DamnSaxon

AND another one that shouldn't be legalised ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7246072.stm

Oh, Lord, I suppose this means even more sitting on the bus being forced to listen to somebody else's noize through a half inch "loudspeaker" ...

Or as Tom Lehrer put it, nearly forty years ago, "Just one thing if you go there: Don't drink the water And don't breathe the air" Another nice, if frightening, map of human reality. Thanks for the link, the BBC's copy of the picture is tiny.

"a quality employee in every regard" Just don't ask whether that's high quality or low quality.

^^ As it is OT, I'll PM you - if anyone else is interested, by all means PM me. I started a thread last year on amateur radio in Shetland, we could use that.

No unfairness intended. Put it down to the jaded soul reflecting on decades of watching (and taking part in) this idiot dance. This should be printed in large letters of every government paper on the topic. If I gave the impression that I thought you espoused the view that drugs never did anyone any harm, I unreservedly apologise. Far from it - I think you ought to be moderating the discussions in the corridors of power, you might make them come to their senses. As you say, in every case it's the interaction between the user and the drug. I write this as my GP and I try to find a painkiller which works and doesn't clash with my high blood pressure, both knowing that if I could legally use cannabis it would deal with both of those and help me sleep. Mind you, this would mean three regular prescriptions less for the pharmaceutical industry, who I believe have a little more influence where it matters than the pot lobby. I sometimes wonder whether your "pragmatic and compassionate strategy" might not be well implemented with licencing. Most of the contra-indications between common drugs and specific physical conditions must already be known so, for those who really felt they had to experiment, their doctor could warn them of significant dangers in some detail, advise on dosage (which, with a controlled supply would actually be known) and give them a permit - perhaps, like the driving licence, provisional at first - to use substances not incompatible with their biology. At the pharmacy (specified on the permit, to discourage overdosing?), bring back the old "poisons register", and keep the name! As for generally advising against, yes, of course - but as you say, it's going to happen anyway - and that quite apart from those who share my own irritation with not being allowed to use a safer, natural stuff to keep me moving about than the unholy brew of opiates and synthetics which try to do the job at the moment. Give those who need or want to try a drug a checkup, the knowledge and licenced access to pure substances, and where's the problem? At last, a measure of control and, while the party animals, trainee shamans and herbal medicine enthusiasts get on with it in relative safety, the police can concentrate on the truly dangerous drugs, like crack, and those who, with or without drugs, cause the most problems. As for hypocrisy, let it join bone-headed obstinacy, belligerence, intolerance, and all those other delightful things which make us the all too fallible creatures we are. Enjoy your drink. It's illegal in much of the Middle East, you know ...

I don't know what to make of these virtual realities. As a (real life) radio enthusiast, I enjoy using my (real) radio to launch (real) signals into the (real) ionosphere and make contact with other stations. The other day, I came across http://qsonet.com/ - a "virtual ionosphere" on the net, and it can only be used by (real-life licenced) amateur radio ops. W-e-i-r-d. A whole new take on "internet radio"!

^^^ Are you sure it wasn't Njugle, chatting away inside his helmet? (Which sounds pretty dangerous in itself, should you get into a position where you need the helmet ...)

Or, try this, but be careful ... http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2007-01.html

Am I the only one who reads through this thread (and "Drugs in Shetland") with a weird sense of unreality and deja vu as the two sides circle, hurling insult and abuse at one another without ever resolving anything? The "anti" camp appear to believe whatever tosh the news media foist upon us: I'm sure many of them still believe fabricated falsehoods like "cannabis is a gateway to hard drugs", or that "modern cannabis is x times stronger than" ... etc. etc. Too often, too, the "pro" camp seem to espouse the view that no drug ever really did anyone any harm, it was just the taker's strange biology making them prone to going out of control when they were high. The one thing everyone ought to agree on is that the present legal structure is about as complete a failure as can be imagined. In the 37 years since 1971 when the current structure came in, the number of registered addicts in the UK has risen a hundredfold - hardly what the authors intended, I suspect, and not counting the ???,000 unregistered ones. The very illegality of the drugs helps to make them "forbidden fruit", thus all the more attractive to the rebellious youngster, then, when something goes wrong, the users and their friends are more reluctant to seek medical advice on account of the same illegality making them think that the doctors are certain to report them. In the absence of a legal supply, users are forced to buy from what is now a very well established underground industry, and one which is quite happy to cut otherwise physically harmless substances with cheap, harmful ones simply to increase its profit. Fjool has mentioned more than once that the object of drug legislation ought to be the reduction of harm. If only. Current legislation appears to work (?) by attempting to increase the harm, or at least the perception of it, without limit. Define any contact with any proscribed drug as intrinsically criminal, no matter that humanity has used psychoactive agents since the dawn of history. Make it impossible for a user to obtain drugs of known purity, no matter that they will then take God knows what along with it to the detriment of their health. Spread stories of hair raising horror about what drugs have done to ruin some innocent young life, when had that innocent young life had access to pure substances and factual information they would themselves have been able to avoid that horror. In short, make them eat sh*t, then kick them when it makes them ill (or worse). Oh, and make sure their neighbours treat them with the same revulsion. I'm not saying that taking drugs is a risk-free adventure, far from it. I've known one or two people who have made a complete mess of their lives ... but I've also known a lot more whose use of a fair old range of illicit substances has never given them any problems at all. However, for a government to try to close down all discussion of the subject - apart from polluting it with their own nonsensical non-arguments, of course - is indefensible. By preventing people, in particular young people, from either knowing the facts about these substances or ever being able to access the pure drug, they are guaranteeing a continuing supply of "drug shock horror" stories with which to pollute the discussion. Perhaps this is intentional, and intended to drive people over to the - exceedingly dangerous - drugs on which they collect a considerable amount of tax. Whatever, it is dishonest and degenerate. If you voted "No" in the poll, and have ever been drunk, maybe you should reflect that you have yourself used a very dangerous drug - maybe more than once! - and, apparently, survived. Why do you want other people to be criminalised or made very ill or dead simply because they prefer a different - and almost certainly intrinsically less dangerous - way of getting "out of it"? I'm not saying that teenagers (still less sub-teenagers) should be taking any of this stuff, by the way: that is a quite separate issue, again fuelled by the complete absence of societal control over "controlled" drugs, as already disparaged. The crime is not in the possession or use of any substance, the crime is in making the whole subject so riddled with half truths and downright lies that the kids think "WTF" and head off to the nearest purveyor of ... whatever dodgy stuff somebody's profiting from at the moment. They're not stupid. They know most of their friends take this stuff and don't die. They know the government is talking rubbish. Fjool's absolutely right about trying to minimise harm. In the current legal and social climate, though, that's a bit like trying to listen to the still small voice within when you're standing next to the stage at a rock concert. Also, if you voted "No", try reading these, then ask yourself why you did so: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/ http://www.drugwardistortions.org/ Can't recall whether they've been mentioned before, but they ought to be mentioned often. OK, rant over. You can go back to circling round and hurling insults now, while I head off and smoke a really dangerous drug. (As you were, Sherlock, it costs me about £8 for a 50g pack, and AFAIK no Vietnamese children were involved in making it. )

If this prospect makes you cringe like it makes me cringe, sign the petition at: http://www.stopblair.eu/ Cutting comments up to 500 words also accepted.

On Radio 4 as I write, repeated 3pm tomorrow or on Listen Again for the next week - "Costing the Earth", about how crappy the UK is in this field. Shetland gets an honourable mention

Okay, I admit this is a commercial site, but the goods on show are some of the coolest things ever, especially the laser-etched glass ... http://www.bathsheba.com/ ... wow

Bandannas? Ski masks? - If you want to see the face of things to come (or not), try googling on the phrase "goggle jacket" ...

I'll second that. My cheap generic has them, which annoyed me at first. Then you accidentally click them and find you're flipping between documents in some program, and you're hooked. Plus, for "forward/backward" in the browser ... yeah. Watch out for the ones with several buttons on each side though. That way lies madness.

There goes my sincere hope then

An interesting little story, which I sincerely hope will remain irrelevant to us all. http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-to-Remove-an-Electric-Bulb-from-Rectum-62006.shtml I'll get me coat.

Should we report HMG, then, or the companies organising their scheme?

That certainly happened where I am in Nottingham. I live a couple of streets off a fairly major road, which unfortunately was equipped with CCTV a few years ago. This area being the red light and drug area, a lot of the "transactions" moved round the corner, and enough of it moved into our yard to make it now a seriously unpleasant place. (In the summer - don't know where they go in this weather.) We now get heated arguments about drugs (usually hard) wafting in from our yard, slippery rubber ... detritus and needles left around the place, all sorts. I went to put my rubbish in the bin a few months ago and there was a girl I'd never seen before sitting by our bins and shooting up. She hardly seemed aware of a mere resident of the place, and I was too nonplussed to do more than ask her politely not to use our yard. Maybe I'm just oversensitive, but one does notice this kind of thing. And I still have an absolute moral objection to anyone presuming to video record, store and analyse my innocent doings without my permission. For which "they" have never asked, and which I shall never give. The marginal - at best - crime reduction claimed by proponents of CCTV is (IMHO, of course ) a totally inadequate exchange for the basic liberty to walk down the street without the state breathing down your neck wherever you go.

I reckon that if some company / government department / etc. allows your information - which you have given them in good faith - to get where it shouldn't, then it's their insurance that should indemnify you against any unfortunate consequences. It's their error. Why should you have to pay for it? As for Clarkson ...

Yep, Mogling's right ... and so is Para Handy! "Defensive" is the only way. Good luck, Khitajrah. Pleepsie, it can be done - if you've got a big engine and an understanding (or knackered!) clutch. If your clutch isn't knackered, just practice this maneouvre and it soon will be ...

We don't celebrate it quite so enthusiastically doon sooth, but HAPPY NEW YEAR - to all Shetlinkers - And to all non-Shetlinkers. I'll be thinking of you all at midnight ... if I'm still capable of thought by then

Yes, Benazir was one of the brighter lights in subcontinental politics, if perhaps rather too Western-oriented for a lot of her countrymen - probably the reason which will be given by whichever band of swivel-eyed ranters steps up to claim "responsibility". It was extraordinarily brave of her to return to fight this election, and she, and Pakistan, deserved better than this. May Allah rest her soul.

Hadn't seen this thread! Turns out I'm "Crusty Pottybrains" Hi, cousin!

|- - - - - - - - - - A Phonetic Alphabet - - - - - - - - - -| For those who do not really wish to communicate. A - arrear B - beer C - clear D - diarrhoea E - ear F - fear G - gear H - hear I - insincere J - jeer K - kier * L - leer M - mishear N - near O - otorrhoea * P - pioneer Q - queer R - rear S - sincere T - tear U - unclear V - veer W - weir X - xerosere * Y - year z - Zaire * Kier: A brewing or bleaching vat * Otorrhoea: A discharge from the ear * Xerocere: A succession of plants acting to increase soil depth