Misuse of Drugs Act Amendment Bill

Via somethingmyrthe on DeviantArt

There is some tediously ignorant, draconian stuff in the Misuse of Drugs Act Amendment Bill.

From NORML via Scoop: Cannabis Pipes Must Not Be Outlawed.

"A proposed Bill that would see smoking devices like pipes, bongs, and vapourisers outlawed will increase the harm to the community from drugs, as banning such items would only encourage young Kiwis to use cannabis in more damaging ways."

This is absolutely true. Why must the opinions of politicians always lag 40 years behind everyone else?

Heaps of New Zealanders smoke weed, people from all walks of life and all ages. This is a good thing. It could be a really positive part of our culture, and in fact for the most part already is. The negative aspects are caused by it's criminalisation and will be heavily reduced upon bringing the industry above ground. This has been proven. Repeatedly. Prosecuting the cannabis community is a complete waste of governmental resources and causes far, far more harm than good. This has been proven. Repeatedly.

AHHHHHH.

Do we really have to wait until California & Co. have convinced the US to decriminalise* weed before the NZ government finally feels comfortable doing what's logical? Probably. Goddamn them.

Politicians... they're just a bit dim...

Us proles can add our futile $0.02 by making an online submission to the Select Committee here. The closing date for submissions is 29th September 2010.

♥,




* California is going one step better - in November they'll be voting on legalisation!

GothNet 2000

Sites stumbled upon in the course of googling for this post:
The Cabinet
County Asylums

Also, I notice that Divaluxe.com is currently, rather than being home to a purveyor of uber dreadfalls, host to Murder City Nights, a sweet-ass rock n roll podcast!

Indeed, onwards...

I am so disappointed to discover that Darklinks doesn't exist as a database anymore. Lame! That was an amazing resource! There is now an associated awesome blog, however: Dark Side of the Net.

Darklinks loomed so large during my goth internet years (also the heady days of camwhoring and AOL instant messenger, but I digress). Good times, they were. Good times.

Countless hours were also spent building "spooky" Angelfire pages with cheesy animated gifs and an abundance of htmlgear add-ons.





Seriously.

Ten years ago. Wow. I was also likely be found reading the alt.goth archives; giggling at the expense of people, who were probably no more tragic than I was, on Goth Goose; dreaming of the ultimate goff wardrobe via Batgear Beyond; obsessing over Batty, Sinnocence and Goddess of Freak; tracking down everything Sexbat ever published on the net and pouring over image galleries of elaborate outfits and gravity-defying hairstyles.

Wouldn't have had it any other way!

Around the Internet

From Dmitry Maximov's 'Invaded by Little Aliens' project, via Sweet Station.


From David Lyle's current show 'At the End of the Day', via Wooster Collective.

The Ricky Gervais podcasts. I just can't help myself.

Straight Line Design Inc - Melting drawers? Fiesty wardrobe? So, so cool! | Where the people lead, the leaders will follow - "It seems that Murray McCully has listened. His comments this afternoon indicate that he is now committed to ending whaling in the Southern Ocean..." | Dude, what just happened? - Russell Brown re: Operation Lime. You'd think that the police force have enough actual crime to worry about. | Private members bill drafted to stop mining - "Concern about changes to schedule 4 conservation land that open up protected land to mining has led Labour MP Jacinda Ardern to lodge her first Private Members Bill." It'll be interesting to see if anything comes from this. Metiria Turei's Bill just got drawn; if it goes through it'll make Ardern's one irrelevant. The ultimate Earth Day present - "The Crown Minerals (Protection of Public Conservation Land Listed in the Fourth Schedule) Amendment Bill will retain the existing provisions of Schedule 4 protection in the Crown Minerals Act, but would require an Act of Parliament to remove something from Schedule 4, once it has been gazetted." I wonder if our politicians are in the mood to do something good for once. Fingers crossed!

Einstein

"I swim, swim in a flickering. The relays clatter in my head...dreamy phase! I race through the convolutions of my brain, I look through the vitreous spheres of my eyes...exquisite speech bubbles burst in my brain, bespatter my perception, drip from furniture. In a rabble of words from condensed perceptual mist! The echo of the anthropomorphic shit resounds from every atom, to form calcified vessels. My watch ticks...tic-toc, like a small bird in a steel case, my head is a glass bubble through which one can glimpse a frantic ticking cog wheel mechanism -- and here, here in my pocket I have a little key with which I can set this mechanism in motion whenever I want."
- From the autobiography of Albert Einstein by Gerhard Roth (1972), via A Journey Round My Skull

What a dude.

Around the Internet

At home, ill and pumped full of antibiotics.
Better than being at home, ill and not pumped full of antibiotics, I guess!


'Ziggy' by Jessica Josslin. Her work is amazing.

Also amazing: Sewing tattoos (!!!) on Flikr

I've been trying to find some articles that make me smile. It's harder than you'd expect. Everywhere you turn for news&views stuff: a million things negative.

All of this Hadron Collider stuff is rad, though.

"The world's largest experiment into the fundamental forces of nature has begun in silent pursuit of the answers to some of the most esoteric questions of science, hitherto addressed by spirituality and philosophy." - LHC: Will We Find The God Particle, Dark Matter and Supersymmetry?

Al Jazeera: Cern opens up the world of physics
Wall Street Journal: A Second Big Bang In Geneva?

Meanwhile...

Lord Layard's Movement for Happiness seeks a director with vision

Drop It Already

Man caught trying to smuggle LSD worth up to $2.5m into prison.

"LSD 'tabs', or acid, have a well documented history of being responsible for causing severe and frightening hallucinations, or even contributing to mental illnesses such as schizophrenia." - Detective Senior Sergeant Dave Lynch

Dave is clearly overdue a good, solid transcendental hallucinogenic experience.