Comments on: I Don't Want To Blow You Up!

I Don't Want To Blow You Up!

gman — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:02:57 -0800

Ricardo Cortés has a new book talked about here and here. Previously, he wrote It's Just a Plant, talked about on O'Reilly and previously here. He also plans to write a children's book about cocaine in the near future.

By: XMLicious

XMLicious — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:18:29 -0800

O'Reilly has never taken a drink evidently, but massaging soapy nekkid bodies with a loofah is something he can endorse wholeheartedly and a topic he'll be coming out with a children's book about soon.

By: DU

DU — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:23:18 -0800

Marijuana is just a plant. A gun is just a tool. Arguments from "just a" are to be viewed with great suspicion.

By: aramaic

aramaic — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:29:52 -0800

Bill O'Reilly is proof of the nonexistence of god. Or proof that the devil exists. I forget which.

By: gman

gman — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:31:21 -0800

Marijuana is just a plant. A gun is just a tool. Arguments from "just a" are to be viewed with great suspicion. that's why he considered the title 'It's only a plant, d$#%head" and his new book title drops the questionable word altogether.

By: katillathehun

katillathehun — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:31:52 -0800

Bill O'Reilly is proof that douchebags exist.

By: Bugbread

Bugbread — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:42:49 -0800

Bill O'Reilly is just a guy.

By: jamstigator

jamstigator — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:22:07 -0800

Heh, anyone take a look at the various sponsors of 'It's Just A Plant'? Almost entirely commercial drug manufacturers. Apparently the gist of the book is, not surprisingly, 'don't smoke pot, cuz it's bad'. I suspect that the drug-maker sponsors were thinking something more like, 'Woohoo! Another book to help convince people to keep buying our (often highly addictive) pills instead of growing something in their attic that helps them even more but doesn't make us a dime.' As someone who has smoked or eaten pot for more than a quarter of a century, I can't think of anything bad that it's done (aside from a ticket for possession), but I can think of lots of good that it definitely has done, and there's lots more good that it may have done for me that I just don't know about. (Cannabis apparently helps with bone density, helps prevent cancer of various kinds, helps with insomnia, helps with lack-of-appetite problems, blah blah). My IQ has not diminished, my body hasn't turned flat, my brains don't look like eggs-over-easy, and I'm no lazier than the average person.

By: SentientAI

SentientAI — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:23:29 -0800

Because I was just skimming MeFi, I thought there was an O'Reilly book with one of those etched animal covers--except it'd be a marijuana leaf. Yeah.

By: gman

gman — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:26:51 -0800

Apparently the gist of the book is, not surprisingly, 'don't smoke pot, cuz it's bad'. not exactly.

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:32:49 -0800

What a publicity whore. And I don't mean O'Reilly. I'm going to write a children's book called "It's Just an Escape," in which Jackie learns that her parents stay up late to smoke marijuana instead of learning a new trade or going to night school. Jackie asked them where they got it, and they said they bought it from Farmer Bob. She learned that her parents spend almost a hundred dollars per month on marijuana, but they only spend $10 per month on new science books for her. Jackie also wanted to get piano lessons, but her parents said they were too expensive. She wondered how many piano lessons she could take if her parents saved their money instead of buying marijuana. She asked her math teacher the next day. He told her that Mrs. Gonzalez gave piano lessons once a week for $10. Piano lessons once a week would only cost forty dollars a month! That still leaves enough for new science books and to save up for a vacation. She wondered why her mommy and daddy hadn't figured that out. Then her math teacher told her that marijuana was against the law, and that if police catch you with marijuana you can go to jail for a long time. Jackie said, "That's silly, it's just a plant! You can't go to jail for having a plant, can you?" Her math teacher explained that sometimes the laws don't always make sense, but you obey them, because the most valuable things we have are our time and our freedom. The he told her she she kept being a good student and stayed away from marijuana, she had a good chance of being accepted to the Science Magnet school downtown. The kids who graduate from the Science school go to college, and Jackie knew she had to go to college before she could become a doctor. Jackie worried about her parents. What if they were put in jail for having marijuana? Would they be homeless? Would she have to quit school? This scared her. That night at dinner, Jackie told her parents what she learned. "If you keep smoking marijuana, you might get arrested. Then we could be homeless, and I would have to quit school. Plus, if you stop buying marijuana, you can save a lot of money." Her parents blushed. What Jackie said made sense. Her parents looked at each other. They thought they were cool for smoking marijuana, but there were really just being self-indulgent douchebags. "We won't be selfish douchebags any more, sweetie. We love you," her parents said. And Jackie smiled.

By: XMLicious

XMLicious — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:43:05 -0800

And Jackie learned to kiss the Man's ass for ever after, Amen. (Just kidding)

By: P.o.B.

P.o.B. — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 09:29:46 -0800

And Jackie smiled. ...because in her heart she knew she didn't want to become a doctor, but instead she wanted to study law! She would go to college and learn how to use fallacious and misleading arguments to win court cases. In turn getting dirtbags thrown in jail and making America safe from scum...like her parents. And then she cried herself to sleep.

By: sotonohito

sotonohito — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:10:56 -0800

As for his new book, I think he's got a relatively serious problem in that there are people who *do* want to blow other people up, so his title is pretty deceptive. I'm all for trying to defuse Bush's "if you don't do what we want 'ya to the terrists will get 'ya" crap, and I'm definately in favor of ending the "terrorism == muslim" lie, but his title sucks massively. Pastabagel Growing up, my father was addicted to a drug which eventually contributed to his death. Keeping his habbit fed cost us around $100 back in the 1990's, it'd be a bit more today. Worse, we were always on the ragged edge, financially speaking, and there were several months when that extra $100 expense really did impact our lives for the worse. As you've doubtless guessed by now, the drug my father was addicted to was nicotine, and his prefered delivery system was the cigarette. He tried to quit several times, he knew his addiction was hurting his family financially, and he stayed hooked until the day he died. My point is that your argument is bogus. Both nicotine and alcohol are legal, addictive, and cause financial strain on people who can't really afford it. Marijuana is not addictive, and thus is therefore easier for people to quit using if they choose to, so why should it be illegal? Add to that the tremendous cost, both in terms of money and human misery, caused by the illegality of marijuana and the fact that it is illegal begins to look literally insane.

By: MrMoonPie

MrMoonPie — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:22:49 -0800

Apparently, Cortés doesn't know what ruddy means.

By: tkchrist

tkchrist — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:28:09 -0800

Yes. Everything a parent does that is 'conspicuous consumption' is money and time wasted that could have been spent on their poor little children. Daddy why do you go the gym? you could just run around the block? That money could go to sending me to polo camp! And why do you and mommy go out to eat one a month? The money you spend on the food and the babysitter could be spent on my breast implants! You are so selfish. My god. Will you think of the children! Both nicotine and alcohol are legal, addictive, and cause financial strain on people who can't really afford it. Exactly. But you wanna talk about financial strain. The financial strain of credit card debt buying the brat every little piece of junk she wants. I think the forty dollar 1/4 ounce is the least of most parents problems.

By: XMLicious

XMLicious — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:45:45 -0800

Why is it that I can imagine Christopher Walken saying some of the stuff in this thread? What happened to the mean pot-smoking hippies who took advantage of underage girls wandering around Haight-Ashbury and beat up Vietnam vets? But seriously, I think that Pastabagel is more annoyed with Cortés than anything and engaging in Phil Cubeta type satire. But don't let me speak for you, Pastabagel.

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:09:02 -0800

ut seriously, I think that Pastabagel is more annoyed with Cortés than anything... posted by XMLicious at 1:45 PM on January 10 I thought this was obvious (but I don't know who Phil Cubeta is). To suggest that it's just a plant is stupid to the point of metally defective. Tobacco is just a plant too. Mercury is just a liquid. Uranium is just a metal. It's an annoying little book whose sole purpose seems to be to offend the white people that make up O'Reilly's audience and not really reach out to anyone else. Notice that the cop is white, arresting black people? Cortes is like a hack radical. His books are the airplane peanut jokes of drug legalization advocacy. My point is that your argument is bogus. Both nicotine and alcohol are legal, addictive, and cause financial strain on people who can't really afford it. Marijuana is not addictive, and thus is therefore easier for people to quit using if they choose to, so why should it be illegal? I'm sorry about your father. And I do realize having cigarettes legal but marijuana illegal is a bizarre contradiction. What is even more bizarre is that the tobacco companies were fined billions for selling a legal product that everyone knew was addictive, and that carried a label from the government warning the user against using the product. I'm not supporting the drug laws. They are very clearly retarded in more ways that any one person can summarize. In the end it's probably better to legalize everything and tax the hell out of it, but if you do that you will still get situations where user's lives and the lives of their families are ruined, so there is no easy solution. What I am suggesting is that right or wrong, the law has to get enforced in order for any law to have merit. You can still go to prison for breaking a law you think is stupid. In the interest of preserving things that are more valuable, e.g. freedom to go anywhere, say anything, do with your time what you will, etc., it may be worth sacrificing something of minor value, such as smoking pot. But let's think it through. Suppose you legalize pot. Who wins? The backyard pot grower? No way. Companies that grow it industrially and mass market it will win. But that's okay, because it's legal. Those companies will go public and make stockholders lots of money, but that's okay too. And maybe these companies, owned like anything else by wealthy white guys, will advertise their products in poor neighborhoods and to minorities, but hey, it's legal and that's business. And they will use their wealth an influence to elect politicians and gets laws passed that protect their wealth and block too much spending on the uppity riff-raff, who incidentally happen to be their customers. And maybe thirty years after pot is legalized someone will find an internal PotCo memorandum that summarizes a private study showing that promoting marijuana use in economically depressed areas creates an emotional, but non-chemical, dependence on the high that guarantees a steady customer based and flow of income. And people will be outraged and wonder how pot came to be legal in the first place, and some clever lawyer will spin a story about how the very people who run the companies now were pushing for its legalization back then even though they knew it was "bad". And the people will believe this because the people will never accept that they made a dumb decision, preferring instead to retire to the comfort zone of "they lied to us". And someone will realize that the people making money off the pot industry don't themselves use it. es. Everything a parent does that is 'conspicuous consumption' is money and time wasted that could have been spent on their poor little children. Pot smoking isn't "conspicuous consumption" because you generally don't do it conspicuously. It's not like driving a Porsche or carrying an iPhone. And pot-smoking can and often does land people in prison. One could make an argument that a parent who does illegal drugs is reckless and negligent based solely on their willingness to accept that risk of going to prison. But you wanna talk about financial strain. The financial strain of credit card debt buying the brat every little piece of junk she wants. The little brat in my dumb story wanted books and piano lessons. That this gets lumped in with polo lessons and pieces of junk might actually be precisely the problem in this country.

By: gman

gman — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:23:59 -0800

you're "metally defective". Suppose you legalize pot. Who wins? ummm.... those not sitting behind bard for a victimless crime? and how about the resources of U.S. law enforcement? In the interest of preserving things that are more valuable, e.g. freedom to go anywhere, say anything, do with your time what you will, etc., it may be worth sacrificing something of minor value, such as smoking pot. who are you to declare that smoking pot is of 'minor value'? and how about the freedom to partake in something which effects no one else, but the user? as an adult here in toronto, i can smoke and have my freedom too!!!

By: gman

gman — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:25:17 -0800

~~bard~~ bars

By: XMLicious

XMLicious — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:28:28 -0800

Phil Cubeta is a character in the ongoing Holden Karnovsky drama, nearly 2000 comments and counting with various broadsides having been fired between MeFi and other blogs and a philanthropic foundation possibly holed and sinking. He runs a few different philanthropy-related blogs and he and his fans make use of the odd device of sock-puppet-like comment personas that speak grandiloquently on the subject at hand, for the stated purpose of satirizing it and other high-brow topics.

By: XMLicious

XMLicious — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:33:12 -0800

Oh, my God. I did not mean to refer to MeFi as a "blog". I must be tired. I'm going to go wash my mouth out with soap. Lye soap maybe, just to prove I mean it.

By: sotonohito

sotonohito — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:12:42 -0800

Pastabagel wrote "What I am suggesting is that right or wrong, the law has to get enforced in order for any law to have merit." In thory that sounds good. In practice there are so many bogus laws on the books that your principle just doesn't work. Take, for example, the fact that blasphemy is, technically, punishable in Massachusetts by a jail term not to exceed one year *and* a fine of no more than $300. Yes, the proper solution is to repel the laws that are no longer enforced, and given past performance it appears that won't be happening until the heat death of the universe, if not longer. I'd love to see the various government bodies spend, say, half of their time discussing and voting on laws to be repealed. But again, it isn't happening, it's been necessary for a few centuries now, so I'd argue that it isn't going to happen. And, meantime, the USA is hemoraging money and ruining lives, because some people can't stand the thought of their neighbors getting high (but getting *drunk*, that's peachy keen fine and dandy, hell its practically patriotic to benge drink). Of course if marijuana were legalized there would be people who suffered. But do you honestly think it would be more, or fewer, people than suffer under the current system? Prison rape is very real, and is obviously considered to be a feature, not a bug, of the US prison system. So, what's worse? A person wasting his life away smoking pot, or that same person being raped until he bleeds with the sanction of the US government because he smoked pot? As for the "just a plant" line, of course its stupid. BFD. In a comparison of stupidity, the dumbest crap to ever come out of the pro-pot lobby is positiviely genius compared to US law.

By: P.o.B.

P.o.B. — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:29:32 -0800

Pastabagel wrote "But let's think it through." You had a clear argument until this point, not that I agreed, but at least it was clear.

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:35:35 -0800

"Bill O'Reilly is just a guy." Zaphod Beelblebrox is just a guy. O'Reilly is just a psychopimp. (you may quote me, I'm quite witty). Always bugged me that the 'government off my back' folks staunchly advocate keeping marijuana illegal (and the 'fight the man' types staunchly advocate making guns criminal - whole other issue tho). I think this particular story is stupid tripe that is easily the equal of anti-marijuana propaganda in the handling of the subject in such an insipid fashion. But y'know, I still don't think dope should be illegal. I mean, I don't want my kids drinking or smoking dope since I disagree that it's completely harmless* (I don't want them watching too much t.v. either), but I don't think people should go to jail for it. I especially don't think we should waste tax money prioritizing this over other forms of criminal activity. (* at the very least ingesting smoke of any kind can't be that great for your lungs - of course, there's use and abuse in any substance.)

By: wendell

wendell — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:36:19 -0800

the proper solution is to repel the laws that are no longer enforced And I'm selling cans of Law Repellent for the low low price of $19.95 plus $29.95 shipping and handling. (Sorry, no sales to Florida) (I know it's a typo, but a GREAT one) I think he's got a relatively serious problem in that there are people who *do* want to blow other people up And many of these people command armies, which is a bad thing. Still, I am fairly confident that, for various reasons, nobody with the means to do so wants to blow ME up. (But also, for various reasons, nobody wants to blow me). And Ricardo Cortés is Just a Plant.

By: Bugbread

Bugbread — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:24:23 -0800

Smedleyman writes "Always bugged me that the 'government off my back' folks staunchly advocate keeping marijuana illegal" Huh. That's always the opposite of what I heard. The "government off my back" folks always seem to advocate legalization of marijuana and prostitution.

By: ooga_booga

ooga_booga — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:24:43 -0800

O'Reilly is just a tool.

By: cortex

cortex — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 17:51:34 -0800

Phil Cubeta is a character in the ongoing Holden Karnovsky drama Not to mention mefi's own, mind you. And it's Karnofsky.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 19:25:54 -0800

But let's think it through. Suppose you legalize pot. Who wins? Lessee... Taxpayers win, because they won't need to support the massive policing required to deal with marijuana offenses. Families win, because parents won't be lost to jails. Taxpayers win again, because they won't need to support the massive jails required to lock up the enormous number of users. Everyone wins, because the illegal drug trade will be harmed, reducing all sorts of crime and violence problems associated with that trade. Users win, because they'll finally be able to grow their own. It's a weed: if you can grow a lawn, you can grow a pot plant. Police win, because they'll be able to put their energies into real crimes. Society wins, because of the increased effectivity of policing. Medical users win, because they'll finally be able to have relief. And so on and so forth. You have to be pretty frackin' stupid to think legalization would not bring about benefits umpteen times greater than any possible downsides to it.

By: gman

gman — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 03:58:15 -0800

Court strikes down regulation limiting growers of medical marijuana