Month: June 2007

The Downside of Getting High on Cough Syrup

Smallmethlab
Wired Science – Wired Blogs:

The Downside of Getting High on Cough Syrup
By Aaron Rowe June 27, 2007 | 2:59:42 PMCategories: Drugs & Alcohol
A recent article in the Journal of Emergency Medicine tells the story of a 20-year-old kid from Portland, Oregon that extracted the active ingredient, dextromethorphan, from some cough syrup and tried to get high with it. Thanks to the doctors that treated him, their patient did not earn a Darwin Award.

Case reports written by doctors are often far more exciting than an episode of House or any other hospital drama. They tend to include a lot of fun facts.

As a bonus for their readers, the authors included two recipes for the drug that nearly killed their patient. Those recipes came from the infamous Vaults of Erowid website. It is an encyclopedia of sometimes detailed and usually dangerous instructions for making drugs with improvised methods that would make MacGyver cringe.

Potential cure for HIV discovered – Yahoo! News

Capt.Sge.Rwq73.280607182820.Photo00.Photo.Default-512X338
Potential cure for HIV discovered – Yahoo! News:
CHICAGO (AFP) – In a breakthrough that could potentially lead to a cure for HIV infection, scientists have discovered a way to remove the virus from infected cells, a study released Thursday said.

The scientists engineered an enzyme which attacks the DNA of the HIV virus and cuts it out of the infected cell, according to the study published in Science magazine.

The enzyme is still far from being ready to use as a treatment, the authors warned, but it offers a glimmer of hope for the more than 40 million people infected worldwide.

“A customized enzyme that effectively excises integrated HIV-1 from infected cells in vitro might one day help to eradicate (the) virus from AIDS patients,” Ala

MacNN | Wozniak first in line at Valley Fair [photos]

Ap 070629 Woz
MacNN | Wozniak first in line at Valley Fair [photos]:
Wozniak first in line at Valley Fair [photos]
Apple co-founder Steve ‘Woz’ Wozniak arrived at San Jose’s Valley Fair Apple Store before 3:30 a.m. this morning to be the first in line to purchase iPhones. Woz himself — who is wearing a FastMac “I was there” t-shirt, was reportedly promised an iPhone by Steve Jobs on Saturday, but is waiting in line anyway to purchase more devices for his children and to experience the iPhone launch atmosphere. Whispers suggest that the first 50 people at each Apple Store will receive a special gift, and that the flagship stores have 580 iPhones in stock while smaller outlets are likely stowing lower numbers of devices. A Woodstock-like atmosphere reportedly surrounds those standing in line at the Valley Fair store, and sightings of Digg.com founder Kevin Rose as well as the Mac Quicken team

Professional Porn Sales Down | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source

Wdyt Photo1.Article
Professional Porn Sales Down | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source:
Professional Porn Sales Down
Sales and rentals of adult DVDs are down 30 percent due to the rise in homemade Internet porn. What do you think?

Robin Petersen,
Database Adminsitrator
“These thrifty Internet porn enthusiasts are missing out on the lifelong friends you make at adult shops.”

Simon Stephens,
Florist
“That’s the problem with the porn biz. No matter how low your price is for having an entire billiard-ball set shoved up your ass, there’s always some punk waiting in the wings willing to do it for free.”

Taxpayers Lose, Halliburton Gains

Tax
Logo Doc
payers Lose, Halliburton Gains:
As the Iraq war that Vice President Dick Cheney created continues to shred American–and many more Iraqi–lives, further documentation has emerged proving that, even during failed wars, the merchants of death profit. No company has profited more from the carnage in Iraq than Halliburton, which Cheney headed before choosing himself as Bush’s running mate. One shudders at the blissful arrogance of this modern Daddy Warbucks, who sees no conflict of interest over the blood-soaked profits garnered by the once-bankrupt division of the company that left him rich.

This week’s evidence of the continuing corruption of Halliburton and its subsidiaries profiteering from contracts c

Stevens: Smoking pot akin to drinking during prohibition

250Px-Justice Stevens
The Raw Story | Stevens: Smoking pot akin to drinking during prohibition:
In his dissent on a recent free-speech case, Justice John Paul Stevens wades into the war-on-drugs debate, comparing modern-day pot smokers with “otherwise law-abiding patrons of bootleggers and speakeasies,” during the prohibition era.

Stevens, who the Washington Post notes turned 87 on April 20, said the current climate surrounding the war on drugs “is reminiscent of the opinion that supported the nationwide ban on alcohol consumption when I was a student.”

The Supreme Court this week ruled against an Alaska student who displayed a “BONG HiTS 4 JESUS” sign at an event outside his high school, and Stevens wrote the dissent for the four justices who believed the student’s free-speech rights should be protected.

“Today the actions of literally millions of otherwise law-abiding users of marijuana, and of

Group shows FEMA anticipated Katrina’s destruction of New Orleans

Katrinaleveebreach
The Raw Story | Group shows FEMA anticipated Katrina’s destruction of New Orleans:
A major report published Wednesday by a Washington, DC-based watchdog shows that the Federal Emergency Management Agency anticipated the destruction that would result from a major hurricane striking New Orleans, yet failed to follow through on its own internal warnings.

“FEMA’s disaster planning was based on a set of predictions that proved to be remarkably accurate. In 2000-2001, FEMA looked at a population of New Orleans that was over 1.3 million people and predicted that when a catastrophic hurricane struck, the city would be flooded with 14-17 feet of water. One million people would evacuate and 250-350,000 people would be trapped in the city,” according to the report, The Best Laid Plans: The Story of How the Government Ignored Its Own Gulf Coast Hurricane Plans.

A Low Impact Woodland Home

Front
A Low Impact Woodland Home:
Hobbit House-MC
You are looking at pictures of our family home in Wales. It was built by myself and my father in law with help from passers by and visiting friends. 4 months after starting we were moved in and cosy. I estimate 1000-1500 man hours and £3000 put in to this point. Not really so much in house buying terms (roughly £60/sq m excluding labour).

The house was built with maximum regard for the environment and by reciprocation gives us a unique opportunity to live close to nature. Being your own (have a go) architect is a lot of fun and allows you to create and enjoy something which is part of yourself and the land rather than, at worst, a mass produced box designed for maximum profit and convenience of the construction industry. Building from natural materials does away with producers profits and the cocktail of carcinogenic poisons that fill most modern buildings.

Why Your Electricity Meter Sucks | EcoGeek | Power, Electricity, Plants, Peak, Use

Oldmeterssuck
Why Your Electricity Meter Sucks | EcoGeek | Power, Electricity, Plants, Peak, Use:
My electricity meter is about fifty years old, and it’s likely that yours is too. Even if it’s new, it probably uses the same ancient technology as mine. Those meters were created for a world with cheap, abundant power. Well, the world has changed…so why hasn’t my electricity meter?

It turns out, that if all United States power companies were to upgrade to new electricity meters today, America would save roughly $35 billion in energy costs over twenty years and it would eliminate the need for around 625 power plants. How could something as simple as an electricity meter suck so bad?

The most significant (though not only) problem with old electricity meters is that they charge you the same amount no matter what time of day it is. Electric utilities must keep

YG’s Voyager loudspeakers are not kidding around

YG’s Voyager loudspeakers are not kidding around:

YG wanted to get real live on you (and by “you” we mean music and film industry “players”) with its new Voyager speaker system (based on the company’s Anat reference monitors), but it definitely seems like someone had too much casemodding or Transformers on their mind when they put pen to paper on these 200lb heart attacks. Let’s face it, you probably weren’t going to shell out the $100,000 per pair that YG is asking, but if you had, would you really want these monsters staring you down every time you watched Independence Day in your home theatre? Yeah, we know that the knee-buckling bass response and ear-tickling high end is hard to pass up, but remember — there’s a reason they’re called Decepticons.

Here’s To The IPhone: iPhonetini, a Boozy Tribute to iPhone Day Zero

Here’s To The IPhone: iPhonetini, a Boozy Tribute to iPhone Day Zero:

iphonetini2-small.jpgIt’s still a little early for this, but by the time the iPhone rolls out at 6 p.m. it’ll be cocktail hour, and that means it’s time for the Appletini/iPhone edition, better known as the iPhonetini. Created specifically for this auspicious iPhone Day Zero occasion, it originates directly from the self-proclaimed “best home bar in the city of San Francisco.” It even includes a tiny bit of Goldschlager, a cinnamon liqueur that actually contains flecks of 24 karat gold. Somehow seems appropriate. Take the jump for the recipe.

LA Weekly – Art/Books – Jeffrey Vallance: The Art of Self-Worship – Doug Harvey – The Essential Online Resource for Los Angeles

07 32 32Art3
LA Weekly – Art/Books – Jeffrey Vallance: The Art of Self-Worship – Doug Harvey – The Essential Online Resource for Los Angeles:
Wednesday, June 27, 2007 – 12:00 pm
In a hushed, darkened side gallery in a university exhibition space in Orange County, a series of simple glass display cases hold an array of intricately fashioned reliquaries — ornate housings for sacred objects such as slivers off the Bodhi Tree or a bone from the big toe of Mary Magdalene. The more than four dozen works on view display the gilded ornamental woodwork and oddly architectural forms that are the hallmarks of this rarely considered art-historical side stream, and they have a glow of musty intimacy and antiquarian mystery about them.

Until you look a bit closer. Then you start to see what exactly it is that’s been enshrined here: the broken neck and cap from a bottle of Orange Crush, a Jägermeister shot glass, a Morticia Addams bubblegum card, a red carpenter’s pencil, a pair of well-used bla

cannabisnews.com: NORML’s Weekly News Bulletin – June 28, 2007

Cnwlogo1
cannabisnews.com: NORML’s Weekly News Bulletin – June 28, 2007:
Cannabis Has “Clear Medical Benefits” For HIV Patients, Study Says — Smoked marijuana produces “substantial and comparable increases in food intake … with little evidence of discomfort and no impairment of cognitive performance”
June 28, 2007 – New York, NY, USA

New York, NY: Inhaling cannabis significantly increases daily caloric intake and body weight in HIV-positive patients, is well tolerated, and does not impair subjects’ cognitive performance, according to clinical trial data to be published in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes (JAIDS).

Investigators at Columbia University in New York assessed the efficacy of inhaled cannabis and oral THC (Marinol) in a group of ten HIV-positive patients in a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. All of the subjects participating in the study had prior experience using marijuana therape

Philadelphia mayor caught camping for an iPhone

Philadelphia mayor caught camping for an iPhone:

If we ran the world Philadelphia, it’s highly unlikely that we’d camp out in the dismal rain for an iPhone like all those “normal citizens,” but we’ve got to give props to John F. Street for roughin’ like the rest of us. Apparently, Mr. Street set up shop earlier this morning and made up his mind to brave the inclement weather in order to be one of the first to snag an iPhone. Currently, he’s waiting patiently along Ranstead St. at 16th St. in Center City to be third in line to purchase an iPhone from the AT&T store, and while we’re sure such an influential character could have just paid someone off to do the waiting for him, the reward will be that much sweeter when 6:01PM rolls around.

Update: Looks like the media descended on the mayor and the dude took off about an hour ago! Looks like someone else has his spot in line (now word on whether he’s waiting for the mayor), but we’ll have an update in our lineblog shortly.

“Iran on 26 Gallons a Month” by Scott Horton (Harper’s Magazine)

Harpers 305X100
“Iran on 26 Gallons a Month” by Scott Horton (Harper’s Magazine):
PUBLISHED June 27, 2007
Flames erupted across Tehran today as angry drivers set filling stations on fire. Could this be the start of one of the most important and most unanticipated news stories of the year?

A little more than a month ago, I was out in Orange County, California and had a pleasant dinner meeting with some of the nation’s leading Iran analysts. They were all angry about the White House’s highly provocative stance with respect to Iran. What, exactly, is the matter with it? “The Iranian populace is the most pro-American bloc in the region. They’re our prime asset. Any policy that start