“In the two states with the most mature adult-use cannabis markets – Colorado and Washington – cannabis excise tax revenues outpaced those collected on the sale of alcohol and tobacco.”
Pros and Cons of Cannabis Taxation.
Big Weed Money
Suckit, Bitch
Life Is Art
Here’s Something You Won’t See In Russia
Flaunting Racism
Power of the church or state does not change morality.
JWST Update #15
Cosmic science and art intersect on JWST.
“There are many different potential combinations of wavelengths and filters, all of which result in different ways of displaying the data — as well as different aesthetic experiences.”
Government-Sanctioned Kidnapping
New NFL Rule
If I can’t brag about the Steelers and Broncos, I’ll at least tackle the officiating conundrum. Tua’s injury last week was certainly one of the most regrettable so far this season. It was due to officiating – not impactful play. Not following the rules draws flags on the field, so why not in the locker room? They say the doctor who cleared him to play was fired.
Not good enough. The guy’s already playing with a back injury and they put him in concussion protocol? Ataxia is now cemented in my and the NFL lexicon.
So the new pocket passer contact rule now appears to be no tackling. Are they allowed to like, get in front of him if he tries to run away, or what?
Good luck with that.
Late Update MNF: Yeah, looks like nobody knows how to legally get the QB on the ground any more.
Tech Problems
Techies don’t always do the best job of solving tech problems, for some reason. Their solutions typically involve layering more tech onto the problem. I’ll belay my currently-due anti-cellphone rant in favor of kudos to Google for early indications on the Pixel 7. I’m not exactly looking forward to another phone upgrade, having barley scratched the surface on the 6 after a year or so.
The cellphone industry has staked out their balance sheets in terms of competition and ever-shortening upgrade cycles. So be it. I’ll get on the upgrade bandwagon after they figure out how to balance the battery with milestone hardware and the soft Stuff on it. Lithium and cobalt are very environmentally questionable.
“Phone” is or was supposed to be the operative term in the telephony ecosystem. They’ve evolved into handheld computers capable of doing a few things very well, some passably well and the rest churning entertainment, shopping and gaming into micro-sized experiments in frustration. JMHO – not that I was ever any sort of PC gamer. Looks like Google might try keeping the phone part front-and-center for the time being. Nice.
Alex Jones, Disinformation Poster-Boy
The reprehensible fuckwit known as Alex Jones represents more than the whacko’s latest anti-gun control mouthpiece. He is the first held accountable for dishonest online profiteering scams, the likes of which we’ve seen in all flavors for decades. This jackhole just decided to go high-profile and take it to a new level.
Gullibility is one thing. I’m personally terrible that way, autistic. Intonation and body language, hearing and seeing people speak is where discerning truth from falsehood begins. Those cues are often absent or easily disguised from a podcast desk. Healthy skepticism for anything in news and social media is where the search for online truth ends.
Free speech isn’t dead – it’s just killing us.
How to Fix the Cops
New Orleans has just taken a step in the right direction. The motivation is concerning, but the idea is right. Police don’t need to be warriors armed to the teeth for >90% of the Stuff they do. Arguably, the presence of firearms in otherwise manageable situations just makes it go bad faster. Cops have expended more ammunition in the past year, than criminals have since the beginning of time. It’s time to start leaving most of the weapons at the station.
Brits been doing it with great success forever.
“United Kingdom law allows the use of “reasonable force” to make an arrest or prevent a crime[38][39] or to defend oneself.[40] If the force used is fatal, then the European Convention of Human Rights only allows “the use of force which is no more than absolutely necessary”.[41] Firearms officers may therefore only discharge their weapons “to stop an imminent threat to life”.[42]”
Most Castle Doctrine texts reflect this concept, yet somehow people get shot sitting in their cars or attempting to flee in this country every day.
The Silverware? Seriously?
Sand Creek
I was never very politically active or interested until I read about the Sand Creek Massacre one day not long after we moved here from The Springs. My takeaway was not one of genocide or state-sponsored terrorism. It didn’t involve Racism, or religious hate and bigotry. Those things certainly loom large in the undercurrent driving the one thing I finally did realize: Politics is all about deception and lies.
I’m starting to believe that about the legal profession itself. Two people fighting about the same thing can’t both be right. Now illegitimate, politically motivated shyster lawyers fill the ranks of our legislatures and courts with only one real agenda: Gaining or staying in power. Shakespeare was on to something when he remarked “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
The leader of that heinous, criminal attack on our indigenous people ran for governor of Colorado on the great work he did at Sand Creek. He lost the Governor’s race, but there are a hundred more just like him all across the country today running on a similar platform of lies and hate.
Flight Risk Possibilities Narrowing
Maybe somebody forgot to tell the Tangerine Traitor those classified documents were all on some custodian’s inventory before they were briefed to the moron in the Oval Office? Word is, the SCI nuke Stuff was about some other country’s gear. The former POTUS is doing a great job building the DOJ’s espionage case.
OPEC+
We’re in the green transition period where petroleum interests will increasingly demonstrate their intransigence. If you thought gas prices been bad lately and even thought about relaxing with recent month’s declines, buckle up.
I chuckle every time I hear some MAGA nitwit spew that New World Order nonsense, with Pelosi and Biden behind it somewhere on their Gitmo barges. Greedy bastards running the oil and gas industries saw the advantage in globalism fifty years ago. They just plug in the price per barrel on their spreadsheet to output whatever they feel the market might bear, and adjust production accordingly. Damn, we are stupid.
Who Needs Nukes for a Special Military Operation?
Maybe that’s what makes it special. What’s gonna be really special, is what happens next. Please allow me to elaborate on just a few of the potential outcomes:
- Prevailing winds spread nasty cancers in Russian communities for decades.
- Uninhabitable swaths of so-called annexed territory make Ukrainian offensives simpler and easier to plan and execute.
- War prisoners no longer a thing.
- Russia joins the DPRK with China sandwiched in between as the new Hermit Hemisphere.
Igor of the Russian Defense Ministry said “Ukraine is starting a war to liberate the new territories…” No Igor, they are finishing it.