Hard work and drugs in America

Ryan Grim has just published This is Your Country on Drugs, and he has presented some of his main ideas at Huffpo.

[O]ur nation diverges sharply from the rest of the world in a few crucial ways. Americans work hard: 135 hours a year more than the average Briton, 240 hours more than the typical French worker, and 370 hours--that's nine weeks--more than the average German. We also play hard. A global survey released in 2008 found that Americans are more than twice as likely to smoke pot as Europeans. Forty-two percent of Americans had puffed at one point; percentages for citizens of various European nations were all under 20. We're also four times as likely to have done coke as Spaniards and roughly ten times more likely than the rest of Europe.

What is driving law enforcement regarding drug use. Grim's answer focuses on our ambivalence toward pleasure:

When pleasure is suspected, American drug use gets tricky, particularly when that high might do some real good, as in the case of medical marijuana.

Continue ReadingHard work and drugs in America

Employing your butt to save trees

Americans talk a good game when it comes to the environment, but most of us aren't willing to do much of anything at all. Are you willing to ride the bus, carpool, cut down on your consumption of meat, eat produce only in-season? No thanks," say most Americans. That's my personal experience, based on talking with numerous "concerned" citizens. Most people that I talk with tell me that they will make changes only when the "market" makes it worth their while. It's crazy, but that's the way it is. How about this option: Would you be willing to use one roll of recycled toilet paper per year if it would save 425,000 trees? Resoundingly, America has said "no thanks," according to Time Magazine:

[A] mainstream brand, Scott, started offering toilet paper made with 40% recycled fiber. Switching to such material could make a big difference: the NRDC estimates that if every household in the U.S. replaced just one 500-sheet roll of virgin-fiber TP a year with a roll made from 100% recycled paper, nearly 425,000 trees would be saved annually. . . Hence Greenpeace's four-year-long campaign to pressure paper companies . . . to stop cutting down virgin forests. . .

It's possible — but few Americans are doing it. Toilet paper containing 100% recycled fiber makes up less than 2% of the U.S. market, while sales of three-ply luxury brands like Cottonelle Ultra and Charmin Ultra Soft shot up 40% in 2008.

Considering that the average family uses about 20 rolls of toilet paper per month, NRDC's suggestion is not a laughing matter. Based on my conversations with lots of people, though, being responsible to the environment is truly a laughing matter for most Americans. They just don't get it, unless it affects their pocketbooks.

Continue ReadingEmploying your butt to save trees

Catholic Answers: don’t even lie in the same bed . . .

Is it OK for unmarried adults to lie in the same bed, even if they don't have sex. Quick answer: NO. That's the advice I got here, at the Chastity Q&A. It's a sexual catechism filled with all kinds of advice, such as how far you can go without committing a sin. Is foreplay wrong? Here's advice I had never before considered:

Perhaps the easiest way to find out if our actions conform to authentic love is to imagine God sitting on a nearby sofa watching us. If his presence would cause immediate shame or the desire to stop dead in our tracks, we need to ask ourselves why.

How creepy! Would a married couple have sex if God was sitting on a nearby sofa watching? And, BTW, isn't God supposedly omniscient? Aren't good Christians supposedly to always assume that God is on a nearby sofa? Is it OK for homosexuals to raise children? No:

The impact of a mother in her family is unrepeatable, and the same can be said of the father. Two moms don't make a dad, and two dads do not equal a mom. This is the way nature has designed it.

Oh, and don't bother using condoms, because they cause greater numbers of unplanned pregnancies:

The fact is, increased condom use by teens is associated with increased out-of-wedlock birth rates.”

You'll also learn that merely looking at women in swimming suits is akin to pornography and that "porn trains us to have mental polygamy." All of this advice was provided by spin-off ("Chastity") site linked to a Catholic website ("Catholic Answers") that provided so much Catholic esoterica that it left me disoriented in 20 minutes. Truly amazing that so many people are willing to discuss, as one example of many, the difference (if any) between the "holy spirit" and the "holy ghost." Here's another interesting question: Should rock music be allowed at church? Absolutely not, because "If you were before Christ being crucified on Calvary, truly there witnessing it, would you start up a rock band and clap and dance?" The argument seems to be that as Jesus was bleeding to death on the cross, he would rather have someone nearby playing solemn music on an organ. If you want to be more than simply a good Catholic, "Catholicy Answers" is clearly the site for you.

Continue ReadingCatholic Answers: don’t even lie in the same bed . . .

More ideas for comment policies

Dan Klarman recently referred me to Pharyngula's comment policies. That led me to Pharyngula's High Crimes and Misdemeanors. I think that we have many of these covered in DI's comment policy, but I do agree that all of these behaviors serve to hinder meaningful discussion. I anyone else has good comment policy ideas that they've seen elsewhere, let me know. I want to have free and open discussion, but I do want to keep the discussion moving and meaningful. Perhaps more important, let me know what you think about the comments of Karl, who submits comments to this site almost every day. How much access should have have to this site? Unrestrained? Severely edited? How would you handle Karl's many comments if you were administering this site? What is fair? How tired are you of Karl? Or do you see his points of view as a valuable foil that drives meaningful conversation? Here are Pharyngula's High Crimes and Misdemeanors:

Concern trolling A particularly annoying form of trolling in which someone falsely pretends to be offering advice to favor a position they do not endorse; a creationist who masquerades as someone concerned about the arguments for evolution as an excuse to make criticisms.

Godbotting Making an argument based only on the premise that your holy book is sufficient authority; citing lots of bible verses as if they were persuasive.

Insipidity A great crime. Being tedious, repetitive, and completely boring; putting the blogger to sleep by going on and on about the same thing all the time.

Morphing Changing pseudonyms to avoid killfiles.

Slagging Making only disparaging comments about a group; while some of this is understandable, if your only contribution is consistently "X is bad", even in threads that aren't about X, then you're simply slagging, not discussing.

Sockpuppetry Like morphing, but with a specific intent: creating multiple identities supporting a position to create a false impression of popularity

Spamming Using the comments to sell real estate, mortgage assessments, little blue pills, porn, or Russian mail-order brides. Spammers are not tolerated at all; they are expunged without comment.

Stupidity Some people will just stun you with the outrageous foolishness of their comments; those who seem to say nothing but stupid things get the axe.

Trolling Making comments intended only to disrupt a thread and incite flames and confusion.

Wanking Making self-congratulary comments intended only to give an impression of your importance or intelligence.

Continue ReadingMore ideas for comment policies

Song from Iran and other news

For the past few years, I've been receiving emails and attachments from a woman with close ties to Iran. Along with this Youtube she wrote the following:

Here is a song gifted to the new Iran emerging from the 2009 election by the one of the greatest musicians of present day Iran, Mohamad Reza Shajarian. And he rightly calls it "Iran, the land of hope.
She indicates that letters are circulating in Iran to weaken the grip of Mr. Ahmadinejad's government by doing the following:

o Refusing to give ads to the state run TV, and newspapers serving as the voice of the government. o Pulling out money invested in banks and financial institutions run by the government or by the revolutionary guards. o Refraining from contributing to the charity boxes scattered throughout towns all across the country. Protesting has become incredibly dangerous.

Continue ReadingSong from Iran and other news