So legal weed coming INTO the state constitutes a great threat, but setting up cheap liquor stores just across the state border from the Lakota reservation (with a huge alcoholism rate) is just swell...

Nebraska Complains About Colorado Weed While Enabling South Dakota Alcoholism

http://www.hightimes.com/read/nebraska-complains-about-colorado-weed-while-enabling-south-dakota-alcoholism/

In the case of pot, the most logical thing would be a division of efforts, such as we currently have for our other (much more harmful and addictive) recreational drugs, alcohol and tobacco.

Surgeon general can force warning labels and release reports, but little else.

FTC/FDA/BATFE can police ingredients, labeling/packaging, production facilities, overseas shipping, etc.

Home production/non profit distribution allowed with generous limits and no more oversight than homebrewing beer or amateur winemaking is subject to now.

Maybe you missed the Supreme Court ruling earlier this week? http://www.npr.org/2014/12/15/...

If you have data, make a model, and then either make experiment or prediction on model and come with a different result than the actual science, youa re doing science you can PUBLISH and then you are a climate skeptic because you have reason to.

Climate change denier, usually the same people which respond to criticism with "hey science is a religion you can't question it" are usually armchar people havign read a blog or two or have a poltical ground and have no fucking clue about the real state of climate science state.

How many people worldwide can be called climate science skeptic ? AKA : publish article and have data model to back it up ? Not many. I can count them maybe on a hand or two. ALL the rest are denier which throw any excuse up and they are present by many many order of magnitude more than the previous group (including the false criticism "established science cannot be questionned" ... It can, but with a proper data and evidence. Not with bullshit from a sofa).



And this is essentially why your criticism is not warranted. Science is about being constantly questionned by other falsifiable science hypotheses. Not by idiot in a chair repeating some conservative BS they saw somewhere abou solar flare or volcanoe.

If they use the standards that they use for regulating pharmaceuticals, and tried to apply them to recreational drugs.

Their risk/benefit analysis procedures would need a major realignment, as the current methods would disallow essentially ANY substance as having risks that outweigh the benefits (getting high).

Because getting high is not a medical necessity, the amount of potential risk would need to be essentially non-existent for the FDA to allow a substance on the market. Even relatively benign recreational drugs like pot or psychedelics have potential risks that would preclude them from approval according to current FDA standards.

Well, a group of lawyers and businessmen (Congress) is about as poorly equipped as a group of prosecutors and cops (DEA) to render an impartial decision about the potential risks/benefits of various chemicals based on scientific fact, rather than political expedience or ideology.

About the ONLY thing that Congress has over the DEA is that (again, in theory) they are responsible to the will of the people that elect them. Of course, in reality, they are beholden to the needs of the corporations (Pharma, Booze, Tobacco, Corrections) who fund their campaigns, so we end up with more and more substances being made illegal every year, science be damned.

Going back at least as far as the 1980s, the DEA has used their "emergency scheduling" powers to ban various substances by fiat.

Drugs like MDMA, GHB, "bath salts", and various synthetic cannabinoids were all summarily placed in Schedule I by unelected DEA bureaucrats. All they have to do is wave their pen, and any substance they want to ban is made illegal.

Yes, such actions are theoretically open to review by congress, but in reality Congress has never denied any DEA action of this nature, and simply rubber stamps whatever the DEA does.

So the DEA has the ability to CREATE drug laws, as well as ENFORCE them.

And yet the last temptation of christ never had that problem despite reams of threat, and at least ONE REAL theater being burned down with molotov cocktail.

Or whatever it is alled : expecting all basic ills to be solved before technological progress is considered. It is impracticable in the modern world and asking for it as you seem to do , shows a distinct problem at understanding how the world work. In practice you do not portion your whole finance to some problem as food or sanitation, otherwise you reach only stagnation. You have to dedicate some to technology advance.

And India is showing you why : they make a lot of progress, and in fact if their rocket is good enough (not many failure) they might get a good size of the satellite launching market, thus bringing in money and being able to concentrate on their other problem better, more so than as if they had instead investing that money in just food or basic sanitation.

the relatives of the one shot will sue Sony for millions of dollars due to the release of the film that Sony KNEW could unleash terrorism.

You don't really think they could win that lawsuit, do you? The only think they KNEW was that there was a threat. Sure, lawyers would probably have made the theaters and Sony post signs about the threat, but then the patrons also KNEW about the threat.
Otherwise any event in the country could be stopped by a mere phone call or email or even a tweet.

It's not that it should be, it's that the Ruble is collapsing. It's a problem for any company doing business in Russia. Many have halted sales. That would be Steam's other option.

Germany, Austria... Some AAA game are not available, and other are censored. Welcome to our world.

I have posted that yesterday : the feedback I read from people having watched the film in preview told that it was horribly bad. Now they have made sure that for the next days or maybe even week they made the film "unforgettable". Maybe I am paranoid but I would bet that it is a PR coup on Sony side.

I have the feeling the reason the show was cancelled , was because the pre-release feedback was very negative, that it was a bad film, but with those threat they saw an opportunity, and now they are priming the US market for a massive "buy it to spite terrorrist !" direct to DVD.

The best time of reform, is when you are not fearful of reelection, and you are OK with using unpopular but needed reform. In this case, pretty it is much what's left for Obama. And you know what ? He might get long needed reform on the way (the cuban embargo for the last 50 years is one of the stupidiest political decision of the US, IMNSHO).

Now if somebody could really clean up that other little mess in the cuban isle before 2034-2053 that would be great.