Thanks to the available findings of a 2006 study showing that cannabis actually reduces the number of cancer cells, medical marijuana users can now feel even better about the widely abolished pain relief ingredient found in the plant. The relationship between marijuana and cancer has always been up for debate, but with the use of a specially crafted oil made from the buds of the Cannabis Sativa plant, scientists confirmed that the plant’s primary psychoactive chemical tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) destroys any and all malignant cancer cell growths in several patients. Details on the marijuana and cancer prevention connection aren’t exactly known, but further, more extensive testing will reveal exactly what may be causing this seemingly miracle cure.

Shedding Some Light on the Marijuana and Cancer Relationship

Back in 2006, the study was developed by a team of medical researchers at the Virginia Commonwealth University’s Pharmacology and Toxicology department on leukemia patients. The researchers essentially outlined that if taken daily for an extended period of time, cannabis oil actually reverses the growth of cancer and possibly leads to remission in the patient – with zero added side effects. Typically when a leukemia patient enters a hospital for admission and treatment, they are given a very extensive chemotherapy treatment, usually paired with a radiological treatment. Instead of considering any possible treatment involving marijuana and cancer, doctors use these not only ineffective, but also dangerous treatments. Cannabis, on the other hand, as shown in the study, has virtually no side effects. It is  especially safe and effective when administered in a clean, medically sound environment and in the form of oil.

Other studies have been made over the past decades much like this one: Manuel Guzman located in Madrid, Spain discovered that cannabinoids substantially inhibit the growth of tumors in a variety of lab animals. In the study he also found that not one of these tested animals endured any kind of side effects seen in many similar chemotherapy treatments. It is becoming increasingly clear that you can sidestep any of the misery associated with traditional cancer treatments and embrace the potent, effective healing powers of THC – not to forget about the positive attributes surrounding cannabis’ other primary cannabinoid, cannabidiol (CBD).

If the results don’t appeal to you, then maybe the 2,500 total studied patients throughout these 37 controlled studies will blow the lid on the myth that cannabis is and can only be used as a “dangerous” drug. None of the patients reported any kind of adverse side effects from the use of THC and based medication – further adding to the benefits of medical marijuana and strengthening the positive connection between marijuana and cancer.

The real irony in the situation here? The combined governments of the world are the primary authority behind more than 30 studies like these completed throughout the years – and kept them secret from the general public. It wouldn’t be very conducive for our government if word got out that a schedule 1 narcotic could actually help people.

Source: Natural Society - Author: Patrick Gallagher

Additional sources:

Global Healing Center

Healthier Talk

The newest estimate outstrips even the recent alarming warning by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, which had noted a six percent increase over a similar time frame.

"Food prices rose again sharply threatening the health and well-being of millions of people," said bank President Jim Yong Kim. "Africa and the Middle East are particularly vulnerable, but so are people in other countries where the prices of grains have gone up abruptly."

Experts have assigned much of the blame to severe summer weather. A long drought has devastated wheat harvests across Eastern Europe, particularly in Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine. In the United States, the summer has been the hottest ever recorded since the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began keeping records in 1895. Combined with a drought, the record heat turned what had originally been predicted to be a record high corn harvest into the smallest since 2003. U.S. soybean crops have also been devastated.

The World Bank also blamed U.S. ethanol production, which consumes 40 percent of the country's corn crop, for record high corn prices.

"Historic" increases threaten the world's poorest

According to the World Bank's report, corn and wheat prices increased 25 percent between June and July, and soybean prices increased by 17 percent over the same time period. The price of corn has actually doubled in the past two years, while the price of soybeans has doubled in the past five.

Rice was the only staple to show a decrease, with a price drop of four percent. The overall food price globally increased by six percent between July 2011 and July 2012, reaching a new record high over the prior peak of February 2011.

The World Bank warned that food-importing countries in Africa and the Middle East will be hardest hit by the price increases. Troublingly, these also tend to be countries where people spend a greater proportion of their income on food.

The price of corn has already increased by 113 percent in Mozambique in the past three months. In South Sudan, the price of sorghum surged 220 percent in the same time period.

The Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee has warned that 1.63 million people in that country will be unable to meet their food needs by March, now that a long drought has forced Malawi to import more of its food. The price of corn increased 174 percent in Malawi between July 2011 and July 2012. The World Bank has called for individual governments to increase food aid programs domestically.

"We cannot allow these historic price hikes to turn into a lifetime of perils as families take their children out of school and eat less nutritious food to compensate for the high prices," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said.

Many nonprofits, in contrast, have called for richer countries to address the inequities of the global food system. Yet the G20 (a group of the world's foremost economies) has announced that it will take no action on the food crisis until after the U.S. Department of Agriculture releases its harvest estimates in September. This move was condemned by the hunger nonprofit Oxfam.

"This 'wait and see' attitude is unacceptable," said Oxfam spokesperson Colin Roche. "Oxfam is already seeing the devastating impact of food price volatility in developing countries that rely on food imports."

Analysts are unsure what will happen to food prices in the near future, as the upcoming El Nino weather event is just as likely to boost South American harvests as to devastate Australian ones.

Sources for this article include:

naturalnews.com
bbc.co.uk
latimesblogs.latimes.com
edition.cnn.com

This article was amended on 18 March 2011 to remove references to Facebook and Twitter, introduced during the editing process, and to add a comment from Centcom, received after publication, that it is not targeting those sites.

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an "online persona management service" that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.

The project has been likened by web experts to China's attempts to control and restrict free speech on the internet. Critics are likely to complain that it will allow the US military to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives.

The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities – known to users of social media as "sock puppets" – could also encourage other governments, private companies and non-government organisations to do the same.

The Centcom contract stipulates that each fake online persona must have a convincing background, history and supporting details, and that up to 50 US-based controllers should be able to operate false identities from their workstations "without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries".

Centcom spokesman Commander Bill Speaks said: "The technology supports classified blogging activities on foreign-language websites to enable Centcom to counter violent extremist and enemy propaganda outside the US."

He said none of the interventions would be in English, as it would be unlawful to "address US audiences" with such technology, and any English-language use of social media by Centcom was always clearly attributed. The languages in which the interventions are conducted include Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto.

Centcom said it was not targeting any US-based web sites, in English or any other language, and specifically said it was not targeting Facebook or Twitter.

Gen David Petraeus has previously said US online psychological operations are aimed at 'countering extremist ideology and propaganda'. Photograph: Cliff Owen/AP

Once developed, the software could allow US service personnel, working around the clock in one location, to respond to emerging online conversations with any number of co-ordinated messages, blogposts, chatroom posts and other interventions. Details of the contract suggest this location would be MacDill air force base near Tampa, Florida, home of US Special Operations Command.

Centcom's contract requires for each controller the provision of one "virtual private server" located in the United States and others appearing to be outside the US to give the impression the fake personas are real people located in different parts of the world.

It also calls for "traffic mixing", blending the persona controllers' internet usage with the usage of people outside Centcom in a manner that must offer "excellent cover and powerful deniability".

The multiple persona contract is thought to have been awarded as part of a programme called Operation Earnest Voice (OEV), which was first developed in Iraq as a psychological warfare weapon against the online presence of al-Qaida supporters and others ranged against coalition forces. Since then, OEV is reported to have expanded into a $200m programme and is thought to have been used against jihadists across Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East.

OEV is seen by senior US commanders as a vital counter-terrorism and counter-radicalisation programme. In evidence to the US Senate's armed services committee last year, General David Petraeus, then commander of Centcom, described the operation as an effort to "counter extremist ideology and propaganda and to ensure that credible voices in the region are heard". He said the US military's objective was to be "first with the truth".

This month Petraeus's successor, General James Mattis, told the same committee that OEV "supports all activities associated with degrading the enemy narrative, including web engagement and web-based product distribution capabilities".

Centcom confirmed that the $2.76m contract was awarded to Ntrepid, a newly formed corporation registered in Los Angeles. It would not disclose whether the multiple persona project is already in operation or discuss any related contracts.

Nobody was available for comment at Ntrepid.

In his evidence to the Senate committee, Gen Mattis said: "OEV seeks to disrupt recruitment and training of suicide bombers; deny safe havens for our adversaries; and counter extremist ideology and propaganda." He added that Centcom was working with "our coalition partners" to develop new techniques and tactics the US could use "to counter the adversary in the cyber domain".

According to a report by the inspector general of the US defence department in Iraq, OEV was managed by the multinational forces rather than Centcom.

Asked whether any UK military personnel had been involved in OEV, Britain's Ministry of Defence said it could find "no evidence". The MoD refused to say whether it had been involved in the development of persona management programmes, saying: "We don't comment on cyber capability."

OEV was discussed last year at a gathering of electronic warfare specialists in Washington DC, where a senior Centcom officer told delegates that its purpose was to "communicate critical messages and to counter the propaganda of our adversaries".

Persona management by the US military would face legal challenges if it were turned against citizens of the US, where a number of people engaged in sock puppetry have faced prosecution.

Last year a New York lawyer who impersonated a scholar was sentenced to jail after being convicted of "criminal impersonation" and identity theft.

It is unclear whether a persona management programme would contravene UK law. Legal experts say it could fall foul of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981, which states that "a person is guilty of forgery if he makes a false instrument, with the intention that he or another shall use it to induce somebody to accept it as genuine, and by reason of so accepting it to do or not to do some act to his own or any other person's prejudice". However, this would apply only if a website or social network could be shown to have suffered "prejudice" as a result.

• This article was amended on 18 March 2011 to remove references to Facebook and Twitter, introduced during the editing process, and to add a comment from Centcom, received after publication, that it is not targeting those sites.

Source: guardian.co.uk - Authors: Nick Fielding and Ian Cobain (17 March 2011)

 2007--- The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda. guardian.co.uk

PROOF: facebook.com

* facebook.com

** facebook.com

*** facebook.com

**** facebook.com

***** facebook.com

****** facebook.com

******* anoncentral.tumblr.com

******** 11,000 people against Facebook Censorship: causes.com
********* anarchadia.com

While this article is not focused on the recreational use of cannabis, Terence McKenna's quote speaks directly to a sacred right, increasingly being legislated against in our society, namely, the ability to choose and use substances that grow freely on this Earth as our medicine.

In a day and age where possession of an herb like cannabis is an offense punishable by incarceration, it is important for us to reflect on how we arrived at this dark point in time.

Herbs, after all, were put here by God. If you prefer the word Nature, the point is the same, and it was put best by Bob Marley when he said: "you can't tell God it [cannabis] is illegal."

And yet authorities are telling God, and you and me, that it is illegal, despite a growing body of scientific evidence that it has profound potential as a medicine. Does this not in some way call into question the very legitimacy and authority of those who would lay claim to the right to decide what a human can or can not use a natural substance to improve their health, or enliven their spirit? As long as no harm is being done to others in the act of choosing what is best for oneself, who can rightfully take issue with the freedom to choose one's own "medicine"?

Were it not for the fact that the human body is hard-wired to respond to cannabis through the endocannabinoid system (ES), claims for its medicinal value would have much less weight. The ES, in fact, encompasses a wide range of physiological processes, including appetite, pain sensation, mood and memory. So fundamental are these processes to what motivates and defines human behavior, it is no wonder that a plant with the power to directly affect these functions would be the subject of such profound controversy, as well as brutal, socioeconomic and politically-mediated criminalization.

Indeed, the endocannabinoid system mediates the psychoactive effects of cannabis associated with its "highs" and sometimes "lows." Any plant with the power to alleviate pain or illness and which grows freely in the wild represents a significant threat to a conventional medical establishment whose monopoly is founded on the coining of medicines from patented and proprietary chemicals.

Cannabis, however, is not a Johnny-come-lately to the fierce debate over whether traditional herbal medicines have proven safety and efficacy within the "evidence-based" model of medicine. In fact, few plants can lay claim to as much scientific, and particularly human clinical data supporting its right to exist alongside other prescribed medicines as a viable treatment option. Indeed, the GreenMedInfo.com project has uncovered 129 distinct disease categories that may benefit from this remarkable plant thus far, and new studies are being added on a weekly basis.

Given the glut of research establishing the likelihood of a legitimate medicinal role for the plant in human disease prevention and treatment, the tides are beginning to turn against the miseducation of the public about this valuable herb. The fate of the practice of traditional herbalism itself, and our health freedom as a whole, hinges, in many respects, on whether the pharmaceutically-driven medical establishment, and the drug conviction-dependent privatized-prison industrial complex succeeds in maintaining the media-articulated stranglehold on mainstream opinion. We hope the positive cannabis science will arm those advocating for health freedom with the truth, and ask that you distribute it widely to those who are receptive to rational, science-based discourse on this herb's benefits.

Possessing and using any herb, but especially one that has such a high level of safety, should be the choice of that free adult, and not grounds for the termination of their constitutional and human rights associated with arrest and imprisonment, which in this day and age is equivalent to enslavement and torture. 

Sayer Ji is the founder and director of GreenMedInfo.com and co-author of the book The Cancer Killers: The Cause Is The Cure with New York Times best-seller Dr. Ben Lerner and Dr. Charles Majors. His writings and research have been published in the Wellbeing Journal, the Journal of Gluten Sensitivity, and have been featured on Mercola.com, NaturalNews.com, Reuters.com, GaryNull.com, and Care2.com. Check out his newest project: Dr. Gourmet.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of GreenMedInfo or its staff.

"If the words "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" don't include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the hemp it was written on."
- Terence McKenna

Source: greenmedinfo.com

This is a scalable context timeline. It contains events related to the event 1991-1997: Oil Investment in Central Asia Follows Soviet Collapse. You can narrow or broaden the context of this timeline by adjusting the zoom level. The lower the scale, the more relevant the items on average will be, while the higher the scale, the less relevant the items, on average, will be.

1991-1997: Oil Investment in Central Asia Follows Soviet Collapse 

The Soviet Union collapses in 1991, creating several new nations in Central Asia. Major US oil companies, including ExxonMobil, Texaco, Unocal, BP Amoco, Shell, and Enron, directly invest billions in these Central Asian nations, bribing heads of state to secure equity rights in the huge oil reserves in these regions. The oil companies commit to $35 billion in future direct investments in Kazakhstan. It is believed at the time that these oil fields will have an estimated $6 trillion potential value. US companies own approximately 75 percent of the rights. These companies, however, face the problem of having to pay exorbitant prices to Russia for use of the Russian pipelines to get the oil out. [NEW YORKER, 7/9/2001; ASIA TIMES, 1/26/2002]

December 11, 1994: Russia Invades Breakaway Region of Chechnya, Starting First Chechen War 

A Chechen rebel looks at the government palace in Grozny, Chechnya, in January 1995. [Source: Mikhail Evstafiev]

In 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Dzhokhar Dudayev won an election in Chechnya, which is a region within Russia and not a republic like Ukraine or Kazakhstan. Nonetheless, Dudayev proclaimed Chechnya independent of Russia. The next year, Chechyna adopted a constitution defining it as an independent, secular state. But Russia did not recognize Chechnya’s independence. In November 1994, Russia attempted to stage a coup in Chechnya, but this effort failed. The next month, on December 11, Russian troops invade Chechnya. This starts the first Chechen war. Up to 100,000 people are killed in the 20-month war that follows. The war will end in August 1996 (see August 1996). [BBC, 3/16/2000; BBC, 3/12/2008]

August 1997: CIA Monitors Central Asia for Oil Reserves 

The CIA creates a secret task force to monitor Central Asia’s politics and gauge its wealth. Covert CIA officers, some well-trained petroleum engineers, travel through southern Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan to sniff out potential oil reserves. [TIME, 5/4/1998]

Fall 2002-January 2003: US State Departments and Former Oil Executives Plan Iraq’s Post-Invasion Oil Industry 

The Bush administration picks Philip Carroll, a former CEO of Royal Dutch/Shell’s US division, to advise post-Saddam Iraq’s oil ministry. [HARPER'S, 4/2005, PP. 74-76] He is formally appointed in January 2003 along with Gary Vogler of ExxonMobil, three employees of the US Department of Energy, and an employee of the Australian government. In the months before the invasion, they are sent to Kuwait where they “begin planning for the restructuring of the ministry of oil to improve its efficiency and effectiveness [and] begin thinking through Iraq’s strategy options for significantly increasing its production capacity,” Carroll later explains. [MUTTITT, 2005]

May 28, 2006: Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline Opens 

The first oil pumped from Baku, by the Caspian Sea in Azerbaijan, arrives in Ceyhan, on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, and is loaded onto a ship. The 1,770 km pipeline, which passes through the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, bypasses Russia and Iran for geopolitical reasons. The main shareholder is British Petroleum, and other significant shareholders include the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), Statoil of Norway, and the US company Unocal, which has an 8.9% interest and became interested in the project no later than 1998. Unocal begins losing interest in a pipeline across Afghanistan around the same time (see December 5, 1998). Substantial amounts to finance the $3-4 billion Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline were arranged by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The consortium members put up the remaining 30%. [US CONGRESS, 2/12/1998; ALEXANDER'S GAS AND OIL CONNECTIONS, 7/12/2002; GUARDIAN, 12/1/2003; GUARDIAN, 5/26/2005; EURASIA DAILY MONITOR, 5/31/2005; TURKISH WEEKLY, 5/29/2006] Journalist Pepe Escobar comments: “In terms of no-holds-barred power politics and oil geopolitics, BTC is the real deal—a key component in the US’s overall strategy of wrestling the Caucasus and Central Asia away from Russia—and bypassing Iranian oil and gas routes… BTC makes little sense in economic terms. Oil experts know that the most cost-effective routes from the Caspian would be south through Iran or north through Russia. But BTC is a designer masterpiece of power politics—from the point of view of Washington and its corporate allies. US Vice President Dick Cheney, already in his previous incarnation as Halliburton chief, has always been a huge cheerleader for the ‘strategically significant’ BTC.” Escobar also mentions that the amount of Caspian oil was overestimated (see November 1, 2002), “the Caspian may hold only 32 billion barrels of oil—not much more than the reserves of Qatar, a small Gulf producer.” [ASIA TIMES, 5/26/2005] However, the Caspian area is still believed to hold considerable amounts of natural gas. The construction of this pipeline does not halt plans for the construction of a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to the Indian Ocean (see January 18, 2005).

Source: historycommons.org

Dixie Elixirs has made their drinks available to anyone with a prescription for medical marijuana.

The drinks come in eight different flavors, including pink lemonade, root beer and grape. But if the company really wants to get their drinks into the hands of marijuana lovers, they may want to start working on pizza and nachos flavors.

But marijuana is only legal to consume in 14 states with a prescription from a doctor. So, unless you are one of the approximately half-million people who is a medical marijuana patient, this pot-infused soda won't do you much good.

It's an open secret that you can smoke marijuana and still be a valuable part of society. But when you think of smoking weed, you're more likely to think of Cheech and Chong than the people running the United States government. (Even though at least two U.S. presidents have admitted smoking it.)

The drink makers say part of the reason they developed their line of mary-jane drinks was to remove that "reefer madness" stigma associated with marijuana smokers.

If California voters decide to make recreational marijuana legal this November, you may start seeing these organic sodas (the drink makers really know their audience) in grocery stores and liquor stores right next to the stuff from Pepsi and Coke.

But if Coca-Cola's history is any sign of what the company might do next, they could return to the heady days of putting mind-altering substances in their sodas.

At a time of sagging soda sales, drink makers are looking for a way to boost sales, and marijuana might be the answer. Medical marijuana has already proven an effective way at boosting newspaper sales, of all things. The New York Times reports that medical marijuana ads in small Colorado newspapers boost revenues enough for it to increase the size of its staff.

Source: news.discovery.com - Author: David Teeghman (Tue Oct 19, 2010) - Photo: Dixie Elixirs

During the last days, we posted on ShittyFaceBook less then the usual. After more then 12 hours of inactivity, when trying to connect and share with Turismo Associati's Facebook friends, we've got this messagge: "Facebook Login - Account Disabled - Your account has been disabled. If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ (it reads FuCK) page here."

So we want to know what happened (yes, we like to consider ourselves free persons)...

Disabled - Harassment

What???

The Merriam Webster dictionary gives this definition of the transitive verb

HARASS \hə-ˈras; ˈher-əs, ˈha-rəs\

1   a : exhaust, fatigue

    b (1) : to annoy persistently (2) : to create an unpleasant or hostile situation for especially by uninvited and unwelcome verbal or physical conduct

2:  to worry and impede by repeated raids

Of course, FaceBook is above common sense (must come with the C.I.A. ownership):

One of Facebook's main priorities is the comfort and safety of our members. Your account has been disabled for violating Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

Our policies prohibit:

Ą Credible threats to harm others or the promotion of self-destructive behavior

Ą Targeting individuals on the site is not allowed

Ą Hate speech or singling people out based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or disease

Ą Graphic content including sadistic displays of violence against people or animals and depictions of sexual assault

Not to mention that if this generic answer does not answer your doubts, Facebook invites users to go away: If you believe your account was disabled by mistake, please contact us.

This is great, they connect to your mail account to see again if you are you (who the hell should you be?!) so they get free access to your private e-mails (what would you do with your privacy anyway?).

But they have two more funny questions:

Does Facebook disable everyone that gets reported?

A Facebook administrator looks into each report to decide the appropriate course of action. If no violation of our community standards has occurred, no action will be taken. If a violation has occurred, you may receive a warning or become disabled, depending on the severity of the violation.

Yeap! You got confused. Don't worry, you've got millions of neurons that you can lose...

What if I didn't receive a warning before becoming disabled?

Depending on the severity of the violation, a warning might not have been issued before disabling your account. Please note that we do not restore accounts that were disabled for severe violations of the Facebook Community Standards.

In conclusion, it seems Turismo Associati, the Trilingual World Observatory: italiano, english, română; GLOBAL NEWS & more, harassed your ass with information.

Our advice?

Look outside your window and see the Sun. Go take a walk and FUBAR FascistFaceBook. You are too beautiful to be spied by some perverted liars.

Author: TA, the one that had some good moments with you my ex Facebook friends, the one that was designated to post TurismoAssociati.it's news articles on that "social network".

Here are some facts about What is FACEBOOK:

One of the dumbest ideas ever on Facebook is that friends can automatically add you to groups. How To Stop People From Adding You To Facebook Groups

Facebook stole every contact and phone number in your phone – here’s how to undo the damage.

FACEBOOK APPARTIENE ALLA CIA ? EDITORIALE DI ERNESTO CARMONA . (DOES FACEBOOK BELONG TO THE Central Intelligence Agency? EDITORIAL by ERNESTO CARMONA.)

Facebook is a trap, says web founder.

Poland's Supreme Court concluded that a person may be found guilty of offending religious sensibilities even if the defendant had not “directly” intended to do so.

The court was examining the matter in relation to an appeal against the 2011 aquittal of Robert Darski – frontman of internationally renowned rock group Behemoth - who tore up a copy of the bible on stage.

Darski's case will now be re-examined by a district court.

During the 2011 hearing, Darski's lawyers had argued successively that the 2007 concert was for a closed group of fans who had not been offended by the musician's behaviour.

Furthermore, the court accepted that the singer's actions were a kind of “artistic” performance, and that the singer had not “directly” aimed at offending religious sensibilities.

However, the Supreme Court has indicated in its Monday ruling that Darski's actions have legal ramifications beyond the concert arena.

“The crime of offending religious sensibilities is committed not only by he who intends to carry it out, but also by he who is aware that his actions may lead to offence being taken,” the court concluded.

While on stage, Darski called the Catholic Church the world's “most murderous cult” and tore up a copy of the bible, declaring it to be a “book full of lies.”

Darski had been brought to court by former MP Ryszard Nowak, chairman of the privately run Nationwide Defence Committee against Sects.

Following yesterday's hearing, Nowak declared his satisfaction with the ruling.

“A clear signal has been sent to all the courts in Poland that one must take care with regard to offending religious feelings.

Meanwhile, after emerging from court, Darski himself said that on the one hand “one should respect the court's verdict.”

However, he also claimed that his country's mentality “is immature, trying to gag people,” and that he was in court for “the good cause”, namely the right to “freedom of speech.”

The maximum penalty in Poland for offending religious sensibilities is a two-year prison sentence.

The case will now be examined by a district court in Gdansk, northern Poland.

Source: thenews.pl

From this, it follows that if you are making campaign contributions or donating to front groups who spend your money on behalf of candidates, you’re wasting your money, or worse, diverting your resources away from political action that actually could make a difference. There’s more to political life than elections although you wouldn’t know it from Karl Rove’s brave new world of perpetual campaigns.

Take it from someone who worked as a Republican apparatchik for many years inside the Washington machine, the American political system is an exercise in mass deception and mass delusion. Elections stupefy the people and give political cover to what Will Rogers called “America’s only native criminal class” (viz., Members of Congress) to commit all manner of felonies in the name of the public interest.

Voting legitimizes the criminal enterprise called government, and it makes voters a party to the crime. And to top it off, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the major party candidates. If you believe otherwise, watch this video.

American elections are a game played between the forty-yard lines, kept carefully within narrow bounds where the two establishment political parties can trade offices back and forth without changing a thing and without endangering their political duopoly.

The establishment parties wail about how difficult it is to cut spending and balance the budget but neither of them puts forth serious proposals to reduce the size of government by, say, bringing the troops home and dismantling the military-industrial-security-state complex; by eliminating all public sector pensions, including their own, and cutting bureaucrats’ salaries and eliminating cabinet departments.

They insist on continuously raising the national debt and giving reckless and corrupt bankers guarantees and bailouts rather than making them eat their losses and take the haircuts they deserve. The permanent political duopoly never gives serious consideration to measures that would restore Americans’ freedoms and personal privacy, such as eliminating all forms of sovereign immunity and holding elected officials, judges and bureaucrats to the same standards as ordinary citizens and requiring all public officials to abide by the same laws as everyone else. It never enters polite Washington conversation to consider subjecting federal laws and regulations to a ballot initiative in which the people have the opportunity to repeal them. Super majority voting requirements to check passionate majorities are fiercely resisted. And it is beyond the pale of social propriety in Washington for candidates of either establishment party to propose repealing the income tax and making the dollar as good as gold by ending the Fed and outlawing fiat money creation by the government or a central bank.

Instead, the parties play the Washington Monument game, conspiring with each other to eviscerate earned Social Security and Medicare benefits from retirees rather than keeping the terms of the deal the government cut with today’s seniors back in the day when they were still working and producing and paying taxes to support the programs. It’s the oldest bait-and-switch gambit in the world.

Class warfare too is a favorite Washington game as the permanent establishment parties stoke envy and jealousy among the people, turning Americans against one another so the hoi polloi don’t turn against them. They deceive people into believing the tax increases coming down the pike will only land on the rich. It’s such a tawdry lie but no politician ever lost money betting on the gullibility of the American voter. It has all played out innumerable times before. They tell the country they just want the rich to pay a little bit more but everyone ends up paying a whole lot more.

The promise of elections is that they establish an efficient negative feedback loop through which the clashing of competitive electoral forces reveals previous errors, elucidates the truth and validates the will of the people by selecting for public office candidates who are capable of and committed to solving pressing public problems.

But it turns out, most of the problems are self-inflicted by the very politicians who demand that voters empower them to fix the mess they created. Quite the opposite of their promise, elections set up a nasty positive feedback loop that legitimizes the destructive acts of the political class. Winning an election is a license to make a new mess under the guise of cleaning up an old mess that career politicians made before the last election. They are perpetual mess machines.

That’s because elections are the very opposite of adversarial legal proceedings and competitive markets. Election campaigns ignore what’s important and obsess over trivia and minutiae. They are theatrical sword fights, not true competition of the marketplace. Election campaigns create their own reality rather than revealing objective reality. They formulate public opinion and distort public perception rather than discovering peoples’ preferences through the clash of competition. They manipulate people’s preferences rather than satisfying them. American politics is a political matrix, a virtual reality World of Political WarCraft. But, the consequences are only too real.

The entire American political system is based on a false syllogism that runs something like this:

• If you make campaign contributions and work your butt off for political candidates, then
•  You can elect the “right” people to office, and then
• The candidates you elected to office will be committed to the policies and values you hold and, therefore
• The candidates you elected to office will promote the “right” laws and regulations and appoint the “right” bureaucrats and judges and, then
• The “right” laws and regulations you donated money and sweated to see adopted will be enacted into law, and the law will be interpreted and implemented the “right” way by the “right” judges and bureaucrats, and therefore
• You should make large campaign contributions to and work long hours on behalf of and vote for candidates who promise to change the world the way you want to see it changed.   QED—or rather, LOL

To anyone who still buys this crock of malarkey, I say, “Remember John Roberts.” Elections don’t change a thing, and if they did, as Emma Goldman once said, they would soon be illegal.

Anti-abortion advocates take note. You are illustrative of the electoral scam being run in America today. You will never elect the “right” candidates to appoint the “right” judges to overturn Roe v. Wade; you will only succeed in rewarding the same lying politicians and enriching the same PACs and political operators behind them who’ve been running this scam for the last 40 years. Elections don’t work, and you better find a new strategy if you hope to stem the tide of abortions.

Mr. and Ms. American voter: You’ve been had.

Source: Forbes.com - Author: Lawrence Hunter, Contributor ("I write about the intersection of economics and politics.")

In a bid to stamp out organized crime in the country, Uruguay has legalized the sale of about 20 marijuana cigarettes a month to its citizens.
 
Users will be able to buy 40 grams – or 1.4oz – a month, about enough to roll up 20 joints and the sale will be regulated by the state with the dope being sold at a market price of around $34.

To regulate their purchases, smokers will be given a card with a barcode that keeps track of the amount of pot each person purchases.
 
Uruguayan President José Mujica, who previously announced plans to grow up to 150 hectares of mariajuana for sale to users, said that his government hopes to eliminate the black market trade in pot – and related violence - by implementing this measure.

We are losing the battle against drugs and crime in South America. Somebody has to be the first.
 
“The negative effects of consuming marijuana are far less harmful than the outbreak of violence associated with the black market,” added Interior minister Eduardo Bonomi
 
Read more: latino.foxnews.com via THCFinder.com