Cities across Holland are planning to grow their own cannabis crops in order to control the supply of the drug to the country's famous 'coffee shops'.

The "grow-your-own" idea has taken hold in Eindhoven, while Tilburg's city council has said it is considering starting up a "cannabis market garden" of its own to supply local coffee shops.

Others are expected to follow suit, as the Dutch government considers nationalising soft drugs production and sales in a bid to decriminalise the industry.

Forty mayors met at the weekend, with many in favour of legalising soft drugs, whose consumption is a major tourist draw for Holland.

Amsterdam's Lord Mayor, Job Cohen, said that he was in "full" support of the country's cannabis-selling coffee shops, as their survival would hlep to keep the trade out of the hands of criminals.

However, he told The Telegraph that the Eindhoven city council's plan to start an experiment involving the council actually growing cannabis for supply to coffee shops was going a "little too far".

Some of the world's most curious Christmas traditions can be found in Catalonia, where the idea of holiday cheer seems to involve some of life's more basic bodily functions.

Here are two factoids that one wouldn't necessarily expect to find in the same Wikipedia entry: "the infant Jesus is God in human form" and "everyone defecates."

But if you navigate to the entry attempting an explanation of the fecal-centric Catalonian tradition known as el caganer, that is exactly what you'll find. Indeed, the tradition is a much-loved element of the Christmas celebration in Catalonia, despite its somewhat obscure beginnings.

A caganer -- or "pooper" -- is a small figurine of a person squatting down with lowered pants (or raised skirt) to answer nature's call. They have been around since the 17th century and can often be found hiding in an obscure corner of a Nativity scene.

Some say that the figurines originally became popular among farmers who believed -- quite practically -- that the caganer's "offerings" would make the soil rich and productive for the coming year. In somewhat vaguer terms, the Web site for the Association of Friends of the Caganer -- an organization founded in 1990 to celebrate the caganer tradition and which boasts 60 members spread across the world -- states that the figures were meant to add "a human side to the representation of the mystery of Christmas."

The Wikipedia entry mentions how the caganer might represent "the equality of all people" because "everyone defecates" or it may be meant to reinforce that "the infant Jesus is God in human form."

The consultation on the fine detail of how the ID card scheme will work in practice published yesterday also makes clear:

• The £30 initial fee for a standalone ID card valid for travel in Europe only is capped for the year 2009/10 when it will be compulsory for airport workers and on a voluntary basis for students. The regulations allow for this fee to be "modified" in future years including by 2012, when it is anticipated that mass rollout will take place with 5-6 million combined passports/identity cards a year expected to be issued. Passport fees will be on top of this basic charge.

• If it necessary to change any of the details held on the card, such as name or fingerprints which entail a new card being issued, a further £30 will be charged. Changes of address or other details which do not appear on the card will not be charged.

• Transgendered people: those "moving from their birth gender to an acquired gender" will be able to apply for two ID cards - one for each gender. The second ID card will use a different name, signature and photograph although they will be linked as one entry on the national ID card register. Nevertheless they will be charged two fees for the privilege of holding two cards.

• Homeless people and others who live "transient lifestyles" will also be able to register under the scheme. The Home Office expects to be able to agree with homeless people a suitable place to be registered as their residence - presumably even if it is only a railway arch. Those who move around frequently for work will be able to register their principal residence without notifying each move.

But the draft regulations also set out in detail the escalating series of fines for those who fail to keep their ID card register entry up to date or fail to correct errors on it.

The kind of details that must be provided within three months are a change of address, a change of name perhaps because of marriage or by deed poll, a change of nationality, a change of gender, or a significant change in an individual's face or their fingerprints perhaps because of an accident.

wtf

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

cienceDaily (Nov. 27, 2008) -- Saturn's moon Enceladus may indeed hide an underground reservoir of water.

Scientists at Jet Propulsion Lab in California, the University of Colorado and the University of Central Florida in Orlando teamed up to analyze the plumes of water vapor and ice particles spewing from the moon. They used data collected by the Cassini spacecraft's Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS). Cassini was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in 1997 and has been orbiting Saturn since July 2004.

The team, including UCF Assistant Professor Joshua Colwell, found that the source of plumes may be vents on the moon that channel water vapor from a warm, probably liquid source to the surface at supersonic speeds.

The team's findings are reported in the Nov. 27 issue of the journal Nature.

"There are only three places in the solar system we know or suspect to have liquid water near the surface," Colwell said. "Earth, Jupiter's moon Europa and now Saturn's Enceladus. Water is a basic ingredient for life, and there are certainly implications there. If we find that the tidal heating that we believe causes these geysers is a common planetary systems phenomenon, then it gets really interesting."

Environment ministers preparing for next week's talks on global warming in Poznan, Poland, have been sounding decidedly downbeat. From Paris to Beijing, the refrain is the same: This is no time to pursue ambitious plans to stop global warming. We can't deal with a financial crisis and reduce emissions at the same time.

There is a very different message coming from this country. President-elect Barack Obama is arguing that there is no better time than the present to invest heavily in clean energy technologies. Such investment, he says, would confront the threat of unchecked warming, reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil and help revive the American economy.

Call it what you will: a climate policy wrapped inside an energy policy wrapped inside an economic policy. By any name, it is a radical shift from the defeatism and denial that marked President Bush's eight years in office. If Mr. Obama follows through on his commitments, this country will at last provide the global leadership that is essential for addressing the dangers of climate change. <...>

The historical landscape from Richard Nixon onward is littered with bold and unfulfilled promises to wean the nation from fossil fuels, especially imported oil. What is different now is the need to deal with the clear and present threat of global warming. What is also different is that the country has elected a president who believes that meeting the challenge of climate change is essential to the health of the planet and to America's economic future.