That's only a part of the equation. It's not just women who are disadvantaged by the presence of the petroleum industry. If you take a look at Middle East countries, you'll find that wherever the industry is present, the country as a whole is in the crapper. It's only the ones where either oil doesn't exist or has been tapped out that have anything like decent standards of living. (For anyone but the rich, that is. They always make out just fine.) Petroleum encourages repressive government, foreign interference, and the virtual enslavement of common people through poverty and repression - in fact, it's a reason why those things happen. Those things give rise to starvation, religious extremism and violence. Remove the oil and the equation starts balancing out, common people start acquiring more say and the standard of living rises. So it's not just women who lead shitty lives in the Middle East because of oil, it's pretty much everybody, though women get the shortest end of the stick.

I invite you to take a look at this country 200 years ago. People go on about how backward Islam is, but Christianity used to be the same way. May I remind you Christians used to burn "heretics" alive? In the historical scheme of things, Islam only joined the "civilized" world fairly recently; it'll take time for the religion to work the violent kinks out of its system and become truly modern in the sense that Christianity has - i.e., learning to hide its bigotry and violence under a veneer of sophistication and modern technology. (Smile whenever you talk about the infidels, and keep the stonings out in the sticks where no one will care what the unlettered rubes do to each other.)

Once they acquire real power in the world, they'll get there, rest assured. Hell, we Americans managed it, and we were just a bunch of frontier rubes nobody in the civilized world took seriously at first.

I quit smoking weed a few months ago. Not because it was a problem, but simply because the time had passed, and I just don't feel I want to do it anymore. Even before that, my use was sporadic, so quitting wasn't a big deal.

Weed is one of those habits whose harm depends completely on who's doing it. Some people can smoke a little and do really stupid things, some can smoke occasionally and like it, some can smoke a lot and ruin their lives, some can (like you) smoke a lot and be perfectly fine. Whether it's "dependence" or not has more to do with how it's affecting you than any kind of chemical rule. I had times in my life when I smoked a lot and it made things not great at all, and times when I smoked and it made things fun and interesting, when I enjoyed it and it didn't get in the way. I think the key is being clear enough to recognize what effect it's having on your head and your life and act accordingly.

If weed helps you, and it certainly can help, then that's okay. No harm done. But if you start getting headaches when you wake up, or you find yourself wasting a lot of time playing Find Your Feet, or you start overeating because the munchies won't let up, then it would be time to step back and lay off the joints for a while. Luckily, marijuana is not physically addictive; if you want to stop, you just have to decide to do it. That's the key, and a healthy life and clear attitude will always help in that regard.

Meanwhile, enjoy it. You're young, you're doing well, you're having fun - that's what youth is for. Good luck!

I must agree with the majority of posters here. Tracy, if you're going to write posts on the doings of overseas political figures, it would behoove you to get informed about just who you're commenting on. Waving your arms and getting huffy about what a member of the BNP says is like getting upset that ... well, that the Klan is racist, like so many here have pointed out. It's a given that these people are going to say this crap - that's why they're marginal nutcases that intelligent people don't take seriously.

Really, we'd just gotten comfortable with the disappearance of Ann Coulter from these pages. Must we now be subjected to the ridiculous spewings of her foreign equivalents? Leave the loonies to diddle in the dark by themselves I'm sure they don't need our help.