Wednesday, February 17, 2016

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Meet Saniya

When 3-year-old Saniya was a baby, her parents noticed a glare in one of her eyes. She was referred to St. Jude and diagnosed with retinoblastoma.

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Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Iran nuclear deal: After 10 years, are all bets off?

To the editor: The position that The Times takes with regard to the Iran nuclear deal is informative and balanced, and it frames the issues succinctly. For that I am thankful. However, it is not persuasive in its endorsement of the deal. ("Weighing the Iran nuclear deal: far from perfect, but the alternatives are worse," editorial, Aug. 30)
What keeps jumping out is the shortsightedness that prefers a bombless Iran in the short term to an Iran that will be unfettered in its pursuit of the bomb in the long term.
Proponents of ratification argue that failure to ratify would lead to Iran getting the bomb sooner than it would under the agreement. Though that may be true, we should consider the following: We are already at war with Iran. The current version of this war looks more like a cold war, but it is a war nonetheless.
Iran currently has no nuclear bomb. We would be better off dealing with the consequences of not ratifying the agreement than to be dealing with a fully armed Iran in 10 years.



Paul Skophammer, Malibu
To the editor: The Times' lukewarm support of the nuclear deal misses a few points.
First, regarding the lifting of sanctions, how Iran spends its money is its own business. Iran didn't bring up how the U.S. spends its money, which includes dropping bombs in Iran's neighborhood.
Most important, this deal could be the first step toward a long relationship with a country that mistrusts us as much as we mistrust it.
The Times brings up everything that could possibly go wrong. What The Times doesn't see is that 15 years from now, we might have a completely different world. What we should be thinking about is how we're going to build on this, as opposed to everything that can go wrong.
Fifteen years ago, no one had flown a plane into the World Trade Center. Fifteen years from now, we might find a completely different Iran that has thrown off the shackles constricting the public and its youth.
This is a moment not to lament that the agreement isn't perfect but to seize and build on.
Larry Margo, Valley Village
..
To the editor: There is an alternative to this dangerous deal with Iran: continue and strengthen the sanctions. Why should we negotiate with a country whose people continue to chant “Death to America” and that still holds Americans as hostages?
This deal is the work of an administration that continues to deny the existence of evil in our world. It's a boon for Iran, which will have more money to use to finance Hamas or Hezbollah.
One more question: What happens when the deal expires? All bets are off.
Lisa Niedenthal, Los Angeles
..
To the editor: I wish our negotiating team had had the perseverance to negotiate a better deal with Iran, especially regarding inspection. It looks as though the Iranians feel they have the ability to blindside us, and we feel we have the ability to catch them if they try it.
However, to maintain our trustworthiness in the international community, we have to honor what was agreed upon. I just hope we do have the intelligence capabilities to catch the Iranians cheating, the honesty to come forth with our findings, and the courage to take the appropriate action to eliminate the threat.
Bob Berman, Thousand Oaks
Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
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What Causes Male Homosexuality?

Gay, Gay Love, Gay Men, Gay Couple, Homosexual, Love

Statement From The American Psychological Association (APA)

The official explanation from the APA says that there is no consensus about what causes homosexuality. But we have observed eight predisposing factors that are common in the backgrounds of men with same-sex attraction. [ MORE ]

1. Unhealthy Childhood Relationships With Females

Females can wound young boys by smothering, criticizing, controlling, and ignoring proper boundaries. Some boys who have experienced such wounding develop unhealthy relationships with women in adulthood in which they either push them too far away or hold them too close. [ MORE ]

2. Distorted Concepts of Gender

Unhealthy childhood relationships with females can distort a man’s view of the female gender, affect how he sees himself in relation to women, damage his sense of masculinity, and prevent the natural development of a sense of genderedness. This can leave the individual without a sense of the opposite sex as complementary and attractive. [ MORE ]

3. Feeling Incongruent With One’s Own Gender

Feeling incongruent with what a man believes his gender requires may create a psychologically unstable situation, resulting in the unconscious mind compensating through fixations or attractions toward males and masculinity. [ MORE ]

4. Problems In Relationships With Other Males

During childhood, some boys disconnect from other males due to negative experiences with males, negative stereotypes about males, and fear of being seen as strange. This leaves their normal needs for same-sex connection and bonding unmet, resulting in longings and cravings for male closeness. [ MORE ]

5. Sexual Conditioning

Sexual desire can be conditioned through pairing specific stimuli with sexual arousal. Male-on-male sexual abuse and early exposure to male pornography may create or intensify homosexual arousal for some boys. [ MORE ]

6. Sexual Abuse

In addition to its potential role in conditioning sexual arousal, sexual abuse can create or intensify gender incongruity, disaffiliation from other males, and if the perpetrator is female, fear or hatred of women. It may also create repetitive patterns of compulsive sexual behavior. [ MORE ]

7. Certain Biological and Physical Issues

Research on direct biological and genetic causes of homosexuality is inconclusive. But our experience suggests that certain biological factors can have an important indirect impact by affecting other parts of the developmental pathway. [ MORE ]

8. Certain Emotional and Psychological Problem

Certain emotional and psychological issues may increase the likelihood of developing homosexuality. These issues probably don’t play a causal role, but may intensify the effect of other predisposing factors, particularly gender incongruity, same-sex disaffiliation, sexual conditioning, and sexual abuse. [ MORE ]

Two Necessary and Sufficient Factors

We believe the eight predisposing factors lead to just two conditions that are necessary for the development of homosexuality. Learn about these two conditions. [ MORE ]

Statement From The American Psychological Association (APA)

The statement below is from the APA website:
“There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. Many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles; most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation.”
Full >  http://genderwholeness.com/lds/understanding/what-causes-male-homosexuality/

 *Moderator note: We have Black jokes, religious jokes and even jokes about the dead. Being homosexual doesn't make you an endangered species. 
 Those rights you've been privileged, they may not apply depending on where you may travel outside the United States. 
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Cluster bombing Syria.


HOW CLUSTER BOMBS WORK

THE DROP

Cluster_1.gif

A cluster munition (in this example, one containing 202 'BLU 97 A/B' submunitions) is dropped from a plane. The bomb can fly about nine miles before the submunitions are released.

SPINNING AND OPENING

Cluster_2_spinning_opening.gifA short time before the submunitions are released, the container begins to spin, and opens at an altitude of between 330 ft and 3,300 ft. The height, velocity and rotation speed determine how large an area will be impacted by the submunitions when they strike.

PARACHUTES OPEN, NOSE DOWN

Cluster_3__Parachute_opens.gifEach submunition is about the size of a soda can. They each deploy a little parachute that stabilizes them and makes sure that they descend with their nose down. Each submunition is made of a copper cone that can pierce through seven inches of armor, and contains more than 300 pieces of preformed steel fragmentation pieces designed to destroy human targets, as well as incendiary material (zirconium) to cause burning.

IMPACT, INJURY... AND A FEW DUDS, TOO

Cluster_4_Dispersed.gifDepending on the wind conditions and the altitude at which the submunitions are released, each bomb container can cover an area of up to 861,120 square feet with submunition strikes.
When the submunitions explode, they cause injury and damage across a wide area. The blast of one submunition can cause deadly shrapnel injuries in a 65-foot radius and injure anyone within a 328-foot radius.
Moreover, many of the submunitions fail to detonate upon impact, leaving behind large numbers of hazardous explosive “duds.” These duds are akin to landmines, injuring and killing civilians and contaminating the land long after conflicts end. The percentage of unexploded submunitions from each canister varies, but can be as high as 30%.


The following map shows the potential area that would be covered if a single cluster bomb were dropped on the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. The red area reflects a fatal footprint for a single cluster bomb.
Cluster bombs don't kill the enemy, they kill everything.


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