Thursday, March 25, 2010
another possibility in my quest for convenient ways to send text messages from my computer
I think I am pretty hooked on google voice for computer texting. I am nonetheless pleased to see that other options have improved. Google talk in gmail has had sms capability for a while, but since it incorporates all of the messiness of google contacts, I never liked it very much. The newer version works more simply; you have the option of entering the number you want to text without having dig through hundreds of gmail contacts.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
charging the drug buddy: this increasingly popular approach cannot possibly help
if you use drugs with someone who overdoses, you get charged with homicide or manslaughter. The 112 government bodies who failed to keep drugs out of the country, to make drug treatment a viable option, or make naloxone readily available?
Rock County teen sentenced in overdose death
A 14-year-old Edgerton girl accused in the drug overdose death of a 13-year-old boy has been sentenced to state custody for the next five years. ....
Man goes to prison in girlfriend's fatal overdose
By Christy Gutowski
....Brett M. Johnson was sentenced to four years in prison for supplying his girlfriend, Jill Przespolewski, with heroin last year in his grandmother's home on the 900 block of Columbia Court in Carol Stream.
Johnson called 911 at 7 a.m. March 25, 2009, after he awoke and found the 33-year-old Clarendon Hills woman unresponsive. Police said Johnson admitted repeatedly driving into Chicago to buy heroin and crack cocaine for them during a two- to three-day binge. He said his girlfriend only snorted heroin when with him. ....
Rock County teen sentenced in overdose death
A 14-year-old Edgerton girl accused in the drug overdose death of a 13-year-old boy has been sentenced to state custody for the next five years. ....
Man goes to prison in girlfriend's fatal overdose
By Christy Gutowski
....Brett M. Johnson was sentenced to four years in prison for supplying his girlfriend, Jill Przespolewski, with heroin last year in his grandmother's home on the 900 block of Columbia Court in Carol Stream.
Johnson called 911 at 7 a.m. March 25, 2009, after he awoke and found the 33-year-old Clarendon Hills woman unresponsive. Police said Johnson admitted repeatedly driving into Chicago to buy heroin and crack cocaine for them during a two- to three-day binge. He said his girlfriend only snorted heroin when with him. ....
Sunday, March 21, 2010
foolish fourteen year olds...
may be the ones to convince mainstream America that laws require nuance.
Your half-naked teenager may help illuminate the drastically disparate realities underneath superficially similar acts.
Rethinking Sex Offender Laws for Youth Texting
By Tamar Lewin
....In most states, teenagers who send or receive sexually explicit photographs by cellphone or computer — known as “sexting” — have risked felony child pornography charges and being listed on a sex offender registry for decades to come.
But there is growing consensus among lawyers and legislators that the child pornography laws are too blunt an instrument to deal with an adolescent cyberculture in which all kinds of sexual pictures circulate on sites like MySpace and Facebook.
Last year, Nebraska, Utah and Vermont changed their laws to reduce penalties for teenagers who engage in such activities, and this year, according to the National Council on State Legislatures, 14 more states are considering legislation that would treat young people who engage in sexting differently from adult pornographers and sexual predators.....
Your half-naked teenager may help illuminate the drastically disparate realities underneath superficially similar acts.
Rethinking Sex Offender Laws for Youth Texting
By Tamar Lewin
....In most states, teenagers who send or receive sexually explicit photographs by cellphone or computer — known as “sexting” — have risked felony child pornography charges and being listed on a sex offender registry for decades to come.
But there is growing consensus among lawyers and legislators that the child pornography laws are too blunt an instrument to deal with an adolescent cyberculture in which all kinds of sexual pictures circulate on sites like MySpace and Facebook.
Last year, Nebraska, Utah and Vermont changed their laws to reduce penalties for teenagers who engage in such activities, and this year, according to the National Council on State Legislatures, 14 more states are considering legislation that would treat young people who engage in sexting differently from adult pornographers and sexual predators.....
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Virginia, Oklahoma, Mississippi.... I give up.
Yeah, my blue state, elitist, snobby butt is staying put.
Oklahoma Senate passes amendment to opt out of federal hate crimes protections
....State Sen. Steve Russell, R-Oklahoma City, said the newly passed Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which extends hate crimes law protections to include actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability, oversteps the bounds of the federal government and hinders free speech and religious freedom. ....
.....“The law is very vague to begin with,” Russell said. “Sexual orientation is a very vague word that could be extended to extremes like necrophilia.” read the rest of the article here
Miss. prom canceled after lesbian's date request
JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi county school board announced Wednesday it would cancel its upcoming prom after a gay student petitioned to bring a same-sex date to the event.
"Due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events, the Itawamba County School District has decided to not host a prom at Itawamba Agricultural High School this year," school board members said in a statement. ....
Oklahoma Senate passes amendment to opt out of federal hate crimes protections
....State Sen. Steve Russell, R-Oklahoma City, said the newly passed Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which extends hate crimes law protections to include actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability, oversteps the bounds of the federal government and hinders free speech and religious freedom. ....
.....“The law is very vague to begin with,” Russell said. “Sexual orientation is a very vague word that could be extended to extremes like necrophilia.” read the rest of the article here
Miss. prom canceled after lesbian's date request
JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi county school board announced Wednesday it would cancel its upcoming prom after a gay student petitioned to bring a same-sex date to the event.
"Due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events, the Itawamba County School District has decided to not host a prom at Itawamba Agricultural High School this year," school board members said in a statement. ....
Friday, March 5, 2010
more reasons I still love John Kerry and will never understand what the hell goes on in Virginia...
Outdated, unnecessary ban on blood donations should be lifted
by John Kerry
Cuccinelli asks colleges to rescind policies protecting gay state employees
By Rosalind S. Helderman
by John Kerry
Cuccinelli asks colleges to rescind policies protecting gay state employees
By Rosalind S. Helderman
Saturday, February 20, 2010
catholic needle exchange
Their reasoning seems pretty nutty, but I will take it.
Albany, N.Y., diocese defends needle exchange; some Catholic scholars disagree
By Daniel Burke
In launching a needle-exchange program recently, the Catholic Diocese of Albany, N.Y., said the decision came down to choosing the lesser evil. Illegal drug use is bad, but the spread of deadly diseases is worse.
The medical evidence is clear, the diocese said when it began Project Safe Point in two Upstate New York locations through the local branch of Catholic Charities. Public health studies document that exchanging used syringes for new ones can reduce the spread of blood-borne diseases such as AIDS and even lead drug abusers to treatment and recovery. ....
Albany, N.Y., diocese defends needle exchange; some Catholic scholars disagree
By Daniel Burke
In launching a needle-exchange program recently, the Catholic Diocese of Albany, N.Y., said the decision came down to choosing the lesser evil. Illegal drug use is bad, but the spread of deadly diseases is worse.
The medical evidence is clear, the diocese said when it began Project Safe Point in two Upstate New York locations through the local branch of Catholic Charities. Public health studies document that exchanging used syringes for new ones can reduce the spread of blood-borne diseases such as AIDS and even lead drug abusers to treatment and recovery. ....
Friday, February 19, 2010
Just amazing.
This show was just unbeliveable. I love POS.
Love him.
definitely check them out.
wow.
Monday, February 15, 2010
hep C & detachable needles
this is from a press-release and conference abstract. If these findings withstand repeat testing & peer-review, this is huge-
Certain Syringes More Likely To Spread Hepatitis C Virus Among Drug Users
•...This is believed to be the first study establishing the survival of HCV in contaminated syringes and the duration of potential infectiousness. HCV is transmitted through blood-to-blood contact. There is currently no vaccine against HCV, and treatments are problematic because of limited efficacy, high cost and side effects. Untreated, HCV can cause severe liver disease and even death. HCV infection from people sharing contaminated syringes is one of the most common and predictable consequences of injection drug use.
The Yale team simulated the most common scenarios of injection drug use in order to measure the longevity of the residual virus-blood mixture left in syringes after injection. After loading blood spiked with HCV into various syringes and depressing their plungers, researchers tested the residual blood for the presence of infective HCV immediately and after storage for up nine weeks.
They observed a prolonged survival of HCV infection at all storage temperatures, with viable amounts measured even at nine weeks in tuberculin syringes that have detachable needles. They observed far less viable HCV in insulin syringes with attached needles.
“This tells us that syringes with detachable needles are the most dangerous in terms of potential HCV infection, because they are far more likely to transmit a surviving virus,” said lead author Elijah Paintsil, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics and pharmacology at Yale School of Medicine.•
Certain Syringes More Likely To Spread Hepatitis C Virus Among Drug Users
•...This is believed to be the first study establishing the survival of HCV in contaminated syringes and the duration of potential infectiousness. HCV is transmitted through blood-to-blood contact. There is currently no vaccine against HCV, and treatments are problematic because of limited efficacy, high cost and side effects. Untreated, HCV can cause severe liver disease and even death. HCV infection from people sharing contaminated syringes is one of the most common and predictable consequences of injection drug use.
The Yale team simulated the most common scenarios of injection drug use in order to measure the longevity of the residual virus-blood mixture left in syringes after injection. After loading blood spiked with HCV into various syringes and depressing their plungers, researchers tested the residual blood for the presence of infective HCV immediately and after storage for up nine weeks.
They observed a prolonged survival of HCV infection at all storage temperatures, with viable amounts measured even at nine weeks in tuberculin syringes that have detachable needles. They observed far less viable HCV in insulin syringes with attached needles.
“This tells us that syringes with detachable needles are the most dangerous in terms of potential HCV infection, because they are far more likely to transmit a surviving virus,” said lead author Elijah Paintsil, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics and pharmacology at Yale School of Medicine.•
Sunday, February 14, 2010
race & the criminal justice system: NYPD follow-up & how the Census counts prisoners
Urban, Rural Areas Battle For Census Prison Populace
by David Sommerstein
An urban-versus-rural battle is brewing over the census because prison inmates are counted as residents of the prisons where they are locked up. That inflates the population of the mostly white, rural towns that have the prisons.
Higher population means more political representation — and often more money for schools, road crews and other services. Activists say the counting unfairly shifts political and economic power away from the poor city neighborhoods most inmates came from....
& follow-up to this post:
glad to see that the NYPD has improved not one bit under Bloomberg
links to the original reports from the Center for Constitutional Rights
CCR's Report on Racial Disparity in NYPD Stops-and-Frisks(pdf)
CCR's NYPD Data Used in Report (MS Excel spreadsheet)
by David Sommerstein
An urban-versus-rural battle is brewing over the census because prison inmates are counted as residents of the prisons where they are locked up. That inflates the population of the mostly white, rural towns that have the prisons.
Higher population means more political representation — and often more money for schools, road crews and other services. Activists say the counting unfairly shifts political and economic power away from the poor city neighborhoods most inmates came from....
& follow-up to this post:
glad to see that the NYPD has improved not one bit under Bloomberg
links to the original reports from the Center for Constitutional Rights
CCR's Report on Racial Disparity in NYPD Stops-and-Frisks(pdf)
CCR's NYPD Data Used in Report (MS Excel spreadsheet)
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
glad to see that the NYPD has improved not one bit under Bloomberg
Jim Crow Policing
By Bob Herbert
....An overwhelming 84 percent of the stops in the first three-quarters of 2009 were of black or Hispanic New Yorkers. It is incredible how few of the stops yielded any law enforcement benefit. Contraband, which usually means drugs, was found in only 1.6 percent of the stops of black New Yorkers. For Hispanics, it was just 1.5 percent. For whites, who are stopped far less frequently, contraband was found 2.2 percent of the time.
The percentages of stops that yielded weapons were even smaller. Weapons were found on just 1.1 percent of the blacks stopped, 1.4 percent of the Hispanics, and 1.7 percent of the whites. Only about 6 percent of stops result in an arrest for any reason.
Rather than a legitimate crime-fighting tool, these stops are a despicable, racially oriented tool of harassment. And the police are using it at the increasingly enthusiastic direction of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. ....
By Bob Herbert
....An overwhelming 84 percent of the stops in the first three-quarters of 2009 were of black or Hispanic New Yorkers. It is incredible how few of the stops yielded any law enforcement benefit. Contraband, which usually means drugs, was found in only 1.6 percent of the stops of black New Yorkers. For Hispanics, it was just 1.5 percent. For whites, who are stopped far less frequently, contraband was found 2.2 percent of the time.
The percentages of stops that yielded weapons were even smaller. Weapons were found on just 1.1 percent of the blacks stopped, 1.4 percent of the Hispanics, and 1.7 percent of the whites. Only about 6 percent of stops result in an arrest for any reason.
Rather than a legitimate crime-fighting tool, these stops are a despicable, racially oriented tool of harassment. And the police are using it at the increasingly enthusiastic direction of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. ....
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