‘The federal government charges patients 15 times more for certified medical marijuana than it pays to buy the weed in bulk from its official supplier, newly released documents show.
Critics say it’s unconscionable to charge that high a markup to some of the country’s sickest citizens, who have little income and are often cut off from their medical marijuana supply when they can’t pay their government dope bills. [..]
Adds Scott McCluskey, 48, in Westbank, B.C., who suffers spinal-cord pain that is eased by marijuana: “They’re selling it for criminal street prices. . . . I don’t think anybody, especially seriously ill people . . . should have to pay this type of money for medicine.”‘
‘Although it has already taken nearly four decades to get this far in building the Internet, some university researchers with the federal government’s blessing want to scrap all that and start over.
The idea may seem unthinkable, even absurd, but many believe a “clean slate” approach is the only way to truly address security, mobility and other challenges that have cropped up since UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock helped supervise the first exchange of meaningless test data between two machines on Sept. 2, 1969.
The Internet “works well in many situations but was designed for completely different assumptions,” said Dipankar Raychaudhuri, a Rutgers University professor overseeing three clean-slate projects. “It’s sort of a miracle that it continues to work well today.”‘
‘A teenage spectator was bludgeoned to death by a cricketer during a local match near the eastern Indian city of Kolkata, police and witnesses said.
Rabinath Ash, 17, was battered to death with a stump when he tried to shield his younger brother from attack Friday at a cricket ground in a suburb of Kolkata, they said.
“A scuffle broke when the batting side on the verge of winning the match insisted on carrying on with the game despite fading daylight,” police inspector general Raj Kanojia said.’
‘A Dutch police station trying to help Muslim detainees face Mecca for their prayers painted arrows in cells pointing in the wrong direction.
The Segbroek police station in The Hague borrowed the idea of putting compass marks on ceilings from an Amsterdam hotel, the Dutch daily De Telegraaf reported on Friday.
Muslims pray five times a day, facing east in the direction of Mecca. But the arrows in Segbroek pointed west.
“This is a really gigantic, stupid blunder,” a police spokesman told the De Telegraaf.
“The faulty compass marks have been immediately corrected. It is a mystery for us how this could have possibly happened.”‘
‘About 30 people have faked their own kidnappings in NSW in the past year.
Among a spate of recent false reports to NSW Police have been cases involving ransom demands to relatives, handcuffs and faked injuries.
NSW has Australia’s highest recorded kidnapping rate, with 6.9 abductions per 100,000 people, Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research figures show.
The bureau’s report found, however, that of the 238 cases of alleged abduction reviewed by researchers, only 57 per cent involved an actual abduction.’
‘Researchers have decoded genetic material from a 68 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex, an unprecedented step once thought impossible.
“The door just opens up to a whole avenue of research that involves anything extinct,” said Matthew T. Carrano, curator of dinosaurs at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
And, the new finding adds weight to the idea that today’s birds are descendants of dinosaurs. [..]
“The fact that we are getting proteins is very, very exciting,” said John Horner of Montana State University and the Museum of the Rockies.
And, he added, it “changes the idea that birds and dinosaurs are related from a hypothesis to a theory.”
To scientists that’s a big deal.’
The trick is to punch it in the prostate.
(4.6meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘Boston School Police officers say they want to start wearing bulletproof vests and carrying batons and pepper spray to protect themselves from increasingly brazen students who attack police officers as they break up fights.
The officers are fearing more for their safety as violence in the city’s streets spills into the schools, their union president said.
The bid for such equipment worries some school officials. One headmaster said a more heavily equipped police presence would send the wrong message to parents and students and could turn schools into combat zones, a common concern as schools ponder how far they need to go to protect teachers and students.’
‘Students who participated in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex a few years later as those who did not, according to a long-awaited study mandated by Congress.
Also, those who attended one of the four abstinence classes reviewed reported having similar numbers of sexual partners as those who did not attend the classes, and they first had sex at about the same age as their control group counterparts — 14.9 years, according to Mathematica Policy Research Inc. [..]
However, Bush administration officials cautioned against drawing sweeping conclusions from the study. They said the four programs reviewed — among several hundred across the nation — were some of the very first established after Congress overhauled the nation’s welfare laws in 1996.’
‘An Australian woman who was paralysed in a car accident is now walking again after receiving controversial stem-cell treatment in India.
[..] following eight weeks of embryonic stem-cell injections, Mrs Smith is now able to stand with the aid of callipers and has regained bowel and bladder control.
She reports recovering “deep sensation” in her thighs and feet and has been able to swing her legs.
“When I first moved my toes, I was blown away,” she said.
“The doctors in Australia told me I would never walk again, but now I actually think I will be able to — even without callipers some day.” [..]
She was forced to seek help in India because the treatment is forbidden in Australia.’
‘This guy had a little too much too drink while playing some pool with a couple buddies. As he sizes up a shot he goes to lean on the side of the table and its lights out for the night.’
(965kB Windows media)
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‘According to new statistics that would make Bob Vila cringe, the number of injuries from nail guns has almost doubled since 2001.
Researchers said that more and more it is do-it-yourselfers who are feeling the pain, according to a press release.
The number of weekend carpenters treated each year for nail gun injuries in emergency rooms in U.S. hospitals more than tripled between 1991 and 2005, increasing to about 14,800 per year, according to an analysis by researchers at Duke University Medical Center and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.’
‘Birds in Chernobyl choose to nest in sites with lower levels of background radioactivity, researchers discover, but how they can tell remains a mystery.
Anders Møller at Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, France, and Tim Mousseau at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, US, erected more than 200 nest boxes in the Red Forest, about 3 kilometres away from the nuclear reactor that exploded in 1986.
Using these artificial nests, they studied at the nesting habits of two species of birds – the great tit Parus major and the pied flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca – between 2002 and 2003.’
‘People who illegally download music would have their telephone and internet services cut off under a radical new plan proposed by the music industry.
Fed up with falling sales, the industry – which claims Australians download more than one billion songs illegally each year – has been discussing tough new guidelines with internet service providers (ISPs) since late last year.
Record labels, music publishers and other copyright holders are involved.’
‘In the middle of the night a manhole erupts gushing millions of gallons of water onto the highway.’
(5.8meg Windows media)
see it here »
‘Cannabis users who started smoking as teenagers are more likely to suffer long-term harm, including poor mental health, than drinkers who started using alcohol as adolescents, a major study has found.
Heavy users of marijuana are also more likely to graduate to other drugs such as amphetamines and ecstasy than are teenage binge drinkers.
Involving nearly 2000 Victorian high school students aged 14 or 15, the landmark study has traced their progress since 1992, and provides the first comparison of the consequences of the two substances commonly used in teenage social situations.
Researcher George Patton, who conducted the study for Melbourne University’s Centre for Adolescent Heath, said that while both alcohol and cannabis carried health risks, the overwhelming evidence was that cannabis was “the drug for life’s future losers”.’
‘A 2-year-old boy was severely burned Saturday after he went down the slide at an elementary school playground. Someone had broken into the school, stolen several bottles of industrial-strength drain cleaner and splashed it all over the playground equipment, authorities said. [..]
Peyton suffered second- and third-degree burns, mostly on his legs, from the cleaner, which contains a strong concentration of sulfuric acid, said Division Chief Michael Robinson of the Baltimore County Fire Department. No one else was injured.
Duschl said her son’s grandmother was with him at the playground, and he began screaming in pain as soon as he went down his favorite slide.’
‘A woman diner was left with horrific burns after a Portuguese sausage dish exploded in her face. The victim was eating with friends when the accident took place at the Sporting Clube de Londres in west London. [..]
Witnesses described how the flaming chorizo sausage dish burnt out of control when a waiter topped it up with rum at a table packed with people.
The woman, who spent two weeks in hospital and has since undergone two skin graft operations, said it was like being hit by a “flame-thrower”. [..]
The victim will to have to wear pressure garments on both hands for 23 hours a day for up to two years.’
ya see i’m six foot one and i’m tons of fun
and i dress to a t
ya see i got more clothes than muhammad ali
and i dress so viciously
(15.0meg Flash video)
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Crazy lady, living in a bag. Eating out of garbage pails, used to be a fag-hag.
It’s like a jungle sometimes.
(14.6 and 17.4meg Flash videos)
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‘Having trouble with the ladies? Well Eugene the sexpert has some very useful advice that should improve your chances right away.’
(8.4meg Windows media)
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‘A Taiwanese zoo vet has had his arm reattached after it was bitten off by a crocodile.
Earlier reports that the crocodile had been shot have been proven untrue after an examination of the animal.
Chang Po-yu, 38, from the southern Kaohsiung city’s Shou Shan Zoo, was injecting the sick crocodile with anaesthetic when it attacked him.
The Associated Press reported that Mr Chang was trying to retrieve a tranquiliser dart from the reptile’s hide when it attacked him.
Police shot a crocodile after it bit off the arm – but no bullet holes have been found in its skin.’
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‘Auckland has come up with a novel plan for getting rid of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of human waste – use it to fill one of its many extinct volcanos, then turn it into a regional park.
Local authority-owned Watercare Services announced this week that it had signed a $25 million, 30-year deal with Puketutu Island’s owners to dump the 61 tonnes of biosolids – cleaned, treated and dried human waste – produced by its Mangere treatment plant each week.
The waste would be dumped on a side of the volcanic island that had been extensively quarried in the past 50 years. The island’s original volcanic cone formation could also be rebuilt using the biosolids, subject to public opinion, spokesman Clive Nelson said. [..]
Auckland University vulcanologist Ian Smith said Aucklanders need not be concerned that they would be showered in “biosolids” in the event of an eruption.’
‘”The teacher, Mr. Harold Skinner, grabbed a student by putting his hands on his torso from the rear, and then thrust his pelvic into the student several times, acting as a gorilla would act under a sexual type situation,” said Sheriff Metts.
The investigation report says it happened in a drama class at White Knoll High School, where the students and teachers were working on improvisational skills. In particular, they were practicing how gorillas might act.
Metts says, that’s when Skinner performed the questionable improv act on the student in front of several classmates.
“It was very distasteful to the student and embarrassing to the student to have the teacher put his hands on his torso and then thrust his pelvic into him a number of times in the rear,” said Sheriff Metts.’
This is a pretty cool trick.
My belt is broken, but as soon as I buy a new one, I’ll give it a try. Fun. 🙂
(1.1meg Windows media)
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‘A research report published in Applied Economics has found that the number of patients with violence-related injuries treated in hospital emergency rooms is related to the price of beer.
The paper is available online as a pdf and is from Cardiff University’s Violence and Society Research Group.
The researchers examined admissions to 58 hospital accident and emergency departments over a five year period and found that as the price of beer increased, violence-related injuries decreased.
In general, studies have found that alcohol consumption increases both the risk of being a victim of violence and the perpetrator of it.’
