LOTTOMIKE's Blog

i just saw a news report on something called riding the ghostwhip.seems these teenagers try to take a moving car and dance around it or on top of it while its moving with no driver inside.wonder whats next.i'm not sure i want to know....

am i being watched?       

both the police and van halen are about to reform with sting and david lee roth for the first time since the mid 1980's.i like the police but i think i'll have to go see 'ol dave run his mouth and watch the fight thats sure to break out between him and eddie because we all know they never got along.

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(Feb. 13) - Methadone, a painkiller that has been used to treat heroin addicts for decades, has emerged as an increasingly popular and deadly street drug, joining narcotics such as Vicodin and OxyContin as frequently abused prescription drugs.

Fatal overdoses of methadone rose at a higher rate than those involving any other narcotic from 1999 through 2004, according to a recent study by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The number of deaths from methadone in 2004 (3,849) represented a 390% rise from 1999, the study said.

Methadone was cited in nearly 13% of all the overdose deaths reported in the USA in 2004, up from about 4% five years earlier. Among drugs cited in fatal overdoses, only cocaine kills more people than methadone.

The NCHS study - and reports from coroners nationwide that the trend is continuing - indicate that doctors' increasing tendency to prescribe methadone as a cheap alternative to addictive pain relievers such as OxyContin has made it easier for addicts to get methadone, the Drug Enforcement Administration's Denise Curry says.

"It's out there, it's available, and it can be dangerous," Curry says. Pharmacies report that methadone is among the most popular drugs stolen, along with Vicodin and OxyContin, she says.

At about $20 a pill on the black market and pennies a dose when prescribed, methadone is considerably cheaper than such opiates.

Methadone has long been viewed as a relatively safe and effective narcotic, in part because its effects are gradual and it can ease withdrawal symptoms for recovering heroin addicts.

However, it also is addictive, and drug addicts account for most methadone-related deaths, says Nicholas Reuter, a senior public health analyst at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Reuter says the problem is complicated by doctors who prescribe methadone incorrectly and patients who do not follow directions in taking it. On Nov. 26, the Food and Drug Administration warned doctors that "prescribing methadone is complex" because it eases pain up to six hours but can stay in the body 59 hours. Patients may want more before the dose wears off, the FDA warned.

"Methadone may build up in the body to a toxic level if it is taken too often, if the amount taken is too high, or if it is taken with certain other medications," the FDA said.

Authorities nationwide cite rising methadone fatalities:

-- Fatal drug overdoses in New Hampshire rose from 39 in 1995 to 105 in 2003, and chief state medical examiner Thomas Andrew determined that methadone was the key. In 2005, Andrew says, at least 52 of the 153 people who died from overdoses in the state had taken methadone. He suspects the trend continued in 2006.

-- Florida has had a "steady increase" in methadone deaths since 2001, says Jennifer Cook Pritt of the Department of Law Enforcement.

-- In West Virginia, where fatal methadone overdoses rose from 40 in 2001 to 116 in 2005, state legislators are holding hearings on a plan to limit the medical professionals who could prescribe the drug, says Del. Don Perdue, a Democrat  who leads the health committee in the House of Delegates.

 

At a time when the war in Iraq is as unpopular as ever and Congress is searching for ways to turn back President Bush's 21,500-troop surge, tensions with neighboring Iran have escalated.

Bush recently told NPR that "if Iran escalates its military action in Iraq to the detriment of our troops and/or innocent Iraqi people, we will respond firmly." Though the president has made pains to say that the heated rhetoric is not a means of laying the groundwork for another battlefront, on Monday, The New York Times reported on a long-gestating report that the administration said proves that Iran is supplying some of the deadliest munitions being used against U.S. forces in Iraq. The report has been likened in some reports to the one about alleged weapons of mass destruction that the White House used more than four years ago as a precursor to war with Iraq.

Is it possible that the U.S. is about to open a third front in the war on terror at a time when, by all accounts, the military is already stretched to breaking point?

The evidence has been growing daily:

» The U.S. has begun beefing up its presence in the Persian Gulf citing Iran's involvement with Iraq's Shiite militias and the country's ongoing nuclear ambitions, sending a second aircraft carrier to the region and deploying Patriot anti-missile batteries. In seeming retaliation, during war games last week, Iran successfully tested land-to-sea cruise missiles intended to show that it had the capability of hitting "big warships in all of the Persian Gulf."

» The #2 U.S. general in Iraq, Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno, told USA Today that Iran was supplying Iraqi Shiite militias with powerful weapons, including Soviet Katyusha rockets and armor-piercing, rocket-propelled grenades.

» On January 20, militants captured and killed four American soldiers in a raid in Karbala, killing a fifth in a firefight. A U.S. defense official told The Associated Press that it's possible "Iranian agents either executed or masterminded the attack," based on the evidence of the "sophisticated and unusual" weapons that were used, which included uniforms that may have been American.

» Senior Pentagon officials told the Los Angeles Times that the Air Force is considering more forceful patrols on the Iraqi side of the border with Iran to cut off weapon-smuggling.

» The Associated Press recently reported that Iran is feverishly laying down piping and electric cables for its underground uranium enrichment plant, with hundreds of workers being employed to move ahead quickly with a program that could be misused to make nuclear arms. The move further escalates the tensions between Iran and the international community over its alleged drive to build nuclear weapons.

» Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said last week that if the United States attacked, Iran would strike American interests worldwide. Iran also accused the U.S. of abducting an Iranian diplomat in Baghdad last week; U.S. officials would not even confirm a kidnapping had taken place.

» Perhaps most damningly, a recent National Intelligence Estimate report claims that the most lethal weapons used against American troops in Iraq, an armor-piercing "explosively formed penetrator" used as a roadside bomb, is being supplied by Iran to Shiite militias. According to a New York Times review of the report, attacks using this kind of bomb — which fires molten chunks of metal that cut through armor when exploded — have doubled in the past year. "In the last three months of 2006, attacks using the weapons accounted for a significant portion of Americans killed and wounded in Iraq" and contributed to 170 American deaths over the past three years.

The link to Iran is reportedly based on analysis of captured devices, serial numbers, examination of explosion debris and intelligence about the training of Shiite militias and other militants who are believed to be working at Iran's behest. Experts also point to the sophistication of the bombs, the raw materials and expertise needed to build them as proof that Iran is behind the devices, as Iraq doesn't have the capabilities or raw materials to build them.

In what some say is a troubling similarity to the shaky WMD "proof" the Bush administration used to launch the war in Iraq, the report's assertion that Iranian leaders authorized the smuggling of the weapons into Iraq for use against Americans comes from an extremely vague source: an anonymous "inference based on general intelligence assessments." Iran has denied the report's findings.

So, does all of this mean we are headed toward an inevitable military showdown with Iran? Possibly, said Newsweek senior editor Michael Hirsh.

"The main reason we're hearing so much about Iran is that it became apparent last fall that the diplomatic strategy on the nuclear issue was not getting anywhere," said Hirsh, one of the magazine's experts on international affairs (see "Iran Doesn't 'Give A Damn' About U.N. Pressure On Nuclear Program"). "We had gotten a United Nations Security Council Resolution [on the nuclear issue], but it was very weak. And at the same time the Bush administration became concerned about out-of-control violence in Iraq and Iranian encouragement to increasingly significant and powerful Shiite militias in Iraq."

Hirsh said the White House began to sense that Iran was not paying any price for its involvement in Iraq, and thus has decided to "get tough" with Iran. But is this policy intended to lead to negotiations, war, or both? Based on his reporting, Hirsh said the saber-rattling by the U.S. — including the new carrier group in the Gulf and the possible airstrikes on the border — is not necessarily an inevitable run-up to a war with Iran, but a tactic designed to make Iran think twice about how far it is willing to test U.S. patience.

"I don't think Bush has decided on a war [with Iran]," Hirsh said. "I think a contingency plan is under way for dealing with Iran through military strikes, but this would be an air campaign with special forces. It would be nothing like the invasion of Iraq because of the fear that it could cause a more regional war. Wars start accidentally and the fear is, maybe we kill some operatives we claim are from Iran that are helping the Shiites and they turn out to be diplomats or have a legitimate purpose — and [then] Iran retaliates. There is no question that an action like that could lead to a larger-scale attack that could kill a lot of Americans."

                                      happy valentines day

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well we've had an easy winter here so far.had a grand totally of one day of snow and slick roads.i get by a lot easier during the cold months.the summer heat is not something i look forward to.

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anyone have the new nintendo wii?  i haven't owned a game system since 1990 and the original nintendo.loved zelda,metroid,castlevania and games in that mold.is the new system worth having?  thinking about hitting the games again.