This is an actual whiskey flavored lube from the gluttons over at Epic Meal Time. Apparently they’re convinced whiskey is a desirable smell to have smeared all over your privates. SPOILER: It’s not. Unless you’re in a relationship with another manly dude (I’m thinking a gay biker/bear type here), chances are your lover doesn’t want your junk smelling like f***ing whiskey. Piña colada, absolutely, but only because piña colada is the best smell in the world, especially for car air fresheners.

Source: Geekologie.

Four US representatives introduced an amendment to the Justice Department appropriations bill, House Resolution 5326, which would bar the agency from spending funds to attack medical marijuana operations in states where it is legal. The bill was being considered Wednesday, before failing on a voice vote Wednesday evening.

A roll call vote was taken later, with the amendment failing 163-262 — 50 Democrats opposed it and 28 Republicans supported it. While the total number of “ayes” was almost identical to the last time the amendment was offered several years ago, that reflects the larger number of Republicans in the House. Both Democrats and Republicans voted for the amendment in greater percentages than in the past. [Ed: We will publish analysis of the voting breakdown this week.]

The House heard Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Jerold Nadler (D-NY), and Steve Cohen (D-TN) speak in favor of the amendment, while the most notable opposition came from committee Chairman Frank Wolf (R-VA).

Hinchey was a cosponsor of the amendment, as was Rohrabacher, of Huntington Beach, and his California colleagues Reps. amie Farr (D-Carmel) and Tom McClintock (R-Auburn).

As a presidential candidate, then-Senator Obama said his administration would not use its resources to undermine state medical marijuana laws, especially if people were following their state’s law. At first, the administration lived up to his word. Shortly after he was elected president, the Department of Justice issued a memorandum to US Attorneys urging them not to waste taxpayer dollars and law enforcement resources arresting and prosecuting people following their state’s medical marijuana law.

CONTINUED at Stop the Drug War.

Colombia’s Chamber of Representatives has approved a bill that would legalize the cultivation of drugs that grow as plants, bringing to fruition the start of more legislative drug reform efforts to come, as promised by South American leaders during the recent Summit of the Americas.

Colombia’s drug crop legalization bill would make growing marijuana, opium, coca and poppies legal, but drug trafficking, including sales, would remain a severe crime, according to Colombia Reports.

The U.S. is a strong ally of Colombia’s and the Obama administration has provided military support to the country, even going so far as to station U.S. soldiers and drone aircraft at Colombian military bases, ostensibly to help combat drug trafficking networks. The country has historically been a key U.S. asset in the region, so much that they’ve even accepted prior U.S. administrations sending aircraft over Colombian poppy and coca fields to spray the indigenous population with herbicide.

CONTINUED at The Raw Story.

In a move that could help the government trim its burgeoning health care costs, the Food and Drug Administration may soon permit Americans to obtain some drugs used to treat conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes without obtaining a prescription.

The FDA says over-the-counter distribution would let patients get drugs for many common conditions without the time and expense of visiting a doctor, but medical providers call the change medically unsound and note that it also may mean that insurance no longer will pay for the drugs.

“The problem is medicine is just not that simple,” said Dr. Matthew Mintz, an internist at George Washington University Hospital. “You can’t just follow rules and weigh all the pros and cons. It needs to be individualized.”

Under the changes that the agency is considering, patients could diagnose their ailments by answering questions online or at a pharmacy kiosk in order to buy current prescription-only drugs for conditions such as high cholesterol, certain infections, migraine headaches, asthma or allergies.

CONTINUED at the Washington Times.

Some of the most powerful unions in Los Angeles want to make sure that Wal-Mart doesn’t have a chance of opening anytime soon in Chinatown. Perhaps they should meet some of the Chinese senior citizens who support it. I did—and with the help of a translator and my own rusty Chinese, I learned that “fresh fruit,” “always low prices,” and “cheap stuff” sound good in Mandarin and Cantonese, too, especially to those immigrants and seniors living near the poverty line or in assisted living centers.

For decades, there’s been nothing on the vacant first floor of the apartment complex where Wal-Mart wants to open its Chinatown store—which it hopes will be the first of many “neighborhood marts” in Los Angeles County. Slightly smaller than a Whole Foods supermarket and only one-fifth the size of a typical Wal-Mart, the 33,000 square-foot store on West Cesar Chavez Avenue would offer fresh fruits and groceries, beauty products, and—most crucially for the seniors I spoke with—a pharmacy.

Right now, Chinatown has only one grocery store and a highly priced CVS drugstore to serve its nearly 50,000 residents. The lack of competition allows these stores to charge even more than the area’s high-priced small markets for what should be cheap products like aspirin.

In addition, many residents worry about the quality of the meat at some of the Chinese shops that Los Angeles city officials say a Wal-Mart will undercut. Indeed, all of the Chinatown residents I spoke with emphasized that at some of the Chinese markets, meats and other items are displayed on the sidewalk, exposed to the air and heat.

CONTINUED at Reason. Written by Charles C. Johnson.

NaturalNews can now confirm that the Michigan Department of Natural Resources has, in total violation of the Fourth Amendment, conducted two armed raids on pig farmers in that state, one in Kalkaska County at Fife Lake and another in Cheboygan County. Staging raids involving six vehicles and ten armed men, DNA conducted unconstitutional, illegal and arguablycriminalarmed raids on these two farms with the intent of shooting all the farmers’ pigs under a bizarre new “Invasive Species Order” (ISO) that has suddenly declared traditional livestock to be an invasive species.

See our previous report on this subject at:
http://www.naturalnews.com/035372_Michigan_pigs_farm_freedom.html

And hear my interview with Mark Baker, who runs one of the farms to be targeted by the Michigan government, at:
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=67C793DC0503D209399C21450485DA07

The ISO also deems farmers who raise these pigs to be felons, and DNR officials were ready to make arrests on the scene and haul away these farmers to be prosecuted as hardened criminals.

CONTINUED at Natural News.

Fast-food restaurant’s healthier offerings don’t seem to do much for Americans’ bottoms or the chains’ bottom lines. After all, experts say, customers generally show up for the burgers and fries, not the supersized salads.

But that hasn’t stopped the restaurants from trying to serve up more nutritious fare. Burger King is the latest to join the fray. As part of its plan to once again become a publicly-traded company, Burger King this week introduced one of the biggest menu revamps since the company began in 1954. Its “fresh offers” include strawberry and banana smoothies, Caesar salads and crispy chicken strips. “We found that consumers wanted a broader range of menu options,” Burger King’s North America president Steve Wiborg said in a statement. But history shows such efforts – even when they are relatively successful – do more to improve the brand’s image than its revenues, analysts say. And sometimes, healthy menu items are outright flops.

As for smoothies, though the blended yogurt drinks tend to have higher margins, they are unlikely to ever beat sales of fries, says R.J. Hottovy, an analyst with Morningstar. “Guilty pleasures still carry more weight for consumers,” he says. “But the industry is in a secular decline so it’s looking for new ways to drive traffic.”

Indeed, studies show even the prominent display of nutritional information has had mixed results in changing customer behavior. One 2008 study in the “American Journal of Public Health” said Subway patrons who saw calorie information purchased 52 fewer calories than other patrons. However, another2011 survey in the “British Medical Journal” said only one-in-six New Yorkers counted calories before making their purchase. One explanation: even the healthy options are not always so healthy, according to Steffie Woolhandler, professor of public health at the City University of New York and visiting professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “Frozen yogurt products have as many calories as ice-cream,” she says. Burger King’s new menu, for instance, includes a mocha frappé with caramel sauce (600 calories for a 20-ounce cup).

That said, adding salads and other healthy choice do help fast-food chains appeal to families – if only to get them in the door, experts say. A McDonald’s spokeswoman says the restaurant aims to provide options for all tastes, “whether you want oatmeal or a Big Mac.” But Hottovy says it’s tough to change the consumer’s perception of a fast-food restaurant even with a wider selection on the menu. That’s why KFC’s “Double Down” — two pieces of bacon and cheese smothered by two giant hunks of breaded chicken – was a hit online and in the restaurants, Hottovy says.

The chains’ attempts at healthy fare often don’t do as well. Here are four of the biggest nutritious fast-food flops:

CONTINUED at Smart Money. Written by Quentin Fottrell.

Whole Foods will open its first location in Park Slope, Brooklyn next year, following an eight-year battle with community activists, preservationists, and some leaky subterranean oil tanks.

Opponents of the project are concerned the upscale grocer will destroy the bucolic landscape, chase away the thriving manufacturing industry, and forever conceal the historic backyard of one of Brooklyn’s most treasured landmarks. Seriously.

A few blocks away sits the legendary Park Slope Food Co-op, which routinely tackles issues of national—and international—importance, such as conflict in the Middle East, natural gas drilling, and our “post hyper-capitalist” future.

What do threatened co-op shoppers and neighborhood activists have to say about the new Whole Foods?

Reason.tv correspondent Kennedy investigates.

Written and produced by Jim Epstein.

A new study along the same lines as its predecessors shows how eating fast food is linked to a greater risk of suffering from depression. This study has been published in the Public Health Nutrition journal

According to a recent study headed by scientists from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the University of Granada, eating commercial baked goods (fairy cakes, croissants, doughnuts, etc.) and fast food (hamburgers, hotdogs and pizza) is linked to depression.

Published in the Public Health Nutrition journal, the results reveal that consumers of fast food, compared to those who eat little or none, are 51% more likely to develop depression.

Furthermore, a dose-response relationship was observed. In other words this means that “the more fast food you consume, the greater the risk of depression,” explains Almudena Sánchez-Villegas, lead author of the study.

The study demonstrates that those participants who eat the most fast food and commercial baked goods are more likely to be single, less active and have poor dietary habits, which include eating less fruit, nuts, fish, vegetables and olive oil. Smoking and working more than 45 hours per week are other prevalent characteristics of this group.

With regard to the consumption of commercial baked goods, the results are equally conclusive. “Even eating small quantities is linked to a significantly higher chance of developing depression,” as the university researcher from the Canary Islands points out.

The study sample belonged to the SUN Project (University of Navarra Diet and Lifestyle Tracking Program). It consisted of 8,964 participants that had never been diagnosed with depression or taken antidepressants. They were assessed for an average of six months, and 493 were diagnosed with depression or started to take antidepressants.

This new data supports the results of the SUN project in 2011, which were published in the PLoS One journal. The project recorded 657 new cases of depression out of the 12,059 people analysed over more than six months. A 42% increase in the risk associated with fast food was found, which is lower than that found in the current study.

Sánchez-Villegas concludes that “although more studies are necessary, the intake of this type of food should be controlled because of its implications on both health (obesity, cardiovascular diseases) and mental well-being.” …

CONTINUED at Science Daily.

The world is rife with alcoholic lore. That’s lore regarding alcohol, not told by alcoholics. Well, there’s plenty of both. But what about all those rules we learned in college? Beer before liquor, never been sicker. More bubbles, more buzz. Different kinds of drinks get you different kinds of drunk. In vino, veritas. For all the legends, there is a shortage of scientific data to confirm or challenge the conventional wisdom… until now!

It’s Friday afternoon, you’ve made it through the long week, and it’s time for Happy Hour, Gizmodo’s weekly booze column. A cocktail shaker full of innovation, science, and alcohol. Have you heard the one about getting schnockered?

So here’s the deal. I planned to examine some of the more common booze myths and read all of the studies that had been done on those subjects, and then presto! Myth proven, or debunked. But guess what? There really haven’t been many controlled studies that addressed our questions. Why? Because controlled studies are expensive. Who would pay the tab—Jack Daniel’s? The best we could hope for would be a Kickstarter project funded by thousands of curious drinkers, and we couldn’t sit around and wait for that to happen. So we poured some drinks and picked up the phone.

CONTINUED at Gizmodo.