Oakwilt

To this day I tell people that Carl Sagan maintained a quality high every single day since his undergraduate days at college. He never was "straight" all throughout his career. His wife is still the executive director at NORML, carrying on his legacy of brilliance. Now a mindset is the important thing to consider when judging one's reaction to 'the weed'. A redneck fool will only be more of a redneck fool while high.

...or just be successfull with the trees you work on. In America, image is a tired method that people are starting to see for what it's worth: higher costs and lower skills. Suspect signs of overcharging: lack of professional experience, business models from textbooks and sales seminars, useless scientific instruments and most of all the sign of a scam - a labcoat and clipboard recently freshly laundered and starched.

Our national ID programme begins on May 11th over here - and most Americans support it (afterall, we did let Bush lead us). Just follow our lead (although by statistic your nation is ahead of us in luxury, safety, and services) and submit joyfully, soon you too will be WalMart associates with super-sized drinks for lunch and think Canada is South of Spain somewhere.

Gun ownership, along with other potentially deadly rights as driving a vehicle, vending foodstuffs to the public, flying an aircraft or soldiering in today's disfunctional armed forces used to be partially controlled by common sense and reliable responsibilities, fortified by oversight and simple laws. Look at us now. And I tend to illustrate the US of A as being a wonderfully accurate depiction of abused rights-run-amok. More guns means less criminal behavior? No statistic proves it, quite the opposite. As far as responsible nation and thus culture, again...look at us now. On one hand we have control advocates wishing all arms be recalled (which would seriously impair my ability to eat here in Texas), on the other, we have lobbying efforts to force gun ownership on everyone and allow the public to shoot to kill at will, even if the percieved perpetrator of alleged crime is unarmed (the great State of Florida {George Bush's brother Jeb was governor and got this thru}) As it stands currently, even as an avid gun owner, I also would restrict and maybe eliminate gun ownership here given the state of minds of most Americans now (Iraq being a good example of our wonderful intentions for 'democracy'). Half of our population doesn't know where Canada is, and the other half thinks Jesus made dinosaurs. The remaining few, if any, believe we're saving the world from terror and it's okay to kidnap and torture citizens if they don't worship the God we think talks to our president daily. If we ever get back to small businesses succeeding in providing goods and services honestly, jobs that mean and pay something to live on, stopping the poisoning of our own neighborhoods and nations and quit lying about it, electing greedy lying self-serving oil executives to powerful offices and show some basic respect for others who are different instead of the idiotic nationalism, the salutes to the Reich, the Homeland racist rants, the religious fanaticism and rich filthy scum making trillions while grandmother starves, I don't want guns in the hands of people who salute a dream and false promise instead of fairness and compassion unless it's to unite and revolt to change the systems we have no choice but to rely on now - and they ain't working. Guns are okay, as long as they're used to revolt against corruption and occassionally bag that deer that was considerate enough to help feed my family. And an airgun is apprpriate to train a son or daughter to responsibly know what, where and when to shoot. I don't trust us anymore to do that.

Here in America, attempts at being "diplomatic" and polite in using, say, Robert's Rules of Order or established processes of redress has obviously gained nothing in changing the course of a corrupt government. Our elections hold some historical promise, but alas, the corporate domineers are faster on their feet and quicker with their bucks than the general population which has become dumber and fatter as the super-size burgers and Britney Spear's gain favor as the most important news we hear and believe. I truely think we want to be stupid, as the quickest way from point A to point B is to cheat and our influencial leaders have shown that it alone makes for powerful victories and endless booty. The combined intelligence of our mass of citizenry makes it look almost like keeping weapons OUT of their hands isn't such a bad idea anyway. So on the topic of those who would take more of our dwindling remaining rights away - and also their brain-dead supporters - it's accurate and permissive to label them as "feral scum", at the least. Pack rats and bottom-feeding grass carp show more honor, as do the rank and file of the extremist fundamentalist wacked-out Islamic communities. Eliminate 'gray areas' and call a spade a spade, and a duck a duck.

All the pricks that supported him.

Divest before your nations are pulled down the drain along with ours. We're in need of a complete housecleaning here, no reason ya'll should also get dirty by handling our garbage. I recommend resuming fair trade with your former colonial holdings as our dollars will mean nothing to them anymore. As Bush said, "you're either with us or against us". I am, along with many who loved America, not one of "them". Bring it on.

Yup, that one.

Yup, that's my wife. 26 years, two grown kids, and proudly a very vocal and effective member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma - by far the nation and culture I support in place of the nation and culture that tried to kill all of them, our United States of America.

I agree with you RCO and Butch, as you know I've been tightly bound for many years. It's part of and fuel for the struggle. Genetic also, as my departed Dad spent the whole of his life trying to address and prosecute corruption, even some distant relatives on trial at Nuremburg, including some of my own grandfather's associates he worked with and believed in during's Hitler's reign. I'm both sensitive to criminal leadership and a victim of it as well, things don't change by ignoring the problems growing larger out there and I take a lot of my time to intervene the best way I know how. On the relaxation bit, and peaceful moments I can and do have, I apply the same depth to acheive them too. Believe me. Happy to be alive? An understatement times a hundred. Just should as you say, find them more often. It's hard to see repeats and more so in the last five years of politics, greed, war and lies from above. I truely thought the lessons of Vietnam would impact our world, but they've been selectively exploited to sound bites and false nationalism. Humans should be far beyond this broken tape all-over-again tragedy, the costs in lives, the planet, and the future is shameful. In the meantime I find solice and wonderful moments at that...I'm sorry I shotgunned the focus of this thread but seriousness is something I take with a shot of whiskey and a great deal of malice - it's kept me alive so far. Don't follow my example of involvement, fight to remain free of it if your experiences don't include soldering afar and blindly following orders and believing what's being shoved down our throats, I'm the residue of just such actions. Peace, as I find mine now and then and the deeper the anxiety and turmoil, the more blessed the lovely moments are, as I always maintain. Just wish they would be more often and available. My boat is my saving grace, my children, and my beer (among other vices). Thanks, Reed

Wouldn't be too good for the Pentagon, Veteran's Administration, or the National Institute's of Health though. If I talk about my cancer, I'd have to point out where it came from, how it was denied therapy, the mistakes made early-on, and the lossess of lives of friends who were where I was and exposed to the same compounds but were told "there's nothing to worry about, everything we're doing is safe". A bone to pick, a chip on my shoulder? Yes. America willingly maimed and killed thousands of it's own fighting men, at first refusing to admit error, admitting it finally when we proved it, then throwing useless and deadly treatments our way. My country 'tis to thee. The best way to deal, in my manner, is to help those innocents who also were exposed, seek out appropriate treatments for them, and to make certain this nation will come to terms with the lives it's more than willing to throw away, especially on wars and actions based on lies (once again). The most insulting thing I've come across the last four years are the voluntary campaigns here to "support the troops" in light of the political desires of many in America yet substance is negative and programs started, if any, end-up with monies enriching the pockets of those who sell the stickers. Recall the reports from Walter Reed Army Hospital, our national heritage-level facility to treat and care for those who bore the brunt of our decisions. It hasn't changed at all, we're too busy interested in the antics of one Britney Spears and which candidate for President will enforce Christian guidelines into our rapidy rotting Declaration of Independence. My survival is America's true mistake. I have a story and an attitude and whatever we do for foreign policy, I'll be there to make certain that we remember the true costs of the errors we willingly make, instead of being historically written down as "nobel and sincere", they indeed have been evil and contemptuous. For money and profits, at all and any costs, I'm one of America's native sons.

And oh yeah, I forgot. Native American traditional medicine was a large part of my therapies as well. My wife is a traditional Cherokee (you know her in England as Gayle Ross) who connected me to some healers here. This is medicine practiced, mostly herbal with spiritual administrations, that's all but died out here since America as we know it is based on the obliteration of the native peoples and their practices...only recently allowed to return but Western ideals also exploiting it to profit from, of course. Tocmal, if you're in need of some personal pointers I'd be glad to help you out.

I'm allergic to anesthesia and wouldn't survive a general. Meditation was necessary and local helped. If you even experienced having a sternum CRACKED open while coherent and alert, three times total, you'd appreciate lidocaine and Hindu mind exercises. The "american" part of the therapies was the initial year-long chemo protocols, standard and conventional. While it reduced the tumor loads it also mutated the cancer cells into a more virulent strain making a new diagnosis necessary and that brought the experimental transplant to me, thru a consortium of physicians working together - from heart specialists to nutritionists to radiation oncologists to geneticists. 14 to be exact and four of them Iraqi, huh right? The same people MB seems to want all bombed into oblivion (too bad they make better physicians than the Harvard exam-cheating greedy pill pushers from Boston and New York). 1993 I was diagnosed, '94 the transplant. Other than a head-on highway collision without a seat belt, I stay away from docs and more so....American hospitals. 40% of the deaths of people who die in hospitals here are caused by something other than what they came in to have fixed or treated, evidence enough that our system is broken. I'm what they hesitate to called "cured", as no cure is possible with NHL, only long-term remissions but I'm over the median survival rate by ten years and no cells have ever been found in my blood or marrow since. If I had to do it all over again, I would as it helped me see things and understand life and fairness better than most spoiled people with limited experiences, most of all the special gift we all have as humans, all of us not just white middle=class Americans.

Masterblaster, like his beloved national leaders (Bush and co.), is full of hogwash. I had a year of chemotherapy of methotrexate, Vincristine, Mitoxantrone and Bexxar for nonHodgkin's lymphoma, stage four. Then a bone marrow transplant, atologous, during which I was given a new heart donated by a teenager killed by a drunk driver. My survival was due to many factors, eating appropriately was one, spirit and soul, another, and having these therapies done by doctors other than American were principle along with a health care regimen not issued by standard American protocols. Sorry Butch, things are always more complicated than you choose to see them, but I forgive you, you're looking at the world through tainted vision.

The safest way to talk about guns is to not talk about guns, no matter if you have them or not.

Gold and other solid commodities are rising faster than crude oil, the U.S. Dollar's rapid and unstoppable decline sends some pretty powerful signals. Just glad I had the idea to finance my assets in foreign currencies instead of this "Let's roll" idiocy that's kept us busy - and bankrupt - since 9/11.

Born into an orchard family with strong military ties, used a grafting knife before my first teddy bear and a chainsaw as much as an automatic weapon. Treework is safer than the alternative and saving things instead of killing things makes more sense.

How many Brits think the problems started over here, in the U.S., with our war of terror, of drugs, for oil, and God?

She's the most expensive prostitute the right-wing's ever paid for, and I wouldn't have her if they paid me to do it.

....yeah, and "we're wining", right?

Don't know, but would like to congratulate Norway on this New Year's eve for becoming the wealthiest lifestyle nation on earth, just above Sweden. Hats off to countries who's idea's of foreign policy is humanitarian and trade fairly with all. It comes back not as suicide bombers or school kids opening fire on their peers, but as a life worth living.

Proud to say I have dual identities: Canadian and U.S. I more often use the northern version of who I am when abroad, it's likeable and I present a non-threatening version of a white male...less apt to open fire on children or steal valuable natural resources or undermine a working democracy!! MB's already in the NCIC, his chromosones as readily available as a chicken-soup recipe in Betty Crocker's Cookbook.

Proud to say I have dual identities: Canadian and U.S. I more often use the northern version of who I am when abroad, it's likeable and I present a non-threatening version of a white male...less apt to open fire on children or steal valuable natural resources!! MB's already in the NCIC, his chromosones as readily available as a chicken-soup recipe in Betty Crocker's Cookbook.

That too.

The linear lines of the masonry/stone monuments will make tree collar removal easy, provided said monuments can be moved out of the way for the work but the iron fence stays will have to be sacrificed. One simple option could be leaving a significant stump after removal, treating the xylem with a broadleaf herbicide to kill the roots and after a couple years, piece away the rotten remainders. Overall however, I like the tree there doing what it's suppossed to do. Here we embalm, place the bodies in airtight metal coffins, insert in reinforced concrete cripts, engrave a few lies alongside important dates on granite, and leave a permanent intrusive legacy reminding others that man has been designed by God to forever develop the earth into shopping malls and interstate highways and open pit copper mines that poison the potential for biological longevity and make wars for the sake of increased oil profits and religious rightiousness. Clearly in your case the tree has won (hands down) over anything man can mess-up - or it shows us that in a secular way that man can indeed rise again although not in the form and shape that the Pope tells us we will.