Missing my muse

I'm back on the work rotation and I'm just out of inspiration today. It's a slow news cycle so I just wasted an hour reading ridiculous news items that I don't feel like blogging about. I can tell you that they invented a new tshirt that translates air guitar playing into actual music you can hear on your computer.

NASA lost contact with the Mars probe and some guy India says red rain that fell there is really alien life forms being seeded on earth. Coincidence?

There were a whole bunch of law enforcement agents being busted for stealing from drug dealers and reselling drugs on the streets themselves.

A significant amount of heroin has been seized this week. The biggest haul was 32 kilos in New Milford, CT.

And some 197 drug addicted inmates in the UK were awarded damages by a court for the prison's failure to provide them drugs when they were incarcerated. Each inmate will walk away with about $6,000.

I'll be back later if I manage to stay awake. Maybe I'll be more inspired after a couple of beers.

Oh I Wish I Were An Oscar Mayer Wiener…

This is why I love the internets. I was offered 150 Kool Aid points yesterday, so I checked out the website to see what 150 points would get me. I wasn't much interested in the prizes but I was pretty impressed with the psychedelic array of fun and games for tiny people and decided to see what the other kidcentric sites had to offer in the way of product indoctrination.

The Juicy Juice site failed to impress and the Jello kid page was just bizarre, but it was at the Jello site that I found The WIENERMOBILIA™ Store and what a find just in time for the gift giving season.

If you have ever seen the WIENERMOBILE® Vehicle, or heard the timeless Wiener Jingle, then you know how exciting it is to see the 27ft long hot dog cruising through your town. Now you can bring home the excitement of the WIENERMOBILE. These pieces of Americana will bring smiles to every kid and kid at heart!

Now I know that nothing excites me more than the prospect of a 27ft long hot dog cruising down my street, but those of us who are off the beaten path must make do with life-like replicas instead. So Ladies and Gentleman, I give you.......

THE WIENERWHISTLE
To the untrained eye, it may look like any ordinary, run-of-the-mill, hot dog-shaped whistle. But, it's not just any whistle...it's the WIENERWHISTLE™ Toy! The WIENERWHISTLE™ is a full-blown musical instrument that plays a special tune in four notes. The WIENERWHISTLE™ has four holes, that's about twice as many as most whistles! There's one to blow into, one at the side, one at the far end, and one on the top. By covering some of the holes in a special way, you can play a bunch of different sounds like the Wiener Jingle©! (Restricted to children 3 and up.)

Forget the kazoos. Doesn't covering some of the holes of a full blown instrument in a special way sound more interesting than just humming? Sure sounds like a whole lot more fun than the empty box I used to play with as a kid. I think I'll order mine today.

Sembler's penile pump missing

If there was a top ten list of the most evil prohibition profiteers in the history of drug war madness, the Semblers and their hideous concentration camp for teenagers, Straight, Inc., would be number one. The vile tactics they used against these kids should have been prosecuted under criminal statutes, but being well connected, they were instead licensed to scam well meaning parents out of their money, in return for torturing their children.

One of them decided to get even.

The fight goes back more than 20 years, to a massive warehouse in Pinellas Park with blue plastic chairs and too many peanut butter sandwiches.

There, at a drug treatment center called Straight, Inc., 17-year-old Richard Bradbury landed in a world that he says was part Lord of the Flies, part Abu Ghraib prison.

Sembler and his wife, Betty, helped found Straight after they found out one of their sons was smoking pot, according to news reports.

In a book published this year, Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids, journalist Maia Szalavitz contends that dehumanizing practices at prisons and mental hospitals have been repackaged as therapy and sold to parents desperate to control their children. The first two chapters feature Straight, and Richard Bradbury.

Bradbury says a fireman molested him when he was 11, abuse that continued for three years with a high school principal and other men the fireman brought around. He dropped out of school but says he was not hooked on drugs when his adoptive parents brought him to Straight.

Other teens further along in the program forced him to sit up in a plastic chair for 10 to 12 hours a day, he says. If he leaned back, he was thrown to the floor and others sat on his arms, legs and chest. Forbidden to use the bathroom, he would soil his clothes. He says he was beaten.

He graduated, joined the staff and inflicted beatings on other teens. He left Straight in 1985, after he said he learned other counselors were sexually abusing teens and tried to report it, only to be told to shut up or be returned to the program as a client.

Read the rest at the link if you want details about the penile pump that finally triggered the law suit and don't judge Bradbury too harshly. Many of the Semblers' victims have never recovered from the experience, some ironically became addicts turning to drugs in order to forget and all suffer painful memories to the present day. One can only hope Mr. Bradbury pulls himself together enough to bring this to trial and expose these two for the vicious predators they are.

My house, is teeney, tiny, little pink house....

I've been in kind of funk since I got home. A lot of weird energy in the hood. The old guy across the street died shortly before I returned and there's been an endless stream of people over there ever since, mostly drinking and carrying on. I thought the Jewish custom of sitting shiva was pretty extravagant but they got nothing on these rednecks. I haven't gone over myself, but I'm sorry to see the old guy go. I didn't really get to know him but he sat on the porch a lot and we often exchanged pleasantries when I went to get the mail.

On a brighter note, "my" deer seems to have found a companion. I saw her last night and again this afternoon with a new friend. That cheers me up some. She looked so lonely for few days there.

Meanwhile, I've got a couple to things to post but I have to run out for few minutes so here's a link I thought was interesting. I'm thinking this would be perfect for an old maid like me.

For all those who have served in the past and those currently on the front lines, thanks and Happy Veterans Day.

Arrgh, get the license plate of that truck....

Traveling did me a world of good but I feel like I got hit by a tractor trailer today. It may have something to do with the fact I didn't eat anything all day except half a slice of really bad airport pizza and slammed down three beers when I got home, on top of the beer I had to slam on the plane. I got that one for free because the attendant forgot to bring it to me until the last minute.

It turned out to be a really cheap trip that way. I didn't have time between flights to hit the airport bars. Usually I have these huge layovers and end up spending too much money in those places. The down side of course, is that I didn't meet a single fellow traveller, but that's an impetus to get out of town more often.

Meanwhile, the ex's house is under renovation and is still very much a work in progress so it was like staying in a construction zone, but it's coming along nicely. My favorite piece of statuary is the naked gas lamp out back. He's got a glass ball thing going on out there that will be really nice when it's finished. I saw a hawk when I was out on the deck admiring it. There was amazing amount of critters out there too, considering it's in the middle of a huge city.

I didn't get to see the great blue heron that was eating the fish. I guess he got discouraged by the netting the ex put up after he ate half the stock. The survivors are a cheerful little lot though. So typical of my ex. The house is in seventeen stages of construction but the first thing he builds is the water feature. He does gets better at it every time though. This pond is his best yet.

Dear Jawjas

Clearly, I have to stop trying to make jokes cause nobody gets my humor but me. It appears I pissed off the Mullet Man with my lame brilliant attempt at humor. For the record, I would have loved to meet up with the usual suspects in Atlanta but it was simply too short a trip to socialize and believe me when I tell you that bringing the ex along was not an option.

I am sorry I missed my chance to meet you all, but someday, when you least expect it, I'm going to show up and amuse the hell out of you rocketeers. I had this idea I might pretend to be a Homeland Security agent when I arrived, since no one but Elisson really knows what I look like, but considering the lead balloon reception my last joke got, maybe I'll just wear a name tag.

In the meantime, to make up for this little misunderstanding, I'm going to add Zonker to the Rumblers roll, which I should have done ages ago since he's such an integral member of the group, even though he only posts about once a month. Click on over would you, and tell him I might be a bad comedian, but I really am a fun kind of gal.

There's no place like home

It was a long traveling day. Dulles was dull, my seatmates were duller and United is not a fun airline to fly. My seatmates should have been more interesting, but perhaps it was my own fault for not engaging them in conversation. I had a pilot who was unexpected flying on assignment on the forward trip but he engaged in brief small talk and then played some video game the whole trip. Of course it was so bloody early, I couldn't make conversation anyway.

On the way back it looked for a moment, I might get two seats to myself and with a center arm that moved up. I was looking at comfort city when at the last second, three Indian guys in traditional dress, including turbans got on the plane. The turquoise guy sat next to me, but didn't say a word the whole trip. I don't think he spoke English. I was wishing I had drawn the white one, because he looked like he did. Meanwhile, I was stuck with a bratty three year old behind me, kicking the seat and her probably five year old brother who acted out occassionally to get some attention. Meanwhile, the mother sat across the aisle and talked to them incessantly without any apparent effect on their behavior. Not my best draw.

It was exhausting on some level but overall a good trip. It was good to get out of town and I feel like the ex and I reached some resolution that was long overdue.

Anyway, I'm whipped and I know you just want to see the pictures anyway, so here he is in front of his pick up truck. No matter what a man does for a living, if he lives in the south long enough, he's got to have himself a pickup truck.

But this being Atlanta, or thereabouts, one does not have to sacrifice the creature comforts. The requisite pickup truck will take you to the hottest new restaurant on that side of town.

And a feast of carnivorous delights it is. We opted to eat at the bar to avoid the wait for a table on a Wednesday night. We took the seats in front of the firepit because we were freezing. It's a running joke that I bring bad weather every time I go to Atlanta and it was unseasonably cold.

This picture does not do it justice. I can't figure out to turn off the flash so it looks bright, when it was really dark and glowing like a campfire at the end of a night of ghost stories and the food just looked like dark carcasses in the embers.

Word up to the Hotlanta bloggers. It's worth the drive. Good food and a classy crowd. More tomorrow.

I'm alive

I arrived here in Atlanta safely but the internet is out where I'm staying and I have exactly two minutes to post here so look for me tomorrow night. In quickly looking through the iniative results I see the three major ones lost. I'm really sorry to see Colorada didn't pass the SAFER intiative but several states did pass measures that make possession of an ounce a misdemeanor so we did make some progress on the reform front.

Anyway, gotta go for now. See you tomorrow with a rundown on what happened and my thoughts on what it all means.

Leaving on a jet plane...

Well it took forever to get ready. The packing took ten minutes but the little loose ends took forever. But the bills are paid, the camera is charged and I even sprung for a memory card so I could take more shots. Now I have to get some sleep, so look for me when you see me. Or at worst, I'll be back on Thursday.

Don't forget to vote.

Sex is funny - but it's not a joke

Well, sometimes it's a joke. Quote of the day from here.

"See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time."
--Robin Williams

[hat tip Jules Siegel]

Addendum: In keeping with the theme this morning, a timeless repost at Gut Rumbles on Men's Rules.

Chance encounters

I've been in such a bleak mood for the last couple of days. The cursed time change has thrown me so off and I still haven't been able to readjust my internal clock. I finally gave up this morning and took a pill at 6:00am so I could sleep in. It seems to have helped. I had dreams -- albeit strange ones -- but I feel more rested than I have in days. And this little piece of news cheered me up some.

Howard Wooldridge is back on Capitol Hill to lobby for drug policy reform. He's just back so no real news to report, but he did have this amusing anecdote.

My first trip Friday into DC yielded no fun stories, just this. Because I was not meeting with politicians, I wore jeans & a windbreaker with the words THIS COP SAYS STOP THE DRUG WAR on the back. As a man exited the Metro (subway), he turned and said, “I agree completely with your jacket. By the way, I’m with the DEA.” Another good start to my new career.

Which reminds me of a conversation I had at the drug store the other day when I picking up my prescriptions. A woman bought some cough syrup for her kid. She had to show ID and get registered in the pharmacist's book. It was a convoluted process and she was clearly irritated about it.

I chimed in with, "Isn't it just crazy that you can't buy cough syrup without being treated like a criminal?" She and I and the two store clerks chatted about it for a while and all agreed it was a stupid way to fight meth. I mentioned that I had read that meth use wasn't even down and now the market had been taken over by organized crime cartels from Mexico. We all agreed that this was not a better result.

Reform. It's all about planting the seeds, folks.

Life sentence for smoking a joint

When I started at the law firm 20 years ago, I believed in justice. This is why I stopped believing in it.

First came the poor man, barely 17 years old – too young to buy beer or vote, but an adult under the Texas penal code. He took part in a $2 stickup in which no one got hurt. He pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and was put on 10 years of probation.

He broke the rules once, by smoking marijuana. A Dallas judge responded in the harshest possible way: He replaced the original sentence with a life term in prison.

Same judge, different defendant.

A well-connected man pleaded guilty to murder – for shooting an unarmed prostitute in the back – and also got 10 years of probation. The killer proceeded to break the rules by, among other things, smoking crack cocaine. He repeatedly failed drug tests. He was arrested for cocaine possession in Waco while driving a congressman's car, but prosecutors there didn't press charges.

Judge Dean has let this man stay free and, last year, exempted him from most of the usual conditions of probation. John Alexander "Alex" Wood no longer must submit to drug tests or refrain from owning a gun or even meet with a probation officer. He's simply supposed to obey the law and mail the court a postcard once a year that gives his current address.

I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn the poor guy is black and the well connected man is white. Decide for yourself if justice, or society, has been served in either case.

[hat tip Jules Siegel]

Stand up for students

This is really bad news. "A federal judge granted the Bush administration's motion to dismiss Students for Sensible Drug Policy's lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law that strips financial aid from college students with drug convictions."

Of all the ill-advised policies in the war on some drugs, the idea of stripping students of financial aid for college on the basis of minor youthful drug convictions is one the most counterproductive. Young people have been stripped of funding for teenage scrapes with the law over as little as less than a gram of pot, yet if they had been arrested for serious criminal acts while under the influence of alcohol, they suffer no penalities.

So what does this policy accomplish? It encourages kids to take up drinking, which is at the root of most college age crime and it denies a youthful drug offender the opportunity for higher education that would likely keep them off drugs and in a good paying job in the future. You almost have to assume that at least some of those who have been prevented from pursuing academic credentials will turn to dealing drugs in order to make a decent living. Make sense to you? Not to me either.

Having been denied their day in court, the next step is to pressure Congress to do the right thing and overturn this discriminatory and egregiously ill-considered penalty. This affects us all, marijuana consumers and non-consumers alike. Please take two minutes and send a pre-written message to your legislator. Even better, use their form and write your own. Either way, please do it today.

Fly the friendly skies

I'm clearly losing my mind. The last thing I should be spending money on is traveling but I just booked a flight to Atlanta to see my ex for a couple of days. Cheapoflights made me offer I couldn't refuse. It turned out to be a bit more expensive than they led you to believe of course. Add almost a hundred bucks between the taxes and fees, but still a good price and I need to get out of town for a couple of days for my mental health. It works out cheaper than a shrink.

Besides I've haven't flown anywhere in a year and a half and I'm feeling the itch to get on a bus in the sky. And I'll certainly get plenty of air time. There's always a hitch to these cheap tickets. I have to fly north to go south. I have a stop at Dulles but it's only an hour layover and I've never been there.

I don't mind the extra fly time really. I really love airports. The mometary intimacy with strangers - the instant camarderie when you find a fellow traveler among the bored tourists and the harried businessmen. People will tell you stuff when they think they'll never see you again. Maybe some use that 30 minutes at the bar as a sort of confessional before they dare gravity for a few hours - just in case. All I know is, I've learned things I probably shouldn't know at airport bars.

Anyway, I'll be in Hotlanta Tuesday and Wednesday next week. Can't wait to have a Flying Biscuit. I hope they're still as good as they used to be.

Darkness, darkness...

I do so hate the time change. I loathe losing the light at the end of the day. It depresses me and it takes me forever to adjust. It will be another week until I don't feel like going to bed at 7:00. And it seems the dark days bring dark deeds to go with the blackness that overtakes my spirit when the sun dies.

I think one of my deer was killed by a car this week. I have no way of knowing for sure. It's not like I could pick out my three regulars out of a lineup, but the one on the side of the road was the right size and since I saw it, only one of my three has showed up in the dusk to graze for acorns. It looks so lonely by itself.

I blame it on the time change. The deer would have learned the traffic patterns but they were only yearlings and now the time is an hour off, so the one was hit by a car. I'm thinking that broke up the little harem and the other two went their own ways. It makes me sad and angry. Nonetheless, life goes on and I've ended my yearly private protest and finally changed my clocks this afternoon.

Just say thank you

I know it's early but it takes a long time for the mail to get to Iraq so I'm going ask you to dig out your Christmas spirit and support OPERATION: LOVE FROM HOME

During this holiday season, let's show our troops we love and support them!!!! From September 30 to November 30, I will be collecting holiday cards for troops stationed in high-combat areas in Iraq and Afghanistan. Being away from home and living in harsh conditions during the holiday season is especially difficult ~ they need to know we have not forgotten them!!! Mail from home helps to keep our troops' morale strong, making a very real difference in their lives.

Send your signed, unsealed holiday cards to:

Mrs. Kathy Orr
OPERATION: LOVE FROM HOME
P.O. Box 1660
Loganville, Georgia, 30052

If you wish to send an email greeting (which will be printed off and mailed along with the holiday cards), please send an email to: LoveFromHome@Gmail.com.

Kathy has been doing this for a long time and your cards will get to the soldiers. No matter how you feel about the war, the men on the ground need to know that they're remembered at home and that we don't blame them for this debacle. So take twenty minutes out of your day and do something tangible to support a soldier.

Art for Acid Lovers

Rob Smith's daughter Sam has a new blog. It's a showcase for her work, like the Art on a Card in the graphic. You can get one of those for only five bucks and they appear to be one of kind artworks. She's posting as well and has a incredible story about a dream she recently had about her father. Check it out.

And speaking of the Acidman, Gut Rumbles lives in the memory and heart of Stevie who is lovingly combing the really old archives and posting some great classics over there that are new to me and mucho pictures from when he was wild and healthy.

It's not the same of course, because you know he's not coming back to banter, but if you came in late like I did -- these old posts I missed, explain a lot about the man I came to know at the end.

Bowled over in Fall River

When I was working for the law firm, Paul Viveros was one my all time favorite clients. He's been fighting City Hall in Fall River, MA for as long as I've known him and unfortunately the city has prevailed against him every time. Well, they may have won in court, but Paul gets the last laugh.

In an artistic coup de grace, he's erected the most perfect work of art on his property at the entrance of the Fall River Industrial Park that totally sums up the city's politics and would make any redneck proud. He got a lot of press but the only photo I could find is this one which doesn't really do it justice. Absolutely brilliant.

I just got off the phone with him. He tells me it has become quite the tourist attraction with no less than ten people a day stopping to get photos of the installation. One group of fourteen actually dropped their drawers, sat down and had photos of themselves taken while reading a newspaper. Fortunately no one so far, has mistaken them for functioning units. You gotta love it.

Just a walk in the park

John and I went for a walk at the botanical gardens this afternoon. I'm so pathetic. We walked for about an hour and a half at most and I'm worn out so all you get today is couple of pictures. I was fooling around with the settings today and the light was failing by the time we got there so I didn't get many shots worth posting. But I did like the gardens enough to go back.


We walked the little trail into the woods first. This was my favorite part. How sweet of them to build stairs to get over the stump, really.


The formal gardens were overgrown and not a lot was in bloom but the place is littered with sculptures. You never know what creatures you might see around the corner of the path.


And these guys were one of my favorites. This one wasn't for sale but you can buy the Martians, complete with the spaceship for only $2,750. Pretty good deal if the thing really flies. The brochure didn't say.

The fire down below

Well, it's a beautiful day in the south. It's supposed to get up to almost 80 degrees today, so I'm going to go out and enjoy it. It appears to be the last truly warm day for a while.

I'll be back eventually, but here's something to think about in the interim. I know I've haven't been able to stop thinking about it since I read it last night. What do think? Should I go pink?

[Via Tits McGee, the A-lister of link finders. Check her out, there's always more where this came from.]

Your Halloween Costume Should Be

Bong Girl

Well, Tits McGee has found the best link of the day again. I was wondering what I was going to be for Halloween and this costume is just perfect for me don't you think?

Meanwhile, there's no pictures of the event yet on the usual suspect's websites but the WaPo gave the Stoney Awards a write-up. It leans toward the snarky side, but then again some of commenters at High Times agreed with the WaPo's assessment.

Jeesh, some people just don't know how to have fun.

John Walters vs. the vice voters

Thanks to MAP, we get a look behind the NYT's paywall to hear John Tierney's latest blast at the war on some drugs. Tierney takes on the drug czar's latest meddling in the citizen iniatives out West, noting the GOP is going to lose the "sinner's vote" with their shameless, hamhanded propagandizing against the measures. But here's the money quote.

They're especially prevalent in the West, where half a dozen states have legalized medical marijuana. When Californians approved one of the first medical marijuana laws, in 1996, drug warriors were so convinced it would lead to a catastrophic spike in illegal use by teenagers that they sponsored a study to document the damage. But there was no catastrophe: after the law, marijuana use by teenagers actually declined in California.

You won't hear John Walters mention that study. The ONDCP just fires the researchers that come up with studies that don't reinforce their lies and then ignores the statistical evidence that disproves their propaganda. But as Tierney points out, the really good news is that this time, the feds' unconstitutional meddling in state affairs is likely to backfire on a larger scale. Westerners are an independent lot that don't take kindly to federal interference. They're likely to vote for the measures and vote against the GOP altogether. Let's hope he's right.

Not that the Dems record on the WOsD is any better, but at least with them, there's a chance they might listen to reason.

Inside stories: coke and dope

A couple of quick links to items of interest. Time magazine runs a compelling photo essasy, Narco netherworld, which offers an inside look at the cocaine trade in Colombia. The x-ray of the drug mule was especially astounding to me. How do those guys swallow that stuff? I can't even take a whole vitamin if it's too big. I break them in half.

TomDispatch has a riveting article on the Afghan poppy trade by Ann Jones analyzing the insanity of the US driven eradication plan there. This is definitely the quote of the day.

Two years ago in Kabul I interviewed an American consultant sent by the administration to assess the "drug problem" in Afghanistan. His off-the-record verdict: "The only sensible way out is to legalize drugs. But nobody in the White House wants to hear that." He admitted that the sensible conclusion would not appear in his report.

This is the war on some drugs folks. Sensible solutions scuttled for insane programs because no one in the government wants to admit they've been wrong for the last 40 years anyway and they're addicted to the prohibition gravy train.

No such thing as bad publicity

Blogger has been a major PITA for the last three days. It's takes a dozen tries to get anything to post. I think they might be punishing me for not signing onto the beta version. But on the off chance that this will make it to the blog eventually, Loretta Nall is on the BBC website today, featured in a blog post by the incredibly rude and crude Guto Harri. I've been trying to leave this comment over there without success.

While it's true Loretta doesn't have the campaign funding of the political machine's fat cats, she is certainly a credible candidate with an impressive platform. She has a plan to make the government work for the people, rather than the people being subjegated by the government, as is currently the case.

Alabama couldn't ask for a better governor than Loretta Nall and the only reason her breasts are an issue is because of male pundits who lose their heads when they're confronted with cleavage. She's got brains to go with those boobs and it's a darn shame that none of the journalists who are titilated by this story are able to focus on the anatomy above her shoulders..

Feel free to jump in. This guy needs to be set straight. What a jerk.

Update: I take back all the mean things I said about Guto. He issued a very gracious apology in the comment section.

Can I get a Witness?

So picture this. I slept in yesterday. I had just started my coffee and someone knocks on the door. I see two guys in business suits standing on the stoop. I'm thinking, great, the feds have come to question me and I can't even make complete sentences yet. Fortunately, they were only Jehovah's witnesses and they took one look at me and appeared to be ready to run. The guy's hand was literally shaking when he gave me the brochure. They couldn't get away fast enough.

I take a look at myself in the mirror when they leave. I'm wearing pink flannel pajama bottoms with a weird print on them, a bright red Mickey Mouse t-shirt and my hair is sticking out in every direction. But the real piece de resistance was the mascara that I forgot to wash off the night before. It had run down my face. It looked like I had two shiners and possibly leprosy. I'm betting they crossed me off their list for future visits.

Word folks. If you want to get rid of those pesky door to door missionaries, this works.

Loretta Nall has got the 'mo

The Lorettalaunch is slowing down a bit this morning but she got some real steam out of that AP piece. Here's video of her appearance on Keith Olbermann's show.



I'm telling you she could score a surprise upset here and even if you don't live in Alabama, you can help on a cosmic level. Indulge me here, and spend a minute visualizing the headlines on November 8th blaring, "Loretta Nall wins with write-in campaign."

Blame it on the rain

Well I just fell apart yesterday folks. It was raining all day. I had to get up at the crack of dawn after only six hours of sleep and work all morning. Then I went to look at an apartment in town. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening staring blankly at the computer, trying unsuccessfully to put some posts together. Sometimes you just need a day off.

I'm not taking the apartment. It was sweet but the description was a bit misleading. It said it had a large kitchen and living room but the kitchen was part of the living room, basically a sink and a few cabinets in the corner of the room. I was expecting an eat-in kitchen. Not enough windows either. It was sweet and well kept and the yard and location was fabulous but it was just too expensive for the amount of space. But the real deal breaker for me was the electric heat and the power lines that cut through the yard. I don't how I didn't notice that on the drive by.

Meanwhile, I keep driving by the overpriced junk and funk house. It's still empty and I see the guy put another ad on Craig's list for it. I love that he's calling the yard well landscaped. It actually does have some sweet plantings but they're way overgrown and in bad need of serious maintainence. I may still go look at it and try to talk him down to a better rent if it's at all habitable. There's just something about that place that calls me.

Ticket to ride

Yeah, my passport came today. I have to tell you I was sweating it. Even though I'm just a B-list politic blogger, I was a little concerned they might hold it up because of my blogs. It was supposed to be processed in three days -- it's been two weeks.

But all's well that ends well. I didn't get a RFID chip and I'm good until 2016. And when they sent back the old passport, it still had the loose slip from the crossing gate at Tijuana and a pressed four leaf clover in it, that I forgot to take out when I sent it in.

I don't know why I'm so ridiculously happy about it. It's not like I can really afford to travel at the moment, but it's nice to know that if I find that perfect, too cheap to pass up trip to the Carribean, I can go.

Seeding the sprouts of the police state?

Warning: Do not read this post immediately after eating. Just when you thought the prohibs couldn't sink any lower, this one leaves me sputtering in disbelief.

It's "Red Ribbon Week" in our nation's schools, a little indoctrination of our children into the world of prohibition propaganda warriors. Radley Balko has the digusting details on one school in Virginia that apparently suspended classes for a rally on behalf of a dead DEA agent. The kids were encouraged to come to school dressed in camouflage clothing or even better Army fatigues or other military uniforms.

As Radley says, "Dressing kids up like soldiers to celebrate the militarized war on American drug users. So. Much. Wrong."

Taking drug testing into the Twilight Zone

It figures Florida would come up with the lame brained idea of drug testing librarians and library volunteers. You know, those little gray haired ladies and stoop shouldered bald men who putter around reshelving books and giving out directions to the rest rooms.

The average age of these volunteers ranges from 60-85. Chances are they're spaced out on prescription meds but it seems unlikely any of them are going to be trying to sell heroin to schoolchildren and other library patrons. As Bill Maher points out, "The last time a librarian did something really stupid and reckless on drugs was when Laura married George."

Unsurprisingly, the number of volunteers dropped to 2, after the policy was instituted. It seems our senior citizens would rather quit than drive a long distance to be subjected to a humiliating test. I have a idea though about how to clamp down on the government's overweaning interest in our pee.

Before one more new drug testing rule is made law, every politician should be forced to undergo the piss test themselves. And while we're at it, maybe we ought to subject Capitol Hill and all the state legislatures to one of those random drug sweeps they're so fond of foisting off on schoolchildren. How many of them would sit quietly for those tactics being perpetrated on themselves? And how many would pass the test?

I'm dreaming...

Whoa baby. For the last three weeks I've been on this golden schedule where I didn't have to be anywhere until 11:30 so I could sleep in every day. For the last two days I've had to get up in the dark. And it's dark and cold at 5:30am I'm telling you. Both mornings I was in the middle of a dream when the alarm went off.

Yesterday I was dreaming about Steve Sanderson of the Drunk Stuntmen. This morning I was dreaming about a former associate at my old law firm. I don't remember much about either, except both featured copious amounts of marijuana. Meanwhile, I'm done with work for today but I decided I wasn't going to take a nap and was going to watch Bush's speech instead. But I feel asleep in the middle of it and wow, did I just have a weird dream. I was dreaming that I was dreaming and kept waking up in strange places.

I was in a vacation cabin of some kind with my Dad and my sister. I was sleeping in a small room with two big screened windows on either side of the bed. I was dreaming that I was dreaming about somebody giving me a watch and three bras. There was a big commotion outside one of the windows that "woke me up" and when I looked out there was evangelical revival meeting going on. There was a strapless, really padded black bra in the bed so I put it on and went out wearing only that, and the watch, to talk to the holy rollers. Some woman insisted on putting a tshirt on me and took off the watch I got in the dream I was having and put a Jesus watch on my wrist instead.

After that it gets a little fuzzy but I found myself back in the cabin sleeping again when I was woken up by a commotion at the other window. There was a tag sale going on out there and someone had a box of kid's books that I wanted to look at. I went out again but couldn't find the books. When I went to ask the people who had them, they drove away in a red sports car. Meanwhile, there was all kinds of commotion going on out there. The scene kept morphing.

A kid walked by and complained to his Dad that the beach was eroded and there was nothing to take a picture of. I decided to take a look at the beach. I walked through a church bake sale where another middle aged woman threw me onto a big board and insisted I needed a massage. Sometimes I was naked, sometimes I had the tshirt on. At one point I had two tshirts on, as if one had slipped down to my waist.

At the bake sale, I saw this really colorful lizard sitting on a muffin. A guy said that it was good luck to stroke its tail but when I did, it bit me on the wrist and wouldn't let go. I stroked its tail some more and when he stopped biting me I grabbed it by the neck and threw him on the ground. His guts were popping out of his mouth and I said, gee, I hope I didn't kill him.

I finally got to the beach and it wasn't eroded at all. It was a huge sand bar with almost no water and surrounded by steep hills filled with shacks, like a barrio. I couldn't get a picture because there was no sun so I headed back to the cabin. This time there was a restaurant in my way and I was naked again. I tried to go through the kitchen but a girl in a wedding gown was blocking the door and told me I had to go through the dining room. By then I had the two tshirts on again so it was okay.

I finally got back to my cabin and my sister was there. She said she was going forget going to the beach and was going to the lake instead. I tried to get her to give me directions to the lake but she didn't know how to get there. Then I "woke up" in my bed in the cabin again. The dream was so "real" I checked my wrist to see if the hole the lizard put in it was still there -- it wasn't -- and neither was I wearing the Jesus watch anymore.

I was pondering the meaning of all this when I really woke up here on my couch. I swear, the dream was so vivid, I still checked to see if there was hole in my wrist and whether I was wearing a watch. Just weird. If I had a shrink, I imagine he would have had a field day deciphering the Freudian meaning of this one.

The modern farmer

There used to be a program with that name when I was a kid. It was on really early in the morning, maybe 5:00am. They were always talking about tractors. I was such an insominac at that age that I saw it all the time. This brings new meaning to the phrase.

Marek sez, "A few days ago police in Poland arrested a 17 year old kid who ran a mini-farm of cannabis inside his PC. The PC was normally used but modded to contain a light source, and keep humidity and temperature at proper levels."

Maybe I should have called this post, "The modem farmer."

Via Tits McGee who found it at Boing Boing.

Taking a position on sex

I don't often find a reason to link to the leftie blogs I read, but this one is a post anyone can enjoy. The very artistic Neil Shakespeare discovers sex at the dentist's office. Leafing through a woman's magazine while waiting in the chair, he finds an article on pet names for favorite sexual positions.

There's "THE CLAW," "THE SCREAM MACHINE," and "THE REVERSE ALLEN." It got me to thinking what I would name my favorite position. I think I might call it "Climbing Mt. McKinley" but I can't describe it because it's been so long since my last lover that I don't quite remember how it goes.

How about you folks? Anyone have a pet name for your favored method of breaching the orgasm chasm?

Loretta Nall for Governor of Alabama

Whoohoo! My pal Loretta hit the national news. She did an interview with the AP yesterday and there's 120 stories on Google News. Just about every major MSM picked it up off the wire . She's on Fox, CBS, in the WaPo. Heck even The Guardian picked up the story.

I still think she can pull it off. This is just the kind of eleventh hour attention that could make a difference and how cool would it be if a honest candidate with no money and no connections scored an upset victory? Meanwhile, I'm enjoying a residual Lorettalaunche. I'm getting hundreds of google hits. My favorite search terms:

loretta nall's tits boobs

Loretta Nall sexy

loretta nall stash boxes

about Loretta Nall underwear

loretta cleavage pics

loretta nall photo gallery

loretta nall more of these boobs

loretta nall does not wear underwear

It's crazy really. She has a lot to say about the issues but the press, and apparently the hoi polloi, gets excited by her boobs and her panties. Fine. Take a good look, but her best asset is above her shoulders.

It's okay to love her for her boobs but listen to what she has to say and vote for her for her brains. Write in Loretta Nall. She will make a damn fine governor.

Drug dealer don't want dollars

This can't be good. The dollar has been a little shaky on the world markets for quite a while but now even drug dealers prefer euros. What do they know, that we don't?

[hat tip Sharon Secor]

Nudists come out from under covers

I found this story amusing. It appears nudism is going mainstream and its practitioners are coming forward to say they're naked, or they say around these parts, nekkid and proud. As they should be. Americans are much too uptight about the human body. In Europe no one even thinks twice about naked flesh.

Funny thing about this story is many years ago, I spent a day at this Georgia nudist camp. Back then it really was little more than a couple of RVs around a pond but it did have a nice pool and some tennis courts. It wasn't anything like I expected it would be. It was just like being at any recreation area except people were nude. Nobody was weird or ogling you and I have to tell you, I played the best game of tennis I ever played in my life wearing nothing but socks and sneakers.

Punishing adults does not protect kids

Great op-ed by Mason Tvert, head of SAFER, the organization that's promoting the Colorado iniative to legalize marijuana for adults there. As he points out arresting adults for responsible use of a plant is not protecting children. In fact it's endangering them more and pushing many of them into alcohol abuse.

The opposing op-ed is misleading prohibitionist propaganda at it's best. It's incredible. These people just make up stuff. I know for a fact that the quasi-legalization of cannabis has not made its use more attractive to Dutch teenagers. I have first hand accounts from several young folks from Holland who were my neighbors for a time in Northampton, that Dutch teens mainly view it as not a big deal and most prefer not to use it themselves.

That's not to say there aren't any teens using it there. There are, and some even use it excessively and irresponsibly, but that can also be said for US teens, so legalization is not the driving factor. And while one might see a rise in reported use when those kids who already consume the plant feel they won't be penalized for telling the truth, that would protect our kids, because it would be easier to identify those who are having a problem with abuse and they would feel comfortable admitting they had a problem if they didn't fear the penalities for disclosing it. [hat tip MAP]

Hey baby, scarigami

Blogging was light yesterday because Blogger decided to shut down for most of the day. I'd complain about it more but it seems a little ungrateful to bitch about an upgrade when they provide the platform for free.

Anyway, it seems to be working well today so here's a Halloween link for you. These balloon artists created a 10-room, 10,000-square-foot, walk-through haunted house made out of 130,000 latex balloons covering everything but the floors and ceilings. It's installed in a mall somewhere near Rochester, NY so it's out of my range for a day trip, but you can see photos of the place, along with some of their other work, here. Pretty incredible stuff. It's makes the guys who sell balloon poodles on the streets of NYC look like total amateurs.

You say it's your birthday

Dawn light came up late,
went down early. Tomorrow
makes seventy-one.
~Jules Siegel

My dear friend Jules Siegel is celebrating another trip around the sun, as Elisson would say. Jules is an astounding guy. He's an incredibly articulate, relentlessly observant and intelligent writer . They probably invented the phrase "thinking outside the box" just for him.

Click over and check out his websites, maybe buy one of his books. They're all well worth the pittance he charges but don't start one unless you have time to read it through, because you'll never be able to put them down. He brings new meaning to the phrase, "riveting prose."

And if you're planning a trip to Cancun, he's been living there for decades and wrote the essential guide to the real Mexico. It's only five bucks for the on-line version and you'll save that many times over if you follow his travel tips. It would make a great gift for a friend who travels.

Happy birthday Jules. Mi casa es su casa, siempre and my world would be very empty without you in it. Saludos.

I heart Tits and other quick bytes

Well it's colder than the proverbial witch's tit around here today in the northern south. I know it's going to stay cold because the stupid ants are back. They disappear the rest of the year but come the cold weather and the little buggers move in. Who knows what the hell they eat since there's never any food in my kitchen but they love hanging out in the sink. This year I'm prepared though. Screw the natural remedies. Not one of them has worked so far. I got myself a gallon of poison. Now all I got to do is work up the nerve to use it. I'm so klutzy, I'll probably end up poisoning myself.

On a brighter note, Tits McGee left me the best present at her place. This is what I miss about living in New England. That and I never had ants in my kitchen when I lived up north. And while you're over there, check out what she got for her birthday. I should be so celebrated.

Moving on, I got this by email from my old boss JZ Souweine but it came as an attachment and I don't have a clue about how to upload audio. However providence has smiled upon us. I was cruising the party posts about the Hysterics at Eric's and the obviously brilliant Sissy has an embedded version. Tequila is good medicine. Gotta watch out for the side effects though.

And just in case you missed this one at Lisa's place, I just loved this video. Who doesn't love free hugs?

At the Fair

I've been to a lot of fairs in my lifetime and it wasn't like any other one I've seen. It was like a fair sprinkled into a really giant carnival. It still had its fair like qualities. There were some permanent buildings along the periphery that housed the traditional agricultural elements, but they were widely scattered and you had to walk through miles of midways to get to them.

The exhibit halls we made it to were mostly kind of sad. They were small and sparsely furnished with few entries. The crafts hall was mostly vendors but the flower exhibits were nice. This was my favorite of the outdoor entries. Love the plantings and the symbolism on this one.



There were hundreds of food booths, mostly featuring 25 varities of deep fried food. Woody's definitely gets the prize for best sign and most exotic menu.



There were a surprising number of freak shows. Old Fat Albert wasn't doing any trade. Not that surprising. Why pay money when you can see people who look like that at the grocery store here on any day of the week.



I would have sprung to see the fish girl but I had just turned down a heartfelt offer for a Jesus tattoo and I thought it would be bad form to visit the devil's spawn so soon after.

Pharmas for the children?

One of the greatest hypocrisies of the WOsD is the premise that it's about protecting children. With about 1 in 100 preschoolers being prescribed Ritalin it seems to me our children need be protected from the dealers of legal pharmaceuticals.

I've never heard of a dealer of illegal drugs selling to a two year old. Yet prescribing a strong antipsychotic to an infant is a legal "off the label" use for ADHD. Even with known adverse side effects. Who is our government really protecting? Children or pharma corps profits?

Our State Fair...

...is a great State Fair. Don't miss it. Don't even be late... I have that old musical running in my head but this state fair wasn't anything like that one. I'll have more to say tomorrow, and more pix, but right now I'm just going to post some photos and call it a night.

It's a really big fairgrounds. There's three midways this size. We got there in the daylight, but it was dark but by the time we made our way around the loop.

John sprang for the rides. I thought nine bucks for two people to take one rickety ride was outrageous. This ferris wheel I think went around three, maybe four times. The teacup baskets were interesting though. You didn't get the sense of going over the top when you're under the struts.

It was dark by the time we got on this ride -- against my better judgment. I should have suggested the other traditional ferris wheel but I went on this one because the pictures on the canopy reminded me of a carousel I used to love. I was glad this one was short. I was so dizzy, I could barely walk when I got off it. I can't do those lateral rides any more.

We did not go on this ride. It's not that I'm afraid of fake zombies -- well okay I am a little -- it was more that the air tends to be bad inside those rides and if memory serves, they often smell like piss.

Off to the fair

Be back later with pix I hope.

Medmar Media byte

South Dakota is set to decide medical marijuana and Marijuana Policy Project has been working in the forefront of this initiative.

Their first ad for the measure features South Dakota resident and medical marijuana patient Valerie Hannah, who was exposed to nerve gas while serving as a combat medic in the Gulf War. As a result, she suffers from a degenerative illness that causes constant deep-muscle and neurological pain, and she uses medical marijuana to alleviate her symptoms.

Hannah states, “I don’t regret serving my country. But it should not be a crime to treat my pain and suffering.”

You can see the ad here. I hope it passes. The real crime is withholding a natural medicine that works from the terminally ill people who find relief in it.

Is the internet the new heroin?

According to preliminary research, the typical Internet addict was a single, college-educated, white male in his 30s, who spends approximately 30 hours a week on non-essential computer use.

It all depends on how you define non-essential. The 80+ hours a week I spend on the computer are for entirely vital reasons. Besides, I could quit anytime I want...

Cock of the walk



As my friend Jules Siegel noted when he sent this link, those were simpler times. Imagine trying to air that today.

May I have a blog roll please

Thanks to the lovely Lisa, I've discovered another glaring omission in my Rumbler's roll. Old age is a bitch, folks. The cognitive skills are the first to go.

I thought I had him already but it appears I got him confused with
Smoke on the Water. So click over and say hey to RSM at When the Smoke Clears. It's a great blog. I love his sense of humor.

Assault with a deadly weapon - a plant

Thanks to Tits for this link. This is really bad but it is funny.

Police Find Burgers Sprinkled With Pot

LOS LUNAS, N.M. (AP) -- Three workers at a Burger King restaurant were arrested after two Isleta tribal police officers discovered that the hamburgers they ordered were sprinkled with marijuana.

The Isleta Police Department officers ate about half of their burgers Sunday before discovering marijuana on the meat. The officers used a field test kit to confirm the substance was pot, then went to a hospital for a medical evaluation.

Three Burger King employees were arrested and charged with possession and felony assault on a cop. I don't know what they were thinking. You can't disguise the taste of marijuana with pickles and special sauce and it's unlikely there was enough pot on the burger to get the cops high. Seems a waste of good herb to me, not to mention it makes marijuana consumers look irresponsible.

Referral of the Day

I'm the number three hit in Google for this one.

will a deferred judgement effect my career as a cop?

I don't know the answer to that but I expect his language skills might. He should have asked if it would affect his career. Personally I think the guy should think about a new job. A pre-corrupted, illiterate cop is probably not one we want on the streets.

Quick hits

I'm back on the work rotation for the week so I'll be posting as I can. Since there was a lot of drug news over the weekend, here's some lighter links to entertain you.

I'm always amazed by paper crafts. This site has patterns and instructions for various projects, including some cute pumpkins and a witch for Halloween.

For the old hippies, my pal Marc Catone sent me this link to Take me Back to the 60s. I personally don't like the forced background music and I didn't make it all the way through the program yet but it brought back some fond, and not so fond, memories. I found the furniture especially funny. Why did anyone think those plastic chairs were a good idea for living room furniture?

And here's the bargain of the week. You can order the "Too Smart to Start" board game from SAMHSA about alchohol abuse for free. I didn't check, but I assume it's only a matter of time before they do the drug abuse version, if they don't already have one.

May I have a blogroll please...

I don't know how I missed this Rumbler since she's such an active poster. I guess I'll plead so many Rumblers and so little time to check them all out. But better late than never, so say hey to Sandy of The Pea Patch. She's young, she's feisty, she drinks beer and she's a hell of good writer. Check out her stuff.

May I have a blogroll please

Say hey to Jamie Spencer (no relation) of Austin Defense Lawyer. I found him in my referrals and I really like his blog. It reminds me of Vice Squad, (which is still in semi-hiatus), in that he covers a wide range of criminal issues but he does a lot on the drug war and I love his wry sense of humor. Check him out and of course if you live in Austin and you get in trouble, you might want to give him a call. I have a feeling he's a good lawyer.

Common sense on drug policy in uncommon places

The Las Vegas Review Journal has a great editorial dissing John Walters latest appearance in the state on behalf of prohibition. The money quote:

Electioneering on the taxpayer dime is illegal in most states -- and should be for federal officials, too. Nevadans are perfectly capable of weighing the issues surrounding Question 7 and rendering judgment on their own without being browbeaten by the standard-bearer for decades of failed federal drug policy.

Mr. Walters should have stayed home.

And the the LAT clues us into a new tourist destination. It seems like an unlikely place to find a marijuana mecca, but the little town of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, will vote next month on whether to make misdemeanor marijuana arrests the city's lowest law enforcement priority. It sounds like an interesting little place.

Tucked into a remote hollow in the northwest Arkansas hills, Eureka Springs has been called the most eccentric town in the state, the largest open-air asylum in the country, a place where misfits fit.

The town's population of 2,278 is a mix of conservative Christians and aging hippies who, as they tell it, wandered into the area around 1973 and never left.

My kind of town. In Arkansas. Go figure.

[hat tip to Austin Defense Lawyer]

Smoking out the "enemy" in Afghanistan

This would be funny except that it endangers our allies.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy -- almost impenetrable forests of 10-feet-high marijuana plants.

General Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defense staff, said on Thursday that Taliban fighters were using the forests as cover. In response, the crew of at least one armored car had camouflaged their vehicle with marijuana.

"The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy, heat very readily. It's very difficult to penetrate with thermal devices ... and as a result you really have to be careful that the Taliban don't dodge in and out of those marijuana forests," he said in a speech in Ottawa.

"We tried burning them with white phosphorous -- it didn't work. We tried burning them with diesel -- it didn't work. The plants are so full of water right now ... that we simply couldn't burn them," he said.

Even successful incineration had its drawbacks.

"A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those (forests) did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action," Hillier said dryly.

You'll notice that even bombs won't burn a fresh plant, so the next time law enforcement boasts about their big eradication busts, keep in mind they're talking about wet weight, which is clearly not a legitimate way to value the haul.

Meth is good medicine?

Under the heading life's little mysteries, it turns out that while meth can cause a stroke if you take it to excess while you're healthy, meth can save your life after a stroke. It protects against further damage if administered in low doses after a stroke has occurred and in fact test animals dosed up to 16 hours after a stroke, showed that their neurons were as intact as those in animals that hadn't had strokes. Ironically, scientists discovered this accidently while trying to prove meth use causes lung damage.

It just goes to show that no currently illegal drug is entirely bad and it's a good reminder that drug use is not the same as drug abuse.