Boy, I'm glad my wife didn't like diamonds when we were engaged!

I've been reading a bit about diamonds today. I knew they were controlled by a cartel/monopoly, I knew a little bit about blood diamonds, but I really didn't know a lot about them. Today, apostate_96 posted a link to a blog post about public donations being used by Pat Robertson and the 700 Club to invest in a diamond operation when it was supposed to be going for charity/refugee relief. Can't say I'm really all that surprised by that.

Anyway, prowling around various links and such, I came across this article on trying to sell a diamond. Basically, trying to sell a diamond is a wonderful way to exercise your futility. The following is an excerpt:
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Happy Birthday, kylecrb!

Probably the youngest person on my flist. ;-)

Negative YAWC

A web comic that's been going since October 2003 is about to disappear forever. Asylum on 5th Street. Jen Wicked has another web comic which I like, Crap I Drew on my Lunch Break. She has an interesting style, but apparently she just hasn't been getting the hits and money from Asylum that she's getting from Crap.

There's only 85 strips in the entire archive, so it won't take a huge amount of time to go through if you have a high-speed connection.

Anyway, Asylum on 5th Street goes away next Friday, February 3. Look at it now or you'll never see it. Note that this is not an endorsement of the comic, I haven't followed it and am just posting this as a reference for the artist.

California close to legalizing growing hemp

I would love to see California pass this. It goes on to the CA Senate, then to Ahnold's desk. Hemp is an extremely useful crop, and the Circuit Court has ruled that the DEA can't regulate it even though said DEA has classed hemp as a controlled substance because it contains minute amounts of THC. It's kinda silly because you can't smoke the stuff and it would be very difficult to extract enough THC to get a buzz.

It's going to be interesting.

http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=1150248&tw=wn_wire_story

The entire story is under the cut as it's possible that the link to the story through Wired could change.
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