Working As A Light During this Massive Tragedy

“The human being who lives only for himself finally reaps nothing but unhappiness. Selfishness corrodes. Unselfishness ennobles, satisfies. Don't put off the joy derivable from doing helpful, kindly things for others.”

 

~B.C. Forbes~

 

 

 

 

NYU Hospital Evacuation: Nurses Manually 'Breathed' For Babies After Hurricane Sandy Causes Power Outage.

 

Exhausted healthcare personnel worked through the night to evacuate NYU's Langone Medical Center after heavy flooding from Hurricane Sandy caused the hospital to lose power.

As Hurricane Sandy barreled through the East Coast Monday, New York City took quite a hit. And, even with a backup generator, NYU's hospital in downtown Manhattan lost its power around midnight, a nurse, who wishes to remain anonymous, told The Huffington Post.

Medical staff distributed flashlights, then proceeded to evacuate 260 patients on "med sleds," at a pace of about one patient every 15 minutes.

“The evacuation continued all night," Lorinda Klein, an NYU spokeswoman, told The Huffington Post. “It was very slow and methodical.”

Among the patients evacuated, reports ABC News, were 20 babies from the neonatal intensive care unit. Because the hospital's respirators for infants do not have backup batteries, each of the infants required extra attention from nurses at the hospital.

At least four babies had to be carried to a waiting ambulance down nine flights of stairs while a nurse "breathed" for the infant by manually squeezing a bag to drive oxygen into the lungs.

Dr. Andrew Brotman, senior vice president and vice dean for clinical affairs and strategy at the hospital, described the process to CNN as "labor-intensive," and "extremely difficult."

But, he continued, "Everybody's digging in and doing what they have to do."

 | By Ryan Grenoble The Huffington Post

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/30/nyu-hospital-evacuation-babies_n_2044665.html

Monsanto's Destruction Continues on...

 

 

We already know the links between herbicides and sterility in men, birth defects, mental illness, obesity and possibly cancer—but now we have something new to add to the nasty effects of pesticides list — Parkinson’s disease and similar neurodegenerative conditions.

New research, published in the journal Neurotoxicology and Teratology, indicates a connection between a component in Monsanto’s Roundup and Parkinson’s disease. Glyphosate is said to induce cell death, with frightening repercussions.

GreenMedInfo.com reports the study was investigating the links between herbicides (weed killers) and brain damage. These chemicals, the study’s authors say, “have been recognized as the main environmental factor associated with neurodegenerative disorders,” like Parkinson’s.
Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative nervous system disease.

 It slowly progresses as time goes on with common symptoms like tremors, rigidity, difficulty walking, poor posture, lack of movement, and slowness of movement, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center.

The CDC reports Parkinson’s as the 14^th leading cause of death in the U.S. In 2010 (the last year for which data is available), there was 4.6% increase in the number of deaths attributed to this disease. One has to wonder if there is a connection between this jump and the ever-growing prevalence of herbicides like Roundup in our air, food, and water.

Studies indicate that glyphosate is toxic to human DNA “at concentrations diluted 450-fold lower than used in agricultural applications.” Worded differently—the levels considered safe by our government are 450 times the levels at which glyphosate has been found to damage and destroy human DNA. Yes, it’s that serious.

One case study found a woman who was exposed to glyphosate in the workplace for 3 years at a chemical factory. She wore gloves and a face mask. She was initially a healthy, middle-aged women. But, she developed “rigidity, slowness, and resting tremor in all four limbs.” She was also experiencing severe dizziness, weakness, and blurred vision. And hers isn’t the only such case.

What’s so scary about the growing body of research on Monsanto’s Roundup, its components, and their presence in nearly everything around us, is that the federal government refuses to recognize the risk. Despite a growing concern on an international level, the powers-that-be are seemingly content to turn their eyes while the people demand accountability and safe food.

 

 by Elizabeth Renter @ Prisonplanet.com

http://www.prisonplanet.com/monsanto%e2%80%99s-roundup-glyphosate-linked-to-parkinson%e2%80%99s-and-similar-diseases.html

Afghanistan Sees Rise in ‘Dancing boys’ Exploitation

“Like it or not, there was better rule of law under the Taliban,” said Dee Brillenburg Wurth, a child-protection expert at the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, who has sought to persuade the government to address the problem. “They saw it as a sin, and they stopped a lot of it.”

 

DEHRAZI, Afghanistan — The 9-year-old boy with pale skin and big, piercing eyes captivated Mirzahan at first sight.
“He is more handsome than anyone in the village,” the 22-year-old farmer said, explaining why he is grooming the boy as a sexual partner and companion. There was another important factor that made Waheed easy to take on as a bacha bazi, or a boy for pleasure: “He doesn’t have a father, so there is no one to stop this.”

 

 

Watch a short clip from "Dancing Boys of Afghanistan," a PBS investigative documentary from 2010. Watch the full video on the PBS site.

 

A growing number of Afghan children are being coerced into a life of sexual abuse. The practice of wealthy or prominent Afghans exploiting underage boys as sexual partners who are often dressed up as women to dance at gatherings is on the rise in post-Taliban Afghanistan, according to Afghan human rights researchers, Western officials and men who participate in the abuse.

“Like it or not, there was better rule of law under the Taliban,” said Dee Brillenburg Wurth, a child-protection expert at the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, who has sought to persuade the government to address the problem. “They saw it as a sin, and they stopped a lot of it.”

 

Over the past decade, the phenomenon has flourished in Pashtun areas in the south, in several northern provinces and even in the capital, according to Afghans who engage in the practice or have studied it. Although issues such as women’s rights and moral crimes have attracted a flood of donor aid and activism in recent years, bacha bazi remains poorly understood.

 

The State Department has mentioned the practice — which is illegal here, as it would be in most countries — in its annual human rights reports. The 2010 report said members of Afghanistan’s security forces, who receive training and weapons from the U.S.-led coalition, sexually abused boys “in an environment of criminal impunity.”

 

But by and large, foreign powers in Afghanistan have refrained from drawing attention to the issue. There are no reliable statistics on the extent of the problem.

“It is very sensitive and taboo in Afghanistan,” said Hayatullah Jawad, head of the Afghan Human Rights Research and Advocacy Organization, who is based in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif.

“There are a lot of people involved in this case, but no one wants to talk about it.”

An open secret

A recent interview with Mirzahan and a handful of his friends who sexually exploit boys provided a rare glimpse into the lives of men who have taken on bacha bazi.

The men agreed to be interviewed together in a mud hut in this tiny village in Balkh province, accessible only by narrow, unpaved roads and just a few miles from areas where the Taliban is fighting the government for dominance. The men insisted that only their first names be used. Although the practice of bacha bazi has become something of an open secret in Afghanistan, it is seldom discussed in public or with outsiders.

Sitting next to the 9-year-old Waheed, who was wearing a pink pants-and-tunic set called a shalwar kameez, Mirzahan said he opted to take on the boy because marrying a woman would have been prohibitively expensive. The two have not had sex, Mirzahan said, but that will happen in a few years. For now, Waheed is being introduced to slightly older “danc­ing boys.”

 

By Ernesto Londoño The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/afganistans-dancing-boys-are-invisible-victims/2012/04/04/gIQAyreSwS_story.html

"You Know You're A Bad Person If? You Shoot a Little Girl in the Face."

“I don’t care what their justification is. You can be certain an ideology is wrong when the perpetrators of the crime try to justify the attempted murder of a little girl. The fact of the matter is these sick people do not see what they did as wrong. In fact they believe they did the will of Allah… I’m sure I’ll be accused of being intolerant for feeling so hateful towards these peoples ideology… What a confused generation.”

 

~Nicholas Moore~

 

 

 

 

Taliban Demands Unbiased Coverage of Its Attempted Murder of a 14-Year-Old Girl

 

By John Hudson

 

Pakistan's Taliban insurgency faces a spate of bad press in mainstream Pakistani outlets related to the jihadists' failed assassination attempt of Malala Yousafzai, a young blogger who dared protest the Taliban's ban on educating girls. Now the Taliban are plotting terror strikes on TV stations and other media organizations, but local newspapers refuse to stay silent.

 

The first report of these plots were surfaced by an urdu-language reporter on Saturday, who uncovered a special directive by the chief of the banned Tahreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Hakimullah Mehsud. As local newspaper Dawn reported, "Mehsud directed his subordinate to target the offices of media organisations in Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad and in other cities of the country especially those media organisations and media personalities who were denouncing TTP after attack on child activist Malala Yousufzai." In response, the Interior Ministry has beefed up security near media organizations. But the Taliban are still whining.

Yesterday, local paper The News International gave voice to the Taliban's pathetic complaints of bias, which offered a rare window into terrorist media criticism. TTP spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan said his group would "continue to respect journalists" except for highly biased outlets. The spokesman for another Taliban insurgent group, Sirajuddin Ahmad of Maulana Fazlullah, spoke at greater length:

He said media provided an opportunity to all those people who were opposed to the Taliban and their activities and used insulting language against them on media. “Right from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to Hillary Clinton and President Obama, all of them used whatever bad language and words they could use on the media but when we tried to reply to them, no media organisation was willing to give us importance. The media is not even allowed to use the real name for Maulana Fazlullah but calling him derogatory names like Mulla Radio,” Sirajuddin complained, but refused to admit that they planned attacks on the media.

Wow, Columbia Journalism Review, here we come. Clearly Pakistani reporters should be giving equal weight to the pros and cons of shooting children in the face.

The Taliban is mad because the rest of Pakistan is mad at them over the shooting. "Undoubtedly this is the worst press the TTP has ever had, there is no doubt," Rana Jawad, Islamabad bureau chief of Geo News, told The Guardian's Islamabad correspondent Jon Boone.

 The Taliban have been furious that justification for the attack, that the girl was being "un-Islamic," was not being placed prominently in news stories. Muhammad Amir Rana of the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, says the Taliban are taking a PR beating. "We have seen a similar public sentiment in the past, but this time it is quite unique," he said. "This case has provided a catharsis of the masses for all the grievances that have been building up for years."

Apparently, the insurgent groups just aren't very media savvy, according to Mullah Yahya, a former high-ranking Afghan Information Ministry official, who spoke with The Daily Beast's Sami Yousafzai. “First of all, attempting to kill a 14-year-old girl is a low act,” he said. “Second, claiming responsibility for it is a sign that the [Pakistani] Taliban are not aware of the media’s importance. I have seen more anger against the religious elements in the past week than in all my 40 years of life.” So here's to you, Pakistani press. You've defied the all-too-common media trap of false equivalence.

http://news.yahoo.com/taliban-demands-unbiased-coverage-attempted-murder-14-old-190221609.html

"Every day an Afghan Girl is Abused, Raped, has Acid Thrown on Her Face and Mutilated"

"Every day an Afghan girl is abused, raped, has acid thrown on her face and mutilated. Yet no one remembers or acknowledges these girls,"

 ~Elay Ershad, who represents the nomadic Kuchi people in Afghan parliament, told Reuters.~

 

 

KABUL (Reuters) - The global attention bestowed on a Pakistani schoolgirl shot by the Taliban has sparked outcry amongst many Afghans dismayed by what they say is the unequal response to the plight of their women and children.

Malala Yousufzai, shot by Taliban gunmen for advocating girls' education, was flown from Pakistan to Britain to receive treatment after the attack this month which drew widespread condemnation and an international outpouring of support.

 

"Every day an Afghan girl is abused, raped, has acid thrown on her face and mutilated. Yet no one remembers or acknowledges these girls," Elay Ershad, who represents the nomadic Kuchi people in Afghan parliament, told Reuters.

Echoing concerns of other prominent Afghan women, Ershad said the government took no real interest in women's rights, instead using the issue for political gain and currying favor with Western backers, a claim Kabul has dismissed as untrue.

President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly condemned Yousufzai's shooting, even using it to address women's rights in his country: "The people of Afghanistan ... see this attempt not only against (Yousufzai) but also against all Afghan girls," he said last week.

 

The closest Karzai has come this year to condemning violence against women in Afghanistan, as seen on the scale he has done with Yousufzai, was in July when gunmen publicly executed a 22-year-old woman, named Najiba, for alleged adultery, which prompted an international outcry.

 

"If the president does not care about Afghan women in general, why does he suddenly care about Malala?" Ershad asked. "No one (here) ever seeks justice once the television cameras are turned off."

 

The United Arab Emirates provided the plane taking Yousufzai to Britain, while British officials said the Pakistani government was footing the bill for her lengthy treatment in Birmingham.

 

Karzai has told Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari that the attack was proof the two needed to tackle a common enemy, a move widely seen as an attempt to soothe ties between the neighbors amid bickering over Pakistani shelling across the countries' lawless border.

 

"WE BETTER UNDERSTAND MALALA'S SITUATION"

 

Afghan women have won back basic rights in education, voting and employment since the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001, sparking the present NATO-led war, but Afghanistan remains one of the worst places on Earth to be a woman, despite billions of dollars in aid and pledges to better their lives.

 

There is now mounting concern that such freedoms will not be protected and may even be traded away as Kabul seeks a peace deal with the Taliban, as most foreign troops prepare to leave the country by the end of 2014.

 

"We understand Malala's situation better than anybody in the world, (yet) our government defends women's rights with empty slogans and actually does next to nothing," said Suraya Parlika, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and member of the upper house of parliament.

 

The popular, privately owned Tolo television highlighted the story of a policeman in eastern Ghazni province, called Zalmai, whose young son and daughter were shot dead in front of him by suspected Taliban members just days before Yousufzai's October 9 shooting in Pakistan's Swat valley.

 

"How can the Afghan government react so and condemn (the attack on) a Pakistani girl and ignore such an event like this?" Tolo quoted one of Zalmai's colleagues as saying this week, adding that officials had ignored requests to investigate.

Afghanistan's independent human rights commission says violence against women is increasing across the country as Karzai's government appears to backslide on women's rights.

 

The older brother of Mah Gul, a 20-year-old woman beheaded last week in western Herat province by her in-laws for refusing prostitution, said local officials initially took no interest in her murder.

 

"People get told off for slaughtering someone else's cow but we had to wait for her murder to be announced in the mosque before anything was done about it," 32-year-old taxi driver and Gul's brother Mohammad Nasir Akbari told Reuters.

 

Four people including Gul's husband and in-laws were arrested last week, officials said.

(Editing by Michael Perry)

http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/nm/as-world-helps-shot-pakistani-girl-afghans-ask-what-about-us

 

 

 

"Most Unproductive & Unpopular Congress In Modern History"

"Coburn's report estimates $132 million of taxpayers' money was wasted on "the most unproductive and unpopular Congress in modern history… The waste is unbelievable," says Coburn. "We're bankrupt, this country is bankrupt, and people just don't want to admit it."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/power-players-abc-news/wasteful-spending-tax-dollars-martian-menus-non-profit-105911755.html

 

U.S. Is Still Pursuing the Same Old Self-Destructive Habits.

“The U.S. is still pursuing the same old self-destructive habits. Until we stop consuming so much and start producing more, we're in no position to demand anything.”

~Barry P. Bosworth

“The truth hurts sometimes, but pretending everything is okay and looking the other way is insane.”

~Consul Nicholas Moore

Who Owns America’s Debt?

By Henry Blodget | Daily Ticker

 

As the U.S. continues to rack up more than $1 trillion of new debt every year, Americans are beginning to worry about who we owe this money to and how much power our creditors have over us.

According to Barry P. Bosworth, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, our two biggest foreign creditors are Japan and China.

Although it may seem as though our debt to these countries renders us a puppet on strings, Bosworth says this fear is overblown. The U.S. market is very important to China's economy, so China would be loathe to do anything that might exacerbate tensions or disrupt trade between the two countries. And the same can be said for Japan. China owns $1.15 trillion of U.S. government debt -- more than any other country -- but U.S. taxpayers actually owe less money to China compared to recent years. China holds 10% of U.S. Treasuries, down from 12% two years ago.

And what about all the anti-China rhetoric that we hear about on the campaign trail?

Republican Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney has been promising the country that he will declare China a "currency manipulator" on the first day of his presidency--and then enact tariffs as necessary until he forces China to level the trading playing field. Is that something that Romney is actually likely to do if he gets elected?

No, says Bosworth.

Tough talk with respect to China has become standard rhetoric for any presidential challenger. If and when Romney becomes president, his position will likely mellow.

Bosworth also says that the problem with the U.S.-China trade relationship is not, as is commonly believed, that China doesn't play fair. China has actually addressed lots of its unfair practices over the past decade, Bosworth says, while the U.S. is still pursuing the same old self-destructive habits. Until we stop consuming so much and start producing more, Bosworth says, we're in no position to demand anything.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/owns-america-debt-191108431.html

Another Tragedy...Change Will Never Be Soon Enough in This World.

“We need people in our lives with whom we can be as open as possible. To have a real conversation with people may seem like such a simple, obvious suggestion, but it involves courage and risk.”

                                                                                                                                                    ~Thomas Moore~

                                            

Amanda Todd: Memorial for Teenage Cyber Bullying Victim

Tributes from across the world are being paid to a 15-year-old girl from Canada who killed herself after being bullied online.

A memorial for Amanda Todd was held overnight in British Columbia, five days after she was found dead.

It comes just five weeks after she uploaded a video to YouTube describing years of bullying that she said drove her to drugs and alcohol.

In the nine-minute video she told her story with a set of handwritten notes.

The recording, described as "haunting", showed the cheerleader going into detail about what happened to her.

She said she was persuaded to expose her breasts to a stranger who then sent the photo to her school friends.

'I need someone'

These images were then used to torment her on social media, she adds.

The teenager changed schools repeatedly but this did not stop the bullying and she was physically attacked by classmates.

After a violent encounter with another girl, she wrote that she went home and drank bleach.

"It killed me inside and I thought I actually was going to die."

The last card on the YouTube video reads: "I have nobody. I need someone. My name is Amanda Todd."

In a comment below the video, Amanda wrote that she was not posting the video for attention.

She wanted "to be an inspiration and to show that I can be strong".

"Everyone's future will be bright one day, you just gotta pull through. I'm still here, aren't I?"

Christy Clark, premier in British Columbia, posted a video on YouTube offering her condolences and condemning bullying.

Amanda Todd's family has not yet spoken publicly about what has happened.

http://www.bbc.com/newsbeat/19960162

Trouble On The Horizon, An Outbreak

Company linked to meningitis scare besieged as deaths rise

By Greg McCune

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The company that produced contaminated medications linked to an unprecedented fungal meningitis outbreak faced mounting scrutiny on Saturday over whether it illegally sold drugs to medical facilities, as the death toll from the disease grew to 15.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said another person died from meningitis, the second death in Indiana. The number of cases of the disease reported reached 201 in 14 states, according to the CDC and state officials.

Illinois reported its first case of meningitis from a steroid injection and New Hampshire officials reported that state's first four confirmed cases from the outbreak, which showed no signs of abating.

Tennessee is the worst affected state with six deaths and 52 cases followed by Michigan with three deaths and 41 cases, including one case of an infection that has not been confirmed as meningitis.

As federal and state authorities scrambled to contain the outbreak, investigators were trying to determine how the medication produced by New England Compounding Center was contaminated and whether its sprawling drug supply business complied with licensing laws.

A series of emails between the company and a clinic in Mississippi reviewed by Reuters show that NECC sold drugs without requiring physicians to supply individual patient prescriptions. The customer confirmed that NECC supplied the clinic with drugs without patient names or prescriptions, which are required by a number of states including Massachusetts, where the company is based.

The emails also indicate that NECC referred business to a sister company, Ameridose LLC, despite a statement by Ameridose earlier this week that the two operated separately.

NECC has recalled the suspect product, surrendered its license to operate in Massachusetts and suspended operations. Ameridose also has temporarily suspended operations.
"NECC's intent has always been to operate in compliance with our licenses in the states where we do business," the company said in a statement.
FEDERAL CRITICISM
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is investigating NECC and there have been calls from some in Congress for a criminal investigation of the company.
"FDA considers this to be one of our top priorities and we are dedicating many resources to this investigation," the agency said in a statement late on Friday.
Federal regulators have come under criticism for failing to prevent the outbreak by closely regulating drug compounding companies such as NECC, which prepare medications for clinics and doctors largely outside federal oversight. The FDA has said the law does not give it adequate authority to do so, leaving regulation largely to the states.
"This outbreak began at a compounding pharmacy and the Food and Drug Administration has very limited authority over what these facilities produce," said a spokesman for the Health and Human Services Department in Washington. "We urge Congress to give FDA the authority it needs to ensure these kinds of outbreaks do not happen again."
NECC faces mounting threats from states as well. Several states are investigating the company and at least two - Michigan and Massachusetts - have said the company violated their regulations, according to a Reuters survey.

Some 14,000 patients received the suspect steroid medications, which were shipped to 76 facilities in 23 states as long ago as May.

Meningitis is an infection of the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord. Symptoms include headache, fever and nausea. Fungal meningitis is a rare form and is not contagious.

Cases of meningitis have been reported in Tennessee, Michigan, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and New Hampshire.

(Additional reporting by David Bailey, Toni Clarke, Aaron Pressman, Andrea Shalal-Esa and Ros Krasny; Editing by Bill Trott)

The Truth Is Not That Complicated

The truth is the distractions in our nation and the excessive use of these, hinders progress, and leaves many in a kind of drunken state of mind. We’re being misdirected by too much T.V; (the crap reality shows comes to mind where we watch and mock people), excessive partying, recent novels; (which are popular yet sloppily written), the media; (being obviously bias and full of lies), the music (reference to the sort which has no deeper meaning), the illusions (like the crazy, self obsessed life is better); these are all responsible for tricking us into wasting ourselves, wasting our lives. There is a negative force keeping a thick fog around our heads, blinding us from seeing what is truly meaningful. Moderation is fine, but these distractions today are cheap counterfeit to the true beauty life has to offer, and it's a lie if we believe these distractions can make life better.

 

We should be ever so thankful for the freedom in our nation, and we shouldn’t take this for granted. Living in excess is the problem, (there is nothing wrong with having fun). The problem is many are paying too much attention to the distractions of the material world, and allowing their lives to be defined by these. Do not be tricked. Such devices will eventually take away our joy and appreciation for life. Appreciation for the finer things will decrease because the distractions hinder us from thinking for ourselves, and determining what we, as an individual, believe to be beautiful. The material worlds' distractions blind us from seeing true meaning to life. Imagination is going away because of the excessive distractions. We're losing comprehension of, and appreciation for truly genuine works of art, meaningful music, paintings of passion, novels written from the heart, dreamers who discover answers to our big problems, and bold thinkers being even bolder speakers whom believe in something greater than themselves; this is all going away because of the excess and lust for the material world. We are actually enslaving ourselves to our crutches and addictions because of the freedom we’ve taken for granted.

 

A person will spend their whole life in blindness if they believe personal offense and that which makes them uncomfortable defines what is right and wrong. People need to stop living as if they are the ruler of the world, and anyone’s offense against them is punishable. Life is not that complicated, yet people, being obsessed with self destruction and being self centered, they fail to recognize obvious truths. Do not be tricked any longer by what the present material world says is important or gratifying to life. You can actually fill that growing empty space inside if you accept the truths mentioned here.

 

The Truths, (which you can Google); to believe in hope is better than to live in despair, (science has proven this through the studies on the placebo effect, and recent treatments for depression). To forgive is better than to hold onto a grudge, for studies in psychology have proven if an individual cannot forgive then they will likely become both physically and emotionally damaged; through forgiveness somebody sick could improve their health. Do not be tricked by how your friends or the media may justify your reasons for hating a person or a group of people. (Many so called friends live by the motto, ‘misery loves company’, and this is why they purposely instigate conflicts at times. The drama entertains them and their gossip.) To love is always better than to hate, and scientific experiments have proven the importance of physical contact and affection in social and cognitive development. The biological consequences of isolation have been established according to the scientific community. These truths should be common sense, but many act as if what is right is wrong, and what is wrong is right. Many times those who strive to live in a right way or less selfish way are accused of being self righteous and intolerant. While those who live for self gratification, and in excess are admired and celebrated on reality T.V, and in other social circles.

 

An individual is always quick to defend their reasoning in why they hate someone or why they hurt those they love. People trick themselves as they come up with all kinds of excuses to why they act out in the selfish manner they do. Pathetically they feel as if when they compare their selves to someone they deem as being worse than them, this somehow justifies their actions. The individual even has the audacity to shout out, "I deserve better!" or "I have a right"! The fact of the matter is having self control, and striving to be a better person is scientifically proven to be better for the individual both physically and psychologically. Choosing to be a better spouse or parent brings hope to the next generation, while living for one’s self and the material world brings about the consequences which should be so apparent to anyone who opens their eyes to this generation.

 

Why are we so defensive when the consequences of our wrong choices are so apparent? This isn’t about taking away an individual’s rights, their freedom. On the contrary this is about having self respect. The answer is about looking out for our children’s rights, and providing them with a better tomorrow. If we continue to live only for ourselves, instead of focusing more on what is best for at least those closest to us, then how much more selfish will our children be once they’re grown? How much farther can we fall?  If you claim to be a logical person or someone who believes in science, well then choose to live a balanced life. Don’t allow the distractions, the pointless trends to trick you any longer. Choose to care more about unity with others then your selfish excessive wants. Choose to forgive and be healthier. Choose to love instead of hate. Will this be easy? I expect not. But this only adds more confirmation to this is the better choice. A true sense of accomplishment is attained by overcoming the tougher obstacles in life. A sense of thankfulness comes when we realize the better life is something we earn by choosing to be a better person.

 

The distractions in our blessed nation are hindering our progress, but we can do our part to stop this now. Time for us to rise up! Let’s choose to stop living in the haze the distractions of the material world leave us in. Let's be better for ourselves, simply because we can be, and we want to progress. Let’s choose to do our part in uniting humanity so as to stand for a greater good. Let’s choose to go a little out of our way today to help someone else, instead of doing something which only benefits us. Let’s praise our friend or family member for their accomplishments today, instead of being jealous of them. Let’s choose to be someone who will strive for a meaningful life, instead of someone who follows a blind crowd. Let us not be tricked any longer, and let’s choose to stop wasting our lives.

Science & Religion; The Epic Battle.

Those who call themselves creationists will never earn the respect of the hypocritical mainstream scientists, and vise versa, as long as both sides claim to be certain they're way is the right way. We need more scientists, (not creationists), who will simply state the facts as they are, without embellishing, and then leave the reader to make their own conclusions.

               
         

Most people, regardless of being people of science or of faith, they keep humanity from progress because they avoid that which makes them uncomfortable, or that which they fear may crush their doctrine. During the Dark Ages many scientific discoveries were deemed as supernatural, demonic, or magical; being feared by most, avoided by many, and even condemned by those in authoritative positions. The times we're in today are not much different from back then, except the irony in being that many in the scientific community are acting like the authority of the Catholic Church did during the Renaissance.

                                                    ~N.Moore~

Malala Yousafzai: Pakistan bullet surgery 'successful'

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”  

                                                                                                                        ~Winston Churchill~


                                         


The operation on Malala Yousafzai, a campaigner for girls' rights, went well, her father told the BBC.

The attack sparked outrage among many Pakistanis, who gathered in several cities for anti-Taliban protests and held prayers for the girl's recovery.

The militants said they targeted her because she "promoted secularism".

A spokesman for the Islamist militant group, Ehsanullah Ehsan, told BBC Urdu on Tuesday she would not be spared if she survived.

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says the authorities will now have to consider how to protect the girl.

He says her family never thought about getting security because they just did not think that militants would stoop so low as to target her.

Two other girls were injured in Tuesday's attack, one of whom remained in a critical condition on Wednesday.

'Icon of courage'

Malala Yousafzai came to public attention in 2009 by writing a diary for BBC Urdu about life under Taliban militants who had taken control of the valley.

---

The group captured the Swat Valley in late 2007 and remained in de facto control until they were driven out by Pakistani military forces during an offensive in 2009.

While in power they closed girls' schools, promulgated Islamic law and introduced measures such as banning the playing of music in cars.

Malala Yousafzai's brother, Mubashir Hussain, told the BBC that the militants were "cruel, brutal people" and urged all Pakistanis to condemn them.

Pakistani politicians led by the president and prime minister condemned the shooting, which the US state department has called barbaric and cowardly.

President Asif Ali Zardari said the attack would not shake Pakistan's resolve to fight Islamist militants or the government's determination to support women's education.

Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani visited Malala in hospital on Wednesday and said the Taliban had "failed to grasp that she is not only an individual, but an icon of courage".

Thousands of people around the world have sent the teenage campaigner messages of support via social media.

 

Teachers and students condemn the attack on Malala Yousafzai

Schools in the Swat Valley closed on Wednesday in protest at the attack, and schoolchildren in other parts of the country prayed for the girl's recovery.

Protests were held in Peshawar, Multan and in Malala's hometown of Mingora, and another rally was expected in Lahore.

Late on Tuesday, she was flown from Mingora, where the attack happened, to the city of Peshawar, 150km (95 miles) away, for surgery.

Doctors in Peshawar operated on her for hours before managing to remove the bullet early on Wednesday.

"The operation went well, now she is ok and the swelling is down," her father, Ziaudin Yousafzai, told BBC Pashto.

"Please pray for her, the next 24 to 48 hours are very important. Doctors are saying we don't need to shift her. It's good for her to be here now."

A medically equipped plane had been placed on standby at Peshawar airport as medical experts tried to determine whether she would need further treatment overseas.

Police said they had arrested more than 40 people in the area, but all were later released on bail.

Correspondents say the arrests are part of a routine, and even the police do not believe they have found the attackers.

 

"At that time some of us would go to school in plain clothes, not in school uniform, just to pretend we are not students, and we hid our books under our shawls”

                                                                                                                 Malala Yousafzai

 

Malala Yousafzai earned the admiration of many across Pakistan for her courage in speaking out about life under the rule of Taliban militants, correspondents say.

She was just 11 when she started her diary, two years after the Taliban took over the Swat Valley and ordered girls' schools to close.

Writing under the pen-name Gul Makai for BBC Urdu, she exposed the suffering caused by the militants.

Her identity emerged after the Taliban were driven out of Swat. She later won a national award for bravery and was nominated for an international children's peace award.

Since the Taliban were ejected, there have been isolated militant attacks in Swat but the region has largely remained stable and many of the thousands of people who fled during the Taliban years have returned.


Even if Malala Yousafzai survives, life is not going to be the same for her and her family. No place in Pakistan is safe for people targeted by militant groups. She may have to live under state security or in asylum abroad. In either case, her life and her ability to campaign for girls' education in north-western Pakistan will be severely limited.

Malala Yousafzai rose to fame because of her innocent but courageous desire to attend school, which translated into a one-girl campaign of resistance when Taliban captured Swat valley in 2009 and ordered girls' schools closed. Several hundred in Swat and neighbouring Bajaur and Mohmand were destroyed. Only a few in urban areas have been rebuilt.

The government's inability to rebuild is matched by its ambivalence towards the Taliban, which has enabled them to carry out acts of sabotage with impunity. The question is, will it change now? The attempt on Malala Yousafzai's life has shocked and angered the nation, and reports from parliament suggest a wider anti-Taliban consensus might be in the works - something Pakistan's fractious politicians have rarely achieved before.

M Ilyas Khan  BBC News, Islamabad

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-19893309

Distracted

                      

                                        

 

"There is a negative force in this world, one which we enable. The distractions; T.V, excessive partying, media, music (which has no deeper meaning), the illusions (like the crazy life is better); these are all responsible for tricking us into wasting ourselves, wasting our lives. This negative force, which keeps a thick fog around our heads in this nation, blinds us from seeing what is truly meaningful to life. These distractions are cheap counterfeit to the true beauty life has to offer, and it's a lie if we believe they make life better.

Living in excess, and paying too much attention to the distractions of the material world, will take away our joy and appreciation for life. Appreciation for the finer things will decrease, because the distractions hinder us from thinking for ourselves, and determining what we, as an individual, deem to be beautiful. The material worlds' distractions blind us from seeing true meaning to life.

 

Imagination is going away because of the excessive distractions. We're losing appreciation for true art, meaningful music, paintings of passion, novels written from the heart, dreamers who discover answers to our big problems, and bold thinkers who become even bolder speakers whom believe in something greater than their selves); this is all going away because of the excess and lust for the material world."

 

                                                                                                     ~N. Moore~

UK, Japan scientists win Nobel for adult stem cell discovery

By Anna Ringstrom

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Scientists from Britain and Japan shared a Nobel Prize on Monday for the discovery that adult cells can be transformed back into embryo-like stem cells that may one day regrow tissue in damaged brains, hearts or other organs.

John Gurdon, 79, of the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, Britain and Shinya Yamanaka, 50, of Kyoto University in Japan, discovered ways to create tissue that would act like embryonic cells, without the need to collect the cells from embryos.

They share the $1.2 million Nobel Prize for Medicine, for work Gurdon began 50 years ago and Yamanaka capped with a 2006 experiment that transformed the field of "regenerative medicine" - the search for ways to cure disease by growing healthy tissue.

"These groundbreaking discoveries have completely changed our view of the development and specialization of cells," the Nobel Assembly at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute said.

All of the body starts as stem cells, before developing into tissue like skin, blood, nerves, muscle and bone. The big hope is that stem cells can grow to replace damaged tissue in cases from spinal cord injuries to Parkinson's disease.

Scientists once thought it was impossible to turn adult tissue back into stem cells. That meant new stem cells could only be created by taking them from embryos, which raised ethical objections that led to research bans in some countries.

As far back as 1962 Gurdon became the first scientist to clone an animal, making a healthy tadpole from the egg of a frog with DNA from another tadpole's intestinal cell. That showed that developed cells carry the information to make every cell in the body - decades before other scientists made world headlines by cloning the first mammal from adult DNA, Dolly the sheep.
More than 40 years later, Yamanaka produced mouse stem cells from adult mouse skin cells by inserting a small number of genes. His breakthrough effectively showed that the development that takes place in adult tissue could be reversed, turning adult tissue back into cells that behave like embryos.

Stem cells created from adult tissue are known as "induced pluripotency stem cells", or iPS cells. Because patients may one day be treated with stem cells from their own tissue, their bodies might be less likely to reject them.

"The eventual aim is to provide replacement cells of all kinds," Gurdon's institute explains on its website.

"We would like to be able to find a way of obtaining spare heart or brain cells from skin or blood cells. The important point is that the replacement cells need to be from the same individual, to avoid problems of rejection and hence of the need for immunosuppression."
In just six years, Yamanaka's paper has already been cited more than 4,000 times in other scientists' work.
In a news conference in Japan, he thanked his team of young researchers: "My joy is very great. But I feel a grave sense of responsibility as well."
Gurdon spoke of his own unlikely career as a young man who loved science but was steered away from it at school, only to take it up again at university.
He still keeps an old school report in a frame on his desk: "I believe he has ideas about becoming a scientist... This is quite ridiculous," his teacher wrote. "It would be a sheer waste of time, both on his part and of those who have to teach him."
EARLY STAGES
The science of iPS cells is still in early stages. Among concerns is the fear that implanted cells could grow out of control and develop into tumors.
Some scientists say stem cells from embryos may prove more useful against disease than iPS cells, and the ethics of working with embryos should be defended.
Nevertheless, since Yamanaka published his findings the discoveries have already produced advances. The techniques are being used to grow cells in laboratories to study disease, the chairman of the awards committee, Urban Lendahl, told Reuters.
"You can't take out a large part of the heart or the brain or so to study this, but now you can take a cell from, for example, the skin of the patient, reprogramme it, return it to a pluripotent state, and then grow it in a laboratory," he said.

"The second thing is for further ahead. If you can grow different cell types from a cell from a human, you might - in theory for now but in future hopefully - be able to return cells where cells have been lost."

Thomas Perlmann, Nobel Committee member and professor of Molecular Development Biology at the Karolinska Institute said: "Thanks to these two scientists, we know now that development is not strictly a one-way street."

"There is lot of promise and excitement, and difficult disorders such as neurodegenerative disorders, like perhaps Alzheimer's and, more likely, Parkinson's disease, are very interesting targets."

For now, both men said their scientific work continues.

Asked why he still keeps his schoolteacher's discouraging report, Gurdon said: "When you're having problems, like when an experiment doesn't work - which often happens - it's nice to remind yourself that perhaps after all you're not so good at this job and the schoolmaster may have been right."

(Reporting by Patrick Lannin, Alistair Scrutton, Ben Hirschler, Kate Kelland, Kiyoshi Takenaka, Chris Wickham and Peter Graff; writing by Peter Graff; editing by Philippa Fletcher

http://news.yahoo.com/gurdon-yamanaka-win-nobel-prize-medicine-093830408.html

Eating Meat Made Us Smarter; Made Us Human

Fragments of a 1.5-million-year-old skull from a child recently found in Tanzania suggest early hominids weren't just occasional carnivores but regular meat eaters, researchers say.

The finding helps build the case that meat-eating helped the human lineage evolve large brains, scientists added.

"I know this will sound awful to vegetarians, but meat made us human," said researcher Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo, an archaeologist at Complutense University in Madrid.

Past research suggested prehuman hominids such as australopithecines may have eaten some meat. However, it is the regular consumption of meat that often is thought to have triggered major changes in the human lineage, the genus Homo, with this high-energy food supporting large human brains.

Given its importance to human evolution, scientists want to learn when eating flesh became a regular activity. Stone tools dating back about 2.6 million years to Gona in Ethiopia are often considered the earliest signs of the human lineage butchering meat, and contentious evidence suggests butchery may have existed at least 3.4 million years ago. "Despite this ample evidence, some archaeologists still argue that meat was eaten sporadically and played a minor role in the diet of those hominins," Domínguez-Rodrigo said. (Hominins include humans and their relatives after they split from the chimpanzee lineage.)

Now shards of a child's skull found in Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania suggest the infant suffered from a form of malnutrition seen in meat-poor diets. This hints that meat-eating was normally a regular part of the human diet at the time. [10 Things That Make Humans Special]   http://paleomusclebody.com/

The skull fragment is thought to belong to a child somewhat younger than 2. It remains unclear what hominin it belonged to — likely candidates include extinct human species such as Homo habilis or Homo erectus, or perhaps the "Nutcracker Man" Paranthropus boisei.
The kind of bone lesions the researchers saw in this fossil are known as porotic hyperostosis, which typically results from a lack of vitamins B9 and B12 in the diet. This kind of nutritional deficiency is most common at weaning, when children switch to solid foods. The researchers suggested this particular infant died because of lack of meat, which is rich in B-vitamins. Alternatively, if the child still depended on the mother for milk, it may have been the mother who lacked meat.
These findings suggest that "human brain development could not have existed without a diet based on regular consumption of meat," Domínguez-Rodrigo said. "Regular consumption of meat at that time implied that humans were hunters by then. Scavenging only rarely provides access to meat and is only feasible in African savannas on a seasonal basis."
However, there are other potential causes for porotic hyperostosis besides malnourishment, such as malaria or parasites. "Basically, anything that correlates with low red-cell count — either due to an infection of the blood or blood loss, or nutritional insufficiency — can cause the marrow of the skull to ramp up its production massively, causing the hyperostosis," said paleoanthropologist John Hawks at the University of Wisconsin, who did not take part in this study.

Still, Hawks noted that Domínguez-Rodrigo and his colleagues took alternative explanations for these bone lesions into account and were reasonably cautious in their interpretation of this data. "This is an interesting addition to what we know," Hawks told LiveScience.

Now, Domínguez-Rodrigo said, "research should try to find out how humans were acquiring meat regularly. What hunting strategies were used?"

The scientists detailed their findings online Oct. 3 in the journal PLoS ONE.

http://news.yahoo.com/eating-meat-made-us-human-suggests-skull-fossil-211048849.html