American Buddhist Net

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Not advocating tobacco use, but there are good arguments in favor of using smokeless tobacco, especially instead of smoking but also because tobacco use decreases the odds of getting Parkinson's disease as well as conferring other benefits. The data to support the Parkinson's link all come from smokers, but it is probably the nicotine or a derivative substance that gives the good results. Years of Smoking Associated With Lower Parkinson's Risk, Not Number of Cigarettes Per Day. ABN

What is “BuildingWhat?”

Explosion heard at 0:11 mark, just before east penthouse collapse.

Indonesian Two-Year-Old Made Famous by Viral Video Kicks Habit -- in Rehab -- but Is Now Returning Home

LINK TO ORIGINAL

An explosion has torn through an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, west of the site of the blast in April that caused a huge oil spill.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

I saw a comment saying that Medvedev had stopped the auction of seed bank land, but cannot confirm it. Hope it is true. ABN

LINK TO ORIGINAL

The video at the linked site is well-worth viewing. Even I am shocked by this one. ABN

by Alan Hart / September 1st, 2010

Short answer. Iran’s President Ahmadinejad did NOT call for Israeli Jews to be annihilated. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of Israel’s Shas party, HAS called, more than once, for the Palestinians (and, in fact, all Arabs) to be exterminated.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Research team compared fields and fruits in heart of nation's strawberry patch

LINK TO ORIGINAL

TV should be banned for toddlers and severely rationed for other youngsters to protect their health and family life, a leading psychologist will tell MEPs today.

Dr Aric Sigman claims that millions of children spending hours slumped in front of TVs and computers is 'the greatest unacknowledged health scandal of our time'.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

...Apparently, the men have taken their task to heart. “I finally realised the importance of the environment,” says Navy Seaman Second Class Richard Iglesias. “Before, I would wreck corals just to get to the fish. Now I know better; when I think about how long it takes for corals to grow, and what damage I’m doing, my conscience bothers me.”

LINK TO ORIGINAL

July 06, 2010

A WOMAN lawyer in India had a sex change to save herself from a forced marriage by her family.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

LINK TO ORIGINAL

The Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh explains in his new book how a Buddhist approach could benefit ecology

LINK TO ORIGINAL

LINK TO IMAGES

The man at the shop appeared harassed on a hot Saturday afternoon. For, there were seven customers jostling for his attention. “Kitna chahiye? (How many do you want?),” he asked one political-type dressed in all-white. But too busy to wait for a reply, he moved on to the next. “Rs 150 plus food for each woman and Rs 100 plus food for each attending male,” he said. “Theek hai (Okay)”, said a man as he fished for his wallet to pay an advance.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Native Peruvian language rediscovered in remains of church.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

At 6:15 p.m. on August 29, 2010, at a secluded mountaintop hermitage overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Sonoma County, California, four women, all long-time dedicated practitioners, were declared fully ordained as bhikkhunis, Buddhist nuns, in the Thai Theravada tradition. It was the first such ordination ever in the Western hemisphere, and it was epochal since their preceptors were nuns in their same tradition.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Chinese students in the South West province of Yunnan will receive chastity lessons from a conservative US Christian ministry.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

TOKYO -- Japan is sweltering through its hottest summer on record, weather officials said Thursday.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

...reports by overseas Tibetan news services said at least four Tibetans were killed in the protest incident

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Seoul (AsiaNews) - Lay Catholics in Asia are a "creative minority" and have a decisive role in the present and the future of the continent. This was the message stressed by card. Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity to members of the Asian churches attending a Congress that opened today in Seoul on the theme "Proclaiming Jesus Christ in Asia today."

LINK TO ORIGINAL

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Thursday, 19 August 2010

AUTHORITIES in Prey Veng province have ordered a Buddhist abbot to move from his pagoda for his own safety after villagers accused him of committing acts that violated the teachings of the Buddha.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Seven Tibetan Buddhist monks will lead music, art, and prayer events as well as conduct workshops in northwest Ohio from Tuesday through Sept. 11.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Impatience could help explain the rising U.S. cesarean section rate, given that a high percentage of such deliveries probably are performed before women are in active labor, a new National Institutes of Health-sponsored study shows.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

All-time High Caesarean Section Rate Causing Concern

A potentially significant difference between babies born by C-section and babies born "naturally" was highlighted in a very interesting story from the New York Times that we posted recently (How Microbes Defend and Define Us): "The variation in our microbiomes emerges the moment we are born. "'You have a sterile baby coming from a germ-free environment into the world,' said Maria Dominguez-Bello, a microbiologist at the University of Puerto Rico. Recently, she and her colleagues studied how sterile babies get colonized in a hospital in the Venezuelan city of Puerto Ayacucho. They took samples from the bodies of newborns within minutes of birth. They found that babies born vaginally were coated with microbes from their mothers’ birth canals. But babies born by Caesarean section were covered in microbes typically found on the skin of adults. “'Our bet was that the Caesarean section babies were sterile, but it’s like they’re magnets,' said Dr. Dominguez-Bello." Robyn