Weekend Thread

Back up to Chicago again. In addition to Flashback Weekend Chicago Horror Convention on behalf of New Millennium Theatre Company


bullet image How Tanning Changes the Brain

People who frequently use tanning beds experience changes in brain activity during their tanning sessions that mimic the patterns of drug addiction, new research shows.

Scientists have suspected for some time that frequent exposure to ultraviolet radiation has the potential to become addictive, but the new research is the first to actually peer inside the brains of people as they lay in tanning beds.

No surprise. The real surprise is that people get bent out of shape because of getting “high” with drugs, when they do it all the time with things like chocolate, exercise, religious experiences, sex, and vacations.

[Thanks, Daniel]

bullet image Two views on drug policy

Mark Kleiman writes:

The BBC interviews me, and Joe Arpaio. At most one of us is making sense. See if you can figure out which one. […]

BBC “The World Today”

Um, well, I often disagree with Mark, and I haven’t even viewed this clip, but if I’ve got to make a choice between Mark and Joe Arpaio making sense, it’s a no-brainer – I’ll go with Kleiman.

[Thanks, Tom]

bullet image Swatting – new form of prank.

SWAT teams have become so widespread that people across the country (and even Canada.) are calling in false reports designed to elicit a SWAT raid–a practice known as “swatting.” Naturally, this is causing some distress among the SWAT teams who have been punked in such a manner, as UPI reports:

In Wyckoff, N.J., 40 members of a Bergen County Police Department SWAT team responded July 23 to a call from a man who said he had killed four people and taken several others hostage. After throwing tear gas through windows, the SWAT team members found only a cat.

While such pranks are dangerous, they’re probably also a natural response to the mass-produced SWAT raiding that goes on today, and should be a wake-up call to police agencies to do a little more research before busting down a door.

Might cut down on a whole bunch of these wrong-address raids as well (Of course, that would mean that they’d have to stop using SWAT 4 times a day and maybe just reserve it for situations that actually call for the use of militarized force).

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60 Responses to Weekend Thread

  1. Peter says:

    re kleiman/arpaio
    “At most one of us is making sense.”
    At most indeed.

  2. darkcycle says:

    Swatting. Nothing like a prank that stands a good chance of getting someone shot to hell. Great fun. Provoke a SWAT response and get you friends shot.
    Had a hell of a day today, so I’m probably cranky but someone needs to be smacked up side the head for thinking of this.

  3. Duncan20903 says:

    Choosing Mr. Kliemann over Sheriff Joe is akin to choosing Spiro Agnew over Richard Nixon, or Benito Mussolini over Adolph Hitler.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFVQdpigUrI

    “Talkin’ Green Beret New Yellow Hydraulic Banana Teeny Bopper Blues”


    I was reading the paper the very next day
    to see what Spiro Agnew had to say
    He said if you don’t dig the Ballad of The Green Berets
    Well to you there’s just one thing for me to say
    You must be one of those long haired, dope smoking, avatar reading, living in the common unwashed hippie Marxist

    I wrote him a letter. It said:

    “Dear Spiro, I dug it
    Had a good beat
    Easy to dance to
    I gave it a 73
    the same as your IQ”

    ~Jaimie Brockett

    File this one “the more things change, the more they stay the same” file.

  4. vickyvampire says:

    Yeah I guess some politician will ban tanning beds,its an election year any excuse to do something anything no matter how dumb.

    Yeah trying to explain the tanning bed high to I’ll steal Duncans fav wood the know-nothings would still get blank looks from them.

    I used to like Joe Arpaio that curmudgeon years ago thank God I had an Deep Epiphany I shudder when I think about it bad dream.

  5. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .
    A California Judge has issued a ruling that says that cannabis isn’t a plant.

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/08/11/state/n140855D60.DTL

    • darkcycle says:

      Jeezuz, Duncan. Somebody send that idiot judge a copy of “Hemp For Victory”, fast!
      Marijuana was never a crop. That’s akin to the judge declaring up to be down, or declaring that a peach is not a fruit.
      Amazing.

      • Duncan20903 says:

        It’s nothing new. Just another adherant to the Humpty Dumpty school of sophistry. I think being an adherant to that discipline is practically required (maybe is required) to be a Know Nothing prohibitionist. If a certain word is making your efforts as a sycophant of prohibition less effective, just redefine the word so it won’t get in your way. So far they’ve redefined the words “victim”, “addiction”, “medicine”, “freedom” and are in process of redefining “equal protection under the law,” so why not redefine “agriculture” to suit their self serving political agenda?

        What I’m wondering is if the business that he was ordering to shut down had actually registered with the State as an agricultural co-operative. If the state accepted such a filing it makes the ruling even more out of touch with reality. Yes, there are non-profit agricultural co-operatives under California law. You can’t look at the dairy case in most California grocery stores without seeing products produced by such businesses. I’ve never understood why it isn’t the primary choice of business organization for medicinal cannabis dispensaries in California.

  6. Servetus says:

    There they go with the ‘A’ word again.

    There is something else a tanning session does for people. It can give them an immediate Vitamin D boost of about 25,000 iu’s.

    Does that mean Vitamin D is addictive? Anything that gives us that warm, lovin’ feeling is likely to activate some of the same dopamine brain cells and pathways associated with addiction, while not necessarily causing an addiction. Addiction itself is usually genetic in origin. The addiction police would rather focus on the ‘addiction’ channels, while our much wiser human chemistry is merely looking for a quick fix of an essential vitamin.

    This example is why prohibitionists should be prohibited from going near, saying, or even contemplating doing anything—at all— when it might involve their pathetic understanding of human biology. Sadomoralist know-nothings of this type are simply the wrong people for the job.

    • darkcycle says:

      “That warm, loving feeling” IS dopamine. The feeling can’t activate the receptors, activating the receptors CAUSES the feeling.

      • Servetus says:

        What activates the dopamine receptors if not good feelings? I see your point, though. Oxytocin is another feel-good chemical released during hugging, touching, and orgasm. Maybe once all human feelings and interactions are criminalized, the feds will finally win their drug war. Or not.

      • darkcycle says:

        It’s released as part of a positive feedback loop. The initiator is the proper set of conditions. Certain neurotransmitters must be present as a condition of the release and the physical conditions of the body need to be right. Then, given the proper stimulation and feedback from the sensory system, dopamine can be released. Dopamine is only PART of the whole picture where “that lovin’ feelin’ is involved. There’s also a complex interplay between dopamine and other neurotransmitters, particularly serotonin and our own favorite neurotransmitter, Anandamide. Again, the dopamine release may not be sustained if the other conditions and neurotransmitters are not present in the right combinations (resulting in that “infatuated’ feeling that fades quickly leaving you wondering “What was I thinking?”).
        When one looks at the neurotransmitters and the brain, we should keep in mind that the body and brain are producing these chemicals in carefully balanced amounts all the time, and it’s not the addition of dopamine to the system that we feel, but the change in the balance in favor of one chemical or another. Also, different structure within the brain may or may not need to release dopamine for that “lovin’ feelin'” to be felt.
        There’s nothing simple about neuropharmacology. There’s almost no way to discuss it without oversimplifying it to the point of absurdity.
        Release (or inhibit the uptake of) Dopamine in the Pyramidal tracts (an ascending bundle of neurons in the back of the brain)and you’ll get alleviation of some symptoms of psychosis. If that happens in the structures surrounding the pyramidal tracts, you get spasms, loss of balance and ataxia.
        Neurotransmitters are some of the wackiest things we know of. If we understood them, we would be able to tailor drugs to do exactly what we want and mental illness would be virtually eliminated overnight. We’ll never get to that level of understanding. The system is just too damn complex.

  7. DdC says:

    “When looking for wit, wisdom, knowledge or intelligence in a newspaper, any newspaper, your only hope is the Letters column.”
    – Edward Abbey, “Hayduke Lives!”

    List of My Strange Addiction episodes
    Episode 3
    Name: Samantha
    Addiction: Tanning

    20-year-old Samantha tans up to three times a day in tanning beds, in addition to tanning outdoors slathered in vegetable oil.

    Crushing Butterflies Under Iron Boots by Peter Gorman
    The 10 Longest Prison Sentences Being Served in the USA for Cannabis
    Little is known about 58-year-old Vernon Cleve McElroy. In 1981 he was caught with 20 hemp stalks… The several convictions, coupled with McElroy’s earlier conviction that the state cannot identify, led to the life sentence. All of the crimes for which McElroy was sentenced occurred on the same day, during the same bust.

    Did hemp help Abraham Lincoln?
    When Abraham Lincoln – The Great Emancipator (Biography) Did hemp help Abraham Lincoln?, first strode onto the public stage in 1832 and stepped into American History, he was wearing a pair of hemp pants.

    “Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe of sweet hemp, and playing my Hohner harmonica.”
    – Abraham Lincoln
    (from a letter written by Lincoln during his presidency to the head of the Hohner Harmonica Company)

    New Drug Can Treat Almost Any Viral Infection By Killing the Body’s Infected Cells

    • darkcycle says:

      “Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe of sweet hemp, and playing my Hohner harmonica.”
      – Abraham Lincoln
      (from a letter written by Lincoln during his presidency to the head of the Hohner Harmonica Company)
      Ddc, a friendly word of caution: I’ve seen that quote before ascribed to Thomas Jefferson, and I even used it myself until I was called out on it in a thread some time back…I spent the better part of two days trying to attribute that quote, first to Jefferson, then to anyone…I couldn’t do it. That quote is suspect…

      • DdC says:

        The letter says it’s Lincoln. I’ve never heard of Jefferson even playing a harmonica. It stands as it is until I see different. The only quotes of Lincoln I’ve heard anything about are the prohibition one and the corporations so I add attributed to them. This seems pretty much an open and close case. There is also an Adams quote on the net that is only half of the actual quote about being better off with no religion, he ends it with something like but that would be impossible or something. The Sinclair Lewis quote about fascism and wrapping yourself in the flag holding a bible is suspect so I add attributed to it. The Lincoln harmonica quote has always been kosher as far as I’ve seen. There is another quote about Levi’s original jeans being made of hemp but there was supposedly a convenient fire that destroyed all the records. Maybe take a minute to actually read the site before making prohib assumptions. Of coarse the dung tzar would deny it. So with that said… although I believe the quote is real it doesn’t actually prove he wasn’t smoking tobacco in a pipe made of hemp. I’ve never heard of a pipe made of hemp. Maybe the stalks are hard enough. I’ve used corn cob pipes so that is feasible. Hemp was a staple and with American ingenuity I have no doubt all of the forefathers were avid stoners. But I do suspect Wishnia’s motives… No one doubts the racism and culturism as motives for prohibiting Ganja. But only a fool would disregard the end result of that action. If not intentional then they’re more idiotic than previously imagined. Same with booze leaving farmers without their own stills to produce ethanol as they had been. Oh btw prohibition will remove all of your competition but that has nothing to do with it. We just hate dem darkies. Yea right. Like a moneyslut would put anything above profits. Well it’s about time for my two favorite things. Sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe of sweet hemp, and playing my Hohner harmonica.”

        I found a great article on Abraham Lincoln on the National NORML blog written by George Rohrbacher, NORML Board member. Over the years I have read many stories and accounts of Lincoln, many of prior to his Presidency. One of my favorite quotes from Lincoln is “Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe of sweet hemp, and playing my Hohner harmonica.” – Abraham Lincoln (from a letter written by Lincoln during his presidency to the head of the Hohner Harmonica Company). Of course many are coming to realize what how important hemp was to our history. As our movement grows please take these stories, studies and information organizations have put together and waive them in front of the eyes of the people in your community, your elected officials.

        I am thankful to be part of the NORML crew and grateful Mr. Rohrbacher took the time to put this piece together, I hope you enjoy it also.

        American High Society

        12 Presidents Who Allegedly Smoked Weed
        “Some of my finest hours have been spent on the back of my veranda, smoking hemp and observing as far as the eye can see.” is something Jefferson supposedly said in 1781, according to the Internet. One source even said that Washington and Jefferson exchanged smoking blends as personal gifts.

      • Duncan20903 says:

        .
        .
        Say DC are you seem to be confusing historical figures. It was Lincoln who liked to get high and play the harmonica. TJ just sat on his porch drooling on himself when he got high. 😀

        I seem to recall verifying that the Lincoln quote was genuine. There was a lot of doubt that “sweet hemp” is cannabis with the admonition that Mr. Lincoln likely would have called cannabis “Indian hemp”. But he really did like to play the harmonica and some think he was hoping Hohner would send him one for free. (Ooops, further Googling reveals that it appears that Hohner didn’t import any harmonicas to the US until 1868, well after Mr. Lincoln quit playing the harmonica for good.)

        The alleged quote from Mr. Jefferson sitting on his veranda stoned is a fraud, no doubt. Well, unless it was some other Thomas Jefferson that liked getting stoned and sitting on his veranda. But it wasn’t the dead president.

        The most important consideration in determining the validity of these quotes to me was it just wasn’t commonplace to enjoy cannabis using smoking as the delivery method back in that day and age. See “The Hasheesh Eater” by Fitz Hugh Ludlow (1857) for details.
        http://www.lycaeum.org/nepenthes/Ludlow/THE/index.html

      • darkcycle says:

        Had an net exchange with Mitch Earleywine about this one. Looked and looked and looked…maybe it was because i was trying to attribute this one to Jefferson, but it’s sticky…
        Just a friendly warning. Working with a bad quote can blow you up. And I don’t like looking like a fool to a colleague and that’s exactly what happened. Don’t take my word for it, but proceed at your own risk.

      • DdC says:

        The most important consideration in determining the validity…

        Your hero Fitz Hugh Ludlow was Anslingers and Murphy’s mentor. * Linx

        I’ve already shown you that Fitz Hugh Ludlow became a vicious prohibitionist and once again you provide crap about the hashish eaters that is pure who knows what induced, attempted autobiographical fiction. Making up much of Anslingers and Murphy’s propaganda. Same with Nahas’. If you’re going to work for Calvina I think its only fair you get compensated. Stop smoking the burlap dude. Your diversive troll BS is getting very boring.

        Hemp in the New World
        Cannabis was probably first brought to America by Chinese explorers in prehistoric times. The earliest known evidence of the usage of cannabis dates back to the Mound Builders of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley. One such mound discovered was the Death Mask Mound of the Hopewell Mound Builders, built around 400 BCE in what is now Ohio. At this mound, hundreds of clay pipes were discovered containing cannabis residue. The pipes were wrapped in cloth made of hemp (Robinson, Great Book, 124).

        It is known that the Vikings used hemp to make the sails and riggings for their ships. Early Viking settlements dating back to around the end of the 1st millenium CE were probably cultivated with hemp. With crops established in both the Old and the New World, the Vikings were assured that they would have a steady supply of hemp for all their needs.

        When early colonists arrived in the New World, the plant that aided their transoceanic journey was one of the first crops to be planted. Cannabis was planted in Chile in 1545. It was planted in Canada in 1606, in Virginia in 1611 and in Massachusetts in 1630. (Frank and Rosenthal, 8)

        George Washington’s diary, writing on his cultivation of cannabis on his Mt. Vernon plantation: “May 12-13: Sowed hemp at muddy hole by swamp; August 7: Began to separate the male from the female—rather too late” (Goldberg).

        Other famous partakers of cannabis were Victor Hugo (author of Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame), Alexandre Dumas (author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo), DeTours and Gautier. These four created a club in Paris devoted to cannabis. Its name was Le Club Des Haschischins. (Herer, 64)

        * Le Club Des Haschischins 1844 to 1849

        American High Society

        * Turkish Hashish Parlors
        World Fairs and International Expositions from the 1860s through the early 1900s often featured a popular Turkish Hashish Smoking exposition and concession. Hashish smoking was entirely new for Americans; its effects came on much faster. However, smoking hashish was only about one-third as strong or long lasting as orally ingesting the cannabis extract medicines that even American children were regularly prescribed.

        At America’s giant 100-year 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, fair goers took their friends and family to partake (smoke) at the extremely popular Turkish Hashish Exposition, so as to “enhance” their fair experience.

        By 1883, similar hashish smoking parlors were legally open in every major American city, including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans, and so on.

        The Police Gazette estimated there were more than 500 hashish smoking parlors in New York City in the 1880s and it was estimated by the NYPD that there were still 500 or more hashish parlors in N.Y.C. in the 1920s—more of these parlors than there were “speakeasys” during the same 1920s alcohol prohibition period.

        * Perilous Play, by Louisa May Alcott
        * The Great Marijuana Hoax By Alan Ginsberg
        * The Fitz Hugh Ludlow Hypertext Collection
        * Cannabis Drug Use In 19th Century America
        * End the War on Freedom
        * Hashish
        * Reefer Madness Gallery

        * Marijuana: the law vs. 12 million people’ Oct 69

        “If a man wishes to rid himself of a feeling of unbearable oppression,
        he may have to take to Hashish.”
        ~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

        * Maple Sugar Hashish Candy
        Starting in the 1860s, the Ganja Wallah Hasheesh Candy Company made maple sugar hashish candy, which soon became one of the most popular treats in America. For 40 years, it was sold over the counter and advertised in newspapers, as well as being listed in the catalogs of Sears-Roebuck, as a totally harmless, delicious, and fun candy.

        The Emperor Wears No Clothes By Jack Herer
        * Cannabis Drug Use in 19th Century America

        Although by 1839, cannabis hemp products for fiber, paper, nautical use, lamp oil, food, etc., were possibly the largest agricultural and industrial businesses in America and, of course, throughout the world, the hundreds of medical uses of cannabis (known for thousands of years in the Orient and Middle East) were still almost entirely unknown in much of Western Europe and America because of the earlier Medieval Catholic Church’s suppression.

        * The Fitz Hugh Ludlow hypertext library
        Welcome to the Fitz Hugh Ludlow Hypertext Library, concentrating primarily on the life and works of Fitz Hugh Ludlow and on pre-prohibition (pre-1937) cannabis use in the United States, with a few other related topics thrown in for good measure.

        * Marihuana, The First Twelve Thousand Years
        Physician John Bell, in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal in 1857, said that “specimens of hashish that he had obtained from Damascus contained about 25 percent opium!”

        Fitz Hugh Ludlow was captivated by The Land of the Saracens. He was born in 1836, was profoundly influenced also by Confessions of an Opium Eater, and wrote his own book The Hasheesh Eater: Being Passages from the Life of a Pythagorean, which he published anonymous in 1857. He claimed to have become addicted to hasheesh, requiring the help of a physician to ween himself from it.

        * The Black Candle
        Chapter 23 – Marihuana: A New Menace
        By Judge Emily Murphy, 1922

        Sometime about the middle of the last century, a remarkable volume entitled The Hasheesh Eater was written by Fitz-Hugh Ludlow, an American author of great ability and high culture. He was born in the State of New York in 1836 and died of consumption in Switzerland in 1870. He was special correspondent to the New York dailies; wrote much magazine literature and edited Vanity Fair from 1858 to 1860.

        The effects of hasheesh, “this weed of madness,” being explained to him by a druggist, he was impelled by curiosity, and by a desire to record these effects scientifically to experiment with this narcotic, not only on himself but on his fellow students.

        * Fitz Hugh Ludlow, The Hasheesh Eater, 1857
        With a disregard to my own safety which would have done credit to Quintus Curtius? I made upon myself the trial of the effects of every strange drug and chemical which the laboratory could produce? until I had run through the whole gamut of queer agents within my reach.

        * Fitz Hugh Ludlow, The Hasheesh Eater, 1857
        Suspicion of all earthly things and persons was the characteristic of the hasheesh delirium.

        * Fitz Hugh Ludlow, The Hasheesh Eater, 1857
        ‘My God!’ I cried, ‘I am in eternity.’ In the presence of that sublime revelation of the soul’s own time, and her capacity for an infinite life, I stood trembling with breathless awe.

        * Fitz Hugh Ludlow, 1855
        Ha! what means this sudden thrill? A shock, as of some unimagined vital force, shoots without warning through my entire frame, leaping to my fingers’ ends, piercing my brain, startling me till I almost spring from my chair. I could not doubt it. I was in the power of the hasheesh influence.

        * Fitz Hugh Ludlow, “The Apocalypse of Hashish,” 1856
        In returning from the world of hasheesh, I bring with me many and diverse memories. The echoes of a sublime rapture which thrilled and vibrated on the very edge of pain; of Promethean agonies which wrapt the soul like a mantle of fire; of voluptuous delirium which suffused the body with a blush of exquisite languor – all are mine. But in value far exceeding these, is the remembrance of my spell-bound life as an apocalyptic experience.

        Cannabis lit
        * The Annotated Hasheesh Eater
        Edited and annotated by David Gross

        This CD-ROM is a hypertext edition of the 1857 original by Fitz Hugh Ludlow, and is annotated with over 500 notes and many illustrations. The annotations serve to clarify such things as obscure words, archaic measurements, forgotten social customs, quotations, ancient mythology, censored information, foreign phrases, and Biblical allusions.

        * Lester Grinspoon: defending medical marijuana
        A lot of the ideas about cannabis originated in the gaudy writings of the French Romantic literary movement, so I examined the cannabis-related writings of Gautier, Baudelaire, and other members of Le Club des Haschischins, as well as those of Bayard Taylor and Fitz Hugh Ludlow. I suspect that our first drug czar, Harry Anslinger, would have recognized some of his reefer madness ideas in these 19th century writers’ wild descriptions of the cannabis experience.

        * Fitz Hugh Ludlow cannabisculture
        He found the drug to be a boon to his creativity: “My pen glanced presently like lightning in the effort to keep neck and neck with my ideas,” he writes at one point, although, “at last, thought ran with such terrific speed that I could no longer write at all.”

        Although he later grew to think of cannabis as “the very witch-plant of hell, the weed of madness” and his involvement with it as unwise, “wherein I was wrong I was invited by a mother’s voice…. The motives for the hasheesh-indulgence were of the most exalted ideal nature, for of this nature are all its ecstasies and its revelations — yes, and a thousand-fold more terrible, for this very reason, its unutterable pangs.

        Hasheesh is indeed an accursed drug, and the soul at last pays a most bitter price for all its ecstasies…

        The Hasheesh Eater is an autobiographical book by Fitz Hugh Ludlow describing the author’s altered states of consciousness and philosophical flights of fancy while he was using a cannabis extract.
        wikipedia

        After two years of hashish use, the twenty-year-old Ludlow wrote a remarkable memoir called The Hasheesh Eater, which was published anonymously in 1857 and was devoted almost entirely to depicting, in the ornate prose of the era, the heavens and hells of drug use. In his mind Ludlow had voyaged through the universe; he had spoken to God, visited magical kingdoms; he had been attacked by devils with red-hot pitchforks. By the time he wrote the book, drugs had caused in him periods of suicidal depression, and the book was intended to discourage drug use, although it may have had the opposite effect.
        ~ High in America by Patrick Anderson Chapter 3
        The True Story Behind NORML and the Politics of Marijuana

  8. DdC says:

    Fatty Foods Can Trigger a Marijuana Effect, New Research Reports
    Have a hard time eating just a few potato chips? New research explains why. Fatty foods trigger the body to produce a natural feel-good chemical similar to the effect of marijuana, which encourages overeating, US researchers report July 4.

    “This is the first demonstration that endocannabinoid signaling in the gut plays an important role in regulating fat intake,” study researcher Daniele Piomelli, a professor of pharmacology at the University of California, Irvine, said in a statement.

    When I was young, they packed me off to school,
    And taught me how not to play the game. – Jethro Tull.

    Raw Milk Busts * Linx

    * Who cut the cheese?
    Police raid raw dairy producers in L.A., destroy inventory

    A yearlong sting operation involving a multitude of state and federal agencies brought to justice Wednesday a dangerous ring of raw dairy enthusiasts in California. Los Angeles police yesterday arrested a farmer, one of her employers and the owner of a raw foods store on criminal conspiracy charges stemming from their allegedly illegal production and sale of unpasteurized milk, cheese and other nefarious dairy products.

    * Raw milk dairy club raided (again)
    Knock three times at the cheese-easy: “A yearlong sting operation involving a multitude of state and federal agencies brought to justice Wednesday a dangerous ring of raw dairy enthusiasts in California.”

    FDA busts Pennsylvania gang selling dangerous, illegal white liquid to children
    A yearlong sting operation, including aliases, a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and surreptitious purchases from an Amish farm in Pennsylvania, culminated in the federal government announcing this week that it has gone to court to stop Rainbow Acres Farm from selling its contraband to willing customers in the Washington area.
    amish-dairy-cow

    The product in question: unpasteurized milk.

    “I look at this as the FDA is in cahoots with the large milk producers,” said Karin Edgett, a D.C. resident who buys directly from Rainbow Acres. “I don’t want the FDA and my tax dollars to go to shut down a farm that hasn’t had any complaints against it. They’re producing good food, and the consumers are extremely happy with it.”

    * 3 Wheeled Cheese
    All about Raw Milk, Raw Milk Cheese, Alternative sources of Energy & Tuk Tuk
    Twenty-eight states, including dairy-rich Pennsylvania, allow sales of raw milk within state borders. Farms in the Keystone State that sell this kind of milk are checked at least once a year. If bacteria is found, they are shut down until clean tests come back.

    This is not some contraband substance.

    The FDA tried to make an example with the Amish farm. Instead, it just looks like an example of government overreach.

    * Feds sting Amish farmer selling raw milk locally
    The FDA’s actions stand in contrast to other areas where the Obama administration has said it will take a hands-off approach to violations of the law, including the use of medical marijuana in states that have approved it, and illegal-immigrant students and youths, whom the administration said recently will not be targets of their enforcement efforts.

    Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity.
    — George Bernard Shaw.

    * Milk Sucks, or Bossie’s Revenge
    The amazingly successful and expensive advertising campaigns of the dairy industry not only got our mothers to feed us formula instead of breast milk, but seem to have convinced us that it is “natural” for people to drink cows’ milk. Nothing could be less natural. No species drinks milk beyond infancy and none consumes the milk of other species. –Neal Barnard, M.D.

    * MILK is Bad For You | MILK sucks!

    “There’s no reason to drink cow’s milk at any time in your life. It was designed for calves, not humans, and we should all stop drinking it today.”
    ~ Dr. Frank A. Oski
    Former Director of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University

    * The Dairy Industry
    Cows produce milk for the same reason that humans do: to nourish their young. In order to force the animals to continue giving milk, factory farm operators typically impregnate them using artificial insemination every year…

    After their calves are taken from them, mother cows are hooked up, several times a day, to milking machines. Using genetic manipulation, powerful hormones, and intensive milking, factory farmers force cows to produce about 10 times as much milk as they would naturally.

    The good news is that removing dairy products from your diet is easier than ever. Today there is a multitude of nondairy “dairy” products on the market, such as soy, rice, and almond milk and soy ice cream. Check out a list of our favorite dairy and meat alternatives.

    New Dairy-Free Milks Are Made From Hemp, Flax and Oats
    By Ellen Kanner, McClatchy Newspapers – Wednesday, August 3 2011

    You can’t get blood from a turnip, but these days you can get milk from all manner of plants. Soy, rice, nut and coconut milks are on store shelves, of course, plus a new wave made from flax, hemp and oats.

    Hemp seeds also boast Omega-3s. Check the nutrition label when sourcing hemp milk because calories and sugar content vary wildly. Living Harvest Tempt vanilla hemp milk (32 ounces, about $4) offers the best nutritional profile and tastes best, too, though with definite nutty undertones. It has 120 calories per 8-ounce serving, 6 fat grams, 135 milligrams sodium and 2 protein grams. It has more sugar and calories than thin, flat-tasting, pricier Hemp Dream (about $4.50, 32 ounces), and a third fewer calories and sugar than Pacific’s cloying vanilla hemp milk (about $4, 32 ounces).

    • Rick Steeb says:

      Thanks for the hot tip!

      http://www.amazon.com/Living-Harvest-Vanilla-32-Ounce-Containers/dp/B001HTRDVC/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1

      $36.12 a case is their subscription price. M-m-m-m-m-m-m!

      • DdC says:

        Because of prohibition and Nixon lumping in Hemp as a sch.#1 narcotic. Making it illegal to grow locally drives the cost up on hemp food and clothing. Removing the bogus laws would lower the price an estimated 10 fold. Closer to Olive Oil and reguler organic cow milk. But it’s quality over cost for patients I give it too. Just don’t tell the professional “reformers” or those believing elected politicians are crooks but corporate and military lobbyists who were former elected officials, can be trusted. It’s all just a conspiracy that chemical cotton and crude oil plastic fiber doesn’t have to worry about organic hemp. Meat and Dairy have one less worrrrry is just coincidence. The dung worriers can keep rehabilitating stoners for $4500 a month and Koch’s can sell private cages for $72k a yr. But its for the kids not the profits. Burlap can keep making the DEA look like they are accomplishing something. Buy it for Freedom. It’s all a choice.

        Al Capone and Watergate were red herrings to divert the countries attention from the Fascist acts of eliminating competition. Booze/Ethanol or Ganja//Hemp.

  9. palemalemarcher says:

    RE; Hemp is not a crop: Corporations are people and Coke is a natural!

    • Duncan20903 says:

      If your referring to the recent Supreme Court ruling that Congress can’t violate the First Amendment with campaign finance laws that restrict free speech you are being thoroughly disingenuous making the bogus claim that the ruling means that the SCOTUS is recognizing corporations as natural human beings. The First Amendment simply does not apply exclusively to natural born human beings. It says “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”

      Quite frankly I don’t want NORML, MPP, ASA, Sensible Wherever, or any of the other corporations that are attempting to cure the stupidity of prohibition to be stifled. It would have been illegal for the supporters of PROP 19 to use that million dollars that George Soros donated for last minute advertising before Election day 2010 had that blatantly unconstitutional law not been struck down.

      Perhaps I’m missing something and you have some evidence of invisible words in the First Amendment that makes it apply only to natural human beings?

      Freedom is a two way street. You can’t limit the freedoms of others without limiting your own.

      • darkcycle says:

        …will you guys stop throwing cheetos’ at each other and settle down? This couch isn’t big enough to fight on, and I’m missin’ the “Fued”….oooh, eecch! Richard Dawson just kissed a seventy-seven year old grandmother on the LIPS…

      • darkcycle says:

        O.K. Lincoln had a harmonica and a pipe of sweet hemp. And this is the sound he made:
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE90DrK4GZw

      • DdC says:

        My bus broke down and shared a garage with Blues Travelers when they were starting out. During a Dead tour in the mid – late 80’s. In my eyes Popper is good and may have taken the place of the J.Geils Band harpest Richard Salwitz as the best I’d ever seen. Though its close and when I saw J. Geil’s’ in the early 70’s with Humble Pie, Magic Dick was going around the stage so fast during wammer jammer I thought he was defying gravity. Popper would have to shed a few pounds to match that. Second thought Salwitz is still king of the harp imho.

        http://youtu.be/a0q2Vy3fx2I

    • DdC says:

      RE; Hemp is not a crop: Corporations are people and Coke is a natural!

      Ganja has no medicinal value growing free in the garden. It cost extra for man bras. It makes the degenerate classes uppity. It makes you hungry and that leads to eating. If its aiding wasting syndrome patients it takes profits from thalidomide salesmen. If it helps obesity, look at the diet pill metheamphetimines and fat industry asylums and products they wont sell. People start believing they have worth and can be productive. Piss taste must prevent this or we are doomed. Productive sounds to much like revolution. Next thing you know they may start thinking for themselves. You take a “hit” of marihuana, a sip or swig of booze. That is the difference in a nut shell and why booze is advertized to teens by twins in bathing suits and Ganja is demonized by the church and law forcement. Hemp will only put Valdeze crude oil tanker pilots in the unemployment lines. It’s just a stepping stone gateway to legalizers. Under the radar. If God didn’t want us to clear cut trees for less tensile strength wood and pollution paper he wouldn’t have made Randolph Hearst and Rockefeller so rich. Just because old stoner Henry Ford made his engines to run on ethanol doesn’t mean the family farmers don’t enjoy paying for gasoline. No sirry bob, there ain’t nothing true them legalizers claim about Ganja or Hemp. Not like Jesus restores Lazarus to life after four days dead.

      Cover-Ups, Prevarications, Subversions & Sabotage

      Fellow Conservatives: Our Position Is Hypocritical

      “DEATH TO THE DRUGGIES”

      Calvina Fay Prohibition Inc.

  10. malcolm kyle says:

    A Brazilian judge renowned for her work against organised crime has been shot dead in Rio de Janeiro State.

    Patricia Acioli was gunned down outside her home in the city of Niteroi late on Thursday by masked men travelling on two motorbikes, officials said.

    She was best known for convicting members of vigilante gangs and corrupt police officers.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-14513066

  11. Matthew Meyer says:

    Usually here at Pete’s people just scoff at Mark Kleiman. I wonder what people think, though, of his idea–which he talks about in that interview–to “tax” violence in the cartels (he didn’t use the term tax). Pick the most violent cartel, go after it until it loses market share. Other gangs will then see that being too violent is a drag on business and chill out.

    Is this a total fantasy?

    • Pete says:

      It’s actually not a total fantasy. But it doesn’t go far enough to actually work.

      I discussed the whole concept here in Think Again. Sticks and Carrots

      • Jake says:

        http://www.icsdp.org/docs/ICSDP-1%20-%20FINAL.pdf “The available scientific evidence suggests that increasing the intensity of law enforcement interventions to disrupt drug markets is unlikely to reduce drug gang violence. Instead, the existing evidence suggests that drug related violence and high homicide rates are likely a natural consequence of drug prohibition and that increasingly sophisticated and well-resourced methods of disrupting drug distribution networks may unintentionally increase violence”

        Also, isn’t the slightly laissez-faire approach the one that was used before Calderón? Where it was better to leave the cartels be (or favour one over others) than to militarise the drug war fight. Plus, if you just go after one then another will gain market share, and the power and money that go along with it, so by the time the authorities have tackled one cartel, the ‘others’ are more powerful.. sounds like a never ending cycle.. oh wait.. that’s what we have now…

  12. Peter says:

    DARE officer Tim Shoemaker update (from comments,
    http://pact360.org/blog/2011/07/27/3-guidelines-from-a-cop%E2%80%99s-personal-handbook/comment-page-1/#comment-47):

    Peter
    Aug 13, 2011 at 1:50 am #
    Tim….you’ve dodged my question. i see from the blog that you are a father….would you arrest and charge your child for smoking cannabis?

    Timothy Shoemaker
    Aug 13, 2011 at 2:17 am #
    Yes.

    (Truly a zealot of the drug war)

    • tommy says:

      This guy’s a piker. Google “straight inc” sometime to see what some of these zealots will do to their own kids.

      • Peter says:

        I’m not sure whether he was involved with the Straight Inc. abuse of clients, although I believe some of the other Partnership for a Drug Free America folks were. All the same, arguing with this guy is frankly surreal….he seems to be trying to swamp you in a creepy sincerity…. you expect a tinny version of Amazing Grace to start playing in the background like in the old Invasion of the Body Snatchers movie…

  13. Ed Dunkle says:

    Kleiman’s solution is to go after the big drug cartels? That’s it? Haven’t the feds been doing this for 40 years and aren’t they always replaced by other big drug cartels? I try very hard to make sense of Kleiman’s positions, but just can’t.

    He seems to be terrified of a huge increase of drug use by any sort of decriminalization or legalization. But that hasn’t been borne out in Portugal or in Amsterdam, or in Switzerland. Clearly, any negative effects of possible increase in drug use from legalization will be heavily outweighed by the positive effects of less black market violence, fewer criminals, less incarceration, etc. But this has all been said a million times before, right?

    Well time for my legal morning drug of choice: coffee.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .
      Neither has it done so in Alaska. Petty possession and petty cultivation in the privacy of an Alaskan’s home is de facto legal because of Ravin v State of Alaska (1975). Yes, I’m aware of the 1990 ballot initiative which purported to re-criminalize private home use. It did so effectively between 1991 and 2002 but was struck down by the Alaska Court of Appeals in 2002 and de facto legalization was restored.

      No, the incidence of “drugged” driving didn’t skrocket. Actually its incidence decreased by a statistically significant percentage between 2002 and 2009.
      http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k10/205/DruggedDriving.htm

      No, the rate of Alaskan’s in “treatment” for the fiction of merrywanna “addiction” fell substantially. Unfortunately SAMHSA statistics for “in treatment” only goes back to 1992.

      In 1992 there were 451 Alaskans in “treatment” for the fiction of merrywanna “addiction.”

      In 2002 there were 460 Alaskans in “treatment” for the fiction of merrywanna “addiction.”

      In 2010 there were 496 524 Alaskans in “treatment” for the fiction of merrywanna “addiction.”

      That’s a nominal increase of 9.98% 16.19% between 1992 and 2010. But when we account for the 20.99% increase in Alaska’s population we see that the rate of Alaskans in “treatment” actually fell subsequent to the restoration of de facto legalization.
      http://wwwdasis.samhsa.gov/webt/quicklink/ak92.htm
      http://wwwdasis.samhsa.gov/webt/quicklink/ak02.htm
      http://wwwdasis.samhsa.gov/webt/quicklink/ak10.htm

      P.S. Just in the last couple of days I’ve realized that SAMHSA will update the latest numbers on these in “treatment” statistics. 2010 Alaska most certainly reported 496 as the number of merrywanna “addicts” in “treatment” in Alaska just a couple of weeks ago. The total number of Californians in “treatment” for anything in 2009 was raised from 180,864 to 181,386 without any comment or notation from SAMHSA. This is a most annoying turn of events as I’ve linked their stats all over the web presuming them to be static. Oh well, the good news is that most of the Know Nothings say “math is hard” and probably don’t click through.

  14. David L Marsh says:

    A number of months ago Pete commented on Kleinman’s intellectual dishonesty and evoked a response by Kleinman that led me to read his doctoral thesis. While he may not be intellectually dishonest he is just plain wrong. When you start with an inaccurate theory the conclusions derived from that theory are also inaccurate. Ed, it is easy to make sense of Kleinman’s positions, non-sense.

  15. MaineGeezer says:

    It seems to me that those opposed to regulated sale (i.e. legalization) make a couple of fundamental errors.

    1. The belief that drug prohibition is actually keeping a significant number of people from using drugs.
    2. The belief that if drugs are legalized, “those people” will start using drugs.

    In addition, they seem to be totally oblivious to the horrific damage being done to society by drug prohibition.

    When, for the past 30 years, teens have reported that marijuana is easier to get than alcohol, #1 seems pretty dubious. Anyone who wants them can buy drugs now.

    In the case of #2, it’s never clear exactly who “those people” are. As noted above, anyone who wants to use drugs is probably already doing it. Would regulated sale attract a new mass of people?

    The organization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (www.leap.cc ) commissioned a survey a year or two ago. I think the question was, “If heroin were legal, would you try it?” Something like 99.6% of the respondents said “No.” So where is this surge in new drug users going to come from?

    And, as Ed Dunkel points out, the real-world experience in the Netherlands, Portugal, and Switzerland demonstrate that drug use goes down if drug laws are more tolerant.

    The rate of marijuana use in the Netherlands is about half that of the US. In Portugal, the rates of use for all drugs except marijuana went down when Portugal decriminalized all drugs. Marijuana stayed about the same. When Switzerland began giving free heroin to addicts 15 years ago, the crime rate dropped 60%, the rate of new addictions dropped 82%, a greater number of addicts are quitting successfully, and there are no more illegal heroin dealers in Switzerland (who can compete with free?)

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .
      They never do account for where any increase will come from and that’s important. One of my brothers-in-law doesn’t touch cannabis because of the law. Perhaps 5 or 6 times a year he’ll ave a few drinks and catch a buzz and he’s definitely let me know that he would prefer cannabis. I have no doubt that it would simply replace or enhance his drinking alcohol use. The point is those are the people who will alter their lives slightly based on the law. He does work on Capitol Hill on a pretty darn high level and he would be “risking” it all were he to decide to enjoy cannabis. But the fact of the matter is that he just wouldn’t turn into a dedicated fan of wake and bake were he allowed to enjoy cannabis legally.

      Then there’s the clown “reasoning” that claims that these people, with such a deep seated respect for the law that they won’t touch cannabis, will turn into scofflaws and go out driving when impaired if allowed to enjoy cannabis legally. They never explain how legally using cannabis will make puppets of the law decide to start breaking the law.

      • Windy says:

        I suspect a lot of people who have given up ingesting cannabis because they are drug tested at work, may go back to cannabis if it were legalized and the drug tests were converted to impairment tests. That would account for a large increase in cannabis users after legalization. I know about 150 people who had to stop smoking the herb when their employer initiated drug testing, most of them say they will return to using the herb when they retire, or if it is legalized and they won’t be tested anymore.

      • Francis says:

        I think this is spot on. I’ve always been uncomfortable with the argument made by certain proponents of legalization that legalizing cannabis (or other currently illegal drugs) won’t increase usage, at least at the margins. I think the better response is to acknowledge that it will probably encourage some people to try it, but there’s no reason to expect that it will lead to out-of-control usage. The people that are currently deterred by prohibition are, from a substance abuse perspective, generally not the people that we “should be worried about.” I’m also a huge fan of the argument (made very effectively in “Marijuana is Safer”) that an increase in cannabis use would likely be accompanied by a corresponding decrease in the use of alcohol and other more harmful drugs. So making cannabis available as a safer, legal alternative will likely decrease the amount of overall drug harm.

      • DdC says:

        Study: Teen Marijuana Use Not Affected By Medical Marijuana June 30, 2011
        Despite frequent claims by opponents of medical marijuana that passing such laws “sends the wrong message to children,” there appears to be no correlation between medical marijuana and teen marijuana use rates, according to MPP.

      • Maria says:

        Windy, that is spot on.

        I’ve always assumed in my arguments that there will be a slight uptick in adult usage rates if cannabis is legalized, or even decriminalized, at a federal level.

        For many casual and recreational users, a relaxing smoke is simply not worth the risk of losing ones job. It has nothing to do with believing the lies about criminal or health issues. Legalization and the accompanying (hopefully) roll-back of drug testing will allow many in that “ghost” segment to go back to enjoying cannabis in much they way they used to. At home, in private, with friends, etc. Ie. Responsibly.

        In addition to that currently invisible usage segment, I supposed the increased openness within adult social situations would enable some adults who never tried it, or who never bothered to seek it out again after graduating high school/college to try it for the first time, or to try it for the first time again ;). Just because they now have an opportunity to do so.

        I suppose it’s a little like when someone brings a really great bottle of port or cognac to a party, or when someone orders a fine wine at a restaurant. People who do not usually drink might try it simply because it’s a special occasion, it’s a special bottle, and it’s there. Frankly, I see nothing bad about these scenarios and I’ve given up discussing things with people who do. To me they are blinded moral crusaders.

        The fact that prohibs lump all potential “new” users (children and adults) into the same bucket is insulting, infantilizing, and demeaning. But then again, most prohib arguments are like that. Arguments that see adults as children and children as sacrificial cows.

  16. allan says:

    aaah… the pitfalls of a life of smoking da herb:

    RIP, Fulla Nayak

    • DdC says:

      “And out of the ground
      made the LORD God to grow
      every tree that is pleasant to the sight,
      and good for food; the tree of life
      also in the midst of the garden,
      and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”
      ~ Gen.2 [9]

      Blasphemy

      Cannabis and Longevity

      Fulla Nayak – believed to be the world’s oldest woman – puffs “ganja” cigars and drinks strong palm wine in her cow-dung hut in India.

      In the article Beliefs about Aging and Longevity in Ancient China, Alain Corcos notes: “The sacred intoxicating drink, named haoma by the Iranians and Soma by the Aryans in India was believed to cure disease and to confer immortality. Hemp was an active ingredient of both drinks” (Corcos, 1981). Interestingly, the Anandakanda (Root of Bliss) a considerable text of 6900 verses on tantric alchemy and yoga, which is thought to have originated around the 12th or 13th century AD, has similar references to cannabis and these are believed to have been based on the descriptions of Soma.

      [T]he Anandakanda describes rejuvenation treatment based on cannabis. This involves treatment over a long period in a specially constructed hut (kut.i). This procedure is strongly reminiscent of a similar rejuvenation procedure described in the earliest Sanskrit medical literature, one that requires not cannabis but the unknown plant Soma. And that procedure itself echoes a rite of ritual rebirth that dates from the mid-first millennium BC. (Wujastyk, 2001)

      The Tree of Life…
      A study by University of Saskatchewan researchers suggests beneficial aspects of smoking marijuana at least among rats, who appear to have sprouted new brain cells and besides benefiting from reduced depression and anxiety. The study’s results appearing in the ‘Journal of Clinical Investigation’ have actually given a fillip to the traditional and mythological view that associates the addictive weed in some ways with immortality.

  17. Hope says:

    Off Topic.

    Dang, Allan. I’m glad to see you. Was wanting to hear from you.

    Didn’t I hear you say the other day that you’d put up a bunch of strawberries? Aaarggh. I’ve been worried ever since I’ve been hearing about those dangerous strawberries in Oregon that you’d gotten hold of some of THOSE strawberries. Hopefully, you didn’t and I’m glad to see that you are ok.

  18. Change (of underpants) says:

    Have you heard about this Jenkem? It sounds like an urban legend. It is fermented feces, the kids call it butthash, bwahaha! People will believe anything on the interweb tubes.

  19. dave in florida says:

    A bit off topic, but in the straw poll, in Iowa, Michelle Bachman was the winner and just 1 percent behind was our friend, Ron Paul. But what really pisses me off is the fact that main street media does not mention Ron Paul, but briefly, talking about others dropping out, but no credence to Ron Paul..

    • darkcycle says:

      Doesn’t matter if he wins every straw poll from now ’till the Repugincan nomination. He will never be given media time…that is until he’s a real threat, then there will be some cooked up non-scandal that’ll make him newsworthy…but that’ll only be his downfall, there will be NO time given to his message. Thats the way our system works. you will only be allowed to vote for “acceptable” candidates.

      • darkcycle says:

        I was specifcally referring to the MSM only. I discount the talking heads as soon as they begin chirping. Myself, I’ve always done just what I damn well please. I’m looking to anybody, Green or Socialist or Libertarian who will put up a non-corporate candidate for whom I can vote this time around….
        Hey, this appeared in the wrong place..

    • Windy says:

      Actually it was only .9% (152 votes) less than Bachmann. I don’t care what the media does or says or ignores, the people are getting the message out and I believe he does have a chance, but only if people like us vote for him in the primaries/caucuses instead of just saying “the media won’t give him a chance, so I’ll have to vote for someone else”, or “he’s not electable, so I won’t vote for him”. If you truly want reform of the federal laws against drugs, you MUST vote for him, no one else will do the right thing, here, people. He’s very popular with people who revere the Constitution and with people who want monetary reform or want us to pull our military back from being the world’s police force, so add in the drug law reformers and he becomes a formidable candidate. But sit back and complain “he can’t win” and we’ve lost the race before it even begins.

      • Duncan20903 says:

        .
        .
        In my 31 years as a registered voter I’ve had occasion to participate in one election where voting for an “alternative” candidate made any difference, and even then it was only the Florida voters for Mr. Nader in Y2K that made the difference. The voters for Mr. Nader in the other 49 States only accounted for sending a message to the Democrats that there were a substantial number of people who supported his platform, and you’d better believe those votes are considered. In our winner take all State by State system it really isn’t hard to figure out if your State is going to be close. I sure wish that more of the Florida Green Party voters in 2000 had considered this before voting but not even a single one in the other 50+ Federal elections. I would have voted for Mr. Obama in a close election. But Maryland is traditionally ‘blue’ State and Mr. Obama was polling well over 60% here. There was simply no possibility that I was going to wake up the day after Election day with Obama v McCain hanging chads in front of the Supreme Court. I simply haven’t the words to describe the warm fuzzy that I have because I didn’t vote for Mr. Obama in 2008. “Don’t blame me, I voted for McGovern”, indeed. I know the youngsters won’t get that one. George McGovern was the Democrat’s nominee in 1972 when Tricky Dick Nixon won his second term in office. “Don’t blame me…” was a very popular bumper sticker starting in the middle of 1974. It’s too bad, had Mr. McGovern gotten as many votes as those who displayed those bumper stickers we’d live in a very different country indeed. I won’t speculate if it would be better or worse, but if things were different, they just wouldn’t be the same. Certainly nobody but the residents would know the name of the Watergate Condominium community today had Mr. Nixon been kicked to the curb.

        Quite frankly Bush v Gore was a black swan and we’re not likely to see another one of those in a Presidential election in our lifetimes. The Republicans would practically have to nominate the Koch Brothers/Satan himself to see me seriously consider voting for shithead Obama next year. Barring another black swan event the only “wasted” vote is one cast for a candidate which you consider the “lesser evil.”

        Then again with a margin of less than 500 votes we can confidently State that had Mr. Nader not run in 2000 that Mr. Bush the lesser would have still won the election as there’s no doubt that at least 1000 of Mr. Nader’s voters in Florida wouldn’t have bothered to go to the polls at all.

  20. Peter says:

    Apologies if you have already covered this on the site Pete, but yesterday’s tragic collapse of the stand at the Indiana State fair brought governor Mitch Daniels into the public eye and reminded me of his hypocrisy on prohibition:

    http://reason.com/blog/2011/02/25/mitch-daniels-disappearing-fel

    particularly egregious is his calling for harsh punishments for “casual users.”

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .
      Indiana has the opportunity to be the first legislative body to employ a blue ribbon panel to investigate the effectiveness of cannabis prohibition and to actually take their recommendation that it’s prohibition is sheer idiocy.
      If anyone wants to bet that they do so I’ll take the other side for every dollar you can afford to lose.

      http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-experts-tell-indiana-panel-ban-on-marijuana-has-failed-20110728,0,2765102.story

      Buck a political tradition that’s been in place since 1894? My only question is why do these idiot politicians keep on commissioning blue ribbon panels with questions about things they know they won’t consider? Why in the world would they think the answer would be any different than the 187 previous blue ribbon panels have given? Will politicians ever figure out that you can’t force a blue ribbon panel to give the answer they want to hear? Perhaps the adherents of the Humpty Dumpty School of Sophistry needs to commission a blue ribbon panel to figure out how to redefine the phrase “blue ribbon panel.”

  21. Maria says:

    As for getting high with vacations. I just had a wonderful overdose that was frankly over due by a few years.

    Now I’m suffering from withdrawal symptoms and I’ll be needing another dose soon. I even have the shakes!

    I’ve become an addict after only one hit. *sobs*

  22. DdC says:

    Weekend thread an Open thread? Oh well…

    Oklahoma Senator Johnson’s Fight To End Life by Anthony Papa
    US OK: OPED: Huffington Post (US Web) 16 Aug 2011
    Oklahoma State Senator Connie Johnson thinks Larry Yarbrough should be free. Larry, a model prisoner, is in his 17th year of a life-without-parole sentence for a nonviolent drug crime. On August 17, Sen. Johnson will speak on behalf of Yarbrough at an Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board hearing that will be considering commuting Larry Yarbrough’s drug trafficking sentencing. In 2002 the Board unanimously commuted his sentence, but former governor Frank Keating overturned that decision and denied Larry his freedom.

    If the board agrees with Senator Johnson, the new Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin will have the opportunity to commute Yarbrough’s life sentence for his non-violent drug offense.

    According to Sen. Johnson, Yarbrough’s case is an excellent example of disproportionate and unfair sentencing. Compared to sentences received by others for similar amounts of the same drugs ( an ounce of powder cocaine and three marijuana cigarettes ), Larry’s life without parole ( LWOP ) sentence is clearly excessive. He has been incarcerated for 17 years, more than sufficient for what he actually did–and far longer than what many serve for the exact same offense.

    OKlahypocrites suck!

    James Geddes
    UPDATE: Released July 28, 2003 after more than 11 years behind bars
    sentenced to 150 years, reduced to 90 years
    charged with cultivation and possession of five marijuana plants

    Will Foster
    Rheumatoid arthritis patient sentenced to 93 years then reduced to 20 for medical marijuana cultivation

    Will Foster Cannabis News Search

    DRCNet’s Recommended for Parole
    According to Keating’s letter, “the prosecuting attorney has already recommended that the parole be denied.” But this is the same prosecutor who at the sentencing told the jury to “pick any number and add two or three zeroes to it.” Clearly this prosecutor has a very heavy bias against Foster and does not have an objective viewpoint for purposes of evaluating the parole board’s recommendation. An Oklahoma appeals court judge found that Foster’s original 93-year sentence “shocked the conscience,” and reduced the term to 20 years — the prosecutor was opposed to that too.

    HR95

  23. DdC says:

    Al Jazeera on Mexico’s Drug War
    Excellent new collection of stories and news pieces they have done on the drug war in Central and South America.

    Gil Scott Heron’s Forgotten Classic ‘Angel Dust’
    Be sure to listen all the way through for the additional gem “Whitey on the Moon.” I can’t believe this hasn’t been posted here before.

    Trailer: ‘Magic Trip: Ken Kesey’s Search for a Kool Place’
    The LA Times is running a great piece on the restoration of Kesey’s footage:

    Invisible College – 6th Edition
    The latest version of the illuminated manuscript ‘Invisible College’ is available now. The print edition looks amazing, and is full of original articles and artwork. Here’s a brief rundown of the contents…

  24. DdC says:

    Corby Gets Five-Month Sentence Reduction
    Corby, who was sentenced to 20 years in jail after she was caught at Bali’s international airport in 2004 with 4.1kg of marijuana in her bodyboard bag, has another 11 years to serve after having already had her prison term cut by almost two years.

    KopBusters Accepts Surprise Plea Offer
    He plead guilty to False Alarm or Report and avoided two costly and lengthy trials (each trial would have cost 10k or more). As part of the plea agreement, Dad paid a $200 fine…NO JAIL AND NO PROBATION. The other police-retaliation charge, Operating Without A Private Investigators License, was dropped as part of the plea and Dad gets all his valuable tapes that were seized during the misdemeanor raid on our home. A lot of the tapes contain unseen footage of the Odessa, Yolanda Madden sting.

    Police Probe Florida Pastor’s Death
    US NY: Wall Street Journal (US) 16 Aug 2011
    Sophia Hollander and Sean Gardiner

    Eddy Lepp: Appeal Denied by Ed Rosenthal
    The latest letter from Eddy Lepp via Lompoc Federal Penitentiary.

  25. DdC says:

    Justice Minister Brushes Off Lawyers’ Warnings on Crime Bill
    Lawyers and judges on the front lines of the criminal justice system pleaded with the federal justice minister Monday to tone down some of his upcoming anti-crime measures, saying they will only clog the courts and prisons with the mentally ill and other vulnerable people. full story

    Health Canada Debating Future of Medical Marijuana youtube
    Health Canada held a hearing in Montreal on Wednesday to hear from groups concerned about the future of medical marijuana in Canada. full story

    Ontario Court of Appeal Dates Chosen for R. v. Mernagh Case
    Ontario Court of Appeal court dates have been chosen for R. v. Mernagh: the court ruling gutting Canada’s federal medical marijuana program and personal possession and cultivation laws is set to be heard March 5 and 6, 2012.

  26. DdC says:

    New Jersey MS Patient Loses Appeal, Facing Five Years
    New Jersey passed a medical marijuana law in January 2010 and, after delays, a series of alternative treatment centers (dispensaries) are set to open soon, but none of that has proven any help to multiple sclerosis sufferer and medical marijuana patient John Ray Wilson.

    Student Not Allowed to Take Prescribed Marijuana at School
    A 16-year-old boy in Colorado Springs, Colorado isn’t allowed to take his prescribed medication at school because he can’t attend school “under the influence.”

    Washington State Mother Sentenced for Giving Pot to Son
    A former Longview woman was sentenced a year in prison this week for blowing marijuana smoke into her 13-year-old son’s face and allowing him to smoke pot out of a pipe.

    What It’s Like Living With A Medical Marijuana License
    Systematic Discrimination Boycott List

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