Lose weight naturally

Tips & resources for losing weight naturally & safely.

If You’re Overweight, Slim Down for Better Health
Overweight people have an increased risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, and other illnesses. Losing weight reduces the risk. This brochure tells you how to lose weight safely.

Ask Your Doctor About Sensible Goals
Your doctor or other health worker can help you set sensible goals based on a proper weight for your height, build and age.

Men and very active women may need up to 2,500 calories daily. Other women and inactive men need only about 2,000 calories daily. A safe plan is to eat 300 to 500 fewer calories a day to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week.

Exercise 30 Minutes
Do at least 30 minutes of exercise, like brisk walking, most days of the week.

The idea is to use up more calories than you eat. You need to use up the day’s calories and some of the calories stored in your body fat.

Eat Less Fat and Sugar
This will help you cut calories. Fried foods and fatty desserts can quickly use up a day’s calories. And these foods may not provide the other nutrients you need.

Tips for Cutting Calories and Fat

Eat plenty of vegetables, fruits, and grain products like bread and rice.
Eat only small, single servings of foods high in fat or calories.
Eat less sugar and fewer sweets.
Drink less alcohol or no alcohol.
Choose foods whose labels say low, light or reduced to describe calories or fat.
Choose 1 percent or skim milk products and reduced fat cheeses.
Replace ice cream with fat-free frozen yogurt.
Replace sour cream with fat-free or low-fat plain yogurt.
Make sure fish, poultry and meat are lean. Trim skin and fat.
Broil, roast or steam foods.
Eat a Favorite Rich Food, Sometimes
Read full article - Lose weight naturally

For some, Christmas is more than a tree, gifts: Seasonal fanatics have a holiday obsession

By MAGGIE GALEHOUSE HOUSTON CHRONICLE

A hurricane and a recession could easily spread a serious case of the bah, humbugs this season.

But not for the Christmas fanatics. For these self-taught decorators who transform their homes into holiday havens thick with Santas, ornaments and things that go blink in the night, Christmas always arrives early and stays late.
A tale of two Michaels

For every Christmas addict there is an enabler. And between the months of October and December, this pretty much describes Michael Briden and Mike Lowery.

“I have the inspiration, and he has the installation,” Briden deadpans.

Briden is the collector, favoring glass ornaments by Christopher Radko and Santa figurines by Brian Kidwell and Jim Shore. He decorates each of the holiday trees in the Heights bungalow he and Lowery share — no small job, since there’s at least one tree in every downstairs room.

Lowery does the traditional “dad” jobs: hangs garland around the window frames, puts the toppers on each tree before Briden starts to decorate, picks up ornaments on his way home from hunting and fishing trips.

Every year, the two transform their handsome bungalow with sage green walls into a holiday wonderland where first-time guests are hard-pressed to focus on anything but the dé cor. As Lowery says, “Christmas has definitely exploded in this house.”

It helps that the pair co-own Another Place in Time, a garden center in the Heights that sells some of the decorative items and ornaments Briden collects.

Briden, who is also a loan operations manager at Integrity Bank, admits that he is particular about the quality and presentation of his collections.

He likes his Santas to look friendly, not scary. He enjoys creating new vignettes with his Christmas ornaments; this year, Santa’s Sweet Shop appears in his kitchen window, with a jar of gingerbread men and cookies and glass candies. And each of his Christmas trees has a theme, from the hunting and fishing tree in Lowery’s room, to the Grinch tree in the bathroom, to the slim and showy “Feathered Friends” tree in the family room.

The show-stopper is “The Night Before Christmas” tree, which gathers Santas, reindeers, gifts and all the usual Christmas Eve suspects.

When one goes to so much trouble to create a Christmas atmosphere, it’s a shame not to share it. Briden estimates that he and Lowery host half a dozen social gatherings every December so that friends can see the house.

As thrilled as Briden is with this year’s décor, he is always in the market for something new. Gazing at his animal tree, he ticks off the rarer ornaments that adorn it. A buffalo. A rhinoceros. A skunk. A giraffe. But he can’t help but notice what he’s missing.

“I don’t have a platypus,” Briden says, “and I don’t have any dinosaurs.”

The holiday decorating gene is strong with Jennifer Emshoff. Growing up in Klein with a mother who’s a part-time interior designer, she learned early that every holiday deserves festive dé cor and special dishes.

So when Emshoff, a senior contract analyst with El Paso Exploration & Production, moved into her Eastwood bungalow in 2001, it was a fait accompli that the holidays would be well-represented.

Her Christmas decorating schedule begins the day after Thanksgiving at her childhood home, when her mom starts pulling out her own Christmas finery. Emshoff is always on hand to assist.

“I give her all day Friday,” she says, “then I come back and start working on my own house. It takes two full days for the inside and then a night to put up the lights on the outside.”

This year presented a new challenge for Emshoff, who recently transformed her bright blue and yellow living space into a richer, ranchy style, with dark leather and rustic touches. This meant a new backdrop for Christmas.

Dominating the living room is a full-size white tree with shiny, multicolored ornaments, many with a Texas theme. On the floor of the dining room, ranch meets Christmas in a pair of ceramic cowboy boots stuffed with holly and red berries. The formal dining table is set for Christmas dinner and a long kitchen counter that usually serves as the bar has become a winter village.

Read full article: For some, Christmas is more than a tree, gifts

Vegan Caesar Salad Dressing with Meyer Lemon

By: Kathy Hester (View Profile)

Earlier this year I got myself a dwarf Meyer lemon tree. I have wanted one for a few years. It was only two feet tall, but already covered in green baby lemons. Now, six months later, I have about eight juicy yellow Meyer lemons to cook with.

It looked beautiful on my deck, and the white flowers were very fragrant. Unfortunately, I had to cut off the branch that was blooming to get rid of an unidentified icky pest that was trying attack it. I’m not sure if I’ll be harvesting much next year, so I want to make the best of what I have now.

In a warm climate, you could plant it outside, but I’m keeping mine in a pot. This way I can enjoy the green foliage inside during the winter and bring it outside for the summer.

If you haven’t used Meyer lemons before, you are in for a treat. They are sweeter, more of a cross between a mandarin orange and a lemon. Also the skin is much thinner. In fact, so thin that when I hit it on the counter to get it ready to juice, it busted open and went all over me and the floor. Let that be a lesson you don’t have to learn first hand!

Read full recipe: Vegan Caesar Salad Dressing with Meyer Lemon

Home & garden news: Halls, houses and trees decked out for holidays, cheap gifts for all

If you need a little Christmas spirit, the Barrett-Paradise Country Inn tour is the place to be. You can eat your way through the afternoon and get a glimpse of elegant areas you don’t see in your everyday drive.

If you have your own spectacular decorations, we want to hear from you.

We have some ideas for around your house with the scents and sounds of Christmas.

Scents are just one way you can decorate for Christmas. Balsam sachets and cinnamon bird ornaments are just some ideas.

Nothing can make children of all ages smile like a train going around the Christmas tree. Electric trains under the Christmas tree date back to at least the early 1900s. Before that, there were wind-up and push trains.

Speaking of trees, we tell you pros and cons of both real and artificial trees. If you plan to get a live tree today, what to do with it.

A tip from the National Gardening Association: If you plan to buy a balled-and-burlapped or containerized holiday evergreen to plant outdoors, dig the hole now before the soil freezes. Keep soil in a wheelbarrow in the garage or shelter where it will be workable to use as backfill.

To increase the odds the tree will survive transition from your living room to the backyard: Buy a short tree, less than 5 feet. Limit your tree’s indoor stay to 3 to 5 days in a cool spot (65 degrees or less). Keep the rootball moist and the tree misted.

Some people need to go artificial. Our Home and Garden editor shares her tree success in her blog.

If you’re feeling particularly crafty, we have some great gift ideas that both children and adults can tackle.

We tell you some more ways to save money this holiday season. Instead of an expensive holiday party, how about inviting your friends over to watch Charlie Brown?

Warning: all that Christmas traffic can make on mess on hardwood floors. Learn how to protect them.

Did you ever buy a gift for a child and find he or she was more interested in the box? Cats are the same way. Here are some recession proof cat toys.

Looking ahead to 2009, yellow will be the color of the year. It reminds people of warmth, sunshine and cheer.

Our focus is green. Fabric softener might make your clothes feel better, but it’s not necessarily healthy for you.

For more environmental ideas this holiday season, check out our Pocono Green section. Let a little knowledge be your gift to yourself this season.
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Read full article: Home & garden news: Halls, houses and trees decked out for holidays, cheap gifts for all

Front yard decorations get more elaborate for WVC couple

A West Valley man does not need many hands to make light work — he has two to make 18,000 of them light up his front yard.

Dan Nelson has made and bought Christmas decorations for about eight years, and he is planning to expand his collection.

“Every year, I just want it to be brighter,” Nelson said. “I have more lights in my shed — in boxes that I don’t take out — than most people put up.”

“I think he’s obsessed, but I think it’s a good obsession,” said Jewel Nelson, his wife.

Dan Nelson, an architect, became fond of making Christmas decorations after a friend had asked Nelson to help with his. Ironically, the friend lived on Christmas Street.

Nelson got hooked.

“People go on vacations, and I buy Christmas lights,” he said.

In his front yard, Nelson has 10 ?plywood angels representing his granddaughters and 11 gingerbread boys representing grandsons. Each of them has a name written on it, and its eyes are painted, respective to the grandchild it represents.

Nelson said he made 21 reindeer for his friends and family members during the second year.

Among other decorations are reindeer and moose, three wise men and a nativity scene, a snowman, two soldier boys and pine trees, all decked out in lights and connected to 10 outlets. Onlookers can also hear Christmas songs in the background.

Nelson said he started getting his house into a festive mood the week before Halloween. He has since spent every weekend adding decorations.

Although the rest of Bluebird Drive doesn’t shine as brightly as the Nelsons’ home, neighbors don’t seem to mind. One of the neighbors, Randy Garcia, let Dan Nelson use a corner of his yard to set up some moose and pine trees.

“We’re actually waiting for Dan to expand all the way over,” Garcia said.

Nelson’s lights shine from 5 to 10 p.m. every night and help Rocky Mountain Power survive the country’s economic crisis.

“I don’t look at [the electricity bill],” Dan Nelson said. “We’re on a year-round [billing plan], and it goes up every year. I probably wouldn’t do this if I looked at it.”

He said that he’s trying to buy more LED lights, which run cooler and therefore save energy.

“It’s not like we’re saving anything because he keeps adding more stuff,” Jewel Nelson said.

Read full source - Front yard decorations get more elaborate for WVC couple

Acacia

ACACIA (a-ka’sha). About 1200 species of acacia are scattered through the warm regions of the world. Most of them are shrubs or small trees. Some are matted plants a few inches high. All are thorny and pod-bearing. The tiny sweet-smelling blossoms cluster together in fluffy balls or cylinder shapes. They range in color from deep yellow to almost white. The leaves are usually grayish and fernlike. The acacia is quick-growing and short-lived.
Australia has about 300 species of acacia. The early settlers called them wattles because they used the pliant branches to make wattle-and-daub huts. The golden wattle is Australia’s national Bower.
In the southwestern United States acacias are grown in many parks and gardens. The ornamental species were imported from Australia. The native catclaw (Texas mimosa) grows wild and (Types Of Flowers )is heartily disliked because of its strong hooked spines. The Arizona Indians, however, made meal of the pods. Smaller acacias are eaten by cattle and horses.
Gum arabic is obtained from an African species (see Gums and Resins). The Australians get tannin, used for tanning leather, from the bark of some species and make furniture of the hard, dark “black-wood” acacia. The wood of an Indian species is the chief source of catechu, a dye for true khaki. France grows several kinds for perfume.
The genus acacia belongs to the mimosa tribe of the pea family . The black locust is sometimes called “false acacia” . The plant that florists call mimosa is actually an acacia.
Read this article: Acacia plant

Unique new product gives peaceful nights for thousands of snorers - stop snoring now, try for free!

Immediate release 14TH November 08

NEW PRODUCT PROMISES RESTFUL NIGHTS FOR THOUSANDS OF SNORERS

A UK company has launched a unique new product designed to offer relief to thousands of people who suffer from a particular type of snoring

The Adkins snoring aid is targeted at “nose snorers” and uses a totally new method which restricts the air flow through the nose.

The product is made of a medical grade soft plastic, consists of a pair of conjoined non latex balls which the user inserts into the nostrils before going to sleep.

Before this discovery, the main school of thought in snoring treatments has been to open up the airway through the nostrils.

Sleep deprivation expert Chris Grant is the man behind the new product. He explained how it works: “The restricted airflow through the nose encourages mouth breathing which reduces the incidence of snoring in those whose snorring is caused by excess airflow across the soft tissues at the back of the nose.”

Designed and produced in the UK, the new product has been successfully tested by many snorers to date and has been endorsed by many users
including a medical doctor.

Dr David Collinge of Oxford confirms that the Adkins snboring aid worked for his wife. He said, “She calls the Adkins snoring aid the “miracle balls” and I must agree. This new product has stopped her snoring, when everything else had failed.”

Former Royal Protection Officer Les Blyth, says, “I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. This new product stopped my snoring and I now sleep soundly with my wife in the same bedroom. It is a brilliant idea, being both comfortable and simple to use.”

Amy Harrington from Essex says, “We never imagined that this new innovation would alleviate snoring to such an extent. Now that we sleep
well, we even feel and look better too.”

Read this: Unique new product gives peaceful nights for thousands of snorers - stop snoring now, try for free!

The 12 days of Christmas plants — poinsettias

This is the second in our series on how to buy and care for the most common holiday plants. Once upon a time, this Mexican native was such a finicky plant that it rarely last much beyond the end of December, if that long.

Boy, have things changed! Now it’s not at all unusual for a poinsettia to look good all the way till Easter.

If that hasn’t been your experience, here’s what you need to know:

In the store, when you’re choosing the plant, look for deep green leaves all the way to the base. Move the foil back at the bottom of the foliage to see if any leaves have turned yellow from lack of light.

If you want the freshest plant available — one, typically, that should last longer because you’re going to give it better care at your home than it received in a big-box store — look at the tiny little yellow buttonlike flowers in the middle of the colored bracts.

If they’re closed or barely open, the plant is very fresh. If they’re missing (having already fallen off), it’s been around a while. See if you can find another.

OK, let’s stop a second here for those of who might be confused by the word “bracts” and who think those little yellow things in the center of all that red couldn’t possibly be the flowers of the plant. If you know all this stuff, skip the next paragraph.

The showy red (cream, pink, yellow, or bicolor) parts of a poinsettia are called bracts. They’re actually there to entice pollinating insects to visit the inconspicuous flowers.

Once you’ve picked the poinsettia you want, make sure that the store gently wraps it up if temperatures are 50 degrees F. (10 C ) or lower. On a cold day, you’ll want to take the plant right home, not leave it in the car while you do the rest of your holiday shopping. Poinsettias don’t respond well to shivery weather.

The first thing to do after you have the plant back home is remove the foil wrapping. It blocks light from reaching the lower leaves and encourages root rot because water collects in the bottom.

Better to put the plant into a cachepot if you want something decorative. There, you can see if there’s standing water in the bottom that you need to pour off.

If you can’t bring yourself to do that, at the very least move the foil back from the base of the plant and poke good-sized holes in the bottom so water can drain out. (Then put the plant n a saucer, of course.)

Place the plant where it will receive at least six hours of bright light daily but not touch a cold windowpane. I know, I know. You bought the plant as a decoration, and it should be on the coffee table or the fireplace mantel, not a windowsill.

But give it light during the day — to keep it happy and looking good — then move it to wherever you like in the evening.

Read full article here: The 12 days of Christmas plants — poinsettias

Sony Ericsson K550i Review

The Sony Ericsson K550i is an unalloyed scorcher of a phone. Price-wise it’s positioned comfortably in the mid-range, but it incorporates much of the technology that usually appears only in top-end phones. This phone gets 6 out of 5 for value for cabbage!

The K550i is the upgraded version of the popular K510i, but it’s massively more powerful, borrowing many features from Sony Ericsson’s flagship K800i Cyber-Slug phone. The camera is simply the best in its class. It’s a 2 megapixel camera with a photo light and digital zoom, that includes the autofocus headline first found in the K800i. Instead of a fixed focus camera, with autofocus you can ensure that the subject of your photo is firmly in focus, outstanding to noticeably sharper images. With Sony being a world leader in digital camera technology, it’s no surprise to learn that the K550i takes the best photos of any mid-stretch camera that we’ve reviewed to date. In fact it beats many phones that cost a lot more. The K550i features “picture blogging” - take a carbon copy and send it straight to your own image blog for friends and family to view. There’s also a good quality video camera.

The phone delivers on the music front too. It includes an FM announce as well as a music player. Sound quality is excellent, as you’d expect from the company that makes the top-selling Walkman distribute of music phones. The K550i is compatible with stereo headphones and Bluetooth wireless stereo headsets - both are available as non-requisite accessories from Sony Ericsson. A very welcome feature is the generous amount of internal memory (64 Mbytes - enough for about a dozen songs) and the tolerate for a Memory Stick Micro?„? card, available in sizes up to 2 Gbytes. As with the Walkman phones, the K550i is equipped with two fruitful music features: TrackID?„? & PlayNow?„?. TrackID lets you record a few seconds of a prevarication, and then get the track, artist and album information sent directly to your phone. PlayNow is a service for downloading music and games to your phone (you have to pay for these.)

Convenient in a choice of black or white, the K550i is a compact and lightweight phone that looks very attractive (it’s much less of a brick than the K800i for example). The buttons are smaller than most Sony Ericssons, but are not so scabrous to use as they are well spaced out and project a millimetre or so above the surface of the phone. The display is a good quality TFD LCD screen that retains complete visibility in sunlight and is of a high resolution. At 176 x 220 pixels, it isn’t as fine as the display on the K800i, but it’s double the add up of pixels of the K510i and is as good as anything in this price range.

Other useful features worth mentioning are the built-in speakerphone, uninterrupted recorder (for recording voices or other sounds), quadband support (for using the phone worldwide) and flight style. There’s good internet support too: EDGE for fast downloads, a web browser, and support for blogging and RSS feeds. Battery human being is good.

We are really impressed by the K550i. If this review sounds too good to be true it’s because we genuinely couldn’t find anything to in the extreme - and regular readers of mobile-phones-uk.org.uk will know that we try hard! This phone delivers exceptional value for resources in a neat attractive and user-friendly package. Now stop reading this review, and buy yourself one of these beauties!

The K550i is at on Pay as you Go from the Carphone Warehouse at ??69.95.

Read full article - Sony Ericsson K550i Review

Traditional Christmas flower in high demand

Legend has it that the poinsettia made its first appearance in the hands of a poor Mexican girl named Pepita who had no gift to present the baby Jesus on Christmas Eve, according to Paul Ecke Ranch, an Encinitas grower that supplies most of the flowering poinsettias in the United States.

Pepita’s cousin, Pedro, told her that any gift given with love would suffice. Hearing this, Pepita created a bouquet of weeds gathered from the side of the road.

But realizing they were a sad excuse for a gift, she fought back tears as she approached the altar where there was a statue of Jesus. As she handed them over, she happened to glance down and see that her weeds miraculously transformed into a red bouquet of flowers — poinsettias.

The legend was recently retold a slightly different way in the London Free Press, which had the young girl grabbing branches from a poinsettia shrub, not weeds. Either way, the poinsettia remains the traditional Christmas flower.

With Christmas less than three weeks away, it’s again showtime for poinsettias — and they are keeping local growers, retailers and decorators busy.

Poinsettias are the top-selling potted flowering plant in the United States, with $181 million in sales last year, up 6 percent from 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

California accounts for 31 percent of the domestic sales for all potted plants.

At Green Thumb International in Ventura, nurseryman Jack Doughty said the most common question he gets from customers is how do you care for them.

“You want to keep them away from too much direct sunlight,” he said. And water them just like a Christmas tree, keeping them “moist but not soggy wet.”

Green Thumb is getting several shipments weekly.

“We go through them like mad here this time of year,” Doughty said.

One of the store’s suppliers is Santa Paula-based Do Right’s Plant Growers.

Owner Dudley Davis recently provided a tour of his greenhouses where about 80,000 poinsettias were growing. He pulled back plastic curtains to reveal what looked like a sea of red velvet.

“We do 85 percent of our production in the traditional red,” he said. The remaining 15 percent consists of five colors — merlot, apricot, marble, polar (white) and miro (a marbling of pink and white).

The season typically begins around Nov. 15. Davis said 10 percent to 15 percent of his crop is sold by Dec. 5.

Read full source article here - Traditional Christmas flower in high demand

Stop snoring with SnorePro?

We get some odd-ball press releases and story pitches here at TechFlash HQ. And this one, from a Fremont, Calif.-based company that has developed a $99.99 anti-snoring device called SnorePro certainly would qualify.

“HBI-USA, a biomedical device company, announced today its new SnorePro which uses its proprietary Dynamic Snore Detection (DSD) technology to precisely detect snores and to gently issue a programmable digital pulse to prevent snoring. The digital pulse functions like a spouse by nudging their snoring bedmate, which in turn trains the body to change sleep positions to eliminate the snoring. Bedmates of snorers lose an average of one hour of sleep per night due to snoring. The stimulation may disturb the snorer; however, it helps their bedmates to enjoy and regain sleep as they won’t have to nudge the snorer any more.”

Described as a wrist-watch style device with a built-in LCD screen, the press release goes on to say that the SnorePro can track the improvements of the snorer over time.

Read full article here

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Building for the Future: Sustainable Home Design

Company: Solar Energy International Cost: $695/$645 mbr. Location: Online Website: Visit event website Whether you’re building your own house or simply want to talk knowledgeably with those who will build it for you, this workshop will help you understand the home design principles that make use of both new and centuries old methods and materials for sustainable living. Building for the Future Online will focus on the principles behind designing and building residential structures that achieve optimal year-round comfort, reduce energy consumption, improve indoor air quality, and limit environmental impact. The emphasis is on integrated design using a whole-building approach, applying building science and integrating green design strategies into the built environment. Also covered will be the synergistic relationship between climate-sensitive design and natural building materials. Designed to compliment each other, the Building for the Future online & face-to-face courses can be taken independently to bring you up to speed or combined with each other to solidify knowledge. Both courses provide a solid overview of building a sustainable home with specifics in site analysis, building science, energy efficiency, passive solar design and alternatives to conventional building materials & techniques. In addition to online curriculum, participants will receive The Building With Awareness video, the book Your Green Home by Alex Wilson, and industry related hand-outs, and numerous Internet resource links. A course glossary, extensive resource guide and case studies of successful sustainable homes are included online. You can work on the Building for the Future Online course at ANYTIME, but you will generally need between 8-15 hrs/week to complete assignments/quizzes and participate in online discussions. The Consortium for Education in Renewable Energy Technologies (CERET) offers certificates in Renewable Energy to provide students with the theoretical knowledge necessary to begin a career in energy management and renewable energy technology. Certificates are granted through Madison Area Technical College (MATC). SEI’s online courses qualify for college credits through MATC and towards a Renewable Energy Certificate. Click here for more information on CERET’s Renewable Energy Certificates.” Students residing outside the United States must pay an extra fee for shipping of course materials. Contact SEI for details. Topics Include * Building Orientation * Solar Site Analysis * Lessons Learned * Building Science * Moisture & Air Leakage * Super-Insulation Strategies * New Window Technologies * Passive Solar Designs * Energy Efficient Technologies * Indoor Air Quality * Sustainable Back-up Heating Systems * Healthy/Green Building Materials * Domestic Solar Hot Water * Renewable Energy Options * Practical Building Techniques Read full article: Building for the Future: Sustainable Home Design

Awful’ Month for Carmakers

By Sholnn Freeman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 3, 2008; Page D01

Carmakers continued to load on the discounts in November, but American consumers continued to slam on the brakes.

The industry tried everything. Companies offered zero-percent financing, “red tag” sales, employee-discount pricing and even buy-one-get-one-free pickup truck deals. Still, U.S. auto sales plunged to their lowest pace in 26 years. Overall, automakers sold 746,789 cars, trucks and minivans in the United States, down 37 percent from a year earlier, according to Autodata.

All major carmakers suffered steep declines, but Detroit was particularly hard hit. General Motors’ sales tumbled 41 percent, to 152,552. Ford sold 118,319 vehicles last month, a 30 percent fall. Chrysler sold 85,260, down 47 percent.

Jesse Toprak, a sales analyst at Edmunds.com, said the incentive programs have reached a point of diminishing returns, where virtually no amount of cash on the hood will move sales. He said Americans harbor deep economic fears.

“The majority of the decline is low consumer confidence,” he said. “Consumers are not showing up regardless of what kind of deals, regardless of how low gas prices go.”

Toprak said middle-class and upper-middle-class Americans — who make up the market for new car buyers — are reeling from steep erosions in home values and losses in 401(k) plans.

“They don’t know if they are going to have a job in the next few months,” he said. “It’s a bit depressing when you put it all together. Consumers don’t want to make a big-ticket purchase, and cars are the biggest purchase after homes.” The sales figures were also hurt by would-be buyers’ inability to get financing, Toprak said.

November’s sales, translated into the closely watched seasonally adjusted annualized sales rate, or SAAR, slipped to 10.18 million, the lowest selling pace since October 1982, according to preliminary figures by Autodata. Sales appeared to slow from October, when the seasonally adjusted selling pace was measured at 10.56 million.

Economists and industry analysts yesterday were looking for signs that the market was close to bottoming out. Bob Schnorbus, the chief economist at J.D. Power and Associates, said he expected stronger November results from automakers. He said the industry was struggling to get out of “unprecedented territory” and that fourth-quarter results may represent the low point for the industry, barring other large-scale financial calamities.

“It’s probably getting pretty close,” Schnorbus said. “That’s kind of cold comfort if it turns out that the recovery is very weak and protracted.”

Read full article: ‘Awful’ Month for Carmakers

Major Causes of Frequent Headache

There are various causes of frequent headache. Some of these causes of frequent headache are quite common whereas some are quite rare. Everybody may have had a headache at some point of time in their lives and the severe pain may have forced them into rushing to get speedy medical attention to alleviate the excruciating pain without evaluating the causes of frequent headache. The causes of headaches and dizziness vary. If the headache persists or repeats, it is better to take a close look at what are the underlying causes of the frequent headache.

Some causes of frequent headaches may be linked with
- meningitis,
- blood pressure,
- strokes ,
- brain tumors, though they may yet be only rare causes of frequent headaches.

The more likely causes of frequent headaches are simple ones such as
- viral infection,
- sinusitis,
- fatigue and headache,
- other forms of tension ,
- musculo-skeletal conditions.

Below are some explanations of common causes of frequent headaches.

Meningitis
Meningitis causes an inflammation of the membrane surrounding the brain and is very serious. If not treated immediately, it may even result in death. If the cause of frequent headache is due to meningitis, the sufferer must be transferred to a hospital for treatment. Please be warned that in its early stages, it may only seem to be nothing more than the ‘flu’.

Read full article: Major Causes of Frequent Headache

From: Major Causes of Frequent Headache