#OCCUPYWALLST
#OCCUPYBOSTON
Bostonians- Fight for your rights and your future STARTING TONIGHT. Dewey Square, 6PM.
(via socialistexan)
Source: smashitdead
Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.
Bertrand Russell (via glynnthomas)
(via un--man)
Source: glynnthomas
We can tell our children that school is important until we’re blue in the face, they’re not stupid. They see the loudest applause is for the kids on the field. They know teachers are paid poorly and don’t drive fancy cars. They know people plan Super Bowl parties but mock the National Spelling Bee. In other words, they see the hypocrisy, and we can’t expect society to correct itself. If we want to have any lasting influence on the way our kids approach education — the way future generations approach education — then we have to grab our pom-poms and paint our faces and celebrate intellectual curiosity with the same vigor we do their athletic achievements.
Why I’m raising my son to be a nerd - CNN.com
We also don’t believe in the value of education, culturally — we just like to say we do because as citizens of an industrialized nation, we’re supposed to.
(via chameli)
(via randomactsofchaos)
Source: CNN
18 Signs That Life In U.S. Public Schools Is Now Essentially Equivalent To Life In U.S. Prisons
#1 Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has announced that school officials can search the cell phones and laptops of public school students if there are “reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or is violating either the law or the rules of the school.”
#2 It came out in court that one school district in Pennsylvania secretly recorded more than 66,000 images of students using webcams that were embedded in school-issued laptops that the students were using at home.
#3 If you can believe it, a “certified TSA official” was recently brought in to oversee student searches at the Santa Fe High School prom.
#4 A few years ago a class of 3rd grade students at one Kentucky elementary school were searched by a group of teachers after 5 dollars went missing. During the search the students were actually required to remove their shoes and their socks.
#5 At one public school in the Chicago area, children have been banned from bringing their lunches from home. Yes, you read that correctly. Students at that particular school are absolutely prohibited from bringing lunches from home. Instead, it is mandatory that they eat the food that the school cafeteria serves.
#6 The U.S. Department of Agriculture is spending huge amounts of money to install surveillance cameras in the cafeterias of public schools so that government control freaks can closely monitor what our children are eating.
#7 A teenager in suburban Dallas was recently forced to take on a part-time job after being ticketed for using bad language in one high school classroom. The original ticket was for $340, but additional fees have raised the total bill to $637.
#8 It is not just high school kids that are being ticketed by police. In Texas the crackdown extends all the way down to elementary school students. In fact, it has been reported that Texas police gave “1,000 tickets” to elementary school kids over a recent six year period.
#9 A few months ago, a 17 year-old honor student in North Carolina named Ashley Smithwick accidentally took her father’s lunch with her to school. It contained a small paring knife which he would use to slice up apples. So what happened to this standout student when the school discovered this? The school suspended her for the rest of the year and the police charged her with a misdemeanor.
#10 A little over a year ago, a 6 year old girl in Florida was handcuffed and sent to a mental facility after throwing temper tantrums at her elementary school.
#11 In early 2010, a 12 year old girl in New York was arrested by police and marched out of her school in handcuffs just because she doodled on her desk. “I love my friends Abby and Faith” was what she reportedly wrote on her desk.
#12 There are actually some public schools in the United States that are so paranoid that they have actually installed cameras in student bathrooms.
#13 Down in Florida, students have actually been arrested by police for bringing a plastic butter knife to school, for throwing an eraser, and for drawing a picture of a gun.
#14 The Florida State Department of Juvenile Justice has announced that it will begin using analysis software to predict crime by young delinquents and will place “potential offenders” in specific prevention and education programs.
#15 A group of high school students made national headlines a while back when they revealed that they were ordered by a security guard to stop singing the national anthem during a visit to the Lincoln Memorial.
#16 In some U.S. schools, armed cops accompanied by police dogs actually conduct surprise raids with their guns drawn. In this video, you can actually see police officers aiming their guns at school children as the students are lined up facing the wall.
#17 Back in 2009, one 8 year old boy in Massachusetts was sent home from school and was forced to undergo a psychological evaluation because he drew a picture of Jesus on the cross.
#18 This year, 13 parents in Duncan, South Carolina were actually ticketed for cheering during a high school graduation.
(number 14 makes me want to destroy computers.)
(via mujerinterrumpida)
Having gone to an absurdly tight-ass public school myself, none of this surprises me.
(via randomactsofchaos)
Source: kemetically-afrolatino
10 Myths about Evolution
1 If Humans Came From Apes, Why Aren’t Apes Evolving Into Humans?
Humans, apes, and monkeys are only distant evolutionary “cousins.” We come not from apes but from a common ancestor that was neither ape nor human that lived millions of years in the past. In fact, during the last seven million years many human-like species have evolved; some examples include Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and Homo neanderthalensis. All of these went extinct at different times, leaving just us to share the planet with a handful of other primates.
2 There Are Too Many Gaps in the Fossil Record for Evolution to Be True
In fact, there are lots of intermediate fossils. Archaeopteryx, for example, is one of the earliest known fossil birds with a reptilian skeleton and feathers. There is now evidence that some dinosaurs had hair and feathers. Therapsids are the intermediates between reptiles and mammals, Tiktaalik is an extinct lobe-finned fish intermediate to amphibians, there are now at least six intermediate fossil stages in the evolution of whales, and in human evolution there are at least a dozen intermediate fossil stages since hominids branched off from the great apes six million years ago. Considering the exceptionally low probability that a dead plant or animal will fossilize it is remarkable we have as many fossils as we do. First the dead animal has to escape the jaws of scavengers. Then is has to be buried under the rare circumstances that will cause it to fossilize instead of decay. Then geological forces have to somehow bring the fossil back to the surface to be discovered millions of years later by the handful of paleontologists looking for them
3 If Evolution Happened Gradually Over Millions of Years Why Doesn’t the Fossil Record Show Gradual Change?
Sudden changes in the fossil record are not missing evidence of gradualism; they are extant evidence of punctuation. Species are stable over long periods of time and so they leave plenty of fossils in the strata while in their stable state. The change from one species to another, however, happens relatively quickly (on a geological time scale) in a process called punctuated equilibrium. One species can give rise to a new species when a small “founder” group breaks away and becomes isolated from the ancestral group. This new founder group, as long as it remains small and detached, may experience relatively rapid change (large populations are genetically stable). The speciational change happens so rapidly that few fossils are left to record it. But once changed into a new species, the individuals will retain their phenotype for a long time, leaving behind many well-preserved fossils. Millions of years later this process results in a fossil record that records mostly stability. The punctuation is there in between the equilibrium.
4 No One Has Ever Seen Evolution Happen
Evolution is a historical science confirmed by the fact that so many independent lines of evidence converge to this single conclusion. Independent sets of data from geology, paleontology, botany, zoology, biogeography, comparative anatomy and physiology, genetics, molecular biology, developmental biology, embryology, population genetics, genome sequencing, and many other sciences each point to the conclusion that life evolved. Creationists demand “just one fossil transitional form” that shows evolution. But evolution is not proved through a single fossil. It is proved through a convergence of fossils, along with a convergence of genetic comparisons between species, and a convergence of anatomical and physiological comparisons between species, and many other lines of inquiry. (In fact we can see evolution happen—especially among organisms with short reproductive cycles that are subject to extreme environmental pressures. Knowledge of the evolution of viruses and bacteria is vital to medical science.)
5 Science Claims That Evolution Happens by Random Chance
Natural selection is not “random” nor does it operate by “chance.” Natural selection preserves the gains and eradicates the mistakes. To illustrate this, imagine a monkey at a typewriter. In order for the monkey to type the first 13 letters of Hamlet’s soliloquy by chance, it would take 26 (to the 13th power) number of trials for success. This is 16 times as great as the total number of seconds that have elapsed in the lifetime of the solar system. But if each correct letter is preserved and each incorrect letter eradicated, the phrase “tobeornottobe” can be “selected for” in only 335 trials, or just seconds in a computer program. Richard Dawkins defines evolution as “random mutation plus nonrandom cumulative selection.” It is the cumulative selection that drives evolution. The eye evolved from a single, light sensitive spot in a cell into the complex eye of today not by chance, but through thousands of intermediate steps, each preserved because they made a better eye. any of these steps still exist in nature in simpler organisms.
6 Only an Intelligent Designer Could Have Made Something as Complex as an Eye
The anatomy of the human eye shows that it is anything but “intelligently designed.” It is built upside down and backwards, with photons of light having to travel through the cornea, lens, aqueous fluid, blood vessels, ganglion cells, amacrine cells, horizontal cells, and bipolar cells, before reaching the light sensitive rods and cones that convert the light signal into neural impulses, which are then sent to the visual cortex at the back of the brain for processing into meaningful patterns. For optimal vision, why would an intelligent designer have built an eye upside down and backwards? This “design” only makes sense if natural selection built eyes from available materials, and in the particular configuration of the ancestral organism’s pre-existing organic structures. The eye shows the pathways of evolutionary history, not intelligent design.
7 Evolution is Only A Theory
All branches of science are based on theories, which are grounded in testable hypothesis and explain a large and diverse body of facts about the world. A theory is considered robust if it consistently predicts new phenomena that are subsequently observed. Facts are the world’s data. Theories are explanatory ideas about those data. Constructs and other non-testable statements are not a part of science. The theory of evolution meets all the criteria of good science, as determined by Judge William Overton in the Arkansas creationism trial:
• It is guided by natural law.
• It has to be explanatory by reference to natural law.
• It is testable against the empirical world.
• Its conclusions are tentative.
• It is testable and falsifiable.
If you can find fossil mammals in the same geological strata as trilobites then evolution would be falsified. No one has ever found such contradictory data.8 Evidence for Human Evolution Has Turned Out to Be Fake, Frauds, or Fanciful
Eager to discredit evolution, creationists ignore hominid fossil discoveries and cherry pick examples of hoaxes and mistakes in the belief that mistakes in science are a sign of weakness. This is a gross misunderstanding of the nature of science, which constantly advances by using both its mistakes and the successes. Its ability to build cumulatively on the past is how science progresses. The self-correcting feature of the scientific method is one of its most powerful assets. Hoaxes like Piltdown Man, and honest mistakes like Nebraska Man, Calaveras Man, and Hespero-pithecus, are, in time, corrected. In fact, it wasn’t creationists who exposed these errors, it was scientists who did so. Creationists simply read about the scientific exposé of these errors, and then duplicitously claimed them as their own.
9 The Second Law of Thermodynamics Proves That Evolution is Impossible
The Second Law of Thermodynamics applies to closed, isolated systems. Since the Earth receives a constant input of energy from the sun—it is an open-dissipative system—entropy may decrease and order increase (though the sun itself is running down in the process). Thus, the Earth is not strictly a closed system and life may evolve without violating natural law. As long as the sun is burning, life may continue thriving and evolving, just like automobiles may be prevented from rusting, burgers can be heated in ovens, and all manner of things in apparent violation of Second Law entropy may continue. But as soon as the sun burns out, entropy will take its course and life on Earth will cease.
10 Evolution Can’t Account For Morality
As a social primate species we evolved a deep sense of right and wrong in order to accentuate and reward reciprocity and cooperation, and to attenuate and punish excessive selfishness and free riding. As well, evolution created the moral emotions that tell us that lying, adultery, and stealing are wrong because they destroy trust in human relationships that depend on truth-telling, fidelity, and respect for property. It would not be possible for a social primate species to survive without some moral sense. On the constitution of human nature is built the constitutions of human societies.
(via stfuconservatives)
Source: thanatesque
The Decade of Lost Children
According to “The State of America’s Children 2011,” a report issued last month by the Children’s Defense Fund, the impact of the recession on children’s well-being has been catastrophic.
Here is just a handful of the findings:
• The number of children living in poverty has increased by four million since 2000, and the number of children who fell into poverty between 2008 and 2009 was the largest single-year increase ever recorded.
• The number of homeless children in public schools increased 41 percent between the 2006-7 and 2008-9 school years.
• In 2009, an average of 15.6 million children received food stamps monthly, a 65 percent increase over 10 years.
• A majority of children in all racial groups and 79 percent or more of black and Hispanic children in public schools cannot read or do math at grade level in the fourth, eighth or 12th grades.
• The annual cost of center-based child care for a 4-year-old is more than the annual in-state tuition at a public four-year college in 33 states and the District of Columbia.
But who cares about those kids? No one needs to help them! Instead, we should focus our finite resources on insuring that every single fetus ever conceived is brought into the world, regardless of whether or not the person whose uterus it inhabits actually wants to do so or is even able to!
(via randomactsofchaos)
Source: damekatharsis
Think about how beautiful society would be when we start to educate people on natural processes of the environment - on science, technology and resource conservation. And when people can gauge society on a professional level, if you will, they do so on things that actually matter. That would be cataclysmic. That would be unbelievable. To see people doing stuff that actually has a relevance. That will enable them to have so much more freedom, too.
Peter Joseph (via zeitgeistmovement)
(via socialuprooting)
This is sick. Why is this happening? Because there’s more money to be made from Prison Supplies than School Supplies, I guess.
Blue Fin Tuna War--Protection at Stake in Lybia
This is pretty crazy, let’s hope these poachers don’t get the best of this species.
A war is raging in Libya, but it’s not the one in the news.
Its battles are set in the dazzling Mediterranean offshore. Its warriors are foreign, their motives mostly mercenary.
Their casualties? Atlantic bluefin tuna. Although it’s not an officially endangered species — with help from the Obama administration — overfishing has reduced bluefin populations by 80 percent since 1970. A single bluefin typically sells for $75,000, and that’s what will happen to those caught off Libya, unless Captain Paul Watson, armed with international law and big serrated knives, wins this war.
Two ships from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a nonprofit Watson founded in 1978, nine years after cofounding Greenpeace, are now speeding toward Libyan seas. French, Spanish, German, Italian and Maltese poachers ply these waters with impunity, although the EU has outlawed all fishing here due to Libya’s civil war. It’s a NATO no-fly zone, which is good news to poachers: No inspectors. No surveillance.
Except, that is, for the Sea Shepherd’s 60-foot helicopter-mounted flagship Steve Irwin and its small, swift scout vessel.
“Any boat we find will be an illegal boat,” warns Watson, who says he liberated 800 tuna off Libya last year.
Bluefin are not killed upon being caught, but hauled live in huge underwater nets to shore stations “where they can be fattened up” like feedlot steers, Watson explains. Sea Shepherd divers slit those nets with knives.
It’s the latest in a long series of rip-roaring and highly controversial rescue missions involving blades and ballistics, fire and ice, stink-bombs and blood. Sea Shepherd vessels ram Japanese whalers, get rammed back, and rock wildly under water-cannon fire on Animal Planet’s Whale Wars and in Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist, a new documentary directed by SSCS veteran Peter Brown.
Sea Shepherd crews have scuttled — that is, sunk — at least 10 whaling vessels. Sea Shepherd ships ram whalers, foul their propellers, intercept their harpoons, block their slipways to prevent loading, and barrage them with bottles of foul-smelling butyric acid. In return, Sea Shepherd vessels have been rammed, burned, flash-grenaded, fired upon, and depth-charged — including by a Norwegian naval vessel.
Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist calls Sea Shepherd a “vigilante organization,” its members “a band of pirates” and “the world’s most wanted environmental heroes.” Watson’s many honors include the Amazon Peace Prize and inclusion among the Guardian’s “50 People Who Could Save the Planet.” He has been beaten, suffocated, immersed in icy seas, and even shot in the chest by opponents, he says. He’s been arrested in many countries and charged with many crimes, including attempted murder, but never convicted.
“We don’t do anything illegal. We target illegal operations. Everybody’s so concerned about private property. They think private property is sacred.” But if that private property is being used to flout conservation codes, all deals are apparently off.
“We’re an interventionist organization fighting against poaching on the high seas.”
Head on over to alternet.org for the rest of the story
Tumble DC 25: Superintendent Asks Governor To Convert Public School Into Prison
Dear Governor Snyder,
In these tough economic times, schools are hurting. And yes, everyone in Michigan is hurting right now financially, but why aren’t we protecting schools? Schools are the one place on Earth that people look to to “fix” what is wrong with society by…
Source: manicchill
Bios Urn-THIS AWESOME URN WILL TURN YOU INTO A TREE AFTER YOU DIE
Yes please! I would love to become one with nature once my soul escapes my body. Wow. This is just brilliant. How amazing would this be? Death is something often pushed away from the mind, yet I have learned to embrace the cycle of life. What better way to do so than to continue the cycle via enabling other life forms to grow.
“The Bios Urn project reintroduces the human being to the natural circle of life. It is the profaine ritual of regeneration and the return to nature. Bios is a mortuary urn made from biodegradable materials: coconut shell, compacted peat and cellulose. Inside it contains the seed of a tree. Once the urn is planted, the seed germinates and begins to grow. The seed can be changed for a different type of seed or plant more adequate to the chosen planting place, if need be. Gerard Moline 2002, Tutors Martín Azúa, Emili Padros / Definitive product Azúamoliné 2005 / Top nominee - INDEX Awards 2005 / Produced byCIRE / Distributed by Limbo Disseny”
(via MARTÍN AZÚA)
cwnl:
How Does Drug Prohibition Affect You The Citizen In A Negative Way?
By CWL (Ken)
Exactly and with no exaggeration it has been a decade, one hundred years of Cannabis prohibition. Despite all credible Health and Medical agencies recognizing Cannabis as a completely safe, non-lethal plant that does in fact carry a slew of medical benefits far exceeding that of many pharmaceutical drugs that are sold over the counter, it is still kept away and made illegal in the Federal level. This denies states citizens the freedom of Cannabis usage as Federal regulators tout and recite old, outdated propaganda long ago disproved by science, experiments and pure data. But you’re just a mere citizen, and may not even care for using Cannabis, so..
How Does Cannabis Prohibition Affect You Negatively?
Consider this, our country is in great debt, it owes far too much than it can pay, which of course our government saves the businesses. The citizens get the bitter end of the deal by literally being born into debt. As this progresses, we, or should I say our “loyal” representatives at congress who continously vote NO,NO, NO on just about anything that makes sense to be voted on FUCKING YES. From Educational, Scientific, People’s Rights, Transportation, Environmental budget slashes to lack of funding in them, to the one I am getting to, prohibition of a multi billion dollar industry that could save us from debt as we look for Economic alternatives, as well as a real stop to crime.. The Cannabis industry.
A Quick Look Back: Alcohol Prohibition of the 1920-30s
Remember when the United States also placed a prohibition stamp on Alcohol? Not too long ago our government thought it would be a good idea to play Big Brother and place a no-no stamp over Alcohol usage by banning it. This would surely teach those crazy alcoholics to quit while they’re at it no? Exactly, No. This action gave rise to one of the most vicious, greedy, and dangerous crime bosses the states have ever seen, the citizens again took the bitter end as crime grew rampant across the streets now that money from the alcohol was going unregulated, in mass, and straight to these crime bosses and businessmen who sold to whomever showed the cash. So in 1933, the ban on Alcohol was lifted at the federal level. This restored the alcohol industry and gave better regulation to it with official vendors requesting identification later on.
Did You Know?
The founding fathers were in fact huge fans of the crop Hemp which is part of the Cannabis plant. Hemp is and was always said by experts to be a revolutionary plant for farmers and industries alike. Not only because you can replace the usage of trees for hemp, but it can be used for virtually many replacements that now thrive on the market. On top of this, it left nothing after harvest and can be planted soon after that last harvesting. In fact, President Abraham Lincoln would enjoy some Cannabis of his own on his front porch as he played his harmonica, he wrote of this. Many of the founding fathers expressed great interest for this crop, so much that it was made illegal NOT to grow it.
Deja Vu! I’m Seeing Two
How do you make the same nonsensical and unfounded mistake twice? Simple, grab the same crop that our founding father praised right? Now, if you’re a big business tycoon and you’re scared of competition just say that Cannabis is actually this nutty Marijuana plant that due to racist times “makes white women have sex with black men” (Not my word, as it was literally put at the time). Then, since you own the print press you make prints bashing this awesome crop and turning it into a bad one in the image of many. And so it was, Cannabis was banned, made illegal. Thus giving a new rise to thugs, gangsters, and greedy businessmen in our own and south of the borders. This effects you directly because it is these same people that are selling drugs to kids, no matter the age as long as there is money. Which overall extends corruption to the youth, which then grows up being that corruption in an ongoing deadly cycle we allow.
Because of this prohibition we are not making the best out of this lovely billion dollar industry that can be the citizens. Legalizing Cannabis and Hemp all together just seems like the right thing to do if you understand how this all works and plays out for you. You would literally be benefiting from this whether you are for it or not because everyone would benefit from the gigantic revenues. We could be saving thousands of trees and the fact that growing cannabis can all be done with renewable energy and eco-friendly solutions it seems like the safe way to go environmentally. So what are we waiting for exactly? Are we the government’s child to be told what we can have or not? Then why do we continue to allow this ban on something almost everyone seems to have enjoyed and bonded with.
We are aware, We now it’s safe, We’ve seen its Effects, We’ve witnessed the cure.
Legalize Now.
If someone suggested the idea of public libraries now, they’d be considered insane. If you said you were going to take a little bit of money from every taxpayer, buy a whole load of books and music and games, stick them on a shelf and tell everyone, ‘These are yours to borrow and all you’ve got to do is bring them back,’ they’d be laughed out of government.
Peter Collins, The Secret Life of Libraries (via jingc)
This is pretty much right on, which tells me just how loony things have become in this country. I’ not going to lie, as someone who grew up poor if there had been no public libraries I wouldn’t know shit right now.
(via drinkthe-koolaid)
Same here, in my neighborhood it is really one of the most important and few sources of information and availability of data. I personally think the quote “If you build it, they will come” applies so well to Public Libraries in the sense that people will of course dislike education, teachings, studies on the count that they hardly understand much of what is being taught thanks to the lack of accessible information. Make the books readily and easily attainable for the public and watch how everyone will love education. It’s all a matter of control for these idiots at congress. The last thing they would want is for minorities, immigrants, unemployed, or just the average citizen to be educated enough to spot all of their bullshit. Those sly, sly bastards.
(via cwnl)
(via ikenbot)
Source: jingc
Truth About Cannabis: Big Pharma, Big Prison, Big Tobacco, Big Government Need Not Apply
Marijuana is the third most popular recreational drug in America (behind only alcohol and tobacco), and has been used by nearly 100 million Americans. According to government surveys, some 25 million Americans have smoked marijuana in the past year, and more than 14 million do so regularly despite harsh laws against its use. Our public policies should reflect this reality, not deny it.
Marijuana is far less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco. Around 50,000 people die each year from alcohol poisoning. Similarly, more than 400,000 deaths each year are attributed to tobacco smoking. By comparison, marijuana is nontoxic and cannot cause death by overdose. According to the prestigious European medical journal, The Lancet, “The smoking of cannabis, even long-term, is not harmful to health. … It would be reasonable to judge cannabis as less of a threat … than alcohol or tobacco.”
Get the facts. See our Library
NORML supports the removal of all penalties for the private possession and responsible use of marijuana by adults, including cultivation for personal use, and casual nonprofit transfers of small amounts. This policy, known as decriminalization, removes the consumer — the marijuana smoker — from the criminal justice system.
More than 30 percent of the U.S. population lives under some form of marijuana decriminalization, and according to government and academic studies, these laws have not contributed to an increase in marijuana consumption nor negatively impacted adolescent attitudes toward drug use.
See Personal Use for more information.
Enforcing marijuana prohibition costs taxpayers an estimated $10 billion annually and results in the arrest of more than 858,000 individuals per year — far more than the total number of arrestees for all violent crimes combined, including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
Of those charged with marijuana violations, approximately 88 percent, 758,593 Americans were charged with possession only. The remaining 99,815 individuals were charged with “sale/manufacture,” a category that includes all cultivation offenses, even those where the marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use. In past years, roughly 30 percent of those arrested were age 19 or younger.
NORML supports the eventual development of a legally controlled market for marijuana, where consumers could buy marijuana for personal use from a safe legal source. This policy, generally known as legalization, exists on various levels in a handful of European countries like The Netherlands and Switzerland, both of which enjoy lower rates of adolescent marijuana use than the U.S. Such a system would reduce many of the problems presently associated with the prohibition of marijuana, including the crime, corruption and violence associated with a “black market.”
For more information, see About NORML.
Medical Use
Marijuana, or cannabis, as it is more appropriately called, has been part of humanity’s medicine chest for almost as long as history has been recorded.
Of all the negative consequences of marijuana prohibition, none is as tragic as the denial of medicinal cannabis to the tens of thousands of patients who could benefit from its therapeutic use.
Modern research suggests that cannabis is a valuable aid in the treatment of a wide range of clinical applications. These include pain relief — particularly of neuropathic pain (pain from nerve damage) — nausea, spasticity, glaucoma, and movement disorders. Marijuana is also a powerful appetite stimulant, specifically for patients suffering from HIV, the AIDS wasting syndrome, or dementia. Emerging research suggests that marijuana’s medicinal properties may protect the body against some types of malignant tumors and are neuroprotective.
Currently, more than 60 U.S. and international health organizations support granting patients immediate legal access to medicinal marijuana under a physician’s supervision.
See our Medical Use section for more information.
Legal Issues
Driven by the Drug War, the U.S. prison population is six to ten times as high as most Western European nations. The United States is a close second only to Russia in its rate of incarceration per 100,000 people. In 2005, more than 786,000 people were arrested in this country for marijuana-related offenses alone.
Marijuana prohibition causes more problems than it solves, and ruins thousands more lives than it supposedly tries to save. The NORML Legal Committee provides legal support and assistance to victims of the current marijuana laws. NORML also monitors developments in state and federal law, and files appellate and amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs in cases which may affect the interpretation of existing marijuana laws, or which will, hopefully, change them.
See our Legal Issues section for more information.
Industrial Hemp
Hemp is a distinct variety of the plant species cannabis sativa L. that contains minimal (less than 1%) amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. It is a tall, slender, fibrous plant similar to flax or kenaf. Various parts of the plant can be utilized in the making of textiles, paper, paints, clothing, plastics, cosmetics, foodstuffs, insulation, animal feed and other products.
Hemp produces a much higher yield per acre than do common substitutes such as cotton and requires few pesticides. In addition, hemp has an average growing cycle of only 100 days and leaves the soil virtually weed-free for the next planting.
The hemp plant is currently harvested for commercial purposes in over 30 nations, including Canada, Japan and the European Union. Although it grows wild across much of America and presents no public health or safety threat, hemp is nevertheless routinely uprooted and destroyed by law enforcement. Each year, approximately 98% of all the marijuana eliminated by the DEA’s “Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program” is actually hemp.
Find out more about Industrial Use.
(via ikenbot)
Get Educated: The Real Study of Stars
No need for false sciences and pseudo intellectualism of things you don’t understand. Instead, embrace the truth rather than vague mumbo jumbo made to sound realistic. Realistic up until you actually think about it.
1.Michael Shermer. Why people believe weird things
‘IN THIS AGE OF SUPPOSED SCIENTIFIC ENLIGHTENMENT, many people still believe in mind reading, past-life regression theory, New Age hokum, and alien abduction. A no-holds-barred assault on popular superstitions and prejudices, with more than 80,000 copies in print, Why People Believe Weird Things debunks these nonsensical claims and explores the very human reasons people find otherworldly phenomena, conspiracy theories, and cults so appealing. In an entirely new chapter, “Why Smart People Believe in Weird Things,” Michael Shermer takes on science luminaries like physicist Frank Tippler and others, who hide their spiritual beliefs behind the trappings of science.’
Gravitation is a natural phenomenon by which physical bodies attract with a force proportional to their mass. In everyday life, gravitation is most familiar as the agent that gives weight to objects with mass and causes them to fall to the ground when dropped. Gravitation causes dispersed matter to coalesce, and coalesced matter to remain intact, thus accounting for the existence of the Earth, the Sun, and most of the macroscopic objects in the universe. Gravitation is responsible for keeping the Earth and the other planets in their orbits around the Sun; for keeping the Moon in its orbit around the Earth; for the formation of tides; for natural convection, by which fluid flow occurs under the influence of a density gradient and gravity; for heating the interiors of forming stars and planets to very high temperatures; and for various other phenomena observed on Earth.
Via Delivering Data
(via ikenbot)
