Under Repair

We've determined that my moden is leaking data. It's scheduled to be repaired tomorrow afternoon so regular blogging should return tomorrow evening. Until then please check the fine blogs and websites at the links on the side bar.

Major Technical Difficulties

Hoping this post makes it to the blog. Having serious problems with the internet connection and have been unable to post from this computer all weekend. We're working on it. Check back later.

Stuck at the office

I was hoping to get through my backlog of email today, currently hovering at about 275 unread mails, but we're having files moved today and it now appears I will be stuck here all day long supervising the movers. At this point it looks like I won't be back until after 7:00 tonight. Check in later for the news.

foxicat.com
Beachcomber's bounty

Well here's another little way the prohibition not only fails to stop drugs from entering the country but actually increases the danger to the public.

One thousand and four pounds of cocaine have recently been found on Louisiana beaches. An additional 80 pounds washed up in Florida. Authorities speculate that a drug running boat either sank or threw its merchandise overboard out of fear of an imminent bust by the Coast Guard. No arrests have been made.

With the worth of a single pound being reported at $10,000, one might think the chances of unreported finds of the drug run rather high and expects that at this level it would be of a rather pure grade. They usually ship at least by the ton I believe, which would leave 996 916 pounds unaccounted for. And what do you think the odds are that some teenagers out for a jaunt on the family boat won't find at least one of those bricks?

I've got WYSIWYG

I'm so disoriented today. I spent five days in a white three story townhouse and didn't see a newspaper or a news broadcast for five days. Hell, I barely even went outside. It was kind of like being in a decompression chamber, or maybe a sensory deprivation tank. I came home to find out that Blogger changed the blogging screen and functions again. I had just got comfortable with using the last update. Now I have to get used to a lot of new jazzy features that will take me forever to figure out. I really wish I was a computer geek.

Meanwhile my template keeps changing and I don't know why. Sometimes the line that closes the right bar disappears. And if any kindhearted technogenius can tell me why I have those white margins that I don't want on the outside of the blog page, please email me.

The Blogger newsletter tells me I should "do the wizzy dance". Trouble is I don't know the steps. At the moment the wizzy is only making me dizzy. Blogging may be slow until I figure out how to negotiate the new screens.

 Home Sweet Home
 
A word of advice friends, don't travel on a Thursday afternoon in the summer. Almost missed my plane because the security line was so long it snaked into the next terminal. Took almost an hour to get through and I heard later that I was in the fast line. The other one, wherever that was,  reportedly took two hours to get through.
 
It's a funny thing when you're in a line with so many folks freaking out about missing their flights; it's kind of like going through a natural disaster together, you bond with the people around you.  We polled our neighbors to find fellow flightmates and there was much cell-phoning to check flight status and alternate arrangements. Of course, all flights were completely booked and the anxiety level was rising as the departure times loomed closer.  
 
The Chicago crowd was well represented and there was much speculation on what would happen if they all missed the plane. They were plotting a mass march on the ticket counter to demand compensation if they didn't make it. I located several comrades for the Balti run. They  were relieved to hear the internet was reporting a ten minute delay on the flight since it was not showing on the terminal screens. Still we would be cutting it close. I considered taking a tranq but we decided to employ my Red Sox theory and just believe we would make it. We did.
 
In the end, everyone around me made their flights, even the Chicago bound, when at the critical moment they finally opened a second screening station.  I might mention this sort of thing has never happened at any Southwest gate I've been through. That's why I fly them. There is rarely even a line.  At this airport they shared the security gate with a major carrier and I understand the screeners just changed from a private company to TSA employees. Read into that what you will but I'll tell you one thing, when I went through that gate a month ago I was much more thoroughly screened. No one even looked at my feet this time. 
 
In any event, it was a long trip home and I'm wiped out today. I'm off to take care of business for the moment but I'll be back later tonight when I get a chance to catch up on the news.

npr.org
Olympic torch burns cannabis growers

This was kind of bad planning. A police helicopter following the relay route of the Olympic torch that will be delivered to the upcoming Olympic Games in Greece spotted a large cannabis farm. Upon further aerial investigation, more small plots were discovered around the remote villages on the island. Greek police eventually destroyed about 7,000 plants. One would have thought the growers would have taken that into consideration at planting time since the torch's $45 million journey around the world has reportedly had, "all the hallmarks of a presidential tour with security, surveillance, motorcades, cheering crowds and a specially chartered jumbo jet, dubbed Zeus".

Of course this also bodes ill for crowd control at the games since the peaceful cannabis consumers will now be forced to turn to the ubiquitous Ouzo or Retzina for their mood enhancement. Maybe the Greeks should have talked to the police at the soccer tournament in Portugal before they destroyed all that mellowing herb.

Detroit voters evenly split on medical marijuana

It looks like the Detroit News took this post on the Ann Arbor medical marijuana initiative, (that I cross posted to both blogs) and ran with it. They ran a lead article today on the upcoming initiative in Detroit, scheduled to be voted on in August. There's also a poll on the same page regarding the issue. The pro-medmar vote is currently running at one point ahead. People tend to vote for winners so please stop by and cast your vote in favor of the proposal. If you scroll down the results page, the discussion is also quite interesting.

Rush to the Carnival 95

It's that time of week again and d-42.com is hosting this week with a very clever Rush (the rock and roll band) theme. Of course I'm old enough to remember hearing these albums when they came out and he listened to them for the first time at his grandparents. I guess that means it's true that rock and roll will never die.

Taking that into consideration, I'm certain you won't be surprised to learn my favorite entry this week was from The World of Pete, who thinks he may be going through menopause, a problem I can certainly relate to. All the posts as always are entertaining though, so hurry on over and check it out.

washingtonpost.com
Prohibition produces corrupt cops

Shawn Verbeke would seem to be an unlikely candidate to become a drug dealer. The 30 year old former Marine and D.C. police officer who lives with his mother, was about to move to Kuwait to work for a contracting firm aiding the U.S. military. Yet in another glaring example of how prohibition not only fails to eliminate drugs but also corrupts those who would not otherwise have become involved in them, Shawn was instead arrested on federal charges of conspiracy to distribute ecstasy and methamphetamine and now faces a 20 year jail sentence.

Shawn was seduced by the obscene profits of the black market created by the prohibition and probably the cachet that comes from being a dealer among drug consumers. Eventually he began using the substances himself, even while in uniform. He was taken in and then taken down by an accomplice who was arrested and then rolled on him.

The trafficker, who is referred to only as "confidential source #1," said he and Verbeke had agreed that Verbeke would shake down other drug dealers in nightclubs and take their drugs, and that the trafficker would sell the drugs and give Verbeke a percentage of the profits.

Four other unnamed informants are quoted as saying that Verbeke ingested and purchased methamphetamine while in uniform at a District nightclub and sold drugs at other clubs in the District.

The US Attorney told the court, "He was entrusted by the people of Washington to serve and protect, but he turned that badge, he turned that gun, into a weapon to sell illicit drugs.''

One thinks if there wasn't an illicit market that creates such enormous tax-free dividends, he wouldn't have been tempted to risk his reputation and his career by dealing. And if the prohibition can't even stop law enforcement officers from using drugs, how can it be expected to eliminate use by ordinary and otherwise law-abiding citizens?

[Link via DrugWar.com]

(neo)Con Games

Well this is just too delicious to miss. Play Osama bin Lotto and guess when Bush will "capture" America's Most Wanted Terrorist. Perhaps Bush thinks trotting Osama out from some hidden underground bunker will save his failing bid for re-election. The animation is really good and I think you can actually bet at this site with the proceeds going to some worthy non-profit cause.

[Link via Talk Left]

Ann Arbor to allow medical marijuana

The city of Ann Arbor already has a reasonable policy on the use of cannabis, with the penalty for personal possession being a $25.00 fine. Now they want to take it one step further by essentially legalizing the use of medical marijuana. While they can't actually overturn state and federal laws banning its use, a proposed citizen's initiative would instruct local law enforcement not to arrest or prosecute medical marijuana patients who use the herb under a health care provider's recommendation.

Of course even in an enlightened city such as Ann Arbor, there are naysayers but as always, these tend to be those people like Justin Bishop, founder of Clean Teens and program director of the Washtenaw County Community Partnership, who make their money from the prohibition of the plant. Bishop says marijuana is already too easy for kids to get and plans to run an ad campaign against the initiative. Although we agree on that point, it simply underlines the fact that prohibition has failed, it has nothing to do with the plant's value as a medicinal herb.

Will Michigan be the tenth state to enact reasonable medical marijuana laws? Ann Arbor is likely to respond with "reason and compassion" and pass the initiative. A similar proposal will be taken up by Detroit voters in August. One hopes they will be equally sensible in setting an example for the rest of the state to follow.

Epis case remanded

The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in another reasonable and bold decision has ordered the case of Bryan Epis remanded to the district court pending the US Supreme Court's review of Raich v. Ashcroft. We hope this provides impetus for other wrongfully incarcerated medical marijuana providers to appeal their convictions. Congrats to Epis and his legal team headed by Brenda Grantland and thanks to Richard Lake of Media Awareness Project for forwarding a copy of the order:

ORDER

This cause came on for hearing before the court on June 16, 2004. The Supreme Court of the United States has now granted certiorari in Raich v. Ashcroft, 352 F.3d 1222 (9th Cir. 2003) cert granted (U.S. June 28, 2004) (No. 03-1454), which is a related case dealing with the growing and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. This court now remands this case to the district court for reconsideration of the judgment following the decision by the Supreme Court in Raich. If, after considering any application of Raich to this case, the district court determines that Epis's conviction should remain in tact, the district court should then proceed to re-sentence Epis in a manner consistent with the Supreme Court's decision in Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. ___ (2004) WL 1402697 (June 24, 2004). The panel of this court retains jurisdiction pending reconsideration by the district court.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

On the ground

Well I arrived safely but once again it was eight hours on the ground and about ninety minutes in the air. The plane had some kind of nose problem in Balti and we ended up not only boarding late but also sitting on the tarmac for two solid hours while they decided whether to fix it or change planes. The airlines may save money this way but it seems to me that travel was a lot more efficient for the travellers before the hub system.

Anyway while I was on the road there was a good interview on protesting the drug war with Ethan Nadelmann of Drug Policy Alliance published yesterday. Ethan has the buzz this week after his piece, "Going to Pot: The growing movement toward ending America's irrational marijuana prohibition" appeared as the cover story in the National Review magazine. Both pieces are well worth reading in full.

Meanwhile, my hosts are about to take me out to do some sightseeing and enjoy the beautiful weather, so I'm out till later tonight.

On the Road

I'm off to the airport for a little trip. I'll be back here in a few days but I do expect to be posting in the interim. Probably not until late tonight or tomorrow morning though.

Meanwhile, head over to Drug WarRant for the breaking news on Andrea Barthwell. It appears our deputy drug czar has resigned in order to chase the nomination as the GOP candidate for an Illinois Senate seat, now that former contender Jack Ryan was forced to drop out of the race because of those nasty sex allegations.

Pete thinks it's bad for drug reform. Me, I think it's good for drug policy reform that she's took her lying butt out of the ONDCP office but granted, it does not bode well for drug policy in Illinois nor in future Senate votes if she manages to snag a seat.

Guess we'll just have to make sure she loses the bid.

innovativewords.com
Out of the darkness

Researchers have discovered yet another reason that cannabis is good for you - it appears to enhance night vision and relieve the symptoms of the degenerative disease retinitis pigmentosa. Tests conducted on Moroccan fisherman and anecdotal evidence from Jamaican fisherman seems to bear out the theory that smoking marijuana increases your ability to see in the dark.

... their results backed up claims by the Observer columnist Sue Arnold, who suffers from retinitis pigmentosa and is officially registered blind. She noticed several years ago that drawing on strong Jamaican skunk suddenly and temporarily enabled her to see things clearly.

Of course nothing is perfect and one must judge the additional effects of smoking too much really good skunk weed.

Ms Arnold has since warned of side-effects that could impede night-time navigation.

"Only trouble was," she said, "I couldn't stand up."

It's all about striking the balance.

Last word on medical marijuana amendment

Pete at Drug War Rant has an excellent analysis of the vote on the failed Hinchey-Rohrabacher medical marijuana amendment including links to the transcript of the hearing and the voting roll call. As usual, Pete articulates my thoughts so well, I have to nothing to add to his commentary.

Dan Daniels and Your No Good Buddies

The photos from Independence Day won't be ready for another couple of days but I do want to tell you about this band who played at the party. Dan and YNGB are a really fun group who are serious about their art but don't take themselves too seriously. They are boomers who can now afford to fulfill their youthful ambition to play music and aren't afraid to have a good time doing it.

They're building a following and will be throwing a CD release party this Saturday at The Harp in North Amherst. If you're reading this in the Valley, it's worth the drive just to hear (I've Been Eatin') Onions. If you can't make that gig, check out the schedule at their new web site.

lotsofco.org
Castles in the air

I don't get anything done after work this time of year until after nightfall because the stoop is so endlessly entertaining. I was still thinking about the birds today, and a whole little flock of them flew into the birch tree and called me outside just in time to see the most amazing sky tonight.

It started with this flat gray cloud cover in the west that broke into a tiny clear corner filled with a one big puffy sunlit cumulus cloud to the extreme east. It didn't last long. The winds aloft were moving fast and the sky changed quickly into a wash of varying shades of gray. A huge cloud built due northeast, but it was almost translucent, billowing into a glass mountain of smoky quartz that was intermittently illuminated by tiny pulsing threads of pink lightning, like veins of light from somewhere far away. A great heron with ridiculously long legs flew across the length of the horizon.

It felt like watching a fairy tale erupt in the sky.

waterspider.net
Wings and things

The planets must be doing something because it's been one hell of a weird day so far. I'm so wired from the bedlam, I'm having half a beer to calm my nerves instead of eating lunch. Who can eat under this kind of stress? The hell of it is, it's too boring to make good content unless you know the players involved, and only Karen will appreciate the details.

So while I'm taking a breath here, let me tell you about my bird moment last evening. My long time readers know that I'm always having these odd bird experiences. I was coming out of City right at sunset, having gone back to deliver a copy of an old newspaper to the construction guys who are tearing down the old state hospital building. They're at City Tully O'Reilly's every Wednesday for some reason. We don't usually exchange more than the usual pleasantries but they were really hot to get this issue of the local paper for the kids back home I guess, so I made a special trip over to give it to them and of course they insisted on buying me another beer.

So I was a little more buzzed than usual when I crossed the street and maybe that's why I noticed the wren party going on between the tree and the ivy on the side of the rooming house on Pleasant Street. The din was almost deafening, and it wasn't the usual chirping those birds make, it was more like a drunken bird brawl.

There appeared to be hundreds of them, continuously moving from inside the ivy to the tree, to the roof and back again. They would hover outside the vines covering the wall, flapping their little wings so fast they could have been giant humming birds. The wall and indeed the very air was alive with little brown wrens and above it all, platoons of swallows cut through the sky with the their sharply curved little wings.

I stood there watching so long that the passers-by probably thought I was one of the nutty people who live in that building but eventually, Stacy stopped and watched with me for a while. It makes it more respectable somehow, when there's two. We couldn't come to a consensus as to why they were so agitated but we agreed that there had to be a hundred little wren homes in that quivering greenery. I stayed for a while longer even after she went on her way.

Oddly, it was the swallows that followed me home.

Carnival 94

Almost forgot to trackback to this week's host, democrats give conservatives indigestion who published the entries under yet another clever theme, the Cabinet of Curiosities. The longer I hang around this crowd, the more I like them. Despite our political differences, there's some great posts as always. Check it out.

House allows the sick to suffer

Well, it's not really that surprising that a Republican controlled House would vote down the Hinchey-Rohrabacher amendment again, but it's a shame that 268 of our legislators have no compassion for the terminally ill citizens in this country. Not to mention their lack of respect for state's sovereign rights. The AP is reporting that this was overwhelmingly defeated last year as well, but my records say we had 152 to 273 votes in 2003..

In any event, be sure to thank the 148 courageous legislators who were not swayed by the decrepit and specious arguments trotted out by the Bush administration lackeys in the House like Rep. Frank Wolf, R-VA who insists, "The amendment would hurt by sending the message to young people that there can be health benefits by smoking marijuana." and the old canard put forward by Rep. Max Burns, R-GA that this was "simply the first step in a scheme to overturn all the substance abuse laws."

You might want to remind the nay-sayers that historic use and scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports the use of cannabis as a medicine and that it is less toxic than the pharmaceutical chemicals currently in vogue. No one has overdosed on marijuana. The same cannot be said for morphine that is routinely prescribed to cancer patients instead.

I haven't seen the roll call yet but I'm assuming my guy, Richie Neal, who supported the amendment in 03 has earned another thank you note this year. You can sure he'll be hearing from me either way. Let your guys know what you think as well. Don't forget these people are drawing their salaries from your tax dollars. They are supposed to working for you. Make sure they do their job.

This land is your land


I'm hooked on Air America. Jeralyn of Talk Left, who I adore, was on Janeane and Sam's show The Majority Report tonight. She was filling in for Kos, who I also love and listened to yesterday. They haven't stopped airing interesting and important content yet.

Tune into this station. They are keeping track of the atrocities you don't have time to discover but really should know about.

Call Your Congress-creatures
Action alert - stop the arrests of medmar patients

Bump and update. The Hinchey-Rohrabacher amendment is alive again in the U.S. House of Representatives. Due to be voted on in the next two weeks AT ANY MINUTE, this amendment would prevent the U.S. Department of Justice (which includes the DEA) from spending any money to raid medical marijuana patients in states where it's legal.

We spoke about this last year when it was defeated in a close vote. We have another chance to end the suffering of medical marijuana patients. Please visit the Marijuana Policy Project and take action today.

Check in with Drug WarRant for more details on alternate methods to contact your Congress-critters.

Goose Creek cops get away with armed school invasion

We spoke to you before about this miscarriage of justice in Goose Creek, here and here where the local police force staged a commando style drug raid on the students during school hours.

South Carolina's Attorney General Henry McMaster agrees that it was "grossly inappropriate for police to have terrorized the student body of the local high school with drawn guns and handcuffs but declined to bring criminal charges against the officers involved.

The state's chief prosecutor said school officials had probable cause to conduct a search, but he criticized police officers' decision to draw their weapons as a highly dangerous tactic that could have been deadly.

"The tactics were good tactics for a crack house, a drug den or a methamphetamine lab, but highly inappropriate tactics for a school house," McMaster said.

One wonders what constitutes probable cause in South Carolina when absolutely no drugs were found and the only weapons in evidence were the guns the police had trained on the students who were forced to lie face down in the hallways.

The mayor of Goose Creek, Michael Heitzler also said he saw, "no reason for the police department to punish the 14 officers who took part in the raid."

There are at least three separate lawsuits with multiple plaintiff's pending in the courts. Badge Humphries, a lawyer representing some of the students states this ruling will not affect those cases. One can only hope the civil remedies will offer some compensation for the indignities these students suffered at the hands of taxpayer-funded civil servants.

DEA election year grandstanding nets another Haitian bust

Yet another Haitian extradited without much fanfare from the Dominican Republic for complicity in cocaine smuggling. Former Haitian airport police commander Romaine Lestin was charged with conspiracy for protecting cocaine shipments passing through the airport, becoming the sixth high level Haitian arrested in this election year sting. It appears that four informants rolled on Lestin because they were pissed off that he had shorted them on their share of the "protection money" and of course they are being held in US jails and one assumes are being subjected to interrogation techniques similar to Abu Ghraib.

And as always in an election year, the DEA likes to make it look like they are "protecting" you from these "high level" dealers but the truth is that the 528 lbs. of cocaine at issue here is a small shipment among big smugglers. Typically, a big shipment would comprise at least, and often more, than a ton.

These poor Haitians were merely involved in what had essentially been a protected activity, that I would bet was being conducted with the full knowledge of our DEA, until Bush decided to "liberate" the country. Not unlike Oriel Jean, who we told you about weeks ago, Lestin was small potatoes in this operation. He was paid a total of $11,000 over the years. It no doubt cost at least ten times that in your tax dollars to bring him to the US on that DEA plane and it will cost at least that much more again to prosecute him. Meanwhile, the availability of cocaine on the street is undiminished and word has it, has become more pure as the competition in the black market heats up; while the problem of cocaine addiction goes unaddressed and it's victims untreated under this current model of interdiction and incarceration in the war on some drugs.

Friends, countrymen, lend me your ears...

I finally got around to listening to Air America yesterday and I'm haven't turned it off since. The programming rocks and if you can stream audio, you can listen to it while you're working at your computer. I may never hear Morning Sedition, but the rest of the weekday lineup is peopled with the most astute minds of the literate, and thank God funny, political left. I'm already a die-hard Randi Rhodes fan, not the least because she seems to be holding my old hero Barry Crimmins hostage on her afternoon show.

And speaking of the Big B., Crimmins pledged to do a show every Tuesday at Rocky Sullivan's in New York City until the Bush regime is either voted, hounded or impeached from office. A true bargain in the big city at only a $10 cover. (129 Lexington Ave. at 28-29th Sts., New York, NY 10016. Phone 212-725-3871.)

Sure to be a show worth seeing. I may try to get to one myself. I love Manhattan in the summer.

Friends in high places

Blogger is still making me crazy this morning. It still takes three tries to get the pages to load and there's no telling if this will actually get posted. Nonetheless, Cannabis Culture has an interesting article I missed last week on politician's children who get busted for getting for using intoxicants so we'll try to pass it on.

Unsurprisingly the offspring, not unlike every other young person in the US on the planet, have experimented with mind altering substances and some of them have been caught. Al Gore's son, the Bush twins, and big brother Jeb Bush's little girl Nicole have all been arrested for marijuana and underage drinking violations. Nicole had bigger problems of course with prescription pills and crack cocaine. Chelsea Clinton passed out regularly on booze binges.

Then there's the less heralded but bigger busts like Republican Representative Dan Burton's son Dan II who was charged with trafficking, was let off and then several months later was again caught with 30 marijuana plants and a gun. Is he languishing in jail under the mandatory minimums his father promoted? Of course not. Mr. Zero Tolerance's kid was let off again. The charges were dropped.

The same goes for Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham's son Randy who was convicted of possessing 400 pounds of pot. Hardly personal stash even by a toker's standards. He received half the usual sentence.

Both of these Congressman support the death penalty when the dealer is your kid. When it's their kid, they just say, "Oh never mind," and plead for mercy. It's time they started showing the same kind of reason-based sympathy for all cannabis consumers. Be it the war in Iraq or the war on some drugs, politicians won't stop sacrificing your children to their political ambitions and ill-conceived laws, until their own kids have to pay the same price.

Happy holiday

Blogger is still glitching out, but it appears to be limited to my blog as I see Atrios is loading with no problems. I always suspect when they have server problems, it's the free blogs that get restored last. In any event I'm taking this moment when it seems to be intermittently working, to post a few words.

Last night's party was fabulous as it is every year. There were about a half a dozen different gatherings going on at the marina, but we were the biggest and the live band pretty much provided the entertainment for the whole place. Everyone contributed to the fireworks finale though -- it was 360 degrees of pyrotechnics, but we had the biggest ones and the most so I guess we won. I hope the photos come out. I'll wait to post the details pending their receipt.

I ended up using an instacamera again because as I was on my way to the pharmacy to buy film, I unexpectedly ran across the annual professional bicyclist's race around the courthouse block. In my haste to get photos of the bikes coming round, I forgot to buy film for the regular camera.

Oh, and before I forget to pass this on, Drug Sense has updated its pages with a fresh new look and added functionality. It has all the usual invaluable research features of course but you can now modify the content to suit your needs and they will also be hosting blogs. Check it out.

Technical difficulties

Well, it's going to be light posting for sure, since Blogger seems to be glitching out again today. Yesterday the page wasn't loading, today I'm getting publishing confirmation but it's not showing up on the blog. The good news is at least it didn't eat the post.

Nonetheless, I'm going out to enjoy the another (not quite perfect --the humidity is up a little) lovely day.

Rose Garden strategy

I didn't intend to take yesterday off but I also didn't expect such perfect weather. It was the kind of day you stay in New England for, even though you only get six of them a year. The air was crystal clear, the sun was just hot enough, peeking in and out of the big fat cumulus clouds that were lazily drifting across the brilliant blue sky. I spent the day outside and planted my garden.

I know you're thinking most people plant on Memorial Day. I do it on Independence Day because I don't know until then what perennials are going to make it. I fill in the empty spaces with annuals which if you'll excuse the expression, are now dirt cheap.

I have a party later so it's likely to be another light posting day, but fortunately Drug War Rant has covered the important stories already. Check out his post on Columbian currency where he has a still of a man trading cocaine base for groceries, from the National Geographic's flash movie, "Cocaine Country".

He also uncovered a positive government anti-drug ad campaign and covers a disturbing development in Florida where the local school board has approved the use of a chemical test designed to ferret out possible contact between hard surfaces such as desks and lockers or even clothing and drug users.

Don't even get me started on this one. The school (and the test makers) claim there is no chance of false positives due to secondary contact. Right. A school full of hundreds of children moving through a building and there's not one chance a drug user could contaminate the desk of an innocent student?

Not to mention, the atmosphere of suspicion this breeds. Are they guilty until proven innocent by the test? I mean what kind of learning environment is this? Are we teaching our children to be good citizens or model prisoners?

kwiauctions.com
Court rejects rehearing on hemp food

The 9th Circuit continues to uphold your right to nutricious food by sensibly refusing the (DEA) petition for an En
Banc rehearing. The Court's June 28th decision gives the Bush
Administration until September 26 to appeal to the Supreme Court. Sales of hemp foods in the U.S. will be permanently protected if the Bush Administration does not appeal by the September 26 deadline.

"Manufacturers of healthy foods containing omega-3 rich hemp nut and oil are confident that the Administration cannot win an appeal to the Supreme Court," says David Bronner, Chair of the HIA's Food and Oil Committee and President of Alpsnack/Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps.

Hemp companies have spent over $200,000 of their own money fighting this ridiculous ban, and are prepared to spend what it takes to fight any further appeal to the Supreme Court. "The public and the media should question the DEA's waste of tax dollars in trying to crush the legitimate hemp food industry," says Eric Steenstra, President of Vote Hemp. "A Bush administration appeal will fail and only further embarrass the DEA. Appealing the decision is a last-ditch effort to save face at the expense of taxpayers and limited law enforcement resources."

And you can be certain that if the hemp food companies have spent 200,000 on the suit, that at least that much and (probably much more) of your hard earned tax dollars have been wasted by the DEA on this case. Hemp is a plant, not a drug. The food doesn't get you high and is extraordinarly beneficial as a source of nutrition.

It would have been much better if the DEA had spent the money on purchasing the hemp bars and passed them out to the hungry. That would have made a postive difference.

pym.org
Let Freedom Ring

When is the last time you referred to the upcoming holiday as Independence Day? Come on, admit it; when you hear the phrase isn't the movie the first thing that pops up in your mind? Jed at Freedom Sight has a two good posts up on the subject. He wonders,

..... if maybe, just maybe, if people start using the title "Independence Day" more often, then perhaps they'll get a reminder, even if it's only once a year, that we are a free people, each an individual sovreign, and that we are entitled to all the rights and liberties that implies.

The holiday was enacted to honor the dead that fell for these rights. Rights that are being abridged daily under the auspices of the war on some drugs and the war on terror and in the name of homeland security. The Bush administration is taking your civil liberties away from you one by one, slipping legislation in piecemeal while they distract you with these unwinnable wars.

Enjoy the holiday and the picnics and fireworks but do keep in mind what the celebration is all about and vote in 04 like your life and your liberty depends on it. It does.

asahi-net.or.jp
Casting call

In my daily battle to keep my inbox manageable, I've been deleting a lot of these MoveOn emails without even looking but this one really does look interesting. Academy award-winning filmmaker Errol Morris has agreed to produce a series of ads featuring authentic American voices committed to change. According to the promo, "Errol will be selecting a dozen people from those who respond, for on-camera interviews. This series of ads will begin airing at the time of the Democratic Convention. We believe America is ready for a change. Your voice could be part of making it happen."

Sounds good to me. Even if you're not chosen for the video, an award winning filmmaker could be looking at your story. Details on how to apply are available here.

guerrillanews.com
Idaho will pay rats

The Idaho state police are initiating a campaign to pay people to snitch on their friends and neighbors in the ongoing war against our plant. Their unachievable goal is to eliminate cannabis from the state. Not going to happen, but I'll bet some scummy rat will be willing to roll over for $5,000 on otherwise law abiding citizens.

They use the 5,132 plants seized last year, alleged to be worth about 6 million, as justification for this program. Like cannabis plants are the biggest danger to the public? And again, instead of spending millions to kill weeds, in a legal market, that money could be used for the public good and the 6 mil could be going into the municipal revenue stream.

The cops are trying to make it sound like it's not costing the residents anything.

This program is funded by the DEA, BLM, US Forest Service and of course the state police and other local agencies around the state... so that's where the reward money comes from to pay rewards to people for information,” says Det. Sgt. Gaske.

Hello? These are all taxpayer funded organizations. This is money coming directly out of your pocket and paychecks folks. Now you wouldn't you rather be spending that money on schools and other municipal services? I would.

It's time for the prohibition profiteers to admit this war has failed and start looking for a new line of work.

Tick Tock

Thinking about wars, now is always a good time to check this clock and see how much the war in Iraq is costing you right this second. Watch your tax dollars tick away and check for your own town's contribution to the war machine.

While you're at it, you may as well take a look at the Drug War Clock to watch your government squander another 40 billion of your hard-earned tax dollars.

Not a pretty picture.

Another week, another Carnival

Quasi In Rem hosts this week's lineup with a Capitol Hill theme. As always it's loaded with interesting posts from bloggers you might not know and he said some nice stuff about our entry, proving once again that the war on some drugs is a truly non-partisan issue.

While you're there, check out the more of his blog. I don't necessarily agree with the rest of his politics but I like his no nonsense style a lot.

agri-ed.com
Judge busted for purchasing pot

It's like I always say, cannabis consumers are responsible citizens. Take Judge Robert King for example. He was elected five times in 26 years to sit on the bench by the good citizens of Gold Hill Oregon. He didn't get busted because he did something wrong while he was smoking cannabis, he got bagged by a snitch trying to save his own skin, who after being busted himself, set the judge up on an 3 1/2 gram buy (enough for maybe four joints). Otherwise no one would have ever known.

This is misdemeanor personal use situation not some big felony, but the prohibition profiteers are so intent on protecting their cushy little positions that they sent the informant in wearing a wire. I wonder how much that cost? Meanwhile Sheriff Mike Winters, who appears to be intent on making a big deal out this small-time case, is rerouting all his department's court cases to other courts, leaving the good judge with nothing to do. Winters claims he made this move because he felt it was "an integrity issue." What a crock.

One might ask where the Sheriff's priorities are. Where is the integrity in attempting to turn a non-criminal charge into a federal case? It seems Mr. Winters prefers the spotlight for grandstanding rather than for doing his job and going out and solving real crimes.

The good news is despite Winter's over zealous tactics, the good judge will continue to draw his salary under state law until his elected term is up. One hopes he will run again. We bet he could win by a landslide on a pro-cannabis platform. I mean how is he different, except that now, everyone knows he takes an occassional toque? He's still the same guy everyone admired before.

Proof is in the pictures

For those of you who haven't believed me when I told you about the magnetic confluence in this happy valley, I have the photos to prove that not only does it exist but it's right over my front stoop. The first picture is how it starts.

And this is how it inevitably ends. A circle opens up in the clouds every time. The entire rest of the sky was black. These were the photos I took with the instacamera by the way. I'm surprised at how well they came out although as expected I didn't manage to get a shot of the lightning - which was pretty impressive in that storm.

On the record - Smoker's rights

I was interviewed at Tully O'Reilly's tonight, by Sunshine DeWitt, the business and planning reporter for my local paper, about the impending statewide smoking ban due to take effect here in July. For myself, I just quit four months ago to the day, but I'm still squarely against the ban.

The smoking ban is just another aspect of the war on some drugs and some lifestyles. In the end the issue is personal sovereignty. I thought Republicans were supposed to be for small government; this is nanny-state at its worst. As I told her, this should be a market driven decision. The patrons vote with their dollars. No one is forced to spend money in a place that allows smoking, nor are they compelled to seek employment in an establishment that does. It should be up to the owner to decide policy in his own building.

Smokers are becoming a minority but they are citizens too and should not be legislated out of a hospitable commercial environment. The government should not be concerned with what we put in our own bodies, or how we run our own business, as long as it doesn't impinge on the well-being of others.

As Norman Solomon says, fascism will not arrive all at once, it will come in increments. I think this invasive legislation is just one more baby step in that direction.

Action alert - stop the arrests of medmar patients

The Hinchey-Rohrabacher amendment is alive again in the U.S. House of Representatives. Due to be voted on in the next two weeks, this amendment would prevent the U.S. Department of Justice (which includes the DEA) from spending any money to raid medical marijuana patients in states where it's legal.

We spoke about this last year when it was defeated in a close vote. We have another chance to end the suffering of medical marijuana patients. Please visit the Marijuana Policy Project and take action today.

Hot fun in the summertime

For those of you who make your travel plans at the last minute , there's some upcoming festivals that would make a great destination. With construction on the waterfront park completed, the Seattle Hempfest on August 21 and 22 promises to be the most picture-perfect in history and admission is free.

On August 26-29 you can party deep in the woods of Northern Ontario at the always well organized Hempfest 2004. For $25 in advance or $35 at the gate you can enjoy what appears to be the "Woodstock" for Canadian cannabis consumers.

If you're closer to the east coast, Evolve 5 will be staged on August 27-29. It's billed as a music event but one expects that the local herb will be available. This one is pricey but they expect to sell out all 6000 tickets. You can still get in for $78 at this time but the price will rise to $95 for latecomers so book early.

And of course don't forget the third annual Drug War Vigil Memorial Group's Film Festival being held in Vancouver in September. There's still time to enter your drug war related video work. Contact film@cannabisculture.com.

And finally, the Hempola Family Farm Festival will be held on a working industrial hemp farm on August 7 and 8 in the village of Dalston just north of Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Although this one is geared towards families and focuses on agricultural uses of the non-psychotropic hemp plant including supremely nutricious hemp food products, we bet that cannabis consumers will also be out in force at this one. For details call toll free at 1-800-240-9215 ext. 23 or email info@hempola.cominfo.

Activists add weight to pot proposal

The Bush administration, in the person of deputy drug czar Andrea Barthwell, is vehemently opposing a citizen's initiative in Oregon that is attempting to increase the amount of medical marijuana a patient may legally possess. It's reportedly a well organized effort but also a pretty ambitious proposal.

The expansion measure aimed at the Nov. 2 ballot would increase the possession limit from the current three ounces to a pound at any one time. It also would create state-regulated dispensaries authorized to supply up to six pounds of marijuana per year to qualified patients.

I assume the high end of the law would be for the terminally ill and households where multiple patients reside. Activists reasonably say the measure would keep the chronically ill from having to constantly scramble to get their medicine. Our drug czarina would disagree.

"These people will keep coming back with more expansive and more ridiculous propositions to eliminate all controls on drugs," said Barthwell.

You can't blame her for not wanting that. If they legalized the market, she wouldn't have a job with a royal title anymore.

Supremes to consider precedent setting cannabis case

We've spoken about this before, here and here.

The Justice department's Raich v. Ashcroft appeal came before the justices of the US Supreme Court in their last regularly scheduled conference of the term and they are expected to decide whether to review the case today. If they decline, the entirely sensible 9th Circuit ruling will stand and possession of home grown medical marijuana will no longer be able to be prosecuted under the Interstate Commerce Act.

One hopes the Supremes will take up the case and issue a decision that establishes once and for all that the feds cannot use the Act to persecute chronically ill people. However if they do not have the "gravitas" to stand up to Ashcroft and his thugs then we hope they at least decline to take the matter up and let the 9th Circuit's decision stand.

Update: It's a go. The Supreme Court has announced it will take up the matter in its next term. Arguments are expected to be heard sometime next winter. We hope however that the lower courts will continue to rely on the 9th Circuit's precedent setting decision in all cases heard in the interim.

[Thanks to Steven Couch for the update]

Give me your drugs and your life

It's that time again. As in years past, in the weeks prior to the UN's International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, China has sentenced dozens of dealers to death and one man was executed in Shanghai for smuggling in 1.8kg of heroin and other executions took place across the country.
Amnesty International made an expected appeal to Chinese government asking it to abandon the long standing practice of executing the smugglers since there is no statistical evidence it has any greater effect on drug trafficking than other methods of punishment. One expects their pleas for humane treatment will once again fall on deaf ears.

[Link via Vice Squad]

rustycans.com
Sunday Funnies

Cute Doonesbury yesterday. I hope Garry keeps this story line going. And Duke has the last word on the "Iraq handover" in today's strip. And is me or is Beetle Bailey starting to sound anti-war? Yesterday's panels sure had an anti-Bush slant.

Meanwhile the relentless search for naked pictures of Marcie Betts continues to drive a significant portion of my traffic. I figure you're probably about half tattoo people and half prison guards, and I hope both groups stay to see what else we have to say at Last One Speaks. I might mention that yes, I do have a photo of Marcie Betts at the link on this post, and you can enlarge it and see some of her tats but she's not naked in the photo.

Whole Lotta Love

I came home from work Thursday night and found a big fat love message on my sidewalk from Mark Herschler, the heart of my world in this happy valley. Mark and I shared an apartment for years and I used to love to come home from work and find him playing that very guitar on the back porch. He is the best singer writer I've ever known and I think maybe we've been connected for millenia. It's uncanny, I was thinking of him and the rest of the family the night before. I haven't seen them in months.

He left a flyer for what appeared to be an impromtu gig with his new band, Gross National Project at the place formerly known as the Baystate Hotel. I hadn't stepped across the threshold of the building in three years. Not since the new owners renamed the building. I loved the Baystate and I hated the so called restoration.

The note on the poster said, "Libby, if you can come check out this Rhythm section, we have something fun for you." It sure looked like a fun group. I recognized Peter Kim the bass player but I had no idea who the drummer was so I finally went into Bishop's and had a fabulous time.

It was a real love fest, I saw so many dear friends who I've neglected for far too long. I knew 90 percent of the people in the room. Mark and Molly Bode, Jane and Ed, Janet and Mitch, George and Greg and Evan who work there. Jamie showed up late without his gorgeous wife Maki who is not home from Japan yet but he promised she would be at the annual Fourth of July bash on the boat, which I would have forgotten to show up for if I hadn't seen everyone.

Valley readers, look for this band. The music is great and it's a fun crowd.

moderndrunkardmagazine.com
Cannabis martinis at 4:20?

Guess they will call that one a cannabini in the bartending guides. And how far behind can marijuanitas be?

A major manufacturer in Prague has introduced a marijuana flavored vodka. They say there is no THC in the product, however it does weigh in at 16% alcohol. I wonder what proof that would be in the US?

The liquor is being sold in supermarkets and restaurants and has so far elicited no complaints from the Czech anti-drug crowd. For myself, I can't imagine it would be that popular. I mean how good could it taste? As I recall, marijuana tea tasted pretty yucky.

Calling CSPAN - manners matter

I am not at all a morning person and I'm rarely awake in time to call in to the Washington Journal. However, it was early today when I flipped on CSPAN. The host is reading a piece on the UN report promoting the fiction that the eradication efforts in Colombia have actually had any effect on the availability of cocaine in the US, a story we covered here four days ago. I decide to call in on the listener line, as they repeatedly invite you to do. Keep in mind that I am so low tech, I don't even have a cordless phone much less a cell, so I can't hear or see the television while I'm using my only phone.

It's my first time calling. The only rule I know about is you're allowed one call in 30 days. It takes a long time but I get through. The guy answers the phone, "Good morning CSPAN, should the Greens nominate Ralph Nader?"

Not the greeting I expected but I answered without missing a beat, "Sure but what good would it do?"

I figured it might be some kind of competency test. After asking when my last call was, he muttered something I didn't catch about my TV set and told me I'd be on the air. I can now hear the program again, and sure enough they are talking about Nader.

Now I have a lot to say about Ralph Nader, and in retrospect I suppose I could have used his position on drug policy to segue into my point on the earlier piece but at that hour, I didn't think that quickly. I hung up so as not to be trapped into wasting my call on Ralph's ego problem.

I call back and get through again. I overhear the guy complaining to his co-worker about how crazy the morning has been as he's picking up the phone. When I tell him I don't want to talk about Nader, he tells me the open phone thing has ended and to try again in an hour. So I try to ask if I'll be able to talk about the story then because I think the UN report is dangerously inaccurate and it's the only issue I want to address. He hangs up on me in mid-sentence.

I don't care if he's disinterested, but he knew it was my first time and could have spent the extra 15 seconds to let me finish the sentence and tell me what their policy is on bringing up topics from earlier segments so I would know whether it was worth spending my time trying to get through. I found this unpleasant exchange so irritating that not only did I not try calling again, I switched off the program altogether.

It's this kind of rudeness that contributes to the overall deterioration of civil society. If CSPAN's phone screeners are too indifferent and/or too harassed to be polite, the least they could do is transfer you to a pre-recorded set of guidelines. Hanging up on inexperienced callers hardly seems a way to encourage a wide range of fresh viewpoints, nor a way to retain viewers.

simplifiedsigns.org
What a drag it is getting up

Getting old sucks - I'm losing my party chops. Time was I could party till the proverbial cows come home for nights on end. Hell, in 1990 I averaged about 20 hours of sleep a week. I'm afraid those days are long gone. Jeeez. I stay out one night till 2:00am and I've been dragging myself around semi-comatose all morning. I figure it's going to a long afternoon too. Good thing it's busy today or I'd probably fall asleep in my chair at work.

All of which is a really long way of saying that I won't posting anything of substance until tonight, after the hair of the dog remedy. By then I'll be able to tell why it was worth giving up the sleep for the gig. Later.

Day Late and Dollar Short

Well the theme fits my life this week. Between the computer problems and tying up some loose ends, I didn't manage to get an entry into the Carnival of the Vanities, but as always it's worth the time to check out the posts. Something to amuse everyone at the carnival.

Sleepy head

I had a all too rare night out yesterday and slept in this morning. Fortunately Drug WarRant already covered the breaking news. Check out the ABA's statement against mandatory minimum sentencing and the status of student drug testing in California.

obvillage.com
Fear of Flying

When will these people ever learn. Despite the world wide condemnation of the shooting down of an innocent missionary and her infant son in Peru in 2001, Brazil is the final phase of enacting legislation authorizing their government to shoot down suspected drug running airplanes. They expect the US will cooperate in sharing information in order to ascertain which planes are actually engaged in this activity. The US of course is a little gun-shy after having been held equally responsible for the fiasco in Peru, so one expects that any such cooperation will happen behind closed doors.

Brazil claims to have safeguards in place to avoid shooting down innocents, however Peru also had safeguards and if memory serves, the missionary plane was shot down on account of a language barrier. The pilot didn't understand the military plane's communications.

Brazil alleges their airspace is being constantly violated by drug traffickers who make obscene gestures as they fly by, secure in the knowledge that they can't presently be intercepted. Interestingly, Brazil is negotiating the terms of the law with the US government which begs the question, since when do they need our permission to enact their own legislation?

Meanwhile, Colombia quietly resumed their policy of shooting down suspected courier planes in 2003 and the Washington, AP news agency reports almost a dozen planes have been down this year alone with intelligence assistance from the US government.

Anyone recall reading about the US sneaking this policy back into practice in the main stream US media? Me either.

Sentencing guidelines and drugging the public

Drug WarRant has several good posts up this morning. Pete alerts us to a new mandatory sentencing scheme. Senselessbrenner proposes horrible new sentencing bill gives the details on, "Defending America's Most Vulnerable: Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act of 2004 sponsored by House Judiciary Chair Jim Sensenbrenner." This is really evil folks and seeks to only to incarcerate more non-violent consumers without any chance of probation of sentencing based on judicial discretion.

He also posts on the Judge Young's courageous decision this week criticizing the federal sentencing guidelines that already exist. Now Judge Young sits in my jurisdiction and in fact has been the judge in many of my firm's cases. This man is a very conservative jurist and for him to make this kind of statement in a 174 page decision speaks volumes for the current sorry state of our legal system.

Also check out George Bush's latest scheme to screen the entire population of the US for mental illness. It wouldn't be such a bad idea, if he would demonstrate it's usefulness by having himself and his cabinet screened first, unfortunately Pete delivers the evidence that this is just another thinly veiled scheme to promote pharmaceutical drugs and facilitate the pharma companies obscene profits.

Meanwhile of course they plan to continue spending almost 40 billion of your tax dollars on their war on some drugs. Those would be the ones the pharmas don't make a profit on.

thinkquest.org
Vision quests protected by Utah high court

The use of peyote in Native American spiritual ceremonies is a centuries old tradition and has long been accorded legal status under federal law. Thanks to a decision this week by the Utah Supreme Court, that right has been extended to include all practitioners of Native American religions even if they are not members of a federally recognized tribe.

Attorneys for the state argued there is no exception in state law for the use of peyote by Indians and said that even if the court ruled there was such an exception, it could not be extended to cover non-Indians.

The high court ruled that state law incorporates the federal regulation but does not specify a restriction on peyote use only by members of federally recognized tribes. Use of the hallucinogenic drug is limited to bona fide religious ceremonies as part of the Native American Church, Justice Jill Parrish wrote.

The court rightly noted that, "permitting the exemption for some church members and not others would violate the equal-protection clause in the United States Constitution."

Thanks to CCLE, who made the decision available here.

Meme game revisited

Don't ask me how I ended up this deep in my own archives but I found this game that I really liked at the time. I still do, but this round I have a lot longer sentence to share since the closest book was a paperback Roget's Thesaurus.

"...bring together, assemble, muster, collect, gather; hold a meeting, convene, convoke; rake up, dredge, heap, mass, pile; pack, cram, lump together; compile, group, concentrate, unite, amass, accumulate, hoard, store."

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

It also kind of answered the question I had on my mind when I found it again. So sue me, I like those little cosmic moments.

china.org.cn
Soup is good food

I love this one. You know how price wars work. One vendor drops their price on some commodity and before you know it every vendor is town is dropping theirs as well. In southwest China, the restaurant business upped the stakes and decided to add that little something to their soups and stews that will keep the patrons coming back -- opium.

Some 215 restaurants were shut down after narcotics officers discovered they were spiking the food with the poppies.

Dishes at the restaurants in Guizhou province contained varying degrees of the opium derivative morphine, the report said.

"Consuming soup or hot pots mixed with poppies for a long time will make you become addicted ... and eventually lead you to drug abuse in serious cases," Wei Tao, deputy chief of the Food Institute with Guizhou Provincial Center for Disease Control, was quoted as saying.

Nothing has been said about prosecutions but one wonders if there will be a protest raised by those patrons who got hooked on the food.

[Link via Jim at Vice Squad]

Meth clean-up costly

I've been wondering for a while now about all this press regarding the high price tag on cleaning up these clandestine meth labs they keep busting. It hasn't made sense to me.

I have to confess that in 1970 I snorted up a whole lot of crystal meth myself. We used to get it from some kid at MIT that brewed it up in the school labs or maybe his dorm room. So I'm thinking if they've been cooking this stuff up for at least the last 34 years -- why haven't we heard about all this toxic waste until recently? I put the question to the fine minds on my discussion list.

It turns out this is just another failure of prohibition policy. When the government made purchasing the precursor ingredients against the law, they made the "clean" method of cooking meth with safely manufactured chemicals impossible. The meth makers were then forced to find ways to make the precursor ingredients as well and I'm told that these are the culprits that cause the toxic waste. The laws didn't stop the manufacture of the drug, they merely made it more dangerous.

The devil of this failed prohibition is in this sort of unintended consequence. Whereas before, you had only the problem of meth addicts, now you also have the problem of properties contaminated from the unregulated processing of the substance.

Does your government take responsibility for this failure? Of course not, and since the busted meth cookers are largely the poor and disenfranchised, the prohibition profiteers simply pass the significant costs of cleaning up onto the innocent landlords.

Let me say this again, "You can't stop people from using drugs and as long as there is a market, there will be suppliers." If they had legalized and regulated this drug 30 years ago, landlords like 78 year old Clifton Moneymaker (who has never even heard of meth) would not be forced to clean up the mess the DEA left behind -- not to mention he would still be collecting the $500 rent he depends on to meet his expenses.

UN claims Colombian coca production reduced

Touting it as a great success in the war on some drugs, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime recently released a report stating coca cultivation had declined by 20% in Colombia. However, coca eradication experts meeting in Peru, disputed that claim calling the drop in cultivated acres misleading. They report traffickers are simply developing new and more potent and higher yield strains, while growers are moving to smaller and more remote tracts that are harder to detect and more hazardous to spray.

The Colombia government, aided by the US, did manage to successfully poison 116,000 hectares of land in the Amazon Rain Basin, while displacing thousands of indigenous peasants, ruining legitimate crops and sickening the few local residents who would not or could not leave. However, despite all the damage, the Andes still managed to produce three times more cocaine than the US market consumes.

The Incomprehensible Lie of the Week award though goes to drug czar John Walters, who said in a statement that the report shows ``when democracy, stability and security flourish in drug-producing nations, progress can be made against the narco-terrorists who threaten our way of life.''

Meanwhile, the OAS blamed the Colombian paramilitary group AUC for colluding with FARC in killing 34 peasants on a coca farm this week, while FARC vehemently denied the allegations claiming the peasants were actually members of AUC. Keep in mind that your tax dollars are partly funding this atrocity.

If Walters calls this stability, one wonders what in his mind constitutes chaos?

Send in the clowns

Speaking of that fun loving prohibition profiteer Walters, he appears to have discovered the blogosphere and started a blog of his own. It's a lot better than you might expect. Check it out and be sure to leave him some comments.

news.com.au
Davies vow to stand their ground

I don't know how the prohibition profiteers sleep at night. In yet another example of forfeiture run amok, 81 year old David Davies, a WWII vet and his wife Florence had their life's worth of assets seized because their son was storing 19 kilos of cannabis in the ceiling. In an blatantly apparent miscarriage of justice, the couple received, "16-month suspended jail sentences last month after being convicted on two counts of possessing marijuana with intent to supply." I mean really, intent? Who on earth did the prosecution contend they were intending to supply it to?

To add insult to injury, the Australian government with obvious US inspired prosecutorial greed, took possession of the family home (because they could) and intend to charge them rent. The couple, who built the house with their own bare hands, will not go without a fight.

"They will have to drag us off," Mrs Davies said.

Meanwhile, the parties' lawyers are hashing it out and it appears the government might be willing to offer free rent. What a joke. They should be returning the Davies assets and offering an apology.

Communication Breakdown

Jeeez. Yahoo is still screwed up. I can't even get into the help menu to rag on the support guys this morning. I think I liked it better when I was stressing out about bouncing mail with the 4 meg storage. I mean really, I didn't ask for the upgrade and at the moment, after years of virtually trouble-free use, this does not feel like an improvement. If they don't fix it soon I'll have to start a new account somewhere else. I can't live like this.

Meanwhile, everything else seems to be working again, so before I forget let me say thanks to Jessica's Well for giving me such great placement on last week's updated COTV. I hope to hell it wasn't there the whole time after I did all that whining about being missed in the first round. Not impossible considering my current state of computer confusion. These are the times I really wish I was a technogeek instead of a technodope.

And finally, in an attempt to make amends for my self-absorbed wailing in the last week, I just checked Dispatches from the Culture Wars and let me say Ed Brayton is right, I probably need serious help. The hypochondria takes up enough of my time without adding paranoid delusions into the mix however, not to split hairs but I don't think it's impossible to instinctively dislike a person. Not to mention if the criteria for posting about someone is actually knowing them personally, then we had all better give up blogging. I mean for instance, how many bloggers actually "know" George Bush?

In any event, no one can accuse Ed of "knowing" me (as he clearly does not, since as my friends can attest -- to know me is to love me) but in my own defense, I was trying (and apparently failing) to be amusing. Believe it or not, a lot of people find me uproariously funny but my sense of humor is apparently an acquired taste and my jokes seem to lose a lot in translation without the voice inflections.

Meet at Tully O'Reilly's for a beer any week night at 6:00 though and I promise to make you laugh....

NASA.com
Stardust gets in your eyes

My communication problems continue unabated. I can't find anything in my archives. My yahoo account is a mess. I can only access email intermittently and while I can publish, I can't link to graphics and I can't view the blog for some reason. Must be a residual effect from the Venus transit thing or maybe it's got something to do with this "Comet Wild 2".

They say it's a completely unexpected celestial object, unlike anything known. It was scanned by NASA's Stardust spacecraft in January and the data analysis has reportedly left astronomers astounded.

The mission also collected thousands of pristine bits of the comet that could yield answers to the origins of this universe. The lab scientists will be receiving comparative data as soon as July 4, 2005 when, "NASA's Deep Impact will slam a probe into comet Tempel 1."

Sounds a little ominous but very cool, doesn't it?

Microgram Bulletin

The DEA doesn't say where you can get these candy bars but I hear through the grapevine that they are really good.

The newsletter itself is fascinating reading. I don't know if anyone can subscribe for future updates, but, check out the entire April issue anyway. It covers everything smuggled from candy to cocaine to African yopo seeds. There's even a jobs section.

This is one for the archives.

Happy Father's Day

I'm sending my love out to my own "World's Best Dad" today. Unfortunately I won't get to see him for a few weeks but he knows how much I cherish him always. My Dad is not a fancy guy. He's not rich or famous but he can grow anything, tame wild animals and he's the most trustworthy person I've ever known.

Our physical resemblance is not strong but I'm clearly my father's daughter. I inherited his stubborn tenacity, tactless honesty and gruff kindness, not to mention a strong sense of adventure and a superior sense of direction. I'm so lucky to have been raised by this man.

However, as Pete Guither's moving post at Drug War Rant reminds us, not every child enjoys such good fortune, particularly under mandatory minimum sentencing for non-violent drug offenders. There's something wrong with a policy that creates more victims than it protects and today, hundreds of thousands of children will not see their Dads because the ill-advised war on some drugs imprisoned their parent for a victimless crime. My heart -- goes out to them.