cookiegirl

I get two 'cuz it's my thread Great Barrier Reef (want to scuba sooo bad) and Rome (my feeble American sense of "culture" can't conceive of something with that much history). . .

I'll buy you a drink if you come out Friday! Seriously though, don't fret too much -- it sucks right now but as raver said, it could open new doors. And you have a huge network of friends and acquaintances all over the U.S. should you ever need help. on c.p. while you still can! 'stina

55.6 miles from DC! . . .

You too huh? It was voted on by visitors to bbc.co.uk - titled simply "50 places to see before you die". . .and South Island is in New Zealand.

This was recently published on bbc.com - I've smiled the places I've visited. . .I obviously need to travel more! 1 The Grand Canyon 2 Great Barrier Reef 3 Florida 4 South Island 5 Cape Town 6 Golden Temple 7 Las Vegas 8 Sydney 9 New York 10 Taj Mahal 11 Canadian Rockies 12 Uluru 13 Chichen Itza – Mexico 14 Machu Picchu - Peru 15 Niagara Falls 16 Petra - Jordan 17 The Pyramids - Egypt 18 Venice 19 Maldives 20 Great Wall of China 21 Victoria Falls – Zimbabwe 22 Hong Kong 23 Yosemite National Park 24 Hawaii 25 Auckland - New Zealand 26 Iguassu Falls 27 Paris :)in two weeks:) 28 Alaska 29 Angkor Wat - Cambodia 30 Himalayas – Nepal 31 Rio de Janeiro - Brazil 32 Masai Mara - Kenya 33 Galapagos Islands - Ecuador 34 Luxor - Egypt 35 Rome 36 San Francisco 37 Barcelona 38 Dubai 39 Singapore 40 La Digue - Seychelles 41 Sri Lanka 42 Bangkok 43 Barbados 44 Iceland 45 Terracotta Army - China 46 Zermatt - Switzerland 47 Angel Falls - Venezuela 48 Abu Simbel - Egypt 49 Bali 50 French Polynesia

As raves go uptown, cities take aim at drugs, noise USA TODAY NEW ORLEANS — They began more than a decade ago in remote fields and abandoned warehouses, out-of-the-way places where teens and young adults grooved all night to ear-splitting electronic music. Today, rave dance parties are big business, held in downtown nightclubs and theaters by promoters who charge $30 or more for admission. Ravers say the scene is still all about the music. But a rising number of critics say it's also about rampant drug use, mostly involving the illegal stimulant Ecstasy. The critics accuse party organizers of looking the other way as dealers peddle pills and stoned kids trash the neighborhoods where raves are held. Here and in several U.S. cities, there are growing complaints that raves have become a public nuisance. In a twist to the "Not In My Backyard" debates that have long shaped government decisions, New Orleans and a few other cities have used the federal statute designed to shutter crack houses to try to shut down raves or force them to clean up their act. Besides tapping the federal law to accuse rave promoters of fostering drug dealing, local, state and federal authorities have used anti-noise ordinances and police anti-drug dragnets to combat Ecstasy use at raves. Ecstasy is not nearly as popular as marijuana, but its rise as a party drug has made it a priority for health officials, who cite studies indicating that the stimulant can cause brain damage and neurological problems. Officials have had mixed success prosecuting rave promoters under the 1986 crack-house statute. Such charges can be tough to prove, and the law is aimed at the owners of residential properties where there is continuous drug activity, not transient concerts or parties. But Congress is considering a plan to change that: A bill before the U.S. Senate would specifically link raves to the crack-house law, which holds property owners liable if they knowingly allow illegal drug activity on their premises. Owners or promoters found liable could face up to 20 years in prison or be fined $250,000 or twice the gross receipts derived from each violation, whichever is more. The assaults on raves have prodded groups of young people to political action. While acknowledging there is some drug use at raves, supporters of the parties say that officials should not automatically equate raves with Ecstasy, which has hallucinogenic properties that give users a euphoric feeling. New Orleans' efforts to stop drug use at a local rave venue reflects the increasingly aggressive approach authorities across the nation are taking toward raves  as well as some officials' frustration in trying to apply the crack-house law to rave promoters. U.S. and local officials here have focused on the State Palace Theatre, where in 1998 a young woman died of an Ecstasy overdose. Police learned that when the theater on the edge of the raucous French Quarter held its monthly rave, local hospitals were swamped with young people who had overdosed on Ecstasy and other drugs. After authorities found evidence of drug use at the State Palace, a federal grand jury indicted the owner, managers and promoters of the theater's parties in January 2001. The defendants were accused of violating the crack-house statute, which required prosecutors to prove that the rave organizers were allowing the operation of a venue for the sale or use of drugs. Prosecutors acknowledged that filing the charges under the statute was a reach, but it was "the only statute that seemed to fit," says Al Winters, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case. The company that leased the State Palace for the raves eventually agreed to plead guilty to violating the crack-house statute, pay a $100,000 fine and promise to increase security and search partygoers for drugs. The rave promoters who lease the theater say they wanted to avoid a lengthy and expensive court battle  and to continue holding raves. More security, but drugs remain Today, raves at the State Palace are as popular as ever. And despite the increased security and ongoing police patrols, a visit to the theater on a rave night makes it clear that drugs remain a part of the scene. On Sept. 28, a party called "Wild Planet" drew about 1,500 teens from as far away as Alabama, a two-hour drive away. Each paid up to $32 to get in. Outside the theater, undercover cops in jeans and T-shirts mingled with teens waiting to get in, watching as some of the youths sold pills or shared them with friends. Before the party ended about 6 a.m. the next day, more than a dozen teens were arrested. The owners of the decrepit theater had their own security staff checking bags at the door, but smuggling tiny Ecstasy pills into the party apparently wasn't difficult. Just inside the theater's door, in semi-darkness broken only by the white light of a flashing strobe, a man in his early 20s offered Ecstasy for $20 a pill. Some particularly active ravers admitted being high on Ecstasy when they arrived. "Security (at such raves) is really lax," says Louisiana State Trooper Kim McDuffie, who has worked undercover at raves. Like other officers, she questioned rave promoters' commitment to significantly crack down on drugs, which would risk annoying partygoers. "If the promoters were serious about keeping the drugs out," McDuffie said, "they'd have uniformed police officers" inside the raves. Rob Brunet, a booking agent for the raves, says the State Palace's searches are thorough. "If the kids are on something," he says, "I've got to assume they are taking it before they get here." Other jurisdictions have taken aim at raves  not always successfully  through a variety of tactics: U.S. prosecutors in Florida last year charged the owners and manager of Club La Vela, a popular hangout in Panama City Beach, with violating the federal crack-house law. Several employees who had been caught dealing drugs at the club testified against their employer, but a jury acquitted the club's executives of promoting drug sales and use. The club recently expanded and now has 11 theme rooms, including one designed for electronic music and raves, which typically involve strobe lights, black lights and neon glow sticks to enhance dancers' psychedelic experience. "The prosecution was putting music and lighting and glow sticks on trial," says lawyer Todd Foster, who represented the club's manager. "They tried to make techno music synonymous with drugs." The most successful prosecution of a rave enterprise using the crack-house law began with the arrest in October 2001 of 16 people linked to the rave scene in Boise. For 18 months, police had amassed evidence linking Ecstasy's appearance in the city to raves that were held in a local warehouse. Rave promoters hired security to keep drugs out of the parties so the promoters' own dealers could sell drugs there exclusively, U.S. Attorney Tom Moss said. "We learned that they were basically glorified drug parties," Moss said. "It's a classic crack-house (type) situation." Authorities arrested 29 people on drug charges. Three  two promoters and a disk jockey  were convicted under the crack-house statute and received federal prison sentences. Now the rave scene in Boise, if it exists, has gone underground, Boise Mayor Brent Coles says. "It's known throughout the illegal drug industry that in Boise, you're going to be observed and prosecuted," Coles says. "It's no longer profitable to hold a rave in Boise." The most significant assault on raves could come from Congress. A Senate bill called the Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy (RAVE) Act attempts to close loopholes in the crack-house law that have made it difficult for prosecutors to use it to shut down raves. The crack-house statute targeted run-down buildings and owners who allowed their properties to become havens for drug dealers. Raves often are transient affairs, moving from warehouses to theaters to nightclubs. The new legislation would make it easier for prosecutors to go after the promoters of events, rather than have to focus on a certain location. The bill has been passed by a Senate committee and is on the Senate's consent agenda, which means it could be passed without a recorded vote at any time. The House is considering a similar bill. Ravers, disk jockeys and party promoters say that if the bill becomes law, it would suffocate the budding electronic music genre. Rave promoters say they would be reluctant to feature music that might draw interest from anti-drug agents. The ACLU says the bill violates the First Amendment right to expression by targeting a form of music and criminalizing a culture. The Electronic Music Defense and Education Fund, a group that formed to help the State Palace promoters fight the charges against them, calls the proposed law and the government's approach to raves "misguided." "It's not going to stop raves ..., and it's not going to stop people from obtaining drugs," says Susan Mainzer, spokeswoman for the fund and owner of a company that promotes electronic music artists. Rave support groups have used Internet chat rooms, Web sites and e-mail to collect more than 10,000 signatures for a petition protesting the Senate bill. In September, they held protest raves in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C. In what perhaps was a reflection of the groups' political inexperience, they held the D.C. protest the day Congress was in New York to honor victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The protest at the U.S. Capitol drew several hundred ravers. Camille Sevigny, 25, a student at the University of Maryland and a part-time disk jockey from Adelphi, Md., says he's not sure why lawmakers have focused on raves. "You listen to about half the rap songs and they're not rapping about marijuana, they're rapping about Ecstasy," he says. "I agree drugs are wrong, but you're going about it the wrong way." "We don't need drugs to get energy and dance all night," added Rob Erickson, 18, a high school senior from Fairfax County, Va., who had dyed his hair lavender on one side and Big Bird yellow on the other. "I can listen to this music and vibe off it." But anti-drug specialists say rave music and drugs are inseparable, and that the rave culture is largely defined by Ecstasy. Jim Mock, a former police officer from Torrance, Calif. whose company, Drug ID, offers courses in drug awareness, identification and spotting people under the influence, has assessed drug use at rock concerts, Gothic parties and raves. "At raves, it runs at least twice what it does in other scenes," Mock said. "The only thing comparable to raves (are) Grateful Dead" concerts, where he said use of the hallucinogen LSD is common. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, a co-sponsor of the bill in that chamber, rejects criticism that it targets music and other forms of expression. "There's nothing wrong with dances. But if they are a cover for the illicit sale of drugs and the person holding the rave knows it, you can't tolerate that." Hospitals busy on rave nights New Orleans is home to around-the-clock partying in the French Quarter and bars that serve mixed drinks in cups to go. But officials and health specialists continue to be taken aback by the flood of overdosed teens that hits hospitals during big raves. Teens who take Ecstasy and other drugs arrive "in waves," sometimes barely breathing, says Keith Van Meter, section head for emergency medicine at Charity Hospital, the medical center closest to the State Palace theater. "Sometimes it'll be a catastrophe if there's a particularly strong batch of drugs going around." On some rave nights, doctors at Charity will see as many as 15 overdosed ravers, Van Meter says. "Most frustrating is the contention by the promoters that there is nothing wrong. It's maddening." Several hours into the theater's September rave, at about 4:30 a.m., a young woman collapsed on the dance floor. A security guard called paramedics, who carried her through a side door to a damp, garbage-strewn sidewalk. She was alone. Paramedics arrived and quickly gave her oxygen. She was taken to a hospital a bit later. Inside the theater, the music played on.

March 18-22, 2003 Radisson Deauville Resort Miami Beach, Florida mmm. . will this be my first time at the WMC?

After these glowing reviews, how could I resist?

Wow that's not SPAM or anything. . next time maybe you'd want to avoid the incredibly obvious plug and posting the same thing on each and every board. .

Hmm. . .like shopping at a CVS/pharmacy on a Friday evening? utter nonsense

"Why oh why didn't we listen to Mr. T? Illy is bad stuff. ....ackgarrgleacchhk...."

I think my boyfriend and I will give this a shot. . .we've been waiting a long time for our break and this looks like the lucky event to make it happen! Here is our promo pic! What do you think? . . .

Drug users turn to embalming fluid Recreational drug users in the US are using embalming fluid to get a high - even though it is highly dangerous and can make them violent and psychotic. Research has found that the use of embalming fluid is becoming increasingly popular among young people who are searching for new drug experiences. It is thought that the craze has spread from the inner cities into more affluent suburban areas. Julie Kirlin, a juvenile probation officer in Reading, about 50 miles from Philadelphia, said: "Kids who are smoking pot or crack and are looking for a different type of high are turning to wet. "This is a violent drug, and it will turn into a big fire if it's not watched very closely." The most common method is to dip a tobacco or marijuana cigarette in the embalming fluid, then dry it before smoking it. The cigarettes are sold for about $20 a piece. They are known by a variety of names, including "wet", "fry" and "illy". Embalming fluid is mixture of the preservative formaldehyde, methanol, ethanol and other solvents. Formaldehyde can be bought in chemists, and is an ingredient of nail care products. It is also widely used in science labs. There have been reports of the fluid being stolen from funeral parlours in Louisiana and New York. The samples from the street that have been analysed have also been found to contain PCP, an anaesthetic that was dropped by hospitals after it was found to induce hallucinations. It is this component that is probably responsible for the users' high. Scientists from the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse interviewed 20 users from the Houston area. They reported that the effects of embalming fluid included visual and auditory hallucinations, euphoria, a feeling of invincibility and increased pain tolerance. The high lasts from six hours to three days. However, the drug also produced feeling of anger, forgetfulness and paranoia. Last year a 14-year-old boy from Philadelphia fatally stabbed a neighbour more than 70 times after smoking wet. Stranger symptoms reported include an overwhelming desire to undress and a strong dislike of meat. (wtf? -cookie) Other symptoms may include coma, seizures, kidney failure and stroke. Dr Julie Holland, of New York University School of Medicine, said: "The idea of embalming fluid appeals to people's morbid curiosity about death. "There's a certain gothic appeal to it."

:laugh:

Old Axl: New Axl:

God Bless the Europeans! Now that the Republicans own this country, I just may move there. . .

I thought this was pretty funny, not merely b/c of the hokey new GnR thingy, but because of the accompanying pic, at the bottom. . Fans riot after Guns N'Roses no-show canada.com & Global BC Friday, November 08, 2002 Vancouver police had to break up a riot Thursday night by angry rock fans after the last-minute cancellation of a Guns N' Roses concert. Thousands of rock fans flew into rage at GM Place last night after the no-show by lead singer Axl Rose. They smashed windows and doors, threw down barricades and tossed rocks at police. Dog teams were called in and police used clubs and pepper spray to clear the rioters from the streets. Several arrests were made but no one was seriously hurt. The concert was to have been the first North American show of the band's world tour. A Guns N' Roses spokesman says poor weather made it impossible for the lead singer's plane to fly into Vancouver. The band rehearsed Wednesday at GM Place without Axl Rose. Promoters say ticket refunds will be available next Thursday. Vancouver fans riot following cancellation of Guns N' Roses concert That's Rioting?!? Damn those rowdy Canadians. .

Hi guys! What an amazing trip -- hope the storm out West isn't pounding you too hard . . .unless you're headed for the slopes! Take care and keep us updated! Good Luck! 'stina

I think I have some leftover from those Trick or Treaters I robbed. . .

. . .sounds about right. tiny, the vulture isn't usually accompanied by weird noises, but it is a very adaptable move! use it in whatever way you need to!

true. . .I retract my earlier statement. . .

"the system is down, the system is down!" OK how many times is this thing gonna get posted?