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Friday, November 30, 2012

Managing Heart Disease The Natural Way

Heart disease comprises of conditions that affect your cardiac system and include cardiac arrest, angina, and stroke. Cardiovascular disease is a condition referred to as atherosclerosis. With this condition, blood circulation is affected. This may lead to much pressure that thickens the walls making the flow of blood restricted.

Unhealthy diet, smoking, and overweight are major causes of atherosclerosis. Other cardiac conditions are such as arrhythmia, which is simply an abnormal heart rhythm. Your heart could also experience defects, which may occur right from birth or as a person ages. Infections like bacteria, virus, and parasites may also cause problems related to the cardiac.

Heart disease cause more deaths in men and women in United States than any other health condition. It is estimated that about 1 million people lose their lives from this condition every year in America, and by 2020, it will be the leading cause of deaths in the world. Nations are struggling to keep up with the increasing costs of managing cardiac-related complications.

Diet is essential when managing heart disease and patients should pay attention to what they eat. Patients can reduce the risks of suffering atherosclerosis or hardening of blood vessels if they stick to a diet, which is healthy. Similarly, if the vessels have become stiff and you are experiencing clogging, this could be slowed by adjusting to the right diet.

A diet suitable for your heart should be able to reduce the amount of low-density lipoproteins- LDL. This is the bad cholesterol, which is responsible for stiffening of the vessel walls. The diet should also help lower the amount of blood sugar, which could result to cardiac problems. In addition, taking food that lowers blood pressure also helps keep your cardiac system healthy.

Fish is a good source of nutrients including protein, and contains omega-3 fatty acids. The omega-3 fatty acids are helpful in clearing the vessels and could reduce the risks of stroke and other cardiac problems. Vegetable and fruits are also important because they contain essential nutrients and vitamins that help boost the body immune system and metabolic activities for a hearty cardiac system.

Non-saturated fats like those found in peanuts and olive oil are equally important when managing conditions of the cardiac. Simple sugars like carbohydrates found in soft drinks and sweets should be minimized. In addition, patients should avoid taking processed meat as it may contain sodium additives and nitrites, which could increase risks of suffering cardiac problems. Some form co chelation therapy may also be of help.

Exercise is recommended whether you are managing a health condition or just keeping your body fit. This is why it is important to have regular exercises throughout your life and this helps keep the body strong and enhance the immune system. Exercise helps lower blood sugar and high blood pressure. In addition, physical exercise helps improve the flow of blood.

When you exercise your body, you bring down the bad cholesterol- LDL and raise the good cholesterol- HDL. You can manage your weight with moderate exercise consisting of aerobic and resistant training. Another important thing, which you need to emphasize on, is water intake. You body needs water for life and without it, your tissues become dehydrated and cells do not function properly, something which affects the management of a Heart Disease.

About Clifford Woods

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Source: http://www.bestarticlepost.com/261864/managing-heart-disease-the-natural-way?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=managing-heart-disease-the-natural-way

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Syria: Twin car bombs in Damascus kill 34 people

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) ? Twin suicide car bombs ripped through a Damascus suburb minutes apart on Wednesday, killing at least 34 people, state media said, and rebels claimed they shot down a Syrian air force fighter jet.

The state news agency, SANA, said suicide bombers detonated two cars packed with explosives early in the morning in the eastern suburb of Jaramana, a Christian and Druse area known as mostly loyal to President Bashar Assad.

Suicide bombings have struck regime targets in Damascus and elsewhere since last December. Such attacks are a trademark of radical Muslim groups fighting alongside other rebels units, raising concerns of growing influence of Islamic extremists among the forces seeking to topple the regime.

Wednesday's bombs were detonated in a parking lot near a cluster of commercial buildings as groups of laborers and employees were arriving for work, killing 34 and injuring 83 people, SANA said.

The blasts shattered windows, littering the street with glass and debris. Human remains were scattered on the pavement in pools of blood. Six commercial buildings were damaged in the attacks, and dozens of cars were destroyed, SANA said.

After the first explosion, people rushed to help the injured, and then the second bomb went off, said Ismail Zlaiaa, 54, who lives in the neighborhood.

"It is an area packed with rush-hour passengers," he said. "God will not forgive the criminal perpetrators."

Ibtissam Nseir, a 45-year-old teacher, said the bombs exploded minutes before she set off for work. She said there were no troops around the district and wondered why the attackers would target it. Nseir blamed rebels.

"Is this the freedom which they want? Syria is a secure country and it will remain so," she said.

There were conflicting reports about the death toll. Two hospital officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters, said at least 30 bodies were brought to two hospitals. The Britain-based Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on reports from the ground, said 29 people were killed.

The different tolls could not immediately be reconciled. The regime restricts independent media coverage.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Wednesday's bombings.

Opposition fighters are predominantly members of the Sunni Muslim majority. In their push to take Damascus, they have frequently targeted state institutions and troops. They have also often hit districts around the capital with the country's minority communities, perceived to be allied with Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Downtown Damascus ? the seat of Assad's power ? has been the scene of scores of car bombs and mortar attacks targeting state security institutions and troops, areas with homes of wealthy Syrians, army officers, security officials and other members of the regime.

In May, two suicide car bombers blew themselves up outside a military intelligence building in Damascus, killing at least 55 people. In July, a bomb hit a building in which Cabinet ministers and senior security officials were meeting, killing the defense minister and his deputy, who was Assad's brother-in-law. A former defense minister also died in the attack.

Fighting between rebels and government troops raged on in several parts of the country on Wednesday. Regime warplanes struck rebel-held areas in the northern Idlib province and Damascus suburbs.

In northern Syria, a rebel group claimed it brought down a Syrian MiG-23 fighter plane near the rebel-held town of Daret Azzeh, according to a report by Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency. The report quoted unnamed rebels in the area and said the jet was shot down Wednesday, most likely by a missile.

There was no immediate independent confirmation.

Opposition fighters claim they have shot down helicopters and warplanes in the past, although the rebels repeatedly complain their arsenal is no match for the regime's fighter jets and attack helicopters.

In recent weeks rebels have captured several air bases with anti-aircraft weapons, but it is not known if they have the ability to operate them.

Since the summer, the Syrian military has significantly increased its use of air power in efforts to roll back the rebels' territorial gains, particularly in the northeast, along the border with Turkey.

Syria's conflict started 20 months ago as an uprising against Assad, whose family has ruled the country for four decades. It quickly morphed into a civil war, with rebels taking up arms to fight back against a bloody crackdown by the government. According to activists, at least 40,000 people have been killed since March 2011.

Assad blames the revolt on a conspiracy to destroy Syria, saying the uprising is being driven by foreign "terrorists" ? a term the authorities use for the rebels ? and not Syrians seeking change.

Analysts say most of those fighting Assad's regime are ordinary Syrians and soldiers who have defected. But increasingly, fighters adhering to an extremist Islamist ideology are turning up on the front lines. The rebels try to play down the Islamists' influence for fear of alienating Western support.

___

Surk reported from Beirut. Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syria-twin-car-bombs-damascus-kill-34-people-105701699.html

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Thursday, November 29, 2012

Column: Time for college players to demand justice

University of Maryland President Wallace Loh, from left, Big Ten Commissioner James Delany, University System of Maryland Chancellor Brit Kirwin, University System of Maryland Board of Regents Chairman James Shea and Maryland Athletic Director Kevin Anderson pose after a news conference to announce Maryland's decision to move to the Big Ten in College Park, Md., Monday, Nov. 19, 2012. Maryland is joining the Big Ten, leaving the Atlantic Coast Conference in a shocker of a move in the world of conference realignment. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich, left, address reporters as President Dr. James Ramsay listens during a news conference, Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2012, in Louisville, Ky. The Atlantic Coast Conference announced Wednesday that its presidents and chancellors unanimously voted to add Louisville as the replacement for Maryland. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

Rutgers Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Tim Pernetti, center, stands with Rutgers President Robert Barchi, right, and Big Ten Conference Commissioner Jim Delany during a news conference, Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2012, in Piscataway, N.J., after they announced that Rutgers will join the Big Ten. Rutgers will join the conference in all sports at a date to be determined. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

Hey, major college football player. Can you give us a few minutes of your time?

Don't worry about drawing the attention of your school administrators. They're too busy scurrying off to a new conference or lining up some exorbitant television deal to notice what we're about to discuss.

You're getting ripped off. Big time.

Have you considered a strike? Really, I'm not kidding

Oh sure, you're getting a college education out of the deal, but that's not even close to being fair. While you're out there busting your butt every day, the guys in suits are padding their coffers with your efforts.

What you guys need is someone like Marvin Miller, the late, great baseball union chief who died this week. Someone who can drop some knowledge about just how badly you're getting hosed. Someone to get you organized. Someone with the guts to say, "Play fair, or we're walking."

Yep, walk.

While the last thing we need is another labor dispute in sports, there may be no greater miscarriage of economic fairness than what's going on amid the ivy-covered columns of higher education.

"There's a reason we call it higher education," said Ellen Staurowsky, a professor in the Department of Sport Management at Drexel University in Philadelphia. "It's supposed to aspire to higher ideals, to try to do what's best from a social justice point of view. It's such a shame for higher education to have a system in place that has really exploited the athletes in a way that is not defensible."

Think that college degree makes it defensible? Not even close.

Oh sure, a school such as Georgia might fork over around $40,000 a year to pay for your room, board and tuition, but let's do some quick math and see how you're making out.

Say a football program provides 85 scholarships a year. Multiply that by what they're spending on each of you, and it comes out to $3.4 million.

So, what does the school get out of this?

Well, let's look again at how the Bulldogs are making out.

According to Forbes, which does an annual ranking of the nation's most valuable programs, Georgia turned a nifty little profit of $53 million on football last year. That figure will only rise as leagues expand into super conferences, television deals keep hurtling toward the stratosphere, and the suits figure out how much more they can make off a playoff system.

A four-team postseason starts in 2014, and ESPN has already signed on for a dozen years. You know it's just a matter of time before the four-team playoff become an eight-team affair, then an eight-team endeavor morphs into a 16-team version. Why not? With labor costs so low, schools would be foolish not to add a few more playoff rounds and cram a few more millions into their already bloated accounts.

If that cuts into your time for classwork and taking final exams, so be it.

Maybe you haven't gotten the memo yet, but our colleges and universities aren't all that concerned about providing an education that will actually enhance your life after football. They tout tougher academic standards and improved graduation rates, but they're mainly concerned about keeping you eligible to take the field.

That's where your real value lies.

When you look around the classroom, you're likely to see many of your teammates. That's not mere coincidence. Last year, The Associated Press found that schools continue to be adept at a tactic known as "clustering," where they put a bunch of you in the same class, one they figure will make it easier for you to pass. They probably didn't bother asking if you were actually interested in that field of study.

Even with clustering and all the extra tutoring they provide, three out of 10 football players still fail to earn a degree. Better hope you're good enough to make it to the NFL. And if you are, you'll be in for a real eye-opening experience. While the stadiums and media coverage might seem largely on par with what you just left behind, there is one big difference.

The paycheck.

Yep, in the NFL, they actually pay you to play.

At that point, it might occur to you, "Hey, why didn't I get a paycheck for the last four years?"

Good question.

A few folks are on your side. South Carolina's Steve Spurrier suggested that he and his coaching colleagues, who also make millions off you, reach into their own wallets to provide a little somethin', somethin' for the help. His plan was derided as folly, the ramblings of an aging coach who doesn't really understand how the system works.

Actually, he knows exactly how it works. But you're young, so we'll let you in on a little secret: People in power are real reluctant to give up their loot, and they'll go to great lengths to tell others why they don't deserve any of it.

Just last week, after Maryland was lured away from its historic association with the Atlantic Coast Conference by the promise of more riches in the Big Ten, another coach floated the idea of giving the players a cut.

As it stands now, the NCAA won't even allow schools to provide a little financial assistance to help your family travel to a bowl game, the bowl game you made possible.

"It would be great to be able to take care of their families or guardian, to be able to help them fly to a bowl game," Northwestern's Pat Fitzgerald said. "And take some of the money and allow them to get more money from bowl gifts and things of that nature that they've earned."

A nice gesture, but that's only the tip of this dollar-shaped iceberg.

The NCAA, which senses that you might be getting a little upset with the current arrangement, is considering whether to allow $2,000 stipends for athletes.

Don't be fooled. They're just trying to buy you off.

"It's notable that while coaches have access to representatives who negotiate those multiyear contracts, the athletes are expressly denied that same kind of representation," Staurowsky said. "It speaks to just how big of a conflict there is."

So, let's try this.

Hit up Twitter. And Facebook. And any of those other Web sites you kids hang out on.

Start talking about this issue.

Who knows? If social media can help overturn entire governments, maybe it can bring about real change in college athletics.

We've even got a hash tag for your cause: "treatusfair."

If they won't, tell them you're walking.

___

Paul Newberry is a national writer for The Associated Press. Write to him at pnewberry(at)ap.org or www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-11-29-Paul%20Newberry-112912/id-f6a7abd82aaa44d0aec97b4db262155c

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The Hunt for a Better Butter Churn

A woman churns butter in 1893

Photo by W. Braybrooke Bayley/Wikimedia Commons.

A few years ago, on a lark, I decided to make butter. This sounds like it might be some kind of arduous, gourmand pursuit, but it was quite simple. Following chef Daniel Patterson?s instructions, I bought a whole lot of cream and poured it into my trusty KitchenAid mixer, whose top I?d covered in plastic wrap to prevent splashing all over my kitchen. I turned the mixer on high. Ten or so minutes later, I had curds and real buttermilk. I separated the two in a sieve then squeezed the curds by hand to form a mass of butter. I rolled it out into a log and covered it in plastic. In a little more time than it takes to make eggs and toast, I?d made enough butter to last for weeks.

I never did it again. Sure, as Patterson had promised, my homemade butter was delicious, just about the best butter I?d ever tasted. (I am an expert on the taste of butter; ask my wife or my doctor.) But it was also extremely expensive?I?d spent nearly $10 in high-end cream to make about a pound of butter, which is about $4 more than I?d have spent to buy very nice butter made from the same fancy dairy that had produced my cream. For doing the work myself, I?d paid 67 percent more. And even if I?d bought cheaper cream, I couldn?t have come close to matching the price (not to mention the convenience) of store-bought butter. (Jennifer Reese comes to the same conclusion in Make the Bread, Buy the Butter, her awesome book about what you should and shouldn?t bother making at home.)

I got to thinking about my butter-making adventure when, as part of the Reader Takeover project, readers asked me to ?review the most nontech gadgets you can think of?turn-of-the-century butter churns, cotton gins, trebuchets, etc!? (Thanks, you guys!) Let me start by confessing that I didn?t actually get hold of any of these things, so you will not hear me pass judgment on what features you should look for in a siege weapon this holiday season. I did, however, spend a lot of time researching and thinking about all of the energy and ingenuity humans have applied to the problem of making butter. As a result, I gained new respect both for butter (which I didn?t think possible) and for our ancestors, especially the women and children who spent many long hours every week turning cream into butter.

But the most interesting thing I discovered about churns was how little they, er, churned over the years. To someone used to the relentless pace of change in modern gadgetry, the difference between the earliest butter churns and the latest churns?by which I mean, the difference between how people made butter in the 1700s and how they made butter in the 1940s?seems hopelessly small. Butter is formed when the membranes surrounding fat globules in cream are stripped through the process of physical agitation; this allows the fat to clump together into a single mass, i.e., butter. Thus all churns work the same way?they transfer human power into physical agitation within a vessel holding cream?and that?s why they never really advanced until humans found a feasible alternative to human power. Until industrialization came along, all churning was the same: You spent minutes or hours plunging or cranking a shaft until, at some point you couldn?t quite predict, long after you felt your arms were about to fall off, butter began to form.

Churning butter with old-fashioned dasher churn, creamery, East Aurora, NY, 1905.

Churning butter with old-fashioned dasher churn, East Aurora, N.Y., 1905.

Keystone View Co./Library of Congress.

The slow pace of progress in churns was not for lack of trying. Because making butter was so arduous and time-consuming, it was an active area of commercial invention. According to the Encyclopedia of Kitchen History, inventors filed for 2,500 patents on better butter churns around the time of the Industrial Revolution. Doug & Linda?s Dairy Antique Site collects many of these patents and photos of churns over time. If you follow the timeline, you?ll notice lots of minor advances. For instance, before the mid-1800s or so, most people did not quite understand that the efficiency of churning depended on the temperature of the cream you were using; if the cream was too cold, butter wouldn?t form. The fact that you could sometimes churn and churn forever and still not see any butter sparked a great deal of superstition around butter-making. As Doug & Linda?s site explains:

Many times the cream would not form butter no matter how long one churned it. Many people felt that this was because the cream was haunted by a witch. Many people that churned butter believed in the "cream witch" and many churn advertisements referred to it. A couple of the remedies for a cream witch was to put a red hot horse shoe or a red hot poker into the cream. The cream would boil as the hot metal was put in the churn and people said this was the noise of the witch thrashing about as she was killed. In actuality the temperature of the cream was increased and often this was enough for the butter to start to form.

Around 1850, someone invented a ?thermometer churn,? which featured two adjacent metallic chambers. You put your cream in one chamber, and in the second you added hot or cold water to raise or lower the cream?s temperature. (A thermometer mounted on the front let you know which to add.) Suddenly, thanks to a brilliant design change, the cream witch was dead.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=286c88fe8b1285f16895a4eb69bb97ea

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Bulk Investors And The Real-Estate 'Recovery' | ZeroHedge

Via Pater Tenebrarum of Acting-Man blog,

Bulk (Wall Street) buyers have been receiving a lot of attention recently. It's time to take a closer look.

There is little data available pertaining to bulk investors and even less meaningful analysis. Historically, Wall Street has never been active in direct ownership of single family homes, so there is no past histrory to learn from. We need to start from scratch.

How big are these bulk buyers? A few months ago, I read a report that Keefe, Bruyette & Woods estimated Wall Street had raised $6 billion to $8 billion so far, which is really a paltry sum in the world of high finance. It is impossible to estimate how much small investors are adding to this investment pool. We also have no clue how much this pool may grow over time, or whether it will? soon be exhausted and shrink instead.

Investors typically buy lower end properties. Say at an average of $100,000 per unit, the $6 billion to $8 billion raised so far would not even amount to 100,000 homes.

On the national level, and using the most recent releases, Existing Homes Sales and New Homes Sales combined are coming in at a pace of just over 5 million for 2012. The median price is $178,000 for existing homes and $242,000 for new homes. 100,000 homes would not even show up on the radar.

As for foreclosures, there are 5.6 million total non current loans in various stages of default. The current estimate for under water mortgages still exceeds 10 million, or about 20% of all mortgages. The Wall Street bulk investors are unlikely to put a dent in the distress property arena for the foreseeable future. In comparison, when the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) was dissolved back in 1992 due to the sunset clause, investors cleaned the entire inventory of REOs and loans off the books with just a few auctions.

On the localized level, it is a slightly different story. I am going to use three Western metro areas as examples. Phoenix, Southern California and Las Vegas were hotbeds of the subprime bubble and are once again the most sought after areas, this time by bulk investors. Using September data from DQNews, investors purchased 38.6%, 27.3% and 48.5% of all sales respectively. The actual number of absentee buyers for the four areas totaled 9,885 for the month of September. I expect this number will grow for the current months and into the near future, as investors eagerly place their funds. There is no data that separates absentee buyers into specific classes, such as Wall Street funds, local syndicates or small investors. However, if the bulk buyers are actively accumulating in these select markets, it is safe to assume that they do have some influence. The question is for how long.

Of the aforementioned metro areas, Las Vegas is the most out of whack. There were 4,570 sales in October.? 50.2% were sold to absentee owners, 52.5% in cash (43.2% were short sales, 16.7% were REOs) and 36.1% FHA financed. I have never seen a market where over half of the buyers paid cash and over 1/3 of the sales were financed via the FHA, leaving only 14% of sales in the "other" category.

In just the months of September and October, Las Vegas sold 4,278 single family units to absentee owners.? Assuming a majority of them will show up as rentals soon, if they haven't already, how much more can the market absorb? If this trend continues, how many months will it take to swamp the desert with single family rentals?

Even more out of whack is the "it's cheaper to buy than rent" theory. I am not disputing the math but rather the conclusions.? Just the fact that it is cheaper to buy does not mean that renters should buy. Maybe housing is simply unaffordable and rents are way too high.? As the supply of rentals continues to increase, natural economic forces should be driving down rent and home prices. Furthermore, if renters are buying because it is cheaper than renting, won't there be even more pressure from this supply of rentals? Where are the additional 2,000 renters going to come from each month?

Finally, it is mind boggling that they are still building in this market. Here are some of the new homes for sale.? Just this website shows 100 communities on the market.

As an investor, why would I touch the Las Vegas market? Check out the popular websites such as craigslist or rentals.com. There are countless houses, condos and apartments for rent, all chasing after this phantom demand.? Cash investors have to ability to lower rents to the level that the market will bear, but can current investors compete? With so many renters, are neighborhoods going to deteriorate, driving even more under water mortgages into foreclosure?

I took a number of these rentals in Las Vegas and did a quick analysis on their return. It is impossible to come up with a reliable vacancy allowance. It is entirely possible for a bulk investor today to be sitting on a bulk of vacant houses tomorrow. While the option exists to lower rents, that can cause a chain reaction which may result in more foreclosures, more distress properties and a new round of depreciation in value.

Phoenix was probably the first region to experience an investor driven rebound. The most recent data from DQNews for September are already showing a sequential as well as a year over year decline. I am eagerly waiting to see what the October statistics will look like. Is that recovery already running out of steam?? The median price has been appreciating to $155,000 but it is still 41.3% below the all time peak of $264,100 in 2006. I am not suggesting that the subprime peak was reasonable, just that there is still a boatload of homeowners who have little or no equity in their homes.

Here in Southern California, the herd mentality is in full control with buying increasing at all levels. How long will this feeding frenzy last? Will the bulk investors be able to generate enough returns to whet their appetite for more? Will the local investors continue to ride on the coattails of the Wall Street moguls? Will owner occupiers continue to overpay for new homes because the 1%ers are paying cash and squeezing them out of the non-FHA market?

Stay tuned.

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Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-27/bulk-investors-and-real-estate-recovery

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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

To make the URL that uses google cloud to be publically available

I have a website , that does simple work of fetching an USN from the Google BigQuery on the cloud. Now, while accessing each time, i need to have a Google Account and also that particular email-id , should have the "permission" assigned in the "Team tab". I basically , want the website to be available to everyone.And i am using php script here , so i need help about the functions that will be useful here.

Source: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13607786/to-make-the-url-that-uses-google-cloud-to-be-publically-available

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Do you know your National Football League history? Take our quiz

OK, serious pro football fans, here?s an opportunity to show your stuff. It?s first down and 30 questions to proving just how much you know about NFL history with this wide-ranging test.

- Ross Atkin,?Staff writer

Question 1 of 30

1. The NFL was founded during a meeting in what kind of business?

Get free daily or weekly news updates from CSMonitor.com delivered to your inbox. Sign up today.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/vo9ZgpgDC-0/Do-you-know-your-National-Football-League-history-Take-our-quiz

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Interpol Conducts 'War' on Poaching in Africa (Voice Of America)

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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Leading U.S. Democrat Durbin embraces future Medicare reforms (reuters)

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Black Friday record: Weekend sales up 13 percent

Black Friday record pushes spending to $59 billion over four days. By extending Black Friday, retailers made it easy to shop and drew in record numbers of shoppers.?

By Anne D'Innocenzio,?AP Retail Writer / November 26, 2012

In this Friday file photo, Black Friday shoppers pour into the Valley River Center mall for the Midnight Madness sale, in Eugene, Ore. Some 247 million shoppers hit stores over the four-day weekend, setting a Black Friday record, according to a survey released by the National Retail Federation on Sunday.

Brian Davies/The Register-Guard/AP/File

Enlarge

If you make holiday shopping convenient, Americans will come in droves.

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It's estimated that U.S. shoppers hit stores and websites at record numbers over the Thanksgiving weekend, according to a survey released by the National Retail Federation on Sunday, setting a Black Friday record. They were attracted by retailers' efforts to make shopping easier, including opening stores on Thanksgiving evening, updating mobile shopping applications for smartphones and tablets, and expanding shipping and layaway options.

All told, a record 247 million shoppers visited stores and websites over the four-day weekend starting on Thanksgiving, up 9.2 percent of last year, according to a survey of 4,000 shoppers that was conducted by research firm BIGinsight for the trade group. Americans spent more too: The average holiday shopper spent $423 over the entire weekend, up from $398 last year. Total spending over the four-day weekend totaled $59.1 billion, up 12.8 percent from 2011.

Caitlyn Maguire, 21, was one of the shoppers that took advantage of all the new conveniences of shopping this year. Maguire, who lives in New York, began buying on Thanksgiving night at Target's East Harlem store. During the two-hour wait in line, she also bought items on her iPhone on Amazon.com. On?Friday, she picked up a few toys at Toys R Us. And on Saturday she was out at the stores again.

"I'm basically done," said Maguire, who spent about $400 over the weekend.

The results for the weekend appear to show that retailers' efforts to make shopping effortless for U.S. consumers during the holiday shopping season worked. Retailers upped the ante in order to give Americans more reasons to shop. Stores feared that consumers might not spend because of the weak job market and worries that tax increases and budget cuts will take effect if Congress fails to reach a budget deal by January.

Retailers, which can make up to 40 percent of their annual revenue in November and December, were hoping Thanksgiving openings and other incentives would help boost what's expected to be a difficult holiday shopping season. The National Retail Federation estimates that overall sales in November and December will rise 4.1 percent this year to $586.1 billion. That's more than a percentage point lower than the growth in each of the past two years, and the smallest increase since 2009, when sales were nearly flat.

Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the National Retail Federation, said retailers can be encouraged by the first weekend of the holiday shopping season.

"Retailers and consumers both won this weekend, especially on Thanksgiving," he said.

Here were the trends that emerged over the weekend:

? Online wave: According to comScore, which tracks online spending, online sales rose 26 percent to $1.04 billion on?Black?Friday?compared with a year ago. On Thanksgiving, online sales rose 32 percent from last year to $633 million. And online sales onBlack?Friday?were up 26 percent from the same day last year to $1.042 billion. It was the first time online sales on?Black?Friday?surpassed $1 billion.

? Thanksgiving shopping: Many stores, including Toys R Us and Target, opened on Thanksgiving evening this year. No data is out yet about how much shoppers spent on that day, but it appears that consumers took advantage of the earlier start: According to the National Retail Federation's survey, the number of people who shopped on Thanksgiving rose 23.1 percent. That compares with a 3.1 percent increase forBlack?Friday.

Linda and James Michaels of Portland, Ore., were among those shopping on Thanksgiving. They hit up the big sales on the day and got everything they were hoping for that night.

They picked up remote control cars and some Mickey Mouse items on sale at Toys R Us. Then they went a few doors down to Target and scored the last Operation game on sale for $7. They were even able to pick up some pajamas and shoes along the way for the kids. In total they spent about $300.

"I felt lucky that I caught the deals and there was no craziness, no fighting," said Linda Michaels. "I was nervous."

ShopperTrak, which analyzes customer traffic at 40,000 U.S. stores, plans to release sales data for Thanksgiving later this week, but the firm is estimating that retailers generated $700 million in sales on the holiday.

??Black?Friday?flop: It appears that the Thanksgiving openings may have hurt sales on the day after.

Black?Friday?is still expected to be the biggest shopping day of the year, but sales on that day slipped to $11.2 billion, down 1.8 percent from last year, according to ShopperTrak. That's below ShopperTrak's estimate that?Black?Friday?sales would rise 3.8 percent to $11.4 billion.

Karen MacDonald, a spokeswoman at Taubman Centers, which operates 28 malls across the country, said that Thanksgiving openings hurt business. Based on a sampling of 10 malls, sales growth was unchanged up to mid-single digits on?Friday, and unchanged up to low single digit on Saturday.

"It was a different feeling," she said. "It was a good?Black?Friday, but I don't think it was great."

The disappointing sales on?Black?Friday?may have been the result of shoppers like Miguel Garcia, a 40-year-old office coordinator.

"I can't deal with all that craziness," said Garcia, who was at a Target in the Bronx borough of New York City on Saturday. "Compared to what I saw on TV yesterday, this is so much more comfortable and relaxed. I can actually think straight and compare prices."

AP writers Rodrigue Ngowi in Watertown, Mass., Juan Carolos Llorca in El Paso, Texas, and Candice Choi in New York contributed to this report

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/zFkfkanzwEs/Black-Friday-record-Weekend-sales-up-13-percent

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First 'breathing lung' transplant in United States

ScienceDaily (Nov. 26, 2012) ? First there was the "heart in a box," a revolutionary experimental technology that allows donor hearts to be delivered to transplant recipients warm and beating rather than frozen in an ice cooler.

Now that same technology is being used to deliver "breathing lungs."

The lung transplant team at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical successfully performed the nation's first "breathing lung" transplant in mid-November. The patient, a 57-year-old who suffered from pulmonary fibrosis -- a disease in which the air sacs of the lungs are gradually replaced by scar tissue -- received two new lungs and is recuperating from the seven-hour surgery.

The groundbreaking transplant involved an experimental organ-preservation device known as the Organ Care System (OCS), which keeps donor lungs functioning and "breathing" in a near-physiologic state outside the body during transport. The current standard involves transporting donor lungs in a non-functioning, non-breathing state inside an icebox.

With the OCS, the lungs are removed from a donor's body and are placed in a high-tech OCS box, where they are immediately revived to a warm, breathing state and perfused with oxygen and a special solution supplemented with packed red-blood cells. The device also features monitors that display how the lungs are functioning during transport.

"Organs were never meant to be frozen on ice," said Dr. Abbas Ardehali, a professor of cardiothoracic surgery and director of the heart and lung transplantation program at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. "Lungs are very sensitive and can easily be damaged during the donation process. The cold storage method does not allow for reconditioning of the lungs before transplantation, but this promising 'breathing lung' technology enables us to potentially improve the function of the donor lungs before they are placed in the recipient."

UCLA is currently leading the U.S. arm of the international, multicenter phase 2 clinical INSPIRE study of the OCS, developed by medical device company TransMedics; Ardehali is the principal investigator for UCLA. The purpose of the trial is to compare donor lungs transported using the OCS technology with the standard icebox method. The INSPIRE trial is also underway at lung transplant centers in Europe, Australia and Canada and will enroll a total of 264 randomized patients.

According to Ardehali, in addition to potentially improving donor-lung function, the technology could help transplant teams better assess donor lungs, since the organs can be tested in the device, over a longer period of time.

In addition, it could help expand the donor pool by allowing donor lungs to be safely transported across longer distances.

"For patients with end-stage lung disease, lung transplantation can dramatically improve the patient's symptoms and offer relief from severe shortness of breath," said Dr. David Ross, professor of medicine and medical director of UCLA's lung and heart-lung transplantation program and UCLA's pulmonary arterial hypertension and thromboendarterectomy program. "The 'breathing lung' technology could potentially make the transplantation process even better and improve the outcomes for patients suffering from lung disease."

The "breathing lung" device follows on the heels of TransMedics' "heart in a box" technology, which delivers donor hearts in a similar manner. The multi-center national study of the heart technology, also led by UCLA, is ongoing.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Health Sciences. The original article was written by Amy Albin.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Gregor Warnecke, Javier Moradiellos, Igor Tudorache, Christian K?hn, Murat Avsar, Bettina Wiegmann, Wiebke Sommer, Fabio Ius, Claudia Kunze, Jens Gottlieb, Andres Varela, Axel Haverich. Normothermic perfusion of donor lungs for preservation and assessment with the Organ Care System Lung before bilateral transplantation: a pilot study of 12 patients. The Lancet, 2012; 380 (9856): 1851 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61344-0

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/TdvW1mgobUI/121126130928.htm

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Path Paves The Road To Asia, Adds A New Regional GM In Japan: Ex-Amazon, Apple Exec Shindo Kimihiko

Path's growth trajectory is leading it to Asia. CEO Dave Morin said?that people in Japan and Korea were behind the mobile social network's second wave of new users after the release of Path 2.0, that China is the app's second-largest market after the U.S., and that it's adding more users in Asia than it is in Western markets. Now Path is capitalizing on all that by building out its operation in the region, appointing Kimihiko Shindo as its new general manager for Japan/Asia.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/E1hVQ78XBNU/

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Monday, November 26, 2012

Obama may get chance to end Benghazi PR disaster

FILE - This June 7, 2012 file photo shows U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice listening during a news conference at the UN. Republican senators' angry criticism of Rice over her initial account of the deadly Sept. 11 attack in Libya smacks of sexism and racism, a dozen female members of the House said Friday. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The White House could finally have its chance to close the books on its Benghazi public relations disaster, as key Republicans signal they might not stand in the way of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to become the next secretary of state.

"I think she deserves the ability and the opportunity to explain herself and her position," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told "Fox News Sunday." ''But she's not the problem. The problem is the president of the United States," who, McCain said, misled the public on terrorist involvement.

Rice is widely seen as President Barack Obama's top pick to replace Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as the nation's top diplomat. But Rice's reputation took a serious hit this fall when she relied on unclassified talking points provided by the intelligence community that portrayed the attack in Benghazi, Libya, as a spontaneous assault by a mob angered by an anti-Muslim video posted on YouTube.

Intelligence officials quickly amended their assessment to conclude the attack hadn't been related to other film protests across the Middle East. But that revised narrative was slow to reach the public, prompting Republicans to allege a White House cover-up ahead of the Nov. 6 election.

The attack killed Ambassador Chris Stevens, a State Department computer specialist and two former Navy SEALs who were working as contract security guards.

McCain's remarks were in contrast to his previous stance that Rice wasn't qualified to replace Clinton, who is expected to step down soon, and that he would do "whatever is necessary" to block Rice's possible nomination.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, McCain's close friend and colleague on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told ABC's "This Week" he still suspects the White House intentionally glossed over obvious terrorist links in the attack to keep voters from questioning Obama's handling of national security.

But instead of repeating his prior assertion that he was "dead set" against a Rice promotion, Graham suggested he looked forward to hearing her out. If Rice were nominated, "there will be a lot of questions asked of her about this event and others," said Graham, R-S.C.

The subtle shift in GOP tenor on Rice could be the result of internal grumblings on how far to take party opposition. Democrats picked up extra Senate seats in the election to maintain their narrow majority, making it that much harder for the remaining 45 Republicans to block the president's nominees.

One senior GOP Senate aide said Sunday that Republicans hadn't united against Rice and were not convinced she was worth going after. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the aide was not authorized to speak publicly on internal GOP deliberations.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-11-26-US-Libya/id-993bd4d2264b40d99cb4b5776f067f4c

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Cuteness streams from Kansas Humane Society's Kitty Cam ...

Add the Kansas Humane Society?s new ?Kitty Cam? to the list of 6,719,332 things to distract you when you?re supposed to be working.

(Note to editor: I was doing research!)

The kitty cam made its online debut Nov. 1, featuring the newest and fluffiest reality show stars.

The cam is a first for the shelter, which adopts out dogs, cats and small animals such as bunnies, gerbils and hamsters.

?We actually had a donor come in who was really interested in the idea,? said Melissa Houston, a communications specialist for the shelter.

The cam is on 24/7 on the shelter?s website at www.kshumane.org/kittycam.htm.

?At night, it goes into night vision mode. You can still see the cats playing around and everything,? Houston said.

Viewers can take turns being in control of the camera for two minutes at a time and can view for up to four or five minutes.

The camera is in the corner of the shelter?s ?kitty city,? just inside the shelter and across from the front desk. The camera also captures the lobby and reception area, the small animals and a few of the dog adoption areas.

Houston said Wednesday that the kitty cam had enjoyed 6,900 views from people who watched for at least 90 seconds.

Greg Fox of Realty World bought the equipment and is paying for online hosting of the kitty cam.

His daughter, he said, is a ?big cat and dog lover.?

About two years ago, the community involvement committee of the Wichita Area Association of Realtors, of which Fox is a former chairman, became involved with Woofstock, one of the shelter?s major annual fundraisers.

Fox had wanted to do something for the shelter, and he admits it helps give his business exposure.

Fox said he pays a hosting fee for the kitty cam and spent about $1,500 for the camera itself and $300 to $400 to have it installed.

?We have such an absolutely beautiful humane society to show off,? he said.

Reach Deb Gruver at 316-268-6400 or dgruver@wichitaeagle.com.

Source: http://www.kansas.com/2012/11/25/2580774/cuteness-streams-from-kansas-humane.html

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10 TIPS FOR A GREAT WEB DESIGN - Work On the Internet

Let us put it this way, there are people who are born with natural talents but without proper guidance and usage that particular talent may just simply go to waste.? A skill is something that we can learn and hone over time and through constant training we may be able to master it.? Learning a skill can be acquired through studying, research, experimenting, and gathering information from people who are adept to it for example, in web designing.? Below are ten simple tips which can give you a head start in bringing out the Picasso and the Michelangelo in you.

1. Free yourself: A free mind and spirit is essential for creativity.? By freeing yourself, you can follow what you want, your desires, your dreams and it allows you to be independent.? That?s why we make sure that our designers have enough creative freedom for them to deliver the highest quality of Riyadh web design possible.

2. Educate yourself: Look as many things as you can.? Be open-minded.? Travel a lot.? Expand your horizon by experiencing things that are new to you.? This way, you improve your work.? Smart Touch Web Design Company in Riyadh has regional branches in Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt and other areas in the Gulf region.? Periodically, we exchange ideas about the latest techniques and trends available and encountered making it possible for us to be flexible in all of our web design services.

3. Experiment and challenge yourself: Mistakes make things better.? It is only by trying again and again will you find out if your ideas work or not.? Try different approaches, use dummies, create different versions, and test your ideas on different things.? Probably you may end up with something nice and unexpected.? We try to go out of the box from time to time.? We would love to offer unique Riyadh web design approaches for your web design requirements.

4. Be original: It is hard to be all authentic with all of the influences that surround us every day.? Just be yourself.? As one of the top web design companies in Riyadh, we take our company?s integrity very seriously.? Being influenced is normal but it is only by merging these influences with your own style will you be able to make something new.

5. Write down your ideas: This will help you remember your great ideas and many times it will help you create new ones.? Writing down notes is like organizing your thoughts so you won?t have to end up running around in circles.? Before we take on any Riyadh web design job, we make sure to jot down every single information and idea from the client and our designers.

6. Love what you do: Don?t let the fire in your heart burn out.? Trust your work and always find ways to keep the passion burning.

7. Be more than a designer: Expand your horizons.? Inspirations, usually the best ones, come not only from web design but from other fields as well.

8. Love your critics: It is fine to hear people praising and liking your work but the real learning comes from those who make a valid and constructive criticism.? That is why we are encouraging our clients to send us their suggestions and reactions before and after each web design jobs so that we will be able to assess ourselves hence, improving our level of service.

9. Exercise: Do not over expose yourself to the computer.? Stand up and do some stretching or do something good for your body like going to the gym.

10. Communicate: Keep connected.? Ask questions.? Do not be afraid to ask for help and try something else.

Dr. Luz del Carmen A. Vilchis Esquivel says in the article Understanding Design from a Design Perspective, ?Each of the designer?s requirements is manifested as a skill ? a natural ability that enables him to realize a creative behavior ? but this generic attitude is formed and learned across time, the designer acquires knowledge, methods, technical skills and is particularized to constitute the dominion of what really matters here:? graphic design.?

To all of the aspiring web design artists out there:? these are just some of the other hundreds of tips that you will get elsewhere but remember that their success or failure will always still be in your hands

Article Tags : web design saudi, web design

Source: http://www.workoninternet.com/business/working-online/building-website/220139-web-design.html

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Sunday, November 25, 2012

Video: Egyptians riot against presidential expansion of power

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/49950943/

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Turing100 Event Report: Work of Butler Lampson ? Systems ...

(This is a live-blog of Neeran Karnik?s talk on Butler Lampson, as part of the Turing100 Lecture Series happening at Persistent. Since it is being typed during the talk, please forgive the typos and bad structuring of the article. This article is also very incomplete.)

Butler Lampson has contributions in a wide area of computer science fields. Here is the Turing Award Citation:

For contributions to the development of distributed, personal computing environments and the technology for their implementation: workstations, networks, operating systems, programming systems, displays, security and document publishing.

The number of different areas of computer science touched there is breathtaking.

Systems Built

Here is just a sampling of some of the work of Lampson that resulted in entire areas of computer hardware and software:

The first personal computer:
- The first personal computer in the world, the Xerox Alto, was conceived in a 1972 memo written by Lampson.
- Important contributions of the Alto:
  - First ?personal? computer
  - First computer that used a desktop metaphor
  - First computer to use a mouse-driven graphical interface
- Lampson later work on the follow-up workstation designs Dorado and Wildflower (research products) which later resulted in a successful commercial product (Star).
The Bravo Editor
- Lampson designed the first WYSIWYG editor in the world in 1974. This shipped with the Xerox Alto. This work can ultimately be seen to have led to the development of Microsoft Word
The Xerox 9700 and Dover Laser Printers
- The first laser printer was designed in 1969 at Xerox Parc and Lampson worked on the electronic design of it.
The SDS 940 Time-sharing system
- The first general-purpose time-sharing system.

And those were just the systems he built.

What about more fundamental contributions to computer science? Here is a list:

The two-phase commit protocol.
- This is the fundamental building block of all transactional processing in databases that are spread out across machines and/or geographies.
The CAL time-sharing system
Programming Languages
- MESA and SPL: for systems programming. Modern threads developed from here
- Euclid: first programming language to use verification
Security:
- Access matrix model, unifying capabilities and ACLs
- Theory of principals speaking for other principals
- Microsoft Palladium
- Scrubbing disk storage
- Research on how economic factors affect security
Networking

How is Systems Research different?

Butler Lampson was one of the few great computer scientists who spent a lot of in the laboratory with actual hardware, getting his hands dirty. This is not the kind of work normally associated with Turing award winners, but it is the kind of work that has really given us the actual hardware that we use in computer science today.

Some thoughts on why systems programming is different more difficult.

Designing and building large computing systems, or complex computing systems or both. Computers (from tablets to supercomputers), networks, storage and other hardware and OS, programming languages, and other infrastructure software.

Systems design is different from other parts of computers science (e.g. algorithm design) because it?s external interface is to the real world (and hence it is imprecise, subject to change, and generally underspecified), lots of moving parts (i.e. more internal structure and more internal interfaces), module-level design choices have wider implications on the end product, and measure of success is less clear than in other fields. There is no such thing as an optimal answer, so avoiding terrible designs is more important than finding the most optimal one.

Hints on Computer System Design

This is a paper written by Lampson giving hints on how to build good systems. He uses hints, because in systems work, there are no infallible rules. So there are just hints which guide your thinking. Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon, who oversees some of the most complex and scalable computing infrastructure in the world is a fan of this work. He finds these hints very useful, and says that they are more important today because they?ve withstood the test of time

These hints talk about functionality (what you?re doing), speed (are you doing it quickly enough), and fault-tolerance (and will you keep doing it) In systems, the interface design is the most important part. Do this well and other stuff will follow.

Lampson himself suggests that reading the whole hints paper at once might be tiresome, so it is better to read it in small doses at bedtime. And he points out that he himself has ignored most of these hints sometimes, but then has always regretted them.

By Navin Kabra on 24th November, 2012 in Event Report with No comments.

Tags: Events, persistent, systems, turing, turing100

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Source: http://punetech.com/turing100-event-report-work-of-butler-lampson-systems/

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Saturday, November 24, 2012

Rocket sirens pierce the Tel Aviv 'bubble'

Tel Aviv is a city that symbolizes efforts by Israelis to maintain a sense of normalcy despite the Arab-Israeli conflict. But now the new normal here includes the opening of municipal bomb shelters.

By Joshua Mitnick,?Correspondent / November 18, 2012

Israelis take cover as an air raid siren warns of incoming rockets from Gaza, next to an Iron Dome defense system in Tel Aviv, Saturday. Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with nearly 200 airstrikes early Saturday, the military said, widening a blistering assault on Gaza rocket operations to include the prime minister's headquarters, a police compound and a vast network of smuggling tunnels.

Oded Balilty/AP

Enlarge

Israel?s cosmopolitan capital has developed a reputation over the past decade for residents leading lives removed from the rest of Israel and the Middle East, but this weekend's rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip have burst the infamous Tel Aviv bubble.

Skip to next paragraph Joshua Mitnick

Correspondent

Joshua Mitnick has reported on Israel and the Palestinian territories for the Monitor since 2004. He lives in Tel Aviv.?

Pope elevates 6 cardinals to choose successor

VATICAN CITY (AP) ? Six new cardinals are joining the elite club of churchmen who will elect the next pope, bringing a more geographically diverse mix into the European-dominated College of Cardinals.

Pope Benedict XVI will formally elevate the six at a ceremony Saturday, bestowing red hats and gold rings on prelates from Colombia, India, Lebanon, Nigeria, the Philippines and U.S.

In explaining his choices for this "little consistory," Benedict said he was essentially completing his last cardinal-making ceremony held in February, when he elevated 22 cardinals, the vast majority of them European archbishops and Vatican bureaucrats.

The six new cardinals "show that the church is the church of all peoples and speaks in all languages," Benedict said last month. "It's not the church of one continent, but a universal church."

That said, the College of Cardinals remains heavily European even with the new additions: Of the 120 cardinals under age 80 and thus eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pope, more than half ? 62 ? are European. Critics have complained that the College of Cardinals no longer represents the church, since Catholicism is growing in Asia and Africa but is in crisis in much of Europe.

With the new additions, the College of Cardinals is a tad more multinational: Latin America, which boasts half of the world's Catholics, now has 21 voting-age cardinals; North America, 14; Africa, 11; Asia, 11; and Oceana, one.

Among the six new cardinals is Archbishop James Harvey, the American prefect of the papal household. As prefect, Harvey was the direct superior of the pope's former butler, Paolo Gabriele, who is serving an 18 month prison sentence in a Vatican jail for stealing the pope's private papers and leaking them to a reporter in the greatest Vatican security breach in modern times.

The Vatican spokesman has denied Harvey, 63, is leaving because of the scandal. But on the day the pope announced Harvey would be made cardinal, he also said he would leave the Vatican to take up duties as the archpriest of one of the Vatican's four Roman basilicas. Such a face-saving promotion-removal is not an uncommon Vatican personnel move.

Harvey's departure has led to much speculation about who would replace him in the delicate job of organizing the pope's daily schedule and arranging audiences.

Aside from Harvey, the new cardinals are: Abuja, Nigeria Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan; Bogota, Colombia Archbishop Ruben Salazar Gomez; Manila, Philippines Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle; Patriarch of Antioch of the Maronites in Lebanon, His Beatitude Bechara Boutros Rai; and the major Archbishop of the Trivandrum of the Siro-Malankaresi in India, His Beatitude Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal.

Cardinals serve as the pope's closest advisers, but their main task is to elect a new pope.

The six new cardinals are all under age 80. Their nominations bring the number of voting-age cardinals to 120, 67 of whom were named by Benedict, all but ensuring that his successor will be chosen from a group of like-minded prelates.

Saturday's consistory marks the first time in decades that not a single European or Italian has been made a cardinal ? a statistic that has not gone unnoticed in Italy. Italy still has the lions' share of cardinals, though, with 28 voting-age "princes" of the church.

___

Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pope-elevates-6-cardinals-choose-successor-052355393.html

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