I didn't offer any of my lame reasons for voting for Nader in 2000, let alone try to explain that it wouldn't have made any difference if I hadn't.

I really wanted to vote for Gore. Never at any time was I actually for Nader. The probem with Gore, though, is that he is willing to lower the bar on honesty about science for the sake of politics. He's no more honest than Bush.

If both sides are willing to lower that bar, then the bar gets so low that the biggest liar is going to be the biggest winner.

On the 2000 campaign trail, Gore claimed repeatedly and on camera that there was absolutely no scientific evidence to support the medical use of marijuana.

This was only a year after the National Academy of Sciences published a comprehensive report that was ordered by the Clinton-Gore White House, that concluded there was plenty of evidence in existing scientific literature that supported the claimed medicinal powers of marijuana.

In this report the scientists concluded that there are some Americans who will in fact die if they cannot get marijuana.

I understand why Gore had to lie, even though his lies might kill some Americans. He had to get the support of Drug Free America.

But he lied about a report that his own administration ordered to "set the record straight using science."

How cynical is that?

And this was a report that anyone could download from the Internet. The dude lied about publicly available facts certified as facts by the best scientists in the country.

How dumb is that?

And while he was lying about science to get an endorsement from Drug Free America, his wife was confessing that antidepressants saved her marriage.

Oops. I guess he doesn't want America to be THAT drug free. So he lied to support a cause he doesn't even really believe in.

In other words, he was just George W. Bush with better politics and better grades.

Gore's big cause is global warming.

Global warming is all about science. If you run around the country telling politically convenient lies about recently published science, then you make yourself into a very weak spokesman for environmental causes.

He doesn't hold science sacred enough to take the political risks necessary to defend it.

Maybe the world would be better off with a left wing science liar instead of a right wing science liar. Maybe one can make a case for that.

But really the best thing of all would be if everyone would stop lying about science they don't like or endangers them politically.

Both sides have lowered that bar. It's time to raise it back up again.

Because global warming is that important.

It's important that people pay close attention to the science and not try to bend it into the direction that most benefits their political loyalties or ambitions.

Basic human survival is at stake. It's time to stop screwing around.

I'm sorry, but Gore saying there's no medical benefit to marijuana in no way makes him no more honest than Bush. That's like saying a bb gun is equal to a nuke or the salary of someone starting at Wal Mart is equal to the salary of Bill Gates. If you're unable to understand proportion to this degree, get help. Seriously. While Gore supports science, understands it and has had honest, thoughtful plans about most of America's problems, Bush has falsified science time and again, lied to go to war, lied to enrich his friends, lied to get elected and probably lied to order lunch.

One man is an honest man who unfortunately had to suck up to public perception.

The other is a dishonest psychopath who doesn't give a damn about anyone but himself and his cronies for whom power is an end unto istelf.

Yeah, those are the same.

Wow! Thanks so much for linking to your "lame reasons" (your words) for voting for Nader in 2000. What a trip down memory lane! Can it really be that people once imagined the Nader campaign would spawn a vital third party in America? Was it really possible to draw a moral equivalence between Bush and Gore as two Ivy league boys, despite obvious huge political differences? Having had a few of these emotions myself at the time, I have to think (and with reference to Patricia, below) "what was I smoking?" Speaking of which, I have to agree that building one's vote in that election around the issue of medical marijuana (hardly something the president is going to decide) was/is more than a bit stoned.

"If Kelly recuts this, takes out all the nonsense..."

*Donnie Darko* is a brilliant movie, but have you seen the director's cut? Things we didn't care about got explained. The nature of the magic and Donnie's insanity got explored in ways that, instead of bringing us closer to the characters, merely clouded the narrative. It killed the mystery. So is it any surprise that, now that Kelly is a cult hero and he has the sway to cut his films on his own terms, is it any surprise that his movies will likely start to go off the deep end? More often than not, that seems to be the result with any director's cut, or any film in which a director has too much creative control. That price paid, though, usually comes at the benefit of the more cohesive vision of the auteur.

Or whatever. I'm going to go see this film regardless, because it's Kelly.

Ms. Schwarz

“I really wanted to vote for Gore. Never at any time was I actually for Nader. The problem with Gore, though, is that he is willing to lower the bar on honesty about science for the sake of politics. He's no more honest than Bush.”

So that’s it? Gore’s alleged disingenuousness regarding the benefits of pot smoking makes him one in the same with G.W. Bush? Gee, you must feel a great sense of vindication these days, I mean bad as thing are, imagine what horrors a Gore presidency might have brought us, what with all that lying about the curative uses of grass. The mind reels.

P.S.

I’m all for sex in cinema, by all means, but I’m just wondering… doesn’t the whole “acting” thing preclude the need for actual sex in a work that is meant to be essentially fictive. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, I suppose if it moves the plot along or is important to a character’s development… what’s the harm? But still…