Prediction: Hemp Will Save The Small American Farm

You heard it here first.  More on this later, but first all need to work to make hemp completely legal…  Hemp  is God’s gift to America, and I don’t mean when it goes up in smoke.  I am speaking of  fibers…

Begin educating those who won’t vote for hemp legalization….

The hemp plant is a renewable resource..

Hemp enriches the soil it grows in. …

Hempseeds and hemp oil are highly nutritious and delicious…

Hemp is the only plant that contains all of the essential fatty acids and amino acids required by the human body… (stop over-fishing).

It is an excellent option for vegetarians.

It’s quite high in some essential amino acids, including gamma linoleic acid (GLA), a very rare nutrient also found in mother’s milk.

Fishermen sprinkle hempseed on the water as an effective bait..

Songbirds will pick it out of the mix as they prefer it over other seeds.

Hemp is becoming a common ingredient in lotions and many other skin, hair, and cosmetic products.. (compared to toxic chemicals).

Hemp is an ideal material for making paper. It regenerates in the field in months (unlike trees which can take 30 years or more to become harvestable after planting.)…

It makes a fine quality paper that is naturally acid free and does not become yellow and brittle or disintegrate over time like conventional paper.

Hemp is also excellent for making rugs and other textiles.  Levi Strauss’ original denim jeans were made of hemp.

Hemp is the traditional rope making fibre due to its flexibility, strength, and resistance to water damage..

Hemp oil can be used to create biofuels to replace gasoline for diesel engines. Unlike fossil fuels, biofuels are renewable and produce less of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.  Diesel built his original engine to run on hemp oil.

Alternatives to plastic can be made from hemp… Hemp based materials can replace wood and other materials used to build homes and other structures including foundations, walls, shingles, paneling, pipes, and paint.

Hemp may look like marijuana, however it does not contain the active chemicals that cause mind-altering effects.  Politics have kept this gift from us.  When Dupont made nylon, it influence was used to suppress hemp production….

“58,000 tons of hemp seeds were imported into America for paint products in 1935″ — Sherman Williams Paint Co.

Hemp produces the same amount of oxygen while it’s growing that it would use in carbon dioxide if burned as a fuel. Also, due to it’s leaf/root ratio (this can often be 10% roots vs 30% leaves), hemp can produce between 20% – 40% more oxygen than will be polluted.

Thomas Jefferson himself said, “Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth and protection of the country.”

The draft of the Declaration of Independence was made on hemp paper….

The first American Flag was made of hemp.

If hemp cross-pollinates with marijuana, it creates a lower THC marijuana, not a smokable hemp… Illegal growers will not grow near hemp farms because it practically destroys the effectiveness and marketability of their product.

Fabrics made of at least one-half hemp block the sun’s UV rays more effectively than other fabrics..

The US Drug Enforcement Agency classifies all C. sativa (hemp) varieties as “marijuana.”  Hemp was grown commercially (with increasing governmental interference) in the United States until the 1950s. It was doomed by the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which placed an extremely high tax on marijuana and made it effectively impossible to grow industrial hemp…

While Congress expressly expected the continued production of industrial hemp, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics lumped industrial hemp with marijuana…

Because of its low lignin content, hemp can be pulped using less chemicals than with wood…

It is naturally resistant to most pests, precluding the need for pesticides. It grows tightly spaced, out-competing any weeds, so herbicides are not necessary. It also leaves a weed-free field for a following crop…

Today it is clear that these beginnings of “the war on drugs” were pushed into being by the newspaper, cotton, and petroleum industries, all of which had much to fear over being competitive with hemp…..

Finally, a word of wisdom from our founding father…. “Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere.” — George Washington 1794

 

 

 

 

Religion Versus What? The Workplace?….

As you all know, there are several Supreme Court decisions due this term regarding the ability of corporations or personal businesses to express their religiosity in defiance of the law of the land. One is Hobby Lobby which thinks it should not be required to practice something that is against their religion.  The second is today’s “stay” on whether Catholic Organizations have to dispense something their religion completely disavows;  birth control.

On one hand we will hear the drums of how religion is being imposed upon by the government.   On the other hand we will hear how those employed by these employers, have the right to choice just as do their bosses….

Let us look at the first plank:  how religion is being imposed upon by the government.   As is been oft repeated, the Constitution as originally written said rather little about the right to religion.  However, it IS in the Bill of Rights, which because they were a necessary addition added to get the Constitution garnering enough votes, one can loosely say, the original Constitution deals with religion…

And as is oft repeated with every controversy, the First Amendment states as follows:  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.   This means that Congress cannot say:  “This year’s official religion will be Pentecostal.  All other religions are hereby abolished”.  This may sound far fetched to us, but was a real factor in the daily lives of the colonists before the nation was forged.   Quakers were ostracized by Episcopalians. Catholics were beset with punitive laws except in Maryland.  If you needed to go before the state or county courthouse, you had to be of that area’s official religion, before you could get heard…  True, dat.

The second part, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; is where the argument will be directed.  Hobby Lobby and the Little Sisters of the Poor, both have similar arguments which are as follows.

“WE  don’t believe sex should be had for enjoyment.  Our religion is anti-sex.  If we have to dispense or are required to pay for people to commit sex without the consequence of pregnancy or a viral AIDS infection, we are having our free exercise of religion being prohibited….”

More clearly put:  our religion demands that we prohibit sex for enjoyment wherever it “pops” up. If you stop us from prohibiting enjoyable sex, you are interfering with our religion.

In the matter of text, they have a point.  If their religion does indeed demand that they stop everyone from having enjoyable sex, then the government in stepping in to stop them from stopping some amazing sex, is depriving them of their religious rights.  So we should conceive that they have a textual point…..  Before the Obamacare, religion was not impinged.  Now it is.

The next step is to see if that point is relevant with the norms of today’s society.  As an extreme case, allowing a quirky religious sect to burn their babies alive because “it is called for by their religion”  would be a case where the harm done to a citizen of the United States of America against their will, would outweigh in society’s eyes the harm being done to the religiosity of those practicing such a barbarity.  Burning witches at a stake would suffice as an example as well.

There is obvious a gray area then where government must trample on religion and religion finds it must interfere with government.

We can use the extreme case above of burning witches.  One could say that happened in Delaware in 2010. (lol.  Our witch got burned bad.)   Here we have a case where one religion (the witch burning one) interferes with the other religion (the witch one).  When you have two opposite religions, the government has to look at other laws other than religion to determine policy.  In this case, murder.  Correct?

So the correct assessment is that since both religious issues cancel each other out, then the factor of murder by default becomes the deciding one.  The witch-burning religion is in the wrong by existing laws on the books (murder) and therefore it must stop its practice.  Was it’s bizarre form of religion impinged upon by government?  Absolutely.  And for good reason; it was murder.

So we now have precedence of  government making necessary impositions upon any religious practices that harm society. Yet there is still no imposition upon ones beliefs.  You can still “believe” that burning witches is your goal in life, but you just can’t carry it out.  It hurts other people.

So the defense of the law by the government must not focus on the rights of these religious petitioners.  but should solely focus on that harm which if allowed to go forward, that religion will impinge upon all those millions of people who are not in either sect, and who will suffer at the hands of any court decision favoring either sect’s quixotic religious preferences.

They have First Amendment rights too….   such as in having our Government abridging the freedom of speech…  

The courts have long upheld that “expression”  was the founding father’s meaning of “speech”.  Porn doesn’t move it’s lips but is a form of expression protected by the Supreme Court.  Just like that Pat Robertson of the 700 Club doesn’t move his lips, but is also considered a form of expression protected by the Supreme Court.  Art is expression.  Music is expression. Love is expression…

Likewise there are reasonable limits to the right to expression, again, determined by society’s norms.  Going nude in a public school is not good.  There are reasons that is against the law.  Playing music too loud on Newark’s Main Street is not good.  There are reasons that is against the law.  Graffiti in the Bank of America building, not good.  There are reasons that would be against the law.

So the argument made before the court will be two fold;  what is harmful or non harmful to each side, and what society’s norms will dictate, whether one or another is extreme when compared to the norm of society….

Therefore this becomes a moral question, not one of logic.  After all, both sides think logic is on their side.  And I think all will boil down to something said by the last Pope, Pope Benedict….

He stated something along the lines, “that people have to eat; and to eat, they have to work.”  If work is  abundant, perhaps one can leave one employer and go to another which they prefer.  But if work is scarce, they are bound to hang on to that job no matter what external factors line up to batter them.   If there is one job in town, and the boss halves the wages, one has to accept it.  If there is one job in town, and the boss demands sexual favors for one to keep it, one has to acquiesce because there is no other alternative.

So for every religious nun or Hobby Lobby business owner who wishes to buck the current law, there are those countless employees working for them who will get hurt if their employer gets any exception to the current law simply because their religion states “it” is against all enjoyable sex.

Those employees working for these bosses, can’t have enjoyable sex because of the religiosity of their employers…. ” I’m sorry Hon, but because I work for Hobby Lobby, we can’t do it for another 15 days… Just hold it inside, will you?”

Their expression, in the privacy of their home,  is impinged…  While yet…the religious owners expression in the privacy of THEIR homes, is not affected by one bit…

Since one side is negatively affected in private by the consequences of not having contraception reimbursed, and the other side is not, it seems imperative that a thoughtful, logical, non-judgmental court, would decide to protect those who are hurt, at the expense of those who are doing the hurting….

Remember:  it is still the insurance companies who are paying for all these sexual items; not the employers themselves;  there is no harm to the employers if this policy goes forward.  They are not in anyway contributing any harm to themselves. Just like if they burned witches….

Those they are affecting, do get harmed….  Not being allowed to enjoy sex because of your luck at being hired by one employer over another, surely trumps whether that employer feels slightly “miffed” that he is required to insure his employees and that insurance will allow them to enjoy the wonders of sex without getting pregnant or getting viral AIDS.

AIDS kills, like being burned at the stake.  Being allowed to stand around the fire going “tsk, tsk” should not become our nation’s definition of what “religion” is all about……

Why the NSA Eavesdropping Is So Dangerous

When computers first started, vulnerabilities were not made public. Instead one alerted the maker of the vulnerability privately, so the bad guys would not find out about it.  But most often, those receiving the alert in secret, would be in no hurry to fix it.

Then vulnerabilities started to became public. As soon as one was found, it was posted and the makers were forced by public pressure to scramble and fix the flaw. So once a vulnerability was found, a temporary fix could be slapped together even if it meant taking the server off line.  Publishing made the Internet safer for us all.

The NSA does just the opposite.  Not only was it collecting data as it passed through its servers, but it has compromised a huge number of user’s computers and phones just like any hacker.  It has the potential to control almost any computer around the globe, according to the most recent release of data coming from Edward Snowden.

It has the unique ability to do so by its strategic location in the middle of the data stream. Many of the “401 File not found”s you have received from what you thought were up-and-running sites,  innocuously came from the NSA according to Snowden’s released data.  Once connected, the NSA then installs it’s own data directing all your flow to its secret servers, first before it gets passed on to where you were intending.

The ease with which your servers are compromised comes from NSA’s collusion it has with Verizon, Comcast, and the other servers who have access to the internal workings of your machine.  This, coupled with back doors manufactured expressly for the NSA, makes any computer susceptible to infiltration.

There is no way your IT guys can block them, because it is so secret.

And that is the problem.  Edwards Snowden left the NSA with tremendous amounts of information, and fortunately decided to make it public.  Computer surveillance has been in effect 10 years now.  One must wonder, how many service technicians working with the NSA, have left with that information, and who have not gone public, but chose to sell it to those to whom such information is important?

What if the Chinese already have all the codes the NSA uses to get into any American’s computer?  (All we have is the NSA’s words that they don’t.  But the NSA has rarely told the truth.)

In other words… because all these NSA codes and methods are top secret, any bad agent possessing that powerful secret, can wreak havoc far longer than he could if the IT community were able to pounce and scramble out a fix right away….

We are now at the point, where cyber infiltration is a far more serious threat to the USA than ragged desert terrorists jumping through hoops of fire in training videos.

The NSA needs to recognize this and turn to the IT community and publish their back doors and vulnerabilities.

It would make everyday spying on Americans much harder, but would protect our system of electronics against a devastating attack.

In layman’s terms, it is much easier to get away with murdering someone in a mountain cabin far from other people, than it is to do so in the middle of a police station…  If everyone is a cop, we are much safer than if we have something we think is a secret, but is turns out it is not.

Balanced against spying on American citizens, i think sealing up the NSA caused vulnerabilities to our system, is a no-brainer.

If You Got 8 Minutes, You Should Watch This

Especially if you enjoy videos that don’t have things jumping around in the background every nanosecond….

If you watch this, use it to judge Corporates influence in America today. I think one can begin to see who is the true architect of our “Downsloping Century” demise

“Puzzles The Will….”

Just read that the NSA is pressing for a Justice Dept. probe to find out who leaked the PRISM plan to the Guardian…   I’m slightly befuddled.  Why don’t they just look in their files?  They have the records.

Is Fabrication Of Emails Illegal?

Republicans took an email from the White House, restructured it, and gave it to ABC News which published a breaking story that 12 revisions had been made to the Benghazi talking points.

Is it illegal to do that?

Wouldn’t that fit under the definition of libel? Or is it legal under the Fox Doctrine that says if you are not news but entertainment, you can say or do anything you wish?

The Fat Goose Is Getting Stuffed

The reason I began listening to local station WDEL, was because they dropped Rush Limbaugh from their afternoon programing. Instead of hate and stupidness, I got to hear of matters important to me. My county government. My city government. My state government. And of course, national politics always interjected.

I can’t get enough of it. I read the paper in the morning, and I can’t wait for the local talk shows to come on. The progressives own the morning. The conservatives own the afternoon, and I’m still trying to figure out who owns the evening…

It is kinda silly, I know, but because I listen and hear the advertisements, my kids sing their jingles in the car. Driving down Main Street in Newark, they’ll blurt out, “there’s Alex and Ani’s“. The older kids insist they want music on, but I’m the boss.

Some of the advertisers seem like old friends. One hears them over and over, and even can go back and note the different commercials back through time. Calvert Plumbing and Heating is one I hope to use next time fate strikes. The best one, besides the “Alex and Ani” with sitar music put in place by Rick Jensen, is the DelmarvaJobs.com featuring the harp player. I hope that gets nominated for CLIO, the advertiser’s equivalent of the Oscars….

And this should be in everyone’s Northern Delaware bookmarks. It is the tower cam. One rarely thinks of us being in eyesight of downtown Philadelphia, but we certainly are. One can tell the weather with one visual click.

Anyways, the point of this was not to brag on WDEL and extol how fortunate we were to have it at our disposal, but to point to the dark side, which is about that human being whose leaving is what drove me to begin listening to WDEL in the first place.

Rush Limbaugh is in trouble. For a while he was harmless harping at Democrats, and we all know, sometimes Democrats need harping at. But as his worth became higher, he had to push buttons to justify his high expense. His audience no longer consisted of regular Joe’s, but had to become fanatics who would listen and respond. And the biggest thing fanatics crave, is more fanaticism, and Rush obliged.

Now, he bashes the poor. Now he bashes every gay person. Now he bashes Liberals. And last March, he bashed a woman for simply being a woman.

That made people take notice. WHOA, this guy is an ass…… Seriously, when you demean 53% of the population (women), knowing that at least half the men are married and will dutifully side with their spouses (YOU’D BETTER!)….. ticking off 75% of the American population, can’t be good for business.

That is bearing fruit.

Arising from that, several organizations are targeting his advertisers. This is not a hate campaign. It is a calm, respectable, and very businesslike campaign. They are calling up advertisers and saying …”yesterday your ad played on this station at this time, and this is what went before and after it… Advertisers were appalled…. Most of them do not support Rush Limbaugh, but buy ads with a local radio station…. The radio station then puts their ads in holes where ever they need them… Radio stations that carry Rush Limbaugh are bound by contract to still do so, and are having a terrible time scheduling just those advertisers who … so far… have not expressly said…” Make sure we aren’t on Rush.”

2200 sponsors have pulled their ads so far. At first these were mentioned but Rush supporters attacked these businesses with threats of shooting them with NRA sanctioned assault weapons (they were idle threats, no events occurred) that now, the names are kept hidden. But anyone listening over time, can certainly, after hearing only one advertisement on his program get played over and over, realize his brand is in deep trouble.

The show is doing so badly that Freedom Works, the Karl Rove PAC that garnered $300 million dollars, is using their money just to keep Rush on the air…

So in what seems like an outrageous chain of events, the only reason Rush Limbaugh is still on air it appears, is because billionaires have too much money on their hands… In 2013, Freedom Works plans to spend between $25 and $30 million. Glenn Beck is also included in its largess.

Freedom of speech is a right. No one is arguing over whether Freedom Works benefactor Stepheson can say what he wants with his $100 million donations. But that right goes both ways. Advertisers have the right to know what their money appears to be saying about themselves when their ads show up on Rush Limbaugh.

It says, “I the advertiser, support the embarrassment of the poor. I support the deportation of Mexicans. I support the incarceration of the entire black comminity. I support the killing of Liberals with assault weapons, and I support the rape of women”… In fact, supporting Rush, say something like this: ” Hey, woman, come take your clothes off and dance for me….. After all, that’s all you’re good for!!!! Ha, ha, ha.”

You too must join in taking him down, for the simple reason that it allows many more Americans to enjoy the benefits of local radio programming as we have here in Delaware for 6 years….

https://www.facebook.com/groups/flushrush/

https://twitter.com/search?q=stoprush

http://www.change.org/petitions/sign-here-tell-40-of-his-sponsors-like-amberen-sweetjack-and-genesis-diamonds-we-will-not-buy-products-that-support-misogyny-and-racism

The stuffing of the goose is done. Time to cook the goose, and at the feast, get back to being Americans again. Working together, and not against each other…..

CNN And Bain Capital

“Let me acknowledge upfront what I have said several times on CNN: I have a past relationship with the top partners at Bain that is both personal and financial. I have worked with them in support of nonprofit organizations such as City Year. I have given a couple of paid speeches for Bain dinners, as I have for many other groups. I was on the board of a for-profit child care company, Bright Horizons, that was purchased by Bain Capital. It was a transaction with financial benefits for all board members and shareholders, including me.

So, yes, I have a bias.”  David Gergen

Here we’ve been saying that for years.  Glad someone else finally got a clue…

 

NRA Makes Mistake

The NRA came out swinging.

Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the N.R.A., at the group’s annual gathering came out with fist flailing.  His is the first official comment from the NRA after the Travyon shooting in February.

 “By the time I finish this speech, 2 Americans will be slain, 6 women will be raped, 27 of us will be robbed, and 50 more will be beaten,” he said at a N.R.A. members meeting on Saturday morning. “That’s the harsh reality we face, all of us, every single day. But the media, they don’t care. Everyday victims aren’t celebrities. They don’t draw ratings, don’t draw sponsors. But sensational reporting from Florida does.”

First of all he is right. Across our nation there are other crimes being committed besides this one.

However he errs in his defense.  His attack of the media is simply wrong; he misses the entire point of the controversy…

It is not about guns.  It is about shooting a black kid and then not even being arrested simply because the kid was black, and the crime occurred in a Southern town.

Yes, people are going to want to read about that.  Yes, people are going to skim over another shooting death in Philadelphia between members of two opposing gangs, simply because by now that is way too common place…..

But gunning down a little kid eating skittles, simply because of the color of his skin, IS NEWS… And … having the Republican Sheriff and Republican deputies, whitewashing the entire event, because they(Republicans) agree with the scumbag that shot him, who think that all black people are better dead than alive, IS going to keep the focus of everyone’s attention.

Dude… no one cares about your guns.  We do care when guns are used to perpetuate racial discrimination that was supposedly to have ended almost 150 years ago…..

Crawl back into your hole, back to Wayne’s World.  You are simply doing yourself, what you blame the media is trying to do to you……