Ahoy Generation W (Woodstockers): A new study from the White Lab Coat Guys indicates that “long-term pot smokers were roughly 62 percent less likely to develop head and neck cancers than people who did not smoke pot.”

Pass the bong!

posted by Mudd

Breaking News!

An intrepid Media Pundit over yonder at the BBC has spoken the unspeakable, to wit – “…. climate change has acquired its huge profile largely because it is a far more convenient truth than poor air quality or biodiversity loss or fisheries decline, where the actions needed are more likely to be national or local – and certainly more convenient than tackling the issues that underpin everything else, the size of the human population and our unsustainable consumption of the Earth’s resources.”

Read all about it!

posted by Mudd

“Experts” in the UK have stumbled onto an exciting new plan to help tackle global warming. In fact, the idea is so simple, it’s a wonder Davy Crockett (King of the Wild Frontier!) didn’t suggest it, before his untimely death at the Alamo.

Ready? Fake trees!

That’s right – “the devices would be able to soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. 100,000 of them would remove the carbon emissions of every car, lorry and bus in Britain.”

Now, imagine the transformation of the American landscape, from barren deserts, forlorn plains, and beetle-infested hillsides, into sparkling vistas of fake trees “coated with synthetic materials that absorb CO2, which would then be removed and stored underground in depleted oil and natural gas reservoirs.”

Yucca Mountain, here we come!

posted by Mudd

This may be yesterday’s news. But for those who were tweeting and missed it, take a gander at this quaint piece, cleverly entitled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”

[answer: of course it is.]

posted by Mudd

You know folks are getting desperate when they decide to boycott health food stores. Carrying crude signs reading: “Boycott Whole Foods – CEO says he doesn’t care about your health care”, disgruntled protesters pace the streets, hoping to salvage what remains of the effort to retool America’s health care system. 5’ll get ya 10 most of the sign-bearers haven’t read the Wall Street Journal in the last 15 years. Which is where Whole Foods’ CEO (John Mackey) laid out his plan to solve the current health care miasma.

To make matters more fun, we now learn that the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) has jumped into the fray, perhaps with both feet. Head-butters unite! And just in time for football season!

But it gets seriously sizzling when a big investment company, ostensibly concerned over their shares of Whole Foods, demands that John Mackey be dumped from his lofty position (saving the share holders a whopping $33,000 yearly salary!).

What’s next? Perhaps the Three Stooges can be resurrected, whipped into fighting shape, given a few hits of mescaline, and aimed at America’s leading purveyor of “natural foods.” That Whole Foods employs thousands of colorful youngsters who actually like working there shouldn’t play into the equation. Or that Mackey’s salary, along with other high-ranking WF’s wonks is capped (can we say the same about the UFCW?).

But, in the long run, I guess it makes sense to punish the innocent in order to make a point. And that point is that America’s political “progressives” are becoming the nation’s least tolerant people. It can be argued that CEO’s should keep their eye on the bottom line and their mouths shut. But to tar and feather Whole Foods over the opinion of their CEO is akin to shooting yourself in the foot because your shoe is too small. Opinions are, as we all know, like proverbial elbows – everybody’s got one (or two).

Count me out – I’m low on organic oatmeal and “green” bananas. Later today I’m driving my 50 mpg sedan over yonder to the evil Whole Foods, slurp some fair trade coffee, flirt with the cute hippie gals in the bakery department, and throw away a few dineros on a hunk of free range chicken.

E-gad – I’m an omnivore!

posted by Mudd

Attention Zephyrteers: In an effort to “save the planet”, it is our duty to reduce our carbon footprint, thereby averting a certain collapse of Nature. Not to mention ourselves. And it turns out the answer is simple: get rid of that nasty black carbon (aka: soot) – “produced largely by diesel vehicles and the burning of biomass, including in cookstoves in developing countries like China and India.”

As the experts tell us in Foreign Affairs: “Black carbon is also responsible for almost 50 percent of warming in the Arctic as well as extensive snow and ice melt in the Himalayas.” 

But, like all solutions involving the Earth’s infinitely complex ecological processes, getting soot out of the system will require a wee bit of sacrifice. The most likely choices are: 1. Place the entire Indian subcontinent on the Atkin’s Diet (delivered in sustainable Styrofoam containers, paid for by the rock band U2), or, 2. We all pitch in and send 4,345,321,846 solar range-tops to the planet’s soot burning citizens.

“It’s later than you think!”

posted by Mudd

In an effort to become the silliest example (in a long list of sillies) where all things “green” are concerned, now we have this:

Are You the Next Green Girl?

Don’t forget the Rolaids.

posted by Mudd

Doesn’t it feel good using those cute, environmentally benign, totally sustainable, green bags that replace the nasty plastic things they used to hand out at Whole Foods? (For all you silly boycotters, insert Trader Joe’s here).

Turns out that being green is a bit more complicated than Al Gore would have us believe. “If you look at the entire grocery package that you bought, the bag may account for 1 to 2 percent of the environmental impact,” says Bob Lilienfeld, editor of the Use Less Stuff report.

What’s a neo-green-freak to do in these trying times? Is nothing what it seems to be? Can’t we just save the frigging planet and get back to beer and football?

But, don’t trust me; go here

posted by Mudd

Ever heard of the Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica? Well, now you have. And, in the eyes (test tubes) of climate gurus, it’s melting faster than a popsicle in Hell. In fact, those pesky iceberg things appear to be vanishing so quickly that most climate forecasts will soon be yesterday’s science fiction, badly in need of revision. And it doesn’t look good, depending on your opinion of rising sea levels.

So, what’s an intrepid Earthling to do in these dizzy times of ever morphing temperatures, habitat flip-flop, and species rearrangement? Adapt!

From the look of things, you might want to consider buying a nice chunk of dirt somewhere in the sandhills of Nebraska, a.s.a.p. It might not be the pinnacle of hip culture, but think long – like Warren Buffet.

I figure western Nebraska’s average mid-January temperature will be 75 degrees by 2028. Summer might get a bit toasty, but there’s opportunity in heat waves (water-based theme park, for example, complete with buffalo rides, and an organic hot dog stand).

Only those adventurers willing to think (and live) outside the proverbial Box are going to have fun as the planet turns into a Circus of Doom. Plan ahead! Don’t become relegated to crass cannibalism as your sole means of survival (wasn’t that what they did in some Cormac McCarthy movie? Or am I thinking Charlton Heston?)

Alas…. this doesn’t look like Kansas anymore. So we’re off to Nebraska!

posted by Mudd

Finally, good news for chronic headache sufferers!

posted by Mudd