bokonon

so i'm not the only one who is unusually chipper this morning, good i thought something was wrong. i couldn't sleep after i woke up at five even though i laid there till six thirty trying. so i got up, made breakfast and lunch for ricky, cleaned the house, played with the bunny and did some homework. it's ten am and i am listening to van morrison 03/09/04 and wondering which is the best way to spend my paycheck and my day off today :: i hope it snows!

more humour from my brother that i want to share:

P.S. Although I think marijuana should be legal I still think that patchouli should be illegal and possession and use should be punishible by death, or at least a severe bathing.

(please note the opinions expressed in this sarcastic mini rant do not necessarily represent the opinions of all neziols)

i thought bush was for stem cell research since his dad has alzheimer's?

when i can finally take vacation from my new job i think i might just see some more of my own country. i've been to b.c., i've been to most of the maritimes, quebec and all over my own province of ontario, so i'll either go north or to the middle.

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On the book topic, anybody have suggestions on books about leadership?

start by looking under call number 648 in your local library.(using the dewey system, not the library of congress system)

one reason i would support cuba is that it has more area of organic farming than any other nation on earth, which is really sad considering it's quite a small country. also, i find the motives of the cuban administration to be quite overt which is something i value. the u.s. government just fucks with the minds of the populace through media, popular culture and piss poor education instead of just being honest about its intentions. call me naive, but i like an honest government. as flawed as the cuban system is i have more faith in it than the us administration. i think cuba has more potential for changing itself for the better, instead of letting itself become one of the many banana republics of the u.s.

i'm in, but only if there are ratings

ok, we've got ratings. who else is in?

i'd rather go to cuba and support a government that doesn't try to control the whole world!

i haven't gone to the states since the clinton era and i am not going until this bush crap is done!

bokonon snaps and starts her own country where being an idiot is illegal and punishable by extreme public humiliation.

[color:"purple"]i'm not in any of them, i think the pics suck!

edit to add: purple font

how could anybody be that godamned ignorant and vote bush! church and state are supposed to be separate! if you're church doesn't allow gay marriage then don't marry someone of your gender, if your church thinks abortion is a sin then don't have an abortion. don't push your fu©king ignorant morality on the entire population! i see bad things coming. people will be leaving the states because of religious persecution. bush can shove his jesus loving ways right up his ass to keep his head company!

go kerry and get rid of the bloody patriot act!!! did you know that the us government likely has access to your library record because of it? most of the library automation systems are designed by american firms and therefore your info can be accessed in the states! i am purposely trying to build myself a cia file by reading lots of lefty propaganda and also going to lots of lefty websites! just for fun of course, just to throw them off the scent of anyone doing any real actions!

i've already got a baby mullet and i just cut my dreads two weeks ago.

i will defenitely jump on the bandwagon of suggesting kurt vonnegut (as my usual username might imply). if you like satire i would also recommend george orwell, ayn rand, terry pratchett (which is fantasy satire and quite hilarious). catch-22 by joseph heller is great too, as is anything by margaret atwood if you can take temporal jumps and weird twisted ideas. i can't remember the author right now, but "wizard's first rule" was a good read too. if you are ever stuck for something to read, the short list for the giller or the man-booker prize always produces good reads. this year they are-

man-booker:

bitter fruit by achmat dangor

cloud atlas by david mithcell

the electric michelangelo by srah hall

the line of beauty by alan hollinghurst

the master by colm toibin

i'll go to bed at noon by gerard woodward

giller:

beyond measure by pauline holdstock

galveston by paul quarrington

runaway by alice munro

the tiger claw by shauna singh baldwin

a compicated kindness by miriam toews

all that matters by wayson choy

and remember, support your local library!

mark tonin was a "high mark",(check out the A+ on his shirt) which i am really starting to wonder about. first he started swearing and name calling and now he's advertising the fact that he is "high". ::

i totally stand corrected on the flying v. whenever i see them all i can think about is eighties hair bands. but apparently some good people had them too. is there any functional purpose to their shape?

santa is a dirty old man! ::

i did find a website with a lot of potential to help anyone interested in canadian federal law. it's http://laws.justice.gc.ca . just to warn you, it's huge and takes some searching skills.

dam! i settled for the all you can smoke and drink weed judging contest # 3 won

don't smoke, don't drink, don't care.::

saw two great bands, a zillion friends, danced my ass off and had a barrel of monkeys! aaahhh fat cats and diesel dog should do a festival express next summer. (the next time you throw a train, invite me!)

sorry we couldn't make it, we had some rather sensitive issues to deal with tee hee!

he sent me the cdsa but it came in html when i opened it in wordpad and i don't know what to do with that.

hey mark, my brother finally sent me a response so here it is. i left the sarcastic bits in because i thought they were pretty funny.

If he has a respectable job he can't possibly be a real hippy. If he tells you he is he's probably just doing research for an acting part or a really convincing halloween costume. Or maybe he's a cop.

Anyway, I don't know exactly what you mean by "the info" on marijuana law. It's not like the whole of marijuana law can be condensed into a one page memo. Anyway, I'm assuming he wants some kind of summary. I don't have a good summary on my computer right now so what I'm going to do is e-mail you a copy of the governing legislation and I will try to briefly summarize some main points.

The governing legislation is the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA for short). It deals with all controlled drugs including marijuana. I have attached it hereto in Wordperfet format because I don't have a functioning Word program on this computer. The CDSA is a federal statute as opposed to a Provincial Statute (an example of a provincial statute is the Highway Traffic Act). That means that it is an act that was created by the Federal Legislature. Offences under the CDSA are considered criminal offences just like those under the Criminal Code (again, contrast this to an offence under the Highway Traffic Act like speeding which is not a criminal offence, it is merely a provincial offence and doesn't carry the same stigma). In my opinion most (if not all) of the offences under the CDSA are bullshit and should not be criminal offences (or offences of any kind). I think adults should be able to choose wether or not to take drugs just like they choose whether or not they can drink and the sale of drugs should be regulated but not prohibited. On this one thing at least I agree with the hippies.

Anyway, I digress. The CDSA prohibits the possession, production, or sale/transfer of controlled substances except in accordance with the provisions of the CDSA or the regulations made under that act. Marijuana is a substance prohibited by Schedule II of the CDSA ("Schedule" is just a fancy word for "list."). The CDSA has 8 Schedules or lists of drugs. Some of those Schedules (like Schedule II) contain a list of drugs that are generally thought to be less serious and some contain drugs thought to be more serious. Some schedules list drugs for a more technical purpose that I won't get into here because it would take forever and would require me to actually do some research. Most marijuana offences are simple possession charges under s. 4(1) of the CDSA. The very fact that these "offences" are even prosecuted is a disgrace and makes me embarassed on behalf of the justice system because it lacks the sense to be embarassed on its own account. It breeds disrespect for the law that sane, informed adults are prosecuted and labelled as criminals (and their lives are thereby ruined because they can't get jobs after that or travel to the United States for vacations) for smoking small quantities of marijuana and we're told this is somehow "for their own good." All this while big tobacco and the government itself (LCBO) rake in billions each year for selling products that are proven to kill their consumers (I'm not saying that they shouldn't be able to sell cigarettes or alchohol, I think they should, I just think it's a bit hypocritical to then criminalize the sale of weed). Anyway, I digress. So just to finish up here, CDSA offences are prosecuted by a Federal Crown as opposed to all criminal code offences which are prosecuted by the provincial Crown Attorny's office. I'm not sure why this is as the Criminal Code is also a federal statute they should probably just have the regular crowns prosecute CDSA charges. Maybe there is a good reason for this but given what I know about the justice system and the law in general I kind of doubt it.

Oh, here's and interesting little tidbit for you. For a brief period during 2003, the simple possession of less than 30 grams of marijuana was perfectly legal (I bet you cashed in on that hippie jackpot didn't you?). The reason for this is that in July of 2000 a case called R v. Parker was decided by the Ontario Court of Appeal and that case stated that s. 4(1) of the CDSA was constitutionally invalid because it did not allow for marijuana to be used for medicinal purposes. The court gave Parliament 12 months to re enact the section accordingly but Parliament neglected to do so. Technically possession of less than 30 g of marijuana was legal from July 2001 until sometime in late 2003. However, I don't think anyone brought this argument up until the R. v J.P. case was decided in May 2003. J.P. decided that until the government re enacted s. 4(1) of the CDSA with respect to small quantities of marijuana it was legal to possess such small quantities. So for a while during 2003 people were having a ball smoking pot on the steps of courthouses and police stations youremember, you were there.

Anyway, just to be clear, you can't smoke marijuana now. A court of appeal decision in J.P. came down at the end of the summer of 2003 and ended the party for everyone (sons of bitches!). The Parliament is still thinking about decriminalizing marijuana and turning it into a non criminal offence but they're taking their sweet time about it.

since when is it cool to wear shoes that are horrible for your health and look stupid with jeans? jeans are pants sent straight from heaven, who would want to contaminate them with ridiculous shoes? and flying v guitars were never cool, they were used as distractions from either the lack of talent of the player or the player's ugly face. i think i need that bucket.

totally right about that horrible lenny kravitz song. is it just me or did he get a whole lot less cool when he cut off his dreads? thank god that doesn't happen to everyone ::. didn't he do a gap commercial or something like that too? what a weiner! i mean, gap makes high quality and nice clothing, it's just that they are made in indonesian sweatshops that totally exploit the workers and the advertising on this side of the ocean just perpetuates stereotypes and the beauty myth. their prices are ridiculous too. check out www.gapsucks.org , if it still works. this site cracked me up a couple of years ago.