Gore 2008?

"Yes, I'm on a campaign, but it's a different kind of a campaign -- a campaign to change the country's mind. Global warming is a moral, not a political issue."

Drugs decriminalized in Mexico

My boss predicts many folks retiring in ol' Meh-hee-co now.

In a bid to curb trafficking, Mexico to allow use of most drugs

By Sam Enriquez
Los Angeles Times
May 3, 2006, 11:01 AM EDT

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican President Vicente Fox will sign a bill that would legalize the use of nearly every drug and narcotic sold by the same Mexican cartels he's vowed to fight during his five years in office, a spokesman said Tuesday.

The list of illegal drugs approved for personal consumption by Mexico's Congress last week is enough to make one dizzy -- or worse.

Cocaine. Heroin. LSD. Marijuana. PCP. Opium. Synthetic opiates. Mescaline. Peyote. Psilocybin mushrooms. Amphetamines. Methamphetamines.

And the per-person amounts approved for possession by anyone 18 or older could easily turn any college party into an all-nighter: half a gram of coke, a couple of Ecstasy pills, several doses of LSD, a few marijuana joints, a spoonful of heroin, 5 grams of opium and more than 2 pounds of peyote, the hallucinogenic cactus.

The law would be among the most permissive in the world, putting Mexico in the company of the Netherlands. Critics, including U.S. drug policy officials, already are worrying that it will spur a domestic addiction problem and make Mexico a narco-tourism destination.

Even the Netherlands, famous for coffeehouses that sell small quantities of potent marijuana and hashish, forbids the possession and sale of narcotics. Colombia allows personal use of marijuana, cocaine and heroin, but not LSD or PCP.

No shit! Did not know...

Selling drugs or using them in public still would be a crime in Mexico. Anyone possessing drugs still could be held for questioning by police, and each state could impose fines even on the permitted quantities, the bill stipulates. But it includes no imprisonment penalties.

Mexico has for years blamed Americans for fueling the multibillion-dollar illegal drug trade with their $10, $50 and $100 drug purchases. One cartoon here showed Uncle Sam kneeling over a map of the United States and Mexico, snorting a giant line of cocaine piled along the border.

Muzzling the media: O the Irony

Sen. Leahy Says AP Letter Makes Graff Firing 'More Difficult' to Accept

By Joe Strupp
Published: May 03, 2006 5:15 PM ET

NEW YORK Responding to today's disclosure that former Vermont Associated Press bureau chief Chris Graff was fired recently for distributing an opinion column by Sen. Patrick Leahy, the senator released a statement sharply criticizing the news organization and calling the move "amazing."

Graff, fired March 20 after 27 years in the bureau, released today a letter he received from AP's regional bureau chief on that date informing him of the termination. He had previously withheld the explanation for his dismissal, but revealed the reason after striking a severance agreement with AP last week.

The letter indicates that Graff was fired for distributing Leahy's column on March 8, which advocated the annual Sunshine Week and mirrored a column he had distributed a year earlier as well.

Backstory
The column is from March and from Seven Days, an alt-paper in Vermont:

"According to sources in the Vermont media, the item was a column written by Vermont Democratic U.S. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy. The subject was the growing threat to our democracy by infringements imposed by the Bush administration on America's hallowed Freedom of information Act. It was submitted for possible publication by the "Sunshine in Government Initiative" of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Sources say the Leahy column moved on the Vermont AP wire on Wednesday, March 8, as part of a "Sunshine Sunday" preview package. Also in the Sunday package was a feature on Gov. Douglas' attempt to bar access to public records by invoking the "deliberative process privilege." Sunday kicked off "Sunshine Week." Open government was a national theme
raised by many news outlets coast to coast.

But shortly after the AP Sunshine package moved on the Vermont wire, an unidentified AP editor up the food chain abruptly yanked it. Vermont AP clients were notified it was being withdrawn. Here's what went out on the wire:

BULLETIN ELIMINATION Advisory

The Associated Press

Editors:

The Sunshine Week column by Sen. Patrick Leahy, sent without a dateline in advance
March 8 for use in Sunday newspapers of March 12, has been eliminated. The material
should not have moved on the wire. No sub will be filed.

The AP.

Sources say the objection was over moving an item written by a "partisan politician"
without including a rebuttal from a partisan politician of a different stripe.

Reaction to Colbert

"Let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The president makes decisions, he’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know--fiction."