More People Want To Legalize Marijuana Than Want
To Keep It Illegal

A new poll shows that more people in the United States would like to see marijuana legalized and taxed than would like to keep it illegal and continue to waste money on the failed "war on drugs". It seems that a plurality of Americans realize that we have already wasted over a trillion dollars on the drug war and accomplished nothing except to fill our prisons with non-violent drug users, when we could be taxing the gentle drug (it is not nearly as dangerous as other legal drugs) and helping all levels of government solve their fiscal problems.

Why won't the government even consider legalizing marijuana? Why can't we even have a real debate over it? Could it be because the "war on drugs" is nearly as lucrative as the illegal drug trade (just for a different set of people)? The truth is that too many people and organizations make too much money off the drug war -- even though they have failed to stop, or even slow down, the flow of illegal drugs into this country. It is a repeat of the failure of prohibition, when government couldn't stop illegal alcohol from entering the country -- and thus created a lucrative and dangerous underground trade that made the criminals rich.

Marijuana is not physically addictive, and no one can overdose and die from using it. It is as safe as a drug can be. There is no reason why we shouldn't take the growth and sales out of the hands of criminals by legalizing it. It would not only create many new jobs in the growth, distribution, and sales of marijuana, but it would also support new taxes at all levels of government. Governments could be making money instead of spending it.

The poll I talked about in the first paragraph is the Rasmussen Poll. Here are the numbers from that poll:

Legalize & tax marijuana...............47%
Keep marijuana illegal...............42%
Clueless (don't know)...............10%

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Adventures in Self-Driving Cars

Amazing video as Google demonstrates its new 'self-driving' car technology with a legally blind man as the 'driver.' Watch. [...]

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Outrage Is Only For GOP Males

Political Cartoon is by Drew Sheneman at Tribune Media Services.

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Late Late Night FDL: Move On Down The Road

Canned Heat -- Move On Down The Road, Bremen, Germany, January 31, 1970.[...]

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By: Dearie

Feel free to jump on up to LLN with Suzanne or CT or newton ... or whoever's up tonight (I never have figured out the rotation tho they've explained it time and again.....crap,,,, could that be incipient dementia???)

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The good news is that extremely capable people
are working on the impact of climate change on mass transit. The bad news is . . .

Columbia University geophysicist Klaus Jacob ("an expert on urban environmental disasters" is how he was described last year by the Village Voice's Elizabeth Dwoskin, who had profiled him in 2008) is seen here talking about the impact of climate change on the area around Brooklyn's legendarily polluted Gowanus Canal. Jacob was one of the distinguished participants in last night's "Planet Under Pressure: Climate Change and Mass Transit" panel at the New York Transit Museum.

by Ken

It probably was a tiny reflection of the Planet Under Pressure, er, festivities (not the right word, I'm sure) in London, which began Monday and wound up today, but last night the New York Transit Museum pitched in with a gathering of three outstandingly and diversely qualified experts for a "Planet Under Pressure: Climate Change and Mass Transit" panel moderated by journalist Andrea Bernstein, a specialist in transportation issues (she's director of the public radio Transportation Nation project).

For me it was a good news-bad news kind of deal. As I just wrote in a note to Howie: "The problem isn't that the people working on the subject are incompetent or misdirected. On the contrary, the three people on last night's panel seemed fantastically competent, and are actually working on real-world projects. The problem is the resources available to deal with the problem are a tiny fraction of what's needed, and the prospect of significantly augmenting them is roughly zero -- and getting lower every day in the America of Defiantly Resolute Denial of Reality."

But to return to the good news for a moment. The panel members are doing good and important work from their respective vantage points: Klaus Jacob as a research scientist who has spent a lot of years looking closely at the impact of environmental change, including what can be and is being done to adapt to it; Projjal Dutta, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's director of sustainability initiatives, whose job includes applying such financial resources as are available to the task of making the system as prepared as possible for the new climate realities; and David Bragdon, director of the Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, which makes him overseer of PlaNYC 2030, created by the Bloomberg administration in 2007 to coordinate the efforts of 25 city agencies "to prepare the city for one million more residents, strengthen our economy, combat climate change, and enhance the quality of life for all New Yorkers."

Four years ago we asked what we want our city to look and feel like in 2030.

A growing population, aging infrastructure, a changing climate, and an evolving economy posed challenges to our city?s success and quality of life. But we recognized that we will determine our own future by how we respond to and shape these changes with our own actions.

We created PlaNYC as a bold agenda to meet these challenges and build a greener, greater New York.

Today, we put forward an updated plan that builds upon the progress and lessons of the past four years.
-- from the PlaNYC 2030 website

The moderator, journalist Andrea Bernstein, has become a specialist in transportation issues (she's director of public radio's Transportation Nation project), and she began the evening by playing her report (broadcast on November 17) on (as she put it in a Transportation Nation post the day of the panel) "the pressure New York and other large transit systems face as sea levels rise and storms become more intense." The posted version, titled "For Transit Agencies, Climate Change Could Cost Billions," includes this audio:



The quote that stuck with me was: "Our '100-year storms' seem to be happening every three years now." We got lucky with Hurricane Irene. As we're informed, if the storm surge had been (if I've got the numbers right) a foot higher, 4.6 instead of 3.6 feet," the scope of the disaster would have been mind-boggling, including the ultimate dread, the flooding of the NYC subway system's East River tunnels. And as Klaus Jacob, who has devoted his energies to assessing the risk from climate change and studying what might be done to lessen that risk, pointed out, we have witnessed a tenfold increase in four-foot storm surges.

Of course it's not just the East River subway tunnels that are at risk. The entire underground system is vulnerable to flooding from watering entering through station entrances and ventilation grates throughout the system. There are things that could be done to counter these risks, but they're extremely difficult, complex, and extensive -- we're talking about things like sealing all those ventilation grates and replacing them with a whole new way of ventilating the system. In both the short and the long term, the things we could do would required funding on a scale wildly out of proportion to anything ever likely to be made available.

Both the MTA's Projjal Dutta and the city's David Bragdon stressed that the crux of their jobs involves doing the most they can with the available resources. Bragdon expressed pride in the real accomplishments of PlaNYC within those limits, and noted that the climate-change section is (again assuming I've got my numbers right) only one of 11 initiatives in the plan, which all have to be funded out of such money as can be pooled for it. Dutta pointed out that the normal way money becomes available for infrastructure spending is when something is broken. After environmental disasters the affected locales can go to FEMA, he noted, but try scaring up funds for planning and preparation.

Dutta (right) explained that the city's relative readiness for Hurricane Irene had a lot to do with lessons learned from what went wrong in the preparation for and response to a severe August 2007 storm, including the importance of quick response and a sensitivity to the parts of the system that are potentially most vulnerable to flooding.

But there just isn't money to undertake the kinds of modifications that might protect the system at large. Modifications of station entrances to lessen their potential to direct storm flow into the stations, Dutta said, can at best be incorporated into the stations as they come due for previously scheduled rehabilitation. In general, he noted, the system simply can't be sustained given the present fare structure, in which I believe he said MetroCard users pay $1.27 per ride. I'm sure he didn't say that the average MetroCard user pays that little, but he also didn't say that MetroCard users may pay as little as $1.27 per ride, a figure (again assuming I heard and remember right) that would be based on 82 rides in the 30-day period, whereas I'm guessing that my average usage (remember, this includes weekends) is more like 60 rides, which would be about $1.73 per ride, which is still well below the full single-ride fare of $2.25.

Still, the crucial part, I would think, is that fare collection, even if everyone were paying $2.25 per ride, can't hope to accomplish more than keeping the present system going, if that. There's certainly no hope that fare collection is going to provide any kind of infusion of new funds to apply to future needs.

Dutta was adamant about the need for some sort of carbon tax, but I expect he knows, just as we do, that while it may be necessary, it isn't going to happen, especially not in the present political climate, where such a large portion of the electorate has barricaded itself behind a wall of rigid, truculent denial of reality. Does anyone see any hope of penetrating all those heavily fortified lines of lies and delusions, backed by the billions of dollars dedicated to the purpose by the predators of the 1%? (It's a low blow, I know, but as a point of immediate reference, do the words "transportation bill" ring any bells? How about "House Republican budget plan"?)

Don't forget that the "lesson" taken away from New York City's aggressive response to the threat from Irene is that it was overkill, that the people who decided to shut the transit system down to protect it from the worse- and worst-case scenarios were just nervous nellies. Imagine how much more difficult it will be next time, and how disastrous it may be if we get that extra foot of storm surge. Then, of course, the people who were whining about overkill will scream bloody murder about the MTA's and the city government's unpreparedness and incompetence.

David Bragdon, while stressing how much PlaNYC 2030 is accomplished over its broad mandate within the limits of fiscal reality, he clearly understands as well as anyone how unsatisfactory a rate of investment in our future it represents. He noted that we today are standing on the shoulders of the previous generations that invested in infrastructure, and suggested wistfully that future generations may not look back favorably on our efforts.

As I suggested, I trudged out feeling pretty impressed by the caliber of people working on these problems -- but depressed beyond measure by the limits we're placing on what they can hope to accomplish.
#

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The Nightowl Newswrap

By @BG & @YD

• Oh dear lord...we have not lived good enough lives for this to be real...yet...it is. Rick Santorum gave a "major foreign policy speech" in Fairfield, California. At the headquarters of the Jelly Belly candy company. For those for whom there is still hope of curing yor wonkitis, Jelly Belly makes jelly beans, and jelly beans were St. Ronald of the Ray-Gun's favorite treat. But don't call it pandering! It's an homage!

• Add this to your "what's the matter with Kansas" file. The Kansas House of Representatives on Thursday approved the Orwellian-sounding Preservation of Religious Freedom act. The bill will likely pass the Senate and go on to Brownback for his signature, and there is no doubt that he will sign it, since his administration testified in support of it. Once it becomes law, it will be perfectly legal for any employer to fire any employee that they think might be gay, or liberal, or atheist or whatever -- and hide behind the petticoat of "religious liberty." Apparently, to these douchenozzels, religious freedom means "only the religious have freedom."

• When the GOP says they will "listen to the Generals" you would do well to ask for a clarification as to which ones. Five will get you ten that the only generals they're willing to listen to are the ones who have retired and taken sinecures at defense contracting companies.

• Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board approves Walker recall the press release came out today announcing the findings, a formal meeting tomorrow will make it official. See ya, Scotty, you miserable Koch-whore.

• Pop culture weighs in on voting rights Craig Newmark, the guy who founded Craigslist, had weighed in on the republican voter suppression efforts, and the repiglies ain't gonna like what he had to say. "What I learned in high school civics class is that an attack on voting rights is virtually the same as an attack on the country," Newmark said in a statement. "So I asked people smarter than me to help me do what George Washington would have wanted me to do, collect and release the information you're getting from us today." ... "I think all Americans should be concerned about these new voter restrictions," Newmark said. "Voting is our fundamental right. If the states continue to restrict who can vote, who knows where they will stop?"

• Hope the teabaggers kept their "KEEP YOUR DAMNED GOVERNMENT HANDS OFF MY MEDICARE" signs. The republicans want to privatize it. Again. In an election year.

• Homeless woman succumbs to bloodclot in jail after hospital has her arrested for trespassing Anna Brown was only 29 years old when she went to St. Mary's hospital in the St. Louis suburb of Richmond Heights, complaining of leg pain. A homeless woman with no means of payment, she was "treated and streeted." A few hours later, she returned by ambulance but the staff, assuming that she was just a drug seeker, told her that she had already been seen and she would have to leave. Police in the building on another call were summoned to the ER and they arrested Ms. Brown for trespassing. A short time later, she was dead in her jail cell after the blood clot that was causing her pain killed her. And her life could have been spared with a simple blood test (called a PT) of her clotting factors.

• Mitch and the boyz are some high-dollar whores, but they're still whores. On Thursday the GOP Senators in that august body, on a party line vote, killed an amendment by Robert Menendez of New Jersey that would have killed subsidies to ginormous oil companies that are enjoying record profits. Did we mention that the Senators who voted to protect the corporate greedheads have raked in over $23.5 million in campaign cash from oil companies? Yeah, that happened, too.

• Remember -- so far as the wingers are concerned, an activist judge is any judge who hands down a ruling that the tea-talitarians don't like.

• They told us to go pound sand And now women and minorities are returning the favor to the GOP.

• Austerity isn't fooling anybody, and violence is becoming the standard response. "Spanish workers angry at a labour reform the government calls an "unstoppable" necessity staged a general strike on Thursday, bringing factories and ports to a standstill and igniting flashes of violence on the streets. Tens of thousands of protesters packed a square in central Madrid to vent their anger at the labour reforms and deep spending cuts, while in Barcelona, police fired rubber bullets to disperse a crowd that had set bins ablaze on the sidelines of a demonstration. Thursday's strike was called by trade unions protesting against labour reforms and spending cuts which the conservative government says are needed to save the economy, and has resulted in some mild clashes and detentions of at least 58 people so far."

• Pro-secularism protests in Turkey.Turkish police have fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse thousands of people protesting an education reform bill that opponents say will boost the influence of Islamic schools, a move seen as contrary to Turkey's secular constitution. Police broke up the demonstration in Ankara on Thursday, ending a two-day standoff with protesters who wanted to march toward Parliament where the bill is being debated. The government wants to overturn a 1997 law that kept students under 15 years old from attending religious "imam hatip" schools. That law led to a sharp decline in attendance at the schools."

• Have we mentioned lately that the U.S.-backed coup in Honduras is a catastrophe? "At least 18 people have been killed during a prison fight in northern Honduras amid a fire started by the rioters, authorities said. Wielding guns, knives and machetes, inmates fought in a jail in San Pedro Sula, the country's second largest city known for textile manufacturing and a high rate of gang violence. A fire broke out during the fight, burning two prisoners to death. The unrest came six weeks after a fire at another prison in Honduras killed 361 inmates."

And finally...

• If playing doesn't leave the kids covered in dirt and bug bites, they're not healthy. "UK children are losing contact with nature at a "dramatic" rate, and their health and education are suffering, a National Trust report says. Traffic, the lure of video screens and parental anxieties are conspiring to keep children indoors, it says. Evidence suggests the problem is worse in the UK than other parts of Europe, and may help explain poor UK rankings in childhood satisfaction surveys. The trust is launching a consultation on tackling "nature deficit disorder". "This is about changing the way children grow up and see the world," said Stephen Moss, the author, naturalist and former BBC Springwatch producer who wrote the Natural Childhood report for the National Trust. "The natural world doesn't come with an instruction leaflet, so it teaches you to use your creative imagination. "When you build a den with your mates when you're nine years old, you learn teamwork - you disagree with each other, you have arguments, you resolve them, you work together again - it's like a team-building course, only you did it when you were nine." The trust argues, as have other bodies in previous years, that the growing dissociation of children from the natural world and internment in the "cotton wool culture" of indoor parental guidance impairs their capacity to learn through experience."

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By: joelmael

yep, I've noticed that too. But I still feel the need to fill in when the regular scolds aren't around. Off to bed.

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By: cocktailhag

Every Thursday at 11:00pm eastern, unless I get the boot, which isn't outside the realm of possibility. I'll also be filling in for Teddy, same time, April 15 and 22.

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A Houston Oasis

I was driving around Houston a few days ago, and came upon this water and palm tree. With this being a construction site and with a highway in the background, this seemed just how an oasis would be in Houston. This would be an oasis with water you could not drink, and with a tree [...]

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