California to legalize and tax marijuana to fix budget crisis. It's about time.

California is at the vanguard of new taxation strategies. The state is the 8th largest economy in the world--meaning that California has a greater GDP than the vast majority of the world's countries.

Yes, you read that correctly.

I've frequently noted that as California goes, so goes the rest of the country in ten years.

California is suffering a serious budgetary crisis and needs new revenue streams. A state legislator is offering up a bill legalizing marijuana.

In my opinion, California is taking steps that should have occurred years ago. The proposal would allow adults to buy cannabis and pay a tax.

Since marijuana is one of the highest cash crops in the state, the treasury will have scads off cash.

I see marijuana legalization as the next lottery or casino for many states.

We'll see.

Real Housewives of the OC takes the cake.

I think I've witnessed either the most vacuous piece of television in my life or one of the most brazen. I'm speaking of: The Real Housewives of the OC.

The women on that show have to be some of the most shallow and lacking in insight that I've ever seen.

At first I thought the show was just as shallow as the cast, but on second thought, I realized that the producers probably pulled a fast one.

I imagine their pitch meeting going something like this: "Okay, imagine we get a bunch of rich bitch housewives from the most vapid and shallow place in the country--Orange County--and we put them on display. It'll be perfect. The housewives will do it because televising their lives and how good they have it will appeal to their vanity. They'll practically leap at the opportunity to show the world how good they have it. While the rest of the world will watch because of the stupendous display of vacuity and self-absorption."

Well Bravo gave the green light.

I've seen the show once and I was thoroughly appalled by these women. They do nothing but shop, tan, and figure out ways to entertain themselves. They display histrionics at the drop of the hat for no apparent reason other than to get attention.

They behave in ways most of us would find ridiculous and narcissistic. For example: One housewife's husband was in the hospital dying with leukemia, but instead of being by his side, she couldn't deny herself the opportunity to go the lake and party. Of course she got called out on her selfishness and cried that "others shouldn't judge her."

Huh?

This is the very stuff people judge you for; it's the type of stuff you should be judged for.

Another cried that she was a bad mother because her tattooed son got the inside of his lip tattooed. No, she's a bad mother because she set the example that it was okay for her son to have a sense of entitlement and that he could live a life of dissipation at another's expense.

I don't know what it is about these shows, but I have difficulty watching shallow people doing shallow stuff and being paid for it.

No wonder the U.S. has hit a snag. Too many people cocooning in material excess.