Flap’s Links and Comments for May 19th on 08:41

These are my links for May 19th from 08:41 to 09:58:

• Oklahoma anti-meth activist want ban on allergy pills – Starkey, who describes himself as an average Oklahoman who is furious about meth labs, said he watched two friends ruin their lives with the drug. He said too often innocent people can be burned in a meth fire.

  Starkey, 51, of Claremore, is self-employed and has a 4-year-old child, and says he knows he does not have funds to fight pharmaceutical company lobbyists. A similar proposal to ban dry tablet allergy pills did not advance in the Oklahoma Legislature this year.

  “I’m after the shake and bake meth labs. I can’t save the world, but a lot of money is wasted on meth lab cleanup,” Starkey said.

  Woodward said in 2010 there were 818 meth labs busted in Oklahoma.

  In central and western Oklahoma, law enforcement agencies mostly battle the Mexican meth known as “ice,” which is mass-produced in Mexico.

  But, the small “shake and bake” meth labs cause a lot of collateral damage to houses, apartments and other buildings.

  The bureau spent $800,000 cleaning up meth labs in 2010, Woodward said.

  Woodward said he hopes Starkey’s efforts pay off.

  “We don’t have to guess about whether this will work, we know it will work,” Woodward said.

  =======

  It is a start and when the federal government gets serious about border control with Mexico then we can further go after the problem.

• Latest numbers reveal two-tier California – A quarter-century ago, I wrote a series of articles about California's megatrends that transmogrified into a book, "The New California: Facing the 21st Century."

  My chief premise was that intertwining cultural, demographic, economic and political forces were radically transforming the state.

  I quoted one academic study that saw "the possible emerging of a two-tier economy with Asians and non-Hispanic whites competing for high-status positions while Hispanics and blacks struggle to get low-paying service jobs."

  Last week's release of detailed 2010 census data and this week's unveiling of a massive statistical study of Californians' educations, incomes and health confirm that what was theory in 1985 has become reality.

  ======

  Read it all….

  Yes, and the two tiers have existed for some time now.

• Obesity May Raise Risk of Prostate Cancer Spread – Obesity and prostate cancer may be a bad combination, new research suggests. The risk of the cancer spreading is more likely in both obese and overweight men, researchers found.

  "We found that overweight men were three times more likely to have their cancer spread," says Christopher J. Keto, MD, a urological oncology postdoctoral associate at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C.

  "Obese men were five times more likely than normal-weight men to have their cancer spread," he tells WebMD.

  The study was presented at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association in Washington, D.C.

  The findings are consistent with previous research that showed a link between obesity and poorer outcomes in prostate cancer patients.

  =====

  Read it all