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How did this happen? I just found out today that Anheuser-Busch has stopped production of Tilt. What a tragedy! This fine American product didn’t flop because people don’t like their product, oh no, they went under because a wave of babies used their lawyers to threaten them to stop production.

Armed with only weak statistics funded by partisan organizations (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse, Alcoholism and the Marin Institute), these no-life-crybabies were able to get Busch fold on its product. Now jointogether.org is turning its baby head towards Miller Brewing Company.  They are trying to use a grass roots campaign to force Miller Brewing Company to stop making Sparks.

Where should I even start with this one?  How about the fact that even the partisan reports are completely inconclusive, if not downright laughable. The two studies touted here seem to be the best arguments that money can buy, and even they are weak.  Lets look at the one by Wake Forest University.  They show a correlation between drinking caffeinated beverages and increased injuries. That’s right - a correlation, not causation. This while their summary admits “Greek society member[s]… [are] significantly more likely to consume alcohol mixed with energy drinks.”  Why not draw a the correlation between “Greek society” and alcohol abuse then? Why not show a correlation between inexperienced young drinkers and injuries? Why must your report imply that caffeine + alcohol = bad?  Oh yeah - because you were bought and paid for by a partisan organization.  Way to whore yourself out Wake Forest.

Next is this partisan piece of crap excuse for a scientific study that admits on page two that it can’t even be shown that caffeinated alcoholic drinks are necessarily bad for you.  The best they can come up with is “health researchers agree that caffeine consumption can have adverse health consequences, particularly at high doses”.  That’s it?  High doses of caffeine are bad for me?  Why are we focusing on Miller and Busch then?  Why not steer your angry mob towards Starbucks or Folgers?  If caffeine is bad then those bastards must be the devil incarnate!

Listen up you baby anti-alcohol organizations. If you want to get people to stop drinking alcopop, then convince us that it is bad for us.  You aren’t going to get caffiene off the market, and you aren’t going to get alcohol off the market.  People are going to continue to mix their own caffinated beverages with or without the relatively weaker caffeinated beers. The problem with drinking in the US isn’t that there is alcohol mixed with caffeine in some drinks.  The problem is that we don’t train people to consume alcohol in normal social settings.  Kids don’t get experienced with drinking until they are away from the safety and comfort of their homes. So yes, when exposed to a taboo altered state for the first time away from role models, kids do tend to hurt themselves.  Kids are going to get exposed eventually.  Instead of putting on blinders and blaming a particular drink, why not realize that other countries have different practices and better results than we do.  Why not get your baby heads out of the sand and start pushing an agenda that is show to be effective?  Don’t you have anything better to do with your boring lives then try to control the lives of others?  Jeez, have a Sparks - it may help.

Almost 100 people were arrested for dealing drugs at San Diego State University this week. My initial reaction: who the hell cares? I mean - who cares that the kids were selling drugs? Were they hurting you? No - not at all. These kids aren’t suspected of doing anything except selling something in a market where there is clearly a demand. They were about to become regular contributors to society and now they are going to be major drains. Why should we go to the trouble of putting these kids in jail for years?

But they preyed on innocent college kids! Preyed my ass! If Johnny Sophomore wants to take drugs at the big drugs party and he buys some from the local frat guy - is Johnny a victim? Absolutely not. There are no victims here: dealing drugs is truly a victimless crime.

There are victims! The investigation started because some kid died! Kids die at my alma mater almost every year from some form of alcohol overdose. Hell, a kid at my school died in a hazing incident when he was held in a running dryer. No one wants to ban alcohol or dryers! People do stupid things - especially when those things are new and exciting. I think it is terrible that someone overdosed, but unless he was held down and cocaine was funneled into his nose - he wasn’t a victim of the people who are being charged today. People make a personal decision to use drugs.

But these guys had guns! Yeah they had guns, they have to do business with gang members to get their goods! Most regular businesses don’t need guns because the police protect them. Drug dealers are just following the laws of supply and demand - not hurting anyone, but yet they are vilified and targeted by the government in our country. Shunned by the government, drug dealers have to protect themselves from the seedy elements that materialize when markets are forced underground. The fact that they had guns is irrelevant. It’s a bit scary, but it is irrelevant.

Ask yourself if you think drugs are bad. I know they are against the law, but ask yourself whether or not you truly think that they should be. More than 5% of people in the USA use some form of illegal drugs. Think about what that means - you encounter people EVERY DAY that use drugs. Do you care? Do they bother you? Do you think they should lose their jobs and become burdens of the state? If you even notice a junkie you probably have about the same level of reaction as when you encounter an alcoholic. Drugs in and of themselves do no harm except directly to the people who choose to take them. Now, I will allow that drug users sometimes commit crimes, but that pushes this discussion into the realm of real crime where there is a real victim.

If you keep your focus squarely on selling and taking drugs, I think that any rational person has to admit that dealing drugs is a victimless crime. If you are like most people and come to this same rational conclusion, why not ask your elected officials to quit wasting your money on drug enforcement? It only takes a few minutes, and if enough of us do it we might be able to let our cops focus on more important things. Also, when the topic of drugs comes up - don’t be shy about asking people’s opinions. You’ll find that most people don’t care about drug use, but they care about associated crime. Remember that prohibition brought gangs into alcohol distribution. This isn’t a matter of morales or wanting to use drugs yourself, but rather about saving our country from legislating itself into the toilet.

Thoughts? No registration necessary to comment.

I know that almost nobody will want to read this, but Congressman Miller keeps sending out worthless tattle tale emails instead of doing his job. I am also replying to his office email address, but I assume that whatever I send there gets junked fairly quickly… so just to insure that I’ll put a copy up here.  I have an opinion about most of the stuff coming out of his weak PR machine, but usually his content and my thought process are very much along the lines of the following:

Congressman Miller’s 22 June email:

In November 2006, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi assured the American people that she would make this the most honest, ethical, and open Congress in history and will give the American people the leadership they deserve. The leadership they deserve? Is that leadership a broken promise to the American people as the Democrats change the rules to allow earmarks to be stuffed into spending bills behind closed doors after the bill has passed the House.

Taxpayers work too hard for their paychecks to be frivolously spent by the federal government on the bridge to nowhere type of earmarks. With more than 32,000 earmarks turned into the Appropriations Committee, we can only imagine how many more earmarks were requested of Congress that were never submitted.

I believe in transparency of the process, of people taking responsibility for the requests they make. I would like to see not just a handful, but every member of Congress publish the appropriation requests that they made so that the taxpayers are made aware of how their tax dollars may be spent.

Members of Congress who choose to fund Trout Genome Mapping, the Please Touch Museum , Women’s World Soccer Cups, Rock n’ Roll museums, and other pork projects are choosing to put their political gains before the best interests of the American people. A true representative of the people will work tirelessly to cut the wasteful discretionary spending and reduce the deficit; thus strengthening the national economy and creating jobs. Americans are not taxed too little; Washington just spends entirely too much. The best way to get Congress to stop wasteful spending is to let those who earn it, keep it.

While the Democratic controlled Congress is going back on their pledge of openness and transparency, their underhanded attempts at passing pork-filled spending bills for the upcoming fiscal year must be stopped.

Now more than ever, Congress must work diligently to craft appropriation bills for the next fiscal year that not only enable us to carry out our missions abroad but also maintain and improve the lives of our citizens.

Either we tie the hands of Washington or it will tie the hands of our children and grandchildren. That is an easy choice for me to make. Now is the critical time for Congress to step up to the plate and do what is necessary to control earmarking that has gone awry. If not now then when? That’s what I think. What do you think? Email me at http://jeffmiller.house.gov.

My whiny response (22 June 2007):

Mr. Miller,

Once again you have sent me an email detailing the deplorable deeds of the Democrat Party. Once again you have written me in the role of “tattle tale” instead of “Congressman”. I know that the Democrats are using earmarks to fund pet projects, I also know that your own party has been known to fund a little pork (incidentally, most of the earmark examples you have mentioned - the bridge to nowhere, the Hard Rock Cafe Museum - were for Republican Controlled districts). You claim to seek transparency; but despite requests you haven’t made your own pet projects publicly available (your website would be a great place to do so).

Your email strikes me as a thinly veiled political tattling. I applaud you for acknowledging the obvious: earmarks are bad. Now, instead of whining about something most of the U.S. hates, how about writing some legislation banning the practice? A report on action you’ve taken: thats the kind of email I’d like to receive.

Respectfully,
Jim O’Loughlin

I recently moved away from NW Florida, but I still get email updates from Congressman Jeff Miller. Today I got the below message from him. It irked me, so the message below his is my open response to the gentleman.

From: “millernewsletter@mail.house.gov”
Subject: Miller Message - May 1, 2007

Last week, Army General David Petraeus personally briefed any interested Members of the House of Representatives and the Senate on current operations in Iraq . General Petraeus is responsible for all military forces in Iraq, and is implementing the new plan to secure Baghdad and the rest of the country. The brief was a Members only brief given at the highest possible security classification in order to give us better insight into what specifically is going on in Iraq.

Soon after giving the brief, the General prepared to return to Iraq . I am personally grateful he traveled to Washington from the war zone to discuss these important issues with myself and other elected officials.

Due to the classification of the material, I am not able to get into specifics but I would like to address some general issues about his brief and also discuss some troubling events that surrounded his trip from Iraq to Washington . The General was not biased in his assessment, but stated the facts. He also let the Congress know that the current surge will buy us time but is not the only solution.

I commend my nearly 220 colleagues who attended the brief, but I must express my strong disappointment and surprise at the Speaker of the House. It was widely reported that Nancy Pelosi initially declined to even meet with General Petraeus and that her office along with the Democratic leadership of the House Armed Services Committee, of which I am a Member also, initially declined to even allow the General to speak to the House of Representatives. They allegedly stated they were too busy.

It was only after intense public criticism due to the reported refusal to meet with the General that the House meeting was reluctantly scheduled by Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic allies. Adding insult to injury, Nancy Pelosi and her allies then scheduled a series of votes at the exact time General Petraeus was to be speaking to Members of Congress. Once again, only after public criticism and media attention did the scheduled votes mysteriously get suspended.

Our national security, our nation’s General Officers and our military are too valuable to be used for political gamesmanship. I understand that some in the opposing party believe their standing will continue to increase with every American killed in Iraq and therefore welcome continued chaos and in fact passed judgment on the brief General Petraeus gave before he gave it and in some cases, did not even attend. I will not support such a defeatist position and will continue to keep you informed of the facts as I know them.

My response:

Sir,

From your above email: “I… will continue to keep you informed of the facts as I know them.”

The only facts you have relayed here are that the democrats are playing political games, and that the rising death toll in Iraq is only buying us time. Well, what are we doing with this expensive time? I realize that we (your electorate) aren’t important enough to know the details, but is there progress being made? If everyone (including General Petraeus) thinks this war can not be won solely with the military, what do you propose we change about our strategy?

While I certainly don’t agree that bringing the troops home tomorrow is a good idea, I also don’t believe that Congress should hand an infinite number of blank checks to the Executive Branch. Your job is to provide oversight. You should be scrutinizing the President’s plans and spending. If you disagree with the Democrats, and you agree that the war cannot be won with the military alone, how do you propose we proceed?

You are whining about the Democrats playing political games, but what was your purpose in sending this message? You didn’t relay any novel information, so it seems to me that you are playing a political game of your own (the tattle tail game). The Democrats are doing their best to represent those who elected them. That is their job. You have the same job with constituents of a different mind, but instead of doing your job you have decided to “keep [us] informed of the facts as [you] know them.” If you want to keep me informed, become a journalist. If you want to represent us then keep us posted on what you are doing to represent us.

Respectfully,
James O’Loughlin