The U.S. is producing a mock trial. All the rights of defendants guaranteed by the Constitution are being denied in this show trial: private consultation with lawyers, right to confront accusers, use of information obtained by torture, use of military trial rather than civil procedures and restriction of presentation of defendants’ evidence and theory of the crime. The guilty verdict is pre-ordained.

Khalid is not interested in impressing the judge, nor the American public. He has no reason to cooperate with the government’s trial plan. His goal is to recruit new members and strengthen the Jihad revolution.

Just think how his ignoring the judge, flipping through magazines, and reading the Koran played on Arabic TV.  While on trial, he’s laughing at the judge and the court. The government wants a mock trial? He’s giving back as much as he’s given.  Pundits in the U.S. go tut-tut, while the world is laughing at the trial that is making a joke of American justice.

I was a defendant in one of America’s mock trials. The federal jury could not hear my relationship to the City of Oakland, any of the medical issues and  who I supplied. I was found guilty, but once the jury heard the full story they repudiated their verdict. The judge tried to redeem himself with a one day sentence, but he’s still  a shmuck. They didn’t reach any of their objectives or goals, but they publicized the absurdity of the law in a way I couldn’t have done by myself.

Obama, aren’t you happy you kept the trial in Guantanamo? Smoke a joint, and get some wisdom. Stop suffering from MDS.

If you are growing Indicas (and some highly Indica influenced hybrids) it might be a little bit early but there is a solution– just interrupt the dark cycle with a bright fluorescent light once during the evening.This is an excellent solution for greenhouses and the warmer parts of the country, you can plant seeds but you will have a much higher success rate by germinating the seeds first in a sterile or pasteurized planting mix. Clones are also a good start.

Happy gardening!

I have mentioned that when Dennis Peron’s dispensary – the first in the world – was shut down in San Francisco, more dispensaries exponentially metastasized in its place. So what is going to happen with Richard Lee’s dispensary now that it has been shut down (although Oaksterdam University has vowed to remain open)?

There are a few early indications. Oakland has approved operating permits for four new dispensaries and more underground Measure Z Clubs are operating all over the city. Now rather than a center hub it is more of an independent network system. You can close down one source or several sources, but they can’t close the network. It is too large. The risk is relatively low: With so many dispensaries, the chance of any single dispensary being harassed is lessened.

If I were writing a press release for the Cannabis Medical Dispensary Association (which cannot be reached because it does not exist) it would go something like this:

The unfair and unwarranted destruction of the Blue Sky Dispensary by the federal government was despicable; however, it remains ineffectual. Not one medical marijuana patient is without medicine because of this raid. The government faces a losing choice, whether or not it prosecutes Lee. By taking Lee out, the government created a big hole in the forest. It’s fertile soil, and it’s well seeded. So we would like to congratulate the Federal Government for helping our industry grow.

But, getting back to that metastasis, Lee has trained hundreds of people as employees or interns who will now be able to go out and use their entrepreneurial training to open up their own cannabusinesses.

So to all my readers, go forth and prosper. Happy 420!

President Obama promised at the beginning of his administration to respect state medical marijuana laws. He has broken this promise time and time again — and the consequences have been devastating.Tell President Obama and the DEA: Enough is enough. Keep your campaign promise, and stop the raids on the medical cannabis industry!

Here’s what you can do:

Sign the petition:
https://www.change.org/petitions/stop-the-medical-marijuana-raids

Call the White House Hotline 202-456-1111 and leave the message: I don’t approve of the raids against medical marijuana providers. It is cruel and misguided.

This is not just a “California” thing. 16 States including the DC allow medical marijuana use and legislation is pending in 6 other states. I live in an area where I have have the privilege of going to a well-run dispensary and selecting from a wide range cannabis varieties,  edibles, tinctures. Contacting Obama will you bring you closer to having this as an option for yourself and loved ones.

Thank you for acting and passing this along.

-Ed

Science and medicine have given us a way to determine these characteristics early in the pregnancy. This advance is part of science medical march. If not for modern medicine I wouldn’t be here now. I was born a blue baby and needed transfusions at birth. Thank you 20th century medicine. I had a hernia, an appendectomy, then another hernia. All of these operations were available only beginning in the last century. For the hundreds of thousands of years before, we were in the hands of God, or some said the Devil when we were afflicted.

When I was a child I saw people behind Coke bottle glasses using their last vestiges of sight before they went blind from cataracts. I had the same problem a few years ago, but my biological eye lenses were replaced with hinged lenses that give me better sight than I had before the cataracts. Thank you 21st century science. Now we have the chance to determine whether the fetus is healthy. When they suffer from debilitating problems they can be terminated in favor of a child that will not face a life of insurmountable difficulties, pain, or one cut short while other children are blossoming.

In the monotheistic tradition believers have always tried to think of God as just but benevolent, wanting the best for people. Religious people pray for happiness, health, deliverance from war, weather, accidents, pain, disease and pestilence. The one time God toyed with people, with Job and his family, He was tricked into his actions by a mocking angel. This was not his best moment. People hope for God’s mercy and justice.

On the other hand, people think of disaster as the work of the Devil. He is associated with disease, war, hate, pain, and suffering. So the question might come up when a person preaches for disease and burden rather than joy and growth, just who is he speaking for?

I’ve had it up to my nostrils with the putrid odor of Republican hypocrites; anti-gay voting closeted representatives like Larry Craig, super-rich candidates like Romney talking about opportunity. Now Santorum, who has been defined correctly on Google, is trying to claim to be God’s candidate. How does he know? Did someone claiming to be God speak to him while he was brushing his teeth? Did the voice beam through his hair dryer?

What all this is getting to is Santorum’s recent comments regarding free pre-natal care..
He said on Face the Nation, “The bottom line is that a lot of prenatal tests are done to identify deformities in utero and the customary procedure is to encourage abortions.” He singled out amniocentesis, a procedure in which amniotic fluid is extracted to examine chromosomes and check for birth defects.”

If Santorum had his way poor women would be denied this prenatal care. Women who can afford it will get the care even without coverage. However, poor women, who must choose between necessities and medical care are unlikely to get the recommended tests. So, for the most part, the burden of special needs children will fall on the poor. Does Santorum at least offer them support for the burden he would impose on them? Healthcare, financial assistance, a caring government. No he says- Let God care for them.

Santorum’s thought processes and the natural outcomes of his rhetoric would cause individuals and society pain and suffering, heartbreak and loss. He claims to represent God, but he advocates policies that please the Devil.

Santorum is a man deceived by the Devil into thinking he is doing God’s work. His brain is writhing now as if being consumed by worms and maggots. He needs an exorcism.

EXORCIZE SANTORUM!

But I think America is really fortunate to have the free entertainment and circus of idiocy that is the Republican primaries. Every day the campaign brings me new joy and love for life. Rather than dreading the news I get on my local Pacifica radio station that usually sets me off into either anger or depression, I awaken fresh and eagerly awaiting the next explosive remarks by this cast of clowns.

Just imagine Mitt Romney on a golf course in an argument with his golf buddy over just who won the Super Bowl in ’99. He says “Betcha $10,000 Chip” and his buddy says “I’ll take you up on it, Mittens.”

You really just can’t blame him for saying that publicly at the debate because that might not be out of the ordinary with the people he hangs with. However, Romney was deemed unqualified by the evangelical bigot committee to be President because he was a Mormon, which these people, some of whom talk in tongues, consider a cult.

I don’t think Mormonism is a cult. In fact I am rather intrigued with Mormonism and am thinking of forming my own Mormon sect based on my own revelations, which I received on Mount Tamalpais (just north of San Francisco).

It was a golden sunset and I was listening to the radio and there was a serious discussion of Mormonism while I was watching the sunset. One of the revelations I had from this radio program was that when you reach a certain degree of Mormonism you and your spouse will go beyond heaven and be given your own planet. It was then that I realized that Mormonism had a lot of attractions.

At first, I felt it would be pretty cool to be the God of my very own planet, but then I started having some reservations. There are a lot of planets out there. Would I get placed on some planet in some distant galaxy or would I get placed on a planet in the center of things? And then, just where is the center of things? If I get my own planet are there going to be people on it? It would be no fun being a God without other people around. I mean would I even get animals? Animals don’t even speak English.

But I digress. What I want to know very sincerely is, has Romney paid enough to the church to get a good planet? Does his 10% tithe to the Mormon Church instead of the government buy him a good planet filled with English speaking animals and other people to socialize with? Does he get just the family rate or family and friends?

“… has Romney paid enough to the church to get a good planet?”

But I digress again. Ron Paul published or didn’t publish a publication which he didn’t read, had no control over, didn’t see or wasn’t aware of which was totally racist. Then he appeared in front of a Confederate Flag, said the South was right– and they were, very right, extreme right! SO right that they were fascists. Although I like his foreign policy and some of his internal policies ideas, this guy is a racist pig, I sort of imagine him being attacked by someone inspired by the Girl With a Dragon Tattoo, holding him down and tattooing his chest with “I am a racist pig.”

And Gingrich, the serial cheater who crusaded against Bill Clinton’s infidelity as he had a relationships with multiple women, somehow has the right to be offended by a question about it. None of these people have a clue that as they veer further and further to the right they become more and more unelectable. This leaves the voting public only two choices: Obama or a write-in candidate (Me).

Now I haven’t been pushing my campaign recently because I have been waiting to see what would happen in the Republican Party. If this does become a brokered convention I would be an extreme dark horse for the party. In fact, some people would say invisible. But I could lead it in a different direction, towards the oblivion it deserves… more ramblings later.

In addition to fighting overseas, the U.S. has conducted three wars on its citizens- the Indian actions, the Civil War and the long running Drug War. To top it off, before Bush botched it up, the neo-conservatives were calling for “The American Century”. THEY planned for a military and cultural empire.

In his book “The Assassination of Caesar”, Michael Franti shows how Rome’s middle-class was drained of its wealth and income to support the empire. The booty from the adventurist policies went to the influential, either wealthy or military plunderers.

Rome went from republic to Caeserian Empire and the middle class devolved to Rome’s welfare class, who were controlled and disenfranchised with bread and circuses of cruelty- Animal against animal; animals vs. people. The Romans decimated North African wildlife and executed many Christians in these arenas of bloodlust.

George McGovern was the first and last candidate to bring up the empire issue in his disastrous run against Nixon in 1972. Since then the anti-empirists and pro-peace, anti-war groups have been invisible to the press. Empire has not been the issue- only how to conduct it.

Now Ron Paul has brought the issue to the forefront by endorsing my platform calling for withdrawal of all U.S. bases from other countries. He has shown how the corporations benefit from our military and the U.S. population suffers. His arguments cannot be ignored.

Paul has put the anti-war, anti-empire argument on the discussion table. The philosophy of not being a military bully has made a giant jump into American consciousness thanks to him. By pulling from the right he gave it a legitimacy that it didn’t have coming from the left.

At first I thought Ron Paul’s campaign was more powerful than the multitude of voices opposing U.S. militarism. But the Occupation movement with its Greek chorus of human microphones has also had a hand in turning public opinion around. It took both right and left to set the stage for a re-evaluation of American exceptionalism. Forty years is a long time to wait for the discussion. Obama, are you listening?

RESCIND OBAMA’S NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

I would assume that the Nobel Committee selected Obama for the Peace Prize in 2009 in anticipation of the good acts they expected of him. Perhaps the closing of Guantanamo, stopping torture of prisoners, pulling out of Iraq, stopping support of tyrants like Mubarek, Assad and Nursultan Nazarbayev of  Kazakhstan. Perhaps they thought he would sign the Kyoto Accords or the Land-Mine Treaty.

He turned out to be another U.S. President-warmonger. He’s the world’s biggest arms dealer. He commands the biggest army. Spends as much on military as the next 10 nations combined, and he just signed a law allowing the use of military courts and military justice on U.S. citizens in the U.S.

Well, its just another example of paying the contractor before the job is completed and inspected. Advance payment is a often a set-up for disappointment and shoddy workmanship.

What should the Nobel Committee do? Rescind the Prize! And rescind Henry Kissinger’s, too. He was an architect of the Vietnam War, which destroyed the lives of millions of people. Instead send both of these suspects to the World Court in the Hague to stand trial for crimes against humanity and genocide. Obama’s eligible now and he’s still piling up the body count*. First step: Rescind their Nobels. Isn’t it unseemly for the Committee to award prizes to these creeps and not to Pete Seeger, one of the world’s foremost peace-mongers?

* Sorry Bush, no prize for you, but you are eligible for the one way to the Hague.

Got a South facing window that gets unobstructed light all day? Let that sunlight work for you!

No matter whether you live in the city, the country or suburbs, high rise or tiny cottage, if you have the light you can grow the herb NOW. If you have clones or small plants, you are ahead of the game, just repot them and put them in direct sunlight. If you use the room in the evening, place an opaque curtain between the plants and the light because they will stop flowering if they receive any light besides pure green. If you dont have plants ask your friends for some or if you live in a medical state pick up some clones at your local dispensary. Ask for varieties that flower in 7-8 weeks. Feed them grow formula for about two weeks then switch over to flowering formula. By April 1st, St. Stupid’s Day, celebrated annually in San Francisco, you should be able to harvest (well in time for 4:20!).

Marijuana needs at least 11 hours of uninterrupted darkness each day to flower. The plants should be started NOW and then harvested by April 1st when the dark period is less than 11 hours and may begin interfering with flowering.