Why do the Brits hate the herb?

In the last week, two scientific studies have been released by Britain's health community. The first said that marijuana could lead to schizophrenia and other psychoses. The next saying that smoking one joint was as bad on your lungs as 2.5-5 cigarettes. Now, I am not a doctor (shocking I know), but back in the day I knew a thing or two about weed. There are simple reasons for both of these conclusions. Let me explain:

1) Marijuana causes psychosis. I don't know if paranoia is a psychotic disorder, but man does weed make you paranoid. That being said, it falls into the 'duh' factor and is not all that shocking. Whether that paranoia ever rises to the level of schizoid tendencies, I can not say. Maybe one of the other voices in my head could, but none are offering at the moment.

2) Marijuana is bad for your lungs. No, no, no. Holding it in for the maximum high is bad for your lungs. If you held in cigarette smoke for that long, you would die on the spot. Exhale, let it out, you'll be fine. Now go buy me some Doritos!

the week in news

Okay, so I missed a few days of posts. The onslaught of Harry Potter "news" and stories about Oscar, the death-sniffing cat aside, the news wasn't funny and was a lil depressing. Oscar was the first in a weird turn for the news this week. First, this story has been on the web as a major headline for 4-5 days, which is weird enough. But this morning I started reading about the guy who was performing an excorcism on his daughter and granddaughter when he was killed with a stun gun by police. I can not imagine the scene of when the police broke through the door to find a naked 19 year old (the daughter) chanting something while her father choked her daughter. Oh yeah, and the two girls were apparently covered in blood.

This is quite hard to find humor in, undeniably. But I am twisted and I began to wonder...

If Oscar was there, would he have sniffed the death of the man? Is the cat possessed by a death-sniffing spirit? If so, would the man have tried to excorcise him? And if the cat sniffed the book, would he be able to tell me if Harry Potter dies in it?

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Folks everybody dies. It is the one thing you can be sure of. However, if I were going to be stunned to death by the police while choking the demons out of someone, I would opt for the naked 19 year old woman, rather than Oscar the cat by my side also. But, that is just me.

requiem for a tabloid

So...the publisher announced this morning that they will be permanently shutting down the Weekly World News, who calls itself "the World's Only Reliable Newspaper." This is a sad day for paranormal journalism. What will become of Bat Boy (half-man, half-bat)? Who will tell me what Marilyn Monroe looks like now (in witness protection)? Who will alert me to the coming disaster from the alien spaceship which we call "Halley's Comet"? However will I be told the real news, the stuff the corporate media conglomerates conspire to keep from me?

I guess I will have to call my Granny, and she can tell me in between the stories of how she and I fought off the Nazis in Viet Nam. The way the "news" is supposed to be told.

The funniest show on TV

so I watched the Democratic debate from CNN/YouTube last night, and let me tell you it was a hoot. It was not side splitting or anything, but I laughed pretty hard at times while watching. On a serious note, this was the best debate format I have ever seen or heard of so keep it up guys, I loved it. But lets get started:

Mike Gravel: Man, that guy was a nutjob. No matter what the question was he attacked every other candidate with special attention to Obama. I t was as fun to watch as Tom Cruise on Oprah's couch, or even as that made up video where Cruise is killing Oprah with bolts of lightning from his hands and eyes.

Chris Dodd: Best YouTube style video "Paid for by the Commitee to elect the Guy with the White Hair." Hilarious!

John Edwards: I think the winner of the night as he got all impassioned and punded the podium at the thought that people would suffer without medical coverage. He did however have the worst joke when asked what he did not like about Clinton, he said he wasn't too fond of her jacket.

Hillary Clinton: Best line was when asked if she was authentically female enough, her response was, "I can't run as anything other than a woman." Sometimes the obvious is the funniest thing you can say.

Barack Obama: Same question, except about being black. He said, "You know when I am catching a cab in Manhattan...i think I have given my credentials." Well played, sir!

Bill Richardson: I really enjoyed watching him try way too hard to seem like he could beat the front runners saying they would all make fine VP candidates in his administration, which even made the other candidates laugh.

Joe Biden: I have always liked Joe Biden, he has a good sense of humor and is shamelessly self-promoting, which is just fun to watch. But by far his best line was what he liked most about Kucinich, his wife! Then they showed her, she was hot! Go figure.

Dennis Kucinich: He had a good night and is a pretty funny guy to watch anyway, but he had the best exchange of the night and my favorite moment of the whole debate. When asked the last question of the night "each candidate turn to the person on your left and say one thing you like and one thing you do not like about them." Kucinich said to Anderson Cooper, "You will notice that CNN did not put anyone to the left of me..." to which Cooper responded, "We could not find anyone to the left of you." Oh, that is comedy!

In comedy there is truth, in truth comedy. Keep it up guys, cant wait til the Republicans do the same on Sept. 17th!!

Bad day for the scuba guy

I live in Colorado and we regularly have some idiot (or multiple idiots) every summer struck by lightning on the golf course. Folks, when the thunderstorm comes in, do NOT hold up the metal pole. I am for some reason deathly afraid of death by the most unlikely circumstances. The first is a tidal wave. Whenever we are near the beach, I scan the coastline for the receding tide which causes my wife to mock me and laugh (and point). After the Tsunami a couple of years ago, I heard about these scuba divers who were in the water as the tsunami passed. A terrifying story to be sure, but living is better so I thought, "Hey, I will go scubaing more and be safe from the wave." The second great fear is being struck by lightning. It is not shocking when someone is struck standing in an open field with a metal stick held high in the air during a forecasted severe thunderstorm. But this week takes the cake. A guy in Florida was scuba diving and as he came to the surface, his oxygen tank was struck by lightning and he died. This really takes the cake. What's next? I could be struck by lightning while scuba diving in the tidal wave caused by an asteroid slamming into the atlantic ocean? Ack, how will I ever sleep tonight!

learning to parent in an internet world

I was pleased to see the huge donation of laptops which were sent to Africa (though I have heard and read much about this, I have not bothered to see WHO was sending them, sorry), but today's headlines came right from the "duh!" file. The Nigerian government has announced that the kids to whom the laptops were donated are...ready for this...looking at porn! Shocking and unexpected, I know! Apparently, unsupervised kids will look up prurient materials anywhere in the world. I would like to meet the people who thought they were going to view instructional materials when left to their own devices, I want to meet them because I want to see the lobotomy scars. If we have learned nothing since the advent of the internet, have we not learned that without structure or supervision the average kid from anywhere will not only look at porn but will try to find a way to pass it on to others. Heck, adults are just as bad and we are supposed to have some semblance of discipline. All this time I thought grief was the Great Equalizer, it made everyone the same. Nope, I was wrong, its internet porn.

ordering Jim Gaffigan's special

per request:

if you want to order "Jim Gaffigan: Beyond the Pale" go to his website at http://www.jimgaffigan.com and follow the links

the Latest "Whisperer"

I don't know if you have seen all the press the last couple of days about the dutch guy they call the "Goose Whisperer", but our love for the catchy nickname is once again out of control. First there was the Horse Whisperer...didn't see it. Then there was Dog Whisperer, cute twist on a well known book/movie title. Now, the Goose Whisperer? What's next, the Rat Whisperer? Okay, so if this is the way we are going, here are my suggestions for marketing future products:

1) new tag line for Orkin, "Roach Whisperer"
2) new tag line for Hartz collars "Flea and Tick Whisperer"
3) new name for a Plumber "Poop Whisperer", or maybe that could be for a laxative

Comedian du Jour

Oh well, I found nothing all that funny or mentionable in the news today so I thought I would suggest a comedian. I watched Jim Gaffigan's special on Comedy Central the other day and laughed my butt off (I really wish that was not a metaphor). I rarely see an hour special which I laugh all the way throughout it. This was a rare treat. My stomach hurt afterwards, and laughing is a much better excercise than sit-ups any day of the week.

Pick up Jim Gaffigan's special, "Beyond the Pale", it is well worth it.

the worst spin one could imagine

I am not sure whether I am pleased that the Catholic Church is so bad at spin (if they have not perfected it, this is a good sign) or just displeased with the latest word on the child abuse scandal. I saw a number of people on talk shows in the last week talking about this, and their spin was exactly the release the Vatican had today: "Hey, not just Catholics abuse people!" While I think most people would admit that this is true, and I am not certain that it is even more prevalent in any one church or denomination, it strikes me that this sounds an awful lot like one school kid saying the other kids do it too. Our response should be what my Mom's would have been, "Well if the Lutherans jump off a cliff, will you do it too?" (Not that I am saying anything about Lutherans, it just sounded funnier in my head than Baptists and Presbyterians was just too long, but I digress) My suggestion would be to say nothing at all rather than this, they are going to get eaten up for this mitigation and it serves no real purpose. Only people with real animosity towards the Catholic Church say that it is just a problem with them, and I don't think they really believe this to be true, unless they are loony (Not that I am saying anything about loony people). Just be straight (no pun intended) and to the point, tell people some priests did a terrible thing, we are putting measures in place to make sure it never happens again and we are truly sorry for any part we have had in making anyone's life worse. See, not too bad, I would accept your apology...especially if it was written and attached to a check for 660 million bucks.

Dungeons and Dragons made me do it!

So a couple plead guilty to gross neglect of their two infant children today, but excused their behavior by saying that it was D&D online's fault. Apparently, the game is so addictive that it was more important than feeding their children. Now, I play online games and they are very fun. They are not more fun than my kids, but they are fun. The character of the parents is not in question, they have none, but if I had a crystal ball I would see the lawyers gathering at the gates (of Hell, that is) preparing the onslaught of blame litigation. This case will be the first, mark your calendars, the parents will sue Turbine Entertainment (producer of DDO) and anyone else they can. They will ask for a lifetime supply of Cheetos & Mountain Dew, a better internet connection in their prison cell and their name prison-tatooed on their butts in Elvish.

The next case will be the lawsuit against the employer who fired their employee for playing at work. Then will come the person who blames the internet because it kept them from work. Then the person who blames the internet because it forced them to watch porn....at virtual gun point, no less. When will our society, and those of us within it, stop looking to everyone and everything else for the blame for our actions. No, the Twinkie did not make you shoot the councilman. No, TV violence did not make you kill your fellow students. No, internet porn did not make you jerk yourself into a coma (well, that one may be true). You have a choice! Don't shoot people, feed your kids, occasionally turn your computer off and take some responsibility for your own actions, or in the case of the warped gamers, inaction. And for the sake of all that is good and holy, make the internet stop getting me fat!

the weakest porn ever

Okay, so today I got to view the photos which created all the hub-bub and blackmail surrounding Miss New Jersey. This is a joke right? Somewhere in New Jersey, there is a serious uptight, bitter pageant loser who thinks these pics are sooooo racy that she threatens to release the photos if Miss New Jersey does not relinquish her crown. Wait, I am not a conspiracy theorist (much), but what if she made the whole thing up for the pageant sympathy vote? Because these photos are the weakest porn ever! She isn't naked and is never in any real sexual situations (none that your average 14 year old would not be in, with the principal watching no less). What kind of girls are they raising in Jersey these days? It reminds me of one of my kids telling on the other that he had said the "S" word....yep, that's right, he said stupid. I think it is time to say it again, this is stupid.

For once I agree with North Korea!

The North Korean Security agency today banned karaoke bars and internet cafes as a threat to society, and I could not agree more. While it is fair to say that I have never seen anyone who could actually sing perform karaoke, and that my limited karaoke experience does not make this an informed opinion, I still have heard enough people singing in their cars and in the occasional retail store to make me want to add this to my list of "things which are a threat to society." I mean, seriously, if you sing "you've lost that loving feeling" just like Tom Cruise in Top Gun it is not a good thing. You Suck!! Trust me. Now step away from the microphone and go back to singing in your showers, which next week the North Korean Security agency will ban as being a threat to society...or so I have been told.

the pope says my church isn't real

today's insanity is brought to you by the fine folk at the vatican...

I woke today to discover that the Pope has declared my Christianity not real. I guess this isn't news, this has been the Catholic position on other Christian faiths since the reformation and this is nothing new. However, it made the top headlines in a number of places. This was not the part that made my head spin. Rather it was the statement about the Orthodox church that it WAS a church, but was defective. Whay was it defective? I am glad you asked! The Orthodox Church is declared defective because it has no Pope! The position of the Bishop of Rome being the all-master of all things Christian is not a new doctrine, but it does not go as far back as the statement the Vatican released says it does.

When Christianity became the legal religion of the empire (not a good thing IMHO, for the world, or for Christianity), the bishop of Rome was not even an important bishop. At this time the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch were of more consequence and authority. This theory of Papal Primacy is more political than doctrinal and it is my firm opinion that the Pope does himself and his predecessor an injustice.

It definitely comes across as supreme arrogance to say, "of course, your church is not real for I am not the leader of it!" What?!?!?