I would never leave you hangin.

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Posted by: Dave in Texas at 02:14 PM | Comments (1843)
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Wow.

While the country is discussing the possibility of legalizing drugs, it should always be remembered and frequently be stated that drugs are very dangerous, and even when they don't kill you, they tend to corrupt you and enfeeble your mind.

I think it's a legitimate question as to whether it is better to dissuade drug use through criminal intervention or through public persuasion and warnings, but we must at least have the latter.

The media has treated the decriminalization of marijuana in Colorado as a social advance to be openly celebrated (as they openly celebrate gay marriage). Very often their cheerleading on the subject displaces all sense of responsibility in reminding the public that every intoxicant, from alcohol to pot to heroin, poses risks to the user, from the relatively minor yet still bad (habituation, changes in personality, lack of ambition, an increasing centrality of the drug in one's priority of needs) to the major (unemployability, domestic strife and violence) to the terminal (death due to overdose).

One of the fears of those who favor continued prohibition -- a well-justified fear -- is that without anti-drug laws and police enforcement of them, there will be no social or cultural backstop to reduce what they believe will ultimately be an explosion in drug use (and, therefore, an explosion in the negative consequences of drug use).

With reports such as this one -- with Anderson Cooper getting the giggles over the possibility that his reporter in Colorado might herself be high -- we see that the prohibitionists have a point.

The prohibitionists claim that the country (and its media) is simply not mature enough, or nuanced enough it its thinking, to simultaneously campaign for decriminalization while also remaining anti-drug-use as a social/cultural/personal matter.

That is, the prohibitionists fear that the country is simply not mature enough in its thinking on social issues, and so cannot conceive of a category of "legal and yet harmful and so to be avoided." And that this immaturity of thought then permits only two realistic regimes:

1. Drugs are bad and thus must be illegal, or

2. Drugs should not be illegal, and in fact, are pretty darned good so why not try some drugs?

If those are the only two choices on the menu, then I myself -- currently in favor of experimental decriminalization -- will have to revert to a prohibitionist stance.

I would like the more mature option -- "legal and yet harmful and thus to be avoided" -- to be on the table.

But if the organs of public information and cultural signaling cannot themselves conceive of that third option, and will immaturely take "legality" to mean "benevolence" themselves, then the anti-prohibitionist movement will be over pretty quickly.

Posted by: Ace at 10:03 AM | Comments (490)
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I think we're running out of Roman numerals. This is an early SB post in case anyone wanted to start talkin trash. There will be another one at gametime.

Last game of the season, Broncos and Seahawks.

How's the weather in East Rutherford NJ today? Not bad. Looks like snow tomorrow.

Oh and some jackass mailed some baking soda to several hotels around Metlife Stadium and also Rudy Giuliani's midtown business office. What a dick.

ICYMI, Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman might not be the dick you think he is (sorry, Buzzfeed link). I think I like this kid.

Happy Superbowl - more later!

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 08:54 AM | Comments (169)
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... Busy Day At Casa Andy Edition

Thanks to Twitter, here's some gun stuff ...

Winchester .22 LR Recall

Topic of the Week - Gun Safes

Gun Of The Week

(answer below)
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Posted by: andy at 07:20 AM | Comments (167)
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And for the free expression of those odd and faintly disturbing questions that you have tamped down for years.....

From Cafe Hayek

The public … thinks that conservationists conserve nature. This is like saying footballers score goals; it is the aim, but it is a poor description of what most of them spend most of the match doing. Most conservationists can and do talk for hours to each other without mentioning an animal or plant. I have seen them do it many times. They talk about committees, guidelines, grant applications, advertising campaigns, legislation conventions, protocols, conferences, secretariats, treaties, regulations, resources – just like the businessmen they affect to despise.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:13 PM | Comments (66)
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Take that, SCOAMF

Posted by: andy at 04:22 AM | Comments (272)
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This morning's open thread for non-book discussion is brought to you by a little hand jive: more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:06 AM | Comments (35)
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Where the Wild Things Are - Curtain From The Opera Set, 1979

(Image courtesy of tygertale blog. Yeah, I didn't know that WTWTA had been made into an opera, either.)

Good morning morons and moronettes and welcome to the award-winning AoSHQ's prestigious Sunday Morning Book Thread.

Amazon and... Kobo?

According to a reader survey by goodereader.com, Amazon and Kobo are basically tied as being the online bookstore of choice for serious readers. And by serious, they mean "users that often buy 50-100 books a year and often have more than one e-reader in the household." The results:

Amazon and Kobo were tied with 35.34% of the overall votes and these two stores have the largest international footprint. They exist in over 30 different countries and offer millions of titles. Kobo has a much larger library of titles, with over 3.6 million available, they are also easier for people to buy books from. One of the advantages these two companies have is their extensive portfolio of e-readers and tablets to facilitate reading.

The Barnes & Noble Nook was predicted to go under completely this year, but it's not dead, yet:

Barnes and Noble might be seeing a 30% decline on their hardware and eBook sales during the past holiday season, but they they do have user loyalty. 10.04% of our readers prefer to buy their Nook Books, but 99% of the participants originated from the US...Their ecosystem is fairly well developed and they offer self-published titles under the Nook Press banner and full color content optimized for the Nook HD. The sole new device of 2013 was the Nook Glowlight, which tends to be your best friend for binge reading.

So we'll see if B&N can make up lost ground. And then there's this tidbit:

Sadly, Android and iOS readers have to be based in the US/UK to buy books online.

I did not know that.

Windows 8 Tablet Price Reduction

My next e-reader/tablet purchase may be some sort of Windows 8 device. I think W8 is an abysmal interface for desktop computers (I much prefer Windows 7), but it should work well in the tablet environment it was obviously designed for.

Which is good because the price is coming down on a number of Windows 8 tablets:

Among the tablets that can now be picked up for cheap include the Dell Venue 8 Pro which has seen a $70 drop in price from the original $299. This does make the offering quite lucrative for a tablet that offers 32 GB of storage. Also at $229, the Dell Venue 8 Pro is slam bang in the territory of 2013 Nexus 7 that offers 16 GB of storage and an inch less of screen space (but with more pixels) for the same price.

I have to say that $229 for a 32GB tablet is mighty tempting. But

What is also interesting is that Microsoft is not extending the generosity to its own Surface range that continues to retail at the original price tags.

Huh. I wonder why? I also wonder what answer I would get from a Microsoft rep if I asked why I should buy a Surface instead of a lower-priced competitor?

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:10 AM | Comments (138)
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This thread sponsored by Old Spice.

**OK, by special request, here is a link to the Hot Old Spice Guy.**

There were a lot of great suggestions in last Sunday’s thread and I promise I’ll get to them, but in light of the events this past week I thought it’d be nice to use the travel thread to talk about the places we’ve visited – or would like to visit someday – that renew our spirits and inspire us to carry on. Through all the struggles we endure in our every day lives, where do we go to find solace? Where do we feel closer to God (or feel a part of some Bigger Meaning, irrespective of if one believes in a higher power)? I think this is a primal urge that humans have – to find meaning and purpose for our lives beyond those that we share as animals (eating, drinking, reproducing, surviving). It’s a central part of who we are and one that I think it’s important to nourish. Travel can be a great way to do that.

Back in the day, I had a chance to do a fair amount of traveling (although not nearly as much as many of our globe-trotting morons and ‘ettes). These are some of my favorite “sacred” places (below the jump):
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Posted by: Open Blogger at 01:04 PM | Comments (232)
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We haven't had a new thread for awhile, so let me see if I can slap something together here.

OK, so I hope you all remember the classic "chalice from the palace" bit from the Danny Kaye movie The Court Jester. If you don't, here it is, in all it's tongue-twisting glory:

Me, I think this is almost as good as Abbott and Costello's "Who's On First" sketch, but, as the poet says, YMMV. What you may not know, however, is that this is not an original comedy bit. It appears to have borrowed heavily from a similar routine in this 1939 Bob Hope movie:

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 02:45 PM | Comments (278)
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