Blast Pundit

Progressives and Ron Paul

2012-01-05T07:54:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I wonder whether or not the people who churn out articles like this understand what the office of president does or have ever taken a freshmen level poli sci class. Presidents aren't emperors and considering all the progressive whining about Obama being spineless, they should know how impotent the office can be when faced with congressional opposition. Presidents don't write legislation. They don't pass laws. They don't control the budget. Paul would need a complicit congress in order to pull off many of the policies the author finds objectionable. Instead of focusing on what he can and what he is likely to do (end the foreign adventurism, stand up for civil liberties and the rule of law, end our covert drone wars, and ending the war on medical marijuana), he ruminates on an endless barrage of issues wholly irrelevant to any realistic vision of how Paul would conduct himself in office.

Finally, he closes with an utterly delusional suggestion that progressives might be able to convince Obama to change his ways. Why would Obama move in your direction? Progressives have no leverage. Obama knows progressives have no where else to go and if a politician isn't afraid of losing electoral support, they've positively no reason to listen to you. Liberals have seemingly been unwilling to do anything other than anemically cry from the sidelines lest their team come up short. They're willing to excuse and enable absolutely egregious violations of principle because it's "their guy". It's never been so obvious than in this election cycle where so many progressives appear all too eager to pull the lever for a guy who has spent his first term shredding the remains of our civil liberties and blowing up people in third world countries. They're being played the same way Republicans played small government conservatives for the past three decades and wrap the whole thing up with piss-poor lesser-of-two-evils rationalizations. The whole scene is nothing short of pathetic.

The Media Admits It Hates Voters

2011-08-17T15:14:00.011-04:00

Jon Stewart had a brilliant piece about the media's deafening silence about Ron Paul's near victory in the Ames Straw Poll and the media establishment has responded by insisting that he's not getting coverage because he can't win. I seem to recall something about democracy requiring an informed electorate, not a celebrity soap opera. The only two Republican candidates who aren't excreting the same tired political hackery are being cut down by the media as unelectable and it's a deplorable dereliction of journalistic ethics.

There's more to politics than left/right partisan bickering and last I checked independents are the growth sector in American politics. Simply because a candidate may not pass the ceremonial partisan Republican/Democrat pandering contests does not mean their ideas do not resonate with the electorate. The reality is that Ron Paul and Gary Johnson split the partisan divide and have policy ideas that cut across a far wider swath of the American public than politicians in either party. Their mix of economic conservatism and liberalism on social issues and the national security state gives voice to not one but TWO disaffected portions of the electorate; economic conservatives who are sick of the Republican's two-faced approach to spending and liberals disappointed in Obama's war mongering and continued assault on civil liberties.

Instead of informing that portion of the electorate, the media would rather suck the partisan tit and perpetuate and exacerbate the influence of party faithful on general elections. If the increasing propensity of people to, in the very least, pay lip service to non-partisan thought by registering independent is an indication of anything, it's a sign that people are sick of the partisan bickering. Maybe we'd be better off with a conservative who irritates uptight socons or a liberal who aggravates business hatin' progressives. But no. The media pushes a choice between two slightly different flavors of partisan whore instead of exposing independent voters to independent thought.

More Spice Craziness

2010-02-22T05:51:00.002-05:00

A couple more stories about the upcoming explosion of the use of a legal marijuana alternative sometimes called spice or K2. One article makes clear that the product does not have any thc in it and has a very telling statement from an officer in Oaklahoma: "Anytime someone tries to alter their state of mind with a foreign source is a big concern to us"

Another article suggests that this marijuana substitute has "synthetic psychoactive substance found in designer drugs" and makes a connection to "Parkinson's Disease, migraine headaches, muscle wasting diseases, heart attacks, strokes, blood clots in the legs, severe rashes and even respiratory failure".

The coverage I've seen of this has been quite irresponsible and unscientific. One article says it's got twice as much THC as pot, other say it has no THC, some say it's a blend of herbs other say it's full on synthetic chemicals that can cause all manner of horrible illness and death. I'd say I'm surprised but hysteria is the norm when it comes to stuff like this.

Chocolate Replacing Coca?

2010-02-11T17:46:00.003-05:00

CNN has an article about cacao replacing coca as the crop of choice in northern Peru. They give credit for the change to crop substitution programs but I honestly doubt that the crop substitution program can account for the shift. Sure, government incentives may have played a role, but more importantly the market for high-end, gourmet chocolate may have expanded. The chief problem with the crop substitution programs has been that none of the licit crops are as valuable as coca. The other serious roadblock (literally) is the lack of infrastructure in the regions where coca is grown making it incredibly difficult to get perishable crops to market. It's important to note that one of the areas where cacao has been successful also has a factory where it is processed.

Hysteria, Insanity, Fuck-wittedness.

2010-02-11T05:24:00.004-05:00

As if the salvia madness weren't enough, here's some fresh drug induced lunacy courtesy of K2. I'd never heard of this stuff before reading the news story, but from what I've been able to find on the intertubes, it sounds like one of those herbal smoking blends you see advertised in High Times as offering a legal high and the Kansas legislature is apparently thinking about banning it. The real insanity is in how this is reported. State Rep. Ward Franz reportedly said that studies have shown some K2 to have twice as much THC as marijuana.

Of course, it may give you a buzz, but it sure as shit isn't marijuana. I know the complexities of American drug law are lost on some people, but just so you know Rep. Franz, if something is sold in a store, you can rest assured that it sure-as-shit doesn't have any THC in it. Those disgusting hemp lollipops probably have more THC in them than this K2 stuff and lord knows those have never gotten anyone high.

Finally...

2010-01-18T16:00:00.003-05:00

...a Cave game will be localized. Deathsmiles is being brought over by Aksys games this summer. I don't know that they could have picked a better game for it. While Mushihimesama Futari has the very easy and accessible Novice mode, Deathsmiles is reportedly fairly easy. Plus, it's a hori, which means no grumbling about how the game doesn't take up the whole screen and the sprites and enemies look great in HD. Bonus for us in the States, the Mega Black Label DLC will be included out of the box.

Deathsmiles Trailer

NYC Heroin Pamphlets

2010-01-05T18:55:00.003-05:00

So I guess New York City published an informational guide for heroin users that included instructions on how to inject the drug. Cue hysteria... The DEA has called it a "step by step instruction on how to inject a poison". First of all, it's not a poison, it's a drug, maaaaan, like aspirin. Outside of the states it is legally available to doctors. Is that what you would call a pamphlet that showed diabetes patients how to inject insulin? I don't see the cause for alarm. Honestly, what minor percentage of the money the state normally spends on throwing people in jail does the funding for this pamphlet make up? People should be glad to know that most of their goes money toward locking people up and giving the police lots of cool shit to use in investigations.

Cooks and Farmers

2009-12-13T09:04:00.004-05:00

I recently had a back and forth with one of the bloggers at HardcoreGaming101 over a blog post regarding Cave games. He wrote a followup post that further extrapolates on his problems with Cave ports and since it's 5:30 in the morning and I can't sleep, I figured I'd write a response.

Judging by the followup post, it still seems that that he hasn't played the Mushi Futari port. Cave has made strides in their last handful of games to appeal to more casual players and draw them into the genre and the port of Futari is incredibly well done in this regard. The Novice mode developed for the port is perfect for newcomers because it contains all of the stuff that make shooting games fun and none of what novice or casual players grumble about. Not only are the bullet patterns simplified and more sparse than in the other arcade modes, but the game is more generous with bombs and drops them automatically when the player runs into a bullet. What would normally result in a death in the arcade just means a loss of a bomb, which not only clears the screen of bullets but damages everything on screen. This results in a much more laid back and forgiving game and it means newcomers can focus on the shooting and dodging. Considering that my girlfriend who never plays video games, let alone scrolling shooters, was able to get to the end of the final stage on one credit and clear the game on the subsequent continue even the most inept shooting game player should be able to one credit clear Novice Original within a few tries. This represents a big step forward in opening up the genre to novice gamers.

The thrust of his argument is that there is no incentive for gamers who aren't interested in scoring to play the games for survival or a one credit clear because of the ability to credit feed and suggests that the incentives for playing are different at home than they are in the arcade. He's right on the former point because if your attitude toward games is one of "Beat it and put it on the shelf", credit feeding makes the games disposable. In the modern era where games are expected to be atleast several hours long, a game that allows a player to rip through it in a half hour without penalty, regardless of their skill level, is of course going to be scorned. But he's wrong that the incentives are different at home than at the arcade. Not only are there achievements, but the online leaderboards replicate the score competition of the arcade. His response is to simply ignore these aspects of the game out of a lack of interest and criticize Cave for not offering non-score players incentives.

But that's not how the games are designed. Not only are the games designed around the scoring and game mechanics, they're designed as arcade games. They're supposed to be brief. When I hear this complaint, I always think of this Mitch Hedberg joke about how Hollywood treats comics:

"When you're in Hollywood and you're a comedian, everybody wants you to do other things. All right, you're a stand-up comedian, can you write us a script? That's not fair. That's like if I worked hard to become a cook, and I'm a really good cook, they'd say, "OK, you're a cook. Can you farm?"

Cave are cooks he expects to farm. Several times he dismisses this response by suggesting that fans are setting up a strawman when they say people who have this attitude are missing the point. But what do you expect to hear when someone ignores what essentially is the heart of the game? If a reviewer wrote a negative review or a critical piece on Unreal Tournament 3 complaining that the game was shallow, repetitive and devoid of replay value because he wasn't interested in multiplayer, what do you think the response would be? The reviewer would be excoriated for ignoring the fact that the game is designed as a multiplayer game. Yet when a reviewer or writer ignores the heart of a shooting game's design, it's somehow fallacious to suggest their criticism isn't valid.

That's the important point to make to newcomers. You can't, and shouldn't, approach these games like you approach other modern genres. They're not designed in the same way and their goals for you aren't the same. People need to stop projecting on the games and criticizing them for what they aren't and take them for what they are. When you do that the games open up and become much more rewarding and offer a taste of old school gaming that is sorely lacking in modern gaming. Yes, they're short, but they're designed to be played in bursts. Most of us who play shooters for score and one credit clears aren't obsessive compulsive weeaboos who obsess over score. You don't need to be obsessive compulsive to play for score or for a one credit clear, you just have to be persistent. Playing a few credits a day or every couple of days is nothing when a single credit only lasts a few minutes and potentially will generally only last roughly a half hour when you can clear a game.

I think that's why so many of us have gravitated to the genre and why so many people respond to the criticisms that are regurgitated every time one is released on a console with "You just don't get it". I can only speak for myself but I have very little time to play games anymore and shooting games are perfect for people like me because I can get a credit or two in when I can and take it or leave it as I please. While I'm not anything special in terms of skill, I have been able to one credit clear a number of games and I've managed a few admirable scores. For example, I'm 9th on the Shmups forum hi score board for Armed Police Batrider's Normal course and that score certainly wasn't the result of obsessive play. It was the result of dropping a coin in my cab a few times every couple of days and just playing regularly. My total playtime was probably less than that of most modern RPGs and was spread out over the course of nearly 2 years. New players shouldn't be intimidated by their difficulty because you won't get frustrated if you maintain a casual attitude toward them and your skills will improve with regular play.

I'll conclude by stating the obvious and that is score oriented shooters aren't for everyone, even for self described hardcore gamers and people who consider themselves fans of shooters. Even if you like other games like R Type or Gradius, that doesn't mean you'll like or have any interest in Cave's games and there's nothing wrong with that. But I think the way forward for Cave is in Futari-style Novice modes for ports, along with tutorials that explain how the mechanics of the game work. Much like how the single player components of games like Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 are designed as skill building exercises to prep gamers for online play, Novice modes with tutorials should be used as skill building exercises to help beginners improve their play and develop knowledge of the game's mechanics and score system to introduce them to playing for score. Game journalists and reviewers need to stop evaluating these games to based on what they aren't and start judging them based on what they are.

Mushihimesama Futari ver. 1.5

2009-12-02T16:32:00.002-05:00

I just got my copy of the 360 port in the mail yesterday. My initial thoughts are that I want I want to buy one of those ludicrously huge HDTVs and build a wall mount for it just so I can turn it on its side and play this shit in tate. This is a gorgeous game. It's a shame no one really wants to do sprite based games anymore cause Konami or Capcom could create some fucking ridiculous hi res 2d for Castlevania or Mega Man but I digress...

The game itself is pretty good. I cleared all of the Novice modes and Arrange Original in one credit on the first try. Novice seems like a good gateway for people who don't play shooters to develop a grasp of them. Shooters, especially Raizing games, can be pretty obtuse in the tricks they want you to perform to score and the difficulty can be punishing. The patterns are obviously much more sparse than the arcade version, but the patterns are still fairly interesting and seem to perfectly ramp up in difficulty for a beginner to help understand the score system.

I'm enjoying scoring systems in both Original and Maniac. It's a great change of pace from the simplicity of Raiden IV and the complexity of Raiden Fighters Jet. The patterns are fun and varied, though Original is less Psikyo-ish than the first one. Seems that's mostly a product of it having a score system now. Maniac reminds me of ESP Galuda with the bullet canceling.

Bloodflowers from Shmups posted a youtube video of the game in all its HD glory. Have a look. Link

Indicators of Criminal Activity

2009-10-27T14:47:00.004-04:00

Police in Tucson seized over $140,000 in two traffic stops in two consecutive days. Both people have been charged with money laundering and in both instances the officers cite "indicators of criminal activity" as justification for the searches.

If you remember correctly, the police in Tenaha, TX used the threat of money laundering charges to get motorists to forfeit their money and property to the police. Unless the criminal code has changed, I don't see how simply carrying a large sum of cash is necessarily an indicator of criminal activity. I guess the attitude is "seize first, questions later".

Canadian Forfeiture Law

2009-10-06T10:33:00.002-04:00

Interesting op-ed from the Globe and Mail about Canadian forfeiture law. I'd be curious to see how the Canadians would respond to a not guilty finding in the criminal proceedings after all his assets had already been seized.

The New Hampshire Advantage at Work

2009-09-02T14:04:00.003-04:00

A Massachusetts lawmaker who voted for a sales tax hike that increased the sales tax and made alcohol subject to that same tax was popped outside of a New Hampshire state liquor store stocking up on booze. Bonus points for blaming the Republicans.

Seizures Down In Wake of Task Force Investigation

2009-08-23T11:16:00.002-04:00

A rule change enacted after a court investigation into spending of forfeiture money by an Indiana Drug Task Force is being blamed for a decline in task force funding and big drug busts as well as hurting law enforcement's ability to investigate drug dealers. The rule change in question requires the conclusion of criminal proceedings before forfeiture actions can be pursued on property and cash. In other words, someone has to be charged with a crime before their property can be seized.

I'd be really interested to see the wording of the new law as well as arrest statistics since its passage. The article notes that while the number of cases the task force has worked are down by a third since this time last year, the number of "small scale" arrests has doubled. This raises the obvious question of what deters use more; getting rid of dealers and cutting off the supply or by making more arrests of users and small scale dealers and increasing the chance a user will be caught. If it is the former, it weakens the argument for the continued criminalization of possession of small amounts of drugs to some extent.

Additionally, from what it sounds like, this particular rule change just makes it so that criminal proceedings must be completed before a forfeiture can take place. While more civil forfeitures may increase their budget, what purpose does a forfeiture or seizure without a criminal conviction serve? Though a house, car, boat or bank account may be seized, a criminal is still free. If forfeiture is cited by many as a very important tool in the drug war, but I fail to see how civil forfeiture, without a criminal conviction or plea, it effectuates the goals of drug enforcement other than increased funding for task forces.

Winning the War on Drugs

2009-01-16T16:58:00.004-05:00

Another blow was struck in the War on Drugs this past election day. Voters in Massachusetts overwhelming decided to get rid of criminal penalties for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, making Massachusetts the 12^th state to decriminalize small amounts of America’s favorite illicit drug. Though this is an important victory for reason in the drug debate, it represents only a baby step in what has to be done. We still have a lot of work to do if we intend to defeat those who would trample our freedoms and the constitution in a vain attempt to stop us from getting high.

First and foremost, we have to recognize the distinction between drug use and drug abuse. It might come as a shock to some of you, but not everyone who uses heroin is an addict. There is such thing as a responsible consumer of heroin. For some strange reason, we have come to ascribe mystical powers to these so called “hard drugs”. These drugs magically dethrone all reason and rational thought and turn all those who consume them in to mindless, drug addled zombies. The fact is the majority of people who use these drugs never get addicted. Heroin and cocaine addicts are the minority of heroin and cocaine users, just as alcoholics are a minority of alcohol consumers.

Second, we have to look beyond simple possession to the black markets that feed our nation’s demand for drugs. If one is willing to concede that drug use will never be completely eradicated, you accept that there will always be a market for criminal enterprises to fill. Since it is impossible for us to surveil every inch of land in source countries, or search every car, boat and shipping container than crosses our border, the only efficient top-down actions we can take to affect this trade is to legalize drugs in one manner or another. Any other action by the state amounts to pissing in the wind, a struggle to control something that cannot effectively be controlled without the installation of an enormous police state.

Finally, we have to recognize that heroin and cocaine represent the biggest threats to the stability of our allies in Colombia and Afghanistan. The production of these drugs is an important source of income for criminal organizations in Mexico and insurgent and terrorist organizations in the Andes and Central Asia. Intermediary steps into the market should be taken by actively purchasing opium poppies and coca plants from farmers in source countries for use in legal markets. Opium poppies could be purchased from Afghan farmers for the production of medicine and easing restrictions on coca would allow coca farmers in the Andes to sell coca to legitimate businesses for an expanded legal market.

Taking these intermediary steps to bring coca and opium farmers in to the legal market has to be done. I don’t think our current strategy of burning crops and raining weed killer from airplanes is doing much for our busted image in the international community. I for one would love to see an expanded market for coca tea and coca flavoring, which would hopefully increase the number of cheap rivals for Coca Cola. In addition to improving relations with farmers and the flavor of cheap cola, this would create legal, regulated channels for the purchasing, collection and processing of coca leaf and poppies. It would weaken the position of criminal and terrorist organizations in the black market and rural society.

Ultimately, we need to have a reasoned, dispassionate discussion on drug use. We cannot let drug war advocates muddy the waters with cliché cries of “For the children!” They need to accept that the average drug user is not a stoned drop out or a cracked out thief and that it is easier, smarter, and more economical to address the social costs of drug abuse as a public health issue than deal with the multinational web of crime, corruption and instability that results from the irrepressible, inevitable black market. The health of our nation, the stability of our allies, and the livelihoods of millions depends on it.

"Should we consider it?"

2009-01-15T12:31:00.005-05:00

I just went over to Change.org to throw a few more votes at the legalization of marijuana and saw a forum post entitled "The Nuclear Option: Should we consider it?", as in, should we consider as nuclear power a viable way to slowdown or stop global warming. My question is; why is this a question? Why do we screen our options? I see starving passengers of a snowbound jet crash turning down the most tender and succulent of human flesh because they don't like the taste. You may not like the taste of an idea, but they should never EVER be ruled out of a policy debate because of it. All ideas should be considered on their merits, not on trite political belly aching. When it comes to the health and welfare of our country, and indeed the health and welfare of all nations, it is simply irresponsible to do anything else.

The mayor of El Paso recently vetoed a city council measure (Link) suggesting that the federal government study drug legalization as a way of reducing the violence in crime-worn Juarez on the other side of the border. Juarez had 1,600 murders last year. To put that in to perspective, in 2007 Chicago had 598, which was the most in the US. I should also mention that the resolution passed unanimously and the it has been expressly stated that this is not an endorsement of legalization, rather they simply want it on the table for debate. Texas rep. Silvestre Reyes agreed with the veto and said that not only would it not have support in Washington but that "Legalizing the types of drugs that are being smuggled across the border is not an effective way to combat the violence in Mexico".

I ask you Rep. Reyes "How do you know?" Intellectually bankrupt politicians are WHY we don't know because they're too scared of what they may find. The Shafer report suggested the decriminalization of marijuana more than 35 years ago and was buried because Nixon didn't like what it had to say. These people don't care about the welfare of our country, let alone the people in Colombia, Mexico or Afghanistan. They're willing to write off something we've already seen the benefits of from the end of prohibition and dismiss the idea as irrelevant or irrational.

Neither do they pick up when they mash nonviolent crimes with violent crimes when they suggest criminals would just move to another avenue of crime, as if society and the international community would rather deal with the violent crime associated with the drug trade instead of the the mundane, non violent crimes of identity theft, money laundering or gambling. The opportunity to launder money would be reduced. How much money laundering activity is created by the prohibition on drugs? Though estimates are hard to make, it is safe to say that hundreds of billions of dollars would cease to need to be laundered when drug would be legalized, not to mention billions in tax dollars to be collected on those sales.

David Freddoso suggests (Link) that this migration of criminality is why legalizing drugs would not reduce the violence associated with the drug trade, and suggests crime may increase with the increase in drug use that would, in his mind, result from easier access. He suggests Drug War opponents gloss over these social costs but these social costs are exactly what the Drug War opponents are addressing. The social problems associated with drug abuse can't be actively tracked when you turn users into criminals and essentially force them off the grid. Likewise, his suggestion that you can't compare alcohol to drugs like cocaine or heroin is flawed, since it mismatches and conflates responsible users and drug abusers. Lord knows how many people have users crack, heroin, and crystal meth without becoming addicts or violent criminals. The people he holds up as examples of drug users are not representative of drug users as a whole, just as alcoholics are not representative of the "millions of responsible drinkers [who] enjoy without incident."

Legalization is something that has to be seriously considered, not dismissed without thinking twice. We can't afford not to look into all possible ways of addressing problems associated with the illicit drug trade, and that definitely includes the legalization of drugs for personal use. It's short sighted and ignorant to continue on, spending billions of dollars, locking up millions of individuals, without considering every alternative, whether you find it palatable or not.