Buddhist Thailand BANS cannabis

Thailand legalized non-prescription cannabis sales in 2022 but has reversed (Reuters/Jorge Silva)

• Buddhism in Thailand

BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand is further tightening control of cannabis by banning sales of the plant to those without prescriptions. Thailand became the first country in Asia to decriminalize cannabis in 2022, in a move that boosted Thailand’s tourism and farming, and spawned thousands of shops. But the country has faced public backlash over allegations that under-regulation has made the drug available to children and caused addiction. Health Minister Somsak Thepsutin signed an order Monday that bans shops from selling cannabis to customers without a prescription. It also seeks to reclassify cannabis buds as a controlled herb. Thailand further tightening controls on cannabis sales (AP News)

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Jimmy Dore interviewed by Rolling Stone

Hosts Matt Taibbi, Katie Halper Useful Idiots, Jimmy Dore (Rolling Stone); Wisdom Quarterly

When Jill gave up single-use plastic

Jill Replogle (laist.com, Feb. 1, 2019); Ashley Wells, Crystal Q. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

My so-called "plastic-free" life. I tried it for a month. Here's what happened...

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Single-use plastic (Jill Replogle/LAist)

My family of four gave up single-use plastic for the month of January. I mean, our execution wasn't perfect, but we gave it a good shot.

Why did we do it? We did it because 450 years-to-never is the estimated time it takes for some plastics to break down in the environment -- and because scientists estimate more than 18 billion pounds of plastic winds up in our ocean every year.

Microplastics have been found in the air we breathe and the water we drink. It's been found in the stomachs of deep sea creatures, birds, and turtles. It pollutes beaches and rivers and, well, just about every ecosystem on earth.

And while recycling is great, as plastic waste researcher Jenna Jambeck says, "The most sustainable thing you can do is not generate the trash in the first place."

Plastic has many important uses, no doubt. But covering the plastic fork that I didn't need in the first place is not one of them, at least not for us.

So we tried going cold on single-use plastic during the month of January. Here's how it went. More

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Behind Facebook, Twitter (photos)

An inside look at social media outlets incorporated


Employees at work at the Palo Alto headquarters of Facebook, Inc. in March 2009. The number of minutes Americans spent on social networking sites nearly doubled in the past year with Facebook and Twitter enjoying explosive growth, according to a new study (AFP/Getty Images/File/Gilles Mingasson).

Americans spending more time on social networks

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The number of minutes Americans spent on social networking sites nearly doubled in the past year with Facebook and Twitter enjoying explosive growth, according to a new study.

Nielsen Online found that the number of minutes Americans spent on social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, Tagged, Twitter, and LinkedIn grew 83 percent from April 2008 to April of this year.

It said the total minutes spent on Facebook increased nearly 700 percent year-over-year, from 1.7 billion in April 2008 to 13.9 billion in April 2009.

Facebook was the top social networking site when ranked by total minutes for the month followed by MySpace, which saw its total minutes decline from 7.3 billion in April 2008 to 5.0 billion in April 2009. Blogger, Tagged, and Twitter were next.

The number of minutes spent on micro-blogging service Twitter skyrocketed from 7.9 million in April 2008 to 300 million in April 2009, Nielsen said. More>>

What are they?

Facebook is a free-access social networking Website operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. Users add online friends, send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify others about themselves.

The site's name refers to the paper facebooks depicting members of a campus community that some US colleges and prep schools give to incoming students, faculty, and staff as a way to get to know other people on campus. The site was originally limited to students and thus gained an advantage over its main competitor Myspace.

Mark Zuckerberg took an existing idea (social networking) and founded Facebook with his roommates, fellow computer science majors Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, while he was a student at Harvard University. More>>

PHOTOS:

• Facebook (60 photos)
• Twitter (93 photos)
• Apple Inc. (45 photos)
• Buddhist Social Media?