cannabisnews.com: Hippie-Hating and Baiting










  Hippie-Hating and Baiting

Posted by CN Staff on October 05, 2006 at 22:22:05 PT
By Paul Dougan 
Source: Colorado Springs Independent 

Colorado -- Possession of an ounce of marijuana by adults will be legal if Colorado's Amendment 44 wins. On one side are legalization activists fresh from a victory in Denver; on the other is the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, mobilizing Coloradoans to resist. The voters stand between in what may be the most important issue on this fall's ballot. Amendment 44 is about more than marijuana: It's about civil rights and America's future.
"Yeah, the '60s are over with," the man growls, "but they forgot to tell them that up in Boulder." Or, apparently, in a good portion of Colorado. Today, hippies aren't supposed to exist; yet, look around, and there they are, the majority of whom had yet to be born when the '60s ended. I'd estimate that nationally, hippies comprise about 10 percent of the population; in Colorado, that figure is probably higher. We tend to recite the cliché that hippies no longer exist because powerful forces in America want us to think just that. They consider the counterculture a menace to Western civilization, something with no rightful place in today's America. Well, particular drugs have always had ethnic identifications. And historically in America, if the powers-that-be wanted to persecute an ethnic group, they went after their drugs. America's first anti-drug laws, according to John Helmer's Drugs and Minority Oppression, targeted opium as a way of persecuting Chinese immigrants. In the 1930s, our first marijuana laws were imposed to harass Mexican-Americans; an Alamosa newspaper editor's pleas were made congressional testimony: "I wish I could show you what a small marijuana cigarette can do to one of our degenerate Spanish-speaking residents." Early cocaine laws were fueled by racist stereotypes of intoxicated black men raping white women. And today, marijuana laws are aimed primarily at the counterculture — we're filling our prisons with hippies. But hippies aren't criminals: they're a people criminalized as part of a drive to, as drug warrior and former Attorney General John Mitchell put it, "take the country so far to the right you won"t recognize it." So, it's not just hippies getting hurt; it's all of America. To the extent a society has an official pariah group, it tends to become ugly and repressive — could Hitler have come to power, for instance, without widespread and institutionalized anti-Semitism? For 40 years, America has treated hippie-Americans as illegitimate, second-class citizens. The results have been catastrophic: The Bill of Rights, particularly the Fourth Amendment, has been shredded. Often, our elections have been driven by hippie-hating, and they've been tainted by hippie-baiting (Newt Gingrich, for example, returned the GOP to Congressional power in 1996 largely by branding the Clintons "counterculture McGoverniks"). Neoconservatives blame hippies for everything from urban decay to abortion to our loss in Vietnam; when a minority is scapegoated, a nation turns from the true source of its problems and thus from solving them. A sober look at today's counterculture, by the way, shows not an overdosed junkie but a cultural dynamo. Its contributions range from the personal computer to a thriving natural-foods industry to the Muppets to winning a slew of U.S. medals in the 2006 Winter Olympics, among many others. We stereotype hippies as losers and parasites, but like all stereotypes, this accentuates the negative, eliminates the positive and forgets Mr. In-Between. What about star entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson? What about Dr. Andrew Weil, increasingly the nation's most trusted source on health and healing? Coloradoans will hear manipulative appeals about "protecting our children from drugs," but it's alcohol that's killing our kids; pot-is-dangerous arguments are pretexts for repression. No, not all hippies are pot smokers, and not all pot smokers are countercultural, but essentially, Amendment 44 is part of a struggle by a relatively new ethnicity, the counterculture, for social equality. Only the most bigoted still doubt the African-American Civil Rights Movement made America a better place; ultimately, civil rights movements help societies. As part of a movement to secure the civil rights of hippie-Americans, Amendment 44 is something Colorado and this nation needs. Paul Dougan lives in Broomfield. To learn more about ethnic-hippies theory or to contact him, go to: http://www.HappilyHippie.com/Source: Colorado Springs Independent (CO)Author: Paul DouganPublished: October 5, 2006Copyright: 2006 Colorado Springs IndependentContact: letters csindy.comWebsite: http://www.csindy.comRelated Articles & Web Sites:Safer Choicehttp://www.saferchoice.org/Safer Coloradohttp://www.safercolorado.org/Expert Says Law Would Increase Marijuana Usehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread22228.shtmlAdults Should Be Allowed To Choosehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread22225.shtml

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Comment #34 posted by whig on October 08, 2006 at 11:21:26 PT
Danimalman
I'd be a hippie from the sixties but I wasn't born yet.
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Comment #33 posted by danimalman on October 08, 2006 at 11:15:33 PT:
Hippies?
Proud to be a hippie from the sixties!And anyone don't like it can kiss my cannabis-dosed ass!Oh, sorry, was I sposed to say "peace and love?"Gettin a little cranky as I get older I guess, LOL!
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Comment #32 posted by whig on October 07, 2006 at 18:45:41 PT
BGreen
Smoke 'em if you got 'em, and look again at the blog.
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Comment #31 posted by whig on October 07, 2006 at 18:44:46 PT
BGreen
The government is being investigated.
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Comment #30 posted by BGreen on October 07, 2006 at 18:42:30 PT
I'm sorry, whig, I guess I don't understand
I'm not sure what you mean.I just know that Clarence Thomas has already given carte blanche approval for allowing torturous behavior towards prisoners, so he's not going to stop this administration from abandoning the US Constitution nor the Geneva Convention's rules for the treatment of prisoners.The Reverend Bud Green
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Comment #29 posted by whig on October 07, 2006 at 18:13:15 PT
BGreen
If you have information to bring forward about Clarence Thomas which may be relevant to the investigation, please feel free to help. Or in any other way.
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Comment #28 posted by whig on October 07, 2006 at 18:11:37 PT
BGreen
Clarence Thomas does not have jurisdiction at this time.
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Comment #27 posted by whig on October 07, 2006 at 18:10:40 PT
BGreen
at this time
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Comment #26 posted by BGreen on October 07, 2006 at 18:10:09 PT
Maybe not
I really don't know what was going on. I just read your blog page and the whole Clarence Thomas thing came to mind.You can see how the views of Clarence Thomas almost certainly mean a complete acceptance of torture by george w. bush.If we don't address certain issues like I mentioned, then I don't think we have any other option but complete submission.The Reverend Bud Green
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Comment #25 posted by whig on October 07, 2006 at 17:57:16 PT
BGreen
As I said, my remit does not extend to amendment of the constitution.
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Comment #24 posted by BGreen on October 07, 2006 at 17:52:49 PT
May I suggest a change in wording, whig?
"Cruel and unusual punishment" needs to be changed to "cruel and/or unusual punishment."This change in wording needs to happen thanks to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.Thomas concluded: "A use of force that causes only insignificant harm to a prisoner may be immoral, it may be torturous, it may be criminal, it may even be remediable under other provisions of the federal Constitution, but it is not 'cruel and unusual punishment.'"http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-dayan30sep30,0,5723483.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrailThomas, in another case, focused on the word "and," writing that the punishment was cruel but it wasn't unusual, so therefore wasn't prohibited by the Constitution.Unfortunately, based on Thomas' view of the Constitution, if we allow something to go on long enough to bring it to the Supreme Court, it has become so ingrained in our society that it could never be labeled as "unusual."The Reverend Bud Green
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Comment #23 posted by whig on October 07, 2006 at 17:10:49 PT
Telarus
Watch me.http://cannablog.wordpress.com/2006/10/07/signing-statement/
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Comment #22 posted by telarus on October 07, 2006 at 16:38:57 PT
Whig
whig -> Somehow, I knew that you'd be the one to pick up on that. Gregory Hill (Malaclypse the Younger, Polyfather of Virginity in Gold*), and Kerry Thornley (Omar Kahayyam Ravenhurst, and involved with the JFK trail...he knew Oswald in the Air Force) knew quite well the clarity that sacramental cannabis can bring. They sprinkled references throughout their work, the Principia Discordia, along with various illuminations that they attempted to pin to paper. Their call for creativity, humor, and light hearted brotherhood, as opposed to "conversion by the sword**" really drew me to Discordianism. Of course, once you "buy into it", the Principia hands you the Sword of the 5th Commandment ("A Discordian is prohibited in believing what he/she reads.") which forces you to do some mental hedge trimming, and always carefully prod at any new information that come your way.*Acapulco Gold, usually.**The Sword suit in the Tarot represents Air, Reason, Logic, Learning, and the use of the left-brain 3rd circuit time-binding, and information transmitting techniques.
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Comment #21 posted by FoM on October 06, 2006 at 22:08:12 PT
afterburner
I agree.
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Comment #20 posted by afterburner on October 06, 2006 at 22:01:12 PT
FoM
IMO, we have to build the future we want. Hippies are also known for living "as if." The more the dinosaurs of the carbon economy try to control everything, the more they encourage the manifestation of their replacement, the sustainable economy, Spaceship Earth (R. Buckminster Fuller), Global Village (Marshall McLuhan). "It's written in the wind It's everywhere I go" 
--Love is all Around Song Lyrics on Allspirit
http://www.allspirit.co.uk/love.html
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Comment #19 posted by FoM on October 06, 2006 at 21:45:14 PT

afterburner
That news article really is upsetting. Sometimes when I think of the future of America I don't see much because the people won't have the jobs because they will be in other countries. It's like corporations are running like an out of control locomotive. They have to get there but where is there and what does it mean if there is just being the richest company on the earth? I don't know. I'm sorry about how we push you around.
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Comment #18 posted by afterburner on October 06, 2006 at 21:37:30 PT

FoM #10
TRAVELLING ON THE THE ROAD TO NOWHERE. October 5-11, 2006. View Magazine 
http://www.viewmag.com/viewstory.php?storyid=4520
Intro: {
Of the many underreported stories in the corporate media, the 
plan to undermine Canadian sovereignty by establishing a North 
American Union has probably captured the interest (and ire) of 
the widest swath of groups across the political spectrum in both 
Canada and the US. For more than two decades, globalists in 
Canada and the US have been hammering out transnational trade 
plans and security affiliations that would effectively eliminate 
whatever forms of democracy and national sovereignty remain in 
Canada, the US, and Mexico. The hope rests on building a 
continent–wide trading block whose “deep integration” with the 
interests of American corporatism would make the notion of 
“Canadian sovereignty” akin to the concept of “realism” in “reality 
TV.” ...
}
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Comment #17 posted by Christen-Mitchell on October 06, 2006 at 20:27:28 PT:

B i g o t r y
I've dealt with the bigotry of being a long-haired pot-smoker for forty years. Bigotry, that's one part hatred with an equal part of ignorance.It has been nice the last 15-20 years to fall to second on the most hated list to followers of Islam, for whom I have the highest respect overall. Being an enemy of the people, my governments enemies are not my enemies.This year it has been a treat to fall to fourth after illegals and oil companys.
Hemptopia - Our Greener Future
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Comment #16 posted by whig on October 06, 2006 at 14:59:46 PT

Telarus
Of course it works in reverse, too. Impose chaos/destruction and order will arise to constrain it and build.This can work as a second-order process, where the imposition of false order results in true chaos/destruction -- and then a new order to replace the old.This is called revolution.
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Comment #15 posted by telarus on October 06, 2006 at 14:40:37 PT:

Law of Eristic Escalation
*Applauds wildly   Article*->Kaptinemo: Right on.->Max Flowers: Karma. Absolutely. The Boy King and his court have acculmulated _alot_ of karma. Karma really acts just like momentum. The eastern cabals (taoist/jainist/buddhist/hindu), formulated that just as picking up a rock and throwing it would add momentum to it in the SPACE dimension. Thus they posited that Karma(sanskrit: lit. "Action" mental or physical)
would have the same type of momentum in the TIME dimension. At a basic level, I even think that they found no difference to the two, as you generate Karma from throwing the rock, it has it's base in the karma of the situation in which the rock was thrown, and flows into the Karma of whatever you hit with the rock.Now that this administration is carrying a few binary star systems worth of Momentum.......I wonder which way it will fall?Or, to put it another way:The Law of Eristic Escalation states: Imposition of Order = Escalation of ChaosThis Law (originally found in the Honest Book of the Truth, Gospel According to Fred, 1:6) pertains to any arbitrary or coercive imposition of order.Fenderson's Amendment adds that the tighter the order in question is maintained, the longer the consequent chaos takes to escalate, BUT the more it does when it does! [The Thudthwacker Addendum to Fenderson's Amendment goes on to prove that the presence of a nonlinear term which crops up in Fenderson's calculations serves to cause the escalation of chaos to be completely unpredictable in terms of the original imposition of order -- Ed.]Armed with the Law of Eristic Escalation and Fenderson's Amendment [And Thudthwacker's Addendum -- Ed.] any imbecile -- not just a sociologist -- can understand politics.So I will translate them into the lingua franca of the Western world: An imposition of order creates a chaos deficit, which compounds until it is paid off (by enduring all the outstanding chaos).Of course, Eris thinks all chaos is outstanding. But we mortals find too much of a good thing a little overwhelming. Thus we cringe when we encounter an anerism -- a pronouncement, that is, which is innocent of the Law of Eristic Escalation.If you hear that outlawing prostitution will eradicate rape, you are listening to an anerism -- a manifestation of the Aneristic Delusion. (If you read The Sacred Chao -- instead of skipping over it in the recommended way -- you will comprehend the anamysticmetaphysics of aneristics.)An anerism nearly always enters the world through the mouth of a politician -- but it can come by way of any authority figure such as a minister or a teacher or a parent or a boss or Ronald McDonald.
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Comment #14 posted by Max Flowers on October 06, 2006 at 11:51:43 PT

Re: #11
They're going to find out that there's another reality that they hadn't counted on, and it's sometimes referred to as "karma", the natural law that provides similar backlash for negative deeds and actions (it works on positive deeds as well, but that's not so relevant here). They're going to find that the "empire" they've created will be overwhelmed by the negative energy that they have put out to the country and the world, as it comes back on them in a massive loop. A "karmic boomerang" if you will. It's already begun, in fact.
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Comment #13 posted by observer on October 06, 2006 at 11:20:38 PT

Hippie-Hating
Hippie-Hating and Baitingsee: Propaganda theme #1: The Drug is Associated With a Hated Subgroup of the Society or a Foreign Enemyhttp://drugpolicycentral.com/bot/pg/propaganda/theme1.htm#1

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Comment #12 posted by FoM on October 06, 2006 at 11:09:58 PT

kaptinemo
I really do mind the way we are headed. 
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Comment #11 posted by kaptinemo on October 06, 2006 at 10:37:40 PT:

Well, FoM, they purportedly said as much
From the Wikipedia entry for 'reality based community': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_based_communityThe source of the term is a quotation in an October 17, 2004, New York Times Magazine article by writer Ron Suskind, quoting an unnamed aide to George W. Bush:The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." (Emphasis mine -k.)The Straussians in the Bush Regime supposedly said they were an empire. They certainly have tried to act as unilaterally as you'd expect an empire to. But they've proven, as they have with everything else they've done, to be rank incompetents. Which is what usually happens when a nation succumbs to the siren song of empire-building; its' flaws and failures become glaringly apparent. The reach exceeds the grasp; go out on a limb, and you risk the branch breaking under you. And all of it predictable; a few minutes with a history text proves as much. But some people never learn those lessons, thinking in their pride and arrogance they will succeed at world conquest when all others have failed. And that's the kind of brains we have running the show here. 
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Comment #10 posted by FoM on October 06, 2006 at 09:58:25 PT

kaptinemo
It really is amazing how they have twisted what the counter culture has stood for. When a political party or a person tries to put me in a corner I come out fighting. I am very passive until I am backed in a corner and then it's best to get out of my way until I cool off. That's what Republicans are doing to me these days. They act so holy and want so many laws controlling us that I find it very hard to take. It's like they want to rule the world and with a dictatorship type government.
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Comment #9 posted by Hope on October 06, 2006 at 09:44:33 PT

Mitchell was a prophet?
"take the country so far to the right you won"t recognize it."
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Comment #8 posted by kaptinemo on October 06, 2006 at 09:37:22 PT:

My tuppence
This is something that has been at the heart of much of the anti-cannabis efforts for decades, but is rarely addressed as clearly as it has in this article.I've mentioned before the connection between a German sociopolitical philosopher named Leo Strauss and the present bunch running things in this government. Strauss, who was a closet totalitarian, hated the social ferment that the 1960's represented because it offended his Tuetonic sense of orderliness. To him, anything that smacked of disorder was indicative of the legitimate, natural order (authoritarianism by any other name) coming under attack by what he saw as rank lawlessness. Bad enough there were barbarians (Commies, Socialists, and anybody else) outside the gates; worse when they're inside. Needless to say, the Hippie Movement of the 1960's became the stereotypical caricature used to denote that failure to grant authority its' (by his and his later disciple's minds) due genuflections. So anything even remotely scenting (like cannabis) of that time of social experimentation must be scorned, castigate and impugned. Which is why, even today, you see bumperstickers and buttons being sold at right-wing sites saying such things as "Bet you'll vote next time, hippie!" or "Take that, hippie!"The presence of even the barest traces of a 'counterculture' is a rebuke to all the practitioners of Straussian authoritarianism. For it reminds people of a time when that authoritarianism did not dominate our politics, and dissent was more prevalent. Authoritarianism cannot stand competition in any form, even when a similar system is just as authoritarian (think Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia) as it is. But something like a counterculture, that challenges such deeply held beliefs as Strauss's followers adhere to, is deemed as even more dangerous than the barbarians outside the gates. That's why they have worked so hard to make words such as 'liberal' and hippie' epithets. 
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on October 06, 2006 at 07:33:25 PT

Sam Just a Point
I really believe that liberal hippie type people don't like to throw stones like the Republican and right leaning people do. It is contrary to peace, love and understanding. Two wrongs don't make a right. That is often looked at as a weakeness and to me it takes way more strength to refrain from hate. Look at how the Amish insist that some of the money being donated go to the family of the man who murdered their children. They weren't sure if they should take the money but then they said that they shouldn't deprive anyone from being a blessing by refusing the money. They are strong people with a good way of thinking. Peace and forgiveness is always better then being a hot head and making war. That takes character and substance.
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Comment #6 posted by Sam Adams on October 06, 2006 at 07:23:34 PT

great article
He covers ALL the bases - writing about the true reasons for our drug laws - scapegoating and bigotry.But he also mentions that MJ laws with the purpose of persecuting hippies are doubly stupid, because most pot-smokers aren't hippies at all (Al Gore has got to be as far from a hippie as you can possibly be, he married the Church Lady for crying out loud)For me, it's increaingly hard to face my identity as an American, knowing that among our peers, we are the hateful, ignorant, drunken redneck of nations. For instance, remember when that white guy from Oregon was caught with the Taliban? The right-wing establishment blamed his hippie San Francisco parents for creating a traitor, and all the other ills of American society. They sentenced him to 25 years in prison, even though he'd never fired a shot at an American.Now look at Timothy McVeigh and that DC sniper a few years ago who shot over a dozen innocent people. Both direct products of the US military. I didn't a single word from anyone in the "liberal" media or anywhere else blaming our millitaristic culture for the murders done by these two men. Not a single word. No one suggesting that we focus our priorities somewhere other than making weapons & war.
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Comment #5 posted by FoM on October 06, 2006 at 07:02:18 PT

Celaya
I am very defensive when anything is said about hippies. ( Just ask Sam LOL!) I am a hippie inside. All that means to me is I care about my land, animals and life. This year we finished putting new siding on our house and it is considered Green siding. We have put new interior doors in the house and they are made with re-forested lumber. That is a good thing. I don't think of Cheech and Chong types when I think of Hippies. I think of people who care about their surroundings. 
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Comment #4 posted by Celaya on October 06, 2006 at 06:49:54 PT

Great Truth
This is, undoubtedly, a large part of the motivation behind marijuana prohibition. An anti-drug brochure endorsed by Senator Hatch stated, "One of the symptoms of marijuana use is [horrors!] activism!"We can't have these dirty hippies thinking they can have a say in things. So..."The Rainbow People cannot go into town.
Love is too dangerous, brings golden castles down.
So make their sacrament a crime. They must be gone.
Close the cage and lock it. Now we've got that light put out."
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Comment #3 posted by potpal on October 06, 2006 at 05:41:09 PT

Bring it on home!
I like the confidence behind this post...
http://forums.pueblochieftain.com/showpost.php?p=3573&postcount=113 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippie 
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Comment #2 posted by global_warming on October 06, 2006 at 03:10:31 PT

add this one 
Medical Marijuana and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments by Anthony GregoryOn Tuesday, Drug Enforcement Administration agents swooped down upon the premier medical marijuana club in California’s Bay Area, targeting its dispensary and seven ancillary locations in San Francisco and Oakland. By destroying and confiscating property, seizing medical records, pummeling ATM machines with sledge hammers and jailing fifteen people, the federal agency hopes to teach a lesson, not just to medicinal pot users but to all Americans – this area, as all areas in the country, belongs to the federal government.http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=16550
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Comment #1 posted by whig on October 06, 2006 at 02:27:22 PT

Nice essay
Good one to read before going to bed, sweet dreams.
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