March 9, 2000
MAYDAY2K
Preparations are underway for May 1, 2000, International
Day of Action Against the Capitalist System. Locally, the BC Day of
Action will be April 29, with the March Against Corporate Rule
leaving at 12 noon from the south end of the Burrard St. Bridge and
ending at the Vancouver Sun and Province offices at Granville
Plaza. For more info on "MayDay2K" hit www.indymedia.org.
YEAH, I REMEMBER BUYING HIS VOTE
Last week's episode of This Hour
Has 22 Minutessaw Rick Mercer badgering U.S. Presidential
candidate George W. Bush. Mercer told him that Canadian Prime
Minister Jean "Poutine" was endorsing Bush for the Republican
leadership race. Bush said he was "honoured" to have Poutine's
support.
MORE BRILLIANT BUSH-ISMS
A Meanwhile, at an
elementary school in Nashua, N.H., which was celebrating
"Perserverance Month", Bush told students, "I appreciate
preservation. This is what you do when you run for President.
You've got to preserve." At another campaign stop, he followed this
up with his thoughts on growing up during the cold war (it's only
March, but I have a feeling this will be quote of the year): "When
I was coming up, it was a dangerous world and you knew exactly who
'they' were. It was us versus them and it was clear who them was.
Today we are not so sure who the 'they' are, but we know they're
there." (Reuters)
HOW DO THEY HOLD THE JOINT BETWEEN THEIR
LITTLE CLAWS?
Dr. Ismael Galve-Roperh and his team at Complutense
University in Madrid have been testing the effect of
tetrahydrocannibinol (THC, the psychoactive ingredient in
marijuana) on glioma (a type of brain tumour) in rats. The tumour
was eliminated in a third of the rats, and another third lived an
extra six weeks. (Sightings)
AT LEAST YOU WON'T DIE FROM A
BRAIN TUMOUR
Researchers at Harvard claim that the risk of having
a heart attack is five times higher an hour after smoking
marijuana. That's approximately twice as dangerous as having sex or
getting into a heated argument, they say, but not nearly as
dangerous as doing cocaine, which increases your chance of having a
heart attack 25-fold. Marijuana may not even be as dangerous as
going for a jog may be for a sedentary person, the researchers
added. (Sightings)
WHO NEEDS AN ALIBI?
When 88-year-old Deo
Dubbs was arrested for drug possession, he readily admitted guilt.
"I really have nothing else to do," he told police, "I get lonely
and get tired of watching the tube." (UPI)
ASK THEM IF
THEY'RE CONSPIRING AGAINST US
Bill Northern, a retired Virginia
businessman, has discovered a new vocation: animal communicator.
His business is doing very well, as he lets animal owners know what
their pets are thinking. "I talk mostly to horses because horse
owners are the most interested in what their animals are thinking,"
he says. "Once, I talked to some fish in a fishpond, but there's
not a lot going on in a fish's mind. Food, food, food, that's about
it." He's got plenty more wisdom of that nature, like on the
difference between dogs and cats: "If you're late bringing their
food...dogs think 'What did I do wrong to deserve this late
meal'...cats will think, 'dinner's late, I better go kill
something!'" (Honolulu Star-Bulletin)
FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH
There's no science to back this up, but
according to Katrina Scott, Assistant Director of Sports Marketing
at the University of Maryland, anti-perspirants may be a leading
cause of breast cancer in women. In a letter to Nexus,she writes:
"Anti-perspirant...prevents you from perspiring, thereby
prohibiting the body from purging toxins from below the armpits.
These toxins do not just magically disappear. Instead, the body
deposits them in the lymph nodes below the arms, since it cannot
sweat them out...Nearly all breast cancer tumours occur in the
upper outside quadrant of the breast area. this is precisely where
the lymph nodes are located...men are less likely...to develop
breast cancer...because most of the anti-perspirant product is
caught in the hair and is not directly applied to the skin...Women
who apply anti-perspirant right after shaving increase the risk
further, because shaving causes almost imperceptible nicks in the
skin which give the chemicals entrance into the body from the
armpit area."
DON'T DRINK THE WATER
The CBS news program 60
Minutesrecently reported on the gasoline additive MTBE (methyl
tertiary butyl ether) in our drinking water. MTBE is a
cancer-causing agent that has been added to gasoline since 1990 in
order to make gas burn cleaner and help protect air quality.
Unfortunately, the chemical regularly seeps from leaky underground
storage tanks into groundwater, thereby polluting a large
percentage of North America's drinking water.
HOW TO DRAW
SATAN
An elementary school in Las Vegas is considering pulling a
book of the shelves of its libraries after complaints from the Rev.
Russ Daines, pastor of the El Camino Southern Baptist Church. The
book, Draw 50 Monsters, teaches students to draw caricatures of the
devil, including the characters "B.L. Zeebub" and "Lewis E. Furr."
(Las Vegas Sun)
VIRGIN FOR SALE
An internet prankster from
Hungary posted a naked picture of a young girl on his website,
stating that she was willing to lose her virginity for a "fair sum
of money." The man then posted the names, phone numbers, e-mail
addresses and letters of the 13 highest bidders. "Those who didn't
realize that it was a joke should suffer," he said. (Reuters)
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Copyright 2000 by Andreas Ohrt
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Email:aohrt@hotmail.com
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