This is the picture

The red sea divided

Sea of green, beneath sky of blue

Grow high-quality hemp — not industrial low-potency cannabis, but the good stuff. Grow it in tight formation in fields that cross the land, and pluck the tops for free use of all who need it for medicine. The rest is for food, fuel and fiber.

And there was color.

I’ve never asked you for money to support this blog. Right now I’m asking you to do something for me.

Go here and make a copy of the file for yourself. It’s only about 1.5 Megabytes in size. Make as many copies as you like. The only copyright on this material is what you imagine, you have the right to copy it infinitely.

Just because some of my friends like to know this stuff,

$ md5sum wordpress.2006-10-31.xml
a331818df38c537cb2c43ddc76eff12d wordpress.2006-10-31.xml

$ sha1sum wordpress.2006-10-31.xml
5e9ffbb822c76e90401f69d564588309f2c5965f  wordpress.2006-10-31.xml

Thanks so much.

Time to make copies

Backup your websites, share them with the world.

The shredders are coming.

Hat-tip to watertiger.

Are we coming through? Should we turn up the volume?

ASA update on Ed Rosenthal and Rick Watts

I was a little slow getting this due to the festival, and will probably be a bit behind in my reading all week at least while I try to catch up. This summary is quite good and accurately reported according to my own recollection of the hearing, which I had the honor of attending. Incidentally, I found judge Charles Breyer to be very funny; at one point in a hearing on another case involving marijuana which the government claimed not to have enough money to prosecute (how odd), the judge suggested perhaps a bake sale, then verbally rethought the idea in light of the nature of the charges.

From William Dolphin, Americans for Safe Access director of communications:

On Wednesday, October 25, Ed Rosenthal and Rick Watts appeared before federal judge Charles Breyer for a status conference on the superseding indictment filed against them by the US Attorney’s office in San Francisco.

The hearing was largely an occasion for Judge Breyer to dress down AUSA George Bevan. While he took no definitive action, the Judge Breyer stated that he would be dismissing the primary charges against Watts for being in violation of the Speedy Trial Act; he indicated his strong inclination was to dismiss with prejudice — meaning he could not be charged again.

AUSA Bevan tried to argue that Rosenthal’s appeal was one reason, or that it was Watts’ responsibility to present himself for trial once he’d recovered from the auto accident that had made him unavailable for the original trial, or that it was even somehow the court’s responsibility, not the prosecutor’s. But Judge Breyer was having none of it, saying that a co-defendant’s appeal was no justification for not bringing charges, and that what the prosecutor was describing were just ways to circumvent the Speedy Trial Act.

Judge Breyer instructed Watt’s attorney to file motions seeking dismissal of the remaining conspiracy and tax evasion charges under the 6th and 5th Amendments. Those motions are due November 22, the government’s response December 1, and a hearing on the remaining charges against Watts will be held December 6.

Judge Breyer then turned his attention to the Rosenthal charges, noting that the primary counts against him were identical to those for which he’d already been convicted and already served his sentence. So, Judge Breyer mused, turning again to AUSA Bevan, “One wonders, what is the purpose of this prosecution?”

Bevan’s answer was that Rosenthal had left the courtroom and gone in front of the microphones claiming his trial had been “unfair,” that even jurors had been in the press saying it was unfair, and that had made him “personally very uncomfortable.”

This occasioned a lecture from Judge Breyer on First Amendment rights, but Bevan retreated only so far as to say that he wanted to present a more complete case that showed all of Rosenthal’s conduct, including that behind the allegations of money laundering and filing false tax returns.

Judge Breyer then noted that money laundering is a crime of intent. Money laundering is only those case where someone is converting what they think to be illegal proceeds to something that looks legal, so Rosenthal’s state of mind would have everything to do with guilt or innocence, meaning all the evidence that was excluded from the original trial — Ed’s deputization by the city of Oakland, the fact that the clones he was growing were only for qualified patients, all the information about state law, etc. — would have to be heard by the jury, the information that the original jury told the press would have led to an acquittal, had they been told.

On the issue of whether everything was full reported on tax returns, Judge Breyer suggested that the tax charges might be tried separately from the others, noting that the facts were far simpler and could be decided more quickly, since the legality or illegality of the enterprise is irrelevant to the obligation to pay taxes. He then asked for written responses from the attorneys on the question of severing the tax charges. Those papers are due to the court November 3, with a hearing on separate trials to be held November 18.

I have a bridge I want to give you

Seeing the Buddha on the road

When walking in public, or talking to a stranger, there can be no thought of Buddha without killing that thought to the degree that one expresses it without causing confusion.

There is no more intimate place for public conversation than a blog. Here I can spend as much time relating as much as I can share, and any confusion will only be for those who can as easily as not look away. Therefore no one is made to feel uncomfortable against their own wishes.

Please feel free always to share your thoughts here, or on any thread. Here I can give you more truth than you would receive to speak with me in person, except in those special circumstances like the festival this past weekend. There are so many of us, and I am only a new and learning member of a thriving community. All of whom can speak truths to one another. There is nothing which I say that any one of them cannot say as well, and which you can learn from any source you consult.

Do not pursue me, but speak with me here if you like.

Let there be color.

Meanwhile…

Welcome to the Hotel Colorado

Does “Shazam!” sound too hokey?

The Bible is an historical narrative in metaphor. It is a story of the past and of the present, applied as allegory. In two thousand years ago Israel, a political revolution transpired. It was a religious revolution, it was a spiritual revolution, it was a revolution that was written of as the events passed and afterward revised and rewritten.

In two thousand years later California, another political revolution is transpiring. It is a religious revolution, it is a spiritual revolution, is is a revolution that is being written of as the events pass.

Berkeley is Jerusalem. Come ye. All Californians have an immediate right of return, others have to wait a year of probation but the living is good and easy if you come.

There is music in the temple here.

Happy halloween video from SAFER

Hat-tip to Toker00.

And in another sunny part of the country

The Miami Herald reports, also per Brad Friedman, that ES&S machines in south Florida may be flipping votes to Republicans right in front of voters. That’s just sloppy programming that exposes the switch too soon, instead of after the voter has confirmed the vote.

ES&S is the second largest electronic voting machine company after Diebold, and its owners are some of the same people, to the point that there may be little to distinguish these companies from one another. As for the machines themselves, these are the same used in many states where similar allegations were reported, including Missouri, Texas and Arkansas.

See, the problem isn’t that these stories are proven to be true, because they are just allegations. The problem is that they are credible, and they are credible because these machines have no proven trust. Do you think that it is appropriate to trust corporations that have partisan relationships to count your votes, even when they’ve already been proven to have made machines that can be hacked?

Speaking of voting in California

San Diego’s registrar has already sent the electronic voting machines home with poll workers. These are proven hackable Diebold machines, but nothing to worry about because the registrar, Mikel Haas, assures us that poll workers are incorruptible and they have secure storage facilities in their cars and garages and wherever else they store the machines for several weeks immediately prior to the November 7 election.

Brad Friedman has the rest of the story.

How we are told we cannot vote and be counted

So I had an interesting conversation, first with Lauren at the Registrar of Voters in Oakland, California, who informed me that if I was not registered to vote already then I would only be allowed to cast a provisional ballot, which she further informed me would probably not be counted. She clarified that it might be counted but only if approved by a supervisor. I double checked the spelling of her name and asked her if she was the only Lauren in this office, and she assured me that she was. She then asked if I would like to speak to the supervisor right now.

I said that would be fine, so she put me on hold, and a few minutes later a woman came on the line whose name I could not accurately hear, it was something like Barlica. That may be correct, but if not I apologize. Barlica asked me how she could help me and I recounted my conversation with Lauren for her. I said that in Pennsylvania it had been possible to vote in the county courthouse on election day, and asked whether this was also possible in California.

Instead of answering my question, Barlica asked when I had moved to California. I informed her that it had been about three months. She stated that if I had not registered in that time then I would not be allowed to vote. She informed me that she did not wish to debate this with me, although I was only asking for information on what procedure existed for me to vote.

She then asked if I would like to leave a message for her supervisor’s voicemail, and I agreed to do so. The voicemail identified the speaker as Cynthia Cornejo (spelling not provided, so may be incorrect). I left a detailed message and my phone number for her to get in touch, and that is where the matter now stands.

Related posts:

• How we can vote and be counted
• Provisional voting in Alameda county

What do “conservative” Republicans want to conserve?

Thanks to Shakes.

How we can vote and be counted

I visited city hall today to ask whether the registration date for voting had expired, and was informed that October 23 was the deadline for registering to vote this November. This is what I expected to hear and was prepared for being told. I asked whether there was a procedure for voting in court, and the assistant had to get her supervisor. The supervisor asked me whether I lived in the city, and I assured her that I did. She then told me that yes, I would be able to vote in court if I wished and told me to contact the registrar of voters for more information.

This is a tortuous process to find out what one can do, and I intend to do so and share the information here, because this is how we should do it in my opinion. We need judicially supervised elections right now, as the only standing branch of the national government that has not deposed itself by authorizing and committing torture in violation of the constitution and their oaths to protect and defend it.

Some may choose to vote in person at a polling place or by absentee ballot, and that is your right to do. You may choose to use electronic voting machines if you do not care whether your vote is accurately counted. You may use a paper ballot if one is offered to you, but it is unclear whether this will be possible in all or even most places.

Or you can go to court and vote under the supervision of a reviewable judge, and if the process is anything less than fair and proper you would at least then have an avenue of appeal if you choose.

Related post:

• How we are told we cannot vote and be counted

Doctor Sanjay Gupta disinforms the public

Perhaps Sanjay thinks that it is important to press the benefits of his clients’ interests over the truth. English-Girl-Abroad Sam Breach tells us how Sanjay claims that grain-fed beef are more resistant to E. coli infection, in contradiction of the facts and CNN/Time’s own reporting of the day before.

Hat-tip to Sinsemilla Jones.

Relativistic thinking

This will only make sense to some readers, so please do not be confused if you do not understand.

Cannabis does not make you think more slowly, it makes you think more quickly — and to therefore perceive time more slowly. The speed of your environment is relatively slower moving because you have a higher rate of thoughts per minute.

For an analogy that will make it more concrete, consider the number of frames per minute in a movie reel. The higher frame rate when recording translates to a slower but smoother playback. Of course if you also increase the playback to match, then you will get a constant but higher-quality realtime display. The ratio between these two things translates to your perception of speed and time.

Playback is analogous to physical action in this metaphor. So if you think quicker than you act, you feel slower. But if you can speed up your action and keep up with your thoughts, you would feel no slower — but the rest of the world will seem to. Relativity is contagious, though, as we all try to match speed in order to communicate with one another.

More music Monday

Conditioning children for a police state

Wyoming, Michigan (the city, not the state — south of Grand Rapids) decided to conduct a “school safety drill” replete with riot cops and weapons.

Full story from the AP.

Hat-tip to mayan.

A musical trio

Democracy

It is time for us to take the reins, I suppose. We have the choice of letting the government die at the hands of those who despise, or treating it as our own which it was meant to be, and which it will now become.

A social government, which provides people with help, and does not persecute the sick.

Good bread

Always use non-metal containers and utensils, please.

Mix olive oil with honey to create an emulsion, add herbs.

Add to organic flour and purified water mixture with some organic raisins.

Let it sit to develop a starter yeast.

Every time you feed your starter, use these ingredients. You might want to add some finely ground sea salt along with your herbs.

Barack Obama for president

I wrote about Barack a month and a half ago, when he was unwilling to commit to run for president in 2008. Now that he has indicated his intention to do so, it is interesting to observe there are no arrows being fired at his back.

He is now the presumptive Democratic nominee for 2008, in my estimation.

Good on you, Barack.

Say hello

to Angel Raich.

This will be another day and another

I’m back from the first day of the Wonders of Cannabis Festival, and there is so much to say I don’t know where to begin.

We have the bread and the oil now.

I had a fan call me, and ask to meet me privately in a dark place, which is not going to happen. I do not intend to be rude to anyone, but nobody meets another person privately and in the dark for any good reason.

I was given assistance from an angel, and safe passage from a kind woman.

Jack Herer asked me for my vote, and I cannot deny him. I will write more on this when I can, but I will have to see how I can cast a ballot without giving improper authority to anyone.

It is late, and I have much to think about, so I won’t post more until later. Since there will be another day of festival on Sunday, I won’t expect to post much this weekend.

Please think before you vote

Democrats and many progressives who support them have been staying away in droves from talking about the upcoming election fraud possibilities, for fear of demoralizing their base and making their expected Democratic victory doubtable, even though there is no evidence that Democrats or progressives have ever done anything or benefitted from election fraud. In other words, there is a crime being committed on behalf of a criminal conspiracy of Republicans, and the Democrats are scared to stand against it under the theory of “he who smelt it dealt it”-blame.

Okay, look. Most of your elections are going to be conducted electronically this year. There is no reason to believe any of the results, as these electronic voting machines are proven to be hackable and have displayed glitches that evidence deliberate flaws.

Everyone who is focusing on GOTV needs to at least think about what you are going to do when the election is over, no matter what results are going to be reported. Nobody can trust these results, and certainly it will be in the interest of Republicans to say so if they are shown to lose.

The voting machines are suspect. The voting machines cannot be trusted. The voting machines are not part of democracy.

Open thread

I don’t have much to say right now, tired and operating on less sleep than I’d prefer. The big festival is tomorrow (well, later today) and Sunday. I’ll try to have some updates soon.

Site-related stuff

Sometime in the next day, we should have our 10,000th visitor to Cannablog. Another thing is we also have the domain name “cannablog.org” now, and it already works, but currently it is still set to forward to cannablog.wordpress.com.

Better Another picture of billboard

From SAFER’s blog.

Hat-tip to Sukoi.

I decided this one isn’t better than the one below, the color balance is off. But it is at least larger and centered in the frame.

Related post:

• New billboard campaign in Colorado

Karl Rove gets his poll results from Diebold, perhaps

Partial transcript from an NPR interview with Karl Rove on Tuesday:

MR. ROVE: Yeah. Look, I’m looking at all these Robert and adding them up. And I add up to a Republican Senate and a Republican House. You may end up with a different math, but you’re entitled to your math. I’m entitled to “the” math.

MR. SIEGEL: I don’t know if you’re entitled to a different math, but you’re certainly entitled to —

MR. ROVE: I said you were entitled to yours.

Raw Story has the whole thing.

Hat-tip to Creature, via Shake’s Sis.

Speak, everyone

Hat-tip to Ellroon, whose Rants from the Rookery is now on our permanent blogroll.

John Narcissus Bush

Can I have ten minutes of your time?

I might take a half a minute longer than that, if you want to watch the whole thing. I really recommend you do. Keith Olbermann is saying what needs to be said in America.

Hat-tip to litbrit.

We’ve never been stay the course?

Hey, you’re going over a cliff. Stay the course?

Democracy is on trial.

Richard Bruce Cheney admits water torture

No Blood For Hubris quotes the McClatchy news organization,

WASHINGTON – Vice President Dick Cheney has confirmed that U.S. interrogators subjected captured senior al-Qaida suspects to a controversial interrogation technique called “water-boarding,” which creates a sensation of drowning.

Please note that these prisoners were never convicted of a crime, nor proven to be members of al Qaeda before a neutral judge. They were subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, torture, in violation of the Geneva Conventions, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the Constitution for the United States of America. They have been and continue to be denied due process of law. These are not armed hostile enemies, these are helpless prisoners in American custody.

New billboard campaign in Colorado

From a local Fox News affiliate of all places, comes some good news.

Hat-tip to FoM. More information at Cannabis News.

Good medical advice: stop doing what hurts

So I went to the doctor to see about a problem I was having with my ear being sore and having fluid, and it turns out I have TMJ. Temporomandibular joint disorder is a really technical name for the fact that I like many people clench or grind my jaw sometimes. Or at least I used to. Now that I know what I’m doing, I’m paying more attention to it and I can stop myself when I start.

A doctor is never more helpful than when he or she merely tells you what is wrong and what you need to fix and then lets you go home and do that.

A day later and guess what? My ear doesn’t hurt. Just never connected the two before. Doesn’t mean the jaw is going to heal immediately, but immediate partial symptom relief is always a good start. And my wife says I still grind my teeth in my sleep so I’ll have to see what I can do about that.

Postings today

Our internet connection wasn’t working last night or this morning, due to a DHCP problem that was not under my control. Sorry for my absence. I’ll try to post something later tonight, and then tomorrow Friday morning is setup for the festival. (Eh, I was running to get somewhere, forgot that I have a day without anything scheduled tomorrow, so plenty of time for blogging I hope.)

You can use this as an open thread but that never seems to matter here.

Daily Olbermann

Crooks & Liars has it.

Rush Limbaugh: Today’s worst person in the world (again)

Michael J. Fox is an actor well known to members of my generation for his portrayal of Alex P. Keaton, the conservative young man who lived in a liberal household on a television program called Family Ties. He also played Marty McFly in the Back To The Future series of movies. We know him and we like him and he is very sick with Parkinson’s disease.

So he made an advertisement to try to educate the public what Parkinson’s looks like, so you will know why he needs help and you will want to do something about this.

Oh, Rush? He says that Michael J. Fox isn’t actually that sick, or he just didn’t take his medicine, or he is faking it for the cameras. Really. John Amato has the details.

Jack Abramoff gets his own desk at the FBI

I never know whether to laugh or cry reading Billmon.

It cures what ails you

Actually, it just lets your body cure itself. (See: How cannabis works part 1 and part 2).

Fred Gardner asks Jeffrey Hergenrather, a medical doctor in California who has experience treating patients with cannabis,

Q. What results do patients report? How does cannabis appear to work in treating their symptoms?

A cannabis specialist soon becomes aware of two remarkable facts. The range of conditions that patients are treating successfully with cannabis is extremely wide; and patients get relief with the use of cannabis that they cannot achieve with any other pharmaceuticals.

The testimonies that I hear on a daily basis from people with serious medical conditions are moving and illuminating. From many people with cancer and AIDS come reports that cannabis has saved their lives by giving them an appetite, the ability to keep down their medications, and mental ease. No other drug works like cannabis to reduce or eliminate pain without significant adverse effects. It evidently works on parts of the brain involving short-term memory and pain centers, enabling the patient to stop dwelling on pain. Cannabis helps with muscle relaxation, and it has an anti-inflammatory action. Patients with rheumatoid arthritis stabilize with fewer and less destructive flare-ups with the regular use of cannabis.

Other rheumatic diseases similarly show remissions. Spasticity cannot be treated any more quickly or efficiently than with cannabis, and, again, without significant adverse effects.

Patients who suffer from migraines can reduce or omit conventional medications as their headaches become less frequent and less severe.

About half of the patients with mood disorders find that they are adequately treated with cannabis alone while others reduce their need for other pharmaceuticals. In my opinion, there is no better drug for the treatment of anxiety disorders, brain trauma and post concussion syndrome, ADD and ADHD, obsessive compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Patients with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are stabilized, usually with comfort and weight gain, while most are able to avoid use of steroids and other potent immunomodulator drugs.

People who were formerly dependent on alcohol, opiates, amphetamines and other addictive drugs have had their lives changed when substituting with cannabis. Patients with end-stage renal disease on dialysis and those with transplanted kidneys show mental ease, comfort, and lack of significant graft-versus-host incompatibility reactions in my small series.

Diabetics report slightly lower and easier-to-control blood sugar levels, yet to be studied and explained.

Sleep patterns are typically improved, with longer and deeper sleep without any hangover or significant adverse effects.

Many patients with multiple sclerosis report that their condition has not worsened for many years while they have been using cannabis regularly. MS and other neurodegenerative diseases share the common benefits of reduced pain and muscle spasms, improved appetite, improved mood and fewer incontinence problems. Many patients with epilepsy are adequately treated with or without the use of other anticonvulsants.

Patients with skin conditions associated with systemic disease such as psoriasis, lupus, dermatitis herpetiformis, and eczema all report easement and less itching when using cannabis regularly.

Airway diseases such as asthma, sleep apnea, COPD, and chronic sinusitis deserve special mention because I encourage the use of cannabis vapor or ingested forms rather than smoking to reduce airway irritation. Finally, most obese and morbidly obese patients respond with weight loss and improved self esteem. I believe that cannabis and psychotherapy work well together in fostering behavioral changes.

There are a bunch more questions and answers, fascinating interview.

Hat-tip to global_warming.

¿Que es mas macho?

Laurie Anderson – Smoke Rings

Finding our way

Maha has a great post on being good, moral, well socialized human beings, regardless of your professed religion. She concludes with a beautiful passage of the Tao Te Ching.

Twin sisters born this year

Elissa Lawrence reports in the Sunday Times (Australia):

Experts say the chance of twins being born with such different physical characteristics is about a million to one.

The sisters from Burpengary, north of Brisbane, were born in May.

Mother Natasha Knight, 35, has Jamaican-English heritage, and their father, Michael Singerl, 34, was born in Germany.

Hat-tip to Donna Woodka.