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Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Darrell Issa Wants a Dumb Two-Year Ban on New Internet Laws
Amanda King: Newborn Babies and Death
My daughter, Louise, slept for the first three weeks of her life. Twenty to 21 hours a day. She slept so much that I actually called the doctor's office, convinced that something was wrong with her, because there was just no way that I finally had two children and it was... actually kind of easy. Then, one night, she came to life like a stormy little thunder cloud. She even lived up to her big sister's reputation for being a terrifyingly demanding baby. She cried a lot. Inconsolably. For hours.
Doctors don't really know why some babies are colicky. They think maybe it's related to digestion or over-stimulation. Some doctors blame anxiety in the mother. All they can really tell you with any degree of certainty is that they'll grow out of it by the time they're 3 or 4 months old. Both of my babies screamed for at least three hours every evening, red-faced and tightened up with little muscled fists. We would sit at the table together for dinner in the fading daylight, pretending to enjoy ourselves for the sake of my fragile domestic sanity, my husband exclaiming that the veggie dogs I'd microwaved were delicious, while the baby screamed and screamed in the carrier strapped to my chest.
They're wondrous, newborns. Doctors don't know for sure why babies cry like that, but I'm pretty sure I do.
I watched my grandmother dying last winter. She had breast cancer that eventually settled into her brain, and she slowly became less and less like a person inhabiting a body. At first, she spent almost all of her time here, with us, being alive and full of anxieties, and over the course of a few months, she slowly existed more and more in the place people go when they die. At the end of her life, she slept almost all day; long stretches of sleeping, punctuated by waking moments of serenity where she would stare through the world with faraway eyes. She talked to people who were gone. Sometimes she woke up in a panic, unsure of where she was. She would cry like a child, calling out for someone to hold her hand. She craved simple things, like ice cream and sunlight on the back porch steps. Watching someone die made me a better mommy to my second newborn daughter.
At the end of her life, my grandmother slept for 20 of every 24 hours. She made expressions in her sleep. The whisper of her eyebrows would raise and her toothless mouth formed silent words. Her hair was gone. Her head was covered in a fine, soft fuzz. She was always cold. She marveled over the heat of another person, clutching at their hands and saying, "You're so warm!" I watched as she plucked at the fabric of her white bedding with aimless fingers. I saw how she looked through me unless I startled her back into being. If I wanted her to really see me, I had to yell her name, "Grace!" She would blink into existence for a moment, register my face slowly and smile, then drift back into the place between worlds.
I understand that both of my daughters knew what it was like to be dead when they were born. Over the first few weeks of their lives, they plucked and stretched and peered their way into themselves, into their places in the world. They took their time coming away from that other place. They woke up in increments over the course of a few weeks, the sleepiness of pre-existence clinging to them like cotton and smoke. When it was time, they let go of the place from where they came. They came into life, just like my grandmother came into death.
Why wouldn't a new little person cry and cry and cry, given that they used to not be born, and now they were awake and cold and confused in a place where everything was new and shining and relentless? Where sounds and light and sensations, most of them beautiful and some of them terrible, just wouldn't go away, where every time they weren't sleeping they were somewhere unfamiliar? Why wouldn't they cry, especially in the evenings, after seeing everything, feeling the wind and riding in the car, being passed into arms and being held against bodies, after keeping it together for hours and hours, taking everything in? Then, when it started to get dark, the world closed up shop and everybody huddled up under a ceiling and the sun was gone and your mother hummed softly and said, "Sleep now, darling. Just close your eyes and shut out the world and its wonders and be still."
I would cry, too.
Newborn babies are so wise in their first days. They become like us so quickly; they become a citizen of this world. They quickly get hungry and wild for being and its captivating sensations. If they're lucky, (like they all should be) they learn that being alive means being surrounded by color and light and softness, and all wrapped up in love. Everything they do is new, and it's wonderful and magical and most of all, worthwhile. Most of them don't even want to sleep, once they really wake up, and I don't blame them.
I believe that when babies are born, they're smarter than we are. They know what it is like to be dead. They know everything that we don't know, that we don't have to be afraid of not existing.
?
Follow Amanda King on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LastMomOnEarth
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amanda-king/death_b_2185554.html
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Tuesday, November 27, 2012
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When 'Game of Thrones' Becomes a Show About Nothing
Country music titan Dolly Parton is anything but shy.In an exclusive interview with "Nightline," Parton dished about her love life (including those rumors that she is secretly gay), losing a drag queen lookalike contest and building a multimillion-dollar entertainment empire.In her long reign as a country music legend, Parton, now 66, has done it all. In her new motivational memoir, "Dream More," which will be released on Nov. 27, Parton talks about growing up dirt poor in Sevierville, Tenn., in a cabin with 11 siblings. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/game-thrones-becomes-show-nothing-221313742.html
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Monday, November 26, 2012
Falling over fiscal cliff could slash $20 billion in U.S. business travel ...
If the U.S. economy falls over the ?fiscal cliff,? it would have an immediate and severe impact on U.S. business travel, according to new research from GBTA Foundation. The new report analyzes the business travel impact of expiring tax cuts and automatic spending reductions ? commonly referred to as the ?fiscal cliff? ? as well as the longer-term ramifications of leaving current levels of deficit spending unaddressed.
The report models the potential business travel impact of two scenarios ? one in which the fiscal cliff takes effect, and one where no changes are made to current tax and spending provisions.
Fiscal Cliff Scenario: If the fiscal cliff occurs, the U.S. economy would enter a recession. This would lead to a total loss of $20 billion in spending on U.S. business travel over the next nine quarters ? a 2.5% decline ? and a reduction of 32 million business trips.
However, the elimination of tax cuts and reductions in federal spending would lead to reduced deficits and lower interest rates over the long run, resulting in business travel spending and an overall economy that grows more quickly after absorbing the shock of the fiscal cliff.
No Fiscal Restraint Scenario: If all provisions of the fiscal cliff are eliminated or delayed indefinitely, business travel would experience more robust trip volume and spending as a result of stimulus from lower tax rates and continued government spending. In the near term, this scenario would lead to a cumulative loss of only 300,000 business trips and a gain of $5.5 billion in total business travel spending over the next nine quarters.
However, by 2014, much of the spending growth would be attributed to higher inflation. Larger budget deficits and growing debt will begin to take a toll, and business travel spending growth would continue to slow beyond the forecast horizon.
?Given business travel?s indispensable role in spurring economic growth, these findings dramatically illustrate the potential impact of the fiscal cliff on the overall economy,? said Joseph Bates, vice president of research at the GBTA Foundation. ?Falling over the cliff would set back the clock substantially for business travel and every other sector of the economy in the near term.
?This research shows that we must seriously consider both the near-term ramifications of the fiscal cliff and the long-term implications of expanding government debt,? said Michael W. McCormick, GBTA executive director and COO. ?Either way, the fiscal cliff is a wake-up call for leaders looking to craft smart economic policy going forward.?
The research, GBTA BTI? Outlook ? United States Special Report: Fiscal Cliff Scenario, was conducted through an analysis and econometric model used in the quarterly GBTA BTI? Outlook ? United States report and altered to reflect predictions in business travel spending and volume according to each of these potential outcomes.
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Euro officials seek way to unlock Greek crisis
A European Union flag billows in the wind as the ruins of the 5th century BC Parthenon temple is seen in the background on the Acropolis in Athens, on Monday, Nov. 26, 2012. The ministers of the 17 countries that use the euro are meeting in Brussels later Monday to try to reach an agreement on disbursement of Greece's next rescue loan installment, after several delays. Athens faces bankruptcy without the cash. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
A European Union flag billows in the wind as the ruins of the 5th century BC Parthenon temple is seen in the background on the Acropolis in Athens, on Monday, Nov. 26, 2012. The ministers of the 17 countries that use the euro are meeting in Brussels later Monday to try to reach an agreement on disbursement of Greece's next rescue loan installment, after several delays. Athens faces bankruptcy without the cash. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
A worker cleans graffiti off the Bank of Greece logo, outside the central bank's headquarters in Athens, Monday, Nov. 26, 2012. The ministers of the 17 countries that use the euro are meeting in Brussels later Monday to try to reach an agreement on disbursement of Greece's next rescue loan installment, after several delays. Athens faces bankruptcy without the cash. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
BRUSSELS (AP) ? Finance ministers from the 17 European Union countries that use the euro are trying to hammer out a deal Monday in Brussels on the next installment of bailout money for struggling Greece.
The ministers have failed twice in the last two weeks to reach an agreement to release some ?44 billion ($56.8 billion) for the cash-strapped country.
Greece is living on borrowed time ? it still owes money it was supposed to repay last week.
On his way into the meeting, Olli Rehn, the EU's top financial official, said it was important for the ministers and the International Monetary Fund to agree on a deal. Distributing the next batch of loans was essential, he said, "in order to end the uncertainty that's still hanging over Greece. It's important for Greece, important for Europe."
"I want to encourage all the euro area member states and the IMF to go the last mile to find an agreement ? in fact to go the last centimeter, because we are so close," Rehn said. "Greece has delivered. Now it is the delivery time for the eurogroup and the IMF."
The so-called troika of the European Central Bank, IMF and the European Commission, which is the 27-country EU's executive arm, have twice agreed to bail out Greece, pledging a total of ?240 billion in rescue loans. In return for its bailout loans, Greece has had to impose several rounds of austerity measures and submit its economy to scrutiny.
Greece's fortunes are inextricably tied to the rest of the eurozone. Without the bailout funds that have been keeping it afloat since May 2010, the country would default and could end up having to leave the eurozone. This could have a domino effect on other financially troubled eurozone nations.
Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said action needed to be taken.
"Greece has fully delivered its part to the agreement, so we expect our partners to deliver their part, too, and I am sure we will find a mutually beneficial solution," he said.
But the prospect of yet another batch of bailout money left some ordinary Greeks unimpressed.
"Did we get anything from any of the previous loan installments?" asked Eleni Myronidou, a retiree in Athens. "Did the people get anything? The banks did. It's all about the banks. Nothing for the people. They should be ashamed of themselves. They should be ashamed."
Greece is unlikely to complete its program of budget cuts and reforms by 2014. For this reason, it is likely to be given an additional two years by the troika. But that extension will cost several billion more, and it is disagreements over how to fund this that have stopped Greece from getting its money.
Several proposals have been floated as ways to plug the financial hole. These include reducing the interest rate Greece pays on its loans from euro partners, lenders such as the ECB giving up interest or profit on their loans, a debt buyback that would reduce the country's burden in the long term, and debt forgiveness by some other countries in the eurozone.
But most of those solutions involved dipping once again into the pockets of taxpayers ? something that has become increasingly unpalatable politically.
"There have been disputes in recent weeks among the members of the troika," said Craig Erlam, an analyst at Alpari. "However these are expected to be resolved today, meaning Greece will finally receive the next bailout payment. If not, Greece could run out of money in the coming days, the consequences of which could be disastrous for the eurozone."
The troika partners disagree on whether Greece should be given an extra two years, to 2022, to bring its debt down to 120 percent of gross domestic product from the 176 percent forecast for this year. The IMF has resisted such an extension.
The ministers hope to reach a political agreement Monday. That agreement will have to be submitted to national parliaments in some countries. After that, the finance ministers plan to hold another meeting, either in person or by telephone, to give final approval to the disbursement.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble ruled out a public-sector debt write-off, and said other eurozone member countries had taken the same position.
But he said he was optimistic about the talks.
"We will find a solution, I am very confident of that," Schaeuble said.
___
Raf Casert in Brussels, Pan Pylas in London and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report. Don Melvin can be reached at http://twitter.com/Don_Melvin.
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Bangladesh factory fires highlight working conditions
Just after a fire killed at least 112 workers at a garment factory in the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, another 10-story factory caught fire Monday morning, and thousands took to the streets to protest the factories? poor safety standards.
Though no one was killed in the second fire, during both fires the main doors to the factories were reported to be padlocked, blocking easy escape.
The protests put a spotlight on the poor working conditions, lack of fire escapes, and garment owner negligence that has wracked the world's second-largest garment-exporting country, where firms produce clothing for high-profile brands including Gap, H&M, and Wal-Mart.
?Every time these incidents occur, the owners get away without making any change to their working conditions inside the factories,? says Sultan Uddin Ahmmed, assistant executive director of Bangladesh Institute of Labor Studies (BILS). ?These incidents will have to be treated as an offense in order to stop such occurrences.?
[QUIZ: How well do you know Asia?]
Bangladesh's garment industry employs 4 million people, 3 million of them women, at some 4,500 factories, says Siddiqur Rahman, acting president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA). And between 1990 and 2012, there have been at least major 33 fires in garment factories, claiming some 500 lives, according to BILS.
The 2006 Bangladesh Labor Law and the Factories Rules of 1979 would be strong laws if they were applied effectively, says Babul Akhter, president of the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers? Federation, a national trade union federation. Both legal frameworks stress the welfare of workers and settlement of disputes between workers and employers. To date, however, none of the factory fires have had a conclusive investigation, nor has anyone been found responsible.
The Factories Rules require specific provisions for escape in the event of an emergency for factory buildings housing explosive or highly flammable materials: "The means of escape shall include at least two separate and substantial stairways permanently constructed either inside or outside the building and which afford direct and unimpeded access to ground level."
Garment factories have had problems since the early 1990s, when the industry was developing. ?Unfortunately, the owners pay no heed to ensure the minimum safety standards inside the buildings,? says Mr. Selim.
That's because the rules are easy to get around, say observers.
Though international buyers often require factories meet the safety and requirements, often the auditors representing them are not well trained, says Selim, enticing owners to save money by only appearing to adhere to standards.
When the industry was just starting, there was a government push to expand, says an insider within the fire service. That push encouraged looking the other way when it came to safety inspections, at least temporarily. ?In the initial stage, for the expansion of industry, the fire service issued warehouse or workshop license to buildings, overlooking many compliance issues,? says the insider.
But the practice has continued even as Bangladesh's garment industry, which currently makes up some 80 percent of its export revenue, has boomed. The sector earned $19 billion in the financial year that ended in June 2012.
Many activists and workers blame the factory owners.
The gates are padlocked primarily for two reasons, says Mr. Akhter, ?so that workers do not leave the workplace or raw materials and goods do not get stolen.?
But he says that if cameras were installed and security guards present, they wouldn?t have to lock the doors.
?It comes as a moral responsibility for the owners to ensure the fire safety standards," he says. "Locking the exits at the stairways means that the owners prioritize their goods and raw materials over the lives of the workers,? he says.
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/deadly-bangladesh-garment-factory-fire-spotlights-poor-working-182611219.html
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