CHRISTMAS 2010

HEALTH for the HOLIDAY SEASON

Here are some tips for the Holiday Season:

1. Plan Christmas activities for yourself and your family to prevent tension and stress.
2. Take care of yourself and your family against changes in temperature. Children and adults may become susceptible to cough, colds and fever. If your cough, colds and fever is more than five days, consult your nearest health station.
3. Prepare a well balanced Noche Buena and Media Noche meals. Make sure that vegetables and fruits are on the table together with your traditional ham and queso de bola.
4. Be kind to your heart. Eat a moderate amount of nutritious foods to sustain your daily activities.
5. Drink plenty of liquids. Drink plenty of water and fruit juices to facilitate excretion.
6. Have enough sleep. Give yourself enough sleep so that mind and body can rest.
7. Avoid crowded areas because bacteria that cause diseases multiply and spread easily. Airy and well ventilated areas are essential to health living.
8. Use environment friendly Christmas Decors that cost less and are not fire hazards. Save decors for next year and store them in a safe place.
9. Buy toys with no pointed or sharp edges, nor too small toys that can cause choking.
10. Do not use firecrackers and fireworks during the Holidays. Make some noise even without fireworks and firecrackers

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A BLESSED NEW YEAR.
STAY ALIVE AND WHOLE FOR THE COMING YEAR.

Five Somali pirates convicted of attacking US naval ship

A US federal jury in Norfolk, Virginia, today convicted five Somali men of attacking a US Naval ship - in what is believed to be the first time a jury has convicted anyone of piracy since 1820. The men were captured on April 1 after they decided to target the USS Nicholas, believing it was a merchant ship, as the vessel was operating west of the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean. The USS Nicholas is an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate homeported in Norfolk, according to the Justice Department.
Three of the men - Mohammed Modin Hasan, Gabul Abdullahi Ali and Abdi Wali Dire - used a small vessel to launch the attack, firing assault weapons and a rocket propelled grenade.
The three men - along with Abdi Mohammed Gurewardher and Abdi Mohammed Umar, who were aboard a larger supply vessel - were detained by the sailors aboard the USS Nicholas and later brought to the US.
The charges levelled against the men included piracy, attack to plunder a vessel and assault with a dangerous weapon in the special maritime jurisdiction.
The men face a mandatory sentence of life in prison when they are sentenced March 14, 2011.
"Today marks the first conviction of piracy in more than 190 years," US lawyer Neil MacBride said in a statement after the men were convicted.
"Modern-day pirates not only threaten human lives but also disrupt international commerce by extorting hundreds of millions of dollars in ransom payments.
"Today's conviction demonstrates that armed attacks on US-flagged vessels are crimes against the international community and that pirates will face severe consequences in US courts."

Some Christmas Facts

Christmas was once a moveable feast celebrated at many different times during the year. The choice of December 25, was made by Pope Julius I, in the 4th century A.D., because this coincided with the pagan rituals of Winter Solstice, or Return of the Sun. The intent was to replace the pagan celebration with the Christian one.

Jesus Christ, son of Mary, was born in a cave, not in a wooden stable. Caves were used to keep animals in because of the intense heat. A large church is now built over the cave, and people can go down inside the cave. The carpenters of Jesus' day were really stone cutters. Wood was not used as widely as it is today. So whenever you see a Christmas nativity scene with a wooden stable -- that's the "American" version, not the Biblical one.

According to historical accounts, the first Christmas in the Philippines was celebrated 200 years before Ferdinand Magellan discovered the country for the western world, likely between the years 1280 and 1320 AD.

In the East, St. Nicholas was regarded as the patron saint of SAILORS. In the West, he has been regarded as the patron saint of children, among other things.

Human Beings, Not Human Doings

"Until one experiences the hopelessness of his existence in poverty, misfortunes, sickness and tragedy - he has nothing but only the mystical and divine power of the God to sustain him. Then, only then man is enlightened. Man has free will to choose right from wrong, and we are responsible for our actions.
That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.
Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.

Maintenance of Sewage System

Seafarers whose work involves maintaining shipboard sewage system are at increased risk of faecal contamination. Immunization against typhoid and hepatitis A is therefore recommended. It should again be noted that when working on such systems attention must be drawn to more stringent personal hygiene requirements including applicable PPE.

is your health on the line

Unless you've had your cellphone permanently glued to your ear, chances are you've heard the recent health buzz: Mobile devices can cause cancer. While it's true that National Cancer Institute has ruled them safe, a growing number of independent researchers disagree.
Those experts point out that the FCC wireless regulations on cell phone safety are largely based on something called Specific Absorption Rate(SAR) levels, or the rate at which our bodies absorbs radiation. Most phones do comply with the federal standards, but SAR monitors only thermal effects. (In other words, if the radiation from your phone isn't cooking your brain, its regarded as safe.) But mounting scientific evidence suggest that nonthermal radio frequency radiation (RF)- the invisible energy waves that connect cell phones to cell towers, and power numerous other everyday items- can damage our immune systems and alter our cellular makeup, even at intensities considered safe by the FCC.

Most Dangerous Cities in the World

1) Caracas Venezuela –With drug cartels, and poverty, Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, ranks the highest for murder and crime in the world. They have nicknamed the city the “murder capital of the world”.

2) Cuidad Juarez, Mexico – This place has a serious problem with robbery, kidnapping, sexual assault and drug-related crimes. They are the number two city in the world for murders, most of them drug-related.

3) Mogadishu Somalia –Mogadishu has one of the highest terrorist populations in the world. Looting, prowling, kidnapping, gunfire,etc.. make Mogadishu one of the top 3 most dangerous cities.

4) Capetown South Africa –The Capetown is in a great state of poverty, making crime a part of the peoples everyday life.

5) Bogota – Columbia – Bogota is the main port for drugs and guns coming up from Colombia to Panama. People get murdered in plain daylight every day.

6) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil –A drug cartel, called the Pirahnas, resides in Rio, and they are responsible for many murders and abductions.

7) Grozny, Chechnya, Russia – There is more Russian Mafia in this place than police. This city is not run by government officials, but by gangsters. A russian is murdered here every 20 minutes.

8 Baghdad, Iraq –Al-Qaeda and Kurdish rebels, and criminals are involved in violence that goes on everyday. Nuclear devices to poison the people there and the inherent gunfire killing civilians everyday makes Baghdad truly hell on earth.

9) Guatemala City, Guatemala – The government is very corrupt, they get paid off everyday by the drug lords. There is a high crime rate in this capital city, and many tourists are victims of armed robbery, rape and even murder.

10) Bangkok Thailand- Thailand is the #1 producer of opium and heroin in the world. A major transit for those drugs is the capital Bangkok. Therefore making it unsafe. The violence and crime due to social unrest makes Bangkok top 10 for sure.

What's hiding inside your tuna tin?

Greenpeace recently commissioned the first ever independent, public genetic tests into tinned tuna, to find out what was really going on inside 50 brands of tinned tuna. Analysis of products from 12 countries, including the US, Canada, Australia, and several European countries, turned up some pretty dodgy things inside some of them.

Inside some tins (brands Calvo, Campos in Spain), two different species of tuna were found, while in others (for example Clover Leaf in Canada and Nostromo [owned by Calvo] in Italy), tins from different batches were found to have different species inside separate tins.

The root of this problem is the use of FADs (Fish Aggregation Devices), manmade or natural floating objects that attract not only adult tuna, but all kinds of other marine life, including sharks and turtles and juvenile tuna.

While this apparently sloppy behaviour should set alarm bells ringing from a consumer point of view, there’s actually even more to be concerned about; the tinned tuna industry, through what appears to be lazy disregard for both its customers and future tuna availability, is forcing consumers and retailers into involvement in a trail of destruction.

November 23, 2010

The Myth of the Overqualified Worker

The prejudice against too-good employees is pervasive. Companies tend to prefer applicant who is a “perfect fit” over someone who brings more intelligence, education, or experience than needed. On the surface, this bias makes sense: Studies have consistently shown that employees who consider themselves overqualified exhibit higher levels of discontent. For example, over qualification correlated well with job dissatisfaction in a 2008 study of 156 call-center reps by Israeli researchers Saul Fine and Baruch Nevo. And unlike discrimination based on age or gender, declining to hire overqualified workers is perfectly legal, as shown by U.S. federal court rulings upholding the New London, Connecticut, police department’s rejection of a high-IQ candidate on the grounds that he’d probably become dissatisfied and quit.

This kind of thinking has tossed untold numbers of experienced, highly skilled people into the ranks of the long-term unemployed, a group that now constitutes nearly half of all U.S. jobless.

But even before the economic downturn, a surplus of overqualified candidates was a global problem, particularly in developing economies, where rising education levels are giving workers more skills than are needed to supply the growing service sectors. In China, where the number of college graduates has tripled since 1998, more than one-fourth of this year’s 6.3 million college grads are out of work, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

If managers can get beyond the conventional wisdom, the growing pool of too-good applicants is a great opportunity. Two recent studies—one analyzing data on more than 5,000 Americans, the other examining 244 employees of a Turkish apparel chain—show that overqualified employees outperform their colleagues. In the former study, Greg Reilly of the University of Connecticut, Anthony Nyberg of the University of South Carolina, and Mark Maltarich of St. Ambrose University looked at employees with above-average intelligence working in jobs such as car washing and garbage collecting. In addition to achieving higher performance, these cognitively overqualified employees were less likely than others to quit. The researchers point out that many overqualified workers stay put for lifestyle reasons, such as the hours or the company’s values.
by Andrew O’Connell

8 Reasons To Tough Out Your Job

1. Money: Money is the obvious reason to remain in a job that you would otherwise quit in a heartbeat, because the fact is, unless you are willing to live in the woods off the fat of the land, you are going to need money and this becomes even more important if you are responsible for more people than just yourself.

2. Experience: Even if your job is not ideal, chances are you are learning something that can become marketable in the future, in other words, it is in your best interest to learn everything possible from your current position so these skills can help you secure a more fulfilling position in the future.

3. Advancement: You might be unhappy with your current position, but before you decide to call it quits, consider the advancement opportunities that may exist should you decide to stay and try to think honestly of the best case scenario - where could you be in this company in two or five years?

4. Expectations: Having realistic expectations about a career is vital to job satisfaction and expecting too much responsibility, freedom or compensation can lead to disappointment and it is helpful to look objectively at the position to determine realistic expectations both for the job position and for yourself.

5. The Grass is Always Greener: Although it's easy to assume "I would be so happy if I worked somewhere else," this is not always the case even the dreamiest of jobs provoke some level of dissatisfaction and frequently, the jobs that seem most appealing fall short in some regard, whether it's in salary, job stress level, time commitment or working conditions (i.e. environment, co-workers etc).

6. Attitude: If you are unhappy with your job, it is useful to take an honest look at your attitude, if there is something that you could change (about yourself) that would make your job more tolerable?

7. Fortitude: A common source of workplace dissatisfaction involves an intolerable co-worker or manager because while we all hope to get along with our colleagues, one co-worker can, quite literally, ruin your work day.

8. Opportunity: If you have decided that your current job is definitely not going to work out for the long term, you can begin a new job search while you are still employed and as mentioned above, being currently employed is more appealing to potential employers, and it is easier to look for a suitable job (and one that you will enjoy more than your current one) if you are not worried about making the mortgage payment.

"Merry Christmas"

In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christian called it 'Christmas' and went to church; the jews called it 'Hanukkah' and went to synagogue; the atheist went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say 'Merry Christmas!'or 'Happy Hanukkah!' or (to the atheists)'Look out for the wall!'~Dave Barry