Out-of-this-World Costume

I'm afraid I fail to see what's offensive here:

The "Illegal Alien Adult Costume," manufactured by Forum novelties, includes an orange jumpsuit, similar to prison garb, with "Illegal Alien" stamped in black across the chest; a space alien mask; and a fake Green Card. The "Illegal Alien Mask with Hat" also includes a space alien mask, this time with a dark handlebar mustache and a baseball cap.

Advice Request

As you should be able to see from semi-recent posts, I've still been reading a lot. I've come into a bit of a problem though, I keep getting recommendations for books that our libraries don't have. It's a little sad actually because some of them are fairly well known books and between Craig and I, we have access to the local library system as well as the university system so you'd think one of them would have what I want but, no. I can do interlibrary loan but only for a few books at a time and that can take up to 2 months.

I won't buy them outright because most of them are fiction and I hate to spend money and storage space on books I will probably only read once. I've been thinking about joining paperback swap but I'm still torn. Have any of you tried it? What did you think? I'm a little worried I don't have enough books to give out yet; I do a good job of purging so while we have a ton of books, I don't want to get rid of any of them. And what if everyone thinks the books I do have are lame and nobody requests them? Hmm...what to do, what to do?

Obama's Pot Plan

I'm all for Obama's plan to let states have their medical marijuana laws without federal interference. I'm for marijuana legalization, really, but this kind of change would have to happen incrementally, and this is a start (although I don't know that Obama's plans go this far).

The reasons I'm for this are:

• The drug war is expensive and hasn't worked,
• Marijuana really is no worse than alcohol or tobacco,
  
• Legalization might reduce drug trafficking (and violence) near our southern border,
• It could be a valuable crop for US farmers to grow, and
• We could tax the heck out of it.

The Cato Institute has some good info on the war on drugs.

This quote is kind of dumb:

"We cannot hope to eradicate the drug trade if we do not first address the cash cow for most drug trafficking organizations - marijuana," said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.

In 30 years, we've made little progress in eradicating the drug trade, and we won't, because if we stop drug production in one country or drug trafficking via one route, they'll just find another country and another route. I think if we let marijuana go, we will have more resources (money, time, jail cells) to devote to heroin and cocaine, which are harmful and nobody wants to legalize.

Note: this post has nothing to do with my personal recreational habits.

Mr. Obama Goes to College Station

President Obama was in town yesterday for an event on volunteerism with George H.W Bush. The event itself was by invite only, so the only students that were able to attend were "student leaders." But I was OK, because I didn't want to have to wait in line for 3 hours anyway.

In the afternoon, as I was working in my office, our career services guy came around and said there was going to be an informal leadership event with Bush 41 and Defense Secretary and former Aggie president Bob Gates. Going to events with 41 happens every so often around here. It was at the Corps of Cadets dining hall, which meant a bunch of them would be there, but I decided to attend despite that, with a number of classmates of mine.

We got to the dining hall, where we were feted with cookies and lemonade in faux fancy cups. We could see the Secret Service people making their preparations. But then, a gaggle of media showed up, elbowing and jockeying each other to get into position (they were actually quite aggressive). I thought that was odd, since Bush is always around, meaning it shouldn't be that big of a deal. Then a convoy with flashing lights pulled right up to the door of the dining hall, and Obama himself walked into the room, to the whoops of the assembled crowd.

Here's a story about the event, with video. He gave a short spiel honoring Bush and Gates, talked about public service, then went around the room shaking hands. I missed out on a handshake by about 6 feet or so. If I would have yelled "socialist!" or "you lie!" he totally would have heard me. It was a neat experience.

After this, I walked through the designated protest area. Although most protesters had dispersed, there were some remnants. I saw a lot of senior citizens walking back to their cars, signs in hand. I don't really think of old people as the protesting type, but I guess they are. There were also a lot of non-conservative protesters, like the Lyndon LaRouche people (they were the ones with the Obama/Hitler signs. Don't blame Republicans). There were also some signs about how the Federal Reserve is bad. As far as I can tell, the protesters took heed of the entire morning's worth of obnoxious Facebook admonitions imploring Aggies to not embarrass the University at these protests, so people should be happy about that.

Cats are So Weird

Zeeba found a new hangout spot.