Google's Street View drivers on contract have photographed more than just estates in Sonoma's wine country. They've also snapped shots of stretches of private roads in Humboldt County — nearly a quarter of a mile past "no trespassing" signs, according to one complainant. That particular area of California long ago cut down the profitably harvestable timber and has turned to cannabis cultivation. It provides the state, and the nation, with some of the most carefully bioengineered marijuana strains known to humanity.You can thank local botanists who fly under the radar of law enforcement. Grow operations are packed tightly into indoor and outdoor spaces, which Google's all-seeing eye-level cameras could easily betray. So if your dealer's supplier goes down thanks to a Street View intrusion — lawful or otherwise — which brand ought to feel the wrath of your pointlessly paranoid post-analysis? (Photo by Miss Gong & The Flickers)

Can't a little movie like Tropic Thunder catch a break? The Ben Stiller comedy has thus far managed to survive racism, ratings, "retards," and American Idol — and that's before it's even come out (Wednesday, August 13!). Still, all that was child's play compared to the newest Tropic trouble, instigated by an overzealous radio DJ who crashed the film's junket to ask Robert Downey Jr. some of the most inane questions Iron Man has ever had to face. Listen in horror as the notoriously rehabbed actor is asked which costar he'd like to “drink a brew and smoke a blunt with” (only the first of many, many stupid questions) — we've even provided a helpful assortment of what we can only imagine were Jack Black and Ben Stiller's reaction shots. Enjoy!

Apparently trying to get people to "CRAVE" their ugly, 20-mile-per-gallon (city!) CR-V crossover, Honda made a dopey, computerized 20-questions thing for their website. In case you've never done one before, that means you think of some THING and the website asks you a series of questions and tries to guess what THING you've got in mind. There are any number of sites that can do this, so Honda apparently just downloaded some sort of standard programming library to make the game work, then wrapped it in a 3-D model of their car for marketing purposes. But they forgot to take out many of the racier THINGS one might have in mind, like an herbal jazz cigarette, also known as a "joint." We're told "cocaine" also worked at one point but can't get the game to accept that — it says "I am guessing that you're thinking of something your mother wouldn't approve of." Aww Honda, just throw open the floodgates. Then the game might actually be sorta fun! [Honda]

Seth Rogen's recent mellow-harshing bust notwithstanding, there has arguably never been a better time to be a pot aficionado in the movies. Or at the movies. Or returning to the movies — or to the road, anyway, as evinced by new reports of Cheech and Chong's cannabis comeback. Basically anyone who can approximate stoner bliss is ready for prime time these days, from the principals of Harold and Kumar to Pineapple Express to Smiley Face (to say nothing of Hall of Famers The Big Lebowski and Up in Smoke), notes a pot-film scholar who miraculously focused long enough to taxonomize and rate them:

When it comes to values, there is no better role model than Paris Hilton. The heiress has a love for family members rich enough to post bail money, a love of puppies so strong it’s against the law, and a love for makin’ love in da club with other people’s boyfriends. But there are two things Paris cherishes more than anything in her Barbie Dreamhouse of a world: staying skinny and smoking the reefer. Which has recently presented a problem for the heiress with a heart of gold. According to the National Enquirer:

Nothing former Broadcom CEO Henry Nicholas did is particularly remarkable to anyone who's enjoyed Brett Morgen's The Kid Stays in the Picture biopic about the life and times of Robert Evans. What's remarkable is that it was a technology CEO in Orange County and not someone in the abnormally amoral entertainment industry. As cynical and jaded as we may be about the foibles of the ultrarich of the Valley, even we were surprised by some of the stunts detailed in the allegations, if only for their naïveté.

It's not clear whether actor Seth Rogen is smoking marijuana, or something else, in this appearance at MTV's movie awards, which were televised live. But there are three thing you can say for sure. One, the camera pulls back, as though the network wants to obscure the smoking. Two, Rogen just earned some serious publicity for his upcoming stoner film, Pineapple Express, part of a resurgence for the genre of pot movies, which Hollywood considers cheap to produce but highly profitable. And, third, someone is going to get seriously scolded by various media watchdog groups for promoting marijuana use on national television, whether the weed is real or not.

Tomorrow is 4/20, when dirty hippies, stoners, burnouts, and all of my friends celebrate their precious, precious weed. But how much do you really know about this deadly commie herb? Did you know that in 19th century Nepal it was harvested by naked dudes running through the flowering fields until they were all sticky and then they'd have the goo scraped from their naked nakedness to make hash? Well, did you?!

Tom Cruise has personally —personally— helped hundreds of people get off drugs. And now he will indirectly —indirectly— get you stoned out of your mind! Yes, there's a new strain of medical marijuana hitting the cannabis clubs called Tom Cruise Purple. The vial it comes in has a picture of Cruise laughing hysterically, and the weed is reportedly so powerful that it makes you hallucinate to the point of seeing Overlord Xenu.

Thanks to Judd Apatow's loveable stoner humor and the mass excitement caused by the impending Harold and Kumar sequel, it seems that pot and pot-loving celebs are inching closer and closer to mainstream acceptance. But news of which stars contributed tips to celebrity stoner lit's latest entry, Pot Culture, has us harkening back to the days when Bob Dylan and Woody Harrelson gave long-winded interviews to High Times. Though the names aren't exactly A-list, the pieces of advice on how to get merrily mellow are far more creative than any pothead logic we've ever heard. Find out who lays out DIY instructions on how to construct your own gravity bong, who demonstrates the always-reliable apple bong technique, and who gets away with lying to their husband about her toking habit by covering up the smell with lip gloss after the jump.

This morning on the subway I actually LOLed at the Post article about Al Gore's son's pot and pills arrest: "Being the former vice president's son did little to blunt the charges." Ha! But then, I always laugh at pot jokes because I used to be a huge pothead until, um, about two weeks ago. Anyway, the Post's other zingers included the headline "Gore son at 'high' speeds," "the hybrid car was green in more ways than one," and "Call it an inconvenient toke." They're not leaving us much to work with, are they? Still, I hope you'll give it a shot. Personally, I can't think of anything. Must be cause of all that pot I used to smoke.

Gore Son at 'High' Speeds [NYP]
[Photo: Good Mag [Flickr]

Last week, Slate's Kim Masters reported that NBC Universal boss Jeff Zucker was starting to discover that the brash up-and-comer he'd just handpicked might be, to use the most delicate terms possible, a "voracious party animal." Today, in diving deep into All Things Ben Silverman, DHD's Nikki Finke discusses at length TV's leading Colombian tetas importer's "liberal attitudes towards marijuana use," noting that a delay in the completion of his NBC deal could put off the ceremonial turnover of his urine sample until after the Fourth of July holiday, giving Silverman plenty of time to clear his golden stream of THC. Rather than embrace the positive and take this alleged affinity for the bong (there is absolutely no truth to the rumor we just made up that Silverman tried to rename NUTS as 420 Studios before being forced to go with the safer Universal Media Studios by a mellow-harshing suit) as a sign that their new executive isn't a narc trying to take down the entire network from the inside, Zucker has apparently chosen to fret about the situation. Reports Finke:

Remember that New York Press cover story from four months ago? That we made fun of? Well, the AP sure doesn't. Yesterday, they broke the news that many New Yorkers get their weed, not from shifty-looking Rastas in Washington Square Park, but from "drug rings that operate with remarkable corporate-style attention to customer satisfaction." We'd ignore this article, or nominate it ourselves for GMiJ, but there was one standout detail that we just had to share:

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Former Whitewater special counsel Kenneth Starr petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to take up Alaska's "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case, a dispute involving a high school student, a banner and a tough school policy.