Blog Heap of Links for the day 2 March 2009

Eastern European governments that ran political risks to support former President George W. Bush's security policies are now concerned that his successor, Barack Obama, will backtrack on those regional commitments. Leaders in the Czech Republic, Poland and other former communist nations face a backlash at home over their support of Bush-era initiatives, including the proposed U.S. missile- defense system and troop participation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, concern is growing in eastern Europe that it will be put on "the back burner" as the Obama administration talks about working with Russia and western Europe on issues such as Iran

The Justice Department on Monday released a long-secret legal document from 2001 in which the Bush administration claimed the military could search and seize terror suspects in the United States without warrants. The legal memo was written about a month after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. It says constitutional protections against unlawful search and seizure would not apply to terror suspects in the U.S., as long as the president or another high official authorized the action.

U.N. peacekeepers have upset traditional wild asparagus harvesters on the ethnically divided island of Cyprus by preventing them from entering a buffer zone to gather the tasty shoots.

The team that ran the most technologically advanced presidential campaign in modern history is finding it difficult to adapt that model to government. WhiteHouse.gov, envisioned as the primary vehicle for President Obama to communicate with the online masses, has been overwhelmed by challenges that staffers did not foresee and technological problems they have yet to solve. Obama, for example, would like to send out mass e-mail updates on presidential initiatives, but the White House does not have the technology in place to do so. The same goes for text messaging, another campaign staple. Beyond the technological upgrades needed to enable text broadcasts, there are security and privacy rules to sort out ...

Limbaugh, practically declared war on the newly-elected leader of the Republican National Committee today, following a television interview in which the RNC chair called Limbaugh's show "incendiary" and "ugly." ... Limbaugh responded today with an on-air diatribe against the new party chairman that ran nearly 20 minutes, alleging that Steele is more interested in being a "talking head" on television than leading the party to electoral success. ...

Iraq's special criminal court Monday acquitted Tariq Aziz, the man who once served as the urbane, cigar-smoking public face of Saddam Hussein's rule, delivering the most significant not-guilty verdict in a series of prosecutions for crimes against humanity that occurred before the U.S. invasion in 2003.

Born in Shawnee, Opal Hunter has been anxiously awaiting the return of the show in which her daughter stars as Oklahoma City police detective Grace Hanadarko. ... "My mother is the hugest fan of the show you can imagine," Hunter said. "And my roots are so in Oklahoma. My father was born in Oklahoma City and my grandparents were part of the Land Run. "Oh man, I wish we could come to Oklahoma for some filming, but it's a question of money, which is a drag. "You guys know we've all so much wanted to shoot there.... It would be incredible. But for now, I don't think that's a possibility with the economy being the way it is. "But the imagination of Nancy Miller (the show's creator who hails from Oklahoma City) is deeply rooted in Oklahoma. The characters she wants to explore and the subject matter she wants to talk about — all of it is oriented toward the state of Oklahoma. "So to me, it's as much about Oklahoma as it is about anything else."

Hunter's Grace Hanadarko is an Oklahoma detective whose skill as a cop is matched by her disregard for her own well-being. She drinks too much and when confronted with two paths will often choose the more reckless. That's part of the reason she's been assigned an angel, Earl (Leon Rippy), who tries to steer her toward a calmer, saner course.

The TV show "Saving Grace" continues to explore the issues of faith, sin and spirituality through the fictional life story of hard-drinking, fast-living Oklahoma City police detective Grace Hanadarko .

BARTLESVILLE — Local students have found a way to learn new technology, recycle used items and give to youth in the community in one project dubbed PC Empower. The students in instructor Glenda Inman's class at Tri County Technology Center have for the last year collected old, donated computers and rebuilt them. The students then give the refurbished computers as gifts to students in the community who need them. The pupils now are working on a new batch of computers that will find worthy homes.

...60 percent of the world's citizens own a cell phone ... due in large part to cell phone growth in poor, developing countries. ... By the end of 2008, there were an estimated 4.1 billion subscriptions globally, compared with roughly 1 billion in 2002, ... Approximately 23 percent of the population uses the Internet, up from 11 percent in 2002. Still, poor countries are far less likely to surf the Net....

China crashed a lunar probe into the moon Sunday.... Images released by the Chinese government show that the lunar satellite circled the Earth three times before traveling toward the moon and circling it twice before its crash. The government said the Chang'e I was controlled remotely and began to reduce speed about 45 minutes before the crash. Images show the lunar satellite breaking apart on impact. The deliberate crash of the lunar satellite aimed to give China experience for a moon landing in two years and eventual launch of an unmanned lunar rover.... China hopes to collect soil and stone samples from the moon by 2017 and send a manned rover to the moon by 2020...

A US clinic has sparked controversy by offering would-be parents the chance to select traits like the eye and hair colour of their offspring. The LA Fertility Institutes run by Dr Jeff Steinberg, a pioneer of IVF in the 1970s, expects a trait-selected baby to be born next year. His clinic also offers sex selection.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder declared this week that President Obama's campaign promise to stop "using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws" is now the active policy of the United States government. That could at least partially change the parameters of debate over whether or not to legalize medicinal cannabis when the subject comes up for discussion again in the Tennessee Legislature later this session. [Yeah, sure.]

The time has come for the People of Planet Earth to rise up and demand the Re-Legalization of Marijuana. In the weeks between the election and the inauguration President Obama created the change.gov website in order to gather policy recommendation from the American People. To Obama's surprise the most recommended "change," from the American People was to Re-Legalize Marijuana for both medical and personal use. And how did President Obama respond to "We the American People?" He flatly rejected the will of the American People by stating: "I am not going to Legalize Marijuana."

Two Aiken County men have been jailed after local and federal agents recovered 400 pounds of marijuana at a storage unit in Martinez and raided a Hampton Avenue home in Aiken Friday.... Narcotics investigators then served a search warrant at the 1375 Hampton Avenue home Lewis lives in with his father, a retired Aiken Public Safety officer. Local investigators said they have no reason to believe the former officer had any knowledge of the drug trafficking, but he was at home during the raid in Aiken and detained briefly while deputies seized a Ford Explorer utility trailer and a stolen motorcycle....

Usually, Curtis Thurmond is using his fork lift to pick up plywood. But, on Friday morning, investigators had other ideas. "They just came to ask me to give them a hand," says Curtis. "I had no idea what I was giving them a hand for at the time." That lift of his was picking up some of the 400 pounds of marijuana from a storage unit at the Flowing Wells Industrial Park in Martinez. "I was shocked to hear in this immediate area, we had that type of activity going on..." [Shocked!]

It has been nearly 40 years since President Nixon began the "war on drugs" in 1971. Its objective from the outset was to suppress the manufacture, distribution and consumption of illicit drugs. By all of those measures -- and by common agreement -- the multibillion-dollar effort has been a failure. Supply is plentiful, distribution sophisticated and consumption steady. Today, there is rare consensus among policymakers, law enforcement leaders and healthcare professionals: Our drug policy, they concede, is not working.

VANCOUVER — The Conservative government continued its law-and-order blitz Friday by reintroducing tougher penalties for drug offences. The changes came a day after Ottawa announced Criminal Code amendments aimed at gang violence. But a veteran defence lawyer gave the government's lock 'em up strategy a failing grade, saying it doesn't get at the roots of gangsterism — alienated young people and widespread demand for illegal drugs.

The list of athletes caught using marijuana is long. Could it be that drug warriors have been lying about marijuana's health impact? They've definitely been lying about the deterrent value of marijuana prohibition.

Will smoking weed soon be legal (for medicinal purposes only, of course) in the Garden State? New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine sure hopes so and he isn't alone. On Monday the New Jersey State Senate passed the "New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act" by a 22-16 vote. The bill proposed by Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Union) would permit terminally and chronically ill patients to get permission to grow, possess and smoke weed. In total patients could possess up to six plants and one ounce of weed, according to the bill.

North Coast medical marijuana growers and distributors offered guarded optimism to news that federal authorities are expected to stop raiding California pot dispensaries. "In general, we are very happy about it," said John Sugg, president of the Sonoma Patient Group in Santa Rosa. "It makes us feel better we're not going to be attacked just for political reasons." [Dream on! (What is he smoking? Oh, yeah....)]

The Temecula branch of Alternative Care Clinics opened four months ago, part of a growing network of Inland businesses connecting patients with medical marijuana. "We used to get a lot more questions," said Jonathan Arbel, ACC's director of operations. "Now it's just more recognized as a legitimate treatment." "It seems like it's a lot less of a negative thing now," said Tom Wiggins Jr., administrator for Inland Empire Cannabis Consultants of Temecula. The trend worries a local anti-drug organization.

The Cannazine Cannabis News portal has come up with a novel way to use social networking phenomena Twitter. According to the CannaZine's in-house cannabis grower Red Dragon, who produces cannabis growing material for magazines such as Weed World magazine in the UK and Soft Secrets in Holland as well as the CannaZine, this is the future for a busy generation which is short on time....