Lachy

G'day guys. This arvo's trip to the local nursery yielded this plant. The nurseryman said that it is a Salvia, and that it has yellow flowers. Now, most Salvias that I'm aware of have red, pink, purple or white blooms, so this immediately caught my attention. Also, it was dirt-cheap. The plant is about 40cm tall, and mature leaves are about 12cm long, and approximately 7.5cm wide. The stem is strongly ribbed and squarish in cross-section. The whole plant is slightly hairy, and the undersurface of the leaves is slightly greyish in colour. Any ideas?

Well, I've got another mystery mushie of doom for you guys to have a look at. This one is a pure white Amanita that frequently seems to pop up in native bushland near me after winter rains. All I know is it looks rather beautiful - in a poisonous-looking kinda way - and that I'm certainly not going to eat the thing. In fact, I'm rather hesitant to touch it... Anyway, the caps are up to six inches across and the gills are white. Any takers?

That's frigging shroomzilla right there. I wish I got edible field mushies that size around here, let alone anything psychoactive...

As I understand it, stores must have a sign up that is visible before entering the store if they intend to perform bag searches on customers. This is all the more important if they intend to detain those who refuse to consent to a bag search. The idea is based on principles of contract - offer, acceptance, consideration and all that - the acceptance and consideration in this case being the customer entering and walking around the store. Personally, I accept that bag searches are appropriate to deter and prevent shoplifting, however my inner civil libertarian would strongly condemn any store that attempts to coerce an individual into opening their bags on false pretenses, or fails to give proper notice to customers that bag searches are performed.

I wouldn't worry too much about them implementing this one... I think a program like this would fall into the "too hard" basket for prosecutors fairly quickly. However, I definitely have concerns about the privacy implications of this. I can't help but think that this is a backdoor effort to search personal digital media storage devices for purposes beyond simple copyright enforcement.

I too have heard of using an external CO2 source to green up plants - although, I have to admit, I've only ever heard of it being used in illicit grow-ops. For the purposes of this advice, I am going to assume that is not your goal, and you're growing orchids, carnivorous plants or other delicates. I'd say it is definitely worth directing the CO2 flow from your brewing to the plants, even if it's only an experiment. In a sealed tank, the results may be quite dramatic, as all the examples I've heard of have used very low amounts of CO2 in relatively open air, and certainly not in a sealed fishtank. I also like the idea of minimising your beers' carbon footprint... hey, every little bit helps, right?

That first clip is very cool. That second clip murders both throat singing *and* Tool... the bastard!

The only trouble with that is that I'm not sure the religious freedom laws would override the criminal law. Whilst the US example of the Native American Church consuming peyote is a mildly pursuasive example that could be deployed in court, it is far from binding on our legal system. Given that - as far as I know - there isn't a similar precedent in Commonwealth or State case law, I think it would be nothing short of remarkable for the courts to take such a stance.

The thing that gets me... provided they're not too severely injured (i.e. nothing fractured), they just jump back on the bike and keep pedalling. That's a fair degree of toughness and dedication at work there.

+1 on that. I'm very new to fungi ID, but all the suspect subs that have popped up around here seem to display the same colouration. Interestingly, some seem to take a long time to exhibit any bluing. If they are anything like a couple of my lecturers... I'd say "yes" is a fair possibility.

Good call, VM. I should have been more clear - I'm not sure medication of any sort is the best way to treat that. Drugs may buffer or supress problems, but they don't fix the causes at the heart of the matter, and such problems are very rarely simple in nature. And again, I agree totally. I strongly believe that it's the individual, moreso than the drug, that determines the outcome. Set and setting - a happy, well balanced person taking a drug in pleasant, comfortable environment will probably have a positive experience. Give the same drug to a paranoid, stressed or aggressive person in an unhappy environment and the results will likely be negative. One aspect of all this that interests me is how khat could in fact bring members of a community together and strengthen bonds between individuals. Instead of taking a drug purely for its pharmacological effect, it becomes more of a social gathering, akin to how kava is used.

If you've got nothing to hide, police visits shouldn't be an issue. Besides, if I were legally growing medicinal cannabis, I would definitely want the police to know about it in case of theft, home invasion, etc. A major concern I would have is people who are growing legally suddenly becoming a soft target for people looking to grab some plants and equipment. In an ideal world, of course, people would be able to grow plants without any interference from the state, however in this case I can see this as being a compromise that whilst not perfect, is far more satisfactory than the current situation.

Or may just worsen the situation. I'm really not sure that self-medication is the best way to deal with problems of this sort at all.

Well, it's nice to know that some of our pollies aren't Howardesque neocon mutants or Nanny-state Ruddites. Hopefully this bill actually goes somewhere and even if it doesn't become law, it leasts encourages some more open-minded thinking in parliament. With a bit of luck, some other states - maybe even the Commonwealth - will start taking note.

I'm inclined to agree. Whilst the khat may make a bit of a difference - and I strongly suspect it does - if someone's a violent arsehole to begin with, that's the real problem, not the drug.

Asides from the cycling, I'm also loving le Tour because of the superb scenery. The castles, the chateaus, the picturesque medieval villages...

*snip* I'd have to wonder how effective dogs would be in a place like that to begin with. They'd be like "everything smells like weed... what do I do?"

Well, here's a situation for all you psychonauts out there to ponder... after spotting* some of SAB's "I can't believe it's not Morrocan Hashish", both myself and a mate had really weird, vivid dreams. Now, as a non-smoker of pretty much anything (never even tried weed or tobacco... mock all you want!), the only thing I can compare this to is the funky dreams that I get after ingesting large amounts of mugwort. So, I have two questions for y'all: (1) Does anyone else here recall odd dreams after ingesting NotHash? (2) Torsten, obviously I won't ask you to reveal your formula - which is pretty damn effective by the way - but can you confirm if there's any ingredients that are known to have such effects? For instance, does the stuff contain mugwort or other thujone-containing material? I recall reading in other posts that you formulated it to be somewhat "trippy"... is this what you meant? *By the way, I have to say that spotting is one of the funniest-looking practices that I've yet engaged in. Sucking smoke off a red-hot knife with a large plastic funnel in my gob... it just felt absurd. I'm not sure if the giggles I got were due to the NotHash, or simply the realisation that I looked like a complete idiot with a large funnel clenched in my teeth.

Hehe, that's pretty funny. "And here is where we keep the horribly invasive species...you'll also notice some over there, and over here, and a few in that bed....Hmmm. " Classic, mate, just classic.

So what's the verdict? Any good? Get you fucked up? And because I didn't answer this fully before - sorry Gen - yes, it certainly had a decent punch to it. Neither of us smoked enough to "get fucked up", but I have no doubt that if we ingested more, that may well have been the outcome. However, I'm not much one for doing stuff like this to excess... in fact, despite brewing copious quantities of beer, I'm really not a fan of being drunk even. I prefer to be sociable and relatively functionable, as opposed to getting totally bombed and out of it.

Were you drinking as well or just notHash? The synergy with alcohol works well. Both of us had one beer each about half an hour beforehand. As I said, we were brewing and it's a rule among homebrewers that as you create a beer, you must imbibe one. Not a problem if you have dedicated knives ie, go and buy some cheapies at the supermarket and don't use mum's best silver. Thankfully we are both of adult age, and therefore not up for scrounging around in our mums' best silverware any more. We both have our own silverware (well, not silver, but you get the point) to fuck up. But yes, should I feel the need to do this again, I'll pay a visit to the op shop for some cutlery first.

we've had quite a few reports of erotic dreams [and waking horniness] mostly from FEMALES. The same process could possibly induce other vivid dreams. Interesting... I'm a guy, and you could say that the dreams I had were erotic. My mate didn't specify... he just said that his were definitely "different". How long after consumtion did you have the dreams? Probably at least ten hours. I couldn't specify, but maybe up to twelve-thirteen hours later?

Three spots gave me a definite body stone, with some very notable sedation. Which was relaxing, but slightly inconvenient as my mate and I were in the middle of brewing a batch of beer... and the immediate desire to sit down and not do much was quite strong. We also got a bit giggly, which would have been a bit embarrassing, however the zonking effect gets you over such self-conscious thoughts quite nicely. Definitely worth a try as spots or in a pipe, but doesn't seem to work so well in a joint, as I found. Spotting seems to work best, however it does leave hard-to-remove stains on cutlery that is a tad off-putting.

While a non-lethal crowd control option such as this - provided its effects are strictly temporary - is probably a better option than CS gas, rubber bullets or a good, old-fashioned beating with a big fuck-off truncheon, something about this whole project makes me extremely uneasy. There's something really distasteful to me about deploying a "pain ray", no matter what the situation. It just seems really odd, in a creepy sci-fi way. Which, of course, is a TOTALLY RATIONAL AND UNBIASED opinion on my behalf.

I've always wondered why people buy those things... if your car smells, then get rid of the shit that's causing the smell, don't just mask it with another smell! As an aside, it also astounds me that people buy auto-scents to maintain that "new car smell". Don't they realise that smell is due to volatile carcinogens like formaldehyde and the like evaporating from not-quite-cured glue, paint and lacquer? Ahh, the fresh smell of toxic chemicals!