Peruse NT & Digest the World. Knowledge and Understanding for the Progressive Mind. “Comments” are turned off. NT is for the reader who craves more then what the “mainstream media” offers.
side note: Anyone surprised? Mr. gay-hater himself, Roy Ashburn, was caught leaving a gay nightclub….I’m sure he was there for research purposes only! These piece-of-shit Republicans, who usually use the cover of religion to make their “Traditional Family Values” pleas when it’s clear they are just plain old bigots……are the people who, b/c they grew up in a strict religious household……usually have to bury the fact that what they are is exactly what their religious leaders are saying they’re going to hell for.
I’m starting to think that most people who bash on gay people….are probably sick to their stomach b/c they have gay tendencies themselves. Here’s a study that actually proved this to be true:
By Paul Armentano, AlterNet
Once again members of the mainstream media are running wild with the notion that marijuana use causes schizophrenia and psychosis.
To add insult to injury, this latest dose of reefer rhetoric comes only days after investigators in the United Kingdom reported in the prestigious scientific journal Addiction that the available evidence in support of this theory is “neither very new, nor by normal criteria, particularly compelling.” (Predictably, the conclusions of that study went all together unnoticed by the mainstream press.)
Yet today’s latest alarmist report, like those studies touting similar claims before it, fails to account for the following: If, as the authors of this latest study suggest, cannabis use is a cause of mental illness (and schizophrenia in particular), then why have diagnosed incidences of schizophrenia not paralleled rising trends in cannabis use over time?
In fact, it was only in September when investigators at the Keele University Medical School in Britain smashed the pot = schizophrenia theory to smithereens. Writing in the journal Schizophrenia Research, the team compared trends in marijuana use and incidences of schizophrenia in the United Kingdom from 1996 to 2005. Researchers reported that the “incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia and psychoses were either stable or declining” during this period, even the use of cannabis among the general population was rising. (more…)
side note: Not shocked to hear about this…but good to see a prominent scholar take a scientific approach. This is one of my biggest issues with religion…on the surface, it’s fine and dandy…they do some really good work with the needy. But as generations pass…the religions can become more divided and as with everything in this world, there’s usually a tipping point. Which is where people can end up going against their core beliefs and do some real harm.
Matt Taibbi has a new article in the latest Rolling Stone issue that paints the real picture of our current economic situation and where this country is headed. When President Bush came on TV in September of 2008 and insisted that the economy was in a tailspin, and that we needed to bailout the banks…..I saw red flags pop up all over the place. It didn’t help that this guy had lied about virtually everything in his 8 years as head of this country. But something didn’t seem right……Bear Stearns had collapsed back in March of 2008 and the world didn’t come to a halt. Lehman Brothers failed and Earth didn’t stop rotating. So why this need to bailout a few institutions?
Well folks….the answer to that question is another question:
What happens when Wall Street and the Government come together in a “lets fuck over everyone” romance?
Read Taibbi’s article….then head over to your bank and move your money from those greedy, piece of shit financial institutions that don’t care about ethics or this country.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The first U.S. clinical trials in more than two decades on the medical benefits of marijuana confirm pot is effective in reducing muscle spasms associated with multiple sclerosis and pain caused by certain neurological injuries or illnesses, according to a report issued Wednesday.
Igor Grant, a psychiatrist who directs the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at the University of California, San Diego, said five studies funded by the state involved volunteers who were randomly given real marijuana or placebos to determine if the herb provided relief not seen from traditional medicines.
“There is good evidence now that cannabinoids may be either an adjunct or a first-line treatment,” Grant said at a news conference where he presented the findings. (more…)
side note: One of my favorite channels has allowed the creator of 24, Joel Surnow, who is a bit of a right-winger, but none-the-less, has created a good show for FOX….they’ve allowed him to write a Kennedy miniseries that has been completely taken apart and called fiction by historians who both like and hate the Kennedy family. If they want to throw this bullshit on FX or FOX…that’s fine, that’s where this crap belongs….but the History Channel? No Way! Sign the petition to keep this crap off one of our most highly regarded education channels.
side note: This was something I was worried about when President Dubya announced that we had to bail out the banks, we had to flood our financial institutions with money or the sky was going to fall. Then Henry Paulson goes to Congress with a one page proposal for $700 million dollars, and then Bloomberg news announced they have uncovered that the Federal Reserve used their emergency powers to loan $2 trillion, yes trillion dollars, to unknown entities…on top of the $700 million they were asking for. What raises red flags in my head is that during the entire Bush years…..they used fear tactics to push their agenda through Congress….the American people…whomever they needed to convince. And here they were, once again…following the same script. We know that the neo-cons want to privatize everything….they want to “shrink government to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub”. Now…a few years later, we see that no President is going to be able to push their domestic agenda through…b/c there’s no money available, from the below NYTimes article: “there is virtually no room for new domestic initiatives for Mr. Obama or his successors.” Do I know for sure that the bailout was bullshit? Nope…not an economics guy myself….but how can these guys do everything wrong, or right if you’re part of the elite in this country…and then suddenly get something correct……just doesn’t add up.
WASHINGTON — In a federal budget filled with mind-boggling statistics, two numbers stand out as particularly stunning, for the way they may change American politics and American power.
The first is the projected deficit in the coming year, nearly 11 percent of the country’s entire economic output. That is not unprecedented: During the Civil War, World War I and World War II, the United States ran soaring deficits, but usually with the expectation that they would come back down once peace was restored and war spending abated.
But the second number, buried deeper in the budget’s projections, is the one that really commands attention: By President Obama’s own optimistic projections, American deficits will not return to what are widely considered sustainable levels over the next 10 years. In fact, in 2019 and 2020 — years after Mr. Obama has left the political scene, even if he serves two terms — they start rising again sharply, to more than 5 percent of gross domestic product. His budget draws a picture of a nation that like many American homeowners simply cannot get above water.
For Mr. Obama and his successors, the effect of those projections is clear: Unless miraculous growth, or miraculous political compromises, creates some unforeseen change over the next decade, there is virtually no room for new domestic initiatives for Mr. Obama or his successors. Beyond that lies the possibility that the United States could begin to suffer the same disease that has afflicted Japan over the past decade. As debt grew more rapidly than income, that country’s influence around the world eroded. (more…)
side note: Hmmmm……After watching the video below and learning about “The Great Disappointment”, which was a movement headed up by William Miller, the founder of the Millerite Movement. He predicted that Jesus would come back on a certain date……anyone want to guess if he was right? I did a Google search to find out other times in history when religious movements thought the end of the world was upon us. One site has a good list…..44 times between 30-1920 have we had to deal with this madeup, make-believe BS. You can check out the list here. Enjoy the below video of a BBC show, obtained from onegoodmove.org.
I was sad to hear this morning of the passing of one of the great historians of our time, Howard Zinn. If you haven’t already, you should try and pick up his book, “A People’s History of the United States,” it is a fascinating look at the “real”history of our country….mostly from the point of view of the least powerful groups in our history….minorities, women, the lower class……this book really shows us what our country was built on without all the nationalistic bullshit! I remember first opening this book while camping over Columbus Day weekend……it made me shudder to think that the person we grow up idolizing was pretty much a cold blooded killer that did some real nasty damage to the indigenous population when he arrived in “The New World”. If you have some time, below is Chapter 1 from the book mentioned above…..it is a fascinating read, but be forewarned that this book will open your mind and question why we were taught what we were in school. I do understand that creating nationalism is important to the future survival of a country….but what are the costs in doing so?
UPDATE: Here’s a great speech by Howard Zinn….just in case you don’t have time to read the below excerpt from his book, you can put this on and listen to the man’s thoughts.
The following is from Howard Zinn’s,
A People’s History of the United States, 1980.
Chapter 1
Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress
Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island’s beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log:
They . . . brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned . . . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features . . . They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane . . . They would make fine servants . . . With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.
These Arawaks of the Bahama Islands were much like Indians on the mainland, who were remarkable (European observers were to say again and again) for their hospitality, their belief in sharing. These traits did not stand out in the Europe of the Renaissance, dominated as it was by the religion of popes, the government of kings, the frenzy for money that marked Western civilization and its first messenger to the Americas, Christopher Columbus.
Columbus wrote:
As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts.
The information that Columbus wanted most was: Where is the gold? He had persuaded the king and queen of Spain to finance an expedition to the lands, the wealth, he expected would be on the other side of the Atlantic — the Indies and Asia, gold and spices. For, like other informed people of his time, he knew the world was round and he could sail west in order to get to the Far East.
Spain was recently unified, one of the new modern nation-states, like France, England, and Portugal. Its population, mostly poor peasants, worked for the nobility, who were 2 percent of the population and owned 95 percent of the land. Spain had tied itself to the Catholic Church, expelled all the Jews, driven out the Moors. Like other states of the modern world, Spain sought gold, which was becoming the new mark of wealth, more useful than land because it could buy anything.
There was gold in Asia, it was thought, and certainly silks and spices, for Marco Polo and others had brought back marvelous things from their overland expeditions centuries before. Now that the Turks had conquered Constantinople and the eastern Mediterranean, and controlled the land routes to Asia, a sea route was needed. Portuguese sailors were working their way around the southern trip of Africa. Spain decided to gamble on a long sail across an unknown ocean.
In return for bringing back gold and spices, they promised Columbus 10 percent of the profits, governorship over new-found lands, and the fame that would go with a new title: Admiral of the Ocean Sea. He was a merchant’s clerk from the Italian city of Genoa, part-time weaver (the son of a skilled weaver), and expert sailor. He set out with three sailing ships, the largest of which was the Santa Maria, perhaps 100 feet long, and thirty-nine crew members.
Columbus would never have made it to Asia, which was thousands of miles farther away than he had calculated, imagining a smaller world. He would have been doomed by that great expanse of sea. But he was lucky. One-fourth of the way there he came upon an unknown, uncharted land that lay between Europe and Asia — the Americas. It was early October 1492, and thirty-three days since he and his crew had left the Canary Islands, off the Atlantic coast of Africa. Now they saw branches and sticks floating in the water. They saw flocks of birds. These were signs of land. Then, on October 12, a sailor called Rodrigo saw the early morning moon shining on white sands, and cried out. It was an island in the Bahamas, the Caribbean Sea. The first man to sight land was supposed to get a yearly pension of 10,000 maravedis for life, but Rodrigo never got it. Columbus claimed he had seen a light the evening before. He got the reward.
So, approaching land, they were met by the Arawak Indians, who swam out to greet them. The Arawaks lived in village communes, had a developed agriculture of corn, yams, cassava. They could spin and weave, but they had no horses or work animals. They had no iron, but they wore tiny gold ornaments in their ears.
This was to have enormous consequences: it led Columbus to take some of them aboard ship as prisoners because he insisted that they guide him to the source of the gold. He then sailed to what is now Cuba, then to Hispaniola (the island which today consists of Haiti and the Dominican Republic). There, bits of visible gold in the rivers, and a gold mask presented to Columbus by a local Indian chief, led to wild visions of gold fields. (more…)
side note: Here we go again….just another lie put into motion by the criminals who ran our government the last time around! Isn’t it unbelievable that they put a lie in motion, and then justify their actions around that lie. Saddam has WMD’s…..we must go into Iraq. They leak that story to the press, and then go on national tv and say “look, even the press knows about it! Didn’t you read the NYTimes today?!?!” Al-Qaeda has ties with Iraq….we must go to Iraq. The story about the aluminum tubes that that discredited journalist wrote about for the NYTimes…..yep, another reason we had to go into Iraq. Or hey…we know that our country has had the torture debate in the past…we even helped prosecute other people based on that policy. But we want to do it now…so lets have a bunch of lawyers come up with some legal mumbo-jumbo and we’ll be able to do it to! Or the Downing Street Memos that were discovered…….or they pay off journalists to promote their agenda, remember that? And now this…..the guy that “proved” that waterboarding worked….well, he wasn’t even there! This piece of shit should be charged with a crime…..for allowing other criminals to cover up their crimes. He’s a traitor in my eyes……nothing like being angry at 9am!
BY JEFF STEIN Foreign Policy
A study in “enhanced reporting techniques.”
Well, it’s official now: John Kiriakou, the former CIA operative who affirmed claims that waterboarding quickly unloosed the tongues of hard-core terrorists, says he didn’t know what he was talking about.
Kiriakou, a 15-year veteran of the agency’s intelligence analysis and operations directorates, electrified the hand-wringing national debate over torture in December 2007 when he told ABC’s Brian Ross and Richard Esposito in a much ballyhooed, exclusive interview that senior al Qaeda commando Abu Zubaydah cracked after only one application of the face cloth and water.
“From that day on, he answered every question,” Kiriakou said. “The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks.”
No matter that Kiriakou wearily said he shared the anguish of millions of Americans, not to mention the rest of the world, over the CIA’s application of the medieval confession technique.
The point was that it worked. And the pro-torture camp was quick to pick up on Kiriakou’s claim.
“It works, is the bottom line,” conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh exclaimed on his radio show the day after Kiriakou’s ABC interview. “Thirty to 35 seconds, and it works.”
A cascade of similar acclamations followed, muffling — to this day — the later revelation that Zubaydah had in fact been waterboarded at least 83 times. (more…)
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
http://www.sfgate.com
In a victory for medical marijuana users, the state Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a state law that protects them from arrest if they show police official identification cards. The court also overturned a law that limits how much pot patients can carry and how many plants they can grow.
The court unanimously ruled that the limits – 8 ounces of dried marijuana, six mature plants or 12 immature plants – conflicted with Proposition 215, the 1996 initiative that made California the first state to legalize marijuana for medical use. (more…)
side note: WTF? Does anyone else feel like there’s no hope at times? How can I compete with a multi-billion dollar company? I give 50 dollars….they give 50 thousand! Who would you listen to if you were an elected official? We need to get those pieces of shit, Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas off the Supreme court…..they are contributing to downfall of our country. I go back to the 2004 election….and how people said it wasn’t a big deal……
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that corporations may spend as freely as they like to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on business efforts to influence federal campaigns.
By a 5-4 vote, the court overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said companies can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to produce and run their own campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.
It leaves in place a prohibition on direct contributions to candidates from corporations and unions.
Critics of the stricter limits have argued that they amount to an unconstitutional restraint of free speech, and the court majority agreed.
”The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach,” Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion, joined by his four more conservative colleagues.
Strongly disagreeing, Justice John Paul Stevens said in his dissent, ”The court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation.”
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined Stevens’ dissent, parts of which he read aloud in the courtroom.
The justices also struck down part of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that barred union- and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns. (more…)
These piece-of-shit Republicans, who usually use the cover of religion to make their “Traditional Family Values” pleas when it’s clear they are just plain old bigots……are the people who, b/c they grew up in a strict religious household……usually have to bury the fact that what they are is exactly what their religious leaders are saying they’re going to hell for. 
WASHINGTON — In a federal budget filled with mind-boggling statistics, two numbers stand out as particularly stunning, for the way they may change American politics and American power.
I was sad to hear this morning of the passing of one of the great historians of our time, Howard Zinn. If you haven’t already, you should try and pick up his book, “A People’s History of the United States,” it is a fascinating look at the “real”history of our country….mostly from the point of view of the least powerful groups in our history….minorities, women, the lower class……this book really shows us what our country was built on without all the nationalistic bullshit! I remember first opening this book while camping over Columbus Day weekend……it made me shudder to think that the person we grow up idolizing was pretty much a cold blooded killer that did some real nasty damage to the indigenous population when he arrived in “The New World”. If you have some time, below is Chapter 1 from the book mentioned above…..it is a fascinating read, but be forewarned that this book will open your mind and question why we were taught what we were in school. I do understand that creating nationalism is important to the future survival of a country….but what are the costs in doing so? 
Well, it’s official now: John Kiriakou, the former CIA operative who affirmed claims that waterboarding quickly unloosed the tongues of hard-core terrorists, says he didn’t know what he was talking about.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that corporations may spend as freely as they like to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on business efforts to influence federal campaigns.