After flying helicopters in Vietnam for 30 months, Perry Parks couldn’t stop the panicked dreams.
“I was flying through wires all the time and I never hit the wire,” said Parks, 71, a retired military commander from Rockingham, N.C. “I’m a helicopter pilot, so wires scare the hell out of you.”
Parks, who has post-traumatic stress disorder, said he took sleeping pills for years after he retired. Then he found a more satisfying alternative: two or three bong hits at least three times a day.
Veterans push to smoke pot to ease PTSD, other ailment
Bob Alexander: Roy Orbison was Right
On my 40th birthday my younger sister gave me a coffee mug with a picture on it of a mouse singing, “Hi Ho … Hi Ho … It’s over the hill I go.” It immediately became my favorite mug I was never going to use. I was going to keep it in pristine condition so I could give it back to her on her 40th birthday. But I almost didn’t get the chance.
When I went to retrieve it after eight long years in storage I found the handle of the mug had snapped off. Now it was time to see if all those Crazy Glue commercials were telling the truth.
I repaired the mug, wrapped it up, and was able to re-gift as well as re-joke. But … if someone had taken a sledge hammer to the mug and reduced it to a fine white powder, no amount of Crazy Glue would help. There would be no doubt that it was irrevocably broken, smashed to bits, and it would take some sort of deranged magical thinking to think that it even could be fixed.
Alex Baer: Turning Now to Weather...
... In other news, Yoosa (TM), the country formerly known as The United States of America, Amuhrikuh, 'Merica, 'Murricuh, and so on, was sold today to the highest bidder.
Never you mind who. It's none of your business.
Please report to the Reassignment Station in your neighborhood. Your new overlords want to give you a thorough looking-over, before they decide on an appropriate wholesale price for your ass.
Arctic sea ice falls to fifth lowest level on record
Arctic sea ice remained on its death spiral on Wednesday, with the amount of winter ice cover falling to its fifth lowest on the satellite record, scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center said.
The scientists said Arctic sea ice extent for March averaged 4.80m sq km (5.70m sq miles). That's 730,000 sq km below the 1981-2010 satellite average.
The latest findings reinforce a trend that could see the Arctic losing all of its ice cover in the summer months within decades.
Supreme Court strikes down aggregate campaign limits on individuals, opening political taps
The Supreme Court on Wednesday further opened up the taps on political campaign spending, with a bombshell ruling that removes the long-standing limits on how much total money an individual can contribute to federal candidates.
In what amounts to a 5-4 ruling won by conservatives, the court declared the aggregate contribution limits imposed four decades ago violated the First Amendment’s free-speech protections. Though individual donations may still be limited, for now, the ruling means donors can spread their wealth across as many candidates and causes as they can find.
A Quarter Of Europe's Bumblebees, Vital To Agriculture, Face Extinction
Almost a quarter of Europe's bumblebees are at risk of extinction due to loss of habitats and climate change, threatening pollination of crops worth billions of dollars, a study showed on Wednesday.
Sixteen of 68 bumblebee species in Europe are at risk, the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said. It is preparing a global study of the bees, whose honeybee cousins are in steep decline because of disease.
Sahara desert dust brings smog to Britain
British authorities on Wednesday warned people with heart or lung conditions to avoid exertion as a combination of European emissions and Sahara dust created a "perfect storm" of pollution that blanketed the country in smog.
The environment department said air pollution in some areas reached the top rung on its 10-point scale.
The department said the smog was caused by pollution from Britain and industrialized areas of the continent — trapped in place because of light winds — mixing with dust blown up from a storm in the Sahara desert.
CIA’s harsh interrogation tactics more widespread than thought, Senate investigators found
The CIA’s use of harsh interrogation techniques on foreign terror suspects – a practice that has provoked international condemnation – was more widespread than the agency has publicly acknowledged, Senate investigators have learned.
Moreover, the CIA’s own internal documents confirm the agency’s culpability in the hypothermia death of one Afghan captive – an incident that also has never even been publicly discussed, McClatchy was told.
Watch Donald Rumsfeld Lie About Saddam Hussein, al-Qaeda, and 9/11
In The Unknown Known, Oscar-winning documentarian Errol Morris (The Fog of War) turns his infamous interrotron on former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He was one of the key architects of the U.S. response to the attacks of September 11th under President George W. Bush, which included wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The title of Morris’ documentary, out April 4, is taken from a controversial response Rumsfeld gave in February 2002 when, as Secretary of Defense, he was prodded about the lack of evidence concerning “reports” propagated by the Bush administration that Iraq was supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups:
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