Thursday News Bucket

10 Comments

1. 

   CabinGirl on March 1, 2007 at 7:13 am

   a bigger problem than illicit drugs: AP/Hartford Courant

   Abuse of prescription drugs is about to exceed the use of illicit street narcotics worldwide, and the shift has spawned a lethal new trade in counterfeit painkillers, sedatives and other medicines potent enough to kill, a global watchdog warned Wednesday.

   Prescription drug abuse already has outstripped traditional illegal drugs such as heroin, cocaine and Ecstasy in parts of Europe, Africa and South Asia, the U.N.-affiliated International Narcotics Control Board said in its annual report for 2006.

   In the United States alone, the abuse of painkillers, stimulants, tranquilizers and other prescription medications has gone beyond “practically all illicit drugs with the exception of cannabis,” with users increasingly turning to them first, the Vienna-based group said.

   And yet, the war on illegal drugs persists.  Why don’t we call it what it really is: a war on the poor?

2. 

   refinish69 on March 1, 2007 at 7:14 am

   Argentina Moving Toward Gay Marriage Rights
   by by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

   (Buenos Aires) Legislation will be presented in Argentina’s Parliament this fall that would give same-sex couples all of the rights of marriage.  

   Currently the law limits marriage to opposite-sex couples. However the country does afford gay and lesbian couples some rights including inheritance, adoption and survivor pensions.

   Two regions of the country permit civil unions – the province of Río Negro and the federal district of Buenos Aires.

   In 2003 Rio Negro became the first area in South America to permit civil unions.

   A poll released this week shows that three-quarters of those surveyed in the capital believe gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry.  Only 25 percent disagreed.

   The national civil unions bill would give same-sex couples all of the rights of marriage without the name.  It was written with the support of the country’s largest LGBT civil rights group, the Argentinean Homosexual Community.

   Same-sex marriage is currently legal in the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa and the state of Massachusetts. At least 18 countries offer some form of legal recognition to same-sex unions.

   In 2005 a judge ordered prison authorities in central Argentine province of Córdoba to allow conjugal visits between gay prisoners and their partners.

   Hawaii Lawmakers Kill Civil Unions Bill
   by The Associated Press

   365Gay.com
   (Honolulu, Hawaii) Hawaii lawmakers effectively killed a proposal to create civil unions for gay couples by declining to vote on the legislation.

   More than 100 people packed the House Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday night, many waving pink signs reading, “Civil Unions. Equal protection, justice for all.” At least 400 people submitted extensive written or oral testimony.

   After five hours of testimony, though, the committee declined to vote. Representatives offered little explanation to the public, but it was a sign that the bill lacked enough support to become law.

   Civil unions had been suggested as a way for the state to sidestep a controversy over gay marriage, but they proved to be nearly as contentious.

   Opponents argued that civil unions were being used as a step toward legalizing gay marriage. Proponents said they want the legal guarantees granted to married couples, such as tax breaks, adoption rights and health benefits.

   “This is essentially a re-examination of the same-sex marriage issue except with a different title,” said Kelly Rosati, a spokeswoman for the Hawaii Catholic Church and executive director for the Hawaii Family Forum.

   Gay rights advocates said the law was needed in order to give same-sex couples equal rights as heterosexuals.

   “For me, it’s very clear cut that it’s gender discrimination,” said Scott Orton, who is gay. “I would like to take on a partner in the future and have the same rights as a married person.”

   seems America will always be last when it comes to Equal Rights.

   • 

     CabinGirl on March 1, 2007 at 7:50 am

     As if giving gay couples the same rights as straight ones would hurt anyone…that’s the worst thing about it.  It’s so pointless, stupid, and small-minded.

     • 

       rba on March 1, 2007 at 10:30 am

       Lisa Leff/AP:  Lawsuit Hinges On Whether ‘That’s So Gay’ Is an Anti-Gay Putdown.  To read is to believe.  Unbelievable.

       • 

         refinish69 on March 1, 2007 at 12:34 pm

         Oh I have read it.  

3. 

   CabinGirl on March 1, 2007 at 7:16 am

    thinks we only have another ‘Friedman’ (ie, 6 months)left in Iraq before it collapses: Guardian UK

   An elite team of officers advising US commander General David Petraeus in Baghdad has concluded the US has six months to win the war in Iraq – or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat.

   The officers – combat veterans who are leading experts in counter-insurgency – are charged with implementing the “new way forward” strategy announced by president George Bush on January 10. The plan includes a controversial “surge” of 21,500 additional American troops to establish security in the Iraqi capital and Anbar province.

   But the team, known as the “Baghdad brains trust” and ensconced in the heavily fortified Green Zone around the US embassy, is struggling to overcome a range of entrenched problems in what has become a race against time, said a former senior administration official familiar with their deliberations. “They know they are operating under a clock. They know they are going to hear a lot more talk in Washington about ‘Plan B’ by the autumn – meaning withdrawal. They know the next six-month period is their opportunity. And they say it’s getting harder every day,” the former official said.

   Of course, that doesn’t mean they don’t want to continue on with their ‘surge’ plan, does it?

4. 

   ask on March 1, 2007 at 10:33 am

   Group: Global warming effects hunting

   IQALUIT, Nunavut Territory – Simon Nattaq lost both feet to frostbite when his snowmobile crashed through the ice, made thin by rising Arctic temperatures.

   All his gear plunged into the water too, leaving him stranded for two days. He now walks — and still hunts — with prosthetic feet, and believes God kept him alive to warn the world about global warming.

   “Today I am here because the creator allowed it,” says Nattaq, 61, a city counselor for Iqaluit, a one-time U.S. Air Force base that is today Canada’s northernmost city with 7,000 residents.

   Nattaq and other Inuit, the Arctic people of the United States, Canada, Russia, and Greenland — in Alaska where they’re known as Eskimos — have been warning the world for more than a decade about the shifting winds and thinning ice. Hunting patterns thousands of years old are in jeopardy.

5. 

   Man Eegee on March 1, 2007 at 12:51 pm

   If I had to choose a broken record to listen to over and over and over again, this would certainly not be it.  Unfortunately, that is what is offered due to the inability of Congress to act.

   In Tuesday’s incident, two illegal immigrants flagged down a Border Patrol vehicle on Route 15 south of Casa Grande on the Tohono O’odham Nation. They said they’d left behind someone on the trail who had become ill, said Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Jesus Rodriguez. Agents retraced the men’s journey and found the man dead, he said.

   Tribal police investigated and said the man may have been diabetic. They found needles and insulin in his backpack, Rodriguez said.

   He died about 40 miles north of the border.
   On Sunday, a man studying jaguar populations in California Gulch, west of Peña Blanca Lake in the Coronado National Forest, found the body of a 37-year old Mexican woman, said Santa Cruz County Sheriff Antonio Estrada. – linkage

   Keep stalling Congresscritters!  

   [rage and heartbreak]

6. 

   ask on March 1, 2007 at 3:35 pm

   Scientists turn spotlight on world’s poles

   PARIS, France (AP) — Are we really heading for an ice-free Arctic?

   More than 50,000 researchers hope to find an answer during a massive study of how global warming and other phenomena are changing the coldest parts of the Earth — and what that means for the rest of it.

   Scientists formally kicked off the International Polar Year on Thursday, the biggest such project in 50 years. It is unifying researchers from 63 nations in 228 studies to monitor the health of the polar regions, using icebreakers, satellites and submarines. The project ends in March 2009.

   Schoolchildren in Oslo, Norway, many with signs that said “Give us back winter” or “We want snow,” built snowmen on the City Hall square to mark Thursday’s launch.

   The director of the Norwegian Polar Institute described seeing glaciers melt at an accelerated rate in recent years at his Arctic outpost of Ny-Alesund.

   The polar year is important because it is “pooling the resources of many countries in a coordinated effort to solve a major scientific problem of our time,” Kim Holmen said by telephone.

   Global warming “is the most important challenge we face in this century,” Prince Albert II of Monaco said in launching the project in Paris. “The hour is no longer for skepticism. It is time to act, and act urgently.”

7. 

   idredit on March 1, 2007 at 4:39 pm

   Ahmadeinejad off on official to visit Saudia Arabia

   “The visit will culminate weeks of intensive diplomatic activities spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, including Iranian-Saudi envoy talks, a meeting between Abdullah and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the groundbreaking Palestinian accord reached in the Saudi city of Mecca to halt Palestinian infighting.

   It precedes a conference of Iraq’s neighbors – which Iran and Syria will also attend – as well as the United States and Britain in Baghdad on March 10, and an Arab summit in Riyadh at the end of the month.”[.]