Under The Rind

Help Stop Bullying PSA

2011-02-01T18:09:00.000-08:00

Many Teens are Robo-tripping and you should know what that is.

2010-09-21T14:16:00.000-07:00

by Joseph Ventimiglia, September 21, 2010

Many Teens are Robo-tripping and you should know what that is.

Cough Syrup use among teens is on the rise. Teens are turning to cough syrup for a quick cheap easy way to get high. Cold and cough medicines contain dextromethorphan — commonly known as “dex” or “skittles.” The kids are “robo-tripping” downing an entire bottle of Robitussin or other medication containing dextromethorphan. Dextromethorphan has euphoric, psydextromethor phanchedelic and dissociative properties when more than the recommended dose is taken.

Major Dangers:
Multi-symptom cold medications with multiple active ingredients can produce negative psychological and physiological effects and is highly unsafe. Multi-symptom cold medicines contain other active ingredients that can cause permanent bodily damage such as kidney failure, or even death. Combining dextromethorphan with other substances adds extra risks. CNS stimulants and depressants combined with dextromethorphan can raise heart rate and blood pressure to dangerous levels.

Some things to look out for:
Empty bottles of medicine
Medicine smell
Change in sleep patterns
Hostile and uncooperative attitude
Change in friends
Change in appearance

What you can do.
Next time you are in your local store, asked them to please consider putting products containing dextromethorphan behind the counter. This is not easy, with over 100 over the counter medicines containing dextromethorphan on the market. The FDA is trying to force this, but until then.

Get help if you suspect your child is abusing this dangerous drug. It is no fad or phase, and it sends over 8000 young people a year to the Emergency Room for overdosing on Cough Medicine.

Get rid of old medications. There is no glory in watching a bottle of medicine expire. Lock up what you need to keep. We need to change our medication home storage culture. Lock it all up! Don’t be naive prescription and over the counter drugs are just as dangerous and sought after as street drugs.

Talk WITH your kids. Don’t talk to them, at them or about them. Talk With them.

Navigators May (sometime in our life)

2010-06-04T15:11:00.000-07:00

Navigators Club May (Come Sail Away)

2010-06-04T14:55:00.000-07:00

April is Child Abuse Awareness Month

2010-04-12T13:41:00.000-07:00

Audit calls county's mental care worse

2010-03-27T15:21:00.000-07:00

Audit calls county's mental care worse
by Casey Newton - Jan. 14, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Maricopa County's mental-health system has worsened under its latest service provider and needs a complete overhaul, according to an audit released Tuesday by a court-appointed monitor.

Magellan Health Services won a three-year, $1.5 billion contract in 2007 on the promise that it would improve significantly over its predecessor, ValueOptions. But an annual audit shows the Connecticut-based company has fallen behind its predecessor in serving the county's 19,000 patients who have serious mental illnesses.

"The audit shows a pattern of regression and significant declines in a number of areas," wrote the monitor, Nancy Diggs. "Looking ahead, there is no reason to believe that other already initiated reforms will fare any better." Read full article click here http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/01/14/20090114mentalhealth0114.html

News 12 Bias Poll

2010-03-25T07:28:00.000-07:00

look how my local news is splitting the vote for folks that wanted health care reform. This is so that they can say "see nobody wanted health care reform" The news in the Hudson Valley is bias. www.new12.com

Funny about Health Care and a Turtle Fence

2010-03-18T05:20:00.000-07:00

Assemblyman Greg Ball and others have blood on their hands for promoting hate to build their careers

2010-03-18T04:32:00.000-07:00

NY teen on trial in hate crime stabbing death

By FRANK ELTMAN (AP) – 56 minutes ago

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — Opening statements were expected Thursday in the murder trial of a teenager accused of fatally stabbing an immigrant from Ecuador, a case that sparked a federal probe of police responses to hate crimes on eastern Long Island.

Prosecutors say the killing was the culmination of a campaign of violence by teenagers against Hispanics.

Jeffrey Conroy, 19, was among seven teenagers implicated in the November 2008 killing of Marcelo Lucero, but the only one charged with murder. Prosecutors say he admitted plunging a knife into the victim's chest during a midnight confrontation near the Patchogue train station.

Conroy has pleaded not guilty to both murder and manslaughter as hate crime charges.

Four of his friends from Patchogue-Medford High School have already pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against him. They face long prison terms — perhaps 10 years or more — but the exact terms will be decided after Conroy's trial, said state Supreme Court Justice Robert Doyle.

Prosecutors contend the teenagers targeted Hispanics for more than a year. The four teens who pleaded guilty to hate crime-related charges admitted participating in assaults on Hispanics before the Lucero killing, attacks they euphemistically referred to as "beaner-jumping."

Some of the attacks, including a drive-by shooting of an Hispanic man with a BB-gun, happened the day Lucero was slain, say the four who pleaded guilty.

In an important pretrial ruling, Doyle said Conroy's statements to police after he and his friends were arrested would be admissible at trial.

"I stabbed him," Conroy reportedly told police moments after the killing while they frisked him blocks away. Doyle ruled that Conroy blurted out the admission while being searched for a knife and that "traditional Miranda warnings were not required."

In October, the U.S. Justice Department opened an investigation of hate crimes in Suffolk County and police response to them. Latino advocates had complained that prior assaults on Hispanics had not been treated seriously by the police.

After Lucero's death, dozens of Hispanics attended a community meeting at a Patchogue church, where they shared stories of assaults and other insults. Some said they feared reporting the crimes to police because of their undocumented status. Others said they did report incidents to police, but the response was tepid at best.

Police officials, who disputed those claims, are cooperating with the ongoing investigation, Justice Department spokesman Alejandro Miyar said Wednesday.

Lucero, 37, came to the United States when he was 21. He was walking with a friend when they were confronted by a mob of teens near midnight, just steps from the railroad station. His friend fled, but Lucero was surrounded, prosecutors say. He tried to fight back, flailing at the assailants with his belt. At some point, prosecutors say Conroy plunged a knife into Lucero's chest before running away.

Suffolk County has seen thousands of Hispanics settle there in recent years. U.S. Census figures show the number of Hispanics has nearly doubled, from 7.1 percent of the population in 1990 to 13.7 percent in 2008.

The Southern Poverty Law Center issued a report in September. Titled "Climate of Fear; Latino Immigrants in Suffolk County," it catalogued a litany of anti-immigrant attacks dating back a decade.

Conroy's trial is expected to last six to eight weeks. The two remaining defendants, who face hate crime assault charges, are expected to face trial after that.

Stewart Airport

2010-03-16T16:42:00.000-07:00

House to vote this week on Hinchey Hudson Valley NPS study bill

2010-03-16T16:17:00.000-07:00

House to vote this week on Hinchey Hudson Valley NPS study bill

WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives this week will vote on legislation introduced by Congressman Maurice Hinchey that would authorize the National Park Service to conduct a study on whether the Hudson River Valley should become a unit of the National Park system.

“Passage of this bill and the subsequent study would position the Hudson River Valley to gain the full attention of the National Park Service for all of the significant and substantial historic contributions the region has made to the development of the United States as well as for the area's pristine natural beauty,” said Hinchey. “Such a designation would provide the Hudson River Valley with an elevated national stature and access to additional federal funding that otherwise would not be available.”

In order for the Hudson River Valley to become part of the National Park System, a congressionally-authorized NPS study must be conducted. Hinchey's legislation would authorize such a study from Fort Edward in Washington County down through Westchester County.

If the NPS's study finds that the Hudson River Valley would be a good fit as part of the National Park System then additional legislation would be needed to make that designation. Hinchey said he would immediately introduce that measure.

via House to vote this week on Hinchey Hudson Valley NPS study bill.

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Tags: Hudson Highlands, Hudson River, hudson valley

Did you here about this bullshit on the news!

2010-03-16T15:46:00.000-07:00

Breaking News: Some Bullshit Happening Somewhere - watch more funny videos

Fu#k

2010-03-14T12:19:00.000-07:00

Fcuk Planet Earth Very Funny - watch more funny videos

Old Gov propaganda

2010-03-14T10:30:00.000-07:00

gov.archives.111-tv - watch more funny videos

Build a Turtle Fence and Health Care

2010-03-14T10:08:00.000-07:00

Auto-tune The News Part 10 - watch more funny videos

CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY - TRAILER

2010-03-06T10:19:00.000-08:00

2010-03-06T10:02:00.000-08:00

Abortion could be health bill deal breaker in House

2010-03-05T17:08:00.000-08:00

By PATRICK O'CONNOR | 3/5/10 8:24 PM EST

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi keeps insisting that the abortion fight isn’t relevant in the health care debate.

Try telling that to her rank-and-file.

Despite the speaker’s repeated denials, it looks like the final act in the year-long health care fight could once again come down to abortion – so much so that Pelosi invited a group of women’s rights groups to the Capitol on Thursday, along with a number of her closest allies, for a preliminary discussion to strategize about the way ahead.

And a day after Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said he’s willing to derail reform if the bill didn’t block federal funding of abortion, the rhetoric on both sides of the issue was fierce – suggesting that even Pelosi’s usual ability to bridge her diverse caucus might not be enough to salvage President Barack Obama’s top legislative priority.

“There’s really no strategy at this point on how to move forward,” a Democratic aide in the House said Friday, but leaders are talking to Stupak about abortion “as we’re talking to other people about things that may be of concern.”

The debate also shifted to the Senate’s language on abortion funding – which could survive into the final bill — with both sides calling it a deal-breaker.

Planned Parenthood alerted its vast network of supporters Friday to contact their members of Congress to "say no to any anti-choice side deals with Bart Stupak” and fix the Senate provision.

Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, called the Senate anti-abortion language "the most severe restriction on private health insurance coverage for abortion in 35 years."

Douglas Johnson, the legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, called the Senate bill “the most pro-abortion single piece of legislation that has ever come to the House floor for a vote, since Roe v. Wade.

“Any House member who votes for the Senate health bill is casting a career-defining pro-abortion vote,” said Johnson, the group’s legislative director, in a clear warning shot for socially conservative Democrats. “A House member who votes for the Senate bill would forfeit a plausible claim to pro-life credentials.”

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) met with Stupak on Thursday, starting a conversation that could shape the path of reform. The former state trooper authored an amendment to the House bill that bars anyone receiving subsidies through the new insurance exchange from purchasing coverage for elective abortions. Without a final package, it’s too early to tell where the votes are, but Hoyer seemed to acknowledge that Stupak, true to his threat, has the votes to derail the broader bill.

At the same time, some of the speaker’s closest allies huddled Thursday to fight this next attempt to add Stupak’s language to a final package, aides said.

For decades, Democrats have been more divided on the question of abortion than their Republican counterparts. Generations of Democrats from the South and blue-collar enclaves in the Midwest and Northeast have followed the dictates of church leaders over those of their more liberal colleagues,

This year, the issue is particularly acute for Democrats from places like Ohio and Pennsylvania whose districts have large Catholic populations because the church’s political arm opposes the restrictions that were included in last year’s Senate bill. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops exerted hefty influence on the House bill last fall and forced Pelosi to accept much tougher restrictions than she favored in the form of Stupak’s amendment. That process left much of her caucus angry in the wake of such an otherwise-historic accomplishment.

The speaker made that concession four months ago, when the issue still wasn’t on everyone’s radar. Outside groups have used the intervening period to make sure everyone knows the fight will be about this time.

Pressure from groups, like National Right to Life and the Catholic Bishops, make it harder for the speaker and her leadership team to pick up the votes they need to pass a bill.

On the other side, Catholics who support abortion rights blasted the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for wielding such a heavy hand in the initial debate and posing a potential threat this time around.