people have rights not to have to be around these things, because second hand smoke can effect you. And yes, even pot second hand smoke can effect you. ... It may very well be best that it is legal, and the moral choice is still left up to an individual, where it should be.

For those of you who argue that we should legalize pot, put your same rationality towards drilling for oil here in California.

But Ace, the only way everyone can do what they want is Anarchy, and even than, there is no guarantee.

ersonally, two or three blocks away, I wouldn't have a problem with anyone building any church there. Something isn't right, with what this group is trying to push and achieve. If they really were about coming together, they wouldn't be pushing this, and Honestly, the President has once again shown where his head and heart is.

Oh yes, that majority's vote *is* a tricky little detail--I mean the Court's said forever that voting's the most fundamental right of all. And if the courts could nullify our votes at will, what would they be worth? But, where there's a will to power . . . uh, I mean a will--there's a way. After all, the Court found a way to tell 70+ percent of Coloradans their votes meant nothing when it struck down their constitutional amendment in Romer. And Judge Walker decreed that a majority of Californians had no right to their votes, either.

fear was that over time the federal govt would accumulate power and subjugate the States. Even the limited powers conferred to the federal govt put the States at a disadvantage which over time would diminish their status.

According to Mr. Jefferson, states have to right to nullify unconstitutional laws.

If it is an issue, it is for the States to decide just as they decide laws pertaining to marriages which by definition is between a man and a woman.

The state only got involved as a means of legal issue to resolve disputes.

The issue, which seems to escape you, is whether legalizing homosexual marriage in every state will inevitably force them all to legalize polygamy, too. I don't think there's any reasonable basis for treating various forms of marriage which have never been legal in this country differently. As far as I know, neither do the experts in constitutional law.

Because Capernicus was right, that _proves_ that all scientists before or after him are always right too. That sorta knocks the whole footing right out from under the whole rest of the rant.

The claim that respecting and insisting on the rule of law is a sign of bigotry or an urge to oppress anyone doesn't deserve any response, except that it's a cheap, irrational insult.

Leftists claim to care about the have-nots and consider themselves morally superior because of it, while in fact they oppress those very people. But why should it matter if you're screwing people over, as long as you can feel warm, caring, and noble doing it?

Obama doesn't have the right to kneel, lie down, chew gum, pick his nose, or shine the shoes of the Japanese head of state.

No one thing made jihadist ideas spread, any more than any one thing caused Fascism and Communism and Nazism to become mass movements early in the 20th century.

Face it man you guys elected a fraud, a ideological, fuzzy thinking, leftist, incompetent.

And this is precisely what we libertarians have been saying from the get-go about government regulations. They cannot and do not protect people. They simply create the false appearance of protection, lulling people into a false sense of security until disaster strikes.

Of course, President Obama can’t bring himself to admit the fundamental failure of public (i.e., government) ownership and government regulations. Instead, he circumvents America’s judicial process and adds fuel to the Gulf fire by seizing the crisis to become a modern-day, democratically elected American dictator.

The rule of law means nothing to a person like that, and neither do facts or logic.

Check it out, it's even got a stained dress.

How did we end up with some many stupid fellow citizens?

And yet Mr. Holder ( like his master in the White House) wants to give Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the sadistic piece of trash who cut off a screaming Daniel Pearl's head on camera, for the crime of being a Jew--after he'd masterminded the murder and vaporization of almost three thousand American civilians on 9/11, a full trial in a U.S. court in New York. No law even comes close to requiring that, or ever has. Any American who defends that bull can take their cup of latte and stick it where the sun never shines.

The role of the federal courts is to adjudicate whether or not the laws of the various states meet Constitutional muster......................

Paul K

16 June 2010
Study suggests the war on drugs might really be a war on sex
by Kate Melville

Why is there so much heated argument about whether the use of recreational drugs is morally wrong? A new University of Pennsylvania study suggests that the debate about drugs might really be about sex.

Published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the new study compared two competing theories about illicit drugs. Traditional theory holds that drug attitudes stem primarily from people's political ideology, level of religious commitment, and personality; for example, their openness to experience. The new theory, proposed by the researchers and driven by ideas from evolutionary psychology, holds that drug attitudes are really driven by people's reproductive strategies.

When the Penn researchers questioned almost 1,000 people in two subject populations (undergraduate students and Internet users) a clear winner emerged between the competing theories: differences in reproductive strategies are driving individuals' different views on recreational drugs.

Researcher Robert Kurzban said that while many factors predict to some extent whether people are opposed to recreational drugs, the most closely related predictors are people's views on sexual promiscuity. "This provides evidence that views on sex and views on drugs are very closely related," he explained. "If you were to measure people's political ideology, religiosity and personality characteristics, you can predict to some degree how people feel about recreational drugs. But if, instead, you just measure how people feel about casual sex, and ignore the abstract items, the predictions about people's views on drugs in fact become quite a bit better."

Somewhat controversially, the study also concludes that considering morality from the standpoint of strategic reproductive interests is a potentially useful way to understand why humans care about third-party behavior.

According to the researchers' evolutionary model, people develop complex differences in their sexual and reproductive strategies. One key difference that creates strategic conflict arises in people's orientations towards casual sexual activity. The relationships of people following a more committed, monogamous reproductive strategy are put at greater risk when casual sex is prevalent. On the other hand, people pursuing a less committed lifestyle seek to avoid having their choices moralized, forbidden and punished.

The researchers cite previous studies showing that recreational drug usage is often associated with promiscuity. This, they say, implies that attitudes against recreational drugs are part of a larger attempt to advance the cause of committed, monogamous reproductive strategies.

"Condemnation of drug usage might be best understood in the context of strategic dynamics, with individuals influencing moral rules in a way that favors their own competitive reproductive strategies," Kurzban said. "We expect that this relationship between sexual strategy and moral stances will occur in other areas as well, such as attitudes toward prostitution, sexual education or abortion."

THAT A DISTINCTION can usefully be drawn between wants and needs seems obvious. Mainstream economics, however, refuses to countenance such a distinction. (Marxist economics does, which, from the viewpoint of an ecologically enlightened economics, is one of the few ways in which it is distinguishable from its neoclassical alternative.) The work of Wilfred Pareto was crucial to this refusal. His contribution to economic theory marks a turning point in the evolution (some would say devolution) of nineteenth-century political economy into the highly mathematized discipline of economics as we know it today. Pareto’s novel idea: because satisfactions and pleasures are subjective—because no one among us can say with certainty, “I like ice cream more than you do”—there is no rational way to compare the degree of pleasure that different people will gain by satisfying desires. All we can do is assert that if an economic arrangement satisfies more human wants, it is objectively better than an arrangement that satisfies fewer human wants. This seems commonsensical until we unpack that caveat “all we can do.” An economic arrangement achieves Pareto Optimality if, within it, no one can be made better off (in his own estimation) without making someone else worse off (in her own estimation). Economic science, in its desire to be grounded on rational, objective principles, thus concludes that were we to take a dollar from a billionaire and give it to a starving man to buy food, we can’t know for certain that we have improved the sum total of human satisfaction in the world. For all we know, the billionaire might derive as much pleasure from the expenditure of his billionth dollar as would a starving man spending a dollar on food. All we can do—all!—is promote the growth of income; and if we care about that starving man, we must work to produce two dollars’ worth of goods where before there was only one, so that both the billionaire and the starving man can satisfy their wants.

So you are saying that in order to have fun
and celebrate one has to use an incredible amount
of energy and release equal incredible amounts of pollution ?

What's wrong with renewable resources?

I said that I had *not* heard any of those stories of oppression.

Where did you get that--from a film by Michael Moore or Oliver Stone, or some other leftist propaganda about what a terribly restricting place America always was until the blessed, liberating 1960's?

Ya know, he had this concert a year or two ( or three) ago
for global warming/climate change but you never heard just how
much pollution ( footprint) was generated by his pony show.

Ace how long have you been unclear about the legitimate functions of government?

Advice to those who are waiting for permission from the Feds to protect their shores. If you are waiting, you are a fool. Do what you have to do NOW, before it gets worse.

Government go fix a pothole, make schools work, you really aren't bright enough to be involved in strategy.

Feds under pressure to open US skies to drones
Joan Lowy, Associated Press Writer – 25 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Unmanned aircraft have proved their usefulness and reliability in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq. Now the pressure's on to allow them in the skies over the United States.

The Federal Aviation Administration has been asked to issue flying rights for a range of pilotless planes to carry out civilian and law-enforcement functions but has been hesitant to act. Officials are worried that they might plow into airliners, cargo planes and corporate jets that zoom around at high altitudes, or helicopters and hot air balloons that fly as low as a few hundred feet off the ground.

On top of that, these pilotless aircraft come in a variety of sizes. Some are as big as a small airliner, others the size of a backpack. The tiniest are small enough to fly through a house window.

The obvious risks have not deterred the civilian demand for pilotless planes. Tornado researchers want to send them into storms to gather data. Energy companies want to use them to monitor pipelines. State police hope to send them up to capture images of speeding cars' license plates. Local police envision using them to track fleeing suspects.

Like many robots, the planes have advantages over humans for jobs that are dirty, dangerous or dull. And the planes often cost less than piloted aircraft and can stay aloft far longer.

"There is a tremendous pressure and need to fly unmanned aircraft in (civilian) airspace," Hank Krakowski, FAA's head of air traffic operations, told European aviation officials recently. "We are having constant conversations and discussions, particularly with the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security, to figure out how we can do this safely with all these different sizes of vehicles."

There are two types of unmanned planes: Drones, which are automated planes programmed to fly a particular mission, and aircraft that are remotely controlled by someone on the ground, sometimes from thousands of miles away.

Last year, the FAA promised defense officials it would have a plan this year. The agency, which has worked on this issue since 2006, has reams of safety regulations that govern every aspect of civilian aviation but is just beginning to write regulations for unmanned aircraft.

"I think industry and some of the operators are frustrated that we're not moving fast enough, but safety is first," Krakowski said in an interview. "This isn't Afghanistan. This isn't Iraq. This is a part of the world that has a lot of light airplanes flying around, a lot of business jets."

One major concern is the prospect of lost communication between unmanned aircraft and the operators who remotely control them. Another is a lack of firm separation of aircraft at lower altitudes, away from major cities and airports. Planes entering these areas are not required to have collision warning systems or even transponders. Simply being able to see another plane and take action is the chief means of preventing accidents.

The Predator B, already in use for border patrol, can fly for 20 hours without refueling, compared with a helicopter's average flight time of just over two hours. Homeland Security wants to expand their use along the borders of Mexico and Canada, and along coastlines for spotting smugglers of drugs and illegal aliens. The Coast Guard wants to use them for search and rescue.

The National Transportation Safety Board held a forum in 2008 on safety concerns associated with pilotless aircraft after a Predator crashed in Arizona. The board concluded the ground operator remotely controlling the plane had inadvertently cut off the plane's fuel.

Texas officials, including Gov. Rick Perry, Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, and Rep. Henry Cuellar, have been leaning on the FAA to approve requests to use unmanned aircraft along the Texas-Mexico border. FAA recently approved one request to use the planes along the border near El Paso, but another request to use them along the Texas Gulf Coast and near Brownsville is still pending.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has told lawmakers that safety concerns are behind the delays. Cornyn is blocking a Senate confirmation vote on President Barack Obama's nominee for the No. 2 FAA job, Michael Huerta, to keep the pressure on.

Other lawmakers want an overall plan to speed up use of the planes beyond the border. A bill approved by the Senate gives FAA a year to come up with a plan; a House version extends the deadline until Sept. 30, 2013, but directs the transportation secretary to give unmanned aircraft permission to fly before the plan is complete, if that can be done safely.

Marion Blakey, a former FAA administrator and president of the Aerospace Industries Association, whose members include unmanned aircraft developers, said the agency has been granting approvals on a case by case basis but the pace is picking up. She acknowledged that there are still safety concerns that need to be addressed before the planes can be used more widely.

Some concerns will be alleviated when the FAA moves from a radar-based air traffic control system to one based on GPS technology. Then, every aircraft will be able to advise controllers and other aircraft of their location continually. However, that's a decade off.

Michael Barr, a University of Southern California aviation safety instructor, said the matter should not be rushed.

"All it takes is one catastrophe," Barr said. "They'll investigate, find they didn't do it correctly, there'll be an outcry and it will set them back years."