New Links

Please note new links at right…

Billionaires for Bush

Halliburton Watch

Village Voice

All recommended by me and provided us all by the redoubtable Jolly Dr. Max. Thanks, Max!

When Will We Ever Learn?

Commentator Cronyism

First, it was Rush Limbaugh’s drug use and now a payola scandal in the U.S. Dept. of education. The right wing blasted Clinton for Monica and then a bunch of them had to resign over their own extra-marital affairs. Even more than the pious crap the religious right tries to feed us, I dislike the hypocricy of the far right wing Bushies. I’m not the only one. The last graph from the linked article:

Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, who first disclosed that prosecutors were involved, sharply criticized the administration, saying in a statement: “This case falls into the pattern of corruption and cronyism we are seeing from this administration. Instead of looking out for their political pals, this administration needs to start looking out for the American people and their hard-earned tax dollars.”

Do You Smoke Pot?

For years, I’ve said only one thing about marijuana: I’ve done many divorces over alcohol, but never one over marijuana use. I found this on Google News and it was on the Forbes magazine site. I’ve produced it here in full because I found it interesting that the most potent cannabinoid available does what no other drug does — spur the growth of new brain cells. Remember, each ounce of alcohol you drink destroys 10,000 brain cells. Interesting and ironic that this research should come to light just as the U.S. Supreme Court rules that federal laws banning medical marijuana override the laws of 11 states that allow it. Go buy lottery tickets and nevermind

Marijuana Compound Spurs Brain Cell Growth
By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Oct. 13 (HealthDay News) — When it comes to the controversy surrounding medical marijuana, an international team of researchers is busy stirring the pot by releasing findings that suggest the drug helps promote brain cell growth while treating mood disorders.

According to the study in rats, a super-potent synthetic version of the cannabinoid compound found in marijuana can reduce depression and anxiety when taken over an extended period of time.

This mood boost seems to be the result of the drug’s ability to promote the growth of new brain cells, something no other addictive drug appears able to do, the researchers say.

The findings, which appear in the November issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, remain preliminary, however.

“Our results were obtained from rats, and there’s a big difference between rats and humans,” said study co-author Dr. Xia Zhang, of the neuropsychiatry research unit in the department of psychiatry at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada. “So, I don’t really don’t know yet if our findings apply to humans. But our results indicate that the clinical use of marijuana could make people feel better by helping control anxiety and depression.”

The new findings come on the heels of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June granting federal authorities the power to stop doctors from prescribing marijuana. That decision also bars individuals from cultivating the herb for medical purposes.

The decision overrides laws currently on the books in 11 states which had legalized the use of marijuana for patients receiving a doctor’s approval. According to the ruling, the Supreme Court justices made their decision on the basis of interstate commerce regulations rather than on an evaluation of the pros and cons of medical marijuana use.

But does medical marijuana work? To help settle that question, Zhang’s team focused on the potential of a synthetic laboratory-produced form of the cannabinoid compound naturally found in the marijuana plant.

Humans and other animals also naturally produce the compound, and are known to have cannabinoid receptors lying on the surface of cells in the nervous system and the immune system.

Prior research has shown that, when exposed to cannabinoids, these receptors can provoke an anti-inflammatory and anti-convulsive response. They can also instigate a range of psychotropic effects such as euphoria.

The current study focused on a particular formulation of synthetic cannabinoid known as HU210 — a compound which Zhang described as the most powerful cannabinoid in the world.

The authors explored both the short-term and long-term effects of exposure to HU210 in rats.

To measure the drug’s short-term response, they gave adult rats a single injection of HU210. To study the same drug’s effect over the longer term, the researchers gave a separate group of adult rats twice-daily injections of the cannabinoid over a two-week period.

Autopsies revealed that by the end of the 10-day HU210 treatment regimen, new neurons had been generated and integrated into the circuitry of the hippocampus region of the rat’s brains. This process, known as neurogenesis, was still in evidence a full month after treatment had been initiated.

Neurogenesis was not triggered in response to brain cells being killed through cannabinoid exposure, the researchers add. In fact, HU210 injections did not appear to prompt any loss of neurons in the hippocampus.

Cannabinoid use appeared to boost mood, as well: According to the scientists, behavioral tests suggest that long-term treatment reduced the rodent’s anxiety- and depression-linked behaviors.

For example, one month post-treatment, treated rats deprived of food for 48 hours were quicker than similarly deprived, non-treated rats to begin eating food when it was finally offered to them in an unfamiliar environment.

The researchers believe treated rats may have been less anxious in the manner they handled this novel situation. They stress the results were not related to cannabinoids’ appetite-stimulating effects, since the treated rats’ eating behavior was similar to that of untreated rats when they were offered food in a familiar setting.

Treated rats also responded in a less anxious manner to swimming and climbing tests, and displayed shorter periods of immobility compared with untreated rats. The latter finding was interpreted to mean that HU210 had an antidepressant effect on rats receiving the cannabinoid over the longer term.

However, while long-term administration of higher doses worked to reduce anxiety and depression, lower doses did not appear to have the same effect, the researchers added.

Zhang and his associates credit cannabinoid-linked neurogenesis with the apparent mood shifts seen in the animals.

The hippocampus area of the brain where the neuronal growth occurred is key to the regulation of stress and other mood disorders, Zhang’s team point out. This region is also important to the control of cognitive processes such as learning and memory.

Among the common addictive drugs, marijuana alone appears able to promote neurogenesis when used over time and in the right dosage, the researchers say. In contrast, prior research has demonstrated that chronic administration of cocaine, opiates, alcohol and nicotine inhibits brain cell growth.

“If our results can be confirmed in humans, we should anticipate the chronic use of marijuana as a medical treatment for anxiety and depression,” Zhang said.

However, he cautioned that “this treatment is not the same as smoking marijuana. Whether smoking marijuana can produce the same effect, we just don’t know.”

Dr. Perry G. Fine, a professor of anesthesiology at the University of Utah School of Medicine Pain Research Center, said more than enough data has already been gathered to confirm medical marijuana’s potential benefits.

“It’s great that there’s new science, but to me this is no longer an epiphany,” he said. “It’s just proving what’s been long-suspected. We’re behind the curve with the cannabinoids largely because of the stigma of marijuana going years and years back.”

“I think most people with clinical expertise in the area of palliative medicine know that if patients had access to all the tools we currently have, we could certainly do a whole lot better to help people live with multiple chronic diseases,” he added. “The social policies are way behind our technology, and that’s where we need some catching up.”

More information

For more on the medical marijuana debate, check out the Medical Marijuana ProCon.org.

The Girlie Show

    OH MY GAWD!!!!!


Did you see DeShan’s black with pink polka dots corset?

She had a waist of about 10 inches, if that. I don’t think she could breath, eat or drink.

Black, shiney hair with ribbons at the base of dog-ear pony tails (a little like the ears on that Star Wars faux black guy, whoever he was) and she was just Barbidoll cute!

Trust me, folks. She looked incredibly good and overall unbelievable.

Meanwhile, accompanied by the golden boy of Raffine in his ever present ball cap (do you think he showers in a ball cap?), the privacy shattered Sharon looked as good as I’ve ever seen her in tall black boots and bright red lipstick. Yeeeoww!!!! She flatly told me she wouldn’t speak to me because she didn’t want to appear in this blog, so I promised she’d be quoted as saying just that. She squealed all the way to other friends where she ratted me out to them. Not to be outdone, The mighty Oz caught it all on film. Yeah! We will give her the fame she deserves. She’s too wonderful not to be famous.

The other half of the Oz’s film team is in Austria right now with his girlfriend, B, having a good time shutting down Slovenian loudmouths. He urges me to come to Europe with my “hero” act, but he knows good and well it’s still the era of the anti-hero over in Austria and that’s why he has the girlfriend there and I don’t.

Cat P made a rare and tragically hip appearance with her usual bitter and, therefore, hilarious humor. I wish she’d quit making nice with her mom and go ahead and marry me. Maybe I could get Charles to take my photo for free if I was his brother in law.

Saw Andy Artis there with his sponsoring/contributing artist wife. Andy was wearing a black “SECURITY” shirt like he knew what he was doing. He’s a pretty good guy, even if he is a fellow lawyer. We had a case together a while back and it was a real pleasure practicing law with him.

Larry P was there with his new tall blond and gorgeous girlfriend. He says she cooks for him, but being that good looking and cook, too? Hard to believe. If it’s true, he’s found himself a find and I wish him the best of luck.

My hero, Michael Hoffner, was there. I knew when I saw him that I was in the absolute hippest place to be in the whole town on this Friday night.

Little John was there in his kilt. ‘Nuff said?

Saw Kelly O and Randy, Keith and Marty B at Sushi Neko before the doings and again at the pulsating center of the crowd at the show.

Christian was behind the main bar. I think that had something to do with how long the drinks lines were. I think he’s great, but he MUST either smooze or be smoozed by every female in a crowd.

Saw a terrific blue ceramic belt buckle for $75, but I didn’t have the room in this month’s budget.

Nicole Moan was bursting out of her ceramic breastplate, not just literally, but she should have been figuratively busting buttons (or breastplates) with pride over her work being shown. Her models were out of this world lovely in these one-of-a-kind bustiers.

Let me just stop dropping names for a minute to say that it was an erotic show when combined with the crowd. Lots of really good looking people dressed up and having fun, mixed with girls in costumes and good food and drink. The hormones were flowing and you could smell, taste and feel it. Of course you could also feel the electronic drums pulsating in your sinuses and that was kind of a downside for me.

The event has become a popular one: there was a line two blocks long to get in before 8 p.m. when I drove up and I gave up on that (as my friend, SuzArt, said: “you’re too good looking to stand in a fucking line!” She’s droll, that one) and went for a short while to the Paseo to chill out while things cooled off at the Farmer’s Market. Saw a few early attendees for Galileo’s presentation of the Burchi Brothers, including Lee and a trio of women he also took to Girlie Show.

Catholic Kelly, looking great in a gold blouse, told me she’d be at the Girlie Show, but there were so many people there she could have been there and I wouldn’t have seen her. Nixon was at the door and I thought we’d put that president under ground several years ago.

I was with the lovely and pseudonymonous Erika West, who was stunning again in a brown skirt and black spaghetti strapped blouse. She kept me entertained for the entire evening. I was lucky to be able to spend some time with this energetic educator. Go see her blog, it’s linked at right: Karmic Ironies.

Th-Th-That’s All Folks!

Molly Ivins is Tortured

My thanks to Jolly Dr. Max for this contribution

chicagotribune.com >> Editorials
——————————————————————————–

The Bush years: Outrage, after outrage, after …
Asked to name the Outrage of the Week, how could anyone possibly choose?

By Molly Ivins
Published October 13, 2005

AUSTIN, Texas — On one of those television gong shows that passes for journalism, the panelists used to have to pick an Outrage of the Week. Then, each performer would wax indignant about his or her choice for 60 seconds or so. If someone asked me to name the Outrage of the Week about now, I’d have a coronary. How could anyone possibly choose?

I suppose the frontrunner is the anti-torture amendment. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) proposed an amendment to the defense appropriations bill that would prohibit “cruel, inhuman or degrading” treatment of prisoners in the custody of the U.S. military.

This may strike you as a “goes without saying” proposition-the amendment passed the Senate 90 to 9. The United States has been signing anti-torture treaties under Democrats and Republicans for at least 50 years. But the Bush administration actually managed to find some weasel words to create a loophole in this longstanding commitment to civilized behavior.

According to the Bushies, if the United States is holding a prisoner on foreign soil, our soldiers can still subject him or her to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment-the very forms of torture used by the soldiers who were later prosecuted for their conduct at Abu Ghraib. Does this make any sense, moral or common?

So deeply does President Bush feel our country, despite all its treaty commitments, has a right to torture that he has threatened to veto the bill if it passes. This would the first time in five years he has ever vetoed anything. Think about it: Five years of stupefying pork, ideological nonsense, dumb administrative ideas, fiscal idiocy, misbegotten energy programs-and the first thing the man vetoes is a bill to pay our soldiers because it carries an amendment saying, once again, that this country does not torture prisoners.

This is the United States of America. It is our country, not George W. Bush’s personal property. The United States of America still stands for the rights of man, for freedom, dignity and justice. We do not torture helpless prisoners. Our soldiers are not the Nazi Waffen SS, not the North Vietnamese who tortured McCain and others for years on end, not bestial Argentinean fascists, not the Khmer Rouge.

Remember, we invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein was such a horrible brute that he tortured people. This is beyond disgusting. The House Republicans, who have no shame, will try to weaken McCain’s amendment. They need to hear from decent Republicans all over this country. Don’t leave this hideous stain on your party’s name. This is not what America stands for. We’ve had more loathsome and more dangerous enemies than Al Qaeda and managed to defeat them without resorting to torture.

And leading the charge in the House will be Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), that pillar of moral rectitude and Christian mercy. Wait a minute: Didn’t DeLay have to step down from his leadership position after he got indicted? Well, yes, but some step-downs are more down than others. There was “The Hammer” in full glory Friday, twisting arms and working the floor on behalf of a real cutie of a bill to benefit the oil companies.

Even Republicans revolted. As Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) said, “We are enriching people, but we are not doing anything to give the little guy a break.”

I have become inured to Bush’s idea of foreign policy. But the policy does result in some lovely ironies. On Friday, Mohamed ElBaradei, the highly respected head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, won the Nobel Peace Prize. Quite apart from whether you support Bush or not, ElBaradei and the IAEA deserve the honor-they have been both diligent and effective.

ElBaradei was right when he repeatedly warned the Bush administration that Iraq did not have any weapons of mass destruction and has said the day the United States invaded “was the saddest in my life.”

But you know our boy George: not for him the gracious, “Gee, you were right, and we were wrong after all.” Nope, after ElBaradei was proved right, Bush tried to have him fired. And the man in charge of carrying out the campaign to have the guy fired for being right? John Bolton, now our ambassador to the United Nations.

Molly Ivins is a syndicated columnist based in Austin, Texas. E-mail: [email protected]. Creators Syndicate

Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune

The American Dream, Pt. IV

One of my readers took umbrage at yesterday’s blog entry. The claim was that this reader is a Christian and runs a business and is, ergo, a Christian businessperson. “I’m not motivated by money in my business,” I was told. “I’d do this even if there weren’t any money in it. I’d just get a job doing anything and still help the people I’m working with now.” I was sternly admonished not to make such generalizations. We will have to agree to disagree, I’m afraid. Christ answered this himself in the Sermon on the Mount; he said that if you try to serve the interests of both God and money, you’ll either do a good job of one and not the other or you’ll make a hash of both. Yesterday, I didn’t mention that God also said that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get to heaven. I also think it’s significant that Judas Iscariot sold out Jesus for 30 pieces of silver and not for an idea or a belief. My reading of the Gosplels is “extreme”, I was told. I still maintain that it is not my “reading”, it is the radical and revolutionary thinking of Jesus that is extreme. You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to believe me or the words of Jesus. I’m ready to be taken to school, though, and if you think I’m reading Jesus as being extreme, please bring up the verses and the evidence that dispute my conclusions and don’t just baldly assert what is not in the text.

“Greed is good,” intoned the character Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglass) in the movie “Wall Street”. “Greed works.”

The very Hand of God moves over the marketplace and the outcome will be just, Adam Smith instructs in “Wealth of Nations”, the seminal book of economics and the progenitor of laizze faire economics.

God must love poor people, else why make so many of them?

We would sure like to believe that we’re reading this blog on our laptops in our historic neighborhoods because we’ve been blessed by God. We drive our SUVs to church believing that we’re so darn good.

We spend our Sundays soaking up God in what has become America’s most segregated hour in church.

The poor will always be with us.

Can we be moral and have wealth while thousands suffer?

The ultra wealthy aristocracy of France and Russia thought that they were in charge of the world as a result of divine intervention and they got their heads chopped off for their troubles. America’s oligarchs think the same. I wonder as to their ultimate fate.

Under this present American administration, a very few of the very wealthy have become even more wealthy. The few have benefitted to an unassailable degree. Wealth has been amassed that cannot really be comprehended by most of us.

Meanwhile, millions have been driven into poverty under this administration.

The gap between rich and poor has grown and grown and grown during the past six years.

Corporate moguls have traditionally earned about 15 times the wages/salary as the common worker in an American corporation. Now, CEOs earn upwards of 23 times the income of a worker.

We’re talking CEOs making hundreds of millions.

How’s that working out for us?

I can tell you from my own observation that America in the past half century has moved from a society in which mothers stayed home with children to a working mother as the common situation. It seems as if every household is now a two income family just to keep the wolf from the door. Children are raised by televisions and find out about morality and language and sex and drugs and cigarets and alcohol from other children because there is no strong parental role model at home. Mom and Dad are both physically as well as emotionally absent — they come home exhausted.

We are working more hours a week now than ever (at least as far back as we have records) and we work far more hours than our Asian and European fellows.

Fewer of us have fewer benefits now than ever. Tens of millions have lost their health insurance and millions more are finding their pensions are broke or no longer offered.

We compete with workers in Asia and elsewhere who live in squalor and we lose our jobs to them routinely.

In my own profession as an attorney, we’ve known for a long time that money matters. Martin Luther King, Jr., accurately described the legal system when he said that it’s Justice for Just Us who can afford it.

Do you really think that greed, one of the seven deadly sins, is good?

Don’t you, like me, know people who have been driven into bankruptcy and poverty through no fault of their own other than to have a child or spouse who became ill?

Have you met our homeless? They are people who lived in nice suburban houses but only a paycheck away from disaster and then, an illness or a factory closing drives them onto the street to live with children in their cars.

They are the last, but they will be the first. You and I will be known in heaven by the way we treat the least of these.

Your bloated bureaucratic entitlement program is their lifeline to dignity and decency, but nevermind.

The American Dream, Pt. III

Got a dollar bill in your pocket? Take it out and look at it.

Is it a Baptist or a Catholic dollar bill?

It isn’t atheist, it seems; after all, it says we trust in God.

What’s the morality of a dollar bill? Of money?

Your dollar. Our dollar. You don’t really care about that particular dollar bill; you’d be just as happy with another one.

Your dollar bill. Ask yourself this question: Would this dollar be equally comfortable in the pocket of a priest as in the purse of a prostitute? Damn. Seems like the answer must be “yes”.

Myself, I always laugh when I hear someone described as a “Christian businessman”. I doubt that there is such a thing.

Christ wasn’t too keen on money. The only time he got really angry was with the bankers changing money in the Temple. When the lawyers asked him a snarky question about money, he told them to give the government what belongs to the government as long as you were careful to give God what is His. He ignored the popular hatred of taxes — maybe you remember him asking the taxman to come out of the tree. He also was pretty clear about our love of Polo shirts and DKNY dresses: in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, he tells us that the lillies of the field are well dressed and he’d take care of our clothes and not to worry about such things. He also said that we can’t love money and love God both at the same time. He tells us not to worry even about the most basic things, food, for example.

How can you be a Christian and a businessman since to be a businessman is to worry about nothing BUT money?

Even the 10 Commandments of the Old Testament makes it clear that it is a sin to want the things your neighbors have. Very different from the “keep up with the Joneses” culture of the good ole U.S. of A.

Historically, Americans knew this stuff up until the end of the 19th Century when we got the idea from the very rich that there was something called Social Darwinism. It’s the idea that God blesses some people with great wealth. Poppycock! It’s the last thing God would do. Besides, don’t you know good people who lose thier jobs, get sick and otherwise struggle to keep body and soul together? You know it isn’t true, but we act like it’s true. The Prayer of Jabez, indeed!

Your dollar bill has no more morality than the Godless, souless, bloodless, perpetual corporations that run your life.

Your unease about your spiritual life begins at the mall.

The love of money is the root of all evil.

The American Dream is not God’s dream, it comes from someplace entirely different.