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Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2009/s09030006.htm Monday, March 2, 2009 Staying young and active all your life By Bill Ellis Special to ASSIST News Service SCOTT DEPOT, WV (ANS) -- A man, I know, had a birthday one-month after Christmas. His son who called from a distant city to wish him a Happy 79th Birthday said, “Dad if anybody asks you how old you are tell them, ‘I’m just barely in my seventies.’ They do not need to know which end of the seventies you are in. Not many people want to get older and yet very few...

SAN FRANCISCO - Former Hewlett-Packard Co. Chief Executive Carly Fiorina has been diagnosed with breast cancer, a top aide said Tuesday. Fiorina was diagnosed with the disease Feb. 20 and underwent surgery Monday at Stanford Hospital, her chief of staff, Deborah Bowker, told The Associated Press. Bowker said the surgery was successful and Fiorina has an "excellent" prognosis for a full recovery. The San Francisco Chronicle earlier reported Fiorina's condition. Fiorina is a Republican who served as an adviser to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign and has been considered a possible candidate for elected office. She has not announced any...

While his father hosted U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Sharm el-Sheikh resort on the tip of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula earlier this week, Gamal Mubarak quietly slipped into Washington for a "private visit," multiple sources have told Foreign Policy. The younger Mubarak, who is widely thought by Egypt hands to be positioning himself to succeed his father, prefers to keep a low profile on his trips to the United States. In comments paraphrased by Al-Masry al-Youm, an independent daily newspaper in Cairo, Gamal said he would "participate in seminars on the global financial crisis and its impact on...

The South Korean won on Tuesday rebounded from the weakest level in 11 years, helped by suspected intervention by the foreign exchange authorities. The won has lost about 18 per cent of its value against the dollar this year to become the worst-performing major currency in Asia amid growing concerns about the country’s debt-financing ability. The Korean currency fell as much as 1.5 per cent on Tuesday morning as the stock market fell below the 1,000 mark. But it rebounded 1.2 per cent to close at 1,552.40 per dollar, ending a three-day losing streak. Traders say Won1,600 appears to be...

Jens Clausen is at the Institute of Ethics and History in Medicine, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany. Email: jens.clausen@uni-tuebingen.de Top of page Abstract Brain-implantable devices have a promising future. Key safety issues must be resolved, but the ethics of this new technology present few totally new challenges, says Jens Clausen. D. PUDLES We are so surrounded by gadgetry that it is sometimes hard to tell where devices end and people begin. From computers and scanners to multifarious mobile devices, an increasing number of humans spend much of their conscious lives interacting with the world through electronics, the only barrier between brain...

U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and Statewide offices 27 days until Tuesday 31 March - New York House CD 20 Special Election 34 days until Tuesday 7 April - Illinois House CD 5 Special Election · Wisconsin Spring Election Tuesday 3 March 2009 Illinois House CD 5 Special Party Primary to fill U.S. House Seat vacated by the 2 January 2009 resignation of Congressman Rahm Emanuel to become President Barack Obama's Chief of Staff. The candidates receiving the most votes in each party will participate in a Tuesday 7 April 2009 Special election. Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley has won the...

Democrats will continue Wednesday to portray Rush Limbaugh as the spokesman for the Republican Party by launching a Web page that mocks GOP leaders for apologizing to the radio host for criticizing or publicly disagreeing with him. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is hosting the page — www.imsorryrush.com – which allows visitors to create an apology to Limbaugh on behalf of Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Georgia; South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford; or Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. "You and I both know that in reality, you simply want President Obama to fail in this time of economic collapse," reads the...

An Israeli citizen suspected of being a prospective Hezbollah spy was indicted yesterday on charges of contact with a foreign agent. Ismail Saleiman, a 27-year-old man from the Jezreel Valley town of Hajajra, is suspected of being in contact with a Hezbollah operative and planning to spy on Israel for the terror group. Police and the Shin Bet security service arrested him February 5, but the incident was placed under gag order until yesterday, when Saleiman was indicted in the Nazareth District Court. Saleiman's lawyer, Smadar Ben-Natan, said yesterday her client never had any intention of causing damage to Israel's...

Reporting from Chicago -- A man who stabbed his first wife to death in 1985 shot and killed his second wife and her son Saturday with a replica Civil War gun, then killed himself a day later after leaving a 40-page note saying he wouldn't go back to jail, police said Tuesday. . . . The mother and son each had been shot once in the head, police said. Wiley stabbed his 25-year-old wife, Ruth, to death in 1985, and was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison two years later. He was paroled in 2000. . . ....

To the Tune of "War Pigs" Pinkos gathered in their masses not a one has paid his taxes Evil plots redistribution Sorcerers of foul taxation Salt marsh field mouse liberation No time to read their machination Class war and hate tommorrow Sowing fields of marxist sorrow, oh lord yeah! Politicians throw our laws away What's the Constitution for? Think they're better than the right Dante's journey for the poor Time will tell on their leftist minds Spend our cash just for fun Treat themselves to endless rubber checks Wait till they're thrown out on their bums, yeah! Now in darkness,...

By the middle of 2008, for example, American households had build up debt of $13.9 trillion, more than double what it was a decade before. Businesses had accumulated debt of $10.9 trillion, also doubling in a decade. And financial institutions had piled up debt of $16.6 trillion, up from $6.3 trillion in 1998. And the federal government? During that same period -- drum roll -- its debt rose from $3.8 trillion to $5.3 trillion. The thing to remember is that debt is debt, no matter where it is, and unless it's paid back, all of it will get passed on...

Make no mistake: President Obama’s $75bn housing plan is a policy disaster. It merely treats the symptoms of the calamity in an extremely costly manner via short-term interest rate relief and remarkably does nothing to prevent the next generation of borrowers experiencing the same problems. The administration’s response also exacerbates the underlying dysfunction that is the root cause of the US’s housing market woes by, for example, offering defaulting borrowers scope to wriggle out of their contracts through the judicial system. This will only undermine the enforceability of US mortgages and embed a new risk premium that will inevitably lead...

As a Presidential candidate, Barack Obama called a nuclear Iran "a grave threat" and insisted "the world must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon." But he also called for direct, high-level talks in the hopes that the mullahs could be persuaded to abandon their nuclear dreams. We've never held out much hope for those talks, which would inevitably be complicated and protracted. Now it turns out that the rate at which Iran's nuclear programs are advancing may render even negotiations moot. That's one conclusion to be drawn from the latest report by the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency. Among...

Government health care advocates used to sing the praises of Britain's National Health Service (NHS). That's until its poor delivery of health care services became known. A recent study by David Green and Laura Casper, "Delay, Denial and Dilution," written for the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs, concludes that the NHS health care services are just about the worst in the developed world. The head of the World Health Organization calculated that Britain has as many as 25,000 unnecessary cancer deaths a year because of under-provision of care. Twelve percent of specialists surveyed admitted refusing kidney dialysis to patients suffering...

CAR carriers are the ugly sisters of the high seas. Even their owners would admit that, with their high freeboard, they are not beautiful. But they are very functional, designed for a specific purpose — to transport automobiles and trucks. When Japanese motor manufacturers decided to go global some 30 years ago, they needed a different type of ship to transport vehicles in large volumes. Until relatively recently, this was a fairly simple business, with two main trade lanes, from Japan to the US, and Japan to Europe. Since then it has become far more complicated. Like other sectors, it...

The third plaintiff, currently serving in Iraq allowed me to provide his name: Alan Craig James, from Stedman NC, Active Duty Staff Sargeant. He did three tours of duty as Prime Power Production Specialist. His military ID card is on file in my office. Please send him e-mails, cards and presents. My assistants will forward everything to Scott Easterling and Alan James. Due to the fact that the group of plaintiffs is large, I have an opportunity to divide this group of plaintiffs into smaller groups and file in different jurisdictions, different causes of action, which gives me a higher...

To all those scared to death about the tumbling stock market, President Obama played financial adviser yesterday, offering the age-old counsel: Buy low and sell high. The president, in a departure from usual form, directly addressed the swoon in the stock market. The benchmark Dow Jones industrial fell nearly 300 points Monday to the lowest level in 12 years - and more than 50 percent off its all-time high in October 2007 - and finished down about 37 more points yesterday.Obama waved off the ups and downs in the market, comparing them to tracking polls that his campaign often ignored...

The White House says President Barack Obama has begun consulting his top defense advisers on how to lift a ban on gays serving openly in the military. But the administration won't say how soon that might happen or whether a group of experts will be commissioned to study the issue in-depth, as some Democrats have suggested. The move enables Obama to say he's making good on his campaign promise to reverse the law, but doesn't lock him into doing so anytime soon. The carefully calculated statement, released this week by White House spokesman Tommy Vietor, leaves enough wiggle room to...

Lawmakers say the government needs a $410 billion package to cover all non-defense government spending until the end of September. But included therein are $7.7 billion worth of earmarks. Some highlights of the earmark list include some broad categories: Feeling green The bill being considered in the Senate has hundreds of millions of dollars in green projects aimed at improving the environment and saving energy. The money would be distributed across the country in hundreds of initiatives, from a $142,725 line item for plug-in cars in Las Vegas, to $3.8 million for a renewable energy development venture in Hawaii. Democrats...

I've seen several posts and complaints about YouTube censoring people via comment-thrashing or video-pulling... I took it with a grain of salt until it happened to me, not the first reply to this guy which shows up, but the second which never did: mihaidobrota (3 days ago) I don't know to many things about Obama, but I definitely know he can not be worst then fucking Bush.... BUCK FUSH, FOR DESTROYING THE US! OneWingedShark (3 days ago) Question: what basis do you have for saying that about Pr Bush? He did not tolerate the evil he saw in terrorism and...