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Edward Snowden is a patriot

Today, I'm very proud of the ACLU.

I'm proud of ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero for having the courage to publicly pronounce Mr. Snowden a patriot while the administration that I otherwise love continues to vilify him and aggressively seek his extradition and prosecution.

Today, I'm even proud of my country.

It has not been so for many years now. For the last 33 years, America has been dominated by a profound state of fear.

That all-consuming fear has driven administrations to oppress and abuse any who disagreed... both foreign and domestic. That all-consuming fear has driven American business to levels of exploitation and corruption of law not seen in a hundred years. And that all-consuming fear has driven half of the American people to re-embrace racism and sexism; to arm themselves beyond all reason; to actively reject 50 years of making the world a better place in which to live.

I'm proud of my country today because, despite all that, despite the tremendous official and public vitriol towards Edward Snowden ... despite the historic condemnation by many of the ACLU's work ... Mr. Romero and the ACLU have the freedom to speak out without fear of retribution.

That cannot be said in much of the world.

That cannot be said in the world that half of this country wants to return us to.

As one of our most famous patriots once said, "We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Mr. Romero and the ACLU have chosen to "hang together" with Edward Snowden.

I couldn't be prouder.

Are men, by nature, rapists?

I believe history provides a great deal of supporting evidence that men are, indeed, exactly that. It is only the "civilizing" affect women have managed to have on men in the last century that curbs the most overt expressions of it.

Male dominance over women is near-universal throughout history.

Note that every major religion is patriarchal and places stringent requirements on women to act in ways that are subservient, powerless, and non-enticing. The Christian Crusades of the late Middle-Ages virtually wiped all of the religions with female deities.

A case can also be made that the "war on women" by conservative men over the last 30yrs, particularly recently, is a kind of retaliation. Greater restrictions on actual sexual dominance may very well have caused many men to find other ways to assert themselves.

"Civilizing" a society is the act of teaching men to think more like women.

The Cannabis Business

Illegal goods and services are a lot more profitable than legal ones if you can structure the market to keep the inevitable legal costs manageable.

In free-markets, the better something is for consumers and business startups, the worse it is for the establish businesses. That's the vital counter-balance competition provides. Without it, business stagnates into a few mega-companies that work in sync to inflate prices and minimize cost by minimizing quality.

Eventually, it becomes so unbearable that enough entrepreneurs join with consumers in rebelling.

If the government leans towards the totalitarian model, it's usually beholden to established business and so attempts suppression, resulting in violence.

More democratic governments like ours elect more liberal, consumer/entrepreneur sympathetic representatives who pass laws that rein-in the worse business excesses. Healthy competition is thus restored without violence.

It's good to see the first glimmers of that on the horizon.

"ibuprofen is the safest of the NSAIDs", IIF tells FDA in 2002

http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/02/briefing/3882b2_06_international%20ibuprofen%20foundation.htm
Having severe acid-reflux (GERD) for years along with numerous other ailments, I've struggled to formulate a combination of diet and medications that can happily coexist. In that adventure, and contrary to most medical advise, prescription (Rx) strength (800mg) ibuprofen has consistently proven the easiest on my digestive system, while being far more effective at pain relief than aspirin or acetaminophen.