- Say it ain’t so Dutch government, say it ain’t so. You are the world’s biggest stoner utopia and if you’re not going to support mankind’s right to get baked, then who is? A truly crushing blow to the pothead community came Friday when the Dutch government announced it would move to classify high-potency marijuana alongside hard drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy, the latest step in the country's ongoing campaign to do away with its famed liberal stance for tolerance of all things hippie lettuce. Suddenly, the country whose official logo could well be a bong is getting all litigious with it. The new policy means most of the cannabis now sold in the Netherlands' coffee shops would have to be replaced by milder variants. For now, the big hope for stoners is that the new law is too difficult to effectively enforce and that coffee shops continue to sell the good stuff unfettered. One fallacy of most people’s view of the Netherlands and its drugs laws is that marijuana possession is completely legal. In actuality, possession is illegal but police do not prosecute people for possession of small amounts. For this reason, it is sold openly in designated cafes. Growers are typically the only group prosecuted in connection with marijuana-related offenses and are routinely prosecuted if caught. What will the new law be? Economic Affairs Minister Maxime Verhagen said weed containing more than 15 percent of its main active chemical, THC, would be classified as a hard drug because it is so much stronger than what was common a generation ago. He argued that high-potency weed has "played a role in increasing public health damage" at a press conference in The Hague. Despite the announcement, the Cabinet has not said when it will begin enforcing the rule. Some critics believe the rule could have the opposite effect, causing people to inhale more smoke from lower-THC marijuana and increasing potential lung damage and cancer-causing effects. According to the Dutch Justice Ministry, it will continue to up to cafes to regulate their own products and police will seize random samples for testing. Speaking on behalf of stoners, Gerrit-Jan ten Bloomendal, spokesman for the Platform of Cannabis Businesses in the Netherlands, claimed implementing the plan would be difficult "if not impossible." Combined with a recent crackdown on liberalism in general that has led to nearly a third of the windows in Amsterdam's famed prostitution district shuttered and immigration policies revised to much stricter standards, the Netherlands is going to lose its reputation as a fun-loving, bong-hitting, cool-kid country if it is not careful. Check yourself, Dutch government, because you’re going to a dark place…………
- “LET’S MAKE SOME MONNNNNEEEEEYYYYYYYY!” Hugh Jackman bellowed in one of the most-mocked lines from the promos for the new film Real Steel. In its debut weekend, the movie managed to do enough money-making to best all of the other box office contenders. With $27.3 million in domestic earnings, the “Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em” robots movie more than doubled up its nearest competitor, fellow newcomer The Ides of March. Starring George Clooney and Ryan Gosling, the political thriller could muster a mere $10.4 million for a second-place finish. Third place went to Warner Bros.’ Dolphin Tale, which is still cheesy, corny and lame but made an additional $9.2 million to raise its three-week domestic total to $49.1 million and counting. Brad Pitt-led baseball movie Moneyball landed in fourth place with an additional $7.5 million for a cumulative domestic take of $49.2 million. Drama/comedy 50/50 remained in fifth place for another week with $5.5 million (the number 5 seems to be a bit of theme for the film) and $17.3 million total for two weeks of work. Five holdovers from last weekend’s top 10 comprised the latter half of this week’s top 10: Courageous (No. 6 with $4.6 million after a 49-percent dropoff from its opening weekend and $15.9 million in total domestic earnings), The Lion King (in 3D) (No. 7 with $4.5 million and $85.9 million overall), horror flick Dream House (No. 8 with $4.4 and $14.5 million combined in two weeks), the truly un-funny What’s Your Number? (No. 9 thanks to a meager $3.1 million take and with a scant $10.3 million in two weeks of wide release) and the quickly fading Abduction (No. 10 with $2.9 million and $23.3 million in cumulative earnings). Two films dropping out of the top 10 from last weekend were Contagion (No. 11) and Killer Elite (No. 12)…………
- The National League Championship Series may not be the matchup Major League Baseball wants, but it’s going to be great for anyone who likes two teams that hate each other doing battle for the right to go to the World Series. The Milwaukee Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals are division rivals and possess a legitimate disdain for one another, honed by 18 games against one another each season and a running string of incidents highlighted by an on-field confrontation in their final regular season series in September. In a Sept. 7 game at St. Louis, Brewers center fielder and clubhouse hype man Nyjer “T-Plush” Morgan struck out and he and Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter swore at each other after Morgan removed a wad of chewing tobacco from his mouth and flung it toward the pitcher’s mound. Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols got in the middle as the benches emptied, but no punches were thrown. Morgan later lit Pujols up on his Twitter page, saying he hoped "those crying birds" would enjoy watching the Brewers in the playoffs and referring to Pujols as "Alberta." Morgan is clearly not the only Brewer who has a beef with Carpenter and one of the most unlikely Milwaukee players to speak out joined that war of words while speaking to reporters at Miller Park on Saturday. Brewers pitcher Zack Greinke, whose bout with social anxiety disorder typically makes him reticent to speak out about much of anything, took a run at Carpenter and suggested he is a fraud based on the way he acts toward opposing batters while on the mound. "They think his presence, his attitude out there sometimes is like a phony attitude," Greinke said. "And then he yells at people. He just stares people down and stuff. And most pitchers just don't do that. And when guys do, I guess some hitters get mad. Some hitters do it to pitchers. But when you do that some people will get mad. There's other pitchers in the league that do it, but, I don't know. A lot of guys on our team don't like Carpenter." Carpenter won’t start until later in the NLCS because he pitched a shutout to win Game 7 of the Cardinals’ NLDS against Philadelphia. Greinke will start Game 1 of the NLCS for the Brewers and he’ll face a St. Louis team that now has an additional reason not to like him. "That's a bad comment to make unless you know Chris Carpenter," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. "Our attitude is we look at ourselves and we grade ourselves. And even if we don't like what's happening on the other side, we don't make a -- it's not our business, unless somebody crosses the line. So I think the Brewers should take care of their players." In other words, tell your guys to shut up. Don’t expect Milwaukee manager Ron Roenicke to take LaRussa’s free advice, though. Morgan’s oversized personality and the Brewers’ exuberant, over-the-top persona helps make them what they are and unquestionably plays a role in their success. The most hilarious part of the entire saga is Carpenter trying to deny that the two teams don’t like each other. "I don't think that's a fact," Carpenter said. "I think we have great respect for them. I hope they have the same for us." If by respect you mean genuine hate and a strong desire to put a fastball squarely in the middle of your back, then sure…………
- The United States is throttling its space program down and the world is seizing the chance to take over galactic dominance. To further rub in the decline of the American space program, the European Space Agency has selected a satellite to fly über-close to the sun and a probe to map the structure of the universe. The satellite is scheduled for launch in 2017 and 2019, with those missions beating out a planet-hunting mission designed to find Earth-sized planets in the deep cosmos for funding. The winning projects were selected Oct. 4 by ESA's science program committee and will sport the names Solar Orbiter and Euclid. "With the selection of Solar Orbiter and Euclid, the science program has once more shown its relevance to pure science and to the concerns of citizens: Euclid will shed light on the nature of one of the most fundamental forces of the Universe, while Solar Orbiter will help scientists to understand processes, such as coronal mass ejections, that affect Earth's citizens by disrupting, for example, radio communication and power transmission," said Alvaro Gimenez, ESA's director of science and robotic exploration. In evaluating the proposed projects, the committee measured them based on cost and scientific value. Each mission will cost ESA an estimated $670 million to $800 million, excluding significant funding from international partners. If the mission succeeds, the Solar Orbiter probe will pass closer to the sun than any previous mission. Passing 26 million miles from the sun's fiery surface may not seem all that close, but the probe will seek to sample the solar wind shortly after it is ejected and will also contain remote sensing imaging instruments to observe the sun's corona and the solar atmosphere. In short, scientists hope the Solar Orbiter will clarify how the sun influences the solar system by pinpointing the origins and causes of the supersonic solar wind, the sun's magnetic field and large eruptions from disturbances on the sun's surface. Ironically, the satellite will launch in January 2017 aboard an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., the site of many American space shuttle launches. This time around, NASA's primary contribution will be the launch vehicle and one of the instruments in the probe's scientific suite. After launching, it is expected to take three-and-a-half years for Solar Orbiter to reach its closest point to the sun. It will also conduct flybys of Venus, according to ESA. The latter of the two missions, Euclid, will depart Earth on a Soyuz rocket launched from French Guiana in 2019 and head for the L2 Lagrange point, a gravity-neutral location where the pull from the Earth and sun exists. The loser in the funding battle was Plato, a proposed mission to gauge the frequency of planets around other stars, including planets in the habitable zone, where conditions could be suitable for life. "It was an arduous dilemma for the science program committee to choose two from the three excellent candidates," said Fabio Favata, head of the ESA science program's planning office. "All of them would produce world-class science and would put Europe at the forefront in the respective fields. Their quality goes to show the creativity and resources of the European scientific community." Plato will now join other wannabe projects in the next round of project selections and might want to work out and lose some weight in the mean time to make itself a more attractive option…………
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! The National Air and Space Museum is generally not a place where social unrest is at its apex, but it was on Saturday when police used pepper spray on a group of protesters trying to enter the facility. Authorities estimated between 100 and 200 people were in the crowd, which rallied against U.S. participation in the war in Afghanistan and joined up with a group of Occupy Wall Street kooks (who really need a new name now that they are staging protests pretty much everywhere but Wall Street) in Washington's Freedom Plaza. The mass of angry dissidence made its way to the museum and were met with immediate resistance from police and museum security. Linda St. Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Smithsonian Institution, which runs that and numerous other museums in Washington, confirmed that one protestor was arrested in the confrontation. As they marched, the Washington demonstrators chanted "Occupy Wall Street, Occupy H Street, Occupy Everything, and never give it back." Not all of those who gathered in Freedom Plaza went to the museum, but a group broke off and were watched closely by District of Columbia police as they went. When they attempted to enter the museum to demonstrate against displays of military drones used during the war in Afghanistan, one protestor allegedly pushed a museum security guard against a wall, prompting another guard to respond with pepper spray to force demonstrators outside. "We wanted to go inside and protest at those particular items of destruction, and the crowd was pepper sprayed going in and was forced out of the building," said Brian Morrison, one of the protesters. Another demonstrator carried a sign that read "Occupy Wall Street, not Afghanistan." Due to the mini-chaos, the museum closed about two hours early but opened at its regularly scheduled time of 10 a.m. Sunday. And for the record, Araz Alali, a spokesman with the D.C. Police, said his department had no knowledge the museum security was going to pepper spray the protesters. Just out of curiosity, A-squared, but what did you expect a museum security guard to do? Bludgeon the protestors with their two-way radios, perhaps…………
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