This is plain weird. Our drug laws are insane—and why do they even apply to industrial hemp, which is not a drug?

In 2000, Alex White Plume, a Lakota Sioux living on the reservation decided to grow industrial hemp as a means of making money for his family and creating housing on the reservation (by making “hempcrete”, a concrete product that is lighter and stronger than normal concrete and several other materials).  Keep in mind, this is industrial hemp, and not marijuana.  You cannot get high from it because it has no THC and it’s legal to possess the dried and processed form.  Growing hemp, however, is still illegal, and the Federal Government had other plans in store for Alex White Plume.

Right before the first harvest, on a fiery July morning in 2000, Alex and close toAlex White Plume 20 of his family members awoke early not to harvest the new hemp crop, but to see the FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency roll up in black SUVs with machine guns and flak jackets – to “weed whack” down and remove all of his Hemp crops.  What’s interesting in all of this was that no charges were filed.  In 2001, Alex White Plume attempted one more time to grow industrial hemp, and once again, his fields were cut down and he was served with an injunction.  Although he has taken the issue to court, with the full support of the Hemp Industry Association, the 9th Circuit Court of appeals recently ruled against him.

There has even been a small documentary produced by PBS about this outrageous and flagrant departure from international law—available here.

Continue reading.

How does he do it?

Good video.

This lion was reared by the guys in the vid. He was then released into the wild in Africa, but a year later the guys returned to see if he was doing OK.
Check out the look on the lion’s face as he realises-”That’s not food—it’s my MATES!!”

What’s mad is the wild lions he’s friends with have never met the humans but they are totally passive towards them.

I love this clip, and think it’s better than any amount of lion snuff vids that get posted about the place.

Watch it.

Whole Foods responded positively to my suggestion that should start carrying kona kampachi in the seafood section. This is yellowtail, sold in sushi bars as hamachi. It’s my favorite of all sushi, and I just polished off a fillet for lunch. (Today I think was the first day our Whole Foods had it, and I was there like a flash.) Now to get them to carry shizo leaf as well.

Like hamachi (yellowtail), Kona Kampachi^® is a premium fish worthy of the most discriminating sushi bar, but with even more rich, buttery flavor and a firmer texture. As delicious as it is raw, however, cooking is where Kona Kampachi^® really excels. Firm flesh and a high-fat content make it suitable for virtually any cooking method, from gentle steaming to high-heat searing, and its subtly rich, pure flavor complements a variety of different culinary styles, simple and straightforward or spicy and complex.

Small wonder that delicious Kona Kampachi^® is receiving significant attention from a growing number of chefs who have been experimenting with it in poke and sashimi, as well as other Hawaiian fish preparations. And what started in Hawaii is turning into a mainland menu phenomenon, as more chefs discover this deliciously succulent and versatile product which can be the centerpiece of a signature seafood preparation, raw or cooked.

• Sushi, Sashimi and Ceviche
• Searing
• Sauting
• Grilling and Broiling
• Roasting
• Braising
• Steaming and Poaching

Kona Kampachi^® is harvested only when it’s ordered to ensure the ultimate in freshness and is available on a year-round basis. For the trade, the fish can be processed to meet the requirements of our customers, and shipped in whole, gutted, H&G, or fillet product forms. We also sell Kona Kampachi^® directly to consumers through our website as whole fish or fillets.

I also picked up a nice winter melon for my mixed sauté. Those are always nice. Onions, too—I go through them quickly. But the highlight was definitely the Kona Kampachi^®.

Good. The bill seem overreaching. Here’s the story from ThinkProgress:

Yesterday, lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees asked a federal judge in San Francisco to invalidate the recently-passed FISA law that lets the Bush administration conduct warrantless surveillance on suspected terrorists without first getting court-approved warrants.

“We are asking your honor, as swiftly as possible, to declare this statute unconstitutional,” said Michael Avery, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights. … “Neither Congress nor the president has the power to repeal the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirements,” Avery said.

In CCR v. Bush, the Center is arguing that the government’s surveillance jeopardizes its ability to represent Gitmo clients. CCR reports that it has engaged in thousands of telephone calls and e-mails with people outside the United States in the course of its representation.

The Center writes, “Given that the government has accused many of CCR’s overseas clients of being associated with Al Qaeda or of being of interest to the 9/11 investigation, there is little question that these attorneys fall within the likely range of victims of the NSA Surveillance Program.” CCR Executive Director Vincent Warren said:

It is virtually certain that the NSA spied on our confidential communications with our clients as well as conversations with other American attorneys outside of the U.S. The president violated his oath of office to faithfully execute the laws of this nation and instead secretly broke the law for years to spy on Americans. He has taken an axe to the Constitution.

Anthony Coppolino, a special counsel to the Justice Department, refused to rebut the challenge to the new law. Copppolino offered this defense: “It’s possible that their clients were and it’s possible that their clients were not” spied on.

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker has not indicated when he will rule on the case.

Good news, for both liberals and conservatives, I believe—all citizens want to know what the government’s up to and are suspicious when encountering a lot of government secrecy.

After overcoming a hold placed by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), the Senate unanimously passed the OPEN Government Act last week, which would expedite government agency responsiveness to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) hoped that the legislation would boost transparency in an administration characterized by stonewalling:

As the first major reform to FOIA in more than a decade, the OPEN Government Act will help to reverse the troubling trends of excessive delays and lax FOIA compliance in our government and help to restore the public’s trust in their government.

A new analysis from the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government documents the extent of the administration’s secrecy. The report notes “current government handling of FOIA requests is deteriorating” across the government agencies. Some highlights:

- Two of every five FOIA requests filed in 2006 were not processed.

- Number of exemptions cited to support the withholding of information has increased 83% since 1998.

- The number of FOIA denials increased 10% in 2006.

- Cost of processing FOIA requests is up 40 percent since 1998, even though agencies are processing 20 percent fewer requests.

- “Most people are waiting longer” for FOIA information.

Additionally, the report notes that the DOJ is “consistently granted the lowest percentage of [FOIA] appeals of any agency — only 4% in 2006.” The DOJ’s “rate of grant-making is down 70%” than that of President Clinton.

The administration’s refusal to comply with FOIA requests is particularly relevant to current investigations into major scandals. The Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has used FOIA to gather information related to the administration’s e-mail destruction in the attorney scandal. Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff recently used a FOIA request to expose that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales “has never addressed Dick Cheney’s failure to comply with the executive order on classified information.”

The report adds: “There has been a clear shift toward less disclosure by the current administration. When agencies did get around to responding, they were increasingly stingy.” In contrast, the “OPEN Government Act will help ensure that these important values [of transparency] remain a cornerstone of our American democracy,” said Leahy.

A fellow shaver just passed along this tip: use www.gettextbooks.com to find the best price on used textbooks. It searches multiple sites, ranks hits by price. Useful.

I think, as a bipartisan matter, that both liberals and conservatives condemn torture, both as punishment and as an interrogation technique. If not, then certainly both condemn the torture of innocent people. In some cases, of course, the two have different views of what constitutes torture. Several conservatives—including Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly—have gone on record as saying that the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib (many of which were innocent of any wrongdoing, being simply caught in security sweeps) was exactly equivalent to the collegiate hijinks of fraternity hazing. I don’t agree, and I think most of these conservatives would not agree if the person undergoing the treatment were a spouses or offspring or, ideally, themselves.

President Bush has gone on the record that the US does not torture, but has repeatedly refused to say what he means by that.

Glenn Greenwald has a post on this issue that is worth reading:

Read the rest of this entry »

Making lather is SO easy, once you know how. I guess that’s true of many things. The problem is getting from not-knowing to knowing: the perennial problem tackled by teachers (aka “professional ignorance fighters”). I tend to describe things in words, but obviously watching someone actually doing the task is much more informative. So, heeeeeeeeeeeere’s Mantic!

Note that this video is just one of a series (link is to Mantic’s blog—you can subscribe to the series here).

This position is for advanced nappers only. Work up to it gradually, and do not strain. May cause occasional snoring. (Kitty snores are very cute.)

I wanted to compare the Scott Meyer brush (quite soft and flexible) with another brush in roughly the same category: the Vulfix 2235 that I have. So I used it this morning, with Geo. F. Trumper Rose soap. Terrific lather, and I have to say that the Vulfix has considerably more resilience in the brush than the Scott Meyer. In comparison, one would inevitably have to toy with the word “floppy” for the Meyer brush, though—as I said yesterday—it works up a fine lather.

Again I see that badger brush preference is based not on how easily lather is generated or how much lather capacity the brush has, but simply on individual taste in how the brush feels: large knot or small, stiff brush or soft, dense brush or not so dense, short loft or long—all are matters of taste.

With that fine lather, I picked up the Gillette British Aristocrat #66, already loaded with a Wilkinson blade that had a shave or two or three on it already, and got a beautiful shave. Very gratifying.

Alum block and then Acqua di Rose (scroll down) by Manetti & Roberts as an aftershave:

Created with the pure essence of the Centiflora rose and distilled in spring water. Used for toning skin during or after bathing. Perfect as a soothing aftershave. Obtained after triple distillation, this is pure rosewater in the Florentine tradition.