From AOL / AP:

Gov. John Kasich on Thursday signed into law a limit on the collective bargaining rights of 350,000 public workers, defying Democrats and other opponents of the measure who have promised to push for repeal.

His signature came a day after the measure was approved by the state House and Senate, which are led by his fellow Republicans.

The measure prompted weeks of pro-labor protests by thousands of people amid a national debate over union rights, keyed by a similar bill passed in Wisconsin and signed by the governor there.

The Ohio bill prevents unions from negotiating wages but not health care, sick time or pension benefits. It also eliminates automatic pay increases and bans strikes. It applies to teachers, nurses and many other government workers, including police and firefighters, who were exempt in the Wisconsin measure…

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From AL JAZEERA:

There are unconfirmed reports that more people have left the inner circle of Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, following the high level desertion of Moussa Koussa, Libya’’s foreign minister, who arrived in the UK on Wednesday.

It is understood a group of top officials who had headed to Tunisia for talks have decided to stay there.

Some Arabic newspapers said Mohammad Abu Al Qassim Al Zawi, the head of Libya’’s Popular Committee, the country’s equivalent of a parliament, is among the defectors…

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Since the first day they started building that “temple” it was all about all the extras we’ll have and where everything came from “i.e. Hand Picked Marble from India” but let’s face it….did it really NEED all of the top of the line items such as that handpicked marble, Custom Made Carpet in the lower lobby (in my opinion really UGLY carpeting and design), and did we REALLY have to have Philip Johnson-Alan Ritchie Architects design the building at, I can only assume, a VERY great deal of money to hire them?

The answer to all of these questions is of course NO! They could have had just as beautiful a building without all of the extras, maybe then they wouldn’t have had to close.

What I REALLY want to know is…Where Jamanis and Veri are in all of this? NOT ONE MENTION of any kind of comment from them…or that anyone has TRIED to contact them. It seems, from all of the stories I’ve been reading, that most of them blame has come upon the Boards of Trustees, when it was Jamanis and Veri who ran the ship into the ground with their TOTAL OVER SPENDING and 100% LACK OF BUSINESS SENSE that has gotten us to where we are right now.

In the end I will admit it is a REAL shame this has happened….there are WONDERFUL teachers there and some of the most talented kids I’ve ever heard play….it’s just a shame that in the end they are the ones that are going to suffer for the stupidity of others and their egos.

EDITOR: Certainly the blame needs to be spread around.

Cognition, which has become the preferred term for what used to be called “thinking;” is as close to an exclusively human brain function as there is. That other complex animals have similarly organized brains with rudimentary cognitive powers is obvious; so is the fact that brains are essential to life in virtually all species possessing them because they serve as visceral and muscular control centers. For completeness, it’s also known that as far as thinking is concerned, octopuses demonstrate remarkable intelligence and capacity for learning; unfortunately their aquatic habitat and remarkably short life spans severely limit their developmental potential.

Also obvious to anyone who has studied anatomy is that the human brain is structurally far more complex than those of other mammals, amply confirming its role with respect to the capabilities that have set us apart from, and allowed us to dominate all others: language, consciousness, memory and emotions. Indeed, it is clearly our brain’s complexity- not its size- that has endowed us with our as-yet unmatched cognitive abilities. There is one important caveat however: to the extent our cognitive skills have enhanced our ability to influence our planetary environment, so has our marginal emotional control become a liability that seriously threatens our well being.

At this point, one might well wonder why a blog nominally devoted to “medical marijuana” should concern itself with such abstruse concepts. The reason is that the more my essentially private investigation of the American phenomenon of cannabis prohibition has revealed, the more it has also become clear that it’s both a national folly and an apt metaphor for our species’ most dangerous vulnerability. Ironically, our emotions, the very qualities that enhance our joy and delight at being human, and have been enriching culture for thousands of years- and literature since we first learned to write- are the same ones that lead us to lie, cheat, steal, rape and kill both ourselves and each other.

Although many would still deny it, cannabis is a complex and effective herbal remedy that moderates emotional excesses to an amazing degree (it also treats a wide range of somatic symptoms more safely and effectively than most pharmaceutical products). Sadly; it also has a disgraceful American (and global) history: one of official lies and distortions almost beyond belief; comparable only to our tragic adventure with chattel slavery. Our witless federal cannabis policy has given comfort and sustenance to a succession of fools, frauds, and mountebanks in law enforcement and the Judiciary while encouraging the destructive punishment of chronic users, most of whom were guilty of nothing more than unwitting self-medication to relieve symptoms produced by childhood emotional trauma.

That it’s a story told best told by surviving victims in response to the first unbiased medical questioning of them ever permitted should not come as a surprise; but apparently that’s the case… if you have any doubt that self-appointed “experts” remain hopelessly confused, just click on some recently expressed opinions.

Doctor Tom

By Ezra Klein

From the WASHINGTON POST:

Let’s get one thing straight: Wars cost money. Even the small ones. Already, the United States has spent hundreds of millions of dollars firing tomahawk missiles into Libya. Analysts say that the total price tag for the operation, if everything goes well and there’s no escalation, could easily exceed a billion dollars. That’s peanuts compared with our $3.8 trillion budget. But it’s not nothing.

A billion dollars, for instance, is more than 40 times the total NPR subsidies that inspired House Republicans to convene an emergency session of the Rules Committee to speed cuts along to the floor of Congress. That’s not to say saving the lives of Libyans isn’t a better investment than supporting “All Things Considered,” but it’s real money, and because it’s going to tomahawk missiles in Libya, it can’t go to something else.

But for more than a decade now, we’ve waged war as if it were free, keeping our wars off the budget and, rather than paying for them as they were fought, slapping them on the national credit card. Paying as you go, after all, is hard. It forces you to make decisions about competing priorities. When you don’t pay up front, those decisions become easy. And war should never be easy…

Click here to read the full article.

EDITOR: How the USA is perceived by the Arab world can make the difference in trillions spent and thousands of lives saved.  Sometimes a risk must be taken and an opportunity seized.

From the PITTSBURGH  POST-GAZETTE:

Reducing the size of Pennsylvania’s bloated Legislature is like the weather — everybody talks about it but nobody manages to change it.

Proposals to shrink the nation’s largest full-time General Assembly have become perennials in Harrisburg, but none of the measures has advanced very far. The latest effort, introduced by House Speaker Sam Smith on Tuesday, would eliminate 50 seats, cutting the 203 House members to 153. It should face better odds than those earlier attempts.

The Jefferson County Republican is in an ideal position to advance the measure with the weight of his leadership position behind it, and House Majority Leader Mike Turzai of Bradford Woods is the first of 60 co-sponsors. House Bill 153 already has drawn bipartisan support, with 13 Democrats signed on to the measure. And it is less likely to draw opposition in the Senate because its provisions are aimed only at the House…

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From the PITTSBURG POST-GAZETTE:

Despite recent progress in fixing its substandard bridges, Pennsylvania remains the undisputed national leader in the category, according to a national report released Wednesday.

More than 25 percent of bridges in the state are structurally deficient, giving the state both the highest percentage and greatest number of deficient bridges in the U.S., according to the report.

“The Fix We’re In For: The State of Our Nation’s Bridges” was released by Transportation for America, a Washington, D.C.-based coalition of 500 groups seeking an overhaul of national transportation policy…

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From the Quinnipiac University National Poll:

American voters disapprove 48 – 42 percent of the job President Barack Obama is doing and say 50 – 41 percent he does not deserve to be re-elected in 2012, both all-time lows, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today…

Democrats approve 80 – 13 percent of the job Obama is doing, but disapproval is 81 – 9 percent among Republicans and 50 – 39 percent among independent voters. Men disapprove 52 – 41 percent while women split 44 – 44 percent.

Voters oppose 47 – 41 percent America’s involvement in Libya. In the survey concluded Monday evening as President Obama was addressing the nation about Libya, voters say 58 – 29 percent that he has not clearly stated U.S. goals for Libya…

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From THE HILL:

The portion of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that went to banks has now turned a profit for the federal government, the Treasury Department announced Wednesday.

After receiving $7.4 billion in TARP repayments Wednesday, the Treasury has now received $251 billion from banks participating in various bailout programs, which is good for a $6 billion profit from the $245 billion originally handed out to banks. The department now estimates that bank investments under TARP will ultimately net taxpayers roughly $20 billion in profit.

Furthermore, the Treasury estimates that all the TARP programs combined — including money doled out to banks, insurance company American International Group (AIG) and domestic auto companies — will result in “little to no cost to taxpayers.”

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EDITOR:   With all the hue and cry by conservatives over the TARP bill, we now see not only did it along with the Reconstruction Act save the nation from another Great Depression, but that the near trillion dollar TARP did not end up costing barely anything.  Apart from the AIG debacle, it would have been very profitable which is exactly what Warren Buffett had predicted at the time.

From USA TODAY:

…Bullet trains are expensive to build and far from cheap to run. They won’t work everywhere. The sweet spot is somewhere between about 100 and 400 miles. Any less, and driving becomes more convenient. Too much more, and it makes increasing sense to fly.

Another must is a densely populated area with a lot of potential riders, such as the Boston-New York-Washington corridor, or California between Los Angeles and San Diego. In places like these, highways and airports are already saturated at peak travel times. With the U.S. population expected to grow by more than 100 million by 2050, mostly along the coasts, adding another way for people to get around seems like smart long-term planning.

Experience abroad shows that many high-speed rail lines need big, ongoing government subsidies, but a few become popular enough to pay their own way. The two most successful high-speed rail routes in the world — Tokyo-Osaka in Japan and Paris-Lyon in France — both make money. (The reason Amtrak loses so much is that politicians insist that it keep serving highly subsidized, sparsely traveled routes.)

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