Obama's New Drug Strategy Opposes Legalizing Pot

 

by Paul Armentano

 

So this is your administration on drugs. Any questions?

 

Obama drug plan 'firmly opposes' legalization as California vote looms
via The Hill

The Obama administration said Tuesday that it "firmly opposes" the legalization of any illicit drugs as California voters head to the polls to consider legalizing marijuana this fall.

The president and his drug czar re-emphasized their opposition to legalizing drugs in the first release of its National Drug Control Strategy this morning.

"Keeping drugs illegal reduces their availability and lessens willingness to use them," the document, prepared by Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, says. "That is why this Administration firmly opposes the legalization of marijuana or any other illicit drug."

Is anyone surprised? You shouldn't be. After all, this is the same Gil Kerlikowske that has said repeatedly that legalization is not in his vocabulary, and publicly stated, "Marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit." And this is the same administration that recently nominated Michele Leonhart to head the DEA — the same Michele Leonhart who overruled the DEA's own administrative law judge in order to continue to block medical marijuana research, and publicly claimed that the rising death toll civilians attributable to the U.S./Mexican drug war "a signpost of the success" of U.S. prohibitionist policies.

Yet, given that national polls now indicate that an estimated one out of two Americans nationwide support legalization, and that a solid majority of west coast voters and Californians back regulating the retail production and distribution of pot like alcohol, it seems politically counterproductive for the administration to maintain such a 'flat Earth' policy. So what could possibly be their reasoning?

It's actually spelled out here, in the White House's 2010 Drug Control Strategy:

We have many proven methods for reducing the demand for drugs. Keeping drugs illegal reduces their availability and lessens willingness to use them. That is why this Administration firmly opposes the legalization of marijuana or any other illicit drug. Legalizing drugs would increase accessibility and encourage promotion and acceptance of use. Diagnostic, laboratory, clinical, and epidemiological studies clearly indicate that marijuana use is associated with dependence, respiratory and mental illness, poor motor performance, and cognitive impairment, among other negative effects, and legalization would only exacerbate these problems.

There it is in black and white — in less than 100 words: The federal government's entire justification for marijuana prohibition; their entire justification for a policy that has led to the arrest of over 20 million Americans since 1965, that is responsible for allowing cops to terrorize families and kill their pets, that has stripped hundreds of thousands of young people of their ability to pursue higher education, and that is directly responsible for the deaths of over 20,000 civilians on the U.S./Mexico border. And that's just for starters.

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/05/11/obama-administration-%E2%80%98firmly-opposes%E2%80%99-marijuana-legalization-heres-why/

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Chemical Concussions and Secret LSD: Pentagon Details Cold War Mind-Control Tests

By Katie Drummond

More than 30 years after it was written, the Pentagon has released a memorandum detailing its involvement in the CIA's infamous Cold War mind-control experiments.

But a warning to conspiracy theorists on the lookout for new fodder: This isn't quite Men Who Stare at Goats II.

The 17-page document (.pdf), "Experimentation Programs conducted by the Department of Defense That Had CIA Sponsorship or Participation and That Involved the Administration to Human Subjects of Drugs Intended for Mind-Control or Behavior-Modification Purposes," was prepared in 1977 by the General Counsel of the Department of Defense and released on May 6 after a Freedom of Information Act request.

Most of the details have been revealed in earlier CIA papers. And if anything, the Pentagon's recap is a reminder of how little the Department of Defense cops to knowing about the CIA projects.

Still, there are some tantalizing new details. Take the origins of MK-ULTRA, the notorious CIA program that dosed thousands of unwitting participants with hallucinogenic drugs.

Initially funded by the Navy, the project set out to study the effects of brain concussion. Soon after, scientists noted that a blow to the head prompted amnesia, leading to the pursuit of a drug-based technique to "induce brain concussion … without physical trauma." Shortly thereafter, the project was transferred entirely to the CIA, because it involved "human experiments … not easily justifiable on medical-therapeutic grounds."

Other programs, described briefly focused on mind control. MK-NAOMI was after "severely incapacitating and lethal materials … [and] gadgetry for their dissemination," and MK-CHICKWIT was designed to "identify new drug developments in Europe and Asia," and then "obtain samples."

Edgewood Laboratories, where many of the programs were carried out, is also identified as having tested an incapacitating chemical on prisoners and military personnel without the agency's approval. The drug, EA#3167, was "appl[ied] to the skin" of subjects using an adhesive tape.

Another program, MK-OFTEN, started as a study on dopamine. But the scope was soon expanded to evaluate ibogaine, a hallucinogen, and then several more drugs, in hopes of creating "new pharmacologically active drugs affecting the central nervous system [to] modify men's behavior."

And the Navy is reported to have "obtain[ed] heroin and marijuana" in an effort to develop speech-inducing drugs for use on defectors and prisoners of war. The drugs were eventually tested on 14 people: six volunteer research assistants, and eight unwitting Soviet defectors.

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/05/chemical-concussions-and-secret-lsd-military-releases-cold-war-mind-control-report/#ixzz0njlaPivg

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Ron Paul hopes Hemp History Week will reap more co-sponsors for legalization bill

By Ron Brynaert

Groups hope to collect 50,000 signed post cards urging Obama and Holder to put end to industrial hemp ban

Jack Herer, "the self-described Emperor of Hemp", passed away nearly a month ago, but that doesn't mean his dream died with him.

Roll Call reports, "Hemp History Week might not earn anyone time off work, but Rep. Ron Paul still thinks it's worth celebrating."

The Texas Republican and erstwhile presidential candidate on Thursday submitted a statement to the Congressional Record recognizing next week, May 17-23, as Hemp History Week and urging his colleagues to pass legislation legalizing hemp farming. In the statement, which hemp advocates are touting as a big endorsement for their cause, Paul notes that Thomas Jefferson and George Washington both grew the leafy crop.

Paul's arguments focused on the potential economic effect of legalizing hemp — probably making for a stronger case than the beauty of those hemp necklaces found on the necks of half the attendees of any given Widespread Panic concert. "Unfortunately, because of a federal policy that does not distinguish between growing industrial hemp and growing marijuana, all hemp products and materials must be imported," Paul said. "The result is high prices, outsourced jobs, and lost opportunities for American manufacturing."

A post at VoteHemp.com details activists' plans for the week: "A joint project of Vote Hemp and the Hemp Industries Association, Hemp History Week is looking for patriotic Americans to participate in and attend events in their state as part of a national grassroots, media and public education campaign."

Vote Hemp is a national, single-issue, non-profit advocacy group founded in 2000 by members of the hemp industry to remove barriers to industrial hemp farming in the U.S. through education, legislation and advocacy. We work to build grassroots support for hemp through voter education, registration and mobilization, as well as defend against any new laws, regulations or policies that would prohibit or restrict hemp trade.

Industrial hemp is the non-psychoactive, low-THC, oilseed and fiber varieties of the Cannabis sativa plant. Hemp has absolutely no use as a recreational drug.

The groups "hope to collect at least 50,000 signed post cards urging President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to end the status quo and let farmers grow versatile and profitable industrial hemp."

"Madam Speaker, I rise to speak about Hemp History Week," Paul said last week on the floor. "To celebrate the American heritage of growing industrial hemp, the Hemp Industries Association, Vote Hemp, several American manufacturers, and allied companies and organizations have declared May 17 to May 23 to be Hemp History Week. Throughout the week, people will recognize America's legacy of industrial hemp farming and call for reinstating respect for farmers' basic right to grow industrial hemp."

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0511/ron-paul-hopes-hemp-history-week-reap-cosponsors-legalization-bill/

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UK Election Winner! Meet the New Toff (Same as the Old Toffs)

by Martin Lewis

You thought that George W. Bush was an ultra-rich kid with a sense of entitlement to rule and a mission to take care of fellow millionaires?

Meet Britain's new Prime Minister: The Right Honorable David William Donald Cameron.

At left: Britain's Brand-New "21st Century" Prime Minister -- David Cameron. Snapped in 1987 in his "Born To Rule" outfit -- worn by all members of The Bullingdon Club -- the UK equivalent of the elite Skull & Bones Society.

Born 1966. Raised in a fabulously wealthy family as heir to a massive family fortune. His Conservative Party is committed to passing a tax cut that will only benefit the 3,000 richest families in the UK -- including his own of course.

He was schooled at England's most expensive and most exclusive private school -- Eton -- and then attended Oxford University where he was a prominent member of the notorious Bullingdon Club.

The club -- a UK equivalent of Yale's exclusive Skull & Bones Society -- is an ultra-exclusive clique that admits only the nation's richest and brattiest trust-fund kids. Its openly declared primary activities are outlandish drinking, boisterous behavior and damaging property.

BORN TO RULE (above): Cameron & his Bullingdon Club cronies in full regalia in 1987. The blond bombshell in the front-row is fellow Conservative Boris Johnson -- now reigning over London's citizens as their Mayor.

A well-documented typical evening while Cameron was a member in the late 1980s consisted of the members taking over one of Oxford's fanciest restaurants for the night, eating the priciest food on the menu, ordering and quaffing copious quantities of the most expensive wines and champagnes -- and then totally trashing and destroying the entire restaurant, furniture and fittings. The coup de grace at the end of each such excursion was to go up to the traumatized, distraught restaurant owner and, in a gesture that dates back to the aristocrat-peasant relationship of centuries passed, contemptuously throw wads of banknotes at the hapless owner as recompense for the massive damage caused.

That is the background of Britain's new Prime Minister -- whose only employment other than climbing the greasy pole of Conservative Party politics to become party leader was a stint as corporate flack and spin-master for a down-market TV network.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/uk-election-winner-meet-t_b_565762.html

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Afghan Escalation Funding

More War, Fewer Jobs, Poor Excuses

By David Swanson

Isn't it time to call what Congress will soon vote on by its right name: war escalation funding?

Early in 2009, President Barack Obama escalated the war in Afghanistan with 21,000 "combat" troops, 13,000 "support" troops, and at least 5,000 mercenaries, without any serious debate in Congress or the corporate media.  The President sent the first 17,000 troops prior to developing any plan for Afghanistan, leaving the impression that escalation was, somehow, an end in itself.  Certainly it didn't accomplish anything else, a conclusion evident in downbeat reports on the Afghan war situation issued this month by both the Government Accountability Office and the Pentagon.

So it seemed like progress for our representative government when, last fall, the media began to engage in a debate over whether further escalation in Afghanistan made sense.  Granted, this was largely a public debate between the commander-in-chief and his generals (who should probably have been punished with removal from office for insubordinate behavior), but members of Congress at least popped up in cameo roles.

In September, for instance, 57 members of Congress sent a letter to the president opposing an escalation of the war. In October, Congresswoman Barbara Lee introduced a bill to prohibit the funding of any further escalation.  In December, various groups of Congress members sent letters to the president and to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposing an escalation and asking for a chance to vote on it.  Even as Congress voted overwhelmingly for a massive war and military budget in December, some representatives did speak out against further escalation and the funding needed for it.

While all sides in this debate agreed that such escalation funding would need to be voted on sometime in the first half of 2010, everyone knew something else as well: that the President would go ahead and escalate in Afghanistan even without funding in place -- the money all being borrowed anyway -- and that, once many or all of the new troops were there, he would get less resistance from Congress which would be voting on something that had already happened.

The corporate media went along with this bait-and-switch strategy, polling and reporting on the escalation debate in Washington until the president fell in line behind his generals (give or take 10,000 or so extra troops).  The coming vote was then relabeled as a simple matter of "war funding."  This was convenient, since Americans are far more likely to oppose escalating already unpopular wars than just keeping them going -- and would be likely to oppose such funding even more strongly if the financial tradeoffs involved were made clear.  However, a new poll shows a majority of Americans do not believe that this war is worth fighting at all.

Nonetheless, as in a tale foretold, Congress is expected to vote later this month on $33 billion in further "war funding" to pay for sending 30,000 troops (plus "support" troops, etc.) to Afghanistan -- most of whom are already there or soon will be.  In addition, an extra $2 billion is being requested for aid and "civilian" operations in Afghanistan (much of which may actually go to the Afghan military and police), $2.5 billion for the same in our almost forgotten war in Iraq, and another $2 billion for aid to (or is it a further military presence in?) Haiti.

This upcoming vote, of course, provides the opportunity that our representatives were asking for half a year ago.  They can now vote the president's escalation up or down in the only way that could possibly be enforced, by voting its funding up or down.  Blocking the funding in the House of Representatives would mean turning those troops around and bringing them back home -- and unlike the procedure for passing a bill, there would be no need for any action by the Senate or the president.

What Does $33 Billion Look Like?

So, how much money are we talking about exactly?  Well not enough, evidently, for the teabagging enemies of reckless government spending to take notice.  Clearly not enough for the labor movement or any other advocates of spending on jobs or healthcare or education or green energy to disturb their slumbers.  God forbid!  Yet it's still a sizeable number by a certain reckoning.

After all, 33 billion miles could take you to the sun 226 times.  And $33 billion could radically alter any non-military program in existence.  There's a bill in the Senate, for instance, that would prevent schools from laying off teachers in all 50 states for a mere $23 billion.  Another $9.6 billion would quadruple the Department of Energy's budget for renewable energy.  Now, what to do with that extra $0.4 billion?

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175246/tomgram:_david_swanson,_did_you_say_$33_billion__/

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A message from the gun lobby

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May 20: First Annual "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!"

http://reason.com/blog/2010/04/23/first-annual-everybody-draw-mo

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'Prince of Pot' ordered extradited to U.S.

 

By: The Canadian Press

Canada's self-styled "Prince of Pot" was ordered extradited to the United States on Monday, ending his high-profile five-year battle to avoid U.S. drug charges related to his Canadian seed-selling business.

The federal Justice Department announced that the minister had signed off on Marc Emery's extradition to Washington state.

Emery could be turned over to American authorities within days.

As he surrendered himself to sheriffs in Vancouver earlier in the day, not yet sure whether he would be extradited, Emery urged his supporters to punish the Conservative government if he ended up in the U.S.

"I think the best thing that could happen to our movement is that the minister decides, foolishly, to extradite me. Canadians will be very, very angry and punish this government," Emery told reporters, his wife by his side and supporters carrying "Free Marc" placards standing behind him.

"If I'm extradited, I've told my supporters that every Conservative member of Parliament is to be hounded endlessly and unmercifully until they are defeated in the next or following elections. It's to be a life project for them as long as I am incarcerated in the United States or Canada."

Emery had been out on bail since last fall, when he was released from custody as the federal justice minister considered whether to allow the extradition.

By Monday, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson had made up his mind.

"The minister ordered the surrender of Mr. Marc Emery to the United States," department spokeswoman Carole Saindon said in a brief email statement, adding the minister wouldn't be commenting further.

Emery was charged by a U.S. grand jury in 2005. American prosecutors allege he has sold about four million marijuana seeds through his magazine and website, and that 75 per cent of those went to customers in the U.S.

http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100510/bc_emery_extradited_100510/20100510?hub=BritishColumbia

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Texas Cops Need Help Getting Rid Of 200,000 Pounds Of Weed

By Steve Elliott

Photo: McAllenTimes.com

Here's about a ton of weed. Multiply that by 100 and that's how much pot these Texans are sitting on.

​The Brooks County Sheriff's Department has a marijuana problem. They've got 200,000 pounds of pot, and they're complaining that it would be too expensive to destroy it.

"This is a problem that doesn't seem to be going away and anything we can get to help us to dispose of these cases once they're done and to get ready for the next one that are coming in would be a great help," said Deputy Daniel Davila.

Something tells me Toke of the Town readers could be of great assistance to the deputy. After all, at a trying time like this, we all have to pitch in, people!

 

All of the confiscated cannabis comes from drug cases over the past decade, reports Manuel De La Rosa at KIII-TV. And for now, all that unwanted weed sits in some storage trailers, awaiting an uncertain fate.

The marijuana dates back as far as 2000. According to authorities, the previous sheriff either didn't keep good records, or didn't get destruction orders from judges.

It's a priority for the current sheriff to get rid of the hundreds of thousands of pounds of pot. Deputies destroyed some of the bundles of bud with two visits to the Department of Public Safety incinerator in McAllen, Texas last year, but it cost them nearly $30,000.

The problem seems to be unwrapping the plastic off the marijuana, commonly used by Mexican drug smugglers, and Brooks County just doesn't have the manpower to do that. The county has a small sheriff's department, with only seven patrol officers and one criminal investigator.

 

http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2010/05/texas_cops_need_help_getting_rid_of_200000_pounds.php

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The Problem With Elena Kagan Is Barack Obama

by Cenk Uygur

I have no idea what kind of Justice Elana Kagan is going to be, and almost no one else does either. She might be a terrific progressive or she might move the Court to the right, as some fear. My problem with her isn't her stated positions, as she doesn't have very many.

My problem with her is my problem with Obama. Cheney and Bush moved the ball 80 yards down-field, whether that was on executive power, warrantless wiretapping, pre-emptive wars or just about any other issue you can think of. And Obama's bold and brilliant response is to move the ball 10 yards in the opposite direction. Not good enough. Not remotely good enough.

His every action drips of conciliation, compromise, gradualism and incrementalism. The conservatives take miles of ideologically territory and convert it into the status quo. Then Obama brags about converting inches back. This isn't change we can believe in. This is pocket change.

So, when conservatives yelled at him about trying Gitmo detainees in civilian courts, his instinct was to back down. When they yelled at him for giving detainees Miranda rights, he is now on the verge of backing down. When they yelled at him about foreign wars, he escalated them. When they yelled at him about the $50 billion "bailout" fund in the financial reform bill, he asked to take it out. When they yelled at him about offshore oil drilling, he gave them more. How did that turn out?

Did you know that after Joe Wilson yelled out "You lie!" on the issue of how immigrants would be treated in the healthcare bill, they quietly gave into him and changed that provision? Is there anything that this guy can't get bullied on? Well, of course, there is. Everything from the left.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Problem-With-Elena-Kag-by-Cenk-Uygur-100510-429.html

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Sex, Lies and Oil Spills

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A common spin in the right wing coverage of BP's oil spill is a gleeful suggestion that the gulf blowout is Obama's Katrina.

In truth, culpability for the disaster can more accurately be laid at the Bush Administration's doorstep. For eight years, George Bush's presidency infected the oil industry's oversight agency, the Minerals Management Service, with a septic culture of corruption from which it has yet to recover. Oil patch alumnae in the White House encouraged agency personnel to engineer weakened safeguards that directly contributed to the gulf catastrophe.

The absence of an acoustical regulator -- a remotely triggered dead man's switch that might have closed off BP's gushing pipe at its sea floor wellhead when the manual switch failed (the fire and explosion on the drilling platform may have prevented the dying workers from pushing the button) -- was directly attributable to industry pandering by the Bush team. Acoustic switches are required by law for all offshore rigs off Brazil and in Norway's North Sea operations. BP uses the device voluntarily in Britain's North Sea and elsewhere in the world as do other big players like Holland's Shell and France's Total. In 2000, the Minerals Management Service while weighing a comprehensive rulemaking for drilling safety, deemed the acoustic mechanism "essential" and proposed to mandate the mechanism on all gulf rigs.

Then, between January and March of 2001, incoming Vice President Dick Cheney conducted secret meetings with over 100 oil industry officials allowing them to draft a wish list of industry demands to be implemented by the oil friendly administration. Cheney also used that time to re-staff the Minerals Management Service with oil industry toadies including a cabal of his Wyoming carbon cronies. In 2003, newly reconstituted Minerals Management Service genuflected to the oil cartel by recommending the removal of the proposed requirement for acoustic switches. The Minerals Management Service's 2003 study concluded that "acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly."

The acoustic trigger costs about $500,000. Estimated costs of the oil spill to Gulf Coast residents are now upward of $14 billion to gulf state communities. Bush's 2005 energy bill officially dropped the requirement for the acoustic switch off devices explaining that the industry's existing practices are "failsafe."

Bending over for Big Oil became the ideological posture of the Bush White House, and, under
Cheney's cruel whip, the practice trickled down through the regulatory bureaucracy. The Minerals Management Service -- the poster child for "agency capture phenomena" -- hopped into bed with the regulated industry -- literally. A 2009 investigation of the Minerals Management Service found that agency officials "frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives." Three reports by the Inspector General describe an open bazaar of payoffs, bribes and kickbacks spiced with scenes of female employees providing sexual favors to industry big wigs who in turn rewarded government workers with illegal contracts. In one incident reported by the Inspector General, agency employees got so drunk at a Shell sponsored golf event that they could not drive home and had to sleep in hotel rooms paid for by Shell.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/sex-lies-and-oil-spills_b_564163.html

Israel's fated bleak future

By John J. Mearsheimer

President Barack Obama has finally coaxed Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table. He and most Americans hope that the talks will lead to the creation of a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank. Regrettably, that is not going to happen. Instead, those territories are almost certain to be incorporated into a "Greater Israel," which will then be an apartheid state bearing a marked resemblance to white-ruled South Africa.

There are four possible futures regarding Israel and the occupied territories. The outcome that gets the most attention is the two-state solution, where a Palestinian state would control 95 percent or more of the West Bank and all of Gaza, and territorial swaps would compensate the Palestinians for those small pieces of the West Bank that Israel would keep. East Jerusalem would be its capital.

The alternatives to a two-state solution all involve creating a Greater Israel — an Israel that effectively controls Gaza and the West Bank. In the first scenario, it would become a democratic binational state in which Palestinians and Jews enjoy equal political rights. This solution would mean abandoning the original Zionist vision of a Jewish state, since Palestinians would eventually outnumber Jews.

Israel could also expel most of the Palestinians from Greater Israel, preserving its Jewish character through ethnic cleansing. Something similar happened in 1948, when the Zionists drove 700,000 Palestinians out of the territory that became Israel. The final alternative is some form of apartheid, whereby Israel increases its control over the occupied territories, but allows the Palestinians to exercise limited autonomy in a set of disconnected and economically crippled enclaves.

The two-state solution is the best of these alternatives, but most Israelis are opposed to making the sacrifices that would be necessary to create a viable Palestinian state. There are about 480,000 settlers in the occupied territories and an extensive infrastructure of connector and bypass roads, not to mention the settlements themselves. A Hebrew University Truman Institute poll in March of West Bank settlers found that 21 percent believe that "all means must be employed to resist the evacuation of most West Bank settlements, including the use of arms." They needn't worry, however, because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is committed to expanding the settlements throughout the occupied territories.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-perspec-0509-israel-20100509,0,5290017.story

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Rasta inmates spend 10 years in isolation for hair

 

By DENA POTTER

JARRATT, Va. – Kendall Gibson would seem to be one of Virginia's most dangerous prisoners.

For more than 10 years he has lived in segregation at the Greensville Correctional Center, spending at least 23 hours every day in a cell the size of a gas station bathroom. In a temporary home for the worst of the worst — inmates too violent or disruptive to live among the rest of society's outcasts — he has been a permanent fixture.

He is there, he says, not for his crimes but for a crime he will not commit — a crime against God.

The only thing imposing about Gibson is his long black dreadlocks, resting on the front of his shoulders so they won't drag the ground as he shuffles along in his orange jumpsuit.

It is his hair — winding locks he considers a measure of his Rastafarian faith — that makes him a threat, according to Virginia Department of Corrections Operating Procedure No. 864.1.

The rule took effect on Dec. 15, 1999. Inmates had two choices: cut their hair no longer than their collars and shave their beards, or be placed in administrative segregation.

In the beginning, Gibson was among as many as 40 inmates who opted for confinement over cutting. By 2003, when a handful of the inmates filed a federal lawsuit against the department over their detention, 23 remained in segregation.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100508/ap_on_re_us/us_rastafarian_segregation

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Raw milk battle reveals FDA abandonment of basic human right to choose your food

 

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

 

(NaturalNews) The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF), an organization whose mission includes "defending the rights and broadening the freedoms of family farms and protecting consumer access to raw milk and nutrient dense foods", recently filed a lawsuit against the FDA for its ban on interstate sales of raw milk. The suit alleges that such a restriction is a direct violation of the United States Constitution. Nevertheless, the suit led to a surprisingly cold response from the FDA about its views on food freedom (and freedoms in general).

In a dismissal notice issued to the Iowa District Court where the suit was filed, the FDA officially made public its views on health and food freedom. These views will shock you, but they reveal the true evil intent of the FDA and why it is truly a rogue federal agency.

The FDA essentially believes that nobody has the right to choose what to eat or drink. You are only "allowed" to eat or drink what the FDA gives you permission to. There is no inherent right or God-given right to consume any foods from nature without the FDA's consent.

This is no exaggeration. It's exactly what the FDA said in its own words.

 

http://www.naturalnews.com/028757_raw_milk_FDA.html

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'Starving yogi' astounds Indian scientists

by Rajesh Joshi

An 83-year-old Indian holy man who says he has spent seven decades without food or water has astounded a team of military doctors who studied him during a two-week observation period.

Prahlad Jani spent a fortnight in a hospital in the western India state of Gujarat under constant surveillance from a team of 30 medics equipped with cameras and closed circuit television.

During the period, he neither ate nor drank and did not go to the toilet.

"We still do not know how he survives," neurologist Sudhir Shah told reporters after the end of the experiment. "It is still a mystery what kind of phenomenon this is."

The long-haired and bearded yogi was sealed in a hospital in the city of Ahmedabad in a study initiated by India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the state defence and military research institute.

The DRDO hopes that the findings, set to be released in greater detail in several months, could help soldiers survive without food and drink, assist astronauts or even save the lives of people trapped in natural disasters.

"(Jani's) only contact with any kind of fluid was during gargling and bathing periodically during the period," G. Ilavazahagan, director of India's Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences (DIPAS), said in a statement.

Jani has since returned to his village near Ambaji in northern Gujarat where he will resume his routine of yoga and meditation. He says that he was blessed by a goddess at a young age, which gave him special powers.

http://www.physorg.com/news192690076.html

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Fantastic Photos of our Solar System

The Cassini spacecraft, which is now orbiting Saturn, looked back toward the eclipsed Sun and saw a view unlike any other. The rings of Saturn light up so much that new rings were discovered.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Out-of-This-World.html#

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Rent a Boy Unrated

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Since spill, feds have given 27 waivers to oil companies in gulf

Best and worst case scenarios from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in Biloxi, Miss., on Thursday.

By Marisa Taylor

WASHINGTON — Since the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig exploded on April 20, the Obama administration has granted oil and gas companies at least 27 exemptions from doing in-depth environmental studies of oil exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico.

The waivers were granted despite President Barack Obama's vow that his administration would launch a "relentless response effort" to stop the leak and prevent more damage to the gulf. One of them was dated Friday — the day after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he was temporarily halting offshore drilling

The exemptions, known as "categorical exclusions," were granted by the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) and included waiving detailed environmental studies for a BP exploration plan to be conducted at a depth of more than 4,000 feet and an Anadarko Petroleum Corp. exploration plan at more 9,000 feet.

"Is there a moratorium on off shore drilling or not?" asked Peter Galvin, conservation director with the Center for Biological Diversity, the environmental group that discovered the administration's continued approval of the exemptions. "Possibly the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history has occurred and nothing appears to have changed."

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/07/93761/despite-spill-feds-still-giving.html#ixzz0nXhIsWeW

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'There's a great future for you': Studies in Crap presents 1965's 'Your Career in Journalism'

By Alan Scherstuhl

 

​Your Career in Journalism

Author: M.L. Stein
Date: 1965
Publisher: Julian Messner, Inc.
Discovered at: Salvation Army, Olathe
The Cover Promises: Permanent, established institutions are not immune to change, so one of these pictures has some chicks in it.

Representative Quotes:

• "The journalist enjoys good standing in his community. He is even likely to be held in awe." (page 47).

• "The day may not be far off when a city editor will say to a reporter, 'Check your space gear. You're going to the moon.'" (page 86).

The easy thing would be for your Crap Archivist to treat M.L. Stein's perversely optimistic Your Career in Journalism like I would Edgar Whisenant's 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988 or Rudy Giuliani's Leadership -- as Crap proved so absurd by time that its chief value comes from strip-mining it for hilarious quotes.

That's especially tempting thanks to jewels like these:

• "If you are a college graduate in journalism, you may land a job before you even leave the campus."

• "The story that a reporter worried and sweated over will be read by thousands and perhaps millions of people who will be informed, enlightened or amused. ... He has prestige and influence that most persons can never hope to attain."

​
And there's this, on landing that first big break:

• "By far the best idea is to go directly to a newspaper and ask the city editor for a job."

Or this goofy thought:

• "There is an accepted tenet in the newspaper business that an experienced copyreader can always get a job."

Experienced copyreaders? But it's so much easier to crowdsource those jobs to online commenters!

Easy as it is to laugh at Stein's optimism, remember that he writes with all the certainty of 1965, the last possible moment when it still made sense to hold an absolute faith in journalism, government, or most other chunks of the all-American bedrock. (These also included segregation, Frank Sinatra, and the idea that youth culture wasn't the only culture.)

Shocking Detail:
Sometimes, Stein seems admirably forward-thinking. He writes, "The door is no longer closed against you, girls, and you can often compete with men for the same positions at the same salary."

 

http://blogs.pitch.com/plog/2010/04/theres_a_great_future_for_you_studies_in_crap_presents_1965s_your_career_in_journalism.php

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FCC hands Hollywood the keys to your PC, home theater and future

 

 

by Cory Doctorow

The FCC has given Hollywood permission to activate the "Selective Output Control" technologies in your set-top box. These are hidden flags that allow the MPAA to deactivate parts of your home theater depending on what you're watching. And it sucks. As Dan Gillmor notes, "Fans of old TV science fiction will remember the Outer Limits. Given Hollywood's victory today at the FCC -- they'll be able to reach over the lines and disable functions on your TV -- the intro to the show takes on modern relevance."

The FCC says that they're doing this because they believe that if they do so, the MPAA will start releasing first-run movies (the ones that are still in theaters) for TV. They say that Hollywood won't make these movies available unless they get Selectable Output Control because SOC will stop piracy.

This is ridiculous.

First, it's ridiculous because this can't ever stop piracy or get first-run movies into your living room. Even with SOC, the studios are not going to release high-value movies that are still in theatrical distribution for viewing in your house, where you could set up a tripod and high-quality camera (along with ideal lighting) in order to make your own camcordered copy and put it online.

Now, the FCC could have solved this by saying that only movies that are in their first theatrical release run can have SOC turned on, but they didn't, because they knew that the MPAA was lying through its teeth about using SOC to enable the "new business model" of showing you first run movies in your home.

Second, it's ridiculous because it's possible in the first place. The FCC (and the candy-ass consumer electronics companies) allowed for Selectable Output Control to be inserted into your devices even though they claimed all along that they would never allow it to be used. Read your Chekhov, people: the gun on the mantelpiece in act one will go off in act three. Allowing the MPAA to get SOC in your set-top box but "never planning on using it" is like buying a freezer full of chocolate ice-cream and never planning on eating it.

If the CE companies and FCC wanted to prevent SOC from being used, the best way of doing that would be to not include it in devices in the first place.

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/05/07/fcc-hands-hollywood.html

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Amy Goodman Strikes Back Against RNC Arrest, Files Lawsuit

by Yana Kunichoff

Amy Goodman, host of the "Democracy Now!" news program and two of her producers filed a federal lawsuit against the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis on Wednesday, following the journalists' arrest and mistreatment while covering the 2008 Republican National Convention.

Filed with the Center for Constitutional Rights in a federal court in Minnesota, the lawsuit says authorities violated the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment to Goodman, her producers and other journalists when they interfered with their right to gather news.

This is not only a violation of freedom of the press, but a violation of the public's right to know. "When journalists are arrested, that has a chilling effect on the functioning of a democratic society," said Goodman, whose show airs on over 750 radio and TV stations across the country. "We shouldn't have to get a record to put things on the record."

According to a telephone conference with Goodman, she and her producers, Nicole Salazar and Sharif Abdel Kouddous were arrested despite visibly holding their press passes and equipment and identified themselves as journalist. They were then physically assaulted, detained for a long period and had their cameras, video and other media equipment, as well as their personal belongings, searched and seized.

http://www.truthout.org/amy-goodman-strikes-back-against-rnc-arrest-files-lawsuit59324

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Hugo Chavez Hires 200 People to Manage His Twitter Account

by Amy-Mae Elliott

Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, who only recently signed up to Twitter, has rapidly risen up the ranks to become the top tweeter in the country, despite having previously described the service as a "tool of terror." The leader has also hired hundreds of staffers to reply to tweets.

Chavez ("Presidente de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela. Soldado Bolivariano, Socialista y Antiimperialista" according to his bio), has, at the time of writing, 239,994 followers and enjoys inclusion on 7,538 lists. Presumably some of which list people who are "threats to the open web."

With "Verified Account" status on the service, Chavez follows just five others, but it's unlikely the majority in Venezuela follow him — recent estimates put the percentage of the population that boast Internet access at just 31%, although this figure has risen under Chavez's rule.

However, it seems public engagement with the president's new online presence has been high with more than 50,000 messages reported in the two weeks since he's been tweeting. So how does Chavez find time to tweet to the people? A newly appointed team of 200 Twitter aides will help to lighten that load, reports the AP. Chavez said of the new hires, "I'm creating a team due to the avalanche of requests, and some grievances."

http://mashable.com/2010/05/08/chavez-popular-twitter/

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10 amazing truths you already suspected

Part IV! Pink fried chicken, Oklahoma vaginas, French G-spots

By Mark Morford

This much you already know:

1) The Bible is more violent than the Quran. Wait, what? Really? It's true... sort of. Don't tell this fine racist patriot, but turns out the Bible, America's favorite misinterpreted hunk of swiped fairy tale mythology, is packed like "Saw IV" with wraths and attacks, smitings and genocides, hacked-off limbs and fiery explosions in the sky. Whereas, despite its bad rap and its rather nasty "convert-the-world" directive, the Quran's scriptures are largely peaceful documents that've been hijacked and distorted by fundamentalist jackals for political purposes, to justify all sorts of bias, intolerance and violence against those they hate and fear. Sound familiar?

2) High fructose corn syrup is nasty, obesity-causing swill. I know, right? But here's something you might not know: As a columnist who writes, let's say "unflatteringly" about fast food and the noxious ingredients therein, I've received sneering little letters in the past from the Corn Refiner's Association when I've attacked their sticky cash cow, as they try to claim their synthetic goop is no worse for you than sunshine and flowers. Lying is fun!

Fact: HFCS "prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar," says a big new Princeton study. Fructose also scars the liver. It's nasty stuff, it's in everything from ketchup to soup to the despicable Double Down sandwich, and it's inextricably tied into the federal corn subsidy and the impenetrable farm bill, which in turn is guarded like the Pope's own porn collection by one the most powerful, ruthless government lobbies in America. Upshot: Until the Obama admin takes on the brutal farm lobby, this gummy poison is going to keep right on making everyone thick and fat and stupid.

3) And what happens then? Why, we lose WWIII to the skinny terrorists, that's what. Seems American kids are becoming "too fat to fight," and the U.S. military is in a bit of a panic, as it's becoming increasingly difficult to find recruits who aren't so hugely overweight that they can't even do a single pull-up.

A group of more than 50 retired generals and admirals released a study saying that 30 percent of otherwise eligible recruits are just too chunky to be of any use to the military. And they take anyone. Alert the GOP! The biggest threat to America isn't the gays or the vaginas or the "weak on terror" liberals; it's your own overweight kids.

(At least we're not alone. China, too, is terrified of losing the Great War with Japan -- which is apparently coming around 2025 or so -- due to its own surfeit of obese youth. Yay fast food! You will kill us all!)

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/04/30/notes043010.DTL#ixzz0nAWIzThj

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Video of SWAT Raid on Missouri Family

by Radley Balko

In February, I wrote the following about a drug raid in Missouri:

SWAT team breaks into home, fires seven rounds at family's pit bull and corgi (?!) as a seven-year-old looks on.

They found a "small amount" of marijuana, enough for a misdemeanor charge. The parents were then charged with child endangerment.

So smoking pot = "child endangerment." Storming a home with guns, then firing bullets into the family pets as a child looks on = necessary police procedures to ensure everyone's safety.

Just so we're clear.

Now there's video... It's horrifying, but I'd urge you to watch it, and to send it to the drug warriors in your life. This is the blunt-end result of all the war imagery and militaristic rhetoric politicians have been spewing for the last 30 years—cops dressed like soldiers, barreling through the front door middle of the night, slaughtering the family pets, filling the house with bullets in the presence of children, then having the audacity to charge the parents with endangering their own kid. There are 100-150 of these raids every day in America, the vast, vast majority like this one, to serve a warrant for a consensual crime.

http://reason.com/blog/2010/05/05/video-of-swat-raid-on-missouri#commentcontainer

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Sheeple: Signs That You Might Be Part Of The Herd…

by Giordano Bruno

Millions of people from countries across the world have begun to wake up to the very real threat of repressive and engineered Globalism, or what the financial elite and the politicians who work for them often refer to as "The New World Order". The movement against this centralization of economic and social power has gained traction in nearly every sphere, to the point where even the mainstream media has been forced on occasion to acknowledge its existence and prevalence. Those of us who have been working more than a few years in this activist organization, what many of us call the "Patriot Movement", or the "Liberty Movement", have seen incredible leaps and bounds in the fight against disinformation and the spread of unadulterated truth. Our work has gone viral, and our membership has skyrocketed, however, the task of diluting ignorance in the overall populace is far from over.

Every researcher, writer, and filmmaker who tackles the New World Order issue will suffer the unfortunate experience of running into people who are almost criminally uninformed, and this will happen on a regular basis. For a long time, our frustration was magnified by our inability to specifically define what it was that made these people the way they were. Were some just mentally inadequate, and unable to effectively process the facts? Were they so indoctrinated by the MSM that there was no turning back? Was there an innate difference in intuitive faculties that made some people quick in picking out a lie, and others slow? Many theories abound, but one thing was certain; in our quest to inform the masses, there were always going to be those who were incapable of hearing or understanding what we had to say, no matter how factual, rational, and refined our arguments. We now call these wonders of intellectual rustication "Sheeple"…

Sheeple can be found in every country, every ethnic background, every religious organization, and every subculture. After years of examination and experience, it has become much easier for the Liberty Movement to identify and categorize the various forms of sheeple, and come to terms with the triggers in the human mind that cause some to willfully ignore logic and wisdom.

http://waronyou.com/topics/sheeple-signs-that-you-might-be-part-of-the-herd/

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Vote Republican

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Drill baby drill

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The pill: Making motherhood better for 50 years

It sparked protests and controversy, and is credited with spurring the women's liberation movement. Now, the contraceptive method known as 'The pill' is turning 50.

 

By Elaine Tyler May

 

Forget the single girl and the sexual revolution. The pill was not anti-mother; it was for mothers. And it changed motherhood more than it changed anything else. Its great accomplishment was not in preventing motherhood, but in making it better by allowing women to have children on their own terms.

 

Today, we celebrate both motherhood and the pill. It is Mother's Day, and it is the 50th anniversary of the pill's approval by the Food and Drug Administration -- though the dream of an oral contraceptive is much older. The birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger first envisioned such a "magic pill" in 1912, two years before Congress established a national Mother's Day. She wanted to do more than honor mothers: She wanted to change their lives.

 

While in her 30s, Sanger had worked as a nurse in New York City, and she saw many poor mothers become sick and die from the strain of frequent pregnancies. A turning point, she would recall later, came when she heard a physician instruct Sadie Sachs, a frail 28-year-old mother of three who was desperate for contraception, to "tell Jake to sleep on the roof!" Sachs's death from a self-induced abortion inspired Sanger to begin her crusade for birth control.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/07/AR2010050702255.html

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Moms Speak Out: End This Brutal War

by Rethink Afghanistan (videos)

 

 

Mother's Day was started in opposition to war and to denounce the death and destruction brought by war.

In honor to this tradition, we created a new video that puts the focus back where it belongs: On ending a war.

Help us get the word out about this costly, brutal war, share this video with your friends and family.

http://www.facebook.com/rethinkafghanistan

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Army Spy Plane May Have Snooped on Bomber

By Noah Shachtman

Investigators were able to track wannabe terrorist Faisal Shahzad through his anonymous, pre-paid cell phone — exactly how, they won't say. But there was a tantalizing explanation posted — and then quickly yanked — from the website of WCBS TV. "In the end, it was secret Army intelligence planes that did him in. Armed with his cell phone number, they circled the skies over the New York area, intercepting a call to Emirates Airlines reservations, before scrambling to catch him at John F. Kennedy International Airport."

Jeremy Scahill, relying on a source in U.S. Special Operations, says those planes were likely RC-12s, equipped with a Guardrail Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) system. The planes are designed to pluck all kinds of communications from the air. But from the ground, they could easily be mistaken for an executive aircraft. The RC-12 is based on the Hawker-Beechcraft King Air B200 suit-carrier. And while earlier versions of the aircraft were covered in odd-looking antennas, the latest aircraft are far less conspicuous.

Variants of the planes are at the center of "Project Liberty," a crash project by the Air Force to send more airborne spies to Afghanistan. The first of an estimated 37 aircraft began flying there last December.

"It sucks up everything. We've got these things in Jalalabad [Afghanistan]. We routinely fly these things over Khandahar. When I say everything, I mean BlueTooth would be effected, even the wave length that PlayStation controllers are on. They suck up everything. That's the point," Scahill's source tells him.

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/05/secretive-spy-plane-snooped-on-times-square-suspect-report#ixzz0nGJ6n8VX

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New U.S. Push to Regulate Internet Access

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, whose authority over broadband lines has been questioned by a federal court, plans to use regulation on traditional phone networks to establish rules for Internet providers.

 

By AMY SCHATZ

WASHINGTON—In a move that will stoke a battle over the future of the Internet, the federal government plans to propose regulating broadband lines under decades-old rules designed for traditional phone networks.

The decision, by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, is likely to trigger a vigorous lobbying battle, arraying big phone and cable companies and their allies on Capitol Hill against Silicon Valley giants and consumer advocates.

Breaking a deadlock within his agency, Mr. Genachowski is expected Thursday to outline his plan for regulating broadband lines. He wants to adopt "net neutrality" rules that require Internet providers like Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc. to treat all traffic equally, and not to slow or block access to websites.

Amy Schatz and Spencer Ante discuss the federal government's plan to propose regulating broadband lines under decades-old rules designed for traditional phone networks. Plus, a live report from the Web 2.0 event and Yahoo's new ad blitz.

The decision has been eagerly awaited since a federal appeals court ruling last month cast doubt on the FCC's authority over broadband lines, throwing into question Mr. Genachowski's proposal to set new rules for how Internet traffic is managed. The court ruled the FCC had overstepped when it cited Comcast in 2008 for slowing some customers' Internet traffic.

In a nod to such concerns, the FCC said in a statement that Mr. Genachowski wouldn't apply the full brunt of existing phone regulations to Internet lines and that he would set "meaningful boundaries to guard against regulatory overreach."

Some senior Democratic lawmakers provided Mr. Genachowski with political cover for his decision Wednesday, suggesting they wouldn't be opposed to the FCC taking the re-regulation route towards net neutrality protections.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703961104575226583645448758.html

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Audit the Fed Amendment Modified – Allows Fed To Keep Secrets

Ron Paul just posted the following message on Facebook:

Ron Paul: "Bernie Sanders has sold out and sided with Chris Dodd to gut Audit the Fed in the Senate. His "compromise" is what the Administration and banking interests want: they'll allow the TARP and TALF to be audited, but no transparency of the FOMC, discount window operations or agreement with foreign central banks. We need to take action and stop this!"

John Tate (Campaign for Liberty) immediately sent out the following alert:

Dear C4L Member,

Any time you find out Senator Chris Dodd is in support of something – watch out.

According to our sources on the Hill, Senator Bernie Sanders caved to pressure from the White House and Chris Dodd and stripped out the Paul-Grayson language from his Fed transparency amendment.

What Sanders is now proposing is essentially the Watt amendment we all opposed last year in the House. In addition, it supports just a one-time audit.

Talking Points Memo reports that, "In order to allay some of the White House's and the Fed's concerns, Sanders has agreed to limit the scope of what the Government Accountability Office would be allowed to audit–but his plan will still require thorough review of all the Fed's emergency lending, beginning December 1, 2007."

Call Senator Sanders' office at (202) 224-5141 and tell him how you feel about this last-minute sell out.

Click here for contact information for your senators and urge them to oppose the Sanders Sellout. Tell them to put back in the original Paul/Grayson language.

A vote could come even late tonight or early tomorrow. Let your senators know where you stand right away.

The American people deserve a real audit.

In Liberty,

John Tate
President

http://www.ronpaul.com/2010-05-06/audit-the-fed-amendment-modified-allows-fed-to-keep-secrets/

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Weeds 1, Monsanto 0, Farmers -1

by wufnik

 

This should come as no surprise, but The New York Times breathlessly informed us yesterday that US farmers are starting to have a hard time coping with Roundup-resistant weeds. That's right. Straight from the heart of the country where people don't want to see evolution taught, farmers are getting a real-life lesson in evolutionary theory. I bet no one, absolutely no one, saw this one coming.

Here's how The Times presents it:

Just as the heavy use of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant supergerms, American farmers' near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup has led to the rapid growth of tenacious new superweeds.

To fight them, Mr. Anderson and farmers throughout the East, Midwest and South are being forced to spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing.

"We're back to where we were 20 years ago," said Mr. Anderson, who will plow about one-third of his 3,000 acres of soybean fields this spring, more than he has in years. "We're trying to find out what works."

Farm experts say that such efforts could lead to higher food prices, lower crop yields, rising farm costs and more pollution of land and water.

Well, this turns out to not be a new problem, exactly. In fact, there were Round-up resistant weeks ten years ago, found in a soybean field. And the problem has spread since then. And The Times, which has never expressed much reluctance for any new crackpot scheme that also manages to benefit corporate America, ominously intones:

The superweeds could temper American agriculture's enthusiasm for some genetically modified crops. Soybeans, corn and cotton that are engineered to survive spraying with Roundup have become standard in American fields. However, if Roundup doesn't kill the weeds, farmers have little incentive to spend the extra money for the special seeds.

Roundup — originally made by Monsanto but now also sold by others under the generic name glyphosate — has been little short of a miracle chemical for farmers. It kills a broad spectrum of weeds, is easy and safe to work with, and breaks down quickly, reducing its environmental impact.

Note that reference to a miracle. The Times is sneaky that way. Note also, if you actually go and read the article, that the enterprising Times reporters, William Neuman and Andrew Pollock, somehow manage to make it through the entire article without a single mention of the fact that Roundup-resistant seeds have been hugely controversial. Nor do they mention Monsanto's interesting legal strategies to force farmers to stay on the Monsanto dole. They do, however, pass along some interesting and possibly scary statistics, depending on your mood—roundup-resistant crops "account for about 90 percent of the soybeans and 70 percent of the corn and cotton grown in the United States."

They also blame it on the farmers, a pretty neat trick when you think about it:

http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2010/05/06/weeds-1-monsanto-0-farmers-1/

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How About We Try the Free Market Solution?

by John Cole

This makes no sense to me:

The White House said it backed "significantly" raising the cap on damages faced by energy firms that pollute the environment, as it demands BP pays in full for the Gulf oil spill.

Officials also hit out at fresh complaints by Republicans that it had not acted quickly enough in the immediate aftermath of an explosion on a rig in the Gulf of Mexico last month, which triggered the huge slick.

Under a law introduced after the Exxon Valdez oil tanker disaster in Alaska in 1989, oil companies are bound by law to pay for the full clean-up and containment costs of any oil seeping from their facilities after an accident.

But the legislation caps the damages for which the firm is liable at 75 million dollars unless the company is guilty of "gross negligence." Bills introduced in the House and the Senate would fix the cap at 10 billion dollars.

Here's a revolutionary idea- why don't we get rid of the limit altogether! If BP or Exxon cuts corners and makes a hash of things, and they cause 60 billion dollars worth of damage, they are on the hook for the whole 60 billion dollars! And if they can't pay for the whole bill, the company is liquidated, the shareholders get wiped out, and the company ceases to exist.

Why don't we give that a shot?

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2010/05/06/how-about-we-try-the-free-market-solution/

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Oil and Water and Leaky Hydraulics Don’t Mix?

By: emptywheel 

I wanted to call your attention to this excellent story from the Houston Chronicle describing some of the potential causes of the Deepwater Horizon spill. The short version appears to be that they were switching the drill chamber over from mud to water, which exposed what may be a potentially faulty concrete job, which brought gas to the surface. When that happened, and the blowout preventer was activated, the BOP failed, potentially because of leaky hydraulics.

As the Chron story explains, BP should not have been replacing the mud with water unless they were very sure of the cement job done the day before.

Experts say well-capping poses special hazards. One arose that day as crews were replacing the mud with seawater in pipes going from the ocean floor to the rig.

Deep gases exert astounding upward pressure on a well. "Drilling mud," a heavy fluid used to lubricate the drill and bring up bits and pieces of rock, is used as the main line of defense against the upward pressure, or a disastrous eruption of gas.

The mud was being displaced so the riser could be detached from the rig and the wellhead, and the well could be capped with a final cement plug. But seawater is much lighter than mud. The pressure the riser was applying to the well would have lessened by as much as 38 percent, experts said.

That could prove significant.

Investigators likely will be considering whether the drill hole and the casing pipe were secured properly with cement a day earlier.

"The big question is how confident were they in the casing cementing job," said Elmer "Bud" Danenberger, who recently retired as chief of offshore regulatory programs for the Minerals Management Service. "They shouldn't have begun this (riser) operation until they were confident in that."

Now, as the MMS recently found, problems with the cementing process have been one (but not necessarily the only) cause in a plurality of blowouts in recent years. Though most of those cementing-related blowouts occurred in far shallower waters than this well.

Cementing problems increased significantly during the current period as these problems were associated with 18 of the 39 blowouts, compared with 18 of the 70 blowouts with identified contributing factors during the previous study. During the current period, all but one of the blowouts associated with cementing problems occurred in wells with water depths less than 400 ft.

The Chron notes that HAL claimed it had tested its cement job in its "we worked to spec" statement from last week, but had not released the results of that test. A number of comments on oil boards suggest this is where a fight over liability between BP and HAL might break out–whether the tests showed the concrete was sufficient or not, and if there were doubts, whether the BP guy in charge should have called a halt to efforts to remove the rig.

In any case, for whatever reason, at the moment they were replacing the mud with seawater, gas and oil surged out of the hole, which is when the BOP should have–but failed to–prevent the blowout.

When the alarms go off "you shut it down," said Daniel Becnel, an attorney from Reserve, La., who has filed lawsuits on behalf of fishermen, oystermen and other Louisiana residents claiming damages from the spill. "They've got panic switches all over the place."

Those switches are supposed to activate a blowout preventer on the ocean floor, a huge and complex tower of valves and pipe crimpers designed to shut down a well in an emergency. It didn't work.

Although it had been tested beforehand, BP now says robot submarines have discovered at least one problem with the blowout preventer, though it is unclear whether it caused the malfunction.

"We have found that there are some leaks on the hydraulic controls," said Bob Fryar, senior vice president of BP's exploration and production operations in Angola, in southwestern Africa.

Is anyone besides me wondering why BP's Vice President in charge of exploration in Angola is the one discussing this malfunctioning blowout preventer off the coast of Louisiana? Because I am.

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/05/05/oil-and-water-and-leaky-hydraulics-dont-mix/

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A tweet from Bill Maher

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