End the War on Freedom

John de Rosier at the Albany (NY) Times Union - Spineless - (my title) Cartoon commentary on the decision of CBS to pull their 'Reagans' mini-series. Hahahahaha.

Steve Kubby at Sierra Times - New Study Explains How Pot Kills Cancer Cells - Mr. Kubby is living proof of the results of this study, but it's always nice to have some "official" science to back up that individual experience. Not that it will make any difference to the prohibitionists, since hemp prohibition has nothing whatsoever to do with the effect of imbibing it. Follow the money... [sierra]

A new study published in Nature Reviews-Cancer [310K PDF] provides an historic and detailed explanation about how THC and natural cannabinoids counteract cancer, but preserve normal cells.

The study by Manuel Guzmán of Madrid Spain found that cannabinoids, the active components of marijuana, inhibit tumor growth in laboratory animals. They do so by modulating key cell-signalling pathways, thereby inducing direct growth arrest and death of tumor cells, as well as by inhibiting the growth of blood vessels that supply the tumor.

The Guzman study is very important according to Dr. Ethan Russo, a neurologist and world authority on medical cannabis: "Cancer occurs because cells become immortalized; they fail to heed normal signals to turn off growth. A normal function of remodelling in the body requires that cells die on cue. This is called apoptosis, or programmed cell death. That process fails to work in tumors. THC promotes its reappearance so that gliomas, leukemias, melanomas and other cell types will in fact heed the signals, stop dividing, and die."

"But, that is not all," explains Dr. Russo: "The other way that tumors grow is by ensuring that they are nourished: they send out signals to promote angiogenesis, the growth of new blood vessels. Cannabinoids turn off these signals as well. It is truly incredible, and elegant."

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Usually, any story that even suggests the possibility of a new treatment for cancer is greeted with headlines about a "cancer cure" - however remote in the future and improbable in fact it might be. But if marijuana is involved, don't expect any coverage from mainstream media, especially since mainstream editors have been quietly killing this story for the past thirty years.

That's right, news about the abilility of pot to shrink tumors first surfaced, way back in 1974. Researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institutes of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice -- lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia.

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Millions of people have died horrible deaths and in many cases, familes exhausted their savings on dangerous, toxic and expensive drugs. Now we are just beginning to realize that while marijuana has never killed anyone, marijuana prohibition has killed millions.

Joseph Cara at The Albany (NY) Times Union - Maybe the conservatives have lost their values - a well-deserved kick in the pants of self-styled "conservatives".

Do we really believe that we can stop terrorism when the British for more than 30 years could not stop IRA terrorists, and the Israelis, despite missiles and stop points, cannot stop suicide bombers? The question is, did you conservatives just lose your values or are you just a bunch of hypocrites?

Mike Lawless at Sierra Times - Rights To Nome project enlists Caravan Connection - Mr. Lawless intends to carry copies of the Bill of Rights in his dog sled in this week's Iditarod race across Alaska. He will stop at numerous schools along the way to deliver them. [sierra]

By envisioning a recapture of the "spirit of '76," Mike Lawless is the new Paul Revere, riding one thousand miles through Alaskan wilderness to alert his fellow citizens of approaching danger.

Henrietta Bowman at Sierra Times - "By way of deception, thou shalt do war" - the source of yesterday's Fox News story, American Muslims Told to Leave Major U.S. Cities, is apparently filled with Neocon's. They very likely invented the story to support their war on Iraq. Don't panic. And always bring a towel. [sierra]

Judging from the e-mails he receives from MEMRI, Whitaker concluded that "the stories selected by Memri for translation follow a familiar pattern: either they reflect badly on the character of Arabs or they in some way further the political agenda of Israel. I am not alone in this unease."

To put it bluntly, MEMRI is a propaganda organ of NeoCon Likudniks and probably of Israeli intelligence operatives. Let the reader beware!

John Ross - Understanding Women & "The Rules" For Men, or Think of it Like Driving in England - More advice for we clueless men who don't understand women.

1. Women process (and act on) information completely differently than men. Never forget this. Stop thinking of women as screwed-up men and start realizing that their minds were built from an entirely different blueprint.

Just as a hawk can discern details at distances that a man needs a ten-power scope to see, a woman is many times more capable than a man at reading the emotions of other women. (Women may be equally capable at reading men's emotions, but have never seen a need to.) Walk into a large party with a woman. You, the man, will see a bunch of people in a room, talking in groups of two to five. You'll see where the food and bar is, and notice any exceptionally attractive women in the room. That's it. Your companion, however, will be able to tell you which woman is angry, which one is lonely, which is happy, which is upset, which ones feel self-conscious, which ones are jealous, and (probably) which ones are having affairs and with which men. Your female companion will be able to accurately tell you these things within ten seconds of entering the room.

Larry Miller at The Weekly Standard - Whosoever Blesses Them: The intifada and its defenders - Mr. Miller shouts back at a TV interview (imaginary?) taking a Hamas representative seriously. In case you've forgotten, I'm not on either side in the Arab/Jew hating contest. I don't understand why these people are still fighting each other. But I find Mr. Miller's prose entertaining. [smith2004]

Oddly enough, out of the three of them, the homunculus from Hamas didn't bother me at all. I mean, if you think about it, why should he bother any American? We know exactly who he is and, in a way, we should be grateful for that. Because if we're only willing to absorb their own words--nevermind their demonic deeds--he and his brethren have a perfectly uncomplicated point of view and agenda, and their clarity should give us our own clarity, and wouldn't that be refreshing? You want us dead? Well, now, isn't that a funny coincidence. Guess what we want?

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The Palestinians want their own country. There's just one thing about that: There are no Palestinians. It's a made up word. Israel was called Palestine for two thousand years. Like "Wiccan," "Palestinian" sounds ancient but is really a modern invention. Before the Israelis won the land in war, Gaza was owned by Egypt, and there were no "Palestinians" then, and the West Bank was owned by Jordan, and there were no "Palestinians" then. As soon as the Jews took over and started growing oranges as big as basketballs, what do you know, say hello to the "Palestinians," weeping for their deep bond with their lost "land" and "nation." So for the sake of honesty, let's not use the word "Palestinian" any more to describe these delightful folks, who dance for joy at our deaths until someone points out they're being taped. Instead, let's call them what they are: "Other Arabs From The Same General Area Who Are In Deep Denial About Never Being Able To Accomplish Anything In Life And Would Rather Wrap Themselves In The Seductive Melodrama Of Eternal Struggle And Death." I know that's a bit unwieldy to expect to see on CNN. How about this, then: "Adjacent Jew-Haters."

Okay, so the Adjacent Jew-Haters want their own country. Oops, just one more thing. No, they don't. They could've had their own country any time in the last thirty years, especially two years ago at Camp David. But if you have your own country, you have to have traffic lights and garbage trucks and Chambers of Commerce, and, worse, you actually have to figure out some way to make a living. That's no fun. No, they want what all the other Jew-Haters in the region want: Israel. They also want a big pile of dead Jews, of course--that's where the real fun is--but mostly they want Israel. Why? For one thing, trying to destroy Israel--or "The Zionist Entity" as their textbooks call it--for the last fifty years has allowed the rulers of Arab countries to divert the attention of their own people away from the fact that they're the blue-ribbon most illiterate, poorest, and tribally backward on God's Earth, and if you've ever been around God's Earth, you know that's really saying something. It makes me roll my eyes every time one of our pundits waxes poetic about the great history and culture of the Muslim Mideast. Unless I'm missing something, the Arabs haven't given anything to the world since Algebra, and, by the way, thanks a hell of a lot for that one.

Chew this around and spit it out: Five hundred million Arabs; five million Jews. Think of all the Arab countries as a football field, and Israel as a pack of matches sitting in the middle of it. And now these same folks swear that if Israel gives them half of that pack of matches, everyone will be pals. Really? Wow, what neat news. Hey, but what about the string of wars to obliterate the tiny country and the constant din of rabid blood oaths to drive every Jew into the sea? Oh, that? We were just kidding.

My friend Kevin Rooney made a gorgeous point the other day: Just reverse the numbers. Imagine five hundred million Jews and five million Arabs. I was stunned at the simple brilliance of it. Can anyone picture the Jews strapping belts of razor blades and dynamite to themselves? Of course not. Or marshalling every fiber and force at their disposal for generations to drive a tiny Arab state into the sea? Nonsense. Or dancing for joy at the murder of innocents? Impossible. Or spreading and believing horrible lies about the Arabs baking their bread with the blood of children? Disgusting. No, as you know, left to themselves in a world of peace, the worst Jews would ever do to people is debate them to death.

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