Mortuus Bestia

It takes $1500, 6 months, and a lot of farming to truly make a sandwich at home from scratch

Actually, it takes quite a lot more time and money than that. He didn’t have to make the knife - mine the iron and carbon and other metals, forge the steel, mold the polycarbonate handle (or create the tools to do all such things). He didn’t have to build the vehicles from scratch to transport the goods, make the glass for the jar, mold the tin for its lid, cut the sugar cane for the brine, collect the water, raise the chicken, build the oven, etc. Nevertheless, the process was cumbersome and inefficient and yielded less than stellar results.

At the end, he says: “It’s not bad. Six months of my life for ‘not bad’.”

Or he spends an hour (or less!) of his life doing whatever it is he’s good at and then trade that hour (by converting his time and talents into money) for a ready-made sandwich that tastes great. Then, the remainder of the six months and $1500 could be put to better uses!

This is the modern equivalent of Leonard Read’s “I, Pencil.” 

Cops Raid Marijuana Dispensary, Destroy Surveillance Equipment, Eat Pot Brownies, Joke About Assaulting Amputee

Cops in Santa Ana, California, donned ski masks to break and enter into a local medical marijuana dispensary, raiding it with guns drawn in a May 27 police action. They then proceeded to remove surveillance cameras and recording equipment, but they didn’t remove it all. 

Video from a camera they didn’t disable also caught the officers eating what appear to be marijuana edibles, then acting in a way to suggest they had become intoxicated, with one officer even joking that she’d love to kick a marijuana activist present at the raid, Marla James, an amputee, in the “nub.“ 

NEW VIDEO RELEASED OF UNARMED MAN BEING SHOT BY POLICE SHOWS POLICE LIED. DA RULED MURDER AS BEING “JUSTIFIED”

On August 11, 2014, Dillon Taylor walked out of a local Salt Lake City, Utah, convenience store minding his own business. He wasn’t armed. He wasn’t committing a crime. He was listening to music on his headphones, probably in his own world.

Just two days after Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed an unarmed Mike Brown in Ferguson, Taylor would soon face a similar fate at the hands of a local officer. And on October 1, the district attorney in Salt Lake City, Sim Gill, ruled that the killing of 20-year-old Taylor was justified. Even in his determination, though, he stated that “Taylor’s shooting was justified not because he posed an actual threat, but because (Officer) Cruz reasonably perceived a threat.”

Now that the full video has been released, it’s disturbingly clear that nothing about this police shooting was justified. Nothing at all.

( WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC VIDEO. VERY ROUGH TO WATCH. )

#StayWoke

Marijuana Prohibition Is Unscientific

A few days before the House of Representatives passed a federal ban on marijuana in June 1937, the Republican minority leader, Bertrand Snell of New York, confessed, “I do not know anything about the bill.” The Democratic majority leader, Sam Rayburn of Texas, educated him. “It has something to do with something that is called marihuana,” Rayburn said. “I believe it is a narcotic of some kind.

That exchange gives you a sense of how much thought Congress gave marijuana prohibition before approving it. Legislators who had heard of the plant knew it as the ”killer weed“ described by Federal Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger, who claimed marijuana turned people into homicidal maniacs and called it "the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.” Anslinger warned that “marihuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes” and estimated that half the violent crimes in areas occupied by “Mexicans, Greeks, Turks, Filipinos, Spaniards, Latin Americans, and Negroes may be traced to the use of marihuana.”

Given this background, no one should pretend that marijuana prohibition was carefully considered or that it was driven by science, as opposed to ignorance and blind prejudice. It is hard to rationally explain why Congress, less than four years after Americans had emphatically rejected alcohol prohibition, thought it was a good idea to ban a recreational intoxicant that is considerably less dangerous.

It is relatively easy, for example, to die from acute alcohol poisoning, since the ratio of the lethal dose to the dose that gives you a nice buzz is about 10 to 1. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 2,200 Americans die from alcohol overdoses each year. By contrast, there has never been a documented human death from a marijuana overdose. Based on extrapolations from animal studies, the ratio of the drug’s lethal dose to its effective dose is something like 40,000 to 1.

There is also a big difference between marijuana and alcohol when it comes to the long-term effects of excessive consumption. Alcoholics suffer gross organ damage of a kind that is not seen even in the heaviest pot smokers, affecting the liver, brain, pancreas, kidneys, and stomach. The CDC attributesmore than 38,000 deaths a year to three dozen chronic conditions caused or aggravated by alcohol abuse.

Another 12,500 alcohol-related deaths in the CDC’s tally occur in traffic accidents, and marijuana also has an advantage on that score. Although laboratory studies indicate that marijuana can impair driving ability, its effects are not nearly as dramatic as alcohol’s. In fact, marijuana’s impact on traffic safety is so subtle that it is difficult to measure in the real world.

Last February the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released the results of “the first large-scale [crash risk] study in the United States to include drugs other than alcohol,” which it described as “the most precisely controlled study of its kind yet conducted.” The researchers found that once the data were adjusted for confounding variables, cannabis consumption was not associated with an increased probability of getting into an accident.

That does not mean stoned drivers never cause accidents. One challenge in assessing the extent of the problem is that many of the drivers who test positive for marijuana are not actually impaired, since traces of the drug can be detected long after its effects wear off. That means marijuana-impaired drivers get mixed in with drivers who happen to be cannabis consumers but are not under the influence while on the road, which would tend to mask the drug’s role in crashes. Still, alcohol is clearly a much bigger factor in traffic fatalities.

Last year, during a congressional hearing on the threat posed by stoned drivers, a NHTSA official was asked how many traffic fatalities are caused by marijuana each year. “That’s difficult to say,” replied Jeff Michael, NHTSA’s associate administrator for research and program development. “We don’t have a precise estimate.” The most he was willing to affirm was that the number is “probably not” zero.

The likelihood of addiction is another way that marijuana looks less dangerous than alcohol. Based on data from the National Comorbidity Survey, about 15 percent of drinkers qualify as “dependent” at some point in their lives, compared to 9 percent of cannabis consumers. That difference may be especially significant given the link between heavy alcohol consumption and premature death.

All told, the CDC estimates that alcohol causes 88,000 deaths a year in the United States. It has no equivalent estimate for marijuana. We may reasonably assume, along with Jeff Michael, that marijuana’s death toll is more than zero, if only because people under the influence of cannabis occasionally have fatal accidents. But the lack of a definitive answer highlights marijuana’s relative safety, which points to a potentially important benefit of repealing prohibition: To the extent that more pot smoking is accompanied by less drinking, an increase in cannabis consumption could lead to a net reduction in drug-related disease and death.

The comparison of alcohol and marijuana presents an obvious challenge to anyone who thinks the government bans drugs because they are unacceptably dangerous. If anything, that rationale suggests marijuana should be legal while alcohol should be banned, rather than the reverse. Judging from this example, the distinctions drawn by our drug laws have little, if anything, to do with what science tells us about the relative hazards of different intoxicants.

Marijuana Prohibition Is Unconstitutional

When dry activists sought to ban alcoholic beverages, they went through the arduous process of changing the Constitution, which prior to the ratification of the 18th amendment in 1919 did not authorize Congress to prohibit the production and sale of “intoxicating liquors.” When Congress banned marijuana in 1937, it did so in the guise of the Marihuana Tax Act , a revenue measure that authorized onerous regulations ostensibly aimed at collecting taxes on production and distribution, with severe penalties for noncompliance. But by the time marijuana prohibition was incorporated into the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, there was no need for such subterfuge. Instead Congress relied on its constitutional authority to “regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states.”

The Commerce Clause, which was part of the original Constitution, did not change between 1937 and 1970. But beginning with a series of New Deal cases, the Supreme Court stretched its meaning to accommodate pretty much anything Congress wanted to do. In the 1942 case Wickard v. Filburn, for example, the Court said the Commerce Clause authorized punishment of an Ohio farmer for exceeding his government-imposed wheat quota, even though the extra grain never left his farm, let alone the state.

The Court went even further in the 2005 case Gonzales v. Raich, ruling that the federal government’s power to regulate interstate commerce extends even to homegrown marijuana used for medical purposes by a California patient in compliance with state law. That decision, unlike Wickard, applied not just to production but to mere possession. According to the Court, the Commerce Clause encompasses the tiniest trace of marijuana in a cancer patient’s drawer. “If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause,” observed dissenting Justice Clarence Thomas, “then it can regulate virtually anything—and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.”

Many conservatives who pay lip service to the Constitution and the system of federalism it is supposed to protect nevertheless seem comfortable with this audacious assertion of congressional authority. In fact, they complain that the Obama administration is not using the Controlled Substances Act to shut down the newly legal marijuana markets in Colorado and Washington. Either they do not really believe in federalism or they cannot think straight when they smell marijuana.

Marijuana Prohibition Is Unjust

Even if marijuana prohibition were consistent with science and the Constitution, it would be inconsistent with basic principles of morality. It is patently unfair to treat marijuana merchants like criminals while treating liquor dealers like legitimate businessmen, especially in light of the two drugs’ relative hazards. It is equally perverse to arrest cannabis consumers while leaving drinkers unmolested.

Peaceful activities such as growing a plant or selling its produce cannot justify the violence that is required to enforce prohibition. In the name of stopping people from getting high, police officers routinely commit acts that would be universally recognized as assault, burglary, theft, kidnapping, and even murder were it not for laws that draw arbitrary lines between psychoactive substances.

The main justification for those laws is protecting people from their own bad decisions. The hope is that prohibition will deter a certain number of people who otherwise would not only try marijuana but become self-destructively attached to it. Toward that end, police in the United States arrest hundreds of thousands of people on marijuana charges each year—nearly 700,000 in 2013, the vast majority for simple possession. While most of those marijuana offenders do not spend much time behind bars, about 40,000 people are serving sentences as long as life for growing or distributing cannabis. And even if marijuana offenders do not go to jail or prison, they still suffer public humiliation, legal costs, inconvenience, lost jobs, and all the lasting ancillary penalties of a criminal arrest.

Note that the people bearing these costs are not, by and large, the people who receive the purported benefits of prohibition. The person who, thanks to prohibition, never becomes a pathetic pothead goes about his life undisturbed while other people—people who never hurt him or anyone else—pay for the mistakes he avoids. Even paternalists should be troubled by the distribution of these burdens.

I am not a paternalist, because I do not believe the government should be in the business of stopping us from hurting ourselves. I am with John Stuart Mill on this:

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant….Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

VIDEO: Cop tases, pepper sprays unresponsive victim suffering from medical emergency

A police officer has been allowed to “resign” after a video surfaced showing him tasing and pepper spraying an innocent victim in a car.

In this case, the victim was completely unresponsive — clearly not making any threatening gestures toward the officer.

According to reports, the driver of the vehicle, David Washington, had earlier collided into a city road side, another vehicle, and then stopped in the middle of the road.

Corporal Matt Deschenes and Sergeant Crystal Hill were the first two officers to arrive at David’s stopped vehicle.

They pointed guns at him and ordered him to get out of his car, but he was motionless.

You’d think by this point officers would be able to use their discernment to judge that David’s unresponsiveness called for medical attention, not violence.

That’s when a third officer, Shaun Jurgens, began shooting David with a taser gun. David was still sitting motionless and unresponsive.

The officer then pepper sprays David’s face for about 6-8 seconds straight, saturating him in the burning chemicals.

The bodycam footage then shows a cop dragging David by the arm out of his car like a rag doll and throwing him to the pavement.

After torturing this man and threatening to “smoke” him as they drew guns on him, it finally donned on officers that David was experiencing a medical emergency. He was eventually transported to Mary Washington Hospital.

Investigators found that the use of taser and pepperspray were unwarranted.

Of course it was unwarranted.

Scenes like this just go to show that many officers are using tasers and pepper spray as obedience tools — eager to prod us like cattle and inflict pain on us at the mere hint of disobedience to their self-perceived authority.

Cleveland Police Filed Charges like “Aggravated Menacing” & “Inducing Panic” On Tamir Rice To Justify Shooting Him

If you’re a cop and you’ve just shot a 12-year old kid dead without giving him a chance to follow your orders, what do you do? You file a report making it look like he was a criminal, that’s what.

According to recently obtained documents from the Cleveland Police Department, 12-year old Tamir Rice was going to be charged with the outrageous crimes of “aggravated menacing” and “inducing panic.”

Dear police: We give those crimes back to you. All across the United States, you have induced panic and served as aggravating menaces and have gotten away with these crimes for far too long.

How dare you ever consider charging this young brother with these crimes. He was no menace, but a sixth-grade boy, and the only reason you or anyone else panicked was because of his brown skin. Here are eight white people who pointed real guns at real people and lived to tell the story.

Here is the bogus criminal report for Tamir.

Notice the following three points.

They list three victims of Tamir Rice:

The State of Ohio 

Officer Loehmann (who shot and killed Tamir) 

Officer Garmback (who drove the vehicle) 

This is essential. They are not claiming Tamir was a menace or induced panic to other people in the park, but to the officers. ABSURD. 

At the end of the report, notice that they say this complaint was “abated by death.“ 

Notice the officer who shot and killed Tamir claims to have had minor injuries.

Cop kills a drunk autistic man in custody

[V]ideo has been released of the incident in which a very drunk David Dehmann, a 33-year-old autistic man, is slammed to the ground by Deputy Chase Wright in Mount Vernon, Ohio, hard enough to cause a head trauma injury that killed him two days later.

The Columbus Dispatch on how it got to that point:

David Levi Dehmann had been arrested at 7:43 p.m. Tuesday by Mount Vernon police Cpl. Travis Tharp, who had been sent to the ball fields at Dan Emmett Elementary School after a call about a suspected drunken man who had fallen down by the restrooms.

Tharp arrested Dehmann on a charge of persistent disorderly conduct and took him to the Knox County Jail to be booked

So, so many dumb reasons to end up in custody in these United States. Maybe they could have even let him sleep it off–he was not at that moment directly harming anyone’s life or property. But they took him to jail. Dehmann has been on a bender all day, and in fact had earlier been found vomiting on someone’s patio and taken to the hospital, then released, and driven to an aunt’s house by an officer, then later found on the ball field. He had likely already hurt his own head in his earlier drunken fit.

After a series of what very much look like drunk-friendly gestures, Deputy Wright grabs his hand violently. Alas, the specifics of every last step are tantalizingly on the border of the camera view. Dehmann’s arm comes swinging back in, in a motion the police and some media interpret as trying to punch the cop; maybe, maybe not. If so, it was for sure a swing and a miss. Then he was slammed to the ground with enough violence to cause his death.

Original police statement about the incident, which is now being investigated by the state attorney general. Wright is on the usual administrative leave:

While Dehmann was in the jail’s intake area he became aggressive with the jail staff making an aggressive move towards Deputy [Chase] Wright. Mr. Dehmann did attempt to hit Dep. Wright in the face causing Dep. Wright to place Mr. Dehmann into a take down hold, taking him to the ground to get control of him. Once control was gained it was found that Mr. Dehmann had hit his head on the floor during the incident. Mr. Dehmann was transported to KCH ER by Mount Vernon medics for a medical evaluation.”

Watch the video. Tell me if it comports with the police’s retelling of events.

Notice how Dehmann is joking with some of the officers. The main cop he’s talking to is obviously smiling. As he follows the main cop he smiles and gestures to a female officer. She seems to see it for the benign nothing it is and simply points to tell the man to keep following the main cop. He then smiles and tries the same gesture with Deputy Wright who obviously views the rest of humanity with the contempt we expect from most cops, who then violently slaps his hand away. After the man reacts to this unexpected aggression (slapping the air? it’s certainly not any movement with real violence. Even if it was an attempt at a punch, Dehmann is very clearly not a real threat.), the cop picks Dehmann up and body slams him to the floor head-first, smashing his skull.

There are five cops there. Obviously, among them there’s one evil, psychopathic, unrepentant asshole. But the rest do what? Do they detain the psycho cop? Do they interfere at all? Or do they simply help him?