Please read before viewing picture – it’s worth it!

A picture began circulating in November. It should be ‘The Picture of the Year,’ or perhaps, ‘Picture of the Decade.’ It won’t be. In fact, unless you obtained a copy of the US paper which published it, you probably would never have seen it.

The picture is that of a 21-week-old unborn baby named Samuel Alexander Armas, who is being operated on by surgeon named Joseph Bruner.

The baby was diagnosed with spina bifida and would not survive if removed from his mother’s womb. Little Samuel’s mother, Julie Armas, is an obstetrics nurse in Atlanta …. She knew of Dr Bruner’s remarkable Surgical procedure. Practicing at Vanderbilt Univ Med Ctr in Nashville , he performs these special operations while the baby is still in the womb.

During the procedure, the doctor removes the uterus via C-section and makes a small incision to operate on the baby. As Dr Bruner completed the surgery on Samuel, the little guy reached his tiny, but fully developed hand through the incision and firmly grasped the surgeon’s finger. Dr Bruner was reported as saying that when his finger was grasped, it was the most emotional moment of his life, and that for an instant during the procedure he was just frozen, totally immobile.

The photograph captures this amazing event with perfect clarity. The editors titled the picture, ‘Hand of Hope.’ The text explaining the picture begins, ‘The tiny hand of 21-week-old fetus Samuel Alexander Armas emerges from the mother’s uterus to grasp the finger of Dr Joseph Bruner as if thanking the doctor for the gift of life.’

Little Samuel’s mother said they ‘wept for days’ when they saw the picture. She said, ‘The photo reminds us pregnancy isn’t about disability or an illness, it’s about a little person. Samuel was born in perfect health, the operation 100 percent successful.

Now see the actual picture, and it is awesome….incredible….and hey, pass it on. The world needs to see this one!

CAMPBELL CLARK

Saturday, May. 19, 2012

The new goals for Afghanistan are to make it good enough. The question NATO faces this weekend is whether even that costs too much.

In order to seal plans to pull most of their troops out in 2014, leaders of the allies meet in Chicago this weekend to set plans for paying Afghan bills in the decade that follows.

Canada has sent 900 troops to train what is supposed to be a bigger and better Afghan force that can take over in 2014, but it’s expected to be decided this weekend that the Afghan forces can shrink to a smaller size, more in line with what the world will pay for.

Already, responding to U.S. pressure, key allies like Britain, Australia, and Germany have pledged sums between $100-million and $200-million a year for the project. Canada is expected to follow suit with its own pledge in Chicago. But those sums are a small part of the $4-billion a year that even a shrunken Afghan force will cost.

NATO’s secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said earlier this week he’d like to see the Canadians stay – annoying Prime Minister Stephen Harper, according to sources. The Prime Minister wants to hear U.S. President Barack Obama make the case for an extension, one official said, and is unlikely to commit in Chicago.

After years of war, the leaders convening in Chicago on Sunday – including an electioneering Mr. Obama – face weary publics anxious to get their troops home, as well as tight budgets, debts, and nervous financial markets. Even Mr. Harper, who pulled combat troops from Kandahar last year, faces opposition to extending the Canadian training mission after 2014.

NATO leaders now face pressure to reassure Afghanistan’s current leaders that they won’t be left to the Taliban wolves when the Western combat troops depart, a fear that already undermines Western efforts. Another is to scale down ambitions to match the West’s political and financial means.

The goal of handing over the lead role in combat to Afghan forces in 2014 has been accelerated by Mr. Obama, and other countries, notably France, are signalling they’ll leave even sooner. The American commander in the country, Gen. John Allen, has made it the main priority to push Afghan forces into fighting faster.

Gone are the days when NATO leaders spoke of bringing good governance to Afghanistan, and set the goals in terms of sending girls to school, creating a democracy, and ensuring human rights. Now, the objectives are more modest, closer to what analysts have termed “Afghanistan good enough.”

Mr. Harper outlined his own limited objectives earlier this week, when he said the goal should be to prevent Afghanistan from being a source of international terrorism. Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, Tom Donilon, described similar objectives Friday, in very modest terms.

“The goal is to have an Afghanistan that has a degree of stability such that forces like al-Qaeda and associated groups cannot have safe haven unimpeded,” he said. “No. 2, an Afghanistan that has a set of security assets that allow it to provide for that modicum of stability and to be able to protect itself against groups like that.”

Even the modest goal of a “modicum of stability” after 2014 will be in doubt with a rush to cut funding, according to some experts.

The current Afghan National Security Force of about 345,000 – an army of 195,000 and a police force of almost 150,000 – is just shy of the goal of 352,000 that had been set for a buildup. But NATO is expected to endorse a smaller force, with some floating numbers as low as 228,500.

That’s because it’s the outside world that will have to pay. The bigger force would cost more than $6-billion a year; the smaller one, about $4.1-billion a year.

But moving quickly to the cheaper force is bad planning, and hardly worth saving a few billion dollars when the U.S. is spending $100-billion a year on the war now, said Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at influential Washington think tank the Brookings Institution.

“It’s sort of crazy to go from spending $100-billion a year, from the American perspective, to worrying about whether $4-billion or $6-billion is the maximum affordable amount after 2015. And to not even worry about whether you lose the war as a result of that,” Mr. O’Hanlon said.

“It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, because the amount of money that’s at issue is not big enough to ultimately be a show-stopper.”

May 18, 2012

Speaking in Prague, Israel’s prime minister compared Iran’s nuclear drive to that of North Korea, and said he has seen no evidence of Iran taking upcoming talks seriously.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he has serious doubts that Iran will stop its nuclear program or take upcoming talks seriously. Mr. Netanyahu made the remarks on Friday after a meeting with Czech President Vaclav Klaus.

There has been much focus on Iran’s nuclear program as the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany prepare to meet for talks with Iran on May 23 in Baghdad.

“I have seen no evidence whatsoever that Iran is serous about stopping its nuclear weapons program,” said Netanyahu during his remarks in Prague, recounted by The Jerusalem Post. “It looks as though they [Iran] see these talks as another opportunity to deceive and delay, just like North Korean [sic] did for years.”

RELATED: 3 reasons not to attack Iran

Israeli officials have said that time is running out to find a diplomatic solution and avoid a military strike. But despite Netanyahu’s strong words, Israel’s Haaretz reports that he stopped short of making any ultimatums.

Netanyahu’s remarks come at time of increasingly heightened rhetoric in the US and Israel about using potential military force against Iran if it continues developing its nuclear program.

“It would be preferable to resolve this diplomatically and through the use of pressure than to use military force,” said US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro according to The New York Times. “But that doesn’t mean that option is not fully available. And not just available, but it’s ready. The necessary planning has been done to ensure that it’s ready.”

The New York Times adds that while US officials have often made it clear that “all options are on the table regarding Iran,” it’s extremely unusual for an American official to explicitly mention crafting specific plans to strike Iran.

Israel would like Iran to stop all of its nuclear development and enrichment activities, which it says is part of a nuclear weapons program. Iran has always contended that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, namely the generation of electricity.

It is unlikely that Iran will entirely stop its nuclear program, reports Reuters, adding that a compromise will have to be reached. Iran insists that stopping it from developing a nuclear program is a violation of its sovereignty. The UN priority now is for Iran to allow its inspectors unfettered access to its facilities and for Iran to stop its higher-grade enrichment program.

There is concern that if Israel pursues a military option, the results could be disastrous for the region. Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s late Shah, told Al Arabiya that Israel would be much better off if it helped the Iranian people try to topple the current regime, rather than carry out a military strike.

“If Israel wages war against Iran now, this will cause a kind of tension with the Jewish people that had not existed since the time of Cyrus the Great,” said Mr. Pahlavi. “At the end of the day, the priority should be, and the whole world will agree, that the entire Iranian regime has to go.”

May 17, 2012

Any last hope that this year’s election would be anything but an unprecedented wallow in muck, misstatement and disrespect was lost Wednesday, at a neighborhood spaghetti joint on the border between Ohio and West Virginia. Vice President Joe Biden, after a day of glad-handing locals and attacking the values of Mitt Romney, stopped off for some chicken parmesan, initially unaware that a few feet away sat Ryan Williams, a spokesman for the Romney campaign who had flown to Ohio for no other reason than to cause problems for the Vice President.

For years now, rival campaigns have sent low level staff, called “trackers,” to shadow each others’ campaigns. They were often interns toting video cameras who passively mingle with supportive crowds hoping to catch a candidate in a gaffe. Williams, a former communications director for the New Hampshire GOP, is a different breed—a hybrid spokesman/tracker. He toted an iPhone, but seemed uninterested in documenting Biden’s every move. Rather, he was there to cause mischief in the hopes of getting attention from the press.

Earlier in the day, at Biden’s noontime campaign speech in Youngstown, Williams had arrived quietly, nervously walking by the national press who recognized him, as if he did not want to be noticed. The event was opened to the ticketed public, and Williams had flown into the state the night before to visit a local Obama campaign headquarters to request his ticket. He sat politely through vice president’s remarks, and then, with the event over, made his way to press corps where, with many Obama staff unaware, he began spitting fire. “It’s remarkable to see a presidential ticket that ran on hope and change in 2008 resort to such negative and dishonest campaign tactics,” Williams said, among other things, before entering the press filing area to continue the onslaught. “Voters elected Barack Obama in 2008 to fix the economy. Now he has no record to run on for reelection.”

Once Obama campaign staff figured out what was going on, they asked the Secret Service to ask Williams to leave the press filing area, which is reserved for credentialed reporters, but allowed him to remain at the event. It was by no means the first Obama campaign event that a Romney tracker/spokesman had crashed to spin free media gold. And Williams restricted himself to speaking with reporters, choosing not to confront the staff or other dignitaries, like former Gov. Ted Strickland, who stood nearby also working the reporters.

Then came dinner.

In an interview afterwards, Williams said that he had happened upon Biden’s unannounced dining location by accident. Steubenville is a faded steel town on the Ohio River, known for being the birthplace of Dean Martin but not for its many dining options. When he arrived at the restaurant, with a newly hired Romney state staffer, Chris Maloney, they were informed that a secret guest would be arriving later, so they settled in for a long meal.

Biden entered shortly after 6 p.m. with his usual burst of enthusiasm. “I love Italian food, and I am hungry,” he said, before joining his dinner guests, the owners of a nearby automobile dealership where Biden will speak Thursday. After reporters had been ushered out of the main dining hall, staff identified Williams and pointed him out to the Vice President, who invited the Romney staffer over to his table. At that point, even though there were no reporters in the room, Williams went on the attack, asking by his own account, “Why do you think coal is more important than terrorism?” (Biden’s own staff said they had trouble making out exactly what Williams said.)

In eastern Ohio, just a few miles from a major coal-powered electricity plant, the question was about as courteous as asking why a politician beats his wife. It was based on a bit of opposition research: In 2007, Biden was asked on HBO’s Bill Maher show to rank the degree of danger that “air that has too much coal in it,” high-fructose corn syrup or terrorism posed to the American people. Biden answered that coal and corn syrup killed a greater number of Americans, though he did not discount the danger of terrorism. “That is not in any way to diminish the fact that a terrorist attack is real,” Biden said on the program.

Biden did not answer the Romney staffer’s question. And moments later he shifted his dinner party to an adjoining table so that he could distance himself from Williams, who staff said continued to appear to be eavesdropping on the vice president’s conversation. On Twitter, Williams announced that Biden was “quickly ushered out of the dining room,” but Biden’s staff said he only moved a few feet, to the other side of a divider in the same open dining area.

The Steubenville confrontation comes at a time when both the Romney and Obama campaigns have settled on daily messaging that is almost entirely negative, and often misleading. In Youngstown, Biden had been introduced on stage by a former employee of a company that had gone bankrupt after it was purchased by Bain Capital, the private equity firm that Romney once ran. “All I can tell you is Mitt Romney will stick it to you,” said Randy Johnson. Another Obama surrogate at the event, former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, described the presumptive Republican nominee as “a person who represents the 1 percent.” “I sometimes feel sorry for Mitt Romney,” Strickland continued, “because I feel he tries to relate to ordinary people but does not have the capacity to do so.”

Biden’s own speech was also fiercely negative, portraying Romney as a financier more interested in wealth creation than job creation, who did not understand the needs and hopes of working people. That message was matched by an afternoon Obama campaign conference call with reporters, in which deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter described Romney and his business partners as greedy money men who ruined the lives of many working people. “They didn’t create jobs,” she said. “They slashed and burned them.”

All this comes just a few weeks after the official start of the general election, and the tone is only bound to deteriorate further. For both campaigns, positive messages about their own candidates’ plans are easily drowned out by the fusillade of daily attacks, which speak to core strategic goals. Obama is determined to disqualify Romney as someone who Americans see as a viable president. Romney is determined to hold Obama responsible for every bit of economic misery that has occurred over the last three years.

For the Romney campaign, the Williams stunt was seen as a success. On Thursday, the RNC released an online video that neatly followed the messaging of Williams own question with an attack on the Obama Administration. “Vice President Biden will try and gloss over their anti-coal agenda to try and shore up their plummeting support among blue collar voters,” said RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, in a statement to reporters, “but their record speaks for itself.” This was accompanied by a new RNC web video filled with carefully edited quotes from Obama and Biden about coal. No doubt a prompt response attacking the values of Mitt Romney will be forthcoming from Chicago.

A nurse discovered a safe, easy way to remove ticks where they automatically withdraw themselves when you follow her simple instructions. Read this one as it could save you from some major problems.

Tick Removal: Spring is here and the ticks will soon be showing their heads. Here is a good way to get them off you, your children or your pets. Give it a try

A School Nurse has written the info below–good enough to share–and it really works

“I had a pediatrician tell me what she believes is the best way to remove a tick. This is great because it works in those places where it’s sometimes difficult to get to with tweezers: between toes, in the middle of a head full of dark hair, etc”.

“Apply a glob of liquid soap to a cotton ball. Cover the tick with the soap-soaked cotton ball and swab it for a few seconds (15-20); the tick will come out on its own and be stuck to the cotton ball when you lift it away. This technique has worked every time I’ve used it (and that was frequently), and it’s much less traumatic for the patient and easier for me”.

“Unless someone is allergic to soap, I can’t see that this would be damaging in any way. I even had my doctor’s wife call me for advice because she had one stuck to her back and she couldn’t reach it with tweezers. She used this method and immediately called me back to say, “It worked”

Please pass on. Everyone needs this helpful hint.

JPMorgan will move to limit the fallout from a shock trading loss that could reach $3 billion or more by parting company with three top executives involved in its costly failed hedging strategy, sources close to the matter said.

The bank – the biggest in the United States by assets – is expected to accept the resignation this week of Ina Drew, its New York-based chief investment officer and one of its highest-paid executives, in the next few days, the sources said.

Two of Drew’s subordinates who were involved with the trades, London-based Achilles Macris and Javier Martin-Artajo, are also expected to be asked to leave, they said. Neither was available for comment on Monday.

The departures come after the unit Drew runs, known as the Chief Investment Office (CIO), mismanaged a portfolio of derivatives tied to the creditworthiness of bonds, according to bank executives.

The portfolio included layers of instruments used in hedging that became too complicated to work and too big to quickly unwind in the esoteric, thinly traded market.

One hedge fund manager who previously ran a proprietary (or prop) trading book at JPMorgan said the bank’s public commitments to trim balance sheet risk were at odds with its network of trading silos, who were making bets independently with only a handful of the bank’s most senior executives notified of their vast, complex exposures.

“This (CIO) group was completely separate, completely distinct from the prop trading unit. We had no clue about their prop book and they would have no clue about ours for that matter,” the manager said.

“They were all totally independent. All the activities were reported to New York and they ran the allocation of capital to each and every strategy … those decisions were definitely not taken in London. These things were very, very opaque. Every bank is, whether you’re Goldman, Morgan (Stanley) or JP.”

Drew had repeatedly offered to resign in recent weeks after the magnitude of the debacle became clear, according to one of the sources, but the resignation was not immediately accepted because of her past performance at the bank.

Until the loss was disclosed late on Thursday, Drew was considered by some market participants as one of the best managers of balance sheet risks. She earned more than $15 million in each of the last two years.

“Ina is an amazing investor,” said a money manager who knows Drew, but who declined to be quoted by name. “She’s done a really good job over a lot of years. But they only remember your last trade.”

RISK MANAGEMENT

Departures had been on the cards in the wake of the trading losses, though in disclosing the losses on Thursday, CEO Jamie Dimon said only that the bank was continuing to investigate and would take disciplinary action with those involved.

Dimon said the bank’s losses could reach $3 billion or more as it unwinds the positions in coming months.

The losses have marred JPMorgan’s reputation for risk management, prompted a downgrade in its credit ratings and thrown an unflattering spotlight on Dimon, a critic of increased regulation who had become one of America’s best-known bankers.

On Sunday, Dimon’s bravado was badly tarnished when the New York Times reported remarks he made recently at a dinner party in Dallas. Dimon called arguments about too-big-to-fail banks – arguments made by former Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker and Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas – “infantile” and “nonfactual,” according to the Times.

Dimon is himself a board member of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Elizabeth Warren called for him to resign that post on Sunday. Warren, who chaired the congressional committee that oversaw the bank bailout program known as TARP and is running for the Senate, said he should not be on the panel advising the Fed on bank management and oversight.

“We need to stop the cycle of bankers taking on risky activities, getting bailed out by the taxpayers, then using their army of lobbyists to water down regulations,” Warren said.

Dimon has struck a more contrite pose since revealing the losses. In an interview that aired on Sunday, he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” the bank’s handling and oversight of the derivative portfolio was “sloppy” and “stupid” and that executives had reacted badly to warnings last month that the bank had large losses in derivatives trading.

He said executives were “completely wrong” in public statements they made in April after being challenged over the trades in news reports.

“We got very defensive. And people started justifying everything we did,” Dimon said. “We told you something that was completely wrong a mere four weeks ago.”

The loss, and Dimon’s failure to heed the warnings, have become major embarrassments and have given regulators new arguments for tightening controls on big banks and requiring them to hold more capital to cushion possible losses.

Issues relating to the bank’s internal controls were raised in 2010 when it was fined 33 million pounds by Britain’s Financial Services Authority for failing to segregate client month from its own in the UK – an incident that also led to its auditor PwC being fined 1.4 mln by its professional body for failing to spot the transgression.

No-one at PwC, JPM’s global auditor, could immediately be reached for comment.

JPMorgan lost $15 billion in stock market value the day after the latest loss announcement. Some analysts were shocked Dimon did not have as much control of the company’s derivatives book as they had thought. Before the loss, Dimon had been widely praised for successfully managing the company through the credit bubble and the financial crisis.

His strategy in dealing with the issue has been to apologize repeatedly and say straight-forwardly that he and the bank erred. He has not, however, been willing to describe the exact trading positions, for hear of giving traders in the market information with which to inflict deeper losses.

Dimon is scheduled to speak on Tuesday at the bank’s annual meeting in Tampa, Florida.

Sunday, May. 13, 2012

Critical last-ditch talks to form a coalition government in crisis-struck Greece floundered once more Sunday, leading the country one step closer to new elections, although the socialist party leader said he retained `existing but limited’ optimism for a deal.

The political uncertainty has alarmed the international creditors who have given Greece billions of euros in bailout loans over the past two years, and has thrown the country’s continued presence in the European Union’s joint currency into serious doubt.

President Karolos Papoulias convened the heads of the parties that came in the top three spots in last Sunday’s inconclusive elections, in an ultimate effort to broker an agreement after a week of talks led to deadlock. The meeting ended without a solution, but the process continues while the president holds individual meetings with the leaders of smaller parties that made it into parliament.

Voters furious at the handling of Greece’s financial crisis and two years of harsh austerity measures taken in return for billions of euros in international bailout loans punished the formerly dominant socialist PASOK and conservative New Democracy parties in the elections. The two saw their support crumble to the lowest point in decades, while Radical Left Coalition, or Syriza, made big gains to come in second place after campaigning on an anti-bailout platform.

The PASOK and New Democracy leaders could form a coalition with the smaller Democratic Left party of Fotis Kouvelis — combined they would have 168 seats in the 300-member parliament. New Democracy won 18.9 per cent last Sunday while PASOK garnered just 13.2 per cent, compared to nearly 44 per cent in the last elections in 2009. Kouvelis’ 6.1 per cent put him in a kingmaker position, with 19 seats.

But all three insist any power-sharing deal must include Syriza, led by the 38-year-old Alexis Tsipras, given its strong showing at the ballot box.

Mr. Tsipras, however, insists he cannot join or even lend his support to a government that will continue implementing the terms of Greece’s international bailout. In return for €240 billion ($310-million U.S.) in rescue loans from the European Union and International Monetary Fund, Greece has imposed severe spending cuts, including slashing pensions and salaries in the public sector, and repeated rounds of tax hikes. The measures have left Greece mired in a fifth year of deep recession, with unemployment spiralling above 21 per cent.

“The three parties that have agreed on a two-year government in order to apply (the bailout) have 168 seats in parliament,” Mr. Tsipras said after the meeting. “Let them go ahead. Their demand that Syriza participate come what may in their own agreement is senseless and unprecedented.”

Mr. Tsipras insists the terms of the bailout must be cancelled. PASOK head Evangelos Venizelos, who spent nine months handling the crisis as finance minister, and conservative leader Antonis Samaras, say that position is irresponsible and will force Greece out of the euro. Although Sunday’s meeting convened by the president with the three top party leaders was inconclusive, Mr. Venizelos said that “I retain some limited but existing optimism that a government can be formed.”

Mr. Samaras appeared more pessimistic.

“I made every effort for the co-operation of all,” he said. “Syriza didn’t listen to the mandate of the Greek people and does not accept not only the formation of a viable government, but not even the tolerance of a government which would in fact undertake to renegotiate the terms of the (bailout) and the loan agreement.”

Mr. Tsipras, however, stuck to his position, insisting that supporting a pro-bailout government would be a betrayal of his pre-election platform.

“After today’s meeting it is obvious they are demanding that Syriza become an accessory to a crime,” he said after the discussions with the president. “In the name of democracy, of our patriotic duty, we cannot accept this shared guilt. We call on all Greeks to condemn once and for all the forces of the past and to realize that only one hope remains: unity against blackmail in order to prevent the continuing barbarity.

“Fellow Greeks, we can assure you of one thing: we will not betray you.”

Mr. Tsipras will also have his eye on recent opinion polls which show his party would gain strength if Greeks go to the ballot box again next month.

A poll published by To Vima newspaper Sunday indicated Syriza would come first in new elections with 20.5 per cent of the vote — less than the 28 per cent an earlier opinion poll published Thursday gave him, but still well ahead of New Democracy. Although it would not be enough to form a government, it would put him in the dominant position to form a coalition with smaller anti-bailout parties.

To Vima’s poll, carried out by Kappa Research, showed New Democracy in second place with 18.1 per cent and PASOK losing yet more votes to reach 12.2 per cent. The poll was carried out on May 9 and 10, and had a margin of error of 3.09 percentage points.

Mr. Papoulias’s mediation to broker a deal could in theory continue until May 17, the scheduled opening date for the new parliament, although they are expected to end sooner. If no agreement is reached, Greece will have to hold new elections next month, most likely on June 10th or 17th.