Further to yesterday’s rant, and yes the rage is still here because it never really goes away any more…
N2D posted about the Outlaws a few days back. Now Junican takes up the meme. If you buy from Man with a Van (I no longer do, pure leaf is far better) or grow, cure and smoke tobacco without paying the pennies of duty owed on a few plants, then you are an outlaw.
Why not? If you smoke or drink or are a few pounds over the British Standard Human definition, if you like salt on your chips or real butter on white-bread bacon sandwiches, you government hates you. The NHS hates you. The Puritans who seem to have the Cleggeron Coagulation as well as the Moribund Party by the short and curlies hate you. Why should you do as they say – and more to the point, why should you pay them to hate you?
The Freeman route taken by Captain Ranty and an increasing number of others is a hard road. It has been demonstrated over and over to be a true road but it is not an easy one by any means. It requires a hell of a lot of research and a pretty secure financial base to start from. Not something you can take on if you work long hours with few holidays and/or run your finances along the edge of the precipice.
There are smaller things the outlaws can do. N2D concentrates on one aspect – the Border Farce and the rules they are supposed to work to rather than making up their own laws on the fly.
Some of us are growing tobacco. In my case I have a small garden so can’t grow much. I have therefore drawn on my biological training to spend the last few years trying to breed a tobacco plant that will grow wild. The research continues. I left one plant to seed in the greenhouse and it has been there all winter, protected from the worst of the frosts but with seeds still in pods – not mollycoddled in the house over winter. The plant is of course dead (with no leaves, haha) and we shall see if the seeds it carries will germinate. The next step, if this step works, will be to leave one outside all winter. As a wild one would be.
At the moment, most of my outlaw activities are not yet illegal. Growing the plants is not illegal although I have several neighbours who still think it is. Breeding for hardiness is not yet illegal. The EU plan to control all seeds eventually, in order to placate their Monsterantos, and it will be illegal to keep any seeds from your own crops. You will have to buy new GM ones every year. What you buy and what you plant need not be the exact same thing. The gimboids who think they are in control have not thought of that.
For now, my plant breeding experiments are legal. The pressure is on. I have to get this growing wild before the Plant Police enforce the laws of the GovernMent. If I run late then I will have to hide them in the greenhouse – fortunately I chose the plastic variety with box-section plastic panels that don’t give a clear view of what’s inside. If you have a glass one, line it with bubble wrap. For – er – insulation.
Once I cure and shred a leaf I am an outlaw. I would owe Wastemonster roughly a fiver for what I have here, shredded and ready to go at any one time. It would cost them far more in petrol to send the Stasi round to collect it. So they aren’t likely to bother – nonetheless, I am an outlaw daily.
The plum wine is still untouched. I understand it should be left for a year in the demijohn before bottling and have been patient. Beer brewing has not started yet, I have much overtime at work due to the departure of Attractive Blonde Cleaner and no replacement as yet. Whisky is out of the question. I am not waiting eight years minimum for malts to mature. That one I will just have to bite the bullet and pay for – while I can.
Technically, homebrewers owe the Grumblement duty on what they brew. Nobody bothers to collect because the amount is so tiny and unless you sell it, they don’t care. Once minimum pricing gets under way and starts to escalate then it will be worth their while coming round to sniff your plastic buckets and demijohns.
It is not illegal to eschew my qualifications and work for the Secret Ninja Cleaners on just-over minimum wage, rather than go back to 24/7 and higher rate tax. Not yet. So I can still win that small victory. Okay, I cannot afford an iPhone or an iPad but a) I don’t need those things and b) Apple declared their warranty invalid for smokers in case a technician exploded while fixing a smoker’s faulty device. I don’t need money to buy things from companies who hate me.
Also… I am not keen to talk on phones and have no idea what these little tablet computer things are for. So I do not need the Apple corporation which is good, because they don’t want my custom. Ever.
I cannot and will not lead a revolution. I cannot and don’t want to control the path of the human race. Live your own life. You only have one. When it’s gone, it’s gone.
All I want, all I ever wanted, was to be left alone to live my own life. It’s what most sensible people wanted only a couple of decades ago. It seems all the sensible ones died out or emigrated. All we have left are the lifeless ones, the ones who depend on living other people’s lives for them.
The only way to live your one and only life now is to live it outside the law. Inside, you are just a drone, not living but existing. A pawn in a pawn salad.
Ah well, I have to work both days this weekend but at least I am not phlegm-faced. No Smoky-Drinky again.I bought some Ben Bracken as a consolation prize,. Very nice too.
Since it’s the weekend for everyone but me (bah) I thought I’d finish with a song. It wasn’t meant to be an outlaw song, but it has probably become an anthem.
underdogs bite upwards 
“The Best, the best ” as just played on Planet Rock by Foo Fighters whilst I read this…made sense to me at the time !
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Hope that plum plonk is off the sediment. One word: autolysis.
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It’s been racked a few times. Still throwing a little sediment though, so not ready for bottles yet.
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Eau De Vie is subject to Duty around here, but they have a Travelling Still that parks up in all sort of weird places, not actually hidden from view, where you can buy it straight from The Still. I haven’t asked in case my supply dries up.
Incidentally, Eau de Vie is entirely undrinkable, unless your taste buds have been completely destroyed, which is more than possible with this stuff. But it’s fine in Christmas Cake. And if you are desperate.
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” thought I’d finish with a song. It wasn’t meant to be an outlaw song, but it has probably become an anthem.”
It was. At least for a exceedingly mixed up and fucked-in-the-head 17 year old, one wet ,cold, Saturday night in Hamburg in the mid 80s. I had just spent pretty much my last few pfennings on a little paper tray of fries(I managed to stop the vendor smothering them in mayo at the last moment!) and a bottle of Astra bier. Was wandering back to the squat having had the ‘Come Home!’ phone call from my worried parents (what with me being all alone in them funny foreign parts…and peoples.).
“My Life” was playing out of some pub and I found myself humming/singing along as I walked….dreeing my weird. By the time I reached the squat I had decided that this was MY LIFE.
And from that moment on I proceeded to live MY LIFE and of course fuck it and my liver up 7 ways to Sunday and back…my parents having been more right than wrong of course but you only see that when you have kids yourself.
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Anyone interesting has done that. And regrets are such a waste of time. It’s the things you didn’t do that might be regretted. But there is always time, if you get the chance.
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“Anyone interesting has done that. ”
I’m sure they have and probably the uninteresting ones have too. Mind you, that was the edited ‘pre-watershed’ version of why the song Leggy posted meant something to me personally. The unedited version involved not only my fucking up MY LIFE but a lot of other people’s as well…in all senses of the words..including murder (yes there are *some* things it isn’t a waste of time to regret).
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Sorry to hear that, and while in danger of sounding like a righteous Do Gooder, I do believe that all things can be forgiven.
And No, I don’t believe in God. At least not the God of the apparent majority.
It is done and not possible to go back. And it wouldn’t stop me liking you if you are a likeable person, or even possibly, if not.
I don’t Judge. That is my contribution for my past sins. There but for the grace of.
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I’m a follower of the Christ and at one church meeting we had a convicted murderer come talk to us (he spent over ten years in jail, but was still only about 30). He found Christ while in jail (don’t go making up your own jokes) and now goes around schools warning of the dangers of carrying knives and visits churches talking and singing.
He still thinks about the father that he killed every day, but he has that knowledge of forgiveness through Christ.
He said something very poignant and that was that the rest of us in the congregation shouldn’t compare ourselves with him and say, yes I know I’m a sinner, but at least I’m not as bad as him.
I spent a decade as a practising alcoholic, many of those years unable to work, so I know I’m not in a position to judge anyone. I only escaped that lifestyle with the grace of God.
This is one of his songs. Glasgow’s motto is “Let Glasgow Flourish”, but the full title of my home city’s motto is “Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of His word and the praising of His name”. Brings a tear to my eyes every time I hear it.
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Me, You, and The Blocked Dwarf have the same idea. The only difference is that you two have a name for your God while I just salute The Universe. That is my never ending miracle, and it will never let me down. I don’t have to make bargains with The Universe.
However, I have been known to gabble a few Hail Mary’s when the going got a bit rough. But it was just a mantra, although it did help to centre my mind at the time.
Thank you, God for making me a better person? That is the sin of pride. and the only real sin in my Bible. I battle with it every day in such small things, and it so often stops me short of critisising anything or anyone.
Glasgow belongs to me, by the way, as it belongs to anyone who loves it as much as I do. And No, I am not a Glaswegian. But I loved it when it was just a dirty old city.
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I salute the One who created the Universe! Glasgow these days! Half the phone calls I get seem to come from Glasgow call centres trying to sell me solar panels or new windows. I tell them they’re breaking the law (as I’m TPS registered) and usually an interesting discussion/argument takes place in which I can gather info to pass onto the ICO.
Pride is a major sin. I hear ‘christians’ saying it a lot. Nobody has anything to be proud of. I’ve been trying to play the guitar for over 25 years and I’m fairly rubbish and therefore ashamed, while others can pick it up and be brilliant almost immediately. They have a gift, while I don’t. People should have gratitude rather than pride, I think. As children we should have the chance to try every instrument to see which we take to. I could be a brilliant tuba player, but I’ll probably never know….
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“And No, I don’t believe in God. At least not the God of the apparent majority.”
Strangely enough I do. Waking up in a police cell with the world’s worst hangover to the world’s worst cup of coffee and the Polizeist informing me that I was looking at 3 or 4 counts of murder/attempted murder (depending on who survived and who died) actually made me realize that living MY LIFE , my way, was what had got me to where I was and that maybe following The God Of My Parents might have been a better option. So I prayed and offered Him a deal. HE kept his side of the bargain and a few hours later I walked out of the Judge’s Chambers on conditional bail (ie no money) to the sheer amazement/frustration of the armed police officers who had accompanied me there. Like I said, HE kept his side of the deal, I renegded somewhat but that’s “another story” as we say down Cafe Moustache.
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Yer, well, we all renege from time to time. No one is perfect. It’s the Human Condition of Free Will.
Far be it for me to tell you to forgive yourself when I have problems with this myself. But I am working on it.
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“when I have problems with this myself”
Well, without wanting to take this thread any further down the narrow path that leads to Offtopicsville, I should just mention that I subscribe to the belief of All-Redemption which in layman’s terms is something like : ” you’re saved, Sister, and are going to Heaven whether you fucking like it or not -so get over it.” Not that I believe in ‘Heaven’ in the normal Xian sense of the word of course. So anyways, the whole ‘self forgiveness’ thing is a bit different for me and not something that keeps me awake a night…unlike my prostate.
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ps…I’ve been known to recite the Hail Mary/Gegrüßet seist du, Maria in two languages in times of stress…so you’re not alone 😛
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I really must learn to do this in French. Something might crop up, knowing me.
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That made me laugh. Perhaps that’s it. Watch out for your prostate before you go around committing sins, I can relate to that.
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There is no god. Enjoy the life you have. Make merry, laugh and be good to those who deserve it. Love long and hard. I was going to put this comment after Stewart’s contribution, but thin comment syndrome intervened.
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“There is no god. Enjoy the life you have. Make merry, laugh and be good to those who deserve it. Love long and hard”-Flaxen
It might amuse you to learn that is almost a literal quote from the Bible!
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I’m going to look further at the Freeman route – when I have time (which is hard to find at the moment) – especially now that I have been completely disowned by the NHS. Full story still to be publicly disclosed, although I had a half page article in the local paper two weeks ago. (It’s not online, so no point Googling!) What am I paying tax for? Other people’s treatment, schooling and benefits, unnecessary wars, inflated salaries of public ‘servants’, EU membership to further enslave me and so on. My £1,550 a year council tax gets my bin emptied and the kerb oustide my house cleaned once in a while and a police presence should I ever require it and it’ll probably be me on the wrong side of the law after I’ve shot an intruder in the thigh with my pistol crossbow.
But I didn’t realise you had to have money behind you, so I’ll have to take the poor man’s route if i do it and live in a yurt and ride into town on a yak. But over the years I have invited fellow disenfranchised people to join me in a project to form a commune and recreate a sane society more like we used to have. Nobody was ever interested. I wasn’t talking about some hippie outfit where we sat around a fire smoking weed and wearing beads and saying ‘man’ at the end of every sentence. The idea was to create a ‘normal’ township (small hamlet even) outwith the madness of the rest of the country/world.
But it seems people would rather be part of this increasingly mad ‘normal’ society, watch their beloved television. Which reminds me, I invited quite a few ‘christians’ to join me in cancelling their TV licence nine years ago after the BBC refused to cancel the showing of the blasphemous “Jerry Springer, the Opera”. One excuse I remember from an OAP (I know that’s politically incorrect) was that he needs the telly to keep up with the news. News? Ha!
If there is ever a genuine revolution – peaceful or otherwise – things will need to get even worse. People’s spirits as well as their finances will have to be in total ruins so they feel that they have nothing more to lose. Then, organically, things will develop.
Like when I worked with the most annoying chap ever in a closed office environment. There was no getting away from him, unless either he or one of the rest of us had a toilet stop. He spent all day talking to himself and humming the same few tunes, but only the first bar or two. The EastEnders theme was his favourite, but he’d only go, “Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mmmmmm” then kept repeating it over and over, then start talking to himself again, “Now where was I? Oh yes, I’ll put these in the envelope. Now where did I put the label? I think I’ll get another coffee. Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mmmmmm…. Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mmmmmm…. Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mmmmmm.”
But the thing is. Nobody said anything about it, so I just assumed it was me he was driving mad and I must be oversensitive, so I said nothing. It took maybe two or three weeks of this insanity for somebody else to finally say something to the rest of us about this new bloke driving us mad and we all agreed.
Once we were all of one mind we tried to make it clear to him that his behaviour was unacceptable. One of my coworkers started throwing things at him when he started humming. Anything he could find on his desk, like pencil sharpeners. The boss wrote a huge sign, “No Humming Allowed” but nothing ever got through to him. He was a nice enough fella, but we made it clear that he leaves or we do (the boss was quite deaf, so wasn’t tortured as much as the rest of us).
I think the Gummint had just reduced the time a worker had extra ‘rights’ from two years down to one year, so he got the push just short of a year there. It’s amazing the rest of us didn’t end up in the loony bin, although it probably exacerbated my drink problem.
Why did I just type all that? Oh yes, because people have to be pushed to breaking point – either he leaves or we do – after taking as much as we possibly can.
Even if he’d hummed the whole song, it would have been more bearable. We might all have joined in and had an all-day, every day office party.
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” I invited quite a few ‘christians’ to join me in cancelling their TV licence nine years ago after the BBC refused to cancel the showing of the blasphemous “Jerry Springer, the Opera””
No need for you to have put Xians in speech marks (to denote ‘so-called’ I assume) . The biblical definition of a Xian is someone who confesses/professes Jesus-whatever-his-real-name-was was infact the Messiah…nothing more.
Plenty of valid reasons not to pay a TV Licence, there was no need to get all offended on God’s behalf.
Me, personally, I think Last Temptation Of Christ (http://www.anyclip.com/movies/the-last-temptation-of-christ/sex/) was an amazing film and was probably a lot nearer the truth of the NT than most of what us Xians believe.
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Don’t get me wrong, it was the final straw. I had been considering cancelling it for ages for a multitude of reasons. Are you sure you haven’t said ‘Xians’ enough times? The day will come when every knee shall bow…
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“Are you sure you haven’t said ‘Xians’ enough times? ”
Huh? Sorry but you lost me there…or are you one of those Christians who think that abbreviating Christmas to Xmas is offensive too (and thereby totally missing the point that the idea of Christmas is offensive to the more nazerine/ebonite among the us)? If so, then I apologise – I simply use ‘Xian’ in this instance as a shorthand, nothing more. If you haven’t worked out already then you will at some point notice that just about everything one Christian does, says or writes will OFFEND some other Christian somewhere (for example, the Bestes Wife In The World comes from a German Pietist/Anabaptist background and they consider even laughter , if not a SIN, then offensive-ish…”it being better for Believers to weep”..).
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As a pedant, I suggest that it should be Xtian, with a T.
Xmas is pronounced without sounding the T, so it doesn’t get one in the abbreviation.
In electronics, Crystal is shortened to Xtal, (Also with a T).
Cleverly, Transmitter is also Xmitter.
Because “Trans” means “across”. (A cross – geddit?)
I’ll get me coat…
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“As a pedant, I suggest that it should be Xtian, with a T.”
You do realise I shall fret all night about that now?
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Amen.
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That film was pornographic violence.
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It was? I must have missed the good bits then. Maybe I downloaded the PG12 version 😦
However the fact remains that it was a much more factual (if one can use the term ‘fact’ when there is no actual evidence Jesus existed) portrayal of Jesus, much truer to the Gospels than most of what gets bandied about with a side order of dogma these days.
Thing is though, one has to have actually indulged in the lesser known theological dark art of “READING THE BLOODY BOOK”. You’d be surprised how many Xians think the Xmas-manger scene “wid da shepherds un’ da angells un da liddle baby JeeeEESusss un like da free wisemen innit” is actually in the Bible or that (off the top of my former theologian’s head) at least three major doctrines are solely down to where one puts a single comma in a text written without punctuation (as we would know it, Jim).
and …Wooooah there…holy offtopicness Batman…I shall quit before I get onto interpolations on the Revelation of John and its ‘sitz im Leben’ in eschatological Chaldean literature.
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Ahah!
The “Interpolations on the Revelation of John and its ‘sitz im Leben’ in eschatological Chaldean literature” gambit!
You’ve got him there, BD! Nobody can argue with that.
🙂
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“Nobody can argue with that”
Every 1st year Theology Student could or even a ‘normal’ X(t)ian for whom bibliology trumps theology. It wasn’t meant to mean anything sensible nor be a gambit, just the self realization of me about to ‘go off on one’.
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The ‘Jesus never existed’ meme is a fairly recent development. There is plenty of contemporary evidence from historians, plus the rapid growth of the early church and persecution of the apostles – all martyred apart from John, who escaped to Patmos – would all have been very silly had it all been based on someone who never existed!
It’s mere mind games generated by the Masonic/Fabian/Frankfurt School/Marxist-Leninist desire to see the end of Christianity as it’s the biggest stumblingblock to outright political control just now, just as it was in ancient Rome and in modern day China and Islamic countries and everywhere else Christians have and do face persecution.
“Morals and Dogma” author, 33rd degree Freemason, Albert Pike admits that obliterating Christianity and replacing it with a religion based on Luciferian worship is their ultimate aim, so they conjured up this ridiculous ‘Jesus never existed’ notion.
Lenin said that, “Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism.”
Do you understand what’s happening?
Nobody ever says that Muhammad never existed or the Buddha or any of the founders of the other religions. But you’ll parrot the nonsensical Jesus meme that’s been embedded in your brain.
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“The ‘Jesus never existed’ meme is a fairly recent development. ”
No it goes right back to about the the 2nd-4th Century AD. Thats just simple fact…but I can’t be arsed to look up the Church Fathers etc
“There is plenty of contemporary evidence from historians”
No.
If you mean , what historians & theologians call, “Primary Evidence” then there is not a single scrap. UNLESS something has been found in the years since i last studied it and if someone had indeed tripped over something in the Judean Desert then I’m pretty sure it would have made the “Today” program and even the front page of the Daily Xenophobe. The solidest bit of evidence IMO are the eye-witness-ish accounts in John which may have been commited to parchment/papyrus as early as 70AD-ish (in theology everything is ‘ish’). And an argument can be made that the Gospel Of Thomas is at least in part as damn near to the original fucking Vox Christi as we’ll ever get.
Personally I believe that Jesus existed but that is FAITH not fact. It is dishonest of Xians to pretend otherwise. There is no evidence-that-would-stand-up-in-court that Jesus existed and I, again personal belief, believe that was God’s intent from the start but here is neither the place, nor the time to expand.
“would all have been very silly had it all been based on someone who never existed”
You not watched the news recently? Never underestimate the stupidity of people.
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I have therefore drawn on my biological training to spend the last few years trying to breed a tobacco plant that will grow wild
That’s quite a problem, the Solanacea being mostly from the New World we don’t have many hardy plants to breed it with, except possibly Deadly Nightshade or Henbane which would be rather a retrograde step.
I think the answer lies in genetic modification.
The medical industrial complex has been having huge successes with their genetically modified tobacco, using the Tobacco Mosaic Virus, to make vaccines and other stuff like human collagen or even plastic.
Tobacco – The Killer’s Key to a Revolutionary Cure
“Scientists are using a modified tobacco virus to deliver delicate gene therapies into the heart of diseased cells, with the potential to treat most cancers, viruses and genetic disorders.
The tobacco mosaic virus, which plagues the plant but is harmless to humans, is hollowed out and filled with “small interfering RNA” molecules, or siRNA, which some scientists consider to be the most significant development in medicine since the discovery of vaccines.”
http://www.nano.org.uk/news/sep2008/latest1573.htm
“Dr Ronald Levy, who is leading the research, said: “It’s pretty cool technology – and it’s really ironic that you would make a treatment for cancer out of tobacco. That appealed to me.”
The technique is relatively straightforward. Once a patient’s cancer cells are isolated in the laboratory, the gene responsible for producing the antibody is extracted and added to the “tobacco mosaic virus”.
The plants are then “infected” with the virus, and as it spreads through the cells, the added gene starts the process of producing large quantities of the antibody.”
http: //news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7517799.stm
Bayer Starts Clinical Phase I Study With Personalized Vaccine From Tobacco Plants
“This is the first time that proteins obtained from tobacco plants using magnICON® technology undergo clinical testing. The patient-specific vaccines produced in the pilot plant operated by the Bayer-subsidiary Icon Genetics in Halle, Germany, are intended for the treatment of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL), a type of cancer affecting lymphocytes. The objective of the therapy is to activate the patient’s immune system, enabling the malignant cells to be targeted and destroyed by the body’s own defense system.”
http: //www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/177660.php
Tobacco Turns Over a New Leaf – 2000
“Within 10 years, researchers are hopeful that tobacco farmers might be raising millions of acres of biofactories rather than ”the killer weed.”
The latest breakthrough in tobacco ”pharming” may bring such a vision one step closer to reality. Scientists at Monsanto Co. (MTC) reported in the March issue of Nature Biotechnology that they were able to genetically engineer tobacco plants to produce human growth hormone, otherwise known as somatotropin–an extremely costly drug used to treat dwarfism.
But the Monsanto discovery was more important for the process than the product. The scientists were able to induce the tobacco plants to manufacture the drug in an abundant piece of the plant cell known as a chloroplast, which is responsible for converting light into food.”
http: //www.businessweek.com/2000/00_15/b3676121.htm
GM tobacco plants can trap pests
As an alternative to industrial laboratories synthesizing pheromones to attract or repel crop pests, researchers have genetically engineered plants to do this work for them.
The argument in favor of the GM plants is that their use will reduce the use of harmful chemicals currently required for pheromone production. One of the lead researchers, Timothy Durrett, a biochemist at Kansas State University, said in a research note that: “What we demonstrated in this study is a more environmentally friendly approach that avoids the need to use toxic chemicals and eliminates hazardous byproducts from producing synthetic pheromones. The plant just handles everything.”
http://digitaljournal.com/news/environment/gm-tobacco-plants-can-trap-pests/article/373775
Apparently, now GM tobacco can even detect landmines.
Scientists develop tobacco plant which turns red when it detects landmines
“The genetically-modified tobacco plant has a gene that triggers a red plant pigment found in tomatoes and apples.
When the roots detect nitrogen oxide which leaks from landmines, the green leaves turn red about ten weeks.”
“The plants have already been successfully tested in laboratories and greenhouses and are now undergoing field trials in Serbia and South Africa.”
http: //www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1038703/Scientists-develop-tobacco-plant-turns-red-detects-landmines.html
I wouldn’t know how to go about genetically modifying a tobacco plant, but maybe an edible hardy annual like say a turnip, might have the required genetic material to insert.
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I suggested over on Junican’s blog that the easy solution will probably be to sow Nic.Rus or one of it’s many many derivatives. It apparently was famous for growing where no other plant would and I’m pretty sure (although it would need proper testing) that all one needs to do to make the tobacco from it smokeable for normal mortals would be to wash out the nicotine…or boil..or steam. I’m, again, pretty sure that that is what the Russians used to do and the Alpine farmers too.
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I doubt I can make it frost-proof, but if I can develop one that delays germination until the frosts have gone, grows fast, flowers and seeds before the frosts are back, then I might get somewhere.
It might only be found in sheltered areas, among trees perhaps, where late ground frosts are less harsh.
I’m taking seeds from the best plants I get each year so I have the ones best suited to growing here. Remove all flower heads from the little weedy ones so they don’t get to contaminate the big ones with their feeble genes. Once I have a consistently strong plant that does well up here, I’ll throw seeds around… further south.
This is the slow way, but I’m not getting into GM because it can have unexpected side effects (like leaves that taste of burning parsnip!) and because throwing genetically modified seed around can land you in a whole heap of trouble.
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On The Topic Of Outlaw Tobacco:
Seems Joe over at Pureleaf is back in business. Now we all know that the quality of his leaf was second to none, even if his prices weren’t but before anyone rushes over to order I’d like to inject a note of caution.
I am GUESSING Joe@Pureleaf’s computers were seized and that means it is POSSIBLE, theoretically, that HMRC will be sending out Duty Demands to Joe’s former customers.
Just worth bearing in mind I think.
PS.I have emailed with the TL4U crew and they assure me that it is highly unlikely HMRC would ever attempt to seize their computer records cos they sell leaf solely to be made into snuff not cigarettes and they would contest any seizure etc etc etc
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The only thing I bought from there was a shredder. Didn’t know the place existed until it all went to hell. It’ll be interesting to see if HMRC get in touch about that shredder… quite how they are going to charge duty on a lump of metal will be interesting.
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I’m a lupin fan. I don’t smoke them or anything else.But I do save their seeds as they are the most wonderful flowers on earth. I mean if I could grown giant horsetails or Lycopod trees I would but sadly most of these died at the end of the carboniferous. Anyway, back to Lupins! I have a box ful of seeds. I might cold shock them soon and get planting. I will never stop doing this. I’m also a fan of Witches Broom too and keep seed of these plants. The EU can go and have extreme sex with itself regarding seeds. I will not stop taking my own seeds to plant. How dare they make up these utterly stuoid laws. It truly is against nature.
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You have touched my soul. I too love Lupins, but fail miserably. Last year just one seed germinate out of a dozen. It didn’t flower. So I left it outside in a pot. And now I have a whole crop. How did that happen? And will they flower this year?
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I used to have spectacular lupins. Greenfly wiped them out one year. It’s been years so maybe it’s time to try again – this time, armed with chemical weapons in case the little green swines come back.
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Stuoid = stupid LOL Bugger it!
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