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If your looking at ephedra for its medicinal value perhaps you could look into sida species instead they have similar alkaloid profiles and are a naturalised pest in most parts of australia heres a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sida_cordifolia

How much acreage one requires to be fully sustainable is definitely dependant on climate, aspect and available natural resources. Also I guess what level of comfort one expects. Here in SA many of the old buildings and ruins are made of stone as there is a lot laying around. Many farmers will let you take it for free just to get rid of it. So that's what I'd build the house with, should only have to do it once so less of an impact than continuous up keep. If you had a larger property, 80-100 acres, you could use fallen tree limbs for fire wood and construction, definitely not cutting anything down. Of course half burying the house into a hill where it is naturally protected and using lots of insulation/ double glazing is mandatory. Also utilising second hand materials and avoiding new manufacturing energy helps. Having the space to do your own vegetables, fruit, meat (sorry vegetarians) and chooks avoids expense and relying on unsustainable inputs used elsewhere. If you can produce more than you can use then you have a small income to pay rates. Storing your own water is essential here at least, for yourself, food and animal production and I spose potentially fire protection. Recycling every drop and using sparingly one could get away with tanks to 50 000L, to be safe. Minimising energy use can mean you can use solar or wind generation etc, depending on location. Small or no fridge, all cooking done with wood stove, utilising community computers, washing machines etc. and living with less could be very rewarding and far more sustainable. Composting, permaculture and aquaponics there are so many elements to going off the grid. I'm heading outside to do some more.

innocent until proven guilty isnt an option in child protection cases.......... they have the right to remove based only on suspicion. this is the fundamental right and wrong of the system. yes it is a draconion system and yes they should use better methods, but they dont..........in the vast majority of child protection cases the social workers have to work fast to remove the child from potential risk. its important not to get emotive on this aspect.........its about the best interests of the child, not the parent.....this is where the major confusion lies in child protection cases.........and this is how they win in court cases also...................the lack of INSIGHT. in this case the parent who lost the child would have a good legal case for compensation based on wrongful loss of child and emotional pain due to wrong testing techniques.....and so it should to, to stop this happening to other innocent parties or to stop opiate users from using poppy seeds as a get out of jail card. child protection officers do a very hard job...............they dont have 1 or 2 cases to deal with but often hundreds.....with many more potentially each day, put yourself in a social workers shoes before castgating them, sure out of that hundred cases or so you might get it wrong once or twice but just think how you would feel if you gave the benifit of doubt to the parent and the child ended up dead.

well i survived, kind of... sittin in mah lazy boy with a fucked median collateral ligament resulting from getting tackled sideways into my left knee by a 16 yr old kid i though i may have a chace of trampling. knees really hurt when u hurt em but at least i have an excuse to eat codeine, not that its working. Most of the NRL allstars of note called at the last minute last night, some drunk as fuck to 'apologise' and say they wherent coming. really let us down, pretty pathetic actually, some excuses where "im goin to the races tomorrow so cant play", "a bee got me" lol hat one did my head in. But anyways news travels quick out here so we only drew 1/2 the gate we expected. Mum rang and let me know a few minutes ago we took 1800, which is far from the 4g that we had hoped for. Fucking NRL pussys. So pretty much the 'all star' NFRL team comprised of 45-50 year old poor old buggers u wherent alowed to tackle, just tap, and local junior players, one of which has absolutely destroyed my left knee, lol anyways my knees fucked, codeines kind of helping, mindexpansions given me some doctorly tips, but yeah was a fun day playing with my family- 2 bro in laws and 5 nephews, and weve raised a bit of quid for the dialysis machine and maybee raised a bit of community awareness of the need for one. People who need dialysis here have to drive 200km to access a machine. which is totally fucked, if ur very sick, old, or dont have any beans for the petrol costs. the medical system out here in the bush is a fuken joke. no doctors wanna work out here, weve got no equipment, hospitals need improving vastly. so yeah. as much as i had seperated myself from bush footy in the past, reducing it to the domain of redneck bogans, who me, such a hip and groovay young mind expanded individual (lol) would not reduce myself to participate ever again, have really developed a soft spot for some of these big hearted guys, some of them do a tremendous amount for their communitys out of their own time and pocket,especially for the underprivilidged i.e the disabled, the aged, mental health sufferers to name but a few. my bro in law and sis being two of them. Im kinda wishing i had my youth back again so i could do it all again, cept this time i wouldnt make the mistake of moving to the city to play for $$, asides stayin home and doing it for love, passion and the community. Its a perfect opportunity to bring community issues to the fore, and something id like to get more involved in at each match. they have really done the dialysis machine thing perfectly. I really think one thing that needs radical assessment here is gay rights and acceptance, though id have to have big kahoonas to bring that to the fore. Its kinda gross, i mean poofter and faggot IS part of the vernacular and culture here. I mean its used in prolly 1 out of 4 sentences. I swear most of the guys that express their ant-gayisms the most are actually gay. seriously. these are the guys u see smacking their mates on the ass or giving each other massages. And was weird in highschool the 2 most popular guys in my year where out, camp, funny homosexuals. they never got picked on. Buuuut anyways its a funny place and im still nutting it out. I can just imagine the crowd if we had jerseys printed with 'Gay Rights, Acceptence etc. it defintalely needs to be discussed more out here. would probably go okay if we had a kick-ass team. If u where shit not so good. Perfect example Ian Roberts, he was totally accepted here cos he was a kick ass footy player. funny at that point of time gays where okay. Roberts did alot of good for homosexuals in bogan culture. Kind of made the equation that gays r the same as us, and can do what we dig maybee even better. i dunno end of rant i think the codeins taking effect.