It is very exciting to be a part of typing this book for my aunt as I do believe it will be a wonderful book for readers to fall in love with 
.
I will work on it some every day as time and health allows and while she is here she can make what editing changes she feels are needed to tell her story.
This is fun for me and gives me a wonderful goal to be a part of!!
RadioShack Corp. notified about 400 workers by e-mail that they were being dismissed immediately as part of planned job cuts.
Amazing, huh?
Lung power normally declines as a person ages but being angry and hostile can speed up the process, researchers said on Thursday.
In a study of 670 men ranging in age from 45 to 86, they found that males who had higher levels of long-standing anger at the start of the eight-year project had significantly poorer lung function at the end of it.
"This study is one of the first to show prospectively that hostility is associated with poorer pulmonary function and more rapid rates of decline among older men," said Dr Rosalind Wright, of Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, in a report online in the journal Thorax.
The scientists used a scoring system to measures the levels of anger of each of the men and they tested their lung power three times during the study.
Even after taking account of other factors such as smoking that can also have an impact on lung power, hostility and anger had a negative effect.
Anger, hostility and stress have also been associated with heart disease, asthma and other ailments.
Wright and her team suggested that the negative emotions could change biological process and may disturb the immune system and cause chronic inflammation.
"Stress-related factors are known to depress the immune function and increase susceptibility to or exacerbate a host of diseases and disorders," said Dr Paul Lehrer, of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, in an editorial in the journal.
He added that it is unknown how chronic anger contributes to physical deterioration but said the researchers established a link between chronic anger and age-related deterioration in lung function.
A lawyer climbed through a neighbor's bedroom window and stabbed him to death after being told by a family member that the man had molested his 2-year-old daughter, authorities say.
Barry James, 58, was stabbed in the chest nearly a dozen times Monday. The lawyer, Jonathon Edington, 29, was charged with murder and burglary and was released on $1 million bail Wednesday.
Capt. Gary MacNamara said that police had not received a complaint about the child being assaulted before the killing, and "we have no indication it's true or not true."
Edington's attorney, Michael Sherman, said the information came from Edington's wife. "The daughter gave the mother information which was alarming and disturbing. The mom relayed it to her husband. That was the spark," Sherman said.
James' 87-year-old mother discovered his body. When officers went to Edington's home, they found him standing by his kitchen sink with what appeared to be blood on him, and a large kitchen knife next to him on a counter, authorities said
"He's in shock," Edington's attorney said. "This is the most unexpected turn of events one can imagine with this young man's background."
Mood: serious
Being an adult childhood survivor of childhood sexual abuse, and subsequent abuses later on in life, depression, mood swings, anger, fear, anxiety attacks, and just plain fear of living and or dying have all plagued me at one or more times over the course of my life.
So much therapy, so much medicine, so many groups, so much endless crying, so many panic attacks, and so much insomnia and feelings of worthlessness over the years. Sometimes I isolated, sometimes I let body weight 'hide me' from the eyes of men as they most often look right by heavier women. If I caught one giving me the 'once over' I would glare at them as if to say, "drop dead." So much fear and anger has permeated my life, surviving all the images of my abuse and night terrors.
I could not heal during my first marriage although we certainly tried. My husband and I had too many skeletons in our past that clashed and we just couldn't be partners in the end. We have remained friends, and I am grateful for that as we really grew up together besides having two sons.
I have healed some in my second marriage as my husband is so compassionate and loving that he sometimes senses when I am about to have a bad night or day even before I do. He reassures me and holds me and he tells me, "its not your fault." A flood of tears usually follow and the release of tension and pain subsides. It is so important to be able to heal your woundedness in the same kind of
relationship that injured you in the past. What I mean to say is if you were abused by a man then healing and learning to trust a man again is often far more effective if later on in life you heal within the framework of relationship whether it be a man or woman.
The journey is a long and tedious one and one that you often feel angry about and think, why me? There are so many injured souls walking among us, men and women alike, from perpetrators from families, from friends or total strangers. How many take the time to heal, to look inside their past, in order to live a more peaceful future? How many have enough support to take that task on? We need 'healing companions' I believe in order to proceed with this life-changing endeavor.
If any of this sounds familiar to you, or strikes a chord of truth within your heart, I hope it helps you to know that you are not alone. There is hope. There is help. There are many people in the world offering you a path back to peace, trust, and love. Not all of mankind is evil. Find your 'healing companions' and walk your walk back to the life that God truly intended for you. Your guardian angel in life will appear. Sometimes you may not know it at first, but over time, and through your healing, you will know that there is, or was, someone carrying you when you felt too weak to walk your path.
Peace to all, and hope abundant,
Aly
The high school class of 2006 got stuck with a new, longer version of the SAT and didn't fare well on it. Average reading and math scores fell a total of seven points — the sharpest decline in 31 years.
Experts agreed the dip in combined math and critical reading scores on the college entrance exam was related to the new version of the test — but differed as to how. The updated exam, with a new writing section, also features more advanced math questions and replaces analogies with more reading comprehension.
Average reading scores fell from 508 to 503 and math scores fell from 520 to 518, the College Board announced Tuesday, with the changes hurting boys more than girls.
Boys' reading scores fell eight points, while girls' dropped just three. And girls scored 11 points better than boys on the new writing section. Boys' and girls' math score fell two points each to 536 and 502, respectively.
The College Board, which owns the exam, downplayed the drop, saying it amounts to a fraction of one question per exam. The board's explanation: about 3 percent fewer test-takers, out of 1.5 million, tried the exam a second time. Combined math and reading scores typically rise 30 points when a student retakes the test.
The College Board also insisted fatigue wasn't to blame. The new exam has been expanded from three hours to three hours, 45 minutes, and can take more than a full morning counting prep time and breaks. Some parents and fair-testing advocates predicted the longer exam would cause scores to decline, but the College Board said its research showed no drop-off in student performance as the test goes on.
Still, the results will spark debate over whether the College Board — also facing criticism over 4,000 incorrectly scored exams last year — was able to deliver a new test that is comparable to the old one.
The new scores also stand out because just two weeks ago the rival ACT exam reported its biggest score increase in 20 years.
"It does show how meaningless the test is as a measure of educational quality, that technical changes in the test can significantly alter the (scores)," said Bob Schaeffer, an SAT critic and public education director of the group FairTest. "It's the test, not the education, that's being measured."
What are the teachers and parents doing about this problem?
Don't tell your cell phone any secrets. It might not keep them. Second-hand phones purchased over the Internet surrendered credit card numbers and bank account passwords, business secrets and even evidence of adultery.
One married man's girlfriend sent a text message to his cell phone: His wife was getting suspicious. Perhaps they should cool it for a few days.
"So," she wrote, "I'll talk to u next week."
"You want a break from me? Then fine," he wrote back.
Later, the married man bought a new phone. He sold his old one on eBay, at Internet auction, for $290.
The guys who bought it now know his secret.
The married man had followed the directions in his phone's manual to erase all his information, including lurid exchanges with his lover. But it wasn't enough.
A company, Trust Digital of McLean, Va., bought 10 different phones on eBay this summer to test phone-security tools it sells for businesses. The phones all were fairly sophisticated models capable of working with corporate e-mail systems.
Curious software experts at Trust Digital resurrected information on nearly all the used phones, including the racy exchanges between guarded lovers.
The other phones contained:
_One company's plans to win a multimillion-dollar federal transportation contract.
_E-mails about another firm's $50,000 payment for a software license.
_Bank accounts and passwords.
_Details of prescriptions and receipts for one worker's utility payments.
The recovered information was equal to 27,000 pages — a stack of printouts 8 feet high.
"We found just a mountain of personal and corporate data," said Nick Magliato, Trust Digital's chief executive.
Many of the phones were owned personally by the sellers but crammed with sensitive corporate information, underscoring the blurring of work and home. "They don't come with a warning label that says, 'Be careful.' The data on these phones is very important," Magliato said.
One phone surrendered the secrets of a chief executive at a small technology company in Silicon Valley. It included details of a pending deal with Adobe Systems Inc., and e-mail proposals from a potential Japanese partner:
"If we want to be exclusive distributor in Japan, what kind of business terms you want?" asked the executive in Japan.
Trust Digital surmised that the U.S. chief executive gave his old phone to a former roommate, who used it briefly then sold it for $400 on eBay. Researchers found e-mails covering different periods for both men, who used the same address until recently.
Experts said giving away an old phone is commonplace. Consumers upgrade their cell phones on average about every 18 months.
"Most people toss their phones after they're done; a lot of them give their old phones to family members or friends," said Miro Kazakoff, a researcher at Compete Inc. of Boston who follows mobile phone sales and trends. He said selling a used phone — which sometimes can fetch hundreds of dollars — is increasingly popular.
The 10 phones Trust Digital studied represented popular models from leading manufacturers. All the phones stored information on "flash" memory chips, the same technology found in digital cameras and some music players.
Flash memory is inexpensive and durable. But it is slow to erase information in ways that make it impossible to recover. So manufacturers compensate with methods that erase data less completely but don't make a phone seem sluggish.
Phone manufacturers usually provide instructions for safely deleting a customer's information, but it's not always convenient or easy to find. Research in Motion Ltd. has built into newer Blackberry phones an easy-to-use wipe program.
Palm Inc., which makes the popular Treo phones, puts directions deep within its Web site for what it calls a "zero out reset." It involves holding down three buttons simultaneously while pressing a fourth tiny button on the back of the phone.
But it's so awkward to do that even Palm says it may take two people. A Palm executive, Joe Fabris, said the company made the process deliberately clumsy because it doesn't want customers accidentally erasing their information.
Trust Digital resurrected erased e-mails and other information from a used Treo phone provided by The Associated Press for a demonstration after it was reset and appeared empty. Once the phone was reset using Palm's awkward "zero-out" technique, no information could be recovered. The AP already used that technique to protect data on its reporters' phones.
"The tools are out there" for hackers and thieves to rummage through deleted data on used phones, Trust Digital's chief technology officer, Norm Laudermilch, said. "It definitely does not take a Ph.D."
Kind of makes you go hmmmm!
Thank goodness many of the weather forecasters were incorrect in their prediction of Ernesto gathering strength by the time it hit Florida. My aunt said the lines to get gas were ridiculous and BP had run out of gas even before she left there. Of course the panic over hurricanes still runs high and with all the hype and fluctuations in storms one can't be too careful!
Well I finally got the long overdue sleep I have been missing due to pain and spasms this past week. I slept until 11:30 today and then my aunt and I just talked, she read abit of a book she is in the process of writing, and I am soon going to start to type for her.
We do so enjoy her company. She is full of wisdom, poetry, and good deeds 
.
I hope this day offered you some joy and love and hope.
Hugs,
Aly
The leader of a polygamist church who is on the FBI's 10 most-wanted list was arrested after authorities pulled over a vehicle he was riding in and found three wigs, a large number of cell phones, laptop computers and more than $50,000 in cash, authorities said Tuesday.
Warren Steed Jeffs, 50, was stopped shortly after 9 p.m. Monday after a Nevada state trooper could not see any registration or license plate on the 2007 red Cadillac Escalade in which Jeffs was a passenger. The vehicle was northbound on Interstate 15 in southern Nevada. The driver was identified as Isaac Jeffs, 32, described by police as a brother of the fugitive.
The initial responses to the trooper's questions were inconsistent, and he called for backup. It was unclear how the trooper suspected that Jeffs was in the car. A computer failure prevented authorities from immediately tracing the vehicle, Nevada state officials said. The sport utility vehicle turned out to carry temporary registration from Colorado.
The state troopers contacted the FBI, and agents dispatched to the scene made the arrest. Jeffs initially used an alias to identify himself but then admitted who he was, said Steve Martinez, special agent in charge of the Las Vegas FBI field office.
Jeffs, who had a $100,000 reward offered for his capture, did not resist arrest, Martinez said. Isaac Jeffs and a 32-year-old woman identified as one of the fugitive's wives, also traveling in the vehicle, were released without being charged after authorities in Arizona and Utah indicated that they would not pursue charges against them for harboring a fugitive.
Inside the SUV, authorities found a large number of cell phones and laptop computers, three wigs and more than $50,000 in cash, Martinez said. No weapons were found, he said.
Jeffs was being held at the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas on a federal warrant for flight to avoid prosecution. The main pending charges against Jeffs were by the states of Arizona and Utah, and it has not been decided in which state Jeffs would face the initial charges, including two counts of rape as an accomplice in Utah. He faces widespread sexual abuse and civil rights violations.
Jeffs has been accused of repeatedly raping his nephew, Brent Jeffs, who was then 5 years old, in Utah. Now 23, Brent Jeffs filed a lawsuit in 2004, saying his uncle is believed to have molested other children.
Moreover, Jeffs was charged in April with rape in Washington County, Utah, for allegedly encouraging a man to have sex with his underage wife without her consent.
Growing up, Jeffs was raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, an offshoot of Mormonism. He was a teacher and later principal of the sect's Alta Academy. Jeffs ascended to leader of the 10,000-member secretive sect when his father, the FLDS prophet Rulon Jeffs, died and the younger Jeffs claimed he was sent by God as a prophet, which no one disputed.
Members learn they cannot reach the highest levels of heaven without at least three wives. Women, or often girls, are "gifted" to men by the prophet, who is seen as revealing God's plan.
With most of the followers in Arizona and Utah, former members of the group, as well as state investigators, describe it as a tyrannical theocracy.
It is about time this man was apprended!!!
Dubbed the National Memory Test, the quiz attracted 29,500 people who were tested on tasks such as remembering a shopping list, recalling names, faces and occupations, long-term recall and spotting differences between two photographs.
Those who took part in the test were asked to fill in a survey on a range of habits, such as alcohol consumption, television viewing and reading habits.
The results found no differences between men and women, with the same scores for both groups on all the tasks. But it found television viewing had the main impact on results.
"Turn off the box, or at least don't view too much of it," the survey results said, adding those who watched less than one hour a day performed better at all memory tasks."
Those who drank less than two alcoholic drinks a day performed better at all memory tasks.
People who did crosswords were better at remembering shopping lists and recalling names, while eating fish once a week improved the ability to remember shopping lists.
However, it cautioned that while the test can give people an indication of their memory, the results have not been tested for statistical significance, and the internet survey meant it was possible that people could have cheated or lied.
Pachana said having an active mind was important for memory, and some television programs could be good for helping to improve the memory.
"TV can be a really passive activity, while reading is active, and any active activity is better," she said, adding TV quiz shows and news programs could be good for the mind.
"So TV is not all that bad. It just might be taking time away from doing something that is a bit more active for the mind."
She said health issues such as depression, obesity, lack of sleep and being stressed or worried could have an impact on a person's performance in a memory test.
The test is available on-line at www.nationalmemorytest.net.au.
I am not a TV buff but I don't do enough crosswords either even though I enjoy them. I guess I best spend less time here and more time reading and solving puzzles... grin. Not too likely is it? 
While researchers have long shown that tall people earn more than their shorter counterparts, it's not only social discrimination that accounts for this inequality -- tall people are just smarter than their height-challenged peers, a new study finds.
"As early as age three -- before schooling has had a chance to play a role -- and throughout childhood, taller children perform significantly better on cognitive tests," wrote Anne Case and Christina Paxson of Princeton University in a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The findings were based primarily on two British studies that followed children born in 1958 and 1970, respectively, through adulthood and a U.S. study on height and occupational choice.
Other studies have pointed to low self-esteem, better health that accompanies greater height, and social discrimination as culprits for lower pay for shorter people.
But researchers Case and Paxson believe the height advantage in the job world is more than just a question of image.
"As adults, taller individuals are more likely to select into higher paying occupations that require more advanced verbal and numerical skills and greater intelligence, for which they earn handsome returns," they wrote.
For both men and women in the United States and the United Kingdom, a height advantage of four inches equated with a 10 percent increase in wages on average.
But the researchers said the differences in performance crop up long before the tall people enter the job force. Prenatal care and the time between birth and the age of 3 are critical periods for determining future cognitive ability and height.
"The speed of growth is more rapid during this period than at any other during the life course, and nutritional needs are greatest at this point," the researchers wrote.
The research confirms previous studies that show that early nutrition is an important predictor of intelligence and height.
[ I have always wished to be taller and now there is yet another reason to be jealous!!! ]
Robinson, who said she "rolled her eyes" after Pluto got the boot, hopes her buyers will send a message that kicking out the far-out rock is downright goofy. "I'm always going to think of Pluto as a planet," said the 45-year-old from San Jose, Calif., who insists she's not selling shirts on Craigslist for the money. "People who buy this can make a statement that we still believe in Pluto."
The International Astronomical Union shook up the solar system Thursday when it declared that Pluto was no longer part of the cosmic club - the first time the solar system was altered since Pluto was spotted in 1930.
So I have made her bed, fluffed her comforter and shams and cleaned her bathroom for her. It's about all I can manage right now.
It is always good to see her and have her here and Jordan will be delighted also. She sneeks him treats often, lol.
Well I just found a new link to find ancestors for those of you who might be interested besides myself in my ancentors.
Hope it is useful to you!
Good morning to everyone 
Peace,
Aly
Ingredients:
Choose: 1, 2 or 3 c. peanut butter
Choose: 1, 2 or 3 c. sugar
Choose: 1, 2 or 3 eggs
Directions
Cream sugar and eggs; beat in peanut butter.
Drop by spoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets.
Bake in preheated oven (350* F.) until very lightly golden. Enjoy!!
NOTE: For a small batch of cookies, use 1 cup peanut butter and sugar with 1 egg.
For a medium batch of cookies, use 2 cup peanut butter and sugar with 2 eggs.
For a large batch, use 3 cups peanut butter and sugar with 3 eggs.
These are so easy to make and so good!! And you don't even need to follow a recipe!!
A couple has been married for 50 years. One day they went to a doctor because they recently had been forgetting things and they were afraid that they would leave the stove on. The doctor said, “There is no way medically, but you could always write notes to help you remember things.”
That night, as the wife was getting up, her husband asked what she was doing. She replied, “I was just going to make some ice cream.” The husband insisted that he would make it. As he was walking into the kitchen, she called out, “WITH A CHERRY ON TOP!”
“Okay dear,” he replied.
“And sprinkles too!”
“Okay dear.”
From the kitchen came sounds of banging pots and pans and nearly twenty minutes later he came back into the room with bacon and eggs. The wife said “So? Where's the toast?” 
Mood: weakened and sad
I had to spend most of today in bed due to my fibro. 
I so wish they would finally come up with an answer to all the pain that fibro unleashes on its victims, so to speak. I was first diagnosed in 1986 and 20 years is a long time to have no answers, and there are so many like me in the world, waiting and hoping for some peace from the pain of this dis-ease.
Hubby and I watched 'Serenity' this evening and it was quite good. I don't usually care for this type of movie, but this one was good as it was multi-faceted in its story.
I hope the day has treated you all well.
Hugs,
Aly
What a full day we had yesterday! I didn't have one free moment to sit quietly at my computer and even post one entry. Hubby occupied my time all morning 
and then the afternoon was spent getting new keys made since I lost my set, doing the grocery shopping, and returning home to friends parked in our parking lot waiting for us to get home. Our other friend Dar joined us and we had several fun games of spades and of course chips and salsa to go along with it.
The evening was spent watching Savannah and she is quite the handful being that she is 4 and wants constant attention and of course that means hubby didn't get his usual amount of attention on Saturday night and less time to spend quietly alone with me. While we did have fun, we do seem to require a certain amount of time alone together. If anyone shows up this afternoon, they are going to be shown the door my 4 since that is when he gets out of work. Tonight is for us :).
Well I'll check back a little later on. Time for breakfast, grin.
Hugs,
Aly
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