The Hill is reporting on a "clerical error" involving the vote in the House to override the President's veto of the Farm Bill that lacked Title III of the bill:

http://thehill.com/...

I kind of hate to waste a diary on this, but since I don't write diaries all that often I will.

Is the site slow, or is it just me? I have had all kinds of trouble loading pages from dailykos.com. I see all kinds errors when the site is trying to get information from other servers such as i.ytimg.com, banners.blogads.com, and even ones on this site such as images.dailykos.com.

I thought that it might be a weekend problem. Sometimes it seems that Time Warner only feeds their hamsters from 9:00-5:00 on Monday-Friday. But, that does not seem to be the case since I can get to many other sites just fine.

Today I received a FINAL NOTICE in the mail from the Republican National Committee. Yes, it looks just like a bill and has a postage paid return envelope. I find this really sad and scary in a number of ways. It's sad because I'm a Democrat, a delegate to the Maine State Convention for Barack Obama no less. It's scary because this tactic is reprehensible because it looks like a bill and scares old people and those who are not as savvy to these kinds of tricks into just paying the thing.

Here's part of the tear off form at the top and the full text of the letter:

Crossposted at The Hemp Report and Booman Tribune.

This morning I got up to go to work like every weekday morning. I work an early AM shift, but I still check my email before I leave. This morning there was an email with this stunning subject line in my Vote Hemp and HIA Board in boxes "Fwd: White Plume home burned down today."

Alex White Plume on his back steps
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation - Manderson, SD
AP Photo/Chet Brokaw

The email was from Tom Cook and he writes:

On August 20th of this year I received at Vote Hemp the email below from high school student Brian Simpson, who had been banned from wearing his hemp t-shirt to school:

I am a senior at Oak Mountain High School in Shelby County, Alabama.  On August 16, 2007, I was forced to remove my shirt and to change into one provided to me because the shirt had the word "hemp" on it.  The principals claimed that because hemp is associated with marijuana and that school and county rules claim you cannot wear clothing that refers to illegal substances, that I could no longer wear the shirt.  I explained to them the difference between hemp and marijuana and explained that because hemp is legal in the United States that the rule did not apply.  They refused to acknowledge the facts that I presented to them and forced me to change shirts.  I am absolutely disgusted in the suppression of my freedom of speech and the suppression of the hemp movement in my school.  I am looking for legal assistance, but if you could even contact my school and let them know that they are WRONG, it would be greatly appreciated!

Brian Simpson

More...

I just received an email from one my fellow board members of Vote Hemp with links to a BBC News story and obituary for Anita Roddick:

Founder of ethical cosmetics firm Body Shop, Dame Anita Roddick, has died at the age of 64.

Her family said in a statement she suffered "a major brain haemorrhage" at 1830 BST at St Richard's Hospital in Chichester, West Sussex.

Her husband, Gordon, and daughters Sam and Justine were all with her.

Dame Anita set up the first Body Shop in Brighton in 1976. She pioneered cruelty-free beauty products and turned them into a highly profitable business.

She was an one of our early supporters and inspirations and she will be missed greatly. I need to head off to bed as I get up early, but since I did not see any tags or stories on this I thought that I would white a short diary.

This is a reminder that Standing Silent Nation will be aired on P.O.V. on PBS on Tuesday, July 3 at 10:00 PM (please check your local listings). If you would like an email reminder sent to you, please click here and select the "Remind Me" link just to the left of the "Watch Trailer" button.

I have been following this story since 2000 when the Hemp Commerce and Farming Report, now called the Hemp Report, ran a tribal press release and story about members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe planting industrial hemp at various locations on the Reservation. There was a short follow up in Issue 14 DEA raid Pine Ridge: hemp lost.

Please make the jump with me for more on hemp in Indian Country...

Before I launch into this little lecture I would like to make an assertion:
   

If hemp had remained an agricultural crop instead of being classed as a Schedule 1 drug we wouldn't have had all the problems we've had all these years.

I just like to say that.

I have been wanting to address the issue of comparing hemp to pot. This happens often and it is so stupid it drives me nuts to have to listen to it.

John Walters, "Drug Czar" for the Bush Administration, the worst presidential administration in human history, has often found it useful to compare and contrast hemp and marijuana.

Is he really stupid, or does he have an agenda?

Make the jump.

Crossposted at Blue Hampshire

Please call your New Hampshire Senator today and ask her or him to please vote for HB 424, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act.

The Senate floor vote will take place this Thursday, May 10.

You can find your Senator's contact information on the New Hampshire General Court's Who's My Legislator? page. If you already know who your Senator is, you may find her or his contact information on the NH Senate Membership page. Please make your call right now and then fill out the Vote Hemp NH Call Alert Feedback Form. Please also ask your family, friends and favorite farmers to make the call, too!

I'm not going to do a really long diary, 'cause I have work to do. I just received this FDA recall email:

Crossposted at The Hemp Report

Yes, just like the phrase "It depends on what your definition of "Is" is" the Grocery Manufacturers of America, along with the support of the Chocolate Manufacturers of America, are trying to change the definition of chocolate. What, what's that you say? You say today is Saturday? Yes, but you can still do something about it. Please go to Don't Mess With Our Chocolate for a quick and thorough overview of how to comment on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) docket of the proposed rule change. The LA Times has a story on the proposed changes today:

Crossposted at Booman Tribune

I was stunned to read the hatchet piece "Don't get sucked in by hemp-laced foods" by Michael C. Barnes in yesterday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Mr. Barnes' ability to conflate legal and healthy hemp foods with the flavorings and marketing tactics of marijuana-flavored candy makers is just not to be believed. These lollipops are, in the eyes of the law, pot-on-a-stick and should not in any way be associated with nutritious hemp foods.

Crossposted at The Hemp Report and Booman Tribune

Fusarium wilt. The name strikes fear into the hearts of backyard tomato growers everywhere. Once introduced, the fungus Fusarium oxysporum can survive for many years in the soil. Fusarium wilt attacks a number of plants - food crops, industrial crops, and weeds. Your parents might remember the Gros Michel or 'Big Mike' variety of bananas. This variety was wiped out by Panama disease, or fusarium wilt, in the 1950s. A similar fate now befalls the Cavendish banana, the industry's successor the Gros Michel. Some scientists think that the Cavendish banana will be essentially gone in ten years. The banana is the world's number one fruit the fourth leading plant-based food in the world, after rice, corn and wheat. The International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain and other organizations are working hard to get funding for research to come up with ways to halt the spread of the disease and come up with new cultivars of bananas that are resistant to this disease.

What does this have to do with hemp? More...

Please show your support for Maine's Governor Baldacci by participating in the online poll posted today by the Portland Press Herald now!                  

At the moment the results are:

Cianchette: 57.30%

Baldacci: 36.76%

Not sure: 5.95%

Total Votes: 925

Here is the link to go vote, the poll is halfway down on the right.

More on the flip...

Crossposted at BooMan Tribune

Dear All,
    Please encourage everyone you know to go to the Vote Hemp web site to send a letter to their US representative urging them to cosponsor the first-ever hemp farming bill, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2005 - H.R. 3037. Here is the link:

First-Ever Hemp Bill Introduced in Congress
The Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2005

enter your Zip Code and click Go! and follow the instructions to contact your representative.

You can help pay for this service by making a donation to Vote Hemp via credit card or PayPal at:
http://www.VoteHemp.com/contribute.html

Or mailing your donation to us at: Vote Hemp, P.O. Box 862,
Bedford, MA 01730.

Sincerely,

Tom Murphy
Board Member
Vote Hemp
http://www.votehemp.com/

more on the flip...

The investigation of James Tobin continues. Prior charges brought against Mr. Tobin could have resulted in five years in the federal pen. The new charge could get him ten years. The Bangor Daily News writes:

More on the flip...

Those of you who have been following the story may already know, but Garrett M. Graff of fishbowlDC made it into a White House briefing. The AP story in the S.F. Chronicle leads with this:

Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!

Now that we are all singing the same song in our heads, please protect your rights and the rights of others by taking copies of the Voter Bill of Rights below to the polls and handing them out.

I just received an email from the DNC Voting Rights Institute that included a download for the "MAINE VOTER BILL OF RIGHTS." It is very well written and has information specific to Maine. This is a good thing as there are problems here, even in Rockland.