And yo momma’s fat, too.  From the transcript of a Michigan magistrate’s sentencing of a 20-year-old defendant for being a minor in possession of alcohol:

“I don’t mean to be offensive, but you have two Operating While Intoxicated convictions and then you blow a .223 and you’re still not 21? Here is my suggestion to you, Mr. Dickey, climb up on the roof of your house and jump off.  Either that or get in a bathtub filled with hot water and slash your wrists; then you will be dead; it will be cheaper; it will be faster and in the long run it will be less painful to anybody who cares about you.”

The article reporting the story notes that the magistrate had “second thoughts” about her comments.  Good thing she didn’t mean to be offensive, huh?

A no-class action.  You hear the stories all the time about class-action lawsuits, which wind up in a settlement where the lawyers get $20 million in fees and each plaintiff gets a $25 coupon good for the next time they shop at the defendant’s store.  The lawyers in the recent Fen-Phen case did even better:  three of them are on trial for bilking their clients out of $65 million of the $200 million settlement.  Their trial down in Kentucky, according the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog, has taken an unexpected turn:  while two of the lawyers are claiming they were misled by another attorney involved in the case, the third defendant is claiming that he “was hospitalized for an ‘alcoholic seizure’ a month after the case was settled, didn’t take part in any court hearings and was too drunk at the time to be responsible.”

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.  With a hat tip to Drug War Rant, according to US government researchers, “heavy marijuana use can boost blood levels of a particular protein, perhaps raising a person’s risk of a heart attack or stroke.”  Heavy marijuana use?  Try the Jumbo Family Pack:  “The marijuana users in the study averaged smoking 78 to 350 marijuana cigarettes per week, based on self-reported drug history, the researchers said,” the Reuters story reports. 

“Chronic marijuana use is not only causing people to get high, it’s actually causing long-term adverse effects in patients who use too much of the drug,” Cadet, whose study is in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, said in a telephone interview. “Chronic marijuana abuse is not so benign.”

Well, yeah, I’m willing to accept the assertion that maybe, just maybe, smoking 50 joints of marijuana a day might not be good for you.  Now, I’m not a scientist, nor do I play one on TV, and the likelihood of an article of mine appearing in the journal Molecular Psychiatry are slightly less than my chances of being America’s Next Top Model, but I’m guessing that drinking 50 cups of coffee a day isn’t going to get a stamp of approval from the American College of Cardiology, either.

And the discerning reader will notice that the study concluded that chronic usage would result in “perhaps raising a person’s risk of a heart attack or stroke.”  After all, “the study did not look at whether the heavy marijuana users actually had heart disease.”

Campaign News.  Walt Bayes, Republican candidate for the Idaho House, has seized on what he believes to be a crucial issue:  the need for separate bathrooms and showers for high school students.  Not separate bathrooms and showers for boys and girls; separate bathrooms and showers for homosexuals and heterosexuals.  No word yet on whether Idaho Senator Larry “I’ve Got a Wide Stance” Craig has signed on to Baye’s crusade just yet.

See you on Monday.