What does this say about the state of the "war on drugs?"

President Obama met with the surviving members of the Grateful Dead on Monday.

Yes, you read that right.

The band credits the president with being the reason that they reunited– they got back together to play for an Obama fundraiser.

Also, someone in the White House was clever enough to place a vase of Scarlet Begonias in the Oval Office, which apparently Phil Lesh and his wife Jill noticed.

What has happened since Rose began work on the album?

• 1994: Czechoslovakia dissolved as a country, which is great because no one can spell it
• 1994: Nelson Mandela was elected as South Africa’s first black president.  America has to wait another few weeks
• 1994: OJ Simpson is tied and acquitted of the murder of his wife and her companion
• 1996: The Idea of Progress graduates from high school.  He is not a Guns’n'Roses fan
• 1997: Dolly the Sheep is cloned in Scotland
• 1997: Princess Diana is killed in a car crash
• 1998: The Monica Lewinsky Scandal breaks/ Bill Clinton gets busted for blowjobs.  The event does not lead us into war
• 1999: Lance Armstrong wins the first of a shitload of Tour de Frances… like 100, I think
• 2000: Al Gore is elected president.  Things don’t work out, though
• 2001: Something bad happens in New York
• 2001: The Idea of Progress graduates from college.  He still doesn’t care for Guns’n'Roses
• 2002: The United States invades Afghanistan.  Osama bin Laden is nowhere to be found
• 2003: The US attacks Iraq.  The war should only take, what, a month?  I mean, they live in tents, right?
• 2003: Mission Accomplished
• 2004: 50% of the United States loses its mind and re-elects George W. Bush.  The other 50% weeps
• 2005: The Chicago White Sox win the World Series.  Cubs fans weep
• 2005:  Something bad happens to New Orleans
• 2006: Ted Haggard resigns as the head of the National Association of Evangelicals after spending some quality time with some meth and a male prostitute.  But he’s totally not gay.  It was just a massage
• 2007: The last Harry Potter book is released.  In case you were wondering, everyone in it has sex and then dies
• 2008: The Idea of Progress moves to Portland, OR.  He still doesn’t care for Guns’n'Roses
• 2008:   The stock market goes down the pooper
• 2008:  Still looking for Osama Bin Laden

If you’d like to hear a track from the new album, about a minute of one was leaked and can be found here. A full song is available at Stereogum. It kinda sounds like ‘Rock You Like a Hurricane’ by Scorpions, if you ask me. Meh.