Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Drew Carey Responds to Obama About Marijuana

By Jimboland Jots - Recently, President Obama was asked by an audience member about legalizing marijuana, so that it could be regulated and taxed. The President’s response was unsupportive of marijuana legalization, although the Obama administration’s Attorney General Holder has signaled an end to DEA raids on medical marijuana dispensaries.



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Wednesday, March 18, 2009

The case for a domestic marijuana industry

Like it or not, marijuana is a massive industry. One hundred million Americans admit to government survey-takers that they've used it, with nearly 15 million acknowledging use in the past month. That's a huge market -- exceeding the number of Americans who will buy a new car or truck this year, or who bought one last year.
The only way to stop drug gangs is to end their monopoly on production.
By Aaron Houston

Violence in Mexico is getting worse by the day. There are reports of beheadings, killings in the several thousands, and an environment of fear that makes it impossible for Mexican officials to do their work. The country's very stability may be threatened.

It's time to put an end to U.S. policies that subsidize these murderous drug gangs. The first step, as a growing chorus of voices is arguing, is to end the quixotic policy of prohibition, a proven failure. But the United States can do even better; by empowering a domestic marijuana industry, the United States would squeeze Mexican cartels' profits, cutting off the financial lifeline that sustains organized narcocrime.

According to U.S. and Mexican officials, some 60 percent of the profits that fuel Mexican narcotrafficking come from just one drug: marijuana. Although such estimates are inherently imprecise, there is no doubt that marijuana is the cash cow that makes these gangs the powerful, dangerous force they are -- both in Mexico and in the 230 U.S. cities where cartels are thought to operate. The chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Mexico and Central America Section recently told the New York Times that marijuana is the "king crop" for Mexican cartels, because it "consistently sustains its marketability and profitability."

Last November, the U.S. Joint Forces Command warned in its "Joint Operating Environment" report that Mexico "bear[s] consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse" due to drug cartel violence. Some critics saw the report as unduly dire, but at a minimum, as outgoing CIA Director Michael Hayden warned, drug cartels "threaten ... the well-being of the Mexican people and the Mexican state." A further increase in instability would constitute a national security and humanitarian crisis on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. For now, there is no end in sight to the worsening violence and no adequate plan to address it.

This appalling situation is not just happenstance. It is the direct result of prohibitionist U.S. policies.

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Monday, March 16, 2009

It's All Good: Media Whores Help Militarists Plan More Wars

By Chris Floyd - "And so in the recent story, O'Hanlon – is trotted out to put a positive, progressive spin on the multi-war plan. It's a "good start," he says, because the Bush-Obama war chief Bob Gates has said that other parts of the government need to pitch in more on the imperial project; the Pentagon can't run the world all on its own."

Surely there is no one who still needs to be apprised of the fact that the New York Times is one of the chief organs of the American Empire, operating in a semi-official fashion to disseminate the intentions and wishes of our rulers. The fact that the paper also publishes some excellent reporting -- and can even, on occasion, assume an adversarial stance against one faction of the elite or another -- in no way undermines its essential function in the imperial power structure. After all, Pravda and Izvestia did the same under the Soviets.

[Of course, the dead hand of state censorship was heavier under the Soviets than in our ultra-modern, low-carb authoritarian system. We prefer witless diversion over outright repression, tasers over bullets, and the eager self-censorship of cozy, coddled media dullards over direct intervention by government functionaries -- although, to be sure, if repression, bullets and direct intervention (along with KGB-style torture, rendition, detention without trial, etc.) are deemed necessary, our elites are more than willing to oblige.]

But despite the glaring transparency of the NYT's stovepiping duties, it is still instructive to watch these operations in action now and then, if only to keep one's bullshit detector in fighting trim. And a story by Thom Shanker highlighted in the Times on Saturday provides an excellent example of this venerable and pernicious process.

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Saturday, February 28, 2009

Radio legend Paul Harvey has passed away


I remember listening to him as a kid...sitting in the car, playing with the radio, waiting for my father...and thinking everything Paul Harvey said sounded important!


Adios to Paul Harvey and, Good Day.

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Monday, February 16, 2009

We Are a Nation of Junkies Hooked on Media-Fabricated Outrage

Michael Phelps hits bong - what an outrage - or just americans getting their fix?
By David Sirota, Creators Syndicate. Posted February 16, 2009.
As the Phelps 'scandal' proves yet again, our narcotic of choice -- creating controversy where none exists -- packs a punch.


I'm not sure if it's because we're strung out on "Lost" episodes, or if it's because we're still suffering from a post-9/11 stress disorder that makes us crave "breaking news" alerts, or if it's because the economy has turned us into distraction junkies. But one thing is painfully obvious after Michael Phelps' marijuana "scandal" erupted last week: Our society is addicted to fake outrage -- and to break our dependence, we're going to need far more potent medicine than the herb Phelps was smoking.

If you haven't heard (and I'm guessing you have), the Olympic gold medalist was recently photographed taking a toke of weed. The moment the picture hit the Internet, the media blew the story up, pumping out at least 1,200 dispatches about the "controversy," according to my LexisNexis search. Phelps' sponsors subsequently threatened to pull their endorsement deals, and USA Swimming suspended him for "disappointing so many people."

America is a place where you can destroy millions of lives as a Wall Street executive and still get invited for photo-ops at the White House; a land where the everyman icon -- Joe Sixpack -- is named for his love of shotgunning two quarts of beer at holiday gatherings; a "shining city on a hill" where presidential candidates' previous abuse of alcohol and cocaine is portrayed as positive proof of grittiness and character. And yet, somehow, Phelps is the evildoer of the hour because he went to a party and took a hit off someone's bong.


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Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Ten Reasons to Get High About Marijuana in 2009

Okay, it is only February 1st, and more people this year have already died from peanut butter than pot.
Seriously, when you think about what has crossed the pages of our nation’s conscience in the past month, you have to wonder why we are all not getting high.
With thanks to Michael Phelps, I have ten good reasons to believe drug law reform will ‘take’ this year. Here is why.
Number One: The President
First of all, we elected a President who has admitted inhaling, and whose half brother just got arrested in Kenya for possession of marijuana. Growing up in urban Chicago, and having come from Hawaii, home of ‘Maui Waui,’ we have a man in the oval office that has an herbal background.
I am therefore not intimidated that, on his third day in office, while he was working on a nationwide economic stimulus package, some renegade prosecutors raided a medical dispensary in California. Those ugly efforts will cease soon enough. I am encouraged by President Obama’s prior public statements that such raids are counterproductive and provide illusory answers to real problems.
Number Two: The Medicine
Just as I was exploring the placement of my mom into an assisted living facility for early stage Alzheimer’s patients, I see a study released by Ohio State University this month. The research is indicating that marijuana has some potential capacity to reduce brain inflammation, which plays a role in Alzheimer’s. Mom, those brownies might taste differently next week.
While evidence showing the benefits of marijuana in multiple sclerosis cases has been advancing significantly, work in Alzheimer’s disease is still in its infancy. Still, another recent study performed at the Scripps Research Institute in California found that THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, inhibits the formation of a brain plaque that is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.
Number Three: The Politics
If you light up a joint while walking down High Street in Medford, Massachusetts, not much is likely to happen to you. As of Jan. 2, Massachusetts became one of 12 states that have decriminalized marijuana possession to some extent. The new civil penalties for possession of less than 1 ounce include a $100 fine and forfeiture of one’s stash for those over 18 years of age. Minors will receive the same fine and be required to attend drug education classes.
In city after city, and state after state, once silent minorities are becoming vocal majorities and voting to enact legislation freeing marijuana from unjust law enforcement. When given the chance, we are winning the war against prohibition. Legislators in Michigan, Connecticut and even Florida are starting to re-introduce bills to lower penalties for pot. The whirlwind is commencing; just ask anyone in a dorm room within a wave of the White House after the inauguration.
Number Four: The Media
Marijuana has gone mainstream. Media outlets are no longer hiding in the shadows afraid to produce honest reports about the culture of marijuana. We are less likely to see commercials of pot smokers having their brains grilled in a frying pan. We are more likely to view legitimate programming which produces truths rather than trash about your stash.
One such report was featured on NBC news last week, a snippet of an hour long production on MSNBC entitled ‘Marijuana, Inc.’ Focusing more on economics then the sociology of pot, the well-supported report inescapably concluded that marijuana commerce is here to stay and unlikely to change. As even the NY Daily News said, “When it comes to marijuana, a whole lot of people voted some time ago to just say yes.” Ask the cast of the award winning Showtime series, ‘Weeds,’ which captures a growing American spirit.
Number Five: The Public
Even the Department of Health has said that 95 million Americans have over the age of 21 have tried marijuana at least once. Everyone except Bill Clinton has inhaled. The anti drug warriors have a hard time explaining to the average adult in the 21st century that millions of Americans are wrong when they light up every day.
It is normal to smoke pot. The vast amount of marijuana users today are parents choosing to calm down instead of liquor up, not just kids, looking to get high after class. Of course, they are too, adults treating arthritis, patients using it for multiple sclerosis, or people with HIV fighting a wasting syndrome. Pot smokers cross ethnic, sociological, and economic boundaries.
Number Six: The Celebrities
There is a lot of reason to hate the celebrity culture, paparazzi, and people who get their daily pulp from finding out where Brittany Spears went shopping. As more media types get busted with pot, the less newsworthy it becomes. The public could care less. An arrest for pot is not a career-ending event. As I finish this piece and send it off for distribution, I am watching Snoop Doggy Dogg being interviewed on ESPN for the NFL Countdown to the Super Bowl. It does not seem to have hurt him. And guess what Michael Phelps got caught doing this weekend? Toking off a bong!
Macauley Culkin, Bud Bundy, Willie Nelson, Art Garfunkel, and Al Gore’s son also make the High Subscription List. So do Allen Iverson, Matthew McConaughey, Whitney Houston, Oliver Stone, and even Queen Latifah. All have posted bail for pot. They are not doing too badly for themselves. Go visit Celebstoner for more prime examples of the intersection of celebrity and cannabis.
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Friday, January 16, 2009

Al Jazeera Signs Deal to Air Throughout U.S.

NEW YORK - The Al Jazeera Network plans to announce on Thursday that it has signed a deal to run its news on Worldfocus, a syndicated nightly news program produced in New York and distributed throughout the United States.
The deal would help the international news network, one of the top services in the Arabic-speaking world, broaden its reach in the United States, where it so far has been available to only a limited audience.
Worldfocus, hosted by former NBC News correspondent Martin Savidge, is produced by New York City public broadcaster WLIW and syndicated to a number of Public Broadcasting Service affiliates, as well as other stations in 60 U.S. markets, including 27 of the top 30.
Al Jazeera declined to disclose terms of the deal.
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Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Israel and international law

By Phyllis Bennis - On the eleventh day of the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip, two UN schools were bombed by Israeli jets. The schools were housing people who had been displaced from their homes as a result of the conflict, and the Associate Press reports that 37 civilians were killed in the attacks. As the costs of the conflict to civilian populations continues to increase, the Real News spoke to Phyllis Bennis to find out what international law has to say about the events. Phyllis believes that while certain key members of the UN apparatus have spoken out against international law violations, the power structure of the Security Council continues to make definitive action impossible.




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Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Time: Person of the Year 2008: Barack Obama

obama_cover Why History Can't Wait

You probably sat in a fancier conference room the last time you refinanced or heard a pitch about life insurance. There's a table, some off-brand mesh office chairs, a bookcase that looks as if it had been put together with an Allen wrench and instructions in Swedish.

To reach this room, you pass through a cubicle farm lightly populated by quiet young people. Either they have just arrived or they are just leaving, because their desks are almost bare. The place has a vaguely familiar feel to it, this air of transient shabbiness and nondescriptitude. You can't quite put your finger on it ...

"It's like the set of The Office," someone offers.

Bingo

It is here that we find Barack Obama one soul-freezingly cold December day, mentally unpacking the crate of crushing problems — some old, some new, all ugly — that he is about to inherit as the 44th President of the United States. Most of his hours inside the presidential-transition office are spent in this bland and bare-bones room. You would think the President-elect — a guy who draws 100,000 people to a speech in St. Louis, Mo., who raises three-quarters of a billion dollars, who is facing the toughest first year since Franklin Roosevelt's — might merit a leather chair. Maybe a credenza? A hutch?
But he doesn't seem to notice. Obama is cheerfully showing his visitors around, gripping the souvenir basketball he received from Hall of Famer Lenny Wilkens, explaining a snapshot taken the day he played pickup with the University of North Carolina hoops team. ("They are so big and so fast and so strong, you know.") Then, since those two items basically exhaust the room's décor, Obama sits down on one of the mesh chairs and launches into a spoken tour of his world of woes. It's a mind-boggling journey, although he shows no signs of being boggled — unless you count the increasingly prevalent salt in his salt-and-pepper hair. By now we are all accustomed to that Obi-Wan Kenobi calm, though we may never entirely understand it. In a soothing monotone, he highlights the scariest hairpin turns on his itinerary, the ones that combine difficulty with danger plus a jolt of existential risk. (See pictures of the Civil Rights movement from Emmett Till to Barack Obama.)

(continued...)

Source: Why History Can't Wait - Person of the Year 2008 – TIME

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

COAL ENERGY FACTS

-----Brought to you by thisisreality.org-----Why we need to stop burning coal to help solve the global warming crisis.

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In reality, there is no such thing as "clean" coal in America today

There are no homes in America powered by "clean" coal today. There are no "clean" coal power plants selling electricity in America today. In fact, America does not have a single demonstration "clean" coal plant that captures and safely stores its carbon pollution. The technologies that capture or safely store CO2 have not yet been integrated with coal power at commercial scale. This means that the roughly 600 coal plants producing electricity in the US today are not preventing their global warming pollution from entering the atmosphere. Although the technologies are being developed and tested, in reality, there is no such thing as "clean" coal power in America today.

Friday, December 5, 2008

Obama on Meet the Press this Sunday.



In his first Sunday morning television interview since winning the election, President-elect Barack Obama will appear on NBC’s Meet the Press this weekend to discuss “his plans for the country and his new administration.”

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Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Caglepost: Wal-Mart Trampling Christmas

I hate shopping! I do most of it online. I don't like most people either. Especially, when they form a crowd of any kind. The herd mentality takes over and makes everyone do something awful because everyone else does it.
Obviously, the people who were at Wal-Mart that day are obsessed with material things so much so that they would kill a man by trampling him into the Wal-Mart concrete like the herd of cattle they are.
Sorry, a littler rant there. This cartoon by Pat Bagley sums up how life is in America.


Cartoon by Pat Bagley Comment on the cartoon

How The Media Convinced Themselves Obama Was A Liberal

Posted by Jane Hamsher, Firedoglake - Cherrypicking information, ignoring facts, generating fake outrage -- the media did their best to create a caricature of Obama.
1. Cherry picked a 2007 National Journal ranking which concluded that Obama was the most liberal Senator. This despite the fact that it was an outlier with a deeply flawed methodology that no other ranking confirmed, and only a true nitwit would swallow credulously the notion that Obama was more liberal than Russ Feingold or Bernie Sanders.



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Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Social Media Goes Mainstream, Newspaper Circulation Drops

As technology improves and new mediums for sharing information come about, news audiences will continue to fragment. For the foreseeable future, social media will continue to gain market share.

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Saturday, November 15, 2008

The CIA's involvement with US film-making

The CIA is often credited with 'advice' on Hollywood films, but no one is truly sure about the extent of its shadowy involvement. In fact, the story of the CIA's involvement in Hollywood is a tale of deception and subversion that would seem improbable if it were put on screen...

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Sunday, November 9, 2008

Documentary-Barack & Curtis:Manhood, Power & Respect - Video

Watch the documentary from filmmaker Byron Hurt. It is a study of contrast between President-elect Obama and Curtis ( AKA 50 Cent).




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Saturday, November 8, 2008

Poll: Majority of Americans liked Obama’s first presser

Yesterday, President-elect Barack Obama gave his first press conference since being elected, discussing his plan to move forward on the economy and other issues. In a poll out today, Rasmussen Reports found that a majority of Americans liked the tone Obama set during the presser:

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Friday, October 17, 2008

Palin's Staff Keep Her in Bubble To Avoid Becoming Depressed

A day after The Washington Post's Dana Milbank wrote about how the Secret Service is blocking press at Sarah Palin's rallies, it appears Palin's staff is blocking her from listening to the press. Palin revealed at a fundraiser last night that she is in an ever-growing media bubble.
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