The latest details on Brittany Murphy's death

Brittany Murphy via last.fm

Brittany Murphy's autopsy results were normal — ICYDK
But lots of prescription meds were found in her home — I'm Not Obsessed
Her husband Simon says his world was destroyed — The Blemish
While friends said she battled Hollywood demons — Fox 411
And there was a frantic effort to revive her — TMZ
Eva Longoria also gets in the celebrity fragrance game — BellaSugar
LeAnn Rimes and Dean Sheremet already reached a divorce settlement — PopEater
Oh no! Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Jerry Ferrara split — Us Weekly
Is Renee trying to get Bradley to commit? — Celebitchy
Howard Stern might be facing a pay cut — Lifeline Live
Brody Jenner and Jayde Nicole also break up! — Wonderwall

What you can do to Avoid the Flu

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The Healthier Coffee Company
Ganoderma Lucidum is the scientific name of the mysterious Red Mushroom that grows on only 2 out of 10,000 aged wild plum trees found in the dense and humid high mountain forests of Asia. It was crowned by the ancient Chinese as the "Miraculous King of Herbs" due to its superior attributes which have stood the test of time for over 4,000 years. To date, no known herb has ever challenged its superiority. With good reason, thousands of scientific studies published on the Internet document growing confidence in its astonishing immunomodulating and adaptogenic properties.
Gano Excel is a global company, founded in 1995, and owns the largest organic Ganoderma Lucidum plantation in the world. In our state-of-the-art laboratories we create a standardized, proprietary extract from the six most potent varieties of red mushrooms that are impossible to replicate. Marketing our unique extract in a variety of presentations, we are approaching $500 million in worldwide retail sales.
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In our internationally certified manufacturing facilities (ISO 9001:2000 & GMP), we blend our exclusive Ganoderma extract with the world's finest coffee beans which we roast to perfection, percolate and then spray dry to avoid any chemical processing. Blending the power of Ganoderma Lucidum and its some 200 nutrients like triterpenoids, polysaccharides and Organic Germanium – perhaps the most therapeutic compound found in nature – with coffee is nothing short of brilliant.
Coffee is the undisputed comfort beverage worldwide (greater than colas and teas combined) and is the top traded commodity following only petroleum. In North America alone, three fourths of the population drinks 4 to 5 cups a day. Water alone is more popular. With its simple yet brilliant strategy, rather than changing habits, Gano Excel is using coffee to deliver health…one family at a time!
People Ask Can Coffee Be Healthy?
Good Wealth and Good Health with “Red Mushroom Magic”Gano Excel USA Inc, has found a way to cultivate Reishi Mushrooms (Ganoderma lucidum) and merge them with coffee, tea, hot chocolate, cereal, soap and tooth paste. The mushrooms are grown on special plantations with organically enhanced growth media elevated in special soil beds and kept under climatic conditions that are ideal for the pest-free cultivation of this remarkable “wellness food”
The opened spores of Ganoderma lucidum are reputed to be:Anti-Cancer,Tumor,Bacterial,Candida (Yeast), Inflammatory,Anti-Oxidant,Anti-ViralAnti-Depressant (with no known harmful side effects)Blood Pressure moderator (both hypo and hyper tension)Blood Sugar Moderator (both hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia)Improves cardio-vascular circulationReduces Cholesterol (especially LDL)Moderates TriglyceridesEnhances the Immune system, Reduces Stress

Texas back to basics before prepping for ‘Bama

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AUSTIN, Texas (AP)—No. 2 Texas started getting ready to face No. 1 Alabama for the national championship without a game plan or a depth chart.
At least not yet.
With the BCS title game against not being played until two weeks from Thursday, coach Mack Brown is taking his time.
Brown figures it’s too early for players to delve into specifics about the Crimson Tide, so his practices thus far, and for the next few days, are focused mostly on fundamentals. He calls them similar to summer two-a-days, except that these workouts are full contact. Brown believes in a lot of hitting to keep guys sharp during the long layoff between games.

Brown has used a similar plan for many years and it’s easy to see why. Texas has won five straight bowl games and seven of its last eight, a run that includes the national championship in January 2006.
Well, there is one new wrinkle this time. That whole thing about no depth chart.
Unhappy with the way his offense played in the Big 12 championship, and still upset with the defense’s performance against Texas A&M in the game before that, Brown decided to really make practices interesting by threatening everyone into thinking their job is on the line.
“What we’re doing is we’re going back and being really, really hard on the guys,” Brown said Monday. “We’re having a lot of tough, physical drills and we’re changing the depth chart daily.”
Colt McCoy’s job is certainly safe. But the guys who got him sacked nine times against Nebraska are among those who probably better be sharp—or else.
“There’s always the possibility there will be some changes there, yes,” offensive coordinator Greg Davis said. “At 13-0, we’re not going to reinvent ourselves in a month. But I do think we have to be smart enough to tweak some things.”
McCoy hasn’t chewed out his line because he still believes in them. Besides, he has a simple answer for anyone who says they played lousy against the Cornhuskers.
“We found a way to win,” he said. “We understand we struggled a little bit. We’ve come through a lot. Now we’re in the national championship. That’s where we wanted to be when we started the season and we’re going to do everything we can to play our best.”
McCoy is among seven Texas players who were on the sideline in jerseys and jeans watching Vince Young lead No. 2 Texas to an upset of No. 1 Southern California in the Rose Bowl four years ago. Brown has talked to the team about the similarities between that game and this one, from the rankings to the setting.
Another coincidence is that the Longhorns have a Heisman Trophy finalist (last time Young, this time McCoy) and the foe has the winner (last time Trojans running back Reggie Bush, this time Alabama running back Mark Ingram). But the similarity goes even deeper on the Texas end.
Davis sent Young a text message right after the ceremony four years ago telling him, “You’re my Heisman Trophy winner,” and the quarterback responded: “Game on, coach,” knowing that the Longhorns would be facing Bush and the Trojans in the title game.
When Ingram beat McCoy, Davis sent the same message. McCoy sent the same response.
Davis said he’s told the story of that text exchange enough times that McCoy probably copied it on purpose. Asked which was the case, McCoy played it vague.
“I answered the way I felt,” he said. “I think last year was a lot more disappointing. I was fine afterward this year because I know how much more we have to play for.”
Brown mentioned in passing Monday that Texas has won 26 of its last 27 games, then later mentioned in passing that Alabama has won 25 of its last 27 games.
Coincidence? Perhaps. But don’t be surprised if he’s using stats like that to help keep his team confident as they find themselves in the rare position of being underdogs.
Of course, whenever that gets mentioned, all he has to do is remind them about the ’05 title game, when the Longhorns weren’t just underdogs, but a big part of the game’s storyline was whether that Trojan squad deserved to be considered the greatest college football team ever to lace ‘em up.
“This is not about who had the best season. This isn’t even about the history. This isn’t even about who has the best team. It’s about whose going to play the best for 3 1/2 hours,” Brown said. “That’s what I learned in 2005. The rest of it’s going to be chatter. It’s going to be who plays the best for 3 1/2 hours.”

Christmas Gifts 2009: BEST Tech Gifts Under $100

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No one's going to blame you for keeping holiday gifts minimal this year. But if you want to round out your handmade cards, scarves, pickles and jam with a gadget or gizmo, here are a handful of our $100-and-under favorites.
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Wii MotionPlus accessory for Nintendo Wii ($20, or $50 with a game, available at bestbuy.com and elsewhere)
For many families, "Wii Sports," the game that's been bundled with the Nintendo Wii since its 2006 launch, remains a favorite. By letting people swing a controller to play virtual rounds of bowling, golf, tennis, baseball and boxing, it has changed how we play video games and made more of us into gamers.
The Wii MotionPlus is an attachment for the original "Wiimote" controller. The MotionPlus makes the motion-sensing controls more sensitive and precise, so a flick of a wrist can turn your virtual tennis racket and spin your bowling ball. If your gift recipient doesn't already own "Wii Sports Resort," it's worth throwing that in, too – it adds frisbee-throwing with a dog, water-scooter racing, sword fighting and other new games and comes with one MotionPlus attachment.
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Roku SD Netflix Player ($80, roku.com)
If someone you know uses Netflix, he or she needs Roku. In less than five minutes, I had this little black box plugged in to my television, connected to the Wi-Fi in my home and synched to my Netflix queue.
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Netflix lets members who pay at least $9 per month stream more than 17,000 movies and TV shows using Roku or a computer, and the list is growing. I still had to use my computer to add new titles to my queue, but it was easy to scroll through them on the TV screen and pick something to watch.
The Roku SD is $20 less than the original model. It would be a good bet for someone like me, who still has an old-school boxy television. By the time I get a flat-screen TV, this kind of feature will come built in. If you're shopping for someone who already has a house full of high-definition TVs, this isn't the right Roku. Instead, pick the $100 Roku HD, which can stream high-def video, or the $130 Roku HD-XR, which uses the latest Wi-Fi technology to send that video to farther-away TVs in the house.
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WikiReader ($99, thewikireader.com)
This pocketable gadget contains nearly all of the text of Wikipedia, the online community-built encyclopedia, and displays it on a monochrome LCD. It works anywhere, and can be updated through downloads every few months.
Using the WikiReader is faster than searching Wikipedia on a cell phone. Too bad the WikiReader's on-screen keyboard makes it difficult to type search terms, and scrolling through long entries is slow. Wikipedia's images and tables are missing. Still, a cool gift for the curious. Comes with two AAA batteries, which Openmoko Inc., the gadget's maker, says will power the reader for about a year.
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Magic Mouse for Macs ($69, store.apple.com)
Apple's new wireless mouse comes nestled in a clear case like some artifact in an alien museum. It's flatter than most mice, which is nice for my small hands. It also has no buttons or wheels, just a shiny white surface that clicks and responds to various fingertip gestures.
It took three software updates and reboots to get my iMac and mouse working together. Once that was done, I found it intuitive to use gestures for scrolling and panning: Just drag one finger across the surface of the mouse, in any direction.
I still haven't mastered the "two-finger swipe," a side-to-side gesture that can mean "go back" or "go forward" in programs such as Web browsers or digital photo collections. The movement is uncomfortable and the mouse keeps creeping to one side under my fingertips.
This is a good-looking addition to my desktop setup at home, though it isn't a revolution. Buy it for die-hard Apple fans who love bragging about their latest iGadget.
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Avid M-Audio Studiophile AV 30 and LaCie Sound2 computer speakers ($100 for either set, m-audio.com; lacie.com)
Playing music at any significant volume on built-in computer speakers gives me a headache – the desk seems to vibrate with the tinny racket. I'm no audiophile, but these speaker sets allowed me to enjoy listening to music in my home office again.
The minimalist black-and-white LaCie set looks more at home with my iMac. It's also capable of drawing power from the computer over a USB connection if an outlet isn't available. But to my amateur ears, the blockier black M-Audio ones sounded richer.
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"FAIL Nation: A Visual Romp Through the World of Epic Fails" ($12, in bookstores)
The Web-trend connoisseur will recognize the source of this book, 2-year-old failblog.org, as the online pictorial compendium of things going horribly wrong. Even technophobes should be amused by the bloopers and awkward wordings captured in this slim volume, published in October by Harper Paperbacks.
The book reprints more than 100 of the Failblog's reader-submitted photos. Marvel at signs that say "keep right" while pointing left, or that direct diners to the "drive-thur." Snort at the ATM that asks you to withdraw multiples of $20 – to a maximum of $250. And so on.
The blog is run by Pet Holdings Inc., the same folks who brought you LOLcats, the art of writing funny captions for amateur cat photos (see icanhascheezburger.com).
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Tiny tripods ($10-$20)
Spontaneous group photos are better when one person isn't stuck holding the camera. The Bottle Cap Tripod from Dynomighty Design Inc. ($10, dynomighty.com) has a rubbery base that stuck perfectly on top of a wine bottle and a maple syrup container, although it was wobbly atop a bottle of Perrier. It's common for cameras to have a hole on the bottom that screws onto tripods; I attached my point-and-shoot, tilted to get the right angle and set off the timer. Perfect.
The Manfrotto Modo Pocket ($20, bhphotovideo.com and elsewhere) is tabletop tripod that, when folded flat, is about half the size of a business card in length and width. Unfolded, it has four rubber-coated feet that grip nicely to most surfaces, and in the center, a threaded screw that works with digital cameras up to 17 ounces.
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LaCie iamaKey USB flash drive ($22-$100, lacie.com)
Most USB drives are ugly and easy to lose. This one caught my eye because it looks like a key, which makes it at home on my key chain (it's smaller than my car key) and LaCie says the part that sticks into the computer is water- and scratch-resistant. The iamaKey comes in four sizes, from 4 gigabytes to 32 gigabytes, and works on both Macs and Windows PCs.
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AP Technology Writers Barbara Ortutay and Peter Svensson in New York and Associated Press Writer Ron Harris in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Can Forgiveness Save Tiger Woods?

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How do you save a relationship after countless betrayals? Can trust ever return? Should you forgive when forgiveness may simply encourage further bad behaviour?
These may well be some of the many questions that Elin Nordegren, the long-suffering wife of Tiger Woods, is contemplating having discovered her husband's multiple infidelities, and watched his squeaky clean image collapse under the weight of further disclosures.
Yet, as Tiger Woods knows - judging from his recent website announcement - forgiveness is the only thing that will save his marriage, as well as a realisation on Nordegren's part that monogamy for some is an almost impossible ideal - not least when worldly temptations are so tantalizing plenty, or the compulsion for sex greater than the knowledge that what you are doing is wrong. And yet the word 'wrong' may be part of the problem here.
The reality is that love is only half a step away from hate, and once someone has been hurt in a relationship they will probably do everything in their power to get even. I have witnessed many errant spouses punished so heavily and relentlessly by their deceived partners that it is these vengeful impulses which in the end destroy the marriage more than the infidelity itself. The hurt feelings of the betrayed are usually so all-consuming that any stab at empathy is lost even when the accused does everything in his/her power to make amends.
The ancient Sufi poet Rumi once wrote:
'Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there'.If Tiger Woods and his wife could only meet in that field out beyond wrong-doing - away from the gaze of the press and the verdict of mob morality - there might be some hope for reconciliation. But is there any chance of privacy for a man whose public persona was created almost from the moment he could walk and who may even be persuaded by his image builders to make a public confession on The Oprah Winfrey Show?
Just the other day Woods announced on his website:
"I want to say again to everyone that I am profoundly sorry and that I ask forgiveness". These words are presumably aimed at his wife as much as his fans and the hard truth is that Elin Nordegren does need to forgive him if she wants their marriage to survive. Forgiveness in this sense is perhaps best seen as a struggle for understanding.
I don't want to minimize the hurt that betrayal causes, the chasm of pain that you fall into, the shattering of a world that once seemed so safe and secure. Yet, anyone who has lived a few decades will know that life is full of unwelcome surprises, very little remains the same, people are often unpredictable.
In my experience of working for six years in the field of forgiveness and reconciliation, as founder and director of The Forgiveness Project, I have noticed how those who find it difficult to forgive tend to see life as black and white. They build their principles around them like a shield and if crossed find no room for clemency. Those who find it easier to forgive tend to see life as a murky grey, believe rules are bound to be broken, and possess an innate understanding that good people do bad things and bad things happen to good people.
According to consultant psychotherapist and teacher of conflict resolution, Ben Fuchs:
"We grow up with the myths about life: of romance, dreams of how relationships should be but...reality is very different, bringing a betrayal of the myth." He states that forgiveness and healing can only come when we cease to react to the events, and reconcile with the betrayal - though not always with the person who has hurt us. According to Fuchs, although there are no formulae for letting go, there are several understandings which help the process. These include a willingness to understand our betrayers by exploring those parts of our ourselves which are also capable of betrayal.
Fuchs concludes,
"Letting go can be very unattractive because it means giving up a hard-won sense of power, including the power of being morally superior. It means giving up a feeling of control, giving up what has perhaps been a survival pattern. ..It also means giving up the moral high ground that comes from identifying myself as the person betrayed and you as the betrayer. It means giving up the payoffs that go with being in the victim position."Ultimately if we look at betrayal from an archetypal perspective, as a rite of passage into understanding that we don't live in a perfect world, then it can be our teacher. But it may be far too early - and appear far too glib - to say to Erin Nordegren now that part of the inner work of forgiveness is recognising that the person who has betrayed you may be expressing their deep pain and that to work with them through this is the only way to heal a broken relationship.

Movie review: Avatar - out of this world

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There are visionary filmmakers - and then there's James Cameron, who pushes the envelope of what is possible on the screen every time he makes a film. He doesn't do it nearly often enough.
But now here comes Avatar, the most dazzling film experience you'll have this year. Written, directed, produced and, for that matter, pulled whole from Cameron's brain,Avatar is 160 minutes of thrilling entertainment. It's as heartfelt as it is exciting, as emotionally powerful as it is suspenseful and as brain-bending a fantasy as you've seen since The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
It would be easy to dismiss Avatar as Dances with Wolves in outer space, except for two things: First of all, that denigrates Dances, still an outstanding film (based on a recent viewing). Second, it implies a lack of originality on Cameron's part that is baseless on the face of it.
Set 150 years in the future, Avatar is about a mission by an Earth corporation to secure the distant planet Pandora, which is rich in valuable minerals. The humans, in essence, want to strip-mine Pandora - a mission that doesn't sit particularly well with the Na'vi, the planet's native inhabitants.
One of the new arrivals to Pandora, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), is there by accident. His twin brother - recently murdered - was a scientist who had been training for the mission to Pandora. Jake, a Marine who is wheelchair-bound after being wounded in combat, has been recruited because he shares his late brother's genome.
His brother has been learning the ropes for the Avatar project: In essence, a Na'vi body has been test-tube grown, combining Na'vi and human DNA. Jake will go into an isolation capsule, where he will electronically mind-meld with the avatar grown for his brother. His consciousness will enter the avatar, allowing him to roam Pandora without the otherwise necessary breathing apparatus to deal with the planet's poisonous atmosphere.
More important, he hopefully will be able to infiltrate the Na'vi clan. The plan calls for him to convince the Na'vi to move away from Hometree, the 1,000-foot-tall tree that is their base. There's a particularly rich vein of the valuable mineral Unobtainium beneath the tree - and the Earth corporation in charge of the operation is willing to do things the rough way, if diplomacy fails.
For Sully, the experience of being in the avatar body is total liberation, after being confined to his paralyzed form for too long. He can run, jump, climb - he's ambulatory again. But he's also a Marine - so even as he makes contact with the Na'vi and works with chief scientist Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), he's also reporting to the hard-shell security chief, Col. Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who is only interested in pinpointing the Na'vi weaknesses for the inevitable attack.
Sully, however, goes native, seduced and enlightened by the Na'vi's attunement to the planet itself. As Grace explains, the connection between the Na'vi and the planet is more sophisticated than the connections between the synapses in the human brain. Humans can't begin to understand the depth of that intertwinement - and the company's only interest is eliminating the aboriginals so they can get at the riches below the planet surface.
That's a familiar message - that humans are short-sightedly lining their pockets at the expense of the planet. And the dynamic that Cameron sets up here - the heedless, ignorant humans invading a native populace whose customs and values they neither know nor understand - has resonance with the American invasion of Iraq, or Vietnam, or colonialism in general. Continued...

Bowden relieved about decision

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By Gene Williams, Warchant.com Publisher Dec 8, 11:33 pm EST

During his first scheduled interview with the media since last Tuesday’s announcement, head football coach Bobby Bowden declined to give details of the meetings between himself, FSU president T.K. Wetherell and director of athletics Randy Spetman that ultimately led to his retirement.
It had been widely speculated that Bowden was effectively terminated and that he really didn’t have an option to return to FSU other than possibly in a fundraising role. Regardless, the end came a little soon for the Seminoles’ longtime head coach.
“It was more disappointing than anything else,” Bowden said of his retirement. “But everything has to come to an end. It would either be now or next year. I was planning on going for another more year but it was obvious I would not go another year.”
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With a week to mull over his upcoming retirement, 80-year old coach said that he is relieved to know that the many burdens of being head football coach are now behind him.
“It’s a load off of your shoulders,” Bowden said. “There are several times during the year when there’s a relief that comes to you. One is after the season because it builds up… The second time it really hits you is when you are recruiting.
“Now that I know I’m not going to coach anymore all the sudden I don’t recruit, I don’t worry about the kids grades and I don’t worry them getting in trouble - I am concerned about it and I’ll do everything I can to keep it from happening but it’s not my responsibility any more.”
Florida State’s head coach for the past 34 years cited several factors that he will miss the least but the burdens associated with recruiting top his list.
“I guess it would be recruiting,” Bowden said of what he will miss the least. “I’ve always enjoyed recruiting and I will help the coaches now anyway I can. But that does take you out of your comfort zone when you are out on the road all the time. You aren’t at home, you are visiting prospects and you are getting this one, you are losing that one, this one changes his mind, and that one does this and that.”
Even though Bowden made it clear that he is done with coaching, he insists that he plans to stay active once his retirement is official. One way he says he will do that is by speaking to churches as well as business and civic groups.
“Coaching is out but I don’t want to sit there and do nothing. That’s what puts you in your grave, doing nothing,” Bowden said. “I want to do something and I can’t think of anything better for me to do than to go out and what I call ‘Evangelizing’. I want to talk to people about what I believe in. My whole thing is to help young kids… I’ll also talk to business groups too. I’m in several speaking bureaus and they’ll find me speaking engagements.”
Bowden’s long coaching career, which goes back to 1954, will end in just a few short weeks. During Tuesday’s teleconference he spelled out the plans for his quick departure.
“After that bowl game I’m through,” Bowden said. “My salary stops so I’ll be packing up and getting out of that office. I told him (Fisher) I would try to have that office cleaned out by the time we get back from the bowl.”
Gene Williams is the founder and administrator of Warchant.com and writes stories and features covering all of FSU’s sports with an emphasis on football and football recruiting. For seven years, Williams hosted a weekly sports radio show in Tallahassee. He currently appears as a weekly guest on 1010 XL Sports Radio in Jacksonville and 1270 The Team in Tallahassee during football season. Williams is also a former ACC correspondent for College Football News (weekly national newspaper), and contributes to The Osceola. Story about Gene Williams & Warchant.com.
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Drunken driving fatalities down 7% in USA

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States that target drunken driving with aggressive enforcement efforts saw their DUI fatality rates drop from 2007 to 2008, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Monday, minutes after he and other officials launched a national holiday crackdown on impaired driving.
"Our feeling is in states where you have real tough law enforcement, where the law enforcement people are no-nonsense, those are the states that have been able to reduce their numbers," LaHood said. "In states where they don't have tough law enforcement, or they don't do it as aggressively as other states, the numbers are not that good."
BY STATE: Alcohol-related traffic deaths
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the drunken-driving fatality rate in the USA declined about 7% from 2007 to 2008, continuing a decades-long drop. Drunken-driving deaths have been trending downward since 1982, two years after Mothers Against Drunk Driving began focusing attention on the issue. There were 11,773 such fatalities in 2008, a 44% drop from the 21,113 in 1982, according to NHTSA and U.S. Department of Transportation data.
As the nation prepares to celebrate the party-rich holiday season, LaHood had a simple message for American motorists: Have fun, but don't get behind the wheel if you've been drinking.
LaHood, White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske and John Saunders of the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) launched the annual national winter holiday crackdown on impaired driving. Thousands of law enforcement agencies across the USA will be targeting drunken driving in the campaign, which runs through New Year's Day. Each state has its own version.
Highway safety experts such as Jacob Nelson, director of traffic safety policy and research for auto club AAA, say such high-profile crackdowns are highly effective because they've been proven to deter drunken driving. "The real purpose isn't really to capture or punish drunk drivers," Nelson said. "They're meant to deter drunk driving altogether. ... It creates the perception that people are likely to get caught if they drive drunk.
"What makes enforcement campaigns like the national crackdown so valuable is the clear message we send to the public — that law enforcement is actively looking to get drunk drivers off the road."
In Vermont, the drunken-driving fatality rate dropped 45% from 2007 to 2008, the nation's largest decline. Vermont officials have noticed anecdotal evidence that liquor sales in bars drop while alcohol sales at liquor stores go up during DUI crackdowns around major holidays, said Betsy Ross, spokeswoman for the Vermont Governor's Highway Safety Program. "So people are drinking at home."
In Kansas, the DUI fatality rate jumped 36% from 2007 to 2008. Officials see the increase as a statistical anomaly. "One year does not make a trend," said Chris Bortz, grants manager for the Kansas Department of Transportation. He said that the state aggressively targets drunken driving and that the rate had dropped two of the previous four years before 2008.
Saunders, an executive board member of the GHSA, said some states are using new media and high-tech approaches such as Twitter, a new iPhone application and Xbox 360 Live to spread the message:
•Delaware, Michigan and Rhode Island are among states using Twitter to get out the DUI message.
•Colorado kicked off its campaign, which includes the State Patrol and 50 other agencies, with an iPhone application that estimates blood-alcohol content. "R-U-Buzzed" can be downloaded at Apple's App Store.
•Washington state's campaign includes paid messages on television, radio and online gaming ads on the game system Xbox 360 Live.
"We know the holidays lead people to do more drinking, and do more drinking and driving," LaHood said. "We're just saying, if you drink, call a cab, catch a ride with a relative, catch the bus — but you can't get behind the wheel."
Drunken driving by state
Alcohol-related traffic deaths* in 2007 and 2008, plus the 2008 drunken-driving fatality rate per 100 million miles driven and change from 2007: