http://www.lp.org/media/article_447.shtml

Actually, it is doing no such thing. Iran is being demonized by the US, which claims it is doing something it is not -- building nukes -- when it is simply enriching uranium for what it claims is peaceful production of nuclear energy. The fact is, this process is NOT in violation of any UN sanctions. The problem is, the enrichment of uranium has dual purposes -- it can also be used for nukes -- and the US is claiming that is why Iran is doing so. But the UN inspectors also claim that they have seen no sign of building such nukes.

The US is doing the same thing to Iran that it did with Iraq. Lying to build up support, not just for trade sanctions which are designed to foment internal rebellion, but for another war. Recently, Iran claimed it had nuclear weapons capacity, after years of denying any such thing. Why? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the US has parked its Navy, armed to the teeth for war, right off Iran's coast. Recall, that is exactly what they did before 9-11, off the coast of Afghanistan.

--Losing the War in Iraq --Losing the War in Afghanistan --World Record Opium Crop --The Michoacan Mob Starts Beheading Cops --Iran Repeatedly Defies UN/US Sanctions --Darfur-and the UN can't do s@$t --North Korea defies UN/US Sanctions --the economy continues to be sluggish --Palestine In Shambles, Hezbollah Guerrillas are Heroes

The only good thing that happened was that the Dems won the Congressional elections.

Bush's foreign policy this past year was an unbelievable DISASTER. The guy is so STUPID.

May the coming year hold pleasant surprises for all of us.

Namaste,

He was born three minutes after midnight forty years ago. My precious New Year baby is forty years old!

Peace and freedom to all of my friends is my wish for the new year.

Whig, please come back. We can all get along and it just isn't the same without you

http://www.drugpolicy.org/homepage.cfm Debate: Medical Marijuana - Should The Sick Be Able To Smoke?

DPA's executive director Ethan Nadelmann will debate former Congressman, and drug policy reform opponent, Bob Barr about whether marijuana should be allowed as a medicine. If you're going to be in the New York City area on January 18th you won't want to miss this.

Happy New Year, people! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2 and a half hours 'til the New Year here.

Here's hoping we all have a good one. A very good one.

These people say a lot of things.

I remember Reagan waving a large bag of cocaine in front of the cameras saying it was purchased on White House grounds, and wanting to escalate the Drug War.

I remember Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign.

I also remember,

Oliver North, and the words of Reagan, “Ollie was just doing his job.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_North

What gets me though, is the fact that the cartel is a direct result of American instigation. It exists because Bush sr. and his CIA buddies created it.

The CIA gave 'em the guns and ammo, in exchange for a lot of cocaine, which the CIA protected all the way from S.America to the streets. The money from the drugs, and the busting of Americans that they got hooked, went towards bribing the Iranians to release those hostages on a certain day- after Reagan was elected.

I know that when the ignorance is finally illuminated -when enough people stop refusing to see and look, the entire history of prohibition is going to put the fascists who support and implement it in the hall of shame.

Marijuana prohibition is the purvue of small-minded, unintelligent, power seeking predators. It is the best example of political insanity evident on the face of the earth.

The ones who made it illegal, and keep it illegal, are politicians, the non-representing power brokers of America. It is our taxes which pay for their limo's, their fancy dinners, their dry-cleaning, their half-million dollar mansions and ranches. It is our taxes which provide the basis of funding so that we can 'borrow' from the wealth, to pay the wealth. Our taxes buy the guns, the bombs, the genetic warfare, and the nuclear arsinal which is still very much active.

Our taxes support a cadre of the undeserving rich, who 'govern' us according to whatever whimsical distortions of the US Constitution they can manage.

Make marijuana legal. It is the only sane course of action. But giving control and economic interest to those who already have much much more than they need, is worse than the south american drug cartels getting the money.

Imagine smoking a joint, and knowing that a percentage of the money you paid for that joint is going to support wars like the Iraq war, or more drummed up wars like the WOD, maybe a War On Rock musicians, or a War On Carrots. Imagine every time you inhale, that you are funding the evilest government to ever exist since the Roman Empire.

Now just consider the quality you can expect to get when production of cannabis is regulated and legal only to the government endorsed corporations. Think of what the tobacco companies did to make more money, imagine those same people controlling marijuana.

Money, money, money. Aren't people starting to get a little tired of that scenario yet?

Did he not care?

I certainly appreciate the honesty of the commission's report. I don't understand why more people didn't fight for the truth in that report.

People have been killed and imprisoned and had their lives ruined by the marijuana laws and it's enforcement.

Lives could have been saved...and they weren't.

I see Nixon as a monstrous person and Shafer as heroic. I guess he didn't pick up the banner for justice because he really didn't care that much since it didn't have any effect on him or his.

It's a sad shame.

Thank you, my friend.

Comes Now the Ghost of "Decrim"

***

By Fred Gardner

Weekend Edition - December 30 / 31, 2006

Along with the man who pardoned Nixon, a man who disappointed Nixon left us this month: Raymond Shafer, a former Republican governor of Pennsylvania appointed in 1971 to lead a bipartisan "Presidential Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse." (Such a commission had been mandated by Congress in the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.) Nixon told Shafer he wanted a report that would blur the distinction between marijuana and hard drugs, according to declassified oval office tapes. Instead, the Shafer commission would call for decriminalization of the personal use of marijuana.

Nixon's public rationale for rejecting decriminalization made good sense: "I do not believe you can have effective criminal justice based on the philosophy that something is half legal and half illegal." The oval office tapes reveal Nixon's more nuanced views on marijuana. On May, 12, 1971, as the commission was beginning its investigation, Nixon told his aide Bob Haldeman, "I want a goddamn strong statement about marijuana. Can I get that out of this sonofabitching, uh, domestic council? I mean one on marijuana that just tears the ass out of them."

Marijuana...and it's use aren't dangerous...unless you get caught. I believe that.

Denying that would be idiotically, obsessively ignorant.

It's a shame we have so many idiotically, obsessively ignorant people in leadership in this world.

I have trouble with that.

It's the people who commit the murders.

Influenced, perhaps. You can be influenced by a pair of uncomfortable shoes. But I can't accept that "alcohol" was "responsible" any more than the gun, or knife, or fist they used was "responsible" for their actions.

You can drink the fire water to deaden your conscience (bolster your "courage" to do something you know is wrong). But it's still you that makes the choice.

I realize he's trying to make a point. It would have been better had he said, "Alcohol consumption played a part" or something.

There are people of a certain temper and nature who become more likely to be violent when they use alcohol...but they usually know that before the drink touches their lips. So, I still think it's the person...and not the alcohol. I still think it's the person who is the killer and not the alcohol, other drug, stick, gun, or knife.

Right now I am watching Neil Young's Heart of Gold movie and how refreshing it is in a time of such turmoil. I believe Peace and Hope begins within our own hearts and it becomes contagious and it spreads. That's my hope for 2007!

All in all, a beautifully written article loaded with common sense factoids. A nice ending to a halfway decent year.