[E.O.M.S.]

Friday 23 October 2009

US asks for Polanski extradition

The US has formally asked Switzerland to extradite film director Roman Polanski on sex charges, Swiss officials say.

Polanski has been wanted in the US since he fled the country in 1978, after pleading guilty to having unlawful sex with an under-age girl. He was held in Zurich after travelling from France to collect an award at the city's film festival in September. The director recently lost an appeal to be released on bail from a Swiss jail. The Swiss justice ministry said in a statement that if it approved the US request, Polanski might appeal against the decision.

@'BBC'

WTF?

"I Wanna Fuck You, Ba-By! Oh Yes!"

"...it wasn't too damn bad"

(Thanx Suzy Cakes)

FWOK!

Richard Hell and Debbie Harry, Seventeenth Street, New York City. Photograph by Chris Stein, with graphics by John Holmstrom, “The Legend of Nick Detroit” PUNK magazine, no. 6 (October 1976) © Chris Stein.

The Slits- Animal Spaces (Live Brooklyn 2006)

Thanx Solwolfpunk!

Waiting for a Legal Shot - Heroin Maintenance in Denmark

In February 2008 the Danish parliament made an almost unanimous decision to launch a 9,5 Million € medical heroin maintenance project. This decision put an end to a 15 years long debate on how to treat those “hard core” heroin users who do not want or who cannot abstain from using heroin for a longer period of time. Denmark is the first country where decision makers introduced heroin maintenance as a permanent service without a trial. There was a significant political opposition to the idea of providing addicts with the drug of their addiction: some people considered this step as a full surrender in the war on drugs. “Why don’t you treat the real problem, that is, addiction itself?”, they asked. However, even opponents had to confess that recently there is no silver bullet to “kill” addiction: it is still a chronic, relapsing social and health condition, not curable in the short run. Most heroin users try to quit several times and relapse even more before they can stop the circle: it is not our choice to decide when. But it is our choice to help them to survive heroin use without getting infected with HIV and hepatitis C, or felling victim to a lethal overdose. It is our choice to let people use on the street or to create a supervised environment for opiate users where they can use sterile injecting equipment and dispose their used syringes safely. It is also important for the whole society where these people get their daily doses from: whether they purchase it from the black market, that is, from criminal organizations, or from a legal medical clinic, in controlled quality and quantity. Most heroin users commit crimes in order to feed their habit. If you provide them with cheap medical substitutes of street drugs, they should not get involved in criminal activities and prostitution to avoid withdrawal symptoms. What is more, a significant proportion of the patients of heroin maintenance programs will be able to build a new life and quit heroin use.

Marilyn Minter's Dirty World

@'Daily Beast'

Lil Wayne Pleads Guilty, Faces One-Year Prison Sentence

The Associated Press reports that Lil Wayne pleaded guilty to attempted gun possession in New York this morning. According to the AP, he "expects to receive a one-year jail sentence." Wayne is out on bail right now, but he'll be sentenced in February.

The charge stems from a 2007 incident in which Manhattan police raided Wayne's tour bus after smelling marijuana and reportedly saw Wayne trying to get rid of a bag, which contained a loaded .40 caliber semi-automatic. Wayne had previously pleaded not guilty to the charge of illegal gun possession. As the AP reports, if he had been found guilty for that, he would have faced a three-and-a-half-year jail sentence.
@'Pitchfork'