Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/273995722?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Monday 31 December 2012
Relics said to be from Jesus' birth to be at Chicago church
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Tiny fragments said to be from the manger that held the infant Jesus, the veil of his mother, Mary, and a thread from the cloak of St. Joseph will be displayed by a Roman Catholic church in Chicago when it celebrates its 155th anniversary on Sunday.
The fragments, released by the Vatican in 1972, were a gift to the Holy Family Church from the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii, also in Chicago. Displaying them now has particular significance because of their association with Christmas, which marks the birth of Jesus.
The Rev. Jeremiah J. Boland, administrator of the church, said on Friday that he is "not that interested" in carbon testing the items to see if they are from the beginning of the Christian Era.
"The Vatican has its own process to determine the authenticity of things," Boland said. "I'm more concerned with it as an object of faith."
The manger relic has "more authenticity" since it was brought from the Holy Land to the Vatican in the 5th century, Boland said.
"One could argue how real the relics of Mary or Joseph are, but there were all sorts of objects over the centuries that have been venerated and are based on faith rather than on scientific explanation," he said.
Holy Family, built in 1857-1860, is the city's second-oldest church and one of only five public buildings that survived the 1871 Great Chicago Fire.
The fragments will be on display in a crystal reliquary, a vessel in which relics of saints are preserved.
Boland said that Our Lady of Pompeii had been founded as an Italian parish, while Holy Family had been an Irish parish. In the past in Chicago as in other U.S. cities, immigrant Catholics tended to stay in parishes that reflected their ethnic backgrounds.
"In the history of the neighborhood there was a lot of tension between groups," said Boland. "The parishes weren't immune to some of these difficulties." The gift of the relics, he said, "is a healing gesture."
The mass celebrating the transfer of the relics will be held on Sunday morning, and the relics will be displayed during the afternoon.
The church will also exhibit manger scenes from around the world, including Kenya, Ireland, Italy, France, Poland, Peru, Vatican City, Mexico, Egypt and Jerusalem.
http://news.yahoo.com/relics-said-jesus-...509407.htm
![[Image: ec293789.jpg]](http://i1266.photobucket.com/albums/jj538/atothetheist/ec293789.jpg)
The fragments, released by the Vatican in 1972, were a gift to the Holy Family Church from the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii, also in Chicago. Displaying them now has particular significance because of their association with Christmas, which marks the birth of Jesus.
The Rev. Jeremiah J. Boland, administrator of the church, said on Friday that he is "not that interested" in carbon testing the items to see if they are from the beginning of the Christian Era.
"The Vatican has its own process to determine the authenticity of things," Boland said. "I'm more concerned with it as an object of faith."
The manger relic has "more authenticity" since it was brought from the Holy Land to the Vatican in the 5th century, Boland said.
"One could argue how real the relics of Mary or Joseph are, but there were all sorts of objects over the centuries that have been venerated and are based on faith rather than on scientific explanation," he said.
Holy Family, built in 1857-1860, is the city's second-oldest church and one of only five public buildings that survived the 1871 Great Chicago Fire.
The fragments will be on display in a crystal reliquary, a vessel in which relics of saints are preserved.
Boland said that Our Lady of Pompeii had been founded as an Italian parish, while Holy Family had been an Irish parish. In the past in Chicago as in other U.S. cities, immigrant Catholics tended to stay in parishes that reflected their ethnic backgrounds.
"In the history of the neighborhood there was a lot of tension between groups," said Boland. "The parishes weren't immune to some of these difficulties." The gift of the relics, he said, "is a healing gesture."
The mass celebrating the transfer of the relics will be held on Sunday morning, and the relics will be displayed during the afternoon.
The church will also exhibit manger scenes from around the world, including Kenya, Ireland, Italy, France, Poland, Peru, Vatican City, Mexico, Egypt and Jerusalem.
http://news.yahoo.com/relics-said-jesus-...509407.htm
Has anyone seen this relic? 
Icon by Zukothecat
Badass TORNADO robot fucker.
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2013 Body Transformation Packages | Personal Trainer Singapore
You are here: Home / Blog / 2013 Body Transformation Packages
Happy New Year! 
2012 was a great year for me and my fellow trainers in my team at Team Fitness Guru ? together we helped more than 500 new clients and participants better their health. Looking forward to knowing more people in 2013!
For those looking forward to start feeling and looking better, we?re here to help.
Here?s our 2013 packages:
(A) New You! Body Transformation Programme? ? Personal Training with Team Fitness Guru?s Trainers. A qualified personal trainer will be with you, assisting you to achieve your goals. Each session is about an hour.
Gold Trainer ? $980 for 10 sessions
Platinum Trainer $1480 for 10 sessions
Master Trainer $1980 for 10 sessions
(B) New You! Get Started Now! Programme ? A One on One Personal Training package with one of our Trainers for just 5 sessions! This is a learning package ? In these 5 sessions, your trainer will teach you the right methods and ways for you to reach your goal when you workout on your own, after the fifth session.
Gold Trainer ? $445 for 5 sessions
Platinum Trainer -? $740 for 5 sessions
Master Trainer -? $990 for 5 sessions
(C) New You! Quick 40 Programme ? 1-on-1 training sessions with our Personal Trainers ? for only 40 minutes a session! We only engage platinum trainers and above, trainers with many years of experience and multiple certifications to help you with this ? they?ll employ efficient and effective methods and training have proven to work for their busy clients!
Platinum Trainer -? $680 for 5 sessions
Platinum Trainer -? $1280 for 10 sessions
Master Trainer -? $1780 for 10 sessions
(D) Fitness Consultation with Master Trainer ? Just as you go see your doctor if you?re sick, those who want to know how to achieve their fitness goals (such as lose weight/inches, gain muscle, tone up their body) would have a consultation with a Fitness Consultant. He will share with you the strategies you can employ in 3 key areas (Physical Activity, Nutrition and Mental Skills) You can have more than one person asking for advice (for example: you, your partner and children).
1.5 hour consultation ? $258
?
Details of our programmes:
1) Personal training at your location (or any location where you want us to go). All exercises will be prescribed as per your needs and goals, taking into account your medical history (if any), fitness ability and others. Each exercise will be effective and efficient so that you maximise your time and investment with us. For example, instead of doing bicep curls (single joint exercise) for 60 seconds, we?ll do squats with bicep curls (multi joint, multiple muscle groups and more functional).
2) Prescription of exercises that you can do on your own when you?re not training with us (this is a verbal recommendation of the workouts that we plan for you ? feel free to write down notes as needed).
3) Nutrition and diet advice ? Within our scope of practice, we?ll help you analyse your food intake and give you general recommendations on how you can (i) Reduce your caloric intake so that you can improve on your negative caloric intake as part of your lifestyle (not through fad diets). This is for those who want to lose weight. (ii) Recommend you alternative food in your diet (such as choosing a lower glycemic index food ? for example brown rice instead of white rice). For those who want to build muscle and tone up, we?ll give our recommendations too. For more complicated and advanced nutritional advice, we can refer you to our in-house nutritionists and dietitians to follow up.
4) Fit Test and Girth Measurements ? We?ll do a base test of where you?re at during the first session and track your progress as we go along. We are confident that your fitness level will improve ? An improvement of your fitness is would mean that your body would be better at burning calories every workout. It?ll also mean that you can raise your metabolism (burn more calories after your workout).All the value added services that above will take place during your personal training sessions. We share a lot of information during breaks between sets and exercises.
Rates of trainers are dependent on their level of experience in dealing with clients, number and quality of certifications and their success rates with past clients. In general, the higher the rate of trainer, the higher the quality of training and consultation you?ll get.All our trainers are certified in fitness instruction. Rates are only for new clients only.
Money back Satisfaction Guarantee
All our workout sessions are backed with our IRON CLAD Money Back Satisfaction Guarantee. How does it work? If you?re not satisfied with any of our workouts, inform the trainer why you?re unsatisfied straight after your workout, and it will be considered free of charge and if needed, we will replace another trainer for you. Kindly note that no refunds are allowed.
For more information and general feel on how our trainers are like, please check out our websites ? gurufitness.com, teamfitnessguru.com and fitnessbootcamp.sg
Ready to start?
?
Yours in Fitness And Health,
Sharm (Hisham Musa), MSc, BA, ACE, NASM
Master Personal Trainer
Source: http://www.gurufitness.com/rate/
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Sunday 30 December 2012
Digital strategy to make education accessible for persons with ...
Digital strategy to make education accessible for persons with disabilities
Asia-Pacific Dec 30, 2012
NEW DELHI, INDIA:?The National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) provides an opportunity to students to continue education that has been put on hold for various reasons. It is an open school that caters to the need of a heterogeneous group of learners up to the high-school level.
Students who can?t go to school on a regular basis can join the many courses and programmes available with NIOS through the open and distance-learning modes. Established in 1979 as an autonomous body by the ministry of human resource development, the institute launched its website in 2009, which has since then become a one-stop source of information and support to learners. The organization is also vested with the authority to register, examine and certify students.
The NIOS has its own website at?nios.ac.in?for disseminating information and providing online citizen-centric services as a major initiative of e-governance. The website provides complete information about NIOS and has been designed by following official guidelines. It also complies with the World Wide Web Consortium?s content-accessibility guidelines. This enables people with vision disabilities access the website using assistive technologies such as screen readers. The website is available in English and Hindi. A student can register with a valid email and password.
The standardization to these norms guarantees that it can be accessed by people with disability. It is also one of the most important features of the website. The organization has more than 55,000 learners with disabilities on its rolls out of 2.02 million registered students. NIOS offers academic, vocational and life-enrichment program.
?The learner is at the centre of the information and communication technologies (ICT) strategy adopted for reaching the unreached through the NIOS online project. It also introduced overhauling changes in the way our other functions work like admissions, examinations and accreditations,? said?Sitansu S. Jena, chairman, NIOS. Quality, efficiency, access and transparency are the motivations behind making these services online, he said.
The site is on the short list of this year?s Manthan awards.
Before the website was introduced, NIOS was unable to deliver its services uniformly. First, there was a problem of inadequate access because of uneven distribution of study centres. Secondly, the study centres were not able to deliver results and services on time. All the filled forms were sent to the regional study centres, increasing the scope of human error.
Thirdly, in the offline mode, the window for examination registration was limited. It was usually once a year in the months of July and August. Fourthly, there was no control over the administration of the study centres and, hence, in the majority of cases, these centres were unable to provide required academic and non-academic support to students. Lastly, due to manual intervention in handling and preparing data, the scope of error was large.
The website allows online admissions anytime, anywhere for different streams with cut-off dates of forthcoming examinations.
The online admissions also give students the freedom to choose their study centres. Further, each study centre is allocated learners depending on their designated capacity so as to maintain the right student-teacher ratio. The admission data is the basic information on which all other transactions are based.
?With online admission, the data is largely error-free and is easily available online,? Jena said. ?This ensures delivery of student-support services on time and faster.?
When students register, they are issued a unique reference number, with which they can track the status of their applications online. Also, text alerts are sent to the learners? mobile phones, informing them about various stages of application such as submission, confirmation and dispatch of identity cards and course material up to the payment of examination fees.
?Students can make payments through the online payment getaway through all credit cards,? Jena said. ?Also, they can seek help of our online counsellors through the ?Ask Your Teacher? section.?
The website started as a pilot project in 2007 with 30,000 students and by 2011, the facility of online admissions was available all over India. Till date from 2007-12, 934,480 students have benefited from this service. Anyone from anywhere within the country or learners from Middle East, Nepal, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar can apply on NIOS. Priority is given to girl dropouts, women from the scheduled castes and tribes, and unemployed and students with disabilities.
Besides the timely completion of the admission process and delivery of course material, it is also cost-effective for students to use the NIOS site. For instance, earlier the prospectus was available for?Rs.50, but now students can simply download it for free from the website. All they have to pay is?Rs.30 for the application form. Not only this, students can also download the course material for free.
To help students, a learner support centre has also been established, consisting of eight support executives backed by recorded information through an interactive voice response system. It can be reached at a toll free number 1800 180 9393. About 900 calls are handled every day at the call centre. NIOS is also available on email?lsc@nios.ac.in?and 100-150 emails are responded to each day.
?One of the limitations was of connectivity. The areas which don?t have Internet connectivity are deprived of this facility but for those areas NIOS has taken a step of providing offline admissions,? Jena said. ?Many NIOS learners are at a disadvantage as they have been pushed out of the formal school system. In today?s time of technology, NIOS learners would be doubly disadvantaged if they were deprived of the new mode of learning. So, NIOS cannot afford to make its learners the victims of the digital divide.?
Source: livemint
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Best of Big League Stew 2012: Coming back to earth after a memorable year in baseball (Yahoo! Sports)
(Getty Images)
If Big League Stew were a baseball player, we'd be heading into our final year of arbitration.
Yup, that's right. As hard as it is to believe, we've been taking our hacks for five seasons now and we're about to close the book on a 2012 that ranks up there with all the others. From the emergence of exciting young players to a wealth of no-hitters and perfect games to playoff expansion and the emergence of the San Francisco Giants as a possible dynasty, the year gone by was an excellent time to be a baseball blogger. We can only hope 2013 is just as fun.
But before we move on, let's perform our annual custom of looking back on the year that was. We'd like to thank all of our loyal Stewies for their continued readership and would like to wish each of you a happy and healthy new year that's filled with dirt and diamonds.
Remember: Spring training camps open in just 42 more days.
Previous best of Big League Stew retrospectives: 2011,?2010,?2009,?2008
* * *
BLS story of the year: Mike Trout and Bryce Harper splash onto scene
(USA Today Sports)
It was the year of the San Francisco Giants. And the year of the perfect game/no-hitter. And the year of the first Triple Crown winner since Yaz in '67. And the year when the baseball's power base shifted from the country's northeast corridor to the west coast.
But for our money, 2012 will always be the year when Mike Trout and Bryce Harper burst onto the scene and put together historical seasons for men not yet old enough to legally buy a drink. Both were named the rookie of the year in their respective leagues and Trout was good enough to create one of the biggest AL MVP debates in the award's history. (Though Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera would walk away with the award, no one will soon forget the MVP impact Trout had on the Angels. Better yet, Trout could win the award in 2013 and still be the youngest winner in history.)
Chronicling the debut years of Trout and Harper always gave us the feeling that we were watching the next generation of baseball lurching into place. And with other great rookie performances including some from international players like Yu Darvish, Yoenis Cespedes and Norichika Aoki, it's impossible not to feel like baseball's future is going to be a good one.
Honourable mentions: Marlins and Blue Jays make each other over ...?Giants win second title in three years ... Pablo Sandoval makes World Series history ... Miguel Cabrera wins first Triple Crown in 45 years ... The Stephen Strasburg shutdown ... ?Josh Hamilton lands with Angels ... A-Rod's playoff playing time drama ... Infield fly rule game ... Dodgers and Red Sox pull off blockbuster trade ... ?Felix Hernandez joins Matt Cain and Philip Humber as 2012 perfect gamers ... Babe Ruth jersey sells for $4.4 million ... Kerry Wood leaves great legacy in Chicago ... Hamilton hits four homers in one game ... Wishing Fenway a happy 100th birthday ... Magic Johnson's group buys the Dodgers for $2 billion ... Ryan Braun wins appeal of 50-game suspension ... Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter dies at age 57
* * *
BLS play of the year: Mike Trout lands unbelievable catch in Baltimore
Trout made several jaw-dropping home run robberies during the year, but his theft of J.J. Hardy's home run bid in a late June game in Baltimore was the best of the bunch.
Honourable mentions: Hunter Pence's triple-double in NLCS ... Adam Greenberg strikes out in MLB return ... Travis 'Snider-Man' ... Yoenis Cespedes' mammoth homer
* * *
BLS video of the year: Little League umpire goes overboard
When I first saw the "most exaggerated strike-three call of all time" video on Deadspin, I was skeptical. After all, how could you top? the classic Naked Gun-stylings of Leslie Nielsen?
But this, dear Stewies, is the real deal. It's like Enrico Pallazzo and Kenny Powers had a baby and he eventually ended up calling Little League games in Rock Island, Ill., for nine bucks and all the Capri Sun he could drink a game
Honourable mentions: Woman misses marriage proposal at Wrigley ... Kenyan orphans score YouTube hit with '86 World Series clip ... Brett Lawrie fires helmet at ump ... Why you don't want to be standing under a Giancarlo Stanton home run ... Bryce Harper joins softball game at Washington Monument ... David Freese's interview with lovestruck reporter ... "The worst cheap shot ever" ... Bear Grylls lights first pitch on fire
* * *
(AP photos)BLS media story of the year: Ozzie Guillen talks with Time Magazine
The new mouth of the South headed down to Miami on a four-year contract, but it only took him one poor year to get fired.
A lot of that, of course, had to do with Guillen only needing one week to find the line in south Florida and cross it. In comments made to Sean Gregory of Time Magazine, Guillen expressed an admiration for Cuban leader Fidel Castro, an absolute no-no in Miami Marlins land. Though Guillen went through a long public apology and served a team-ordered suspension, the damage was done. He never won over his fan base and within six months, he was looking at his first team-less winter since the early '80s. The $7.5 million he's still owed by Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria should help cushion the blow, but Guillen's pride took an enormous hit during the year.
Honourable mentions: Tom Cheek gets Hall nod ...?Hawk Harrelson confirmed as biggest homer in baseball ... Harrelson scolded by Selig after outburst ... ?Mike Francesa falls asleep during Yankees update ... Bob Uecker statue is understated ... Jeter responds to Skip Bayless foolishness ... Joe Girardi chases heckler during press conference ... Showtime calls early end to Marlins series ... Marty Brennaman shaves head, raises $50K for charity ...
* * *
BLS fan play of the year: Young fan cries after oblivious couple keeps ball
Kids, crying and controversy form a perfect recipe for Yahoo's front-page gold and so it's no surprise this was one of our most-trafficked posts of the year. And man, was the end result really weird with Yahoo commenters choosing to vilify either the oblivious middle-aged couple who were waaay too happy to have a baseball thrown to them or the toddler who burst into tears over the disappointment of the ball not coming his way.
Honourable mentions: Brewers fan attends all 162 games ... Giant paper airplane crashes game ... Dancing friar catches Headley's grand slam ... Injured softball player catches big Chipper Jones home run ... Impostor crashes Braves alumni game ... Reds fan catches two homers in the same inning ... Royals fan jumps into fountain in pursuit of homer ... Small boy ejected from game after running on field ...
* * *
BLS doppelganger of the year: Babe Ruth, alive and well
"The Sultan of Steak" (John Cirillo photo)
The eyes. The?nose. The creases in the face. The belly. The neck and complexion. Even the piece of steak at the tip of the fork. The jersey and cap don't hurt either. Hey, this guy looks exactly like Babe Ruth eating a steak! Lucky for him, Gallagher's famous steakhouse in the heart of Manhattan happened to be hosting a Babe Ruth look-alike contest as part of its 85th birthday celebration Monday night.
OK, it's more than a coincidence. Willis "Buster" Gardner of Oberlin, Ohio, made the drive with his wife of nearly 56 years, Cecile, to New York City in order to defend his title from 2007 and the inaugural contest in 2002. And defend it he did; a panel of judges unanimously named him the winner. Well, duh.
Honourable mentions: Pedro Alvarez fan looks a lot like Pedro Alvarez ... When Tim Lincecum met his cab-driving lookalike ... Philip Humber and Eric Wedge
* * *
BLS touching story of the year: Pat Neshek returns to mound after death of son
(Getty Images)
The baseball world wept along with Oakland A's reliever Pat Neshek and his wife Stephanee after their son Gehrig died just 23 hours after being born in early October. It was one of baseball's most tragic stories in recent memory and no one would have blamed Pat if he had sat out the rest of the season to grieve. Pat and Stephanee, however, decided the best way to cope was with their Oakland A's family, who had just entered the playoffs after storming their way to the AL West title. Three days after his Gehrig's death, Neshek entered Game 1 of the ALDS against the Detroit Tigers, recording two outs in the bottom of the seventh. You can be sure there wasn't a single dry eye in Stew country when he stepped off the mound and touched the special patch the A's were wearing while looking skyward.
Honourable mentions: Detwiler ditches honeymoon to support troops ... Jimmy Rollins and the Ugandan Little League team ... Jim Joyce saves woman's life with CPR ... Rockies pay visit to Aurora movie theater survivors .... Jeff Francoeur shares special moment with autistic child ... Jim Duquette donates kidney to daughter ... Army dad's surprise homecoming at Safeco
* * *
(BLS illustration)BLS food post of the year: Jeff Francoeur sends 20 pizzas to A's fans
Francoeur, an outfielder for the Kansas City Royals, had 20 pizzas delivered Wednesday afternoon to fans sitting in the right-field grandstand at the Oakland Coliseum. He also sent along a signed bat, with a personal message inscribed. That's quite a gift package. To what did the Oakland folks owe such generosity? Why in the name of another Jeff ? Spicoli ? would he buy them pizzas?
The unorthodox acquaintance of a visiting slugger and some East Bay baseball crazies began a season ago when a group in the bleachers decided to celebrate "Bacon Tuesday" by bringing homemade bacon-flavored eats to the ballpark. With the Royals in town, fans also made Francoeur the target of good-natured heckling (being the right fielder, he was closest to them). Inevitably, the memes collided. Francoeur got along so well with the crowd ? he would wave, shout back at them, and laugh along ? that after the game he went over for a meet and greet.
Honourable mentions: Why I've saved my Ken Griffey chocolate bar for 20 years ...?Angel Pagan wins free tacos for the country ... Jayson Werth in cupcake form ... Adam Jones' bubble-blowing habit goes prime time ... Bryce Harper celebrates with apple cider ... Hamilton blames struggles on caffeine ... John Lackey's drinking habits ... Kent Hrbek digs dog treats ... Popeyes clowns the Red Sox ... Lincecum loses appetite for McDonalds
* * *
BLS dumb move of the year: Giants fan triggers burning of $1 million city bus
(Susannah Bates/Special to the San Francisco Chronicle)
San Francisco police arrested Gregory Tyler Graniss on Tuesday night and charged him with felony vandalism and a felony count of injuring or destroying a passenger transit vehicle. The 22-year-old San Francisco native is allegedly the person seen throwing a street barricade through the window of a San Francisco Muni bus after the Giants won the World Series on Sunday night. The act of vandalism triggered the burning of the $1 million bus and was captured by photographer Susana Bates before being widely circulated across the Internet,?including Yahoo!'s front page. The Big League Stew post was shared on Facebook over 4,800 times alone.
Honourable mentions: ?A-Rod asks for phone number during ALCS loss ... Nats fans get World Series ticket information after being eliminated ... Troopers ask for in-game autographs in Yankee dugout ... Derek Holland blames hacker for homophobic tweet ... Yunel Escobar's offensive eye-black ... Pirates given go-ahead to sell playoff tickets ... Cubs decal gone wrong ... Man misses son's first birthday after crashing Johan Santana's no-no ... Stephen Strasburg and 'Hot Stuff' prove bad mix ... John Lackey uses the 'r' word ...
* * *
BLS injury of the year: Brandon McCarthy's head injury
(USA Today Photos)
The BLS "injury of the year" is usually a spot to poke fun at a player who hurt himself in an unusual way ? see all the links below ? but that doesn't seem appropriate after seeing Brandon McCarthy take an Erick Aybar line drive off his head in early September. Though the A's pitcher walked off the field under his own power, he required surgery to alleviate the pressure on his brain and it made for a scary situation. McCarthy has fortunately made a full recovery and the entire incident could have a lasting sport-wide impact as Major League Baseball is investigating the ways that pitchers can better protect themselves, including the use of padded "pitching helmets".
Honourable mentions: Cashner hurts self while hunting ... Robin Yount shoots Dale Sveum ... Duda breaks wrist while moving furniture ... Bobby V crashes bike while reading text from Dustin Pedroia ... Marwin Gonzalez's spectacular fall ... Falling suitcase breaks Jonathan Lucroy's hand ...Bryce Harper hits own face with bat, get 10 stitches ... Mariano Rivera tears ACL during BP ...Joba Chamberlain's grotesque trampoline injury ...
* * *
BLS screen cap of the year: Cincinnati's sorry-looking broom
(TBS via @cjzero)
There are just some things you shouldn't do as a baseball fan. Waving around a thin-looking broom in anticipation of a sweep while your opponent looks to get up off the mat in the extra innings of a tied elimination game is one of them.
Honourable mentions:?Beautiful sunset over AT&T Park ... "Carl" Ripken Jr. ... Rays don gladiator helmets in dugout ... Robert Andino finally feels Oriole Magic ... Tim Welke and the worst call of the year ... Rogue graphics person gives Matt Kemp the 2011 MVP award
* * *
BLS photoshop of the year: Tim Lincecum meets #Linsanity
(@Fla_Dodger)
Remember those few weeks earlier in the year when everyone was trying to get involved with the Jeremy Lin-inspired mania that was taking over New York? BLS was no exception.
Honourable mention: Matt Cain photoshop contest winners ... Kevin Youkilis as Wade Boggs ... Jonathan Papelbon's bounty ... Charles Dawin Barney the Dinosaur ... James Loney's view of the future ... Papelbon in Paris
* * *
BLS Fashion Ump post of the year: Ranking the sexiest GMs 1-30
(AP)
In Big League Stew's five-season history, we can probably safely say that no post had been read in all 30 front offices. Then David Brown put his tongue in his cheek to write a Hall of Fame-level parody piece that went viral to some very unexpected places.
Honourable mentions: ?Tim Lincecum says sayonara to long hair ... Larsen's perfect game jersey sells for $756K ... Ryan Howard plays 'trash the dress' with bride ... Bryce Harper's Halloween costume ... Fake Verlander t-shirt causes Internet stir ... Max Scherzer's mismatched goggles ... Colby Rasmus' cornrows ... Dickey's friendship bracelets declared illegal ... Carne Cabeza! ... Sensing a pattern at All-Star media day ... The 10 best-selling New Era caps ... Affeldt sprains knee while hugging son ... The Colt .45s throwbacks controversy ... Cards' opening day unis get golden touch ... Two tiny teammates, one giant pair of pants ... Hulk Hogan crashes Mets camp ... Carlos Beltran buys ?Jon Niese a new nose ... Fan Cave member explains stories behind all 30 MLB tattoos
What was your favorite Big League Stew post? Tell us in the comments below!
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Let Change Happen | MomsGetReal
If you enjoy this post, be sure to follow MomsGetReal on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Google+!
Getting Real With +Shadra Bruce, Owner of +MomsGetReal
How often have you dreamed of change but decided it was too hard ? or that you could only start working for the change on Mondays or the first of the month?
Change doesn?t happen because we think about it; it happens because we choose to take action.
It?s simply a matter of getting up.
Whether you want to lose weight, write a book, get a new job, or pay off debt, it all begins with you choosing to do more than simply think about taking action and actually taking the action.
Most people, when they think about change, get overwhelmed at the distance between where they are and where they want to end up. It?s not about arriving, though?it?s about the steps you take each day to get where you want to be.
You may want to pay off your credit cards, but the overwhelming debt may seem to be too much to face. But you can pay $5 or $10 more per month on a card and shave years and thousands of dollars off what you owe. A $10,000 credit card bill might seem like too much, but $5 a month is not overwhelming. (At 18% interest, an extra $5 per month can save you more than $20,000 in interest and cut more than 10 years off the repayment time).
Losing 50 pounds might seem like an enormous battle, but making one small change to having a salad instead of potato chips every day is manageable ? and effective. Exercising 30 minutes every day might seem like more than you can do, but taking the stairs rather than the elevator, or parking as far away from the entrance as possible is not.
Change happens when we stop putting mental barriers in the path of our journey through change.
Get up.
Source: http://momsgetreal.com/2012/12/let-change-happen/
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Saturday 29 December 2012
Clips from Men's Basketball win over College of Idaho http://youtu.be/-UmV89yGjUs
Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.
Source: http://www.facebook.com/uathletics/posts/188339104644339
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Matthew McConaughey & Camila Alves Welcome Third Child
Matthew McConaughey & Camila Alves Welcome Third Child
Matthew McConaughey’s wife Camila Alves has given birth to their third child, a baby girl! The baby joins the couple’s daughter Vida, three, and their four-year-old son Levi. The couple decided to not find out the gender of their child until the baby’s birth, opting for the “wonderful surprise”. Alves, 30, gave birth to their ...
Matthew McConaughey & Camila Alves Welcome Third Child Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News
Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2012/12/matthew-mcconaughey-camila-alves-welcome-third-child/
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'Nigeria can become Africa's e-commerce hub' ? The Nation
If the Federal Government puts the necessary infrastructure in place, Nigeria could become Africa?s e-commerce hub, an online marketing specialist, has said.
Managing Director/ Chief Executive, sunglasses.com.ng, said with the potential in terms of demographics and Internet dynamics, the government could power Nigeria to become the African hub for e-commerce, adding that the push has the potential to boost employment and generate revenue.
Allowing the benefits of technology start-ups in the country to permeate the industry will definitely attract foreign investment and will help Nigerian and international entrepreneurs to grow and create successful companies.
?Also facilitating fast, reliable and affordable internet to Nigerians will help boost e-commerce, and this, the Federal Government is trying to do through various initiatives by the Ministry of Communication Technology and other agencies, such as the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), National Information Technology Development Agency of Nigeria (NITDA) and others,? he said.
Hr said in the UK, e-commerce accounts for about 10 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), translating to $200 billion, adding that by 2016, it is expected to contribute more than construction, healthcare and the education sectors to the economy.
?UK has 52 million internet users, while Nigeria has 48 million, and most likely, Nigeria will surpass UK in terms of the number of internet users by the end of 2013. That means a lot in terms of potential contributions to the economy. This underscores the potential Nigeria has and where it could be heading to in few years time,? he said.
He explained that lack of awareness and distrust are some of the challenges confronting operators in the segment. ?That is why we allow customers to pay on delivery. Nigerians are afraid of being duped,? he added.
Source: http://thenationonlineng.net/new/business/nigeria-can-become-africas-e-commerce-hub/
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Friday 28 December 2012
Obama: "modestly optimistic" fiscal cliff deal can be reached
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama held out hope for a last-minute agreement to avoid the "fiscal cliff" of tax increases and spending cuts after a meeting with congressional leaders, scolding Congress for leaving the problem unresolved until the eleventh hour.
"The hour for immediate action is here," he told reporters at the White House. "I'm modestly optimistic that an agreement can be achieved," he said.
Obama and lawmakers are working to prevent around $600 billion in combined federal spending cuts and tax increases, a shock economists say could stop the economic recovery in its tracks and perhaps reverberate beyond U.S. shores.
The president, who won re-election on a platform that included a pledge to raise taxes on top earners, said Senate leaders were working right now to craft a bipartisan measure that could win approval in both houses of Congress.
But if those last-ditch efforts were to fall short, lawmakers should hold a vote on a "bare minimum" measure that would extend existing tax rates for all but the wealthiest Americans and extend unemployment insurance, he said.
Obama took Congress to task for stalling on negotiations in a manner that is reminiscent of the 2011 stalemate that brought the nation close to the brink of defaulting on its debt and that hurt the economic recovery.
"This is d?j? vu all over again," he said.
"America wonders why it is that in this town for some reason you can't get stuff done in an organized timetable," he added. "Well, we're now at the last minute."
The president said the latest budget impasse was once again harming economic growth.
"Already you're seeing businesses and consumers starting to hold back because of the dysfunction that they see in Washington."
(Reporting By Mark Felsenthal; editing by Todd Eastham)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-modestly-optimistic-fiscal-cliff-deal-reached-231113884--business.html
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China court orders Apple to pay in rights dispute
FILE - In this Oct. 20, 2012 photo, Chinese people line up to enter a newly-opened Apple Store in Wangfujing shopping district in Beijing. A Chinese court has ordered Apple Inc. to pay 1.03 million yuan ($165,000) to eight Chinese writers and two companies who say unlicensed copies of their work were distributed through Apple's online store. The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court ruled Thursday, Dec. 27, 2012 that Apple violated the writers' copyrights by allowing applications containing their work to be distributed through its App Store, according to an official who answered the phone at the court and said he was the judge in the case. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)
FILE - In this Oct. 20, 2012 photo, Chinese people line up to enter a newly-opened Apple Store in Wangfujing shopping district in Beijing. A Chinese court has ordered Apple Inc. to pay 1.03 million yuan ($165,000) to eight Chinese writers and two companies who say unlicensed copies of their work were distributed through Apple's online store. The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court ruled Thursday, Dec. 27, 2012 that Apple violated the writers' copyrights by allowing applications containing their work to be distributed through its App Store, according to an official who answered the phone at the court and said he was the judge in the case. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)
BEIJING (AP) ? A Chinese court has ordered Apple Inc. to pay 1.03 million yuan ($165,000) to eight Chinese writers and two companies who say unlicensed copies of their work were distributed through Apple's online store.
The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court ruled Thursday that Apple violated the writers' copyrights by allowing applications containing their work to be distributed through its App Store, according to an official who answered the phone at the court and said he was the judge in the case. He refused to give his name, as is common among Chinese officials.
The award was less than the 12 million yuan ($1.9 million) sought by the authors. The case grouped together eight lawsuits filed by them and their publishers.
An Apple spokeswoman, Carolyn Wu, said the company's managers "take copyright infringement complaints very seriously." She declined to say whether the company would appeal.
Unlicensed copying of books, music, software and other products is widespread in China despite repeated government promises to stamp out violations.
Apple's agreement with application developers requires them to confirm they have obtained rights to material distributed through the company's App Store.
"We're always updating our service to better assist content owners in protecting their rights," Wu said.
The Chinese writers said they saw applications containing unlicensed versions of their books last year.
In November, a court ordered Apple to pay 520,000 yuan ($84,000) to the Encyclopedia of China Publishing House for copyright infringement in a separate case. Apple is appealing, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
In the latest case, the Beijing court awarded 605,000 yuan ($97,500) to one company and 21,500 yuan ($3,450) to the second, according to the court official.
The biggest individual judgment went to writer Han Ailian, who was awarded 186,000 yuan ($30,000).
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Thursday 27 December 2012
Consumers, businesses brace for 'fiscal cliff' impact
6 hrs.
For much of this year, business managers have blamed uncertainties over the looming ?fiscal cliff? for their reluctance to pick up the pace of new hiring. ?
As the budget?deadline nears with no deal in sight, we may be about to find out just justified those fears are.
Without a deal, the current budget law calls for a half-trillion-dollar package of tax hikes and spending cuts that most forecasters warn would, if left in force for long, send the U.S. economy back into recession.
Reid: Fiscal cliff failure looks likely, blames Boehner for 'dictatorship'
After strong gains in income in November, American households will see their paychecks shrink a bit when a two-year payroll tax "holiday" expires Dec. 31. The new rate will clip?2 percent from?every dollar of wage income, or?about $20 a week for someone making the median salary of?$50,000 a?year. ?
?People will start to feel it fairly quickly in their paychecks,? said Ian Shepherdson, an economist at Pantheon Macroeconomic Advisers.??I don't think the economy will fall apart completely (in the short term). But we?ve seen already that business confidence is weakening and consumer confidence is weakening. So the uncertainty is a problem.?
Small business owners are especially negative. Just five percent of them plan on adding new jobs, according to the latest monthly survey of its members by the National Federation of Independent Businesses. Only 19 percent said they plan to invest in new equipment in the next three to six months.
The business gloom does not bode well for the U.S. economy, which already faces weak conditions on several other fronts. Export growth is slowing as a?European recession and a?slowdown in China weigh on global demand for American products and services. Growth in government spending likely will slow ? whether or not a budget deal is reached to avoid the deeper cuts already set to kick in. That leaves spending by business and consumers to keep the economy afloat.
It remains to be seen whether businesses are holding back because of the ongoing budget battle. An alternative explanation is that business owners are hoping their can maximize profits by spending less and hiring fewer full-time?workers, instead?making do with temporary or part-time workers more or less indefinitely.
?That means more temporary workers, less investment in the future, lower productivity gains and a lower growth rate in the future,? said UBS economist Drew Matus. ?That?s a worst case scenario. So we all better hopes it?s the fiscal cliff causing some of these people to hold back.?
Though hiring picked up in the second half of this year, the overall pace is far lower than typically seen more than three years into an economic recovery. Since the 2007 recession ended, the number of part-time workers who can?t get full-time work has been stuck at double the level seen when the downturn began. ?
The spectacle of political dysfunction is likely to keep business managers in a sour mood for some?time.?
Though the new package of tax hikes and federal spending cuts is set to begin Jan. 1, the impact of those new measures will be felt gradually. Tax hikes will be spread over a full year. Some government?agencies may postpone spending cuts in?hopes that they'll be reversed before the fiscal year ends Sept. 30. ?
More worrisome is the pending fight over raising the debt ceiling, which will exhaust the government?s borrowing authority in February.
Unless lawmakers agree to extend it, the Treasury faces the same threat of default that threw the budget process into chaos?in July 2011 and cost the U.S. its Triple-A credit rating. The three major bond rating agencies have already warned that failure to reach a credible deal to contain federal budgets deficits could bring yet another downgrade.
US Treasury to take steps to avoid hitting debt ceiling
The best case scenario has Congress returning in January to enact a compromise agreement that President Barack?Obama signs into law, lifting the pall over business and consumers and sparking a fresh spurt of economic growth.
?That?s sort of what happened last summer when we had the debt ceiling fiasco,? said Sheperdson. ?Things rebounded fairly quickly. But while the negotiations were going on, payroll growth rolled over. And I?m nervous that we could get something similar this time.?
Until the budget fiasco is resolved, with businesses sitting on their hands, consumers remain the last best hope to keep the economy afloat. ?
?The consumer has really been holding things up,? said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors. ?Whether its retail sales, whether it's motor vehicle sales and even the biggest sales of all, housing, the consumer has been out there.?
Though wages have remained nearly flat since the recession ended, U.S. households have continued to pay down debt. Record lower interest rates have sparked a wave of refinanced mortgages that have plowed billions of dollars back into household budgets.
But the protracted display of Congressional incompetence may already be weighing on consumer spending, which accounts for 70 cents of every dollar of gross domestic product. ?On Friday, the latest read on consumer confidence, from a monthly Thompson Reuters/University of Michigan survey, showed that consumer sentiment fell sharply in December. ?A private survey, released Monday, similarly showed confidence getting eroded by fiscal cliff worries.
Without a budget deal, higher taxes will crimp consumers? spending power ? but only gradually. That?s why many economists believe the fiscal cliff is really more a like a slope.
Naroff likens the budget deadline to a snowball that will be released Jan. 1, picking up size and force as it continues to roll down the hill.
?To me the biggest uncertainty in all of this ? and for which we don?t have any estimates - is what happens to confidence?? he said. ?If consumers say, ?Hey, this thing is really getting very bad, Congress doesn't know what it is doing. ?I'm cutting back.? then we could have the snowball hit on consumer spending - with weakness in the business side. And then you have a real problem.?
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Richard Griot Shares His Collection and Philosophy Towards ...
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Sharing his passion for collecting cars, car enthusiast Richard Griot touches on the mindset that has led to his success in the automotive industry. Collecting, repairing, rebuilding and driving classic cars is Griot?s life. An automotive haven for car care and maintenance, Griots?s eponymous shop, Griot?s Garage, has been revered as one of the premiere destination for car enthusiasts. Acknowledging that his interest and curiosity for cars has led to his success within the industry, this short video details his unwavering passion for his craft. Labeled an ?Automotive Renaissance Man? for his ability to revitalive and rejuvenate cars, this video offers a window into the life and career of a true car enthusiast.
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'Les Miserables' Wins Huge Christmas Box Office
Quentin Tarantino's 'Django Unchained' placed second next to 'Les Mis' with huge Christmas day opening numbers.
By Josh Wigler
Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway in "Les Miserables"
Photo: Universal Pictures
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1699387/les-miserables-box-office.jhtml
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Wednesday 26 December 2012
Egypt's parliament convenes after charter passes
CAIRO (AP) ? Egypt's upper house of parliament has convened in its first session after the passing of the country's Islamist-backed constitution, the first action by a state institution in accordance with a document whose legitimacy is still contested by the opposition.
The Shura Council was swearing in 90 new members appointed by President Mohammed Morsi Wednesday. The charter, approved by 63.8 percent in a two-round referendum that ended Saturday, gives the traditionally toothless upper house full legislative powers until elections for a new lower house is called within two months.
The Islamist-dominated council is expected to draft a law regulating upcoming parliamentary elections. Other items on the agenda may include laws on protests and the media.
The opposition says the constitutional process was rushed and the referendum marked by widespread irregularities.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypts-parliament-convenes-charter-passes-104229209.html
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Shoppers disappoint retailers this holiday season
WASHINGTON (AP) ? U.S. shoppers spent cautiously this holiday season, a disappointment for retailers who slashed prices to lure people into stores and now must hope for a post-Christmas burst of spending.
Sales of electronics, clothing, jewelry and home goods in the two months before Christmas increased 0.7 percent compared with last year, according to the MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse report.
That was below the healthy 3 to 4 percent growth that analysts had expected ? and it was the worst year-over-year performance since 2008, when spending shrank sharply during the Great Recession. In 2011, retail sales climbed 4 to 5 percent during November and December, according to ShopperTrak.
This year's shopping season was marred by bad weather and rising uncertainty about the economy in the face of possible tax hikes and spending cuts early next year. Some analysts say the massacre of schoolchildren in Newtown, Conn., earlier this month may also have chipped away at shoppers' enthusiasm.
Retailers still have time to make up lost ground. The final week of December accounts for about 15 percent of the month's sales, said Michael McNamara, vice president for research and analysis at MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse.
Still, this season's weak sales could have repercussions for 2013, McNamara said. Retailers will make fewer orders to restock their shelves, and discounts will hurt their profitability. Wholesalers will buy fewer goods and orders to factories will likely drop in the coming months.
Steep discounts weren't enough to get people into stores, said Marshal Cohen, chief analyst at the market research firm NPD Inc.
"A lot of the Christmas spirit was left behind way back in Black Friday weekend," Cohen said, referring to the traditional retail rush the day after Thanksgiving. "We had one reason after another for consumers to say, 'I'm going to stick to my list and not go beyond it.'"
Holiday sales are a crucial indicator of the economy's strength. November and December account for up to 40 percent of annual sales for many retailers. If those sales don't materialize, stores are forced to offer steeper discounts. That's a boon for shoppers, but it cuts into stores' profits.
Spending by consumers accounts for 70 percent of overall economic activity, so the eight-week period encompassed by the SpendingPulse data is seen as a critical time not just for retailers but for manufacturers, wholesalers and companies at every other point along the supply chain.
The SpendingPulse data released Tuesday, which captures sales from Oct. 28 through Dec. 24 across all payment methods, is the first major snapshot of holiday retail sales. A clearer picture will emerge next week as retailers like Macy's and Target report revenue from stores open for at least a year. That sales measure is widely watched in the retail industry because it excludes revenue from stores that recently opened or closed, which can be volatile.
In the run-up to Christmas, analysts blamed bad weather for putting a damper on shopping. In late October, Superstorm Sandy battered the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states, which account for 24 percent of U.S. retail sales.
Shopping picked up in the second half of November, but then the threat of the country falling off a "fiscal cliff" gained strength, throwing consumers off track once again.
Lawmakers have yet to reach a deal that would prevent tax increases and government spending cuts set to take effect at the beginning of 2013. If the cuts and tax hikes kick in and stay in place for months, the Congressional Budget Office says the nation could fall back into recession.
Shopping over the past two months was weakest in areas affected by Sandy and a more recent winter storm in the Midwest. Sales declined by 3.9 percent in the mid-Atlantic and 1.4 percent in the Northeast compared with last year. They rose 0.9 percent in the north central part of the country.
The West and South posted gains of between 2 percent and 3 percent, still weaker than the 3 percent to 4 percent increases expected by many retail analysts.
Online sales, typically a bright spot, grew only 8.4 percent from Oct. 28 through Saturday, according to SpendingPulse. That's a dramatic slowdown from the online sales growth of 15 to 17 percent seen in the prior 18-month period, according to the data service.
Online sales did enjoy a modest boost after the recent snowstorm that hit the Midwest, McNamara said. Online sales make up about 10 percent of total holiday business.
___
Daniel Wagner can be reached at www.twitter.com/wagnerreports.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/shoppers-disappoint-retailers-holiday-season-070057590--finance.html
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Cold-weather birds flock to Florida - but why? | StAugustine.com
Razorbills, cold-weather birds with penguin-like features, have been unlikely visitors to South Florida over the past few weeks, attracting bird watchers to the coast of Palm Beach County and creating speculation about why they?re here.
?This is a historic ornithological event,? said Carl Edwards, an avid bird-watcher from West Palm Beach who took three boat trips out of the Boynton Inlet recently to observe the Northeastern, ocean-going birds, which have also been spotted off Miami Beach and the Florida Keys.
Edwards estimates he saw 900 razorbills during two trips out of the inlet on Dec. 14. Almost all of the birds were headed south, he said, most likely in search of food.
Black with white undersides, razorbills weigh about 1.6 pounds, measure about 17 inches in length and have a wingspan of about 26 inches, according to the National Audubon Society.
Razorbills can dive several hundred feet below the ocean?s surface to find food, and can walk upright, like penguins, on land. Their diet consists of small, cold-water fish of the northern Atlantic, including juvenile cod, sand lance and capelin.
Their predators include Arctic foxes and polar bears.
Razorbills have been spotted 14 times in Florida in the past, but only single or a few birds were reported in previous sightings, said Marshall Iliff, a bird expert with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and lead author of a recent article about the Florida razorbill invasion on the website eBird.org.
Recent razorbill sightings off the South Florida coast have included flocks of more than 20, Iliff said.
Why they are here is open to debate.
Andy Kratter, an ornithologist with the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, said beach erosion and other disturbances brought by Hurricane Sandy to the coasts of New York and New Jersey probably prompted the razorbills to fly south.
However, Iliff of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology said he believes above-average sea-surface temperatures in the Northeast are responsible.
Iliff said the reason for the rise in sea-surface temperature is unclear, but he noted on eBird that it could be related to cycles of ocean warming and cooling or long-term climate change.
The first razorbills documented off the coast of Palm Beach County were spotted Dec. 9 from the north jetty at the Boynton Inlet, said Linda Humphries of the Audubon Society of the Everglades.
?I?m really excited that they?re here,? Humphries said. ?People have been coming from all over Florida to see them.?
After razorbills were seen off Miami Beach and the Keys, bird-watchers tracked them as they continued their journey north along Gulf Coast toward the Florida Panhandle.
Although the unprecedented migration has been exciting for bird-watchers, it has been tough on some of the birds, several of which have washed up dead on Florida beaches.
The Busch Wildlife Sanctuary, which operates a wildlife hospital in Jupiter, took in another type of Northeastern sea bird called a dovekie last weekend that apparently was too weak to feed and had washed ashore.
Malnourished sea birds tend to bob around on the ocean and eventually wash ashore, said David Hitzig, executive director of the wildlife sanctuary, which helps them regain strength before releasing them back into the wild.
But Hitzig said the birds? prognosis generally is not good.
?Once they wash up on shore, you?re looking at the tail end of their story,? Hitzig said.
Source: http://staugustine.com/state/2012-12-25/cold-weather-birds-flock-florida-why
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Tuesday 25 December 2012
Q & A: Should Older Adults Be Vaccinated Against Chickenpox?
[unable to retrieve full-text content]In someone who has never had chickenpox, the vaccine would protect against a disease that is far more serious in adults than in children, experts say.
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Pilgrims mark Christmas in Bethlehem
At midnight mass in the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, the cradle of Christianity, the message was of peace, love and goodwill to all mankind. NBC's Martin Fletcher reports.
By The Associated Press
Pilgrims and locals celebrated Christmas Day on Tuesday in the ancient Bethlehem church where tradition holds Jesus was born, candles illuminating the sacred site and the joyous sound of prayer filling its overflowing halls.
Overcast skies and a cold wind didn't dampen the spirits of worshippers who came dressed in holiday finery and the traditional attire of foreign lands to mark the holy day in this biblical West Bank town. Bells pealed and long lines formed inside the fourth-century Church of the Nativity complex as Christian faithful waited eagerly to see the grotto that is Jesus' traditional birthplace.
Duncan Hardock, 24, a writer from MacLean, Va., traveled to Bethlehem from the republic of Georgia, where he had been teaching English. After passing through the separation barrier Israel built to ward off West Bank attackers, he walked to Bethlehem's Manger Square where the church stands.
"I feel we got to see both sides of Bethlehem in a really short period of time," Hardock said. "On our walk from the wall, we got to see the lonesome, closed side of Bethlehem ... But the moment we got into town, we're suddenly in the middle of the party."
Bethlehem lies 6 miles south of Jerusalem. Entry to the city is controlled by Israel, which occupied the West Bank in 1967.
Hardock's girlfriend, 22-year-old Jennifer Gemmell of Longmont, Colorado, compared the festive spirit in Manger Square on Christmas Eve, saying "it's like being at Times Square at New Year's."
Boy's Christmas wish: Adoption of little brother caught in US-Russia spat
The cavernous church was unable to hold all the worshippers who had hoped to celebrate Christmas Day Mass inside. A loudspeaker outside the church broadcast the service to the hundreds in the square who could not pack inside.
Paul J. Richards / AFP - Getty Images
In churches and bus stations, on water skis and bicycles, people from the Middle East to middle America celebrate Christmas.
Pope's prayer for peace
Tourists in the square posed for pictures as vendors hawked olive wood rosaries, nativity scenes, corn on the cob, roasted nuts, tea and coffee.
An official from the Palestinian tourism ministry predicted 10,000 foreigners would visit Bethlehem on Christmas Day and said 15,000 visited on Christmas Eve ? up 20 percent from a year earlier. The official, Rula Maia'a, attributed the rise in part to the Church of the Nativity's classification earlier this year as a U.N. World Heritage Site.
Christians from Israel ? Arab citizens and others ? also boosted the number of visitors.
Germany's latest big export: Christmas markets
On Christmas Eve, thousands of Christians from all over the world packed the square, which was awash in light, resplendent with decorations and adorned by a lavishly decorated, 55-foot fir tree. Their Palestinian hosts, who welcome this holiday as the high point of their city's year, were especially joyous this season, proud of the United Nations' recognition of an independent state of Palestine just last month.
On Monday evening, Pope Benedict XVI prayed that Israelis and Palestinians live in peace and freedom, and asked the faithful to pray for strife-torn Syria as well as Lebanon and Iraq.
He urged people to reflect upon what they find time for in their busy, technology-driven lives.
A family's Christmas wish: Healthy heart for girl
"The great moral question of our attitude toward the homeless, toward refugees and migrants takes on a deeper dimension: Do we really have room for God when he seeks to enter under our roof? Do we have time and space for him?" the pope said.
"The faster we can move, the more efficient our time-saving appliances become, the less time we have. And God? The question of God never seems urgent," Benedict lamented.
Later Tuesday, the world's Christmas focus will shift to Vatican City, where the pope will deliver his traditional "Urbi et Orbi" speech ? Latin for "to the city and the world" ? from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica to thousands of pilgrims, tourists and Romans gathered in the piazza below.
More world stories from NBC News:
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? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Monday 24 December 2012
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Three new genetic links to colorectal cancer
Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center investigators have identified three new genetic "hotspots" linked to colorectal cancer. These variants, reported Dec. 23 in an Advanced Online Publication in Nature Genetics, provide new insight into the biology of colorectal cancer ? and could represent new therapeutic targets for the disease.
Colorectal cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers worldwide ? and rates are particularly high in the United States and other developed countries. Genetics plays an important role in both sporadic and familial (inherited) forms of the disease. However, only about 6 percent of colorectal cancer cases are explained by the rare genetic variants known to confer high risk of colorectal cancer (as seen in familial forms of the disease).
Previous studies on the genetic basis of colorectal cancer have pinpointed several additional variants, but most of the studies were conducted in European/Caucasian populations.
"Looking at different ethnic groups is important because the genetic structures can be different enough that variants identified in one population do not explain risk in other populations," said Wei Zheng, M.D., Ph.D., MPH, an Ingram Professor of Cancer Research and senior author on the study. "Because of the difference in genetic structures and underlying environment exposures, it might be easier to discover some risk variants in studies conducted in non-European populations."
In 2009, Zheng and colleagues in several Asian countries established the "Asia Colorectal Cancer Consortium" to search for novel genetic risk factors for the disease. The consortium included populations in China, Korea and Japan.
Using an approach known as a "genome-wide association study" (or GWAS), Zheng and colleagues began searching for common variants linked to disease risk.
From genomic data obtained from 2,098 colorectal cancer cases and 5,749 controls, the researchers identified 64 variants, or "single nucleotide polymorphisms" (SNPs), that were associated with colorectal cancer.
The investigators then replicated these findings in another set of samples, narrowing down the number of disease-associated variants to four. Three of those four variants were also associated with colorectal cancer risk in a larger European sample.
"The findings from this study are relevant to both Asian and European populations," said Zheng. "Interestingly, these three susceptibility loci were not discovered in previous studies conducted in European-ancestry populations."
This study highlights the importance of conducting genetic studies in non-European populations to fully uncover the genetic basis for common diseases, including colorectal cancer, Zheng noted.
While the specific functions of these newly identified susceptibility loci are not clear yet, several important genes are located in the regions near the risk variants discovered in this study. For example, one risk variant is located near CCND2, the gene encoding cyclin D2, a member of the cyclin family of proteins that regulate the cell cycle. Cyclins have been linked to cancer, but research on the CCND2 gene has been limited. Therefore, the current findings suggest the need for further research on the role of other cyclins and cyclin-dependent kinases in carcinogenesis.
"These new discoveries are very exciting," Zheng said. "They will certainly lead to future studies regarding the biology of these regions and the translational potential of these findings in cancer prevention and treatment."
Journal reference: Nature Genetics
Provided by Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Source: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-genetic-links-colorectal-cancer.html
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