2007-12-26

Vietnam Media's State Monopoly to End

Your SGGP English-Language Editor simply can't resist spreading this news a bit farther and faster. Soon to appear on the site of the SGGP English edition is the following report.

Happy Solar and Lunar New Years, y'all!

Vietnam's Media to Be Freed From State Monopoly Control

Words: 370 (including headline)

In remarkable news likely to benefit the nation at large, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung yesterday reportedly agreed to a proposal to end the state monopoly on all Viet Nam media, said an unidentified government official.

After receiving suggestions on a draft government decree on state-controlled monopolies by the ministries of Justice and Information and Telecommunications, the Government Office held a conference with the ministries on the draft. At the conference the prime minister agreed to remove the national media from the list of exclusively state-controlled monopolies.

As a result, private, independent publishers and media organizations will be allowed to coexist alongside state-run media.

Related to a conference reviewing the new Press Law yesterday, sensitive issues of journalism, such as foreign sponsorship of media, the web-log ("blog") boom, taxation of journalism, and advertising, were discussed.

Most chief editors at the conference said the current law failed to provide clear financial incentive for the national media and requested Government adjust the law's sections on advertising.

Under the law, advertisements in printed newspapers are limited to 10 percent of editorial pages, a situation infeasible to publishers' current economic circumstances.

The chief editors suggested the law permit the media to decide publications' shares of advertising content and not limit advertisements in the media because such limits would affect the media's abilities to finance their products and meet businesses' demands.

One of the issues attracting journalists and journalism managers is that of blogging. They debated whether or not blogs should be considered a form of journalism and thus require government regulation.

Vice Minister of Information and Telecommunications Do Quy Doan said blogs differ significantly from journalism in that their contents are personnel opinions bloggers wish to share with the online community. Doan suggested managing blogs in particular, and information on the Internet in general, did not require outright bans be imposed, that, instead, legal guidelines should be drafted for those using the Internet and posting to blogs.

Under Vietnamese Law, a person can and should be charged if he slanders others and bloggers are not excepted from laws prohibiting publications from distributing information promoting violence, wars, sexual abuse or information opposing Vietnamese morals and customs.

Reported by Phuong Anh, Translated by Hai Dang, Edited by AD Marshall

2007-12-16

Chord Struck 01: Another Depressing Screed on Global Warming

This post struck a chord: "Another Depressing Screed on Global Warming". It's by an young but already renowned US guy, Nick Brown, someone, who like some 80 percent of Vietnam, is under 45.

Brown's "screed" pretty well sums up the progressive certainty i've been feeling and pondering about at least the evidence, if not the appropriate response, to the "climate crisis", after following the global warming, climate change headlines -- and even reading several of the articles, too -- since i first watched Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" last June. 

To the point of how this might interest an editor at "The Organ[?!?] of the Party Committee, The Communist Party of Viet Nam, Ho Chi Minh City", Sai Gon Gai Phong, well, some 80 percent of Vietnamese are among the generation(s) Brown refers to when he writes:

... frightening. When they explain that, if current trends continue, fifty years from now the next generation - by which they mean me - could easily have a sea level that is one meter higher than the present one, it's depressing.
-- Huffington Post, "December 7, 2007 | 06:17 PM (EST)"

Brown was lamenting the potential disastrous prospects of a "1m SLR" (Sea Level Rise of one meter). But cast that against the following conclusions drawn regarding Vietnam, and, in particular, Ho Chi Minh City (ex/or SaiGon) extracted from a report found at the Social Science Research Network via Googling "vietnam one-meter sea-level rise" (3,290 hits). From "The Impact of Sea Level Rise on Developing Countries: A Comparative Analysis", by analysts of the World Bank's Development Research Group, independent Canadian consultants and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development and funded by the Canadian Trust Fund (TF030569) sponsored by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). (The URL for this paper was incorrectly hyperlinked in " Risk of sea-level rise: High stakes for developing countries", posted "01/04/2007", at the site of the Marine Protected Area Network in Vietnam (ficen.org.vn).) From the original World Bank report: 

As shown in Figure..., Vietnam is the most seriously impacted by SLR: Up to 16% of its area would be impacted by a 5m SLR, making it second only to The Bahamas among countries analyzed for this paper. Most of this impact is in the Mekong and Red River Deltas. Note in Figure... that most of Vietnam's land area southwest of Ho Chi Minh City would be severely impacted by SLR.

Large percentages of Vietnam's population and economic activity are located in these two river deltas. As shown in Figures..., 10.8% of Vietnam's population would be impacted by a 1m SLR. This is the largest percentage of impacted population among all 84 countries ( A.R. of Egypt follows with 10.56%). Vietnam's impacted population would reach 35% with a 5m SLR. The impacts of SLR on Vietnam's GDP (Figure...) and urban extent (Figure...) closely follow the impact on its population.

Eleven percent of an impending 90mn population, almost 10 million people! With a 1m SLR, they'd likely be pressured at a snail's pace to move to higher ground over those 50-odd years, but in a nation already packed to the brim with people, a nation already normally hot, wet or dry, and getting hotter and wetter or drier already. 

How would the nation's most practical and capable people respond?

Eighty percent of Vietnam is in the countryside and vastly more poor than the cities' rising young consumer classes. "Brother and Sister Rice", as established urbanites call them, have little chance to fully appreciate the global perspective explicit in global warming. Most of their information comes to them via limited media that's completely one-party-state controlled. And they're way too busy focusing on just keeping their fields fertile, harvesting them and getting a price they can survive better upon.

And 80 percent of Vietnam is under 45, and just getting its first glimpse of a just the decent standard of living they or their parents have already worked too hard to attain.

Thomas Tobin, the president and chief executive of HSBC (Hong Kong Shanghai Bank) Vietnam, recently summed up their prospects, as quoted in " by Ben Stocking, The Associated Press, at the site of the International Herald Tribune (IHT), Friday, December 14, 2007:

"Stand on the streets of Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City and watch the millions of motorbikes drive past," he [Tobin] said. "Everyone has a mobile phone. Everyone is really well dressed. Every day, you see more and more people able to participate in consumerism."

How many and which of those nouveau riche, young Vietnamese consumers' dreams will they defer, or even pass up, just as they seem within their grasp? Why should they abstain from the unbridled consumerism they see in foreign films and TV news when they soon find out that most of those who can have any significant, if small, impact on reversing the climate crises are not even in their own nation, and worse, a depressingly small percentage of those overseas elite yet have any interest in doing anything significant about the impacts of climate change even in their own domains.

Who can spell "lower, warmer coastal nations' rich-brain drain (LWCNRBD)"?

-- ADM, on the hyperevolution.


From the Huffington Post, a leading US voice of relatively objective, informed dissent:

Another Depressing Screed on Global Warming

Posted December 7, 2007 | 06:17 PM (EST)



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"It's not sinking!" uncle John is angry. Or grumpy. Or both. He has spent far too much of his life screaming logic at disinterested boobs to tolerate misphrasing. "The water is rising."

The 'it' in question is New York, specifically Manhattan.

"True, but isn't that really a matter of relativity?" I ask. "I mean, if we measure altitude in feet above sea level, then if sea level rises we're technically sinking."

"It's not sinking!" John says. Our Thanksgiving table is filled with relatively agreeable people who agree heartily on the catastrophe of carbon emissions, so in order to stir up a really good fight - an important part of any Thanksgiving - it's important to be stubborn over small details.

John's wife, Susan, interjects "Seattle is rising. The rock bed underneath it is moving the city slowly upward. Venice is sinking. Those have nothing to do with the water level."

These are people who have become so deeply embroiled in a cause that shrugging it off as yet another of the world's moral train wrecks is not an option. To them, global warming is apartheid or imperialism or slavery; anyone who can shrug and a buy an SUV is a collaborator and a villain. They are moral and dedicated people. And, like most moral and dedicated people, they make dreadful cocktail companions.

"True," I say "but look: the kilogram is defined by a block of platinum in Paris, right? So if somebody knocks that block and chips off a few molecules, everything suddenly weighs more. It's the same with sea level."

It's important to keep up these stupid arguments because otherwise John or Susan or both will talk about global warming in earnest.

The problem is that they are too distinguished. John is a scientist emeritus at Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institute and Susan has her own PhD and for ten years was the president of Ecological Engineering, a wastewater management firm. Their titles carry weight, so when they say Manhattan is sinking - or, I suppose, global water levels are rising thus putting Manhattan underwater in a way that, really, has pretty much the same effect as sinking - it's frightening. As if their knowledge didn't scare me enough, they use metric units, which are terrifyingly scientific.

As the only person in the entire world who has not seen An Inconvenient Truth, I can generally avoid confronting the all-but-inevitable implications of global warming if I set my mind to it. Does this winter seem different from the winters fifteen years ago? Sure, but maybe I'm misremembering.

My aunt and uncle know the numbers. When they explain that water levels are rising about 1mm a year but that rate is accelerating, it's mildly frightening. When they explain that, if current trends continue, fifty years from now the next generation - by which they mean me - could easily have a sea level that is one meter higher than the present one, it's depressing. And when they explain that Manhattan would have to spend gobs of money on levies and water pumps or else be partially submerged, I entertain thoughts of doomsday. I like Manhattan. I live there. I would like it to remain an above-water attraction.

If science is the religion of the secular left, then global warming is our Armageddon. And like any young Baptist who believes in the rapture but isn't sure he'll pass muster, I come out of global warming sermons feeling hollow and jumpy.

John is standing now. He rose to refill his wine glass, but he is irritated so standing will do him just fine. "The kilogram's not the same. Water levels change constantly and we don't redefine the heights of mountains. And it's a dumb way to look at it. The water is rising." His tone has a note of finality to it, and he waits for me to challenge him.

Earlier in the night, John noted that his farm is a good 22 feet above sea level (in a rare scientific lapse, he didn't use meters) and thus will mostly avoid the coming flood. Honestly, this seemed smug.

My generation, our generation for those of you twenty-somethings out there, is going to be the first, by most indications, to really feel the worst effects of climate change. We will have memories of polar bears as creatures that lived in the arctic while our children will understand them as yet another in a long list of extinct species. We could easily see large parts of the Greenland ice shelf collapse into the ocean in our lifetimes. And, again, parts of Manhattan - not to mention Florida, Louisiana and Hawaii - will probably be underwater by the time I am in my seventies.

Pessimism is an unpopular sentiment in American politics, even when it seems pretty close to realism. So we won't hear much in this next election about the preposterously large global effort it would take to mitigate, much less reverse, our current climate trends. For the first time in history, China is emitting more carbon dioxide than the United States and India is closing in on us. The candidates will probably talk a fair amount about the US taking leadership in the battle against global warming. They will probably not talk about the fact that to seriously dampen carbon emissions, we will have to convince 2.6 billion people in China and India to develop a transportation system that doesn't rely on automobiles and a fuel system that doesn't rely on petroleum, and that's assuming we can begin to steer our own people in the same direction.

It's not, of course, that catastrophe is inevitable. There is a chance that climate change will occur more slowly. There's a chance that human technology will limit or even eliminate its effects. It's just that there are a lot of very smart people who know a lot about climate change who think we are making the world irreversibly hotter.

John is waiting for me to respond to his point in our tiny argument, and I do: "look, I'm just saying all motion is relative - that's a basic principle of physics - so both sinking cities or rising water levels are correct." It's a dumb point in a dumb argument. At the end of the day, whether the water is rising or we are sinking, we will all still be in deep - and might I add hot - water.

--
AD (Andi) Marshall
Zone: ICT (IndoChina Time, GMT/UTC+7)
Post: HoChiMinh City (ex/or SaiGon), VietNam
Quote: "Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none..."
Source: Shakespeare, 1623, "All's Well That Ends Well"
Get it at Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2246

2007-09-06

Biuti: Firefox Redshift v2 theme on Ubuntu

It's a s'shots day today it seems. 

In the environmentally zeitgeist of Blackle, the new Redshift v2 theme for Firefox rocks.  Even with FF overloaded with add-ons, an add-on it doesn't display lusciously has yet to be found. 

2007-09-05

Despite unprecedented lobbying and PR, Microsoft's OOXML loses ISO approval vote

[This post will just have to be improved very soon.  More links have to be added, and maybe a few images, too.  But Sir Francis beckons now for brews and grub at 219 No Tran Long, yet again.  :D  Please pardon the inevitable typos and awkwardness.]

According to GesmerUpdegrove LLP's ConsortiumInfo Standards Blog, Microsoft's OOXML just lost the vote for acceptance by International Standards Organization (ISO) as an international standard, leaving the OASIS/OpenOffice ODF standard as the world's sole globally-approved office-document standard. 

The near-term implication, assuming no reversal of the vote, seems to be that digital office documents will now enjoy a single, open standard under which any company, anywhere competitively build information-systems applications. 

The ODF standard could thus provide a common global standard for working with office documents just as HTML has long so successfully provided the same for pages in the Internet's World Wide Web.  (See comments by Canonical, Ubuntu Linux' Mark Shuttleworth in a Vietnam video-conference transcript about the same, near here.)

Of this hardly insignificant event, Andrew Updegrove wrote on the Standard Blog, PDT.05:31.Tue.04.Sep.2007.AD, 'The actual numbers for the final tally are now what you could rightly call "encouraging."  All 41 P members voted, with the following breakdown:  17 yes, 15 no, and 9 abstain.  Or, as the ISO press release more neutrally described the result':

Approval requires at least 2/3 (i.e. 66.66 %) of the votes cast by national bodies participating in ISO/IEC JTC 1 to be positive; and no more than 1/4 (i.e. 25 %) of the total number of national body votes cast negative. Neither of these criteria were achieved, with 53 % of votes cast by national bodies participating in ISO/IEC JTC 1 being positive and 26 % of national votes cast being negative.

As Updegrove notes in the outset of his post, the New York Times conspicuously just ran an piece by Kevin J O'brien headlined, "Microsoft Favored to Win Open Document Vote ", 04.Sep.2007, New York (03.Sep, Berlin) -- which now erases most of the doubts i at least had about the NYT's neocon establishment slant since i read a recent interview with Seymour Hersh following Bush Jr's recent self-serving comparison of the USA's invasion of Iraq to its regrettable invasion of Vietnam.

Another highly informative, if potentially biased piece on the MS OOXML ISO approval bid can be found at the Boycott Novell blog, " Has Microsoft 'Bought' the Vote for OOXML in Vietnam?", 27.Aug.2007.   The post's question-veiled proposition is supported by a lot of apparently credible links and what looks at first glance to be a fairly well-rounded argument. 

In fact, it was via a post at the Boycott Novell blog, "It's Final and Official: ODF is the Only ISO Standard", 04.Sep.2007, that Updegrove's post was first found.

2007-08-25

Bud becomes a NORML Virgin Earth Challenge contender - $100,000 to prove Cannabis Can't Beat Climate Crisis

Jack Herer, author of the cannabis decriminalization classic, The Emperor Wears No Clothes (available free, online), is entering the Virgin Earth Challenge, anteing up US$100,000 to anyone who can prove his cannabis climate recuperation proposal cannot relieve the threat of globe climate crisis.

Even just kicking back with an iPod and some snacks, mon, might well help chill a lot of folks' obsession for More and relieve the tedium of heat stroke while pulling one's plot back from the beach.

Indeed, indulging in a good whack or two of "the Bud" might be well advised before trying to prove the impossibility of almost anything. Nonetheless, Herer's proposal proffers up some very real, potential, if improbably widely acceptable solutions to the world's current environmental fears. If more than the Netherlands and a few other nations could loosen up their drug laws, cannabis well make a significant contribution to alleviating the threat of global warming.

Herer's full proposal follows below, in keeping with its concluding plea to "Please help me spread this everywhere."

The Virgin Earth Challenge was founded by the Virgin Group's Richard Branson and Former US Vice President Al Gore. It offers US$25 million "for whoever can demonstrate to the judges' satisfaction a commercially viable design which results in the removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially to the stability of Earth's climate."

Gore is now also widely renowned for his book and awarding-winning film, "An Inconvenient Truth", which presents what it calls the imminent global "climate crisis" in evocative, often edutaining terms which can be readily digested by almost anyone yet are backed by widely accepted, though not undisputed, scientific evidence.

Cannabis is also called hemp, marijuana, ganja, chronic, spliff, spleef, Bud, bohda, Buddha, pot, weed, reefer, roofer, hooch,... (You get the picture.) It is the most widely used illegal plant worldwide. It is grown quickly and easily almost everywhere, either naturally or via some of today's most sophisticated bioengineering technologies. It is readily fabricated into paper, clothing, building materials, foodstuffs, medicine and biofuels which have much less damaging environmental impacts than oil, gas and other petrochemicals.

Cannabis possession and use for personal, industrial or medical purposes is prohibited in most nations today. Todays' global prohibitions began in the early 20th Century led by most Western nations. Previously, it was criminalized almost no nations. Criminalization in the USA and the attendant "Drug War" have led to that nation having one of the world's largest prison populations and highest per capita incarceration rates.

Average annual deaths nationwide in the USA resulting directly or primarily from cannabis, "according to World Almanacs, Life Insurance Actuarial (death) Rates, and the last 20 years of U.S. Surgeon Generals' reports", amounted to none (zero, 0, zilch, nada, not even one).

For the same period:

  • tobacco was (dis)credited with 240,000-340,000 deaths,
  • alcohol "(not including 50% of all highway deaths and 65% of all murders related to alcohol)" offed 150,000+ folks,
  • "legal drug overdose, deliberate or accidental) from legal, prescribed or patent medicines and/or mixing with alcohol -- e.g. Valium/alcohol" got to 14,000-27,000 folks, while
  • "illicit drug overdose" (deliberate or accidental, from all illegal drugs) euthanaided some 3,800-5,200 folks -- one-fifth to a quarter of those shifted off by legal drugs.
Wait... What? Source: HOW DANGEROUS IS MARIJUANA COMPARED WITH OTHER SUBSTANCES? (widely available in various formats, under various titles and levels of update across the Internet via Google or other search engine)


How to Save the World [from Climate Crisis] with Cannabis, Hemp and Marijuana!

By Jack Herer, www.jackherer.com, AD.2007.Feb.14.Wed.Valentines_Day



















Home Chapters to "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" How Dangerous is Marijuana?


This is my work in progress. I'm entering it into the Virgin Earth Challenge to stop global warming.

Plant hemp, on:

  • 600 million acres of secondary farm land in the United States.
  • 600 million to 1 billion acres of secondary farm land in Canada.
  • 1 to 2 billion acres of secondary farm land in Russia and Siberia.
  • 1 to 2 billion acres of secondary farm land in Africa.
  • 500 million acres of secondary farm land in South America.
  • ? acres in Australia.
  • ? acres in Asia.
  • ? acres in Europe.

All fuel will be made of methanol or a derivative of hemp.

All fossil fuel, oil, coal, and natural gas will no longer be used. It will stay in the ground for emergency only. For example, when we had the earthquake Krakatoa, there was about two years that the sun was blocked in that area.

All paper will be made from hemp. No trees will be cut for paper. That's the way it was 130 years ago. That will save half the trees on the planet that would otherwise be cut down in the next 30 years. All the trees will be healthier and bigger.

Most building material will be made from hemp composite.

From 20 to 50 percent of all proteins for food will be made from hemp seeds. In China, from 5,000 years ago to about 150 years ago, approximately 50 percent of all food was made from hemp seeds. And 20 percent of all food in Europe. On the Chinese border from Laos to Nepal to Tibet to Afghanistan all the way up to the northern border of Upper Mongolia, 50 percent of all proteins for food is still made out of hemp, and 90 percent of all butter. This starts on either side of the border to about 100 miles away from the border.

No more cotton for clothing, unless it is raised organically. Clothing will mostly be made from hemp, bamboo, soy and flax.

Dr. Raphael Mechoulam in Israel believes that 30 percent of all medicines will be made out of cannabis or combinations of cannabis and other drugs.

The arid land from the Sahara all the way across the world will be planted with hemp.

People from 18 to 30 years of age, throughout the world, will join a different kind of military, the Hemp Corps, for planting and harvesting and packaging hemp. In return for four years of duty, they will receive four years of college paid by the government.

People will live about two year's longer using cannabis.

Everything will be a lot more fun. There will be new jobs for everybody. The auto industry will build cars mostly from hemp. Computer companies will build computers of hemp. Furniture will be made of hemp cloth and hemp composite wood.

Hemp grows everywhere, from the Equator to the Arctic Circle, from the valleys to about 6,000 feet up in the mountains. It's the healthiest of the 3 million plants that grow on Earth. It has the deepest roots. It's the only plant you can grow over and over each year, and the soil will only get better. People will be able to pay their taxes with hemp.

I wrote my book, "The Emperor Wears No Clothes", 25 years ago. I have been teaching people how to save the world with cannabis/hemp/marijuana since 1979.

Prove us wrong! Prove us wrong! And get $100,000!

We hereby extend our $100,000 challenge to prove us wrong!

If all fossil fuels and their derivatives, as well as trees for paper and construction, were banned in order to save the planet, reverse the greenhouse effect and stop deforestation; then there is only one known annually renewable natural resource that is capable of providing the overall majority of the world's paper and textiles; meet all of the world's transportation, industrial and home energy needs, while simultaneously reducing pollution, rebuilding the soil and cleaning the atmosphere all at the same time... and that substance is the same one that has done it before . . . CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA!

CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA is the only known plant that can be grown from the Equator to the Arctic Circle and to the Antarctic Circle; from the mountains to the valleys, from the oceans to the plains, including arid lands and everywhere in between. CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA is the healthiest plant for the ground out of the 300,000 known species, and the millions and millions of subspecies, of plants on Earth, because it has a root system that grows 10 to 12 inches in 30 days compared to one inch for rye, barley grass, etc. The roots penetrate up to 6 feet deep, pulverizing the soil and making it arable. After harvest it leaves a root system that is mulched into the ground, revitalizing the land and making it live once again. It is the KING KONG of the King Kongs of all plant life.

All of my information about CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA has been taken from Federal and State Department of Agriculture reports, articles from Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Pulp & Paper Magazine, Scientific American, entries from encyclopedias and pharmacopoeias, and studies from all over the world during the last 200 years. This is all public information. The United States government is hiding the fact that 125 years ago, and even as far back as 4000 BC, 80% of our economy was based on the use of CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA for paper, fiber and fuel. Ten to 20% of our drug economy was based on CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA medicines, 125 years ago.

CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA was part of our everyday life. Virtually every farm and every plot of land in the cities and towns across the United States and the world, from 100-125 years ago and before, had a CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA patch growing. The U.S. government's cover-up of CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA outrages me and it should outrage you, too. I have been studying CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA for over 30 years, and I can't believe how the U.S. government, in 90 seconds in Congress, could outlaw "MARIJUANA" in 1937, without the people realizing they were outlawing CANNABIS/HEMP, the most perfect plant for the planet! They even got other countries to outlaw it, too, after the Second World War and beyond. From 1740 to 1940, 80% of all the world's CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA was grown (mostly by Cossacks, who were indentured servants), and then imported from, Russia.

I will again reiterate a few of the facts about CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA, which you already know from reading my book, "The Emperor Wears No Clothes."

CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA was the NUMBER ONE annually renewable natural resource for 80% of all paper, fiber, textiles and fuel, from 6,000 years ago until about 125 years ago. Furthermore, it was used for 5 to 50% of the food, light, land and soil reclamation, and even 20% or more of all medicine. Everyone, from the educated to the uneducated, the farmer to the townsperson, the doctors and the scientists used

CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA products and depended on them.75 to 90% of all paper used from at least 100 AD to 1883 was made of CANNABIS/HEMP. Books, (including Bibles), money and newspapers all over the world have been mainly printed on CANNABIS/HEMP for as long as these things have existed in human history.

One hundred and 25 years ago, 70 to 90% of all rope, twine, cordage, ship sails, canvas, fiber, cloth, etc., was made out of CANNABIS/HEMP fiber! It was replaced by DuPont's newly discovered petrochemical fiber (nylon) beginning in 1937. By comparison, CANNABIS/HEMP is 4 times softer than cotton, 4 times warmer, 4 times more water absorbent, has 3 times the strength of cotton, is many times more durable, is flame retardant, and doesn't use pesticides. Fifty percent of all pesticides are used on cotton, yet cotton uses only 1% of the farmland in the U.S! CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA is the most health giving plant on Earth and it doesn't require pesticides or herbicides! It is the healthiest plant for human consumption, and for the Earth itself.

Eighty percent of our economy depended on CANNABIS/HEMP for paper, fiber and fuel, 125 years ago. At that time, it took 300 man-hours to harvest an acre of CANNABIS/HEMP, but with the invention of the brand new HEMP decorticator in the 1930s, it only took 1-1/2 to 2 hours. This is equivalent to reducing the labor burden from $6,000 down to $40 per acre, in today's money. Keep in mind that the cotton gin, in 1793, reduced the man-hours from 300 hours down to 2 hours to harvest and clean an acre of cotton. CANNABIS/HEMP would have taken over the cotton market, as it is far superior to cotton, and pesticide free. The role of CANNABIS/HEMP should be determined by market supply and demand and not by undue influence of prohibition laws, federal subsidies and huge tariffs that keep the natural from replacing the synthetic. I repeat, CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA is the KING KONG of the King Kongs of all plants!

Of all the 300,000 species of plants on Earth, no other plant source can compare with the nutritional value of CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA seeds. It is the only plant on Earth that provides us with the NUMBER ONE source, and the perfect balance of essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, globulin edestin protein, and essential oils all combined in one plant, and in a form which is most naturally digestible to our bodies.

Prior to the 1800s, CANNABIS/HEMPSEED oil was the NUMBER ONE source for lighting oil throughout the world. Until 1937-38, even paints and varnishes were 80% CANNABIS/HEMPSEED oil. CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA is non-toxic and has been used to make high-grade diesel fuel, oil, aircraft and precision oil and even the NUMBER ONE vegetable oil. The U.S. Army/Navy standards purchasing specifications list HEMP OIL as the NUMBER ONE preferred lubricant for their machinery. CANNABIS/HEMP is the best sustainable source of plant pulp for biomass fuel to make charcoal, gas, methanol, gasoline and electricity in a natural way.

In 1850, 80% of all paper, fiber, fuel, and oil was made out of CANNABIS/HEMP in America and the rest of the world. This was before the discovery of coal and petroleum for energy in the late 1850s...before the start of the worst permanent pollution ever experienced on Earth... fossil fuel pollution (coal and petroleum)!!

As a medicine, the worldwide use of CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA goes back at least 6,000 years. Remember, 10 to 20%t of our medicines used to be CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA based medicines. It has been found to be healthy and effective in the treatment of chronic pain, cancer, strokes, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, sickle cell anemia, AIDS wasting and many other illnesses, including simple nausea, appetite stimulant, anxiety and muscle pains, etc.

On September 6, 1988, the Drug Enforcement Administration's Chief Administrative Law Judge, Francis L. Young, ruled: "Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man," and asked the Drug Enforcement Administration to reschedule it. The DEA refused, keeping it as a Schedule I drug, which they say "has no known medical use"! Thousands of studies have been done all over the world, documenting the medical use of MARIJUANA (England, Spain, Hungary, Holland, and the U.S., just to name a few). No one has ever died from MARIJUANA in over 6,000 years of recorded history... unless they were shot by a COP!

CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA was also used for land reclamation until 1915. CANNABIS/HEMP was planted or left to grow feral as ground cover and on riverbanks, and not intended for harvest. It is the NUMBER ONE plant in history used to prevent mudslides and loss of watershed, and river and soil erosion on Earth. It has been illegal to grow this NUMBER ONE plant in the United States since 1937.What disgusts me the most is how the U.S. government, as well as the people, knew about

CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA and praised its value and then look what happened! In literally 90 seconds, the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 passed in Congress. By using the unknown name "MARIJUANA" instead of the familiar name "CANNABIS HEMP", Congress was able to accomplish this because no one knew what plant they were talking about. CANNABIS/HEMP became illegal and was replaced by petrochemical products, coal and natural gas. They made it such a banned and forbidden plant that the words "HEMP" and "CANNABIS/HEMP" were not even taught in schools from the 1940s, 50s and thereafter.

The role of CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA was erased from America's history (as well as most of the rest of the world's) after 1945. To prove it, think... what did you learn about CANNABIS/HEMP in grade school? High school? College? From your parents and grandparents? Nothing! (Unless it was from the underground press within the last 15 to 20 years.) The continuing suppression of this information by the U.S. government places us all in mortal jeopardy. I believe that, in order to save our planet, we must use non-fossil fuel energy.

CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA, in conjunction with wind, solar, tidal and hydroelectric power, could save the planet by providing all of our energy, fuel, paper, fiber, and 10 to 20% of our medical needs, naturally. It would also reduce acid rain and chemical pollution, rebuild the soil, and reverse the greenhouse effect (no other plant can do this!).

CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA was used to make over 25,000 products before it was outlawed in 1937.Why does the U.S. government want to eradicate this seed, out of all the seeds on Earth? They want to kill the most perfect plant on the planet. We must stop this insanity and demand that the laws against CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA be 100% repealed!!

Federal Attorney General John Ashcroft, Drug Enforcement Administration head, Asa Hutchison, and White House Drug Czar, John Walters, have been given all of these proven facts and yet are still set against the legalization of CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA and recognition of CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIUANA knowledge. For whatever personal reasons, they refuse to believe the facts and are willing to sacrifice the future of our planet and the health of our people by keeping it illegal.

The ban of CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA is so extreme and its intention is to hide the truth. The truth is that out of the 300,000 species, and the millions and millions of subspecies, of plants on Earth, CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA is the NUMBER ONE plant for our survival and quality of life here on Earth. Since September 11, 2001, the U.S. government and Attorney General John Ashcroft have been calling MARIJUANA users "terrorists" and yet the government of the United States has been "terrorizing" MARIJUANA users for the last 65 years! There have been over 14 million arrests for CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA in the last 65 years, in the U.S. alone! 13 million were within the last 30 years!

No one has taken the $100,000 challenge to prove me wrong. Why? Because I am right. The U.S. government has been lying to us since the early 1900s. Do economic interests and the police have more to say than the people about the future of our planet? How angry are you for being lied to by the U.S. government about CANNABIS/HEMP/MARIJUANA? Are you willing to make a stand right now? No one can dispute this information and knowledge. YOU have to join me in this fight. Either you are on the U.S. government's side or you are on my side.

Please help me spread this everywhere. Thank you!

Jack Herer
www.jackherer.com
2/14/07

2007-08-09

VIS/ITS Byte Søup, v.2007.08.09.a [alpha]

VIS/ITS' VirtuAll Info Coms & Edu (VICE)
Information, Communications & Edutainment
VICE Info-Systems/Tech Services (VIS/ITS)

Byte S
ø up

Prioritized
Foci
: Plants & Animals, including people (PAp); Environment's Critical Here (ECH); VietNam ( VN); North America (NAm); Internetworking (iWork); Free / Libre | Linux / Opensource (FLO) InFormation or eVents ( eVs); Buddhism (Budd); Info' Technology (IT); Info' Systems ( IS: Information, IT & Us[ers]); et cetera, et tu, ...?

Here : Go Vap, Saigon, Vietnam
Now:  AD.2007.Aug.09.Wed.XXhXX.ICT
ICT = IndoChina Time = UTC/GMT + 7 hours
.XXhXX. = Byte's Time Stamp; See BeLow

Begun .00h13.

.00h14. Testing, testing
This is a test of the production and distribution scheme of one edition of the VIS/ITS BS (Byte Søup).

.08.Wed.20h22. The Schaeme [(Bootnote) 01] -- ReRun
The 1st rule of VIS/ITS is, "You don't blog about VIS/ITS." 
The 2nd rule of VIS/ITS is, "You don't blog about BS."
The 3rd rule of VIS/ITS' Bytes: "IS/IT goes with the FLO."
The 4th rule of VIS/ITS is, "See BeLow."

.08.Wed.23h13. Designed for M2GB-FG2 -- ReVised
VIS/ITS' "Bytes" is designed for collection, formating, publication and consumption using Mozilla (Firefox & Thunderbird), Gmail, Google Reader and Blogger (M2GB) -- and, sort of, for use with Feedburner and Google Groups, too (FG2, the latter for the more textually hardcore or paranoid among Us).  Upcoming:  Events and Google Calendar  tricks.

.08.Wed.23h20. VIS/ITS' BS is Available as, @

  • HTML @ SighGone, Hø!: Âm | Yin | Passive Negation - Mumblings of a SàiGòn Hộ; blog
  • HTML @ 4DM: Dương | Yang | Active Affirmation - Musings 4DM; blog
  • HTML @ Go Vap! - SighGone: Đạo | Tao | Way - From Gô Vấp, Sài Gòn; blog
  • Text @ re-creation.vietnam: "re-creation", renovation ("đổi mới" in Vietnamese) and/or new leisure activites, entertainment, education, edutainment for Vietnam (Việt Nam); mailing list, discussion group
.00h35. [eVent] Candadian Happy Hour in Saigon
When: 2007.Aug.14.Tue.18h00-20h00
Where: Cafe Central (Upstairs Lounge), Ground Floor, Sun Wah Tower, 115 Nguyen Hue, Q. 1, HCMC, VN
Who: Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (CanCham)
What: Everybody in town---you don't have to be Canadian and you don't even have to like Maple Syrup or Pate Chinois---is invited to join this very informal and popular monthly get-together.  Happy Hour discount prices and free snack foods  courtesy of Cafe Central until 8:00 P.M. (And there's a lucky draw prize opportunity too!)
How much: No admission charge! No tickets necessary!
More Info: CanCham , telephone 824 3754 or 822 8888-Extension 7305; fax 824 3751, e-mail events@canchamvietnam.org , Website www.canchamvietnam.org


.00h20. Old But Not Yet Busted: HWEx (Harper's Weekly Extracts)

The U.S. military announced that July was the least deadly
of the past eight months for American troops in Iraq, with
only 75 soldiers killed. Seventy-six U.S. senators had
visited Iraq, and 3 percent of Americans approved of how
Congress was handling the war, which was costing the
United States and Great Britain more than $4,000 each
second.

South of Baghdad, a handsome Sunni insurgent
nicknamed George Clooney was shot by members of his
own tribe and turned over to U.S. forces.

Presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Rudy Giuliani
pledged to invade Pakistan, and Colorado Republican
Congressman Tom Tancredo said that, if elected president,
he would respond to terrorism on U.S. soil by bombing the
Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

... an online video game that allows players to torture
and kill corrupt officials and their children proved so
popular in China that the game's website crashed.

In India, where dung-smoke clouds were warming the upper
atmosphere, more than 1,000 people had been killed in
recent floods, and Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt was sentenced
to six years of "rigorous imprisonment" for possession
of illegal firearms. "Don't get perturbed," the judge
told Dutt, "for you have many years to go and work like
the 'Mackenna's Gold' actor Gregory Peck."

A New Zealand study found that vegans are disgusted
by sex with carnivores because meat-eaters are "composed
of the lives of others." Researchers at the University
of Texas identified 237 reasons that people have sex,
including "he smelled nice," and Bob Allen, a Florida
State Representative who sponsored a bill to curtail sex in
public parks, said that he recently offered oral sex to a
man in a park because he was afraid of black people.

A lost and distraught lovebird flew amok on a flight from
Bangkok to Manila, and ornithologists remained unsure as
to why some duck species have such long, swirly penises
or convoluted vaginas that spiral in the opposite direction
and feature pockets and culs-de-sac.

A study showed that penduline tits often abandon their
offspring in order to pursue sexual conquests, and scientists
found that a female mouse with a disabled nasal organ will
begin to exhibit masculine behavior: mounting other mice,
engaging in pelvic thrusting, and abandoning her young.
Another team of scientists had bred schizophrenic mice, and
Australian scientists said that rats can learn the risks of
consuming marijuana.

Russia annexed the North Pole, Israelis fired apples, chilis,
corn, cucumbers, mangoes, and tomatoes into the Gaza Strip,
and China declared that Tibet's living Buddhas must seek
permission from the government before being reincarnated.

-- Rafil Kroll-Zaidi

SUBSCRIBE to Harper's Weekly via web: http://harpers.org
via email: join-harpers-weekly@pluto.sparklist.com

.08.Wed. [Stupid] Court won't allow New Zealand couple name their baby son 4Real, but that's OK as they're going to call him Superman instead

Telegraph

.08.Wed. Vietnam fears - The Age


The Age
Vietnam Years
The Age - 1 hour ago
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Welcome Home Marches for Australia's Vietnam War veterans. Warwick McFadyen speaks with author and filmmaker Michael Caulfield about his new book on the war and its legacy.

.08.Wed. Traditional Media Still Losing Ground to Internet, Cable

Consumers continue to turn away from traditional, advertising-driven media while embracing paid entertainment, such as cable TV and the internet, in greater numbers, a new study finds.

.08.Wed. For Good Girls: 10 Ways To Release Your Inner Vixen

Its inevitable, whether you've been married for 10 years or in a long term relationship for 5, sex gets dull. Every woman is a siren, a Venus, a being of erotic nature. Sometimes, releasing this inner vixen is all that's needed to spark something new and remind your man that you ARE a goddess.

.08.Wed. China releases Canadian activists

Eight Tibet independence activists detained in China this week -- including three Canadians -- have been released, a spokesperson for their group said this morning.

.00h04. Teen Drug Slang: A Dictionary For Parents

Know what your kids are talking about with this guide to today's drug terms

.00h11. [Budd] Finding the way to Nirvana on stage

"They are very dramatic and I was reading one of them to my girlfriend at the time. She sort of 'oohed' and 'ahhed' at the right points and I thought -- why not do the story of the Buddha."

Siddhartha Gautama, founder of Buddhism, was born in India 500 years before Christ.

via Boston NOW

.00h33. Jeff Stier: Organ-Trading is Not so Weird

Something unusual happened to me. I wrote an op-ed for the New York Post and nobody wrote to tell me they disagreed. Yet the policies I am arguing for are certainly not the norm. I argued in favor of incentives to promote organ donations.

.00h33. Matthew Chapman: At Last A Comic Book Atheist Hero

Pat Tillman, an extraordinarily square-jawed football player who gave up a lucrative professional life to go and fight for his country, was at first hailed as a hero by a military eager for good publicity. When it was discovered Tillman died as a result of "friendly fire" -- he was shot at close range in the forehead, which seems a little too friendly -- his family pressed hard for a more thorough investigation.

Lt. Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich, an officer with responsibilities for Tillman's unit, complained that his relatives were being so insistent because, like Pat, they were atheists. They could not come to terms with his death. From their perspective, after all, Pat was merely "wormdirt". In other words, if they believed in God and an afterlife they would be more compliant.

An interesting point.

.00h45. [NewsFlash] 7.4 earthquake hits Java, Indonesia. Epicenter is just 70 miles from Jakarta (population ~20 million)

(USGS)

.00h49. Feminine guys better for long-term love: British study

Old But Only in VN

.08.Wed. Saigonese taken by website pyramid e-investment scam

dollar-worship120_1.gif
A group calling itself Colony Investment Management Inc. claims it can return 3% interest per day— nearly 100% per month-on any investment according to an alleged claim on the company's website at http://www.colonyinvest.net or http://music.easyvn.com/colonyinvest where the company presents itself in grammatically poor English.


.08.Wed. Wardens blamed for helping inmate get pregnant to avoid death sentence

Hanoi police have filed charges against two prison wardens for helping a female death row convict have sex and become pregnant with a male prisoner to commute her death sentence. They are seeking indictment against Nguyen Thuyen and Bui Van Quyet, former wardens of a prison in the northern Hoa Binh province, on charges of "abusing power during pubic service".

Bootnotes:
[01] Schaeme: Scheme + Scam


Copyright © AD.2007.08.09.ICT+ AD Marshall.
Works published on this site may be copied, distributed or modified
as per the HøLUG cc:by-rc-sa-lesswarr-01.00 license
NO WARRANTIES PROVIDED, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE.


Done .01h03.ICT

2007-04-13

God's Death: Kurt Vonnegut Has Left the Planet

God has really died this time. And, as his Mother Night so gently urged us to know, "When you're dead, you're dead." That's all.

We can console ourselves in the Hocus Pocus and other tricks or treats he left us. Then move along, re-minding one's self to try never forget to always, "Just be kind."

-- Comment originally left at http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/post!post.jspa, ICT.06h21.Fri.13.Apr.2007.AD
clipped from news.bbc.co.uk

Writer Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84




Kurt Vonnegut


Vonnegut was a cult figure with students in the 1960s and 1970s





One of the outstanding figures of modern US literature, Kurt Vonnegut, has died aged 84 in New York.
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2007-03-28

Nine-Year-Old Canadian Boy Pleads For Help from Texas Detention Center

Family in limbo after unscheduled stop in Puerto Rico, by UNNATI GANDHI







AUSTIN, TEX. — Even if you try to look past the eight-metre-high
chain-link fence, beyond the scores of uniformed guards patrolling the
perimeter and away from the cameras, metal detectors and lasers, there
isn't the slightest evidence of children inside the T. Don Hutto Family
Detention Center.




No one is playing outside; there are no sounds of laughter.




But inside the thick, whitewashed walls of this former maximum-security
prison in the heart of Texas are about 170 children — including a
nine-year-old Canadian boy named Kevin.




Call it international limbo. Detained by U.S. Customs officials after
their flight to Toronto made an unscheduled stop on American soil
nearly four weeks ago, Kevin and his Iranian parents, Majid and
Masomeh, feel they are being held hostage not only by the physical
parameters of Hutto, but by the politics of nationality.




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2007-03-18

Advice to Young Men from an Old Man

From http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sfo/279126743.html
Date: 2007-02-15, 9:08AM PST


1. Don’t pick on the weak. It’s immoral. Don’t antagonize the strong without cause, its stupid.

2. Don’t hate women. It’s a waste of time

3. Invest in yourself. Material things come to those that have self actualized.

4. Get in a fistfight, even if you are going to lose.

5. As a former Marine, take it from me. Don’t join the military, unless you want to risk getting your balls blown off to secure other people’s economic or political interests.

6. If something has a direct benefit to an individual or a class of people, and a theoretical, abstract, or amorphous benefit to everybody else, realize that the proponent’s intentions are to benefit the former, not the latter, no matter what bullshit they try to feed you.

7. Don’t be a Republican. They are self-dealing crooks with no sense of honor or patriotism to their fellow citizens. If you must be a Republican, don’t be a “conservative.” They are whining, bitching, complaining, simple-minded self-righteous idiots who think they’re perpetual victims. Listen to talk radio for a while, you’ll see what I mean.

8. Don’t take proffered advice without a critical analysis. 90% of all advice is intended to benefit the proponent, not the recipient. Actually, the number is probably closer to 97%, but I don’t want to come off as cynical.

9. You’ll spend your entire life listening to people tell you how much you owe them. You don’t owe the vast majority of people shit.

10. Don’t undermine your fellow young men. Mentor the young men that come after you. Society recognizes that you have the potential to be the most power force in society. It scares them. Society does not find young men sympathetic. They are afraid of you, both individually and collectively. Law enforcement’s primary purpose is to suppress you.

11. As a young man, you’re on your own. Society divides and conquers. Unlike women who have advocates looking out for them (NOW, Women’s Study Departments, government, non-profit organizations, political advocacy groups) almost no one is looking out for you.

12. Young men provide the genius and muscle by which our society thrives. Look at the Silicone Valley. By in large, it was not old men or women that created the revolution we live. Realize that society steals your contributions, secures it with our intellectual property laws, and then takes credit and the rewards where none is due.

13. Know that few people have your best interests at heart. Your mother does. Your father probably does (if he stuck around). Your siblings are on your side. Everybody else worries about themselves.

14. Don’t be afraid to tell people to “Fuck off” when need be. It is an important skill to acquire. As they say, speak your piece, even
if your voice shakes.

15. Acquire empathy, good interpersonal skills, and confidence. Learn to read body language and non-verbal communication. Don’t just concentrate on your vocational or technical skills, or you’ll find your wife fucking somebody else.

16. Keep fit.

17. Don’t speak ill of your wife/girlfriend. Back her up against the world, even if she’s wrong. She should know that you have her back. When she needs your help, give it. She should know that you’ll take her part.

18. Don’t cheat on your wife/girlfriend. If you must cheat, don’t humiliate her. Don’t risk having your transgressions come back to her or her friends. Don’t do it where you live. Don’t do it with people in your social circle. Don’t shit in your own back yard.

19. If your girlfriend doesn’t make you feel good about yourself and bring joy to your life, fire her. That’s what girlfriends are for.

20. Don’t bother with “emotional affairs.” They are just a vehicle for women to flirt and have someone make them feel good about themselves. That’s the part of a relationship they want. For you it is a lot of work and investment in time. If they are having an emotional
affair with you, they’re probably fucking someone else.

21. Becoming a woman’s friend and confidant is not going to get you into an intimate relationship. If you haven’t gotten the girl within a reasonably short period of time, chances are you won’t ever get her. She’ll end up confiding to you about the sexual adventures she’s having with someone else.

22. Have and nurture friendships with women.

23. Realize that love is a numbers game. Guys fall in love easily. You’re going to see some girl and feel like you’ll die if you don’t get her. If she rejects you, move on to the next one. It’s her loss.

24. Don’t be an internet troll. Got out and live life. There is not a cadre of beautiful women advertising on Craigslist to have NSA sex with you. Beautiful women don’t need to advertise. The websites that advertise with attractive women’s photos and claims of loneliness are baloney. All they want is your money and your personal information so that they can market to you. The posts on Craigslist by young “women” seeking NSA sex, and asking for a picture are just a bunch of gay troll pic collectors. This is especially true if the post uses common gay lexicon like “hole” as in “fuck my hole” or seeks “masculine” men, or uses the word cock (except in the context of “Don’t send a cock shot.”) There are women on Craigslist. They are easily recognizable by their 2-5 paragraph postings. Most are in their 30's or older.

25. When you become a man in full, know that people will get in your way. People who are attracted to you will somehow manage to step in your path. Gay guys will give you “the look.” Old people will somehow stumble in front of you at the worst time. Don’t get frustrated. Just step aside and go about your business. Know that these are passive aggressive methods to get you to acknowledge their existence.

26. Don’t gay bash. Don’t mentally or physically abuse people because of who they are, or how they present themselves. It’s none of
your business to try to intimidate people into conformity.

27. If your gay, admit it to yourself, your parents, your friends and society at large. Be prepared to get harassed. See rule 14. If someone threatens you or assaults you, call the cops. Have them arrested. You have no obligation to self sacrifice because of who you are. As a gay person, you’ll have more social freedom than straight men. Use it to protect yourself. Be prepared to get out of Dodge if your orientation makes your life unbearable. Move to San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, or New Orleans. You’ll find a welcoming community there.

28. Don’t be a poser. Avoid being one of those dudes who puts a surfboard on top of their car, but never surfs, or a dude with a powder coated fixed gear bike and a messenger bag, but was never a messenger. Live the life. Earn your bona fides.

29. Don’t believe the crap about the patriarchy. More women are accepted and attend college. More degrees are awarded to women than men. Women outlive men. More men commit suicide. Men are twice as likely to be victims of violence, including murder. If you consider sexual assaults in prisons, twice as many men are raped as women (society thinks prison rape is funny). The streets are littered with homeless men, sprinkled with a few homeless women. Statically, women are happier than men. The myth that girls are being cheated by are educational system is belied by the fact that schools are bastions of femininity, mostly run by and taught by women. Girls outperform boys in school. It is the boys in school getting fucked over, and prescribed ritalin for being boys. Real wages for men are falling, while real wages for women are rising. Just because someone says something enough times, doesn’t make it true. You have nothing to feel guilty about.

30. Remember, 97% of all advice is worthless. Take what you can use, and trash the rest.


vicioustwist
san francisco
02-15-07

2007-03-17

Amusing Definitions

From DeanHunt.com Off-Topic, 14 Mar, 2007



School: A place where Papa pays and Son plays.



Life Insurance: A contract that keeps you poor all your life so that you can die Rich.



Nurse: A person who wakes u up to give you sleeping pills.



Marriage: It’s an agreement in which a man loses his bachelor degree and a woman gains her masters.



Divorce: Future tense of Marriage.



Tears: The hydraulic force by which masculine willpower is defeated by feminine waterpower.



Lecture: An art of transferring information from the notes of the Lecturer to the notes of the students without passing through “the minds of either”



Conference: The confusion of one man multiplied by the number present.



Compromise: The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody believes he got the biggest piece.



Dictionary: A place where success comes before work.



Conference Room: A place where everybody talks, nobody listens and everybody disagrees later on.



Father: A banker provided by nature.



Criminal: A guy no different from the rest….except that he got caught.



Boss: Someone who is early when you are late and late when you are early.



Politician: One who shakes your hand before elections and your Confidence after?



Doctor: A person who kills your ills by pills, and kills you by bills.



Classic: Books, which people praise, but do not read.





Smile: A curve that can set a lot of things straight.



Office: A place where you can relax after your strenuous home life.



Yawn: The only time some married men ever get to open their mouth.





Etc.: A sign to make others believe that you know more than you actually do.





Committee: Individuals who can do nothing individually and sit to decide that nothing can be done together.



Experience: The name men give to their mistakes.





Atom Bomb: An invention to end all inventions.



Philosopher: A fool who torments himself during life, to be spoken of when dead



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