Mar
18
What Are The Pillars of Islam?
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Islam is built upon five major pillars. A Muslim is taught that anyone who dies observing these five basic pillars will enter heaven. As mentioned, they are:
(1) To bear witness that there is no entity worthy of worship except Allah(God) alone, and that Muhammad (pbuh) was His messenger. This establishes obedience to God Almighty alone.
(2) To perform five prescribed prayers to God every day according to a specific prescribed method and at specific prescribed times. This continually reminds us to bear God in mind in all actions, either before or after any given prayer.
(3) To pay two and a half percent (2.5%) of ones wealth to charity every year if their savings exceed a certain minimum level which is considered above the poverty level. (This is the basic concept, the actual calculation is a little more complex).
(4) To fast the month of Ramadhan (from the Islamic Lunar calendar) every year from sun rise until sunset. This involves not eating, drinking, or having marital relations, from sun rise until sun set.
(5) To perform a pilgrimage to Makkah (in the Arabian Peninsula) once in a Muslim’s lifetime if it is financially possible and their health permits. During this period, Muslims come from all over the world to join together for six days in a prescribed set of acts of worship. All Muslim men are mandated to wear the same garment which was designed to be very plain, simple, and cheap to obtain.
Mu’ad ibn Jabal said: I said to Allah’s Messenger (peace be upon him): Inform me about an act which would entitle me to enter into Paradise, and distance me from the Hell-Fire. He (the Prophet) said:
“You have asked me about a matter [which ostensibly appears to be] difficult but it is easy for those for whom Allah, the Exalted, has made it easy. Worship Allah and do not associate anything with him, establish prayer, pay the Zakat, observe the fast of Ramadhan and perform Hajj to the House (Ka’aba).” (Narrated by Ahmed, al-Tirmathy, and ibn Majah)
Jan
7
aPALM SPRINGS, Calif. – The world economy is in dire straits, but you sure wouldn’t know it from the red carpet at the 20th-annual Palm Springs International Film Festival Awards Gala.
The actresses were dripping with jewels, actors donned high fashion, and logos of jeweler Cartier and automaker Mercedes-Benz loomed large behind all as they posed for photographers.
“I’m just doing what I know how to do, and that’s make movies and hopefully get people to go see them so I can continue to make more movies,” said Leonardo DiCaprio, when asked if he felt uncomfortable in this setting, given widespread financial woes.
DiCaprio was on hand Tuesday night to accept the fest’s Ensemble Performance Award for the drama “Revolutionary Road,” for which he’s a nominee at Sunday’s Golden Globes.
This year’s other Palm Springs honorees included many who are widely considered strong Oscar contenders, including “The Changeling” director and “Gran Torino” star and director Clint Eastwood, who showed up to take home the Career Achievement Award.
“Milk” actor Sean Penn and “Rachel Getting Married” actor Anne Hathaway each came to pick up a Desert Palm Achievement Award.
Is Hathaway ready for eight more weeks of awards-show mania, ending with the Oscars on Feb. 22?
“I’ve decided to keep a journal about it, and write down my reflections every night. Because I know that if I don’t do that now, when I look back, I won’t be able to remember things so clearly,” Hathaway said. “So I think that’s what I’m going to do.”
The Oscar-winning Penn summed up the red-carpet experience in two words – “It’s loud!” – and Eastwood had only a few more. “Once in a while it’s fine,” he said. “But, after a while, you go blind by the time they hit you with about 400 flashbulbs.”
Awards Gala presenters included “Frost/Nixon” star Frank Langella, there to give the film’s director Ron Howard the Director’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and actor Ben Stiller to hand his “Meet the Fockers” co-star Dustin Hoffman the Chairman’s Awards.
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” composer Alexandre Desplat received his statuette from “Button” actor Taraji P. Hanson – herself an awards-show veteran, thanks to her role in the acclaimed “Hustle and Flow.”
The red carpet is “a lot of work and I really would like to find out who said it was all glamorous and I’d like to kick them in their shins because it’s not so glamorous,” Hanson noted. “You have to be on, you have to be personality, you know, even if you don’t feel like it.”
Dec
6
Holiday Toys of 2008: Are They Safe?
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MONDAY, Nov. 24, 2008 (Health.com) - Parents uneasy regarding toy safety such a season can rest a small amount of simpler as opposed to properties did survive year. After all, 2007 saw a tsunami of recalls, often times involving toys came up with in China; this moment year the rate of toys sent coming back for safety reasons declined faintly following laws got strengthened. But in an sector at which customers desire 100% confidence, the present vacation shopping season is able to yet once again drop off short.
“You’re a phase down the road of the game if you don’t believe such a a toy is safe,” displays James Swartz, the director of World Against Toys Causing Harm (WATCH). “Look at the toys critically armed provided the tips around the hazards the are out there and I imagine you’ll be additional possible to own a guaranteed retreat season.”
Some of the hot patterns that year insert toys too encourage children to get a good amount exercise, are environmentally friendly, and feature cool electronic gizmos. Some big names are owning anniversaries, too, that should hit top popularity: Barney the green dinosaur is 20 and Legos turns 50. (Check out our slideshow of kids’ most-wanted toys for 2008.)
More inspections, new laws, and bigger funding
In 2007, 25 million toys got recalled, as well as a couple of of the a good number of popular brands in the world: Polly Pockets, Thomas the Tank Engine, Dora the Explorer, and Barbie got amidst the recalled names.
By the summer of 2008, Congress had enacted and President Bush had signed to law a hardy new toy-safety regular identified the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. It requires mandatory testing of toys and sets thresholds for cause and chemicals, these types of as phthalates, in toys and greater number of children’s products.
The law moreover amplified the budget of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the government agency trusted amid monitoring the safety of household products. The agency now has larger number of money, has added staff, and has ramped up inspections in both retail stores and ports.
Cooperation between the United States and China has increased, and the closer scrutiny is helping. “We had a big deduction such year in toy recalls,” alleges Nychelle Fleming, a spokesperson for the CPSC. In 2007, there got 138 recalls and 97 of them got cause related. In 2008, there got 74 toy recalls, and 45 got instigate related-a 50% decline. (Keep in mind the present the year’s not throughout yet; such a amount could easily change.)
The CPSC’s newly came up with Import Security Division now has staffers at nine U.S. ports and has screened 681 toy shipments in the persist seven months. About 296 got denied entry due to safety violations, Fleming says.
“The percentage believes we are coming across as more challenging and very discovering a reduced number of violations,” she says.
Meanwhile, toy makers reacted to the threat such a the sensational recalls represented to a arena so dependent on Chinese manufacturing, and economy firms say properties stepped up testing on this own.
“Consumers can rest positive the current the sector has finished anything it can to get the make out,” suggests Robert Herriott, director of intercontinental and regulatory affairs at the Toy Industry Association. Toy manufacturers hold “a customized interest, moral interest, and a vested loan in bringing about insured the packages are secure for the children who play in them,” he says.
Sep
22
New Test Shows If You Are a Shopaholic
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A new shopaholic test could tell if you should you leave your credit card at home when heading out to the mall.
The test makes it clear that there’s shopping and then there’s over-the-top purchasing that can wreak havoc on a person’s life. People who become preoccupied with buying stuff and repeatedly spend money on items, regardless of need, are commonly referred to as shopaholics. Scientists call it compulsive buying.
The new test was administered along with a survey that revealed that nearly 9 percent of a sample of 550 university staff members, mostly women, would be considered compulsive buyers. Past studies had put the incidence of compulsive buying somewhere between 2 percent and 8 percent 15 years ago, and more recently, at nearly 6 percent, the researchers say. Other research has found men are just as addicted to shopping as women.
The new test includes six statements, for which individuals answer on a 7-point scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree:
My closet has unopened shopping bags in it.
Others might consider me a “shopaholic.”
Much of my life centers around buying things.
I buy things I don’t need.
I buy things I did not plan to buy.
I consider myself an impulse purchaser.
Respondents who score 25 or higher would be considered compulsive buyers.
“We are living in a consumption-oriented society and have been spending ourselves into serious difficulty,” researcher Kent Monroe, a marketing professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told LiveScience. “Compulsive buying is an addiction that can be harmful to the individual, families, relationships. It is not just something that only afflicts low-income people.”
Wondering where your score lies? “An individual could respond to the six items to check whether they may have these tendencies,” Monroe said. “However, as with any attempt at self-diagnosing, it should be carefully done and honestly responded to.”
Monroe and his colleagues found that compulsive buying was linked to materialism, reduced self-esteem, depression, anxiety and stress. Compulsive shoppers had positive feelings associated with buying, and they also tended to hide purchases, return items, have more family arguments about purchases and have more maxed-out credit cards.
Previous scales for identifying problem buyers are lacking because they depend in large part on the consequences of shopping, such as financial difficulties and family strain over money matters, the researchers note. But for compulsive shoppers with higher incomes, money matters could be non-existent.
A dwindling bank account is just one of the upshots of shopping ’til you drop. Others include family conflicts, stress, depression and loss of self-esteem.
The shopaholic test is just part of the answer.
“There needs to be more research not only identifying people who have a tendency to buy compulsively, but also on developing education and self-help programs for people who are buying things they do not need or use,” Monroe said. “It can lead to a waste of resources and to deterioration in families and relationships.”
The research is detailed in the December issue of the Journal of Consumer Research. Financial support for the research was provided by the J. M. Jones endowment fund at the University of Illinois.
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Aug
22
Twenty-one more gold medals are up for grab today at the Beijing Olympics.
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The evens are athletics, beach volleyball, canoeing, cycling, hockey, modern pentathlon, table tennis, and Taekwondo. China continues to maintain its lead on the medals table with 46 golds while the US has 29 gold medals to its credit.
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Aug
20
The United States and Poland are set to sign an agreement on the U.S. global anti-missile system in Poland.
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The U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice has arrived in Warsaw to sign the agreement. Washington says the interceptors and radar in Eastern Europe would form part of a global missile shield protecting the United States and its allies from long range missiles. Russia is strongly opposing the US missile shield in the region. Source
Aug
9
Russian forces are locked in fierce clashes with Georgia in its breakaway south Ossetia region.
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Russia sent armored units across the border after Georgia moved against Moscow-backed separatists. Russia says twelve of its soldiers were killed and separatists estimate that 1400 civilians have died in the fighting. Russian tanks have reportedly reached the northern suburbs of the regional capital Tskhinvali. Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili has said that Russia is at war with his country. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said he had to act to defend South Ossetia’s civilians most of whom had been given Russian citizenship. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council has failed to agree on a statement on the crisis despite holding a second session of talks. The U.S secretary of state Condoleezza Rice has urged Russia to pull its troops out of Georgia and respect its territorial integrity. Source
Jul
18
How Mars and Alaska Are Alike
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Little did Bucknell University geology professors Craig Kochel and Jeffrey Trop know, as they were working in Alaska, that they would soon predict one of the most important planetary observations ever made.
The pair was in Alaska for an eight-day trip in July 2006, studying geological features and the processes that create them. As they studied photographs taken of the surrounding area, some features caught Kochel’s eye. He thought they were strangely familiar, and then realized they reminded him of images he’d seen when working on the Viking missions to Mars in the 1970s.
Kochel and Trop trekked to where the shots were taken overlooking a glacier. Spotting triangle-shaped landforms called “fans” sealed the deal: They looked strikingly similar to photographs taken of features on Mars.
Mystery solved
Although geologists can usually tell what shapes the landscape around us, it was a mystery what formed the Mars-like features found in Alaska.
The conditions on Mars are quite different than anything experienced on Earth. For example, Mars is much colder than even the Arctic – the average martian temperature is -81 degrees F (-63 degrees C) – and the planet’s atmospheric pressure is lower than Earth’s. Still, for the same features to be present on Earth and Mars, the two professors suspected similar processes would have made them.
They had just over a week in Alaska to discover what created the glaciers and fans.
During this time they managed to see an impressive 289 events, including rock falls and floods. The vast majority of these events were snow and ice avalanches. The frequency of these avalanches astounded the scientists, who reasoned that climate change was the most likely culprit. As temperatures rise, the glaciers pull back, creating large areas where ice has been separated. Material can fall down these cracks and lead to avalanches. This was creating the features seen in Alaska, and perhaps the same thing had happened on Mars.
An astounding prediction
Realizing the importance of this discovery, Kochel and Trop presented their findings to a NASA lunar and planetary science meeting. Their comparisons were based on older photographs of Mars, but the HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was sending back new pictures which further confirmed the idea of avalanches on Mars.
Kochel and Trop explained that with a bit of luck and good timing, it would be possible to snap photographs of martian avalanches.
Amazingly, soon afterwards the orbiter sent back images of an ice flow avalanche in action on Mars. Pieces of ice, dust and possibly rocks crashed down from high, steep areas, sending clouds of fine material billowing upwards. The cloud itself was about 590 feet (180 meters) across. The exact cause of the avalanche isn’t known with certainty, but it could be because the sun warmed layers of ice.
This was the first time an avalanche had been observed on another world, and was the perfect confirmation of Kochel and Trop’s ideas.
Valuable research
Studies like this help us understand the changes that take place during periods of climate variation. They also show that although planets like the Earth and Mars are very different places, in many ways they can be astoundingly similar.
The details of this paper will also be of interest to astrobiologists. Searching for water on other worlds is thought to be a key step toward finding life, and understanding how the water cycle takes place on Mars will help scientists make more accurate predictions. Couple water with a dynamic world experiencing changes to its landscape, and Mars looks all the more promising for life.
Kochel and Trop’s research paper was published in the July issue of the journal Icarus.
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Original Story: How Mars and Alaska Are Alike
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May
6
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new study provides some of the best evidence to date that breast-feeding can make children smarter, an international team of researchers said on Monday.
Children whose mothers breast-fed them longer and did not mix in baby formula scored higher on intelligence tests, the researchers in Canada and Belarus reported.
About half the 14,000 babies were randomly assigned to a group in which prolonged and exclusive breast-feeding by the mother was encouraged at Belarussian hospitals and clinics. The mothers of the other babies received no special encouragement.
Those in the breast-feeding encouragement group were, on average, breast-fed longer than the others and were less likely to have been given formula in a bottle.
At 3 months, 73 percent of the babies in the breast-feeding encouragement group were breast-fed, compared to 60 percent of the other group. At 6 months, it was 50 percent versus 36 percent.
In addition, the group given encouragement was far more likely to give their children only breast milk. The rate was seven times higher, for example, at 3 months.
The children were monitored for about 6 1/2 years.
The children in the group where breast-feeding was encouraged scored about 5 percent higher in IQ tests and did better academically, the researchers found.
Previous studies had indicated brain development and intelligence benefits for breast-fed children.
But researchers have sought to determine whether it was the breast-feeding that did it, or that mothers who prefer to breast-feed their babies may differ from those who do not.
The design of the study — randomly assigning babies to two groups regardless of the mothers’ characteristics — was intended to eliminate the confusion.
‘MOTHERS WHO BREAST-FEED … ARE DIFFERENT’
“Mothers who breast-feed or those who breast-feed longer or most exclusively are different from the mothers who don’t,” Dr. Michael Kramer of McGill University in Montreal and the Montreal Children’s Hospital said in a telephone interview.
“They tend to be smarter. They tend to be more invested in their babies. They tend to interact with them more closely. They may be the kind of mothers who read to their kids more, who spend more time with their kids, who play with them more,” added Kramer, who led the study published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.
The researchers measured the differences between the two groups using IQ tests administered by the children’s pediatricians and by ratings by their teachers of their school performance in reading, writing, math and other subjects.
Both sets of scores were significantly higher in the children from the breast-feeding promotion group.
The study was launched in the mid-1990s. Kramer said the initial idea was to do it in the United States and Canada, but many hospitals in those countries by that time had begun strongly encouraging breast-feeding as a matter of routine.
The situation was different in Belarus at the time, he said, with less routine encouragement for the practice.
Kramer said how breast-feeding may make children more intelligent is unclear.
“It could even be that because breast-feeding takes longer, the mother is interacting more with the baby, talking with the baby, soothing the baby,” he said. “It could be an emotional thing. It could be a physical thing. Or it could be a hormone or something else in the milk that’s absorbed by the baby.”
Previous studies have shown babies whose mothers breast-fed them enjoy many health advantages over formula-fed babies.
These include fewer ear, stomach or intestinal infections, digestive problems, skin diseases and allergies, and less risk of developing high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that women who do not have health problems exclusively breast-feed their infants for at least the first six months, with it continuing at least through the first year as other foods are introduced.
(Editing by Maggie Fox and Stacey Joyce)
May
2
After scandal, students are leaving Oral Roberts University
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TULSA, Okla. – As Oral Roberts University prepares to hand out diplomas to its Class of 2008, Anna Siebring, a junior, will be mailing out applications to transfer to another school. Siebring, a government major, is among many students having second thoughts about staying at Oral Roberts after six months of scandal at the evangelical Christian university.
She and others fear the furor will reduce the value of any degree they earn there. Some graduates worry that they will have to try twice as hard to market themselves to potential employers after Saturday’s commencement.
“The reputation of the school means a lot,” Siebring said. “I want to be proud of the school that I went to, but I could definitely not say that about the school right now.”
During the past school year, TV evangelist Richard Roberts, son of school founder Oral Roberts, resigned as president after being accused of misspending university funds to live in style. Also, it was disclosed that the school was more than $50 million in debt.
Among other things, Roberts and his wife were accused of spending school money on shopping sprees, home improvements and a stable of horses for their daughters. They are also alleged to have sent a daughter and her friends on a Bahamas vacation aboard a university jet.
Projected enrollment for the fall semester could be 150 students fewer than the 3,166 who attended last fall, interim President Ralph Fagin said in an interview last week. Two university employees who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation said they have been told a much higher figure: around 400.
That would amount to a startling drop of almost 13 percent.
Oral Roberts spokesman Jeremy Burton said the decline has less to do with students leaving and more to do with fewer new ones enrolling.
“It doesn’t typically swing this much,” he said. “We don’t want to be down any for next fall. We are doing everything we can to tell students ORU is a good place to come to get your education.”
He said applications are down by 83 compared with last year at this time, but he said he did not have overall numbers. In the past eight years, the university has lost 500 students.
School leaders have urged professors to lean on students and encourage them to return in the fall. Billionaire Oklahoma City businessman Mart Green, who stepped in last year to save the school with a $70 million donation and became chairman of the board of trustees in January, said budget cuts and layoffs are possible.
But the new beginning that many expected after Roberts stepped down appears slow in coming, according to interviews with more than a dozen professors, students and alumni
Before the scandal, authority was concentrated largely in the hands of Roberts and his wife. With their departure, many on campus expected the administration to be more open and more collegial, with students given more of a say.
Administrators are urging patience from professors and students. Last week, Fagin conceded it would take “a while to turn a big ship.” Similarly, Green said it will take years to make necessary overhauls and begin rebuilding trust. He has already dissolved the old board of regents and established a new set of bylaws.
“We have a bright future. Most of the students are excited the picture has changed quite significantly,” Green said. But “it doesn’t happen overnight.”
Green’s money has been used to eliminate about half the school’s debt and is going for numerous renovations to the dated, 1960s-era campus, known for its 60-foot-high bronze sculpture of praying hands.
Improvements include a microwave-refrigerator in every dorm room, a picnic area that can accommodate 50 students and new wiring in the dormitories. Money is also being set aside for recruitment and for the awarding of scholarships to retain students.
But that doesn’t appear enough for sophomore Andrew Saah, who has already been accepted at the University of Maryland as a transfer student and is thinking about making the jump. He said Oral Roberts needs to change its culture to give more voice to its students.
“You could buy everyone a plasma-screen TV for their rooms, it doesn’t matter,” Saah said. “You have to treat everyone like adults.”
Some graduating seniors are standing by their school.
Adam Arrington, the past student body president, is returning to pursue a master’s degree.
“All you can do is build the trust with the public by proving yourself,” he said. “Trust is earned. I believe they will gain it back.”
John Swails, one of three professors who filed a lawsuit claiming they were forced out after accusing Richard Roberts and his family of wrongdoing, described morale among faculty as “marginally hopeful.” He was reinstated in a settlement with the school.