Defend Yourself Against Stroke

Defend Yourself Against Stroke

This is so important.  I have everyone of these conditions that make a stroke a most likely occurrence.  John C Thomson

Defend Yourself Against Stroke

Tuesday, July 31, 2012 4:21 PM

By Charlotte Libov

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Stroke is the third leading cause of death and also America’s biggest crippler. Every 45 seconds, someone in the U.S. is stricken.

How can you make sure stroke doesn’t happen to you? By taking action today you can dramatically cut your risk of stroke, say top doctors.

“The bottom line is that stroke is preventable,” says Dr. Joseph Broderick, research director of the University of Cincinnati’s Neuroscience Institute and vice chair of the American Heart Association’s Stroke Council.

Most strokes are the result of blood clots, which occur when blood vessels in the brain and neck are narrowed by atherosclerosis, the same disease process that causes heart attacks.

SPECIAL: These 4 Things Happen Right Before a Heart Attack — Read More.

Here are steps that will immediately lower your risk of stroke:

• Quit smoking. When you quit, your risk goes down as soon as you set down the cigarette.

• Lower high blood pressure. Whether you use lifestyle changes or drugs, lowering high blood pressure greatly lessens the chances of a stroke.

• Lower your LDL (bad) cholesterol, which clogs arteries.

• Control diabetes, which raises blood pressure risk and damages arteries.

• Control atrial fibrillation, a type of irregular heartbeat that increases stroke risk.

• Eat a healthy diet, rich in fruits and vegetables.

• Get regular aerobic exercise. Brisk walking and other activity helps keep arteries in peak shape, says Dr. Broderick.

If you or someone close to you is having a stroke, it’s important to get medical help fast so brain damage can be limited, according to Dr. Broderick.

There is a medication known as tPA (tissue plasminogen activator), which, if administered within three hours, can dissolve the blood clot and restore blood flow to the brain, which prevents damage.

This is why Dr. Broderick’s institution came up with the acronym “FAST,” which is now nationally promoted as the best way to learn stroke symptoms. “By using ‘FAST,’ you can recognize 85 to 90 percent of the people having a stroke,” says Dr. Broderick.

“FAST” stands for:

F- Facial paralysis. Does one side of the face droop?

A- Arms. When holding arms up, does one drift downward?

S - Speech. Is speech slurred or strange?

T- Time. Act quickly. If you observe any of these symptoms, call 911 immediately. Don’t attempt to drive yourself to the hospital.

Less common stroke symptoms may include sudden numbness, especially on one side of the body, sudden confusion, trouble seeing out of one or both eyes, sudden trouble with walking, balance or coordination, and sudden severe headache with no known cause.

If you experience any of these symptoms, call 911 and ask to be taken to the nearest primary stroke center, where you’ll get the fastest, most comprehensive care. If you are at high risk of stroke, identify one beforehand.

Sometimes stroke symptoms will temporarily disappear within a few hours. Don’t be fooled. You may have suffered a transient ischemic attack, or TIA, which is a warning sign of stroke. Experiencing a TIA means you are at great risk of suffering an actual stroke, most likely sooner rather than later, Dr. Broderick said.

In addition to knowing the signs of a stroke, it’s also important that your spouse, or the people around you know them as well. If you are having a heart attack, you’re able to alert someone, but if you’re having a stroke, you may not be. Your speech may be affected.

“There’s a part of your brain that functions as your body’s warning symptom," says Dr. Broderick. "If it’s affected by stroke, you may be completely unaware that you have a problem at all. This is why it is extraordinarily important for people at risk to not only educate themselves, but also to educate those around them.”

SPECIAL: These 5 Things Flush 40 lbs. of Fat Our of Your Body — Read More.

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Exclusive: Five ATF officials found responsible for Fast and Furious - chicagotribune.com

Exclusive: Five ATF officials found responsible for Fast and Furious

  

 

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, co-authored a report finding that five senior ATF officials were responsible for the Fast and Furious operation. (Tim Sloan / AFP/Getty Images / December 7, 2011)

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By Richard A. Serrano

6:17 p.m. CDT, July 30, 2012

WASHINGTON -- Republican congressional investigators have concluded that five senior ATF officials -- from the special agent-in-charge of the Phoenix field office to the top man in the bureau’s Washington headquarters -- are collectively responsible for the failed Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation that was “marred by missteps, poor judgments and inherently reckless strategy.”
The investigators, in a final report likely to be released later this week, also unearthed new evidence that agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Phoenix initially sought to hide from the Mexican government the crucial information that two Fast and Furious firearms were recovered after the brother of a Mexican state attorney general was killed there.
According to a copy of the report obtained Monday by The Times, the investigators said their findings are “the best information available as of now” about the flawed gun operation that last month led to Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. being found in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over subpoenaed documents.
Two more final reports, they said, will deal with “the devastating failure of supervision and leadership” at the Department of Justice and an “unprecedented obstruction of the [congressional] investigation by the highest levels of the Justice Department, including the attorney general himself.”
The first report did allege some Justice Department involvement, however, notably that Kenneth E. Melson, then acting ATF director, was made into a “scapegoat” for Fast and Furious after he told congressional Republicans his Justice Department supervisors “were doing more damage control than anything” else once Fast and Furious became public.
“My view is that the whole matter of the department’s response in this case was a disaster,” Melson told the investigators.
Fast and Furious, which allowed some 2,500 illegal gun sales in Arizona with the hope that agents would track the weapons to Mexican drug cartels, began in fall 2009 and was halted after U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in December 2010. By then, most of the weapons had been lost, and two were recovered at the scene of his slaying.
The five ATF managers, since moved to other positions, have either defended Fast and Furious in congressional testimony or refused to discuss it. They could not be reached for comment Monday. At the Justice Department, senior officials, including Holder, have steadfastly maintained that Fast and Furious was confined to the Arizona border region and that Washington was never aware of the flawed tactics.

The joint staff report, authored by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, was highly critical of the ATF supervisors.

They found that William Newell, the special agent-in-charge in Phoenix, exhibited “repeatedly risky” management and “consistently pushed the envelope of permissible investigative techniques.” The report said “he had been reprimanded ... before for crossing the line, but under a new administration and a new attorney general he reverted back to the use of risky gunwalking tactics.”
His boss, Deputy Assistant Director for Field Operations William McMahon, “rubber stamped critical documents that came across his desk without reading them,” the report alleged. “In McMahon’s view it was not his job to ask any questions about what was going on in the field.”
They added that McMahon gave “false testimony” to Congress about signing applications for wiretap intercepts in Fast and Furious.
His supervisor, Mark Chait, assistant director for field operations, “played a surprisingly passive role during the operation,” the report said. “He failed to provide oversight that his experience should have dictated and his position required.”
Above Chait was Deputy Director William Hoover, who the report said ordered an exit strategy to scuttle Fast and Furious but never followed through: “Hoover was derelict in his duty to ensure that public safety was not jeopardized.”
And they said Melson, a longtime career Justice official, “often stayed above the fray” instead of bringing Fast and Furious to an “end sooner.”
But, the investigators said, ATF agents said that they were hamstrung by federal prosecutors in Arizona from obtaining criminal charges for illegal gun sales, and that Melson “even offered to travel to Phoenix to write the indictments himself. Still, he never ordered it be shut down.”
In the November 2010 slaying in Mexico of Mario Gonzalez, the brother of Patricia Gonzalez, then attorney general for the state of Chihuahua, two of 16 weapons were traced back to Fast and Furious after they were recovered from a shootout with Mexican police.
But 10 days later, ATF Agent Tonya English urged Agent Hope MacAllister and their supervisor, David J. Voth, to keep it under wraps. “My thought is not to release any information,” she told them in an email.
When Patricia Gonzalez later learned that two of the guns had been illegally obtained under Fast and Furious, she was outraged. "The basic ineptitude of these officials [who ordered the Fast and Furious operation] caused the death of my brother and surely thousands more victims," she said.
The following month, Agent Terry was killed south of Tucson. Voth emailed back, “Ugh ... things will most likely get ugly.”

Inmates build satellite parts for NASA - Technology & science - Space - Space.com - NBCNews.com

Inmates build satellite parts for NASA - Technology & science - Space - Space.com - NBCNews.com

Warning: The Economic Collapse Could Begin on Aug. 1st - Money Morning

Warning: The Economic Collapse Could Begin on Aug. 1st - Money Morning

Warning: The Economic Collapse Could Begin on Aug. 1st

Money Morning

Money Morning Reports
Noted expert Peter Schiff says the U.S. economy is on the verge of an economic collapse worse than 2008 and is warning investors to take immediate steps to protect themselves.

In a gripping interview on Yahoo Finance, Schiff warns that while the Fed's moves could "artificially" bolster the economy - and bring investors false hope that things are turning around - the truth is that the government will only be delaying the "Day of Reckoning."

"If the Fed ultimately comes through with QE3... it won't strengthen the economy, but it will weaken the dollar," Schiff said, noting that Bernanke's policies will eventually lead to a Greek style debilitating sovereign debt crisis where the dollar plunges and consumer prices and interest rates spike.

"We have a much bigger collapse coming, not just the markets, but of the economy. It's like what you're seeing in Europe right now only worse," Schiff said.

A Dangerous Catastrophe Is Just Over The Horizon...
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The collapse could be set in motion as early as August 1st. That's the day that Fed chairman Ben Bernanke gives his annual remarks from Jackson Hole, Wyoming where many analysts expect Bernanke will announce plans for QE3 - and the next phase of money printing begins.

He goes on to say that things will get truly ugly when we hit our fiscal cliff and have to slash government spending across the board.

"People on entitlements like Social Security and Medicare... they're not going to get the benefits they've been promised. Government workers are going to have to take pay cuts... banks are going to fail... people are going to lose money, not just investors but depositors. The housing market is going to fall again."

And Schiff isn't the only expert warning about the U.S. economy's dire predicament.

A group of prominent scientists, economists and geopolitical experts have uncovered an emerging pattern... one they believe could soon hasten an American economic catastrophe - and a radical hit to the wealth and financial security of millions Americans.

Editor's note: Germany's military held a secret investigation into this emerging pattern and concluded it could lead to "political instability and extremism." Click here to view this controversial investigation.

A large part of this has to do with the velocity of total credit market debt. It's part of a pattern of accelerating debt - and few have been able to track the speed of it, which is growing at a rate even faster than just a few months ago.

Chris Martenson, a highly acclaimed scientist and an expert on exponential growth, says the dangerous pattern of accelerating debt can go unnoticed at first. But what's happening underneath the radar is the speed of the doubling, which is now accelerating even faster to an unsustainable level.

"That's when chaos breaks out," Martenson says.

As of today, the total credit market debt is 357% larger than GDP. That represents an astounding $691,000 for a family of four in America.

Yet the doubling period for this gets shorter at an exponential rate that increases every day. "It's a very dangerous exponential growth curve," says Martenson, "one that's setting us up for a situation worse than we've seen in Greece and across Europe."

"Every American needs to know what this means and what steps to take with your finances, investments and day-to-day life to prepare for it, "Martenson added.

Editor's note: To protect your investments, it's critical to understand steps you can take to prepare for a looming catastrophe. Click here to learn how some of the foremost experts in the world recommend you get ready for what's coming.

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51 senators voice grave concerns with arms treaty - Yahoo! News

51 senators voice grave concerns with arms treaty - Yahoo! News

51 senators voice grave concerns with arms treaty

By DONNA CASSATA | Associated Press – 3 hrs ago

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan group of 51 senators on Thursday threatened to oppose a global treaty regulating international weapons trade if it falls short in protecting the constitutional right to bear arms.

In a letter to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the senators expressed serious concerns with the draft treaty that has circulated at the United Nations, saying that it signals an expansion of gun control that would be unacceptable.

The world's nations are pressing to complete the first legally binding treaty dealing with arms trade and preventing the transfer of weapons to armed groups and terrorists. The 193-member U.N. General Assembly is expected to approve the treaty this month.

The senators said as the negotiations continue, "we strongly encourage your administration not only to uphold our country's constitutional protections of civilian firearms ownership, but to ensure — if necessary, by breaking consensus at the July conference — that the treaty will explicitly recognize the legitimacy of lawful activities associated with firearms, including but not limited to the right of self-defense.
"As members of the United States Senate, we will oppose the ratification of any Arms Trade Treaty that falls short of this standard," they wrote.
The lawmakers insisted that the treaty should explicitly recognize the legitimacy of hunting, sport shooting and other lawful activities.

They also raised concerns that the draft defines international arms transfers as including transport across national territory while requiring the monitor and control of arms in transit.

The National Rifle Association opposes the treaty, saying its members will never surrender the right to bear arms to the United Nations.

The treaty has been in the works since 2006. Abandoning the Bush administration opposition, the Obama supported an assembly resolution to hold this year's four-week conference on the treaty.

In April, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation, Thomas Countryman, reiterated U.S. support for a treaty.

"We want any treaty to make it more difficult and expensive to conduct illicit, illegal and destabilizing transfers of arms," he said. "But we do not want something that would make legitimate international arms trade more cumbersome than the hurdles United States exporters already face."

Republican dissidents join forces to form a new IRA

A masked member of the Real IRA at a republican Easter commemoration ceremony in Derry. The Real IRA is merging with other dissident groups in an escalation of the threat of violence against security forces. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

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Thursday 26 July 2012

Exclusive: Merged organisation says it is planning to intensify attacks on security forces and other British-related targets

Three of the four main dissident republican terror groups in Northern Ireland are to merge and reclaim the banner of the IRA, in a major escalation of attempts to destabilise power sharing.
The Real IRA has been joined by Republican Action Against Drugs, which has been running a violent vigilante campaign in Derry, and a loose coalition of independent armed republican groups – leaving only the Continuity IRA outside the group.
In a statement released to the Guardian, the new organisation claimed it had formed a "unified structure, under a single leadership". It said the organisation would be "subservient to the constitution of the Irish Republican Army".
This is the first time since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that a majority of the forces of dissident republicanism has coalesced.
Republican sources have told the Guardian that the new paramilitary force includes several hundred armed dissidents, including some former members of the now disbanded Provisional IRA who have been conducting a campaign of shooting and forcible exiling of men in Derry City, whom they accuse of drug dealing.
It also includes what the statement described as "non-conformist republicans" – smaller independent groups from Belfast and rural parts of Northern Ireland.
Republican Action Against Drugs and the Real IRA will now cease to exist, one source close to the dissidents said.
The new organisation is planning to intensify terror attacks on the security forces and other targets related to what it regards as symbols of the British presence, according to the source.
Such targets could include police stations, the regional headquarters of Ulster Bank and the UK City of Culture 2013 celebration in Derry – which the dissidents have described as "normalising British rule".
In its statement, the new group said: "In recent years the establishment of a free and independent Ireland has suffered setbacks due to the failure among the leadership of Irish nationalism and fractures within republicanism" – a reference to the divisions between hardline republicans opposed to the peace settlement and Sinn Féin which has followed a political strategy. Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin, Northern Ireland's deputy first minister, was a leading figure in the Provisional IRA.
In a clear dig at Sinn Féin's participation in the power-sharing executive with unionists, the dissidents' statement said: "The Irish people have been sold a phoney peace, rubber-stamped by a token legislature in Stormont."
It said that the "necessity of armed struggle in pursuit of Irish freedom" against what it described as "the forces of the British crown" would only be avoided by the removal of the British military presence in Northern Ireland. It demanded "an internationally observed timescale that details the dismantling of British political interference in our country".
It also attacked the Northern Ireland secretary, Owen Paterson, over the arrest of several key republican figures, referring to him as an "overlord". "Non-conformist republicans are being subjected to harassment, arrest and violence by the forces of the British crown; others have been interned on the direction of an English overlord. It is Britain, not the IRA, which has chosen provocation and conflict."
It is understood that among the republicans who have joined the new organisation are those responsible for the murder in April 2011 of Constable Ronan Kerr, a Catholic recruit to the police service of Northern Ireland, and the terrorists who targeted Peadar Heffron, another Catholic police officer, who was seriously injured in January 2010 when a bomb exploded inside his car as he was driving to his police station.
The recruitment of Republican Action Against Drugs activists in Derry marks a major step up in the terror campaign in the city. Dozens of former Provisional IRA members have been involved in shooting and intimidating mainly young Catholic men whom they accuse of drug dealing in Derry.
Republican Action Against Drugs' campaign has become notorious around the world since an investigation by the Guardian earlier this year into the wave of shootings and forced expulsions in Northern Ireland's second city.

Republican factions

Until this week there were four separate violent groups opposed to Sinn Féin's peace strategy. As a result of this merger three republican terror groups have become one, reclaiming the banner of the IRA:
The Real IRA was formed out of a split within the Provisional IRA (PIRA) in 1997 and was responsible for the Omagh atrocity a year later.
Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD) – a group comprising ex-PIRA members whose purpose was to run an armed vigilante campaign against drug dealers. It has agreed to coalesce with other anti-ceasefire republicans.
Independent republican factions – until now an amalgam of terror groups operating in Northern Ireland. They are sometimes referred to collectively as Óglaigh na hÉireann.
Continuity IRA, the fourth republican faction, remains wholly independent.
The adoption of the name IRA is an attempt by the dissident republicans to reclaim from history the title of the movement that dominated republican politics in the 20th century. Since the Irish war of independence there have been several mutations of the IRA from a mass movement of armed fighters in the 1918-1921 Anglo-Irish war to a small band of diehards who conducted the 1958-62 border campaign. Its use has withered since the peace agreement in 1998.

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BBC News - US justice department faulted for nepotism

BBC News - US justice department faulted for nepotism

26 July 2012 Last updated at 13:42 ET

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US justice department faulted for nepotism

The department has previously faced scrutiny for a botched gun-tracking operation

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• Reward for Fast and Furious four

Eight high-ranking employees of the US justice department improperly sought to hire relatives, an inquiry has found.

Seven of the employees violated federal law restricting employment of relatives and the eighth broke a federal ethics standard, the report found.
The department's inspector general found two directors in the management division hired each other's children.
It is the third time in eight years that the department has been cited for improper hiring practices.
The investigation began after a former justice department employee brought allegations to a congressman in 2010.
'Multiple false statements' According to the report, the inspector general's office found that human resources assistant director Pamela Cabell-Edelen had tried to get her daughter hired to various positions, including changing a vacancy announcement to improve her chances.
Her daughter was hired as secretary to facilities director Edward Hamilton in November 2009.
The report also charges that Ms Cabell-Edelen, who retired from the department last year, made "multiple false statements" to investigators.
Shortly after, Mr Hamilton began advocating for his son's hiring to a position within the division.
The investigation found two other justice management division employees improperly advocated for the hire of each other's family members.
Several others also discussed hiring family members.
Human resources director Rodney Markham was found "negligent in his duty to exercise effective oversight", especially given the two prior investigations into hiring practices.
Mr Markham was also faulted for improperly trying to get jobs for his cousin and nephew.

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