Archive for June 23rd, 2011
Wilfred Official Website | Series Premiere June 23 Thursdays 10 only on FX
Every year dogs of all breeds get hooked on nicotine. Many start smoking because they think it makes them look cool, others hope it will help them lose weight, and some breeds are simply high-strung and prone to addiction. Whatever the reason, know the warning signs and help your dog kick the habit
via Wilfred Official Website | Series Premiere June 23 Thursdays 10 only on FX.
Cocaine cut with levamisole, drug used to de-worm animals, causing users’ skin to rot off: doctors
Cocaine used to just get you high. Now it rots your skin.
Doctors say the cocaine hitting the streets in New York and Los Angeles is now cut with a drug that veterinarians use to de-worm livestock, causing cokeheads’ skin to rot off.
In a June report published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, doctors described six cases where users developed ghastly splotches of dead skin after snorting or smoking cocaine laced with the drug levamisole.
Dr. Mary Gail Mercurio, a dermatologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center who co-authored the study, said her hospital had treated five cases in the last year.
“We’ve seen very profound areas of necrosis — dying skin — usually located on scalp, ears, face and elsewhere on the body,” Mercurio said. “It’s very alarming.”
Nearly a dozen more patients have been admitted to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, KTLA television reported.
“We believe these cases of skin reactions and illnesses linked to contaminated cocaine are just the tip of the iceberg in a looming public health problem posed by levamisole,” the study’s authors wrote.
Levamisole is used to treat farm animals for worms and was once used to fight colon cancer.
Drug officials said its use as a cutting agent has skyrocketed in recent years.
via Cocaine cut with levamisole, drug used to de-worm animals, causing users’ skin to rot off: doctors.
BBC News – Single mothers hardest hit by cuts – Fawcett Society
Single mothers will be hardest hit by the government’s programme of benefit cuts and tax rises, according to campaign group the Fawcett Society.
It estimates they will lose an average 8.5% of their income after tax by 2015.
The gender equality charity said this compared with 7.5% for single fathers, 6.5% for couples with children and 2.5% for couples without children.
The Fawcett Society says “women are bearing the brunt”. The Treasury has yet to comment.
The report was compiled from analysis conducted by the Institute for Fiscal Studies on the impact of changes announced by Chancellor George Osborne in March’s Budget, plus last autumn’s Comprehensive Spending Review and the emergency Budget of June 2010.
via BBC News – Single mothers hardest hit by cuts – Fawcett Society.
Murdoch servers DDosed in attempt to down the Sun | thinq_
The Sun’s coverage of the arrest of young alleged hacker Ryan Cleary may have got up the noses of those of a similar alleged bent provoking an attack on the tabloid’s web site.
We saw a few tweets deploring the fact the rag managed to get ‘nerdy’ and ‘geek’ in the first 20 words of its yarn. LulzSec has been complaining willy-nilly about the link the press in general has been making between Cleary and its (dis)organisation.
Now, eyeballs are squinting in the direction of the outfit once again after Sun publisher News International suffered a DDoS attack overnight.
According to the Guardian, which managed to extract a confession from its gutter-dwelling rival, the attack hit NI servers at around 2am this morning, just a few hours before Cleary was due in court. Its source said the attack largely originated in Russia. Whether that’s where the perps were at or that’s where they have their biggest bots is unclear, of course.
Luckily our own James Nixon was the voice of calm reason in the Sun piece and we haven’t been attacked – yet!
A senior source within News International confirmed to the Guardian that third-party architecture was affected for a couple of hours by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, in which hundreds or thousands of machines make repetitive demands on an internet server.
via Murdoch servers DDosed in attempt to down the Sun | thinq_.
Barney Frank and Ron Paul team up to legalize marijuana – War Room – Salon.com
Ron Paul and Barney Frank have teamed up again (after their successful joint HuffPo editorial of 2010) to introduce legislation legalizing marijuana. Not decriminalizing it, but actually totally legalizing it. Wouldn’t that be wild?
It is being billed as “bipartisan legislation” but obviously Ron Paul is the only Republican co-sponsor. According to the Marijuana Policy Project: “The legislation is the first bill ever introduced in Congress to end federal marijuana prohibition.”
On this, the (disputed) 40th anniversary of the War on Drugs, basically every thinking person agrees that marijuana prohibition is an expensive failure. But this will probably not even get a floor debate in the House of Representatives. Or maybe I’m wrong! We’ll see!
via Barney Frank and Ron Paul team up to legalize marijuana – War Room – Salon.com.
Dad Darren Ashall left paralysed after eating undercooked pork chop | Metro.co.uk
The 46-year-old is still in hospital almost five months after falling ill and must learn how to walk again.
But he was told he was lucky to be alive after eating the chop infected with the listeria meningitis bug, which attacked his immune system and caused a brain abscess. It can lie dormant for up to 70 days.
His case has prompted warnings that meat must be cooked through properly, especially on barbecues.
Speaking from hospital, Mr Ashall, of Chorley, Lancashire, said he prepared the meat on a caravan stove while working away from home in Birmingham.
He added: ‘I regretted eating it straight away. I knew it was a mistake. A month later, I went to hospital thinking I was having a heart attack.’
His condition deteriorated rapidly until he could no longer walk or talk. He said: ‘I was too scared to close my eyes because I didn’t think I’d ever wake up again.’
Mr Ashall will never fully recover and will always take antibiotics.
via Dad Darren Ashall left paralysed after eating undercooked pork chop | Metro.co.uk.
