"Klotz" As In "Blood"

Another reason not to bogart that joint….

The active ingredient in marijuana may suppress tumour invasion in highly invasive cancers, according to new research in Germany.

Cannabinoids, the active components in marijuana, are already used medically to reduce the side effects of cancer treatment, such as pain, weight loss and vomiting. But the new study, published in the latest issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, finds that the compounds may also have an anti-cancer effect.

However, more research is needed to determine whether the laboratory results would hold true in humans, the authors wrote. — peety-passion.com

More research, hey? I call my bud (“bud” — get it?) Herb, who’s been advocating medicinal uses of marijuana since before Woodstock. The first Woodstock.

“Take a number, get in line, and bring lots of reading material,” he advises.

But Herb — we’re talking about cancer treatment. Fucking cancer. Doesn’t that trump the usual anti-THC prejudices?

“Not in your lifetime, dirty hippie,” he says (nicely). “Marijuana still sets off all the alarm bells it always did — from sexual mania to communism. You think one little study’s gonna change that, you been smokin’ Kool-Aid!”

I understand, Herb. But the authors want more study! Where do I sign up? What’s it pay?

“Get real. There won’t be any grant funds, if that’s what you’re thinking. We’re rather see people die in agony and rot from cancer than let loose the dogs of dope. The tobacco companies are in retreat, the alcohol industry doesn’t want the competition, and the pharmaceutical giants are dead set against anything they can’t patent and prescribe.”

Herb! We’re talking about cancer!

“No we’re not, grasshopper. We’re talking about money, law and order, politics, and prejudice. We’re talking about fear, sex, and crime. We’re talking about disrespect for authority, bad drivers, flower children, and ‘colored people.’ We’re talking about Never City. Give it up.”

Well, shit. And really, my reaction is just knee-jerk anyway. I quit years ago when all dope was doing for me was putting me to sleep, making me paranoid, and wiping out entire decades of memory. I think.

Besides, who needs the aggravation? Fifty bucks buys you a bottle of Partida Reposado. If that doesn’t get you laid, you might as well die from cancer anyway.

Here in the sub-tropics, sinus sufferers divide the calendar between head cold/flu and allergy seasons. Both have one component in common: stuffed noses. Heads filled with snot.

Anybody who drives the highways has noticed that many people, stuck in traffic, pass the time by merrily mining their nostrils. I’ve seen people stuff fingers up their noses almost to the second knuckle, twirl them around, and emerge with what looks like what would cost $3.50 at the neighborhood Baskin-Robbins. Just needs a sugar cone, and maybe some of those chocolate sprinkle things.

Yeah, sometimes they eat it. Sometimes they fling it out the window. I bet it sometimes ends up on their pants leg. At home I imagine they wipe it on the dog.

Your disgust is inappropriate. These people are suffering. Their heads, brimming with sticky, viscous mucous, pound painfully, and they crave relief. Besides, most of them wash their hands afterwards (I suppose, when they get around to it, anyway).

So it is with considerable fanfare that I report the news of the Portable Nasal Mucus Removing Device.

A device that frees you from the unpleasantness of having to pick your own nose while letting you pretend you’re a member of the National Rifle Association (NRA), seems pretty sophisticated to me. – invemtorspot.com

No sticky fingers, no need to soil the upholstery or lower the window to rid your fingertips of the slimy residue. No origami-like skills required to custom-shape a twisted tissue into your sore, crusty nostril. And imagine the delight of sitting in your car with what appears to be a firearm stuffed up your schnozz!

My sole regret is that I didn’t find this before Christmas. What a great gift idea for your mother in law, boss, or car-pool partner! I suggest you stock up on snot-suckers for next year.

And just imagine how this technology could be applied to other, more delicate orifices!

Food is good stuff. I don’t take it for granted, but I’ll never be a foodie, and I never read about restaurants, recipes, dining experiences, nutrition, etc. Bores me stiff. Not a good stiff, either. So when I encountered “An Eater’s Manifesto” (below), which I read and enjoyed, I figured I ought to share it in case somebody out there hadn’t seen it yet:

1. Don’t eat anything your grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
2. Avoid foods containing ingredients you can’t pronounce.
3. Don’t eat anything that won’t eventually rot.
4. Avoid food products that carry health claims.
5. Shop the peripheries of the supermarket; stay out of the middle.
6. Better yet, buy food somewhere else: the farmer’s market or CSA.
7. Pay more, eat less.
8. Eat a wide diversity of species.
9. Eat food from animals that eat grass.
10. Cook, and if you can, grow some of your own food.
11. Eat meals, and eat them only at tables.
12. Eat deliberately, with other people whenever possible, and always with pleasure.

These are from “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan, author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” Here’s a review.

We could pick on a few of these. How about the first one? Toward the end of her life, my grandmother didn’t recognzie anything at all, let alone food, and she fell into the habit of eating her intravenous tube. Not a reliable guide. And look at #2: What happens to mutes, or individuals with severe speech impediments? Does Pollan suggest they starve themselves?

As for shopping the supermarkets’ peripheries (#5), that makes sense. It’s where the beer is. And the middle contains the cleaning supplies and insecticides.

But I love to eat standing up at counters, not tables (#11), and I thoroughly enjoy eating alone (#12). I’ve noticed that other people like it when I eat alone, too.

Guido is an amazing cook who loves to prepare all sorts of dishes, not just Italian (as if THAT weren’t enough!). Meanwhile, I still fit comfortably into jeans I owned as an undergraduate: at 6 feet tall, 165 pounds, my weight hasn’t varied more than 10 pounds in over 30 years. I attribute this to a variety of factors including luck, vanity, having no ass, and a bad attitude that lets me laugh at eating disorders and quacks therapists who “treat” them.

Basically, there’s but one rule to follow: use your head when you eat. You’ll be fine.

Photo credit: If Michaelangelo’s David Lived in the US Today.

Here’s the most amusing episode involving goats since Monkey Boy’s stellar reading performance while the Twin Towers burned.

After a goat was raped and killed in a Panhandle town, animal activists, police and citizens were almost as shocked to find out that bestiality isn’t a crime in Florida.

A suspect in the case, a 48-year-old man, is serving an 11-month, 29-day jail sentence on animal-theft charges in connection with the attempted abduction of another goat in a separate case, according to Walton County Assistant State Attorney James Parker.

[Democratic Senator Nan Rich] said she was as shocked as she was disgusted when she learned of the rape and asphyxiation last year of a family pet goat named Meg — who was pregnant with twins — in the town of Mossy Head in rural Walton County. — Miami Hurled

Evidently the suspect is as horny as his goats. And does anybody else find it a scream that this took place in a town called “Mossy Head”?

I place a call to Walton County and get their spokesman, Nolan Voyd.

“Trouble is, we discovered that in Florida that beastiality isn’t illegal,” he tells me. “We can charge this pervert with theft, animal abuse, and trespassing, but believe it or not, sex with an animal isn’t prohibited by statute in Florida.”

Seems odd for an agricultural state, doesn’t it?

“Living in a big city, you’d suppose that, but think it through. Out here in western bumblefuck, a man might have 3 choices — left hand, right hand, or a knothole in a Live Oak. A goat starts to look pretty good on a cold Saturday night.”

Shee-it. What part of “baaaa” don’t you understand?

“Besides, Florida’s been a red state for some years now, and maybe the powers that be figure looking the other way on animal sex just ensures new generations of voters to support family values, prayer in schools, and states rights.”

Sounds right to me, Nolan. Don’t want to alienate the humanoid cloven hoof voter base. That reminds me — what’s Katherine Harris doing these days?

“Well, I’m sure this is all one hilarious knee-slapper to y’all down there, but between the legislature, PETA, and the media, it’s getting’ mighty ugly up here, so pardon me while I get back to work.” The line goes dead (dead).

One difference between this and the infamous Junio “the Puppy Fucker” Trenta case (“What’s the problem? It’s my dog!”): this wasn’t even the suspect’s pet goat. (Trento update, complete with photos.) He abducted the poor creature.

That makes him (what else?) a kid-napper!

Welcome to Nobody Reads My Blog on Friday Friday. Which is too bad, because there’s a lot of interesting crap out there…..some literally falling from the trees!

Plummeting temperatures Wednesday night and early Thursday…caused [tree-dwelling iguanas] to drop out of the trees and litter the ground.

The cold-blooded reptiles, exotics from Central and South America that can reach six feet in length, maintain a body temperature similar to the air around them. When the temperature falls into the low 40s, their bodies go into a deep sleep — with basically only the heart continuing to function and with little blood flow, experts said.

”The worst part of the cold comes in the evening, and they literally just shut off,” said Ron Magill, communications director for Miami Metrozoo. “Their bodies shut off and they lose their grip on the tree, and they start falling.”

They aren’t dead. At least, most aren’t. “It is as if they are in suspended animation, said Robert Yero,” park manager at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park on Key Biscayne, where it was raining iguanas Thursday morning. — Miami Hurled

Wow. I feel their pain.

I can’t get either Magill or Yero on the phone, but a groundskeeper from the park who gives his name as “Leif” (he might be pulling my chain here) is happy to talk.

“Yah, they’re dropping out like Biden and Dodd,” he chuckles. “Spent all morning moving ‘em out into the sun to wake ‘em up before the boys arrive.”

Boys? Wadaya mean?

“That part didn’t make the news report,” says Leif. “The females are more susceptible to the cold than the males. When they hit the grass, the males are on ‘em like frat house boys on drunken cheerleaders. Cold weather works like date-rape drugs.”

Holy molting lizard lips. That’s ……eerie.

“Yeah. Party City. And it ain’t just ‘guanas,” Leif goes on. “A lotta park employees react the same way. It gets cold, they just shut down, sometimes right on their vehicles. Had a truck end up in the mangroves cuppla years ago that way. Only reason the driver escaped was the guys couldn’t figger out how to undo the zippers on her snow pants before she woke up.”

That one never made the papers either.

“Naw. This ain’t the post office.”

Iguanas ever hurt anybody else when they fall?

“Had a tourist knocked on the head once. Five-footer dropped right down on her while she was photographing it. Broke her camera, scratched up her face, but the worst part was she shit her pants — thought it was attacking her, I guess. Haw haw!”

He rings off. Isn’t nature amazing? Guess we need to reevaluate the term “lounge lizard” if it turns out date rape is a natural phenomenon.

Thanks to Rick for the heads-up on the story!

Anybody who purposely plays in the snow deserves to lose fingers and toes. Or other digits. My feeling is, if god wanted us to ski or ice skate he’d have given us not only blades on our hooves, but plenty more fur.

Yes, I know. I live in south Florida, and the number of fur-intensive human beings walking around (upright, no less) is a bit off-putting at times. But we’re talking wild walagora furry, not just hairy backs and knuckles.

So I’m neutral in THIS dispute:

The Mount Washington Cog Railway, which chugs up the side of New England’s tallest peak, has been called the Railway to the Moon. Some people have been taking that title a bit too literally.

The White Mountain National Forest, most of which is in New Hampshire, has acted against hikers who drop their pants and moon the cog railway. Eight people were cited by undercover officers for public nudity or disorderly conduct during a sting operation in August and September after some passengers complained that they had seen more on the mountain than they had bargained for.

“Mooning the cog” is something of a tradition, especially for people hiking the Appalachian Trail. Its origins are unclear. Some theorize it started as a way for hikers to protest the noise and smoke coming from the train, while others say it started as, and continues to be, nothing but a joke– NY Times

Turns out it’s a Federal offense, too. With all the hysteria over “porous borders,” we pay agents to pinch bare-assed mooners.

On the one hand, if your idea of a good time is taking a train up a frozen mountain to gawk at snowy rocks, you probably deserve to see butts as well as buttes.

But if your idea of a good time is to drop trou and let the winter wind tickle your testicles, you’ve earned your frostbitten foreskin. It’s treatable surgically: physicians can even scrape off the smegma to spice your hot cocoa.

Cold makes people crazy. I do my best to stay away. I didn’t move here for the culture, friendly people, employment opportunities, or intellectual challenges, I came to get and stay warmer all winter. I prefer the sweating maniacs here to the nipply numbskulls up there.

So have a blast time doing what you do in Ice City, just keep your cold away from me and I won’t say a another word. Deal?

Like most Americans, I spend all my leisure time in strip clubs enjoying the sight of plastic surgery victims half my age vulgarly display their flesh attempting to get people like myself sufficiently hormonally impaired to hand them money. So this study from the the University of New Mexico by Geoffrey Miller and Brent Jordan, is interesting:

While ovulating — and therefore the most fertile — strippers made an average of $30 per hour more than menstruating women and $15 per hour more than women elsewhere in their cycles. Women on the pill — who typically don’t ovulate — made significantly less than naturally cycling women overall and had no “estrus earning peak.” – NY Times

So THAT’S the secret! They’re “egging” us on, aren’t they.

The study suggests that when it comes to sexual arousal, human beings function on about the same level as alley cats. A female cat in heat attracts toms from miles away. They sense it — the smell, the sound, the vibe of energy. It’s stronger than gravity, as addictive as pure heroin. As one of my own male cats once explained it to me years ago, “It’s not just pussy, it’s pussy pussy.”

“The findings that estrus impacts earnings could have implications for women selling cars or giving big presentations as C.E.O.’s,’’ Miller says. ‘‘Should women schedule big job interviews during certain weeks of the month? We don’t know. But maybe.”

Gentlemen: we’re cooked.

Florida’s program to lure qualified teachers to the state has bumped into a problem:

Bartow, FL – Police say a Bartow High School student hoping to improve her math grades through extra credit instead got a lewd request from her teacher.

Isaac Nathan Tillis was arrested after repeatedly telling the student she could earn an “A” if she gave him oral sex. According to authorities, he lured the girl into a teacher’s lounge bathroom on Wednesday, but once inside police and the girl sprung a trap.

The 16-year-old was wearing a hidden listening device, which recorded Tillis’ proposition after he dropped his pants, police said. The 29-year-old teacher had also scribbled his request on a hall pass, an arrest report stated.  Officers arrested Tillis and charged him with soliciting a lewd sex act from a minor.  — Sun-Sentinel

“I thought this was a recruitment perq,” complained Tillis.  “That’s one reason I moved here to teach — they pay sucked, but so did the students.”

That’s right. Long headline.

Welcome to “No One Reads My Blog on Friday” Friday.

The old advertising slogan “Guinness is Good for You” may be true after all, according to researchers. A pint of the black stuff a day may work as well as an aspirin to prevent heart clots that raise the risk of heart attacks.

[R]esearchers told a meeting of the American Heart Association in Orlando, Florida, that the most benefit they saw was from 24 fluid ounces of Guinness – just over a pint – taken at mealtimes. They believe that “antioxidant compounds” in the Guinness, similar to those found in certain fruits and vegetables, are responsible for the health benefits because they slow down the deposit of harmful cholesterol on the artery walls. — bbc news

The Irish rightfully claim that god made Guinness so the Irish wouldn’t conquer the world, but they stayed mum about Klotz (as in blood.)

Guinness is a food group all its own. As good as coffee in the morning, a splendid pick-me-up any time of day. I’ve made whole meals of it many a time, and you’ll find no flies (or clots) on me.

Recipe: One room temperature pint of Guiness, one ripe banana, one handful of cashews. Toss the cashews in your mouth and chew until they’re crushed, then take a large bite of banana. When all is soft with just a touch of crunch, pour in the Guinness. Aaah. Bliss. The gods be smiling and all’s well in the world. Swallow. Repeat until filled to capacity.

One word of warning: the following hours may well be punctuated with extraordinary flatulence. Avoid small rooms.

Guess he showed them.

Berlin – A man nearly died from alcohol poisoning after quaffing two pints of vodka at an airport security check instead of handing it over to comply with new rules about carrying liquids aboard a plane, police said Wednesday.

New airport rules prohibit passengers from carrying larger quantities of liquid onto planes, and he was told at a security check he would have to either throw out the bottle of vodka or pay a fee to have his carry-on bag checked. Instead, the [64 year old] man chugged the vodka — and was quickly unable to stand or otherwise function, police said. — Sun-Sentinel

Study questions:

1. Is chugging a quart of vodka something a person in control of his brain would do? Does this suggest even before he started emptying the bottles he was already at least tipsy? Defend your answer.

2a. Imagine you’re the man in this story. Do you resent the rule that prohibits carrying this much liquid aboard? Do you detect in yourself any empathy for the man? What does this say about the type of person you are?
2b. Answer this question from the perspective of a Democrat or a Republican. Justify your answer.

3. Obviously the man is an asshole or he would have offered to share the vodka with security officials or other passengers. If you were in line with him, would you have helped? Why or why not?

4. Suppose he had managed to stand up long enough to board the airplane. Write a description of what the cabin would smell like after he passes out and starts snoring. If you were seated beside him, would you be tempted to vomit? If so, on him?

5. Can you imagine any 64 year old of your acquaintance behaving like this? Can you see yourself at 64 pulling a frat-house maneuver along these lines? Do you have anybody you can contact now for assistance? Discuss. And repent.