This Monday, February 23, the senate passed the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act in a vote 22-16 with two abstentions. This bill is supposed to aid patients with debilitating diseases (e.g. cancer, glaucoma, AIDS) and other disorders that cause “wasting syndrome, severe or chronic pain, seizures and severe and persistent muscle spasms.” Patients with a special ID (acquired thru a doctor’s recommendation and approval by the Department of Health and Senior Services) could have up to six plants or one ounce of marijuana. Also, the state would license “compassion centers” that grow and distribute plants. If the bill passes in the Assembly and is then signed by the governor, New Jersey will be the 14th state to create a sanctioned medical marijuana program. The Assembly version of the bill, sponsored by Assemblymen Reed Gusciora, (D-Mercer), Michael Patrick Carroll (R-Morris) and Joan Voss (D-Hudson), will likely face opposition from groups like the Drug Free School Coalition. But, considering that Massachusetts decriminalized marijuana in November, New Jersey is likely to be the next state to follow suit. NJ governor Jon Corzine said he would "absolutely" sign the bill.

N.J. Senate approves bill allowing the use of medical merijuana, NJ.com
NJ god says he’d sign medical marijuana law, Newsday.com
Coalition for Medical Marijuana - New Jersey (CMMNJ.org)

"Barack Obama is a secret muslim," perhaps the most pervasive meme this campaign season. There’s this picture of him in his onion head hat, there’s the incessant e-mail chains about how he was OMG TRAINED IN A MADRASSA, his middle name is Hussein, and, of course, he’s brown. There are a lot of reasons that "Obama is a secret muslim" line is so difficult to scrub out of the mass consciousness. On the basest level, it appeals to latent xenophobia as well as the myth of the "sleeper cell," that wonderful post-9/11 idea that the "Muslim next door" could, in fact, be a terrorist agent waiting for the right moment to flip. Together, these two concepts bind the "secret muslim" label quite strongly (see: sleeper cells).

Of course, at this stage, with less than three months until the election, the only people who believe that "Barack Obama is a secret Muslim" would not have voted for him anyway. Think the archetypal redneck that votes against his root economic interests because of carefully calibrated anti-liberal fear mongering.

And yet, the "secret Muslim" meme tells us a lot more about our country than it does about its half-black Democratic standard bearer. Barack Obama elicits a kind of subconscious fear that someone like, say, Jesse Jackson doesn’t. As alien, as different, as "other" as Jesse Jackson may be to the typical white man, at the end of the day Jesse Jackson has a well defined and well observed, if not well understood, role in American society; he is an ‘integral’ part in the race narrative in America. Barack Obama is different. His father is a Kenyan herdsman, an other’s other. His parents met at a Russian language class at the height of the Cold War. Mrs. Obama had a thing for ‘colored’ men; her second husband and B-Dot’s step-father was an Indonesian at a time when interracial marriage was still largely taboo and an interracial kiss on Star Trek involving body snatchers could be the apex of controversy.

So Barack Obama would be the first President in many generations to have at least one parent who was not "American." And yet, from Punahou to Harvard to Washington politics, Barack Obama has outperformed his more American peers. On some level, this threatens the American idea of American superiority. At a time when the American brand name is tarnished and America has hit a ‘rough patch,’ it could be even more deflating to see that for relief the country turns to someone with such foreign roots to fix it. And look at how loved he is overseas, more to make Americans uncomfortable. Barack Obama brings out discomfort in the mass consciousness because he is a personification of the forces of globalization that have transformed our world in the last 60 years; his far-flung origins (Hawai’i via Kenya and Kansas, two years in Indonesia) serve to remind Americans that the America (and the world) of the 20th century has been relegated to the dustbin of history. The 21st century is a different time place; USA cannot SMASH at will its enemies and two oceans are no longer a sufficient barrier from the rest of the world. Barack Obama piles on to this: the image of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant can no longer be neatly grafted onto America as its "archetype," and, of course, the youth have taken over. So Barack Obama is not a Secret Muslim, and no rational educated person thinks so anymore, but the idea persists because he is just so different from what we expect of our leaders, be they white or black, from the mainstream or the margins, and as the great open-ended signifiers he has become the globalization and ‘change’ that we are only now realizing has already completely engulfed our reality. Rejecting B-Dot won’t turn back the clock on that process, but embracing him may make the remainder of the transition smoother.

In Flag City USA, False Obama Rumors Are Flying, WashingtonPost.com
Obama the ‘Magic Negro’, LATimes.com

Fidel Castro relinquished his presidency of Cuba on Tuesday morning, thus ending his 49-year tenure, one of the longest in modern history. Castro became president in 1959 after an armed revolution that overthrew Fulgencio Batista. Since then, he was the target of over 600 assassination attempts, the more exotic of which included exploding cigars and a fungal-infected scuba-suit. But it was an acute colon infection that finally incapacitated Castro in late July 2006. Since then he has been in and out of surgery, handing over power to his younger brother Raul. Fidel continued to influence policy from behind the hospital curtain, but after a letter published in Cuba’s Granma newspaper he has conclusively let go of his presidency, adding “It would betray my conscience to occupy a responsibility that requires mobility and the total commitment that I am not in the physical condition to offer.” However, it is unlikely that the US will lift the trade embargo on Cuba any time soon, according to deputy secretary of state John D. Negroponte.

Fidel Castro Resigns as Cuba’s President, NYTimes.com
Message from the Commander-in-Chief, Granma.cu

On Dec. 17, Democrat Gov. Jon Corzine signed legislation abolishing the death penalty in New Jersey, making it the first state to do so in over 40 years. Other states that came close this year include New Mexico, Montana and Nebraska. The eight people who were on NJ’s death-row now get life-imprisonment without parole. The bill was approved by a vote of 22-13 by the Sente on Dec. 10, and then 44-36 by the NJ Assembly on Dec. 13. NJ is now the 14th state to ban capital punishment, thereby extending the northeast life-zone that includes New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine, as well as the DIstrict of Columbia. Maryland lost by a single vote this year.

The next day, Dec. 18, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution for a death penalty moratorium, third time’s the charm, as previous votes in 1999 and 1994 failed. Technically, the resolution is non-binding, but it does reflect the global sentiment, which has an indirect effect on policy making. It was hailed as "a bold step by the internation community" by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The vote passed by a vote of 104-54 with 29 abstentions, among those who opposed: China, Singapore, Iran, and somewhat ironically US.

New Jersey: A Death Penalty Trend?, Time.com
Executions in U.S. Decline to 13-Year Low, Study Finds, NYT.com
UN General Assembly OKs Resolution Calling for Death Penalty Moratorium, FoxNews.com

DeathPenaltyInfo.org

Wired magazine recently had an article on the best conspiracty theories, here is a list:

1. NASA faked the moon landing (possibly scripted by Arthur C. Clarke)
2. The US government was behind 9/11
3. Princess Diana was murdered (to stop her from marrying her Muslim boyfriend)
4. The Jews run Hollywood and Wall Street (building off the dubious Protocols of the Elders of Zion)
5. The Scientologists run Hollywood (because of the many celebrities toting Dianetics)
6. Paul McCartney is dead (replaced in ‘69 by a look-alike, supported by his later solo career)
7. AIDS is a man-made disease (an engineered bioweapon)
8. Church’s fried chicken sterilizes black men (and KFC is secretly run by the KKK)
9. Lizard-people run the world (many world leaders - Bush, British royals - actually shape-shifting aliens)
10. Illuminati run the world (via one or more secret societies: Freemasons, Rosicrucians, the Trilateral Commission, Skull and Bones)

The Best Conspiracy Theories (Lizard-People Are Running the World!), Wired.com

The Princeton University website has some great lectures in its WebMedia archive on their website. Notably, the three part Search for a Fundamental Reality by Nobel prize physicist David Gross, and Antonio Damasio’s Advances on the Neurobiology of Emotion, which I had the pleasure of attending. Recent lectures include David Mermin’s Spooky Actions at a Distance? and Hendrik Lenstra’s Escher and the Droste Effect. Of particular interest to fellow locals: Kenneth Jackson’s If All the World Were New Jersey: The Past and Future of the Garden State. The archive has dozens of lectures from the last decade, on a wide range of topics, including physics, cognitive science, philosophy, and politics, most in both RealMedia and WindowsMedia, high and low resolution.

WebMedia Archive, Princeton.edu

Dear President Bush,

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help.

[received via the MySpace grapevine]

The Doomsday Clock, a symbolic representation of how close mankind is to nuclear war, will be moved forward from 7 minutes before midnight to 5 on Wednesday. The Clock was created in 1947 and is maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at University of Chicago. The Bulletin itself was founded by the former Manhattan Project physicists in 1945, after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (bomb Little Boy from flying-fortress Enola Gay and Fat Man from the bomber Bockscar respectively). Started at 7 minutes to midnight during the Cold War, it was set to 3 after Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb in 1949, and then to 2 when they were testing thermonuclear weapons in 1953. That was the closest the clock has come to nuclear night, going up and down over the decades in accord with the shifting political climate. The reasons cited by the Bulletin for the new change are the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran, the unaccounted for materials from the Eastern bloc, growing terrorism, increased demand for nuclear power, and the launch-ready status of over 2,000 weapons maintained by U.S. and Russia. But according to Dr. Strangelove, it’s best one learn to stop worrying and love the bomb, people who worry too much live shorter, not to mention stress increases the likelihood of cell mutation, and that’s mutation here and now, not in some potential radioactive desertpunk wasteland. Relax, nobody is going to drop the bomb, no one has since Nagasaki, and if they are, you probably can’t stop it anyway. Party like it’s 5 minutes to midnight.

Scientists prepare to move Doomsday Clock forwards, SciAm.com
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a letter to President Bush last monday. A copy of the letter came from the French newspaper Le Monde and White House officials have confirmed the CNN version to be an exact English translation, even though there is a typo on the first page. It’s an interesting read, as Ahmadinejad asks questions that are on many people’s minds, though he also questions the historicity of the holocaust and hints and the complicity of US intelligence agencies in 9/11. Iranian Vice President for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Ahmad Moussavi was quoted as saying May 15: "If Bush gives a fair and reasoned reply to Ahmadinejad’s letter, we will welcome it and regard it as a step in diplomacy and forging of understanding." Still, it does not seem like Bush is planning to respond.

Ahmadinejad’s official site
Ahmadinejad’s letter to Bush, CNN.com
An Iranian offer that America must heed, Payvand.com
Bush’s reply to Ahmadinejad letter (Satire), Deadbrain.co.uk

Washington Post and ABC News conducted a survey of 502 randomly selected adults to see how Americans feel about the National Security Agency (NSA) tapping their phone conversations.

63% were for phone surveillance as an acceptable means to investigate terrorism, with 44% strongly supporting it
35% opposed it, with 24% strongly against it
65% believed that investigation of potential terrorism outweighed privacy concerns, while 31% that intrusion on privacy was unwarranted
51% approved how Bush was handling privacy matters

President Bush defended his administration’s counter-terrorist efforts to White House reporters and criticized public disclosure of secret intelligence operations. Though, he did not acknowledge the existence of the NSA records-gathering program or answer reporters’ questions about it.

Washington Post-ABC News Poll May 11, 2006
Poll: Most Americans Support NSA’s Efforts, WashingtonPost.com

Mexico’s President Vincente Fox decided that he will not sign the bill legalizing limited drug possession, whiic was passed by Congress five days earlier, because of pressure from the United States. The main concern is that the ambiguities in the wording of the bill would make Mexico a new Amsterdam, a vacation spot for drug tourism, thereby boosting the drug market for the country’s drug cartels. Fox’s administration argued that the law was misunderstood, that individual Mexican states could impose their own laws on drug possession, thereby making it the job of state and local police to make small drug arrests, currently done by the federales. The bill could be amended in September, when Congress gets back to work, giving Fox, who has been pushing for the bill since 2001, three months to sign it before he ends his six-year term in December.

Fox Decides Not to Sign Drug Legalization Bill, LATimes.com 

Stephen Colbert spoke at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner recently, making fun of George Bush who was sitting but a few feet away. Here are some of the highlights:

I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.

I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion… I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

Mr. President, pay no attentiont to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% (Bush’s approval rating) means it’s 2/3 empty. There’s still some liquid in that glass but I wouldn’t drink it, the last third is usually backwash.

68% may not approve of the job he’s doing. But does that not logically imply that 68% approve of the job he’s not doing?

Fox news gives you both sides, the president’s side and the vice-president’s side.

New press secretarty Tony Snow is here, secret service name Snowjob.

Judging by the amount of laughter for that last one, many people in the audience knew what a snowjob was (look it up on urbandictionary.com if you don’t). Maybe that’s why they call it the White House, after all, we know Bush did snow in 1974.

Colbert’s smart bomb, Salon.com
Colbert’s press secretary audition tape, Salon.com

On January 7th, in Iranian city of Tehran, home of the fountain of blood, a court sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she confessed to unintentionally killing a man trying to take advantage of her and her niece. Nazanin, 17 at the time and Somayeh (16), were in a park with their boyfriends when three men started throwing stones at them. The boyfriends quickly escaped on their motorbikes, while the men pushed the girls to the ground with the aim of raping them. At this point, Nazanin took out a knife and stabbed one of the men in the hand and when they wouldn’t let off, stabbed another in the chest. In tears before the court, she said that she didn’t want to kill anybody, but was merely trying to protect herself and her niece. Nonetheless, she received the death sentence. But hanging young girls is nothing new for Iran, last month in Rasht, 17 year-old Delara Darabi was hanged for murder. While, in August 2004, 16 year-old Atefeh Rajabi was executed for “acts incompatible with chastity”. Atefeh was not allowed a lawyer and defending herself pleaded that the judge should punish those who force women into adultery instead of the victims. She was executed in a public hanging in the northern town of Neka.

Iran to hang teenage girl attacked by rapists, IranFocus.com

Investigation on the part of Wikipedia revealed 1,000+ edits to the open source encyclopedia traced to IP addresses reserved for the Senate and the House of Representatives. According to Wiki, these edits contained libelous statements, childish insults, or removed content with malice. The investigation was prompted when on January 27, Lowell Sun of Massachusetts published "Rewriting history under the dome", in which Matt Vogel, the chief of staff for Congressman Marty Meehan, said he authorized an intern to replace the Wiki entry for the congressman with a staff-written one, which omitted the references to Meehan’s broken term-limits pledge and massive compaing war chest. Some of the sillier ones uncovered during Wiki’s investigation included listing White House press secretary Scott McClellan under the entry for "douche". Thus far only one IP address has been blocked (one tied to Meehan) and a "request for comments" page has been opened.

Rewriting history under the dome, Lowell Sun
Congress caught making false entries in Wikipedia, News.com

Norway is planning to build a vault in a mountain near the north pole that will store a vast seed bank of all known varieties of the world’s crops, on the off chance that we have a nuclear war, radical climate change or meteor strike. The vault will be in the permafrost (which will keep the seeds viable even with global warming) of a sandstone mountain on the island of Spitsbergen, 625 miles from the North Pole, behind 3.25 ft. thick concrete, two airlocks and blast-proof doors. The $3 million facility will hold around 2 million seeds. So remember, when the smoke clears the seeds are in Spitsbergen.

‘Doomsday vault’ to hold world’s seeds, PhysOrg.com

Tuesday, January 17, in a 6-3 vote, the US Supreme Court validated Oregon’s unique 1997 physician-assisted suicide statute, the Death with Dignity law, used to end the lives of 200+ terminally ill patients. The ruling backed a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said that former-Attorney General John Ashcroft’s "unilateral attempt to regulate general medical practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers interferes with the democratic debate about physician-assisted suicide." Consequently, the Bush administration improperly tried to use federal drug law to prosecute Oregon doctors who prescribe overdoses. "The authority desired by the government is inconsistent with the design of the statute in other fundamental respects. The attorney general does not have the sole delegated authority under the (law)," Kennedy wrote for himself, retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer.

The Court’s Ruling, SupremeCourtUS.gov
DeathWithDignity.org

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
5. Rampant sexism.
6. A controlled mass media.
7. Obsession with national security.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
9. Power of corporations protected.
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
14. Fraudulent elections.

Fascism Anyone? Laurence W Britt

A recent post on Global Guerrillas outlines a potential development in eco-terrorism.
If activists adopt global guerrilla tactics, they could coerce a rapid move to clean energy alternatives. Small but effective attacks on major energy pipelines would quickly increase the costs of conventional energy such that clean power alternatives would become extremely attractive. This would be dictated by a direct economic comparison (costs) as well as indirect factors such as reliability of delivery. The "systems sabotage tax" would induce a tipping point in energy market equilibria towards green alternatives if it is extended over a long period (longer than one season) and is of a sufficient level. Moreover, green guerrilla activity would have few (if any) casualties and would probably be lost in the midst of the Islamic terror threat. Wonder if this is connected to the big NE blackout back August 14, 2003.