Dear ___ ____,

The prisons in Perm and Mordovia are some of the harshest camps in all Russia, known for severely unhealthy conditions, a complete absence of privacy and a brutal social hierarchy where convicts are subject to abuse and sexual violence by both prison guards and inmates. 

This summer, Pussy Riot's Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, began two-year prison sentences there for daring to stand against Vladimir Putin. Now Nadezhda has been hospitalized after toiling in prison yards around the clock -- and sources say her life is in danger.

Media attention this summer already caused Putin's puppets to stop pushing for the maximum penalty and pardon one member of the group. Don't let Nadezhda become a martyr for dissent: call for Pussy Riot to be transferred to a Moscow facility now!

PETITION TO VLADIMIR PUTIN AND RUSSIAN PENAL AUTHORITIES: There is no reason to deny Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova the right to serve their two-year prison terms in Moscow to be closer to their children. The world is watching: Transfer Maria and Nadezhda now!

Click here to sign -- it just takes a second.

Thanks, -- The folks at Watchdog.net

P.S. If the other links aren't working for you, please go here to sign: http://act.watchdog.net/petitions/2390?n=15550781.tGXaWf

********************************************** http://freepussyriot.org/

"To laugh often and much;

To win the respect of intelligent people

and the affection of children;

To earn the appreciation of honest critics

and endure the betrayal of false friends;

To appreciate beauty,

to find the best in others;

To leave the world a bit better,

whether by a healthy child, a garden patch,

or a redeemed social condition;

To know even one life has breathed easier

because you have lived.  This is to have succeeded."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are times, after their hard work and dedication to family, friend and neighbor that everyone should remember to laugh and appreciate the good work they have done.  Mirth is key to unlocking certain metaphorical programing in the mind; to enliven the whimsical jester in all of us, to dream big, to have courage and not give up, to project ideas and shield against pain. Laugh as much as you breath and love as long as you live.

Mirth is King.  Find it so!

Poem by Marvel Parsons

I height Don Quixote, I live on Peyote, marihuana, morphine and cocaine.

I never knew sadness but only a madness that burns at the heart and the brain,

I see each charwoman ecstatic, inhuman, angelic, demonic, divine,

Each wagon a dragon, each beer mug a flagon that brims with ambrosial wine.

I went to the city and found it a pity the devil was playing at hell,

And ten million mortals had entered hell’s portals and thought they were all doing well.

I said: “See, dear people, on every church steeple an imp of the devil at play,

See ghouls cut their capers in daily newspapers and fiends in police courts hold sway;

The mountains are palaces, women are chalices meant to be supped and not sold,

The desert a banquet hall set for a festival, ripe for the free and the bold;

The wind and the sky are ours, heaven and all its stars, waken, and do what you will;

Break with this demon spawn’d hel-inspired nightmare bond – Magick lies over the hill.

They said I was crazy, ambiguous, lazy, disgusting, fantastic, obscene;

So I hied for my sagebrush and cactus and corn mush, To see if the air was still clean.

Oh, I height Don Quixote, I live on peyote, marijuana, morphine and cocaine,

And may I be twice damned for a bank-clerk or store hand if I visit the city again.

Jack Parsons is one of those people who had a major effect upon human history, but most people have never heard of him (Look Him Up!) - or know only a mangled fragment. His bio makes him sound like a military-industrial-complex insider, but reality paints a quite different picture. His life story alone would be fascinating material for film or mini-series. Maybe if he hadn't blown himself to smithereens in the early 50s, in his early 30s (!) he'd have caused some serious mischief in later years - especially as the 60s kicked off.

It has been my experience that when liberals and conservatives take a good look at themselves and genuinely strive for logical consistency, they wind up turning into, (gasp!) libertarians.

Both liberals and conservatives share the belief that society needs a safety net that only a mighty, centralized state can provide. The only real difference is that liberals prefer a social safety net to provide free education, medical care, housing, food, and, increasingly, disposable income and leisure activities. Conservatives want a so-called moral safety net, a government authority responsible for enforcing what they see as good moral behavior and condemning what they see as immoral behavior as well as funding an ever widening military empire.

What both sides fail to grasp is that you can’t get one without the other. The government that feeds you can easily retain the prerogative to tell you what to eat. In other words a government powerful enough to provide everything you want is also powerful enough to take away everything you have.

Why do so many people miss this obvious truth?

Frederic Bastiat provided a great answer in his definition of what makes an economist good or bad:

There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.

This is the basic reason conservatives and liberals find themselves defending paradoxical and even hypocritical conclusions; they see some perceived good, or they desire to prevent some perceived evil, and they are blinded to what remains unseen.

Those of the Left, in their pursuit of economic equality, fail to see the unintended consequences of egalitarianism — the destruction of personal liberty, stifling of productivity, and general impoverishment and enslavement to government that everywhere are the fruits of their policies. Conservatives, meanwhile, in the pursuit of their twin golden calves — security and morality — are blind to the atrocities committed, at home and abroad, in pursuit of these lofty ideals.

There is, perhaps, reason to be hopeful. War-weariness, the blistering stupidity of the bureaucracies that run the government, from the CIA to the TSA and NLRB, the militarization of police departments, and the passage of such abominations as the NDAA and Patriot Act seem to be awakening many conservatives, at least, to the unseens that surround their seen goals.

But one battle that still galvanizes the conservatives’ will and numbs their capacity for reason is the war on drugs. This is the surest principle upon which conservatives seem willing to unite, and the source of most of their anti-libertarian straw men. “You libertarians just want children hooked on crack,” they claim. Smug in their conviction that the drug war is a noble and righteous struggle, conservatives are blinded to its numerous and tragic consequences both in lives destroyed and in dollars wasted. For me, the costs of America’s wars, in lives and treasure, were the deciding factor in my not embracing main-stream conservatism. For many establishment Republicans and Neo-Cons, however, this seems to be immaterial. To them these are, not deaths, but merely statistics; and this is, of course, the fundamental delusion necessary to accept and wholeheartedly support each and every war that comes along.

Marijuana, Marinol, And The Unseen Cost.

There is, however, another significant consequence of drug prohibition. It is a classic example of Bastiat’s “that which is not seen.” The clinical and therapeutic promise of cannabis is staggering. Studies have linked cannabis to the destruction and inhibition of brain and breast tumors, the prevention of Alzheimer’s, treatment of glaucoma and multiple sclerosis, and even some forms of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Marinol, a synthetic cannabinoid, is now widely used as an appetite stimulant and anitemetic in cancer patients. But the use of synthetic cannabinoids has two drawbacks. First, in attempting to isolate and fabricate the “effective ingredients,” you destroy whatever synergistic effects existed between the various compounds found in marijuana.

Second, the prescription of synthetic Marinol, produced by UniMed Pharmaceuticals, grants corporate control over something that should be easily, cheaply available to anyone with a need for it. How much research is left undone — how many benefits remain undiscovered because of the pot prohibition — is anyone’s guess.

The war on drugs is just another attempt by the state to stifle innovation, limit creativity, and exert its control over every detail of our lives. Many well-meaning people endorse it and genuinely feel that they are doing the right thing. But the problem with wars is that they all end the same way: the result is not peace and prosperity, but widespread suffering and misery. It's is time to end this prohibition on individual liberty and just say no to drug wars.