Portland Trailblazers are an embarassment to sports

[JMK]

What a bunch of losers. I would not pay $1 for a courtside ticket to see these guys, unless I was able to throw golf balls at their heads.

Ruben Patterson gets picked up for raping his kids' Nanny to start things off.
Then Damon Stoudamire gets busted with over a pound of hippie lettuce in his house.
Then 2 weeks ago Stoudamire and Wallace get nailed for speeding WHILE smoking out their car after a game.


Now...Patterson gets busted for beating the crap out of his wife. What a bunch of gentlemen. Perfect rolemodels & perfect citizens.

:rolleyes

What a joke.

[Admiral Lebron]

Well...I might pay a buck. Depends on who they play. Although I don't follow NBA. Or like it.

[JMK]

Nope, not even a buck. Unless I get to hurl obsenities at them.

[JonathanLB]

I am disappointed by my team, and I think the character is severely lacking, but mainly I am concerned with their constant bad press and not a few specific incidents.

For instance, I believe that all drugs should be legal, and especially weed, which is probably the least harmful drug known to the history of man. There has never, not once, been a death known to be directly rated to marijuana. My psychology 101 book affirms this fact. There are 100,000 alcohol related deaths a year, ZERO marijuana deaths because it is not a dangerous drug. There is no proof whatsoever that it causes any brain damage either short term or long term, and I know from personal experience that it doesn't negatively affect the thought process. I have never been high, don't get me wrong, but my good friend Ben is high I swear half of the time and he's an engineering major, 19 credits, perfect grades -- smarter than I am! Well, smarter at that sorta stuff, by far. He does better when he smokes weed, I kid you not.

Anyway, they were not DRIVING, so if you read that, you read wrong. They were in the back seat of the car when they were caught going 84 on a 70, a road I've travelled at 100 miles an hour before actually. It's not a big deal, 84 is slow, nobody goes less than that on I-5 North to Seattle or I-5 South back to Portland. I go 80 most of the way between Portland and Corvallis but that's because the speed limit is 65, not 70 as it is up to Seattle. I also do not believe in speed limits. Nobody follows them, they are just another useless way to tax our civilians and make people worry about getting tickets instead of driving safely. I agree with having traffic regulations, like stop lights, signs, all that good stuff, but I do not agree with speed limits on interstate highways or state highways. Perhaps in residential zones, I think they are useful, and maybe on some rural roads, maybe, but on highways there is no proof that higher speeds cause more accidents. In fact, I'd argue they save on pollution because the cars are on the road less and people reach their destinations more quickly. It's not speed that kills, it's drowsiness, alcohol, that sorta thing. Stupidity, lol.

It's just as safe going 70 as it is going 85, as long as the roads aren't super wet. You're just going straight. 85 feels like you're not even moving.

Even though I think weed should be legal, I still think the Blazers need to get their act together and stop being so childish and immature. They are beyond the stage where they need to be doing weed in the car, my god. They should be at home in the privacy of their own houses.

Stoudamire was a victim of a Constitutional violation, though. Who cares if he had weed in his house? Not me, not anyone else should either. It's his house, he should be able to have whatever he wants in there, especially a naturally occuring substance. Second, they had no right to look through his house or even claim to have found anything when they were not given a warrant. That's just a blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution. Who is to say the cops didn't plant it? Who is to say a neighbor didn't plant it? It's just way too shaky to make any comments about whatsoever.

As I said, though, the Blazers are messed up. I want to see them ditch the entire team, replace them with some nice kids who graduated from college or something, and I don't care if they suck totally, at least they would be a positive force in the community. I'm just sick of overpaid Scottie Pippen, idiotic and dinky Stupidamire, and all of the rest of their crap. I like Bonzi Wells. Keep him and start over.

[JMK]

Yeah, in the eyes of the court, that stuff was illegally obtained, but c'mon man, that was his, and he's a total misfit. Good thing Raweed Wallace doesn't drink or he'd be one serious rage-aholic!

[JonathanLB]

Yeah, lol, true.

Well sure it was probably his, but I don't really care. I think any citizen has the right to control his/her own consciousness especially as long as it isn't affecting someone else's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What I see is the government preventing people's right to liberty and happiness because some people, like my friend Ben, happen to enjoy the effects of weed and should be allowed to do so peacefully. Ben only smokes in his own apartment and it sure doesn't affect anyone else. It makes you more peaceful, not more violent, ahem like some other drug I know *cough* alcohol *cough*.

If someone truly believes that weed should remain illegal, then they must believe that alcohol should also be illegal, otherwise they are a hypocrite. You can't support the banning of one drug that is harmless and support the use of another drug that is dangerous unless you are a nihilist or something.

[JMK]

I think the problem is that when people spark up they aren't just smoking weed. They're sucking down dozens of other things which DO have an effect. The marijuana itself may not do damage, but the other crap in it surely does.

[JonathanLB]

There is no "other crap" in weed, unless you bought it from a total retard. You can tell, unlike with other drugs. Take Cocaine, for instance, it is often cut with PHP, a totally useless drug that has negative side effects that are different from the actual cocaine, which is also bad! So you have two bad substances that are proven to cause harm.

With weed, it is just weed dude, like any other plant, it's cut with nothing, there is nothing else bad there, there is nothing whatsoever being mixed with it and if it was, you could tell because it looks like grass. You'd know if you saw grass and it had berries in it, for instance, LOL.

HOWEVER, you are right in one regard, which is that if you smoke marijuana every day, you are damaging your lungs to a high degree, so the marijuana is not damaging anything, but the smoke you are taking in is actually 4-5 times more harmful than filtered cigarette smoke. That means if you smoke 2 joints a day, you are smoking 10 cigs a day basically. It's one thing if you use weed in moderation like once a week you have one joint, and it isn't addictive, but if you are lighting up every day, you're going to be harming your lungs and that can cause lung cancer, so the marijuana is not to blame, but the way you took it into your system is. You could bake it into brownies, lol.

I seem to know way too much about weed but that's because Ben is a stoner, lol. He goes past moderation, IMO, he used to agree with me that moderation was good but now he lights up like 4 times a week I swear, maybe 5. I am not interested, personally, too much work to do and I just don't want to do it under the influence of anything at all, well except caffeine, keeps me focused sometimes to have an energy drink like Red Bull or Amp, hehe.

I don't even drink alcohol anymore much. I had a few beers last weekend, 5 total, but come on, that's nothing. It was social drinking, just a few beers a few nights, and did nothing. Otherwise, I simply don't have the time. Alcohol just dumbs you down and kills brain cells. I don't mind its effects, it can be nice, but not when I have a rigid schedule I'd like to maintain and it's just messing me up.

[JMK]

http://www.nida.nih.gov/MarijBroch/teenpg1-2.html


All forms of marijuana are mind-altering. In other words, they change how the brain works. They all contain THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol), the main active chemical in marijuana. They also contain more than 400 other chemicals. Marijuana's effects on the user depend on the strength or potency of the THC it contains.(5) THC potency of marijuana has increased since the 1970s but has been about the same since the mid-1980s.

Now what was that about having nothing in it? Or is this crap because it's biased information that is anti-marijuana? :rolleyes

;)

[Darth Viscera]

mmm....
Drugs'r bad, mmkay...

I have a very rigid POV when it comes to smoking. I've ditched friends before because I caught them smoking, and I never looked back. 99% of my extended family (menagerie is a better word) smokes, and it's very apparent because of the host of diseases they have, ranging from lung cancer to electroencephalographic impairment to Teeth Dun Fell Ought Syndrome (TDFOS).

[JMK]

I'm pretty bad too, but not quite that hardcore about it!

[Jedieb]

hippie lettuce
:lol

I don't smoke cigarettes or pot, but I don't think there's much difference between the two of them. Of course pot isn't healthy for you, but it's not the demon weed it's made out to be. What bothers me about the illegality of pot is the hypocrisy of it all. I've never smoked a joint, but I've had roommates who did. When someone's stoned they're relatively harmless. A pothead has never taken a swing at me, but more than one drunk has. If lawmakers wanted to go after a devastating drug they'd go after alcohol. Wait, they already tried that, it didn't work out to well did it?

If pot was legalized it wouldn't come anywhere near the death toll that cigarettes or alcohol rack up year after year. People are always going to need something to juice up their system, to quote Dennis Miller, "it's hardwired into our DNA." Me, I need caffeine via soda or I'm bouncing off a wall. I wouldn't care if they legalized pot. Do I want my kids smoking it? No, but I don't want them smoking cigarettes or drinking excessive amounts of alcohol either. Eventually, they have to make up their own minds. I just find it hypocritical for politicians to rail against the evils of pot when they've just gotten back from a 3-martini lunch.

Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. :smokin

[JonathanLB]

"Now what was that about having nothing in it? Or is this crap because it's biased information that is anti-marijuana?"

I'm not sure about that, but I wouldn't believe everything you read. When you are getting pure weed, it's just weed like what grows in the wild, there aren't any other chemicals in it besides naturally occuring ones. Weed is not dangerous, that is the underlying point, but smoking it frequently can lead to lung cancer, absolutely.

I'm not saying, "Hey drugs are good, go do drugs," no that's horrible. But I am telling you that my friend Ben gets high, he finishes a test before everyone else, comes back with a 99% and has set the curve. He literally functions better with a mild amount of marijuana (too much is not good) than he would normally because it increases your focus on a given thing (ever see stoners like stare at their hands and be all interested? haha that doesn't really happen... much, but the point of that anecdote is sorta true). I don't know how Ben does it, I really don't, alcohol dumbs you down. There is no argument about that, it makes you dumber and dumber the more you have, it's just the way it works, and I know that from experience many, many times, but not 1/10 as many as most college students. Weed doesn't make you dumber, though, in fact it just might increase your realm of thought and Ben argues it speeds up your thought process and actually allows you to have more thoughts in a shorter time period. He rambles like a stoner when he is, well, stoned, so we kid him that he is not thinking more at all he just thinks he is thinking more because he's stoned, but there is some truth to that.

What is interesting if these studies that you may or may not have read where researchers have found that THC binds to special THC receptors in the brain that are apparently designed to receive THC! There is ample evidence that marijuana, and THC, may even hold the cure to fighting cancer. Not in the way that stoners smoke weed and whatnot, but there is some evidence that THC has actual positive effects in the war on cancer and ironically enough, the U.S. government has banned the use of marijuana and it is therefore not widely studied, although far more studied than most drugs (ectasy, contrary to what you may have heard in the media, has not been studied hardly at all and NEARLY nothing is known about it -- supposedly it eats away at your brain and can cause permanent damage, and I'm not taking any chances, heck no, but so far there is not enough evidence to support that, so says my Psychology book too).

I have never been high so I really can't sit here and argue something like, "Weed makes you think better," I just know that when I'm talking to Ben, sometimes when he is high he says the stupidest stuff that just makes him sound retarded, and other times he brings up profound issues that literally most people wouldn't think of at all and even when he is high and talking to someone who isn't, me, I understand him totally and we end up having some amazing conversations. It definitely doesn't dumb you down in moderate quantities, but I don't precisely know what to make of its effects except that from my experience with Ben, his ability to focus is not at all disturbed by weed. Whether or not he is a very rare exception, I do not know and wouldn't be in a position to comment.

I find these drugs very fascinating, though, I mean illegal or not, I just think it's really an interesting topic and I wish we had a class here that went into the effects of drugs on the mind. They're rather incredible in the way they illuminate particular areas of brain function and how your consciousness works.

[Jedieb]

Am I the only one that thinks Jon is stoned right now? ;)

[JMK]

I don't think a stoned person would be able to type that long without going for a pizza or falling to sleep!

My brother tokes at least once a day, and when he's not working (ie weekend, vacation) at LEAST 3 times a day. Average per week is probably 10 joints, and that's being stingy. When he's stoned is basically the only time he ever talks to me, and usually the conversation revolves around his sudden love of Kubrick and Japanese Anime. :rolleyes

[Jedieb]

Damn JMK, it makes me sad to read that. My relationship with my sis strained at times (we once didn't talk to each other for almost 2 years) so I'm no expert on sibling relationships. Is he older or younger?

[JMK]

3 years younger. It's not a terrible relationship, he's never around (out smoking) and I work nights, so we don't see much of each other anyway. But that's what the talk revolves around. :\

[Jedieb]

I always wished I had a baby brother. Was it fun beating the crap out of him when you were kids? Beating up your sister is a hollow victory at best. >D

[JMK]

Beating him was always a blast! Taking on 5 of his dopey friends was even funner!

[JonathanLB]

Wow that is funny. Jesus that's a lot of smoking. Sounds like Ben here.

He went from occassional marijuana use, like once a month, to like two times a day ;)

Ok those 400 extra chemicals or whatnot, I asked Ben about that, basically they are just like what burns off when you smoke it, so for instance when you burn wood, even, you get certain chemicals that are released, well that is the same with weed. I'm not able to explain it like he did, but, eh, oh well.

Yeah when Ben is high he gets the munchies REAL BADLY, lol. It's hilarious. He told me today, "I have decided just not to eat when I'm not high because it doesn't taste as good."

[JediBoricua]

"I have decided just not to eat when I'm not high because it doesn't taste as good."

That has to be one of the funniest things I've heard all week!!! :lol


Anyway what scares me about pot is that it often leads to other drugs. I smoked pot once, and it seems I did something wrong because I felt the same way as before, but I have some friends that do it regularly. And some of those friends made the jump to coke, some got caught, one of them even went to jail for the night. On the other hand I've had college professors still hooked on the stuff and they seem pretty normal.

[JMK]

I'm not able to explain it like he did, but, eh, oh well. You mean you couldn't level with a stoner? NO. WAY. I could just imagine the conversation:
"Dude, what about the 400 other chemicals in your joint?"
"They're nothing! Where'd you hear that? Those 400 unnatural things are created when I combine fire and 100% pure weed. They're all harmless. Move along."

:lol

[Rmiao]

400 chemicals isn't that surprising. A lot of things have that many. I'd be more interested in which ones they were. Compared directly against each other, marijuana is certainly less dangerous than alcohol. True, pot users are more likely to use and get more exposure to truly dangerous drugs, but that's not its fault.

[JonathanLB]

Well Ben is a smart guy, he won't touch other drugs because either 1) not enough is really known about them (ectasy comes to mind; more research is needed) 2) he knows they are dangerous.

He is perfectly happy with weed, he wouldn't touch another drug because he already likes weed and he sees no reason for it.

Ok, lol...

I will admit something, but I can just see this coming back to haunt me like sometime later ;)

I tried smoking marijuana twice, and both times I had quite a bit, even more than Ben, and both times I felt absolutely nothing whatsoever. Not even the slightest change. So, it's true when I say I have never been high, but I have tried marijuana sorta I guess. It just did nothing for me, and I don't plan to try again because my curiosity has waned. That was like in September, I tried once because I was really curious just to see what it was like one time, and it did nothing and I tried again like in October (early Oct) and it again did nothing and my patience for it was gone by that time and I don't have much curiosity anymore because I just don't care.

[JMK]

I never cared. Just seemed like a waste of time to me.

[JonathanLB]

It is a waste of time. Drinking is like that too. Sometimes I'm like, "I kinda feel like a few beers now," and then I'm like, "Well... but that'll kind of ruin the rest of my night of work, so forget it."

[Lion El' Jonson]

:lol...resist the temptations, Jon...

I've got three friends on the swim team at my school. Each of them smokes pot twice a week or something, and they're perfectly normal. Then, we've got two other...well, people...that smoke cigarettes and drink that were on the team, one of which almost drowned today because his lungs are getting bad, and one of which was kicked off the team because he was failing half his classes.

I don't see what's wrong with pot. I don't smoke it because it'd be hard to hide from my parents, and because It seems like a waste of time.

[JonathanLB]

The sheer amount of work I do leaves very little room for drugs, alcohol, rock 'n roll, women, or social activities of any kind! ;) lol.

I talk to Ben a fair amount because we live in the same apartment basically, but besides that, my social life is talking to people online through AIM, mostly people I actually know in real life and see occassionally but just talk to more online, like Sean down in California now for Stanford or Bryan at OSU and I still don't see him much (first time Wednesday in 3 weeks, lol, and we're in the same class! We never go).

Anyway I added up the pages of reviews I did this term, just to give myself some idea how I was doing as far as my goals for writing and give myself a mark to beat for next term.

In ten weeks, or not quite ten weeks actually, I have written 215 pages of single-spaced text, or 85,000+ words! That is greater than the length of my entire first book and in just a ten week period! That plus being a full-time college student with 16 credits. Next term I have 17 credits and I'm hoping to write a book of 200 pages in length and write another 200 pages of reviews, so I'm trying to up the ante way further, but I think it is possible because I have four-day weekends every week.

At my pace, especially with the advantage of 15 weeks of summer a year, I should be able to write at least 1,000 pages of reviews per year! :D

[Sene Unty]

Well than good luck Jon. I hope you can do it and not snap....:D

[Lion El' Jonson]

....1000....pages...

*passes out*