The trouble with Thinners

Source: Boston Globe ()

Bowl notebook

5 Spartans penalized
BC foe’s roster thinner for game

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December 25, 2007

Michigan State, Boston College’s opponent in the Champs Sports Bowl Friday night, announced yesterday that four players have been declared academically ineligible and a fifth has been suspended for violating team rules.Redshirt freshman offensive guard Abre Leggins, senior wide receiver Terry Love, senior defensive end Jonal Saint-Dic, and sophomore wide receiver/cornerback T.J. Williams were ruled academically ineligible.Spartans coach Mark Dantonio also announced senior linebacker SirDarean Adams has been suspended for the game for violating team rules.Saint-Dic and Adams have been defensive standouts for Michigan State (7-5) this season. Saint-Dic told the Lansing (Mich.) State Journal that he failed a math class, his final requirement to graduate with a degree in sociology.”We’re obviously disappointed for these young men and their teammates,” Dantonio said. “We will miss them and their contributions on and off the field.”"We have stressed the importance of finishing things all season, both in the classroom and on the playing field. It’s unfortunate to find these student-athletes in this situation, but it serves as a lesson to all of us.”"This provides playing opportunities for others.”BC (10-3) is a 3 1/2-point favorite over Michigan State in the game, which be held in Orlando.Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

Source: PRESS TV ()

Board certified vascular surgeon Dr. Heshmat Majlessi is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and International College of Surgeons and the director of Park Avenue Vein Center.

He finished his surgical residency in NY Medical College. Following his training in open heart surgery and vascular surgery he came in contact with Professor George Fegan in England who was the father of non-surgical treatment of varicose veins. Since then he has confined his practice to varicose veins.

He has several inventions and patents under his name (all medical in nature); the latest one is for permanent varicose veins treatment.

Q. What attracted you to this field initially?

A. I received training as a vascular surgeon. For many years, the field of varicose veins was neglected. I chose this field 20 years ago. Recently many young doctors have been showing interest in this field.

Q. Can you please explain what varicose veins are?

A. There are hundreds of small superficial veins under the skin in the legs and thighs. These tiny veins become larger and sometimes twisted, mostly due to the pressure from so called leaks in different part of the legs (perforators) and result in varicose veins. These in turn produce many tiny spider veins which are not attractive.

Q. Why are varicose veins considered to be more than a cosmetic problem?

A. Varicose veins can cause pain, swelling, cramp, clots (phlebitis), ulcers and bleeding.

Q. The general belief is that varicose veins are limited to the legs. Could you tell us which organs are frequently affected by this syndrome?

A. Varicose veins are mainly seen in the legs but they can also develop in other parts of the body like the intestine (stomach, esophagus). Varicose veins of the rectum are called hemorrhoids.

Q. Why are women more to developing varicose veins?

A. Pregnancy is the most important cause of varicose veins; therefore …

Source: Rotoworld.com ()

Nene hasn’t played basketball since tearing an ulnar collateral ligament in his finger on November 17th, but he will begin full-contact practices after this weekend. He has been working to get in better condition and appears to be thinner. He said pain in the thumb is the issue, but as long as he can tolerate it, he’ll play, with a splint on the lower half of his hand.
Now is the time to grab him, if you need a mid-level power forward. His production won’t save your fantasy season, but he could easily produce fantasy-worthy numbers, with the injury-prone Kenyon Martin and Marcus Camby playing alongside him. Dec. 22 - 11:38 am et
Source: Denver Post

Source: Sydney Morning Herald ()

FENG SILU’S Olympic regime is “tougher than military training”
and she calibrates her diet to the nearest gram. Like many
Olympians, she lives in fear of failure.

And yet she is not an athlete. Ms Feng and 31 other girls at a
vocational school in West Beijing were selected from a thousand
others for their physical proportions, their smiles and their style
- to present next year’s successful athletes with their medals.

Ms Feng’s primary fear is that she will misjudge her diet of
eggs and milk for breakfast, soup and an apple for lunch, small
sips of water and no dinner.

Too much food or water and the 51-kilogram student will not fit
into her traditional Chinese dress, or her belly will poke out, and
she will not make the final selection. Too little and her blood
sugar levels will fall too low in the summer heat.

“I always have nightmares of fainting in front of the victory
dais,” Ms Feng says. She also fears giving wrong directions to an
athlete, or that an athlete fails to hear her soft voice, or she
snaps a shoe heel.

The girls spend most mornings balancing books on their heads,
clenching chopsticks between their teeth and jamming paper between
their knees.

Balancing books helps develop an upright posture, locking knees
together eradicates bow-legged tendencies, and chopsticks help shy
girls to form generous smiles. The drill was toughest when they
began in the heat of summer.

“In July I would be standing and the sweat would be running into
my eyes, but I could not move to wipe it out,” another student,
Song Xinlei, says. “The sweat would mix with tears and slide down
my cheek but we had to keep smiling.”

Their senior teacher, Lu Yanzhi, is credited with inventing the
book, paper and chopstick regime that will help China show the
world its prettiest, happiest and most harmonious face.

Ms studied Sydney’s Olympic medal presenters and decided she
would adapt the traditional Chinese demure and closed-lip …

Source: Mirror.co.uk ()

Amy Winehouse’s appearance would have done little to ease the fears of her worried parents.

The Back to Black singer was pictured on the way to visit her husband Blake Fielder-Civil in prison.

During the journey she applied her make up and seemed to have trouble focusing. She was also looking even thinner than usual and had dirty hands, which looked alarmingly like Pete Doherty’s. (continues below gallery̷

Amy quit her UK tour following some shambolic concerts, claiming she couldn’t concentrate on anything but her husband’s plight.

She since been arrested herself and questioned in connection with an alleged case of attempting to pervert the course of justice. 

Source: Times Online ()

A British citizen who spent 20 years on death row in the American state of
Ohio has accepted a plea bargain and is expected to be freed in time for
Christmas.

Kenneth Richey, whose case prompted the intervention of Tony Blair, the Pope,
the European Parliament and Amnesty International, was convicted of setting
a fire that killed his ex-girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter in 1986.

In August this year that conviction was quashed by a federal appeals court
after doubts were cast on the testimony of witnesses, the scientific
evidence was shown to be unsound and Mr Richey’s defence lawyer at the trial
was ruled incompetent.

The 43-year-old Scot, who has seen around 15 appeals fail in the past two
decades, is likely to be released within days according to his lawyer.

Ken Parsigian said: “It is the greatest Christmas present that I or Kenny
could have have asked for.

“The State wanted him to plead guilty and he would not do that. They have
agreed to drop murder, to drop the arson and took the most basic minor
face-saving deal of no contest. There was nothing left for them to fight
about.”

“Kenny is excited and he is thrilled. He is a little nervous as he now has to
find a way to get back into the real world.”

Mr Richey, who is a British and an American citizen, will plead no contest to
attempted involuntary manslaughter, child endangering and breaking and
entering tomorrow. He is expected to be sentenced to time already served.

Alistair Carmichael, a Scottish MP who had campaigned for Mr Richey’s release
and visited him on death row, described the news as a “tremendous result”.

“The reality of somebody who is kept locked up in a cell for 23 hours a day
for 19 years is quite mind-blowing,” he said.

“It is a dreadful, inhumane and system. If one man is off it,
then remember there are hundreds of people in America …

Source: BusinessWeek ()

by
Kenji Hall

Shigeaki Mizushima is about as wily an engineer as you’ll find at Sharp (SHCAY). He once tailed the company’s top executive into the bathroom to plead for more funds for a project. As a young researcher, Mizushima set up a technology demo for a liquid-crystal-display prototype on the rooftop of a building and then got his boss to drag the chief executive officer outside for a look after a senior management meeting had ended one floor below. "He asked to see it again indoors," recalls Mizushima. "Then he gave us the green light."

Now, as the head of display technology research for Sharp, Mizushima, 52, is putting his natural flair for theatrics to a different use: persuading consumers that ultra-thin, liquid-crystal-display TVs are the best flat-screen sets around. In late August, he and Sharp President Mikio Katayama unveiled a super-svelte 52-inch LCD TV prototype that the company plans to make at a new $3 billion plant near Osaka starting in March, 2010. They have hit the road with the next-generation LCD sets, and will be stopping next at the Jan. 7 International Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas after industry confabs in Berlin and Tokyo in recent months.

Mizushima’s ability to sell the public on thinner LCDs could determine whether Sharp can keep its brand cachet and profit margins high. Success will also help insulate the company from the 20% to 30% declines in TV prices annually. "Thinner LCDs will give consumers more freedom to put a TV anywhere—on a wall, for instance—and change their lifestyles," he says. He won’t divulge details about the panels except to say that they’ll be made from materials and with methods never tried before.

Some analysts have their doubts. "Consumers are already enamored with the flat TVs out there," says Paul Gagnon, director of North American TV research. "Going from a set that’s three or six inches thick …

Source: El Paso Times ()

Gabriel McCulley had his game formed in the backyard, knocked around and beaten and encouraged by six older brothers. (Times file photo)Gabriel McCulley had his game formed in the backyard, knocked around and beaten and encouraged by six older brothers.McCulley, one of UTEP’s six talented freshmen, took that game to Memphis’ Craigmont High and excelled, and now he has that game in El Paso, helping the Miners to their 5-2 beginning.Laughing, McCulley said, “I had six brothers and a sister, and I was the baby boy. I started by watching them play and then I got into it and they made me cry every day because I couldn’t beat them. They were my worst nightmare and they were my inspiration. They took care of me. But they were hard-nosed out there in the backyard.”Laughing again, the personable McCulley said, “I didn’t grow up watching cartoons or Nickelodeon. I had to watch Sportscenter. I didn’t watch Rugrats, I watched Sportscenter. I wanted to watch all the cartoons. But I had to watch what they watched. So I grew up with sports.”The 6-foot-7 McCulley, who will turn 19 early next month, is a versatile and talented athlete. He displayed both the versatility and the talent during one key moment last week against rival New Mexico State. McCulley went in, pulled down an offensive rebound with the Miners leading just 71-66 with less than five minutes to go. He pulled the ball out to the wing, handling it easily and then, with both feet beyond the arc, swished a 3-pointer, giving the Miners a 74-66 lead with 4:27 to play.”That was a huge three,” UTEP coach Tony Barbee said. “It was one of those shots where Advertisementyou are shouting no, no, no … good shot, good shot. It took a lot of courage for him to take that shot.”But McCulley grew up making that type pressure shot — in the backyard against his big brothers, at Craigmont, where he averaged 18.5 points, 10 rebounds, three assists, two blocks a senior. He also had 15 points and a game high 13 rebounds in the Memphis …

Source: Rotoworld.com ()

Stephon Marbury returned to practice Sunday after missing a week while mourning the death of his father.
Marbury plans to play Monday, but has understandably deeply been affected by the loss of his father. Visibly thinner, he started working out a couple days ago. The Knicks play four times in Week 8 and just twice the following week. Steph could play inspired or could react adversely. Brett played possibly the best game of his career days after his father passed away. Dec. 16 - 2:07 pm et

Source: Philadelphia Daily News ()

THERE IS NO better way for a liberal Jew to burnish his or her liberal credentials than to knock Israel publicly.
It tells the world that you are open-minded enough to hate your own, which is what liberalism really is all about. So it's not surprising that we find an op-ed by Carol Towarnicky hailing the writings of Alice Rothchild ("Rx for Mideast Peace").
No, crazed Israelis don't kill and torture innocent Palestinians on their way to the mosque. There are roadblocks and security fences because there are Palestinian suicide bombers - remember them? If you don't, it's because the roadblocks and fences worked.
Since Rothchild is a doctor, maybe she could better explain why Arab suicide bombers add rat poison to their bombs. No, it's not to poison anyone - it contains a blood thinner that causes the injured victim to bleed to death. Or she might explain why the textbooks in Palestinian schools say things that would make Hitler blush. As the Israelis say, they live in a bad neighborhood.
The "Rx for peace" is not a chorus of "Kumbaya." It is as simple as the Palestinians' stopping the violence. But it won't happen because Palestinians go to bed each night and wake up each morning praying that Israel will disappear.
Eva Gold, Philadelphia