UPDATE: Definitely check out Norm Stamper’s post about the South Carolina sheriff who wants to charge Michael Phelps with a crime.
A few more updates on what’s been going on this week:
– The Obama Administration reiterated its promise that the raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in California will stop as soon as they finish appointing new people to run the DEA. Four dispensaries in Los Angeles were raided this week. The change.org site has a petition you can sign to encourage the Obama Administration to end the raids here.
– After a dozen State House members co-sponsored a bill to decriminalize marijuana, State Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-36) and three others introduced a similar bill, SB 5615. Unlike the House Bill, though, this one will be getting a hearing – scheduled for this Tuesday, February 10 along with several other criminal justice and drug policy bills.
– The latest pre-trial hearing in the Bruce Olson case was scheduled for yesterday. I haven’t been able to get any news updates yet so if you were there and have an update, please leave a comment.
– Ryan Frederick was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter this week. Frederick was the man who killed a raiding police officer whom he mistakenly believed was a home invader. Frederick was also acquitted of the charge of manufacturing marijuana, the initial justification for the raid in the first place. He faces up to ten years in jail.
– Pete Guither has another infuriating drug war story.
– I have some mixed feelings about the Stimulus Plan making its way through Congress. I’m thoroughly annoyed by the simple-minded arguments coming from Republicans on why to oppose this bill. I think it’s clear that some form of government stimulus is necessary right now. The idea that we’re going to fix this mess simply by cutting taxes or scaling back government is foolish.
That said, there are some things in the bill that absolutely should not be there. For one, the bill contains $3 billion dollars for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant program. This money would fund drug task forces, like the one in Kitsap County (WestNET) that busted medical marijuana patient Bruce Olson.
In order for government spending to really be a “stimulus”, it can’t just create jobs for the sake of creating jobs. It needs to create jobs that, in turn, create more private sector jobs in the future. Building roads and infrastructure can do that by making it easier for businesses to operate and expand. Funding research can do that by improving technology and furthering scientific discovery. But funding more prisons and the programs that continue to fill our bloated prisons doesn’t do that. It actually puts the burden on government to fund even more public sector jobs, like additional prison workers and public defenders.
– And finally, how stupid is Kellogg’s? The company that makes Cheez-It’s, Pop Tarts, and dozens of other snack products drops Michael Phelps as its spokesman because he took a bong hit? What? Does Kellogg’s have any idea how much of their revenue comes from pot smokers?
Re your final paragraph: The VILLAGERS exist in the boardroom as well as the beltway.
I wish the other police officers would have shot Ryan.
re 3: Yes!! With video of his barely post pubescent skull shaterring like a wet dream of the back of JFK’s skull — with Jackie looking on horrified in her blue, pill-box hat.
Be careful what you wish for. It can come back on you.
I’ve heard so many businesses say exactly that. “If only the roads were in better shape I would have expanded my business.” And some other actually said, “if only the government was bigger and had more regulations I would start a private business.”
Maybe pot smokers should boycott kelloggs. Assuming they have enough short term memory left to remember the boycott.
The leftwing facists have started killing free speech!
A reporter trying to ask Leon Panetta a question was hauled off.
The end of free speech in the country.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/.....aring.html
@2 I wish you hadn’t been born, but that’s water over the dam, er, from the overflowing toilet.
Of course you pussies will delete the post showing that your fascist state is coming about. National SOCIALISM here we come!
http://www.politico.com/blogs/.....aring.html
@5 Yes, I agree that Democrats behaving like Republicans is a problem.
Of course, I behave like a Republican. That’s because I was one! I grew up in a Republican community among Republicans and was taught Republican bullshit. I emerged from high school as a Goldwater Republican. Then I got out into the real world and learned how to think for myself and became a Democrat. But I kept a lot of Republican habits. I’m don’t work, I tell Ann Coulter jokes, I kick my opponents when they’re down, and I’m a party hack and propagandist. I trace all of these traits to my Republican heritage. I also kick below the belt, but not because I’m a Republican (although it’s a Republican trait), that’s because I’m only 30 inches all at the tips of my ears. (Actually 30 1/4″; one ear is longer than the other.)
Stimulus infrastructure spending should be spent on projects that will increase the efficiency and productivity of our economy or lessen dependence on foreign oil, such as mass transit. A good use of stimulus money would be to speed up construction of Seattle’s light rail line, so I can ride on it in my lifetime, and eliminate the Sound Transit sales tax, which inhibits consumer spending by retired rabbits on fixed incomes.
@7 I’ve got a proposal for you: Hold your breath until it’s deleted.
hossenfeffer
Hey wrong side – we’re coming after you next bitch. What you gonna do about it? This is our world now cunt. You get to do as your told while the entire planet laughs at you looooosers on the right! Your nightmare has JUST begun!
you forgot to mention that the 8th cd congressman whose been silently staring into the headlights of an economic monster truck since last october rolled out his fresh new “moderate” and “green” brand this week courtesy of the dreadful joel connelly and with a follow up on the enrique cerna show. we are so lucky to have that guy b/c he is so “moderate” that he has only voted yesyesyes to warbucks, the elimination of habeas, and indefinite jailing without charges.
Medical Marijuana with out Psychological Efffects
Nephi Stella, Assoc Prof UW Medical School, Depts of Pharm acology and Psychiatry, is giving a talk:
IMPROVING CLINICAL CANNABIS; Target the 2nd endocannabinoid.
12-1 Rm T-625 T-wing
The lecture will be in Rm I 625 T wing and at the Hutch Pelton Rm BI-065.
The talk will address components of MJ other than THC and the possible therapeutic value of these for receptors that do not have psychotropic effects. Relevant diseases may include multiple sclerosis, Huntington’s, AIDS dementia, and cerebral ischemia.
The series he will talk in, Science in Medicine is directed at the general UW Med community, i.e. the science will be at a level I suspect many folks can follow. I recommend this to anyone interested in learning more about the medicinal properties of cannabis.
If anyone wants to see this and can not get there, I think the video will also be available and I am happy to get it.
@4
I’ve heard so many businesses say exactly that.
Yes, like Boeing, who has long been demanding a widening of 405 so that parts could be transported bewteen their plants more easily – to Microsoft, which knows that improvements in road infrastructure help out people’s ability to commute to work easily. Not to mention that infrastructure can also refer to universal broadband access, where America lags behind a lot of other countries, giving them a competitive advantage.
And some other actually said, “if only the government was bigger and had more regulations I would start a private business.”
I wasn’t talking about regulations. If the stimulus bill attempts to impose bad regulations on companies, please enlighten us.
Stimulate NOW. Perfect? No. Pretty good? Yes. Needed? Abso-fucking-lutely, particularly after the Republicans in the rump 2008 session BLOCKED an economic stimulus package.
Fuck Republicans and their stupid ideas. Thank God we don’t have to worry about THEM for the next 30 years or so.
2 T
I though you guys were all for people shooting invaders in their homes. Is it only when those invaders are poor and black?
2 T
I thought you guys were all for people shooting invaders in their homes. Is it only when those invaders are poor and black?
Fuck the lawmakers who allow our police to invade our homes with “no-knock” warrants and other bullshit invasions on our civil liberties.
Untrammeled access to people’s private domiciles should not be a subsitute for investigation.
@15
Hey Einstein, are you going to tell people when it is, or are people just supposed to go to that room now and wait for people to show up and start doing a presentation?
In order for government spending to really be a “stimulus”, it can’t just create jobs for the sake of creating jobs. It needs to create jobs that, in turn, create more private sector jobs in the future.
Anyone familiar with the history of the airline industry would have a pretty good idea of just how government spending creates jobs. By the onset of WWII, the airline industry was failing. There wasn’t enough revenue to support the kind of capital investments required both to operate an airline and to produce better, faster and more efficient aircraft.
After WWII, and as a direct result of government military spending on aircraft, the airline industry blossomed. Government purchases of airplanes, particularly bombers and transport aircraft, provided revenue for both the capital investments and the research and development that led to a profitable airline industry.
And that’s just the direct economic impact. The indirect effects are far more difficult to measure, but no less real. The mere fact that a good portion of airline patronage is business travel is ample evidence that enterprise is facilitated by people’s ability to travel greater distances more rapidly.
No combination of tax cuts would have ever spurred on the airline industry the way government military spending spurred it on in the years following WWII. And, if government spending in war planes can have that kind if impact, imagine what impact we’d see from government spending on alternative energy technologies.
Whoops.
Yeah, Lee, I think you go it wrong:
Spending is stimulus. It replaces consumer spending. We can spend on really cool projects that create green and/or more modern insfrastructure that will help us all in the long run. We can also spend onf almost nothing that jsut PAYS PEOPLE and gives them MONEY THAT THEN THEY SPEND.
Either way, it’s stimulus. Far-sighted projects that results in valuable investments in our future are better. But in the SHORT term, we need spending of whatever kind NOW.
So there you go. I align with your priorities in general, but what we really need to do NOW is create jobs and supply spending, in a BIG way.
Call the stimulus stuff privatization and hey’ll be OK with it.
@21 If today’s Republicans had been in charge in 1941, they would have waged war against Germany and Japan by waving tax cuts at them instead of sending ships, planes, and tanks.
@23
I think that’s true. But giving money to people who are doing nothing is still “less stimulating” (sorry) than creating jobs that function as investments in our overall economic system. In many ways, that’s not much different from just giving people tax breaks (remember those $300 checks we used to get). :)
@15: Thanks for the heads up SJ. what receptors are we talking about here?
And will there be a smoking room :)
In other news, Republicans once again can’t seem to stay away from corruption:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....id=topnews
Damn, it’s a scary time whine I have to agree with you.
The nightmare of the obama presidency has JUST begun.
There’s a good article here at Kos (scroll down to Compromising Away One Million Jobs…Or Is It Two?). He’s posted a table showing the return on the dollar for each type of government spending and tax cuts. Tax cuts provide the lowest return.
@15 Lee
Wed Feb 11, 2009
12-1 Rm T-625 T-wing
IMPROVING CLINICAL CANNABIS; Target the 2nd endocannabinoid. Nephi Stella
The lecture will be in Rm I 625 T wing of the UW Health Sciences Building (the large building filling 1/3 of NW Pacific) and will be also broadcast several places, including at the Hutch Pelton Rm BI-065.
@ 27 correctnotright
Smoking of any kind is not allowed in campus buildings, not even pot! I do not know a lot about the receptors for the cannabinoid, esp. for endogenous ones, but from the description of the talk I would guess that Dr. Stell is going to talk about a receptor the differentiates the useful medicinal functions Lee talks about so much from the psycho-mimetic effects that make pot fun to smoke.
I doubt I will be able to go, but talks like this at the UDub are open to the public so it might be a good occasion for marijuana advocates (or opponents) to get some useful facts. I suspect Lee might wnat to introduce himself to Dr. Stella as well. I have no idea where Nephi Stella stands on “medical” marijuana but I am sure he has a lot of the facts.
If you need caffeine to listen to this talk, there is a coffee bar on the fourth floor of the same building.
@26 Rain on Both Their Houses
It seems to me that a lot of the problem with this bill is that BHO has nto done the best job of explaining that this is NOT intended to address the long term issues in the economy.
Thise issuew=s will need to be addressed as well since giving an unemployable person a few months reprieve has very little effect on the long term.
One approach is to commit funds NOW for projects that would otherwise be funded from bonds. Those funds can be placed in the market until needed.
@26 You made an interesting connection there. Tax cuts have the same effect on the economy as welfare.
@32 Roger
Yes. However, there is a problem in defining welfare. The problem comes format he assumption that we earn money in a natural way, free of government interference. Of course that is not true.
Ross Perot is a prime example, Most of his wealth came from interacting with the govt … ie welfare.
I rather like the idea of a tax system that is designed simply to pay the costs of government rather than to manipulate the economy. Deductions should reflect the costs of opportunity … education, food, transportation, communication, housing. A tax system like that is naturally progressive.
OTOH, the tax system should not taxing the increase in capital, defined here as investment in US productivity.
FWIW … my dream system:
1. Social security, basic medical care, basic education should be paid by the government and should come out of the general tax. (No FICA)
2. Wealth should be taxed in a manner that reflects its productivity.
3. Bonding should be replaced by a current investment accounts, supported from the general fund. It idiotic to use binds for highway maintenance. BTW, the current misuse of the social security trust is an example of how this cold be done if the funds were from the general tax.
4. The dollar should cease being the world currency and we should have a national bank that directly controls the money supply.
…all said in ignorance of economics but out of a lack of conviction that economists know what the fuck they are doing.
So boeing wants public tax dollars to be directed for their benefit.
Under the bush administration this was called welfare for corporations.
Wow, the obama administration inadvertently sent confidential documents to the washington post about michael steele.
The U.S. attorney’s office inadvertently sent the confidential document, a defense sentencing memorandum filed under seal, to The Washington Post after the newspaper requested the prosecution’s sentencing memorandum.
“Inadvertently” is codespeak for we will trash any black person that is off the democrat plantation.
Isn’t this exactly what left-wing-nuts hated about bush? Will they speak up about this or is this just another example of liberal hypocrisy?
@35 Morethan Stammering, perhaps you linked the wrong article. There is nothing there referencing an inadvertently sent document.
However, what is in the article you linked is just how corrupt Steele is. A long history of money troubles, a shady sister and a felon for a campaign manager just to get started.
Thanks for the link though.
Paragraph 8 on the page I linked.
I’m sorry your parents didn’t care about you and sent you to a public school for your education.
Have you ever considered a remedial reading class at the local high school?
Apparently the private school you attended taught you that african-american women are “forced” somehow in large numbers to terminate their pregnancies via abortion procedure. It also taught you to say things like this without offering any evidence to support it.
It also was a bit lacking in teaching you reading comprehension as I pointed out a few threads back regarding your silly confusion of Hilda Solis with her husband.
Glad I avoided that school.
Conservatism in general and the Republican party in particular are a total failure — except when they work to trip up and obstruct progress.
I’m always reminded of Nancy Reagan’s conversion to stem cell research upon leaning that it could help ‘Ronnie’.
If that were the only benefit of stem cell research, I’m afraid I’d have to oppose it.
@35
Um, the U.S. Attorney was Rod Rosenstein, who was appointed by the Bush Administration in 2005.
Is there any limit to your stupidity?
I’m acting like a democrat.
Wasn’t it george tenant, appointed by clinton that said WMDs were a slam dunk?
Who got the blame, bush or clinton?
Isn’t it “FAIR” to apply the same standards.
If you don’t like it, run to your blog and post about it mama’s boy.
I dare you to explain why an organization, planned parenthood, was started by someone that was a supporter of the KKK and also believed some races were inferior to others.
Why planned parenthood have 85% of their clinics in minority areas.
Why the democrats are such staunch supporters of abortions and use taxpayer money to support planned parenthood.
Why blacks are 13% of the population yet abort at a 36% rate.
Feel free to answer the questions.
Especially why the democrats use tax money to fund an organization started by a racist kkk supporter.
@41
Wasn’t it george tenant, appointed by clinton that said WMDs were a slam dunk?
Who got the blame, bush or clinton?
From me? George Tenet got the blame.
If you don’t like it, run to your blog and post about it mama’s boy.
Keep giving me the material and I’ll be happy to keep making fun of you.
Jump, Marvin, jump!
@9: In your guts you know he’s nuts.
It’s good to see you have no self-restraint and can’t stop yourself from replying to me.
Again, thanks for imitating me and using my catch phrases.
…………
The risk appeared to be highest among men who had reported smoking marijuana for at least 10 years, used it more than once a week or started using it before age 18, the researchers wrote in the journal Cancer.
Stephen Schwartz* of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, one of the researchers, said the study was the first to explore marijuana’s possible association with testicular cancer.
*Lee .. this is not SJ.
@45 “catchphrases”
Jump, Marvin, jump!
Why is everyone so upset at Kellog’s. Michael Phelps broke the law and has to deal with the results. Sometimes I feel like I am the only one who has never smoked pot.
Phelps is a typical athletic pro_______. These entertainers poetry themselves as the naked exemplars of Aermicana. Not gay, not duggy, not gamblers, no extramarital sex, etc etc.
Then Kellog’s of Sunkist or Jockey pays them for an endorsement, The endorsement is NOT becuase they won 8 medals, it is because they can sell cereal!
Getting cut inhaling Lee’s favorite vapor is not different than Phelp’s getting caught wearing a Che tea short or , horror of horrors, reading Mao. It hurts the image.
As for Lee’s worry that Kellog’s is going to lose pot smoking customers …. somehow I doubt that their demographic and Lee’s have a lot to do with each other. Can you imagine Kellog’s putting Jerry Garcia on the Wheaties box? Nahhhhhh.
In general agreement.