James 4:7-11

11. Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it.  12. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?

One of the reasons for companies to become cash-strapped is due to the expensive business travel by the owner. I have repeated this many times, some entrepreneurs who have just started their company behave as a CEO or president of a multi-national company. They get all this expensive travel gadgets and spend money on expensive hotels, restaurents and flights. These guys won’t last for long. They admire the luxurious business lifestyle. But to get there, they fail to realize that the fundemental is to reduce cost. Budget flights and hotels, public transport, cheap takeaways, nearby cities and a simple low-cost laptop is all a cash-strapped business traveler needs. In fact, tele-conferences and video-conferences are worth investing in rather that spending your money traveling.

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“Not in the malls is a fabulous on-line marketplace featuring creative independent individuals and small companies, who design, create, source and sell unique, gorgeous  products. ” Quote Krista and Michelle, the founders. They cater to customers who visits hotel fairs, online portals and exhibitions to hunt for gems and bargain buys that are not available in the malls. The vendors are a pool of passionate artistes and designers who started out on their own and hope to grow them into something big eventually. Since they do not have physical shops, once you missed them at the fairs, its hard to locate them and so, now you can find them in “NOT IN THE MALLS“.

There is no better time than now to log on to their website and check out some Christmas gifts. Something unique, fun, useful or just for Christmas…go check it out now. KOOSHI will be listed as one of their merchants and some of our products are also not available in our shops. Look out for KOOSHI DEALS!

By Selena Watkins, 365gay.com
12.01.2009 8:54am EST

[Yesterday was] the 21st anniversary of World AIDS Day, the international day that reflects on the global health epidemic . There are 33 million people infected with the virus worldwide, including 2.31 million in India alone.

According to the World AIDS Campaign, new figures have been released by the World Health Organization and UNAIDS estimating that the number of new HIV infections have declined each year by about 17% from 2001 to 2008, but for every five people infected, only two start treatment.
Here is a look at 11 news stories on HIV/AIDS that have been significant in 2009.

1. The first doctor to report on AIDS dies in his home

In July, Dr. Joel Weisman, the private physician who co-authored the first AIDS report in 1981, died at 66.

In 1980, Weisman tended to three gay patients with a collection of symptoms that soon became known as signposts for AIDS. Weisman referred the three men to Dr. Martin Gottlieb, a University of California – Los Angeles immunologist.

Weisman and Gottlieb wrote a brief based on their findings published in a June 1981 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and it became the first report on AIDS in medical literature.

Weisman was ill for several months with heart disease before he died in his Los Angeles home with his partner, Bill Hutton, by his side.

2. HIV travel ban ends

On Oct. 30, President Barack Obama signed an extension of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS bill. The legislation provides care, treatment and support services to half a million people infected with the virus, most of whom are low-income.

The Department of Health and Human Services also implemented a new regulation to end the HIV Travel and Immigration Ban.

Obama said, “We often speak as if AIDS is going on somewhere else. Often overlooked is that we face a serious HIV/AIDS epidemic of our own.”

There are over one million people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States; more than 56,000 cases are added each year. For 22 years, the U.S. had one of the strictest policies on the immigration and travel of HIV-positive people, banning them from the country.

Obama hopes lifting of the ban will help end the stigma attached to HIV/AIDS.

The regulation goes into effect in January.

3. AIDS is top killer of young women around the world

A study released in November by the World Health Organization showed that HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death in women ages 15 to 44. Of the 30.8 million HIV-positive adults in 2007, 15.5 million were women.

WHO identified unprotected sex as the highest factor for 1 in 5 deaths within the demographic. WHO also reported that lack of access to contraceptives puts young women at higher risk.

“Women who do not know how to protect themselves from such infections, or who are unable to do so, face increased risks of death or illness,” said WHO in their 91-page report.

The report showed that “Young women are particularly vulnerable to HIV infection, due to a combination of biological factors, lack of access to information and services, and social norms and values that undermine their ability to protect themselves.”

4. AIDS rates rise in the nation’s capital

In March, Health officials released a report revealing that at least 3 percent of residents in the Washington, D.C. area are living with HIV/AIDS.

Almost 1 in 10 of those residents between ages 40 and 49 are living with HIV; and black men have the highest infection rate at almost 7 percent.

The findings in the 2008 epidemiology report by the D.C. HIV/AIDS Administration point to the severe epidemic that’s impacting every race and sex across the population and neighborhoods.

The report said that the number of cases increased drastically by 22 percent and the number one mode of transmission is men having sex with men. The second mode of transmission noted is by heterosexual drug users.

5. New strain of HIV discovered

European scientists discovered a new strain of HIV linked to gorillas.

This may be the first time scientists have documented transmission of a simian immunodeficiency virus from gorillas to humans. All other known strains of HIV have been linked to chimpanzees.

One explanation for the new virus’s emergence and transmission is the human’s slaughtering of apes and eating of their meat.

The virus strain was identified in 2004 when a 62-year-old arrived in Paris from Cameroon, West Africa. Scientists reported that the woman had lost weight and had been ill with fever a number of times in 2003.

The report, published in August, presumed that she had been infected through sex. The woman told doctors that she had sexual partners since her husband’s death in 1984, but she didn’t know if they were infected.

6. AIDS advocate Martin Delany dies at 63

In January, Martin Delaney, a prominent advocate for AIDS, died in San Rafael, Calif.

The cause was liver cancer, said Dana Van Gorder, executive director of Project Inform, an AIDS advocacy organization based in San Francisco that Mr. Delaney helped found in 1985.

When several of his friends became infected and died, Delaney was drawn to the AIDS movement. However, he was never diagnosed with the HIV virus himself.

Delany challenged the government and drug companies to expedite access to experimental treatments. By the early 1990s, Delaney was a leader in his efforts to push the Food and Drug Administration to approve promising drugs more speedily.

From 1991 to 1995 he was a member of the AIDS Research Advisory Committee.

The Director of the institute, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, said in a statement, “Millions of people are now receiving life-saving antiretroviral medications from a treatment pipeline that Marty Delaney played a key role in opening and expanding.”

Delany was 63.

7. $100 million for AIDS Vaccine Research

A businessman pledged $100 million to Massachusetts General Hospital to create an institute that will search for vaccines for AIDS and other infectious diseases.

Phillip Ragon, 59, is the founder and sole owner of InterSystems Corp., a Cambridge company that provides database software to hospitals and other industries. His donation will create an institute in his name that will bring scientists, clinicians and engineers together from Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Massachusetts General to fight infectious diseases and cancers.

The Phillip T. and Susan M. Ragon Institute will mainly work towards finding an effective vaccine against AIDS.

According to hospital officials, the $100 million pledge is the largest donation in the hospital’s history.

8. HIV in the porn industry

22 actors in adult sex movies contracted HIV since 2004, according to Los Angeles Health officials.

The officials accused the pornography industry’s health clinic of failing to cooperate with state investigations and of failing to protect industry workers and their sexual partners.

In June, an actress who works in Southern California’s porn industry tested positive for HIV.

A timeline shows that the actress tested negative for HIV on April 29, but that a positive test result was confirmed on June 4. The woman then performed in a film on June 5 for undisclosed reasons and a second test came back positive on June 6.

The actor who performed with the infected woman on June 5 tested negative for the virus, but HIV infections have months-long incubation periods.

Health advocates have pressed for legislation requiring condom use in sex scenes.

According to Steven Hirsch, chief executive of Vivid Entertainment, condoms are optional among actors. “Performers have the right to choose to use or not use condoms,” said Hirsch. “They’re adults; they know what industry they’re in.”

9. HIV rates rise drastically among Asian men

The WHO reported that the AIDS virus is spreading rapidly among Asian men. Asia is believed to have the world’s largest number of men who have sex with other men, with an estimate of 10 million.

There is very low usage of condoms among younger men in male to male relationships and local authorities have not successfully educated the youth about the disease and prevention, said health officials.

“Younger men engaging in sex with men are entering into a sexual arena without the same level of awareness and without taking the same level of protection that the older generation was taking,” said Massimo Ghidinelli, the World Health Organization’s regional adviser on HIV/AIDS.

Ghidinelli also warned that the epidemic will worsen drastically unless there is better education and politics to fight the spread of the disease.

10. South Africa stops funding AIDS research

South Africa stopped funding research for the AIDS vaccine according to a leading scientist.

Anna-Lise Williamson, an AIDS researcher at the University of Cape Town, told The Associated Press that the clinical vaccine trial on humans would continue on its way with U.S. funding but that South Africa’s Department of Science and Technology would stopped funding her research.

Even though South Africa’s science minister appeared with Williamson at a ceremony to launch the vaccine trial, he did not immediately return calls regarding the termination of his funding.

“For vaccine development presently, the South African AIDS Vaccine initiative has no money,” Williamson said. “If we do not continue working on this, we will never have a vaccine… it’s incredibly important that we keep working.”

Around 5.2 million South Africans were living with HIV last year – the highest number of any country in the world. Young women were hit the hardest, with one-third of those aged 20-to-34 infected with the virus.

11. Court rules in favor of Chicago drug maker

A federal appeals court rejected a lawsuit that accused Chicago drug maker, Abbott Laboratories, of antitrust violations over a sudden 400-percent price hike of a popular AIDS drug.

The company was sued in 2004 by advocacy groups and drug benefit providers. They said that Abbott raised the price of the HIV-fighting Norvir to defeat competition and boost sales of Kaletra, its own alternative to Norvir.

Abbott paid $10 million to settle the lawsuit and agreed to let the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determine if the price hike was illegal.

The court ruled in Abbott’s favor Tuesday. If it had lost, Abbott would have had to pay an additional $17.5 million.

More Stories
AIDS
HIV
World AIDS Day

What gives you happiness?:-Becoming rich? Having power or authority? Being healthy? Being the envy of others? Spending time with loved ones? Actually I feel there is no one answer. You also don’t need to feel shy to admit that cash makes you happy. However, cash alone can’t make you happy. You need various avenues of input to give you happiness. Cash is only one source of input. Thus you must realize that in pursuit of cash, you should not neglect other aspects of your life. Life needs variety and balance. An entrepreneur who understands this will do well in both life and business.

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Romans 2:7-11

7. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 9. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10. but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11. For God does not show favoritism.

Ohhhhh - I can’t look: please, someone tell me what happened when Marty proposed to the City Council that they relax that ordnance that says that firewood must be stacked a whopping 18 inches above the ground. I know he had a lot of good reasons why this ordnance was, uh, shall we say a little misdirected, but after hearing about the other decisions the City Council has made I am not optimistic that they somehow found their senses during the cold and rain last night and did the right and sensible thing.To jog your memory – here’s what Marty was going to attempt last night:

 Remove the requirement from City Ordinance Section 56-81 (j) that firewood be stored and stacked 18 inches above the ground” to be discussed and acted upon at the December 1, FB City Council Meeting. Should you have an opinion on this matter, please attend this City Council meeting and have your voice heard.

For those unfamiliar with this Ordinance, it states: “(j) Accumulations of firewood, lumber, boxes and other materials. Any lumber, boxes, barrels, bricks, stones or any other character of materials which may be used as a harborage by rats, rodents or other vermin, or in which evidence of rats, rodents or other vermin is found, shall be placed on open racks and elevated not less than 18 inches above the ground, with a clear intervening space underneath”. At the Council meeting, I will attempt to convince the Council that this requirement is an ineffective deterrent, is impractical, and lacks common sense. I will be requesting that the following sentence be added to the end of the above Ordinance statement: “Firewood may be stacked and stored on a concrete slab or on a solid wood floor separating it from direct ground contact”. 

An Approved Farmers Branch Firewood Rack

Please, will someone please fill in the blank for me:

The Farmers Branch City Council Voted Unanimously to (                    )   the requirement from City Ordinance Section 56-81 (j) that firewood be stored and stacked 18 inches above the ground. 

More on this later. 

This year many festive sales around the world took a beating due to the recession. However, the feedback about these festive sales are not all gloom. I live in Singapore which is a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic city. Apart from christmas, we celebrate Chinese New Year, Hari Raya( new year festival for the muslims) and Deepavali( or Diwali which is a major festival for the hindus). It seems overall sales were down when compared to the previous years for these festive seasons. Customers were more wary about spending as they had a lower budget. But significant sales were made at the last minute especially on the eve of the festivals. Customers were looking for bargains and they expected it at the very last minute. At the last minute, some got into the holiday mood as they were tired of all this recession blues. So they let their hair down to party and was willing to spend on good bargains. Ultimately, the spirit of the festivals prevailed over any recession mindset. I think this christmas is also not going to be too different from the above scenario. Expect last minute shopping by customers. So prepare your business for this last minute christmas chaos. Appeal to the spirit of christmas and win customers over emotionally.

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What is gossip?

Why do people gossip?

Have you gotten in trouble because of talking?

Have you gotten hurt because of others talking about you?

“A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid a man who talks too much.”
-(NIV) Proverbs 20:19

What does it mean to talk too much?

2009/12/01

-Ezra

First, all of my NCTE posts are done! I just need to tidy them up and remember to push “publish!” So have no fear…They will be streaming into your RSS feeds very soon However, this post actually starts my NCTE journey with a thought that I had when asked how my first year of teaching was going so far…Let me explain.

I have a confession to make (as I sigh heavily with disappointment): I haven’t fully utilized my class nings in all the ways I hoped and all the ways they should be. I think it’s a good thing I am acknowledging this point though, and a good thing that I have a new goal to set for myself. To be honest, I don’t know why I haven’t. I could say time or maybe lack of really knowing everything a ning does as I’ve been learning and navigating as I go along myself. My first introduction to a ning was with the ECN, almost a year ago exactly  (in fact, happy 1-year anniversary, ECN!). Then when I started my full-time student teaching in the spring, I decided when I had my own classroom (emphasis on “own” because I was lucky to even use that evil “t” word <technology> at all during my placement) that I wanted to incorporate a ning (and I discussed my initial ideas here).

So, I did. Students jumped on board. We blogged. We posted our work. We commented/collaborated. The nings rocked. But there is so much more! (And I see more and more checking out all of the awesome nings out there teachers are using in their classrooms, too.) In my idea book (which as you all know was one of my goals to use more awhile back), I have so many things down to try out with my nings, and I just haven’t. I think I’m disappointed in myself for not pushing myself more.

And with this in mind, I go back to that question I was asked at the beginning of my NCTE journey: how is your first year of teaching going so far? Long story short, new teacher, experienced teacher…the question switched to why do teachers go back to “comfort?” Why do we settle for just comfort? Why can’t we keep stepping outside of the box? Here are my personal thoughts…

I don’t think I’m a comfort-zone teacher. Yet, to some extent, I am. Again, back to this post, I said that I was my own worst enemy essentially. My goal was to have confidence in those random ideas in my idea notebook (yes, the same yellow one I scribbled in during NCTE, ha!). Those ideas include all of the ones for my nings. At times I am so overwhelmed with all of these ideas swarming in my head that I’m on information overload and resort back to “comfort.”

Some comfort is ok…but I don’t want to be a comfort-only teacher. (If that makes sense at all.) And I don’t think I am. Or will be. Ever.

And though I’m disappointed with my nings, that means there’s only room to improve! Plus, it’s not that the incorporation has been a disaster…the incorporation has been great! I just know that I can utilize the potential/power of ning in many more ways and I’m excited (and determined) to do it!

The verse for tonight is Hebrews 10:32-39.

32. Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. 33. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. 34. You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. 35. So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. 36. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. 37. For in just a very little while, “He who is coming will come and will not delay. 38. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.” 39. But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

OK! I’m 36. And for as long as I can remember my Mum has spent days preparing this sumptuous feast that leaves hardly enough room on the rather large dinning table for even the bonbons and every one at the table groaning in pain because we’ve all stuffed our selves silly.

It goes something like this……She’ll start making a list of ingredients a month in advance and then do the shopping nice and early just in case the shops run out of ingredients. About the 23rd she’ll start spicing and marinating pork and lamb. The 24th some of the other dishes will be prepared, ie. pies or quiches, and some of the pasta or potato salads. Then, on the big day (after the pressies are opened) Mum will announce that everyone is to keep out of her way, and stay out of the kitchen. Then the real cooking will start.

Family and friends will all sit around talking and munching on nibblies. Occasionally we will halfheartedly ask if we can be of any assistance in the kitchen. Which  (thankfully) is always met with a “No, I’ve got everything under control!”

…….. And then it happens! Just when you can hardly stand the fantastic aroma emanating from the kitchen……….. “O.K! you can all set the table set now!”  Then everyone races around moving cutlery, crockery, glasses, and dishes of food enough to feed a small army. We all take a seat, crack the bonbons – laugh at the stupid jokes, and begin.

This year will be different….

This year we will have plenty of yummy food. All the family will be there. There will be some friends there as well. There will be a few presents. But this year Mum won’t have to spend weeks in preparation and days of cooking. We have finally convinced her that we would all do a little bit of cooking and that she would sit and chat and have nibbles, and be looked after by us for a change. There has been some resistance. We may have to let her set the table. It will be interesting to see how we go.

Obviously food, and being together as a family is very important in my household.

Tell me, what do you love about Christmas. Does anyone else out there have to eat potato salad for three days because their Mum just goes mental in the kitchen???

well the whole character assassination thread is getting longer and has gone to a debate as to wether or not the cast is happy with current story lines or with each other.  Some feel that no stock should be placed (and probably so) in any interview that Mark Harmon or Michael Wetherly give because they are told what to say. 

I am hoping that the cast is able to speak freely about things and hopefully have some say in the way things go.  I have been in fandoms where some actors (KS during his Andromeda run) would say things that were just inflamatory and sometimes you wished he wouldn’t say things.

i was happy to be able to watch last nights Monday marathon….the first two eps were from season 5 and the 7 pm and 8 pm were both from season 2 (at least I think).

Tonight’s  8 pm repeat will hopefully start at 8:30 after the Presidential Speech.

Next week’s episode is “Toxic” episode 6.21  then of course the much anticipated Holiday one.

One of my friends shared this story. It is quite expensive to advertise for recruitment on newspapers or even on some popular online recruitment agencies. So he joined hands with his friend. His friend operates a computer business and he operates an electronic business. They put one ad on the papers for a secretary. Then they interview the candidates together and pick 2 , one for each business. They share the advertising cost. Thus they always find synergy or synchronize their ads to save cash. Two separate entities but operates in sync. Interesting!

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