Beyond The Broken Spectrum

It is said that almost everyone in the marijuana law reform movement has a seminal moment they can point to when their public activism started. My moment was in the fall, six years ago.

I’m a past president of our local Kiwanis Club. I’ve been a member for years; we meet for breakfast at 6:30am, every Wednesday morning. My fateful “activism moment” was meeting face-to-face with one morning’s Kiwanis Club program, our town’s newly acquired dope dog. Some rock-ribbed citizen had left money in his will for the city to buy a dope dog for our town of 3,000, in a county of 18,000 people. The dog’s handler and the police chief were up at the speaker’s table. I had to fight back the urge to turn around and run. Continue reading….

Texas schoolchildren should know how God and religion greatly influenced the country’s Founding Fathers more than 230 years ago, say some of the experts reviewing the state’s social studies curriculum.

It is a viewpoint that troubles others who worry that a controlling majority of conservatives on the State Board of Education may go too far in pushing Christianity in public schools.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6640410.html

Jennifer Pelham* kicks off her black Marc Jacobs pumps, slips out of her trim Theory blazer, and collapses on the couch. The 29-year-old corporate attorney for one of Manhattan’s top law firms has just clocked another 12-hour day, and though it’s over, she’s having a hard time shaking off her frustrations. (A partner had eviscerated the contract she’d drafted, then left before Pelham had a chance to explain herself.) Still distracted, Pelham orders dinner—sushi, as usual—then reaches for a plastic orange prescription bottle standing on the corner of her coffee table alongside a glass pipe and blue Bic lighter, just as the cleaning lady left them. She twists off the cap, pinches off a piece of the fragrant green bud inside, gingerly places it in the bowl of the pipe, and lights up. Over the next 30 minutes, she takes three deep drags, enough to drown out the noise whirring in her head. Then she eats.

Continue reading at http://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity-lifestyle/articles/living/female-stoners

Why do virtually all members of Congress get reelected despite the public’s disapproval of the legislative body they serve in? One answer frequently heard in Washington, D.C. is that “people hate Congress but love their own congressman.”

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 23% of voters really accept this answer. Those 23% believe members of Congress get reelected because they do a good job representing their constituents.

Read the rest at http://www.rasmussenreports.com/

Americans were fed the story of Timothy McVeigh’s trial and execution as a simple, unquestionable narrative: he was guilty, he was evil, and he acted largely alone. Gore Vidal’s 1998 Vanity Fair essay on the erosion of the U.S. Bill of Rights caused McVeigh to begin a three-year correspondence with Vidal, prompting an examination of certain evidence that points to darker truths—a conspiracy willfully ignored by F.B.I. investigators, and a possible cover-up by a government waging a secret war on the liberty of its citizens.

Toward the end of the last century but one, Richard Wagner made a visit to the southern Italian town of Ravello, where he was shown the gardens of the thousand-year-old Villa Rufolo. “Maestro,” asked the head gardener, “do not these fantastic gardens ’neath yonder azure sky that blends in such perfect harmony with yonder azure sea closely resemble those fabled gardens of Klingsor where you have set so much of your latest interminable opera, Parsifal? Is not this vision of loveliness your inspiration for Klingsor?” Wagner muttered something in German. “He say,” said a nearby translator, “‘How about that?’”

How about that indeed, I thought, as I made my way toward a corner of those fabled gardens, where ABC-TV’s Good Morning America and CBS’s Early Show had set up their cameras so that I could appear “live” to viewers back home in God’s country.

Continue reading, if you dare, at http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2001/09/mcveigh200109?currentPage=1

Nearly 30 years of tense relations between the U.S. and Iran came to a dramatic end this March when Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad revealed that his country’s suspected nuclear program was in fact a covert operation to build “Ali Baba and the 40 Loops”—the largest, most thrilling roller coaster in the Middle East.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/irans_nuclear_operation_revealed

In an attempt to cut the franchise’s losses and move forward in a positive direction, the Dallas Cowboys severed ties with controversial owner Jerry Jones Monday, ending their tumultuous 20-year relationship with the divisive figure.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/dallas_cowboys_release_jerry_jones

• With more than 1.8 million civilian employees, the Federal Government, excluding the Postal Service is the Nation’s largest employer.
• About 9 out of 10 Federal employees work outside the Washington, DC metropolitan area.
• Job growth generated by increased homeland security needs will be offset by projected declines in other Federal sectors; however, many job openings should arise from the need to replace workers who retire or leave the Federal Government for other reasons.
• Competition is expected for many Federal positions, especially during times of economic uncertainty, when workers seek the stability of Federal employment.

http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs041.htm

Eliminating defensive medicine could save upwards of $200 billion in health-care costs annually, according to estimates by the American Medical Association and others. The cure is a reliable medical malpractice system that patients, doctors and the general public can trust.

But this is the one reform Washington will not seriously consider. That’s because the trial lawyers, among the largest contributors to the Democratic Party, thrive on the unreliable justice system we have now.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204488304574432853190155972.html

Let’s talk about pain.

Dull, sharp, aching, gnawing, stinging, nagging, throbbing, pounding, shooting, stabbing, radiating, searing, tearing, pinching, suffocating, splitting, crushing, wrenching, I-can’t-stand-it-anymore agonizing pain.

The fact is pain is often undertreated in this country and many people suffer unnecessarily, say University of Texas at Austin researchers.

The PATRIOT Act contained a number of tools that expanded the power of federal law enforcement officials. One of these, the “sneak and peak” warrant, allows investigators to break into the home or business of the warrant’s target and delay notification of the intrusion until 30 days after the warrant’s expiration. This capability was sold to the American people as a necessary tool to fight terrorism.

In Fiscal Year 2008, federal courts issued 763 “sneak and peak” warrants. Only three were for terrorism cases. Sixty-five percent were drug cases. The report is available here.

A grandmother in Indiana has been arrested for purchasing cold medicine. We can all sleep more safely now that this hardened criminal has been taught a lesson. The Terre Haute News reports:

When Sally Harpold bought cold medicine for her family back in March, she never dreamed that four months later she would end up in handcuffs.

Now, Harpold is trying to clear her name of criminal charges, and she is speaking out in hopes that a law will change so others won’t endure the same embarrassment she still is facing.

…Harpold is a grandmother of triplets who bought one box of Zyrtec-D cold medicine for her husband at a Rockville pharmacy. Less than seven days later, she bought a box of Mucinex-D cold medicine for her adult daughter at a Clinton pharmacy, thereby purchasing 3.6 grams total of pseudoephedrine in a week’s time.

Those two purchases put her in violation of Indiana law 35-48-4-14.7, which restricts the sale of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, or PSE, products to no more than 3.0 grams within any seven-day period.

When the police came knocking at the door of Harpold’s Parke County residence on July 30, she was arrested on a Vermillion County warrant for a class-C misdemeanor, which carries a sentence of up to 60 days in jail and up to a $500 fine.

In the years preceding the 2008-2009 Depression both Peter Schiff and Ben Bernanke were making statements about the housing bubble and the status of the economy. Let’s compare them and see who was right and who was… very wrong.

Government has been mismanaging medical care for more than 45 years; for every problem it has created it has responded by exponentially expanding the role of government.

Points to consider:

1.)  No one has a right to medical care.  If one assumes such a right, it endorses the notion that some individuals have a right to someone else’s life and property.  This totally contradicts the principles of liberty.

2.)  If medical care is provided by government, this can only be achieved by an authoritarian government unconcerned about the rights of the individual.

3.)  Economic fallacies accepted for more than 100 years in the United States has deceived policy makers into believing that quality medical care can only be achieved by government force, taxation, regulations, and bowing to a system of special interests that creates a system  of corporatism.

4.)  More dollars into any monopoly run by government never increases quality but it always results in higher costs and prices.

5.)  Government does have an important role to play in facilitating the delivery of all goods and services in an ethical and efficient manner.

6.)  First, government should do no harm.  It should get out of the way and repeal all the laws that have contributed to the mess we have.

7.)  The costs are obviously too high but in solving this problem one cannot ignore the debasement of the currency as a major factor.

8.)  Bureaucrats and other third parties must never be allowed to interfere in the doctor/patient relationship.

9.)  The tax code, including the ERISA laws, must be changed to give everyone equal treatment by allowing a 100% tax credit for all medical expenses. Laws dealing with bad outcomes and prohibiting doctors from entering into voluntary agreements with their patients must be repealed. Tort laws play a significant role in pushing costs higher, prompting unnecessary treatment and excessive testing. Patients deserve the compensation; the attorneys do not.

10.)  Insurance sales should be legalized nationally across state lines to increase competition among the insurance companies.

11.)  Long-term insurance policies should be available to young people similar to term-life insurances that offer fixed prices for long periods of time.

12.)  The principle of insurance should be remembered.  Its purpose in a free market is to measure risk, not to be used synonymously with social welfare programs.  Any program that provides for first-dollar payment is no longer insurance.  This would be similar to giving coverage for gasoline and repair bills to those who buy car insurance or providing food insurance for people to go to the grocery store.  Obviously, that could not work.

13.)  The cozy relationship between organized medicine and government must be reversed.
Early on medical insurance was promoted by the medical community in order to boost re-imbursements to doctors and hospitals.  That partnership has morphed into the government/insurance industry still being promoted by the current administration.

14.)  Threatening individuals with huge fines by forcing them to buy insurance is a boon to the insurance companies.

15.)  There must be more competition for individuals entering into the medical field.  Licensing strictly limits the number of individuals who can provide patient care.  A lot of problems were created in 20th century as a consequence the Flexner Report (1910), which was financed by the Carnegie Foundation and strongly supported by the AMA.  Many medical schools were closed and the number of doctors was drastically reduced.  The motivation was to close down medical schools that catered to women, minorities and especially homeopathy.  We continue to suffer from these changes which were designed to protect physician’s income and promote allopathic medicine over the more natural cures and prevention of homeopathic medicine.

16.)  We must remove any obstacles for people seeking holistic and nutritional alternatives to current medical care.  We must remove the threat of further regulations pushed by the drug companies now working worldwide to limit these alternatives.

True competition in the delivery of medical care is what is needed, not more government meddling.

-Ron Paul, a fellow Texan and an advocate of Liberty

The group Downsize California Now is preparing a ballot initiative for a two-state solution that they hope to have on the ballot in 2010. According to their plans, 13 counties on the coast, ranging from Los Angeles to Marin, just north of San Francisco, would be split off and be named Coastal California, West California or whatever they please. The remaining 45 counties, including Orange County, would become the “real” California.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/california-state-says-2582006-group-movement