- The warnings are not getting through to America. Despite anyone and everyone within shouting distance insisting that downing whatever pill the guy handing out the glowsticks at this weekend’s rave is pushing, those who enjoy techno music, strobe lights and bounce pits are simply opening up the hatch and downing all manner of bad ecstasy. As a result, ecstasy-related emergency room visits have skyrocketed in over the past several years, according to a study released by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). In fact, hospital visits associated with the drug commonly known as X have jumped 75 percent since 2004. A whopping 17,865 visits occurred in 2008, up from 10,220 in 2004. Not surprisingly, 69.3 percent involved patients between the ages of 18 and 35, while 17.9 percent involved partiers between 12 and 17 years of age. Oh, and believe it or not, in most cases at least one another substance of potential abuse was involved and typically, that substance was alcohol. Who would ever guess that both alcohol and ecstasy would be found in the same place and be used in tandem? The SAMHSA study prompted a spokesman for the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Rafael Lemaitre, to demand that young people should be adequately warned about the risks of ecstasy. “The latest numbers show we need to work urgently and collaboratively to warn young people about the harms of drug use. Now is the time when a lot of young adults and high school kids are going on spring break trips, and this is, unfortunately, when young people often experiment with substance abuse,” Lemaitre said. For those who have never danced to Sandstorm while adorned with a glowstick necklace, a drink of unknown origins in one hand and an ecstasy pill in the other, all while raving with hundreds of total strangers inside an abandoned warehouse somewhere random, ecstasy is known to induce feelings of euphoria and intimacy with others. While studies in cognitive and psychological therapy indicate that it can also be beneficial if administered in therapeutic settings, it seems safe to say that those showing up in emergency rooms from taking it are not therapy patients. While limiting it to treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety related to terminal cancer would be ideal, no one is naïve enough to believe that will happen. Ecstasy is even criminalized under a United Nations agreement, but that hasn’t stopped it from becoming the go-to drug for the global rave and club scene………….
- Save the rhinos, Africa. Whether you realize it or not, this amazing beast is in serious jeopardy on your continent in large part because rhino horns sell for more than gold on a per-ounce basis. Conservationists are extremely concerned about the fate of Africa's rhinos, which are facing their worst poaching crisis in decades. The biggest poaching offenders are organized crime syndicates have killed than 800 African rhinos in the past three years alone, the Swiss-based International Union for Conservation of Nature said Friday. The demand for rhino horns is high globally, especially in Southeast Asia, where the horns ground up for use as alleged aphrodisiacs and medicines or turned into decorative dagger handles. Poachers have created incredibly sophisticated operations using the best in modern technology, including helicopters, night-vision goggles and high-powered rifles to track and kill rhinos, which are plagued by poor sight. The poachers are well-backed financially and have significantly better technology than the African wildlife officials attempting to stop them. The countries where poaching is most common are South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya, where sophisticated criminal organizations are entrenched. South Africa has suffered the biggest losses to its rhino population, with 333 poached last year and 70 more so far this year. Scientists fear that Africa's remaining 24,990 rhinos might start to decline again in numbers unless poaching can be curtailed. The rhino population in Africa consists of 4,840 black rhinos and 20,150 white rhinos, up from 2007, when there were 4,240 black rhinos and 17,500 white rhinos. Anti-poaching efforts have made minimal progress, but not nearly enough to alleviate fears of rhinos ending up on the endangered species list - or worse. The figures from South Africa are disturbing because the country a has more than 90 percent of the world's rhino population. The northern white rhino is the most highly endangered mega-vertebrate (the animals can weigh in excess of 6,000 pounds) on earth. Black rhinos are the more endangered of the two, as their population has fallen from a 65,000 across Africa in the 1970s to its current number. Rhino horns have been banned in commercial trade by the U.N.'s Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species since 1993, but the black market demand for the horns has only increased since then. A large part of the blame goes on Chinese traditional medicine, which prizes the horns as a cure for everything from colds and fevers to high blood pressure. Efforts to convince the horn-loving kooks that their beloved cure-all has no special chemical qualities have failed miserably. Looks like it could be all on you to stay alive, rhinos, because we humans are failing miserably to protect you……….
- Don’t you dare back down, George Lopez. While I still have no time for your kooky circus of a late-night show, that doesn’t mean I cannot support you in your battle against the bulge that is Kirstie Alley. Alley, who is currently taxing the dance floor with her portly and ever-expanding frame as a member of this season’s Dancing With the D-List Stars cast, took great offense when he pointed out the obvious in suggesting on his show Tuesday that she was a pig. While talking about her performance on DWTDLS the previous night Lopez said she "did a nice job, her little hooves tapping away." While the comment might seem a bit harsh, remember that it is Lopez’s job to crack jokes, even if his show is nowhere close to being the best in the late-night race and he has little hope of ever running down the best in the genre. Predictably, Alley couldn’t take a joke and instead reacted like a typical, oversensitive FAT person. She fired back on Twitter, telling the saps pathetic enough to actually follow an obese E-list actress on Twitter: "Don't worry about George's comments...just remember what happens to the big bad, drunk woolf...falls in a boiling pot of vodka. Piggy laughs." At that point, Lopez had a decision to make: apologize and back down or stand his ground and reap the whirlwind. Sadly, he elected to take the coward’s route and in the process, show why he will never run down Colbert, Stewart, Leno or Letterman. He tweeted an apology and fell on his comedic sword. "I misjudged the joke," he tweeted. "No malice was intended and I apologize to Kirstie." That wasn’t enough to satisfy Alley’s appetite (no, not THAT appetite - nothing can accomplish that Herculean feat) for revenge and she tweeted back to Lopez - whose ex-wife donated a kidney to him in 2005 - that, "I don't need or want ur apology...I want your kidney dude..on behalf of ur X and all the women uv insulted...give it back." Wait one minute……how did Lopez insult anyone but you, K. Alley? He didn’t call them FAT; he called you FAT and he was right. Despite the fact that he had nothing to apologize for, Lopez offered another mea culpa Friday on The Billy Bush Show: ”[It was] poor judgment. As they say in my world of golf, ‘bad form on my part.' I’ve apologized. I think she’s accepted my apology, I wish that she had and that she would be guest on ‘Lopez Tonight. I would love to have her on." If only you could find a chair strong enough to support her presence on your set, George…………
- Now this, America, is what our judicial system should be all about. Instead of focusing on matters like who killed whom, whose life savings were stolen, who was assaulted on who swindled investors out of tens of millions of dollars, the courts should be focused on reinstating wrongly dethroned beauty queens. Thank God a Bexar County jury made the right call and cleared the way Thursday for a district judge to return the Miss San Antonio 2011 crown to original winner Domonique Ramirez. The jury found that the Miss Bexar County Organization breached its contract with Ramirez by stripping her of her title simply because she missed official events and packed on a few pounds. The jury’s verdict compelled Judge Barbara Nellermoe to give Ramirez her title back. "Under the circumstances, with a breach of repudiation on one hand as found by the jury and a finding of no breach on the part of the plaintiff, I don't have any choice but to reinstate Domonique Ramirez as Miss San Antonio 2011," Nellermoe explained before a packed courtroom. The controversy began last month when pageant organizers took the crown from Ramirez and gave it to runner-up Ashley Dixon because of allegations that Ramirez was flaking on her royal duties and had chunked up a bit. That led Ramirez and her family to file a lawsuit against pageant officials and then to a heated court battle. After the verdict came down, pageant officials refused to comment and Ramirez was jubilant. "I left it up in God's hands and that's why I felt I had to come here first," Ramirez said after heading straight to her church after the decision came down. She added that she bears no ill will toward Dixon and hopes they can co-exist as title holders. "I don't plan on taking the crown away from Ashley," Ramirez said. "I'm hoping that we'll be able to share the title and she can go to Miss Texas as Miss Bexar County, and we can both share the crown." That view was not shared by attorney Ben Wallis, representing pageant officials and doing a solid job of channeling their requisite arrogance, condescension and lack of contact with reality. "I think the jury was confused, after interviewing them I certainly believe that and I think the judge is mistaken in the law," Wallis fumed, adding he worries the verdict could set a bad precedent for pageants. "I think it could destroy pageants if contestants are allowed to sue over everything." Destroy pageants? My man, that’s like saying one more bad court decision could really send Lindsay Lohan’s life in the wrong direction. Pageants are a joke anyhow, we all know it and no one outside your sad, deluded little world believes otherwise…………
- Very sly, The Ohio State University, verrrry sly. Sliding an announcement that Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel forwarded to a mentor of quarterback Terrelle Pryor emails that had warned the coach his players were in trouble but did not forward the emails to school officials in right before your men’s basketball team plays in a Sweet 16 game Friday night against Kentucky is extremely clever on your part. After all, no one is going to notice that your head football coach has seemingly been caught in another lie after winding up entangled in a host of them over the past few months. Of course, this controversy stems from five members of the OSU football team - including Pryor - selling memorabilia items to a local tattoo-parlor owner under federal investigation and trading other items for free tattoos. Tressel received emails from a Columbus attorney in April 2010 alerting him to the alleged misdeeds but did not tell the university for eight months. Initially, the fact that he hid his prior knowledge of the situation was not known and it didn’t come to light until a few weeks ago. At that point, Ohio State hastily threw together a press conference in which Tressel said nothing of value, but did nod his head when asked whether he had forwarded the emails he received from attorney Christopher Cicero to anyone. Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith prevented Tressel from elaborating, explaining that the case is still under NCAA investigation. Along the way, Tressel has maintained that the reason he sat on the information initially was to protect his players, but if he was forwarding details to Ted Sarniak, a businessman from Pryor's hometown of Jeannette, Pa., who has known Pryor for years, then how confidential was he being. Tressel also claimed to be protecting Cicero’s confidentiality when keeping the information to himself, but forwarding it to Sarniak blows that story out of the water. Also likely to be obliterated is the five-game suspension that Tressel self-imposed after the school hit him with a two-game ban and he lengthened it, seeking to head off the NCAA dropping the hammer on him once it finishes its investigation. Now that it has become clear how many lies he told and the extent to which he perpetuated them, that penalty is likely to extend well beyond five games and if more lies and misdeeds come to light, Tressel could soon see his job in jeopardy…………
No comments:
Post a Comment