January 22, 2014

Brace yourself for California's driest winter in 500 years: UC Berkeley professor

Yes, 2013 was the driest year in California since the 1840s, when recordkeeping started. But Lynn Ingram, a climate expert at the University of California, Berkeley, thinks this could be the Golden State's driest year in half a millennium.

"This could potentially be the driest water year in 500 years," said Ingram, a paleoclimatologist.

She studies fossilized records of earth's climate going back millions of years -- layers of rock or sediment, shells, microfossils -- or other indicators, including rings in trees, seeking a long view.

Based on the width of old tree rings, Ingram concludes California hasn't been this dry since 1580.

Ingram's perspective on climate, based on eons rather than months or years, leads her to some sobering conclusions. Droughts in the past -- during the Middle Ages, for example -- lasted decades or even a whole century.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2014/01/21/californias-driest-winter-in-500-years.html

January 22, 2014

Someone Sent a Mysterious Mass Text to Protesters in Kiev

As mass riots continued on the streets of Kiev, protesters, as well as other people in the area, received a mysterious text message on Monday evening.

"Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance," the message read, as first reported by The New York Times.

The text came from a number only identified as 111, but the Times suggests Ukrainian authorities were behind it. The country's Interior Ministry, however, denied sending the messages, as later reported by The Guardian. But regardless of who was responsible for the SMS messages, how did they do it? How did they pinpoint only certain cellphones in a specific area?

It turns out, something like this wouldn't be that hard to carry out.

"It is very easy to send messages out to everybody who was in one particular area, at one particular time," said Eva Galperin, an activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and an expert in surveillance technology.

http://mashable.com/2014/01/21/kiev-protesters-text-message/#:eyJzIjoidCIsImkiOiJfbjFpZThsbWIydmgwd244Z3kwdmUxM18ifQ

January 22, 2014

Davos roundup - "a constellation of egos involved in massive mutual orgies of adulation”

Welcome to Davos, where 2,250 of the globe’s richest people are solving its problems at the World Economic Forum. Some 500 company chairmen and chief executives, 23 heads of state, 72 cabinet ministers, 35 ambassadors, 172 academics and 26 religious leaders have made their way here....

Davos 2014: The Party People
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304049704579320541999927538?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304049704579320541999927538.html

Notable in Their Absence From Davos
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/01/20/notable-in-their-absence-from-davos/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Davos: Tuesday round-up
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/davos/10588324/Davos-Tuesday-round-up.html

Global elite descend on Davos to 'reshape world'
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/01/20/world-economic-forum-davos-2014-preview/4353053/

Davos Draws Social Media Scrutiny
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/davos-draws-social-media-scrutiny/

Davos: Re-shaping the world?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25836872

Davos: A High Old Time For CEOs - If They'll Let You In
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewcave/2014/01/21/davos-a-high-old-time-for-ceos-if-theyll-let-you-in/

January 22, 2014

Almost Everything Barack Obama’s Ever Said About Marijuana Over The Years

Barack Obama on Marijuana Decriminalization (2004)

2006: “I inhaled frequently…that was the point.”


2007: “My attitude is if the science and doctors suggest that the best palliative care, the best way to relief pain and suffering is through medical marijuana, then that’s something I’m open to…”


2007: “I would not have the Justice Department prosecuting and raiding medical marijuana users. It’s not a good use of our resources.”


2008: “When it comes to medical marijuana, I have more of a practical view than anything else….I think there are legitimate concerns in not wanting to allow people to grow their own or start setting up mom and pop shops…”


2009: “There was one question that was voted on that ranked fairly high and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and job creation….the answer is no…”


2011: “I am not in favor of legalization. I am a strong believer that we need to think more about drugs as a public health problem.”


2012: “It does not make sense from a prioritization point of view for us to focus on recreational drug users in a state that has already said that under state law that’s legal.”


2014: “I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.”

Via buzzfeed http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/barack-obama-weed

January 21, 2014

Patrick Kennedy on marijuana: ‘Destroys the brain and expedites psychosis’

For a generation of liberals, legalization of marijuana has become a harmless — if not inevitable — issue.

Not for Patrick Kennedy. The former Rhode Island congressman and scion of the famed Democratic dynasty has taken a surprising turn to the right in this debate.

“Marijuana destroys the brain and expedites psychosis,” he told us Tuesday. “It’s just overall a very dangerous drug.”

Kennedy’s public battles with alcohol and prescription drugs are well known. Was pot an issue for him? He’s used it but wouldn’t elaborate. Still, it’s all part of the same conversation for him: “In terms of neurobiology, there’s no distinction between the quality and types of drugs that people get addicted to. That’s why they call it a gateway drug. Addiction is addiction is addiction.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/reliable-source/post/patrick-kennedy-on-marijuana-destroys-the-brain-and-expedites-psychosis/2013/01/08/795a20ae-59e3-11e2-88d0-c4cf65c3ad15_blog.html

launched Project SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana) to shift the debate from legalization to prevention and treatment — despite what appears to be a growing social acceptance of the drug.

Former ONDCP Advisor Kevin Sabet is at it again.

I’ve warned readers before about the “kinder gentler drug war” ideas that Sabet has been peddling. Now with much fanfare and the bi-partisan additions of conservative David Frum and liberal Patrick Kennedy, Sabet has launched Project SAM, known as “Smart Approaches to Marijuana”.

This is Sabet’s latest attempt to paint criticism of War on Drugs, which is gaining traction with the voters, as a “false choice” between “lock ‘em up” and “legalize it”. It is his Goldilocks-and-the-Three-Bears triangulation of the War on Drugs as “too hard”, the legalization of marijuana as “too soft”, and the emphasis on treatment and prevention as “just right”.

It is, as Ethan Nadelmann of Drug Policy Alliance remarked, “a strategic retreat” in order to maintain the prohibition of marijuana. The racial arrest disparities, the denial of medicine to the truly ill, and the devastating consequences of a marijuana possession arrest are battles that he cannot win any more, so he cedes that territory, calling for an end to “stop and frisk”, restoration of civil rights for those who served marijuana sentences, and emergency approval of non-smoked marijuana medicines for the truly ill.

But Sabet’s SAM never addresses the root cause that leads to all of the devastating consequences in the first place: the arrest of a marijuana smoker for possession or use. Indeed, in SAM’s world, pot smokers would still be arrested, but the “kinder gentler drug war” would mandate rehab and supervised probation for those caught with weed. If you should choose not to go to rehab or you fail a pee test, well, then, the force of law still exists to throw you in a cage.

http://www.theweedblog.com/smart-approaches-to-marijuana-would-force-all-pot-smokers-into-prehab/

January 21, 2014

Patrick Kennedy....why so confused?

Patrick Kennedy to President Obama: Pot has changed
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/patrick-kennedy-president-obama-marijuana-102412.html

Patrick Kennedy Blasts Obama's Marijuana Claims
http://www.newsmax.com/US/Kennedy-marijuana-Obama-alcohol/2014/01/21/id/548090

Patrick Kennedy Disagrees To President Obama’s Belief Regarding Pot
http://www.counselheal.com/articles/8359/20140121/patrick-kennedy-disagrees-president-obama-s-belief-regarding-pot.htm

Obama's pot comments: The partisan reactions may surprise you
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Wire/2014/0121/Obama-s-pot-comments-The-partisan-reactions-may-surprise-you

Obama’s pot comments take hits from the right and left
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2014/01/21/obamas-pot-comments-take-hits-from-the-right-and-left/

Patrick Kennedy sounds like the worst kind of right wing panderer. What people will do for money...

Edit - Sorry all for insulting a scion of the Kennedy clan with my original title. The thought of him insulting the President and our collective intelligence as he promotes the failed Reagan Era status quo made me cranky.

January 20, 2014

HILLARY PLANS VISIT TO FLORIDA CAMPUS: SIGHTS SET ON 2016?

Hillary Clinton is planning to visit the perennial battleground state of Florida next month, prompting more speculation about her presidential ambitions in 2016.

The University of Miami announced Clinton will visit the campus on February 26, to address students, faculty and “invited guests” in the critical swing state.

Will there be any well-heeled Democratic donors among those “invited guests?” We wouldn’t bet against it.

Clinton’s connection to UM runs deeper than the mere fact that it happens to be in Florida. The university is led by Donna Shalala–a long-time personal friend of the Clintons who served as Secretary of Health and Human Services under Bill Clinton.

http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/15983/

January 20, 2014

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. - April 4, 1967 - Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence [Full Speech]

January 20, 2014

The Martin Luther King You Don't See on TV

It's become a TV ritual: Every year in mid-January, around the time of Martin Luther King's birthday, we get perfunctory network news reports about "the slain civil rights leader."

The remarkable thing about this annual review of King's life is that several years — his last years — are totally missing, as if flushed down a memory hole.

What TV viewers see is a closed loop of familiar file footage: King battling desegregation in Birmingham (1963); reciting his dream of racial harmony at the rally in Washington (1963); marching for voting rights in Selma, Alabama (1965); and finally, lying dead on the motel balcony in Memphis (1968).

An alert viewer might notice that the chronology jumps from 1965 to 1968. Yet King didn't take a sabbatical near the end of his life. In fact, he was speaking and organizing as diligently as ever.

Almost all of those speeches were filmed or taped. But they're not shown today on TV.

Why?

It's because national news media have never come to terms with what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for during his final years.

http://fair.org/media-beat-column/the-martin-luther-king-you-dont-see-on-tv/

January 20, 2014

Gates Once Tried to Ban Netanyahu From White House

The relationship between former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the government of Israel is a complicated one (as I reported in this post). But Gates's feelings about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu are simple -- and not flattering.

Gates’s new book, “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War,” is filled with extraordinary observations on a range of subjects (he has surprisingly strong and developed views about Bolivia), but I thought I would highlight his apparent loathing for Netanyahu, whom he first met when he was a deputy national security adviser to President George H.W. Bush and Netanyahu was Israel’s deputy foreign minister.

Gates writes that he found Netanyahu so offensive that he once tried to get him banned from the White House: “I was offended by his glibness and his criticism of U.S. policy -- not to mention his arrogance and outlandish ambition -- and I told national security adviser Brent Scowcroft that Bibi ought not be allowed back on White House grounds.”

Lest you think that Gates has hard feelings about other Israeli leaders, or Israel itself, I would note that he goes out of the way to express an emotional attachment to the Jewish state. In reference to a welcoming ceremony at the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, he writes that “seeing the Stars and Stripes and the Star of David flying together always moved me.” He also makes repeated mention of his close relationship with Ehud Barak, the former prime minister and former defense minister, and expresses obvious pride in the work he did at the Defense Department to strengthen Israel’s military.

(He writes that Netanyahu was ungrateful for the work the Barack Obama administration did on this front, and made Gates furious during a conversation about American arms sales to Saudi Arabia. According to Gates, Netanyahu asked him, “What about a counterbalancing investment in our military? How do we compensate on the Israeli side?” Gates goes on to write: “Exasperated, I shot back that no U.S. administration had done more, in concrete ways, for Israel’s strategic defense than Obama’s.”)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-13/gates-once-tried-to-ban-netanyahu-from-white-house.html