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A strange farmyard friendship
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A farmyard chicken from Somerset has been taking naps on the back of a horse. And taking trips into the Pub at night to enjoy London's nightlife!!!A strange farmyard friendship
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A farmyard chicken from Somerset has... more
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Music Blogs > Stop The Presses! > Dough-Re-Mi: Music's Most Expensive Divorces
Dough-Re-Mi: Music's Most Expensive Divorces
Posted Tue Dec 16, 2008 11:31am PST by Billy Altman in Stop The Presses!
Well, now we really know why Madonna's been working it so hard on her latest tour: the Material Girl's got bills to pay!
Yesterday the Associated Press reported that Madonna will shell out somewhere between $76 and $92 million to settle her divorce from Guy Ritchie, her husband of eight years. The Lordly (as opposed to merely Princely) sum includes a country home in Ritchie's native England as well as a London pub, where the movie director will no doubt have plenty of willing drinking buddies to help wash away the pain of both his failed marriage and, perhaps more pertinently, his gone-South filmmaking career.
They say major events often happen in threes, and it is significant to note that, just as 2008 is winding down, the Madonna moolahthon has snuck under the wire as this year's third huge music-accented divorce settlement. Back in March, you'll recall, a British court awarded Heather Mills $50 million dollars in her nasty divorce from Paul McCartney. Then in August, there was Phil Collins' less nasty but just as costly $50 million settlement from Orianne Cevey--as opposed to Collins' previous marriage, which he famously ended in 1994 via a kiss-off fax to Jill Tavelman, and which cost him another cool $34 million. No "Invisible Touch" there.Music Blogs > Stop The Presses! > Dough-Re-Mi: Music's Most Expensive... more
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CLEVELAND – A woman so horribly disfigured she was willing to risk her life to do something about it has undergone the nation's first near-total face transplant, the Cleveland Clinic announced Tuesday. Reconstructive surgeon Dr. Maria Siemionow and a team of other specialists replaced 80 percent of the woman's face with that of a female cadaver a couple of weeks ago in a bold and controversial operation certain to stoke the debate over the ethics of such surgery.
The patient's name and age were not released, and the hospital said her family wanted the reason for her transplant to remain confidential. The hospital plans a news conference Wednesday and would not give details until then.
The transplant was the fourth worldwide; two have been done in France, and one was performed in China.
Surgeons not connected to the Cleveland case reacted cautiously since little is known about the circumstances, but generally praised the operation.
"There are patients who can benefit tremendously from this. It's great that it happened," said Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, a surgeon at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston who plans to offer face transplants, too.
Dr. Laurent Lantieri, a plastic surgeon at Henri Mondor-Albert Chenevier Hospital, near Paris, who did a face transplant on a man disfigured by a rare genetic disease, said: "This is very good news for all of us that doctors in the U.S. have done this."
Unlike operations involving vital organs like hearts and livers, transplants of faces or hands are done to improve quality of life — not extend it. Recipients run the risk of deadly complications and must take immune-suppressing drugs for the rest of their lives to prevent organ rejection, raising their odds of cancer and many other problems.
Arthur Caplan, a leading bioethicist who has expressed grave concerns in the past about such surgery, withheld judgment on the Cleveland case but said the woman's doctors should give her the option of assisted suicide if they wind up making her life worse.
"The biggest ethical problem is dealing with failure — if your face rejects. It would be a living hell," said Caplan, bioethics chief at the University of Pennsylvania. "If your face is falling off and you can't eat and you can't breathe and you're suffering in a terrible manner that can't be reversed, you need to put on ...........
And now the Us does what France and China have already done!!!CLEVELAND – A woman so horribly disfigured she was willing to risk her life to... more
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Call for record Opec output cut
Saudi oil minister Ali al-Nuaimi
The Saudi oil minister wants non-members of Opec to cut output as well
Opec leaders are gathering in Algeria under pressure from Saudi Arabia to make their biggest ever single cut in output as prices plunge.
Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, predicts the cartel will reduce production by a 2m barrels a day at its meeting.
Saudi oil minister Ali al-Nuaimi said he expected Opec non-members to cut output by 600,000 barrels per day.
Oil giant Russia, a non-member, will be represented at the meeting.
A combined cut of 2.6m barrels per day represents 3% of the global output.
Oil prices have slumped $100 from a peak of $147 a barrel in July, as demand weakened amid the downturn.
Expectation is high that oil producers are ready for co-ordinated actions to boost crude prices.
"Everybody is suffering. That is why we want two million. But we're worried about compliance," said an Opec delegate.
On Tuesday, US light, sweet crude eased 18 cents to trade at $44.33.
Brent oil added 55 cents to $45.15 a barrel.
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Saudi oil minister Ali al-Nuaimi
The Saudi oil... more
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By Martin Asser
BBC News, Damascus
Just off the crowded central market in Old Damascus, a sales assistant called Mahmoud is giving me my first introduction into an unusual Syrian speciality - musical knickers.
The garments come in many different shapes and colours, and play little tunes - or other extraneous noises like telephone ringtones - all made by small electronic devices hidden in the lining.
Singing underwear isn't the only item on sale at the "Fatin Shop for Ladies Indoor Clothing", where Mahmoud is proudly showing off his product lines.
They used to tell me at art school: 'Look within your culture'. So I looked and I was in for a big surprise
Rana Salam, author of Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie
He's got knickers with flashing fairy lights, others that glow in the dark, a bra-and-knickers set shaped like manicured women's hands enveloping the wearer's crotch and breasts.
In a slightly higher price range, he's got remote-controlled bras and knickers, designed to spring open and fall to the floor with a clap of the hands or a press of a button.
Welcome to the no-frills world of Syrian lingerie - no frills, but plenty of tassels, and feathers, and zips, and bras which open like curtains, and...
There's a whole street off the historic Hamadiyeh Souk selling this genre of clothing - all outfits manufactured in Syria, some that Madonna herself might blush to wear, all showing bawdy creativity and a wicked sense of humour.
Culture shock
Forthright displays of the some world's kinkiest "leisure wear" have long been a feature of Syrian souks - though many tourists don't notice the crotchless knickers and PVC French maid outfits among the more traditional inlaid backgammon sets and textiles.
Mahmoud demonstrates a remote-controlled knickers (Photo by Martin Asser)
Mahmoud demonstrates various styles, including remote-controlled knickers
It stems from the Syrian tradition for brides-to-be to be given a trousseau of exotic underwear - sometimes dozens of items - usually by girlfriends, aunties and cousins, to add spice to their wedding nights, honeymoons and beyond.
With a glint in his eye, Mahmoud, who's barely out of school himself, says "some ladies keep coming back until their 30s".
Now two London-based Arab women, Rana Salam and Malu Halasa, are shining a spotlight on this little-known local speciality, with a new book called The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie.
"They used to tell me at art school: 'Look within your culture'. So I looked and I was in for a big surprise," graphic designer Ms Salam told me at the launch in London last month.
"The point of the book is to go be.
I always tell myself, "SELF you got to get out more see the world, get off that hippie website and go to Syria" and then my self answers. Nah, you gotta post three more articles before you can even go to bed. Roses on her chest is cool but I would rather have Tulips on my Organ.By Martin Asser
BBC News, Damascus
Just off the crowded central market in Old... more
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U.S.News & World Report
6 Things to Know About the Fed Rate Cut
Tuesday December 16, 3:32 pm ET
By Luke Mullins
The Federal Reserve on Tuesday cut its federal funds target rate by more than three-quarters of a percentage point to a range of between 0 and .25 percent. The decision signals that Fed Chief Ben Bernanke is more concerned with the rapidly deteriorating economy--which has been mired in a recession since December of last year--that the prospect of stoking inflation. "Since the Committee's last meeting, labor market conditions have deteriorated, and the available data indicate that consumer spending, business investment, and industrial production have declined," the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee said in its statement. "Financial markets remain quite strained and credit conditions tight."
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Here's how the Fed's actions affect you:
1. Fixed mortgage rates: Today's rate cut will have little if any impact on 30-year fixed mortgage rates, which are determined by factors that operate largely outside of the Federal Open Market Committee's reach, says Keith Gumbinger of HSH Associates. "Any change in the rate has little to do with long-term mortgage rates," he says. But in its statement the Fed said it could expand a recently announced program to buy up debt and mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that has already driven mortgage rates down to a very attractive 5.28 percent, according to HSH Associates. It also reiterated that it was looking at the possibility of buying long-term Treasury bonds. Both of these announcements could work to bring rates even lower.
2. Prime rate loans: The real impact of today's cut will be felt by consumers with loans that are tied to the prime rate, a benchmark rate that typically moves in lock step with the federal funds rate. "The only place where you would see a concrete impact at the consumer level would be things that are directly tied to prime," says Mike Larson, a real estate analyst at Weiss Research. Many home-equity lines of credit and certain credit cards with variable interest rates are tied to prime rate. As such, borrowers with these loans could see their interest rates decline.
3. Home-equity savings: Home-equity loans averaged 5.5 percent in October but dropped to 5.26 percent in November following the Fed's half-point cut. Gumbinger says he expects average rates on home-equity lines of credit to experience similar declines this time around--but not everyone will be able to take advantage of them. That's because many of the interest rates on these loans are already at their minimums, and are contractually prohibited to go any lower. So check the terms of your home-equity loan to see if you are eligible to cash in on the decline.
Other Three on Yahoo!!!U.S.News & World Report
6 Things to Know About the Fed Rate Cut
Tuesday December... more
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