As the Legislature waits to begin first-round debate on a bill that would legalize medical marijuana, Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) sent a message Tuesday that signaled his intent if it passes. 

 During a committee hearing on the bill, the Cannabis Compassion and Care Act (LB643) introduced by Sen. Tommy Garrett (R) of Bellevue, his administration expressed concerns about the legislation, Ricketts said.

"And those concerns have only grown with the Judiciary Committee’s decision to move it to the floor," the governor wrote.  

Twenty-four other states, including Colorado, the District of Columbia and Guam have legalized marijuana in some form, he said. 

Ricketts called legalization for any purpose a risky proposition.

"In spite of efforts to legalize marijuana for recreational or medicinal use in other states, marijuana remains a federally banned controlled substance whose medicinal value has not been tested," Ricketts said. 

Garrett said he honestly didn't know where to start with Ricketts' column.

 "This is reefer madness all over again," he said. 

While Ricketts pulled out studies he said show marijuana's detrimental effects, Garrett said he could show the governor all kinds of studies and information that support use of medicinal forms of marijuana. 

That was hard for families living with loved ones who they believe could benefit -- or could have benefited -- from medical marijuana. They have been coming to the Capitol since Garrett introduced the bill in January to talk to senators about passing it.

On Tuesday, six people met with Ricketts and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Joseph Acierno for half an hour to plead their cases. They have children with severe epilepsy, a husband who died of brain cancer or they themselves suffer from multiple sclerosis and chronic pain.  

"It's really hard to pour your heart out, tell your story to try and give a politician a glimpse of your life, and still be told that the stance is that it has to go through the FDA process, especially when the FDA has already failed your child," said Shelley Gillen, whose son Will has severe epilepsy. 

"Our loved ones, many of them don't have time to wait for the FDA, especially when every single day is a risk," Gillen said. 

The governor also attempted to tie K2, a synthetic marijuana chemically developed to replicate the effects of recreational marijuana and tied to recent overdoses in Lincoln and Bellevue, into the discussion of medical marijuana. 

But there's nothing remotely associated with marijuana in K2, Garrett said. 

"This defies logic," he said. 

And comparing medical marijuana to recreational marijuana is also questionable, he said. Some forms of medical marijuana have low to nonexistent levels of THC, the chemical responsible for most of marijuana's psychological effects. 

"I'm so sick and tired of fighting the disinformation," Garrett said.  (Lincoln Journal-Star)

Kudos to Nebraska Senator Garrett for trying to help the sick and disabled by introducing medical marijuana legislation, which Governor Ricketts will no doubt veto if passed.  It is too bad when ideological and partisan politics prevents those in need from getting the treatment that could save their lives, or at the very least make their afflictions more tolerable.  Once again, Nebraska is stuck with stupidity in the Governor's office.

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Scientists in Costa Rica discovered a new species of frog, named Diane’s bare-hearted glassfrog (Hyalinobatrachium dianae) after the mother of one of two scientists who discovered it.  The frog has a translucent belly that reveals its internal organs.  (Costa Rica Amphibian Center)

Its most striking feature is its big, white eyes that resemble Kermit the Frog. 

Today on ABC’s This Week when host George Stephanopoulous asked the panel to name “the most promising Republican candidate not in the race yet,” some panel members named Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney and John Thune.  

What happened when panel member Bill Kristol answered was stunning.

After talk show host Tavis Smiley suggested South Dakota Senator John Thune, a smirking Kristol suggested the former vice president.

“If they get to nominate Hillary Clinton, why don’t we get to nominate Dick Cheney? I mean, he has a much… he has a much better record,” Kistol said as the entire panel burst into laughter.

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, the Tea Party genius who has run the State of Kansas into a shortfall of $344 million with a forecast of a loss of $600 million in July, continues his asinine policies.

Kansans soon can carry concealed weapons without permits or training under a bill signed by Gov. Sam Brownback on Thursday (April 2nd).  The new law will allow Kansans 21 and older to carry concealed firearms regardless of whether they have obtained a permit.  (Kansas City Star)

Just plain dangerous and dumb.

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Background

Yesterday we visited “The Trinity Site.”  Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon, conducted by the United States Army as part of the Manhattan Project.

Nearly 70 years ago the United States military detonated the world’s first atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert.  The first atomic bomb test, known as the Manhattan Project, took place in what is now the White Sands Missile Range.  The bomb was assembled on July 13, 1945 and was raised to the top of a 100-foot steel tower.  It was not dropped from the tower during detonation, but remained stationary on top of the tower where it was detonated on July 16, 1945.  The morning of the explosion, Army officials told New Mexicans a munitions storage area accidentally blew up near Alamogordo.  

Notwithstanding that the Trinity Site was designated a National Historical Landmark in 1975, to this day it is controlled by the military and is restricted.  On only two days each year the Trinity Site is open to the public, once in April and once in October.  Recently the military had objected to the hassle of opening the site two days each year (they say it costs too much) and planned to limit access to one day each year with the following announcement, “Due to fiscal constraints within the Department of Defense, White Sands Missile Range must reduce the frequency of the Trinity Site Open House from twice to once a year. The site will now only be open annually on the first Saturday in April.”  This was later retracted.  

To put this in perspective it is worth noting that the White Sands Missile Range encompasses 3,200 square miles in parts of five New Mexico counties and the Trinity Site is a very small area on one end of the entire base.

The Bomb

Early in 1939, the world's scientific community discovered that German physicists had learned the secrets of splitting a uranium atom. Fears soon spread over the possibility of Nazi scientists utilizing that energy to produce a bomb capable of unspeakable destruction.

Scientists Albert Einstein, who fled Nazi persecution, and Enrico Fermi, who escaped Fascist Italy, were now living in the United States. They agreed that the President must be informed of the dangers of atomic technology in the hands of the Axis powers.  Einstein penned a letter to President Roosevelt urging the development of an atomic research program. In late 1941, the American effort to design and build an atomic bomb received its code name — the Manhattan Project. 

Although he never worked directly on the atomic bomb, Einstein is often incorrectly associated with the advent of nuclear weapons. Years later, Einstein came to deeply regret his letter to Roosevelt. "Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb," he said "I would have never lifted a finger."  Einstein sought to control nuclear weapons and to develop institutions such as the UN that he believed could lead to peace. 

The Visit

In what can be best described as a circus, solely based on the archaic restrictions of the military who control the Trinity Site, visitors to the historic site cannot truly appreciate or contemplate the importance of what happened there almost 70 years ago.  Because the military grants access only two days each year, hoards of people converge on the site.

Once entering the military installation there is a short 4 mile drive to the official “entrance.”  On the day access is allowed to the Trinity Site, the drive turns into an endurance test, with cars literally lined up bumper to bumper the entire 4 miles.  It took us one hour before we even got to the entrance gate. 

Once there, the single file of cars were spilt into two lines where photo ID’s were required by rent-a-cops - not military personnel.  (The military has complained about the cost of opening up the site and presumably this was one of the costs.)  Once admitted we were allowed to drive the remaining distance to the site.

The actual Trinity Site is unassuming, having been covered up by the military years ago (The shallow radioactive crater was cleaned up and filled in 1952).  There is an obelisk marker, but because of the crowds it is hard to photograph. The circus atmosphere prevailed.

To me, visiting a site like this is akin to visiting a graveyard.  It is an opportunity to think about the lives of the people who were here and what took place here.  It was hard to have any thoughts, constantly bumping into the crowd of others.  In such situations I try to isolate out what is important.  In this case I was fortunate enough to run into a scientist from Los Alamos.  Truly fortunate.

Most of my time at the site was spent visiting with the Los Alamos scientist.  I expressed my indignation that the site was only open two days a year and was still controlled by the military.  My point was that it is far too important of a site, albeit now sanitized by the military, to be closed to the public.  He told me that there has been discussion that the National Parks Service take over the site and open it to the public.  Naturally, the military put a stop to that discussion, citing their usual blather about security.  Further, the National Park Service is on such a limited budget that funding would be an issue.  

We talked at length about the merits of the site to education, especially science education.  In the end we agreed that opening the historic site to the public is not going to happen anytime soon and especially so long as the military controls it.  It is a shame that military arrogance so severely restricts the public from visiting this important and historic site.

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Take a look at the pictures below.  What is your first reaction and what do these men have in common?

Answer:  They were each arrested for burglary in Iowa.  On the same day the arrests were reported in the Cedar Rapids newspaper The Gazette, these were the photos published with the respective articles.

On March 23, the Gazette‘s Lee Hermiston reported that three University of Iowa wrestlers were arrested after being caught in possession of several items that had been stolen from local homes in Marion, Iowa. The three suspects — Ross Lembeck, Seth Gross and Logan Ryan, all 19 and all white — were shown in the Gazette‘s pages in the their freshman yearbook pictures, wearing matching coats and ties.  They are accused of at least seven burglaries in the area

On the same day, Hermiston reported on four African-American suspects charged with a burglary in Coralville, Iowa, but this group of suspects — Kwain E. Crawford, 36; Milton Whitehead, 50; Quentin D.W. Eatman, 24; and Curtis J. Johnson, 29 — were all pictured in their police mug shots.

When questioned about the disparity in publishing clean-cut photos of the white burglary suspects and mug shot photos of the black suspects, a spokesperson for The Gazette responded, “Gazette policy is to use the best photographs of suspects available when reporting crimes, while always requesting and using mug shots when one is available. Pictures are the best way to identify suspects in a crime, eliminate confusion with another person with the same name and, in some cases, potentially identify other victims who recognize a suspect.”

The spokesperson said the mug shots of the white wrestlers were not available when the story was initial published because of where they were arrested. The Johnson County Sheriff Office posts mug shots online, but the Linn County Sheriff’s Office requires news outlets to submit a formal request, which causes a delay.  It should be noted that after being questioned about the reporting, The Gazette later took the time to get the mug shots of the white wrestlers and published them.

Does anyone else see a discrepancy in how these arrests were reported and the newspapers response?

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