the BIG STORY

The big story here has been "Operation Southern Sweep!" - a cooperative effort between the FBI, BNE, Internal Revenue Service, United States Postal Inspection Service, United States Drug Enforcement Administration, California Highway Patrol, California National Guard Counter Drug Task Force, United States Forest Service, Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, California Department of Fish and Game, Eureka Police Department, Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, and the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office. CA DOJ/BNE task forces included the North and South Butte Interagency Narcotic Task Force, Tehama Interagency Drug Enforcement, Glenn Interagency Narcotic Task Force, Shasta Interagency Narcotic Task Force, Siskiyou County Interagency Narcotic Task Force, Humboldt County Drug Task Force, Mendocino County Major Crimes Task Force, San Jose Unified Narcotic Enforcement Team, and the Madera County Narcotic Enforcement Team.

The story? The gist of it - Some 450 Federal and State agents targeted commercial pot growing operations in “Operation Southern Sweep.” serving search warrants and collecting evidence on "properties where “corporate marijuana growing operations” were suspected." Operating out of a Command Center in Fortuna's River Lodge parking lot, the motorcade drew alot of attention...

And there's been some funny stuff to come out of it - Here're my two favorites:
Picasso’s Guernica, the colossal painting that depicts the 1937 firebombing of the Basque homeland, was the subject of a film at the Eureka, California art museum last weekend. It served as a prelude to the week’s activities. An invading force of 450 law enforcement officers from California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement (BNE), FBI, IRS, and US Postal Service descended in convoys of as many as 200 vehicles upon the hamlet of Southern Humboldt county California, population. The entire county has only 138 law enforcement officers.... :) Read it here (by Ellen Komp? Ellen Taylor?)

Now THAT'S a stretch! There wasn't any FIREBOMBING HERE! Ooooh! An INVADING FORCE! CONVOYS! LOL HYSTERICAL!

I think this is still my favorite - "FUCKING RUN! Its a WAR ZONE here right now! FEDS UP THE ASS!"

Real news - NCJ Feds: Real June 23, 2008 at 6:31 pm
TS http://www.times-standard.com/ci_9683779 10:57am
ER Operation Southern Sweep to continue for a few day 12:42 updated at 1:05 PM
LA Times Raids smoke out large marijuana operation in Humboldt County 12:59 PM (locates this as being in San Francisco. No, it is in HUMBOLDT COUNTY. Probably not Reiterman's fault.)
TS Seized pot worth $25M to $60M 1:30:44 AM
Eric The latest on the Buddhaville bust 8:05 AM

Blogging: It’s the new jogging

No wonder!

In the Eureka Reporter...
Writing — the kind that’s expressive and heartfelt — has long been known to be a kind of self-medication: Jot down your personal thoughts and feelings and you just feel better.

Research backs this up. Studies show writing can improve memory and sleep, boost the immune system, even speed healing. A recent study found that cancer patients who practiced expressive writing just before their surgeries felt better, mentally and physically, than those who did not.

The explosive growth of blogging — there are an estimated 60 million of them in the world, about half in the United States — has some scientists speculating that it’s the feel-good nature of writing that’s driving the blogosphere’s growth.

“You know that (biological) drives are involved (in blogging) because a lot of people do it compulsively,” Alice Flaherty, a Harvard University neuroscientist told Scientific American.

So Flaherty and other researchers are launching studies to parse the neurological reasons of blogging. One possibility: It triggers the release of the brain chemical dopamine, which also happens when people listen to music, look at art or run.

By Scott LaFee, copley news service

Oil Platforms and Artificial Reefs

source
The Travel Channel producers, fashionably greenish in their views... read... a book titled The Helldiver's Rodeo. The book described an undersea panorama that (if true) could make an interesting show for the network, they concluded, while still scoffing.

They scoffed as we rode in from the airport. They scoffed over raw oysters, grilled redfish and seafood gumbo that night. More scoffing through the Hurricanes at Pat O'Brien's. They scoffed even while suiting up in dive gear and checking the cameras as we tied up to an oil platform 20 miles in the Gulf.

But they came out of the water bug-eyed and indeed produced and broadcast a program showcasing a panorama that turned on its head every environmental superstition against offshore oil drilling....

The panorama of marine life around an offshore oil platform staggers anyone who puts on goggles and takes a peek, even (especially!) the most worldly scuba divers. Here's a video peek at this seafood bonanza.... (You'll have to click on the link in the story, similar to the video above) Read the full story here Stuff you never hear.
Rigs to Reefs Programs

Flip sides

Cattails Targeted for Sunflower Farmers
Federal Wildlife Officials Plan to Kill Blackbirds' Cattail Habitat for Sunflower Farmers
Federal wildlife officials will target entire parcels of cattail-choked wetlands in North Dakota this year to kill the preferred habitat of sunflower-scarfing blackbirds.

Some 60,000 acres of cattail marshes in North Dakota have been destroyed since 1991 to try to keep blackbirds at bay, said Phil Mastrangelo, state director for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services agency.

Last year in North Dakota, about 4,500 acres of wetlands in 16 counties were treated, Mastrangelo said. This year there will be enough money to treat about 8,000 acres, he said.

BUT - Did you know cattails were edible? Not just partially but almost entirely.

Cattail has a wide variety of parts that are edible to humans. The rhizomes are a pleasant, nutritious and energy-rich food source, generally harvested from late Fall to early Spring. These are starchy, but also fibrous, so the starch must be scraped or sucked from the tough fibers. In addition to the rhizomes, cattails have little-known, underground, lateral stems that are quite tasty. In late spring, the bases of the leaves, while they are young and tender, can be eaten raw or cooked. As the flower spike is developing in early summer, it can be broken off and eaten, and in mid-summer, once the flowers are mature, the pollen can be collected and used as a flour supplement or thickener. (from wikipedia)

So what are you really destroying? And why aren't cattails harvested?