Study: Legalizing Marijuana Reduces Traffic Deaths

. . . [L]egalizing pot reduced traffic deaths by a stunning 9%, and reduced beer consumption by 5%. . . Reducing alcohol consumption is not only positive because it reduces traffic deaths, but also because alcohol is far more dangerous and addicting than marijuana (which is neither).

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Religion Needs To Be Eradicated From Government

It’s disheartening, really. Pathetic, even, that a vast majority of United States citizens are blinded to how advanced we could be in the sciences, medicine, economic growth and foreign policy if religion were completely eradicated from government in all forms. . . Our children are dumbed-down by stubborn uber-religious teachers and administrators in our public schools who insist on “teaching the controversy” (read: lying to our kids)[. . .] The United States Government has no business invoking any god, gods, goddesses or anything else even remotely connected to religious belief. Our government is not in place to placate anyone’s religious beliefs, period. There should be no references to the religious beliefs of our politicians.

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Quote: PZ Myers

Paul Zachary “PZ” Myers (born March 9, 1957)
Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Minnesota Morris, Author of the Pharyngula Freethought Blog, Public Critic of Intelligent Design, and Outspoken Atheist

It seems to be an obligatory opinion of people who believe in mockable and ridiculous things that they will oppose mockery and ridicule. I’m afraid there is no magical exemption — there isn’t a set of stupid beliefs that you get to set on a pedestal and declare that no one can call them stupid. 

The Other Debt Crisis: Climate Debt

The climate crisis in Bolivia is not a headline or an abstraction – it is playing out in people’s lives in real time.

Melting glaciers are threatening the water supply of the country’s two biggest cities. Increasing droughts and floods are playing havoc with agriculture.

So it is no surprise that in climate negotiations, Bolivia is emerging as a leader in the global south – advancing both radical solutions and analysis that make rich countries distinctly nervous.

On this edition of Fault Lines, Avi Lewis travels to Bolivia to explore the country’s climate crusade from the inside.

It is the story of an emerging movement, based in the global south, raising questions about who owes what to whom in confronting the climate crisis.

And it is playing out in Bolivia’s epic landscape – from the tropical glaciers to the endless salt flats. A landscape that in normal times seems to mock the very idea that human beings can change the course of nature.

Watch video here . . .