Finally, a war on drugs I can get behind

As I've mentioned before on this space, there is little that I find more dubious than a sensational claim of an exotic and dangerous new drug craze. My skepticism only doubles when the claim originates from a local network affiliate which has dubbed itself "Heartland News."

On the other hand, you'd be hard pressed to find a bigger promoter of the endless wonders of air conditioning than this blogger.

Which is why I am so conflicted after reading and watching this live, local and late breaking report from Channel 12 in Carbondale, Illinois. In it the Heartland News team details a "deadly" trend of kids getting high from huffing freon.

Since freon doesn't grow on trees, and can't be found in your parent's liquor or medicine cabinet, most freon enters the secondary market through the defiling of the very same hard working air conditioning units that keep people -- regular people -- cool during the summer months.

Once freon is removed from an air conditioner not only does the AC become less effective, but, without a proper amount of freon gas flowing through its pipes, there is a good chance the unit will become permanently damaged if it continues to run.

Do I really think, like the folks at Channel 12, freon abuse threatens to turn our nation's youths into an army of zombies with dead eyes and light heads? Not really. But in this case, with the comfort of our heartland at stake, can we dare risk it?

At the end of the report the helpful lady anchor reminds her viewers that taking freon from somebody else's air conditioner is "theft." As August rolls around, I think the proper term is "torture."

Which is the crime I would hope anyone caught possessing illicit freon would be prosecuted for.

Al Gore hearts electricity

Just in time for the aftermath of the Oscars, a small Tennessee think tank has released the details of Al Gore's utility bill. In 2006 Gore's suburban Nashville home consumed 221,000 kilowatt-hours of gas and electricity at a rate that has been steadily increasing, despite his well-publicised calls for others to carefully monitor their personal energy use in these apocalyptic times.

Or, to put it in financial terms, Gore's combined gas and electricity bill was 30,000 dollars last year.

That's 20 times the rate of the average household in America. A country, Al Gore likes to remind us, known for its wanton use of energy resources.

Or, to put it in scientific terms, the IPCC has calculated there is a 90 percent chance Al Gore has personally wiped out 2 to 7 previously undiscovered species of Antarctic crustacean in the past 12 to 96 hours.

Contacted last night, a Gore spokesman did not deny the utility bill and added something about carbon footprints, carbon offsets, rich people and Gore and his wife Tipper working from home -- although I would hardly call playing electric guitar as you jet around your air-conditioned backyard on a riding mower work.

Look we are all hypocrites. Every single one of us. I'm not here to bury Al Gore, I'm here to praise him.

You see I'm also someone who goes out of my way to consume as much household energy as I can. It's not to destroy the earth, per se, it is because my landlord pays my utility bills and running them up astronomically is the only way I can make up for their stunning lack of service and attention in other areas.

While I think I'm pretty good at being wasteful, I'm always looking for ways to get better.

Now that the cat is out of the bag I imagine Gore would be reluctant to share the secret behind his massive waste -- even to a fellow traveler like myself.

But I thought of an ingenious way to circumvent this.

Remember during the Oscars when they kept telling you to check out Oscar.com to find tips on "going green?"

I figured I would use these tips as a reference point and then plan on doing the exact opposite. It's like Al Gore's secret message to me!

This proved more difficult than I imagined. For what exactly is the opposite of a compost pile? I think it might be burning your garbage with gasoline soaked coal, but that doesn't really serve my objective of running up my utility bills.

The website did provide a good affirmation of the things I am already doing right: I don't use fluorescent light bulbs; I never turn off my lights; I keep my drapes closed in the winter and open in the summer and my apartment suffers from a woeful lack of weatherization.

Most importantly, I set my air conditioner to 65 degrees and run it 24/7 in the spring and summer, often with my windows open. This is not just to screw my landlords, it is also for my own comfort.

I get criticized a lot for this practice. Especially when I go out of town and leave the air-conditioner on.

Think of it this way: Let's say you've been on a grueling two week tour of speeches, personal appearances and scaring children into thinking the world is going to end. You return home to a sweltering Nashville. You know the walk from the your limo to your front door is going to be beyond brutal. But you also know once you open that door a blast of cold air -- the very cold air you are trying so hard to save for future generations -- will soothe and relax every inch of your being. That's heaven. That's what our forefathers fought for.

So don't hate me because I'm wasteful. Don't hate Al Gore either. It gets really hot in Tennessee in the summer. And the revolution isn't cooled by solar power.

Al Gore blames global warming on Tonto

I was living in New York when Mayor Bloomberg proposed making the bars and restaurants in the city smoke-free. At the time I was completely outraged by what I thought to be state-nannyism run amok.

Although, as a non-smoker, I found the smoke-free bar and the lack of smoke that goes with it to be quite agreeable in practice.

Another benefit of the ban was you no longer had to actually enter the bar to make it a night. Instead you could just buy yourself a larger bottle of malt-liquor, paper bag it, and chat up the girls smoking on the street outside the entrance.

And if the young lady doesn't succumb to your wiles in the span of cigarette? Well, there will be another one jonesing for a smoke any second now. The only downside to this strategy is if you wear your more ironic hipster garb you will be mistaken for a vagrant.

This is all to say I believe within five years smoking will be made illegal in any remotely public place in the United States -- if not the Western World.

So what's a government to do, after relieving the tobacco companies of a couple hundred billion dollars and then ungratefully banning their product from plain view?

I see Bloomberg is taking his righteous crusade to transfats. But Al Gore -- who is famously not in the government -- is still trying to bleed Big T for every last drop of political capital.

In a speech to the UN yesterday Gore named cigarette smoke as a "significant contributor to global warming."

His likely-spurious accusation should be an affront to my fairness barometer. But hey, anything that takes the heat off air-conditioning is cool with me.

JSB comment policy

On Friday it was revealed Lee Siegel, a long-time staple at the New Republic, has been using a "sockpuppet" to anonymously attack his critics on the comment section of the blog he kept for the magazine.

Not content to simply rebut those who attacked him first, Siegel's sockpuppet also made self-aggrandizing comments. For example the sockpuppet once e-claimed his master "is brave, brilliant and wittier than (Jon) Stewart will ever be," and added, "take that, you bunch of immature, abusive sheep."

It is important to remember that Lee Siegel and his sockpuppet are middle aged adults who have enjoyed previous professional success.

When Siegel's ruse was exposed, he tried to play it off as a "prank." But New Republic Editor-in-Chief Franklin Foer wasn't buying that explanation, and suspended the senior editor Siegel indefinitely.

Like The New Republic, we at jsb take our comment section very seriously. While I might beg, cajole or even bribe friends and relatives to post comments, I exert no editorial control over these comments.

So if you comment on jsb, rest assured you will not be attacked by JT posing under some deceptive handle. Also, with each comment, you will get a little chit that can be used on judgment day against minor transgressions such as white lies, theft and cruelty to bugs, reptiles, amphibians and smaller mammals.

But if there is ever another attack on air-conditioning -- the greatest invention in the history of Western civilization -- like there was this morning, the comment will be deleted. If the anti-air conditioning comments continue after this removal, I will not hesitate to shut down jsb's comment section altogether. Especially if these attacks take place during the summer months.

I sincerley hope it will not come to this.

Matt Drudge and the power grids

He says they are holding, despite the record breaking temperatures. He even has a photo up of a power grid today. Now we all know they look like the periodic table.

I've been terrified ever since he started with the whole thing Sunday. I doubt I'd be thinking about it so much if he would just stop harping on it.

Please Matt, can't you just concentrate on the Middle East. You usually love a good story about war and Israel.

The heat makes people loopy and randy. I bet an attractive female junior high school teacher was just filmed having sex with her whole sixth period Social Studies class.

Probably in Tennessee. Check those local television websites you are so good at extracting links from.

Just stop with the power grids and my impending boil.

Mid-Atlantic blackouts

I fear this could be the week that nightmare scenario unfolds. I wish there was somewhere I could store "cold." I might as well just lower my air-conditioner to 50 in preparation. When the atmosphere wins that battle, I will drive around in my car until the power comes back on.

Serial killer fear grips Phoenix

If I was a serial killer, the last place I'd serial kill is Phoenix in the summer.