Quotes

Last week, The American Independent was first to report that the National Cancer Institute (NCI) had added a section on medical marijuana to its treatment database, making it the first federal agency to formally recognize marijuana’s medicinal properties. Now, NCI has altered the page, removing any mention of the evidence that marijuana can diminish and even reverse tumor growth.

First federal agency to acknowledge medical marijuana removes anti-tumor information from database | The Colorado Independent via @ioerror

Well, sure, for a while there when Woz and Jobs and Bill and Dan and Randy had all left I was clearly the senior employee. But when Apple bought NeXT in 1997, two interesting things happened. When Apple acquires another company, HR sets the employees’ date of hire at Apple to their date of hire in the acquired company. So Steve’s start date at Apple would have been the date he founded NeXT, which was immediately after he resigned from Apple in 1985. But since that was within 6 months of when he left Apple, span of service credits him for his first eight years, and he ends up having a start date more or less coincident with the day of incorporation, January 17, 1977.

0x22 – cdespinosa’s posterous via daringfireball.net

Obama himself made light of her strong feelings for supporting the opposition in a speech last week at the Gridiron Club Dinner, an annual gathering that traditionally features a stand-up comedy act by the president. “I’ve dispatched Hillary to the Middle East to talk about how these countries can transition to new leaders — though, I’ve got to be honest, she’s gotten a little passionate about the subject,” Obama said to laughter from the audience. “These past few weeks it’s been tough falling asleep with Hillary out there on Pennsylvania Avenue shouting, throwing rocks at the window.”
And to some, the firing last week of State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley over disparaging remarks he made about the Pentagon detention policies had the appearance of a power move by the Defense Department more than anything else.

OH, HILL NO – WWW.THEDAILY.COM via @mmhastings

What a callous response. I can understand that a no-fly zone is problematic, and may not be the best solution to this problem. I cannot understand making light of the fact that one of your employees is passionate about people dying in the streets.

I rise in opposition to a bill that repeals the scientific finding that pollution is harming our people and our planet. However, I won’t rise physically, because I’m worried that Republicans will overturn the law of gravity, sending us floating.” —John Rennie

House Repubs Vote That Earth Is Not Warming: Scientific American Podcast (via kreaturr)

If money were no object, Kish believes that blind people could essentially mimic bats within five years. A next generation of K-Sonar, using the input from a global consortium of scientists that Kish has been corresponding with, should have a nearly limitless range. Our hearing, Kish says, can be increased tenfold through surgical augmentation — basically, inner-ear microphone implants. Combine the two and it’s possible that the blind will be able to take up tennis. Kish figures it would require $15 million to prove whether or not his idea is feasible.

Men’s Journal » The Blind Man Who Taught Himself To See

In March 2010, Breazile issued a written order that “directly tasked” Holmes to conduct an IO campaign against “all DV visits” – short for “distinguished visitor.” The team was also instructed to “prepare the context and develop the prep package for each visit.” In case the order wasn’t clear enough, Breazile added that the new instructions were to “take priority over all other duties.” Instead of fighting the Taliban, Holmes and his team were now responsible for using their training to win the hearts and minds of John McCain and Al Franken.

Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-Ops on U.S. Senators | Rolling Stone Politics

No sane person, witnessing that scene at the airport, seriously feared that this woman was planning to blow herself up on a plane. The fact that she was accompanied by children gave us the first clue. Supporting evidence trickled in from the brazen visibility of her face and hair, from her lack of a Koran, prayer mat or big black beard, and finally from the manifest absurdity of the notion that her little tub of ointment could ever, in a million years, be alchemically magicked into a high explosive – certainly not in the cramped laboratory facilities afforded by an aircraft loo. The security official and his supervisor were human beings who obviously wished they could behave decently, but they were powerless: stymied by a rulebook. Nothing but a rulebook, which, because it is made of paper and unalterable ink rather than of flexible human brain tissue, is incapable of discretion, compassion or humanity.

Discretion please, not rulebooks – Boing Boing

Is Richard Dawkins really this stupid?

During the early nineties, I traveled to Poland with my parents to visit the rural village where my dad grew up and where he eventually lost his family and his home. As part of the trip, we visited a concentration camp. While every aspect of this tour was moving and upsetting, I was most shocked by what I saw outside the fences that surrounded the camp.
I saw homes. On hills. The concentration camp was in a valley and in each direction I could see more and more houses built on the raised dirt that completely surrounded the killing factory where I stood. These neighbors would have constantly seen and smelled the plumes of smoke.
As I stood at the center of camp I wondered if things would’ve been any different if the whole world was watching. Not just knowing. Watching.
Nearly two decades after that trip with my parents, I am staring at this computer screen and I realize that I am living on those hills.

Tweetage Wasteland : Is the Internet God?