Owner: Stories & Straight Thoughts URL:http://www.stories-straight.blogspot.com Join Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 10:26:51 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: The Short Stories, Articles and Essays that appear on this blog are not translated works form Spanish. They were written in English by Carlos Benito Camacho Site statistics:Click here
Fed Approves Plan to Curb Risky Lending 2007-12-18 13:35:00 By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and DAVID STOUT (From The New York Times)Published: December 18, 2007WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve moved Tuesday to impose tough new restrictions meant to curb unfair and deceptive home-lending practices and prevent a recurrence of this year's meltdown in subprime mortgages.By a 5-to-0 vote, the Fed approved a plan that would tighten provisions meant to protect borrowers and apply them to a far larger share of home loans — whether from banks, mortgage companies or other lenders — than under current regulations.The proposed rules underscore the more assertive role the Fed is now prepared to take in regulating lending, in a big shift from the central bank's approach in the past.In general, the rules are meant to deter unscrupulous lenders from persuading people that they can afford loans that ought to be out of their reach. By extension, the rules are also intended to keep would-be buyers from deceiving themselves about the debt burdens they can shoulder Read more:Lending
Bush's Phone Immunity Demand Wins Senate Vote 2007-12-17 16:53:00 Bush's phone immunity demand wins initial Senate
vote (From Reuters)Mon Dec 17, 2007 3:51pm ESTBy Thomas FerraroWASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's demand for immunity for telephone companies that participated in his warrantless domestic spying program won an initial victory on Monday in the U.S. Senate.On a vote of 76-10, far more than the 60 needed, the Democratic-led Senate cleared a procedural hurdle and began considering a bill to increase congressional and judicial oversight of electronic surveillance of suspected terrorists.It includes a provision to grant retroactive immunity to any telecommunications company that took part in Bush's spying program -- surveillance without court warrants of e-mails and telephone calls of people in the United States -- begun shortly after the September 11 attacks.Nearly 40 lawsuits have been filed accusing AT&T, Verizon and Sprint Nextel Corp. of violating U.S. privacy rights.Backers of immunity, who include some Democrats as Read more:Immunity
Sen. John McCain Wins Lieberman Support 2007-12-17 10:30:00 McCain wins Lieberman
endorsement for White House (From Reuters)Mon Dec 17, 2007 10:33am ESTWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain
, trying to mount a comeback in his presidential bid, on Monday won the endorsement of independent Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, a former Democratic vice presidential nominee.McCain and Lieberman appeared together on Fox News Channel and were expected later in the day at a campaign event in New Hampshire, where McCain hopes to pull off a repeat of his 2000 victory in the state's presidential primary on January 8."I happen to the think this guy is the best of all candidates to unite our country across political lines so we can begin to solve some of the problems people have in this country," Lieberman said."I'm certainly sending a message that I agree with John McCain a lot more on national security, foreign and defense policy."Lieberman, a firm supporter of the Iraq war, won re-election to the Senate as an independent in 2006 after he Read more:Support
, McCain
Memories That Linger On 2007-12-17 10:23:00 By Carlos Benito CamachoAlthough I was born and grew up in the city, I spent fragments of my life in the country. Once, when I was very young boy, my mother became ill and could not look after the six of us kids. While my brothers and sisters were taken care of by relatives who lived in the city, I was sent to the country to stay at an uncle's.Uncle Miguel lived on small farm, which was about 75 miles from the city. He was a tenant farmer who worked a 50-acre rectangular piece of fertile land. Like my mother, he was born and grew up in the country and was a devoted catholic who attended church every Sunday. He was married to Aunt Jane; a woman who was half his age. Since they were a childless couple, it was deemed convenient that I stayed there for a whole year. I did not like the idea of having to spend such a long time away from my brothers and sisters, in some remote place where I had never been before. But they said I had to go when my uncle's old pick-up truck stopped out in f
Life Cycle 2008-02-21 10:35:00 By Carlos Benito CamachoA bacterium devours proteins, but a protozoan engulfs the bacterium. Later, viruses sneak in and dispatch the protozoan from the inside. Harmful bacteria attack and kill red blood cells, but white blood cells counterattack and destroy the bacteria and anything foreign that works at croosspurposes in the vertebrate’s circulatory system.The big fish eats the small fish. A crocodile gobbles up the big fish. Another reptile, a snake, bites and swallows a rat, yet the gliding eagle catches the snake with bristling talons and wolfs it down on a rugged summit rock.The deer eats the lush, thriving plants, but the lion mauls the plant-eater to death and feeds on it. Then the trustful young lion falls asleep at night near a pack of laughing hyenas, which fall upon the slee Read more:Cycle
, Life Cycle
Top Hezbollah Terrorist Leader Is Killed in Syria 2008-02-13 11:40:00 February 13, 2008BEIRUT, Lebanon — A top Hezbollah
commander long sought by the United States for his role in terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of Americans in the 1980s, died Tuesday night in Damascus, Syria
, when a bomb detonated under the vehicle he was in, Syrian officials said.No one claimed responsibility for killing the commander, Imad Mugniyah, who had been in hiding for many years and was one of the most wanted and elusive terrorists in the world.Mr. Mugniyah, 45, was suspected of planning the 1983 bombings of the American Embassy and a Marine barracks in Beirut; the hijacking of a T.W.A. jetliner in 1985; and a series of high-profile kidnappings in the 1980s, among other crimes. Israel accused him of helping to plan the 1992 bombing of its embassy in Buenos Aires, in which Read more:Terrorist
, Leader
, Killed
No title 2008-01-16 13:00:00 By Carlos Benito CamachoThe Greeks called it Chronus, the Romans Tempus. Today it is called time in English. And in modern cities every man seems to get stressed when he does not get things done on time. Man is so busy doing things to meet the deadline that he gets oblivious of the human aspect of his existence, and when he suddenly realizes it, he says, “time has gone by fast”. There is even a song that says “...as time goes by...”, but does it?It does not, for time does not exist. In fact, it has never been, onthologically speaking, as it is not a concrete being which can be touched, seen, heard, or breathed. Time is only an abstract concept created and sustained by the human mind. If time does not exist, matter does, enveloping and making us up.Matter moves in space, switching
Obama Wants Change 2008-01-08 06:27:00 By Carlos Benito CamachoBarack Hussein Obama
wants change. Well, a lot of people have already spoken of change in the history of mankind; and when these nonconformists have attempted to change this world, the changes have usually been for the worse, rather than for the better, since the changes they have tried to carry out were usually radical and against a people’s lifestyle and culture.Deep inside them, these dissenters have never been happy with themselves and never felt at home in this world. Oh, yes, they have all had a smooth, quasi-smart speech that deluded the many.Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, Lenin, convincingly spoke of changes; yet his remedies were much worse than the problems and millions of Russian peasants died of starvation. Stalin also wanted some changes and once he was in Read more:Change
Argentine Pilots Break Silence Over World War Two 2008-01-07 10:52:00 By David LjunggrenOTTAWA - In early October 1942, Flight Lieutenant Donald McLarty was shot down over Libya on his 199th mission of World
War Two. Although he was flying for Britain's Royal Air Force, his uniform was emblazoned with an unexpected word: Argentina.Many foreigners fought for the various Allied air forces, but until now historians have largely focused on pilots from Czechoslovakia, Poland, France and Norway -- all of which were occupied by German forces.Few realize that more than 800 young men from neutral Argentina, some of them schoolboys, rushed to sign up as pilots and then made the long, dangerous trip to Europe by boat.When McLarty climbed into his Hurricane fighter-bomber for a low-level attack on a German base in Libya, he needed to complete just two more missions to e Read more:Pilots
, Break
The Human Mind, Psychoanalysis 2008-01-03 08:59:00 By Carlos Benito CamachoAccording to the psychoanalytical theory of Sigmund Freud, the human mind is organized around three psychic entities; id, superego, and ego.The id is the primitive and Homo sapiens’s animal part which drives him towards unbridled organismic discharge and pleasure. Anatomically this would be located in the limbic system, a group of subcortical structures including the hippocampus, amygdala, hypothalamus, and thalamus.The superego maneuvers partly in the unconscious and represents the internalized values of society and parental conscience. Those moral teachings which man learns so early and slowly that he becomes unaware of how he learns them. Although the superego is largely unconscious, man feels its impact through the guilt and pain he experiences in the violati
Santiago Ramon y Cajal 2007-12-29 08:04:00 Santiago
Ramón y Cajal (May 1, 1852 – October 17, 1934) was a Spanish histologist, physician, and Nobel laureate. He is considered to be one of the founders of modern neuroscience.The son of Justo Ramón and Antonia Cajal, Ramón y Cajal was born of Aragonese parents in Petilla de Aragón, a Navarrese enclave in Aragon, Spain. As a child he was transferred between many different schools because of his poor behaviour and anti-authoritarian attitude. An extreme example of his precociousness and rebelliousness is his imprisonment at the age of eleven for destroying the town gate with a homemade cannon. He was an avid painter, artist, and gymnast. He worked for a time as a shoemaker and barber, and was well known for his pugnacious attitude.Ramón y Cajal attended the medical school of Zar
Neuron, a Nerve Cell 2007-12-28 18:56:00 By Carlos B. CamachoA neuron is one of the billions of specialized cells which make up the nervous system. A neuron sends and receives electrical signals through its protoplasmatic processes, or limbs, that spring out from the cell body. The short, tree-like limb that branches out is called dendrite and receives electrical impulses from other neurons. The long, rod-like limb which sends signals from the cell body to other nerve cells in the system is called axon. An axon can measure up to four feet in length and branches out in a root-like pattern at the end. This ramification at the end of an axon is called teledendron, which can make contact with one or several dendrites of different neurons.The point of contact, or link, is really a gap between the end of an axon and a dendrite branche Read more:Nerve
Brain Lateralization, Cerebral Specialization 2007-12-28 11:18:00 By Carlos B. CamachoJust as there are two cerebral hemispheres, there are also two kinds of knowledge, that is to say two different ways of seeing reality.The left hemisphere, which controls the right side of the body, is analytic. It breaks down data into meaningful pieces to check the difference between one another. It is also linear, as it tends to organize these pieces into sequences. Playing an important role in the control of language, it is symbolic, too.The brain left hemisphere functions could also be regarded as passive in that its operation is reactive. This means that it can never generate from itself any process for which it does not have already memorized information. So, its thinking mode could be characterized as cause-and-effect, being confined to operation within finite, Read more:Brain
The Second Amendment to the American Constitution 2008-03-16 12:48:00 By Carlos Benito CamachoThe Supreme Court of the United States will consider the meaning of the second amendment to the AmericanConstitution
. Written more than 200 years ago, the amendment says, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."The second amendment came in a package of ten amendments known as the Bill of Rights, which states or deals with the American citizens individual rights, and it was added to the American Constitution in 1791. Since it was a time when there was no institutionalized federal army or national guard yet, with its own logistic and armory, every citizen who joined the state militia had to carry with him his own private gun, musket at that time. By the end of Read more:Second
, Amendment
Success 2008-04-17 13:56:00 By Carlos B. CamachoSuccess
is not the easy life-endowed catwalk of comfortable circumstances one can walk along to show off and draw people’s attention to feed his vanity; nor is it the sneaking short cut of the warped who deceives human beings to get the things he greeds the easy way.Success is the long straight road one makes as one determinedly plows through the rugged fields of adverse circumstances in one’s search for more favorable conditions.In Argentina, the land is plagued of crooked short cuts which come up from the underworld to suck out the hope of the honest to feed the bottomless greed of the incumbent mob. And although the KK and their cohorts stylishly move along the smooth catwalk of quasi-success, someone of sharp insight can pick up the stench behind their fashionab
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner 2008-05-19 13:53:00 By Carlos B. Camacho CristinaFernandez
de Kirchner
is an Argentinean politician from the ruling party Front For Victory, and now the incumbent President of Argentina (2007-2011), succeeding her husband Nestor Kirchner in Office. She was born and grew up in La Plata, the capital of the Province of Buenos Aires, on February 19, 1953. She began to study Law at the National University of Plata in the
Obama, The Man Whose Surname Rhymes With Osama 2008-05-23 11:03:00 The American Democratic candidate, Barack Hussein Obama
was born on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Senior, a black Muslim from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white woman from Wichita, Kansas. His parents met while both were attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, at which his father was enrolled as a foreign student. When Barack Hussein Obama, Jr, was tw Read more:Rhymes
, Osama
Julius Caesar 2008-05-26 18:04:00 Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar was born into a patrician family, the gens Julia in 100 BC. The Julius and the Marius families were connected: Marius was married to a sister of Caesar's father, Julia. So, Caesar belonged to an influential family. Caesar's formative years were a time of turmoil. The Social War was fought from 91 to 88 BC between Rome and her Italian allies over the issue of Roman citiz
Rome: The Crisis of the Republic 2008-05-26 15:20:00 The Crisis
of the Republic
Rome had begun as a small city-state. It's constitution, its government, its social structure, and its moral values were those of a small, mainly agrarian state. All of these, the constitution, government, social structure, and values, adapted well to the governing of Italy. The Empire, however, which Rome had stumbled into by accident, provoked a profound crisis in Roma
Rome: The Conquest of Greece 2008-05-26 14:20:00 The Conquest
of the Hellenistic EmpiresWhile Rome was engaged in internal politics and the conquest of Italy, the Macedonian Greeks first conquered the Greek mainland and peninsula, and then, literally, the whole of the world. By 324 BC, when Rome still didn't control much of Italy and the city was still struggling with friction between the patricians and the plebeians, the entire world east of Ro Read more:Greece
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