Did Roland Burris commit perjury to become Senator? State lawmakers are looking into the possibility after reading Chicago Sun-Times exclusive

Okay. Is anyone surprised? Roland Burris allegedly told some lies to the Blago state impeachment panel. I was suspicious the way he managed to get his way when Obama changed his mind about him as an appointee and did a reversal and told House Majority Leader Sen. Reid to "let him in" despite the controversy surrounding Burris.

 Is it any wonder the average American has complete disgust for politicians?

February 14, 2009
BY NATASHA KORECKI AND DAVE MCKINNEY
Chicago Sun-Times Staff Reporters

State lawmakers are calling for a criminal investigation into whether U.S. Sen. Roland Burris committed perjury before a state impeachment panel, in the wake of a Sun-Times exclusive story published online today.

The development comes after the Chicago Democrat failed to initially disclose under oath to a House panel that he was hit up for campaign cash by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's brother.

State Rep. James Durkin (R-Western Springs) said Saturday that the Sangamon County state prosecutor‚s office will be asked to review Burris‚ Jan. 8 sworn testimony before the House panel to determine whether Burris (D-Ill.) perjured himself.

To read the entire article click here.

image via Google Images

Psilocybin study shows promise in treating multiple psychological disorders

TODAY IN THE SUNDAY TIMES-STANDARD (Feb.15th) - As It Stands shares a study that has been helping people with the use of Magic Mushrooms - or to be more accurate: entheogen psilocybin -a  psychoactive substance found in mushrooms.

More psychedelic research is being conducted using other hallucinogens, like LSD, to treat a host of other disorders including PTSD.

To read the whole column click here

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HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY TO MY BLOGGER PALS & READERS!

image via sonofthesouth.net

Refuting the latest pot scare: testicular cancer results

Well, all you male pot heads need not worry. Your balls aren't going to fall off because you smoke the ganja! As usual the mainstream media has it all wrong. 

According to Google News, more than 750 media outlets — that’s 7-5-0, folks — have now weighed in on this week’s pot scare story du jour: “Smoking marijuana causes testicular cancer.”

So is there any truth behind the provocative headline? Some, but hardly enough to justify the media’s feeding frenzy.

To read more click here

Smoker image via thespoof.com

Ripe bud image via Google Images

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NO JOKE! IT'S ACTUALLY THE END OF THE WORK WEEK!

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Valentine's Day Online Dating Resistant to Recession - Cyberspace Romance Weathers Hard Times

WALKER SIMON of RUETERS has found a bright spot in this gloomy depression.

SIMON SAYS...

"It's crippling for businesses but the credit crisis is giving Cupid a boost ahead of Valentine's Day as more people hunt online for mates to weather the economic storm.

Unlike other companies where revenues are dropping and layoffs are climbing, online dating seems to be resistant to the recession.

Internet dating sites usually see a spike in would-be Romeos and Juliets in the build-up to Valentine's Day but hard times this year have driven it higher."

FOR THE ENTIRE ARTICLE Click here

image via Google Images

GOP is desperately searching for new identity!

A friend passed this on to me this morning while checking  AlterNet out:

This is a very well-written commentary titled:

IT'S FUN TO WATCH OBAMA DRIVING THESE REPUBLICANS SO CRAZY

Posted by Bob Cesca, Huffington Post

"They're screaming about fear-mongering, even though we had eight years of this.

They're screaming about fiscal responsibility, even though we had eight years of this.

They're screaming about free speech, even though we had eight years of this and this and this.

They're honest to God screaming about fascism, even though we had eight years of this and this and this.

Yes, the Republicans have claimed to have "found their voice." If this is true, then their "voice" sounds exactly like Limbaugh, Matt Drudge and Malkin, depending on the day.

So what are these voices saying exactly?"

TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE CLICK HERE

GOP image via Google Images

Another theory for why Friday the 13th is unlucky

The Story of the World's Most Popular Superstition (Avalon, 2004), author Nathaniel Lachenmeyer argues that the commingling of "unlucky Friday" and "unlucky 13" took place in the pages of a specific literary work, a novel published in 1907 titled — what else? — Friday, the Thirteenth.

The book, all but forgotten now, concerned dirty dealings in the stock market and sold quite well in its day. Both the titular phrase and the phobic premise behind it — namely that superstitious people regard Friday the 13th as a supremely unlucky day — were instantly adopted and popularized by the press.

It seems unlikely that the novelist, Thomas W. Lawson, literally invented that premise himself — he treats it within the story, in fact, as a notion that already existed in the public consciousness — but he most certainly lent it gravitas and set it on a path to becoming the most widespread superstition in modern times.

cat image via Google Images

FRIDAY THE 13TH: One explanation for a bad luck day

The Knights Templar
One theory, recently offered up as historical fact in the novel The Da Vinci Code, holds that it came about not as the result of a convergence, but a catastrophe, a single historical event that happened nearly 700 years ago.

 The catastrophe was the decimation of the Knights Templar, the legendary order of "warrior monks" formed during the Christian Crusades to combat Islam. Renowned as a fighting force for 200 years, by the 1300s the order had grown so pervasive and powerful it was perceived as a political threat by kings and popes alike and brought down by a church-state conspiracy, as recounted by Katharine Kurtz in Tales of the Knights Templar (Warner Books, 1995):

    On October 13, 1307, a day so infamous that Friday the 13th would become a synonym for ill fortune, officers of King Philip IV of France carried out mass arrests in a well-coordinated dawn raid that left several thousand Templars — knights, sergeants, priests, and serving brethren — in chains, charged with heresy, blasphemy, various obscenities, and homosexual practices.

None of these charges was ever proven, even in France — and the Order was found innocent elsewhere — but in the seven years following the arrests, hundreds of Templars suffered excruciating tortures intended to force "confessions," and more than a hundred died under torture or were executed by burning at the stake.

Templar image via Google Images

Laugh and the world laughs with you!

If you missed the post at the NCJ Blogthing by Ryan Burns (Feb.9) satirizing my As It Stand column on Angels last week...check it out.
It's great satire. I'm flattered to be satirized. It's not the first time, and probably won't be the last.
We need more humor during these dark days for the economy, and this Winter's discontent.