Day: April 15, 2014

How Long Did It Take?

The news is that Colorado has legalized weed……now so many images come to mind…..all lot of hippies sitting around drinking wine and playing the guitar……but someone has asked just how safe is it?  Did anyone every see the 30’s movie, Reefer Madness”?  According to that movie weed smokers are all sex fiends, murders and all around wackos…….a very amusing movie if you need a good Friday night date night movie to snuggle up to……but all kidding aside…..how safe is it?

Colorado legalized sale of recreational marijuana to over-21s in January.

I was wondering how long it would take one of these stories to pop up………

For the first time since Colorado legalized weed for recreational use, a coroner has listed “marijuana intoxication” as a contributor to a death. Wyoming student Levy Thamba was in Denver on spring break with three friends when he jumped to his death from a Holiday Inn balcony after eating a marijuana cookie, reports the Denver Post. His friends told investigators he “exhibited hostile behavior” after eating the cookie, and though initial attempts to calm him down seemed to work, he ended up leaping from the balcony, USA Today reports.

“He was fine, he was normal, he was an easygoing kid, and then he ate this cookie and went over the balcony, and this was not a kid who was suicidal,” a spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office says. At 19, the exchange student from the Democratic Republic of the Congo was too young to legally buy or possess marijuana in Colorado, but one of his friends was over 21 and bought the cookie legally. No alcohol or other drugs were found in his system, and the death was ruled an accident.

You know if you change the weed for acid….this story could have been a headline in 1967………surprising, at least to me, the anti-weed people have not jumped on this story to illustrate the diabolical weed…….unsafe at any speed……(well that is for another post on another drug of choice)……..I guess the Nevada rancher BS is enough for them right now…….this should make a comeback when all the other political dog whistles have played out…..

America is not broke | The Great Debate

The country is broke!  We have heard for years now that the country has a spending problem….it is true and it has the same problem since the very beginning of the country……

I enjoy a good debate….the problem is there are so few of them…..normally it boils down to one liners and innuendos….and even fantastic lies…….

A prettu good op-ed…makes some good points and leaves some questions unanswered……check it out and let me know what you think…..

 

America is not broke | The Great Debate.

Gas For Less

Today I want to touch on some subjects that are in the news but do not get much press…..I mean they are not as important as some rancher and his cows or the antics Kimye or yada…Yada…..

There has been much to do about the making of ethanol, a gas additive, it seems that many do not like the idea because it is made from corn and they point to a possible shortage because of our non-quenching thirst for gas……but what if there was a good method?

Could ethanol someday essentially be produced out of thin air? A group of scientists has published research in Nature detailing a new method of making ethanol out of carbon monoxide gas, instead of corn or sugarcane, Reuters reports. Researchers saturated water with the gas, then zapped it with a novel device featuring two electrodes, one made of what they’re calling “oxide-derived copper,” to convert it into fuel. “I emphasize that these are just laboratory experiments today,” lead researcher Matthew Kanan says. He expects to have a prototype device ready in two to three years.

The environmental implications are profound. Critics of ethanol say it drives up food prices and consumes loads of land and water. It can take more than 800 gallons of water to grow enough corn to make 3 gallons of ethanol, Phys.org points out. What’s more, researchers envision a two-step process in which the carbon monoxide is derived from carbon dioxide in the air, providing an “economic incentive” for scrubbing carbon from the atmosphere, the MIT Technology Review reports. The new process could also work on a far smaller scale than biomass methods; the Review envisions rooftop solar panels generating fuel that’s kept in water heater-sized tanks. (More on the toll ethanol takes on the environment here.)

Could this be a godsend or is it just another money making scheme?