“YAWN”
“Die already, ya fuckin’ slag.”

Source BBC NEWS

Amy Winehouse taken to hospital

Singer Amy Winehouse has been taken to hospital for tests after fainting in London, her spokesman has confirmed.

She was “doing admin” when she became unwell at her home on Monday afternoon but “quickly recovered”, he added.

Her manager’s assistant was able to stop her falling and Winehouse’s father, Mitch, escorted her to hospital “as a precaution”, the spokesman said.

Rodney King will appear in the next season of the VH1 reality show, “Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew.” The show highlights washed out celebrities dealing with drug and alcohol abuse. They are put in the care of famous addiction specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky.

King’s beating by the Los Angeles police in 1991 lead to deadly rioting and his famous plea for peace. King will appear on the show with Jeff Conaway, Tawny Kitaen, former Guns N’ Roses drummer Steven Adler and Rod Stewart’s son Sean. The new season will premiere in October cause doesn’t everyone want to watch wacked out stars with really bad withdrawl symptoms? Not so much.

[The following submission was penned by Synthesis Weekly columnist Julia Murphy. She can be reached at ninjatreehugger@gmail.com]

Addiction, The Economy and Environmentalism

What does Rehab have to do with sustainability? It’s like a personalized Superfund site. We don’t have any money in the not-so-Superfund, either, just like we don’t have funding for rehabs.
If you’re a wanton garbagehead, something probably will fall apart to the point where you at least end up with a DUI. And that, my friends, is a long hard row to hoe, costing you an ass-pile of money and the humiliation of DrunkSchool. I’m not talking about some Jäger in your Kleen Kanteen in that boring evening class. You know what I mean. Money or time is what you’ll be out, and probably both.
Economy: Ever seen Rich’s crew on Saturdays and Sundays? Skulking, chastened youths and insouciant fun-loving criminals alike, sweeping up the cigarette butts of the previous night’s revelers? How much money would the City of Chico have to pay fools to do that work? [Ed note: Rich's Crew is a local organization where those arrested for misdemeanors like Drunk In Public, Minor In Possession, etc, clean the streets of Chico weekend mornings.]
How much do people make in California prisons? Well, from www.pia.ca.gov:
“Court-ordered restitution/fines are deducted from the wages earned by CALPIA inmates and are transferred to the Crime Victims’ Restitution Fund. CALPIA inmates receive wages between $.30 to $.95 per hour, before deductions.”
Companies get a 10 percent discount on taxes for using prison labor — plus, they get to put that awesome “Made in the USA” tag on their product! Yay!
Good for PIA for creating a reparations fund (speaking of which, when are black Americans to get theirs?) — but I bet they don’t exempt the prisoners who committed “victimless” crimes.
How many people are in jail on drug charges?
“Drug arrests have more than tripled in the last 25 years, totaling a record 1.8 million arrests in 2005. Drug offenders in prisons and jails have increased 1100 percent since 1980. Nearly a half-million (493,800) persons are in state or federal prison or local jail for a drug offense, compared to an estimated 41,100 in 1980. Nearly 6 in 10 persons in prison for a drug offense have no history of violence or high-level drug selling activity.”
Please — I mean it — check this Web site out: www.november.org/graphs. It’s extensive.
“In 1985, our incarceration rate was 313 per 100,000 population. As of December 2006 it was 751 per 100,000. The largest single factor contributing to this imprisonment wave is a ten-fold rise in drug convictions.”

More after the jump. (more…)

After pursuing a car in a drug related attempted shooting from the North side of the city, 12 Philadelphia police officers eventually dragged three men out of the vehicle and beat the hell out of them. Unfortunately for the police, it was all caught on tape. Here comes the frenzy…

Britain’s favorite little drug addict was at it again last night, reportedly punching Moroccan musician Mustapha el Mounmi in the face and head butting a stranger who was trying to hail her a cab…

(more…)

Living pretty much right off of I-5, you get to form a pretty close relationship with methamphetamines; either as a user or spectator. Glad to say myself and (most of) my friends fall squarely in the latter category. But it certainly is entertaining to bike by those deep into their herky-jerky meth binges. It’s almost lovable. Almost…

Nothing like beauty tips from meth addicts…here’s how to turn a scum bag into a total piece of shit: Just add meth. Our local version is almost as sweet as the national.