Monthly archive for July2014

Or how I learned that stupid policies turned me into a criminal for no good reason.

What with all the talk lately about legalizing marijuana, I have been reading some articles about the war on drugs in general, a few of them regarding the over the counter decongestant Pseudoephedrine which is more commonly known as Sudafed.  Pseudoephedrine can be chemically transformed into Methamphetamine, and so in 2006 it was taken off the shelf, put behind the counter and requirements put in place to document purchases and ID customers.  OK so far nothing too radical, I suppose.  After reading more than one story about people being contacted by police and in some cases threatened with arrest and having their homes, cars, etc. searched after purchasing Pseudoephedrine, I started wondering:  am I unitentionally violating the law and exposing myself to risk of harrassment or arrest?

I personally do not use Pseudoephedrine.  It has been my decongestant of choice, but I developed an allergy to it about 10 years ago.  It is, however, the only decongestant that works for my wife who has seasonal allergies that last for about a month or so in early summer.  She uses it 24 hours a day during that time.  I have been purchasing it for her, and I have made approximately four transactions at three different retail locations – two of them had written log books, and another swiped my drivers license.  No one made any mention of purchase limits, but in doing some research I have learned that there are indeed limits on how much can be legally purchased per day or month.  The limit is 3.6 grams per day, or 9 grams per 30 day period.  A little quick math is now in order.  I have been purchasing the 12 hour formulation, which is a 120 milligram (mg) tablet.  Furthermore I purchased them in boxes of 20 tablets, so 20 times 120mg = 2400 mg or 2.4 grams per 20 count box. Twenty tablets is a ten day supply, so multiply by 3 to get a months ration, that equals 7.2 grams.  OK, that’s below the 9 gram limit.  Whew!  Wait…hold on a sec….at one time I purchased two boxes for a total of 4.8 grams, which put me over the 3.6 gram daily limit.  This purchase was made at a pharmacy, yet the clerk did not inform me of the limit.  They also used a written log book, which I assume they turn over to the DEA periodically, and so my “crime” is documented.

Am I going to get a visit from the DEA or am I now a Breaking Bad suspect?  Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you the idea is ludicrous.  I am such a boring straight arrow that my nickname at one time was “the boy scout”.  And now I find out I am a suspected druggie.  Should I turn myself in?  As I said the idea that I am a drug dealer or cooker is ludicrous, but if I can be ensnared by the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act then anyone can.  It’s not hard to see how an individual could run afoul of the law as it is perfectly natural behavior for people to stock up on items they use regularly rather than go out and buy the minimum quantity each time it’s needed, especially medications.

It’s this type of nonsense that makes the War on Drugs a joke.  This has been law since 2006, and as you can see the Meth epidemic is a thing of the past.  Oh, wait…

And just for grins and giggles, here’s a little extra somethin’ somethin’ – thank a Democrat.  It figures that Feinstein would get me sooner or later after all those letters I wrote during the Clinton Administration.

Cross Posted at Men Out Of Work Blog

Courtesy of the New York Times via Althouse, here is an editorial calling for the legalization of Marijuana.  Why?  No reason, really.  Alcohol’s legal, why not weed?  One might expect a little more in depth analysis from America’s paper of record.

Do I really want ot write about this again?  I’ve covered it here and here.  I’m not sure there’s much more to say.  The debate over legalization will no doubt continue, especially as legalization seems to be gaining momentum with recent electoral victories in Washington and Colorado. Personally, I would have to say that I am more in favor of de-criminalization as opposed to outright legalization.  I believe that much of the war on drugs is counterproductive and wasteful, but I also believe that drug use is a bad thing and that legalization will lead to increased use.  Marijuana is not as harmless and benign as legalization proponents say.  I am largely skeptical of the medical uses, mainly due to the fact that where I live in California it is legal to use for “medical” reasons, and for that reason it is apparently a miracle drug that is valid therapy for virtually any ailment imaginable.  Just about every doper on the street has their “pot card”.  However…I am not opposed to clinical study to validate any potential legitimate medical use.  Besides that, it’s smoking.  Isn’t smoking supposed to be bad?

What is it all about?

“If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever” – Thomas Aquinas

Today I present to you three songs that all contain references to astronomy in their titles.  Coincidence?  I think…yes.  I see no other corelation, other than the fact that I know and like very well all three songs.  Minimum commentary today, I will include a wikipedia link for each artist if you wish to learn more.  Away we go!

First up is a song from the “New Wave” era of the early 80s’ by an Australian group called The Church

Next is a song by a British artist named Tasmin Archer.  This song was quite popular and received a lot of radio airplay in 1992

The final song is by an artist you may actually have heard of – Bob Seger

I hope you enjoyed the little trip through the cosmos.  If you have any favorite songs with an astonomical reference in them or in the title, leave them in the comments!

Everyone here knows about the “drought” drought – no water.  But California is experiencing another drought – a drought of first time home buyers.  Yeah, yeah all the California economic news is sunshine and rainbows – we’re back, Baby!  That news is also something else -it starts with “B” and ends with “T” and has “ullshi” in the middle.  The California real estate market is still in the toilet – except in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles where all the news reporters live.

Dr. Housing Bubble explains it all here, but in a nutshell the percentage of home sales going to first time buyers is the lowest it’s been since 2006.  Even with interst rates at near historic lows, young California wage earners would be hard pressed to come up with the $80,000 or so down payment required to purchase the median priced home.  What about all those bargains to be has from the 1,000,000 California foreclosures?  Snapped up by investors who are now renting those houses to…young California wage earners.  You see, not everyone here is a Facebook or Google billionaire.

California – pluses: great weather, scenery.  Minuses: goofy liberal (and dead or fictional) voters feeding you stupid politicians and policies.  Add something else to the plus column: there are none of these here.

In case you can’t read the tape at the top of the picture, it reads slightly more than 210 millimeters, about 8 inches.  Thankfully this godawful thing is only found in China.  So another reason I’ll never go there.

The internet is chock full of cat pictures and cat videos.  And when you post those pictures you may be (probably are) sharing more information with the internet than you intend to.  Using the geotagging properties that are embedded within the pictures one can ascertain where you live, or at least where the picture was taken.  This is only part of what I call the gathering of all information which is being done now by internet service providers, search engine people and other tech wizards of questionable repute and most likely poor hygiene.  Sure… they say it’s to help you.  Yes, please help me.  I am so disatisfied with the quality of advertising I am bombarded with.  Bombard me with more finely focused advertising please!  Thank You.  But I digress.  All information everywhere is being submitted to the internet voluntarily by rubes like you and me…well, like you… collected and analysed with the help of the computer witches and warlocks.  Probably just warlocks.  Everyone knows there are no women on the internet.  So warlocks.  At some point the quantity of information and the analysis thereof will reach a critcalmass and the internet will become self aware.  Then it’s HAL 9000 time, people.

It’s going to happen.  It can’t be stopped.  So the only question is…Cats.  Innocent pawns, or willing conspirators?  I have my suspicions…but I can’t talk now…it’s not safe.

another piece of the puzzle falls into place

Today I am thanking my ancestors…all of them… for choices they made and actions they took that lead to me being here now.

I have always known some details about my family history at least as far back as their arrival in the US from Europe in the late 19th Century.  My mother’s side of the family is quite large since her grandparents, the emigres, had eight children.  Thus her father, my Grandfather had lots of siblings and that meant my mom had lots of cousins.  Most of these she was not close to, first geographically and because of that socially.  No Facebook then.  My little branch of the family kept close to only a handfull, mainly the children of my mother’s immediate siblings.  In the past few months I have had the good fortune to come into contact with a cousin I had not known or known of.  His grandfather was one of my grandfather’s brothers, and thus was my mother’s uncle.  Sorry for having taken so long to lay the background, but the point is that my cousin has taken a lot ot time and effort to document the family tree, and because of that I know the unions of four couples has generated a family of over 1100 people.  1100 lives!

Even the wisest of us cannot see all ends.  Decisions we make or actions we take today will affect hundreds if not thousands of our descendants years and longer into the future.  Unseen and unknown to us and possibly each other, the course they set out upon will be influenced by what we do today.  When they look back, will we be thanked?

Recently observed was the 45th Anniversary of Hall of Fame Pitcher Gaylor Perry’s first career home run.  Why do we care?  Because it’s a great story, too good not to be true.  Legend has it that sometime after Perry joind the San Francisco Giants as a rookie in 1962, an unamed sports writer and Giants Manager Alvin Dark were having a conversation near the batting cage while the rookie Perry took batting practice.  As Perry sprayed line drives all over the diamond, the writer remarked to Dark “that Perry kid’s got some pop in his bat”, to which Dark replied “there will be a man on the moon before Gaylord Perry hits a home run”.

Years passed, Perry was embarked on a fantastic pitching career, Alvin Dark had moved on to manage the Cleveland Indians.  On July 21, 1969 the San Francisco Giants were playing the Los Angeles Dodgers – when Neal Armstrong took his first steps on the moon, it was announced to the fans in attendance.  About 20 minutes later, Gaylord Perry came up to bat and ….hit his first career home run.

Having been busy the last few days I have not had time to note the 45th Anniversaries of the first manned moon landing by Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969 and the first men walking on the moon – Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin on July 21.  I was twelve years old when it happened, and I remember the interest in the event was intense and universal.  It was broadcast live on all three major networks, TV and radio were the only sources for live information at that time – no internet or cable TV yet.  Looking back now, especially at the moon landing sequence, it was a little risky airing it live.  Some years afterward we found out that the landing computer “overloaded” and began spewing error codes, and rather than wasting effort to translate the codes Armstrong and Aldrin shut it off and flew the Eagle in manually.  They landed with 30 seconds of fuel remaining.  Here are some highlights:

People worldwide were glued to their TV sets.  For at least a brief moment, it seemed humanity shared a common dream, embodied by two men and an idea.  It was a monumental feat carried out at great risk.  I do not believe that a mission like this could even be carried out today as risk averse as we seem to be, and as evidenced by the fact that manned space flight has been all but abandoned.  And we are worse off for it.