The things that go through my head

This scares the hell out of me.

I was just thinking that there are so many things going on in the world right now.  It’s enough to drive a person crazy.  Google is promising to give away $10 million to fund a project to make the world a better place.  So now I am trying to think of an idea.  It would be neat to fund a school or start a medical cannabis garden or something wonderful like that.  I wish I had enough imagination to come up with a worthwhile project.

Also, I feel very conflicted about stories like this. A ten year old girl divorces her husband in order to be allowed to go back to school.  In the clip, they show her studying the Koran.  It’s painful for an atheist like me  to see that.  I just hope that if we can teach kids to think for themselves, they will be more likely to question their religious beliefs.  Hopefully one day religion will disappear.  Also, marrying ten year old girls to creepy old men is too horrible for me to contemplate.  But I am glad to see that she is back in school and is allowed to have her childhood back.

The financial crisis has been all over the news but I was a little puzzled about how it all came about.   I have to admit that economics kind of go over my head but luckily I stumbled upon this explanation of how this sub prime mortgage crisis came to be.  Here is a link to a podcast and also the transcript.   Basically, the banks were giving loans to mortgage brokers which did not make sure that people could repay the loans before they lent them the money.  Unemployed people with unstable jobs were being given over $300 000.  Many retirement funds were backed by worthless mortgages with very little chance of the money being repaid.  That’s why I laughed out loud at Harper’s suggestion that the economy is going to be fine.  We have the exact same situation happening right here in Saskatoon.  Our housing prices are way too high.  It won’t be long before they come down to earth and a whole lot of people that are mortgaged to the hilt are going to fall on some hard times which affects the whole economy.  What a mess!  And the U.S. government is going to bail out Wall Street.

I am having a hard time feeling sorry for the whole lot of these immoral lying thieves that let this situation happen.  I mean, mortgage broker companies were hiring completely inexperienced people to get as many mortgages as they could sell.  They were like Bambi staring into the headlights of an oncoming car.  But didn’t somebody see this coming?  My mom is continually being offered free credit.  My credit card company regularly raises my credit limit without bothering to check that I am employed or have any ability to pay back $6500 if I happen to charge up my credit card.  I saw this coming and I am an idiot when it comes to the economy.  But I do know that too much fake money makes the economy collapse.  The free market at its finest.

I promised not to post about pot politics for a while, although I was and still am, very upset by the NDP’s cowardly treatment of their fine candidates, Dana Larsen and Kirk Tousaw. Like Pete of Drug War Rant points out, in the US, being seen on camera smoking marijuana didn’t hurt Arnie’s chances. What is wrong with Canadians when they treat two such fine activists so badly? My riding is a swing riding and I was considering voting for the NDP. They can forget it now! They may think the opinion of one lowly pot activist (me) means nothing but I can guarantee that I would have convinced a few people to hold their nose and vote for them. No way am I doing that now! Just look at this lying scrum with Jack Layton, who once went on POT-TV to promote his cannabis policies. I have said it before and I will say it again: There is nothing wrong with getting support from the cannabis community. Pot people are not criminals and have jobs and are not afraid to support good causes.

The Liberals join in with a really stupid press release demanding to know the connections between the Marijuana Party and the NDP. As if there aren’t a whole lot of pot activists within the Liberals. *cough* Boris St. Maurice *cough*

Date: Saturday, Sept. 20, 2008

Time: 7:00 p.m.

Location: Civic Square at City Hall, 222 3rd Avenue North

Concerned individuals are hosting Neil Magnuson of the Freedom Tour 2008

Neil Magnuson will be in Saskatoon Saturday, September 20 on the Saskatoon leg of his Freedom Tour 2008. Neil is rollerblading from Vancouver to Ottawa, celebrating what he recognizes as a new human right: the right of access to hemp in all its forms.
The goal of the Freedom Tour is to expose the dangers of prohibition and the criminal abuses of power by public servants. Prohibition is supposed to prevent the abuse of cannabis by limiting access to this plant, however this strategy results in increased use and abuse and wastes billions of tax and taxable dollars while creating and supporting crime.
Racists, moralists and industrialists use the prohibition of cannabis to further their agendas. Successful lobbying of our politicians has resulted in their interests being protected at the expense of our basic rights and freedoms. Police, lawyers, courts, a myriad of public bureaucrats and prohibition profiteers are paying their mortgages on the backs of cannabis criminals.

In the U.S., private, for-profit prison corporations are raking in billions of dollars filling contracts using prison labour supplied by the justice system at taxpayers expense (yet another hidden subsidy).

The reefer-madness of the 1900’s continues today with misinformation and horror stories. If we were really concerned about harms caused by drug abuse, we would encourage the use of cannabis as a safer and saner alternative to really deadly drugs like tobacco and alcohol.

The truth is that many people use cannabis. If you don’t know many people who use cannabis, then you have lived a sheltered life. Recent surveys report that more than 16% of Canadians admit to a stranger that they use cannabis. Cannabis, however, is neither bad nor good: if used properly, it can provide some individuals with great benefits and at worst is a waste of time for those who use it improperly. The fact that the great majority of people can make this decision wisely is reflected by the fact that by every measure – educational success, intelligence, monetary achievement, longevity, and health – cannabis users are indistinguishable from the rest of the population.

Legislation passed first reading in the recently dissolved parliament to introduce mandatory minimum jail sentences for cannabis-related crimes. If these laws are reintroduced, then we are in for a U.S. Style war on drugs with many more people in prison and many more people hurt.

Don’t let it be said:

When they came for the pot smokers,
I did not speak out …

see http://freedomtour.ca

I have done a terrible job at blogging but don’t worry! I am in the middle of putting together a political rally on Saturday and that is sucking up all the time that I would ordinarily spend blogging and standing on my internet soapbox. But don’t worry, I will be back and I will tell you all about it. I am so pumped!

What’s the difference between me and Sarah Palin?

Lipstick!

It’s funny because I never wear lipstick. Get it? Get it?

Oh wait, I don’t exist. I forgot. There is a good reason that I make such a ridiculous statement as “I don’t exist.” I was sitting with my boyfriend watching the teevee the other day. I was pretty lonely and bored or I would have done something more interesting like watch paint dry. He was watching a medical show with a self-absorbed cranky doctor as the star. Guess which one! And every single female character in the show was all covered in female drag. WHY? I know many women that don’t wear mascara or go around with their boobs hanging out. Why aren’t these women on the teevee? It must be because women without warpaint don’t exist.

I will conclude this pointless rant by saying that Sarah Palin scares me. Badly.

I was planning to post a picture from my backyard for my Friday 4:20 post but my picture uploader isn’t working. I am not happy because I have been having trouble every time I try to post a picture. So instead of that I am going to post a video of the annual pot burn from the southwest suburbs of Chicago. Witness the destruction of innocent cannabis plants. Don’t stand downwind! Or do, if that’s what you prefer.

The justification for this travesty?

“These are professional operations,” Waszak said of the cannabis- growing sites on Cook County Forest Preserve District property. “This is high-quality marijuana, not ditch weed that’s growing out in the woods.

“It’s a cash crop, no doubt about it. We can compare it to farming.”

OH NO! Not farming. I found this via Drug War Rant.

The Canadian federal election is coming and I have decided to blog my riding of Saskatoon-Biggar-Rosetown. This means that I will have a lot of learning to do to do this unpaid job well. Luckily, I love to learn and I am happy to do it.

Saskatoon-Biggar-Rosetown is currently represented by Carol Skelton. She is a conservative that has represented this riding for six and a half years but is not seeking re-election. I really have no idea who is going to run for the Conservative party but I am sure I will found out soon enough. In the last federal election, it was a very tight race between Skelton and the NDP candidate Nettie Wiebe. I voted for the NDP in the last two federal elections and was disappointed both times.

I don’t really believe that the NDP has much hope of taking the seat in this election. They got spanked pretty hard in the last provincial election by the conservative Sask Party. It will more than likely go to the Conservative candidate, whoever that is. But what do I know? At any rate, voting in federal elections is always painful for me, as no party lives up to my expectations. Usually, I vote NDP. But this time, I will be supporting the Greens. This election could be a great opportunity for them to make some gains in my riding. If nothing else, my vote will help the party to the tune of $1.75 or whatever it is these days. They are protectors of the environment and they want to repeal pot prohibition, two issues near and dear to my heart. Obviously, I want to see Elizabeth May participate in the debates. Check out this petition.

I think I am in love.

Even though I have a zoo at my house, I would still love to have a cat. Three birds, a dog, two kids and a tankful of fish is just not enough for me. But I have allergies so it was not meant to be. In the meantime I will listen to this song. Again, and again.

Let me introduce you to Winston, the ten-year-old Jack Russell terrier that is keeping it real in Saskatoon.  Although he is seventy in dog years, he is young at heart.  He enjoys sniffing butts and peeing on trees.  In this picture, he is in full on sniff mode, as he has detected the presence of a smaller, fluffier creature.  He longs to kill something small and innocent, but I am afraid that the children will not allow it.  When Hannah was little she caught him trying to eat a baby bird and kicked his bum and shrieked, “Leave the baby bird alone, you BAD DOG!!”  Since that day, he has been too stricken by guilt to indulge in his darker impulses.  Which is a good thing because Winston’s world revolves around me and I don’t want him putting dead mice on my pillow like my cat used to do.  It’s bad enough that he poops when I tell him to.

I love this picture because of the long, drawn-out shadows.

And now for a look at the puppy face!  Ahhhhhhhh.