(Reuters) – A high-profile group of global leaders declared the “war on drugs” a failure on Thursday and urged governments to consider decriminalizing drugs in a bid to cut consumption and weaken the power of organized crime gangs

I have always believed this to be true. We need to decriminalize drug possession and make it taxed, and use that money to support rehab and education. Create a drug “food-like-pyramid” and get over the idea that drug-users are a-moral. It is patently false, and we need to make it safer. It is time to admit that prohibition NEVER works.

Read more: Original Document

Tags: Article, Believe, Criminal, Decriminalization, Decriminalizing Drugs, Drug Policy, Drug Users, Drug War, Drugs, Education, Global Leaders, Government, Health, idea, Media, Money, Never, Organized crime, Read, Rehab, Reuters, Routers, Season Two, Topic, United State, War, War On Drugs

By leading the Americans in his audience at TEDxPSU step by step through the thought process, sociologist Sam Richards sets an extraordinary challenge: can they understand — not approve of, but understand — the motivations of an Iraqi insurgent? And by extension, can anyone truly understand and empathize with another?

Sam Richards is a sociologist and award-winning teacher who has been inspiring undergraduate students at Penn State since 1990. Every semester, 725 students register for his Race and Ethnic Relations course, one of the most popular classes at Penn State and the largest of its kind in the country. Through his natural ability of seeing a subject from many angles, Richards encourages students to engage more fully with the world and to think for themselves — something he did not do until his third year in college. Because of his passion for challenging students to open their minds, an interviewer recently referred to him as “an alarm clock for eighteen-year-olds.”

His career began at the age of 24 when he was hired to teach a cybernetics course — just 15 minutes before the first class meeting. He remembers walking into the room without having had a moment to create a lesson plan and greeting his students, “Welcome to the course. I’m your instructor. And if you have no idea what cybernetics is, you’re not alone — because I don’t either.” This characteristic willingness to be playfully transparent in the classroom, along with a talent for making complex ideas understandable and relevant, is the foundation of his success as a teacher.

Richards is also the co-director of the World in Conversation Project at Penn State (www.worldinconversation.org), whose mission is to create a kind of dialogue about social and cultural issues that invites the unexamined, politically incorrect thoughts of participants to the surface so that those thoughts can be submitted to conscious exploration and inquiry. The conversation topics span a range of cultural issues — from U.S. race relations to gender to faith to international racism. This year, nearly 7,000 University Park students will participate in one of more than 1,300 of these unscripted conversations. Furthermore, the project also sponsors video dialogues between Penn State students and students at other universities around the world.

Tags: America, Conversation, Dialogue, Education, idea, Ideas, Insurgent, Kind, Man, Meeting, Nation, Pennsylvania State University, Political, Politics Of Iraq, Project, Sam Richards, Season Two, Social, Sociologist, State, Student, Ted, Tedxpsu, Thought, Thoughts, Topic, U.S., United States, University Park, War, YouTube

Here is a list of potential topics that we feel are fruitful and relevant to today’s society and each could stand on their own as a show topic  Please use these topics as a guild to choose from when filling out the form below.

• Censorship & Free Speech
• Abortion
• Addiction
• Advertising
• Animal Right
• Apathy
• Art & Saint Louis
• Artificial Intelligence
• Big Business
• Black Markets
• Catastrophe & Change
• CBT & REBT
• Children & Technology
• Class-ism
• Community
• Consumerism
• Cradle to Cradle
• Credit & Debt
• Design vs Utilitarianism
• Divorce
• Economics
• Education vs. Indoctrination
• Efficiency vs. Equity
• Enlightening
• Environmental Issues
• Ethics & Morality
• Euthanasia & Aging
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Extremism & Nationalism
• Food
• Free Trade
• Freedom of Information
• Genetics
• Globalism
• Governmental Roles
• Graphic Design
• Housing
• Human Enrichment
• Human Rights
• Human Trafficking
• Immigration
• Inspiration
• Intellectual Copyrights
• Internet Privacy
• Legalization vs. Prohibition
• Life & Loss
• Mainstream vs. Underground
• Marriage vs. Partnership
• Media & Politics
• Modern Culture Violence
• Modern Day Ritual
• Modern Gender Roles
• Modern Mythology
• Modern New Media
• Modern Publishing
• Money
• Movies & Theater
• Nano-technology
• Narcissism
• Nuclear Weapons
• Obesity
• Opinions vs. Facts
• Parenting
• Permaculture
• Pollution & Big Business
• Pornography
• Privacy
• Psycho-Pharmaceuticals
• Psychology of Design
• Racism
• Real Grass Roots Change
• Recycling
• Relationships & Marriage
• Relationships
• Relationships
• Religion & Government
• Religion vs. Spirituality
• Restorative Justice
• Sex & Media
• Sexism
• Slow Living
• Social Justice
• Social Media
• Social Obligation
• Social Responsibility
• Social Taboos
• Space Exploration
• Sports
• Stereotyping & Profiling
• Technology
• The Tipping Point
• True Altruism
• Truth
• Universal Health-care
• Urban Ecology
• Virtues of Selfishness
• VR vs. RW
• War
• What is a good life?

Tags: Abortion, Addiction, Advertising, Altruism, Animal, Animal Right, Apathy, Application, Art, Art & Saint Louis, Big Business, Black Markets, Business, Care, Catastrophe, CBT, Censorship, Change, Child, Children, Children & Technology, Class-Ism, Community, Consumerism, Copyrights, Cradle, Cradle To Cradle, Credit, Culture, Debt, Design, Design vs Utilitarianism, Details, Divorce, Economics, Education, Efficiency, Enlightening, Environment, Environmental, Environmental Issues, Equity, Ethics, Euthanasia, Evolutionary, Evolutionary Psychology, Extremism, Extremism & Nationalism, Facebook, Food, Form, Free, Freedom, Gender, Genetics, Globalism, Government, Government Media, Government Religion, Governmental, Graphic, Graphic Design, Grass, Grass Roots, Guest, Health, Housing, Human, Human Enrichment, Human Rights And Liberties, Human Trafficking, Immigration, Indoctrination, Information, Information, Inspiration, Intellectual, Intellectual Copyrights, Intelligence, Internet, Internet Privacy, Justice, Legalization, Legalization vs. Prohibition, Life, Life & Loss, Loss, Mainstream, Man, Markets, Marriage, Marriage Relationships, Marriage vs. Partnership, Media, Media & Politics, Media Economics, Modern, Money, Morality, Movies, Movies & Theater, Myspace, Mythology, Nano, Nano Technology, Narcissism, Nationalism, Nuclear, Obesity, Obligation, Opinion, Parenting, Partnership, Permaculture, Personal, Pharmaceuticals, Politics, Poll, Pollution, Pollution & Big Business, Pornography, Prohibition, Psycho, Psychology, Psychology of Design, Publishing, Questionnaire, Racism, Real Grass Roots Change, Rebt, Recycling, Relationships, Relationships & Marriage, Religion, Religion & Government, Request, Responsibility, Restorative, Restorative Justice, Rights, Ritual, Roles, Roots, Saint Louis, Self, Selfishness, Sex, Sex & Media, Sexism, Slow, Social, Social Media, Social Obligation, Social Responsibility, Social Sciences, Social Taboos, Society, Space, Speech, Spirituality, Stereotyping, Taboos, Teaching, Technology, Technology Class, Theater, Tipping, Today, Trade, Trade Freedom, Trafficking, True Altruism, Truth, Twitter, Underground, Universal, Universal Health Care, Urban Ecology, Utilitarianism, Violence, Virtues, War, Weapons

Long conflict can wreck a country, leaving behind poverty and chaos. But what’s the right way to help war-torn countries rebuild? At TED@State, Paul Collier explains the problems with current post-conflict aid plans, and suggests 3 ideas for a better approach.

Tags: Approach, Broken, Chaos, Conflict, Discussion, Ideas, Paul Collier, Poverty, Season One, State, Ted, Video, War, YouTube

Mancow reaffirmed that the practice was indeed torture and said that his “psychological state” going into the experiment was that he was “laughing at it. I was willing to prove, and ready to prove, that this was a joke, and I was wrong. It was horrific. It was instantaneous. And look, I felt the effects for two days.”

Tags: Bush, Cheney, Crime, Criminal, Experiment, Extra, Gitmo, Interview, Kieth, Mancow, Olbermann, Season One, Torture, Video, War, Waterboard, YouTube