Friday TOON Roundup 3: The Rest

Fracking




Holder


Everest




Trump



China



Sexual harassment



War

Friday TOON Roundup 2: CONgress

Friday TOON Roundup 1: Gone, but not forgotten (or lamented)

Luckovich Toon- Do you feel Lucky, Punk?

Giant, fluorescent pink slugs discovered

Ben Cubby
Environment Editor



High in the mists that shroud Mount Kaputar, near Narrabri in north-western NSW, scientists have discovered a secret world.
By day it is an isolated pocket of snow gums, wrapped in straggling native vines.
People tend to focus on the cute and cuddly bird and mammal species like koalas. But these little invertebrates drive whole ecosystems.

But on rainy nights, it is the domain of giant, fluorescent pink slugs - up to 20 centimetres long - and carnivorous, cannibal land snails that roam the mountaintop in search of their vegetarian victims.


The cannibal snail dines on other vegetarian snails.


''It's just one of those magical places, especially when you are up there on a cool, misty morning,'' said Michael Murphy, a national parks ranger for 20 years, whose beat covers the mountain top.


''It's a tiny island of alpine forest, hundreds of kilometres away from anything else like it. The slugs, for example, are buried in the leaf mould during the day, but sometimes at night they come out in their hundreds and feed off the mould and moss on the trees. They are amazing, unreal-looking creatures.''


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/one-will-really-amaze-you-the-other-just-eats-his-mates-20130528-2n9ik.html

The most embarrassing graph in American drug policy

By Harold Pollack, Published: May 29, 2013 at 2:29 pm
When it comes to drugs, it’s all about prices.

The ability to raise prices is– at least is perceived to be–a critical function of drug control policy. Higher prices discourage young people from using. Higher prices encourage adult users to consume less, to quit sooner, or to seek treatment. (Though higher prices can bring short-term problems, too, as drug users turn to crime to finance their increasingly unaffordable habit.)

An enormous law enforcement effort seeks to raise prices at every point in the supply chain from farmers to end-users: Eradicating coca crops in source countries, hindering access to chemicals required for drug production, interdicting smuggling routes internationally and within our borders, street-level police actions against local dealers.

That’s why this may be the most embarrassing graph in the history of drug control policy. (I’m grateful to Peter Reuter, Jonathan Caulkins, and Sarah Chandler for their willingness to share this figure from their work.) Law enforcement strategies have utterly failed to even maintain street prices of the key illicit substances. Street drug prices in the below figure fell by roughly a factor of five between 1980 and 2008. Meanwhile the number of drug offenders locked up in our jails and prisons went from fewer than 42,000 in 1980 to a peak of 562,000 in 2007.



more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/29/the-most-embarrassing-graph-in-american-drug-policy/

Inside Guantánamo Bay: Photographs by Eugene Richards

On assignment documenting Guantánamo Bay for this week’s issue of TIME, photographer Eugene Richards spent several days at the infamous detention facility. Here, Richards writes for LightBox about how he approached the assignment and the distinct challenges he faced working under the tight restrictions imposed on the media by the U.S. military.

When TIME asked me to go to Guantánamo, I immediately thought back to 9/11 — to the smoke and ruin of that fatal day, to Bush’s declaration of the war on terror, then to the first images from the prison: of men in orange jumpsuits shackled, blindfolded, handcuffed, sensory-deprived. These men, often viewed in silhouette and on their knees in prayer, were often picked up on the battlefield in Afghanistan by military units, although some were captured after bounties of as much as $5000 per head were paid. My first thoughts were to 9/11, of interrogations, secrecy, torture and military might.

And then there was the series of military-issued disclaimers I would have to agree to. I wouldn’t be permitted to photograph, or even see, the detainees. I couldn’t show the guards’ faces, and I would only be able to photograph the pre-ordained locations within the camp. And finally, I had to agree to having my work edited — to turn over my cards so that images could be deleted or cropped as per the opinion of the public information staff accompanying me the entire assignment. ‘Can you make pictures out of nothing?’ I asked myself, then prepared for the trip.

It took two plane flights to get down to Guantánamo and a ferry ride across to the prison camp proper. I made photographs on the boat, but because they were of soldiers, they would become the first pictures deleted by the military. Once off the ferry, Guantánamo became small town America, replete with miles of brand-new looking green-lawned suburban houses. There was a McDonald’s along the road, a Subway sandwich shop, bar-and-grills and a dry landscape of thorny bushes and cactus. Iguanas, looking absurdly out of place, lay often in pairs at the edges of roadways running to and from the prison, munching on the low vegetation. Because they are a protected species, all traffic would come to a stop as they took their time swish-swashing from place to place.

I was put up in a condo of sorts, then had dinner with my minder, Sgt. Brian Godette. The next morning, he asked me what I wanted to see. My assignment from TIME was just to see what I could see, so Brian, out of sympathy, brought me out to the one place that I could visit at will: the now infamous Camp X-Ray.





In 2002, nearly 300 prisoners were confined in these 6x8 foot chain enclosures, with concrete floors and tin roofs.


A restraining chair and force-feeding apparatus on display in an empty room of the detainee hospital.




Read more: http://lightbox.time.com/2013/05/30/inside-guantanamo-bay-photographs-by-eugene-richards/

Andrew Greeley -- priest, author, critic -- dead at 85

By Trevor Jensen and Margaret Ramirez
Chicago Tribune
9:47 a.m. CDT, May 30, 2013

Rev. Andrew Greeley, the outspoken Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and sociologist known for his deeply researched academic appraisals and sometimes scathing critiques of his church, died Wednesday night, several years after fracturing his skull in a freakish fall in Rosemont.

Rev. Greeley died in his sleep at his apartment at the John Hancock Center, according to his spokeswoman, June Rosner. He was 85.

Rosner said Rev. Greeley had been in poor health since an accident on Nov. 7, 2008. He was at Advocate Lutheran General Medical Center when a piece of his clothing apparently got caught in the door of a departing taxi and he was thrown to the pavement.

The family released a statement this morning saying "our lives have been tremendously enriched by having the presence of Fr. Andrew Greeley in our family. First and foremost as a loving uncle who was always there for us with unfailing support or with a gentle nudge, who shared with us both the little things and the big moments of family life.

"But we were specially graced that this man was also an amazing priest who recently celebrated the 59th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. He served the Church all those years with a prophetic voice and with unfailing dedication, and the Church he and our parents taught us to love is a better place because of him. Our hearts are heavy with grief, but we find hope in the promise of Heaven that our uncle spent his life proclaiming to us, his friends, his parishioners and his many fans. He resides now with the Lord of the Dance, and that dance will go on."

more

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-andrew-greeley-dead-20130530,0,3667800.story

Locksmith installs shower and a camera and douses people peeing on the wall in the back alley

A couple of jokers in Pennsylvania have dealt with the nuisance of public urinators by turning the tables - and a shower - on them.
About a year ago, the innovators in an Allentown-based Locksmith shop, grew weary of passers-by relieving themselves in the alley behind their store.
To combat the issue, the unidentified men installed a shower that would pour water on anyone who tried to urinate in the alley.





Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2332984/Locksmith-installs-shower-camera-douses-people-peeing-wall-alley-shop.html

World's oldest marijuana stash

By Jennifer Viegas

Nearly two pounds of still-green plant material found in a 2,700-year-old grave in the Gobi Desert has just been identified as the world's oldest marijuana stash, according to a paper in the latest issue of the Journal of Experimental Botany.

A barrage of tests proves the marijuana possessed potent psychoactive properties and casts doubt on the theory that the ancients only grew the plant for hemp in order to make clothing, rope and other objects.

They apparently were getting high too.

Lead author Ethan Russo told Discovery News that the marijuana "is quite similar" to what's grown today.

"We know from both the chemical analysis and genetics that it could produce THC (tetrahydrocannabinolic acid synthase, the main psychoactive chemical in the plant)," he explained, adding that no one could feel its effects today, due to decomposition over the millennia.

more

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/28034925/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/worlds-oldest-marijuana-stash-totally-busted/