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Wednesday links

  • King County (Seattle area) cop confronts a motorcyclist, gun in hand, irrationally and profanely accusing the guy of “going 100 miles per hour.” Fortunately, his intended victim was wearing a helmet cam. No word on whether the cop’s vacation is of the paid sort.
  • Californians may get the chance to decriminalize psilocybin next year.
  • And HERB, a site that hopes to become the go-to spot for “all things cannabis-related” just raised $4 million plus from some very respectable sources.
  • So. Why exactly is it “unethical” for Peter Thiel to conduct tests of a potential herpes vaccine outside the U.S.? He’s made his freedomista reasons quite clear. Isn’t it more unethical for the FDA to stall helpful drugs in its infamous “valley of death”?
  • Still. This is why I trust doggie antibiotics over fishy antibiotics.
  • The quiet exodus from one-size-fits-all schooling continues.
  • Yeah, yeah. Health studies are a dime a dozen and often contradict each other. But ya gotta love one that says a high-fat diet — including saturated fats — is good for you and carbs are associated with shorter lives.
  • All those seniors in that viral flood photo out of Texas: rescued and okay.
  • And for a moment at least, we can forget all those artificial divides.
  • Even if you’ve never wondered about the Children’s Crusade (you know, back there in the Middle Ages between the fourth and fifth grown-ups’ crusades, in which the alleged grownups behaved pretty darned childishly) the last line makes it all worthwhile.

15 Comments

  1. Keith
    Keith August 30, 2017 3:44 am

    Can’t read that Children’s Crusade one, it’s behind a paywall. 🙁

  2. Claire
    Claire August 30, 2017 4:48 am

    Keith — Weird! I visit that Christ & Pop Culture site several times a week and have never found it paywalled. I just checked again and found it wide open. Don’t know what to tell you.

  3. Keith
    Keith August 30, 2017 4:57 am

    I just went back to it, and it doesn’t have the pop up that keeps me from viewing it now.
    Maybe it’s a cookies thing or something.

  4. rochester_veteran
    rochester_veteran August 30, 2017 5:07 am

    Californians may get the chance to decriminalize psilocybin next year.

    Although it’s been 35 years since I’ve partaken of them, shrooms are fun! One just have to get over the fact that they grow out of cow patties. 🙂

  5. Pat
    Pat August 30, 2017 5:14 am

    Can’t read about the High-Fat Diet because Medscape wants me to sign in, and I won’t.

    It depends on who goes looking for those hallucinogenic mushrooms as to whether they’re safe or not. Mushroomers have generally been cautious about what they pick, but if some idiot thinks he can bypass the medical psilocybin by picking and eating the hallucinogetic mushrooms, he just might pick a poisonous one instead.

    ““There’s a very real stigma that exists around cannabis today and our viewpoint on things here at Herb is that yesterday’s social stigmas become tomorrow’s social norms,” he added. “We’re trying to present the best face that we can for this industry and bring cannabis into the mainstream.””

    So the “stigma” can now be removed from all herbs. I often go to herb websites and am sure I’m being followed because of the connotation of “herb” with cannabis.

    (A nomenclature problem, BTW, that started before cannabis was familiarly labeled an “herb.” Due to FDA disapproval and non-acceptance, medicinal herbs were frowned on years ago due to jealous influence from traditional medicine [TM]. But thankfully, medicinal herbs now have a “legitimate” reputation – though the jealousy is still there from TM.)

  6. Ellendra
    Ellendra August 30, 2017 7:25 am

    “One just have to get over the fact that they grow out of cow patties.”

    The button mushrooms you get at the grocery store were grown on horse manure. Not much difference there. Actually, cow manure might be safer, there are tighter restrictions on what medications can legally be given to cattle.
    (That is NOT to be taken as some kind of endorsement of government restrictions. It is simply a description of what currently exists.)

    ” I often go to herb websites and am sure I’m being followed because of the connotation of “herb” with cannabis.”

    I gave up talking about my medicinal herbs farm because of that. I got so sick of the reaction I got. “Yeah, ‘herbs’! We know what that means! Har har har”

    I’m too allergic to MJ to grow it even if it was legal in my state, but mushrooms? I might look into that. I was already considering growing reishi mushrooms, they’re a medicinal one.

  7. Mark Leigh
    Mark Leigh August 30, 2017 7:41 am

    Ellendra are you familiar with Fungi Perfecti in Washington state? Paul Stamets wrote a great book on growing all kinds of mushrooms and has a commercial growing and spore producing enterprise at http://www.fungi.com

  8. Ellendra
    Ellendra August 30, 2017 7:43 am

    “Still. This is why I trust doggie antibiotics over fishy antibiotics.”

    I’m lucky enough to live in an area where farm-supply stores carry medications for all kinds of livestock, no script needed. I’d be inclined to go with swine antibiotics, if and when I’m able to build up my stash.

    A. Pig biology is nearly identical to human’s in many ways. That means the medication is more likely to be absorbed the same way.

    And B. It’s assumed the pig will someday be eaten, which means any medications meant for them have to meet higher safety standards than medications for a non-food animal.

  9. Ellendra
    Ellendra August 30, 2017 7:50 am

    @Mark I am, and I think I have that book already! Not the 3rd edition, I got mine when I was 13, and read it at least twice. Awesome stuff.

    (I was a weird kid)

  10. Comrade X
    Comrade X August 30, 2017 8:15 am

    “And for a moment at least, we can forget all those artificial divides.”

    Well not quite;

    “THIS is life under Trump; Galveston authorities r asking private untrained citizens w flat bottom boats to assist w rescues. God help us all”

    https://twitter.com/Womenspeakup/status/901827734460137472?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redstate.com%2Fslee%2F2017%2F08%2F28%2Fdifference-right-left-full-display-harvey%2F

    However I do like the comments!

    “Its called people doing the right thing, absolutely nothing to do with trump”

    Then there is this;

    “The volunteer rescue organization Louisiana Cajun Navy said shots were fired at its boats during an attempted rescue in Houston.

    In an initial post on its Facebook page, the group said that looters had tried to steal their boats….”

    http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/28/looters-attack-cajun-navy-with-guns-during-attempted-rescue/

  11. larryarnold
    larryarnold August 30, 2017 6:49 pm

    (I was a weird kid)
    Is there anyone around here who wasn’t?

    private untrained citizens w flat bottom boats
    Untrained? Not! I earned my Boy Scout Rowing Merit Badge. And in shallow, flowing water a flat-bottom boat is the way to go.

  12. ExpatNJ
    ExpatNJ August 31, 2017 7:44 am

    “Surrender is no guarantee that an armed police officer will not shoot you.”
    (h/t to “Steven Magee”, unk reference).

    Gives new thought on how one should really handle encounters with the po-po …

  13. Desertrat
    Desertrat August 31, 2017 6:59 pm

    Ah, the old days of a mere thirty years ago. Very early on a Sunday morning my son was motorcycling from Phoenix to Las Vegas. He had a brief and friendly discussion with a deputy who had radared him at 156. Seems that the deputy wanted a bike like that.

  14. E. Garrett Perry
    E. Garrett Perry August 31, 2017 11:04 pm

    Cali may find themselves in a very unusual position. Psilocybin (along with LSA, LSD, and Mescaline) has long been known by sufferers to relieve the symptoms of Cluster Headache by interrupting and terminating the “cycle” of attacks. If they legalise, every Clusterhead on Earth who has the means will be stampeding to CA. Cluster Headache, known since Hippocrates as “suicide headaches” are believed by neurologists who study them to be the most painful sensation that an adult Human is physically/neurologically capable of experiencing, and this pain comes regular as clockwork for weeks or months, 15-120mins at a time. Once an attack begins, the only help is high-flow (min 25L/hr) oxygen or a bullet, and many people without immediate access to the O2 choose the bullet rather than suffer another hour of having a red-hot landscaping spike being driven through their eye and into their throbbing brain. CA may turn out to be a new center for research into this method of treatment, and good on them.

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