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This morning reggae superstar Buju Banton was sentenced to ten years in federal prison for cocaine trafficking. Banton's particular style of reggae was dubbed "murder music" for lyrics that often called for the murders of gay men. In recent years his concert appearances were picketed by LGBT activists who sometimes convinced promoters to cancel the shows entirely. Banton's supporters claim that his drug arrest was a conspiracy set up between the DEA and gay activists.
RELATED: In February 2011, Banton won the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album despite protests over having even been nominated.
And we don't want kids to think crack-addicts are normal.
According to a just-released study, LGBT youth tend to take greater risks with their health than do their heterosexual counterparts.
High school students who identify as being gay, lesbian, or bisexual are more likely than heterosexual students to smoke, drink alcohol, use drugs, and take part in violent and suicidal behaviors, a CDC survey shows. CDC researchers analyzed survey results from about 156,000 high school students. "This report should be a wake-up call for families, schools, and communities that we need to do a much better job of supporting these young people," Howard Wechsler, EdD, MPH, of the CDC, says in a news release. "Any effort to promote adolescent health and safety must take into account the additional stressors these youth experience because of their sexual orientation, such as stigma, discrimination and victimization."Anti-gay groups will, of course, leap upon this latest study without noting their own complicity in the "stigma, discrimination and victimization" noted above.
Tea Party hero FL Gov. Rick "Medicare Fraud" Scott has signed a bill requiring welfare recipients to pass a drug test before receiving any checks. Applicants must pay for their own tests. The ACLU isn't having it.
"The wasteful program created by this law subjects Floridians who are impacted by the economic downturn, as well as their families, to a humiliating search of their urine and body fluids without cause or even suspicion of drug abuse," said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida. "Searching the bodily fluids of those in need of assistance is a scientifically, fiscally, and constitutionally unsound policy. Today, that unsound policy is Florida law."I'm betting that the governor also has his fingers in the companies that would be providing these millions of drug tests.
The New York Times reports:
Jeff Conaway, the personable actor who won television fame on the sitcom “Taxi” and movie success in the musical “Grease” three decades ago and who later publicly struggled with drug and alcohol abuse, died on Friday in Los Angeles. He was 60. He died of complications of pneumonia at Encino Tarzana Medical Center after being taken off life support on Thursday, a talent representative, Phil Brock, said.Conaway had been in a coma since May 11th.
Grammy winning reggae star Buju Banton, whose work has been called "murder music" for its calls for the executions of gay men, has been found guilty of three federal counts of conspiracy to traffic cocaine. Via the Jamaican Observer:
The artiste was found guilty of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute five or more kilogrammes of cocaine, attempted possession with the intent to distribute cocaine and using the wires to facilitate a drug-trafficking offence. However he was found not guilty of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking offence. The artiste hugged his lawyer David Markus when the verdict was read. Many of the artiste's supporters left the courtroom crying. He has been detained and has had his bail revoked.Banton's supporters and some of the Jamaican press have alleged that the drug charges came out of a conspiracy between the DEA and LGBT activists. The date for his sentencing has not been announced. Last week Banton won the Grammy for Best Reggae Album, stunning activists who last year published full-page music industry ads denouncing his nomination.
VIDEO: One of Banton's biggest hits, Boom Bye Bye, advocates shooting "nasty batty boys" in the head.
Perry Moore, 39, the openly gay executive producer of the wildly successful Chronicle Of Narnia movies, has been found dead in his Manhattan home of a suspected Oxycontin overdose.
Moore was found unconscious in the bathroom at about 9:30 a.m. by his partner, Hunter Hill, inside the W. Houston St. home they shared, the sources said. "We're in shock," said the producer's father, Bill Moore, 69, adding that he just spoke to his son the night before. "He was in a great, great mood," he said. "No one was expecting this." Moore - who with beau Hill wrote and directed "Lake City," starring Sissy Spacek and Rebecca Romijn - was pronounced dead shortly after responders arrived. The exact cause of death has not been determined, but sources said it appeared to be an overdose of OxyContin. "We're so sad," said his father. "He's been able to reach out and touch a lot of people."The Narnia movies have grossed over $1.5B to date.
Last night reggae star Buju Banton, whose "murder music" calls for the executions of gay men, won the Grammy for Best Reggae Album. Banton's win came as a shocker to LGBT activists who last year took out full-page music industry ads denouncing his nomination. Today his cocaine trafficking retrial begins in Miami after a previous trial resulted in a hung jury. Banton's supporters in Jamaica and elsewhere claim that gay activists conspired with the DEA to frame him. He faces a life sentence on charges that he attempted to purchase several kilos of cocaine for resale.
"The word marriage is a big deal to people of faith. We’ve made it sacred. That’s why I believe that churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples should have total freedom to have whatever types of unions they believe as godly. But I think that we as a democratic society, as a constitutional republic — if we don’t respect individual civil liberties, then we’re making a horrific mistake. The church is in the early stages of another ‘the earth is flat’ crisis. I say to all religious people that we should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry on the subject. Or we’re going to be embarrassed in another 10 or 20 years." - Ted Haggard, in this week's Advocate cover story.
This awkward photo is from the current issue of GQ Magazine, where Haggard declared himself to be bisexual and confessed to snorting all that crystal meth he'd previously claimed to have purchased to throw away.
In a profile published by GQ Magazine, disgraced televangelist Ted Haggard announces that he's bisexual. And that he and escort Mike Jones didn't have sex, Jones just jerked him off. Which somehow isn't sex in Haggard's world. But about that crystal meth that Haggard famously claimed he bought to "throw away"? Yeah, he totally snorted it.
"I think that probably, if I were 21 in this society, I would identify myself as a bisexual." But, he told GQ's Kevin Roose: "I'm 54, with children, with a belief system, and I can have enforced boundaries in my life. Just like you're a heterosexual but you don't have sex with every woman that you're attracted to, so I can be who I am and exclusively have sex with my wife and be perfectly satisfied." About former meth dealer and escort Mike Jones, Haggard says: "We never had sex sex. I bought drugs and a massage from him, and he masturbated me at the end of it. That's it." [snip]And now he's said what everybody in the world has always known. Oh, bravo.
He admitted to buying drugs "five or six times" from Jones, but adds: "Sometimes I'd throw it away. Other times, I'd go someplace and masturbate and use it. But it was for masturbation. And that's one of the reasons why I haven't been real clear. I don't want to stand up publicly and say, 'Hey, I'm a masturbation guy!" "You know, that's really the core issue here," he added. "I bought the drugs to enhance masturbation. Because what crystal meth does--Mike taught me this--crystal meth makes it so you don't ejaculate soon. So you can watch porn and masturbate for a long time."
Scientists are testing a vaccine that causes the body to treat cocaine like an attacking virus and thereby keep it away from the brain.
So far, the vaccine has only been tested on mice, but the results are extraordinary. Mice given the vaccine no longer exhibited any of the hyperactive signs of a cocaine high when they were next given the drug. The vaccine was created by taking just the part of the cold virus that alerts the body's immune system to its presence, and then researchers connected the signaling mechanism to a more stable version of the cocaine molecule.All kinds of ethical implications are raised by this research, of course. For example, should it be legal for parents to immunize their children against the pleasurable effects of some drugs without ever knowing if that person was capable of responsible use?
Once the mice received an injection of the vaccine, they started producing anti-cocaine antibodies which targeted and destroyed any cocaine that then entered their system. Normally, cocaine does not produce an immune response, leaving it free to wreak havoc on the brain and body of whoever takes it. But the cold virus segments taught the immune system to treat cocaine like a hostile invader, offering a nearly impregnable wall of protection from the cocaine's effects.
