It's basically legalized bribery and influence peddling -- they pour money into the campaign coffers of these Senators from both parties, pay former government officials such as Jamie Gorelick to help them, and then these Senators jump and pass laws providing that they will receive amnesty for serious felonies....

Since these telecoms get all their lobbying money from the fees we pay for service, we're the ones paying to destroy our own Constitution.

Great.

We've been losing cities for the last 30 years, in no small part to Newt's preferred economic policies.

I WENT BACK TO OHIO

BUT MY CITY WAS GONE

THERE WAS NO TRAIN STATION

THERE WAS NO DOWNTOWN

SOUTH HOWARD HAD DISAPPEARED

ALL MY FAVORITE PLACES

MY CITY HAD BEEN PULLED DOWN

REDUCED TO PARKING SPACES

A, O, WAY TO GO OHIO

I hate to say it, but Ralph Nader was right: there is no difference between the parties. We need to get all the clowns out of power and start over. As long as there are incumbents and lobbyists, nothing is going to change. I'm so mad! I want to take my country back, but don't see how. It just will not happen at the ballot box. The game is rigged. I'm just tired of protests and ad campaigns and 'call your representative.' To hell with it.

This is just another example of how we have so easily given up our ideals in the name of 'security.' Bin Laden has won, and we did all the hard work for him.

They should just get it over with and move her rallies into Munich beer halls.

Or as the much-missed Molly Ivins said of a Pat Buchanan speech: "it was better in the original German"

Well, the neighborhood bully, he's just one man,

His enemies say he's on their land.

They got him outnumbered about a million to one,

He got no place to escape to, no place to run.

He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,

He's criticized and condemned for being alive.

He's not supposed to fight back, he's supposed to have thick skin,

He's supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.

He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,

He's wandered the earth an exiled man.

Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,

He's always on trial for just being born.

He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,

Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.

Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.

The bombs were meant for him.

He was supposed to feel bad.

He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim

That he'll live by the rules that the world makes for him,

'Cause there's a noose at his neck and a gun at his back

And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.

He's the neighborhood bully.

He got no allies to really speak of.

What he gets he must pay for, he don't get it out of love.

He buys obsolete weapons and he won't be denied

But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.

He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, he's surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,

They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.

Now, they wouldn't hurt a fly.

To hurt one they would weep.

They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.

He's the neighborhood bully.

Every empire that's enslaved him is gone,

Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.

He's made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,

In bed with nobody, under no one's command.

He's the neighborhood bully.

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon,

No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.

He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth,

Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health.

He's the neighborhood bully.

What's anybody indebted to him for?

Nothin', they say.

He just likes to cause war.

Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,

They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.

He's the neighborhood bully.

What has he done to wear so many scars?

Does he change the course of rivers?

Does he pollute the moon and stars?

Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill,

Running out the clock, time standing still,

Neighborhood bully.

You are certainly right (as usual) that one doesn't need to be a stoner to be in favor of legalization, but I for one am for legalization precisely because I WANT TO GET HIGH WITHOUT BEING HASSLED.

Does the criminalization scheme really impose meaningful barriers on people who want to purchase drugs for personal consumption, particularly marijuana?

It certainly does, in many ways: The need to rely on a 'dealer', if he has any at the moment; the cost, which I imagine would be much cheaper if it wasn't on the black market; quality, both from a 'this is awesome weed' perspective and a 'is it laced with PCP?' perspective.

When people mention pot as a 'gateway' drug, I agree, but not as gateway to the desire for different more harmful drugs but as a gateway to the black market and going outside the law. Instead of being able to buy pot at retail outlet or government distributor (or grow it myself, which is what I would really like to do), I have to get it from somebody who may want to get me to try coke or heroin, or may be carrying a gun and high on meth, or could be a cop. I just want to be able to smoke a joint on my front porch; is that so evil?

For $200 million I'll take them. I'll build a mini SuperMax in the backyard.