Glob

Just one day short of seeing her son officially win the presidency, Barack Obama’s beloved grandma passed away.

So, according to this article on CNN Health , alcohol consumers experience brain shrinkage (no, not the brain that lives in your pants). Drinkers have, on average, a 1.5% smaller brain than abstainers by volume.

While the article says the research has not yet found a correlation to impaired brain function, it is possible that the alcohol dehydrates brain tissue, causing it to shrink up a wee bit.

I’m happy to say, though, that the writer reasserts that there are health benefits to drinking alcohol, including for those with heart problems and those living with ugly spouses. Here’s another article from Web MD that explains some of the benefits of moderate drinking.

I, however, think the best benefit of alcohol for your health is it’s positive effect on your ability to tolerate others.

Hey everyone, just a reminder that it is National Coming Out Day!

I am spreading the word as a straight ally of the community. Find out more:

here!

This is such a cool story, and this guy is officially my hero:
Video:

Article in the Miami Herald

This guy saw his dog get dragged down by a bull shark(?), who had most of the dog in his mouth. He dove in after them and punched the shark in the back of the neck, causing it to let go and the dog was able to scramble away. Suffering sever lacerations and trauma, but ok, the rat terrier is expected to do well.

YAAAAAAAAAAY!

Apparently, Mr. Obama describing the Republican party’s attempts to shed favorable lighting on failed policy and faulty fib-telling as “putting lipstick on a pig” was enough to stir up a huge controversy draped in “sexism”.

Now, I can kind of see where the Reps are coming from here. Mrs. Palin has sometimes referred to herself as a “pitbull” with lipstick, and I genuinely believe that she is simply confused about animals. It is quite probable that the Governor, so removed from the drudgery of the masses, so high on her pillar of faith and stoic Christian morality, has forgotten what pigs are and what pitbulls are. They *do* begin with the same letter, so it’s probably just an honest mistake.

More evidence that the poor woman has lost touch with base realities is her belief that hunting wolves for sport is an acceptable practice. As she has proven, she does not quite know the difference between pigs and dogs, so it is rather logical that the “hockey mom” can’t really differentiate between wild game, suitable for food, such as boars and deer and intelligent animals from which Rover is descended.

To help out Palin and anyone else confused by these very dry, complicated scientific terms, I have drawn a chart, breaking things down into Layman’s terms:

I hope that this helps, Mrs. Palin, clear up some of the fog in that pretty little head of yours.

Don’t worry, darling, soon someone will drop by and help teach you and your brood the differences between birth control and Flinstones multivitamins soon enough! Hold tight!

Bananas, they’re portable, sealed-yet-easily-accessible, healthy, cheap foodstuffs. Seemingly engineered especially for primates, everyone seems to love them.
I, however, hate bananas. The taste, the texture…bananas=nasty in my book. But, I want to like them. I want to eat bananas like everyone else, and enjoy their nutritious, inexpensive goodness.
This leads me to my current quest to make myself like bananas. I figure it’s an acquired taste and that I just need to eat them a few times to “get it”.
I have yet to actually purchase and eat one, but I have been psyching myself up for it for a few days and will keep everyone, since I am certain this is a very important concern for all of you, updated on the progress of my physiological readjustment.

I work near Union Square in NY, right above an au bon pain restaurant.
Going down for my daily pain, I saw a girl, quite heavyset, sitting with her toddler of about 2. The mom could not have been more than 18 or 19. I noticed, on her arm, in huge, flowy typeface, CHASTITY tattooed with little sparkles surrounding it. She also had a yellow-gold bling with the same thing—obviously her name was chastity.
A young girl, knocked up with a kid, whose name is chastity.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so I just opted to default: cruel laughter.

So, it seems that, finally, a bunch of congress (bongress) members have stood up for the legalization of “responsible” marijuana use. Of course, I can’t help but agree with these cool dem cats, and not just because I am a fan of the reefer. See the source article here, please: on CNN.com

The legal prohibitions against the use of marijuana date back to the 1920’s economic depression, when the government needed a viable solution to remove the huge population of Mexican manual workers (whom the government had originally encouraged to provide cheap labor). Since Mexicans were the people primarily smoking, growing, and transporting the plant, it was easy to use prohibitions against it to oust them from the American workforce.

Of course, the laws against alcohol in the early 20th century helped to demonize marijuana, and many states passed laws against its use. Both were seen as inciting uncontrollable urges in non-white races, such as the insurmountable desire to ravage our virtuous white women. In order to keep the savages from getting any more violent than they were naturally, marijuana was made illegal (except, for a time, by use of “responsible” white people). Eventually, with the rise of modern art in the 20th century and so-called “jungle music”, marijuana was deemed unsuitable for everyone, lest they fall under the spell of immoral behavior under its influence.
There’s a great article on the history here: Why is Marijuana Illegal? .

Long story short, marijuana was mainly outlawed based on unfounded racial stereotypes and fear as well as Judeo-Christian moral codes. But, like alcohol briefly, its illegal status has given rise to a well-organized drug cartel of mobsters. People will pay to get what they want, even if it is a weed that naturally grows everywhere. Since it is probably the most used illegal substance in this country, we have managed to keep the mafia in business.

Sure, they make a fine killing on things like cocaine trafficking and prostitution, but it’s fairly obvious that everyone and their grandma buys weed. They can smuggle in the drug from places afar, like Columbia, and sell to middle-man dealers for a huge profit on a relatively cheap product. By trafficking a substance everyone wants, but can’t buy legally, they are able to charge more and build empires on the sale of grass.
Were marijuana’s status to change, I feel that many gangsters would be out of business. A great deal of the revenue of organized crime would suddenly disappear. In fact, call me paranoid, but I’m pretty sure powerful drug lords play a huge role in keeping marijuana illegal, as its scarcity and illegality benefit them.

In addition to slowing down violent drug-related crime rates, I also feel that marijuana would provide a good source of revenue for the government. In times of economic crisis, what do we need? Revenue from taxes. Ever seen the tax on cigarettes these days? Think of what our friendly Mary Jane could bring in! It could be regulated, much like alcohol and tobacco are everywhere. The positive effect on the economy, with fewer tax dollars going to incarcerating marijuana users, and the revenue generated by the drug, would be astounding!

The representatives, the most prominent of which being democrat Barney Frank of Massachusetts, argue that the fantasy drug war being waged against people using a basically harmless recreational substance, whether for medical or fun-time purposes, is draining precious resources. Cops that could be chasing down violent offenders are, instead, busting 16-year olds smoking joints in the park. Money that could go to schools and easing the pangs of a failing economy is instead used to keep pot-smokers in over-crowded prisons.

The pols also mentioned the basic fact that has existed since marijuana was first targeted: the laws against its use are racially unbalanced. They expressed disgust at the inordinate amount of African Americans targeted for marijuana use, and bemoan the over-filling of jails with nonviolent offenders.

Clearly, the arguments against the legalization fall fairly flat, and proponents usually only have morality and “think of the children” to fall back on. However, if anyone remembers how much harder it was as a teenager to get booze and cigarettes (due to the age restrictions) than marijuana, it is obvious how much easier it would be to keep kids from smoking pot (if that’s really such a big issue), if it were regulated on a microscopic (your local bodega) scale. As for morality, these are the same people who think gay marriage and birth control are crimes against nature.

Ok, I know I was gonna post something meaningful back in June. I didn’t and I’m sorry. Just not the best blogger But the comic is really what I do. Ami writes better, so go to Glass Urchin for better bloggerifics.

Today, however, I want to share this gem before I forget.

This week, the Iranian government has been testing missiles in a show of force to the world. In one launch, at least, there was a dud (”that’s what she said”) that did not go off, and was photographed as such. Fail? Not if you have Photoshop!

It can make celebrities thinner, bat-boy real, and now, a government becomes scarier.
Apparently, the second photo, with the (badly) doctored photo of the fourth missile successfully launching was distributed on Iranian media.
When the rest of the world caught it and LoLed the militaristic government into PwNed territory, they quickly replaced the (badly) edited photo with the actual.

But still, the press is nothing if not keen to catch epic fails on the part of important people, but who would have seen this coming? Here’s the actual story from them: in the NY Times.
I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to get a job in the graphic arts these days, but I decided to do some of my own drafts of the photo, in case any Iranian head hunters are watching…

Of course, more is always more. This photo says “Seriously, guys, we got mad rockets up in hurr”.

And, I couldn’t quite fight the temptation to make a Lolcat…

So, the propaganda machine marches on. I always knew there was something dubious about the photo of Condeleza Rice as a goat…

So, I know that I fail as a blogger.
I often can’t think of anything I feel like writing about that doesn’t come up in the comic, itself. (That, or I get drunk and forget what I wanted to say)

However, there are some exciting things in the works for NERD comics. In the very near future, I will announce two new comics in the NERDscape, one by co-founder, Ami and the other by a newcomer.

Also, there will be an online store, soon, where we will have NERD and SDJC shirts— and eventually other things…

Stay tuned kids!