Target Centermass

Day: September 25, 2004

  • Amarillo Sues Prostitute to Get HIV Treatment

    I’ll put this story in the “What the hell is in the water in west Texas?!!” file.

    In an attempt to get an HIV-positive prostitute to seek treatment and stop spreading the infection, Amarillo officials have filed a lawsuit.

    “The Public Health Department assists many people with AIDS, and this single case is the very rare exception where a person who is HIV contagious is noncompliant with the health authority,” Amarillo City Attorney Marcus Norris, whose office filed the civil action in Potter County on Wednesday, told the Amarillo Globe-News for its Saturday online editions.

    “We believe that by her conduct, she poses a health threat to the community, and so we’re going to have to try to get the court to intervene and help.”

    The woman, identified in court papers only by the initials T.T., has infected at least one person with HIV by engaging in prostitution and has refused efforts by local health officials to get her to act responsibly and seek treatment, according to court documents.

    “This is a very last-ditch effort,” said Dr. J. Rush Pierce, public health authority for the Bi-City-County Health Department. “We would not be doing this if we had been able to get this woman to behave responsibly with regard to sexual activity any other way.”

    According to documents included in the suit, the woman was diagnosed with HIV in January 2000 and was counseled at the Department of Health on ways to prevent spread of the virus. But in 2001 a case of HIV was traced back to T.T., and the patient informed officials that T.T. had not disclosed her HIV status prior to sexual contact.

    In early 2003, Health Department officials discovered that T.T. was engaged in prostitution to support a cocaine habit, so the department issued a warning letter ordering her to enroll in treatment, according to documents in the lawsuit.

    But after attending counseling for several months, she dropped out in 2004 and reverted to prostitution again, the documents say.

    Okay, let me get this straight. T.T. is a lethal, cocaine-addled whore, so we slap a lawsuit on her ass? I’m wagering she isn’t the brightest porchlight on the block; it should be pretty easy to catch her in any number of illegal activities and lock her $5 dollar (estimated) ass away from the society she is choosing to endanger.

  • U.S. Navy to Deploy Ships Near N. Korea

    The AP is reporting that the first pieces of the U.S.’s planned defenses against a ballistic missile threat are readying to sail into place.

    In the first step toward erecting a multi-billion-dollar shield to protect the United States from foreign missiles, the U.S. Navy will begin deploying state-of-the-art destroyers to patrol the waters off North Korea as early as next week.

    The mission, to be conducted in the Sea of Japan by ships assigned to the Navy’s 7th fleet, will help lay the foundation for a system to detect and intercept ballistic missiles launched by “rogue nations.”

    Washington hopes to complete the network over the next several years.

    “We are on track,” Vice Admiral Jonathan Greenert, commander of the 7th Fleet, told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday aboard the USS Coronado, which is based just south of Tokyo. “We will be ready to conduct the mission when assigned.”

    The deployment will be the first in a controversial program that is high on President Bush’s defense agenda. Bush cleared the way to build the system two years ago by withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which banned ship-based missile defenses.

    He said protecting America from ballistic missiles was “my highest priority as commander in chief, and the highest priority of my administration.”

    Cry not for the demise of the ABM Treaty, a piece of trash that only the good guys felt obliged to follow. The article goes on to detail criticism of the defense system on these vessels.

    The project — likened to hitting a bullet with a bullet, only at three times the speed — is exceedingly complex, prompting many critics to argue that it will never be reliable or effective. It is also expensive, with an estimated price tag of US$51 billion over the next five years.

    I see no validity in attacking the cost, especially if ones holds $51 billion to the cost of a successful missile strike on a major U.S. city. Also, I think “hit a bullet with a bullet” comparison is akin to saying there’s no point in attempting something difficult. I disagree with this and would rather put my faith in the growing might of our technology.

    Quite simply, a missile defense can be made to work. It won’t be easy, it won’t be fast, but it won’t be a waste to protect our homeland.

  • I’m Number One

    Apparently, Target Centermass is currently the top result when Googling “islamist bastards.” Mildly interesting. I would like to thank all the Islamist bastards who caused this achievement to happen.