Cosmetics Charm

Other studies have suggested that people might be using odor cues associated with the immune system to select mates who are not closely related to themselves. Using a brain imaging technique, Swedish researchers have shown that homosexual and heterosexual males' brains respond differently to two odors that may be involved in sexual arousal, and that the homosexual men respond in the same way as heterosexual women, though it could not be determined whether this was cause or effect.[citation needed] The study was expanded to include homosexual women; the results were consistent with previous findings meaning that homosexual women were not as responsive to male identified odors, while their response to female cues was similar to heterosexual males. According to the researchers, this research suggests a possible role for human pheromones in the biological basis of sexual orientation. In 2008, it was found using functional magnetic resonance imaging that the right orbitofrontal cortex, right fusiform cortex, and right hypothalamus respond to airborne natural human sexual sweat.

In 2006, it was shown that a second mouse receptor sub-class is found in the olfactory epithelium. Called the trace amine-associated receptors (TAAR), some are activated by volatile amines found in mouse urine, including one putative mouse pheromone. Orthologous receptors exist in humans providing, the authors propose, evidence for a mechanism of human pheromone detection.

Pheromone Perfume

LOWER HELMAND RIVER VALLEY, AFGHANISTAN (Reuters) –
U.S. Marines launched a helicopter assault early on Thursday in the lower Helmand river valley in southern Afghanistan, spokesman Capt. Bill Pelletier said.

A Reuters correspondent in the valley saw flares in the sky over the town of Nawa, south of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah.

Nearly 4,000 Marines and U.S. sailors are taking part in the assault, code-named Operation Khanjar (Strike of the Sword), along with about 650 Afghan troops and police, a Marines press statement said.

"What makes Operation Khanjar different from those that have occurred before is the massive size of the force introduced, the speed at which it will insert and the fact that where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold ..." it quoted Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, commanding officer of the Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan, as saying.

The valley of irrigated wheat and opium fields along the Helmand river is largely in the hands of Taliban fighters who have resisted British-led NATO forces for years.

The United States has sent 8,500 Marines to Helmand province in the last two months, the largest wave of a massive buildup of forces that will see the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan rise from 32,000 at the beginning of this year to 68,000 by year's end.

President Barack Obama has declared the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan to be the main security threat facing the United States.

Helmand province is one of the Taliban's main heartlands in southern Afghanistan and produces the largest share of the country's opium crop which supplies 90 percent of the world's heroin.

Attacks by Taliban fighters are at their highest levels since the strict Islamists were driven out of Kabul by U.S.-backed Afghan opponents in 2001 after refusing to turn over Osama bin Laden in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

U.S. and NATO commanders have said they intend to deploy American reinforcements to seize Taliban-held territory in the south in time for Afghanistan to hold a presidential election on August 20.

(Reporting by Peter Graff, editing by Tim Pearce)

ANNANDALE, Va. – President Barack Obama wanted to put a human face on his plans to overhaul health care, and a Virginia supporter did just that Wednesday. Fighting back tears, Debby Smith, 53, told Obama of her kidney cancer and her inability to obtain health insurance or hold a job.
The president hugged her — she's a volunteer for his political operation — and called her "exhibit A" in an unsustainable system that is too expensive and complex for millions of Americans.
"We are going to try to find ways to help you immediately," he told Smith as hundreds looked on at a community college forum — and countless others watched on television. But the nation's long-term needs require a greater emphasis on preventive care and "cost-effective care," he said.
Smith, of Appalachia, Va., is a volunteer for Organizing for America, Obama's political operation within the Democratic National Committee. She obtained her ticket through the White House.
The health care changes that Obama called for Wednesday would reshape the nation's medical landscape. He says he wants to cover nearly 50 million uninsured Americans, to persuade doctors to stress quality over quantity of care, to squeeze billions of dollars from spending.
But details on exactly how to do those things were generally lacking in his hour-long town hall forum before a friendly, hand-picked audience in a Washington suburb. The lingering questions underscore the tough negotiations awaiting Congress, the administration and dozens of special interest groups in the coming months. Lawmakers will return to debating the issue when they return from a one-week recess on Monday.
Some of Obama's questioners Wednesday were from friendly sources, including a member of the Service Employees International Union and a member of Health Care for America Now, which organized a Capitol Hill rally last week calling for an overhaul. White House aides selected other questions submitted by people on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
Republicans said the event was a political sham designed to help Obama, not to inform the public.
"Americans are already skeptical about the cost and adverse impact of the president's health care plans," Republican National Committee spokesman Trevor Francis said. "Stacking the audience and preselecting questions may make for a good TV, but it's the wrong way to engage in a meaningful discussion about reforming health care."
Obama made no new proposals at the sometimes emotional event. But he vigorously defended his plans while fielding seven questions from the live audience at the forum and on the Internet.
The president would bar insurance companies from turning down applicants because of their "pre-existing conditions." He would establish health care exchanges that would spread the costs of treating patients such as Smith over a large number of people.
Obama called for shifting huge sums of money from current health care spending to new goals. About two-thirds of the overall new costs "will come from reallocating money that is already being spent in the health care system but isn't being spent wisely," he said.
He restated his pledge to cut $177 billion over the next decade from Medicare Advantage insurance plans. And he noted that doctors, hospitals, corporations and others have promised to decrease the annual rate of spending growth by 1.5 percent, or $2 trillion over 10 years.
Such savings are not guaranteed, however, and many Republican lawmakers say Obama's plans will prove too costly.
"The biggest thing we can do to hold down costs is to change the incentives of a health care system that automatically equates expensive care with better care," the president said. He said the formula system drives up costs "but doesn't make you better."
Obama did not make specific recommendations for changing the incentive formulas.
One questioner said limits on awards from medical malpractice lawsuits would bring down health care costs.
Obama replied, "I don't like the idea of an artificial cap" on such awards for a patient's injuries. He also said there was little evidence that various states' efforts to limit such awards have uniformly brought down costs.

Obama said, however, that he is working with the American Medical Association to explore ways to reduce liability for doctors and hospitals "when they've done nothing wrong." He offered no specifics for a problem that has vexed the medical and legal industries for decades.

The president repeatedly said the current health care system is not acceptable and must be overhauled this year. He urged the audience, which included people following on Facebook and YouTube, to reject critics who say his plans are too costly or a step toward socialized medicine.

Obama said a government-run "single-payer" health care system works well in some countries. But it is not appropriate in the United States, he said, because so many people get insurance through their employers working with private companies.

Still, he again called for a government-run "public option" to compete with private insurers, a plan that many Republicans oppose.

When you become late on your mortgage or you are facing foreclosure, dealing with your lender can be much like dealing with Guido and his band of mobsters that think breaking knees in better than working things out where everyone wins.

You must have a verifiable source of income. The key word is verifiable. The bank will ask you for documents to substantiate your income. Pay stubs, income tax returns, w2’s and bank statements just to name a couple.

Oregon Loan Modification

OXFORD, Fla. – A pet Burmese python measuring more than 8 feet long broke out of a terrarium and strangled a 2-year-old girl in her bedroom Wednesday at a central Florida home, authorities said. Shaiunna Hare was already dead when paramedics arrived at about 10 a.m., Lt. Bobby Caruthers of the Sumter County Sheriff's Office said.
Charles Jason Darnell, the snake's owner and the boyfriend of Shaiunna's mother, discovered the snake missing from its terrarium and went to the girl's room, where he found it on the girl and bite marks on her head, Caruthers said. Darnell, 32, stabbed the snake until he was able to pry the child away.
"The baby's dead!" a sobbing caller from the house screamed to a 911 dispatcher in a recording. "Our stupid snake got out in the middle of the night and strangled the baby."
Authorities did not identify the caller and removed the person's name from the recording.
"She got out of the cage last night and got into the baby's crib and strangled her to death," the caller said.
Authorities removed the snake from the home Wednesday afternoon after obtaining a search warrant. Once outside the small, tan home, bordered by cow pastures, the snake was placed in a bag then inside a dog crate. The snake was still alive.
Darnell did not have a permit for the snake, which would be a second-degree misdemeanor, said Joy Hill, a spokeswoman with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. He has not been charged, but Caruthers said investigators were looking into whether there was child neglect or if any other laws were broken.
Hill said the snake will be placed with someone who has a permit, pending an investigation into the girl's death.
The Humane Society of the United States said including Wednesday's death, at least 12 people have been killed in the U.S. by pet pythons since 1980, including five children.
Burmese pythons are not native to Florida, but they easily survive in the state and can reach a length of 26 feet and weigh more than 200 pounds.
Some owners have freed pythons into the wild and a population of them has taken hold in the Everglades. One killed an alligator and then burst when it tried to eat it. Scientists also speculate a bevy of Burmese pythons escaped in 1992 from pet shops battered by Hurricane Andrew and have been reproducing since.
"It's becoming more and more of a problem, perhaps no fault of the animal, more a fault of the human," said Jorge Pino, a state wildlife commission spokesman. "People purchase these animals when they're small. When they grow, they either can't control them or release them."
George Van Horn, owner of Reptile World Serpentarium in St. Cloud, said the strangulation could have occurred because the snake felt threatened or because it thought the child was food.
"They are always operating on instinct," he said. "Even the largest person can become overpowered by a python."
Oxford is about 50 miles northwest of Orlando.
___
Associated Press writers Matt Sedensky, Antonio Gonzalez and Lisa Orkin contributed to this report from Miami.

WASHINGTON – The White House says it's worried about Niger President Mamadou Tandja's decision to dissolve his nation's top court in an apparent effort to extend power.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement Wednesday that the United States is concerned about Tandja's attempt to hold onto his office despite term limits. Gibbs says the actions undermine the African nation's progress toward good governance.
Tandja is trying to stay in power after he finishes his second, five-year term in December. Security forces arrested Tandja's main opposition leader on Tuesday.
Gibbs says the White House is pleased the African Union has sent a delegation and will continue to monitor the situation.

Dogging is a British term for swinging that takes place in a public but reasonably secluded area (often based in cars, but not necessarily). There are many known dogging spots across the UK where people go after dark, typically to engage in voyeurism and exhibitionism but also to take part in group sex.

A distinct threesome subculture is cuckolding. Cuckolding is a subgenre where open relationship and threesomes meet. In a cuckold experience one partner has sex with another person outside of their primary relationship for a limited number of times and the person who engages in the experience generally shares that experience with their partner after the encounter has ended.

Hedonism

Oregon Debt Settlement

A debt is created when a creditor agrees to lend a sum of assets to a debtor. In modern society, debt is usually granted with expected repayment; in many cases, plus interest. Historically, debt was responsible for the creation of indentured servants.

As noted above, debt is normally denominated in a particular monetary currency, and so changes in the valuation of that currency can change the effective size of the debt. This can happen due to inflation or deflation, so it can happen even though the borrower and the lender are using the same currency. Thus it is important to agree on standards of deferred payment in advance, so that a degree of fluctuation will also be agreed as acceptable. It is for instance common to agree to "US dollar denominated" debt.

A hard-hitting piece on Sarah Palin in the new Vanity Fair has touched off a blistering exchange of insults among high-profile Republicans over last year’s GOP ticket – tearing open fresh wounds about leaks surrounding Palin and revealing for the first time some of the internal wars that paralyzed the campaign in its final days.
Rival factions close to the McCain campaign have been feuding since last fall over Palin, usually waging the battle in the shadows with anonymous quotes. Now, however, some of the most well-known names in Republican politics are going on-the-record with personal attacks and blame-casting.
William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard and at times an informal adviser to Sen. John McCain, touched off the latest back-and-forth Tuesday morning with a post on his magazine’s blog criticizing the Todd Purdum-authored Palin story and pointing a finger at Steve Schmidt, McCain’s campaign manager.
Kristol cited a passage in Purdum’s piece in which “some top aides” were said to worry about the Alaska governor’s “mental state” and the prospect that the Alaska governor may be suffering from post-partum depression following the birth of her son Trig. “In fact, one aide who raised this possibility in the course of trashing Palin’s mental state to others in the McCain-Palin campaign was Steve Schmidt,” Kristol wrote.
Asked about the accusation, Schmidt fired back in an e-mail: “I'm sure John McCain would be president today if only Bill Kristol had been in charge of the campaign.”
“After all, his management of [former Vice President] Dan Quayle’s public image as his chief of staff is still something that takes your breath away,” Schmidt continued. “His attack on me is categorically false.”
Asked directly in a telephone interview if he brought up the prospect of Palin suffering from post-partum depression, Schmidt said: “His allegation that I was defaming Palin by alleging post-partum depression at the campaign headquarters is categorically untrue. In fact, I think it rises to the level of a slander because it’s about the worst thing you can say about somebody who does what I do for a living.”
But Kristol’s charge was seconded by Randy Scheunemann, a longtime foreign policy adviser to McCain who is also close to the Standard editor and was thought to be a Palin ally within the campaign.
“Steve Schmidt has a congenital aversion to the truth,” Scheunemann said. “On two separate and distinct occasions, he speculated about about Governor Palin having post-partum depression, and on the second he threatened that if more negative publicity about the handling of Governor Palin emerged that he would leak his speculation [about post-partum depression] to the press. It was like meeting Tony Soprano.”
Schmidt said Scheunemann’s charges were “categorically untrue.”
“It is inappropriate for me to discuss personnel issues from the campaign,” Schmidt continued. “But suffice it to say Randy is saying these things not because they’re true but because he wants to damage my reputation because of consequences he faced for actions he took.”
Schmidt is alluding, without saying so directly, to the stories that emerged after the campaign that Scheunemann had been fired.
Scheunemann said Schmidt did try to fire him but added: “I’ve got a pay stub through November 15th.”
The questions about Scheunemann being terminated are central to the larger battle about who was trashing Palin, something that quickly came to the surface in the back and forth between Schmidt and Kristol on Tuesday.
The vitriol also suggests the degree to which Palin remains a Rorschach test not simply to Republicans nationally but within a tight circle of elite operatives and commentators, many of whom seem ready to carry their arguments in 2012. Was Palin a fresh talent whose debut was mishandled by self-serving campaign insiders, or an eccentric “diva” who had no business on the national stage? Going forward, does she offer a conservative and charismatic face for a demoralized and star-less party? Or is she a loose cannon who should be consigned to the tabloids where she can reside in perpetuity with other flash-in-the-pan sensations?
Schmidt, who has returned to his California-based political and public affairs consulting business, said that he “worked incredibly hard during the campaign to defend Sarah Palin and her family against a lot of attacks that I thought then and think today were very unfair.”
And he got in a dig at Kristol, who frequently offered unvarnished assessments of McCain’s campaign from his perch at the Standard, on Fox News, where he is a contributor, and in his then-New York Times column.
“Bill Kristol, going back to the time of the campaign, has taken a lot of cheap shots at the campaign without ever offering a plausible path to victory,” Schmidt said. “He’s in the business of ad hominem insults and criticism.”

Responding to Schmidt’s counterattack, Kristol directly fingered Schmidt: “It’s simply a fact that when the going got tough, Steve Schmidt trashed Sarah Palin, both within the campaign and (on background) to journalists. This was after Steve took credit for the Palin pick when, at first, he thought it made him look good. John McCain deserved better.”

At this, Schmidt unloaded in a lengthy telephone interview, suggesting that Kristol was carrying out a personal vendetta based out of anger over the attempt to fire Scheunemann in the final days of the campaign.

In doing so, Schmidt revealed what has been whispered about for months following the campaign: that he and another top aide had ordered a leak hunt in the campaign’s internal e-mail system.

“What this is about is a personal issue that happened late in the campaign relating to a close, personal friend of Bill Kristol and people at The Weekly Standard,” Schmidt said, refusing to use Scheunemann’s name. 

“At the end of the campaign there were a series of leaks that were so damaging that it was consuming the 24-hour cable news cycle. Leaks to reporters where Sarah Palin was called all manner of names. [McCain senior adviser] Rick Davis and I jointly felt that was outrageous. So we made an attempt for the first time in the campaign to try to ID who was leaking information that was so damaging and demoralizing to a campaign that was in very difficult circumstances,” Schmidt said, noting that an IT professional executed a system-wide search by keyword.

“What was discovered was an e-mail from a very senior staff member to Bill Kristol that then entered into the news current and continued the negative in-fighting stories for an additional news cycles. I recommended tough medicine for that individual that was carried out,” Schmidt said, again referring to Scheunemann. “Bill Kristol might not have liked that decision, and he might be mad about what happened to his friend, but going all the way back he has been a part of this story and I’ve preserved his confidentiality in that until now. But his use of his public forums to take a personal fight and make character attacks is just simply dishonest and wrong.”

Scheunemann, confirming that his e-mail had been searched, accused Schmidt of “acting in a manner of Iranian secret police” in going to his account.

The foreign policy hand said what was discovered was a message from Kristol inquiring who was the source in the campaign of the “diva” leak, the now-famous complaint from a senior McCain campaign official to CNN’s Dana Bash that Palin was acting like a spoiled and selfish celebrity.

Schmidt suggested that Scheunemann had fingered Nicolle Wallace, a senior McCain adviser who helped work with Palin, to Kristol in the message.

“It led to a whole another round of speculation, including Fred Barnes the next night attacking Nicolle Wallace on the air,” Schmidt said, suggesting without saying directly that was why an effort was made to terminate Scheunemann. Barnes, another Weekly Standard editor and Fox News contributor, accused Wallace on Fox News in late October of being “a coward” for running up tens of thousands of dollars in high-end clothes for Palin and then letting the governor take the blame for the purchases. After Wallace denied she had purchased the clothes, Barnes apologized on the air the following night.

But Scheunemann said the clothes controversy was an entirely separate issue and one which he made no mention of in his e-mail to Kristol.

Asked directly if he accused Nicolle Wallace of being the source behind the “diva” leak in his message to Kristol, Scheunemann said: “My e-mail did not accuse Nicolle Wallace. It said something very disparaging about Nicolle but it did not accuse her of being the leak.”

A source familiar with the contents of the e-mail said that Scheunemann actually accused Nicolle Wallace’s husband, Mark Wallace, of being the source of the leak.

When Kristol questioned the likelihood of a male like Mark Wallace using such a gossipy term as diva, this source said, Scheunemann wrote back that Mark Wallace knows something about divas because he’s married to a diva.

Asked about the e-mail, Nicolle Wallace said: “I did not have any knowledge of this. This is all news to me.”

As for being called a “diva,” Wallace laughed for a few seconds.

“I don’t have anything to say on that,” she said. 

Mark Wallace, taking the phone from his wife, also laughed about the diva accusation but wouldn’t respond when asked whether he had been the source of the “diva” leak. He explained that he had followed a "zero talk policy with the press" regarding the campaign and wanted to honor that.

But, after an early version of this story was posted on-line, he made an exception and offered a flat denial: "No, never. I don't think Sarah Palin is a diva."

The leak-hunting, Scheunemann said, began after POLITICO’s Ben Smith wrote a story in late October suggesting that Palin had ”gone rogue” and began ignoring the advice of her campaign handlers.

“So after that, they went nuclear with ‘diva’ the next day,” Scheunemann said, referring to the Palin-bashing done to CNN’s Bash the day after the POLITICO story. “But did anybody search Mark or Nicolle Wallace’s e-mails for leaks to Dana Bash?”

Schmidt said Kristol was driven by a personal vendetta over the attempted termination of his decades-long friend, Scheunemann.

“Nonsense,” Kristol replied. “My post today was (self-evidently) triggered by the Todd Purdum article that appeared today, which had Schmidt’s fingerprints all over it. I hadn’t thought about Schmidt in months, and will be happy now to return to more pressing issues, like the presidency of Barack Obama.”

As for the charges of being a sunshine soldier with regard to Palin, Schmidt said: “Nonsense. I’m a team player. That’s a reflection of [Kristol’s] values. He’s the Washington, D.C., talking head and glitterati. I live in Northern California and I really don’t give a s--- about that stuff.”

The nasty back-and-forth between the two well-known Republicans and re-litigating of internal backbiting underscores the degree to which the internecine and very personal battle over last fall’s ticket between those seen as Palin allies and Palin detractors still rages on nearly six months into President Obama’s term.

And it comes as Palin struggles to find her footing, at times appearing to want to take a strictly Alaska-first approach, but then re-emerging on the national stage – something chronicled in the nearly 10,000-word Vanity Fair article.

Loyalists to Palin, including Kristol, were outraged at Purdum’s piece, believing it to be another example of what they see as elite media contempt for the Wasilla native.

In his post, Kristol also criticized Purdum for writing that several Alaskans had told him during the reporting of the piece that they had checked the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” and found it fit their governor.

“Is there any real chance that ‘several’ Alaskans independently told Purdum that they had consulted the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders?” Kristol wrote. “I don’t believe it for a moment. I’ve (for better or worse) moved in pretty well-educated circles in my life, and I’ve gone decades without ‘several’ people telling me they had consulted the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.”

In response, Purdum, a Princeton graduate, wrote of his Harvard-degreed critic: “I'm not nearly as well-educated as Bill, but the great Irving Berlin taught me that ‘you don't have to go to a private school not to pick up a penny near a stubborn mule.’ In the age of Google, I'm confident that plenty of Alaskans know more about finding medical reference works – and all sorts of other knowledge – than Bill thinks they do.”

WASHINGTON – Animal research facilities will be required to disclosee more information online about their experiments under a court settlement signed Wednesday by the Humane Society of the United States and the Agriculture Department.
According to the Humane Society, the settlement will require the Agriculture Department to post annual reports from those facilities, including what they call "pain and distress information," on its Web site. The two parties settled in a lawsuit filed by the advocacy group four years ago after the group were unable to obtain information they requested.
The settlement will now be submitted to the federal district court for the District of Columbia for final approval.
"While it became apparent during the suit that the USDA might be acting to shield animal research facilities from public scrutiny, we are pleased that the settlement will ensure public access to animal research information, and shed light on whether USDA is doing its job," said Kathleen Conlee of the Humane Society.
The Bush administration stopped posting some animal testing information in 2002, according to the group, and then began posting the annual reports in 2005 in response to the lawsuit. Conlee said the court-approved settlement is important so future administrations don't further abuse the policy.
Caleb Weaver, a spokesman for Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, confirmed the settlement.
The Animal Welfare Act, signed into law in 1966 and enforced by USDA, governs the care and handling of most warm-blooded animals at registered research facilities and licensed animal dealer facilities around the country. Birds, mice and rats bred for research are exempt from the law.
A 1970 amendment to the law requires those facilities to submit annual reports on its activities. According to the Humane Society, these reports should include information on how many and what kind of animals are used in research, whether pain relief was used and a justification if such relief was not provided.
The group's 2005 lawsuit charged that the Department of Agriculture violated the Freedom of Information Act by denying them access to reports and redacting large amounts of information in reports they did provide.

The modern guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD, and further adapted and developed with the arrival of the four-string oud, brought by the Moors after their conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Elsewhere in Europe, the indigenous six-string Scandinavian lut (lute), had gained in popularity in areas of Viking incursions across the continent.

The headstock is located at the end of the guitar neck furthest from the body. It is fitted with machine heads that adjust the tension of the strings, which in turn affects the pitch. Traditional tuner layout is "3+3" in which each side of the headstock has three tuners (such as on Gibson Les Pauls). In this layout, the headstocks are commonly symmetrical. Many guitars feature other layouts as well, including six-in-line (featured on Fender Stratocasters) tuners or even "4+2" (Ernie Ball Music Man). However, some guitars (such as Steinbergers) do not have headstocks at all, in which case the tuning machines are located elsewhere, either on the body or the bridge.

Fender Electric Guitars

WASHINGTON, Jul 1 (OneWorld.net) - As the Iranian people continue to
call for justice and transparency, democracy researcher Nicholas
Benequista points out that public outrage over a case of electoral
fraud in Nigeria may spark critical reforms in that notoriously corrupt
nation.

by Nicholas Benequista

While the world watches the stand-off between the Iranian government and protesters, the end-game begins in Nigeria between its own angry mob of citizens railing against the establishment.

Just as the questionable elections in Iran sparked a revolt, the disputed vote in Nigeria two years ago that brought President Umaru Yar'Adua to power similarly galvanised a movement, which has since focused all its efforts on a battle for the soul of the National Electoral Commission, the country's top watchdog for elections.

With unprecedented public scrutiny, Nigeria's House of Representatives reconvenes on 30 June to consider a possible electoral reform that some say could deliver in 2011 the country's first free and fair vote since the end of military rule a decade ago. The measures under consideration are simple yet potentially revolutionary, such as a much-needed law to make electoral fraud a criminal offence, rather than merely an issue for civil litigation.

As in Iran, the Nigerian case highlights a perverse benefit to democracy that can sometimes result from electoral fraud. When the disregard for the sanctity of the vote provokes public outrage, citizens can find unity and courage in their collective anger.

Take, for example, Bashir Usman, a 41-year-old professor living in Kano, Nigeria's second-largest city.

On the day of elections for state governor, Bashir woke early to have a hearty breakfast of spaghetti in anticipation of the long queues at his polling station, which was simply designated for a patch of sidewalk on one of Kano's central streets. When he arrived, no official or ballot box was to be found. Bashir, like many in his neighbourhood, planned to vote for the candidate representing President Yar'Adua's party, which in Kano State is the opposition. After more than two hours of waiting, 20 police officers arrived, telling the crowd that a logistical snare might not allow for the polling station to be opened.

The crowd was incensed. They yelled and began to push the police. Only when violence seemed inevitable did the police acquiesce. Accompanied by a representative quickly selected from the crowd, the police recovered the ballot boxes from the Electoral Commission, without a word of explanation.

Bashir joined thousands of people - from both political parties - who later surrounded the Electoral Commission's local office that night, holding a largely symbolic vigil over their votes until dawn, neither side trusting of the process. The police fired teargas into a mob of young men who threw bottles and rocks. That election, which was among those later questioned, went to the incumbent, the ruling party of Kano State.

"I have to exercise my right, whether it is given to me or not," he said. "Things are getting worse and worse, and all ruling parties are the same."

His story is one among millions. In both the state and national elections in 2007, Nigerian citizens across the country woke to find there were no polling stations at all for casting their vote. In other cases, polling stations were opened, but soldiers unabashedly prevented people from entering. Across the country, observers gathered irrefutable evidence that the system could not produce credible results, yet results were announced, and the declared winners took their prizes.

Two years later, the public uproar has become as well organized as it is vociferous. Two organisations are at the helm: Coalitions for Change, a programme that helps civil society organisations come together with a coherent platform, and the Nigeria Labour Congress, the national umbrella group for Nigeria's trade unions, boasting 4 million members.

Coalitions for Change has enabled the cacophony of civil society groups to articulate a more coherent voice, through the Constitutional Reform Dialogue Mechanism (CRDM) and the Gender and Affirmative Action coalition, and it is also coordinating efforts by local civil society groups to educate citizens about how to "protect their mandate."

Meanwhile, the National Labour Congress has mobilised its members in massive rallies across the country; the largest to date, in Kano, attracted 100,000. Both the NLC and CRDM are cooperating in a petition drive to collect 20 million signatures, about seven per cent of the country's entire population, Africa's largest.

"We ultimately want to let the political elite to know that they don't have any alternative but to implement the will of the people," said John Odah, General Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress.

The various proposals would in essence give teeth to the National Electoral Commission, though would not necessarily let the institution off its leash. The President has tried to maintain his control of the Electoral Commission by, for example, snubbing recommendations by an independent Electoral Reform Committee recommendation to strip the executive of the power to appoint officials to the Electoral Commission. Such appointments should be made by the legislature, the committee had said.

The President also rejected the proposal to hold elections six months before swearing-in occurs, and fast-tracking electoral cases in that time. At present, those who come to power by fraud are in office and able to sway judicial processes by the time the lawsuits are filed.

And questions also remain over whether the country's political classes - even those in opposition - have the will to force through the radical reforms recommended by the committee.

"The key question is: why would the parliament accept this if they rigged themselves into office?" said Jibrin Ibrahim, director of Nigeria's Centre for Democracy and Development. "We have a political class that is complicit in the history of electoral fraud. Given this context, our position in civil society is that at the end of the day, it is direct citizen action that can make the difference."

Still, collective action has always been difficult to muster in Nigeria given the ethnic and religious fractures that violently divide the country. As recently as November, religious violence erupted in Jos, the capital of Plateau State. Clashes between Christians and Muslims in the town left hundreds dead, many bludgeoned with machetes, churches and mosques burned to the ashes, thousands displaced and a community more divided than ever.

The outrage over electoral fraud, however, may be the first issue that unites people as citizens in Nigeria, rather than as members of a religion or tribe.

"Look at the leaders - Ibo, Fulani, Hausa, Yoruba - they unite, then they divide and rule," said Bashir, who hopes to work as a monitor in subsequent elections. "They share the spoils, but then they come back to us to tell us, 'You and this tribe are enemies'. This is how they use us."

Amina Salihu, programme coordinator for Coalitions for Change, is keenly aware of the unifying effect of outrage. She says electoral reform is not an end to itself, but a means for opening new democratic spaces in Nigeria. She has dedicated her life to this goal, yet now - in spite of the widespread breakdown in the last election - she feels more optimistic than ever.

Thieves often leave something behind, but perhaps nothing quite as precious as when they steal elections.

* Nicholas Benequista is Research Communications Officer with The Development Research Center on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability at the The Institute of Development Studies in UK.

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Ramallah, West Bank –
Israel's naval blockade of the waters off Gaza – part of a wider Israeli effort to seal off the tiny coastal strip controlled by the Islamist militant group Hamas – is devastating a key Gazan industry and source of food: fishing.
Citing security concerns and fears of arms smuggling, Israel has progressively tightened the blockade over the past 15 years to a zone that today extends only three nautical miles (NM) from shore. Once a thriving enterprise, Gaza’s fishing industry is now on the verge of collapse. Fishermen are cut off from the heavily populated shoals, and have seen total catch and total revenue drop by rougly half in less than a decade.

Mohammed Hassuna of the southern Gaza city of Rafah was recently arrested by the Israeli Navy even though he says he was within the 3-NM zone. Most boats are fitted with GPS to ensure they stay within the zone.
"We were suddenly surrounded by gunboats and naval boats. They started shooting at us and around us. I was very scared," says Mr. Hassuna.
Hassuna says that and his crew were forced to strip down to their underwear and swim in frigid water to the navy gunboat where they were handcuffed, blindfolded, and their feet chained.
"They took us back to Ashdod port and we were kept like this for the entire day and not allowed toilet facilities or given any food," says Hassuna.
Eventually Hassuna, a father of five, and his crew were released but his boat had not been returned a week later when interviewed by the Monitor.
"I don't know how I will support my family now," says Hassuna. Other fishermen in a similar predicament have had to take legal action to get their boats back but most can't afford this.
Israeli rights group B'Tselem released a report about the continual shooting at, abuse of, and humiliation of Palestinian fishermen and challenged the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) over the issue.
The IDF responded that their actions were in the name of security only. But human rights organizations argue that Israel is collectively punishing Gaza's civilian population as a means of pressuring its Hamas leadership.
"A balance between security and the humanitarian situation has to be established," says Mike Bailey of Oxfam, which helps Gazan fishermen and farmers with short-term employment relief.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) –
Nearly 2,300 plant species are at risk of disappearing from flora-rich Brazil, many more than once thought, according to an academic study released on Wednesday.

The research, carried out by 175 scientists, indicates the Brazilian government has dramatically underestimated the risk to the country's plant species caused by deforestation, fires and urbanization.

Last year Brasilia said 472 plants were at risk in a country that contains an estimated 15 percent of the world's flora species.

Jose Maria Cardoso, a conservation expert who took part in the project, said the 2,291 species identified as being in danger were many more than the government's "conservative" estimates, which did not take into account rare species.

"Our criteria was to accept that rare plants are automatically in danger," Cardoso told Brazilian daily O Globo.

The study analyzed 752 areas considered "strategic for retaining the country's biodiversity," amounting to 16 percent of Brazil.

Playa del Carmen (Xaman Ha' or Pláaya in Modern Maya) is a city on the coast of the Caribbean Sea, in the northeast of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. The city is the seat of the Solidaridad municipality. In the 2005 census, the city had a population of about 100,383 people and it is rapidly growing in population. It is the third largest city in Quintana Roo, after Cancún and Chetumal.

Originally a small fishing town, tourism to Playa del Carmen began with the passenger ferry service to Cozumel, an island across the Cozumel Channel and world famous scuba diving destination. While passing through, many people realized that it was a nice place to relax away from the crowds of Cancún but with the same quality beaches and turquoise waters. Perhaps just as impressive as Cozumel, Playa del Carmen's coast offers good scuba diving opportunities, as well as cenote diving for the more adventurous.

Playa Del Carmen Villas

NEW YORK – It's one of the biggest mysteries in the Michael Jackson saga: How much was the lavish-spending, massively debt-ridden pop icon really worth? In the most detailed account yet of the singer's tangled financial empire, documents obtained by The Associated Press show Jackson claimed to have a net worth of $236.6 million as of March 31, 2007.
But less than $700,000 of that amount was in cash — a relatively paltry sum given his opulent lifestyle, prodigious borrowing and seven-figure shopping sprees.
The dollar amounts, which previously consisted of estimates, are crucial because Jackson's estate is expected to become the focus of a legal battle between the singer's family and creditors.
The revelation came Tuesday as Jackson's family reversed itself and said the singer did in fact have a will — complicating a bid by Jackson's mother to take control of her son's finances.
Jackson had $567.6 million in assets, including his Neverland Ranch and his share of the Sony/ATV Music Publishing catalog, which includes the rights to songs by the Beatles, according to a statement of financial condition prepared by Washington, D.C.-based accounting firm Thompson, Cobb, Bazilio & Associates.
The report was prepared at a time when Jackson had large sums of debt coming due that had to be refinanced. The financial statement, which is not as thorough as an audit, was based in large part on estimates provided by Jackson's advisers that the accounting firm said it could not verify.
In the documents, the firm also said it omitted the amount Jackson owed in income taxes.
The documents do not show how much money he had coming in that year or how much he was spending, which makes it hard to estimate just how cash-poor he was. Still, the statement paints a picture of Jackson's tangled finances and the mountain of debt he left behind.
The five-page report says Jackson had debts of $331 million. The singer had just $668,215 in cash, according to the report.
The accounting firm did not return calls seeking comment.
The report puts a net value on Jackson's 50 percent stake in the Sony/ATV Music Publishing catalog — his most prized asset — at $390.6 million. The 750,000-song catalog includes music by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, Lady Gaga and the Jonas Brothers.
A separate document obtained by the AP details Jackson's dealings with Sony Music Entertainment Inc., which owns the other half of Sony/ATV. Jackson was guaranteed a cash distribution of $11 million a year from the venture through September 2011, according to the May 25, 2007, document that was signed by the pop star.
The document also detailed Sony's ability to buy an unspecified percentage of Jackson's remaining share in Sony/ATV.
It said Sony agreed to guarantee loans made to Jackson through September 2011 and to help him refinance his debts. Sony also agreed to advance Jackson money to help pay the interest to his main creditor at the time, Fortress Investment Group LLC, to avoid defaulting. Barclays Bank PLC took over the Fortress loan, which is now around $315 million, in December 2007.
The documents also show that Jackson gave his approval for Sony/ATV to use up to $400 million to purchase the 125,000-song Famous Music LLC catalog from Viacom Inc., which holds such songs as "Footloose" and "The Real Slim Shady" by Eminem. The deal was announced a week later.
A Sony/ATV spokesman declined to comment.
Another of Jackson's prized possessions, his Neverland Ranch, is valued at $33 million, according to the accounting firm's report. He also had $20 million worth of cars, antiques, collectibles and other property.
It's likely that Neverland, a 2,500-acre property in the rolling hills of Santa Barbara County, has dropped in value since 2007 along with the rest of the battered California housing market, experts said.

"The luxury market in the past year has really taken a hit in markets across the country," said Rick Goodwin, publisher of Ultimate Homes and its parent publication, Unique Homes.

The ranch in central California's wine country was set to be sold in March 2008 because of missed payments on a $24.5 million loan, but Jackson managed to cut an 11th-hour deal to keep it off the auction block.

The fact that few, if any, similar properties in the area are selling makes it even harder to determine Neverland's current market value. A couple of properties in the 500-acre range are on the market in the area for around $10 million, said Steve Schott, a real estate appraiser based in Santa Barbara.

Jackson died Thursday at age 50 of what his family has said was cardiac arrest. Medical examiners in Los Angeles are perhaps weeks away from determining the official cause of death.

The divvying up of Jackson's assets — and the settling of his debts — are likely to be hotly contested in court. On Monday, lawyers for Katherine and Joe Jackson won temporary custody of Michael Jackson's three children and moved to become administrators of his estate.

A judge granted 79-year-old Katherine Jackson temporary guardianship of the children, who range in age from 7 to 12. He also gave her control over some of her son's personal property that is now in the hands of an unnamed third party. But the judge did not immediately rule on her requests to take charge of the children's and Jackson's estates.

___

Associated Press writers Alex Veiga, Ryan Nakashima and Anthony McCartney in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Lighting is the deliberate application of light to achieve some aesthetic or practical effect. Lighting includes use of both artificial light sources such as lamps and natural illumination of interiors from daylight. Daylighting (through windows, skylights, etc.) is often used as the main source of light during daytime in buildings given its low cost. Artificial lighting represents a major component of energy consumption, accounting for a significant part of all energy consumed worldwide.

Artificial lighting is most commonly provided today by electric lights, but gas lighting, candles, or oil lamps were used in the past, and still are used in certain situations. Proper lighting can enhance task performance or aesthetics, while there can be energy wastage and adverse health effects of lighting. Indoor lighting is a form of fixture or furnishing, and a key part of interior design. Lighting can also be an intrinsic component of landscaping.

Modern Lighting

The modern bi-fold wallet with multiple "card slots" became standardized in the early 1950s with the introduction of the first credit cards. Some innovations include the introduction of the velcro-closure wallet in the 1970s.

Tri-fold wallet: a wallet with three folds, in which credit cards are generally stored vertically.

Here

Dog Stroller

The word "money" is believed to originate from a temple of Hera, located on Capitoline, one of Rome's seven hills. In the ancient world Hera was often associated with money. The temple of Juno Moneta at Rome was the place where the mint of Ancient Rome was located. The name "Juno" may derive from the Etruscan goddess Uni (which means "the one", "unique", "unit", "union", "united") and "Moneta" either from the Latin word "monere" (remind, warn, or instruct) or the Greek word "moneres" (alone, unique).

Money is anything that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts. The main uses of money are as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value. Some authors explicitly require money to be a standard of deferred payment. The dominant form of money is currency[counterfactual].

Fast Cash

Keurig Brewer

When coffee reached North America during the colonial period, it was initially not as successful as it had been in Europe. During the Revolutionary War, however, the demand for coffee increased so much that dealers had to hoard their scarce supplies and raise prices dramatically; this was partly due to the reduced availability of tea from British merchants. After the War of 1812, during which Britain temporarily cut off access to tea imports, the Americans' taste for coffee grew, and high demand during the American Civil War together with advances in brewing technology secured the position of coffee as an everyday commodity in the United States.

The type of grind is often named after the brewing method for which it is generally used. Turkish grind is the finest grind, while coffee percolator or French press are the coarsest grind. The most common grinds are between the extremes; a medium grind is used in most common home coffee brewing machines.[54]

The Persian Muslim doctor and chemist Avicenna (also known as Ibn Sina) introduced the process of extracting oils from flowers by means of distillation, the procedure most commonly used today. He first experimented with the rose. Until his discovery, liquid perfumes were mixtures of oil and crushed herbs or petals, which made a strong blend. Rose water was more delicate, and immediately became popular. Both of the raw ingredients and distillation technology significantly influenced western perfumery and scientific developments, particularly chemistry.

[edit] Animal sources

http://www.yournewfragrance.com/

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A midnight deadline loomed Tuesday as California lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger dueled over ways to cut into a $24.3 billion budget deficit or face having to issue IOUs to cover the state's bills.
Democrats lawmakers, the majority in both houses, tried two approaches Monday but both failed to draw Republican support.
Voting almost totally along party lines, the state Senate approved a package of bills featuring spending cuts and fee and tax increases to close the deficit.
But the Republican governor quickly promised to veto the legislation, saying he wouldn't sign anything that raised taxes or fees more than he has proposed.
"They should forget about that," he said, accusing Democrats of going through a "song and dance. Let's get to work, fix it."
Hours later, Senate Democrats put up three stopgap spending cut bills that passed the Assembly last week with bipartisan support. But again Republicans refused to budge, saying the budget problems needed a comprehensive solution focusing on spending cuts.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said Democrats would not accept the deep cuts in college aid, health care and welfare programs sought by Schwarzenegger.
State Controller John Chiang has said he would have to start issuing IOUs unless lawmakers act by the end of the fiscal year on Tuesday.
Without a compromise, roughly $3 billion worth of IOUs will be issued in July to everyone from contractors to welfare recipients.
Democratic Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and Steinberg accused the governor of using last-minute maneuvers to push a laundry list of policy reforms rather than addressing the budget gap.
"It's not the way to go about working with people," Steinberg said. "It's not the way to go about working with your partner."
Democrats want to solve the deficit by cutting spending by $11 billion, raising the vehicle license fee by $15 to keep state parks open and increasing taxes on tobacco products and companies that drill for oil.
Schwarzenegger has proposed more aggressive cuts of $16 billion, including dropping health care for 930,000 low-income children and eliminating the state's main welfare program. He also would borrow $2 billion from local governments, take $6 billion from other government accounts, accelerate personal and corporate income tax collections, and cut state employee pay by another 5 percent.
___
Associated Press Writers Juliet Williams, Samantha Young and Don Thompson contributed to this report.

Money is anything that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts. The main uses of money are as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value. Some authors explicitly require money to be a standard of deferred payment. The dominant form of money is currency[counterfactual].

The word "money" is believed to originate from a temple of Hera, located on Capitoline, one of Rome's seven hills. In the ancient world Hera was often associated with money. The temple of Juno Moneta at Rome was the place where the mint of Ancient Rome was located. The name "Juno" may derive from the Etruscan goddess Uni (which means "the one", "unique", "unit", "union", "united") and "Moneta" either from the Latin word "monere" (remind, warn, or instruct) or the Greek word "moneres" (alone, unique).

Fast Cash

NEW YORK (Reuters) –
Bernard Madoff was sentenced on Monday to 150 years in prison -- the maximum penalty the judge could give him for "extraordinarily evil" crimes in Wall Street's biggest and most brazen investment fraud.

Fleeced investors in the courtroom cheered and applauded as the judge handed down the penalty.

Madoff, 71, stood passively with his hands clasped at his waist, showing no reaction when he heard the sentence that will send him to prison for the rest of his life.

The former nonexecutive chairman of the Nasdaq stock market has been jailed in a Manhattan cell since he pleaded guilty to 11 charges including securities fraud, money laundering and perjury in March.

"Here the message must be sent that Mr. Madoff's crimes were extraordinarily evil," U.S. District Judge Denny Chin said in rejecting defense pleas for a lenient, 12-year sentence. "The breach of trust was massive.

"I simply do not get the sense that Mr. Madoff has done all that he could or told all that he knows."

The gray-haired money manager was dressed in his signature dark gray suit, white shirt and tie instead of a prison jumpsuit.

The disgraced financier sat passively throughout the hour-and-a-half hearing as his victims called him a "beast," an "animal" and a "lowlife."

He apologized to them, at one point turning toward the 250 people in the courtroom.

"I will live with this pain, with this torment, for the rest of my life," he calmly said. "I live in a tormented state knowing the pain and suffering I have created."

Madoff, who has been accused of bilking investors worldwide out of as much as $65 billion, said, "In my business, when you make a trading error, you're expected to make a trading error, it's accepted. My error was much more serious. I made an error of judgment."

CAUGHT OUT BY FINANCIAL CRISIS

Madoff's December arrest came as investors were feeling the brunt of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s Great Depression.

The case has triggered widespread criticism of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which has been accused of missing red flags that could have brought the curtain down on his asset management business.

It was not known where Madoff will serve his sentence for what prosecutors described as a worldwide fraud of small and wealthy investors, charities and financial institutions.

Judge Chin heard wrenching statements from nine of Madoff's victims, some of whom said they had lost their life savings, were forced to sell their homes, or had to apply for government assistance to buy food.

"I only hope that his prison sentence is long enough so that his jail cell will become his coffin," said Michael Schwartz, 33, who said his family had been robbed of savings earmarked for the care of his mentally disabled brother.

The White House said that the judge had sent a strong signal to those who handle other people's money.

"My guess is that that message will be heard loud and clear," said President Barack Obama's spokesman Robert Gibbs.

Madoff was arrested in December after his two sons told authorities that he had confessed to them that his investment empire was a sham.

Prosecutors have said that Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities showed $65 billion in customer accounts weeks before his arrest, but the trustee winding down the firm has so far only been able to collect $1.2 billion to return to investors.

As much as $170 billion flowed through the principle Madoff account over decades. Madoff was symbolically ordered to pay that amount in restitution.

While a much lower sentence would have sent Madoff to prison for life, Chin said he deserved the maximum, typically handed down to organized crime bosses.

"The fraud here was staggering," the judge said.

One law professor said she was surprised by the sentence but uncertain whether it would serve as a deterrent.

"I'd love to think that the mini-Madoffs out there would think that what happened today has something to do with them, but I suspect most of them do not," said Jayne Barnard of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Madoff's lawyer said no decision had been made on whether to appeal the sentence.

None of Madoff's relatives came to court. They have not attended any of his prior court appearances.

The judge said he had not received a single letter on Madoff's behalf, testifying to any good deeds or charitable works. "The absence of such support is telling," Chin said.

Madoff's wife Ruth, 68, has not been charged with any crimes but she has been vilified by defrauded investors, shunned by friends, and pursued by the media. Breaking her long silence, she said in a statement on Monday that she had been "betrayed and confused" by her husband's scam.

"From the moment I learned from my husband that he had committed an enormous fraud, I have had two thoughts -- first, that so many people who trusted him would be ruined financially and emotionally, and, second, that my life with the man I have known for over 50 years was over," she said.

Madoff has said he acted alone. The only other person charged criminally is his outside accountant.

Madoff's brother, Peter, and his sons, Mark and Andrew, were executives in his firm's brokerage unit. They have said that they were not aware of or involved in the crooked asset management side.

Madoff and his wife have agreed to the sale of three luxury properties and other assets and valuables. Proceeds from asset sales will be distributed to defrauded investors.

Ruth Madoff will be left with $2.5 million, after forfeiting claim to some $80 million in assets including the couple's Manhattan penthouse apartment.

Madoff told investors in the courtroom that he could offer no excuses, saying he tried to undo his crimes but "the harder I tried, the deeper a hole I dug for myself."

Investors said the apologies left them cold.

"There's something very pathological. He is still making excuses for himself," said George Nierenberg, 57.

(Reporting by Grant McCool, Martha Graybow, Daniel Trotta, Mike Erman and Christine Kearney; Editing by John Wallace, Toni Reinhold)

LONDON (Reuters) –
Having sex every day improves the quality of men's sperm and is recommended for couples trying to conceive, according to new research.

Until now doctors have debated whether or not men should refrain from sex for a few days before attempting to conceive with their partner to improve the chance of pregnancy.

But a new study by Dr David Greening of Sydney IVF, an Australian centre for infertility and in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment, suggests abstinence is not the right approach.

He studied 118 men with above-average sperm DNA damage and found the quality of their sperm increased significantly after they were told to ejaculate daily for seven days.

On average, their DNA fragmentation index -- a measure of sperm damage -- fell to 26 percent from 34 percent, Greening told the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Amsterdam on Tuesday.

Frequent sex does decrease semen volume but for most men this is not a problem.

"It seems safe to conclude that couples with relatively normal semen parameters should have sex daily for up to a week before the ovulation date," he said in a statement.

"In the context of assisted reproduction, this simple treatment may assist in improving sperm quality and ultimately achieving a pregnancy."

Greening said it was likely frequent ejaculation improved the quality of sperm by reducing the length of time they were exposed to potentially damaging molecules called reactive oxygen species in the testicular ducts.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler, editing by Paul Casciato)

BEIJING (Reuters) –
What do Johnny Depp, Garfield, Paris Hilton and roast pork have in common? In China, the answer is that a new government-mandated Internet filter rates some pictures of all four of them as bad for your moral health.

Beijing has ordered all personal computers sold in China from July 1 to be preinstalled with the Green Dam software, which it says is designed to block pornographic and violent images, and which critics fear will be used to extend censorship.

But a trial of the programme, which is available online for free download (http://www.skycn.com/soft/46657.html), suggested

its filters may be of limited use to worried parents.

When the software is installed, and an image scanner activated, it blocks even harmless images of a film poster for cartoon cat Garfield, dishes of flesh-colour cooked pork and on one search engine a close-up of film star Johnny Depp's face.

With the image filter off, even though searches with words like "nude" are blocked, a hunt for adult websites throws up links to soft and hardcore pornography sites including one with a video of full penetrative sex playing on its front page.

Green Dam has not detailed how it scans images for obscene content, but computer experts have said it likely uses colour and form recognition to zoom in on potential expanses of naked flesh.

Programme settings allow users to chose how tightly they want images scanned. When too much skin is detected, Green Dam closes all internet browsers with no warning, sometimes flashing up a notice that the viewer is looking at "harmful" content.

But the interpretation of obscene is apparently generous enough to include the orange hue of Garfield's fur and, on the highest security settings, prevent viewers clicking through to any illustrated story on one English language news website.

A programme to scan written content appears less sensitive, with a string of explicit words typed into a word document triggering no response, although some users have complained in online forums of shut-downs similar to those of web browsers.

SEX OR POLITICS?

The software also allows users to choose what they want to filter for, and besides adult websites and violence, categories include "gay" and "illegal activities."

Gay and health activists fear the blanket ban on "gay content," in a country where homosexuality is not criminalised, could damage projects including sexual health and AIDS education.

And government critics worry the "illegal activities" section will cover political and social activities Beijing objects to, tightening access to non-approved information, already filtered by censors and a firewall.

Another setting allows Green Dam to take regular snapshots of a user's screen and store them for up to two weeks -- ostensibly so parents can monitor computer use by minors.

But it could also potentially leave security officials a track of computer use by a suspected dissident, or be a gift to fraudsters hunting online bank details and private information.

Researchers in the U.S. have already said they are concerned Green Dam leaves users vulnerable to malicious sites that might steal personal data or install code on the personal computer.

Western governments and trade groups have also asked China to reconsider, based on concerns ranging from cyber-security and performance of the software to Internet freedoms.

"People say the software is not very stable and has many technological problems," said Joerg Wuttke, the president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, which has dubbed the introduction of Green Dam "hasty."

China's foreign ministry on Tuesday declined to respond to criticisms of the software.

(Additional reporting by Maxim Duncan, Kirby Chien and Alan Wheatley; Editing by Jerry Norton)

JAKARTA (AFP) –
Presidential hopefuls vying for Indonesia's top job next week are ignoring the environment, despite dire threats from global warming and deforestation, environmental group Greenpeace has said.

None of the three candidates has made the environment a priority in their campaigns or offered any detailed policies on issues such as deforestation or carbon emissions, Greenpeace climate campaigner Arif Fiyanto said.

"Up to now we haven't seen anything concrete from the three pairs of candidates," Fiyanto said.

Rampant deforestation fuelled by corruption and poor law enforcement has made Indonesia the world's third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases behind the United States and China.

Greenpeace activists said the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had paid little more than pay lip service to environmental problems over its five years in power.

"Environmental problems aren't sexy in the election, indeed ... we've never had a government that has paid attention to the environment," forest campaigner Joko Arif said.

"They're talking about poverty, they're talking about benefits for the community, but if they don't talk about environmental problems it's complete (rubbish)," he added.

Yudhoyono is the strong favourite to win the July 8 poll, which will pit him against ex-president Megawati Sukarnoputri and current Vice President Jusuf Kalla.

Megawati has agreed to a Greenpeace demand for a moratorium on deforestation, but has also promised to open millions of hectares (acres) of land for farming and biofuel plantations, Arif said.

Indonesia has been a key advocate of a scheme to get big polluters in rich countries to pay for forest conservation in developing countries.

But Greenpeace fears the plan could trigger a collapse in global carbon prices and undermine broader efforts to fight climate change.

A sales lead is the identity of a person or entity potentially interested in purchasing a product or service, and represents the first stage of a sales process. The lead may have a corporation or business associated (a B2B lead) with the person(s). Sales leads come from either marketing lead generation processes such as trade shows, direct marketing, advertising, Internet marketing or from sales person prospecting activities such as cold calling.

For a sales lead to qualify as a sales prospect, or equivalently to move a lead from the process step sales lead to the process sales prospect, qualification must be performed and evaluated. Typically this involves identifying by direct interrogation the lead's product applicability, availability of funding, and time frame for purchase. This is also the entry point of a sales tunnel, sales funnel or sales pipeline.

Business Email Lists

Artificial lighting is most commonly provided today by electric lights, but gas lighting, candles, or oil lamps were used in the past, and still are used in certain situations. Proper lighting can enhance task performance or aesthetics, while there can be energy wastage and adverse health effects of lighting. Indoor lighting is a form of fixture or furnishing, and a key part of interior design. Lighting can also be an intrinsic component of landscaping.

Lighting is the deliberate application of light to achieve some aesthetic or practical effect. Lighting includes use of both artificial light sources such as lamps and natural illumination of interiors from daylight. Daylighting (through windows, skylights, etc.) is often used as the main source of light during daytime in buildings given its low cost. Artificial lighting represents a major component of energy consumption, accounting for a significant part of all energy consumed worldwide.

Exit Lighting