The Ohio State University (OSU) is hosting a course that many physicians consider a pointless exercise in cruelty. Nicknamed "Cruelty 101," the course attempts to instruct students in spinal cord injury research methods. Unfortunately, students will not be focusing on the newest in vitro cell biology, neural cell imaging, and clinical research techniques. Instead, OSU neurologists are teaching the students how to systematically injure the spinal cords of rats and mice using a weight dropped on the animal's exposed spinal cord and then to put the animals through behavioral tests and surgical manipulations.

Over the course of the three-week class, the 269 injured mice and rats are subjected to additional surgeries, invasive laboratory procedures, and physically demanding behavioral exercises before they are killed. The course is funded in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The university states that the class teaches a "standardized" methodology for inflicting spinal cord damage.

The US House of Representatives Wednesday turned back a measure that would have barred the use of federal funds to go after sick people using pot. The vote came just a week after the US Supreme Court gave federal drug law enforcers the okay to resume arresting and prosecuting medical marijuana patients and providers in states where it is legal. The Hinchey-Rohrabacher amendment, named after cosponsors Reps. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), would have amended the Justice Department appropriations bill for the next fiscal year. But when the smoke cleared after a half-hour of debate Wednesday morning, the measure was defeated by a margin of 161-264.

Although not entirely a party-line vote, the measure fared much better among Democrats, with 146 of 205 voting in favor. On the Republican side of the aisle, only 15 of 229 members voted for Hinchey-Rohrabacher.

While a defeat, Wednesday's vote showed a slow but steady increase in support for medical marijuana on Capitol Hill. The vote count is up by 13 votes over an identical proposal last year.

Rethinking the "unthinkable": An updated view of communism from Ike to Mao and beyond by Bob Avakian. 449 pp. 2005

How does a good California boy of the 50's, an elementary school "Traffic Boy" who loved Smilin' Ed's "Froggy the Gremlin," a high school quarterback ("a little guy, brimming with confidence"), a serious fan of basketball and music, and the son of a prominent judge go from a nine-year-old supporter of Eisenhower to a supporter of Mao Tsetung and the Chairman of today's Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (RCP)?

Bob Avakian lays it out in his memoir From Ike to Mao and Beyond.

Most of us don't really know much about Communism. Growing up, we have all been taught to fear and disparage it. Like Avakian, many Americans practiced hiding under their first grade desks in case of nuclear attack by "godless Communists." Like Avakian, many of us lived through the McCarthy witch hunts that found communists under every bush darkly working for the destruction of America.

Close to 75 protesters gathered by 10 a.m. Wednesday, June 8, on East 17th Avenue, within the Ohio Exposition Center complex, to send a message to President Bush and the Ohio Democratic Party.

Bush?s motorcade arrived around 10:50 am and was greeted with angry shouts and signs to repeal the Patriot Act, bring our troops home from Iraq, reject electronic voting machines and to fully investigate the $215 million diverted from the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation fund into Republican campaign coffers. "I think the George Bush campaign raised a lot of illegal money in Ohio," US Rep. Sherrod Brown said. "That puts the election in some question," as reported at www.ohiohonestelections.org.

Just before noon, as the motorcade of SUV limos exited the Ohio Highway Patrol Academy, and drove slowly past the demonstration, a secret service agent, riding shotgun, raised his machine gun for all to see through an open window.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- A defrocked Buddhist novice who roasted a baby to create a powerful ghost has been arrested for allegedly tricking women into giving him cash and sex during useless animist rituals, according to police and anti-corruption officials.

Police, Justice Ministry officials, and Anti-Money Laundering Office agents spent Tuesday (July 19) sifting through property they seized last week from Harn Raksajit, including skulls, Buddhist and Hindu statues, a Mercedes Benz, wax dolls, Viagra, women's underwear and a large, locked safe.

Harn's clients included several distraught women who claimed he promised to enhance their ability to attract men in exchange for hundreds of dollars, and occasional sexual favors, they gave the 45-year-old occultist.

Physically, Harn displays a freakish appearance with dense "magical" calligraphy and designs tattooed all over his body.

Many Thais believe tattooed quotes from Buddhist and Hindu scripture, written in ancient Pali and Sanskrit, can deflect death, including bullets, car crashes and other danger.