She could be "Guns and Ammo" person of the year, maybe.

I'll start.

I think the Time Mag Person of the Year should be Sarah Palin. She's affected this election more than any candidate of any election in my lifetime.

The man Obama knew is now a respected University prof. Also he was given the honor of "person of the year" by the city of Chicago recently

Agreed on it needs to be legalized at least off of schedule 1 so we can regulate rather than pretend we can make it go away like we do now. Can't even do many types of research now since we can't "distribute" so can't do controlled studies.

On your second point, Snap right back at ya In "MEMORY, ATTENTION, AND COGNITIVE FUNCTION" as you put it there's a small catch involved. Similar to the way the risk of psychotic disorders is badly overstated (almost nothing to a hair over almost nothing) this is overstated and badly as well. The effects are mostly WHILE intoxicated, for casual use that doesn't extend much if at all past that. You wouldn't know that from the scare stories though. I'll offer you some sources for further research if you'd care to follow up on it and a decent source for a bunch more.

"The results of our meta-analytic study failed to reveal a substantial, systematic effect of long-term, regular cannabis consumption on the neurocognitive functioning of users who were not acutely intoxicated. For six of the eight neurocognitive ability areas that were surveyed. the confidence intervals for the average effect sizes across studies overlapped zero in each instance, indicating that the effect size could not be distinguished from zero. The two exceptions were in the domains of learning and forgetting."

Source: Grant, Igor, et al., "Non-Acute (Residual) Neurocognitive Effects Of Cannabis Use: A Meta-Analytic Study," Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society (Cambridge University Press: July 2003), 9, p. 686.

"In conclusion, our meta-analysis of studies that have attempted to address the question of longer term neurocognitive disturbance in moderate and heavy cannabis users has failed to demonstrate a substantial, systematic, and detrimental effect of cannabis use on neuropsychological performance. It was surprising to find such few and small effects given that most of the potential biases inherent in our analyses actually increased the likelihood of finding a cannabis effect."

Source: Grant, Igor, et al., "Non-Acute (Residual) Neurocognitive Effects Of Cannabis Use: A Meta-Analytic Study," Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society (Cambridge University Press: July 2003), 9, p. 687.

"Nevertheless, when considering all 15 studies (i.e., those that met both strict and more relaxed criteria) we only noted that regular cannabis users performed worse on memory tests, but that the magnitude of the effect was very small. The small magnitude of effect sizes from observations of chronic users of cannabis suggests that cannabis compounds, if found to have therapeutic value, should have a good margin of safety from a neurocognitive standpoint under the more limited conditions of exposure that would likely obtain in a medical setting."

Source: Grant, Igor, et al., "Non-Acute (Residual) Neurocognitive Effects Of Cannabis Use: A Meta-Analytic Study," Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society (Cambridge University Press: July 2003), 9, pp. 687-8.

A Johns Hopkins study published in May 1999, examined marijuana's effects on cognition on 1,318 participants over a 15 year period. Researchers reported "no significant differences in cognitive decline between heavy users, light users, and nonusers of cannabis." They also found "no male-female differences in cognitive decline in relation to cannabis use." "These results ... seem to provide strong evidence of the absence of a long-term residual effect of cannabis use on cognition," they concluded.

Source: Constantine G. Lyketsos, Elizabeth Garrett, Kung-Yee Liang, and James C. Anthony. (1999). "Cannabis Use and Cognitive Decline in Persons under 65 Years of Age," American Journal of Epidemiology, Vol. 149, No. 9.

"Current marijuana use had a negative effect on global IQ score only in subjects who smoked 5 or more joints per week. A negative effect was not observed among subjects who had previously been heavy users but were no longer using the substance. We conclude that marijuana does not have a long-term negative impact on global intelligence. Whether the absence of a residual marijuana effect would also be evident in more specific cognitive domains such as memory and attention remains to be ascertained."

Source: Fried, Peter, Barbara Watkinson, Deborah James, and Robert Gray, "Current and former marijuana use: preliminary findings of a longitudinal study of effects on IQ in young adults," Canadian Medical Association Journal, April 2, 2002, 166(7), p. 887.

# "Although the heavy current users experienced a decrease in IQ score, their scores were still above average at the young adult assessment (mean 105.1). If we had not assessed preteen IQ, these subjects would have appeared to be functioning normally. Only with knowledge of the change in IQ score does the negative impact of current heavy use become apparent."

Source: Fried, Peter, Barbara Watkinson, Deborah James, and Robert Gray, "Current and former marijuana use: preliminary findings of a longitudinal study of effects on IQ in young adults," Canadian Medical Association Journal, April 2, 2002, 166(7), p. 890.

Source for those and more, lots of sourced detail which includes perspective rather than tossing bold claims out without that perspective, can be found at the following. Yes, it includes both the good and the bad and the root site for that page covers medical marijuana and other drugs as well.http://www.drugwarfacts.org/marijuan.htm

The problem in part is that people use pot (and other drugs) sometimes to hide from life or to make themselves feel better about their failures and we try to assume the pot caused the problem rather than the problem caused them to find a way to make themselves feel better, in this case with pot. Association doesn't automatically mean cause and effect. It's not brain food, but it's not all that dangerous in casual use either. Even with heavy use function tends to drift back to the baseline with time, you just have to quit abusing. Better to look for the reasons for abuse than to blame the substance which isn't all that dangerous or toxic in itself.

#36 A duck's quack doesn't echo

#37 A snail breathes through its foot

#38 Fish cough.

#39 An ant's smell is stronger then a dog's

#40 It is possible to lead a cow up stairs but not down

#41 Shrimp can only swim backward

#42 Frogs cannot swallow with their eyes open

#43 A cat's lower jaw cannot move sideways

#44 The bullfrog is the only animal that never sleeps

#45 Elephants are capable of swimming 20 miles per day

#46 Elephants are the only mammal that cannot jump

#47 Giraffes have no vocal chords

#48 Cats can hear ultrasound

#49 Despite its hump...camels has a straight spine

#50 Mosquitoes have 47 teeth

#51 There is 63,360 inches in a mile

#52 11% of people in the world are left-handed

#53 The average women consumes 6lbs of lipstick in her lifetime

#54 The average smell weighs 760 nanograms *

#55 A human brain weighs about 3lbs

#56 1/4 of the bones in your body are in your feet

#57 You blink over 10,000,000 times a year

#58 A sneeze travels out of your nose at 100mph

#59 Brain waves can be used to power an electric train

#60 The tongue is the fastest healing part of the body

#61 Pigs get sunburn

#62 The lifespan of a taste bud is 10 days

#63 The average human produces 10,000 gallons of saliva in a lifetime

#64 Strawberries contain more Vitamin C then oranges

#65 A one-day weather forecast requires about 10 billion math calculations

#66 Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza a day

#67 There are 18 different animal shapes in the Animal cracker zoo

#68 The longest one syllable word is "screeched"

#69 No word in the English language rhymes with month

#70 A "jiffy" is actually 1/100 of a second

#71 There is a town called "Big Ugly" in West Virginia

#72 The average person uses 150 gallons of water per day for personal use

#73 The average person spends 2 weeks of its life waiting for a traffic light to change

#74 You share your birthday with 9 million others in the world

#75 The average person makes 1,140 phone calls per year

#76 The average person spends 2 years on the phone in his/her lifetime

#77 No piece of paper can be folded more then 7 times

#78 Alaska is the most eastern and western state in the US

#79 There are 119 grooves on the edge of a quarter

#80 About 18% of Animal owners share their bed with their pet

#81 Alaska has more caribou then people

#82 August has the highest percent of births

#83 Googol is a number (1 followed by 100 zeros)

#84 Oysters can change genders back and forth

#85 The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows

#86 Until the 19th century solid blocks of tea were used as money in Siberia

#87 A mile on the ocean and a mile on land are not the same distance

#88 A ten gallon hat holds less then one gallon of liquid

#89 The average American walks 18,000 steps a day

#90 The average raindrop falls at 7mph

#91 There are more telephones than people in Washington D.C.

#92 Fish can drown

#93 A Kangaroo can jump 30 feet

#94 Lizards communicate by doing push-ups

#95 Squids can have eyeballs the size of volleyballs

#96 The average American will eat 35,000 cookies in his/her lifetime

#97 A turkey can run at 20mph

#98 When the moon is directly over you, you weigh less

#99 You burn 20 calories an hour chewing gum

#100 In a year, the average person walks 4 miles making their bed

#101 About half of all Americans are on a diet at any given time

#102 A one-minute kiss burns 26 calories

#103 Frowning burns more calories then smiling

#104 There are more then 30,000 diets on public record

#105 You will burn 7% more calories walking on hard dirt then pavement

#106 You way less at the top of a mountain then sea level

#107 You burn more calories sleeping then watching TV

#108 Licking a stamp burns 10 calories

#109 Smelling apples and/or bananas can help you lose weight

#110 Frogs never drink

#111 Only male turkeys gobble

#112 At birth, a Dalmation is always pure white

#113 The fastest recorded speed of a racehorse was over 43 mph

#114 The oldest known animal was a tortoise, which lived to be 152 years old

#115 Bamboo makes up 99% of a panda's diet

#116 The largest fish is the whale shark - It can be over 50 feet long and weigh 2 tons

#117 The starfish is the only animal that can turn its stomach inside out

#118 Honeybees are the only insects that create a form of food for humans

#119 The hummingbird is the only bird that can fly backwards

#120 The only continent without native reptiles or snakes is Antarctica

#121 The only bird that can swim and not fly is a penguin

#122 A duck can't walk without bobbing its head

#123 Beavers were once the size of bears

#124 Seals sleep only one and a half minutes at a time

I was gonna say the same thing about the C64. I know personally from 20 years ago that this could be achieved on C64 drive so was not skeptical that someone could not pull the same thing off today.

On December 27, 2006, I was looking up a Ray Bradbury short story which had a link to this video, which led me to this now defunct video. A few weeks later, I joined, probably so I could submit videos, I think. Also, so I could upvote. I completely ignored Sift Talk for quite some time, until after I got my gold star.

So, I'm saying thank you right now to everyone who congratulated me in this post, and sorry for the lateness of my reply.

Also, big thank you to whomever linked to here from that Wikipedia page, even if they're not actually a sifter. This website is the best on the Internet.

Don't take it personally.

Sixty-Six years is a long time to carry a grudge.

Let's move on.

I saw him (didn't get to take a photo or talk to him) in person a few years ago at The 20th Annual Media Access Awards on 11/2/2002. He was drinking there or potty mouthed there. [grin]

A bathtub per person per 30 years doesn't sound very efficient.. That's a lot of bathtubs per day for all of humanity.

I saw that thing in person about a year ago. It's really loud and freaky.

I was a public transport person last few years and I would get a car if I could afford it. I've met so many crazy and dangerous people on the bus that it doesnt feel at all safe. Generally intimidating behaviour by gangs of young men seems to be the norm (I'm one too, so I can only imagine how older people feel), not to mention they are filthy, smelly and bus drivers often take ignorance and "dickishness" to new levels.

Is protecting the enviroment worth getting your head kicked in?

Worst president ever?? How can that be? He's been Time Magazine Person of the year TWICE!

Here's the full list of "person of the year"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_the_Year

My fav: The computer (82). That dude is really cool, and good at math!

As also discussed here.

LOL, love the jab at the CNN cross-promotion.

OMG, at like 0:45 it looks like Stewart's having a stroke. MSM abdicating its responsibility. Hee hee. Ha, "Newsweak". Nice. OMG, Maxim. LOL!!!! "Is it really me." What are we - canaries???? All time classic.