High Stakes: A Call to Legalize Marijuana.

In Oakland, Calif., Richard Lee runs a string of businesses, from coffee shops to glass blowing that are helping revitalize the once-decaying downtown. But Lee's business empire is built on an unusual foundation: Selling marijuana In the back of his Blue Sky Coffee Shop there's a steady stream of cash buyers, and not just for coffee...Link

Willing to die to stop Iran unrest..................

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- A top Iranian general said government troops are "ready to sacrifice our lives" rather than back down in the face of protests over June's disputed presidential election. Gen. Sayyed Hassan Firouzabadi, chief of Iran's Joint Armed Forces, said Iranian soldiers were willing to die as they did in the brutal eight-year Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, according to the state-run Fars News Agency...Link

The Best knockout you will ever see....................

Dick..............

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday. The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy...Link

Skeptical of program’s effectiveness.......

A US government probe has concluded that a secret wiretap program launched after the September 11, 2001 attacks had a “limited role” in preventing fresh strikes. The report found that most intelligence officials “had difficulty citing specific instances” when the National Security Agency’s covert wiretapping in the country contributed to successes against terrorists...Link

Congressional group asks for Fed probe...

WASHINGTON, July 10 (Reuters) - In the latest political swing at the Federal Reserve, 14 Republican and 3 Democratic members of the House of Representatives on Friday asked the White House to investigate the U.S. central bank before granting it greater regulatory power. President Barack Obama has proposed making the Fed the chief U.S. systemic risk regulator to prevent a recurrence of a financial crisis last year which tipped the country into the longest recession since the Great Depression. But Rep. Scott Garrett, Republican from New Jersey, urged Obama to think twice before concentrating that much authority in the hands of the Fed, and called for a probe of its role in Bank of America's (BAC.N) takeover last year of Merrill Lynch...Link