Surrender

In a few weeks, Californian voters will have the opportunity to surrender in the war on drugs. Not a moment too soon.

Proposition 19 "legalizes marijuana under California. . . law" and "permits local governments to regulate and tax commercial production, distribution, and sale of marijuana." In other words, if passed, this law will immediately save the state millions of dollars associated with jailing people who grow and/or smoke weed and raise millions of dollars in taxes from people who grow and/or smoke weed. Presumably, the state and localities could also realize savings from police budgets or at least redeploy police resources toward more socially useful causes--like finding the Solipsist's lost bottle cap collection (but we digress).

This proposition makes so much sense, in fact, that we have difficulty imagining anyone in his or her right mind opposing it. Indeed, those not in their right minds (e.g., pot-addled tokers) may well comprise the proposition's most ardent supporters. Still, the family-values crowd predictably jumps about and hollers that this will mark the first (or at least latest) step in California's journey to perdition. Amazing how right-wingers can passionately argue for state's rights about everything until a state actually proposes to do something they don't like. Come on, GOP: If pot is outlawed, only outlaws will smoke pot!

But Solipsist, they say (as if we have any family-values followers), you're going to encourage people to smoke pot! You're going to have people driving cars and flying planes stoned! And marijuana is a gateway drug! If you let people smoke marijuana, they will go on to the hard stuff! Cocaine, heroin, Guatemalan toads!

To address these arguments in order:

A) Legalization will "encourage" precisely no one to smoke pot, any more than criminalization has discouraged anyone. People smoke pot (or don't, in our case) because they want to. Sure, if pot is legal, a few more people may say, "What the hell, let me try it." But they will either choose to continue smoking it or not, just as people nowadays make the same choices about cigarettes or alcohol or Will Ferrell movies. Which brings us to

B) Yes, people will drive cars and fly planes stoned--probably to exactly the same extent that people currently drive or fly drunk. Those actions will be just as illegal and, if it makes anyone feel better, the Solipsist has no problem with the idea of strengthening legal sanctions against those activities.

C) Whether or not marijuana is a gateway drug or not, let's take the argument at face value. Let's say that marijuana use encourages people to experiment with harder drugs (which, under this legislation, would still remain illegal), in the same way that a beer drinker may decide to "experiment" with harder stuff like vodka or whiskey. Our response: So what? Yes, folks, we feel that, if anything, this law does not go far enough: Not just marijuana, but ALL drugs should be legalized. Yes, cocaine. Yes, heroin. Yes, crank and meth and whatever new poisons people devise to help numb themselves from reality.

We know we may have lost you with those last few statements, but we're quite serious. Let us be perfectly clear: We do NOT support the use of these drugs. We ourselves have no desire to use these drugs, and were we to find that someone we cared about was using them, we would do everything in our power to get him or her to stop. At the same time, though, we have a completely libertarian view of this issue: If people WANT to use these substances, it is not government's place to tell them they can't. And if the government truly wants to serve its people, it would do far better by ensuring that the supply of these substances is as safe as possible and by providing services to treat these people if and when they decide it is time to quit.

If anyone doubts the preposterousness of the war on drugs, they need look no further than Mexico. In just one state of Mexico, Ciudad Juarez, thousands--THOUSANDS--of people are murdered each year because of rivalries between drug gangs. The police force there has been so decimated--or infiltrated--by the drug cartels, that the Mexican president has nationalized the fight. All this seems to have accomplished is an uptick in the death toll and not all the people--perhaps not even a majority--are actual combatants. Similar stories occur here in the US, as well, of course.

If drug addicts want to destroy themselves in the pursuit of feeling better, that's sad--but acceptable. Better that than leaving collateral damage strewn across the land.

Vote "Yes" on 19. Let's begin the process of surrendering.

What a Difference a Third Makes?

Well, we won. We're officially the funniest person in El Cerrito! Roughly equivalent to being the finest ballerina in Djibouti, but we'll take it.

***********************

More importantly, why 33 and 1/3? What's the point of that 1/3?

(Digression: For our younger readers, we are referring to magical waxy circular objects called "records" or "elpees" that would, when spun and stimulated by a stylus [or "needle"], fill a room with music. EOD.)

Now, we're sure some know-it-all buttinsky will point out that it has something to do with the need (or desirability) of a record spinning precisely 100 times in three minutes, but that simply proves he has been duped. Duped, we say! For we here at Solipsist HQ have acquired a turntable that spins exactly 33 times per minute! Revelations!

"Abbey Road": When played at 33 rpm, "The Sun King" contains a hidden message informing the listener that Paul, while not dead, was, at the time of the recording, suffering from hives.

If you listen closely, you can hear Bob Dylan ordering from a local Chinese restaurant on "Like a Rolling Stone" (egg drop soup, a single spare rib, and apple juice).

On several records, Pat Boone can be heard swearing fealty to the "dark lord" Azetoth.

Every Elvis Presely record contains hidden stock tips (including, on several occasions, admonitions to invest heavily in llama futures).

We're planning to slow things down to 32 rpm tomorrow. If you don't hear from us again, assume that "they" got to us. And send help!

(Image from eil.com)

Making with the Funny

We have to make a "humorous" speech in a couple of hours, part of our obligation as a member of our college's Toastmasters' Club. We're not really feeling it, though. Not that we're nervous: Accustomed as we are to public speaking, nerves are seldom a problem. Quite the opposite, in fact: Insane overconfidence tends to bring us down. (Let that be a lesson to you, kids: Always prepare for everything, even if--especially if--you think it'll be easy.)

The way we see it, we speak in public virtually every day, to our classes if to no one else. As for material, well, we also write "speeches" all the time: You're reading one right now, Dear Readers. We can always go through past "Solipsists" ("Solipsi"?) and find something we can extrapolate into a 5 -7 minute monologue. Indeed, we think tonight's discourse will be a variation on "Escape from Cowtown" (6/14/10), which we've even rehearsed a bit.

No, the problem is, we just don't really feel like being funny tonight (as you can probably tell from the relative dearth of humor in today's post). Maybe we're just tired, maybe we're feeling a bit burned out, but we truly have no desire to bestir ourselves to try to make a bunch of judgmental strangers laugh.

Ah, well. The show must, apparently, go on. Wish us luck.

It's Funny Because It Hurts People

Just saw this on Yahoo!: Apparently, the Vdara Hotel (you suppose that spelling is intentional?) has a minor design flaw: When the sun hits its largely glass facade at a certain angle, people on the ground get burnt to a crisp.

OK, no one's actually been burnt to a crisp yet, but plastic has been melted and hair has been singed.

Didn't Mythbusters do a story about something like this? We seem to recall they met with little success in attempting to construct a death ray out of mirrors, but it seems that the technology exists. The military possibilities demand exploration. We imagine a string of Vdara Hotels built along the Iranian border would prove a major deterrent to any of Ahmadinejad's more grandiose martial plans.

In Your Face, Nothing in Particular! (A Brief Post)

According to a recent poll conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the people most knowledgeable about the Bible and world religions are atheists/agnostics, followed closely by Jews. As an agnostic Jew (not a contradiction in terms), the Solipsist is unsurprised. Heck, we took the sample quiz attached to the article and scored a perfect six out of six. But why would anyone doubt that atheists would have a greater grasp on the Bible (about which they need to know, if only for rebuttal purposes) and on world religions (about which they would be unblinded by sectarian prejudice) than Holy Rollers of every stripe?

Ignorance isn't only bliss, it's downright Christian.

Don't Call Us Stinkblogger

Did it ever occur to anyone that naming an insect a "stinkbug" might cause the little fellows an inferiority complex? At any rate, it hardly encourages pro-social behavior. Think about it: If you know that people will just call you "stinkbug" no matter what you do, what incentive would you have not to stink? Doesn't strike us as entomologically correct, is all we're saying.

But aside from that, what exactly is going on back East? We can hardly open a newspaper these days without reading about some new arthropodal nemesis. Bedbugs in Manhattan! Stinkbugs in Maryland! We fear tomorrow to hear of an infestation of Madagascar hissing cockroaches in downtown Charleston or a swarm of locusts eating the residents of a Palm Beach retirement community.

How has the West Coast managed to remain relatively pest free? Maybe all the anti-immigrant foofaraw in Arizona has discouraged them from heading this way. Thank heaven for small favors, but we don't think it'll last. There's an aphid in the corner, and he's looking at us funny.

(Image from the New York Times)

No Butterfly Ballots in the NFL

Just a quickie 'cause we're wrapped up in the Jets-Dolphins game (massive wager with ACOS). Miami just went ahead, so we're not feeling too good. But as we watch, it occured to us that Miami's quarterback, Chad Henne, replaced an injured quarterback, Chad Pennington, last year. Does this mark the first time in the history of professional sports that a guy named "Chad" had replaced another guy named "Chad"? And hasn't Florida had enough problems with chads to be leery of the whole experiment?