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DO IT NOW WHEN IT'S FRESH IN YOUR MIND

The Saga Of Pinehill Book II
Money, Marriage And The Way
is now published and available.
Buy direct from:

http://www.publishamerica.com
(enter the name Saga of Pinehill in
the search box)

If you enjoyed the first book, you
won't be able to put
this one down until you've finished
it. Enjoy.

DO IT NOW WHEN IT'S FRESH IN YOUR MIND

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TODAY'S TRIVIA - - -
-----------------------

Why do wedding guests throw birdseed instead of rice now?

Why are wedding rings worn on the fourth finger of the left
hand?

--------------
ANSWERS TO YESTERDAY'S TRIVIA - - - -
--------------

Who was the LAST person to set foot on the moon?

Apollo 17 astronaut Eugene Cernan is the last person to
leave his footprints on the moon. The last manned mission to
the moon was more than three decades ago - in December 1972.
Cernan's parting words: "We now leave as we once came, and
God willing we shall return with peace and hope for all
mankind."

Where did the custom of the bride carrying "something old,
something new, something borrowed, something blue"
originate?

No one knows for sure. The rhyme originated in Victorian
times, although some of the customs referred to in it are
much older. However, I can at least tell you what brides
traditionally carried. The "something old" is supposed to be
the garter from a happily married woman. The "something new"
is the wedding dress. The "something borrowed" is often a
coin from the groom (worn in the bride's shoe) or it can be
something (preferably old and valuable) from the bride's
family. (Note to brides: Make sure you return the item or
you'll be unlucky!) The "something blue" may be a symbol of
the moon, which is associated with fertility. Or it may be
just a blue ribbon, to symbolize fidelity. 

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I'LL SEE IT WHEN I BELIEVE IT!

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There are a lot of ways to become a failure,
but never taking a chance is the most successful.

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thePEBBLE CONTENTS:

1. STRANGE BITS AND PIECES!

------------------
2. COVER STORY
------------------------------------

Around The Net

-------------------
3. MEDICAL COLUMN with Karin Henderson

Meniere's Syndrome
"Meniere's" is a condition affecting the
nerves of one or both inner ears.
PART 2 of 5

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4. PERCEPTIONS by Ken Darby

MERRY CHRISTMAS

-------------------
5. WHY DO WE SAY IT?

-------------------
6. THINK ABOUT THIS TODAY!
7. HA! HA!HA!
8. CONTACT INFO
9. THE LAST LINE - - - - -


DO IT NOW WHEN IT'S FRESH IN YOUR MIND

The Saga Of Pinehill Book II
Money, Marriage And The Way
is now published and available. Buy direct from:

http://www.publishamerica.com
(enter the name Saga of Pinehill in the search box)

If you enjoyed the first book, you won't be able to put
this one down until you're finished it. Enjoy.

DO IT NOW WHEN IT'S FRESH IN YOUR MIND

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STRANGE BITS AND PIECES!


To make one pound of butter, 29 cups of milk are needed.

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COVER STORY
------------------------------------

Around The Net

H.I.V. Risk Halved by Circumcision, U.S. Agency Finds
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

Circumcision appears to reduce a man’s risk of contracting
AIDS from heterosexual sex by half, United States government
health officials said yesterday, and the directors of the
two largest funds for fighting the disease said they would
consider paying for circumcisions in high-risk countries.

The announcement was made by officials of the National
Institutes of Health as they halted two clinical trials, in
Kenya and Uganda, on the ground that not offering
circumcision to all the men taking part would be unethical.
The success of the trials confirmed a study done last year
in South Africa.

AIDS experts immediately hailed the finding. “This is very
exciting news,” said Daniel Halperin, an H.I.V. specialist
at the Harvard Center for Population and Development, who
has argued that circumcision slows the spread of AIDS in the
parts of Africa where it is common.

In an interview from Zimbabwe, he added, “I have no doubt
that as word of this gets around, millions of African men
will want to get circumcised, and that will save many
lives.”

Uncircumcised men are thought to be more susceptible because
the underside of the foreskin is rich in Langerhans cells,
sentinel cells of the immune system, which attach easily to
the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS. The
foreskin also often suffers small tears during intercourse.

But experts also cautioned that circumcision is no cure-all.
It only lessens the chances that a man will catch the virus;
it is expensive compared to condoms, abstinence or other
methods; and the surgery has serious risks if performed by
folk healers using dirty blades, as often happens in rural
Africa.

Circumcision is “not a magic bullet, but a potentially
important intervention,” said Dr. Kevin M. De Cock, director
of H.I.V./AIDS for the World Health Organization.

Sex education messages for young men need to make it clear
that “this does not mean that you have an absolute
protection,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, an AIDS researcher
and director of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases.

Circumcision should be used with other prevention methods,
he said, and it does nothing to prevent spread by anal sex
or drug injection, ways in which the virus commonly spreads
in the United States.

The two trials, conducted by researchers from universities
in Illinois, Maryland, Canada, Uganda and Kenya, involved
nearly 3,000 heterosexual men in Kisumu, Kenya, and nearly
5,000 in Rakai, Uganda. None were infected with H.I.V. They
were divided into circumcised and uncircumcised groups,
given safe sex advice (although many presumably did not take
it), and retested regularly.

The trials were stopped this week by the N.I.H. Data Safety
and Monitoring Board after data showed that the Kenyan men
had a 53 percent reduction in new H.I.V. infection.
Twenty-two of the 1,393 circumcised men in that study caught
the disease, compared with 47 of the 1,391 uncircumcised
men.

In Uganda, the reduction was 48 percent.
Those results echo the finding of a trial completed last
year in Orange Farm, a township in South Africa, financed by
the French government, which demonstrated a reduction of 60
percent among circumcised men.

The two largest agencies dedicated to fighting AIDS said
they would now be willing to pay for circumcisions, which
they have not before because there was too little evidence
that it worked.

Dr. Richard G. A. Feachem, executive director of the Global
Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which has
almost $5 billion in pledges, said in a television interview
that if a country submitted plans to conduct sterile
circumcisions, “I think it’s very likely that our technical
panel would approve it.”

Dr. Mark Dybul, executive director of President Bush’s $15
billion Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, said in a statement
that his agency “will support implementation of safe medical
male circumcision for H.I.V./AIDS prevention” if world
health agencies recommend it.

He also warned that it was only one new weapon in the fight,
adding, “Prevention efforts must reinforce the A.B.C.
approach — abstain, be faithful, and correct and consistent
use of condoms.”

Researchers have long noted that parts of Africa where
circumcision is common — particularly the Muslim countries
of West Africa — have much lower AIDS rates, while those in
southern Africa, where circumcision is rare, have the
highest.

But drawing conclusions was always confounded by other
regional factors, like strict Shariah law in some Muslim
areas, rape and genocide in East Africa, polygamy, rites
that require widows to have sex with a relative, patronage
of prostitutes by miners, and men’s insistence on dangerous
“dry sex” — with the woman’s vaginal walls robbed of
secretions with desiccating herbs.

Outside Muslim regions, circumcision is spotty. In South
Africa, for example, the Xhosa people circumcise teenage
boys, while Zulus do not. AIDS is common in both tribes.
Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, “Long Walk to Freedom,”
contains an unnerving but hilarious account of his own Xhosa
circumcision, by spear blade, as a teenager. Although he was
supposed to shout, “I am a man!” he grimaced in pain, he
wrote.

But not all initiation ceremonies are laughing matters.
Every year, some South African teenagers die from
infections, and the use of one blade on many young men may
help spread AIDS.

In recent years, as word has spread that circumcision might
be protective, many southern African men have sought it out.
A Zambian hospital offered $3 circumcisions last year, and
Swaziland trained 60 doctors to do them for $40 after
waiting lists at its national hospital grew.

“Private practitioners also do it,” Dr. Halperin said. “In
some places, it’s $20; in others, much more. Lots of the
wealthy elite have already done it. It prevents S.T.D.’s,
it’s seen as cleaner, sex is better, women like it. I
predict that a lot of men who can’t afford private clinics
will start clamoring for it.” (S.T.D.’s are sexually
transmitted diseases.)

Male circumcision also benefits women. For example, a study
of the medical records of 300 Ugandan couples last year
estimated that circumcised men infected with H.I.V. were
about 30 percent less likely to transmit it to their female
partners.

Earlier studies on Western men have shown that circumcision
significantly reduces the rate at which men infect women
with the virus that causes cervical cancer. A study
published in 2002 in The New England Journal of Medicine
found that uncircumcised men were about three times as
likely as circumcised ones with a similar number of sexual
partners to carry the human papillomavirus.

The suspected mechanism was the same — cells on the inside
of the foreskin were also more susceptible to that virus,
which is not closely related to H.I.V.

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Harmony with all things, at all times, at all costs allows
you to slip silently into victory.
---- Ken Darby

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MEDICAL COLUMN - - - - with Karin Henderson


Meniere's Syndrome
"Meniere's" is a condition affecting the
nerves of one or both inner ears.
PART 2 of 5

Why do some people get this? This is seen as a degenerative
condition. This is not part of the normal aging process
(otherwise we would all be getting this). That means something
has worn down or been damaged. Most people get some or all of
these symptoms in different degrees or intervals at some point
in their lives and think nothing of it. With Meniere's
sufferers, these "normal" activities seem to be hindered,
impaired, or completely incorrect. So messages are either not
going to be received correctly or will it be misinterpreted and
returned with a false command, because the nerves that should be
receiving the "information" are not healthy (for whatever
reason). Your may not think very much about these symptoms until
you have someone close to you do something very strange. But I
would like to be just a bit clearer, so if you ever have an
occasion to see this in real life, your reactions will be
sympathetic, helpful, and resourceful. For instance, being able
to hear someone speak (acoustic) to you one minute and not being
able to hear them at all the next second, is rather unnerving
and distressing. But standing upright one minute and finding
yourself on the floor, cut over an eye, is entirely another
shocker! This is not a conscious or chosen activity. The person
simply has no control over the episode. Something at that point
has disturbed the inner ear's balance nerve, in a very direct
and severe way.

Causes? There are many theories, and none are definite. Some of
the medical community feels this is the body working against
itself (auto-immune), others feel it's a virus, and many just
feel it's there because something has damaged the inner ear
nerves or tissue. It's virtually impossible to take a direct
look at the inner ear's working.

-------------------------------------------
Karin Henderson is a registered nurse and is thePEBBLE's
columnist for our MEDICAL COLUMN.
We appreciate her input very much. Thanks Karin.
You can send Karin questions at
mailto:kflh@shaw.ca

Health Information Newsletter.
http://www.prescotts-inc.com

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Any Acne problems in your house?
Teens find skin irritations embarrassing?
Try this link and have a look

4 Click here. This is worth a try

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PERCEPTIONS . . . by Ken Darby

-----------------------DISCLAIMER

Some around me think I am an opinionated old goat.
Whether that be true or not I will sometimes, in this column,
talk about things people don't like to talk about - or don't want
out in the open. Take it all with a grain of salt.

Do your own thinking, and don't accept the things I say as
gospel. They are only mental meanderings from a simple soul.

-----------------------END DISCLAIMER

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Well here we are, our last issue before Christmas 2006 and
because of Christmas falling on a Monday we will have only
three issues next week, before the New Year.

Time does fly. The years go by so fast one wonders what life
was all about. I’m one of the fortunate ones who has long
ago answered that question for me. I can only hope and trust
you have done so as well.

We have had quite a year this year. War, always dominating
the scene, but new findings with regard to climate change
and, of course that North Korea thing.

I am not one who thinks 2007 will be any better along those
lines. If mankind lives up to his history things will only
become worse and he’ll find all the words he needs to
justify his actions. Nonetheless, that is not here today.

Today I want to wish you a Merry Christmas. I don’t mean the
simple perfunctory handshake kind of Merry Christmas we all
say in passing people we work with, shop with, deal with. I
mean from the centre of my being I wish upon you a love
filled, peaceful Christmas where you are separated, for a
short period at least, from the miseries the world offers.

I am going to ask you to bathe in the love that is offered
you. Feel its warmth. Come to understand what it really
means. See if you can look at others through different eyes
or glasses. Don’t see them as you usually see them. See them
as if it was you living within that body. Wear their shoes,
pay their bills, tolerate what they must live with everyday.

Do not try to be the hero this Christmas. Settle back having
no aims or objectives, no points to make, no ego to satisfy.
Just watch what happens and wherever possible help someone
with something, preferably many people with something, and
look for nothing in return. Then watch how rich and filled
with love you become.

We all share time and energy in this spaceship called earth.
Lately we have been having a great deal of trouble doing
that with peace, with love, with respect for our neighbor.

Our ability to get along will be sorely tested in the near
future. Take time this Christmas to practice being a little
more tolerant, a little more forgiving, a little more
willing to let others be themselves. This practice will come
in handy in your future.

I thank you for being our reader for this past year. I
appreciate you being there.

Unto you I send my heartfelt wishes for a safe, peaceful and
love filled Christmas.

Love

Ken

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Marriage doesn't have to be a battleground. This
can bring back that "old feeling" in both of you.

4 Click here. Try this before you split

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WHY DO WE SAY IT?


Kangaroo Court: Why is a mock trial held by convicts called
a "kangaroo court"?

The term originated in Australia at the time when it was a
penal colony and the use of "kangaroo" is an allusion to the
prisoner' belief that they had no more to say about what
happened to them than the kangaroos of that continent.

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DO IT NOW WHEN IT'S FRESH IN YOUR MIND

The Saga Of Pinehill Book II
Money, Marriage And The Way
is now published and available. Buy direct from:

http://www.publishamerica.com
(enter the name Saga of Pinehill in the search box)

If you enjoyed the first book, you won't be able to put
this one down until you've finished it. Enjoy.

DO IT NOW WHEN IT'S FRESH IN YOUR MIND

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Are you a stay-at-home Mom? Here is a product in which you might
be interested. This is an ebook written by a stay-at-home Mom. She
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point that these are real jobs she can do from the house and that they
are available to anyone. She says no money has to be paid to do these
jobs, for example, they are not internet sales promotion type jobs, but
instead real jobs. Click on this link and see for yourself.

4 This looks real interesting and worth a click

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THINK ABOUT THIS TODAY!


"A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter,
is not a nice person." -- Dave Barry 

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HA! HA! HA!


Goldfish Passing

Little Nancy was in the garden filling in a hole when her
neighbor peered over the fence. Interested in what the
cheeky-faced youngster was up to, he politely asked, "What
are you doing there, Nancy?"

"My goldfish died," replied Nancy tearfully without looking
up, "and I've just buried him."

The neighbor was very concerned. "That's an awfully big hole
for a goldfish, isn't it?"

Nancy patted down the last heap of dirt then replied,
"That's because he's inside your fricking cat."

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CONTACT INFORMATION:

Complete Contact info on web site
http://www.the-pebble.com

To submit articles to thePEBBLE send a blank email to -
mailto:article.submission@emailsystemscentral.com

To subscribe to thePEBBLE just send any email to
mailto:pebble@rr-email.com

PEBBLE RELATED SITES OF INTEREST AND VALUE:

http://www.the-pebble.com
http://www.spiritual-underground.com
http://www.thenewsshop.com
http://www.thenewsshop.com/oursalespeople.html

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THE LAST LINE - - - - -

"I believe...that every human mind feels pleasure in
doing good to another." —- Thomas Jefferson

 
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REMEMBER! - IF YOU SEE IT IN thePEBBLE - IT IS SO!


Your emotions keep you from the blessings and
rewards you deserve.
---- Ken Darby