1step
1step's JournalColorado AG: Home hash oil production is illegal
Source: AP
By SADIE GURMAN
Dec. 30, 2014 8:29 PM EST
DENVER (AP) — Marijuana may be legal in Colorado, but extracting the drug's high-potency oil at home is not, the state's attorney general said Tuesday, fueling a debate about how to punish hash-oil producers who have caused a rise in fiery explosions this year. John Suthers said the dangerous process of creating marijuana's intoxicating oil in crude, home-based laboratories is not covered under the measure known as Amendment 64, which was approved by voters in 2012 and allows recreational marijuana for adults over 21.
"Colorado is experiencing a real public safety issue as a result of unsafe and unlicensed manufacturing and production," Suthers said in a statement. Hash oil is typically made by packing the castoff leaves and stems of pot plants into a pipe and pouring highly flammable butane through it. The concoction is heated to make the potent oil for far cheaper than it can be bought in stores.
Devotees say one or two drops of the golden mixture can produce a more euphoric high than an entire joint, and it can be baked into food or vaporized. But without proper ventilation, butane fumes can linger. Just a spark of static electricity can ignite a room.
Suthers said the state's pot law allows for "reasonable and safe use of marijuana, so to decriminalize dangerous and unreasonable behavior in which people are getting hurt and houses are blowing up defies the intent of the voters."
He filed a court brief in response to a western Colorado man's contention that Mesa County prosecutors improperly charged him with crimes for manufacturing hash oil after an explosion injured him and damaged his home. An attorney for Eugene Christenson argued in a court filing that hash oil production is legal under a portion of the new law allowing the processing of marijuana plants. Court records show Christenson was also charged with arson and reckless endangerment.
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/09e197b4afbc493cab7ab14f5da289eb/colorado-ag-home-hash-oil-production-illegal
Edit: It appears that I was insufficiently clear in my original comment; the "bummer" is catching your ass on fire, man!
Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny arrested hours after sentencing
Source: CNN
By Laura Smith-Spark, Matthew Chance and Alla Eshchenko, CNN
updated 3:01 PM EST, Tue December 30, 2014
Moscow (CNN) -- Just hours after he was found guilty of fraud in a politically charged trial and given a suspended sentence, blogger and Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny was detained after he broke house arrest and went to join a protest against the court's verdict.
He didn't try to hide what he was doing: He tweeted a picture of himself on the Moscow metro as he headed to the demonstration. "Under house arrest, yes, but today I very much want to be with you. That is why I am also going," said the caption on the photo.
News agency Interfax reported that Navalny was detained by police and was returned to his home, instead of being taken to jail. He was on house arrest for a conviction in a 2009 case.
Earlier, Navalny was in court, where he got a three-and-a-half year suspended sentence for the fraud conviction, while his brother, Oleg, also convicted of fraud, was given a prison term of the same length.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/30/world/europe/russia-alexei-navalny-case/
There's a video accompanying the story, but it was clearly recorded before these latest events.
Who's Afraid of Alexei Navalny?
Josdua Keating, writing in Slate...
Vladimir Putin’s government, often praised by both its defenders and its enemies for its toughness and decisiveness, rarely seems more vexed and uncertain than when dealing with opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Earlier today, in a surprising move, a Moscow court suspended Navalny’s three-and-a-half year sentence on fraud charges that were widely seen as a laughably trumped-up pretext to punish him for his outspoken opposition to the Russian government. This isn’t the first time Navalny had gotten off with a warning: In July 2013, he was freed on bail after receiving a five-year sentence for embezzlement that prompted massive street protests by his supporters in Moscow. This time, however, the court didn’t just let Navalny go; it jailed his brother Oleg, a former postal worker, instead. Not only is the Russian criminal justice system blatantly being used to punish the Kremlin’s critics. Courts are now now apparently willing to take family members as hostages to get the point across. (The brothers are alleged to have masterminded a plot to overcharge a subsidiary of the cosmetics brand Yves Rocher for its shipping to Russia, though the French company never issued a complaint.)
f the intent in letting Navalny out but jailing his brother was to keep Navalny under control without turning him into a martyr, it appears to have backfired. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered despite freezing temperatures to protest Oleg’s fate in Moscow’s Manezh Square, including Navalny himself, who showed up in violation of his house arrest from his earlier conviction, apparently still wearing his court-ordered ankle bracelet, and was quickly rearrested along with over 100 others. The demonstrators were also met by a large crowd of counterdemonstrators, who accused Navalny’s supporters of trying to turn Manezh into a “Maidan”—a reference to the “Euromaidan” protests that toppled Ukraine’s Russian backed government in February. Even dissident performance artists Pussy Riot, who seem to have given up their DIY punk rock aesthetic for perfume-commercial glam, released a new video for the occasion in support of Navalny.
Full article http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/12/30/alexey_navalny_re_arrested_in_moscow_can_putin_silence_russia_s_most_prominent.html
Yes, I know it's gauche to post two pieces in the same forum back-to-back, but the Putin-Navalny dynamic fascinates me, as I'm convinced that one of these men will be dead---and not of natural causes!---within a decade.
Republicans and Democrats agree about one thing: very expensive space flight
Boer Deng, writing in Slate...
Rockets, satellites, and spaceships on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., are a testament to American achievements in space. But in an exhibit on the heady days of the 1960s and ’70s, one note on a timeline placard stands out. In 1969, it explains, a government task force suggested that NASA should build a permanently manned space station, and perhaps go to Mars. This did not happen. Political support for the ideas evaporated while people worried about the Vietnam War, social upheavals, and the money already spent on the Apollo program. The country must “define new goals which make sense for the seventies,” President Richard Nixon declared. A year after the moon landing, 56 percent of the public said it hadn’t been worth the price.
You would think that funding Orion, NASA’s first new type of crewed spaceship in three decades, and the Space Launch System, the powerful rocket Orion will eventually be attached to, would give politicians pause. The projects are meant to finally fulfill grand ambitions to go to Mars, but launching SLS would cost $17 billion, NASA has estimated. (And that’s an estimate for a 2017 launch; the launch date has since been pushed back to 2018, with costs that presumably have mounted apace.) The Government Accountability Office says that the total to develop and run Orion and SLS through 2021 will be $22 billion and that NASA is already several million dollars short on what it needs. President Obama’s entire proposed budget for NASA in 2015 was $17.46 billion, and space exploration is only supposed to be 22 percent of all projects. But on Tuesday, Dec. 9, Congress cut a new deal that would boost NASA spending to $18 billion.
This might seem odd, given an environment of tight-fistedness and frequent fretting over “wasteful spending.” But politicians of all stripes are keen on the project. Rep. Lamar Smith, a Republican crusader against “ill-spent” public science funds, says SLS and Orion exemplify “our greatest breakthroughs and demonstrate American ingenuity.” A Democrat, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, sponsored the legislation that created SLS. It “has the distinction of being the first rocket designed by a committee of politicians,” quips the Economist. The 2010 bill specifies that the SLS must be capable of “lifting payloads weighing between 70 tons and 100 tons into low-Earth orbit” and that it is robust “in areas as related to solid and liquid engines.” When did senators and representatives become so well versed in rocketry?
Full article http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/space_20/2014/12/politics_of_space_flight_funding_republicans_and_democrats_agree_on_orion.html
I'm a total space nerd, so I don't have a problem with this. Hey, it's a helluva lot better than bank bailouts!
What happens if there's a terrorist attack in NYC with the cops on a semi-strike?
Rhetorical question: Obama will be blamed, of course! (But you already knew that.)
As oil falls, Russia choked by military, social spending
Source: Reuters
By Darya Korsunskaya and Elena Fabrichnaya
MOSCOW Tue Dec 30, 2014 3:01am EST
(Reuters) - Russian authorities are facing some unpalatable options as they try to keep the economy afloat - unless they can persuade President Vladimir Putin to curb massive military spending.
Officials fear that without limiting the defense budget, the government will have to raise taxes, increase the pension age or print money to prevent the state deficit from running out of control.
Despite a crisis brought on by diving oil markets and Western sanctions, they believe Russia can muddle through next year provided the price of crude, its dominant export earner, holds near current levels.
But even at $60 per barrel, the present oil price is little more than half what the Kremlin needs to balance the budget, and it is quickly running out of money.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/30/us-russia-crisis-budget-idUSKBN0K80EK20141230
Oh, but the sanctions didn't hurt at ALL! Right, Vlad? Vlad?
John Boehner Backs Steve Scalise Amid Controversy Over White Supremacist Meeting
Source: HuffPo
Posted: 12/30/2014 2:29 pm EST Updated: 21 minutes ago
WASHINGTON -- House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is throwing a lifesaver to House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R) as the Louisiana congressman faces a deluge of criticism and questions over a 2002 speech he gave to a white supremacist group.
"More than a decade ago, Representative Scalise made an error in judgment, and he was right to acknowledge it was wrong and inappropriate. Like many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, I know Steve to be a man of high integrity and good character. He has my full confidence as our Whip, and he will continue to do great and important work for all Americans," Boehner said in a Tuesday statement.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is also standing by Scalise.
"Congressman Scalise acknowledged he made a mistake and has condemned the views that organization espouses," McCarthy said in a statement released moments after Boehner's. "I've known him as a friend for many years and I know that he does not share the beliefs of that organization."
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/30/john-boehner-steve-scalise_n_6396798.html
That an Orange-American like Boehner can forgive Scalise's White Supremacist association(s) is stunning!
Wreckage, Bodies Reveal Jet's Fate Days After It Disappeared
Source: ABC News/AP
PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia — Dec 30, 2014, 8:14 AM ET
By DEWI NURCAHYANI and ROBIN McDOWELL Associated Press
Family members of those aboard AirAsia Flight 8501 collapsed in agony Tuesday as images of debris and a bloated body flashed across Indonesian television screens, proof that the plane crashed into the sea two days earlier with 162 people on board.
The low-cost carrier vanished Sunday halfway through a two-hour flight between Surabaya, Indonesia and Singapore after encountering storm clouds, sparking an international hunt with dozens of planes, ships and helicopters.
On the third day of searching, the first signs of the jet were found in shallow, aqua waters only about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the plane's last known coordinates: A life jacket, an emergency exit door. Parts of the jetliner's interior, including an oxygen tank, were brought to the nearest town, Pangkalan Bun. Another find included a bright blue plastic suitcase, completely unscratched.
First Adm. Sigit Setiayanta, Naval Aviation Center commander at Surabaya Air Force base, told reporters six corpses were spotted about 160 kilometers (100 miles) from Borneo island.
Rescue workers were lowered on ropes from a hovering helicopter to retrieve bodies. Efforts were hindered by 2-meter-high (6-foot) waves and strong winds, National Search and Rescue Director SB Supriyadi said, but several victims were later picked up by a navy ship.
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/indonesia-bodies-found-site-plane-disappeared-27892739
Indonesian officials find items resembling plane door, emergency slide in search for missing AirAsia
Source: Raw Story
Agence France-Presse
30 Dec 2014 at 01:11 ET
Items resembling an emergency slide, plane door and other objects were spotted during an aerial search Tuesday for missing AirAsia flight 8501, Indonesian officials said.
“We spotted about 10 big objects and many more small white-coloured objects which we could not photograph,” Indonesian air force official Agus Dwi Putranto told a press conference.
“The position is 10 kilometres (six miles) from the location the plane was last captured by radar,” he said.
He displayed 10 photos of objects resembling a plane door, emergency slide, and a square box-like object.
Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/12/indonesian-officials-find-items-resembling-plane-door-emergency-slide-in-search-for-missing-airasia-flight/
No aliens, no CIA, no dark maneuvers here. Just three salient words: Oceans. Are. Big.
BAD READ: This is why I don't have a Facebook account
Eric Meyer, writing in Slate...
I didn’t go looking for grief on Christmas Eve, but it found me anyway, and I have designers and programmers to thank for it. In this case, the designers and programmers are somewhere at Facebook.
I know they’re probably very proud of the work that went into the “Year in Review” app they designed and developed, and deservedly so—a lot of people have used it to share their highlights of 2014. I kept seeing them pop up in my feed, created by various friends, almost all of them with the default caption, “It’s been a great year! Thanks for being a part of it.” Which was, by itself, a little bit unsettling, but I didn’t begrudge my friends who’d had a good year. It was just a weird bit of copy to see, over and over, when I felt so differently.
Still, it was easy enough to avoid making my own Year in Review, and so I did. After all, I knew what kind of year I’d had. But then, the day before Christmas, I went to Facebook and there, in my timeline, was what looked like a post or an ad, exhorting me to create a Year in Review of my own, complete with a preview of what that might look like.
Clip art partiers danced around a picture of my middle daughter, Rebecca, who is dead. Who died this year on her sixth birthday, less than 10 months after we first discovered she had aggressive brain cancer.
Full article http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/12/29/facebook_year_in_review_my_tragic_year_was_the_wrong_fodder_for_facebook.html
Doesn't this make you wanna punch Zuckerburg in the face? But we're really all to blame. We've sold our souls to mechanisms we thought would bring us closer together, when in fact, they've turned us into an oxymoronic society of hermits.
Profile Information
Name: yeah,rightGender: Male
Hometown: Devilandthedeepbluesea, Beme.
Home country: murcah!
Current location: Vanishintheair, Ynfm.
Member since: Tue Dec 16, 2014, 11:48 PM
Number of posts: 380
