The Great Mexican Wall

[LesPalenik]

Back to trust in news... came across this. Hard to blame Trump for European, and especially UK, distrust in their own media though.

Source: LinkedIn

It looks like in Serbia the press is almost as bad as in UK.

[Alan Klein]

Good thing, Alan, you can only make a mistake (misstep?) once

Well, Angel's Landing was too much for me.  But I did go to Dead Horse Point State Park in Canyonlands, Utah.  Magnificent view.  So I hand my camera to this stranger and ask him to take my picture as I stand ten feet from a 1500 foot cliff.  He asks me to step back so he can get the whole valley in the shot.

[LesPalenik]

You look quite pissed off with the photographer, Alan. No wonder that he tried to push you off the cliff.

Here is a picture I took of my camera club colleagues standing on a cliff near Tobemorry in Ontario over Georgian Bay which is part of Lake Huron. Beautiful place which looks more dangerous than it really is.

[Alan Klein]

Nice shot Les. Of course you were the one taking the picture and weren't standing on the cliff where they were.😏

[JNB_Rare]

The expectations of coming legalization of pot in Canada are getting ridiculous. Scores of people (mainly women, most likely because men who were interested in the stuff were not deterred so much by the previous ban) are already planning marijuana parties, and getting high on October 17, when it becomes legal.

Not sure it will be so dramatically different from this or this. 

[Frans Waterlander]

Not sure it will be so dramatically different from this or this. 

I'm in the US and get a message that the videos are not available.

[JNB_Rare]

I'm in the US and get a message that the videos are not available.

Ahh, too bad. I appear to have broken the forum rules anyway by not explaining the links. They were to two comedy sketches from a Canadian group called "Baroness Von Sketch". I get similar messages occasionally from U.S. links. The Internet isn't as universal as it sometimes seems.

[MattBurt]

I'm kind of late to the party but as a 29 year resident of Colorado I welcomed recreational pot when it was passed.
I attribute the increase of people with pot in their systems in fatal accidents to just an increase in pot in people's systems in general. People who liked it but weren't having it to be law abiding can now get and use pot without having to do business with or be a criminal. That's going to increase the general population's thc levels.
I'm sure some of the accidents can also be attributed to an impaired person driving which I'm definitely opposed to. But given the choice I'd prefer sharing the roads with overly-cautious stoners than overly-confident drunks. Of course I'd also prefer sober people to either of those groups, but from my observations drunks seem to be the most dangerous ones we are likely to encounter.
With the fake crap that gets sold ("spice" or "synthetic marijuana", often legally) places where weed is illegal, it presents a much greater risk to people than just good old fashioned cannabis. So far there have been 0 deaths attributed to weed overdoses over it's very long history. The fake stuff is showing much different results over a much shorter period of time.
I don't want my kid to use pot before he is an adult, but if he is going to experiment I'd rather is was with relatively harmless pot than that other stuff.

[Alan Klein]

Anyone who thinks that smoking dope doesn't increase your chance of a fatal accident is, well, smoking dope.  So arguing that pot doesn't cause fatalities directly from its use is a senseless argument.  People high on pot are dying when their car hits a tree or some poor sober slob who's driving and just minding his business.  The biggest increase in usage has been 18-25 year olds who are most at risk for mental and emotional growth problems relating to its use.  Kids are dropping out of school more and failing in their subjects because more of them are using pot.  So Colorado is creating a state of future stupid people.  What dummies.  This gives the John Denver's song "Rocky Mountain High" on new lease on life. 

[Alan Klein]

It's not even safe walking.

"The study, which was first reported by the New York Times, notes that in seven states where marijuana has been legalized recreationally—Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Alaska, Colorado, Washington and Oregon—pedestrian deaths collectively increased by 16.4 percent the first six months of 2017 compared to the first six months of 2016.

In all other states reported, where recreational cannabis is not legal, pedestrian deaths decreased by 5.8 percent."

http://www.wweek.com/news/2018/03/01/walking-deaths-have-risen-disproportionately-in-states-where-weed-is-legal-including-oregon/

[Alan Klein]

Washington State, another legal pot state, doesn;t seem to be doing well either.Apparently poly-drug intoxications (alcohol and MJ), has made it worse than either alcohol or pot alone.  The number of drivers high on pot has doubled since implementation of legalization.

 Among drivers in fatal crashes 2008-2016 that tested positive for alcohol or drugs, 44 percent
tested positive for two or more substances (poly-drug drivers). The most common substance in
poly-drug drivers is alcohol, followed by THC. Alcohol and THC combined is the most common
poly-drug combination.
 Although research-based estimates of the risks posed by THC have varied greatly, all studies
included in this report agree that combining alcohol and THC will only further inflate the level of
impairment and crash risk. The deadly consequences of combining these two impairing
substances and driving are already apparent in Washington fatal crash data.
 For the first time in 2012, poly-drug drivers became the most prevalent type of impaired drivers
involved in fatal crashes. Since 2012, the number of poly-drug drivers involved in fatal crashes
have increased an average of 15 percent every year.
 By 2016, the number of poly-drug drivers were more than double the number of alcohol-only
drivers and five times higher than the number of THC-only drivers involved in fatal crashes.
 According to the biological results of Washington’s Roadside Survey, nearly one in five daytime
drivers may be under the influence of marijuana, up from less than one in 10 drivers prior to the
implementation of marijuana retail sales"

http://wtsc.wa.gov/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2018/04/Marijuana-and-Alcohol-Involvement-in-Fatal-Crashes-in-WA_FINAL.pdf

[Robert Roaldi]

Anyone who thinks that smoking dope doesn't increase your chance of a fatal accident is, well, smoking dope.

Once again, who ever said that?

[Alan Klein]

Once again, who ever said that?

Like I said.  Anyone who thinks that smoking dope doesn't increase your chance of a fatal accident is, well,  smoking dope.   Astoundingly, many dope smokers think it actually improves their driving.  It also appears I underestimated the ignorance of the non-using public. 23% of these people who don;t smoke also believe MJ doesn't impair driving.  Which means even the non-smoking public is misinformed.  If they knew the truth, more would be opposed to legalization.  Unfortunately, the biased press who wants it legalized is not providing accurate information.  Fake news again.  The ignorant public doesn't understand the true dangers of MJ and driving.

From Washington State Report April 2018 - Washington Traffic Safety Commission see pg 2.  The  whole report is pretty dire.

o 39.1 percent of drivers who have used marijuana in the previous year admit to driving
within three hours of marijuana use. This is similar to the results from Washington’s
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (33.5 percent).
o More than half (53 percent) of drivers ages 15-20 believe marijuana use made their
driving better. This is a significantly higher rate than drivers ages 21-25 (13.7 percent)
and drivers ages 26-35 (17.4 percent).
o Among drivers who have used marijuana in the past year, only 36.6 percent believe that
it is very likely or likely that marijuana impairs a person’s ability to drive safely if used
within two hours of driving, compared to 77 percent of drivers who have not used
marijuana in the previous year.


http://wtsc.wa.gov/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2018/04/Marijuana-and-Alcohol-Involvement-in-Fatal-Crashes-in-WA_FINAL.pdf

[Robert Roaldi]

An interesting opinion piece from Irish Times about the test-marketing of fascism: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-trial-runs-for-fascism-are-in-full-flow-1.3543375. It is condemning of the vicious rhetoric with respect to border control and immigration. You don't need to speak (or think) like that to make the case for better border control.

[Alan Klein]

An interesting opinion piece from Irish Times about the test-marketing of fascism: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-trial-runs-for-fascism-are-in-full-flow-1.3543375. It is condemning of the vicious rhetoric with respect to border control and immigration. You don't need to speak (or think) like that to make the case for better border control.

So you quickly changed from false accusations about MJ to false accusations about Trump being a fascist.   You go from one fake news to another.  It would have been nice if you first  acknowledged the answer to your question about MJ. 

[Rob C]

That's an interesting piece from Ireland.

The trouble is, if you have the ability to write, you eventually conclude that you are ever more distant from your own, inner belief core.

Why do I think so? Simple: any writer who can wield a colon is perfectly able to write almost anything from a wide variety of points of view. That, after some time, makes it very difficult to believe in any single path as being the better option. Especially when you realise that at the end of the stroll or gallop, you are but a little pile of dust, regardless.

Rob

[Rob C]

Not much to do with walls, but I was quite mesmerized watching la dolce Melania dismount trom the presidential bird this week.

I know it's been decades since ladies were pulled into girdles - thank goodness  - but said sweetie was not wearing hers under her dress, the dress was the girdle! Those heels! A fetishist's delight, or so I'm pretty sure; I guess that with Mrs Sarkosy out of the picture - at least for now - she remains the single contestant in the parade of premier political wives worth the recording.

I don't in the least envy photographers who have been so-called White House snappers - neither within any oval rooms nor anywhere else - but I certainly would have enjoyed snapping Mel under almost all circumstances.

[Robert Roaldi]

So you quickly changed from false accusations about MJ to false accusations about Trump being a fascist.   You go from one fake news to another.  It would have been nice if you first  acknowledged the answer to your question about MJ.

I have already said all that I'm going to say about MJ, nothing more to add. At this point, we're all just repeating ourselves. We've had the "how-to-deal-with-drugs" discussion before.

This thread was more generally about the wall and immigration, so I was returning to it because I read something relevant that I thought was interesting.

[MattBurt]

All the same arguments against alcohol which leads to a lot more destructive behavior than pot. I think they should be treated the same. I think impaired driving is something to discourage regardless of what their drug of choice is. Another thing to consider is pot can show up weeks after using it in a drug test so that sways the stats.

Just that as we saw with alcohol, prohibition of a popular libation isn't effective. Might as well regulate it and defund organized crime.

[Rob C]

All the same arguments against alcohol which leads to a lot more destructive behavior than pot. I think they should be treated the same. I think impaired driving is something to discourage regardless of what their drug of choice is. Another thing to consider is pot can show up weeks after using it in a drug test so that sways the stats.

Just that as we saw with alcohol, prohibition of a popular libation isn't effective. Might as well regulate it and defund organized crime.

Sounds suspiciously like legalising murder. At a stroke - or a stab or a shot - you'd make the lawyers less rich, but then whoa! what happens to brand Leica? Who'd buy the shiny limos? You see the problems with legalising "fun" and "recreation" and things that are generally not so good for you?

;-)