DREAM ON...

The sky at night: 50 things you never knew about the full moon

2007-06-07T08:33:00.000-07:00

So it's not just a matter of superstition. According to a police study, the lunar event coincides with an increase in hooliganism. Jonathan Brown and Rebecca Bowle shed some light on the celestial phenomenon

Published: 07 June 2007

1 The full moon is a lunar phase occurring when the moon is on the opposite side of the earth from the sun and all three bodies are aligned in a straight line. Viewed from earth, the near side of the moon is fully illuminated by the sun giving it the familiar circular appearance.

2 It is only during a full moon that the dark side of the moon - the hemisphere on the opposite side to the sun - is completely dark.

3 Lunar eclipses - caused by the passage of the earth's shadow across the illuminated hemisphere - only occur during a full moon. However, because of the angle of tilt of both bodies the moon normally passes either north or south of the earth's shadow.

4 The chances of being bitten by a dog are twice as high during a full moon, according to a study at Bradford Royal Infirmary, which reviewed 1,621 cases of dog bite between 1997 and 1999. However, a study at the University of Sydney in Australia concluded there was no identifiable relationship between the state of the moon and dog bites.

5 Gervaise of Tilbury, a 13th-century canon lawyer, was the first to link the full moon with the transformation into a werewolf. Writing in his Otia Imperialia he reports cases in the Auvergne, below. The philosopher Gottfried Leibniz described the popular work as a "bagful of foolish old woman's tales".
6 The full moon occurs every 29.5 days - the duration of one complete lunar cycle.

7 The female menstrual cycle has long been linked to the full phase of the moon. One theory is that prehistoric men were more likely to go hunting during their womenfolk's period because of taboos associated with blood. The most profitable time to hunt was during the full moon and the best way to convince the men to return with food was with the prospect of sex.

8 Neo-pagans, including followers of Wicca, hold a monthly ritual based around the full moon called an Esbat. The term has been linked to the writings of the controversial anthropologist Margaret Murray.

9 The second full moon occurring within a calendar month is called a Blue Moon. The latest was seen on 31st May 2007. Far from being a rare event this phenomenon occurs once every three years on average.

10 "Blue Moon", which was written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart in 1934, became a standard ballad and was recorded by singers such as Frank Sinatra and Bob Dylan. The most famous version was recorded by the doo-wapp band the Marcels, above, in 1961, selling more than one million copies.

11 The world's tidal ranges are at their maximum during the full moon when the sun, earth and moon are in line. Sailors know the effect as the spring tide - a reference to the leap in the water level rather than the season of the year.

12 The only month that can occur without a full moon is February.

13 Farmers refer to the harvest moon, the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox, which normally occurs in September. It is also called the elk calling moon or the wine moon.

14 A full Moon is considered unlucky if it occurs on a Sunday but lucky on Monday or moon day

15 According to superstition a male child is more likely to be conceived at full moon.

16 In October 1939 in Springfield, Missouri, the full moon appeared to fall from the sky. The event was reported in the local newspaper but was later revealed to be a plunging weather balloon.

17 The Gregorian calendar dates Easter as the first Sunday after the ecclesiastical full moon - the first to occur after the vernal equinox. It is also known as the egg moon.

18 The Chinese Lantern Festival, dating back to the Han dynasty, is staged on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month after the new year. Chinese communities celebrate across the world by lighting lanterns and feasting on glutinous rice.

19 The Lunar Society, which included Erasmus Darwin, James Watt and Josiah Wedgewood, took its name from the practice of holding monthly meetings on the Monday nearest to the full moon. Members referred to themselves as the Lunatics.

20 A three-month psychological study of 1,200 inmates at Armley jail in Leeds in 1998 showed a rise in violent incidents in the days either side of a full moon.

21 Scientists have long battled to explain the "moon illusion" - whereby the full moon appears to be larger the closer it is to the horizon. The phenomenon is understood to be caused by human perception rather than the magnifying effect of the earth's atmosphere.

22 Timber harvests in South America and South-east Asia are avoided during the full moon because it causes the sap to rise in trees, which in turn attracts deathwatch beetles which can devastate crops.

23 Thousands of revellers gather each month on the beach at Koh Phangan in Thailand, below, to celebrate the full moon and dance the night away.

24 The native American Algonquin tribes in New England give each full moon of the year a name such as the beaver moon, the sturgeon moon and the strawberry moon.

25 The next full moon will occur on 30 June 2007.

26 The full moon may appear round, but is actually shaped like an egg with the pointed end facing earth.

27 The dark spots on the full moon that create the nursery-rhyme man in the moon image are actually basins filled up to five miles deep with basalt, a dense mineral. Other facial features are actually "seas" of frozen lava and sharp, rugged mountains.

28 In China, the dark shadows forming the man in the full moon are seen as a toad. The toad is considered one of the five poisons of yin. It is believed that eclipses occur when the toad in the full moon tries to swallow the moon itself.

29 The Moonlight Sonata, by Ludwig von Beethoven, left, is probably the most widely recognised classical work associated with the full moon. The name comes not from the composer but from a critic who compared the piece to the effect of moonlight on Lake Lucerne.

30 The innuit of Greenland believe the full moon is a hungry god, Anningan, who is intent on eating his sister, the sun goddess, Malina. Their cat-and-mouse sibling chase follows the cycle of the day, with Malina rising as Anningan sets and the cycle of the moon, with the chase waning when the moon is full.

31 The RAF used the moon to launch its first successful attack on a German city when planes attacked Lubeck in 1942.

32 Wesak, the most important of the Buddhist festivals, left, is celebrated on the full moon in May. It celebrates the Buddha's birthday and, for some Buddhists, also marks his birth and death.

33 The full moon is the brightest object in the night sky. It has an apparent magnitude of -12.6 compared with the Sun's of -26.8.

34 The Slovakian psychiatrist Eugen Jonas created a method of birth control and fertility based on the full moon.

35 An analysis of the birthdays of 4,256 babies born in a clinic in France found no relationship between the full moon and fertility.

36 A study by Tübingen University, Germany, claimed that police reports for 50 new and full moon cycles showed that the moon is responsible for binge drinking.

37 A telescopic drawing of the full moon by the English mathematician Thomas Harriot, right, from early August 1609, is the first on record and preceded the Italian physicist Galileo's study by several months.

38 Renaissance artists traditionally depicted the moon as a crescent rather than in its full phase.

39 The full moon is said to be at perigee when it is full at the same moment its orbit brings it closest to the earth. However, the moon appears imperceptibly brighter at this time.

40 The Great Moon Hoax of 1835, above, was perpetrated by Richard Adams Locke for the New York Sun. His story claimed that the eminent scientist Sir John Hershel had spotted furry winged men resembling bats on the surface of a full moon.

41 The full moon is at its highest altitude from the Earth during the winter seaaon.

42 Some insomnia sufferers claim to sleep worse during a full moon; although others say they sleep more soundly.

43 It is a common misperception that the first Apollo landing occurred during a full moon. This did not occur until more than a week later.

44 The moon is 10 times brighter when it is full than when it is in a quarter phase.

45 Pagans believe the most mystical time at Stonehenge is when the full moon wanes leaving the earth to be reunited with her lover, the sun at dawn.

46 The honeymoon is named after the full moon in June. As it fell between the planting and harvesting of crops this was traditionally the best month to get married.

47 The oldest lunar calendar, showing the full moon was discovered in caves at Lascaux in France. It dates back 15,000 years and marks the phases of the moon, with a series of dots depicting the days in the cycle.

48 In 2001, the first test match between Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe had to be postponed by one day due to new Siri Lankan government rule, which bans playing sport on a full moon.

49 The Californian grunion only spawns on the three or four nights after the highest tide associated with each full moon. The fish come ashore to lay their eggs.

50 In a study of 1,000 tonsillectomy operations, 82 per cent of post-operative bleeding crises occurred nearer the full moon than the new moon, according to the Journal of the Florida Medical Association.

The genetic revolution

2007-06-07T00:43:00.000-07:00

The discovery of genes responsible for seven of the most common illnesses offers hope to millions of sufferers
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 07 June 2007

A groundbreaking study into the genetic basis of disease has opened the door to new ways of understanding and treating common illnesses affecting millions of people - from manic depression to heart disease.

Scientists have announced the first results of the biggest and most comprehensive investigation into the genes behind seven medical disorders, using a revolutionary approach for analysing vast tracts of the human genome.
The findings have been described as an unprecedented tour de force for British science involving 50 research groups and 200 scientists who pioneered the approach of studying common diseases by analysing the DNA of thousands of people.

The two-year, £9m study took DNA samples from 17,000 people across the UK and built up a database handling 10 billion items of genetic information. It will lead to a new understanding of illnesses as varied as high blood pressure, bipolar disorder and rheumatoid arthritis.
Initial findings from the study released yesterday identified a dozen genes or tiny "point mutations" in the human genome that appear to increase the risk of someone developing a particular disorder during his or her lifetime.

One unexpected result was finding the first genetic link between type 1 diabetes and a bowel condition called Crohn's disease both were associated with a gene known as PTPN2.
Scientists involved in the study said the research promised to open the way to an era of "personalised" medicine in which doctors routinely analyse the DNA of patients to find out which drugs their genes are best suited for rather than the existing approach of "one size fits all".
In addition, the methodology of the study could ultimately tease apart the role of nature and nurture in the creation of a person's psyche, making it possible to understand why some people are prone to developing mental illness such as manic depression or schizophrenia.

"Many of the most common diseases are very complex, part of 'nature' and 'nurture', with genes interacting with our environment and lifestyles," said Professor Peter Donnelly of Oxford University, the leader of the scientific consortium behind the study.

"By identifying the genes underlying these conditions, our study should enable scientists to understand better how disease occurs, which people are most at risk and, in time, to produce more effective, more personalised treatments.

"The new approach works well and reliably. Our understanding of the genetics of common diseases will change enormously over the coming years. I think we are just scratching the surface."

The study, published in the journal Nature, came out of the mammoth effort during the 1990s to decode the entire three billion "letters" of the human genome. It was co-ordinated by the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium, and funded by the Wellcome Trust, the world's biggest medical research charity.
By analysing the smallest differences in the genetic sequences of patients with a disease and comparing them to the DNA of healthy people, the scientists were able to identify point mutations strongly associated with increasing someone's risk of that illness. The scientists found, for instance, three new genes that each appeared to increase the risk of someone developing Crohn's disease by between 20 and 40 per cent, compared with the risk within the general population.
Thousands of people affected by at least one of the seven diseases gave blood samples that were analysed by sophisticated DNA "chips". These can rifle through huge regions of a person's genome to locate point mutations that are different from the general population.
Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust, said: "Just a few years ago it would have been thought wildly optimistic that it would be possible in the near future to study a thousand genetic variants in each of a thousand people.
"What has been achieved in this research is the analysis of half a million genetic variants in each of 17,000 individuals, with the discovery of more than 10 genes that predispose to common diseases."

Britain is in the process of establishing a vast databank of human DNA called UK Biobank the biggest of its kind in the world which will store the genes of half a million people who will be closely monitored for the rest of their lives for correlations between genes and disease.
Dr Walport said the findings of the latest study were proof that the UK Biobank approach of analysing DNA on such a large scale will work in terms of finding out why some people fall seriously ill. "This research shows it is possible to analyse human variation in health and disease on an enormous scale," Dr Walport said.

"It shows the importance of studies such as the UK Biobank, which is seeking half a million volunteers aged between 40 and 69, with the aim of understanding the links between health, the environment and genetic variation," he said.

The latest findings come just weeks after scientists used a similar approach to identify four new genes that play a small but significant role in increasing a woman's risk of developing breast cancer, and an earlier discovery of a gene that confers a 70 per cent higher risk of becoming obese.

Professor Donnelly said that it was possible to search for the genetic basis of disease in a fundamentally different way than in the past when the emphasis was on finding the cause of single-gene disorders in families affected by disorders such as cystic fibrosis and Huntington's chorea.
"We are now able to effectively scan most of the common variation in the human genome to look for variants associated with diseases. This approach will undoubtedly herald major advances in how we understand and tackle disease in the future," Professor Donnelly said.

TREATABLE ILLNESSES...

Bipolar disorder
Also known as manic depression, it affects 100 million people around the world

Coronary heart disease
The most frequent cause of death in Britain, with 100,000 victims every year. By 2020, it will be the biggest killer in the world

Hypertension
High blood pressure affects 16 million people in Britain. Can lead to stroke, heart disease and kidney failure

Rheumatoid arthritis
Nearly 400,000 people in Britain are afflicted with this auto-immune disease of the joints

Type 1 diabetes
Diabetic condition in which sufferers have to inject insulin. Affects 350,000 people in UK

Type 2 diabetes
Almost 2 million Britons are affected by this late-onset disease, which is linked with the growing obesity epidemic

Crohn's disease
Up to 60,000 people are affected by this debilitating bowel condition which can cause distress and pain for a lifetime

new york new york.....

2007-05-05T08:13:00.001-07:00

..................................................................

Massacre on campus: 32 students shot dead at American college

2007-04-17T12:05:00.000-07:00

A gunman rampaged across the campus of a large technical college in rural Virginia yesterday, killing at least 32 people in two separate locations before shooting himself in what criminologists said was the worst mass killing of its kind in American history.

The man, who was not immediately identified, began shooting at a dormitory in the early hours of the morning in what authorities at first assumed was a limited domestic dispute. Two hours later, he opened fire again, in a building housing Virginia Tech's engineering school, and this time he created carnage.

"All I saw was blood in the hallways," said Gene Cole, a cleaner at the building who saw a man with a hat on and holding a gun before fleeing along a corridor and down a flight of stairs.
Eyewitness reports suggested the gunman went from room to room, opening fire, seemingly at random. Several students and staff members jumped out of windows to escape. At least two faculty members were shot, one seriously, along with several dozen students. The number of injured is in double figures.

Some students suggested the gunman was a jilted boyfriend who tracked down and killed his former girlfriend first before rounding up his other victims. Many were outraged that they were not properly warned after the first incident. The university administration sent an email at around 9.30am, more than two hours after the incident in the dormitory and around the time of the second, more sustained shooting spree.

Both Virginia Tech's president, Charles Steger, and the head of the campus police, Wendell Flinchum, said they believed the first incident was a one-off crime and that the perpetrator had left campus. "You can second-guess all day," Chief Flinchum told a news conference. We acted on the best information we had."

Mr Steger said his university was experiencing a tragedy of "monumental proportions". Virginia's governor, Tim Kaine, declared a state of emergency, and politicians from President George Bush down expressed shock and offered the condolences.

According to media reports, citing law enforcement officials, the gunman was armed with two 9mm handguns. Chief Flinchum confirmed that the man shot himself at the end of the rampage, but gave no details on his identity or any possible motives. Rumours flying around campus suggested that he was a student of Asian origin, but it was not possible to corroborate this.
Officials said the gunman acted alone. But at one point three people were seen being escorted away from Norris Hall, the teaching building where most of the shootings took place, in handcuffs. That raised at least the possibility of a wider criminal conspiracy.

The university email system buzzed with eyewitness accounts and scrappy footage shot on mobile phone cameras. Amie Steele, editor of the campus newspaper, described the scene as "mass chaos", with students running around in panic and police trying to keep them calm.
Campus police sealed off the 26,000-acre facility, and squad cars jammed streets and car parks. Virginia state police and at least two federal agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, were on the scene.

The violence broke out at about 7.15am on the fourth floor of the West Ambler Johnston dormitory building. At least two people were shot there, according to first reports. Two students, probably fearing for their lives, jumped out of a window and were seen groaning on the ground below. "One kid broke his ankle and the other girl was not in good shape, just lying on the ground," an eyewitness, Matt Waldron, told CNN. "It was kind of scary."

It took a couple of hours for most people to realise what had happened. Residents at West Ambler Johnston, which houses 895 students, heard university officials knocking on their doors and urging them to stay put. " We were all locked in our dorms surfing the internet trying to figure out what was going on," one student, Aimee Kanode, told reporters.

However, nobody at that stage was prevented from entering campus or going to labs and classrooms. At 9.30, a student, Hector Takahashi, was in class in a building near Norris Hall where the conversation was all about the dormitory shootings. "Then, all of a sudden, we were like, 'whoa, were those shots?'"

He heard two quick bangs, then a pause, then a fusillade of at least 30 more shots, he said. Police later estimated that the gunman had killed at least 20 people in Norris Hall.

Not everyone was alerted to the danger at the same speed. "It was a little nerve-racking," said David Harris, a worker at the campus's Center for Applied Behavioral Systems. He couldn't hear the mayhem unfolding in Norris, but received first one email and then another announcing a shooting on campus and urging everyone to stay away from windows.

Then the security operation went into high gear. "Swat teams were yelling for everyone to clear the area. I ran across the drillfield," a student, Erin Burdick, wrote by email. Over the university loudspeaker system a voice began to intone, over and over: "This is an emergency, seek shelter indoors immediately."

It took campus police another three hours to give the all clear.
Even without a final death toll, this was easily the deadliest attack on an American university campus, surpassing the events of August 1966 at the University of Texas in Austin, where a deranged man shot his wife and mother, then climbed a tower and opened fire on students milling below. The toll was 15 the same number as died at Columbine High School in April 1999 in what remains America's most lethal mass school shooting.

Experts agreed that the toll at Virginia Tech is a grim milestone. " There is no national precedent for this," said Catherine Bath of Security on Campus Inc, a non-profit group that tracks shootings at schools and colleges.

Blacksburg, the town which hosts Virginia Tech and its 26,000 students, is in a remote part of Virginia sandwiched between the borders with West Virginia to the north and west and North Carolina to the south. This is not, however, the first time it has come face to face with violence, or the prospect of violence. As recently as last Friday, a bomb threat prompted the closure of three campus buildings. A similar, written bomb threat arrived at the university at the beginning of the month. It is not yet known if the shootings and bomb threats are related.

The President's response
Once the scale of the massacre became clear, George Bush issued a statement. He said: "Schools should be places of safety and sanctuary and learning. When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in every American class and in every American community. Today our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones at Virginia Tech. We hold the victims in our hearts. We lift them up in our prayers and we ask a loving God to comfort those who are suffering today."

He said the federal government would "do everything possible" to assist the investigation. "We would stand ready to help local law enforcement and the local community in any way we can," he said.
Sadie Gray

An idyllic campus
Virginia Tech is one of the better-known US universities, with an excellent reputation for engineering. It ranks ninth in the US in that subject in university league tables, 34th overall. Former alumni include the Home Office minister Tony McNulty and Charlie Byrd, the jazz guitarist. Its 28,470 students enjoy an idyllic location on a campus that sprawls across 2,600 acres of land in the town of Blacksburg in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Founded in 1872, it is one of only two civilian universities in the US with a corps of cadets who undergo military training on campus. Until 1966 it was a requirement for all male students to have received military training.

AT DAVE`S

2007-04-06T15:22:00.000-07:00

BEAUTIFUL day in London...Dave just moved into his husband-to-be flat,we payed him a visit.
he lives in the docklands now..nice area..
he also has a terrace,,that where th epics were taken on this sunny day...

Vand D

david`s angels...

Marie-david-ruth

Out again...weird pics..!!!

2007-03-16T03:57:00.000-07:00

hehehe...close focus..

cut faces..!!

whos that girl??

trop de blabla

probably the only normal & nice pic taken

Plan B on Saturday!

2007-03-10T21:09:00.000-08:00

went to Plan B,in BRIXTON...to celebrate manu`s saturday...whatever that means!!!!

lets get the part started!!!

cheeky girls!

Italia vs Columbia

orlanda and manu

full team

Manu and the girls

last days..

2007-02-24T00:50:00.000-08:00

pap et v

art!!??

a l`universite de canterbury

apres un gros "whopper"

pap et vero

papa et la ..fontaine de jouvence..

papa..le chevalier..

DAY 2

2007-02-17T23:56:00.000-08:00

London:Day 1 with dad & domi

2007-02-17T01:25:00.000-08:00

FIRST DAY in London..sorry I ve started with the end of the night...oops!!!

click here for more photos

BAR SALSA

LONDON `S EYE

CHINATOW

Chinatown-new year eve

The Quote.

2007-02-16T02:45:00.000-08:00

Purpose is so Key in life...if not there how do you motivate yourselves ????......

Thousands to police smoking ban

2007-02-15T22:45:00.000-08:00

Thousands of council staff are being trained to police the smoking ban in bars, restaurants and shops in England.

Ministers have given councils £29.5m to pay for staff, who will be able to give on-the-spot £50 fines to individuals and take court action against premises.
They will have the power to enter premises undercover, allowing them to sit among drinkers, and will even be able to photograph and film people.

Smokers' groups and industry officials said the plans were a "waste of money".
The smoking ban is due to come into force on 1 July. It covers virtually all enclosed public places including offices, factories, pubs and bars. But neither outdoor space nor private homes will be affected.

The idea of getting public officials to snoop on people is distasteful and disproportionate Simon Clark, Forest

Business owners also have a duty to ensure their customers comply - they are liable for £200 fines if proper signs are not displayed and, potentially, fines of £2,500 if they refuse to enforce the ban.

Local authorities have been given the power to enforce the ban so it does not consume police time.

A government-funded course is expected to train 1,200 council officers in the next few months with more expected to follow later.

Councils will use these fully-trained officers to brief other staff on how to enforce the law as many towns and cities will have scores of officers patrolling public places.
The teams will be made up of new staff and existing officers who will be freed up to carry out inspections.

In London, there will be several hundred of the so-called anti-smoking police, with 40 in Westminster alone.

Two approaches

Ian Gray, policy officer for the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and chief trainer for the government course, said he expected most councils would take a "softly, softly approach" at first.

"But there will be some occasions where action has to be taken and I am sure the compliance officers will not shy away from that," he added.

"These officers do not have to identify themselves when they go into premises and they can even film and photograph people to gather evidence although this may not be appropriate in many cases.

"There will be two ways of doing this, either staff can go in and identify themselves to the landlord, but they don't have to."
We want to make our presence felt from the start Andy Hull, Liverpool City Council
In Nottingham, there will be about 30 officers patrolling the city, comprised of new staff and existing environmental health officers.

But the council is also exploring the possibility of getting street wardens, who currently aid the local police force, to help ensure the ban is effectively enforced.

Steve Dowling, director of environment and public protection at Nottingham City Council, said: "We have about 100 wardens and they could keep an eye on whether people are smoking in pubs as they go about their other duties.

"But it is not just about pubs and restaurants.

"We will also be looking at the likes of car garages and shops are complying as well."
'A sledgehammer'

In Liverpool, there will be a core team of about 20 to 25 staff keeping an eye on public places, although in the first few days after the start of the ban the council is planning to do a mass patrol of the city with 200 staff.

Liverpool City Council official Andy Hull said: "We want to make our presence felt from the start, and while we will probably just issue warnings on the first day, we won't be afraid of making an example of people or businesses if they try to make a stand."

But Simon Clark, director of smokers' lobby group Forest, said: "The idea of getting public officials to snoop on people is distasteful and disproportionate.

"It is like taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Smokers will abide the law so it will be a complete waste of public money."

And a spokesman for the British Beer and Pub Association added the approach was too "heavy-handed and elaborate".

"In Scotland, there have been just 11 fixed penalty notices issued to premises in the last 10 months, with many councils having issued none at all."

HILLSONG VALENTINES` @ PACHA

2007-02-14T12:17:00.000-08:00

Valentines` party at the Pacha club in London,we rented the place and threw the best party ever so far this year...it s was amazing....the music was excellent thanks to Tito....the food..miamm...the people marvelous...the smoke...no where to be seen ...everyone I believe had a fantastic night.....

ruthy

THE ROSES`

THE SHOW

?????

THE VENUE

ALL

BYE BYE SMOKING..IN PARIS

2007-02-01T22:44:00.000-08:00

Bidding goodbye to the Gauloises

By Caroline Wyatt BBC News, Paris

What could be more French than sitting in a cafe enjoying a coffee and a cigarette, watching the world go by?

Not any more. The plumes of smoke that once wreathed the great thoughts of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, as they puffed away at the café Les Deux Magots on the Left Bank, have been banished by the chill winds of change.

France has imposed a ban on smoking in public places, so Les Deux Magots is now strictly "non-fumeur": a smoke-free zone.

That famous French chain-smoker Serge Gainsbourg once sang an anthem to the habit, entitled "God smokes Havana cigars".

Well, if He does, He will no longer be smoking them in this cafe nor in many others - and absolutely not in offices or government buildings.

Cafe philosophy
Perhaps surprisingly, the move is backed by a majority of the French, and even by a majority of smokers.
The French writer Olivier Todd was a friend of the late, great smoker, Jean-Paul Sartre, and remembers breathing in his philosophy along with the fumes of Sartre's ever-present Gauloises in Les Deux Magots and Cafe Flore on the Left Bank.
Yet, though he feels a pang of nostalgia for the old days, Olivier Todd believes it is time for France to change.

"Those who smoke enjoy cigarettes after a meal or after making love can still do so. It's just that you won't necessarily be able to do so in a restaurant or cafe any more," he tells me, as he looks wistfully at his packet of cigarettes.

"So the ban in public places will not change things - we can still smoke in private. There will not be a revolution, a May '68 over cigarettes, that's for sure. And it will help people to give up."

French paradox
Monsieur Todd pats the nicotine chewing gum he now keeps in his top pocket as a substitute while in smoke-free areas.
This is supposed to be a place of pleasure where you can relax, and smoking is part of that Gregory Bianchi, teacher

For this is a typical French paradox - smoking in public places such as airports, railway stations, hospitals, offices and schools is now forbidden.

But restaurants, cafes, casinos and bars have until December to allow their customers to get used to the idea of their morning coffee without their "clope" or fag.
Yet the owner of Les Deux Magots, Catherine Mathivat, the great-grand-daughter of its original "patron", says she was keen to ban smoking as soon as possible, and is glad to be getting rid of the smoke.

"It will be good for the employees," she says, gesturing at the smartly-attired waiters.
"They are always in a smoky environment, and they get bronchitis and other diseases because of it.

HAVE YOUR SAY Smoking inevitably affects others, and that's the issue Richard Evans, Leeds, UK

"A lot of writers used to come to Les Deux Magots and they used to drink a coffee or a glass of wine while they smoked, but I think that things have changed. The writers of today are not so addicted to cigarettes."

French identity
Her customers agree. Some 70% of the French support the ban, and, in these health-conscious times, customers at Les Deux Magots are appropriately philosophical about the change.
"People have started accepting the fact that smoking is not the thing to do. They have lost so many of their friends to lung cancer that they know that it means something," says Yves.
"I think it's a good thing - too many young people smoke. The ban is good for everyone," insists Rene, himself a smoker.

But in a cafe across the river, the Sarah Bernhardt on Place du Chatelet, there is one last Frenchman willing to defy the ban.

Teacher Gregory Bianchi looks around, rolls a cigarette and defiantly lights up.
"I believe in the right to fresh air, but I believe that it's also a right to smoke in a public place," he says.

"This is supposed to be a place of pleasure where you can relax, and smoking is part of that. They should have smoking restaurants and bars, and non-smoking restaurants and bars. That would be fair."

From today, thousands of French police will have the right to stop and fine smokers they catch flouting the ban, with a penalty of 68 euros or just under £50.

Nearly 16 years after his death, Serge Gainsbourg may be turning in his grave, as a little spark of French identity is finally extinguished for the greater good of the Republique's health, as France finally ends its long love affair with the cigarette.

Ma petite Maman cherie..

2007-01-31T00:36:00.000-08:00

Pour Ma petite Maman cherie..

ne t inquietes pas...tout va bien dans le plus laid des monde..haha

j aime bien de temps en temps faires des petites ((ou grandes)) refelctions sur la vie etc....et comme je suis de temperament melancolique c est toujours un peu dramatique.....

L avie a ces hauts et ces bas et surtout un vie avec le Seigneur est toujours tres tulmuteuse et pleine de rebondies auquelles ont ne s attends pas toujours...tout cela pour nous rappeler que Jesus etant Dieu il est souverain..mais franchement je dois dire qu il m`a vraiment surpris la annee derniere...

et comme d habitude je me suis "enguelee" avec lui ( mais cela c est une de mes mauvaise habitude)..ce que je n aurais pas dut faire du tout..et je ne voulais pas parler a Jesus pendant quelques temps( j faisais la "gueule") et bien sur resutat je n etais pas bien du tout puisqu`il ne mais pas possible de vivre sans lui ...

et Voila...ma petite maman....j epere que je t ai un peu rassurer...

bisous plein d amourrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

vero

Ps: sorry to my english-speaking bloggers..I had to do it in french is addressed to my mum...just needeed to reassure her after she had the previous post translated..she panicked...

xxx
vero

I took contentment for granted.....

2007-01-27T03:08:00.001-08:00

I took contentment for granted .........and it was almost fatal.

2006 was the worst year ever in my life ( fom what I remenber of it anyway..)

I rhink that if I was to single one reason why it was so..it would be because,...( see the title..)//

what do I mean by taking contentment for granted...taking unspeaknle joy for granted...happyiness for granted...

all of that was mine but I decided that it was nothing and and on a journey to blame God for not having more..belittling these...

the result : frustation..un-happyness..misery...things I was used to even though I though I was...

it s when things are taking away from u that u realised that u had them..that they were so present in ur life...and so crucial..

I went on a journey( sparing"u" the details) a journey to deny all of that ..a journey of being of doing and not being...oh dear it was awful...

where before I could spend so much time just being with "Him" and chilling out...also spending time in my own comonay was all fien...but then .......everything changed...

I couldnt anymore do that it had become realllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy hard...

I couldnt stand his voice anymore..and was running away fromHim...helped by all kinds of"means"...

trying to fill up my thoughts with all kinds n sorts provided it was not of Him...

in the process inventing ways to hurt Him because I was upset at Him...

anyway...little by little I lost this "explainable"peace .lost this Joy from above...

After trying everything else and after everyhting ran out of effect...( work-hobbies-friendship..etc..)

I was back to square one...

like 13 yrs ago before I got to know him...peaceless...joyless...everyhting-less.....

Oh dear I felt weird..

I had been so used to being happy...with trials Yes ..but nevertheless very happy..very content..

it was a weird state of heart...

I couldnt stand work anymore...I got bored at everyhting very quickly....I didnt even like to watch "bollywood movies"..anymore..now I coul relate to my friends who found these long movies boring...( that was quite a revelation to me..)

I hated to listen to worship music...

I think the worst of all..Is that I couldnt stand the reading the book of life anymore..that was sth ..it had become completely irrelevant to me...I just couldnt .....

Anyway...

A relationship with the King of Kings is really something full of suprises///

I really wouldnt have thought getting that low in my relationship with him...

but Once thing I know is that I cant live without Him////

that`s for sure...

I dont care how much I don`t understand him...or how much I do..

hopefully no way ..Ill try again....

when uve tested the gift of Heaven ...nothing tastes better....Nothing...

and the "little " we take for granted are the biggest things in life...the more precious...

this life is so hard that one needs this peace,joy,contentment from Heaven..to make it through...

So what can I say I am not figthing it off...anymore...

Bring it on ....

Party at Dave`s...

2007-01-22T20:45:00.000-08:00

SATURDAY NIGHT ...PARTY...

The chineeeeese boys

Relaxing time..

wonder what happened there!!(me.suja.ruth)

dont ask!!!

the party crowd..

FUNKY NIGHT with RUTHY

2007-01-14T03:37:00.000-08:00

TWO PEOPLE WHO DONT HAVE ANYHTING ELSE TO DO ON A SATURDAY NIGHT...

MODELS -WANNA-BE

SCARY SPICE

MORE PICS HERE..

Record Number of Ex-Muslims Celebrate Christmas this Year

2007-01-12T22:43:00.000-08:00

[Excerpts]More Muslims converted to faith in Jesus Christ over the past decade than at any other time in human history.
A spiritual revolution is underwaythroughout North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia.

As a result, arecord number of ex-Muslims are celebrating Christmas this year, despiteintense persecution, arrests, assassinations, and widespread churchbombings.Iraq: more than 5,000 new Muslim converts to Christianity have beenidentified since the end of major combat operations, with 14 new churchesopened in Baghdad, and dozens of new churches opened in Kurdistan, some ofwhich have 500 to 800 members.

Also, more than 1 million Bibles shipped intothe country since 2003, and pastors report Iraqis are snatching them up sofast they constantly need more Bibles. [Update: Iraqi Christians CelebrateChristmas, 12/25]Egypt: some reports say 1 million Egyptians have trusted Christ over thepast decade or so.
The Egyptian Bible Society told me they used to sellabout 3,000 copies of the JESUS film a year in the early 1990s. But lastyear they sold 600,000 copies, plus 750,000 copies of the Bible on tape (inArabic) and about a half million copies of the Arabic New Testament."Egyptians are increasingly hungry for God's Word," an Egyptian Christianleader told me. Last Christmas, I had the privilege of visiting the largestChristian congregation in the Middle East, which meets in an enormous caveon the outskirts of Cairo. Some 10,000 believers worship there everyweekend.
A prayer conference the church held in May 2005 drew some 20,000believers.Afghanistan: only 17 Muslim converts to Christianity before 9/11/01, but nowmore than 10,000. Dozens of baptisms every week.Kazakstan: only 3 known Christians in 1990, but now more than 15,000.Uzbekistan: no known Christians in 1990, but now more than 30,000.Sudan: more than 1 million Sudanese have converted to Christianity justsince 2000, and some 5 million have become Christians since the early 1990s,despite a radical Islamic regime and an on-going genocide that has killedmore than 200,000. Seminaries are being held in caves to train pastors to shepherd the huge numbers of people coming to Christ.

Why such a dramatics piritual awakening? "People have seen real Islam, and they want Jesus instead," one Sudanese evangelical leader told me.

Iran: in 1979, there were only 500 known Muslim converts to Christianity,but today Iranian pastors and evangelical leaders tell me there are morethan 1 million Iranian believers in Jesus Christ, most of whom meet inunderground house churches. [Update: Iranian authorities arrest 8 leaders ofhouse church movement.]

December 2001, Sheikh Ahmad al Qataani, a leading Saudi cleric, appeared ona live interview on Aljazeera satellite television to confirm that, sureenough, Muslims were turning to Jesus in alarming numbers. "In every hour,667 Muslims convert to Christianity," Al Qataani warned.

"Every day, 16,000Muslims convert to Christianity. Every year, 6 million Muslims convert toChristianity."Stunned, the interviewer interrupted the cleric. "Hold on! Let me clarify.

Do we have six million converting from Islam to Christianity?" Al Qataani repeated his assertion. "Every year," the cleric confirmed, adding, "a tragedy has happened."

MILK in TEA..NO GOOD!!!

2007-01-09T00:21:00.001-08:00

Milk in tea 'blocks health gains'

Adding milk to a cup of tea can destroy its ability to protect against heart disease, according to research.

A small German study found drinking black tea significantly improved the ability of arteries to relax and expand to keep blood pressure healthy.

But the European Heart Journal paper also found proteins in milk, called caseins, blocked this effect.
It is estimated as many as 98% of UK tea-drinkers prefer milk in their favourite cuppa.
The researchers tested the effects of tea in 16 humans and on rat tissue.
They showed molecules in the tea called catechins helped dilate the blood vessels by producing a chemical called nitric oxide. The caseins in milk prevented this effect by reducing the concentration of catechins in the tea.

Our results provide a possible explanation for the lack of beneficial effects of tea on the risk of heart disease in the UK Professor Stangl

Senior researcher Dr Verena Stangl, professor of cardiology at the Charite Hospital, in Berlin, said: "Our results thus provide a possible explanation for the lack of beneficial effects of tea on the risk of heart disease in the UK, a country where milk is usually added."

However, June Davison, cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation (BHF), said: "It is difficult to say from this small study the impact of adding a drop of milk to your tea can make.

"The tea break is a great British tradition which provides time to relax with a cuppa in hand.

"Leaving milk out of your tea is far less likely to help protect your heart health than other measures, such as taking regular exercise, avoiding smoking and eating a healthy balanced diet."
Tea benefits

But Ms Davison also said the study highlighted the importance of not just thinking about one food in isolation but the effect of the actual interaction between different foods.
Prof Stangl said the study was very complex and so could only be performed on a small number of people.

Professor Andrew Steptoe of UCL's department of epidemiology and public health, who has previously carried out research into the effects of tea on recovery from stress, said that as such studies were very difficult to carry out he was not surprised that this study had been very small.
There are benefits for both black tea, with or without milk, so keep on drinking Catherine Collins
On the results of the study, he added: "We would be interested to know if that sort of effect persists long-term or if it is just an acute effect of tea."

Prof Steptoe also said that as there were about 200 bioactive compounds in tea the apparent effect of milk of vasodilation "does not necessarily mean milk negates the other effects of tea".
Catherine Collins, a dietician and spokesperson for the British Dietetic Society, agreed that tea was a "very healthy drink" and pointed out that drinking it with milk in would boost calcium intake.

She said: "There are benefits for both black tea, with or without milk, so keep on drinking."

Bill Gorman, chairman of the Tea Council, also said the study was "another very positive piece of research for tea as it's clear that the researchers recognise that tea has significant health effects".

Saving Souls in Quebec

2007-01-01T01:18:00.000-08:00

With interest in spirituality on the rise and church attendance in a freefall, a week-long National Post series considers the state of Canadian Christianity and whether the way forward may in fact be the way backward.

JOLIETTE, Que. - When Francois Verschelden envisions the focal point of the thriving Baptist ministry he is trying to build in this small community, he has his building already picked out.
It is an abandoned government building in the centre of town, just up the road from the century-old Roman Catholic cathedral -- a location with a symbolic significance that is not lost on Pastor Verschelden, a bespectacled minister who grew up as a Catholic in this province and who knows that his life's work is all about supplanting the dominant religion here.

"In Quebec, if you change religions, they have the impression that you are rejecting the culture, the two are so intertwined," he says.

"And they don't consider evangelical churches as credible, simply because they have no knowledge of what it is."

The 43-year-old is the rancophone church planting co-ordinator of the Canadian Convention of Southern Baptists, an organization whose mission is "1,000 healthy reproducing churches by year 2020."

The goal is certainly daunting on a national scale but sounds particularly improbable in a region that remains Catholic at heart, if not in practice, and where many consider evangelical churches on a par with cults.

So alien is the U.S. version of evangelism to people in this area that the kindly- looking father of two, who became a born-again Christian when he was 19, has been ridiculed, threatened and even had parents warn their children to stay away from him for his proselytizing since returning to his home province.

So how can a single Baptist preacher turn around the prevailing attitude toward the evangelical movement?
The answer is that Pastor Verschelden has some big American backers in his campaign for religious conversion, who for a range of reasons have settled on this small Quebec community of about 50,000, about 75 kilometres northeast of Montreal, as the unlikely focus of their efforts to boost the presence of evangelismin Canada.

The movement has already had some quick success: In just four years, Pastor Verschelden has founded a church in St. Felix, north of Joliette, called Eglise du Rocher Vivant, and another, Renaissance Bible Church, in Rawdon, northwest of Joliette, and has recently started what is known as a "kitchen-table church" in the town proper.

But those, along with regularly handing out Bibles at a local flea market and putting pamphlets on car windshields, are modest ventures compared to what is planned for the new year.
Beginning in March, six successive waves of Baptist mission teams -- the largest, a group of 50 --from Texas, Kentucky, the Carolinas and British Columbia will roll into Joliette and proselytize in God's name.

By then, the first of four one-hour DVDs explaining the gospel, hosted by Pastor Verschelden in his native tongue, will have been mailed out to each of Joliette's 18,000 homes.
He says this kind of multi-media mass blitz is an entirely new way of building a church where none existed before.

"It's the largest population and target, and most expensive piece we've ever put together," says Pastor Phil Young, director of Global Reach Foundation, the south Florida Baptist ministry that is backing Pastor Verschelden in his efforts.

The foundation is an off shoot of The First Baptist Church at the Mall, a megachurch so named because it has a 37,000- square-metremall as its home.

Its congregation is 7,000 people strong, which provides the fundraising base that allows Global Reach to finance the US$100,000 cost of Pastor Verschelden's DVDs, in addition to his salary and the lease on the new building.

Its aim is to embark on what it calls "a worldwide church planting effort" that in a five-year period would establish at least 30 new evangelical congregations in "the most un-reached places on Earth" -- or what Pastor Young describes in an interview as a mission to "prayerfully hunt for places that we consider dramatically under-churched," a criteria that puts Quebec alongside such places as Albania, Moldova and Tanzania.

The decision to focus on Joliette (one of six ministries to be established by the group in 2007, bringing the total to 27 in only four years,) came after Pastor Young and a team of student missionaries toured eight areas in Quebec that they deemed statistically to be dramatically in need of an evangelical church.

After a day of walking and praying through town, the American pastor and his team experienced an "unusual spiritual experience," he says.

"It was a place where the seeds of the gospel had never been sown, at least in a long time. There was desperate void."

The irony, of course, is that the Catholic Church colonized Joliette long ago.

But by the year 2000, when weekly church attendance in Canada had dropped to around 20%, the decline was particularly pronounced among Roman Catholics, especially in Quebec.

By 2005, in another survey of monthly- plus attendance of religious services by leading sociologist Reginald Bibby, Quebec was the lowest in the country, at 22%, compared to the highest attendance by those in the Atlantic region (50%) and Manitoba/Saskatchewan (49%).

NEW YEAR EVE` PARTY

2006-12-31T20:11:00.000-08:00

Have a Blessed Happy Clappy Year to U ALL...

Love u very much...

Here are some pics of how I spend my NY night...

ENJOY!!!

the Guys are leading...with David,Dany,Rohit..

David,Me

Party people

Ruth ,Daniel and Me.

Visitors from Paris...

2006-12-27T23:42:00.000-08:00

My little brother ( Zaka)and 3 of my cousins( Mael,Magalie,Malika) have come to London for 3 days..

we had a little stop over at Bar Salsa,where they took a salsa class and then decided to show people from London what is dancing about..(!!!??)

WARNING:Ames Sensibles s`abtenir

The West Indians have taken over Bar Salsa...

malika,mael magalie and zaka showing those caraibean moves,,,

Zaka salsaring the lady...

Mael.Magalie and Zaka

Mutant gene blocks sense of pain

2006-12-14T21:50:00.000-08:00

Researchers have discovered a gene mutation which prevents otherwise healthy carriers from feeling pain.

The University of Cambridge team made the discovery after studying three related families with a rare genetic disorder in northern Pakistan.

One family member, a 10-year-old boy, worked as a street performer, placing knives through his arms.

Writing in Nature, the researchers said the finding might aid development of more effective pain treatments.

Rare diseases can still be of great importance, because of the insights they give into biological and developmental processes Dr John Wood University College London

In total, the Cambridge team found six people from the three related families all carried the same mutated gene.

None had experienced pain at any time in their lives.

Detailed neurological examinations revealed that there was no evidence of any sort of disease which could explain this deficit.

And they were able to perceive a number of sensations, such as touch, temperature, tickle and pressure.

All six had sustained a variety of injuries as a result of their inability to sense pain, including damage to their lips and tongue as a result of biting themselves when young.

The researchers pinned down the problem to a mutation in a gene which plays a role in stimulating sensory nerve cells by controlling the movement of sodium through them.

They believe it could be possible to develop new painkilling drugs which target the same process.
Researcher Dr Geoffrey Woods said: "This paper shows that rare diseases can still be of great importance, because of the insights they give into biological and developmental processes."

Drug target

Dr John Wood, from University College London, said the finding provided scientists with an exciting new target for pain-killing drugs.

"Potentially this is as important as the identification of the morphine receptors."

Dr Wood said a different mutation in the same gene had been linked to over-sensitivity to pain in some inherited disorders.

Dr Joan Hester, a consultant pain clinician and president of the British Pain Society, said the perception of pain was necessary for survival, and the latest findings were significant.

"This could account for some of the differences in pain perception between one individual and another."

She said some painkillers already worked by blocking sodium channels - but they acted on all of them, not just the precise variety highlighted in the new study.

At present, she was not aware of drugs that had such a specific mechanism of action.

"They may be useful but would only modify one part of the pain pathway, their usefulness remains to be seen."

BBC NEWS

Bar SALSA second episode....

2006-12-02T22:46:00.000-08:00

Who is the man.?...

Fritz is that you??

alastair and the girls...

HE HE!!!! THE REd Gang...

Zipora and me..

HA HA HA....

Cindy and Jenny

BYE BYE ARUN..!!!

2006-11-26T17:50:00.000-08:00

soho bar with friends after church ...Arun is going back to India...sniff..sniff...

Soho Sohi.....

more pics here

Speeding: Now you will be finger printed

2006-11-22T00:35:00.001-08:00

Motorists pulled over by police face the threat of being fingerprinted from today - further inflaming fears over the growth of the Big Brother culture.
They will be asked to use a hand-held fingerprint reader which will check their identity against the 6.5million recorded prints of crime suspects....READ MORE....

11 OF September First Divorce....

2006-11-11T00:05:00.001-08:00

Church this Sunday!!!

2006-11-05T00:14:00.000-08:00

Vero,sujatha n esther....

MOUTH POWER

2006-11-01T14:27:00.000-08:00

HORROR MOVIE: SAW III

2006-10-31T09:24:00.000-08:00

Film fans faint at Saw III show Staff at a UK cinema have had to call emergency services three times in one night because of a spate of people passing out during horror film Saw III.

One woman was taken to hospital and two other adults were treated by medics after fainting in Stevenage, Herts.

And in a separate case, a man collapsed at a cinema in Peterborough, Cambs, "due to the film's content".

"If you know you're squeamish, don't go," warned a spokesman for the East of England Ambulance Service.

"This is obviously a blood-thirsty film. Some of the scenes are fairly horrific," Matthew Ware told the BBC News website.

All the incidents took place on Friday evening, one of the busiest nights of the week for emergency crews, he added.

Discharged

"Taking three ambulances out of the system on a Friday could potentially be a problem", said Mr Ware.

A woman in her 20s was discharged from the Lister Hospital in Stevenage after being treated.
And the two other cinemagoers - who had been at the town's Cineworld complex - were left "in the care of friends and relatives" without needing to be taken to hospital.

A man aged 34 fainted at the Showcase in Peterborough, Mr Ware said.

There was also a case of a 22-year-old woman passing out at Cineworld in Cambridge on Friday, but it had not been confirmed that she was watching Saw III, he added.

The slasher movie is currently number one in both the UK and North American box office charts.

A spokeswoman for the Cineworld chain said they did not wish to comment.

SOUTH AFRICAN CHARITY PARTY...

2006-10-28T19:54:00.000-07:00

THE PEOPLE

THE OTHERS

the one and only KIO

THE MOVES

MORE OF US...

URGENT NEWS FLASH!!!!!!!

2006-10-23T08:31:00.000-07:00

UNBELIEVABLE............

PLEASE TAKE TIME TO WACTH THOSE VIDEOS........

THERE ARE ABOUT A MAN WHO CLAIM TO BE GREATER THAN JESUS....

HE CLAIMS THAT JESUS IS BACK WIT THE TRUE REFORMATION.....HAPPENING IN THE US RIGHT NOW...

FOLLOW THOSE LINKS...

He will not die Dr Jose Juis De Jesus is God ?????

and more detailed here:

Jesus christ in Florida?

SINGLES ENCOURAGEMENT!!!

2006-10-13T15:46:00.000-07:00

BAR SALSA ON FRIDAY

2006-10-06T23:25:00.000-07:00

todat is Latin night fever.....we r all going to the Bar Salsa in London....

That when the party really got going..!!!

annie,marina et rachel..

practising what they`ve been learning...

is there something on the floor??!!

A table for ..how many people...???

CLAP YOUR HANDS ALL YE PEOPLE....

And in everything we should lift the name of the lORD,like some were doing.. :)

THE GOSPEL acording to OPRAH!!

2006-10-06T14:09:00.000-07:00

PLEASE CHECK THIS OUT!!

ONE WAY OR MANY WAYS; THE GOSPEL according to OPRAH!

Evangelicals Fear the Loss of Their Teenagers

2006-10-06T13:30:00.000-07:00

Very interesting article..

WHO ARE THE AMISH ?

2006-10-04T10:18:00.000-07:00

On the surface, many Amish look like they stepped out of the rural 19th Century.

The most conservative, Old Order groups of these reclusive, religious people drive horses and buggies rather than cars. Many have no telephones or electricity in their homes.

They send their children to private, one-room schoolhouses until the age of 13.

They eschew technology and preach isolation from the modern world. They do not join the military or accept assistance from the government.

The Amish community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania was a model for the 1985 film Witness starring Harrison Ford, a thriller which contrasted the violent modern world with their peaceful existence.

The Amish experience many of the same problems as other communities, but keep them private.

Strict regulations

Some 200,000 Amish people live in more than 20 US states and in the Canadian province of Ontario.

FACTS ABOUT THE AMISH

Anabaptist Christian denomination
Communities in the US and Canada
Many communities reject links to outside world
Most Amish shun modern technology including electricity and cars
Plain clothing - no buttons allowed in some communities
Speak English and a German dialect called Pennsylvania Dutch

The oldest group of Old Order Amish, about 16,000-18,000 people, live in Lancaster County, a rural, farming area where Amish first settled in the 1720s - many fleeing religious persecution in Europe.

The Amish are divided into dozens of separate fellowships, broken down into districts or congregations. Each district is fully independent and lives by its own set of unwritten rules, or Ordnung.

The Old Order are the most conservative of these groups, and observe strict regulations on dress, behaviour, and the use of technology, which they believe encourages humility and separation from the world.

Old Order Amish women wear modest dresses with long sleeves and a full skirt, a cape and an apron. They never cut their hair, but wear it in a bun on the back of the head.

Men and boys wear dark-coloured suits, straight-cut coats and black or straw broad-brimmed hats. They grow beards only after they marry.

Modern technology is not rejected out of hand. Some farms have telephones and local groups can allow electricity to be used in certain circumstances.

Most Amish are trilingual. They speak a dialect of German called Pennsylvania Dutch at home, use High German at their worship services, and they learn English at school.

In some ways, the Amish are feeling the pressures of the modern world. Commentators say child labour laws, for example, are threatening long-established ways of life.

While many Amish own firearms, used to hunt and kill wild animals, their communities have until now been largely free of violent gun crime.

Story from BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5400904.stm

more on the Amish

-AMISH NET

3 DAYS of HILLSONG CONFERENCE!!

2006-09-28T03:20:00.000-07:00

the conference begins

conference cheeky boy`s..

conference huggsss..

conference song

conference crowd

conference girls

Beijing's penis emporium

2006-09-26T08:33:00.000-07:00

There are many thousands of Chinese restaurants around in the UK and everyone has their favourite dish, but only in China itself do chefs specialise in a range of slightly more unusual delicacies.

The dish in front of me is grey and shiny.

"Russian dog," says my waitress Nancy.

"Big dog," I reply.

"Yes," she says. "Big dog's penis..."

We are in a cosy restaurant in a dark street in Beijing but my appetite seems to have gone for a stroll outside.

Nancy has brought out a whole selection of delicacies.

They are draped awkwardly across a huge platter, with a crocodile carved out of a carrot as the centrepiece.

Nestling beside the dog's penis are its clammy testicles, and beside that a giant salami-shaped object.

"Donkey," says Nancy. "Good for the skin..."

She guides me round the penis platter.

"Snake. Very potent. They have two penises each."

I did not know that.

Deer-blood cocktail

"Sheep... horse... ox... seal - excellent for the circulation."

She points to three dark, shrivelled lumps which look like liquorice allsorts - a special treat apparently - reindeer, from Manchuria.

Government officials... two of them... they're having the penis hotpot Nancy

The Guolizhuang restaurant claims to be China's only speciality penis emporium, and no, it is not a joke.

The atmosphere is more exotic spa than boozy night-out.

Nancy describes herself as a nutritionist.

"We don't call them waiters here. And we don't serve much alcohol," she says. "Only common people come here to get drunk and laugh."

But she does offer me a deer-blood and vodka cocktail, which I decide to skip.

Medicinal purposes

The restaurant's gristly menu was dreamt up by a man called Mr Guo.
He is 81 now and retired.

After fleeing China's civil war back in 1949, he moved to Taiwan, and then to Atlanta, Georgia, where he began to look deeper into traditional Chinese medicine, and experiment on the appendages of man's best friend.

Apparently, they are low in cholesterol and good, not just for boosting the male sex drive, but for treating all sorts of ailments.

Laughter trickles through the walls of our dining room.

"Government officials," says Nancy. "Two of them upstairs. They're having the penis hotpot."
Most of the restaurant's guests are either wealthy businessmen or government bureaucrats who, as Nancy puts it, have been brought here by people who want their help.

What better way to secure a contract than over a steaming penis fondue.

Discretion is assured as all the tables are in private rooms.
The glitziest one has gold dishes.
"Some like their food served raw," says Nancy, "like sushi. But we can cook it anyway you like."

Rare order

"Not long ago, a particularly rich real estate mogul came in with four friends. All men. Women don't come here so often, and they shouldn't eat testicles," says Nancy solemnly.
The men spent $5,700 (£3,000) on a particularly rare dish, something that needed to be ordered months in advance.

"Tiger penis," says Nancy.

The illegal trade in tiger parts is a big problem in China.

Campaigners say the species is being driven towards extinction because of its popularity as a source of traditional medicine.

I mention this, delicately, to Nancy, but she insists that all her tiger supplies come from animals that have died of old age.

"Anyway, we only have one or two orders a year," she says.
"So what does it taste like?" I ask.

"Oh, the same as all the others," she says blithely.

And does it have any particular potency? "No. People just like to order tiger to show off how much money they have."

Welcome to the People's Republic of China - tigers beware.

Sliced and pickled

"Oh yes," she adds, "the same group also ate an aborted reindeer foetus.

"That is very good for your skin. And here it is..."

Another "nutritionist" walks in bearing something small and red wrapped in cling film.

My appetite is heading for the airport.

Still, I think, it would be rude not to try something.

I am normally OK about this sort of thing. I have had fried cockroaches and sheep's eyes, so...
There is a small bowl of sliced and pickled ox penis on the table.

I pick up a piece with my chopsticks and start to chew. It is cold and bland and rubbery.

Nancy gives me a matronly smile.

"This one," she says, "should be eaten every day."

( bbc report)

more stories here

Christianity is collapsing everywhere except London!!!!

2006-09-22T14:10:00.000-07:00

THE English church of most people's imagining is rural, and so is the English Christian. “The modern town-dweller has no God and no Devil,” complained the dean of St Paul's Cathedral in 1919. True then, perhaps, but the landscape of belief in England is changing fast. The latest report of the English Church Census, an independent count of bums on pews which is carried out every seven to nine years, contains the surprising news that London, the modern-day Gomorrah, is now more devout than almost everywhere else.

In 1979, when the first census was carried out, London was the least observant region of Britain. One in ten Londoners could be found in church on a given Sunday. That compared with one in six in poor northern counties such as Cumbria and Lancashire and with one in five in heavily Catholic Merseyside. The wealthy Home Counties, which surround London, were almost as godless.

The most recent church census shows a reversal of this pattern. Churchgoing in London has declined in the past few decades, but only slightly: in May of last year 8.3% of people went to church on Sunday. Elsewhere, especially outside the Home Counties, Christianity has been routed. In Cumbria 7.1% of people went to church, and in Lancashire 6.5% did. Almost by default, London has become the second-most observant region of Britain after Merseyside, and will soon overhaul it.

There are two main reasons for Christianity's peculiar survival in the capital. The first is immigration. In the past few years London has imported the descendants of many of the people who were converted abroad by 19th-century British missionaries. Kingsway International Christian Centre, which attracts more than 10,000 people to its Sunday services, claims that 46 nations are represented in its congregation, many of them African. Black African immigration is the chief reason for the rapid growth of Pentecostal churches in London (see chart).

Immigration has slowed the decline in almost all denominations, including Catholicism and Anglicanism. In England as a whole, 12% of Anglicans and 17% of Catholics are now non-white. And a growing number of white Christians are immigrants too. Croatians and Poles have opened churches in London. One of the capital's biggest congregations is Hillsong, an Australian import with a notably Antipodean congregation. It meets at the Dominion Theatre in between performances of “We Will Rock You”, a musical tribute to the sexually unorthodox rock band Queen.

The other reason London still goes to church has to do with the city's odd social mix. The city has relatively few working-class whites—the group that has lost faith most dramatically in the past few decades. It does, however, have plenty of wealthy whites. Churchmen are ambivalent about them, partly because of a saying about camels and needles, partly because they suspect that some middle-class folk only come to church because they want to get their children into religious schools.

But come to church they do. Some of the capital's largest congregations, such as the evangelical Holy Trinity Brompton, are stuffed with young professionals. The church has dealt with young people's tricky habit of moving frequently by “planting” new churches, thus creating a London-wide network. Such initiatives, together with the piety of young black Londoners, explains the most striking finding of the English Church Census. Fully 57% of all people in their 20s who went to church in May last year did so in the capital.

As English Christianity's centre of gravity moves away from crumbling rural churches and provincial cathedrals towards the multicoloured congregations of the capital, it will face pressure to change. In the past three years the worldwide Anglican church has faced bitter arguments over homosexuality. These have revealed how hard it is to reconcile the views of liberal Americans and Britons with those of conservative Africans. Such fissures are gradually being imported into domestic churches too.

LAUGHTER CLUB !!!

2006-09-20T09:35:00.000-07:00

A collegue of mine just told me that ,tonight she is going to a laughter class.session in coven garden..

that got me thinking...what is that thing again that people have invented to fill the God-designed -void in their heart ...

A bit of research and I found few link that explains it...

one of the definition:

Laughter Yoga is physically-oriented technique that uses a perfect blend of playful, empowering and otherwise "tension-releasing" simple laughter exercises, interspersed with gentle breathing and stretching exercises, rhythmic clapping and chanting of Ho Ho Ha Ha Ha in unison. This is done as a way to improve health, increase well-being, and promote peace in the world through personal transformation. In Laughter Yoga you use laughter as a tool, not an emotion.
These exercises last about 20 to 30 minutes and are adapted to suit the needs, abilities and motivations of the group participating

MORE

Laughter-Yoga

LAUGHTER CLUB

CLONING!!

2006-09-19T09:40:00.000-07:00

U WERE TOLD!

2006-09-08T00:40:00.000-07:00

THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL...

2006-09-06T08:25:00.000-07:00

In Sunday School one morning Little Joey raised his hand and proceeded to ask a question that had perplexed him for some time.

"Mr. Goldblatt," said little Joey, "there's something I can't figure out.

According to the Bible, the Children of Israel crossed the Red Sea, right?"

"Right."
And the Children of Israel beat up the Philistines, right?"

"Er, right."

"And the Children of Israel built the Temple, right?"

"Again you're right."

"And the Children of Israel fought the Egyptians and the Children of Israel
were always doing something important, right?"

"All that is right, too," agreed Mr. Goldblatt. "So what's your question,Joey?"

"What were all the grown-ups doing?"

This is where I am supposed to be!!!

2006-09-02T00:08:00.000-07:00

yes I am back to London....
with really one this one my heart ..just like dorcas reminded me this morning...to do the best I can in the whatever situation and to the best of my ability....

one thing for sure....London is where I am supposed to be right now...I still dont know why but it seems that where the Lord wants me to be.....

after over 4 yrs here ..4 yrs of tought time..where most time I would ask myself why I am here and if I d heard God well,telling me to leave Paris to come here.....

I really doubted it every now and then...because God only knows why...since I stepped into this country it s been tough...for no particular reason....I just didnt like like and I guess mostly I couldnt find a church which I belong to ..which is the most important thing for me....

and then when I did it took me ages to adapt to it........

Back in Paris,,I didnt want to come to London I just obeyed,,just like when I was over in New york and went back to Martinique ,I didnt want to but I obeyed..

then again it took me a while to accept it ...about over a year....

oh lalalala when are you going learn ,Vero, that God always knows what he is doing....

BACK TO LONDON!!!

2006-08-29T11:24:00.000-07:00

am back after a month in Martinique.........
Glad to have gone but also glad to be back...
I am also back at work..and evryone is asking me if I am depressed to be back>>.but actualy no I found myself happy to be here which is cool ....
Last night when I went to bed I was very pleased to slip under my duvet ,,pleased to see my little room,,pleased to see everyone at home and at work...

Now I am at work ,writing this email ,,feeling a bit tired I must say ,but nothing really bad I ve been tired the whole month anyway,,,
Tomorrow I l strat my vitamins `cure.

So these holidays????

very good in all but a big lack of spirituality at the end I was drenched spiritually<<>>>

Anyway now is a new chapter in my life-hahaha- first have to sort out my suitcase and then few things in my life..and like I said before...

2006 I am ready for you.........wooohooooooooooooooooooo

A LITLLE STOP IN PARIS

2006-08-28T15:38:00.000-07:00

TO SEE MY DEAR LITLLE BROTHER.....
and also at last I sawy little cousin.....

BYE MARTINIQUE!!!

2006-08-27T20:24:00.000-07:00

TODAY IS SUNDAY...I am flying today in the evening...these are the last pics taken today before going to the airport...

au Diamant

at the aiport with Daddy et little bro

LAST SATURDAY!!!!

2006-08-26T07:26:00.000-07:00

HE OUI it s my last saturday home ....and it s going to be a day at the beach;;Mummy is coming to pick me up so we can spend the whole day at the beach....

I am so looking forward to that ..trust me I am not going to leave the water( sea) .....

and tonight we are going to visit the "just married couple's flat", a pretty exciting day indeed.....

last good meal ...

last sight of a catamaran so close...........

last swim.....

more pics here

LAST WEEK END!!!

2006-08-25T07:45:00.000-07:00

HEHEHE!! ITs my last week end in Martinique...;3 more days and off I go .......

Happy birthday DADDY!!

2006-08-23T14:12:00.000-07:00

TODAY IT S MY DADDY BIRTHDAY;;;61 yrs old
Take a look at what he cooked for us

Miam miam...

ON A 3 DAYS CRUISE!!

2006-08-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

HELLO EVERYONE!!
AT lAST I have a little window to uptade you on my latest whereabouts!
SOME of you know about how fond I was about going on a cruise during my holidays ,No matter how short the cruise would be...
after loads of planning( hard work) it happened ...wohoooooooooooooo I went on 3 days cruise to ST Lucia with friends....
it was fantastic......the only downside was that it was too short.....

but hey let's be thankful for what we have;;;

OUR BOAT..

We went to a dead volcano in st lucia called" The Soufriere" where we took a bath in the "Mud"...

WATERSPORT.....

it s over on our way back to Martinique......

more pics here

HUSBAND AND WIFE!!!

2006-08-12T15:27:00.000-07:00

Its done!!!
they are married the wedding of the year has taken place ...
JEAN RENE( my cousin) and Laurie are husband and wife....

its been fantasic.I am really pleased for them...

Laurie et Jean rene

Blessing by the pastor

My cousinsMe and my Brother-David

SICKY FRIDAY!!!

2006-08-11T13:10:00.000-07:00

I am feeling a bit sick today. I am having a severe upset-stomach;;;we still made it to the beach early in the morning :

gladys and myself trying to hide our "privacy"to the blogggger eyes.....hahaha

So we had to leave earlier than planned cause I was not feeling well at all......

as you can see..........

anyway I feeling a bit better now as Iam writing these words and I am off to the plave where the wedding take place tomorrow;;;;

ciaooooooooooooooooo

IS THE DAY,TODAY,,????

2006-08-10T04:56:00.000-07:00

HELLO to all my faitfhul readers

today is my cousins' civil wedding BIG DAY...in a while I ll be off to the town house to sign the required papers;in short we ll go through the official part of the marriage today within maybe é) mn;;;;but Saturday is The BIG DAY where we will attend the "religious" ceremony with all the guest etc;;;;;

we had an interesting conversation earlier this week where he asked me if( as a christian) the civil wedding should be considered as a "proper "wedding and so the"union of the two" shall not only something written on paper but also some body language should be involved at the end of the day ( if u know what I mean),considering that the religious wedding is taking place on Saturday......???

to that I replied to him.....;

JANOU( that is is pet name) Too much hurry......THOU SHALT WAIT TWO MORE DAYS...
Laurie and Jean Rene signing the marriage' papers,that where Laurie becomes legally MRS NORDE.....

Laurie me and jean rene... just civily-married

COOL WEDNESDAY !

2006-08-09T18:38:00.000-07:00

HELLO FRIENDS!
OH dear I ve been a bit behind lately with my uptading task,sorry about that...
I hope u guys will be happy with the new posts..
Today has been a quiet day with salsa class of 2 hrs then just a bit of rest late morning;;;
oh weather news we had a big storm this afternoon...oh lalalalalalala;

oh this week is the big week JEAN RENE my cousin is getting married,tomorrow is the civil wedding and saturday is the real thing......

party time.........

big kisses to u all...my eyes are tired blogging..;see ya later..............

loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
V

HELLO MOTO!

2006-08-07T21:04:00.000-07:00

MONDAY MOTO!
WE rented a scooter and went on an little excursion....

Gladys & Vero

Take a look at that cristal water!A well deserved lunch!

more pics here....

AFTER CHURCH!

2006-08-06T15:27:00.000-07:00

THIS IS what you do after church in MARTINIQUE..

WE GO TO THE BEACH AND EAT...

ITs "Apricot" time

its "CHICHI" TIME

What happened saturday!!

2006-08-05T12:44:00.000-07:00

Family time..
my mother put together a little arden party where I saw cousins ;aunties uncles that I hadn't seen for ages,nice food , nice chat, nice party ...here some pics to prove it....

Some of my cousins-the Girls: Me;Florence;Gladys and Michelle

The guys-cousins
ME ,Mummy,David (little brother)

ON THE C atamaran!!!!

2006-08-03T17:14:00.000-07:00

this is the Catamaran

At last for so long I ve been dreaming of that moment..to cruise on a Catamaran for a whole day... this is what I call "holidays"
What a fantastic day it was I loved it....

this is me and my step mum..can u spot the rainbow in the background?

that's me

and that is my daddy

IT S SALSA TIME!!!!

2006-08-02T17:52:00.000-07:00

AT LAST ....I ve been postponing that moment for a longggggggggggggg time but now I have no escape...I am in my daddy'hands
Like most of u know my dad is a salsa's addict and he wants me to learn as well...
So I promised him to learn when I come to Martinique....happy happy Daddy...he sooooo Happy hta he booked 10 classes for me with a personnal trainer..... Can u believe that ?...well u better....coz TODAY was my first class!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

what can I say !!!!
I shall sacrifice myself to please my daddy...hehe..so I ve entered the "Military school of salsa"...this is no joke MY DAD said that this is serious bussiness and he means it???he said hat he has loads to teach me in only a month..;time is short....

Anyway first class....first impression.....
Good fun....loads of sweat .............and loads of painnnnnnnnnnnnnn....I am still aching from it....oh dear!!

I dont have pic coz my kmera was down but my next class is this saturday at 8 am( OUCH!!!!) ;ill take a pic this time so staty tuned...

FIRST DAY.....

2006-07-31T12:24:00.000-07:00

HI everyone.... that 'it I made it to the island..; safely...
Guess what???? the weather was soo bad when I landed that I thought ,hum maybe I should go back...(haha)
Anyway,I didnt ...and the following day it was better_ as u can see....

this pic was taken the following morning....

first "dive "in the sea.....;;woohoooooo

Later that day I went to my grand- mother's where we had a family lunch ,it was great to see uncles and aunties I hadnt seen for 4 years...and some cousins I hadnt met yet...

my Grand -Ma

and some of the rest of the family...

little brother..grand-ma,auntie;uncle;;cousins from cameroun;daddy and me

PARIS;;FIRST DAY OF FUN!....

2006-07-28T20:24:00.000-07:00

Off We go ...to the museum..you ve got to keep your brains alert so we are going to do a bit of "Culturing"...
We are to meet up with Audrey and Patrice..at metro "Kleber"...Oops wrong "tube" ,so we have to walk all the way to the museum.....a long walk I must say...but hey on our way we stopped by the "Eiffel Tower" and of course we took a pic...

zakaboum(littl bro),Patrice,Audrey

Anyway, we finally made it to the museum( Quai Branly),by 1 pm an left around 3.30pm...gosh I feel smarter now and also very hungry...so off we go looking for sth to eat....Audrey being late for an doctor appointment we need to rush...

after eating we are going to do a bit of shopping... (was about time!!!

But ..guess what only an houtleft before the shops close so no need to say that Gladys' white musk is out of question....

Well lets go and eat again some nice"CREPE",as my brother is carrying me to the resto....

My favorite couchou-couchou of them all is spinning me round...I can 't believe that I used to be the one spinning him around when he was a baby...Life is not fair!!!!!!!

TO THE ONES THAT I LEFT BEHIND...

2006-07-28T03:00:00.000-07:00

just a little hi to my dear friends from EDF.....
Remenber we took this pic this morning .. what fun we had at reception...I really hope we didnt get urselves into trouble...and that both of u will be there when I come back....

I miss u already.... (Sorry I am lying.....I am being polite here..);;

But anyway...loads of kisses to my Dearest Edf' s Mates...

..Georgous George and Beautiful Leeanne

See u in month time......LOVE ...

ps:kisses to Rosa;Ian...paola..the PA's...The schedulers....etc.and whoever else wants my kisses...and ofcourse one should not forget John( hahaha, leeanne here we go we have an excuse to talk to him..hehe)

Oh I almost forgot.... say a big Hi to Richard THE KING for me....

AT LAST...............

2006-07-27T08:35:00.000-07:00

IT HAS ARRIVED.....
i WAITED SO LONG FOR IT.....
iT S TODAY......

THE BEGINNING OF A MONTH A PARTIES...
Can u handle it??
Can u follow me in my many adventures.........
Starting today at 4 pm it s to be PARTY TIME.......................
WOHOOOOOOOOOOOO...

What do I mean by partying...
I mean.. spending loads of quality time with family..
I mean.. eating a Lot...
I mean ..doing loads of sport...
I mean ..rediscovering my island...
I mean ..loads of beaches..sunbathing...water sport..etc....

the two highlights of these holidays are probably gonna be...
1)Me .learning salsa ..at last ....with a personnal teacher =my daddy
2) My cousin`s wedding...so looking forward to this one....such a special wedding and very close to my heart....

CAN U SPOT ME? WELL that is going to be me soon....

THE FOOD.....

2006-07-27T08:07:00.000-07:00

AHHHHHHHHHH.....

THIS IS what I am talking about ...good food for empty tummy.................
half of my savings are going for the food....
I intend to treat myself with all kinds of delicacies....sorry for those on diet...

Food is going to be all over this blog...because food is gonna be one of my main companion of the holidays...

5 kilos is what I intend to put on hopefully.....it s not a challenge or such ...I just want to look healthy and fat....lol.....

those are vegggies I loveeeeeeeeeeeeee....

MARTINIQUE...I am coming

2006-07-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

Let me introduce you all to my little island...................
MARTINIQUE or "MADININA "is its name...

Pic taken via satellitte..very impressive

Can you spot it?

When he discovered Martinique in 1493, Christopher Columbus, said it was ‘the most beautiful country in the world’, naming it in honour of St Martin. Before then, the area was inhabited by Arawak and Carib Indians and was called Madinina (‘island of flowers’) by the native population.Though the British made brief attempts to occupy the island during the 18th and 19th centuries, it has remained under French control since 1635 (along with Guadeloupe).

GOING GOING......

2006-07-25T00:30:00.000-07:00

I am going homeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...
OH Dear so much joy at the thought of it...
it`s been quite a tough year ....and even more the last 2 months have been realllly hard....loads of changes going on in my life..................
.so I dunno if I deserve these holidays or not but Gosh how much I am looking forward to enjoy them......
almost a whole month of doing excatly what I want to do ...what I enjoy doing...it s going to be a blast............

a little sample for u guys!!

India skull man pulls huge crowds

2006-07-24T01:24:00.000-07:00

India skull man pulls huge crowds Hundreds of people have flocked to a hospital in the Indian city of Calcutta to see a man holding a sizeable chunk of his head in his hands.
Doctors say a section of electrician Sambhu Roy's skull fell off on Sunday, months after he suffered severe burns.
He has now become the centre of public attention as the man who literally "holds his head in his hands".

However some medics have questioned whether he has been left holding part of his skull or part of his scalp.

'Extremely rare'

Mr Roy got an electric shock while repairing a high voltage wire last October.
The doctor who treated him insists that his patient underwent an extremely rare medical phenomenon.
"When he came to us late last year, his scalp was completely burnt and within months it came off, exposing the skull," surgeon Ratan Lal Bandyopadhyay told Reuters.
"Later, we noticed that the part of his skull was loosening due to lack of blood supply to the affected area, which can happen in such extensive burn cases."
The BBC's Amitabha Bhattasali in Calcutta says hundreds of people have now gathered around Mr Roy's hospital bed to see him holding his extraordinary trophy.
Dr Bandyopadhyay said the skull's inner covering and the membrane which helps produce bone were "miraculously unaffected", allowing fresh bone to grow.
"When the skull came off, I thought he will die," the doctor told Reuters, "but we noticed a new covering on his head forming and that might have pushed the 'dead skull' out."
Doctors say that 80% of the outer part of Mr Roy's skull has now hardened, and they expect him to be completely cured in about three months' time.

Scalp or skull?

But some experts say that while such a development is possible, cases are extremely rare.
"It's most likely that the hard outer portion of the scalp came off," a senior orthopaedic surgeon in Calcutta - who does not want to be named - told the BBC.
"If the skull itself came off with the brain of the patient being exposed, the patient wouldn't have survived."
Another surgeon, Mrinal Kanti Biswas, pointed out that no X-rays had yet been carried out on the patient.
"Before scientific tests are conducted, it wouldn't be proper to comment what exactly came off - whether it is the skull or the outer portion of the scalp," he said.

Prized possession

Mr Roy is in no doubt that his is a fantastic tale of survival.
"Doctors say a new skull covering has replaced the old one, but I am not letting go of this one," he told Reuters.
He said that he intended to keep his prized possession for life and not hand it over to the hospital when he left.
"My skull has made me famous," he said.

Men, sharing your bed can reduce your brainpower

2006-07-21T11:16:00.000-07:00

Sharing your bed can reduce your brain power - but only if you are a man, say scientists.
When men spend the night in the same bed as someone else their sleep patterns are disturbed, even if they do not make love, new research shows.

And this leads to poorer performance in mental agility tests the next day.
However women do not suffer the same problem. They too have disturbed sleep if they share a bed, but tend to get better quality rest when they do finally drop off. This means their brain power remains undiminished.

The finding suggests that if a man has an important day ahead he would be best to head off to the spare room to sleep rather than sharing the marital bed.
The new research, featured in New Scientist magazine (must keep) was presented to the Forum of European Neurosciences in Vienna, Austria, last week.

A team led by Professor Gerhard Kloesch at the University of Vienna recruited eight unmarried, childless couples in their twenties for their study.

He asked them to spend 10 nights sleeping apart and ten together while he monitored their rest patterns at night through wrist monitors and sleep diaries.
The next day he gave them mental ability or 'cognitive' tests.
Even without having sex, everyone had more disturbed sleep when sharing a bed than alone but the effects of this on the brain only affected the men.
According to the journal: "Lack of sleep led to increased stress hormone levels in men and reduced their ability to perform simple cognitive tests the next day."

However women seemed to show no such ill-effects even if their sleep was just as disturbed. The researchers found women were more refreshed than men even when they slept the same number of hours and so concluded they must sleep more deeply.
The study also found sharing a bed can impact on dreams. Typically women remembered more of their dreams after sleeping alone while men recalled the most after sex.
Interestingly, most men were not aware that sharing their bed disrupted their sleep - and in fact believe having a partner there helped them drop off.
Women typically felt they slept better when alone, although this makes no difference to their mental performance the next day.
Professor Jim Horne, who runs the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University said: "Men would need a really bad night's sleep for their brain's performance to be impaired the next day.
"Also, couples who share a bed for years get used to each other so much that if they then spend a night apart they actually have a worse night's sleep alone than when together."

Its GETTING HOT IN HERE!!!!

2006-07-19T01:31:00.000-07:00

TODAY ,MIGHT BE THE HOTTEST DAY IN LONDON FOR 100 YEARS...

You put the Devil out but You let him leave his bags..

2006-07-17T01:52:00.000-07:00

You got out of a bad relationship because it was bad,
but you are still resentful, and angry
(you let the devil leave his bags)

You got out of financial debt,
but you still can't control the desire to spend on frivolous things
(you let the devil leave his bags)

You got out of a bad habit or addiction,
but you still long to try it just one more time
(you let the devil leave his bags)

You said, I forgive you,
but you can't seem to forget and have peace with that person
(you let the devil leave his bags)

You told your unequally yoked mate that it was over,
but you still continue to call
(you let the devil leave his bags)

You got out of that horribly oppressive job,
but you're still trying to sabotage the company after you've left
(you let the devil leave his bags)

You cut off the affair with that married man/woman,
but you still lust after him/her
(you let the devil leave his bags)

You broke off your relationship with that hurtful, abusive person,
but you are suspicious and distrusting of every new person you meet
(you let the devil leave his bags)

You decided to let go of the past hurts from growing up in an unstable
family environment, yet you believe you are unworthy of love from others and you refuse to get attached to anyone
(you let the devil leave his bags)

When you put the Devil out, Please make sure he takes his bags.
Happiness keeps you sweet,
Trials keep you strong,
Sorrows keep you human,
failures keeps you humble,
Success keeps you glowing,
But only God Keeps you going!

In 2006, Let the Devil take his bags !!!!!!!!

Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand
against the wiles of the devil. Ephesians 6:11

Never view adversity as an overwhelming challenge.

Instead, welcome the challenge of overwhelming the adversity.
**ken d**

THE RIGHT HANDS

2006-07-13T10:16:00.000-07:00

A basketball in my hands is worth about $19.
A basketball in Michael Jordan's hands is worth about $33 million.
It depends whose hands it's in.

A baseball in my hands is worth about $6.
A baseball in Alex Rodriguez's hands is worth $25 million.
It depends whose hands it's in.

A tennis racket is useless in my hands.
A tennis racket in Roger Federer's hands usually means a Wimbledon
title.
It depends whose hands it's in.

A rod in my hands will keep away a wild animal.
A rod in Moses' hands will part the mighty sea.
It depends whose hands it's in.

A sling shot in my hands is a kid's toy.
A sling shot in David's hand is a mighty weapon.
It depends whose hands it's in.

Two fish and five loaves of bread in my hands is a couple of fish
sandwiches.
Two fish and five loaves of bread in God's hands will feed thousands.
It depends whose hands it's in.

Nails in my hands might produce a birdhouse.
Nails in Jesus Christ's hands will produce salvation for the entire
world.
It depends whose hands it's in.

As you see now it depends whose hands it's in.

So put your concerns, your worries, your fears, your hopes, your dreams,
your families and your relationships in God's hands because...

It depends whose hands it's in.

Stroke gives woman foreign accent

2006-07-06T09:35:00.000-07:00

Linda Walker says she hates what has happened to her A Geordie woman has apparently developed foreign accents after waking up following a stroke.
Linda Walker awoke in hospital to find her distinctive Newcastle accent had been transformed into a mixture of Jamaican, Canadian and Slovakian.
The 60-year-old may have Foreign Accent Syndrome, where patients speak differently after a brain injury.

The former university administrator says she hates what has happened to her and now feels like a different person.

Mrs Walker said: "My sister-in-law said that I sounded Italian, then my brother said I sounded Slovakian and someone else said I sounded French Canadian.
"But the latest is that I sound Jamaican, I just don't know how to explain it.
"Everybody is obviously hearing me differently.

I've lost my identity, because I never talked like this before. I'm a very different person and it's strange and I don't like it Linda Walker
"I didn't realise what I sounded like, but then my speech therapist played a tape of me talking. I was just devastated."

Researchers at Oxford University have found that patients with Foreign Accent Syndrome have suffered damage to tiny areas of the brain that affect speech.
The result is often a drawing out or clipping of the vowels that mimic the accent of a particular country, such as Spain or France, even though the sufferer has limited exposure to that accent.
The syndrome was first identified during World War II, when a Norwegian woman suffered shrapnel damage to her brain. She developed a strong German accent, which led to her being ostracised by her community.

Different sounds

Dr Nick Miller, a senior lecturer in speech language science at Newcastle University, said the condition could occur in patients who had suffered a stroke or other brain injury.

He said: "The stroke has affected the coordination between different muscle groups like the lips, tongue and vocal chords.

"The balance has been changed and certain sounds get distorted so vowels and consonants take on different sounds.

"Intonation is also affected so sometimes it will fall at the end of a sentence and sometimes it will rise."

Mrs Walker added: "I've lost my identity, because I never talked like this before. I'm a very different person and it's strange and I don't like it.
"It's very hard and I get very upset in my head, but I'm getting better."

other cases

-Stroke gives woman French accent

-'Foreign accent syndrome' explained

-The mind's strange syndromes

SUNSHINE HIGH!!

2006-07-04T09:46:00.000-07:00

Sunshine makes us happy and relaxed. Colours are brighter, the air is warmer, suntanned skin is more attractive and we feel better.

People in the sunnier climes of southern Europe and the Mediterranean tend to be more open, more expansive and more cheerful than their northern cousins. It is no accident that the best known image of despair - Munch's The Scream - was painted in Oslo.

At the scientific level, the action of light on the retina stimulates the production of brain chemicals that make us feel well.

The lack of sunlight in winter is thought to a cause a biochemical imbalance in the hypothalamus, a gland beneath the brain, which can trigger seasonal affective disorder. It is unknown in populations living within 30 degrees of the Equator - where the sun shines brightest.

- JEREMY LAURANCE, HEALTH EDITOR

WRITTEN BY KIDS !!

2006-06-27T09:46:00.000-07:00

How do you decide who to marry ?

(1) You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if
you like sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming. -- Alan, age 10

(2) No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck with. -- Kristen, age 10

WHAT IS THE RIGHT AGE TO GET MARRIED?

(1) Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by then. -- Camille, age 10

(2) No age is good to get married at. You got to be a fool to get married.
-- Freddie, age 6

HOW CAN A STRANGER TELL IF TWO PEOPLE ARE MARRIED?

(1) You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids. -- Derrick, age 8

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM AND DAD HAVE IN COMMON?

(1) Both don't want any more kids.
-- Lori, age 8

WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO ON A DATE?

(1) Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get
to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen
long enough.
-- Lynnette, age 8 (isn't she a treasure)

(2) On the first date, they just tell each other lies and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date. -- Martin, age 10

WHAT WOULD YOU DO ON A FIRST DATE THAT WAS TURNING SOUR?

(1) I'd run home and play dead. The next day I would call all the newspapers and make sure they wrote about me in all the dead columns. -- Craig, age 9

WHEN IS IT OKAY TO KISS SOMEONE?

(1) When they're rich. -Pam, age 7

2) The law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn't want to mess with that.
- - Curt, age 7

(3 ) The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them. It's the right thing to do. -- Howard, age 8

IS IT BETTER TO BE SINGLE OR MARRIED?

(1 ) I don't know which is better, but I'll tell you one thing. I'm never going to have s * x with my wife. I don't want to be all grossed out. -- Theodore, age 8

(2 ) It's better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need someone to clean up after them. -- Anita, age 9 (bless you child)

HOW WOULD THE WORLD BE DIFFERENT IF PEOPLE DIDN'T GET MARRIED?

(1 ) There sure would be a lot of kids to explain, wouldn't there? --
Kelvin, age 8

And the #1 Favorite is........

HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK?

(1 ) Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a truck.

-- Ricky, age 10

VERY GOOD HAS CHANGED!!!

2006-06-22T09:54:00.000-07:00

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2006-06-20T12:02:00.000-07:00

"The Bible tells us to love our neighbours, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people."

- G. K. Chesterton

A new breed of rock star: quietly Christian

2006-06-20T09:52:00.000-07:00

It was easy to believe the devil had the best music when Britain's only Christian pop star churned out such songs as Mistletoe and Wine. But unlike Sir Cliff, a new generation of Christian artists taking over the charts is blessed with youth, beauty and critical acclaim. Just don't ask them to talk about their faith.

On Monday Athlete release their second album, Tourist. Tipped for No 1, the London band hailed as the new Coldplay are veterans of Christian music festivals across the land. Their success follows hot on the heels of Natasha Bedingfield and her brother Daniel. The artists are linked by the evangelical church group Ichthus, which organises youth services, events and missions in a string of churches across south London and Kent.

Athlete - singer Joel Potts, bassist Carey Willetts, keyboardist Tim Wanstall and drummer Steve Roberts - have built up a devoted fanbase since the release of their debut, Vehicles and Animals, in 2003.
The current single Wires, an affecting ballad about Potts's daughter Myla, is the first to be taken from their new album and lies at No 4 in the charts. But in all the pre-publicity for the album the musicians have been reticent to talk about their faith, despite the fact that they met at the Christian rock festival Greenbelt.

The closest Athlete have come is a reference in a song. Westside, a track on their debut album, contains the lyrics: "House on the rock. Surely it will last forever? House on the rock. Don't you know it's now or never?" The House on the Rock International church is in Bermondsey, in their native south-east London.
The issue has provoked fevered debate on Christian messageboards over the extent to which credible rock and pop acts should be using their popularity to spread the word. Some argue that it is a personal decision while others feel that those in the public eye are missing an opportunity to make Christianity more credible among young people, and believe that bands are gagged by their management.

The NME editor, Conor McNicholas, believes there is a simple reason why rock stars don't talk about their faith: "The problem with religion is it's never cool. At the heart of all religions, there's a notion of control, and that's the opposite of rock'n'roll.
"It ends up being the least rock'n'roll thing you can think of. What people want from music is inspiration and escapism. Religion offers that in a very different way. Most people are looking to escape from that, it turns them off."

Mr McNicholas reveals that the Killers' lead singer is another upcoming star committed to his faith but not keen to talk about it.
"Brandon Flowers from the Killers is a committed Mormon," he says. "It is something that slipped out in our last interview with them. It's certainly not something he was comfortable talking about 12 months ago."
Paul Adlington, pastor of the Bear church in Deptford at which some members of Athlete worship, believes it is wrong to pressure artists into nailing their religious colours to the mast. "Faith is quite a personal thing, it's not fair to make a big fuss of it. I see it like a family where people don't gossip about one another." It is inevitable that talented artists will emerge out of church groups owing to the emphasis on music, he adds.

Chris Cole, the chief executive of the Christian radio station Cross Rhythms, agrees. He knows the Bedingfields from the days when they played the Cross Rhythms' festival under the name DNA Algorhythm. He says he is not frustrated that the Bedingfields have not publicly discussed their beliefs since they found mainstream success. "They do not have to choose between the church and the mainstream. It's not either/or. For the Bedingfields, making an impact in the mainstream, what is important is their personal faith."

According to the Christian rock artist Nathan Bennett, acts that break into the mainstream are told by their management teams never to mention their faith. "It is a shame they don't mention their God more in interviews," he said in a webchat.

But Neale Easterby of Empire management, who looks after both Bedingfield siblings, insists that he does not advise them one way or the other. "It's totally up to them. They're more spiritual than anything. Daniel's album did really well in America, and he talked about it in some interviews, but we didn't specifically target the Christian market or anything. People will listen to the lyrics and make their own minds up."

In the US, rock artists including Alice Cooper, who is a born-again Christian, and members of Creed and POD, are more willing to speak up, and sing, about God.
According to Mr Cole, the Christian music scene has traditionally been hampered by the fact that mainstream radio will not play their songs, and shops will not stock their records, unlike in America, where Wal-mart is happy to sell Christian rock alongside more secular music.

He is confident the scene will finally become mainstream with the emergence of music downloads and the internet as a form of distribution. In the UK, young Christians are buying polyphonic ringtones of their favourite Christian artists as religious rock takes up modern technology. Through the web, he believes, Christian artists can reach new audiences without the aid of mainstream labels that discourage their stars from talking about religion.

For now, though, it seems that it is still only those with little credibility left to lose who will speak out. "As much as you lampoon him, Cliff Richard has been great," Mr Cole said.
"He has gone out there and done his stuff and he's probably sold more singles than anybody else in history. He does a lot of charitable work, and he takes a lot of stick for it."

You gotta have faith, faith, faith

U2 When they rose to fame in the 80s, U2 were happy to discuss their beliefs. But a division between the three members who were committed Christians (Bono, the Edge and Larry Mullen Jr) and Adam Clayton, who wasn't, almost split them up

Evanescencehad a No 1 hit with Bring Me to Life in 2003, but were lambasted in the US for turning their back on their roots. Having come up through the Christian music scene, the band dismayed their religious fanbase by renouncing their background in an interview. They've been little heard of since

Stryper at time when the likes of Kiss were causing the bible belt to shudder with fear, Stryper were an unlikely attempt to fight back against the devil's music. Maybe they influenced Alice Cooper, who converted to Christianity in the 90s

Al Green Evidence that, in the US at least, you can be openly religious and retain credibility. In 1974 Green was attacked by an ex-girlfriend who left him badly burned and then shot herself. The eight-time Grammy winner interpreted the attack as a sign from God and, by 1976, he had bought a church and been ordained a pastor.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

World Cup - a Magnet for Forced Prostitution?

2006-06-14T09:33:00.000-07:00

BERLIN, Jan 4 (IPS) - Football players, fans and journalists from all over the world are getting ready to head to the World Cup in Germany. And among those packing their bags are about 40,000 sex workers who will be there to satisfy the high demand for their services.

Some German cities are planning mobile brothels and condom distribution for the booming business expected in June, when FIFA (International Football Federation) holds its world championship.

Initial estimates have mentioned 40,000 prostitutes from other countries, although there is no named source for this figure. Women's organisations and trade unions fear that many may be tricked into coming with deceptive job offers and then find themselves defenceless and vulnerable in a country they do not know.

"Experience shows that at every big sporting event where a large number of men gather, there is a spectacular rise in the demand for sexual services," Ulrike Helwerth, spokesperson for the non-governmental German Women's Council, explained to IPS. She recalled a similar thing happening at the Olympic Games in Athens, in 2004.

The Council has no quarrel with this, given that prostitution is legal in Germany and treated on a par with other professions. People engaged in it are, in theory at least, entitled to social security and to sue clients for non-payment. Big expectations have helped the business to flourish. The country's largest and most luxurious brothel opened a few months ago in Berlin. Its facilities occupy 400 square metres and its 70 rooms can cater to some 600 clients a day.

In the German capital, sponsors are being sought to distribute 100,000 condoms in the vicinity of the Olympic stadium, and the town halls of the 12 cities that will host the football championship plan to provide special licences so that sex workers can offer their services on the street.

In Dortmund and Cologne, in western Germany, provisional brothels are being made ready or are already installed. They are individual garages, equipped with condom expending machines, toilets, alarms and emergency exits. This may appear scandalous to some, but to the city authorities it is merely a pragmatic response to demand.

There is no doubt that a sizeable portion of the three million fans coming to Germany for the championship will want to see football, drink plenty of alcohol, and pay to satisfy their sexual appetites........more here

KIDS PRAYERS

2006-06-09T08:15:00.000-07:00

Dear GOD, Thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy. ~ Joyce ~

Dear GOD, Did you mean for the giraffe to look like that or was it an accident? ~ Norma ~

Dear GOD, Are you really invisible or is that just a trick? ~ Lucy ~

Dear GOD, Why is Sunday school on Sunday? I thought it was supposed to be our day of rest.~ Tom ~

Dear GOD,If You give me a genie lamp like Aladin, I will give you anything you want, except my money or my chess set.~ Raphael ~

Dear GOD, I want to be just like my Daddy when I get big but not with so much hair all over. ~ Sam ~

Dear GOD, I think about You sometimes even when I'm not praying.~ Elliott

~Dear GOD, It rained for our whole vacation and is my father mad! He said some things about You that people are not supposed to say, but I hope You will not hurt him anyway. Your friend (But I am not going to tell you who I am)

Dear GOD, I went to this wedding and they kissed right in church. Is that okay?~ Neil ~

Dear GOD, Did you really mean "do unto others as they do unto you"? Because if you did, then I'm going to fix my brother. ~ Darla ~

Dear GOD, Please send me a pony. I never asked for anything before, You can look it up.~ Bruce ~

Dear GOD, What does it mean You are a Jealous God? I thought You had everything. ~ Jane ~

Dear GOD, My brother is a rat. You should give him a tail. Ha ha.~ Danny

~Dear GOD, I bet it is very hard for You to love all of everybody in the whole world. There are only 4 people in our family and I can never do it.~ Nan ~

Dear GOD, My brother told me about being born but it doesn't sound right. They're just kidding, aren't they?~ Marsha

Dear GOD, I would like to live 900 years like the guy in the Bible. Love, Chris

Dear GOD, We read Thomas Edison made light. But in Sunday school they said You did it. So I bet he stoled your idea. ~ Donna ~

Dear GOD, I do not think anybody could be a better GOD. Well, I just want You to know but I am not just saying that because You are GOD already. ~ Charles ~

Dear GOD, Maybe Cain and Abel would not kill each other so much if they had their own rooms. It works with my brother.~ Larry ~

Dear GOD, Instead of letting people die and having to make new ones, why don't You just keep the ones You have now? ~ Jane ~

Dear GOD, Is it true my father won't get in Heaven if he uses his bowling words in the house? ~ Anita ~Dear GOD, Who draws the lines around the countries?~ Nan ~

Dear GOD, I read the Bible. What does 'begat' mean? Nobody will tell me. ~ Alison

~Dear GOD, In school they told us what You do. Who does it when You are on vacation?~ Jane ~

Dear GOD, I didn't think orange went with purple until I saw the sunset you made on Tuesday. That was cool! ~ DJ ~

Dear GOD,The bad people laughed at Noah - "You made an ark on dry land you fool." But he was smart, he stuck with You. That's what I would do. ~ Eddie ~

3 ARMS..!!??

2006-06-06T08:51:00.000-07:00

Three-armed boy surgery 'success' A two-month old boy born with two left arms has successfully undergone surgery to remove one of them, doctors in Shanghai say.
Neither arm was fully functional and doctors decided to remove the one closest to his chest after tests revealed it was less developed.
Doctors say the boy, Jie-jie, will require long-term physical therapy to build strength in his remaining arm.
The operation took place on Tuesday at the Shanghai Children's Medical Centre.
Jie-jie was born on 1 April at a small hospital in Anhui Province.
He is reported to have just one kidney, and may have problems that could lead to curvature of the spine.
When either of his left arms was touched, Jie-jie would cry, but he smiles and responds normally to other stimuli.
JIE JIE'S DIAGNOSIS 1. Smaller arm at front of body removed. Tests found that it was less developed 2. Left arm is in normal position, but does not move unless pulled and does not have a palm 3. Jie-jie has only one kidney and may also have problems that could lead to curvature of the spine 4. Biggest risk will be damage to nerves and blood vessels in shoulder
Before the surgery, doctors were unsure as to how to approach the operation.
Dr Chen Bochang, head of the orthopaedics department at Shanghai Children's Medical Centre, said his case was "quite peculiar".
"We have no record of any child with such a complete third arm."
Dr Chen's hospital is one of China's most experienced in dealing with unusual birth defects, including separating conjoined twins.

GOCHTA !

2006-06-02T10:40:00.000-07:00

TRAVELLING ON THE TUBE??!!

2006-05-23T08:10:00.000-07:00

Ever travel on the Underground? If you're feeling a little queasy, save
this 'til later...

During Autumn of 2000, a team of scientists at the Department of Forensics at University College London removed a row of passenger seats from a Central Line tube carriage for analysis into cleanliness. Despite London Underground's claim that the interior of their trains are cleaned on a regular basis, the scientists made some alarming discoveries.

The analysis was broken down. This is what was found
on the surface of the seats:
- 4 types of hair sample (human, mouse, rat, dog)
- 7 types of insect (mostly fleas, mostly alive)
- vomit originating from at least 9 separate people
- human urine originating from at least 4 separate people
- human excrement
- rodent excrement
- human semen

When the seats were taken apart, they found:

- the remains of 6 mice
- the remains of 2 large rats
- 1 previously unheard of fungus

It is estimated that by holding one of the armrests, you are transferring, to your body, the natural oils and sweat from as many as 400 different people.
It is estimated that it is generally healthier to smoke five cigarettes a day than to travel for one hour a day on the London Underground.
It is far more hygienic to wipe your hand on the inside of a recently flushed toilet bowl before eating, than to wipe your hand on a London Underground
seat before eating.

It is estimated that, within London, more work sick-days are taken because of bugs picked up whilst travelling on the London Underground than for any
other reason (including alcohol).

CREATIONISM DEBATE MOVES TO BRITAIN

2006-05-18T09:28:00.000-07:00

The debate over creationism in schools was an American problem. But now the controversy is taking root in Britain.

Creationist ideas are becoming increasingly popular
For once, an evolutionary biologist and a creationist agree on something.

Professor Steve Jones, the author of an updated version of Darwin's Origin of Species, and John Mackay, an Australian preacher who believes the book of Genesis constitutes literal truth, are both convinced that creationism is making a comeback in British classrooms.

"It's a real social change," says Jones, a lecturer at UCL. "For years, I've sympathised with my American colleagues, who have to cleanse creationism from their students' minds in their first few biology lectures. It's not a problem we've faced in Britain until now. I get feedback from Muslim schoolkids who say they are obliged to believe in creationism, because it's part of their Islamic identity, but the people I find more surprising are the other British kids who see creationism as a viable alternative to evolution. That's alarming. It shows how infectious the idea is."

Creationism encompasses a spectrum of beliefs, from the Bible's account of creation in six days, a matter of mere thousands of years ago, to the more equivocal "intelligent design" (ID) theory, which seeks some form of accommodation with evolution.

Its opponents see the teaching of creationism in any form as an alternative scientific theory as a way for its exponents to drive religious dogma into schools across the entire curriculum. In about 50 independent Christian schools in the UK, creationism has been a feature of biology teaching for about 30 years; the fear is that state schools will begin to follow suit.
Jones's concerns are shared by the Royal Society and other scientific organisations; by the British Humanist Association (BHA) and the Secular Society; and by teachers' unions such as the NUT, who at their recent conference called for an end to state funding for faith schools "to prevent the growing influence of religious organisations in education and the teaching of creationism or intelligent design as a valid alternative to evolution."

Even the Archbishop of Canterbury has said that creationism should not be taught in schools. Jacqui Smith, schools minister until the latest cabinet reshuffle, was forced to draft a statement to the BHA, saying that the only controversies that could be taught in science lessons are scientific ones, and that "creationism cannot be used as an example of a scientific controversy, as it has no empirical evidence to support it and no underpinning scientific principles or explanations".

Despite this, a recent Mori poll for the BBC found that only 48 per cent of the British population accept the theory of evolution; 39 per cent of people surveyed preferred to put their faith in creationism or ID. Over 40 per cent believed that the controversial theories should be taught in school science lessons.
John Mackay claims to have found archaeological evidence of both Noah's flood and the Tower of Babel. His current lecture tour of the UK was disrupted when a Lancashire school cancelled his planned visit this month after pressure from secular groups.

Mackay agrees that faith schools are one reason for a rise in the acceptance of creationism among young people in the UK. "I think that's a grassroots reaction against the humanist, agnostic agenda being imposed in the classroom," he says. "Parents know that if you try to run a school where the moral structure is based on humanist, agnostic principles, then there are no morals at that school. Faith schools are an option that they are looking at."

The experience of one science teacher at a large London sixth-form college would appear to confirm Mackay's hopes and Jones's concerns, though it is the students, not the teachers, who question Darwin. "A significant proportion of my students - both Christian and Muslim - believe in creationism," the teacher says. "My colleagues routinely have creationist literature dumped in their pigeon-holes after lessons where they teach evolution. Most of our students can, however, separate what goes on in the classroom from what goes on in a mosque or church. Our biology results are very good. These are bright students who may well go on to do medicine."

London medical schools, too, have seen a rise in the rejection of evolution by their large proportion of Islamic students. During Islamic Awareness Week in February, students at the Guy's Hospital site of King's College were presented with leaflets refuting Darwinism.
"This causes fundamental problems in understanding, for example, the way bacteria respond to antibiotics, or the development of the Aids virus, whose power is in its ability to evolve quickly," says one lecturer. "Rejecting evolution deprives a clinician of some very important insights."

Another lecturer has encountered students who refuse physical contact with women during gynaecological examination and surgery. Moral judgements based on religious belief have an undeniable effect on the doctor-patient relationship and, at the very least, complicate a doctor's treatment of Aids, venereal disease, and someone wishing to have an abortion. Like the A-level students, however, the medical students can separate their religious convictions from their study long enough to pass their medical exams.

Dr Keith Davidson is the director of education for John Loughborough, a Seventh-day Adventist faith school in Tottenham, north London. "Part of the requirement of a faith school is to transmit the ethos of our faith, so Christian beliefs are transmitted in all areas of school life," he says, "but, like any faith school, we offer the national biology curriculum to pupils."

However, Davidson argues: "Creationism should be taught as another school of thought. If evolution is acceptable as a point of view, then creationism should be too. Science works on observation; you can't observe evolution, so it is not strictly science. Evolutionists are hijacking science to make their case. The charge against faith schools of indoctrination is untrue. Having just one opinion about the origin of life is indoctrination. Christian schools present both sides of the debate."

Evolutionary biologists are unimpressed by this argument. "There is no controversy," Jones says. "Evolution is a central fact in biology. I am entirely unsympathetic to those who push creationism as an alternative scientific theory. It's astonishing that they have hijacked a place in the media."

The school that first sparked controversy over the involvement of religious groups in the state education system was Emmanuel College in Gateshead. The Emmanuel Schools Foundation is funded by Sir Peter Vardy, a Christian philanthropist, and secular groups have been up in arms about the college and its pair of sister academies' alleged teaching of creationism since 2002.
But three successive Ofsted reports have judged the college, its staff and the pupils' behaviour "outstanding", and its results speak for themselves.

Barry Sheerman, chairman of the Education Select Committee, has visited Emmanuel. He says: "They do not teach creationism in science lessons, they discuss it in RE lessons. That's perfectly acceptable on any curriculum. I get impatient with my colleagues saying that schools are being sponsored by strange evangelical sects. It's a nonsense, especially in a country that has had religious groups in charge of successful schools for hundreds of years."

No controversy followed the United Learning Trust, a subsidiary of the United Church Schools Trust, as it established academies in some of the most deprived areas of the UK, including Lambeth, south London in 2004 and Manchester's Moss Side in 2003.
The Rev Steve Chalke is the chairman of Oasis Community Learning, a Christian charity that plans to open its first academy in Enfield next year. "I have no evidence to suggest that any school in the state sector is teaching creationism," he says. "We will teach our view in RE lessons; that there is a God, that life has meaning. But teaching six-day creationism in biology is mad. Genesis is a theological text, and anyone who puts creationism into biology lessons is mixing apples and pears."

Creationism has been taught in the classrooms of the Christian Schools Trust for about 30 years. The trust supports a loose network of more than 50 independent Christian schools across the country, catering to more than 3,000 students. Sylvia Baker is the founder and ex-head of Trinity Christian School in Stalybridge, Cheshire, established in 1978. She has taught evolution and creationism alongside one another for 25 years, and now advises other Christian schools on the teaching of creationism.

"I tell children that I believe in a six-day creation, a matter of thousands, not millions of years ago," she explains. "But that is an individual belief, and there is no policy on it running through the new Christian schools. If you don't mention evolution to the children at a young age, they are naturally creationist. It fits how they see the world. There's no doubt that God is the creator and the Bible is reliable. We introduce evolution to them as part of the debate at secondary age."

Baker holds two biology degrees and obtained her BSc from Sussex University, where she was taught by the eminent evolutionist John Maynard Smith. "While I was there, I stopped being an evolutionist," she says. "You always hear there is overwhelming evidence for evolution, but no one could tell me what it was. There was a refusal to debate it when I tried to. If you couldn't find the evidence in Maynard Smith's department, where could you find it?"

Trinity's science GCSE results are well above average, Baker says. "Our pupils have gone on to A-level science and taken biology and other science degrees very successfully. Those who go on to do science degrees have been appalled by the ignorance of the mainstream school students as to the [evolution/ creationism] debate. Scientists have embargoed that debate in secular schools. But in Christian schools the debate is taught. I hope that will spread. It's galling to be thought of as flat-earthers, when creationists have put far more thought into the philosophical debate than evolutionists have."

Steve Jones has met teachers keen on creationism during his lectures to schools, which have confrontational titles such as "Why intelligent design is stupid". He is "disappointed that teachers would do this. It's very hard for anyone with two neurons bolted together to believe that the earth was created 6,000 years ago. Deliberate irrationalism is dangerous, but it's most dangerous to the people that believe it.

"Think of an intelligent 11-year-old who's told by a teacher that humans and dinosaurs lived together on the earth 6,000 years ago. Then think of the same kid doing A-level biology at 16, when it becomes clear that that's complete nonsense. Why, then, should they believe anything else that their religion tells them?"

DOGGI PRAYER

2006-05-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

HOW IS IT WORKING FOR YOU?

2006-05-15T08:50:00.000-07:00

AgapePress) - America, how's it working for you?

Who wants to know? Dr. Phil. That's who.

Over 20 shows a month, 12 months a year, three and a half years ... you can purchase transcripts of over 840 Dr. Phil shows where America gets psychoanalyzed, diagnosed, challenged, prodded, pushed, and changed.

Nasty Custody Battles ... "I'm a Slave to My Spouse" ... Infidelity Aftermath ... Family Chaos ... Love, Lies and the Law ... Cheaters ... and more ....

MUCH more! Each night on public television Americans reveal troubled relationships, enduring exposure of laundry lists of personal secrets, faults, and blemishes. Why?
Because, after the show wraps up, and everyone goes home, we all cherish the hope that we will find what the human heart hungers for. Enduring, honoring, forgiving love.

There is a tragic irony in all of this. We have just traveled through a 40-year time warp of promises sold to us by feminists, humanists, psychologists, sociologists, lawyers, and sexologists ... all of these "professionals" cultivated and nurtured by the "higher learning" institutions of our country. If we just listen to them, liberate ourselves from the bondage of biological and cultural traps, and enter into a new age of self-fulfillment, we will be ... well ... fulfilled.

Then why are so many of us showing up on Dr. Phil? America, how's it working for you?

All this social re-engineering? Replacing husbands and wives, fathers married to mothers, replacing all of these with cohabitors? Sexualizing every human transaction? Fulfilling every fantasy, dragging each bizarre behavior onto a new "reality show"? Are we having fun yet?
Watching Dr. Phil for even one week, it is clear that the cultural reconstructionists of the past four decades have more work ahead of them. Because in spite of their best efforts to convince us that we can restructure life to exclude marriage and embrace diversity of every imaginable ... and unimaginable ... combination, Americans are having a hard time of it. How's it working for us?

Single-parent homes are on the financial edge. Children go to bed at night without a hug from their father. And sex offered to the latest "object of my affection" results in babies, abortions, and STDs that cause Mr. Right to vanish in a puff of smoke faster than magician Lance Burton can snap his fingers.

We don't need to have "higher education" gurus to research us. We don't need reassurances that re-engineering the culture will work if we just give it more time. We don't need feminists to fix men, sociologists to fix families, or humanists to convince us we are happy in spite of what ails us.

How's it working for us, America? We are searching for love. And we are ending up on Dr. Phil's psycho-drama.

A former elementary school teacher, Jane Jimenez (speakout@fromthehomefront.org) is now a freelance writer dedicated to issues of importance to women and the family. She writes a regular column titled "From the Home Front." Her work has appeared in both Christian and secular publications. Jane and her husband Victor live in Phoenix and have two children.

LA ROUTE DU SUCCES..

2006-05-10T08:09:00.000-07:00

La route du succès n'est pas droite.
Il y a une courbe appelée Chute,
Un rond-point appelé Confusion,
Des casse-vitesse appelés Amis,
Des feux-rouges appelés Ennemis,
Des voyants d'alarme appelés Famille.
Vous aurez des pannes appelées Job.
Mais, si vous avez des pièces de rechange
appelées Détermination,
Un moteur appelé Persévérance,
Une assurance appelée Foi,
Un conducteur appelé Jésus,
Cette route vous fera arriver à un endroit
appelé Succès

The Most Homophobic Place on Earth????

2006-05-09T10:53:00.000-07:00

Crimes against gays are mounting in Jamaica and across the Caribbean

By TIM PADGETT/KINGSTON

Brian wears sunglasses to hide his gray and lifeless left eye—damaged, he says, by kicks and blows with a board from Jamaican reggae star Buju Banton. Brian, 44, is gay, and Banton, 32, is an avowed homophobe whose song Boom Bye-Bye decrees that gays "haffi dead" ("have to die"). In June 2004, Brian claims, Banton and some toughs burst into his house near Banton's Kingston recording studio and viciously beat him and five other men. After complaints from international human-rights groups, Banton was finally charged last fall, but in January a judge dismissed the case for lack of evidence. It was a bitter decision for Brian, who lost his landscaping business after the attack and is fearful of giving his last name. "I still go to church," he says as he sips a Red Stripe beer. "Every Sunday I ask why this happened to me."
Though familiar to Americans primarily as a laid-back beach destination, Jamaica is hardly idyllic. The country has the world's highest murder rate. And its rampant violence against gays and lesbians has prompted human-rights groups to confer another ugly distinction: the most homophobic place on earth.
In the past two years, two of the island's most prominent gay activists, Brian Williamson and Steve Harvey, have been murdered — and a crowd even celebrated over Williamson's mutilated body. Perhaps most disturbing, many anti-gay assaults have been acts of mob violence. In 2004, a teen was almost killed when his father learned his son was gay and invited a group to lynch the boy at his school. Months later, witnesses say, police egged on another mob that stabbed and stoned a gay man to death in Montego Bay. And this year a Kingston man, Nokia Cowan, drowned after a crowd shouting "batty boy" (a Jamaican epithet for homosexual) chased him off a pier. "Jamaica is the worst any of us has ever seen," says Rebecca Schleifer of the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch and author of a scathing report on the island's anti-gay hostility.
Jamaica may be the worst offender, but much of the rest of the Caribbean also has a long history of intense homophobia. Islands like Barbados still criminalize homosexuality, and some seem to be following Jamaica's more violent example. Last week two CBS News producers, both Americans, were beaten with tire irons by a gay-bashing mob while vacationing on St. Martin. One of the victims, Ryan Smith, was airbused to a Miami hospital, where he remains in intensive care with a fractured skull.
Gay-rights activists attribute the scourge of homophobia in Jamaica largely to the country's increasingly thuggish reggae music scene. Few epitomize the melding of reggae and gangsta cultures more than Banton, who is one of the nation's most popular dance-hall singers. Born Mark Myrie, he grew up the youngest of 15 children in Kingston's Salt Lane — the sort of slum dominated by ultraconservative Christian churches and intensely anti-gay Rastafarians. Banton parlayed homophobia into a ticket out of Salt Lane. One of his first hits, 1992's Boom Bye-Bye, boasts of shooting gays with Uzis and burning their skin with acid "like an old tire wheel."
Banton's lyrics are hardly unique among reggae artists today. Another popular artist, Elephant Man (O'Neil Bryant, 29) declares in one song, "When you hear a lesbian getting raped/ It's not our fault ... Two women in bed/ That's two Sodomites who should be dead." Another, Bounty Killer (Rodney Price, 33), urges listeners to burn "Mister Fagoty" and make him "wince in agony."
Reggae's anti-gay rhetoric has seeped into the country's politics. Jamaica's major political parties have passed some of the world's toughest antisodomy laws and regularly incorporate homophobic music in their campaigns. "The view that results," says Jamaican human-rights lawyer Philip Dayle, "is that a homosexual isn't just an undesirable but an unapprehended criminal."
Meanwhile, gay-rights activists say Jamaican police often overlook evidence in anti-gay hate crimes, such as the alleged assault by Banton in 2004. His accuser, Brian, says cops excised Banton's role from their reports of the 2004 beating. A police spokesman denies that. But in dismissing the case earlier this year, the judge in the trial warned Banton to avoid violence and "seek legal recourses" when he has complaints against gays in the future. Banton refused TIME's request for an interview. His manager, Donovan Germain, insists that the singer is innocent and that "Buju's lyrics are part of a metaphorical tradition. They're not a literal call to kill gay men."
There are some signs that Jamaica may soften its approach. Jamaica's ruling party last month elected the nation's first female Prime Minister, Portia Simpson Miller, a progressive who gay-rights supporters hope will eventually move to decriminalize homosexuality. She hasn't yet said that, but Jamaica's beleaguered gays say they at least have reason now to hope their government will change its tune before their reggae stars ever do.

VERSION FRANCAISE

ÎLES ET COCOTIERS - Le paradis du reggae est un véritable enfer pour les gays

Avec l'un des plus forts taux de meurtres, voire le plus fort du monde, la Jamaïque n'a pas de quoi pavoiser. Pourtant, cette île tropicale jouit d'un certain capital de sympathie, hérité notamment de sa qualité de patrie du reggae et de son plus illustre ressortissant, Bob Marley. Mais l'île caribéenne se distingue par une autre caractéristique : "La violence endémique contre les gays et les lesbiennes en Jamaïque a poussé les associations de défense des droits de l'homme à lui attribuer un titre peu glorieux, 'l'endroit le plus homophobe de la planète'", rapporte Time. Le magazine américain rappelle les meurtres des deux plus importants activistes gays de l'île, Brian Williamson et Steve Harvey, les nombreux actes de violence homophobes commis en bande ou encore le lynchage d'un adolescent par un groupe de jeunes recrutés par le père de la victime qui avait découvert l'homosexualité de son fils… Tout cela au cours des deux dernières années. La réputation d'homophobie de la Jamaïque est désormais clairement établie. Néanmoins The Jamaica Observer tient à démonter dans un éditorial certains mythes : d'une part que les crimes contre les homosexuels, notamment hommes, sont délaissés par l'appareil juridico-pénal, et d'autre part que tout crime contre un homosexuel est lié à la haine de son appartenance sexuelle. Néanmoins, "ce journal ne nie pas qu'il y a en Jamaïque ce qu'il convient d'appeler une homophobie jamaïquaine, une réalité aussi présente sur l'île que le reggae, les rastafariens et leurs dreadlocks", reconnaît The Jamaica Observer. Time rapporte que "les activistes des droits des homosexuels attribuent la flambée d'homophobie en Jamaïque essentiellement à une scène musicale reggae de plus en plus brutale". Et le magazine américain dénonce un "mélange de reggae et de la culture des gangs" à travers des artistes jamaïquains comme le très populaire Buju Banton, mais aussi Bounty Killer et Elephant Man. Par ailleurs, "la rhétorique antigay a déteint sur la politique du pays. Les principaux partis politiques de Jamaïque ont voté des lois antisodomie parmi les plus dures au monde et passent souvent de la musique homophobe dans leurs campagnes électorales", souligne Time. Reste que les défenseurs des droits des homosexuels veulent croire en un changement de cap avec l'arrivée au pouvoir en Jamaïque de Portia Simpson Miller, la première femme Premier ministre dans l'histoire du pays.

Philippe Randrianarimanana

78 Differences!!

2006-05-04T08:48:00.000-07:00

What are the 78 differences between women and men?

Scientists decoding the human genome have discovered that just 78 genes separate men from women. But what are they?

It's the Y chromosome which makes men men, and now scientists have a better idea than ever before what makes it up.

But to help them on their way, and in an effort to help everyone understand the differences between the sexes, here are the suggestions of BBC News Online readers about what those 78 genes might be.

Everyone's got their own ideas about it - even if it only involves relative abilities at reading maps and putting down toilet seats.
To get the ideas flowing, the BBC's Jeremy Vine, Jenni Murray, Anna Ford and Stuart Maconie (right) chipped in with their thoughts.

Wanna know the answer click here

3 petits pots de dombres..!!!

2006-04-29T22:04:00.000-07:00

SHAME I didnt get a pic of Sujatha,,I swear she was helping out...
here is the story ..

We started to make the "balls " in front of a movie " Boomerang" ( nice funny movie ..but too much swearing and too much sex".).Anyway,by the time we finish wacthing the movie it was past 10 pm...oh dear !!!

Off we go to the kitchen to do some cooking...some Dombres`cooking...
once again an article abt my favorite dish ever...

WE started with 1 Pot but as u can see,ended up with 3 pots..hahahahah....and let me tell you that it is still not enough.....

miam..miam.....

Anyway ..the end of the story is that we ate at abt 12 pm I believe.....

a Fun night....

to be continued...

EATING BABY`s PLACENTA??!!

2006-04-27T09:57:00.000-07:00

The increasingly erratic behaviour of Tom Cruise has raised a few eyebrows in recent months, not least when the actor, albeit with tongue in cheek, suggested he would eat his newborn's placenta. However, this practice is common in come cultures, and placenta is, in fact, incredibly nutritious.

“You only have to see the placenta,” commented one young mother this week, “in order to decide whether or not to eat it.”

But the same logic could be applied to many other foodstuffs when you see them in the raw, as it were.
The trick, as Tom Cruise will doubtless testify, having this week reportedly promised to scoff the placenta and umbilical cord of his newborn baby, is in the preparation.

Roasting the placenta with onions, peppers and garlic is one method of preparation, but others include frying, mincing or turning into pâté. More modern recipes suggest placenta lasagne, or even power drinks, but the 21st-century mother is surely most likely to turn hers into a smoothie with banana, strawberries and yoghurt. Eating placenta is commonplace throughout the animal kingdom, and also in some non-western societies.
In fact, the real controversy over Tom Cruise’s suggestion that he would eat his baby’s placenta – also known, less palatably, as the afterbirth – centres on the question of whether it was his to eat. There are many who consider the placenta to be the best and most nutritious thing since sliced bread, and some have criticised Cruise for denying his partner, Katie Holmes, the life-giving, nutrient-rich organ.
Traditionally, any debate on the rights or wrongs of eating placenta has been sparked by the question of whether the organ belongs to the mother or the baby. If it is part of the baby – at least until birth – then does its consumption by a third party, even the mother, not constitute cannibalism?

This might be considered an extreme interpretation, however, and eating placenta is a perfectly acceptable practice in many cultures.

It was also fashionable in the west in the 1970s among ‘earth mothers,’ who sought to be closer to Mother Nature, and to honour her, by, among other things, eating their baby’s placenta.
In the UK the debate was reheated when chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall cooked a placenta for a programme broadcast by Channel 4.

It was fried with shallots and garlic and dished up on focaccia bread to a party of dinner guests who were more appreciative than the Broadcasting Standards Commission, which issued a severe reprimand.Yet there appears to be no controversy over the placenta’s health-giving properties. It is rich in minerals and vitamins – not surprising, given that its function is to nourish the baby in the womb – and has particularly high levels of vitamin B6, which can help to fight post-natal depression.The placenta is a remarkable organ, developing from the time of conception until, about twelve weeks into the pregnancy, it is able to take over the production of hormones and nutrients. It is more a life-giving than a life-supporting organ, since the baby gets its oxygen and amino acids, as well as vitamins and minerals, through the placenta and umbilical cord. It is also a two-way support system between mother and baby, since it disposes of carbon dioxide and waste matter for the baby; and it filters out potentially harmful substances, too.Most mammals eat placenta, and it is credited with helping to stop bleeding after birth, perhaps because it contains so much oxytocin.
In humans, too, it has been claimed that a mother who eats the placenta appears to stop bleeding relatively soon, though it is difficult to find any scientific evidence for this.
Another reason why it might be healthy for mothers to eat placenta – are you listening Tom Cruise? – is that it can help to make up nutritional and hormonal deficiencies.
Making a baby comes at a high cost, in terms of the minerals, essential fatty acids and vitamins that are used in the process, and many of these are contained in the placenta.
One theory is that post-natal depression can be caused, or made more severe, by the depletion of all or some of these nutrients, and that replenishing them by eating the placenta can help to prevent the condition.If it isn’t eaten, the placenta can be honoured in different ways, with some cultures holding ceremonies and rituals centred around its burial. This is interpreted as a dedication back to the earth, and a year later a tree is planted, to be nourished, like the baby, by the placenta. The thinking is that it has to be left for twelve months to allow the nutrient levels to drop. Otherwise, the soil would be too rich, and the tree would die: which offers more proof, if it were needed, that the placenta is a potent source of nutrients.What, though, does it taste like?

Another male who ate his partner’s placenta after she gave birth in a caravan, reports that, “she didn’t have a fridge, so we left the placenta on a plate for twelve hours, but apparently it does keep” – though it shouldn’t be kept for more than three days.“It was very big, it filled a whole chopping board,” continues the placenta connoisseur. “I cut off all the rubbery bits to get to the ‘steak’. Then I chopped it into small pieces and fried it with garlic, onions, rosemary and thyme.“It was very light, fluffy meat,” was his analysis. “It was a bit like a soufflé steak. It doesn’t taste too strong, but it takes on the flavour of the things you cook with it.”The man’s partner had a bowl-full of the finished dish, with another ten people sharing the rest as part of a celebration. “She is pregnant again and we’ll do it again,” said the man, “but next time, we’re going to have it with fried potatoes and steamed veg on the side.”

Placenta serving suggestion:
To prepare the placenta for eating it is first necessary to separate the meat from the membranes with a sharp knife. Then it can be prepared like any meat.Another method is to dehydrate the placenta, then steam it, adding lemon grass, pepper and ginger. When blood stops coming out of the placenta pierce it with a fork, then cut into thin slices and bake at a low heat for several hours. Then crush it, using food processor or blender, to give you a powder that can be added to cereals or drinks for maximum health giving properties.

BUBBLING AWAY...

2006-04-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

WHAT WOMEN WANT IN A MAN !

2006-04-25T08:49:00.000-07:00

What I Want in a Man, Original List:

1. Handsome
2. Charming
3. Financially successful
4. A caring listener
5. Witty
6. In good shape
7. Dresses with style
8. Appreciates finer things
9. Full of thoughtful surprises
10. An imaginative, romantic lover

What I Want in a Man, Revised List (age 32)

1. Nice looking
2. Opens car doors, holds chairs
3. Has enough money for a nice dinner
4. Listens more than talks
5. Laughs at my jokes
6. Carries bags of groceries with ease
7. Owns at least one tie
8. Appreciates a good home-cooked meal
9. Remembers birthdays and anniversaries
10. Seeks romance at least once a week

What I Want in a Man, Revised List (age 42)

1. Not too ugly
2. Doesn't drive off until I'm in the car
3. Works steady - splurges on dinner out occasionally
4. Nods head when I'm talki ng
5. Usually remembers punch lines of jokes
6. Is in good enough shape to rearrange the furniture
7. Wears a shirt that covers his stomach
8. Knows not to buy champagne with screw-top lids
9. Remembers to put the toilet seat down
10. Shaves most weekends

What I Want in a Man, Revised List (age 52)

1. Keeps hair in nose and ears trimmed
2. Doesn't belch or scratch in public
3. Doesn't borrow money too often
4. Doesn't nod off to sleep when I'm venting
5. Doesn't retell the same joke too many times
6. Is in good enough shape to get off couch on weekends
7. Usually wears matching socks and fresh underwear
8. Appreciates a good TV dinner
9. Remembers your name on occasion
10. Shaves some weekends

What I Want in a Man, Revised List (age 62)

1. Doesn't scare small children
2. Remembers where bathroom is
3. Doesn't require much money for upkeep
4. Only snores lightly when asleep
5. Remembers why he's laughing
6. Is in good enough shape to stand up by himself
7. Usually wears some clothes
8. Likes soft foods
9. Remembers where he left his teeth
10. Remembers that it's the weekend

What I Want in a Man, Revised List (age 72)

1. Breathing
2. Doesn't miss the toilet.

MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA

2006-04-22T16:17:00.000-07:00

Sujatha( India),Louise( England),Vero( Martinik).and Meizi(China

On this beautiful sunny saturday in London,,,we went for a movie

"Memoirs of a Geisha" then went for a walk to "Trafalgar Square"-

took a swim in the pool,then headed to "Chinatown"for a bite..miammian.....

Great Day indeed...

Jacko and Meizi,my housemates

GREAT ROLE MODEL !!!???

2006-04-20T09:53:00.000-07:00

KEIRA'S SEX REGRETS

Updated: 14:09, Wednesday April 19, 2006

The grass often looks greener on the other side, doesn't it?

( actress) Keira Knightley's been having a peek at next door's lawn and reckons so.

She says she wishes she'd got famous later in life so she could have slept around as a teen.

And to boot, Keira says she would have had full support from her proud parents to do so.

The Pirates Of A Caribbean actress told Eclipse magazine:

"My father says: 'I wish this had happened in five years' time, you could have been 20 and got really p****d and slept with loads of people and no one would have known.'

"That would have been great," she concluded.

Getting herself on a roll, Keira also revealed she's keen to quit Hollywood:
"I'm twice the size, height and everything else of most of the other actresses who are going for an audition.

"It's mad, isn't it? When you realise that even at my size I'm one of the largest there. It's at the point you start to say: 'I don't think it'd be healthy for me to stay here much longer.'"

George Lucas Speaks About Hollywood's Influence on Society

Hollywood`s New Gods

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO HOLLYWOOD

2006-04-20T09:45:00.000-07:00

(Baptist Press / AgapePress) - Christians aren't the only ones who preach. Hollywood does it too, and with great effect. This was no where more clearly seen than in two men who won Oscars at the Academy Awards March 5. George Clooney and Ang Lee both made a point of saying that movies can and should advocate for causes that the rest of the country may not support.

In the acceptance speech after winning the Oscar for best actor, Clooney celebrated the disconnect between his own liberal views and the views of mainstream America.

"We are a little bit out of touch in Hollywood every once in a while," he said. "I think it's probably a good thing. We're the ones who talk about AIDS when it was just being whispered, and we talked about civil rights when it wasn't really popular. And we, you know, we bring up subjects. This Academy, this group of people gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 when blacks were still sitting in the backs of theaters. I'm proud to be a part of this Academy. Proud to be part of this community, and proud to be out of touch. And I thank you so much for this."

We can all agree with AIDS awareness and the promotion of civil rights. But Clooney implies that current left-wing causes (like the normalization of homosexuality) are morally equivalent to the advent of civil rights for African Americans. Such a position is in fact "out of touch" with the vast majority of Americans (and contrary to Scripture), but I don't think it's anything to be proud of. Clooney is proud to be "out of touch" with mainstream America because he believes Hollywood's values are superior to those of the "fly-over" states.

In Ang Lee's long list of "thank yous," he expressed gratitude to the homosexual characters in Brokeback Mountain.

"First of all, I want to thank two people who don't even exist," he said. "... Their names are Ennis and Jack. And they taught all of us who made Brokeback Mountain so much about not just all the gay men and women whose love is denied by society, but just as important, the greatness of love itself."( YEAH RIGHT!!)

In so many words, Ang Lee is very clear that he intends for this story to teach viewers. He aims to teach all of us about the "cruelty" of society's stigmatizing homosexuality. As far as Ang Lee is concerned, mainstream America still clings to outdated sexual mores and ideas about gender, and he means to change that with movies like Brokeback Mountain.

Both Clooney and Lee indicate their intention to advocate in their movies a secularized vision of the world. Make no mistake; they don't mean merely to reflect culture in their movies, but to shape it.

As Christians, it's important for us to take note of comments such as these. The Gospel of Christianity is one that tells a story that goes from Eden, to the fall, to redemption, to new creation -- a story that is summed up and realized through the work of Jesus Christ crucified and raised.

Hollywood is telling another story, one that simply will not be compatible with that of the Gospel. To the extent that Hollywood or anyone else tries to impose its stories in place of God's story (the one true story), we have a sacred obligation to speak up with the Gospel.

We don't need to wait for a Gospel revival in Hollywood to meet this obligation. By God's grace, let us all resolve to herald the true story whether Hollywood is on board or not.

AGAPE PRESS

Infidelity Finds Niche on Internet

2006-04-18T15:10:00.000-07:00

By AFA JournalOctober 11, 2004

(AgapePress) - The thought of infidelity becoming an Internet industry is not just an abstract notion. It's a concrete reality as evident from the online companies that cater to a clientele seeking extramarital affairs.

The demands of such clientele are met through websites which act as typical online dating services by offering matches and dates. [AgapePress has chosen not to publish the addresses of these sites.] Additional resources include, but are not limited to, tips on how to cover one's tracks as well as tips on how to arrange a sexual encounter in a quick and economical fashion.

According to Fox News, one such website "is the biggest cheating site in town," claiming 160,000 members who are able to plan romantic rendezvous through photos, profiles, and instant messaging. It also seeks to entice the unfaithful with the slogan, "When Monogamy Becomes Monotony."

In addition, another website attempts to lure people with the following invitation: "Studies indicate up to 30% of those people using on-line dating services are married. Why not join a site specifically designed for you?"

Such sites are of concern to family counselors, such as Brett Williams, who view the sites as aiding the breakdown of families.

"They're basically destroying the fabric of our society," Williams said. "Our society is built on family units. Once that decays, we're not going to have much of a society."

This article appeared in the October 2004 issue of AFA Journal, a monthly publication of the American Family Association.

LA BATAILLE DES "FRO"

2006-04-17T21:39:00.000-07:00

Gladys,my cousin and Myself have decided to grow our hair natural..back to our Half-African roots...( hahahaha))...SO...HERE ARE samples of how we are doing so far...

It seems that more of more black people are accepting their big hair...these days so we are joining in..back to the 60-70`

gladys
v-ro

still a long way to go..........hehehe

a sista`