News – Drug Problems

US

Analysts think Celebrex won’t be recalled, but do expect sales to fall. Personally, I think that we need a new process of drug distribution. If you sell drugs too early, they don’t’ get tested well enough, if you wait, the people complain. The best way to compromise between those two is to release drugs after a basic test as experimental. That way people who need it can take it, but with the disclaimer that the drug hasn’t gone through full testing and no lawsuits can be made if it is taken. Then, over the next few years, the drug can be vetted deeply. That way the early adaptors can take the risks if they want and those who don’t want to, won’t have to.

Defense Department interrogators impersonate FBI agents to avoid being held accountable for their actions at Guantanimo? That’s what an FBI memo recently made public says. Another FBI memo says that Bush has issued an executive order authorizing a series of harsh methods for interrogation, including sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation by forcing detainees to wear hoods, the use of military dogs and stress positions such as forced squatting for an extended period.

Passing the buck on Social Security to congress? Seems like that when Bush says the laws will be made in congress, with him just tossing them ideas. It seems a new theme with him. Why ask him questions, he doesn’t’ know anything.

Recently a Lisa Montgomery killed another woman and cut the baby from her womb, looking to pass the newborn girl off as her own. She was caught and the baby is now in good condition in neonatal care with her father. I’ll never understand what motivates some people to do what they do.

Our old and busted Missile Defense system will be missing it’s deadline for going live this year. Did anyone doubt it would?

Some more polls show that support for the war is slipping. An inevitability, though you know how to take polls. Always with the grain of salt.

Middle East

Iran will continue preparing “yellowcake” uranium for enrichment, despite the recent pledge to freeze all such activity. So now what will the US do?

Blair drops into Baghdad unannounced to hail election workers as heroes. Sneaky world leaders.

Iraq’s national library struggles to rise from the ashes of the invasion and turmoil that followed it. Hopefully it will, we don’t need to lose anymore of our world history.

The press mulls if it’s too early for Iraqi elections.

Europe

The EU may restore $4 billion in sanctions on US goods if the World Trade Organization backed its complaint about residual U.S. export tax breaks.

The US makes a settlement deal with tens of thousands of Hungarian Holocaust survivors over a trainload of gold, jewelry and other properly seized by the US at the end of World War 2.

Viktor Yushchenko gets bruising with Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich in their debate, with a few choice quotes to consider.

Africa

Save the Children is pulling it’s 350 staff out of Darfur after the killing of four workers.

General

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth is a middle of the road game by this review. It’s a grand recreation fo the movies visually and aurally, but is simple in gameplay.

A big theme in the movies today are movies about superheroes. Spiderman to Blade to Batman, the Hulk and more, it has been a steady thing. Elektra is coming up and the theme is unlikely to end soon. What hero might you like to see in the next few movies? A new superman movie? Wonder Woman? Teen Titans?

An EU study and lab tests show that cell phones do let slip enough radiation to effect DNA. They say it doesn’t show a direct problem, but “the genotoxic and phenotypic effects clearly require further studies … on animals and human volunteers.”

Today’s Papers has a botched security drill at an enriched uranium stockpile facility in Tennessee, for the eight year in a row the GAO finds the US government’s record keeping is so bad it can’t tell if it meets acceptable accounting practices, Bush’s strong support of Rummy and more in the one page news.

Amusements

Indian asshat tries to sell homemade teen porn video on Ebay. Ebay pulls the auction. Police arrest CEO of Ebay’s Indian subsidiary anyway. Thousand-person music-and-dance scene ensues

School district pays all of its staff from a cash-advance line of credit. What could possibly go wrong?

Carrie Bare, stripper, comes to work town where Carrie Bare, youth pastor and preschool teacher, lives. Hilarity ensues

Local church practices guerrilla Nativity tactics

St. Peter’s Basilica opens coffee bar, offers Body of Christ double mocha latte

Aussie Telecom company sued to $13 million in unpaid bills for porn

Fark Photoshop Challenge: Photoshop these trampoline-safety enforcers

Fark Photoshop Challenge: Photoshop theme: “Honesty in Holiday Cards.” Link goes to Festivus websites

Fark Photoshop Challenge: Fark’s annual “worst holiday gift ever” photoshop contest. Difficulty: No repeats