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[14 Dec 2008|08:14pm] |
I am already given to the power that rules my fate.
I cling to nothing, so I will have nothing to defend.
I have no thoughts, so I will see.
I fear nothing, so I will remember myself.
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| Hold onto your plants |
[19 Nov 2008|05:03pm] |
Watch out kiddies, it's only gonna get worse from here on out.
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Eric Holder : Wanted Return of Mandatory Minimums and Tougher Pot Penalties
By Jeralyn, Section Other Politics
Posted on Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 08:47:02 PM EST
Tags: Eric Holder, Mandatory Minimums, Marijuana Reform (all tags) Share This: Digg!
As U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C., Eric Holder sought to raise marijuana penalties and restore mandatory minimum penalties for drug crimes. From the Washington Times, December 5, 1996 (via Lexis.com):
Eric Holder yesterday said he will seek to make marijuana distribution in the District a felony and reinstate mandatory-minimum sentences for convicted drug dealers. Mr. Holder,...said the D.C. Council's vote a year ago to repeal mandatory minimums was "misguided," leading to a backlog in the court system. He also warned that the city is on the verge of an explosion in violence associated with the sale and use of marijuana.
[More....]
"The truth of the matter is that marijuana is a significant problem for the city," said Mr. Holder in an interview. "Crack cocaine still drives most of the violence in this city, but marijuana violence is increasing. We need to nip it in the bud."
His proposals have two thrusts: The first involves setting minimum sentences of 18 months for first-time convicted drug dealers, 36 months for the second time and 72 months for every conviction thereafter.
Mr. Holder would also make the penalty for distribution and possession with intent to distribute marijuana a felony, punishable with up to a five-year sentence. Currently, the crime is a misdemeanor, regardless of the quantity of the marijuana or if the buyer is a child, Mr. Holder said.
The Washington Post, 7/12/2000 (Via Lexis.com):
The D.C. Council voted yesterday to toughen the maximum penalties for the distribution of marijuana, making it a felony subject to a five-year prison term rather than a one-year misdemeanor....Eric H. Holder Jr. began pushing for tougher marijuana penalties in the District in 1996, when he was the U.S. attorney.
Eric Holder in his March 20000 weekly briefing as Deputy AG on the need to target drug users:
(available on Lexis.com):
....[T]he violence that we saw in the early '90s, the late '80s was fueled by the rise in sale of crack cocaine and the violence that was connected to it.
In Washington, D.C., where I was the U.S. attorney, we attributed about one-half of all the homicides to the drug trade, and I don't think that's atypical. I think that's probably a pretty consistent figure that you'd see around the country. So if we deal effectively with the drug problem and the sale of drugs, the use of drugs, we'll also have a positive impact on the violence problem.
QUESTION: The sale and use of drugs in the United States, where is it? Is it holding even, is it going up slightly, has it been decreased? What's the status? I ask you to draw from yesterday's report.
HOLDER: Well, I mean, I think that, you know, we've made some major inroads in the drug problem but we don't have -- I mean, if you think back there was a Time magazine article I remember on -- a cover story on cocaine and -- this was sometime back in the late '80s -- and at that point, I remember reading the article and the article seemed to indicate that, you know, it was drug[s] being used by the middle class and that there were not many consequences for that use. We obviously know that that is not true now.
We really have to concentrate on the hard-core drug users that continue to use drugs, continue to have negative impacts on the communities in which they live, and so we have to redouble our efforts I think in that regard.
QUESTION: Is consumption (OFF-MIKE)?
HOLDER: You know, I don't -- I think, as opposed to the late -- I don't -- it depends on the time frame. Certainly, I think, as opposed to the late '80s and the early '90s, I think consumption is down. But that's only one of the measures as to whether or not we're getting a handle on the drug problem.
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[05 Nov 2008|02:23pm] |
So how long before this charade crumbles and people see the true faces behind the masks?
Taking in bets now, a good "I told you so" before things go to crap feels pretty good.
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[30 Oct 2008|07:22pm] |
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.
-Bruce Lee
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[11 Oct 2008|06:31pm] |
You govern a kingdom by normal rules;
You fight a war by exceptional moves;
But you win the world by letting alone.
How do I know that this is so?
By what is within me!
The more taboo and inhibitions are in the world,
the poorer the people become.
The sharper the weapons people posses,
the greater confusion reigns in the realm.
The more clever and crafty the men,
the oftener strange things happen.
The more articulate the laws and ordinances,
the more robbers and thieves there are.
-- Tao Teh Ching ch. 57, Lao Tzu
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[10 Oct 2008|05:15pm] |
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Time to start learning another language it seems, I don't think Canada will be far enough away from this black hole.
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[08 Oct 2008|06:24pm] |
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And so castles made of sand melts into the sea, eventually
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[06 Oct 2008|05:38pm] |
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Individuality, now at the low price of $19.95
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[18 Sep 2008|01:14pm] |
It's so simple I almost don't believe it.
But I sure do love it.
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[17 Sep 2008|09:15am] |
I'll climb any mountain you throw at me
Because that is the only thing I truly have
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[15 Sep 2008|09:13pm] |
Change gets progressively quicker everyday
hitting me like bricks.
It's damn refreshing though.
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[09 Sep 2008|12:16am] |
Who knew creating races of horribly disfigured creatures could be so much fun!
Note: Spore is neat.
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[04 Sep 2008|04:54pm] |
Realizing now how much summer purged my head. Everything just seems so sweet and enjoyable, even nothing is a good time.
Plus campus is funny as fuck when you take the second to listen.
I'm gonna miss the warm weather.
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[25 Aug 2008|06:31pm] |
Shitty fucking day.
Also best day ever.
Extremes work best when side by side I guess.
Either way I've been blessed with a gift from nature, and I never thought I'd ever get this chance. I'm still in denial, but with high hopes.
Damn Irish luck, always working in funky fresh ways.
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[21 Aug 2008|08:44pm] |
Life has a funny way of falling into place when you give up any idea of control.
I guess there's something to be said about drunken master.
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| Saul Williams, Release |
[07 Jul 2008|12:43pm] |
Inner breathlessness, outer restlessness
By the time I caught up to freedom I was out of breath
Grandma asked me what I'm running for
I guess I'm out for the same thing the sun is sunning for
What mothers birth their youngens for
And some say Jesus coming for
For all I know the earth is spinning slow
Suns at half mast 'cause masses ain't aglow
On bended knee, prostrate before an altered tree
I've made the forest suit me
Tables and chairs
Papers and prayers
Matter versus spirit
A metal ladder
A wooden cross
A plastic bottle of water
A mandala encased in glass
A spirit encased in flesh
Sound from shaped hollows
The thickest of mucus released from heightened passion
A man that cries in his sleep
A truth that has gone out of fashion
A mode of expression
A paint splattered wall
A carton of cigarettes
A bouquet of corpses
A dying forest
A nurtured garden
A privatized prison
A candle with a broken wick
A puddle that reflects the sun
A piece of paper with my name on it
I'm surrounded
I surrender
All
All that I am I have been
All I have been has been a long time coming
I am becoming all that I am
The spittle that surrounds the mouth-piece of the flute
Unheard, yet felt
A gathered wetness
A quiet moisture
Sound trapped in a bubble
Released into wind
Wind fellows and land merchants
We are history's detergent
Water soluble, light particles, articles of cleansing breath
Articles amending death
These words are not tools of communication
They are shards of metal
Dropped from eight story windows
They are waterfalls and gas leaks
Aged thoughts rolled in tobacco leaf
The tools of a trade
Barbers barred, barred of barters
Catch phrases and misunderstandings
But they are not what I feel when I am alone
Surrounded by everything and nothing
And there isn't a word or phrase to be caught
A verse to be recited
A man to de-fill my being in those moments
I am blankness, the contained center of an "O"
The pyramidic containment of an "A"
I stand in the middle of all that I have learned
All that I have memorized
All that I've known by heart
Unable to reach any of it
There is no sadness
There is no bliss
It is a forgotten memory
A memorable escape route that only is found by not looking
There, in the spine of the dictionary the words are worthless
They are a mere weight pressing against my thoughtlessness
But then, who else can speak of thoughtlessness with such confidence
Who else has learned to sling these ancient ideas
like dead rats held by their tails
so as not to infect this newly oiled skin
I can think of nothing heavier than an airplane
I can think of no greater conglomerate of steel and metal
I can think of nothing less likely to fly
There are no wings more weighted
I too have felt a heaviness
The stare of man guessing at my being
Yes I am homeless
A homeless man making offerings to the after-future
Sculpting rubber tree forests out of worn tires and shoe soles
A nation unified in exhale
A cloud of smoke
A native pipe ceremony
All the gathered cigarette butts piled in heaps
Snow covered mountains
Lipsticks smeared and shriveled
Offerings to an afterworld
Tattoo guns and plastic wrappers
Broken zippers and dead eyed dolls
It's all overwhelming me, oak and elming me
I have seeded a forest of myself
Little books from tall trees
It matters not what this paper be made of
Give me notebooks made of human flesh
Dried on steel hooks and nooses
Make uses of use, uses of us
It's all overwhelming me, oak and elming me
I have seeded a forest of myself
Little books from tall trees
On bended knee
Prostrate before an altered tree
I've made the forest suit me
Tables and chairs
Papers and prayers
Matter vs. spirit, through meditation
I program my heart to beat breakbeats and hum basslines on exhalation
---
And with that, I'm out, peace all.
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