Alcoholism is now so out of control in Alaska that some stores are forced to keep everyday products containing alcohol behind lock and key.

Common household products alcohol addicts are abusing... can you guess what they are? We'll tell you at 6 @ktva pic.twitter.com/tj2oQUQFT2

— Daniella Rivera (@RiveraDanie) September 14, 2017

The answer, by the way, is vanilla extract, hand sanitizer, mouthwash, and brake fluid. All containing enough alcohol to make them irresistible to addicts.

Courtesy of KTVA: 

While alcohol abuse in Alaska is nothing new, desperation among addicts is becoming more visible inside Anchorage grocery stores. When users can no longer legally buy liquor, they turn to common household products, forcing many businesses to move them behind the counter, in some cases storing them under lock and key.

Last month, while filming an unrelated story, a KTVA news crew watched a man near Bean’s Café down two small bottles of liquid, throw them on the ground, and ride away on a bike while the camera was rolling. The bottles on the ground, now empty, once held vanilla extract. 

Krystal Taddicken, who lives at the Brother Francis Shelter, told KTVA a the time, vanilla extract is an easy way for an addict to get drunk if they can’t buy alcohol. 

“It shows that it’s 35 percent minimum of alcohol, it’s one of the highest alcohol there is,” she told KTVA, picking the bottle up off the ground and pointing to the ingredients listed on the back. 

It’s not just vanilla extract, addicts are using anything that contains alcohol to get drunk, including mouth wash, hand sanitizer and according to the Anchorage Fire Department, brake fluid.

Alcoholism has been a problem in this state, I believe even before we became a state.

My family is essentially wall to wall alcoholics, with only a few nonconformists like my daughter and I standing out from the herd.

And it is much worse among the homeless community.

All of my life I have seen drunks passed out in the woods and along bike paths laying next to bottles of everything from store bought booze to cleaning products that they have huffed or ingested.

I once saw a homeless guy spraying what looked like a disinfectant of some kind into a clear bag and then drinking the contents.

It is hard to imagine how that could get any worse.

But if it has that is very troubling indeed.

After three children are killed by guns in four days in one Texas county, Sheriff pleads with residents to help prevent anymore from happening.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

A rash of tragic child shootings in Texas over the weekend has led local law enforcement to appeal for gun safety. 

"I beg of you, help us to keep from having to respond to tragedy that can be prevented," Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia said at a news conference Monday, after deputies responded to the third fatal accidental shooting involving children in four days. 

"I don't want another family to even have to fathom going through this terrible experience," he added. 

All three shootings occurred within Harris County, within the greater Houston metropolitan area. In response to the tragedies, the Sheriff's Office and Harris County Constable Ron Hickman reminded the public that their offices distribute free gun locks. 

"If we can prevent one person from being killed or hurt from firearm accidents through the distribution of these free gun locks, then we have met our challenge," Hickman said in a statement Monday.

This is indefensible that so many children are killed due to the irresponsibility of the adults that are supposed to be keeping them safe. And ironically with the weapons that were undoubtedly purchased to increase their families safety.

Of these three none were older than six years old. The youngest only three.

How hard is it really to keep guns out of the hands of small children?

Men who have had more than 20 female lovers less likely to get prostate cancer. Hang on, I'm counting.

Courtesy of The Independent:  

There’s good news for the Casanovas of the world – sleeping with numerous women could help to protect men from prostate cancer, according to a new study. 

Researchers at the University of Montreal and INRS-Institut Armand-Frappier found that men who had slept with more than 20 women during their lifetime were 28 per cent less likely to develop the disease. 

They were also 19 per cent less likely to develop an aggressive type of cancer, compared to those who had had only one female sexual partner. 

Meanwhile, men who were virgins were almost twice as likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer as those who were sexually experienced.

Well I'm in the clear. In fact I might be okay even if I were triplets.

I knew being a man-whore would pay off someday.

I can just see husband's caught flagrante delicto by their wives using this to their advantage.

"Honey I am not betraying our vows, I am simply fighting cancer."

I wish all cancer fighting was this easy. Sure beats the hell out of avoiding red meat and exercising.

New Republican backed program of putting pregnancy tests in bar bathrooms to fight fetal alcohol syndrome demonstrates a lack of understanding concerning women, drinking, and FAS.

Courtesy of the New York Daily News:

A state-funded research project will offer free pregnancy tests at 20 bars in Alaska to stop expectant mothers from boozing. 

The University of Alaska has $400,000 to study if women are more likely to forego alcohol if a poster is pasted on a dispenser rather than a wall, reported the Anchorage Daily News. 

The project was proposed in March by Sen. Pete Kelly (R-Alaska) to flood bars and restaurants with tests to tackle birth defects and substance abuse problems in Alaska. 

Researchers claim Alaska has the highest rate of fetal alcohol syndrome because of frequent alcohol use among its female residents. 

The new study will target women with unexpected pregnancies with the help of a Minnesota nonprofit, Healthy Brains for Children, who installed the first pregnancy test dispenser in a bar in 2012 to curb fetal alcohol syndrome. 

Unlike the Minnesota dispensers, the tests in Alaska will be offered for free starting in December.

Okay while I appreciate that Pete Kelly wants to do SOMETHING about this terrible problem, it might help if he understood what the fuck he was trying to stop.

First off I think it is pretty clear that these machines will be treated as jokes by women in bars who will undoubtedly empty the machines every night just for shits and giggles, or to stock up for the future.

Second I work with the community most impacted by FAS, and the vast majority of the children are natives from rural communities, where there are few bars, and more drinking in the homes. Therefore even if this COULD have an impact, it won't impact the demographic that needs it the most.

Third there has already been a more thoughtful program launched in 2000, that actually DID have some favorable results:

The state has documented a 32 percent drop in the rate of Alaska children born with fetal alcohol syndrome. A state health official is attributing the decline largely to programs started under a multi-year, $29 million grant former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens obtained in a 2000 congressional earmark. 

The state used the money for both prevention and treatment of fetal alcohol syndrome, which occurs if a mother drinks during pregnancy. The state launched a multi-media campaign to educate people, and set up teams around the state to work with fetal alcohol kids. 

The findings of this program might well have helped this Pete Kelly guy if he had bothered to study what they discovered.  

The decline in the rate of fetal alcohol births was all due to a reduction in cases among Alaska Natives, Schoellhorn's report says. The rate of non-Native FAS births did not drop. 

It's not clear why that's the case, she said. 

Casto said she believes Alaska Native health organizations have strongly emphasized screening and intervention for pregnant women and women of child-bearing age. 

"They have recognized it as a huge problem. They are making an active and forceful effort to intervene." 

Yes well the number of cases in non-native births did not drop because they are already quite low already, and the number of native FAS births dropped because the program focused on education and prevention. Not simply installing dispensers in restaurant bathrooms and hoping for the best.

But hey, do you know what would have a HUGE effect on bringing down the number of FAS births?

Greater access to birth control, and sex education.

However Senator Kelly will have none of that.

I mean sure encouraging women to piss on a stick in a public restroom is reasonable, but offering them the opportunity to forgo unwanted pregnancies, take control of their lives, and plan when and with whom to start a family, well that's just social engineering. 

Female pundit receives death threats for appearing on Sean Hannity show and daring to suggest that educating men would stop more rapes than arming women.

Courtesy of The New Civil Rights Movement:

Zerlina Maxwell, a liberal pundit and political analyst, appeared on Fox News‘ “Hannity” last week to advocate for men to not rape women. In return, Maxwell has become the target of a social media campaign threatening to gang rape and kill her.

Here is a portion of the offending comments according to Glenn Beck's  "news" site The Blaze:

“I don’t think that we should be telling women anything,” Maxwell said. “I think we should be telling men not to rape women and start the conversation there.” 

“Criminals are not going to listen to that,” Hannity interjected. 

“You are talking about it as if there is some faceless, nameless criminal, when a lot of times it is someone that you know and trust,” Maxwell replied. 

Hannity pointed out that “evil exists in the world” and women need to know that these situations unfortunately occur. 

“We can prevent rape by telling men not to commit it,” Maxwell said, repeating the same bizarre claim. 

Instead, Maxwell, who is a rape survivor herself, said she wants women to “not be in this situation.” She added that if you “train” men not to be rapists, we can prevent rape. 

“If firearms were the answer, then the military would be the safest place for women and it’s not,” she said.

Hannity of course is completely ridiculous here, seeming to have NO idea of how rapes actually happen in this country and imagining roving bands of rapists that can be gunned down en masse, instead of the acquaintance, angry lover, or family member who is most likely to be the perpetrator.

In response to what seems to be a logical and reasonable assertion, Maxwell found herself the victim of  social media campaign which featured tweets like this:

Maxwell's point is obviously more than valid, however apparently these Right Wing fanatics who watch Hannity's show refuse to accept that educating young men to respect women would have a much more serious, and long lasting affect on the number of rapes in this country than arming women could ever hope to achieve.

I guess in the eyes of these sorry excuses for men, if a woman cannot shoot them full of holes if they tried to rape her, then she deserves what she gets.