Canada's finally done it! POT IS LEGAL in Canada now… “A judge in Windsor, Ont., has ruled that Canada's law on possession of small amounts of marijuana is no longer valid” … “there is effectively no law in Canada prohibiting the possession of 30 grams of marijuana or less.” (It's not totally a done-deal, but it basically is.)
So far this morning I've added a pile of stories to the newsfeed (I liked this article on alternative-look modeling, and this one on hockey scars). I'm also linking stories that include brief anecdotes about tattoos, like this one about Matthew Kelly getting a matching tattoo with his kids to mark his 50th birthday. I figure that even though those stories aren't directly essential (and more often the mention is brief), but I figure they might be of use for people writing papers and so on. And some of the stories are just plain weird.
I also submitted my list of nominations for Modified Mind's year-end award update (and yes, it's where I got the idea for the newsfeed, although it was I think NORML that finally convinced me)… Felt like a bit of an ass since I nominated myself for many of the categories, but I don't think I could say with a straight face that there's a better body modification site than BME — and when I say that, please realize that I'm not tooting my own horn, I'm tooting your horn!
Last night I had the bright idea that I'd take off my splint to “see how things were doing” (and because it was itchy). Wow did that feel freaky… It didn't take long to clue in that it wasn't the right thing to be doing, and I'm all secure again now.
Finally, some relvant news links of a non-body modification sort:
- What makes North Koreans tick? Why would a nation support its government in developing weapons of mass destruction? Simple: because they don't want to be dominated by the US. There are two ways to fight a superpower like America — WMDs and terrorism. North Korea has chosen the first. (Another link on this subject).
- Afghanistan: the nuclear nightmare starts. As you may or may not know, the US used “dirty nukes” in Afghanistan on civilian centres (and did the same in Iraq in the first Gulf War). Kabul (population 3.5 million) and Jalalabad subjects showed uranium concentrations higher than has ever been seen in a civilian population. Who's evil?
- US takes first step in banning international travel by its citizens. You decide if it's a first step or simply another privacy-invading bad move on the government's part… But have you ever seen any government action of this type that isn't a step to somewhere?
- Totalitarianism nears: Without protest, Americans are giving up freedom. Like it or not, modern day America is the new NAZI Germany, but worse… The question is, is it too late to change that? I quote:
In NAZI Germany at this time of year, people freely shopped in large department stores for gifts for family and friends. The streets were full of traffic. It was "business as usual" for most of the citizens. While in the colonial states conquered by the Nazis, and in the concentrations camps for Jews, gays and communists, life was a living nightmare of dehumanization and human-rights violations.
- Lies about Iraq. The biggest lie, the one that started it all, is that a giant Iraqi army had invaded Kuwait.
Well, there's lots more stories out there of course, but I need to get back to work… I have to finish the advertising engine today so I can do an image update (I don't want to do another gallery build until I can properly insert the links for that).
Saturday, January 4, 2003
Troy's Blood went off to the presses today, and Subtracting is also nearing completion. It features an hour long interview with “ToeCutter”, who's not-so-obvious interests also include being one of the founders of the New York Tattoo Society along with the more guessable interests such as self-dentistry and amputations. The interview is followed by an amputation procedure (with plenty of closeup footage) and then an amputation slideshow.
First of all, thank you to Efrain for the wonderful opening menu photo.
The DVD will of course be available via BMEvideo when our webmaster gets a chance (I'm guessing early in the week). Oh, and if you didn't notice, a small experience update was done this morning.
Saturday, January 4, 2003
My hand is starting to feel a little better… I totally want to take this splint off (it makes typing really hard because it keeps hitting the control keys — I usually rest my hand on the edge of the keyboard) but it's probably still a lot too soon.
Lew Rockwell, in A Capitalist War raises and interesting solution to the war on Iraq that I think might just work, at least in the short term… Although I'm more inclined to agree with the Leninist concepts he raises earlier.
The view that sustaining capitalism requires aggressive war is usually said to originate with V.I. Lenin as a way of rescuing Marxism from a serious problem. The problem was that capitalism was not collapsing in the 19th century. It was growing more robust and more productive, and the workers were getting richer, not poorer all facts that weighed heavily against the Marxist historical trajectory. The Leninist answer to the puzzle was that capitalism was surviving only thanks to its military aggression. The prosperity of the West originated in blood.
Anyway, his conclusion is interesting — I won't spoil it, but if you don't want to read the whole article, the solution is in the second-last paragraph, and does stand on its own.
As many of you probably know, the FCC is restructuring its rules in favor of megacorps. Under the new laws, a single corporation will be able to own both the majority of the media production groups, and also the Internet pipelines and broadcast mediums, thereby controlling not only the production of media, but also its distribution.
Some people think that by giving a corporation “human rights” we've made a fair playing field for capitalism. Wrong. What we've said is that single individuals are expected to compete with super human corporations — essentially “people” but with the brains and resources of thousands to millions of people, plus it never sleeps and never ages. It's like trying to fight god. Joe Human can't win.
Have we created an enemy more powerful than us?
My advice to capitalism: eliminate the corporation. Replace it with a “sole proprietorship” and encourage co-operative business ventures. A setup of that type would eliminate many of capitalism's fundamental injustices, plus it would make the economy absolutely vibrant.
Ouch, my wrist…
I'm starting to get pretty good at rapid custom DVD deployment. I've got the majority of the software figured out, so I can make a very pro DVD in a short timeperiod. I'm going to burn this other one for the “friends of narcopolyamory” and then do a real one too.
PS. Since a couple people have asked about the “copyright violation” on my page (the mugshot taken from the Smoking Gun), I'll briefly mention that under US law, mugshots are considered government publications are are copyright-free. So you can post US mugshots all you want in theory.
Well, even though it was muddy for the New Year's BBQ, surprise surprise there's lots of snow now. Well, time to go get caught up on the BME news feed, I'm three days behind there. My wrist still hurts a lot but I'm getting used to typing with this splint on.
