WASHINGTON — More than half of Americans will not be taking a summer holiday this year, opting instead to stay home and save money as the US economy slumps, a survey published Wednesday showed. ‘The economic downturn is leading to layoffs and stretched resources, which in turn leads to increased workloads and pressure to improve performance,’ said Tom Musbach, senior managing editor of Yahoo Hotjobs, which conducted the poll. Fifty-one percent of the Internet giant’s 1,100 respondents said in an online questionnaire that they would skip their annual summer holiday. That is a sizeable increase over 2007, when 45 percent went without a summer vacation. ‘Employees, now more than ever, need a break from the pressure, but are instead choosing to forgo vacation in order to meet growing demands and protect dwindling wallets,’ Musbach said. Forty-four percent of respondents said their workload is heavier today than last year, and 57 percent said they felt ‘burned out’ — up from 49 percent last year. Key sources of stress for American workers are insufficient resources to get the job done, an excessive workload, a poor leadership structure, an US ailing economy, and ‘the boss,’ the survey showed. […]
It may be the mother of all doom and gloom gas price predictions: $12 for a gallon of gas is ‘inevitable.’ Robert Hirsch, Management Information Services Senior Energy Advisor, gave a dire warning about the potential future of gas prices on CNBC’s May 20 ‘Squawk Box’. He told host Becky Quick there was no single thing that would solve the problem, due to the enormity of the problem. ‘[T]he prices that we’re paying at the pump today are, I think, going to be ‘the good old days,’ because others who watch this very closely forecast that we’re going to be hitting $12 and $15 per gallon,’ Hirsch said. ‘And then, after that, when oil – world oil production goes into decline, we’re going to talk about rationing. In other words, not only are we going to be paying high prices and have considerable economic problems, but in addition to that, we’re not going to be able to get the fuel when we want it.’ Hirsch told the Business & Media Institute the $12-$15 a gallon wasn’t his prediction, but that he was citing Charles T. Maxwell, described as the ‘Dean of Oil Analysts’ and the senior energy […]
U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay allegedly softened up detainees at the request of Chinese intelligence officials who had come to the island facility to interrogate the men — or they allowed the Chinese to dole out the treatment themselves, according to claims in a new government report. Buried in a Department of Justice report released Tuesday are new allegations about a 2002 arrangement between the United States and China, which allowed Chinese intelligence to visit Guantanamo and interrogate Chinese Uighurs held there. According to the report by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine, an FBI agent reported a detainee belonging to China’s ethnic Uighur minority and a Uighur translator told him Uighur detainees were kept awake for long periods, deprived of food and forced to endure cold for hours on end, just prior to questioning by Chinese interrogators. Susan Manning, a lawyer who represents several Uighurs still held at Guantanamo, said Tuesday the allegations are all too familiar. U.S. personnel ‘are engaging in abusive tactics on behalf of the Chinese,’ she said Tuesday. When Uighur detainees refused to talk to Chinese interrogators in 2002, U.S. military personnel put them in solitary confinement as punishment, she […]
Obesity has been blamed for the growing problem of ‘boy-boobs’ – cases of teenage boys with breasts so well developed that surgery is needed to reduce them. Doctors at Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool say that they are seeing dozens of teenagers every year with gynaecomastia, the condition in which males develop breasts. Christian Duncan, a plastic surgeon specialising in obesity-related surgery, said that in the past 12 months he had performed at least 20 breast-reduction operations on young boys who had developed the condition. Mr Duncan is treating others who do not yet qualify for surgery by encouraging them to make changes to their lifestyle, such as starting a healthy diet or beginning an exercise programme. He believes that the condition is becoming more common among teenage boys in Liverpool, and that it can cause ‘terrible damage’ to their lives and their self-esteem. While some boys are simply fat, giving the appearance that they have breasts, those who develop gynaecomastia face a greater problem: the growth of firm female breast tissue under the nipples, Mr Duncan said. This condition is caused by a hormone imbalance during adolescence and in many cases resolves itself naturally. […]
WASHINGTON — A survey examining sexual practices of U.S. teens has undercut the notion that many engage in oral sex rather than intercourse to stay ‘technically’ virgins, researchers said on Tuesday. The findings, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, were based on answers by 2,271 females and males age 15 to 19 in 2002 in response to a government survey. The researchers found about 55 percent of the teens said they had engaged in oral sex but that this practice was far more common among those who also had engaged in vaginal sex. Teens said they began vaginal and oral sex at roughly the same time — by six months after first vaginal intercourse, 82 percent had also engaged in oral sex, according to the study. ‘There is a widespread belief that teens engage in nonvaginal forms of sex, especially oral sex, as a way to be sexually active while still claiming that, technically, they are virgins,’ Laura Lindberg of the Guttmacher Institute in New York, who led the study, said in a statement. ‘However, our research shows that this supposed substitution of oral sex for vaginal sex is largely a myth. There is […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
