PT Scripting

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) –
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican Party's vice presidential candidate in 2008, said on Friday she will resign this month, an unexpected move that could signal a run for higher office.

Palin took no questions after a brief news conference in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, members of her state Cabinet by her side. She gave no indication of her future plans.

"I'm not seeking re-election" in 2010, Palin said, adding she would transfer authority to Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell on July 26.

"We are not retreating, we are advancing in a different direction," she said. "We know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in time."

Palin, Arizona Senator John McCain's surprise pick as his running-mate in the 2008 presidential race, rallied the party's conservative base but alienated others who believed she did not have the experience to be vice president.

She has been mentioned as one of the top three Republicans who could vie for the party's presidential nomination in 2012. Those mentioned most often include Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

"I plan on talking to Governor Palin very soon. She is an important and galvanizing voice in the Republican Party. I believe she will be very helpful to the party this year as we wage critical campaigns in Virginia and New Jersey," Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said in a statement.

Palin, 45, said she did not want to waste time on "political blood sport" and cited public criticism of her actions and her family since the 2008 campaign.

"You are naive if you don't see a full-court press right now on the national level picking apart a good point guard," Palin said, using a basketball analogy.

"She closed a chapter in Alaska politics on a very weird and bizarre note," former Alaska Governor Tony Knowles, a Democrat who served two terms, said in a telephone interview.

"Friends or foes alike would have never thought that she would be a quitter, but that's what she did today."

WHAT LIES AHEAD

The announcement at the beginning of a three-day holiday weekend, with little Washington news expected, gave Palin wide access to the airwaves and could make for a strong start at gaining public attention.

Republican strategist Sophia Nelson said in the online publication Huffington Post that Palin vowing to work for change "from outside government" was "code for 'I'm running for president.'"

Other analysts wondered if it was a smart political move.

Andrew Halcro, a Republican who ran against Palin in 2006, said he did not think resigning would help her chances.

"If she was trying to transition to the national stage, there was a much better way to do it," he said.

Princeton University professor Julian Zelizer said Palin's future in public life depends on the reason she stepped down.

"If there is any evidence that the decision was a result of political problems or looming scandals, she is done," he said.

"The Republican Party already feels to be in a moment of crisis," after losing the presidency and control of Congress to the Democrats. He noted that in 2008 "she revealed many weaknesses ... limited policy knowledge, association with fringe groups, weak performances on television and more."

Palin faced criticism and ridicule from Republicans and Democrats alike during the 2008 campaign after embarrassing television interviews that raised questions about her knowledge and experience.

During the campaign, the mother of five revealed her unmarried 18-year-old daughter, Bristol, was pregnant but planned to marry the baby's father. The couple split in March.

Palin was cleared of wrongdoing in an abuse-of-power probe into the firing of Alaska's public safety commissioner.

In May, Palin signed a book deal to tell her own story, for an undisclosed sum, with News Corp's HarperCollins.

Palin established herself as a party outsider by promoting a natural gas pipeline project opposed by Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski. She ran against the governor in 2006, defeated him in the primary, and then won the general election.

The project to ship abundant North Slope gas reserves to U.S. markets has been dimmed by the economic recession and a sharp dip in natural gas prices.

(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols in New York, Robert Campbell in Mexico, Andrea Shalal-Esa, Chris Wilson, Jeff Mason in Washington; writing by Doina Chiacu, editing by Jackie Frank and Todd Eastham)

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) –
A U.S. drone aircraft fired missiles on Friday into Pakistan's South Waziristan region, killing 10 militants, officials said, ahead of an expected Pakistani military offensive in the area.

A Pakistani military helicopter crashed in the northwest of the country, killing all 26 security personnel on board, officials said.

The helicopter came down because of a technical fault about 20 km (12 miles) from the city of Peshawar on the mountainous border of the Orakzai and Khyber ethnic Pashtun tribal regions, the official said.

The United States, facing a growing Afghan insurgency, began stepping up drone attacks on militant strongholds in lawless enclaves on the Pakistani side of the border a year ago despite Pakistani complaints.

Three missiles were fired at militant hideouts in an area near the Afghan border controlled by Pakistani Taliban leader and al Qaeda ally Baitullah Mehsud, killing 10 militants and wounding seven, two intelligence agency officials said.

"The missiles hit an office of Mufti Noor Wali, who was once in charge of training militants for suicide attacks," one of the officials said.

It was not known if Wali was among the dead, or if any foreign militants had been killed, they said.

The attack came as Pakistani troops stepped up pressure on Mehsud's strongholds, carrying out air strikes by jet fighters to soften up targets before an expected full-scale offensive.

The drone attack also came a day after thousands of U.S. Marines launched an offensive against the Afghan Taliban in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, and as British troops seized important canal crossings in support of that effort.

Helmand shares a 200-km (130-mile) desert border with the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan.

NEW FRONT?

Pakistan officially objects to the strikes by pilotless U.S. aircraft on its soil, saying they violate its sovereignty and undermine efforts to deal with militancy by inflaming public anger and bolstering support for the militants.

After an alarming expansion of militant influence and aggression in northwest Pakistan, the Pakistani army went on the offensive in the Swat region two months ago, a development U.S. officials have welcomed because of fears about Pakistan's stability and the safety of its nuclear arsenal.

The military says it is nearing the end of the offensive in Swat, a former tourist valley northwest of Islamabad, although soldiers are encountering pockets of fighters.

But no Taliban leaders have been among the approximately 1,600 militants the army has reported killed. Independent casualty estimates are not available.

The failure to kill or capture Taliban leaders in Swat has led to fears that they could make a comeback if and when the army withdraws.

Trouble is also brewing in another militant stronghold on the Afghan border, North Waziristan.

A militant faction allied with Mehsud ambushed an army convoy there on Sunday, killing 16 soldiers.

Analysts say the army is reluctant to open a new front in North Waziristan while it is finishes off in Swat and prepares for South Waziristan, but it would want to hit back in response to the killing of the 16 men.

Helicopter gunships have struck in the area this week and on Friday, jet fighters bombed militants to the west of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, killing five of them, residents and security officials said.

The military said on Friday afternoon its forces had killed 11 militants and captured 24 over the previous 24 hours in the Swat valley.

(Additional reporting by Augustine Anthony and Alamgir Bitani; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

MCKEES ROCKS, Pa. – References to television pitchman Bill Mays' trademark image were everywhere at his funeral Friday near Pittsburgh.
Most mourners wore stickers showing a cartoon image of his distinctive bearded face. The six pallbearers eschewed suits and instead wore bright blue button-down shirts like the ones Mays wore on TV. At the conclusion of the ceremony, they gave a "thumbs up," just as Mays did at the end of one of his commercials.
Mays, whose high-energy hawking turned products like OxiClean from infomercial curiosities into mainstream successes, was remembered as a pop culture icon who never forgot his hometown or spiritual roots.
"He sold more OxiClean than Andy Warhol sold Campbell's Soup," cousin Dean Panizzi said in eulogizing Mays and comparing him to the Pittsburgh-born pop artist who turned soup cans into works of art.
Panizzi's 20-minute eulogy evoked everything from memories of their childhood together — complete with a Christmas Eve remembrance of their parents ringing sleigh bells outside — to Mays' devout Christian faith. Panizzi recited various lines Mays made famous, including "Life's a pitch, and then you buy" and drew a standing ovation parroting Mays' signature introduction, "Hi, Billy Mays here."
Hundreds of mourners packed the black brick, gothic Catholic church in the suburb of McKees Rocks, where Mays was raised, to remember the popular pitchman. Mays developed his style demonstrating knives, mops and other "As Seen on TV" gadgets on Atlantic City's boardwalk and worked for years as a hired gun on the state fair and home show circuits, attracting crowds with his booming voice and genial manner.
Mays got his start on TV on the Home Shopping Network and then branched out into commercials and infomercials. He developed such a strong following that he became the subject of a reality TV series, Discovery Channel's "Pitchmen."
"Pitchmen" creator and executive producer Chris Wilson said the outsized personality that earned Mays a place in the pop culture lexicon was paired with an innate ability to reach viewers.
"Billy had an amazing way of just making you believe that everything he said was true," Wilson said Friday. "He didn't sell you, he told you."
The likable personality Mays presented on TV viewers existed in real life, too, Wilson said.
"As great as a pitch man Billy was, he was an even better man and an even better individual," he said.
Outside the funeral, a company owned by fellow "Pitchmen" star Anthony Sullivan handed out the shiny stickers bearing a caricature of Mays' face.
Mays hawked everything from the Wash-matik, a device for pumping water from a bucket to wash cars, to Orange Glo, an environmentally friendly cleaner. Sporting a jet-black beard and coupling high-energy demonstrations with booming pitches, Mays always seemed ready to jump off the screen.
Joanne Barthurst's son graduated from high school with Mays and she watched the funeral procession from her porch across the street. She said Mays' strong ties to his hometown are what made him great. He remained Everyman, even though he was one of the most visible people in the country.
"Watching him on TV and everything like that, his infomercials and stuff, even though he wasn't around you still felt like you had some ties because he was a McKees Rocks boy," she said.
Mays is believed to have died of a heart attack in his sleep June 28 at his home in Tampa, Fla., but further tests are needed to be sure of the cause of death.

NAWA, Afghanistan — U.S. Marines pushed deeper into Taliban areas of southern Afghanistan on Friday, seeking to cut insurgent supply lines and win over local elders on the second day of the biggest U.S. military operation here since the American-led invasion of 2001.
On the other side of the border, U.S. missiles struck a Pakistani Taliban militant training center and communications center, killing 17 people and wounding nearly 30, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
Both U.S. operations were aimed at what President Barack Obama considers as the biggest dangers in the region: a resurgent Taliban-led insurgency allied with al-Qaida that threatens both nuclear-armed Pakistan and the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan.
The 4,000-strong U.S. force met little resistance Friday as troops fanned out into villages in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, although one Marine was killed and several others were wounded the day before, U.S. officials said.
Despite minimal contact, the Marines could see militants using flashlights late Thursday to signal one another about American troop movements.
Military spokesman Capt. Bill Pelletier said the goal of the Helmand operation was not simply to kill Taliban fighters but to win over the local population — a difficult task in a region where foreigners are viewed with suspicion.
Marines also hope to cut the routes used by militants to funnel weapons, ammunition and fighters from Pakistan to the Taliban, which mounted an increasingly violent insurgency since its hard-line Islamist government was toppled in 2001 by an international coalition.
The new U.S. operation will test the Obama administration's new strategy of holding territory to let the Afghan government establish a presence in rural areas where Taliban influence is strong.
As Operation Khanjar, or "Strike of the Sword," entered its second day, Marines took control of the district centers of Nawa and Garmser, and negotiated entry into Khan Neshin, the capital of Rig district, Pelletier said.
In Nawa, Marines met with about 20 Afghan men and boys, seeking to reassure them that the Americans wanted to protect them from the Taliban.
"Are you going to enter our houses?" asked Mohammad Nabi, 25, who was there with five of his younger brothers. "We are afraid that you will leave, and the Taliban will come back."
They also complained that local police were thieves not to be trusted.
Marine officers promised not to enter homes and said they would remain in the area to keep out the Taliban.
One elder with a gray beard asked the Marines whether they would prevent residents from saying Muslim prayers. The troops assured him they would not.
In one village near Nawa, however, the atmosphere was tense.
"When we asked if they had a village elder or mullah for the American commander to talk to, the answer was no," said Capt. Drew Schoenmaker, a Marine company commander. "It's fear of reprisal. Fear and intimidation is one thing the enemy does very well."
Taking territory from the Taliban has always proved easier than holding it. The challenge is especially great in Helmand because it is a center of Afghanistan's thriving opium production, and drug profits feed both the insurgency and corrupt government officials.
On Wednesday, a British lieutenant colonel was killed in an explosion in Helmand. Lt. Col. Rupert Thorneloe, commander of the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, was the highest-ranking British officer killed in Afghanistan.

A Canadian soldier, 30-year-old Cpl. Nicholas Bulger, was killed Friday in Kandahar province after his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device, the Canadian military said. Five other soldiers were hurt.

The missile attacks in Pakistan on Friday occurred about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) east of Helmand in the rugged South Waziristan region, according to two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

The area is a Taliban stronghold close to the Afghan border where Pakistani troops are gearing up for a major offensive.

Two missiles struck an abandoned seminary in the village of Mantoi used as a training base by militants from Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud's group, the officials said. In the other strike, one missile hit an insurgent communications center in the nearby village of Kokat Khel, they said.

In total, 17 people were killed and 27 others were wounded, they said.

However, Maulvi Noor Syed, an aide to Mehsud, told The Associated Press that only three Taliban fighters died in the strikes.

Also Friday, U.S. troops continued looking for an American soldier believed captured by insurgents, Navy Chief Petty Officer Brian Naranjo said. The soldier and three Afghans with him went missing on Tuesday in the eastern Paktika province

There was no immediate public claim of responsibility from any insurgent group. Much of the area is controlled by the Taliban faction led by Sirajuddin Haqqani, whom the U.S. has accused of masterminding beheadings and suicide bombings including the July 2008 attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul that killed some 60 people.

Also Friday, Russia announced that it will allow the U.S. to ship weapons across its territory to Afghanistan, providing Washington an alternative route to supply its forces in the landlocked country.

Up until now, Russia has allowed the U.S. to ship non-lethal supplies across its territory for operations in Afghanistan, and Kremlin officials had suggested further cooperation was likely.

__

Straziuso reported from Nawa, Brummitt from Islamabad, Pakistan. Associated Press reporters Fisnik Abrashi, Amir Shah and Noor Khan also contributed to this report from Kabul.

Clothing (also called clothes, accoutrements, accouterments, or habiliments) protects the human body from extreme weather and other features of the environment. It is worn for safety, comfort, modesty and to reflect religious, cultural and social meaning.

People also decorate their bodies with makeup or cosmetics, scented perfume, and other ornamentation; they also cut, dye, and arrange the hair on their heads, faces, and bodies (see hairstyle), and sometimes also mark their skin (by tattoos, scarifications, and piercings). All these decorations contribute to the overall effect and message of clothing, but do not constitute clothing.

Women's Workoutwear

Dark Circles Under Eyes

Natural skin care has its roots in the 4th millennium BC in China and the Middle East. It is believed that the Egyptians developed many natural skin care treatments for a variety of skin conditions. One such treatment consists of bullock's bile, whipped ostrich eggs, olive oil, dough and resin mixed with milk. In the modern age many people with unique skin types and needs (sensitive skin, dry skin, oily skin) have turned to natural skin care solutions.

Pitta skin type tends to be fair, sensitive, soft, warm, and of medium thickness. less tolerance to hot food, less tolerance to fieriness in temperament. Pitta skin types tend to be more prone to freckles and moles than the other skin types.

WASHINGTON – New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney has decided to challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in the state's Democratic primary, setting the stage for a potentially costly and contentious fight that other congressional Democrats have avoided.
The nine-term congresswoman believes New Yorkers need a "strong, experienced and independent leader," according to a statement Wednesday by Paul Blank, director of Trippi & Associates, hired by Maloney to serve as a chief strategist.
Blank said Maloney is putting together a campaign team and will make her announcement in two weeks.
Gillibrand, 42, was appointed by New York Gov. David Paterson to fill the vacancy created by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's appointment as secretary of state. She was appointed after Caroline Kennedy abruptly withdrew from consideration.
Gillibrand then was a little-known congresswoman from upstate New York, first elected to the House in 2006. The appointment caused resentment among others who considered her views on guns and immigration not liberal enough.
Since then, two potential contenders — Reps. Steve Israel and Carolyn McCarthy — have opted out.
Maloney, 61, who represents Manhattan's Upper East Side, declined to do so, even after a phone call from Vice President Joe Biden. President Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has also expressed White House support for Gillibrand.
A Marist Poll released Wednesday showed Maloney and Gillibrand in a statistical tie among registered Democrats.
In response to Maloney's decision, Gillibrand's campaign issued a statement saying she is "entirely focused on her job representing New Yorkers in the U.S. Senate and is working closely with President Obama to fix the economy, create jobs and reform our broken health care system."
On the Republican side, former New York Gov. George Pataki and Rep. Pete King are possible contenders for the seat.
The story was first reported by the New York Daily News.
_____
On the Net:
Rep. Carolyn Maloney: http://www.carolynmaloney.com/
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand: http://kirstengillibrand.com/

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)

In computer terminology, a 'home' is a starting view that branches off into other tasks, e.g. a homepage or a desktop. Many such home pages on the internet start with introductory information, recent news or events, and links to subpages.

Since it can be said that humans are generally creatures of habit, the state of a person's home has been known to physiologically influence their behavior, emotions, and overall mental health.[citation needed]

Growth Charts

LOS ANGELES – Rafael Furcal had a pinch hit RBI single in the eighth inning Wednesday, helping the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Colorado Rockies 1-0 in the final game of Manny Ramirez's 50-game suspension for violating Major League Baseball's drug policy.
The Dodgers were 29-21 during Ramirez's absence. The 12-time All-Star, who needs three home runs to tie Mickey Mantle for 15th place on the career list at 536, will return to the lineup Friday night for the start of a three-game series at San Diego.
Brad Ausmus led off the eighth with a single against Rockies starter Jason Hammel (5-4) and advanced on Juan Castro's sacrifice. Russell Martin ran for Ausmus and scored when Furcal stroked a single to right field on the right-hander's 100th pitch while batting for reliever Ramon Troncoso (2-0).
Troncoso pitched a scoreless eighth inning for the win and Jonathan Broxton pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for his 19th save in 20 attempts.
The defending NL West champions got off to a 21-8 start and had were on a seven-game winning streak with a 6 1/2-game lead in the division when Ramirez was suspended on May 7 for using a banned substance.
The Dodgers lost four of their next five, then went on a 12-3 run and increased their division lead to a season-best 9 1/2 games with a 1-0 win against Arizona on June 3 at Los Angeles. They've leveled off since then, going 13-11, But they still entered Wednesday with a six-game lead over San Francisco.
Clayton Kershaw allowed just one hit over five innings and threw 97 pitches. Kershaw struck out five and issues a season-high five walks — the ninth time in 16 starts this season that he's given up at least four bases on balls. In his last 12 outings, however, his ERA is only 2.29.
Casey Blake pinch hit for Kershaw in the bottom of the fifth with runners at the corners, but struck out after James Loney doubled with one out for the Dodgers' first hit and was held at third by coach Larry Bowa on Ausmus' line-drive single to center fielder Dexter Fowler.
Brad Hawpe's two-out double in the first inning was Colorado's only hit until Ian Stewart doubled with two outs in the seventh against Ronald Belisario. Paul Phillips was intentionally walked to bring up Hammel, whose bid for a tiebreaking RBI double was caught by right fielder Andre Ethier at the edge of the warning track in right-center after a long run.
Hammel pitched a career-high eight innings for his first complete game in the majors. It came in his 41st big league start and first against the Dodgers. He allowed five hits and struck out five.
Juan Pierre, who has started every game in left field during Manny's absence, will return to being a part-time player despite hitting .318 with 21 RBIs, 31 runs scored, 15 walks and 21 stolen bases. Pierre caught the last out Wednesday.
NOTES: San Diego's starting pitchers this weekend against the Dodgers will be Chad Gaudin, Josh Geer and Josh Banks. Ramirez is 5 for 11 with a home run against Gaudin, and 2 for 3 with a homer against Geer. He has never faced Banks in the regular season. ... Dodgers pitchers struck out 39 Colorado batters during the three games. ... The Rockies have played more road games than any team in the majors (46). ... Hammel made two previous relief appearances against the Dodgers. ... The Dodgers are 10-2 against Colorado and have clinched the season series with six games remaining. It's the third time in four seasons that they've beaten the Rockies at least 10 times, and they're 41-26 against them since the start of 2006.

Designer Perfume

During the Renaissance period, perfumes were used primarily by royalty and the wealthy to mask body odors resulting from the sanitary practices of the day. Partly due to this patronage, the western perfumery industry was created. By the 18th century, aromatic plants were being grown in the Grasse region of France to provide the growing perfume industry with raw materials. Even today, France remains the centre of the European perfume design and trade.

The Fragrance wheel is a relatively new classification method that is widely used in retail and in the fragrance industry. The method was created in 1983 by Michael Edwards, a consultant in the perfume industry, who designed his own scheme of fragrance classification.The new scheme was created in order to simplify fragrance classification and naming scheme, as well as to show the relationships between each of the individual classes.

Frank Lombard is a Duke University health official, a licensed social worker, a white, college-educated, legal father of two African-American boys, and according to federal authorities, a pedophile.

He allegedly abused his adopted son personally and then offered him on the Internet for abuse by others. "Perv dad for fun" was his online moniker.

Nobody could have guessed. Nobody but him is responsible, right?

I want to believe that. Really, I do.

But adoptions are government acts. What did his fellow social workers who approved this adoption know? What did they overlook? What questions didn't they ask because, well, he was "in the club" -- one of them?

Adoption is the way we strip a child of his or her natural protection -- his mom and dad -- and the government steps in to give this baby a new and better father or mother. Preferably both, I say. But I'm old-fashioned.

I have a bias in favor of mothers. I have a suspicion (let me be frank -- I'm not proud, but it's true) of men who want to get close to children while depriving them of mothers. Yes, let me be politically incorrect: On the whole I would prefer two mothers to none at all for a child.

How do children do who are raised by only fathers? Not that well, actually -- on average, I hasten to add.

Maybe gender doesn't matter at all. But maybe it does. Are we allowed to ask? To wonder?

Yes, I know, women fail babies too. But I would be happier if children were not deliberately deprived of mothers by other adults in their lives.

That's part of why much of the Michael Jackson post-death celebration has left me cold, especially the part where people close to Michael tell the press what a wonderful father he was. "I am heartbroken for his children, who I know were everything to him," Jackson's first wife, Lisa Marie Presley, blogged and other media reports echoed.

Maybe it is true. How would I know?

But the one thing I know for sure about Michael Jackson is this: He did not want any mothers involved in the lives of his children. He married Debbie Rowe, bred her like a sow, took two children away -- at first with her consent -- and claimed them all for his own. Later on a third baby appeared and was dangled over a balcony. Nobody seems to know where that baby came from, and nobody seems to think it's anyone else's business how a man accused of pedophilia acquires a child.

Michael Jackson deliberately deprived his children of a mother because a mom didn't fit in with his agenda.

But we let him do it. We crafted the laws he took advantage of to help adults who do not want to make babies the old-fashioned way get what they want.

I'm old-fashioned. Biased, even, but I already admitted that. I think fathers are immensely important to children -- unless and until the fathers indicate they do not want a mother in their child's life. Then I revert to an old-fashioned, even primitive, instinct: Babies ought to have mothers.

Will anyone run this column? Are we allowed to ask the question, "How in the world did this happen?" Could it be that the social work profession, committed to gay rights and family diversity, did not look very hard at Frank Lombard -- did not look beyond class and race and orientation to see if anything was amiss?

I do not know what went wrong in this instance. I do know that we should not let fear of homophobia prevent us from at least acknowledging the facts and asking questions.

A poor, black, orphaned baby was given to a rich, white, educated man who is accused of sexually abusing him.

Is there anything we could have done differently? Is there anything we ought to do to save the next orphaned child?

(Maggie Gallagher is president of the National Organization for Marriage and has been a syndicated columnist for 14 years.)

A reconstruction of sea ice reveals the lowest levels in 800 years, according to new research published in the journal Climate Dynamics.

Researchers modeled sea ice levels between Greenland and Svalbard, an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean north of Europe, from the 13th century to present using data from a natural climate "archive" and from historic human records.

"We have combined information about the climate found in ice cores from an ice cap on Svalbard and from the annual growth rings of trees in Finland and this gave us a curve of the past climate," Aslak Grinsted said in a press release. Grinsted is a geophysicist with the Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. "We see that the sea ice is shrinking to a level which has not been seen in more than 800 years."

The scientists also combed through harbor records and logbooks of ships that traveled the area to record human observation of sea ice levels. Then they pieced together a picture of how much sea ice has existed through this time period.

Sea ice melting and re-freezing is a complicated process that is influenced by a number of factors such as wind patterns, ocean currents, and how much ice has frozen or melted in recent years. The authors did not point to any causes for the changes in sea ice levels in their study.

The scientists noted that even though the 13th century was a relatively warm period and ice levels were low then, 20th century sea ice levels are still the lowest. The "Little Ice Age," from 1700 to 1800 had the greatest cover of sea ice, according to their data.

Other studies have found that Arctic ice is getting thinner over time, so that when the normal summer melt occurs, the entire polar cap is retreating compared to decades past. Last year, this melting opened up the fabled Northwest Passage, as a substantial amount of older ice melted. Climate scientists say the North Pole could be ice-free during summer within a few decades.

Grinsted said there have been instances of sudden changes throughout time, such as when sea ice shrank by 115 square miles (300 square kilometers), about the size of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, from 1910 to 1920.

Video - Global Melt: Sea Ice Seen From Orbit
North vs. South Poles: 10 Wild Differences
Video - How Ice Melts

Original Story: Sea Ice Lowest in 800 YearsLiveScience.com chronicles the daily advances and innovations made in science and technology. We take on the misconceptions that often pop up around scientific discoveries and deliver short, provocative explanations with a certain wit and style. Check out our science videos, Trivia & Quizzes and Top 10s. Join our community to debate hot-button issues like stem cells, climate change and evolution. You can also sign up for free newsletters, register for RSS feeds and get cool gadgets at the LiveScience Store.

Butler Furniture

Furniture in fashion has been a part of the human experience since the development of non-nomadic cultures. Evidence of furniture survives from the Neolithic Period and later in antiquity in the form of paintings, such as the wall Murals discovered at Pompeii; sculpture, and examples have been excavated in Egypt and found in tombs in Ghiordes, in modern day Turkey.

The first three-quarters of the twentieth century are often seen as the march towards Modernism. Art Deco, De Stijl, Bauhaus, Wiener Werkstätte, and Vienna Secession designers all worked to some degree within the Modernist idiom. Postmodern design, intersecting the Pop art movement, gained steam in the 1960s and 70s, promoted in the 80s by groups such as the Italy-based Memphis movement. Transitional furniture is intended to fill a place between Traditional and Modern tastes.

ISTANBUL (AFP) –
A court in Istanbul ordered Wednesday the release of a jailed colonel at the centre of tensions between Turkey's Islamist-rooted government and the secularist military, a media report said.

Colonel Dursun Cicek had been arrested overnight and subjected to lengthy questioning by a prosecutor investigating a purported secularist network that allegedly plotted a military coup against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the Anatolia news agency said.

The court ruled that Cicek could remain free while awaiting trial.

Cicek was the officer whose signature appeared on a purported document, leaked recently to the media, which outlined a series of actions to discredit the AKP and an influential religious community.

The general staff rejected the document as a forgery and decried what it called a "growing and organised" smear campaign against the army.

Media reports suggested Cicek's arrest may not be related to the document but to the broader investigation into the alleged anti-AKP plot, which has been under way since June 2007.

Several retired generals and acting officers as well as journalists, academics, politicians and underworld figures are among the dozens of suspects to have been detained in the investigation.

Prosecutors say the suspects aimed to plunge Turkey into political chaos and pave the way for a coup to topple the AKP, which opponents accuse of seeking to undermine Turkey's secular system.

The probe, initially hailed as a success, came under mounting criticism after prosecutors began targeting intellectuals and civic groups.

Critics accuse the government of using the investigation as an instrument to bully and silence opponents.

Tensions between the military, seen as the guardian of Turkey's secular system, and the government rose further last week after the AKP rushed through parliament a bill curbing the powers of military courts in a pre-dawn session, without any prior public debate.

The opposition argues that the bill, which the AKP defends as a move to meet EU-sought democracy norms, was designed to influence the probe into the alleged anti-AKP plot by limiting the role of military prosecutors.

Several suspects have said they never possessed the documents implicating them in the plot, accusing the government-controlled police of fabricating evidence.

Cicek's arrest came shortly after a lengthy meeting between senior government members and top military commanders to discuss the tensions.

The English word hound is a cognate of German Hund, Dutch hond, common Scandinavian hund, Icelandic hundur which, though referring to a specific breed group in English, means "dog" in general in the other Germanic languages. Hound itself is derived from the Proto-Indo-European *kwon-, which is the direct root of the Greek κυων (kuōn) and the indirect root of the Latin canis through the variant form *kani-.

Molecular systematics indicate that the domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris) descends from one or more populations of wild wolves (Canis lupus). As reflected in the nomenclature, dogs are descended from the wolf and are able to interbreed with wolves.

Dog Supplies

It took the story of one firefighter to expose the tension between fairness and affirmative action.

The nation's four most prominent liberal justices ignored that tension Monday. By consequence, the liberal justices decided that equal outcome should trump equal opportunity, when the two values compete. And in that decision, supported by a chorus of liberal analysts, American liberalism continued decades of thinking that places diversity, not fairness, as its first principle.

In Depth: 7 Firsts in Supreme Court History

In Depth: America's 10 Freest and Least Free States

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that white and Hispanic firefighters were unfairly discriminated against when the city of New Haven discarded a promotional exam because no blacks, or not enough minorities in the city’s view, earned a sufficient score to be promoted.

The ruling concludes one of the most widely debated discrimination cases of the past decade. Much of that attention is based on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's involvement in the case. Sotomayor, as an appellate judge, upheld the initial decision siding with New Haven.

In the end, the Court's conservative majority prevailed in yet another 5 to 4 vote. But it's the minority's dissent--a view supported by the Obama administration in its brief submitted to the Court--which stirs up liberalism's ongoing avoidance of affirmative action's "real-world" negative consequences.

The Court's united liberal view on affirmative action carries heightened resonance today. Democrats hope President Obama marks the beginning of an enduring political majority. A primary aim of either party, when seeking sustained dominance, is to shift the Court to their side. Had today's Court been left leaning, liberals should be troubled to know, it would have almost certainly upheld a policy that denied a promotion based on the color of those promoted.

The Ricci case gets to the core of the American ideal of "the pursuit of happiness" as an "inalienable right." This right was most egregiously denied to blacks through slavery. It was not until the 1960s that the nation finally confronted and outlawed discriminatory practices. Affirmative action was instituted to correct past inequality.

Nearly a half-century later, liberalism faces new questions. In the time of the first black president, when white men's unemployment rate increases at twice the rate of black women in this recession, liberal thought has remained hinged to an earlier era.

Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination based on disparate treatment or disparate impact. In 1960s and 1970s America the tension between the two principles was mitigated by the need to right history.

The liberal opinion, written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on behalf of all four left-leaning justices, argued Monday that the "purpose" of Title VII's disparate-impact provision "is to ensure that individuals are hired and promoted based on qualifications manifestly necessary" and "do not screen out members of any race."

The liberal justices refused to reckon with instances when the desire for "manifestly necessary" skills creates an unequal racial outcome, as was the case in New Haven.

The conservative majority addressed this tension Monday. It decided New Haven's actions amounted to disparate treatment, what the rest of us call overt discrimination.

An Illiberal Argument

Liberals now find themselves bunkered down beneath illiberal logic. Conventional affirmative action supporters effectively back discrimination for the sake of diversity. The driving role that class and culture play in endemic inequality is ignored. Affirmative action has become an entitlement supported despite consequence or context.

Whites overwhelmingly support a move toward class-based affirmative action that would still disproportionately aid minorities. But liberals remain seemingly vested in defending affirmative action as it was conceived, in a time far different than today.

The liberal opinion on the Ricci case upheld the city's effort to find any means to hold fast to conventional affirmative action. The city, after extended deliberation, decided that it was legal to discard the test results if no one was promoted.

Ginsburg echoed earlier decisions when she wrote that the city policy was "race-neutral in this sense" because "‘[A]ll the test results were discarded, no one was promoted, and firefighters of every race will have [the opportunity] to participate in another selection process to be considered for promotion.'"

The liberal argument feels like the cold legal judgment opposed by Barack Obama, in his criteria for nominating new liberal justices.

"She understands that upholding the rule of law means going beyond legal theory to ensure consistent, fair, common-sense application of the law to real-world facts," the White House wrote when Sotomayor was nominated.

Consider the well known details of the case's lead plaintiff, Frank Ricci. He gave up a second job and spent a third to half of his days studying over a period of months. He paid an acquaintance more than $1,000 to read textbooks onto audiotapes to overcome his dyslexia. He passed the test. Earned the promotion. But he was denied that promotion because diversity took precedent over qualification.

As I wrote in an earlier article on Ricci and concepts of "white male privilege," Ricci personifies the negative impact of so-called "positive discrimination." It's precisely this impact that liberalism must confront. The liberal argument ignored issues of harm, the loss of time or additional income suffered by Ricci and his fellow plaintiffs.

Ginsburg wrote that the majority opinion ignores firefighters' "long history of rank discrimination against African-Americans." It's an important consideration. But Ginsburg ignored the decades of distance from that history.

The liberal opinion goes on to write of the city's "unlikely" desire to exclude white firefighters from promotion because "a fair test"--fair, in this sense, meaning equal outcome--"would undoubtedly result in the addition of white firefighters to the officer ranks."

This line of argument would have us believe that a "fair" system would promote some white applicants who passed the test while denying other white applicants who also passed. Ginsburg argues that the deliberate denial of some white men’s hard-won promotion because of their race is preferable to an inadvertent result in which no members of a minority group passed. This logic may be based on precedent. But it does a disservice to the brave fight for equality that liberals championed for decades.

The Ginsburg argument places disparate impact above disparate treatment. It argues, at best, that subtle discrimination is preferable over its more overt form. This is the inverse of our common hierarchy of justice. Common sense dictates that intentional harm is worse than accidental.

The test was created by a company specializing in employment exams and met legal requirements, such as a review by independent experts. But the liberal argument ignored the quality of the test and focused on the result. This logic is again based on civil rights era precedent and again faulty. It defines quality by demographic outcome. It consequently attempts to uphold the outdated use of quotas in that earlier era.

The city claimed that it trashed the test only because it was afraid of being sued for discrimination by the minority applicants. But practical consequences also matter in law, as Obama has said.

Liberals continue to argue today that affirmative action is the result of employers impeding the progress of minorities. But the Ricci case captures how affirmative action improves the position of minorities often by impeding the progress of whites. And it's the most vulnerable whites who often pay the price of affirmative action, those men who lost blue-collar jobs and know nothing of privilege.

Mistaking Cure for Disease

Sotomayor has commendably acknowledged that affirmative action played a critical role in her admittance to Ivy League universities. And to be sure, diversity has its practical benefits. One needs Spanish speaking social workers or black police officers patrolling black neighborhoods. Whites can be ill served by a homogenous education. But when diversity is emphasized solely for its own sake, the cure becomes the cause rather than the true cause--curing the disease of discrimination.

It has been suggested that New Haven could have certified the test results and found "alternative ways to deal with these issues in the future." Does this mean that every test that does not achieve the desired demographic result should be tossed out?

At some point, in some cases, the liberal argument places diversity above the skill level of a workforce. It is exactly this thinking that contributes to the decades of distance between Democrats and working and middle class whites.

For Sotomayor in particular, her role in the Ricci case is hardly radical. She upheld precedent. So-called "judicial activism" is not a tool exclusive to the right or left. Sotomayor's view on affirmative action was in the mainstream of liberal thought. But on this policy, liberal thought is not in the mainstream.

A Quinnipiac University poll recently detailed the Ricci case and found that seven in ten Americans, including 53 percent of blacks, believed the Court should compel "the city to promote" the firefighters even if no blacks "scored high enough to qualify."

Blacks overwhelmingly support affirmative action. But when given a specific example of the negative side of the policy, even a majority of blacks changed their mind.

Yet the liberal justices hid from these moral issues. The minority opinion sought to stay within the safe confines of precedent. It focused on defending the city's effort to avoid a civil rights lawsuit. The deeper issues that liberal justices ache to confront on other occasions, questions of fairness and equality, went ignored.

Imagine the opposite of the Ricci case. A test is tossed out because not enough whites earned a promotion and too many blacks did. Would liberals support the city's action then?

"We are not unsympathetic to the plaintiffs' expression of frustration," Sotomayor and her fellow appellate justices wrote last year. The Supreme Court liberal justices wrote in their opinion that the firefighters denied a promotion "understandably attract this Court's sympathy."

Sympathy is exhibited not in words but actions. The liberal justices sought sanctuary in the legalese of the case. They argued for the continued use of unequal actions to attain an equal outcome and thereby undercut the roots of liberalism, the right to equal opportunity. Those who once fought for equality, and stood on the shoulders of that fight, are reduced to justifying inequality to combat inequality. In this era of Obama, it's the measure of what remains unchanged that is sometimes most striking.

In Depth: 7 Firsts in Supreme Court History

In Depth: America's 10 Freest and Least Free States

In Depth: 8 Things Americans Believe in 2009

BOGOTA – The regime that ousted Manuel Zelaya in Honduras claimed Tuesday that the deposed president allowed tons of cocaine to be flown into the Central American country on its way to the United States.
"Every night, three or four Venezuelan-registered planes land without the permission of appropriate authorities and bring thousands of pounds ... and packages of money that are the fruit of drug trafficking," its foreign minister, Enrique Ortez, told CNN en Espanol.
"We have proof of all of this. Neighboring governments have it. The DEA has it," he added.
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Rusty Payne in Washington said he could neither confirm nor deny a DEA investigation.
Zelaya was traveling from New York to Washington and could not immediately be reached to respond to the allegations.
Honduras and other Central American nations have become major transshipment points in recent years for Colombian cocaine, particularly as Mexico's government cracks down on cartels.
The drugs arrive in Honduras on non-commercial aircraft from Venezuela and increasingly in speedboats from Colombia, according to the Key West, Florida-based Joint Interagency Task Force-South, which coordinates drug interdiction in region.
In its most recent report on the illicit narcotics trade, the U.S. State Department said in February of Honduras that "official corruption continues to be an impediment to effective law enforcement and there are press reports of drug trafficking and associated criminal activity among current and former government and military officials."
The report did not name names.
Drug-related violence appears to be up in Honduras.
Homicides surged 25 percent from some 4,400 in 2007 to more than 7,000 in 2008 while more than 1,600 people were killed execution-style, suggesting drug gang involvement, according to the Central American Violence Observatory.
In October, Zelaya proposed legalizing drug use as a way of reducing the violence, and doubling the country's police force, which reached 13,500 last year, up from 7,000 in 2005, according to the State Department report.

The word perfume used today derives from the Latin "per fumum", meaning through smoke. Perfumery, or the art of making perfumes, began in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt but was developed and further refined by the Romans and Persians. Although perfume and perfumery also existed in East Asia, much of its fragrances are incense based.

The Arabian chemist, Al-Kindi (Alkindus), wrote in the 9th century a book on perfumes which he named ‘Book of the Chemistry of Perfume and Distillations’. It contained more than hundred recipes for fragrant oils, salves, aromatic waters and substitutes or imitations of costly drugs. The book also described one hundred and seven methods and recipes for perfume-making, and even the perfume making equipment, like the alembic, still bears its Arabic name.

here

WIMBLEDON, England – Her 19th consecutive victory at the All England Club already wrapped up, Venus Williams grabbed a seat and watched younger sister Serena win easily to reach the semifinals, too.
Afterward, Venus and Mom, Oracene Price, strolled out of Centre Court arm-in-arm, chatting and laughing.
Sure is fun to be a Williams at Wimbledon.
Five-time champion Venus beat No. 11-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland 6-1, 6-2, before two-time champion Serena defeated No. 8 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus 6-2, 6-3, a pair of overwhelming performances Tuesday that moved the siblings closer to another all-in-the-family final at Wimbledon.
"They are both playing super-well. They're playing 'The Williams Way,'" their father, Richard Williams, said. "And when you're playing 'The Williams Way,' it's very difficult for anyone to touch you."
Particularly at the grass-court Grand Slam tournament, where a Williams has won seven of the past nine championships.
If No. 3 Venus gets by No. 1 Dinara Safina of Russia in Thursday's semifinals, and No. 2 Serena eliminates No. 4 Elena Dementieva of Russia, the siblings would meet Saturday in their second consecutive final at the All England Club and fourth overall.
It also would be the eighth all-Williams Grand Slam championship match; Serena leads 5-2.
"I would love it to be a Williams final," Venus said, "and so would she."
They are competitors, of course, but also form a team in many ways: The sisters are sharing a house during this tournament, practice with each other and have reached the women's doubles quarterfinals together.
"We've got it all figured out at this point," Venus said.
She is trying to become the first woman since Steffi Graf in 1991-93 to win three consecutive Wimbledon titles; Serena wants to add to the trophies she earned in 2002-03 by beating her sister in the finals.
At least one person has no doubt there will be a rematch Saturday.
"It will be. I'll go home because I can't watch," their dad said. "I think they both definitely make it to the final."
First things first. If the 19-year-old Azarenka and 20-year-old Radwanska represented up-and-coming opponents with little experience on the sport's grandest stages — neither has reached a Grand Slam semifinal — Safina and Dementieva are far more accustomed to playing significant matches.
On the other hand, they're not nearly as accustomed to winning them as the Williams sisters are, of course: Serena owns 10 major titles, Venus seven; Safina and Dementieva have zero.
Safina, who lost in the final at three of the previous five Grand Slam events, overcame 15 double-faults and wore down 41st-ranked Sabine Lisicki of Germany 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-1. Dementieva, twice a runner-up at major championships and a singles gold medalist at last year's Beijing Olympics, was never challenged by 43rd-ranked Francesca Schiavone of Italy and won their quarterfinal 6-2, 6-2.
Asked about her double-fault total, Safina replied with a smile: "15? I thought it was much more. Sometimes even I don't know what I'm doing with my serve."

As the younger sister of former No. 1 Marat Safin, who lost in the first round at what he vows was his last Wimbledon, Safina knows about sibling success. But after losing the French Open final a few weeks ago, she acknowledged cracking under the pressure of trying to win her first major.

Looking ahead to facing Venus, against whom she is 1-2, Safina said, "I cannot go on court thinking I lost already. No, definitely, I think I have a chance there."

Dementieva also sounded a brave tone, despite accumulating more unforced errors (18) than winners (13).

"I just want to see how tough I can be out there against her," said Dementieva, who lost to Venus in last year's Wimbledon semifinals and now takes on Serena. "Just looking for some good fight."

Radwanska and Azarenka failed to make things difficult for the Williams sisters, who were at their dominant best.

"Not perfect," Price said, "but pretty close." Radwanska was playing in her third Grand Slam quarterfinal, 27 fewer than Venus, and while she upset Maria Sharapova at the 2007 U.S. Open, a stunner of that magnitude never seemed a possibility Tuesday. Venus won the first five games and the last six, compiling a 29-6 edge in winners.

Pounding aces at up to 122 mph, Venus won 16 of 18 points on her serve in the first set on a steamy day, the temperature about 90 degrees and not a cloud overhead at Court 1.

"Her tennis is so powerful," Radwanska said. "Very hard to do anything."

It took all of 68 minutes, leaving Venus ample time to shower, change, do postmatch interviews and still make it into the guest box for Serena's match.

Azarenka hits the ball quite hard herself, letting out a grunt that sounds something like "Whoop!", but she couldn't keep up. She even felt compelled to clap after a couple of Serena's best strokes.

"She really showed the unbeatable Serena," Azarenka acknowledged.

Azarenka did break for a 3-2 lead in the second set, but Serena didn't let her win another game. When Serena smacked one last forehand winner, she jogged to the net, pumping her fists. Up in the stands, Venus stood and applauded.

"We definitely upped our level of game today," said Serena, who hit nine aces. "We had really tough opponents, so we had to."

On Thursday, two more opponents will try to slow a pair of sisters who began playing tennis twenty-something years ago in Compton, Calif., and have made the most famous grass courts in the world their personal playground.

One particular family will be hoping for an all-Williams final. One nation will be pulling for an all-Russian final.

Dementieva proposed a unique alternative, asking: "Can we play just two finals instead?"

___

AP freelance writer Sandra Harwitt contributed to this report.

When a new skin is being put on a drum, this whole pulling process is preceded by soaking a skin in water until it is very pliable. That wet skin is placed on the drum with the ring system while the rope verticals gently pull the rings down a bit. Then it's left to dry completely before the vigorous pulling and twisting described above happens.

Intermediate and advanced players usually join workshops with many students (sometimes up to 15) and learn new phrases and rhythms from master drummers. Literature for these two levels of drummers is still scarce if not unavailable.

Djembe

WASHINGTON – U.S. troops are out of Iraq's cities but not its future.
Even a best-case scenario is likely to feature an American role there for years — militarily as well as diplomatically.
That does not mean a permanent large U.S. troop presence in Iraq. Under a security deal struck with the Bush administration, American forces are to be out by the end of 2011.
But it's no secret that Iraq's security forces are not fully ready to handle even a diminished insurgency on their own.
Some senior U.S. military officers say privately they anticipate Iraqi setbacks in coming months, particularly if the insurgents regroup. But by partnering with American forces, the Iraqis stand a good chance of succeeding. That is why a number of U.S. troops will remain in the cities to assist and advise.
But most were gone Tuesday as Iraqis marked National Sovereignty Day with military parades and marching bands in Baghdad. In a sobering reminder the violence was not over, a car bombing in a crowded food market in the northern city of Kirkuk killed at least 27 people.
It's not possible to know how long Iraq will need American help, but it could be well beyond President Barack Obama's current term. Much will depend on the pace of progress toward Iraqi political reconciliation. That is because the success of the Iraqi security forces depends as much, if not more, on their willingness to operate in a nonsectarian, evenhanded way as on their technical competence.
Diplomatically, the U.S. role will be less visible but still crucial. Even with declining levels of violence since 2007, progress toward political reconciliation among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds has been minimal.
Obama made clear Tuesday that while he expects violence to persist, the final outcome is an Iraqi responsibility.
"Iraq's future is in the hands of its own people," he said at the White House. "And Iraq's leaders must now make some hard choices necessary to resolve key political questions" and to provide security.
There are still about 131,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. They won't be fighting in urban areas any more, unless the Iraqi government asks for their help. Instead they will focus on securing Iraq's borders, keeping insurgents on the run in rural areas and conducting training with Iraqi security forces.
Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Tuesday he was hopeful, in part because Iraqis have embraced the U.S. urban withdrawal as a confidence booster.
"They're not ready for us to go yet, but they are ready for us to allow them to attempt to exercise their security responsibilities, and to me that's very encouraging," Odierno said.
Even in the most optimistic of circumstances in which Iraq muddles through its political and ethnic problems — and keeps chipping away at the insurgency — it will still need U.S. support. And the Obama administration has said it wants to build a long-term relationship with a key Arab state in a volatile region.
But if today's relative peace in Iraq unravels within the coming year, Obama will face tough choices, including whether to push back his announced timeline for ending the U.S. combat role in the country by September 2010.
Obama could not reinsert U.S. combat forces in Iraqi cities without Iraqi government permission, under terms of the security deal negotiated by the Bush administration last year. And he could not change the 2011 deadline for removing all U.S. troops from Iraq without renegotiating that deal.
Nor might he want to, even with the prospect of Iraq spinning into a new cycle of sectarian warfare. Obama came into office promising to end U.S. involvement in the war, arguing that Iraq's remaining problems are primarily of a political nature and cannot be solved by continued U.S. military force.
And more recently, Obama announced that his administration was refocusing on what he considers a bigger problem — increasing instability in Afghanistan and a growing insurgency in neighboring Pakistan. In that context, U.S. troop reductions in Iraq are a one-way ticket; once out, they are unlikely to return.

Qubad Talabani, son of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and the Washington representative of the semiautonomous Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq, believes that if security deteriorates in coming months and hot-button political issues are not settled, the 2011 deadline should be renegotiated.

"Regardless of whether things go well or things deteriorate, there is going to be a strong connection between the United States and Iraq," Talabani said in an interview Tuesday. "The nature of that relationship will depend on whether things improve or deteriorate. The U.S. has invested too much in this effort just to walk away."

What would Obama do if Iraq reverted to major violence?

Stephen Biddle, an Iraq watcher at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in a recent analysis that a full-scale civil war could mean a civilian death toll in the range of 600,000 to more than two million.

"Given its role in precipitating the war in Iraq, the United States would bear special responsibility for such a catastrophe," Biddle wrote. He added that if the conflict spread beyond Iraq's borders it would risk a disruption of world oil markets and might derail prospects for successful Israel-Palestinian peace talks.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Robert Burns has covered national security and military affairs for the AP since 1990.

LOS ANGELES – The lawyer for Michael Jackson's family says a will for the late pop star has been presented and is to be filed in court.
Attorney L. Londell McMillan says his clients are now aware of the will, and the late singer's advisers are looking for additional documents.
A court filing is expected.
The existence of a will, and the likely appointment of an executor, could complicate a petition by Jackson's mother Katherine to become the administrator of his estate.
In documents filed in Superior Court, Jackson's parents say they believes their 50-year-old son died without a valid will.

HOUSTON (Reuters) –
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Texas financier Allen Stanford, accused of a $7 billion fraud, held without bail until trial.

U.S. prosecutors had argued that Stanford, who faces life in prison if convicted on all charges contained in a 21-count indictment, had the means and motive to flee.

"In total, the evidence proffered by the government is sufficient to weigh in favor of detention," U.S. District Judge David Hittner said in an order that revokes a $500,000 bond that a magistrate had granted Stanford on Thursday.

"We are very disappointed and we are going to appeal to the 5th Circuit," Dick DeGuerin, Stanford's lawyer said in a statement.

Stanford, who is more accustomed to jetting around the globe in his private planes, has been in custody since his arrest on June 18 in Virginia. He is currently being held in a federal detention center in a facility 40 miles north of Houston.

The government accuses the billionaire of leading a massive Ponzi scheme using the investor funds from certificates of deposit issued by his bank in Antigua.

Stanford sought to avoid detection by creating false accounting records, lying to investors and bribing a regulatory official in Antigua, according to prosecutors.

The case, filed in federal court in Houston, is United States of America v. Robert Allen Stanford H-09-342.

(Additional reporting by Bruce Nichols and Erwin Seba in Houston; editing by Carol Bishopric)

ISLAMABAD – A decision by Taliban militants to withdraw from a peace deal in a tribal region close to the Afghan border threatens to open a new front for the Pakistan army as it battles the insurgents in two other areas.
Militants close to the border are behind a spate of bombings that are destabilizing nuclear-armed Pakistan. They are also blamed for attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan, where violence is running at record levels eight years after the U.S.-led invasion.
The disintegration of the truce in North Waziristan was the latest failure of a government pact with local Taliban leaders. The agreements have been criticized abroad because they effectively cede space to the insurgents.
The current government offensive in the Swat Valley — which began after a peace deal there fell apart — and an artillery and air campaign in South Waziristan have been praised by the United States, which has been trying since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to get Islamabad to take military action against Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in the border region.
Militants in North Waziristan announced Monday that they had pulled out of a peace deal with the government dating back to early 2008, citing attacks by the army and missile strikes by the United States. The move followed a weekend ambush by insurgents on an army convoy in the region that killed at least 16 soldiers, among them three officers.
Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas vowed Tuesday to avenge the attack.
"There is now a new situation in North Waziristan," he said. "Lets see how we are going to handle this," he said, declining to elaborate.
The border region is a lawless, mountainous region where the central government has little control.
Pakistan began its offensive in the Swat Valley region in late May after militants there advanced on the capital, violating the terms of the peace deal. The military claims to have killed more than 1,000 fighters and has retaken much of the district, but most of the some 2 million people who fled the fighting have yet to return.
This month, the army began bombing targets in South Waziristan, saying it was softening up the region for an offensive targeting Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of Pakistan's major Taliban faction who has been blamed for many of the county's most deadly suicide attacks in recent years.
The scrapping of the accord to the north adds to the difficulties facing the army.
"The group they are trying to neutralize has become bigger, as has the area they will need to contain them," said Shahzad Chaudhry, the former deputy head of the Pakistani air force and a security analyst. "The attempt was to try and reduce the size of the opposing forces, but now it seems the army have a bigger problem at hand. It will have to be a long-haul fight now."
Details of the peace deal had not been made public, but it had appeared to cause a reduction in attacks on Pakistani military targets in North Waziristan compared to other parts of the border region. But U.S. and NATO commanders in Afghanistan said the region was being used by fighters there as a safe haven.
Since August, the United States has fired more than 40 missiles at suspected militant targets in the tribal regions in a sign of its frustration with Islamabad. The strikes have killed many militants but have also served as a rallying cry for the insurgents.
A spokesman for North Waziristan Taliban leader Hafiz Gul Bahadur cited those attacks when pulling out of the deal.
"This accord is being scrapped because of Pakistan's failure to stop the American drone attacks in North and South Waziristan," Ahmadullah Ahmadi told The Associated Press. "Since the army is attacking us in North and South Waziristan, we will also attack them."
The offensives against the militants have been broadly welcomed by most Pakistanis, but this support could waver as the campaign drags on. Pakistan has more than 100,000 troops in the region, but most are poorly trained for counterinsurgency.
The army offensive in the tribal region suffered another blow last week when gunmen assassinated Qari Zainuddin, a militant leader in South Waziristan who opposed Mehsud and was seen as close to the government. A Mehsud aide allegedly carried out the slaying.

The News, a leading English-language newspaper, said in an editorial that Sunday's ambush and the scrapping of the accord showed the tough fight ahead in the Waziristans, where the militants have had years to dig in and prepare their defenses.

"This is going to be no sweeping up of a few raggle-taggle remnants," it said. "This is going to be a hard-fought bitter battle against a force no less able, and perhaps better equipped, than our own."

Also Tuesday, a car bomb struck trucks taking supplies to Western troops in Afghanistan, killing four people in Pakistan's southwest, police said. No one claimed responsibility for the explosion in Baluchistan province, but militants have frequently targeted supply trucks for U.S. and NATO troops that travel through Pakistani territory.

___

Associated Press Writer Abdul Sattar contributed to this report from Quetta.

CHICAGO – A bone growth agent used in thousands of spinal fusion surgeries for neck pain has been linked to complications and higher cost, according to the first nationwide study of the product. Safety questions arose last year about the protein product, BMP, when used in fusion surgeries in the neck region, a use not approved by federal regulators.
"Some of these complications are life-threatening because the neck is such a sensitive area," said lead author Dr. Kevin Cahill of Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. The study appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Smaller studies have shown BMP promotes better healing of the bone and fewer repeat surgeries to fix failed spinal fusions. The product also makes it unnecessary to surgically harvest the patient's own bone from the shin or hip for a graft.
However, the powerful protein can make bone grow in unwanted places if it's incorrectly used. There are no official guidelines for its use.
Surgeons have rapidly adopted BMP since the Food and Drug Administration approved it in 2002 for back surgeries. Doctors used it in 17,623 spinal fusions in 2006, nearly 1 in 4 cases, the researchers found.
"It's a new product and use is taking off right now," Cahill said.
Last year, the FDA warned doctors about 38 reports of complications when the treatment was used in the neck region of the spine. For unknown reasons, some patients had swelling after surgery, and that caused problems with breathing and swallowing.
BMP is produced by two companies, Minneapolis-based Medtronic and Kalamazoo, Mich.-based Stryker.
Medtronic spokeswoman Marybeth Thorsgaard said that company added a label warning about neck complications in 2005. She said the company has a study under way that may help address how the product could be safely used in the neck region.
In an e-mailed statement, Stryker said doctors should use its BMP product only for approved uses, which do not include spinal fusions in the neck.
Spinal fusion is one option for people with back and neck pain, although some researchers have questioned how well it works.
In a spinal fusion, a surgeon removes the shock-absorbing disc between two vertebrae and replaces it with the patient's own bone, BMP or another product. Ideally, new bone grows and fuses the vertebrae into one piece, stabilizing the spine.
Medtronic's BMP is in a liquid solution, which is implanted on a collagen sponge in a titanium cage. Stryker's product has the consistency of wet sand.
For the new study, researchers looked at records of more than 325,000 spinal fusions from 2002 to 2006. When BMP was used in the front of the neck region of the spine, there were complications in 7 percent of patients before they left the hospital, a 50 percent higher rate compared to when the product wasn't used.
Elsewhere in the spine, however, BMP led to no more complications than other spinal fusion treatments.
In all spinal fusions, average hospital charges were higher when BMP was used, compared to when it wasn't. Without BMP, fusion surgeries in the neck region cost about $31,000; with BMP, the cost is roughly $46,000. The product itself costs between $3,600 and $5,200.
The study looked only at problems right after surgery, and didn't include repeat surgeries as complications.
"This paper doesn't address one of the biggest issues: Does BMP in fact improve fusion rates?" said neurosurgeon Dr. Allan Levi of University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine, who wasn't involved in the new study but has written about BMP.

Without large studies on fusion rates, surgeons should "think twice before using it, in recognition of the complications and costs," Levi said. "We have a product that probably works, but is very expensive."

The study was funded by the Brain Science Foundation.

___

On the Net:

JAMA: http://jama.ama-assn.org

MINSK, Belarus – U.S. lawyer imprisoned in Belarus on attempted espionage charge walks free after pardon.

ELIZABETHTON, Tenn. – A boy was arrested over the weekend on charges of stealing from an ambulance while paramedics were treating his mother. The Johnson City Press reported the boy, who was not named because he is a juvenile, was charged with stealing $5,000 in medical supplies. That includes an oxygen tank and an oxygen sensor machine.
He is also accused of stealing a purse belonging to one of the rescue workers and of breaking into a car several hours earlier and stealing credit cards, a cellular phone and a PlayStation portable video game.
The boy was taken to the Juvenile Detention Center in Johnson City.
___
Information from: Johnson City Press, http://www.johnsoncitypress.com

Some wallets, particularly in Europe (where larger denominated coins are more prevalent) contain a coin purse compartment. Some wallets have built-in clasps or bands to keep them closed. As European bills (pounds, euros) are larger than American bills in one dimension, they don't fit in some smaller American wallets.

Most major designers including Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Armani offer seasonal and perennial wallet collections of black and brown leather wallets. In the UK, wallets are made by Mulberry, Radley, Paul Smith, Ted Baker, Burberry, Billabong and Aspinal of London. In the US, designers include Guess, Perry Ellis, Kenneth Cole and Fossil.

https://www.roguewallet.com/RFIDShieldedWallet.html

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 center 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)