One more Salon article on PTSD that avoids mentioning any science.

You'd think by now that this science was being "silenced" for some reason or other, eh?

It couldn't have anything to do with the politics of cannabis prohibition, could it?

That's what someone might think after reading about all the science that links PTSD to damage to the endocannabinoid system in the hippocampus.

I couldn't agree with you more.

Farhad Manjoo wrote an article about his new Roomba vacuum. And I'll be damned if he didn't completely leave out any scientific references about cannabis. The shame! The shame!

Mark Dery wrote about his love for comfort food at Taco Bell and you know what? You're not going to believe this, but he studiously avoided any science about cannabis. Now that's really got to be in conspiracy territory, don't you think? I mean, when I was in college, a couple of bong hits and that red and yellow Taco Bell sign made us all salivate like Pavlov's dogs.

King Kaufmann wrote about the AFC and the rise of the Patriots. Not one damned word about science. They're out to get you, silenced, Silenced.

In fact, a quick inventory of all the articles now posted on Salon and it's pretty clear, they are most certainly not focusing on the science thing.

I feel terrible for you. But I think there is something constructive for you to do: Write your own article. Say exactly what it is that you think all the Salon readers need to know.

I, for one, would love to read everything you care to write, explaining your science to me. Please do. After all, I'm sitting here night after night, with no science.

Please give me your science, Silenced. Please.

Then maybe, oh lord, just maybe. You'll shut the fuck up for once and start thinking about someone other than yourself.

Hmmmm?

About our mental health system, about our inadequate VA treatment, about the way police officers are trained-- or more precisely, aren't trained-- to handle the mentally ill.

But I think I'm too overwhelmed for that. So I'll just thank Salon for publishing this article. American journalism needs more of this, desperately.

But in the United States of America today, the cops will never ever leave a person alone to pass out. Have you looked at your local cops lately?

Do they look anything like the police you grew up with? Now they are dressed completely in black, armed to the teeth with M-16s and Glock 9mm's. They have surplus armored personnel carriers. They have sniper squads.

They come not to talk, but to kill.

There has been a change in the American civilian police. As the gangs and the thugs got better weapons, the police felt they needed weapons to match. It's silly to go up against an AK-47 with a .38 service revolver. But it's not only the weaponry that has changed. It is now the attitude of the police forces across America, as evidenced by the staggering numbers of civilians they shoot in cold blood every year, the attitude that they absolutely can not leave anyone alone to just pass out. They absolutely must shoot them, burn their house down around them, or they won't feel like they've done their job: "To Protect and To Serve."

Your local police force is now a paramilitary force that rarely, if ever, does a "shoot" that isn't "righteous." In the big city near where I live, it's almost a daily occurence that a city cop blows somebody away (an unarmed somebody) who is mentally unstable and acting strangely. Solution: Kill him! So simple and straight forward. Just tell the "shoot" team investigators (other cops) that, "I saw him reach in his pocket." Or, "he had something shiny in his hand." And so you get to whack the guy, free of charge. Turns out the "perp" was reaching for his wallet to show his ID, or he had a can of soda in his hand. But hey, what the hell, it doesn't matter.

The bottom line for all of you, even those of you who never gave it a second thought, that your husband, your father, your son, could be killed by the police in this country just for acting weird and spooking one of our city's finest during a traffic stop or in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Or just being in the wrong place at the right time.

sometimes the Army wouldn't provide shelter for his team, and they'd have to force villagers to let them sleep in their homes.

Considering all the other parts of the Constitution violated by BushCo (starting chronologically with the 12th Adm.), I'd have thought that they'd have left the poor little obscure 3rd Adm. alone. Guess not.

Amendment III

No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Is there any part of the constitution left unraped by Bush & crew?

You train men to kill, send them into dangerous territory for little more reason than to make your friends some money on government contracts and then you do nothing for them when they return home broken.

I dated a Gulf War vet who was good friends with the later DC sniper when they were stationed together in Tacoma WA in the early 90s. He was a normal guy then until he came back from the war. There was nothing in his personality then to forecast what would happen years later. And we know the rest of that sorry tale.

How many more lives must be wrecked to support Bush's war games? And how does this man, who hasn't aged a bit in his 7 years as president, sleep at night? How do any of them? Is money and power that damned important to them that they don't care how many civilians they kill and servicemen they maim for life?

Guaranteed that Bush heard about Jamie Dean and then went on to thinking something completely different and pleasant a minute later, maybe clearing the ranch brush or something.

I have to visit VA hospitals on a bi-monthly basis as part of my job and it always makes me angry and sad to see these banged up men in there. And for what? One guy was a good looking 30-something in a wheel chair, making small talk about the nice weather we were having. I commented on the nice campus they had and I walked away with tears in my eyes. Its all just so wrong. They aren't "fighting for our freedom", they're fighting to fill Bush and Buddies deep pockets and hardly given any care when they return dismembered or mentally ill. How does Bush sleep at night? How does anyone who voted for him or still supports him sleep at night?