… men need to take ownership of this [rape] problem. Abuse, domestic violence and rape overwhelmingly feature male perpetrators and female victims.
Sean Plunket – Feminist Appeaser
Veterans Day Message from President George W Bush.
Prohibition works
Cui bono.
Follow the money.
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (KJV)
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. (KJV)
“Prohibition doesn’t work.” You’ve heard it before. I’ve said it before. (See here and here, e.g.) You’ve probably said it before, too. It’s any libertarian and/or drug law reformer’s mantra.
Prohibition doesn’t work. If it did, there wouldn’t be 400,000 New Zealanders who currently use cannabis, and people like Smith to supply. Prohibition has not reduced demand or illegal supply of cannabis. Only a sensible drug policy, such as that promoted by the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party, can do that.
Vote ALCP – End the War on Drugs™.
But I’ve never been entirely comfortable with the claim that Prohibition doesn’t work.
Prohibition doesn’t work. Now think for a moment about that. Prohibition doesn’t work… OK. So, what would it be like if Prohibition did work? What’s Prohibition supposed to achieve? What’s Prohibition for? Prohibition is supposed to stop people taking drugs. Now, ask yourself, why on earth would you want to do that? Is it any of your business if people are taking drugs? How are you going to stop them?
What’s Prohibition for? The official line is that prohibition is supposed to stop people taking drugs. Prohibition manifestly doesn’t do that! That’s why I’m sticking to the official line when I give election speeches. Prohibition doesn’t work!
But what is Prohibition really for? We can find the answer to that by asking what an adaptationist evolutionary biologist would ask when trying to determine the biological function of a phenotypic trait. What has Prohibition done in the past that best explains why we still have it?
Prohibition is for protecting vested interests. Prohibition works.
Prohibition’s time is up. It’s throw a spanner o’clock.
State rape culture?
The top image is a real NZ Police recruitment ad. It ran for about two weeks in late December 2010. It was pulled just before the release of a report prepared for the State Services Commission in the wake of the commission of inquiry into police conduct. The report said the culture within the force seemed to have reached a plateau and fundamental change was needed.
That was three years ago.
The bottom image is a parody ad created by Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury, editor of the Daily Blog, in response to the NZ Police inaction against the Roast Busters. The police contacted Bradbury and threatened him with 6 months imprisonment and/or a $5000 fine unless he pulled the parody. But Bradbury won’t back down.
Rape is a serious crime. So is false allegation of rape. But the concern of this post is the casual manner in which the NZ Police repeatedly attempt to rape our most important freedom, upon which our democracy depends, freedom of speech.
I’ve seen a similar attempt before, up close.
Two years ago the NZ Police made a clandestine ultra vires attempt to take down Billy McKee’s Green Cross website. The webmaster made sure the website stayed up.
Good on Bradbury for not backing down. Freedom of speech is not negotiable.
Every time you speak to me,
Makes it plain that you don’t see,
What’s really happening here,
You just confuse respect with fear,
Lawman, I think you’re a poor man
Rape Culture?
An anti-rape protest has been organised in Palmerston North to put a spotlight on rape culture, following the Roast Busters scandal.
The Roast Busters is a group of Auckland youths, understood to be aged 17 and 18, who allegedly had group sex with drunk, underage teenage girls and bragged about it online.
The case was yesterday referred to the Independent Police Conduct Authority after it was brought to light that four girls complained to police, but prosecutions were not made.
I don’t understand why these people are marching. It seems the Police have acted badly but the protest is not specifically targeting the Police.
… Palmerston North event co-ordinator Mark Byford said: “Hopefully it sends a message to young people, especially in Palmerston North and the wider area, that rape isn’t OK, it isn’t acceptable in society,” he said. “It’s getting our voices out there and showing to the wider public that it’s wrong and we’re taking a stand against it.”
Young people think rape is acceptable? I don’t believe that.
Rape is illegal and probably the most hated crime in our culture – especially when the victim is a young girl.
I see that “Rape Culture” is a feminist concept but I don’t get what’s going on or what they are trying to achieve. Can someone put a spotlight on rape culture protests for me please.
Tawriya
Raymond Ibrahim is the author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians.
He writes
Perhaps you have heard of taqiyya, the Muslim doctrine that allows lying in certain circumstances — primarily when Muslim minorities live under infidel authority. Now meet tawriya, a doctrine that allows lying in virtually all circumstances—including to fellow Muslims and by swearing to Allah—provided the liar is creative enough to articulate his deceit in a way that is “technically” true.
Deceit and lying may be far more ingrained in the culture than previously thought.
The authoritative Hans Wehr Arabic-English Dictionary defines tawriya as, “hiding, concealment; dissemblance, dissimulation, hypocrisy; equivocation, ambiguity, double-entendre, allusion.” Conjugates of the trilateral root of the word, w-r-y, appear in the Quran in the context of hiding or concealing something (e.g., 5:31, 7:26).
As a doctrine, “double-entendre” best describes tawriya’s function. According to past and present Muslim scholars, several documented below, tawriya occurs when a speaker says something that means one thing to the listener, although the speaker means something else, and his words technically support this alternate meaning.
For example, if someone declares “I don’t have a penny in my pocket,” most listeners will assume the speaker has no money on him—although he might have dollar bills, just literally no pennies.
This ruse is considered legitimate according to Sharia law; it does not constitute “lying,” which in Islam is otherwise forbidden, except in three cases: lying in war, lying to one’s spouse, and lying in order to reconcile people. For these exceptions, Sharia permits Muslims to lie freely, without the strictures of tawriya, that is, without the need for creativity.
I don’t have a problem with tawriya. Ibrahim is wrong. Tawriya isn’t lying.
Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” But the temple he had spoken of was his body. (NIV)
Moderate Muslim Discusses Radical Islam
http://youtu.be/dvk3kjF1d68
WESTFEST 2014 KORN, MAGADETH, ROB ZOMBIE
I’m ginna get tickets!
Update: Someone said this may not be happening….
Nothing on Google.
????
Click >>> Brian Welch: From Korn to Jesus
Fighting for peace is like subsidising condoms to cut teen pregnancy
Hawke’s Bay District Health Board has been doing some creative thinking.
Condom card aims to cut teen pregnancy
Tennagers as young as 13 are being issued with 12-trip passes to safer sex, in an effort to drive down abortions and teenage pregnancies.
A scheme in which young people are given bus-pass-style cards entitling them to free packets of condoms has been piloted in Hawke’s Bay, and could be picked up nationwide.
This is a Christian libertarianish blog. I have some questions for our readers.
For our libertarianish readers. Would you rather pay for other people’s contraception now, or would you prefer to pay for raising their children later?
For our Christian readers. Do you support the Hawke’s Bay DHB’s initiative “to drive down abortions”?
(Sex, religion and politics. Looking for a polite conversation? You came to the wrong place!)
Social embarrassment and the cost of condoms were identified by the region’s health leaders as factors contributing towards unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.
Are social embarrassment and the cost of condoms factors contributing towards unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections?
Are social embarrassment and the cost of condoms factors contributing towards teenage pregnancies and abortions?
Teenage pregnancies are not always unplanned pregnancies and homicide is not an STD. What is the Hawke’s Bay DHB actually trying to achieve? Because if we don’t know what the scheme is supposed to do, we won’t know if it works.
I’m going to assume that the Hawke’s Bay DHB is trying to prevent unplanned teenage pregnancies.
The Condom Card scheme is being hailed by Auckland University’s adolescent health research group, which says contraceptive use among youth has remained stagnant at less than 60 per cent for more than 10 years.
New Zealand’s teen pregnancy rate is the second highest in the developed world, with the latest census data showing more than 6000 teenagers became pregnant last year.
Why so high? Social embarrassment and the cost of condoms? Kiwi women are the most polyamorous in the world, according to a study by Durex. Could that have something to do with it?
According to Wikipedia, 40% of teenage pregnancies end in abortion. That’s 2,400 children of young mothers who’ll never get to see the light of day.
Hawke’s Bay District Health Board population health adviser Michele Grigg said it had taken the lead from similar schemes in Britain. “It was time for some creative thinking.”
At present, young people can see their GPs for part-funded prescriptions for condoms. School health nurses and some youth clinics provide them for free, but not in all areas. A packet of condoms costs between $12 and $20.
Is that expensive? Twelve packets of condoms cost between $144 and $240. Is that expensive?
In Hawke’s Bay, more than 40 school counsellors, public health nurses, youth workers and two pharmacists are now trained Condom Card practitioners. Anyone aged between 13 and 24 can see them for a brief talk on safe sex, including advice on consent, and where to access health services, before being issued with a card.
Each time they visit a pharmacist, they get the card clipped and receive a free packet of condoms.
A brief talk with a trained Condom Card practitioner. Is that socially embarrassing? What happens when you notch up 12 clips on your Condom Card? Is the 13th packet free? Or does safe sex suddenly revert to being prohibitively expensive? According to the study by Durex, New Zealanders have sex an average 122 times a year. So the Condom Card might see you right for a couple of months. Then what happens?
Conversations with younger teens would be focused on safety, and encouragement to talk to their parents, Ms Grigg said.
An Auckland University evaluation after six months of the trial found 51 per cent of more than 200 cardholders were young women, with an average age of 16.
The scheme was funded by the DHB, and other regional health authorities had already been in touch, Ms Grigg said.
Hawke’s Bay Family Planning health promoter Gill Lough said chemists at seven participating pharmacies had been given training to be more youth-friendly and not to ask awkward questions.
Are you purchasing these for yourself or for someone else? Have you used condoms before? Are you using any other form of contraception?
It was hoped sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy rates in teens would decline, particularly in areas of high deprivation, such as Wairoa.
In Wellington, Evolve Youth Services manager Kirsten Smith said the scheme would be welcome in the capital. Condoms were free at its clinic, but it saw only a fraction of the city’s teens. “When you look at how hard it is for young people to access healthcare, something like this just makes sense.”
Auckland University’s Youth 2012 principal investigator Terryann Clark said national health and wellbeing surveys showed condom use had not risen since 2000.
“We’re not making a huge amount of difference for young people, and there’s a real need to improve that.
Not making a huge amount of difference? I guess that means we’re either going to stop what we’re doing or do more of it. Prepare to open your legs and wallets.
“Most people have access to chemists, and anything that supports sexually active young people to get good quality care is really positive.”
Only about a quarter of secondary-school-aged students were having sex, and the idea that giving away free condoms would encourage more was a huge misconception, she said.
I see what you did there. 🙂
“It’s not going to make them rush out and do it. If young people have support and education, they are less likely to have intercourse and, when they do, they are more likely to be responsible.”
Pharmacy Guild president Karen Crisp said it was great that pharmacists were being used as a source of easily accessible advice, especially if young people were unable, or less likely, to go elsewhere.
If young people have support and education (i.e., free condoms) then they’re less likely to have intercourse. You think?
I don’t think so. The problem is that the proposed symptomatic relief is going to exacerbate the underlying condition. The underlying condition is a culture of sleeping around. There is no doubt in my mind that encouraging teenage girls to have safe sex is encouraging them to have sex. Giving them a finite supply of free condoms at the age of 13 can only be bad. Like fighting for peace, subsidising condoms to cut teen pregnancy will inevitably lead to blowback.
We’ve heard it all before. Back in 2008. So how did that 5-year plan work out? New Zealand’s teen pregnancy rate is still the second highest in the developed world, with the latest census data showing more than 6000 teenagers became pregnant last year.
Taxpayers fund flavoured condoms
Flavoured condoms will be subsidised by taxpayers to encourage safe sex and reduce the risk of disease and unplanned pregnancies.
The flavours – including strawberry, vanilla, chocolate and banana – became available this month after government drug-funding agency Pharmac reviewed its range of subsidised condoms and identified a need for wider choice.
It already spends about $1million a year subsidising more than nine million condoms, and the range will now be extended to include large, extra large, ribbed and super-sensitive varieties.
Pharmac chief executive Matthew Brougham expected the broader assortment, which would be about 10 per cent cheaper, to be popular among a range of age-groups.
As New Zealand had high rates of unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, he believed subsidising more condoms would encourage safer sex.
During consultation some stakeholders had questioned whether it was the right decision, but Mr Brougham had no doubts.
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
Health Minister David Cunliffe was also in favour of the move. “A wider subsidised choice for patients may assist with increasing condom use.”
Pharmac Acting medical director Dilky Rasiah said that overall the decision was about getting better health outcomes through a greater use of condoms, and increasing choice for a lower price.
“Improving sexual health is a government health priority so increasing the range of condoms available can only be good in terms of encouraging safe sex practices.”
Perhaps our Prime Minister in waiting (“may assist”) is more intelligent than we think. Par for the course, though, for the cocksure Ministry of Stupid (“can only be good”).
Each year New Zealand prescribers issued some nine million condoms, which cost the taxpayer less than $1m of the $635m pharmaceutical budget. Under the latest decision, the supplier’s price would reduce by 10 percent, she said.
“Condoms are already funded and always have been. This decision sees a 10 percent price reduction for all condoms, which frees up funds that can be used to purchase other new medicines.”
That’s about 10 cents a condom by my calculations. So how many condoms in a subsidised packet and what is the subsidy per packet? So many questions, so little time.
I don’t support the Hawke’s Bay DHB’s initiative.
I don’t have any creative ideas other than practising abstinence and eating more strawberries.
I’ll let Bob McCoskrie have the last word.
Conservative lobby group Family First has labelled the subsidised flavoured condoms as “morally bankrupt and an insult to people with breast cancer, high blood pressure and heart disease”.
It called for the Government to reverse this spending decision. National director Bob McCoskrie said it was “tragic and a national disgrace”.
“At a time when Pharmac can’t find funding for sufferers of breast cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure and other serious problems, that they can find funding to subsidise flavoured condoms,” he said.
“This is simply about funding sexual behaviour that shouldn’t be at the cost of the taxpayer or other more life-threatening medication.
“Is Pharmac going to consider subsidising sex toys next?”
He cited a number of people missing out on funding for drugs.
“Yet Pharmac can find funding for strawberry flavoured condoms.”
Forbes: Everything You’ve Heard About Crack And Meth Is Wrong
By Jacob Sullum
Growing familiarity with marijuana has been accompanied by growing support for legalization because people discovered through personal experience that the government was lying to them about the drug’s hazards. But it is easier to demonize less popular drugs such as crack cocaine and methamphetamine, which in the public mind are still linked, as marijuana once was, with addiction, madness, and violence. Any attempt to question the use of force in dealing with these drugs therefore must begin by separating reality from horror stories.
That is where Carl Hart comes in. Hart, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Columbia who grew up in one of Miami’s rougher neighborhoods, has done bold, path-breaking research that challenges widely accepted beliefs about crack and meth. In his inspiring and fascinating new memoir High Price, he describes both how he overcame his early disadvantages to secure a tenured position at an Ivy League university and how he came to question everything he thought he knew about drugs as he learned to think critically about the issue.
Before he became a scientist, Hart believed that people who use crack generally get hooked on it and thereby lose control of their behavior. But when he looked at the data on patterns of drug use as an academic, he could plainly see that only a small minority of people who try crack become heavy users. “Even at the peak [of] widespread use,” he writes, “only 10–20 percent of crack cocaine users became addicted.” According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, just 3 percent of Americans who have tried this reputedly irresistible and inescapable drug have smoked it in the last month.
Contrary to what anti-drug ads claim, Hart observes, addiction “is not an equal-opportunity disorder.” He notes that even rats, whose voracious consumption of cocaine in certain contrived conditions supposedly shows how powerfully addictive that drug is, tend to use it in moderation when they have other options, such as food, sex, or an interesting environment to explore.
Crack “gained the popularity that it did in the hood…because there weren’t that many other affordable sources of pleasure and purpose,” Hart writes. “And that was why, despite years of media-hyped predictions that crack’s expansion across classes was imminent, it never ‘ravaged’ the suburbs.”
Furthermore, Hart’s own research with heavy crack smokers found that, in contrast with the stereotypical addict who cannot help but immediately consume whatever crack is available, they frequently rejected the drug in favor of small cash payments or vouchers. He got similar results with meth snorters, even though he deliberately recruited frequent consumers who had no interest in stopping. These findings underline a crucial truth that Hart emphasizes: “The effects of drugs on human behavior and physiology are determined by a complex interaction between the individual drug user and her or his environment.”
Hart debunks various other misconceptions about crack and meth. He notes that the vast majority of violence attributed to crack grew out of black-market disputes, as opposed to the drug’s pharmacological effects. His studies found that cocaine and methamphetamine do increase heart rate and blood pressure, but the effect of typical doses is not dangerous in otherwise healthy people. He argues that research linking meth to brain damage confuses correlation with causation and fails to show that meth users’ cognitive capabilities are outside the normal range. And in case you were wondering, “There is no empirical evidence to support the claim that methamphetamine causes one to become physically unattractive.”
Read more >>>here<<<
*********
Well Shucks!
Do you really think that Bigotry, Paranoia, and Tyranny has been propagating lies about how bad drugs like Meth are to maintain public support for their persecution and grievous oppression of an unpopular minority of Citizens????
Well DRRRRR! OF COURSE THE NASTY BASTARDS HAVE BEEN!
That’s how evil powers justify violating such principles as our personal sovereignty and property rights over our own bodies and our right to peacefully pursue our own happiness… at our own expense.
I salute Carl Hart for his bravery in presenting his observations which challenge the popular prejudices and delusions of the Status quo, and Forbes for running this story.
Evil prevails when good men do nothing.
We need to expose the war on Drugs for the Brutal tyranny and injustice that it is and empty our prisons of innocent people, and remove such revenues streams from the vicious Drug Cartels and gangs… exactly as ending Alcohol prohibition achieved.
Read my blog post >>> The New Jews… Meth Users.
and >>> New Prohibitions. How our Police and Government work for Criminal Gangs.
and >>> Drug users fill New Zealand jails
And >>> What you should know about Drug Prohibition.
And >>> The Child Casualties of the Jihad on Drugs.
And >>> Prohibition is a Bad trip!
And >>> A Transitional Drug Policy
Update: 13-10-14 …
METH HEAD ALERT: Report statest that Hitler used crystal meth