As I understand it, which, to my credit, is a very shallow understanding indeed, something called tetrahydrocannabinol is the active ingredient in cannabis… weed… Mary Jane… marijuana.
Tetrahydrocannabinol is conveniently abbreviated THC for those of us with attention spans short enough to tire of 8-syllable words after the first 3 syllables.
According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, THC is a Schedule 1 drug because
it has a potential for abuse
it has no currently accepted medical benefit, and
it lacks safety guidelines for use under medical supervision.
(The last two points sound contradictory, but as I say, I am no expert in this field.)
Furthermore, U.S. federal law prohibits prescriptions for medicinal THC. Other Schedule 1 drugs besides marijuana include heroin, LSD, mescaline, Ecstacy, and bath salts.
Bath salts??? Who knew THAT?
The disreputable Schedule 1 classification of THC, putting it in fairly fast-moving company with the grown-up drugs on the list, might give one pause when considering whether it ought to be used.
But this is America in the 21st century, and many states have taken to heart that 50-year-old mantra, “If it feels good, do it!”
THC can be used in certain baked goods intended for human consumption. This is legal in some states, despite being illegal at the federal level. So confusing.
So when Famous Yeti’s Pizza in Stoughton, Wisconsin, ran out of cooking oil for their evening crowd, they found it easy to borrow some from a sister food joint with whom they shared a kitchen in the same building. A subsequent police investigation found that the vat of cooking oil Yeti accessed was plainly labeled that it contained THC, but the problem was urgent enough (or the cook was ignorant enough) for that to not matter.
Famous Yeti began cooking and selling pizza using dough infused with THC. Over the next 4 hours, no fewer than 85 customers became intoxicated, 30 of them with symptoms serious enough to send them to the hospital.
Eight of the afflicted were children or adolescents. Famous Yeti’s is a family casual dining pizza joint, after all.
Symptoms of THC use include: Dizziness, increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, nausea, vomiting, anxiety, panic attacks, paranoia, hallucinations and short-term memory impacts.
In some cases, the blood pressure can go dangerously low. (If your blood pressure goes low enough, you can get permanent kidney damage, sometimes resulting in death. See my book, chapter 10, for gruesome details.) THC can also cause coma, respiratory depression and seizures, but none of those showed up during the Famous Yeti’s Pizza experience.
So… why exactly would someone want to ingest THC on purpose? That has always perplexed me. And who thought it was such a good idea to have a pizza joint share a kitchen with a THC-edibles bakery?
Number 3. AP News. Recall issued over energy drinks mistakenly containing vodka.
Pizza dough is not the only surprise lurking out there.
High Noon is apparently a liquor store in Penn Yan, New York. I have been to Penn Yan; it’s a nice little town in beautiful upstate New York near the Finger Lakes.
High Noon distributes the expected slate of alcohol products, and they include a special “Beach Pack Variety 12-Pack”: a dozen 12-oz cans which look like something that might fit in a cooler for an afternoon on nearby Keuka Lake or Seneca Lake.
Not included in the Beach Variety Pack is Sparking Blue Razz Celsius Astro Vibe energy drink, which is supposed to be non-alcoholic. Something got mixed up in the back room, however, and this batch became a vodka-based concoction, adding perhaps a little more Sparkling Razz than was intended.
The product was recalled from distribution across New York and neighboring states. Such a recall is certain to not only damage short-term profits, but if there is enough noise made about it in the press, future High Noon sales should really take off, buyers hoping against hope for the special batch of Blue Razz Celsius.
This could rival the explosive revenue spike from Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle jeans/genes ad. Hope springs eternal.
Living near violent people can be hazardous to one’s health, and the State of Victoria in southeast Australia, is here to keep you safe.
A new law takes effect next month prohibiting the possession of a machete, defined as a knife with a cutting blade of 20 cm or more. For those of us metrically challenged, that’s about 8 inches.
So much for my favorite Bowie knife.
Machetes have already been made illegal to sell in Victoria, but being the easy-going people they are, the state will help residents ease into the new machete-free lifestyle.
The state government has set up drop boxes at local police stations, so that you can deposit your machete prior to the new carry ban without fear of retribution.
“These knives destroy lives – so we’re taking them off the streets,” says Victoria’s Premier Jacinta Allan. “[We are] boosting Victoria Police’s powers because community safety always comes first.”
Amazon, as a good-faith member of the commercial community, has already removed machetes from their offerings made through Australian servers.
Sky News has reported a noticeable upswing in home invasions and assaults — even murders — carried out with machetes this year. In March, the Australian Control of Weapons Act was modified to include the long knives.
And I have to ask: Why stop there? What about the deadly catapult?
In a completely unrelated story, another Sky News article highlights the dangers of “catapults” in an ordered society. Catapults are increasingly being used in Australia to injure or kill a wide variety of wildlife, including pigs, deer, pigeons, foxes, squirrels, pheasants, rabbits, geese and ducks. Sources say there has been an exponential rise in the number of birds found with catapult injuries.
It took me a while to figure out that a catapult is Australia-speak for a slingshot. The photo helped.
And I might say, once you make it hard to get the .22 rifle, I’m not sure what else you’d expect from teenage boys in a largely rural society with lots of open space and wildlife. And no, the Control of Weapons Act does not entirely ban the .22. You just have to show a “Genuine reason” why you want it.
Presumably, the desire to wantonly kill a pigeon or a squirrel may not qualify.
To channel Martin Niemoller: First they came for the AK-47s, and I did not own an AK, so I did not speak. Then they came for the machetes, and I did not own a machete, so I did not speak. And when they come for my catapult, who will be left to speak for me?
Number 1. The Daily Beast. Trump’s Armored Golf Cart Spotted in Scotland.
I think I want one of these!
When Donald Trump visited his Trump Turnberry golf course in Scotland last month, he drove his own golf cart, which is his usual mode on the links. Joining his entourage of protective agents, press corps and other invitees was a sizable fleet of other carts to carry all the assorted bodies.
Notable among the line of buggies was a unique, black Polaris Ranger with 4 solid doors, a small dump bed and a flat bulletproof windscreen. It was an up-armored UTV, no doubt driven by the President’s Secret Service detail.
I would love to know the Secret Service code name for the Ranger, but either they don’t have one, or it is a closely guarded secret.
Since the apparent attempted assassination of Trump at his Florida golf course last year, much attention has been paid to keeping the Commander-in-Chief safe on his golf outings. The new flat-black Ranger is no doubt part of the plan.
Usually keeping distance from the president during a golf outing, so as to avoid over-much publicity, the Turnberry event was unique in that the up-armored machine was captured by cameras in several shots.
The conversion package for the Polaris Ranger was made by Scaletta Armoring of Chicago, which offers “an add-on armor kit to Polaris XP 1000 Ranger UTV with protection scalable to mission,” for only $190,000. MacGyver Solutions, a competitor in the UTV-capable heavy steel and laminated ballistic glass option packages, sells fleets of such vehicles to US Customs & Border Protection.
Secret Service details have always had various code names for different protectees and their modes of transportation. The names seem somehow appropriate, particularly to a crowd of patriotic, apple-pie-loving, former military types drawn to an armed Treasury Department role.
Reagan was Rawhide; H.W. Bush was Timberwolf; Clinton was Eagle; W. Bush was Trailblazer; Obama was Renegade; Biden was Celtic; Trump was — and is — Mogul.
In a similar vein, presidential limousines have had their own nomenclature, but besides “Stagecoach” used for Reagan’s car I am unaware of other specific code names. The only reason I know that one is the press it got during the almost-successful Reagan assassination attempt in 1981.
William McKinley, by the way, was the first president to ride in a motor vehicle, a Stanley Steamer, in 1901. Teddy Roosevelt preferred a horse-drawn carriage to emphasize his Rough Rider reputation. FDR was the last president to drive his own vehicle — specially modified with hand controls — a Lincoln V12 convertible Sunshine Special.
After his assassination, Kennedy’s open-top Lincoln was nicknamed “The Death Car” by an Associated Press reporter, was stripped down to the chassis and rebuilt. All the removed parts were destroyed to avoid the ghoulish collector’s market.
Since Woodrow Wilson’s Pierce-Arrows, all the presidential limousines have been Lincolns or Cadillacs.
And now we have the Polaris Ranger.
While the trip to Scotland was really part of a small news items related to Trump’s agreement with the European Union’s Ursula Von der Leyen for a $1 trillion dollar trade deal — the largest ever in world history — the economic news quickly became a “ho-hum, business as usual” announcement.
But the up-armored utility vehicle, which, for want of a better name, will probably be forever known as Golf Force One — now THAT makes the news cycle worth following!
Thanks for joining The Alligator News Roundup for Friday, August 8, 2025. As we enter the hot days of summer here in the upper half of the globe, be careful when ordering your pizza or your chosen energy drink. Rather, get out an enjoy nature in your tame, civilian, battery-powered golf car, while pretending that you are driving Golf Force One, dodging incoming high-powered rounds, mortar shots and exploding drones, carrying your Principal to the safety of the course clubhouse.
Have a good weekend!
