Top Billionaires Hold Secret Meeting

Top billionaires hold secret meeting
Gates, Winfrey, Buffett among philanthropists at gathering in New York

In a quiet meeting closed to the news media and the public, Bill Gates, David Rockefeller Sr., Oprah Winfrey and other leading philanthropists met in New York this month to discuss ways to promote efforts to solve growing social problems in America and abroad.
Together, the philanthropists in the room have committed a total of more than $72.5 billion to charitable causes since 1996, according to Chronicle of Philanthropy tallies.
The unusual event was held May 5 at Rockefeller University and was organized by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Among the high-profile participants were Ted Turner, Warren E. Buffett, George Soros and New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. (All of those philanthropists have appeared at one time on The Chronicle’s ranking of America’s most-generous donors.)

Several of the people at the meeting confirmed their involvement, but declined to tell The Chronicle about what was discussed or why they gathered almost in secret.
According to a person familiar with the meeting, the wealthy philanthropists gathered to trade ideas about how to raise the level of philanthropy in the world.
According to IrishCentral.com, a Web site in New York that writes about Irish Americans and which first disclosed some of the details about the gathering, each philanthropist was given 15 minutes to talk about “how they saw the future global economic climate, the future priorities for philanthropy, and what they felt the elite group should do.”

Other people who attended included Eli Broad, a real-estate investor, Julian H. Robertson, Jr., a hedge-fund manager, and Patty Stonesifer, former chief executive of the Gates foundation.

Muhammad Ali appears for charity event
Boxing great, who has Parkinson's, gets standing ovation in native Ky.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Boxing great Muhammad Ali made a rare public appearance in his native Kentucky during a presentation to announce a philanthrophilanthropic effort.
Ali sat onstage Tuesday at the Lexington Convention Center and received a standing ovation from hundreds attending Alltech's International Health and Nutrition Symposium.
Ali was there to announce a charitable fundraising initiative between Alltech and the Muhammad Ali Center. He sat front and center with his wife Lonnie during the presentation but did not speak.

The Alis have a home in Louisville but primarily live in Arizona because of the climate, Lonnie Ali said.
Alltech President Pearse Lyons pledged the effort would raise at least $500,000 before the Alltech-sponsored World Equestrian Games next year in Lexington.
Ali was also seen at President Barack Obama's inauguration in January. Parkinson's disease has limited his activity.

Jennifer Hudson, Beyonce win Image Awards
Boxing legend Muhammad Ali won the President’s Award. Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons was given the Vanguard Award. “I discovered that giving made me happy,” Simmons said during his acceptance speech alongside daughters Ming and Aoki, who ... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29171593/

Sex Myths

When it comes to sex, the less you know, the more you're at risk. Get the facts on 9 of the biggest sex myths out there, just in time for National Women's Health Week. Plus, test your sexpertise with our quiz... MYTH #1: You can’t get pregnant if you do it standing up. FACT: Sperm are Olympic-class swimmers with a single-mission mentality – find the egg and fertilize it.The myth's underlying assumption – that it’s harder for sperm to swim against gravity, making it more difficult for you to get pregnant – is wrong,” says Aletha Akers, M.D., MPH, assistant professor of gynecology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “Sperm can swim in any direction, and they swim pretty darn fast.”
MYTH #2: You can’t get pregnant if he pulls out. FACT: You’d think that if a guy doesn’t ejaculate inside you, there would be no sperm to hook up with the egg. Wrong. Men produce a tiny bit of liquid called “pre-ejaculate” that’s teeming with sperm. They can release it any time during sex without even realizing it.

Even if your partner pulls out right before ejaculation, he’s probably already deposited sperm, Akers warns.
MYTH #3: Douching is the best way to keep clean down there.FACT: About 20-40% of women douche – and half do so weekly. But the best way to keep your nether region clean is to leave it alone, gynecologists say.
“People think it’s like cleaning any other part of your body, but your vagina has its own self-cleaning mechanism,” Akers explains. “It produces its own fluids that help to wash things out while also keeping the right bacteria around in the right proportions.”
Homemade or store-bought douches (usually solutions of water, vinegar, baking soda or iodine) upset the vagina’s natural bacteria balance and increase the risk for yeast and other vaginal infections.Because douching can push bacteria from the vagina higher into the reproductive organs, it may also contribute to pelvic inflammatory disease, a major cause of infertility.
MYTH #4: You can get herpes only if you have sex when your partner has an outbreak.FACT: Transmission risk is highest during an outbreak, but because carriers can always shed herpes virus, they can also infect their partners at any time during unprotected sex, says Ashlyn Savage, M.D., assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 11% of men and 23% of women have genital herpes; 56% of men and 60% of women have oral herpes, which can spread to the genitals through oral sex.
To prevent its spread, avoid sex during outbreaks and always use condoms for intercourse and dental dams for oral sex.
Won’t condoms protect during an outbreak too? Not always.“Herpes is a skin infection, not something transmitted by bodily fluids like HIV or gonorrhea,” Savage says. “If either partner has an open sore outside the area covered by a condom, they could transmit herpes even with a condom.”
MYTH #5: If you’re aroused, you shouldn’t need lubricant. FACT: Needing more lubrication than your body produces doesn't mean you're not aroused.
“A lot of people equate wetness with how turned on they are, but that’s not necessarily an accurate barometer,” says Anne Semans, co-author of Good Vibrations Guide To Sex (Pleis Press).Your monthly cycle, pregnancy, illness, menopause, medications (such as antihistamines and decongestants) can affect lubrication, no matter how much water you drink.And if you’re using condoms – including lubricated ones – you’ll need extra lube. Latex doesn’t slide well even if you are naturally lubricated, Savage says.
MYTH #6: You can become addicted to your vibrator. FACT: Even if you climax faster and more easily with battery-powered assistance, a vibrator won’t ruin your ability to achieve orgasm with your partner, sexperts say.
“We can still have orgasms if we take the time, but we’re so used to the quick response we get from the vibrator that we get impatient and give up,” says Ellen Barnard, a sex educator/counselor and co-founder of A Woman’s Touch in Madison, Wisconsin (www.a-womans-touch.com).Still, if you’re worried, Semans offers this advice: “Put your vibrator away for a few months and you’ll find that your response to fingers or a tongue comes back.”Or you can introduce your partner to the vibrator, especially if you’re self-conscious about how long it takes you to climax without one.“Most women feel okay with their partner’s hand on their clitoris,” Semans says. “So putting a fingertip vibrator on his finger just adds a little extra buzz.”
MYTH #7: Bigger is better.FACT: Some women have definite size preferences, says Carol Queen, Ph.D., staff sexologist at the online sex toy boutique Good Vibrations (www.goodvibes.com).
But a huge package doesn’t automatically translate into mind-boggling sex. In fact, women complain more often that their partner is too big, not too small, sexperts say.“There’s more to erotic pleasure than size,” Queen says. “It’s about how a guy uses his hands or mouth or how sexy a woman feels before she gets to the bedroom.”If you want something bigger, your partner can wear rings or sleeves that add length and girth.
And do Kegel exercises, Barnard says. They’ll tighten your pelvic floor muscles and let you “adapt to whatever size partner you have.”
MYTH #8: All women can experience orgasm just through vaginal penetration.FACT: Only about 20-30% of women experience orgasm through intercourse alone, so don’t be shy about reaching down and giving yourself a hand or a buzz.
“Putting your hand on your clitoris during sex really ups the chances that you’ll have an orgasm,” Queen says.
MYTH # 9: There’s no such thing as the G-spot.FACT: Like the lost city of Atlantis, this pleasure zone’s exact location sparks great debate. There’s no consensus on where to find it. Some sex researchers say it’s the glandular tissue around the urethra (found behind your pubic bone, about two inches inside your vagina).
Others believe it’s farther back, in a triangular area on the back of the bladder wall – called the trigone or T Zone – where three nerves come together. Pinpointing the G-spot’s location may not be crucial, though, because your body has many sensitive nerves down there. What stimulates one spot is likely to arouse surrounding areas.
“It’s pretty much all going to be working together,” Queen says.

Rapper TI to Serve Time in Arkansas

Rapper TI to Serve Time in Arkansas

(Newser) – T.I. has 11 days to arrive at a low-security Arkansas prison for his year-and-a-day sentence on weapons charges, E! Online reports. The 28-year-old rapper, real name Clifford J. Harris Jr., will likely spend less than 2 months at the Forrest City federal prison, thanks to early release and 305 days served in home detention. His last pre-prison show will be May 24 in Atlanta.
T.I. pleaded guilty after trying to purchase machine guns and silencers in Atlanta for self-protection, the AP reports. His sentence also includes a $100,000 fine. Sources: E! Online, Associated

Swine Flu Hoax?

I recently came upon the following article. Let me know what you think about it.

Dr. Lorraine Day is the lady who discovered where AIDS came from after spending a year or more in the Library of Congress. She wrote a book exposing it about 15 years ago. Bottom line is that AIDS was created in a lab at Ft. Deitrick, Maryland by the criminals posing as govt.
Here we go again. sl

Swine Flu Hoax?

So who are the swine behind the swine flu?
That's what I wanted to know. Whenever I begin to see blaring headlines regarding the word "pandemic", I make a call to Dr. Lorraine Day, the former chief of Orthopedic Surgery at USF. http://www.drday. com/ Not one to mince words, and a dogged researcher, I can count on Lorraine to give me the big picture behind the headlines. I made that call yesterday. Her first words, underscored with a hearty laugh, were "It's just another hoax!" Here's the long and short of it according to Lorraine. First, the government is continuing on it's path to incite panic so we will ideally demand to have protection from these 'killer virus' via vaccinations. This would help avert a less popular mandatory vaccination program, which is what the Elite would like to see happen. Lorraine is also quick to point out that truly noxious vaccines are being developed in laboratories that combine human and animal virus' that can seriously compromise our immune systems if we allow them to be administered to us. Secondly, she said that the Center for Disease Control needed to move their stockpiles of the flu drug Tamiflu, which didn't make it out to the masses during the last panic, which was the 'bird flu'. I find it interesting that Tamiflu was supposedly created as the antidote to bird flu, but the CDC now says it actually works just fine for swine flu too. It would appear that the stuff is quite non-specific in nature for what is considered to be a very specific strain of flu. Hummm. Anyway, pharmacy chains such as CVC are now stocking up in preparation for the "pandemic". As an aside, it may not surprise you to know that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is a major stockholder in Gilead Sciences, a California bio tech firm that owns the rights to Tamiflu. A CNN report from 2005, when we were were being threatened with the bird flu, put Rumsfeld's holdings somewhere between $5,000,000 to $25,000,000. This is the same gentleman who brought us the excitotoxin Aspartame, now known to cause serious neurological problems in humans. But, less I digress..... Lorraine went on to say that 12, 60, even 120 deaths from flu do not make a pandemic. More than 500,000 people a year die from various flu virus'. There are still active flu strains out there from all of the usual sources. In fact, it was just reported that 2 young people in the Sacramento area were tested to have been infected with the swine flu virus, but, no worries, they recovered from their flu in 24 hours. Sounds just like the flu that's been going around through my friends and other acquaintances over the past few weeks in Sacramento. To further the story, she said that Prince Charles recently pushed for the subject of Developmental Sustainability be pushed to the top of the G-20 agenda. Developmental Sustainability is the code word for de-population according to Dr. Day. As you may recall, Charles' father, Prince Phillip, when asked what he would like to come back as if he had another life, said "A virus." The idea was that he would then be able to kill off the useless members of society. What a gentleman. In short, Lorraine says do not worry. Just do your body a favor by eating a good clean diet full of fresh vegetables and fruits, get some sunshine and fresh air, turn to your spiritual practice, relax and, under no circumstances, allow yourself to be vaccinated. We're all exposed to flu bugs, but if you can keep your immune system strong, you have nothing to worry about and the only swine involved here are those who are trying to keep us in fear.

Stress tests show $75bn buffer needed

Stress tests show $75bn buffer needed

US regulators on Thursday ordered 10 of the nation’s largest banks to add a total of $74.6bn in equity following the completion of stress tests, triggering a frenzy of activity as banks lined up to announce capital-raising plans.
“These tests will help ensure that banks have a sufficient capital cushion to continue lending in a more adverse economic scenario,” Tim Geithner, US Treasury secretary, said.

The US authorities said that the tests projected that losses at the top 19 banks over 2009 and 2010 would reach $599bn if the adverse scenario set out in the stress test materialised.

They said that bank operating earnings would absorb $363bn of these losses under the stress scenario. They estimated that 10 of the 19 top banks would need a further $74.6bn in equity to be sufficiently well capitalised at the end of 2010 to cope with potential losses beyond that period.
The regulators put the additional equity need at a much higher $185bn at the end of 2008, but said that actions taken by the banks subsequently had reduced that amount by $110bn.
The long-awaited publication of the test results, which came after days of tense discussions between regulators and the banks, prompted a flurry of activity among lenders with Bank of America, which was found to have the biggest capital shortfall at $33.9bn, announcing plans to raise $17bn in equity. BofA said that it would add equity through a share sale and the conversion of preferred shares held by non-government investors. It also plans to raise the money through earnings and the possible sale of assets, including asset manager Columbia Management and First Republic Bank.

Wells Fargo, which needs to plug a gap of $13.7bn, launched a $6bn equity issuance, while Morgan Stanley said that it would sell $2bn in shares and $3bn in non-government-backed debt to fill its $1.8bn capital requirement. Citigroup, which needs $5.5bn in additional equity, said that it would expand an existing offer to convert preferred shares.
The stress tests could force the government to gain a large stake in a number of regional banks such as SunTrust, KeyCorp and Regions which might have to ask the government to convert its preferred shares into common stock unless they manage to sell enough shares to investors to meet the tests’ requirements.
A number of banks, including Wells, BofA and Citi indicated that regulators had been very conservative in their assumptions and expressed confidence that their profits over the next two years would be better than the government’s projections.
People close to the situation said that Citi convinced regulators to reduce their estimates of its capital shortfall, from an original $30bn-plus to just $5.5bn.

Africa has to find its own road to prosperity

Africa has to find its own road to prosperity
By Paul Kagame
Published: May 7 2009 19:35 Last updated: May 7 2009 19:35
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At recent meetings of the Group of 20 and the International Monetary Fund, world leaders have gathered to discuss the global economic crisis. Unfortunately, it seems that many still believe they can solve the problems of the poor with sentimentality and promises of massive infusions of aid, which often do not materialise. We who live in, and lead, the world’s poorest nations are convinced that the leaders of the rich world and multilateral institutions have a heart for the poor. But they also need to have a mind for the poor.
Dambisa Moyo’s controversial book, Dead Aid, has given us an accurate evaluation of the aid culture today. The cycle of aid and poverty is durable: as long as poor nations are focused on receiving aid they will not work to improve their economies. Some of Ms Moyo’s prescriptions, such as ending all aid within five years, are aggressive. But I always thought this was the discussion we should be having: when to end aid and how best to end it.
Aid has not only often failed to meet its objectives; it has also rarely dealt with the underlying issues of poverty and weak societies. We see this with our neighbour, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There, 17,000 United Nations peacekeepers – the largest and most expensive presence of its kind in history – treat the symptoms rather than addressing the issues of capacity, self-determination and dignity.
Often, aid has left recipient populations unstable, distracted and more dependent; as Ashraf Ghani, the former finance minister of Afghanistan, has pointed out, it can even sever the relationship between democratically elected leadership and the populace.
Do not get me wrong. We appreciate support from the outside, but it should be support for what we intend to achieve ourselves. No one should pretend that they care about our nations more than we do; or assume that they know what is good for us better than we do ourselves. They should, in fact, respect us for wanting to decide our own fate.
At the same time, as I tell our people, nobody owes Rwandans anything. Why should anyone in Rwanda feel comfortable that taxpayers in other countries are contributing money for our well­being or development? Rwanda is a nation with high goals and a sense of purpose. We are attempting to increase our gross domestic product by seven times over a generation, which increases per capita incomes fourfold. This will create the basis for further innovation and foster trust, civic-mindedness and tolerance, strengthening our society.
Entrepreneurship is the surest way for a nation to meet these goals. Michael Fairbanks’ book, In The River They Swim, which uses Rwanda as one of its examples, highlights the need to respect local wisdom, build a culture of innovation and create investment opportunities in product development, new distribution systems and innovative branding.
Government activities should focus on supporting entrepreneurship not just to meet these new goals, but because it unlocks people’s minds, fosters innovation and enables people to exercise their talents. If people are shielded from the forces of competition, it is like saying they are disabled.
Entrepreneurship gives people the feeling that they are valued and have meaning, that they are as capable, as competent and as gifted as anyone else. Asking our citizens to compete is the same as asking them to go out into the world on behalf of Rwanda and play their part.
We know this is a tremendous challenge given our status as a land-locked nation emerging from conflict, with few natural resources, little specialised infrastructure and low historical investment in education. But, in fact, we have reasons to be optimistic: we have a clear strategy to export based on sustainable competitive advantages. We sell coffee now for high prices to the world’s most demanding purchasers; our tourism experience attracts the best customers in the world and market research reveals that perceptions of Rwandan tea are improving.
This has resulted in wages in key sectors rising at more than 20 per cent on an annual basis. We have cut our aid as a percentage of total GDP by half over the past decade, and last year we grew at more than 11 per cent even as the world entered a recession.
While this is encouraging, we know the road to prosperity is a long one. We will travel it with the help of a new school of development thinkers and entrepreneurs, with those who demonstrate they have not just a heart, but also a mind for the poor.
The writer is president of Rwanda
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

Transsexual: Chingy Finds The Fruit On The Tree

Transsexual: Chingy Finds The Fruit On The Tree

According to transsexual Foxx Jazell, he/she had a sexual relationship with rapper Chingy. I do not know if I believe this. But this is not the first time Chingy name was mentioned in the same breath as transsexual. A few years back pictures surfaced online with with a tranny groping and dancing with him. He stated he did not know it was a tranny.

Fellahs, if the adam apple is bigger than your thumb and her hands is the size of a baseball glove ….. It’s a man. Does this he/she not sound like a man and look like a man?

What strikes me as interesting is the dude who is interviewing Fox Jazell admits Chingy appears to have soft lips and he would not mind trying them himself. WTF?

Re posted courtesy of RaSha