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Some 20,000 central Ohio hemp supporters gathered this weekend to celebrate the value of pre-Bush judges who respect the Constitution of the United States.

Late Friday afternoon, Federal District Court Judge Algenon L. Marbley issued a stinging rebuke to the Ohio State University's attempt to shut down the community's traditional Hemp Fest, which has been held on campus for a decade. As a result, record crowds came to the most successful Hemp Fest in OSU history, amidst calls to set next year's date as a national celebration.

In a tortured series of contradictory e-mails and false turns, the University on June 2 revoked a permit it had issued to Students for Sensible Drug Policy to hold its annual "mini-Woodstock" of music, speeches, food, face painting, tie dye and more. The festival is a central Ohio tradition dating back to 1989. It's been held at the same central campus location since 1995.

SSDP began discussions for the June 5 event last October. OSU confirmed its official permit on January 5. But the University then Bushwhacked the event just three days before it was set to go.

Please take a moment to register your concern for protecting the Big Darby Creek, a national scenic waterway. It is a treasure of our natural landscape threatened by unplanned urban development.

#9 Most Endangered: Big Darby Creek (from AmRivers Action Center)

Your voice is needed to protect Big Darby Creek from the impacts of sprawling development around Columbus, Ohio!

Despite its close proximity to Columbus, Big Darby Creek – one of our nation’s “Scenic Rivers” – has managed to escape many impacts of urban sprawl. That may be about to change. Unless state and local governments adopt and enforce river-conscious land use planning in the Big Darby watershed, one of the highest quality streams left in the Midwest may become just another polluted, flood-prone urban ditch.

Take action and tell the Ohio EPA to insist on adequate stream quality protection measures. Ask them to set aside more of the watershed’s land in its natural state and insist on “low impact development” techniques to minimize stormwater runoff to the Big Darby. Send your letter today!

Conservation Partners: Big Darby Creek Association, The Nature Conservancy

Fighting Back Looking for a simple and creative way to fight back? Here is one: http://www.freewayblogger.com/. Don't just get mad - do something!

Take action today together with The Center For Constitutional Rights, Greenpeace International, the Center for Economic and Social Rights and Peacerights to ensure the accountability of persons responsible for war crimes against the Iraqi people. International humanitarian law requires that warring parties not indiscriminately attack civilians or the infrastructure on which they depend to live. Likewise, attacks designed to spread terror amongst civilians are not permitted

Today the US, UK and other forces launched a massive air strike against Iraq as part of the US military plan, "shock and awe." In the first 48 hours of this attack some 3,000 precision-guided missiles will be fired at or near Baghdad, a densely populated city of 5.6 million. In Afghanistan, these weapons had a maximum success rate of 85%, indicating that at least some 200 missiles will miss their targets daily and result in the indiscriminate deaths of innocent civilians.

These tactics are illegal under the Geneva Convention as well as under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Ashraf Al-Jailani is a Yemeni-born permanent legal resident of the United States. Al-Jailani married Michele Swensen, an American, in February 1996. They have three children, now ages 3 (Sami, who will be 4 on June 17), 5 (Layla,), and 7 (Amina). On October 23, 2002, Al-Jailani was arrested at his job, the Akron-based GOJO Industries' Cuyahoga Falls "soap-manufacturing plant where he'd worked as a quality-control chemist for more than two years" (Tiffani Helberg/Ohio News Network, "Wife Still Fights for Muslim Man's Justice," Columbus Dispatch, February 25, 2004, p. C5), on the pretext that "the appeal of a deportation order stemming from a domestic violence incident almost three years earlier had been denied," using the 1996 Immigration Act, even though "al-Jailani had been pardoned by Ohio Gov. Robert Taft in 2001 (Lauri Lebo, "Yemeni Man Still in York Jail; For Second Time, Judge Orders Man Out on Bail; Appeal Pending," York Dispatch, December 10, 2003). Five minutes later, six FBI agents showed up at Al-Jailani and Swensen's house to search it, saying that they found Al-Jailani's business card in the wallet of a suspected Al-Qaeda money launderer.

happy gay pride. i look over the years and i see so much hate for the gay life style but does that make me ashamed the answer short and sweat...NO.

people hide behind religion with gay and non gay resoning. while at the age of 10 i was a camper at a salvation army camp here in the central ohio area and was molested by the camp counsler. upon the leadership of the salvation army finding out this happened they fired him and had him leave the camp without informing the police or seeking help for many campers in which he had sex with. the simple reason they didnt want to turn him in was they knew he was going to be a minister and didnt want to hurt his life long dream and with him being gone nobody would be hurt. but what i found out in the following year at the camp not only did he have sex with me but he had sex with several children all under the age of 12.

AUSTIN, Texas -- CBS News has acquired tapes of Enron employees boasting about how they were "f-----g over" California during the late, great "energy crisis" there.

        My favorite segment in these charming conversations is the dismay at Enron when local utilities try to get the money back. "They're f------g taking all the money back from you guys?" inquires an Enronite. "All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?"

        "Yeah, Grandma Millie, man."

        "Yeah, now she wants her f------g money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her a-- for f------g $250 a megawatt hour."

        Grandma Millie. The nerve of her. Imagine thinking it's wrong to rig a market and overcharge by billions of dollars. But hey, no worries at Enron, because George W. Bush is about to be elected president. "It'd be great. I'd love to see Ken Lay secretary of energy."

Dear Editor,

It's hard to believe it's been nearly two years since State Representative Kenneth Carano promised a group of medical cannabis patients that he would introduce a compassionate use bill in Ohio.

Though it's not uncommon for politicians to promise one thing and then do absolutely noting, generally, people don't suffer too much when that happens. But when the people are sick, and dying, and the only relief they get is from a outlawed herbal medicine, waiting too long can mean death, or worse than death, a living agonizing hell of constant never-ending pain and suffering.

I guess that's the kind of stuff, those college students and alumni feel when they can't consume alcohol at, or during sporting events. Maybe that's why Mr. Carano snubbed Ohio patients - again, (that's twice in two years Mr. Carano) and introduced a bill to legalize alcoholic tailgating parties, rather than keeping his word to a few chronic and terminal patients.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Here's a special story about a big payday. Richard Strong, formerly of Strong Capital Management Co., will receive 85 percent of a sum estimated to be between $400 million and $700 million dollars. That's a lot of lettuce.         

For those of you who don't follow the business pages, last week Strong sold his company to Wells Fargo at this fire-sale bargain rate, leaving poor Richard with only several hundred million. Alas, the company was down in value from an estimated $1.5 billion just a few months ago on account of the recent unpleasantness over Strong's habit of making "market timing" trades, the root of the current scandal over mutual funds.         

If Mark Twain were living now instead of a century ago -- when he declared himself "an anti-imperialist" and proclaimed that "I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land" -- the famous writer's views would exist well outside the frame of today's mainstream news media.

      In the current era, it's rare for much ink or air time to challenge the right of the U.S. government to directly intervene in other countries. Instead, the featured arguments are about whether -- or how -- it is wise to do so in a particular instance.

      It's not just a matter of American boots on the ground and bombs from the sky. Much more common than the range of overt violence from U.S. military actions is the process of deepening poverty from economic intervention. Outside the media glare, Washington's routine policies involve pulling financial levers to penalize nations that have leaders who displease the world's only superpower.

      In Haiti, abominable poverty worsened during the first years of the 21st century while Uncle Sam blocked desperately needed assistance.