Cannabis law change 'illogical'

The reclassification of cannabis as a Class B drug has come into effect in England amid complaints by magistrates the new laws are "illogical".

The government said it went against its advisors to upgrade the drug because of worries of its affect on mental health.

Magistrates welcomed the reclassification but said planned fines for possessing small amounts undermined the more serious classification.

They said it sent the signal cannabis is not as bad as other Class B drugs.

Plans to introduce a "three strikes" system for cannabis possession start with a warning, then an £80 spot fine for a second offence.

Only when a third offence is committed, will the person be liable to arrest and prosecution.

Penalties for drug offences

The spot fine proposal is due for further consultation after magistrates expressed concerns about taking offences away from the courts system.

The Magistrates' Association argued that some of the offences were too serious to be dealt with out of court and that penalty payment rates were low.

The fines are to be debated in the Lords on Monday and are expected to come into force on Wednesday.

Currently, police can only warn or prosecute people caught in possession of cannabis.

The maximum prison term for possessing cannabis rises from two to five years with its reclassification.

Home Office minister Alan Campbell said: "Cannabis is a harmful drug and while fewer people are taking it than before, it poses a real risk to the health of those who do use it."

He added: "We are reclassifying cannabis to protect the public and future generations."

But John Fassenfelt, deputy chair of the Magistrates' Association, said the fine system would send out mixed messages.

"What is that telling the youngster on the street?" he said.

"Is it telling them well, you can have cannabis, it's not so serious as other Class B drugs.

"It's a dual justice system. If you smoke or take another Class B drug you'll be brought to court, if you take cannabis you'll be given a fine. Where's the justice in that?"

A £2.2m TV, radio and internet campaign will launch next month to warn young people about the dangers of using the drug.

'Three times stronger'


Home Secretary Jacqui Smith decided to reclassify cannabis despite an Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs' review - commissioned by Gordon Brown - saying it should remain Class C.

Ms Smith said stronger "skunk" varieties account for 80% of the cannabis seized on the streets, and that the drug is nearly three times stronger than in 1995.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: "The move to Class B has got nothing to do with public health and education and everything to do with posturing on penalties.

"This farce would have been avoided had ministers heeded the advice of the experts on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs."

The advisory council's report, Cannabis: Classification and Public Health, described the drug as a "significant public health issue".

But it said it should still remain a Class C drug, saying the risks were not as serious as those of Class B substances such as amphetamines and barbiturates.

Class C includes substances such as tranquilisers, some painkillers, GHB (so-called "liquid ecstasy") and ketamine. Possession of Class C drugs is treated largely as a non-arrestable offence.

The Conservatives have said the government's reversal of its earlier decision showed the downgrading of cannabis had been a mistake.

PENALTIES FOR DRUG DEALING AND POSSESSION

Drug class Type of drug Possession Dealing
Class A Ecstasy, LSD, heroin, cocaine, crack, magic mushrooms, amphetamines (if prepared for injection). Up to seven years in prison or an unlimited fine or both. Up to life in prison or an unlimited fine or both.
Class B Cannabis, amphetamines, Methylphenidate (Ritalin), Pholcodine. Up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine or both. Up to 14 years in prison or an unlimited fine or both.
Class C Tranquilisers, some painkillers, Gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB), Ketamine. Up to two years in prison or an unlimited fine or both. Up to 14 years in prison or an unlimited fine or both

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7850342.stm

Man freezes to death after city limits electricity

93-year-old man had more than $1,000 in unpaid power bills

BAY CITY, Mich. - A 93-year-old man froze to death inside his home just days after the municipal power company restricted his use of electricity because of unpaid bills, officials said.

Marvin E. Schur died "a slow, painful death," said Kanu Virani, Oakland County's deputy chief medical examiner, who performed the autopsy.

Neighbors discovered Schur's body on Jan. 17. They said the indoor temperature was below 32 degrees at the time, The Bay City Times reported Monday.

"Hypothermia shuts the whole system down, slowly," Virani said. "It's not easy to die from hypothermia without first realizing your fingers and toes feel like they're burning."

'Limiter' device installed
Schur owed Bay City Electric Light & Power more than $1,000 in unpaid electric bills, Bay City Manager Robert Belleman told The Associated Press on Monday.

A city utility worker had installed a "limiter" device to restrict the use of electricity at Schur's home on Jan. 13, said Belleman. The device limits power reaching a home and blows out like a fuse if consumption rises past a set level. Power is not restored until the device is reset.

The limiter was tripped sometime between the time of installation and the discovery of Schur's body, Belleman said. He didn't know if anyone had made personal contact with Schur to explain how the device works.

The body was discovered by neighbor George Pauwels Jr.

"His furnace was not running, the insides of his windows were full of ice the morning we found him," Pauwels told the Bay City News.

Power shut off if bills unpaid
Belleman said city workers keep the limiter on houses for 10 days, then shut off power entirely if the homeowner hasn't paid utility bills or arranged to do so.

He said Bay City Electric Light & Power's policies will be reviewed, but he didn't believe the city did anything wrong.

"I've said this before and some of my colleagues have said this: Neighbors need to keep an eye on neighbors," Belleman said. "When they think there's something wrong, they should contact the appropriate agency or city department."

Schur had no children and his wife had died several years ago.

Bay City is on Saginaw Bay, just north of the city of Saginaw in central Michigan.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28858971/

Downandup/Conficker worm infects 9 million PCs

Judging from the complaints and questions filling my inbox, Windows security looks like it's already on track for its worst year this decade. The latest attack is a worm called Downandup, Downadup, Kido!, or Conficker (all the same thing), and it primarily seems to be being delivered via infected USB drives.


How's it work? By tricking you into running the virus by modifying the way "autorun" works when you plug in a drive. Look closely at the screenshot above and you'll see two entries for "Open folder to view files." The one at the top is a phony entry that actually installs the virus on your machine... but of course it's the default selection that pops up when you plug in a drive. Once installed, the virus spreads like crazy via a separate flaw in Windows networking system (now patched, so be sure to run Windows Update if you haven't lately) and can quickly infect a whole office. F-Secure has more analysis on the clever way it tricks you into installing the malware yourself.

How bad has it gotten? Estimates range from 3.5 million infected in the first four days after it bean spreading to 9 million impacted... and gettng worse. By now I figure the numbers could top 15 or 20 million.

From an antivirus standpoint, fixing Downandup isn't easy. The worm is particularly problematic because of the tricky way it involves the user in installing the software, bypassing auto-installation safeguards, plus its sophisticated way of avoiding detection, as it morphs its code constantly (using randomized elements) to make traditional, signature-based detection almost impossible.

Your best strategy for avoiding Downandup? Turn off AutoPlay/AutoRun on your computer (with Windows XP, TweakUI is the easiest way to do it). If you do see an AutoPlay dialog box like the one above, just close it and eject the disc or thumbdrive; browsing the drive manually for individual files should keep you uninfected, but you're best off not using the drive at all. And of course, make sure your system is fully patched via Windows Update.

What if you already have Downandup infecting your machine? Try your standard antivirus utility as a fix. If that doesn't work, F-Secure has a removal tool that should get rid of it. Good luck out there.

Source: http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/116396

Fossil illuminates jaw evolution

A fossil fish is shedding light on the evolution of jawed vertebrates.

It is one of the earliest known jawed fish in the fossil record, a scientist from Uppsala University, Sweden, reports in the journal Nature.

The specimen is the first example of a well-preserved braincase of a group of extinct fish called acanthodians from the Paleozoic era.


The fossil fish was unearthed in Herefordshire, UK, in the 1940s and is an estimated 415 million years old.

The study was led by Martin Brazeau from Uppsala University in Sweden.

"Because of their superficially shark-like and bony fish-like appearance, acanthodians have played an important role in trying to elucidate the origins of modern jawed vertebrates," he told BBC News.

Different proportions

The fossil's dimensions differ from typical Acanthodes fossils in two important ways, Dr Brazeau explains.

The front of the preserved head is short while the back end is long.

"This is really what braincases of early sharks and armoured fish looked like," he says.

"When we look at early bony fishes, the back end of the braincase is very short and the front end is long - which is what Acanthodes were like."

"This figures in nicely with the emerging idea that acanthodians don't form a group of fishes that are all closely related to each other. Some of these fossils are primitive sharks while others are primitive bony fishes."

The study also suggests that some acanthodians are ancestors to all modern jawed vertebrates.

"We've already got scores of known acanthodians, but braincases are known in only one of these, belonging to the Acanthodes genus.

"Fitting them into the picture of early jawed vertebrate evolution has been extremely difficult because of the lack of data."

"Previously, we've had to operate on an assumption that the braincase of the Acanthodes fossil was stereotypical for all the other acanthodians.

Found at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7830479.stm

Mexican collapse? Drug wars worry some Americans

MEXICO CITY – Indiscriminate kidnappings. Nearly daily beheadings. Gangs that mock and kill government agents.

This isn't Iraq or Pakistan. It's Mexico, which the U.S. government and a growing number of experts say is becoming one of the world's biggest security risks.

The prospect that America's southern neighbor could melt into lawlessness provides an unexpected challenge to Barack Obama's new government. In its latest report anticipating possible global security risks, the U.S. Joint Forces Command lumps Mexico and Pakistan together as being at risk of a "rapid and sudden collapse."

"The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels," the command said in the report published Nov. 25.

"How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state."

Retiring CIA chief Michael Hayden told reporters on Friday that that Mexico could rank alongside Iran as a challenge for Obama — perhaps a greater problem than Iraq.

The U.S. Justice Department said last month that Mexican gangs are the "biggest organized crime threat to the United States." National security adviser Stephen Hadley said last week that the worsening violence threatens Mexico's very democracy.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recently told The New York Times he ordered additional border security plans to be drawn up this summer as kidnappings and killings spilled into the U.S.

The alarm is spreading to the private sector as well. Mexico, Latin America's second biggest economy and the United States' third biggest oil supplier, is one of the top 10 global risks for 2009 identified by the Eurasia Group, a New York-based consulting firm.

Mexico is brushing aside the U.S. concerns, with Interior Secretary Fernando Gomez-Mont saying Wednesday: "It seems inappropriate to me that you would call Mexico a security risk. There are problems in Mexico that are being dealt with, that we can continue to deal with, and that's what we are doing."



Still, Obama faces a dramatic turnaround compared with the last time a new U.S. president moved into the White House. When George W. Bush was elected in 2000, the nation of 110 million had just chosen Vicente Fox as president in its fairest election ever, had ended 71 years of one-party rule and was looking forward to a stable, democratic future.

Fox signaled readiness to take on the drug cartels, but plunged them into a power vacuum by arresting their leaders, and gangs have been battling each other for territory ever since.

Felipe Calderon, who succeeded Fox in 2006, immediately sent troops across the country to try to regain control. But soldiers and police are outgunned and outnumbered, and cartels have responded with unprecedented violence.

Mob murders doubled from 2007, taking more than 5,300 lives last year. The border cities of Juarez and Tijuana wake up each morning to find streets littered with mutilated, often headless bodies. Some victims are dumped outside schools. Most are just wrapped in a cheap blanket and tossed into an empty lot.

Many bodies go unclaimed because relatives are too afraid to come forward. Most killings go unsolved.

Warring cartels still control vast sections of Mexico, despite Calderon's two-year crackdown, and have spawned an all-pervasive culture of violence. No one is immune.

Businesses have closed because they can't afford to pay monthly extortion fees to local thugs. The rich have fled to the U.S. to avoid one of the world's highest kidnapping rates. Many won't leave their homes at night.

The government has launched an intensive housecleaning effort after high-level security officials were accused of being on the take from the Sinaloa cartel. And several soldiers fighting the gangs were kidnapped, beheaded and dumped in southern Mexico last month with the warning: "For every one of mine that you kill, I will kill 10."

But the U.S. government is extremely supportive of the Mexican president, recently handing over $400 million in anti-drug aid. Obama met briefly with Calderon in Washington last week and promised to fight the illegal flow south of U.S. weapons that arm the Mexican cartels.

While fewer Americans are willing to drive across the border for margaritas and handicrafts, visitors are still flocking to other parts of Mexico. And the economy seems harder hit by the global crisis than by the growing violence.

The grim assessments from north of the border got wide play in the Mexican media but came as no surprise to people here. Many said the solution lies in getting the U.S. to give more help and let in more migrant workers who might otherwise turn to the drug trade to make a living.

Otherwise the drug wars will spill ever more heavily into America, said Manuel Infante, an architect. "There is a wave of barbarity that is heading toward the U.S.," he said. "We are an uncomfortable neighbor."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090118/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_mexico_besieged