Daily Archives: July 8, 2011
This is Absurd.
Marijuana has been approved by California, many other states and the nation’s capital to treat a range of illnesses, but in a decision announced Friday the federal government ruled that it has no accepted medical use and should remain classified as a dangerous drug like heroin.
The decision comes almost nine years after medical marijuana supporters asked the government to reclassify cannabis to take into account a growing body of worldwide research that shows its effectiveness in treating certain diseases, such as glaucoma and multiple sclerosis.
Advocates for the medical use of the drug criticized the ruling but were elated that the Obama administration had finally acted, which allows them to appeal to the federal courts, where they believe they can get a fairer hearing. The decision to deny the request was made by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and comes less than two months after advocates asked the U.S. Court of Appeals to force the administration to respond to their petition.
“We have foiled the government’s strategy of delay, and we can now go head-to-head on the merits, that marijuana really does have therapeutic value,” said Joe Elford, the chief counsel for Americans for Safe Access and the lead counsel on the recently filed lawsuit. Elford said he was not surprised by the decision, which comes just after the Obama administration announced it would not tolerate large-scale commercial marijuana cultivation. “It is clearly motivated by a political decision that is anti-marijuana,” he said. He noted that studies demonstrate pot has beneficial effects, including appetite stimulation for people undergoing chemotherapy. “One of the things people say about marijuana is that it gives you the munchies and the truth is that it does, and for some people that’s a very positive thing.”
DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart sent a letter dated June 21 to the organizations that filed a petition for the change. The letter and the documentation that she used to back up her decision were published Friday in the Federal Register. Leonhart said she rejected the request because marijuana “has a high potential for abuse,” “has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States” and “lacks accepted safety for use under medical supervision.”
This is the third time that petitions to reclassify marijuana have been spurned. The first was filed in 1972 and denied 17 years later. The second was filed in 1995 and denied in 2001. Both decisions were appealed, but the courts sided with the federal government.
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Are you kidding me?! As a person with a neurological disorder that once had me immobilized, I am absolutely appalled by the federal government’s decision! This is clearly an economic and political judgment call. The tobacco and alcohol industries want to monopolize, and the government is letting this happen because they’re greedy little shit heads. I apologize for getting so heated over this, but I just don’t understand how a MEDICINE, such as cannabis, is compared to a drug like heroin. Tobacco and alcohol can cause death, along with multiple other problems. This is proven. Marijuana does the opposite and gets people feeling alive again when they once thought they had nothing to live for.
I remember having to medically withdraw from college, laying (immobile) on my couch for weeks at a time, taking up to 15 pills a day, feeling depressed and not knowing if it would ever end. When I tried using marijuana for my disorder (I’m not gonna lie, I used it recreationally before I was diagnosed), it completely changed my perspective and life. Today, I use Marijuana to keep my disorder under control. I have a full timejob, my moood swings aren’t as bad, my pain is manageable and my disorder no longer controls my life.
But you’re right, I suppose it has no medicinal benefit. I’ll just stick to smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol since those are my legal options.
Why a Mother Uses Pot to Treat Her Autistic Son | NBC Bay Area
Why a Mother Uses Pot to Treat Her Autistic Son | NBC Bay Area.
This is a wonderful video that shows the effects of marijuana for people with Autism. This mother went about it in the right way, did her research and supplies her son with the right dosage as well as the most organic and veganic product she can. While some people may be critical of her giving a 12-year-old Medical Cannabis, the advantages and benefits are proof enough to her, that this medicine may have saved her son’s life.
Please watch this video and feel free to judge for yourself.
Mother and Daughter Molesting Duo
A mother and daughter in Arizona are accused of sexually abusing a teenage boy for three years and police say the pair did it without knowing about each other’s relationship with him.
The teen’s parents contacted police after they learned of steamy text messages reportedly exchanged between their son and Susan Brock. The teen told police he had been meeting Brock for sexual trysts since he was 14.
Susan Brock is accused of picking the unidentified boy up from his home or school, and committing as many as 30 sexual acts in her car, her home, her mother’s home and secluded areas of the city. The acts included masturbatory conduct and oral sex; in other instances, Brock allegedly used three vibrating massagers to stimulate the boy’s penis to the point of ejaculation. No actual intercourse took place. The alleged affair was uncovered when family friends intercepted messages on the boy’s iPod Touch that included references to sex acts and the discovery of a relationship between the victim and Brock. The friends told the teen’s parents; in turn, the victim and his parents contacted police on Friday October 22nd.
Oh, and get a load of this. The New Times tells us that the boy’s teenage girl friend got dragged into it, too. Because the girl friend’s parents forbade their daughter from seeing the victim, Susan Brock set up meetings between the two kids, where she provided them with condoms and let them have sex at her house, presumably when her husband wasn’t home.
During that time, the victim says, he and Brock had up to 30 sexual encounters that included “masturbatory contact and oral sex.” In other instances, the victim told police Brock used “at least three vibrating massagers to stimulate his penis to the point of ejaculation on numerous occasions.”
Obviously, a sexual relationship between a 48-year-old woman and a teenage boy needs to be kept under wraps, so Brock allegedly would pick up the boy from his school or house, drive to a remote location, put the seats in the car down, and do the deed.
Before picking him up, Brock allegedly told the victim to tell his parents that he was “going jogging” so they wouldn’t suspect anything.
In other instances, the victim says, Brock would take him to her house where the two would have sex.
In addition Brock would sometimes take the boy to her mother’s house for sex and even set up meetings between the two kids, where she provided them with condoms and let them have sex at her house.
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This just proves: she get it from her mama. It’s obvious that these Brock ladies love younger men. It’s unfortunate that they had to sneak around with a child to get any sort of sexual satisfaction. I mean, you figure if they were both okay with doing this, then they might as well have gone and just paid some of-age sluts to screw ‘em. And what about the kid who was “molested” friends? Why would they rat on him? I mean, any kid at that age that is having a good time with a mother/daughter AND his girlfriend and forgets to mention that to his parents, is most likely a willing participant. I’m NOT saying its right, just saying that I believe the kid wasn’t as innocent as he made it seem when he was confronted with the texts.
Source: http://www.cougarist.com/2011/01/teen-boy-molested-by-mother-and.html
Meet Ecci: The Robot That Learns From Its Mistakes
THIS is Ecci — the world’s first robot complete with tendons and muscles like his fictitious cousins in The Terminator movies.
As well as boasting human-like movements and grip, Ecci also has an ability that up until now only humans displayed — he can learn from his mistakes.
Scientists at the University of Zurich in Switzerland who built him claim he is the world’s “smartest artificial intelligence creation”.
A computer built into Ecci’s brain allows him to learn from accidents such as stumbling or dropping things by analysing information on how it happened to avoid making the same mistakes in future.
It brings robots almost up to date with the humanoid metallic monsters in The Terminator movies — they were also a mixture of machine and muscle that could behave and think like a human.
Capability
One of the scientists on the project, Professor Rolf Pfeifer, said that although Ecci, whose full name is Eccerobot, has only one Cyclops-like eye, he has the vision capability of two human eyes.
Explaining how Ecci was created, Professor Pfeifer said: “We built the skeleton, muscles and tendons with a special type of plastic which needed a lot of patience.
CEN
“To move the joints, the tendons are connected to electric motors that allow the plastic bones to be moved.
“It opens up a lot of possibilities but in particular it will help us to understand better how the human moving apparatus works — a complicated task.
“If we can make a robot hand operate like ours then it opens up all sorts of possibilities for artificial limbs.
“It would also mean a robot that moved like a person could take over some of the jobs done by people where human hands are needed.”
The multi-million pound project has had 25 scientists working round-the-clock for three years.
It was partially funded by private enterprise and with two million euros from EU coffers.
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While this is all very exciting, I’d much rather a robot that could assist me in daily activities. A robot that has muscles and can learn from its mistakes sounds more like something prehistoric that I gain nothing from. Okay, Okay. This is pretty amazing, but I’d be willing to be that he isn’t quite as talented as The Terminator, like they mentioned. I mean, would you trust your life with Ecci?
Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3657615/Muscled-robot-is-so-clever-it-can-Terminator-its-mistakes.html#ixzz1RYfepXtc
Man Beheads Woman and Takes Head With Him
This terrible incident occurred at Tenerife, the island resort in southern Spain, on Friday ( 13/05/2011 ). A young Bulgarian, who has a crazy history behead a British woman in a supermarket at rush hour. The man then fled into the streets bustling with carrying the head of his victim, said the local emergency services and witnesses.
Arona mayor, as quoted by Spanish media, said the mad man was aged 28 years. According to media reports, the victim was a British woman in their 60s who do not have a relationship with the assailant was.
Witnesses said the man was walking toward his victim in a China shop in the district of Los Cristianos on Friday morning. He pulled out a knife and stabbed her in the neck.
” I heard shouting and looked back and saw someone’s back, he was around the mid 20 ‘s, holding the head of hair, “ said Colin Kirby, a journalist from the UK to Tenerife Magazine. ” I thought at first it was the action that is not funny joke, ( but ) people were muttering and people screaming. “ Colin Kirkby adding that the man might take a knife in the store, and he kills without a clear motive.
Residents then chased. He ran through the streets of the tourist island, carrying the victim’s head. He finally cornered after a motorcyclist from Italy who was passing, which is known only called David, throwing his helmet into his face. Men with knife is tripped, dropped the head of the victim, and the motorcycle rider was later arrested him. Executor struggling to escape, but is held by the bikers and the other pursuers until police arrived.
Tenerife, which is the largest island of the Canary Islands on the north coast of Africa, is a popular destination of tourists and retirees from the UK.
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Okay so I am well aware that there are some grammatical and spelling errors above, but I think you can get the jist of what the article is saying: man beheads woman and takes off with head. This is absolutely terrifying. I can’t imagine someone killing me, but then to have the audacity to try and run off with my head?!
Astronaut’s Will Attempt To Drink Urine: Purified, of course.
Nope, it’s not Tang.
One of the NASA astronauts on board Space Shuttle Atlantis, which launched Friday, will test a new urine recycling system that may be implemented on the International Space Station in the future.
This “Forward Osmosis Bag” (FOB) system is a portable drinking pouch that converts human wastewater into consumable water by filtering toxins through a semi-permeable membrane and a concentrated sugar solution.
While the urine recycling machine on board the International Space Station must draw power from the craft in order to run, this baggie system will not.
“This could be a first step toward recapturing the humidity from our sweat, from our breath, even from our urine, and recycling it and making it drinkable,” said NASA project scientist and experiment leader Howard Levine, according to Wired.
Here’s how it works: wastewater fills the bag and passively transfers through an inner layer, which contains the sugar solution; toxins are left behind as the liquid passes from the outer layer to the inner and the wastewater becomes safe to drink. However, Wired notes, the system hasn’t been perfected yet, and certain toxins can still get through the filters. These toxins can build up in the kidneys over time, making the FOB practical only for short journeys.
The Atlantis astronaut who will test the filtration system won’t be using wastewater, though, and will instead use a “potassium-rich solution” to test the baggie during the shuttle’s 12-day mission at the International Space Station.
Check out a photo of the Forward Osmosis Bag (below).
LOOK: [via NASA]
In theory this sounds great, I just find it odd that they waited until the program was “temporarily” finished until deciding to do something like this. It uses less power, therefore, less money. Maybe if this would have been implemented awhile ago, we would still be able to have a US Space Program. Either way, I’m all about drinking my urine, so long as this thing works right every time.
Cutie Patootie Sung By What I Thought Was a Little Girl…
This is by far one of the creepiest things I have seen, and I have baby fever. I mean, who the hell has their child go on National TV and sing THIS?! It’s obvious that everyone here thinks it is rather odd, but then the mom is just smiling with excitement. I have no more words, just watch:
PS. This is an altered version of the original video. Here is the original:
This Vietnam Vet Beats Down This Young Loud Mouth
First of all, let me start by saying I am NOT a racist, and I do not believe this elderly man is either. Far too often younger guys talk a lot of shit and try to act hard, and people sit back and take it. It’s nice to see this man stand up for himself and not back down to this young punk. Also, it’s nice to see that he’s still strong enough to kick his ass 
Glasses That Tell You If You’re Uninteresting
The Expression Glasses are a wearable device that allows any viewer to see a graphical display of a subset of the wearer’s facial expressions. Currently, the glasses are capable of learning an individual’s patterns and discriminating between confusion and interest expressions. Through two small pieces of piezoelectric film imbedded in the frames, the muscle movement in the corrugator and frontalis (eyebrow) muscles is measured and translated to a full-color visual display.
The display allows a viewer to visualize confusion expressions of the wearer of the glasses by watching changes in a moving bargraph (red for confusion, green for interest).
The Expression Glasses in use. The cloth portion above the plastic conceals both EMG sensors and the user’s facial expression, enabling the user to express emotion freely and anonymously.
There are many reasons why the wearer or his audience may want to have access to expressed emotions. For Human-to-Self purposes, this might include practice session feedback for certain professions (such as counseling), where individuals are trained specifically to refrain from expressing negativity. For Human-to-Human communication, a device like this would be helpful in allowing a video lecturer access to the confusion or interest level of her students in a remote location, providing a “barometer” of collective emotional expression. Since current technology tends to inhibit access to individual facial expressions when lecturing via videoconferencing, use of a device like the glasses gives students an opportunity to communicate information about their experience to the instructor. Additionally, the anonymous nature of the glasses allows individual students to express their emotions without necessarily being forced to identify themselves.
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This idea seems great in theory, but could really lead some insecure people to be even more insecure. I mean, say someone is insecure because they ARE boring and uninteresting?? The glasses will just verify that what they thought is true and could influence them to retreat even farther as an introvert. For me, they’d be fabulous! I could call people out for being bored, incite them to get angry and know if I’m succeeding, or just aim to bore people that don’t have the balls to tell me to shut up. With these and flying cars, it’s becoming far too apparent that the future is coming and I don’t know if I’m 100% prepared.
Source:http://affect.media.mit.edu/projectpages/archived/projects/expression_glasses.html
First Gay Marriage at Sweden’s Ice Hotel
Inspired by the continued joy of Marriage Equality in New York State -- we actually got the news while in Sweden -- let's take a look back at SAS's Love is in the Air contest which warmed our hearts (even as it chilled Editor in Chief Aaron Hicklin's bones back in December) with the first gay marriages to take place at 32,000 feet. The American couple Thomas and Brett even got a special commitment ceremony at the IceHotel, pictured above. Quite a different experience than Team Out experienced, but magic all the same.
COLD MOUNTAIN
It was barely noon in early December, and the sun was already setting as Thomas Landreth and Brett Kessler touched down in the Swedish mining town of Kiruna, a few hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle. A pale pink line underscored the horizon. Snow lay in pillowy drifts and weighed down the branches of the pine trees. Packs of huskies, lean and feral-looking, filled the crisp air with impatient yelps. Bundled up against the stinging cold, Landreth and Kessler clambered onto a waiting sled and, with a polite cry of “hey” from the driver, the dogs surged forward.
One evening earlier the couple, both 22, had stood on a stage in New York’s West Village for what was described as a “wedding and rehearsal cocktail,” at which they’d met their European counterparts— a lesbian couple from Poland and a gay male couple from Germany. The Europeans had married earlier that day on a Stockholm-New York SAS flight that was billed as the world’s first same-sex in-flight wedding, the result of a contest designed to exemplify Sweden’s progressive values. Also in attendance were around 30 reporters and the Swedish celebrity Efva Attling, best known in Europe for a hit 1981 pop ballad, “The Two of Us,” there to present each of the newlyweds with rings inscribed with the words from here to eternity from her eponymous jewelry line.
To celebrate their new status, the Europeans were promised a flashy menu of Brazilian blowouts, spray tans, nail appliques, and a visit to Christian Bale’s favorite spa (minus Christian Bale), courtesy of the New York City and West Hollywood tourism boards. By contrast, Landreth and Kessler would enjoy their conjugal rites in Sweden’s Icehotel, where the temperature doesn’t rise above 21 degrees Fahrenheit—so frigid that guests have to sleep in Arctic sleeping bags.
Needless to say, the Brazilian blowout has yet to reach Jukkäsjarvi, population 519, but no one travels to this small one-street town on the banks of the pristine Torne River to be pampered. They go for the Northern Lights and the ice (occasionally the ice goes to them—Jukkasjärvi’s talented ice-smiths supply pop-up ice bars as far afi eld as Tokyo and Dubai). Sometimes they even go to get married. “It was always going to be a destination wedding by default,” said Landreth, who had been discussing marriage with Kessler since last June. “But we’d always of thought Connecticut or D.C.” They didn’t anticipate their journey would involve sled dogs or a wedding banquet consisting of reindeer stew.
For their wedding night, the lovebirds chose a room inspired by the movie Tron, installed by British designers Ben Rousseau and Ian Douglas-Jones. The overall impression was of being trapped in an Atari video game. “We both embrace our inner geek,” said Kessler, adding that he and Landreth, students at UNC Chapel Hill, bonded over repeat viewings of Shaun of the Dead and Clerks 2. Similarly unfussy, the couple wore their snowsuits and boots during the ceremony. “We are here to celebrate love,” local minister Lise-Lott Wikholm told the congregation, before delivering a reading from Saint Paul. “It felt, in some senses, very binding,” said Kessler afterward. “We wish everyone we knew could have been here.” And with that, he and Landreth were ushered into a sled and driven off to their frosty honeymoon suite by two reindeer lucky enough to have escaped lunch.
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I love that gay marriage is now going global! It has been such a long and hard battle for gay couples to first gain rights as individuals, but now be receiving rights as a couple too. This is a huge step in the right direction for the gay community. The more marriages we see, means the more people are willing to accept the fact that gay couples are here to stay and will continue to fight for their right…to marry. Congratulations to the happy, and cold, couple!