Impeach

See more highway images at Tales of the Freewayblogger.

Hat-tip to skippy.

Upcoming report on cannabis therapeutics

In the next week or so, NORML is releasing a comprehensive summary of research in just the past six years confirming the therapeutic benefits of cannabis and cannabinoids to treat symptoms and even affect the progression of disease. Paul Armentano provides an introduction:

While the initial clinical investigations of cannabis in the 1960s and 1970s primarily assessed the potential therapeutic use of cannabinoids to provide symptomatic relief (e.g., chemotherapy-induce nausea, MS-associated spasticity, etc.), investigators today are frequently exploring the potential curative role of cannabis and cannabinoids to moderate the progression of various life-threatening diseases — in particular, autoimmune disorders such as Multiple Sclerosis, Rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease, as well as neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (a.k.a. Lou Gehrig’s disease.) Investigators in increasing numbers are also beginning to study the anti-cancer activities of cannabinoids, as a growing number of recently published studies confirm the ability of cannabinoids to reduce the proliferation of specific cancer cells via apoptosis (program cell death) and by inhibiting angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels). Arguably, these latter trends represent far broader and more significant applications for cannabinoid therapeutics than researchers could have imagined some thirty or even twenty years ago.

I’ll be talking more with Paul and will have more information for you soon.

Update: The report has been released.

Letter to Christopher Ortiz

Exploring the dominionist theology to understand your arguments, I found this passage very interesting:

Biblical theocracy is not opposed to the American democratic process. As Rushdoony states, theocracy is a “radical libertarianism” because it advocates the rule of God over every man, woman, and child. Not by the direct tyranny of a religious elite—that would be “ecclesiocracy”—but by the rule of God in the hearts and minds of people as they govern themselves in terms of Biblical law instead of autonomous reason, and without coercion by the state or church. Naturally, this would result in a vast reduction in the size of civil government, as obedient people would provide their own retirement, care for their own elderly, educate their own children, and provide for the poor in their communities.

So are you willing to say that the state should not be prohibiting us from following God if we believe that cannabis is his sacrament?

Are you willing to allow us to have our government if you are not compelled to participate?

Will you recognize our faith and engage with us, or will you cut yourself off?

Hat-tip to Swatch It.

God reflects us

You may understand or you may not, but we are all part of God and God is within each of us. As we treat others, we treat God. And from within, we will feel that reflection and if you despise your neighbor then shall you despise yourself. And if you mock, then shall you be mocked. And if you condemn, then shall you be condemned, by your own voice and your own standard.

But it’s really easy to get out. Stop despising. Stop mocking, and stop condemning. Love your neighbor as your family. Even when you disagree, you can simply try to understand one another better. And if there is no conversation possible, then at least avoid a confrontation, and maybe there will come a better time to settle differences.

Pluto the caninoid

If you know the travails of Pluto the planetoid, perhaps we should reconsider the dog.

Hat-tip to skippy.

Rationality vs. Understanding

There is a tendency, in describing others who behave in ways you do not understand and consider strange, to call those others irrational. Perhaps, and we all have limited models of the world which need to be checked constantly with reality. Whether you proceed from faith or from science, whether you believe in God or nothing at all, you have only some of the picture and you rely upon what you know to decide what you will do.

But the fundamental question to be asked in these things is whether it is possible to be honest with one another and if so, why we should not do so. That does not always mean pleasant words, it does mean real disagreement, but that in the purpose of understanding.