A description of my blog. http://www.my-site.com 2677260088812873171 The Devil's Weed 2007/07/#2677260088812873171 2007-07-20 It irritates me that marijuana is illegal. Not because I smoke pot, but because I think throwing people in jail for growing marijuana is a phenomenal waste of tax dollars, considering that there are so many other plants that I'd like to see outlawed.

There are many differing opinions on marijuana, but here's something we can all agree on: Poison ivy sucks ass. If we're going to outlaw plants, why don't we start with poison ivy? Is there a strong pro-poison ivy lobby that I'm not aware of? Who exactly is standing in the way of outlawing poison ivy? Is it Haliburton? It is, isn't it? Those greedy, rash-inducing bastards.

There is no poison ivy around my house, but my property is infested with plenty of other gratuitously cruel and ugly plants. I live in the California Central Valley, on a parcel of land that used to be an orchard. Yeah, I'm one of the people who's responsible for the disappearance of our precious farmland. Occasionally some wistful old crank will write a letter to the local paper complaining about how developers are destroying all of our farmland. "50 years ago this area was all orchards," they say. Which is true. On the other hand, why stop at 50 years? A hundred years ago, before we started moving rivers around, it was all desert. Why doesn't someone start a campaign to stop the destruction of our historic uninhabitable wastelands?

It is true, of course, that we need farmland. If we keep losing farmland, our nation's food production capabilities may decline to the point where our children are eating only six or seven meals per day. "Mommy, why don't we eat linner or snackfast any more?" little Susie will cry, clutching her growling tummy, now almost completely hidden by her extra-large t-shirt. What will we say then? That mommy needed a three stall garage so now there are no Cheetos farmers any more?

But as important as agriculture is to the cause of making sure America's children remain the largest in the world, it's not like the Central Valley has been farmland since the molten lava on earth's crust cooled over 800 years ago. Trust me, the greater Modesto area would not naturally revert to a scene on a salad dressing label if the pesky humans just stopped building stuff on it.

In fact, if I were to let my land revert to its "natural" state, it would look like this:



Pretty awful, huh? Instead, thanks to a lot of hard work and persistence, it now looks like this:



Yeah, I haven't had much time to work on the landscaping. Still, the trees look nice, don't they? I'm thinking some azaleas would really spruce the place up.

Here is a sampling of the "natural" vegetation around here:



We call this "puncture vine," or -- more affectionately -- "goat heads. " Doesn't look too bad, does it? Nice little yellow flowers, lovely greenery... but say, what are those little bumpy seed thingies?

A close-up of one of the "goat heads," also known as HOLY SHIT WHAT IS STICKING OUT OF MY FOOT?!?!



In case that's not clear enough, here's a magnified image:



Step on one of those things some time and then tell me that marijuana is really the problem we want to spend our resources on.


What the hell is that sticking out of my foot? Oh, it's just humor-blogs.com.

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