The results of a series of randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials assessing the efficacy of inhaled marijuana consistently show that cannabis holds therapeutic value comparable to conventional medications, according to the findings of a 24-page report issued earlier today to the California state legislature by the California Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR).
Four of the five placebo-controlled trials demonstrated that marijuana significantly alleviated neuropathy, a difficult to treat type of pain resulting from nerve damage.
“There is good evidence now that cannabinoids (the active compounds in the marijuana plant) may be either an adjunct or a first-line treatment for … neuropathy,” said Dr. Igor Grant, Director of the CMCR, at a news conference at the state Capitol. He added that the efficacy of smoked marijuana was “very consistent,” and that its pain-relieving effects were “comparable to the better existing treatments” presently available by prescription.

This post was originally published on Think Progress.
At a town hall event in Utah last night, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)warned Tea Party activists that they should work with the GOP, or risk electing liberals:
“If we fractionalize the Republican Party, we are going to see more liberals elected,” Hatch warned a crowd of 300 at a town meeting at American Fork Junior High School on Wednesday night, amid jeers from Tea Party supporters.
Hatch blamed the Tea Party movement for the loss of Sen. Gordon Smith, a politically moderate but fiscally conservative Republican from Oregon.
Hatch said if the Tea Party had not backed a constitutionalist candidate in that race, Brown wouldn’t have lost to Democrat Jeff Merkley, whom Hatch described as “the most liberal senator,” by 45,000 votes.

Clearly, if you talk to any nonpartisan economist, the stimulus did prevent the U.S. recession from turning into a full-blown depression. Moody’s, not exactly partisan, estimates it has added 1.6 to 1.8 million jobs so far and that its ultimate impact will be roughly 2.5 million jobs. The Congressional Budget Office, an independent agency, believes that estimate is conservative.

Yet the Obama White House gets no credit. Republicans are winning the war of the words, claiming it was a colossal waste of time. They are dissing it even as their own congressional districts benefit from the investment. And they are getting away with it.
Why?
Added jobs were jobs saved

This headline, from Sunday’s Washington Post, is factually inaccurate:
Series of missteps by climate scientists threatens climate-change agenda
You could read the entire article that follows and come away with no idea that there have in fact been zero errors identified in the UN climate change panel’s science.
With its 2007 report declaring that the “warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won a Nobel Prize — and a new degree of public trust in the controversial science of global warming.
But recent revelations about flaws in that seminal report, ranging from typos in key dates to sloppy sourcing, are undermining confidence not only in the panel’s work but also in projections about climate change. Scientists who have pointed out problems in the report say the panel’s methods and mistakes — including admitting Saturday that it had overstated how much of the Netherlands was below sea level — give doubters an opening.
The “doubters,” of course, don’t include any credible climatologists. But the article’s authors include this bit of he said-she said for balance:

Culture wars do nothing to correct social problems and, by distracting from the underlying challenges and focusing on one contentious issue, actually exacerbate social ills and prevent practical solutions from gaining traction.
This should be common knowledge; under the weight of the abortion debate in the U.S., delivery of women’s reproductive services beyond abortion remain uncertain, erratic, and regional.
In the past few decades we’ve witnessed the deafening calls against abortion drown out all discussion of other reproductive health needs.  Contraception, sterilization, condom use, sex education, tubal ligation and other reproductive services like basic testing, check-ups, and pre- and post-natal care have, for women’s choice advocates, had to take a back seat in the defense of abortion rights.  Yes, some improvements have been made but after a disappointing summer of health care reform defeats, women’s rights groups have had to admit that new strategies are necessary.

Unbelievable. According to a report by Jay Heflin at The Hill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can’t muster the votes to pass a $15 billion jobs bill.
This jobs bill has become truly bizarre remarkably fast. When Reid pulled the plug on the Senate Finance Committee’s $85 billion “bipartisan compromise,” he wasn’t being unreasonable– most of that bill was a load of Republican tax cut priorities totally unrelated to the jobs crisis. Unfortunately, the $15 billion package Reid rolled out to replace that lousy bill wasn’t much better. Reid’s version includes tax cuts more directly tied to employment, but tax breaks that are very unlikely to work.
Why won’t they work? This brings us to the really crazy part of the story. Infamous Blue Dog Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Neb., is actually talking economic sense! From The Hill:
“There’s a question of whether that puts the cart before the horse,” said Nelson. “If I don’t have enough customers for my product, hiring more people is not going to help and tax credits are not going to be to my advantage.”
Nelson is basically right. If there is no demand for whatever a business makes, providing that business with tax cuts won’t create any jobs. And right now there isn’t any demand in the economy because everybody is broke and out of a job.

What is the EPA’s excuse now? Waiting for more torrential rain to host Olympic Black Water rafting competitions?
As heavy rains and snow worsen landfill conditions, this is the sentiment of besieged residents in Perry County, Alabama, who have been designated as the official keepers of toxic coal ash from the nation’s worst environmental disaster–the TVA coal ash pond break in 2008.

Two weeks ago, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) released a startling study that found that the EPA had allowed coal ash industry representatives to blatantly rewrite and water-down the potential dangers of coal ash in official government reports. PEER concluded:
During the Bush administration, EPA entered into a formal partnership with the coal industry, most prominently, the American Coal Ash Association, to promote coal combustion wastes for industrial, agricultural and consumer product uses. This effort has helped grow a multi-billion dollar market which the industry worries would be crimped by a hazardous waste designation.
The documents obtained by PEER under the Freedom of Information Act show how this partnership gave the coal ash industry a chance to change a variety of EPA draft publications and presentations, including -

It has not been a quiet week in the world of American Baptism.  Monday’s announcement that Kenneth Starr – yes that Kenneth Starr – will be the new president of the largest Baptist University in America has been met with resounding disapproval by Baptists high and low in the church hierarchy.
David Wilkinson writes exaperatedly today at Associated Baptist Press, where he is executive director:

Last year Baptists worldwide celebrated their 400th birthday. Now, a few months later, the board of the world’s largest Baptist institution of higher learning has elected the first not-now, never-been-a-Baptist president in Baylor’s 165-year history.