The London Times reports:

Middle-class wine drinkers will be the focus of government plans to make drunkenness as socially unacceptable as smoking, The Times has learnt.

Under the plans published today, a fresh audit is to be conducted by the Government into the overall costs of alcohol abuse to society and the National Health Service.

“We want to target older drinkers, those that are maybe drinking one or two bottles of wine at home each evening,” a Whitehall source said. “They do not realise the damage they are doing to their health and that they risk developing liver disease. …

The move comes as The Times has been told that the British Medical Association is to investigate measures used in other countries to curb excessive alcohol consumption. Doctors’ leaders are also calling for pubs and restaurants to display warnings stating how many units of alcohol are contained in drinks served by the glass.

Today’s strategy, by the Home Office and the Department of Health, broadens the Government’s offensive against excessive drinking, with the focus moving beyond teenagers and the binge-drinkers to include those regularly sipping wine at home.

As part of the strategy, ministers wish to highlight the increasing burden that drink-related disease is placing on the NHS, which four years ago was estimated to be costing between £1.3 billion and £1.7 billion. Ministers want drunkenness in public to be as socially unacceptable in ten years’ time as smoking or drink-driving is today.

Last night Ian Gilmore, President of the Royal College of Physicians, gave his full support to the focus on the health costs of heavy drinking. “We really need the spotlight more on health. While crime and antisocial behaviour is important it’s too easy to concentrate on that because it’s somebody else causing the trouble.

“When you look at health it’s more uncomfortable because there’s a very significant percentage of the population already drinking at potentially hazardous levels.”

With alcohol costing 54 per cent less in real terms than in 1980, Professor Gilmore, a liver specialist, also called on the Chancellor to raise drink taxes.

Socialized medicine demonstrably involves the surrender of private liberty to the nanny state now in charge of paying your doctor bill.

The Telegraph has a story illustrated the price of free socialized health care.

Smokers could be denied routine operations on the NHS unless they quit a month before surgery.

In this month’s Vanity Fair, Nick Tosches serves up a tour d’horizon of the world of sushi from Tokyo’s Tuskiji fish-market where fish merchants use out-sized samurai swords to slice 300 lb. (136.36 kg.) tuna into quarters, to the locally famous Daiwa hidden in nondescript Tokyo streets in search of sea pineapple, to super high end restaurants like Sugiyama and Masa in New York where dinner for one can cost $480.

Sample excerpt:

My companion, the Japanese translator Eva Yagino, speaks to the chef, Hiroyoshi Gota, who tells her that, among the many sakes sold here, there’s a special sake, made by the Miyagi brewer Uragasumi, that’s rarely available. The waitress pours us some, letting the cold sake overflow to the ceramic saucer beneath the masu, the sake box, made of the same pale wood, hinoki—a cypress that grows only in Japan—from which the best sushi-bar counters are crafted. A ceramic dish of sea salt is placed on the table, and Eva-san sets me straight: I’m to put a pinch of the salt on a corner of the masu, drink from that corner, raising the masu and ceramic saucer together, replenish the salt in the corner whenever I want, and in the end drink all the spillage in the saucer; then order more sake and do it again. As we sip our salted spillage, Eva-san translates the menu for me.

“Nodo-kuro,” she says. “A white fish with a black throat from the Sea of Japan. It is rarely caught.”

As she continues, I recall the way Tom Asakawa smiled when he said, ” … and other things.”

“Anglerfish liver. Ayu-fish guts. Sea-cucumber guts. Oh, and look at all these whale dishes: whale sushi; hari-hari nabe—that’s whale meat with mizuna, a sort of Japanese mustard green that looks like a dandelion green; whale bacon; whale skin; whale tongue; whale brain; shinzo (that’s whale heart); whale ovary—and, oh, here’s your hoya sashi, your raw sea pineapple. Sashi is what the restaurant people call sashimi.”

As I ponder my choices, Eva-san tells me about mamushi-zake. It’s a sake to which, during fermentation, a mamushi is added. The mamushi, a type of pit viper, is one of the two species of poisonous snakes indigenous to Japan. Introduced live into the fermenting sake, it releases its poison into the brew as it leaves this vale of tears. Unlike the Chinese, the Japanese are not big on snake eating, but there is this sake.

“I need to drink that,” I say.

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

What was the #1 song on …

– the day you were born?

– the day you graduated from high school?

– the day you were married?

– the day your child was born?

– the approximate date you were conceived?

web-site link

Hat tip to David L. Larkin.

A touching tribute to US WWII veterans.

11:30 video.

When an open boat bearing illegal immigrants to Europe from Libya lost power, Boudafel, a Maltese tug towing a tuna-breeding plant to Spain threw those on board a line and proceeded to give them a tow.

The boat then foundered and sank, and the Maltese tug, obeying orders from owners ashore, refused to stop to provide further assistance.

Survivors were left to cling to the buoys holding up the tuna farm’s system of nets. In the end, 27 young men were rescued by the Italian Navy.

The Independent:

For three days and three nights, these African migrants clung desperately to life. Their means of survival is a tuna net, being towed across the Mediterranean by a Maltese tug that refused to take them on board after their frail boat sank.

Malta and Libya, where they had embarked on their perilous journey, washed their hands of them. Eventually, they were rescued by the Italian navy.

The astonishing picture shows them hanging on to the buoys that support the narrow runway that runs around the top of the net. They had had practically nothing to eat or drink.

Last night, on the island of Lampedusa, the 27 young men – from Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Sudan and other countries – told of their ordeal. As their flimsy boat from Libya floundered adrift for six days, two fishing boats failed to rescue them. On Wednesday, the Maltese boat, the Budafel allowed them to mount the walkway but refused to have them on board.

————————————

Last Monday, another open boat containing 53 illegal immigrant African men, women, and children also lost its engine, and was sighted in distress from the air 90 miles south of Malta. Contact with the vessel was lost, and at first the 27 survivors rescued clinging to the tuna nets were believed to have come from this vessel.

In the end, it was established to have been a second boat, and bodies of its passengers were found Friday.

Reuters:

A French navy ship found around 20 bodies floating off the south coast of the Mediterranean island of Malta on Friday, a maritime official said.

The frigate Motte-Picquet was on a routine surveillance mission when it spotted the bodies.

“We are in the process of picking up some dead bodies,” said Emmanuel Dinh, spokesman for France’s Mediterranean maritime authority.

He said he could not give a precise number but said: “There will certainly be around 20.”

Dinh said there was no sign of a boat and the navy could not yet identify where the bodies came from.

“They are in a state of decomposition so they have been in the sea for several days,” he added.

Last week 27 shipwrecked Africans spent three days clinging to tuna nets in the Mediterranean while Malta and Libya argued over who should rescue them. They were eventually picked up by the Italian navy.

Malta refused to allow a Spanish tugboat to land another 26 would-be migrants. Spain decided to take them in.

The migrants’ plight sparked calls from European Union officials for EU countries to adopt common rules to clarify who is responsible for saving them at sea.

Hat tip to José Guardia.

At Maggie’s Farm.

They look like Western Diamondbacks (Crotalus atrox) to me.

I ran over a pretty large snakeskin when I was mowing yesterday. I expect I have my own rattlesnakes right here atop the Blue Ridge.

Los Angeles Times:

Former 18th Street gang member Hector “Weasel” Marroquin for years was celebrated and rewarded for having turned his life around.

He founded the anti-gang organization NO GUNS and received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the city for his efforts to help steer Latino youths away from a life of crime. His champions included former state Sen. Tom Hayden.

But his arrest this week on charges of selling firearms to federal undercover officers underscored concerns long held by people familiar with Marroquin’s background that he had not left his criminal life behind.

“I never for a moment believed that he ever left the life,” said Connie Rice, a civil rights attorney and former member of the Los Angeles Police Commission who noted that she saw Marroquin at meetings of anti-gang agencies. “I always thought he was using the system.”

Marroquin, 51, was arrested Thursday at his Downey home on charges of selling several guns, including a machine gun, two silencers and two rifles, to undercover officers. He bailed out of Los Angeles County jail Thursday night and could not be reached for comment.

His lawyer, Patrick Smith, did not return phone calls Friday. …

Marroquin’s arrest marks the latest chapter in a life filled with controversy.

In the mid-1990s, claiming to have left the gang life, Marroquin formed NO GUNS — Networks Organized for Gang Unity and Neighborhood Safety — headquartered in Lennox. Over the next decade, NO GUNS emerged as one of the area’s few anti-gang groups run by Latinos.

In 2000, the Sheriff’s Department called in NO GUNS to help quell riots between Latinos and blacks at its Pitchess Detention Center.

But some law enforcement officials believed that Marroquin was a front man for the Mexican Mafia prison gang and that NO GUNS was a facade for illegal activity and a channel for public funds.

Classic.

The sleeper awakes to find Communism gone, replaced by prosperity and plenitude.

Reuters:

A Polish man has woken up from a 19-year coma to find the Communist party no longer in power and food no longer rationed, Polish TV reports.

Railway worker Jan Grzebski, 65, fell into a coma after he was hit by a train in 1988.

“Now I see people on the streets with mobile phones and there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin,” he told Polish television. …

When Mr Grzebski had his accident Poland was still ruled by its last communist leader, Wojciech Jaruzelski.

“When I went into a coma there was only tea and vinegar in the shops, meat was rationed and huge petrol queues were everywhere,” Mr Grzebski said.

The following year’s elections ushered in eastern Europe’s first post-communist government.

Poland joined the Nato alliance in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.

“What amazes me today is all these people who walk around with their mobile phones and never stop moaning,” said Mr Grzebski.

“I’ve got nothing to complain about.”

Hat tip to Robert Breedlove and Toni Marcus.

An Iraqi news cameraman employed by Associated Press died Thursday defending his home and neighborhood against Al Qaeda insurgents. His family and friends said he died a martyr’s death, and laid a bullet on his chest as a symbol of his heroism.

But his employer behaved differently. Rather than reporting that Saif Mohammed Fakhry had died a hero, fighting rifle in hand, against the enemies of the Iraqi government and of the United States, the Associated Press misleading described him as just another victim, killed senselessly walking to a nearby mosque on his day off.

AP reports:

An Associated Press Television News cameraman was killed in Baghdad on Thursday while walking to a mosque near his home on his day off.

Saif M. Fakhry, 26, was the fifth AP employee to die violently in the Iraq war and the third killed since December.

“Our heartfelt sympathies go out to Saif’s wife and family and his colleagues in Iraq,” said AP President and CEO Tom Curley.

“This is a particularly dangerous time in a place that already is unimaginably dangerous. Saif’s death reminds us again of the risks and hardships that accompany vital frontline journalism and of the gratitude we all owe to those who do it.”

Family members said Fakhry, who worked for APTN since August 2004, was spending the day with his wife, Samah Abbas, who is pregnant with their first child and expecting in June.

According to his family, Fakhry was walking to a mosque in the Baghdad neighborhood of Amariyah when he was shot. Gunmen had been involved in fighting in the area around his home for two days, but it was not clear who fired the shots that killed Fakhry.

But his brothers, Omar and Yasser, both also journalists, told Jane Arraf that he had gone out armed into the street to defend his neighborhood against Al Qaeda terrorists.

“I told him to stay inside – that the fighting was none of our business,” he told me, still sobbing. “He was a peaceful man but he said: ‘They are killing us every day – we live like this with no electricity, with no water and they are killing us.”

Saif had gone into the street carrying the rifle that each family in Baghdad is allowed to own. …

One of the imams leading the group said they killed an al-Qaeda leader and two other al-Qaeda members in the clashes Thursday.

Saif, who drew his last breath in a mosque after fighting for his home, died a martyr’s death. His friends laid a bullet on his chest.

His brother Omar mourns over Saif Fahkry’s body

————————————

The Associated Press chooses to deny the honor due to the courage of its own employee in order to avoid confirming truths about the War in Iraq inconvenient to its customarily prejudiced perspective. What a disgrace to their profession and their humanity.

It used to be Texans who made news with unprecedentedly large outlays on conspicuous forms of high living. These days, it’s billionaires from India.

The DailyMail reports:

India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, is planning a palace in the heart of Mumbai with helipad, health club, hanging gardens and six floors of car parking.

His wife, mother and three children will live there with him, looked after by 600 live-in staff.

Construction has already started on what will eventually be a 175m tower and planners are aiming to complete it in September 2008.

Earlier this year, Forbes rated Mr Ambani as the richest resident Indian with a net worth of US$20.1 billion.

He came 14th in Forbes’ 2007 worldwide rankings.

Currently he is chairman of petroleum major Reliance Industries Ltd, India’s largest private sector company

The building, already worth £500 million, could start a rush on skyscrapers.

The Age reports:

The building, named Antilla after a mythical island, will have a total floor area greater than Versailles.

Hat tip to Dominique R. Poirier.

Hillary at Applied Materials

Palo Alto Daily News:

Clinton used the presidential campaign stop at Applied Materials in Santa Clara to unveil a nine-point “innovation agenda” to combat fear of surrounding global competition. …

The senator’s nine-point agenda focuses on spending more government funds on education and research in math, science and technology, and on using incentives to encourage companies to pursue new ideas. …

Clinton’s proposals include doubling the budgets of the national science and health foundations, increasing the number and size of innovation-oriented fellowships and starting a $50 billion “strategic energy fund” to break the cycle of energy dependence.

The senator also emphasized the need to build the infrastructure for innovation, including constructing broadband Internet works, recruiting more women and minorities to the fields of science and technology, and retaining foreign workers who graduate from U.S. universities. …

her affirmation of visas and green cards for immigrant and foreign employees brought the afternoon’s most enthusiastic applause.