Click here to view the embedded video.

35 years after Nixon started the war on drugs, there are over one million non-violent drug offenders living behind bars. The War on Drugs has become the longest and most costly war in American history.  How much more can America endure?  Inspired by the death of four family members from “legal drugs”, Texas filmmaker Kevin Booth sets out to discover why the Drug War has become such a big failure.

Three and a half years in the making, the film follows gang members, former DEA agents, CIA officers, narcotics officers, judges, politicians, prisoners and celebrities. Most notably the film befriends Freeway Ricky Ross; the man many accuse for starting the Crack epidemic, who after being arrested discovered that his cocaine source had been working for the CIA.

AMERICAN DRUG WAR shows how money, power and greed have corrupted not just drug pushers and dope fiends, but an entire government.  More importantly, it shows what can be done about it.  This is not some ‘pro-drug’ stoner film, but a collection of expert testimonials from the ground troops on the front lines of the drug war, the ones who are fighting it and the ones who are living it.

After 4 years of production including several sold out test screenings in New York, Austin & Los Angeles, the final version of American Drug War “the last white hope” is locked and loaded.

http://www.americandrugwar.com/

Click here to view the embedded video.

“Take the stairs instead of the escalator or elevator and feel better” is something we often hear or read in the Sunday papers. Few people actually follow that advice. Can we get more people to take the stairs over the escalator by making it fun to do?

http://www.thefuntheory.com/

Click here to view the embedded video.

News stations everywhere have stated that the G-20 summit was in part a platform for Obama to usher in a “New World Order”. This is a clip that puts together some of the horrific displays of brutality and the militarization of the police. Our first amendment assures the citizens of this country the right to “petition our government for a redress of grievances”, yet it appears that more restrictions on our first amendment exist now than ever before.

We’ve all been in social situations where we gather in a circle and get to know new people for the first time.  Maybe we sit in somebody’s living room in a house we’ve never been to or hover over the cooler out on the back porch.  Regardless, the situation is always the same and typically begins awkwardly, like getting on a bicycle for the first time.

Because we’ve been conditioned to shun the important stuff during introductions (politics or religion? Anybody? Bueller? Bueller?), conversations inevitably turn to our personal quirks and preferences.  It is at this point the subject of driving habits arises.  Everybody talks about how fast they go and how ridiculous the speed limit is and who possibly goes the speed limit besides little old ladies with blue hair and fake eyebrows.  Chuckles abound as people marvel at the stupidity of observing posted speed limits.  But with traffic accidents ranking as the 10^th leading cause of death in the world (ahead of diabetes) and claiming the lives of more than a million people every year, I’m immune to the pressure to drive fast.  Is it worth it?

Don’t get me wrong.  We all have the occasional need for speed and I’m not about to sit here and deny putting the pedal to the metal from time to time.  But driving at a slower clip does far more good than bad: better gas mileage, increased reaction time, and you can listen to more of your favorite jams without fear of a fat speeding ticket.  You also detach yourself from the rat race around you and just mellow out for fifteen minutes.    Take a good look at the people who blow your doors off going 90 mph on the freeway.  What are they trying to prove? And if you drive fast, what’s YOUR deal?

Don’t give me that jive about how you can’t bring yourself to go that slow.  Yes, I know instant gratification is the way America rolls.  Just try it out for a week.  And let me know how it goes.

Clearly, I don’t have the rights to this photo.

“This American Life,” is one of the best shows on television. If you have not seen “This American Life,” I recommend that you watch it immediately. You can watch it on Showtime, Netflix.com, or get a taste of it on Hulu.com.

Beyond Monopoly
by Ryan Jones

Monopoly takes too long and is very random. The smartest people always win Trivial Pursuit. Chess is stale. Risk takes little strategy. For solutions to this dated, mainstream mess, look no further! Revitalize your childhood love of board games with these much improved, little known games.

Classic Game #1: Monopoly

Replacement: Settlers of Catan

Improvements: Increased Player Interaction, More Strategy, Random Board

Settlers of Catan is a German made board game that has solidified its place as the face of European board games, at least to the av0erage American consumer. It has even made the jump from smaller gaming stores to the big outlets such as Wal-mart and Target. Much like Monopoly, it is an economic game. However, it has a randomized board and it improves upon the idea of owning properties and receiving income from them. Instead of money, Catan uses resources such as wood, brick, and sheep. These resources are used to expand your group of cities, which will garner you more resources. The increased player interaction comes from the trading of these resources to and from other players. With the aspect of trading being the main focus of the game, Catan highlights the greatest joy of face to face board gaming: social interaction. If you enjoyed playing Monopoly, but want more interaction and choices, Settlers of Catan is the place to find it.

Classic Game #2: Chess

Replacement: Hive

Improvements: Portability, Variation,  Ease of Play

Chess is one of the oldest and most beloved games played today. However, some people find it to be too complex, too stale, or too daunting. Enter Hive, a fantastic chess-like game that needs no board to play and can be learned in five minutes or less. Like in chess, each piece has its own movement rules and the object is to take out the oppositions’ king, or in Hive’s case, the queen bee.  While both games feel similar, Hive is much easier to learn and play due to the reduced number of pieces and the lack of a board. Chess lovers will like Hive for its similarities to chess and chess haters will love it for its differences from chess, but both sets of gamers can come together to enjoy this quick, easy bug themed “chess lite”.

Classic Game: Trivial Pursuit

Replacement: Wits and Wagers

Improvements: There is only one: you don’t have to know the answer to win!

Suggestions to play Trivial Pursuit are often met with groans and grumbles from people who know very little trivia. The field is not even and they feel disadvantaged from the start. Well, what if there was a trivia game that didn’t require you to answer correctly to win? Enter Wits and Wagers. The twist in this trivia game is that you can bet on other people’s answers to win and ride them to victory. Its horse racing meets jeopardy and its one of the best and most unique trivia games ever created.

Classic Game: Risk

Replacement: Ticket to Ride

Improvements: Shorter Length, Less Luck, Hidden Goals

Risk is an epic, long game of dice rolling. Its basically a math problem that takes the better half of a day to play. If you’re not a mathematical probability buff or can’t dedicate an indefinite amount of time for one game, Ticket to Ride is your best bet. Ticket to Ride, or TTR, is similar to Risk in that the player’s main goal is to expand their army (train routes) across the map. TTR improves on this model by giving each player a separate set of goals, or route connections. Players score more points for longer connections between cities. Much of the fun in the game comes from trying to figure out your opponenets’ hidden routes and trying to block off their routes. To minimize the random aspect of the dice, TTR has a pool of 5 route cards to choose from, which makes finding the colors you need to build routes much easier and less random. Ticket to Ride is a great game to play with any group; it is simple enough to understand the first time, but there are deeper levels of strategy that will reveal themselves with multiple plays.

Many people have misconceptions about the board gaming hobby, and I think it stems primarily from ignorance. Ignorance of the plethora of amazing games that are out in the world waiting to be played. When people hear board games, I’m sure most think back to the board games of their youth: the classics like monopoly or chess. While these hold special meaning in our memories, they have newer, fresher replacements that have well earned their space on the shelf.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Audio taken from C-SPAN: 02/13/2009
Ron Paul asks Congress: “What if…?”

Transcript:

Ron Paul: “Madam Speaker, I have a few questions for my colleagues.

What if our foreign policy of the past century is deeply flawed and has not served our national security interest?

What if we wake up one day and realize that the terrorist threat is the predictable consequence of our meddling in the affairs of others, and has nothing to do with us being free and prosperous?

What if propping up repressive regimes in the Middle East endangers both the United States and Israel?

What if occupying countries like Iraq and Afghanistan and bombing Pakistan is directly related to the hatred directed toward us?

What if someday it dawns on us that losing over 5,000 American military personnel in the Middle East since 9/11 is not a fair tradeoff with the loss of nearly 3,000 American citizens no matter how many Iraqi, Pakistanian, Afghan people are killed or displaced?

What if we finally decide that torture, even if called “enhanced interrogation technique”, is self-destructive and produces no useful information and that contracting it out to a third world nation is just as evil?

What if it is finally realized that war and military spending is always destructive to the economy?

What if all war-time spending is paid for through the deceitful and evil process of inflating and borrowing?

What if we finally see that war-time conditions always undermine personal liberty?

What if Conservatives who preach small government wake up and realize that our interventionist foreign policy provides the greatest incentive to expand the government?

What if Conservatives understood once again that their only logical position is to reject military intervention and managing an empire throughout the world?

What if the American people woke up and understood that the official reasons for going to war are almost always based on lies and promoted by war propaganda in order to serve special interests?

What if we as a nation came to realize that the quest for empire eventually destroys all great nations?

What if Obama has no intention of leaving Iraq?

What if a military draft is being planned for for the wars that would spread if our foreign policy is not changed?

What if the American people learned the truth, that our foreign policy has nothing to do with national security, that it never changes from one administration to the next?

What if war in preparation for war is a racket serving the special interests?

What if President Obama is completely wrong about Afghanistan and it turns out worse than Iraq and Vietnam put together?

What if Christianity actually teaches peace and not preventive wars of aggression?

What if diplomacy is found to be superior to bombs and bribes in protecting America?

What happens if my concerns are completely unfounded?

Nothing.

But what happens if my concerns are justified and ignored?

Nothing good.

And I yield back the balance of my time.”

The 8^th anniversary of September 11^th brings little solace for the millions of citizens worldwide who have serious questions concerning the official account of what happened that day.

Usually when there is a monumental failure in our government’s ability to protect our nation, a complete investigation immediately ensues. Yet Bush opposed any probe into the attacks for well over a year until mounting pressure from the victim’s family members forced him to address the issue.

Once the 9/11 Commission was finally formed, Philip Zelikow was put on as its executive director. Philip Zelikow also penned the controversial Bush Doctrine, a policy which allowed preemptive invasion of any country in the world if potential for a future threat existed.

Chairman of the commission, Thomas Keane, later charged in a book that the commission was “set up to fail.” Furthermore, Bush and Cheney refused to testify to the Commission separately and under oath. Crucial witness testimony and evidence was also deliberately withheld from most of the commission members.

However, once the Commission’s report was done, the history books had been written and the case had been closed. 9/11 was a surprise hit on our country. Nobody in any level of government saw it coming and NORAD, our North American air defense command, scrambled jets into the skies for two hours in a state of confusion while planes were being hijacked and crashed into iconic government buildings. The intense jet fuel fire that ensued in both towers caused the steel to weaken at the points of impact, causing both towers to completely crumble into dust. The assault on 9/11 was a colossal and completely unpredictable blow. Case closed.

Or is it? Now more than ever, there are groups of thousands of architects, engineers, pilots, scientists, scholars, victim’s family members, politicians, celebrities, and concerned citizens all calling for a real, independent investigation of the attacks. Actor Charlie Sheen has just come out with a public request to sit down with Obama to review key evidence and to implore him to re-open the investigation, which he calls a whitewash.

Richard Gage, founder of architects and engineers for 9/11 truth, has given hundreds of presentations all over the world and has signed up over 804 building professionals who are collectively calling for an independent technical investigation of the causes of the WTC buildings collapse. They reject the federal government’s conclusions that two airplanes alone brought the buildings down without the aid of pre-planted explosives.

If you have never heard this theory before, it sounds crazy. Explosives brought down the towers? How did they get in there? Who put them there?  Why would “they” do this? Fortunately, a new investigation would shed a lot of light on all of these crucial questions. Until that happens, however, all we have to do is apply some critical thinking to the scenario.

For example, did you know that a third building (World Trade Center 7) fell on 9/11, which was located more than a football field away from the twin towers? It was never hit by an airplane and had only small fires across a few floors, yet fell in the exact same manner as a controlled demolition.

Another hole in the government’s official story is that they admit that they cannot explain the total collapse or freefall of all three buildings, while also admitting that they did NOT test for explosive residue despite evidence (from many eyewitness accounts from first responders and people who escaped the buildings) that explosives and incendiaries were present.

In real crime scene investigations all physical evidence is taken into account, regardless of what the implications may be. In this case, there has been a definitive finding of unexploded military grade incendiaries found in the World Trade Center dust. This explosive material is called nanothermite and is made in high-tech government laboratories. These findings were just published in a peer reviewed paper in the Open Chemical Physics Journal and adds credibility to those who claim explosives are the true cause of the three collapses.

According to The New York Times 80% of Americans thought President Bush was at least hiding something regarding 9/11.  In light of the swelling ranks of scientists, engineers, architects, and brave government officials who are speaking out on 9/11 armed with irrefutable new evidence, the time is NOW for a true investigation.  The family members deserve the truth. 9/11 was the pretext for Bush’s domestic and foreign policy and still serves as the rallying cry for the current administration’s continuation of illegal wars and curtailment of our civil liberties. We must not let another year go by without confronting the elephant in the room.

Hey idiots, let me tell you how to be nicer to the environment. If I can figure it out I am sure that the rest of you people can. Here are a few simple changes you need to make immediately to help save the world. These easy and cost effective changes will lead to results that are priceless. We are running out of drinking water! We are running out of golf course watering water! It is in our best interest to practice simple water conservation techniques. These actions will save roughly 4.2 million gallons of water per every person who adapts these conserving practices.

First step! Build a human sized liter box. Go to your local hardware store and buy a shit-ton of wood, nails, tarp, sand, and or cat litter, (you may have to make a trip to the pet store to get the appropriate amount of cat litter). Just tell the hardware guys to round up an exact shit-ton of these materials. They are professionals so they will know how much a shit-ton is. I recommend sand because it is cheaper. The only down side is that it does not have the odor repelling science that is built into cat litter.

Then simply go home and take a few hours out of your Saturday, Sunday, and Monday to construct your human litter box. I would only recommend using your new giant toilet for pooping and not peeing. This will be explained later. It is important that you cover your fecal droppings with the sand after you finish. The sand helps to mask the smell of your shit, and also keeps curious dogs and children from eating your poop. By not flushing your man made logs down the toilet you can help to conserve water to keep our golf courses pristine. Pristine is a fancy word for nice. Building a giant litter box also allowed me to fulfill my life long dream of taking a dump while my cats take a dump at the exact same time. You really haven’t lived until you defecate with a kitten in hand.

Why should you only poop in your human litter box? Well, the answer is simple. By peeing into the sand you are wasting valuable water that could be used for drinking. You can purchase a urine filtration kit that turns your pee pee into drinkable auga. Auga is Spanish for water. These filtration kits can be expensive, so I suggest making your own kit. All you need is 13 coffee filters, a balloon, some sugar, a funnel, a pinch of bleach, a screw driver, one egg, tape, a ph balancing strips, hot ice, and two rubber bands. I do not have the time to explain how to put these items together, but I think the process is pretty self-explanatory.

With the amount of water I save by using these two items I can water my lawn for an extra 10 minutes everyday. If these techniques are practiced everyday for a year you will save between $25.00 and $42,000 dollars per year. Don’t worry I have calculated the cost of litter box and urine filtration materials into those figures. What I didn’t calculate are all the new Green friends you will make by becoming more environmentally gay. Have a lovely day and remember to not waste your waste!
Written by

Brandon Perna (The Scientist)

Chances are that you and I have never met, but we have so much in common.  Probably the most profound bond we share is our unyielding distaste for all things “hipster.”  And I’m one of the most unapologetic hipsters I know.

I came across a very important and life-changing website that you will now visit on a regular basis.  The URL is certainly innocuous enough (www.latfh.com), but you should know that LATFH stands for “Look at this f***ing hipster.”  If you’re already privy to the gloriousness of this site, I salute you.  For the uninitiated, LATFH posts pictures of the most quintessential hipster figures on the planet.  You’ve seen them everywhere: the farmer’s market, the wine bar, and rifling through piles of slightly soiled clothing at the thrift store.  And now there’s a website where we can marvel at these people in the privacy of our own homes! Oh, Internet.

Take it from me if you’re trying to take your wardrobe to the next level.  Basically, it comes down to these key principles.

1. Skinny Jeans – If you put ‘em on and still have circulation in your legs, you are not a hipster.
2. Shoes  – If you don’t own a pair of Converse All-Stars (in hot pink, brown, or classic black), you are not a hipster.
3. Sunglasses – If you don’t routinely wear sunglasses that should only come out on Halloween, you are not a hipster.
4. T-shirt – Guys, if your shirt has something on it other than an obscure band or random artwork, you are not a hipster.  Ladies, if you paid more than 20 bucks for your tee, you are certainly not a hipster.
5. Attitude – The most important part of the ensemble.  If you leave the house thinking how fantastic your life is, you are not a hipster.

By no means is this a complete list of the most critical hipster fashion tips.  Blogging about hipsters is so last year, but the fact that I’m doing it after the fact makes me cool.  I’m just that hardcore.