Thursday, December 21, 2006

Weekly Recap 12/17-23: Marijuana Moolah & Pentagon Pretenses

Headline News Recap

Former Congressman and avid anti-choicer, Bob Barr, has become a Libertarian claiming that the Republican behaviors in regards to spending and privacy have left him disillusioned with the party. Americans can rest assured that although Barr is no longer a committed Republican, he is still a committed asshole, and will continue to be for years to come.

Move over alfalfa, America’s biggest cash crop is now marijuana. A study released this week reveals that the market value of pot produced in the U.S. exceeds $35 billion. California was responsible for the bulk of the pot grown in the U.S. Sorry New York, I know you tried to corner the pot market with the whole Woodstock thing, but Cali beat you to it with the Grateful Dead, Haight/Ashbury, and Timothy Leary.

Magazine editors are now making models fatter with PhotoShop claiming that some models will come in for a shoot that was booked months prior and be five or ten pounds thinner than expected. You know, most graphic artists at those glamour magazines probably make a minimum of $30 an hour, and a decent cheeseburger is only $5 or $6, call me crazy, but I think I’ve just discovered a way to cut the expenses.

A study found that nine out of ten Americans have premarital sex including people born in the 1940s. This challenges the notion that decades prior were more chaste as well as the idea that people are willing to buy something before taking it for a test drive.

The Pentagon says it is considering a military build up against Iran leading many Americans to ask, “With what? G.I. Joe action figures! Who the fuck is running this? Oh yeah, that guy.”

In more Pentagon news, they have asked for an additional $99.7 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which if approved, will bring war spending to over $170 billion for this year. Yet military wives and mothers at Fort Lewis in Washington were holding a pancake feed and bake sale to raise money for body armor for their husbands and sons. Someone is raking in our cash, big time, and the only proper response to the Pentagon’s latest request is to ask them to wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one gets full first.

A female komodo dragon at the London zoo is expecting eight baby dragons despite having never been exposed to male dragons. First, Murphy Brown, now the komodo dragons; when they say ‘sisters are doing it for themselves’ I guess they really mean it.

In Local News

There was no news this week, because nearly a million people were left in the dark without power. Puget Sound Energy and Seattle City Light responded at a brisk molasses pace to fix the damage caused by Thursday night’s storm, and managed to get areas such as Downtown Seattle, Mercer Island, Medina, and other more affluent neighborhoods up and going within no time. The rest of us middle class bastards had to wait it out later in the week, and a few folks in the sticks are still hoping for illumination. The lesson all of us Puget Sounders can take away from this experience is that in the event of a national disaster or huge earthquake, we are completely fucked (unless you happen to live in Medina).

Worthless Entertainment News

The reigning Miss USA, Tara Conner, will not lose her crown despite allegations of drug use and sexual misconduct. Donald Trump, owner of the Miss USA pageant and a big fan of young, loose blondes, announced that he was concerned with Tara’s well being and will make sure she is checked into rehab, besides the bimbo has given the Miss USA pageant more publicity in the past week than its had in the past ten years, so champagne all around…except for you, Tara.

Controversial Rapper, Eminem became legally divorced from his wife, Kim, for a second time this week after an eight-month court battle that followed the three-month second marriage. Hey Em, perhaps when you write a song about murdering your ex-wife, tear up a blowup doll of her onstage every night during a tour, and have a tattoo on your arm that says “Rot in Pieces”, you may want to re-think the whole “second time’s a charm” scenario. Just a thought.

First Calista Flockhart hooks up with Harrison Ford, then Ana Carolina Reston dies of anorexia, now Lara Flynn Boyle is off the market with her marriage to her boyfriend of eight months, Donald Ray Thomas. Never fear, all you guys into boney chicks, I think I saw some leftover, plastic skeletons from the Halloween sale in the clearance bin at Big Lots. Best of all, they will have the same personality as the real thing.

Quote of the Week

“The message of the fall election was clear: Americans want us to work together to make progress for our country.” – Resident Bush addressing the issue of raising the minimum wage.

The good news was that he was all in favor of a minimum wage increase. The bad news is that he plans to load the bill up with an assload of tax breaks and regulatory relief measures for businesses. He may say he wants to work together, but in the end, our Resident-in-Chief serves one master, and that is the god of big business and moneyed special interests. As a scholar of media, avid reader of social criticisms, and an enterprising commentator on social democracy, I will sum of this “Quote of the Week” with an appropriate quote from Mr. Mole in the Shelly Duvall version of Thumbelina, “you call that progress?”

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