• Methamphetamine

    While Washington Methamphetamine Labs Have Dwindled Challenges Remain

    September 29, 2011 /

    Methamphetamine Lab Incidents, 2004-2010

    Good news and bad news.

    Ten years ago, this newspaper sponsored a community town hall meeting on the use and abuse of methamphetamine in South Sound. The illegal drug was consuming an incredible amount of law enforcement and court time and meth labs posed a significant environmental and public health risk.

    The statistics for the highly addictive stimulant were staggering. More meth labs were cleaned up statewide in the first nine months of 2001 than in all of 2000. Thurston County logged 105 meth lab cleanups between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, 2001, while neighboring Pierce County was the state’ s leader with 486 labs. King County busted 200 labs, while Spokane broke up 193 labs.

    Nationally, Washington state ranked second behind California in meth raids.

    Law enforcement officers and treatment professionals were warning people that they could get hooked on the insidious drug from the very first time they used it. Doctors were seeing more patients move from meth addiction to heroin addiction.

    In addition, every time law enforcement officers dismantled a meth lab, they had to safely dispose of hazardous materials. Sometimes it was a mobile meth lab operated out of a van. Other times, it was homes where children were subjected to great health risks every time their parents cooked a new batch of the drug. And just days before the town hall meeting, Lacey police were called to a motel to dispose of toxic chemicals from a meth lab set up in one of the rooms.

    But, in the ten years, there has been success in reducing the number of Meth Labs.

    Tonight, county officials will meet at the courthouse for another town hall meeting on meth sponsored by the Thurston County Action Team. Speakers will discuss the methamphetamine situation in South Sound 10 years after that first town hall meeting.

    They will report on their successes – primarily the decrease in meth labs. Thurston County has gone from a high of 150 meth raids a year to fewer than five in the last couple of years.

    Much of the success can be credited to a federal grant that led to the formation of a local enforcement team that made meth its top priority. Laws were changed to take ingredients for meth off the store shelves. Other laws were passed to increase penalties for those caught making and distributing the drug. Parents who brew meth in the presence of their children now face child endangerment charges that carry more jail time than manufacturing charges.

    But, there is also work to do.

    Sheriff John Snaza says, “ While we may have mostly licked the lab problem, meth is still an epidemic in Thurston County.” Local labs have simply given way to the Mexican drug cartels who import meth to South Sound in large quantities. “ We’ re seeing crazy numbers on that, ” Snaza said.

    More young people are using marijuana, Snaza said, and there has been an explosion in prescription drug abuse, mostly opiates like Oxycodone that are as addictive as heroin.

    Local young people are attending “ punch bowl parties” where they take their parents’ or grandparents’ prescription drugs, throw then into a bowl and party guests select unknown pills for consumption. “ They don’ t know what they are getting themselves into, ” Snaza said.

    The message from tonight’ s town hall meeting must be one of continued vigilance. While the meth lab problem is mostly behind us, other drug problems exist, and, in fact, are growing in severity and impacting the lives of our young people. We, as a community, cannot back away from these challenges.

    On the methamphetamine front, the federal government must better secure the border with Mexico and more strictly monitor precursor chemical manufacture offshore. Some states are now adopting an electronic database to monitor and prevent the smurphing of meth precursor chemicals like pseudoephedrine.

    Whatever it takes…..

  • Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for September 28th through September 29th

    September 29, 2011 /

    These are my links for September 28th through September 29th:

    • Liberal group sues FCC, claiming net-neutrality rules unfair to wireless – Free Press, a liberal advocacy group, sued the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Wednesday, arguing its recently published net-neutrality rules do not do enough to protect wireless Internet access.

      The rules prevent Internet service providers from discriminating between two similar content providers by slowing down or speeding up access to their sites. Wireless carriers are banned from blocking lawful websites or applications that compete with their services.

      The commission approved the rules last December in a partisan vote, and conservatives have characterized the move as an attempt to regulate the Internet.

      But Free Press argues the rules do not go far enough.

      Its lawsuit alleges the rules arbitrarily provide less protection for wireless Internet access, such as through smartphones, than traditional wired Internet access.

      “Our challenge will show that there is no evidence in the record to justify this arbitrary distinction between wired and wireless Internet access," Free Press policy director Matt Wood said in a news release. "The disparity that the FCC's rules create is unjust and unjustified. And it's especially problematic because of the increasing popularity of wireless, along with its increasing importance for younger demographics and diverse populations who rely on mobile devices as their primary means for getting online."

      The petition asks a federal court to find that the rules are "arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion or otherwise contrary to law."

      =======

      Incredible – not enough of a power grab.

    • Social media jobs getting more plentiful – Like many people, Evan Cunningham spends time on Facebook and Twitter while at the office. He sends out party invitations or chats about beer.

      But unlike most people, he gets paid for it. And he gets a title.

      Cunningham's job is one of the newest in corporate America: social media manager. It's also known, depending on the company, as social media wizard, social media ninja, social media diva or just plain online communities manager.

      No matter what they're called, experts in marketing a company's name and wares on social network sites — such as Facebook, Twitter and special interest forums — are in demand.

      "This was the year when companies large and small began to realize the importance of social media, and there has been lots of investment in social media," said Augie Ray, a former Forrester Research analyst who now handles social media for insurance group USAA.

      No one knows exactly how many social media jobs exist, but a quick scan of online recruitment sites shows a bounty of businesses looking to hire.

      "On any given week, we may see hundreds of new social media jobs posted," said Kathy O'Reilly, director of social media relations for job recruitment site Monster.

    • @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-09-29 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-09-29 #tcot #catcot
    • Superman Vs. Warm Body – In Defense of Rick Perry – One of the problems in trying to select a leader for any large organization or institution is the tendency to start out looking for Superman, passing up many good people who fail to meet that standard, and eventually ending up settling for a warm body.

      Some Republicans seem to be longing for another Ronald Reagan. Good luck on that one, unless you are prepared to wait for several generations. Moreover, even Ronald Reagan himself did not always act like Ronald Reagan.

      The current outbreak of "gotcha" attacks on Texas Governor Rick Perry show one of the other pitfalls for those who are trying to pick a national leader. The three big sound-bite issues used against him during the TV "debates" have involved Social Security, immigration and a vaccine against cervical cancer.

      Where these three issues have been discussed at length, whether in a few media accounts or in Governor Perry's own more extended discussions in an interview on Sean Hannity's program, his position was far more reasonable than it appeared to be in either his opponents' sound bites or even in his own abbreviated accounts during the limited time available in the TV "debate" format.

      On Social Security, Governor Perry was not only right to call it a "Ponzi scheme," but was also right to point out that this did not mean welshing on the government's obligation to continue paying retirees what they had been promised.

      Even those of us who still disagree with particular decisions made by Governor Perry can see some of those decisions as simply the errors of a decent man who realized that he was faced not with a theory but with a situation.

      For example, the ability to save young people from cervical cancer with a stroke of a pen was a temptation that any decent and humane individual would find hard to resist, even if Governor Perry himself now admits to second thoughts about how it was done.

      =====

      Read it all

    • Frontloading HQ: Alaska GOP to Hold March 6 District Conventions – RT @FHQ: Alaska GOP to Hold March 6 District Conventions:
    • President 2012: Herman Cain – “I Couldn’t Support Rick Perry as GOP Nominee Today” | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012: Herman Cain – “I Couldn’t Support Rick Perry as GOP Nominee Today #tcot #catcot
    • Why Rick Perry should take his immigration problem very seriously | The Daily Caller – Why Rick Perry should take his immigration problem very seriously #tcot #teaparty
    • Flap’s Links and Comments for September 28th on 12:17 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Flap’s Links and Comments for September 28th on 12:17 #tcot #catcot
  • Barack Obama,  Pakistan

    Pakistanis Burn Obama Effigy as America Increases Pressure on Pakistan

    September 29, 2011 /


    The Obama international honeymoon is definitely over.

    The United States on Tuesday demanded that Pakistan dismantle a terrorist network blamed for attacking a U.S. embassy as Pakistanis defended efforts to fight militants and demonstrated against the increasing U.S. pressure.

    White House spokesman Jay Carney said Pakistan “needs to take action to deal with the links” that U.S. officials say exist between the Pakistani intelligence agency and the Haqqani Network, based along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

    He repeated claims by other U.S. officials that the Haqqani terrorists are “responsible for attacks on the U.S. Embassy” in Afghanistan and on other Western targets.

    The United States has been publicly increasing pressure on Pakistan since Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress last week that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency helped plan the attacks on the embassy and NATO headquarters in the Afghan capital, Kabul, two weeks ago.

    Pakistan defended its efforts to fight terrorism Tuesday, when Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar told the U.N. General Assembly that her country has lost more than 30,000 people to terrorist attacks over the past decade.

    But, never fear, the weak-kneed Obama Administration is now walking back on Mullen’s statements.

    Adm. Mike Mullen’s assertion last week that an anti-American insurgent group in Afghanistan is a “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s spy service was overstated and contributed to overheated reactions in Pakistan and misperceptions in Washington, according to American officials involved in U.S. policy in the region.

    The internal criticism by the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to challenge Mullen openly, reflects concern over the accuracy of Mullen’s characterizations at a time when Obama administration officials have been frustrated in their efforts to persuade Pakistan to break its ties to Afghan insurgent groups.

    A ship of fools = the Obama foreign policy.

    Come on guys, get your stories and facts straight.

  • Twitter

    @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-09-29

    September 29, 2011 /

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  • Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for September 28th on 12:17

    September 28, 2011 /

    These are my links for September 28th from 12:17 to 14:18:

    • Rick Perry to Newsmax: I Regret ‘Heartless’ Comment on Immigration – Presidential candidate Rick Perry on Wednesday apologized for saying that anyone who opposed giving tuition breaks to the children of illegal immigrants “did not have a heart.”

      In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, the Texas governor said he had made a poor choice of words during the Sept. 22 presidential debate, but he stood by his view that the decision in his state to extend tuition breaks was the right one.

      “I was probably a bit over-passionate by using that word and it was inappropriate,” Perry admitted. “In Texas in 2001 we had 181 members of the legislature – only four voted against this piece of legislation – because it wasn’t about immigration it was about education.”

      During the wide-ranging interview, Perry:

      • Opposed the idea of a fence stretching the entire length of the Mexican border;
      • Repeated his claim that social security is “a Ponzi scheme,” saying it’s so bad it “would make Bernie Madoff blush;”
      • Attacked challenger Mitt Romney as “a flip-flopper;’
      • Accused President Barack Obama of sending government agencies to “go to war” against business, and;
      • Said most voters want their president to be “a person of faith.”

    • Big Tobacco knew radioactive particles in cigarettes posed cancer risk but kept quiet, study suggests – Tobacco companies knew that cigarette smoke contained radioactive alpha particles for more than four decades and developed "deep and intimate" knowledge of these particles' cancer-causing potential, but they deliberately kept their findings from the public, according to a new study by UCLA researchers.
    • Bristol Palin’s Bar Heckler Apologizes After Negative Media Coverage – The dust finally seems to be settling on the epic verbal battle that unraveled between Bristol Palin and heckler Stephen Hanks. Just days after Hanks got into an altercation with Palin, then reiterated his offensive comments, he is now curiously apologetic.

      As you may recall, the 47-year-old attacked Sarah Palin’s oldest daughter last week, calling her mother “evil” and a “whore,” among other unbelievably offensive insults. You can watch the original battle unfold here:

      =======

      Read it all….

      A little late but accepted…..

  • Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for September 28th on 11:46

    September 28, 2011 /

    These are my links for September 28th from 11:46 to 12:13:

    • Defiant Team Perry’s plan: Hit Harder – Are You Kidding? – Rick Perry’s widely panned debate performances? Just a hiccup. Any major changes in debate prep? None planned. His unexpected and deflating Florida straw poll loss last weekend? Not a big deal.

      Even as some of his supporters grow anxious, the Texas governor’s top aides insist they have no plans for real or even symbolic changes to their campaign. The only pivot they’ll make, they say, is to become more aggressive with Mitt Romney.

      ======

      Probably not a wise move….

    • Hispanic kids the largest group of children living in poverty – More Hispanic children are living in poverty than those of any other race or ethnicity, marking the first time in U.S. history that the largest group of poor children is not white, according to a new research study.

      In a report released Thursday, the Pew Hispanic Center said 6.1 million Hispanic children are poor, compared with 5 million non-Hispanic white children and 4.4 million black children. Pew said Hispanic poverty numbers have soared because of the impact of the recession on the growing number of Latinos in the country.

      Though the number of poor Hispanic children is at a record high, black children have a higher rate of poverty — 39 percent compared with 35 percent for Hispanic children. In contrast, the poverty rate for white children is about 12 percent.

      Nationwide, one in five children of all races and ethnicities is living in poverty, which is set at $22,113 for a family of four.

  • Michele Bachmann,  Mitt Romney,  Polling,  President 2012,  Rick Perry

    President 2012 GOP Florida Poll Watch: Romney 30% Vs. Perry 24% Vs. Gingrich 10%

    September 28, 2011 /


    According to the latest PPP Poll.

    Rick Perry’s led the Republican field in every Southern state that we’ve polled since he entered the Presidential race…until now.  Mitt Romney continues to lead the way in Florida with 30% to 24% for Perry, 10% for Gingrich, 8% for Ron Paul, 7% for Herman Cain, 6% for Michele Bachmann, 3% for Jon Huntsman, 2% for Rick Santorum, and 1% for Gary Johnson.

    Perry had a poor debate performance in Florida Thursday night and our results suggest that the negative coverage he received from that did hurt him some in the state.  We started this poll on Thursday night before the debate and in those interviews the race was neck and neck with Romney at 33% and Perry at 31%.  But in interviews done Friday-Sunday Romney’s lead expanded to double digits at 29-19.  More telling might be what happened to Perry’s favorability numbers after the debate- on Thursday night he was at 63/23 with Florida Republicans.  Friday-Sunday he was at 48/36.  Perry’s poor performance may or may not prove to be a game changer nationally but it definitely appears to have hurt his image in the key state where it occurred.

    Perry was down in Florida even before the debate though and one thing that may be hurting him is his comments on Social Security. 49% of voters disagree with his ‘Ponzi Scheme’ comments to only 37% who agree and with the folks who dissent from that statement his deficit against Romney goes all the way up to 19 points at 35-16.  It’s also noteworthy that seniors are the age group where Perry faces the biggest deficit to Romney at 34-26.

    Rick Perry was hurt from his Florida debate performance. Perry may not be OUT but he is teetering on the brink.

    If Chris Christie finally decides not to run, then the GOP looks like they will SETTLE for Mitt Romney.

    Also, note that Michele Bachmann is in “free fall” and with today’s Iowa poll one wonders, if she is going to be able to raise sufficient funds to compete there.

  • President 2012

    President 2012: Florida Likely to Set January 31 as GOP Primary Date

    September 28, 2011 /

    This will certainly shakeup the GOP Presidential primary season and forcing candidates to campaign during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

    Florida is now expected to hold its presidential primary on the last day in January 2012, a move likely to throw the carefully arranged Republican nominating calendar into disarray and jumpstart the nominating process a month earlier than party leaders had hoped.

    Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon told CNN on Tuesday that a state commission exploring potential primary dates is likely to choose January 31 to hold the nominating contest.

    If that happens, it would almost certainly force the traditional early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada to leapfrog Florida and move their primaries and caucuses into early- to mid-January.

    “We are expecting to meet on Friday from 11 to 12, and I expect that they will pick January 31 as Florida’s primary date,” said Cannon, who helped select members of the nine-member commission.

    So, then how would the GOP Presidential calendar look?

    The Republican National Committee is waiting on decisions from a handful of states, including: Florida, Georgia and Missouri. Those decisions will help decide the dates of the voting in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

    The presidential candidates still do not have exact dates for the contests, but they believe the first two months of the campaign will unfold like this:

    •     Iowa caucuses: first or second week of January
    •     New Hampshire primary: immediately after Iowa
    •     Nevada caucuses
    •     South Carolina primary
    •     Florida primary: likely Jan. 31, or immediately after South Carolina
    •     Colorado, Minnesota, Maine: Feb. 7, a non-binding preference poll.
    •     Missouri: Feb. 7, a primary
    •     Arizona and Michigan: Feb. 28.

    The dates of contests in Alaska, Georgia and North Dakota are in flux.

    Looks like the candidates had better be prepared for extreme weather conditions, campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire and then off to Nevada and Florida.

    Stay tuned…..