hemp oil

I am not going to go into the history of hemp again.  If you think it should remain illegal, go here or here or here and please educate yourself.  There are many other good sites. 

What I will do here is highlight yet another medicinal use of the plant.  If you are as yet unconvinced of the medical benefits of this plant, go here or here.  Even the U.S. government quietly acknowledges the beneficial effects of the plant: go here.

My sweet wife has suffered from some odd bumps on her elbow for several years now.  Her dermatologist says they are not malignant and not to worry about them.  If they got bigger or started hurting, he could remove them.

So they were really just an ugly annoyance.  Various types of creams and ointments never did any good at all.  Nothing got rid of them.  Sometimes time would simply make them smaller, but then they'd flare up again for some reason.

Until....

A wonderful and generous person gave us some concentrated hemp oil and we decided to treat my wife's elbow bumps with it.  We would simply smear some oil on the bumps and then cover them with a bandage.

Here's a picture of her bumps before we began treating them with the oil.  This was taken 5 May, 2013.

One week later on 12 May, they looked like this. A little better, but hard to tell.

Two weeks later on 26 May, the improvement was dramatic.

By the next picture on 16 June, the bumps were practically gone.  (The wound on the inside of her elbow is the result of a different surgery and is not related to the bumps.  Yes, we started treating that one too.)

This last picture was taken 26 June, and there is practically no trace of the bumps.  We will continue to treat this area until they are totally gone and I am confident this will happen.

Today, 12 July, they have not returned.  We consider her cured, but we will keep an eye on them.  No other treatment has produced dramatic effects like this.  

If we don't pull our heads out of our asses and allow serious research into the medical and other benefits of this plant, we are missing a golden opportunity to have a cheap, renewable medicine, fuel, food, clothing...you name it, this plant can do it.  

Come on, America!  What is it going to fucking TAKE?!?!

USA Today editorial

This?!  From the USA Today?  They are not known for their leftward leanings.  Hey, maybe (some of) the media are finally pulling their collective heads out of their collective asses and reporting the TRUTH for a change.  Hope springs eternal.  Wouldn't that be different?

GOP poisons ObamaCare, then claims its sick: Our view

The Editorial Board at (the) USA Today 

Making ObamaCare work was always going to be hard, which is exactly what you'd expect for a complex new program that affects one-sixth of the U.S. economy.

Remember the rocky rollout of the Medicare prescription drug program in 2006? There were glitches and stories about people who couldn't navigate the system or get the help they needed. Eventually, however, goodwill, patience and sincere effort by just about everyone involved ironed out the kinks in Medicare Part D. It's so popular now that no one would dare try to eliminate it.

SEN. MCCONNELL: ObamaCare hikes costs, kill jobs

That explains — but hardly excuses — Republicans' latest assault on ObamaCare. Having lost in Congress and in court, they're now using the most cynical of tactics: trying to make the law fail. Never mind the public inconvenience and human misery that will result.

Their assault is under way on several fronts. The most disturbing is a concerted attempt to keep the public ignorant about how to use the health care exchanges where uninsured people will be able to sign up for coverage beginning Oct. 1.

First, Republicans limited the use of government money to spread the word. Then, when the administration reached out to the NFL and other major sports leagues for help in publicizing the new health care exchanges, the opponents resorted to intimidation.

Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, fired off a letter to the NFL, saying that the league had better not get involved with such a controversial program, as if the league would be taking sides on a debate in Congress, not doing public service announcements for a law soon to affect millions.

In a particularly smarmy warning, McConnell and Cornyn told the NFL to let them know whether the Obama administration retaliated against the league for not cooperating — the clear implication being that if the league did help inform the public about ObamaCare, Senate Republicans had their own methods of retribution. It is an appalling abuse of power, and the NFL meekly yielded.

A companion tactic is fear-mongering, which dates back to inventing non-existent "death panels." In one of several recent examples, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, suggested in a radio address that the new law could disrupt people's cancer care, a scary but highly unlikely prospect.


More broadly, GOP governors have refused to expand Medicaid or to run state health insurance exchanges, making it harder to get the program up and running or to optimize it for regional differences.

ObamaCare could certainly use improvements, just as Medicare Part D did. But opponents have repeatedly blocked efforts to fix it.

There is a distinct line between fighting to turn your ideas into law and trying to wreck a law once it has been passed. The Republicans hope that the problems they create will be blamed on Democrats. Perversely, they might find that blame for any failings will now be shared.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.

Original. 

TX DPS

Recently I had to renew my Driver's License.  Oh god, everyone's nightmare, going to the DMV, or, in this case, the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Amazingly enough, Texas has done this one right.  Every now and then you run across actual efficient state and local bureaucracies.  It's rare, but it can happen, even in Texas.  Just because every statewide office in Texas is held by Republican yahoos, they have not fucked up every single facet of the state.  Yet.

In the Houston area, we have a lot of drivers.  Duh.  And so there is a need for several different DPS offices across the city.  After all, this city measures about 50 miles north-south and 50 miles east-west.

Some of the DPS offices are known as "Mega-Centers."  They are really large offices and they allow the user to "get in line online."  You can only get in line online at a Mega-Center, not at the other podunk offices.

So at about noon, after I had lunch, I registered online at the South Gessner Mega-Center.  Sure enough, almost immediately, I got a text on my mobile phone saying that I was "in line" and the wait would be about 30 minutes.  

I left the house and headed for the Mega-Center.  

When I was almost there, I got another text saying my wait was now 10 minutes.  

I walked into the Mega-Center and took a seat.  There must have been 100 other people in the same waiting room.   Some of them were sprawled over a couple of chairs, obviously exhausted and trying to catch a nap.  Others looks bored as hell like they'd been there all day.

One of the features of this system is that you can press "S" on your phone to get a Status update for the queue.  I pressed "S" and got a response that I was "next in line".

Within about 10 seconds, I hear an announcement on the loudspeaker calling my cell # and to proceed to booth 31.  

I was sitting in the seat for about 30 seconds before I was called.  Now THAT is efficient.  As I walked to the booth, I glanced over the hapless crowd.  A couple of them had a look on their face like, "Hey, you just GOT here, and they're already calling you up!"  Yeah, suck it, fools!

I was in and out of that Mega-Center in less than 5 minutes.  So the next time you need to go to your local DMV, look over the website and see if you can "get in line online."  It sure takes the sting out of going to the DMV.

OK shithead

This is a first!  No place but Oklahoma!

Man arrested after being found in septic tank of park restroom

Man faces peeping tom charge

TULSA, Okla. - An Oklahoma man was arrested after a woman and her daughter found him in the septic tank of a park restroom.

Ambra Reynolds and her 7-year-old daughter went to use a women's restroom at White Water Park in Tulsa about 5 p.m. Sunday when Reynolds said she saw a man in the septic tank below the toilet looking up at them.

"It's not something you expect to see whenever you're wanting to go to the restroom," Reynolds said. "I screamed, grabbed my daughter, trampled my son on the way out, scared to death. We ran out."

Police said Kenneth Webster Enlow stayed in the toilet for 15 minutes until police arrived.

"He was just sitting down in the water, just wading," Reynolds said.

Rescue crews pulled Enlow from the toilet and cleaned him off with a fire hose. Police said Enlow told them his girlfriend hit him over the head with a tire iron and dumped him in the toilet.

Enlow was taken to a hospital, but doctors said he did not have injuries consistent with having been struck in the face or head.

Deputies said Enlow told them he didn't ask the woman for help because he was unconscious.  Enlow was arrested on a peeping tom charge.

"You know, there are plenty of sick individuals out there, but I don't think I've ever heard of anybody sicker than hiding themselves in a cesspool of an outhouse," one man said.

Original.

How much you wanna bet this guy identifies as a Republican?

dodging billions in taxes

So why do we allow businesses to avoid so much in taxes?  We sickeningly give them every break possible, while screwing individuals.  Are we all afraid the businesses will pull up stakes and leave the country?   I say let them go, and don't allow them to sell their wares to Americans until they are willing to pay their fair share in taxes.