Sunday Morning Coming Down

 The following is a summary report from the CDC regarding opioid deaths.  There were almost 58,000 casualties during the Viet Nam War.  Drug overdose deaths will soon exceed those war deaths.   Summary What is already known about this topic?The U.S. opioid epidemic is continuing. Drug overdose deaths nearly tripled during 1999–2014. In 2014, among 47,055 drug overdose deaths, 61% involved an opioid. During 2013–2014, deaths associated with the most commonly prescribed opioids (natural/semisynthetic opioids) continued to increase slightly; however, the rapid increase in deaths appears to be driven by heroin and synthetic opioids other than methadone. What is added by this report?From 2014 to 2015, the death rate from synthetic opioids other than methadone, which includes fentanyl, increased by 72.2%, and heroin death rates increased by 20.6%. Rates of death involving heroin and synthetic opioids other than methadone increased across all demographic gr...

Today was a good day in quarter horse racing.  My friend Randy Weidner had the fastest qualifier in the NCQHRA Futurity this afternoon at Canterbury Park.  JJSIR James ran 350 yards in 17.890 seconds.  Speed Index 96 was super.  Owner Jerry Olson has a good one. Justine Klaiber was in saddle and the Brown County Fair Champion did not disappoint.  The finals are in two weeks.

If the President doesn't like Jeff Sessions now, didn't like and fired FBI Director James Comey, and has issues with Special Counsel Robert Muller and the Assistant Attorney General Robert Rosenstein where do we go from here. Is the President taking lessons from Venezuela's and Russia's leaders? Martyrdom is not obtained easily.  Which leads to question whether the current POTUS really wants to be President?  He certainly is more concerned about doing things his way, regardless of the law, public opinion, the media, and almost all of Europe, and a lot of the rest of the world. The association with Russia is odd, except for a lot of questions I have about following the money.  If money, finance and self dealing is considered the President's behavior is crooked but at least understandable.  Everything you might have worried about with HRC has come true with this President. He may have never have thought he was going to win the election, but he did and this mes...

Just finished watching an all star French military band play the Best of Daft Punk honoring Bastille Day:  including "Get Lucky, Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, and One More Time".  What a hoot!

I remember watching news about a baseball promotion from Comiskey Park promising "disco demolition".  It a baseball promotion gone very bad.  Not many folks were expected, maybe 20,000 but Bill Veeck decided to almost give away the tickets @98 cents brought back memories of Woodstock and logistics gone seriously wrong. Blow up a disco record, drink beer, attend a riot, maybe watch a baseball game.  Vinyl projectiles sailed from the seats, there were thirty nine arrests, nine injuries, and the White Sox had to forfeit the second game of a double header. Had I been living in Chicago I might have attended that game.  This was the beginning of the end of the 70's.  I still like Donna Summer to this day and the Bee Gees and Disco still had legs in Miami.

I got into a discussion about public transportation a day or so ago while bitching about traffic in Miami, Florida.  I suggested that a newly retired friend get a golden passport which allowed somebody 65 or older to ride the buses or the local rail system for free. Free bus passes given to those over 65 years old are a drag on other parts of a public transportation budget because some of the money might be used for maintenance issues for buses or to build up reserves for new buses. The scary truth about urban public transportation budgets almost everywhere in the United States is that fares don't cover costs and don't attract enough riders.  Americans love their cars and an awful lot of money is spent on roads to accommodate cars to the detriment of urban rapid transit.  Suburban sprawl related to housing and lower gas prices of late doesn't help folks to give up their cars either. There are positive benefits for reduced or even free public transportation.  Park...