New Bullet Vibe song: Like The Mormons Do

fake post

Tonight was certainly interesting and quite different than my normal grind, so I thought I would share. A friend "celebrated" her birthday today and wound up with 5 drunk guys talking about war and guts and stuff. So, in an twist of lyrical fate, yours truly was challenged to write a "poem" and this is what I came up with.

To preface, this poem is about a local jaunt, a regular's haunt, that is close, in most cases close enough, to home. It is called the Galaxy Hut, for those catching up.

Poison In The Glass, 7/30/08 ~10PMish

The "slut" is but a hut,
It is not about smut,
No luck.
It typically does not suck,
But what.
Games become an electronical riddle and a heirarchial masterpiece.
Sometimes one will demonstrate a fiddle until the last drop of yeast.
Stumble home, fumble phone, bid for prone,
Wake.
Start again.

Heh, beats union work...

You've been hoodwinked by "The Man"

Read the fine print: "For the study, researchers performed high-resolution structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on 15 men who smoked more than 5 joints daily for more than 10 years. With an average age of 39.8 years and a mean duration of regular use of 19.7 years,

Who in the world smokes five joints (or more) a day?! Do you realize how much pot that is? That's like an 8th a day. Where do they get these guys? The lack of oxygen alone while smoking that much would cause the brain to shrink.

They have to do these studies where they get people to ingest massive quantities so that they can get some startling data. What would happen if they gave subjects 5 shots of vodka every day for ten years? They wouldn't have any subjects left at the end of the trials.

A little Googling reveals that the ORYGEN (the research outfit that did this study) gets the bulk of it's funding from a charitable trust in Australia called the Colonial Foundation. Reading the Colonial Foundation's Annual Report we find such gems as these from the chairman:

"The aim of the research is to fundamentally change the way in which drug policy decision-making occurs, and to ultimately reduce the harms from drug use."

Excuse me! but the aim of research should be to discover the truth, not change the way policy making decisions are made. I smell a big, stinky conflict of interest.

I also don't trust Aussies. They always want to fight me for some reason. Must be because they don't ingest enough pot to mellow their shit out.



On 6/27/08, My Wife wrote:
Pot Damages the Brain
The marijuana debate continues, even though we have seen damage on SPECT scans from marijuana for many years. The article below reports on an important new study on marijuana and brain damage published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Medscape News June 6, 2008 — Long-term, heavy cannabis use has been linked with structural brain abnormalities, a new study shows.

Investigators at the University of Melbourne, Australia, found the hippocampus and the amygdala tend to be smaller in heavy cannabis users compared with nonusers, with average volume reductions of 12% in the hippocampus and 7.1% in the amygdala. Cannabis use was also associated with subthreshold symptoms of psychotic disorders.

Cannibis use is a controversial topic; the authors note there are many who believe cannabis is relatively harmless and should be legally available. However, the current findings suggest otherwise.

“These findings challenge the widespread perception of cannabis as having limited or no neuroanatomical sequelae. Although modest use may not lead to significant neurotoxic effects, these results suggest that heavy daily use might indeed be toxic to human brain tissue,” they write.

It is estimated that 15 million Americans use cannabis in a given month, that 3.4 million are daily users with a duration of 12 months or more, and that every year 2.1 million start using the drug.

Led by Murat Yücel, PhD, the study is published in the June issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.

Mechanism Unclear

According to the authors, this is the first human study of long-term heavy cannabis use to show marked hippocampal volume reductions. The findings, they add, are consistent with the view that cannabis use increases the risk of psychotic symptoms.

For the study, researchers performed high-resolution structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on 15 men who smoked more than 5 joints daily for more than 10 years. With an average age of 39.8 years and a mean duration of regular use of 19.7 years, the subjects had no history of polydrug abuse or neurologic/mental disorder.

MRI results from these subjects were then compared with those of 16 matched controls who did not use cannabis.

Despite the large magnitude of effect, it is unclear whether volumetric reductions are due to neuronal or glial loss, a change in cell size, or a reduction in synaptic density. The investigators say more research is needed to explain the underlying mechanisms.

The study also showed hippocampal volume in cannabis users was inversely correlated with cumulative exposure to the drug in the left, but not right, hemisphere — a finding that suggests that “the left hippocampus may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of cannabis exposure and may be more closely related to the emergence of psychotic symptoms.”

According to the investigators, “further prospective, longitudinal research is required to determine the degree and mechanisms of long term cannabis-related harm and the time course of neuronal recovery after abstinence.”

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2008;65:694-701.

Oh, here I am. I just wanted to get a little caught up here and tell you a story from this past weekend. Rekindling fond memories of San Diago days of old, and all of those awesome whale vagina weekends, I went with some friends on the Right Coast to see Dave Wakeling. Actually, the show was billed as "The English Beat." Now, you've got to hand it to Dave for carrying the flag all of these years or at least milking the brand, but it dawned on me how truly rediculous this show was. Dave Wakeling was the only original member and not only had he gained about 100 pounds, after apparently giving up on his generous contributions to Colombian drug lords, but not a single member looked anything like the two-tone ska era. He had a bunch of rasta-looking 20-somethings playing all of his covers, even mixing in some old reggae tunes. Not a bad show musically, but I also realized that most of the middle-aged yuppy crowd thought this was a revival show. I had a guy even offer to pay almost $100 for my extra ticket since it was a sold out show. Tickets were $32 which is frankly rediculous. I mean, hell, I could see Molly Hatchet for $12 and I might even see boobies at that show. It pains me to write this review because the English Beat was one of my favorite bands in the 80's, but Dave needs to rethink his marketing. If he were to do a revival show, I think he could sell out all over the country, particularly if they did all of the merchandising right. The best t-shirt they had looked like something made on a computer press-on and they wanted $20. Remember kids, when it comes to drugs, just say blow. Thanks for nothing Dave.

Oh yeah and my friend bashed his girlfriend's head in at the show too, which was pure drama. At least I made friends with the head of security.

My man, Ron Paul, has been labled a loonie by many in the media and by one or two of my drinking buddies. And while we agree to disagree one thing that we usually agree on is some variation of "There's no way Ron Paul can get the Republican nomination." And indeed with every passing fourth place finish in a primary that fate gets more and more sealed. After Super Tuesday when it's really apparant that Ron Paul won't get enough delegates and/or McCain is inches away from the magic number he needs then the media will begin to ask why Ron Paul is still tormenting them by insisting to be on the same stage. Huckabee will be gone and now they are going to have a clear front-runner in McCain, and still Romney, who is just minutes from conceeding, and this other guy, Ron Paul, still sticking it out. Doesn't he know when to pack it in? He's a mockery, a nutcase. Then it dawned on me: Ron Paul has run as a third-party candidate before. He learned that time that 3rd party candidates don't get any media attention. This time he has used the spotlight of the Republican nominating process to get his message out to any that cared to listen. He's not going to go away now because he does not support McCain and he doesn't care what the party thinks of him. Ron Paul will stick it out to the bitter, bitter end. He's got plenty of money. He was the top fundraiser last quarter and he's frugal as hell, he'll stay in Motel 6's and fly commercial until June. He will use any and all media opportunities to decry the Iraq War and speak the kind an economic language that makes McCain's head spin. Therefore every media mention, interview, even C-SPAN coverage and even every delegate is a win for Ron Paul. He's basically used the system against itself in order to be heard because he feels his message is more important than actually winning the race. Staying in the race is a bold move by Ron Paul and it will anger many of the party faithful and the media as well. They will rob him of the stage as much as possible because now that the party has chosen someone the party faithful are all supposed to march in line. Ron Paul's continued presence in the race will only serve to be a fly in McCain's Ointment du Warfare.

Well the Dow finally did what I've been saying it was going to do for a long time, which is tank. It took so long to happen I'd kind of forgotten that a while ago I said the Dow would go down to the 12,000 level and look at that, we're at 11,700 this morning. Well now that we're here, I do believe that things are looking good for the market, really good in fact. Expect a rapid rise back up to where we were: 13,500 - 14,000. After that, sell, because we are indeed in a bear market and we'll blow through 11,700 like it was training pants. I'm speculating that fundamentals such as employment, housing, CDO's, carry trades, earnings, inflation, etc. will continue to erode and that it will largely be due to central bank intervention that the market will rebound. Then the Emporer's clothes will get harder and harder to see and we'll be in a pickle, as it were. I'm curious what will happen to commodities as the stock market spikes up. Will gold break $1,000 or will it take a breather? Will oil mellow out finally? I've long been a proponent that we're either headed for hyper-inflation or deflation (the bad kind, not the Wal-Mart kind) and seeing what happens to commodities in the next few months will possibly be a barometer on what the future holds regarding these two devils.