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Back in February, we detailed how record numbers of Americans — although certainly not yet a majority — support the idea of legalizing marijuana. It turns out that there may be a simple explanation for this: an ever-increasing fraction of Americans have used pot at some point in their lifetimes. The following chart details marijuana usage rates by age as determined from a 2007 survey conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration:

The peak time for pot usage occurs at or about age 20 — a period known to most of us as “college” — before declining fairly rapidly throughout one’s 20s and then plateauing from roughly age 30 through age 50.
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The castaway dog who swam SIX miles through shark-infested waters, then survived FOUR months on a desert island.
When Jan Griffith’s beloved dog, Sophie Tucker fell overboard from her family’s yacht she feared her pet had drowned.

But Sophie Tucker, a grey and black cattle dog, wasn’t going to give up that easily.

The determined pet swam six miles through ferocious shark-infested seas to an island, where she survived for more than four months by hunting wild goats for food.
Sophie

Sophie Tucker fell overboard in rough seas and swam through shark infested waters to safety

The extraordinary story of the castaway hound emerged today when Miss Griffith was reunited with her beloved pet.

‘I thought I’d never see her again, but she’s proved to be a dog who can really look after herself,’ said Miss Griffith.

Sophie Tucker, named after the American vaudeville comedian, fell overboard from the family’s yacht when they ran into bad weather off the Queensland coastal town of Mackay.

Miss Griffith and her friends searched the area, putting their own lives at risk in the rough seas, but there was no sign of Sophie Tucker.

Unknown to them, the dog swam towards remote St Bees Island, a quiet volcanic strip of land fringed with reefs.
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A cross between Vegas and Mississauga, Dubai is in danger of becoming a ruin-in-waiting.
DUBAI – If this really is a city and not some sheikh’s mad idea of what a metropolis should be, it’s a city despite itself.

Its vast wealth notwithstanding, the things that make Dubai liveable are those that happened when the planners weren’t looking. But life will out, even in a city built by oil-fuelled hubris.

To most, the image conjured up by Dubai is one of superlatives: This is the location of the world’s tallest tower (the Burj Dubai), the world’s most expensive hotel (the Burj Al Arab), the world’s richest horse race (the Dubai World Cup), the world’s … Well, you get the idea.

And not to be outdone, there’s the brand new The Tiger Woods Dubai, a golf course in the desert that requires four million gallons of water a day to stay green. This in a country built on sand.
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Dubai was meant to be a Middle-Eastern Shangri-La, a glittering monument to Arab enterprise and western capitalism. But as hard times arrive in the city state that rose from the desert sands, an uglier story is emerging. Johann Hari reports.
The wide, smiling face of Sheikh Mohammed – the absolute ruler of Dubai – beams down on his creation. His image is displayed on every other building, sandwiched between the more familiar corporate rictuses of Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders. This man has sold Dubai to the world as the city of One Thousand and One Arabian Lights, a Shangri-La in the Middle East insulated from the dust-storms blasting across the region. He dominates the Manhattan-manqué skyline, beaming out from row after row of glass pyramids and hotels smelted into the shape of piles of golden coins. And there he stands on the tallest building in the world – a skinny spike, jabbing farther into the sky than any other human construction in history.

But something has flickered in Sheikh Mohammed’s smile. The ubiquitous cranes have paused on the skyline, as if stuck in time. There are countless buildings half-finished, seemingly abandoned. In the swankiest new constructions – like the vast Atlantis hotel, a giant pink castle built in 1,000 days for $1.5bn on its own artificial island – where rainwater is leaking from the ceilings and the tiles are falling off the roof. This Neverland was built on the Never-Never – and now the cracks are beginning to show. Suddenly it looks less like Manhattan in the sun than Iceland in the desert.

Once the manic burst of building has stopped and the whirlwind has slowed, the secrets of Dubai are slowly seeping out. This is a city built from nothing in just a few wild decades on credit and ecocide, suppression and slavery. Dubai is a living metal metaphor for the neo-liberal globalised world that may be crashing – at last – into history.
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Really, is it ever possible to be too safe? Especially when it’s our children at stake?

Actually, yes. Especially when the rule or law intended to make us safe is so poorly thought-out that it either does nothing but suck up public money, or creates a ripple effect of unintended side effects. We’re talking about things like…
#5. Speed Limits

The Idea:

Speeding is a major cause behind many fatal accidents, so it must also be true that mandating lower speed limits will make us all safer, right? Like how after marijuana was made illegal, you could hardly find anybody smoking the stuff.

It was back in 1974 that the federal government passed the National Maximum Speed Limit Law in the USA, slowing America down to a creeping 55 miles per hour. The main reason behind the law was to lower gas consumption, but President Nixon promised us it would make our streets safer as well.

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