Oil falls as traders look to Fed talk on Friday

The price of oil fell Thursday as producers assessed the impact of Hurricane Isaac and traders waited to see if the Federal Reserve would act to boost the economy.

Benchmark oil fell 87 cents to finish trading at $94.62 in New York.

Oil companies evacuated many Gulf of Mexico platforms and refineries in advance of Isaac, which blew through as a hurricane before being downgraded to a tropical storm. They were assessing damage on Thursday.

Some 95 percent of the daily oil production in the Gulf of Mexico has been shut down, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

The federal agency said workers have been evacuated from 509 production platforms, or 85 percent of manned platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Workers have also been pulled from 50 drilling rigs, or 66 percent of the total, the agency said.

Energy consultant Jim Ritterbusch said traders are good at accounting for the risk of tropical storms and hurricanes, which are a regular fact of life in the Gulf of Mexico.

The bigger issue for the price of oil, he said, was the potential for news from the Federal Reserve on Friday. Investors will be listening to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's speech for hints of additional steps to spur borrowing and spending. Some economists doubt he will say anything dramatic.

Ritterbusch noted that stocks were down on Thursday, too.

"Financial markets are nervous," he said, adding that oil was being affected.

Meanwhile, the average price of gasoline rose more than 2 cents on Thursday to $3.826 per gallon. Isaac has forced several refineries along the Gulf Coast to close, and others are operating at reduced rates.

In other energy trading:

?Brent crude rose 11 cents to end at $112.65 a barrel.

? Heating oil rose less than a penny to finish at $3.1245 per gallon.

? Wholesale gasoline fell 1.77 cents to end at $3.0826 per gallon.

? Natural gas rose 6.3 cents, or 2.3 percent, to finish at $2.7480 per 1,000 cubic feet.

The government has estimated that nearly 72 percent of Gulf natural gas production has been suspended due to Isaac.

Prices rose even though more natural gas than expected was put into storage last week, according to the Energy Information Administration. It said 66 billion cubic feet of natural gas went into storage, more than the 58 billion to 62 billion cubic feet expected in a survey of analysts by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-08-30-Oil%20Prices/id-61e22b48bbba4e24ac484972718993f2

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Video: Ryan and Rice energize convention crowd

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/48839995#48839995

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Struggling JJB Sports puts itself up for sale

LONDON (Reuters) - Debt-mired JJB Sports put itself up for sale on Thursday and warned investors their shares may be worthless, placing the sports goods retailer at risk of becoming another big-name British retail casualty.

The company has been rocked by funding issues, falling sales and stiff competition as UK store chains battle weak consumer spending, muted wage growth and government austerity measures.

A string of household retail names including Woolworths and MFI have gone out of business in recent years, undermined by price-cutting from supermarkets and the Internet.

Directors at JJB, a familiar sight on Britain's high streets with around 4,000 staff and 180 stores, said they did not believe the company would be able to raise new funds to stage a turnaround.

Analysts said the sale process was not a surprise given the funding shortfall issues flagged by the company in July and its failed attempts to raise fresh cash from strategic partners.

JJB said that a formal sale process would start but warned that there could be no certainty that an offer could be forthcoming.

"Given the level of current debt within the company, there can be no assurance that any proposal or offer that may be made would attribute value to the ordinary shares of the company," the company said in a statement on Thursday.

Shares in the company crashed 71 percent to 0.68 pence at 0840 GMT, giving it a market value of around 3 million pounds. It was worth 500 million pounds in August 2010.

"We suspect that JJB will now follow a similar process as Blacks Leisure i.e. a likely administration process followed by the possible sale of parts of its business," said analysts at Charles Stanley.

Blacks Leisure, which like JJB was loss-making and debt-saddled, went into administration in January before the bulk of the business was sold immediately to JJB's rival JD Sports Fashion.

When retailers are bought out of administration, the buyer usually cherry-picks certain operations, which can lead to store closures and job losses.

U.S. retailer Dick's Sporting Goods threw JJB a 20 million pounds lifeline in April, but took an impairment charge that effectively wrote off the investment earlier this month.

JJB, which issued a profit warning in July on the back of poor sales of Euro 2012 football shirts and reported an 8.7 percent slump in first half underlying sales, said organic sales in the six weeks to August 26 slipped 3.3 percent.

"It's a business that's been shrinking for the last couple of years," Seymour Pierce analyst Kate Calvert said.

"They haven't been able to find their niche in the market place and be able to take on the likes of Sports Direct and online and supermarkets."

Larger rival Sports Direct - Britain's biggest sporting goods retailer - owned by Newcastle United football club owner Mike Ashley, has consistently undercut JJB on pricing and aggressively discounted Euro 2012 kit.

JJB Sports was founded in 1971 by ex-Blackburn Rovers footballer Dave Whelan with a single store in Wigan, where the company is still headquartered.

It floated in 1994, and four years later acquired the business of Sports Division, making it Britain's biggest sports retailer at the time.

JJB owes around 36 million pounds ($57 million) in total, around half in bank debt and the other half in convertible loan notes, giving it a debt to equity ratio of 0.51, far higher than rival JD Sports which is on 0.01.

(Editing by David Cowell)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/struggling-jjb-sports-puts-itself-sale-062700244--finance.html

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QUIZ: Guess the Female Star's Booty!

Dangerous curves ahead! Can you recognize your favorite famous ladies by looking at their bottom lines?

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/celebrity-butts-quiz/1-b-365535?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Acelebrity-butts-quiz-365535

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Soccer-Spurs defender Kaboul out for four months

LONDON, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Tottenham Hotspur defender Younes

Kaboul will be sidelined for four months after having an

operation on an unspecified injury.

"Surgery done with success ... now looking forward to my

rehab," the French international said on his Twitter account on

Thursday. "Should be (out) for four months."

Media reports said surgery was carried out on his knee. The

26-year-old was forced out of Euro 2012 because of a serious

knee complaint.

Kaboul's injury could mean that England defender Michael

Dawson will stay at Spurs after all.

Dawson has been linked by several media reports with a move

to London rivals Queens Park Rangers.

(Reporting by Mark Pangallo; editing by Tony Jimenez)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/soccer-spurs-defender-kaboul-four-months-124543696--sow.html

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'Superhuman' Paralympians burst onto world stage

By Jamieson Lesko, NBC News

LONDON -- A battlefield explosion sends troops flying, a speeding car flips over on a highway, a?"Murderball" player is knocked right out of his wheelchair, all set to?a?fierce Public Enemy soundtrack.?

"Forget everything you thought you knew about strength. Forget everything you thought you knew about humans. It's time to do battle. Meet the Superhumans."

That?s how British TV viewers are being introduced to this year?s Paralympic athletes by Channel 4, which is broadcasting the London 2012 Games. Its campaign is giving Superbowl ads a run for their money, going viral?with more than 500,000 views on YouTube alone.

---

Fahim Rahimi, is Afghanistan's only competitor at the Paralympics. He lost his leg in a land mine accident when he was just 12, but tonight the powerlifter is carrying the Afghan flag into the Olympic stadium. Jonathan Rugman, Britain's Channel 4 news reports.

The hard-hitting ad is designed to jolt the public into a state of awareness and awe of what many of?these disabled athletes have had to deal with just to stay alive, let alone compete at an elite level.?It highlights that the competitors have overcome disabilities and disasters most of us cannot begin to imagine or will ever have to face. And that was before they became world-class competitors.

The campaign also aims to combat?the impression that the Paralympics is essentially the "Olympics-lite." Among the sports the ad focuses on is wheelchair rugby -- which?is so violent that it's?been dubbed "Murderball." The sheer amount of full-force contact between players requires welders to be put on standby on the sideline to repair damaged wheelchairs.

Some of the hottest tickets at the London Paralympics are for wheelchair rugby. The sport is so violent and fierce, that it has been dubbed "Murderball". ITN's Lewis Vaughan Jones met Team Great Britain's inspirational captain.

The International Wheelchair Rugby Federation?has championed the "Meet the Superhumans" campaign and comments posted on its Vimeo page illustrate the ad's power. "Now that's what I'm talking about, 'Thank you for letting me be myself.' Public Enemy never sounded better," one fan wrote. "It's a great soundtrack for our ... lives whether we're Olympians or not."

Channel 4

This ad campaign for Channel 4's Paralympic coverage has captured the imagination of many people in Britain.

The event was founded 1948 to help rehabilitate injured British veterans returning from the Second World War, though many Americans remain unaware that it exists. (There's also a tendency to confuse it with?the Special Olympics, which is unrelated. Paralympic athletes compete despite impairments including amputations, blindness, cerebral palsy and mobility disabilities.) However, there are signs that 2012 will be its breakout year.

London-bound veterans push Paralympics back to battlefield roots

The success of the London 2012 Olympic Games has sparked a spike in public interest in Britain. Ticket sales have wildly exceeded expectations, with organizers saying 2.3 million tickets have already been sold, which is more than any other Paralympic Games in history. There's a high demand for the 200,000 remaining tickets, which will be made available in batches online.

Soccer superstar David Beckham is serving as an ambassador to the Games and Prince William and Kate Middleton are expected to attend Wednesday night's Opening Ceremony.

Ahead of the London Paralympics, L.A. Galaxy midfielder David Beckham spent a day learning blind football from Team Great Britain.

Team USA features 20 military veterans and active duty service members, including some wounded at war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Among them is U.S. Army 82nd Airborne paratrooper Centra "Ce-Ce" Mazyck, who was paralyzed when her parachute got tangled with another in 2003. Doctors said she'd never walk again but Maczyk refused to listen. And she has proved them wrong.

"I wasn't hearing it. In my heart, in my soul, I knew I could walk," Mazyck told NBC News. "To this day, I am walking."

Centra "Ce-Ce" Mazyck, who was paralyzed during a parachute jump with the 82 Airborne in November 2003, will compete in the javelin at the London Paralympics. "This is my second chance," she tells NBC News' Jamieson Lesko.

The South Carolina-based mother of one is now engaged to be married but admits shes also deeply "in love" with her javelin.

'Very fortunate'
U.S. Navy Lt. Bradley Snyder was blinded by a bomb while rushing to the aid of two fellow soldiers in Afghanistan.

His training regimen had him swimming 4,000 yards a day at his local?pool in Baltimore. He is due to compete on the one-year anniversary of his injury.?

Lt. Brad Snyder lost his sight in an IED explosion in Afghanistan last year. The Navy officer will once again represent the U.S., this time at the London 2012 Paralympics in September.

"I knew I was very fortunate to be in that hospital bed and not in a coffin in the ground,"?Snyder said. "I'm going to show people that I'm not going to let this beat me. I'm not going to let blindness build a brick wall around me. I am going to find a way forward."

From darkness to gold: Blinded Navy swimmer set to race at Paralympics

South African double amputee and sprinter Oscar Pistorius, who has been nicknamed the "Blade Runner," will compete in the Paralympics after making history by running?in the 400-meter event at the Olympics.

Pistorius is likely to face tough competition from Team USA, including a 25-year-old rocket scientist Jerome Singleton?and the 22-year-old Blake Leeper.

Pistorius, a double amputee born without fibulas in his legs, has trained hard to participate in the Olympics despite having to wear prosthetic legs. NBC's Mary Carillo reports.

Pistorius, a four-time Paralympic gold medealist, will carry the flag for South Africa at Wednesday's Opening Ceremony. Coldplay will perform at the Closing Ceremony on September 9.

"I believe these Games are going to change peoples' mindsets about disabilities," Pistorius told Reuters. "In the last two to three years I've seen a shift. For many years people have shunned disability, but I don't have anything in life I'm not able to do. I don't think of my disability, I think of my ability."

Sixteen countries are competing for the first time. Among them, Haiti will make its debut with two athletes competing in track and field.

This is the story of two paralympians from Haiti - a nation which is competing in the games for the first time. It's a country where disability is stigmatized and those who are disabled are shunned. ITV's Lewis Vaughan Jones reports on two pioneers who want to overcome prejudice and fill their nation with pride.

British broadcaster Channel 4 will show 150 hours of programming and about 350 hours more online and across three temporary on-demand channel.

The International Paralympic Committee predicts that, adding together viewers on each of the 11 days of competition, the total audience figure for the London Paralympics will reach 4 billion.

Of all the events that will be showcased in the Paralympics, few are as intriguing as blind soccer. ITN's Lewis Vaughan Jones met Team Great Britain captain David Clarke who explained how it works.

It said that four years ago in Beijing, a total overall audience of around 3.8 billion in 80 countries watched the 2008 Paralympics - including a total of 1.4 billion viewings in China across 11 days, 670 million in Japan and 439 million in Germany. Calculating figures in that way means individual viewers are counted several times.

More coverage of the London?Paralympics from NBC News

The daughter of the founder of the Paralympics told NBC News that the record-breaking ticket sales and interest in the London event would have made her father "immensely proud."

Eva Loeffler said Ludwig "Poppa" Guttmann ? a neurologist who pioneered the rehabilitation of paralyzed Second World War service members at a hospital near London ? would have been "extremely pleased" at how the Games had captured the public imagination.

Lt. Brad Snyder, blinded by an IED explosion in Afghanistan, is now training for the London 2012 Paralympics.

The 79-year-old said it was "very appropriate, in a way" that so many veterans from the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts were taking part in this year's event. "Helping the military wounded was where it all began, after all," she said.

London 2012: Who were the real winners, losers?

Guttman, who fled Germany in 1933 after being persecuted by Hitler's Nazi regime, challenged medical orthodoxy at Stoke Mandeville hospital, north?west of London, by encouraging patients to play sports rather than accept their paralysis.

Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images

The Agitos symbol of the Parlaympics has replaced the Olympic rings on London's iconic Tower Bridge.

When London hosted the Summer Olympics in 1948, he created the Stoke Mandeville Games involving just 16 competitors. In the years that followed, he built his competition into the parallel Paralympic Games.

This year's event will feature 4,200 athletes from 166 teams competing in 20 sports.

For British wheelchair tennis star Jordanne Whiley, the Paralympics isn't just about winning - she also wants to outshine her bronze-medal winning father's achievements in the event. ITN's Lewis Vaughan Jones met them both as part of his series highlighting Paralympians and their sports.

Although Guttman died in 1980, Loeffler has continued his work, becoming a key figure in disabled sport ? and has accepted an honorary role as mayor of the Paralympic Athletes' Village at the Olympic Park in East London.

'Second-class citizens': Wheelchair user's fury at Paralympics over seating

One of Guttman's dreams was that disabled athletes would ultimately compete alongside their able-bodied counterparts ? a wish that came true last month with Pistorius' historic participation at the Olympics.

"He would have regarded that as a great moment, I'm sure," Loeffler said.

How to watch the Paralympics from the U.S.

• The International Paralympic Committee will live stream more than 780 hours of events.
• NBC Sports Network will air one-hour highlight shows on September 4, 5, 6, and 11. All NBC and NBC Sports Network Paralympic highlight shows and specials will re-air on Universal Sports Network and www.UniversalSports.com.
  Check your local listings for channel info.
• NBC will broadcast a 90-minute special from 2-3:30 p.m. ET on September 16.
• The United States Olympic Committee has created a YouTube channel dedicated to the Games.
• The U.S. Paralympic Team will also?provide in-depth coverage of Team USA on its website.

More London 2012 coverage from NBC News:

?

Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

NBC News' Alastair Jamieson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/29/13527993-meet-the-superhumans-paralympians-burst-onto-world-stage?lite

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Free Online Articles ? Free Articles Directory ? Scuba Divings Basic ...

Scuba diving is a great sport among water sport enthusiasts. In fact, it can be among the growing sports activity community enthusiast around the world. This is no surprise considering that the earth, is in fact two-thirds normal water than land.

Scuba diving, as opposed to some people could imagine, is quite easy to learn. Once you know the right diving tools to use, the rules, along with the basic lessons, you are off to scuba lessons diving! Of course for beginners, it is important that you have an expert scuba diving help guide help you out in your very first lessons.
Unfortunately, you may still find a significant number of our planet?s populations who frown upon scuba diving, mainly because of water scare. As there are reasons to become apprehensive in going into the unfamiliar whole world of the ocean, there are more reasons why you should try deep-sea diving. Here are some of them:
The particular ocean is a diverse land of wondrous creatures.
The underworld is sure to take your inhale away as there are a number of and more unique, never-been-seen creature species in the marine. You will be in amaze of the perfect coloration combinations of fishes, as well as the brightly hued water plants. It?s going to be an excellent out of this world encounter for anyone up with regard to adventure.
Scuba diving develops lung endurance.
This sport will enable you to develop lungs endurance as this teaches proper breathing although under the sea. Adding to that, your legs along with arm muscles is going to be honed for going swimming and staying underneath the water. All in all, scuba diving, just like most athletics, is good for your health.
It helps the local tourism.
Doing scuba lessons diving meets, and also joining scuba diving clubs in your local community is nice publicity for your area. It helps in promoting local tourism. These days, the actual tourism agencies are usually tapping scuba diving as being a key asset in spreading the beauty of their own beaches and under water sceneries.

For more information about scuba lessons visit our website.

Related posts:

1. Scuba Diving Lessons In Madison
2. Scuba Lessons in Chicago ? For All Levels of Divers
3. Scuba Diving Fun Facts
4. Scuba Diving Made Easy!
5. instructorsight . Diving Instructors Receive Training For Scuba Diving With The Disabled

Source: http://www.28seo.com/scuba-divings-basic-training.html

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GOP convention gets rowdy in rift over Ron Paul

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) ? Feeling slighted, supporters of Texas Rep. Ron Paul's presidential bid chanted and booed Tuesday after Republican convention delegates adopted new rules that could impede insurgent candidates in the future.

The brief uproar was a rare unscripted moment in a carefully-choreographed convention that organizers hoped would showcase Republican harmony over nominee Mitt Romney. After the voice vote on the rules, the next speaker was quickly called in an attempt to limiting the amount of time Paul's supporters had to chant "Shame on you."

The rules are designed to limit the ability of insurgent presidential candidates to amass delegates to future Republican conventions. They will bind delegates to the outcome of presidential primaries and caucuses, preventing a candidate like Paul from pushing up their delegate counts at state conventions.

Paul delegates saw them as a power play by the Republican old guard.

"If you're trying to win a presidential campaign and put on a show, you shouldn't poke a sharp stick in the eye of conservative activists. That's what happened," said Colorado delegate Dudley Brown, who leads a gun rights organization back home.

Paul didn't win a single presidential primary but he got 190 delegate votes during the roll call of states that officially nominated Romney Tuesday. Romney got 2,061.

Paul briefly showed up on the convention floor, signing autographs and posing for photos. As he left the arena, he declined to say if he felt his delegates were being treated unfairly. "I'll let you know when it's over," he said.

Paul later said in a broadcast interview that he has no plans to endorse anyone for president.

"I am endorsing, you know, peace and prosperity and individual liberty, the Constitution, and I'm more intense on that than I am on the politics of it," Paul told Fox News.

Supporters of the new rules say voters expect the delegate count to reflect the outcome of state primaries and caucuses. The convention's rules committee made some late revisions to the new rules to placate party activists who weren't necessarily Paul backers.

The new rules originally allowed presidential candidates to choose which delegates would represent them at the convention ? taking that power from state parties. However, in a concession to local activists, party leaders agreed to remove the language. Instead, the rules say that delegates who support candidates other than the one they are obligated to support shall have their votes deemed "null and void."

"These rules will provide a strong governing framework for our convention and for our party," said former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu, who headed the rules committee.

Mississippi Republican National Committeeman Henry Barbour said delegates shouldn't let a fight over rules distract from the goal of beating Democratic President Barack Obama.

"None of us want a campaign overreaching," Barbour said. "We want bound delegates to live up to their commitment."

___

Ohlemacher reported from Washington.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gop-convention-gets-rowdy-rift-over-ron-paul-205332770.html

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Overtime complaints common in US, worldwide

By Allison Linn, TODAY

It?s no secret that many Americans feel like the weak economy has forced them to do more work for the same or even less pay.

A new survey finds they have lots of company among workers around the world.

About two-thirds of hourly workers surveyed in Great Britain, France, Australia, China, Canada, Mexico, India and Brazil said their employers violate overtime rules at least some of the time.

In the U.S., slightly less than half the hourly workers surveyed had the same complaint.

The survey was conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Kronos Inc., which makes technology for human resources operations.

Chinese, Indian and British workers were most likely to complain that their rights had been violated. The French were most likely to say their bosses don?t violate overtime rules.

The?hourly?workers surveyed generally said they were eager to work extra hours, presumably because they expect that will lead to more pay.

Among the workers surveyed in other countries, more than half said they were happy to have the overtime hours they got, and one-third said they?d like to have more overtime hours. French, Canadian and British respondents were most likely to say they wanted more OT.

Among the U.S. workers surveyed, 49 percent said they were happy with the amount of overtime hours they work, and another 43 percent said they wished they could work more hours.

In the U.S., there has been a record jump in employee claims of wage and hour violations, including off-the-clock work and?miscalculation?of overtime pay. More than 7,000 people have filed claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act so far this year, according to calculation from law firm Seyfarth Shaw. That?s up from around 2,000 a decade earlier.

The sample for the Kronos survey included 666 U.S. hourly workers and 1,700 hourly workers from other countries.

Related:

If you're working, guys, chances are you're working harder

You're working harder, they're making money

{"contentId":"13510564","totalVotes":"1784"}

Do you think you're working more hours than you were five years ago?

Source: http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2012/08/28/13510564-overtime-complaints-common-in-us-worldwide?lite

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I Live In Abundance of Prosperity, and Don - bmindful

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Early Abuse Weakens Adult Response to Skin Cancer ...

Clearly growing up with abusive parents is no great shakes no matter how you look at it.

Early abuse has been correlated with later-life depression, stunted brain development, anxiety, alcohol abuse?and I?m just getting started.

But, even knowing how damaging early childhood abuse is, a study caught my eye that surprised me, and brought home abuse?s devastating potential in a new way.

For it seems as if early childhood abuse can weaken the body?s immune system and make it more susceptible to skin cancer, specifically?Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common type of skin cancer.

Just this past June researchers published their findings in the Archives of General Psychiatry in an article entitled ?Basal Cell Carcinoma:Stressful Life Events and the Tumor Environment.?

Researchers took a 3-pronged approach.

First they studied 91 subjects with basal cell carcinoma, and administered the Childhood Experience of Care and Abuse Questionnaire [you can see a detailed peer-reviewed article on the questionnaire ?here] which?assesses parental neglect and antipathy, physical abuse, and sexual abuse up to the age of 17. This was?o discover if the patients had experienced parental abuse, and, if so, to what extent.

As a second component to the study, the researchers then assessed patients with the Life and Events Difficult Schedule, created by Brown and Harris, which is merely (as you?d figure) a measurement of the stressfulness of various life events. to found out if they had experienced a stressful event within the previous year. (?Stressful Events? qualifiers included divorce, job loss, or death of a loved one.)

Finally they biopsied the tumors and measured the tissue levels of mRNA located on the immune cells (that sounds very hyper-scientific and fancy, but fundamentally mRNA just means?Messenger RNA, which is a form of RNA that codes for amino acids. This measurement ?indicates immune response to the BCC tumors, and it seems we can all wrap our heads around that.).

Armed with that their scales and immunology reports, the researchers looked for an interaction between parental abuse and a stressful life event in the year preceding in order to predict immune response to the BCC.

And, sure enough, the relationship existed. Let them factor out age, gender, history?of depression?even current depression?those who had had a stressful life event within the past year, if that was confounded by emotional mistreatment by a parent, they had a significantly poorer immune response to the tumors than those who ?just? got a lousy hand the year before.

They write,

?Among BCC patients who had experienced a severe life event within the past year, those who were emotionally maltreated by their mothers (P?=?.007) or fathers (P?=?.02) as children had a poorer immune response to the BCC tumor. Emotional maltreatment was unrelated to BCC immune responses among those who did not experience a severe life event. Depressive symptoms were not associated with the local tumor immune response.?

Maternal maltreatment scores inversely relate to decrease in immune mRNA scores

It?s a breakthrough study, because if emotional maltreatment at any early age can affect ?BCC?well, then, what cancers?can?t it effect, some much more difficult to manage to BCC?

David Spiegel, M.D., associate chair of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and a psycho-oncologist, told Psychiatric News,

?while basal cell carcinoma is a relatively benign cancer, there is increasing evidence that immune function is crucial in cancer surveillance, especially in regard to the growth of metastases.?

But as in so many studies that find fascinating answers to cleverly posed questions, we?re left here again with an unanswerd question that lies at the very base of all this work and the fascinating findings.

We have progressed light years in our treatment of cancers and our approach to tumors?but a paper like this indicates that undercutting the best of care is the patient?s early years, spent denigrated, demeaned, disheartened.

What, I?d like to pose to the?National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society, Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Gilbert and Kathryn Mitchell Endowment, who so generously study, what do we do now, knowing how damaging early maltreatment is?

We don?t need a medicine or a charm or a drug company working over-time to develop something new; we need a systemic change in how parents treat their children, and how we as a society put up with those adults who mis-treat their children.

Is it possible that all the billions of dollars poured into cancer research each year will never achieve all we hope for?because, at the core of the family unit, there is a dissolution that precludes future health?

And, if so, who will put up the funding, and who will dedicate their lives to the research, to making childhood a safe and protected place for our children to inhabit?saving them from multiple diseases down the road, and improving their immunity enough so that they?ll have a fair fight, should cancer beckon them under its devastating wing?

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Source: http://candidaabrahamson.wordpress.com/2012/08/28/early-abuse-weakens-adult-response-to-skin-cancer/

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Research shows children at risk from rural water supplies

Monday, August 27, 2012

University of East Anglia research shows children at risk from rural water supplies

Children drinking from around half the UK's private water supplies are almost five times more likely to pick up stomach infections ? according to research from the University of East Anglia (UEA).

Research published today in the journal PLOS ONE shows children under 10 who drink from contaminated supplies are suffering around five bouts of sickness or diarrhoea a year.

This figure is similar to the rates of infection among children in the developing world.

Around 1 per cent of the UK population are served by private supplies ? such as wells and boreholes. In Europe the number is as much as one in 10. And many more drink from such water supplies as visitors and while on holiday.

But half of all private water supplies in the UK do not meet water safety regulations. And while water-borne bacteria does not appear to affect adults and older children, the under 10s are particularly at risk of picking up stomach infections.

Researchers investigated whether people drinking from contaminated supplies are more at risk than those drinking from supplies that comply with safety standards - and particularly whether children are more susceptible to disease.

They studied more than 600 consumers in Norfolk, Suffolk and Herefordshire for 12 weeks. Those surveyed kept a diary of symptoms including diarrhoea, vomiting, stomach pains, nausea, headache, and fever.

They also collected samples of drinking water from each household which were tested for the faecal bacteria E. coli, Coliform and Enterococci.

Prof Paul Hunter, from UEA's Norwich Medical School, said: "We found a particularly high incidence of diarrhoea in children under 10 in homes provided by water which was contaminated with bacteria. The results showed that these children would suffer almost five incidents a year ? a risk of illness similar to that reported in developing countries.

"This is a serious concern. As well as children being more at risk, they also suffer the most from an episode of diarrhoea ? with greater rates of hospitalization and higher mortality rates.

"It is very important that households reliant on private water supplies, where children under 10 live or visit, are identified and frequently tested for pollution. Our recommendation to parents is to either ensure adequate well-maintained treatment such as chlorination or filtration, or provide alternate sources such as drinking bottled water."

###

'Risk of infectious intestinal disease in consumers drinking from private water supplies: A prospective cohort study' is published by the journal PLOS ONE.

University of East Anglia: http://comm.uea.ac.uk/press

Thanks to University of East Anglia for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/122933/Research_shows_children_at_risk_from_rural_water_supplies_

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Rosie O'Donnell says married partner

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Comedian and talk show host Rosie O'Donnell married partner Michelle Rounds in an intimate hospital ceremony earlier this summer, the comedian wrote on her official website on Monday.

O'Donnell, 50, posted that Rounds, 41, was diagnosed with Desmoid tumors in June, and they decided to get married in the intensive care unit on June 9, before Rounds went into surgery to treat the benign tumors.

The announcement came after O'Donnell posted last week that she had suffered a heart attack and was "lucky to be here." She has since embraced a healthier lifestyle, posting about "long walks and vegetables," and painting pictures the comedian is selling to raise funds for Desmoid Tumors Research Foundation.

The comedian said she and Rounds "will have the wedding of our dreams" once they are both well enough.

O'Donnell, who previously hosted "The Rosie Show" on Oprah Winfrey's OWN network until it was canceled in March due to low ratings, became engaged to Rounds in front of a studio audience in December.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rosie-odonnell-says-married-partner-174741532.html

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Clooney aids Obama campaign with Geneva fundraiser

GENEVA (AP) ? President Barack Obama supporter George Clooney raised almost $15 million for the re-election campaign at the actor's Los Angeles home in May. For his second act, Clooney is set to arrive Monday in Geneva, a center for international organizations and business.

Organizers expect to pull in a more modest amount of about $500,000 from U.S. donors for Obama's campaign, with many flying in to Geneva from around the world.

Americans Abroad for Obama, the event's sponsor, says on its Web site that guests are paying $15,000 per person to dine with Clooney, $5,000 for a photo with him and $1,000 to attend a reception before the dinner. About 30 people are attending the dinner, with about 100 at the reception.

The event is co-hosted by Geneva-based American lawyer Charles C. Adams Jr. and Matthew Barzun, Obama's campaign finance chairman.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/clooney-aids-obama-campaign-geneva-fundraiser-095401777.html

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US Diabetes Market Analysis | Diabetes

Health and Fitness | Diabetes | * Written by Sandhya Nair | Monday, 27 August 2012 02:01 | Word Count: 522

? The epidemic of type-2 diabetes and its warning sign, pre-diabetes, is sweeping across the United States. It has been estimated that around 52% of the adult population will have diabetes or pre-diabetes by 2020. Yet shockingly, the vast majority more than 90% of people with prediabetes, and about a quarter of people with diabetes, are unaware of their conditions. http://www.bharatbook.com/market-research-reports/healthcare-market-research-report/us-diabetes-market-analysis.html

It is believed that this will have major implications for people?s health and life expectancy. It will result in out-of-control U.S. healthcare costs, placing growing strain on the budgets of families, employers, states, and the federal government. Our study indicates that health spending associated with diabetes and pre-diabetes was about US$ 194 Billion in 2010 (approximately 7% of total U.S. health spending).

The diabetes treatment market in the US comprises three related but distinct submarkets that address different aspects of the condition. Products in the US market are currently comprised of blood glucose monitors, lancets & test strips, continuous blood glucose monitors, insulin, insulin pumps, syringes, and other insulin delivery devices & anti-diabetic drugs. The most significant growth in this market (U.S.) is in continuous blood glucose meters, insulin pumps, and anti-diabetic drugs. Business Report

Our report ?US Diabetes Market Analysis?, highlights the US diabetes market by segmenting it into ? oral diabetic drug market, insulin market, insulin delivery devices, and glucose monitoring market. Each of these segments have been thoroughly studied and analyzed in the report. Moreover, the report provides an overview of the patient profile and cost implications of diabetes in the country, which will help clients in identifying the future demand scenario.

The report studies the current development process and its effects on various segments of the industry. The research contains exhaustive information regarding the market players, government initiatives, and patient profile that will help clients in formulating market strategies and assess opportunity areas in the US diabetes market.

The report also includes a section of future projection and demand analysis that presents a rough idea about the prospective market trends to facilitate clients comprehend the market progress in coming years.

Table of Contents:

1. Analyst View
2. Research Methodology
3. Market Overview
4. Patient Profile Analysis
5. Cost Implications
6. Diabetes Drugs Market
6.1 Oral Anti-Diabetic Drugs Market
6.2 Insulin Market
7. Insulin Delivery Devices Market
7.1 Insulin Pump
7.2 Insulin Pen
7.3 Insulin Syringes
7.4 Insulin Jet Injectors
7.5 Oral Insulin

For more information kindly visit :
US Diabetes Market Analysis

Or

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Author of this article: Sandhya Nair.

Sandhya Nair joined FAFY - Free Article For You on Thursday, 16 February 2012.

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Jeff Bullas interview - Business 2 Community

At Social Media Down Under I got the chance to interview Jeff Bullas, an AdAge Power 150 blogger and top Aussie social media professional.

Here?s our interiew:

Adam Franklin: Hi it?s Adam Franklin, from Social Media Down Under. I?m here with Jeff Bullas, thank you for joining us today Jeff.

Jeff Bullas: It?s a pleasure Adam.

Adam Franklin: I?m keen to share with our audience on our blog and YouTube channel, can you tell me about the rise of these image sharing tools such as Instagram, and Pinterest.

Jeff Bullas: The web has become much more visual over the last 12 months and you might have noticed with the change of design for Facebook, the new timeline, cover photo. Also Google plus launching has put certain pressure on Facebook to evolve its platform. So seeing those two platforms evolve to provide higher definition larger images. We are also seeing the rise of platforms such as Pinterest and Instagram that communicate messages in a much more visual way. Also the popularity of infographics. These are all driving or creating new opportunities in terms of how we communicate online.

Adam Franklin: So should taking these visual tools into account when playing with peoples content marketing programs these days?

Jeff Bullas: Absolutely, so for example about 2 weeks ago I wrote a blog post containing a infographic that I?d pinned on Pinterest, and in checking the figures recently it?s had over 300 pins. Which means that infographic actually provides 300 links back to my blog. Now that?s a fairly powerful strategy for actually getting your content to spread and that?s the real challenge for most brands is getting the content to actually be shared and linked to.

Adam Franklin: Thanks very much for sharing that Jeff.

?

Thanks! You can follow Jeff Bullas @jeffbullas

Source: http://www.business2community.com/expert-interviews/jeff-bullas-interview-the-rise-of-image-sharing-social-media-instagram-and-pinterest-0261435

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Don't Let Pimples Help You Get Lower. Consider These Techniques ...

Anyone, specially teenagers, is affected with zits troubles sooner or later in their day-to-day lives. But now, you can fight rear versus the zits without the need of high-priced creams or physician appointments. Below are all-natural, inexpensive and successful approaches that you can battle back towards your acne breakouts problems without having to spend lots of money.

Bear in mind, you are your food intake. The chemicals and antibiotics nourished to animals which grow to be our steaks, hamburgers and dairy food don?t just vanish once they are processed, and then we ingest them whenever we take in. They often trigger instability in the individual system, which can lead to pimples. Take into account minimizing your intake of dairy food and any kind of beef that are not organic and natural to avert this unwanted effect.

Apart from using a moderate deal with clean everyday, going to a health-care professional is essential. Acne breakouts is more than acne breakouts and pimples, it is humiliation and scars. A dermatologist will provide a person the correct medications and/or guidance to help treat the problem.

You can examine the ingredients from the products you use on the hair. Head of hair items could cause an outbreak on the skin because they can drip from the your hair to the encounter. They may clog your skin pores and lead to pimples. When your head of hair is oily, you must scrub it often, to protect yourself from the gas getting in your encounter.

Clean your mobile phone and house telephones on a regular basis in order to avoid bad acne. Lightly thoroughly clean the monitor and variety mat using a damp cotton change and several rubbing alcohol. This may remove any left bacteria and natural oils in the surface area and won?t reapply those to your cheek and ear canal, when you visit chat.

If you?re experiencing difficulity with zits. Try out pondering to your self: sunshine and outdoors. Both of these the situation is liberated to everybody and therefore are far better in helping your skin. Sunlight supplies Vitamin D which is perfect for the health of your epidermis and may aid it battle acne breakouts and other imperfections and the fresh air will help you to dry out the unnatural natural oils within your epidermis and present your face a better natural seem.

Should you talk on your cellphone frequently and find on your own busting on one aspect of your respective encounter, this can be an indication that your mobile phone is harboring bacteria which is causing you unneeded issues. Wipe downward your cell phone as frequently as you can to reduce the harmful bacteria expanding into it which will help prevent the spread out through your phone for your encounter.

Now you have a few of the crucial techniques in battling acne breakouts. Whilst every one of these recommendations may well not be right for you, with a little luck no less than a couple of do. Should your acne issues worsen right after making use of more than one of these recommendations, make sure you speak to your medical doctor. Good luck within your combat with acne!

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Source: http://www.twenty4seven365.com/2012/08/26/dont-let-pimples-help-you-get-lower-consider-these-techniques-to-eliminate-it/

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Postcards from Mars show rover's key science targets

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Mon Aug 27, 2012 10:57pm EDT

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA on Monday showed off the first high-resolution, color portrait images taken by the Mars rover Curiosity, detailing a mound of layered rock where scientists plan to focus their search for the chemical ingredients of life on the Red Planet.

The stunning images reveal distinct tiers near the base of the 3-mile- (5-km-)tall mountain that rises from the floor of the vast, ancient impact basin known as Gale Crater, where Curiosity landed on August 6 to begin its two-year mission.

Scientists estimate it will be a year before the six-wheeled, nuclear-powered rover, about the size of a small car, physically reaches the layers of interest at the foot of the mountain, 6.2 miles away from the landing site.

From earlier orbital imagery, the layers appear to contain clays and other hydrated minerals that form in the presence of water.

While previous missions to Mars have uncovered strong evidence for vast amounts of water flowing over its surface in the past, Curiosity was dispatched to hunt for organic materials and other chemistry considered necessary for microbial life to evolve.

The $2.5 billion Curiosity project, NASA's first astrobiology mission since the 1970s-era Viking probes to Mars, is the first to bring all the tools of a state-of-the-art geochemistry laboratory to the surface of a distant planet.

But the latest images from Curiosity, taken at a distance from its primary target of exploration, already have given scientists a new view of the formation's structure.

The layers above where scientists expect to find hydrated minerals show sharp tilts, offering a strong hint of dramatic changes in Gale Crater, located in the planet's southern hemisphere near its equator.

SLANTED LAYERS EXPOSED

Mount Sharp, the name given to the towering formation at the center of the crater, is believed to be the remains of sediment that once completely filled the 96-mile- (154-km-) wide basin.

"This is a spectacular feature that we're seeing very early," project scientist John Grotzinger, with the California Institute of Technology, told reporters on Monday. "We can sense that there is a big change on Mount Sharp."

The higher layers are steeply slanted relative to the layers of underlying rock, the reverse of similar features found in Earth's Grand Canyon.

"The layers are tilted in the Grand Canyon due to plate tectonics, so it's typical to see older layers be more deformed and more rotated than the ones above them," Grotzinger said. "In this case, you have flat-line layers on Mars overlaid by tilted layers. The science team, of course, is deliberating over what this means."

He added: "This thing just kind of jumped out at us as being something very different from what we ever expected."

Absent plate tectonics, the most likely explanation for the angled layers has to do with the physical manner in which they were built up, such as being deposited by wind or by water.

"On Earth, there's a whole host of mechanisms that can generate inclined strata," Grotzinger said. "Probably we're going to have to drive up there to see what those strata are made of."

Also Monday, NASA said it used the rover to broadcast a message of congratulations to the Curiosity team from NASA chief Charles Bolden, a demonstration of the high bandwidth available through a pair of U.S. science satellites orbiting Mars.

"This is the first time that we've had a human voice transmitted back from another planet" beyond the moon, said Chad Edwards, chief telecommunications engineer for NASA's Mars missions at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"We aren't quite yet at the point where we actually have a human present on the surface of Mars ... it is a small step," Edwards said.

(Editing by Steve Gorman and Philip Barbara)

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/scienceNews/~3/gwRxw8zuKpg/us-usa-mars-idUSBRE87R03620120828

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Group health insurance rates - HEALTH, BEAUTY & FITNESS

Negative discussion about healthcare in Canada tends to pay attention to a persistent group of problems: access, wait occasions, and shortages of healthcare companies. You can also buy individual and family guidelines online by having to pay a little fee. In comparison, any adverse health Investing Account ( HSA) is much more economical of health-quotes.talk4fun.net these routine healthcare expenses, with no artificial percentage and coverage restrictions enforced through the insurance service providers. Experts stated that emotion is really a complex feeling which filled with fear, stress and angry feelings. If this involves something as essential as home health aide and care, know what you need. This is an excellent option since it provides you with a number of options from which you? ll select from. This helps your organs and circulatory system be regular. Although this might appear like good sense, it? s surprising the number of people dont consider what is incorporated in the policy they? re purchasing. rates Each class listed has specific criteria that the chemical must fulfill to be able to be considered such. Within the ongoing article, we? ll briefly be talking about about the health advantages of health-quotes.talk4fun.net Peganum harmala. Under 65 group health insurance rates Medical Health Insurance More insurance often than not, seniors consider over 65 medical health insurance. This fungus, referred to as Aspergillus flavus, releases aflatonix B2. The potential of these guidelines holders finding themselves inside a real healthcare dilemma has motivated the federal government to prohibit such health insurance plans and safeguarding many People in america, that will well be subject to no healthcare. Purchasing a medicare insurance planwill offer the very best of cover options. Then place the crushed powder within the k- cup and connect it to your coffee- roasted machine. Additionally, electronic health records are supplying the medical billing from the practice with an easy method to keep an eye on obligations and then any collection efforts. Healthcare ? group health insurance rates Golden Rule. The main factor is whether or not your bmi is simply too high, putting you in danger of other illnesses. Acute Toxicity Sometimes immediate contact with pesticide sprays can trigger respiratory system problems, central nervous system disorders and irritate pre- existing conditions for example bronchial asthma. Fitness involves exercise routines, diets, even inspirational courses, meditation periods, group and so forth. In either case, possessing a dog could be vey advantageous due to the various traits and characteristics that you could take advantage of. Because HSAs are funded with pre tax dollars, they are able to reduce federal and condition taxes, and lower modified gross earnings. And so the sooner you buy your wellbeing plan, the cheaper it will likely be. Customs Authority, being employed as a food health inspector for that U. S. With these health tests 80% health of stroke occurrences could be avoided added the nation? s Stroke Association.

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Election 2012: Family lessons and the right to a secret ballot

For the upcoming 2012 election, the author offers family history and advice for her daughter who recently turned 18.

By Judy Bolton-Fasman,?Guest blogger / August 27, 2012

A lone voter in a voting booth marks her ballot at Precinct 111 in Oklahoma City, Okla., on June 26, 2012. The author urges her daughter to talk the right to vote seriously for her first election.

Paul B. Southerland/The Oklahoman/AP

Enlarge

Congratulations, my dear Anna. In a week you will be eligible to vote in these United States. You didn?t waste any time telling me that you?re keeping your own counsel when it comes to selecting your candidates.

Skip to next paragraph Judy Bolton-Fasman

Guest blogger

Judy Bolton-Fasman is an award-winning writer who writes about parenting and family life for the NYT Motherlode Blog and the Jewish Advocate. Judy's work has appeared in The New York Times, the Boston Globe and O Magazine. She is writing a family memoir and blogs at The Judy Chronicles. She lives outside of Boston with her husband, daughter, and son.

Recent posts

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All I can say, my dear, is that you are a chip off the old block. By now you know that my father, your Papa Harold, was the guy who flew flags out all the windows of our house for every American holiday. Without fail, no matter where he was, he?d put his hand on his heart whenever he heard a patriotic song. He sang the national anthem off-key with a fervor that more than made up for the flat notes he hit.

My father never told another soul for whom he voted. Ever. Not even my mother. She learned to stop asking. As a kid, I took on the ultimate challenge to find out if Papa Harold voted for FDR. (Yes, he was very much a man of the 20th century who had a stake in that long-ago election). Figuring out Papa Harold required careful, constant observation coupled with an extravagant imagination. He was like the puzzle in the newspaper that he and I did every Sunday night. The clues were purposely ambiguous so that two choices seemed plausible. Just one mistake, though, and all was lost. When the correct answers were published on the following Thursday, he?d say there?s always next time. That?s good old-fashion American optimism, Anna.

I understand why the secret ballot was so important to Papa Harold. He would want me to impress upon you the significance of it through the history of suffrage in the United States ? a history rife with sexism, racism, xenophobia and ageism. He?d want you to know that following the trajectory of African-American voting in this country is a crucial civics lesson that you must never forget ? a lesson that you were first exposed to in grammar school. The timeline alone reflects the long and harsh struggle of civil rights in this country. Shortly after African-Americans were given the right to vote, poll taxes, grandfather clauses and literary tests were designed to prevent them from even registering in many Southern states. The poll tax was effectively in place until the ratification of the 24th amendment in 1964.

Another fact I?d like you to know is that your great-grandmother cast her first vote when she was twenty-nine years old and the mother of two children. Voting has always been a hard-earned privilege. People yearn for the right to vote. I know that you understand that there are still places in the world where voting is a revolutionary act. And there are other places where people are willing to die for the right to vote.

Politics is also a cautionary tale about how words and deeds can be twisted to ruin a person?s reputation. Remember the Jewish fable about the feathers in a pillow I told you when you were a little girl? It had to do with the consequences of gossip. Talking poorly, or as you might say, talking trash about a person, has the effect of a wind that blows pillow feathers everywhere. It?s impossible to gather all of them together just as it is nearly hopeless to fix the damage done to a person?s reputation by careless remarks.

Aside from protecting his precious and few moments of privacy, Papa Harold imparted to me that voting was as sacred as prayer. The Constitution was his liturgy. He never maligned political candidates. He spoke about them in the larger context of our imperfect yet precious democracy. He was fond of quoting Mark Twain that democracy was flawed, but it was the best form of government on the face of the planet.

Remember when I took you and Adam to the voting booth with me? It saddened me when the two of you noticed our polling place was so empty. But it?s no surprise. In 2000, the US ranked 139 out of 172 in voter participation worldwide. Only 57 percent of the eligible voters in the US voted in the 2008 presidential election. The mayors of many American cities are elected by less than 10 percent of the electorate. And the statistic that cuts to the bone for me: Half of the children in the United States live in homes where no one votes.

My dear Anna, don?t buy cigarettes or elope. But please vote. Invoke the secret ballot if you wish. It?s your inalienable right. This country belongs to you. It?s my turn to learn from you. It?s my obligation to respect your choices. No matter whom you vote for, I know you can do better for our country than my generation.

The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best family and parenting bloggers out there. Our contributing and guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor, and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs.

Judy Bolton-Fasman blogs at?The Judy Chronicles.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/8Sh1dH94dfI/Election-2012-Family-lessons-and-the-right-to-a-secret-ballot

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analiese mantle: The Great Outdoors with Teens | Travel & Leisure ...

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Source: http://imatnzg.typepad.com/blog/2012/08/analiese-mantle-the-great-outdoors-with-teens-travel-leisure.html

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Paltry PC Ports - Incorrigible Imaginings

I got a new game recently. It inspired me to rant about porting console games to PC. I used to think that it should happen more often, but I?m no longer convinced that game developers are competent enough to turn even a good console game into a quality PC port.

Dark Souls ? Prepare to Have Your Hopes Die Edition

I had such high hopes for Dark Souls on PC, but while the game was great on XBox, this is one of the worst porting efforts I?ve seen. The default controls are unintuitive and unplayable with a mouse, the extensive in-game help for controls still refers to the XBox controller buttons, and it?s not like they just have a straight-forward mapping from XBox controls to keyboard keys (which would be bad, but simple). On top of this, it doesn?t hide the mouse cursor. I hope you like looking at your conventional windows cursor, because it will be randomly dancing around the screen. And remember not to turn off your computer while the autosaving icon is present (but the game is constantly reminding you not to randomly power cycle your PC, in case you forget).
The weird mapping manifests in things like how the y button does one thing in game, and one thing in menus. This functionality was split into two keys for the keyboard ? left alt and delete. Very different keys, not very intuitive, and the delete key is placed differently on every keyboard so it?s rarely going to be in a good place (for example on my gaming laptop the x button in menus became the insert key, which is Fn+delete on a cramped laptop keyboard).

As for actually choosing a good mapping, it fails in several ways. The universal keyboard meaning of ?Esc? key to go back? Never works. At least WASD is used for movement, but putting the mouse on camera control ends up rendering the game unplayable. Targeting is needed, like any action adventure, for accuracy and shield maneuvers. Because the mouse was bound to the right stick, jiggling the mouse even a little causes your target to shift. What first feels like a classic keyboard and mouse control scheme turns into a farce when combat with more than one opponent becomes impossibly difficult. Mouse controls aren?t rebindable, so you?re forced to play with just the keyboard. This is playable, because IJKL serves as a the second WASD and thus right stick ? but that?s just a mind-numbingly simple port of doing the ?right stick? like the ?left stick?. That?s not the right way to play an action game with PC peripherals and is a massive waste of potential on top of being unintuitive for PC gamers.

Using Games for Windows Live was a bad mark to start with. Even before that the game looks untested to me, by how it started in windowed mode (fullscreen resolution though). But that?s nothing compared to how bad the control scheme plays and the blatant disregard for the current platform in the UI. I used to be moderately miffed when games showed default keybindings instead of pulling it from the current configuration, but this is a constant reminder of the lack of care spent on it. I?m convinced that the people writing and tested this hooked XBox controllers up to their computer for the entirety of development, and expect users to do the same (ignoring the additional hardware costs, unfamiliarity with controls, and the general reason why people want PC versions in the first place!).

Speaking of additional hardware costs, according to the Microsoft help site even though I have an XBox with working controllers, I still need to buy additional hardware to connect them to my PC (hardware that my pathetically brief searching says I need to get shipped from the US). Normally I prefer to play games on PC rather than the console, but somehow Dark Souls managed to make that the less appealing option in this case. If anyone keeps saying that people prefer games on console, stop to think about whether that?s just because the PC ports are mind-bogglingly bad. This isn?t the first bad port I?ve seen on PC?

To put it in context though, the black mark of the terrible porting effort isn?t enough to overcome just how great this game is. I?m still enjoying it, despite using the ?twin stick? keyboard configuration. But I had to get over a massive hump of rewriting all my expections about a computer game, and I was only able to do that because I already knew from past experience it was a good game. I doubt anyone playing it for the first time will enjoy that horrible starting experience enough to get over that hump.

Since I stayed my hand against posting this immediately, I?ve read some of the other coverage which provides better context (and the same complaints). I like how the PC Gamer review put it:

Ask yourself how you pronounce ?PC game?. If your emphasis is on the ?PC?, then run. Run far from Dark Souls and don?t look back. There is nothing for you here.

Fortunate then that I knew the game was a good one before I pre-ordered. The article further explains that the PC port was done by that studio because of massive online requests for it. Apparently the studio itself claims to have no experience with the PC. After playing their game, I concur.

Alan?s PC Porting Guidelines

So finally we?ve got a constructive part! For those who are porting their game to PC but don?t know what that means, here?s what should be done in a good PC port. I would like to credit Dark Souls for helping me create this list, much of it is what I was furious about when it was missing in that port . This is intended for people who may be professional game developers, but haven?t played anything on PC more advanced than solitaire (which has a better PC port than Dark Souls ).

PC interface conventions

Escape key always goes back to the higher level menu (closing the menu if it?s the top-level of in-game menu), or opens an in-game menu if none is open. This is what users will press if they just want to get out of the menu, or the game. Some games place this on F10, but they make that very clear in the interface when they do. Following this convention is important so that users don?t feel stuck in menus, at least until they learn your own unique way of navigating menus.

The conventional posture for playing action games on PC is the left hand on the left side of the keyboard, around WASD, and the right hand on the mouse. This uses the expected interface hardware well, the mouse as a pixel-perfect pointing device is excellent for precision aiming, and the WASD keys make a fast, though inaccurate, control stick approximation. Gamers also like to bind additional functionality to their extra buttons, so even though default controls should only assume two mouse buttons and a wheel make sure key rebinding allows rebinding functions to up to at least five mouse buttons.

Avoid using the numpad, insert, delete, home, end, page up and page down keys. At least for commonly used or time-sensitive commands. Keyboards place them in different places all the time, so any bindings based on their physical location (on your keyboard!) will be difficult to remember for many users. Laptops not only place them in even weirder locations, they will often hide them behind a fn modifier key to save space.

PC unique advantages

Configuration files can be used for extensive configurability. You may think that users don?t care about minor details of graphics rendering, and perhaps your UI is cleaner and easier without having those options in-game. But you can satisfy the hard-core PC gamers and ease your development by having plain-text configuration files in the game directory. The hard-core PC gamers are usually smart enough to figure all this out without even any documentation, so long as you use decent variable names (i.e. TextureCacheSize=512). If you?re feeling old school, you can even have a separate configuration utility for setting all this up .

This isn?t all that unique, but PC is the only platform where you can assume that they have a full keyboard hooked up for easy text input. Gesture systems (like in Dark Souls) are nice quick ways of emoting with a controller, but if you have a keyboard you can also just type things. PC allows for easy integrated text chat, but you can also add in other text input to the UI. Maps that you can place notes on, naming your inventory items, or a debugging console, there?s a lot you can add with just ?free text? input. The large number of keys on a keyboard, especially considering modifier keys, makes it easy to add a button to start the text editing mode for any of those additions. On other platforms those would be too much pain to implement or use for players to enjoy them, on PC it?s virtually effortless.

What is touted as one of the major weaknesses of PC gaming is also one of its strengths. While it?s harder to make the game be the same for every player, it?s easier to make the game be great for some players. Reconfigurability to the mouse, or gamepads, or custom keyboards makes it easier for players to command it in whatever way is most comfortable. Configurable graphics quality means that those with high-end, or future systems, can have it looking amazing while those with cheaper systems still have something playable. Don?t forget the variability in sound systems, which is actually something that too, where some people can be immersed in 7.1 surround while others can play using cheap stereo headphones. The mass market may be content with an average result aimed at the average gamer, but there?s a wide variety of other styles in PC gamers who are surprisingly easy to please.

PC community aspects

A final point is that I?ve seen the PC gaming community to be much more active on games compared to console gamers. Perhaps this is just that so much more can be done, but for popular games (even cult classics) the community has been known to provide a great deal of value on top of the game. Mods, fan patches, troubleshooting problematic configurations, PC game communities have the potential to get far deeper into the game implementation ? and they do. This is just one reason why advanced configuration options like settings files or scriptable UIs are more favored on PC, it?s such a versatile platform that it?s as easy to work on a game as to play it. Perhaps if game developers were willing to give more to the PC community, more games would be a good start , they could appreciate all this extra value more.

This list left off some aspects of platform differences, like how it?s trivially easy to update PC games and absurdly hard to update XBox games. But since those are more implemented by the software platform rather than tied to the hardware platform, I?m going to let that one slide. It also left out the obvious stuff, like update the UI hints to use the PC keybindings (not the XBox buttons!). These points should be sufficient though to help guide better PC ports, if anyone wants to give a solid try on their next PC port. The key thing is to actually try to make it feel like a PC game, using PC strengths, rather than a mere port.

Source: http://alan.imagin-itis.net/?p=344

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