:

"Ideology comes in three colours: red, brown and green, representing Marxism, fascism and environmental extremism. Judged on sheer evil, the worst crime in history was brown, the Nazi genocide, although the reds slaughtered more people. The death toll (difficult to measure) is roughly, Hitler’s holocaust 6 million, Stalin’s famine and terror 8 million, and Mao’s famine 30 million. But the greens have topped them all. In a single crime they have killed about 50 million people. In purely numerical terms, it was the worst crime of the 20th century. It took place in the USA in 1972. It was the banning of DDT.

I have heard not one word of pity or regret from any green organisation about the vast loss of human life caused by the ban on DDT. On the contrary, they seem to regard it as a glorious triumph. The likely reason was spelled out with chilling clarity by Charles Wurster of the Environmental Defence Fund in the USA in 1971 when it was pointed out to him that DDT saved the lives of poor people in poor countries. He said: ‘So what? People are the main cause of our problems. We have too many of them. We need to get rid of some of them and this is as good a way as anything.’"


In many cases environmentalists are also on the opposite side of what's good for the environment. Their reluctance to allow brush clearing in forests, and their enthusiasm for putting out natural forest fires has destroyed plenty of homes and lives, and caused much worse harm to the environment. Forests are supposed to burn sometimes. If you prevent a forest from burning for 100 years, and then a fire starts, the buildup of organic material that should have been burned away already causes a much hotter and more devestating fire than it should have been. Many a forest survives forest fires and reinvigorates itself. These environmentally protected forests that burn so much hotter usually do not come back for a much longer period of time because all the organic material has burned to ash, instead of leaving a nice composty type material for a new forest to grow from, as natural fire would cause.

A new book has come out called, "The Truth About Hillary." It's written by a former editor of the New York Time editorial page, so it's hardly an attack book from the right. Anyway, one of the allegations is that on night in 1979 Bill told someone he was going to go rape his wife. The next day furniture was smashed all over the cabin they were staying in in Burmuda, and Hillary was pregnant with Chelsea. Basically the book says Chelsea is the result of rape. Hillary is upset, understandably, and I'm a bit sickened by it, too. Even if he did rape Hillary, she's has almost 30 years to say something, and instead has remained married to the man. I'm saddened that someone felt they needed to share this with the world, and for once am sympathetic to the Clintons. Some attacks go beyond good taste, and this belongs in that category. At least it was a left-winger making the charge.

The big G-8 music festival is coming soon, with planning by Bob Geldof, the man behind Live-Aid, and also star of the Pink Floys movie, The Wall. I think it's cool that a bunch of musicians are getting together to raise money for the poor, but it's not cool that their stated aim is to put pressure on the G-8 countries to give more money to poor Africans. Africa is a very rich continent in terms of natural resources, but it is terribly underdeveloped. One reason why is that the governments of the various countries there have little incentive to develop. I could work hard, but why should I when people keep sending me money for nothing? Charity has rarely raised anyone out of poverty. At the best it gives someone some breathing space to get their lives together, get a job, start earning some money, but if they know they'll be given more and more charity, why bother getting a job? The same can be said of African countries. The best thing to do would be to put pressure on various governments there to reform themselves, stop opressing their people, and start developing their economies. The U.S. already gives hundreds of millions, maybe even billions, in aid to poor African countries every year. More is not going to make a difference unless other factors change first. I wish Geldof would get this, and stop blaming the US for all the world's problems. If you want to blame anyone besides Africans themsevles for their problems, blame the legacy of European imperialism. Colonialism is not, and has rarely ever been, a good thing for the country being colonized. Economic colonization, the concept of the US, for example, helping to develop businesses in African countries, would be a major boon. Give people work, a chance to earn money and better themsevles and have stable lives, and then the natural entreprenuership present in all societies will start taking care of the economy. Concerts aren't really going to help anyone in the long run, except perhaps for a boost to Geldof's career.

You want to do something immediately? Get Mugabe out of office in Zimbabwe, get the Islamists out of Algeria, stop the genocide in Darfur. These are far more immediate problems, and action on an would go a long way towards stabilizing the countries involved. You can't industrialize without stability, and you can't be anything but poor without industrialization. These musicians probably think the worst thing that could happen is to visit Africa and see that it's no longer quaint and wild and such. They would be upset and bemoan the loss of culture or some crap like that. The people living there, on the other hand, would love it because they'd be able to eat and have the conveniences of modern life. These elites don't seem to understand that the life of a poor African bushman is only glamarous to the visitor, while it's a life of struggle, hunger, and frustration to the bushman himself, and no amount of foreign aid will change that.

Some Democratic congressmen are now blaming Republicans for publicizing Howard Dean's recent ridiculous remarks, saying that everyone says something they don't eman while in the heat of the moment. That's certainly true, and if it was just one time, I would be more likely to castigate those criticizing Dean than castigate Dean himself. Unfortunately it's not just once, it's repeated and with obvious fervor that he says things like, "All Republicans are white Christians that look and dress alike," "I hate Republicans and everything they stand for," they are "liars,"
"corrupt," and "brain-dead." Just about every public appearance he makes is another chance for him to say something that does not belong in political discourse. He preaches tolerance of others while being incredibly intolerant of others. In Dean's world you cannot dislike someone because they want to kill you, but you can hate someone because they vote differently than you. Dean is an immature man, and I thank god the Dems keep putting him in important places because he is going to help them hand the center of the electorate to the GOP. While I've seen Republicans go after individuals ont he other side of the aisle, I can think of a time when I've seen a Republican make these hateful statements against an entire party. They have too much honor and integrity to stoop that low. The American people, in general, have too much honor and integrity to respect Dean for such statements.

I also got a kick out the Democrats that were trying to distance themselves from Dean. Both Biden and Richardson said something along the lines of, "Howard Dean does not speak for all Democrats." I'm sorry, but he's the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, so when he speaks, he is spekaing for the party. The same goes for when Ken Mehlman, the RNC chair, says something. Anyway, it's very hypocritical, because these same people that are trying to distance themselves from Dean previously indicted all Republicans for actions taken by George Bush, who is not the leader of his party.

Just imagine the reverse situation. A prominent Republican says during an interview that the Democratic Party is a bunch of brown black skinned people on welfare. The uproar would be monumental, and the offending Republican would be lynched in the court of public opinion, and calls for a recall election would abound. Why does Dean get a free pass? Could it be an institutional bias towards the left wing in the press?

Yes.

The Democratic Party has demonstrated over the last 5 years that they are the party of whiners (still won't "move-on" from the 2000 election), the party of bigots (use the race card every five seconds, act like the defenders of minorities, but never appoint any to high positions and do everything they can to block Bush from appointing any high level minorities), the party of hypocrisy (I loved watching Kerry and Edwards bash the rich, when Kerry got rich through marriage [twice] and Edwards got that way by soaking insurance companies and contributing to the atmospheric rise in insurance premiums), the party of low self-esteem (we must do X because otherwise the Europeans won't like us), and the party of immaturity (Dean). If they ever want to be in power again in the halls of Congress, they need to reform, get rid of the nutcases, and put some strong on defense types in charge.

I think I just realized the meaning of the name of the Stripes' newest album, Get Behind Me Satan. As any lover of the blues knows, Robert Johnson made a deal with the devil at the crossroads at midnight to get the guitar skill he shows off in his few recorded tracks. Perhps Get Behind Me Satan is Jack White saying that it's time to move on from guitar rock/blues, and try some more ecletic influences. It certainly works. My love for the album has continued to grow. I want to go home and listen!

Turns out The White Stripes' new album does get better with repetition and I'm starting to love it. This, their fifth album, is very different from the previous two. I don't believe I've ever heard the first two, but the last two were a cross between garage rock, punk, and blues, with Jack White's guitar front and center. This one eschews the guitar on most tracks in favor of a piano and some sort of drum that I imagine is one of those Caribbean ones made out of metal with a bunch of flat parts that each makes a different note. The shock I felt when first I listened led to my initial sour reaction, but having a chance to absorb the change allowed me to appreciate it for a new and fresh, yet oddly nostalgic experience. The punk and rock melt away into bluegrassy folk with a latin rhythm (Or is it caribbean? Rhythm and I don't really hang out that much), and the always present blues influence. I probably won't be blasting this in my car like their previous efforts, but I will listen to it intently in the silence of my living room.

I'm still not going to Music Midtown. I have too many weddings coming up, and those are always expensive, so I gotta sacrifice.

Charles Rangel, left wing Congressman from New York, has added more to the proof that he is a nutcase. Previously he advocated renewing the draft, which led to newspapers all over the country scaring our youth with the implication that Bush wants to restart the draft, despite the fact that Rangel is a Democrat, and the only elected offical to suggest such a thing. This time he's compared the war in Iraq with the Holocaust, with the justification that no one is saying anything against our government, allowing them to do whatever they want. First off, it's an insult to Holocaust victims, and victims of real genocides like the ones currently happening in the Sudan and Zimbabwe. Second you can't open a newspaper, a magazine, or turn on the TV without seeing someone speaking out against the administration. Finally the best quote to sum up what allowed the Holocaust to happen is:

First they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists
And I did not speak out –
Because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out –
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me –
And there was no-one left
To speak out for me.

Pastor Niemöller, 1938

Not only have I not heard of Bush's administration coming for anyone but suspected terrorists, but whenever they do even that, plenty of people speak out. Any Holocaust comparison as thing currently stand is a gross insult and irresponsible to boot. In what fantasyland does encouraging the people that have the stated goal of wanting to kill Americans beocme a respectable thing for a Congressman to do?

I got the new White Stripes album, and I'm very disappointed with it. It's almost pretentious in a sort, "We dare you to enjoy this" sort of manner. Very little of it reminds me of their fantastic last two albums. They didn't progress further, they just got wierd. Maybe it's one of those albums you have to listen to several times to enjoy, like Velvet Underground and Nico, which I love, but hated the first two times I listened to it. At any rate, since the White Stripes were the main band I wanted to see at Music Midtown, I won't be going to Music Midtown, so I can save a lot of money.

Despite showing that he's got a pretty good grasp of history and politics, people constantly bash Bush as being a moron. I guess that means the Dems decided to nominate even bigger morons for their last two Presidential candidates. Kerry had worse grades at Yale, and a lower IQ score, and Gore did pretty bad in college, too.
Here's the story. I don't really consider college grades as having any meaning regarding one's peformance in office, but if people are goign to call Bush a moron simply because they disagree with him, I'm going to defend him. You may disagree with him, but he is NOT a moron, and nothing he has ever done has demonstrated that he is one.

Straight for Boortz:

This should make you feel safe and secure while you're on vacation this summer. The porous (full of holes, for those of you in government schools without dictionaries) U.S. border with Mexico makes all headlines because of the illegal immigration problem. But an equally dangerous situation exists at the Canadian border.

A dirty little secret is that there are a number of unmanned border posts with Canada. That's right...someone, anyone...could walk right across in the United States, completely undetected. Canada has much more lax immigration rules than we do, so Islamic terrorists can easily sneak in. So with all of that is a backdrop, we take you to the U.S.-Canadian border located at Calais, Maine.

On April 25th, Gregory Despres showed up carrying a homemade sword, a hatchet, a knife, brass knuckles and a chain saw stained with blood. Just the kind of guy we need here in the U.S., right? So what happened to Mr. Despres? If this had been an airport, he would have been arrested immediately. But that's not what happened.

U.S. Customs agents fingerprinted him, confiscated his weapons, and let him into the United States. Two days later, he was arrested for decapitating a 74-year-old man and stuffing his head into a pillowcase. The man's wife was also discovered stabbed to death. Not a good showing for the U.S. Customs department here.

The point is...with everybody looking down south, nobody should forget the border up north has just as many, if not more holes.

I found this on boingboing.net. Judges in a Florida County have been throwing out DUI cases when the denfendents ask for the source code from the breath test, along with a few other points of information. I know that cops are required to test their radar guns if you ask them to, so I guess the same law applies here. You have the right to defend youself, and thus you have the right to try to find a flaw in the source code, or in the radar gun, or whatever equipment was used to detect your crime. In the case of source code, it's a private vendor supplying this stuff, and they aren't going to want to reveal their code for obvious commercial reasons.

My first thought when I read this was to laugh. You go guys, stick it to the man. Then I remembered that a DUI is not a laughing matter, not when someone dies, and that happens a lot. If you drive drunk and get caught, then you deserve to be punished for it. Perhaps the only solution is for some government agency to buy the code. They can then make it public. I don't think we have to worry about some drunk driving guy hacking a breath test on the spot, and who cares if someone else uses that code? What's wrong with someone creating their own breath test? Or course this would also kill off any competing breath test makers, since I don't know what else their market would be. It's something to consider, and I think I may have stepped too far in to big government territory for my comfort. Any thoughts?

More pot talk, this from the majority, which upheld the Federal ban on pot:

"As we stated in Wickard [v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111, 128?129 (1942)], ?even if appellee?s activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce.? Id., at 125. We have never required Congress to legislate with scientific exactitude. When Congress decides that the total incidence? ? of a practice poses a threat to a national market, it may regulate the entire class. See Perez, 402 U. S., at 154?155 (quoting Westfall v. United States, 274 U. S. 256, 259 (1927) (?[W]hen it is necessary in order to prevent an evil to make the law embrace more than the precise thing to be prevented it may do so?)). In this vein, we have reiterated that when ? ?a general regulatory statute bears a substantial relation to commerce, the de minimis character of individual instances arising under that statute is of no consequence.? ? E.g., Lopez, 514 U. S., at 558 (emphasis deleted) (quoting Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183, 196, n. 27 (1968))."

So basically they are saying that Congress can decide that anything "exerts a substantial economic effect on insterstate commerce" jsut because they woke up that day and decided it did. The Supreme Court has, in effect, said that Congress can make laws on any damn thing they want with absolutely no restrictions. The majority judges may not think of it like that, but rest assured some day a Senator will take advantage of it and suddenly Congress wil have even more power over our everyday lives.

This one is all about Darfur, where women are treated worse than Korans in Guantanamo.

From Clarence Thomas' dissent on the medical marijuana case that the Supreme Court just decided on:

"Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything–and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers."

He's right.

You have got to read this. Forget Amnesty International. If you want to help some people who really need it, pressure your Senator to get more done about Zimbabwe (or the Sudan, or any number of other places where far worse horror is happening than Korans in a toilet). Now granted, the U.S. pretty well has its hands tied with Iraq, Afghanistan, and a ton of money being paid out all over the world. Maybe this time the U.N. could step up and try to meet the goals of its charter. Or perhaps enlightened France, so quick to criticize the U.S. for every last thing they can think of, will put their money where there mouth is and try to help someone besides themselves. I seem to remember from my history courses that many of the problems in Africa are a at least somewhat a result of French imperialism back in the day.

The World Series of Poker has begun. The main event takes place in late June, I think. For now it's all $1500 buy-in tourneys (the main event is $10k). One of my bosses, better known as Boss 4x, is flying out to enter the $1500 NL tourney on June 22. I'm jealous! Even if he doesn't win, he still gets to be involved, to see the action, to see the big players, the famous faces, the circus that will be the Rio and Binions for the next month. The first $1500 event was expected to draw about 1000 people and take a day and a half. Instead they had over 2000, and it took two full days. They're going to have to jimmy the schedule to fit everything in. It's even more complicated when you factor in the limited number of decent dealers in town. Poker is too high stakes to have a clueless dealer at tournaments this big. With an expected 8k or more people in the main event, you'll have to have at least 400 dealers, and then you need more for the side games. It's amazing! I think someone could make a LOT of money if they invented a reliable robotic dealer for Texas Holdem.

The 4400 just started its second season, and I love it! No, it's not as good as Lost, but it's far better than most of the dreck out there. The plotline revolves around the 4400 people that just appeared one night in the middle of a field. Turns out they were all people that had been reported missing over the previous 60 years or so, and they all arrived back at the same age they were when they were taken. As the first season wound its way through only about 6 episodes, we discovered that many of the 4400 have special powers, anything from precognition to telekenesis. There have only been about 8 or 9 total hours of this show so far, so if there's a way you download it, or just want to hop on next Sunday and give it a try, do it, it's quite a ride.

Lots to rage about in that medical marijuana case at the Supreme Court. I haven't read the actual decision yet, but here are my preliminary thoughts. Pot was first made illegal for two reasons. One, it was associated with jazz musicians, and they were considered a subversive element. Two, it was hard to tax, so they used the interstate commerce clause to rationalize the Federal government having the authority to regulate it. That's my understanding, anyway. So it doesn't make much sense to me for the Supreme Court to then say that states cannot make their own decisions regarding pot within their own borders, especially for medical use.

Too many people have gotten relief from chronic diseases and chemotherapy, allowing them to spend their last months functional and able to converse witht heir loved ones, to discount the medical uses of marijuana. Too many non-government studies have agreed that it has great medical uses for it to be discounted. Government funded studies have an agenda in this matter and cannot really be trusted, especially as they constantly say the exact opposite of what private studies have concluded. And the government refuses to allow researchers to experiment with decent pot, they are required to us government grown pot from some farm in Louisiana. The very few people legally allowed to smoke government weed, due to their cases having been decided before the war on drugs, have said that pot is absolutely horrible and they wouldn't pay a dime for it. That means it doesn't do much good for research purposes. All of this and more should make you very suspicious of the government's agenda in this arena. Do they actually think marijuana is so bad that even chronically ill patients shouldn't use it, or is it just that they don't want to admit they were wrong, after spending billions to enforce the illegality of pot? Polls have shown that the country is split on whether pot should be legal or not,