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Statistics |
| Unique Visitors: 241 |
| Total Unique Visitors: 1176861 |
| Visitors Out: 1182 |
| Total Visitors Out: 1182 |
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| Losing a Home, Then Losing All Out of Storage |
| 2008-05-10 23:16:41 |
By DAVID STREITFELD : ELK GROVE VILLAGE, Ill. — The foreclosure crisis is hitting yet another American locale: the self-storage center.
As they lose their homes, people are turning to these humble cinderblock and sheet-metal boxes to store their stuff. But some people cannot keep up with their storage bills any better than they could handle [...]...
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| Do You Have That Portable in a Midsize? |
| 2008-05-10 23:07:32 |
Slipstream : By JOHN MARKOFF
THIRTY-SIX years ago, Alan Kay, a computer scientist, published a rough sketch of his Dynabook portable computer, establishing the ideal of ever more intimate personal computers.
During the next decade, Mr. Kay’s tablet design, at 9 inches by 12 inches by 3/4 inch, morphed into today’s ubiquitous laptop form-factor — a term [...]...
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| That Must Be Bob. I Hear His New Hip Squeaking. |
| 2008-05-10 22:36:50 |
By BARNABY J. FEDER : The first time John L. Johnson’s artificial hip squeaked, he was bending down to pick up a pine cone in his yard in Thomasville, Ga. Mr. Johnson looked up, expecting to find an animal nearby.
Susan O’Toole, a nutritionist at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, who first squeaked going up [...]...
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| Architects in Glass Houses |
| 2008-05-10 22:28:17 |
By ELAINE LOUIE : LONDON
A GLASS staircase can be a glittering piece of architectural sculpture, a light well for an entire house and a signifier of openness.
It can also be scary.
Kersti Urvois learned that three years ago during a cocktail party at the home she and her husband, Louis, own in Kensington.
Mrs. Urvois, who owns [...]...
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| Already, Obama and McCain Map Fall Strategies |
| 2008-05-10 22:13:08 |
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JEFF ZELENY
Senators John McCain and Barack Obama are already drawing up strategies for taking each other on in the general election, focusing on the same groups — including independent voters and Latinos — and about a dozen states where they think the contest is likely to be decided this fall, campaign [...]...
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| As Gazprom Goes, So Goes Russia |
| 2008-05-10 22:06:13 |
By ANDREW E. KRAMER : Moscow
ON a frigid evening in February, the hottest place to be here was the Kremlin Palace theater. The draw inside the towering hall wasn’t Tina Turner or Deep Purple — rock icons well past their prime — but Gazprom, Russia’s most powerful corporate leviathan, which was celebrating its 15th anniversary.
Gazprom [...]...
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| As Stimulus Rebates Go Out, Stores Want the Whole Check |
| 2008-05-09 22:09:10 |
By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD and MICHAEL BARBARO
As the government sends out roughly $100 billion in economic stimulus checks to about 130 million American homes, retailers are trying to persuade consumers to spend their windfall at a time of high anxiety about the economy.
Their new marketing pitch? Go on a frugal-minded spending spree.
Sears has started a “stretch [...]...
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| Mortgage Holders Find It Hard to Walk Away From Their Homes |
| 2008-05-09 21:40:38 |
By VIKAS BAJAJ : As American homeowners fall behind on their mortgages in growing numbers, bankers and policy makers worry that while many of these people cannot pay, some simply will not.
Millions of Americans are “upside down” on their mortgages — they owe more on their homes than their homes are worth. So far, however, [...]...
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| Fragrance Market Is Establishing a Foothold in China |
| 2008-05-09 21:26:24 |
By CHANDLER BURR : One of China’s hottest sellers is a nonessential Western luxury product that the Chinese have historically never bought and that has virtually no Chinese cultural roots: perfume.
With perfume sales in much of the rest of the world slowing or declining, the industry, primarily based in Paris and New York, hopes for [...]...
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| Spam Moves to Cellphones and Gets More Invasive |
| 2008-05-09 21:19:55 |
By LAURA M. HOLSON : If you thought spam on your computer was a bother, brace yourself: spammers want to find you on your cellphone.
Cellphones have become consumers’ most personal technological devices. Some industry executives, along with consumer groups and security experts, are concerned that unwanted text messages on phones will be an even greater [...]...
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| Taming That Overwhelming Urge to Smoke |
| 2008-05-09 21:05:11 |
By MARTIN DOWNS : The brain of an addicted smoker treats nicotine as if it is essential for survival.
Genetic traits may predispose some smokers to stronger addiction.
Most smokers try to quit unaided, resulting in a high failure rate.
If you smoke, no one needs to tell you how bad it is. So why haven’t you quit? [...]...
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| An Alien Sighting on Planet Pittsburgh |
| 2008-05-09 20:54:21 |
Art Review | ‘Life on Mars’ : By ROBERTA SMITH
PITTSBURGH — Lately, it seems, biennial exhibitions don’t do much except sit there, looking good and offending no one. Instead of being shows that people “love to hate,” or vice versa, these big, often international affairs now inspire mild interest or resigned indifference. Their underlying message [...]...
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| Burmese Junta Seizes Aid and Blocks Foreigners |
| 2008-05-09 20:41:10 |
By SETH MYDANS : BANGKOK — The military leaders of Myanmar seized a shipment of United Nations food aid on Friday intended for victims of a devastating cyclone, declaring that they would accept donations of food and medicine but not the foreign aid workers international groups say are in equally short supply there.
The ruling junta [...]...
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| Shift From Savannah to Sahara Was Gradual, Research Suggests |
| 2008-05-09 00:10:36 |
By KENNETH CHANG : Six thousand years ago, northern Africa was a place of trees, grasslands, lakes and people. Today, it is the Sahara — a desolate area larger area than Australia.
Lake Yoa, in northeastern Chad, has remained a lake through the millennia and is still a lake today, surrounded by hot desert. Although little [...]...
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| For Peak Performance, 3 Is Not Better Than 1 |
| 2008-05-09 00:03:19 |
Personal Best : By GINA KOLATA
WHEN Jenny Higgins started doing triathlons, she discovered something peculiar. She had been on her high school cross country and swim teams and her college swim team. But in 2003 she started running, swimming and cycling, and tried to excel in all three at once.
“I noticed that in the pool, [...]...
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| Hard Sell to Medicare Insurance Buyers Would Get Softer Under New Rules |
| 2008-05-08 23:53:10 |
By ROBERT PEAR : WASHINGTON — The Bush administration proposed on Thursday to crack down on the aggressive marketing of private Medicare insurance plans by outlawing unsolicited visits and telephone calls to beneficiaries, regulating commissions paid to sales agents and increasing the fines that could be imposed on insurers.
Medicare “should not be undermined by the [...]...
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| Power Dressing |
| 2008-05-08 23:28:05 |
Art Review | ‘Superheroes’ : By CATHY HORYNSuperheroes exist for many reasons. Certainly in our time they exist to sell movie tickets and plastic action figures. (Somewhere in my basement is a box of X-Men that represents a period of desperate pleadings.) But superheroes, those crusading men and women in tights, allow us to [...]...
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| High Prices for Staple Foods Dip, but Volatile Markets Persist |
| 2008-05-08 23:15:32 |
By KEITH BRADSHER : HONG KONG — After months of startling increases, the prices of rice, wheat, soybeans and several other foods have come down recently, a development that could ease some of the panic in global food markets.
Prices remain volatile and remarkably high by historical standards, and few agricultural experts expect the days of [...]...
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| Clinton Aide Says Race May Not Go to Convention |
| 2008-05-08 23:06:35 |
By JOHN SULLIVAN : As Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton rejected calls for her to drop out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, her campaign signaled Thursday that Mrs. Clinton might not take the battle all the way to the convention at the end of August.
“I don’t see it going to the convention,” Terry [...]...
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| Oil Giants to Settle Water Suit |
| 2008-05-07 22:19:34 |
By JAD MOUAWAD : Some of the nation’s largest oil companies have agreed to pay about $423 million in cash to settle a lawsuit brought by more than a hundred public water providers, claiming water contamination from a popular gasoline additive.
The terms of the settlement were submitted for approval in the federal court for the [...]...
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| U.S. Detains Executive, Deepening UBS Inquiry |
| 2008-05-07 22:07:43 |
By LYNNLEY BROWNING : A top-ranking UBS executive was briefly detained by federal authorities in the United States in connection with a widening investigation into the Swiss bank’s work with questionable tax transactions, the bank said Wednesday.
The bank declined to identify the executive, but a person briefed on the matter said he was Martin Liechti. [...]...
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| Platypus Looks Strange on the Inside Too |
| 2008-05-07 21:59:09 |
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD : If it has a bill and webbed feet like a duck, lays eggs like a bird or a reptile but also produces milk and has a coat of fur like a mammal, what could the genetics of the duck-billed platypus possibly be like? Well, just as peculiar: an amalgam of [...]...
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| Too much, too little sleep tied to ill health in CDC study |
| 2008-05-07 21:52:56 |
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS : ATLANTA (AP) — People who sleep fewer than six hours a night — or more than nine — are more likely to be obese, according to a new government study that is one of the largest to show a link between irregular sleep and big bellies.
The study also linked light [...]...
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| Quick Benefit to Smoking Halt, With a Caveat, Study Finds |
| 2008-05-07 21:31:11 |
By REUTERS : CHICAGO (Reuters) — Women who stop smoking can enjoy major health benefits within five years, but it can take decades to correct respiratory damage and shed the added risk of lung cancer, researchers reported on Tuesday.
Those who stopped had a 13 percent reduction in the risk of death from all causes, including [...]...
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| Serra’s Monumental Vision, Vertical Edition |
| 2008-05-07 21:15:07 |
By STEVEN ERLANGER : PARIS — France is making a fuss this week over Richard Serra, the 68-year-old American bantamweight who fashions elegant, gargantuan art out of steel.
On Wednesday Mr. Serra opens the annual solo show called Monumenta in the echoing Grand Palais; the city of Paris has restored one of his earlier works to [...]...
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| Appeasing the Gods, With Insurance |
| 2008-05-05 22:43:13 |
Findings : By JOHN TIERNEY
Suppose you’re preparing to travel by air. Which of these precautions do you think is most likely to prevent your plane from crashing?
A) Sacrificing a gilt-horned bull on an altar.
B) Sacrificing two goats on the tarmac.
C) Buying flight insurance.
I’m guessing you didn’t go for the bull sacrifice. Although this preboarding procedure [...]...
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| Science Project Yields Surprising Data About a Siberian Lake |
| 2008-05-05 22:34:30 |
By CORNELIA DEAN : In 1945, when Stalin ruled the Soviet Union, Mikhail M. Kozhov began keeping track of what was happening under the surface of Lake Baikal, the ancient Siberian lake that is the deepest and largest body of fresh water on earth.
Every week to 10 days, by boat in summer and over the [...]...
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| Google, From Stirrer to Spoiler, Ends Microsoft’s Yahoo Search |
| 2008-05-05 22:14:10 |
By MIGUEL HELFT : Microsoft and Yahoo were pushed to the brink of a multibillion-dollar marriage and then to a sudden breakup this weekend by the same player.
It was Google, in the odd dual role of both unwitting matchmaker and self-interested spoiler.
Google’s phenomenal rise, after all, prodded Microsoft, the dominant technology company for more than [...]...
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| Researchers Seek to Demystify the Metabolic Magic of Sled Dogs |
| 2008-05-05 22:10:10 |
By DOUGLAS ROBSON : When humans engage in highly strenuous exercise day after day, they start to metabolize the body’s reserves, depleting glycogen and fat stores. When cells run out of energy, a result is fatigue, and exercise grinds to a halt until those sources are replenished.
Dogs are different, in particular the sled dogs that [...]...
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| Lasers May Treat Cancers of Larynx |
| 2008-05-05 22:04:47 |
By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN, M.D. : For people with early cancer of the larynx, the standard treatment can be grueling: a biopsy in an operating room followed by a six-week course of radiation that may lead to permanent hoarseness or speech impairment.
But a team of Harvard doctors is reporting that a new outpatient laser procedure [...]...
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| Forcing Sobriety, However Imperfectly |
| 2008-05-05 21:56:43 |
Essay : By HOWARD MARKEL, M.D.
Like most patients assigned to my substance abuse clinic these days, John, a stylish 22-year-old cosmetology student, did not arrive voluntarily.
After two drunken driving violations, one in which another motorist was injured, a judge ordered John to attend a weekly recovery group I conduct for young adults facing similar legal [...]...
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| Nine Inch Nails Album Is Free Online |
| 2008-05-05 21:35:18 |
By JEFF LEEDS : In an unusual nod to the popularity of free music online, the rock act Nails">Nine Inch Nails is offering its new album, “The Slip,” through its Web site — for nothing.
In a post on the band’s Web site, www.nin.com, the band’s leader, Trent Reznor, said, “Thank you for your continued and [...]...
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| They Keep the Light on for Visitors in Croatia |
| 2008-05-05 21:21:54 |
Journeys | Croatia : By JON BOWERMASTER
Correction Appended
ISLANDS — some 1,200 of them — dot the Adriatic coast of Croatia like a long line of bread crumbs, ranging from two-acre specks to 35-mile-long spines of rock and scrub. Beautiful and remote, the labyrinth stretches for several hundred miles, from the northern coastal town of Rijeka [...]...
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| For 2 Primaries, Win-Win, Lose-Lose and Win-Lose Scenarios |
| 2008-05-05 21:09:25 |
By ADAM NAGOURNEY : It’s almost over.
Well, not quite. But the Democratic presidential primaries taking place on Tuesday in North Carolina and Indiana have more delegates up for grabs than any of the remaining contests. For political, demographic and mathematical reasons, those states have the potential to reshape the competition between Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton [...]...
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| China Petrochemical Project Opposed |
| 2008-05-05 21:03:02 |
By EDWARD WONG : BEIJING — Residents took to the streets of a provincial capital over the weekend to protest a multibillion-dollar petrochemical plant backed by China’s leading state-run oil company, in the latest instance of popular discontent over an environmental threat in a major city.
The protest, against a $5.5 billion ethylene plant under construction [...]...
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| Death Toll in Myanmar Storm Could Reach 10,000 |
| 2008-05-05 20:58:17 |
By SETH MYDANS : Myanmar struggled Monday to recover from a cyclone that killed more than 3,900 people and perhaps as many as 10,000, while its military leaders were moving ahead with a constitutional referendum on Saturday that would cement their grip on power.
If those numbers are accurate, the death toll would be [...]...
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| Government Intensifies Mortgage Investigation |
| 2008-05-04 21:44:29 |
By LYNNLEY BROWNING : Federal agencies are intensifying a criminal investigation of the mortgage industry and focusing on whether some lenders turned a blind eye to inflated income figures provided by borrowers.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the criminal division of the Internal Revenue Service have formed a task force to examine mortgages that were [...]...
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| Study Finds Number of Fat Cells Doesn’t Change |
| 2008-05-04 20:52:01 |
By GINA KOLATA : Every year, whether you are fat or thin, whether you lose weight or gain, 10 percent of your fat cells die. And every year, those cells that die are replaced with new fat cells, researchers in Sweden reported Sunday.
The result is that the total number of fat cells in the body [...]...
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| For Sale: Art and Optimism |
| 2008-05-04 20:44:15 |
Art : By CAROL VOGEL
YOU can’t help but wonder just how many of the smartly dressed people sitting night after night at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips de Pury over the next two weeks will be serious bidders and how many will be voyeurs hoping to witness an implosion of the multibillion dollar art market.
For years [...]...
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| In Inner Mongolia, Pushing Architecture’s Outer Limits |
| 2008-05-04 20:41:00 |
Design Notebook : By FRED A. BERNSTEIN
Ordos, China
ON April 12, Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample, both 36, could have been working in their architecture office in New Haven, worrying about the darkening economic prospects of their profession. Instead, they were in China, presenting a concept for a 10,700-square-foot villa to a client untroubled by thoughts [...]...
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