pantera guitarist dead !

 Music, News  No Responses »
Dec 092004
 

Dimebag Darrell, guitarist for Damageplan and Pantera, was killed during a shooting spree at a Columbus, Ohio, nightclub Wednesday night. He was 38.

Darrell, real name Darrell Abbott, was among the five dead in the incident, including the as-yet-unnamed shooter and two fans, Nathan Bray and Erin Halk, according to Columbus Police public information officer Sherry Mercurio.

Damageplan had just begun their first song in front of several hundred at Alrosa Villa when the gunman jumped onstage, made a comment about Pantera’s breakup, and began firing at close range into Darrell’s body, shooting him several times before opening fire on the crowd.

Mercurio said an officer in the vicinity heard the call of shots fired shortly after 10 p.m., snuck in the back door of the venue and confronted the gunman onstage. When the officer took the stage, he observed one victim and the gunman holding a hostage by the neck. The officer opened fire on the male suspect, whose name has not been released pending notification of next of kin. Mercurio said the fifth victim’s name and those of the two wounded have also not yet been released. Several reports stated that the club had no metal detector, though Mercurio could not confirm that at press time and a club spokesperson could not be reached.

“If the officer hadn’t acted when he did and how he did, we’d probably be looking at more dead, because this guy was actively shooting,” said public information officer Sergeant Brent Mull. Following the incident, police took more than 200 patrons onto three city-donated buses to interview them about the shooting.

“The ones that were inside and witnessed this ran for their lives and were in fear for their lives,” Mull said. “They are victims too, and we want to take care of them.”

As news of Dimebag’s tragic demise rippled through the metal community, the news was met with shock and sadness.

“I’m speechless,” former Rob Zombie/ Ozzy Osbourne bassist Rob Blasko Nicholson said. “This is totally unreal. Dimebag is a f—ing legend and this is total bullsh–.” Damageplan also features Dimebag’s brother, former Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul; singer Patrick Lachman and bassist Bob Zilla.

“This is insane and this is beyond travesty,” Killswitch Engage frontman and former Damageplan tour partner Howard Jones said. “This is beyond anything I’ve ever heard. This shouldn’t happen in or outside of the rock and metal community. He will be missed and mourned as a person, as a musician, and as a friend.”

[This story was updated at 7:29 a.m. ET on 12.09.2004]

— Robert Mancini, Gil Kaufman and Ryan J. Downey

 Posted by at 8:27 am

ua lands on top 10 most embarrassing moments in health and science for 2004

 Fayetteville, News  No Responses »
Dec 062004
 

way to go UA !

from: http://www.junkscience.com/dec04/junkscienceawards2004.htm

WASHINGTON, D.C., (Dec. 1) — JunkScience.com today announced its list of the Top Ten Most Embarrassing Moments in Health and Environmental Science for 2004. The list spotlights individuals and organizations that — through exaggerated claims, bad judgment, and/or hidden agendas — have most egregiously undermined public confidence in the scientific community’s capacity to conduct sound and unbiased research.

10. University of Arkansas researchers attacked the Atkins Diet in January with a report linking a high-carbohydrate diet with weight loss, saying it was possible to lose weight without cutting calories and without exercising. What they didn’t reveal, however, was that the study subjects who lost weight actually ate 400-600 calories per day less than those who didn’t lose weight.

The full original article:

Atkins Attack
By Steven Milloy
January 30, 2004, FoxNews.com

Already-confused dieters are no doubt reeling from reports this week of a new study linking a high-carbohydrate diet with weight loss.

Rather than well-conducted scientific research, though, the new study appears to be merely a junk science-fueled attack by government nannies on politically incorrect low-carbohydrate regimens like the Atkins Diet (search).

“In the midst of the low-carb craze, a new study suggests that by eating lots of carbohydrates and little fat, it is possible to lose weight without actually cutting calories ¯ and without exercising, either,” reported The Associated Press this week.

“Revenge of the High-Carb Diet ¯ Ha! It Works, Too” was the Reuters headline.

But unlike the sensationalistic media, which tend to limit their reporting of new study claims to regurgitated press releases and sound bites from study authors, I actually read the study in the Jan. 26 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

It didn’t take long to discover why study subjects on the high-carbohydrate diet lost weight ¯ they ate fewer calories!

The researchers divided the 34 study subjects into three groups: a control group of 12 individuals who consumed a low-carbohydrate diet; a group of 11 individuals who consumed a high-carbohydrate diet; and a group of 11 individuals who consumed a high-carbohydrate diet and did aerobic exercise.

Study subjects were provided with foods constituting 150 percent of their required daily caloric intake and instructed to eat as much as they wanted. Carbohydrates constituted 45 percent of the control groups’ calories and about 62 percent for the high-carbohydrate groups.

After 12 weeks, the study subjects on the control diet weighed the same as when the study started. But study subjects on the high-carbohydrate diet lost weight: about five pounds on average for those in the high-carbohydrate-only group and about 10 pounds for those in the high-carbohydrate-plus-exercise group.

To the study authors and media, these superficial “results” apparently prove that you can lose weight while eating as many carbohydrates as you like ¯ and you don’t even have to exercise.

It might be a couch potato’s fantasy come true ¯ except that the study details tell a different story.

As it turns out, study subjects in the high-carbohydrate groups consumed about 400-600 calories less per day than those in the control group. Over the 12-week period of the study, then, the average study subject in the high-carbohydrate group consumed about 42,000 calories less than the average study subject in the control group.

Since a pound of fat represents about 3,500 calories, it’s no wonder why those in the high-carbohydrate group lost weight. It was because they ate less, not because of any magical effects of a high-carbohydrate diet. A

lthough the media’s apparent lack of interest in examining the actual study data is disappointing, the inaccurate description of the study to the media by lead author William J. Evans of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences is even more dismaying.

He told Reuters that the study subjects ate “around 2,500 calories per day,” thereby implying that the only difference in their diets was the amount of carbohydrates. That’s just plain misleading.

Control group subjects averaged 2,825 calories per day during the 12-week study; high-carbohydrate group subjects averaged 2250 calories per day and high-carbohydrate-plus-exercise subjects averaged 2,413 calories.

Such variation over 12 weeks adds up to significant differences in total caloric intake and is most likely what produced the observed weight loss in the high-carbohydrate groups.

The study authors then had the audacity to slam low-carbohydrate diets, such as the Atkins diet, as a means to lose weight.

“Little evidence exists to support this idea,” wrote the study authors. B

ut it appears that there’s not even that much evidence in favor of their all-the-carbs-you-can-eat idea.

It’s no secret that nutrition nannies in the federal government oppose high-protein/low-carbohydrate diets like the Atkins plan ¯ not because such diets don’t work but because their fat-is-OK approach contradicts the nannies’ low-fat dietary prescriptions of the last 30 years. (The irony of course is that obesity has supposedly skyrocketed while America went low-fat.)

Evans and his group, not surprisingly, were funded by the National Institutes of Health, a government group that claims in bold-face on its Web site that “[High-protein/low-carb diets are] not a healthy way to lose weight!”

That may or may not be true. Much more research is needed. Hopefully that research won’t be conducted by biased, government-funded research hacks.

 Posted by at 9:19 am

Dieters May Face Splenda Shortage

 News  No Responses »
Dec 032004
 

from: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041203/D86OCL1O0.html

Dieters May Face Splenda Shortage

Dec 3, 3:20 PM (ET)

By J.M. HIRSCH

Dieters hoping for a slew of new products with the sugar substitute Splenda may be disappointed next year.

That’s because the maker of sucralose, the key ingredient behind the increasingly ubiquitous no-calorie sweetener, is having trouble keeping up with demand.

Tate & Lyle PLC, the world’s only manufacturer of sucralose, said interest has so outpaced expectations the company won’t take on new U.S. customers until it has doubled production at it’s plant in McIntosh, Ala., sometime in early 2006.

The company also plans to open a second plant in Singapore, according to a written statement.

Buoyed by a surge in anti-sugar diets such as Atkins and South Beach, Splenda has enjoyed sweet success since its introduction in 2000, appearing in everything from soda and ice cream to candy and jams.

Splenda, which won fans with its sugar-like sweetness and stability in baking, now dominates the $337 million U.S. retail market for sugar substitutes, beating out aspartame sweetener Equal, made by Chicago-based Merisant Corp.

“Sucralose has one of those problems that’s both good and bad to have,” said John Sicher, editor of Beverage Digest. “The demand is tremendous. The supply is constrained.”

Splenda is sold to consumers as a table and baking sugar substitute by McNeil Nutritionals LLC, a Pennsylvania-based unit of Johnson & Johnson. (JNJ) Consumer sales won’t be affected by the tight supply, a company spokeswoman said.

Sales of sucralose to manufacturers as an ingredient for use in other products are handled directly by Tate & Lyle, which is headquartered in London.

How many new sucralose-sweetened products will come to market is difficult to tell, says Sicher. It depends largely on how many products already have been developed and how much sucralose companies bought in advance.

He says it’s too soon to tell how the tight supply might affect existing sucralose-based products at large companies, such as Coca-Cola Co.’s low-calorie “C2″ cola, but Tate & Lyle said the Alabama plant will meet the needs of existing customers.

A Coke spokeswoman wouldn’t comment.

Small companies hoping to expand or introduce low-cal products likely will face the most trouble.

Atkins Nutritionals helped spur Splenda’s surge by endorsing its use in the company’s hugely popular low-carb diet. Matthew Wiant, chief marketing officer for Atkins, estimates sucralose is used in as many as 10,000 products. But he doesn’t think companies will have a problem switching to other sweeteners if they can’t get it.

Lyn Nabors of the Calorie Control Council, a nonprofit trade group, said more companies probably will switch to sugar and sweetener blends, which have fewer calories but require less of the substitute.

Companies who insist on pure sucralose may have to delay new products, she said.

Dan Conner, a co-owner of Conner Bottle Works, a small Newfields, N.H., company that makes old-fashioned glass-bottled sodas, started feeling the Splenda squeeze two months ago. That’s when he got a letter from Tate & Lyle telling him he could buy only small amounts of sucralose each month.

He said that for many years his company resisted making diet sodas because the available sugar substitutes didn’t taste right. But sucralose was different, and this year Conner added two diet sodas.

But with supplies tightening, Conner now hopes another company will introduce a sucralose competitor, since the cost of sucralose has jumped significantly.

“Maybe we’ll get some price wars going to help people like myself,” he said.

Merisant, which acquired the Equal business from Monsanto Co. (MON) in 2000, recently sued McNeil Nutritionals, accusing it of false advertising by claiming Splenda is made from sugar.

McNeil Nutritionals claims the lawsuit is without merit, saying sucralose starts as cane sugar.

 Posted by at 3:12 pm

Sexual abstinence drives stretch facts

 News  No Responses »
Dec 032004
 

from Reuters

Sounds like some more of the great work of Bush & Texas Public School Textbooks:

Sexual abstinence drives stretch facts
Thu December 02, 2004 01:22 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only sex-education courses often get inaccurate or misleading information, the Washington Post has reported.

According to a congressional staff analysis, some courses teach that touching a person’s genitals can lead to pregnancy, abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, and half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, the Post said.

The report, prepared for California Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman, reviewed the curricula of more than a dozen projects aimed at preventing teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease, the Post said.

The Bush administration will provide $170 million (88 million pounds) next year to groups that teach abstinence only. Several million children age nine to 18 have participated in more than 100 federal abstinence programs since they began in 1999.

The report found that 11 of the 13 most commonly used curricula in such programs contained unproved claims, subjective conclusions or outright falsehoods regarding reproductive health, the Post said.

Waxman’s staff found the curricula included misconceptions such as a 43-day-old foetus is a “thinking person,” HIV can be spread through tears and sweat and condoms failed to prevent HIV transmission in 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse, the Post said.

“I have no objection to talking about abstinence as a sure-fire way to prevent unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. I don’t think we should lie to our children about science,” Waxman told the newspaper.

 Posted by at 8:58 am

progress? in tulsa

 News, Randomness  No Responses »
Nov 192004
 

i found out this morning that Starship Records (and some other surrounding businesses including the Metro Diner) are going to be demolished in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Apparently, the University of Tulsa needs some more parking lots. This was originally discussed in January 2004, but I guess they finally made the decision public as of last night (November 18, 2004).

It’s a real shame… Starship has been there forever, and one of the few places left around the vicinity where you can buy vinyl and rare import cds and singles.

 Posted by at 2:45 pm

Man Mistakenly Cuts Off Penis, Dog Eats It

 News  No Responses »
Oct 042004
 

Man Mistakenly Cuts Off Penis, Dog Eats It

Mon Oct 4,10:41 AM ET

BUCHAREST (Reuters) – A elderly Romanian man mistook his penis for a chicken’s neck, cut it off and his dog rushed up and ate it, the state Rompres news agency said Monday.

It said 67 year-old Constantin Mocanu, from a village near the southeastern town of Galati, rushed out into his yard in his underwear to kill a noisy chicken keeping him awake at night.

“I confused it with the chicken’s neck,” Mocanu, who was admitted to the emergency hospital in Galati, was quoted as saying. “I cut it … and the dog rushed and ate it.”

Doctors said the man, who was brought in by an ambulance bleeding heavily, was now out of danger.

 Posted by at 4:45 pm

republican propaganda mailing

 News  No Responses »
Sep 302004
 

copied and posted from http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000080.html.

This is apparently making the rounds, in multiple states, including Arkansas. Gotta love those republicans.


 Posted by at 7:32 am

Wildlife Officials Find Black Bear Passed Out Drunk

 News  No Responses »
Aug 192004
 

Wildlife Officials Find Black Bear Passed Out Drunk
Bear Drank Rainier, But Not Busch

POSTED: 8:02 am EDT August 19, 2004
BAKER LAKE, Wash. — When state Fish and Wildlife agents recently found a black bear passed out on the lawn of the Baker Lake Resort, there were some clues scattered nearby — dozens of empty cans of Rainier Beer.

The bear apparently got into campers’ coolers and used his claws and teeth to puncture the cans. And not just any cans.

Fish and Wildlife enforcement Sgt. Bill Heinck said the bear did try one can of Busch beer, but ignored the rest. Agents estimate the bear drank about 36 cans of Rainier.

A wildlife agent tried to chase the bear from the campground but the animal just climbed a tree to sleep it off for another four hours. Agents finally herded the bear away, but it returned the next morning.

Agents then used a large, humane trap to capture it for relocation, baiting the trap with the usual — doughnuts, honey and, in this case, two open cans of Rainier. That did the trick.

Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press.

 Posted by at 10:14 am

Cops Make Major Hibiscus Bust

 News  No Responses »
Aug 042004
 

Cops Make Major Hibiscus Bust
Wednesday, August 04, 2004

Texas cops thought they’d made a major drug bust when they raided a home northwest of Houston last Tuesday. After all, it looked like there were huge marijuana plants growing in the front yard.

“All of a sudden, they burst in with their guns loaded, pointing at me, screaming, ‘Get on the floor! Get on the floor!’” northwest Harris County resident Blair Davis told KHOU-TV.

It turns out the tall plants with the narrow leaves arranged in a fan pattern weren’t pot plants at all, but specimens of Texas Star hibiscus (search), which Davis grows for his landscaping business.

That didn’t convince the 10 or so members of the Harris County Organized Crime Unit (search) who stormed around the house.

“I just put my head down, shook it and said: ‘Guys, you are making a terrible mistake. That is Texas Star hibiscus, not marijuana,’” Davis told the TV station. “They just told me to shut up.”

At one point, the officers discussed whether the bamboo in the window might be the demon weed as well, Davis told the Houston Chronicle. They also asked him what he planned to do with the watermelons and cantaloupes growing out back.

“What would I do with them?” Davis said he responded.

It turned out a concerned citizen had seen the native Texas plant, which has little white flowers and smooth green leaves — marijuana has rough leaves and dense flowering buds — in the yard and tipped off the authorities.

“My guys went out there, and they looked at the plants and stuff, and they believed them to be marijuana,” Lt. Dan Webb told KHOU-TV.

After about an hour, the officers decided the search was over. They gave Davis a “citizen’s information card” with the words “closed-report” written on it.

“No apology, no nothing,” Davis complained to the Chronicle. “I realize they have a job to do, but this seems a little bizarre.”

Lt. Webb defends his officers.

“I’m sure it was traumatic,” he told KHOU. “Any time there’s a search warrant served at your house, there’s gonna be some trauma involved.”

Davis thinks the narcotics officers might need a little more training.

“If they don’t know what a marijuana plant looks like, maybe they should bring a picture with them,” he told the TV station, “before they invade a citizen’s home.”

— Thanks to Out There reader Michelle P.

 Posted by at 11:55 am

story: Britney was my sex-mad bride

 News  No Responses »
Jul 122004
 

this article was just too funny….

Britney was my sex-mad bride
(from http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/story_pages/news/news1.shtml)

By Jane Atkinson and Carole Aye Maung

BRITNEY SPEARS bedded her childhood sweetheart “like an animal”, then wrecked his life with a 55-hour marriage that stunned the world.

Now, in a world exclusive interview, husband Jason Alexander details every moment of the sex, the proposal, their Vegas wedding and his humiliation as furious family and lawyers prised them apart.

“We made love in her bed, her shower and her bath,” said Jason, 22. “She asked me to marry her but when her lawyers demanded I end our marriage she didn’t stop them—and it caused chaos in my life.”

Jason revealed that Britney proposed to him as she lay naked in his arms. And she was so excited when he said “Yes”, she rushed him down the aisle without stopping to put her knickers on.

As he opened his heart, Jason also told how multi-millionairess Britney:

# MADE LOVE to him so frantically that they fell off the bed.

# PLAYED erotic sex games with him under a shower, but

# SHUFFLED silent and shamefaced as her marriage was ended, and later,

# CHANGED her mobile phone number so he couldn’t even talk to her.

“I didn’t tell the world about this before because I still hoped we’d get back together,” said Jason. “But I now realise she won’t come back to me.”

Britney, also 22, is now planning to marry new fiance Keith Federline, 26, after he left his heavily-pregnant partner Shar Jackson.

Thong

But Jason, who grew up with Britney in Kentwood, Louisiana, knows no marriage will be as bizarre as the one he went through. Taking up the story of the days before their wedding last January, he recalled:

“Even though she’d made it big, she still came back to Kentwood. We’d kissed but that’s as far as it had gone.

“Then, last Christmas Eve she came up to my place and asked if I wanted to go to Las Vegas for the New Year with some of her friends. I said yes.”

Once in Vegas, Britney paid for them all to stay in the MTV-themed Real World suite at the Palms Casino Hotel.

“We all went out to a lobster dinner and Britney looked sensational in jeans and a black halter-neck top,” he said.

It was 4am by the time they went back to their hotel suite and made love for the first time.

“We knew what was going to happen,” he said. “Britney started stripping off her clothes as she walked into the suite. Then we started kissing.

“She got down to just her black thong and a see-through lace bra. I’ve never seen a woman look more stunning.

Moans

“I wanted to make love to her and she wasn’t shy in showing what she wanted. We started off in the bedroom kissing. She was good at that—she was good at everything. She was an animal in bed.

“We were both hot so I led her into the bathroom. There was a huge shower head that sent water down on to us as though it was rain. We stripped off competely and got into the shower and Britney performed oral sex on me as the water ran down over both of us.

“Afterwards I led her back into the bedroom. At first she was on top of me and then I was on top. We did it every way you could. But it wasn’t cheap. I really cared about her and it felt right.

“At times she was noisy. She didn’t call me any names, she just moaned. We didn’t use any precautions either.”

After sex they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

“I woke up and was really aroused again,” said Jason. “Britney was asleep but when I tried it on with her she didn’t hold back. She said she wanted to be with me and I told her I wanted to be with her.

“She said she wanted me to go with her on tour. I thought she was vulnerable and wanted to take care of her.”

During the day, Britney and her friends went to the hotel spa while Jason chatted with her bodyguards.

“When she got back I was in the bath,” he said. “She came in, stripped off and got into the tub with me. First we were scrubbing each other. Then she got on top of me and we had sex. She was a natural, with the most fantastic a*** I’ve ever felt. She was proud of her body and she often just wandered around with nothing on.”

The following night it was off to Planet Hollywood for dinner.

He said: “Britney wanted to stay out and I wanted to go to bed, so she made me promise that if I made love to her all night we could go back to the room.

“The sex was mind-blowing and rough. We did it in every position you could think of. It was so wild we managed to fall off the bed together.”

There was more sex the next night. “This time I remember she was wearing a beautiful purple and pink set of underwear,” said Jason. “Afterwards, we were chatting in bed, cuddled up and naked, saying we didn’t want the trip to end when she said, ‘I want to ask you something but I don’t know how to’.

“I told her she could ask me anything. She acted really shy and said, ‘Will you marry me?’

“I said yes and she jumped out of bed, flung her jeans on and yelled, ‘Let’s do it now’. She was ecstatic. She didn’t even put her panties on in the rush as she slipped on her jeans. We ran downstairs and jumped into the hotel limo. I’ll never forget saying, ‘Take us to the nearest chapel—we’re getting married’.”

What happened next—in the early hours of Saturday, January 3—left her millions of fans agog.

“The first chapel open was The Little White Chapel,” added Jason. “We were kissing and holding hands. We knew we were doing the right thing.

“When we got there they said we needed a marriage licence so we had to go to a court house that was open 24 hours.

“As we walked in a couple pointed at Britney and said, ‘You look just like that girl off the TV that sings’. I turned round and said, ‘Do you really think that chick would marry a man like me?’

“Britney and I giggled our heads off. We got the certificate and rushed back to the chapel. I paid the 700 dollars for the best package they could do. Britney picked it. We had flowers, video, a photographer, a pianist and a registrar. I said she should walk down the aisle on her own but Britney wanted to be traditional and so she asked the limo driver if he’d do the honour.

“I think he was a bit gobsmacked, but he did it.

I remember her walking towards me and we looked into each other’s eyes. We knew there was something special between us. As we said our vows we held hands, it meant a lot to both of us.

“The registrar said I could kiss the bride and it was the most special kiss of my life.

“She kept saying how happy she was but when we got back to the room her friends didn’t congratulate us, they just looked shocked.”

The newlyweds went into their suite and celebrated with Cristal champagne and talked about a honeymoon to the Carribean island of Nevis.

Jason added: “I remember saying, ‘Your name isn’t Spears now, it’s Alexander’. We had a spiritual connection. We knew we should be together.

“We’d married just after 4am and by 7am we knew we had to phone our families. It was horrendous.

“Britney phoned her mum and I heard Lynne screaming back at her. She went nuts.

Shattered

“Her brother rang and I spoke to him. He talked about annulment. I didn’t know what the word meant so I didn’t say anything.

“I rang my dad and at least he was fine. Britney told me to ignore her family and wanted us to run away on honeymoon straight away but we were so shattered we went to bed.”

Neither the bride nor the groom had any idea of the storm that was about to engulf them.

 Posted by at 3:53 pm
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