Burmanet news paints a rather bleak picture of Burma's squandered teak resources The big bad military government over there is bad news, locals are being screwed and the environment is being raped daily. Of course the west is getting in to the fray, to effect change. A pisstaker would suggest that they are posturing because Burma is China's friend, not because they want to see peace and harmony prevail unfettered in a land full of precious resources - a long way from European and American markets.

Did you hear the one about a teak embargo?

You cannot import teak from Burma any more. This was a quick diplomatic tactic to ensure that lumber yards in America can cream their clients for an extra 30% overnight. Most helpful all round, unless you are a US carpenter or a Burmese person.

President Pisstaker says that the US should drop the current teak embargo. It won't stop deforestation, but at least unemployed Burmese elephants, their drivers, and American wooden boat builders could get back to normal production and start to put food back on their family's tables (made from sustainable teak). Economic hardship on both sides of the globe would be alleviated. Result!

The only downside to this idea of economic empowerment is that it cuts out the need for Western government intervention and posturing. I guess it wont happen!

"Better to be a logger than a prostitute"

People say that buying products harvested by exploited elephants is a bad thing, but when money is tight, elephants would say that any job is better than working the streets.

A teak house is environmentally friendly.

Teak for construction has a nice ring to it, unless you are a green terror monger. Teak will last 30 or 40 years if cared for - and that is in a marine environment, so teak is ideal for quality house building!! Therefore I think the US should go green and ban cheap softwood.

As with all problems, it takes a couple of policies working in tandem to make real change. So how about introducing a teak house-building quota too? With the way the housing market is dying, no one should notice an environmentally sound limit of 200 new homes a year under the new teak directive.

Where do you stand on teak decking etc

Freeadforum is a major directory, and I was privately asked (via a standard email sent to millions of other webmasters) if I would sign up.

Sure, I'll sign my life away for extra traffic.

I was all geared up to register, but sadly, when looking for a Humor category to lump myself under, the closest I could find was entertainment. No humor in a directory? Surprisingly, it comes as almost no surprise to me. Despite the power of funny, (almost 1 billion results in search) humor is a rarely found category on many listings.

I didn't give too much thought to being incorrectly categorised, (who looks at directories anyway?) but then it occurred to me that in the wild event that the listing did attract millions of new visitors looking for gossip about the stars - I would piss them all off. Instead of glamor gossip (the sort of gems found on Celebrity Insider), all they would find was unglamorous working class crap spewing from unfamous Ed's rambling mind.

At best, the newbies would never return.

At worst, someone might tell the Google bots that I am pimping my site as entertainment, Google will have a brain fart and penalise me for pretending to be what I ain't. Traffic would drop to zero and my online life would end.

So, just because of lack of a humor category on Freeadforum, people who don't know me could hate me and Google might ban my butt from the internet, excommunicate my domain name and do all sorts of Google is a bully type heavy handedness. Cheers, Freeadforum!!

But do I care?

Erm. With a PR5...Ahem. I was all for scrubbing my application, but wise Mrs Ed said it is like a pig in a poke trying to find my site in Freeadforums anyway, so I was unlikely to be a source of annoyance to a single person, let alone a robot.

And you shouldn't care either about the impact of directory listings on your site, because directories are not worth worrying about. Ask Court about the mere 10% of your time that should be dedicated to building links.

Anyway, enough rambling, trying to create a link to Freeadforum.

To conclude, why do so few directories and category-based web sites have no allowance for HUMOR? I guess that if you are in the business of compiling lists, you are unlikely to have a funny bone in your body? What do you reckon?