“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” -Albert Einstein.

It started out simple enough. DCist mentioned in a post that DC has passed rules regarding valet parking in the District. Being the curious sort, I clicked the link. I read a fairly interesting article about how valet services currently face no regulation and how that’s bad and what is being done to remedy that.

Then I noticed a box containing links to “Most Popular Stories.” One of which was titled “Scrappleface: Sotomayor may sue SCOTUS for overturning New Haven ruling.” I found this amusing, so I clicked on it.

It was a rather amusing and clearly (to me) satirical article about how Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor is going to sue the Supreme Court for racial discrimination for their decision in the Ricci case.

Then I got to the comments.

Now, the TITLE OF THE FUCKING ARTICLE contains the word “Scrappleface” which should be enough to let you know that this make be a joke. Underneath the byline, it says, “News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher.” Then, at the end of the article, it fucking spells out, “Examiner Columnist Scott Ott is editor in chief of ScrappleFace.com, the family-friendly news satire site, and anchor of ScrappleFace Network News, seen on YouTube.”

However, in case there was any confusion still lurking at this point, you could simply go to scrappleface.com where, in the about section, you could learn that scrappleface.com is “ [a] daily conservative news satire site.”

At the time I read the article, there were 23 comments, of which THREE discovered the satire. Actually, that isn’t true. 4 did. However, the fourth demanded to know, “Why is this article not clearly marked as satire? Wtf?” and given my previous two paragraphs on that subject, I’m not counting him/her as a human being.

The other 19 fucking people thought this was a serious news article. And these were only the morons who made their opinions known. And those opinions venture beyond moronic, into the realm of ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

Like that guy that said, “sotamayer needs to come down from her pedestal tothe level of the true americans as myself.if she was born here she is not latino but an american.”

Ignoring the fact that he/she tossed the entire set of English grammar rules under the bus, this person is apparently not aware that “Latino” is a race while “American” is a nationality.

Or the person that said, “I didn’t want to believe it, but now I have no choice.” Uh. False. You have a choice. You choose to not use your brain and look like a dooshbag.

And this is why I support myself for dictator of the world. People clearly can’t be trusted with this whole fucking “voting” thing.

It’s time to let science and medicine, not politics and rhetoric, lead us to good, sound policy. –Eliot Spitzer

I’ve been reading a lot about drugs, drug legalization, and the policy surrounding it lately. I tend to do that, get stuck on one topic and read it to exhaustion. Then I get bored and move on.

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about the problems surrounding the US’s polices of criminalization of a number of drugs. Essentially, drug legalization isn’t just for the hippies anymore. More and more people and organizations are accepting that something needs to be done about the drug policies the US (and other counties) have, because they are causing more harm than good.

I’ve never thought much on the policy of steroid use. I’ve made remarks the occasional news coverage when some baseball player or Olympic athlete gets busted on some banned substance they claim was given to them by their doctor to treat an ear infection or something. And I’ve seen the CSI/Law and Order/Other TV show about how some 13 year old was taking steroids and his absentee parents didn’t notice and he went crazy and shot up a mall food court. And that’s about my knowledge of steroids.

Then I read this article. Essentially, this quote sums it up well:

“…anabolic steroids are not looked upon as a class of drug used for medicine,
they just look like a class of drug in which criminal activity surrounds. So
physicians don’t get near the subject or near the use of them for fear of
reprisal by the medical board, and the law.”

Bob Clapp (he he he) spent time in jail after getting busted with illegal steriods. He admits that his reason for taking the steroids is because he doesn’t want to get old. Clapp (he he he) is a terrible representation of the “legalize steroids” industry. I’m judging him on his fake tan alone.

However, if you continue with the article, you learn that a number of doctors would like to prescribe steroids for uses other than to allow Mr. Clapp to desperately cling to his youth, that steroid side effects (remember my Law and Order episode?) may be highly exaggerated, and generally, the politics of the situation prevents the medical community from fully studying and understanding steroids.

I don’t know much about them. I’ve personally never used them, nor, to my knowledge, do I know anyone that has. To me, it seems like the same problem with marijuana and any number of other drugs. The public “fear” has lead society down a path which hinders science.

And that is ultimately worse than A-Rod continuing to sully the name of the home run record holder.