Times

Here in Florida we have state laws restricting smoking in all public places. I agree with some of you that there should be an allowance for seperate sections of buildings with their own air conditioning systems (prevent mixing smoky air in non-smoking areas). A big problem was already mentioned and that is workers that need to work around the smoke though and it would be difficult to get past that problem. I smoked for over 20 years and quit but I am not like many ex-smokers where they get hostile to people that still smoke. I never smoked around children, never smoked in my home (screened back porch), rarely smoked in a vehicle, all because I could never impose my bad habit on other people, I just saw that as wrong. Now that I have quit smoking, I can tell you there is a huge benefit to quitting but I don't try to talk people into quitting if they don't want to hear it. I see that it is their choice just like drinking or eating foods that are bad for them, a matter of personal choice, but as I always say, personal choice ends where it effects other people and that is why it is so diffiicult to have smoking areas in public places. A guy once put it to me like this: "Would it be right for me to fart next to you in a restaurant and make you smell it? How about having bad breath and making you smell that? Then why do people think it should be okay to make me smell smoke? I don't like the smell of smoke, it irritates my eyes and my sinuses, I should have the right to not be forced to smell that smoke." Interesting point of view.

There is a huge difference between being behind the camera or being in front of the camera. But as many girls figure out, if the pictures exist, then there is a good chance they can get out. A funny story, my buddy borrowed my Camera to go on a trip because his son had dropped their camera in the pool the day before they were leaving. When he returned it to me, he forgot to erase the memory card, well....let's just say I have some pull with him now because if she ever finds out, he is dead, lol. Oh I know that, but reguardless of how old they get or how well they are doing, they are still our kids and we will worry about all sorts of things. I am 42 and my mom still gives me the lectures and stuff. I would bet a months pay the younger one figures out a way to tell the girlfriend he has seen the picts, that is just clasic, but he may wait till a later date, when the information will have greater effect. I was a younger brother and we need to settle scores sometimes but we are smaller so we develop greater guile and sneeky ways to get even.

Obviously the USD is weaker for more reasons than an adjustment to the rates. Most of the financial buzz I have been listening to have been predicting the fall of the USD as soon as the standard for oil prices switches to the EURO, a thing that has been in the works for a long time now. America has driven away most of our industry and we are now just one big service industry Country, like a big tourist resort. I rarely keep more then a few thousand dollars liquid at one time because like you said, there is no real incentive to save money, you need to invest it to get it to truly grow. That is why I like the fair tax idea, it would again make saving money desirable, IMHO.

Let them deal with it on their own, as a parent, I would be more concerned about my son dating a girl that would let him take those kids of picts of her. The younger brother will be sure to let it "slip" he saw the picts to try anf start trouble for the older brother I am sure, her reaction could be telling. Being a parent is definately frustrating and can take a person to their limits on a regular basis, but I cannot put into words the emotions I felt the day my first child was borne. Raising children is filled with wonderful paybacks, watching them take their first steps, seeing new discoveries through their eyes, and watching them turn into unique people is a joy that cannot be truly described. No matter how difficult a day I can have, spending just a few minutes with my kids always cheers me up.

A forum discussion about any topic must be based on general concepts, not individual ones because there is just too many varibles to get too specific. Again I guess I must repeat myself and say that my points are based on those that use drugs in excess and includes those that drink too much. I have said many times that casual use of pot is "similar" to drnking so I don't understand why you are getting sore. Deciding to screw with your brain chemistry to the point you become severely impared around other people, even those who also are imparing themselves, is not just a personal choice because you put other people at risk. It is the risk that makes it immoral, and is the same for whatever substance a person uses to get impared. Look, I admit that there are exceptions to every rule and I am sure there are a few people that can use drugs on a regular basis and be fine, and will never hurt someone else with their use. But, the majority of all people are weak, not even cattle they are sheep, sitting there watching as the sheep next to them gets slaughtered and they just eat their grass without concern. Most people have a hard enough time staying alive without inserting chemical experimentation into their lives and have no business doing it because they put everyone at risk.

We were doing so well until that, well, what was that? I thought things like that were said in middle school, not between adults. This discussion was about abusing drugs to the point of imparement, not casual use, I clearly pointed out that was the basis of my points. Yes, but there are degrees of harm, you can't get wasted by eating too many cheesburgers so your not puting other people at risk for your personal risk. Also Pot is illegel, cheesburgers are not (maybe they should be). Do we get a prize or something?????

All drug abusers say the exact same thing, it is the "other" abusers with a problem, not me. If you take the time to read my posts I already said I see casual smoking of pot as similar to casual drinking, my points of immoral behavoir is when people cross the line and become impared, reguardless of what the item was a parson used to become impared. There is the added element of using illegal substances but that is mostly rooted in the desire of the person to feel like they are not conforming, it makes them feel like they are rebelling, I don't see that as very harmful on the surface, it depends how far a person takes it. Some people see no harm in hanging a black man either but we must set limits somewhere to maintain a functional society. Breaking a law is up to the person, it is not like the people did not know they were breaking the law. I see this like your claim that those around you know the dangers and choose to stay. Every person busted for pot knew they were breaking the law and decided to take the risk, I don't feel sorry for them. If you don't agree with a law you get together and fight it, you just don't snub your nose at it and then cry when you get busted. If you are man enough to flaunt the law, be man enough to take the punnishment that goes with your flaunting. Again, I only see an immoral element based on "heavy" use, well everyone is different so I will say use that takes a person past a mild buzz to being very impared to the point where their imparement could effect other people in a negative way. I even see a blasted guy hitting on a girl at a bar after she already said no as bing immoral, I know the imparement is the main reason he is acting that way and that makes his overuse of these substances immoral. Please try to read what I am saying, I have clearly stated that I have the same opinion of those that overindulge in drinking as well, we just seem to be concentrating on pot right now but all kinds of heavy imparement is immoral. Being as you have admitted yourself that you have gotten severely stoned many times, I guess that even you can't be responsible, so there goes that arguement. There is something missing in anyone that must look to mind altering substances to enjoy themselves. Again, I am not talking about small use, I am talking of those that escape reality by using heavy amounts of chemicals. People that drink to excess are the same thing I agree. All successful alcholic programs require the addict to admit they are addicted and have a serious problem, only by admitting the problem can a person get past that problem, and even then most will struggle their entire life. No, the last 12 years of working with my local Guardian Ad Litem chapter and seeing parents who have an ounce of pot in the home and no food for the kids has jaded me a tad I am sure but all of my opinions are based on my own observations and research, I never take a possition on anything without fully researching all sides. I see no benefit to society to have more legal ways to scramble your brains, we already have booze and that causes enough deaths and mayhem as far as I am concerned. Let me close with a story: A good friend of mine worked as a firefighter for over ten years and one day his supervisor smelled pot on him and had him take a piss test. He tested positive for pot and was fired. He had a difficult time finding another good paying job and his wife got tired of waiting and took off with the kids. Several of us tried helping him some but obviously he made his bed and had to figure out how to sleep in it. He ended up living with me a few months, during that time he would go for walks, I live out in the country so it is no big deal but one night I busted him smoking pot in my back field under a pecan tree. After pot had led to losing his job and his family, he still smoked pot, and had it in my home on top of that. I told him there he either enrolled in a drug abuse program or he needed to leave my home. He refused to admit he had a problem, he even said "It's just pot" similar to what you are saying. He decided to leave instead of getting help. Pot is not harmless.

So all laws are just assholes making rules to impose on others right? If we don't have standards, we don't have a society. There are clear statistics that prove impared people have more accidents than non impared people, ignoring facts just to make you feel better about your weaknesses is just silly. Nope, just facts, again it is even common sence that people that are severely messed up are more likely to have accidnets of all sorts and if other people are around at the time, then that puts other people at risk. You are trying to mix apples and oranges, sure there are risks in all areas of life but adding severe chemical induced imparement to the mix changes things completely. And you are trying to make the decision to get stoned sound like deciding to drink a coke or pepsi and that is wrong. If you make the decision that you wish to alter your state of mind through the use of illegal substances, then yes you are being selfish to an extent but people are selfish all the time, what makes this situation immoral is when you put other people at risk while you are being selfish. If you are bombed out of your mind, how will you know if they are in danger? That is the problem, any loss of mental ability or attention will put the kids into harms way. Yep, just like crack smokers like it and heroin users like it, everyone uses illegal drugs because they like it, why would they do it if they hated it? Reality. So you agree there are a lot of people getting stoned out there, very disturbing that so many people can't stand their lives so much that they must turn to mind altering substances to cope with their existance. Sounds like this is a mental health issue more than anything else.

Are you kidding me? What person does not consider their own morals are right and should be the basis of rules and guidelines? Laws are nothing more than written morals where many people agreed that they are important and need to be the basis of their society. But in most studies, it has been peer pressure, a desire to fit in that keep people that may want to leave from being able to leave. No matter how you slice it, getting severely stoned can harm other people and your personal choice ends where it involves other people. You are removing their right to be safe from impared people so your choice is immoral from that point of view. Again, let me say if you are isolated from other people, then it can become a personal choice, but as long as other people are around you, you are effecting other people and there is no way to twist that into being right. I base all of my opinions on the responsibility standard, if you directly impare yourself, you are responsible for that imparement and all possible results of that imparement. If you already decided to kill your wife but stopped to get high, clearly the getting stoned was the most importent thing in the event, you did that first, that means it was a factor. I already covered the peer pressure reason why most cannot leave so lets also see that I am not speaking of what is legal, I am talking of what is moral. It is immoral to effect others with your choices, that is where you go beyond a personal choice. Putting other people at risk just because you want to get wasted is wrong. Yes, if you should be taking care of children and neglect your responsibility to get stoned you should be severely punnished, here is why. I have three kids myself, to be a good parent, you need to be aware of every noise and action of your kids because the second you drop your awareness, is when they will get into things they are not supposed to get into, or do things that you would have put an end to if you had been watching them properlly. Just last weekend, my children thought it a good idea to stack several items up on and they intended to climb up on top of their structure, I stopped that from happening. If I was stoned on the couch watching football and not paying attention to my kids, they would have gotten hurt. There are indirect ways to also have a direct connection to blame, such as being stoned reduces your ability to properly supervise children and keep them from harm. Thanks It is common knowledge, if you are blinding yourself just because you don't want to interrupt your need to get stoned there is not much I can say to change your mind, but your refusal to admit the truth does not make it less truthful. Please reread what I posted, I clearly said they are middle dealers, playing go between and making money for independant cells, not that Bin Laden was filling baggies, stop being silly. Oh yes, the country would be better off if we were all stoned, right....... Your wrong, all studies agree that pot drops your inhibitions, paranoia has nothing to do with inhibitions.

Calling people names is not humor to me but if you must..... You are taking my comment out of context, let me try and help you understand again. You said " I've been righteously ****ed up many times". My basis of calling this kind of activity immoral is allowing yourself to get this far gone under the influence of any drug could possibly harm other people and driving is not the only way you can harm others when you are that impared. I would say that smoking a tater with friends in a casual way would be similar to drinking a couple beers but it is when a person crosses the line and abuses the substance by getting "wasted" they are now putting other people in harms way for many possible problems. My point about most people not using drugs was based on "illegel" drugs. Most people do not use illegal drugs. I was pointing out that an impared person can cause harm to others that is based on their being impared. Yes, because you made two bad decisions, you got stoned and your being stoned led to your crime. Pot is well known for dropping a persons inhibitions so it would be easier for a stoned man to cross a line like that then a sobor man. Terrorists have been proven to be middle line drug dealers in all drugs, including pot. It is considered the new and best way for cells to finance their operations with all the new restrictions to wired money.

I don't see where personal attacks are needed. I was commenting on your admission: "I've been righteously ****ed up many times" and I was pointing out if you are getting that wasted, then you could possibly be a danger to other people because you are not on an island, your decisions effect others. On a public forum, we can only discuss things on a general scale. Any decision that can effect other people in a negative way is immoral. I make no distinction between those that drink to excess or those that do drugs to alter their mind and impare their judgement. Most people do not do drugs for recreational purposes, that is something only druggies claim. I always attempt to be very clear on my comments, that is why I gave the example of a stoned person falling on someone else to show how a drugged person can effect other people with their "personal choice". We won't even talk about impared driving killing people all over the world because that is the next level. You would need to be in the middle of nowhere, all by yourself or maybe in a closed room without the ability to get out for drug abuse to be a "personal choice" not to mention that most illegal drug trade goes to financing things like terrorists so there is another reason to be against illegal drugs.

But it does not "work" if all you are doing is masking your problems with getting stoned. That is an escape, not dealing with your problems. Yep, those people that go to school for at least 8 years and sometimes more to be able to understand (as much as possible) the complex body and make a decision on what medications you need based on both their education and tests that are performed on the patient. Nice rant against companies like this but it really has nothing to do with the discussion we are having. This discussion was about how drugs like pot can lead tword other people getting hurt, not just the person using drugs. So if highly trained doctors can make a mistake in prescribing certain medications for a patients problem, then obviously an untrained person is more likely to make mistakes if they are self-medicating. So being as we do not have the ability to seperate society into groups of those that can and those that cannot, we need to protect society by providing severe penalties to those that display they cannot right? And yet you were still stoned and even if you could decide to not drive, you were around other people and could have made other mistakes that could harm others. The very decision to get stoned so bad was an immoral choice so everything done after that point was tainted by that immoral decision. Anything could happen, just falling down and hitting someone else while drunk or stoned is a clear example of how getting stoned is not a personal choice. The woman was drugged, she more then likely would not have put this child into so much danger if she was not stoned and drunk so they are clearly related. He made a choice to have drugs in his possession, I have no sympathy for a drug user because all drug users put the rest of us in danger. Why would anyone have a "roach" in their car? Because he was smoking in his car, that means he gets stoned and drives, I hope he was put under the jail.

Those are issued by doctors, not rednecks or street dealers. I believe you hit on something there, see where you used the word PRESCRIBED"? Under the care of a doctor I will agree with your statement but self medicating is never a good idea. In each case of unbalanced chemistry, you need the proper chemicals to bring you back to a balanced point and adding the wrong chemicals will make your problems worse. That is why policies should be made to protect society from these foolish and inexperienced teens. The car crash alone raises all our insurance rates. It is not personal chioce when others are involved. In this story we have a dead child because of a "personal choice" and that is wrong. Hey, if you want to drive out to the middle of nowhere and get blasted on coke and pot then by all means, please do so but the second you do drugs around other people, then you are involving those other people and that is when it is wrong. If you smoke a blunt and drive, there is no way other drivers can know you are impared and dangerious to everyone on the road so it is wrong for you to do so. I am just as hard on drunk driving, I believe anyone busted drunk driving should never drive again, at least not without massive and extensive change being proven. Point being is if your "personal choice" has even the most remote chance of harming other people, then it is not a "personal choice". But the one to make that decision cannot be the person themself because there is not one person in the world that will be that honest with themselves. That is why the penalties should be higher for crimes involving intoxication. I have supported making drugs legal but having a massive multiplier to crimes where there is any drugs involved. For example, this story involves a person being intoxicated by two types of drugs and clearly cannot control herself, that person should not be in our society. As far as what crime she should be charged with, how can this be any different than vehicle manslaughter? In vehicle manslaughter, the principle is you failed to maintain control of something you had a responsibility to control and she was also responsible for keeping the child safe so she failed proper care on two fronts and manslaughter is the least she should be charged with and I would add extra time for getting high and drunk while she was caring for a child, something any person knows is not a good idea.

She claimed that her husband forced her to wear high heels and have "unnatural" sex but there was no evidence of abuse to back up anything she said. Every scrap of evidence pointed at murder 1 (she shot her husband in the back with a shotgun) but she spent just days in jail, I just can't understand how the courts keep treating women so softly for things men would get the electric chair for. Hell, men get more time for failure to pay childsupport then this woman got for murder.

So killing the father of these children is not considered substantial harm to them? Should this mother have her children after she murdered their father? And is five months (including time she was in jail for the trial, she only served 67 days after she was found guilty) a resonable punnishment for shooting her husband in the back with a shotgun?

So "some" people shouldn't get high so the reverse of that statement is some people "should" get high?????? Really? Altering your brain chemistry is never a good idea and that includes alcohol but I responded about pot because it is a popular myth among teens that pot is harmless, and it is not harmless. Even the teens can admit alcohol is harmful in some ways. Even if we subscribe to your idea that "some" people shouldn't get high, how do we determine who these people are? Is there a test of some sort we can administer? Is there a genetic marker we can look for? Can we find a way to seperate those that can and those that can't? I am new here so I don't know about how strict it is about going off topic. Is this okay or should the topic be split?

On a boat far enough out to sea to have nothing on the horizon but water.

Nope, I tried to join the old WPYO but never got the ability to join and know about the stands on issues by the members. I was commenting on the general myth that smoking pot has no harmful effects. Obviously it effects things like judgement and here we see another example of that fact.

But smoking pot has no negative effects right?????????????

I believe in God but not in the traditional way most do. I believe God made everything including man and man made religion. As a creation of man, religion is doomed to mistakes and even exagerations but even a tabloid story has some elements of truth. I believe the best point the example gives us is that all things have a beginning under normal scientific study but sooner or later, if you follow every line or thread of thought backwards, you must one day come to a beginning that cannot be explained under scientific principles. Where did the "beginning of the beginning" come from for example.

I see nothing wrong with treating people the way they "need" to be treated. In this case, we have a guy who calls himself a pedafile, what more reason do we need to keep him away from our children? This is one very good example to show the decline of morals in our modern society. We have people fighting for the rights of scum like this and refuse to act in protecting the innocent. Will the ACLU say they are sorry if this guy is able to attack a little girl with their assistance? I think not.

Don't get your hopes up too high fellas, my Gators are still the ones to beat, forget the rest :)

Well, I completely agree, we have a prosecutor that has done considerable damage to these innocent young men and could have sent them all to prison but his punnishment seems very light to me compared to the harm his actions could have caused on top of what it really caused.

Great example, it is completely natural for people to gather in groups they feel more accepted in. If we could treat everyone as equal, where would we set the bar? Who is the example of zero to base the measurement of less than equal or more than equal treatment? We are talking about an impossible standard.

Thanks, things look to be shaping up nicely.