Have you ever woken up on a Sunday morning to frantic sound of knocking on your door?  Sure you have.  We all have.  But most of the time its a Jehovah’s Witness or another religious zealot sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong, or some kids trying to sell candy bars to pay for new wrestling unitards or cheerleading outfits.

But have you ever opened the front door early on a Sunday morning and find two men standing in biohazard suits waiting for you?  Bet you haven’t.  But I have.

It was several weeks after 9/11, and I was living in an apartment complex in Edison, New Jersey, and everyone was paranoid.  And when someone smelled something strange…

Anyway, we were given just enough time clothing and then ushered out of the house.  No time to put in contact lenses or even take a piss.  Thankfully I knew where my glasses were.  I felt like I was an extra in the sequel to the movie Outbreak, and as my wife (girlfriend at the time) and I were forced out along with every other bleary-eyed resident, I couldn’t help but scan the roof for a loose monkey.  I saw none, and was slightly disappointed.  But I did see plenty of police cars, fire engines, and guys in funny outfits

We were told we wouldn’t be allowed back into the apartment until the mystery subtance that was discovered was fully examined, and they didn’t know how long that would be.  It was cold, so we left for her parents’ house, stopping along the way at a CVS to use the restroom.

We returned ten hours later as dusk set in and found everything quiet.  We talked to a couple of neighbors and learned the truth of the mystery liquid that was found in the entranceway to the apartment building:

Curry,

Someone had spilled curry.  And someone else freaked out and called the police.

Now, you have to understand, Edison, NJ has a very large Indian population, and the smell of curry is very prominent.  Pervasive, even.  When we moved into the apartment, the handles to all of the kitchen cabinets were covered with a thin layer of curry powder, and if I could have stripped the wallpaper, I would have, because the smell had just sunk in. 

To live in Edison is to be intimate with the smell of curry.

Obviously someone was new in town, and instead of maybe asking someone what the strange smell was, he panicked and called the police.

As if someone would waste their time on a chemical attack against a small apartment building in Northern New Jersey.

Dumbass.

See… not a great story, but better than the crap that most people spew on Jeopardy.

I still can’t smell curry without seeing a biohazard suit in my mind’s eye.  Indian food has been ruined for me forever.

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“War!  What is it good for?  Absolutely nothing!”

I’m not going to give you a list of every good war, just the biggest ones as they relate to us as Americans:

• The Revolutioanry War, which liberate use from England and ensured us of decent teeth
• The Civil War- Saw the end of slavery and the beginning of a cohesive USA
• WWII-  Saw teh defeat of Nazis and Hitler and other silly stuff like that

Whenever I hear Springsteen on the radio, I can’t help but to wonder what drugs he is taking.  Or what brain damage he suffered as a child.  Of course not all wars are just.  Or good.  Or necessary.  But many wars are just and good and necessary to protect the innocent people of the world, and for someone to ever utter the words “what is it good for”, well, it makes me want to punch them.  And send them to a concentration camp to get gassed.

When evil men arise, war is needed to put them down.  And anyone who ever questions the necessity of war needs to be strapped to a chair with his eye-lids propped open with tooth picks and forced to watch scenes of slaves being whipped and beaten and European Jews being shepparded to their deaths.

I’m ashamed to share statehood with the “Boss”.  Maybe we should ship him off to England where he can become a British citizen, which is obviously what he wants.

This man is treated like a god by millions, yet he can’t even figure out what state he is on before performing.  And we wonder why this country is in such bad shape- people look to music artists to decide what to think because they can’t think for themselves.  As long as an idea, a philosophy, is wrapped in pretty words and set to a catchy tune, the masses will eat it up.  And be thankful that someone else is telling them what to believe.

I used to love Pearl Jam.  Loved them.  Favorite band.  But when Eddie Vedder, laying claim to his own little Messiah Complex, starts spouting off against President Bush because, for some reason, he thinks that he, a lowly musician, knows more about world politics than the President, I stopped listening to PJ.  It pained me.  Like breaking up with a girlfriend after seven strong years.  But my own sense of morality told me that if I wanted to be true to myself, I had to boycott the band that had given me so much pleasure through high school and college.  And I did.  Because ignorance and self-righteousness makes me sick.

Next time I miss work, I’m to going to say I was out with a case of the Bruce Springsteens.

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• 21 years old.  Nothing wrong with that.  We were all 21 at one time.  Or will be.  unless you die early
• In the military since 2007.  Good for her.  Stable, honest work.
• Has a ten month old son… hey, what?
• Not married.  Really?  You don’t say. 
• No contact with the father.  A shocker, right?
• Grandmother can’t take care of the infant because she has too much on her plate already.
• So… Alexis skips out on being deployed, claiming she can’t find anyone to take care of her kid.

This whole thing sickens me.  Makes me absolutely ill.  Just another sign of irresponsibility of Americans and the break down of any sort of family and moral systems.  Hey, bitch, you’re enlisted.  in the military. With responsibilities that you know may see you out of the country for a year or two.  Yet you decide to get pregnant.  You know what?  It’s easier to catch a cold than get pregnant.  You know how you don’t get pregnant?  Keep your goddamn legs closed!  It would be one thing if she were married.  If she had a stable family to care for the child, even being young as she is.  But this irresponsible woman decides to get pregnant by a man whom I am guessing she probably never had any intention of marrying, and then expects to get leniency when she skips out on her duty to care for the child.  Hey, bitch, how about not getting pregnant while you’re single and enlisted.  How about you act like a responsible member of society and not a goddamn burden.  How about you stop making excuses and get your ass where its supposed to be.  You made a committment to the US military long before you decided it was a good idea to become an unwed mother with no father to raise your child.

Young people today… I don’t know what the hell has gone so wrong that being an unwed mother is considered acceptible.  I’m 32, my wife is 30, and its damn difficult to raise children, even when you have strong support from family.  And here you have a kid, and yes, today, 2o years old is a kid, enlisted in the military, getting pregnant and not giving it a second thought.  And I don’t want to hear that it may have been an accident.  That maybe birth control failed.  That maybe a condom broke.  Even if it were an accident and not pure recklessness (unprotected sex), there is no excuse.  If you are in the military, if you are in the military, if you have no one to care for a child while you are halfway across the world, then maybe, just maybe, you shouldn’t even take the risk of getting pregnant and keep your jeans zippered up.

It’s people like this that really make me sad for the future of America.  Just selfish, stupid behavior.  No concept of responsibility or of consequences.  No fucking brains, just excuses.  And there is no excuse for an unwed 20 year old who is in the military to go out and get pregnant.  None.  She made her bed, and now she has to lie in it.  She made poor choices, and guess what?  She has to live with the consequences, like it or not.  I hope the military sticks her kid in foster care and ships this woman off to war where she belongs.  Where she made a commitment to be.

Is this callous?  Sure as hell is.  But I’m sick and tired of people not taking responsibility for their actions.  You want to be a mommy at the ripe young age of 20 or 21,  get married first.  (Why the hell is it so hard to wait to have children until you’re married in this country, anyway?!)  And for god’s sake, don’t enlist in the military.

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A bunch of finger pointers.  Here are a couple of  quick cases:

• Deaths at the Frat House- I don;t like fraternity.  Never have, never will.  Never liked the idea of buying friends.  Never liked the idea of  hazing, which still goes on despite its illegal nature.  Never liked the fact that over 90% of college rapes occur at frat houses.  Sure I did my share of rushing during my freshman year.  Got to see lesbian strippers.  Twice.  Got my party on.  It was fun, for a week.  But I never wanted to walk around campus with three Greek letter stamped on my shirt.  The idea always made me feel dirty.  But I will side with the Greeks on on thing: when someone dies at a frat party, or after getting wasted at a frat party, the fraternity should not be held responsible.  Just like when someone dies at, or after leaving, a house party.  I understand the anguish a parent goes through when the word comes that their perfect little Johnny got drunk at a party and fell from a balcony.  Or died of acute alcohol poisoning.  Or got hit by a car.  I understand the instinctive nature to lash out, to blame someone.  But all too often, these mourning parents refuse to accept that there is really only one person at fault: their dead child.  This may sound inhuman, but it is the truth.  Even in cases when it is an illegal hazing incident that leads to death, well guess what, not doing it is always an option.  The news over the past few years is littered with lawsuits against schools and fraternities for wrongful death, and it is bullshit.  The school is supposed to stop underage drinking off campus?  Fraternity parties are supposed to be dry?  Bullshit.  If 21 is the drinking age, at least 50-75% of people at a frat party are drinking illegally.  And everyone, from the police to the higher-ups at the colleges know this, but there is no way to stop the drinking.  its part of college life, and to try and stop it is a futile exercise.   The most recent case is from Penn State several days ago: two students and two fraternities are being sued after some asshole got drunk (more than 2x the legal driving limit) and fell onto a concrete landing.  I remember several years ago when a local student got drunk and wandered onto campus and got crushed in a trash compactor.  His body was found in a landfill.  His parents sued everyone.  Horrible, horrible stories.  No one is denying that.  But the one undeniable truth rises above everything else: If  these idiots didn’t get drunk, they would still be alive today.  These parents have to stop looking at everyone else while searching for fault and accept the fact that their children are dead because they decided to over-drink.  Done.  End of story.  They know their kids are going to drink.  And do drugs.  That’s part of college life.  And its unfortunate when a young life is snuffed out because of alcohol consumption, but those are the risks every one of us takes when we drink to excess.  And these parents need to, pardon my French, go fuck themselves and stop looking beyond their own offspring’s poor decisions to assign blame.

• Two years ago, a woman in California decided to take part in a contest to win a $250 Wii.  The contest entailed drinking a certain amount of water over a certain period of time without peeing.  Well, she died of water intoxication.  And of course the family sued.  And, because of dumb juries, the family won upwards of 15 million dollars.  Bullshit.  Now, the DJ’s during the event weren’t the most sensitive when callers called up and alerted them to the fact that people, though rarely, do die from water intoxication.  They were crass and insensitive, but last time I checked, that wasn’t a crime.  What is the crime here?  This woman’s family being rewarded for her stupidity.  Just as the law says, ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking the law.  This is the 21st fucking century, and maybe, just maybe, this idiot should have gotten online before undertaking such a contest and have done some research as to whether or not their was a danger to it.  Or called a doctor.  It may be just me, but I’ve been aware for over a decade that drinking too much water can kill you.  And I would think that common sense would hint that drinking or eating too much of  ANYTHING could have adverse reactions, including death.  Ignorance is no excuse when bad things happen, especially when they are situations you walk into voluntarily.  I mean, this idiot continued to drink the goddamn water even after she began to feel nauseous and ill.  That’s generally when people with half a brain stop doing whatever they are doing.  This woman’s family should have been awarded nothing.  And the judge should have taken her 3 children aside and asked some questions to make sure they weren’t as retarded as their mother.  Harsh, I know, but where’s the personal responsibility?  Did she ask some questions before participating?  No.  She went in blindly and she paid the price for a stupid decision.

• Another recent lawsuit in Montana awarded $850,000 to grieving parents whose child was killed when a pitched ball came off of an aluminum bat, smacking him in the head.  They sued the makers of the bat, not claiming not that the bat was defective, but that there should have been a warning on the bat alerting people to the fact that balls hit by aluminum bats come back faster than balls hit by wooden bats.  There are so many thins wriong with this that I don’t know where to begin.  But here we go:  1) There is still no proof that aluminum bats are more dangerous than wooden bats.  In this case, a ball hit off a wooden bat would have caused the same damage. 2) A warning label on the bat alerting parents and children that aluminum bats are more dangerous than wooden bats.  Yeah that will surely make a difference.  Look, not a single state in this country has made aluminum bats illegal.  Each time a law arises, it is shot down, because, once again, there is no proof.  This lawsuit has no merit because the manufacturer did nothing wrong, and this is a case where even a warning wouldn’t have prevented the death.  Because EVERY little league operation uses metal bats.  And I bet you that these parents would have let their child play baseball even if the bats had a warning printed on them.  Why?  Because like every parent out there, they would have thought “There’s no way my son can get hurt playing baseball.  The odds of soemthign bad happening are so small.  And all of his friends are playing.”   And if they say otherwise, then they are fat fucking liars.  No sane parent prevents their child from playing a sport because of the 1 in a million chance that they could die.  if that was the case, no parent would ever let their child drive.  This whole thing is a money grab, nothing more, nothing less.  It’s a freak accident, and the results would probably have been the same if the ball had been launched from a wooden bat.  Remember a couple of years ago when a minor league third base couch was hit in the neck by a ball off of a wooden bat and died?  Its a freak accident, and guess what?  There is no one to blame.  And the fact that not a single state or organization will ban aluminum bats is proof enough that they are not innately more dangerous.  If their was indisputable proof, wooden bats would be the norm.  Done.  Freak accidents happen.  Maybe these parents should sue God next, but that makes as much sense as suing the bat manufacturer.  And if these parents really, I mean really, blamed the bats, wouldn’t they have sued the township and the little league itself for allowing the kids to use metal bats?  That would have made sense.  But guess who has the most money here?  Yep, the guys who make the bats.  Fucking juries.  The lawyers must whittle down the pool so only the most inbred morons are left.  Metal bats need labels to warn the  batter that balls may go fast when hit.  How the fuck does that help the pitcher who gets beaned.  This is as stupid as the woman who won a lawsuit after placing hot coffee in her lap.  Some things just don’t need labels, because if you are too dumb to know the obvious, well then, maybe you should be pushed out of the gene pool.

• And finally, these dumb Brits who were captured by pirates off the coast of Somalia.  Are you kidding me?  This is as irresponsible as those three hippies captured at the Iranian border.  What the fuck is wrong with people?  Who the hell says: “Hey, beautiful days for sailing in pirate infested waters, isn’t it?”   What, was the Mediterranean Sea closed for the week?  or full?  Who the fuck takes their yacht of the coast of Somalia?  The British government shouldn’t lift a  finger or pay a dime to free these idiots.  Once again, a simple case of being in a place you full well know you shouldn’t be.  Are we supposed to feel bad for this couple?  Is Britain really expected to hand over millions of tax dollars to secure the release of people who decided it would be a jolly good time to take their boat of the East coast of Africa?  Let them rot.  They brought this on themselves.  They took the risk, and now they have to live with the consequences.  Personal responsibility. 

Accidents happen in this world.  That’s life.  And all we can do as human beings is try to limit the chances that something bad can and will happen to us.  That means not getting so drunk you tumble from a window.  This means learning of the dangers that should be evident before you enroll in a contest.  This means not being in a place that you know is dangerous.  Life is unpredictable, and it is the responsibility of every individual person to put themselves in a position to limit the chances that bad things happen.  Personal responsibility.  Learn it.  Love it.  Live it. 

And to every college student who may be reading this: You reap what you sow.  When you get drunk off your ass outside of your dorm room, the chances of bas things happen shoots up exponentially.  Be safe, be smart.  Because if you end up falling five stories onto a concrete patio,  your own blood pooling around your crushed skull, dying cold and alone… if you end up in the ER on death’s door because of blood alcohol poisoning… if you wrap your car around a telephone pole while having a blood aocohol level of .16… you have no one to blame but yourself.

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5.  Pest of the West-  This episode is just awful all around, and there is a reason why Atlantis Squarepantis and Dunces and Dragons and Where’s Gary are shown all the time while Pest of the West stays locked in the vault.  The story is awful and the dialogue is offensive.  I haven’t seen it in a while, but I remember being really turned off by the constant use of the word “stupid” and how SB constantly offended Patrick.  The lessons on how to treat friends in this episode are horrible, and thankly, second chances at viewing it are few and far between.  EVERYONE should avoid this episode, not just the 6-12 year old crowd

4.  Bubble Buddy-  This episode features Spongebob as a killer.  He buries some poor guy up to his neck in the sand during high tide, and at the end of the episode, we see the dead fish’s angel going up to Heaven.  I mean, this is just wrong

3.  Frankendoodle-  Just like cartoons and shows that show monsters lurking in the closet and under the bed, striking fear into the heart of young children, this episode is just plain scary.  And kids these days already don’t want to do  anything creative or artistic.  All they want to do is veg and play video games and watch TV.  So this episode, which features an innocent drawing turned into a blood thirsty monster look to erase Spongebob,  may be too much for children to handle.  The last thing we need is children afraid to even pick up a pencil

2.  #1 Fan- Mr Krabs digging up a corpse just to get a hat back.  Not only do we have grave robbing in this episode, we have zombie fish erupting from the ground and assaulting Mr Krabs.  As a child, there was nothing scarier that the walking dead.  After seeing the Thriller video, my insides knotted up every time we would pass a cemetery in the car, and I could just imagine the rotting corpses erupting from the dirt to hunt me down.  Now, this episode is not as bad as Thriller but still… grave robbing, zombie fish… not a good episode for children

1.  And finally, the most inappropriate SB episode for children… Nasty Patty.  Could there be any other?  I mean, Krabs and SB spend the entire episode trying to bury the health inspector, whom they think they killed.  Just awful.  Don’t get me wrong, its a good episode… if your fourteen or over.  But for the youngest viewers, it is nightmare inducing.

Let me know what you think below.  And don’t forget to check out my other Top 5 SB lists

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Star Wars: Legacy of the Force is a nine part series set several years after the last major trilogy, New Jedi Order.  It is written by three authors, each penning three of the novels.  The authors include, in no particular order, Aaron Allston, Karen Traviss and Troy Denning.  Denning is the most well known, having written many Forgotten Realms trilogies for TSR, now Wizards of the Coast.

This story line, to be blunt, shows the transformation of Jacen Solo from a mere foot soldier in the new Galactic Alliance, into a new Emperor.  This story can not be read in a vacuum; to fully understand the characters and their motives, you must be familiar with the events of both the New Jedi Order story as well as the Dark Nest trilogy.  Jacen’s actions and transformations are directly related to his experiences in these novels.

First off, it needs to be said, that this story was a little too long.  I think seven books would have been perfect (though, with three authors, each needed to be given an equal number of books, and six would have been too short, unless each was expanded 50 to 100 pages).  Anyway… I’m not going to judge whether the story was good or not.  This is not a stand alone story.  It exists within the framework of the expanded Star Wars Universe, and is an integral part of the mythology.  Its not a single, off-shoot story that can be easily judged based on its relevance and execution.  This story defines the characters and their futures, and as such, in my mind, simply exists.  now, their are elements to the story I liked, and others I loathed, but the series does follow the natural progression and evolution of the characters and the universe.

I’ll tell you one thing I really disliked and felt slowed the story to a crawl at some point: Boba Fett.  We all love the Fett from the movies.  But each of Karen Traviss’ novels dedicates half of the pages to Fett, his family, his home life, his home plant, and his status as the leader of the Mandalorean people.  It’s interesting, I guess, fleshing out the character from mere mercenary to an actual, dynamic character, but it was too much.  Now understand, Fett plays an integral role in the end game of the story, and his back story and the associated characters to play a major role, but i felt it was too much.  I felt that the same results could have been achieved through different means with a more satisfying experience.  Whether or not focusing on Fett was Traviss’ idea, or the idea of the braintrust behind the expanded universe, i don’t know.  But what I do know is that too much time was focused on Fett.  Don’t get me wrong, some people may like this.  or love this.  Because Fett is a beloved character in the Star Wars Universe.  But I felt that it lengthened the story too much, causing it bog down too much at times.

A second issue of mine was the villain in the books.  We have Alema Rar, a Twi’lik Jedi driven insane during the Dark Nest Trilogy, and Luminya, another Jedi from Luke’s past.  Both play integral roles in the story, but quite frankly, neither of them are that interesting or compelling  characters.  The only villain worth the ink is Jacen Skywalker.

What did I like?  We get to see the deaths of many major characters (I won’t ruin this for you), many Jedi battles, plot intrigues, and a lot of suspense.  We see the return of the Imperial Remnant and Admiral Daala.  And we get the slow, deliberate transformation of Jacen Solo into Darth Caedus.

The story of Jacen Solo is not original.  But what is these days?  We start with a man who wants to help the Alliance as it deals with the defection of Corellia and several other major planets.  We see a man who begins his quest with good intentions before being sucked into the Sith philosophy.  And like so many men in history and literature, the innocent desire to do good for the sake of all gets twisted into a philosophy of the means justifying the ends.  And over the course of the series, Jacen slowly grabs for power, doing horrible things in the same of the greater good.  He kills a terrorist during an interrogation.  He subverts Ben Skywalker.  He orders his parents killed.  He goes after Luke.  He kills a lot of innocent people.  He sacrifices his own fleet for nothing more than pride.  And, by the end, he is willing to do the same acts that Palpatine did, supposedly for the greater good. 

Watching Jacen’s fall from grace is a sobering peek into the minds of men who think they know better than everyone else what’s best for them.  At the beginning, you can sympathize with Jacen, with his actions, with his reasoning.  He is the most  tragic of figures, and the seeds of his rise and subsequent fall are evident early on.  The authors show us step-by-step how Jacen is drawn to the dark side and how he slowly becomes the monster he ends up being.  As a reader, its intriguing to look at the slippery slope Jacen finds himself on and wondering, on a personal level, how far we would go as individuals to achieve his goals.

This is a different type of series from New Jedi Order, in that NJO was several smaller, sometimes independent stories, woven together to form the larger tapestry of the Yuuzhan Vong War, and each individual trilogy or duology or stand alone book could be judged on how well it integrated with the larger story.  But this series is a single cohesive story and can’t be jugded by the same standards.  And again, that’s why I will not judge it on the merits of the meat of the story.  But in conclusion, I will say that I believe that same story could have been delivered in a shorter, more cohesive story where Fett, as well as other chaff, could have been minimized.  But in the end it was a good, thought sometimes very predictable and slow, expansion of the Star Wars Universe.  And like with any good story,  for every conflict that was solved another was created,  setting us up for the next intriguing chapter in the expanded Universe.

If you have any comments or more specific questions, feel free to comment.

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First off, from a federal standpoint, while it may seem like they are powerless from stopped California from legalized marijuana use, they do have an ace up their sleeve, and I have seen them flex their muscle in the past.  When I started college in New Orleans in 1995, the drinking age was still 18.  The law changed several days after classes started.  Why?  Federal highway funds.  After several years of Louisiana defying the government by forfeiting their highway funds, they finally cracked and changed the drinking age to 21.  And the government, if they really want to keep marijuana legal in all 50 states, may resort to the same tactics.  And with the size of California and the number of heavily used roads, I can’t see them giving up their share of federal highway dollars.  But we’ll see.

What are the implications of California legalizing marijuana?  Well first off, we don’t have to deal with this stupid medical marijuana bullcrap, which, as you know from previous posts, I am not in favor off.  You can read my previous posts if you want to know my feelings on that.  But I digress.

First off, California believes that selling marijuana legally and taxing it will bring in over a billion dollars in taxes.  And while it will bring in revenue, i doubt it will bring in as much as they predict.  Why not?  The black market for marijuana will thrive.  If its legal to grow, then the criminal element will grow it and then sell it for cheaper than market value.  How?  Because they don’t pay taxes on it.  If you buy it from a store, the taxes may be 10-15%.  If you buy it under the table, you won’t have to pay the tax mark-up, saving $4-6 a pop.  Plenty of people will buy it legally, but man people will buy it illegally to save cash.

A bigger boon to the state may not even be the tax money from marijuana sale itself.  It may very well be the huge immigration rate from other states that helps buoy California’s economy.  I know several people who are not anchored to their present homes, and would gladly move to California simply for the legalized pot.  I could see tens of thousands of people relocating to Cali because of marijuana, and that would be a shot in the arm to the economy.

I’m curious to see how this will all work out if these initiatives pass.  Call it a social experiment if you will.  People say that legalized marijuana works well in Amsterdam, and that may be so.  But Amsterdam is small and more easily governed.  California is big.  Amsterdam is tiny.  California has millions of drivers on the road while Amsterdam depends on public transportation, keeping stoned citizens from getting behind the wheel.  And Amsterdam has a fraction of the crime California currently has.  The two locations are as different as night and day, and I am curious to see how the legalization of marijuana would affect California from a social and criminal standpoint. 

I’ve always believed that something being legal legitimizes it in the mind of a population.  I wonder how many people don’t smoke marijuana simply because it is illegal and they are worried about being caught and arrested.  But if the government makes it legal, all of a sudden you have a large segment of the population who would never have used it in the past now experimenting with it because it is legal. 

I’m a prime example.  I smoked my fair share of pot in college, but don’t anymore.  Why not?  I am a doctor, and if I got caught, well then, there goes my license and my career.  I wouldn’t even consider doing it in the privacy of my basement because the paranoia and the fear is too strong.  But if it were legal?  Hell yeah, I would light up every weekend to relax.

I also wonder how this would affect high school students.  Drinking is much more prevalent among high school kids because its much easier to obtain than pot.  And the consequences from parents and the law is less severe because alcohol is not illegal.  But if pot were legal for people 21 and older, you know it would trickled down to the high school kids, and many more would use it because it would be as easy to get as alcohol.

Okay, on to my second point… prostitution.  If California wants to legalize marijuana, why not legalize prostitution.  I have never understood, from a purely legal standpoint, why prostitution is illegal.  From a social standpoint, sure, I can understand.  It just has that dirty feel to it.  But prostitution exists everywhere in the US, legal in Nevada everywhere outside of Vegas, but in the shadows in every major city.  Hell, in New York City, its pretty much practiced legally behind the guise of escort services.  But what baffles me is that, if it is going on anyway, why not make it safer for the girls who are involved?  I am sure that the women who do it legally in Nevada are safer in all aspects than the women who work on the streets for pimps in the large cities.  They get regular medical check-ups, they are required to use condoms, they are protected from being abused, and they are protected by the government.

You know, you get all of these righteous assholes claiming how demeaning it is, how it ravages the soul and the body, how debasing it is to sell your body for money.  But that’s all bullshit.  What about boxers?  What about fighters in the UFC and MMA?  These guys do basically the same thing- they sell out their bodies, risk permanent damage and disability, for the enjoyment of others.  Is a woman selling her body really any different from a fighter giving up his body to be beaten on and bloodied in the ring for howling spectators?  Not really.  I bet the average fighter sacrifices much more than a prostitute in the long long.  It is a choice someone makes, and if a woman wants to make a living selling her body, much like a fighter sells his body, than who are we to stop them?

So maybe California show legalize prostitution as well.  It’s going on, you may as well protect the women involved and get a share of the tax revenue while you’re at it.

So that’s what I think?  What about you?

Peace/

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Technorati Tags: California, economy, legal, legalization, marijuana, medical marijuana, prostitution, taxes

At first I thought it was a joke.  And then I learned that Obama was chosen to win the award after only being in office for less than two weeks!  That’s like a director winning an Oscar after filming only two minutes of a movie.  Or an author winning a Pulitzer after penning only two pages.  i mean, these awards are supposed to be bestowed on achievement, not on potential, arent’ they?

But then I remembered that this award was given to Arafat, a man who stole every penny donated to help the Palestinian people, and Carter, an ignorant, senile, sorry excuse for a human being.  And I realized that Obama receiving the award isn’t the joke.  The joke is the award itself.  In retrospect, it should be renamed the Nobel Anti-Semetic Prize, because it seems that this “honor” is too often bestowed on the enemies of Israel.  But that is a discussion for another day.

Several articles have been written over the past few days on this subject, and all of them, even those by the liberal rags, look at this award as being a negative thing for Obama, and I can’t help but to agree.  Because now the pressure is on him to actually DO something, not just talk.  He was elected because the economy tanked at the perfect time for him, and Americans were looking for something, anything, to hope for.  He was the hook, the charismatic African American with two young children, and his pretty words were the worm, wriggling with promise at the end of the hook.  And the American people bit.  They bit hard.  And almost nine months later, that appetizing worm is tasting more and more like sawdust.  Because there is no meat, no substance, to anything that spills from his lips.

He promised us the world, and I, like any half-intelligent American, didn’t believe a word he uttered.  His agenda, his promises… pretty wrapping paper with nothing within.  He has big plans, big ideas, big everything, but he had failed to deliver anything, and i couldn’t be prouder. 

• He promised to close Gitmo by January 2010, which was a horrible idea to begin with, and it doesn’t look like it will happen any time soon.  its funny how the same people who want it closed also don;t want these terrorist nuts relocated to their backyards.  Hypocrites.
• Cap-and-trade, which would raise all of our utility costs as electric companies update their infrastructure?  Not happening anytime soon.
• A public health plan, which is a horrible idea (how is that working in Britain and Canada, where citizens die waiting for vital treatment?)  Snuffed out.
• Getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan?  Not happening any time soon.
• Trying to make America look less “threatening” to the rest of the world?  Yeah, approval ratings are higher in Europe, but who the hell cares.  if France approves of our foreign policy, then we are doing something wrong.
• Fixing the Middle East crisis?  Yeah, that’s going well.

And that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Obama’s futile agenda.  He has bitten off way more than he can chew and is now choking on the failure.  Promises, promises, promises…

The Nobel Peace Prize.   It couldn’t have been handed to a more deserving man, considering the Prize has become a symbol of abject failure.

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And the new Let’s Make A Deal is a prime example.  Click here for my quick thoughts

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Now where am I going with this?  Every couple of years, the leaders of the world gather to bid for the Olympics.  Presidents and sultans and kings and emperors and warlocks and sorcerers and dukes and whatnot fight for the right to host the Olympics.  Why?  Not pride.  Don’t give me that bullshit.  For money.  For cash.  The problem is, these assholes that bid for the Olympics to come to their countries are the same assholes that decry pollution and global warming at the yearly conferences. “We must cut pollution for the sake of our planet!” is the common rallying cry.

Now where is the hypocrisy, you may ask?  Do any of these leaders who yearn for the Olympics but believe in global warming and saving the environment even consider the carbon footprint associated with hosting the Olympics?  Of course not!  Do you know how much pollution is created while erecting what amount to dozens, or even hundreds, of what amount to temporary structures to host the games?  An enormous amount.  Not only the pollution caused putting  up the structures, but the environmental impact of the trees torn down for lumber and the pollution created to manufacture other structural elements.  And what about the pollution caused for all of the extra plane flights needed to fly in the athletes, their trainers, their families, the media, the judges, the spectators, and thousands of other people.  These leaders talk about cutting down on the pollution and global warming, but when it comes to the Olympics, Mother Earth can take a back seat.  Its absolutely disgusting.

Someone told me a couple of days ago a smart thing to do would be to set up a permanent Olympic village in Greece for the Summer Games and another somewhere is Scandinavia for the Winter Games.  You would still have massive amounts of pollution to bring people to the games, but at least new cities wouldn’t be constructing new Olympic villages every 2 years.

Of course this makes sense, if the Olympics were solely about the games and the athletes, like it should be.  But it’s never that simple.  Its about politics.  And its about cold hard cash. 

Obama gets his lazy hypocritical ass in front of the camera and screams for new fuel standards for our cars, and then several weeks ago stumps for the Olympics to come to Chicago.  Hypocrisy at its finest, my friends.  What a fucking asshole, pardon my French.  Americans must cut down on gas consumption so as to decrease pollution, but its okay to spew filth into the air for six years to prepare a little village for the Olympics.  And then its okay to fly in hundreds of people, a feat which requires hundreds of extra flights.  And even more pollution.

These leaders have their heads so far up their asses, I swear they can see their own black, rotting hearts.  You can’t have it both ways.  You can’t ask the world to cut down on pollution, and then bid for the right to cause massive pollution in one of your country’s cities.  Its enough to make me ill.

But of course, global warming doesn’t exist when the dollar signs start flashing in front of your eyes

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Technorati Tags: Chicago, Global warming, Obama, Olympics, pollution, Rio