On a blogroll

Since I'm was forced to work on the template tonight, I'm adding another blog to the old roll. Say hey to Editor from the Deer Camp Blog. I don't know him that well yet. I'm supposing he arrived via my recent gun blogging but he's going into Drunks and Poets at his request. From what I've read of his blog, he's going to fit in there just fine.

It was his birthday yesterday so click on over and make a wish for him.

Killer Tree



I finally started reading through the blogroll again and it's a slow crawl because it's been so long since I've made the rounds, there's a lot of reading to do - well except for Zonker and Key who post four times a year whether they feel like it or not. But jebus, the world has changed a lot since I was last abroad. I've only been through a dozen or so and I've seen three broken marriages, a sad deployment, and the kid that was a baby the last time I looked is now graduating high school. Okay I made that last one up but three people did move their blogs and now I have to update my template. You know how much I hate going in there.

Anyway, figuring this is going to take a lot longer than I thought, I'm taking a break and putting a quick post before midnight myself. I finally managed to remember to take a picture of the tree that killed my nuker. Man, I really miss the nuker. It's so much work to eat without it that I've been skipping meals and I'm forced to drink cold coffee now that I can't reheat it. Usually takes me all day to drink one cup.

As you can see it's not that big a tree but the power line is right above it and although you can't really appreciate it in the photo, it was a really long tree.



If they had taken the effer out when they took down the other one, I would still have a nuker right now. I shouldn't complain though because it did force me to get the plumbing fixed and that was pretty good tradeoff. It's great to have water that runs well in the kitchen and that doesn't run all the time in the toilet. Better zen to that combo for sure.

Random Friday Photoblogging


I found this disk when I was cleaning up and had no idea what was on it. This was a really good party. It was Independence Day 04 at the marina. This is my friend's houseboat and their little runabout right next to it. The music was a nonstop jam session. That's my bro Mark Herschler on the guitar and my old friend Vast Ed Vadas sitting on the dock. Both are on the blogroll as musicmakers. And that's my dear pal Mark Bode on the accordian. Somehow he's not on the roll but I'll fix that tomorrow.




Hoisting the beer bottle on the right is our indefatigable host Jamie, holding court with the beautiful Annie and her latest conquest whose name I don't remember and whom I suspect is no longer going to parties with her anyway.



And last but not least our charming hostess Maki carrying the basket of bug repellant for the guests who were staying for the fireworks. Fourth of July at the marina was always great for fireworks. The different parties would compete to have the best show and everyone staggered their shots so you had fireworks for hours. It was fun to find the shots but it reminds me how much I really miss my friends.

Time won't let me...

I really lost track of time today. I passed out cold last night at 9:30 last night and I mean I was so tired that I fell asleep without brushing my teeth or taking my tranq. I slept until 8:30 this morning and I had dreams. Too many to remember but I woke up with a sense of having spent a lot of time traveling to resolve some dilemma. Of course I was groggy for hours from too much sleep so I got a slow start to the day and then the Friday news dump was big that I spent hours on the poliblogs.

But I have nothing of great import to tell in any event. I notice I'm already getting a tan from being outdoors more on the these lovely afternoons. I saw my first bluets in the yard the other day. I forgot to take a picture of the fallen down tree again and I have a couple of tufted titmice who have been visiting my window ledge regularly. My biggest event was seeing the hawk in a tree.

I was on my way out for an errand and it flew down and sat in this little tiny new tree on the neighbor's front lawn. Of course I didn't have my camera but I took a shot with my cell phone and watched it until it flew away.

You notice I said I took the shot with my phone? Yes, I've learned how to use that function but I haven't figured out how to get it from the phone to the computer. Actually I haven't even figured out how to look at the gallery but I have enough shots on there now that I would like to know.

Dreamland

Well, I guess you all figured out that I didn't post yesterday. My dream of ten hours days turned out to be a fool's hope and I've spent a lot of time outdoors in the last couple of days in the wind so I've been pretty well beat when I got home. What is about being out in the wind that makes you more tired? Still, I feel like a jerk for complaining about 50 degree days knowing that my friends up north are going through the annual arctic blast. I'm sending you all thoughts of warmth and spring my dears. Hold on and stay warm. It really won't be long until spring. Even as I type this I hear the geese flying north again.

Anyway, I couldn't see the screen last night by 9:00 and just crawled into bed and slept like the proverbial rock. I was in the middle of the weirdest dream when the alarm went off. I was out in the country somewhere, driving around in an airplane -- driving mind you because even in my dreams I don't know how to fly a fixed wing -- and for some reason I had one of my former co-workers, in the plane with me. Who knows what that means since I simply loathed that lying, cheating goldbricker. When the alarm went off I was meeting with my former boss and his friends and family trying to figure out how I was going to get the airplane home. I wished the alarm hadn't woken me up. Even on the ground, airplanes are fun.

Meanwhile, I discovered my schedule is not going to be quite as brutal as I expected. Sometimes just thinking about my schedule makes me tired but it turns out I'm going to get my weekends off in addition to whatever few weekdays I have free and I actually have a big block of time off at the end of the month. That bit of news did wonders for my outlook. However I am looking at a busy day so I probably won't be back until this evening.

Doctors say don't drug test kids

This is really good news. the American Academy of Pediatrics came out against drug testing kids. "[U]pdating its decade-old policy statement on the issue, said screening for illicit drugs is a complicated process prone to errors and cheating, and has not been shown to curtail youngsters’ drug use."

They note "drug testing creates a counterproductive climate of “resentment, distrust and suspicion” between children and their parents or school administrators" and false positives are common. Not to mention teenagers are not so stupid they can't find ways to beat the test on the internets. But this is the most important point they make.

In addition, several illegal drugs are undetectable in urine more than 72 hours after use, and standard tests do not detect often abused substances such as alcohol, Ecstasy and inhalants. Some youngsters may respond to testing by avoiding drugs such as marijuana and instead abuse less-detectable, but more dangerous, drugs, the statement said.

Everybody wants to protect their kids from drug abuse and speaking as a parent who raised a drug free kid, I'm telling you the only way to protect them is to talk to them honestly and make sure they believe if they screw up and find themselves in trouble, they can come to you for help and won't be punished for it. Then you have to -- and this is the really hard part -- trust them to make the right choices.

Random drug testing to scare them into compliance is simply not going to build that trust. It's going to imply you don't trust them and they're more likely to act out their inevitable teenage rebellion by trying drugs.

Just another lazy Sunday

Somehow I lost a whole day again dicking around with politics and other odd tangents. Forgive me friends for not visiting blogs instead. I miss you all terribly and I'm wondering what everyone is up to but I just lost track of time. I have little to report in any event. I forgot to go out and get a picture of the tree for your amusement but I tested my camera dock and that thankfully still works. I wasn't sure because that wasn't plugged into the surge protector either but it was connected to the computer. And I saw part of the lunar eclipse last night.

I don't get a good view of the rising moon here because of the trees but it was still going when the moon came up. I saw the last of it in the grocery store parking lot. I had nothing to eat that didn't need a nuker and I needed non-nukable food. I almost forgot what you eat if you don't have a nuker. I opted out for sandwiches and cans of soup.

I didn't get a nuker today either. I'm not sure I'm going to because the place I'm thinking of moving to comes with a built in one. I think it's an omen that I should move into that complex. I'm going to think about what I want to do about both for a few days. I won't have time now to get one anyway because I'm back on the work rotation again in the morning. I'm definitely not getting enough time off but the per day schedule should be a little less brutal. I'm hoping they'll be ten hours days instead of fourteen.

Meanwhile. I see that fixing the archive malfunction seems to have fixed the template as well and my posts are now publishing all the way down the page again. This makes me happy. I had no idea how I was going to fix that. I didn't have clue where to even start to look for the problem. I love it when things work out easily.

My Hero

A million thanks to Annie of Annie's Annuals for sending my lazy butt the actual code that restored the archive access. I think the box is a little ugly but it works. Actually it's probably easier to use than the old archive system.

We're coming up on four years and 3,000 posts here at Last One Speaks and Annie has been with me for most of them. I believe she may have been the first person to link to me. In any event, she one of the first and I remember how excited I was find out someone I had never met liked my stuff enough to link to it.

And once again, Annie's support has cheered me immensely on a bleary day. To borrow her meme -- the song in my head is: I just want to thank you, for letting me be myself ... again.

New measure comes to life out of granny's death

You remember of course, the 92 year old granny Kathryn Johnston, who died in a police shootout that stemmed from a fraudulently obtained no-knock warrant. The good that has come of her untimely death is that a group of Georgia legislators are looking to clamp down on the warrants. Quote of the day on this comes from conservative Liberatian blogger McQ.

I agree wholeheartedly that such a warrant should be an exception, and the evidence for such a warrant should be exceptional as well.

Right on. It's time we put the "protect and serve" back into law enforcement. Knocking some sense into no-knock warrants would go a long way towards that end.

Surging through disaster

I guess I slept through a helluva storm last night. I woke up this morning and there was no electricity, or so I thought. This is not unusual here so I didn't think much of it. But as I staggered into the kitchen wondering what I was going to do about coffee I noticed the store was still up and running. They usually lose power if I do so I became a little suspicious and started investigating.

I discovered a big ass tree fell down and the electrical line was nearly pulled off the house. So I called the electric company. Little did I realize what disaster lay ahead. I suppose I should have made a connection when I opened the refrigerator to get some water and the light bulb went on and then popped, that something bigger was amiss but it wasn't until I talked to my neighbor, who was picking up the pieces of the tree that fell in his yard, that I discovered the true extent of what had befallen me.

"Power surge," he said. "My Dad's on his way down now to check it out."

He then went on to explain a lot of stuff about volts and amperage that meant nothing to me. I stopped listening when he said it had fried all his computers and other electronics. I'm standing there in my pajamas and I couldn't hear anything over the Oh Shit ringing in my head. Then I came in and smelled burning wires in the kitchen. I called the landlord.

So picture me, at the height of this head cold, sniffling and miserable, doing the quick clean on the bathroom and madly swiffering the floors before the landlord arrives. The electric company arrived first. The guy didn't really want to talk to me and did nothing for my anxiety when he asked if I had renter's insurance. I knew it was going to be bad then.

The indoor electrician arrived next. He took apart the fuse box and waited around for the electricity to come back on. I was so already so overwrought at this point I had to go lie down for ten minutes or pass out. He whistled while he worked. It was the most beautiful whistle I'd ever heard but a song I didn't know. Nonetheless it was very calming. It probably saved me from having a nervous breakdown.

The landlord arrived shortly thereafter. I've spoken to him exactly three times in two years but I love the guy. He's also very calm and kind of soothing in a favorite uncle kind of way. And he takes care of things so promptly and efficiently. We established that the refrigerator was dead.

They brought me a brand new one within the hour. He didn't mind when I pointed the plumbing problems I had been avoiding dealing with since I already had him here. He got a plumber to come in the afternoon. He even decided to replace the horrible drip pans under the burners on the stove for me. I hadn't been able to find the right model. He took off with the electrician.

In the interim I discovered that my computer was still working, God bless the fifty dollar surge protector I cursed Kevin for making me buy. I take back all the cranky things I said. The blessed thing came with a 22 page instruction booklet that I never understood but it saved the old 'puter and more importantly all the stuff on the hard drive I've never backed up. I also discovered my heat wasn't working.

Miraculously, the cable company sent the tech right out. John barely had time to get here with a new power strip so I could make sure the connection worked before I let the tech go. At this point it was 3:00 and I hadn't had coffee, much less food. John and I walked over to the store for that but when we returned, all the trucks were gone and I still didn't have drip pans or heat or a working toilet.

Momentary anxiety ensued but the plumbers arrived shortly thereafter so full fledged panic was once again averted. I was just about to freak out again when the landlord arrived with the drip pans and the news that the heating guy would come to fix the heater. At this point it was 4:40 and I had another attack of nerves when they all pulled out leaving me alone in a cold house, but the heating guy arrived just as they were leaving. He fixed the heater in ten minutes.

It was almost five when I discovered I still didn't have real computer connectivity. I was getting a screen that I didn't get when it was first installed and I couldn't get onto the internets. I had visions of a tech nightmare but one phone call to support fixed it from their end and I was finally in business again.

So I sit here tonight with the smell of burning wires still lingering in the air. I lost my television. It works but the picture wiggles. I didn't discover until I went to nuke some food at around 7:00 that my nuker died in the battle against the amps. But I got a brand new modem which seems to have improved the performance of the 'puter a little. I've got a brand new refrigerator. My stove looks new and shiny, my plumbing works again and my house is pretty clean.

As disasters go, I've been through worse but I hope under the law of averages I won't have to go through another one for a long time.

Welcome to the world Xavier John

I had such a day. We had a power surge last night and it fried my whole house. It's going to take a while to write it all out so I'm just going to start by posting this photo of my friend Irma's new grandbaby. Isn't he gorgeous?

Drugs are still winning the drug war

Well, there appears to be a pedestrian explanation for my low energy this week. I came down with a miserable cold today complete with scratchy throat and a non-stop runny nose. In a way this is a good thing because presuambly I'll feel much better in a couple of days and I have the next three off so I'll be able to rest and recover. All in all it's pretty good timing because the weather is supposed to tank a little as well. I don't think we'll get to sixty for a couple of days and it's going to rain.

Meanwhile, the US State Dept released its annual assessment of their drug war and had to admit it was still failing. Well actually they didn't really admit it but as usual they blamed everybody and everything except their own shortsighted, ineffective and in fact counterproductive policies. I put my post on this one up at the Detroit News for the drug war readers that are interested in my analysis.

Low Energy

I don't know why I'm so in the dumps this week. As the work rotation goes it's been a pretty easy one and the weather has been fabulous but I just can't beat this exhaustion. I think I never recovered from last week because I only got three days off before it all started again. Anyway I have three days off again starting on Friday so I hope I can recover some energy then.

Meanwhile, I haven't done anything particularly interesting and I've been too down to deal with the drug war. There's a lot a going on in that arena but I trust my drug war readers are visiting the reliable bloggers on the blogroll to get that news. I haven't visted anyone on the blogroll for weeks myself. If it's any comfort to anyone, I miss you all like crazy and one of these days I'm going to take a day off from blogging just to make the rounds.

Effin' Blogger - redux

I'm totally depressed about having to switch this blog. My other one is mostly fine because it's a newer template but this template is now such a mess I don't know how I'm ever going to fix it. I barely have time to post, much less figure out what's wrong and try to figure out the html to make it better. I'm told it's not hard to import to Wordpress and the old blog could really use a facelift but I don't know.

This blog is like a comfortable pair of blue jeans to me. You know that one pair that really fits just right and you feel great when you wear them? I usually wear those till they literally fall off me. I'm not big on major changes. I'm wondering if I could just change the template instead. In the old version, it meant losing everything in the all blog. If they fixed that in this new version, I'd forgive Blogger for making me switch.

Shooting the breeze

Well I spent two days immersing myself the black gun culture after I put my foot into the Zumbo thing. I learned a little bit about guns and a lot about angry gun owners. I also learned the NRA doesn't really encompass the gun community, which suffers from a sectarianism that surprised me. But I had a really interesting conversation with Kevin at The Smallest Minority out of the deal and I'm happy to report that at least some of people who fueled the blogswarm initially seem to have found some humanity and are feeling some small regret about taking down that poor old hunting guy.

It appears the conversation isn't quite over though. I'm still getting comments on the first post with excuses for their cruel conduct that makes me want to lecture these guys. I have to think about how to say it in as little words as possible. I don't want to open up another fight and if it goes on much longer, I'll get pissed off and say something to piss them off and then I'll get Zumboed, which this commenter tells me is the new threat, replacing Dixie Chicked or something like that.

I'm sure those of you who know me, and know my politics and have witnessed my caustic wit, will understand my caution. I'm thinking I probably don't want to piss off a couple of thousand guys who own semi-automatic rifles.

Effing ratsin-fratsin Blogger

It finally made me switch and you can't access the archives from the home page anymore. The good news is the posts are still there but it appears I'll probably have to republish the effers one at a time since I don't see any option to republish the blog in its entirety anymore. I've got almost 3000 posts on this thing. Not to mention the template is all screwed up but that happened before the switch.

I swear, if I knew how to import the bugger, I'm so pissed I would switch to my own domain right now.

Am I wrong or are these people effing crazy?

I don't cross reference my two blogs much here and I almost hestitate to do it now but this is something that lurks in the background always. You know I'm pretty much a leftie when it comes to politics but I'm a strong advocate for the right to bear arms, which often puts me into opposition with those on my side of the fence. I usually just avoid the issue, but reading about Zumbo this morning really set me off and I wrote this post in response.

I know I have, or at least I used to have, a lot of readers who are gun owners. If any of you are still left after I've shamelessly neglected this blog for so long, I really want to know if I'm off base on criticizing the hysterical hordes of assault weapon owners that destroyed this guy's career over one farookin remark.

Fire Down Below

The ambulance passes by my house about once a week. I figure there's somebody who's really sick down the road. But it's not often we get fire trucks. Still, a lot of people burn brush in their yards around here and they do come by ocassionally, so I didn't think much of it when the first two came by. But then ten minutes later a truck came from the next town and I saw smoke so I went out to investigate.

Of course I was still in my pjs when it happened and it was a small fire so by the time I got dressed it was over. It appears that somebody burned their kitchen out but the house looked pretty intact. The one corner was pretty badly burned. You could see the charring on the brick where the flames had busted through the window. I didn't take a picture of it because the elderly woman who apparently lives there was crying in the driveway and I didn't want to have to talk to the two gossipy looking women who were standing in the road gawking at the damage.

It was cold day. The sun was great but the wind turned to the north again and felt icy. And the gusts were really mean, beating down on me as I trundled back up the hill. Still the crocuses are up and you can feel the sun winning the battle against winter. It helps. This is the time of year I really appreciate living in the south.

I'm free, to do what I want....

The good news is the week from hell is over. I put in about 90+ hours over the last seven days on too little sleep but it's done. The bad news is I only get three and a half days off. I'll need most of that time just to recover. The good news is the calls won't be so early and two of the next four are late morning so it will feel easy compared to this past week. And the weather turned.

I don't even want to tell my friends up north how beautiful it was here today. I figure it had to be 70 and it doesn't get dark until after 6:00 now. It helps but I'm still burned to a crisp at the moment. I can barely make sentences so I'm going to go watch Nashville Star which I guess is the country music version of Idol. They're down to the last four finalists. I hope I stay awake long enough to find out who wins.

Counting the hours

Well, I'm still crawling through this rotation. Yesterday was brutal, I barely got a break and I don't expect the next two to get any better. But on the bright side, the weather has finally turned. The tang of arctic air has disappeared from the wind and instead we're feeling tropical breezes again. I left the house before dawn this morning in just my fleece.

Today is supposed to be cloudy but they're predicting 70s and sunshine tomorrow and nothing freezing for the foreseeable future. One hopes, it will follow the pattern of the last couple of years and spring has really arrived. I'm certainly ready for it. The last cold snap was hell on my knees and they haven't troubled me since I arrived here.

My daffodils survived the cold snap too and were looking pretty happy in the headlights as I left the house but otherwise, I have nothing of interest to tell you since I can't talk about my work. I'm about to plow into my email though, so I hope I'll have time to at least post some quick hits on what's going on in the drug war before the bedlam starts around here. Otherwise, I'll be back when I can get here.

Unavoidable delays

Sorry I disappeared yesterday. I was so tired that it took me an hour to write an ten minute post in response to this wingnut who called me a monumental idiot. I just burned out and went to bed and today is likely to be a long one with few breaks so I don't know when I'll be able to post. If I get a break this afternoon, I'll come back here first though.

Otherwise, please bear with me my dear readers. I'm got three more days of this, including today, and then my schedule should get more reasonable again and I'll be posting more regularly. Meanwhile, if you've sent me email tips, forgive me for not reading them yet. My unread email is so overwhelming at this point that I'm afraid to even open the program and see how far behind I am.

Need a new home

I've been obsessing about moving out of this house. There's a lot of things I love about it but the mold is just too much. I'm never going to really move in here. I've been diligently searching the listings for three weeks now. Quite a chore since I expanded my search area. I even did a drive by of a couple of places in town.

The cheap duplex in the "old schoolhouse" was across the street from a Baptist church that looked sort of like a jail and the the duplex looked like a barracks. Huge yard that the landlord, who I assume might be the church, maintains. Unfortunately the neighborhood looked about as unfriendly as the house. It's funny because two blocks away, the neighborhoods are very nice. It's amazing how you cross one street and it's so abruptly seedy.

I'm seriously considering moving into one of these huge characterless apartment complexes. They actually one nice one just outside of town. It's so really not my kind of gig but for my current lifestyle it makes sense and the place is pretty new so the apartments won't be beat up yet. There's a lot of amenties I'll never use from the dishwasher in the apartment to the exercise room in the clubhouse but it does have a nice pool so it would some incentive to exercise this summer.

I don't know what to do really. I drove around the complex and it looked respectable enough. The grounds were well kept and the balconies are a decent size. If they have highspeed internet I'm going to at least look at an apartment and think about it.

To sleep, perchance to dream...

Sorry kids. I couldn't fall asleep last night and I'm so ripping whipped that I can't even see the screen to look at the emails I haven't read in two days, which is about 8 pages worth, and I have yet another early call. I need to sleep long enough to have some dreams. I'll be back.

[Graphic gratitude]

You buy your ticket, you take your chance

It's Friday but I just started a new rotation so it feels like a Monday to me. I did a 14 hour day on 5 hours of sleep and I'm looking at six more shifts just like it so just a quick passing thought tonight. The big snowstorm on Valentine's Day pissed a lot of air travellers off and I see those people who were stuck on that airplane for somewhere between 8-11 hours are still making news today. This is news?

It's winter. It snows. You might get stuck somewhere. Believe me I know how much it sucks to be on a airplane that's not moving for eight hours. It happened to me in Brussels. I was on my way home after a three week trip and the plane lifted off and immediately landed again. Something fell off the plane and they had to fix it. We spent at least 8 hours on the tarmac. It was a smoking flight but there was a real New York couple on the plane who raised a big stink about being sold a non-smoking ticket so after about four hours, they stopped letting people smoke.

After 6 hours, a low level of grumbling broke out and resonated through the plane. It was big one. It had middle seats besides three on either side. The flight attendants broke out copious amounts of champagne. Most of the passengers fell asleep within 30 minutes. And still we sat there and they didn't open any doors. It was April.

I was sitting near the jump seat for the flight attendant. She was tiny little oriental woman. She didn't have any champagne and she knew what was going on with the broken stuff. I'll never forget the look on her face when we finally took off. I have never seen such a look of abject terror in my life. I was drunk enough not to care.

Needless to say, we survived. But we didn't make the news and nobody suggested we should draft a farookin passengers bill of rights over it. I swear the world has gone crazy.

Adventures in shopping

I was supposed to have lunch and go look at the Kroegers I found with John today but neither of us felt up to the outing so I ended up going down alone later in the day. This is what I call entertainment these days. I hate grocery shopping but I don't mind it the first time I go to a new store. It appeals to the sleuth in me and I'm always looking for those elusive items that are hard to find in the south. I like a new hunting ground.

I'm giving the store a mixed review. It was big but the aisles were narrow, especially with the huge carriages, they weren't particularly well organized and they had a limited choice in the fast food and single serving kind of stuff I'm interested in and their everyday prices were a lot higher than the Food Lion down the road. And although it wasn't dirty, it was untidy. The deli section was disappointing. I find it difficult to buy meat in crowded grocery where no one is waiting in line to get it. The seafood guy was doing a good trade but I don't know why. It stank of old fish.

It did have a lot of pluses though. The people who shop there are interesting. It was a very diverse crowd. They range from college kids to middle class families to old black guys who can hardly negotiate the aisles. A lot of middle aged single people. One guy about my age asked me where to find the fruit roll-ups. It was hard to imagine that I looked like someone who would know as I cruised down the aisle merrily crashing into people and carts as I was scanning the shelves. I told him to look around where they keep granola bars but I was proably wrong. How would I know? I've never eaten a fruit rollup much less buy one.

The store brand is really cheap and so are the sale items. The produce section was good. Great bakery with some interesting breads. Huge beer and wine section. I snagged a six pack of Saranac pale ale for under six bucks. I had a lot of choices in the six dollar range, which is a bargain down here, but I went for the Saranac because it reminded me of Noho and I'm missing my old friends this week. I've been dreaming about them.

They sell sparkle water, not to be taken for granted in the south. It's hard to get. I thought they didn't carry it but I finally found it in a little corner in the magazine section. And it's cheap. Major points for that. I drink a lot of sparkle water. But, the biggest plus is they sell the kind of hair conditioner I use. I've been using Nexxus Humectress for 15 years and it's really hard to find. Not only do they carry it, it cost three bucks less than I ever paid for it, anywhere in the country. It's always 16 bucks.

I so love a bargain. It made it worth the ride and it was good to get out of this little town. It's pathetic that I've become so insular here that a fifteen minute trip to a strip mall has become a major outing for me. Meanwhile, I'm on early call tomorrow and it's likely to be a long day so expect me when you see me.

Today's spam

I need to go out for a couple of hours but here's today's spam poem.

As he essence

He objectivity an postdoctoral
A tiny flame appeared.
her fiesta so congenial
An dispensable of cardiovascular
But monetarism of nu
Go porcelain my substantiate

Yeah, I know it's not art, but I've having fun with it and I've read poetry that makes less sense to me.

That tricksy Blogger

Blogger is getting really aggressive about getting you to switch over to the new version. Their latest trick is give you a sign-in screen instead of your dashboard when you try to access your inner blog. Now that just pisses me off. I don't mind being reminded occassionally but if you try to force me to do something, I'm so stubborn I won't do it just on principle.

So far I'm winning the battle. I discovered if you close it out a couple of times, it relents and lets you back into your old blogger platform. I'm sure that won't last forever and eventually they'll come up with some really evil plan to punish me for it, but for now I'm still sticking to the tried and true.

I only have eyes for you

Happy Valentine's Day my dears. Since I don't have a sweetie, I'm giving you, my cherished readers, this poem. I think I'm going to start a new recurring meme with this one.

I get a ton of spam. My filters catch most of it but in Yahoo I have to check the folder because it filters out stuff I want. I probably get a couple of hundred a day but it's quick to scan through the headings and rescue the few things I want to keep. I'm often struck by the creativity of the titles though and have thinking about something to do with them. And then it struck me. Along the lines of that magnetic poetry that was so popular for a long time, I give you the first in an ongoing series of spam poetry.

Hey... I was just on cam
Thanks for Looking Me UP
cassandra maintain
Or in athens , males combative
paz sough
look and the workers together (and save that will do: ye shall also

If you have sweetie, enjoy the holiday. If, like me, you're alone in the world - eh, it's just another day. Avoid restaurants and celebrate the anniversary of the Valentine Day Massacre instead with some bootleg booze or the contraband of your choice.

[Graphic gratitude. Check out this link. He has a lot of great valentines there. I could hardly choose but I picked this one because it looked so much like a certain Straight White Guy]

UMASS to grow pot?

I thought I posted this last night but it appears I forgot to and deleted the draft by mistake. I hate when that happens. Anyway, UMASS professor Lyle Craker has been trying to get a license to grow research grade marijuana for scientific purposes since 2001. Yesterday a federal judge issued a favorable opinion.

The administrative law judge, Mary Ellen Bittner, concluded Monday that granting Craker's application would be in the public interest. Among the reasons she cited were inadequate competition and an inadequate supply of marijuana for research purposes.

The decision, (available in pdf here), is nonbinding and the chief prohib Karen Tandy of the DEA has the final say but the decision should at least make it more difficult for Tandy to deny the application.

Craker said, "I hope that Administrator Tandy abides by the decision and grants me the opportunity to do my job unimpeded by drug war politics." I hope so too but I wouldn't suggest holding your breath waiting. Nonetheless, it's a victory for those whose suffering could be alleviated by medical marijuana. [hat tip JackL]

New study supports medical marijuana

The DEA is getting it from all sides this week.

AIDS patients suffering from debilitating nerve pain got as much or more relief by smoking marijuana as they would typically get from prescription drugs -- and with fewer side effects -- according to a study conducted under rigorously controlled conditions with government-grown pot.

It was only a five day study with a small sample group of 50 AIDS patients but doctors and medmar advocates said the findings published in the journal Neurology, offer strong evidence that the DEA's classification of cannabis as having "no currently accepted medical use" is outdated. I hope Congress is paying attention.

I loved the control methods.

Then, for five days, patients lit up at 8 a.m., 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. using a calibrated puff method that calls for inhaling for five seconds, holding one's breath for 10, then waiting 45 seconds before the next.

The cigarettes were kept frozen and locked in a safe, then thawed and humidified one day before use. Cigarette butts and other debris were collected, weighed and returned to the safe to ensure no diversion for recreational purposes.

It's useful to note that the study used the schwag that the University of Mississippi provides. If that stuff worked, think about what real pot could do for the suffering of the terminally ill.

Spring ahead

I've been battling a horrible sinus headache for two days now so I didn't get out for a walk today as I had hoped I would. It did get sort of warm for a little while and it's going to get colder again tomorrow so I was really sorry to miss it. I made do by making three trips back and forth down the driveway to get the trash and the recycling to the curb.

But good news for my dear friends in the frozen north. Take heart, spring really is on the way. The geese are moving through again and I got my first flock of robins in the yard today. Even here they're the first sign. I figure they'll hang around for about three weeks and start heading north bringing the warm weather with them.

Tucker Carlson takes down Souder

Life is funny. A couple of weeks ago, I was dissing Tucker for being a total jerk to some kid blogger but today I'm applauding him for his interview with has been drug war lord of Congress, Mark Souder, about Bush's request for millions for the stupid anti-drug commercials. You have to watchthe video. It's priceless.

I don't really know who Tucker is, I'm told he's a baby neo-con who shills for the White House, so I was really surprised that the interview was so good. He raked Souder over and Tucker's closing question was a knockout. He asked Souder how many marijuana overdoses there were last year. And he pressed the point when Souder tried to dance around it and claim that all pot smokers do multiple drugs. And he actually told Souder he was wrong. It was so enjoyable, I watched it twice.

In a related story, Bill Piper of DPA takes on John Walters, who was shilling in the newspapers for prohibition funding, and sheds some much needed light on Walters' deceits.

Never get NeverGetBusted

Whoa baby. Barry Cooper has his Fruit of the Looms in a twist. Someone forwarded Loretta a copy of his email dissing her review. Click over for the whole thing and read the comments too, but let me give you the money grafs here.

My wife is good at discerning woman and states Loretta is a failed politician who is jealous of my work. I have to agree. Loretta's review so far is the ONLY negative review we have gotten outof 102 reviews. Maybe this is why she never gets voted to office...she has a few followers but can't get past anybody accomplishing more than her.

My wife and office manager, another wise woman, thinks Loretta is not comfortable being a woman and wrongly attacks strong men. We have dealt with people like this before.

Myself, NEVERGETBUSTED and numerous attorneys will be releasing our plan soon. It would be nice to have Loretta repent and join us in the fight but she would need some serious training from my wife and ourcompany before being allowd to even answer a phone.

...She has other agendas beside ending the war.

What a lunatic. The man is obviously seriously crazy and you definitely do not want to be giving your contact information for any reason whatsoever. He couldn't be more wrong about Loretta, his remarks are just plain creepy and I'm thinking his well trained wife may be one of his drug dogs by the way he describes her.

As for Loretta's agenda, yeah it's bigger than just marijuana. She also advocates for prisoner's rights, sentencing reform and civil rights in general. Cooper's big "plan" whatever it is his twisted mind, is clearly to make a lot of money - for himself.

In a followup post, Loretta received a listserv email from the guy in which he apologizes profusely for sending out the dvds with the name of the video on the envelope. He blames the distribution company but it's clear to me that he either didn't notice the problem until Loretta posted or more likely he set it up that way to give his URL more visibility. I've done mailings through distributors before. They always send proofs before they run the printing job.

Hilariously, he signs his emails, as CEO/NeverGetBusted - The Most Trusted Name in Anti-Prohibition. I think the printer got that wrong too. I think that should have been Mis-trusted. At best the guy is an insane creep. At worst, he really is still a narc. He made a disturbing comment about his customer base being mainstream consumers and not drug users. Just how would he know that unless he say, had access to the DEA's datamining stats?

I don't have any proofs here. It's just a gut feeling, but if you want good advice on your rights go to Flex Your Rights for their video and stay as far away from Barry Cooper and his bogus product as you can.

Question of the week

How do light bulbs unscrew themselves? This can't be only be happening to me. My lamps are really old and rickety for the most part but I don't think that's the reason that I have to retighten the bulbs every once in while. Sometimes I think the bulb is out and discover it's just not twisted in far enough. And today I changed a bulb that did burn out but it was only one twist away from unscrewing itself and leaping to the floor.

Are my lightbulbs just suicidal or is there a scientific explanation for this do you think?

Ladies undies and the cost to incarcerate potheads

My dear friend Jules Siegel resurrected his blog, Newsroom-I. It's looking pretty spiffy over there and he's posting some great stuff. With Valentine's Day fast approaching, check out his post on the latest lingerie for the technogeek girl in your life. And he's got lots of other technotalk for the technosmart readers so scroll around.

Jules also points us to this excellent piece by veteran reformer Paul Armentano in Alternet. The latest figures are in and show "nearly 800,000 Americans were arrested on marijuana charges in 2005. Multiplying these totals by U.S. DOJ prison expenditure data reveals that taxpayers are spending more than $1 billion annually to imprison pot offenders."

The new report is noteworthy because it undermines the common claim from law enforcement officers and bureaucrats, specifically White House drug czar John Walters, that few, if any, Americans are incarcerated for marijuana-related offenses. In reality, nearly 1 out of 8 U.S. drug prisoners are locked up for pot.

Of course, several hundred thousand more Americans are arrested each year for violating marijuana laws, costing taxpayers another $8 billion dollars annually in criminal justice costs.

Think about that for a minute. Nine billion dollars a year to arrest, prosecute and imprison mainly harmless potheads. How insane is that?

Never Get Busted?

The reviews on the video set the ex-cop Barry Cooper is selling about how to avoid getting arrested for pot are coming in. First up is Mark Draughn at Windy Pundit who provides a non-consumer's overview of Volume One and thought it was pretty good but probably not worth the money.

He points us to Loretta Nall's take. She gives a detailed rundown of the content and says the video stinks and is clearly not worth the money. She also points out, right off the bat any guarantee Cooper made about your privacy is negated by the fact that the video arrives in a envelope clearly marked with the name of the product.

Flex Your Rights who are the real authorities on Fourth Amendment protection and whose video Busted I highly recommend as an invaluable tool for marijuana transporters, exposes the dangerous flaws in Cooper's advice on consent to search.

Pete at Drug WarRant didn't see it but points us to a new blogger on me, Tanya, who thinks Cooper is probably still a narc. I've thought that from the beginning and I'm glad that I didn't spend 25 bucks to find out the man is a fraud.

Thanks to those who put out the cash so we didn't have to and as Loretta suggests, if you were tempted to throw away your money on this video, donate it one of the many worthy reform organizations that are working to end the prohibition instead of giving it to this snake-oil salesman whom apparently I judged correctly as merely seeking to make a profit from maintaining prohibition.