Marijuana — Can It Help Prevent Lung Cancer?

I know it seems counterintuitive, but there were a number of initial studies done a long time ago that showed a good deal of evidence that inhaled cannabis, and this is really strange, since you’re inhaling smoke — did not only not cause cancer but in a small to moderate way helped prevent it. Which I know makes absolutely no sense, but I did read about it — it was in THE WEEK Magazine, years ago, in print — I do not have the link. The article had a picture of Cheech & Chong with the caption, “At least they won’t get cancer…” underneath it.

However, don’t worry about your common sense, because the prevailing wisdom is still that inhaling marijuana smoke is bad for you and contributes to lung cancer. The best sources are unclear on it, but still advise not smoking anything. Frankly. I mean, it doesn’t take a genius to realize inhaling smoke into your lungs is usually not a good idea.

Out of curiosity, since I couldn’t find that original article and was getting conflicting information (and I trust THE WEEK, it’s one of the few sources I actually do trust these days, though even that digest is losing impartiality), I looked up some studies recently on whether or not there is any real truth to the notion that marijuana may aid in retarding and preventing lung cancer. There are, in fact, several scientific studies backing it up. Here’s one of them.

Here’s an article from 2008 from ABCNews about the possible lung-cancer fighting aspects of marijuana.

Over at WebMD, they discusses the conflicting data — marijuana causes lung cancer, but marijuana somehow prevents lung cancer (when inhaled).

I don’t really think smoking anything is that great for your health — smoking marijuana can give you breathing problems at the very least and so on — but it does apparently coat your lungs with some sort of resin that seems, these studies claim, in early trials (especially on animals) does not cause cancer, and that, at best, actually fights lung cancer somehow by coating the lungs with certain chemicals that fight tumor growth and actually program the cancer cell to die, which the cell is usually is pre-programmed not to do (see: apoptosis — death of a cell — for some reason cancer cells usually don’t have that activated, somehow marijuana unblocks the apoptosis center and can thus kill a cancer cell off).

Just like any other thing I post on here, I am not telling you to go get high right now so you don’t get cancer. That’s idiotic. Smoke marijuana, don’t smoke marijuana, I don’t care; it’s your business. It’s just that I was long convinced marijuana caused lung cancer, until I started reading that it maybe it didn’t about…it was a while in the past…fifteen years ago? — when I read that article in THE WEEK. And it’s still debatable. I think maybe the goal would be to get the active chemicals into your lungs without smoking anything, in the end.

You can Google further and draw your own conclusions.

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Mamie Van Doren Nude & Semi-nude, From the 1950s Onwards

Mamie Van Doren

Alright, alright, I might as well drive up the hit counter a bit with some more NSFW links. These are to pinups, glam photos, semi-nudes, and so on, of Mamie Van Doren, whom you might not all know, but who was a bigtime blonde bombshell in the 1950s and 60s. Though Van Doren continued to work for quite a long time, in fact, there’s a nude scene of her in 2000, which is a bit…yuck, but it’s in the links somewhere, I think, if you want to look at it. Mamie mostly got nude in the 1960s, which is a little bit of a shame since she was at her best in the 1950s, but there are some naughty photos from the 50s in there. 😉

Mamie Van Doren Nudes link 1
Mamie Van Doren Nudes link 2
Mamie Van Doren Nudes link 3
Mamie Van Doren Semi-Nude 1950s (one photo) link 4
Mamie Van Doren Pinups/Glam 1950s link 5

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Human Growth Hormone (HGH) — Bullshit or Not? Also, HGH Supplements — Bullshit or Not?

The thing about human growth hormone is you can look all over the damned Internet and you find wildly conflicting opinions. As with everything these days, HGH is either the Holy Grail or will kill you dead on the spot. The stuff is banned and illegal except for explicit medical use by a professional medical doctor, though, so don’t go using human damned growth hormone on yourself unless a doctor actually gives it to you. Just do not do it. However, there are ways to get the body to naturally produce more HGH as you age; it declines in your body as you grow older. This is one of the reasons some people think it’s a fountain of youth; it is not. Again, taking direct HGH (which is usually given in the form of injections) is dangerous and illegal. Do not do it.

Personally, I myself do think there is some mild benefit from using supplements that help the body naturally produce HGH. The problem with supplements, almost all of them, unfortunately, is that you can’t get enough of the stuff into your body and processed by your liver to actually get the supplement into your system in effective amounts. So don’t go supplement crazy, but yes, you can legally take many, many things that stimulate the release of human growth hormone if you want to live forever (it’s still not proven by science, though, damn you all, that even direct HGH injections do any of that). And taking a supplement that helps the body naturally produce human growth hormone — if taken responsibly, according to directions — is usually not inherently dangerous. I mean, I once saw my late mother overdose on water and have to be taken to the hospital, and I know of other cases of that, so even all you people out there telling other people to “hydrate” all the time need to watch out in terms of safety.

Take spinach, for example (and don’t overdose on it). Spinach contains glutamine, which is very good at temporarily boosting human growth hormone levels. And a lot of it. And spinach is pretty safe. Although, as noted, you can even overdose on spinach. It can happen. But I do know there’s a lot of interest in HGH and so on because, hell, who doesn’t want a fountain of youth? It’s really wishful thinking so far, at least from all the studies. Again, however, a responsible supplement or two that helps your body naturally release and regulate human growth hormone is not necessarily a terrible thing. Okay, so there, you’ve heard my warning on the whole issue. So what can you take to get the body to naturally produce and regulate HGH on its own?

First of all, and I mentioned it — eat a lot of spinach. I did not say to eat insane amounts of it (this especially applies to any and all fellow Americans — we are all very much too much “CONSUME MASS QUANTITIES!”). The glutamine in spinach can naturally boost HGH levels by up to something like 78% — temporarily. And spinach contains natural glutamine, which is what helps you out. Now, glutamine supplements? Yes, they’re okay, and can be found at pretty much any drugstore or supermarket. It’s just that your body doesn’t process the supplement as effectively (or in some cases, that effectively at all) when taken in pure supplement form versus when taken in a natural form like food that simply contains the vitamin or amino acid and so on. If you are going to take the supplement, or supplements of any kind, please do not be an idiot. Take as directed and make sure your supplement is obtained from a trusted, lab-tested source, because a lot of supplements get contaminated with bad things when made — the cheap ones, especially. In other words:


Another helpful supplement for producing HGH (and also for cardiovascular purposes as it increases blood flow) is arginine. Both arginine and glutamine increase resting HGH levels, however. Combining exercise with arginine, for example, can boost the human growth hormone level something like 300-500%.

Arginine is generally most naturally found in meats, seafood, and nuts, among various other sources. Again, there are supplements for it, but please be careful. Just be careful with all of this, is what I’m saying. I am not a medical doctor, and I do not endorse any supplement usage myself. I ain’t selling anything here, in other words. I’m just a UC Berkeley graduate (and not in the Sciences, in the Arts) with too much time on his hands. This is all just basic science and some of it is controversial, though all the links in this post are from trustworthy sources. Double check if you so wish.

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Weird Antenna Tip for Digital TV Reception Over the Air

Okay, you want a very strange but very useful tip or trick for your TV? Or your digital receiver box, if you’re using a TV that doesn’t have one built in. This tip, or trick, or whatever you want to call it, has worked for me for a very long time with antennas, and I do not know why (it may be the shielding around the cables being used), but, try this:

Instead of screwing the antenna cord end firmly into your TV or your digital receiver, try just barely connecting the damned thing. I kid you not. By that, I mean, have it so the male antenna cord end is barely even touching the female receptor on the TV/receiver. In fact, if you can, just have them touch and don’t even screw the damned antenna end in at all.

Now try auto-scanning for channels. I kid you not, you should receive at least about 48 channels in any market, over the air (OTA) — including things like MeTV, which is a pain in the ass to get on any streaming network. I ended up with 54 OTA channels.

Seriously. Try it. Muck about with the antenna cord by barely attaching it, see what happens.

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“Green card? I’m from *East L.A.*…”

Alright, given that there are reports of some citizens being accidentally deported along with people who are not here legally, I thought I would try one attempt at a non-offensive, non-political comment on the matter, and that is this:

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Today’s Photo of Me — Not Looking *Too* Bad!

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NFL Kicks Off on Thursday Night Football Tomorrow at 8:20 PM

Ayuh, it’s that time of year — the first NFL game tomorrow is on tomorrow night, September 4th, at 8:20 PM (Thursday Night Football). Cowboys at Eagles. You can catch it on NBC, Peacock, Hulu Live +, a bunch of services (not anything specific like Amazon this year).

Sigh. And the Patriots are terrible. Well, no room but for improvement, I guess.

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“Michael, are you wearing lady clothes…?”

This is honestly one of the best scenes in “The Office” ever.

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Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura from “Star Trek” The Original Series) Nude

Ah, Nichelle. Now why did you have to go and do that thing in Star Trek V and ruin our fond memories of you? Don’t worry, I won’t be directing you to THIS thing:

No, no, no, we want Nichelle Nichols back in the 1950s and 1960s, and, judging by my blog hits, you all preferably want pictures of her naked, so here you go.

Hey, she’s notable not just for Trek but for having the first televised interracial kiss (which happened on Trek, lol). Shatner, you lucky, lucky bastard.

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Happy Labor Day!

To all the hard-working people of the United States, Happy Labor Day, and, also, sadly — happy unofficial end of Summer, though it doesn’t technically end until the 22nd. But, most vacations are over, kids are headed back to school — and winter looms ahead after what’s always an all-too-short Fall.

Take care and enjoy the day off!

Some fun facts about Labor Day:

  • Labor Day was first celebrated in the United States in 1882, in New York City, and was passed into law as a national holiday in 1894, under Grover Cleveland.
  • Lyndon B. Johnson made sure Labor Day would always be on a Monday, with the Uniform Holiday Bill.
  • When Labor Day was being adopted state by state, Oregon was the first state to recognize it as a holiday, in 1887.

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