Time just doesn't get it Their coverage of the marijuana legalization debate in Nevada now is pretty interesting, but Joel Stein makes one unforgivable mistake. He invokes Tupac's name in vain:

John Walters has traveled to fight an initiative that would legalize marijuana, he calls out his three sworn enemies as if he were Tupac Shakur. ... he ticks off their names and says, "These people use ignorance and their overwhelming amount of money to influence the electorate. You don't hide behind money and refuse to talk and hire underlings and not stand up and speak for yourself," he says. By the end of a similar speech at a drug-treatment center in Reno, he says, "Let's stop hiding. I'm here. Where are you?" The czar is bringing it on.

and again:

The marijuana legalizers, including the billionaires Walters vilifies, don't have much kinder things to say about him. In fact, for old rich men, they can sound a lot like Tupac .... "Mr. Walters is a pathetic drug-war soul who is defending a whole catalog of horrors he's indifferent to," Sperling says from his office in Phoenix, Ariz. "The government's drug-reform policy is driven by a Fundamentalist Christian sense of morality that sees any of these illegal substances used as evil."

Joel just doesn't understand. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen: I knew Tupac Shakur. Tupac Shakur was an artist I liked. Mr. Drug Czar, you're no Tupac Shakur. You see, Joel, THIS is Tupac:

First off, fuck your bitch and the click you claim West side when we ride come equipped with game You claim to be a player but I fucked your wife We bust on Bad Boy niggaz fucked for life Plus Puffy tryin ta see me weak hearts I rip Biggie Smallz and Junior M.A.F.I.A. some mark ass bitches We keep on comin' while we runnin for ya jewels steady gunnin, keep on bustin at the fools, you know the rules Little Ceaser, go ask ya homie how I leave ya cut your young ass up, leave you in pieces, now be deceased Lil Kim, don't fuck around with real G's Quick to snatch yo' ugly ass off tha street, so fuck peace I let them niggas know it's on for life So let the West side ride tonight hahahah Bad Boy murdered on wax, and killed Fuck wit' me and get ya caps peeled, you know ... see ...

Ahhhh....brings back the memories... PS - Long time readers may be befuddled, but I've always been pro-rap. I just don't like seeing rap scenes enacted in real life. As long as it stays on the CD (or in the movie, whatever), I have no problem with murder/drug use/etc. PSS - Tupac actually had a vocabulary. The above lyric should read "clique" rather than "click". If you missed it, it's right at the beginning, when Tupac first promises to murder all those "Bad Boy niggaz".