Legal pot sales commence in Washington state today

Let it be known that Tuesday, June 8, 2014, a trace of sanity prevailed: state law in Washington now allows the sale of cannabis beginning this morning. Washington joins Colorado as the second state to legalize pot for purely recreational use. You know marijuana has hit the mainstream when there’s an article in Time Mag titled Everything you need to know about buying weed …

So, who is allowed to buy pot?

As with alcohol, only those 21 and older can purchase recreational weed. Out of state residents are allowed to purchase pot, but it must be consumed in Washington. Marijuana remains illegal in neighboring states. And plan on paying with cash. While some legal establishments may be able to take debit cards, none can accept credit cards because of federal banking regulations. …

Aren’t there supposed to be shortages?

Likely so. As in Colorado, people will be drawn out by the historic nature of the occasion, and 24 retail shops is a fraction of the more than 334 the state plans to eventually license. Owners of those few open establishments might decide to ration their product, setting lower-than-normal limits on how much each person can buy, or raise prices while supply is low and demand is high.

That thing about credit cards quietly hints at the gaping chasm between federal and state law on the subject. Banks that accept deposits and provide checking accounts for pot sellers and the entire supply chain risk everything from Revenge of the Treasury to being prosecuted under the RICO Act. But still, it’s good to know that with all the pseudo religious crap and political bullshit and rabid conspiracy claims making their all too dreary and predictable rounds, there are still pockets of progress being made in the elusive intersection between public policy and common sense.

In Hobby Lobby, the facts didn’t matter?

TTomorrow

Thankfully, I’m no longer subject to the whims of co-worker bullies as described in a post a couple of weeks ago. That means no more paychecks, at least until another likely job opens up later this month. If anyone can drop a few coins in my Paypal account at DarkSydOTheMoon at A.O.L. dot-com, that would hugely appreciated. Sorry to bother everyone, but it’s just a fact that we all need money to survive.

And speaking of facts, when did it become OK to start with the premise that facts don’t matter in a legal case? Because in the Hobby-Lobby ruling, the fact-impaired gave way to fact-dismissal by the highest court in the land before the case was even argued, and it was just accepted, with little or no debate. A brief recap via The Nation: [Read more…]

Separating wheat and chaff

Several interesting political discussions ensued with friends over the last few days. There were a few more around because two people some of us knew passed away. One in a plane wreck, the other from cancer. Some friends like to talk politics with a real live blogger, and some of them are informed enough and intellectually honest enough to be worth talking about it with. But not all.

There’s a somewhat simple, almost elegant algorithm for separating the novices and part-timers and hard-core partisan warriors from the more experienced and frank. The latter might lean or reside entirely on one side of the great left-right divide that has come to define modern US politics like North vs South did decades ago. But they’re able to exert some objectivism; there’s a lot of fancy ways we could say this, they live in a reality-based world, they resist cognitive dissonance. But what it boils down to is they know a fact when they see one, plus they value facts as building blocks in effective policy solutions.

It’s not infallible, but below is a fast-food approach to separate the more purely ideological from the more purely rational. [Read more…]

Fun times

Well, I may have made a mistake in taking this new job that’s been keeping me from blogging. It’s not the work, the work is the fun part. Getting inside servers and figuring out what might be going wrong is kinda cool. Like a math problem or a puzzle, one that you’re being paid to solve. No, it’s the people. Some of my coworkers are bullies. [Read more…]

The spice must flow

Watching Grumpy Grandpa McCain this morning making the rounds, trying to explain how we won the war in Iraq, but somehow failed in Iraq at the same time and now have to go back in and, what, re-win it? Well, it was interesting to watch him try and navigate through that tortured reasoning, even a little bit comical in a dark, cynical way, sort of a crazy neo-con blast from the bloody past. But here’s what sets civil war in Iraq apart from Syria or Libya: [Read more…]

Oh for those heady days, before the right went completely crazy

Seems like only yesterday … It’s amazing to witness the contortions, the descent into madness, and possibly alcoholism or dementia, going down over the POW release over there to the right among the craziest theocons and the slickest maniacs. The dishonesty is so, so well documented that it’s gone beyond nauseating and turned into hilarious.

Below is another blast from the past, pure political comedy gold, from back in those ancient days lo these many weeks ago, wherein the social machinery was being pre-placed to attack anyone who stands in the way of Gilded Age 2.0: [Read more…]

It’s not just that everything you do is being recorded …

 

If you haven’t seen the Snowden interview yet, it’s worth watching in its entirety. Or as much as you can find on the it00bz. But this post isn’t about whether Snowden is a hero or a dick. I have no idea, there are signs of both What’s interesting to a lot of us is what he has to say about the digital-network national security apparatus that has come of age in the last decade and now invades almost every aspect of our private and professional lives. The former security industry analyst’s insights are fascinating, he speaks about the nature of state security technology and speculates on how it may be in the early stages of taking a dark turn. His comments in that regard come off, at least to me, as earnest in intent and plausible in execution; history will be the judge, we may have to wait many years for that verdict to be read.

One of the things he could do better next time, if there is a next time, is talk a little bit more about the databases. From what Snowden said and the reporting done on his behalf, it sounds like it’s not just that you’re being recorded whenever you go online by land or by air, [Read more…]

Notepad++ install

So Notepad++ downloaded without a hitch, other than my super special gaming AV twigged a little until I let it through by name. Version is v6.6.3. I put the first screen that popped up below the fold for you veterans to look over. Looks like a routine recap of prior fixes. This is the one the Python page said to use and was supposedly preconfigged/defaulted correctly for those modules. BTW, project down the road: my new job has some perks. One being that getting MSFT cert is encouraged, they have labs to study, practice tests, and people who’ve taken lots of them willing to help. Is there a best cert to start with? I work mostly with the two latest EX server versions at work. I’m not sure if saying the exact names would be a DA violation or not — I’m so new at this!

But so far I like it, all that formal math seems to be helping some; at least the syntax for queries seems totally logical to me, but its definitely intimidating to some of my classmates. I actually solved a Sev A today, waited for the PTL’s to figure it out since I’m so new, but it turned out to be what I suspected. I also memorized the more useful cmdlets already and kicking around inside the servers seems to be coming to me fairly naturally … for an old guy. Thanks again for all your prior great pointers and enthusiasm! [Read more…]