Author Archives: Georgeysm

In a Radical Shift, California Police Chiefs Push for Regulation of Medical Marijuana

by Georgeysm Posted on March 13, 2014

Mother Jones


Maps: Will Your State Be Next to Legalize Pot?


How Industrial Pot Growers Ravage the Land: A Google Earth Tour


The New Marijuana Service Industry


When Republicans Love Legalized Pot


How to Get a Pot Card (Without Really Trying)


The New Dealers


Welcome to the Amsterdam of the Rockies

California was the first state to legalize medical marijuana, but like the pimply-faced stoner dude you may have known in high school, it hasn’t had the healthiest of relationships with Mary Jane. The Golden State differs from most others with medical pot laws in that it doesn’t actually regulate production and sale of the herb. Instead, it lets cities and counties enact their own laws—though in practice most haven’t. The result has been the Wild West of weed: Almost any adult can score a scrip and some bud from a local dispensary, assuming, of course, that it hasn’t yet been raided and shut down by the feds.

But all of that might be about to change. The California Police Chiefs Association (CPCA) recently announced support for a bill that would put the state in the business of regulating the medical pot trade. Though you’d think cops would have pushed for such a thing decades ago, the reality is quite the opposite: The CPCA and other law enforcement organizations have, until now, opposed pretty much every reform to California’s medical marijuana system for fear that anything short of completely abolishing it would legitimize it.

The CPCA’s change of heart “is a huge for us,” says Nate Bradley, executive director of the California Cannabis Industry Association, the state’s marijuana industry trade group. Bradley agrees with his police adversaries that tighter regs would legitimize medical marijuana, which is why the CCIA has pushed for them since the group’s inception four years ago. Bolstering his case, the US Department of Justice last year announced that it would no longer raid dispensaries in states that it believes are regulating them adequately—a formulation that seemed to exclude California. New rules issued last month by the Obama administration allow banks to accept funds from pot dealers, but only if they’re licensed in the state where they operate.

So why are California’s drug warriors reversing course? “We could no longer ignore that the political landscape on this issue was shifting,” the CPCA explained in a letter written jointly with the League of California Cities. Polls and changing federal policies suggest that medical pot reform “could be enacted,” and that “without our proactive intervention, it could take a form that was severely damaging to our interests.”

The bill that law enforcement groups are backing, SB 1262, is flawed, but it’s something that “we can work with,” says Bradley, who previously worked as a cop in California’s Yuba County. Advocates of medical pot don’t like how the bill constrains the ability of doctors to recommend marijuana, outlaws potent pot concentrates such as hash oil, and puts regulation in the hands of the Department of Public Health, rather than the Department of Alcoholic Beverages Control.

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In a Radical Shift, California Police Chiefs Push for Regulation of Medical Marijuana

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How American Foreign Policy Is Hurting American Power

by Georgeysm Posted on November 5, 2013

Mother Jones

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

Put in context, the simultaneous raids in Libya and Somalia last month, targeting an alleged al-Qaeda fugitive and an alleged kingpin of the al-Shabab Islamist movement, were less a sign of America’s awesome might than two minor exceptions that proved an emerging rule: namely, that the power, prestige, and influence of the United States in the broader Middle East and its ability to shape events there is in a death spiral.

Twelve years after the US invaded Afghanistan to topple the Taliban and a decade after the misguided invasion of Iraq—both designed to consolidate and expand America’s regional clout by removing adversaries—Washington’s actual standing in country after country, including its chief allies in the region, has never been weaker. Though President Obama can order raids virtually anywhere using Special Operations forces, and though he can strike willy-nilly in targeted killing actions by calling in the Predator and Reaper drones, he has become the Rodney Dangerfield of the Middle East. Not only does no one there respect the United States, but no one really fears it, either—and increasingly, no one pays it any mind at all.

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How American Foreign Policy Is Hurting American Power

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"Often Contemptuous" and "Usually Offensive": 120 Years of Defining "Redskin"

by Georgeysm Posted on October 17, 2013

Mother Jones

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In the ongoing debate over the name of Washington’s pro football team, folks on both sides have argued about the relative offensiveness of the word “redskin” over time. Team owner Dan Synder insists the R-word is a long-standing term of respect for Native Americans, saying in a letter to season ticket holders that “the name was never a label. It was, and continues to be, a badge of honor.” Yet dusting off the old dictionary suggests otherwise.

In the current edition (the 11th) of the best-selling Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, redskin is defined as an “American Indian”—with the label “usually offensive” added for clarification. But when did that label get added—and how has Merriam-Webster defined the word over time?

According to Peter Sokolowski, a lexicographer and Merriam-Webster editor at large, “redskin” first made its way into an M-W dictionary in 1890, when its unabridged International defined the word in this way:

A common appellation for a North American Indian—so called from the color of their skin.

That was just the beginning. Here’s how Merriam-Webster’s definition changed subtly over time:

1898: A different line of M-W dictionaries, the Collegiate, adds an important distinction in its first edition:

A North American Indian; —often contemptuous.

1909: The unabridged New International drops the “so called from the color of their skin” from the 1890 edition.

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"Often Contemptuous" and "Usually Offensive": 120 Years of Defining "Redskin"

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Green Column: Wildfires and Climate Change

by Georgeysm Posted on September 4, 2013

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How to Paint Citadel Miniatures: Sternguard Veterans – Games Workshop

Sternguard veterans deploy wherever the battleline is most vulnerable, facing down the most impossible odds with icy calm and precise bursts of bolter fire. They are the very image of what every Space Marine aspires to become, and the pinnacle of any Chapter’s fighting force. About this Guide: In this guide demonstrates how to paint Space Marine Sterngu […]

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Codex: Space Marines (Enhanced Edition) – Games Workshop

The Space Marines are the chosen warriors of the Emperor, and the greatest fighting force of the Imperium. Each Space Marine is a genetically enhanced super soldier, easily a match for a dozen lesser men, armed with some of the deadliest weapons in the galaxy and encased in formidable power armour. This codex explores the formations and Chapters of the Space […]

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Cat Sense – John Bradshaw

Cats have been popular household pets for thousands of years, and their numbers only continue to rise. Today there are three cats for every dog on the planet, and yet cats remain more mysterious, even to their most adoring owners. In Cat Sense , renowned anthrozoologist John Bradshaw takes us further into the mind of the domestic cat than ever before, using […]

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Dogtripping – David Rosenfelt

David Rosenfelt’s Dogtripping is moving and funny account of a cross-country move from California to Maine, and the beginnings of a dog rescue foundation When mystery writer David Rosenfelt and his family moved from Southern California to Maine, he thought he had prepared for everything. They had mapped the route, brought three […]

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Dog Sense – John Bradshaw

One of the foremost researchers of animal-human relations offers a pathbreaking analysis of dog behavior, explaining the essentials of canine psychology that all dog lovers need to know.

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How to Raise the Perfect Dog – Cesar Millan & Melissa Jo Peltier

From the bestselling author and star of National Geographic Channel’s Dog Whisperer , the only resource you’ll need for raising a happy, healthy dog. For the millions of people every year who consider bringing a puppy into their lives–as well as those who have already brought a dog home–Cesar Millan, the preeminent dog behavior expert, says, “Yes, […]

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Warhammer 40,000: The Rules – Games Workshop

There is no time for peace. No respite. No forgiveness. There is only WAR. In the nightmare future of the 41st Millennium, Mankind teeters upon the brink of destruction. The galaxy-spanning Imperium of Man is beset on all sides by ravening aliens and threatened from within by Warp-spawned entities and heretical plots. Only the strength of the immortal […]

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How to Paint Citadel Miniatures: Centurions – Games Workshop

Designed as siege breakers and for the close quarters of boarding actions, Centurions are heavy exo-armour suits used by specialist Space Marine formations. Incorporating either close range weapons like siege drills and heavy flamers or heavy weapons like lascannons and heavy bolters making each Centurion a formidable adversary. About this Guide: In th […]

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Space Marines Digital Collection – Games Workshop

The Space Marines are the superhuman warriors of humanity, fighting across the galaxy to hold back the Imperium’s endless tide of enemies. Few can stand against these peerless soldiers, and even a single company is often enough to change the fate of a world forever. This digital collection gathers together the brand new Codex: Space Marines, How to Paint Cit […]

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Puppy Training Tips for Busy People: Secrets That Most People Will Never Know About Dog Training – Leslie K. McDaniel

Are you excited having a new puppy, as part of your family? You bet! Puppy training is not difficult, if you love dogs and learn secrets of puppy training. This book will help you tremendously on how to train your puppy quickly and effectively. Nobody can resist those puppy dog eyes. However, no matter how adorable and playful that tail wagging, nose-licking […]

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Green Column: Wildfires and Climate Change

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Fact-Checking Is a Doomed Enterprise: Federal Deficit Edition

by Georgeysm Posted on August 6, 2013

Mother Jones

On Sunday, Eric Cantor told Fox News that Congress needed to stay focused on our “growing deficit.” But Cantor is wrong: the deficit is shrinking, not growing. PolitiFact took a look at this and ruled that Cantor’s statement was half true. Why? Because the deficit is shrinking now, but it might start growing again in 2016.

Steve Benen and Paul Krugman give PolitiFact the going over they deserve on this, but this affair mostly just confirms my belief that the whole fact-checking enterprise is misguided. As usual, the problem here isn’t so much facts per se, but how you interpret them and which facts you think deserve the most attention. In Cantor’s case, he initially brought up the deficit in the context of the “underlying problem” of “entitlement programs and unfunded liability.” A few seconds later he mentioned again that the “real problem” is entitlements, and then a few seconds after that he said it was time for us all to come together “and try and tackle the real problem which is the entitlements.”

It was only in his next reply that he talked about “the ultimate problem, which is this growing deficit.” This is technically wrong, but in the context of Cantor’s repeated concern with entitlements, it’s not really a stretch to believe that by “ultimate” he was referring to the long-term deficit trajectory.

So what is PolitiFact‘s role here? If you think it’s very narrow fact-checking, then Cantor is just dead wrong and he deserves their worst score. If you think they should try to take into account the context of his statement, then Cantor wasn’t deliberately trying to mislead anyone but gets dinged for not being a little clearer.

Which is it? The problem is that once you get into context and interpretation, you can’t really say you’re fact-checking anymore. But if you take the narrow view, you’re going to end up constantly nitpicking over trivia. Occasionally things will be easy and you’ll catch a flat-out whopper, but most of the time political lies are more sophisticated than that.

There’s really no great answer here. I wrote a piece recently for the magazine (on newsstands soon!) about austerity and deficits, and one of the charts included with the story shows the deficit declining from 2010 through 2016. Is that misleading? Should I have included a chart that goes through 2023 so that everyone can see that deficits are likely to start increasing in a few years? I don’t think so, because my piece wasn’t about long-term deficits. It was about austerity right now and its effect on recovery from the 2008-09 recession, which meant I was only concerned with the trajectory of the deficit right now. But someone with a more hostile reading of my piece could say that I was cherry picking to make the deficit look less scary than it really is. In the end, it’s a judgment call.

Not everything is a judgment call. Some stuff is just flat wong. But most of the time, what’s important is which facts you choose to highlight, which you choose to ignore, the context of the facts, the intent of the speaker, and the values both speaker and audience think are most important. That’s not stuff you can fact-check, it’s just stuff you can explain.

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Fact-Checking Is a Doomed Enterprise: Federal Deficit Edition

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EPA delays fracking safety study until 2016

by Georgeysm Posted on June 24, 2013

EPA delays fracking safety study until 2016

By John Upton

iQoncept

We told you last week that the EPA is abandoning an investigation that linked fracking chemicals with groundwater contamination in Wyoming. Amid controversy over that move, news about EPA delaying another fracking study got overlooked by most media.

In 2010, Congress ordered the EPA to look into the dangers posed to drinking water sources by hydraulic fracturing. That research was expected to be completed in 2014. But last Tuesday, an EPA official told attendees of a shale-gas conference in Cleveland, Ohio, that it wouldn’t be done until 2016.

The Akron Beacon Journal was one of the few outlets to cover the news:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is analyzing the threat that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, poses to drinking water, but that study won’t be completed until 2016.

That assessment came Tuesday from Jeanne Briskin, coordinator of hydraulic fracturing research at the EPA’s Office of Research and Development. …

Briskin said the EPA probably would complete and release a preliminary report in late 2014. It is “complex research,” she said. …

Briskin outlined what her agency has done so far and the work that still must be completed. It is sampling water in two drilling counties in Pennsylvania plus in Colorado, North Dakota and Texas.

Nine energy companies and nine drilling-supply companies have cooperated with the EPA research, and 1,000 chemicals have been identified as being used in the fracking process, Briskin said.

The news follows an April announcement made by the EPA in the Federal Register that it was giving the public an extra six and a half months to submit information that could inform the agency’s study.

It’s nice that EPA is trying to be thorough with its research and is giving citizens more of a chance to contribute to the process. But considering how quickly fracking is spreading around the country, three more years is a long time to wait.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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EPA delays fracking safety study until 2016

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Conservative Immigration Scholar: Black and Hispanic Immigrants Are Dumber Than European Immigrants

by Georgeysm Posted on May 8, 2013

Mother Jones

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Jason Richwine, the co-author of the conservative Heritage Foundation’s controversial study on the supposed $6.3 trillion cost of comprehensive immigration reform, has received much attention and criticism for his 2009 Harvard University dissertation that argued there was “a genetic component” to racial disparities in IQ. But this dissertation wasn’t the first time Richwine had expressed such views publicly. In 2008, he told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute that “major” ethnic or racial differences in intelligence between the Irish, Italian and Jewish immigrants who flocked to the United States at the turn of the 20th century and the immigrants coming to the US today justified severely restricting immigration.

Richwine’s remarks, which he made as a resident fellow at AEI, did not receive much public notice at the time, but they go beyond the arguments presented in his 2009 dissertation. In that dissertation, “IQ and Immigration Policy,” which was first reported by Dylan Matthews of the Washington Post, Richwine argued for restricting immigration based on IQ differences, which he believes are partially the result of genetic differences between ethnic groups. In the dissertation’s acknowledgements, Richwine wrote that “no one was more influential” than AEI scholar Charles Murray, co-author of the much-criticized book The Bell Curve, which argued that racial disparities in IQ are partially the result of genetic differences between races. After the Post broke the story about the dissertation, the Heritage Foundation distanced itself from Richwine’s immigration reform study.

At the 2008 talk, Richwine said, “I do not believe that race is insurmountable, certainly not, but it definitely is a larger barrier today than it was for immigrants in the past simply because they are not from Europe.” The 2008 AEI panel focused on a book by immigration reform opponent Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors strict limits on all immigration. Krikorian’s book, The New Case Against Immigration, Both Legal and Illegal, began with Krikorian stating that the difference between modern immigration and immigration at the turn of the century “is not the characteristics of the newcomers but the characteristics of our society.”

Richwine firmly disagreed with part of Krikorian’s assessment. The “major difference,” he said, was the race of the immigrants: “There are real differences between groups.” He contended that today’s non-white immigrants are dumber. “Race is different in all sorts of ways, and probably the most important way is in IQ,” he said. “Decades of psychometric testing, has indicated that at least in America, you have Jews with the highest average IQ, usually followed by East Asians, then you have non-Jewish whites, Hispanics and then blacks. These are real differences, and they’re not going to go away tomorrow, and for that reason we have to address them in our immigration discussions and our debates.”

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Conservative Immigration Scholar: Black and Hispanic Immigrants Are Dumber Than European Immigrants

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