eau de porneau.

globeandmail.com: ‘Prince of pot’ hearing set for November

Vancouver — The long-delayed extradition trial of Marc Emery, Canada’s self-proclaimed ‘prince of pot,’ is now set to start in November, more than 27 months after Mr. Emery and two alleged associates were arrested in Vancouver on United States warrants for selling marijuana seeds to Americans over the Internet.

This is what, the second? Third time this has happened? Second, I think. Do they not have a case? They’re essentially trying him for something he openly admits to doing, this is a trial that shouldn’t take more than a few hours.

There’s a crazy underlying reason for all of this, and I’m really wondering what it is. Is there a statute of limitations on this kind of stuff? Are the courts rebelling against the US drug czars in any way they can? I sure do hope so.

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Eating live frogs, rats cures tummy upsets | Oddly Enough | Reuters

Jiang Musheng, a 66-year-old resident of Jiangxi province, suffered from frequent abdominal pains and coughing from the age of 26, until an old man called Yang Dingcai suggested tree frogs as a remedy, the Beijing News said on Tuesday.

Chinese medicine has always amazed me. I remember when I was young, walking through Chinatown in Vancouver into traditional chinese medicine shops and seeing the most bizarre stuff.. dried guano, bat wings, all kinds of things, and thinking “I suppose it’s gotta work if they’ve been doing it this long.”

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Venezuelan TV Station Goes Off the Air

The mood inside the studios of RCTV — the sole opposition-aligned TV station with nationwide reach — was somber. Disheartened actors and comedians wept and embraced in the final minutes on the air.

They bowed their heads in prayer, and a presenter declared: “Long live Venezuela! We will return soon.” Then the national anthem was played and the screen turned black. Within seconds, it was replaced with the insignia of TVES, the new state-funded channel assigned to the frequency.

“We are living an injustice,” said Eyla Adrian, a 35-year-old presenter, her eyes welling with tears.

Thus far, I’ve found myself in support of most of the things Hugo Chavez has done. He went to the UN and slammed Bush. He told the American oil industry to fuck off. He’s stuck it to the man, and nationalized certain industries in Venezuela in an effort to protect the citizens from being charged ridiculous prices for things that they need in their everyday life. However, a move against free speech, especially such a bold, flagrant one, is quite a way to ruin world favour.

Even though right and wrong are totally subjective feelings, it’s his job to accept the fact that he’s not always right and certain things go against exactly what he, as a Socialist, is supposed to be in favour of: the common good. Free speech tends to be a good thing, so it’s safe to assume that things that hinder free speech hinder a good thing. Long story short? Chavez messed up.

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Larry Flynt: My friend, Jerry Falwell - Los Angeles Times

My mother always told me that no matter how repugnant you find a person, when you meet them face to face you will always find something about them to like. The more I got to know Falwell, the more I began to see that his public portrayals were caricatures of himself. There was a dichotomy between the real Falwell and the one he showed the public.

This is about the last thing I expected to read today, as I’ve been reeling from the death of Jerry Falwell for about a week. Maybe he’s not as much of a reprehensible, bile-spitting representation of a human being as I’d thought. I wish I could have read the story from both ends.

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Israel Group Nixes Pot on Passover - Newsday.com

“You shouldn’t smoke marijuana on the holiday, and if you have it in your house you should get rid of it,” Levine said. The edict was first reported in The Jerusalem Post.

But not everyone needs to give up their habit for the duration of the festival. The rabbinic injunctions banning hemp were never adopted by Sephardic Jews, who come from countries in the Middle East and North Africa. That means there is no reason they can’t keep smoking marijuana, Levine said, except that it remains illegal, despite her party’s best efforts.

I was reading about different kosher/non-kosher foods tonight, and found this interesting. A little past due, sure, but still interesting information. It led me to wonder what the rules are on what’s kosher and what’s not, and then I found this, this, and this.

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From here.

I think it’s kind of disgusting that we’re getting fleeced like this, but I suppose it basically boils down to competition. I can’t say much for New Zealand or Rwanda, but I know there are so many mobile carriers in America that people are forced to offer crazy low prices for their product. In Canada we have what, 5? 6? And only a few of those are actually nationwide. For example, Fido doesn’t exist in Halifax, but Rogers does. Halifax has Aliant Mobility, which my Telus phone picks up on, and so on and so forth.

In any event, I’m pretty sure society will benefit if these services are priced cheaply enough that people who need or want them can get them at a reasonable price, rather than being dragged along like we are.

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Apple Unveils Higher Quality DRM-Free Music on the iTunes Store

“We are going to give iTunes customers a choice—the current versions of our songs for the same 99 cent price, or new DRM-free versions of the same songs with even higher audio quality and the security of interoperability for just 30 cents more,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think our customers are going to love this, and we expect to offer more than half of the songs on iTunes in DRM-free versions by the end of this year.”

So much for “state-sponsored piracy.” This is undeniably a step forward, but still reeks to me. Now we have to pay a premium to do what we want with shit we buy? 30 cents is a small fee to pay, I suppose, but why not scrap DRM altogether and make all tracks 99 cents? I suppose this is a pool that you need to wade in before you can swim.

The bottom line is we will soon be able to purchase higher quality (256k AAC) music than what we’d get off torrent sites, with the same amount of restrictions (none). If the rest of the record labels would get onboard, this would change from an experiment to the status quo. Will I buy shit off iTunes once this drops? I guess it all depends on what’s there.

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Trial would have done Stalin proud - lawyer - World - smh.com.au

“First there was indefinite detention without charge. Then there
was the torture, however the Bush lawyers, including his
attorney-general, might choose to describe it. Then there was the
extorted confession of guilt.”

The controversial deal came a day after the US Defence
Secretary, Robert Gates, told a congressional committee in
Washington that tribunal verdicts would lack credibility because of
the reputation of Guantanamo around the world.

You’ve got to hand it to Gates for coming out and saying the obvious. Rumsfeld (and a bunch of marines) recently averted disaster regarding the Abu Ghraib incidents. It seems to me that the world is tossing allegations about the quality of the Iranian hostage system, meanwhile disregarding the horrible atrocities being committed in their own prisoner detention centers. They seem to be doing a good job of getting people to admit to committing various crimes, and it seems like there’s more to come.

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Gildan Activewear closing 5 plants, cutting 1,800 jobs

In a release, Gildan said the shift in production is “unavoidable in order to be globally cost-competitive in the intensely competitive North American apparel industry.”

When was the last time you got a free t-shirt (from a promotional event, or a work uniform, or what have you) and it wasn’t a Gildan cotton shirt? Hell, my work uniform, a polo shirt with a stitched on logo, is Gildan. It’s a comfortable shirt, too. I haven’t exactly looked at their financial statements, but it seems to me they’ve grown substantially within the past 5 years, and it hasn’t grown by way of the sweat off third world workers backs.

It’s definitely possible that they plan to give these third world workers a fair wage and treat them like human beings, but it strikes me that if they were going to do things of that nature, they’d have just kept the plants going where they are.

American Apparel employs regular people to stitch together their goods in various facilities and pays them decent wages, and they seem to be doing well enough.

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Independent Online Edition > Health Medical

A decade after this newspaper’s stance culminated in a 16,000-strong pro-cannabis march to London’s Hyde Park - and was credited with forcing the Government to downgrade the legal status of cannabis to class C - an IoS editorial states that there is growing proof that skunk causes mental illness and psychosis.

Skunk causes mental illness? I must know a whole lot of mentally ill people. This entire article is almost word for word the same bullshit that the American-led Anslinger propaganda machine spat out during the first half of the 20th century. Who paid these scumbags off? What made them change their pro-decriminalization stance so quickly? Do these righteous dirtbags seriously consider themselves journalists?

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