The Avalanches – Frontier Psychiatrist

… they keep going and going and going… and going…and

Said it is an ad for Duracell in Germany. Don’t ya just LOVE progressive cultures!

…yep, it’s alive in the south…

There are times I ask myself, How the hell did you get here???!!!
These photos are ones I took a few minutes after a ‘Gathering” of Rebel Flags
[dragging on the ground behind their trucks] started in front
of the Church across the road. [don't get me started on that particular church.]
I left and went to town before it got so big I didn’t think I could stand it!
Now– some of you may have heard [read] me making light of my ‘neighbors across the creek’–
Know this: THESE lovely people in the photos with enlightened minds [choke] are their friends… and they [the neighbors] deal drugs. The County police aka good ole’ boys are
‘lookin’ into it and a watchin’ them’. [this is true...it’s just that their doing it in a lame way!]
All of the local folks are totally aware that I am “The Yankee lady… the damned socialist-commie democrat”.
Anyway– yes, racism and bigotry are alive in the south. And both those states of mind breed ignorance. Ignorance is nothing that can be debated or argued with– And things on my little spot in the world are very much the opposite from where I grew up. Our Nations Capitol. .. and admittedly, yes, there are times when I am afraid.

Miracle Once-A-Year Medication For Menstruation

Annuale

Once A Year. Period.

Trent Lott: The Doo Doo Is Getting Deeper (I hope you drown in it)

B’Man: I have written about this crook for quite some time (here, here, here and here) and have an obvious opinion about him. ThinkProgress has a post up in which recent testimony shows he has been intimidating witnesses with his Senatorial position (not that this is uncommon, just that here is another example of Mississippians being proved how they have been duped for so long).

Lawyer: Lott ‘Initiated Contact With People Surrounding’ Insurance Fraud Lawsuit

During a deposition last week, Jim Robie, an attorney for State Farm Insurance, alleged that former Mississippi senator Trent Lott had “urged witnesses to give false information in a Hurricane Katrina lawsuit.” Questioning Lott’s nephew, Zach Scruggs, Robie asked if it had been his “custom” to have Lott “contact and encourage witnesses to give false information.” Scruggs refused to answer, invoking the Fifth Amendment.

In an interview with LegalNewsline, Robie said Lott had “initiated contact with people surrounding” the case involving alleged efforts to “defraud” State Farm:

“Clearly, the record couldn’t be more plain that Sen. Lott and his associates were talking to people that were key advisers to Mr. Scruggs, paid consultants and those who were creating an illusion that simply doesn’t have any basic fact,” Robie told Legal Newsline on Thursday. […]

Robie said Lott, a leading Republican, initiated contact with people surrounding this case, something unprecedented for a U.S. Senator.

“Have you ever had a U.S. Senator call you?” he asked rhetorically.

A spokesman for Lott’s lobbying firm told Legal Newsline that “the former senator had no interest in justifying the implication with a response.”

Lott has previously been reported to have used his position in the Senate to put pressure on State Farm. In May, the New Yorker reported:

Charles Chamness, the C.E.O. of a national insurance trade association, has claimed that Lott had threatened him, in a telephone call, with “bringing down State Farm and the industry.” Lott also co-sponsored a proposal to strip the insurance industry of an antitrust exemption that had been in place since the nineteen-forties.

Robie says “he will continue his efforts to depose both Richard and Zach Scruggs, during which he will probe the influence of Lott.”

B’Man: Fellow Mississippi Rednecks, do you believe that Thad Cochran, Roger Wicker, Haley Barbour or any of the other corrupt Mississippi reTHUGlicans are any better than this scumbag?

Knowing who is who!!

New offensive begins in Iraq

 

What exactly does al-Qaida look like? When they crash into someones home, do they know the difference?? really??

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/jul/30/new-offensive-begins-in-iraq/

BAGHDAD – U.S.-backed Iraqi troops sealed off Baqouba and staged house-to-house searches Tuesday as they began a new offensive in Diyala province in the latest bid to clear al-Qaida in Iraq from its last major belt near the capital.

Iraqi security forces hope to build on recent security successes elsewhere in a new test of the country’s readiness to take over its own security and enable American troops to withdraw eventually.

The U.S. military said the improved abilities of the Iraqi troops have enabled the Americans to play a less high-profile role in operations, helping to lower the number of U.S. casualties so far this year.

Only nine American troop deaths have been recorded in Iraq in July with only two days left, according to an Associated Press tally based on military figures. The July figures also include the recovery of the bodies of two U.S. soldiers, kidnapped last year, raising the official monthly toll to 11 as of Tuesday.

So far, the lowest monthly death toll for American troops in Iraq was 19 in May. From January to July 2007, there were 655 U.S. military deaths. This year, there have been 219 deaths until now.

Winkler Gets Children Back– Justice?

Winkler Gets Children back— Justice??

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WHBQ FOX13 myfoxmemphis.com) –
FOX13 has learned that Mary Winkler has gotten her three daughters back. Winkler picked up her children Friday afternoon. The girls had been living with their paternal grandparents since Winkler killed her husband Matthew in 2006. Now it appears the bitter custody battle is coming to a close.

As soon as Winkler’s criminal trial ended, the custody battle began. But Friday, in an unexpected turn of events, she regained physical custody of her three children.

A source told FOX13 that Winkler picked the girls up Friday afternoon and brought them to her new home in McMinnville, Tennessee. She will soon enroll them in local schools.

“I don’t think anyone will ever understand fully or appreciate how she has felt while being separated from her children, one of which was one year old at the time,” said Rachel Putnam, the attorney handling Winkler’s custody case in a 2007 interview..

Winkler lost custody in 2006 when she was charged with the murder of her preacher husband Matthew Winkler.

Winkler was convicted of manslaughter in 2007 and has been fighting for custody of her children since her release from a mental facility.

Matthew’s parents, Dan and Diane Winkler, have had custody of the girls since 2006 and have been trying to adopt them.

“These young ladies have not expressed any desire to be with their mother or her family,” said Dan Winkler in 2007.

The Winkler’s filed appeals in an effort to stop Mary Winkler from having supervised visits and phone calls with her daughter.

But now, a source said they have turned over custody to the girls’ mother.

This is being called the first step to full custody, although no official court order has been filed.

It’s unclear why the Winkler’s suddenly turned over custody of the girls.

Attorneys for both Mary Winkler and the girls’ grandparents refused to comment.

And the debate goes on– who is culpable or not

Shooting raises question: It is safe to be a liberal

By Jack Lail (Contact)
Knoxville-News Sentinel August 2, 2008

National, and even international, coverage of the shootings at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church turned late this week into a discussion into whether it’s safe in America to be a liberal. “One of the biggest contemporary ironies is that being liberal in the United States of America, home of history’s greatest democracy, has become dangerous. That danger is particularly acute for religious liberals, as the recent tragedy in Knoxville demonstrated,” Bill Maxwell wrote in the St. Petersburg Times. Ian Williams, writing in The Guardian in London, said “Jim Adkisson, a Tennessee aficionado of conservative talkshows, took their hosts’ invective all too literally and shot up a ‘liberal’ Unitarian Universalist congregation, killing two and wounding six congregants watching a children’s musical. Caught up in a world of conservative talk radio, he reportedly expected to be able to carry on shooting unimpeded by the spineless, gay-loving pacifists, and was surprised when they tackled him and brought him down.” The Miami Herald’s Leonard Pitts: “No, conservatives did not cause this bloodbath. Jim Adkisson allegedly did. But in telling him ‘liberals’ were the source of his every disaffection and woe, conservatives certainly validated the hatred and madness that drove him. “It would be a fitting tribute to those who were lost in Knoxville if this tragedy gave the authors of the ongoing morality play cause for pause — and reflection. Or is accountability yet another lost conservative value?” For some posting videos on YouTube, the tragedy is much more personal. Here’s some links to recent coverage elsewhere of the shooting coverage at the TVUUC church and its aftermath, including blogs and YouTube videos:

bekabug on YouTube: TVUUC

TrueRedAngel on YouTube: In Memory: Greg McKendry

NathansPlanet on YouTube: The UU Church Shooting: My Thoughts

cozmikzen on YouTube: Knoxville Church Shooting

TheModernAgnostic on YouTube: Unitarian Church Shooting – The Wider Context

SSanf on YouTube: Deepest Sympathy to the Congregation of the TVUUC

omgCoreyLynxx on YouTube: Conservative Terrorist attack in Knoxville Tennessee

Crooks and Liars: Unitarian Forgiveness

HuffingtonPost: Unitarian Church Shooting is Terrorism

Popular Progressive: Unitarian Universalist Like Me

Jellybean’s Head: Attack in Unitarian Church

scraps book: I am a Unitarian Universalist

uuworld.org: Blogs respond to the Knoxville tragedy

Sid’s View: Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church Shooting

My Private Casbah: Hate Crime at Unitarian Universalist Church

Albany (NY) Times Union: Hate Crime against Unitarian Universalists in Knoxville

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: After rupture of “things of the spirit” comes healing

The Guardian (London): What Rush Limbaugh wrought

St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times: The dangers of being religious and liberal

HuffingtonPost: A School Shooting in a Unitarian Church?

Washington Post: Unitarians Keep the Faith After Attack in Church

uuworld.org: ‘I’ve never been so proud to be a Knoxvillean’

uuworld.org: Knoxville stands with grieving UUs after shootings

Associated Press: Shooting victim reflects on church rampage

Worcester (Mass.) Telegram & Gazette : Pastor touched by compassion of Knoxville

San Mateo County (Calif.) Times: Churches trying to cope and find ways to prevent violence

WSFA, Montgomery Ala.: Do churches need heightened security?

(KSFX/OzarksFirst.com – Springfield Mo.: Local church reassessing security after shooting

Anniston (Ala.) Star: Hate speech on display: Lesson we must learn

Miami Herald: The liberals made him do it

Falls Church News-Press (Va.): Anything but straight: Messages that lead to murder

 Response to the above article by Sam Venable [editorial]

“..Write this down in bold letters.

Michael Savage, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly WERE NOT in Knoxville on Sunday morning and DID NOT pull the trigger during a shooting spree at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. According to police, this despicable act was committed by one person: Jim David Adkisson, 58, of Powell. He is charged with murder and faces a preliminary hearing next week. Immediately after the rampage, which resulted in two deaths and eight injuries, authorities found a note in Adkisson’s car. Over the course of four pages, authorities said, he railed against “the liberal movement.” Some hours later, in preparation of a search warrant for Adkisson’s home, Knoxville Police Department Investigator Steve Still wrote that Adkisson blamed the church’s “liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they are ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country’s hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of major media outlets.” Furthermore, Still wrote “that because (Adkisson) could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement, he would then target those who had voted them into office.” During their search, officers found brass knuckles, a .38-caliber pistol and three right-wing political books: “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder” by radio personality Michael Savage; “Let Freedom Ring” by political commentator Sean Hannity; and “The O’Reilly Factor” by TV commentator Bill O’Reilly. Does this mean Savage, Hannity and O’Reilly are criminally culpable? Not for a nanosecond. Go back and reread the second paragraph. Yet do they bear blame in an indirect way? That’s where the discussion gets interesting. Consider: Police say Adkisson drove to the church in a 2004 Ford Escape and wreaked his havoc with a Model 48 Remington shotgun. Does this implicate Ford and Remington? Again, not for a nanosecond. Neither the Ford Motor Co. nor the Remington Arms Co. designed, produced, promoted or advocated these products as tools for human destruction. But with their ceaseless, demonizing rants against anyone with whom they disagree (translation: liberals, Democrats, et al), venom-spitting commentators like Savage face the very real potential of having their words transformed into someone else’s actions. Should they be banned from the airwaves? One more time: not for a nanosecond. The First Amendment addresses this issue loudly, clearly, majestically. Yet there are matters of responsibility and cause-and-effect here. And they beg to be addressed. If the far right wants to blame violent video games for their criminal influence on unstable teenagers, it must bear the same burden for turning an unstable adult ideologue into a cold-blooded killer. You don’t have to specifically yell “Fire!” inside a crowded theater to cause a stampede…”

Richard Noggin’ Saturday: Don Rumsfeld and the Reagan Administration

BrassCheckTV sent out a series of three videos that delve into the Anthrax issue going on and the guy who “committed suicide” (how convenient for the government). I recommend everyone looking into this issue for themselves, for I smell a rat.

Nevertheless, the last video in the series caught my attention, not because of the Anthrax and other chemical agents that have been killing our Gulf War vets, but because it has a great historical perspective of how it was us, America, that armed Saddam Hussein in the first place. When you see the inter-connectedness of all the guilty parties, this all begins to make some sense (altho I do not like the ultimate purpose in it all and the travesty it has wrought on our country and the world).

Barney Frank and MPP Discuss Legislation to Remove Federal Marijuana Penalties

Barney Frank and MPP Discuss Legislation to Remove Federal Marijuana Penalties

“We haven’t even made a push for co-sponsors yet, but members of Congress keep coming forward to attach their names to the bill…“

On July 30, 2008, MPP’s Rob Kampia joined Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) to discuss the benefits of HR5843, the “Personal Use of Marijuana By Responsible Adults Act.”  If you’d like to encourage your legislator to support this bill, visit http://www.mpp.org/federal-action/.

Music is courtesy of His Boy Elroy.

MPP-TV Profiles in Marijuana Reform: Milton Friedman, Ph.d.

Think what you may about Dr Friedman (I believe he is one of the main reasons we have the failure “Free Trade” that we have today) but on this subject, he couldn’t be more correct:

MPP (Marijuana Policy Project) has the second half of this conversation exclusively posted at the website. Please visit and see how many people who are questioning the antiquated system of failure (the drug war) are speaking out.

Second Part of Friedman Interview

This country has become so determined to squash marijuana that it has deluded itself with lies about the drup, its users and the truth of its health benefits for those who need it.

The fact is that there are far more partakers than will admit. If you hear a number quoted, I quarantee you that number is low. This is for a couple of key reasons: its illegality and the stigma that is attributed to it. Of course, when in church, the message was always something about hell for those who did it. In business, people screen for traces of a substance that stays in the system so long that there is no way to prove if the person is on the effects or just a risidual test. In either case they are fired.

I can rememeber when I was about 9 years old, my dad was best friends with a very prominat attorney in Tupelo, MS. We were visiting him and all went to the store to grab some steaks for the grill. I always loved this guy (he had, maybe still has, a 56 or so Thunderbird that was given to him by Elvis Presley… they were very good friends) because he was always so cool.

Anyway, he smoked a pipe and as we were getting out of the vehicle and walking in to the grocery store he fired it up. As we were walking through the store I knew what the smell was (even at 9… another weird, long story) and so did my dad. he grabbed him by the arm and asked wtf he was doing. Apparently, he grabbed the wrong pipe. This was the early 70’s, so he said f*ck it and kept her going. To this day, I admire him for that for some reason.

I personally know many older adults who occasionally partake in a social setting. I just met a guy last week who is over 70 who tells me he partakes every day and has for over 40 years (he is in excellent health, btw). I have had a few doctors admit their usage and know some that wish despreately that they could prescribe it to their patients. (I have a brother who hangs in that crowd and I get a chance to party with them when I’m down that way)

But to many people ‘outside’ or as we used to say, “uncool”, there is a nasty image. If they only knew.

Hence the issue I am getting at. With alcohol prohibition (that failed so miserably) there was over 50% of the citizenry that opposed it and spoke up. With only 10 or 15% or Americans who claim to participate speaking up, there is no real reason for America to turn back the stupidity of the prohibition.

Look at the savings in money, in lives, in productivity.

Look at the help to those who need it health-wise. Look at the many consumible products that can be made from it (including bio-fuels).

We could make this entire country a much bettre place if this idiotic brainwashing were to be undone.

ATTENTION Couch Potatoes!

http://www.postchronicle.com/news/health/article_212161584.shtml 

http://search.msn.com/news/results.aspx?q=Exercise+pill&FORM=MSHHPM

 

 Scientists in California said they’ve found a way to offer the benefits of exercise in a pill.  The pill, which targets two signaling pathways that are activated in response to exercise, turned laboratory mice into long-distance runners and conferred many of the health benefits of exercise, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies said Thursday. The research, led by Ronald M. Evans of the Salk Institute’s Gene Expression Laboratory, is published in the journal Cell.

 

NEW YORK (AP) — Here’s a couch potato’s dream: What if a drug could help you gain some of the benefits of exercise without working up a sweat? Scientists reported Thursday that there is such a drug — if you happen to be a mouse. Sedentary mice that took the drug for four weeks burned more calories and had less fat than untreated mice. And when tested on a treadmill, they could run about 44 percent farther and 23 percent longer than untreated mice. Just how well those results might translate to people is an open question. But, researchers say, such a drug might help treat obesity, diabetes and people with medical conditions that keep them from exercising.  “We have exercise in a pill,” said Ron Evans, an author of the study. “With no exercise, you can take a drug and chemically mimic it.” Evans, of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, reports the work with colleagues in a paper published online Thursday by the journal Cell– They also report that in mice that did exercise training, a second drug made their workout much more effective at boosting endurance. After a month of taking that drug and exercising, mice could run 68 percent longer and 70 percent farther than other mice that exercised but didn’t get the drug. Both drugs have been studied by researchers for other uses. The no-exercise drug is in late-stage human testing by Kenilworth, New Jersey-based Schering-Plough Corp. to see whether it can prevent a complication of heart bypass surgery. Evans noted that the drugs might prove irresistible for professional athletes who seek an illegal edge. He said his team has developed detection tests for use by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Evans said he has no financial interest in either drug or the test. Resveratrol, a substance being studied for anti-aging effects, has also been reported to enable mice to run farther before exhaustion without exercise training. But the drugs in the new study appear to act more specifically on a process in muscles that boosts endurance, the researchers said. Still, it takes more than just altered muscles to turn a sedentary mouse into a distance runner, Evans said, and “honestly, I just don’t know how that happens. Whether it would happen in a person, I don’t know. I think it’s a small miracle it happened at all.” In fact, Evans said that when the experiment with sedentary mice was suggested by an outside scientist who was reviewing the lab’s research, “I didn’t think it was going to work.” The no-exercise drug is called AICAR. Previous experiments suggest that it might protect against gaining weight on a high-fat diet, which might make it useful for treating obesity, Evans said. But it would have to be taken for a long time, he said, so its safety in people would have to be assured. Experts who study muscle agreed that a drug like AICAR may prove useful someday in treating obesity and diabetes. Many drug companies are working on such drugs in diabetes because in animals, AICAR stimulates muscles to remove sugar from the blood, noted Laurie Goodyear of the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston. People who can’t exercise because of a medical condition like joint pain or heart failure might also benefit from such a drug, experts said. But Eric Hoffman of the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington noted that AICAR mimics only aerobic exercise, not the strength training that might be more useful to bedridden people or the elderly, for example. He also cautioned that it’s not clear whether the new mouse results can be reproduced in people. Goodyear said exercise has such widespread benefits in the body that she doubts any one pill will ever be able to supply all of them. “For the majority of people,” she said, “it would be better to do exercise than to take a pill.”