Albert Hofmann, father of drug LSD, dies in Switzerland

GENEVA (AP) — Albert Hofmann, the father of the mind-altering drug LSD whose medical discovery inspired — and arguably corrupted — millions in the 1960s hippie generation, has died. He was 102.

Hofmann died Tuesday at his home in Burg im Leimental, said Doris Stuker, a municipal clerk in the village near Basel where Hofmann moved following his retirement in 1971.

For decades after LSD was banned in the late 1960s, Hofmann defended his invention.

"I produced the substance as a medicine. ... It's not my fault if people abused it," he once said.

NY Times Iraq Death Chart

Disparities in Life Expectancy Increasing

"Over the past two decades, life expectancy has actually declined in dozens and dozens of counties throughout the U.S., mostly in poor, rural areas. Since life expectancy has continued to improve in more affluent areas, this trend has nothing to do with the limits of human survival, but rather with disparities in education, employment, social services and health care," said Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine. "At some point, human life expectancy will cease rising for us all, because we will have reached the natural limits of our life span. But right now, what we see is a wedge of social inequities driving apart the survival experiences of different parts of our country. Removing that wedge, and narrowing the survival gap, is clearly a public health priority of the first order."

Former AL Gov. Don Siegelman Says Media Ignoring Details of His 'Electronically Stolen' 2002 Election

Mark, I mention the vote stealing in every interview. 60 Minutes cut it out. Don Abrams didn't want to go there either. I have told the story to the Washington Post and LA Times.

Cops and Former Secret Service Agents Ran Black Ops on Green Groups

Received a call from Ketchum yesterday afternoon re three sites in DC. It seems Taco Bell turned out some product made from bioengineered corn. The chemicals used on the corn have not been approved for human consumption. Hence Taco Bell produced potential glow-in-the-dark tacos. Taco Bell is owned by Kraft. The Ketchum Office, New York, has the ball. They suspect the initiative is being generated from one of three places:

1.Center for Food Safety, 7th & Penn SE
2.Friends of the Earth, 1025 Vermont Ave (Between K & L Streets)
3.GE Food Alert, 1200 18th St NW (18th & M)

#1 is located on 3rd floor. Main entrance is key card. Alley is locked by iron gates. 7 dempsters [sic] in alley—take your pick.
#2 is in the same building as Chile Embassy. Armed guard in lobby & cameras everywhere. There is a dumpster in the alley behind the building. Don't know if it is tied to bldg. or a neighborhood property. Cameras everywhere.
#3 is doable but behind locked iron gates at rear of bldg.

Calif. congresswoman sworn in, booed

"The president wants to stay the course and a man who wants to replace him suggests we could be in Iraq for 100 years," she said. "But Madam Speaker, history will not judge us kindly if we sacrifice four generations of Americans because of the folly of one."

Longshoremen to close ports on West Coast to protest war

dockworkers of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union have decided to stop work for eight hours in all U.S. West Coast ports on May 1, International Workers' Day, to call for an end to the war.

Texans Build World's Most Powerful Laser

Dude! The photos remind me of that movie Real Genius.

In the basement of the physics building at the University of Texas at Austin, the school's High Intensity Laser Science Group built a petawatt laser in hopes of recreating astronomical phenomena like supernovae in miniature.

Documents prove FBI has national eavesdropping program that tracks IMs, emails and cell phones

Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act and given to the Washington Post -- which stuck the story on page three -- show that the FBI's massive dragnet, connected to the backends of telecommunications carriers, "allows authorized FBI agents and analysts, with point-and-click ease, to receive e-mails, instant messages, cellphone calls and other communications that tell them not only what a suspect is saying, but where he is and where he has been, depending on the wording of a court order or a government directive," the Post says.

Truckers Protest, the Resistance Begins

Then, on April 1, in a wave of defiance, truck drivers began taking the strongest form of action they can take – inaction. Faced with $4/gallon diesel fuel, they slowed down, shut down and started honking. On the New Jersey Turnpike, a convoy of trucks stretching “as far as the eye can see,” according to a turnpike spokesman, drove at a glacial 20 mph. Outside of Chicago, they slowed and drove three abreast, blocking traffic and taking arrests. They jammed into Harrisburg PA; they slowed down the Port of Tampa where 50 rigs sat idle in protest. Near Buffalo, one driver told the press he was taking the week off “to pray for the economy.”

Secret plans for US troops to stay in Iraq

from the guardian

A secret draft agreement is being drawn up to allow United States forces to remain in Iraq indefinitely, it has been reported.

The document, which was written a month ago and is and marked "secret" and "sensitive", is intended to replace the United Nations mandate for coalition troops, including British forces, to remain in Iraq, which expires at the end of the year.

Tax breaks for billionaires

good ole american way...

These investment advisors and hedge fund managers can take advantage of this tax structure because they are often compensated through a scheme that, in part, pays them according to the returns on the fund. The industry standard for hedge fund managers is “two and twenty,” which is shorthand for an “overhead” fee of 2% of capital under management plus carried interest (often called a “carry”) of 20% of the returns on the fund. Thus a $100 million fund earning 20% would pay its fund manager $2 million for overhead and $4 million in carry. The carry portion of their compensation is treated under the tax code as capital gains for the fund manager and is taxable at the much lower capital gains tax rate of 15%.

National Archives Protest 3-19-08

You probably didn't see this on the nightly news or CNN or anywhere else...

Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans For Peace take action to protect the sacred documents of the United States and call for all present to Support and Defend the Constitution.　This dramatic action took place at the National Archives on the 5th anniversary of the start of the tragic war in Iraq. Veterans participated in civil disobedience and gave a lesson in civic duty to hundreds of visitors to the Archives. Copies of the Constitution were distributed to the crowd.

Bush administration suspended search and seizure rights following 9/11

The ACLU first noticed the 37-page fourth amendment brief on a list of justice department documents that the Bush administration said were relevant to a lawsuit over government surveillance. The group plans to continue fighting in court for total de-classification of the brief.

"The administration's lawyers believe the president should be permitted to violate statutory law, to violate international treaties, and even to violate the fourth amendment inside the US," Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's national security project, said. "They believe that the president should be above the law."

Kraftwerk - Heavy Metal Kids

the link is to an obit for: Klaus Dinger, RIP (Kraftwerk, Neu!, motorik king), about whom I did not know but it was very interesting to hear the very different style of Kraftwerk.