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The UK government are intending to immunise all girls aged 12 and 13 against 2 forms of HPV which causes cervical cancer. This is a course of 3 injections.
Although it is only effective against 2 forms, they are the most common ones, but it seems that they are also treatable easily after early detection of pre-cancerous cells.
There is a thought that girls who are given this vaccine would in future years when called up for their routine pap smear, would think that the vaccine would protect them and that they would not attend. It is also thought that they might also become more sexually active thinking that they were protected.
I understand that this is available in the US and would welcome any opinions on whether I should allow my daughter (who is not yet 12) to have this.
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Conformité Européenne. Ooh, la-la.
CE for short. It's a manufacturing standard used in Europe. Motorcycle safety equipment, mainly armor, is often CE rated. Helmets, in the US, are DOT, ANSI and Snell rated. DOT is Department Of Transportation. A helmet must be DOT approved to meet the requirement of wearing a helmet in a helmet law US state. If it's not DOT, it's not a legal helmet. ANSI is American National Standards Institute and is similar to CE. Snell is a foundation that tests helmets and is named for William "Pete" Snell, a race car driver who was killed when his helmet failed. Snell also tests helmets of non US make and those sold world wide. I have not found CE rated helmets in the US. Probably because DOT is what matters to the law.
To carry a CE rating or marking, a piece of gear or any item must conform to a standard of European manufacture as laid out in the European Directive. This Directive mainly concerns itself with safety compliance. It is most commonly seen on safety equipment, machinery and toys.
Some ratings are earned by independent testing done outside of the factory. Some are earned once a company completes a self test program as allowed by the European Directive. An item which carries a CE mark means that it has been deemed reasonably safe when used properly.
The US recognizes CE as valid under the Agreements on Mutual Recognition of Conformity Assessment. This is a good thing.
If a product is CE then an American consumer can be assured that it is a safe product to use for it's intended purpose. It's a real safety item, not a novelty item or some piece of third rate junk. By accepting each others safety ratings and making the standards for those ratings similar to one another, we can better trade amongst each other.
Having seen CE on so much motorcycle gear is how I came to know anything about it. I had never heard of it before. Not knowing much about the gear going into my new mode of transport, having a standard gave me a way to weed out my options. The CE rating is one big reason I bought the jacket I did. If the jacket armor was not CE rated, I would not have bought it. Given the amount of foreign Chinese crap that we Americans have had dumped on us lately, we all need to look for CE ratings when we buy foreign made products. The standard exists. We can enforce it with our wallets.
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I am still waiting on a specific crime for which bush can be impeached.
CHRISTOPHER PYLE: Not terribly surprised, but the one piece of it that amazes me is that the President admitted that he personally ordered the National Security Agency to violate a federal statute. Now, he has no Constitutional authority to do that. The Constitution says he must take care that all laws be faithfully executed, not just the ones he likes. The statute says it’s, as you said at the beginning of the program, that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is the exclusive law governing these international intercepts, and he violated it anyway. And the law also says that any person who violates that law is guilty of a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. By the plain meaning of the law, the President is a criminal.
AMY GOODMAN: Martin Garbus, you say this is an impeachable offense.
MARTIN GARBUS: Yes, I agree that it is a crime, that it is an impeachable offense. The question is: What will happen? The mere fact that it’s impeachable doesn’t necessarily mean that the Supreme Court will find that, and it doesn’t mean that he will necessarily be impeached. He should be impeached, but he is claiming, for the first time, that he has the authority to do this, even though FISA is there, because he has relied on counsel. He has relied on John Yoo. He has relied previously on Ashcroft, and he’s now relying on Gonzales. And all of these people are telling him that it’s legal. All these people are telling him that the President’s powers can be expanded, even though FISA is there. And the President has come up with an excuse, which I don’t see how anybody can buy. In FISA, you can get a warrant in five minutes. You just go before the FISA court and you get your warrant, and that’s all there is to it. There’s no argument—"
I think this is pretty clear and provable in a court. (cause Bush admitted it).. I included the response from Attorney Garbus, because, of his legal opinion that impeachment should happen, but won't.. which I happen to agree with.. as well as most of you here.
I appreciate the focus on specific crimes and then more on what is proveable, Kucinch's articles are long and.. get a bit.. crazy.. to weed out what crimes Bush actually committed and can be directly held accountable for vs what the team of 'yes' people's crimes are and what they are responsible for.. it just too ridiculous to pursue. (legally)
What I, personally, think is an interesting part of this wiretapping issue is the rulings against Nixon's actions which fueled the creation of the FISA Act. With the Supreme Court as it is now.. I could see how they would support Bush and reverse the decisions that created the FISA Act in the first place... and.. that's just speculation...but interesting...
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While deployed to Iraq, I worked with Iraqi police. My primary function was to oversee the development of a professional and stable police force in my area of operations and toward that end I developed training for them and conducted regular evaluations. I also worked with American Soldiers and one of the things I emphasized time and time again with BOTH the Iraqi Police and our own Soldiers was not to make the problems in Iraq worse by mistreating civilians. Despite my reputation as something of an ogre here, I am intimately familiar with what it takes to develop and maintain positive relations with a community.
I tell you guys all that to lead into this...The proper treatment of the community is essential in any effort to stop terrorism or to wage what we in the military term COIN, or counter-insurgency operations. I used to run update a thread here that raised issues about the Palestinian-Israel conflict from Palestinian perspective. Rather than dig that thread up and revive it, I have decided to start fresh here. Take a look at the next posts and feel free to jump in with your own comments. This will be a closely moderated thread.
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"During a 300-year period between 3-5 million women were tortured and killed by the 'Holy Inquisition," an institution founded by the Roman Catholic Church to suppress heresy. This surely ranks together with the Holocaust as one of the darkest chapters in human history. The sacred feminine was declared demonic, and an entire dimension largely disappeared from human experience. Other cultures and religions such as Judaism, Islam, and even Buddhism also suppressed the female dimension, although in a less violent way. Women's status was reduced to child-bearers and men's property. Males who denied the feminine even within themselves were now running the world, a world that was totally out of balance. The rest is history or rather a case history of insanity."
E. Tolle A New Earth
One of the first recorded genocide was a gender-cide.. women.
Now, I think it's safe to say that this is not news to many of you, but I just posted a reply to Law about honor killing and used some stats about violence against women in the US... and I got to thinking about the women in Africa, Darfur and Somalia.. as rape was used as a weapon against those 'not of the right tribe'...
Have we progressed? Healed this imbalance in any apparent way?
Eckhart also states:" The sacred feminine, because it is suppressed, is felt by many women as emotional pain."
Do you agree with this.. not?
If it's an imbalance then it should be on some level a shared imbalance in both men and women.. right?
Got any thoughts on all of this?
One caveat: I'm not really interested in a feminist political response.. but a deeper discussion.. (as usual)..
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Apparently, Jesse Jackson disliked some comments that Obama made about the fathers of the children of single mothers. Jackson took the Obama comments as being "talking down to black people". You can see the comments Jackson made here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quch7x3R6gw
Is Jesse being over sensitive to the remarks Obama made and which triggered Jackson's comments?
Apparently at some point Jesse also made comments about Obama which involved the word "nigger", but I don't think that Fox News has released that segment of the recording yet. If he did say that, then Jackson is also a hypocrite of the first degree.
It would be very interesting to see the full recording, in order to see the remarks and words used in the correct context without any extra editing by Fox News.
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Well, despite the bland and empty assurances of the Islamic apologists who frequent the site, we are about to be treated to yet another spectacle in Iran.
Nine Iranians have been sentenced to death by stoning for the alleged offense of adultery. The eight women and one man were convicted in cities throughout Iran by different judges. The disproportionate number of women faces death is revealing. Ater all, if one has enough "evidence" to sentence the female half of the adulterous pair to death then one must necessarily have enough evidence to so sentence the male half. Apparently, there is an extra burden of proof if one desires to convict a male adulterer under Sharia law.
Where is Hureea with his assurances that a death sentence for adultery is practically impossible? That it requires multiple witnesses to the act of penetration? According to Shadi Sadr, a human rights lawyer in Iran, six of those convicted were convicted solely on the basis of alleged confessions given to the judge...confessions obtained without witnesses or lawyers present. No witnesses, let alone four witnesses, testified in their cases.
Last week, two women were "executed" in Afghanistan by Taliban "authorities" for the alleged offense of pandering for the Coalition Forces. Of course, they were not stoned to death. The Taliban, captured on film by a reporter at the scene, shot the women. One was shot multiple times in the back as she knelt among her killers. The other was shot multiple times in the head as she too knelt among her killers. I suspect we will not be afforded the opportunity to examne the "evidence" against these two women but I am pretty sure it did not consist of multiple independent witnesses who observed any overt act.
Eleven people, convicted under Sharia law and killed or awaiting death...deaths Hureaa et al assure us will never happen due to the generous legal protections Sharia affords. One wonders how long after Sharia comes to America or Britian, as some authorities suggest should be allowed to happen, we will see Muslim communities murdering their members...
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In the thread “The Difference Between the Creator and God’ I asked a question that Myrrdin and Aus22 thought was deserving of its own thread.
The context was a statement that scientists do not have the answers needed to meet “Man’s spiritual needs.”
So here is the question:
What does the term “Man’s spiritual needs” mean, anyway?
Don’t expect any hints from me, since the phrase completely baffles me; but I do hear it bandied about and there is a (figurative) nodding of heads that would indicate some common understanding.
I do have one request. Try to make your answers understandable to those of us that do not consider any book to be divinely inspired or to contain the unassailable words of a prophet, etc. The phrase seems to be speaking of a universal need by all men (and women, of course) for something vaguely called spiritual.
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Back to Persia!
A British newspaper reports that the Bush administration will announce plans to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time in 30 years. There's no confirmation from the White House, but last week a senior U.S. diplomat William Burns told Congress the United States was looking to opening up an interest section in the Iranian capital.
http://news.aol.com/article/paper-says-us-to-open-office-in-iran/86477
I wonder what would happen if the staff of that US office in Teheran were to be taken hostage ? (This administration has certainly helped me "hone" the cynical part of me..)
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OK, tell me what's wrong with this picture:
from the Associated Press -- http://tinyurl.com/6hok5a
NAQOURA, Lebanon — Israel freed a notorious Lebanese attacker and four others Wednesday after Hezbollah handed over two black coffins with the bodies of Israeli soldiers, a dramatic prisoner swap that closes a painful chapter from the 2006 war in Lebanon.
What I want to know is who invented that urban legend about how Jews are supposed to be such savvy businessmen? Hmmm? Because how many times in the past have we seen a similar story about how the Israelis make a "prisoner" exchange where they trade living terrorists for dead Israeli bodies? What kind of a deal is that?
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A while ago, I was in the Biography section of the library when I came across a biography of Mary Wollestonecraft that had been written by an old professor of mine, Ralph Wardell. Dr. Wardell taught Shakespeare and would bring out his hand-built replica of the Globe Theatre as it was in Shakespeare's time--very much like the one depicted in Shakespeare In Love--or the Grand Guignol! It's been moved from its origina location since.
It got me thinking about my 'school days,' and the professors I had loved. I knew most of them were buried but I wondered about some of them. So I accessed the site for the university and found one emiritus. I'd taken every class he'd offered in both under-grad and graduate school--and he was alive! It took me a long time, but I finally decided to e-mail him through the Chair of the English Dept.
He remembered me, favorably--after 30+ years! I was both stunned and gratified and hope to be able to continue this connection to my past which I've never had.
I say I never had a 'connection' because every move in my Army Brat's life has been a new chapter. The pages on the previous chapters close.
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I'm trying to burn a video on a DVD and I always get the message "The disc is not supported". I'm using Intervideo WinDVD creator and it always worked. I used that kind of DVD brand before and never had any problems. So I thought it was the program and downloaded another one. But the other one tells me that there is no disc in the drive.
What is going on? Why can I burn music discs but no DVD discs?
Thank you in advance for your help.
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8463 Members
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Max Online: 2631 @ 03/18/08 12:30 AM
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