Take Holland - they have instituted a tobacco ban on restaurants and cafes. Big deal, you say. Everybody is doing that. Yeah, but does everybody allow you to smoke weed in those same restaurants and cafes? Well, Holland does!
Smoking tobacco in restaurants and cafes across Holland is now illegal, but customers are still allowed to light up pure cannabis cigarettes. Dutch coffee shop owners claim the law, which has effectively put a stop to smoking the milder varieties of cannabis cigarette, threatens to put hundreds of them out of business.
Mark Jacobsen, chairman of the BCD, a nationwide association of coffee shop owners, said proper implementation of it would require inspectors to check each cannabis joint for tobacco content. “It’s absurd. In other countries they look to see whether you have marijuana in your cigarette, here they’ll look to see if you’ve got cigarette in your marijuana.”
Research shows that the majority of coffee shop patrons prefer less-potent joints in which cannabis is mixed with tobacco, and only 18 per cent favor the pure cannabis alternative. Some cafes have said they will get round the problem by producing more pure cannabis brownies or “space cakes”, while others have built smoking chambers within their premises which are off-limits to staff. But a catering industry spokesman said 1,600 coffee shops across the country have been put up for sale because their owners were convinced their businesses were doomed.
The Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority, which is responsible for enforcing the ban, said it had trained around 200 inspectors: “They can tell the difference between a mix or a pure joint from its smell and appearance.” The Dutch health minister, Ab Klink, said he hoped the law would help to rid the country of cannabis-induced idleness. “Consumers who spend the whole day hanging out in coffee shops will find other things to do,” he said.
Dutch coffee shops are licensed to sell small quantities of cannabis to adults over 18.
Earlier this week, my optimism about the infrastructure situation in India took a severe beating as I struggled to get to a meeting in downtown Mumbai crawling through what seemed like an endless chaos of traffic and road construction….what really got me was not the 1hr 40min drive - I was far luckier than almost everyone else on that journey, travelling in comfort and not having to make this trip everyday - but the appalling loss of productivity and the drain on energy caused by this.
As I sat watching the stop-start-stop pattern around me, I could not but help thinking how these infrastructural bottlenecks were making the whole system terribly inefficient…roads and traffic are not the only problem, Mumbai is also facing a severe power shortage as I write this. I was also in Bangalore and New Delhi a few days back - and although both these cities have their share of infrastructure woes, I am afraid Mumbai’s traffic problem has snowballed over the last few years.
When I mentioned about this to some friends, the response I got was: “Its not so bad because everyone factors it in while planning their day; we know its bad”
Some light-to-moderate traffic in Mumbai this morning…
India’s auto market is growing fast, and drivers will soon be able to go faster, too. On Wednesday, the national government raised the speed limit on private cars to 100 kilometers an hour from 80 — roughly, to 60 miles an hour from 48. Commercial traffic and vehicles carrying eight or more passengers will be held to lower limits. The higher speed limits would not apply to city streets, but on the country’s growing highways.
Sales are booming in India, which could surpass China as the world’s fastest-growing market for new cars in the next five years. In one area, however, India already leads the world: traffic fatalities. India has recently recorded more than 90,000 traffic deaths a year, and some reports indicate an even higher figure:
“Nearly 1.05 lakh [105,000] people die in road accidents in India. It is the highest in the world,” Brahm Dutt, secretary of the department of road transport and highways said at the end of a workshop last Saturday to firm up the government’s first policy on road safety. Dutt said deaths on Indian roads now exceed casualties on Chinese roads.
It may be an Indian consumer’s dream - cheap cars for $A3,000-$A3,600 within reach of millions of people in the swelling middle class. But it could also prove to be a traffic and environmental disaster.
In New Delhi alone, more than 200,000 vehicles are added to its streets every year, where they battle with cows, rickshaws and motorbikes for space.
Some light-to-moderate traffic in New Delhi this morning…
Delhi is an overwhelming experience. It is as if all of humanity has been squeezed into one city. The streets groan under the weight of people. The air is filled with deafening noise and sumptuous smells. Switch on the television and it is the same. Between channels blasting out voluptuous Bollywood love stories and pop videos, an endless stream of news channels dissect the latest political scandals, and debauched lifestyles of the rich and famous. Coming from China it is an almost shocking experience.
I am positive that the word clusterfuck was created here by some Westerner riding in a taxi around Delhi. During my month long stay in India, I heard someone say, “Traffic in India is like a functioning anarchy”. I thought that it was a perfect way to describe the orderly craziness! Anything with a wheel is considered a drivable vehicle out on the public streets. Bikes, scooters, tractors, wagons, wheel barrels and rickshaws are all road-worthy vehicles. I have collected some of the common rules, or lack of rules, about driving and transportation in India. My best advice to you is NEVER, and I mean NEVER try to drive yourself in India. It’s suicide. Westerners have no idea of Third World driving, so don’t even try. The rules are that there are no rules.
If there are lines painted on the road for three lanes, that means there is room for five lanes of traffic, leaving about one inch of space between cars, side by side, hurtling down the road. The equation is simple. Double the number of lanes painted on the road (including the shoulder of course!), then subtract one. Granted, this depends on the presence of bikes, auto rickshaws, or cars, but on average, the equation is correct. Remember, in India there is no such thing as personal space, not even on the road.
Stop lights are optional. When coming upon a red light, simply lay on the horn as you speed through the intersection. People run red lights because to sit and actually wait for a red light is excruciating. Stop lights are looonnngggg. I once noticed a Walk /Don’t Walk sign with a little countdown display. I’ve seen these in other countries. In Delhi I saw a countdown sign starting at 200. I am not joking.
Having lost her job and her three-bedroom house, Darlene Knoll has joined the legions of downwardly mobile who are four wheels away from homelessness. She is living out of her shabby 1978 RV, and every night she has to look for a place to park where she won’t get hassled by the cops or insulted by residents. “I’m not a piece of trash,” the former home health-care aide said as she stroked one of five dogs in her cramped quarters parked in the waterfront community of Marina del Rey.
Amid the foreclosure crisis and the shaky economy, some California cities are seeing an increase in the number of people living out of their cars, vans or RVs. Acting on complaints from homeowners, the Los Angeles City Council got tough earlier this year by forbidding nearly all overnight parking in residential neighborhoods such as South Brentwood. But some people are just crowding into other parts of the city, including the seaside community of Venice, where dozens of rusty, dilapidated campers can be seen lined up outside neat single-family homes. The stench of urine emanates from a few of the vehicles, and some residents say they have seen human waste left behind.
In Los Angeles, as in many other cities, it is illegal to live in vehicles on public streets. But the law is not easy to enforce. Police have to enter a vehicle to find signs that people are living there, such as cooking or sleeping, and occupants often refuse to answer when cops knock. An easier way is to restrict overnight parking. In L.A., a first offense carries a $50 fine, and subsequent violations can cost as much as $100.
Los Angeles is the nation’s homelessness capital, with an estimated 73,000 people on the streets. A survey of 3,230 homeless people last year in Los Angeles County found nearly 7 percent living in vehicles, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.
Knoll said she can barely afford to drive around with the rising price of gasoline eating away at the $950 monthly disability check she receives because of mental illness. She said she is also sick of police waking her up in the wee hours by pounding on her vehicle with their nightsticks, and she is tired of fighting with residents who call her “lowlife scum” and hurl other insults. “We need somewhere we can have a safe haven, where we won’t be harassed,” Knoll said as the wind from a passing car rocked her RV. “I never thought I’d be living like this, but I’m stuck. This is it for me.”
OddCulture thinks Darlene Knoll should drive that RV right out of California and into a state where the cost of living is cheaper. Also, give away 4 dogs. Finally, blame Ronald Reagan for closing down the asylums.
A dwarf charged with prostituting an underage runaway will appear in Kings County, N.Y. Supreme Court on Monday. Jacqueline Green, a.k.a. ‘Shorty,’ due to her 3 foot 9 inch height, is charged with promoting prostitution and child endangerment for allegedly pimping a 15-year-old that ran away from a troubled home.
According to published reports, Green is accused of using her Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment as a sex pad for clients who paid $250 per half-hour for intercourse, and $100 per half-hour of oral sex. Clients were found using Craigslist.
Green, 26, pleaded not guilty to all charges. The teenage girl was returned to her family. It is not clear how the two met. Neighbors at Green’s Brooklyn housing project were not surprised by the arrest, where she was described as a “hustler,” and a “player.” Reginald Forden told the Post “I didn’t know she was a pimp, but I’m not surprised.”
Green’s Bedford-Stuyvesant sex-pad apartment is located at 555 Quincy St. Shrimp Pimp On Da Block!
We can’t help but think of Debbie Lee Carrington from Total Recall:
“If you need any help with this one, give me a holler!”
A monument to the enema has been unveiled at a spa in the southern Russian city of Zheleznovodsk. The bronze syringe bulb, which weighs 800 pounds and is held by three angels, was unveiled at the Mashuk-Akva Term spa on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008.
monument to enemas at Mashuk Akva-Term Sanatorium in Zheleznovodsk
“There is no kitsch or obscenity, it is a successful work of art,” Alexander Kharchenko told The Associated Press. “An enema is almost a symbol of our region.” The Caucasus Mountains region is known for dozens of spas where enemas with water from mineral springs are routinely administered to treat digestive and other complaints.
The monument cost $42,000. A banner declared: “Let’s beat constipation and sloppiness with enemas” — an allusion to a line from “The Twelve Chairs,” a famous Soviet film comedy.
Sculptor Svetlana Avakina said she modeled the monument’s angels on those by Italian Renaissance painter Alessandro Botticelli. “This device is eternal, it will never change,” she told the AP.
People drink wine at the unveiling ceremony in the village of Inozemtsevo
This region is also known as Kavkazskie Mineralnye Vody (Caucasus Mineral Water).
a male patient undergoing oxygen therapy
By the way, be careful with your Russian enemas! Patients at another sanatorium in the Stavropol region needed medical treatment in January after a nurse administered enemas using hydrogen peroxide instead of water. Seventeen patients were hospitalized with burns to the intestinal tract.
