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Friday, July 12, 2013

Passenger Train Derails Near Paris, 'Many Casualties' Feared (Walking Good, Trains Bad, Planes Bad) The BBC said initially that "at least eight people are reported dead. ... The intercity train had just left Paris and was heading towards Limoges when it derailed, crashing into a station platform. ... Passengers were said to be trapped inside the train." Reuters reported that "7 people died and several dozen were injured. ... Interior Minister Manuel Valls said on Friday. 'The death toll is evolving constantly at this point and unfortunately it will probably rise,' Valls said. 'At this stage there are seven people dead, several dozen wounded and some of them are serious.' " Le Parisien said in its first report that there were at least four dead and at least 10 injured. When news such as this breaks, details often change as more information is gathered. We'll focus on reports from officials and from news outlets with reporters at the scene or in contact with those officials and witnesses.

Arizona Supreme Court Tells Yuma Sheriff: Give Back Medical Marijuana To California Patient. Yesterday, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld a California medical marijuana patient's right to posses her Dr. recommended pot...in the sometimes ass backwards state. In their infinite wisdom, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the Yuma Arizona sheriff who seized her medical marijuana -- must return it. It said that's because Arizona's medical marijuana law allows people with medical marijuana authorizations from other states to legally possess marijuana in Arizona. The marijuana was found in Okun's vehicle at a Border Patrol checkpoint near Yuma. State drug charges against her were dismissed after she showed she had authorization under California's medical marijuana program. Prosecutors argued that federal drug law invalidates Arizona's medical marijuana law. source: Strange -- when convenient, Arizona's politicians have claimed the federal government has no right to dictate their immigration or border control policy... claiming state supremacy. Yet, when the people of their state voted to legalize medical marijuana, the same set of cruel hearted politicians flip their argument... claiming federal law supersedes their own state law.

80% Of Swiss Inmates Consume Cannabis, Improves Prison Safety According To Guards. According to the study, prisoners named off a variety of benefits they received from consuming cannabis; "Participants showed similar opinions on effects of cannabis use that were described both at individual and institutional levels: analgesic, calming, self-help to go through the prison experience, relieve stress, facilitate sleep, prevent violence, and social pacifier." Prison staff claimed that they feel cannabis to be a relatively safe and peaceful drug; they believe that cracking down on its consumption will lead to an increase in violence, and harder drugs. In Switzerland cannabis consumption is less of a criminal priority than in countries like the United States, although it's still explicitly prohibited. This study is one of the first to show the positive benefits of inmates consuming cannabis on a regular basis.

Military Veteran Loses 2nd Amendments Rights Due To Cannabis Conviction. Ron Kelly, a 20-year Army veteran, recently tried to buy a .22-caliber rifle at the Wal-Mart in Tomball, Texas. He was turned away because he failed the FBI background check. He appealed the rejection, and last month he got a Justice Department letter explaining that he was legally disqualified from owning guns, after handling them in defense of his country for two decades, because of a 42-year-old marijuana conviction. As a high school student in Durham, North Carolina, he had been caught with a small amount of pot and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor possession, receiving a sentence of probation because he was a first-time offender. The probation lasted a year, but according to the Justice Department the ensuing loss of Kelly's Second Amendment rights lasts a lifetime. "I am ashamed of the way my government has treated me," Kelly told The Houston Chronicle. "The government may have the greatest of intentions with the [law], but they messed it up." Kelly's disqualification may in fact be unjustified under current law, which bars gun sales to people convicted of felonies but not misdemeanors (except for misdemeanors involving domestic violence). Unless the feds are treating what North Carolina called a misdemeanor as a felony for some reason, Kelly's pot conviction should not be covered by that provision. The only other disqualifier that seems possibly relevant is the one for anybody who is "an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance," but more than a 1971 conviction for possession should be required to demonstrate that Kelly falls into that category. More on this shameful story from News Radio 600 KOGO: The outraged veteran, who spent two decades of his life using firearms to defend his country, has since reached out to U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) for help in resolving the issue. He says he'd be happy with a waiver so he can regain his right to own a firearm. As an infantryman in the Army, Kelly has fired "perhaps 100,000 rounds of government ammo over his 20 years of service," Schiller notes.

Take a bong rip with Redhook, Hilliard's "Joint Effort" Hemp Ale. "We have a real appreciation for the brewing energy in Ballard right now. Thirty years ago Redhook was exactly where guys like Hilliard's, Reuben's Brews and Populuxe are today," said Karmen Olson, Redhook Brand Manager. "We're stoked to be working with our friends at Hilliard's and to raise a pint to our Emerald City heritage." Joint Effort is a session ale brewed with hemp seeds. Dry-hopped with Zeus, Cascade, Summit hops, Joint Effort has a dank, resinous hop aroma balanced by nutty, earthiness from hemp seeds. It's the perfect brew for hanging with your buds, grabbing some munchies and enjoying a beer. ABV 5.6%, IBU 25. "We're really excited to release Joint Effort with Redhook because we have a lot of respect for how they helped shape craft beer in Washington," said Hilliard's Beer co-founder Ryan Hilliard. "It's the first collaboration beer either of us has done with another brewery and it's fitting they started in Ballard a few blocks from where we are. Voting to legalize marijuana use in Washington is another example of the pioneering spirit that makes this state so great." In keeping with Redhook's reputation for creating imaginative tap handles, Joint Effort will be poured by a handle shaped like a bright yellow bong. Joint Effort will be available on draught only beginning July 15th and will launch in 22oz bottles under the Blueline Series in late October. The beer will be available in Washington State only. Locations can be found using Redhook's "Beer Finder" at www.Redhook.com.

Congressmen Introduce Bill to Allow Banking for Marijuana Industry. Currently, even the most basic banking services, such as business checking accounts or merchant credit card processing services, are largely unavailable to the marijuana industry. Federal regulators impose stiff punishments and penalize banks and their employees for providing services to marijuana related businesses. The result is legitimate, licensed and regulated businesses have extreme difficulty accessing the banking system to accept credit cards, deposit revenues, or write checks to meet payroll or pay taxes. This forces legal, state-compliant marijuana businesses to operate as cash-only enterprises, inviting crimes such as robbery and tax evasion, adding to the burden of establishing a legitimate small business in their community. "We need to address the public safety, crime and lost tax revenue associated when these legal and regulated businesses are operating in a cash-only system," said Rep. Perlmutter in a statement released Wednesday. "We also need to provide financial institutions assurance that they can make their own business decisions related to legal, financial transactions without fear of regulatory penalties or criminal prosecution." "As a small business owner, I can't imagine trying to operate a legitimate business without access to the banking system," added Rep. Heck. "Forcing legitimate businesses to operate on a cash-only basis without bank accounts is an invitation for robbery, tax evasion and organized crime. With twenty-one states and D.C. now allowing for some form of legal adult marijuana usage, federal law needs to be updated to reflect the reality of the situation in the states."

Today: Parents Turn to Medical Marijuana to Soothe Sick Children. In 17 states kids are able to get medical marijuana, by prescription, to treat everything from autism to cancer to seizures. Growers are now breeding the plants with low levels of the substance THC, which reportedly helps kids get the medicinal benefits of marijuana without the high. NBC's Dr. Nancy Snyderman reports.

War On Drugs Fostered Mass Incarceration. Greg Carpenter has come a long way since the 20 years he spent in prison in Maryland, California and Georgia. For the last 15 years in Baltimore he's been working to help prisoners re-enter society and last year served on the Gov. Martin O'Malley's Re-Entry Task Force. What brought the two men together Wednesday night in a downtown Baltimore office building was the launch of a new book, "Incarceration Generation," in which each man authored a short essay in his area of expertise. Prison population grew seven-fold in 40 years Forty years ago, 204,211 people were held by U.S. prison authorities; in 2011, there were 1.6 million, a 780% increase while the U.S. population as a whole had grown by about 50%. Produced by the Justice Policy Institute in Washington, "Incarceration Generation" documents how, why and to whom that happened. It gathers commentary from 19 researchers, advocates and people who have personally experienced the system.

Support Boulder's Organic Cannabis Farmer's Market. SimpleGov allows citizens in any city in this country to make a simple request to its elected government officials--and then allows other citizens to echo this sentiment. In other words: rather than writing fruitless notes to elected officials, you can create your own campaign, call your officials out, and put them to task. And in Colorado--where marijuana is about to become legal--that's exactly what the A64 Local Task Force is doing. Cannabis is largely about community, but, unfortunately, the growers and cultivators within the community are forced to remain in the shadows. However, in a legal state, this could--and should change. That's why the Task Force has requested that Boulder's Community Planning and Sustainability agency helps to allow the dream of a Marijuana Farmer's Market become a realty. As cities around Colorado discuss how to implement the legalization initiative Amendment 64, we believe it is important that local communities create standards and opportunities that are appropriate to the local culture. For this reason, we are proposing that Boulder certify an organic cannabis farmer's market zone district, where growers from around the state can sell their products to adult residents in designated places. We would like the city to clarify that such a zone can operate under an Agricultural Zone, pursuant to 9-5-2 of the zoning code.

New Study Finds One In Four With HIV Use Cannabis Daily. According to the study's researchers, "This study documents the motivations for and prevalence of heavy marijuana use among HIV-positive gay and bisexual male emerging adults", they continue, "Our findings suggest that using marijuana to alleviate stress associated with living with HIV is a widespread phenomenon among this population, and that this phenomenon may not extend to other forms of substance use." The study states that daily cannabis use among this group is nearly four times higher than the national average for the same age group; "The marijuana use reported in Phase II of this study greatly exceeds that of national samples of emerging adults and previous studies on LGB emerging adults. Almost one-quarter of the sample reported smoking marijuana every day, almost four times higher than percentages reported in national samples of emerging adults" The study found that this increase in cannabis use led to a decrease in alcohol use; "On the other hand, heavy alcohol use reported in this study was substantially lower than in national samples of emerging adults".

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Judge Upholds $65,000 Fine Against Oregon Marijuana Legalization Petitioner. The fine was issued by Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown in April 2012 because it was reported that Wolfe was paying petitioners by the signature, instead of by the hour, which violates Oregon state law. According to the Oregonian, that is the largest fine ever levied for violating the petitioning law, surpassing a $10,900 fine issued in 2008. Senior administrative law judge Alison Greene Webster upheld the fine Friday, ruling that based on testimony from petitioners she believed Wolfe was in violation of the petitioning law. Wolfe's attorney, Dan Meek, plans on challenging the fine in the Oregon Court of Appeals. He says the fine was levied for allegedly paying two petitioners by the signature on a total of only 26 signature sheets out of over 30,000 submitted by the campaign. In a statement released Friday, Meek says the allegations were made by two workers "incapable of telling the truth": The Secretary of State's case depends on the testimony of the 2 circulators. Only one of them appeared in person at the hearing. Cross-examination showed that he repeatedly lied about all aspects of circulating the petition and made up stories that could not be true. He claimed to have spent hours collecting signatures at a bustling Saturday Market in January and February 2012, even though Saturday Market does not operate at all during those months. His lies became so apparent that he shouted out that he wanted to "take the Fifth" and not answer any more questions.

Expert Calls For Marijuana To Be Legalised To Reduce Harm of Binge Drinking In Teens. Robin Room, director of the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research, says marijuana should be legalised under strict controls because the social harm associated with it was significantly less than from drinking. "It makes sense to legalise marijuana in a controlled market," he told the Herald Sun yesterday. "We are in a situation where we need to look ahead. I think we need to have the discussion and it makes a lot of sense in terms of, among others, cutting down government costs to have a fairly highly controlled legal (cannabis) market and, while we are at it, tighten up the legal market of alcohol in the same way we tightened up the market of tobacco." Prof Room, a leading academic at Melbourne University, is funded by the Department of Human Services.

Utah Spent $26K to Ferret Out Welfare Drug Users; Found Nine. The state spent more than $26,000 to achieve these results. It spent more than $5,000 to administer the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory (SASSI) test to applicants and more than $20,000 to pay for drug testing. Those figures do not include staff costs to administer the SASSI test or the costs of drug treatment. Of the 813 SASSI test-takers who ranked high, more than 300 tested negative, 163 chose to abandon the aid application process and 137 were denied eligibility based on other criteria. Others had false positives or incorrect SASSI scores or failed to show up for the drug test. The SASSI Institute claims its diagnostic test is 94% accurate at detecting people with a high probability of substance abuse, but the Utah numbers belie those claims. Of those assessed as likely drug or alcohol abusers by the test, only 1% actually tested positive for drugs. In the best case—assuming that everyone who abandoned the aid application process or didn't show up for a drug test was actually using drugs—the predictive value of the SASSI test was under 50% "It seems silly to drug test hundreds. It's not worth the money they're spending," Gina Cornia of Utahns Against Hunger told the Tribune, adding that welfare workers could still screen clients for substance abuse the old-fashioned way—by forging relationships with them.

The Lust For Convictions In The War On Drugs. More than a year ago, the Department of Public Safety knew it had a problem. It discovered, purely by accident, that an analyst at its forensics lab in Houston had falsified the results of a drug test. DPS retested 100 of his cases and found two more errors. That was pretty bad. The lab technician, Jonathan Salvador, had worked there since 2006 and handled evidence from almost 5,000 cases from 36 Texas counties. DPS suspended Salvador and sent a letter alerting prosecutors and district attorneys, and listing which of their cases Salvador had processed. "We believe it prudent to review his entire body of work," the lab manager wrote in April 2012. "We are sorry for any inconvenience." This also has not had universally good results. In June the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the conviction of Leroy Coty, who pleaded guilty to possession of more than 400 grams of cocaine in 2010 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Coty's case was important because the Harris County district attorney had videotapes of Coty with drugs and other evidence that almost certainly could have convicted him without Salvador's lab results. If any case was going to survive being handled by Salvador's, it was Coty's. It didn't. The first Salvador-tainted convictions overturned by the appeals court were those in which all the evidence was destroyed during testing. Since an estimated 25 to 50 percent of Salvador's cases had no surviving evidence, prosecutors knew right away that they'd be freeing a lot of guilty people-and likely had jailed some innocent ones. Most DAs took steps to notify affected defendants and allocated resources to handle the coming waves of habeas corpus writs. Then they set about retesting any leftover evidence.

AT&T, Verizon get big fees for fed wiretaps. (Its all about the Money Money Money) "What we don't want is surveillance to become a profit center," said Christopher Soghoian, the ACLU's principal technologist. But "it's always better to charge $1. It creates friction, and it creates transparency" because it generates a paper trail that can be tracked. Regardless of price, the surveillance business is growing. The U.S. government long has enjoyed access to phone networks and high-speed Internet traffic under the U.S. Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act to catch suspected criminals and terrorists. More recently, the FBI has pushed technology companies like Google and Skype to guarantee access to real-time communications on their services. And, as shown by recent disclosures about the NSA's surveillance practices, the U.S. intelligence community has an intense interest in analyzing data and content that flow through American technology companies to gather foreign intelligence. The FBI said it could not say how much it spends on industry reimbursements because payments are made through a variety of programs, field offices and case funds. In an emailed statement, the agency said when charges are questionable, it requests an explanation and tries to work with the carrier to understand its cost structure.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Police Need Warrant To Open Mail Packages That Smell Like Marijuana In California. In a ruling written by Justice Goodwin Liu, the state high court dismissed arguments by Santa Barbara County prosecutors that contraband could be searched under a theory that would extend the "plain sight" test to "plain smell." Police are generally entitled to seize evidence that is in plain sight. Although officers had the legal right to take the FedEx package, they should have obtained a warrant before opening it, the court said. "There is no dispute as to whether the police lawfully seized the package without a warrant," Liu wrote. "Because there was no justification for an immediate search of the package once it was seized, the police had no derivative authority to search the package later at the police station without a warrant." This case of course does not apply outside of California, but it may be referenced by other court cases out of the state, or possibly be appealed to the United States Supreme Court. I don't recommend mailing marijuana, but if you must, maybe try to do it from California

Marijuana Use Connection to Mental Illness Is Reefer Madness. Within his own article, Dr. Wilkinson discusses the "cliff of sanity," a metaphorical line between sanity and mental illness, and he claims that those with a pre-existing tendency towards mental illness may be "pushed over" by marijuana use. However, if marijuana use before the age of 21 is riskier as a result of a developing brain, then legalization and regulation is the solution. In response to the article, MPP's Mason Tvert said, "Legalization would involve carefully controlled outlets that would not sell pot to minors, as opposed to the current situation where illegal dealers will sell pot to anyone, including schoolchildren. The net effect would be less exposure to the drug by our young people at a time when they are most vulnerable." In Mason's letter to the editor, he states that a 2009 study from the journal Schizophrenic Research found that "the prevalence of schizophrenia and psychoses has remained stable or declined during periods in which marijuana use increased significantly among the general populace." A predisposition to mental illness is a preexisting condition that is not created by marijuana use. In fact, any chemical substance introduced into the body may very well exacerbate the issue, including alcohol. Marijuana does not cause mental illness for users, either occasional or frequent, and making marijuana legal poses the best chance for a safer marijuana market that more effectively limits access to people aged 21 and over.

Forty Percent Of U.S. States Have Now Passed Medical Cannabis Laws. This is exciting, and inspiring. As advocates of cannabis law reform, we obviously understand that this isn't enough -- and even in the 20 medical cannabis states the laws aren't perfect -- but we can't lose sight of the fact that it's an astonishing turn of events that in 17 years, from the passing of Prop 215 in California in 1996, to the victories over the past several years, things have advanced quickly, and public opinion has shifted drastically; in fact, polling shows that over 80% of those in the U.S. support legalizing the use of cannabis for medical purposes (some of the most recent polling shows it as high as 85%). This is huge, and shows that even after decades of intense propaganda, the public can still be swayed with logic, compassion and facts. Things aren't slowing down anytime soon. The Illinois Legislature has recently approved a measure legalizing medical cannabis, which the governor isn't expected to veto. This makes state number 21. New York -- whose House has approved a measure legalizing medical cannabis; it awaits a vote in the Senate -- could turnout to be the 22nd (as could any number of other states).

"Freedom to Choose" Campaign To Help Protect Access To Medical Marijuana For Veterans. The Drug Policy Alliance, veterans' groups, elected officials and others are introducing a campaign to protect New Mexico's military veterans' legal access to medical marijuana. The Campaign is asking New Mexico to stand with veterans and their families to ask our state lawmakers, employers, and medical professionals to support efforts to ensure that when veterans come home they will have access to the medicine that works for them. New Mexico's medical marijuana program is considered a nationwide model -- in 2007 New Mexico became the first state to develop and implement a state-licensed medical marijuana production and distribution system, and in 2009 it became the first medical marijuana state to specifically include post-traumatic stress disorder as a qualifying condition. "This campaign has national implications, as hundreds of thousands of veterans return home from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD," said Jessica Gelay of the Drug Policy Alliance. "We hope that this campaign will encourage other states to ensure that their veterans receive the best care possible."

Marijuana Smoking Not Associated With Tobacco-Related Pulmonary Complications. The paper -- authored by Donald P. Tashkin, MD, emeritus professor of medicine and medical director of the Pulmonary Function Laboratory at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles -- is "the most comprehensive and authoritative review of the subject ever published," according to an accompanying commentary. Donald Tashkin conducted US-government sponsored studies of marijuana and lung function for over 30 years. His review finds that although smoking cannabis may be associated with symptoms of chronic bronchitis, studies do not substantiate claims that it is positively associated with the development of lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, or bullous lung disease. "[H]abitual use of marijuana alone does not appear to lead to significant abnormalities in lung function," Tashkin writes. "[F]indings from a limited number of well-designed epidemiological studies do not suggest an increased risk of either lung or upper airway cancer from light or moderate use. ... Overall, the risks of pulmonary complications of regular use of marijuana appear to be relatively small and far lower than those of tobacco smoking."

New Video Game Includes A Medical Marijuana Dispensary. the game includes a dispensary that seems to double as a head shop. East Bay Express stated: "The major, new open-world video game "Grand Theft Auto V," which will be released by Rockstar Games September 17, is a 'sprawling, satirical re-imagining of modern Southern California' according to gameplay footage released today online. And of course, no sprawling, satirical re-imagining of modern SoCal would be complete without a medical marijuana dispensary..." As you can see in the picture below (taken from this YouTube video), it looks cool

Monday, July 08, 2013

Bakersfield CA. - Sheriff's deputies find 9 pounds of meth hidden in fire extinguishers - Bakersfield News, Bakersfield, California News & Bakersfield News Local Headlines - KERO TurnTo23. Kern County sheriff deputies said they found nine pounds of methamphetamine hidden in fire extinguishers. At about 12 p.m. Tuesday, deputies assigned to the Kern County Sheriff's Office Major Violators Unit concluded a narcotics investigation at the Travelers Lodge Motel located 1011 Oak Street in Bakersfield. As Deputies were attempting to make entry into a suspect's motel room, officials said Luis Perez-Salinas, 32, ran out the back door, carrying a large bag containing clothing and three fire extinguishers. Officials said Perez-Salinas was arrested by deputies who were waiting outside on that side of the room. Perez-Salinas, from Guadalajara, Mexico, was booked into the Kern County Jail on charges of possession for sales of methamphetamine. Deputies said they noticed that the fire extinguishers had been altered. The writing on the label was in Spanish and indicated they were from Tijuana. The gauges on the extinguishers showed they were fully charged. In reality, they were not charged and each of them was stuffed almost completely full with Methamphetamine, officials said. The extinguishers were brought to the Kern County Fire Department where they were cut open.

Trespassing call leads deputies to Douglas Co. marijuana grow site. -- Seattle WA. A simple trespassing complaint led Douglas County sheriff's deputies to a significant marijuana grow operation on Wednesday. A rancher who owns property in a remote area northeast of Rock Island called deputies on Wednesday to report several trespassers. The rancher said members of his family had spotted what appeared to be a campsite in a canyon on his land. When deputies hiked into the canyon a short time later, they found a tent, sleeping bags, camping supplies and roughly 3,000 marijuana plants. The deputies destroyed and removed the plants. Deputies say nobody was at the campsite when they arrived, and now they're asking the public to call in any information that may help them track down the growers. Deputies say anyone who wants to claim the camping gear should call the sheriff's office.

Police investigate basement marijuana grow at scene of Southeast Portland house fire. The blaze, reported shortly before 9 p.m. in the 12000-block of Southeast Powell Boulevard, appears to have started in the basement, where fire crews also discovered an electrical hazard related to the lighting equipment for a marijuana grow with about 50 plants. A severed natural gas line further complicated response to the fire. Portland Police Bureau officials said they would be taking the lead in investigating whether the marijuana plants were being legally grown, said Lt. Rich Chatman, a spokesman with Portland Fire & Rescue. The fire was eventually controlled and investigators are still determining the cause and damage estimate. It was unclear whether fireworks, reported to have gone off near the house before the fire, contributed to the blaze, said Chatman.

Elderly Couple finds Kilo of Coke on PC Beach. Panama City Beach police say an elderly couple found a package of cocaine on the beach. Police got a call shortly before 7:00 Tuesday morning from Kerry Stroud, the manager of the City Pier. He said an elderly couple found a suspicious package between the pier and the Flamingo Hotel. The package was a hard rectangle block sealed with a clear wrap. Police cut a small hole in the top of the package and found a white, powdery substance inside. He did a field test on the powder, which tested positive for cocaine. The weight of the cocaine is 2 pounds, 10.2 ounces. Police don't know where the package came from. But they know where it's going. Chief Drew Whitman tells News Channel 7 they will turn the package over to the Drug Enforcement Agency in the near future.

Cops: Woman Nabbed With 380 Grams of Heroin. -Dartmouth Mass. DARTMOUTH, Mass. (WPRI) -- A Massachusetts woman was arrested on drug charges after an extensive investigation into her activity. Brenda Hernandez, 37, of New Bedford, was arrested on Wednesday after police say she was in possession of 380 grams of heroin. The arrest came as a result of an investigation conducted by members of the Dartmouth, Fall River, New Bedford and Massachusetts State Police Departments, as well as members of the FBI Gang Task Force. Hernandez was charged with trafficking in heroin, more than 200 grams.

$150,000 worth of heroin found during traffic stop. JASPER COUNTY, Ind. (WLFI) - A traffic stop early Sunday morning results in the seizure of more than five pounds of suspected heroin. It happened around 8:00 Sunday morning on southbound Interstate 65, near the Remington exit. State Troopers said they pulled a man over for speeding, and noticed he was acting suspicious. K-9's searched the car of 26-year-old Pedro Burgos, and located four packages of suspected heroin. Police said the street value of the packages is about $150,000. Burgos, who is from Miami, Florida, has been booked into the Jasper County Jail. He faces preliminary charges of Dealing a Narcotic Drug, Possession of a Narcotic Drug, and Speeding.

21 Kilos of Opium Seized From Afghan Sailor. Authorities have seized 21 kilograms (46 pounds) of raw opium and more than a kilogram of heroin from an Afghan man who sailed his boat up a river into the Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan, an Uzbek customs official said Sunday. The confiscated narcotics make up about one-sixth of the 136 kilograms of hard drugs seized by the Uzbek customs service since the beginning of the year. War-torn Afghanistan is the world's No. 1 producer of opium, and its government will need to decide on its own how to combat drug trafficking after the US military pulls out of the country next year, the head of the US Drug Enforcement Administration said earlier this month at a meeting with his Russian counterpart in Moscow. According to a United Nations report last year, almost a quarter of the heroin produced in Afghanistan -- some 90 tons out of 380 -- passed through Central Asia, 75 percent of which was "destined for the Russian market."

25.5 kg opium seized, three arrested. -- Islamabad Police have seized a cache of 25.5 kg opium here and arrested three persons in this connection. The contraband was recovered from a car during routine surveillance at a police check point in Malout village, SSP Surjit Singh said today. Nirmal Singh and two others, namely Dyal Singh and Uday Lal, both from Rajasthan, were arrested. Dayal was earlier arrested in 2002 also with 15 kg opium, the SSP said.

A dark magic: The rise of the robot traders. Last August, the hi-tech financial firm Knight Capital was brought to the verge of bankruptcy by an algorithm that went haywire, racking up more than $440m of losses in just 45 minutes before it was switched off. Perhaps the most famous mishap was the now legendary Flash Crash, at 2.45pm in New York on 6 May 2010. In a few minutes the New York Stock Exchange plunged, and then just as suddenly recovered again. Share prices in some firms, such as the consultancy Accenture, plummeted to a fraction above zero, while Apple soared to $100,000. For months afterwards, nobody could explain what had gone wrong. For days afterwards, the New York Flash Crash of 6 May 2010 left investors and regulators perplexed The official US regulatory investigation said it had been triggered by a single order, placed by a large institution, using an algorithmic trading strategy. But, what made things far worse was a "hot potato" effect: amid the confusion, one by one the robot traders tried to cut and run, and the stock exchange's computers got swamped.

Stevie Walks: Wall Street Billionaire Steve Cohen Dodges Insider Trading Charges. "Steve Cohen is the Teflon Don of Wall Street," said Bill Singer, a partner at New York--based securities-law firm Herskovits and a veteran Wall Street defense attorney. "Unless you have a smoking gun, like a phone conversation or an informing witness, these cases are very difficult to prove. Bharara may think that Cohen is guilty, but the burden of proof is 'beyond a reasonable doubt.'" Although Cohen appears set to avoid criminal charges, his multi-billion dollar hedge fund empire has taken a significant blow, thanks to the federal investigation. Since the beginning of the year, several SAC clients have sought to withdraw more than $5 billion managed by Cohen's $14 billion hedge fund, according to The Wall Street Journal. Still, Cohen retains at least $8 billion of his own money in the fund. And once the dust settles, some clients may return to SAC. "If there is no criminal prosecution, the money may come dribbling back," said Singer.

Agreements with private companies protect U.S. access to cables' data for surveillance. The publicly available agreements offer a window into efforts by U.S. officials to safeguard their ability to conduct surveillance through the fiber-optic networks that carry a huge majority of the world's voice and Internet traffic. The agreements, whose main purpose is to secure the U.S. telecommunications networks against foreign spying and other actions that could harm national security, do not authorize surveillance. But they ensure that when U.S. government agencies seek access to the massive amounts of data flowing through their networks, the companies have systems in place to provide it securely, say people familiar with the deals. Negotiating leverage has come from a seemingly mundane government power: the authority of the Federal Communications Commission to approve cable licenses. In deals involving a foreign company, say people familiar with the process, the FCC has held up approval for many months while the squadron of lawyers dubbed Team Telecom developed security agreements that went beyond what's required by the laws governing electronic eavesdropping. The security agreement for Global Crossing, whose fiber-optic network connected 27 nations and four continents, required the company to have a "Network Operations Center" on U.S. soil that could be visited by government officials with 30 minutes of warning. Surveillance requests, meanwhile, had to be handled by U.S. citizens screened by the government and sworn to secrecy — in many cases prohibiting information from being shared even with the company's executives and directors. "Our telecommunications companies have no real independence in standing up to the requests of government or in revealing data," said Susan Crawford, a Yeshiva University law professor and former Obama White House official. "This is yet another example where that's the case."

Former NSA Director On Privacy Vs. Security Balance: Would 'Shave Points' Off Effectiveness For 'Public Comfort'. Does the NSA welcome this debate? It's highly doubtful it even considers there to be room for argument, much less be willing to cede ground to privacy concerns. Every bit of data harvesting and surveillance makes everyone that much "safer," according to its claims. Surely the security of the American people (and the agencies themselves) is more important than the comfort level of the public. Former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden certainly believes it is. But unlike the current head of the NSA, Hayden is willing to tweak the all-important balance if that will make everyone a tiny bit happier. Today on Face the Nation, former CIA and National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden was talking to Bob Schieffer about the most recent round of surveillance revelations. Schieffer said it sounded like Hayden thought maybe the government should go public with at least some of the information it's been keeping secret. Hayden's reply: "Here's how I do the math. I'm willing to shave points off of my operational effectiveness in order to make the American people a bit more comfortable about what it is that we're doing." Perhaps Hayden's more willing to "shave points" now that he's no longer in the position to make that call. Anyone can cede anything in a hypothetical situation. It's rather telling that so little is being hypothetically ceded, post facto. Hayden had much more to say in his Face the Nation interview, most of which sounds like he'd rather still be in the thick of it at the NSA and CIA. He addresses the European reaction to news that the US has been surveilling our overseas allies by deflecting the argument in two different directions. "Any European who wants to go out and rend their garments with regard to international espionage should look first and find out what their own governments are doing," Hayden said. "Let's keep in mind that in a global telecommunications infrastructure, geography doesn't mean what it used to mean. ...The Internet lacks geography, so I wouldn't draw any immediate conclusions with regard to some of those numbers that have been put out there as to who's being targeted and who isn't." 1. It's OK because everyone else is doing it. 2. It's OK because technology has rendered borders and other geographic designations meaningless.

A letter from Professor Geoffrey R. Stone, liberal advocate of a police state - World Socialist Web Site. As Thomas Paine wrote in his revolutionary pamphlet Common Sense (1776), "in America, the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other." The "rule of law" means that the acts of every person, up to and including the highest public official, are beneath the law. The Constitution provides that even the "President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States" may be impeached for violating the law. This is the essence of the phrase, "a government of laws not of men." In other words, the "rule of law" means that public officials who engage in illegal conduct run the risk of having their behavior exposed, their orders disregarded, and their official powers terminated. If a citizen is ordered by a public official to participate in illegal conduct, then the "rule of law" does not mean that citizen should obey the order without question. On the contrary, the "rule of law" means that going along with the illegal conduct of one's superiors, even when ordered to do so, may itself be illegal. In American history, this principle found perhaps its fullest expression in the arguments of Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals, which took place from November 1945 to October 1946. The Nazi defendants famously asserted that they were merely "following orders," and that they did not have any legal or moral right to question the orders they were given or to refuse to carry them out. Rejecting these arguments with contempt, Justice Jackson declared that modern civilization "cannot tolerate so vast an area of legal irresponsibility."

NYC cases show crooked cops' abuse of FBI database. The allegation against Vargas is one of a batch of corruption cases in recent years against NYPD officers accused of abusing the FBI-operated National Crime Information Center database to cyber snoop on co-workers, tip off drug dealers, stage robberies and — most notoriously — scheme to abduct and eat women. The NCIC database serves 90,000 agencies and gets 9 million entries a day by users seeking information on stolen guns and cars, fugitives, sex offenders, orders of protection and other subjects, according to an FBI website. The NYPD system — called the "Finest," as in "New York's Finest" — also allows access to state criminal and Department of Motor Vehicles records. How often the database is used for unauthorized purposes is unclear. The NYPD insists that officers are under strict orders to use it only during car stops, ongoing investigations or other police work. The department assigns them login names and passwords that allow supervisors to track their usage on desktop computers in station houses or on laptops in patrol cars. NYPD recruits are warned that "if you misuse or you access information in an inappropriate manner ... you are in serious trouble — such as being prosecuted, being fired and also big fines," a police academy instructor testified at the trial of Gilbert Valle, who was convicted in March in a bizarre plot to kidnap, cook and cannibalize women. In addition, an FBI compliance unit conducts spot audits to examine users' "policies, procedures, and security requirements," the FBI said in a statement. The FBI also requires each state to have its own audit programs and claims that "malicious misuse is not commonly discovered."

Secret move keeps bin Laden records in the shadows. An acknowledgement by Adm. William McRaven of his actions was quietly removed from the final version of an inspector general's report published weeks ago. A spokesman for the admiral declined to comment. The CIA, noting that the bin Laden mission was overseen by then-CIA Director Leon Panetta before he became defense secretary, said that the SEALs were effectively assigned to work temporarily for the CIA, which has presidential authority to conduct covert operations. "Documents related to the raid were handled in a manner consistent with the fact that the operation was conducted under the direction of the CIA director," agency spokesman Preston Golson said in an emailed statement. "Records of a CIA operation such as the (bin Laden) raid, which were created during the conduct of the operation by persons acting under the authority of the CIA Director, are CIA records." Golson said it is "absolutely false" that records were moved to the CIA to avoid the legal requirements of the Freedom of Information Act. The records transfer was part of an effort by McRaven to protect the names of the personnel involved in the raid, according to the inspector general's draft report. But secretly moving the records allowed the Pentagon to tell The Associated Press that it couldn't find any documents inside the Defense Department that AP had requested more than two years ago, and could represent a new strategy for the U.S. government to shield even its most sensitive activities from public scrutiny.

Man In Wheelchair Faces 4 years For Selling 10 grams Of Marijuana. BAYANET, Michigan's Bay Area Narcotics Enforcement Team, on three separate occasions loaded a "confidential source" into a vehicle, planted money and drugs on them, and then sent them in to buy a tiny 1/8th ounce bag of pot from a disabled man, Ronald Shobe, at his home in Bay County. Shobe's wife was also charged; her plea deal is sealed, but she was sentenced to 78 hours of community service. Shobe, in his wheelchair, plead guilty to one count of delivering or manufacturing marijuana; in exchange for his plea, prosecutors in the case dropped a host of other charges including operating a drug house and conspiracy. At the time of the raid, the Shobes had only $70 in their safe and less than 20 grams of marijuana. These people are not serious drug traffickers. Although an MLive report stated the confidential buyer was not a registered patient and Shobe was, the effort and expenditure made to secure these two convictions far outweigh any potential damage this man in a wheelchair and his wife pose to the community at large. If this level of crime is what BAYANET chooses to spend their time on, communities that contribute officers or funds to the Team should rethink that strategy. Ronald Shobe, when sentenced by a Bay County Circuit Court judge, should receive the full leniency of law while facing the responsibilities of his guilty plea.

Willamette Week Puts Doug Fine On The Hot Seat. WW: What convinced you cannabis should be legalized? Doug Fine: I usually wake up to the sound of hummingbird wings. But one morning, instead of that, it was helicopters, planes and automatic weapons. It turned out it was my AARP neighbor getting busted for growing a few plants. It told me that the priorities were really screwed up. People often don't support the legalization of cannabis because they don't want to be viewed as stoners or deadbeat druggies. The stigma front is the last front of the drug war. The lingering stigma is really fading. I saw a lot of seniors in conservative places seeing their friends getting better by not using pharmaceuticals but medical cannabis. What was it like researching the book? I would be there when there were landmark days. When they were inspected by the sheriff's department or a mold was threatening the plant, or when it was flower-trimming time. Sometimes I would be with the sheriff following inspections or interviewing him.

New Study Finds THC Kills Stomach Cancer Cells. During the study researchers used cancer cells that were resistant to chemotherapy, and dosed the cells with a synthetic form of delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), one of the primary compounds found in cannabis. Researchers noted a drastic reduction in the survival rate of the cells that were exposed to the synthetic THC. When conducting the study researchers found that larger doses of THC led to higher rates of cancer cell death, validating the initial finding that it can be an effective treatment (natural THC is likely even more effective). Although more research is needed, hopefully this study -- in addition to numerous others that have been released recently -- will pave the way for cannabis being used as a standard -- and not alternative -- medicine in treating various forms of cancer.

Plane crash at Alaska airport kills 10, officials say. Meagan Peters of Alaska State Troopers says the fixed-wing aircraft was fully engulfed in flames before firefighters could get to the plane. She was not able to say how many people were on board at the time of the crash and the victims have not been identified. The accident happened around 11:20 a.m. Peters did not know if the plane was taking off or landing at the airport at the time of the crash. The NTSB identified the aircraft in a release earlier Sunday as a de Havilland Otter Air Taxi, which the Aviation Safety Foundation says can seat up to 20 passengers. The NTSB is sending a team to investigate the crash. NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss said one local member of the team was at the scene Sunday evening. For many Alaskans, flying across the state is common, exposing residents to a litany of hazards including treacherous mountain passes and volatile weather.

Sunday, July 07, 2013

Morgan Spurlock Inside Man on medical marijuana full episode - YouTube. The premiere episode presents an inside look into the medical marijuana industry as Morgan Spurlock works in a medical marijuana dispensary in California.

Female inmates sterilized in California prisons without approval. At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules during those five years -- and there are perhaps 100 more dating back to the late 1990s, according to state documents and interviews. From 1997 to 2010, the state paid doctors $147,460 to perform the procedure, according to a database of contracted medical services for state prisoners. The women were signed up for the surgery while they were pregnant and housed at either the California Institution for Women in Corona or Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, which is now a men's prison. Former inmates and prisoner advocates maintain that prison medical staff coerced the women, targeting those deemed likely to return to prison in the future.

The Snowden Effect: definition and examples � Pressthink. Congress and other governments begin talking in public about things they had previously kept hidden. Companies have to explain some of their dealings with the state. Journalists who were not a party to the transaction with Snowden start digging and adding background. Debates spring to life that had been necessary but missing before the leaks. The result is that we know much more about the surveillance state than we did before. Some of the opacity around it lifts. This is the Snowden effect. It is good for public knowledge. And public knowledge is supposed to be what a free press and open debate are all about. Notes, links and examples: (updated several times after July 5)

DaDenMan Show #155 - The Words Show The Lies The Words Chosen Illustrate The Lies Spread About Cannabis

Women And Drugs: The Final Drug War Taboo? According to the CDC's report, since 2007, more women have died each year from drug overdoses than from motor vehicle -related injuries. Between 1999-2010, deaths attributed to prescription opioids (such as oxycodone and hydrocodone) have increased fivefold among women. Since 1993, hospitalizations for prescription opioid overdoses have been more frequent among women than men. Women are more likely than men to be prescribed opioids, to use them chronically and to receive prescriptions for higher doses, according to the CDC. Surprised? Well, it makes sense if you're surprised. We so rarely tell that story. We rarely talk about the many women who sell drugs, or the pregnant women who use drugs. We rarely talk about the women incarcerated on drug charges. To a good degree, women and women's issues tend be pretty absent in the media portrayals about victims or resistors of the war on drugs. In many drug war documentaries, including some of the recent ones (The House I Live In, How to Make Money Selling Drugs, Breaking the Taboo, etc.), men are given a lot of screen time and it's mens voices we hear most often, representing every inch of the drug war spectrum—the policymakers, the manufacturers, the neighborhood drug sellers, the celebrities with tales of redemption from drug addiction. Virtually all the film makers are men, and they tend to tell stories about other men. Yes, men are incarcerated for drugs in larger numbers than women, and men die from drug overdose in greater numbers than women. But that certainly doesn't mean, nor should it imply, that women's lives are uncomplicated vis a vis drugs. It's worth mentioning that for all of their good work on raising awareness about the skyrocketing rates of fatal overdose in the United States, the CDC missed an opportunity to promote the generic antidote to opioid overdose, naloxone, in their report today. They concluded their report with a whole host of ways accidental fatal overdose can potentially be reduced among women, but not a single mention of the actual antidote to opioid overdose. Women need to know how to prevent, recognize and respond to an opioid overdose. Our partners, parents, children and friends should have that information, as well. Not only are we now dying in greater numbers from drug overdose, but we're not even being made aware of the lifesaving measures available to us in the very reports telling us about our deadly problem. In many states across the country, we should be encouraged to call 911 for medical assistance at the scene of a suspected drug overdose, without fear of arrest or incarceration. Making use of '911 Good Samaritan' laws is just one way women can be empowered to save lives—or that their own lives can be saved.

Cannabis Compound Reduces Cigarette Consumption In Tobacco Smokers. Investigators at University College London conducted a double blind pilot study to assess the impact of the ad-hoc consumption of organic CBD versus placebo in 24 tobacco-smoking subjects seeking to quit their habit. Participants were randomized to receive an inhaler containing CBD (n=12) or placebo (n=12) for one week. Trial investigators instructed subjects to use the inhaler when they felt the urge to smoke. Researchers reported: "Over the treatment week, placebo treated smokers showed no differences in number of cigarettes smoked. In contrast, those treated with CBD significantly reduced the number of cigarettes smoked by [the equivalent of] 40 percent during treatment." Moreover, participants who used CBD did not report experiencing increased cravings for nicotine during the study's duration. Investigators concluded, "This is the first study, as far as we are aware, to demonstrate the impact of CBD on cigarette smoking. ... These preliminary data, combined with the strong preclinical rationale for use of this compound, suggest CBD to be a potential treatment for nicotine addiction that warrants further exploration." Previously published clinical trials on CBD have found cannabidiol to be "safe and well tolerated" in healthy volunteers.

Sheriff: I Just Want Cannabis Off The Front Page. Study after study indicates that cannabis is (especially compared to alcohol and America's real epidemic: prescription pill abuse) safe when used responsibly. It's not meth. It's not alcohol. It doesn't make people violent. It's thus not a problem to Sheriff Tom, who told me at a Fourth of July picnic that his view of cannabis is "Smoke it till your head caves in. I don't care. I just wish I could get it off the front pages so I could have more time to deal with the real problems in this county. This is my biggest dream." It's also one shared by many of Allman's constituents: While it's by no means unanimous, I met no shortage of local cannabis in the Emerald Triangle activists who want to be a test case. They're ready for legitimacy. Allman, in his words, was "simply obeying county nuisance regulations" by implementing the nation's first cannabis permitting ordinance. The Zip-tie program cost about $8,500 per farmer for ninety-nine plants with a final cannabis dispensary value of around half a million dollars. In its second full year following a 2010 revamping, the Zip-tie program was so successful that at least two neighboring (and similarly economically struggling) California counties were considering a similar job-creating, public safety-increasing program -- that is, until the U.S. Attorney's Office for California's Northern District threatened the program's farmers and administrators. This outrageous action (hopefully for a short time and for the last time) once again sent America's number one crop underground. At one point during the federal harassment Sheriff Tom even sent me an email jokingly asking if I'd bail him out if necessary.

Oklahoma Welfare Drug Screening Finds Few Violations, Wastes Tax Dollars. The bill was designed to save the state money by weeding out drug users seeking Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds. But the new law is finding few welfare drug users. According to the state Department of Human Services (DHS), in the first four months that the law was in effect, some 1,300 people underwent screening to see if there was reasonable suspicion they were using drugs, but only 29 were denied benefits. That is about 2.2% of those screened, a drug use level well below the national average of about 8%. Some 340 people were deemed by the screening process to be likely drug users, but again, only 29 of them were denied benefits. That is closer to the 8% national average, but also shows that more than 90% of those determined by screening to be likely drug users were not. And of those 29 people denied benefits, only 16 actually failed a drug test. Thirteen others simply refused to comply with demands for additional testing. The testing and screening procedures have cost the state $74,000, according to DHS. According to the Okahoma TANF Program, the average TANF benefit is $3500 a year, meaning at most, the state will have saved about $25,000 net through the drug testing program—but only if all 29 people are denied benefits for an entire year. The law allows people denied benefits to seek them again after six months if they have completed drug treatment.

Oregon Medical Marijuana Dispensary Bill Just Needs Governor's Signature. "This Legislature has stepped up and tackled many difficult issues this session. Our work to regulate dispensaries will provide a framework for a safer system for patients and for our communities," said State Rep. Peter Buckley, chief sponsor of House Bill 3460. Approval of the bill is the final accomplishment of a Legislature that passed significant legislation around marijuana reform. Also passed this session were bills to reduce criminal sentences for marijuana possession (SB 40), add PTSD as a condition to the Oregon medical marijuana act (SB 281) and an end to the automatic suspension of the 6-month driver's license when caught with marijuana (SB 82). "This legislature took a calm and controlled look at issues related to marijuana and the medical marijuana program and passed a number of very sensible reforms that will save money, improve access to medicine for patients and stop some very wasteful spending on marijuana related investigations and prosecutions," said Geoff Sugerman, a director with Oregonians for Medical Rights. "This is by far the most significant and successful session regarding marijuana reform since passage of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act in 1998." Now, said Sam Chapman, a director of Oregonians for Medical Rights, dispensaries will operate under a set of rules that are designed to ensure safe access to medicine. "From requiring testing for pesticides, molds and mildews to security systems and tracking of marijuana that comes in and goes out, these medical marijuana facilities will have to abide by a number of strict rules as we professionalize and improve the program," said Chapman. "These rules and regulations will also give law enforcement clear directives on what is allowed and not allowed under the program."

In Secret, Court Expands NSA's Surveillance Power - Reason 24/7 : Reason.com. The rulings, some nearly 100 pages long, reveal that the court has taken on a much more expansive role by regularly assessing broad constitutional questions and establishing important judicial precedents, with almost no public scrutiny, according to current and former officials familiar with the court's classified decisions. The 11-member Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as the FISA court, was once mostly focused on approving case-by-case wiretapping orders. But since major changes in legislation and greater judicial oversight of intelligence operations were instituted six years ago, it has quietly become almost a parallel Supreme Court, serving as the ultimate arbiter on surveillance issues and delivering opinions that will most likely shape intelligence practices for years to come, the officials said. ... In one of the court's most important decisions, the judges have expanded the use in terrorism cases of a legal principle known as the "special needs" doctrine and carved out an exception to the Fourth Amendment's requirement of a warrant for searches and seizures, the officials said.

Saturday, July 06, 2013

Asiana Airlines Plane Crashes At San Francisco International Airport. The Boeing 777 was supposed to land on runway 28 left at the airport, said Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown. She said the sequence of events was still unclear, but it appeared the plane landed and then crashed. A video clip posted to YouTube shows smoke coming from a silver-colored jet on the tarmac. Passengers could be seen jumping down the inflatable emergency slides. Television footage showed debris strewn about the tarmac and pieces of the plane lying on the runway. Fire trucks had sprayed a white fire retardant on the wreckage. A call to the airline seeking comment wasn't immediately returned. Asiana is a South Korean airline, second in size to national carrier Korean Air. It has recently tried to expand its presence in the United States, and joined the oneWorld alliance, anchored by American Airlines and British Airways. The 777-200 is a long-range plane from Boeing. The twin-engine aircraft is one of the world's most popular long-distance planes, often used for flights of 12 hours or more, from one continent to another. The airline's website says its 777s can carry between 246 to 300 passengers.

What do the corporate capture of America, voter suppression and NSA spying have in common? Justice Roberts invalidated the formula that determines which jurisdictions are covered by the law and thus pre-clearance is no longer allowed until this Congress, which can barely name post offices, passes a replacement formula. In the days since his decision, laws designed specifically to suppress minority voters have flooded out of North Carolina, where much of the state was covered under the old formula. You need to know that destroying the Voting Rights Act has been Roberts' goal for most of his adult life, notes The Nation's Ari Berman: Justice Roberts has been opposed to the VRA for three decades, ever since he was a young lawyer in the Reagan Justice Department. His sweeping and radical decision yesterday was more about ideology than the law, constitutional principles or congressional deference be damned. Now that he's outed himself as an ideologue, it's especially important to note a fact that hasn't gotten much attention since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the massive scope of surveillance by the U.S. government. All of that surveillance has been approved by one body — the FISA court. Guess who appoints every member of that court? Chief Justice John Roberts All 11 judges — 10 Republicans and 1 Democrat — were appointed by Roberts. And his choices to not require approval by Congress — or anyone. This is how we ended up with a FISA court that approves 99.9% of the government's spying requests. Only 10 out of 20,909 were rejected. Another 1,000 of the approved requests required modification. 26 were withdrawn by the government. "That's a startling win rate for the government," writes Ezra Klein. But not so startling when you recognize that it all comes from decisions made by one man: Chief Justice John Roberts.

Taylor man heads home after promoting medical marijuana on his wheelchair ride to Washington. Curtis Kile, 52, who has had cerebral palsy since birth, said he made the trip — on sidewalks and road shoulders, through small towns and big cities — to raise awareness about the importance of medical marijuana for those with serious health problems. After arriving at the White House gates about 8 p.m. Wednesday, "I just sat there for about 20 minutes — I was really amazed that we made it," he said. Kile was accompanied by his son, Curtis Kile Jr., 17, who drove the family's 2006 Econoline van equipped with a wheelchair lift. The elder Kile returned to the White House on Thursday, spoke to a crowd gathered for a human rights rally and hoped to speak to President Barack Obama about how medical marijuana has helped him. But he said he had no appointment with the president or anyone else in the White House, and "I didn't get a phone call or nothing from them." Still, he said, he was glad he made the journey, during which — short on money — the father and son often camped outdoors, with Kile sleeping in his wheelchair. "I don't think the trip was a waste. We were able to draw attention to the issue," Kile said today. He said a Free Press article on his trip, published Monday, helped "double or maybe triple" donations to his effort. The duo plan to spend their return trip in motels because of that. Kile's pilgrimage drew attention "across the country," said Rick Thompson, publisher of the Flint-based Cannabis Chronicles website. Those who support "legal and safe access" to medical marijuana have been disappointed in the Obama administration's continued use of federal agents and drug laws to prosecute users of medical marijuana, even in states that have state laws that allow medical use, including Michigan, Thompson said.

Whistleblower says Feds have highspeed backdoor into major US wireless carrier's network. (*SINCE 2003) A U.S. government office in Quantico, Virginia, has direct, high-speed access to a major wireless carrier's systems, exposing customers' voice calls, data packets and physical movements to uncontrolled surveillance, according to a computer security consultant who says he worked for the carrier in late 2003. "What I thought was alarming is how this carrier ended up essentially allowing a third party outside their organization to have unfettered access to their environment," Babak Pasdar, CTO of New Jersey-based IGXglobal told Threat Level. "I wanted to put some access controls around it; they vehemently denied it. And when I wanted to put some logging around it, they denied that." Pasdar won't name the wireless carrier in question, but his claims are nearly identical to unsourced allegations made in a federal lawsuit filed in 2006 against four phone companies and the U.S. government for alleged privacy violations. That suit names Verizon Wireless as the culprit. Wired contacted Verizon, and a company spokesperson declined to comment: "What you're talking about sounds as if it would be classified and involving national security, so I wouldn't be able to find out the facts."

Legalize Marijuana for recreational use federally, in 50 states. Also being removed from the DEA's Schedule 1 drug list. Billions in potential taxes go to drug cartels. Our cash-strapped states are being cheated out of billions that could be obtained by taxing and regulating marijuana like alcohol. Thousands of prohibition murders occur each year. Mexico is the world's largest exporter of marijuana (most goes to the United States). There were at least 24,000 prohibition-related murders in Mexico since 2006. Thousands more died here, also a direct result of marijuana prohibition. Criminalizing marijuana lacks moral justification. A real crime implies a victim and a perpetrator. Can you imagine being jailed for robbing yourself? As insane as this sounds, our government has done the equivalent by making adult use of marijuana a crime. http://www.alternet.org/drugs/legalize-marijuana-now-here-are-10-reasons-why

Gas line spills 25,000 gallons on Montana tribal land - NBC News.com. A representative of the Houston-based oil refinery and chemical company said the amount of leaked gas likely was less than initially reported, although no alternate figure was offered. The initial estimate came from a report submitted by the company to the government's National Response Center. Federal and tribal officials and the company worked Friday to determine what caused the break in the 8-inch underground line. It occurred about 15 miles southwest of Lodge Grass, a town of about 430 people near the Wyoming border. The same line has seen at least three spills over the past two decades. The latest spill was not expected to enter any surface water supplies, and no public health problems were anticipated, the company said. It was discovered late Tuesday by operators in the company's Bartlesville, Okla., pipeline control center, who noticed a pressure drop along the line, according to federal officials and Phillips 66 Co. spokesman Dennis Nuss. It's uncertain how long the line had been leaking or whether any of the gasoline can be recovered. "We're still assessing the area," Nuss said. "The line has been excavated in order to be able to be repaired." The closest residence is about 2 miles from the spill site, said Curtis Kimbel with the Environmental Protection Agency. He confirmed that no streams or lakes were in the immediate area but did not know if any underground aquifers were present.

How to make the Patriot Act more patriotic. Repeatedly, our government has chosen technologies, policies and laws that reveal innocent information without making us demonstrably safer. The massive telephone and Internet surveillance programs disclosed last month are the most recent examples. But the tendency goes back at least as far as the USA Patriot Act, passed in the anxious weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, with only one dissenting vote in the Senate. Defenders of the Patriot Act say it has prevented terrorism. But a better Patriot Act might have avoided national scandals over not only airport scanners and phone metadata but also wiretapping and library records. A better law could have dispensed with the "trust us" mentality and mitigated the erosion of trust in government. It could have put us in a better position to detect terrorism and other serious crimes without threatening privacy. Here's what some of the most controversial passages of the Patriot Act should have said from the start — and how they could be amended. Section 215 and records searches Before the Patriot Act, the government could conduct warrantless surveillance only to seize a limited set of records, such as business records, and only when the target was a suspected spy, terrorist or "agent of a foreign power." Section 215 broadened the exception to warrant requirements dramatically, allowing the government to seize from anyone "any tangible things" — that is, any data, including e-mails, financial records and travel itineraries — arguably relevant to a terrorism investigation, regardless of whether the target is a suspected terrorist.

Clapper Says His Denial of Mass Data Collection Was a True Statement, a Noble Lie, and an Honest Mistake. Pick One. - Hit & Run : Reason.com. Here is the question that Wyden posed at a March 12 hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee: Last summer the NSA director was at a conference, and he was asked a question about the NSA surveillance of Americans. He replied, and I quote here, "the story that we have millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers on people is completely false." The reason I'm asking the question is, having served on the [intelligence] committee now for a dozen years, I don't really know what a dossier is in this context. So what I wanted to see is if you could give me a yes or no answer to the question: Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans? And here is Clapper's answer: No, sir. Wyden knew this was not true, because as a member of the intelligence committee he had been briefed about the NSA's then-secret database of all domestic telephone records, collected under a controversial interpretation of the PATRIOT Act. So Wyden gave Clapper another chance: Wyden: It does not. Clapper: Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect, but not wittingly. Wyden: All right. Thank you. I'll have additional questions to give you in writing on that point, but I thank you for the answer. Clapper's explanation for this misrepresentation has evolved since it first came to light as a result of the recent revelations about the NSA's surveillance programs. At first he said the exchange with Wyden was about email content, as opposed to telephone metadata. "What I said, " he told National Journal on June 6, "was the NSA does not voyeuristically pore through U.S. citizens' emails." Since Wyden asked about "any type of data at all," and since the word email was not even mentioned during the hearing, that description was clearly false. In an interview with NBC News two days later, Clapper effectively admitted that he lied to Wyden, saying he gave the "least untruthful" answer he could to a question dealing with classified matters. (If Clapper was concerned about revealing classified information during an open hearing, wouldn't declining to answer have been less untruthful?) In his June 21 letter, which is addressed to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Clapper backs away from that admission, pleading honest confusion instead

PLATO�S �NOBLE LIE� -- Hotcoffee,org -Waking You Up. PLATO�S �NOBLE LIE� -- In "The Republic," Plato described a city whose inhabitant were organized into categories: The Rulers, Auxiliaries, Farmers, etc. The Rulers, he said, would be chosen from the military elite (called Guardians) because they were good at shepherding and caring for the interest of the community. The Auxiliaries would be Guardians in training. The Rulers, Plato said, must tell the people of the city �The Noble Lie�--that the categories of Rules, Auxiliaries, Farmers, etc. was not due to circumstances within the people's control, upbringing, or education, but because of God's intervention. God, the Lie went, had put gold, silver, and iron into each person�s soul, and those metals determined where a person's station was in life was. The Rulers told the people of the city that if their own children were found with bronze or iron in their soul, the child would drop down the ranks accordingly. And if a farmer�s child was born with gold in his soul, he would rise up to the Guardian level. The Rulers also said, people had different metals in their bloodstream, and therefore could not intermarry. The Lie is necessary, Plato argues, in order to keep a stable social structure. In Plato�s mind, The Noble Lie is a religious lie that�s fed to the masses to keep them under control and happy with their situation in life. Plato did not believe most people were smart enough to look after their own and society�s best interest. The few smart people of the world needed to lead the rest of the flock, Plato said. And The Noble Lie had to continue.

The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills. (People who lack medical insurance are 40% more likely to die prematurely) Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. Before the law, about 20 percent of Americans with high-deductible healthcare insurance plans like Diane skipped preventive doctor's visit because of the cost. The new legislation helps ensure that everyone has affordable healthcare coverage, even if they are unemployed. While it is impossible to say with certainty that Diane's tragedy could have been avoided, had she been covered by an affordable plan, she probably wouldn't have let cost come between her and her doctor. That meant she would have been able to go out and seek work again in an economy slowly recovering from the Great Recession. While the United States under President Obama began taking urgently needed steps to help prevent the Great Recession from leading to more avoidable tragedies like Diane's, the UK's National Health Service (NHS) began doing the opposite. Initially its universal healthcare system had been a great protector of its people—and no one lost healthcare access due to the economic crash. But now, under the politics of austerity, the UK Tory government is trying to mimic the US model by introducing competition, markets, and private contractors into the NHS. To understand what these privatizing reforms are likely to mean for the UK, it's first necessary to trace why the US healthcare system was in such dire straits during the recession. Before the Great Recession, the US healthcare system failed to provide coverage for many of its people. Although two-thirds of Americans received health insurance through their employer, the rest—those whose employers wouldn't cover them, part-time workers, and the self-employed—were on their own, if they couldn't qualify for federal insurance programs. These American had to buy health insurance on the private market, but many could not afford the high monthly payments (premiums) and high deductibles. What's more, before the passage of the PPACA, insurance companies were able to restrict coverage on the basis of pre-existing health conditions, like diabetes of high blood pressure—so many who could afford private insurance were nevertheless not fully covered. All in all the US system left about 40 million Americans—almost 13 percent of the population—without health insurance. The Great Recession turned this bad healthcare situation into a full-blown crisis. When Americans lost their jobs in the recession, another 6 million people lost their health insurance. Losing healthcare coverage is extremely dangerous. A 2009 study found that people who lacked medical insurance were 40 percent more likely to die prematurely than those who had it. During the Great Recession, before the PPACA came into effect, there were approximately 35,000 avoidable deaths due to the lack of healthcare insurance.

Daily CEO Pay Now Exceeds the Average Worker's Annual Salary. Average salary for the CEOs of the top 200 U.S. companies with revenue of over $1 billion was $5.3 million. The big money, however, is paid out in stock and options which added another $9 million to the median compensation package for the CEOs. Worst off were the workers at these companies whose median pay is now at a historic low compared to the CEOs. In 1965, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute, the average CEO made 20 times the average worker. Now the ratio is 273 to 1 ie the average CEO's daily salary is now greater than the annual salary of their workers. Ellison did even better - he was paid the equivalent of the average U.S. salary of $45,790 every single hour last year. "So much for the idea that shareholders were finally getting through to corporate boards on the topic of reining in pay," writes Gretchen Morgenson at the New York Times. The salary survey was commissioned by her newspaper. And CEO's sometimes do even better when they quit. Take for example, James Mulva of ConocoPhillips. He was paid $140.8 million in 2011 but topped that in 2012 when he left the company after 10 years as CEO. Once he cashed out his stock options, took his retirement bonus and got his final paycheck, he collected a whopping $260 million in 2012. The New York Times has a list of the rest of the top ten in departure bonanzas: Edward Breen was paid $46.2 million after leaving Tyco International, George Lindemann of Southern Union got $44.1 million, Kevin Sharer of Amgen was paid $40.4 million, Douglas Foshee of El Paso Corporation got $37.4 million, James Skinner of McDonald's and Brian Duperreault of Marsh & McLennan were each paid $33 million, Michael Szymanczyk of Altria got $27.9 million, while John Chapman of Axis Capital Holdings made $26.5 million. Lynn Elsenhans of Sunoco was the only woman in the group with $23.6 million.

Train carrying flammable liquid derails, bursts into flames in Canada. It jumped the tracks in the small town of Lac-Megantic in the province of Quebec, according to officials in Maine, who received a request for help at around 3 a.m. ET. The inferno spread to nearby homes, and authorities evacuated the center of town and a home for the elderly, CNN affiliate Radio-Canada reported. Thick fuel spilled into the Chaudiere River. Firefighters from both countries rushed to fight the blaze with at least 27 firefighting vehicles. Five of the trucks deployed from the United States, after the sheriff's office in Franklin County, Maine, issued an "all call" for help to U.S. fire departments near the border. Flames welling up stories high into the night sky were caught on camera and uploaded to Youtube. The video appears to reveal an explosion. Thick black smoke billowed into the air. A "nauseating" odor spread through the town, Radio-Canada reported, and environmental emergency services dispatched a mobile lab to check for airborne toxins.

Codex Alimentarius' Meeting on Veterinary Residues in Foods. "There is overwhelming scientific consensus that overuse of antibiotics in livestock is a health hazard to people," remarked Dr. Thomas Newman, a member of the Senate.[iii] We create antibiotic resistance and hormonal imbalance in ourselves when we eat meat, dairy, or honey tainted with antibiotic residues. In researching "vet residues" on the internet this came up, "The major classes of veterinary drugs include antibiotics, anthelmintics, coccidiostats, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, sedatives, corticosteroids, beta-agonists and anabolic hormones. These drugs, which are administered to live animals, can remain as residues in animal tissues." Obviously we are ingesting far more than antibiotics with animal products and with the volumes of consumption noted above. Contraband drugs like nitrofurans, chloramphenicol, clenbuterol and diethylstilbestrol continue to be used because they are cheap despite having been banned in most countries due to their carcinogenicity. Testing equipment is often substandard or incapable of testing to the correct parts per million (ppm). The problem is magnified when coupled with pesticides, artificial flavors and coloring, as well as other additives, preservatives and alternative chemicals commonly found in processed food, and of course, GMO grains fed to animals. Monica Eng of the Chicago Tribune states that "[t]he FDA can issue legal limits but admits it doesn't have the means to enforce them by inspecting farms. Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued 78 warning letters (up from nine in 2002) to livestock producers or brokers whose meat samples bore traces of illegal drugs or of residues that were illegally high. Those numbers likely underestimate the problem, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture samples only a fraction of the animals slaughtered each year. The FDA enforces regulations on residues but said it doesn't have the resources to inspect every facility connected with an animal found to be in violation." [iv]

Genetically Engineered "Terminator Seeds" - Death and Destruction. It is frequently argued that the high debt incurred by Indian farmers and resultant farmer suicides (over 250,000 since 1997) have largely resulted from the need to purchase costly pesticides and expensive seeds each year because they contain a 'terminator' gene. Environmentalist Vandana Shiva has taken a good deal of flak from some quarters for implying that seeds with 'non-renewable' genetic traits are responsible for the mass farmer suicides in India. Her most strident critics say that this is a much-propagated myth or outright lie, given the global ban on the commercial use of 'terminator' seeds. So, who are we to believe? Tiruvadi Jagadisan worked with Monsanto for nearly two decades, including eight years as the managing director of India operations. The former Monsanto boss said government regulatory agencies with which the company used to deal with in the 1980s simply depended on data supplied by the company while giving approvals to herbicides. As reported in India Today in 2009, he is on record as saying that India's Central Insecticide Board simply accepted foreign data supplied by Monsanto and did not even have a test tube to validate the data and, at times, the data itself was faked. Jagadisan stated that Monsanto was getting into the seed business and that he had information that a 'terminator gene' was to be incorporated in the seeds being supplied by the firm. It begs the question, who can we trust? Monsanto, a company with a more than dubious history of safety standards and scruples, and state regulatory bodies in India, a country where corruption throughout officialdom runs deep and is well documented, or people like Vandana Shiva and farmers on the ground who suspect terminator technology is already a reality?

Berkeley Patients Group Gets Support From City Officials In Federal Forfeiture Case. "it is time for the federal government to wake up and stop these asset forfeiture actions... Berkeley patients group has complied with the rules and cause no problems in the city, the federal government should not use its scarce resources to harass local law-abiding businesses." Despite the mayors pleading, asking the feds to exercise good judgment and compassion, US Atty. Gen. Melinda Haag, gleefully skipped down the path of witless ignorance. In her filing, Ms. Haag and the federal government have proclaimed that BPG was a bad actor within the California medical marijuana industry, and was illegally selling medicinal pot.Reeking of a national smear campaign against medical marijuana,the federal government maintains medicinal marijuana as a schedule 1 narcotic within the controlled substance act, and views the selling of any weed, whether medicinal a recreational as a problem. (federal government holds patent on marijuana cannabinoids) Shortly after the federal government condemned, attacked and filed a federal forfeiture case against BPG in late May, the Berkeley city Council showed strong support by passing a resolution which clearly stated that the medical marijuana collective operators "contribute significantly to our community, providing good jobs and paying millions of dollars in taxes. They have improved the lives in assisted the end-of-life transition for thousands of patients. They have been an active supporter of dozens of Berkeley community organization." Just one day before our country celebrated their independence -- a federal judge issued a small victory for California collectives, by delivering a stay in the forfeiture proceedings brought against Harborside collective in Oakland California. "I think this is something we're going to see more and more -- cities making a push back," said Amanda Rieman, a policy manager for the alliance in San Francisco California. "They're still going to fight... And they can't be threatened away with landlord letters."

Friday, July 05, 2013

The Environmental Impact Of Washington's Cannabis Rules. The Washington State Liquor Control Board's decision to allow cannabis to be grown outdoors under the sun will lead to the greatest reduction in electrical use and associated carbon emissions our state is likely to see over the next five years. Washington State currently relies heavily on indoor cannabis production which is estimated to consume 3-5% of the state electrical grid power. As the economics of production move producers toward sun growing under a legal framework we are likely to see a corresponding reduction in electrical use and a significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions given that about one third of Washington state's power is produced from carbon based fuels. Increased electrical demand on the power grid from cannabis production increases electrical demand and prices, which amounts to a "marijuana tax" that all utility payers currently pay. Transferring cannabis production to the outdoors will significantly reduce the states electrical consumption and should lead to a reduction in cost to electrical ratepayers across the state. President Obama, as part of his climate strategy, should propose legalizing cannabis nationally to significantly reduce electrical consumption and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Peer reviewed research conducted by Dr. Evan Mill's and published in the Journal of Energy Policy estimated that 1% of the nations power is used for cannabis production. Valued at 6 billion dollars annually it is enough electricity to power 2 million average US homes. In terms of carbon dioxide emissions, indoor cannabis production is associated with producing 15 million metric tons of CO2- equivalent to that of 3 million average cars on the road. Federal legalization of cannabis would move cannabis production from energy intensive indoor methods developed to avoid detection by authorities to sustainable, low cost methods using the sun as the primary energy source. Legalization presents the greatest opportunity to reduce our country's electrical consumption and association carbon emissions. This is the single greatest justification for legalizing cannabis at the federal level, and should be seriously considered as part of the US energy policy strategy focused at reducing carbon emissions.

You Don't Have To Think Marijuana Is Safe To Support Legalization. Even if some people think that marijuana is the most dangerous thing in the world and refuse to change their minds about that, advocates can still convince them to support legalization by detailing how prohibition only increases any harms associated with the drug compared to how those harms could be lessened and better managed under legal regulation. When you make marijuana illegal, you make it impossible to test and label it for potency and purity. You make it impossible to enact age restrictions, thereby increasing access to teens. You make it so that all decisions about where, when, how and to whom marijuana is sold are made by drug dealers instead of by lawmakers and regulators with input from public health advocates. You make it so that marijuana use is criminalized and stigmatized, often making people who develop dependency issues afraid to seek help. You make it so that scarce public resources are wasted on arresting, prosecuting and locking people up instead of funding treatment and prevention programs. And so on. Every possible harm associated with marijuana is clearly made much, much worse by prohibition. While reformers are right that science shows marijuana to be a safer alternative to alcohol and other legal substances, I fear that my colleagues who lead with this argument are missing an opportunity to get as many new people as possible onto our side. Sure, it makes marijuana users who already support reform feel justified in their beliefs, but focusing on trying to get people to change their minds about marijuana the drug as opposed to marijuana laws can easily lead those people we still need to convince to incorrectly believe that supporting legalization is only for those who love marijuana or want to use it. And it can give people the impression that marijuana use is going to become much more widespread after prohibition ends.

Whose Term Was It? A Look Back At The Supreme Court : NPR. In the voting rights case, the South, which for decades had to clear any voting changes with federal officials, saw itself liberated, while African-American and Latino voters saw the decision as once again allowing historically hostile states to suppress the right to vote for minorities. And in the affirmative action case, the court's 7-to-1 compromise allowed everyone to claim victory and fight another day. In terms of leadership and clout on the court, whose term was it? Was the dominant figure, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who voted in the majority in nearly every major case, often writing the majority opinion? Or was it Chief Justice John Roberts? After all, he engineered more unanimous rulings than usual and wrote the opinion gutting the Voting Rights Act, a law that he had long opposed. One leadership scenario has Roberts steadily pulling the court to the right, acting strategically to achieve his conservative goals, and knowing that that he will likely serve for another two decades at least. Another scenario has Justice Stephen Breyer and the liberals making compromises, as in the affirmative action case, to stall off what otherwise would be decisions antithetical to liberal views. But in either of these scenarios the victory goes to the justice who can amass five votes, and without Kennedy, that is usually very difficult to do.

U.S. Has Nothing to Say About 10-Year-Old Killed in Drone Strike. National security spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden would not comment on the June 9 strike or more generally on the White House position on acknowledging civilian deaths. She referred further questions to the CIA, which also declined to comment. The president's speech was the capstone on a shift in drone war policy that would reportedly bring the program largely under control of the military (as opposed to the CIA) and impose stricter criteria on who could be targeted. In theory, it could also bring some of the classified program into the open. As part of its transparency effort, the administration released the names of four U.S. citizens who had been killed in drone strikes. An official White House fact sheet on targeted killing released along with the speech repeated the "near-certainty" standard for avoiding civilian casualties. Secretary of State John Kerry reiterated it a few days later, when he told an audience in Ethiopia: "We do not fire when we know there are children or collateral — we just don't do it." But White House press secretary Jay Carney said in late May that "this commitment to transparency...does not mean that we would be able to discuss the details of every counterterrorism operation." The new White House statements don't address what happens after a strike, even in general terms.

FACT Threats Turn Usenet Search Engine Into Open Source Hydra Indexer. FACT has done a lot of work against Usenet sites in recent times, most recently forcing the shutdown of NZBsRus. Barely a week later and another site has received personalized threats. NzbX is a public Usenet search engine that has automatically indexed around five million releases. It's been in existence since December 2012 following the NZBMatrix shutdown and since then has registered 130,000 members and serviced many more. Yesterday lunchtime its admin, Lemon -- a 26-year-old recovering from a recent heart attack -- had an unexpected visitor. "I was in bed, recovering, I'm sleeping a lot -- my partner is also recovering from surgery that limits her movement," Lemon told TorrentFreak. "I heard a buzz at the door. I ignored it twice, thinking if it was important they'd be louder. I heard something go through my letterbox and I stumbled downstairs to find an envelope without a stamp -- which I thought was odd. Upon opening the envelope I found a letter from FACT."

Face-to-face with Abu Sakkar, Syria's 'heart-eating cannibal'. "I didn't want to do this. I had to," he tells me. "We have to terrify the enemy, humiliate them, just as they do to us. Now, they won't dare be wherever Abu Sakkar is." He is 27, a stocky, tough-looking Bedouin from the Baba Amr district of Homs, with a wild stare and skin burned a dark brown by the sun. He tells me the story of his involvement in the revolution, leading to his current notoriety. Abu Sakkar fought with the Farouq Brigade before starting his own Before the uprising, he was working as a labourer in Baba Amr. He joined the demonstrations when they started in the spring of 2011. Then, he says, a woman and child were shot dead at a protest. His brother went to help. He, too, was shot and killed.

The Free-Trade Charade. it now seems clear that the negotiations to create a free-trade area between the US and Europe, and another between the US and much of the Pacific (except for China), are not about establishing a true free-trade system. Instead, the goal is a managed trade regime -- managed, that is, to serve the special interests that have long dominated trade policy in the West. There are a few basic principles that those entering the discussions will, one hopes, take to heart. First, any trade agreement has to be symmetrical. If, as part of the "Trans-Pacific Partnership" (TPP), the US demands that Japan eliminate its rice subsidies, the US should, in turn, offer to eliminate its production (and water) subsidies, not just on rice (which is relatively unimportant in the US) but on other agricultural commodities as well. Second, no trade agreement should put commercial interests ahead of broader national interests, especially when non-trade-related issues like financial regulation and intellectual property are at stake. America's trade agreement with Chile, for example, impedes Chile's use of capital controls -- even though the International Monetary Fund now recognizes that capital controls can be an important instrument of macro-prudential policy. Other trade agreements have insisted on financial liberalization and deregulation as well, even though the 2008 crisis should have taught us that the absence of good regulation can jeopardize economic prosperity. America's pharmaceutical industry, which wields considerable clout with the office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), has succeeded in foisting on other countries an unbalanced intellectual-property regime, which, designed to fight generic drugs, puts profit ahead of saving lives. Even the US Supreme Court has now said that the US Patent Office went too far in granting patents on genes.

seMissourian.com: State News: Officer gets OK to lobby for pro-marijuana group (07/05/13). Wiegert, a 32-year veteran of the department, filed a complaint earlier this year in U.S. District Court claiming the department violated his First Amendment rights to free speech for revoking approval of his lobbying work on behalf of Show-Me Cannabis. He was lobbying the Missouri Legislature to treat arrests for small amounts of marijuana possession like a traffic ticket, rather than a misdemeanor. Messages seeking comment from Dotson were not immediately returned Wednesday. The chief said in a statement at the time Wiegert's lobbying job was disallowed that the officer's comments on behalf of the lesser marijuana law "are his own and not what is expected of our officers." Secondary jobs are common among St. Louis police officers -- many work security in their off-hours, for example. Approval from the department is required. Wiegert worked for three years as a lobbyist for the St. Louis Tea Party. In February, he submitted a new application to the department. The application did not require him to state for whom he would lobby. It was approved but revoked after the department learned Wiegert was lobbying for the pro-marijuana group. Wiegert's attorney, Albert Watkins, said the department's tough stand against Wiegert actually helped the pro-marijuana movement. "They brought more attention to the very cause they were trying to depress than Wiegert did standing on the highest mountain lobbying," Watkins said.

Immersion: a people-centric view of your email life. Immersion will use only the From, To, Cc and Timestamp fields of the emails in the account you are signing in with. It will not access the subject or the body content of any of your emails. Upon logging out of Immersion, you will be presented with a choice to save or delete your data, which contains your compressed email metadata and user profile.

Forget the NSA: This MIT Website Just Needs Your Gmail to Track You. Immersion, which launched on June 30 after years in development, asks participants for access to their Gmail accounts, and in exchange, it creates a visual map of their networks. Each "collaborator" — or person with whom the participant has exchanged at least three e-mails — is represented by a circle, which is then connected to all the other circles in one big web of relationships. Professor César Hidalgo, who spearheaded the project, told TIME that the result is a piece of very personal art. "It's a picture you've been painting not with pigments and brushes, but every time you send an e-mail or get in touch with someone," he says. The program received such heavy Web traffic — more than 43,900 views between Monday and Tuesday alone — that the site temporarily broke. Hidalgo and his team are working to equip the program to handle the thousands of requests for metadata mapping, and currently, interested participants must add their name to a queue. Much like the government phone-surveillance programs, Immersion doesn't need to access the content of communications. Instead, by gathering information about the senders and recipients of all the e-mails in an inbox, it can create a detailed portrait of the user's social connections. Each person's picture on Immersion is as unique as a fingerprint, but much more informative.

Students Question NSA at Recruitment Meeting - SoundCloud Mobile. The biggest enemy of every free society and of every free citizen in that free society is always their own government and his governmental organizations: even the US constitution unfortunately will give that citizen not the protection they may expect.

Is It Time To Acknowledge Roundup Herbicide As A Contraceptive? Performed by Brazilian researchers, the study found acute Roundup exposure at low doses (36ppm, 0.036g/L) for 30 minutes induced cell death in Sertoli cells in prepubertal rat testis. Sertoli cells are known as "mother" or "nurse" cells within the testicles, as they are responsible for maintaining the health of sperm cells, and are required for normal male sexual development. Roundup herbicide exposure was found to induce oxidative stress and to activate multiple-stress response pathways within affected cells, and was associated with an increase in intracellular calcium (Ca2+) concentration leading to Ca2+ overload, and cell death. Thirty minute incubation tests with glyphosate alone (36 ppm) also increased Ca2+ uptake, and both Roundup and glyphosate were observe to downregulate reduced glutathione levels. As glutathione is an antioxidant (electron donor) found within every cell in the human body, protecting it against oxidative stress, as well as maintaining a wide range of biochemical reactions such as DNA and protein synthesis and repair, amino acid transport, prostaglandin synthesis, amino acid and enzyme activation, a dysregulation of glutathione can result in a wide range of adverse effects. The researchers noted "Glyphosate has been described as an endocrine disruptor affecting the male reproductive system; however, the molecular basis of its toxicity remains to be clarified. We could propose that Roundup® toxicity, implicating in Ca2+ overload, cell signaling misregulation, stress response of the endoplasmic reticulum and/or depleted antioxidant defenses could contribute to Sertoli cell disruption of spermatogenesis that could impact male fertility."

Latest Washington Marijuana Rules: Outdoor Grows, Concentrates In; Pot Logo Out. Dropping the marijuana leaf as an official state symbol was one of several changes contained in the latest draft of measures proposed by a three-member panel devising new regulations for the state's nascent marijuana industry. The proposals, released on Wednesday and containing mostly minor revisions to an earlier plan, included rules governing cultivation, sales and taxation of pot due to take effect when state-licensed retail marijuana stores open next spring. Washington and Colorado became the only two U.S. states to legalize marijuana for adult recreational use after approval by voters last November, though Washington's law went into effect first. Both states, along with 16 others, also have legalized pot for medical purposes. The federal government, however, still classifies cannabis as an illegal substance. The abandoned pot logo, which was to appear on any recreational-use marijuana or marijuana-infused product sold in the state, featured a pot leaf inside an icon of Washington state.

Glenn Greenwald: Top Officials Are Lying to Our Faces About Government Spying. The first NSA story to be reported was our June 6 article which exposed the bulk, indiscriminate collection by the US Government of the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans. Ever since then, it has been undeniably clear that James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, outright lied to the US Senate - specifically to the Intelligence Committee, the body charged with oversight over surveillance programs - when he said "no, sir" in response to this question from Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" That Clapper fundamentally misled Congress is beyond dispute. The DNI himself has now been forced by our stories to admit that his statement was, in his words, "clearly erroneous" and to apologize. But he did this only once our front-page revelations forced him to do so: in other words, what he's sorry about is that he got caught lying to the Senate. And as Salon's David Sirota adeptly documented on Friday, Clapper is still spouting falsehoods as he apologizes and attempts to explain why he did it. How is this not a huge scandal? Intentionally deceiving Congress is a felony, punishable by up to 5 years in prison for each offense. Reagan administration officials were convicted of misleading Congress as part of the Iran-contra scandal and other controversies, and sports stars have been prosecuted by the Obama DOJ based on allegations they have done so. Beyond its criminality, lying to Congress destroys the pretense of oversight. Obviously, members of Congress cannot exercise any actual oversight over programs which are being concealed by deceitful national security officials.

Diagnosis - Insufficient Outrage. At what point does it become a crime? Medical care is intended to help people, not enrich providers. But the way prices are rising, it's beginning to look less like help than like highway robbery. And the providers — hospitals, doctors, universities, pharmaceutical companies and device manufactures — are the ones benefiting. A number of publications — including this one — have recently published big reports on the exorbitant cost of American health care. In March, Time magazine ran a cover story exposing outrageous hospital prices, from $108 for a tube of bacitracin — the ointment my mother put on the scrapes I got as a kid and that costs $5 at CVS — to $21,000 for a three-hour emergency room evaluation for chest pain caused by indigestion. Of course, Medicare will have none of this — it sets its own prices. And private insurers negotiate discounts. So no one is actually charged these amounts. Check that. The uninsured are. They are largely young and employed (albeit poorly) and have little education. So the biggest medical bills go to those least able to pay. At what point does it become a crime? Consider another recent shift in health care: hospitals have been aggressively buying up physician practices. This could be desirable, a way to get doctors to use the same medical record so that your primary care practitioner knows what your cardiologist did.

Police arrest man, 21, with body armor, explosives on Washington campus - Washington Times. (Aren't you glad the NSA is listening? It did NO Good in this case) Justin Miles Jasper was arrested Thursday after a brief police chase near Seattle Children's Hospital late on Wednesday, said John Vinson, head of the campus police, in the NBC report. Mr. Vinson only said the arrest was "high-risk," but didn't explain what that meant. Mr. Jasper, believed to be 21 years old, was arrested on suspicion of possessing an incendiary device, NBC reported. Authorities "have no idea what his intentions are," Mr. Vinson said. Police first came across Mr. Jasper on Tuesday, asleep in his truck. He was allowed to leave after police checked his criminal records and found nothing. On Wednesday, they learned the truck he was driving had been reported stolen in Montana, and they found him driving on the campus later that day.

Resume Shows Snowden Honed Hacking Skills. (Or -- "Here's some more made up stuff") Mr. Snowden's resume, which has not been made public and was described by people who have seen it, provides a new picture of how his skills and responsibilities expanded while he worked as an intelligence contractor. Although federal officials offered only a vague description of him as a "systems administrator," the résumé suggests that he had transformed himself into the kind of cybersecurity expert the N.S.A. is desperate to recruit, making his decision to release the documents even more embarrassing to the agency. "If he's looking inside U.S. government networks for foreign intrusions, he might have very broad access," said James A. Lewis, a computer security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The hacker got into the storeroom." In an age when terabytes of data can be stashed inside palm-size devices, the new details about Mr. Snowden's training and assignments underscore the challenges that the N.S.A. faces in recruiting a new generation of free-spirited computer experts with diverse political views. Mr. Snowden, who is now marooned at an airport in Moscow waiting to see if another country will grant him asylum, has said he leaked the documents to alert the public to the sweeping nature of the American government's surveillance. He took a job as an "infrastructure analyst" with Booz Allen Hamilton in April at an N.S.A. facility in Hawaii, he has said, to gain access to lists of computers that the agency had hacked around the world.

Learn about the inner workings of cryptographic primitives and how to apply this knowledge in real-world applications! (Free Course) Cryptography is an indispensable tool for protecting information in computer systems. This course explains the inner workings of cryptographic primitives and how to correctly use them. Students will learn how to reason about the security of cryptographic constructions and how to apply this knowledge to real-world applications. The course begins with a detailed discussion of how two parties who have a shared secret key can communicate securely when a powerful adversary eavesdrops and tampers with traffic. We will examine many deployed protocols and analyze mistakes in existing systems. The second half of the course discusses public-key techniques that let two or more parties generate a shared secret key. We will cover the relevant number theory and discuss public-key encryption and basic key-exchange. Throughout the course students will be exposed to many exciting open problems in the field. The course will include written homeworks and programming labs. The course is self-contained, however it will be helpful to have a basic understanding of discrete probability theory.

Harborside Health Center, Billed As World's Largest Pot Shop, Scores Big Win. In February, Magistrate Maria-Elena James, the same judge who ruled on Wednesday, said the city had no right to intervene in a federal prosecutor's civil-forfeiture action against the Harborside Health Center, which was featured on the Discovery Channel reality TV show "Weed Wars." The city appealed the ruling, and James's latest order allows the dispensary to continue to sell marijuana to individuals carrying a doctor's recommendation while the appeal is under review. James called the question of Oakland's legal standing in the case "a matter of significant public interest." Attorney Cedric Chao, who is representing the city in the case, called the ruling "very significant." "The court has recognized that Oakland has legitimate interests in protecting its residents' health, in promoting public safety, and in protecting the integrity of its legislative framework for the regulation of medical cannabis," Chao said. "Today's order, coming right before the July Fourth holiday, reminds us all that one of the strengths of our country is its independent judiciary." Harborside's landlords have moved to evict the store under pressure from federal prosecutors, who have threatened to seize the property as part of a U.S. government crackdown on what it deems to be illegal pot shops in California. The city of Oakland in October sued the federal government in an effort to allow Harborside to continue selling marijuana to its 100,000 patients. Oakland officials warned that a shutdown would lead to a "health crisis." The city expects to collect $1.4 million in medical-pot sales tax revenue this year.

Thursday, July 04, 2013

A Declaration of IndeHEMPness For The United States Of Amarijuana. Marijuana is as American as Apple Pie. And Hemp is as American as apples. While both intrinsically tied products somehow remain federally illegal, it's simply mind-blowing that a boon to society like Hemp remains in a gray state of limbo. And it's clearly an issue our forefathers--who've extolled and used hemp to build this nation--would side on with the stoners. Because, as you may or may not know, they sealed our nation's philosophy and freedom by writing it down--on a piece of Hemp paper. A piece of paper that--and this is crazy--could land George, Thomas, and the gang in prison today. Think about that for a second. The document that hosts the words that created this country sends people to jail every year. That. Is. Insane. Our nation turns 237 tomorrow. For 161 years, hemp and cannabis were virtually legal--in the sense that they were definitely not illegal. But since the Marijuana Tax act of 1937, both hemp production and marijuana consumption have been unequivocally illegal. That means America has been in a state of prohibition for 76 years. Even though the majority of Americans (to the tune of 52%) support legalization and 20 states (including D.C.) have some form of medical marijuana, prohibition remains very real. While the tipping point of 25 medical marijuana states looms, the country has a long road and many obstacles to overcome before legalization becomes a reality. Just two weeks ago, the government shot the Farm Bill dead in its tracks, a bill that would've made industrial production of hemp federally legal. And it's simply ludicrous when you consider hemp is a resource that can't even get you high. In fact, it's an even more efficient and valuable resource than trees, which take years to grow opposed to the mere months it takes hemp to grow. Hemp has a wealth of resources that would take awhile to list, but, essentially, it's biofuel and a product that would both create jobs and help our country immensely. "FACT: NO TREE OR PLANT SPECIES ON EARTH HAS THE COMMERCIAL, ECONOMIC, AND ENVIRONMENTAL POTENTIAL OF HEMP. OVER 30,000 KNOWN PRODUCTS CAN BE PRODUCED FROM HEMP!" [Nemeton]

Marijuana Legalization Is Today's American Revolution. The correlation between the American Revolution and today's marijuana legalization battle is profound. In our political system greed has been defined as "good." Where lobbyist stuff special interest money into the pockets of politicians who create bizarre, lopsided legislation that favors big business over common sense, and greed over civil rights. Meanwhile the federal government tours our great country crushing state sanctioned medical marijuana collectives, and imprisoning anyone bold enough to believe they had protection under the 10th amendment. I get why today's hipsters have lost their sense of humor, their trust and motivation to go outside, let alone be politically active.

China hit by largest-ever algae bloom. The seas off China have been hit by their largest ever growth of algae, ocean officials said, with vast waves of green growth washing onto the shores of the Yellow Sea. Pictures showed beachgoers swimming and playing in the green tide in the eastern city of Qingdao, while bulldozers shovelled up tonnes of algae from the sand. The State Oceanic Administration said on its website that the algae, enteromorpha prolifera, started to appear a week ago and had spread across an area of 28,900 square kilometres (7,500 square miles). The previous largest bloom was in 2008 when it affected around 13,000 square kilometres, it said. Qingdao officials said they had removed around 7,335 tonnes of algae, the official Xinhua news agency reported. The algal phenomenon is usually caused by an abundance of nutrients in the water, especially phosphorus, although the triggers for the enormous blooms which began to appear in the Yellow Sea in 2007 remain uncertain. The China Daily quoted professor Bao Xianwen, of the Qingdao-based Ocean University of China, as saying: "It must have something to do with the change in the environment, but we are not scientifically sure about the reasons."

Libertarian Gary Johnson: 'this Independence Day feels different' - Washington Times. "These 'revelations' are bringing long-overdue attention to the liberties the Founding Fathers worked so hard and sacrificed so much to provide and protect. It is more than a little ironic that the Revolution was prompted, in part, by abusive tax policies and unreasonable searches - on the part of 'tyrants'." He concludes, "Regardless of our plans for this Independence Day, I hope they include remembering that the battle for freedom never ends, and dedicating ourselves to restoring the liberty on which our great nation was founded. That is the most patriotic thing we can do on the Fourth, and in all the days that follow." Mr. Johnson is speaking from a new political perch, incidentally - one geared to 2014 and 2016, of course. He is chairman of Our America Initiative, a grassroots group centered on smaller government and a frugal mindset. His fellow board members include Barry Goldwater Jr., former independent presidential hopeful Buddy Roemer and Whole Foods co-founder John Mackey. "Our purpose is simple, yet vital," Mr. Johnson says. "To redefine the liberty movement in America. We aim to restore liberty, responsibility and economic freedom as the true American values."

Henderson police arrested a family for refusing to let officers use their homes as lookouts The Mitchell family's claim includes Third Amendment violations, a rare claim in the United States. The Third Amendment prohibits quartering soldiers in citizens' homes in times of peace without the consent of the owner. "On the morning of July 10th, 2011, officers from the Henderson Police Department responded to a domestic violence call at a neighbor's residence," the Mitchells say in the complaint. It continues: "At 10:45 a.m. defendant Officer Christopher Worley (HPD) contacted plaintiff Anthony Mitchell via his telephone. Worley told plaintiff that police needed to occupy his home in order to gain a 'tactical advantage' against the occupant of the neighboring house. Anthony Mitchell told the officer that he did not want to become involved and that he did not want police to enter his residence. Although Worley continued to insist that plaintiff should leave his residence, plaintiff clearly explained that he did not intend to leave his home or to allow police to occupy his home. Worley then ended the phone call. Mitchell claims that defendant officers, including Cawthorn and Worley and Sgt. Michael Waller then "conspired among themselves to force Anthony Mitchell out of his residence and to occupy his home for their own use." (Waller is identified as a defendant in the body of the complaint, but not in the heading of it.) The complaint continues: "Defendant Officer David Cawthorn outlined the defendants' plan in his official report: 'It was determined to move to 367 Evening Side and attempt to contact Mitchell. If Mitchell answered the door he would be asked to leave. If he refused to leave he would be arrested for Obstructing a Police Officer. If Mitchell refused to answer the door, force entry would be made and Mitchell would be arrested.'" At a few minutes before noon, at least five defendant officers "arrayed themselves in front of plaintiff Anthony Mitchell's house and prepared to execute their plan," the complaint states. It continues: "The officers banged forcefully on the door and loudly commanded Anthony Mitchell to open the door to his residence. "Surprised and perturbed, plaintiff Anthony Mitchell immediately called his mother (plaintiff Linda Mitchell) on the phone, exclaiming to her that the police were beating on his front door. "Seconds later, officers, including Officer Rockwell, smashed open plaintiff Anthony Mitchell's front door with a metal ram as plaintiff stood in his living room.

Richard Clarke's Dire Warning to Journalists : Newsvandal. While the mainstream media crowed about "conspiracy theories" swirling around "the internet" in the days after Hastings' Mercedes turned into a high-speed incinerator, the decidedly staid Clarke talked pointedly with The Huffington Post about the circumstances surrounding the bizarre crash that took the young investigative reporter's life. His language was unvarnished and his assertions chilling. Clarke told reporter Mike Hogan that not only is there "...reason to believe that intelligence agencies for major powers" can cyber-attack, hijack and then remotely control a car, but this type of attack guarantees that "...whoever did it would probably get away with it." Strangely enough, that seems important. As does this excerpt from the Huffington Post article: "What has been revealed as a result of some research at universities is that it's relatively easy to hack your way into the control system of a car, and to do such things as cause acceleration when the driver doesn't want acceleration, to throw on the brakes when the driver doesn't want the brakes on, to launch an air bag," Clarke told The Huffington Post. "You can do some really highly destructive things now, through hacking a car, and it's not that hard." So, while we were all haggling over the ominous threat posed by domestically-deployed drones, that emerging menace suddenly pales in comparison to the immediate and real danger facing just about anyone who bought a car over the last fifteen years. And if you were an "early adopter" and GM enthusiast, you could've purchased an OnStar-ready vehicle as far back as 1996.

Seven severed heads found by side of Mexican highway in latest gruesome act of brutal violence by cartels. More than 60,000 people died in violence linked to warring drug cartels during the 2006-2012 presidency of Felipe Calderon. An average of 1,000 people per month have been killed under his successor, Enrique Pena Nieto, who took office December. More... Australian backpackers dubbed 'The Peru Six' recalled to South America accused of murdering porter who fell to death from apartment block Builders stun Peru by BULLDOZING 4,000-year-old pyramid at one of the country's oldest archaeological sites as onlookers intervene to stop destruction of three others Jalisco, the home of tequila and mariachi music, has been hard hit by the ongoing violence. Murders were up more than 5 percent during the first five months of this year compared with the same period a year ago, according to Mexican police. The bodies of two schoolboys suspected of bullying the son of a powerful drug trafficker were found in Jalisco this week.

EPA to American People: 'Let Them Eat Monsanto's Roundup Ready Cake'. The obvious reason why Monsanto and its 'EPA cheerleading division' successfully raised the tolerances of glyphosate in your food, is because the contamination is getting so bad they had no other choice. Either limits are raised, or Monsanto breaks the law (by contaminating our food and poisoning us beyond the "acceptable level of harm" already determined by the EPA) and the EPA is shown to be completely impotent to enforce anything resembling its mission statement. But despite Monsanto's latest apparent success, a growing grassroots movement comprised of millions of concerned citizens is defiantly expressing their own form of "glyphosate-resistance," armed with a growing body of published toxicological data linking the glyphosate herbicide to over 30 health problems. This movement is mirrored poetically by the "super weeds" emerging throughout the Roundup Ready monocultured farmland of the world. In both cases, the center of real power is shifting away from Monsanto back to the people who are realizing that unless they retake back control over their food, they will be coerced and poisoned into a form of biological slavery the likes of which this world has never seen before, and if it manifests fully, will likely never recover from.

Seattle Medical Marijuana Dispensary to Provide Grow Space Construction Services. According to their website, "Safe Access is committed to making the lives of medical patients more comfortable, so to this end we have launched a new construction and consulting service to help patients cultivate their own cannabis medicines." Safe Access was founded in 2013 and is located on Delridge Avenue across the West Seattle Bridge from downtown Seattle. Their stated mission is to provide "quality-controlled and affordable medication to medical cannabis patients, to ensure that patients receive the best medicine for each individual's condition." A representative of the dispensary wrote, "Under Washington State medical marijuana law, patients with valid recommendations from their physicians are able to grow a certain number of cannabis plants. They may also work together to form growing collectives. At Safe Access, we are able to assist with any type of growing construction project conducted in accordance with state law. From small personal grows to cooperative growing facilities, we have the technical experience and expertise to optimize production and maximize efficiency."

Washington Cannabis Cultivator Survey: Help Regulate the Industry. The Washington Post recently detailed the complications that have arisen in Washington State and the outside forces that can impact the state's regulatory structure: It's important to get these issues right because they interact with the three background constraints on this new market. The first is the black market, while the second is the legal medical marijuana market. For some reason, the medical marijuana market won't be taxed, while the new legal market will be taxed around 25 percent. (The black market is, of course, not taxed at all.) Note that if the price goes too high, or if the location restrictions prove too inconvenient, pot consumers might just stick with medical marijuana or the black market. State lawmakers are currently trying to get the medical marijuana market folded under the same regulations that the Liquor Board is creating for the legal pot market, and Mark Kleiman notes that police may need to escalate crackdowns on illegal distribution as they legalize the market. A third constraint is the federal government, which enforces laws that still make pot illegal. If legalization is seen as a disaster, it is possible that the federal government will move to shut down the process by preempting state law. But even if it doesn't, background laws will probably hurt the scale and efficiency of pot retailers. Please pass along the consumer and cultivator surveys. Of course, Washington residents are preferred, but the regulators can use all of the good information and evidence available to help ensure a healthy cannabis industry. A successful cannabis industry in Washington and Colorado may be just as important as the text of future legalization measures and the campaign funds backing them.

NYC Council Stands Up To NYPD's Racially Biased Policing. The number of stop-and-frisks in NYC exploded over the last decade, increasing from less than one hundred thousand stops in 2001 to nearly seven hundred thousand in 2011. What's more is that only 10% are arrested or given a summons, and 87% of people of color. And as we know, most of the bogus marijuana arrests that happen in New York are a result of stop-and-frisk. The legislation, which is part of the Community Safety Act to reign in bad policies of the NYPD (including stop-and-frisk), was advanced by a coalition DPA is part of called Communities united for Police Reform (CPR). CPR, representing dozens of organizations that focus on issues such as drug user rights, homelessness, LGBTQ rights, and young people, also made our marijuana arrest reform bill their top state priority and helped mobilize folks within the coalition to advocate for the passage our bill. One of the bills that passed, the Inspector General bill, creates an independent monitor that evaluates the policies and procedures of the NYPD. The other bill expands the classes that are protected from racial profiling. Both passed with at least 2/3 of the City Council, the majority needed to override Mayor Bloomberg's promised veto. These bills have the Mayor and Police Commissioner scared. Up until the 11th hour, Bloomberg and Kelly were personally calling Council Members urging them to oppose the bills, and the NYPD captains and detectives union vowed to pull all endorsements of Council Members who supported the racial bias bill.

One in four have used cannabis with education a factor - Independent.ie. Professor Catherine Comiskey, chair of the National Advisory Committee on Drugs and Alcohol, which carried out the drug prevalence survey, said cannabis continues to be the most commonly used illegal drug in the country. "The survey indicates that in the general population, people are quite tolerant of the use of cannabis for medicinal reasons, but less so for other use," Prof Comiskey said. She said while lifetime use of the drug has increased, it is now used less frequently than before. The report considered people's use of cannabis over a lifetime, in the last year and in the last month of the survey. It also looked at people's age at first use, methods of taking the drug and how it is obtained. Six percent of those surveyed said they had used the drug in the last year, 3% in the last month, and the proportion of all adults reporting the highest frequency of use - of 20 days or more in the month - dropped from 24% to 14%. Men aged 15 to 24 were more than twice as likely as women to use cannabis in the last year. Prevalence rates were highest among men and younger adults - aged 15 to 34. While the number of men using the drug had increased from 2007, rates among women remained fairly steady. The results of the survey - entitled Drug Use in Ireland and Northern Ireland Drug Prevalence Survey 2010/2011: Cannabis Results - also revealed that cannabis use was more common among those with a further education. Rates were highest among people who were still in education over the age of 20 and lowest among those who left education before the age of 15. A marked switch from cannabis resin to herbal cannabis was also identified.

Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Are One Step Closer To Becoming Legal In Oregon. A bill to license and regulate medical marijuana dispensaries in Oregon passed the Oregon Senate Wednesday on an 18-12 vote. The bill now goes back to the Oregon House for concurrence on amendments added in the Senate. The bill earlier passed the Oregon House on a 31-27 vote. State Sen. Floyd Prozanski (D-Eugene), one of the bill's chief sponsors along with State Rep. Peter Buckley (D-Ashland), led passage of the bill on the Senate floor late Wednesday afternoon. "This bill includes a number of common sense regulations that will ensure these facilities are operated properly and patients have safe access to medicine they receive from these facilities," said Prozanski. "With estimates of 200 of them operating in Oregon today, this is the next step forward for Oregon's medical marijuana program." Sam Chapman, a lobbyist for Oregonians for Medical Rights, said the strong support in the Senate was bolstered by endorsements from Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, Congressman Earl Blumenauer and the Oregon League of Cities. "Oregon is now poised to join 12 other states to license and regulate medical marijuana dispensaries. With over 200 dispensaries operating in Oregon today, our bill provides some of the strongest regulations to protect patients in the country," said Chapman.

Wednesday, July 03, 2013

Coke Changed Caramel Color To Avoid Cancer Warning; Pepsi In Transition : The Salt : NPR. The caramel color that Coke and Pepsi used to give colas that distinctive brown hue contained a chemical, 4-methylimidazole — 4-MEI — that is listed as a carcinogen by the state. And in accordance with California's Proposition 65 law, the levels of 4-MEI found in sodas would have warranted a cancer warning label on every can sold in the state. So, as I reported last year, Coke and Pepsi both said they would switch to a reformulated caramel color, one that did not contain 4-MEI. Now, it appears that both companies have managed to complete this transition for sodas sold in the state of California. But a new analysis by the Center for Environmental Health found that 10 of 10 samples of Pepsi products purchased nationwide during the month of June (in locations outside California) contained levels of 4-MEI that were about four to eight times higher than the safety thresholds set by California. The testing was conducted by Eurofins Analytical laboratory in Metairie, La. In contrast, nine of the 10 samples of Coke products purchased in locations outside California contained little or no trace of 4-MEI. "We applaud Coke," wrote Michael Green, executive director of the Center for Environmental Health, in a release announcing the findings. "Pepsi's delay is inexplicable," Green added. "We urge the company to take swift action."

Talking cigarette packs are here. Will they make smokers butt out? - The Globe and Mail. And here's the really weird part about the talking cigarette packs: Smokers are listening. The prerecorded messages are said to have worked well during tests conducted on a group of women aged 16 to 34. The university will now expand the study with tests on larger groups of males and females aged 16 and over. Says Stirling team member Crawford Moodie: "This research shows how the idea can be used to promote 'positive health' to smokers." All of which is good news, but smokers are a determined lot and by now most are accustomed to graphic warnings on cigarette packages, detailing the effects of cigarettes on their lungs, their teeth and their libidos. Wouldn't the cause be helped further if famous people recorded the anti-smoking messages? People still buy into celebrity endorsements and it's a safe bet that having Scotland's biggest names deliver the anti-smoking rants would lend immediate credence to the program. What self-respecting Scot would dare not heed a health warning delivered in the unmistakable Scottish burr of Sean Connery? For the younger demographic, there's the dulcet tones of Gerard Butler to warn of smoking's perils. And somehow Billy Connolly and Craig Ferguson would find their own ways to make an anti-smoking message funny.

HB 3460 :: Oregon Legislature Bill Tracker - System for medical Cannabis facilities Directs Oregon Health Authority to establish registration system for medical marijuana facilities for transferring usable marijuana from registry identification cardholders, designated primary caregivers of registry identification cardholders or marijuana grow sites to medical marijuana facilities and from medical marijuana facilities to registry identification cardholders or designated primary caregivers of registry identification cardholders.

Organizations push for Congress to curtail NSA spying. Recent news reports from the Guardian and the Washington Post say "the U.S. government is extracting audio, video, photographs, emails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person's movements and contacts over time," said the letter, part of the new StopWatching.us campaign. "As a result, the contents of communications of people both abroad and in the U.S. can be swept in without any suspicion of crime or association with a terrorist organization." The U.S. intelligence agencies have been collecting business-record metadata from Verizon, several Internet companies and possibly from other telecom carriers and credit-card companies, according to the recent news reports. The source of the information about the data collection was Edward Snowden, a contractor at the NSA. The danger of large-scale data collection is that it can come back to haunt U.S. residents years later, said Peter Swire, a law professor and chairman of the World Wide Web Consortium's do not track process. With the data collection described in news reports, government agencies will be able to collect every phone call and every email a person has made, Swire said during a forum on online privacy hosted by the Washington Post. "If something goes wrong later, his lifetime of contacts ... is now under investigation," Swire said. "If anybody on your text list or phone list screws up, now you're on the suspect list. It's now basically part of your permanent record." The news reports suggest there's no meaningful oversight of the NSA by Congress, added Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "Everyone's a target, that's what's amazing," he said.

The Politics of Pot: Marijuana Goes Mainstream - YouTube. Dramatic shifts in public opinion about marijuana legalization are forcing both lawmakers and the public to deal with clashing federal and state policies. (July 1)

'Busted in Texas' - New TYT & CIR Documentary - YouTube. The U.S. Border Patrol has checkpoints set up throughout Texas, but their purpose isn't solely to catch undocumented immigrants; checkpoints are busting thousands of Americans each year for low-level drug possession. Congress seeks to allocate more funding to border security programs, but would the money be effectively spent? And how are towns housing prisoners caught at the checkpoints being screwed? Chavala Madlena investigates at Sierra Blanca, one of the most notorious Texas checkpoints.

EPA to American People: 'Let Them Eat Monsanto's Roundup Ready Cake'. the proposal includes "Add wiper applicator use over the top to carrot and sweet potato," revealing that one reason why Monsanto wants tolerances on glyphosate raised is because this chemical will be applied directly not just to Roundup Ready plants but to non-GMO crops as well, virtually guaranteeing that unless you eat 100% USDA organic concentrations of grave concern will end up in your food and body. How grave? The Food Poisoning Bulletin describes the new tolerances as follows: Under the new regulation, forage and hay teff can contain up to 100 ppm (100,000 ppb) glyphosate; oilseed crops can contain up to 40 ppm (40,000 ppb) glyphosate, and root crops such as potatoes and beets can contain 6000 ppb glyphosate. Fruits can have concentrations from 200 ppb to 500 ppb glyphosate. These numbers are magnitudes higher than the levels some scientists believe are carcinogenic. [emphasis added] Indeed, only last month, a new study found that glyphosate has 'xenoestrogen' properties and stimulated breast cancer proliferation in the parts per trillion range -- that would be six orders of magnitude lower levels than presently receiving the EPA's Monsanto-friendly stamp of approval. So how does the EPA address the potential for carcinogenicity in section 3 of their Exposure Assessment? They state their position as follows: "EPA has concluded that glyphosate does not pose a cancer risk to humans. Therefore, a dietary exposure assessment for the purpose of assessing cancer risk is unnecessary."

How the Drug War Can Turn Environmental Activism Into a Deadly Undertaking. On the night he was killed, Mora and the other volunteers were on their way to Moín Beach, famous for being a nesting place for the critically endangered leatherback turtle. Last year, there were 1,474 leatherback turtle nests in the area. This was the highest number in Costa Rica, making Moín an extremely important beach for conservation efforts, according to Didiher Chacón, Costa Rican director of WIDECAST, the international organization dedicated to the protection of sea turtles for which Mora worked. The five conservationists had been planning to measure the leatherbacks as the turtles made their way up the dunes to lay eggs that night. They had also planned to patrol the beaches, as they did almost every night, protecting nests from local poachers. In Costa Rica, taking turtle eggs is illegal except on two Pacific Coast beaches, and the crime comes with a three-year prison sentence. But the law is almost never enforced, and poachers can easily make $1 per egg by selling them at local bars and shops, marketing them as a cheap aphrodisiac (the eggs actually possess no such qualities). According to Chacón, only one poacher has been apprehended in the past 15 years.

Hemp American Flag Flying Over Nation's Capital On 4th Of July! Colorado hemp-proponent Michael Bowman has had an American flag built and screen-printed from strictly hemp. And on Thursday, July 4th (aka Independence Day) that flag will fly over the Capitol building. While it's not the first American flag made from hemp--that one belongs to Betsy Ross--it's a smart, witty, and politically correct gesture that hits all the right chords. Bowman, along with every other sensible person alive, believes it's a complete waste of resources to not allow industrial hemp production and the financial benefits it comes with. Legal weed might be far away (and to some, seem like a stretch), but mass legal hemp should be around the corner and is just too logical. Colorado has (naturally) included and approved its production, and hell, even Kentucky (where Confederate flags still fly) was considering legalizing the natural product.

Marijuana Legalization Activists -- SONORML -- Evicted! Whether spurred on by fear of federal retribution for maintaining pot friendly tenets, or just ignorance and intolerance. The unfortunate couple have been notified by the landlord of their building, located at 332 W. 6th St. in Medford Oregon -- it was time to go. Not interested in waiting for an outcome on their pending case, the landlord for SONORML have tried, convicted and now penalized SONORML. "We've already been convicted for something that hasn't even been to court on yet," Duckworth said. "But it's OK. We are going to stay in Medford and keep providing our clients with a safe, legal place to receive their medicine." The SONORML location has facilitated a communal meeting place for the medical marijuana community in Medford Oregon for the past four years without incident. Not hiding from anyone -- sitting directly next door to the US District Court building, SONORML was raided on May 23, and the couple arrested for marijuana distribution. Adding insult to injury, the Medford Police Department have recently piled on an additional racketeering and money-laundering accusations; in addition to the 11 counts each of conspiracy to deliver and cultivate marijuana within 1000 feet of a school. Destitute, and scrambling for new office space, the Duckworth's were perplexed when the Medford PD elected to pursue these additional charges after reviewing their last several years of tax filings. "You know, I just shrugged it off," Duckworth said. "At this point what can I do? What did they possibly find in my tax records? I'm not a millionaire drug dealer. I hope they saw that I'm a taxpayer paying my own way." The Medford PD confiscated approximately 12 pounds of pot and 94 cannabis plants from the SONORML office suite, in addition to nearly $3000 in cash, documentation, and computers with their entire database of client information. As if being busted with 12 pounds of weed, and nearly 100 plants growing was not enough of a headache... Medford's sleaziest finest also claimed to have found an additional 22 pounds, stashed at the Duckworth's home.

The do's and don'ts of Colorado's new recreational marijuana rules. (Rules for recreation -- Mighty Nice of them) A sampling of rules for retail sales of recreational marijuana in Colorado. The rules were released Monday, but retail sales don't start until January. -- No single package of an edible marijuana product can contain more than 100 milligrams of active THC, no matter how many servings it contains. -- Colorado residents can buy up to an ounce of marijuana at a time. Out-of-state residents can buy up to a quarter-ounce. -- Labels on marijuana-laced snacks have to list their ingredients and carry warnings including "The intoxicating effects of this product may be delayed by two or more hours." -- Licensed growers can't sell to consumers. Marijuana can't be consumed at a cultivation site. -- Waste marijuana has to be "unusable and unrecognizable" when discarded. One method: It can ground up with an equal amount of paper, cardboard, plastic, food waste or grease. -- Testing facilities have to destroy the marijuana after they test it. -- Sheriffs, deputies, police officers and some other state officials can't get a marijuana retail license. -- Licensed retailers have to have video surveillance systems and commercial-grade locks. -- Retailers and their employees must wear identification badges issued by the Colorado Department of Revenue.

Cooking With Cannabis Just Got Easier... Thanks Magical Butter! The Magical Butter's dope new product. As cannabis's cannabinoids take center stage in groundbreaking scientific research, products like these, which extract just the active cannabinoids are a crowd favorite among medical patients. This chronic extraction appliance will potentially `fire up' a whole new wave of cannabis cooking aficionados by the end of 2013. As most can attest making herbal butter the old-fashioned way can be a tedious and time-consuming task. (Not to mention an explosive proposition if done wrong) -- danger and lack of experience are two of the most likely reasons most medical marijuana patients steer clear of creating their own marijuana concentrates. This dank little compact beauty is a marijuana butter maker on `roids. Self-contained, its electrical powered heating element is controlled by a microchip which monitors both time and temperature precisely, ensuring a foolproof method of extracting cannabinoids in oil, butter or alcohol extract. Packed and ready to go within just 5 min., magical butter takes care of the rest -- so it's not a problem if the chef gets loaded too. Another bonus, there is no clean up. Simply press the clean button and voilà! Done, clean, no mess to clean up.

U.S. to Delay Healthcare Law Employer Mandate to 2015. Under the law, companies with 50 or more workers must provide affordable coverage to their full-time employees or risk a series of escalating tax penalties if just one worker ends up getting government-subsidized insurance. Business groups have complained since the law passed that the provision was too complicated. The unexpected decision is sure to anger liberals and labor groups, but it could provide cover for Democratic candidates in next year's congressional elections. While the White House sacrificed timely implementation of a key element of President Barack Obama's health care law, the move also undercuts Republican efforts to make the overhaul and the costs associated with new requirements a major issue in congressional races. Democrats are defending 21 Senate seats to the Republicans' 14, and the GOP had already started to excoriate Senate Democrats who had voted for the health law in 2009. Senior White House adviser Valerie Jarret cast the decision as part of an effort to simplify data reporting requirements. She said since enforcing the coverage mandate is dependent on businesses reporting about their workers' access to insurance, the administration decided to postpone the reporting requirement, and with it, the mandate to provide coverage. We have and will continue to make changes as needed," Jarrett wrote in a White House blog post. "In our ongoing discussions with businesses we have heard that you need the time to get this right. We are listening."

Administration says it will delay Obamacare penalties for large firms - Health Exchange - MarketWatch. Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Mark J. Mazur said: "We have heard concerns about the complexity of the requirements and the need for more time to implement them effectively. We recognize that the vast majority of businesses that will need to do this reporting already provide health insurance to their workers, and we want to make sure it is easy for others to do so." Mazur went on to discuss the year delay, saying, "This is designed to meet two goals. First, it will allow us to consider ways to simplify the new reporting requirements consistent with the law. Second, it will provide time to adapt health coverage and reporting systems while employers are moving toward making health coverage affordable and accessible for their employees." He said the department would provide instructions on the transition within a week. Rules for meeting provisions of Obamacare will be published this summer, and the administration is looking at ways to streamline reporting for companies that already offer coverage in excess of requirements under the law. Shortly after Mazur's post went up, Obama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett issued her own post on the White House blog, titled "We're Listening to Businesses about the Health Care Law." It echoed much of what Mazur said, and pointed out that the reporting requirements for employers — even those already in compliance with the law — were more than what businesses expected.

Tuesday, July 02, 2013

Longtime Marijuana Use Linked With Decreased Motivation, Study Finds. (No loss of Motivation - Just Seeing The Futility clearly) However, "whether such a syndrome exists is controversial," said study lead author Michael Bloomfield, a researcher at the Institute of Clinical Sciences at Imperial College London. The people in the study used cannabis quite heavily, they all began using the drug between ages 12 and 18, and they all had experienced symptoms of psychosis while under the influence, the researchers said. Some of these symptoms include experiencing strange sensations while on the drug, or having bizarre thoughts, such as thinking they were being threatened by an unknown force. Because increased dopamine production has been linked with psychosis, the researchers expected to find higher levels of dopamine in the cannabis users, but instead, their findings suggested the opposite. Previous studies looking at marijuana's effects on the brain have shown that chronic marijuana use may trigger inflammation in the brain, which could affect coordination and learning, and that cannabis users have a higher risk of schizophrenia.

To those who say 'trust the government' on NSA spying: Remember J. Edgar Hoover's FBI? An unkind person might dismiss Friedman as the incompetent harbinger of a dying republic. Being polite, I will merely suggest that Friedman's faith in government is as misplaced as faith in the just and benevolent God that we know not to exist -- Friedman having been the winner of several of the world's most-coveted Pulitzer Prizes. If Friedman is, indeed, too quick to trust the powerful, it's a trait he shares with the just over half of Americans, who tell pollsters they're fine with the NSA programs that were until recently hidden from their view. Why, our countrymen wonder, ought we to be disturbed by our state's desire to know everything that everyone does? Given the possibility that this surveillance could perhaps prevent deaths in the form of terrorist attacks, most Americans are willing to forgo some abstract notion of privacy in favor of the more concrete benefits of security. Besides, the government to which we're ceding these broad new powers is a democracy, overseen by real, live Americans. And it's hard to imagine American government officials abusing their powers -- or at least, it would be, had such officials not already abused similar but more limited powers through repeated campaigns of disinformation, intimidation and airtight crimes directed at the American public over the last five decades. Cointelpro, Operation Mockingbird, Ultra and Chaos are among the now-acknowledged CIA, FBI and NSA programs by which those agencies managed to subvert American democracy with impunity. Supporters of mass surveillance conducted under the very same agencies have yet to address how such abuses can be insured against in the context of powers far greater than anything J Edgar Hoover could command.

The do's and don'ts of Colorado's new recreational marijuana rules. The rules were released Monday, but retail sales don't start until January. * No single package of an edible marijuana product can contain more than 100 milligrams of active THC, no matter how many servings it contains. * Colorado residents can buy up to an ounce of marijuana at a time. Out-of-state residents can buy up to a quarter-ounce. * Labels on marijuana-laced snacks have to list their ingredients and carry warnings including "The intoxicating effects of this product may be delayed by two or more hours." * Licensed growers can't sell to consumers. Marijuana can't be consumed at a cultivation site. * Waste marijuana has to be "unusable and unrecognizable" when discarded. One method: It can ground up with an equal amount of paper, cardboard, plastic, food waste or grease. * Testing facilities have to destroy the marijuana after they test it. * Sheriffs, deputies, police officers and some other state officials can't get a marijuana retail license. * Licensed retailers have to have video surveillance systems and commercial-grade locks. * Retailers and their employees must wear identification badges issued by the Colorado Department of Revenue.

Odd Science: Taste-Signaling Proteins Play Crucial Role in Sperm Development By adding the drug clofibrate to the animals' diet, the human TAS1R3 receptor was blocked, and the animals became sterile because of fewer and malformed sperm. This sterility, the researchers note, was swiftly reversed once clofibrate—which belongs to a class of drugs that frequently are prescribed to treat lipid disorders such as high blood cholesterol or triglycerides —was removed from the animals' diet. As a result, Dr. Mosinger et al., suggested the common use of fibrates in modern medicine could be one factor contributing to rising rates of human male infertility. "Like much good science, our current findings pose more questions than answers," said Monell's Robert Margolskee, M.D., Ph.D., co-author on the study. "We now need to identify the pathways and mechanisms in testes that utilize these taste genes so we can understand how their loss leads to infertility." "Genetic loss or pharmacological blockade of testes-expressed taste genes causes male sterility" appeared online in PNAS July 1.

Obama's Insider Threats: Leaking to the Press is ESPIONAGE - YouTube. "Even before a former U.S. intelligence contractor exposed the secret collection of Americans' phone records, the Obama administration was pressing a government-wide crackdown on security threats that requires federal employees to keep closer tabs on their co-workers and exhorts managers to punish those who fail to report their suspicions."* McClatchy, known for breaking many of the most important stories in Washington DC, has broken another one: the Obama administration's "Insider Threat Program." Federal employees were encouraged to spy on co-workers in an environment of intimidation and submission to the government. Did the program even work? Cenk Uygur breaks it down

Cloud server review and comparison: Amazon AWS EC2 vs Linode vs DigitalOcean. Conclusion Well, Amazon just sucks. At only 4.5 request per second it is about 15 times SLOWER than the Linode box. Is this due to the slow EBS volumes or is this due to their 1 ECU compute unit? Looking at the high load figures, the problem seems CPU-bound in Amazons case. DigitalOcean is about half the speed of Linode, in spite of their fast SSD disks. But they are stilll 6 times faster than Amazon. But the winner without any doubt is Linode. Their 8 core server really rocks in this case. I have to rethink my Amazon strategy. Is Amazon overpriced? Do I need expensive high-CPU instances to compete with the Linode performance? It seems linode has the best cards in this space currently, and the differences are too big to ignore.

Green Tea Compounds Effective Against Tumors and Genetic Diseases. The two compounds are epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) and epicatechin gallate (ECG). Both are found in naturally in green tea. The researchers found that they are able to compensate for a genetic disorder called hyperinsulinism/hyperammonemia (HHS). In this disorder, patients (typically children) over-secrete insulin when they eat protein. As a result they can become severally hypoglycemic, and this can often lead to death. The condition is caused by a failure of the system that regulates the digestion of amino acids. EGCG and ECG were found to be effective by turning off glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH), an enzyme responsible for the digestion of amino acids. Two other research groups have validated and extended these findings in cell (in vitro) models to demonstrate that blocking GDH with green tea is very effective at killing two different kinds of tumors: glioblastomas, an aggressive type of brain tumor, and tuberous sclerosis complex disorder, a genetic disease that causes non-malignant tumors to grow on a number of organs. Green tea has become increasingly popular among Americans and can be found on most supermarket shelves in the form of tea bags and loose tea as well as commercially produced iced teas and other fruit drinks.

Corporations Replace BPA with More DNA-Damaging Bisphenols. The researchers set out to determine the occurrence of bisphenols, other than BPA, in foodstuffs, due to the fact that information on the topic is scarce. Their methodology was as follows: [S]everal bisphenol analogues, including BPA, BPF, and BPS, were analyzed in foodstuffs (N = 267) collected from Albany, New York, USA, using high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS). Foodstuffs were divided into nine categories of beverages, dairy products, fat and oils, fish and seafood, cereals, meat and meat products, fruits, vegetables, and "others." The study revealed bisphenol contamination of the US food supply is endemic: Bisphenols were found in the majority (75%) of the food samples, and the total concentrations of bisphenols (ΣBPs: sum of eight bisphenols) were in the range of below the limit of quantification to 1130 ng/g fresh weight, with an overall mean value of 4.38 ng/g. The highest overall mean concentration of ΣBPs was found in the "others" category, which included condiments [emphasis added] Within the category of vegetables, a sample of mustard (dressing) and ginger contained the highest concentrations of 1130 ng/g for bisphenol F (BPF) and 237 ng/g for bisphenol P(BPP). This dovetails with two other disturbing findings from last year: 1) human and synthetic hormones now widely contaminate fresh produce. 2) synthetic hormone activity now eclipses that of natural hormones within exposed populations. The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry study also found that canned foods contained higher concentrations of individual and total bisphenols in comparison to foods sold in glass, paper, or plastic containers, likely due to the epoxy-resin can liners, which unless explicitly labeled to be 'bisphenol free' contain bisphenol

San Diego Mayor Bob Filner: "It's Not About State's Rights vs. Federal Rights... It's About Human Rights.". Meet San Diego Mayor, Bob Filner. Bob is a giant amongst political dwarfs. At the tender age of 18 Bob turned his back on taking the easy path in life. Disgusted by what he saw on TV, read the paper, and felt that his heart, the future mayor of San Diego left his Ivy League school -- where he was a promising engineering student. Rather than taking the path of personal enrichment, the young Filner decided to hop on "the freedom bus" and fight for what's right... by joining the civil rights movement in Jackson Mississippi. It's with that same sense of passion that Mayor Filner now defends San Diego's medical marijuana patients, protecting their rights, safeguarding access their to medical marijuana. "It's not about State's rights vs. federal rights... It's about human rights." -- San Diego Mayor Bob Filner

Top 5 Reasons Marijuana Cultivation Isn't As Easy As You Think... While just about anybody can put a cannabis seed in the ground ... Growing great weed is far from easy! Growing good pot requires scientific research, time and attention... Study up! Pests have a nasty little habit of loving marijuana plants...and have no qualms about destroying your crop. Bugs and disease are a daily adversary that can make a mockery of your cultivation efforts, creating a product that has little to no monetary value -- let alone something you want to smoke. As more people grow pot and fewer distribution points are available -- the price for good pot has been plummeting. So many people of been growing weed that the supply has gone up exponentially faster than demand, lowering prices. During the height of prohibition crappie dirt weed could sell for up to $3000 a pound. Today, in California and Colorado you'd be hard-pressed to give away low-quality herb. Only the best of the best will fetch that kind of money in this market, unless of course you take it across state lines for sale... Which leads to the next issue. Marijuana cultivation is still a federal offense! Although you may be making money now, you could potentially go bankrupt fighting federal marijuana cultivation charges, or worse, find yourself in jail. The prices dropped so low in some states that many pot farmers have resorted to sending their product across state lines to increase their profit. Doing so will put you in direct violation of the controlled substance act of 1970, and could land you in jail for many years (keep in mind that federal judges are required to issue mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes). Finally, because it is still federally illegal, there is no accountability in the business. Your partner can screw you over, your crop you get stolen and there is little to no legal recourse for you -- such as their might be in other business venture. Still interested in being a marijuana kingpin? Remember that you need two things: knowledge of cannabis and knowledge of business. Good luck!

Vermont: Cannabis Decriminalization Measure Now Law. Under the new state law, penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana and/or marijuana paraphernalia by a person 21 years of age or older have been amended from a criminal misdemeanor (formerly punishable by up to six-months in jail and a $500 fine) to a civil fine only — no arrest, no jail time, and no criminal record. The law also decriminalizes possession of less than five grams of hashish. Vermont's new law is similar to existing 'decriminalization' laws in California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island, where private, non-medical possession of marijuana is treated as a civil, non-criminal offense. Five additional states -- Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, and Ohio -- treat marijuana possession offenses as a fine-only misdemeanor offense. Three states -- Alaska, Colorado, and Washington -- impose no criminal or civil penalty for the private possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Cannabis Prohibition Is A Fatal Policy. One of the biggest causes of unnecessary deaths, due directly to prohibition, is the dangerous black-market it creates. Take Mexican drug cartels for example; they're the cause of over 100,000 deaths in the past decade alone, many of them innocent people. If it wasn't for cannabis prohibition, these cartels would be drastically less funded, and powerful; they receive over 60% of their profit from selling marijuana to the U.S., and a good portion of the remaining 40% selling it to Mexico residents. If cannabis were legalized in both countries -- without an absurd tax rate -- these cartels would be cutoff from their biggest, easiest source of funding. The same is true with many domestic gangs in the U.S., which lead to countless murders in certain areas of states like California. Looking beyond the hazards of the black-market, cannabis prohibition is the cause of numerous other needless deaths. For example; a study conducted by professors at theUniversity of Colorado Department of Economics and the University of Montana, and published by the Institute for the Study of Labor, found that states which have legalized medical cannabis have seen a drastic (11% among young adults) decrease in overall suicides. If cannabis were legal for all adults, this would likely be considerably higher. The exact reasons for this are unknown, but researchers believe it has to do with a simultaneous reduction in alcohol consumption. Another factor is that cannabis can help combat depression, which was validated by a study released earlier this year by the University of Kentucky.

Israeli Rabbi: Medical Marijuana Is Definitely Kosher. While pork may not be condoned by Orthodox rabbis, at least one has given the green light to cannabis. Israeli Rabbi Efraim Zalmanovich has confirmed that, in his holy scripture, consumption of cannabis medically is by all means "Kosher." In fact, this rabbi (an Orthodox and the most conservative type of Jewish Rabbis) went so far as to call medical marijuana a "Mitzvah," proving that even this world's most devout religious leaders realize the plant's powers transcend religion. Zalmanovich told The Times Of Israel that while pot shouldn't be abused recreationally, he states that the 11,000 Israelites smoking medical marijuana are well within the boundaries of religion. While weed might not be "specifically" mentioned in the Bible or the 10 Commandments, Zalmanovich is by no means the first Rabbi or Jew to outwardly support medical marijuana. And it's becoming clear that clergy-men have bigger thoughts on their mind than a plant subliminally extolled in Genesis.

The American Public And Marijuana Legalization: A Political Blind Spot Comes Into Focus. It is a moment in America that is rife with contradictions: _People are looking more kindly on marijuana even as science reveals more about the drug's potential dangers, particularly for young people. _States are giving the green light to the drug in direct defiance of a federal prohibition on its use. _Exploration of the potential medical benefit is limited by high federal hurdles to research. Washington policymakers seem reluctant to deal with any of it. Richard Bonnie, a University of Virginia law professor who worked for a national commission that recommended decriminalizing marijuana in 1972, sees the public taking a big leap from prohibition to a more laissez-faire approach without full deliberation. Nearly half of adults have tried marijuana, 12 percent of them in the past year, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. More teenagers now say they smoke marijuana than ordinary cigarettes. Fifty-two percent of adults favor legalizing marijuana, up 11 percentage points just since 2010, according to Pew. Sixty percent think Washington shouldn't enforce federal laws against marijuana in states that have approved its use. Seventy-two percent think government efforts to enforce marijuana laws cost more than they're worth. "By Election Day 2016, we expect to see at least seven states where marijuana is legal and being regulated like alcohol," says Mason Tvert, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, a national legalization group. source: As Nixon and the rest of his drug hating cronies do back flips, in their well-deserved place in hell... The American public have grown up! They now recognize the childish tale of "reefer madness" as nothing more than a manipulative fairytale, perpetuated by those in power with something to protect -- Money.

Arguments Over The "High" Of Cannabis Are Half-Baked. The medicinal and nutritional use of cannabis can be traced back to 6000 BC. It was first listed in the US Pharmacopeia in 1851, as a safe and effective remedy for a wide variety of health problems including morning sickness. In 1937 however, The Marihuana Tax Act was set in motion. This tax posed an extreme financial hardship on doctors, which made it nearly impossible for them to continue to provide cannabis to their patients. Then the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, which classified cannabis as "having high potential for abuse, no medical use and not safe to use without medical supervision" was passed. Even if a doctor could afford to prescribe cannabis, it was now illegal to do so. Coincidentally, during this very same era, new pharmaceutical drugs like antibiotics became available to patients across the US. While a popular antibiotic known as "Penicillin" has proven useful in combating diseases such as syphilis, it comes with a long list of frightening possible side effects and it is no match for the 'super bugs' of today like MRSA. Giovanni Appendino of the Piemonte Orientale University, in Italy, and Simon Gibbons of the School of Pharmacy at the University of London, U.K., have been studying the antibacterial properties of Cannabis. Gibbons claims, "The cannabinoids (chemical compounds found in Cannabis) even showed exceptional activity against the MRSA strain that makes extra amounts of proteins that give the bugs resistance against many antibiotics."

Monday, July 01, 2013

Curtis Kile Makes Cross-Country Wheelchair Trek From Michigan To White House For Marijuana Reform. While Kile said his health and pace have been affected by the hot temperatures, he has vowed to press on. "I intend to get a national movement going so it (marijuana) can just be legalized," he told The Compassion Chronicles. "We have to make it readily available to those who cannot afford it." Michigan voters approved medical marijuana use for some chronic medical conditions in 2008. But acceptance has been stymied on multiple fronts. The Huffington Post reported last year that government administration of the program was months behind schedule. In a decision handed down in February, the state's Supreme Court voted 4-1 to shut down marijuana dispensaries and bar licensed patients from purchasing marijuana from each other. Kile told the Detroit Free Press that lobbyists and rival industries, not common sense, have stymied access to marijuana for people who could benefit from it. "The alcohol industry doesn't want it legal, and the pharmaceutical and the tobacco companies don't want that, because it's going to bite into their profits," he told the Free Press. "It's the money that's stopping it, and that's wrong." He's asked President Obama to greet him when he arrives on July 4, writing, "I like the fact that you have an open door policy when it comes to inviting citizens to the White House that have innovative ideas that can help get the United States on the right track again." (sic)

National Lawyers Guild On Marijuana: Legalize It! - Orange County - News - Navel Gazing. "The NLG believes that ending the prohibition of cannabis would offer multiple benefits," the group states in its report. "Legalization would help transform the marijuana industry ... into a stable regulated one. It would significantly reduce infringements on civil liberties and lower the arrest and incarceration rates of people of color. Changing the criminal status of marijuana would lower the costs of law enforcement and protect people from entering the criminal justice system. Finally, legalization would remove restrictions currently impeding [the] study of medical marijuana and allow more users to acquire treatment if necessary. Each of these goals is consistent with sound economic, criminal justice, and public health policies." The NLG isn't just stating the obvious--the America's war on weed has had disastrous consequences for our nation--but is hoping to coordinate a two-pronged approach to ending this war. First, the group suggests, Americans need to pressure their elected representatives to reschedule cannabis so that it is no longer listed as a Schedule 1 narcotic which is prohibited under the Controlled Substances Act. Second, voters must continue to push for legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes, as happened last November in both Colorado and Washington states.

Texas Teen Jailed For Sarcastic Facebook Comment : All Tech Considered : NPR. "Justin Carter was 18 back in February when an online video game League of Legends took an ugly turn on Facebook. Jack Carter says his son Justin and a friend got into an argument with someone on Facebook about the game and the teenager wrote a comment he now regrets. "Someone had said something to the effect of 'Oh you're insane, you're crazy, you're messed up in the head,' to which he replied 'Oh yeah, I'm real messed up in the head, I'm going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts,' and the next two lines were lol and jk.," said Carter." A Canadian woman saw the posting, and according to the teen's father, the woman called police. "These people are serious. They really want my son to go away to jail for a sarcastic comment that he made," Jack Carter told KVUE. "Justin was the kind of kid who didn't read the newspaper. He didn't watch television. He wasn't aware of current events. These kids, they don't realize what they're doing. They don't understand the implications. They don't understand public space."

Microsoft to shut down TechNet subscription service. "IT trends and business dynamics have evolved," and TechNet has outlived its original purpose. Given�its history, today's announcement shouldn't be a surprise. Here are the details: New subscriptions won't be accepted after August 31, 2013. Newly purchased subscriptions must be activated by September 30, 2013. Current subscribers will still receive subscription benefits until their current contract ends. For most retail customers,subscribers are limited to a single year. Existing subscriptions that expire on or before September 30, 2013 may be renewed for one year. Renewals may be purchased until August 31, 2013. Subscribers with active Microsoft Certified Trainer accounts may continue to access their program benefits until March 31, 2014. MVPs will continue to receive the option for a free Visual Studio Premium with MSDN subscription. In practice, that means TechNet downloads will continue until sometime near the end of 2013, as those one-time renewals expire. Microsoft has posted an FAQ here that also subscription benefits through Microsoft programs such as Not-For-Resale (NFR), Volume Licensing (VL), IT Academy (ITA), MAPS, Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), and Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP).. According to Microsoft, "The service is being retired so that Microsoft can focus on bettering our free experiences for IT professionals through TechNet including the TechNet Evaluation Center, Microsoft Virtual Academy and TechNet Forums." Microsoft is retiring the TechNet Subscription service As IT trends and business dynamics have evolved, so has Microsoft�s set of offerings for IT professionals who are looking to learn, evaluate and deploy Microsoft technologies and services. In recent years, we have seen a usage shift from paid to free evaluation experiences and resources. As a result, Microsoft has decided to retire the TechNet Subscriptions service. Microsoft will continue to honor all existing TechNet Subscriptions. Subscribers with active accounts may continue to access program benefits until their current subscription period concludes. IT professionals who would like to purchase a new TechNet Subscription or renew an existing subscription may do so through August 31, 2013. Subscribers may activate purchased subscriptions through September 30, 2013. We are committed to helping customers through this transition phase and will remain focused on providing IT professionals with free access to a broad set of TechNet assets that support the needs of IT professionals around the world. To learn more about free and paid technology evaluation resources for IT professionals, see the chart below. More background on the retirement decision and implications for current subscribers is available in the TechNet Subscriptions FAQ. This page includes additional information for retail and direct subscribers, as well as those that receive it through Microsoft programs such as Not-For-Resale (NFR), Volume Licensing (VL), IT Academy (ITA), Microsoft Partner Network (MPN), Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), and Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP). Thank you for your understanding as we increase focus on growing and investing in our free offerings to better meet the needs of the IT professional community.

Here's What It Looks Like When Two Hacker FBI Informants Try To Inform On Each Other - Forbes. In an instant message conversation with Thordarson Thursday, I asked him what he might have given to the FBI that could be relevant to its investigation, and he responded immediately with a log of an instant message conversation between himself and the member of the LulzSec hacker group known as Sabu, which he says he gave to the FBI and which he claims shows "that information was passed on from LulzSec that later got published by WikiLeaks." Thordarson told me he believes the log supports a "conspiracy" charge against Julian Assange or others in WikiLeaks. The log is likely less useful to the FBI than Thordarson thinks: It's no surprise that WikiLeaks has published hacked files, or even that it publishes files hacked specifically by LulzSec, such as the millions of emails stolen from the private intelligence firm Stratfor by activist Jeremy Hammond, who pleaded guilty to computer fraud and abuse last month. More interesting, or at least more humorous, is the fact that the chat log represents a conversation between two FBI informants, both of whom seem to be trying to lure the other into providing evidence they can turn over to their law enforcement handlers--or even into a meeting that could lead to the other's arrest. Sabu, also known as Hector Xavier Monsegur, had agreed to work as an FBI mole within LulzSec months before his conversation with Thordarson. Thordarson, for his part, tells me he thought he was helping to deliver a "notorious hacker" to the FBI, and didn't know he was speaking to a fellow stool pigeon. Monsegur doesn't show any signs of knowing either. Thordarson, it should be noted, is not a reliable source

Yes, Monsanto Actually DID Buy the BLACKWATER Mercenary Group! Many military and former CIA officers work for Blackwater or related companies created to divert attention from their bad reputation and make more profit selling their nefarious services-ranging from information and intelligence to infiltration, political lobbying and paramilitary training -- for other governments, banks and multinational corporations. According to Scahill, business with multinationals, like Monsanto, Chevron, and financial giants such as Barclays and Deutsche Bank, are channeled through two companies owned by Erik Prince, owner of Blackwater: Total Intelligence Solutions and Terrorism Research Center. These officers and directors share Blackwater. One of them, Cofer Black, known for his brutality as one of the directors of the CIA, was the one who made contact with Monsanto in 2008 as director of Total Intelligence, entering into the contract with the company to spy on and infiltrate organizations of animal rights activists, anti-GM and other dirty activities of the biotech giant. Contacted by Scahill, the Monsanto executive Kevin Wilson declined to comment, but later confirmed to The Nation that they had hired Total Intelligence in 2008 and 2009, according to Monsanto only to keep track of "public disclosure" of its opponents. He also said that Total Intelligence was a "totally separate entity from Blackwater." However, Scahill has copies of emails from Cofer Black after the meeting with Wilson for Monsanto, where he explains to other former CIA agents, using their Blackwater e-mails, that the discussion with Wilson was that Total Intelligence had become "Monsanto's intelligence arm," spying on activists and other actions, including "our people to legally integrate these groups." Total Intelligence Monsanto paid $ 127,000 in 2008 and $ 105,000 in 2009. No wonder that a company engaged in the "science of death" as Monsanto, which has been dedicated from the outset to produce toxic poisons spilling from Agent Orange to PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), pesticides, hormones and genetically modified seeds, is associated with another company of thugs.

5 million Americans cut cable's cord. The slow, but steadily, increasing number of people cutting cable's cord. Nielsen classifies cord-cutters as "Zero-TV" households. There are enough of them (5 million, up from 2 million six years ago), that Nielsen will begin tracking Zero-TV homes for its traditional ratings service starting in the Fall season. The analyst firm isn't solitary assessing the significance of this growing population. For example, HTC, which announced dismal quarterly results earlier today, will spend 40 percent of the One smartphone's marketing budget on digital properties, taking away from TV-ad spending. "Seventy percent of our target audience consumes [TV] content online", Erin McGee, HTC's veep of North American marketing, tells AdWeek. Can you say cord cutters? Three quarters of Zero-TV households have television sets, but two-thirds get content on other devices and 48 percent watch TV through subscription services, according to Nielsen. In the homes using other devices to view television programs: 37 percent PC 16 percent Internet TV 8 percent smartphone 6 percent tablet Cord-cutting households tend to be younger -- 44.4 percent under 35, while 43.7 percent of traditional TV homes are 55 or older and 64.5 percent are 45 or older. Cost (36 percent) and lack of choice/interesting content (31 percent) rank as major reasons for breaking free from cable, IPTV or satellite providers.

War On the Unemployed Congress has been allowing extended benefits introduced during the economic crisis to expire, even though long-term unemployment remains at historic highs. So what's going on here? ... In general, modern conservatives believe that our national character is being sapped by social programs that, in the memorable words of Paul Ryan,... "turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency." ... Is there anything to this belief? The average unemployment benefit in North Carolina is $299 a week, pretax; some hammock. ... All of this is, however, irrelevant to our current situation... While cutting unemployment benefits will make the unemployed even more desperate, it will do nothing to create more jobs... But wait — what about supply and demand? Won't making the unemployed desperate put downward pressure on wages? And won't lower labor costs encourage job growth? No — cutting everyone's wages just reduces everyone's income... Oh, and let's not forget that cutting benefits to the unemployed, many of whom are living hand-to-mouth, will lead to lower overall spending — again, worsening the economic situation, and destroying more jobs. The move to slash unemployment benefits, then, is counterproductive as well as cruel; it will swell the ranks of the unemployed even as it makes their lives ever more miserable.

MAYFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio: Ohio police department using fake drug checkpoints - Nation Wires - MiamiHerald.com. Police in the city of 19,000 recently posted large yellow signs along Interstate 271 that warned drivers that there was a drug checkpoint ahead, to be prepared to stop and that there was a drug-sniffing police dog in use. There was no such checkpoint, just police officers waiting to see if any drivers would react suspiciously after seeing the signs. Authorities say that four people were stopped, with some arrests and drugs seized. They declined to be more specific. The Plain Dealer in Cleveland reports (http://bit.ly/12tIqGq) that some civil rights leaders and at least one person pulled over by police are questioning the tactic, wondering if it could violate the Fourth Amendment against unlawful searches and seizures. "I don't think it accomplishes any public safety goals," said Terry Gilbert, a prominent Cleveland civil rights attorney. "I don't think it's good to mislead the population for any reason if you're a government agency." Nick Worner, a spokesman for the Cleveland office of the American Civil Liberties Union, said his office will be looking further into the fake checkpoints to determine whether anyone's rights may be being violated. Dominic Vitantonio, a Mayfield Heights assistant prosecutor, said the fake checkpoints are legal and a legitimate effort in the war on drugs. "We should be applauded for doing this," Dominic Vitantonio said. "It's a good thing."

Koch Pledge Tied to Congressional Climate Inaction : The New Yorker. The investigative study tracks the political influence wielded by the billionaire Koch brothers, who have harnessed part of the fortune generated by their company, Koch Industries, the second largest private corporation in the country, to further their conservative libertarian activism. Charles Lewis, the Executive Editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop explained that the I.R.W., a non-profit news organization attached to American University, spent two years focussing on Koch Industries because, "There is no other corporation in the U.S. today, in my view, that is as unabashedly, bare-knuckle aggressive across the board about its own self-interest, in the political process, in the nonprofit-policy-advocacy realm, even increasingly in academia and the broader public marketplace of ideas." Formerly head of the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, Lewis has focussed for years on the way money affects American politics. "The Kochs' influence, without a doubt, is growing," he believes. A spokeswoman for the Kochs declined to comment. In its multi-part report, "The Koch Club," written by Eric Holmberg and Alexia Campbell, the Workshop found that between 2007 and 2011 the Kochs donated $41.2 million to ninety tax-exempt organizations promoting the ultra-libertarian policies that the brothers favor—policies that are often highly advantageous to their corporate interests. In addition, during this same period they gave $30.5 million to two hundred and twenty-one colleges and universities, often to fund academic programs advocating their worldview. Among the positions embraced by the Kochs are fewer government regulations on business, lower taxes, and skepticism about the causes and impact of climate change. Climate-change policy directly affects Koch Industries's bottom line. Koch Industries, according to Environmental Protection Agency statistics cited in the study, is a major source of carbon-dioxide emissions, the kind of pollution that most scientists believe causes global warming. In 2011, according to the E.P.A.'s greenhouse-gas-reporting database, the company, which has oil refineries in three states, emitted over twenty-four million tons of carbon dioxide, as much as is typically emitted by five million cars.

Newly Leaked NSA Slides On PRISM Add To Confusion, Rather Than Clear It Up. Things break down when people start to analyze these slides. A few news sources have zeroed in on the claim on that last slide that there are 117,675 "records" in PRISM as of April 5th. But, there's some disagreement about what the hell that means. The Washington Post says that these are "active surveillance targets" but it's unclear how they know that. It's possible that there's other, as yet unrevealed info that would support that, but even then there's confusion. How "active" is active? And, what constitutes a "record" anyway? No one seems to be providing any answers. Another thing that's not entirely clear: the Washington Post annotations claim that the "FBI DITU," the "Data Intercept Technology Unit" (DITU), is on the premises of the companies listed as a part of PRISM -- but all of the companies have pretty strenuously denied this. And, honestly, from the slides, it's not at all clear that the DITU really is on-premises. Google has said in the past that when it receives a valid FISA court order under the associated program, it uses secure FTP to ship the info to the government. From that, it seems like the "DITU" could just be a government computer somewhere, not on the premises of these companies, and info is uploaded to those servers following valid FISC orders. Others have focused in on the claims of "real-time surveillance," implying the ability to watch actual key strokes, but the slide in question (the third one above) suggests something slightly different: which is real time notifications for certain trigger events, such as logging into email or sending a message. Now, it does note that other forms of communication are available through the program, but it's not at all clear that's "real time." It's also not at all clear if the "real time" notifications apply to all companies in the program. It's entirely possible that a FISC order might require these companies to let the FBI/NSA know whenever a certain target logged into their email or chat. There are certainly some questions raised there about the appropriateness of that type of program, but it's not clear how much "real time" info is actually being sent.

Tribune to buy 19 local TV stations for $2.73 billion. The deal is another step for Tribune, the publisher of the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, to transform itself largely to a broadcast company as it seeks to sell off its newspaper division. Tribune currently has 23 television stations and eight newspapers and emerged from bankruptcy protection in December. Local TV is principally owned by Oak Hill Capital Partners. Tribune is the latest company to snap up local TV stations as the industry consolidates. Last month, Gannett Co, the largest U.S. newspaper chain, bought Belo Corp and its 20 local TV stations for $1.5 billion. Tribune said it had received financing of up to $4.1 billion from JPMorgan Chase & Co, BofA Merrill Lynch, Citigroup Inc, Deutsche Bank AG and Credit Suisse Group. This includes a new $300 million revolving credit facility and the capacity to refinance existing debt.

Secret Court Declassifies Yahoo's Role in Disclosure Fight. In an article on June 13, The New York Times identified Yahoo as the petitioner in the secret court case, which paved the way for the government to force Internet companies to hand over information about foreigners to the National Security Agency's Prism program, authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The court used a heavily redacted version of the decision by the FISA court of review, published in 2008 without Yahoo's name, to warn other companies that they need not even try to test the legality of FISA requests. The day after The Times ran the story, Yahoo's lawyers filed a motion for the secret court to publish records related to the case, including Yahoo's name. They argued that the release was "now in the public interest" as a result of the current debate about surveillance and material that the government had recently declassified. This week, the government agreed. The FISA court also agreed to make public a redacted version of the original decision that prompted Yahoo to appeal at the court of review. Yahoo fought a part of FISA known as the Protect America Act, elements of which were folded into a 2008 amendment to FISA. Yahoo argued, unsuccessfully, that broad, warrantless Internet surveillance violated the Constitution. Yahoo appealed at the secret court of review, and that court also ruled against Yahoo, writing in its decision that "efforts to protect national security should not be frustrated by the courts."

Lawyers seeks house arrest for Vatican monsignor. "He explained everything he could. He cooperated in an extremely loyal and honest way. He said he was in good faith and at the disposal of the magistrates whenever they needed," lawyer Francesco Grimaldi told reporters outside Rome's Queen of Heaven jail after the three-hour interrogation. Scarano, who had close connections to the Vatican bank, was arrested on Friday along with Giovanni Zito, a secret services agent, and financial broker Giovanni Carenzio. They have been accused of plotting to bring 20 million euros ($26.00 million)in cash to Italy from Switzerland for Scarano's rich shipping industry friends in the southern city of Salerno. Scarano is under a separate investigation there on suspicion of money laundering Scarano's lawyers asked that he be transferred to house arrest at a parish or another religious institution such as a convent so he could say Mass.

CA: Bakersfield Bans Medical Marijuana Dispensaries. (One Place You NEED Cannabis) City Attorney Ginny Gennaro says that under the ban, approved Wednesday, medical marijuana dispensaries will not be required to close overnight. Instead, the ordinance prohibits their operation in all zones of the city, from residential to industrial. Actual enforcement of the ban, Gennaro says, will vary depending upon the situation, but investigations into dispensaries will initiated by complaints. The city's Code Enforcement Department will investigate the zoning violations with the aid of the Police Departmetn. The ordinance makes closing dispensaries a civil matter, not a criminal one, unless crimes are found to have occurred at a dispensary. Gennaro said it is not his intention to criminally prosecute, or even issue a fine, to medical marijuana dispensaries operating in the city after the ban goes into affect. Enforcement efforts will concentrate on simply closing the business. City officials estimate that there are about a dozen medical marijuana dispensaries currently operating in the city. Marijuana advocates say they won't petition against the ban because there's not enough time and it's too expensive, estimating it would cost between $50,o00 and $60,000 to attempt to place the measure before voters.

Ending the War On Cannabis Just Makes (Political) Sense. Nationally, a solid (and increasing) majority of Americans, eighty percent of us (imagine eighty percent of Americans agreeing on anything) support medical cannabis, and fifty-six percent are for full cannabis legalization. And those numb , city: America knows. Outside of various war frenzies, I've not witnessed anything like this kind of cross-platform agreement in my twenty years of journalism. We're increasingly united on this one.ers are climbing every time a new poll comes out, particularly among women. Left wing, right wing, old, young, heartland In fact from what I'm seeing from touring from Missouri to Arizona and on both coasts, fifty-six percent Drug Peace support sounds about twenty percent too low. I mean, you know you're winning when the Houston Chronicle, as it did on November 9, 2012, runs an editorial that reads in part: Our country has waged a War on Drugs for forty years, and the only winners seem to be cartel lords and private prisons. Two states have come up with a new plan. Let's see if it works." Internationally it's the same. A Portuguese magazine writer who called me from Lisbon the other day to see if I was aware that the international Drug War was over due to "America's leadership role" in the 2012 election. The world, in other words, is aware that the social re-legalization of cannabis was a watershed event and represents a sea change in the course of the now forty-one-year-long conflict (seventy-five, actually, in the case of cannabis).

Oregon: Lawmakers Give Final Approval To Reduce Marijuana Possession Penalties. Senate Bill 40 amends the criminal code to reclassify marijuana offenses involving the possession of over one ounce, but less than four ounces of marijuana, from a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison, to a Class B misdemeanor. It also reclassifies offenses involving the possession of less than 1/4 ounce of hashish from a felony to a Class B misdemeanor. The measure also reduces the fine presently associated with civil violations involving the possession of less than one ounce of marijuana. Senate Bill 82 eliminates the suspension of driving privileges for those cited civilly for possessing an ounce or less of marijuana. Both bills now await action from Democrat Gov. John Kitzhaber. If signed into law, the changes will take effect immediately upon passage.

Paid via Plastic Debit Card, Workers Feel Sting of Fees. one provider, for example, charges $1.75 to make a withdrawal from most A.T.M.'s, $2.95 for a paper statement and $6 to replace a card. Some users even have to pay $7 inactivity fees for not using their cards. These fees can take such a big bite out of paychecks that some employees end up making less than the minimum wage once the charges are taken into account, according to interviews with consumer lawyers, employees, and state and federal regulators. Devonte Yates, 21, who earns $7.25 an hour working a drive-through station at a McDonald's in Milwaukee, says he spends $40 to $50 a month on fees associated with his JPMorgan Chase payroll card. "It's pretty bad," he said. "There's a fee for literally everything you do." Certain transactions with the Chase pay card are free, according to a fee schedule. Many employees say they have no choice but to use the cards: some companies no longer offer common payroll options like ordinary checks or direct deposit. At companies where there is a choice, it is often more in theory than in practice, according to interviews with employees, state regulators and consumer advocates. Employees say they are often automatically enrolled in the payroll card programs and confronted with a pile of paperwork if they want to opt out. "We hear virtually every week from employees who never knew there were other options, and employers certainly don't disabuse workers of that idea," said Deyanira Del Rio, an associate director of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, which works with community groups in New York.

Sunday, June 30, 2013

DaDenMan Show #154 -Year 2 Begins Cannabis - How Far Have We Truly Evolved Part 2 (The Second Year Begins)

Marijuana's march toward mainstream confounds feds. It is a moment in America that is rife with contradictions: —People are looking more kindly on marijuana even as science reveals more about the drug's potential dangers, particularly for young people. —States are giving the green light to the drug in direct defiance of a federal prohibition on its use. —Exploration of the potential medical benefit is limited by high federal hurdles to research. Washington policymakers seem reluctant to deal with any of it. Richard Bonnie, a University of Virginia law professor who worked for a national commission that recommended decriminalizing marijuana in 1972, sees the public taking a big leap from prohibition to a more laissez-faire approach without full deliberation. "It's a remarkable story historically," he says. "But as a matter of public policy, it's a little worrisome." More than a little worrisome to those in the anti-drug movement. "We're on this hundred-mile-an-hour freight train to legalizing a third addictive substance," says Kevin Sabet, a former drug policy adviser in the Obama administration, lumping marijuana with tobacco and alcohol. Legalization strategist Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, likes the direction the marijuana smoke is wafting. But knows his side has considerable work yet to do. "I'm constantly reminding my allies that marijuana is not going to legalize itself," he says. ___ By the numbers: Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have legalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes since California voters made the first move in 1996. Voters in Colorado and Washington state took the next step last year and approved pot for recreational use. Alaska is likely to vote on the same question in 2014, and a few other states are expected to put recreational use on the ballot in 2016.

How Cannabis Activists Can Change The World. I want to live in a world where people are more likely to live through traumatic accidents. Furthermore, someday I may need a transfusion, so I should practice the Golden Rule, and do unto others now as I hope someone will do for me in my hour of need. There is a saying, often incorrectly attributed to Gandhi, that we must be the change that we want to see in the world. Although it is important to identify and discuss the problems with the world as it is, those steps are wholly inadequate to making the world a better place. In order to do that, we must change ourselves and our behavior in ways that address those problems. Next Thursday is our Independence Day. The day when the rebels who separated this country from Great Britain publicly pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the fight for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The day that those individuals became and created the change they wanted in the world. How are you going to be the change you want to see in the world? Specifically to our purposes here, how are you going to legalize cannabis this year? Will you write a letter to the editor of your paper? Will you organize a town hall meeting? Will you join our mobile campaign by texting "smc" to 420420 and call your legislators and urge them to support important cannabis law reform measures? Will you make a financial contribution to the cause? Think about how you will advance the cause over the next year and set that as a goal for yourself. You can email it to me, if you like, and I will be glad to help hold you to it. And I certainly hope that one of the ways that you will make change in the world is by making a contribution to Show-Me Cannabis. We operate on an extremely lean budget (on track to be substantially less than $100,000 this year), and we get tremendous bang for that buck. In fact, I'd venture to say that we do more with the limited resources we have than any other advocacy organization in the state. However, there is a tremendous amount of work to be done, and we must do more, but that is not possible without your financial support.

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Bert and Ernie's New Yorker Cover Is a Picture Perfect Symbol for Gay Marriage - Rebecca Greenfield - The Atlantic Wire. Sesame Street's not-gay gay cultural icons celebrating this week's Supreme Court rulings, which is sweet if you don't overthink it: America's most famous men in love finally have the official acceptance of America. Of course, Sesame Street and the company of founder Jim Henson has insisted many times that the orange and yellow pals are neither straight nor gay nor transgender or anything else: "They remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation," or so goes public television's party line. As in, Muppets can't have sex or aren't supposed to be overtly human, and despite the new legal recognition of it all, these two probably won't be having that big gay TV marriage everyone wants. But it's still very cute to see the icons cuddling in front of their television set. The cover comes by way of an unsolicited image submitted to Tumblr by artist Jack Hunter, according to the magazine. "It's amazing to witness how attitudes on gay rights have evolved in my lifetime," he said. Bert and Ernie, if they were gay and wanted to and if Sesame Street was in New York, could have gotten married in the state two years ago, and could now have it recognized by the federal government. But the artist insists that the message isn't specific so much as a symbol to help keep teaching children about gay rights. "This is great for our kids, a moment we can all celebrate." So let's not over-analyze this wonderful cover, but it should be noted that you can't yet watch the justices on TV — though not for lack of trying — and why are Bert and Ernie watching in the dark anyway? Okay, enough. Now let's all have a good cuddle.

War Of The Worlds The True Story -- On Demand. What if the Earth/Mars battle from H.G. Wells' classic novel The War of the Worlds wasn't fiction but actually fact? That's the story of WAR OF THE WORLDS THE TRUE STORY, one of 208 contenders for the 85th Academy Award Oscars, including consideration for best adapted screenplay, best editing and best original score. Like the famous 1938 Orson Welles radio broadcast that caused Americans to believe an actual invasion was in progress, the movie assumes an Earth/Mars War actually occurred in the year 1900 and is presented as the eyewitness memoir of journalist Bertie Wells, the last living survivor as he struggles to find his wife amidst the destruction of humankind at the hands of terrifying alien invaders.

Hey, MSM: All Journalism is Advocacy Journalism. ("What's the matter, boss, we sick?") I got into trouble the other day on Twitter for asking if David Gregory may have just had a "brain fart" when he asked Greenwald his infamous question, "To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn't you be charged with a crime?" I hadn't seen the show and had only read the quote, and quite frankly, I don't watch a lot of David Gregory. Apparently, in context, even the question I asked is absurd (more on that later). But Sorkin is different. For Sorkin to call his outburst an accident, that I know is hilarious. Did he also "veer into" a long career as a shameless, ball-gargling prostitute for Wall Street? As Jeff Cohen eloquently pointed out, isn't Sorkin the guy who's always bragging about how close he is to top bankers and parroting their views on things? This is a man who admitted, in print, that he only went down to Zucotti Park after a bank C.E.O. asked him, "Is this Occupy thing a big deal?" (Sorkin's reassuring response: "As I wandered around the park, it was clear to me that most bankers probably don't have to worry about being in imminent personal danger . . .") And when Senator Carl Levin's report about Goldman's "Big Short" and deals like Abacus and Timberwolf came out, it was Sorkin who released a lengthy screed in Dealbook defending Goldman, one I instantly recognized as being nearly indistinguishable from the excuses I'd heard from Goldman's own P.R. people. But the biggest clue that Sorkin's take on Greenwald was no accident came in the rest of that same Squawk Box appearance (emphasis mine): I feel like, A, we've screwed this up, even letting him get to Russia. B, clearly the Chinese hate us to even let him out of the country. I would arrest him . . . and now I would almost arrest Glenn Greenwald, who's the journalist who seems to want to help him get to Ecuador. We? Wow. That's a scene straight out of Malcolm X. ("What's the matter, boss, we sick?") As a journalist, when you start speaking about political power in the first person plural, it's pretty much glue-factory time.

NSA Petition - Electronic Privacy Information Center The undersigned individuals and organizations, concerned about the rule of law and the protection of Constitutional freedoms, hereby petition the National Security Agency to conduct a public rulemaking on the agency's monitoring and collection of communications traffic within the United States. 5 U.S.C. § 553(e). We believe that the NSA's collection of domestic communications contravenes the First and Fourth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and violates several federal privacy laws, including the Privacy Act of 1974, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 as amended. The NSA's collection of solely domestic communications, which has been acknowledged by the President, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, also constitutes a legislative rule that "substantively affects the public to a degree sufficient to implicate the policy interests animating notice-and-comment rulemaking" under the Administrative Procedure Act. EPIC v. DHS, 653 F.3d 1, 6 (D.C. Cir. 2011). Accordingly, the NSA's collection of domestic communications, absent the opportunity for public comment, is unlawful. We hereby petition the National Security Agency, a component of the Department of Defense, for relief. We ask the NSA to immediately suspend collection of solely domestic communications pending the completion of a public rulemaking as required by law. We intend to renew our request each week until we receive your response.

The U.S. and the N.S.A. Scandal: Freedom: The Big American Lie - Debatten - FAZ. Back in 2005, when the New York Times reported that the NSA was engaged in probably-illegal wiretapping, it ignited a nationwide firestorm. When my progressive friends thought about the subject, it all fit a pattern: These thuggish Republicans, with their stupid militarism, their disregard for the Constitution, their disgusting certainty that God was on their side, of course they were also tapping peoples' phones! It all made sense given what we knew about the Bush Administration. "Warrantless wiretaps" were one of a string of outrages —the others being "Katrina incompetence" and "Scooter Libby justice"—that Senator Barack Obama used to denounce in his campaign speech as a sort of incantation when he was running for the presidency in 2008. And that's why, for a certain sort of idealistic liberal, this man Obama was the most desirable presidential candidate imaginable, and why so many greeted his election as something like a deliverance from evil. Remember how statesmanship is practiced, American-style And today it is Obama himself who countenances something very similar to "warrantless wiretaps." It is not enough today to say that the president has disappointed his core supporters, or to point out that he and his top advisers today seem to regard idealistic liberals as something of an annoyance. With the NSA spying programs that he has overseen—and with his "kill list," and with his drone strikes, and with his war on journalists, and with his war on leakers—Obama has actually done far worse than that. He has flown in the face of what he seemed to stand for—of what he promised in fact: open government, a respect for privacy and for the rule of law. Those who wonder why a politician would do such a thing must remember how statesmanship is practiced, American-style. To snub and even to wound your most zealous supporters, as Obama has done, is regarded as a mark of maturity in Washington. This is not because snubbing or wounding them is a brave thing to do, but exactly the opposite: Because the righteous attitude of the idealist is repugnant to the men of power, who know that idealists are, in fact, men of weakness, entitled to neither courtesy nor respect.

Susan Rice: Snowden leaks haven't weakened Obama. Rice dismissed commentators who say Snowden's disclosures have made Obama a lame duck, damaged his political base, and hurt U.S. foreign policy, saying: "I think that's bunk." "I think the United States of America is and will remain the most influential, powerful and important country in the world, the largest economy, and the largest military, (with) a network of alliances, values that are universally respected," she said. Rice said Obama has "significant ambitions and a real agenda" for his second term, pointing to major speeches last week on disarmament and nonproliferation and this week on the impact of climate change. As for Snowden, she said, "It's often, if not always something, and U.S. leadership will continue to be unrivaled, demanded, expected - and reviled and appreciated around the world." Rice, 48, is expected to bring her outspoken and aggressive negotiating style to her new, higher-profile job. At the United Nations, she has been a bold and blunt ambassador, successfully pushing for tougher sanctions against Iran and North Korea and international intervention in Libya. But Libya ultimately caused her greatest professional disappointment when she became the face of the administration's bungled account of the terrorist attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador. The furor scuttled Rice's long-held hopes of becoming secretary of state when it became clear she would not gain Senate confirmation to that post, which went to John Kerry. Rice has called her 4 1/2 years at the U.N. "the best job I ever had," and told The AP she would be "hard-pressed" to think of any better place to prepare for her new post. "You get to deal with ... literally every country under the sun, and I think you get a unique feel for the orientations, interests, styles, of a wide, wide range of countries," she said.

Ron Wyden's NSA letter: 26 senators vs. secret national security law. an Roberts scoops that 26 senators, led by Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, have sent a formal letter to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper asking whether its spy programs "essentially relied for years on a secret body of law." Among the questions: - How long has the NSA used PATRIOT Act authorities to engage in bulk collection of Americans' records? Was this collection underway when the law was reauthorized in 2006? - Has the NSA used USA PATRIOT Act authorities to conduct bulk collection of any other types of records pertaining to Americans, beyond phone records'? - Has the NSA collected or made any plans to collect Americans' cell-site location data in bulk'? - Have there been any violations of the court orders permitting this bulk collection, or of the rules governing access to these records? If so, please describe these violations. - Please identify any specific examples of instances in which intelligence gained by reviewing phone records obtained through Section 215 bulk collection proved useful in thwarting a particular terrorist plot. Remember that the reason Clapper made his "least untruthful statement" about domestic spying was that Wyden prodded him. The NSA's defenders (they do exist) claim that Wyden must have used some knowledge obtained in intel briefings to know what was happening, and know what Clapper could say.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev indictment (A written statement charging a party with the commission of a crime): Boston Marathon bombing suspect charged in deaths of Martin Richard, Sean Collier, Krystle Campbell, and Lingzi Lu. The indictment confirms that Tsarnaev did write a message on the boat's interior wall and beams. It also offers a few excerpts: "The U.S. Government is killing our innocent civilians;" "I can't stand to see such evil go unpunished;" "We Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all;" "Now I don't like killing innocent people it is forbidden in Islam but due to said [unintelligible] it is allowed;" and "Stop killing our innocent people and we will stop." The key count against Tsarnaev is the first one, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death. In the course of setting up the charge, the indictment notes several "overt acts" committed by the Tsarnaevs to further the conspiracy. There's some interesting stuff here, too: -- It's been widely reported that the Tsarnaevs were allegedly inspired by Inspire, an online magazine published by al-Qaida that offered instructions on how to make a pressure cooker bomb. But sometime before the bombings, according to the indictment, Tsarnaev went online and downloaded other, thematically similar works. One book—"The Slicing Sword, Against the One Who Forms Allegiances With the Disbelievers and Takes Them as Supporters Instead of Allah, His Messenger and the Believers"—carried a foreword by Anwar al-Awlaki and instructed Muslims "not to give their allegiance to governments that invade Muslim lands." Another book, "Defense of the Muslim Lands, the First Obligation After Imam," is said to advocate "violence designed to terrorize the perceived enemies of Islam, among other things." Another book "glorifies martyrdom in the service of violent jihad." -- According to the indictment, "on or about April 5, 2013, Tamerlan Tsarnaev used the internet to order electronic components that could be adapted for use in making IEDs." Since the bombs were detonated on April 15, that would mean the Tsarnaevs had less than two weeks to test these components and incorporate them into the bombs. That's fast work.

Evidence That Flaxseed Is A Heart Disease Reversing Food. The biomedical literature freely available to view on the National Library of Medicine's bibliographic citation database MEDLINE reveals a growing number of foods, nutrients and plant compounds with cardiovascular disease reversing properties, with 129 of these characterized on our research project alone [see Clogged Arteries]. Of course, the vast majority of these studies are preclinical, non-human in nature, as only so much precious capital flows into research on natural substances, which by their very nature do not grant patents (and therefore offer little to no return on investment), nor easily reveal their secrets through the optic of pharmacology. This does not mean, however, that we must wait around for future randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, multicenter trials to take some of this data to heart, letting it guide us into making simple dietary and lifestyle changes that could in fact prevent or regress disease at the same moment that it is most certainly nourishing us. All the more reason why we should be encouraged by new research into the fabulous flaxseed's ability to reverse cardiovascular disease progression in a new animal study, especially considering that 30 billion dollars is pumped every year into the statin class of cholesterol-lowering drugs, which have been linked to over 300 adverse health effects.

A Pox on the CDC's Vaccination Agenda: The Rise of Herpes Zoster. A new systematic review published in PLoS titled, "Herpes Zoster Risk Reduction through Exposure to Chickenpox Patients: A Systematic Multidiscplinary Review," confirms that the widespread adoption of chickenpox vaccine over the past 30 years, which has resulted in a decline in chickenpox cases associated with infection from the wild-circulating virus, has lead to a concerning increase in the incidents of herpes zoster (shingles), a far more serious expression of chickenpox virus (varicella zoster) infection. This new review brings to the forefront a few critically important questions: are natural infectious challenges essential for establishing a healthy immune system, and is the chicken pox vaccine doing more harm than good?

New York's Vote to Curb Stop-And-Frisk Is Another Win For Civil Rights. Today is a new day for New York City. The move reflects a growing alarm over NYPD policies and practices that violate the rights of thousands of New Yorkers and undermine police-community relationships -- practices such as the discriminatory use of stop-and-frisk that waste valuable public dollars, while producing no measurable impact on public safety. Criticism is mounting, not only in the council, but also in federal court, where the legality of these practices is being questioned. Those same questions are echoed in the homes of regular New Yorkers -- a majority of whom disapprove of stop-and-frisk and two-thirds of whom support independent oversight of the department. The message is clear: it's time for New York City to turn away from an approach to policing that results in countless rights violations each year, while doing little to reduce crime, according to an analysis by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Google Fires Up Dope Support: Donates $120,000 To Michigan Medical Marijuana Advocacy Group. The change comes courtesy of the charitable unit of Google, which last week gifted a Michigan medical marijuana advocacy group $120,000 worth of its services. As part of the grant, the group, Michigan Compassion, will be able to promote medical marijuana use through Google's popular AdWords platform — the plain-text advertisements that pop up to the right side of any given search result. Michigan Compassion does not sell marijuana but connects patients and growers, and it says the ads will appear alongside searches likely to be made by chemotherapy patients. "The goal is to link the negative effects of chemotherapy and the positive effects of cannabis," Amish Parikh, vice-president of Michigan Compassion, told The Huffington Post. The ads' value is small in the scheme of Google's AdWords program, which brings in over $40 billion per year in revenue, but they represent a change for the Mountain View, Calif. firm, which has a strict policy against hosting ads for marijuana-related searches. Google's new generosity toward marijuana advocates fits neatly in Silicon Valley, however, where tech companies and their employees have been quietly contributing to cannabis activism, an area attorney involved in the marijuana legalization movement told The Huffington Post. A spokeswoman for Google declined to comment on whether the grant made to Michigan Compassion meant the company was taking an advocacy position in favor of medical marijuana. AdWords has a policy against allowing advertisements for drugs and drug paraphernalia, but is allowing the Michigan Compassion ads since the organization does not directly supply such products. Google does not allow advertisers to link their ads to searches with words like "cannabis" and "marijuana." Source:

University of South Carolina Study Shows Marijuana Cannabinoids Kills Cancer In Mice. (More tests to confirm what was KNOWN) The Economist magazine once famously wrote that "if marijuana were unknown... and just being discovered today, the plant would be hailed as a medical breakthrough." When one views the full spectrum recent cannabinoid research, which outlines the many ailments marijuana has already been proven to treat, its cannabinoids are now believed to hold limitless possibilities for other applications -- by many in the medical community. As scientists around the world continue to study the cannabis plant, many in the medical world are searching for the path forward, seeking legitimacy for the plants 60 plus cannabinoids. Some of the more current cannabinoid research being produced is hailing from the esteemed University of South Carolina. This groundbreaking research is being conducted by a professor of pathology and microbiology, and is demonstrating that marijuana's primary psychoactive cannabinoid, THC, is actually responsible for activating one of the body's natural defense mechanisms for fighting off lung cancer. By triggering the body's CB1 receptors.

Washington State Cannabis User Survey: Help Determine The Rules. The Washington State Liquor Control Commission and BOTEC Analyses, the company hired to assist the state commission's implementation of cannabis industry regulations, has put out a survey for cannabis users to help determine the rules needed for the Evergreen state to effectively regulate cannabis commerce. While Washington residents are the most important participants, out-of-state cannabis users can also provide input, particularly if you live in a neighboring state or will likely be frequenting Washington for business or pleasure. The first thing that caught my eye, was the fact that the survey states that it will use the word cannabis, instead of marijuana and this is the preferred term by us here at NCC and plenty of folks within the cannabis community because of the racist history of marijuana and the War on Cannabis in general. The survey then asks various questions about frequency of cannabis usage and the variety of ways and forms the user consumes cannabis. The survey also asks about how much you usually pay for cannabis and how much more will you be willing to pay at licensed stores that test for containments and potency.

L.A. Deputies Kill 80 Year Old Man In Marijuana Raid. According to NBC Los Angeles, deputies were serving a "narcotics" search warrant at the multi-unit rural property in the desert community of Littlerock at 7:30 a.m. Lt. Dave Dolson told the TV station deputies entered the home through an unlocked front door, and one deputy fired when they encountered a man armed with a handgun. The man, who may have been the property owner, was pronounced dead at the scene. Later Thursday afternoon, the Sheriff's Department released a statement on the killing. "When deputies approached a rear bedroom at the location, they encountered an 80-year-old male who was armed with a semi-automatic handgun. The suspect pointed the handgun at the deputies and a deputy-involved shooting occurred," the statement read. Deputies recovered the gun, marijuana, and growing equipment at the home where the man was shot. Residents who lived in other units on the property were detained, but later released.

Friday, June 28, 2013

Five Reasons Cops Want to Legalize Weed. . Today, a growing number of cops are part of America's "marijuana majority." Members of the non-profit group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) say that loosening our pot policy wouldn't necessarily condone drug use, but control it, while helping cops to achieve their ultimate goal of increasing public safety. Here are the five biggest reasons why even cops are starting to say, "Legalize It!"

CA Medical Marijuana Dispensary Numbers Shrink in Two-Pronged War of Attrition [FEATURE]. Anyone who is following the situation in the Golden State at all closely has seen a numbing litany of reports of dispensaries forced out of business, including from some of the most venerable, respected, and law-abiding operations in the state. What had been the occasional raid or prosecution by the DEA or federal prosecutors during the early years of the Obama administration has turned into a heightened onslaught since the issuance of the notorious Cole memo, written by Assistant Attorney General James Cole, two years ago next week and the announcement by California's four US Attorneys that fall that they were declaring open season on dispensaries. And while recalcitrant city and county law enforcement and elected officials had managed to make access to medical marijuana a patchwork affair across the state through moratoria and bans, pressure from local officials has only escalated since the state Supreme Court's decision in City of Riverside v. Inland Empire Patients Health and Wellness Center early last month. In that case, the court ruled unanimously that localities could indeed use their zoning powers to ban dispensaries, not just regulate them. Since that ruling, localities that had hesitated to impose or enforce existing bans have responded with alacrity. Reading the writing on the wall, Inland Empire closed its doors the day after the ruling. In other places, officials weren't waiting for dispensaries to shut down -- they were ordering them to. In May, Stockton took its first steps toward a dispensary ban, San Bernardino bragged that it had shut down 18 dispensaries and was working to close the remaining 15, Palm Springs was working to shut down five, a Thousand Palms dispensary closed its doors with the owner saying he didn't want Riverside County deputies to do it for him, Garden Grove ordered all 62 dispensaries there to shut down or face prosecution (and reported days later that they had), Los Angeles voted to shrink its number of dispensaries from 500 or more to 135, and Anaheim ordered its last 11 dispensaries (down from 143 in 2007) to close. The big chill continued this month, with Bakersfield moving to ban dispensaries, Riverside County threatening to arrest the owner of one of its three remaining dispensaries (down from 77 in 2009) until he closed his doors, and Santa Ana reporting it had shut down 42 dispensaries (bringing the total closed there to 109) and was siccing the DEA on the remaining 17.

Bill legalizing medical marijuana shops opposed by Oregon district attorneys. The bill would create a statewide registry of medical marijuana retailers. Business owners would have to pass criminal background checks, document the amount of marijuana coming into their establishments and verify that it's from state-registered growers. Operators of these establishments would set their own prices for cannabis. Bovett said medical marijuana dispensary legislation has been considered by Oregon lawmakers before, though none gained the political traction of HB 3460. Bovett said prosecutors' key problems with the bill include: -- It allows people convicted of certain drug felonies outside of Oregon to operate a medical marijuana facility. The same restriction is in place for state-registered medical marijuana growers. The limitation doesn't apply to people with convictions from other states. "That has to be fixed otherwise we are going to be a magnet for organized crime and drug dealers from other states," he said. -- Though rules won't be in place until 2014, the bill includes a provision for existing medical marijuana outlets that potentially limits their criminal liability if prosecuted before rules are in place. "The bill gives everybody a free-for-all to operate these dispensaries without rules," Bovett said. "That doesn't make any sense. We shouldn't be starting these until we have rules in place."

Hello, NSA. The government is listening to your internets. Generate a sentence with some of the keywords they're looking for. Tweet or share and you could earn a new follower in Washington. Ignored all warnings & got stuck at a disaster hipster party. Ate enriched wheat bread and home grown kale.

Why the war on drugs has been made redundant. The two most popular types are synthetic, cannabis-like drugs, sold as smokable plant material, and stimulants, similar to ecstasy and amphetamines. But what makes this a revolution, rather than simply a market innovation, is the scale and speed of drug development. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Addiction reported 73 new substances last year, meaning new highs were hitting the market at a rate of more than one a week. This wave of new drugs only began five years ago and since then more than 200 previously unknown substances have been found in circulation. This upsurge in new highs has some serious science behind it. It is worth noting that most traditional drugs of abuse -- speed, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and so on -- can be synthesised fairly easily. You need someone with a bit of knowledge and the right ingredients, not always easy to find, but you can complete the process in a back room, basement or jungle. Not so with the new generation of synthetic highs. While most university chemists would sneer at the suggestion that the synthesis was difficult, it still needs a professional laboratory, more so for the constant production of new substances. It is this constant innovation that is driving the market and making it possible to evade the law. Take the synthetic cannabis drugs, for example. All include variations of the tetrahydrocannabinol or THC molecule, the main active ingredient in cannabis. Hundreds of these variations were created for research purposes and described, often only once or twice, in the pages of obscure scientific journals. They were mostly created in the lab as an exercise in exploring the limits of the cannabinoid molecules but were never used commercially and never tested on humans.

New system uses low-power Wi-Fi signal to track moving humans — even behind walls - MIT News Office. Now a system being developed by Dina Katabi, a professor in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and her graduate student Fadel Adib, could give all of us the ability to spot people in different rooms using low-cost Wi-Fi technology. "We wanted to create a device that is low-power, portable and simple enough for anyone to use, to give people the ability to see through walls and closed doors," Katabi says. The system, called "Wi-Vi," is based on a concept similar to radar and sonar imaging. But in contrast to radar and sonar, it transmits a low-power Wi-Fi signal and uses its reflections to track moving humans. It can do so even if the humans are in closed rooms or hiding behind a wall. As a Wi-Fi signal is transmitted at a wall, a portion of the signal penetrates through it, reflecting off any humans on the other side. However, only a tiny fraction of the signal makes it through to the other room, with the rest being reflected by the wall, or by other objects. "So we had to come up with a technology that could cancel out all these other reflections, and keep only those from the moving human body," Katabi says.

NSA expanded bulk collection of internet data under newly uncovered surveillance programs. The newest program, code name "EvilOlive," was introduced in December of 2012 and is aimed at "broadening the scope" of what the NSA can collect under its authority granted by the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. Like the program it replaced, EvilOlive and a second program called "ShellTrumpet" capture sensitive internet metadata — such as email logs, web browsing histories, and IP addresses, which can reveal location information — but not the content of email communications. According to the memo, ShellTrumpet "processed its one trillionth metadata record" in December 2012. The document states that "almost half" of those trillion records were processed in 2012 alone. "PROCESSED ITS ONE TRILLIONTH METADATA RECORD" IN DECEMBER 2012 According to the leaked documents, the new capabilities have been dubbed the "One-End Foreign (1EF) solution," referring to the requirement that at least one end of the communications being ingested come from outside the United States. The documents say that this solution has dramatically increased the NSA's web traffic intake, allowing "more than 75 percent" of intercepts to be redirected through the agency's filters. "This milestone not only opened the aperture of the access but allowed the possibility for more traffic to be identified, selected and forwarded to NSA repositories," the document reads. The massive amount of data suggests a use case for the NSA data center currently being built in Bluffdale, Utah, which author James Bamford exposed in Wired last year.

Fox Psychiatrist Ablow: The Unabomber Was Right About Liberals -. Ablow both condemned and praised Kaczynski. "What the Unabomber did was reprehensible," Ablow wrote. Kaczynski's ideas, on the other hand, "cannot be dismissed, and are increasingly important as our society hurtles toward individual disempowerment at the hands of technology and political forces that erode autonomy." Really? The ideas that came from the same brain that had "ideas" about sending letter bombs? Apparently so. Despite that little thing called "four life sentences in federal prison," Kaczynski nevertheless passed what is probably the most important Fox News test for punditry cred: he hates liberals: (Kaczynski) saw the political "left" as embracing these technologies with special fervor, because they were in keeping with the "leftist" ideology that centralized power was the way to govern men. He saw these "leftists" as psychologically disordered—seeking to compensate for deep feelings of personal disempowerment by banding together and seeking extraordinary means of control in society. Not only that, Ablow went on to extrapolate from Kaczysnki's book (which Ablow said "deserves a place alongside" Brave New World and 1984) a condemnation of President Obama: And having seen Barack Obama elected, in part, by mastering the use of the Internet as a campaign tool, then watching his administration preside over eavesdropping on the American public, monitoring their emails and tapping their phones, denying them their due process and privacy, and making a play to disarm them, Kaczynski, must wonder what it will take for Americans to wake up to the fact that their individuality and autonomy—indeed, what constitutes the core of a human life—is under siege (by the very forces he predicted—technology and leftist political leaders).

The Criminal N.S.A. The government knows that it regularly obtains Americans' protected communications. The Washington Post reported that Prism is designed to produce at least 51 percent confidence in a target's "foreignness" — as John Oliver of "The Daily Show" put it, "a coin flip plus 1 percent." By turning a blind eye to the fact that 49-plus percent of the communications might be purely among Americans, the N.S.A. has intentionally acquired information it is not allowed to have, even under the terrifyingly broad auspices of the FISA Amendments Act. How could vacuuming up Americans' communications conform with this legal limitation? Well, as James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, told Andrea Mitchell of NBC, the N.S.A. uses the word "acquire" only when it pulls information out of its gigantic database of communications and not when it first intercepts and stores the information. If there's a law against torturing the English language, James Clapper is in real trouble. The administration hides the extent of its "incidental" surveillance of Americans behind fuzzy language. When Congress reauthorized the law at the end of 2012, legislators said Americans had nothing to worry about because the surveillance could not "target" American citizens or permanent residents. Mr. Clapper offered the same assurances. Based on these statements, an ordinary citizen might think the N.S.A. cannot read Americans' e-mails or online chats under the F.A.A. But that is a government fed misunderstanding. A "target" under the act is a person or entity the government wants information on — not the people the government is trying to listen to. It's actually O.K. under the act to grab Americans' messages so long as they are communicating with the target, or anyone who is not in the United States.

Virginia Gov. Candidate Cuccinelli Asks Supreme Court to Revive Ban on Oral, Anal Sex. Cuccinelli wants the court to reconsider a March 2013 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit striking down the state's "crimes against nature" statute. The 4th Circuit ruled that the law did not pass muster in light of the Supreme Court's 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision, which struck down the latter state's anti-sodomy law as an unconstitutional criminalization of Americans' sexual conduct. The Virginia law, however, remained on the books. The 4th Circuit ruled in favor of William Scott McDonald, who was convicted in 2005 at age 47 under the Virginia statute for soliciting a 17-year-old girl to commit sodomy. That law broadly makes oral and anal sex a Class 6 felony. While such laws historically targeted gay men, they have also been used against heterosexual activity. The three-judge panel ruled that an unconstitutional law could not be used to convict McDonald. It added that the Virginia Legislature could pass another law to criminalize sexual conduct specifically between a minor and an adult. The Lawrence ruling applied only to consensual adult conduct. Virginia has a notably low age of consent, which means, in effect, that vaginal sex between a 47-year-old and a 17-year-old is legal, but oral and anal sex between the same two people is not. Cuccinelli claims he will only use the sodomy law to bring cases involving minors or sexual assault, and argues that Virginians need not worry about him prosecuting "consenting adults," because the part of the law that would enable him to do so was defanged by the Supreme Court's Lawrence decision. But in 2004, when a bipartisan group of state Senators was trying to fix the sodomy law so that it would only apply to cases involving minors and non-consensual sex, Cuccinelli, then a state Senator, blocked the effort. And in 2009, as my colleague Andy Kroll has noted, Cuccinelli made clear that he objected to oral and anal sex (at least between gay people) on principle, telling the Virginian-Pilot, "My view is that homosexual acts—not homosexuality, but homosexual acts—are wrong. They're intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law-based country it's appropriate to have policies that reflect that...They don't comport with natural law."

Army restricts access to The Guardian in the wake of NSA leaks. Employees at the Presidio installation reported to the Herald that they were able to access The Guardian's US site, guardiannews.com, but were blocked from clicking through to entire articles, which redirect to the UK site. This is not the first time the military has blocked access to a news organization; in 2010, the US Air Force blocked access to The New York Times and more than 25 other news organizations that were posting classified material made available by WikiLeaks. In an e-mail to the Herald, Gordon Van Vleet, an Arizona-based spokesman for the Army Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM), said that the Army is prohibiting "some access to press coverage and online content about the NSA leaks." He continued in his letter: The Department of Defense routinely takes preventative "network hygiene" measures to mitigate unauthorized disclosures of classified information onto DoD unclassified networks. We make every effort to balance the need to preserve information access with operational security, however there are strict policies and directives in place regarding protecting and handling classified information. Until declassified by appropriate officials, classified information—including information released through an unauthorized disclosure—must be treated accordingly by DoD personnel.

Methane in Pennsylvania Groundwater May Originate in Fracked Gas Wells: Scientific American. Scientists at Duke University detected elevated levels of methane, ethane and propane in groundwater samples near active fracking sites. The scientists conclude that the gasses come from the wells, not natural sources, but that the problem could be solved with better-designed casings. "We think there's a well-integrity problem in this part of the Marcellus," says Robert Jackson, a professor at Duke and lead author on the paper describing the findings. "And well problems are relatively easily fixed. They're especially easier to fix than if there's some fundamental problem with fracking." Hydraulic fracturing—more commonly referred to as fracking—extracts natural gas reserves that are unreachable by conventional techniques. The process requires drilling wells thousands of meters down and then blasting them with a mix of water, sand and chemicals to induce fractures in the underlying rock. Gas seeps through these fractures and flows back up the well where it is captured. But if the wells aren't properly sealed, then gas can leak into the groundwater. The wells are lined with metal casings that prevent extracted gas and contaminated water from leaching into the surrounding rock. To block gas from flowing up the outside of the well shaft, engineers pour cement around the outer casing to plug any gaps. If the cement or casing isn't properly set, then gas from deep shale deposits can find its way in to shallow groundwater. If the casing ruptures, fracking chemicals can also enter the water supply.

Britain plans world's first go-ahead for '3-parent' IVF babies. The methods, currently only at the research stage in laboratories in Britain and the United States, would for the first time involve implanting genetically modified embryos into women. Critics said the technique was ethically suspect and would eventually lead to a eugenic 'designer baby' market. It involves intervening in the fertilization process to remove faulty mitochondrial DNA, which can cause inherited conditions such as fatal heart problems, liver failure, brain disorders, blindness and muscular dystrophy. The methods are designed to help families with mitochondrial diseases - incurable conditions passed down the maternal line that affect around one in 6,500 children worldwide. Mitochondria act as tiny energy-generating batteries inside cells. The potential treatment is known as three-parent in vitro fertilization (IVF) because the offspring would have genes from a mother, a father and from a female donor. After a national public consultation showed Britons broadly favor the idea, the government's chief physician said on Friday it should be allowed to go ahead under strict regulation.

Medical Marijuana News...Some Sweet, Some Schwag. From governors to state legislatures, Americans from all walks of life are beginning to understand the importance of medical cannabis. And with the ink barely dry on New Hampshire's just signed compromise on their states medical marijuana legislation-- medical marijuana-- with New Hampshire's help, is prepared to turn 19. Meanwhile, California's medical marijuana collectives continue to come under scrutiny -- primarily thanks to the California legislatures' inability to pass any sensible marijuana bills . Marijuana Across America -- Only a few short days ago a gathering of US mayors representing cities with a population of 30,000 people or more, let their voices be heard by all who would listen... Including the federal government, claiming they stand firmly "in support of states setting their own marijuana policies without federal interference."

Teamwork Gets The Job Done For Marijuana Reform. While Marijuana Majority, the organization I lead as chairman, has gotten a lot of credit for heading up the successful effort to get the U.S. Conference of Mayors to pass a resolution urging the federal government to respect state and local marijuana laws, it simply would have never happened without hard work from almost all the other major drug reform groups coming together as a team. Every step along the way of this campaign, from conception to execution, Marijuana Majority was able to get by with a little help from our friends. For example, the Drug Policy Alliance, based on its efforts to successfully shepherd pro-reform resolutions through the Conference in the past, helped us put together the initial draft of the new resolution and plan a strategy to get it approved. Groups like Marijuana Policy Project helped us create a list of mayors who had been vocally supportive of reform to reach out to about co-sponsoring the resolution. Just Say Now launched an online action tool that made it easy for activists to send letters to the editor of their local newspapers, urging their mayors to speak out in support. And these groups and others like National Cannabis Coalition, NORML, StopTheDrugWar.org, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform all directed their supporters to Marijuana Majority's action page where people could easily write, phone and tweet their mayors to ask them to get on board. Because of all these efforts, we were able to generate nearly 7,000 constituent letters to almost 1,000 mayors across the country in a matter of a few weeks. We ended up convincing 18 mayors -- including those from major cities like San Diego, Seattle, Oakland and Aurora -- to sign on as co-sponsors.

Martha Stewart: "Of Course I Know How To Roll A Joint". Arts and crafts business magnate Martha Stewart has joined a growing tide of influential celebrities willing to open up about their personal marijuana use. In a June 12 interview with Andy Cohen, Stewart candidly responded to the question: "Do you know how to roll a joint?" Stewart first told a story about her drive to the interview, during which she spotted the passengers of a neighboring car smoking "sloppy joints." She then said, "Of course I know how to roll a joint."

The Power Of The Cannabis Economy. Community representatives are calling on the patients, caregivers and legalization supporters to unite in the symbolic effort. The idea is simple: spend one $2 bill when paying for every cash purchase made everywhere from July 10 through July 31. As restaurant and retail business owners and managers see the influx of $2 bills they will gain a respect for the purchasing power of the marijuana-friendly consumer- and so will the legislature. "The $2 bill plan doesn't cost anything, doesn't require a meeting or an agreement on philosophy. It's simple and legal," says Donnie from the Metro Detroit Compassion Club. "Here is the opportunity to show power through numbers and economic impact. Pass it on state to state; pass it on nationwide to include all who support the cannabis community." The effort hopes to drive change in the minds of retailers and other consumer-based businesses. Accepting that marijuana-friendly consumers are a significant portion of the market could influence purchase decisions like stocking marijuana-themes novelties and product lines containing hemp, for example. It could make it easier for marijuana-friendly groups to find space for meetings or for locally-created merchandise to gain new retail markets. The $2 bill drive should spark conversations in Chambers of Commerce and during business lunches among shop owners. During the drive, cannabis-friendly businesses are encouraged to have a stack of $2 bills to supply their supporters with since many banks do not keep $2 bills on hand. "This initiative makes a subtle but bold statement that arresting people for cannabis will take people and their money out of the economy because they are in jail," said Donnie.

Thursday, June 27, 2013

We the People API. (Brought to you by Whitehouse.gov and the NSA) The We the People API currently provides read-only access to data within We the People, the White House petitions system. This API provides access to data on all petitions that passed the 150 signature threshold required to become publicly-available on the site. We've also published a gallery of projects leveraging the We the People API, including links to live examples and GitHub repositories. Bulk Data Download: For those who don't need real time data, we've provided a SQL dump of the same dataset exposed via the API. You can download it here: https://api.whitehouse.gov/v1/downloads/data.sql.zip (203.5 MB, last updated 5/1/2013) Developers and users leveraging the We the People API should keep the stability of the API's infrastructure and their own applications in mind. Individual users issuing requests in excess of 10 per second will experience degraded performance and may be blocked entirely. Having problems? Contact us. To learn more about open data and open source projects at the White House, visit WhiteHouse.gov/developers or follow our tech team on Twitter @WHWeb.

Communibis. A Cannabis Community Online Communibus is a place for anyone to come in and socialize with other people all across the world who share a common interest in the marijuana community. Discuss the overall economic impact of the legalization of marijuana, how it has revolutionized the world of modern medicine or how the criminalization of marijuana is putting harmless people in prison. The point is that this is a place where you don't have to worry about anyone judging who you are because of what you do. Make friends; find new hobbies or join groups, Communibus offers every facet of a social media network that you love with a new little twist.

House Passes 2014 NDAA; NSA Surveillance Will Lead to Indefinite Detention. Several amendments to the defense spending legislation were proposed, many of which were approved either by voice vote or en bloc. The first method of voting requires no report on how individual members voted, while the second method aggregates amendments, allowing them to be voted on in groups. A few of the amendments represent significant improvements to the NDAA of 2012 and 2013. The acts passed for those years infamously permitted the president to deploy U.S. military troops to apprehend and indefinitely detain any American he alone believed to be aiding enemies of the state. While the 2014 iteration doesn't go far enough in pushing the federal beast back inside its constitutional cage, there are at least a few congressmen willing to try to crack the whip and restore constitutional separation of powers and shore up a few of the fundamental liberties suspended by the NDAA of the past two years. First, there is the amendment offered by Representative Trey Radel (R-Fla.). Radel's amendment requires the Department of Defense to submit to the Congress a report every year containing: (1) the names of any U.S. citizens subject to military detention, (2) the legal justification for their continued detention, and (3) the steps the Executive Branch is taking to either provide them some judicial process, or release them. Requires that an unclassified version of the report be made available, and in addition, that the report must be made available to all members of Congress. Radel's amendment was passed by voice vote.

Edward Snowden once wrote that traitors who spill state secrets ought to be shot - (Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny had the same argument) "Are they TRYING to start a war? Jesus christ," he wrote. "You don't put that s--t in the NEWSPAPER . . . That s--t is classified for a reason.' " Snowden also talked about firearms, saying he owned a Walther P22, the same gun used by fictional superspy James Bond — and he "love[d] it to death." "I don't intend to be in combat anytime soon," Snowden said. "[But I] could still use it to put 10 tiny holes in important parts of a home invader if necessary though." Meanwhile yesterday it was revealed that the Justice Department bureaucrats botched the name of the spy-secrets leaker and made other boneheaded clerical errors on arrest documents. The mistakes helped the fugitive slip out of Hong Kong, Chinese officials said. Chinese immigration records listed Snowden's middle name as Joseph, but the US government used James in some documents and referred to the former National Security Agency contract worker simply as Edward J. Snowden in others, said Hong Kong Justice Secretary Rimsky Yuen. "These three names are not exactly the same. Therefore, we believed that there was a need to clarify," he told The Associated Press. The United States also failed to provide Snowden's passport number, he said.

Oregon slashes 2014 health insurance premium requests by as much as 35 percent. In Oregon, many consumers will pay higher premiums, in part because insurers now can not discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. Also, federal rule changes mean people under 50 will tend to pay more, and lower cost catastrophic-care plans will no longer be available to most people. On the upside, at least half of individual consumers are expected to qualify for income-based tax credits that can be applied to 2014 premiums immediately, starting in January. Tax credits will be available through a new health insurance marketplace called Cover Oregon starting in October. There, individual consumers and small business owners can also comparison shop and enroll. Gov. John Kitzhaber said the decisions show the state's process of reviewing insurer premiums is working. "While the review continues," he said in a statement, "it is clear Oregon consumers are well-positioned to benefit from a more competitive marketplace and a wide range of options." Jesse O'Brien, a consumer advocate for the OSPIRG Foundation, had questioned several of the requested premiums in hearings. He said the state appears to have "cut millions of dollars in unjustified costs. That's a win for consumers."

Hollywood's FACT Forces Shutdown of NZBsRus. The site was created in December 2004 using a modified torrent site script called TorrentStrike, but in September 2011 legal threats made towards the site's host took the NZB indexer offline. The effect was only temporary though and NZBsRus was soon back in business. It continued to operate until a few days ago, but it's now clear that FACT weren't going to give up so easily. A source very close to the site who spoke with TorrentFreak on condition of anonymity says that in the past few days the movie studio-funded group really turned up the pressure on the 180,000 member site. "FACT came to the door of a past admin of the site last week, handing over a cease & desist letter," our source confirmed. FACT investigators arrived at the property without assistance from police, something that seems to have been appreciated by their target. "The FACT investigators were actually very nice in the way they handled things, as children were present. We also believe that police were not involved due to children being at the property," our source explained. FACT reportedly gave two options going forward. Either the site could be immediately shutdown bringing an end to the matter, or it could continue to operate with future legal consequences. What was unusual about this threat is that rather than simply naming the site's former admin, this time FACT also named other members of staff and extended the threats to them. "Once FACT left, the former site admin contacted us, as he said he would to FACT, and passed on the information. "After debating how we should proceed we decided that due to FACT now intruding on site staff as well as getting closer to us that it was now time to comply. The investigation to follow would be unfair to site staff plus we also have family and they are our priority," our source explained.

US targets makers, distributors of synthetic drugs. DEA Chief of Operations James Capra said drug and other agents served 150 arrest warrants and 375 search warrants and seized bank accounts in 35 states as part of a seventh-month investigation. Capra said U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers have helped authorities seize more than 1,000 kilograms (2,000 pounds) of drugs used in synthetic marijuana, bath salts and other substances that can mimic cocaine, LSD and other drugs. The drugs, often marketed as herbal incense or other seemingly innocuous products, are marketed to teenagers and young adults in a growing industry that has netted millions of dollars from traffickers, Capra said. Use of synthetic drugs has led to increases in emergency room visits around the country and routinely leads to a dangerous psychosis, he added. "What they (traffickers) care about is lining their pockets on the backs of young people," Capra said. Untold millions in profits have ended up in Middle Eastern countries, he said. "The bad guys need money to fund their operations," said Derek Maltz, who heads DEA's special operations division. "The bad guys need money to ... buy their explosives, to buy their guns." Neither Maltz nor Capra would name the countries or any criminal or terror groups that might be profiting from the sales of the synthetic drugs, citing an ongoing investigation

Why Snowden Asked Visitors in Hong Kong to Refrigerate Their Phones. It is the materials that make up refrigerator walls that could potentially turn them into anti-eavesdropping devices. "What you want to do is block the radio signals which could be used to transmit voice data, and block the audio altogether," Adam Harvey, a designer specializing in countersurveillance products explained. Refrigerators made from metal with thick insulation could potentially do both, he says, regardless of whether it is mild or icy within. On the data-transmission front, thick metal walls can create a sort of electromagnetic barrier, which enables the device to function as something known as a Faraday cage. A true Faraday cage is a space where radio waves cannot pass and therefore data cannot be transmitted. Although not all fridges function this way, those constructed with more metal have the potential to serve this purpose.

Forced to Work Sick? That's Fine With Disney, Red Lobster, and Their Friends at ALEC. The Florida law is the most recent in a series of victories by low-wage industries that, with the aid of Republican-led state legislatures, have succeeded in derailing or overriding measures providing this benefit to workers. Working behind the scenes in this campaign is a familiar foe of employee rights, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), whose membership includes a range of major corporations and industry groups. The corporate-funded organization's model "preemption" legislation—disallowing municipalities from enacting their own paid leave laws—have been introduced by state legislators around the country. The paid sick leave push is the long-awaited sequel to the federal effort for passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) in the early 1990s. The law allows workers to take up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave after the birth of a child or to care for a sick family member without worrying about getting fired. At the forefront of the paid sick leave campaign are a host of local and national women's groups that, with labor unions, were also at the vanguard of the FMLA fight. Paid sick leave is a key women's issue, since women are increasingly the primary breadwinners for many families, and still the primary caregivers for children. They "are overwhelmingly responsible for taking a kid to the doctor," points out Vicki Shabo, the director of work and family programs at the National Partnership for Women and Families, so the inability to take paid sick leave affects them disproportionately.

Gut microbes spur liver cancer in obese mice : Nature News & Comment. "Obesity in general has many different types of cancer associated with it," says Eiji Hara, a cancer biologist at the Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research in Tokyo and one of the study authors. But in the case of liver cancer, he says, "I never expected the microbiome was linked." Hara and his colleagues initially set out to study how dying cells influence obesity-linked cancers. Cells that are irreparably damaged or pre-cancerous can become senescent — meaning that they stop dividing for overall health of the organism. But before senescent cells die, they can spew out chemicals that may cause inflammation and promote cancer development.

WikiLeaks Volunteer Was a Paid Informant for the FBI. Thordarson was long time volunteer for WikiLeaks with direct access to Assange and a key position as an organizer in the group. With his cold war-style embassy walk-in, he became something else: the first known FBI informant inside WikiLeaks. For the next three months, Thordarson served two masters, working for the secret-spilling website and simultaneously spilling its secrets to the U.S. government in exchange, he says, for a total of about $5,000. The FBI flew him internationally four times for debriefings, including one trip to Washington D.C., and on the last meeting obtained from Thordarson eight hard drives packed with chat logs, video and other data from WikiLeaks. The relationship provides a rare window into the U.S. law enforcement investigation into WikiLeaks, the transparency group newly thrust back into international prominence with its assistance to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Thordarson's double-life illustrates the lengths to which the government was willing to go in its pursuit of Julian Assange, approaching WikiLeaks with the tactics honed during the FBI's work against organized crime and computer hacking — or, more darkly, the bureau's Hoover-era infiltration of civil rights groups. "It's a sign that the FBI views WikiLeaks as a suspected criminal organization rather than a news organization," says Stephen Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy. "WikiLeaks was something new, so I think the FBI had to make a choice at some point as to how to evaluate it: Is this The New York Times, or is this something else? And they clearly decided it was something else."

Drug Enforcement Agency Seizes First Bitcoins From Silk Road Dealer. (Thou Shalt Not Put Other Gods Before Me) Discovered in a government press release spotted by Bitcoin bloggers, the news relates to the arrest of Eric Daniel Hughes. One Bitcoin user tied the arrest of Hughes to a usernames "Casey Jones" and "Truckin" on Silk Road—where it appears he was an active buyer and seller. Silk Road has so far offered drug dealers relative anonymity, allowing them to use Bitcoin and Tor to avoid having their identities revealed. Hughes' posts on the site referred to drugs such as Adderall, Dexedrine, Vyvanse, Klonopin, Clonazepam, and suboxone, and one user, DealerOfDrugs, described his interactions with Hughes on Silk Road: The crazy thing is, he messaged me from his vendor account, and willingly gave me his entire personal address, not a drop address. I myself warned Casey at the time to be careful because anyone at anytime could blackmail him, and he pretty much dismissed the idea and said "no problem, I might start a alternate buyer account to start buying. I'm not worried about it." It's unclear whether the agency seized the Bitcoins in a sting operation or through some other means. It's possible that the DEA set up a seller account and got Hughes's address under the pretense of sending him a purchase. However, it's also possible that the DEA seized a computer with the file containing the Bitcoins or got Hughes to hand them over.

Researchers call for rethinking efforts to prevent interplanetary contamination. (We need to be able to destroy planets we have yet to even Explore) The researchers claim "the protocols and policies of Planetary Protection are unnecessarily restricting Mars exploration and need to be revised." The Office of Planetary Protection is like an interplanetary Environmental Protection Agency, with a mission "to minimize the biological contamination that may result from exploring the solar system." As far as Mars is concerned, say Fairén and Schulze-Makuch, such efforts are probably in vain, as "Earth life has most likely already been transferred to Mars." Meteorite impacts have had 3.8 billion years to spread Earth life forms to Mars, as could several spacecraft that visited the planet without undergoing sterilization procedures now in place. If organisms transferred to Mars over the eons failed to survive, modern organisms would likely face the same fate. On the other hand, if they did survive, say Fairén and Schulze-Makuch, "it is too late to protect Mars from terrestrial life, and we can safely relax the planetary protection policies." The researchers say spacecraft looking for life on Mars should still be cleaned to some extent to avoid confusing possible Martian organisms with organisms brought from Earth. But sterilization for other missions, like orbiters and geology-oriented explorers, could be scaled back. "As planetary exploration faces drastic budget cuts globally," they say, "it is critical to avoid unnecessary expenses and reroute the limited taxpayers' money to missions that can have the greatest impact on planetary exploration."

Frank: Credit Boehner for ruling - The Hill's Video. "Why was the court able to make a decision in one case and not the other?" Frank asked. "The answer was John Boehner." "We can thank John Boehner and the House Republicans for the most pro-gay decision ever." In the Prop 8 case, the Court narrowly ruled that anti-gay marriage activists defending the law did not have standing to defend the bill in federal court. That in effect overturned the California ban, but left undecided the greater question of whether gay couples had a constitutional right to marriage. But, Frank noted, Boehner authorized the use of $2.3 million in taxpayer funds to defend DOMA in the Supreme Court through the House's Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group. That enabled the hiring of Paul Clement, a highly-respected attorney — and the Supreme Court to put aside questions of standing. "BLAG's capable defense ensures that the prudential issues do not cloud the merits question," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion. That allowed the court to rule on the merits of the DOMA case, rather than technical issues of standing, and led to the dramatic overturn of the federal law that refused to recognize state-sanctioned gay marriages.

Rick Perry (TX) calls special session to pass Texas abortion bill blocked by filibuster. On Wednesday, Perry ordered lawmakers to meet again on 1 July to act on the abortion proposals, as well as separate bills that would boost highway funding and deal with a juvenile justice issue. The sweeping abortion rules would close nearly all abortion clinics and impose other widespread restrictions on the procedure across the nation's second-largest state. The measure passed the House, but died after a Democratic Senator, Wendy Davis, led a filibuster effort that lasted 12 hours. Hundreds of protesters cheered and clapped in the public gallery, disrupting Senate proceedings as the session closed at midnight. That sparked boisterous chanting from the public gallery, which lasted until after midnight and threw proceedings into turmoil. Amid the din, no one was sure if a vote had taken place in time. Democrats claimed it happened a minute or two after the deadline, while Republicans said the vote should stand. After initially appearing to declare that the bill had gone through, lieutenant governor David Dewhurst said at about 3am that it had passed by 19 votes to 10 -- but added that the "ruckus and noise going on" had prevented him from completing the formalities required to rubber-stamp it into law.

Oregon Lawmakers Send Two Marijuana Reform Bills to Governor. The bills, Senate Bill 40 and Senate Bill 82,�aim to amend penalties related to minor marijuana possession offenses. Senate Bill 40 reclassifies marijuana offenses involving the possession of over one ounce, but less than four ounces of marijuana from a�felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, to a misdemeanor,�punishable�by a maximum prison sentence of six months. The bill also reclassifies offenses involving the possession of less than 1/4 ounce of hashish from a felony to a misdemeanor. Possession of an ounce or less is already a misdemeanor punishable by a fine up to $1,000 and caries no possible jail time. Senate Bill 82 eliminates the suspension of driving privileges for those convicted of possessing an ounce or less of marijuana, which affects an estimated 5,000 Oregon residents per year. Both bills received strong bi-partisan support in both chambers of the legislature.

Cannabinoids Could Potentially Cut Down On NSAID-Induced Hospitalizations. In fact, according to a 2001 analysis, in the United States alone, "gastrointestinal complications induced by non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) cause more than 100,000 hospitalizations and an estimated 16,500 deaths annually." Could these adverse gastrointestinal effects be offset by cannabis? A just published study in the European Journal of Pharmacology indicates that the most likely answer is 'yes.' Researchers at West Virginia University assessed the impact of THC administration in an animal model of NSAID-induced gastric inflammation. Investigators reported that low doses of THC provided gastroprotective effects, significantly attenuating gastric hemorrhages and lesions. They concluded: "The results of the present study suggest that delta-9-THC ... may also possess gastroprotective effects in NSAID using patients. ... As current antacid regimens may be associated with undesirable effects, such as reduced bone density, increased risk of bacterial infection, and vitamin deficiencies, other approaches to prevent NSAID-induced gastric ulcers are needed. In addition to their gastroprotective effects, cannabinoids produce other beneficial effects, including pain reduction. ... Thus, cannabinoids may have the added benefit of reducing the effective analgesic dose of NSAIDs, as well as reducing the incidence of NSAID-induced gastric ulcers."

Biophotons: The Human Body Emits, Communicates with, and is Made from. Given the sheer insanity of our existential condition, and bodily incarnation as a whole, and considering that our earthly existence is partially formed from sunlight and requires the continual consumption of condensed sunlight in the form of food, it may not sound so farfetched that our body emits light. Indeed, the human body emits biophotons, also known as ultraweak photon emissions (UPE), with a visibility 1,000 times lower than the sensitivity of our naked eye. While not visible to us, these particles of light (or waves, depending on how you are measuring them) are part of the visible electromagnetic spectrum (380-780 nm) and are detectable via sophisticated modern instrumentation.

Why The Synthetic Mainstream Media Is Dead - GreenMedTV. The mainstream media is dead, and the major networks wish they had the trust ratings and viewership of the alternative news at large. Anthony Gucciardi, founder of Natural Society and Story Leak chats with Sayer Ji of GreenMedInfo and GreenMedTV.com about how sites like his and Storyleak are growing like wildfire.

Greater Lifetime Pesticide Use Causes Telomere Shortening. The researchers had the subjects -- adult males involved with pesticide application on farms or other environments -- fill out extensive questionnaires on their pesticide use over their lifetimes. Some 48 pesticides were used and included in the study. The researchers also collected from each subject buccal cells -- taken from cheek swabs. Using what is called "Real-time polymerase chain reaction" testing, the researchers analyzed those cells for telomere length. The researchers found that those males who applied pesticides in their work more during their lifetimes had significantly reduced telomere length. And the more pesticides used over their lifetimes, the shorter their telomeres were. The researchers also matched up and quantified telomere length together with specific pesticides, and determined that certain pesticides produced significant telomere shortening.

Lab Testing Reveals EnviroTextile's Hemp Fabric Stops the Spread of Staph Bacteria. Staph is spread by direct contact and by touching items that are contaminated such as towels, sheets, privacy curtains, and clothing. As noted by the San Francisco Chronicle, "It is estimated that each year 2 million Americans become infected during hospital stays, and at least 90,000 of them die. MRSA (an antibiotic resistant strain of staph) is a leading cause of hospital-borne infections." One of the most important recent discoveries is hemp's ability to kill surface bacteria, while cotton, polyester, and polyethelene allow it to remain on their surfaces for up to months at a time. Unknown to many, hemp fabrics exist in today's market that can replace each of these transmission prone hospital items. Technological improvements for hemp textile development began in the early 90s when EnviroTextile's lead textile engineer, Barbara Filippone, began working with hemp in China. To date, the company has over 100 hemp and hemp blended fabrics available to suit any traditional fabric application. In addition to staph resistance, other tests show hemp fabrics superior resistance to UV and infrared wavelengths, providing multiple applications for military use.

Hawaii: Governor Signs Measures Amending State's Medical Cannabis Program. House Bill 668 transfers the administration of the state's medicinal cannabis program from the Department of Public Safety to the Department of Public Health. It also establishes a special fund for the program within the state treasury. Senate Bill 642 increases the quantity of medical cannabis that may be possessed by qualified patients from three ounces to four ounces. The measure also increases the total number of mature plants that may be legally grown by qualified patients at any one time from three to seven. A separate provision added to SB 642 in conference committee places potential limits on which physicians may be eligible to recommend cannabis, though this provision is expected to be further debated in the 2014 legislative session. Stated Vanessa Chong, Executive Director of the ACLU of Hawaii, which was a primary advocate for the bills: "In 2000, Hawaii led the nation as the first state to legislatively establish our medical marijuana program. Now, a total of 18 states plus Washington, D.C. have programs. Finally, 13 years down the road, Hawaii is moving toward patient-focused policies and away from a law enforcement approach. These bills do not address every concern, but are the first real steps toward a more sensible public policy — we are encouraged and will redouble our efforts next legislative session."

'Support Don't Punish' Protest Against The International War On Drugs. The Support Don't Punish campaign is an organized day of action around the world to protest the human rights violations, torture, mass incarceration and stigma that too often destroy the lives of non-violent people whose only crime is using, possessing or selling drugs. Activists are working today (and every day) to raise awareness about the ways stigma against drug use leads to draconian punishment for otherwise law-abiding, peaceable people. The United States, for all of our freedoms and civil liberties, continues to stereotype non-violent people who use drugs as shameful, disgraceful criminals needing to be segregated from society. The reality is much different, of course. While some people do indeed commit acts of violence in relation to their own drug use (and should be held accountable for it), overwhelmingly people who use drugs do not pose a threat to the safety or security of the American populace. They are not chaotically addicted, most are employed, they are not monsters and they should never be denied their freedom simply because they choose to use a substance. The emotional, visceral way we respond to drug dependence (even just to the word 'addiction') says more about us than it does about the reality of the person using drugs. We treat people with addiction issues as 'other,' when of course they are just people, with all the same hopes, fears, dreams and boredom as the rest of us. People addicted to drugs laugh; they hope their children will grow up to have happy lives; they have great moods and terrible moods; they cry, they get lonely, they struggle and they persevere.

Cannabis Cures Cancer -- Marijuana Touted as Miracle Drug -- Video. As a diverse array of medical research studies substantiate the health benefits of medical marijuana, more and more countries and cultures are turning to cannabis to treat the escalating number of patients diagnosed with cancer: one of the most dreadful diseases known to man. Todays headlines in The Telegraph announces Britian's new policy to go easy on drug trafficers that are moving marijuana for medical purposes reporting, Sentencing guidelines issued today say that offenders who play a "limited" role in gangs could face community orders for intent to supply Class A drugs. Dealers caught with 6kg of cannabis, valued at £17,000 and enough to fill 30,000 joints or keep an average user in supply for 17 years, could also avoid prison. The sentences on drug "mules" will be cut substantially, while workers in small cannabis "farms" could escape custody. Courts will be told for the first time to reduce sentences for cannabis possession if it is being used for medicinal purposes."

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Worth Debating: Do Stoned Parents Make The Best Parents? Lately, a group of "Beverly Hills Marijuana Moms" has been making the news rounds and the talk show circuit. They claim that marijuana makes them better parents. While the true motive behind this group's PR campaign remains a little hazy (one of these moms has a vested interest in the cannabis industry), they're activity has caused an outpour from mainstream media outlets from CNN to HBO to yes, even FOX. And while it might be presented whimsically, there's certainly a very real truth to their words. Throughout the interviews and the documentary-styled YouTube segment, this group of moms reiterates what we all know: that cannabis is not a danger, and it's not even a drug. It's a plant. They enforce the idea that medical marijuana not only eases their physical pain, but makes them calmer, and more genial parents. In fact, some of them even teach their very young children about pot. Yes, this tactic may look a little absurd and debatable (not the best look for legalization), but it's better to tell kids the differences between pot and booze and real drugs at an early age rather than have them lead a misled life through lazy health education lessons. And the even bigger issue (and a key for legalization) that parents that choose marijuana highlights: marijuana is far safer than alcohol. One kills, while the other chills. So is it really that outrageous (we don't have studies for this stuff) to ascertain that parents who smoke weed are better parents than those who don't? The answer seems rather cut and dry. Alcohol and real drug abuse have long tom families apart and caused abusive relationship. It's been documented in many films and television shows: from Breaking Bad to American Beauty to Bad Santa to Requiem For A Dream, material that centers around disturbed, dysfunctional individuals and families have a common demonanator: alcohol or real drug abuse.

Hillary Clinton Aide Tells Reporter To "Fuck Off" And "Have A Good Life". From: Michael Hastings Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2012 12:04 PM  To: Reines, Philippe I  Cc: Nuland, Victoria J  Subject: Re: Request for comment Philippe: Thanks for getting back to me. No, you read my email correctly—I found your statement to CNN offensive. From my perspective, the scandal here is that the State Department had such inadequate security procedures in place that four Americans were killed. And then the Ambassador's diary—and who knows what else—was left behind for anyone to pick up. Thankfully, it was CNN—and not Al Qaeda or some other militia—that found it and was able to return it to the family. That CNN used portions of the material in the diary they found at the scene—material that appears to contradict the official version of events that State/WH has been putting out—is completely in line with practices of good journalism. I don't know how involved Arwa Damon has been in this. But for what it's worth, Arwa is one of the best war correspondents working today. She's consistently risked her life to get these stories, and to find out what actually happens in these conflict zones.I do agree that the media has lots of responsibilities, and CNN fulfilled its responsibility by returning the diary while still managing to inform the American public of newsworthy information. So it's unfortunate that you are trying to make a scapegoat out of CNN. That State was forced to flee Benghazi—again, because of such inadequate security, leaving behind all sorts of sensitive information—tells us more about DoS than CNN.

Increased stray gas abundance in a subset of drinking water wells near Marcellus shale gas extraction. Methane was detected in 82% of drinking water samples, with average concentrations six times higher for homes <1 km from natural gas wells (P = 0.0006). Ethane was 23 times higher in homes <1 km from gas wells (P = 0.0013); propane was detected in 10 water wells, all within approximately 1 km distance (P = 0.01). Of three factors previously proposed to influence gas concentrations in shallow groundwater (distances to gas wells, valley bottoms, and the Appalachian Structural Front, a proxy for tectonic deformation), distance to gas wells was highly significant for methane concentrations (P = 0.007; multiple regression), whereas distances to valley bottoms and the Appalachian Structural Front were not significant (P = 0.27 and P = 0.11, respectively). Distance to gas wells was also the most significant factor for Pearson and Spearman correlation analyses (P < 0.01). For ethane concentrations, distance to gas wells was the only statistically significant factor (P < 0.005). Isotopic signatures (δ13C-CH4, δ13C-C2H6, and δ2H-CH4), hydrocarbon ratios (methane to ethane and propane), and the ratio of the noble gas 4He to CH4 in groundwater were characteristic of a thermally postmature Marcellus-like source in some cases. Overall, our data suggest that some homeowners living <1 km from gas wells have drinking water contaminated with stray gases.

California man faces 13 years in jail for scribbling anti-bank messages in chalk — RT USA. According to the San Diego Reader, which reported on Tuesday that a judge had opted to prevent Olson's attorney from "mentioning the First Amendment, free speech, free expression, public forum, expressive conduct, or political speech during the trial," Olson must now stand trial for on 13 counts of vandalism. In addition to possibly spending years in jail, Olson will also be held liable for fines of up to $13,000 over the anti-big-bank slogans that were left using washable children's chalk on a sidewalk outside of three San Diego, California branches of Bank of America, the massive conglomerate that received $45 billion in interest-free loans from the US government in 2008-2009 in a bid to keep it solvent after bad bets went south. The Reader reports that Olson's hearing had gone as poorly as his attorney might have expected, with Judge Howard Shore, who is presiding over the case, granting Deputy City Attorney Paige Hazard's motion to prohibit attorney Tom Tosdal from mentioning the United States' fundamental First Amendment rights. "The State's Vandalism Statute does not mention First Amendment rights," ruled Judge Shore on Tuesday. Upon exiting the courtroom Olson seemed to be in disbelief. "Oh my gosh," he said. "I can't believe this is happening." Tosdal, who exited the courtroom shortly after his client, seemed equally bewildered. "I've never heard that before, that a court can prohibit an argument of First Amendment rights," said Tosdal. Olson, who worked as a former staffer for a US Senator from Washington state, was said to involve himself in political activism in tandem with the growth of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Comcast, Verizon Editorials Distort True Picture of U.S. Internet Service, Experts Say. Sascha Meinrath, vice president of the New America Foundation, said the editorials appeared to be "part of a well-orchestrated misinformation campaign" to disguise problems in the U.S. broadband market. "The purpose of these Op-Eds is to make key decision-makers believe there's an open debate, when, in fact, when it comes to broadband service provision, the evidence is overwhelming that the U.S. is middling (and quite far from the leadership position we once held)," Meinrath wrote in an email. Residents of New York City and Washington, D.C., pay the same price for internet as residents of Hong Kong, but receive speeds that are 20 times slower, a report last year by the New America Foundation found. Consumers in Paris can buy "triple play" service with television, telephone, and Internet for the equivalent of about $35 -- about half of the least-expensive option in the United States, according to the report. By some measures, U.S. broadband service has improved. About half of Americans now access broadband with speeds of more than 100 megabits per second, compared to just 10 percent in 2010, according to the Commerce Department. The U.S. now ranks eighth among developed countries in Internet speed, after once being ranked outside the top 20, Richard Bennet, a senior fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, wrote in another Times op-ed.

Miley Cyrus jokes about parallels with Snoop Lion: 'We're both high'. 'We're very similar,' she told Kimmel, after revealing that Snoop comes to the studio and listens to her tunes. 'That's because he 's so high he doesn't know what his name is,' joked the talk show host. 'We both are, we both are,' joked Miley who had earlier arrived at the studios sporting a pair of barely-there denim shorts and a black Tupac T-shirt. Miley recently told Rolling Stone she believes alcohol is way more dangerous than marijuana. After being asked if she's a stoner, she apparently laughed and replied: 'You can't ask someone that and expect them to say yes.' 'I did a song with Snoop Dogg called 'Ashtrays and Heartbreaks,' so people can put it together for themselves,' she said. 'I think alcohol is way more dangerous than marijuana - people can be mad at me for saying that, but I don't care,' she continued. 'I've seen a lot of people spiral down with alcohol, but I've never seen that happen with weed.' Miley Cyrus seemed nruffled as she made her way to her TV appearance despite her parents recently splitting up.

Fargo Taco Bell worker accused of groping drive-thru customers. According to court documents filed in the case, a woman told police she was at the Taco Bell drive-thru at 2121 S. University Drive just after 2 a.m. on April 12, driving home two intoxicated friends. The woman told police a restaurant worker later identified as Brady told her to pull out of the line because her food was not ready. When he delivered the food, she told police he said, "Oh, you're so pretty," while reaching in the car to squeeze her breast with one hand while handing her the food with the other. The driver said one of her passengers could see what Brady was doing and yelled at her to leave. She put the car in reverse and left the Taco Bell. When the woman told a roommate about the incident, the roommate reported experiencing a similar incident occurring at the same Taco Bell about a month earlier, also around closing time. In that incident, a worker police later identified as Brady also told women ordering food in the drive-thru that their food wasn't ready and asked them to pull out of line. When Brady delivered the food to the female driver, she claimed to police, he got in the backseat and reached over the seat to squeeze her breasts. When a passenger was interviewed by police, she told them that Brady had asked them what the two women in the car were going to be doing later and if they liked to "party." When Brady touched the driver, the passenger said they both told him to get out of the car. She said that Brady told them, "I gave you free food because you're so pretty," and that he would provide more free food if the girls would party with him. Police charged Brady on June 11 with one count of Class C felony unlawful entry into a vehicle in connection with the March incident and one count of Class B misdemeanor sexual assault linked to the April allegations. An arrest warrant was issued after the charges were filed.

Your Grow Operations Security -- And GPS Cell Phone Photos. Most digital cameras, including those on smartphones, collect data in the EXIF file, or the exchangeable image file format for each individual photo. It stores many benign data points as well -- such as date, time, camera settings, make and model of the device, shutter speed, whether or not a flash was utilized on individual picture. All relatively insignificant stuff, right? Well Ansell Adams, beware! If you happen to be snapping those selfies on a digital camera, or smartphone... with a GPS receiver -- chances are, you're on the map! Turning off your iPhone photo GPS geod--tag data storage Hit settings Hit general Hit "location services" Choose the on/off switch next to "camera" so the switch is set off Exit settings

Instagram Video and the Death of Fantasy. Instagram is a yearbook of our most memorable moments, not because they're the moments worth remembering, but because they're the moments worth projecting and sharing. And that's part of the reason the service is the success that it is today, with 130 million users who have uploaded more than six billion photos to the service in less than three years. Video, at least the amateurish footage I shot, is the antithesis of that fantasy. And as much as I think we're getting more comfortable being ourselves online, there's still a difference between the self you're willing to share publicly and the self you're willing to share when only a handful of people are watching. This is a distinction that Facebook — and now, by association, Instagram — has never seemed to understand.

Laughing Gas Gets A Safety Check One of those factors is an amino acid called homocysteine, which has been associated with a higher risk of heart problems. Some people have lots of homocysteine in their blood because of their genes. Breathing nitrous oxide also causes homocysteine to jump, regardless of your genetic makeup, contributing to worries about heart risks. It turns out that vitamin B12 and folic acid, another B vitamin, can knock homocysteine right back down to size. And it's common for doctors to give patients a dose of one of those vitamins to counteract the nitrous oxide effect. If you're still with me, these doctors in St. Louis decided to check patients' troponin, an indicator of heart damage found in the blood, after they had surgery under nitrous oxide. The doctors also kept track of cardiac problems that cropped up. Half the 500 patients in the completed study got B vitamins and half didn't. The doctors also checked patients for the genetic factors that raise homocysteine. What happened? Nothing much. The vitamins worked to lower homocysteine after nitrous oxide exposure, as expected. But that didn't make a clinical difference in terms of troponin measured or heart attacks. Patients who didn't get the B vitamins did no worse than those who got them.

Court Overturns DOMA, Sidesteps Broad Gay Marriage Ruling : The Two-Way : NPR. ut in a separate ruling, it declined to take on the broader issue of gay marriage. The court decided supporters of Prop 8, a 2008 ballot measure that outlawed same-sex marriages in the state, did not have standing to bring the case to the court. NPR's Carrie Johnson explains: "By a holding of 5-4 with Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority, the Supreme Court rules the petitioners lack standing so the court avoids the underlying issues, remands and wipes away the decision by 9th Circuit Court of appeals, which means for now the lower court ruling invalidating California's Prop 8 stands." That means gay marriages in California may resume but the ruling does not have a broader implication across the country.

Chris Hedges Defends Snowden's Heroism in the Face of a Growing Smear Campaign. Edward Snowden's decision to leak a trove of secret documents outlining the NSA's surveillance program has elicited a range of reactions. Among his detractors, he's been called "a grandiose narcissist who deserves to be in prison," (Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker), who's committed "an act of treason," (Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee). To supporters, Snowden is a hero for showing that "our very humanity [is] being compromised by the blind implementation of machines in the name of making us safe," (author Douglas Rushkoff), one whom President Obama should "thank and offer him a job as a White House technology advisor," (American Conservative editor Scott McConnell). We host a debate with two guests: Chris Hedges, a senior fellow at The Nation Institute and former Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for The New York Times, and Geoffrey Stone, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. Stone served as an informal adviser to President Obama in 2008, years after hiring him to teach constitutional law.

Weed Grower Freed: Cancer Patient, 61, 'Deserves A Break'--� Deadline Detroit. This is one that most screams out: This man deserves a break," AP reporter Ed White quotes Friedman as telling Edwin�Schmieding, 61, who faced a possible prison term. "It's a bad thing that's happened to you but you've lived a good life." Friedman on Tuesday placed him on two years of supervised release, court jargon for probation. Though Michigan voters in 2008 legalized medical marijuana, only licensed caregivers and users can grow it in relatively small quantities. Prosecutor Barbara McQuade, whose office used its discretion to make a federal case out of the 2011 bust, office originally also charged the farmer's wife as a drug trafficker. Assistant U.S. Attorney C. Barrington Wilkins, who recently dropped charges against Linda Schmieding, acknowledged in court Tuesday that the fdarmer "wasn't intending to be Pablo Escobar," says AP's dispatch in the Free Press.

Yes, summer job paid tuition back in '81, but then we (Baby Boomers) got cheap and cancelled the Programs they Used. I worked jobs at Kentucky Fried Chicken and later at a rubber-parts factory, where I got paid $3 and $6 an hour. With no skills whatever, I made $120 to $240 a week. Sounds like beer money only. But here's the part that will really freak out you kids today: a year of tuition and fees at the University of Washington in, say, 1981, was $687. It was similar for other public colleges around the nation. That's not a misprint. There's no missing digit. Even a crappy job like slinging chicken at KFC could pay for that year's UW tuition, and most of next year's, too. Today? At $10 an hour you'd have to work 1,250 hours to cover the UW's $12,500 tuition (more, once you take out taxes). In a 12-week summer, that's more than 100 hours a week. What really made me feel ancient is that the 1981 UW student guide shows the Med school charged only $1,029 a year back then. Today: $28,040! Now, I didn't go to the UW. But I'm going down Husky memory lane because last week The Seattle Times featured a crop of harried UW students looking rueful and broke. The story said skeptical state legislators often say how "they worked their way through college. And then they ask: Why don't students do that today?" Of all our delusions, we old farts cling to this bootstrap one the most. We worked our way up on sweat and chicken grease, we say. Can't this generation? What's wrong with them? What's wrong is that after we got ours, we cut it off for them. The reason a summer at KFC could pay for a year of UW med school in 1981 isn't that we were so hardworking and industrious. It's that taxpayers back then picked up 90 percent of the tab. We weren't Horatio Algers. We were socialists.

Challenging Society's View on Drugs - Dr. Carl Hart - YouTube. Are current drug policies failing? According to Dr. Hart's book, yes. He explains why with his landmark, yet controversial studies of race, poverty,, and drugs as well as the relationship between drugs and pleasure, choice, and motivation, both in the brain and in society. Hart relates his own story that started in a tough Miami neighborhood and resulted in a career as a neuroscientist and Columbia University's first tenured African American professor in the sciences.

Bad Cops, Questionable Ethics, Perversion and Pot: Just Another Day On The Job. The roots of crazy hypocrisy: cruel cop humor in Wisconsin and Washington. The degradation of American authority, deviant police behavior in the American Southwest. ...It looks like just another average day in the American heartland -- where cops run wild, and agreed, duplicity and stupidity get you arrested... (At least if there's any justice left in the world.) Last week in Macon, Georgia a local cop was arrested on marijuana charges, as well as child endangerment. Officer Toomer was detained after the police obtained a search warrant and searched her house, discovering 11 ounces of marijuana packaged for sale. Ofc. Toomer is currently being charged with marijuana possession with the intent to sell. Internal affairs officers took her gun and badge. The child endangerment charge appears to be merely because children were present in her home when marijuana was present. In Clovis, New Mexico, a Curry County jail guard was arrested last Tuesday on charges she tried to smuggle marijuana into the jail. Erin Shields, 22, allegedly communicated with an inmate her willingness to bring in contraband and arranged for a third party to place it in her vehicle. She was carrying marijuana and tobacco on her when she was stopped and searched by sheriff's detectives as she arrived for work at the jail. She is charged with distribution of marijuana and bringing contraband into a place of imprisonment. Both are fourth-degree felonies. She is now a former Curry County jail guard.

Dutch marijuana gets weaker. (Passing laws to restrain the Potency) The THC content in Dutch-grown marijuana has fallen under the 15% for the first time, the Trimbos addiction institute said on Wednesday. THC is the active ingredient in marijuana and cannabis that creates a high. Until 2004, the average THC content was above 20%, but this has been falling gradually to between 15% and 18%. Trimbos analysed marijuana from 48 of the 651 cannabis cafes and found a THC content of 13.5% on average. This is 2% lower than in 2011. The institute does say, however, that one-third was still well above the 15% limit imposed by the government. The government announced last year it was planning to classify marijuana with a THC content above 15% as a Class A drug, alongside heroin and cocaine.

Jobs crisis: Europe's great migration. Whilst Europe debates how jobs are created, tens of thousands of young Europeans are on the move in search of work. They are part of a great migration. For many, Germany is the land of opportunity and jobs. In 2012, 45,000 Italians moved to Germany. The Spanish were not far behind, with 37,000 heading in the same direction; 35,000 Greeks also left for Germany. Germany needs these migrants. The Association of German Engineers says it wants 70,000 engineers immediately. When scientists and IT specialists are included, the figure goes up to 200,000. Chancellor Angela Merkel is laying out the welcome mat. Not only does Germany need these skills, but she believes migration will go some way to alleviating Europe's unemployment. She says that the young and unemployed should be prepared to move to find work.

UK spy agencies get $154mn bonus amid sweeping cuts — RT News. The increase of 3.4 percent in overall funding for intelligence organizations, which already have a budget of $2.9 billion, will make them top of the UK government's spending agenda, overtaking the health service, education and military. The institutions that will suffer most at the hands of the $17 billion austerity cuts include the Business department, the Culture department, the Home Office and the Justice department. The Ministry of Defence, meanwhile, faces cuts of around $1.5 billion, with the reassurance that this will not stipulate a decrease in front-line troop numbers. Recently, UK intelligence has come into the firing line after it was discovered the GCHQ has access to a massive global network of communications, storing calls, Facebook posts and internet histories. GCHQ also shares this data with the NSA. The extent of the spy program is such that whistleblower Edward Snowden, who originally leaked the information to the Guardian, called it "worse than the US." Rights groups were up in arms about the sheer scope of the network able to monitor 600 million 'telephone events' a day. "This appears to be dangerously close to, if not exactly, the centralized database of all our internet communications, including some content, that successive Governments have ruled out and parliament has never legislated for," said Nick Pickles of UK privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch.

The Drug Czar's unbelievable reply to US Mayors' marijuana vote. Throughout the Obama Administration, there have been more federal attacks on medical marijuana in the states than in two terms of George W. Bush, despite his campaign promises and his Attorney General's memos to the contrary. Despite claiming to emphasize treatment over incarceration, Obama's drug war budgets still maintain a 3:2 balance toward law enforcement over treatment. Even though marijuana arrests declined from an estimated 853,838 in 2010 to 757,969 in 2011, almost half (49%) of that drop of 95,869 arrests owes to California's drop from 54,900 arrests in 2010 to only 7,800 in 2011, which was a result of Richard Lee pushing Prop 19 and forcing then-Gov. Schwarzenegger to decriminalize marijuana possession. I was wrong. Today the Twitter account for the Drug Czar (the Office of National Drug Control Policy, or ONDCP) had this response to the recent unanimous vote by the US Conference of Mayors on a resolution calling for the end of federal interference in state marijuana laws: Thank you, @USmayors, for unanimously supporting the Administration's approach to #DrugPolicyReform. More: http://t.co/QihhsHmQvR #uscm2013 — U.S. Drug Policy (@ONDCP) June 25, 2013 I don't know what intern runs their Twitter account or whether actually reading the resolution was necessary in forming this hack reply and link trolling to their "21st Century" drug policy propaganda. Because I doubt that the Administration's approach to drug policy reform includes these planks agreed to unanimously by the US Mayors: BE IT RESOLVED that the United States Conference of Mayors reaffirms its support of fair and effective criminal justice and drug policies and reiterates its previous call for the reclassification of marijuana under federal law... ...states and localities should be able to set whatever marijuana policies work best to improve the public safety and health of their communities... ...[and] federal laws, including the Controlled Substance Act, should be amended to explicitly allow states to set their own marijuana policies without federal interference...

Oregon Marijuana Reform Bills Headed To Governor's Desk. Oregon Senate Sends Senate Bills 40 & 82 to the Governor's Desk It is with great pleasure that we announce the Oregon Senate's concurring votes on Senate Bills 40 and 82. Under SB 82 the driver's licenses of nearly 5,000 Oregonians a year will no longer be suspended for a conviction for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana. Under SB 40, Oregonians will no longer face B felony charges for possession of small amounts of marijuana, (1 -- 4 ounces). By adding misdemeanor provisions to the law and the restructuring of other fines and penalties relating to marijuana resulting from a 2010 re-classification of marijuana by the Oregon State Board of Pharmacy from a Schedule I to a schedule II controlled substance. In addition SB 40 will save the state nearly $3M over the first biennium and nearly $5M after that. SB 82, while not having a official fiscal impact statement, will save the state the expense of sending out notices of suspension.

Two senators say the NSA is still lying to Congress — RT USA. Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall sent a letter to NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander on Monday asking him to make revisions to a set of fact sheets that were released by his agency to quell concerns about domestic surveillance in the wake of leaked documents attributed to former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden earlier this month. The Guardian newspaper has been publishing top-secret documents provided by Snowden that he says proves the NSA operates secretive spying programs that retain information on United States citizens under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. Snowden claims those two statutes are abused in order to surveil American citizens, an argument Gen. Alexander's office recently attempted to counter by releasing a four-page set of bullet points outlining what the US government can and can't do under federal law. According to Sens. Wyden and Udall, the NSA's response isn't in-tune with what they've been told of the programs. "We were disappointed to see that this fact sheet contains an inaccurate statement about how the Section 702 authority has been interpreted by the US government," they write Gen. Alexander. "In our judgment this inaccuracy is significant, as it portrays protections for Americans' privacy as being significantly stronger than they actually are." But while the fact sheets have been made available online, Wyden and Udall can't explain in their public letter what their allegations are in reference to since the lawmakers' own knowledge of the clandestine operations are not allowed to be discussed, even among the constituents who elected them to the Senate. Instead, they wrote that they've "identified this inaccurate statement in the classified attachment" sent to Alexander. Elsewhere, the lawmakers rejected the NSA's claim that, "Any inadvertently acquired communication of or concerning a US person must be promptly destroyed if it is neither relevant to the authorized purpose nor evidence of a crime."

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Kinder, Gentler Prohibition - Reason.com. Although Missouri, which the Marijuana Policy Project says has "some of the toughest marijuana laws in the country," punishes pot cultivation with up to 15 years in prison, neither Trish nor Daryl was incarcerated. In 2011 Daryl received an eight-year suspended sentence, five years of probation, and a $350 fine. Trish was sentenced to five years of probation, a $375 fine, and 100 hours of community service. In exchange for this apparent leniency, both were required to attend substance abuse counseling. Three years after their arrest, Trish, 38, and Daryl, 44, have yet to "reoffend." That makes theirs a success story in the eyes of folks who promote the use of alternative sentencing, monitoring, and counseling for nonviolent drug offenders. And it's hard to disagree when you look only at what could have happened to them: They weren't imprisoned for a decade and a half; their children did not grow up in foster care; they did not re-emerge into society with skills and knowledge rendered obsolete by years of confinement. But prison isn't the only bad thing that can happen to a person. Collateral consequences of a drug arrest range from having your mugshot appear in Google searches for your name, to fines and court fees that can land you in a modern-day debtor's prison.

"Marijuana Stocks Are Booming" Says Investment Newsletter. Swagato Chakravorty's article uses Easton Pharmaceuticals (OTC: EAPH) as an example. This company has announced plans to enter the American and Canadian marijuana market. Chakravorty writes that, "Easton designs and develops a range of topical healthcare products for commercial purposes. The burgeoning marijuana sector is a highly attractive one, and that's why Easton will employ third-party consultants to help it open up boutique clinics in Canada and the U.S. Within the latter, Easton hopes to start out with the relatively "friendly" states of Michigan and California." Easton's press release on Business Wire quotes their President, John Adams, as saying: Easton has chosen to participate in this industry that has slowly over the last few years received recognition for its medicinal benefits. The United States congress was to have made a final decision approving the use of medical marijuana in limited ways, but recently adjourned the final decision for later in the year. The Energy and Capital article declares medical marijuana is becoming "a major industrial sector" that is growing from $1.7 billion in 2011 to a projected $9 billion industry in just a few years. Other success stories are cited in the article. Colorado's CannLabs tests smokables and other cannabis products; they are projected to double their sales and open a second location during 2013.

Lab Tests Show Hemp Fabric Stops Spread Of Deadly Bacteria. Staphylococcus Aureus, more commonly known as staph, is a bacteria that causes thousands of deaths each year -- specifically the drug resistant strain, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, or MRSA. A study conducted by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control & Epidemiology showed that each year an estimated 2 million Americans contract MRSA during hospital stays, and at least 90,000 die from it. It has been determined that MRSA is a, if not the, leading cause of hospital-bourne infections. New research has found that hemp fabrics actually kill bacteria, including MRSA. In a test conducted on a hemp-blend fabric (60% hemp / 40% rayon), where the fabric was infected with staph, researchers found that the hemp material killed the staph bacteria at an incredible rate -- the material was found 98.5% bacteria free upon the first measurement. The same material was also infected with Klebsiella Pneumoniae (pneumonia). At first measurement, the pneumonia-infected material was 65.1% bacteria free.

Obama Hates Medical Marijuana And He Doesn't Care What The States Think (INFOGRAPHIC). President Obama has already spent more taxpayer money fighting medical marijuana than George W. Bush did during his two terms, according to a report released by the pro-medical marijuana group Americans For Safe Access. Most Americans think he should stop.

Exposed: Syria's backroom deal with Russia. The officials said Assad last month agreed to sign the document, considered an understanding of principals on control of his country's gas resources, including transiting pipelines, in exchange for continued Russian support in resisting the insurgency against his regime. The officials further said Russia helped to broker a separate understanding with Assad that would allow public and private Chinese companies to rebuild damaged infrastructure in Syria if Assad defeats the insurgency. The alleged deals underscore the economic benefits that may motivate Russia to back Assad while the West, including the Obama administration, aids the rebels seeking a post-Assad Syria. Syria is a key energy transit route to Europe. A number of countries appear to be seeking dominance of the energy market that runs through Syria. In 2011, Syria announced it had discovered a promising gas field in the city of Homs, which would later see some of the fiercest battles between Assad's forces and the rebels. Oil Minister Sufian Allawi told the state-run SANA news agency that the first wells "were in the Homs governorate and the flow rate is 400,000 cubic meters per day." "This discovery opens new perspectives in the region of Qalamun and the Syrian company will continue its drilling," said Allawi. Beside the prospect of its own gas field, Syria is also one of the most strategic locations for natural gas pipelines to flow to Europe.

Recent college grads face 36% 'mal-employment' rate - Jun. 25, 2013. "People don't go to college to be a waiter or a bartender," Sum said. "They lose and we lose." The official unemployment rate for grads under age 25 was 7% in May, but that doesn't reflect all those who are under-utilized in one way or another. Nearly 8% of grads are working part-time, but would like full-time positions. These workers aren't counted in the mal-employment rate. Not surprisingly, hospitality and retail are the most common occupations of the mal-employed. Of the nearly 3 million recent college grads, 152,000 are working in retail sales and nearly 100,000 work as waiters, bartenders or in other food service posts. Another 80,000 serve as clerks or customer service representatives, with 60,000 working in construction or manual labor. Your major matters. Those with degrees in accounting, engineering or computer sciences are much more likely to find college-level work than those who focus on fields like "sports and recreation" or "regional studies," researchers have found. Also, recent grads who worked in their chosen fields while in school had an easier time landing college-level jobs, Sum said. Location is important, too. Those living in the South, Southwest and West had a rougher time because the labor markets are weaker there.

Let Food Be Your Cosmetic: Coconut Oil Outperforms Dangerous. When we slather these chemical concoctions onto our skin, they enter directly into the lymphatic and circulatory systems, depositing in internal organs and body fat. And unlike things you ingest orally, there is no "gate keeping" liver there to protect you from these chemicals entering rapidly into your body through your skin. This is why, of course, you should never put on your body anything you can not, or would not eat. Unfortunately, major trusted brands have been found to be just as bad as more generic, cheaper ones in this respect, making it exceedingly difficult to avoid harm unless you are already wise to the issue and using completely natural body care products. For instance, back in 2009, the Journal of Investigative Dermatology published a highly concerning study titled "Tumorigenic effect of some commonly used moisturizing creams when applied topically to UVB-pretreated high-risk mice," wherein branded moisturizers, including Dermabase, Dermovan, Eucerin Original Moisturizing Cream (Eucerin), or Vanicream, were found to increase the rate of formation and number of tumors when applied topically to UVB-pretreated high-risk mice.[1] Chemical industry public relations spokespersons love to point out that we are not mice, implying that preclinical research like this should not throw up a red flag. Should we be made to wait for the very industries guilty of poisoning us to voluntarily fund multi-million dollar, randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trials to determine whether their products are not also causing cancer in humans? Short of a legal mandate, self-incriminating research like this will never be performed, and not only because such a study would be highly unethical (i.e. intentionally poisoning trial subjects), but because it will reveal a truth fraught with immense legal and financial liabilities.

13 Evidence-Based Medicinal Properties of Coconut Oil. While coconut oil has dragged itself out of the muck of vast misrepresentation over the past few years, it still rarely gets the appreciation it truly deserves. Not just a "good" saturated fat, coconut oil is an exceptional healing agent as well, with loads of useful health applications. Some examples of "good" saturated fat include

MCT Fats Found In Coconut Oil Boost Brain Function In Only One Dose. The study involved 20 subjects with Alzheimer's disease or mild cognitive impairment who, on separate days, were given either emulsified MCTs or a placebo. The researchers observed a significant increase in blood plasma levels of the ketone body beta-hydroxylutyrate (beta-OHB) after only 90 minutes of treatment, and depending on the apolipoprotein E genotype of the subject tested, beta-OHB levels either continued to rise or held constant between the 90 and 120 minute blood draws in the treatment condition. Remarkably, cognitive testing revealed that this brief MCT treatment facilitated improved performance on the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Subscale (ADAS-cog) in 4 subjects within the study group. Moreover, "higher ketone values were associated with greater improvement in paragraph recall with MCT treatment relative to placebo across all subjects (P=0.02)."[i]

The Amazing Benefits of Coconut Oil - Dr. Bruce Fife - GreenMedTV. Dr. Bruce Fife explains his amazing journey into the coconut literature. Having believed for many years that coconut oil is a "bad" saturated fat, he was surprised to find that the biomedical literature itself indicates it has profound value in human nutrition and medicine.

Does Your Soy, Almond, or Hemp Milk Contain Carrageenan? Recent research indicates that carrageenan can cause gastrointestinal inflammation, lesions and possibly contribute to cancer. So, more and more people are studying carrageenan and linking increased gastro intestinal symptoms with this emulsifier. Several studies in the early 2000s suggest that degraded or hydrolyzed carrageenan, called poligeenan, has have been shown to cause lesions, ulcerations, and cancer in animals. Joanne k. Tobacman MD, associate professor of clinical medicine at the University of Illinois college of Medicine has published 18 peer-reviewed studies. These address the biological effects of Carrageenan. In 2012 she addressed the National Organic Standards Board on this issue to ask reconsideration of putting this in 'organic' foods. According to Dr. Weil, researcher and physician, there are no nutritional benefits to this additive/emulsifier. However he does suggest that milk alternatives are a good choice as long as the word carrageenan is not on the label. Other researchers believe that carrageenan contributes to IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). There are two kinds of carrageenan's, the degraded, and the un-degraded type. Food grade carrageenan (un-degraded carrageenan) was thought to pass through the body without being digested, so it was believed to be safe. Therefore, only the un-degraded variety was deemed safe for human consumption by the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) and approved for use in foods by the Food and Drug Administration.

'Bioethicist': Parents Should Be Held Liabel For The Deaths 'Caused'. Assuming that vaccines work (a flawed assumption, since 90-95% of infectious disease decline preceded vaccines, some vaccines temporarily reversed preexisting declines, and outbreaks routinely occur in highly vaccinated populations[3]), this more fundamental ethical question concerning vaccine injury and death is, at best with regard to Dr. C's parent liability issue, one on which reasonable people could disagree. On that basis alone, Dr. Caplan's parent liability issue crumbles to dust. But we've only scratched the surface. Since 90% or more of vaccine adverse events are never even reported, according to the CDC, FDA and AAPS--more than 99% according to former FDA Commissioner David Kessler[4], we have no idea what the true scope of vaccine injury and death really is. Clearly, then, there's no objective basis for mandating vaccines at all (let alone holding anyone liable for not vaccinating), because no one can tell you if they provide a net benefit to society, let alone if they are safe for *your* child in particular. So again, for this reason, we don't even reach Dr. Caplan's parental liability concern. Add to this the documented corruption in the pharmaceutical industry and government health agencies, and Dr. Caplan's issue just fades further into oblivion. For example, in 2011, the non-profit corporation Coalition for Mercury-Free Drugs obtained information through the Freedom of Information Act revealing that the CDC deliberately withheld data showing that autism rates in Danish children dropped when mercury was removed from vaccines, and then fraudulently promoted a study falsely claiming that vaccines do not cause autism.[5]

Extreme Toxicity of Roundup Destroys GM/Non-GM 'Substantial Equivalence' Argument There was a time when Monsanto claimed their patented herbicide Roundup was "safer than table salt" and "practically nontoxic," and aggressively marketed this message until 1996, when they were ordered by Dennis C. Vacco, the Attorney General of New York, to pull the ads.[1] Fast forward 15 years, after millions of farmers around the world bought into the false advertising and who, as a result, are now driving the production and use of several hundred million pounds of the chemical annually, Roundup herbicide is beginning to look eerily like Monsanto's Agent Orange 2.0. Indeed, within the scientific community and educated public alike, there is a growing awareness that Roundup herbicide, and its primary ingredient glyphosate, is actually a broad spectrum biocide, in the etymological sense of the word: "bio" (life) and "cide" (kill) -- that is, it broadly, without discrimination kills living things, not just plants. Moreover, it does not rapidly biodegrade as widely claimed, and exceedingly small amounts of this chemical -- in concentration ranges found in recently sampled rain, air, groundwater, and human urine samples -- have DNA-damaging and cancer cell proliferation stimulating effects.

A Life Sentence... For Pot? The top federal prosecutor in Montana — Mike Cotter, the U.S. attorney appointed by President Obama in 2009 — then charged the growers, their greenhouse workers, their bookkeepers, some of their spouses, and even their landlords who had simply provided buildings to the growers with decades in prison and in some cases virtual life sentences, all under federal drug trafficking statutes. Now Cotter is breaking his silence and speaking publicly, for the first time, about his two-year crusade to shutter the medical marijuana industry and put its practitioners behind bars, in many cases for life sentences. And he is mincing no words. He says that pot has no medical value at all, for anyone, and that if you think otherwise, you are a sucker who has been duped "by slick Madison Avenue marketing" employed by pot dealers. He says pot is a dangerous drug and growing it is a federal crime that must be punished. The opposite of what doctors have long believed about the benefits of marijuana for many patients, these comments go a long way in explaining much of what happened in Montana over the last two years.

Drug War Demonizes People. If you're the type who thinks the difference between "legal" and "illegal" drugs is arbitrary, you might even think of your local bartender or pharmacist as a dealer. Whatever it is, chances are the image will be shaped by some degree of moral judgment and fear stoked by our country's more than four decades of waging a failed drug war. My motivation for producing the documentary "How to Make Money Selling Drugs" was to examine the hypocrisy of the war on drugs. Billions of dollars are wasted targeting, arresting and imprisoning mostly poor people and minority groups, when rates of drug use are about the same across racial lines. One study by Duke University found that young black people are arrested for drug crimes 10 times as often young whites, even though they use illegal drugs less often. Equally baffling is that most of us have taken some sort of substance to alter our mood -- be it coffee, nicotine, Ritalin, a cocktail or a joint -- yet we are conditioned to think that people who use and sell certain drugs are not like us.

CNN allows LEAP to debate marijuana legalization with the drug free America foundation. In the pro legalization corner, we have Major Neil Franklin from LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition), who feels that only the full repeal of the federal government's prohibition against marijuana will decrease pot related crime, increase public safety and ensure true personal freedom. And in the other corner... We have David Evans, an ex-criminal defense attorney who is a special adviser to the Drug free America foundation. It is Mr. Evans contention that the full legalization of marijuana would do America's populace serious harm. According to his statements, should marijuana be legalized in the United States, pot usage could double or potentially triple? So instead of allowing people to "relax" / "take the edge off" with weed, Mr. Evans believes alcohol (leading cause for domestic violence), or over-the-counter prescription pills (kills tens of thousands per year by accidental overdose)... already fill that need.

German Study Shows Alzheimer's Patients Can Benefit From Marijuana's Cannabinoids. Research from the Institute of Molecular Psychiatry at the University of Bonn in Germany, suggests that activation of the brains cannabinoid receptors, releases anti-oxidants that clean the brain of damaged cells, and stimulate Mitrochondria which is the source of energy for cells. "Neuroinflammatory processes contributing to the progression of normal brain ageing and to the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases are suppressed by cannabinoids, suggesting that they may also influence the ageing process on the system level." Despite the federal government's propaganda of "reefer madness", claiming marijuana smoking creates psychotic outbursts and the killing of brain cells. The flower from the cannabis plant has demonstrated the ability to stimulate new growth... Creating new brain cells, rather than killing them as claimed.

The Seed Of State Nullification. "I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That "all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people." -- Thomas Jefferson While state after state continues to hop on the medical marijuana train, the federal government is scrambling -- looking to oppress any state that might see value in representing their constituents wishes. This is where state nullification comes in. For those not well-versed in the concept of state nullification... it was another bright idea -- first envisioned by a founding father. Thought up by the author of our Declaration of Independence, and first articulated by vice president Thomas Jefferson, when he wrote what would become the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798. These groundbreaking determinations outlined the case, proving that the federal government is subservient to the states, and that individual states have the right and authority to determine the constitutionality of any federal government's laws and decrees. Jefferson also pointed out... states should refuse to enforce laws which they deem unconstitutional - which is where our medical marijuana argument comes in.

10 Marijuana Edibles That Look Like "Real" Food. As marijuana moves mainstream, the rise in branding will come along with it. Cannabis lends itself very well to pun-filled named, and ganjapreuners use of these catchy play-on-word slogans can be seen no better than in the Edible (Medible) sphere of the industry. Whether you're looking to play a trick on Trick or Treaters (discouraged), or simply want to spice up your next party or picnic with fun treats, here's a list of ones that you can easily disguise as "normal" food. Once unwrapped, all of these these Medibles appear to be normal, every day snacks

The Cost Of Marijuana Prohibition In The U.S. Is More Than The NASA Budget. U.S. has decided that some of the staples of America -- such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) -- deserve to lose funding. In 2013 the budget for NASA is set at 17.7 billion -- $1 billion less than their budget for 2010, and roughly the same as their budget for 2009. This indicates that, to the tune of over $2 billion, the U.S. considers cannabis prohibition to be a bigger priority than NASA. Nearly 50 years after man walked on the moon, the U.S. finds throwing people in prison for consuming nature more important than continued exploration. Although one could argue that these two budgets (that of cannabis prohibition, and that of NASA) aren't connected, in a large way, they are. $20 billion is nothing to scoff at, and its usage could have intense real-world applications; whether or not an end to cannabis prohibition would mean an increase in NASA's budget would be up to lawmakers -- and some (including a portion of the public) would argue against it -- however, it gives a clear example of how ridiculously intertwined the U.S. has become with this prohibition; as they lower the budget for national icons like NASA -- which was once an internationally vaunted institute -- they continue to maintain and in some instances raise the budget used to harass nonviolent citizens who decide to use a nonlethal plant. It's well past time we end this insane prohibition, and begin to use that money for more important things -- whether it's space exploration, or something else like improving a diminishing education system.

Oregon House Passes Medical Marijuana Dispensary Legislation. House Bill 3460 is a fix for the state's safe access problem and a great step in the right direction for cannabis law reform in Oregon. The bill will eliminate some gray areas of the law and will allow for the state to license and regulate medical cannabis dispensaries. Finally, growers will be able to be compensated for all of the costs associated with the production of cannabis, eliminating the need for patients to find someone willing to charitably grow marijuana for them. Hopefully, with bright line rules, we can end dangerous SWAT raids of dispensaries, and instead, move towards regulating dispensaries like we do pharmacies. House Bill 3460 just passed the Oregon House today by a vote of 31-27 and is expected to move onto the Senate for a floor vote later this week. The bill was recently aided by the endorsement of Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum and the Oregon League of Cities. Representative Peter Buckley (D-Ashland) deserves great credit carrying this important bill through his chamber. Hopefully, the Senate will agree with their House counterparts and will send the bill onto Governor Kitzhaber.

Monday, June 24, 2013

Inside Anglo: the secret recordings - Independent.ie. Mr Bowe's comments in the audio recording reveal that Anglo's strategy was to lure the State in, leaving taxpayers with no choice but to continue to provide loans to "support their money". The recording also shows Mr Bowe and Mr Fitzgerald laughing as they say how there is no realistic chance of ever repaying the loans.

Anglo Irish Bank Tapes - Business Insider. The Irish Independent, a Dublin-based newspaper, has uncovered tapes of an internal phone conversation from September 2008 between two executives at Anglo Irish Bank during its bailout deal and they sound pretty scandalous. The Irish Independent points out that the recordings show they misled the Central Bank. The executives from the recording have been identified as John Bowe (head of the bank's capital markets) and Peter Fitzgerald (director of retail banking). However, Bowe "categorically denied" that he misled the Central Bank and Fitzgerald, who wasn't involved in discussions with regulators, said he was unaware of any intention to mislead, the report said. Either way, the newly revealed recordings are still embarrassing. Here are some partial excerpts (via the Irish Independent): The two bankers begin their conversation jokingly comparing themselves to being able to walk on water and drink beer out of both hands. John Bowe: "Hello" Receptionist: "John I have Peter Fitz for you." Bowe: "Oh yeah, OK." Bowe: "As me granny used to say, you must be therapeutic..." Peter Fitzgerald: "What does that mean? Can I work the computer is it? (Both laugh) Bowe: "Therapeutic. Therapeutic...I was just ringing you." Fitzgerald: "I'm ambidextrous as well. It means I can walk on land and water." (More laughter) Bowe: "You can drink, you can drink beer out of both hands..." (laughter) Then they get down to business. Bowe tells Fitzgerald that they met with the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority (IFSRA) the previous day about getting €7 billion. They laugh how they will never be able to pay it back. Bowe: "So we went down..and we basically said. In Central, yeah. And I mean, to cut a long story short we sort of said. 'Look, what we need is seven billion euros...and we're going to give you and we're going to give you, what we're going to give you is our loan collateral so we're not giving you ECB, we're giving you the loan clause. "We gave him a term sheet and we put a pro not facility together and we said that's what we need. And that kind of sobered up everybody pretty quickly, you know." Fitzgerald: "Yeah." Fitzgerald: "And is that €7 billion a term?" Bowe: "This is €7 billion bridging." Fitzgerald: "Yeah." Bowe: "So...so it is bridged until we can pay you back...which is never." (Both laugh) Then they joke how the regulators would need to change their underpants after hearing the terms of that deal. Bowe: "So under the terms that say repayment, we say; 'No...'" (laughter)

How to Tell if You Work for a Stupid Company. his is the way stupid companies operate today. To be specific: The customer has to initiate the action (i.e. call customer service). The customer has to waste his or her time waiting for an answer. The company doesn't learn from each interaction; it fails to remember information for the customer. Will you always be ready to help your family? Now, imagine a company that uses the same capabilities differently. You sign up for a service - let's call it Peace of Mind - that constantly searches emergency databases, and if it ever finds mention of your home address or any member of your family, it immediately contacts you in the fastest way possible. This service requires no initiative on your part, and you might go years without interacting with it. But it is worth far more to you than My House Is On Fire. This is the way smart companies operate today. They harness disruptive new forces to benefit customers: Smart companies leverage digital sensors to gather and analyze data flows. Smart companies leverage pervasive memory to track information for customers, instead of about them. Smart companies move beyond social media to offer new services that used to be impossible. Smart companies are helping to create a Physical Web in which most people, devices, information and ideas will be linked.

Seattle Medical Cannabis Dispensary "Safe Access" Announces New Patient Services - Press Release - Digital Journal. In an effort to provide the best possible experience to visiting patients, Safe Access has announced several services intended to improve convenience, accessibility, and customer service. First, the Safe Access dispensary, located at 3809 Delridge Way SW, has announced the availability of customer-only parking facilities. A Safe Access representative stated, "We are located just across the West Seattle bridge and have several off-street, customer-only parking spots available for patients who would like to come visit us. We understand the importance of convenience to our patients and continue to strive to offer the best possible experience overall." Safe Access has also offered patients the option to verify online via the dispensary's website http://seattlesmedicalmarijuana.com, and, once verified, to place orders for delivery service. The stated purpose for this service is that many patients prefer the privacy of having their medicine delivered to them rather than visiting a dispensary. "There are also a lot of patients with serious medical conditions for whom it can be difficult to do a lot of driving around," a Safe Access representative said. "Many of them cannot afford the luxury of a caretaker to pick up and deliver their medicine for them. So, we are proud to offer the delivery service to these patients." Safe Access has also published profiles with several online medical marijuana communities such as Leafly and Weedmaps to keep their patients informed of current selection of medicines and services. "These online social networks help patients to keep informed about what we have in stock, and they also allow them to review and make suggestions about our service. We definitely appreciate any and all feedback from patients who visit our dispensary, and are happy to keep our patients informed and up to date."

POLICE: Suspected cocaine worth thousands in street value found on Va. man in Berlin. A 34-year-old Virginia man faces charges after 131.88 grams of suspected cocaine was found on him at a traffic stop by a Maryland State Police trooper. Jermaine Lamontia Norman of Portsmouth, Va., was stopped for a speed violation at 4:03 p.m. Sunday, police said. During a pat-down for weapons, a heat-sealed food saver bag with highly compressed cocaine was found on Norman, police said. The street value of the cocaine was about $13,000 to $26,000, according to MSP. Norman is charged with possession and possession with intent to distribute cocaine. Norman was held on $10,000 bond and the investigation is continuing.

Feds net $8M in Bronx heroin bust - NYPOST.com. Feds last night busted up a Bronx heroin outfit and seized $8 million in drugs, law-enforcement sources told The Post. The DEA Task Force, which was surveilling the Kingsbridge apartment, arrested three men who were spotted leaving the building carrying a heavy blue bag, the sources said. Agents pulled the trio over, and found $150,000 in the bag. Authorities later searched the apartment, where they found the 22 pounds of heroin, and equipment used in wholesaling drugs. Arlos Castillo, of Manhattan and Bladimar Ramirez-Ramirez and Adalberto Kotts-Perz of Pennsylvania were busted for drug possession. They're due in Manhattan Criminal Court for arraignment.

Cops discover large marijuana refining lab in Oroville - Chico Enterprise Record. OROVILLE — One of the largest marijuana refining labs ever encountered by Butte County sheriff's investigators was discovered Thursday when a warrant was served at an address on Spur Court in South Oroville. The lab was found after detectives in the sheriff's Special Warrant Unit arrived at the location at around 9:20 a.m. with a search warrant. One person was found at the property. Kelley Lawrence Trousdale, 34, of Aptos, was detained without incident, authorities said. Marijuana refining labs are used to produce a substance called honey oil or hashish. During the search, detectives reportedly found 277 empty butane cans, 120 unused butane cans, 34 used extraction tubes, five unused extraction tubes, glass dishes containing butane honey oil residue, processed marijuana buds, marijuana "shake" and a substantial amount of finished honey oil (refined marijuana). Investigators found 92 marijuana plants growing outside on the property, along with shotgun ammunition. The Sheriff's Office alleged, based on evidence at the scene, that the amount of oil discovered was beyond personal use and meant to be sold for profit, as was the marijuana. Several dozen glass vials with screw tops were also discovered, consistent with the packaging of refined marijuana. Manufacturing the oil is a felony and is not covered under Proposition 215, due to its volatile nature, according to the press release. Refining marijuana to produce honey oil has been responsible for several explosions and fires in Butte County and has caused deaths and severe burns to the people who make it, authorities said.

BP agents arrest five, seize 686 pounds of pot. Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents seized about 686 pounds of marijuana and arrested five suspected drug smugglers during three separate incidents this weekend. The pot has an estimated street value of $343,000. All of the incidents happened east of Papago Mountain and south of the Camino Del Diablo road on the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, a well known drug trafficking corridor according to the Border Patrol. On Friday, agents apprehended two Mexican citizens found lying under a tree who were allegedly guarding 474 pounds of marijuana. On Saturday, three more Mexican citizens were arrested while allegedly backpacking 127 pounds of marijuana through the area. On Sunday, agents found an additional 85 pounds abandoned in the same area. The smugglers are expected to face prosecution from the U.S. Attorney's Office. The marijuana is scheduled to be destroyed.

Two Arrested After 1,000 Marijuana Plants Found in Oxnard Warehouse. Anonymous tips led investigators to the warehouse in the 2200 block of Stathan Boulevard (map) in Oxnard. A search warrant was served Friday morning, leading to the arrest of a man and woman. Brandyn Cowgill was booked on suspicion of cultivating marijuana, possession of marijuana for sales, and conspiracy. Julia Danilkevich was booked on suspicion of cultivating marijuana and conspiracy. They are accused in a grow operation that used about $150,000 worth of hydroponic growing equipment inside the Oxnard warehouse. Investigators serving the search warrant also found ultraviolet lights, water pumps, air filters, plants and 20 pounds of dried marijuana estimated to be worth more than $3.5 million, according to Oxnard police.

Sheriff's Department seizes 243 pounds of marijuana - Alice Echo-News Journal: News. On Thursday, Deputy Latham Roldan conducted a traffic stop on US Highway 281 near State Highway 141 on a northbound tan Nissan Maxima. The vehicle came to a stop and the occupants the vehicle bailed out and ran into the brush along the King Ranch. The vehicle was left in drive, and Deputy Roldan ran after the vehicle and was able to get it stopped safely. In the back seat and trunk of the vehicle there were several bundles of marijuana. The marijuana had a total weight of 243 pounds with an estimated street value of $121,500. The marijuana bundles were tied with rope and yellow tow straps in order to make it easier to carry on their backs. A search of the occupants was conducted with US Border Patrol assistance.

McAllen Man Housed Over 1K Lbs Marijuana. In Hidalgo county a McAllen man is issued a hefty bond to match the massive amount of drugs housed under a residence. 25-year-old Jose Manuel Villanueva was issued a quarter-million dollar bond today. Authorities say he was arrested yesterday morning after responding to the 21-hundred block of west yellowhammer avenue. Leading to the seizure of approximately 11-hundred pounds of marijuana. Villanueva was charged accordingly.

Fishermen Find 25 Kilos of Floating Cocaine in Gulf. The Okaloosa County Multi-Agency Drug Task Force is investigating the recovery of 25 kilograms of cocaine recovered in area waters south of the Destin East Pass. Five local fishermen observed a large bale/package floating in the water, retrieved it from the Gulf and pulled it into their vessel. When the fisherman saw that it contained numerous individually wrapped packages, they contacted law enforcement. State and federal law enforcement officers responded to the scene. The fishermen provided statements and turned the bale over to authorities. The Drug Task Force collected and processed the bale and determined that it contained 25 kilograms of cocaine. Federal and state, air, water and land assets have responded to the scene, and this investigation is continuing. The street value ($100/gram) is 2.5 million dollars.

More than 200 packages of synthetic marijuana found in investigation. Tallahassee police say more than 200 packages of synthetic marijuana and over 2,000 pieces of drug paraphernalia were recovered from two Tallahassee convenience stores Tuesday. Charges are pending after multi-agency search warrants were served at Bill's Mini Mart on South Magnolia Drive and the Timesaver on Old Bainbridge Road. Police suspect both businesses were selling the synthetic marijuana, commonly known as "spice," which has been illegal in Florida since March 2012. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Tallahassee Police Chief Dennis Jones and Leon County Sheriff Larry Campbell commented on the investigations today. "Attorney General Pam Bondi has made the sale of these dangerous drugs illegal in Florida and I will work with our law enforcement partners to protect the unsuspecting citizen who is led to believe they are safe for consumption," said Jones.

Man arrested for attempting to smuggle $509,000 worth of meth into the United States. NOGALES, AZ - Authorities arrested a Mexican national who tried to smuggle nearly $509,000 worth of methamphetamine into the United States. Teresa Small, spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said the man was arrested Saturday after 31 packages of meth were found hidden inside the front bumper of his Mazda sedan. The man attempted to cross into the United States at the Mariposa Port of Entry, but a canine alerted to the presence of drugs and the driver was referred for a more advanced inspection. Officers said the meth is valued at $509,454. The drugs and the vehicle were processed for seizure and the man as referred to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations division.

Imperial County Sheriff's Office seize black tar heroin and methamphetamine - ivpressonline.com. Two people were arrested on Saturday after more than 80 pounds of narcotics were found in a vehicle they were traveling in. Saul Cabello, 21, and Josue Aguirre, 18, of Mexicali were booked into the Imperial County Jail, according to a news release from the Imperial County Sheriff's Office. They were traveling in a vehicle northbound on Highway 86 when a deputy, noticing numerous minor traffic violations consistent with a person driving under the influence of alcohol, drugs or both, pulled the vehicle over. The driver, Cabello, appeared to the deputy to be nervous and his statements were inconsistent with his actions, according to the press release. The deputy's suspicions were raised, and he radioed for a Border Patrol K-9 unit for additional assistance. The vehicle was transported back to the Highway 86 checkpoint to be x-rayed, where anomalies were seen in all four tires. The tires were split open, and 50 pounds of black tar heroin and 32.9 pounds of methamphetamines were discovered. The two narcotics had an approximate street value of $996,000.

Morgan Spurlock on 'Inside Man': 'Each week I get to be immersed into a different world' The best part of "Inside Man" is that each week I get to be immersed into a different world. I'm neck-deep in an experiential story that takes me to the front lines of some of the most debated issues in the country today: marijuana, guns, immigration, education, elder care, unions, bankrupt cities and the worst drought in U.S. history. For marijuana, I worked in the largest dispensary in the United States, Harborside Medical in Oakland, California. It's a non-profit cooperative that sells more than $25 million worth of marijuana and cannabis products per year. It's pretty incredible, and in the episode, I become your weed connoisseur. After that, I head to Fredericksburg, Virginia, and work alongside the good folks at SSG Tactical, one of Virginia's most reliable and success gun retailers. While there, I sell firearms to the well-armed masses while we try to understand what drives America's gun culture.

5 things to know about marijuana in the U.S. It is estimated that $7.6 billion is spent annually by state and local justice systems on marijuana arrests, according to advocacy group NORML. Advocates of reforms say instead of spending this money on enforcement, the government could spend it elsewhere and tax marijuana to reap even more for its coffers. Indeed, taxing pot could raise hundreds of millions of dollars, but there is no guarantee that it would be a moneymaker for states. The financial gains in Washington and Colorado, the two states that have legalized marijuana, have not been as great as some expected. Washington had projected up to $450 million in added annual tax revenue, but the state's new pot consultant figures it could be little more than half that. In Colorado, the Colorado Futures Center think tank forecasts $130 million in new tax revenue but thinks that won't even cover the cost of regulating the new industry. Still, some say the legalization of pot would bring down the black markets that have left a murderous trail, drawing parallels with what happened during and after the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s and '30s. Estimates vary widely on how big a hit drug cartels would take if marijuana were legalized. While U.S. officials said in 2009 that 60% of cartel revenue came from weed, the RAND Corp. said the following year that "15-26 percent is a more credible range." A report this month by the Mexican Competitiveness Institute predicted Mexican drug organizations, specifically the Sinaloa Cartel, could lose almost $2.8 billion just from the legalization votes in Colorado and Washington.

New Study: Right Wing 'Morality' Is Divorced From The Real World Suffering It Causes -. The study included 688 participants whose moral positions on killing, assisted suicide, torture, incest, cannibalism, malicious gossip, stealing, lying, deception, betrayal, breaking a promise, breaking the law, and treason were gauged. The outcome? Conservative and religious individuals showed a "general insensitivity to consequences." These participants consistently tended towards deontological ethics -- which means they judged morality according to universal rules or divine authority. Liberals in the study promoted consequentialist ethics -- they judged the morality of action based on the outcome. Sounds a bit like Rand's objectivism vs. Bentham's utilitarianism, doesn't it? While Piazza says that they can't be certain whether being religious/conservative creates the rule-based ethics or if following rule-based ethics makes one become conservative/religious. The thing the study can state with conviction is that the two are related: being conservative or religious goes hand-in-hand with non-consequentialist ethics. Even further: "I think it is more likely that being religious — and being religious in a particular way — is what promotes deontological commitments, and not the other way around. In a recent unpublished study I conducted with my colleague Justin Landy at Penn, we found that it is a particular sub-class of religious individuals that are strongly opposed to consequentialist thinking. Specifically, it was religious individuals who believe that morality is founded upon divine authority or divine commands, and that moral truths are not obtained via human intuition or reason, who were strong deontologists (i.e., they refused to find various rule violations as permissible even when the consequences were better as a result). This suggests that not all religious individuals are non-consequentialists; that is, religion does not necessarily promote a deontological ethic, though many religious institutions do promote such an orientation. Instead, it may be that people who are skeptical about the capacity for human beings to know right from wrong in the absence of divine revelation that tend towards a rule-based morality."

Marijuana decriminalization: Proceed with caution - Baltimore Sun. A move toward either decriminalization or legalization would also have implications for police enforcement efforts and public safety. Searches based on the possession of marijuana sometimes yield firearms and other contraband. Vermont's recent law decriminalizes the possession of one ounce or less of marijuana, but the drug is still considered contraband, which allows police officers to conduct searches based upon probable cause. Other law enforcement-related questions include consideration of the rules governing public consumption and driving while smoking marijuana, and how officers would be trained and equipped to determine when a driver is under the influence of marijuana. How about the potential adverse health effects and corresponding societal and personal costs of increased marijuana use? Although this incomplete list of questions is long, we must invest the time and energy to devise answers before making a decision about whether to change the laws governing the sale or possession of marijuana. There is a very real risk that if we are not thorough and methodical in our approach to confronting this important issue, we will wake up one day and wonder how a seemingly simple decision spawned a number of unanticipated challenges and problems. In this regard, we would be wise to study the effect of recent laws legalizing recreational use of marijuana in Colorado and Washington state as a guide for potential changes in Maryland's current laws regarding the drug, particularly given the current conflict such a law would have with the federal government's continued nationwide prohibition on use and possession.

UPDATE: MOL Comfort Sank. sailing from Singapore to Jeddah and after that to North Europe MOL Comfort (ex APL Russia) sank due to yet unclear reasons, sailing from Singapore to Jeddah and after that to North Europe, leaving behind hundreds of drifting containers and a huge aftershock hitting liner sector and all of the maritime industry. Even the scale of the consequences is hard, impossible, to estimate, not to mention consequences themselves. This is the 1st case in liner sector, when modern ocean-going liner container vessel (built in Japan!) sank in the ocean after breaking in 2 parts, like a poorly built and managed bulk carrier or over aged coaster. Nothing like this ever occurred, and no one believed it was possible, even theoretically. It just could not happen, but still, here it is. At present stage, even the weirdest theories of the real cause of this accident can not be ignored, something like explosion or several explosions, or whatever else one may fantasize. Putting aside some exotic versions, most likely causes that come into mind are some basic design and building faults; serious disbalance of the loaded containers weight due to false cargo weight declarations and faulty cargo plan; faulty ballasting of the container ship. Most probably, if that's the case, the sinking was caused not by just one of the above-mentioned factors, but by their combination, and triggered by rough weather

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Mayor Bloomberg BUSTED... Using Taxpayer Money to Fund Mayors Against Illegal Guns : Freedom Outpost. Bloomberg's "Mayors Against Illegal Guns" website is actually registered to The City of New York. Specifically it is registered to "NYC DoITT" (the New York City Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications). Really Bloomberg? The cost of registering a domain is less than $50 a year. Even with an estimated $27 Billion in wealth you can't afford to spend $50 to register your web site? For the record here is the exact registration information for www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org: Administrative Contact , Technical Contact : NYC DoITT clong@doitt.nyc.gov 2 Metrotech Center 2nd Floor Brooklyn, NY 11201 US Phone: 718-403-8610 Record expires on 24-Apr-2014 Record created on 24-Apr-2006 Database last updated on 23-Dec-2008 I would suggest massive amounts of phone calls to the number listed above but that's just me. I think a few thousand questions about why a New York City municipal government agency is using taxpayer funds to register domain names for the Mayor's private gun control efforts might be in order.

MEDIA BLACKOUT: Container Ship Carrying U.S. Weapons for Obama's Syrian Rebels Splits in Half/Sinks... Possible Russian Attack... 'A large fleet named "Mol Comfort" carrying Arms for FSA from the U.S. has crashed in the Indian Ocean as it made its way from Singapore to Jeddah, on board were 4,500 containers loaded with arms for the Syrian rebels' 'MOL Comfort sank due to yet unclear reasons, sailing from Singapore to Jeddah and after that to North Europe, leaving behind hundreds of drifting containers and a huge aftershock hitting liner sector and all of the maritime industry. Even the scale of the consequences is hard, impossible, to estimate, not to mention consequences themselves. This is the 1st case in liner sector, when modern ocean-going liner container vessel (built in Japan!) sank in the ocean after breaking in 2 parts, like a poorly built and managed bulk carrier or over aged coaster. Nothing like this ever occurred, and no one believed it was possible, even theoretically.

Drug cartels in Oregon: Violence in the Northwest. No one passing the Canby home took notice. Not the runners. Not the dog walkers. Not the kids riding by on bicycles. Then curiosity drew a 31-year-old landscaper who had come to the home just after sunset to help a friend move. Ivan Velasco Rodriguez poked the toolbox with a wooden rake handle. The pipe bomb lurking inside exploded. Metal shards flying at bullet speed fatally injured Velasco Rodriguez and slammed into surrounding homes. Pieces fell on roofs two blocks away. Canby police and federal agents swarmed the scene that night in December 2011. Who planted the booby trap that killed Velasco Rodriguez, a married father of four? And who was the intended target? Police made no arrests, and the crime faded from public view. But behind the scenes, federal law enforcement sources say, investigators reached a chilling conclusion: A Mexican drug cartel most likely commissioned the bomb to kill a witness who once listed the address as his own. Their suspicions deepened when they discovered the bombing was eerily similar to twin explosions in central Washington, where rigged devices killed two men hours apart in 2008. The findings, never before disclosed to the public, were uncovered by The Oregonian as part of a nine-month investigation into the astonishing reach of Mexican drug cartels in the Northwest. The Oregonian has learned that Mexican cartels, including the powerful Sinaloa and the brutal Los Zetas, have infiltrated almost every corner of Oregon. At last count, authorities were aware of no fewer than 69 drug trafficking organizations selling drugs in the state, nearly all supplied by cartels.

DaDenMan Show #153 - It's Your Life, Shouldn't It Be Your Choice? It's Your Life, Shouldn't It Be Your Choice?

Costa Rican Officials Break Up Israeli Organ Trafficking Ring -- Tablet Magazine. San Jose police on Wednesday arrested Dr. Francisco Mora Palma, head of nephrology at the large Calderon Guardia Hospital, and raided a number of medical laboratories and clinics suspected of carrying out tests for the network's doctors. Attorney General Jorge Chavarria said the two people arrested − Mora Palma and an employee at Costa Rica's Public Security Ministry − were the "tip of the iceberg" of the organ trafficking network. Mora Palma was in touch with Israeli doctors and tested the suitability of the local residents whose organs were to be harvested in Israel, the Attorney General's Office said. Israel's Health Ministry denied knowledge of the illegal surgeries. Legislation has been initiated to counteract the hesitation in Israel—particularly among the ultra-Orthodox—to consent to organ donation. In 2005, Dr. Jacob Lavee, a cardiothoracic surgeon in Tel Hashomer in Central Israel, had two Haredi transplant patients confide to him that while they would receive an organ donation, they would not return the favor. The experience led him to work on a law that would add nonmedical factors to organ transplant lists,

BREAKING NEWS: Republican Grover Norquist Speaks Out Against Drug War at SSDP Lobby Day. Gil and WeedMaps.TV paid a visit to the nation's capital this week, blazing a (figurative) trail through the White House, Lincoln Memorial, and America's history. Along the way, Gil met up with activists and saw the government's attempts at ending prohibition first hand. This video highlight came from Republican--yes, REPUBLICAN--Grover Norquist adamantly spoke out against the running joke that is the Drug War

Mom Knows Best: Pot Makes Us Better Parents! Cheryl Shuman, a cancer survivor, explained it was important for her to "come out of the closet as a corporate woman" who smoked pot. January Thomas told Morgan that a woman who smokes pot can still take care of children, considering a lot of other parents are on prescription drugs. Glenda Gurllen described how marijuana helped reduce her pain and anxiety. Morgan acknowledged that a lot of mothers watching would find all this "outrageous," but quickly pointed out that they would likely be saying so with a glass of wine in their hands. Amie Machado affirmed that marijuana is less harmful than alcohol and easier to control in some cases. Shuman added that no one dies of overdosing on pot, and bashed the "negative stereotype" the media likes to ascribe to pot smokers. The pot moms did say it's important to keep the marijuana safe and locked away where the kids can't get to them, but on the other hand, prescription drugs are a big problem for young people as well. Machado said that it's important to talk to have a conversation with kids about this. source:

Why It Matters To My Family That Hemp Is Legalized. DEA talking point memo (first broken by Ryan Grim at the Huffington Post), "It is true that, if given a choice, marijuana smokers will seek cannabis with a relatively high THC concentration over the type of cannabis typically grown for industrial purposes. However, as indicated, there is no guarantee that a cannabis plant grown for industrial purposes will not cause a psychoactive effect when smoked." Really? That has never happened, anywhere. Canada, in its 15 years of hemp legality, has not had a single problem with hemp used for psychoactive purposes, according to Anndrea Hermann, who tests hemp crops for the Canadian government. We Americans buy a half billon dollars of Canadian hemp products every year, and that number is growing 20% annually. We're just not allowed to grow it here. This kind of trade imbalance, which the turf-protecting DEA deciders are finally failing to encourage, is why the American colonies fought for independence from Britain. I should note here that, after three years of reporting from the Drug War's front lines, I believe the good men and women of the DEA are doing their best. I applaud efforts to stem the flow of dangerous drugs like cocaine and black market prescription pills. What's coming through here in the hemp discussion is my citizen anger at a government agency putting its budget ahead of the clear interests of the nation. Fighting tooth and nail to defend a ban on hemp is outrageous.

Researchers Find Smoking Cannabis Reduces Symptoms Of Parkinson's Disease. 20 patients, at an average of 66 years old, took part in a study, and scored an average of 33 on the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale prior to consuming cannabis. The score dropped to 24 just 30 minutes after smoking. Ruth Djaldetti, MD, of Tel Aviv University Israel, who recently presented the discovery at the International Congress on Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders, explained; "We not only saw improvement in tremor in these patients, but also in rigidity and in bradykinesia [slowness of movement cause by the disease]". The patients participating in the study started with an average tremor score of 7.5 on the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale, which was reduced to 3.5 after smoking cannabis. The average rigitity score started at 7.4, and dropped to 6.4, and the bradykinesia score began at 13.2 and was reduced to an average of 8.6. The study also found smoking cannabis to be effective for pain relief, resulting in better sleep. All of the patients in the study were already taking medications for pain, but were not getting the relief needed. "We saw a dramatic reduction in pain in our patients and in their ability to sleep", said Dr. Djaldetti. "When their pain was reduced, they slept better."

The latest Internet surveillance leaks demand a sea change in how we view our digital privacy - The Next Web. By 2010, two years after the project was first trialled, it was able to boast it had the "biggest internet access" of any member of the Five Eyes electronic eavesdropping alliance, comprising the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Meet the new NATO. Add into the mix that other nations with large cyber capabilities -- China, for one -- are also engaged in finding out as much as they can, and you have at least a half dozen countries firmly engaged in widespread surveillance. It would have been sufficiently egregious for any one country to take on the onus of collecting every individuals' activity, both Internet and phone. However, it appears that there has been a friendly digital armsrace among Western governments to toss their widebrims into the pervasive surveillance ring. This is a disgrace. That said, the current situation is a bit simple: We have no digital privacy, and would like some, please. I am no great technologist, and do not have a solution to offer. I can, however, say that the person who offers me functional protection from constant surveillance will have myself as a first customer. I'd happily double my Internet bill for privacy. And I think that you would too. However, in the interim, numerous governments likely have your porn habits stored on their computers. The British government treats email to and from information as metadata that it can mine, and so forth. The only real consolation prize in this is the simple fact that we are almost to a one massively boring, and thus the job of abusing our privacy must be quite the dull activity. That said, legal bastardization of founding documents alone, we as humans have a fundamental right to privacy of thought and the current surveillance activities cut at that; if you cannot research, discuss, and write privately, you will research, discuss and write differently. And unlike the Apple slogan this Think Different isn't good.

FOUR ARRESTED: 33 Lbs Of Meth Seized. A year-long investigation in south-east Iowa has ended with four men in custody and pounds of methamphetamine confiscated. Last Saturday, 33 pounds of methamphetamine was seized after search warrants were executed in Ottumwa and Newton. The haul had the potential value of hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was the culmination of a year of work for the southeast Iowa Inter-Agency Task Force. Along with the drug seizure, four suspects were taken into custody.

The NSA Spied On Barack Obama in 2004, Says Russ Tice - Business Insider. "In the summer of 2004, one of the papers that I held in my hand was to wiretap a bunch of numbers associated with a forty-some-year-old senator from Illinois. You wouldn't happen to know where that guy lives now would you? It's a big White House in Washington D.C. That's who the NSA went after. That's the President of the United States now." Tice added that he also saw orders to spy on Hillary Clinton, Senators John McCain and Diane Feinstein, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, Gen. David Petraeus, and a current Supreme Court Justice. That sounds like a lot of abuse of the rules that govern NSA domestic spying. And that's exactly what Tice is claiming. "The abuse is rampant and everyone is pretending that it's never happened, and it couldn't happen. ... I know [there was abuse] because I had my hands on the papers for these sorts of things: They went after high-ranking military officers; they went after members of congress — Senate and the House — especially on the intelligence committees and the armed services committees, lawyers, law firms, judges, State Department officials, part of the White House, multinational companies, financial firms, NGOs, civil rights groups ..." Tice told Sibel Edmonds' radio show that back in 2005 the NSA didn't have the processing power, infrastructure, and storage to collect everything, but a source inside the NSA today confirmed to him that increased capabilities allow the spy agency to copy "every domestic communication in this country, word for word, content, every phone conversation, every email — they are collecting everything in bulk and putting it in databases."

Saturday, June 22, 2013

First medical marijuana school in Nevada opens. Institute founder Robert Calkin says his school educates would-be entrepreneurs on all aspects of the medical marijuana business, including how to grow marijuana legally and bake it into brownies, cookies and cakes. The school's opening comes as Nevada lawmakers consider a bill that would provide a way for patients to finally get the drug 13 years after Nevada voters approved use of medical marijuana. The measure cleared its first hurdle Thursday as the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved it. The bill calls for the establishment and regulation of pot dispensaries. "It's coming," Calkin told the Las Vegas Sun. "Nevada has always been cutting-edge socially and politically. It was ahead of other states on gambling and prostitution, and (marijuana) is a lot less problematic. Nevada appears to be on the cusp of approving it." A bill to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in the Silver State died Friday in an Assembly committee without a vote. The institute has held similar workshops in other cities across the U.S., and more than 1,500 people hold certificates from it. But Calkin acknowledges a federal law prohibiting the growth and sale of Advertisement marijuana poses a problem for the business. No state law will prevent federal authorities from sending owners of pot dispensaries to prison. "We know that (because of) federal laws, no matter what we do in the realm of medical marijuana, it is illegal," he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "Hopefully in the future, that will evolve."

Edward Snowden charged with espionage - (Even though The real criminals are the accusers.) The real criminals are the accusers. No amount of mudslinging or lies can cover up the criminality that Snowden has exposed. The young whistleblower is being charged as a spy for revealing the biggest spying operation in American history. The documents released to date by Snowden expose spying programs that seize the records of all phone calls made in the US, allowing the government to quickly determine the social and political connections of every person in the country. Other programs intercept and store billions of Internet communications, which are made accessible without a warrant to US spy agencies. These programs directly violate the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, which bans warrantless searches and seizures. On Friday, the day the charges were filed, the Guardian reported new documents showing that the UK government is directly accessing the communications, emails, Facebook messages and Internet history of tens of millions of people for examination by government agencies in both the United States and Britain. These revelations show that top government officials in both countries—including President Obama himself—have lied deliberately and repeatedly. There is more than enough evidence for impeachment proceedings. The government has rushed to extradite and jail or kill Snowden because it knows he has thus far revealed only a portion of the vast police state apparatus it is concealing from the population.

McConnell: 'Absurd' to Ban Corporations From Having Same Rights as 'People'. Speaking to the conservative American Enterprise Institute, McConnell accused President Barack Obama's administration of using a "culture of intimidation" to stifle free speech. Following the remarks, the Washington Free Beacon's Lachlan Markay asked McConnell for his thoughts on a constitutional amendment proposed by Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) to clarify that corporations are not "people" and restore Congress' ability to limit corporate influence in elections. "Well you have to give them some points for not hiding it," McConnell quipped. "They are uncomfortable with corporate free speech obviously." "They were not uncomfortable with corporate free speech when corporations that owned newspapers or television stations were engaging in it. They only become uncomfortable with it when the Supreme Court said, why should there be a carve out for corporations that own the media outlet and for no one else?" The Kentucky Republican concluded: "Its an absurd proposal and it won't go anywhere."

A life sentence ... for pot? - Salon.com. The top federal prosecutor in Montana — Mike Cotter, the U.S. attorney appointed by President Obama in 2009 — then charged the growers, their greenhouse workers, their bookkeepers, some of their spouses, and even their landlords who had simply provided buildings to the growers with decades in prison and in some cases virtual life sentences, all under federal drug trafficking statutes. Now Cotter is breaking his silence and speaking publicly, for the first time, about his two-year crusade to shutter the medical marijuana industry and put its practitioners behind bars, in many cases for life sentences. And he is mincing no words. He says that pot has no medical value at all, for anyone, and that if you think otherwise, you are a sucker who has been duped "by slick Madison Avenue marketing" employed by pot dealers. He says pot is a dangerous drug and growing it is a federal crime that must be punished. The opposite of what doctors have long believed about the benefits of marijuana for many patients, these comments go a long way in explaining much of what happened in Montana over the last two years. When Cotter charged these citizens in 2011, he gave no credence to a very basic protest that they all made: they'd been assured in writing, by Eric Holder, the U.S. attorney general, that they could grow medical marijuana and the feds wouldn't prosecute them. The defendants pointed to dozens of statements made by Holder and even the president, and specifically the now-infamous Ogden Memo. This was a publicly released document in 2009 document, written by David Ogden, Eric Holder's deputy, that instructed federal law enforcement officers nationwide to leave medical marijuana growers alone as long as they were abiding by state law. This memo was reported in the national press, and local papers too, as a virtual ceding of jurisdiction by the federal government. "U.S. Won't Prosecute in States that Have Medical Marijuana," heralded a New York Times headline.

Washington LCB Reconsiders Allowing Outdoor Marijuana Growing, Hash & Dabs. Some officials have expressed concern that the logo could be interpreted as an endorsement of marijuana by the state. Advocates are hopeful that state lawmakers can quickly tweak the law to allow concentrates if the LCB is unable to allow them initially. Board members agreed that if unable to allow concentrates now, they would be receptive to the idea if the law was changed. "These are the initial rules to get this industry up and running," said McCall, acknowledging that the recreational marijuana industry is just beginning to take shape. "These are not the last rules." Advocates offered an alternative solution: make clear that concentrates, infused with a small amount of inert oil, would qualify as legal, as long as they weren't 100 percent concentrates. The final change proposed to regulators was the use of a proposed Washington State marijuana logo, which features a marijuana leaf in the center of a green Washington state map. Some officials have expressed concern that the logo could be interpreted as an endorsement of marijuana by the state. Board members said the logo was intended to be easily recognized, so that parents could quickly see if minors were holding an adult marijuana product. They are now considering developing an alternative logo. The final proposed rules and regulations are expected July 3.

Review Reveals Radiation Risk Models Underestimate Harms of Exposure. On May 22 InTech (http://www.intechopen.com) published a review of evidence that DNA damage caused by inhaling and ingesting man-made radioactivity is having serious health effects. This is the first time such a wide-ranging review of the genetic mechanisms of harm from nuclear discharges has been published in the scientific literature. The review, by Professor Chris Busby, is entitled "Aspects of DNA damage from internal radiation exposures" [1]. It is in a book called "New Research Directions in DNA Repair".[2] It vindicates the belief that incorporated (internal) radioactivity is more dangerous than predicted by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). Much of the information reviewed has been in the literature for decades but has been sidelined or ignored.

USDA Organic Infant Formula Contains Pesticide Labeled As A "Nutrient" Infant formula, like no other food, is regulated by its own law, the Infant Formula Act of 1980 as amended in 1986. The act sets lower limits on 29 nutrients (so-called "table nutrients" because they appear in table form. U.S. Code of Federal Regulations 21 CFR 107.100). . . . Manufacturers are required to follow "good manufacturing practice," but no requirement for sterility is specified. . . . Powdered formula is not guaranteed nor required to be free of pathogenic organisms (Baker, 2002). Another researcher opined on the topic: "If we assess formula by its results, rather than by whether its ingredients matched a specific list, we would have to conclude that there has never been an infant formula that would "satisfy," by itself, the nutritional requirements of infants during the first months of life." [1] Essentially, the only thing infant formula does is keep children alive, and hopefully growing at a pace deemed acceptable by pediatric clinical growth standards. But even infant formula's ability to 'keep children alive' is increasingly coming into question. A recent review published in Archives of Diseases in Childhood revealed a disturbing statistic: Currently, suboptimal breastfeeding is associated with over a million deaths each year and 10% of the global disease burden in children.[2] Considering this estimate, a fair question to ask is how much of this mortality burden is caused solely by a lack of breastfeeding/breast milk, and how much of this is being caused by the formula itself? There is no denying that a sizable body of clinical and epidemiological research now exists proving that breastfeeding prevents at least 70 health conditions in breastfed infants, and that infant formula contributes to or causes 57 adverse health conditions, making the widespread promotion of infant formula in the US all the more troubling. But, what may be most disturbing of all, is what ingredients are actually being put into these so-called breast milk alternatives, and under the ostensibly 'pure' and 'healthy' banner of the USDA organic label.

BREAKING: FBI Calls Destruction of GMO Sugar Beets in Oregon. When Monsanto's unapproved and therefore illegal GM wheat is found years after open field trials growing freely in an Oregon wheat field, the entire state crop's export fate is held in limbo, jeopardizing the present and future living of thousands of farmers and their dependents, with Monsanto receiving little more than a reprimand, followed by rapid USDA assurance that despite a lack of approval their GM wheat is "safe." Given the unfair rules of the game, no wonder some folks in Oregon, having been treated much like feudal peasants lately, are taking things quite literally into their own hands. So, when the FBI investigates the destruction of genetically modified sugar beets from two fields in Southern Oregon's Jackson County this month, the act is immediately labeled "economic sabotage," presumably against the multinational corporation who owned the plants. How fitting an FBI description, considering that Monsanto already planted these 'evil seeds' of doubt by suggesting their unapproved GM wheat in Oregon was a result of sabotage, and not negligence (or intentional contamination) on their part. According to the Spokesman Review, "The agency [FBI] said in a statement Thursday that about 1,000 sugar beet plants were destroyed on June 8, and more than 5,000 plants were destroyed on a different plot three nights later."

Ex-Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling's Prison Sentence Reduced To 14 Years. Former Enron Corp Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling's near decade-long quest to prove he did nothing wrong at the once high-flying energy-trading behemoth ended on Friday when a federal judge shaved 10 years off of his prison sentence. U.S. District Judge Simeon Lake reduced his term to 14 years from 24 years, accepting a deal struck between prosecutors and Skilling's lawyers that will end years of appeals. Under the deal, more than $40 million of Skilling's fortune, which has been frozen since his conviction in 2006, will be distributed to victims of Enron's collapse. In May of that year, a jury had convicted Skilling of 19 counts of conspiracy, securities fraud, insider trading and lying to auditors for his role in maintaining a facade of success as Enron's energy business crumbled. Enron founder Kenneth Lay also was found guilty of multiple counts of conspiracy and fraud. He died of heart failure six weeks after the trial ended, prompting Lake to throw out the conviction. Skilling's resentencing had been pending since 2009, when a federal appeals court ruled that Lake wrongly added years to his sentence because Skilling's actions had jeopardized a financial institution.

WA Delegation To Feds: Clarity On Marijuana Legalization. Frustrated by a lack of federal response and political leaderships seven members of the Washington's congressional delegation have written a letter to the Obama Administration (specifically Attorney General Holder, who told Congress in public testimony months ago that the administration would have public statements "soon") seeking guidance and clarity. The members of the Senate and Congress who've signed the letter are both Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, as well as Representatives Adam Smith, Jim McDermott, Suzan DelBene, Denny Heck and Derek Kilmer. Apparent opponents of reform, Representatives Rick Larsen, Dave Reichert, Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Doc Hastings did not sign onto the letter.

Research Finds Cannabis Helpful In Treating Sleep Apnea. Here's the entire abstract from the study, which has been published by the National Institute of Health: Study Objective: Animal data suggest that Δ(9)-TetraHydroCannabinol (Δ(9)THC) stabilizes autonomic output during sleep, reduces spontaneous sleep-disordered breathing, and blocks serotonin-induced exacerbation of sleep apnea. On this basis, we examined the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of dronabinol (Δ(9)THC), an exogenous Cannabinoid type 1 and type 2 (CB1 and CB2) receptor agonist in patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA). Design and Setting: Proof of concept; single-center dose-escalation study of dronabinol. Participants: Seventeen adults with a baseline Apnea Hypopnea Index (AHI) ≥15/h. Baseline polysomnography (PSG) was performed after a 7-day washout of Continuous Positive Airway Pressure treatment. Intervention: Dronabinol was administered after baseline PSG, starting at 2.5 mg once daily. The dose was increased weekly, as tolerated, to 5 mg and finally to 10 mg once daily. Measurements and Results: Repeat PSG assessments were performed on nights 7, 14, and 21 of dronabinol treatment. Change in AHI (ΔAHI, mean ± SD) was significant from baseline to night 21 (-14.1 ± 17.5; p = 0.007). No degradation of sleep architecture or serious adverse events was noted. Conclusion: Dronabinol treatment is safe and well-tolerated in OSA patients at doses of 2.5-10 mg daily and significantly reduces AHI in the short-term. These findings should be confirmed in a larger study in order to identify sub-populations with OSA that may benefit from cannabimimetic pharmacologic therapy.

Medical Marijuana Absurdities In Michigan: Patients Can't Share Medicine. Tony, a legal patient, gave some of his marijuana (less than 2.5 ounces) to Al, a legal patient. Somehow, police become involved. They do not arrest Al, for he is now holding less than 2.5 ounces of marijuana, but they do arrest Tony, for giving Al less than 2.5 ounces of marijuana. Now, isn't that silly? Tony can sit around puffing joint after joint of his 2.5 ounces. Al could sit right next to him and do the same. But if either of them pass a joint to the other, it's a crime? The Barry County Circuit Judge agreed that was silly. Section 4 of the MMMA clearly allows patients to have 2.5 ounces. They were both legal patients. The judge dismissed the marijuana delivery charge against Tony. Prosecutors appealed the dismissal. As they read Section 4, they could only find protection for Tony's and Al's possession of marijuana. They didn't see anything protecting the delivery of marijuana. The Court of Appeals, however, upheld the Barry County judge's dismissal, writing, "the MMMA does not place any restrictions on the transfer or delivery of marijuana between adult patients, and we decline to read any such restriction into the act." Unfortunately for Tony, the Supreme Court of Michigan disagreed. They have now reinstated the delivery charges against Tony. The Court relies on its February decision in the case of Michigan v. McQueen where they held, "immunity does not extend to a registered qualifying patient who transfers marijuana to another registered qualifying patient for the transferee's use because the transferor is not engaging in conduct related to marijuana for the purpose of relieving the transferor's own condition or symptoms."

Cannabinoid Could Cut Down On Anti-Inflammatory Drug Induced Hospitalizations. Could these adverse gastrointestinal effects be offset by cannabis? A just published study in the European Journal of Pharmacology indicates that the most likely answer is 'yes.' Researchers at West Virginia University assessed the impact of THC administration in an animal model of NSAID-induced gastric inflammation. Investigators reported that low doses of THC provided gastroprotective effects, significantly attenuating gastric hemorrhages and lesions. They concluded: "The results of the present study suggest that delta-9-THC ... may also possess gastroprotective effects in NSAID using patients. ... As current antacid regimens may be associated with undesirable effects, such as reduced bone density, increased risk of bacterial infection, and vitamin deficiencies, other approaches to prevent NSAID-induced gastric ulcers are needed. In addition to their gastroprotective effects, cannabinoids produce other beneficial effects, including pain reduction. ... Thus, cannabinoids may have the added benefit of reducing the effective analgesic dose of NSAIDs, as well as reducing the incidence of NSAID-induced gastric ulcers."

Dirty Weed Is Poisoning the Emerald Triangle. Dirty in the greenest sense. Not only can growing cannabis be a massive electricity suck. Now more than ever, as legalization spreads, unregulated outdoor weed farms in Northern California, long the fertile crescent of US bud, are simultaneously fouling up and depleting rivers and watersheds. The unsavory environmental impact of these grows, the most dirtiest of which are tended by drug cartels, is nothing new, but a piece today in the New York Times paints it clearly: Hilltops have been leveled to make room for the crop. Bulldozers start landslides on erosion-prone mountainsides. Road and dam construction clogs some streams with dislodged soil. Others are bled dry by diversions. Little water is left for salmon whose populations have been decimated by logging. And it's not just salmon. Increasingly, fertilizer runoff and wood-rat poisons like d-Con have been showing up in post-mortem analyses of rare Pacific fischers and endangered spotted owls. Data on the true scope of such dirty grows--problem children for lifers who swear by sun-grown product, and nothing else--is still hard to come by. Humboldt State University sociology lecturer Anthony Silvaggio offers some anecdotal evidence in a Google Earth flyover, as seen above. But here are another 113,664 reasons to clean up our act.

Marijuana Accounts For Vast Majority Of Drug Seizures On Mexican Border (INFOGRAPHIC). Marijuana accounted for 99.5 percent of Border Patrol drug seizures by weight at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2011, according to an analysis by Center for Investigative Reporting in California, which compiled the information into to an interactive map on its website. It's a pretty skewed figure. The Border Patrol seized at least 1.9 million pounds of marijuana on the U.S.-Mexico border in 2011. Second place goes to cocaine, with just 7,461 pounds seized. We tried to visualize it for you in a pie graph, but all the other drugs came out too small to read. We did this instead:

Friday, June 21, 2013

Russia's 'SOPA' Passed By Lawmakers, Site Blocking Begins "In Weeks". The proposals would see copyright holders filing lawsuits against sites carrying infringing content. Site owners would then be required to remove unauthorized content or links to the same within 72 hours. Failure to do so would result in their entire site being blocked by Internet service providers pending the outcome of a court hearing. Last Friday, 257 lawmakers in Russia's State Duma voted in favor of the bill during its first hearing, despite outcry from Internet giants such as Google, and Yandex, the country's largest search engine. It was hoped that amendments proposed by the tech giants aimed at making the legislation less punishing on innovation could be introduced before the bill's second and third readings. Today those hopes were dashed when lawmakers fast-tracked the bill and had both readings in one day. The result is a law that allows copyright holders to complain directly to the courts if infringing material is found, even without first contacting the website in question. If the rightsholder wins his case and the content remains, the site's IP address will be blacklisted by Russian ISPs.

AT&T Verizon Fees: The Duopoly is about to squeeze subscribers. One trend illustrated by Sharma is strikingly ominous: the revenue American operators derive from new subscribers has dropped to just 2% of their overall sales. In the year 2000, it was still over 20%. This means that there is no sales growth to be had from chasing new customers; all the upside is now in squeezing more money from existing subscribers. The new family plans pushed so hard by leading carriers effectively lock in entire households for good. Once you have two to four people on one family plan, switching carriers becomes prohibitively cumbersome. Smartphone ownership in America has now topped 85%, soaring far above the global average of 50%. So AT&T and Verizon have increased their market share decisively since 2009; they no longer get meaningful revenue from new subscribers, so they don't need to offer attractive new price plans; they no longer can increase sales by pulling feature phone buyers into smartphones; and they are successfully locking people into near-permanent family plans. The only road to revenue growth is now increasing the monthly bills of existing smartphone subscribers. That's you and me.

Michael Hastings' Wife Obliterates New York Times For Dismissive Obituary. ut the notion that McChrystal was somehow "cleared" in this matter is a story to which the Times has long tried to stick. When the inspector general's report was first released, the Times headlined it: "Pentagon Inquiry Into Article Clears McChrystal and Aides." It did no such thing. That said, it's unclear whether the Times' reaction to Hastings' story is rooted in professional jealousy or a knee-jerk defense of the establishment. The inspector general's report said it could not confirm some elements of Hastings' reporting, but that was to be expected. Hastings quotes the general and his aides making disparaging remarks about their civilian superiors. Such people would be unlikely to acknowledge having said such things, especially considering that Hastings allowed some of them to remain nameless. Jordan did not take kindly to the Times' remembrance, and in an email to Times' editor Jill Abramson, asked the paper correct its report before printing it in the morning paper. Abramson sent the note to Bill McDonald, obituaries editor, who rejected the request.

Toke Signals with Steve Elliott. "John Davis said that turning medical over to the LCB is the only way to save medical," Sarich said. "Then, by that reasoning, getting arrested is the only way to stay out of jail. How can you write regulations for medical cannabis if using the word 'medical' is a crime (according to the LCB)?" Scars in Washington's cannabis community still run deep, with last fall's acrimonious I-502 campaign still a source of division. Many within the medical marijuana community still wonder why Washington NORML and other organizations were so quick to endorse the measure when there were clearly serious concerns — from the beginning — about its impact on safe access for patients. "I didn't care when NORML labeled me a prohibitionist for opposing I-502," commented Northwest Leaf publisher Wes Abney. "But for that same marijuana lobby to say that medical cannabis should be controlled by the Liquor Control Board shows the lobby's true colors." "If you can't attend the rally, please contact your two Representatives and your Senator," Sarich said. Here's where you can go to find out who they are and how to contact them: http://app.leg.wa.gov/DistrictFinder/

Dope Life Insurance For The Chronic Pot Consumer. Applicants who already have a life insurance policy in force may be paying unnecessarily high rates. Each company's insurance underwriters view the use of marijuana differently. Don't let your clients pay high life insurance premiums if less expensive alternatives are available.

Feds Move To Snuff Out Medical Marijuana - Forbes. Although more and more states have legalized medical marijuana, including the most recent entrant, Massachusetts, "legal" has become an ambiguous term. The state's marijuana businesses, like those in all the other states, face legal and tax problems. Colorado and Washington have even legalized recreational use. There are tax problems there too. Why? Because even legal dispensaries are drug traffickers to the feds. Section 280E of the tax code denies them tax deductions, even for legitimate business costs. Of all the federal enforcement efforts, taxes hurt most. "The federal tax situation is the biggest threat to businesses and could push the entire industry underground," the leading trade publication for the marijuana industry reports. One answer is for dispensaries to deduct other expenses distinct from dispensing marijuana. If a dispensary sells marijuana and is in the separate business of care-giving, the care-giving expenses are deductible. If only 10% of the premises are used to dispense marijuana, most of the rent is deductible. Good record-keeping is essential. See Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Persist Despite Tax Obstacles.

New documents reveal parameters of NSA's secret surveillance programs. The papers, made available to The Washington Post and Britain's Guardian newspaper, are the first public written documentation of procedures governing a far-reaching NSA surveillance program authorized by Congress in 2008 to gather the e-mails and phone calls of targets who are supposed to be foreigners located overseas. In recent days, the Obama administration has defended the program as critical to national security, saying it has helped foil more than 50 terrorist plots in the United States and abroad. President Obama said after the disclosures that NSA domestic activities "do not involve listening to people's phone calls, do not involve reading the e-mails of U.S. citizens or U.S. residents, absent further action by a federal court, that is entirely consistent with what we would do, for example, in a criminal investigation." The new documents show that the NSA collects, processes, retains and disseminates the contents of Americans' phone calls and e-mails under a wide range of circumstances.

In prison for pot, woman becomes vicitim of "rape camp". In July 2010 a woman known only as J. A. S. was arrested in Texas for possession of marijuana. After a brief stay in another facility she was transferred to the Live Oak County Jail where she was immediately selected for abuse by the predatory guards. "(S)he 'belong[ed] to [them]' and was their 'sex slave or whatever they wanted her to be'," cites the official criminal complaint per an article on AlterNet. The official complaint lists the crimes in disgusting detail, including the sexual acts J. A. S. was forced to perform on the guards, on herself and on at least one other inmate. The listing is shocking in nature and sickening to read but underscores the horrific nature of the abuse inflicted upon the two women involved in the current lawsuit. To read the detailed account of the crimes please click HERE. The rapes continued into August 2010, when J. A. S. was forced into a cell with another inmate, J. M. N., who was regularly victimized by all three of the convicted guards. After forcing the women to "give them a show" of lesbianism, per the Complaint, the women were forced to service at least two guards. Shortly afterwards one of the women was taken for medical treatment and reported the rapes, which triggered an investigation. The guard's criminal acts were empowered by the system. The guards had been so brazen as to fondle the women in front of a licensed nurse, to brag about their conquests, to openly engage in certain abuses while they were knowingly on camera and to conduct this behavior while other guards knew about it. Camera placement in the prison was so lax the guards knew exactly where to take the women for unrecorded sex. Abuses happened while the guards were part of a four-man guard detail, making it seemingly impossible for the actions to take place without the knowledge of others. The female prisoners were assigned all-male guard details. Sexual acts were witnessed by others but never reported.

Americans: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid -- Just Not About Terrorism by David Franke. I don't recall Monk ever mentioning a fear of terrorism. Fear of milk, fear of ladybugs, fear of harmonicas, fear of food touching on his plate, yes. But don't worry -- you can be more rational than Monk in compiling your list. I'm going to give you a list of 18 types of fatal accidents and killings, and 41 health problems and diseases that are more of a real threat to you than terrorism. My sources are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its National Vital Statistics Reports. You can't get more Establishment-vetted than that. Oh, I think you should be concerned about terrorism -- just not obsessive-compulsive about it. And most Americans do seem to be obsessed about it. That is no accident. Since 9-11, the Bush and Obama administrations have done everything they can to make Americans so scared of terrorism that they are willing to give up their freedoms and their Constitution for supposed security at the hands of government bureaucrats. (And, thanks to Edward Snowden's revelations, we know how much they can do to us law-abiding citizens, and thanks to the Boston Marathon bombings, what they cannot do despite those powers -- namely, prevent terrorism.)

Calgary mayor to flood evacuees: 'Gather your valuables and go' - Calgary - CBC News. "The message tonight is that we are still expecting that the worst has not yet come in terms of the flow," Nenshi told CBC News early Friday in a telephone interview from an emergency operations centre. "The dams will crest on both the Bow and Elbow river over the course of the next little while and the downstream impacts will be significant. "If you live in any of the neighbourhoods that have now been affected by the mandatory evacuation it is time to leave. Gather your valuables and go," said Nenshi, who returned early from an economic development trip in Ontario to deal with the flooding response. The flooding in parts of southern Alberta has a dozen communities under a state of emergency, and in Calgary evacuations could affect up to 100,000 people. Officials in Calgary have warned residents to brace the worst flooding since 2005, with the swollen Bow and Elbow rivers expected to crest by 6 a.m. MT.

NSA Whistleblower Russ Tice Alleges NSA Wiretapped Barack Obama as Senate Candidate - YouTube. "In this bombshell episode of the Boiling Frogs Post Podcast Show NSA whistleblower Russ Tice joins us to go on record for the first time with new revelations and the names of official culprits involved in the NSA's illegal practices. Mr. Tice explains in detail how the National Security Agency targets, sucks-in, stores and analyzes illegally obtained content from the masses in the United States. He contradicts officials and the mainstream media on the status of the NSA's Utah facility, which is already operating and "On-Line." He reveals the NSA as a Deep State that targets and wiretaps US political candidates for its own purposes. We discuss the latest controversies involving the NSA, PRISM, Edward Snowden, and the spins and lies that are being floated by the US mainstream and pseudo-alternative media

The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Global Corporate Coup, Assault on Democracy and National Sovereignty. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a global corporate coup that makes corporations more powerful than governments and undermines our national sovereignty. While the public and media are not allowed to see the text, and members of Congress only receive limited, heavily restricted access, 600 corporations have been advising the president and suggesting amendments as they have full access to the documents. This includes some of America's worst corporate citizens: Monsanto, Walmart, Bank of America, JP Morgan, Phiser and big Pharma, Cargill, Exxon-Mobil, Chevron among them. The Green Shadow Cabinet is putting forward a critical, in-depth analysis of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (see links below). Top people in their fields -- movement leaders, academics, researchers and activists -- are writing about specific aspects of the TPP and how it affects virtually every aspect of American life. The Green Shadow Cabinet is about half way through its analysis with more statements coming over the rest of the week and into the next two weeks. This is the type of in-depth analysis we need from people informed on the topic so that the public becomes informed and joins the campaign to stop the TPP. Some members of Congress are making their way through the bureaucratic process that allows them to see the text, but does not allow their staff to do so, nor does it allow elected officials to make copies, take notes with paper or computer; and they are not allowed to share it with their constituents. It took Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) six weeks of negotiation with the US Trade Representative to finally got to review the text on June 17th. He was only allowed to see an edited version of the text and was not allowed to bring any staff with him.

The War on Drugs Is Worse Than NSA Spying - Reason.com. In their arrogance, they assume that only they solve social problems. They will solve them by banning this and that, subsidizing groups they deem worthy and setting up massive bureaucracies with a mandate to cure, treat and rescue wayward souls. Their programs fail, and so they pass new laws to address the failures. It's one reason that 22 million people now work for government. Some of the things they do seem like bigger assaults on our freedom than NSA spying, although we've become accustomed to the older abuses. Take the drug war. It's true that some Americans destroy their lives and their families' lives by using drugs. Others struggle with addiction. But if illegal drugs are as horrible and addictive as we've been told, how come the government's own statistics say millions try those drugs but only a small percentage continue using? Ninety-five percent of those who have tried what we think of as "hard drugs" report not using the substances in the past month. Columbia University psychology professor Dr. Carl Hart, author of "High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery," says "hard" drugs are not as dangerous as the media make them out to be. For 15 years, he's studied the effects of marijuana, methamphetamine, crack cocaine and more on users. "The data simply shows that the vast majority of people who use these drugs don't go on to become addicted," he said on my show. "In fact, some of these people go on to become president."

FISA court orders allow data storage without a warrant. While strict rules exist on how data on US citizens is collected and stored, these FISA court orders seem to give the NSA a method to store data on Americans even if it was not the intended target. While most data collected in this way is destroyed, the court orders spell out how it can be kept for use in investigations. According to documents obtained by the Guardian, the data can be retained if it contains "significant foreign intelligence information," "believed to contain evidence of a crime that has been, is being, or about to be committed," addresses a security vulnerability, or contains information on "a serious threat to life or property". These conditions apply to both information on those suspected of a crime, as well as the "inadvertent" data collection. The latest leaks directly conflict with statements made by President Obama and members of his Administration since the first FISA court orders leaked two weeks ago. As recently as Monday, Obama himself said contents of phone calls and emails were not collected without a warrant. Only general information was supposedly collected, the President told PBS' Charlie Rose in a sit-down interview. While this may be the case for data where the NSA knows the person is located in the US, if the agency cannot determine the person's location, the FISA court orders state that it is permissible to treat the person as if they were outside of the country. That means the contents of the calls or emails are indeed permissible to listen in on, regardless of Fourth Amendment protections.

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum Continues To Support Sensible Cannabis Laws. One of my proudest political activism moments was when Mr. Holton decried the National Cannabis Coalition for helping bring in "national weed money" to his opponent. Judge Rosenblum's victory over Dwight Holton was one of the most joyous nights of my life and one that the Oregon cannabis community certainly won't forget. After handedly defeating Holton in the primary, Judge Rosenblum then cruised to victory in the general election against her Republican opponent. The cannabis community's support of now-Attorney General Rosenblum has paid dividends as she has expressed her support of House Bill 3460, a measure that will establish licensed and regulated medical cannabis dispensaries in the state. The bill currently sits before the Joint Ways & Means Committee after a successful sub-committee vote. The AG's endorsement comes at a crucial time as the legislative session will likely come to an end by July 1st. If the bill can pass the Ways & Means Committee with majorities from both the Senate and House members that comprise the joint committee, the bill will go to a vote on the floor of each chamber.

Oregon Committee Approves Measure Legalizing Medical Cannabis Dispensaries. In Oregon, qualified patients are authorized to possess and consume cannabis, but safe access points remain illegal, forcing most patients to obtain their medicine through the black-market. House Bill 3460 would solve this problem by making these access points legal, as long as they become licensed by the state and follow certain regulations such as testing for mold and pesticides. Medical cannabis advocates in Oregon should be contacting their district's legislators, urging them to support House Bill 3460.

FBI: 'Economic sabotage' of GMO beets. The FBI reported Thursday that the two damaged plots were located on private farmland leased to the Switzerland-based agribusiness giant Syngenta. On June 8, about 1,000 plants were destroyed on one property. On June 11, another 5,500 plants were destroyed on another. The sabotage occurred during the night, the FBI said. "It was done by hand, by one or more people who essentially went through the field under the cover of darkness and left the plants destroyed," said Paul Minehart, a Syngenta spokesman. A financial estimate of the damage was not disclosed, although the FBI described it as a "significant" amount. "There have been anti-bio groups throughout the state of Oregon, so that's a consideration for us in terms of who could be responsible," Minehart said. "To my knowledge, this is the first time someone has deliberately taken the cowardly step of uprooting high value plants growing in our state," Oregon Department of Agriculture Director Katy Coba said in a statement. "Regardless of how one feels about biotechnology, there is no justification for committing these crimes and it is not the kind of behavior we expect to see in Oregon agriculture."

AMA declares obesity a disease. The nation's largest physicians group agreed to support legislation that would require classes in causes, consequences and prevention of obesity for first through 12th graders. Doctors will be encouraged to volunteer their time to help with that under the new policy adopted on the final day of the AMA's annual policymaking meeting. Another new policy adopted Wednesday says the AMA supports the idea of using revenue from taxes on sugar-sweetened sodas as one way to help pay for obesity-fighting programs. But the group stopped short of fully endorsing such taxes. Some doctors think soda taxes would disproportionately hurt the poor and disadvantaged. Others said taxes shouldn't be used to force people to make healthful decisions they should be making on their own. Doctors at the meeting shared sobering statistics and personal stories in urging the AMA to sharpen its focus on obesity prevention. "I can't tell you the number of 40-pound 1-year-olds I see every day," Dr. Melissa Garretson, a Stephensville, Texas pediatrician, told the delegates before Wednesday's vote. She said requiring obesity education "is a great idea." The measure was drafted by the AMA's Pennsylvania delegation. It cited data showing that more than 300 million people worldwide are obese and said requiring nutrition education to prevent obesity has never been proposed.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Michael Hastings' Body Identified; LAPD Says No Signs Of Foul Play. It had been widely presumed that the body that had been found in the fatal accident in the city's Hancock Park district was that of Hastings, who died at 33. Though reports said that the body had been burned beyond recognition, the Associated Press said that the coroner had matched his fingerprints to prints that the FBI had on file. Since Hastings' tragic death, a variety of conspiracy theories have emerged, suggesting that his uncompromising reporting and clashes with powerful government figures had made him a target. However, the Los Angeles Police Department told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday that there did not appear to be any signs of foul play in the accident. The Times said that officials were trying to figure out whether there had been a mechanical failure in the car.

Skype Provided Backdoor Access to the NSA Before Microsoft Takeover [NYT]. It appears that US intelligence agencies have insisted that local software companies must cooperate closer with the NSA, so it asked several top vendors, including Skype, to put together secret teams to develop systems that would provide them with backdoor access to users' conversations. The source claims that the NSA wanted "to control the process themselves" and thus skip the process of contacting the parent company and asking for details on select user accounts. This is how Skype Project Chess was born. "Less than a dozen people inside Skype" have been asked to develop a hidden system that would allow the NSA to access conversations and user details at any time. Skype officially joined the PRISM program on February 6, 2011, so it's believed that the backdoor access system was already up and running at that time, more than half a year before the Microsoft acquisition was completed. It's not yet confirmed, but it appears that those tools have already been removed from Skype, as part of Microsoft's network updates over the years. Tipsters, on the other hand, claim that companies involved in this NSA secret plan have kept the monitoring systems to "control the process themselves." The interesting thing is that Microsoft is now refusing to comment on this report, even though the company has often denied stories claiming that Skype calls can be wiretapped. The only thing we got from Microsoft in the PRISM scandal is the public statement rolled out this month and claiming that it never provides user details to the government on a voluntary basis.

Group apologizes to gay community, then shuts down 'cure' ministry. "Exodus is an institution in the conservative Christian world, but we've ceased to be a living, breathing organism," said Alan Chambers, the president of Exodus. "For quite some time, we've been imprisoned in a worldview that's neither honoring toward our fellow human beings, nor biblical." Chambers, who has a wife and children and previously identified as gay, has acknowledged that he has "ongoing same-sex attractions." Granderson: Oops, I left my sexual orientation at home

Amazon is staffing up for its $600 million cloud for spooks -- Quartz. One thing that's mysterious, and possibly telling, about Amazon's job announcement for a "Systems Engineer—Government Cleared" is that the location of this job—Herndon, Virginia—may or may not coincide with the location of the CIA's own cloud computing centers. CIA headquarters is in Langley, but Herndon, about 15 miles to the west, is also thought to be home to a CIA building. Amazon's original contract with the CIA required Amazon to physically place the servers required inside CIA facilities, according to the GAO. (Amazon has a data center of its own in Ashburn, another 8 miles or so further northwest of Herndon.) Amazon's existing private cloud for the US government, called GovCloud, appears to have its servers on the West Coast, which already handles less sensitive matters like streaming video to the public from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover. While Amazon's systems engineers can and often do work from any of the company's offices, accessing servers remotely, if Amazon is hiring specifically in Herndon, Virginia, it suggests that it's building systems—either yet to be announced, or within the CIA's own data centers—right there.

LinkedIn DNS hijacked, traffic rerouted for an hour, and users' cookies read in plain text. App.net co-founder Bryan Berg noticed that LinkedIn was DNS hijacked tonight, and that traffic was re-routed to a shady India-based site, http://www.confluence-networks.com. That's bad for LinkedIn, but there's worse news for you. According to Berg, that site does not require SSL (secure sockets layer), which means that anyone who visited in the last hour or so sent it their long-lived session cookies in plaintext ... a potential security risk. DNS hijacking is the process of redirecting a domain name to a different IP address. IP addresses are strings of numbers that identify a server, but are long and hard to remember. The DNS system allows us to use simple, easy-to-remember names like http://www.linkedin.com, and then translates them to IP address like 216.52.242.86. (You can also use that IP address, by the way, in your browser.) You can hijack a company's DNS on the client-side by hacking individual computers' network configurations, on the internet side by hacking a DNS server, or installing a rogue DNS server that masquerades as a real DNS server. Alternatively, if you can access a company's domain records, you can change the IP address associated with that company's web services.

The President and the Media Must Educate the American People on How to Remove the Cancer From Our Politics. (Keep Waiting -- And see if you can guess the Bias in this Article) There is no chance that the right wing will work with any Democrat administration until there is widespread opposition at the ballot box to its strategy of undermining and obstructing duly elected presidents before they even begin their administrations. The President and the media must tell the public why our government is so dysfunctional and why the American people are the only ones who can fix it and stop the war on on our democracy. The President's new Commission on voting can change the process but can't educate the public on how to use it. It's up to the President and the media to outline the consequences to the nation of voting to support an obstructionist party or not voting at all. The solution is for eligible voters to show up at the voting booth in primaries when selecting candidates and in general elections when choosing their representative. They would (1) reward those politicians who work together to find common ground and solve major problems and (2) reject those politicians who choose party over country and the public good. No one other than the American people can achieve this and remove the cancer from our politics. In the 2014 mid-term elections, the American people should decide what kind of government they want and what kind of country they want to live in. Hostility toward the democratic values of reason, compromise and conciliation must be eradicated so that Republicans and Democrats can work together in enacting meaningful legislation. The culture in Congress must be changed. In the long run, a stronger more competitive Republican Party is best for our country and will keep the Democratic Party on its toes. As retired moderate Senator John Warner recently said, "The strength of America's political system rests in the strength of having two viable, strong parties in stiff competition." The bottom line is a Republican Party that includes moderates will allow our country to go forward. A Republican Party that excludes them and is dominated by the right wing will perpetuate the status quo or take us backward again.

Fetuses Feel Pain at 20 Weeks, and 4 Other Anti-Abortion Myths. A 2005 paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association surveyed the medical literature and found little evidence to support his conclusions. There is an established body of evidence that finds that fetuses start developing the biological pathways related to pain sensation at this stage of gestation, but there is not enough evidence to suggest that they can actually experience pain as we do. The majority of the scientific literature on the subject finds that the brain connections required to feel pain are not formed until at least 24 weeks. This is, of course, not the first time fishy scientific arguments have been used to support anti-abortion policies. Last August, Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin ignited a controversy when he stated that victims of "legitimate rape" couldn't get pregnant because "the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." The sponsor of the House 20-week ban, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), was also criticized last week for arguing in a hearing that the number of pregnancies resulting from rape is "very low." Here's a brief run-down of the bad science that has been used to support anti-abortion policies:

U.S. charges two New Yorkers with building 'death ray' aimed at killing 'enemies of Israel' - Israel News. Glenn Scott Crawford, 49, of Galway, New York and Eric J. Feight, 54, of Hudson, New York, were arrested by the FBI following a 15-month covert investigation in which Federal agents posed as co-conspirators in an attempt to build "a mobile, remotely operated, radiation emitting device capable of killing human targets silently and from a distance with lethal doses of radiation," according to an affidavit submitted to the court by FBI investigator Geoffrey Kent. The investigation was launched in April 2012, after Crawford, who is employed as an industrial mechanic for General Electric in Schenectady, allegedly contacted an Albany synagogue and an unidentified Jewish organization asking to speak with a person "who might be willing to help him with a type of technology that could be used by Israel to defeat its enemies - specifically by killing them while they slept." Crawford, who is affiliated with several branches of the Ku Klux Klan, succeeded in persuading a "high-ranking" KKK leader in North Carolina to help fund the project. He also recruited Feight, who is described as "an outside GE contractor with mechanical and engineering skills" to design and build a remote control apparatus that would allow the truck-mounted, industrial strength X-ray apparatus to be activated from a distance.

Google uses Big Data to prove hiring puzzles useless and GPAs meaningless by David of 37signals. First, "On the hiring side, we found that brainteasers are a complete waste of time". I couldn't agree more. Second, "One of the things we've seen from all our data crunching is that G.P.A.'s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless". This ties in well with rejecting the top-tier school pedigree nonsense and downplaying the benefit of formal education altogether. On the last point, Lazlo notes: "What's interesting is the proportion of people without any college education at Google has increased over time as well". But beyond that, the interview is full of good tips on management as well. Especially around figuring out who's a good manager and how they can improve. If that's a subject you're interested in, checkout our newly launched Know Your Company.

US scraps military equipment worth billions before leaving Afghanistan. Items being shredded by contract workers from Nepal and other countries for sale as scrap metal include mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles, the Post said. More than 24,000 MRAPs were built for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan starting in 2007 in a crash program that cost some 45 billion dollars, according to Pentagon figures. The MRAPs' V-shaped hulls help deflect the force of explosions, and the vehicle's higher chassis keeps troops further from the main force of the blast from improvised explosive devices. US commanders believe the MRAPs helped save thousands of soldiers' lives, and cite figures that show the number of casualties from IEDs dropped more than 80 percent after the vehicles were introduced. Some 2,000 of the 11,000 MRAPs in Afghanistan have been labeled "excess," the Post reported. "We're making history doing what we're doing here," Major General Kurt Stein, who is overseeing the Afghanistan drawdown, told the newspaper. "This is the largest retrograde mission in history."

The Economics of the American Prison System. In the 1970's, lawmakers were dealing with a nationwide rash of drug-use and crime. By declaring a nation-wide war on drugs in 1971, President Richard Nixon set a precedent for hard-line policies towards drug-related crime. New York governor Nelson Rockefeller followed suit declaring "For drug pushing, life sentence, no parole, no probation." His policies once put into action promised 15 years to life in prison for drug users and dealers. His policies catalyzed the growth of a colossal corrections system that currently houses an estimated 2.2 million inmates. The runaway growth of US corrections did not come overnight, and did not come from the government alone. Since the 1970's federal and state correction agencies have consistently struggled to meet the increased demands brought on by the US Department of Justice and strict drug laws. In 1982, three Texas businessmen, Tom Beasley, John Ferguson, and Don Hutto saw an opportunity in the shortcomings of the Texas corrections system's inability to deal with this influx of incarcerations. They devised and executed a plan to secure the first government contract to design, build, and operate a corrections facility from the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Texas Department of Justice. Contract in hand, the trio was given 90 days to open a detention center for undocumented aliens. As their January 28 deadline neared, Hutto, Ferguson, and Beasley had no facility, no staff, and their experiment seemed doomed to fail. On New Year's Eve, 1983, Beasley decided to get crafty, "Well, we'll just go to Houston and find a place," he told Ferguson. Incredulous, Ferguson replied, "Tom, you're crazy. There's no possible way. This is New Year's Day. There is no possible way we can find a place today." Beasley simply responded, "We have to."

Stratasys buys 3D printing firm MakerBot for $403m. The companies said it was a stock-for-stock transaction worth about $403m (£260m). The deal will allow Stratasys to compete in the burgeoning consumer market for 3D printing, said experts. But it has surprised some commentators, given that MakerBot has sold just 22,000 3D printers to date. Retail store MakerBot was co-founded by former school teacher Bre Pettis in 2009 and quickly became synonymous with low-end 3D printing. Its $2,200 (£1,400) Replicator 2 is its most popular machine, favoured by hobbyists and manufacturers who use the machines to build prototypes and parts. Ford Motor Company is one of its more high-profile customers. The firm also runs a highly-successful community site which has become a leading marketplace for 3D printable digital models. The site has more than 90,000 files which are downloaded about a million times each month. Recently MakerBot opened a retail printing store in New York.

Company Claims Patent On Pop-Up Ads, Sues Porn & Travel Companies. Paul Keating alerts us to the news that a company called "ExitExchange" now claims to hold a patent on pop-up ads, and has sued seven porn sites and two travel companies for using them without a license. The patent in question is US Patent 7,353,229 for a "post-session internet advertising system." It was only granted in 2008, but its priority date goes back to May of 2000. I tried to look up a history of pop-up ads, but was unable to find any definitive source on when the first pop-up ad was used. Still, just because it wasn't done back then doesn't mean the patent is valid -- perhaps people were just smart enough not to do something that annoyed the hell out of everyone. The company has sued Travelocity and Kayak along with a variety of porn sites. Of course, this is hardly the only company claiming a patent on pop-ups. Years ago, there were multiple stories of others claiming patents on pop-ups and suing over those patents -- and it appears that most of those patents were filed long before the patent above. And, if you were hoping that maybe something good would come out of patents on pop-up ads, that they might be forced to go away, this history of patents and lawsuits over pop-ups suggests that it hasn't helped very much in stopping them.

Cancer Risk of This Medical Scan Equal to Smoking 1400 Cigarettes - GreenMedTV. Pediatric CAT scans are estimated to cause hundreds of cancer deaths every year. View the study referenced in this video: http://crr.columbia.edu/faculty/brenner/papers/ajr1.pdf

Think the Anti-GMO Movement is Unscientific? Think Again. "Anyone that says, 'Oh, we know that this is perfectly safe,' I say is either unbelievably stupid, or deliberately lying. The reality is, we don't know. The experiments simply haven't been done, and now we have become the guinea pigs." ~ David Suzuki, geneticist Now that the mainstream media is catching on to the public sentiment against GMO food, or at least against unlabeled GMO food, to the tune of millions of Americans who made it a point to drag themselves out of their homes to protest Monsanto last month (as well as at least 40 additional countries), inevitably the indictment will be made: "the anti-GMO movement is "unscientific."" Is that really so? What we do know is that the unintended consequences of the recombinant DNA process employed to create genetically engineering organisms are beyond the ability of present-day science to comprehend. This is largely due to the post-Human Genome Project revelation that the holy grail of molecular biology, the overly-simplified 'one gene > one trait' model, is absolutely false.

D.C. Doctors Able to Recommend Medical Marijuana to Be Kept a Secret, Department of Health Says. DOH spokesperson Najma Roberts told Washingtonian in an email that "there is a regulation that prevents us from providing the names of the physicians": The actual regulation, 802.2, states: "The Department shall maintain a confidential record, which shall not be subject to requests under the Freedom of Information Act, of each recommending physician for the purpose monitoring compliance with the Act." The relevant part there is protection from FOIA requests. Roberts said security is the reason for the tight confidentiality: "In other states where the names of recommending physicians have been released, the physicians have received hostile threats and physicians have stopped recommending." Another factor is the possibility of doctor self-promotion. "In other cases," she said, "a recommending physician who has had his name exposed gets extra business from the free publicity." The DC government doesn't want to be in the position of having an impact on the "competitive position of a recommending doctor."

Prohibition not as bad as Drug War. Ninety-five percent of those who have tried what we think of as "hard drugs" report not using the substances in the past month. Columbia University psychology professor Dr. Carl Hart, author of "High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery," says "hard" drugs are not as dangerous as the media make them out to be. For 15 years, he's studied the effects of marijuana, methamphetamine, crack cocaine, and more on users. "The data simply show that the vast majority of people who use these drugs don't go on to become addicted," he said on my show. "In fact, some of these people go on to become president." He means Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama. "All those guys used illegal drugs at some point." Society has grown more accepting of marijuana, but many people believe crack and meth are far more dangerous and addictive, and that they quickly lead to violent criminal behavior. "The same thing was said about marijuana in the 1930s," Hart cautions. "People said you use this drug, you go on to commit murder, you go on to use heroin." New drugs always frighten the authorities. When the panic over meth passes, we may look back on it with amusement, much the way people now look back on the anti-marijuana propaganda film "Reefer Madness." "That was allowed to happen because few people actually used marijuana," says Hart. The unknown is scarier than the familiar — like beer.

Miley Cyrus: "Alcohol Is Way More Dangerous Than Marijuana". in her latest interview with Rolling Stone, she takes a more active stance in favor of marijuana. No, it's not exactly rocket science, as Miley Cyrus has stated what countless others have said. But to a much broader audience: "I did a song with Snoop Dogg called 'Ashtrays and Heartbreaks,' so people can put it together for themselves," Cyrus says. "I think alcohol is way more dangerous than marijuana -- people can be mad at me for saying that, but I don't care. I've seen a lot of people spiral down with alcohol, but I've never seen that happen with weed." As long as it isn't illegal, there are far more dangerous things. And it's legal in the state of California. So I'm happy to live in California, a place where you can be whoever you want to be." You're probably thinking: "I've been saying that for years!" And yes, we all have. However, the common man or woman's voice is not heard by enough people to make a dent into corruption and prohibition. The voice of celebrities--especially ones with tens of millions of Twitter and Facebook followers--is heard by a lot of people on a daily basis. That's why celebrities should play a very integral, important part in legalization. If they have time to post about how much they smoke and how much they love weed, they should have enough time to take an active approach towards progression and legalization.

Marijuana Regulations, Controls And Taxation...The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly. The elephant in the room remains: what will the federal government do next? Will the feds allow states with marijuana laws to create pro-pot legislation that are in direct conflict with current federal prohibition against marijuana -- and international treaty obligations? Not overly likely. Or will it attempt to set an ugly example, by crushing Colorado and Washington's efforts? DUID laws -- The ridiculously unfair laws as they pertain to driving under the influence of drugs (i.e. weed) -- whose residual byproducts remain in the body far longer than more harmful drugs such as heroin, meth or crack cocaine.

Cannabis Not Associated With Increased Lung Cancer Risk Or Other Pulmonary Complications. Dr. Tashkin found that regular smoking of marijuana by itself causes visible and microscopic injury to the large airways that is consistently associated with an increased likelihood of symptoms of chronic bronchitis that subside after cessation of use. He also found that the evidence does not indicate that habitual use of marijuana leads to significant abnormalities in lung function when assessed either cross-sectionally or longitudinally, except for possible increases in lung volumes and modest increases in airway resistance of unclear clinical significance. The author finds no clear link between marijuana use and the development of COPD or lower respiratory tract infections. In addition, "findings from a limited number of well-designed epidemiological studies do not suggest an increased risk for the development of either lung or upper airway cancer from light or moderate use, although evidence is mixed concerning possible carcinogenic risks of heavy, long-term use," Dr. Tashkin notes. "In summary, the accumulated weight of evidence implies far lower risks for pulmonary complications of even regular heavy use of marijuana compared to the grave pulmonary consequences of tobacco."

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Put Our Children First, Legalize Cannabis. If our society truly cares about the well-being of its children we'll embrace cannabis legalization, and put behind us years of propaganda that refuses to accept the reality that cannabis prohibition is a disastrous policy, and cannabis is a non-lethal, therapeutic and medicinal plant. Despite decades of absurd, ofttimes laughable rhetoric in opposition to cannabis legalization, a majority of American citizens are now in support of such a move, and over 80% support cannabis legalization for medical purposes. Years of lies and reefer madness have been thrown aside as people begin to understand just how foolish this prohibition is. This is good for our children. Cannabis prohibition enriches criminal organizations. By taking a plant like cannabis -- which is one of, if not our nation's top cash crops -- and putting it underground, it creates a massive, unregulated and dangerous black-market. When you create a black-market as large as this -- just as with alcohol prohibition -- you allow criminals to run-wild; they control the market. This gives criminal syndicates an easy and consistent way of making money; and a lot of it. For example; Mexican drug cartels, which are responsible for over 100,000 deaths in the past decade alone, get a majority of their profits from selling cannabis directly to Americans. This source of funding would be immediately cutoff if cannabis is legalized in the U.S. The same is true of domestic gangs, which rely heavily on the illegal drug market -- particularly cannabis -- to remain functional.

Oregon Attorney General And League Of Oregon Cities Endorse Safe Access To Medical Cannabis. under the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act ("OMMA"), physicians are legally able to recommend medical marijuana to treat their patients. Under current law, because the OMMA does not address medical marijuana facilities, there is no clear way for registered card holders to safely or legally have access to medical marijuana without either growing it themselves or finding someone else to grow it for them. Over the past several years approximately 150 medical marijuana facilities have opened and continue to operate in Oregon without regulation or licensure. These facilities operate in a climate of uncertain legality, and the absence of a clear regulatory structure makes ensuring compliance with the law difficult. HB 3460 tackles this problem by putting in place a regulatory framework for marijuana facilities, giving the Oregon Health Authority ("OHA") oversight and control over their lawful operation, and thereby ensuring that all persons with a valid Oregon Medical Marijuana Program card will be able to obtain medical marijuana safely, predictably, promptly, and legally.

And The Winner Of The World Food Prize Is ... The Man From Monsanto : The Salt : NPR. The winners were announced Wednesday at the U.S. State Department, with Secretary of State John Kerry contributing his own remarks. It's hard to imagine a similar event taking place in Europe, where government authorities have refused to approve the planting or importation of some of these GMO crops. Today's event reunited former scientific rivals. Thirty years ago, at a scientific meeting in Miami Beach, each of the award winners separately presented the results of experiments showing their first success in inserting genes into plants. At the time, Van Montagu was at the University of Ghent, in Belgium, and Mary-Dell Chilton was at Washington University in St. Louis. Both were far more prominent in scientific circles than Fraley. They also later worked with biotech companies (Plant Genetic Systems and Syngenta, respectively), but neither had as much impact in the business world as Fraley.

If you want to claim the Fifth . . . : SCOTUSblog. "A witness's constitutional right to refuse to answer questions depends on his reasons for doing so, and courts need to know those reasons to evaluate the merits of a Fifth Amendment claim," Justices Samuel A. Alito, Jr., wrote. The Court rejected the argument that, because suspects do not know the law, their silence should be understood as a Fifth Amendment plea. Justice Alito's opinion had only the support of two other members of the Court — Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. Justice Clarence Thomas, in a separate opinion joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, would have answered the constitutional question that the Court had agreed to hear in this case, and declare that prosecutors could have used the suspect's silence against him at the trial even if he had specifically claimed a Fifth Amendment right. The Alito opinion, though, did control the outcome of the case, rejecting the constitutional challenge to the murder conviction of a Houston man, Genovevo Salinas. He had voluntarily gone to a police station with officers to talk about the murder of two brothers in 1992. He was not under arrest, and was not in custody, so he had no right to "Miranda warnings" telling him that he had a right to silence.

Marijuana: One Drug, Two Stories - YouTube. Original Data Analysis Casts the War on Drugs in a Whole New Light Blacks are 3.7 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana. It's happening in counties large and small, urban and rural. It's not fair. It's not making us any safer. It's wasting valuable resources. And it's taking a toll on thousands of lives every year. For the stories of people it's affecting and more, check out: www.aclu.org/marijuana

Explosions rock Russian village after fire at ammunition depot. No cause has yet been determined for the fire at the Chapaevsk military depot in the Samara region on Wednesday. The federal authorities said it was set off by the "involuntary" explosion of shells. Russian munitions, which frequently date back to the Soviet era, have exploded several times in recent years and the resulting fires usually rage for days. In October a soldier caused a devastating fire at an ammunition depot by dropping a cigarette butt. In other cases shells have exploded during munitions disposal. The emergencies ministry said about 30 people had sought medical help and 11 of them were taken to hospital, while more than 6,000 people were evacuated from the village of Nagorny. More than 600 emergency workers were trying to put out the fire, the ministry said in a statement posted on its website.

After blast, Texas to unveil database of hazardous chemicals. n April, a fire at the facility operated by West Fertilizer Company set off two explosions that registered on seismographs as a magnitude-2.1 earthquake and were felt 50 miles away. The plant held 270 tons of highly volatile ammonium nitrate on site, according to regulatory records. Records: Texas plant hadn't told feds about explosive fertilizer The new database will not only list sites with high volumes of ammonium nitrate, but also other volatile chemicals, Pickett said. There are 16 sites, mostly located in unincorporated areas, that house large amounts of ammonium nitrate, the lawmaker said. There may be up to 129 sites listed on the hazardous materials database, with varying levels of risk assigned to them, he said. The site will also provide information for contacting authorities about concerns about such facilities. A launch date for the database will be announced in about two weeks, Pickett said. The blasts in West leveled a portion of the town, damaging numerous homes, a nursing home and the town's high school and middle school.

New Anti-Piracy Group Will Monitor File-Sharers and Block All Major Torrent Sites. According to Willy Johansen, Secretary General of the Norwegian Videograms Association, a brand new anti-piracy group is currently being formed to make use of the new freedoms available to rightsholders. "We are in the starting blocks to start a rights alliance in Norway, as we have done in Denmark and Sweden," Johansen told Tu. Modeled on the Swedish Antipiratbyran and Danish Rettighedsalliancen, the new group will be a team effort by the major labels of IFPI, the movie industry and other publishers. "It is intended that the alliance will conduct an investigation of infringement of copyright. We hope this will be a strong organization with many members who own rights," Johansen said. Sending "strike" notices to file-sharers aren't specifically part of the new law, but Johansen says it would be preferable to have this option before being forced to take legal action. "I hope we can find a way to do this, in the best interests of all parties," he said. The anti-piracy group will be supported by infamous pirate-hunting lawfirm Simonsen. The company previously held an exclusive license to monitor file-sharers in Norway and in 2010 tracked down an uploader of a famous local movie after an epic battle. It is not yet clear what the new anti-piracy group will be called but searches reveal that Simonsen already have a number of suitable domains under their belt including RettigHets-Alliansen.net, RettigHetsAlliansen.no and RettigHetsAlliansen.com.

Lenders seek court actions against homeowners years after foreclosure - Washington Post. On Aug. 20, 2008, one year after he bought his dream home for $469,000, the bank's threat to take his house became real via a letter in the mail. Just four days before the bank seized the property, he moved out, along with his wife and their two young children. That wasn't the worst of it. In November, more than three years after the foreclosure, he was stunned to learn he still owed $115,000 — with the interest alone growing at a rate high enough to lease a luxury car. "I'm scared, you know," Benavides said. "I can't pay." The 42-year-old is among the many homeowners being taken to court by their lenders long after their houses were taken in foreclosure. Lenders are filing new motions in old foreclosure lawsuits and hiring debt collectors to pursue leftover debt, plus court fees, attorneys' fees and tens of thousands in interest that had been accruing for years. It's an aftershock of the foreclosure crisis, and most homeowners don't know it's coming. "When people take out a loan, they generally think the home is the security for the loan," said Alys Cohen, an attorney in the Washington office of the National Consumer Law Center. When they no longer have that home, "people don't expect that debt to follow them," she said. It's all part of a legal process known as a "deficiency judgment," which is allowed in the District and 40 of 50 states, including Maryland and Virginia. Since the start of the mortgage meltdown of 2008, at least 400 Maryland homeowners have been pursued in court, according to a Washington Post analysis of state court data. In the first four months of this year, 57 new court actions have been filed against homeowners — on pace to exceed last year's total of 120.

NSA surveillance is an attack on American citizens, says Noam Chomsky. "They [governments and corporations] take whatever is available, and in no time it is being used against us, the population. Governments are not representative. They have their own power, serving segments of the population that are dominant and rich." Chomsky, who has strongly supported the Occupy movement and spoken out against the Obama administration's use of drones, warned that young people were much less shocked at being spied on and did not view it as such a problem. "Polls in the US indicate there is generational issue here that someone ought to look into -- my impression is that younger people are less offended by this than the older generation. It may have to do with the exhibitionist character of the internet culture, with Facebook and so on," he said. "On the internet, you think everything is going to be public." Other technologies could also come to be used to spy more effectively on people, he added. "They don't want people to know what they're doing. They want to be able to use [new technology] against their own people. "Take a look at drones, and what is developing. You will find new drone technology being used in 10 or 12 years from now. They are looking at [trying to make] tiny drones that can go in your living room, like a fly on the wall." He praised the Guardian's revelations about the activities of the National Security Agency, and the whistleblower Ed Snowden, who has been taking refuge in Hong Kong. "We need this kind [of journalism]," he said. "We ought to know about it."

Even More Science Suggesting That Cannabinoids May Halt Diabetes. Researchers concluded: "Based on these data, it can be suggested that THCV may be useful for the treatment of the metabolic syndrome and/or type 2 diabetes (adult onset diabetes), either alone or in combination with existing treatments. Given the reported benefits of another non-THC cannabinoid, CBD in type 1 diabetes, a CBD/THCV combination may be beneficial for different types of diabetes mellitus." Last month, Harvard Medical School researchers published observational data in The American Journal of Medicine reporting that subjects who regularly consume cannabis possess favorable indices related to diabetic control as compared to occasional consumers or non-users of the substance. Writing in an accompanying commentary, the journal's Editor-in-Chief stated: "These are indeed remarkable observations that are supported, as the authors note, by basic science experiments that came to similar conclusions. ... I would like to call on the NIH and the DEA to collaborate in developing policies to implement solid scientific investigations that would lead to information assisting physicians in the proper use and prescription of THC in its synthetic or herbal form." Observational trial data published in 2012 in the British Medical Journal previously reported that adults with a history of marijuana use had a lower prevalence of type 2 diabetes and possess a lower risk of contracting the disease than did those with no history of cannabis consumption, even after researchers adjusted for social variables such as subjects' ethnicity and levels of physical activity.

American Public Health Association - Effects of State Medical Marijuana Laws on Adolescent Marijuana Use. Results. In 40 planned comparisons of adolescents exposed and not exposed to MMLs across states and over time, only 2 significant effects were found, an outcome expected according to chance alone. Further examination of the (nonsignificant) estimates revealed no discernible pattern suggesting an effect on either self-reported prevalence or frequency of marijuana use. Conclusions. Our results suggest that, in the states assessed here, MMLs have not measurably affected adolescent marijuana use in the first few years after their enactment. Longer-term results, after MMLs are more fully implemented, might be different. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print June 13, 2013: e1-e7. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2012.301117)

US Court Records Show Nearly 500 Years in Prison Time for Medical Marijuana Offenses. According to a survey of US court records, news stories, and case reports compiled by Cal NORML (with help from Americans for Safe Access): Over 335 defendants have been charged with federal crimes related to medical marijuana in states with medical marijuana laws. 158 defendants have received prison sentences totaling over 480 years for medical marijuana offenses. Some 50 are currently in federal prison, while more are waiting to be sentenced or surrender. Over 90% of the criminal cases settled to date have resulted in convictions. 10% have been dismissed. A single defendant has been acquitted. Federal law typically prohibits defendants from invoking medical marijuana in their defense. 153 medical marijuana cases have been brought in the 4 ¼ years of the Obama administration, nearly as many as under the 8 years of the Bush administration (163). Not a single pardon or clemency petition has been granted to a medical marijuana defendant by President Obama or his predecessors. One seriously ill defendant, Richard Flor, has died while in federal prison, and two others, Peter McWilliams and Steve McWilliams (no relation) died while being denied access to medical marijuana on bail. Other seriously ill patients who have who have been sentenced to lengthy terms include Dale Schafer, a hemophiliac currently serving 5 years along with his wife Mollie Fry, a cancer patient (pictured above); Vernon Rylee, who served nearly 5 years in a wheelchair (pictured right), and Jerry Duval. At least 259 defendants have been charged in California; over 31 in Montana; 6 in Oregon; 15 in Nevada; 12 in Michigan; 2 in Colorado; and 10 in Washington.

GMO Update from Washington: Generated Monsanto Obstruction. Monsanto is trying to manipulate Congress to pass a final Farm Bill reauthorization with provisions that will wipe out citizens' rights to State laws intended to protect their health and safety when it applies to the labeling of GMO products. It is important to note that 24 States have considered legislation that would require labeling of foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOS). On June 10th, the Senate voted 66 to 27 to approve its farm bill, S.954, the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2013. During debate prior to this action, an amendment sponsored by Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and four other Senators to clarify that States can voluntarily enact their own GMO labeling laws was defeated. An amendment of Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) to overturn the so-called "Monsanto Protection Act" (MPA) was defeated. This new law permits Monsanto, DuPont, and other companies to sell genetically modified seeds that have not been properly examined for their effect on other farmers, the environment, and human health. It grants judicial immunity to big farming companies who sell seeds and plant crops that are later determined to be unsafe for human or animal consumption. The good news is that the MPA is law only until Sept 30th, unless extended by Congress. This is because it was a part of the Continuing Resolution to fund the government until the end of this Federal fiscal year when passed by the House and Senate in January. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) is on record in support of not extending the MPA provision in a Federal spending bill through the appropriations process. She also stated that it would be inappropriate for its inclusion in a final Congressional farm bill. The Senate bill does not include explicit language to block States from enacting their own GMO labeling laws.

Maine House Passes Bill to Nullify Unconstitutional Federal Ban on Hemp Farming and Production. The amendment simply states: 3. Application. A person desiring to grow industrial hemp for commercial purposes shall apply to the commissioner for a license on a form prescribed by the commissioner. The application must include the name and address of the applicant, the legal description of the land area to be used for the production of industrial hemp and a map, an aerial photograph or global positioning coordinates sufficient for locating the production fields. 4. License issued. Upon review and approval of an application, the commissioner shall notify the applicant and request that the application fee determined under subsection 7 be submitted. Upon receipt of the appropriate fee, the commissioner shall issue a license, which is valid for a period of one year and only for the site or sites specified in the license.

Medical Weed Growers Are Ready To Fight The Conservatives. For the last decade Mik has enjoyed the benefits of a legal marijuana-growing license under the now defunct federal Marihuana Medical Access Regulations (MMAR). He's been floating on a healthy dose of seven grams of marijuana a day that he cultivates from 35 plants, under a doctor's prescription for various debilitating conditions like spinal arthritis and degenerative disc disease. Yet all that is officially set to change under the newly implemented and Conservative devised, Marijuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR), which among other things makes it illegal for users to personally grow their own pot. Instead, medical users like Mik who predominantly make under $30,000 per year and suffer from various diseases will be forced into purchasing corporate dope: only for-profit companies can afford the extensive requirement for licenses to grow in the new system. Right now, patients pay an average of a $1.80-a-gram for marijuana. That will rise to $8.80 a gram when the MMPR takes effect in 2014. Estimates slap those same patients with an additional $166 million a year for the next 10 years. In other words, the 28,115 Canadians using marijuana to ease chronic pain will be forced into relying on pricier government-sanctioned companies rather than personally growing it themselves, for basically nothing.

Cop's "Fart", "High Fiber Diet" Lead To Marijuana Grow Bust. Three officers from Leicestershire Police were waiting patiently in their car to make an arrest when they were forced to wind down the windows to escape the disgusting smell, accusing one officer of creating it as a result of his high fibre diet. Once the windows were opened, the officers realised the smell was of cannabis and was much stronger outside the car. One officer, who was not involved in the incident, told the Police Federation's magazine: 'We spend a lot of time together waiting in cars on operations like this. 'You have to get along with each other. It sounds like these officers are a good team and someone has decided this story should be shared with others. 'We can laugh at things as long as we've got a good outcome, as they seem to have done in this case.' [Daily Mail] It seems a little to coincidental that they were "parked" by a grow operation before this bust, but, nonetheless, it makes for a great story and would be a compelling scene in Super Troopers 2 (if it ever happens).

Bill Maher Questions Patrick Kennedy About His Smart Approaches to Marijuana Campaign. Bill Maher took this opportunity to enlighten the ex-Rhode Island Representatives' mistaken assertions. Such as Kennedy's reiteration of the old Reagan era mantra that pot "destroys the brain and expedites psychosis." Pathetic, sad and wrong. Bill pointed out to the ex-pill popping representative that..."It sounds like you've been hanging around with Nancy Reagan in 1983." Or...firmly in the pocket of the many businesses that would like to perpetuate his tired and ill-conceived line of thinking. Such as big pharmaceutical, the industrial prison complex, the paper industry, the alcohol industry, the tobacco industry, the drug rehabilitation industry -- and a host of other old-school, entrenched businesses which fear the cannabis plant and all it stands for. Kennedy, who has set himself up to profit from the war on marijuana stated "I used to have your position, I used to think marijuana was no big deal," but now, as the ringleader in his own personal circus of ignorance and lies -- formed an organization known as Smart Approaches to Marijuana -- which is anything but. Patrick's main concern was centered on the mistaken notion that marijuana legalization would kick open the door to further and more damaging drug use "if you give a permissive environment you're gonna have more kids use," Kennedy informed Maher. Bill, not being one to buy someone's B.S. quite so easily, laughed and told Kennedy "Come on, man, this is like global warming denying. This is stuff we heard years ago."

Florida: Having A Marijuana Pipe Is A Felony, But Illegally Pushing Millions Of Oxycontin Is A Fine. Florida Governor Rick Scott signed into law the "bong ban" bill this weekend. Under this statute, someone caught owning or selling a pot pipe twice in the state is a felon, which in Florida means losing the right to vote virtually for life. Drug convicts must wait seven years after fulfillment of all prison, probation, and parole to apply to a clemency board to consider restoring voting rights in Florida. This has meant 10% of all voting-age Floridians -- and a shocking 23% of black Floridians -- cannot vote. (Note to bitter Democrats: Those votes would have given us President Gore in 2000.) The law is fairly toothless at the retail level. You can still sell a corn cob pipe for any purpose, you can still sell hookahs, and you can sell any pipe so long as it is "for tobacco use only" (wink wink, nudge nudge) and 75% of your sales are tobacco-related. But at the consumer level, if you're caught with a used marijuana pipe, it's going to be hard to argue it was for tobacco use. You'll get a first degree misdemeanor and face one year in prison the first time you're caught and a third degree felony and face five years in prison if you're caught again. As the former crack addict turned representative who sponsored the bill explained, "Rather than just regulating them, let's just ban them. If we can make people drive to Georgia and Alabama and South Carolina to get fireworks, they can drive to get these utensils of death." All but five of his colleagues (31-2 vote in the Senate, 112-3 vote in the House) agreed with him. Florida legislators also have repeatedly rejected the Cathy Jordan Medical Marijuana Act. Named after the Florida woman who has survived over two-and-a-half decades with Lou Gehrig's disease after being given two years to live, thanks to her use of medical cannabis, the Act has not even been debated in the Florida Legislature. Manatee County Sheriffs even raided Cathy's medical grow the day after the bill was published, with her name and address in the public record giving them the location to search.

Rally To Save Medical Cannabis In Washington State. What will bringing medical cannabis into compliance with I-502 likely mean to patients? -If patients must "conform" to I-502, they will be limited to one ounce, just like recreational users. -They will pay the same 25%+25%+25%+10%+ tax rate as recreational users. -They will lose their right to personal grows. -They will lose their right to collective growing, which will also eliminate all the current access points for those that don't grow, leaving them without medication. That's not all! -They will further restrict doctor recommendations for patients, making it nearly impossible for most patients to get legal recommendations. -They will set a 21 year old age limit for patients, leaving thousands of sick young people without access to medication and force them to choose between driving or complying with I-502′s "zero tolerance" policy for DUID. It is not the fault of medical cannabis patients, nor their access points, that the legislature has failed to work with us to come up with common sense regulations. Turning control of our medicine over to the state's liquor distributor and taxing our medication is certainly not an acceptable solution. We must convince our legislators to work with patients, not the LCB, to come up with solutions that will work for everyone and will not punish patients simply for their choice of medicine. If you can't attend the rally, please contact your two Representatives and your Senator. Here's where you can go to find out who they are and how to contact them: http://app.leg.wa.gov/DistrictFinder/

Michael Hastings Dead at 33. Hastings' unvarnished 2010 profile of McChrystal in the pages of Rolling Stone, "The Runaway General," captured the then-supreme commander of the U.S.-led war effort in Afghanistan openly mocking his civilian commanders in the White House. The maelstrom sparked by its publication concluded with President Obama recalling McChrystal to Washington and the general resigning his post. "The conduct represented in the recently published article does not meet the standard that should be met by -- set by a commanding general," Obama said, announcing McChrystal's departure. "It undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system." Hastings' hallmark as reporter was his refusal to cozy up to power. While other embedded reporters were charmed by McChrystal's bad-boy bravado and might have excused his insubordination as a joke, Hastings was determined to expose the recklessness of a man leading what Hastings believed to be a reckless war. "Runaway General" was a finalist for a National Magazine Award, won the 2010 Polk award for magazine reporting, and was the basis for Hastings' book, The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Sherwood teacher investigated for sexual misconduct. A teacher at Sherwood High School is under investigation by the Washington County Sheriff's Office for alleged misconduct. Sheriff's were told by DHS that 38-year-old Denise Keesee allegedly engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with at least one male student, said Sgt. Bob Ray. Keesee was placed on administrative leave during the investigation. Investigators are determining if there are additional students involved and asking parents to talk to their children about suspicious or inappropriate behavior involving Ms. Keesee.

New Report Finds Many Teachers Aren't Ready To Teach : NPR. The quality of teacher education is falling flat in the United States, according to a new report. Host Michel Martin speaks with Stephanie Banchero of The Wall Street Journal about why some teachers say they're not well prepared.

Witness: Man who disrupted flight ranted about CIA. Passengers said he started screaming about 9 hours into the 15-hour flight about being afraid of the FBI and fearing he was going to be killed. He asked that the flight be diverted to Canada. "He was clearly not stable," said passenger Jacques Roizen of New York, who helped wrestle the man to the cabin floor and sat in the same row as him after he was handcuffed. Roizen said he and other passengers and a flight attendant jumped on the man and subdued him when he started reaching for his pockets hours. United said it followed its procedures for dealing with disruptive passengers and decided to continue the flight as scheduled. Passenger Peter Jones of Washington said the passenger called out what he said was his name, his birthdate and his social security number several times, and claimed he worked for the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi. Jones said the man claimed to have information about Edward Snowden, a former government contractor who revealed a once-secret National Security Agency surveillance programs two weeks ago. "He was just saying he had information relating to Ed Snowden and he was being taken back to some safe house somewhere, never to be seen again," Jones said. A man who said he was on the same flight as the unruly passenger and recorded the incident with his phone played the audio for reporters. The passenger who recorded the clip did not wish to give his name. On the recording the man who caused the incident screamed and repeated "I'm dead" 23 times. "Snowden? No, he's right! I know this now, I know this because of what just happened to me. He's totally right," the disruptive passenger said, then continued to rant about the NSA. Jones said he never heard the man threaten passengers or the plane. While the plane was still in the air the FBI said the man had claimed everyone aboard the plane was being poisoned, but the agency later said it was working to clarify what the man said.

Could Your Morning Coffee Ward Off Skin Cancer? The study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, supports the theory that caffeine guards against certain skin cancers at the molecular level by inhibiting a protein enzyme in the skin known as ATR. Based on lab experiments on mice, scientists think caffeine applied directly to the skin might help prevent damaging UV light from causing skin cancer. Because coffee contains antioxidants (and is probably the greatest source of antioxidants in the standard American diet), it was previously associated with reduced cancer risk. Prior research indicated that mice fed caffeinated water and exposed to UVB radiation (which damaged the DNA in their skin cells) were able to kill off a greater percentage of their badly damaged cells and reduce the risk of cells becoming cancerous. The researchers noted that prior studies found an association between coffee drinking and a decreased risk of non-melanoma skin cancer, and called for more studies to determine whether topical caffeine inhibits sunlight-induced skin cancer. In this study, instead of inhibiting ATR with caffeinated water, Rutgers researchers genetically modified and diminished ATR in one group of mice. The genetically modified mice developed tumors more slowly than the unmodified mice, had 69% fewer tumors than regular mice and developed four times fewer invasive tumors.

The Medical Reason Why Chemotherapy Fails - GreenMedTV. Nicholas Gonzalez, M.D. is an alternative cancer treatment specialist and outspoken critic of the conventional cancer industry. Dr. Gonzalez has a serious (scientifically valid) health warning for every cancer patient.

Are Your Gastro-Intestinal Issues Connected to GM Food? A recent study published in the peer reviewed Journal of Organic Systems demonstrated that Pigs fed a GMO diet showed a higher rate of severe stomach inflammation than pigs fed a comparable non GMO diet.This finding was a result of a long-term toxicology study on pigs that were fed a combination of soy and GM maize (both genetically modified). Dr. Judy Carman, from the Institute of Health and Environmental Research, Australia led the study. The significance of this 23 week study is that it reveals biological evidence linking GMO crops to significant harm. It showed that there was a 267% increase in stomach inflammation compared to the non GMO diets for the participating pigs. Surprisingly, males had an even higher increase (400%). 168 young pigs were involved in this study. Other studies, that didn't make mainstream news, indicate a link between GMO food and severe organ damage, cancer, kidney damage, tumors and premature death. For example, it is not a secret that rats fed with GMO's grow disgusting tumors, again as shown by documented scientific published studies. Hello? Where are the food regulators assessing GM crops to be ingested by animals or people? Where are the long-term negative harm studies from GM food or crops? What about the genetic pollution that spreads and creates unintended results? These are serious questions, without clear answers.

Fukushima and Radioactivity in Seafood - GreenMedTV. The majority of radioactive fallout from the Fukushima nuclear power plant tragedy was absorbed by the Pacific Ocean. What does that mean for seafood safety? Unfortunately our oceans have become humanity's sewers; everything eventually flows down into the sea. This has implications for other aspects of seafood safety:

WA State Moves to Regulate Marijuana -- What You Need to Know About the Groundbreaking Reform. Washington Liquor Control Board (LCB), the state agency charged with setting up the state's marijuana industry, issued its initial draft rules. It took written comments on the initial draft rules through Monday and will issue revised draft rules later this month. The LCB will hold public hearings on the rules for all three envisaged licenses -- grower, processor, and retailer -- in late July, promulgate final rules in August, begin accepting license applications in September, and begin issuing licenses in December. From then, it is still likely to be months before the first legal marijuana is sold in Washington because only once growers are licensed will legal marijuana destined for retail sale be in the pipeline. It takes a minimum of three months to bring an indoor crop to harvest. But by sometime next spring, consumers should be able to go to their local pot shop and make their selections. "These initial rules balance our goal of developing a tightly regulated system with reasonable access for small and large business models to participate within the system," said Board Chair Sharon Foster. "They are based upon hundreds of hours of internal research and deliberation, consultation with multiple industry experts and input from the over 3,000 individuals who attended our forums statewide."

Pastors Seek to End War on Drugs By Decriminalizing Use. Sanders, pastor of Metropolitan Interdenominational Church in Nashville, is part of a group of clergy who want to end the war on drugs by decriminalizing drug use. They met this week in Nashville at American Baptist College. Sanders said the so-called war on drugs has failed for two reasons. First, he said, addiction to drugs is a disease, not a crime. "You don't criminalize and incarcerate people who have a disease," Sanders said. "You treat and care for them." Second, Sanders said, the laws on drug use aren't enforced fairly. A report from the ACLU of Tennessee released Thursday showed that black Tennesseans are arrested on marijuana possession charges four times as often as whites. About 45 percent of those arrested for marijuana-related crimes are black, even though blacks make up about 17 percent of the state's population.

Legal Medical Marijuana Patient Fired For Managing His PTSD With Weed. MDC spokeswoman Nataura Powdrell said Stanley was not fired because of medical marijuana, but because he hadn't notified his supervisor about his use of a controlled substance. "He's a lieutenant, and he understands the policy and should have informed his supervisor," she said. According to jail policy: "No employee shall ingest any controlled substance unless prescribed directly to them. When taking any prescribed medication ... employee must notify their immediate supervisor when taking any prescribed medication that may impair their ability to perform the essential functions of their job or may cause the employee to be inattentive or drowsy." As it happens, MDC officials offered to give Stanley back his job and his seniority in April, provided that he agree to certain conditions. One condition is that he maintain clean drug screens — essentially putting an end to his use of medical marijuana. He considered it, against his wife's wishes. But he could not agree to MDC's demand that he not ask to get back the $30,000 he lost in early withdrawal penalties when he pulled out his $90,000 retirement fund or the 13 years he had already accrued toward his retirement at 20 years. "I would have to start my 20 years over again," he said. MDC civil litigation administrator Mike Martindale said MDC has no authority over pension penalties and that he could buy back his years toward retirement if he wished. That, Stanley said, would cost him about $100,000.

FBI Secrets: Feds Reportedly Used Secret Evidence Obtained Under Secret Surveillance Law To Prosecute Accused Terrorists. In the New York case, the alleged plot leader, Najibullah Zazi, pleaded guilty to terrorism charges and is awaiting sentencing. An alleged co-conspirator, Adis Medunjanin, was sentenced to life in prison. In a paper circulated to Congress on Saturday, U.S. intelligence agencies said that broad NSA email monitoring under a program made public by Snowden, called Prism, played a critical role in leading U.S. investigators to Zazi, while sweeping NSA telephone data collection produced leads that led investigators to Medunjanin. According to court records, the FBI also used FISA warrants to make cases against: - Abdella Ahmad Tounisi, 18, of Aurora, Illinois, who was arrested in April for allegedly trying to join al Qaeda-linked fighters in Syria. He is awaiting trial. U.S. officials say he was a friend of Adel Daoud, an American accused of trying to set off a bomb outside a downtown Chicago bar last year. - Jesse Curtis Morton, a Muslim convert from Brooklyn who founded the Revolution Muslim website, which is linked to a half dozen other terrorism cases inside the United States, according to court documents. Morton is serving a 12-year sentence for posting online threats against the founders of the South Park television program. - Amine El Khalifi, a Moroccan sentenced last year to 30 years in prison for plotting a suicide attack on the U.S. Capitol. - Reaz Qadir Khan, a Portland, Oregon, municipal worker charged in April with conspiring to provide material support to a fatal 2009 suicide bombing at a regional Pakistani intelligence headquarters in Lahore. He awaits trial. - Betim Kaziu, a Brooklyn man convicted of conspiracy to kill U.S. soldiers overseas and sentenced to 27 years in prison. - Bakhityor Jumaev, a Philadelphia man arrested last year in Denver and charged with being a member of an Islamic terrorist group allegedly seeking to overthrow the government of Uzbekistan. He awaits trial.

Obama: If you are a US citizen the NSA can't listen to your calls. the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your emails ... and have not. directly contradicts the followup statement: > ... if you're a U.S. person, then NSA is not listening to your phone calls and it's not targeting your emails unless it's getting an individualized court order. This strikes as more talking points rearing their head without substantive difference in an effort to shape public opinion and discourse. If it is said that the NSA cannot target emails and listen to phone calls, that is going to etch itself into the public consciousness that the technological apparatus required is not present. But the follow up clarifies in nearly identical language that the NSA is not listening/targeting "unless it's getting an individualized court order." So now we are at the opposite side--the NSA can target your emails and listen to your phone calls, despite the aforementioned clarification they cannot. The talking points are keeping things intentionally muddled where they could easily make it more plain. So, barring other intricately worded explanations, this pretty much makes it sound like the NSA can indeed listen to your phone calls and target your emails, but only--as long as the existing rules are being followed--if they secure an "individualized court order" after good old-fashioned probable-cause seeking. Of course, this is an even more bizarre clarification for the President to make when he later turns his attention to the phone records program. The 2015 Program: > Program number one, called the 2015 Program, what that does is it gets data from the service providers like a Verizon in bulk, and basically you have call pairs. You have my telephone number connecting with your telephone number. There are no names. There is no content in that database. All it is, is the number pairs, when those calls took place, how long they took place. Okay, so admission that bulk call data is there, as Snowden alleged with his leaks. Once again, the talking points that this is all metadata--without explicitly using that particular word, though. And yet, it is trivial to connect a phone number to its owner. So, your call data is there in the database with all the information required to identify you specifically should intelligence agencies deem necessary. The President further clarifies the nature of the reporting in that he says "[a]t no point is any content revealed", a perhaps unfortunate, unintended admission that the content is there. I know the President likes to be very clarifying when speaking and interviewing and somewhat sidetracks mid-sentence to clarify a specific phrase or term (note all the em-dashes littered throughout the text of the interview), but this one is particularly interesting because it reads as if he caught himself mid-un-truth when he jumps mid-sentence to say that if the FBI wants content, they then have to go to the FISC to ask for a warrant to get the content.

The Senators Fighting the NSA Say Security and Privacy Aren't Mutually Exclusive. Wyden and Paul knew what notes to hit with their speeches. Wyden, one of only 10 senators to vote against the reauthorization of the Patriot Act in 2006, said, "Every time there is an attack, a tragedy, it becomes a reason for some to argue that Americans must sacrifice liberty for security. Here in this room—one of the reasons I'm so honored to be with you—we believe that liberty and security in America are not mutually exclusive." "We believe it's possible to fight terrorism relentlessly and ferociously without throwing our liberties overboard. I especially want to offer up the thought that when you really get into these issues, what you'll find is some of the best security practices in America come about through openness and not through obscurity," Wyden added. No one in the room had any delusion that the NSA or federal government had been completely forthcoming about its surveillance—the Electronic Frontier Foundation had been seeking the FISA court documents obtained by the Guardian since 2006, but I don't think anyone with EPIC was expecting a leak of this size less than 36 hours after the group's biggest annual event. It's hard to tell what Wyden would have said if he'd given the speech 36 hours later, after Glenn Greenwald started a national shitstorm. But in the days following the leak, Wyden's been a pain in the Obama administration's side, calling the president out on PRISM and claiming he was lied to by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper when he asked about the NSA's information gathering programs. He has since called for public hearings to address the NSA revelations

San Diego Medical Marijuana Draft Ordinance References Medbox Technology In Dispensaries. The ordinance reads, "The use of vending machines which allow access to medical marijuana except by a responsible person as defined in San Diego Municipal Code 42.1502 (a dispensary employee), is prohibited. For purposes of this section, a vending machine is any device that allows access to medical marijuana without a human intermediary." Medbox is the only device that is used behind the counter as a storage, dispensing and compliance system, and is operated exclusively by trained personnel, and never by patients or customers. The company is quick to point out that some competitors have commenced marketing of machines that are patient accessed and obviously not conducive to what cities and states are looking for in compliant, well run, operations. Medbox management had met with San Diego City Council leaders to point out the differences between their system and other types of "vending" machines. "We had a productive discussion with city leaders and were able to demonstrate that the Medbox system is not a vending machine, but a behind-the-counter compliance tool," stated Dr. Bruce Bedrick, CEO of Medbox, Inc. "We are pleased that the San Diego City Attorney has proposed an ordinance to reflect this fact, and we look forward to helping dispensary operators in the city open and operate fully compliant, transparent, and efficient medical marijuana dispensaries."

Monday, June 17, 2013

Campaign Contributions Received by U.S. Congress Legislators. Money and Politics: Illuminating the Connection

Woz: This is not my America. "All these things that talk about the Constitution that made us so good as people, they're kind of nothing. They all dissolved with the Patriot Act," he said. "There's not even a free open court anymore," he added. He is clearly distraught about what he sees is the erosion of the America he believed in, one whose people had clear rights. Everything, in his eyes, was overturned. Warming to his theme, he explained: "That's what a king does. A king just goes out, has anyone rounded up, killed, puts them in prison." He began to compare America to Russia. It was Russia, when Woz was growing up, that followed people around and made them disappear. "We're getting more and more like that," he offered, gloomily. This trend away from the Constitution has infected ownership in the technological world, he thinks. "Nowadays in the digital world you can hardly own anything anymore," he said. If you put things in the cloud, someone, somewhere might disappear it and it's gone forever. "When we grew up, ownership was what made America different than Russia," he explained. Woz certainly doesn't lack passion or idealism, but are his thoughts realistic in the kind of world that this has become?

Ubuntu Spyware: What to do? — Free Software Foundation — working together for free software. Ubuntu, a widely used and influential GNU/Linux distribution, has installed surveillance code. When the user searches her own local files for a string using the Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu sends that string to one of Canonical's servers. (Canonical is the company that develops Ubuntu.) This is just like the first surveillance practice I learned about in Windows. My late friend Fravia told me that when he searched for a string in the files of his Windows system, it sent a packet to some server, which was detected by his firewall. Given that first example I paid attention and learned about the propensity of "reputable" proprietary software to be malware. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Ubuntu sends the same information. Ubuntu uses the information about searches to show the user ads to buy various things from Amazon. Amazon commits many wrongs (see http://stallman.org/amazon.html); by promoting Amazon, Canonical contributes to them. However, the ads are not the core of the problem. The main issue is the spying. Canonical says it does not tell Amazon who searched for what. However, it is just as bad for Canonical to collect your personal information as it would have been for Amazon to collect it. People will certainly make a modified version of Ubuntu without this surveillance. In fact, several GNU/Linux distros are modified versions of Ubuntu. When those update to the latest Ubuntu as a base, I expect they will remove this. Canonical surely expects that too. Most free software developers would abandon such a plan given the prospect of a mass switch to someone else's corrected version. But Canonical has not abandoned the Ubuntu spyware. Perhaps Canonical figures that the name "Ubuntu" has so much momentum and influence that it can avoid the usual consequences and get away with surveillance.

What you say Can And Will Get You Arrested. Petitioner, without being placed in custody or receiving Miranda warnings, voluntarily answered some of a police officer�s questions about a murder, but fell silent when asked whether ballistics testing would match his shotgun to shell casings found at the scene of the crime. At petitioner�s murder trial in Texas state court, and over his objection, the prosecution used his failure to answer the question as evidence of guilt. He was convicted, and both the State Court of Appeals and Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, rejecting his claim that the prosecution�s use of his silence in its case in chief violated the Fifth Amendment. Held: The judgment is affirmed.

Supreme Court Rules That Pre-Miranda Silence Can Be Used In Court. The 5-4 ruling comes in the case of Genovevo Salinas, who was convicted of a 1992 murder. During police questioning, and before he was arrested or read his Miranda rights, Salinas answered some questions but did not answer when asked if a shotgun he had access to would match up with the murder weapon. Prosecutors in Texas used his silence on that question in convicting him of murder, saying it helped demonstrate his guilt. Salinas appealed, saying his Fifth Amendment rights to stay silent should have kept lawyers from using his silence against him in court. Texas courts disagreed, saying pre-Miranda silence is not protected by the Constitution. The high court upheld that decision. The Fifth Amendment protects Americans against forced self-incrimination, with the Supreme Court saying that prosecutors cannot comment on a defendant's refusal to testify at trial. The courts have expanded that right to answering questions in police custody, with police required to tell people under arrest they have a right to remain silent without it being used in court. Prosecutors argued that since Salinas was answering some questions -- therefore not invoking his right to silence -- and since he wasn't under arrest and wasn't compelled to speak, his silence on the incriminating question doesn't get constitutional protection. Salinas' "Fifth Amendment claim fails because he did not expressly invoke the privilege against self-incrimination in response to the officer's question," Justice Samuel Alito said. "It has long been settled that the privilege `generally is not self-executing' and that a witness who desires its protection `must claim it.'"

Egyptian Ministers: 'Our War Is With America and Israel'. "I am very fond of battles. With the enemies, of course -- with America and Israel," says Hussein. "but this battle [concerning the dam] must be made with maximum judiciousness and calm. ... our war is with America and Israel, not with Ethiopia ... imagine what this people would do if its water were turned off, what all 80 million of us would do to America and Israel if our water was turned off ..." Younes Makloun, chariman of the Al Nour party, says to Morsi, "We in the Al-Nour party, believe that the Egyptian agreement to the building of this dam would be a dangerous strategic mistake because the Ethiopians -- and the Israelis and the US -- are behind it and would use as a lethal bargaining chip to pressure Egypt." It is unclear from the video whether or not Makloun realized his remarks were being broadcast on live TV.

Analyst: Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria now best-equipped of the group. "I believe you will not deny that one should hardly back those who kill their enemies and eat their organs. ... Do you want to support these people? Do you want to supply arms to these people?" Russian President Vladimir Putin asked Sunday. He was referring to a widely circulated video that allegedly showed a rebel fighter eating the heart of a dead soldier. The video, posted by a group loyal to the Syrian government, raised questions about the rebels' credibility, even though the Syrian opposition widely condemned the act. On Monday, Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama will meet one-on-one to discuss the war that has now killed more than 92,000 people, including thousands of children.

How Christian Myth Overinflates the Religious Right's Sense of Self Importance. You get how this works: only their views matter. If we disagree, we are persecuting them. In the ancient world, of course, this arrogant sense of self-importance meant that everybody had to be persecuting the Christians because of their paradigm-shattering arrival on the scene in first century Judaea. But just as with the claims of persecution, nothing could be further from the truth. Christianity would have us believe that their religion exploded like a racehorse out of the gate onto the pages of history. This is not just fundamentalist history talking: this is the traditional tale we are all brought up to believe as Christians. It's the Good News. How could anyone have ignored it? It is a comfortable myth. After all, another myth, that of the moral superiority of Christianity, depends upon but also justifies this belief. It is a circular argument but it's the argument the Church has run with since the fourth century and they have gotten a lot of mileage out of it. They continue to do so. The more science proves religion unnecessary to morality and ethics, the more strident the claims that without Christianity society collapses.

Glyphosate induces human breast cancer cel... [Food Chem Toxicol. 2013] - PubMed - NCBI. Glyphosate is an active ingredient of the most widely used herbicide and it is believed to be less toxic than other pesticides. However, several recent studies showed its potential adverse health effects to humans as it may be an endocrine disruptor. This study focuses on the effects of pure glyphosate on estrogen receptors (ERs) mediated transcriptional activity and their expressions. Glyphosate exerted proliferative effects only in human hormone-dependent breast cancer, T47D cells, but not in hormoneindependent breast cancer, MDA-MB231 cells, at 10-12 to 10-6 M in estrogen withdrawal condition. The proliferative concentrations of glyphosate that induced the activation of estrogen response element (ERE) transcription activity were 5-13 fold of control in T47D-KBluc cells and this activation was inhibited by an estrogen antagonist, ICI 182780, indicating that the estrogenic activity of glyphosate was mediated via ERs. Furthermore, glyphosate also altered both ERα and βexpression. These results indicated that low and environmentally relevant concentrations of glyphosate possessed estrogenic activity. Glyphosate-based herbicides are widely used for soybean cultivation, and our results also found that there was an additive estrogenic effect between glyphosate and genistein, a phytoestrogen in soybeans

Israeli politicians protect 'price tag' attackers. Israeli news has been reporting the authorities' frustration in trying to break into the cells and prevent the attacks; the move is supposed to be part of a stepped-up effort to address the problem. It is hard not to be cynical, though, when military courts and jails are full of Palestinians for every stone thrown, but other crimes -- like torching cars and burning mosques -- just seem far too complex and sophisticated for a simple Israeli intelligence outfit to solve. In truth, I don't think this is worth a lengthy moral or ideological debate about whether the group should be labelled as terrorists in general, since it has not killed civilians, thank god. What matters is that the government stop the violence that indeed terrorizes people and sows lawlessness in the land under Israel's control, while entrenching the unequal standards of law enforcement for two different populations. To that end, perhaps the most deplorable point in Haaretz' coverage of the issue (Hebrew) is the following. Barak Ravid writes: Prime Minister Netanyahu hesitated from the decision to declare "price tag" activists as a terror organization, especially against the background of political pressure from settler leaders in the West Bank and from the Jewish Home party, as well as figures in his own party. Holding a vote within the government about defining the "price tag" activists as a terror organization could have sparked a coalition crisis. [My translation - DS]

Deleted Daily Mail Online Article: "US Backed Plan for Chemical Weapon Attack in Syria to Be Blamed on Assad". What the reason was for the deletion remains unclear. The article was published at this URL: dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2270219/U-S-planned-launch-chemical-weapon-attack-Syria-blame-Assad.html There exists a cached version of the article which can be found here: http://web.archive.org/web/20130129213824/http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2270219/U-S-planned-launch-chemical-weapon-attack-Syria-blame-Assad.html See scan of complete deleted article below: One day later, on January 30, a moderated news board thread was created, which is still online, at Mail Online about that article. "Thread: Syrian WMD False Flag -- Are False Flags a way of life now?" In their initial article Mail Online refers to an Infowars.com article (dated January 28, 2013), that's where they probably found the information on the leaked e-mail and other documents. CapitalBay (who published the wrong areal pictures of the school in Sandy Hook), Mail Online, Infowars, Yahoo News India, News Track India, Whale.to, Philippine Times, Uganda News, LiveLeak, Truth Media TV and others all claim in their mirrored articles that the alleged e-mail from Britam's David Goulding to Philip Doughty was dated December 25, 2012. However, at Neftegaz.ru (translated with Google) there also exists another version of the alleged e-mail. There the e-mail is dated December 24, 2012.

Schooling Ourselves in an Unequal America. Historically, the role of the federal government, which takes a back seat to the states in education, has been to try to close achievement gaps, but they have continued to widen. Several changes in federal education policy under President Obama have actually increased the flow of scarce federal dollars toward those students who need it less, reinforcing inequities and further weakening overall educational performance. Reversing America's slide in international education rankings will require turning that record on its head. America's relative fall in educational attainment is striking in several dimensions. American baby boomers ages 55 to 64 rank first in their age group in high school completion and third in college completion after Israel and Canada. But jump ahead 30 years to millennials ages 25 to 34, and the United States slips to 10th in high school completion and 13th in college completion. America is one of only a handful of countries whose work force today has no more years of schooling than those who are retiring do. On international tests, American students consistently score in the middle of the pack among advanced countries, but America underperforms most on two measures — preschool enrollment and college on-time completion. Nearly all 4-year-olds in Japan, France, Britain and Germany are enrolled in preschool, compared with 69 percent in the United States. And although the United States is relatively good at getting high school graduates into college, it is horrible at getting them to graduate on time with a college degree. With more than half of those who start college failing to earn a degree, the United States has the highest college dropout rate in the developed world.

Fracking Is Already Straining U.S. Water Supplies. Every fracking job requires 2 million to 4 million gallons of water, according to the Groundwater Protection Council. The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, has estimated that the 35,000 oil and gas wells used for fracking consume between 70 billion and 140 billion gallons of water each year. That's about equal, EPA says, to the water use in 40 to 80 cities with populations of 50,000 people, or one to two cities with a population of 2.5 million each. Some of the most intensive oil and gas development in the nation is occurring in regions where water is already at a premium. A paper published last month by Ceres, a nonprofit that works on sustainability issues, looked at 25,000 shale oil and shale gas wells in operation and monitored by an industry-tied reporting website called FracFocus. Ceres found that 47 percent of these wells were in areas "with high or extremely high water stress" because of large withdrawals for use by industry, agriculture, and municipalities. In Colorado, for example, 92 percent of the wells were in extremely high water-stress areas, and in Texas more than half were in high or extremely high water-stress areas.

Detroit rock bottom: City announces $2.5bn debt default — RT USA. Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr said the city would stop making payments on its unsecured debt in a bid to "conserve cash" for vital services like police and firefighters. He further said pension benefits both present and future along with healthcare would face cuts, while control over the city's water and sewage would be turned over to an independent body. "We're tapped out," Orr was quoted by WWJ-TV as saying. "We need to come up with a plan to restructure our debt obligations and our legacy obligations going forward — that is: pension, other employee benefits, healthcare, so on and so forth." Orr continued that $1.25 billion would be set aside over the next decade, $750 million of which will go towards public safety, including funds for police, fire, streetlights and other endeavors. The remaining $500 million will be for blight removal. The emergency manager spent two hours with about 180 bond insurers, pension trustees, union representatives and other creditors holding Detroit debt on Friday in an effort to fix fiscal problems which have left the city insolvent. One bond holder present at the meeting who asked not to be identified told Reuters Orr's proposal was likely more than debt holders would be able to accept. "It's just too much. It is an unprecedented amount to ask."

Why The 'War on Drugs' Has Been Made Redundant. The main ingredient in ecstasy pills -- MDMA -- was first synthesised in 1912 and began its life as a recreational drug in 70s California, years before it became notorious on the rave scene. The drug was never created for the party crowd, but the "designer drug" label stuck as the perfect phrase both to glamorise and demonise the fashionable new high. There have been some genuine attempts at designer drugs through the years -- where people have attempted to create new recreational substances to evade drug laws -- but most have been abject failures. In the most notorious example, chemistry student Barry Kidston tried to create a synthetic heroin-like high in 1976 and ended up creating MPTP, a substance so neurotoxic that it gave him Parkinson's disease days after he injected it. As a grim consolation, Kidston's only legacy was to create a drug that is still used today in lab experiments to try and understand this debilitating neurological disorder. But something has changed on the street drug scene in recent years. For the first time, we can use the term "designer drug" with confidence because we are in the midst of an unnerving scientific revolution in the use and supply of mind-altering substances. These drugs have hit the headlines under names such as Spice, K2, mephedrone and M-Cat, but there are hundreds more. They are sold euphemistically as "bath salts", "incense" or "research chemicals", and don't get regulated, at least not at first, because they are labelled as "not for human consumption". Unlike previous generations of legal highs that were about as recreational as a slap in the face, they actually work. They get you high.

Mental health toll of skunk cannabis: Number of users admitted to hospital after smoking drug soars 50% in three years. (Nothing like a little 'Reefer Madness') Mary Brett, a trustee of Cannabis Skunk Sense said: 'This worrying trend was entirely predictable, as a growing proportion of the cannabis on sale in Britain is now extremely potent skunk. 'This rising potency would seem to coincide with the numbers going into hospital, as more children are using this dangerous drug. 'We need an end to the authorities turning a blind eye to cannabis as if it is a harmless substance, as these figures show it clearly is not.' Skunk sold on Britain's streets is mostly grown in this country and is around five times as potent as traditional weed. Recent years have seen its prevalence surge compared to imported cannabis resin. Figures released by the Department of Health show hospital admissions linked to cannabis use have increased by half in three years. In 2008-9 some 651 admissions were recorded by the NHS in England relating to a diagnosis of 'mental or behavioural disorder due to use of cannabinoids'. By 2011-12, that figure had risen to more than 1000.

2013 Top 5 Selling Marijuana Strains: What Will They Cost You? The ebb and flow of marijuana prices throughout the United States is in a constant state of flux. In one state, such as California, with production at an all-time high and collectives being reduced in numbers, there is a perfect storm in market conditions for a downturn in the overall price. While in other states, scarcity -- via law of supply and demand -- forced prices slightly higher. According to a recent high times market analysis, all three grades (Chronic, Mid's and Schwag) took a slight hit in the first six months of 2013. As summer fires up, weed prices across the United States have fallen approximately $10 an ounce from the start of the year. With an average price of $380 an ounce... good pot -- may be your cheapest bet for attaining mental tranquility, as Mother Nature cranks up heat across the nation.

Congressman Earl Blumenaur, Leading On Sensible Marijuana Laws. Halfway through the first session of Congress, a series of initiatives designed to reform, modernize, and rationalize our national drug policies are building momentum. We're coming across the aisle in response to the tide of states (soon to be 21 and the District of Columbia) that have passed medical marijuana programs. Voters in Washington and Colorado have already approved marijuana for adult, recreational use. There's real movement on this issue and Americans are paying attention to it. They say "lead, follow, or get out of the way," and it's time for the federal government to do just that. We should start by removing marijuana from the list of Schedule I or II substances under the Controlled Substances Act; treating marijuana business owners who are complying with state law like all other legal businesses; and eventually moving toward taxing and regulating marijuana like cigarettes and alcohol. I have several bills out that will move us toward these goals and work to eliminate the state/federal conflict of laws that has created this legal grey area. Congressman Jared Polis and I have introduced a package of legislation (H.R. 499 and H.R. 502) that would create a tax and regulatory framework at the federal level. I have introduced legislation (H.R. 689) to ensure that the federal government does not interfere with medical marijuana patients and businesses as they work to deliver medicine safely in compliance with state law to over one million people. I have also recently introduced H.R. 2240, the Small Business Tax Equity Act, to allow marijuana businesses to deduct their expenses from their taxes like all other businesses. The fact that they are unable to do so inhibits their ability to function safely and securely. Other legislation would protect law-abiding marijuana business owners from having their assets seized, and would change our insane policy that hemp products can be sold in the United States, but growing hemp is illegal.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Leaked: NSA's Talking Points Defending NSA Surveillance. All three branches -- Congress, the Courts, and the Executive Branch -- review and sign off on FISA collection authorities. Congress passed FISA, and the Intelligence Committees are regularly and fully briefed on how it is used. Except many in Congress have made it clear they did not review this kind of program, or were led to believe that the NSA did not collect this kind of information. And those who are being briefed now say the program goes way beyond what they were told. And, those who did know about it beforehand, tried to dig deeper into the program, but were blocked. As for "the Courts" reviewing it, we're talking about the FISA Court which is a rubberstamp in black robes, having approved every single request of it for the past three years. It last rejected a request back in 2009, and that was only one out of 1320. In its entire history, since 1979, the court has rejected a grand total of 11 applications. 11. Out of 33,939 applications. That's 0.03%. Not 3%. 0.03% with not a single rejection in over three years. That's not careful review. That's a rubber stamp. As for the executive branch signing off on it, what do you expect? They're going to hold back their own ability to spy on people? The FISA Court authorizes intelligence collection only after the Intelligence Community has proven its case, based on underlying facts and investigations. Well, we already covered the rubber stamp issue above, but Section 215 of the Patriot Act requires that the government present a case that the data it is seeking "must be relevant to an authorized preliminary or full investigation to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a U.S. person or to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." I'd love to see the argument that all data is somehow relevant to the investigation. Of course, I can't see it, because it's secret. This legal tool has been reauthorized only after ongoing 90-day renewal periods. That means that every 90 days, the Department of Justice and the FBI must prove to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that they have the facts and legal basis to renew this legal authority. It is not a rubber stamp.

Cannabis Comes To Wall Street: The Next Big Industry? ArcView brings investors with deep pockets to businesses pitching ideas primarily centered on the medical-cannabis industry. DeAngelo is the president of ArcView as well as the executive director of the Harborside Health Center in Oakland and San Jose, Calif. He arranged the pitch as a "Shark Tank"-style event where entrepreneurs present their ideas to potential investors. "Our entrepreneurs and investors come from all across the country and, in some cases, come from other parts of the world, and we are really looking at the legal-cannabis industry as something which is in its infancy," DeAngelo told the IBTimes. DeAngelo acknowledged that there is plenty of work ahead before medical cannabis is legal in most U.S. states, but he said he believes that having businesses in place is an important first step. Investors are curious about the new markets related to medical cannabis, he noted, pointing out: "It is certainly only legal today in a few jurisdictions, but we know that, in the near future, that's going to be changing. Forward-thinking investors and forward-thinking entrepreneurs want to be in a position to get ahead of the curve of that change and not be behind it."

NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants. f the NSA wants "to listen to the phone," an analyst's decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. "I was rather startled," said Nadler, an attorney and congressman who serves on the House Judiciary committee. Not only does this disclosure shed more light on how the NSA's formidable eavesdropping apparatus works domestically, it also suggests the Justice Department has secretly interpreted federal surveillance law to permit thousands of low-ranking analysts to eavesdrop on phone calls. Because the same legal standards that apply to phone calls also apply to e-mail messages, text messages, and instant messages, Nadler's disclosure indicates the NSA analysts could also access the contents of Internet communications without going before a court and seeking approval. The disclosure appears to confirm some of the allegations made by Edward Snowden, a former NSA infrastructure analyst who leaked classified documents to the Guardian. Snowden said in a video interview that, while not all NSA analysts had this ability, he could from Hawaii "wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president." There are serious "constitutional problems" with this approach, said Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who has litigated warrantless wiretapping cases. "It epitomizes the problem of secret laws."

The Monsanto 71: Senators Who Betrayed Constituents in Favor of Biotech Dollars‏. "All over the world, in the European Union, in many other countries around the world, dozens and dozens of countries, people are able to look at the food that they are buying and determine through labeling whether or not that product contains genetically modified organisms." Sanders also noted that in the past he has helped pass laws in his home state of Vermont that would require GMO labeling but hasn't seen those laws actually be enacted over fears that Monsanto would sue the state. This bill would allow states to do what they want without fear that the company that brought us agent orange could end up having more power than an entire state government. (Source) The saying goes, "The friend of my enemy is also my enemy." By this rationale, those who are in the back pocket of Monsanto are the enemies of those of us who demand proper oversight of the evil corporation through the checks and balances that are SUPPOSED to be in place to protect consumers. Therefore, it is patently clear that those in Congress who vote in favor of Monsanto are the enemy. Let's out the politicians who voted against the amendment last Friday that would have allowed the states to choose whether or not GMOs should be labeled. As long as these politicians are in office, GMOs will NOT be labeled at a national level, because these politicians will not allow legislations to pass that might harm the bottom line of their puppet-master, Monsanto. Real Farmacy put together a list of the US Senators who voted AGAINST our right to know what we are eating

The Capitalist Network That Runs The World Revealed. The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere. But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations (TNCs). "Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it's conspiracy theories or free-market," says James Glattfelder. "Our analysis is reality-based." Previous studies have found that a few TNCs own large chunks of the world's economy, but they included only a limited number of companies and omitted indirect ownerships, so could not say how this affected the global economy -- whether it made it more or less stable, for instance. The Zurich team can. From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company's operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power. The work, to be published in PloS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (click the above image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms -- the "real" economy -- representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.

Second Louisiana Plant Explosion Kills One, Injures Several. (And that makes 3 --Three -- Chemical Bombs that have exploded) CF Industries' website says the plant can produce roughly 5 million tons of nitrogen for agricultural and industrial uses annually. Just miles away Thursday, an explosion at a chemical plant in Geismar owned by Williams Cos. Inc. led to two deaths and injured dozens of others. Donaldsonville and Geismar are both in Ascension Parish and straddle the Mississippi River, between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Deerfield, Ill.-based CF Industries manufactures ammonia and other nitrogen fertilizers at its Donaldsonville plant. Edmondson said there was no ammonia at the plant at the time of the incident. "There was no hazardous material at the site," Edmondson said. Friday's deadly blast wasn't the first at the company's Donaldsonville plant. Three workers were killed and nine injured by an explosion and fire at the facility in May 2000.

NSA's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week. Given how much time we've spent on the NSA surveillance story this week, we thought it would only be fair to allow the NSA a chance to speak for itself, and so we offered up our standard "favorite Techdirt posts of the week" post to the NSA. I think we may have accidentally signed ourselves up for PRISM in doing so, but such is life. First off, thanks to Mike for giving us this chance to reach out directly. We're already well aware of what you think of us (you know why), and frankly, Techdirt seemed rather empty this week compared to its usual bits of content. But, here are our favorites, and your own surfing habits suggest you agree:

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Raw Cannabis Juice Helps Young Woman Ditch 40 Medications - GreenMedTV. Approximately 106,000 Americans die from prescription drugs each year, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. All the more amazing that the young woman in this video, who at age 16 was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (which snowballed into lupus and other autoimmune conditions), was able to get off of over 40 medications by using raw cannabis juice, according to her physician, Dr. Courtney. Raw cannabis is non-psychoactive, and is the way it was used for hundreds of thousands of year like our hunter and gatherer ancestors. Dr. Courtney is a physician and researcher from Mendocino, California, who gives medical marijuana approvals to qualified patients in Mendocino and Humboldt Counties. Kristen Peskuski is a researcher and patient who put her systemic lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, interstitial cystitis, and numerous other conditions into remission juicing fresh cannabis.

Scientists Talk About, Inside Monsanto, The Truth. - YouTube. Scientists Talk About, Inside Monsanto, The Truth.

The Metabolic Power of Pleasure. Losing weight by limiting pleasure is like trying to stop smoking by not breathing. We can never increase the body's metabolic capacity by limiting what is essential to life. The key to pleasure's powerful effect in balancing your appetite is that it promotes a physiologic relaxation response. The times we overeat most are when we're anxious, stressed, or unaware. A relaxed, pleasured eater has natural control. A stressed eater produces more circulating cortisol -- our main stress hormone. What's amazing is that cortisol desensitizes us to pleasure. When you're in fight or flight response and trying to escape the hungry wolf, you don't want your brain to be in a "feel good" mode and get sidetracked looking for chocolate. All of you needs to be focused on survival. So when cortisol desensitizes us to pleasure in our day-to-day stresses, we need to eat more food to feel the same amount of pleasure as when we're relaxed. This means that if you're afraid of pleasure or anxious about gaining weight or frightened to eat a dessert, you'll generate more cortisol. This chemical will swim through your bloodstream, numb you to pleasure, and ironically create the very self-fulfilling prophecy you feared from the beginning: "if I eat something fun, I won't be able to stop..." Can you see how our nutritional fears help create our metabolic reality? Pleasure loves slow. It thrives in a warm, intimate, cozy space. It reveals its deepest secrets when we drop all pretensions of speed and allow timelessness and sensuality to breathe us back into each moment. It's time to welcome a healthy sense of pleasure back to the table.

Why It's Time to Legalize Marijuana. Since the Tories came to power in 2006, and slammed the door on the previous Liberal government's muddled plans to reduce or decriminalize marijuana penalties, arrests for pot possession have jumped 41 per cent. In those six years, police reported more than 405,000 marijuana-related arrests, roughly equivalent to the populations of Regina and Saskatoon combined. In the statistic-driven world of policing, pot users are the low-hanging fruit, says Larsen, director of Sensible BC, a non-profit group organizing to put marijuana decriminalization on a provincial referendum ballot in 2014. "We're seeing crime drop across Canada. [Police] feel they've got nothing better to do. You can throw a rock and find a marijuana user," he says over coffee in his Burnaby home. "It's very easy to do."

Are Contaminants In Cannabis A Serious Concern Or A Manageable Side Effect Of Prohibition? The Werc Shop study, published in the Journal of Toxicology last month, raises serious questions about the safety of cannabis. The results show when pesticides are topically applied to cannabis, and that product is combusted, residual pesticides are found in the smoke. Using a water bong and a pipe, two of the most common methods of smoking cannabis, the contaminant recovery rates were 42--70%. Smoke filtered through cotton and coconut fibers did better, with residue registering at 0.08--10%. The study concludes, "considering these results, high pesticide exposure through cannabis smoking is a significant possibility, which may lead to further health complications in cannabis consumers." This looks bad on the surface. Especially since most users do not have access to cannabis tested for purity by third party validated labs. Dave Lampach, of Oakland's Steephill Lab is an expert on cannabis safety. Steephill Lab, founded by Lampach and fellow entrepreneur Addison DeMoura, was the first non-federal potency, mold and bacterial cannabis-testing program in the United States. Lampach is also a member of the BOTEC team, recently hired by the State of Washington to create regulations for the production, processing and retailing of cannabis. "I don't think pesticides are a really big problem," says Lampach, "But, there is always going to be that one jerk with spider mites, who uses a pesticide that you do not want inhale."

Marijuana May Improve Stamina, Rejuvenate Brain Says Study. Contrary to the warnings about its ill effects, marijuana may actually have some benefits, including improving stamina and removing damaged brain cells. This was suggested in a new study by Andras Biokei-Gorzo at the Institute of Molecular Psychiatry at the University of Bonn in Germany. But lest people think of marijuana as a wonder drug, Biokei-Gorzo also cautioned that more studies about their therapeutic effects may be needed, saying clinical evidence of their efficacy is "either inconclusive or still missing." "In preclinical models of neurodegenerative disorders, cannabinoids show beneficial effects, but the clinical evidence regarding their efficacy as therapeutic tools is either inconclusive or still missing," Biokey-Gorzo said. An article on Collective Evolution said the study suggested the activation of the brain's cannabinoid system triggers the release of antioxidants, which act as a cleansing mechanism. Such a process may remove damaged cells and improve the efficiency of mitochondria, the energy source that powers cells, it added.

California Senate Unanimously Asks Feds' Permission to Legalize Hemp. SB 566 was written to acquiesce Governor Brown's out-of-touch constitutional ignorance. Under the current bill, hemp production would only begin once California receives permission from the federal government. "We feel confident that California will finally have an industrial hemp law later this year ensuring that California farmers are ready and able to cultivate hemp upon federal approval," Patrick Goggin, California legal counsel for the industry group Vote Hemp said. Should SB 566 be construed as some mechanism to make the federal government act? Hardly. But it does indicate the growing support for hemp production, not only in California, but across the United States. According StopTheDrugWar.org, domestic retail sales of hemp food and body care products reached $156 million last year, and the Hemp Industries Association estimates that all hemp products sales, including clothing, auto parts, and building materials, totaled at least $500 million. The continued federal prohibition makes no sense constitutionally or economically.

Exploring The World High On Weed: Rick Steve's Speaks About Pot Laws And Marijuana Tourism. While Rick and his travel company are enjoying an elevated status now... It's not always been this way. Long before Steve's was paid to travel the world, enjoying the sights -- and some of the best cannabis the world has to offer. He was known around the neighborhood in his Edmonds, Washington hometown, as being a somewhat low-key, pro-legalization advocate. Speaking out against the pitifully ill-conceived marijuana policy, perpetuated by the federal government on some of Washington's local radio shows. Rick was a pioneer in the marijuana legalization movement, looking to put a positive, average guy face -- to the otherwise demonized topic of marijuana consumption.

Medical Marijuana Harvests Strong Support In Recent YouGov Poll. It's pretty hard to find anything these days that 60% of Americans can agree on... But leaving medical marijuana patients, and the dispensaries that supply them their medicine...alone, un-accosted, is one of them. In a poll just released today (Friday), the Huffington Post coughed up some rather disturbing statistics for Eric holder and his DOJ, who have been raiding California medical marijuana collectives for the last several months. In their Omnibus Poll over 1000 adults were interviewed from May 31 -- June 1, 2013 -- citing a potential margin for error of approximately 3 1/2%... It seems rather clear, Americans want the federal war against medical marijuana to end...now. When those participating in the poll were asked whether or not their states should allow doctors to recommend applicable amounts of cannabis for their sick patients who need it, only 15% spoke up as being strongly opposed. Conversely 35% showed overwhelming supported mmj, and an additional 25% were in favor of medicinal cannabis, but had some reservations.

DaDenMan Show #152 - Ruminations On Money and The Magic Number 3 Ruminations On Money and The Magic Number 3

Friday, June 14, 2013

Leaked: NSA's Talking Points Defending NSA Surveillance. The news articles have been discussing what purports to be a classified, lawfully-authorized order that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) issued under an Act of Congress -- the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Under this Act, the FISA Court authorized a collection of business records. There is no secret program involved here -- it is strictly authorized by a U.S. statute. "There is no secret program here"? Bullshit. Why, then, have so many people, both in the Congress and the public been shocked at the extent to which the NSA is snarfing up data? This is a secret program, enabled by a secret interpretation of the FISA Amendments Act, by the FISA Court, which the DOJ and the NSA insist the public is not allowed to know. Yes, it's a secret program. Saying otherwise is simply lying. It authorizes only metadata collection, which includes barebones records -- such as a telephone number or the length of a call. "Barebones records" and "metadata" are terms being used to play down the extent of the collection of info, but it ignores multiple reports that note the amount of data actually collected -- including phone numbers, call times, call location, among other things -- is more than enough to identify who someone is and a variety of important characteristics about that person. This legal tool, as enacted by Congress, has been critical in protecting America. It has been essential in thwarting at least one major terrorist attack to our country in the past few years. "At least one" is a lot less than the "dozens" NSA boss Keith Alexander recently stated. But, so far the only "one" identified, involving an attempted NYC Subway bombing was shown not to have needed this data collection program to uncover and stop. So, nope. Despite what appears to be a broad scope in the FISA Court's order, the Intelligence Community uses only a small fraction of a percent of the business records collected to pursue terrorism subjects.

Majority of Supreme Court members millionaires. Assets on the forms are reported in a range making it impossible to say precisely how much each justice is worth, but suffice to say, none of them are hurting financially. Ruth Bader Ginsburg boasts the highest potential net worth at $18.1 million with Stephen Breyer a close second at $17.1 million. Both were appointed by former President Bill Clinton. However, Ginsburg's actual net worth may be as low as $4.4 million and Breyer's as low as $5 million. Federal officials are also exempt from disclosing the value of their homes, making an accurate calculation even more difficult. After collecting nearly $2 million in book advances, Justice Sonia Sotomayor's assets rose to between $1.7 and $10.3 million, ranking her No. 3 in terms of highest potential net worth. Sotomayor is an appointee of President Barack Obama. Chief Justice John Roberts, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, possesses one of the court's most complex financial portfolios. His net worth is valued between $2.8 million and $6.6 million, ranking him No. 4.

The US Pirate Party Wants To Create A Social Network To Circumvent The NSA. "Captain" (but really chairperson of the national committee) Lindsay-Anne Brunner told us the Pirate Party started thinking about creating a new social network two weeks ago. The Pirates even posted a Facebook status requesting a few more deckhands with IT skills. Brunner told us the group plans to model the undertaking after the social network Diaspora, an NYU brain-child made real by Kickstarter. Diaspora uses Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol, a method for encrypting communication over the Internet. In non-hacker terms, any site that asks for personal information probably uses SSL. Now, the NSA can decode SSL, but only if the parent company spills the key. The U.S. Pirate Party, of course, would never do that with its social networking site. Still, Facebook and Google deny having any knowledge of the PRISM program. So the burning question remains: Can the NSA crack SSL without consent? Before Diaspora even launched, the site attained saviour -status online. But the "anti-Facebook" sort of flopped. The Pirates have a hard task ahead of them: creating an NSA-proof platform and then getting people on board.

Franken Vs. Franken On NSA Surveillance - YouTube. Though Al Franken today is claiming full knowledge of the NSA's recently disclosed surveillance programs, last year Franken appeared to rail against the notion of the NSA viewing Americans' emails

Why Libertarians Are Basically Cult Members. To begin with, the majority of the countries that adopted the "libertarian" gold standard were authoritarian monarchies or military dictatorships. With the exception of Imperial Britain, an authoritarian government outside of the home islands, where most Britons were denied the vote for most of this period, most of the independent countries of the pre-World War I gold standard epoch, including the U.S., Germany, France, Russia and many Latin American republics, rejected free trade in favor of varying degrees of economic protectionism. For its part, the U.S. between Lincoln and FDR was hardly laissez-faire. Ever since colonial times, states had engaged in public poor relief and sometimes created public hospitals and asylums. Tracinski to the contrary, there were also two massive federal welfare programs before the New Deal: the Homestead Act, a colossal redistribution of government land to farmers, and generous pension benefits for Union veterans of the Civil War and their families. Much earlier, the 1798 act that taxed sailors to fund a small system of government-run sailors' hospitals was supported by Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton alike. State and local licensing rules and trade laws governed economic life in detail, down to the size of spigots in wine casks, in some cases. It was precisely these state and local regulations that the Supreme Court struck down, in Lochner v. New York (1905) and other cases, to promote the goal of creating a single national market. At the same time, sharing their racism with most white Americans, federal judges in Tracinski's "libertarian" America permitted the most massive system of labor market distortion of all: racial segregation, which artificially boosted the incomes and property values of whites.

Gannett buys KGW parent Belo for $1.5B cash. Under the agreement announced Thursday, Gannett will pay $13.75 per share for the TV station operator, which is based in Dallas. That represents a 28 percent premium over Belo's closing price on Wednesday. The acquisition will make Gannett, based in McLean, Va., one of the country's largest owners of major network affiliates. Gannett, the largest U.S. newspaper publisher by circulation, also will assume $715 million in debt. Gannett owns USA Today and other newspapers as well as television stations. Shares of both companies soared to their highest prices since 2008. In morning trading, Belo Corp.'s shares jumped $2.92, or 27 percent, to $13.65, after peaking at $13.69 shortly after the market opened. Gannett Co.'s stock rose $4.88, or 25 percent, to $24.73 after peaking at $25.69. Gannett President and CEO Gracia Martore called the acquisition an "important step" in Gannett's diversification and said it will significantly improve the company's cash flow and financial strength. The acquisition will make Gannett, based in McLean, Va., one of the country's largest owners of major network affiliates, reaching nearly one-third of U.S. households. It nearly doubles Gannett's portfolio from 23 to 43 stations and gives it 21 stations in the country's top 25 television markets. Gannett expects the deal to boost its adjusted earnings by 50 cents per share within the first 12 months and generate $175 million in annual cost savings within three years after closing.

Southern Oregon Medical Marijuana Raids Were A Waste Of Tax Payer Resources. After a two-year investigation, police could have raided the storefronts on any day they chose. The operations clearly weren't going anywhere. But police chose to make the arrests the day before a state furlough day, when the courts were closed, which in turn preceded a three-day weekend. With bail for the defendants set as high as $550,000, that meant they likely would spend at least four days in jail before a bail hearing could be held. On Tuesday, a Jackson County Circuit judge refused to reduce the bail amounts. It wasn't until Thursday that a second judge agreed to drastically reduced bail amounts — a full week after the arrests. This in a jail where people accused of more serious crimes are set free on a daily basis. The Medford Mail Tribune covered the bail reductions as well, noting the shock of those in attendance and the fact that David Bond's initial bail of $200,000 was actually increased to match the Duckworths' in a previous hearing: Three people arrested in a series of medical marijuana dispensary raids last week successfully appealed their steep bail amounts this afternoon before a Jackson County Circuit Court judge. Judge Tim Gerking reduced the $550,000 bail for Lori Duckworth, 50, and Leland Duckworth, 49, to $5,000 and $10,000 respectively. The bail for David James Bond, 44, was reduced from $200,000 to $5,000.

Records Show Nearly 500 Years In Prison Time For Medical Marijuana Offenses. According to a survey of US court records, news stories, and case reports compiled by Cal NORML (with help from Americans for Safe Access): * Over 335 defendants have been charged with federal crimes related to medical marijuana in states with medical marijuana laws. * 158 defendants have received prison sentences totaling over 480 years for medical marijuana offenses. Some 50 are currently in federal prison, while more are waiting to be sentenced or surrender. * Over 90% of the criminal cases settled to date have resulted in convictions. 10% have been dismissed. A single defendant has been acquitted. Federal law typically prohibits defendants from invoking medical marijuana in their defense. * 153 medical marijuana cases have been brought in the 4 ¼ years of the Obama administration, nearly as many as under the 8 years of the Bush administration (163). * Not a single pardon or clemency petition has been granted to a medical marijuana defendant by President Obama or his predecessors. * One seriously ill defendant, Richard Flor, has died while in federal prison, and two others, Peter McWilliams and Steve McWilliams (no relation) died while being denied access to medical marijuana on bail. Other seriously ill patients who have who have been sentenced to lengthy terms include Dale Schafer, a hemophiliac currently serving 5 years along with his wife Mollie Fry, a cancer patient (pictured above); Vernon Rylee, who served nearly 5 years in a wheelchair (pictured right), and Jerry Duval. * At least 259 defendants have been charged in California; over 31 in Montana; 6 in Oregon; 15 in Nevada; 12 in Michigan; 2 in Colorado; and 10 in Washington.

Does Marijuana Make You Stupid? The USA Today article lacks face validity. Even from the title, "Study: Marijuana use increases risk of academic problems," the public is going to be skeptical. After all, we know that our last three presidents used marijuana, as have Steve Jobs, Carl Sagan and a host of others that we don't buy as having "academic problems." Alcohol use has been mysteriously omitted from the USA Today article about the study. When looking at the original report, it can be seen that alcohol use is occurring at a higher rate than marijuana use (95% of fourth year college students have had a drink compared to 63% who have tried marijuana). Furthermore, outcomes such as discontinued college education and the inability to find a job after college could very well have more to do with the illicit nature of marijuana and the collateral sanctions associated with its use, then the impact of the psychoactive properties of marijuana. Requirements regarding the disclosure of a felony conviction to obtain employment are another barrier that has little to do with the psychoactive effects of marijuana. In the actual report, the conclusions are more nuanced than those in USA Today. The authors of the study conclude that it is "excessive" drinking and substance use that put kids at risk for poor academic performance. The authors report that these issues often begin in high school and could be related to mental health issues. The real take home messages from this study? First, adolescents who are drinking and/or using substances (including prescription drugs) excessively while in high school should be paid attention. They could be self-medicating for an undiagnosed mental health issue, or having a tough time socially or academically.

DOJ Spent $300 Million on Aggressive Medical Marijuana Enforcement. (He said it would 'Change') Far outspending all of his predecessors, the report reveals that President Obama has dedicated nearly $300 million to such enforcement efforts, despite his repeated pledges to not use Justice Department funds in this way. In 2011 and 2012, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) spent four percent of its budget on the medical marijuana crackdown. Having conducted at least 270 paramilitary-style raids during the past four years, Obama's DEA spent approximately $8 million to carry them out. However, the amount of taxpayer dollars spent on raids was dwarfed by the amount spent on investigative efforts preceding raids, indictments, and lawsuits, which has totaled more than $200 million. According to today's report, data and anecdotal information has been summarized to reveal "the human and monetary costs of enforcing unpopular and outdated federal policies." For example, the report notes how the prosecution of Michigan medical marijuana patient and organ transplant recipient Jerry Duval, who surrendered to federal authorities Tuesday to serve out a 10-year prison sentence, has exacted both an economic and social toll. Not only will it cost taxpayers more than $1 million to imprison Duval, but his family has also been devastated by the federal government's needless prosecution of Jerry and his son Jeremy, as well as the seizure of their family farm worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Before Edward Snowden, There Was Joseph Nacchio. (Say No to Breach Of Privacy Rights-Business Dies) In February of 2001, the NSA approached Nacchio and demanded that he turn over Quest's communication records of its clients. Nacchio demanded a court order and NSA withdrew its offer. Shortly thereafter, the federal government also withdrew ALL of its lucrative federal government contracts from Quest Communication and the stock plummeted from $38 dollars per share to $2 dollars per share. The investors ousted Nacchio citing the bottom line. On the heels of bringing Quest Communications to its knees and causing Nacchio to lose his job, the corrupt federal government demanded more as they wanted to make an example out of Nacchio to serve as a warning for other heads of the telecom corporations who might otherwise not give in to their bullying and intimidation tactics.This is where the subject of stock option payments for CEO arises and this will be Nacchio's downfall and will cause him to lose his freedom. As an aside, my wife used to be the executive head of the corporate owned McDonalds restaurants in Arizona. When she retired to become a full time mom, part of her compensation package continued after her retirement in the form of corporate stock options which we cashed in for the next several years. In a more dramatic example of this routine practice of compensating executive heads of corporations with stock options, former British Petroleum CEO, Tony Hayward, dumped his stock in BP a few weeks prior to the Gulf oil explosion. Although it is clear that he had foreknowledge of the event and financially prepared to profit from the explosion, his stock option award from BP was perfectly legal. Conversely, part of Nacchio's compensation package consisted of stock option payments as a direct incentive to grow the corporation. When the federal government withdrew its major contracts from Quest Communications in February of 2001 for Nacchio's refusal to break the law and permit the NSA to spy on Quest customers , stock plummeted as a result of the federal government's actions. If the story stopped here, we would simply have a case of extreme revenge against a CEO and his corporation for refusing to break the law and violate the civil liberties of Quest customers. However, the federal government wanted its pound of flesh as they eventually prosecuted Nacchio, thus, accusing him of orchestrating a pump and dump scheme and personally profiting from his stock options, while Quest Communication investors took massive losses. The massive losses were the result of the withdrawal of federal contracts and had nothing to do with Nacchio's stock option payments.

Secret Court Ruling Put Tech Companies in Data Bind. Like almost all the actions of the secret court, which operates under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the details of its disagreement with Yahoo were never made public beyond a heavily redacted court order, one of the few public documents ever to emerge from the court. The name of the company had not been revealed until now. Yahoo's involvement was confirmed by two people with knowledge of the proceedings. Yahoo declined to comment. But the decision has had lasting repercussions for the dozens of companies that store troves of their users' personal information and receive these national security requests — it puts them on notice that they need not even try to test their legality. And despite the murky details, the case offers a glimpse of the push and pull among tech companies and the intelligence and law enforcement agencies that try to tap into the reams of personal data stored on their servers. It also highlights a paradox of Silicon Valley: while tech companies eagerly vacuum up user data to track their users and sell ever more targeted ads, many also have a libertarian streak ingrained in their corporate cultures that resists sharing that data with the government. "Even though they have an awful reputation on consumer privacy issues, when it comes to government privacy, they generally tend to put their users first," said Christopher Soghoian, a senior policy analyst studying technological surveillance at the American Civil Liberties Union. "There's this libertarian, pro-civil liberties vein that runs through the tech companies." Lawyers who handle national security requests for tech companies say they rarely fight in court, but frequently push back privately by negotiating with the government, even if they ultimately have to comply. In addition to Yahoo, which fought disclosures under FISA, other companies, including Google, Twitter, smaller communications providers and a group of librarians, have fought in court elements of National Security Letters, which the F.B.I. uses to secretly collect information about Americans. Last year, the government issued more than 1,850 FISA requests and 15,000 National Security Letters.

'Could have prevented 9/11' is the new 'Hitler'. For the uninitiated, Godwin's Law is one of the cardinal rules of the Internet. Coined in 1990 by Internet law expert Mike Godwin, the principle -- confirmed by countless contentious comment threads across the web -- is that the longer an online discussion persists, the greater the odds become that someone will make a comparison to Nazis or Adolf Hitler, to the point of near-inevitability. Nothing ends a debate faster than the hyperbolic unsupported counterfactual: "You know who else did [INSERT SUBJECT OF ARGUMENT HERE]? Hitler!" But Hitler and the Nazis aren't the only recurring straw men used to end debates. Over the past 12 years, it's become clear that the longer a national security debate persists, the more likely it becomes that someone will try to end it by suggesting something -- some policy, some person, some technology -- "could have prevented 9/11." The implication is that if something "could have prevented 9/11," then it must be justified. It's a trump card, a conversation-ender -- and it's impossible to prove. But that hasn't stopped people from using it -- from FBI Director Robert Mueller testifying on the Hill on Thursday to actor Mark Wahlberg's 2012 tough-guy claims. Here's a brief sampling of the people and policies that "could have prevented 9/11."

Who are the real "crazies" in our political culture? - Salon.com. I've been writing for several years about this destructive dynamic: whereby people who embrace clearly crazy ideas and crazy politicians anoint themselves the Arbiters of Sanity simply because they're good mainstream Democrats and Republicans and because the objects of their scorn are not. For me, the issue has nothing to do with Ron Paul and everything to do with how the "crazy" smear is defined and applied as a weapon in our political culture. Perhaps the clearest and most harmful example was the way in which the anti-war view was marginalized, even suppressed, in the run-up to the attack on Iraq because the leadership of both parties supported the war, and the anti-war position was thus inherently the province of the Crazies. That's what happens to any views not endorsed by either of the two parties. Last week in Newsweek, in the wake of the national fixation on Rand Paul, Conor Friedersdorf wrote a superb article on this phenomenon. While acknowledging that Rand Paul's questioning of the Civil Rights Act (and other positions Paul holds) are "wacky" and deeply wrong, Friedersdorf writes: Forced to name the "craziest" policy favored by American politicians, I'd say the multibillion-dollar war on drugs, which no one thinks is winnable. Asked about the most "extreme," I'd cite the invasion of Iraq, a war of choice that has cost many billions of dollars and countless innocent lives. The "kookiest" policy is arguably farm subsidies for corn, sugar, and tobacco — products that people ought to consume less, not more. . . . If returning to the gold standard is unthinkable, is it not just as extreme that President Obama claims an unchecked power to assassinate, without due process, any American living abroad whom he designates as an enemy combatant? Or that Joe Lieberman wants to strip Americans of their citizenship not when they are convicted of terrorist activities, but upon their being accused and designated as enemy combatants?

FBI Boss: Collecting Billions Of Phone Records Could Prevent Next 9/11, Boston Bombing -- Despite Not Having Prevented The Originals. He described how Khalid al-Midhar, one of the 9-11 hijackers, had called a Yemeni safe house from a phone in San Diego shortly before the attack -- a phone call that would have been intercepted and acted upon, claimed Mueller, had today's surveillance system been in place. Prevented 9/11? That's an interesting claim -- one that can't be easily disputed (or verified). But there's a couple of problems with Mueller's scenario. One, the FBI would have needed to "connect all the dots" beforehand, something that much easier said than done. Not having these dots connected allowed the Boston bombers to slip through the surveillance net. This is not necessarily a failure. Exponentially increasing the amount of data turns surveillance into a search for a needle in a haystack -- and the FBI, NSA, et al seem to be mainly concerned that the haystack just isn't big enough. Two, there's a good possibility that the FBI and NSA already had something like this in the works (if not actually operable) even before the 9/11 attacks. The Big Picture points out that the NSA was already installing backdoors in the Windows operating system back in 1999, and links to a story detailing a DEA/NSA collaboration, which supposedly installed a domestic "call tracing program" at AT&T and Verizon in December of 2000 and which had been tracking calls from the US to various countries since the 1990's. The government's dependence on the phone industry, driven by the changes in technology and the Bush administration's desire to expand surveillance capabilities inside the United States, has grown significantly since the Sept. 11 attacks. The N.S.A., though, wanted to extend its reach even earlier. In December 2000, agency officials wrote a transition report to the incoming Bush administration, saying the agency must become a "powerful, permanent presence" on the commercial communications network, a goal that they acknowledged would raise legal and privacy issues. In the drug-trafficking operation, the N.S.A. has been helping the Drug Enforcement Administration in collecting the phone records showing patterns of calls between the United States, Latin America and other drug-producing regions. The program dates to the 1990s, according to several government officials, but it appears to have expanded in recent years.

Dear Politicians: Exposing US Dirty Laundry Isn't Aiding The Enemy. Aiding the enemy. Unfortunately, that phrase too is apparently going to be co-opted by a group of horribly cynical jackwagons over the coming weeks. We already talked about Rep. Peter King, proud supporter of the IRA, a terrorist organization, and his confusion between where reporting on actions taken against the American people end and national security begins. I'm a bit unclear on how the American people knowing what a secretive arm of the government is doing to its own citizens compromises national security, unless of course Rep. King means that the government is about to have to deal with a severely pissed off electorate. But it's only going to get worse, now that NSA leak-master Edward Snowden has added that the USA regularly hacks China. The Morning Post said it had seen documents but was unable to verify allegations of U.S. hacking of networks in Hong Kong and mainland China since 2009. Snowden told the paper that some of the targets included the Chinese University of Hong Kong, public officials and students. The documents also "point to hacking activity by the NSA against mainland targets," the newspaper reported. Oh, lordy lord, next you'll be telling us there ain't no Santa Claus. The percentage of Americans that already assumed this was going on could probably be roughly estimated as all of them. Still, watch what will happen next. Already we've heard claims that Snowden's leak has endangered American lives, without a single explanation as to what the hell that could possibly mean. He initially leaked a story about domestic spying, unlike that which was leaked by Bradley Manning. Now there is noise about how Snowden is aiding the enemy. But what enemy? We aren't at war with China.

Google claims data given to NSA via secure FTP, by hand. ('Do No Harm' to the Shareholders) "When required to comply with these requests, we deliver that information to the U.S. government — generally through secure FTP transfers and in person," Google spokesperson Chris Gaither said in an e-mail. "The U.S. government does not have the ability to pull that data directly from our servers or network." Secure FTP is used to send files through an encrypted digital channel from one computer to another. By technological standards, it's an old tool. Google's revelation comes on the heels of requests made Tuesday by Google, Facebook and other tech firms to publish further details about requests for user information made by the U.S. government for national security purposes. Federal law currently prohibits the disclosure of any information about requests made under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and permission to report even aggregate statistics about such requests would require an unprecedented declassification of national security information, USA TODAY reported Tuesday.

Randy Zipperer Allegedly Stabs Brother After Macaroni And Cheese Goes Missing. (Don't Bother asking why this is considered Newsworthy) Randy Zipperer, 49, is accused of stabbing his younger brother following an argument about missing macaroni and cheese. A witness told deputies in Volusia County, Fla. that Randy and his brother, 47-year-old Edward Zipperer, started arguing over Randy's missing macaroni and cheese, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reported. His younger brother helped him look, but during the mac-hunt, Edward knocked over a beer Randy had been drinking. The spill allegedly made Randy even angrier, and deputies say he began waving around a knife that wound up inserted in his brother's stomach. When deputies arrived, Edward had a small puncture wound in his abdomen. Investigators noted a trail of blood between the kitchen and bedroom, according to Click Orlando. Randy allegedly admitted that "I poked him a little with the knife, but I didn't mean to."

If You've Got Nothing To Hide, You've Actually Got Plenty To Hide. If the federal government had access to every email you've ever written and every phone call you've ever made, it's almost certain that they could find something you've done which violates a provision in the 27,000 pages of federal statues or 10,000 administrative regulations. You probably do have something to hide, you just don't know it yet. Furthermore, he points out, that one of the big reasons why laws are changed is because people realize that the laws don't make sense for the current times -- but that's much more difficult if law enforcement is sniffing through all your data and penalizing you any time they've found you've done something wrong. Imagine if there were an alternate dystopian reality where law enforcement was 100% effective, such that any potential law offenders knew they would be immediately identified, apprehended, and jailed. If perfect law enforcement had been a reality in Minnesota, Colorado, and Washington since their founding in the 1850s, it seems quite unlikely that these recent changes would have ever come to pass. How could people have decided that marijuana should be legal, if nobody had ever used it? How could states decide that same sex marriage should be permitted, if nobody had ever seen or participated in a same sex relationship? The cornerstone of liberal democracy is the notion that free speech allows us to create a marketplace of ideas, from which we can use the political process to collectively choose the society we want. Most critiques of this system tend to focus on the ways in which this marketplace of ideas isn't totally free, such as the ways in which some actors have substantially more influence over what information is distributed than others.

Open Rights Group - PRISM: The FISAAA smoking gun. These revelations could have potentially devastating consequences for cloud computing. As noted in our previous blog, the UK government have some big questions to answer. This presentation (PDF) by Caspar Bowden contains very detailed explanations. We also asked Professor of International Law Douwe Korff for his explanation of what's happening. Here's what he said: "US law makes non-US citizens living outside the USA completely fair game for unlimited surveillance by the US intelligence agencies, in particular under FISAA para. 1881a. That paragraph effectively removes all restraints on the monitoring by US intelligence agencies of such non-US-citizens' e-communications, mobile phone communications, SKYPE conversations, social network exchanges, SMS texts or Internet browsing and video- and photograph- and file-sharing. It is not even necessary that the surveillance is relevant to US national security issues. Moreover, the US legislators and courts have consistently denied US constitutional protections to non-US citizens: in all relevant respects in relation to surveillance by the US authorities, the Constitution simply does not apply to such non-US-citizens. Protestations by US authorities that their legal system provides basically the same protection as is provided to EU citizens under European human rights and data protection law are quite simply untrue and deliberate attempts to hide the absence of any real protection of non-US-citizens from the US global surveillance system. It is time civil society groups on both sides of the Atlantic join hands to fight against the new global Big Brother environment that is being created by supposedly democratic governments in both the USA and Europe."

Daily Mail Pimps Reefer Madness: "Skunk Cannabis" Makes People Go Insane. If you think America's got it bad with The New York Times and mainstream publications of its ilk perpetuating the farce of Reefer Madness, you've probably never read the UK's The Daily Mail. At least once a week, the Internet can count on an absurd piece of "journalism" spewing from the ass crack of The Daily Mail about how Marijuana is a dangerous, scary and life-threatening menace to society. Typically, this dog shit guised as legitimate journalism are better off ignored--but the Daily Mail's latest headline and "study" is too good not to share. In fact, if it wasn't Rupert Murdoch's prized media possession, you'd think this was a brilliant piece of satire exposing the absurdity of prohibition. But it's not--what you are about to read is a real article published in England's most real newspaper: Mental health toll of skunk cannabis: Number of users admitted to hospital after smoking drug soars 50% in three years Growing numbers of cannabis users are needing hospital treatment for 'mental disorders' after smoking super-strength skunk, drugs campaigners warned last night. In just three years, the number admitted for treatment has increased by 50 per cent -- as the chemically enhanced danger drug has flooded the streets. Last night drugs campaigners warned young people were severely damaging their mental health, and blamed permissive policing, including the use of cautions and spot fines. Mary Brett, a trustee of Cannabis Skunk Sense said: 'This worrying trend was entirely predictable, as a growing proportion of the cannabis on sale in Britain is now extremely potent skunk.

Cancer Gate: Cannabinoid Studies And A U.S. Patent Prove The Feds Know Better. The user which posted my new favorite video asks the pertinent question... "why do we allow the government to keep outlawing this plant, when we have proof that it has so many amazing benefits for our society [and health]?" While the answer seems rather artless: greed, power and fear. It also seems too simplistic a reason for wasting billions of dollars, millions of lives, and ignoring the medicinal benefits of marijuana's cannabinoids. Yet, any other conclusion could be hard to reach. Particularly when our own federal government holds a US patent to some of the very active ingredients which make the marijuana plant so controversial -- while keeping cannabis classified within the controlled substance act as a schedule 1 narcotic, claiming it has no medicinal benefit. Hypocrisy in its lowest form... In this compilation video, the user compiled several news reports on some of the more interesting scientific research supporting marijuana's use as medicinal. I followed one of the links mentioned in the video "pubmed.gov" and found some very informative reports... Enjoy!

Grabbing Prohibition By The Horns -- Texas Discusses Marijuana Legalization. Featured keynote speakers included Judge Jim Gray, the retired Orange County Judge who was Gov. Gary Johnson's running mate on the Libertarian presidential ticket in 2012. "Prohibition of marijuana is an atrocity we have inflicted upon ourselves," said the silver-haired judge, who admits to never having tried marijuana." He told the audience he fights for legalization on libertarian principles, explaining, "the drug war is the most failed policy in American history behind slavery." The founder of NORML, Keith Stroup, also delivered a keynote address. "At it's core," the sixty-nine-year-old self-proclaimed pot smoker said, "it's only incidentally about marijuana. It's really about personal liberty." Stroup expressed that in the coming years of legalization "the sellers of marijuana -- the industry- will be well-represented and to some extent, they already are in the medical marijuana states. NORML was founded as the voice of the marijuana consumer." Stroup illustrated NORML's beginnings as he worked with legendary consumer advocate Ralph Nader to NORML's future, having been designated the consumer's voice in regulatory work groups hammering out legalization in Colorado. The founder and executive director of Marijuana Policy Project, Rob Kampia, also presented on the orgainization's goals for legalization in the coming years. Announcing he's "now a Texan" since moving to Austin, Kampia announced the ultimate goal of federal marijuana legalization in the 2019-2020 Congress. "We're going to put a legalization question on the ballot in Alaska in August of next year," said Kampia, referring to the only state in which MPP has such plans for 2014. "There are seven states that could be voting on legalization all in the same day in 2016," he continued, referring to Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, Montana, Maine, and Massachusetts. "Oregon might jump out in front in 2014 which is risky -- it's possible to pass and I hope it does if it gets on the ballot -- but it's easier to pass in 2016. It's also cheaper to pass in 2016.

Did Bush-Era DEA Head Endorse Medical Marijuana? "I think that if there is a medical need and the doctors say you need a particular substance — whether it is Marinol or marijuana or whatever — if the doctor or medical community says that, then patients ought to be able to get that." Hutchinson, who is currently seeking the Republican nomination for Arkansas governor, hasn't exactly been a friend to marijuana policy reform. And even subsequent to making the above remarks, he's eagerly joined with other former DEA heads to urge the Obama administration to act against state-level marijuana laws. Still, his support for doctor-recommended medical marijuana, if we are to take him at his word, is truly remarkable. While Hutchinson clearly opposes legalization, he's the only high-ranking DEA official I know of who has publicly said that patients should be able to legally access marijuana if recommended by a doctor. With respect to the larger "medical community" that Hutchinson mentioned, medical marijuana enjoys support from organizations like American College of Physicians, American Nurses Association, American Public Health Association, American Academy of HIV Medicine and the Lymphoma Foundation of America, among others.

Indefinite Detention Of Americans Survives House Vote. Congress wrote that authority into law in the National Defense Authorization Act two years ago, prompting outrage from civil libertarians on the left and right. President Barack Obama signed the measure, but insisted his administration would never use it. Supporters of detention argue that the nation needs to be able to arrest and jail suspected terrorists without trial, including Americans on U.S. soil, for as long as there is a war on terror. Their argument won, and the measure was defeated by a vote of 200 to 226. But opponents, among them the Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), who offered the amendment to end that authority, argued that such detention is a stain on the Constitution that unnecessarily militarizes U.S. law enforcement. "It is a dangerous step toward executive and military power to allow things like indefinite detention under military control within the U.S.," Smith said. "That's the heart and essence of this issue." Smith's amendment, which also had Republican sponsors including Reps. Chris Gibson (N.Y.) and Justin Amash (Mich.), would guarantee that anyone arrested in the United States gets a trial.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Letters: Medical marijuana - Joliet Herald News. I'm a disabled veteran of the U.S. Army. My multiple sclerosis dictates that I'm wheelchair-bound for the remainder of my life. My symptoms include severe muscle spasms, fatigue and prolonged bouts of extreme pain. Despite taking 59 pills a day, no amount of medication helped. But marijuana reduced my medication intake to 25 pills a day while enabling me to separate my arms and legs, undergo physical therapy and, most importantly, get out of bed and enjoy my life. Unlike many harmful prescription drugs, marijuana is natural and non-addictive. With strong safeguards to restrict access, the new Illinois law prevents medical marijuana from recreational and illicit use and ensures that only qualified patients can obtain it. Some believe legalizing medical marijuana sends the wrong message to our young people. But my wife and I raised two boys as successful adults who value compassion for those who are sick. They now spend quality time with their father instead of watching me suffer. Signing the bill would serve as a godsend to patients like myself and many others who desperately need it to become law.

7 Times You Shouldn't Use Your Credit Card. Before you make a credit card purchase, do you question whether it's a good idea to swipe? Just because your credit card issuer gave you access to a credit line and just because there's something you want to buy doesn't mean it's a good time to use your credit card. Here are a few times you should leave your credit card in your wallet instead.

Supreme Court says human genes cannot be patented. In a unanimous decision, the court struck down patents held by Myriad Genetics Inc. on two genes linked to increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Opponents say patent protection shouldn't be given to something that can be found inside the human body. But lower courts approved, saying Myriad's genes could be patented because the DNA it isolated and took from the body has a "markedly different chemical structure" from DNA found naturally within the body. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the DNA is a product of nature and not eligible for a patent merely because it has been isolated.

Twitter opens up its analytics platform, lets everyone review the performance of their tweets for free - The Next Web. The change was spotted by Christopher Penn, vice president of marketing technology at SHIFT Communications earlier this week, as well as Danny Olson, a digital strategist at Weber Shandwick. Users simply need to head to the Twitter Ads dashboard and click on the 'Analytics' tab at the top of the page to access the new features. The Timeline activity displays a graph for the user based on the number of mentions, follows and unfollows that they've received over the last month. A detailed list underneath shows all of the user's most recent tweets, including the number of times someone has favorited, retweeted or replied to it.

Afghan Doctor Is Stoned by Angry Villagers. (And they wonder why we Question their Religion?) The stoning happened in the government-held town of Sar-i-Pul, in the northern province of the same name, on Tuesday, but the officials initially denied anyone had been killed. Abdul Raouf Taj, the provincial police chief, said that villagers and shopkeepers stormed the private clinic when they heard that the doctor, Ajmeer Hashimi, was examining the patient, a nurse named Mahboba, alone in his office. In many parts of Afghanistan, particularly in remote areas, women are customarily forbidden to be examined by male doctors except in the presence of close male family members. Stoning is the punishment that Shariah law administers for adulterous acts, and many Afghan clerics approve of it although it is officially outlawed. The police chief said there was no indication that the victims' relationship was anything other than professional. The mob chased the doctor and patient into the street and stoned both of them but, according to the police, they were rescued by the authorities and taken to a hospital in Mazar-i-Sharif. However, official sources at the hospital said they had been told the doctor had been killed and the nurse was missing and presumed to have been killed. One source said that the police had ordered hospital officials to lie and say the victims were at their hospital under treatment. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution for violating those orders.

The Eyes Watching You (Kafka v Orwell) No one wants to inhabit a Franz Kafka novel. But the surveillance states he describes do have one thing going for them—incompetence. In Kafka's stories, important forms get lost, permits are unattainable, and bureaucrats fail to do their jobs. Like the main character in Kafka's unfinished story, "The Castle," if you were trapped in Kafka's world you could live your whole life doing nothing but waiting for a permit. But at least you could live. Incompetence creates a little space. What is terrifying about Orwell's 1984 is the complete competence of the surveillance state. Winston Smith begins the novel by believing he is in an awful, but Kafkaesque world where there is still some slippage in the state's absolute control, and still some room for private action. Winston says that Oceania's world of telescreens and Thought Police means that there are "always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed—no escape." But he follows that by saying, "Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull." He also believes that while the diary he keeps will inevitably be discovered, the small alcove in his apartment where he writes his diary puts him "out of the range of the telescreen." The feeling that some tiny space for private thought and action can be found leads Winston into his relationship with Julia. Though they know they will inevitably be discovered, Winston and Julia believe that, for a time, their relationship and their meeting place will remain secret. They could not be more wrong.

Obama Axes Bank-Harrassing Gary Gensler at CFTC, Plans to Install Lightweight Ex-Goldmanite « naked capitalism. Shahien Nasiripour at the Huffington Post describes how Gensler is being ousted for his position on swaps regulation, which was coming to a head in international meetings starting June 20, with a July 12 deadline looming. The industry was pushing for the usual "race to the bottom" approach, since the Dodd Frank provisions are more stringent than overseas requirments (the spin, of course, was that Gensler was acting unilaterally, as opposed to implementing what Congress mandated). Gensler faces varying degrees of resistance from three of his four fellow commissioners. International regulators were apparently also unhappy with Gensler's tough stand, to the point where they were complaining to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. Even if Obama fails in fast-tracking his chosen replacement, Amanda Renteria, Gensler's lame-duck status will considerably weaken his ability to arm-twist the fence-sitters among his colleagues. And Renteria is a simply pathetic choice. Oh, she's got a very appealing personal story, having worked her way up from a very disadvantaged background, a child of migrant workers who made her way to Stanford and later Harvard Business School. But there's nothing in her background that qualifies her to act either as a senior regulator or as the head of a large operation (the CFTC has over 400 employees). This leap in responsibilities is tantamount to taking a promising law firm associate and making them the head of a large law practice. You'd never do that if you cared about the health of the firm. A move like this looks an awful lot like an effort not just to sideline Gensler's push on swaps regulation, but to render the CFTC incompetent over time.

Drug Prohibitions Hurt Science, Researchers Charge. The paper, Effects of Schedule I Drug Laws on Neuroscience Research and Treatment Innovation (abstract only), was written by Professor David Nutt of Imperial College London and Leslie King, both former government advisors, and Professor David Nichols of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The possession of marijuana, MDMA (ecstasy) and psychedelics are stringently regulated under national laws and international conventions dating back to the 1960s, but those laws are not based on science, and the global prohibition regime is rigid and resistant to change, they argued. "The decision to outlaw these drugs was based on their perceived dangers, but in many cases the harms have been overstated and are actually less than many legal drugs such as alcohol," said Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London. "The laws have never been updated despite scientific advances and growing evidence that many of these drugs are relatively safe. And there appears to be no way for the international community to make such changes." In the paper, Nutt and his colleagues argue that the scheduling of psychoactive drugs impedes research into their methods of action and therapeutic potentials and sometimes makes it impossible.

Feds Bust 103 Medical Pot Dispensaries in SoCal, Delivering Major Blow to Patients in Area. "Out of the 103 storefronts targeted today, federal authorities sent warning letters to 28 stores in Long Beach, 71 in Los Angeles, and four in the Antelope Valley," the U.S. attorney said in a statement. "Two of the stores in Long Beach are housed in buildings that are the subject of asset forfeiture lawsuits that were filed today in United States District Court." If my math is correct, that means the vast majority of those raided were un-warned. Nonetheless, that's two more buildings the war on drugs' has eaten up as part of its larger policing-for-profit model, which includes the money-making incentive of asset forfeiture. "Today's [Tuesday's] federal actions involve all known marijuana stores in the City of Long Beach; the City of Lancaster; the high desert community of Pearblossom; and the parts of Los Angeles served by the Newton, Rampart and Harbor divisions of the Los Angeles Police Department," the statement said, shamelessly removing each and every point of access to care for ailing residents in those areas.

Cannabis - Grow Big In Tight Places. Anytime you face space restrictions while looking for the right place to grow marijuana, a few of the more basic rules apply: obviously since square footage is at a premium, your grow space needs to take full advantage of every vacant inch. This means choosing your cannabis strain well, selecting the best genetics for your situation; short and bushy, Indica dominant strains such as hash plant and Afghani #1 work well. Another option would involve using a simplistic trestle-like system, then utilizing specific training techniques when growing out Sativa's like Willie Nelson, Jack Herer or Mekong Haze.

Oklahoma Approves Unscientific Per Se Limits For Cannabis. Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin has signed legislation, House Bill 1441, into law that criminalizes drivers from operating a motor vehicle if they have any detectable amount of THC and/or its inactive metabolites in their blood, saliva, or urine. Under such internal possession statutes, known as zero tolerance per se laws, a motorist who tests positive for the presence of such compounds is guilty per se (in fact) of a criminal traffic safety violation, regardless of whether or not there exist supporting evidence that the defendant was behaviorally impaired by such compounds. Residual, low levels of THC may remain present in the blood of occasional consumers for several hours after past use and for several days in habitual consumers — long after any behavior-inducing effects of the substance have worn off. The inert carboxy-THC metabolite, a commonly screened for byproduct of THC, possesses a longer half-life in blood and also may be present in the urine of daily cannabis consumers for several weeks, or even months, after past use. Oklahoma will become the 11th state to impose such a strict liability per se standard once the law takes effect on October 1, 2013. It is the third state this year to amend its traffic safety laws to include either per se thresholds or presumptive limits for cannabinoids.

More Americans quit jobs, a sign of confidence. The Labor Department said Tuesday that the number of people who quit their jobs in April jumped 7.2 percent to 2.25 million. That's just below February's level, which was the highest in 4 ½ years. Overall hiring also picked up in April, though not as dramatically. Employers filled 4.4 million jobs in April, a 5 percent increase from March. Hiring fell in March and April's level was below February's. The report offered a reminder that the job market is far from healthy. The number of available jobs slipped fell 3 percent to a seasonally adjusted 3.75 million. Openings had reached a five-year high in February and remain nearly 7 percent than a year ago. Still, the growth in hiring and quits provides more evidence of a dynamic job market that is making slow but steady strides. It follows Friday's May employment report, which showed the economy added a net 175,000 net jobs last month. That's roughly in line with the average monthly gain over the past two years. Most workers quit their jobs when they have a new position or feel confident that they can find one quickly. And when they do, it opens up more opportunities for other Americans, including the unemployed. Janet Yellen, vice chair of the Federal Reserve, has said the Fed is monitoring data on quits and overall hiring for signs that the job market is improving in a sustainable way.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

NSA chief: Surveillance helped stop "dozens" of threats - CBS News. "It's dozens of terrorist events that these have helped prevent," Army Gen. Keith Alexander, the NSA director and head of U.S. Cyber Command, said before the Senate Appropriations Committee. He said the exact number was classified but that he's working to publicly release those figures over the next week. Alexander was testifying before the committee in a previously scheduled hearing on cybersecurity, but his appearance marked the first time an NSA official publicly testified before Congress since news broke that the agency is collecting all of Verizon's U.S. phone records, as well as internet content from non-U.S. internet users abroad.

The Constitution in the National Surveillance State by Jack M. Balkin :: SSRN. n the National Surveillance State, the government uses surveillance, data collection, collation and analysis to identify problems, to head off potential threats, to govern populations, and to deliver valuable social services. The National Surveillance State is a special case of the Information State - a state that tries to identify and solve problems of governance through the collection, collation, analysis and production of information. The War on Terror may be the most familiar justification for the rise of the National Surveillance State, but it is hardly the sole or even the most important cause. Increasing use of surveillance and data mining by public and private entities is a predictable result of accelerating developments in information technology. In fact, most surveillance in the National Surveillance State is likely to be in private hands.

Is "Dabbing" the Crack of Pot? Dabbing comes with potential health dangers, including inhalation of "dirty" butane. An editorial in the High Times claims that only butane that is "quadruple-refined or better" is suitable for ingestion. However, there are no across-the-board standards for purity. Another risk is ingesting harmful contaminants that may have been infused into the concentrate during the extraction process, like pesticides, herbicides and fungi. "It depends on who's been growing it and what they used," according to Dr. Bob Melamede, associate professor of biology at the University of Colorado, and president and CEO of Cannabis Science, Inc. "If you have contaminants on your plant, that's going to come off into the extract." Still, he believes the dangers are minimal and says "there isn't any evidence that inhaling residual hydrocarbons like butane are dangerous—at least in small amounts." The pro-pot community is somewhat divided over dabbing. Dale Gieringer, PhD of NORML in California, says there has been a recent uptick in hospitalizations for cannabis overdose, which he attributes to rising use of BHO. "Things like this never happened until the popularization of hash oil in recent years," he writes in a letter to O'Shaughnessy's. "The dangers are dire enough to merit a special warning." Others, however, praise BHO's medical merits. Daniel "Big D" de Sailles, a partner at Denver dispensary Top Shelf Extracts, tells the High Times it's practically a miracle remedy. "I'm a 100% proponent of BHO, because I've seen it make people's pain just evaporate," he says. "As medicine, it helps with both harm reduction—it practically cures withdrawal symptoms in people who are alcoholics or addicted to speed or pharmaceuticals— and pain management. It works every single time, and it's easier to regulate your dosage."

The Senate's Push for a Secret Court's Secrets Can Only Tell Us This Much - Philip Bump - The Atlantic Wire. This Thursday, the president's debate on his use of surveillance tools will happen. In secret, with only senators in the room. It's healthy for our democracy. Senate intel committee to hold hearing on NSA domestic spying program Thursday. It won't be open to the public — john r stanton (@dcbigjohn) June 10, 2013

Edward Snowden: US government has been hacking Hong Kong and China for years. At Snowden's request we cannot divulge details about how the interview was conducted. A week since revelations that the US has been secretly collecting phone and online data of its citizens, he said he will stay in the city "until I am asked to leave", adding: "I have had many opportunities to flee HK, but I would rather stay and fight the US government in the courts, because I have faith in HK's rule of law." In a frank hour-long interview, the 29-year-old, who US authorities have confirmed is now the subject of a criminal case, said he was neither a hero nor a traitor and that: US National Security Agency's controversial Prism programme extends to people and institutions in Hong Kong and mainland China; The US is exerting "bullying'' diplomatic pressure on Hong Kong to extradite him; Hong Kong's rule of law will protect him from the US; He is in constant fear for his own safety and that of his family. Snowden has been in Hong Kong since May 20 when he fled his home in Hawaii to take refuge here, a move which has been questioned by many who believe the city cannot protect him. "People who think I made a mistake in picking HK as a location misunderstand my intentions. I am not here to hide from justice, I am here to reveal criminality," he said.

US: Ethan Nadelmann: The Real Drug Czar. For more than two decades, Nadelmann has built a broad-based movement for reform on the strength of a strategic insight that's both simple and profound: The fight against repressive drug laws isn't about championing the rights of drug users - even of a substance as popular as marijuana. It's about fighting against federal overreach and the needless human toll of drug prohibition. Before Nadelmann joined the cause some 20 years ago, marijuana legalization was an orphan crusade of hippies handing out leaflets at Dead shows and outlaw growers with bumper stickers demanding U.S. OUT OF HUMBOLDT COUNTY! Today, thanks in large part to Nadelmann's efforts, pot is fully legal in two states and available medically in 16 others. "He is the single most influential policy entrepreneur on any domestic issue," says John DiIulio, a longtime drug warrior and tough-on-crime academic who has recently come around to Nadelmann's side on marijuana policy. "He wore me down," DiIulio says. "What can I say?" Lanky and jug-eared, with a thin red mustache that's trending white, the 56-year-old Nadelmann speaks without notes, in a delivery that's two parts James Carville, one part Woody Allen. Though he carries himself with the fearlessness of a man who has staked out the right side of history, he is hardly ready to take a victory lap. "Do not assume this is in the bag," he warns. "Marijuana is not gonna legalize itself."

10 Questions: Warrantless Wiretaps -(Its not Illegal when the President Orders It Right?) Barack Obama on warrantless wiretaps. "The War We Need to Win" - August 1, 2007.

Flying Bike Takes Its First 5 Minute Flight In Prague. Three Czech companies have teamed up to make a prototype of an electric bicycle that successfully took off Wednesday inside an exhibition hall in Prague and landed safely after a remote-controlled, five-minute flight. Looking like a heavy mountain bike, it weighs 95 kilograms (209 pounds). It has two battery-power propellers in the front, two in the back and one each on the sides. A dummy rode in the saddle. Milan Duchek, technical director of Duratec, a bicycle frames maker, says more powerful batteries will be needed before a human takes a two-wheeled flight.

The NSA is Spying on You — Here is How You Should Fight Back. Under this administration, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has targeted political dissidents, the Department of Justice has seized reporters' phone records, and now we've learned the NSA seized an unlimited amount of Verizon's client data. So, do you really expect us to trust a government that admittedly targets innocent citizens without probable cause? These overreaching acts are unacceptable under any president, whether Democrat or Republican. This issue has made for some strange bedfellows in Washington. You have some of my fellow Republicans -- I like to call moss-covered -- defending Barack Obama's violation of your rights. Meanwhile, I am being joined by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), left--leaning journalist Glenn Greenwald, and Republican Congressman and author of the PATRIOT Act, Jim Sensebrenner (R-Wisc.). It is clear that this issue is not about party politics. It is about protecting the civil liberties that our Founding Fathers fought a revolution for. And issues such as this really show you how your political leaders feel about your rights. What should frustrate you the most is the hypocrisy of it all. In December 2007, then-Senator Barack Obama threatened to filibuster the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). He now uses FISA courts to survey your personal information. Then-Senator Obama opposed provisions granting retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that shared private client information with the government. Senator Obama was right. Had I been in the Senate, I would have voted with him. Senator Obama in 2008 also wanted to track potential terrorist activity "without undermining our commitment to the rule of law, or our basic rights and liberties." Yet, today, President Obama undermines the rule of law, basic rights and core liberties — all in the name of tracking terrorists.

Glenn Beck Blames Occupy Wall Street on Worship of Baal and Moloch. "Whether we know it or not," he raged like a biblical prophet, the world is engaged in Moloch/Baal worship. He and his rabbi friend agreed, "I'm not saying that anybody thinks they're worshiping Baal, but the ancient rituals are here and whether we know it or not that's exactly what our society and our world is doing right now, worshiping Moloch and Baal." Just sayin' as the sayin' goes. Well, there is the world of fiction and then there is the world of facts, and Beck's obsession begs the question: who are Moloch and Baal and why have they hurt Glenn Beck's feelings like this? Let's see what we can find out as we journey into the actual past (that's a different place than the imaginary past of Republican imaginations). From its southern flanks, the modern Jebel Aqra was the holy mountain of Sapuna, the abode of Baal Saphon, Lord of the Heavens, and here the mighty storm god had a palace crafted from lapis and silver imported from the heavens themselves, and he dwelt there with his consort Anat. This should not be so surprising to Glenn Beck and to today's Christians: their god has a mountain too, where he dwells -- in Midian, atop Sinai where Moses encountered the burning bush -- not thunder -- that announced his presence.

20 Historical Facts That Republicans Distort Or Just Get Plain Wrong. We all know at least one person that doesn't know much about history. And we all know that there have been people who have tried to distort history. The Republican Party, however, does both. Over these last two years, Republicans have a made a real effort to distort history as much as possible, to the point where they are now seeking to rewrite school textbooks. The Republican Party has bent over backwards to present their own twisted version of history and it's starting to look like that one requirement to be a Republican is to be ignorant of historical facts and events. Below is a list of the many historical facts that Republicans have either distorted or have just gotten plain wrong along with corrections of their errors.

Extensive Ancient Underground Network Discovered From Scotland to Turkey. 'In Bavaria in Germany alone we have found 700metres of these underground tunnel networks. In Styria in Austria we have found 350metres,' he said. 'Across Europe there were thousands of them - from the north in Scotland down to the Mediterranean. The tunnels are quite small, measuring only 70cm in width, which is just enough for a person to crawl through. In some places there are small rooms, storage chambers and seating areas. The Stone Age was the first of the three-age system of archaeology, which divides human technological prehistory into three periods: The Stone Age, The Bronze Age, The Iron Age. The transition out of the Stone Age occurred between 6000 BC and 2500 BC for much of humanity living in North Africa and Eurasia. While many believe Stone Age humans were primitive, incredible discoveries such as the 12,000 year-old temple called Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, the pyramids of Egypt and other structures such as Stonehenge, which demonstrate extremely advanced astronomical knowledge indicates that they were not as primitive as many believe.

Spying Report About Google Was Wrong - (Not really, but its the slant of the Article) Business Insider. The denials led to privacy fanatics, conspiracy theorists, and some journalists accusing the companies of lying--or at least "parsing" their denials so carefully that the claim might still be true. The denials also, however, led to one of the publications that broke the story--the Washington Post--changing its story. And now, for the first time, according to Amir Efrati of the Wall Street Journal, Google has explained exactly how it fulfills government data requests (all of which require court orders and attorney approval): 1. Google sends the government an electronic file via secure File Transfer Protocol (a standard way of sending stuff over the Internet.) OR 2. Google prints the data out on paper and sends it to the government in boxes. Neither of those methods involve the government having "direct access" to Google's servers. The government has apparently asked Google whether it can install data-receiving equipment on Google's premises (another claim made by the National Security Agency document that was the source of the "direct access" claim) or install government software on Google's computers. Google has said "no." Yes, it is still conceivable that the government has illegally hacked into Google's systems and is stealing user data. But that's not what the National Security Agency presentation that was the source for the "direct access" report claimed. The NSA presentation strongly implied that companies like Google were participating in the PRISM program voluntarily.

NSA: Senators Who Back NSA Spying Oppose Gun Background Checks For Infringing Rights. "This bill is a clear overreach that will predominantly punish and harass our neighbors, friends, and family," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who voted against proceeding to debate the issue of gun control. But on Tuesday, the Kentucky Republican defended the controversial NSA surveillance programs that sweep up data on phone calls and Internet activities, essentially making the case that the efforts are justified and legal. "What is clear from this information released by the [director of National Intelligence] is that each of these programs is authorized by law, overseen by Congress and the courts and subject to ongoing and rigorous oversight," McConnell said. "Given the scope of these programs, it's understandable that many would be concerned about issues related to privacy," he added, but concluded that they were "lawful programs created to protect the American people." Other lawmakers approached by HuffPost argued that there was no comparison between the blocked gun law that aimed to curb the more than 30,000 gun homicides a year and the Patriot Act, which authorizes the NSA spying and aims to curb terrorist threats. "I think the NSA is about national security, basically about terrorists. You've got a [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] to oversee that. I don't worry about that, because they can listen to me all day -- I'm not doing anything wrong," said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). "Gun background checks -- I believe that's the first big step of gun control," Shelby said, arguing that he was "against anything tinkering with" the Bill of Rights. Asked why Americans should accept infringements on their rights posed by the NSA program but not a minor (and popular) infringement on gun rights, Shelby saw no comparison. "Minor -- that's the beginning," he said, adding "I don't think that's the same thing. I think you're talking about apples and oranges." Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) also insisted there was no comparison between stopping terrorists and stopping people who shouldn't have weapons from getting them.

The Golden Book Of Chemistry Experiments (Attached PDF) The Golden Book Of Chemistry Experiments --Brought to you by Hotcoffee.org - Waking You Up.

DutchNews.nl - Cannabis cafe owners face €5,000 fines and community service. The owners of three cannabis cafes in the southern city of Maastricht should be fined €5,000 and given 150 hours of community service for selling the soft drug to tourists, the public prosecution deparment said on Wednesday. They should also face a one month suspended jail term, the public prosecutor says. The owners of the cafes are appearing in court for breaking the ban on selling cannabis products to non-residents which was imposed in the south of the country last May. The cafe owners say they are being unfairly treated because in other parts of the country, such as Amsterdam, tourists have not been banned from using the coffee shops.

Charlotte's Web Of Suffering: Six-Year-Old Colorado Girl With Dravet Syndrome Finds Relief From Marijuana High In CBD. While most little six-year-old girls are busy planning tea parties with their mom, and learning how to braid their hair -- Colorado Springs resident, Charlotte Figi has a slightly more challenging set of obstacles to overcome. Charlotte suffers from a rare, yet debilitating form of severe pediatric epilepsy, known as Darvet syndrome. Suffering approximately 60 life-threatening seizures a day, and over 200 per week, Charlotte's mom Paige had come to the end of the pharmaceutical road. Pill after pill, Dr. after Dr., Western medicines anti-epileptic pharmaceuticals had failed Charlie [as her mother calls her] miserably.

Former NSA Official: Yes, We're Spying On U.S. Citizens. WILLIAM BINNEY: Yes. Personally, I've had the view for any—for quite a number of decades, that the Congress and the administration have been—have been fed by the intelligence community what I call technobabble. In other words, they're being bamboozled into thinking a certain way, that they have to do this in order to get terrorists. And that's simply false. There's a simple way to do it that would protect people's privacy and not invade anybody's telephone records or email. And that's to say, if you have a terrorist, and he calls somebody in the United States—I call this the two-degree principle—that's one degree of communication separation. Then you look at that as a target, and you collect that, and then you look also at the person in the United States and who they talk to. That could represent the—that's a zone of suspicion that would, in effect, be basically a support network for that person inside the country. That defines your terrorist relationship, and that's how you look at that. And the rest of the communication of the U.S. people don't mean anything, as relevant, and none of that's relevant to what's going on there. And you also have to look at the jihadi-type sites, those that advocate jihad or violence and so on, and you see who is accessing those sites. That's easy to monitor that, and it doesn't invade anybody's privacy that's been absolutely doing nothing of—that should be in any way considered suspicious.

Bin Laden's sole post-September 11 TV interview aired - February 5, 2002. "I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed," bin Laden said as the U.S. war on terrorism raged in Afghanistan. "The U.S. government will lead the American people in -- and the West in general -- into an unbearable hell and a choking life." When asked about U.S. accusations of his "collusion" in the attacks in New York and Washington, bin Laden responded, "America has made many accusations against us and many other Muslims around the world. Its charge that we are carrying out acts of terrorism is unwarranted." But he then added, "If inciting people to do that is terrorism, and if killing those who kill our sons is terrorism, then let history be witness that we are terrorists." On Friday, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer reacted to the bin Laden interview. "Everybody knows how evil Osama bin Laden is," Fleischer told CNN. "Other tapes have shown him take credit for the attacks and show he had advanced knowledge of the attacks. This tape showed the importance of completing the mission and protecting freedom, a mission that is bigger than Osama bin Laden."

How to Defeat CISPA Once And For All! - YouTube. From SOPA and PIPA to ACTA to CISPA to the TPP and now back to CISPA, internet activists have been caught up in a deliberately bewildering game of whack-a-mole with freedom-crushing legislation. Now, ISPs are doing an end run around the whole legislative process altogether and voluntarily collaborating with the entertainment industry to spy on their own customers. All of this is enough to leave concerned netizens demoralized, and in the war of attrition that is exactly the goal. Join us today on The Corbett Report as we explore a real, grassroots, alternative solution to the problem of internet censorhip that can help to end this government/corporate control over our communication once and for all

It's High Time We Abolished the Department of Homeland Security. President Obama - who promised the "most transparent administration ever" - now finds himself and his DHS at the center of yet another civil liberties controversy. That controversy has deepened in the wake of two reports published last night in both the Washington Post and the Guardian that outlined a different NSA snooping program -- a data mining initiative code-named "PRISM." PRISM -- which was created in 2007 during the Bush Administration -- is almost certainly the most far-reaching surveillance program ever created. By reaching into the servers of 9 different major U.S. internet companies - including Facebook, Google and Apple - the NSA has access to millions of users' personal data, including emails, chats and videos. Although PRISM is supposed to only be used to gain information about "foreign individuals" suspected of terrorism -- the very methods used to access such information inevitably suck up the private data of American citizens

Vuze Condemns PRISM and Promotes VPNs. For netizens it now seems that any dream of basic privacy is a thing of the past, especially for those using the services of Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, PalTalk, YouTube and Skype. Understandably the masses are outraged, with sentiments only being inflamed by carefully worded statements by those involved that seek to divert and do nothing to allay citizens' fears. As a result a coalition of 80 organizations and companies including EFF, Free Software Foundation, Mozilla, Demand Progress and Reddit have joined AccessNow to call on U.S. Congress to end the NSA's spying. Also getting in on the action are the makers of the open source torrent client Vuze, who have pledged their support to a campaign operated by the American Civil Liberties Union. "The recent revelations about the National Security Agency's surveillance apparatus, including using data from non-governmental business entities, if true, expose stunning abuses and violations of our basic Constitutional rights," Vuze say. The company states that it's a supporter of civil liberties and the right to anonymity and privacy, and is against censorship, hate, oppression, punishment, reprisal and retaliation.

Disease Outbreak Threatens the Future of Good Coffee. "Where people have been using heirloom varietals for a century, you just have trees without leaves," said David Griswold, president of Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importers. "We're already into the flowering cycle now, then it takes nine months to incubate the beans. You can see from the flowering what the losses will be. It's just twigs. It's as though you're walking through a forest of twigs." The effects haven't been felt yet among coffee drinkers in developed countries, but history gives a sense of the problem's potential magnitude. England, that quintessentially tea-drinking nation, only became so in the 19th century, after rust outbreaks destroyed coffee plantations in Sri Lanka and shifted production to Indonesia. That's why coffee is sometimes called java. Coffee rust first occurred in Central America in the mid-1970s, but outbreaks didn't reach industry-threatening levels. Now they have. After the latest flowering season, rust afflicts more than 50 percent of growing areas in a belt stretching from Guatemala through Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. Regional production fell by 15 percent last year, putting nearly 400,000 people out of work, and that's just a taste of what's to come. The next harvest season begins in October, and according to the International Coffee Organization, crop losses could hit 50 percent.

'The worst case of scientific censorship since the Catholic Church banned the works of Galileo': Scientists call for drugs to be legalised to allow proper study of their properties - Science - News - The Independent. Professor Nutt, who was dismissed from the Home Office's advisory council on drugs in 2009 after clashing with ministers, said that UN conventions on drugs in the 1960s and 1970s have delayed the development of "innovative treatments" for PTSD and depression by 30 years and also set back research into areas of neuroscience such as consciousness. In a paper published today with two other scientists in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience, he said that drugs policy is being driven by "politics, not science". Professor Nutt left the Home Officer in 2009 after suggesting that taking MDMA ecstasy was no more dangerous than horse-riding and that alcohol and tobacco were more dangerous than many illegal drugs. The possession of psychoactive drugs such cannabis, MDMA (ecstasy) and LSD for scientific purposes is stringently regulated in the UK and most other countries, in accordance with UN conventions that were agreed in response to the emergence of drug culture in the 1960s and 1970s. Applying for a Government licence can be costly and time-consuming and many scientists are put off by a culture of "repression" surrounding drug science, Professor Nutt said. "The laws scare off funders and most scientists are scared because they think if they break the law, they might get arrested," he told The Independent. "I'm sure at some point someone's going to arrest me. There is a sense of repression to the point that most people won't do it."

Scroogled (by Cory Doctorow). "Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him." --Cardinal Richelieu

New Android Trojan app exploits previously unknown flaws, researchers say - Network World. The Obad.a Trojan program makes heavy use of encryption and code obfuscation in order to hinder analysis efforts, Kaspersky researcher Roman Unuchek said Thursday in a blog post. "Malware writers typically try to make the codes in their creations as complicated as possible, to make life more difficult for anti-malware experts," the researcher said. "However, it is rare to see concealment as advanced as Odad.a's in mobile malware." In addition to using encryption and code obfuscation techniques, the malware also exploits previously unknown bugs in Android and third-party software, Unuchek said. For example, the malicious application exploits an error in a piece of software called DEX2JAR that's used by malware analysts to convert Android application packages (APKs) into Java Archive (JAR) files. "This vulnerability spotted by the cybercriminals disrupts the conversion of Dalvik bytecode into Java bytecode, which eventually complicates the statistical analysis of the Trojan," Unuchek said. The malware also abuses a bug in the way Android processes AndroidManifest.xml files. These files are found in every application and contain information about the application's structure and launch parameters.

Former CIA Analyst: Snowden Did The Right Thing. Well, all I can say, really, is that this time today I'm feeling much more hopeful for our democracy that I was feeling this time yesterday. This morning I spent up at Fort Meade where Bradley Manning is being court-martialed for giving us the information necessary for our people to know what's going on. Similarly, Snowden did the same thing. It's so encouraging. It really is encouraging that a 29-year-old, or now Bradley Manning is 25, but he was 22 when he decided to--that it was his courage that would be necessary to follow his conscience and reveal those documents. It's very, very encouraging to see that young people like that have been able to do some of the things that have been very difficult for people of my generation to do because we have been so hidebound behind secrecy strictures. And some, like myself, feel great remorse that we didn't step up to the plate and do precisely the kinds of things that Snowden, Bradley Manning, and of course Daniel Ellsberg did in their day.

More Research Finds Marijuana Cannabinoids Helpful In Diabetes Battle. British researchers assessed the effects of THCV administration on dietary-induced and genetically modified obese mice. Authors reported that although THCV administration did not significantly affect food intake or body weight gain in any of the models, it did produce several metabolically beneficial effects, including reduced glucose intolerance, improved glucose tolerance, improved liver triglyceride levels, and increased insulin sensitivity. Researchers concluded: "Based on these data, it can be suggested that THCV may be useful for the treatment of the metabolic syndrome and/or type 2 diabetes (adult onset diabetes), either alone or in combination with existing treatments. Given the reported benefits of another non-THC cannabinoid, CBD in type 1 diabetes, a CBD/THCV combination may be beneficial for different types of diabetes mellitus." Last month, Harvard Medical School researchers published observational data in The American Journal of Medicine reporting that subjects who regularly consume cannabis possess favorable indices related to diabetic control as compared to occasional consumers or non-users of the substance. Writing in an accompanying commentary, the journal's Editor-in-Chief stated: "These are indeed remarkable observations that are supported, as the authors note, by basic science experiments that came to similar conclusions. ... I would like to call on the NIH and the DEA to collaborate in developing policies to implement solid scientific investigations that would lead to information assisting physicians in the proper use and prescription of THC in its synthetic or herbal form." Observational trial data published in 2012 in the British Medical Journal previously reported that adults with a history of marijuana use had a lower prevalence of type 2 diabetes and possess a lower risk of contracting the disease than did those with no history of cannabis consumption, even after researchers adjusted for social variables such as subjects' ethnicity and levels of physical activity.

My Top 5 Marijuana Strains High In CBD Cannabinoids. Weed with a higher proportion of CBD cannabinoids to THC, tends to have a greater medicinal effect, minus the sometimes unwanted [though not in my case] sensation of being "high." After overexertion -- whether in the garden, in the surf, or on the trail... And facing a day of activities -- so, not wanting to get "stoned." I've found that medicating with a higher CBD percentage strain of cannabis, has been the most effective means for soothing my aches and pains. From lower back spasms, to sore and tender shoulders, hips and knees. Pot high in CBD's keeps me feeling lose and free from pain. No pills, no addictive crap... just Yahweh's medicine. Below are my five favorite strains of marijuana high in CBD...

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

EU nations battle over air traffic control plans At the heart of the dispute is the idea of a single European sky - consolidating the continent's hodgepodge air traffic control systems under a sole authority, turning its many scattered air traffic zones into a few regional blocs, opening up bidding on services like weather forecasting and navigation, and easing what European officials say is a looming capacity crunch. About 27,000 flights a day now cross European airspace, for a total of over 9 million a year and most are flying under air traffic management systems that were designed in the 1950s, the European Commission said. Air traffic control workers, however, don't necessarily want to adapt to new proposals put forward by the European Commission on Tuesday. They say they fear threats to passenger safety and to their jobs and claim the EU is yielding to industry pressure to cut costs. "This is a dispute between European technocrats who know nothing about air traffic control and highly trained specialists," said Olivier Joffrin, a French union leader in Paris. Air traffic controllers in France began a series of strikes on Tuesday, forcing the country's main airports to cut their flight timetables in half just as the busy tourist season was beginning. Some 1,800 flights were cancelled. "When I came here they told me the flight was canceled. So I had to buy another ticket ... I couldn't wait for a flight next Saturday," stranded passenger Ahmed Adouani said at Orly airport in Paris, where he was trying to fly to Algiers. Air traffic workers elsewhere in Europe were expected to join over the next 24 hours to varying degrees - from working strictly by the book, to picketing and distributing leaflets, according to the European Transport Workers Federation. The strikes came the same day that EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas called for the speediest possible implementation of the centralization plan, saying the current system's inefficiencies are costing airlines and customers 5 billion euros ($6.6 billion) annually.

Marijuana: Rolling Stone calls Denver ground zero of "The New Stoned Age" - Denver - News - The Latest Word. Here's his opening paragraph: "Even if you didn't know that Denver has become America's undisputed stoner capital, there are clues. Like the two Jerry Garcia-themed bars. Or the 24-hour-a-day stand-up-comedy radio station. And the too-perfect-to-be-a-coincidence nickname (Mile High City) and NBA franchise (the Nuggets). But even if you didn't pick up on any of that, there's a good chance you'd notice the smell - skunky, green, a little piney -- wafting through an open car window as you cruise along I-25 into town." Gaia Plant-Based Medicine is featured in the Rolling Stone article. Later, Ringen acknowledges that "few of Denver's legal-weed entrepreneurs are living like Rick Ross. In the eyes of the federal government, their businesses are still illegal, which makes it tough to get a bank account, let alone credit. And with more dispensaries than Starbucks, prices have fallen to the point where you can buy an ounce of solid herb for as little as $150 -- half of what it would cost in California." Still, he prefers to end the report on, yes, a high note -- a group sampling a piece of shatter. Ringen writes: "Suddenly, as if a cable attached to your brain was yanked skyward, you're higher than you ever thought a human being could get. This is America's insanely baked future, and, for a few hours at least, the future is kind."

Tim Pool Live Streaming from Istanbul. Journalist Tim Pool is streaming live from Istanbul today where antigovernment protests have been ongoing since Friday, May 31. What began as a campaign against the city's plans to construct a mall in a public park has escalated into a massive display of anger over the ruling party's neo-Islamist social agenda and religiously driven laws. Riot police have moved in with brutal force, using tear gas on tens of thousands of protestors. It is the largest civil uprising in the history of Turkey.

Oregon top 3 in manufacturing growth. Oregon was named the third-best state in manufacturing growth, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Oregon's manufacturing grew 3.85 percent in 2012, putting it just behind North Dakota and Texas. The list covers a wide variety of manufacturing industries, including clothing, food and high tech. Arnprior Aerospace Inc., which makes areospace parts, was one of the companies that contributed to Oregon's manufacturing growth. "The backlog for airplanes is so dramatic," said Mark Kuzmovich, Vice President of Arnprior Aerospace. "What has to be replaced in the aerospace industry in the next 20 years is high." The company, which makes the majority of its parts for Boeing, is hiring more workers to keep up with demand. Durable goods manufacturing was the largest contributor to the American gross domestic product last year, at 9.1 percent. Oregon's GDP in the same area increased by 11.4 percent.

Russian lawmakers pass anti-gay bill in 436-0 vote. The bill banning the "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations" still needs to be passed by the appointed upper house and signed into law by President Vladimir Putin, but neither step is in doubt. The measure is part of an effort to promote traditional Russian values instead of Western liberalism, which the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church see as corrupting Russian youth and contributing to the protests against Putin's rule. The only parliament member to abstain Tuesday was Ilya Ponomaryov, who has supported anti-Putin protesters despite belonging to a pro-Kremlin party. A widespread hostility to homosexuality is shared by much of Russia's political and religious elite. Lawmakers have accused gays of decreasing Russia's already low birth rates and said they should be barred from government jobs, undergo forced medical treatment or be exiled. The State Duma passed another bill on Tuesday that makes offending religious feelings a crime punishable by up to three years in prison. The legislation, which passed 308-2, was introduced last year after three members of the Pussy Riot punk group were convicted of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" for an impromptu anti-Putin protest inside Moscow's main cathedral and given two-year sentences. Both bills drew condemnation from Amnesty International.

Hepatitis A linked to frozen berries sickens 87. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says an outbreak of hepatitis A linked to a frozen berry mix sold at Costco has grown to 87 people with illnesses in eight states. The CDC said Tuesday that illnesses have been reported in Arizona, California Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Washington. Townsend Farms of Fairview, Ore., last week recalled its frozen Organic Antioxidant Blend, packaged under the Townsend Farms label at Costco and under the Harris Teeter brand at those stores. So far the illnesses have only been linked to the berries sold at Costco. Hepatitis A is a contagious liver disease that can last from a few weeks to a several months. Vaccination can prevent illness if given within two weeks of exposure.

Wyden: NSA director contradicted self on spying. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called for hearings to discuss two recently revealed NSA programs that collect billions of telephone numbers and Internet usage daily. He was also among a group of senators who introduced legislation Tuesday to force the government to declassify opinions of a secret court that authorizes the surveillance. "The American people have the right to expect straight answers from the intelligence leadership to the questions asked by their representatives," Wyden said in a statement. He was referring to an exchange with Clapper during a Senate Intelligence hearing in March about threats the U.S. faces from around the world. Wyden said he wanted to know the scope of the surveillance programs, and privately asked NSA Director Keith Alexander for clarity. When he did not get a satisfactory answer, Wyden said he alerted Clapper's office a day early that he would ask the same question at the public hearing. "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" Wyden asked Clapper at the March 12 hearing. "No, sir," Clapper answered. "It does not?" Wyden pressed. Clapper quickly and haltingly softened his answer. "Not wittingly," he said. "There are cases where they could, inadvertently perhaps, collect — but not wittingly."

New Study Claims Pot Impacts College Careers. -- financed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) The study was financed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which basically serves as a federal government propaganda tool to discredit marijuana. Also, special "thanks" were passed on to Robert DuPont, the very first director of NIDA. He's the founder of Bensinger, DuPont and Associates, and rakes in tons of revenue from the drug-testing industry. Needless to say, there are at least two biased elements lurking in the shadows of this "objective" research. The study's own findings seem to invalidate much of the report's significance. It cites the fact that 58 percent of all college students nationwide take up to six years to complete a four-year degree and that most college students lack the skills that employers are seeking. However, the study reports that only 33 percent of all college students used pot in 2011, nowhere near a majority, let alone 58 percent. Isn't this figure then truly an indictment of the state of higher education in America, both in failing its students academically and not properly preparing them for career employment? Obviously, scapegoating pot is easier, cheaper, and serves the interests of the Feds and the drug-testing industry.

Recreational marijuana timeline released. The Washington State Liquor Control Board announced dates for their recreational marijuana draft rules. According to their timeline, they will begin to accept license applications in September. Timeline June 19, 2013 -- Board work session on proposed rules; July 3, 2013 - Board files official draft rules with the state Code Reviser; August 7, 2013 - Public hearing on draft rules; August 14, 2013 - Board adopts rules; September 14, 2013 - Effective date for rules; and September 14, 2013 - WSLCB begins accepting applications for all license types.

Colorado Places Child Resistant Packaging Law into Effect for MMJ - Reviews. "It is ironic that we're seeing these unintended consequences of these medical marijuana products we decided to allow in public. Our goal was to educate the public so that we can try and keep things out of the kid's hands and prevent these cases." In a sense, Wang is completely correct and education is one of the most important steps towards keeping drugs out of the hands of children. However, parents and older siblings of children should keep their medicine in a safe and out-of-reach area from children. It should be common sense that medicine should not be anywhere near the hands of children, whether it is an edible or no, it is wrong to have it out in plain view. Out of the eight cases that involved medical marijuana, seven of them were involved with the consumption of a cannabis-infused food. Patients experience severe symptoms such as lethargy and respiratory problems, and two children were affected so bad that they had to be attended to in an Intensive Care Unit, or ICU. George Sam Wang's clinical study is the first of its kind since marijuana legalization appeared nearly two weeks ago in the JAMA Pediatrics medical journal. The most reasonable solution is to require child-resistant packaging on marijuana-infused edibles. However, it should already be known by patients that this is their medicine and it is not intended for anyone else. You must also take into consideration that half of these edibles are so potent that only half of it is enough to couchlock you for four hours.

UK ISPs Secretly Start Blocking Torrent Site Proxies. TorrentFreak talked to Drastik, the operator of the most visited Pirate Bay proxy Pirateproxy.net, who says he's determined to find a good workaround to make his site accessible again in the UK. "I never thought the BPI would go this far. I have already started setting up new servers for the blocks. However, I think educating people about alternate methods will be better. I have compiled a list of some good methods on a dedicated page," Drastik says. "I will continue to move the site to new servers to keep it accessible," he adds. Since the High Court order clearly states that ISPs have to disable access to the torrent sites in question (and the proxies provide this), the recent addition of the proxy sites to the list is not necessarily the main concern. The problem lies with the fact that these changes are being made in secret without any form of oversight. There appears to be no valid reason to keep the list of prohibited sites away from the public eye, but yet the ISPs nor the BPI are prepared to be open about it. TorrentFreak reached out to the BPI and some of the ISPs for a comment but we have yet to receive a response. Update: BPI responded after publication and noted that proxies do indeed fall under the court order. The group does not intent to make the list of blocked website public.

JITSI - audio/video and chat communicator that supports protocols such as SIP, XMPP/Jabber, AIM/ICQ, Windows Live, Yahoo! and many other Jitsi (formerly SIP Communicator) is an audio/video and chat communicator that supports protocols such as SIP, XMPP/Jabber, AIM/ICQ, Windows Live, Yahoo! and many other useful features. Jitsi is Open Source / Free Software, and is available under the terms of the LGPL.

MediaGoblin. free software media publishing platform MediaGoblin is a free software media publishing platform that anyone can run. You can think of it as a decentralized alternative to Flickr, YouTube, SoundCloud, etc. It's also: The perfect tool to show and share your media! Building tools to empower the world through decentralization! Built for extensibility. Multiple media types, including video support! Part of the GNU project and devoted to user freedom. Powered by a community of people like you.

SparkleShare - Self hosted, instant, secure file sync. SparkleShare creates a special folder on your computer. You can add remotely hosted folders (or "projects") to this folder. These projects will be automatically kept in sync with both the host and all of your peers when someone adds, removes or edits a file. Why SparkleShare?

Opt out of PRISM, the NSA's global data surveillance program - PRISM BREAK. Opt out of PRISM, the NSA's global data surveillance program. Stop reporting your online activities to the American government with these free alternatives to proprietary software.

A Delay In Relief From Copays For Costly Drugs : Shots - Health News : NPR. The Affordable Care Act sets annual limits on the amount that people will owe out of pocket for prescription drugs starting in 2014. But sick people in some plans won't get relief until the following year because the federal government is giving some health plans extra time to comply. "People living with multiple sclerosis and other chronic illnesses have been counting on this annual out-of-pocket limit coming, and now that may not happen in 2014," says Bari Talente, executive vice president of advocacy at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Drugs to treat multiple sclerosis are frequently on an insurer's specialty drug tier and require a person to pay 25 to 30 percent of the cost rather than a fixed copayment, she says. In such cases, someone might spend roughly $700 out of pocket every month — $8,400 a year — on a drug to slow progression of the disease. Under the law, the maximum amount that a consumer with single coverage will pay out of pocket for all medical care, including drugs, will generally be $6,350 in 2014. A family could pay as much as $12,700. Those totals include copayments, coinsurance and deductibles, but not premiums, and they apply only to plans that are not grandfathered under the law. But for those consumers whose health plans use more than one administrator to manage plan benefits — one for major medical claims and coverage, and another for pharmacy, for example — there may be one out-of-pocket cap for major medical and another for drugs, or no drug spending limits at all if a plan doesn't currently have a cap, as is typical.

Google chief wrote about 'terrifying' surveillance months before NSA leaks. (So...This is all a BOOK Promotion?) "Governments operating surveillance platforms will surely violate restrictions placed on them (by legislation or legal ruling) eventually," he wrote in a chapter on the future of terrorism. "The potential for misuse of this power is terrifyingly high, to say nothing of the dangers introduced by human error, data-driven false positives and simple curiosity." Sounds like a familiar problem, right? Little did Schmidt know that two months after his book's release, an intelligence contractor named Edward Snowden would carry out the biggest leak in the history of the National Security Agency, exposing its surveillance program PRISM and the cooperation of top technology firms including Google. Now, Schmidt maintains that the media got PRISM wrong in terms of its scale and structural makeup. "Google does not have a 'back door' for the government to access private user data,'" he tweeted Friday. And other journalists have also disputed reports by the Guardian and Washington Post that PRISM offers the NSA "direct access" to the servers of Internet companies.

Even New York Times Is Oblivious To Fact That Sharing 'HBO Go' Passwords To Watch 'Game Of Thrones' Breaks Law - Forbes. Just like the many BitTorrenters who have made Game of Thrones the most pirated show on the Internet, Wortham is getting her content in a way that could put her on the wrong side of the law. After the New York Times got a flood of complaints about Wortham committing piracy by jumping over entertainment providers' pay walls, New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan addressed the issue in a column. Strangely Sullivan only addressed the ethics of password-sharing not the legality of the practice, concluding by saying that Wortham might write another column "exploring the ethical issues" and might now instead watch 'Game of Thrones' at a bar. It was left then to Mike Masnick at TechDirt to point out that Wortham had admitted to violating federal laws, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (or CFAA) which has been the target of heated debate given its use in the controversial prosecutions of AT&T iPad hacker Andrew "weev" Auernheimer and public document hacker Aaron Swartz. The CFAA makes it a crime "to obtain without authorization information from a protected computer." It's a misdemeanor with a maximum one-year prison sentence. What Wortham describes is unauthorized access, in that it violates the companies' terms of service. "[I]f someone is violating Netflix or HBO Go's TOS to stream they are guilty of a misdemeanor CFAA right off the bat," says Hanni Fakhoury of the EFF. And if the worth of the stolen information or damage caused in its procurement reaches $5,000 (that's a lot of HBO episodes!), it could be a felony with multiple potential years of prison time.

Why the NIH Uses Bogus Study to Malign Ginkgo Biloba. The only dosing that matters is what is actually used. Notice that these rats and mice were fed amounts calculated in milligrams per kilogram. What if we were to give a human being 2,000 mg/kg of Ginkgo biloba? Good luck trying to find out! The average human weighs around 70 kilograms. 2,000 mg/kg—equal to 2 g/kg—would be a dose of 140 grams, between a tenth and a fifth of a kilogram, nearly a third of a pound, of Ginkgo biloba extract! Exactly how would you cram 140 grams of Ginkgo biloba extract down the throat of any human every day of his life? Even the lowest dose given, 62.5 mg/kg, would be an absurd amount to attempt to give a person. It would be 4.375 grams of Ginkgo biloba a day! Yet, these were the doses given to the mice and rats ... and we're supposed to take the study seriously?

Turmeric Produces 'Remarkable' Recovery in Alzheimer's Patients. Late last year, a remarkable study was published in the journal Ayu titiled "Effects of turmeric on Alzheimer's disease with behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia." [ii] Researchers described three patients with Alzheimer's disease whose behavioral symptoms were "improved remarkably" as a result of consuming 764 milligram of turmeric (curcumin 100 mg/day) for 12 weeks. According to the study: "All three patients exhibited irritability, agitation, anxiety, and apathy, two patients suffer from urinary incontinence and wonderings. They were prescribed turmeric powder capsules and started recovering from these symptoms without any adverse reaction in the clinical symptom and laboratory data." After only 3 months of treatment, both the patients' symptoms and the burden on their caregivers were significantly decreased. The report describes the improvements thusly: "In one case, the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score was up five points, from 12/30 to 17/30. In the other two cases, no significant change was seen in the MMSE; however, they came to recognize their family within 1 year treatment. All cases have been taking turmeric for more than 1 year, re-exacerbation of BPSD was not seen." This study illustrates just how powerful a simple natural intervention using a time-tested culinary herb can be.

Lyme Disease, Morgellons Disease, and GMO Foods, All Connected? Many have heard of Morgellons disease, Lyme Disease, and GMOs, but, none appear to be 'main stream news'. Morgellons Disease has been labeled as a 'delusional' disease, or as the 'mystery skin disease'. (Morgellons is the strange manifestation of unusual fibers seen in skin lesions that itch, and appear to 'move'. People with the affliction describe a crawling stinging sensation, just under the skin. They also suffer from brain fog, and depression and other debilitations). Lyme Disease manifests as plethora of symptoms, often misdiagnosed. And GMO (genetically modified) foods are sneaking into our food sources without our knowledge or consent. The studies more often than not question the safety of ingesting the tampered engineered foods. In 2008, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention paid researchers $300,000 to conduct a 3 year study on Morgellons. Thousands of people suffer from this. Fibers under the microscope (100x) have a unique arrangement of blue, red, white green and fluorescent. What? The latest research, indicates a surprising link according to the paper published in January 28, 2013 by Peter Mayne of Australia (principal author), found that Borrelia Spirochetes was found in the skin lesions of Morgellons victims. Surprisingly this bacteria, has been also been associated with Lyme disease. In fact, this research paper, suggests changing the name of Morgellons disease, to Borrelial Dermatitis. According to other researchers in New York, (State University of New York) it is suggested that environmental factors might also be involved in this disturbing disease. They suggest that the fibers are biological with floral root-like structures, and could be from cross contamination of DNA from plants and humans through GMO's.

Body�s Own Cannabinoids Are The Bliss Within The four parts of the endocannabinoid system that have been discovered piecemeal in the past 19 years, but have only recently been gaining the attention of the pharmaceutical companies, who are now positioning themselves to profit by manufacturing drugs that activate the system but still keep cannabis illegal for the masses. Only as recently as 1992 did medical researchers discover this previously unknown, body-wide neurocellular receptor system that controls or regulates almost every function in the body, by apparently bringing the mind and body back to a state of homeostasis after being stressed by the environment. This system is the "wisdom of the body" that we all experience as the body "just knowing how to fix itself" after illness. This system is the very definition of wellness!

Contact Elected Officials. Contact Elected Officials Call, e-mail, or mail U.S. state and federal elected officials and government agencies.

'Cut Poison Burn' puts the business of cancer treatment under the microscope. (Documentary) Cut Poison Burn is a controversial, eye opening, and sometimes heartbreaking documentary that puts the business of cancer treatment under the microscope. Follow the frustrating journeys of critically ill cancer patients as they try to navigate the confusing and dangerous maze of treatment and encounter formidable obstacles in the "cancer industrial complex." A compelling critique of the influence of medical monopolies, the power of pharmaceutical companies and government agencies, Cut Poison Burn is essential viewing for anyone and everyone touched by cancer.

Marijuana's Sorcerer Stone CBD Continues To Save Children's Lives. Of late, CBD's claim to fame--and medicine--continues to rise, and with due cause; this year alone, its success in treating Diabetes, Breast Cancer, and Lung Cancer has been well documented by the mainstream media. Among its accolades, CBD is specifically known to successfully kill cancer cells and reduce internal inflammation--and study surrounding it remains scarce. But the latest two case studies are perhaps the most important regarding CBD and Medical Marijuana's nation (and world) wide legalization: two girls suffering from extreme epilepsy, one six and the other two, have been kept alive thanks to Cannabidiol. As Marijuana goes mainstream, it's crucial for the movement to highlight stories like these that extol CBD as Marijuana's Sorcerer's Stone--CBD literally has the ability to ease pain, prolong life, and make a viable medical impact on the world. Charlotte, the Colorado-based six-year-old who suffered 25-30 seizures a day, remains the most clearcut, veritable proof of its vast power and its medicinal potential.

Munchie Alert: Gourdough's Big Fat Doughnuts In Austin, Texas. We found our reason for being at South By Southwest next year, and it's not to smoke weed with Diplo and Snoop Lion. It's to get jiggy with these Big, Fat Doughnuts from Gourdough's in Austin. While I've never had a chance to taste these colossull fried masterpieces, the 420 Network's resident Texan and Doughnut Expert, Big Case, weighed in with his top five picks, stating that: "Eating at Gourdough's is pretty awesome, either swimming in sugar or wrestling bacon. After mushing your way through a sugar coma and fending off diabetes for the evening, only thing left is the guilt of what you put in your body and the mystery of why it was sooo damn good."

Ottawa unveils final medical marijuana rules - The Globe and Mail. Under the new regime, the government will no longer produce or distribute medical pot and medical marijuana users will no longer be allowed to grow the product at home. Instead, the government will allow patients to buy prescribed amounts only from licensed growers under strict conditions. In previous versions of the regulations, pharmacies were to distribute the product just like other medications, provoking the anger of pharmacists who feared being robbed. But the final version removes the pharmacists from the loop, forcing patients to rely on mail order for their medical marijuana. "While the courts have said that there must be reasonable access to a legal source of marijuana for medical purposes, we believe that this must be done in a controlled fashion in order to protect public safety," Aglukkaq said in a news release. "These changes will strengthen the safety of Canadian communities while making sure patients can access what they need to treat serious illnesses."

US Civil Liberties: NSA Wiretapping / Stellar Wind. he National Security Agency (NSA) is founded. It is the successor to the State Department's "Black Chamber" and other military code-breaking and eavesdropping operations dating back to the earliest days of telegraph and telephone communications. It will eventually become the largest of all US intelligence agencies, with over 30,000 employees at its Fort Meade, Maryland, headquarters. It focuses on electronic surveillance, operating a large network of satellites and listening devices around the globe. More even than the CIA, the NSA is the most secretive of US intelligence organizations, [NEW YORK TIMES, 12/16/2005] The agency will remain little known by the general public until the release of the 1998 film Enemy of the State, which will portray the NSA as an evil "Big Brother" agency spying on Americans as a matter of course. [CNN, 3/31/2001] After it is disclosed during the 1970s that the NSA spied on political dissenters and civil rights protesters, the NSA will be restricted to operating strictly overseas, and will be prohibited from monitoring US citizens within US borders without special court orders. [NEW YORK TIMES, 12/16/2005] Entity Tags: US Department of State, Central Intelligence Agency, George W. Bush, National Security Agency

$100 Billion Gift to Israel — $83 Billion Cut To American Families. U.S. Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-MD) second highest ranking member in the House of Representatives, Minority Whip, while visiting Israel along with 26 other Democratic Representatives as part of AIPAC's "educational" tour to Israel program went out of his way to comfort the Jewish State that despite America's current economic crisis, aid to Israel will continue as usual. He said such the American economic crisis "will not have any adverse effect on America's determination to meet its promise to Israel." (Jerusalem Post, August 11, 2011) That Israel's interests are the "Litmus Test" for U.S. domestic and foreign policy was made abundantly clear by the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, in remarks he made to the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) on September 6, 2011 "There are two implications that flow from the President (Obama) identifying this core interest (absolute commitment to Israel) that I would like to discuss. The first is this—- the test— of every policy the Administration (Obama's) develops in the Middle East is whether it is consistent with the goal of ensuring Israel's future as a secure, Jewish, democratic state. That is a commitment that runs as a common thread through our entire government, even while approaching the U.S.-Israel relationship and regional challenges from a variety of perspectives."

Monday, June 10, 2013

18 Legal Medical Marijuana States and DC - Medical Marijuana - ProCon.org. "Affirmative defenses, which protect from conviction but not arrest, are or may be available in several states even if the patient doesn't have an ID card: Rhode Island, Michigan, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, and, in some circumstances, Delaware. Hawaii also has a separate 'choice of evils' defense. Patient ID cards are voluntary in Maine and California, but in California they offer the strongest legal protection. In Delaware, the defense is only available between when a patient submits a valid application and receives their ID card. The states with no protection unless you're registered are: Alaska (except for that even non-medical use is protected in one's home due to the state constitutional right to privacy), Arizona, Connecticut, Montana, Vermont, New Mexico, and New Jersey. Washington, D.C. also requires registration."

'Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?' -video. Senator Ron Wyden questions director of national intelligence James Clapper in a Senate hearing in March. Clapper has denounced revelations in the media that phone and internet records have been collected on a mass scale.

Chris Hedges: The Judicial Lynching of Bradley Manning - Chris Hedges' Columns - Truthdig. Manning has admitted to 10 lesser offenses surrounding his leaking of classified and unclassified military and State Department files, documents and videos, including the "Collateral Murder" video, which shows a U.S. Apache attack helicopter in 2007 killing 12 civilians, including two Reuters journalists, and wounding two children on an Iraqi street. His current plea exposes him to penalties that could see him locked away for two decades. But for the government that is not enough. Military prosecutors are pursuing all 22 charges against him. These charges include aiding the enemy, wanton publication, espionage, stealing U.S. government property, exceeding authorized access and failures to obey lawful general orders—charges that can bring with them 149 years plus life. "He knew that the video depicted a 2007 attack," Coombs said of the "Collateral Murder" recording. "He knew that it [the attack] resulted in the death of two journalists. And because it resulted in the death of two journalists it had received worldwide attention. He knew that the organization Reuters had requested a copy of the video in FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] because it was their two journalists that were killed, and they wanted to have that copy in order to find out what had happened and to ensure that it didn't happen again. He knew that the United States had responded to that FOIA request almost two years later indicating what they could find and, notably, not the video. "He knew that David Finkel, an author, had written a book called 'The Good Soldiers,' and when he read through David Finkel's account and he talked about this incident that's depicted in the video, he saw that David Finkel's account and the actual video were verbatim, that David Finkel was quoting the Apache air crew. And so at that point he knew that David Finkel had a copy of the video. And when he decided to release this information, he believed that this information showed how [little] we valued human life in Iraq. He was troubled by that. And he believed that if the American public saw it, they too would be troubled and maybe things would change."

Study: Cannabis may PREVENT brain damage. n the latest news, cannabis, which has been associated with long-term cognitive deficits in chronic users, is now being tested as a treatment to preserve brain function after traumatic injury. Amidst the many "it-damages-your-brain" studies, some reports have shown that cannabis has neuroprotective effects. Studies have suggested that it has protective effects in neurodegenerative diseases like multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's, Huntington's and Parkinson's diseases. The author of the new study, Dr. Yosef Sarne of Tel Aviv University's Adelson Center for the Biology of Addictive Diseases, theorized that ultra-low doses of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive component of marijuana, induces minor damage to the brain, which may actually "precondition" the brain to protect it against more severe damage from injuries such as lack of oxygen, seizures or toxic drug exposure. In other words, it may act as a sort of vaccine against more traumatic harm. In Dr. Sarne's animal study, published in the journals Behavioural Brain Research and Experimental Brain Research, researchers injected mice with a single, very low dose of THC — around 1,000 to 10,000 times less than what is found in a conventional "joint" — either several days before or after exposing the mice to a brain trauma.

Why NSA Surveillance Issue Matters - YouTube. Why the NSA surveillance story matters.

Cannabis Tincture Has Always Been An Effective Treatment For Many Ailments. "It is strange to be teaching how to deal with paperwork so that someone with PTSD, cancer, a war injury or severe arthritis can have access to a medicine that my grandmother used to make without electricity or running water," Martinez told me when we met in a south central New Mexico enchilada joint. "She lived to be 89, by the way." New Mexico's medical cannabis program, though an unmitigated success, does require more of a paper trail than some state programs. It also requires annual renewal via a doctor. "I start sending out reminders to my patients two months in advance," she said. After we usher in the Drug Peace Era, healers of all stripes will be able to improve more patients' lives with various forms of cannabis tailored to their patients' conditions. Martinez, though, because her tinctures reside in a legal gray area for now, has to be found by word of mouth. "This is kind of ridiculous, to feel I have to be low key about my practice, but it's not to protect me. It's to protect patients who are former Border Patrol agents and veterans whose insurance is at risk until federal prohibition ends," she told me. Lives are at stake, so this is the line this healer with 30 years' experience is walking. If she advised getting scripts for pain opiates instead of freeing people from them, she'd be able to underwrite public radio shows. Joining us for local grub this day was a woman on the younger side of middle age named Maria. She was consulting with Esmerelda about whether to officially join the New Mexico medicinal cannabis program to treat her second incidence of melanoma. She showed me the scar on her cheek from recent surgery. "I can't believe I have to worry about legal ramifications when I'm looking for medicine to make sure I stay well," Maria told me. "I mean on the federal level."

'Prince Of Pot' Marc Emery In Solitary Confinement In US Prison. Emery, along with other prisoners at the Yazoo City Federal Correctional Institution, formed a band some months ago. Photos of the band were taken by prison staff, then developed and sent to his wife, Jodie Emery, in Vancouver, and were posted on his blog in April. According to Emery, permission for the photos was granted by three separate administrators, including one at the prison's Special Investigative Services department. But now, prison officials have placed Emery and his band mates in solitary confinement while they say they are investigating the possibility the photos had been taken with a prohibited smart phone. Prisoners in solitary, or, as it is euphemistically known, the Special Housing Unit (SHU), are locked in their cells 23 hours a day and denied normal prison amenities. Emery has now been put in the solitary cells at the prison Special Housing Unit (SHU) and told he is under investigation by the SIS, who say the photos may have been taken with a prohibited smart phone. "Got to see Marc for 1.5 hours," Jodie Emery posted in an online statement Friday, shortly after a trip to visit him. "Prison has him in solitary confinement to 'investigate' the photos of his band that the prison itself approved! The investigation (could take months) is to see if Marc had a cell phone to take the band photos -- despite proof the prison camera was used! The warden, guards, music/recreation admins -- everyone -- knows Marc got official permission for those photos. Yet they put him in solitary?!"

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things' -- video. The source behind the Guardian's NSA files talks to Glenn Greenwald about his motives for the biggest intelligence leak in a generation

Surveillance, National Security And The Constitution. The ACLU and other organizations have been trying for years now to go to court and to obtain an adjudication as to whether the spying system is in fact constitutional. And every time they've gone to court, the government has not gone into court and defended the constitutionality of what they're doing. Instead the government goes into court and they raise all sorts of reasons why the court shouldn't even decide that question — because it's too secret, because nobody can say for sure that their actually being eavesdropped on and therefore nobody has standing to sue and obtain an adjudication. And as a result, the question of constitutionality, which all sorts of law professors and scholars and surveillance experts have raised serious doubts about, has never even been heard in a court because the government doesn't let it. Greenwald on the lack of a debate about surveillance: Everybody loves to say, "We should have a healthy debate about this." President Obama said, "I welcome the debate." The problem, though, is that there hasn't ever been a debate about these programs. And because it's all shrouded in top secrecy and the government constantly either threatens to prosecute or actually prosecutes anyone who talks about it, there never can be a debate. So what we have is this completely hypocritical contradiction, which is everybody goes around saying, "Of course we should have a debate about our surveillance policies. We shouldn't just let the government do it and have us not know about it and not be able to debate it." And yet, at the same time, when somebody comes forward — like Mr. Snowden — and courageously does the only thing there is to do to make us know about it, to let us debate it, they start calling for their heads. "He's a traitor. Put him in prison." So it is impossible to have a debate about any of these issues, precisely because they're being conducted completely in the dark.

Paranoia - Official Trailer (HD) (All the latest News - Boiled into a Movie trailer) An entry-level employee at a powerful corporation finds himself occupying a corner office, but at a dangerous price: he must spy on his boss's old mentor to secure for him a multi-billion dollar advantage.

So Just What Is Disease? A Grand Unified Theory. Is there some imaginary partition that separates human health from chemistry, physics and cell biology? Whether inflammation is acute like appendicitis or chronic like atherosclerosis and obesity, an immune response is taking place. In-flam-mation literally means "on fire" and is classically marked by the Latin: rubor, tumor, calor and dolor — or redness, swelling, heat and pain — so we know from those words that oxidation is at work. Oxidation is simply fire or rust or whenever one molecule seizes an electron from another molecule. The needy oxidant grabs or shares the electrons of an electron rich anti-oxidant. When the electrons are stolen from chemical bonds, those molecules (like DNA) come apart or are deformed (like fats) and said to be oxidized, burnt. Inflammation does not just happen; a bacterium or toxin or some other irritant triggers an immune response. The ammunition used by the body for immune firefights is singlet oxygen, an all-purpose defensive weapon. With an unpaired electron, an oxygen radical is a powerful oxidant. It can deconstruct and destroy pathogens, poisons, cell debris and other unwanted substances, molecule by molecule, by snatching the electrons that hold them together. Immune cells initiate the conflagration, armed with mini-flamethrowers that generate oxidative bursts of singlet oxygen to burn the area clean. Mounting an oxidative immune response is dependent on the strength of the body's electrochemical charge, which in turn hinges on a delicate balance between oxidants/acids (both electron-hungry) and overall body charge. (This charge is generated in mitochondria and at fluid/membrane interfaces. It is stored in fatty membranes, "anti-oxidant" molecules and water, and even flows from the Earth itself. Charge is transmitted via nerves and connective tissue meridians. If a potato can generate electricity, so can your body!) In the end, it is the electrochemical charge terrain that determines biochemical reactions, molecular integrity and health.

Antioxidants: The Real Story. Dr. James Watson, a Nobel Laureate wrote a treatise on metastatic cancers in which he briefly mentioned dietary supplements: 'Free-radical-destroying antioxidative nutritional supplements may have caused more cancers than they have prevented'. [1] In a few words Dr. Watson condemned the view of double Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling on the effects of cancer and the antioxidant vitamin C. Deplorably, he used the case of Dr. Pauling to support his theory: 'At the time of his death from prostate cancer in 1994, at the age of 93, Linus was taking 12 g of vitamin C every day. In light of the recent data strongly hinting that much of late-stage cancer's untreatability may arise from its possession of too many antioxidants, the time has come to seriously ask whether antioxidant use much more likely causes than prevents cancer.' Moreover to disqualify the use of dietary supplements as protection against cancer, Watson referred in the same paragraph to a questionable study, performed by a team of researchers led by Dr. Goran Bjelakovic, a professor at the University of Nis (Serbia and Montenegro) and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).[2] The study consisted of a meta-analysis of the research literature. This statistical analysis method, virtually sacrosanct in the world of medical science, is considered the most secure because it combines the results of multiple scientific studies. However, the selection of studies for inclusion makes this method prone to bias. Moreover, the selected studies are often very different with divergent aims and different populations. Sometimes there is no discrimination between healthy persons and sick patients. One recent meta-analysis attracted worldwide media attention, leading to alarming headlines such as "Antioxidant supplements may increase the risk of death." The researchers concluded from this meta-analysis that the antioxidants beta carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E may increase the risk of mortality.

Monsanto: Contamination By All Means Necessary. Since 1994, Monsanto has conducted 279 field trials of RoundUp Ready wheat over more than 4,000 acres of land in 16 states. The USDA has admitted that Monsanto's GMO experiments from 1998 to 2005 were held in open wheat fields. The genetically engineered wheat escaped and found its way into commercial wheat fields in Oregon (and possibly 15 other states), causing self-replicating genetic pollution that now taints the entire US wheat industry. Contamination of non-GE crops is a serious concern. Worries about harm to human health and the environment are well documented. But GE contaminated wheat has wider ramifications. In the wake of the disclosure of contaminated wheat, Japan has canceled its offer to buy US western white wheat. Toru Hisadome, a Japanese farm ministry official in charge of wheat trading, is reported by Reuters news agency as saying that Japan will refrain from buying western white and feed wheat immediately. Asian consumers are keenly sensitive to gene-altered food, with few countries allowing imports of such cereals for human consumption. Asia imports more than 40 million tonnes of wheat annually, almost a third of the global trade. The bulk of the region's supplies come from the US . Meanwhile, the European Union has prepared to begin testing shipments for the RoundUp Ready gene. This all could have major implications for the US economy. In 2012, exported wheat represented a gross sum of $18.1 billion, with 90 percent of Oregon 's wheat exported abroad. Mike Adams of Natural News says that all wheat produced in the US will now be heavily scrutinized and possibly even rejected by other nations that traditionally import US wheat. This obviously has enormous economic implications for US farmers and agriculture. Adams argues that genetic experiments which 'escaped' into commercial wheat fields could devastate US wheat farmers. The floor could drop out on wheat prices, and there may well be a huge backlash against the USDA by US farmers who stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars (3).

David Letterman's Epic Rant Against Fracking - GreenMedTV. "The greedy gas and oil companies of this country have decided that they can squeeze every last little ounce of oil and gas out of previously pumped wells by injecting the earth with highly toxic carcinogenic chemicals..."

GMOs and Health: The Scientific Basis for Serious Concern and. Immediate Action The situation with agricultural GMOs is unique compared to other technologies. While genetic engineering of food crops has been ongoing for 15 years, it is currently experiencing a major boom with the potential for widespread worldwide application. Yet, few people understand how a GMO food could really be so much different than a non-GMO food in regard to health and disease effects. GMO foods look like non-GMO foods and so we don't experience the same hesitation and aversion to consuming them like we would, say, a clearly labeled bottle of virus and pesticide in tomato juice. Therefore, the quality of public education, consumer awareness, and informed public discussion about this technology has the potential to alter the future of GMO agriculture for better or worse. In this article, I'll first briefly mention the relative paucity of risk assessment studies on GMOs and the unbelievable weaknesses of the industry studies that have been done. Then, drawing from numerous independent studies, I will explore the routes by which agricultural GMOs may cause adverse health effects.

UK 'War On Drugs' Not Working, Says Coalition of Celebrities and Politicians. The open letter published in the Times included Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson, musician Sting and comedian Russell Brand among nearly 20 signatories pushing for change. The letter claims that the £3bn spent on drug policy "does little to address the root causes of addiction and pointlessly criminalises people". The initiative, led by Green MP Caroline Lucas, has attracted cross-party backing from Labour MP Keith Vaz, Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith and Liberal Democrat MP Julian Huppert. The letter comes as politicians debate a home affairs select committee report that warns that government action is needed "now, more than ever" to consider all the alternatives for drug policy.

A Drug War in the Time of Color-Blind Policy. Marijuana use is roughly equal among Blacks and whites. In 2010, 14% of Blacks and 12% of whites reported using marijuana in the past year; in 2001, the figure was 10% of whites and 9% of Blacks. In every year from 2001 to 2010, more whites than Blacks between the ages of 18 and 25 reported using marijuana in the previous year. In 2010, 34% of whites and 27% of Blacks reported having last used marijuana more than one year ago -- a constant trend over the past decade. In the same year, 59% of Blacks and 54% of whites reported having never used marijuana. Each year over the past decade more Blacks than whites reported that they had never used marijuana.

Alabama Judge Sentences Marijuana Executive To Two Years Without THC. "This is a situation during some vacation where I basically made an error in judgment," Keber said. Deputies arrested Keber on May 18 after he was found in possession of a small amount of concentrated marijuana while entering the Hangout Music Festival in Gulf Shores, Ala., said Baldwin County sheriff's Maj. Anthony Lowery. Arrest documents show Keber was also initially held on suspicion of felony possession of cocaine, though Callaway said deputies mistook a marijuana concentrate for cocaine. Keber denies possessing cocaine, and Keber was charged only with marijuana possession. Alabama does not have a medical-marijuana law. As a result of limited marijuana legalization in Colorado, Keber's possession likely wouldn't have brought criminal charges in this state. Dixie Elixirs makes an array of marijuana-infused oils, sweets and drinks. Keber said he reported the charges to Colorado's Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division and said he does not believe they will have an impact on the company's license. Source: Hot tip Tripp! Next time you're looking to go on a vacation -- choose a state that doesn't hate on marijuana...

Convicted Canadian Pot Seed Mogul Punished With Solitary Confinement. Emery, along with other prisoners at the Yazoo City Federal Correctional Institution, formed a band some months ago. Photos of the band were taken by prison staff, then developed and sent to his wife, Jodie Emery, in Vancouver, and wereposted on his blog in April. According to Emery, permission for the photos was granted by three separate administrators, including one at the prison's Special Investigative Services department. But now, prison officials have placed Emery and his band mates in solitary confinement while they say they are investigating the possibility the photos had been taken with a prohibited smart phone. Prisoners in solitary, or, as it is euphemistically known, the Special Housing Unit (SHU), are locked in their cells 23 hours a day and denied normal prison amenities. Emery has now been put in the solitary cells at the prison Special Housing Unit (SHU) and told he is under investigation by the SIS, who say the photos may have been taken with a prohibited smart phone.

Sunday, June 09, 2013

Obama is Bad on Civil Liberties, But That Shouldn't Surprise Anyone. "But I know that the people who are involved in these programs... They're professionals. In the abstract you can complain about Big Brother and how this is a program run amok, but when you actually look at the details, I think we've struck the right balance." -Barack Hussein Obama - 2013 Obama voted for the 2008 FISA amendments, a position that outraged liberals at the time. He continued the Bush-era surveillance of communications networks. He ramped up the war in Afghanistan. He vastly increased drone use overseas. He's declared a war on leakers. He participated in the assault on Libya. He's approved the assassination of American citizens abroad. His DOJ has aggressively made use of the state secrets privilege. He's fought relentlessly to block lawsuits challenging privacy violations and presidential abuses. Basically, Obama's record on national security and civil liberties issues has been crystal clear for a long time: He falls squarely into the mainstream of the elite, bipartisan, Beltway consensus on this stuff. He always has, just like every president before him. This isn't the fourth term of the George Bush presidency, as so many people like to put it, but more like the 16th term of the Eisenhower presidency. Will the public finally rebel after learning about the latest way their government is keeping tabs on them? I doubt it. As near as I can tell, most of the public is willing to sell their innermost secrets for a free iTunes coupon. Until we figure out a way to change that, none of this stuff is going to stop.

Denials in surveillance program require decoding. Each of the statements issued by Google Inc., Facebook Inc. and the five other companies linked to the program has been carefully worded in ways that doesn't rule out the possibility that the NSA has been gathering online communications as part of its efforts to uncover terrorist plots and other threats to U.S. national security. "I think a lot of people are spending a lot of time right now trying to parse those denials," says Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group. "The top level point is simply: it's pretty hard to know what those denials mean." Google and Facebook were tied to a clandestine snooping program code-named PRISM in reports published late Thursday by The Washington Post and The Guardian, a British newspaper. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence for the Obama administration, subsequently confirmed PRISM had been approved by a judge and is being conducted in accordance with U.S. law. But Clapper didn't identify what companies fall under PRISM's broad authority, leaving the reports by the Post and Guardian as the only windows into the spying program. The newspapers based their reports on confidential slides and other documents about PRISM.

Oregon could vote again on pot legalization. Oregon voters may have a chance to decide again next year whether to legalize marijuana for recreational use. Legalization activist Paul Stanford filed two initiative petitions with the Oregon Secretary of State's Office on Thursday. He says he'll collect signatures in hopes of putting them on the 2014 ballot unless the Legislature beats him to it. One initiative would amend the constitution to legalize marijuana and the other would set up a system to regulate the drug. Stanford was the driving force behind an initiative last year that would have legalized and taxed marijuana. Voters rejected it 53 percent to 47 percent after Stanford struggled to raise money to promote it. Washington and Colorado are preparing regulations for marijuana use after voters in those states legalized it last year.

The carriers' not-so-secret weapon to improve cell service. a small cell is a box that can broadcast licensed cellular radio frequencies, boosting the coverage and capacity in the immediate surrounding area. A carrier-grade small cell, which can be placed inside office buildings, hung on lampposts, or installed on top of low rooftops, can affect users within a radius of 100 to 500 meters, or roughly 200 users. Traditionally, the carriers built out their networks using macro cells, or large, unsightly towers that adorned with antennas and dishes that reach thousands of feet and many more people. But in areas where there is spotty coverage or heavy congestion, carriers can't quickly throw up a macro cell. For one, they're expensive, costing an average of $30,000 (or more, depending on the configuration). And despite the need for them, the public doesn't want to be near them. Small cells, on the other hand, cost much less, at around $5,000 to $10,000, with maintenance costs only a third of the expense to operate a macro cell. Ericsson's trials have shown that adding three small cells to augment coverage of a macro cell could double the capacity of that area, according to Sheila Burpee Duncan, head of Wi-Fi marketing for Ericsson. Burpee said she believe small cells are ideal for covering local pockets and network blind spots. Small cells range in size, with some as small as a slightly thicker iPad, going up to the size of a large hiker's backpack. As a result, there is more flexibility on where they can be placed, and don't look as intrusive as a large cell tower.

The NYT's predictable revelation: new FISA law enabled massive abuses - Salon.com. Most Americans don't realize that the FISA compromise comes in two parts. The first part greatly alters FISA by expanding the executive's ability to wiretap and engage in much broader searches of communications than were permissible under the law before. It essentially gives congressional blessing to some but not all of what the executive was doing under President Bush. President Obama will like having Congress authorize these new powers. He'll like it just fine. People aren't paying as much attention to this part of the bill. But they should, because it will define the law of surveillance going forward. It is where your civil liberties will be defined for the next decade. But key Democrats [and, needless to say, the GOP minority, which (other than Ron Paul) unanimously supported the bill] ran around spouting pure propaganda, telling the public that they were supporting this new FISA bill because it would safeguard and even enhance civil liberties protections. Here is what was said about the bill by the Democrats' House Majority Leader — who, along with Dick Cheney and Jay Rockefeller, was the key force behind its passage: "In an interview with Politico on Monday, [Steny] Hoyer called the FISA legislation a 'significant victory' for the Democratic Party — one that neutralized an issue Republicans might have been able to use against Democrats in November while still, in his view, protecting the civil liberties of American citizens." Hoyer's claims were echoed immediately by Barack Obama when he announced that he, too, would support the FISA "revisions." Obama said: Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people . . .

THE HISTORY BEHIND THE 4TH AMENDMENT. The Founders believed that freedom from government intrusion into one's home was a natural right (one granted from God) and fundamental to liberty. The idea that citizens should be protected from unreasonable searches and seizures goes back far into English history. In 1604, Sir Edward Coke first identified this right. He said that "The house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence as for his repose." During the Colonial era, the King of England looked at the American colonies as simply a financial investment. Britain passed numerous revenue collection bills aimed at generating as much money from the colonists as possible. Obviously, the colonists resented this act by the King and began smuggling operations in order to circumvent the custom taxes imposed by the British Crown. In response, King George began the use of the conveniently worded "writs of assistance." These were legal search warrants that were extremely broad and general in scope. British agents could obtain a writ of assistance to search any property they believed might contain contraband goods. They could actually enter someone's property or home with no notice and without any reason. Agents could interrogate anyone about their use of customed goods and force cooperation of any person. These types of searches and seizures became an egregious affront to the people of the colonies. These actions by the British Crown would be one the precipitating factors leading to the American Revolution and the eventual forming of our Constitution. When the 4th Amendment became part of the Constitution, it was originally only applied to the federal government. Later, it was applied to the states through the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Five myths about legalizing marijuana. With 16 states having decriminalized or legalized cannabis for non-medical use and eight more heading toward some kind of legalization, federal prohibition's days seem numbered. You might wonder what America will look like when marijuana is in the corner store and at the farmers market. In three years spent researching that question, I found some ideas about the plant that just don't hold up.

Revealed: Secret Government Map Catalogues Spy Reports by Country. According to documents viewed by the news outlet, the program called Boundless Informant uses an individual computer's IP Address to categorize by location government surveillance intercepts and filed reports of 'metadata,' which includes the identities of the sender and recipient, and the time, date, duration and location of a communication. With 14 billion reports, Iran was the country where the largest amount of intelligence was gathered followed by 13.5 billion from Pakistan. One of America's closest Arab allies, Jordan, came third with 12.7 billion. Egypt was fourth with 7.6 billion and India fifth with 6.3 billion. As journalist Glenn Greenwald, who is one of the reporters behind the disclosure, said Thursday on CNN's Piers Morgan, "the entire world is impacted." According to the Guardian report: An NSA factsheet about the program, acquired by the Guardian, says: "The tool allows users to select a country on a map and view the metadata volume and select details about the collections against that country." Under the heading "Sample use cases", the factsheet also states the tool shows information including: "How many records (and what type) are collected against a particular country." A snapshot of the Boundless Informant data, contained in a top secret NSA "global heat map" seen by the Guardian, shows that in March 2013 the agency collected 97bn pieces of intelligence from computer networks worldwide.

When everything is a crime, government data mining matters - Legal Insurrection. The threat, oddly enough, is proven by the leaks which (allegedly) exposed the programs and were provided to Glenn Greenwald. If some government employee who has sworn to keep information secret is willing to leak the information to Glenn Greenwald for (allegedly) good purposes, what's to stop that person from violating his or her oath by leaking data-mined information to Glenn Greenwald or Media Matters or the Human Rights Campaign for other than good reasons about a Tea Party group, religious figure or conservative politician? In the age of Obama and the unique mainstream media disinterest in anything that damages Obama, this already has resulted in a flourishing culture of intimidation directed at the Tea Party, traditional marriage supporters, conservatives, and other opponents of Obama and the Obama agenda. A point discussed here many times is the criminalization of life, particularly with regard to gun laws. Professor Glenn Reynolds has made the point more generally in his paper Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything is a Crime. Prosecutors have become kings, with the ability to find a crime committed by just about anyone. Data mining and access to internet activity can help find terrorists, but it also can be used to find crimes which were not previously known to have been committed by political opponents. A "find the target first, then find the crime" political approach requires access to information of an unprecedented level. Which is exactly what is happening. The issue goes beyond the NSA programs. Obamacare is a form of data mining.

Cops Seize Meth, Heroin, Marijuana. - Paso Robles Police Department Special Enforcement Team According to PRPD, SET detectives arrested Esteban Ortiz, 33, of Compton, for possession of 38.8 grams of methamphetamine, 52.7 grams of tar heroin, 11 ccs of liquid heroin, and 6.8 grams of marijuana. Ortiz also had nearly $3000 in US currency in his possession. SET detectives became aware Ortiz might be staying in the area after being alerted by the Pismo Beach Police Department. PBPD believed Ortiz was possibly staying at a local Paso Robles hotel and might be in possession of narcotics for sales. SET Detectives contacted state parole who confirmed Ortiz was on active parole and had an active warrant for his arrest. Detectives tracked Ortiz to a Paso Robles hotel near Buena Vista Road and Highway 46. Detectives located Ortiz walking through the parking lot and arrested him without incident. The search uncovered marijuana and meth in his pockets.

Agents intercept a combined $1,774,122 worth in heroin and meth -. Customs and Border Protection officers in San Luis had a busy day yesterday, intercepting a combined value of $1,774,122 in meth and heroin. Andy Camarillo, of San Luis, is now behind bars for trying to smuggle drugs across the San Luis Port of Entry. He was busted during a routine inspection, when officers found 30 pounds of heroin and 34 pounds of meth wrapped in black electrical tape and cellophane that were hidden in his car. Camarillo was turned over to Homeland Security Investigations. Customs and Border Protection officers made two other busts at the San Luis Port of Entry yesterday, bringing the total value of meth and heroin intercepted to $1,774,122.

MCSO: 51 pounds of meth seized in recent bust, one of largest in department's history. MCSO said Phoenix resident Armando Chairez was arrested and booked on class 4 felony drug possession charges after 51 pounds of methamphetamine were removed from a "Phoenix stash house" near 47th Avenue and Thomas Road. Sheriff Joe Arpaio said authorities obtained a search warrant to go investigate the house and seize the estimated $1 million in drugs. The department said they tracked the Mexican-produced drugs using surveillance among other investigative means, but would not release all specifics. Arpaio described the suspect as "important" to the drug trade, but wouldn't call him a "king pin." "The ring leaders you have to understand are in Mexico," said Arpaio. Chairez was also in possession of cocaine, a .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun and about $3,000, said MCSO. Arpaio said meth labs in Maricopa county are almost "nonexistent" due to an aggressive push by law enforcement. In a press release, the department said 173 labs have been dismantled since 2004.

Troopers seize $325,000 in heroin from 63-year-old Cleveland man. John Foster, of Cleveland, Ohio, was stopped on Route 80 East in Knowlton Township. around 2:40 a.m. June 1, according to Sgt. Brian Polite, an N.J. State Police spokesman. A search of the car turned up five kilos of heroin, valued at $325,000, Polite said. Foster has also secreted seven heat-sealed packages of money inside of an "electronically activated compartment" in the rear of his 2006 Saturn, according to Polite. It is unclear how much money Foster was hiding, Polite said. Foster was charged with various drug offenses, money laundering and conspiracy, Polite said. Police would not say why Foster was stopped, why they searched his vehicle or where he was going.

Drug arrest in Doraville GA - 6,000 Xanax, steroids, materials used for the distribution of the drugs and a 9mm hand gun. When Doraville SWAT entered a suspicious residence, they confirmed that someone was growing marijuana and discovered more than 6,000 Xanax, steroids, materials used for the distribution of the drugs and a 9mm hand gun, according to a news release. Ryan Lee Garrett, 29, was taken into custody. Police said he is facing multiple charges, including possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, manufacturing marijuana, possession of various drugs, tampering with evidence, and distribution of marijuana.

US to freeze assets of hackers, throw them out of the country. Reps. Mike Rogers, Tim Ryan and Sen. Ron Johnson, bipartisan members of the House and Senate, say that the bill will send a clear message to nations endorsing cybercriminals, and that "this behavior will no longer be tolerated." "Theft of U.S. intellectual property is costing our economy an estimated $300 billion a year. It costs American jobs, innovation, and threatens national security," said Senator Ron Johnson. "It's time there are repercussions for these brazen acts taken by foreign actors. This bill is a simple, common-sense measure. It directs the Administration to develop a list of cyber spies, make that list public, and enforce penalties for those bad actors." Rogers mentions China by name, saying that there are currently "no real consequences" for the theft of American intellectual property. The act calls for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to prosecute more foreign nationals who are involved in the theft of intellectual property and economic warfare. In addition, the bill would deny hackers the right to apply for visas to enter the United States. If they are currently within the country, those involved in cybercrime take the risk of having visas revoked and financial assets frozen.

Attacker in Afghanistan Hid Bomb in His Body. (Rectum Hell....It Killed Him) Mr. Khalid's aides took the visitor to an armored room in the basement of a safe house in Taimani, an upscale neighborhood in the capital city, for a security screening. They were no doubt mindful of what happened in September 2011 when a Taliban peace emissary was allowed to meet with a prominent Afghan peace envoy and then killed him with a bomb hidden in his turban. Watching the man over closed-circuit television, they ordered him to strip naked, which he did. Satisfied, they let him get dressed and took him to see their boss upstairs. Then he blew up. The suicide bomber killed only himself, but Mr. Khalid sustained severe abdominal wounds as well as injuries to his hands and arms. Now, months after that attack, on Dec. 6, a spokesman for the National Directorate of Security, Shafiqullah Tahiri, confirmed that the attacker had hidden the bomb inside his rectum. Two other Afghan security officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the bomb had been hidden internally. Officials had earlier been quoted as saying the bomb had been hidden in the attacker's underwear.

Drug Raids Busted by Austin Police - kcentv.com - KCEN HD - Waco, Temple, and Killeen. Millions of dollars in cash and drugs are off Texas streets after major drug raids by the Austin Police Department. Three people with ties to the Mexican Zetas Drug Cartel are now arrested in connection to the operation. And authorities say they seized 13 kilograms of cocaine, three handguns and more than a million dollars from the suspected drug runners. Chief Art Acevedo from the Austin Police said, "Not to the street level folks we want. In this case over a million dollars has been seized." Another major drug bust involved four arrests for meth dealing. That's after a search warrant turned up nearly 9 ounces of cocaine, more than 20 pounds of meth, and over $20,000 in cash. In addition to the drugs, police say they seized three hand guns, a pistol, and a hand grenade.

12K pot plants found growing on Calif. cattle land - ContraCostaTimes.com. Narcotics agents in Madera County have destroyed 12,000 marijuana plants that were found growing on private cattle grazing. Sheriff John Anderson on Friday estimated the crop planted on steep terrain near Raymond, Calif. to be worth $14.5 million. Along with the plants, agents also removed mounds of trash, bags and drums of chemicals used by the growers. Anderson says Madera County has recently seen a rise in the number of illegal grow sites in the foothills and Sierra National Forest and that they are negatively affecting water quality, wildlife—and now livestock. Investigators think the growers of the crop have ties to a drug-trafficking organization based in Mexico.

Saturday, June 08, 2013

Department of Defense NetOps Strategic Vision (PDF Attached) Department of Defense - NetOps Strategic Vision - December 2008 - Department of Defense - Chief Information Officer The Pentagon � Washington, D.C.

DaDenMan Show #151 - (shhh, Its about Cannabis) We Have The Technology, and resist it at every step

Florida OFFICIALLY Bans Bongs And All Paraphernalia Sales. (Its now ILLEGAL to own a 'Vase') Florida, the same state where you can shoot someone in self-defense. has OFFICIALLY banned the sale of any and all bongs and Marijuana paraphernalia. The Sunshine State's Governor signed HB 49 into law yesterday, meaning on July 1st, the state's head shops glass head to the bong graveyard. If you're in need of some Heady Glass or RooR Bongs, Florida residents (your grandparents) can still order glass online legally and have it shipped to them. Just don't keep it on your window sill.

Obama Admits He Could Have Been In Prison For Marijuana But Keeps Sending People There. "[W]hatever success I have achieved, whatever positions of leadership I have held have depended less on Ivy League degrees or SAT scores or GPAs, and have instead been due to that sense of connection and empathy — the special obligation I felt, as a black man like you, to help those who need it most, people who didn't have the opportunities that I had — because there but for the grace of God, go I — I might have been in their shoes. I might have been in prison. I might have been unemployed. I might not have been able to support a family. And that motivates me." As a reminder, young Barry Obama was quite the marijuana enthusiast back in the day. As a member of Hawaii's "Choom Gang," he was partial to "intercepting" joints. In his memoir, he even fessed up to using cocaine on occasion. The president is quite correct that if he as a young black man had been caught by the cops while partaking in any of these activities, he could easily have ended up in prison. And he probably would not have gone on to a successful career as a lawyer and politician. If only the president took that sense of connection and empathy he so eloquently talks about and actually applied it toward any number of the thousands of people who are languishing behind bars today for doing exactly what young Barry Obama did.

Colorado Attorney General: Treating Marijuana Magazines Like Porn Is Unconstitutional. The magazine requirement was part of a larger set of laws enacted to state how the newly legal drug should be grown and sold. The behind-the-counter restriction was adopted after parents testified that their children should be protected from exposure to magazines touting the drug, which remains illegal under federal law. The resulting law left Colorado in an unusual position — one of only two states to allow recreational use of the drug, while also the only state to restrict the display of publications about marijuana. The state's decision to reject the magazine restriction was applauded by marijuana legalization activists. "The idea that stores can prominently display magazines touting the joys of drinking wine and smoking cigars, yet banish those that discuss a far safer substance to behind the counter, is absolutely absurd," wrote Mason Tvert, who campaigned for Colorado's pot law and now is spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project.

Survey Of 1,446 Doctors From 72 Countries Says Use Medical Marijuana For Breast Cancer. The survey included 1,446 doctors from 72 different countries. In North America, responses were received from 56 different states and provinces to the hypothetical case study presented in the survey. The study was published in the February issue of the Journal along with a pro/con fact sheet and a question- would you recommend medical marijuana for this patient? The survey results were published in the Journal's May 30 issue. The case study is explained in an article from Web M.D.: The case presented to the doctors was Marilyn, a 68-year-old woman with breast cancer that had spread to her lungs, chest cavity and spine. She was undergoing chemotherapy, and said she had no energy, little appetite and a great deal of pain. She had tried various medications to relieve her pain, including the narcotic medication oxycodone. She lives in a state where the use of medical marijuana is legal, and asks her physician for a prescription. In an article on ThinkProgress.org, author Sy Mukherjee writes, "In commentary published along with the survey, researchers explained the reasoning that most respondents provided for their support of medicinal cannabis. "Many [respondents] pointed out the known dangers of prescription narcotics, supported patient choice, or described personal experience with patients who benefited from the use of marijuana," wrote the authors."

Obama defends surveillance effort as 'trade-off' for security. (those who forsake liberty for security deserve neither) President Barack Obama on Friday staunchly defended the sweeping U.S. government surveillance of Americans' phone and internet activity, calling it a "modest encroachment" on privacy that was necessary to defend the United States from attack. "Nobody is listening to your telephone calls. That's not what this program is about," Obama told reporters during a visit to California's Silicon Valley. He emphasized that the secret surveillance programs were supervised by federal judges and authorized by Congress, which had been briefed on the details. Obama's comments came after reports this week in Britain's Guardian newspaper and the Washington Post revealed that the National Security Agency and the FBI had secretly conducted surveillance of Americans' telephone and internet communications activities far beyond what had been made public.

How to Complain To Obama Directly about WireTapping and Surveillance Caution! Contents May Be Hot!

Friday, June 07, 2013

40 Statistics About The Fall Of The U.S. Economy That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe. 30 years ago, the U.S. national debt was about one trillion dollars. Today, it is almost 17 trillion dollars. 40 years ago, the total amount of debt in the United States was about 2 trillion dollars. Today, it is more than 56 trillion dollars. At the same time that we have been running up all of this debt, our economic infrastructure and our ability to produce wealth has been absolutely gutted. Since 2001, the United States has lost more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities and millions of good jobs have been shipped overseas. Our share of global GDP declined from 31.8 percent in 2001 to 21.6 percent in 2011. The percentage of Americans that are self-employed is at a record low, and the percentage of Americans that are dependent on the government is at a record high. The U.S. economy is a complete and total mess, and it is time that we faced the truth. The following are 40 statistics about the fall of the U.S. economy that are almost too crazy to believe...

21 Facts About Rising Government Dependence In America That Will Blow Your Mind. It is absolutely criminal what we are doing to future generations. But we cannot help ourselves. We are like the 400 pound union executive in New York that takes long naps at his desk every afternoon. We know that what we are doing is not right, but we cannot help ourselves. For much more on the horror of our national debt, please see my previous article entitled "55 Facts About The Debt And U.S. Government Finances That Every American Voter Should Know". So what should we do? We certainly don't want millions of Americans to go without food or a place to sleep, and yet the number of Americans that need government assistance just continues to grow. Of course the ultimate solution would be to provide a job for all of those people, but our economy is falling apart. Unless a miracle happens, the U.S. economy will never produce enough jobs ever again. As our economy continues to crumble, dependence on the government is likely going to continue to rise. The following are 21 facts about rising government dependence in America that will blow your mind...

21 Statistics About The Explosive Growth Of Poverty In America That Everyone Should Know. Americans living in poverty has now reached a level not seen since the 1960s. Yes, corporate profits are at levels never seen before, but so is the number of Americans on food stamps. Yes, housing prices have started to rebound a little bit (especially in wealthy areas), but there are also more than a million public school students in America that are homeless. That is the first time that has ever happened in U.S. history. So should we measure our economic progress by the false stock market bubble that has been inflated by Ben Bernanke's reckless money printing, or should we measure our economic progress by how the poor and the middle class are doing? Because if we look at how average Americans are doing these days, then there is not much to be excited about. In fact, poverty continues to experience explosive growth in the United States and the middle class continues to shrink. Sadly, the truth is that things are not getting better for most Americans. With each passing year the level of economic suffering in this country continues to go up, and we haven't even reached the next major wave of the economic collapse yet. When that strikes, the level of economic pain in this nation is going to be off the charts. The following are 21 statistics about the explosive growth of poverty in America that everyone should know...

Colorado's Studio A64 Fires Up Chronic Cannabis Club. This sweet little hidden Nug, steeped in 420 culture, sits in the heart of downtown Colorado Springs. Perched high above the Triple Nickel Bar and Grill, located at 332 E. Colorado Ave. KC Stark, the visionary behind studio A64 views his new joint as an "upscale, private cannabis club," which is representative of "the birth of an industry... [and] the end of prohibition." Stark went on to draw the parallel that "Colorado Springs is the Silicon Valley... for cannabis development." In addition to being the founder / owner of Colorado Springs newest hipster hotspot, Mr. Stark has his fingers in a few other pro-cannabis business models and has been inundated by curious investors. "In six months we have had, I think over 100 investors meet with us."

Patriot Act: The kitchen-sink approach to national security The Patriot Act was mostly a Republican project at its origin, but it would have died long ago without the support of Democrats. Liberals were committed enough to the bill that it took Texas Republican Dick Armey to insist that the new privileges of the Patriot Act would indeed sunset, unless the president asked for, and Congress approved, a reauthorization. In 2005, George W. Bush convinced Congress to renew the act, and in 2010, so did Barack Obama—even though the terrorist threat seemed less urgent, and liberal scholars had concluded that the civil-liberties violations in the bill could be resolved with a few modest changes. Dinh's original worry—that politicians might not be committed enough to renew these laws—now seems misplaced. What Dinh didn't anticipate was a profound shift in liberalism and, therefore, in the politics of the country. Even with a Democrat now in the White House, the liberalism that protects the right of the individual against the majority—the politics of civil rights and abortion and gay marriage—has diminished, in favor of one that aims to improve the lot of the median man. Obama's liberalism is for the majority, not against it. This spirit, and the unlikely endurance of the Patriot Act, owes something to the central psychological events of the decade: the vitality and threat of new economic competitors, the social violence initiated by the authors of obscure financial instruments, but first and most of all September 11—each of which evoked a particular feeling, that we were all together, under attack.

Cannabis may help reverse dementia: study. "Back in the day cannabis was used for medical purposes, I'm talking 200 years, 100 years back, then at some point people discovered it had other effects and, as quite often happens in our society, people decided it was a bad drug," he said. "But it's not one compound, it is a mixture of 60 different compounds, and you just have to look at those different compounds because some of them might be good for you." His study involved injecting cannabidiol into mice that had been bred to have similar symptoms as those seen in Alzheimer's, as well as examining what would happen to brain cells treated with the drug. Dr Karl found that when the mice were given the cannabidiol they showed drastic improvement on parts of the tests that were related to recognising and remembering objects and other mice. "It basically brings the performance of the animals back to the level of healthy animals," he said. "You could say it cured them, but we will have to go back and look at their brains to be sure." The study was done as part of the PhD of student David Cheng, who has also collected the brains of the mice and intends to examine them to see if they showed physical improvements. As part of the research, which is being presented at the Australian Neuroscience Society annual meeting in Melbourne this week, the team also treated animal brain cells that produced a protein linked to the development of plaques in the brain in humans with Alzheimer's disease, amyloid precursor protein.

The role of child protection in cannabis grow-operations. Background This unique social work research examined the rationale for child protection interventions with families found living in illegal cannabis grow operations, based on the assumption of risk in the presence of probable medical harm. Methods The study examined the household, family and individual characteristics of 181 children found living in cannabis grow operations in two regions in British Columbia, Canada. Data was collected on-site on the physical characteristics of the homes, the health characteristics of the children, and their prescription drug history. Comparison of prescription drug use was also made with a group of children from the same geographic areas. Results This study found that there was no significant difference between the health of the children living in cannabis grow operations and the comparison group of children, based on their prescription history and their reported health at the time. Conclusion The findings of this study challenge contemporary child welfare approaches and have implications for both child protection social workers and the policymakers who develop frameworks for practice.

Low-Dose Vaporized Cannabis Significantly Improves Neuropathic Pain. We conducted a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study evaluating the analgesic efficacy of vaporized cannabis in subjects, the majority of whom were experiencing neuropathic pain despite traditional treatment. Thirty-nine patients with central and peripheral neuropathic pain underwent a standardized procedure for inhaling medium-dose (3.53%), low-dose (1.29%), or placebo cannabis with the primary outcome being visual analog scale pain intensity. Psychoactive side effects and neuropsychological performance were also evaluated. Mixed-effects regression models demonstrated an analgesic response to vaporized cannabis. There was no significant difference between the 2 active dose groups' results (P > .7). The number needed to treat (NNT) to achieve 30% pain reduction was 3.2 for placebo versus low-dose, 2.9 for placebo versus medium-dose, and 25 for medium- versus low-dose. As these NNTs are comparable to those of traditional neuropathic pain medications, cannabis has analgesic efficacy with the low dose being as effective a pain reliever as the medium dose. Psychoactive effects were minimal and well tolerated, and neuropsychological effects were of limited duration and readily reversible within 1 to 2 hours. Vaporized cannabis, even at low doses, may present an effective option for patients with treatment-resistant neuropathic pain.

Attenuation of HIV-1 replication in macrophages by cannabinoid receptor 2 agonists. Infiltrating monocytes and macrophages play a crucial role in the progression of HIV-1 infection in the CNS. Previous studies showed that activation of the CB2 can attenuate inflammatory responses and affect HIV-1 infectivity in T cells and microglia. Here, we report that CB2 agonists can also act as immunomodulators on HIV-1-infected macrophages. First, our findings indicated the presence of elevated levels of CB2 expression on monocytes/macrophages in perivascular cuffs of postmortem HIV-1 encephalitic cases. In vitro analysis by FACS of primary human monocytes revealed a step-wise increase in CB2 surface expression in monocytes, MDMs, and HIV-1-infected MDMs. We next tested the notion that up-regulation of CB2 may allow for the use of synthetic CB2 agonist to limit HIV-1 infection. Two commercially available CB2 agonists, JWH133 and GP1a, and a resorcinol-based CB2 agonist, O-1966, were evaluated. Results from measurements of HIV-1 RT activity in the culture media of 7 day-infected cells showed a significant decrease in RT activity when the CB2 agonist was present. Furthermore, CB2 activation also partially inhibited the expression of HIV-1 pol. CB2 agonists did not modulate surface expression of CXCR4 or CCR5 detected by FACS. We speculate that these findings indicate that prevention of viral entry is not a central mechanism for CB2-mediated suppression in viral replication. However, CB2 may affect the HIV-1 replication machinery. Results from a single-round infection with the pseudotyped virus revealed a marked decrease in HIV-1 LTR activation by the CB2 ligands. Together, these results indicate that CB2 may offer a means to limit HIV-1 infection in macrophages

Can Marijuana Reduce Social Pain? Social and physical pain share common overlap at linguistic, behavioral, and neural levels. Prior research has shown that acetaminophen—an analgesic medication that acts indirectly through cannabinoid 1 receptors—reduces the social pain associated with exclusion. Yet, no work has examined if other drugs that act on similar receptors, such as marijuana, also reduce social pain. Across four methodologically diverse samples, marijuana use consistently buffered people from the negative consequences associated with loneliness and social exclusion. These effects were replicated using cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental designs. These findings offer novel evidence supporting common overlap between social and physical pain processes.

Marijuana users have better blood sugar control. A multicenter research team analyzed data obtained during the National Health and Nutrition Survey (NHANES) between 2005 and 2010. They studied data from 4,657 patients who completed a drug use questionnaire. Of these, 579 were current marijuana users, 1,975 had used marijuana in the past but were not current users, and 2,103 had never inhaled or ingested marijuana. Fasting insulin and glucose were measured via blood samples following a nine hour fast, and homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) was calculated to evaluate insulin resistance. Participants who reported using marijuana in the past month had lower levels of fasting insulin and HOMA-IR and higher levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C). These associations were weaker among those who reported using marijuana at least once, but not in the past thirty days, suggesting that the impact of marijuana use on insulin and insulin resistance exists during periods of recent use. Current users had 16% lower fasting insulin levels than participants who reported never having used marijuana in their lifetimes. Large waist circumference is linked to diabetes risk. In the current study there were also significant associations between marijuana use and smaller waist circumferences. "Previous epidemiologic studies have found lower prevalence rates of obesity and diabetes mellitus in marijuana users compared to people who have never used marijuana, suggesting a relationship between cannabinoids and peripheral metabolic processes, but ours is the first study to investigate the relationship between marijuana use and fasting insulin, glucose, and insulin resistance," says lead investigator Murray A. Mittleman, MD, DrPH, of the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research Unit at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston.

Elevated brain cannabinoid CB1 receptor availability in post-traumatic stress disorder: a positron emission tomography study : Molecular Psychiatry. Endocannabinoids and their attending cannabinoid type 1 (CB1) receptor have been implicated in animal models of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, their specific role has not been studied in people with PTSD. Herein, we present an in vivo imaging study using positron emission tomography (PET) and the CB1-selective radioligand [11C]OMAR in individuals with PTSD, and healthy controls with lifetime histories of trauma (trauma-exposed controls (TC)) and those without such histories (healthy controls (HC)). Untreated individuals with PTSD (N=25) with non-combat trauma histories, and TC (N=12) and HC (N=23) participated in a magnetic resonance imaging scan and a resting PET scan with the CB1 receptor antagonist radiotracer [11C]OMAR, which measures the volume of distribution (VT) linearly related to CB1 receptor availability. Peripheral levels of anandamide, 2-arachidonoylglycerol, oleoylethanolamide, palmitoylethanolamide and cortisol were also assessed. In the PTSD group, relative to the HC and TC groups, we found elevated brain-wide [11C]OMAR VT values (F(2,53)=7.96, P=0.001; 19.5% and 14.5% higher, respectively), which were most pronounced in women (F(1,53)=5.52, P=0.023). Anandamide concentrations were reduced in the PTSD relative to the TC (53.1% lower) and HC (58.2% lower) groups. Cortisol levels were lower in the PTSD and TC groups relative to the HC group. Three biomarkers examined collectively—OMAR VT, anandamide and cortisol—correctly classified nearly 85% of PTSD cases. These results suggest that abnormal CB1 receptor-mediated anandamide signaling is implicated in the etiology of PTSD, and provide a promising neurobiological model to develop novel, evidence-based pharmacotherapies for this disorder.

Cannabis Induces a Clinical Response in Patients with Crohn's Disease.. a Prospective Placebo-Controlled Study Although the primary endpoint of the study (induction of remission) was not achieved, a short course (8 week) of THC-rich cannabis produced significant clinical, steroid-free benefits to 11 patients with active CD, compared to placebo, without side effects. Further studies, with larger patient groups and a non-smoking mode of intake, are warranted. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01040910.

Study claims marijuana tied to lower bladder cancer risk. For the study, the researchers compared the risk of bladder cancer in more than 83,000 men who smoked cigarettes only, marijuana (cannabis) only, or both substances. The investigators found that men who only smoked pot were the least likely to develop bladder cancer over the course of 11 years. "Cannabis use only was associated with a 45 percent reduction in bladder cancer incidence, and tobacco use only was associated with a 52 percent increase in bladder cancer," said study author Dr. Anil A. Thomas, a fellow in urology at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Los Angeles. Smoking both tobacco and marijuana raised the risk of bladder cancer, but less so than for those who only smoked tobacco, Thomas found. He presented the findings Monday at the American Urological Association annual meeting in San Diego. Dr. Karim Chamie, an assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, took issue with the fact that every man in the study smoked something, so there was no comparison to men who did not smoke at all. "It's hard to judge a study when the reference group is not nonsmokers," Chamie said. And the number of bladder cancers diagnosed in the study seemed low, he added, especially because everyone smoked something and smoking tobacco is considered a leading risk factor for the disease. "We know smoking increases your risk of bladder cancer by two- or threefold," Chamie noted.

Cannabis smoking and lung cancer risk: pooled analysis in the International Lung Cancer Consortium The summary OR from the six studies for habitual vs. non-users was 1.15 (95% CI: 0.73-1.82, p for heterogeneity: 0.05). Compared to non-users, the summary OR was 1.28 (95%CI: 0.62-2.63) for individuals who smoked cannabis for 20 years or more and 1.53 (95%CI: 0.57-4.09) for those with 10 joint-years or more cumulative consumption. A lack of significant association between cannabis smoking and lung cancer was also observed in the never tobacco smokers: compared to non-users, the OR was 0.99 (95% CI: 0.49-2.00) for habitual users and 2.13 (95%CI: 0.67-6.78) for those who used 20 years or more. Conclusion Our pooled results showed no significant association between the intensity, duration, or cumulative consumption of cannabis smoke and the risk of lung cancer overall or in never smokers. Cannabis use is under international control and its legal status varies, so reporting bias is of concern. However, since the reported prevalence in our data is comparable to nation-specific survey results and not differential between cases and controls, it is unlikely to fully explain the lack of significant association. Our results cannot preclude the possibility that cannabis may exhibit an association with lung cancer risk at extremely high dosage. We will also present data after applying restricted cubic splines to explore non-linear relationships.

Medical marijuana ingredient prevents brain damage in mice - latimes.com. Josef Sarne of Tel Aviv University found that a minuscule amount of tetrahydrocannabinol may protect the brain after injuries from seizures, toxic drug exposure or a lack of oxygen. The amounts wouldn't qualify as much more than a second-hand whiff of kine bud -- the quantity of THC is an order of 1,000 to 10,000 lower than that in a whole spliff. The new dope on marijuana was published in Behavioural Brain Research and Experimental Brain Research, which are professional journals, not nicknames for HempCon or Burning Man. Other researchers didn't tend to Bogart the joint as much. They suggested using high -- their word -- doses within about half an hour after such injury. Sarne would spread a smaller dose over as much as a week. The chemical is thought to jump-start biochemical processes that protect brain cells and preserve cognitive function. Researchers injected mice with a low dose of THC either before or after exposing them to brain trauma. Fellow rodents in a control group got their brains bonked without the dose. About a month or two later, the mice that got the THC treatment performed better in behavioral tests measuring learning and memory and showed they had greater amounts of neuroprotective chemicals than the control-group mice.

2013: An Excellent Year For Cannabis Research. Only five full months into the year, and 2013 has already been one of the best in regards to meaningful and impactful cannabis-related studies and research. As time goes by science continues to crush decades of absurd propaganda, in addition to finding benefits of cannabis and ending its prohibition that even advocates may not have expected. The more cannabis science that's released, the easier it becomes to get the public to understand and pay attention to its vast benefits. Here's a list of some of the most important cannabis studies to come out this year.

Vermont Officially Decriminalizes Marijuana Possession. Introduced by Rep. Christopher Pearson (P-Burlington) and passed with tripartisan support, House Bill 200 removes criminal penalties for possession of up to one ounce of marijuana and replaces them with a civil fine, similar to a traffic ticket. People under 21 will be required to undergo substance abuse screening. Under current state law, possession of up to two ounces of marijuana is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail for a first offense and up to two years in jail for a subsequent offense. "This change just makes common sense," Shumlin said as he signed the bill. "Our limited resources should be focused on reducing abuse and addiction of opiates like heroin and meth rather than cracking down on people for having very small amounts of marijuana." Earlier this week, Shumlin signed a package of bills aimed at reducing problems associated with opiate use, including measures designed to reduce opiate overdose deaths. "We applaud Gov. Shumlin, the state's top law enforcement officials, and the legislature for their leadership and support of this important legislation," said Matt Simon, a legislative analyst for the Marijuana Policy Project, which lobbied in support of the bill. "Decriminalizing marijuana possession will allow law enforcement officials to spend more time and attention addressing serious crimes and prevent people from being branded as criminals just for using a substance that most Americans agree should be legal."

The War On Marijuana: Billions Wasted On A Racist, Futile War. I have seen the discrepancies between how African Americans are treated when marijuana is found in a couple of instances. Twice, I have seen Black friends treated more harshly after law enforcement officers found marijuana. Once, at the University of Missouri-Columbia, I saw a Black friend arrested, handcuffed and marched out of our dorm for smoking a blunt. In contrast, a few of my middle-class white friends were merely written a citation and didn't suffer the indignity of handcuffs even though they had more marijuana, possessed marijuana and were drinking underage. The white friends were also charged in city court while my Black friend was charged in county court, a distinction that can cause someone to lose financial aid and employment opportunities. The marijuana laws on the books themselves aren't racist, but I have seen the enforcement of those laws carried out in a racist way and the facts demonstrate that my anecdotal testimonies are far too common. We are arresting and jailing too many non-violent citizens for marijuana, wasting both money and law enforcement resources. The ACLU's report is a must-read filled with alarming statistics. Between 2001 and 2010, there were over 8 million arrests for marijuana in the United States, meaning that there is a marijuana arrest every 37 seconds in this country. There's an old punch line in the cannabis community that follows such a statistic, "You wonder why we're so paranoid!" The War on Marijuana costs American tax payers around $3.6 billion yearly, with no proof that the money actually does any good preventing anyone from smoking marijuana. People in prison can get marijuana, another illustration of the futility of cannabis prohibition. And now the racist portion of the war: while Blacks and whites use marijuana at about the same rate, Blacks are more than 3 times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession.

Thursday, June 06, 2013

NSA, FBI have backdoors to data from Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, others according to leaked security presentation. The US National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation have been harvesting data such as audio, video, photographs, emails, and documents from the internal servers of nine major technology companies, according to a leaked 41-slide security presentation obtained by The Washington Post. The program, codenamed PRISM, is considered highly classified and has never been made public before, according to the Post. The list of companies involved in it are the who's who of Silicon Valley: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple. Dropbox, though not yet an official part of the program, is said to be joining it soon. These companies have all willingly participated in the program, says the Post. According to the leaked presentation, the program has been in action since 2007, and is considered the biggest contributor to the daily briefing provided to the President, providing data in 1,477 articles last year alone. Allegedly, nearly one in seven intelligence reports from the NSA contains data from the PRISM program. The NSA has the ability to pull any sort of data it likes from these companies, but it claims that it does not try to collect it all.

Patriot Act used to fight more drug dealers than terrorists - WorldViews. Benjamin Wallace-Wells writes in the New York Magazine this week about how the act is doing, 10 years later, calling it the "kitchen sink approach to national security." The act makes "it easier to wiretap American citizens suspected of cooperating with terrorism, to snoop through business records without notification, and to execute search warrants without immediately informing their targets (a so-called sneak-and-peek)." So how has the Patriot Act fared as a defense against terrorism? The act has been used in1,618 drug cases and only 15 terrorism cases. Read his story here.

medical marijuana license suspension. Yuel Boyce had his credentials suspended last fall, and the two-year license suspension and $5,000 fine completes the legal process that was started then. Boyce examined three patients for medical marijuana authorizations within 30 minutes and did not require patient medical records, according to the state. The medical marijuana authorizations were signed in exchange for cash. After receiving cash, Boyce gave the patients marijuana infused peanut butter cups. Boyce can be reinstated two years from now if the $5,000 fine is paid, though he'll be on probation for three years and will be restricted from authorizing medical marijuana. Further information on Boyce and other health care providers can be found on the State Department of Health website.

The Ebb And Flow Of Medical Marijuana Acceptance Across America. Like most things in the world, medical marijuana seems to have a rather cyclical life. Once high on every Golden State politicians list of "things to address," -- now relegated to a 'wait and see' attitude. California's medical marijuana dispensaries now find themselves under siege from local cities and municipalities, set loose by the state Supreme Court ruling... and the absolute inaction by politicians elected to protect the voters will. Meanwhile, the majority of the country now embraces the idea of medical marijuana. Fertilizing the fast growing cannabis movement, as she spreads her healing seeds from New York to Nevada.

Emerald Ocean Investment Fund: Providing Seed Capital For Pot Related Business Ventures. "We're finally at a point where the American public is supporting marijuana legalization and that's encouraging people to invest," said Hartfield, an industry veteran who co-counded WeedMaps.com, a California-based startup that identifies and rates medical marijuana dispensaries in various states. "The game has changed in the past six months." Much of the momentum comes thanks to the legalization of marijuana in Washington and Colorado. But another driver is the perception that the federal government is inclined to eventually accept the trend, rather than confront states that opt to legalize. In May, a firm called the ArcView Group also announced plans to support promising marijuana-focused ventures Emerald Ocean operates like a traditional investment fund, with wealthy people handing over their money to be managed in a bid to exploit the growing embrace of marijuana. But Emerald Ocean and ArcView share some things in common: Both seek to minimize their potential legal troubles by investing only in so-called ancillary businesses, while steering clear of companies that actually touch the cannabis. This past April 20 — a holiday celebrated by marijuana users as a day to light up and enjoy the plant's effects — Hartfield attended the High Times Cannabis Cup, an annual bake-off at which growers compete for the title of best crop. Held inside a smoke-filled convention hall in Denver, the event saw people less attuned to marijuana culture intermingling with a more predictable crowd sporting dreadlocks and tie-dye.

States want drug tests for welfare recipients. That's a terrible idea. TANF benefits are quite low. That's most obvious in the deep-red states. Mississippi's maximum monthly cash benefit for a family of three is $170. Illinois' $432 maximum monthly benefit is better, but only marginally. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the combined value of TANF and food stamps allows Illinois families to reach 60 percent of the federal poverty line. Given such realities, legislators across the country should be exploring how to address serious unmet needs among millions of families in a tough economy. Instead, in many state capitals, precisely the opposite conversation is going on. A surprising number of states are pondering one extremely bad idea: suspicionless, population-based screening of welfare recipients for illicit drug use. Such proposals periodically reappear, despite an almost complete lack of evidence that they accomplish very much.

EXCLUSIVE: CIA didn't always know who it was killing in drone strikes, classified documents show - Open Channel. About one of every four of those killed by drones in Pakistan between Sept. 3, 2010, and Oct. 30, 2011, were classified as "other militants," the documents detail. The "other militants" label was used when the CIA could not determine the affiliation of those killed, prompting questions about how the agency could conclude they were a threat to U.S. national security. The uncertainty appears to arise from the use of so-called "signature" strikes to eliminate suspected terrorists -- picking targets based in part on their behavior and associates. A former White House official said the U.S. sometimes executes people based on "circumstantial evidence." Three former senior Obama administration officials also told NBC News that some White House officials were worried that the CIA had painted too rosy a picture of its success and likely ignored or missed mistakes when tallying death totals.

How Hemp Threatens the Corporatocracy. Abby Martin takes a look at the real reason why hemp is illegal in the US, the truth might surprise you.

GROW HEMP 4 FUEL - 95% Cleaner than Fossil Fuel / No C02 Emission / ¢75 a Gallon - YouTube. Energy and Fuel from Hemp Stalks through Pyrolysis Pyrolysis is the technique of applying high heat to biomass, or organic plants and tree matter, with little or no air. Reduced emissions from coal-fired power plants and automobiles can be accomplished by converting biomass to fuel utilizing pyrolysis technology. The process can produce, from lingo-cellulosic material (like the stalks of hemp), charcoal, gasoline, ethanol, non-condensable gasses, acetic acid, acetone, methane, and methanol. Process adjustments can be done to favor charcoal, pyrolytic oil, gas, or methanol, with 95.5% fuel-to-feed ratios. Around 68% of the energy of the raw biomass will be contained in the charcoal and fuel oils -- renewable energy generated here at home, instead of overpaying for foreign petroleum. Pyrolysis facilities can run 3 shifts a day, and since pyrolysis facilities need to be within 50 miles of the energy crop to be cost effective, many new local and rural jobs will be created, not to mention the employment opportunities in trucking and transportation.

The Power of Hemp and its countless uses - YouTube. A short film about the miracle plant called hemp. Get to know potentially the greatest land plant that could tremendously benefit humanity and the planet and find out why the criminal federal government doesn't want you to grow it in the US.

Regulators Discover a Hidden Viral Gene in Commercial GMO Crops. What Podevin and du Jardin discovered is that of the 86 different transgenic events (unique insertions of foreign DNA) commercialized to-date in the United States 54 contain portions of Gene VI within them. They include any with a widely used gene regulatory sequence called the CaMV 35S promoter (from the cauliflower mosaic virus; CaMV). Among the affected transgenic events are some of the most widely grown GMOs, including Roundup Ready soybeans (40-3-2) and MON810 maize. They include the controversial NK603 maize recently reported as causing tumors in rats (Seralini et al. 2012). The researchers themselves concluded that the presence of segments of Gene VI "might result in unintended phenotypic changes". They reached this conclusion because similar fragments of Gene VI have already been shown to be active on their own (e.g. De Tapia et al. 1993). In other words, the EFSA researchers were unable to rule out a hazard to public health or the environment. In general, viral genes expressed in plants raise both agronomic and human health concerns (reviewed in Latham and Wilson 2008). This is because many viral genes function to disable their host in order to facilitate pathogen invasion. Often, this is achieved by incapacitating specific anti-pathogen defenses. Incorporating such genes could clearly lead to undesirable and unexpected outcomes in agriculture. Furthermore, viruses that infect plants are often not that different from viruses that infect humans. For example, sometimes the genes of human and plant viruses are interchangeable, while on other occasions inserting plant viral fragments as transgenes has caused the genetically altered plant to become susceptible to an animal virus (Dasgupta et al. 2001). Thus, in various ways, inserting viral genes accidentally into crop plants and the food supply confers a significant potential for harm.

Medical marijuana ingredient prevents brain damage in mice - Los Angeles Times. But pharmacologist Josef Sarne of Tel Aviv University found that a minuscule amount of tetrahydrocannabinol may protect the brain after injuries from seizures, toxic drug exposure or a lack of oxygen. The amounts wouldn't qualify as much more than a second-hand whiff of kine bud -- the quantity of THC is an order of 1,000 to 10,000 lower than that in a whole spliff. The new dope on marijuana was published in Behavioural Brain Research and Experimental Brain Research, which are professional journals, not nicknames for HempCon or Burning Man. Other researchers didn't tend to Bogart the joint as much. They suggested using high -- their word -- doses within about half an hour after such injury. Sarne would spread a smaller dose over as much as a week. The chemical is thought to jump-start biochemical processes that protect brain cells and preserve cognitive function. Researchers injected mice with a low dose of THC either before or after exposing them to brain trauma. Fellow rodents in a control group got their brains bonked without the dose. About a month or two later, the mice that got the THC treatment performed better in behavioral tests measuring learning and memory and showed they had greater amounts of neuroprotective chemicals than the control-group mice.

Lawrence O'Donnell Has "The Last Word" On Marijuana Hypocrisy and Racial Injustice.... "None of the so-called victims suffered anything. None of them lost anything, in fact they all got exactly what they wanted from the government, they got the approval of their fake 501 c fours. Washington can summon fake tears, for fake victims, of government. But Washington completely ignores real victims of government, including the millions of victims of government described in a new report proving how America's war on marijuana targets black people in this country. Here are the arrest rates for marijuana possession for the first decade of the 21st century in the United States of America [see picture]. What you are seeing there, is that black people, who actually consume somewhat less marijuana than white people. Are almost 4 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people. This huge racial bias in marijuana arrests exists in all regions of our country. These marijuana arrests are ruining lives, making it impossible for some people to keep their jobs. Making it impossible for some young people to go to college.

IRS official who oversaw unit targeting Tea Party now heads ObamaCare office. The IRS official who led the tax-exempt organizations unit when Tea Party groups were targeted is now in charge of the IRS office responsible for ObamaCare, two Capitol Hill sources told Fox News. The acknowledgement comes after the administration announced that the official's successor Joseph Grant -- who had only been on the job a few days -- would be retiring. And it fueled criticism of the agency, as the outgoing IRS commissioner prepared to face lawmakers' questions at a hearing Friday morning. "Stunning. Just stunning," Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said in reaction to the latest development. That official, Steven Miller, will be in the hot seat Friday when he is scheduled to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee in the first congressional hearing on the IRS scandal. The agency released a memo Thursday night that may give insight into Miller's talking points at the hearing, although it was written by Grant. The agency also directed those seeking a possible preview to Miller's testimony to a frequently asked questions page on their website

PressTV - Three mass graves with 1,000 corpses found in Iraq. The graves were uncovered in Iraq's western province of al-Anbar. The remains are believed to be from victims killed by US forces during 2004 and 2005 in the city of Fallujah, located roughly 69 kilometers (43 miles) west of Baghdad. "Security forces and rights groups found the three mass graves in Saqlawiyah and Ameriyah of Fallujah near a cemetery north of the city. They contain the remains of about a thousand people," Deputy Chairman of Anbar's provincial council, Sadoun Obaid al-Shaalan, said on Wednesday. He also called on the Iraqi government to order DNA tests on the remains to ascertain the identity of the victims, especially since there are hundreds of families in Anbar - particularly Fallujah - who are trying to discover the fate of their lost children. The first battle of Fallujah was an unsuccessful attempt by the US military to capture the city in April 2004. Fighting broke out after four US mercenaries from Blackwater Company were killed, dismembered and hanged from a bridge over the Euphrates River.

Law Enforcement Targets Marijuana Activists In Philadelphia. The previous rallies went off without a hitch. Protestors were peaceful and respectful while law enforcement kept their distance and allowed them to voice their constitutionally guaranteed rights (as evidenced in this video, where National Park Police refuse to interfere with the event). This time, things were different. It was immediately clear from the outset that the police were taking a different approach to Smoke Down Prohibition V, from the very beginning the police presence was massive, with a couple dozen officers standing by and a newly erected fence in place to keep the attendees contained. Smoke Down Prohibition V continued as planned, despite the inclement weather and ominous group of National Park Service Officers and Philadelphia Police keeping watch. Speakers addressed the crowd of about 100 through the rain and things seemed to be going smoothly. However, as The Panic Hour's N.a. Poe began the countdown to 4:20, a time at which the crowd traditionally engages in a moment of "cannabis reflection," the police made their move. Rushing past a crowd of people openly smoking cannabis, they stormed the stage and began the process of violently detaining several marijuana activists, including N.a. Poe, radio host Adam Kokesh, and New Jersey Libertarian candidate for Senate, Don DeZarn. The travesty that followed can be best understood by watching cell phone video captured from the scene below:

Toyota recalls 242,000 Prius, Lexus hybrid cars. Toyota Motor Corp. said Wednesday it is recalling about 242,000 of its Prius and Lexus hybrid vehicles due to problems with their braking systems. The recall applies to about 233,000 Prius vehicles made between March and October 2009 and about 9,000 Lexus HS250h models made between June and October 2009. The Prius vehicles affected are sold worldwide. The Lexus sedans are sold in the U.S. and Japan. Of the total, 91,000 were sold in North America. Another 30,000 were sold in Europe. The automaker said brake pressure parts in the vehicles are made of a weak material that could crack due to vibration, slowing response times. It said there were no accidents or injuries caused by the problem so far, but the company has received dozens of complaints.

E.W. Jackson, Virginia Lieutenant Governor Candidate, Says Yoga May Result In Satanic Possession. "When one hears the word meditation, it conjures an image of Maharishi Yoga talking about finding a mantra and striving for nirvana," Jackson wrote in his book, according to Woodruff. "The purpose of such meditation is to empty oneself. [Satan] is happy to invade the empty vacuum of your soul and possess it. Beware of systems of spirituality which tell you to empty yourself. You will end up filled with something you probably do not want." "Behind the ice-cold eyes of Lululemon princesses burn the demonic flames of eternal hell," joked Atlantic Wire's Elspeth Reeve this week in response to Jackson's comment. Despite the criticism Jackson has endured for his many controversial statements, he has not apologized for them.

Wednesday, June 05, 2013

First Marijuana Plant, Seed, And Joint Launched Into Space. "www.TheSeedHub.com, Launched on June 1st 2013 (outside US). The flight time was roughly 3 hours, Balloon traveled est. 95,000 feet (19 Miles) above Earth, Traveled a distance on the map of 67 miles. It was damn hard to track, but Mission Accomplished! Aboard was (1) Joint, (1) Clone, and 95 seeds. First in History!"

Amazon's Grocery Delivery: A Trojan Horse To Get In Your Door : The Salt : NPR. The online retailing behemoth is planning a major expansion of AmazonFresh, the home delivery service of meat, dairy and other fresh and frozen foods that it has been field-testing in Seattle since 2007. The service could launch in Los Angeles as early as this week, and delivery in San Francisco is on the horizon for later this year, according to Reuters. By 2014, the company could expand grocery delivery to as many as 40 major urban areas. So why would a heavyweight like Amazon bother diving into the grocery business, with its notoriously razor-thin profit margins? After all, the online grocery business has been a tough nut to crack — becoming a sort of Bermuda Triangle for many companies, including Webvan, one of the most spectacular failures of the dot-com era at the turn of the 21st century. But home grocery delivery could prove to be a Trojan horse for Amazon to get inside your home more frequently, says Justin Bomberowitz, a senior analyst with RetailNet Group, which released a research note on AmazonFresh in April. (The firm shared the note, which requires registration to access, with The Salt.)

Quantum Levitation Demonstration at North Museum Quantum Levitation Demonstration at North Museum

3,000 pounds of pot found in Ariz. home. Sheriff Joe Arpaio said his office received a tip on Tuesday and found about $1.5 million worth of marijuana inside a home near 91st Avenue and Thomas Road. Deputies arrested Cesar Smith. They said he is in the country illegally. Another man was inside the home, but he ran away and is still on the loose. Deputies do not have much of a description, saying only that he is Latino and in his 20s. A family possibly lives in the house, but no one else was home at the time of the bust.

In Pursuit of Happiness - YouTube. I cannot change the system from within, so I leave to allow myself to continue teaching in my way, on my terms. I never planned on giving up, and I never will. If you are interested in learning more about me and my future educational endeavors, feel free to visit http://tunes2teach.com. I have the deepest respect and gratitude for those whose voices join with mine, and for those who are still fighting to find their own.

From 'dude' to dividends: the budding industrialization of pot - NBC News.com. "It's been an industry for a long, long time. It's just been an underground industry," said Jeffrey A. Miron, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and senior lecturer in economics at Harvard University. Pot has a trade association, and is planning its third annual lobbying day in Washington, D.C., for this week, signaling that the industry is growing up, said Betty Aldworth, deputy director of the National Cannabis Industry Association. "The most interesting thing about what's happening to the marijuana marketplace right now is it's moving from the underground to essentially being just any other commodity that's sold in a regulated market," she said. "So you're going to see the same kind of business and political functions that happen with any other product." And it's not just the activists taking an interest: Hedge funds and venture capitalists are starting to see the potential pot offers as a business opportunity in spite of occupying a legal gray area.

Are you Bradley Manning? High-profile Americans take to YouTube to back Nobel petition — RT USA. "If you saw incredible things, awful things, things that belonged in the public domain and not in some server stored in a dark room in Washington," each advocate says in the campaign trailer, "What would you do?" The trailer also urges audience members to sign a petition encouraging the Nobel Committee to award Manning the Nobel Peace Prize. By Tuesday, the second day of Manning's trial, nearly 60,000 people had signed the petition, organized by Roots Action, which describes itself as "an online initiative dedicated to galvanizing Americans who are committed to economic fairness, equal rights, civil liberties, environmental protection -- and defunding endless wars." Supporters also made themselves known outside the trial at the main gates of Fort Meade. Michael Thurman, a former member of the US Air Force, told the Daily Beast he flew in from Oakland, California to personally witness the events. ""I think what Bradley Manning did was pretty heroic and selfless, and I want to do everything I can to support someone who is willing to sacrifice everything so we can all know the truth about US foreign policy and what this government is doing," he said. "When I was in the military, I was able to see it for what it was. I came to the conclusion during my enlistment that it wasn't an organization benefitting anyone, it was a business venture that benefitted a few very elite people," Thurman continued. "I saw the corporate collusion and found out about the civilian casualties, the racism, the seizure of resources, and basically the nature of US policies. I thought it was wrong, and I became opposed to it, and that's why I'm supporting Bradley Manning, who exposed all those things."

IRS Roundup of The Day. Dana Milbank makes actual sense: A third House committee joined the stampede to examine the IRS on Monday, and its chairman did exactly what you would expect somebody to do before launching a fair and impartial investigation: He went on Fox News Channel and implicated the White House. Asked by Fox's Bill Hemmer what he hoped to learn at Monday afternoon's hearing, Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) offered this bit of pre-hearing analysis: "Of course, the enemies list out of the White House that IRS was engaged in shutting down or trying to shut down the conservative political viewpoint across the country — an enemies list that rivals that of another president some time ago." It was a sentence in need of a verb but packed with innuendo. And it is part of an approach by House Republicans that seems to follow the Lewis Carroll school of jurisprudence. Not only are they placing the sentence before the verdict, they're putting the verdict before the trial. The Associated Press writes about the whole thing as if it was something to be taken seriously. Which is why most people no longer take the AP seriously. Even Lindsey Graham admits there's no evidence. Every once in a while, he actually tells the truth.

Gut Biota Never Recover from Antibiotics: Damages Future Generations. Antibiotics kill the bacteria we do want, as well as those we don't. These long-term changes to the beneficial bacteria within people's bodies may even increase our susceptibility to infections and disease.Overuse of antibiotics could be fuelling the dramatic increase in conditions such as obesity, type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, allergies and asthma, which have more than doubled in many populations. Without even considering the development of superbugs, we're now seeing clear documentation that the overall long term effects of antibiotics are devastatingly harmful to our health. Speaking to ABC News, Blaser said: Antibiotics are miraculous. They've changed health and medicine over the last 70 years. But when doctors prescribe antibiotics, it is based on the belief that there are no long-term effects. We've seen evidence that suggests antibiotics may permanently change the beneficial bacteria that we're carrying.

A Reflection On Antibiotics. Antibiotics contribute to the killing of many commensal organisms that are important for proper bodily homeostasis, immunity, digestion, metabolism and organ health. Our bodies are dependent on a rich mixture of micro-organisms both inside and outside. Sterilization is neither possible nor necessary. The conventional approach to an imbalance of micro-organisms is to kill the "invader." Sometimes this will appear to give temporary success, but most often the trouble will recur if there is no intervention into the whole system. Sometimes the problem with antibiotics is painfully obvious, e.g. when a fungal infection or intestinal infection with "c-diff" takes hold after a course of antibiotics. But the truth is, every course of antibiotics weakens the constitution and, if the beneficial micro-organisms that died off do not grow back or are not replaced, all sorts of degenerative diseases, including cancer, can evolve. Are you aware that approximately 70% of immunity lies within the bowels? Now imagine the consequences of wiping out populations of micro-organisms from the intestines, as a "side effect" of antimicrobial use.

Need Or Geed? New York Mom Busted For Queens Marijuana Grow Operation. Andrea Sanderlin -- who was recently busted for allegedly being the mastermind behind a $3 million pot cultivation empire. It was self-indulgent greed, pride and a poor economy that necessitated the situation -- not Hollyweed, cattle prodding some innocent mother into a life of crime and excess. A seemingly privileged mother that struggled to keep up with the "Joneses" next-door, found that cultivating 3,000 hydroponic cannabis plants, in a clandestine warehouse in Queens, was more feasible and profitable then working some dead-end 9 to 5 job, struggling to maintain a rather lavish lifestyle for her three daughters and herself.

Marijuana Law Enforcement Cost States An Estimated $3.6 Billion In 2010: ACLU. States together spent somewhere around $3.6 billion enforcing marijuana possession laws in 2010, according to a new study by the American Civil Liberties Union, entitled "The War On Marijuana In Black and White." That's the authors' "best estimate," though approximations using different methodologies put the cost as high as $6 billion and as low as $1.2 billion. The paper grabbed headlines Tuesday with its finding that blacks are nearly four times as likely as whites to be arrested for possessing marijuana, despite both races using the drug at about the same rate. Here are some most startling numbers from the ACLU's report

Texas Gives Tesla the Boot (TSLA). As the second largest and second most populous state in the U.S., Tesla can't afford to ignore Texas forever. It's surprising, than, that Tesla's outspoken CEO, Elon Musk, hasn't yet commented on this decision by Texas lawmakers. In April, Musk traveled to Texas to plead Tesla's case for selling its cars directly to consumers in the state. During his visit, Musk argued, "What we're asking for from the Texas Legislature is really simple -- it's just, let us sell our products directly to the people of Texas like we're able to do in the rest of the country." The Texas Automobile Dealers Association, on the other hand, claimed that allowing Tesla to sell its cars directly to Texas consumers would open the floodgates for other carmakers to sell direct to consumers. Tesla has fought and won similar battles in other states, including New York, Florida, New Jersey, California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and Massachusetts. However, Texas is an important piece of the puzzle for Tesla, as the company strives to transform the car-buying experience in this country. Worse still, Tesla will have to wait until the state's legislature meets again in a general session in 2015 before it can revisit the issue, according to Automotive News.

Blacks 30 Times More Likely to Get Arrested for Pot as Whites in Some Counties. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has just released a groundbreaking report on marijuana arrests in the United States. For the first time ever, the ACLU has made available data on racial disparities in marijuana arrests in every state, and the results -- though stunning -- are predictable: Across the US, black Americans were nearly four times as likely as whites to get busted for pot in 2010, even though whites get stoned at slightly higher levels. In states with the worst disparity, Blacks were six times as likely as whites to be arrested for pot. In the worst counties, blacks were 30 times more likely to be arrested. Interestingly, the racial disparity persisted across different demographics, with blacks more likely to get handcuffed for pot even in predominantly white neighborhoods. In every single state, the rate of black marijuana arrestees was disproportionate their percentage in the population.

Jorge Cervantes: The Guru Of Cannabis Cultivation Talks Yields, Soil And Climate Control. As Jorge mentions, whether cultivated indoors or out, in soil or hydroponically, any successful marijuana cultivator will need to be familiar with a few basic fundamental aspects of growing: quality of light, purity of air, quality of nutrients, grow mediums and environmental climate controls. To receive the potential 'maximum yield' from any specific cannabis genetics your light source lumens -- the amount of light produced -- and light spectrum, in addition to the number of hours of light per day are of the utmost importance.

How Many Americans Have Consumed Marijuana? Among that group, 47% stated that they consumed cannabis for recreational purposes, compared with 30% who cited a medical reason for its usage - 23% stated that they consumed marijuana for both medicinal and recreational purposes. More than half -- 56% -- of young adults (under 30) say they've tried marijuana, and 27% say they've smoked it in the past year — by far the highest percentage in any age category. 51% of those aged 30 to 49 and 54% of those aged 50 to 64 have tried marijuana. The number is just 22% for those aged 65 and older. A survey released by the Pew Research Center in April found that 52% of Americans support the legalization of marijuana.

Marijuana Smokers Invade Santa Cruz Art Scene With ARO's 'Weed Museum'. This June, AFWR collaborates with Art Research Office to present a complex commentary on the deep-rooted influences of marijuana usage. Each piece of art will present an unique perception of a culture caught between the balance of rebellion and reform. The team at Art Research Office is encouraging AFWR to tell their story exactly as they wish, and will respect their anonymity. The goal is to let the work speak for them, as true artists — outside of the idea of celebrity. This series of works is specifically about perspective, and how that can change based on agenda and vantage point. It's also about using the gallery space as a forum for discussion and community, which is the core function of art. There are a handful of different works by different artists -- some political, some lighthearted and humorous -- always leveraging the physical aspects of interactive. Weed Museum opens to the public on June 7th from 6pm -- 10pm during Downtown's First Friday event. It is located at 285 Water Street, Unit B. Santa Cruz, California 95060.

The War On Marijuana Is A War On Minorities. The American Civil Liberties Union released a new report affirming NORML's historic data that minorities are disproportionately arrested (and most certainly prosecuted and, worse, incarcerated) at a rate four times higher than whites for cannabis (based on per capita cannabis use rates). In some midwest states-like Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota-minorities are arrested at rates eight times higher than whites. ACLU's report 'The War On Marijuana/In Black And White' is a fascinating and well researched multimedia presentation about why America's failed seventy-five year-old social experiment known as 'Cannabis Prohibition' must end, and new public policies created that reflect today's public sentiment in favor of such reforms.

Judge accepts insanity plea in CO theater shooting. Holmes' lawyers repeatedly have said he is mentally ill, but they delayed the insanity plea while arguing state laws were unconstitutional. They said the laws could hobble the defense if Holmes' case should ever reach the phase where the jury decides if he should be executed. The judge rejected that argument last week. Hundreds of people were watching a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" at the Aurora theater when the shooting occurred July 20. The dead included a Navy veteran who threw himself in front of his friends to shield them, an aspiring sports journalist who had survived a mall shooting just two months earlier, and a 6-year-old girl. Prosecutors say Holmes spent months buying weapons, ammunition and materials for explosives and scouted the theater in advance. He donned police-style body armor, tossed a gas canister into the seats and opened fire, they say. The insanity plea is widely seen as Holmes' best chance of avoiding execution, and possibly his only chance, given the weight of the evidence against him. But his lawyers delayed it for weeks, saying Colorado's laws on the insanity plea and the death penalty could work in combination to violate his constitutional rights.

Russian official: FBI missed Boston warning. "The Russian side warned the American side about the Tsarnaev brothers, but this information was not taken seriously by the American side, which is what led to that tragedy," Valentina Matvienko, the speaker of Russia's senate, said Tuesday, referring to suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Interfax news agency reported. Matvienko made the remarks after a meeting with Britain's ambassador to Russia. She is the longtime governor of Putin's hometown of St. Petersburg, is considered a close Kremlin confidante and was named Russia's most powerful woman this year by Ekho Moskvy radio. "Today the world has to deal with common global challenges and international terrorism, as well as crime, and the cooperation of intelligence services becomes extremely significant for this issue," she added. Russia told the FBI in 2011 that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had plans to join insurgents in Chechnya. The agency did a cursory investigation and closed its assessment on Tsarnaev. Security officials told a Congressional delegation to Russia last week that they believed that if Russia and the U.S. had worked together more closely, the bombings might have been averted, Rep. William Keating said Friday.

Navy SEAL comes out as transgender. According to "Warrior Princess: A U.S. Navy SEAL's Journey to Coming out Transgender", a book released June 1, Chris fought for our country for 20 years on 13 deployments, seven of which were combat deployments. He ultimately earned a Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. The book's description says, "underneath his burly beard, Chris had a secret, one that had been buried deep inside his heart since he was a little boy—one as hidden as the panty hose in the back of his drawer. He was transgender, and the woman inside needed to get out." Kristin came out earlier this year to her friends and colleagues by posting a side-by-side picture of Chris and Kristin via her LinkedIn account. Her book details her journey of being a girl in a man's body, and "her road to self-actualization as a woman amidst the PTSD of war, family rejection and our society's strict gender rules and perceptions. It is about a fight to be free inside one's own body, a fight that requires the strength of a Warrior Princess." Kristin's accomplishments and journey are sure to spark a debate about gender. As the book's description charges, "Is gender merely between your legs or is it something much bigger?"

Contaminated berries sold at Costco recalled. Townsend Farms, of Fairview, Ore., announced Tuesday that it was recalling 332,000 bags of its Organic Antioxidant Blend frozen berries, packaged under the Townsend Farms label at Costco. Illnesses were reported in Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and California. No illnesses have yet been reported in Oregon, but bags of potentially contaminated berries were sold at Costco stores in Oregon. "Ultimately, Townsend Farms is responsible for what they sell to the public," said Seattle attorney Bill Marler. "The public certainly doesn't expect a hepatitis virus to be in their fresh fruit." Marler said his firm has represented hundreds of people who have become sick from hepatitis A and thousands who had to get shots because of a scare. He planned to file at least two lawsuits against Townsend Farms. The FDA reports the actual virus has not been found in any samples of Townsend Farms packaging, but 34 people in five states are sick and the company appears to be the common thread. Townsend Farms said it suspects pomegranate seeds processed in Turkey were contaminated, which may be linked to yet another outbreak outside the U.S. The largest number of bags of hepatitis A-linked berries sold in Oregon were purchased in Lane County. Jason Davis of the Lane County Health and Human Services said that 605 bags of the berry blend were sold in Lane county.

Bradley Manning trial: 10 revelations from Wikileaks documents on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Europe. The 25-year-old intelligence analyst admitted earlier this year to passing documents to the whistle-blowing website, though he denies the charge of "aiding the enemy," an offense that carries a life sentence or the death penalty. Manning said at a pretrial hearing in February that he leaked information, including diplomatic cables and U.S. military war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq, in order to "spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy." Below is a list of 10 revelations disclosed by Manning's leaked documents that offer insight into the breadth and scope of what he revealed, help explain his motivation for leaking, and provide context for the ongoing trial. The list, in no particular order, is far from comprehensive but encompasses some of the most significant information brought to light by the leaked documents.

Teen Jailed for Rap Lyrics Posted After Boston Bombings. Cameron D'Ambrosio, 18, was arrested May 1 after friends saw a message he posted to his Facebook page and reported him to his high school principal. Within hours, police picked him up and later executed a search warrant at the home of his parents, seizing a laptop and Xbox but finding no evidence of explosives, weapons or anything else to indicate he planned to act on any threat, says his attorney. He's been held without bail since his arrest while authorities convene a grand jury to determine if there is probable cause to indict him. Prosecutors successfully argued that D'Ambrosio was a danger to the public and needed to be held without bail. The post D'Ambrosio wrote referred to the Boston Marathon bombings that occurred on April 15 and killed three bystanders and have been attributed to two local Chechen brothers. D'Ambrosio is an aspiring rapper and has posted a number of YouTube videos of himself rapping under the name CammyDee (see video above). In his post, D'Ambrosio allegedly wrote "fuck a boston bombinb [sic] wait till u see the shit I do, I'ma be famous for rapping, and beat every murder charge that comes across me!" Police Chief Joseph Solomon said that jokes about bombing and killing people don't fly in an age when such real events are a regular occurrence. "There are no more threats that are high school pranks," he said during a press conference the day after D'Ambrosio's arrest. "If they're thinking that way, they need to get their heads into 2013."

Tuesday, June 04, 2013

Feds Must Analyze Oil Spill Dispersant Effects on Wildlife. "We shouldn't add insult to injury after an oil spill by using dispersants that put wildlife and people at risk," said Deirdre McDonnell of the Center for Biological Diversity, which brought suit with Surfrider Foundation and Pacific Environment. "During the BP oil spill, no one knew what the long-term effects of chemical dispersants would be, and we're still learning about their harm to fish and corals, McDonnell said. "People can avoid the ocean after an oil spill, but marine animals can't. They're forced to eat, breathe and swim in the chemicals we put in the water, whether it's oil or dispersants," she said. The settlement, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, states that on or before January 31, 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Coast Guard must make a written request to the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service for consultation on the effects of dispersants on endangered species. The U.S. Endangered Species Act requires the EPA and Coast Guard to consult with the Fisheries Service and Fish and Wildlife Service regarding any activities that might affect endangered wildlife. Dispersants are chemicals used to break oil spills into tiny droplets. In theory, this allows the oil to be eaten by microorganisms and become diluted faster than if left untreated. However, say the plaintiff groups, dispersants and dispersed oil can also allow toxins to accumulate in the marine food web.

Justices Allow DNA Collection After an Arrest. The police may take DNA samples from people arrested in connection with serious crimes, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday in a 5-to-4 decision. The federal government and 28 states authorize the practice, and law enforcement officials say it is a valuable tool for investigating unsolved crimes. But the court said the testing was justified by a different reason: to identify the suspect in custody. "When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and they bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority, "taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee's DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment." Justice Antonin Scalia summarized his dissent from the bench, a rare move signaling deep disagreement. He accused the majority of an unsuccessful sleight of hand, one that "taxes the credulity of the credulous." The point of DNA testing as it is actually practiced, he said, is to solve cold cases, not to identify the suspect in custody. But the Fourth Amendment forbids searches without reasonable suspicion to gather evidence about an unrelated crime, he said, a point the majority did not dispute. "Make no mistake about it: because of today's decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason," Justice Scalia said from the bench. The case featured an alignment of justices that scrambled the usual ideological alliances. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Stephen G. Breyer and Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined the majority opinion, while Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined Justice Scalia's dissent.

Ex-L.A. Times Writer Apologizes for "Tawdry" Attacks - - News - Los Angeles - LA Weekly. Kill the Messenger is based on Webb's 1998 book, Dark Alliance, in which he attempted to rebuild his ruined reputation, as well as my 2004 biography of Webb, Kill the Messenger, which shares the movie's title. (I worked as a consultant on the script.) The movie will portray Webb as a courageous reporter whose career and life were cut short when the nation's three most powerful newspapers piled on to attack Webb and his three-part Mercury News series on the CIA's crack-cocaine connection. The New York Times, Washington Post and L.A. Times each obscured basic truths of Webb's "Dark Alliance" series. But no newspaper tried harder than the L.A. Times, where editors were said to have been appalled that a distant San Jose daily had published a blockbuster about America's most powerful spy agency and its possible role in allowing drug dealers to flood South L.A. with crack. Much of the Times' attack was clever misdirection, but it ruined Webb's reputation: In particular, the L.A. Times attacked a claim that Webb never made: that the CIA had intentionally addicted African-Americans to crack. Webb, who eventually could find only part-time work at a small weekly paper, committed suicide.

Toke Signals with Steve Elliott. The report -- "Scenarios for the Drug Problem in the Americas, 2013-2025" -- presents four possibilities for how drug policy could evolve in the Americas, most of which break from the current U.S.-led approach. The report is the first of its kind, providing a thoughtful and detailed visualization of alternatives to the existing drug prohibition regime. The OAS received its mandate at last year's Summit of the Americas in Cartagena following a discussion among the presidents about the need for new drug control policies that could better reduce the violence and other negative consequences of prohibitionist policies. With some presidents speaking openly in favor of legal regulation of currently illegal drugs, President Obama acknowledged that ending prohibition is "a legitimate topic for debate" and also stated: "I think it is entirely legitimate to have a conversation about whether the laws in place are ones that are doing more harm than good in certain places."

Lead-tainted ginger case: State sues Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, others - Santa Cruz Sentinel. The companies did not alert customers to the lead, the suit charges, and that violates California's Proposition 65, which requires businesses to warn consumers about harmful toxins in food, toys, jewelry and other products. The retailers have been notified of the lawsuit, and the state is expecting a response in June. Retailers declined to comment on the case, but at least one, Target, has already pulled off its shelves the products named in the suit. Lead-tainted food can end up in customers' shopping carts more easily than they think, said Michael Hansen, senior staff scientist at Consumers Union and a national expert on food safety. He said many retailers get products, particularly those made with ginger, from Asia, where food is less expensive and often produced in contaminated environments with little oversight. "In China, there is booming agriculture, and even though there are some laws, there's no enforcement," he said. "It's the Wild West." Many overseas food manufacturers don't test their food, some retailers don't ask enough questions about the products they buy, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn't provide enough oversight for foods entering the country, Hansen said.

Allergies to Monoculture Food Crops Growing. Allergy specialists from France's Nancy University and the Allergy Vigilance Network conducted a large-scale study of children and adults with regard to their sensitivity to the monoculture crops of corn/maize and rapeseed -- grown on giant farms in the midst of small towns scattered throughout Europe. The sixty-nine allergy researchers, members of the Allergy Vigilance Network, conducted a study that included 2,515 children and 2,857 adults. The subjects were tested for either having an allergy or sensitivity to these crops -- or having an immune sensitivity that would likely to develop into an allergy. The research found that among the 5,372 total people tested, 62% suffered from some sort of allergy with symptoms, while 10% had an allergy but no symptoms, and 27% had no allergies. Of those who had symptomatic allergies, 26% were allergic to maize/corn pollen while nearly 12% were allergic to rapeseed pollen. And over 8% were allergic to corn seed.

Patent The Marijuana Plant? In Too High to Fail, my recent exploration of the post-Drug War economy, I had only nice things to say about GW's most prominent product, Sativex spray. I quoted research out of the University of California, San Diego that said the product, which concentrates a proprietary balance of two components of the cannabis plant, was being studied for potential effectiveness in relieving uncontrolled persistent pain in patients with advanced cancer. I actually am hopeful that, as it motors toward worldwide approval, Sativex will help provide relief for millions of people for ailments ranging from pain to diabetes (for which it's being studied). It's already helping multiple sclerosis patients' spasticity in the 20 countries in which it's approved, including Canada and much of Europe. Though the company's very existence gives lie to the underlying purpose of the Drug War, here are the factors that caused me to hold off supporting the venture with my own funds. First off, a year of field study into organic outdoor cannabis farmers in California's Emerald Triangle provided quite the botany education. Not just in sustainable aphid-deterrents (neem tree extract) but in organic chemistry. I learned that cannabis contains more than 90 known components known as cannabinoids. The plant is such a broadly effective medicine because our bodies possess cannabinoid receptors. If I weren't already a spiritual fellow, that miracle would've made me one. It's a very kind set-up.

New York State Assembly Overwhelmingly Passes Medical Marijuana Bill. Passage Follows New Poll: 82% of New Yorkers Support Medical Marijuana, Including 81% of Both Democrats and Republicans Healthcare Practitioners and Patients Urge New York Senate to Pass Bill Without Delay New York: Earlier today, the New York State Assembly passed the Compassionate Care Act (A.6357/Gottfried) by a vote of 95 to 38. The bill, which would create one the most tightly regulated medical marijuana programs in the country, would alleviate the suffering of thousands of seriously ill New Yorkers by allowing the use of marijuana to treat debilitating, life-threatening illnesses under a doctor's supervision. The Compassionate Care Act -- A.6357 (Gottfried) / S. 4406 (Savino) -- would allow practitioners to talk to their patients about medical marijuana and certify those with serious, debilitating illnesses, so that they may have access to a small amount of medical marijuana to relieve their symptoms. "New Yorkers living with cancer, multiple scleroses, HIV/AIDS and other serious illnesses have waited long enough," said gabriel sayegh, State Director of DPA's New York Policy Office. "This is a simple matter of compassion. This is the fourth time the State Assembly has passed a medical marijuana bill. Now it's long past time for the State Senate to act. The science is clear. The moral and ethical needs are obvious. The only thing holding this up is the Senate. Listen to the science, to healthcare practitioners, and to the vast majority of New Yorkers who support this proposal. It's time for the Senate to pass the Compassionate Care Act."

Tour World's Largest Medical Cannabis Dispensary With Founder Steve DeAngelo. Steve DeAngelo is an inspired leader who has contributed four decades of activism and advocacy to the cannabis reform movement. The media has described Steve's landmark Harborside Health Center as a model facility combining safe access to a wide range of lab-tested cannabis medicines. In addition to offering the best quality medicine, Harborside also provides a full complement of free patient services, including a holistic healing clinic. In December 2011, the California-based dispensary was featured in the internationally televised documentary series, "Weed Wars," on the Discovery Channel. DeAngelo and Harborside have also led the way in resisting the U.S. attorneys' crackdown on regulated medical cannabis providers in California, and currently are litigating two separate lawsuits against the federal government to halt federal efforts to close medical cannabis dispensaries

NY Doctors Say Bloomberg's Statement On Medical Marijuana Flies In the Face of Medical Science. The New York medical community has been pushing for the passage of the Compassionate Care Act -- A.6357 (Gottfried) / S.4406 (Savino) -- a bill that would allow healthcare practitioners to talk to their patients about medical marijuana and certify those with serious, debilitating illnesses so that they may have access to a small amount of medical marijuana to relieve their symptoms. Just yesterday, NY Physicians for Compassionate Care announced the support of more than 600 New York physicians for a carefully regulated medical marijuana program for seriously ill New Yorkers. Physicians from all over New York signed a statement affirming that doctors should not be punished for recommending the use of marijuana for seriously ill people, and that seriously ill people should not be subject to criminal sanctions for using marijuana if the patients' physicians have told them such use may be beneficial. The bill also has the support of the state's leading medical organizations, including the New York State Nurses Association, The Hospice and Palliative Care Association, Pharmacist Society of the State of New York, among others. "Mayor Bloomberg's statement that medical marijuana is a hoax is tantamount to saying that the moon landing was faked," said Dr. Sunil Aggarwal, MD, PhD, Associate Member of the New York Academy of Medicine and Vice-Chair of NY Physicians for Compassionate Care. "Marijuana, given in oral and inhaled forms, has been shown in large, gold-standard, double-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled trials conducted at major medical centers to relieve pain and muscle spasm, and stimulate appetite and weight gain in patients with wasting syndromes.

Portland man says cancer caused by oral sex. Satchell's doctor diagnosed him with esophageal cancer, caused by the Human Papilloma virus. According to doctors, the HPV strain responsible can cause cervical cancer in women and throat cancer in men who contract it through oral sex. They estimate more than 13,500 people will be diagnosed with esophageal cancer this year, most of them men. "This cancer, I don't think anybody thought you could get it from sexual contact," said Satchell. Actor Michael Douglas recently told a newspaper reporter that HPV caused his throat cancer. A spokesperson for Douglas later said the actor was only talking about possible causes. Satchell's cancer surgeon, Dr. Eric Dierks, said there is a stigma about the disease that hinders prevention and education. "This is related to oral sex, there I said it," explained Dierks. "This is related to oral sex." Dierks said unlike the pap smear, which can reveal cervical cancer in women, there isn't a reliable test for HPV in men. There is, however, an HPV vaccine for boys and girls.

Rocky Kistner: Two Months Later, Arkansas Residents Still Hurting From ExxonMobil Tar Sands Spill. Many locals and some scientists have little faith in the continuous rosy assurances from Exxon and the Unified Command that testing results show the environment is safe and that tar sands oil has not contaminated the lake. These include Mayflower residents Christina and Michael Seville, who were looking forward to visits this summer from grandkids at their modest home on Lake Conway. Their lives were suddenly turned upside down by the release of an estimated 200,000 gallons of noxious Canadian tar sands crude, much of which ended up in the marshy cove portion of Lake Conway near their home. They complain of constant headaches and coughs that have persisted since the spill occurred just before Easter, ailments they blame on the jet black tar sands crude that snaked through culverts past a shopping center and under the Interstate into the marsh on Lake Conway. "We can't have our grandkids over to visit anymore," Christina says. "They're covering up what's really going on. There are fewer squirrels, birds, and ducks than we normally see around here. Fish are not jumping in the water and they're not catching anything around here. It's not like it used to be."

Racial Disparity In Marijuana Arrests: Black Americans Are Nearly 4 Times More Likely Than Whites To Be Arrested For Possession Of Pot (VIDEO). According to a new study from the American Civil Liberties Union, which tracked marijuana arrests by race and county in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, black and white Americans use marijuana at about the same rate. However, blacks were nearly four times as likely than whites to be arrested on charges of marijuana possession in 2010. In Washington D.C., Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois, blacks were 7.5 to 8.5 times more likely than whites to be arrested for possessing pot. Most of the people being arrested weren't drug kingpins. Fifty-two percent of all drug arrests in 2010 were for marijuana, and according to the ACLU's analysis, most of the arrestees were in possession of small amounts of the drug. Having a black president hasn't eased this racial disparity, either. During President Barack Obama's first three years in office, the arrest rate for marijuana possession was about 5 percent higher than the average rate under President George W. Bush, The New York Times reported.

DEA letters: Is this how the feds might fight state's marijuana market. A series of letters from the DEA that have effectively closed a handful of medical marijuana storefronts in Seattle might be an indication of how the feds will fight back against Washington state's efforts to create a marijuana market for recreational use. And, even in light of a declaration to create a national marijuana business, angel investors putting a million bucks into the industry and the state publishing draft rules for a pot market, some think the U.S. Department of Justice, regional U.S. Attorney's offices and the Drug Enforcement Agency are far from capitulation in the war on drugs. Below is a copy of one DEA letter (provided and redacted by the DEA) sent to a Seattle medical marijuana store owner:

How Do You Feel About Big Business Trying To Take Over The Marijuana Industry? A big business takeover of the marijuana industry has been something that many marijuana activists and current industry members have feared for awhile now. The fears are well founded, and the infiltration of the marijuana industry by big business is something that is not going to go away. I have talked to a lot of outside investors since the 2012 Election, and many of them are performing their due diligence to see how they can crack into a multi-billion dollar industry that is growing larger by the day. I always snicker at them, because they are in over their heads. Jamen Shively, if his claims prove to be true, is in way over his head. It's almost as if they don't realize how hard it is to crack into the marijuana industry, especially being an outsider. Opening a chain of marijuana stores is not like opening a chain of fast food joints. I have heard many investors from outside of the marijuana industry talk as if marijuana isn't illegal at the federal level. They talk as if the IRS isn't going after marijuana businesses by using the tax system and that the DEA isn't constantly trying to go after the marijuana industry at just about every level (especially retail). The things that they learned in traditional business and from business school don't always translate to the marijuana industry. Just because something worked in the credit card industry or computer industry doesn't mean that it is going to work in the marijuana industry. In a lot of cases, because it worked in big business, it definitely won't work in the marijuana industry, where many consumers don't like big business and what they are about.

Bill Maher: "Pot Is The New Gay Marriage". Bill Maher went in on Marijuana's Prohibition Friday night, calling Weed the "New Gay Marriage" and calling out Obama for smoking pot...And remaining clueless on the issue:

Usain Bolt Reps Weed Shirts, Gets Shit Storm From Anti-Drug Crusaders. There's not even any Kush, blunt, or smoke in sight. Repping The Pothead Diaries wasn't the slickest PR move of all time, but when the fastest man alive lends his support to the Kush, it certainly says something. Something along the lines of "hey kids you won't get fat and lazy and ruin your life by smoking weed. In fact, I smoked weed when I was growing out and I turned out alright. Check out these Olympic Medals I even won. So a soft move by Bolt taking the picture down, but further proof that the best athletes in the world know that marijuana is nothing but a good thang. What would Yu do?

$24,000 of Pot Shipped To The Wrong Guy in Sacramento. It sounds like a weed-based version of Next Day Air

Monday, June 03, 2013

IBM 'protests' $600M Amazon cloud contract with CIA: report. The deal is part of a "private cloud" initiative by the CIA in order to dedicate resources to its operations, but also to keep its physical hardware entirely disconnected from the public cloud while in the same datacenter. The Government Accountability Office reportedly confirmed the protest bid to the publication, which will rule by June 6 — later this week — on whether or not Big Blue can claim a stake to the CIA's business. If that's the case, the CIA will have to run through the procurement process again, which no doubt the taxpayer will be ever-so-thankful for. Amazon has not yet formally confirmed the move by the CIA to use its cloud offering. However, Amazon's AWS GovCloud (U.S.) was granted FedRAMP compliance by the federal government in May, adding to the weight of the original Amazon-CIA reports. The process is a government-wider program that ensures sensitive data is as secure as it can be. It also means that the U.S. government can start using Amazon's cloud service for higher classified material.

Activist Post: California Moves a Step Closer to Nullifying Unconstitutional NDAA. California is among those who are making significant, bipartisan, nearly unanimous statements to rebuke federal overreach. As we reported earlier, the California Liberty Preservation Act passed through Committee by a unanimous vote 6-0. Now the People's Blog For The Constitution is reporting on another overwhelming victory. Assembly Bill 351 was introduced February 13th, 2013 by Republican Assemblyman Tim Donnelly who was originally responsible for getting the issue into Committee. The Daily Caller noted at the time that even though the bill was introduced by a Republican, it received a unanimous vote across party lines. The bill passed the Democrat-controlled committee 6-0 with the support of a wide-ranging coalition that included the American Civil Liberties Union, Tenth Amendment Center, San Francisco 99% Coalition, San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the Libertarian Party of California. (Source)

Google must obey FBI's warrantless requests for user data for now, judge rules. IIllston is the same judge who earlier this year ruled that NSLs as presently written, and the attached gag orders that prevent companies from publicly describing the letters, are unconstitutional. But because that matter is still being appealed, the documents in the newer Google case still remain under seal. Illston is also stepping down in July, making it unlikely she will be the one to decide the final outcome of this case. Separately from this case, Google in March moved to share more information with the public about how many NSLs it has received from the government, but has so far only offered vague estimates in its regular Transparency Reports, not specific numbers of NSLs or types of user information being requested. NSLs have been around since the 1980s, but have only begun to be seriously challenged in the courts in the past few years, as reporters and the privacy advocates have learned of the FBI's increasing usage of the tool in the wake of the September 11th, 2001 terror attacks. Some 300,000 NSLs have been sent out since 2000, according to Wired.

"Irish SOPA" To Receive First Test in Pirate Bay Blocking Case. The Internet service providers -- UPC, Imagine, Vodafone, Digiweb, Hutchison 3G and Telefonica O2 -- are being targeted by IRMA, the Irish Recorded Music Association. The group, which represents the major recording labels including EMI, Sony, Warner and Universal, wants ISPs to block subscriber access to TPB. IRMA's application, currently before the Commercial Court, is supported by other rightsholder groups including the MPA, the Irish Copyright Licensing Agency and Games Ireland. Last week the labels argued that as many as 200,000 Irish ISP users access TPB every month, causing collective losses to the labels of around 20 million euros a year. At the same time, they argued, TPB generates more than $30 million per year in advertising revenues. The labels are seeking court orders which would force the ISPs to disable access to The Pirate Bay within 30 days. Clarity was also sought on whether the labels should have to return to court with a new application should The Pirate Bay change domain or switch IP addresses. While none of the targeted ISPs expressed outright opposition to the application, UPC says that its previous stance of not cooperating voluntarily with the labels (it previously declined IRMA's request in pre-litigation correspondence) remains the same. "UPC's position remains unchanged. Piracy in general is a collective and industry wide concern. From a UPC perspective, we firmly believe people should pay for content they consume," the ISP said in a statement.

The Geezers Are All Right. Social Security and Medicare trustees released Friday do suggest that America's retirement system needs some significant work. The ratio of Americans over 65 to those of working age will rise inexorably over the decades ahead, and this will translate into rising spending on Social Security and Medicare as a share of national income. But the numbers aren't nearly as overwhelming as you might have imagined, given the usual rhetoric. And if you look under the hood, the data suggest that we can, if we choose, maintain social insurance as we know it with only modest adjustments. Start with Social Security. The retirement program's trustees do foresee rising spending as the population ages, with total payments rising from 5.1 percent of G.D.P. now to 6.2 percent in 2035, at which point they stabilize. This means, by the way, that all the talk of Social Security going "bankrupt" is nonsense; even if nothing at all is done, the system will be able to pay most of its scheduled benefits as far as the eye can see. Still, it does look as if there will eventually be a shortfall, and the usual suspects insist that we must move right now to reduce scheduled benefits. But I've never understood the logic of this demand. The risk is that we might, at some point in the future, have to cut benefits; to avoid this risk of future benefit cuts, we are supposed to act pre-emptively by...cutting future benefits. What problem, exactly, are we solving here?

Politics: The 'martial law' nonsense (or, why libertarians will never escape the fringe). While most Americans are celebrating not only the skill of the police but the willing cooperation of Boston residents for staying in their homes during the manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, libertarians are screaming that it is the imposition of "martial law." Representing this paranoia is Thomas R. Eddlem writing for The New American: In the end, if the goal of the terrorists was to terrorize, the terrorists won in Boston. Rather than returning to its ordinary business, the two suspects identified by authorities — Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his older (deceased) brother Tamerlan — were able to terrorize — and even shut down — one of the world's greatest cities for days. The two presumably hated America for its freedom, and were able to get the government to take away much of those freedoms from its citizens for a period of time. Got that? It wasn't the Tsarnaevs who "took away freedoms" for less than a day. It was the police. This guy is running around town with six bombs, he is already known to have killed at least four people and committed a carjacking to escape, but when police tell people to stay inside, it's not a common-sense measure for their own protection, it's martial law. This is why libertarianism will always remain a fringe movement within American politics. Leave aside for a second how many of them gravitated to kooky Alex Jones-type theories like the "false flag." Let's just focus on this martial law nonsense. Most Americans are cheering the outcome in Boston because a) they got the bad guy in less than a week, and the curfew imposed during the manhunt lasted for only part of one day - and was lifted as soon as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was in custody, as there was no further reason at that point to keep it in place; and b) it was a tremendous example of responsible citizens cooperating with the police because their sense of community spirit told them the sacrifice was worth making to prevent any more killings.

The Crazy, Unfair Ways People Are Being Screwed by Using Legal Pot Using an ancient herb as recommended by your doctor, one that any law enforcer will tell you makes people less aggressive? Sorry. Whacked on Oxycontin? Fire away. My friend Carl, a Vietnam veteran, concealed handgun permit holder, political conservative of the John Wayne school and New Mexico medical cannabis patient, is apoplectic about the policy. "I can't believe I lose my rights because I'm receiving treatment. I defended this country's freedoms." This is just one example of key ancillary details that need to be fixed as America's Longest War limps to its federal demise. Another is arbitrary limits on or zero tolerance of bloodstream THC when driving, even by locally-Kosher cannabis fans: if you legally used cannabis three weeks ago at the Ziggy Marley concert in Washington, you can, absurdly, be found to be impaired today. In addition to the mining of the harbor that such unacceptably policy represents among those sore losers, the retreating Drug Warriors, this again shows the risk that any cannabis enjoyer faces. These unscientific THC policies must be squashed in courts and state houses, and fast. The risk list continues. On my January flight in Honolulu to testify in support of pending industrial and social cannabis legalization in the Aloha State, the grey haired 59-year-old local fellow sitting next to me, Jeb, a construction site manager, had a sadly common story for me when he found out where I was heading that day. "Tell the folks at the statehouse that I just lost my job after 23 years because THC showed in my system," Jeb told me. "I had smoked at home on a Saturday night two weeks earlier. I don't drink. I've never come to work impaired. Never even had a sick day. My work record was so impeccable that my supervisor apologized to me. He said, 'we work for a company that will fire its best employee for pot, first time.' I might lose my house. I'm flying to Oahu to meet with my lawyer but he told me that if it's the policy it's the policy."

How Vinegar Could Save 73,000 Women A Year From Cancer - Forbes. (Labs Charge $XXX.XX for a simple test with Vinegar) The idea that he and others hit upon was to steal a step from from the procedure that follows a suspicious Pap smear. Doctors pour acetic acid -- basically a sterile vinegar solution -- onto the cervix and look at it under a magnifier. Cancer and precancer cells have less of the gooey cytoplasm than healthy cervix, and the acetic acid makes them actually turn white after just a minute. The normal cells remain a healthy pink. Shastri skipped the magnifier and the doctor, and decided to train the same health care workers who give immunizations and other basic preventative measures to apply an acetic acid solution in the field. In 1998, he obtained funding from the National Cancer Institute, one of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, to conduct a fifteen-year clinical trial comparing using the vinegar screen once every two years to not screening in 150,000 women. The results are being presented today here at the annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology. The vinegar test reduced the rate of cervical cancer death from 16.2 women per 100,000 to 11.1 women per 100,000, a 31% reduction. "It's amazing," says Carol Aghajanian, chief of gynecologic oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. "Thousands of lives could be saved by this inexpensive technique." Shastri and his co-authors estimate that in India alone, the introduction of acetic acid screening could prevent 22,000 cervical cancer deaths annually. If it could be instituted across the developing world, that would save 73,000 lives.

Bitcoin Is Sacrificing Its Soul To Survive - Business Insider. In the Liberty Reserve case, the illegalities were brash, according to U.S. officials. One million users across the world—one-fifth of them Americans—made 55 million transactions over seven years to the tune of $6 billion, with few questions asked while Costa Rica-based Liberty collected 1 percent, investigators said. The network is thought to have been employed in the $45 million ATM heist for which eight people were arrested in May. (Read More: US Charges Eight in $45 Million Cybercrime Scheme) Chicago-based investment fraud attorney Andrew Stoltmann said bitcoin holders should be spooked, because the digital exchanges have been used by criminals for money laundering as well. But Peter Vessenes, chairman and executive director of the Bitcoin Foundation, was unfazed by the Liberty Reserve crackdown. "The U.S. put out guidance recently through the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and we've been following up on that guidance and crushing bad actors," he said in an interview with CNBC Asia. "We're seeing a bit of a sweep right now," he said. "There's nothing to indicate that good players who are working hard to stay regulated have anything to worry about." And there's the rub: The techno-libertarian fantasy of an unfettered digital currency is losing its veil of anonymity and is dependent upon ensuring the appeasement of government regulators. It's enough to make a cryptotarian anarchist blanch.

Sunday, June 02, 2013

Interagency Working Group to Counter Online Radicalization to Violence - J.D. Rockefellar - YouTube. The Hill reported the executive order would establish a voluntary program in which companies operating critical infrastructure would elect to meet cybersecurity best practices and standards crafted, in part, by the government. Because of the troubling ideology of some Obama officials, the question arises as to exactly which citizens are considered threats by the government. WND broke the story about a lengthy academic paper by President Obama's so-called regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, suggesting the government should "infiltrate" social network websites, chat rooms and message boards. Sunstein stepped down last year. Such "cognitive infiltration," Sunstein argued, should be used to enforce a U.S. government ban on "conspiracy theorizing." Among the beliefs Sunstein classified as a "conspiracy theory" is that global-warming advocacy is a fraud.

How Big Data is Changing the World :Jeff Jonas IBM - YouTube. This new technology, something that might be characterized as a "big data analytic sensemaking" engine, is designed to make sense of new observations as they happen, fast enough to do something about it, while the transaction is still happening. He then proceeds to discuss the consequences and opportunities that we have as customer data swells with new touchpoints (web, social, mobile, auto) and is correlated with such disparate datasets as previous sales, the price of gasoline, and the weather. Jeff is interested in real-time "sensemaking" to fundamentally improve enterprise intelligence and make organizations smarter, more efficient and highly competitive. Jeff Jonas, IBM Chief Scientist, Entity Analytics Group & IBM Distinguished Engineer Jeff Jonas is chief scientist of the IBM Entity Analytics group and an IBM Distinguished Engineer. The IBM Entity Analytics group was formed based on technologies developed by Systems Research & Development (SRD), founded by Jonas in 1984 and acquired by IBM in January 2005. Jonas's innovations have received wide coverage ranging from the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Fortune Magazine to MSNBC.

Senate Session 2013-05-07 (18:32:12-18:50:41) - David Medine to be chair and member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board The Senate convened for a period of morning business and thereafter proceed to executive session to consider the nomination of David Medine to be chair and member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Members also began consideration of S.601, the Water Resources Development Act.

California 'Oil and Ag' Face Rift on Fracking. Driven by advances in drilling technology and high oil prices, oil companies are increasingly moving into traditionally agricultural areas like Shafter that make up one of the world's most fertile regions but also lie above a huge untapped oil reserve called the Monterey Shale. Even as California's total oil production has declined slightly since 2010, the output of the North Shafter oil field and the number of wells have risen by more than 50 percent. By all accounts, oilmen and farmers — often shortened to "oil and ag" here — have coexisted peacefully for decades in this conservative, business friendly part of California about 110 miles northwest of Los Angeles. But oil's push into new areas and its increasing reliance on fracking, which uses vast amounts of water and chemicals that critics say could contaminate groundwater, are testing that relationship and complicating the continuing debate over how to regulate fracking in California. "As farmers, we're very aware of the first 1,000 feet beneath us and the groundwater that is our lifeblood," said Tom Frantz, a fourth-generation farmer here and a retired high school math teacher who now cultivates almonds. "We look to the future, and we really do want to keep our land and soil and water in good condition." "This mixing of farming and oil, all in one place, is a new thing for us," added Mr. Frantz, who is also an environmentalist and is pressing for a moratorium on fracking.

Nutrition Information Every Cancer Patient Should Know. Cancer patients should be informed that nutrition is their first and best defense when starting down the path of healing from cancer. Information should be provided about how to switch to an alkaline diet,[i] composed of primarily vegetables, with a small amount of fruit, grains and protein. This diet is similar to the ketogenic[ii] diet, which is much discussed in the oncology press, but with further reduction in total protein consumption as well as grains, processed fats and sugar, to help control inflammation in the body. Instead, the dietary information provided to cancer patients is an afterthought, and amazingly, usually includes foods and meal preparation techniques that are known promoters of cancer progression.[iii] Clearly, there is a disconnect between very well documented information on diet and cancer progression and those who communicate most often with cancer patients -- the oncology teams. The modern way of life, particularly in fast-paced Western countries, does not lend itself to an anti-cancer, alkaline diet. Convenience food products, microwave meals, packaged snacks and fast food dominate many people's daily menu. It should come as no surprise that these foods are not optimal if you are battling cancer.

Microchip-Laden Drugs Given FDA Approval. Digital Medicines are the same pharmaceuticals you take today, with one small change: each pill also contains a tiny sensor that can communicate, via our digital health feedback system, vital information about your medication-taking behaviors and how your body is responding. The company added "As a result, you can be sure you're taking your medicines as prescribed, while at the same time receiving unprecedented feedback on your physical response to treatment." The aim of the "ingestible sensor" is to electronically verify patient compliance in taking the medication. Proteus Digital Health estimates that over 50% of patients do not get the full benefit from the pharmaceuticals they take because of taking the wrong dose or taking the medication inconsistently. There are huge sums of money at stake in getting people to take their drugs as prescribed. In a 2008 article published in the drug industry marketing journal Pharma Marketing News titled "Moving The Needle on Adherence: Highlights from the 7th Annual Patient Compliance, Adherence and Persistency," ‎it was estimated that an 18% improvement in compliance would translate into increased revenues of approximately $8000 per patient a year.

Shocker: Prof. Gilles-Eric Séralini, GMO-Cancer Researcher, Blows Whistle on Biotech Fraud - GreenMedTV. Professor Gilles-Eric Séralini, discusses the dangers of GMOs, the manipulation of the biotech science, and related issues.

Herbicide and Pesticide Exposure Linked to Parkinson's Disease. The researchers, from UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health, studied 357 Parkinson's disease cases along with 754 control subjects - adults from Central California. The researchers determined increased exposure to the herbicide Paraquat through geographic mapping linking their home locations to agricultural use of the chemical on farms. Those living closer to farms that sprayed the herbicide were found to have a 36% increased risk of Parkinson's. However, those who experienced a head injury combined with increased Paraquat exposure tripled their chances of having Parkinson's disease. Researchers from Mexico's Unidad de Medicina Familiar also studied cases of Parkinson's together with exposure to the herbicide Paraquat among Mexican workers. They also found a positive association between exposure to this chemical and Parkinson's disease. Paraquat is N,N′-dimethyl-4,4′-bipyridinium dichloride.

IRS Targets Medical Marijuana Businesses in Government's Ongoing War on Pot. The majority of Americans favor legalization of marijuana, while 18 states and the District of Columbia have already legalized medical marijuana. But pot businesses in those states are vulnerable to the federal government's strategic application of IRS Code Section 280E, a law enacted in 1982 after a drug dealer claimed his yacht and weapons purchases as legitimate business expenses -- and long before medical marijuana was first legalized in California in 1996. Now the IRS is applying a rule originally aimed at illegal (and often violent) drug trafficking to businesses that are entirely legal under their states' laws. Medical marijuana dispensaries are facing audits and heavy tax bills that could force them out of business. "Whether or not this is a coordinated tactic to try and shut down the industry, or send a chill through the industry, or if it's just the IRS trying to collect as much revenue as they can from easy targets, it's clearly outside the spirit and intent of the law," said Kris Krane, a former executive director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy who now serves as principal of 4Front Advisors, a medical marijuana dispensary consulting firm.

76% of Doctors From 72 Countries Approve of Medical Marijuana. "We were surprised by the outcome of polling and comments, with 76 percent of all votes in favor of the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes — even though marijuana use is illegal in most countries," the survey's authors wrote. The results appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine on May 30. It included responses from 1,446 doctors from 72 different countries and 56 different states and provinces in North America. In addition, 118 doctors posted comments about their decision on the survey. Marijuana is the most commonly used illegal "drug" in the United States. The 2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) revealed that 15.2 million people had smoked weed in the month before being surveyed, and it was used by 75.6 percent of all illicit drug users. Marijuana has also been linked to medical benefits, and has been shown to relieve pain, improve mood and increase appetite for patients who are prescribed it medicinally, but the National Institute on Drug Abuse pointed out that the evidence of its benefits is not enough to give marijuana Food and Drug Administration approval. [CBS]

Testing Positive For Marijuana In The UFC Is About To Get Tougher. UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner said the MMA promotion will raise the testing threshold for marijuana metabolites from 50 ng/mL to 150 ng/mL, which is in line with the recent change implemented by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The changes are designed to make sure fighters aren't under the influence of the drug during competition but could be safe if they use it weeks or even days before. However, the changes will only be applied in places where the UFC self-regulates its events and not in its home state of Nevada where the 50 ng/mL rule will remain. "When we self-regulate around the world, we are going to go the WADA standard of 150," Ratner told MMA Junkie. "So we're starting that immediately." The UFC acts as its own regulator when it stages events in places where there is no official sanctioning body, such as March's UFC on FUEL TV 8 in Japan, where AlexCaceres tested positive for marijuana metabolites. The failed drug test caused his decision win over Kyung Ho Kang to be turned into a no-contest.

Medical Marijuana Patients: "Our Suffering Is Newsworthy". The DEA doesn't care about all the work you put into making each garden legally compliant. They don't care that the caregivers are also patients. Normally the only thing the DEA cares about is if the garden contains more than 99 plants, the supposed threshold for federal involvement. These gardens didn't contain more than 99 plants at a single address. That Somebody said, "Get 'em anyway," and they found a way- add up all the gardens together, call it a conspiracy and viola! Federal charges for everyone involved. Yes, everyone, including the elderly man that did janitorial work at the gardens. He was convicted of a crime, too. The federal court system has a 98% conviction rate, I'm told, so it should be no surprise that all seven that were charged eventually plead guilty. The longest sentence of the group- 4 years. That would be my friend, Ryan Basore, co-founder of The Compassion Chronicles, who will have to read this article on a prison computer. Basore graduated from Northwoods University while his federal case was being argued. He got engaged to a wonderful woman just days before surrendering himself for incarceration. He is now a resident of a corrections facility in West Virginia. He is not only my friend he is a son, a brother, a fiancé and a damn good man.

New Research Finds Marijuana May Combat Brain Damage. Pharmacologist Josef Sarne of Tel Aviv University, the lead researcher of the study, found that tiny amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) may protect the brain after injuries from seizures, as well as toxic drug exposure and a lack of oxygen. During the study, researchers injected mice with a low dose of THC (thousands of times less potent than even the weakest joint) either before or after exposing them to brain trauma. Rodents in a control group were (sadly) exposed to trauma without given any THC. Roughly a month later the mice were examined -- those which had been given THC performed better in behavioral tests which were designed to measure learning and memory -- the tests also showed the THC-administered mice had greater amounts of neuroprotective chemicals than mice in the control group.

Saturday, June 01, 2013

DaDenMan Show #150 Ignorance Is Bliss - When Knowledge Equals Prison

What Is The Marijuana Tax Act Of 2013? Author: Congressman Earl Blumenauer Third District of Oregon This legislation creates a federal excise tax on the sales on marijuana in states where it is legal for either medicinal or recreational use, as well as occupational taxes for those engaged in the industry. It establishes civil and criminal penalties for those who do not comply and requires the IRS to produce periodic studies of the marijuana industry and issue recommendations for Congress. Background Slightly more than 106 million people live in a state or local jurisdiction that has decided that some aspect of marijuana use should be legally permitted. Eighteen states plus DC currently allow for medical marijuana and two states, Colorado and Washington, recently legalized the recreational use of small amounts of marijuana. National trends reflect those state efforts. More than 40 percent of Americans over the age of 12 have tried marijuana at least once and public opinion research reveals nearly half of the U.S. population supports legalization. Yet even as states and local governments have taken the lead in finding legal arrangements for marijuana, millions of people have been caught in the justice system for marijuana offenses and more than 660,000 people were arrested for marijuana possession in 2011. At the same time, the federal government spends approximately $5.5 billion per year on incarceration and enforcement associated with federal marijuana laws. In addition, many marijuana businesses around the country—despite operating in compliance with state or local law—are not allowed to deduct their legitimate business expenses and often are unable to make deposits or maintain accounts as a result of federal banking laws.

Jailing Medical Marijuana Patients Costs Taxpayers A Fortune. Despite the fact that Duval was a registered Michigan medical marijuana cardholder acting in compliance with state law, the Department of Justice (DOJ) brought the ailing farmer to court. During the trial, Duval was not allowed to refer to his medical condition or the fact that he was acting in accordance with Michigan law, and in April 2012, he was found guilty of drug trafficking and given a 10-year sentence, which he will serve in a federal medical facility. Now, Duval's healthcare falls on taxpayers. "The annual cost to preserve my kidneys and pancreas alone tops $100,000," wrote Duval in a request for compassionate release. "In addition, I require treatment for coronary artery disease and diabetic retinopathy, which has forced me to undergo nearly two-dozen eye surgeries. These expensive optical procedures will likely need to be repeated several times during the decade that I am in BOP custody."

Survey: Most Americans Back Industrial Hemp Cultivation. Last week, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced an amendment to Senate Bill 3240, the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2012, requiring the federal government to respect state laws allowing the cultivation of industrial hemp. The amendment's language mimics the "Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2013," which also remains pending as stand-alone legislation in both the US House and Senate. Eight states have enacted statutory changes defining industrial hemp as distinct agricultural product and seeking to allow for its regulated commercial production.

Legalizing Medical Marijuana Reduces Suicides And Traffic Fatalities. Although this is just one study, it's extremely promising -- it indicates that allowing the use of medical cannabis may have led to hundreds, if not thousands of prevented suicides. This is likely due in part to the fact that, according to university recent research released this month, cannabis can help fight depression and loneliness, and may raise self-esteem. A different study, conducted around the same time, came to an equally surprising and important finding: Medical marijuana may reduce traffic fatalities. According to the study released at the end of 2011 -- which was reported on by Time Magazine and The Huffington Post - states which have legalized medical marijuana have seen a 9% reduction in traffic fatalities, indicating that one out of every eleven traffic deaths can be avoided if medical marijuana is legalized. The study was conducted by Montana State University economics professor Mark Anderson, and Daniel Rees, a professor at the University of Colorado, and was published by the Institute for the Study of Labor. For the study, researchers used an analysis of data from theNational Household Survey on Drug Use and Health and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Using the data, researchers compared traffic fatalities over time in states with and without medical marijuana laws, accounting for changes in each state's law. The researchers found that fatal car crashes dropped by 9% in states that legalized medical marijuana.

Europe's Record Youth Unemployment: The Scariest Graph in the World Just Got Scarier - Derek Thompson - The Atlantic. Since April 2012, Greek youth unemployment has grown by about one percentage point a month. At that rate, it would pass 70 percent in early 2013. It is suddenly not insane to imagine a youth unemployment rate of 70 percent in the developed world. And that is insane. It should be noted that some people consider youth unemployment figures a bit hyperbolic. They prefer measures like "youth unemployment ratio, which takes the share of young people who are looking for work but can't find it and divides it by the entire population. Last year, the EU's youth unemployment ratio was 9.7 percent , less than half the youth unemployment rate of 23 percent. But even the ratio fails to account for the millions of young people who have all but given up in their awful economies. There are 26 million young people in rich countries who are as "NEETS" (Not Employed, or in Education, or Training), according to the OECD.

Friday, May 31, 2013

Bloomberg: Medical Marijuana 'One Of The Greatest Hoaxes Of All Time'. "Medical, my foot," Bloomberg-- who has admitted to enjoying smoking weed when he was younger-- told John Gambling during his weekly radio show. "There is no medical. This is one of the great hoaxes of all time," he said, suggesting legalizing medical pot would just make it easier for recreational users to light up. "The bottom line is, I'm told marijuana is much stronger today than it was 20, 30 years ago," he continued, according to The New York Post. "That's one problem. No 2, drug dealers have families to feed. If they can't sell marijuana, they'll sell something else. And the something else will be something worse. The push to legalize this is wrongheaded." State Senator Diane Savino, who's co-sponsoring a bill to legalize medical marijuana in New York, thinks otherwise. "We're talking about people with terminal illnesses, seizure disorders," she told The Post. "We're not talking about recreational use."

Exclusive: The Man Behind Hidalgo County's Biggest Law Enforcement Scandal. August 2012, Gerardo Duran and Sal Arguello—two members of the Panama Unit, a rogue narcotic task force led by Jonathan Treviño, the son of Sheriff Guadalupe "Lupe" Treviño— approached Flores with an offer he couldn't refuse. "Duran told me 'you seem to know a lot of people with good information,'" Flores said. "I told them I'd be happy to introduce them to some of my informants, so they could make some arrests." But, according to Flores, that wasn't what Duran had in mind, replying, "We don't arrest them. We take their shit." Duran started describing to Flores how the Panama Unit operated. The unit's seven officers had been stealing drug loads. They also were escorting drug loads for dealers through Hidalgo County in marked police cars only to return later and rip off the same drug dealers who had paid them for the escorts. As the Observer reported in a March feature story, the Panama Unit had been brazenly ripping off drug dealers for at least three years, according to multiple law-enforcement sources and federal indictments. Flores had heard the rumors about the Panama Unit being dirty. Jonathan Treviño, Flores said, acted as if he were invincible because he was the sheriff's son. "I knew this wasn't going to be good for me either way," Flores said. He was in a difficult position. If he began working with the Panama Unit, he knew he would either get killed or arrested someday. If he said no, he might suffer retaliation at the sheriff's department for angering his boss' son. So Flores reluctantly agreed to help the Panama Unit. But before his career as a corrupt cop got started, he drove to the local office of the Drug Enforcement Agency and confessed to meeting with Panama Unit members and described what they were doing. The DEA handed Flores off to FBI agents, who asked if he'd be willing to wear a wire. "I told them I'd do it because these people were way out of control," Flores told the Observer. "They needed to be stopped." The FBI refused to comment on the case.

Bill would let state check private bank accounts of some unemployed - Local News - Milwaukee, WI. A proposal in the state Legislature would allow state officials to check private bank accounts of the unemployed to recover any overpayments of benefits.The legislation up for a hearing Wednesday also requires the unemployed to provide more proof that they're looking for work.The State Journal (http://bit.ly/145LFAV ) says financial institutions doing business with the state would be required to disclose information about accounts held by people who owe money to the unemployment system.State officials could sue to freeze bank accounts that hold money improperly paid as a result of administrative errors or computer malfunctions.Earlier this month, the Legislature's budget committee approved a provision in Gov. Scott Walker's budget proposal that would require the unemployed to apply for four jobs a week, instead of two, to get benefits.

International pot plan long on ambition, short on specifics. "It's time for a new start, a new vision. That's why I applaud this group," said Fox, who now heads a think tank operating out of his presidential library. But one speaker at the event, Skip Dreps, a Washington veteran, said he wouldn't be involved with Shively's company if it engaged in international pot trade and he was told it would not. Instead, Dreps likened Shively's goal to opening Pizza Hut franchises in Mexico for selling pot. "They're not sending their pizzas" or pot across the border, Dreps said. Marijuana is not currently legal in Mexico. In his evolving plan, Shively said, Mexican stores would offer local pot products. The idea of pot trade between the two countries is still worth considering, he said, adding that he and Fox intend to pursue it. Shively predicted that in five years the Seattle headquarters of his nascent company, Diego Pellicer, would employ more than 1,000 people. But Shively offered frustratingly few details about the Washington and Colorado medical marijuana dispensaries he says he has acquired the rights to buy. He also offered virtually no details about investors, the amount they've invested, and how those investments would not violate the federal prohibition of marijuana. Shively's lawyer said the structure of the investments is confidential. Shively said details of his dispensary deals are privileged. A filing by Shively's company with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission in late March showed that he had only raised $125,000 at that point. Shively said much has changed since then and in several weeks he will have raised $10 million.

SOME WASH. POLICE DOGS NOT SMELLING POT ANYMORE "We wanted to train our dog on what was truly illegal substances, that would be heroine, methamphetamine and cocaine," said Dusty's handler, Officer Duke Roessel, who added that Dusty nabbed five pounds of meth during that recent search. Police departments in Bremerton, Bellevue and Seattle, as well as the Washington State Patrol, have either put the dogs through pot desensitization training or plan not to train them for marijuana detection. The law decriminalized possession of up to an ounce of the drug for individuals over 21 years old. It also barred the distribution and growth of marijuana outside the state-approved system. Police say that having a K-9 unit that doesn't alert to pot will lessen challenges to obtaining search warrants because the dog won't be pointing out possible legal amounts of the drug. Traditionally, dogs are trained to alert on the smell of marijuana, heroin, crack cocaine, methamphetamine and cocaine. They can't tell which one it is or how much of each there is.

Facebook values the privacy of its billion users at $4,500 - Yvo Schaap. Since, website security has shown to never become full proof, leading to privacy breach news stories, diminishing user's trust in handing over their personal details and content. To counter act these security breaches (and the media exposure that comes with it) most internet giants (Facebook, Paypal, Google, Twitter, Github) have setup a so called whitehat security researcher program which allows for whitehat hackers to report security leaks for it to be patched and closed ("responsible disclosure"). In exchange of the disclosure and not actually exploiting the issue, there will no prosecution (!) and a finders bounty as reward. An idea initially developed in the software industry, due to a growing black market of parties buying exploits to setup botnets and whatnot detailed in this interesting The Economist article. Facebook initiated such a program in 2011. This year, Facebook already lists 65 people who reported a confirmed vulnerability, which Facebook defines as "[a vulnerability] that could compromise the integrity of Facebook user data, circumvent the privacy protections of Facebook user data, or enable access to a system within the Facebook infrastructure". In other words, which puts user privacy at risk. For example the researchers Nir Goldshlager, Homakov and Isciurus are all filling up their own blogs detailing their numerous security exploit findings on Facebook and have become well known on the YC news homepage. Actually, 66 people reported a vulnerability in 2013

Blockupy: Thousands of anti-capitalists occupy ECB in Frankfurt - YouTube. Angry crowds have occupied the EU's main financial institutions in Frankfurt to protest against their handling of the crisis. The demonstration is expected to draw thousands throughout the day with people accusing the European Central Bank and others for the painful austerity measures which have caused misery across the continent. RT's Peter Oliver reports

Israeli Study: Small Dosages Of THC Protect The Brain From Long-Term Cognitive Damage. Prof. Yosef Sarne of Tel Aviv University's Adelson Center for the Biology of Addictive Diseases at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine says that the drug has neuroprotective qualities as well. He has found that extremely low doses of THC — the psychoactive component of marijuana — protects the brain from long-term cognitive damage in the wake of injury from hypoxia (lack of oxygen), seizures, or toxic drugs. Brain damage can have consequences ranging from mild cognitive deficits to severe neurological damage. Previous studies focused on injecting high doses of THC within a very short time frame — approximately 30 minutes — before or after injury. Prof. Sarne's current research, published in the journals Behavioural Brain Research and Experimental Brain Research, demonstrates that even extremely low doses of THC — around 1,000 to 10,000 times less than that in a conventional marijuana cigarette — administered over a wide window of 1 to 7 days before or 1 to 3 days after injury can jumpstart biochemical processes which protect brain cells and preserve cognitive function over time. This treatment, especially in light of the long time frame for administration and the low dosage, could be applicable to many cases of brain injury and be safer over time, Prof. Sarne says. Conditioning the brain While performing experiments on the biology of cannabis, Prof. Sarne and his fellow researchers discovered that low doses of the drug had a big impact on cell signalling, preventing cell death and promoting growth factors. This finding led to a series of experiments designed to test the neuroprotective ability of THC in response to various brain injuries. In the lab, the researchers injected mice with a single low dose of THC either before or after exposing them to brain trauma. A control group of mice sustained brain injury but did not receive the THC treatment. When the mice were examined 3 to 7 weeks after initial injury, recipients of the THC treatment performed better in behavioral tests measuring learning and memory. Additionally, biochemical studies showed heightened amounts of neuroprotective chemicals in the treatment group compared to the control group.

Medical Marijuana Patient Jerry Duval's Prison Term Could Cost Taxpayers More Than $1.2 Million. Duval has a kidney and pancreas transplant, as well as glaucoma and neuropathy. His family grew marijuana on his Michigan farm in part to treat his ailments. But when the Department of Justice prosecuted him in federal court, Duval was barred from presenting evidence of his compliance with Michigan's medical marijuana law. He will report to prison on June 11. The Federal Bureau of Prisons initially told Duval he would have to serve out his 10-year sentence in a prison that lacked specialized medical facilities but then relented after an outcry from marijuana reform advocates. He will now serve his time at the Federal Medical Center in Devens, Mass. -- the same facility where Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is being held because of injuries he sustained during his apprehension. According to Bureau of Prisons estimates, on average the annual cost of a stay in a federal medical center prison works out to $51,420. After support costs are included, the total comes to about $157.74 per day per prisoner.

Video Game Shows People Why Drug War Can't be Stopped. Narco Guerra developers argue that the whole point of this game, which is designed for mobile phones and tablets and costs .99 cents, is to make you think about how hard it is to stop the drug trade. "Better that we are talking about this topic and why it is happening, whatever the medium being used, than we turn a blind eye and pretend it is not going on," Tomas Rawlings, the Narco Guerra developer, said in a recent press release. "The War on Drugs has been going on for more than 40 years now, and we wanted to explore why that is," added Rawlings. In NarcoGuerra, you are asked to act as Mexico's Police Chief. You get money, weapons, and troops, and must decide how to deploy these limited resources around Mexico, as you try to rid different parts of the country of cartel activity. Certain actions, like taking down a cartel leader in one area of Mexico, also generate reactions like the emergence of new cartels. This gives users an idea of what the real drug war is like.

New Jersey Senator Introduces Bill Easing Child Access to Medical Marijuana. The bill was inspired by the plight of 2-year-old Vivian Wilson of Scotch Plains, who is diagnosed with a rare and potentially deadly form of epilepsy called Dravet syndrome. Because traditional medications have been unable to control her seizures, her parents, Meghan and Brian Wilson, signed her up for the program. They say they have been encouraged by reports of Colorado children diagnosed with Dravet who have ingested the drug made from a strain that is high in the active ingredient cannabidiol, but low in the psychoactive components that make a person feel high. "It was never our intent for the state's medical marijuana program to be so restrictive that a child who is suffering and in desperate need of relief from a debilitating condition could not get access to care," said Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Union), who sponsored the original medical marijuana law, the Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act.

Exxon CEO: 'What Good Is It To Save The Planet If Humanity Suffers?'. He asked, "What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?" One good would be that humanity has a habitable place to live. And in acting to stop the increasingly dangerous effects of climate change, we could avoid a great deal of suffering. Tillerson missed the billions of dollars in damages, thousands of lives lost, millions displaced, and rampant ecological destruction due to the carbon emissions that cause climate change. Exxon does not see carbon emissions falling significantly until 2040. Staying on this path will mean more suffering: heat waves, conflict, food insecurity, Dust Bowl-like drought, extreme flooding, sea level rise, increasingly destructive storms, and worsening refugee crises. A Carbon Disclosure Project Report noted that "ExxonMobil noted that the company's 'operations around the world include remote and offshore areas that present challenges from existing climate extremes and storms. These severe weather events may disrupt supplies or interrupt the operations of ExxonMobil facilities.' " Even so, A 2011 study found that "9 out of 10 top climate change deniers [were] linked with Exxon Mobil." So what Tillerson probably meant to ask shareholders yesterday was "What good is it to save humanity if profits suffer?" Last year he had told the Council on Foreign Relations about the "manageable" risks of climate change: "As a species that's why we're all still here: we have spent our entire existence adapting. So we will adapt to this. It's an engineering problem, and it has engineering solutions."

Children of the Great Collapse. Families lost trillions of dollars in home equity, the largest source of wealth for working- and middle-class households. Long-term structural inequality persists, so the modest economic growth that has returned since 2010 is eluding most families. Budget battles are threatening both the basic anti-poverty outlays and the investments in children and families that could help push back on inequality and its impact on opportunity. Progressives did well, at least during President Barack Obama's first two years, at expanding the safety net during a serious economic emergency, using taxes and income transfers. But they have not done well in addressing the long-term trend of an erosion of "primary" income, namely wages and salaries. This leads to a paradox: A lot of people get help in a deep recession, but their incomes and life prospects stagnate during relatively good times. Looking forward, both the safety net and measures that might improve the primary income distribution will be under increasing attack from pressures to cut the budget deficit. In fact, there are plenty of strategies that could help reconnect families and children to restored economic growth, but policy is pushing in the opposite direction.

Fail: Drug Czar Tries To Link Marijuana and Crime. On Thursday, Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, announced the results of a study that—at least according to him—demonstrated a link between marijuana use and crime. The study analyzed data collected via the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring program (ADAM II), which took urine samples from arrestees in five cities over a 21-day period last year. "Marijuana remained the drug most often detected in ADAM II arrestees in all five sites in 2012, ranging from 37 percent of ADAM II arrestees testing positive in Atlanta to 58 percent testing positive in Chicago," the study reported. "In three of the five sites, over half of the adult male arrestees tested positive for marijuana." Kerlikowske, who opposes marijuana legalization, said in a speech Thursday that the study showed that America needs to "acknowledge and come to grips with the link between crime and substance use." But correlation is not causation. Just because a high percentage of arrestees tested positive for marijuana does not mean that smoking marijuana made them commit crimes. Here are other things that over half of the adult male arrestees probably had in common: pants, food in their stomachs, a mother who loves them, an impoverished background, an affinity for one or more of the local sports teams. ... Now, Kerlikowske only said that drug use and crime were linked, not that drug use causescrime. But still, the implications are obvious. Kerlikowske is not a stupid man, and he's not actually a terrible drug czar. He has argued that drug abuse needs to be treated as a public health issue, not just a matter of criminal justice, and I couldn't agree more. In his speech, Kerlikowske mentioned the need to move the drug policy reform debate beyond "bumper stickers." One good way to do that is to move beyond studies that don't necessarily say anything at all.

Oregon Legislature Votes To Allow PTSD Sufferers Medical Cannabis. Compassionate Oregon put together a tremendous lobbying effort and should be commended for its great work this legislative session. The National Cannabis Coalition sent Compassionate Oregon some funds following our money bomb, but the group could certainly use more donations to cover costs incurred, to lobby the Governor to sign SB 281 and to help other legislative priorities this session and next. If you would like to make a contribution directly to Compassionate Oregon, you may send a check or money order to: Compasssionate Oregon, 1510 SW Friendly Ct., McMinnville OR, 97128 Adding PTSD as a qualification for enrollment with the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program (OMMP) has been a long road for Oregon activists. I helped attorney Leland Berger prepare a petition on behalf of activist Ed Glick, requesting that the Oregon Department of Human Services add PTSD, and other mental ailments, to the OMMA back in 2005. That petition was denied and Mr. Glick filed yet another petition in 2009. After that denial, it became obvious to activists that the "fix" was in during each petition process, so a legislative fix was needed. Over the years, so many activists have helped this important cause, and everyone should be commended for their great work. Post-traumatic stress has become an epidemic for members of the military. Veterans' suicides outnumber combat deaths and the mental toll placed on service members is even worse than previously thought as a new study shows that 22 vets commit suicide every day, one every 65 minutes. There is ample evidence that shows how medical cannabis can help alleviate PTSD and its availability could help decrease the number of military suicides.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

High Bail For Medical Marijuana Raid Arrests Sparks Questions. Bail for Lori and her husband is insanely high -- $550,000 each. Why such a high bail for non-violent people? That's a question that is starting to be asked a lot as the days go by. There are people with much lower bails, even though they have committed REAL crimes. They are violent offenders that should be in jail for a long, long time. However, they are going to be let out to make room for people like Lori Duckworth, who did nothing more than provide medicine to sick patients... Bail for third degree robbery, misdemeanor strangulation and fourth degree assault, $80,000. Bail for child sex abuse, $250,000. Bail for providing medical marijuana patients safe access to medicine they would otherwise have to obtain from the black market, $550,000...Please watch the video below, and share it with everyone you know, inside and outside of Oregon.

Anaheim Completes Dispensary Purge By Closing Last Eleven Dispensaries. Under a recent ruling by the California Supreme Court local communities can shutter the distribution centers operating within their city limits by declaring them public nuisances. Anaheim, and nearby Garden Grove, have both issued letters eliminating all of their facilities. Anaheim has up to 140 distribution centers at one time. Per a report from KABC in Orange County, the city had shut all but eleven prior to Friday by using zoning ordinances and code enforcement. The remaining dispensaries had been ordered to close their doors or face a fine of up to $1,000 per day. 10 of the 11 had closed by the deadline, and authorities were reportedly investigating the single remaining facility.

Over 600 New York Physicians Urge Lawmakers To Approve Medical Marijuana Legalization. "New York Physicians for Compassionate Care represents more than 600 physicians across New York who believe that doctors should not be punished for recommending the medical use of marijuana to seriously ill patients and that seriously ill people should not be criminalized for using medical marijuana if their physicians recommend that such use may be beneficial", states the group's official statement letter, "Denying patients access to a medication that can relieve their suffering is cruel, and forcing them to break the law is simply wrong. We call upon the legislature to pass the Compassionate Care Act so we can best serve our patients". On the group's website - www.CompassionateCareNY.org - viewers are given a detailed explanation of why medical marijuana is so important, as well as personal stories, polling data, etc.. On Thursday, May 30th -- starting at 7PM at the New School's Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Auditorium, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, 66 Fifth Avenue -- several members of the group will speak at a press conference intended to bring attention to the issue -- physicians will discuss the scientific evidence surrounding medical marijuana, and will call on lawmakers to approve the compassionate move of allowing those who can benefit from it to use it as a medicine (those interested in attending can RSVP at mhsac@newschool.edu).

Apple patent application eyes eye-tracking technology. Published today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, an Apple patent application dubbed "Electronic Devices With Gaze Detection Capabilities" describes a feature in which your mobile device reacts to the movement of your head or eyes. Turn your head or eyes away from the device, and the screen dims. Look back at the device, and the screen returns to life. Looking away could also put the entire device in standby mode, meaning certain functions are powered down to preserve battery power. In yet another example, turning away from the screen would pause a video, while looking back would resume the video. Sound familiar? That's because Samsung adopted a similar feature for its Galaxy S4. Samsung's Smart Pause pauses a video when you gaze away from the screen and then resumes the video when you look back. LG Electronics has also gotten into the eye-recognition act with a feature called SmartVideo, which likewise controls video playback by tracking your gaze.

Family says Goodyear woman imprisoned in Mexico is innocent. Yannira Maldonado was in Mexico for a family funeral when the bus she and her husband were on was stopped and searched by federales. The federales ordered everyone off the bus when they searched it -- then claimed to find 12 pounds of marijuana under her seat. After the hearing in Nogales Monday morning, Yannira Maldonado remains in a jail in Nogales on drug smuggling charges. Her family is stunned, saying the marijuana was not hers, which is hard to prove in a legal system where you are guilty until proven innocent. The 42-year-old Goodyear woman and her husband Gary traveled to Hermosillo using the Tufesa Busline, based here in Phoenix. According to Maldonado's father-in-law, the couple thought it was safer to go by bus to Hermosillo for Yannira's aunt's funeral. But on the way back, at a checkpoint in Hermosillo, Yannira and Gary Maldonado were pulled aside and accused of smuggling drugs. Yannira has been a U.S. citizen for 17 years, and according to her father-in-law, she would never use or smuggle drugs. Yannira is a mother of 7 and has no criminal history.

Man charged for having more than 20,000 bags of heroin - WECT TV6-WECT.com:News, weather & sports Wilmington, NC. Aaron Veal, of Irvington, NJ, is being held under $10 million bond. He had his first appearance in court Wednesday, where the district attorney's office asked that the bond be raised higher than $1 million, which it had been originally set at. The judge then set the bond at $10 million, and the district attorney's office is exploring the possibility of taking the case federally. Veal is charged with possession of heroin of 28 grams or more, which is the highest count in state statues, and transporting. According to the NC General Statues, if convicted, Veal will be punished as a "Class C felon and shall be sentenced to a minimum term of 225 months and a maximum term of 279 months in the State's prison and shall be fined not less than $500,000." According to documents, Veal is listed as "unemployed" with his wife paying all his bills. Shelley Lynch, an FBI spokesperson, said the FBI Safe Streets Task Force, Wilmington Police, New Hanover County Sheriff's Office, Highway Patrol and Duplin County Sheriff's Office were involved with this bust.

ECPD recovers nearly 800 bags of heroin. (Ellwood PA) At approx. 2am this morning Officers of ECPD concluded a successful drug investigation and bust. This drug bust resulted in the arrest of 5 individuals from Detroit, Michigan with a seizure of nearly 800 bags of heroin with a street value of approx. $12k. I believe this is the largest drug bust in the history of our city. Officers were assigned to a drug surveillance detail that focused directly on the sale of Heroin. These drugs had the potential to do a lot of damage, but was prevented because of the work of the ECPD and the NC Narcotics Division. Working together, all are to be commended as we continue our assault on illegal drugs in our city. This pro-active approach has now netted 211 drug arrests since my term as Mayor began. I couldn't be prouder of the commitment and work these officers have displayed. They have followed this approach that I have implemented to the fullest. We've accomplished a lot , but by no means are we finished. We will continue to "Serve and Protect" our law abiding citizens and community. I promise that we will remain focused and do all that we can for our community. I am grateful for your support and rest assured we will continue on this path of doing whats best for our wonderful citizens.

Terror fears keep Toxic Chemical Plants hidden from public. Around the country, hundreds of buildings like the one in West store some type of ammonium nitrate. They sit in quiet fields and by riverside docks, in business districts and around the corner from schools, hospitals and day care centers. Fears of terrorism have made it harder for homeowners to find out what dangerous chemicals are hidden nearby. The Associated Press examined public records on hazardous chemicals stored across America. Drawing upon information from 28 states, the AP found more than 120 facilities within a potentially devastating blast zone of schoolchildren, the elderly and the infirm.

USDA: Non-approved modified wheat in Oregon. USDA officials said the wheat is the same strain as a genetically modified wheat that was tested by seed giant Monsanto a decade ago but never approved. Monsanto stopped testing that product in Oregon and several other states in 2005. There is no genetically engineered wheat approved for U.S. farming, and the discovery is a potential threat to trade with other countries that have concerns about genetically modified foods. The United States exports about half of its wheat product. The USDA said the genetically engineered wheat is safe to eat, but it is investigating how it ended up in the field. Officials would not comment on how it may have gotten there.

Study: Diet soda can be as bad for teeth as meth. "They're about the same. If you drink any soda, period, you're going to increase your risk of having dental cavities," said Dr. Jay Anderson of the OHSU Department of Community Dentistry. "It's about dose. It's about how much you drink" But he told KGW that diet soda is also more acidic than regular soda. That acid is the common link between the effects of drugs and of soda on the teeth. Anderson said saliva protects the teeth, and meth and cocaine consumption reduce that protection. Drinking soda has a similar effect by producing more acid than the saliva can protect against. He recommended chewing sugarless gum with xylitol or rinsing your mouth with water after drinking soda.

Finding a place for medical marijuana - West - The Boston Globe. With state regulations in effect as of Friday, and the dispensary application process scheduled by the state for this summer and fall, many communities are feeling time is short to regulate what some see as an unwelcome neighbor. Milford passed zoning restrictions last week; Framingham and Natick are looking at working together on zoning that could allow dispensaries on Route 9 in the neighboring towns; and Newton, amid several inquiries from prospective dispensary operators, is reviewing its zoning bylaw to see whether it is adequate for dealing with the new state law. "What we're doing is actually taking some time to internally review the regulations, since they still just came out, and we have not made any specific plans to alter the usual zoning requirements for new businesses, but we are looking into it," said Dori Zaleznik, Newton's commissioner of health and human services. Massachusetts voters approved the legalization of medical marijuana via statewide ballot in November. The measure calls for a maximum of 35 nonprofit dispensaries across the state, with at least one and not more than five in each of the state's 14 counties. Communities cannot ban dispensaries but can impose zoning laws that restrict their location, according to a March 13 ruling from Attorney General Martha Coakley.

Google's Regina Dugan Demos Electronic Tattoos & Ingestible Passwords - Liz Gannes - D11 - AllThingsD. "We got to do a lot of epic shit when I was at DARPA," Dugan said onstage at D11. But the stuff she is working on at Motorola is pretty cool (and totally creepy!) too: An electronic tattoo that can be used to authenticate a user instead of some flimsy password. It's made by a company called MC10 that Motorola is partnering with, and Dugan is wearing it on her own arm. Another option in a similar vein: Vitamin authentication. Dugan shows a pill that can be ingested and then battery-powered with stomach acid to produce an 18-bit internal signal. After that, the swallower's whole body becomes a password. "This isn't stuff that is going to ship anytime soon. But it is a sign of the new boldness inside Motorola," explained Dugan's boss, Motorola head Dennis Woodside. And Dugan and Woodside claimed that all this is entirely optional; Google is not going to be force-feeding us pills.

Disneyland employee arrested in dry-ice bombing - Salon.com. Christian Barnes, 22, of Long Beach was arrested for investigation of possessing a destructive device, just hours after the blast, said Anaheim police Sgt. Bob Dunn. Disneyland spokeswoman Suzi Brown released a statement Wednesday saying the resort was working closely with authorities. Barnes, who worked as an outdoor vendor for the resort, was held on $1 million bail and is cooperating with investigators, Dunn said. Detectives found fragments of a water bottle in the trash can and believe Barnes placed dry ice inside it to create the explosion, the police spokesman said. A telephone listing for a Christian Barnes in Long Beach rang unanswered Wednesday. Mickey's Toontown, designed to make visitors feel like they've entered an old-fashioned cartoon, "is an interactive metropolis full of topsy turvy architecture and screwy sculptures," according to the Disneyland website.

War on drugs 'driving hepatitis C pandemic'. The Commission estimated that of 16 million people worldwide who inject drugs, 10 million are living with hepatitis C. This puts them at risk of fatal and debilitating liver disease. The Global Commission called on governments to decriminalise drug use and provide schemes, such as those which give access to sterile needles, to halt the spread of the disease. Continue reading the main story " Start Quote "The war on drugs is a war on common sense." Ruth Dreifuss Global Commission on Drug Policy The group, which includes seven former presidents, ex-UN chief Kofi Annan and other world leaders, has previously linked the "failed" war on drugs with the spread of HIV. In its latest report it says in some countries with the harshest drug policies more than 90% of people who inject drugs are living with hepatitis C. Eastern Europe and Central Asia have seen the fastest spread of infection and the highest number of infections has been reported in China, the Russian Federation and the USA. Strongly enforced policies criminalising drug use force users away from public health services and locking up vast numbers of injecting users perpetuates the spread of the infection, the Commission warned in the latest report.

Reporters Tell Attorney General Eric Holder They Won't Agree To 'Off The Record' Meeting As Scale Of Journalist Spying Expands. But sources close to the attorney general says he has been particularly stung by the leak controversy, in large part because his department's—and his own—actions are at odds with his image of himself as a pragmatic lawyer with liberal instincts and a well-honed sense of balance—not unlike the president he serves. Of course, one way to avoid being accused of such things is... you know... not to do them in the first place. In response, Holder announced that he'd be holding a meeting with news organizations to go over the DOJ's guidelines on getting access to such information. But, he couldn't even do that correctly. After announcing that this meeting would be off-the-record, a variety of news organizations, including the NY Times and the Associated Press announced they would not attend.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

New SARS-like virus is a 'threat to the entire world'. The so-called novel coronavirus "is not a problem that any single affected country can keep to itself or manage all by itself," Margaret Chan said Monday in her closing remarks at the 66th World Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland. The world needs to pull together its resources to properly tackle the virus which, Chan said, is her "greatest concern" at present. "We understand too little about this virus when viewed against the magnitude of its potential threat," she said, and more information is needed "quickly" and "urgently." "We do not know where the virus hides in nature. We do not know how people are getting infected. Until we answer these questions, we are empty-handed when it comes to prevention. These are alarm bells. And we must respond," she said.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Violence In Europe Leaves People Fearful : NPR. The brutal murder of a soldier in London, and riots in Sweden's capital, Stockholm, have people feeling uneasy in surrounding European communities. To find out more, host Michel Martin talks with NPR's Europe correspondent Phil Reeves, and Mehdi Hasan, political director of The Huffington Post United Kingdom.

Man Heals Cancer with Diet, Gets off 25 Medications - GreenMedTV. Dave "the Raw Food Trucker" describes how he was able to get of diabetes meds in days and cure his colon cancer within six months when fellow truck drivers teach him how to eat a diet of raw foods and juices.

Pfizer-Funded Study Falsely Claims Fish Oil Useless. A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine purports to show that fish oil provides no benefit whatsoever in prevention of heart disease.[1] At first glance, it would appear to be true. The study is, after all, double blind and placebo controlled, not to mention having a significant number of participants. But is it for real, or is there some sleight of hand at work? There's one initial clue that should give pause. The study's endpoints had to be changed. That's always a bad sign. In fact, it breaks the rules of good research. But, they had to do it because they found that their study participants weren't dying as fast as they'd anticipated. Now, if they'd been interested in the truth, they'd have tried to figure out what was wrong. After all, the odds of dying when people have signs of heart disease are pretty well understood. Otherwise, how could they possibly have anticipated the rate at which deaths would occur? Of course, they didn't sit back and wonder what they might be doing wrong. Instead, they just added new end points to their study.

Top 5 Things You Didn't Know about Gluten! - GreenMedTV. Top 5 Things You Didn't Know about Gluten! Dr. Tom O'Bryan stopped by the studio to discuss 5 things you didn't know about gluten. Here's what you'll learn... * The connection between recurrent headaches, dead brain tissue, and gluten consumption. * How skin problems can be the sole manifestation of gluten sensitivity. * How removing gluten from the diet may be the key to restoring your energy and vitality. * Why getting off of gluten can be so difficult, and how to find a trained Certified Gluten Practitioner to help you with the transition. * Why there is a 40-96% increased risk of suicide in children with celiac disease versus non-celiac children. * How people with celiac disease who consume gluten once a month are six times more likely to die early in life compared to the general population. Wait until you hear how much gluten we're talking about! * Why kids diagnosed with celiac disease are three times more likely to die early in life with or without a gluten-free diet.

The race is on: Manufacturer sets sights on market for armed drones - Open Channel. "The U.S. has set a moral precedent," said Jenifer Gibson of the human rights group Reprieve. "A state can declare someone a terrorist and just go out and kill them." Reprieve campaigns against what it calls illegal drone strikes. Supporters of military drones argue that they are an essential tool against terrorists hiding in remote areas and that their ability to strike with precision minimizes civilian casualties. Reprieve rejects the notion that drones are precision weapons and claims many civilians have been killed. Who has drones — and who wants them Only three countries are known to currently operate armed unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, as drones are technically known -- the U.S., the U.K. and Israel -- according to a recent report by the think tank RUSI. The report suggested there are only currently around 1,000 armed drones worldwide. But China also is believed to have developed weaponized drones; the U.S. has said it would arm drones operated by Italy; and France and Germany also have decided to acquire them, according to arms trade experts and published reports. And according to Peter Singer, director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at the Brookings Institute, at least 26 countries have surveillance drones of a size or type that have been or could be armed, and roughly 20 countries are trying to either develop or acquire weaponized drones.

This Pentagon Project Makes Cyberwar as Easy as Angry Birds. Today, destructive cyberattacks — ones that cause servers to fry, radars to go dark, or centrifuges to spin out of control — have been assembled by relatively small teams of hackers. They're ordered at the highest levels of government. They take months to plan. Their effects can be uncertain, despite all the preparation. (Insiders believe, for example, that the biggest network intrusion in the Pentagon's history may have been an accidental infection, not a deliberate hack.) With Plan X, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is looking to change all that. It wants munitions made of 1s and 0s to be as simple to launch as ones made of metal and explosives. It wants cyberattack stratagems to be as predictable as any war plan can be. It wants to move past the artisanal era of hacking, and turn cyberwarfare into an industrial effort. Across the U.S. government, there are all kinds of projects to develop America's network offense. None are quite like this. "Plan X is a program that is specifically working towards building the technology infrastructure that would allow cyber offense to move from the world we're in today — where it's a fine, handcrafted capability that requires exquisite authorities to do anything... to a future where cyber is a capability like other weapons," Darpa director Arati Prabhakar told reporters last month. "A military operator can design and deploy a cyber effect, know what it's going to accomplish... and take an appropriate level of action."

Muslim Riots in Stockholm - Predictable. The unrest -- a predictable consequence of Sweden's failed model of multiculturalism, which does not encourage Muslim immigrants to assimilate or integrate into Swedish society -- is an ominous sign of things to come. The trouble began after police fatally shot an elderly man brandishing a machete in a Muslim-majority neighborhood. Although the exact circumstances of the May 13 incident remain unclear, police say they shot the 69-year-old man (his nationality has not been disclosed) in self-defense after he allegedly threatened them with the weapon. Two days later, on May 15, a Muslim youth organization called Megafonen arranged a protest against alleged police brutality and demanded an independent investigation and a public apology. On May 19, Muslim youths initiated a riot in Husby, a heavily Muslim suburb in the western part of Stockholm where more than 80% of the residents originate from Africa and the Middle East. At least 100 masked Muslim youths set fire to cars and buildings, smashed windows, vandalized property and hurled rocks and bottles at police and rescue services in Husby. The riots quickly spread to at least 15 other parts of Stockholm, including the districts of Fittja, Hagsätra, Kista, Jakobsberg, Norsborg, Skaerholmen, Skogås and Vaarberg.

A Question of Oversight.- Thornberry�s bill would give members of Congress a scalpel to replace the legislative meat ax currently in their hands. If it were to become law, Thornberry's Oversight of Sensitive Military Operations Act would create something for which there is a crying need in the war on terror: an opportunity for Congress to say "No" to the president. The bill has been characterized as a response to the controversy surrounding the use of armed drones, but the legislation in fact makes no mention of unmanned aircraft. It is considerably broader than that. Setting aside Afghanistan (and other future war zones for which the use of military force has been specifically authorized), Thornberry's bill would require the military not only to formally brief Congress in writing on all kill or capture operations overseas but also would demand that the military come forward with specific legal justification for those operations, including the legal basis for the selection of targets. The question of legal justification is a sticking point: The preferred method of the Obama administration thus far has been to keep its legal reasoning secret and the memos outlining it classified, a particularly worrisome habit for an administration that has claimed for itself the power to kill American citizens not engaged in anything that could reasonably be described as combat. The bill, Thornberry says, is an opportunity for Congress to "push back" against an overreaching presidential administration — now, or in the future. Thornberry manages a neat political trick, being more hawkish than the president while standing with one foot in the camp of Senator Rand Paul and others concerned about the implications of the argument that in the war on terror the battlefield is everywhere, from Yemen to Yonkers.

Liberty Reserve digital money service closed - founder arrested. Liberty Reserve had described itself as being the internet's "oldest, safest and most popular payment processor... serving millions all around a world". It had allowed users to open accounts and transfer money, only requiring them to provide a name, date of birth and an email address. Cash could be put into the service using a credit card, bank wire, postal money order or other money transfer service. It was then "converted" into one of the firm's own currencies - mirroring either the Euro or US dollar - at which point it could be transferred to another account holder who could then extract the funds. The service promised that payment transfers were "instantaneous" and it charged a maximum of $2.99 (Â£1.98) for each transaction. It also offered a private messaging facility which it said was "much more private and secure than email or instant messenger services". Security expert say Liberty Reserve's features had made it popular among cybercriminals who wanted to move funds and make payments anonymously. However, others said they had used the service for legitimate means, viewing it as a cheaper alternative to PayPal. They fear they will now lose money still sitting in its accounts. Costa Rica state prosecutor Jose Pablo Gonzalez announced news of the raids on Saturday. He said that in addition to Mr Budovsky's arrest, 10 other suspects were being investigated in connection with international money laundering. Mr Gonzalez said that Costa Rica's financial regulator, Sugef, had refused to issue a licence to Liberty Reserve in 2011 after raising concerns about how it was being funded.

Opium worth Rs 11.17L seized, three arrested - Times Of India. Following a tip-off, the anti-narcotics cell of the crime branch nabbed Santosh Chanbasappa Ratkalkar, a resident of Manipur. Ratkalkar was arrested in a private luxury bus that was coming from Nagpur. Police also arrested the bus driver, Eknath Ghadge of Ahmednagar, and a cleaner, Jitendra Sahebrao Jadhav of Beed, for allegedly helping Ratkalkar in trafficking opium to the city. "We have seized the luxury bus as well," said Sanjay Shinde, deputy commissioner of police (cyber). This is the first time that the police have arrested a bus driver and a cleaner for alleged drug trafficking, Shinde said. "It is the duty of every bus operator, driver and cleaner to check the luggage being transported in the bus. Else, anyone can easily send anything from arms to explosives in a bus," he added. Police had laid several traps at various bus stands in the city over the last few days. "We got the information that the person would be coming at the parking bay of private buses at Sangamwadi on Thursday. We laid a trap and nabbed Ratkalkar from the bus," he said. Police found 7.4 kg opium with Ratkalkar, who had come to Nagpur via train. He, then, boarded the private luxury bus for Pune. "We suspect that he may have links with the naxal outfits in Manipur. We are also verifying whether trafficking such a huge quantity of opium is related to narco-terrorism," a police official said.

Decreased prevalence of diabetes in marijuana users: cross-sectional data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) III -- Rajavashisth et al. 2 (1) -- BMJ Open. As shown in supplement table 1, marijuana users (past and current) had a lower adjusted prevalence of DM, but not hypertension, stroke, myocardial infarction or heart failure compared to non-marijuana users. The unadjusted prevalence of DM for non-marijuana users, past marijuana users, current light marijuana users and current heavy marijuana users was 6.3%, 2.9%, 1.9% and 3.0%, respectively, and there was a statistically significant difference between the groups (p<0.0001) (table 1). For subjects without DM (n=10 165), 46.4% were marijuana users and 53.6% were non-marijuana users (p<0.0001) (supplement table 2). For subjects with DM (n=719), 26.9% were marijuana users and 73.1% were non-marijuana users (p<0.0001). The difference in % of marijuana users between those with and without DM was highly significant (p<0.0001). As shown in table 1, all marijuana users had a higher prevalence of serum HDL cholesterol >40 mg/dl, total cholesterol <240 mg/dl and triglycerides <200 mg/dl compared to non-users (p<0.0001). Current marijuana users had a higher prevalence of LDL cholesterol <160 mg/dl (p<0.05). All marijuana users had a higher prevalence of CRP <0.5 mg/dl (p<0.0001). Past users, but not current users, had a lower prevalence of vitamin D level <70 nmol/l compared to non-users (p<0.0001). All marijuana users had a higher prevalence of plasma HbA1c <6.0% (p<0.0001). Serum glucose levels and BMI were lower in all marijuana user groups compared to non-marijuana users (table 1). We then examined the variation of markers of inflammation with marijuana use (table 1). Serum CRP and fibrinogen were significantly (p<0.001) lower in past marijuana users compared to current and non-marijuana users suggesting lower inflammation in past marijuana users. In contrast, serum ferritin levels were higher in past and current heavy users, and lower in light users, compared to non-users. Serum uric acid levels were higher in past and lower in current users compared to non-users. WBC count was higher among current users relative to non-users and past users.

Study Finds No Cancer-Marijuana Connection. "We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect." Federal health and drug enforcement officials have widely used Tashkin's previous work on marijuana to make the case that the drug is dangerous. Tashkin said that while he still believes marijuana is potentially harmful, its cancer-causing effects appear to be of less concern than previously thought. Earlier work established that marijuana does contain cancer-causing chemicals as potentially harmful as those in tobacco, he said. However, marijuana also contains the chemical THC, which he said may kill aging cells and keep them from becoming cancerous. Tashkin's study, funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Drug Abuse, involved 1,200 people in Los Angeles who had lung, neck or head cancer and an additional 1,040 people without cancer matched by age, sex and neighborhood. They were all asked about their lifetime use of marijuana, tobacco and alcohol. The heaviest marijuana smokers had lighted up more than 22,000 times, while moderately heavy usage was defined as smoking 11,000 to 22,000 marijuana cigarettes. Tashkin found that even the very heavy marijuana smokers showed no increased incidence of the three cancers studied. "This is the largest case-control study ever done, and everyone had to fill out a very extensive questionnaire about marijuana use," he said. "Bias can creep into any research, but we controlled for as many confounding factors as we could, and so I believe these results have real meaning."

Cannabis smoking and lung cancer risk: pooled analysis in the International Lung Cancer Consortium Our pooled results showed no significant association between the intensity, duration, or cumulative consumption of cannabis smoke and the risk of lung cancer overall or in never smokers. Cannabis use is under international control and its legal status varies, so reporting bias is of concern. However, since the reported prevalence in our data is comparable to nation-specific survey results and not differential between cases and controls, it is unlikely to fully explain the lack of significant association. Our results cannot preclude the possibility that cannabis may exhibit an association with lung cancer risk at extremely high dosage. We will also present data after applying restricted cubic splines to explore non-linear relationships.

The Latest Cannabis Discoveries That the Federal Government Doesn't Want You to Know About. in 2011 the Obama administration went so far as to reject an administrative petition that called for hearings to reevaluate pot's safety and efficacy, pronouncing in the Federal Register, "Marijuana does not have a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States or a currently accepted medical use with severe restrictions. At this time, the known risks of marijuana use have not been shown to be outweighed by specific benefits in well-controlled clinical trials that scientifically evaluate safety and efficacy." (The Administration's flat-Earth position was upheld in January by a three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.) Nevertheless, scientific evaluations of cannabis and the health of its consumers have never been more prevalent. Studies are now published almost daily rebuking the federal government's allegations that the marijuana plant is a highly dangerous substance lacking any therapeutic utility. Yet, virtually all of these studies -- and, more importantly, their implications for public policy -- continue to be ignored by lawmakers. Here are just a few examples of the latest cannabis science that your federal government doesn't want you to know about.

Why the OAS Report on Alternatives to Drug Prohibition is Such A Big Deal. It's the first time that any multilateral institution anywhere in the world has critically analyzed the war on drugs and considered new approaches for the future -- giving equal weight to options like decriminalization and legalization in the process. The OAS report doesn't make concrete recommendations. Rather, the second part of the report lays out different scenarios for what alternative drug policies might actually look like -- scenarios which break sharply from the U.S.-led drug war, and which include various forms of decriminalization and regulation. In describing these scenarios, the OAS is saying we need to put all options on the table to improve public safety and health in the hemisphere -- and that means considering the legal regulation of marijuana and other drugs.

Driving While Using Medical Marijuana Not Necessarily Illegal in Michigan. It's going to be a while before we've figured out our brave new marijuana-approved world. The next lesson comes courtesy of the Michigan Supreme Court, which has reportedly ruled that it isn't necessarily against the law for a medical marijuana user to drive with the drug in their system. The ruling comes after motorist Rodney Koon was busted for doing 83 miles per hour in a 55-mph zone and tested positive for "internal possession of marijuana." Koon said it had been at least six hours since he "used his medicine," and the blood test registered 10 nanograms per milliliter of the active ingredient in marijuana, THC. The 86th District Court in Grand Traverse County, MI -- the county where Koon was caught -- ruled that it took five times that amount to declare a person stoned.

Where There's Smoke There's Fire: Israel's Medical Marijuana Debate Heats Up. After the health ministry began regulating medical marijuana, only the ministry's medical cannabis unit was permitted to approve patient requests for the drug. In addition, eight oncologists from Sheba, Assaf Harofeh, Rambam and Rebecca Sieff hospitals were accredited to prescribe medical marijuana to cancer patients in an effort to shorten the waiting period for Health Ministry approval. The ministry also said it intends to certify doctors outside of central Israel to directly prescribe marijuana treatment, including both oncologists and other specialist doctors. The Health Ministry had previously refused a request by cancer and pain specialists to allow more doctors to prescribe medical marijuana for their patients, Haaretz reported recently. However, the ministry backtracked on this, apparently due to growing public pressure. Even a passing glimpse at Health Minister Yael German's Facebook page illustrates how the ministry and the woman heading have been under attack. Each status posted by the minister, regardless of the subject, has been followed by a string of blistering comments on medical marijuana.

New Study Seeks 10,000 Veterans For Marijuana Treatment Monitoring. The principals involved in the project include Mary Lynn (ML) Mathre, RN, MSN, CARN, listed as the President and Co-Founder of Patients Out Of Time; Clifton Croan, MA; and attorney William Graf, of Colorado. Mathre is also the founder of the American Cannabis Nurses Association and is on the advisory board of Veterans for Medical Cannabis. Funding for the project includes a pledged donation of $240,000 from Croan's company Enigami Systems. The group is still looking for money to pay for a June 7th-10th research planning meeting in Denver, establishment of an Internet website with resources and to offset the costs of establishing the 501(c)(3) federal non-profit organization. Stage 2 of the project is the data collection phase, involving Veterans who have PTSD as their "primary or secondary diagnosis." Participants will receive free monitoring of their symptoms and medication for approx. 2-3 years. Stage 3 involves analyzing the data to determine "(t)he relationship between diagnostic symptoms and medical marijuana cannabinoids" and the publication of results in a Tier 1 medical journal.

Federal Senator Adds Marijuana Grow Amendment To Immigration Bill. The amendment has already won the approval of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Hatch announced in Tuesday statement. The committee is expected to vote on the overall bill later this week. Under Hatch's amendment, people caught growing marijuana on federal lands would face aggravated penalties. They would also have to serve their sentences consecutive to, not concurrent with, any other sentences. "In my home state of Utah, the Drug Enforcement Administration and local law enforcement have seized more than 110,000 marijuana plants this past year," Hatch said. "These sites are typically far from the eyes of law enforcement, where growers can take the time needed to grow potent marijuana." The amendment is only one of several Hatch has introduced to the immigration bill. He and fellow Republican colleagues have introduced numerous amendments aimed at bolstering border security and making it a higher priority than liberalization of immigration policy.

Memorial Day 2013: If You Want To Thank Our Vets -- Allow Medical Marijuana For PTSD. When T.J. Thompson returned from serving in Iraq, the Veterans Administration put him onLorazepam, a high-potency, short-acting drug used to fight anxiety, insomnia, seizures, and aggression. It didn't work. Thompson's anxiety worsened until it almost killed him. In Thompson's own words: I took 28 [pills] and blacked out one night. I also drank an 18 pack of beer in that same night. I declared that I would never take nor have that medication in my house again. His brush with death is, tragically, more common than you might think. U.S. military veterans are committing suicide at increasing rates—averaging 22 per day. That's 20 percent higher than in 2007. Prescribing powerful psychotropic (mood altering) drugs like Lorazepam for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety is common practice among military doctors, but thankfully that's starting to change in response to the many negative side-effects and an almost total lack of observable positive effects.

Monday, May 27, 2013

US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits, spyware, ransomware and trojans to attack pirates! It's just more evidence that copyright enforcers' network strategies are indistinguishable from those used by dictators and criminals. In 2011, the MPAA told Congress that they wanted SOPA and knew it would work because it was the same tactic used by governments in "China, Iran, the UAE, Armenia, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, Burma, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam." Now they've demanded that Congress legalize an extortion tool invented by organized criminals. Additionally, software can be written that will allow only authorized users to open files containing valuable information. If an unauthorized person accesses the information, a range of actions might then occur. For example, the file could be rendered inaccessible and the unauthorized user's computer could be locked down, with instructions on how to contact law enforcement to get the password needed to unlock the account. Such measures do not violate existing laws on the use of the Internet, yet they serve to blunt attacks and stabilize a cyber incident to provide both time and evidence for law enforcement to become involved.

Chronic Medicine: Marijuana Cannabinoids Keep Proving Their Medicinal Value. Marijuana is the finest anti-nausea medication known to science, and our leaders have lied about this consistently. Arresting people for medical marijuana is the most hideous example of government interference in the private lives of individuals. It's an outrage within an outrage within an outrage. -- Peter McWilliams Tourette's Syndrome -- a neuropsychiatric illness which affects up to 4% of all kids. For those stricken, it's a terrifying ordeal of awkward and unintentional motor and verbal twitches. A 2003 study found that patients which received modified THC therapy for six weeks, enjoyed a significant reduction in tics. Apparently, the cannabis plants cannabinoids lessen the unwanted behavior of the pertinent neurotransmitters in the brain.

Internal Revenue Service Scrutiny of Non-Profit Groups, Part 1 - C-SPAN Video Library. Acting Commissioner Steven Miller and Inspector General J. Russell George testified about revelations that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had applied additional scrutiny to groups applying for tax-exempt status that had the words "Tea Party" or "patriot" in their names. They also talked about the inspector general's report on the practice, and answered sometimes pointed questions about previous statements to Congress. Commissioner Miller tendered his resignation two days earlier in the wake of the revelations.

Prohibition. Effects The most direct effects of prohibitions are on the supply and demand for the prohibited commodity.4 Prohibitions raise supply costs because black market suppliers face legal punishments for manufacturing, distributing, and selling. Conditional on operating in secret, however, black market suppliers face low marginal costs of evading government regulations and taxes (Miron 2001), which provides a partial offset to the increased costs due to prohibition.5 Prohibitions reduce demand by creating legal penalties for possession and by increasing uncertainty about product quality.6 Prohibitions also reduce demand if consumers exhibit "respect for the law." At the same time, prohibitions can increase demand through a "forbidden fruit" effect, meaning a tendency for consumers to desire that which has been forbidden to them. Thus, the effect of prohibitions on price and even quantity are ambiguous a priori and must be determined empirically. In addition to affecting price and quantity, prohibitions potentially increase violent and non-violent crime. Participants in an illegal trade cannot use the legal and judicial system to resolve disputes, so they seek other methods such as violence. Enforcement of prohibitions means reduced resources for enforcement of non-prohibition laws, which implies reduced deterrence of crime generally. Prohibitions can increase income-generating crime, such as theft or prostitution, by raising prices if consumers finance consumption of the prohibited commodity from such crime. And prohibitions give black market suppliers an incentive to corrupt law enforcement officials and politicians. Despite these tendencies to increase crime, the net effect of prohibitions on crime can be negative if prohibitions discourage consumption of the prohibited good and if such consumption encourages criminal activity. Thus, the net effect of prohibitions on crime can only be determined empirically. Two other effects of prohibitions are the effects on overdoses and accidental poisonings. Because suppliers in a prohibited market must hide their activities from the authorities, they have a strong incentive to produce and ship the good in the most concentrated and hence most easily concealed form (Thornton 1998). This implies that prohibitions help make the potent forms of a good more readily available or even help create more potent forms of a prohibited substance. By itself this effect does not necessarily change the manner in which consumption takes place; consumers can potentially redilute the commodity in question to achieve their desired degree of potency. But in practice such redilution is imperfect, suggesting increased overdoses under prohibitions.7

OAS drug study eyes marijuana legalization - SFGate. "This is the first time any multilateral organization anywhere has done something like this," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. The $2.2 million study was commissioned in response to calls by some Latin American leaders at last year's Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, for a rethinking of the war on drugs. Reform advocates call the more than $20 billion that Washington has spent on counterdrug efforts in Latin America over the past decade a damaging waste of taxpayer money. The report says "greater flexibility" in dealing with the drug problem "could lead to the possibility of amending domestic legislation or promoting changes to international law." It urges "assessing existing signals and trends that lean toward the decriminalization or legalization of the production, sale and use of marijuana. Sooner or later decisions in this area will need to be taken." The study, which was presented by outgoing OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza in Bogota, examines four different scenarios for confronting the illicit drug trade, which has fueled violent crime and corruption, especially in drug production and transit countries, including destabilizing governments. The most controversial scenario would involve countries unilaterally abandoning the fight against drug production and trafficking in their territory in order to reduce violence.

Pot Smokers Are Skinnier - SFGate. The study analyzed data from more than 4,500 adult Americans — 579 of whom were current marijuana smokers, meaning they had smoked in the last month. About 2,000 had used marijuana in the past, while another 2,000 had never used the drug. They studied their body's response to eating sugars: their levels of the hormone insulin and their blood sugar levels while they hadn't eaten in nine hours, and after eating sugar. Not only are pot users skinnier, but their body has a healthier response to sugar. When we eat sugar, our bodies respond by releasing the hormone insulin. Insulin primes our cells to absorb the sugar and turn it into storable starches, so it can be used at a later time. When we take in too many simple sugars over a lifetime this system can go haywire, and our cells stop reacting to insulin, a syndrome called insulin resistance, a precursor to type-two diabetes. The study, published May 15 in The American Journal Of Medicine, shows that people who had smoke marijuana in the past month have a healthier response to insulin than the average person. Their insulin levels of recent pot-smokers were lower during fasting and they had a lower insulin resistance score. They also had more "good" cholesterol and smaller waists. This could mean they are less likely to be obese, at a lower risk for heart disease, less likely to develop insulin resistance, and less likely to develop diabetes.

New US manual for diagnosing mental disorders published. Known informally as the psychiatrists' bible, the $199 tome from the American Psychiatric Association is the guidebook that US doctors will use to diagnose mental disorders. The latest edition is the first major update in 20 years. Though not used in the UK, where doctors turn to the World Health Organisation's International Statistical Classification of Diseases (ICD), the US manual has global influence. It defines groups of patients, and introduces new names for disorders. Those names can spread, and become the norm elsewhere. More importantly, the categories redefine the populations that are targeted by drugs companies. Criticisms have come from almost every corner. There are claims of expansionism, with common experiences and behaviours becoming newly medicalised. Temper tantrums become disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD); grief becomes major depressive disorder (MDD), according to Allen Frances, an American psychiatrist who chaired the task force behind the fourth edition of the manual. Other behaviours get their own labels: overeating becomes binge eating disorder; keeping too much junk, a hoarding disorder; a bit forgetful could be mild neurocognitive disorder. David Clark, professor of experimental psychology at Oxford University, said mental health disorders are often hard to divide into clear categories, because too little is known about them, and there can be major overlaps. But the definitions are often valuable. For example, greater distinctions between various types of anxiety have led to more specific and effective treatments, he said.

Drug Bill Demonstrates Lobby's Pull. To strengthen their position, drug firms and their trade groups have been transforming their Washington operations by hiring top Democratic lobbyists to gain access to new committee chairmen, bolstering Democratic political donations and spending millions on public relations campaigns to overcome an image, indicated in recent surveys, that the industry puts profits ahead of patients. Even longtime industry nemeses like Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark (D-Calif.), chairman of a House health panel, are impressed. "They're pretty potent," he said this week. "They're not bush-leaguers when it comes to spending money and lobbying." This month alone, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America spent more than $1 million on full-page newspaper ads touting the success of the existing Medicare drug system. Drug companies spent more on lobbying than any other industry between 1998 and 2005 -- $900 million, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. They donated a total of $89.9 million in the same period to federal candidates and party committees, nearly three-quarters of it to Republicans. "You can hardly swing a cat by the tail in Washington without hitting a pharmaceutical lobbyist," said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), a key sponsor of the 2003 legislation that created the current program. The industry worked closely with the Republican Congress to shape the Medicare prescription drug program, which included a provision barring the government from negotiating with the pharmaceutical industry for lower prices. In the three-year run-up to passage, industry lobbyists poured more than $6 million into both Republican and Democratic campaign coffers, dispatched an army of more than 800 lobbyists to Capitol Hill and quietly funded seniors organizations and patient advocacy groups that opposed Democratic alternatives.

Let's Fight Big Pharma's Crusade to Turn Eccentricity Into Illness. With an assist from an overly ambitious psychiatry, all human difference is being transmuted into chemical imbalance meant to be treated with a handy pill. Turning difference into illness was among the great strokes of marketing genius accomplished in our time. All the great characters in myths, novels, and plays have endured the test of time precisely because they drift so colorfully away from the mean. Do we really want to put Oedipus on the couch, give Hamlet a quick course of behavior therapy, start Lear on antipsychotics? I think not. Human diversity has its purposes or it would not have survived the evolutionary rat race. Our ancestors made it because the tribe combined a wide variety of talents and inclinations. There were leaders high on their own narcissism and followers content enough to be dependent on them; people who were paranoid enough to sniff out hidden threats, compulsive enough to get the job done, and exhibitionistic enough to attract mates. Perhaps the healthiest individuals were those who best balanced all these traits somewhere near the golden mean, but the best bet for the group was to have outliers always ready to step up to the plate as the particular occasion demanded.

Drugs giants used Communist East Germany for 'illegal' trials - Europe - World - The Independent. An investigation by the German magazine Der Spiegel said international conglomerates such as Bayer, Hoechst, Roche, Schering and Sandoz carried out more than 600 tests on patients, mostly without their knowledge, at hospitals and clinics in the former Communist state. The companies were said to have paid the regime the equivalent of €400,000 (£338,000) per test. Schering, a concern which now belongs to Bayer, was said to have offered East Germany the equivalent of €3m to carry out a series of tests at an East Berlin hospital. The case of one unwitting East German woman who died in 1986 aged 30 after being treated with pharmaceuticals for skin cancer was cited by the magazine. Nicole Preiss, her daughter , said: "There are so many secrets surrounding my mother's death -- I want to know which drugs and which companies were involved." Der Spiegel said it gained the information from Stasi secret police files and hitherto unpublished East German health ministry and pharmaceutical institute records. Western pharmaceutical companies are known to have turned to cash-strapped Eastern Bloc countries in their search for human guinea pigs after the 1960s thalidomide scandal which obliged them to carry out rigorous tests on their products before they could be sold. In the West, the law stipulated that any patients taking part in such tests had to be fully informed of the risks involved. However, in East Germany such restrictions were waived or "modified" in an increasingly desperate effort to procure enough hard currency to rescue an ailing economy.

DSM Under Fire for Financial Conflicts - ABC News. After the 1994 release of DSM-4, the APA instituted a policy requiring expert advisors to disclose drug industry ties. But the move toward transparency did little to cut down on conflicts, with nearly 70 percent of DSM-5 task force members reporting financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies -- up from 57 percent for DSM-4. "Organizations like the APA have embraced transparency too quickly as the solution," said Lisa Cosgrove, associate professor of clinical psychology at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and lead author of the study published today in the journal PLoS Medicine. "Our data show that transparency has not changed the dynamic." The DSM is developed by an APA-appointed task force and panels consisting of experts in various fields of psychiatry. But many of these experts serve as paid spokespeople or scientific advisors for drug companies, or conduct industry-funded research. Some of most conflicted panels are those for which drugs represent the first line of treatment, with two-thirds of the mood disorders panel, 83 percent of the psychotic disorders panel and 100 percent of the sleep disorders panel disclosing "ties to the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture the medications used to treat these disorders or to companies that service the pharmaceutical industry," according to the study.

Corporates cashing in on mental-health diagnosis -- New Internationalist. (THE DSM - Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) On Friday 17 May, the American Psychiatric Association published the fifth edition of its highly influential Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) -- the first major update in 13 years. Although a US manual, DSM has global influence. And that may not be good news. The new DSM has several new additions, including 'Oppositional Defiant Disorder' (when a child repeatedly says 'No' and acts defiantly), 'Major Depressive Disorder' (the experience of grieving) and Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (temper tantrums). The DSM is put together by panels of experts in psychiatry. But there is evidence that many of them serve as paid spokespeople for pharmaceutical companies, or conduct industry-funded research. A recent study showed that 'some of the most conflicted panels are those for which drugs represent the first line of treatment, with two-thirds of the mood disorders panel, 83 per cent of the psychotic disorders panel and 100 per cent of the sleep disorders panel disclosing "ties to the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture the medications used to treat these disorders or to companies that service the pharmaceutical industry."' Angry at the scandal, over 10,000 mental health professionals have signed a letter against DSM-5. Allan Frances, the author of DSM-4 and a psychiatrist with 45 years' experience, is deeply opposed to the changes.

The National Memo � David Vitter's Unforgivable Perversion. "It doesn't save anyone any money," Timothy Smeeding, director of the University of Wisconsin's Institute for Research on Poverty, told MSNBC. "It just makes sort of a political statement that we don't forgive people for crimes once they pay their dues. We're just going to punish them forever." Forget about the idiocy of encouraging recidivism by forcing those who already have little chance of finding work to starve. What about redemption? Forgiveness? Starting afresh! Vitter's amendment — which was unanimously accepted by the Senate — would punish both the ex-convicts and their families for the rest of their lives. And who would be most likely to be afflicted by such a law? Here we get to the core of Vitter's perversion. There's only one sin those on the far right cannot forgive you for: being born poor. The hostility to "food stamps," the fictional "Obamaphone" — which Vitter also filed an amendment against — and Medicaid expansion all have one thing in common: the belief that "the poor" are ripping us off, bankrupting this country and would be better off if the government gave them nothing. To believe this, you not only have to disregard much of what Jesus actually taught, but you have to ignore the sad fact that the best predictor of a child's success in school is his or her parents' wealth and education. You also have ignore the untold billions taxpayers spend subsidizing the richest, who argue with straight faces that capping IRAs at $3 million will somehow discourage saving. Riddle me this: why is "propensity to quote New Testament" positively correlated with "advocating anti-poor policies?" — Squarely Rooted (@squarelyrooted) May 25, 2013

Poverty Flees to the Suburbs. According to a report released today by the Brookings Institution, the suburban poor now far outnumber the rural and urban poor: Their ranks grew by 64 percent during the aughts to 16.4 million—a rate of increase more than twice that seen in America's cities. What's going on here? Well, for one, Ward and June Cleaver's house wasn't exactly built to last. And as retiring baby boomers downsize and young millennials flock to hip inner cities, not that many people want to live in a half-century-old suburban tract home—except people with no other options. But that's not all. Manufacturing is concentrated in the suburbs, and it has has been bleeding jobs for decades. Add in the recent foreclosure crisis and slow-to-recover housing market and you end up with a lot of unemployed factory and construction workers, most of whom live in the suburbs. Over the course of the past decade, almost every major metro area saw jobs move away from the urban core towards the outer suburbs. And while you'd think that would be good news for the suburbs, a lot of those tend to be low-paying service-industry jobs (think Walmart or McDonald's). The result: The suburbs have seen an increase in the share of working poor.

Linda Wootton: Double heart and lung transplant dies nine days after she has benefits stopped - Mirror Online. Linda Wootton, 49, was on 10 prescription drugs a day, suffering high blood pressure, renal failure and regular blackouts. Yet Atos -- the private firm carrying out the Government's controversial work capability assessments -- ruled she was fit enough to find a job after she was interviewed. Cost-cutting officials sent Linda a letter telling her that her £108.05 a week employment and support allowance was being stopped as she lay dying in a hospital bed. Her husband Peter said: "I sat there and listened to my wife drown in her own body fluids. It took half an hour for her to die -- and that's a woman who's 'fit for work'. The last months of her life were a misery because she worried about her benefits, feeling useless, like a scrounger. "But there was no way in a million years she could work." The Coalition hired Atos to carry out the assessments as part of the welfare cuts. The firm processed almost 20,000 incapacity benefit claimants a week last year... but a third of the people who appealed against its decisions were successful. Linda also appealed but was rejected despite her history. She had her first heart and lung transplant in 1985 and returned to her council office job. But her body began to reject her new organs and she had another transplant at Harefield Hospital, Middlesex, in 1989. There were complications and she was given 80 pints of blood in 31 hours of surgery. Afterwards, Linda was never fit enough to go back to work and claimed benefits. Refrigeration engineer Peter, 50, said: "She would be listless, falling asleep, feeling faint... she had no stamina."

Monsanto Wins Fight to Take Away State Food Labeling Rights - YouTube. "Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Wednesday offered an amendment to the Senate's major farm bill that would allow states to require labels on genetically engineered foods. "Today we have an opportunity with this amendment to affirm once and for all that states do have the right to label food that contains genetically engineered ingredients," he said on the Senate floor."* Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) fought hard to give his state and others the right to label GMO foods, but faced non-sensical opposition from Monsanto-bought Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). Did reason win? Cenk Uygur breaks it down.

Swiss riot video: Police clash with protesters at techno rally - YouTube. Twenty Swiss police were injured and over 60 were arrested when a politically-tinged Tanz Dich Frei ('Dance Yourself Free') techno parade in Bern turned ugly. Riot police fired teargas and water cannons at Black Bloc anarchists who wreaked havoc during the unauthorized rally

Major Neill Franklin - talks�about the need for a full repeal of Drug prohibition Neill Franklin on the Mike Vasalinda television show talks�about the need for a full repeal of prohibition in order to promote public safety and personal freedom.

Operator of Maine's first medical marijuana facility talks about two years of business. New Hampshire legislators and Gov. Maggie Hassan will soon attempt to reconcile their differences on a bill that could make New Hampshire the last New England state to allow medical use of marijuana. Hassan has indicated she supports a tightly controlled program that wouldn't allow patients or caregivers to grow the plants themselves. Last week, the Senate approved a bill that aligns with Hassan's wishes, but the House has passed a version of the bill that includes the home-growing option. Tim Smale is founder and executive director of the nonprofit Remedy Compassion Center in Auburn, Maine, which celebrated its two-year anniversary Saturday. Remedy Compassion Center was the first marijuana dispensary to open in Maine, and the first east of the Mississippi River, after Maine authorized medical marijuana almost three years ago. Maine's law allows the state to license eight dispensaries and home-grow programs.

DA: W. Albany High student built bombs for Columbine-style attack. Police found pipe bombs, napalm, a 'Drano bomb,' Molotov Cocktails, along with a diagram and maps of the school, weapons and an explosives check list, Haroldson said. Police said the bombs could have caused serious damage and loss of life. Officers said they got a tip that Acord intended to detonate them at school. Just before 10:30 p.m. Thursday, police took Acord into custody at his father's home on Northwest Violet Street in Albany, said Capt. Eric Carter with the Albany Police Department. He was lodged at the Linn-Benton Juvenile Detention Facility on two counts each of possession and manufacture of a destructive device. The district attorney said Acord will now be charged with six counts of manufacturing a destructive device (bombs), six counts of possessing completed destructive devices, six counts of unlawful possession of a weapon and attempted aggravated murder. On Friday, The Oregon State Police Explosives Unit obtained a search warrant and safely removed all explosive items from the home, Carter said

Honoring veterans as monuments decay, funds dry up. (Kind of like the Need for Veterans to be Recognized...all drying up) The faded structure has been closed to the public for decades, the object of seemingly endless debate over whether it should be demolished or restored to its former glory. The latest plan is to replace it with a beach, more practical for the state's lucrative tourism industry — and millions of dollars cheaper, according to state and local officials. They say a full restoration could cost nearly $70 million. The corroding monument has challenged the community to maneuver a delicate question: How do we honor those who have served when memorials deteriorate and finances are tight? Similar debates have been playing out across the nation. The National Trust for Historic Preservation waged a 2½-year fight to restore the aging Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C., when some people proposed replacing it. Far less disagreement surrounded a decision to update the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco after a powerful earthquake in 1989. In Greensboro, N.C., residents have been grappling with what to do with the city's own decaying tribute to the soldiers of World War I. The Greensboro World War Memorial Stadium hosted minor league baseball for decades and even served as a location for notable sports films such as "Leatherheads" and "Bull Durham." Yet, despite continued use by kids and college-level athletes, the structure is falling into disrepair. The historic pebbled facade is falling off, and some of the bleachers are blocked off because of crumbling concrete, said David Wharton, a Greensboro resident who is fighting as a member of his neighborhood association to restore the structure.

Thousands of bridges at risk of freak collapse. ('FREAK' as in 'We know they are old, but c'mon..no falling ok?') The crossings are kept standing by engineering design, not supported with brute strength or redundant protections like their more modern counterparts. Bridge regulators call the more risky spans "fracture critical," meaning that if a single, vital component of the bridge is compromised, it can crumple. Those vulnerable crossing carry millions of drivers every day. In Boston, a six-lane highway 1A near Logan airport includes a "fracture critical" bridge over Bennington Street. In northern Chicago, an I-90 pass that goes over Ashland Avenue is in the same category. An I-880 bridge over 5th Avenue in Oakland, Calif., is also on the list. Also in that category is the Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River north of Seattle, which collapsed into the water days ago after officials say an oversized truck load clipped the steel truss. Public officials have focused in recent years on the desperate need for money to repair thousands of bridges deemed structurally deficient, which typically means a major portion of the bridge is in poor condition or worse. But the bridge that collapsed Thursday is not in that deficient category, highlighting another major problem with the nation's infrastructure: Although it's rare, some bridges deemed to be fine structurally can still be crippled if they are struck hard enough in the wrong spot.

Thousands in Portland 'March Against Monsanto'. Police estimated almost 6,000 marchers showed up at 11 a.m. Among a list of qualms protesters have with the biotech giant is the company's use of patent law to control seed supply. The protest is one of many under way across the U.S. and in dozens of other countries. "March Against Monsanto" organizers say they're also calling attention to the dangers posed by genetically modified food and the companies that produce it. Protests were held in more than 400 cities in 52 countries Saturday.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Study: Hemp Seed Oil May Help Multiple Sclerosis Patients. Researchers at Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in Iran assessed the impact of hemp seed oil, evening primrose oils, and a restricted diet for a period of six months in 23 patients diagnosed with relapsing remitting MS. Researchers reported that participants at the study's completion "were healthier in comparison to baseline," concluding that "clinical and immunological parameters showed improvement in the patients after the intervention." They noted that hemp seed oil possesses potent antioxidative properties and also likely acts on specific signaling pathways that regulate inflammatory responses — two characteristics that would presumably make it beneficial in the treatment of MS.

DaDenMan Show #149 Ignorance is Bliss - Those Who Forget are Codemned to Repeat The Lesson

Think DOJ Spying On Reporters Was 'Unprecedented'? Think Again. Only in January 2009 did the FBI think to ask the Justice Department's in-house lawyers whether the press restrictions apply when reporter records are obtained through indirect means such as community of interest requests. Government lawyers said yes, but the FBI concluded it didn't have to tell the press in the specific case it had inquired about, because agents had not "understood at the time the subpoenas were issued that the subpoenas called for reporters' records." As he points out, the real story around all of this might not be the "unprecedented" nature of spying on reporters, but rather how common it is, without anyone knowing that it's happening (and while the DOJ's publicly stated rules suggest that this kind of spying won't happen). The real scandal may be just how much snooping on the media the current rules permit. To fully understand the AP seizures, the media and the public need a clearer picture of the rules governing all forms of spying on media—and how often such info-grabs have happened. Maybe the seizure of AP records is an extraordinary case. Or maybe the only extraordinary thing is that we're hearing about it.

In Defense Of Digital Freedom: It's Time To Get Beyond 'Cyber' Hyperbole. To prevent fear, hype and incident-driven policies and practices, knowledge, transparency and accountability are needed. Let us not make 'cyber' into something completely different, alien or spacy. But rather, let us focus on integrating technological developments in a way that allows us to preserve core (constitutional) principles, democratic oversight, and digital freedoms as essentials in our open societies. She also notes that much of the hype may be driven by companies and politicians who benefit from such hype, driving new business to companies and passing new laws that give politicians more power. But, she notes, if we make policy based on those two drivers, internet freedom will certainly be put at risk. The unintended consequences are pretty clear: US government has stated that American made, lawful intercept technologies, have come back as a boomerang when they were used against US interests by actors in third countries. Other companies, such as Area Spa from Italy designed a monitoring centre, and had people on the ground in Syria helping the Assad government succeed in anti-democratic or even criminal behaviour by helping the crackdown against peaceful dissidents and demonstrators.

Memorial Day post Willamette National Cemetery Portland OR Memorial Day post Willamette National Cemetery Portland OR

Obama Narrows Scope of Counterterrorism Fight - WSJ.com. The 2001 law authorized war against terror groups and nations that harbor them. It has been used by the Bush and Obama administrations to launch global counterterrorism operations, as well as the war in Afghanistan. Republicans cast doubt on any repeal. "I believe we are not in a war that is winding down," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.). "We are in a war that is morphing.'' National security experts said many questions remained about U.S. counterterrorism policy, including drone strikes. "I think this should be the beginning of discussion rather than the end," said Jonah Blank, an analyst at the Rand Corp., a think tank that does work for the government. The president's call for new restrictions on unmanned airstrikes reflects a significant recalibration for Mr. Obama, who aggressively expanded the use of drones. The targeted killings eliminated much of al Qaeda's top leadership. But they fueled a global backlash over what some allies and human rights groups regard as extrajudicial attacks. Since Mr. Obama became president in 2009, the U.S. has conducted more than 300 drone strikes in Pakistan, compared with fewer than 50 during the presidency of George W. Bush, according to the nonpartisan New America Foundation. The pace of strikes under Mr. Obama, however, has declined sharply over the past two years.

The 420 Shack: The Cannabutter Secret: Potency And Flavor. Here are ten secrets to making the best cannabutter. 1. The human stomach emptys about every 30-45 minutes, if there's too much undigested food in your stomach, your body won't be able to digest the THC in the time needed to be effective. If it isn't absorbed in the stomach, the THC goes into the intestines, and it will not be absorbed very well. 2. After refrigeration, The bottom of the butter will be where ALL the weed particles that made it through the strainer got stuck. Don't worry if a few make it through the straining process. Thats what you cut off. 3. Adjusting the recipe is easy. If you only wanted to make a small amount of anything, simply divide the cannabutter recipe by the same number you are dividing the food recipe by. If you were making butter without knowing what food recipe you were going to follow first, then simply dividing it in half is perfect. 2 sticks of butter, 14g of medication. Remember, a good ratio is 7-10 grams of meds per 1 stick of butter. (1 stick of butter = 2 oz) 4. The less food you mix the butter with the better the high, as you want your body to absorb the butter before the food.

the Drug Czar is Required by Law to Lie « Drug WarRant. If the government finds that marijuana Has "currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States" or "accepted safety for use of the drug under medical supervision," then by law, marijuana cannot remain in Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act, which would immediately legalize it for medical purposes. But by law, the drug czar must oppose any attempt to legalize the use (in any form). Therefore, despite the fact that there is extensive evidence of medical marijuana's safety and effectiveness (including the fact that even the federal government supplies it to patients), and clearly the drug czar would know about all this information, he is required by law to lie about it. The job description also means that since he must oppose any attempt to legalize, he has no choice but declare that the drug war is working, that legalization would fail, etc., regardless of any... facts. On April 2, 2003, Congressman Ron Paul wrote a letter to the United States General Accounting Office (GAO) asking for an investigation into ONDCP lobbying activities and their dissemination of "misleading information" (a polite euphemism for "lying")

McKinsey Names the Most Over-Hyped (and Under-Hyped) Major Technologies Out There - Atlantic Mobile. MGI set out to answer an even more unanswerable question: What will be the economic impact of the dozen most "disruptive" technologies, including utility devices that talk to each other, cars that drive themselves, and printers that can print printers? Their summary graph is the image that kicks off this post. In a sentence: There's mobile Internet, and then there's everything else. But the chart I find most audacious (in a fun way) is MGI's brave effort to compare the hype surrounding their 12 "disruptive" industries with their estimation of how much that technology will contribute to the economy:

Open Access Advocates Trumpet the Fall of the Paywall. Major changes are underway in the US and around the globe in the methods by which scientific and medical research findings and data sets are circulated among researchers and disseminated to the public. In a three-part expose on the subject of open access journals and data, the next few articles in my blog will examine the background and reasoning for these recent changes, detail the particular changes that will occur, and discuss the dramatic impact they may have on libraries and library users.

Apple's Tax Dodges: Where's the Public Outrage? : The New Yorker. According to an ongoing congressional investigation, Apple, by setting up a shell company in Ireland, where it had negotiated a tax rate of two per cent or less, was able to pay minimal taxes on much of its overseas earnings. And by transferring ownership of some of its intellectual-property rights to offshore affiliates, including some in Ireland, which then charged other parts of the company for using them, it was able to avoid paying billions of dollars of U.S. taxes on income that was actually generated in this country, which is where Apple does the bulk of its research and development. But the company that prides itself on thinking differently didn't stop there. Exploiting a quirk in Irish tax law, which has long been appealed to by tax dodgers of all kinds, it claimed that some of its Irish subsidiaries weren't resident anywhere for tax purposes. In the words of Senator Carl Levin, they were "ghost companies" that, for several years, didn't file tax returns to anybody. One of them, Apple Operations International, generated thirty billion dollars of profits between 2009 and 2012 but paid no corporate income at all, not a penny. "A.O.I.'s board minutes show that its board of directors consists of two Apple Inc. employees who live in California and one Irish employee of Apple Distribution International, an Irish company that A.O.I. itself owns," Levin said on Tuesday. "Over the last six years, from May, 2006, through the end of 2012, A.O.I. held thirty-three board meetings, thirty-two of which took place in Cupertino, California. A.O.I.'s lone Irish-resident director participated in just seven of those meetings, six by telephone, and in none of the eighteen board meetings between September, 2006, and August, 2012."

No food stamps for people convicted of violent crimes — MSNBC. The new eligibility requirements were proposed by Republican Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, who at the same time introduced another amendment designed to end the so-called "Obama phone" program which helps low-income Americans obtain cell phones. The Senate's Farm Bill—a large piece of legislation passed once every few years to regulate, fund and subsidize various programs related to agriculture and food production—already included language that would cut food stamps by about $4.1 billion. "Under current law, there is a lifetime ban for convicted drug felons, though many states have opted out of or modified that ban," reads a statement from Vitter's office. "Vitter's amendment would extend the lifetime food stamp ban to dangerous sex offenders and murderers." Timothy Smeeding, director of the University of Wisconsin's Institute for Research on Poverty, called the amendment "ridiculous." "It doesn't save anyone any money," he told MSNBC. "It just makes sort of a political statement that we don't forgive people for crimes once they pay their dues. We're just going to punish them forever." He argued that making it more difficult for convicted felons to meet their basic nutritional needs would encourage recidivism.

Los Angeles Votes Overwhelmingly Against Corporate Personhood. The resolution, Proposition C, calls for a constitutional amendment that would overturn the 2010 Supreme Court ruling and limit the rights of corporations so that spending money on campaigns is not constitutionally protected speech. Further, Proposition C demands that Los Angeles elected officials and area legislative representatives promote this mandate and push for a constitutional amendment in Sacramento and Washington D.C. "The voters have spoken loud and clear that they want big money out of our elections," saidDerek Cressman with the political watchdog group Common Cause. "Now it's up to the Los Angeles congressional delegation to heed the call from their constituents." The Citizens United ruling "contradicts the notion of transparency that should prevail in a democracy," wrote the Los Angeles Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion, in their endorsement of the measure. "This has unleashed an avalanche of money that denatures the democratic process. Corporations and interest groups buy more freedom of expression to promote their causes, overwhelming the level of expression of the average citizen." The 'Only People are People' campaign was spearheaded by Common Cause, which in November initiated a national drive calling on cities and states to pass ballot measures urging Congress to support a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.

Daniel Robelo: Breaking the Taboo: Why the OAS Report on Alternatives to Drug Prohibition Is Such a Big Deal. The fact that the OAS -- the most important, multilateral body in the region, of which the U.S. is a member -- has produced a far-reaching report that was not subject to intensive political censorship is, in and of itself, remarkable. A few years ago, it would have been unthinkable. The report reflects the growing political momentum throughout the U.S. and Latin America for major drug policy reforms. The people of Colorado and Washington made history last November by voting to legally regulate marijuana -- a step that, if taken nationally, could deprive violent drug traffickers of their number one revenue source. A dozen other states are considering similar measures, and activists in many parts of the country are gearing up for initiative campaigns in two or four years. In Latin America, Uruguay's parliament is debating a bill that would make it the first country in the world to legalize marijuana. The OAS report will no doubt provide further momentum to activists across the Americas. Yet the report is just the latest -- and most official -- legitimization of a debate that has been surging in recent years, thanks to the drug policy reform movement. It's a debate that started with activists and intellectuals calling for an end to the failed war on drugs.

3-2-1: Only the Suffering of the Wealthy Counts. The Daily Show's Jason Jones interviews right-wing radio host Wayne Allyn Root, who says the IRS targeting of conservatives "is one of the biggest scandals in modern American political history, maybe in all-time political history." But profiling folks for the color of their skin or their religion (i.e., Muslim) is "a completely, 100 percent different situation," says Root, who has a tendency to exaggerate. That kind of profiling, he says, "has never ruined a human being's life in the history of the world." Jones then brings on three people—a Muslim-American, an African-American and a Dominican-American—to tell how they've been profiled, but to Root, their stories are nada. Only when they become millionaires who get audited by the IRS, only then will they know true suffering.

Marijuana Cannabinoids Keep Proving Their Medicinal Value. "Marijuana is the finest anti-nausea medication known to science, and our leaders have lied about this consistently. Arresting people for medical marijuana is the most hideous example of government interference in the private lives of individuals. It's an outrage within an outrage within an outrage." - Peter McWilliams Tourette's Syndrome - a neuropsychiatric illness which affects up to 4% of all kids. For those stricken, it's a terrifying ordeal of awkward and unintentional motor and verbal twitches. A 2003 study found that patients which received modified THC therapy for six weeks, enjoyed a significant reduction in tics. Apparently, the cannabis plants cannabinoids lessen the unwanted behavior of the pertinent neurotransmitters in the brain.

Protesters in over 400 cities march vs Monsanto. The 'March Against Monsanto' movement began just a few months ago, when Canal created a Facebook page on Feb. 28 calling for a rally against the company's practices. "If I had gotten 3,000 people to join me, I would have considered that a success," she said Saturday. Instead, she said two million responded to her message. Together with Seattle blogger and activist Emilie Rensink and Nick Bernabe of Anti-Media.org, Canal worked with A Revolt.org digital anarchy to promote international awareness of the event. She called the turnout "incredible," and credited social media for being a vehicle for furthering opportunities for activism. Despite the size of the gatherings, Canal said she was grateful that the marches were uniformly peaceful and no arrests have been reported. "It was empowering and inspiring to see so many people, from different walks of life, put aside their differences and come together today," she said. The group plans to harness the success of the event to continue its anti-GMO cause. "We will continue until Monsanto complies with consumer demand. They are poisoning our children, poisoning our planet," she said. "If we don't act, who's going to?" Monsanto Co., based in St. Louis, said Saturday that it respects people's rights to express their opinion on the topic, but maintains that its seeds improve agriculture by helping farmers produce more from their land while conserving resources such as water and energy.

Protesters march against Monsanto in 250 cities. "March Against Monsanto" organizers say they're calling attention to the dangers posed by genetically modified food and the companies that produce it. Protests are planned in more than 250 cities Saturday. Genetically modified plants are grown from seeds engineered to resist insecticides and herbicides, add nutritional benefits and improve crop yields. Some believe they can lead to health problems and harm the environment. Opponents have pushed for mandatory labeling, though the federal government and many scientists say the technology is safe. Monsanto Co., based in St. Louis, said Saturday that it respects people's rights to express their opinion, but believes its seeds help farmers produce more food, while conserving water and energy.

Oregon Medical Marijuana Raids a Bigger Priority than Stopping Rapes? ori Duckworthwasn't one to hide her marijuana activism. She was a regular at legislative hearings on medical marijuana bills. She operated a downtown storefront where thousands of dues-paying southern Oregon patients got cannabis. On Thursday, the 48-year-old married mother and grandmother became the latest high-profile figure in the state's robust cannabis community to be swept up in a drug investigation. Duckworth and her husband, Leland Duckworth, 49, are accused of selling marijuana. State and federal laws ban the sale of the drug. Oregon allows medical marijuana growers to recoup the costs of supplies and utilities when providing the drug to state-registered patients. What exactly constitutes supplies and utilities isn't defined. The electric and water bill are certainly included in utilities. Soil and nutrients are certainly supplies. But what about the rent or mortgage payment? What about security precautions to ensure that patients' medicine ins't stolen? How does law enforcement know how much electricity went into an indoor garden or how much soil as purchased for an outdoor crop? Why hasn't law enforcement provided some guidance as to what they consider proper reimbursement? Do law enforcement agencies want clear rules and regulations or do they prefer a grey area, allowing them to arrest first and ask questions later?

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Police: W. Albany High student built bombs to detonate at school. ALBANY, Ore. -- Police took a 17-year-old West Albany High School student into custody Thursday for making two bombs. Police said the explosive devices could have caused serious damage and loss of life. Officers said they got a tip that the student intended to detonate them at school. Just before 10:30 p.m. police took the student into custody at his father's home on Northwest Violet Street in Albany, said Capt. Eric Carter with the Albany Police Department. He was lodged at the Linn-Benton Juvenile Detention Facility on two counts each of possession and manufacture of a destructive device. The bombs were found at the home of the student's biological mother in the 2600 block of Northwest Raymond Court. On Friday, The Oregon State Police Explosives Unit obtained a search warrant and safely removed all explosive items from the home, Carter said.

Wall Street is writing its own regulation bill — RT USA. Lobbyists working for Citigroup Inc., a multinational financial services corporation, wrote 80 percent of a regulation bill that was approved by the House Financial Services Committee this month. Citigroup wrote 70 lines of 85-line bill, which exempts "broad swathes of trades" from new regulation, the Times reported based on e-mails it obtained. Two paragraphs of the bill were copied "nearly word for word" from what Citigroup drafted. The only difference between the versions were two words, which lawmakers changed to make plural. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which was signed into law in 2010, inflicted heavy financial regulatory reform following the most recent recession. The bill was pushed into law by Democrats, but now, both Democrats in the House and Senate are siding with bank lobbyists to roll back parts of the regulation overhaul. The bill drafted primarily by Citigroup this month was starkly opposed by the Treasury Department, but easily made it through the House Financial Services Committee, the Times reports. MapLight, a nonprofit group that analyzes campaign finance records, found that lawmakers who supported Wall Street's legislation received twice as much in contributions from financial institutions than those who opposed such measures, which appears to indicate that lawmakers' support can be bought.

New York claims more proof of bank mortgage abuses. "Several other states have identified similar recurring deficiencies by the participating servicers," Schneiderman said in a letter dated May 23 to the monitor for the settlement, former North Carolina Banking Commissioner Joseph Smith. The letter was obtained by Reuters on Friday. The $25 billion settlement was brokered last year between five banks and 49 state attorneys general. The other banks are JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), Citigroup Inc (C.N), and Ally Financial Inc (GKM.N). The banks agreed to provide relief to homeowners and comply with a set of servicing standards to atone for foreclosure misconduct. In his letter, Schneiderman did not identify which other states had provided evidence of banks failing to abide by the settlement. Nor did he identify the banks with recurring deficiencies. He said receipt of his letter to Smith and a concurrent one to a monitoring committee would start the clock on a waiting period before lawsuits could be filed against the banks. The settlement authorizes the monitor to first work with a mortgage servicer to correct any potential violations and sue if the servicer does not fix the errors.

Police arrest two in Eugene OR pot raid. (Along with 8 others in Southern OR) Thursday's raid was done in conjunction with a similar operation carried out by a drug team in Southern Oregon. Detectives there served eight warrants in connection with three "drug trafficking organizations" that allegedly sold marijuana from storefronts in Jackson County, according to a news release. Authorities suspect some of the people involved with the Jackson County outlets are familiar with those affiliated with The Greener Side. "I think there are some common ties," Fisher said. A number of medical marijuana outlets in Oregon have been raided by police in recent months. Many similar, unregulated businesses remain open elsewhere across the state. Oregon voters in 2010 rejected a ballot measure that would have legalized medical marijuana dispensaries, but lawmakers are now considering a bill that would allow state-licensed retailers to operate in Oregon.

200 sickened after dining at Vegas restaurant. Sick patrons who dined at Firefly, a tapas restaurant on Paradise Road, in late April hailed from 20 different states and two foreign countries, according to a report released Friday by the Southern Nevada Health District. There are likely many more cases that have gone unreported. "Usually we think of people who are identified as just the tip of the iceberg," said Linh Nguyen, an epidemiologist with the health district and lead investigator on the case. Firefly is one of Las Vegas' highest-rated restaurants on the review site Yelp.com, garnering a 4 1/2 star rating on a five-star scale out of more than 1,300 reviews. Patrons rave about bacon-wrapped dates and signature sangria. The restaurant has been closed since April 26, when health district officials received reports of gastrointestinal illness from eight separate groups of people who had dined at Firefly between April 21 and 24. Inspectors hit the restaurant with 44 demerits, including food stored at improper temperatures and employees handling food without gloves.

San Francisco: Typhoid Alert For Those Who Ate at Nordstrom Cafe in Stonestown Galleria. Patrons who ate at the restaurant on April 16, 17, 18, 20 or 27 are advised to see a doctor right away if they start to experience fever, weakness, stomach pains, headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or loss of appetite. In some typhoid cases, a rash of flat, light-red spots may appear. Health officials said typhoid fever is an illness caused by the bacterium Salmonella enterica serotype Typhi and is usually acquired by those traveling internationally. In the U.S., there are as many as 400 cases each year of the illness. It is usually caught when someone eats food or drink contaminated by someone with typhoid fever, such as the case at the Nordstrom Cafe. Death is uncommon, especially with antibiotic treatment. Those who suspect they have typhoid fever should make efforts to avoid spreading the illness. Health officials said Nordstrom staff are cooperating with the health department's investigation and is working on informing and protecting the public and their employees.

Marijuana grow ops found during Stoney Nakoda raid. "This kind of thing is not a common occurrence on the Stoney Nation," said Fedrau. "But some residences came to our attention and investigation confirmed our suspicions." Hien Tuan Lam, 40, from Calgary, has been charged with production of a controlled substance and possession for the purpose of trafficking, and is also facing charges for possessing a firearm while prohibited and careless storage of a firearm. Lam is scheduled to appear in Cochrane Provincial Court May 30. Son Hung Ngo, 50, also a Calgary resident, has been charged with production of a controlled substance and possession for the purpose of trafficking. Ngo appeared in court in Cochrane May 14. Geraldine (Buffy) Myrna Bearspaw, 47, and John Anthony Sedo, 42, both of Morley, have been charged with trafficking in a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking and possession of property obtained by crime. Both Bearspaw and Sedo are expected to be in court May 21. Bertrand Abraham, 31, and Jessica Nicole Ear, 26, also of Morley, have been charged with possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking, possession of property obtained by crime and unsafe storage of a firearm. Abraham is facing an additional charge of trafficking in a controlled substance.

300 bags of heroin seized in Brooklyn - Norwich, CT - The Bulletin. Police arrested Michael Pipkin, 25, of 7B Water St. in Danielson, Tylon Collette, 24, of 79 Pomfret Road in Putnam, and Akinola Balogun, 25, of 255 Mashentuck Road in Danielson, after stopping a 2002 Saturn Vue traveling west on Route 6. During the traffic stop at approximately 4:46 p.m., a police dog located the drugs, which have a street value of about $3,000, police said. The three were each charged with possession of heroin and possession of heroin with intent to sell. Pipkin was held on a $75,000 bond and is due today in Danielson Superior Court. Collette was held on a $50,000 bond and also will be in court today. Balogun was released today on a $25,000 bond and is due in court on June 11.

Obama's drone rules leave unanswered questions. President Barack Obama left plenty of ambiguity in new policy guidelines that he says will restrict how and when the U.S. can launch targeted drone strikes, leaving himself significant power over how and when the weapons can be deployed. National security experts say it's imperative to leave some room in the guidelines given the evolving fight against terrorism. But civil rights advocates argue too little has been revealed about the program to ensure its legality. An unclassified version of the newly established drone guidelines was made public Thursday. The congressional Intelligence committees and Capitol Hill leadership have been briefed on the more detailed, classified policies. But because those documents are secret, there's no way of knowing how much more clarity they provide.

Marijuana Patients and Smokers Must Wake Up,Trade Their Bongs For Pens And VOTE. There are around 2.6 million registered voters in LA out of 3.82 million people (that's pathetic). Under 50% are even REGISTERED to vote. More than 25% of Los Angeles smokes weed. And well more than 50% of Angelenos approve of medical marijuana. But unfortunately, the people who show up to vote are the ones who want us to lose. Our public image as lazy, inept potheads perpetuates when the community cannot band together in dire times of need. Numerous people in Los Angeles didn't even know this vote was taking place. It simply makes the naysayers, the haters, and the kool-aid drinking Republicans look right when we can't even figure out what we're voting for. We--and I mean everyone that medicates in this country--can no longer use that attitude towards elections. Or cannabis will never reach legal status in this country. We have to believe not just that we can win, but that we will win. We have to have faith in our cause, and our power. And above all else, we have to band together.

The Colbert Report: Kentucky Senators Mitch and "Chong" Ask For DEA Clarification On Hemp [Video]. "That's right these senators are trying to turn Kentucky into a den of sin. Instead of a wholesome place to pound Bourbon, while watching tiny people whip horses for sport. That's why tonight, I'm giving a wag of my finger to Senators Mitch and Chong ..."

Amanda Bynes OG Kush Now Exists, Will Make You Crazy High. 4G of South Bay has delivered the first known version with a dab form of the Bynes, titled "Bynes OG." One of its known ingredients is fittingly "Soul Assassin", but we'd surmise that there's a little Trainwreck, LSD (the green kind), and Banana OG making up this concoction. It's quite fitting that the first smokable Bynes is comes in BHO (Butane Hash Oil)--which is 80-90% THC and will clearly mess you up. It's also fitting that you can purchase the Bynes and get one free today. Of course, the Bynes comes with a warning. Possible side affects of smoking the Bynes include: getting kicked out of Yoga classes, getting kicked off Airplanes for telling the Pilot to look you up on Google, and mistaking bongs for Vases and throwing them out windows.

Federal Lawmakers to Vote on Industrial Hemp Amendment to Farm Bill. Senator Ron Wyden has introduced an amendment to Senate Bill 3240, the Senate version of this year's federal farm bill, that requires the federal government to respect state laws allowing the cultivation of industrial hemp. Hemp is a distinct variety of the plant species cannabis sativa that contains only trace (less than one percent) amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary psychoactive compound in cannabis. The amendment language mimics the "Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2013," which remains pending as stand-alone legislation in both the House and Senate but has yet to receive a legislative hearing. Senator Wyden's provision to the Senate's Farm Bill amends the Controlled Substances Act to exclude industrial hemp from the definition of marijuana. The measure grants state legislatures the authority to license and regulate the commercial production of hemp as an industrial and agricultural commodity. "For me, what's important is that people see, particularly in our state, there's someone buying it at Costco in Oregon," Senator Wyden previously stated in support of this Act, "I adopted what I think is a modest position, which is if you can buy it at a store in Oregon, our farmers ought to be able to make some money growing it."

Raids on patient resource centers target activists for medical marijuana - Portland cannabis. According to KTVL CBS, there were eight total search warrants issued in the Southern Oregon region: On Thursday, they made four arrests, searched four businesses, three homes and one location in Josephine County: So-Norml, 300 block of West Sixth Street, Medford Puffin' Stuff, 100 block of Crater Lake Avenue No. A, Medford The Green Compass, 1700 block of East McAndrews Road, Medford The Compass, 500 block of Second Avenue, Gold Hill. 3100 block of Hyacinth Avenue, Medford 2700 block of North Keen Way, Medford 2600 block of Tahitian Avenue, Medford 3300 block of Dick George Road, Cave Junction. Charges include delivery of a controlled substance within 1000 feet of a school. Lori and Lee Duckworth were each charged with 11 separate charges and bail was set at $550,000 each.

Friday, May 24, 2013

Americans must remain strong to dispel our fears - Inside Tucson Business: Guest Opinion. The Patriot Act allowed for widespread surveillance, wiretapping and searches of properties even if owners were not present. President Obama signed extensions to the act in 2011. The United States has a history of panicking when under attack. As a result, some Americans have been detained with no right of due process or jury trial. The detention of 120,000 Japanese Americans in relocation camps in seven states during World War II is a tragic example. The Japanese minority was less than 1 percent of the U.S. population. Most lived on the West Coast. There fear was they would Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor. President Franklin Roosevelt signed an order calling for relocation of Japanese Americans to detention camps. One of these detainees lived in my hometown, Carrington, N.D. Harry Hayashi was born in Tokyo in 1894. He worked as a cabin boy on an ocean steamer and came to the United States when he was 16 years old. Harry was first employed in Spokane, Wash., for a time before he arrived in Carrington in 1921 to work in a bakery. By 1922 he owned the Hotel Café where he met his wife, Anna, a waitress. They married in 1924 and had six children. Creative and ambitious, Harry bought five acres on the edge of town and developed the Rainbow Gardens. It was one of the first motels in North Dakota before the days of the interstate highway. It opened in 1930 and was a showplace featuring a fish pond, beautiful trees, lush gardens and a waterfall powered by an electric motor. Harry's Rainbow Gardens was nostalgic of Tokyo. Picture postcards still exist portraying the magnificence of Rainbow Gardens. The Rainbow Gardens also featured a restaurant and a dance pavilion were big name bands played. Business was thriving for the entire hard-working Hayashi family who were respected and well-liked in the community. Carrington has always had a progressive business community, and when travelers stayed at the Rainbow Gardens, they often patronized other area businesses too. The town benefited from Harry's entrepreneurship. On Dec. 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked and bombed the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu. Harry Hayashi had been so busy with his businesses he hadn't completed his U.S. citizenship training. One Sunday in February 1942 federal agents came to Carrington to arrest Harry. His assets were frozen, and the Rainbow Gardens was closed. Anna and the children were left to fend for themselves for three years while he was detained at Fort Lincoln near Bismarck, N.D.

President Obama Speaks on the U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy - YouTube. President Obama lays out the framework for U.S. counterterrorism strategy as we wind down the war in Afghanistan.

Stockholm Smolders: Sporadic arson attacks sweep city in 5th night of riots - YouTube. The Swedish capital, Stockholm, has been hit by a fifth night of civil disturbances that started following a fatal police shooting. Albeit quieter than on previous nights, firefighters continued to battle sporadic arson attacks on cars early on Friday.

2,400+ gallons of sewage overflows into Willamette. A city spokesman says about 2,400 gallons of sewage has overflowed from a public toilet in Portland's Waterfront Park and drained into the Willamette River in the downtown area, according to the Associated Press. This comes as heavy rains in the Portland metro area cause sewage and stormwater across the city to overflow into the Willamette River Thursday morning. The Bureau of Environmental Services also reported three outfall pipes began to overflow at about 2 a.m. The overflows occurred north of the Morrison Bridge, at the Burnside Bridge and just north of the Fremont Bridge. A "big pipe" project completed in 2012 drastically decreased the number of overflows -- from an average of 50 a year in the early 1990s to less than five as a result of the big pipe work. However, the larger pipe hasn't completely stopped them. "We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars and I think the public's expectation was there would be no more sewage overflow when we get heavy rain events like that in the river," said Portland Mayor Charlie Hales. "It works but it doesn't work one hundred percent of the time." The biggest underground sewage pipes are 22 feet in diameter. That's large enough for a TriMet bus to drive through, but not big enough to accommodate the sewage and rain from the past two days. "The other thing that this highlights is that we need to keep doing things to prevent the total volume from increasing," Hales said. Those other things include building more areas that soak rainwater from rooftops and city streets into the ground — diverting more rainwater toward streams and in the process keeping it out of the sewer system.

HOW and WHY Cannabis Cures Cancer - Scientific Explanation - GreenMedTV. An insightful documentary exploring the scientific explanation behind why cannabis compounds kills various cancers. At GreenMedInfo.com we have gathered the research from the National Library of Medicine on cannabis' role in preventing and treating a wide range of cancers: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/substance/marihuana

Washington State Weed Rules: I-502 Cultivates Recreational Pot Procedures. What criminal history might prevent a Washington state marijuana license applicant from receiving or keeping a marijuana license? When the board processes a criminal history check on applicant, it uses a point system to determine if the person qualifies for license. The board will not normally issue marijuana license, or renew a license to an applicant who is accumulated more than eight points. Additionally, any hopeful applicant will need to provide information delineating: Any weed related businesses are required to have 24-hour video surveillance Description of your marijuana grow operation to include growing medium The exact size of your marijuana cultivation grow space allocated for plant production Any and all space allocated for other business activities Description of all equipment used in the production process Complete list of all fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides used during the cultivation process Marijuana testing procedures and protocols Complete description of products processed at location together with a complete description of all equipment and chemicals and other compounds used to create extracts and for processing marijuana infused products Description of products to be sold and how those products are to be displayed to customers

Ex-Rabbi Opens One Of First MMJ Dispensaries In Washington, D.C. While many Rabbis talk the talk (and preach their hipness), Kahn walks the walk. A first hand witness of cannabis' magical and spiritual powers, Kahn clearly knows--from personal experience-- the positive impact that Yahweh's plant possesses. Kahn retired from his duties as a rabbi in 2007, but is still active at local synagogues. He says he's honoring his father-in-law by opening the medical marijuana dispensary with his wife, Stephanie. Stephanie Kahn says medical marijuana helped her father when he was suffering from multiple sclerosis in the '70s. "Morality is not part of the issue," Kahn said. "And what we're dealing with here is getting sick people medicine. We're talking about easing suffering." While, most Rabbis retire for the country club life--Khan's bringing the Kosher Kush to D.C. Jokes aside, it's a significant sighting on many levels, both for the Jewish community and for real patients. In many Medical Marijuana states, dispensary owners are sometimes labelled as drug dealers, thugs, and and looked down upon by many citizens. When a man like Kahn--who's had a real, viable impact on his society enters the spotlight, it can and should totally transform national perception of the industry. The nation's Medical Marijuana movement goes far deeper than drug cartels and recreational smokers, and Kahn's revelation is emblematic of this truth.

Medbox Inc. Posts First Quarter 2013 Financials - Record Revenue Reported. "We are pleased with our progress to date, but we recognize that we are still in our early growth stage," stated Dr. Bruce Bedrick, CEO of Medbox, Inc. "We are moving forward with a sensible growth plan that includes realistic forecasts of equipment sales, strategic acquisitions, consulting fees, and our new financing division." The company also announced that it is preparing for the anticipated approval of the Illinois Bill to legalize medical marijuana. The bill that would bring legal medical marijuana to Illinois in the hands of Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn , who stated that he remains "open minded" on the measure. Last Friday, the state Senate voted 35-21 in favor of the bill on the heels of an OK from the House.

How To Roll A Marijuana Cross Joint By Seth Rogen. Seth Rogen himself explaining how to roll a "cross joint", which was famously shown in the movie Pineapple Express. It's like the apex of the vortex of modern stoner engineering...

Kevin Sabet claims 39% of Washington students used dispensary pot. Truth = 9.4%. That's odd. Instead of "39% of HS students in Washington state report getting their marijuana from a "medical" marijuana dispensary", it seems like within the past month, 1.4% of students in Seattle "usually" got their marijuana from a dispensary. Gosh, Kevin wouldn't just try to turn 1.4% into 39% to scare us? There must be some other data point to justify this 39% figure...

One-third of Millennials regret going to college. A report on the study by Forbes magazine notes "The problem sometimes is that not all college educations are worth their cost, since they can't guarantee a high-paying job to help pay off that student debt." Federal student loan rates are being debated in Congress right now, as they are set to double on July 1 from 3.4 to 6.8 percent. A measure being introduced this week would allow rates to rise to a maximum of 8.5 percent based on a variable formula. Oregon Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici, who announced her opposition to H.R. 1911 Thursday, cited a study by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service which found that students who borrow the maximum amount of subsidized Stafford loans over five years would pay $10,109 in interest payments under H.R. 1911, $4,174 if rates were kept at 3.4 percent, or $8,808 if rates are allowed to double to 6.8 percent in July.

I-5 bridge over Skagit River collapses, cars with people in water. The four-lane bridge collapsed about 7 p.m., Trooper Mark Francis said. Francis said he had no immediate estimate of how many people were in the water or whether there were any injuries or deaths. He did not know what caused the collapse. A Skagit Valley Herald reporter at the scene said a sheriff's office rescue boat has arrived and rescue crews were looking for people in the water. According to one first responder, two patients were rescued from the water and being transported to a nearby hospital. The reporter saw one person sitting atop one vehicle in the water and could see a second vehicle as well. Crowds of people lined the river to watch the scene unfold.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Wednesday's 50 degrees set record for lowest high temp in Portland OR. The records for coldest high temperatures during the last week of May range from highs of 53 to 57 degrees, althogh the record book shows record-low highs in the 50s as late as June 29th. Timberline Lodge reported eight inches of new snow and mountain passes from Government Camp to Willamette Pass to Santiam Pass all had snowfall on Wednesday. Mount Hood campgrounds like Trillium Lake that were bare and brown earlier in the week were also dusted in snow, despite a scheduled opening for the Memorial Day Weekend.

US CA: Ex-vice Officer Gets 14 Years. In 25 years as a cop, Norman Wielsch helped imprison thousands of drug dealers, thieves and gang-bangers. It's unlikely, however, any of them were as audacious in their plea for leniency as Wielsch was Monday, when he asked a federal judge to bypass an act of Congress and sentence him to house arrest - instead of the mandatory minimum 10 years in prison for a cluster of felony convictions stemming from a string of robberies involving hookers and narcotics. It did him no good. The judge gave him 14 years in federal lockup and rebuked him for "pure greed."

US: Blurry Line On Pot-DUI Cases. The problem: Identifying pot impairment isn't as clear-cut as testing for alcohol. There is no broad agreement over what blood level of THC - marijuana's psychoactive ingredient - impairs driving. Breathalyzers can't detect marijuana levels, and only a small percentage of police officers are trained to authoritatively identify pot-DUI cases. When voters in Washington state legalized recreational pot use last fall, they decreed that drivers with five nanograms or more of THC per milliliter of blood - a level that some studies suggest is associated with increased accident risk - are under the influence. In Colorado, which also last year legalized pot possession, lawmakers passed a bill earlier this month that sets the same limit, but gives drivers a chance to prove that they weren't impaired. In Montana, where medical marijuana is legal, the governor signed similar legislation last month. But the correlation between THC levels and impairment isn't scientifically straightforward, said R. Andrew Sewell, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. He said the compound leaves the blood quickly and that regular pot smokers who have built up a tolerance and maintain higher levels may not be impaired at the new legal limits. Setting these limits "is going to cause a lot of impaired drivers to be missed and it's going to cause a lot of innocent people to get arrested," he said.

US: Marijuana Firms Form Investment Network For Pot-Related. At a recent investor conference in Seattle, two Colorado firms with money to invest listened to a pitch from a third local business seeking growth capital. The common ingredient: They sell cannabis products or provide services to the industry. Finding funds to grow has been a struggle, said Dan Williams, president of Denver-based Canna Security America, a firm that installs security systems at marijuana dispensaries and at grow operations. Williams and his employees never touch cannabis - only electronics - yet until last month, they had been shut out of traditional sources of financing. Williams didn't even bother applying for a bank loan when he started the business in 2009. Banks typically fear regulatory repercussions because of marijuana's stillillegal status under federal law. "We were a zero-capital startup," Williams said. "We would do a job so that we could go buy a ladder. Then we would do another job so we could buy business cards." Earlier this year, Canna Security moved its headquarters from Williams' basement to commercial office space in northwest Denver. The company is preparing to launch operations in Washington and several states with recently enacted medical marijuana laws. Williams projects that his staff of five could grow to more than 30 in the next two years.

US IL: Former Chicago Police Officer Gets 18 Years For Drug Conspiracy. A federal jury convicted Lewellen, 57, last year of using his badge to help a violent crew of drug dealers kidnap and rob rivals of hundreds of pounds of cocaine and millions of dollars in cash. U.S. District Judge Joan Gottschall said she recognized the need to impose a substantial sentence to deter other officers tempted to abuse public trust, but she did not want to require a term that likely meant Lewellen would die in prison. She said she was particularly moved by his recent turn to religion and his attempts to better himself after his arrest in 2010. "I think there is work that is beyond any of our powers that is going on, and it is not my intention to stand in the way," the judge said. Prosecutors said Lewellen conspired with drug dealer Saul Rodriguez, the officer's paid confidential informant, in eight robberies and kidnappings between 1998 and 2006. In several robberies, Lewellen showed up wearing his police vest and badge, hogtied victims with plastic ties and threatened violence if they did not comply. The scheme continued after Lewellen left the department in 2003, according to prosecutors. In one 2005 heist, Lewellen shocked a man with a Taser after he refused to disclose where cash and drugs were stashed, prosecutors said. In all, Lewellen helped steal more than 550 pounds of cocaine and about $3 million in cash, according to prosecutors.

Mysterious respiratory disease infects 7 in southeast Alabama, 2 dead. State and local health departments are investigated the disease cluster in consultation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Laboratory samples have been obtained from all the patients and testing continues, according to the statement. Dr. Mary McIntyre, spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Public Health, said the illness was first reported late last week and the last of the seven patients was hospitalized Monday. McIntyre says officials hope to have preliminary results on the samples back by Wednesday or Thursday morning. Hospital staffers have been told to wear N95 breathing masks and take other precautions when caring for patients who have respiratory symptoms. It is unclear at this time which hospital received the patients and which municipalities the illnesses were concentrated in.

Sources: Man killed by FBI agent confessed to triple murder. "He used some kind of weapon," the official said, and that prompted the FBI agent to shoot the suspect. A second law enforcement official confirmed Todashev made the confession. The unsolved triple murder received renewed interest after it was learned that Tsarnaev was sparring partners at a local gym with one of the victims. Source: 2011 slayings of Tsarnaev friend, 2 others revisited Investigators of the crime reported at the time that the heads of the three victims were pulled back and their throats slit ear to ear with great force. Marijuana was spread over the bodies in a "symbolic gesture," and several thousand dollars in cash was found at the scene. Todashev told investigators the men were killed during a drug ripoff because he and Tsarnaev were afraid they would be able to identify them and tell police what happened, according to a law enforcement source. So far, no link has been found between Todashev and the Boston Marathon bombings. However, the FBI is looking into the many connections between Todashev and Tsarnaev, whose radicalization allegedly led to the Boston bombings.

Six Facts Lost In The IRS Scandal. In the furious fallout from the revelation that the IRS flagged�applications from conservative non-profits for extra review because of their political activity, some points about the big picture --�and big donors — have fallen through the cracks. Consider this our Top 6 list of need-to-know facts on social welfare non-profits, also known as "dark money" groups because they don't have to disclose their donors. The groups poured more than $256 million into the 2012 federal elections.

LA Voters Approve Medical Marijuana Dispensary Regulation, Cap. With 38% of the votes counted, early Wednesday morning, Prop D was passing handily with 63% of the vote, while Ordinance F was losing with only 43%. If both measures had polled over 50%, the one with the most votes would have been enacted. A third measure, Ordinance E, would also have regulated dispensaries, but its backers switched their support to Prop D. Ordinance E was losing with 37%. The vote comes just days after the California Supreme Court clarified that local governments can indeed totally ban—not just regulate—dispensaries, a move that the city council embraced last year. It was the council's move to ban dispensaries that led to three separate initiatives to allow and regulate them. The city council and parts of the city's medical marijuana community had backed Prop D, while dispensary operators who would be locked out by the dispensary cap had backed the more expansive Ordinance F. Ordinance F would have allowed a virtually unlimited number of dispensaries to operate.

No Crystal Ball Needed: Ending The Drug War Is Field Tested. We do know what happens when the Drug War ends in America. I just wrote a book about it. What happens is the economy improves, cartels are hurt, and public safety takes an immediate turn for the better. The Drug Peace Era is quantifiably good for America and her families. In fact, the "Zip-tie" program in Mendocino County, CA, under which cannabis farmers were certified by the county Sheriff's Department and each plant wore a bright yellow necklace with its permit number, was an unmitigated and immediate success. That is, until federal harassment shut the program down at the end of the 2011 farming season. Don't take my word for it that the Drug Peace works. The one time Drug Warrior who administered the Mendocino program, Sergeant (now Captain) Randy Johnson, told me during a 2011 farm inspection that the Zip-tie program altered the entire social fabric of the community. This is a place that derives 80% of its economy from its famous Emerald Triangle cannabis harvest. "After 27 years in law enforcement, for the first time I'm getting tips on domestic violence and home invasion. We have a safer community. That's why the (Zip-tie) program is important." In other words, when the Sheriff has permitted and inspected your garden, you're not worried about getting raided for it. You're a taxpaying member of society, like a grape farmer. It makes cops' lives easier. They can focus on, ya know, crime. I can confirm the home invasion effect. As long as federal prohibition exists, "Rippers" will exist. These are the specialized breed of criminal who plan cannabis crop robberies right at harvest time. One of the farmers I followed in Too High to Fail: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution awoke to Rippers disturbing the local deer one morning in October, 2011. Guess what he did? He called the police. Guess what the rapidly responding deputy did? He chased off and nearly apprehended the Rippers, after getting their license plate number. He was protecting the local farmers.

Marijuana Grow Tip: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Danny Danko visits a marijuana growroom where laundry baskets and old milk crates have been recycled into planters, proving once again that great marijuana buds can be grown on a budget.

U.S Attorney Folds Under Pressure, Backs Away From Gag Order In Medical Marijuana Case. In the original motion to gag Mr. McCabe, the U.S Prosecutor, Paul Starita, requested that not only the McCabe video be removed from the San Diego Americans for Safe Access website but that the San Diego ASA- run "Free Ronnie Chang" Facebook page be wiped from the Internet as well. Mr. McCabe is a supporter of SDASA but has no jurisdiction over the Chapter's internet activities. The gag order motion was heard on Monday, May 20th 2013, before Judge Michael Anello in Dept. 3A of San Diego's federal courthouse. In beginning his argument for the gag order, Starita shied away from the term "gag" in favor of the less oppressive request to simply require that he and Mr. McCabe follow the local rules of conduct by not "trying the case in the press" -- a sharp departure from Starita's earlier demands. In a well thought out argument, Heather Beugen, arguing on behalf of Mr. McCabe, pointed out that the rules of conduct of the American Bar Association (Rule 3.6 (a)) state counsel on either side may respond to opposing party's prejudicial statements to the press. Argument could be made that this is exactly what Mr. McCabe did in the San Diego ASA video as he responded to the bold-faced lies told by Duffy in her own statements to the press with regard to her brutal crack down on state-legal medical cannabis collectives. The result of the hearing had attorneys for both sides stipulating to follow the local rules regarding pre-trail statements and no formal order was given by his honor.

Oregon poll shows only one-third of 2014 voters oppose marijuana legalization. Given that an initiative in November 2014 would be almost certain to lose, MPP would contribute no money toward a signature drive, paid staff, or advertising during the 2013-2014 cycle. ...If, however, a [tax & regulate] initiatve is placed on the November 2014 ballot, then [Oregon] will fall by the wayside and lose its time in the sun in November 2016, in the same way that California was premature in 2010 and was unable to raise any funding for a 2012 ballot initiative. (The comparison between [California's] past failure and [Oregon's] prospective failure is pretty precise.) In a subsequent town hall meeting in Portland this January, MPP's National Political Director, Steve Fox, responded to my question, "I agree that 2016 is an absolute 'slam dunk' but I don't see that 2014 is not a 'layup'... strike while the iron is hot... if 2014 is a roadblock, how can we get past it?"

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

People Getting Dumber? Human Intelligence Has Declined Since Victorian Era, Research Suggests. "The reduction in human intelligence (if there is any reduction) would have begun at the time that genetic selection became more relaxed," Dr. Gerald Crabtree, professor of pathology and developmental biology at Stanford University, told The Huffington Post in an email. "I projected this occurred as our ancestors began to live in more supportive high density societies (cities) and had access to a steady supply of food. Both of these might have resulted from the invention of agriculture, which occurred about 5,000 to 12,000 years ago." As for Dr. te Nijenhuis and colleagues, they analyzed the results of 14 intelligence studies conducted between 1884 to 2004, including one by Sir Francis Galton, an English anthropologist and a cousin of Charles Darwin. Each study gauged participants' so-called visual reaction times -- how long it took them to press a button in response to seeing a stimulus. Reaction time reflects a person's mental processing speed, and so is considered an indication of general intelligence.

Was HAARP Used in OK to Bail Out the POTUS?, page 1. I find it a little COINCIDENTAL that a mega tornado would hit, just as the POTUS is being slammed from every angle, regarding the various scandals that have been attributed to his presidency. Don't you? So, does anyone think this was a manufactured "natural disaster" to distract the people from the President's mess???

Inkfish: How Placebo's Evil Twin Makes You Sicker. (Pharma Cannot even Leave the Placebo Alone!) Chemically, nocebo seems to use the same toolkit that placebo does. Say you have a headache and treat it however you normally like to—maybe with an ibuprofen, or a few drops of homeopathic whatever under your tongue. If you expect to start feeling better soon, your body will use internal molecules such as dopamine and opioids to start creating its own pain relief. (Depending on what treatment you've used, you may or may not get some chemical backup once it kicks in.) It's good old-fashioned conditioning, just like Pavlov's hungry dogs salivating before food was anywhere in sight. But in nocebo, when you expect your headache to get worse, your body turns the pain-relief machinery down instead of up. Nocebo doesn't need a doctor's help to find you. But a doctor can harness it too. The standard assumption in medicine, Häuser and his coauthors write, is that patients should be warned ahead of time about anything painful ("You're going to feel a little pinch!"). But telling a patient to expect discomfort might actually make it worse. In one study, patients getting an injection felt more anxiety and pain when their doctors used words such as "sting," "burn," or "bad," even if the doctor was only trying to express sympathy. In another study, women receiving epidural injections felt more pain when they were warned that the "big bee sting" would be the worst part of the procedure. When women were instead reminded that the injection would numb them and make them more comfortable, they experienced less pain. The authors point out that patients in emergency situations or facing major surgery are often in a "trance state" that makes them even more suggestible than usual.

Inkfish: How to Convince People WiFi Is Making Them Sick. There's no known scientific reason why a wireless signal might cause physical harm. And studies have found that even people who claim to be sensitive to electromagnetic fields can't actually sense them. Their symptoms are more likely due to nocebo, the evil twin of the placebo effect. The power of our expectation can cause real physical illness. In clinical drug trials, for example, subjects who take sugar pills report side effects ranging from an upset stomach to sexual dysfunction. Psychologists Michael Witthöft and G. James Rubin of King's College London explored whether frightening TV reports can encourage a nocebo effect. They recruited a group of subjects and showed half of them a clip from a BBC documentary about the potential dangers of wireless internet. (The BBC later acknowledged that the 2007 program was "misleading.") The remaining subjects watched a video about the security of data transmissions over mobile phones. After watching the videos, subjects put on headband-mounted antennas. They were told that the researchers were testing a "new kind of WiFi," and that once the signal started they should carefully monitor any symptoms in their bodies. Then the researchers left the room. For 15 minutes, the subjects watched a WiFi symbol flash on a laptop screen. In reality, there was no WiFi switched on during the experiment, and the headband antenna was a sham. Yet 82 of the 147 subjects—more than half—reported symptoms. Two even asked for the experiment to be stopped early because the effects were too severe to stand. Witthöft says he expected to see a greater effect in people who had watched the frightening documentary. This wasn't the case overall. Instead, the movie mainly increased symptoms in subjects who described themselves beforehand as more anxious.

Daily Kos: Which Democrats Just Voted against Food Stamp Funding? Sen. Maria Cantwell's (D-WA) amendment "to allow Indian tribes to participate in certain soil and water conservation programs" passed 87-8. The eight "No" votes were all Republicans: John Cornyn (TX), Ted Cruz (TX), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Mike Lee (R-WY), Rand Paul (R-KY), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Pat Toomey (R-PA). Sen. Pat Roberts's (R-KS) amendment to cut an additional $12 billion from the supplemental food assistance program (SNAP, or food stamps) failed 58-40. Three Republicans broke party lines against it: Susan Collins (ME), Lisa Murkowski (AK), and Roger Wicker (MS). However, the amendment on which I would like to focus attention here is that of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). Gillibrand proposed to restore the $4 billion that the current farm bill--designed by Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Thad Cochran (R-MS)--cuts from SNAP (Supplemental Food Assistance, known as food stamps--as I indicated above) and to offset this restored funding with a limitation on crop insurance reimbursements. Our current crop insurance subsidies benefit large farms at the expense of smaller ones and are one of the many glaring manifestations of corporate welfare that Congress never fixes. Gillibrand's amendment would, in essence, cut corporate welfare spending to restore social welfare spending. Did this progressive proposal pass? Not even close. It failed 26-70: not even a majority of Democrats voted for it. Which Democrats voted against restoring food stamps--voting against veterans, children, seniors, and struggling to get by?

University of BC Doctors Expose Vaccination Cover-up: Official Documents Released From The UK. Much of the medical literature examined by researchers comes straight from pharmaceutical company-sponsored medical research. It's time for us to wake up and make some obvious connections. Here is a quote from the published, peer reviewed paper. Deliberately concealing information from parents for the sole purpose of getting them to comply with an "official" vaccination schedule could be considered as a form of ethical violation or misconduct. Official documents obtained from the UK Department of Health (DH) and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) reveal that the British health authorities have been engaging in such practice for the last 30 years, apparently for the sole purpose of protecting the national vaccination program(1). The documents reveal that vaccinations don't work, and that they cause the disease they are supposed to prevent. They also indicate scientific fraud, that government 'experts' are working to conceal information. The 45 page paper was published in 2011 and presented at the BSEM scientific conference (2) Here I present the documentation which appears to show that the JCVI made continuous efforts to withhold critical data on severe adverse reactions and contraindications to vaccinations to both parents and health practitioners in order to reach overall vaccination rates which they deemed were necessary for "herd immunity", a concept which with regards to vaccination, and contrary to prevalent beliefs, does not rest on solid scientific evidence as will be explained. As a result of such vaccination policy promoted by the JCVI and the DH, many children have been vaccinated without their parents being disclosed the critical information about demonstrated risks of serious adverse reactions, one that the JCVI appeared to have been fully aware of. It would also appear that, by withholding this information, the JCVI/DH neglected the right of individuals to make an informed consent concerning vaccination. By doing so, the JCVI/DH may have violated not only International Guidelines for Medical Ethics. -- Dr Lucija Tomljenovic (1)

Lawmakers concerned over decreasing Texas homeland security funds. Since 2009, federal grants to the state's Department of Public Safety dropped 57 percent over the past few years. DPS records show grants dropped�from $168 million in 2009, to $70 million in 2012. Across the board, cuts over the past few years are the biggest reasons for the decreased funding. "I think it's a setback," said Congressman Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat from Central�Texas. Doggett thinks the cuts are unwise, especially considering the recent tornado destruction in Oklahoma and North Texas. "So I think we are risking lives for a future disaster, whether it's natural or otherwise, by not adequately training our first responders and retraining them," Doggett said. "We've got to stop the bleeding," said state Representative Alan Fletcher of Cypress during a recent interview with KVUE. Fletcher is the Vice Chairman on the Texas House Homeland Security Committee. "This is just a symptoms of the times. If we had a horrible event, the money would start coming in. Things have been too quiet for too long and the money trails off," Fletcher said. Another cut includes a 72 percent decrease in security grants to protect Texas ports. "Our port security is a critical issue," said Fletcher. Within days of the Boston bombings, the KVUE Defenders learned state lawmakers moved to cut more than $12 million from counter terrorism programs in Texas.

Big Pharma's Campaign to Eliminate State-Sanctioned Cannabis Competitors? Even if marijuana operators avoid arrests the almighty Feds inflict more damage by imposing astronomical "high taxes" on a state-sanctioned marijuana-cannabis, taxes as high as 75-80 percent. Some dealers, unable to pay employees and overhead, combined with the burden of extra high taxes, must shut down, thus preventing sick patients, preferring cannabis treatment, from getting the care they desperately need. Cannabis dealers argue that "high taxes" imposed upon their businesses is the Feds political goal: to run them out of business and the bigger picture is to eliminate competition against the giant pharmaceutial industry which makes billions selling drugs to treat illnesses at a higher cost. But evidence has proved that a person can purchase cannabis from a state legalized operator and receive effective treatment at a much lower cost. With billions of dollars in the bank, the pharmaceutial companies pay millions for anti-marijuana lobbying efforts to sway Congress not to legalize marijuana under federal law. The smoking gun in this drama has raised the curtain on the pharmaceutial inustry now marketing an FDA approved cannabis medicine to undercut the growing market dominated by the states.

Medical Marijuana: A Big Mess May Get Even Bigger. The California Police Chiefs Association and the California Narcotic Officers Association warned that Proposition 215, the 1996 medical marijuana initiative approved by voters, "is very clear that marijuana may be cultivated or provided by qualified patients, or by caregivers. Proposition 215 did not authorize cultivation or distribution of marijuana by any other entities." "Senate Bill 439 dramatically changes that state of affairs by evidently permitting 'collectives, or cooperatives,' ... to engage in cultivation or distribution of so-called medical marijuana. The broad reference in Senate Bill 439 to 'any statutory business entity' carries with it the implication that medical marijuana may be cultivated and distributed for profit.

Vote Yes On Ordinance "F" -- Say No To A Medical Marijuana Monopoly. All Angelenos concerned over their ability to have safe access to medical marijuana should give serious consideration to Ordinance F, which states that: "it is time that people take control of the situation and pass strict but reasonable regulations of medical marijuana." Like any other business enterprise, Ordinance F will allow the market place to determine the overall number of dispensaries. Furthermore, F provides the city guidelines for those dispensaries that are found guilty of violating zoning restrictions. Conversely, Ordinance D caps the number of medical marijuana collectives allowed in the city of LA to those that were permitted and operational by late 2007... approximately 135 collectives. Thereby jeopardizing the legitimacy and legality of the other 900+ collectives that dot the city and the volunteers that work there. The divide and conquer fear is real. Many Angelenos believe that if neither ordinance gathers the required 50% voter approval needed to pass, the LA city Council will take that as a 'green light' to ban collectives under the municipal powers granted by the California Supreme Court recently.

Win Or Lose Today, Los Angeles Will Prevail and Legalize Marijuana. "The mere fact that marijuana initiatives are on the ballot speaks to a new era that prioritizes patients' rights over rampant ignorance. Ordinance 'F' is what Los Angeles needs to ensure patients have safer and more cost-effective access to medical marijuana, but regardless of the election's outcome, I am confident that voters will eventually prevail in their quest to remove the legal impediments that do more harm than good. "We are nearing the end of prohibition for marijuana, and the cannabis initiatives that are surfacing throughout the country are indicative of change that is very similar to what this nation experienced when prohibition ended for alcohol in 1933," Hartfield added. "The sooner local and federal governments understand how to regulate the industry in a similar fashion to alcohol, the better off our society will be in its approach to this burgeoning industry." [Market Watch] We echo that sentiment: the Federal Government may be able to contain us, but they cannot and will not stop us. As we've preached in the past, sometimes it feels like we only go backwards in this fixed political game of chess. Eventually, we will take the necessary steps forward, Free Weed, and put an end to prohibition once and for all. *There are no poll results available yet, but we'll update you when they come through.

San Diego Mayor Supports Jury Nullification For Ronnie Chang. "This is way overdoing it when local laws, state laws allow compassionate use of medical marijuana," Filner told reporters at the downtown U.S. District Court complex Monday. "Someone should not be going through this stage of prosecution for trying to help people to have access to medical marijuana." Filner spoke after attending a pretrial hearing for Ronnie Chang, a San Marcos man busted along with more than a dozen marijuana collective and dispensary operators countywide in late 2009. The case has is now heading to a trial, expected to begin this fall. Chang has been in custody since his bond was revoked last year. On Monday's docket were prosecutors' arguments that Chang's attorney, Michael McCabe, violated a judicial order against discussing the case in public by giving a videotaped interview to medical marijuana activists that was posted YouTube. It has since attracted a little more than 500 views.

550 marijuana plants found in Elk Grove homes; 5 arrested. Fire crews put out the flames at a home in the 6000 block of Laguna Villa Way just after 11:30 a.m. When firefighters were inside the home, they saw suspicious material consistent with a marijuana growing operation, but no one was inside. Felix Su, 43, arrived at the home, and detectives soon arrested him, police said. During the investigation, detectives said they also arrested Su's wife, Kim Ta, 41, at another place in Elk Grove. According to police, search warrants were obtained for two other Elk Grove homes on the 6800 block of Kilconnell Drive and the 7500 block of Shelby Way. Both homes had marijuana inside, leading officers to arrest Duang Su, 54, Raymond Su, 24, and Mui Ly, 47, police said. Between the three locations, more than 550 marijuana plants and approximately six pounds of packaged marijuana were found. Detectives said they also discovered more than $1,400 and a loaded, sawed off 12-gauge shotgun.

DPS: Trooper seizes $3.6M in meth in Carson County traffic stop. Shortly before 7 a.m. Monday, DPS said a trooper patrolling Interstate 40 pulled over a 1992 Winnebago motor home on a traffic violation. During the stop, the trooper searched the vehicle and found several bundles of methamphetamine hidden inside false compartments in the motor home, DPS said. The driver, Felix Lopez Vasquez, 58, of Perris, Calif., and his passenger, Victor Hugo Gutierrez, 43, of Orange, Calif., were arrested on charges of possession of a controlled substance, a first-degree felony, DPS said, and the men were booked into the Carson County Jail. The DPS said the drugs were being transported from California to Tulsa, Okla.

Border Patrol agents bust 18-year-old with $385,560 worth of heroin and cocaine An 18-year-old driver, who was from Las Vegas, Nevada, was arrested after officers found 15 wrapped packages of heroin and three wrapped packages of cocaine inside the car's muffler. The drugs are estimated to be worth about $385,560. The driver was later transported to the Imperial County Jail where he awaits arraignment in federal court for the smuggling.

Stanislaus County drug agents seize 290 pounds of meth in Ceres bust - Crime and Courts - Modbee.com. Modesto Police Sgt. Brian Findlen said the arrests, the result of an investigation following an anonymous tip, will have a major impact. "It's clear these are large-scale drug dealers," Findlen said. "We're certain it's going to disturb if not cripple the distribution of meth in this area in the short term and hopefully in the long term." Agents with the Stanislaus Drug Enforcement Agency, the Modesto Narcotics Enforcement Team and Homeland Security Investigations served a search warrant at a home on Hardy Court in Ceres Tuesday afternoon. Agents with the the SDEA reported that this is the largest methamphetamine seizure in its 40-year existence, Findlen said. He said the investigation is continuing, and more arrests could lie ahead. "We are following up on the origin of this large amount of methamphetamine," he said. The going price for meth is $9,000 per pound, making the 290 pounds confiscated Tuesday worth roughly $2.6 million.

Study Substantiates Benefits Of Cannabinoids For PTSD. Investigators at the New York University School of Medicine and the New York University Langone Medical Center, Steven and Alexandra Cohen Veterans Center for the Study of Post-Traumatic Stress and Traumatic Brain Injury reported that subjects diagnosed with PTSD typically possess elevated quantities of endogenous cannabinoid receptors in regions of the brain associated with fear and anxiety. Investigators also determined that many of these subjects experience a decrease in their natural production of anandamide, an endogenous cannabinoid neurotransmitter, resulting in an imbalanced endocannibinoid regulatory system. Researchers speculated that an increase in the body's production of cannabinoids would likely restore subjects' natural brain chemistry and psychological balance. They affirmed, "[Our] findings substantiate, at least in part, emerging evidence that ... plant-derived cannabinoids such as marijuana may possess some benefits in individuals with PTSD by helping relieve haunting nightmares and other symptoms of PTSD." They concluded: "The data reported herein are the first of which we are aware of to demonstrate the critical role of CB1 (cannabinoid) receptors and endocannabinoids in the etiology of PTSD in humans. As such, they provide a foundation upon which to develop and validate informative biomarkers of PTSD vulnerability, as well as to guide the rational development of the next generation of evidence-based treatments for PTSD."

Part 2: Police go undercover to break up Portland's underage sex traffic. "It's easier to hide being underage in these websites. Young girls coming up through the middle schools, that's where the target is," he said. In the undercover bust, a police officer posed as 18-year-old "Amber," while another took the calls. If a girl were to put her real age, say 14, on these websites, it's going to be immediately banned. So the pimps sell the girls using code words like young, sweet, innocent. It took just four minutes for the first john to call about the fake ad. Another rang police before they even have a chance to set up the hotel sting. An hour after the fake post was up, the first john arrived at the hotel room littered with undercover cameras. The man said to the police decoy, "I've only got a half hour today. I can go longer tomorrow." Moments later, Portland Police busted in and arrested him. At the same time, another john called to say he's on his way. "The Johns are coming one right after another," Gallagher said. Soon after, they arrested the second john, as well. The first man arrested said he's married with two kids, one 17 years old. Remember, the police post said "Amber" was 18.

Proponents concede, no fluoride in Portland OR water. After 129,663 ballots were counted in Multnomah County, and 160,769 ballots returned, any hope for fluoride passing was gone Tuesday night. Turnout in Multnomah County was near 36 percent, which was high for an off-year election. The Portland City Council voted for fluoridation last fall. But an anti-fluoride group collected enough signatures to put it to a vote. Votes in three previous elections have rejected it. "We again are really excited about it. Our volunteers have really done a lot of work. We're all grass roots," said Kellie Barnes with Clean Water Portland after hearing the results. "I think what happened was they had a much simpler message 'no'... It's very difficult to fight against a campaign that can fight or say anything they want," said Alejandro Queral with Healthy Kids, Healthy Portland.

Studies Show Marijuana Consumption Not Associated With Dangerous Driving, May Lead to Safer Drivers - The Joint Blog. To back this claim up, here's a list of studies and research conducted on this very topic, some of which were funded by national governments in hopes of different results. (Sources are hyperlinked). "20 years of study has concluded that marijuana smokers may actually have fewer accidents than other drivers." -- 4AutoInsuranceQuote.com; Reasons why marijuana users are safe drivers, 2012 "States that legalize medical marijuana see fewer fatal car accidents, according to a new study, in part because people may be substituting marijuana smoking for drinking alcohol." Time Magazine; Why Medical Marijuana Laws Reduce Traffic Deaths, 2011 "No differences were found during the baseline driving segment (and the) collision avoidance scenarios," -- Research published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 2010 "Although cognitive studies suggest that cannabis use may lead to unsafe driving, experimental studies have suggested that it can have the opposite effect." - U.S. National Library of Medicine; The Effect Of Cannabis Compared With Alcohol On Driving, 2009

Oregon Needs To Pass HB 3460 Which Would License Medical Marijuana Dispensaries. Medical marijuana has been legal since Oregon voters approved it in 1998, but the dispensaries which distribute cannabis to patients have evolved in a legal gray area.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: Republicans To Blame For IRS Tea Party Scandal (VIDEO). "This was really the result of Republican behavior," Kennedy told HuffPost Live host Marc Lamont Hill, citing Republican-led cutbacks that he said "overwhelmed" an IRS Cincinnati field office. "It's the Republicans' own fault because the Republicans cut the budget and did the sequester so that the Cincinnati office doesn't have the personnel or the training [that it needs]." Hill pushed back on Kennedy's claim that the sequester was to blame for the IRS targeting Tea Party-affiliated groups, to which Kennedy responded that the problems actually date back to the Bush administration. "I think it started long before the sequester," he said. "It's been happening since the Bush administration cut IRS' budget and cut the budget of almost all of the government agencies."

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Obama DOJ Formally Accuses Journalist in Leak Case of Committing Crimes. DOJ, in order to get this search warrant, insisted that not only Kim, but also Rosen - the journalist - committed serious crimes. The DOJ specifically argued that by encouraging his source to disclose classified information - something investigative journalists do every day - Rosen himself broke the law. Describing an affidavit from FBI agent Reginald Reyes filed by the DOJ, the Post reports [emphasis added]: "Reyes wrote that there was evidence Rosen had broken the law, 'at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.' That fact distinguishes his case from the probe of the AP, in which the news organization is not the likely target. Using italics for emphasis, Reyes explained how Rosen allegedly used a 'covert communications plan' and quoted from an e-mail exchange between Rosen and Kim that seems to describe a secret system for passing along information. . . . However, it remains an open question whether it's ever illegal, given the First Amendment's protection of press freedom, for a reporter to solicit information. No reporter, including Rosen, has been prosecuted for doing so."

The Military's Suicide Scandal. The only thing worse than the Pentagon's faux surprise has been the complicity of news organizations willing to echo its talking points. Shame on The New York Times for last week's "Baffling Rise in Suicides Plagues the U.S. Military." Disturbing, yes. But there's nothing "baffling" about the news that more active-duty troops killed themselves in 2012 than were killed in combat in Afghanistan in the same year, and that the number of suicides has doubled from a decade ago. As the Government Accountability Office (GAO)—Congress's nonpartisan investigative wing—and a variety of media outlets attest, there's been only one thing better documented than the military's unwillingness over the past 25 years to throw any real muscle into ending its culture of widespread sexual assault. And that's the military's unwillingness to acknowledge the prevalence of post-traumatic-stress-disorder (PTSD) and other mental-health issues plaguing service members and to enact serious reforms aimed at curbing and treating mental illness in its ranks. The military's systemic incompetence on this issue continues despite years of analysis and criticism, not only from service member advocacy organizations, but also from within the Beltway.

Moon meteorite explosion visible from Earth. NASA has recently released video of a spectacular meteorite slamming into Earth's moon. Scientists said it hit the surface of the moon at 56,000 miles an hour. The impact was so powerful it could be seen without a telescope. NASA has been monitoring the moon for explosions like this for the past eight years as part of a program designed to find and monitor space debris that could hit earth.

Has Drug-Driven Medicine Become A Form of Human Sacrifice? We have entered an era where medicine no longer bears any resemblance to the art and science of healing. The doctor no longer facilitates the body's innate self-healing capabilities with time, care, good nutrition and special help from our plant allies. To the contrary, medicine has transmogrified into a business enterprise founded on the inherently nihilistic principles of pure, unbridled capitalism, with an estimated 786,000 Americans dying annually from iatrogenic or medically-caused deaths.*

Celeb Bono Partners with Monsanto, G8, to Biowreck Africa. With a commitment of $3 billion, Obama plans to 'partner up' with mega-multinationals like Monsanto, Diageo, Dupont, Cargill, Vodafone, Walmart, Pepsico, Prudential, Syngenta International, and Swiss Re because, as one USAID representative says 'There are things that only companies can do, like building silos for storage and developing seeds and fertilizers.' Of course, that's an outrageous lie. Private citizens have been building their own silos for centuries. But it's true that only the biowreck engineers will foist patented seeds and toxic chemicals on Africa.

New App Lets You Boycott Monsanto when Shopping - GreenMedTV. The Buycott phone app helps users boycott companies and groups like the Koch Brothers and Monsanto, as well as other corporations that actively work against the user's ideology.

New Study Shows the Top 2 Cancer Fighting Fruits - GreenMedTV. The ability of eleven common fruits to suppress cancer cell growth in vitro was compared. Which was most effective—apples, bananas, cranberries, grapefruits, grapes, lemons, oranges, peaches, pears, pineapples, or strawberries? "These two fruits are the winner, causing a dramatic drop in cancer proliferation at just tiny doses."

Ex Pharma Rep Reveals Dirty Secrets of the Drug Business - GreenMedTV. Gwen Olsen, author of Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher spent more than a decade as a sales rep in the pharmaceutical industry working for health care giants such as Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Abbott Laboratories. She is a writer, speaker, and mental health activist who lives outside Austin, Texas. This will shock you, disgust you, and hopefully move you to take your health in to your hands as well.

Joints, Blunts Or Bong Rips, Weed Is The New Martini for Today's Baby Boomer. In November 2012, pot smoking baby boomers made their voice heard, not only in Washington and Colorado, where marijuana was legalized for recreational purposes. But also in a handful of other states, which said yes to medical marijuana. Tired of the federal government's overreaching and mandating of their unjustified prohibition against medical marijuana, limiting the state's ability to serve their citizens and create tax revenue for their financially strapped states -- the boomers came home to roost at the ballot box. Sure, some baby boomers gave into pressure from their peers, which believed the 'reefer madness' propaganda -- and stop hit the bong for a couple of years. However, as science and public perception evolved to understand marijuana's helpful cannabinoids. Pot slowly began winning the moral high ground amongst boomers for both medical purposes and as a healthy alternative to slamming some mind rotting booze, or pounding a fistful of pills, just to take the edge off another crazy day of unrelenting stress.

Fox News Medical Experts: High On Medicinal Marijuana. As we rapidly approach the midway point [25 needed] -- in the number of states in the US which have passed laws allowing for the use of medical marijuana. And poll after poll leans hard towards Americans accepting medical cannabis, and its active ingredients as real medicine. It's no small coincidence [think ratings and big pharmaceutical companies] that Fox News has jumped on the bandwagon, allowing their own expert Dr.'s to testify to some of marijuana's medicinal applications. As Dr. Manny Alvarez asks "the medicine Hunter," Chris Kilham: "what is it about cannabis that makes it that special?" Chris checks off some of the better-known applications of marijuana's active ingredients.

As Housing Markets Recover, Wall Street Beats Families To Homes. Despite the headlines suggesting that housing is returning to normal, the Gilbertsons have discovered that homes are scarce, competition is fierce and much of the buying is dominated by funds financed by Wall Street and other out-of-town investors. "It's been incredibly frustrating," said Megan Gilbertson, 27. "We feel like we can't fairly compete." In the course of their year-long search, the Gilbertsons have cycled through three different realtors while losing four bids. In three other situations in which they intended to bid, the home sold almost immediately, before they could even make an offer. All the while, prices have soared in the region, climbing about 30 percent over the past year to an average of $175,000, according to a report from Arizona State University. More than one-quarter of those properties, or 27 percent, were purchased by investors, the report says.

Feds Say Peace Activists Who Trespassed Onto Nuclear Facility Are A National Security Threat. In June of last year, peace activists Sister Megan Rice, 82, Greg Boertje-Obed, 57, and Michael Walli, 63, were able to access the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., simply by cutting through a series of chain-link fences. The three then unfurled banners, spray-painted on the building, sang hymns and prayed until security finally arrived to arrest them. As the activist site Common Dreams reports, over the next several months federal prosecutors applied increasingly serious charges to the activists, and this month ultimately convicted them of serious felonies that could carry long prison sentences. The three were convicted of "crimes of violence," and will remain incarcerated until their sentencing in September, though the group didn't harm anyone and carried with them messages of peace and nonviolence. The severity of the charges may be more of a response to the public embarrassment the break-in caused for the Obama administration than to actual criminal culpability. In reporting on the case last August, for example, The New York Times reported that nuclear experts were calling the protest "the biggest security breach in the history of the nation's atomic complex." The paper called the fiasco a "huge embarrassment for President Obama," and said that the three protesters had "made nuclear theft seem only a little more challenging than a romp in the Tennessee woods."

DOJ Targeting Of Fox News Reporter James Rosen Risks Criminalizing Journalism. Washington Post reported that the Justice Department had obtained a warrant for Rosen's personal email account in rooting out his source for a June 2009 report that North Korea was expected to respond to a U.N. sanction with a nuclear missile test. The alleged source is government adviser Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, who is being charged under the Espionage Act. The Obama administration has used the World War I-era law, designed to prosecute spies, in six leak-related cases -- more than all previous administrations combined. "From the beginning of their relationship, the Reporter asked, solicited and encouraged Mr. Kim to disclose sensitive United States internal documents and intelligence information about the Foreign Country," Reyes wrote in the search warrant application to obtain Rosen's emails. "The Reporter did so by employing flattery and playing to Mr. Kim's vanity and ego." Reyes compared Rosen's alleged efforts to communicate with Kim through a code to an intelligence officer running a clandestine operation, and alleged that Rosen had "returned the favor" by providing Kim with news articles "in advance of their publication."

Public TV Tried To Placate David Koch. he weekend before "Park Avenue" aired, Gibney said, it was clear that "something weird had happened." Shapiro called him at home. "He was very upset," Gibney said. "They were thinking of pulling the program." Gibney was told that the most pressing problem was Charles Schumer, the Democratic senator from New York. Schumer's staff had called WNET, arguing that "Park Avenue" falsely accused the Senator of supporting tax loopholes for hedge-fund managers. Gibney double-checked his research and stood by his interpretation. Nevertheless, Shapiro told him that he planned to allow Schumer to add a response after the broadcast. But, Gibney noted, "Shapiro told me nothing about the Kochs." Gibney gives credit to Shapiro and WNET for airing his film uncensored. He is disappointed, though, that the station gave Koch and Schumer the last word. "They tried to undercut the credibility of the film, and I had no opportunity to defend it," he said. Moreover, WNET replaced the introduction to "Park Avenue," which was delivered by the actor Stanley Tucci, with one calling the film "controversial" and "provocative." Gibney noted that he had asked to interview the Kochs while making "Park Avenue," but they had refused. Cohlmia initially denied this, but after Gibney's office provided me with the relevant e-mails she acknowledged that she had been contacted.

Monday, May 20, 2013

A Urine Powered Generator : Maker Faire Africa. Possibly one of the more unexpected products at Maker Faire Africa this year in Lagos is a urine powered generator, created by four girls. The girls are Duro-Aina Adebola (14), Akindele Abiola (14), Faleke Oluwatoyin (14) and Bello Eniola (15). 1 Liter of urine gives you 6 hours of electricity.

The IRS and the Real Scandal. Despite a growing number of billionaires and multi-millionaires using every tax dodge imaginable -- laundering their money through phantom corporations and tax havens — the IRS's budget has been cut by 17 percent since 2002, adjusted for inflation. To manage the $594.5 million in additional cuts required by the sequester, the agency will furlough each of its more than 89,000 employees for at least five days this year. Finally, all of this, coming at a time when the Supreme Court has deemed corporations "people" under the First Amendment and when income and wealth are more concentrated at the top than they've been in over a hundred years, has enabled America's financial elite to further entrench their wealth and power and thereby take over much of American democracy. This is the real scandal and the real abuse, Congressman Camp. Your indignation over the IRS's alleged "targeting" of conservative groups is a distraction from the main event.

Legal Marijuana: How Much Will the Average Colorado Smoker Spend on Pot Annually? Researchers estimate that in 2014, 642,772 Colorado residents, or about 12.5% of the state population, will take advantage of pot's newly legal status. Analysts assumed each person would smoke or otherwise "use" 3.53 ounces of marijuana annually, for a total of 2,268,985 ounces (about 142,000 pounds) per year. All of these numbers may be underestimated, because they're based on data compiled when recreational marijuana was illegal. In fact, there are so many unknowns in the realm of legal non-medicinal pot that all of this math has a crude back-of-the-napkin quality to it. In any event, using the study's numbers, the average marijuana enthusiast can expect to pay a retail price of $185 per ounce next year. Multiply that times 3.53 ounces—which no one can buy at once, mind you, because there's a one-ounce purchase maximum for residents—and the total comes to $653 annually spent on pot.

How to Legalize Pot. "At some point you have to say, a law that people don't obey is a bad law," Kleiman told me when I asked how his views had evolved. He has not come to believe marijuana is harmless, but he suspects that the best hope of minimizing its harm may be a well-regulated market. Ah, but what does that look like? A few places, like the Netherlands, have had limited legalization; many jurisdictions have decriminalized personal use; and 18 states in this country have approved the drug for medical use. (Twelve others, including New York, are considering it.) But Washington and Colorado have set out to invent a whole industry from scratch and, in theory, to avoid the shortcomings of other markets in legal vices — tobacco, alcohol, gambling — that lurched into being without much forethought, and have supplied, along with much pleasure, much misery. The biggest shadow hanging over this project is the Department of Justice. Federal law still makes felons of anyone who trades in cannabis. Despite the tolerant drift of the polls, despite evidence indicating that states with medical marijuana programs have not, as opponents feared, experienced an increase in use by teenagers, despite new moves toward legalization in Latin America, no one expects Congress to remove cannabis from the list of criminal substances any time soon. ("Not until the second Hillary Clinton administration," Kleiman says.)

Chile Earthquake: Magnitude 6.8 Temblor Strikes Off Coast, USGS Reports. The quake was recorded at 5:49 a.m. local time (EDT; 0949 GMT) Monday, at a shallow depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles), some 600 kilometers (370 miles) from the city of Puerto Quellon. No tsunami warning was issued. Chile is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries. A devastating 8.8-magnitude quake and the tsunami it unleashed in 2010 killed 551 people, destroyed 220,000 homes and washed away docks, riverfronts and seaside resorts. It was so strong it changed time, shortening the Earth's day slightly by changing the planet's rotation. The strongest earthquake ever recorded also happened in Chile, a magnitude-9.5 in 1960 that killed more than 5,000 people.

Billionaires Now Own American Politics. Today, politics is a rich man's game. Look no further than the 2012 elections and that season's biggest donor, 79-year-old casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. He and his wife, Miriam, shocked the political class by first giving $16.5 million in an effort to make Newt Gingrich the Republican presidential nominee. Once Gingrich exited the race, the Adelsons invested more than $30 million in electing Mitt Romney. They donated millions more to support GOP candidates running for the House and Senate, to block a pro-union measure in Michigan, and to bankroll the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other conservative stalwarts (which waged their own campaigns mostly to help Republican candidates for Congress). All told, the Adelsons donated $94 million during the 2012 cycle—nearly four times the previous record set by liberal financier George Soros. And that's only the money we know about. When you add in so-called dark money, one estimate puts their total giving at closer to $150 million. It was not one of Adelson's better bets. Romney went down in flames; the Republicans failed to retake the Senate and conceded seats in the House; and the majority of candidates backed by Adelson-funded groups lost, too. But Adelson, who oozes chutzpah as only a gambling tycoon worth $26.5 billion could, is undeterred. Politics, he told the Wall Street Journal in his first post-election interview, is like poker: "I don't cry when I lose. There's always a new hand coming up." He said he could double his 2012 giving in future elections. "I'll spend that much and more," he said. "Let's cut any ambiguity."

Chris Hedges: Rise Up or Die Corporations write our legislation. They control our systems of information. They manage the political theater of electoral politics and impose our educational curriculum. They have turned the judiciary into one of their wholly owned subsidiaries. They have decimated labor unions and other independent mass organizations, as well as having bought off the Democratic Party, which once defended the rights of workers. With the evisceration of piecemeal and incremental reform—the primary role of liberal, democratic institutions—we are left defenseless against corporate power. The Department of Justice seizure of two months of records of phone calls to and from editors and reporters at The Associated Press is the latest in a series of dramatic assaults against our civil liberties. The DOJ move is part of an effort to hunt down the government official or officials who leaked information to the AP about the foiling of a plot to blow up a passenger jet. Information concerning phones of Associated Press bureaus in New York, Washington, D.C., and Hartford, Conn., as well as the home and mobile phones of editors and reporters, was secretly confiscated. This, along with measures such as the use of the Espionage Act against whistle-blowers, will put a deep freeze on all independent investigations into abuses of government and corporate power.

What State Has The Best Marijuana? In the 90′s I purchased a lot of marijuana from Washington State, and of course from Oregon. That was back when most of the growers I knew grew for quality, not quantity. That has changed a bit with a lot of mass produced marijuana flooding the market in the Pacific Northwest and beyond, as most growers would rather have a ton of decent marijuana versus a pound of the finest marijuana it seems like. However, there are still some supreme nuggets from the Pacific Northwest if you know where to look. I have been to the Cannabis Cups in Denver a couple of times, and the Cups in California, and was lucky enough to receive samples of the top entries. I will say, they were very, very good. But I was happier to get home to my stash in Oregon, for what it's worth. There's just something about the Jack the Ripper strain via Southern Oregon that I find irresistible. Oregon is home to Subcool and TGA Genetics, and home to legendary dab maker Ganja Jon, and countless other world class marijuana geniuses. I always point out that there is a reason that Jack Herer called Oregon his home.

Hemp Amendment To The Federal Farm Bill, Call Your Senators Today. Yesterday Eric Steenstra, executive director of the HIA and president of Vote Hemp, had a good meeting with Senator Mitch McConnell's senior staff members. Senator McConnell attempted to add our hemp bill as an amendment to the Farm Bill in the Agriculture Committee on Wednesday but it was blocked. We need you to call your Senators in Congress and ask them to support & vote for the Industrial Hemp Amendment to the Farm Bill and let U.S. farmers grow industrial hemp once again.

POLL: Essentially No One Believes Marijuana Users Should Go To Jail. Reason-Rupe has just released new polling data that revealed only a minuscule percentage of Americans believe that marijuana use and possession should result in jail time. When asked which approach they thought the government and law enforcement should take toward someone found smoking marijuana or in possession of a small amount of marijuana, only 6% responded that they should be sent to jail. 35% of respondents said that these individuals shouldn't be punished at all, 32% responded they should pay a fine, and 20% said they should have to attended substance abuse courses. The survey also found that 52% of Americans favor federal legislation that would prevent the federal government from prosecuting people who grow, possess, or sell marijuana in the states that have legalized it. Recently, Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) introduced the "Respect State Marijuana Laws Act" which would do exactly that. You can click here to easily contact your Representative and urge him or her to support this measure.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Adam Kokesh Taken Into Federal Custody. Anyway, there was Adam speaking out against the nonsense that is the prohibition of weed in PA, and yes, he was arrested. Was he arrested for smoking? No -- he hadn't smoked yet. Was he arrested for domestic disturbance? No. Was he arrested for anything that could remotely harm another living soul? NO! The fact is that there was no reason to arrest him. None, zero, zilch. Unless of course you take into account the fact that he was planning another demonstration on the 4rth of July in Washington DC that includes 10K armed people. You see Adam was a problem. He actually got out there and challenged people to think and to question. Not being a violent person, this put the system in quite an awkward spot. They couldn't arrest him -- they had no legal grounds to do so even in their own law. They couldn't ignore him so they tried using the media to play him off as a whack-job. They couldn't make him look like a whack job because he took the time to answer their nonsense point for point. It got quiet for a bit. Then after one new absurd gun law attempt after another, and a whole flood of other stupidity, Adam decided to make the ultimate play -- to force the system to show its true colors, or make a fundamental change. If they show their true colors, then the waiting is over and the system will be caught with its pants down so to speak and be unable to control the outcome decisively. However a fundamental change would take away much of their power so they couldn't have that either.

DaDenMan Show #148 Ignorance Is Bliss And The Expected Result

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Lessons from Boston bombings about marijuana, education. (Brought To You By DuPont-Makers of Ritalin) One of the most striking and consistent observations about Dzhokhar, or Jahar as he was commonly known to his friends, was that he was a normal college kid. Evidence of his normality was his heavy marijuana use as a party boy. One student recalled, in an interview with Politico, "He was a pothead, a normal pothead. I couldn't even imagine him being mad at someone, let alone hurting someone. He would smoke cigarettes, smoke weed, every day. It didn't seem like he cared about anything. He seemed like a nice, relaxed kid." Less recognized among his friends was the academic trajectory of Jahar in college, including receiving failing grades over three consecutive semesters. This was a dramatic change from his academic performance in high school after having received a $2,500 academic scholarship from the city of Cambridge, Mass. It is probable that the collapse of Jahar's academic ambitions and his heading toward dropout, as his brother Tamerlan had dropped out of college, set the stage for his radicalization. Jahar's failed college career likely left him vulnerable to the lure of the importance and the celebrity of being a terrorist. While Jahar's marijuana use did not directly make him a terrorist, it closed the door to his dreams of being an engineer or physician and it opened the door to his suicidal violence. A report (http://ibhinc.org/pdfs/AmerDropoutCrisis.pdf) recently released by the Institute for Behavior and Health, a nonprofit drug policy organization, shows that heavy marijuana use is associated with failing grades and dropping out of school. It is entirely plausible that the loss of Jahar Tsarnaev's dream of success in college set the stage for his descent into the dead end of terrorism.

Want To Destroy Any Hope Of Serious Cybersecurity? Give The DOJ Its Desired Backdoor Wiretaps On All Communications. A new report has been released, put together by some of the best known technologists and security experts out there, saying that the plan, as being considered would effectively undermine any cybersecurity regime. At a time when the administration and Congress keep insisting that we need better cybersecurity, to undermine it all with wiretapping backdoors would be ridiculous. And let's not even begin discussing how this would play out if it passed and number one CISPA backer Mike Rogers then became head of the FBI. Among the report's authors are names you might recognize, like Ed Felten, Peter Neumann, Bruce Schneier and Phil Zimmerman. You can read the full report (pdf) to see all the details. As Ed Felten told the NY Times: "It's a single point in the system through which all of the content can be collected if they can manage to activate it," said Edward W. Felten, a computer science professor at Princeton and one of the authors of the report... "That's a security vulnerability waiting to happen, as if we needed more," he said.

GMO Cannabis Watch. The latest version of this attempt is genetically modified cannabis. "Genetic modification" - also called "GM," "genetically modified organisms," "GMO" and "transgenic" - is a process by which genes from one living thing are spliced together with another, in a manner that nature would not allow to occur on its own -- as opposed to "breeding," which is speeding up a natural selection process with human selection but still limited to what could possibly happen over time in nature. There is no consensus in the scientific community that genetically modifying a plant helps farmers increase their yield in any way or that GM crops are safe for human consumption or environmentally friendly or pose no threat to global food security, but nearly everyone agrees that it does allow a monopoly on the selling of that particular seed, allows the producers to justify a patent, and allows those who hold the patent to sue those who grow the plants without paying for the seeds - even if the GM pollen drifted onto the field of the farmer in question.

Officials on Benghazi: "We made mistakes, but without malice" - CBS News. "We're portrayed by Republicans as either being lying or idiots," said one Obama administration official who was part of the Benghazi response. "It's actually closer to us being idiots." The Obama administration's chief critics on Benghazi, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., remain skeptical. They see a pattern, even a conspiracy, to deflect attention from the idea that four Americans had been killed by al Qaeda-linked attackers, on the president's watch. "There is no conclusion a reasonable person could reach other than that for a couple of weeks after the attack, [the Obama administration was] trying to push a narrative that was politically beneficial to the president's re-election," Graham told CBS News. The list of mea culpas by Obama administration officials involved in the Benghazi response and aftermath include: standing down the counterterrorism Foreign Emergency Support Team, failing to convene the Counterterrorism Security Group, failing to release the disputed Benghazi "talking points" when Congress asked for them, and using the word "spontaneous" while avoiding the word "terrorism."

Reason-Rupe Poll: Only 6% Of Americans Believe Marijuana Smokers Should Be Punished With Jail Time. Reason-Rupe has just released new polling data that revealed only a minuscule percentage of Americans believe that marijuana use and possession should result in jail time. When asked which approach they thought the government and law enforcement should take toward someone found smoking marijuana or in possession of a small amount of marijuana, only 6% responded that they should be sent to jail. 35% of respondents said that these individuals shouldn't be punished at all, 32% responded they should pay a fine, and 20% said they should have to attended substance abuse courses. The survey also found that 52% of Americans favor federal legislation that would prevent the federal government from prosecuting people who grow [cannabis], possess, or sell marijuana in the states that have legalized it. Recently, Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) introduced the "Respect State Marijuana Laws Act" which would do exactly that. You can click here to easily contact your Representative and urge him or her to support this measure.

Dabs and Felons Banned From Seattle's Recreational Cannabis Market. Brian Smith, a spokesman for the Liquor Control Board, says that rule was written with black market operators in mind. "They want to get into the recreational marijuana market, they want to be legit, the Board wants them to get out the black market and to come into the recreational market and be legitimate and so that's the thinking that the Board had." License applicants would be scored based on their criminal background. Where marijuana can be grown has been a topic of much discussion. The Board proposes to limit grows to indoor, secure buildings or greenhouses -- no emerald waves of marijuana plants out in the open. But it's another limitation in the proposed rules -- having to do with a very specific marijuana product that getting a lot of attention. It's a ban on hash and other forms of concentrated THC extracted from marijuana plants -- unless it's infused into a product. "I believe that the products that we're producing have received a bad rap because of the nickname BHO, Butane extracted hash oil," says Jim Andersen. He works with a company called XTracted and he's unhappy. Andersen says Butane is often used to extract the THC, but if done right it leaves no chemical trace. He plans to fight the ban on raw marijuana extracts.

California Supreme Court's Ruling On Marijuana Dispensaries Cultivates New Call For Political Activism. We are going to keep pushing for statewide regulations to expand safe access and protect patients' rights, but we need you to help carry the banner in your home town. Let ASA help to set you up for success with the strategies and skills you need to plan, execute, and fund your campaign. Thanks for fighting for safe and dignified access in your community. I am looking forward to helping you make it happen!

Vote For And Support Ordinance F... And You Could Win A Trip To Amsterdam! You must cast a negative Vote for D, along with your positive Vote for F, or both measures may pass--causing a state of limbo. If Ordinance F loses, up to 90% of Los Angeles' collectives will be forced to shutter their doors. And with safe access already being threatened all over Orange County, this is the last thing our medical marijuana patients and workers need to happen. CALL TO ARMS: Additionally, all activists and volunteers are encouraged to go to Ordinance F's two headquarters to lend a hand in these efforts, while showing up to polls on election day to steer people in the right direction. One is in Woodland Hills at 23035 Ventura Blvd, Wodland Hills CA 91364 above the Down to Earth Collective, while the other is in Lincoln Heights at 2310 Pasadena Ave Los Angeles CA 90031 in the Cloud 9 Collective. If you're out of work and looking to find work in the cannabis industry, this is an incredible opportunity to network and show what you can do for the movement! This evening, collectives are hosting an event--The Alex Grey Visionary Art Experiencefeaturing Michael Menert of Pretty Lights Music, Thriftworks, Desert Dwellers and more. If you support this cause, it's a great way to put your time and money to use by both contributing and having a great time

Video: Masked gunman robs Portland marijuana dispensary. An armed man robbed a marijuana dispensary in Southeast Portland at gunpoint Thursday morning, and the whole crime was caught on camera. The suspect approached the counter at the ReLeaf MM at 1034 Southeast 122nd Avenue and pointed a handgun at the two employees. He then ordered them onto the floor and stole their wallets, phones and keys as well as an undisclosed amount of cash from the business. The suspect held a gun to one employee's head while demanding the other fill a large duffle bag with large jars of marijuana. The suspect is described as an African American man, 25-30 years old, 6-foot-2, 190 pounds, with a deep voice, a black hoodie, black ski mask, gray sweatpants and gloves. The suspect vehicle was described as a late 2000s dark blue Ford Explorer. The store was well-equipped with security cameras that recorded the crime.

Dirty medicine - Fortune Features. Six other pharma veterans who worked for Ranbaxy in the U.S. as recently as 2010 tell Fortune they found themselves in a corporate culture like nothing they'd ever experienced. Executives approached the regulatory system as an obstacle to be gamed. They bragged about who had most artfully deceived regulators. Until 2005 the company didn't even have a functioning patient-safety department, and patient complaints piled up in boxes, ignored, uncategorized, and unreported to the FDA as required. Spreen kept thinking that if only she could explain American regulations more clearly, Ranbaxy's executives would understand. But no amount of explaining seemed to change how the company did business. When sales of a diabetes drug were sluggish, she says, one executive asked Spreen if she could use her medical license to prescribe the drug to everyone in the company so they could record hundreds of sales. Spreen refused. When she asked Ranbaxy's global manufacturing director to send documentation showing that an antibiotic acne gel was made with good manufacturing practices (GMP), he offered to send her an "impressive looking" certificate. To Spreen, it sounded like an offer to have one forged. She tried to explain, "The look of the certificate means nothing to me unless the FDA says it's GMP."

Friday, May 17, 2013

Benghazi Emails Directly Contradict White House Claims. The emails provide further detail about the rewriting of the talking points during a 24-hour period from midday September 14 to midday September 15. As THE WEEKLY STANDARD previously reported, a briefing from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence shows that the big changes came in three waves -- internally at the CIA, after email feedback from top administration officials, and during or after a meeting of high-ranking intelligence and national security officials the following morning.

UN Study Links Man-Made Chemicals to Common Diseases. The international group, academic experts working under the umbrella of the United Nations environmental and health agencies UNEP and WHO, issued their findings in a paper updating a 2002 study on the potential dangers of synthetic chemicals. Declaring "a global threat that needs to be resolved," the team said humans and animals across the planet were probably exposed to hundreds of these often little-studied or understood compounds at any one time. "We live in a world in which man-made chemicals have become part of everyday life," said their 28-page report, "State of the Science of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals, 2012," issued as a policy guide for governments. EDCs include phthalates long used in making plastics soft and flexible. Products made from them include toys, children's dummies, perfumes and pharmaceuticals, as well as cosmetics like deodorants that are absorbed into the body.

Alert! Government Orders Youtube to Censor March on Monsanto, D.C. & Protest Videos! They are attacking are freedom of speech on the world wide web ! The Government has ordered Google to remove Videos in many countries for countless reasons ! The main reason being they dont want others to see People gathering in Mass in Revolt !

'US clamps down on Bitcoin, fears lack of control' - YouTube. US authorities have frozen the account of the world's largest Bitcoin exchange, which helps move the customers' cash online. The booming digital currency has hit bureaucratic blocks ever since its rapid growth came to the attention of government.

Protestors rally outside Palm Springs medical marijuana dispensary. Palm Springs City Attorney Doug Holland said the C.C.O.C dispensary received the same enforcement notification on Wednesday. "We have permanent injunctions that have been issued by the court in these two cases. These guys have been operating illegally. The court has ruled against these guys from day one and we are now enforcing those orders. They need to close and if they don't close we are going to compel closure," he said. Holland said the notice informs dispensary operators they have 24 hours to comply with the order to shut down. He said that doesn't mean police will show up at exactly the 24-hour mark. Palm Springs is the only city in Riverside County that allows dispensaries to operate under special The cap for permits is three. Holland said the state Supreme Court ruling earlier this month that determined cities and counties have the right to ban medical marijuana dispensaries from operating in their jurisdictions further validates the city's efforts to close down invalid dispensaries.

Monitoring of AP Phones a "Terrifying" Step in State Assault on Press Freedom. The phones targeted by the subpoena included the general AP office numbers in New York City; Washington, D.C.; and Hartford, Connecticut; and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery. The records were from April and May of 2012. Among those whose records were obtained were Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, three other reporters and an editor, all of whom worked on a story about an operation conducted by the CIA and allied intelligence agencies that stopped a Yemen-based al-Qaeda plot to detonate a bomb on an airplane headed for the United States. Amy Goodman: The Associated Press had delayed publication of the story 'til May 7, 2012, at the government's request. One day before the AP story was finally published, a U.S. drone strike in Yemen killed Fahd al-Quso, a senior leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Attorney General Holder, who says he recused himself from the leak probe, defended his department's actions.

Western drug firms used unwitting participants in former GDR for tests. Among other things, the companies tested chemotherapy drugs and heart medication. Other substances fresh from the laboratory were reportedly given to premature babies. Many people are believed to have died as a consequence of the trials. One of the institutions involved was Berlin's renowned Charité hospital. Trials without consent The allegations are not completely new. Back in 2012 the Berlin-based daily Der Tagesspiegel claimed to have gained information proving that West German drug manufacturers had tested medication on GDR citizens. The paper said it knew of at least seven patients who were tested without their prior consent. But according to the paper, medical standards of the time in both West and East Germany stipulated that hospitals were not only obliged to inform participants of the impending tests. They also needed the patients' written consent.

CBS Evening News "basically said straight out: Republicans told us these were the quotes [from White House e-mails about Benghazi] and that wasn�t true." On Friday, Republicans leaked what they said was a quote from Rhodes. "We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don't want to undermine the FBI investigation." But it turns out, in the actual e-mail Rhodes did not mention the State Department. It read "We need to resolve this in a way that respects all the relevant equities, particularly the investigation." Republicans also provided what they said was a quote from an e-mail written by State Department Spokesman Victoria Nuland. The Republican version notes Nuland discussing: "The penultimate point is a paragraph talking about all the previous warnings provided by the Agency (CIA) about al-Qaeda's presence and activities of al-Qaeda." The actual e-mail from Nuland says: the "...penultimate point could be abused by Members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings..." The C.I.A. agreed with the concerns raised by the State Department and revised the talking points to make them less specific than the C.I.A.'s original version, eliminating references to al-Qaeda and affiliates and earlier security warnings. There is no evidence, Scott, the White House orchestrated these changes.

Bongs and Grow Books Banned in Canada! The law, section 462.2 of the Criminal Code, is so broad that even promoting any "literature or instruments for illicit drug use" can get you 6 months in prison and a $100,000 fine for the first offence, and a year behind bars plus a $300,000 fine for the second offence. Bookstores like Chapters and Amazon fall under the law, since they sell many pro-marijuana books and videos. But police raids have only focused on cannabis culture oriented shops. Surprised about this harsh law? Don't be, it's 25 years old -- enacted back in 1988 by the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney.

Patrick Dempsey Buys Tully's Coffee Franchise: Next Up 'Buds And Espresso' To Go. Making the observation "Coffee is good for your mind -- it's basically a legalized drug," Dempsey explained. "The next step is selling marijuana, of course." [And another closet pot fan has come out of the dark -- and joins the rest of us 420 fans in the light of day. Congratulations Patrick.] Patrick's latest career choice demonstrates a little bit of unorthodox, out-of-the-box thinking. And I'm sure it's caught some of his elderly female fan base off guard, or perhaps unprepared for his seemingly left-leaning career change to Bud tender and hipster coffee barista . But there is a spark of capitalist genius there as well. When the topic was broached regarding the possibility of a 'to go window' where patrons could get their coffee and weed to go... Patrick noted "there is a business model there," he then explained. "You could present it in a beautiful, elegant way: a Michelin-starred coffee shop where you can get marijuana." Like I said, a spark of capitalist genius -- so long as you don't smoke and drive afterwards.

UFC Punishes Fighters For Marijuana, Not Testosterone. According to UFC president Dana White, his organization will continue to abide by the standards set by various state athletic commissions when it comes to drugs. He does not, however, seem overly concerned with testosterone replacement therapy, which, while legal, can significantly increase the performance of athletes. This means that it is up to state athletic commissions to heed the advice of WADA. Healy apologized for the incident, saying he made a "very poor choice" and promised to "make a conscious effort to be a better role model within the [mixed martial arts] community." He shouldn't have to apologize. Not for using a substance that is safer than alcohol and does not overtly enhance performance.

Why Is There An Ammunition Shortage In The U.S.? : Planet Money : NPR. An economics textbook would say this shouldn't happen. It would say that Bob Viden, who has run the shop for almost 50 years, should respond to the increase in demand by raising prices. But, Viden told me, "We don't want to do that. We want to be fair." Apparently so do some of the best known ammo sources across the country. At the sporting goods store Cabela's and at Walmart, shelves are empty but prices are flat. During my conversations at Bob's Little Sport Shop, the word 'fair' came up about two dozen times. Or, as one customer put it, "There's no reason to make a profit off of our misfortune." To a traditional economist, a shortage is evidence prices are too low. But Viden predicts if he raises his prices, his customers won't come back because they'll think he ripped them off. "Traditional economic theory doesn't really have room for fairness perceptions," Margaret Campbell of the University of Colorado at Boulder told me. But about 30 years ago, she says, "people started noticing that there were these kind of quirks."

The Greater Gatsby-The Great Gatsby is the first modern novel about a drug dealer. Remember, Gatsby is set in the 20s, when pot was still legal and sold in pharmacies, as cigarettes or tinctures. A musician in Lehrman's Gatsby is unmistakably modeled on Cab Calloway, who's "Are You Hip to the Jive?" was the "Are You Experienced?" of his day. (Calloway recorded "Minnie the Moocher" and "Reefer Man".) Everyone from Stephen Colbert to the BBC World Service book club missed the core of the novel: Gatsby is an American hero because he makes his money by illegal means, which necessarily involves thuggery. When this was mentioned on the BBC, it merely drew the usual mock astonishment and chuckles from the esteemed panel. So I guess I'll have to be the one to tell you the news: The Great Gatsby is the first modern novel about a drug dealer.

Voters To Decide Future Of Medical Marijuana In Los Angeles. Measure D, Measure E, and Measure F have all been competing to set the rules for medical marijuana dispensaries, including how many will be allowed, where they will be allowed to locate, as well as what regulations they have to adhere to. Los Angeles City Councilman, Bill Rosendahl, has surfaced as the leading force behind the campaign to pass Measure-D. Rosendahl is a cancer survivor, and greatly credits medical marijuana with helping him to recover. Measure-D would allow 135 dispensaries to remain open, closing all other dispensaries that were established before 2007. In addition, the proposition would increase the city tax to 6%. "We're supporting those who have quietly lived by the rules, are causing no problems, and give medicinal use for me," Councilman Rosendahl said. "That's the people I want to support." Measure-E, which is similar to Measure-D, closed down its campaign to support Measure-D.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

NEWS WRAP-UP: Military Sees Strength in Advanced Energy. The military is working to make their energy supply more advanced in a variety of ways, with everything from algae-based diesel and jet fuel to large-scale photovoltaic systems on state-side military installations to intelligent microgrids powering mobile air bases. This week saw the Army Corps of Engineers move into geothermal, as five companies were prequalified to contract with the Department of Defense to build and maintain geothermal energy projects. These five companies, which include Constellation NewEnergy, ECC Renewables, Enel Green Power North America, LTC Federal, and Siemens Government Technologies, have been vetted by the Army Corps of Engineers for potential power purchase agreements. The geothermal announcement was the first step toward awards of up to $7 billion for renewable and alternative energy production for DoD installations under long-term contracts. Over the course of this year, the DoD will also go through a round of prequalifications with solar, wind, and biomass energy projects to facilitate such power purchase contracts. "To reach the Army's goal of deploying 1 gigawatt of renewable energy by 2025 will require a different way of doing business with the private sector," Col. Robert Ruch of the Army Corps of Engineers said in a news release.

Video: IRS scapegoats not exactly taking it lying down « Hot Air. FOX19 has exclusively learned that as many as four people may be the first Cincinnati Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees to face disciplinary action, and possibly even criminal charges, for allegedly targeting Tea Party and Liberty groups applying for non-profit status. On Wednesday, the IRS announced that it had pinpointed two employees at the agency's Cincinnati office for being 'primarily' responsible. ... One of FOX19′s two sources went on say that these four IRS workers claim "they simply did what their bosses ordered." FOX19 reported on Tuesday that the report by the Office of Inspector General states that senior IRS officials knew agents were targeting Tea Party groups as early as 2011. In fact, according to that report, Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax exempt organizations, was told on June 29, 2011 that groups with 'Tea Party', 'Patriot' or '9/12 Project' in their names were being flagged for additional, and often burdensome, scrutiny.

New Controversies May Undermine Obama. On Wednesday, announcing the departure of the acting director of the I.R.S., he portrayed himself as an onlooker to the scandal, albeit one with the power to force changes. "Americans have a right to be angry about it, and I'm angry about it," he said. He likewise had nothing to do with the Justice Department seizure of phone records of reporters for The Associated Press, aides say. The Benghazi dispute, he complains, is brazen politics, and the White House released e-mails Wednesday meant to show that the president's close aides had little involvement in its most hotly debated aspect. He has no way to force Congress to pass even a modest gun-control bill, aides say, while the slaughter in Syria defies American capacity to intervene. All of which raises the question of how a president with grand ambitions and shrinking horizons can use his office. Mr. Obama may be right about some of the things he cannot do, but he has also struggled lately to present a vision of what he can do. On Wednesday, the administration appeared to take a newly aggressive tack on three current imbroglios, pushing out the head of the I.R.S., releasing the Benghazi e-mails and announcing that it would revive legislation to protect journalists from legal jeopardy. The president also said he would hold a news conference Thursday.

During DOJ Oversight Hearing, D- Rep. Steve Cohen Rips AG Holder Over Unjustified Marijuana Raids. Rep. Steve Cohen a D Tennessee — "One of the greatest threats to liberty has been the government taking people's liberty for things that people are in favor of. The Pew Research Group shows that 52 percent of people do not think marijuana should be illegal. And yet there are people in jail, and your Justice Department is continuing to put people in jail, for sale, and use, on occasion, of marijuana. That's something the American public has finally caught up with. It was a cultural lag. And it's been an injustice for 40 years in this country to take people's liberty for something that was similar to alcohol. You have continued what is allowing the Mexican cartels power, and the power to make money, ruin Mexico, hurt our country by having a prohibition in the late 20th and 21st century. We saw it didn't work in this country in the 20s. We remedied it. This is the time to remedy this Prohibition, and I would hope you would do so."

19,2 Kilo Crystal Meth: Münchener Zollfahnder machen Mega-Fund. Den bisher größten Crystal-Fund in Deutschland haben Zollbeamte am Münchner Flughafen gemacht. Sie beschlagnahmten 19,2 Kilogramm der gefährlichen Synthetikdroge. Das teilte der Sachgebietsleiter Rauschgift beim Zollfahndungsamt, Jürgen Thiel, mit. Sechs mutmaßliche Drogenkuriere aus Rumänien und Bulgarien hatten das Rauschmittel bereits Mitte Februar in den Schalen ihrer Koffer versteckt. Die Gruppe war auf dem Weg aus den Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten nach Japan. Die drei Männer und drei Frauen sitzen nun in Untersuchungshaft.

Today Almere - 800 kilos of cocaine in Rotterdam area discovered. Rotterdam Police in two tests, in the port of Rotterdam and Schiedam, a total of 800 kilos of cocaine. The hard drugs have a street value of 25.6 million euros. That the Public Prosecution Service in Rotterdam announced Monday. First came the police on May 1 at a customs inspection on 162 packages containing about 150 kilos of cocaine. ,, The packages were hidden in a container, but were discovered through scanning equipment,'' says the OM.

Heroin worth Rs 1 cr seized. At least 550 grams of heroin, worth an estimated Rs one crore in the street market, was seized by BSF from two persons in a hotel in Assam's Silchar town today, official sources said. On a tip off, BSF personnel recovered the contraband from the two persons staying in a room of the hotel, the sources said. They were identified as Oinam Singh from Manipur and Saijjudin Laskar from Karimganj district. The duo allegedly confessed having brought the heroin from Myanmar via Moreh in Manipur to sell the contraband to drug dealers in Silchar, situated along the Indo-Bangladesh border.

Cocaine shipments wash ashore in Brac, Grand Cayman :: cayCompass.com. For the third time within 17 days, a substance suspected to be cocaine weighing around 60 lbs. and wrapped into 25 separate packages has washed up in the Cayman Islands. Monday's haul, found on the beach in North Side district, Grand Cayman, was discovered around 1.45pm on 6 May. According to the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service, officers received a report that a bag had been found on the beach off Old Robin Road containing wrapped plastic packages with a combined weight of about 61 lbs. The packages will undergo forensic testing. The find in North Side comes about a week after a package of cocaine washed ashore in Cayman Brac.

Too Stoned to Drive? - Reason.com. The new law allows a jury to convict someone of driving under the influence of a drug (DUID) based on nothing more than a test indicating that his blood contained five nanograms or more of marijuana's main active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), per milliliter. The Colorado legislature had rejected the five-nanogram cutoff on five other occasions based on concerns that it is a poor measure of impairment. Those concerns are well-founded, because there is wide variation in how people respond to a given dose of THC. Although some people may be dangerously impaired at five nanograms, regular consumers, including patients who use marijuana as a medicine, can drive competently at much higher THC levels because they develop tolerance to the drug's effects and learn how to compensate for them.

An Exit Strategy for the Failed War on Drugs: A Federal Legislative Guide. This comprehensive report contains 75 broad and incremental recommendations for federal legislative reforms related to civil rights, deficit reduction, law enforcement, foreign policy, sentencing and reentry, effective drug treatment, public health, and drug prevention education.

Congressmen Help Launch Drug War Exit Strategy Guide. On Thursday, the Drug Policy Alliance will release An Exit Strategy for the Failed War on Drugs. This comprehensive report contains 75 broad and incremental recommendations for legislative reforms related to civil rights, deficit reduction, law enforcement, foreign policy, sentencing and re-entry, effective drug treatment, public health, and drug prevention education. The guide will be released at a forum on the Hill cosponsored by Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-TX) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), both of whom fought for major drug policy reform at the local level before running for Congress and winning. This new generation of legislators has demonstrated that support for drug policy reform is no detriment to electoral success -- and in fact that it can be a key asset.

Marijuana Infused Edibles - The Next Big Growth Spurt For The America Pot Market. As Americans try and sift through some of the rather confusing and conflicting information regarding medical marijuana, one thing remains certain...this is a growth industry that will not go away. And while those who love pot the most, swear by smoking or vaporizing it. The edible, THC infused food end of this national issue is where many believe the majority of the growth is headed. That's right, Marijuana's roots have taken hold of Betty Crocker's recipe book-- and is turning things upside down. No longer do people have to smoke weed to feel the relaxing calm of marijuana's cannabinoids. Now, with today's technology medical marijuana patients and recreational smokers alike — no longer need to "fire up" to get that elevated feeling.

Nevada Bill Would Protect Medical Marijuana Patients From Unscientific DUI Law. For medical marijuana patients -- who can legally consume marijuana -- prohibiting small amounts of THC from showing up in blood tests is patently unfair. Active THC can remain in the bloodstream for days after consumption, even when it does not affect a person's ability to drive. In effect, many medical marijuana patients are prohibited from driving because of this unfair law. Assemblyman William Horne aims to change this in his bill. Nevada's patients should not be prohibited from driving simply because they benefit from the use of medical marijuana. DUI's should be based on impairment -- not whether drivers have a legal substance in their bloodstream. If you are a Nevada resident, please send a message to members of the Senate committee and voice your support for this bill!

Libertarian Party's Senate Candidate Smokes Marijuana In Hamilton Park. As photographers snapped pictures, his wife captured video of Don DeZarn on a cellphone and asked him "who" it was for. "Who is this for?" DeZarn said, exhaling a puff of smoke. "This is for all my brothers and sisters who are currently being held prisoners of war by our government as a result of the war on drugs." Though no police were on the scene to arrest him, DeZarn, 46, of East Windsor, called the stunt a public statement for marijuana legalization, one of the chief tenets of his campaign for the state Senate seat in the 14th District.

Study: Cannabinoids May Be Best Medication For Those With PTSD. The study, which was published online in Molecular Psychiatry and will be presented at the Society of Biological Psychiatry's annual meeting, is the first to use brain imaging to show that PTSD sufferers have lower concentrations of anandamide than the average person -- anandamide is an endocannabinoid that binds to CB1 receptors. The researchers examined 60 individuals from three different groups: Those who have been diagnosed with PTSD, those who have had a history of trauma but no PTSD, and those with a history of neither. Researchers than administered a radioactive, though apparently "safe" tracer, which illuminated the participants' CB1 receptors when exposed to a PET scan. The scan found that the PTSD sufferers, especially among women, had more CB1 receptors in the parts of their brains linked to fear and anxiety than those without PTSD. Individuals with PTSD were also found to have lower levels of anandamide, leading to an increased number of CB1 receptors.

Medbox Comments On 'Federal Tolerance Of State Marijuana Laws'. "We applaud the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Fortune Magazine, and the many other news agencies that have reported a fair and balanced view on this burgeoning industry in its infancy," stated Dr. Bruce Bedrick , CEO of Medbox, Inc. "While we have always stated publicly that the federal government does not condone this industry, we feel they are tolerant as long as industry participants act responsibly and do not abuse the freedoms granted under the government's more forward-thinking and lenient approach to this issue." Besides the company's aggressive position on touching all phases of ancillary marijuana related businesses, they have also moved forward in discussions with a small pharmacy chain to pilot the Medbox Lockbox Rx™ pharmacy storage and retrieval device for traditional prescription medications dispensed inside pharmacies. The company plans on disclosing more information on these pilot placements as a definitive agreement is executed between the parties within the next few months.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Four colossal Sun flares in 48 hours. Increased numbers of flares are expected at the moment because the Sun's normal 11-year activity cycle is approaching a peak of activity - known as a solar maximum - this year. Dr Robert Massey, from the UK's Royal Astronomical Society, told the BBC: "What's interesting about these events is that you have them in quick succession. "It really does say that we're approaching this 11-year peak. We can't say exactly when it's going to happen, you can only work it out retrospectively." Despite this, the Sun had - up until the most recent events - been relatively quiet in 2013. Sunspot numbers had been below values in recent years and strong flares had been infrequent.

Dana Milbank: Obama, the uninterested president. Reuters correspondent Jeff Mason asked how Obama felt about "being compared to President Nixon on this." The press secretary laughed. "People who make those kinds of comparisons need to check their history," he said. Carney had a point there. Nixon was a control freak. Obama seems to be the opposite: He wants no control over the actions of his administration. As the president distances himself from the actions of "independent" figures within his administration, he's creating a power vacuum in which lower officials behave as though anything goes. Certainly, a president can't know what everybody in his administration is up to — but he can take responsibility, he can fire people and he can call a stop to foolish actions such as wholesale snooping into reporters' phone calls. At the start of Tuesday's briefing, the AP's Jim Kuhnhenn pointed out that in all the controversies of the moment — the Benghazi "talking points," the IRS targeting and the journalists' phone records — "you have placed the burden of responsibility someplace else. . . . But it is the president's administration."

Investors Commit Over $1 Million to Marijuana Industry Start-ups at Seattle Event. Companies receiving private investment commitments include Uptoke -- a portable vaporizer company, Rodawg -- a cannabis packaging and lifestyle brand, WeCanna -- a rewards-based crowdfunding platform for the new hemp and cannabis industry, Canna Security America -- a company that provides security solutions for the legal cannabis industry, and Apeks -- a company that sells high tech machines used to create cannabis concentrates. The Marijuana Policy Project also received funding for a political action committee to support candidates favorable to legalization and Students for Sensible Drug Policy also received funding commitments. Some of these companies closed out their investment rounds and others are still negotiating with ArcView's investor members.

Pot Shops Can't Take American Express or Deposit in Banks. Klug, co-founder of PinkHouse Blooms LLC, a chain of five medical-marijuana dispensaries in Denver, has to pay his sales taxes in cash because federal law bars banks from offering accounts to pot shops, even as Colorado allows and taxes them. "It highlights the awkward situation we've been placed in," Klug, 36, said. "We are paying taxes, but despite our best efforts to be good citizens, we're still paying in cash." Colorado is among 18 states that allow the medical use of marijuana, and 11 that permit sales through dispensaries like Klug's. But federal law labels the drug a controlled substance and requires banks to report related transactions as suspicious activity. The inconsistency creates a grey area for dispensary operators, who have to choose between operating as a cash-only business, susceptible to robbery, or finding creative ways to open checking accounts and accept credit and debit cards.

Despite Drug War, Heroin Use is Growing in the U.S. In North Carolina, dealers offer "special packages" to the noble residents of nearby areas of Charlotte. In the rich northeast, the Northern New England Poison Center has announced a burst of overdose cases in the states of Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire. According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), one in five patients seeking hospitalization in public hospitals in Minnesota do because of an addiction to heroin or its derivatives. "Heroin use is impressive. I have never seen anything like this before in the state. It is a relatively inexpensive drug with a high level of purity. And it is surprising the increase of cases in locations distant from Minneapolis and Saint Paul. They now appear in the more sleepy areas, like Lake Woebegone " said Carol Falkowski, of NIDA.

Michigan Admits Major Error, Dissolves New Marijuana Conditions Panel. "After a careful review of the Medical Marihuana Act... the make-up of the current Medical Marihuana Review Panel does not meet the administrative rule requirements... As a result, the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs will be appointing a new panel that complies with the law. No further meeting of the review panel will be held until the new panel is appointed," said the government in a private communication sent to a select few individuals. This information was not posted on LARA's website and was not released in a press statement. The Panel's deconstruction was revealed in a letter sent to Panel participants on April 29, 2013 and was just recently obtained by The Compassion Chronicles.

Calling A Marijuana Addiction Rehab Center. I have always wanted to call a marijuana rehab center to see what they had to say. Looks like someone beat me to it: I HAD to call and feel out how intelligent these people were regarding this plant. She wasn't at all... 4:20 is when she says the gateway theory...

Untangling the Web - Brought to you by the NSA The attached PDF is the NSA guidebook to 'Understanding the Web' in regards to search and find techniques. The 643-page tome, called Untangling the Web: A Guide to Internet Research (.pdf), was just released by the NSA following a FOIA request filed in April by MuckRock, a site that charges fees to process public records for activists and others.

Two Radical 'Brave Choices' to Prevent Cancer: Voluntary Mutilation or Clean Living. Today the media is applauding the "medical choice" of Angelina Jolie, who has joined celebrities Sharon Osbourne and Miss America contestant Allyn Rose in having both of her healthy breasts removed. Much is being discussed about her "bravery" in undergoing this procedure "proactively". I'm personally appalled by this action, and I know my opinion won't be a popular one. Particularly in the case of Angelina Jolie, I am disturbed, because of the influence she has. She is a beautiful woman, a very popular celebrity, and a UN ambassador. Her influence is broad -- many people respect her activism, and for that reason, I am fearful that many other women will consider this to be a wise course of action.

Feds weigh lowering drunk driving standard to .05. The lower threshold was one of a series of recommendations aimed at reducing drunken driving made by the National Transportation Safety Board's staff in a report presented at a meeting of the board. New approaches are needed to combat drunken driving, which claims the lives of more than a third of the people killed each year on U.S highways -- a level of carnage that that has remained stubbornly consistent for the past decade and a half, the board said. "Our goal is to get to zero deaths because each alcohol-impaired death is preventable," NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said. "Alcohol-impaired deaths are not accidents, they are crimes. They can and should be prevented. The tools exist. What is needed is the will."

Random Drug Testing At Schools Increases The Use Of Hard Drugs. This is an excellent example of random drug testing being a failed experiment (not to mention a constitutional disaster) -- marijuana is much safer than the hard drugs the students are being pushed towards -- "hard drugs" being substances like heroin, cocaine and alcohol. "I think school leaders should realise that drug testing does not have a simple association with student drug use," stated Yvonne Terry-McElrath, researcher at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, who is one of the authors of the study. She continues, "It is clear that drug testing is not providing the solution for substance-use prevention that its advocates claim."

U.S. Taxpayers Footing Bill That Promotes Monsanto Abroad: Report. The cables show U.S. diplomats supporting Monsanto, the world's largest seed company, in foreign countries even after it paid $1.5 million in fines after being charged with bribing an Indonesian official and violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in 2005. One 2009 cable shows the embassy in Spain seeking "high-level U.S. government intervention" at the "urgent request" of Monsanto to combat biotech crop opponents there, according to the Food & Water Watch report. The report covered cables from 2005-2009 that were released by Wikileaks in 2010 as part of a much larger release by Wikileaks of a range of diplomatic cables it obtained. Monsanto spokesman Tom Helscher said Monsanto believes it is critical to maintain an open dialogue with government authorities and trade groups in other countries. "We remain committed to sharing information so that individuals can better understand our business and our commitments to support farmers throughout the world as they work to meet the agriculture demands of our world's growing population," he said. State Department officials had no immediate comment when contacted about the report.

Audit: Errors In Hundreds Of Colorado Prison Sentences. Prison officials have alerted courts to 281 inmates whose sentences were incorrect in some way, according to Allison Morgan, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Corrections. Judges have already adjusted the sentences in 56 of those cases and are reviewing others. An unknown number of the cases involve people who have already been paroled from prison, or are in halfway houses or other community correctional facilities. The information comes in the course of an audit ordered by Gov. John Hickenlooper after it was revealed the man suspected of killing the state's corrections chief left prison four years early because the courts gave the prison system incorrect information about his proper sentence. Only a fraction of the review has been completed. More than 2,000 more cases flagged by auditors as potentially problematic need to be reviewed by corrections officials to determine whether there are in fact more mistakes. If the 56 percent error rate holds up, it would mean more than 1,000 inmates were improperly sentenced.