I'm a Criminal

I have a confession to make. I am a criminal. Let me explain. While traversing the internet the other day I came across this website that has a summary of the gambling laws of all 50 states. I'd been wondering for sometime about the law here in Nebraska so I found this interesting and thought I would share it with my fellow citizens of this morally upstanding state. What I've specifically wanted to know regarding our gambling laws is whether it might actually be illegal to play a social game of poker here in Nebraska and to my disappointment it is. A social game of poker is basically one where there is not a host who makes any kind of fee for hosting the game. What this means is that the monthly game I play in with my colleagues from work with a measly $10 buy-in per game is illegal. To me this is utterly ridiculous. Now I am sure convictions under this law are exceedingly rare, but just the idea that our government can arbitrarily make me a criminal for something some moralizing assholes don’t approve of is infuriating. Of course, the irony is that lottery and keno are legal in this state. So naturally, games that the state profits from are legal but games where they do not profit from are not. If someone can offer me a rational justification for this I’d love to hear it. Anyway, just thought I’d share this information in case anyone else plays a little poker with friends from time to time. What you are doing is a misdemeanor. Take care not to get caught.

More on the Keystone XL

Keeping in mind that the professor, John Stansbury, who conducted this study is likely a Communist, liberal, tree hugging, anti-American that hates America, the World-Herald published an article today that really is a must read if you'd like to have a take on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline by someone who doesn't work for TransCanada, an ad agency, or who could be influenced by political donations.

I personally have a hard time taking this company, TransCanada, at it's word that our aquifer will be "safe" if their pipeline goes through.  Keep in mind that the company itself estimates there will be  eleven "significant" spills during the 50 years of it's useful life.  When it comes to drinking water and irrigation, I'm inclined to think that's eleven too many- especially when we can find a way to route this thing elsewhere, where it doesn't cross over the Aquifer.  Money is nice, but it's pretty tough to drink it from what I can tell.  Anyone who thinks gold is our most precious resource has never been thirsty I guess. 

As far as using the worst-case scenario as a method of analysis, the flood taking place right now is pushing the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant to it's limits, a plant that was designed to withstand what most experts believed to be the worst-case.  No reason at all we shouldn't hold this pipeline to a similar standard.    

My Take On Robert Nelson's Lame Column On Pot

I’ve wanted to respond to Robert Nelson’s ludicrous column on the pot legalization petition ever since I read it on Wednesday. I don't normally have a problem with Robert Nelson, he's a perfectly fine columnist, but his take on the petition drive displayed a lot of what is wrong with the marijuana prohibition crowd. I'm just going to dig right in and cover the issues that I had with this column. The first thing that irked me about his article was his dismissal of the petition drive so early in the process. I know he was forcing this idea so he could use it as a framework to make some lame jokes about how potheads are unmotivated slackers, but still, only a few days into a petition drive that has nearly a year to gather signatures, it’s a little early to write the whole thing off. In fact, while Nelson couldn’t seem to find a petition anywhere he looked, I attended the concert and fireworks celebration at Memorial Park on July 1st, and lo and behold, a young man was walking around with one of the pot petitions gathering signatures left and right, so they are out there. (Needless to say my co-blogger and I took advantage of this opportunity to sign our names to the petition.

Nelson goes on to make the comparison between alcohol and pot which can hardly be avoided when discussing marijuana prohibition. To me the fact that alcohol is legal while pot is not shows how egregiously hypocritical our government can be. Strangely, Nelson seems to cede the point that alcohol is, in his own words, “more damaging than pot,” but because stoners can be “dangerously stupid” while high, it still makes sense to him that pot be illegal while alcohol is not. I really can’t follow his logic here. Certainly people who are drunk are just as susceptible to making dumb decisions as people who are high, so his argument falls flat to me. In this paragraph he also mentions that an 18-year-old would be able to grow weed in his backyard, but while I’m not sure, if this bill is modeled after California’s Prop 19, that bill treated pot like alcohol in that citizens would have to be 21 or over to use pot so I believe he may be misinformed on that point.

Speaking of our youth and the differences between alcohol and pot, I want to digress for a moment here and highlight one very meaningful difference, which is that a person cannot overdose on weed. I know some of my friends and I flirted with a dangerous line on many occasions while consuming alcohol and were very fortunate not to end up with alcohol poisoning. Anyone with any common sense would much prefer that our youth smoke pot than drink alcohol for that reason alone, and while pot is easy to come by, alcohol is relatively easier for our youth to obtain owing to its legal standing, at least according to my experience. If pot were legal than the playing field would level out, meaning more youth would likely use pot over alcohol, and therefore I would have to believe that incidents of alcohol poisoning would decrease.

Back to Nelson’s article, he indicates that he believes this amendment “is a bad idea on several fronts” but tellingly, he mostly avoids letting the reader know of these many reasons. This was a smart move by Nelson, really, if you’re on the wrong side of an issue the best argument is no argument at all. He knows he can’t be attacked for a point he doesn’t make. I think Nelson is like many people, he just doesn’t feel in his gut that marijuana should be legal. This feeling is void of all logic, but sadly many people vote according to these feelings. Interestingly, at the end of his column, Nelson agrees that “too many people are sent to prison on relatively minor drug offenses” and mentions that his “head is spinning” while trying to reconcile this with his stance on the issue, and the great thing about this is you can actually witness the cognitive dissonance kicking in. That tends to occur when you base a position on feelings instead of logic. He can tell himself he is against pot legalization for good reasons, but when logic just doesn’t back up a belief, cognitive dissonance inevitably sets in.

To end this post, let me quickly sum up why marijuana prohibition is actually the “bad idea on several fronts.” It is, as noted above, less harmful than alcohol and yet alcohol is perfectly legal. The prohibition of it shifts the profits from the sell of this drug from corporations, who can be taxed and regulated, to drug cartels that use violence to take out competitors and increase profits. Marijuana laws lead to otherwise perfectly decent people receiving drug convictions that can ruin their lives and even send them to jail. Prohibition costs us billions of dollars and, more importantly than all of the reasons above, IT SIMPLY DOES NOT WORK. Marijuana is prohibited and yet it remains prevalent. Even if the drug prohibitionists were right about everything else, if the drug war does little to prevent the use of the drug, then why should we continue to waste precious taxpayer dollars enforcing these laws? It is time to end the failed policies banning marijuana in this country, and a constitutional amendment in Nebraska legalizing marijuana would be a step in that direction.

Food For Thought on Keystone XL

When it comes to the Keystone XL, I'm not against the pipeline in principle.  While I don't see tar sands as any kind of magic elixir as far as lowering the price we pay at the pump, it's another supply of oil in what is a finite resource.  There is some value in it until we hopefully move on to something better.  So I don't have a problem with the pipeline itself.  What I do have a problem with is the location of the pipeline.  It's beyond stupid to build it over our state's largest supply of both drinking water and water for agriculture.  And if you don't believe me, well, take a look at this article regarding a recent spill of oil into the Yellowstone River.  A half-hour of spilling and we've got oil washing up off the banks of the river.  A half-hour.  So if this planned pipeline does get built over the Ogallala Aquifer, well, better stock up on the Evian and Aquafina.  There's really not much more to say about it.  I realize it's not as simple as drawing up a new blueprint and calling it good, but logically, it's the only way to go.