Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Gunners Look At Drugs

In an effort to enlist the gun rights community in the anti-prohibition effort I have written a piece for Gun Values Board.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Monday, December 19, 2011

Hanukkah Science Experiments

Saturday, December 10, 2011

David Solomon



More David Solomon www.inonehour.net

First Step to Kabbalah

I also liked this one. Especially the bit a few minutes in about suffering. The key is to love suffering - if it is for a purpose.

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

I Love The Sound Of Hetrodyne Whistles

I have a new one up at ECN Magazine, I Love The Sound Of Hetrodyne Whistles. It is an evaluation of an electronics kit suitable for kids (perfect for the holiday season). And I also discuss how my love of electronics came about.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

It Depends On You




H/T commenter Chris B at Watts Up With That

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Solid State Radio

My latest article on the revival of crystal radios can be read at Solid State Radio. It is a treasure trove of links and nostalgia for those interested in crystal radios.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Monday, November 28, 2011

404ed

I was looking around for some electronics information and got this amusing 404 notice.

Friday, November 25, 2011

I'm Not Blogging Much

Here is why. Among other things.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Tool Man

I have a post up at ECN Magazine discussing the tools I use to do electronic design. Free tools of course.

If you have a budding technician/engineer in your family may I suggest that they get the tools mentioned in the article. There is nothing like getting your ideas into makeable form for helping you clarify any design issues you may have. Plus it is way more fun than video games because it can have an effect on the real world.

Monday, November 21, 2011

He Eventually Stopped Twitching

Evidently the merest twitch around police is grounds for immediate execution. And just for you geographically challenged (like me) East Point is in Georgia. Here is the story.

Dwight Person, 54, was shot Thursday afternoon when, according to police, he made a threatening gesture at a female officer “that put her in fear of her safety.” The officer, who has not been identified, fired one shot and hit Person.

He was treated and the scene and taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
OK the folks there were running some kind of dope house. Right? Right? Wrong.
"They didn't even know he was shot," Ballard said. "There were policemen saying, ‘Who fired that shot?'"

The search for drugs or a weapon was cut short after the shooting, police said.

“Once the shooting happened, our officers stopped their search and turned their focus to trying to save the man’s life,” Chandler said.

Police arrested seven people, charging them with operating a dive, a violation of a municipal code.
No drugs? No drugs? The article says nothing about drugs. Except that the police were looking for them. Normally if the police kill some one in a drug search everyone present (except the police) is charged with heavy felony drug crimes. Except no drugs were found. The heaviest crime they could find was a misdemeanor.
Seven people arrested during an East Point police drug search in which an officer fatally shot a man have been charged with violating a municipal code.
He was shot for that? And twitching. Fortunately for the police (I guess) he eventually stopped twitching.

It used to be such a nice country. Until some one decided it would be a good idea to start a war in it.

H/T Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Saturday, November 19, 2011

3D PDF

Here is a fun 3D pdf of a connector I'm planning to use in a design. In a year this will be nothing. Right now it is a lot of free fun.

And here is the page it came from, in case you want a more conventional view.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Faster Than The Speed Of Light?



Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log has more.
An unnamed source on the OPERA team told ScienceInsider that the controversy over the faster-than-light findings was exhausting. "Everyone should be convinced that the result is real, and they are not," the source was quoted as saying.

Other researchers, including physicists with the MINOS experiment at Fermilab, are working up independent analyses of neutrino runs to assess the OPERA team's findings. The initial outside assessments are expected to become available within six months or so, but end-to-end replications of the experiment could take significantly longer.
Yep. This finding (if it holds) will overturn a century of physics. Physics the modern world is built on. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is probably the most widely used bit of equipment that tests the speed of light and Relativity millions of times a day (At the link is a fascinating explanation of GPS and Relativity). It works. So for these results to be different than expected (faster than the speed of light) would indeed bring a revolution in our understanding of the universe. Right now? Too early to tell.

H/T The Boys and Girls at Talk Polywell

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Another Government Road Block

The Department Of Health and Human Services (it has very little to do with health and is into denying services) has denied permission for an FDA approved study of cannabis for treating PTSD.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has blocked a pilot study to examine the benefits of marijuana for veterans with treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The study was sponsored by the nonprofit research organization the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), and would have been conducted by Dr. Sue Sisley of the University of Arizona at Phoenix.

“Hundreds of veterans in medical marijuana states already report using marijuana to control their PTSD symptoms,” MAPS said in a statement. “The growing number of service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with combat-related trauma combined with large numbers of treatment-resistant veterans highlights the pressing need for research into additional treatments for PTSD.”
It seems the Federales have an impenetrable wall to keep this reseach on cannabis from getting done.
The Drug Enforcement Administration has denied researchers requests to obtain licenses to grow marijuana, claiming that the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) — overseen by the HHS — can be the only one to supply marijuana for Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-regulated research.
Clever boys.

It seems like actual veterans are taking matters into their own hands. Green leafy matters.
“My life went downhill from the moment I came back from Iraq,” Begin, now a 31-year-old veteran, tells Danger Room. “Doctors at Bethesda had me on so much, and on such high doses of everything, that I didn’t even know what was a symptom and what was a side effect.”

At one point, Begin, diagnosed with PTSD shortly after coming home, was taking more than 100 pills a day. So many that he would stuff dozens of bottles into a backpack to lug everywhere he went. Now, he’s cut his dependency on prescriptions to zero. Their replacement? Five joints a day.

“Using marijuana balances me out,” he says. “It takes those peaks and valleys of PTSD and it softens them. It makes my life manageable.”

Begin’s now launched an online petition asking the feds to change their course on marijuana as a treatment for PTSD. In September, the first-ever study proposed to evaluate marijuana as a potential treatment for PTSD was blocked by officials at the National Institutes on Drug Abuse (NIDA). With an estimated 37 percent of this generation’s vets afflicted with PTSD, and a dearth of effective treatment options available, Begin thinks pot deserves, at the very least, a single study.
He is not the only veteran who thinks that cannabis ought to be an official medicine. I wrote about Jamey Raines recently.

And what do you know? Our friends the Israelis are on the case.
D., a 26-year-old woman from the north of Israel, says she began to suffer from nightmares about seven years ago, after her partner raped her. After undergoing various forms of therapy, she thought she had largely put the trauma behind her. Then, two years ago, she chanced to see the rapist not far from her home. The nightmares came swarming back.

"I fell into a depression that went on until not long ago, during which I hardly slept or ate," she says in a quiet voice. "My whole life turned upside down. I left my job. Everything came to a stop. I went back to taking antidepressants and tranquilizers - Cipralex, Lustral and Prozac; sleeping pills that made me addicted. It was a nightmare. There was no way I could get through the day without those pills. Then I discovered cannabis."
So war trauma is not the only way to get PTSD? Maybe that explains why 70% of female Heroin users report being sexually attacked. When they were children. Too bad no famous sports figures (in so far as we know) are involved. Too bad we can't figure a way to give such kids a pass. Until we figure out better ways to help them heal. Currently a long slow process that is not a sure thing.

H/T Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Iffy

If grandmother is a virgin the father is Jesus.


H/T Joseph Chikva at Talk Polywell

Christian Science - Oppress Them

The Christian Science Monitor is discussing the medical marijuana situation in California. It seems they have come to a political conclusion on the subject.

Pot smokers are a small minority. They are containable...
Isn't there something wrong with oppressing people because they 'don't matter'? Even one person officially subject to persecution is too many. And since when was it Christian to be oppressing people? Even those that don't matter.

Well, Reform Jews and Orthodox Jews get it. Even if the Christians don't.

H/T Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

The Botany Of Desire



You can watch the full video here.

About 5 minutes in to the video there is a discussion about society and mind altering substances. Every society has them except for Eskimos. Only one or two though with the rest frowned upon or actively discouraged. There is no universal agreement on which two mind altering substances should prevail. Americans like alcohol (it is traditional), Saudis do not. And so it goes. All around the world.

The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World

Some people in Missouri are making an effort to get marijuana legalized. About 3 minutes into the video the pro-legalization guy explains that young people support it and old people are against it. Do the math. He thinks the math is good for 2012.

Drug Plants. No not that kind. It is police officers planting drugs to meet arrest quotas.

Cross Posted at Classical Values