NRSC Pulls 'Hicky' Ad in West Virginia Senate Race

At ABC News, "NRSC Under Fire for West Virginia Ad Casting Call Looking For 'Hicky' Look" (via Memeorandum):

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is pulling its "Stop Obama" ad off the air in West Virginia amid a controversy over the casting call which reportedly asked for actors with a "'hicky' blue collar look." GOP Senate candidate John Raese called the ad ridiculous, in an attempt to distance himself from the hullabaloo.

"The ad is ridiculous and I am happy to say that no one with the Raese campaign had anything to do with it. As a matter of fact, we asked that it be taken down long before it went public," said Raese's spokesman Kevin McLaughlin. "But this campaign isn't about TV ads, it's about the 7,169 West Virginia seniors who are being told they are losing their health coverage because of Obamacare that Joe Manchin rubber stamped."

The ad's existence was first reported by Politico's Mike Allen. According to his report, the casting call for the ad asked for actors with a "'hicky' blue collar look ... think coal miner/trucker looks."

It's not unusual for ads to feature actors; the "Stop Obama" ad included professional actors and was made in Philadelphia. But it was word of the casting call's language that particularly fired up Democrats.

Gov. Manchin, whose standing in the polls has plummeted amid an anti-Washington wave, called the ad insulting to West Virginians and demanded an apology.

"Not only have they been spending millions to try and buy this election with lies and distortions, we can now see once and for all what he and his friends really think of West Virginia and our people," Manchin said in a statement. "It's offensive and it only proves that John Raese has spent too much time in the state of Florida, living in his Palm Beach mansion, and doesn't know, understand or respect the great people of this state, and what we stand for."

Or, it's bigoted. NRSC has indeed pulled clip at YouTube. It's interesting that it's the Dems once again with the outcries of "stereotyping." But it's totally cool when they do it (or sponsor it on their blogs). Enough with all of these "racist" allegations. Sheesh.

The Pale Scot at American Nihilist

I'm not sure, but I doubt that this is the original Pale Scot, since the author of the racist comments a BJ Keefe's didn't sign in with a Blogger account and appeared more sophisticated than this new "Pale Scot" comment at American Nihilist. Either way, it's just one more example of real live leftist racism, not the made up kind, for example, the alleged "racism" of my Obama gangsta posts. No. This is genuine:

I've commented a lot on this stuff recently, but I have to say: Everyone is way too freaked out over racism (see TrogloPundit on that). But if leftists are gonna go around attacking opponents of "racism" you'd at least expect them not to tolerate it at their own blogs. But they do, over and over again. So let me sum up: There's a difference between being "politically incorrect" and being "racist." I'm often very "politically incorrect," but never racist. Leftists uniformly attack "political correctness" as "racism," but they rarely --- if ever --- denounce the genuine racist white supremacism within their own ranks.

I think the folks at American Nihilist owe me an apology.

(Added: I've been actually trying to avoid these issues so as to focus on the elections, etc. But the recent attacks on myself and others, like Pamela Geller, have provided lots of material, so what can you do? It's just kinda funny how fast the leftist double-standards are revealed. These people hate. They have no values. They're freaks.)

Prius Owners Revolt

Legal Insurrection has the details:

Hijabi Chic in the O.C.

I saw two women at the Apple store some time back with full burqas (only face and hands visible), and before that I saw a women with black abaya and niqab --- the only thing I could see was her eyes.

Bottom line is that the hijab denotes Islamist oppression, as Wikipedia indicates:

Some Muslims believe hijab covering for women should be compulsory as part of sharia, i.e. Muslim law. Wearing of the hijab was enforced by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and is enforced in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Islamic Emirate required women to cover not only their head but their face as well, because "the face of a woman is a source of corruption" for men not related to them. While some women wholeheartedly embrace the rules, others protest by observing the rules in an inconsistent fashion, or flouting them whenever possible. Sudan's criminal code allows the flogging or fining of anyone who “violates public morality or wears indecent clothing”, albeit without defining "indecent clothing" ...

Thus I'm not convinced everything's all hip and rosy with the O.C. Muslims who're pumping up hijabi culture as a hip trend in Muslim outerwear. Check LAT for the story.

Supreme Court Hears Opening Arguments in Snyder v. Phelps

At NYT, "Justices Take Up Funeral-Protest Case."

Plus, coverage at SCOTUS blog, "Bonus Round-Up: Snyder v. Phelps." Also, Lyle Denniston, "What Role for Emotion?"

And Dahlia Lithwick heard arguments in person, and has a report (via Memorandum). Althouse agrees with Lithwick.

PREVIOUSLY: "Westboro Baptist Church at the Supreme Court."

Mario Vargas Llosa Wins Nobel Prize in Literature

At NYT (this link is updated from Memeorandum).

And from the writer's Wikipedia entry:

Like many other Latin American intellectuals, Vargas Llosa was initially a supporter of the Cuban revolutionary government of Fidel Castro. He studied Marxism in depth as a university student and was later persuaded by communist ideals after the success of the Cuban Revolution. Gradually, Vargas Llosa came to believe that Cuban socialism was incompatible with what he considered to be general liberties and freedoms. The official rupture between the writer and the policies of the Cuban government occurred with the so-called Padilla Affair, when Fidel Castro imprisoned the poet Herberto Padilla. Vargas Llosa, along with other intellectuals of the time, wrote to Castro protesting against the Cuban political system and the imprisonment of the artist. Vargas Llosa has identified himself with liberalism rather than extreme left-wing political ideologies ever since. Since he relinquished his earlier leftism, he has opposed both left- and right-wing authoritarian regimes.

And I cited this from [Alvaro] Vargas Llosa previously, a great piece: "The Killing Machine: Che Guevara, from Communist Firebrand to Capitalist Brand."

Update: The piece on Che is from Vargas Llosa's son, notes TBogg in the comments. I never claimed I had read Mario.

Socialists Pledge to 'Take It Up a Notch'

This is the featured video at Socialist Worker:

And here's this, from a September 29th editorial:

It's time for our side to take it up a notch--and a lot more besides. Because there are two sides in this fight, and ours needs to be stronger.

There are two sides to the fight for better living standards for workers, to the struggle to defend Muslims, to the battle over anti-immigrant legislation like Arizona's SB 1070, to the struggle against the U.S. military's slaughters in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to the campaign against Israel's war crimes against the Palestinians.

Our side is stronger when we refuse to accept the compromises that the Democrats try to extort from us, and when we build our own independent struggles and organizations.

No compromise is acceptable when it comes to standing with Muslim brothers and sisters at the proposed site of an Islamic center in New York City, on the picket line of Mott's workers, on a freedom flotilla in solidarity with the people of Gaza, in a protest against cuts to public education, alongside LGBT people demanding a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, and with undocumented immigrants demanding an end to deportations.

Of course, when activists refuse to compromise, they're denigrated for having "unrealistic" expectations and not understanding that real change comes only from accepting the limitations of the Democratic Party and working within it. But the unrealistic ones are those who think the Democrats will do the right thing if we just give them enough time and support.

They won't do the right thing. It's up to us to organize the struggles that can make a real difference in this society.

Frustration with the Democrats. Hmm? A little revolutionary violence might take it up a notch, eh?

Get Naked for Nationalized Healthcare

At Doug Ross, "The Road to Single-Payer: Record High 26.3% of Americans Already Have Government-Run Health Care":

Years before its full implementation, Obamacare has already had quite an impact: it has forced companies to terminate retiree health care benefits; it has pushed health insurers out of the business; and monthly premiums are skyrocketing.

Bottom line: if you like your current health care plan, too freaking bad, peon. The Democrats are on the way to single-payer with their top-down, Soviet-style health care 'law' passed during the dead of night in the form of a 2,600-page monstrosity that no one bothered to read.

VIDEO HAT TIP: Politico.

PJTV: Union Thugs Occupy National Mall for Socialist 'One Nation' Rally

Because, you know, it's just a bunch of imaginary communists!!

Via Glenn Reynolds:

Imam Rauf's Islamist Extremism --- UPDATED!!

I've picked up a quite a few nasty left-wing trolls since the flame war with the Sadly No! commies. One particularly despicable dickhead is the prick at "Thinking Meat", one of the more unbelievably messed up websites I've ever seen. Anyway, I've deleted his previous comments in the moderation queue, but like most nihilist trolls, he's persistent. He's attacking me as "racist" at his blog, but we naturally hear not one peep about Barack "Gangsta" Obama's endorsement of the most bigoted stereotypes of hip hop rappers. And for some whacked reason this Neanderthal thinks he's pwned me on my earlier remarks about Imam Rauf, where I noted: "No one's really digging down deep, which is that Imam Rauf has praised sharia and alleged that America deserved it on September 11." In a follow up comment, in the style of JBW, he writes:

I was right, of course. You don't have the guts to post Rauf's actual words.

No, much much easier to 'paraphrase' them, so that you can portray him as 'saying' anything you need him to 'say'.

Wrong.

And fuck you --- Unthinking Commie Pinhead. Here's Imam Rauf's exact words:

"We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims. You may remember that the US-led sanctions against Iraq led to the death of over half a million Iraqi children."

And Imam Rauf said the U.S. had it coming in September 2001, on "60 Minutes":

As for sharia, the Imam published [a defense of sharia] at Huffington Post last year: "What Shariah Law Is All About."

That's all the attention you get, Unthinking Freak. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Like Reppy, exDLB, Bonejob Keefe, Truth 101 and the rest you commie refuse. Stay the hell away from this blog. You are the scum of the earth.

*****

UPDATE: exDLB has responded, but he ignores the orginal criticism from Pinhead Thinking Meat. Here's my quote from the original post, with the key phrasing in bold: "No one's really digging down deep, which is that Imam Rauf has praised sharia and alleged that America deserved it on September 11." Note: exDLB is correct on my wording, and I have edited my statement above, because I was half asleep when I wrote it and that's not what I meant to write. So to recap: (1) Imam Rauf indeed "praised" sharia, the point Asswipe Thinking Meat claimed was a fabrication, and (2) exDLB ignores the YouTube clip I posted and the link to Discover the Networks --- and that's because exDLB is a liar and his post just spews more progressive anti-Americanism:

The crime perpetrated on the United States on 9/11 was heinous. Over 3000 US citizens and others lost their lives. The sanctions put in place and kept in place during the Bush I and Clinton administrations did lead to the deaths of over a half million Iraqi children. That was one of the reasons given by bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks. Rauf does not say the 9/11 attacks were justified. What he’s saying is no different than what Chalmers Johnson, Andrew Bacevich and many other conservatives have said. The attacks were blowback.

When someone issues a denial of their main point as a preface (both Imam Rauf and exDLB) that's a de facto acknowledgment that they're engaging in the exact allegations in which they've initially denied. So, listen carefully at the video. Imam Rauf indicates that Americans "have been accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world," and that "in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA."

"Made in the USA."

In other words, you made your bed now sleep in it.

Anti-Americans all of them, which is why I will resist their nihilism and destruction.

Kos Kommie Calls for 'Direct Action' Against U.S. Democracy

One Pissed Off Leftist at Daily Kos (via Newsbusters):

As our host Wanda mentioned, there is some march or other practically every weekend in DC and it has become old hat for the park police. Limiting access, choking off rebellion, smiting trouble-makers and controlling press coverage is now routine. Aided by a complicit corporate-owned media elite, ignoring and minimizing our protests has become a simple matter. While we once struck fear in their hearts, we barely raise an eyebrow now.

So is the answer to abandon street democracy? It might be ... if there were other realistic avenues. But there aren't many IMO. The electoral system is so corrupt that even those who still believe in it will admit that we have to win in overwhelming numbers to be assured our victory will be acknowledged. And even when we 'win' we don't get what we were promised. That was the entire rationale for the One Nation 'march'.

Republican-owned corporations electronically count our votes and our traitorous SCOTUS has opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate money flowing into the system. So our electoral democracy is every bit as compromised as our street democracy.

So what then is the answer?

I still support One Nation Working Together because we need a peoples coalition, and this seems a promising beginning. I am hopeful but not blindly optimistic. It's a fine thing to form a mighty peoples coalition, but I think we are going to have to go well beyond that. I think we are going to have to act up to get anywhere. Acting up is what the civil rights marchers did. Acting up is what the Vietnam protesters did. I see no way around it - this is what we are going to have to do too.

Teresa Heinz Kerry once told me that if we really wanted to get the government's attention, we should mass on the five bridges leading into DC and shut the city down. I think this is the sort of thing we're going to have to do if we want to have any real impact. Of course they'll freak if we do it and people will be beaten and arrested no doubt. But if we can't face that threat, take that risk and make that sacrifice then we are going to continue to lose. The deck is too thoroughly stacked against us. The only meaningful options left to us, it seems to me, are direct action and wide scale civil disobedience. Without it I fear that we are toast.

OPOL is not contemplating Ghandhian non-violence, as he indicates that traditional rallies and street protests aren't doing the trick. So how will these lefties "assure victory"? Political violence, of course. Recall last night's post: "Leftist Violence and the Los Angeles Times Bombing." Expect more. It's building. The militant D.C. Direct Action News has this: "Reportback from One Nation Working Together." And OPOL's graphic at the post is perfectly telling. See, "A Brief History of the 'Clenched Fist' Image":

Fist images, in some form, were used in numerous political graphic genres, including the French and Soviet revolutions, the United States Communist Party, and the Black Panther Party for Self-defense. However, these all followed an iconographic convention. The fist was always part of something - holding a tool or other symbol, part of an arm or human figure, or shown in action (smashing, etc.). But graphic artists from the New Left changed that in 1968, with an entirely new treatment. This "new" fist stood out with its stark simplicity, coupled with a popularly understood meaning of rebellion and militance.

I'm not going to be surprised when the "militant rebellion" becomes reality in the near future. Folks like OPOL are becoming increasingly disillusioned with traditional protests. Consequently, the methods of left-wing terrorist groups will emerge as the tactic of choice for the growing militant movement. I hope I'm wrong, but should the GOP retake the Congress in November, angry activists may feel they have no choice but to go underground, don the balaclavas, and hoist the Molotovs and Kalashnikovs.

Obama's Gangsta Grillz

At WSJ, "President Obama's 'Rap Palate': Why Praise Violent, Misogynistic Hip-Hop Stars?"

What's on President Obama's iPod? A wide range, he told Rolling Stone magazine last week, from the jazz of John Coltrane to the ballads of Maria Callas. And more: "My rap palate has greatly improved," Mr. Obama noted. "Jay-Z used to be sort of what predominated, but now I've got a little Nas and a little Lil Wayne and some other stuff, but I would not claim to be an expert."

Expert or not, that's the wrong message for the president to be sending black America.

Does Mr. Obama like Lil Wayne's "Lil Duffle Bag Boy"? In that song, the rapper implores young black men to "go and get their money" through round-the-clock drug hustling. And with Lil Wayne, it's not just an act: The rapper is currently serving a one-year term on Rikers Island after being caught in New York with drugs and guns stashed in his Louis Vuitton overnighter.

Lil Wayne is emblematic of a hip-hop culture that is ignorant, misogynistic, casually criminal and often violent. A self-described gangster, he is a modern-day minstrel who embodies the most virulent racist stereotypes that generations of blacks have fought to overcome. His music is a vigorous endorsement of the pathologies that still haunt and cripple far too many in the black underclass.

Thus President Obama has conveyed his taste for the rapper behind lyrics like:Put that white widow weed in the cigar and puff

look, ma, I'm trying to make a porno starring us

well not just us, a couple foreign sluts

Naming thuggish rappers might make Mr. Obama seem relatable and cool to a generation of Americans under the sway of hip-hop culture, but it sends a harmful message—especially when, in black America, some 70% of babies are born out of wedlock.

MOFO! Obama be boostin' de "most virulent racist stereotypes"!! That is messed up sucka!! No doubt some leftie bloggaz be preppin' fo' de epic POTUS smackdown! Or, wait crickets in Compton! NO!! Homies, you be doin' the hypocrite jam!

And get this, my man!! De prez be down with some Jay Z:

Listen man, get a crate, some crack and some house slippers

a newspaper, a lookout boy, and get your chips up

or get a gun, a mask, an escape route

some duct-tape'll make 'em take ya to the house

Ouch! Can't touch 44, yo!

Hooters Hotties on 'Fox & Friends'

For some Rule 5 linkage:

Plus, at Washington Rebel, "Wicked Wednesday."

Da Kine, Man: The Democrat Party of Dopeheads, Dealers, and Dropouts

The pot legalization campaign is a scam. See, "The Medical Marijuana Charade." As I've reported many times, getting a medical marijuana card is about as difficult as buying Advil at the drug store. And by calling it "medical" marijuana, stoners can destigmatize the burnout culture. What's hilarious is that the Dems are hitching their wagon to the bong-water vote, at WSJ, "Democrats Look to Cultivate Pot Vote in 2012: Party Considers Legalization Efforts in Swing States Amid Signs California Measure Is Exciting Young, Liberal Voters":

Democratic strategists are studying a California marijuana-legalization initiative to see if similar ballot measures could energize young, liberal voters in swing states for the 2012 presidential election.

Some pollsters and party officials say Democratic candidates in California are benefiting from a surge in enthusiasm among young voters eager to back Proposition 19, which would legalize marijuana in certain quantities and permit local governments to regulate and tax it.

Party strategists and marijuana-legalization advocates are discussing whether to push for similar ballot questions in 2012 in Colorado and Nevada—both expected to be crucial to President Barack Obama's re-election—and Washington state, which will have races for governor and seats in both houses of Congress.

Already, a coalition of Democratic-leaning groups has conducted a poll in Colorado and Washington to test the power of marijuana measures to drive voter turnout.

Ballot measures typically don't increase turnout on a mass scale. Still, strategists in both parties argue certain ballot measures can help activate targeted groups of voters and campaign volunteers in numbers that can be significant in close elections.

More at the link.

Also, at Weasel Zippers, "Dems Considering Making Weed Legal a Campaign Issue to Energize Young, Liberal Voters…"

Photo Credit: Midnight Blue.

Westboro Baptist Church at the Supreme Court

Oral arguments are schedule for later today.

And it's unusual, but I agree with LAT, "The Right to Speak Offensively":

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in a case that sorely tests the principle, articulated by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. nearly a century ago, that "we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe."

The case involves the Westboro Baptist Church, a deranged anti-gay religious group that routinely shows up at the funerals of American soldiers to express its bizarre belief that U.S. combat deaths are divine retribution for America's tolerance of homosexuality. In 2006, the group picketed the funeral of Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, a Marine killed in Iraq. The protesters held signs reading "Thank God for Dead Soldiers," "You're Going to Hell' and "Semper fi Fags."

Snyder's father sued the church for "intentional infliction of emotional distress" and other civil wrongs, but a lower court held that the picketers were protected under the 1st Amendment. The Supreme Court is now being asked to reverse that decision.

The justices may be tempted to rule against the protesters out of understandable sympathy for Snyder's father. They should resist the temptation. Allowing even private figures to recover damages for distress caused by the political or religious speech of others would be a dramatic departure from the court's protection of free expression no matter how offensive. And it would have reverberations in settings far removed from military funerals.

More details at the link.

The Westboro people are pretty much freaks, but they have the right to spew their hatred.

Zion's Trumpet

Sent me an e-mail:

I ... appreciate your stand for the truth during a very perverse time in our nation. I am sure it will become more unpopular to speak the truth as time goes on and we need people like you who are not afraid of the menace confronting us. Keep up the good work and fighting the good fight.

I've been getting a number of supportive e-mails lately, and also requests for blogroll updates. I don't always have time for additions, but I especially try to add those regulars who participate in the American Power community, in the comments or by sending tips and links by e-mail. So step it up, readers.The left is so bigoted and hateful and hypocritical. But I'm energized by the feedback. I'll keep up the good fight.

Leftist Violence and the Los Angeles Times Bombing

This is a fascinating piece, yet ultimately frustrating, by Lew Irwin, "Bombing of The Times in 1910 Set Labor Back a Generation."

Shortly after 1 a.m. on Oct. 1, 1910, 100 years ago Friday, a time bomb constructed of 16 sticks of 80% dynamite connected to a cheap windup alarm clock exploded in an alley next to the Los Angeles Times. It detonated with such violence that for blocks around, people ran panic-stricken into the streets, believing that an intense earthquake had hit the city.

The explosion destroyed the Times building, taking the lives of 20 employees, including the night city editor and the principal telegraph operator, and maiming dozens of others. Two other time bombs — intended to kill Gen. Harrison Gray Otis, the publisher of the newspaper, and Felix J. Zeehandelaar, the head of a Los Angeles business organization — were discovered later that morning hidden in the bushes next to their homes. Their mechanisms had jammed.

Eventually, two brothers, J.B. McNamara, who planted the bombs, and J.J. McNamara, an official of the International Assn. of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers union who ordered the attacks, were arrested, convicted and imprisoned.

In its day, the Times bombing was equivalent to the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center. It was called "the crime of the century," and it remains the deadliest crime to go to trial in California history. It would lead to investigations, arrests and trials of union leaders across the country who, it turned out, funded hundreds of terrorist bombings at mostly nonunion construction projects between 1907 and 1911. They included officials of the California Building Trades Council in San Francisco, the ironworkers union and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters in Indianapolis, the Machinists Union in Syracuse, N.Y., and the Building Trades Council in Detroit. Hirelings of the union involved in executing the bombings were also brought to trial — 46 members of the ironworkers union alone. In addition to the McNamaras, who were sentenced in 1911, 39 men were convicted and sent to prison in 1912; five others received suspended sentences.

The testimony during their trials and their convictions devastated the American labor movement, virtually paralyzing it until the New Deal. The McNamaras' case in particular wrecked the career and tainted the reputation of the most prominent defender of labor of the day, Clarence Darrow, who was hired by the American Federation of Labor to defend the brothers.

To save the lives of his clients, Darrow negotiated a deal with the district attorney and the brothers pleaded guilty. Afterward, Darrow was arrested and was twice forced to defend himself against charges of attempting to bribe two prospective jurors. He was acquitted in the first trial; the second ended in a hung jury. Darrow would not return to the public spotlight until 1924, when he rescued his reputation as the defender of thrill-killers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb and as the hero of the Scopes "monkey trial" the next year.

The terrorism that gripped America 100 years ago is barely mentioned in California history books today. The Times long ago resigned itself to making at least a modicum of peace with the unions. The attack on the newspaper is now regarded as an embarrassment to organized labor, which has never gotten around to an unequivocal denunciation of it. A 1996 history of the Ironworkers Union says that "the dynamite conspiracy and the bombings are neither a point of pride nor a reason for guilt. The Iron Worker leadership had no real option other than to succumb in the open shop battle, which was unacceptable to them.... And despite other consequences of the dynamite campaign, they did save the union. The international officers stretched the limits of zeal in a righteous cause."

J.B. McNamara, his guilty plea notwithstanding, remained unrepentant for the rest of his life. In a letter sent from his San Quentin prison cell to his mother, he wrote that in all great battles, men must sometimes be sacrificed for the greater good.

There's more at the link.

This is frustrating since Irwin is so unhappy that the bombing was a "setback" for organized labor. I see it for what it was: typical of the left's inherent impulse toward destruction and death. And like we saw in the late-60s with the Weather Underground, and later in Germany with Baader-Meinhof, the cycle turns and political violence becomes respectable. Violent provocateurs are gearing up now. We saw the potential in Toronto last summer. The left's own frustration will stay capped for only so long.

'Parker Spitzer' Flops in CNN Debut

Maybe it's the guests.

See Business Insider, "Bad Ratings Follow Bad Reviews For Eliot Spitzer's New Show." And at Big Journalism, "‘Parker Spitzer’: Two Nights, Two Hollywood A-Listers Slander Sarah Palin":

The Medical Marijuana Charade

It's a scam, as I always say.

From Matt Labash, at Weekly Standard:

Southfield, Michigan

It’s hard to recall the precise moment when I realized I’d been hoodwinked by my US Airways pilot. Instead of taking me to Detroit, as my ticket promised, it seemed he had deposited me on the set of Weeds, the Showtime program about a workaday upper-middle class mother who decides to become a pot dealer.

That moment might have come after leaving the airport in my rental car, when I saw a clinic sign beckoning motorists to get an exam for their state-certified medical marijuana card. Or it might have come when I saw the multiple billboards for hydroponic gardening equipment (no, they’re not growing hothouse tomatoes here). Or maybe it was seeing the oversized highway sign heralding the season premiere of Weeds itself, the show that plunges you into California cannabis culture, from clandestine grow-rooms to “dispensaries”—the quasi-legal pot shops that one character on the show described as making Los Angeles like Amsterdam, except “you don’t have to visit the Anne Frank house and pretend to be all sad and s—.”

Then I opened Detroit’s alternative weekly Metro Times, which instead of being chock-full of ads for used futons and anonymous sex, as is the custom with such papers, was lousy with medical marijuana ads: for marijuana gardening academies; for pot doctors from places with names like Green Medicine (“No medical records? No problem.”); for the Medical Marijuana Extravaganja, a two-day jamboree of stand-up comics and horseshoe tournaments and centerfold contests which feature women like the one in the ad, who is holding a snake in one hand and an apple in the other, her ample gifts blossoming from a green bud bikini. You know, to pull in the chemo sufferers.

But the final dawning that I’d landed in the autumnal mists of a land called Honah Lee—as the poets Peter, Paul and Mary used to put it—probably came the day I went back to college. Not journalism school, mind you. What would be the point? Journalism—like making cars—is a dying industry around these parts. But there is a growth industry emerging in Michigan, the first one for decades: state-sanctioned pot dealing. And here in colorless, odorless Southfield, a white-bread suburb of Detroit, is one of the best places to learn how to do it, Med Grow Cannabis College.

Modeled partly on Oaksterdam University in Oakland, which became a weed-education hub after California legalized the medical use of marijuana in 1996, Med Grow is the brainchild of 24-year-old Nick Tennant. As Tennant’s auto-detailing business tanked in the Great Recession, Michigan followed California’s lead and became one of 14 states to legalize medical marijuana, with 63 percent of the vote in 2008. Technically, it’s still against federal law. Marijuana—even when it’s called medical—remains classified by the Feds as a forbidden Schedule 1 substance, meaning surly DEA agents can make trouble for its users. But the Obama Justice Department issued a 2009 memo directing U.S. attorneys not to target those “in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws” that permit the use of medical marijuana.

The state of Michigan now approves medical marijuana, but doesn’t provide it. So somebody needs to grow all this medicinal herb. The act allows a certified patient to grow up to 12 plants for himself, or to choose a certified caregiver who can grow for up to five patients (for a total of 60 plants, or 72, if the caregiver is also his own patient, as is often the case). And that’s why Med Grow is here—to teach people the ins and outs of the weed business, from growing it, to writing it off on their taxes. As they say in their mission statement—and you know weed has become serious business when a pot school has a mission statement—Med Grow is “dedicated to your success in the Medical Marijuana Industry, and your reputation is reliant upon it.”

Great piece. RTWT.

Plus, at LAT, "Marijuana's Health Effects":

About 9% of adults who use marijuana develop an addiction to it. Among people who begin smoking before the age of 18, this number is as high as 17%. Although addiction to marijuana does not cause dramatic physical dependence, it can lead to substantial problems in education, work and relationships. In fact, addiction to marijuana is defined by the inability to stop using despite recognition of harmful consequences. Without harmful consequences, there is no diagnosis of addiction.

The short-term effects of marijuana intoxication are well established. As part of the high produced by marijuana, intoxication impairs memory and learning. Marijuana use also impairs driving, causing a twofold to threefold increase in accidents. Though not as dramatic as the fifteenfold increase in accidents caused by alcohol intoxication, marijuana's impact on traffic safety does have significance.

The long-term effects of marijuana are not often recognized because they are subtle, but they can have a cumulative impact over time. In people with preexisting vulnerabilities, marijuana use can unmask psychiatric problems such as schizophrenia. Many people with anxiety and depression use marijuana to soothe their symptoms; however, there is evidence that over time it may actually make these problems worse.

Smoked marijuana irritates the linings of the respiratory passages and can lead to inflammation and bronchitis. Although marijuana has not been definitively shown to cause cancer, smoked marijuana has been linked to precancerous changes in the lungs.

These long-term effects of marijuana are not as dramatic as those seen in other, "harder" drugs of abuse, but they do take a toll, and that toll appears to be greatest among people who begin smoking marijuana during adolescence, before the brain and body are finished maturing.

Pax Americana and the New Iraq

From Fouad Ajami, at WSJ:

... we can now see the broad outlines of a post-American order in Iraq. The withdrawal of the Americans is already "baked into the cake," a senior Iraqi politician recently told me. This is "the East," and in the East people have an unerring instinct for the intentions and the staying power of strangers. Iraqis needn't rush to the pages of Bob Woodward's "Obama's Wars" to know of the disinterest of the president in the affairs of Iraq. There's little doubt that he'll carry out his promise to withdraw U.S. troops by Dec. 31, 2011. But it would make a great difference to Iraqis were he to signal that Washington has a strategic doctrine for the region, and for Iraq's place in it, that goes beyond that date.

The Iraqis have a fetish about their sovereignty, but they also understand their dependence. They will need American help, cover for their air space, protection for their oil commerce in the sea lanes of the Persian Gulf. This Iraqi government will remain, for the foreseeable future, a Shiite-led government anxious about the intentions of the Sunni Arab states; about the Turks now pushing deeper into Iraq's affairs, armed with Neo-Ottomanist ideas about Turkey as a patron of the Sunnis of Iraq. And there will always play upon Iraqis—Shiites in particular—a healthy fear of Iran and a desire to keep the Persian power at bay. There will be plenty of room for America in Iraq even after our soldiers have packed up their gear and left.

The question posed in the phase to come will be about the willingness of Pax Americana to craft a workable order in the Persian Gulf, and to make room for this new Iraq. It is a peculiarity of the American presence in the Arab- Islamic world, as contrasted to our work in East Asia, that we have always harbored deep reservations about democracy's viability there and have cast our lot with the autocracies. For a fleeting moment, George W. Bush broke with that history. But that older history, the resigned acceptance of autocracies, is the order of the day in Washington again.

It isn't perfect, this Iraqi polity midwifed by American power. But were we to acknowledge and accept that Iraqis and Americans have prevailed in that difficult land, in the face of such forbidding odds, we and the Iraqis shall be better for it. We have not labored in vain.