Overcast and a bit on the gloomy side this early Wednesday on California’s north coast, no fog but a deep, empty silence.
Usually I can hear the Pacific Ocean making some kind of noise only a mile or so away, but this morning all is quiet.

The news cycle ain’t at all. Apparently from all indications, the entire planet is going way-off it’s broken-down rocker.

(Illustration found here).

Seemingly, in a circle of shit, there’s much ugly in the Ukraine, even more hideous is the Gaza strip, and a heartache nightmare that keeps on screaming is Iraq — blood, gore and children being slaughtered. And that’s just the top stories. Travel further down and one must work real hard to keep from blowing chunks.
This morning, though, I spied some dumb-ass news features that might enlivened the death watch, and not much nasty. Other than stupid.

President Obama appears all knowing — he doesn’t have to keep up with the news cycle. He’s head honcho.
During a fundraiser Monday night in Seattle, Obama shrugged off news reports:

Some of that cynicism, Obama joked, was because of the news, which he said he doesn’t tend to watch himself.
Confronted with scandals — from the NSA to Veterans Affairs on down — Obama often falls back on the defense of saying he was outraged when he learned about the problems from news reports.
To the crowd in Seattle, though, he said about the news, “Whatever they’re reporting about, usually I know.”
The problem, he insisted, isn’t his fault, or even that of all the people who oppose him.

Yeah, right — Jon Stewart popped him last May for such bullshit: “I wouldn’t be surprised if President Obama learned Osama bin Laden had been killed when he saw himself announce it on television.”

Speaking/writing about the White House (not really, but Obama’s from there), and taking a shit in the West Wing — if you’re the most-wondrous Snoop Dog.
Via USAToday:

The story comes out of the latest episode of his GGN News, on which he had Jimmy Kimmel as a guest.
So the late-night talk host asked him if he’s ever gotten high at the White House.
“In the bathroom. Not in the White House, but in the bathroom,” Snoop responded.
Uh, OK.
“I said, ‘May I use the bathroom for a second?’ And they said, ‘What are you gonna do, Number 1 or Number 2?’
I said, ‘Number 2,’” he told Kimmel, adding that it was “the CIA or the FBI” doing the asking.
“So I said, ‘Look, when I do the Number 2, I usually, you know, have a cigarette or light something to get the aroma right.’ And they said, ‘Well, you know what? You can light a piece of napkin.’
I said, ‘I’ll do that.’ And the napkin was this,” he said, taking a puff of a blunt.
Granted, Snoop did just visit the White House in December for Kennedy Center Honors, but as Kimmel says, “This is some story.”

Dude, there’s time for a blunt, then there are occasions requiring a pipe — Snoop, get serious on the Number 2.

And slightly speaking of the White House and a blunt pipe:

Sarah Palin may be conservative, but her driving is unabashedly radical … giving TMZ an epic rationalization for speeding in her pick up truck in Alaska.
The former guv was stopped in her hometown of Wasilla last Wednesday for going 63 in a 45 MPH zone in her Toyota Tundra.
The cop wrote her up and she was on her way.
Palin cops to the crime, telling us, “I wasn’t speeding, I was qualifying.”
She didn’t accept full blame, saying Sammy Hagar’s, “I Can’t Drive 55” on the oldies station contributed to her lead foot.
We’re told Palin will pay the $154 ticket STAT.

Was that song off ‘5150,’ I wonder. (No! Stupid fuck! Sammy Hagar solo hit — old dumb-ass!)

Quickly, frightfully finally — do spiders scare the living shit out of you?
And are you massively afraid of swallowing a spider at night? Well, I’m not.
From Scientific American last April (saw the story yesterday):

Luckily for all of us, the “fact” that people swallow eight spiders in their sleep yearly isn’t true.
Not even close.
The myth flies in the face of both spider and human biology, which makes it highly unlikely that a spider would ever end up in your mouth.
Three or four spider species live in most North American homes, and they all tend to be found either tending their webs or hunting in nonhuman-infested areas.
During their forays, they usually don’t intentionally crawl into a bed because it offers no prey (unless it has bed bugs, in which case that person has bigger problems).
Spiders also have no interest in humans.
“Spiders regard us much like they’d regard a big rock,” says Bill Shear, a biology professor at Hampden–Sydney College in Virginia and former president of the American Arachnological Society.
“We’re so large that we’re really just part of the landscape,”
More than anything, spiders probably find sleeping humans terrifying.
A slumbering person breathes, has a beating heart and perhaps snores — all of which create vibrations that warn spiders of danger. “Vibrations are a big slice of spiders’ sensory universe,” Crawford explains,
“A sleeping person is not something a spider would willingly approach.”

Vibrations my ass — spiders kill and they should die!
Last weekend, I spied this enormous spider tripping across the kitchen floor, sprinting away from me. However, after I approached, the horrifying creature stopped in his tracks, turned and faced me.
There was no way out — I crushed him with my shoe — if the little sonofabitch had kept moving like he was, I’d most-likely left him alone.
But no, like Palin, he was only qualifying, not speeding.
And I’ve got compassion…