We all know why we give gifts and share greetings at this time of year. We want folks to know that we love and care about them and Christmas season is one of those times set aside to do such feat. And so, to maximize the love for your holiday think about starting now while you have some breathing room. Well, as a matter of choice, one way of doing it – is by preparing a quality personalized christmas cards for distribution to your love ones, and of course, items that possibly suits your aura and style. Thus, for you to choose from 100’s of different card designs then feel free to express this special time of the year by visiting the above mentioned now. Hurry and have some fun.
Maximize The Love For Your Holiday
October 1, 2009 by ·
Fasting Carries Risk Of Overeating
October 1, 2009 by ·
The temptation to eat a lot during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting, is great, but Saiful Khandker makes a conscious effort to not overdo it.
“You just kind of have to be mindful of, OK, if I weren’t fasting and starving, what kind of meal would I have? And then kind of limit yourself based on that,” said Khandker, technology systems director for a hedge fund in New York.
Around the world, many observant Muslims like Khandker who’ve been fasting all day during Ramadan are thinking about the feast they’ll have on Eid al Fitr, the holiday that ends the holy month, next weekend. Khandker describes this day as the Muslim equivalent of Christmas, complete with gift exchanges for children and a lot of food — everyone can “pig out for the whole day.”
Food experts agree that the fast, during which observant Muslims refrain from eating during the day, can actually cause people to overeat. Some people actually take in more calories in one evening meal than they normally would over the course of a normal day during Ramadan, said Joe Regenstein, professor of food science at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
“Ironically, there are table manner rules in Islam, and they actually normally encourage you to leave the table partly hungry, which is consistent with modern health guidelines,” he said.
This is one of many quirks about religious dietary practices. While no specific regimen of the major religions is better or worse than any other, it is important to keep certain health issues in mind when following those rituals, experts say.
“My general take is that you can have good diets and bad diets in any of the religious systems,” Regenstein said.
Here is a sampling of dietary practices carried out in major religions today, and what you should know about them:
Fasting
Religious eating habits are especially relevant this month with Muslims observing Ramadan and Jews about to undertake an approximately 24-hour fast on Yom Kippur, which begins at sundown on September 27.
Overeating can harm the body and cause heartburn, cautioned Keri Gans, a registered dietitian in private practice in New York. If you are fasting, you should eat normal sized, well-balanced meals with plenty of liquids to avoid dehydration before a day without eating, she said.
Some people should generally not undertake fasts for health reasons, including pregnant or breastfeeding women and small children, Gans said. If you have an underlying condition such as diabetes, you should talk to your physician about whether you should fast.
As a part of a religion, fasting teaches discipline, Regenstein said.
“The discipline, at least in principle, should help a person eat better,” he said.
Meat laws
Kosher meat in Judaism is slaughtered in a specific way by a religious butcher known as a “shochet.” The animal is drained of blood and broiled or heavily salted to help remove the blood. Both Judaism and Islam, whose dietary laws fall under “halal,” mandate that the animal be ritually slaughtered with specific prayers.
The practice salting of meat helps fight bacteria, but probably not more than other modern antimicrobial techniques, Regenstein said.
“We’re talking about 4,000 years of salting having benefit, and the rest of the science, in a sense, has caught up in the last 10 years,” he said.
If sodium is a concern because of high blood pressure, there are butcher shops that sell meat with different kinds of salt, or unsalted meat for broiling.
The Jewish custom of separating milk and meat — not eating the two at the same meal and, for the most strict adherents, having separate plates and utensils for each — does not appear to have dietary advantages or disadvantages, experts say.
In a practical sense, this tradition forces people to make their meals more diverse and plan them out more carefully, Regenstein said. Usually, people will not eat as much meat overall when they practice this kosher separation, he said.
Hold the ham, shellfish
Judaism and Islam share a restriction against eating pork. Some say this helps stave off trichinosis, a parasitic disease that humans can get from eating undercooked or raw pork, Regenstein said. However, there is some question about whether pigs in the Middle East would have had trichinosis ages ago when these traditions were developed, he said.
In addition, Jews traditionally do not eat shellfish, such as shrimp. Again, there is some association with certain diseases, as well as pollution, but it’s not clear that this tradition leads to better health. Moreover, one of the staples of Jewish ritual meals such as Passover is gefilte fish, made from carp, which eats shrimp anyway, he said.
Attitudes to alcohol
The Muslim prohibition of alcohol is not necessarily good or bad, Gans said. There is some research to suggest that alcohol in moderation improves good cholesterol, but it is not definitive, she said. Red wine is associated with positive effects such as cancer prevention, but grape juice may offer the same benefits, Regenstein said. Moreover, avoiding alcohol also skirts the negative social implications associated with the substance.
In Judaism, however, wine is woven into ceremonies such as those for Passover and the Sabbath service. In fact, some synagogues give small portions of wine to children.
Vegetarianism
People who practice religions such as Buddhism are vegetarians to varying degrees, with some members electing to cut out dairy and eggs in addition to animals and fish. Some Hindus are also vegetarian, and generally consider cows to be sacred.
As long as vegetarians get an adequate supply of vitamins and protein, this can be a healthy lifestyle, Gans said. Some do need an extra boost iron or other nutrient, however, and should meet with a dietitian to figure out what’s best for them individually, Gans said.
A matter of taste?
This is just a smattering of traditions practiced by various groups today, and subgroups of the religions mentioned here may have specific additional restrictions on certain animals.
In the end, many religious dietary practices do not have any more impact on healthy eating than other habits that arise from personal preference, Gans said. Some people avoid shellfish because they simply do not like the taste, and do not get a determinant or benefit as a result.
But, said Regenstein, kosher and halal are not fundamentally sets of health laws. Though he follows kosher rules himself, as a teenager in a Jewish community in Newark, New Jersey, he was suspicious of the common wisdom that the milk and meat separation was healthier “because you don’t mix the bacteria.”
“When I got more formally involved, it was actually sort of nice to realize that in fact these are not health laws. They are in the official category of ‘God said, you do,’ and I don’t have to go back and try to chase this down.” By Elizabeth Landau, CNN.
Assess & Determine Your Financial Situation
September 30, 2009 by ·
You may have paid off your house, just attended your youngest child’s college graduation or you may be a single professional with few expenses. Even better, your for-profit company has made it possible for you to retire or begin a second career. Many people believe that there is no correlation between the salary and the value delivered to society. But, whatever your situation is, you must assess your personal financial situation to determine if you can make the change. And while it is true that job searching is a daunting task, hence, the good news is if you are in switching sectors, laboratory assistant is a good place to start which gets you good contacts for your next gig.
New York City Prepares For Era of High Seas
September 30, 2009 by ·
When major ice sheets thaw, they release enough fresh water to disrupt ocean currents world-wide and make the planet wobble with the uneven weight of so much meltwater on the move. Studying these effects more closely, scientists are discovering local variations in rising sea levels — and some signs pointing to higher seas around metropolitan New York.
Sea level may rise faster near New York than at most other densely populated ports due to local effects of gravity, water density and ocean currents, according to four new forecasts of melting ice sheets. The forecasts are the work of international research teams that included the University of Toronto, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., Florida State University and the University of Bristol in the U.K., among others.
Scientists are laboring to make their predictions more reliable. While they do, New York has become an urban experiment in the ways that seaboard cities can adapt to climate change over the next century. For their part, the city’s long-term planners are taking action but are trying to balance the cost of re-engineering the largest city in the U.S. against the uncertainties of climate forecasts.
“We can’t make multibillion-dollar decisions based on the hypothetical,” says Rohit Aggarwala, the city’s director of long-term planning and sustainability.
Still, prompted by a possibility of floods from higher seas, some university-based marine researchers and civil engineers are debating whether New York ought to protect its low-lying financial district, port, power grid and subways with storm surge barriers like the mobile bulwarks that safeguard London, Rotterdam, Netherlands, and St. Petersburg, Russia. Engineering concepts for multibillion-dollar barriers around New York harbor were discussed here this week during the H209 Water Forum, an international conference on coastal cities and climate change, held by the Henry Hudson 400 Foundation at the Liberty Science Center.
World-wide, cities in 40 countries depend on dikes or seawalls. The seaside of the Netherlands is protected by storm surge barriers big enough to be seen from space. In Venice, Italy, engineers are completing a $7 billion barrier to block high tides that flood the city 100 times a year. In New Orleans, construction crews have started a $700 million barrier to help prevent hurricane floods. In California, it could cost $14 billion to protect 1,100 miles of vulnerable urban coastline with reinforced sea walls and $1.4 billion a year to maintain them, the Pacific Institute reported in March.
Unlike New York, though, those urban areas were built at or below sea level. Moreover, most of them also are on land that is sinking, adding to the danger posed by higher oceans.
While most of New York is above sea level, its subways, telecommunications cables, fiber-optics networks, plumbing and power mains aren’t. “There is so much underground,” says urban water management consultant Piet Dircke at Arcadis, one of four engineering firms that recently developed concepts for a storm surge barrier here. “The economic impact of flooding could be huge.”
Indeed, some civil engineers argue the city already risks catastrophic storm flooding. “A storm surge is not really a global warming issue” for New York, says senior engineer Dennis Padron at Halcrow Inc., which helped design a 15-mile-long storm barrier in St. Petersburg. “It could happen tomorrow.”
Under certain conditions, a hurricane now could generate a 30-foot-high storm surge and flood 100 square miles of New York. If ice melts and sea level rises, that risk increases. “If you have 20 inches of sea level rise, the edges of lower Manhattan would flood 20 times a year,” says Douglas Hill, a consulting engineer at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University. “It would look like Venice.”
To be sure, the city that never sleeps is rarely dry even now. Every day, transit crews pump 14 million gallons of water from city subways. Authorities recently installed $400 million of more powerful pumps. Last year, they started installing higher sidewalk grates — disguised as street art, bike racks and benches — to help keep storm water away from subway rails.
Since last summer, city planners have been persuading federal, state and regional agencies as well as private concerns to gradually upgrade vulnerable facilities here as part of routine capital upkeep. They are reassessing building codes, raising key equipment in flood zones and taking inventory of infrastructure at risk. But it can be hard to get some landlords to even move a fuse box from a damp basement to a more protected place. Any talk of storm surge barriers is premature, they say.
“Our burden of proof is somewhat higher,” says the city’s Mr. Aggarwala. “We have to be very clear that we do all the low-cost stuff first.”
In their efforts, Mr. Aggarwala and his colleagues have been guided by a panel of city-appointed climate experts from NASA and Columbia University, whose report predicts that by 2080 New York will have the climate Raleigh, N.C., has today. By their estimate, it will be about seven degrees Fahrenheit warmer and sea level may be two feet higher, unless polar ice sheets do melt.
But such forecasts can be overtaken by new data. “You have to continually update plans as the models get better and the knowledge gets better and the unknowns become known,” Mr. Aggarwala says.
Scientists are still trying to gauge how much of the Greenland ice sheet may melt and how quickly the West Antarctic Ice Sheet might respond to rising temperatures due to greenhouse-gas emissions. “When an ice sheet melts, sea level change is not uniform,” says climatologist Jonathan Bamber at the U.K.’s University of Bristol who studies Antarctic ice sheets.
Generally, sea level today varies from place to place. The North Atlantic normally is two feet lower than the northern Pacific, because Atlantic sea water is colder, denser and saltier. This summer, weakened currents and persistent winds, for instance, caused sea level along the U.S. eastern seaboard to be two feet higher than normal, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported last week.
By taking such factors into account, researchers earlier this year calculated that melting Greenland glaciers could shift ocean currents enough to make sea level along New York’s 570 miles of shoreline an additional 20 inches higher than seas elsewhere. “It will cause the sea level along the coastal region of the Northeast U.S. to rise faster,” says climate modeler Aixue Hu at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
So far, city planners are biding their time. “We are not planning for the worst case yet, but we are thinking about what happens if Greenland melts more quickly,” says Adam Freed, the city’s deputy director of long-term planning.
For Mr. Aggarwala, any changes in climate are best countered by incremental adjustments as science and circumstances demand. “If we have to shut the stock exchange for a day because water is running down Wall Street, that’s not unprecedented,” Mr. Aggarwala says. “A major snowstorm can do that. The key challenge is how quickly we can recover.” By Robert Lee Hotz, The Wall Street Journal.
Space Saving Designs
September 30, 2009 by ·
To some degree, while the necessity of lockers in high schools is certainly debatable, yet, it does not pose a great security risk as what others may have thought about it. And so, whether you’re replacing old lockers, may be filling a new school with lockers or as an addition to the existing Lockers, then just consider its construction, configuration, interior features, accessories and assembly before making your purchase. Almost all School Lockers are made of steel, but the strength of the steel varies. Remember—the lower the gauge, the stronger the steel.
As a matter of fact, if you’d like to store your stuff comfortably and safely while inside a gym, you can simply place all your belongings in a Gym Lockers, of course with a possible lock. And if you’re there for a group class only, you can probably leave your stuff on the floor or at the Wood Locker bench at the side of the room without a problem, but if you’re there for the cardio and weight machines, lugging your stuff around is really going to be a hassle.
Nevertheless, if you’re contemplating and or planning to place an order of inexpensive lockers, then you might as well have it at Lockers for sale, which is certainly the best place for people who are searching to have a modern space saving designs. Towards this point, in the event of some query, their friendly and efficient customer services are prepared to answer them from the complicated commercial aspect, to the practical residential one. Rests assure that from start to finish your shopping experience with the above mentioned will be effortless and enjoyable.
The Ice Is Melting
September 30, 2009 by ·
Two weeks ago, I visited the Arctic. I saw the remains of a glacier that just a few years ago was a majestic mass of ice. It had collapsed. Not slowly melted — collapsed. I traveled nine hours by ship from the world’s northernmost settlement to reach the polar ice rim. In just a few years, the same ship may be able to sail unimpeded all the way to the North Pole. The Arctic could be virtually ice-free by 2030.
Scientists told me their sobering findings. The Arctic is our canary in the coal mine for climate impacts that will affect us all.
I was alarmed by the rapid pace of change there. Worse still, changes in the Arctic are now accelerating global warming. Thawing permafrost is releasing methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Melting ice in Greenland threatens to raise sea levels.
Meanwhile, global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.
I am therefore all the more convinced we must act — now.
To that end, on Sept. 22 I am convening a special summit on climate change at the United Nations for some 100 world leaders — history’s largest-ever such gathering of heads of state and government. Their collective challenge: transform the climate crisis into an opportunity for safer, cleaner, sustainable green growth for all.
The key is Copenhagen, where governments will gather to negotiate a new global climate agreement in December.
I will have a simple message to convey to leaders: The world needs you to actively push for a fair, effective and ambitious deal in Copenhagen. Fail to act, and we will count the cost for generations to come.
Climate change is the preeminent geopolitical issue of our time. It rewrites the global equation for development, peace and prosperity. It threatens markets, economies and development gains. It can deplete food and water supplies, provoke conflict and migration, destabilize fragile societies and even topple governments.
Hyperbole? Not according to the world’s best scientists. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says global greenhouse gas emissions need to peak within 10 years if we are to avoid unleashing powerful, natural forces that are now slipping out of our control.
Ten years is within the political lifetime of many attending the summit. The climate crisis is occurring on their watch.
There is an alternative: sustainable growth based on green technologies and policies that favor low emissions over current carbon-intensive models. Many national stimulus packages devised in the wake of the global economic downturn feature a strong green component that creates jobs and positions countries to excel in the clean energy economy of the 21st century.
Change is in the air. The key lies in a global climate deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit global temperature rise to a scientifically safe level. A deal to catalyze clean energy growth. Most urgently, an agreement must protect and assist those who are most vulnerable from inevitable climate impacts.
What is needed is political will at the highest levels — presidents and prime ministers — that translates into rapid progress in the negotiating room. It requires more trust among nations, more imagination, ambition and cooperation.
I expect leaders to roll up their sleeves and speak with — not past — each other. I expect them to intensify efforts to resolve the key political issues that have so far slowed global negotiations to a glacial pace. Ironically, that expression — until recently — connoted slowness. But the glaciers I saw a few weeks ago in the Arctic are melting faster than human progress to preserve them.
We must place the planet’s long-term interests ahead of short-term political expediency. National leaders need to be global leaders who take the long view. Today’s threats transcend borders. So, too, must our thinking.
Copenhagen need not resolve all the details. But a successful global climate deal must involve all countries, consistent with their capabilities, working toward a common, long-term goal. Here are my benchmarks for success.
First, every country must do its utmost to reduce emissions from all major sources. Industrialized countries have to strengthen their mitigation targets, which are currently nowhere close to what the IPCC says is needed. Developing countries, too, must slow the rise in their emissions and accelerate green growth as part of their strategies to reduce poverty.
Second, a successful deal must help the most vulnerable to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change. This is an ethical imperative as well as a smart investment in a more stable, secure world.
Third, developing countries need funding and technology so they can move more quickly toward low-emissions growth. A deal must also unlock private investment, including through carbon markets.
Fourth, resources must be equitably managed and deployed in a way that all countries have a voice.
This year at Copenhagen, we have a powerful opportunity to get on the right side of history. It’s an opportunity not only to avert disaster, but to launch a fundamental transformation of the global economy.
Strong new political winds now fill our sails. Millions of citizens are mobilized. Savvy businesses are charting a cleaner energy course. We must seize this moment to act boldly on climate change. By Ban Ki-moon, The New York Times.
India Needs Nuclear Energy To Overcome Power Shortage: Pranab
September 29, 2009 by ·
India needs to give a major thrust to nuclear energy to overcome power shortage and fuel economic growth, given the limitations of the conventional sources of energy, said Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
“Our all requirement (of energy) will only be met by considering nuclear and non-conventional resources,” he said while releasing commemorative coins to mark the birth centenary of nuclear scientist Homi Bhabha.
Making a strong case for a major nuclear power programme with a long-term vision, Mukherjee said, “quality power is essential requirement (for growth)…Our conventional sources are not at all adequate to achieve the desired energy (output) in terms of electricity generation”.
Noting that coal resources are depleting and hydel power potential is limited, the Finance Minister said overexploitation of conventional resources are also raising environmental concerns.
Unlike the conventional sources of energy, he said, “nuclear energy is clean and self-alternating compared to fossil fuel”.
Recalling the contribution of Bhabha, Mukherjee said, he started his work at a time when nuclear science was in the stage of infancy and people were not sure what role it could play in economic development. Indian Express.