Civilization by Marco Brambilla

Universal Soldier - Donovan 

He’s five foot-two, and he’s six feet-four,
He fights with missiles and with spears.
He’s all of thirty-one, and he’s only seventeen,
Been a soldier for a thousand years.

He’a a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain,
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew.
And he knows he shouldn’t kill,
And he knows he always will,
Kill you for me my friend and me for you.

And he’s fighting for Canada,
He’s fighting for France,
He’s fighting for the USA,
And he’s fighting for the Russians,
And he’s fighting for Japan,
And he thinks we’ll put an end to war this way.

And he’s fighting for Democracy,
He’s fighting for the Reds,
He says it’s for the peace of all.
He’s the one who must decide,
Who’s to live and who’s to die,
And he never sees the writing on the wall.

But without him,
How would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone,
He’s the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war,
And without him all this killing can’t go on.

He’s the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame,
His orders come from far away no more,
They come from here and there and you and me,
And brothers can’t you see,
This is not the way we put the end to war.

jakelodwick:

Record Makers Promo (via rroobbiinn)

rediggit:

Kim Jong-iL goes shopping for new kicks

mearone:

My day was spent covering over some toys who dissed my work down in the CBS Allys. Its been good hanging with my old crew, and it was time to clean up the Dali Lama. I don’t know what happened to us in LA but the old school always respected our elders art work, and the only art that we defaced was wack shit in support of the Law or Authority and the system. Some of today’s writers are riding on the coat tails of the past-

mearone:

Living life on the razors edge, day in and day out. I am a survivalist, an anti authority resistant soul transcribing. I don’t care much for what we have done here but we are something special so sense I’m hanging out for more time I might as well spend it communicating something worth while.

The Dow is counterfeit. -Alpha Flyte

(Dear posterity, this is my 5,000th post)

rediggit:

What drug are you? large

LOOSEWORLD x Waverly Films: Reggie Watts in F_CK SH_T STACK 

easilyerected:

(via art-or-porn)

juliavickerman:

Of Montreal singing about the food you should eat when you’re sick on Yo Gabba Gabba. I did all the animation BOOYAH.

Slowly, limits on pot are fading

clothedinsky:

quantumpossibility:

The Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of psilocybin, the active ingredient of psychedelic mushrooms, in pilot clinical trials to treat end-of-life distress. [Credit: Rohan523, wikimedia.org]

PSYCHEDELIC THERAPY: New research shows psychedelics might hold therapeutic potential for those dealing with death

“As doctors, we’re good at saving lives,” said Ross. “But we have not learned the art of helping patients have a good death.”

A 2007 study published by the American Cancer Society found that up to 50 percent of patients with advanced or terminal cancer are diagnosed with a major psychiatric disorder, and less than half of those with depressive symptoms receive any psychiatric medication. New treatment models could go a long way to help the over 500,000 Americans expected to die this year of cancer.

According to the researchers, psilocybin can achieve in one session what might otherwise take months or years, time some of these patients may not have.

Psilocybin binds to two types of serotonin receptors in the brain that are highly associated with mood and anxiety. Even more interesting to psychiatrists, brain imaging studies from the Heffter Research Center in Switzerland show that the drug appears to affect areas of the brain thought to mediate consciousness and spiritual feelings.

The effects of psilocybin last about four to six hours, during which time the subjects’ brain activity resembles that of people in spiritual states, such as meditating monks. Like people who practice meditation, the patients in the psilocybin trials reported feelings such as a greater connectedness to others, relief from fear and anxiety, and the ability to internalize their limited time as opportunities for personal growth.

▶ Read More at Science Line

(Thanks and love to Don for sharing.)

This truly a promising step in the right direction. Fills me with hope.

True Beauty with Ronda Lee Episode 1 (via RondaLeeBeauty)

sugarhighz:

heyyoshimi:

via teammacho

(via rediggit)

maybememe:

At long last, Google Maps has routes specifically for bikes.

With the click of a mouse, the new feature allows you to plot the best (and flattest!) ride from Point A to Point B. Several cities, including New York, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, have bike-specific mapping sites. But Google is rolling it out in 150 cities nationwide and announcing it Wednesday at the 10th Annual Bike Summit in Washington, D.C.

“This has been a top-requested feature from Google Maps users for the last couple years,” says Shannon Guymon, product manager for Google Maps. “There are over 50,000 signatures on a petition.”

The news thrilled bike advocates, who have for years been pushing — and petitioning — the search giant to include bike routes on Google Maps. No longer do they have to rely upon paper maps or open-source DIY map hacking or crazy-cool helmet-mounted heads up iPhones.

“This new tool will open people’s eyes to the possibility and practicality of hopping on a bike and riding,” says Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists. “We know people want to ride more, we know it’s good for people and communities when they do ride more — this makes it possible. It is a game-changer, especially for those short trips that are the most polluting.”

Cyclists will have to map their victory lap from their desks, because Google’s cool mapping tool is available only on a computer for now.

“Making the bike-route tool available on Google Maps for mobile devices is a high priority,” Guymon says. But it’s a priority without a launch date.

To create the mapping tool, Google developed an algorithm that uses several inputs — including designated bike lanes or trails, topography and traffic signals — to determine the best route for riding. The map sends you around, not over, hills. But if you really want to tackle that Category 1 climb, you can click and drag the suggested route anywhere you like, just like you can with pedestrian or driving routes. Users can suggest changes or make corrections to routes using the ever-present “report a problem” feature on Google Maps.

Google kicked its bike-mapping effort into high gear in October when it started using improved datasets that provided more specific information about trails, street details and more granularity on college campuses. The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy provided Google with information on 12,000 miles of bike trails nationwide, and the League of American Bicyclists helped gather data on bike lanes and so forth.

“We’ve got a five-person team in Seattle that has spent the majority of its time working on this project since October,” says Guymon.

To test the tool, bike-commuting Google employees vetted suggested routes against their own experience, pointing out discrepancies on routes or time allowances.

Google Maps for bikes has a unique look and feel. Bike trails are prime cycling turf — “They’re like the highways for cyclists,” Guymon says — so they’re indicated in dark green. Streets with dedicated bike lanes are light green. And streets that don’t have a bike lane but are still a decent route because of their topography, light traffic or other factors are indicated by dotted green lines.

Don’t go looking for turn-by-turn GPS-based navigation though. That feature remains strictly auto-centric.

Freelance reporter Mary Catherine O’Connor lives in San Francisco, with her dog, husband and three bikes.

Photo: Bikeportland.org/Flickr

via wired.com

Posted via web from MaybeMeme dot Com | Comment »

buddhanature:

I feel like Jjaacckkssoonn should tumbl with much greater frequency.

dalasverdugo:

sangennaro:

WireTapPro

More artists should help their fans pirate.

California leads the way

California became the first state to allow marijuana for medical use when voters approved a statewide ballot issue in 1996, and its provisions are so broad that tens of thousands of people have obtained a doctor’s recommendation to use marijuana for ailments from cancer to arthritis.

Now California’s Legislature is considering a bill that would make it the first state to legalize marijuana for recreational use as well. It is unlikely to pass this year, but Gray and other advocates hope to have a proposition on the November ballot that would legalize marijuana use for anyone 21 or older. California would levy taxes that the state tax board says could raise $1.3 billion or more a year for the deficit-plagued state, while saving tens of millions in prison and law-enforcement costs. Sponsors of the ballot issue have turned in 690,161 signatures on petitions for verification, far more than the 433,971 valid signatures required to get on the ballot.

A 2009 statewide Field Poll found 56% support pot making pot legal for recreational use and taxing it.

The economics argument may be the clincher, proponents hope. They call the proposition a matter of “tax and regulate” rather than “legalize,” saying state control will take marijuana out of criminals’ hands while generating badly needed revenue.

“It’s history repeating itself, with (the) alcohol prohibition repeal during the Great Depression,” says Richard Lee, an Oakland marijuana entrepreneur and president of Oaksterdam University, which trains people to work in the medical marijuana industry. Lee, who is pushing the ballot issue, says, “Now we have the Great Recession. That will be on people’s minds.”

Yet as changing attitudes and economic forces propel the legal pot movement in California, some wrinkles have emerged as the medical marijuana industry expands. After some complaints from neighbors, municipalities and prosecutors are moving to regulate the industry more closely to limit the growth of pot dispensaries and prevent sales for recreational use.

Prosecutors in Los Angeles and San Diego contend that while the law allows marijuana for medical uses, it does not specifically permit the sale of marijuana. They have launched a series of raids aimed at closing some of the hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries now operating out of storefronts.

“I call it the slippery slope,” says Dennis Zine, an Los Angeles city councilman. “Now we have it for medical purposes. Now let’s expand it to anyone who wants to get high? I don’t support that. … Do we then legalize cocaine, legalize heroin?”

Tehama County, Calif., Sheriff Clay Parker said the state’s current medical marijuana law is filled with gray areas that make enforcement uneven and difficult. He says he opposes further relaxation of state laws but would welcome a federal change that would drop marijuana’s status as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, the most tightly restricted, to a lower level that would place marijuana in a category with prescription drugs that pharmacies could dispense.

Gray, who retired as a judge in 2009, says many judges agree with him that sending marijuana users to jail places a costly burden on the state and clogs the justice system, ultimately taking police and court resources from pursuing violent criminals. Most judges, he says, fear saying so.

“Probably half of my colleagues talk privately the same way I do, but publicly they’re concerned about standing out,” he says.

Jeff Studdard, 46, is another one-time drug warrior who has changed his thinking. A former school police officer and Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, Studdard tried marijuana to ease pain and restore his appetite after a broken back forced him out of law enforcement. “I have stopped all my (other) pain meds now and I’ve gained weight. It’s almost like a wonder drug,” he says.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a Democrat from San Francisco who introduced the tax and regulate bill, predicts California eventually will legalize marijuana and other states will follow.

“It’s inevitable that there will be some kind of legalization of recreational marijuana,” Ammiano says. “How and where it’s going to happen I think is an open question, but I think a lot sooner than later.”

Support not politically risky

Despite growing popular acceptance of marijuana, battles are still fought in state legislatures when such bills are introduced, and many of the bills still fail. Yet advocates say politicians are more willing to take on what only a few years ago was a politically risky cause.

“Politicians are finally catching up with the American public,” Gardinier says.

Most of the changes have come on the West Coast and Northeast, but lawmakers in a few Southern and Central states also are proposing bills, in part because they see marijuana as a potential money-maker, says Gutwillig of the Drug Policy Alliance.

Rhode Island is among the states considering legislation that would regulate and tax marijuana or reduce penalties for personal use to a misdemeanor and fine.

Rhode Island’s Legislature adopted medical marijuana last year, setting up dispensaries and a registration system. A decriminalization bill introduced in the 75-member House has 35 co-signers, including three of the six Republican lawmakers.

Sen. Joshua Miller, a Democrat from Cranston, R.I., leads a Senate commission that is studying whether to drop tough penalties for marijuana use. He says statewide polls show 80% of Rhode Islanders favor decriminalization. Rhode Island borders Massachusetts, which decriminalized marijuana last year. The debate, he says, has been framed by the state’s poor financial condition.

“We’d rather spend our resources on violent crime,” he says. “I’d also argue that the best way to get to people who abuse drugs is treatment over incarceration.”

That argument is being reinforced at the federal level by President Obama’s drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, a former Seattle police chief who favors a treatment-driven approach to drug abuse.

Any day now, the Obama administration will announce $4.35 billion in extra federal funds for under-performing public schools. That’s fine, but relative to the financial squeeze all the nation’s public schools now face it’s a cruel joke.

The recession has ravaged state and local budgets, most of…

Leaves of Grass - Trailer [HD]

General anaesthetic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What is science?

(via dalasverdugo)

guess, check, assume, find an error, guess

(via strange-eyes)

rediggit:

Socialism Versus Capitalism

Capitalism is very good at creating a void in people’s psyches.

Bai Di grew up in socialist China (before capitalism was brought back after Mao’s death in 1976) and participated in the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). She is a coeditor of the book Some of Us: Chinese Women Growing Up in the Mao Era and is the director of Chinese and Asian Studies at Drew University. Revolution correspondent Li Onesto interviewed Bai Di in February of 2009.

li onesto: What did the Cultural Revolution accomplish and what did it mean to grow up in a socialist society?

bai di: I always had a purpose. That was what education was about. And we didn’t have to worry about the financial crises that capitalism will always have periodically. We never had that much – two sets of clothes – but we never felt we should have more. You don’t have that kind of crazy desire for everything, like the need to go shopping all the time. I feel that capitalism is very good at creating a void in people’s psyches. It will teach you that the only way to feel okay is to want more. It is so consuming. When I grew up, I did not put much time at all in material stuff. So we had energy to do other things for the greater good. We studied all kinds of subjects, and we thought our presence was very much a part of the future. Yes, we were very future oriented and our focus was also wider than only China. It was about the whole of humankind. It is what inspired us. That’s what I feel education has to be about.

Some people believe in individualism. But if you think that you are the most important, then that really is a boring life because your existence is irrelevant to others; that is how I feel. You can’t survive that long. You have to put yourself into human history. Then your life, your existence, will carry some meaning. That is what Chairman Mao said. In his memorial to Doctor Norman Bethune he said everyone has to die. But the meaning of death is different. Somebody dies a worthy death so that death is as weighty as Mount Tai. Some other’s death is as light as a feather. And because Bethune put his life into this communist cause, we all remember him – his death was weighty. We were all trained this way. You feel that you become part of something. And this makes your life and death more meaningful. Now to think about it, we were pretty profound as teenagers. We were already coping with the existential questions for all humankind: life and death.

I had never lived in a capitalist society then so I didn’t know how to compare it to socialism. But looking at things now both in China and the US, I feel that back then there was an optimism always in the air. We were always optimistic. People didn’t complain. Right now everyone is complaining even though they already have so much. Under capitalism there is desire for all kinds of things. Right now when I go back to China everyone is complaining and it’s just money, money, money. But back under socialism, the purpose in life was not money. As Lei Feng said succinctly: “We cannot live without food, but our lives are not for food. It is for making a better society.” That pretty much sums up the spirit. Lei Feng was an ordinary soldier in the People’s Liberation Army and died manning his post. He spent his short 22 years of life helping other people. And Chairman Mao called on the whole nation to “Learn from Comrade Lei Feng” in 1964.

The whole interview is available at revcom.us. For more information about the Cultural Revolution in China, go to Revolution newspaper at revcom.us and Set the Record Straight Project at thisiscommunism.org.

Look Up

The Purpose of Psychedelics - Terence McKenna

I’d actually be kind of bummed out about it if I thought that was true.

(via rediggit)

I have never seen this much beautiful porn.

edit:

poortaste: http://tmv.proto.jp/#id=syntheticpubes (for the milder @ heart)

buddhanature:

hah

Poptarts for me, Fire during Fantasia

(via rediggit)

(via rediggit)

oceanofmind:

Kundalini rising

Drunk History - Jen Kirkman drinks a bottle of wine and tells the story of Honest Abe

+ tchotchkes - lots and lots of tchotchkes

rediggit:

the secret behind Republican fund-raising (really)

please

remixxed:

Rob Cumba’s waterbeats record

forsafekeeping:

(via dogfromspace)

remixxed:

Amplive - Nudez (Radiohead Remix)

(via rediggit)

oceanofmind:

(via illuminatetheworld)

Funny or Die’s Presidential Reunion

Barack Obama gets a surprise visit in the night from ex-Presidents Bush Sr., Bush Jr., Clinton, Ford, Reagan and Carter to get a few pointers about the Consumer Financial Protection Agency and why it’s so important.

MARCH 3 on Vimeo (via Jake Lodwick)

Stats on Vimeo just got fucking AWESOME (for Plus users)

This Too Shall Pass - RGM version

Street Fighter character meet Megaman style.

Lohan

So, are you back on the cock?

large

Kim Jong-iL goes shopping for new kicks

What drug are you? large

Cenataur gangbang porn

lettherebeblogs:

Yes, that is a bacon bra.

Top 20 5 Second Films

Cable box menus are becoming really advanced!

dalasverdugo:

azspot:

Mr. Fish

Socialism Versus Capitalism

Capitalism is very good at creating a void in people’s psyches.

Bai Di grew up in socialist China (before capitalism was brought back after Mao’s death in 1976) and participated in the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). She is a coeditor of the book Some of Us: Chinese Women Growing Up in the Mao Era and is the director of Chinese and Asian Studies at Drew University. Revolution correspondent Li Onesto interviewed Bai Di in February of 2009.

li onesto: What did the Cultural Revolution accomplish and what did it mean to grow up in a socialist society?

bai di: I always had a purpose. That was what education was about. And we didn’t have to worry about the financial crises that capitalism will always have periodically. We never had that much – two sets of clothes – but we never felt we should have more. You don’t have that kind of crazy desire for everything, like the need to go shopping all the time. I feel that capitalism is very good at creating a void in people’s psyches. It will teach you that the only way to feel okay is to want more. It is so consuming. When I grew up, I did not put much time at all in material stuff. So we had energy to do other things for the greater good. We studied all kinds of subjects, and we thought our presence was very much a part of the future. Yes, we were very future oriented and our focus was also wider than only China. It was about the whole of humankind. It is what inspired us. That’s what I feel education has to be about.

Some people believe in individualism. But if you think that you are the most important, then that really is a boring life because your existence is irrelevant to others; that is how I feel. You can’t survive that long. You have to put yourself into human history. Then your life, your existence, will carry some meaning. That is what Chairman Mao said. In his memorial to Doctor Norman Bethune he said everyone has to die. But the meaning of death is different. Somebody dies a worthy death so that death is as weighty as Mount Tai. Some other’s death is as light as a feather. And because Bethune put his life into this communist cause, we all remember him – his death was weighty. We were all trained this way. You feel that you become part of something. And this makes your life and death more meaningful. Now to think about it, we were pretty profound as teenagers. We were already coping with the existential questions for all humankind: life and death.

I had never lived in a capitalist society then so I didn’t know how to compare it to socialism. But looking at things now both in China and the US, I feel that back then there was an optimism always in the air. We were always optimistic. People didn’t complain. Right now everyone is complaining even though they already have so much. Under capitalism there is desire for all kinds of things. Right now when I go back to China everyone is complaining and it’s just money, money, money. But back under socialism, the purpose in life was not money. As Lei Feng said succinctly: “We cannot live without food, but our lives are not for food. It is for making a better society.” That pretty much sums up the spirit. Lei Feng was an ordinary soldier in the People’s Liberation Army and died manning his post. He spent his short 22 years of life helping other people. And Chairman Mao called on the whole nation to “Learn from Comrade Lei Feng” in 1964.

The whole interview is available at revcom.us. For more information about the Cultural Revolution in China, go to Revolution newspaper at revcom.us and Set the Record Straight Project at thisiscommunism.org.

Electroshocked into Serenity

Legacy v. Sazoo

Garden Delights - click for large

Youth

Manhood

the secret behind Republican fund-raising (really)

Paradoxymoron

Biafra on Brown

The song “California Über Alles” by the Dead Kennedys is sung from the perspective of Jerry Brown during his tenure as Governor. The song has Brown painting a picture of a hippie-fascist state, satirizing what they considered his mandating of liberal ideas in a fascist manner. Lyricist Jello Biafra later said in an interview with Nardwuar that he now feels different about Brown, as it turned out he wasn’t as bad as he thought he would be.

Soon, applications won’t be able to send you notifications via Facebook.

Legalization on the cusp

1. One joint equals a pack of cigarettes.

This hoary old favorite comes back again and again, seemingly impervious to the onslaught of the real world.

Prohibitionists earnestly tell us that smoking just one joint “equals a pack of cigarettes.” Or maybe it’s 16, or maybe just four cigarettes; they seem a little unclear on the exact number.

This fallacious conclusion is derived from a study by Dr. Donald Tashkin in which the UCLA researcher examined airflow resistance in the lungs of tobacco smokers compared to that in the lungs of marijuana smokers. Dr. Tashkin did find that daily pot smokers experience a “mild but significant” increase in airflow resistance in the large airways, greater than that seen in persons smoking 16 cigarettes per day.

But what they don’t tell you is that, ironically, Dr. Tashkin also found – in the largest study ever of its kind – other, more important markers of lung health, in which marijuana smokers did much better than tobacco smokers. In the four years since Dr. Tashkin’s latest study results were announced, I’ve never heard a single anti-marijuana speaker mention this.

They also never seem to have time to mention that Dr. Tashkin’s study unexpectedly found that smoking marijuana – even regularly and heavily! –does not lead to lung cancer.

Dr. Tashkin said these results “were against our expectations.”

“We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use,” Dr. Tashkin said. “What we found instead was no assication at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect.”

2. Medical marijuana has been a huge problem in states where it is legalized.

The mass media narrative seems to be “Maybe there are a few patients who need medical marijuana, but legalizing cannabis for medicinal use has led to huge problems in California. Do we really want those here?”

When pressed on exactly what those “huge problems” are, anti-marijuana zealots will usually offer up the “more pot dispensaries than Starbucks in Los Angeles” argument, saying something about dispensary proliferation being “out of control.”

What they don’t mention is that the situation in Los Angeles is entirely due to a lackadaisical city council that took more than two years to draw up an ordinance regulating the dispensaries, thus opening the door to their uncontrolled proliferation.

Neither to they mention that in cities such as San Francisco and Oakland, where city governments have been on top of the developing marijuana dispensary scene for years, there haven’t been any such problems.

Not only do these cities have orderly, well-run, reputable marijuana dispensaries, but in the case of Oakland at least, the city is now reaping millions of tax dollars from the shops – which, in what may be a first for American business, asked to be taxed.

Remember, there are 13 other states besides California that have legalized medical marijuana. Have you heard about nightmare scenarios occurring in those?

States such as New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Maine have set up systems of state-authorized marijuana dispensaries to carry out the will of the voters in giving patients safe and legal access to medical marijuana. The system hasn’t produced major problems, and is working as intended.

The other favorite argument of pot prohibitionists is that marijuana dispensaries are supposed to somehow “attract crime.

This one seems to be particularly near and dear to the hearts of small town police chiefs, as evidenced over and over by their apparently earnest (but completely inaccurate) testimony at city council meetings.

Dispensaries, in fact, have lower crime rates than either banks or liquor stores, according to the Denver Police Department, which certainly should know, since they have 300 of them in town.

The police chief of Los Angeles agrees. “Banks are more likely to get robbed than medical marijuana dispensaries,” L.A. Police Chief Charlie Beck told theLos Angeles Daily News.

A look at the facts quickly tells us that all types of crime are, in fact, down in states with marijuana dispensaries.

3. Legalization is a slippery slope. If we legalize pot, what’s next? Cocaine? Heroin? Meth?

The evergreen popularity of this baseless bugaboo is a bit puzzling.

The answer is easy and obvious. While the legalization of marijuana now enjoys majority support, according to recent polls, support drops precipitously for relaxing the laws around any other drugs.

Pot’s closest competitors, ecstasy and cocaine, each have only 8 percent support for legalization. Heroin and meth are even lower at 6 percent each, according to Angus Reid Public Opinion.

Legalizing pot won’t open the floodgates; in fact, the increased visibility of marijuana in American society only serves to highlight the stark differences between cannabis and most other illicit substances.

The American people know the difference between marijuana and hard drugs. Most Americans know someone who uses marijuana without it destroying their life. It’s not hard to see the chasm that separates pot, and its users, from the desperately addicted scenario that goes with substances like heroin and methamphetamine.

4. If we legalize pot, there will be carnage on our highways. Look at what we’re already facing with alcohol. Do we really want MORE impaired drivers?

The simple truth of it is, there are already millions of marijuana smokers using our roads and highways every day.

With estimates of current marijuana users in the United States running between 40 and 100 million, you can bet that if weed really caused wrecks, it would be a national tragedy on the level of drunk driving.

If marijuana resulted in motor impairment anywhere near the level produced by alcohol, those gory findings would have made banner headlines across the land – as has been the case with alcohol.

Many of us have, hopefully in our younger years, discovered on a very personal level that driving under the influence of alcohol is an extremely bad idea. But think about it: How many in your circle of friends have a “I was so high I totaled my car” story?

While I’m not encouraging anyone to take bong hits then rush out onto the freeway, a growing body of evidence indicates that marijuana is, on balance, far less a road hazard than is alcohol.

The tendency for stoners to overcompensate for whatever slight impairment occurs is one reason that marijuana-related car crashes aren’t in the headlines every day.

Even the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), which in its understandable quest for respectability is very cautious around the stoned driving issue, grants: “…Emerging scientific research indicates that cannabis actually has far less impact on the psychomotor skills needed for driving than alcohol does, and is seldom a causal factor in automobile accidents.”

5. If we legalize it, everybody and his brother will become a flaming pothead.

Some of the pot prohibitionists have an interesting view of human nature. They think that as humans we are mostly seething cauldrons of pent-up desires just waiting to express themselves, if only legal repercussions weren’t in the way.

Now, I’m willing to grant this may be a reasonably accurate self-assessment for some of these guys, but for the rest of us, it’s just not so, when it comes to the pot laws.

The laws against marijuana been a spectacular failure in preventing its use. Since pot was made illegal more than 70 years ago, its popularity has risen almost every single year – even as the laws against it became more and more draconian in many locales.

The most extensive study ever taken on U.S. marijuana arrests and penalties, released last November, found that marijuana arrests have no impact on usage rates.

Meanwhile, another approach has been tried in places like the Netherlands, which relaxed its pot laws in the 1970s and has since seen teen and overall marijuana use at a level half that of the United States.

Those of us who make marijuana policy reform our work welcome an open, serious debate on the issues surrounding cannabis re-legalization.

All we ask is that in that debate, everyone should at least stick to the facts and not cling to outdated, shop-worn superstitions from the 20th Century.

theunderground:

Absolutely by MF Doom

via qualitycreativeblog

Rob Cumba’s waterbeats record

Amplive - Nudez (Radiohead Remix)

poortaste:

Gorillaz - White Flag
(ft. Kano, Bashy & Lebanese National Orchestra for Oriental Arab Music)

Look, yo, no castaway, no survivor
I ain't lost and this ain't shipwrecked
I feel small in this big wide world
A mummy ain't said 'Honey, I shrunk the kids' yet
I ain't Jesus but I'm walkin' on water
There's no bombs here, there's no walkers
I can break out of jail with a lighter
So is there any point in making laws, blud
This ain't Atlantis, are you sure
I nearly suffocated when I touched the shore
No rain, condoms it poured and up the road
You'll never guess who I saw

Uh, uh, uh, it's K-A
Look, skip on the beat like Ali in the gym
Honey I'm home this is where I wanna live
Just found it like Nemo on the pillow
I don't know if it's greener, but it's green though
On the other side of the fence, bind to the ends.
No fence, no stress, no rent, no superficial shit, this real flow
Where the women look hot, but the beach cold
And the speech goes like, "Hi little lady"
Sex on the beach, wanna try for a baby
Word in the village, I'm a little bit crazy
Swag up on a hundred degrees, not eighty
Look, if heaven had a VIP, uh, this is it: white sand, blue sea,
But I don't know who they are and I'm damn sure they don't know me
But I come in peace!

Cool! White Flag! White Flag!
No War!
No Guns!
No Corps!
Just life.
Just Love
No Hate.
Just fun.
No ties.
Just me and my mind.
Just me and my wife.
But tell me if I'm dreamin' 
'cause I don't wanna wake up till the evenin'
And I don't wanna be left sleepin' 
from all the diseases that I breathe in.
Look, respect the island, no stealin'
And don't bring religion here, no three kings.
It's great and we ain't leavin'!
We come on in peace. Sing
White flag?
White flag!

theunderground:

Anything by Pumpkinhead

via msrobslovesit

theunderground:

What’s Golden by Jurassic 5

via courtkneeee

buddhanature:

Steve Reich - Music for 18 Musicians, Section VII

Which section is your favorite?

theunderground:

Trigger by Zion I and The Grouch

Erykah Badu ft. Lil Wayne - Jump Up In The Air (Stay There) [OFFICIAL VIDEO]l

Insight ft KRS-One - Message 2000 (via SupyG)

Freedom Of Speech Final (via oinsighto)

Jeffery Lewis - Systematic Death

orbit48:

Grand Buffet - Dark Autumn

poortaste:

AmpLive - Video Tapez (ft. Del the Funky Homosapien)
off of his Radiohead Remix Album

castoffcrown:

The Flaming Lips - Bad Days (Aurally Excited Version)