∂an

An article in the Guardian regarding Australia's carbon tax Interesting to read an international perspective on this. I think the point regarding Australia's adoption of a carbon tax encouraging other nations to tackle climate change is a good one. As a developed nation with a very high standard of living and one of the highest carbon emissions per capita I think its our obligation to be one of the first countries to adopt a carbon tax or trading scheme.

me 3

a couple of years ago when I was a poor student my hot water system broke, and I didn't get it fixed for 3 months over winter. I had cold showers the whole time, and quickly got used to it. makes you feel wide awake, slows your heart rate and reduces your electricity bill massively. its mind over matter – I love hot showers, its very hard to force myself to have a cold one when I have hot water available, but when the hot water system was broken it was no problem.

has anyone tried smoking the dried flowers or leaves of this common nightshade? trying to make a smoking mix from plants in my backyard.

yeah that doco sounds awesome! this webpage has a relevant story on shark priests and betel nut in the solomon islands.

yeah I guess I thought they might import their betel products as they all seem to be processed in some form or another. these guys sell 1/2 m betel palms for $9.95, so must be some people growing in oz. would be well cool to have a betel palm in the backyard

maybe you mean betel is not psychedelic, rather than psychoactive? betel certainly is psychoactive, in that it affects the mind. but I agree with you, I haven't had profound experiences from betel, its in the same class as tobacco and coffee to my mind. when the himalayan shaman says "It has very powerful nuts (supari) that can carry you away", you have to remember their approach to intoxication is much different to ours – they are able to induce trance through seemingly benign activities such as drumming, chanting etc, and would use betel to just help them into their natural trance state. an interesting plant, I wonder if its possible to grow it in oz?

^^^ yeah that statement by Johnny Knoxville kinda made me see his death in a new light. All death is tragic, even if it was done doing something pretty reckless. I sure got some kicks from cky and jackass back in the day... they are the reason I got into skating. Your right, it was fascinating to see a bunch young guys pushing there own brand of self-deprecating hedonism to the limit. Ryan Dunn had the balls to push his life to the limit, and ultimately he paid the price... RIP.

Some interesting info from Rätsch et al's "Shamanism and Tantra in the Himalaya's": Would you like some betel nut with you cocaine?

hmm I think the western journalists have made a big mistake here, and actually what the chinese residents are amazed about is the fog making the cities appear to be floating in the sky. all the buildings and trees are actually there.

Australian Legendary Tales Really enjoying this collection of aboriginal australian folklore tales from 1895. Some are very short, simple and funny, and others are long and full of complex metaphors. An interesting paragraph in relation to witch-doctors: The language it is written is differs from the modernised aboriginal stories I have heard in the past, as the 19th century naivety wrt indigenous people is very obvious. A unique perspective anyway.

Re: Distracted That gave me many laughs, thanks! But I have a feeling this kind of recycling is going to be necessary if our current rate of consumption continues.

They are more like glitch hop than hip hop, but Lazer Sword have some goods.

I had no worries hitchhiking in NZ after finishing hikes in pretty remote areas near arthur's pass. Even got a tour of the local train tunnel by a rail worker. Maybe it was just my good fortune but I found New Zealand a really good place to hitch a ride.

My first instinct is to say I would go as far as not eating meat, of any sort, which I try and do anyway. But then again meat is a very rich source of protein and nutrients, and perhaps growing meat artificially would prove to be more ecologically sound than growing the nutritional equivalent of soya beans or whatever. A strange future we are headed towards...

^^^ true, you have to trust your instincts – there are some nasty people out there. some of the guys hitch hiking out there look like they are pretty desperate, walking along highways, stepping out onto the road etc. have to remember that the reason some people are trying to hitch hike is that they are in a bad place and may be emotionally unstable, not thinking straight. but fear grows upon fear, the world responds to your emotions.

Yeah it is really sad that we have a general sense of fear regarding strangers. When young we are trusting and welcoming of strangers, but this empathetic impulse is soon squashed by stranger danger in kindergarten. Every now and then I try and challenge this fear impulse and pick up hitch-hikers. Have only had good experiences doing so, even got my tarrot read by a guy with a star tattooed on his forehead near byron more trust, less fear.

woke up this morning with a sudden compulsion to climb a mountain. when I reached the top just after sunrise, I was told by a group of people there it was the winter solstice. synchronicities never cease to amaze me. happy solstice to you all!

Developed countries need to take on much greater refugee intakes, for sure. Yeah I agree Icke is entertaining, but I don't like how he uses an `us-vs-them' mentality – its a bit disempowering to dwell on the possibility that our existence is being controlled by malevolent forces.

Yeah I can understand why deep space missions beyond the solar system are not interesting to NASA et al – there is nothing out there for many many miles but empty space. NASA, ESA, JAXA etc are more interested in missions that can yield real scientific discoveries and keep the industry alive. That is why the focus is presently on sending robotic missions to Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, the moons of Saturn and asteroids within the solar system. I too saw that Stephen Hawking doco series, and while it was very cool to see those computer rendered space ships with nuclear engines etc, I couldn't help but think how much of a materialist pipe dream that is. How are we ever going to get the millions of tonnes of steel into space to build these vehicles? How are we going to survive the many generations in space to actually get anywhere interesting? I have a feeling that humans may yet spread our intelligence throughout the universe, but its not going to be humans that do the travelling – it will be something exotic like nano scale intelligent robots.

In my opinion, yes. UN Agenda 21 is explicitly about sustainable development. Extrapolating that to mass depopulation and Orwellian control is purely paranoid fantasy, purveyed by conspiracy theorists like David Icke to make a career out of preying on gullible people. Note how Icke intersperses his words with true statements, then drops completely outrageous statements like "The aim is mass depopulation and extreme levels of control for those that are left."? That is classic propaganda techniques designed to draw people in with believable statements, then take them out on a limb with some paranoid fantasy. Also, the idea of governments wanting to reduce their own population base doesn't make economic sense. Our economies are built on the concept of growth, which requires an ever growing work force (i.e. Rudd's big Australia policy). That's not to say that a reduced population is not desirable, its just there is not a conspiracy to do so. Our technological civilisation may be led by people of high socio-economic status that are a minority, but they are dependent on a much larger under class to sustain themselves. As thunderideal eloquently put it, "the difficulties of space travel are monumental". And as Terence Mckenna said, they may be 'insurmountable'. Space is an extremely hostile environment for humans, and the distances to other star systems are so vast it difficult to comprehend (4 light years to alpha Centauri). Furthermore, we are still very much monkeys at heart – we are too preoccupied with destroying each other to concentrate on this most important task. It's a real dilemma as on one hand it seems like humanity has been selected by nature to carry intelligent life out into the universe, yet on the other it seems our technology and intelligence is insufficient to carry us out into the galaxy, or live in space itself. Just to get the Apollo vehicles to the moon and back required about 3% of America's federal budget for 5 years. These days NASA's budget is more like 0.5% of the federal budget, while the military spending is about 20%. Yet NASA still has plans to send humans to Mars in the next 10 to 20 years - highly unlikely to eventuate if this level of funding persists. Hopefully the privatisation of the space industry with companies such as Space-X will give the industry a much needed boost.

ok, I guess mullein would be worth a try then? edit: guess i-before-e doesn't apply in all situations

but a shotgun is more efficient who has time for a scalpel these days?

wasn't really thinking of ascending the peak cliff-hanger style, just an easy walk on the trails.

a herb with a bit of moisture in it perhaps ;) caapi leaves burn nice and slow too.