Electric Monkeypedia: The Roach

I love Wikipedia! Join us for our first episode of Electric Monkeypedia in which I quote a small passage of Wikipedia and, thereby, it becometh funny. All you have to do is read the following with a British accent:

The most distinct product of the joint is the roach, or unburnt unconsumed butt end. Roaches are typically either consumed with the aid of a roach clip which offers a narrow grip without the risk of burning one's fingers, or are saved to be combined with other roaches and rerolled into a composite or second generation roach joint. Roaches are also sometimes finished by being smoked in a pipe, or (in rare cases) consumed by eating. This is sometimes referred to as "eating the peanut", "popping the roach" or "Wu Tang-ing it".

Ah, so funny. This is a real Wikipedia article, folks. I just found this today -- don't ask what I was doing --- and had a laugh. It was clearly written by stoners, or by a nonsmoker who went deep undercover.

Another reason I love Wikipedia? Pictures like this:

I like how it's simply labeled: Joint.

Man, all the tools are right there for you. Kids these days have it easy. (Get off my lawn!)

This is where you're supposed to put the obligatory anti-drug message, where I get down on one knee and look the kids straight in the eye and tell'em all they really need to know about drugs: Kids, if you grow up and become a drug dealer, watch out for the CIA -- the dirty spooks will want a cut of your profits or they'll send in the DEA to ice you like a two bit hood. It's even worse if you play along and sell your soul to the devil and Dick Cheney. The only smart thing to do is to become a real drug dealer by peddling expensive drugs like Prozac and Ritalin to fretful, always-absent mothers and fathers who just want their child to be "normal." You can manipulate the political and economic systems of every last country to extract maximum profits with no hard feelings... 'Cause it's all legal.

There ya go kids. Remember what Uncle Vemrion told you.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of Electric Monkeypedia!

The War on Common Sense -- Just another 21st century witch-hunt

AG Alberto Gonzales, wounded by his recent string of lies and spin before Congress, is proposing a crackdown on copyright infringement.

• Permit more wiretaps for piracy investigations. Wiretaps would be authorized for investigations of Americans who are "attempting" to infringe copyrights.
• Allow computers to be seized more readily. Specifically, property such as a PC "intended to be used in any manner" to commit a copyright crime would be subject to forfeiture, including civil asset forfeiture. Civil asset forfeiture has become popular among police agencies in drug cases as a way to gain additional revenue, and is problematic and controversial.
• Increase penalties for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention regulations. Currently criminal violations are currently punished by jail times of up to 10 years and fines of up to $1 million. The IPPA would add forfeiture penalties too.
• Add penalties for "intended" copyright crimes. Currently certain copyright crimes require someone to commit the "distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of at least 10 copies" valued at over $2,500. The IPPA would insert a new prohibition: actions that were "intended to consist of" distribution.

This is typical of the neocons. The wind is blowing against them, so they've redoubled their efforts rather than wondering if it's a good idea to pursue the same goals so mindlessly.

She's a witch! Burn the witch!!
It might also be an attempt to woo Hollywood Democrats by making them an offer they can't refuse. Many Democrats (and Republicans too, of course) take large amounts of money from the MPAA and RIAA (collectively known as the mafiaa), which is fully in support of this legislation. One gets the idea they'd be in support of a bill that called for executions on the spot for suspected pirates. Piracy is much like terrorism that respect; it's a word used almost exclusively to demonize a certain group, which gives power to those who are able to prosecute and persecute them. Basically, it's a 21st century witch-hunt.

Instead of burning people at the stake we need to take a look at the laws on the books and find ways to make them less draconian in an age of easy file-sharing. The ability to share/copy files is one of the greatest uses of the internet and it demands a new way of thinking about copyright and intellectual property. The endless roadblocks we get from politicians and businessmen (including legislation like the DMCA, copy-protection like DRM and lawsuits like the RIAA's campaign against music-sharing) only serve to slow down innovation and erect huge barriers of entry that make it hard for start-ups and small businesses to make a dent in the marketplace with a new idea.

This legislation (the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007 [pdf]) might backfire if it is passed. It will push more and more people to use free and open source software in order to avoid potential liability. Even having a copy of Microsoft Word is dangerous if you don't also have a receipt proving ownership.

The War on Common Sense
Add the War on Piracy to the growing list of ideological wars we're fighting, including the War on Terror and the War on Drugs. If it seems odd to you that we're waging "war" against a tactic (terrorism) and an inanimate object (why don't they put the drugs in jail?), that means that you don't have sufficient faith in our dear leaders.

I would argue that the Big 3 Unwinnable Ideological Wars constitute an undeclared War on Common Sense. The War on Common Sense is designed to make the general populace believe that up is down, day is night, freedom is slavery and George Bush is a genius.

Please notice the tremendous power that is derived from a war, even a fake one. There's a reason why we don't still wage the War on Poverty (well besides the fact that the ruling elite don't give a fuck) -- there's not an easily-demonized enemy that the ruling class can disparage in order to increase their own power and prestige. If such an enemy exists, it's almost certainly the ruling class itself. That's not gonna work! It's best to have a war on somebody who can't really fight back.

So what's next? Well, I'd guess we'll have a War on Illegal Immigration, which will do nothing to stop the flood of immigrants coming into the country because it won't go after the root problem: the economic disparity between the U.S. and Mexico. Like the War on Drugs, illegal immigration is a problem caused by the policies of the wealthy elite and far from suffering from this problem the elite actually make a shitload of money from it. The CIA runs drugs to pay for their illegal black ops and a whole parasitic class of DEA agents and police officers have grown fat arresting nonviolent drug offenders in order to continue the charade.

Similarly, the corporate elite have grown even more wealthy from illegal immigration. Instead of paying their workers a fair wage they employ illegal immigrants for a fraction of the salary a naturalized citizen would earn. This simultaneously impoverishes Americans who can't find a job and enslaves illegal immigrants to a corrupt system that gives them just enough money to get by and not a penny more... all while making the CEOs of these corporations even richer by saving money on labor costs, which is reflected in their end of the year bonus. What a great scam!

The War on Terror is a money-making scheme as well. If you doubt this, I suggest you watch Iraq for Sale, a documentary about war profiteering in Iraq. The government sends incredible amounts of money to private contractors like Blackwater and Halliburton, then some of this money is funneled back to the very people who came up with the idea of going to war in Iraq in the form of campaign contributions (you know: legalized bribery). It's an endless loop of corruption! Legal corruption!

The War on Piracy will have to evolve to a similarly corrupt state if it wishes to become self-perpetuating. Certainly, there is some money to be made by suing college students, but that's chickenfeed. Clearly the RIAA is getting better at extortion so they don't even have to go to trial in most cases, but I'm guessing there's still a lot of overhead. If they really want to make a mint they should look into what Canada is doing. Making innocent people pay for "crimes" they might or might not commit is so much more fun and profitable. The copyright tax is applied to everybody and it's institutionalized so it will be damn near impossible to get rid of. As bad as the RIAA is, they haven't managed to achieve something that evil... yet.

How long before people wake up to the fact that these ideological wars are always ineffective at achieving their stated goals because the real goals are hidden -- and they involve profiting off the situation, not solving it. I suppose it takes a certain amount of cynicism to believe your fellow man is capable of such two-faced corruption. But that's the way it is, folks.

Maybe we should declare a moratorium on bullshit wars.

Why is pot still illegal in 2007? Could it have something to do with the CIA's sordid history?

David Monson is a North Dakota state legislator who's been trying to get permission to grow hemp for about 10 years. He may finally be getting close, but first he must go through an onerous set of flaming hoops set up by the DEA.

Last month, the state Agriculture Department finished its work on rules farmers may use to grow industrial hemp, a cousin of marijuana that does not have the drug's hallucinogenic properties. The sturdy, fibrous plant is used to make an assortment of products, ranging from paper, rope and lotions to car panels, carpet backing and animal bedding.

Applicants must provide latitude and longitude coordinates for their proposed hemp fields, furnish fingerprints and pay at least $202 in fees, including $37 to cover the cost of criminal record checks.

Johnson said the federal Drug Enforcement Administration still must give its permission before Monson, or anyone else, may grow industrial hemp.

"That is going to be a major hurdle," Johnson said.

Yeah, the DEA are basically a bunch of assholes when it comes to common sense and hemp. They won't give permission unless they feel cornered. Keep the pressure on; some more media coverage would be nice.

But all this obscures the larger and more potent question: Why is "marihuana" still illegal? Certainly industrial hemp should be legal since it has none of recreational ganja's psychoactive properties. But why is cannabis in general illegal? Most people would agree that Prohibition was a titanic failure. But we're still stuck with many of the after-effects of the prohibition mentality, including the idiotic, wasteful, racist and anti-freedom War on Drugs. The War on Drugs is a total failure and a fraud and even many former cops and DEA agents will testify to that fact.

An excellent article called Why Is Marijuana Illegal? tackles that very issue, with some surprising revelations... Or not-so-surprising. I guess it depends on how jaded you are when it comes to politics and business.

America's first marijuana law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia in 1619. It was a law "ordering" all farmers to grow Indian hempseed. There were several other "must grow" laws over the next 200 years (you could be jailed for not growing hemp during times of shortage in Virginia between 1763 and 1767), and during most of that time, hemp was legal tender (you could even pay your taxes with hemp -- try that today!) Hemp was such a critical crop for a number of purposes (including essential war requirements - rope, etc.) that the government went out of its way to encourage growth.

The United States Census of 1850 counted 8,327 hemp "plantations" (minimum 2,000-acre farm) growing cannabis hemp for cloth, canvas and even the cordage used for baling cotton.

But racism may have been the weapon that was used most effectively against hemp and cannabis. Harry J. Anslinger (who looks like a gangster/mafioso to me) led the charge against "marihuana" (the word itself is a propaganda invention designed to draw up racial fears).

Anslinger immediately drew upon the themes of racism and violence to draw national attention to the problem he wanted to create. Some of his quotes regarding marijuana...

"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others."

"...the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races."

"Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death."

"Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men."

"Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing"

"You smoke a joint and you're likely to kill your brother."

"Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind."

There were a lot of lies said about pot back in the day. But it's 2007 and we know better, so why is it still illegal? I mean, people don't seriously believe that pot causes "insanity, criminality and death" -- everyone knows it only causes the munchies and drymouth. But we still allow the government to lie to us every year and keep spending millions of dollars to send inner city youth to jail for with harsh mandatory minimum sentences? Pete Guither's article does a great job of explaining how cannabis first became illegal, but it does not really tell us why it's still illegal 70 years after the Marijuana Stamp Act.

Part of the answer to that question lies with the CIA. The CIA has long turned a blind eye to drug smugglers in exchange for a small cut of the profit. These illicit funds can be used to fund illicit wars around the globe. (Wonderful cycle our dear CIA is engaged in, isn't it?) The Iran-Contra "affair" was actually a drug smuggling operation to fund an illegal war (is there an echo in here?):

On October 31, 1996, the Washington Post ran a follow up story to the San Jose Mercury News series titled "CIA, Contras and Drugs: Questions on Links Linger." The story drew on court testimony in 1990 of Fabio Ernesto Carrasco, a pilot for a major Columbian drug smuggler named George Morales. As a witness in a drug trial, Carrasco testified that in 1984 and 1985, he piloted planes loaded with weapons for contras operating in Costa Rica. The weapons were offloaded, and then drugs stored in military bags were put on the planes which flew to the United States. "I participated in two [flights] which involved weapons and cocaine at the same time," he told the court.

Funny how the news doesn't do investigative reports on stuff you might actually want to know. The press could have found a lot more dirt on this scandal, but they steered clear after a limited hang-out. That's because the whole system is set up to demonize drugs so that they will be so much more profitable. Legalization would utterly destroy the CIA's little "fundraising" operation and it would effectively end the careers of many DEA agents, who've become like a parasitic wasp, sucking at our nations' failed and painful drug policy.

It's time to end the lies, the racism and the idiocy of the War on Drugs and declare peace. It needs to end, and there needs to be an investigation. Those who profited from the war by playing both sides should be punished according to their own rules.



The video above is Dealing with the Demon, an excellent look into the CIA's activities in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviets. Perhaps we should not be surprised that Afghan poppy production has exploded since we "liberated" it from the Taliban. How... interesting.

Updated on 1-16-07 with new links, a video and various spelling-error fixes.

Digg this story, man.

U.S. Drug Czar John Walters Wants Random Drug Testing, Fascism in All Schools

[digg] America's drug tsar raised the stakes on drug testing in schools yesterday, suggesting that it could come to be seen as normal required and "responsible behaviour" in the same way that some US schools routinely test all pupils for tuberculosis.

read more | digg story [/digg]

Yes, but they don't arrest the students who test positive for tuberculosis. What an idiotic thing to say. There's more idiocy:

Mr Walters said cannabis use was not just a matter of personal choice and the expression of freedom in the same way as a preference for clothes and hairstyles. "We're still living as if substance abuse is a fashion statement," he said.

Taking a strong line against marijuana was "not being judgmental but showing that we care".

In other news: down is up, freedom is slavery and war is peace.

So by "care" he means "ruin the student's life", right?

Caring for him seems to involve random, unconstitutional, invasive searches of bodily fluids, a draconian, fear-based atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust, combined with a desire to put people in jail for as long as murderers because they may have used a plant that grows freely across the world. Am I getting this correctly?

Man, I would hate to be Walter's kid.

His string of sheer stupidity continues into the land of awful analogies:

The US policies were based on scientific evidence - some of it from the UK - that cannabis was linked to psychosis and schizophrenia. "We have a particular problem of our attitudes towards cannabis which hinders policy and hinders people going into treatment," he said.

"The attitude is that it's only marijuana. It doesn't help if your kids are playing Russian roulette that they are using a smaller calibre weapon."

This is some grade A bullshit, folks. As the Drug Czar he (probably) knows that cannabis is entirely non-fatal. It can't kill you. When you overdose on it, you fall asleep and wake up with a headache. Aspirin, meanwhile, can kill you. Alcohol kills you. Cigs kill you. Cannabis does not. In fact, the only way to die from cannabis is to get several hundred pounds of it, pack it up tight, suspend it from a height, and drop it on your head. In other words: blunt force.

Before I move on, notice where he talks about treatment in the quote above. Now, let's proceed to his next quote wherein he reveals even more hypocrisy:

Permitting such harm reduction measures gave the impression that "society allows a stance of it's OK to be an addict", he said.

Oh, I get it. Being an addict is bad and you should be arrested!! But what about treatment? Oh, maybe Walter's idea of treatment is spending 10 years in jail. How compassionate. Most sane, non-hateful people are gravitating to the idea of addiction as disease/disorder. The D.C. Establishment is the only group of people I know of pushing the idea of addict as criminal.

Quite frankly, Walters doesn't really have to make sense. Nobody really listens to him and it's not his job to make logical, coherent arguments. He's just an ideological attack dog. His job is to viciously defend the position staked out by his masters, much like how a junkyard dog guards his turf. The dog doesn't ask why and neither does Walters.

Of course, if you've been reading this blog, you know why: The CIA. If drugs aren't illegal the CIA won't be able to make the obscene profits necessary to fund its black ops. Drugs smuggling is only worth your time if drugs are a valuable commodity. If drugs are legal, they monetary value will drop by 90%, easy.

So we can thank the CIA for making it necessary to have a Drug Czar, who has turned around and endorsed mandatory drug testing for every single student. This guy might've heard of the "presumption of innocence" but obviously he didn't like the idea much. I also suspect that he's not a big fan of the 4th amendment. It's so much easier to rule people when everyone's treated like a potential criminal.

Goddamn Fascist.

Power Wars - Republicans using fake "Legalize Marijuana" campaign to trick voters

Title says it all. Here's the story from the Central Valley IndyMedia:

As I’m filling out my name and address on the petition I notice that the young lady is filling out a very official looking form. Probably just the ballot initiative form, I think to myself. Then, she says "is it OK if I register you as a Republican?" "What?!?" I say "yes, I do mind! What are you doing?" She says that if I register Republican she will get an extra 10 cents. But, I complain, "I don’t want to re-register." She explains that this is just to update the records for the County Clerks office. I repeat that "I do not want or need to update my records." I am repeatedly told that it is OK and that they just want to update my voter registration records. She also tells me that she is working for the Republican party, being paid hourly, and that the ploy about the "10 cent bonus" was not accurate.

This Republican party employee goes on to tell me that she is there to attract people to the table that is set up in Fresno’s Courthouse Park, and that the legalize marijuana petition is just a prop. She confirmed that there is no ballot initiative to legalize marijuana. She said that the petition will be given to an elected official in Sacramento. I have my doubts about that.

Man, who can you trust when the Republican Party lets you down? [snort!] [snort!]

It looks like the Republicans are desperately using every trick in the book to make people register as Republicans so that their electoral ploys this November will look more plausible. I'll keep an eye for any of these fake campaigns in my neck of the woods.

At least the Republicans know how popular their drug policy is; which is to say, not at all! Both parties remain committed to the continuation of the failed War on Drugs, despite its unpopularity with voters. Gee, sounds a bit like Iraq, doesn't it?

These ideological wars aren't waged because they're popular -- though they may be at the start -- they are waged to serve as a distraction and a power amplification conduit. The distraction part is obvious, but the power conduit part is less recognized. These wars transfer massive amounts of political, financial and military power to certain people within the government; that is the point of these wars. Bush/Cheney's wartime expansion of executive power is the prototypical example for this type of power amplification, and it is repeated down the chain of command, at least where it's relevant. The Dept. of Education hasn't gained much power from the War in Iraq. But the Drug Czar, the FBI, DEA and the CIA have all benefitted hugely from the War on Drugs.

Of course, the fact that the War on Drugs and the War in Iraq don't make sense from a rational point of view also constitutes an unanncounced War on Logic. Many of the neocons' statements seem to portend an upcoming War on Reality. We can only guess at what comes after that. Perhaps a War on Everybody is in the works?

Before that war, we've got a series of additional wars that need waging. The War on Syria and the long-awaited War on Iran are coming down the pipeline shortly. What other wars will we need after that? Well, perhaps a War on Every Other Islamic Nation will be needed because I suspect they will assume they're next even if they aren't. And who can blame them? We've been invading Islamic nations for awhile now. If we go into Iran and Syria that will make 4 that we've taken out in the last half-decade.

War, war, war!! It's a dirty business, but it hasn't to be waged, doesn't it?

Well, what about the power amplification conduit I mentioned earlier? What about the incredible amount of power we've transferred to the Pentagon, the White House, NSA, CIA and all the corporations helping them wage the war? Doesn't it seem clear that they are addicted to power? They constantly need more of it. They feed, but they're still hungry. More power!

When does it end?

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. It ends with the War on Everybody.

A Nation of Criminals. A Government of Kings.

Wired has pried open Door 641A and taken a good long look. Here is a document from whistle-blower Mark Klein (pdf) who previously worked for AT&T as a technician. He fears the secret room was splitting the fiber optic cables carrying our internet data and sending the other half to the NSA for monitoring. He figured the project started with the Total Information Awareness program, which was supposedly defunded. Well, now the NSA is holding our electronic leash. Boy, they sure do wish to control us, don't they? What's with the desperation on their part? The whole government spying deal was supposed to be a conspiracy theory.... one that just about everyone believed. Well, now it's true and it has been revealed as such and it's staring us right in the face.

What are we gonna do about it?

What could they possibly want such an enormous information-burden for? There's no need to spy on ALL of us! The government already knows what risk factors to look for when it comes to identifying terrorists, criminals, revolutionaries, you name it. Why would they decide to cast the net so far and wide unless their goal was to criminalize all of us?

Do you know the best way to get a person to act like a criminal?

Treat them like one.

... That's my suspicion anyway. You know, a firefighter only has a job when fires are burning. In the same way, a cop only has a job if there's crime and a warrior only has a job if there's a war on. Are you pickin' up what I'm layin' down?

It wouldn't be the first time; politicians are known to create problems so they have something to solve... after the election... assuming they are elected. And if they aren't, why solve it? Why not create problems for your opponent? Then he does the same thing for you. Pretty soon, while you're squabbling like dogs, the public is drowning in a sea of problems that you were supposed to solve, not create!

That's how we get the super-bad problems like the War on Drugs problem. The problem of the fact that demagogues and idiots made a war on drug-users, is far worse than the problem of simple drug use and abuse. The War on Terror is similar in that it will never end, it is not intended to end, and even though war has been declared on an object (drugs) or tactic (terrorism), the things that suffer most in the war are people -- mostly innocent bystanders in a war between shadowy groups who both fight and support each other. The collateral damage is mostly the result of people getting caught in the middle of those two groups (the government and the criminals) and paying the ultimate price in a war that did not need to be fought.

We are ruled by a political class that rule us as if they were kings, walking amongst the mere mortal peasants. They are sheltered from the world's injustices and deprivations. They are inducted into a society of the well-to-do because there is no other social class for which they are fit. They have never really grown up, and so we peasants must suffer through the elite's tiresome games, such as the war on drugs and the supposed war on terror, which seem to be much more of a war on the people. Another thing both of these demagogic wars have in common is that they are designed to erode our freedoms and our privacy by justifying it with the old saw, "need the tools to catch the bad guys." Cops and Robbers for adults. Innocents are arrested so that the cops can have their fun. Meanwhile the criminals get away with it. The justice system spits them back out on the streets. After all, we'd have to lay off cops if there was no crime. The cycle goes on endlessly. Meanwhile, the rest of us are caught in the middle of this evil maelstrom, rocked about on waves of uncertainty and strife.

They're building a system of control, people! Wake up before it's too late!! They want to include all of us in their little game! Run and hide if you want, but they can still catch you; they have the technology. Fiber optic splitters to steal our communications, and televisions to assure us that it's alright, no need to worry....

[szghk]

bszzzzzzshshh! |/<>\| [crackle]

[wavy lines].... you are feeling.... sleepy. Content. Open. Let us in.....

Things are fine. We're here to protect you... from the terrorists. The terrorists hate your freedom. They're coming for you; only we can protect you from an enemy that exists all around you. Any one of your neighbors could be a spy or a terrorist or a commie, or even Irish. Be sure to turn them in at your local FBI office.

We're listening anyway, so you might as well.

Coming up next, a pitbull dances with a lobster and a hyena! Wait 'til you see this!. ., After these messages.--