Internet Marketing Tips For The Aspiring Online Marketer | naijagal ...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]This is sometimes known as doing a business plan. It doesn't have to be complex, but establish what it is you want to do. Are you going to sell ebooks, software or perhaps do affiliate marketing. # Internet Marketing Tip ...

Source: http://naijagal.com/2011/09/02/internet-marketing-tips-for-the-aspiring-online-marketer/

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Skin Cancer Prevention using Caffeine : Weblog Science

Posted by Joan Heckler on Friday, September 2, 2011 ? Leave a Comment?

This may sound a little too odd but a recent study shows that caffeine guards our precious skin from certain cancers by inhibiting a protein enzyme in the skin known as ATR.? To fully understand this, scientist use mice that were fed caffeinated water and exposed them to lamps that generate UVB radiation ( Ultraviolet radiation is a stream of invisible high-energy rays coming from the sun. Artificial sources? also produce ultraviolet radiation ) but despite the exposure that damaged the DNA on their skin cells, scientist found out that? a great percentage of the badly damaged cells were killed off? and reduce the?risk of cells becoming cancerous.? Got scientist thinkin if we could create topical caffeine for skin cancer prevention. Sounds brilliant though, that would be a lot more easier than drinking too many coffee instead. Haha.

However, further studies indicate that inhibiting ATR enzyme works best at the pre-cancerous stage before UV-induced skin cancers are fully developed . They worked on 2 groups of mice? that were exposed to chronic ultraviolet rays for an extended period of time, tumor development occurred in both the genetically modified mice ( group with diminished ATR ) and regular mice .

Although its already been known to some that caffeine works wonders in preventing other forms of cancer, this newly published study might open? ways to advancement in fighting off the disease, but more research needs to be conducted.

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Source: http://www.weblogscience.com/2011/09/02/skin-cancer-prevention-using-caffeine/

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Soundlight Angelog: The Secret to Long Lasting Love Relationships ...

The World Is a Picture of You

Heavenletter #3933 Published on: September 1, 2011
God said:

No longer do you confine yourself to small parameters. No longer can you. You are expanding. Old clothes no longer fit. You are expanding to encompass the whole Universe within you. How great you have grown. All is contained within the bubble of yourself. You are your own crystal ball. Not only is your own future within you, the future of the world lies within you. It bursts forth from you. You are the creator of what befalls. By your thoughts, by the timbre of your thoughts do you create life on Earth. By the beat of your heart do you create the state of affairs.

You beat a drum, and that drum is heard everywhere, and everyone and everything dances to the beat of your tom-tom.

You may say that the world is out of sync with you, and yet the world sinks to your level or it rises to it. I am telling you that you may not yet have taken responsibility. You may have preferred irresponsibility to responsibility. You may have preferred pointing a finger rather than perceiving responsibility.

Beloveds, I do not say the state of affairs is your direct doing. I know you would do otherwise. I am saying that you have say in the state of the world. By your thoughts, do you. By your emotions, do you. By every thought and every emotion and action, do you. Even when you sit in a corner of your house, the world revolves around you. I say again that the world is contained within you.

Just as you buy a house, so do you choose the world. Buy a house in a lovely, love-filled neighborhood. The world is a picture of you that you have drawn. You put peace here and there and you put rumblings in many places.

You would never create war near or far. And yet you have had war in your heart, and you have fought battles. Fortunately, you have always had peace in your heart and love to give away as well. All the good rumors on Earth, you have created.

You deliver the news.

Be careful that you are not a warmonger. Watch your speech. Consider what you do and what you do not do. Consider the world that is within you and also at your feet. Be careful where you step, for others will follow in your footsteps. Where you tread, so will the world tread. Become peace, and the world will embrace peace. The music you make is echoed all over the world. No matter how far away, the troubles of the world were manufactured before they went on the market. Troubles of the world are worldwide. You reach every spot on Earth, and every spot of Earth reaches you. There is no far. All is near. Everything is as close as your heart.

Take out the extraneous from your heart. Anything but love is extraneous to your heart. The balm of the world is the love and peace in yourself. There is no room in anyone's heart for a complaint department. The days of complaining are over. Now what will you do with yourself, beloveds? I think you have to come to an understanding with yourself, for all are you and you are all. You have woven the mural that hangs on your wall. You can change it.

Recognize that you are an agent of change. Become what you want the world to be, and the world will be as you are. It is as you are right now. The world is at your beck and call. Welcome it, and show it what it can be and will be. It has always been following you. The craziness in the world is your craziness. The beauty in the world is your beauty and vice versa.

Copyright ? 1999-Now Heavenletters?
Heavenletters? -- Helping Human Beings Come Closer to God and Their Own Hearts
Gloria Wendroff, Godwriter
The Godwriting? International Society of Heaven
P.O. Box 2064, Fairfield, IA 52556
Contact Heaven - You get a faster response by posting on the forums!
Visit www.heavenletters.org
Subscribe to Heavenletters by the hat!
Buy Heavenletters, Love Letters from God, Winner of Chelson 2004 Inspiration Book Award at Amazon

Source: http://soundlightmaya.blogspot.com/2011/09/secret-to-long-lasting-love.html

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Artist Bio and Discovering more about zodiac signs: your favorite ...

August 31, 2011 at 4:35 pm?-?Views: 32

Artist bio and signs of the zodiac: find out more about your favorite artists can be done easily, Sofia Gila most people currently have their own celebrity Idol is someone they love and look up to, not only because of their appearance, but usually it is also a reputation that they have built and show all in the industry of show business. Adoring and someone looking at them something inevitable. Sometimes, you can learn more about the identity of specific Showbiz, singer or artist and find some ways on how you can read their Bio or ?biography.? it?s just not spy-it?s just your way to find out more about the person who you adore and start getting to know more about his/her in addition to the features and facts that all of the public already knows. Thanks to the Internet, everything becomes possible. Many people find very useful to appeal to the World Wide Web, when searching for more information. Regardless of where it will be used, whether at school, at work or just for fun, you are granted an unlimited and endless resources for you to take advantage of always. No matter what your age, there is still so strongly that you want to learn more about the artist that you adore. For adolescents, there is a singing sensation and wonderful artists such as ?Justin Bieber?, ?Miley Cyrus?, ?Taylor Swift?, ?Beyonce?, ?Ciara?, ?Robert Pattinson ? ?Taylor Lautner ? and even ?Daniel Radcliffe?. For some people to read their history through their Bio or Biography is important to them. Some people do it just to let the time fly, while on the other hand, most people are more interested, they have gone through and that these adorable artists before. As mentioned earlier, all parts and all sorts of information available through the World Wide Web. How to explore something from the Internet, you can read a lot of artist Bio, that for sure you will be interested in. How about knowing your favorite color and number of your idol ? Or in a position to know the date and place of birth? This sounds interesting for most people, and find those pieces of information are always possible, as you have Internet access. If you go to find these artist bio (bio), you will be provided with a huge list of sites that allow you to read every detail, which you can discover the identity of this particular showbiz. In fact there are even some websites that provide simple information, but what people are looking forward to, such as height, age, weight and horoscope! Find a little bit of information about someone truly adore, has gotten much simpler. With just a simple search and using the Internet has in store for everyone is fed with types of information you are looking for. Start by comparing the zodiac signs, loves and interests with these popular people! Who knows, perhaps even from the same place or State and share the same interests! Reading various artist bio can be a form of entertainment and the last time. You can check our Web site and start reading biographies of popular showbiz personality. Article source: Artist bio and signs of the zodiac: learn more about your favorite artists, you can easily do


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Can trapping carbon dioxide in rocks stop global warming? (The Week)

New York ? Researchers propose pumping damaging greenhouse gases deep into underground volcanic rock in Iceland

There are a number of off-the-wall engineering solutions for climate change (like, say, wrapping glaciers in protective sheets), but a new joint American-Icelandic venture might hold some real promise. The researchers behind this new project have proposed pumping carbon dioxide ? the primary greenhouse gas blamed for global warming ? deep underground, where it would turn into rock. This approach has never been tried before, but some scientists think it just might work. Here, a brief guide:

What exactly are these engineers proposing?
The project, called CarbFix, is located in southwest Iceland, a geologically active area that's ringed by volcanoes and hot springs. There, the designers of CarbFix will take thousands of gallons of water infused with carbon dioxide ? essentially seltzer water ? and pump it underground into deep chambers of the porous volcanic rock known as basalt.

What good will that do?
When the carbon dioxide in the seltzer water mixes with the porous basalt, the reaction between the two would create hard limestone rock in the spaces in the basalt. Since limestone is essentially calcium and carbon dioxide, this hardened limestone would?lock the carbon dioxide in place, preventing its?escape into the atmosphere.

Will this project work?
Nobody knows. Nothing like it has ever been tried, and "scientists are already warning that even if successful, their plan is not a stand-alone solution" to the immense problem of greenhouse gases warming the planet, says Max Eddy at?Geekosystem. Still, the sponsors of CarbFix expect this experiment will succeed ? if only by training a new generation of scientists and engineers how to trap and store greenhouse gases.

Sources: Associated Press, Geekosystem, Ice News

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oped/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/theweek/20110831/cm_theweek/218735

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Dodo Birds, Journey Agents and Realtors? | 3dviewingangle.com

There when was a time when buffalo roamed the prairies. Dodo birds, as far as the eye could see. You acquired your airplane tickets from a journey agent, and your residence from a realtor.

Nicely, you nevertheless most likely purchase and sell properties employing a realtor, but almost certainly not for considerably more time. The winds of world wide web-pushed change have been blowing by way of every market, ending traditions and generating new paradigms just about everywhere they get to. Genuine estate has been remarkably resistant to change as a result much, primarily since of the power of the realtors lobby and its dying-grip on politicians. But cracks in the technique are starting to let some daylight in, and when buyers get a perception of what they have been lacking, there will be no stopping the stampede.

A minute of digression: in the 90s, I labored in the travel industry. More than the study course of 10 a long time, I witnessed initial-hand a massive upheaval in the organization of journey. When I started out, the journey agent was the gatekeeper? the resource of info, experience, pricing and tickets.

Agents claimed 3 major advantages:

one We are the supply of data on flight availability and pricing. No one particular else has obtain.

2 We are the professionals. No a single else can notify you the greatest way to get from Wichita to Boise, and no a single else can advise the greatest carrier to do it with.

three We are the ticket supply. You cant fly without having tickets, can you?.

Airways went to excellent lengths to coddle agents, since agent help was important to a carriers good results. Travelers also flocked to agents, typically building relationships with particular agents who arrived to know their requirements and preferences. Agents relished this place of power, and utilised it to command a ten% commission.

But then came the internet. The web provided free data, as effectively as entry to authorities. The world wide web EMPOWERED the buyer. It was not perfect at first, but it rapidly obtained far better. Budget carriers, and then all carriers, saw the value of a new distribution system and commenced moving inexorably in direction of it. Agents screamed and howled, but the video game was above prolonged before they realized it. As carriers gained handle of their destiny, agent commissions started out to drop. ten%, 8%, 5%.

It is now ten decades afterwards? when was the last time you bought a ticket from a travel agent? When was the previous time you even had a paper ticket?

Does any of this sound familiar as relates to actual estate? Usually, Realtors have been the data source. The negotiators. The offer-makers. They perform the acquire- and the sell- conclude of the deal, occasionally concurrently. You could not buy or promote a home without having one, and it would expense you five% of the promoting price tag, irrespective of the time or work concerned.

Believe about how the world wide web has altered issues. Suddenly, the consumer has nearly just as much details as the Realtor the only information he or she does not have is the data which the Realtors refuse to make available to the public, even though the customer now has Greater navigating and lookup instruments. New firms have popped up which provide to deal with the messy paperwork and the legalese. Gradually but surely, the Realtor is turning into an optional, instead than an vital, portion of the equation. There is a 25-cent term for all of this: disintermediation. The elimination of the center gentleman. It came to travel, and it really is properly underway in real estate.

Realtors have some very good arguments. ?We are specialists, we are specialists with a massive sum of precious knowledge.? And it can be genuine? some really are experts, just as the standard journey agents once ended up. And the specialists are well worth their weight in gold. But most actual estate experts are element-time, and anyone who has at any time dealt with numerous understands that most agents truly offer minor if any further value. And certainly not five% of the deal worth. Realtors know this, which is why 5% has instantly become negotiable.

Web-pushed real estate companies are stepping in ? Zip Realty, for example. Possessing been disintermediated by the market, Realtors have tried reintermediation by legal fiat. But this tactic can at best only delay the unavoidable: in the around long term, you will obtain and offer houses on your individual. You will retain the services of firms, for a fixed charge, to marketplace the residence. You will cost the house beneath guidance from sites like Zillow. The miscellaneous costs which mysteriously pop up at closing will vanish, changed by fixed-charges by transaction, negotiated upfront. You probably is not going to even have to have a conventional closing. Just verify the box on a protected site. Congratulations, you are the new proprietor of a home. The dollars has been electronically transferred to the sellers financial institution account.

It will be a brave new planet, where gold Century 21 jackets will no extended be witnessed in your neighborhood, but will often be on display at the Smithsonian.

Dodo Internet
Related Sites : dodo

Source: http://3dviewingangle.com/?p=8433

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AP IMPACT: Automation in the air dulls pilot skill

FILE - In this Feb. 12, 2009, file photo, a plane burns after it crashed into a house in Clarence Center, N.Y., Authorities say it was Continental Airlines Flight 3407 operated by Manassas, Va.-based Colgan Air. Airline industry and safety officials are concerned that pilots? flying skills are becoming rusty and their ability to handle unexpected situations is eroding because most flying is delegated to computers in today?s highly automated planes. (AP Photo/David Duprey, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 12, 2009, file photo, a plane burns after it crashed into a house in Clarence Center, N.Y., Authorities say it was Continental Airlines Flight 3407 operated by Manassas, Va.-based Colgan Air. Airline industry and safety officials are concerned that pilots? flying skills are becoming rusty and their ability to handle unexpected situations is eroding because most flying is delegated to computers in today?s highly automated planes. (AP Photo/David Duprey, File)

FILE - In this June 14, 2009 file photo, workers unload debris, belonging to crashed Air France flight 447, from the Brazilian Navy's Constitution Frigate in the port of Recife, northeast of Brazil. Airline industry and safety officials are concerned that pilots? flying skills are becoming rusty and their ability to handle unexpected situations is eroding because most flying is delegated to computers in today?s highly automated planes. Last month, French investigators recommended that all pilots get mandatory training in manual flying and handling a high-altitude stall. The recommendations were in response to the 2009 crash of the Air France jet flying from Brazil to Paris. All 228 people aboard were killed. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 25, 2009 file photo, the wreckage of a Turkish Airlines aircraft is seen after it slammed into a field while attempting to land at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. Airline industry and safety officials are concerned that pilots? flying skills are becoming rusty and their ability to handle unexpected situations is eroding because most flying is delegated to computers in today?s highly automated planes. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, File)

(AP) ? Are airline pilots forgetting how to fly? As planes become ever more reliant on automation to navigate crowded skies, safety officials worry there will be more deadly accidents traced to pilots who have lost their hands-on instincts in the air.

Hundreds of people have died over the past five years in "loss of control" accidents in which planes stalled during flight or got into unusual positions that pilots could not correct. In some cases, pilots made the wrong split-second decisions, with catastrophic results ? for example, steering the plane's nose skyward into a stall instead of down to regain stable flight.

Spurred in part by federal regulations that require greater reliance on computerized flying, the airline industry is suffering from "automation addiction," said Rory Kay, an airline captain and co-chairman of a Federal Aviation Administration committee on pilot training. "We're seeing a new breed of accident with these state-of-the art planes."

Pilots use automated systems to fly airliners for all but about three minutes of a flight: the takeoff and landing. Most of the time pilots are programming navigation directions into computers rather than using their hands on controls to fly the plane. They have few opportunities to maintain their skills by flying manually, Kay's advisory committee warns.

Fatal airline accidents have decreased dramatically in the U.S. over the past decade. However, The Associated Press interviewed pilots, industry officials and aviation safety experts who expressed concern about the implications of decreased opportunities for manual flight, and reviewed more than a dozen loss-of-control accidents around the world.

Airlines and regulators discourage or even prohibit pilots from turning off the autopilot and flying planes themselves, the committee said. Safety experts say they're seeing cases in which pilots who are suddenly confronted with a loss of computerized flight controls don't appear to know how to respond immediately, or they make errors ? sometimes fatally so.

A draft FAA study found pilots sometimes "abdicate too much responsibility to automated systems." Because these systems are so integrated in today's planes, one malfunctioning piece of equipment or a single bad computer instruction can suddenly cascade into a series of other failures, unnerving pilots who have been trained to rely on the equipment.

The study examined 46 accidents and major incidents, 734 voluntary reports by pilots and others as well as data from more than 9,000 flights in which a safety official rode in the cockpit to observe pilots in action. It found that in more than 60 percent of accidents, and 30 percent of major incidents, pilots had trouble manually flying the plane or made mistakes with automated flight controls.

A typical mistake was not recognizing that either the autopilot or the auto-throttle ? which controls power to the engines ? had disconnected. Others failed to take the proper steps to recover from a stall in flight or to monitor and maintain airspeed.

"We're forgetting how to fly," Kay said.

In the most recent fatal airline crash in the U.S., in 2009 near Buffalo, N.Y., the co-pilot of a regional airliner programmed incorrect information into the plane's computers, causing it to slow to an unsafe speed. That triggered a stall warning. The startled captain, who hadn't noticed the plane had slowed too much, responded by repeatedly pulling back on the control yoke, overriding two safety systems, when the correct procedure was to push forward.

An investigation later found there were no mechanical or structural problems that would have prevented the plane from flying if the captain had responded correctly. Instead, his actions caused an aerodynamic stall. The plane plummeted to earth, killing all 49 people aboard and one on the ground.

Two weeks after the New York accident, a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737 crashed into a field while trying to land in Amsterdam. Nine people were killed and 120 injured. An investigation found that one of the plane's altimeters, which measures altitude, had fed incorrect information to the plane's computers.

That, in turn, caused the auto-throttle to reduce speed to a dangerously slow level so that the plane lost lift and stalled. Dutch investigators described the flight's three pilots' "automation surprise" when they discovered the plane was about to stall. They hadn't been closely monitoring the airspeed.

Last month, French investigators recommended that all pilots get mandatory training in manual flying and handling a high-altitude stall. The recommendations were in response to the 2009 crash of an Air France jet flying from Brazil to Paris. All 228 people aboard were killed.

An investigation found that airspeed sensors fed bad information to the Airbus A330's computers. That caused the autopilot to disengage suddenly and a stall warning to activate.

The co-pilot at the controls struggled to save the plane, but because he kept pointing the plane's nose up, he actually caused the stall instead of preventing it, experts said. Despite the bad airspeed information, which lasted for less than a minute, there was nothing to prevent the plane from continuing to fly if the pilot had followed the correct procedure for such circumstances, which is to continue to fly levelly in the same direction at the same speed while trying to determine the nature of the problem, they said.

In such cases, the pilots and the technology are failing together, said former US Airways Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, whose precision flying is credited with saving all 155 people aboard an Airbus A320 after it lost power in a collision with Canada geese shortly after takeoff from New York's LaGuardia Airport two years ago.

"If we only look at the pilots ? the human factor ? then we are ignoring other important factors," he said. "We have to look at how they work together."

The ability of pilots to respond to the unexpected loss or malfunction of automated aircraft systems "is the big issue that we can no longer hide from in aviation," said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va. "We've been very slow to recognize the consequence of it and deal with it."

The foundation, which is industry-supported, promotes aviation safety around the world.

Airlines are also seeing smaller incidents in which pilots waste precious time repeatedly trying to restart the autopilot or fix other automated systems when what they should be doing is "grasping the controls and flying the airplane," said Bob Coffman, another member of the FAA pilot training committee and an airline captain.

"All of this has to be instinctive, it has to be trained to the point of, 'Oh, I know what to do,' " he said.

Paul Railsback, operations director at the Air Transport Association, which represents airlines, said: "We think the best way to handle this is through the policies and training of the airlines to ensure they stipulate that the pilots devote a fair amount of time to manually flying. We want to encourage pilots to do that and not rely 100 percent on the automation. I think many airlines are moving in that direction."

In May, the FAA proposed requiring airlines to train pilots on how to recover from a stall, as well as expose them to more realistic problem scenarios.

But other new regulations are going in the opposite direction. Today, pilots are required to use their autopilot when flying at altitudes above 24,000 feet, which is where airliners spend much of their time cruising. The required minimum vertical safety buffer between planes has been reduced from 2,000 feet to 1,000 feet. That means more planes flying closer together, necessitating the kind of precision flying more reliably produced by automation than human beings.

The same situation is increasingly common closer to the ground.

The FAA is moving from an air traffic control system based on radar technology to more precise GPS navigation. Instead of time-consuming, fuel-burning stair-step descents, planes will be able to glide in more steeply for landings with their engines idling. Aircraft will be able to land and take off closer together and more frequently, even in poor weather, because pilots will know the precise location of other aircraft and obstacles on the ground. Fewer planes will be diverted.

But the new landing procedures require pilots to cede even more control to automation.

"Those procedures have to be flown with the autopilot on," Voss said. "You can't afford a sneeze on those procedures."

Even when not using the new procedures, airlines direct their pilots to switch on the autopilot about a minute and a half after takeoff, when the plane reaches about 1,000 feet, Coffman said. The autopilot generally doesn't come off until about a minute and a half before landing, he said.

Pilots still control the plane's flight path. But they are programming computers rather than flying with their hands.

Opportunities to fly manually are especially limited at commuter airlines, where pilots may fly with the autopilot off for about 80 seconds out of a typical two-hour flight, Coffman said.

But it is the less experienced first officers starting out at smaller carriers who most need manual flying experience. Airline training programs are focused on training pilots to fly with the automation, rather than without it. Senior pilots, even if their manual flying skills are rusty, can at least draw on experience flying older generations of less automated planes.

Adding to concerns about an overreliance on automation is an expected pilot shortage in the U.S. and many other countries. U.S. airlines used to be able to draw on a pool of former military pilots with extensive manual flying experience. But more pilots now choose to stay in the armed forces, and corporate aviation competes for pilots with airlines, where salaries have dropped.

Changing training programs to include more manual flying won't be enough because pilots spend only a few days a year in training, Voss said. Airlines will have to rethink their operations fundamentally if they're going to give pilots realistic opportunities to keep their flying skills honed, he said.

The International Air Transport Association says the most common type of airline accident is one in which planes stalled or otherwise lost control in flight. It counted 51 such accidents in the past five years.

___

Follow Joan Lowy on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/AP_Joan_Lowy

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-08-30-US-Airline-Pilots-Automation/id-31036c5c67cf4212a2960ae478c8e2a8

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Analysis: New nadir in Mexican drugs war puts PAN in trouble (Reuters)

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) ? Hopes that Mexico's conservative ruling party would usher in an era of clean government and establish order have given away to despair as drugs war violence increasingly hits ordinary civilians.

At least 52 people died last week when an arson attack by suspected drug cartel members gutted an upscale casino in the prosperous northern city of Monterrey, a bastion of President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party, or PAN.

The drugs war has become more and more brutal since Calderon deployed the army to fight the cartels in late 2006, but Mexicans were still shocked by the Casino Royale attack.

Attending a funeral for one victim, retired local businessman Carlos Garcia struggled to grasp how Monterrey, a city that was once a beacon for urban development in Latin America, had become so violent.

"I've never seen anything like it. And it's getting worse," the 80-year-old said. "This government is doing nothing. I've always been a PAN supporter but we need a change."

Over the past two years killings have surged in Monterrey, the capital of Nuevo Leon state and home to major companies like cement maker Cemex and conglomerate Alfa. Long viewed as a jewel in the crown of the Mexican economy, it is now is a potent symbol of how the drugs war can quickly ravage major cities.

The violence has eroded support for the PAN, which promised law and order as well as honest, efficient government when its candidate Vicente Fox won a historic presidential election in 2000, ending 71 years of authoritarian and often corrupt rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

"We thought the change would bring less robbery and violence, and more order," said an angry 72-year-old called Maria, who also attended the weekend funeral. "But it would have been better if the PAN had never been in power. Things were bad before, but not like this."

President Calderon condemned the casino attack as an act of terrorism, and sent hundreds of extra troops to patrol Monterrey, a city of 4 million which has been ravaged by the brutal Zetas cartel since the start of 2010.

Over 42,000 people have died in the explosion of killing in Latin America's second biggest economy since Calderon declared war on the cartels soon after succeeding Fox as president.

Security forces have captured or killed several senior traffickers and Calderon says the violence is a sign of the cartels' weakness. He insists they would have held Mexico to ransom if he had not pushed them onto the defensive.

Police on Monday arrested five suspected Zetas over the casino fire, and Calderon vowed things would improve. But he conceded that he still had work to do. "We have to speed things up because we know the criminals have corrupted the institutions at all levels of government," he said.

Mexican voters, who elect a new president in July 2012, are growing tired of government assurances that it is winning the war as new milestones in violence are reached.

With every new beheading, shooting and kidnapping, a change in government next year appears more likely.

Hundreds took to the streets of Monterrey on Sunday to demonstrate. One protest banner read simply: "Calderon -- Your government has brought us fear, terror and death. Resign now."

NOBODY IS IMMUNE

Hitmen, local traffickers and police initially made up the bulk of the drug war dead, but the civilian death toll is mounting. Most of the largely female victims in the Monterrey casino were middle class voters, the kind of people that have made the city a PAN stronghold.

The chaos has helped put the PRI in pole position to regain power, despite lingering misgivings among voters.

A recent opinion survey showed the PAN's level of support at less than 20 percent, roughly half that of the PRI. Calderon is barred by law from seeking re-election but his government's record on security campaign will be a key election issue.

Among the hundreds who turned out for the funeral of Eduardo Martinez, a 54-year-old businessman and father of three who died in the casino fire, few had a good word for the PAN.

His younger brother Edilberto said the party had let down Nuevo Leon, where its win over the PRI in a state election in 1997 helped pave its way to the presidency three years later.

"People go out in the morning here and don't know if they'll make it home at night," he said. "And the PAN are even more corrupt than the PRI used to be when they were in power."

When Calderon won the 2006 election, his party crushed the PRI in Nuevo Leon but at federal and state elections just three years later, the PRI was again dominant.

The PAN still controls Monterrey, which is at the heart of Mexico's hopes to join the top tier of developed economies. But the steady stream of massacres, extortion and shoot-outs have unsettled investors, and sent many locals packing.

"The situation is affecting everyone, all businesses, and there's no immunity to this," said David Robillard, managing director of risk consultancy Multilatin Advisors.

In Monterrey, as in other parts of Mexico, more and more people believe the government's drugs war is costing too much.

"For every bad guy they get, ten innocent people die," said 25-year-old Ana Casillas as she looked at the charred remains of the Casino Royale being patrolled by soldiers.

Many believe the government can no longer win the war.

Looking on somberly as his nephew's body was lowered into a grave beneath cypress trees at a Monterrey cemetery, Eduardo Martinez's uncle said his country needs outside help.

"It's time we got the United Nations into Mexico," said Carlos Cavazos, 68. "That's how bad things are now."

(Editing by Kieran Murray)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110830/wl_nm/us_mexico_drugs_calderon

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Consumer confidence crumbles to two-year low in August (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Confidence among consumers plunged in August to its lowest in more than two years following the country's loss of its top credit rating and heart-wrenching drops in major stock indexes.

The Conference Board, an industry group, said on Tuesday its index of consumer attitudes sank to 44.5 from a downwardly revised 59.2 the month before. Economists had expected a much less pronounced decline.

Concerns have grown that the United States might be heading toward a new recession. Consumers' flagging confidence might lead them to shut their wallets, although retail sales data hasn't pointed in that direction yet.

"What we are effectively going through is a crisis of confidence," said Tom Porcelli, an economist at RBC Capital Markets in New York.

The United States lost its AAA credit rating earlier this month following a drawn out battle in Washington over spending that nearly led the country to default on its obligations.

U.S. Treasuries prices extended gains on Tuesday on fears a pullback in consumer spending could trigger recession, while U.S. stocks fell. The dollar hit a session low against the yen.

So far this year, data from industrial production to employment have been consistent with a slow-growth scenario rather than an outright contraction in economic output.

"There is basically nothing for consumers to be confident about," said Gennadiy Goldberg, a fixed income analyst at 4CAST in New York.

Concern over the outlook led the U.S. Federal Reserve earlier this month to say it would hold interest rates at rock-bottom level for at least the next two years, a decision that drew three dissents.

Some Fed officials favor doing more to bring down the unemployment rate. A report on Friday is expected to show the jobless rate held at 9.1 percent in August.

The Fed releases the minutes of its August 9 meeting later on Tuesday and investors will scour them for clues on whether the Fed is likely to do more for the economy.

Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans, who is considered to be less focused on inflation risks than some of his colleagues, said on Tuesday he favored strong central bank accommodation for a substantial period of time.

"It's difficult to characterize the labor market as anything other than consistent with being in a recession," he told CNBC television.

"I'm in favor of some of the most aggressive policy actions of anyone on the committee," added Evans, who votes on the Fed's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee this year.

HOME PRICES WEAK

A separate report showed U.S. single-family home prices fell slightly during June in the latest sign the country's struggling economic recovery will not be able to count on any help from a moribund housing sector.

The S&P/Case-Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas slipped 0.1 percent from the previous month on a seasonally adjusted basis. A Reuters poll of economists had expected prices to be unchanged.

An excess supply of homes, ongoing foreclosures, tight credit and weak demand have kept the housing market on the ropes and helped to mute the broader economic recovery.

"Basically this is just more confirmation that housing is moving sideways," said Brian Jones, an economist as Societe Generale in New York.

Prices in the 20 cities fell 4.5 percent from a year ago, better than expectations for a decline of 4.6 percent.

Friday's jobs will give an idea of how much damage the stock market turmoil inflicted on the already wounded economy.

U.S. nonfarm payrolls likely increased 75,000 in August after rising 117,000 in July, according to a Reuters survey.

(Additional reporting by Emily Flitter; writing by Jason Lange in Washington; Editing by Neil Stempleman)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110830/bs_nm/us_usa_economy_homes_index1

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Google investor sues board over online drug ads (Reuters)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) ? Google Inc's board of directors faces a lawsuit for previously allowing Canadian pharmacies to advertise prescription drugs to U.S. customers via the Web search leader.

The civil lawsuit, filed on behalf of a Google shareholder on Monday, claims the ads -- which Google stopped displaying in February 2010 -- led to what it calls the "illegal importation" of the drugs.

The lawsuit follows Google's $500 million settlement last week of a U.S. criminal probe over such ads. The shareholder charges that the board breached its fiduciary duty and seeks unspecified damages.

Last week the Department of Justice said Google agreed to settle the investigation into ads it accepted for online Canadian pharmacies selling drugs in the United States.

The advertisements led to illegal imports of prescription drugs into the country, the regulator said.

Google representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California is Patricia M. McKenna, derivatively on behalf of Google Inc., v. Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt et al., No. 11-4248.

For McKenna: Shawn Williams, Darren Robbins, Travis Downs, Benny Goodman and Erik Luedeke of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd.

For Google's board: Not immediately available.

(Reporting by Dan Levine)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/internet/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110830/wr_nm/us_google_lawsuit

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