It is funny what Nigerian girls have turned themselves into these days. It is even pathetic that while many have seen social media as an opportunity to make money, these girls, some of them women, take fun in publishing their nude photos... What a shame!!!
Expect more photos.
Uduaghan attributes Nigeria’s woes to anger http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/punchng/NEWS/~3/i4AHCKgYKuM/
These dogs must be sent to jail for attempted murder!
http://www.punchng.com/news/police-parade-dogs-that-attacked-four-year-old-boy-2/
Ebola has exposed America's fear, and Barack Obama's vulnerability
Gary Younge
The virus is a metaphor for all that conservatives loathe, and sees the president’s policies under renewed attack
In a column ostensibly explaining why moderates struggle in the Republican party, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen last year wrote: “People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York – a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children. (Should I mention that Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, used to be a lesbian?) This family represents the cultural changes that have enveloped parts – but not all – of America.”
If the thought of New York’s first family’s interracial marriage makes many Republicans (and apparently Cohen) gag, imagine how many sick bags they are filling over Ebola. The arrival of the virus in America has crystallised a range of Conservative anxieties: immigration, race, terrorism, science, big government, Barack Obama – you name it. For the right, Ebola is not just a disease, it is a metaphor for some of the things they don’t understand and many of the things they loathe.
Conservative eminence grise Phyllis Schlafly believes Obama is allowing it into the country deliberately. “Obama doesn’t want America to believe that we’re exceptional,” she said. “He wants us to be just like everybody else, and if Africa is suffering from Ebola, we ought to join the group and be suffering from it, too.” Rightwing radio host Rush Limbaugh claims liberals won’t impose a travel ban from infected areas because Ebola is “payback” for slavery.
The roots of this fear-mongering are deep, and when Ebola finally landed it fell on fertile soil. First, it came from abroad – a place that many Conservatives are both afraid of and resent. Republicans are the most likely to be against immigration, for bombing Isis, to believe that America’s global power is declining, and to fear globalisation. They’ve wanted to build a huge wall on the Mexican border for years. Ebola breaking out on the other side of the globe has simply added to their siege mentality. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Republican senate candidate for North Carolina Thom Tillis said in a debate recently. “We have an Ebola outbreak, we have bad actors who can come across the border. We need to seal the border and secure it.” South Carolina congressman Joe Wilson last week warned that Hamas might deliberately bring Ebola sufferers into the US through Mexico illegally. You couldn’t make it up; you wouldn’t know where to start. There have been three confirmed cases of Ebola in the US and none in Mexico – if anyone should be sealing the border to protect themselves from the virus it should be the Mexicans keeping Americans out.
Second, it’s coming from Africa – a continent about which Conservatives apparently know little: while being briefed on foreign affairs during the 2008 campaign, vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin asked her tutors whether “South Africa was part of the country” [of Africa]? Four years later, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney’s main rival, argued that thanks to Aids and the threat of radical Islam “[Africa] was a country on the brink”. Limbaugh thinks Sierra Leone was founded by “British African American slaves” – whoever they are. One of the reasons the government can’t ban direct flights from the infected west African countries – Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea – is because there are no direct flights from those countries to America.
Third, Ebola makes the case for government: an institution Conservatives have no love for. It is an issue of public health to which no individual or privatised response can make any substantial, meaningful contribution. To fight an epidemic like Ebola you need a well-resourced public sector, well-trained government employees, central planning and coordination and a respect for science.
Sadly, we have not seen a lot of this either from the Centers for Disease Control or the Obama administration, whose response to the outbreak has been patchy and confused. The CDC has conceded as much (very basic mistakes by the hospital in Dallas didn’t help). Obama is said to be seething at his team’s efforts. Coming so soon after an intruder made it into the White House, and just a year after the botched healthcare rollout, his administration is getting a reputation for incompetence that only confirms the right’s conspiracy theories. Fighting Ebola doesn’t just need government; it needs competent governance.
Fourth, it makes the case for public healthcare. In 2012, 43% of Americans reported not getting the medical care they needed because of costs. The figure for the uninsured is far higher. Fearing high bills and long waits at emergency rooms, the uninsured generally wait to see if an ailment is really serious before seeking assistance. Imagine how likely they would be to seek immediate help for a temperature and, if they did turn out to have Ebola, how many people they might infect before they did. About a quarter of Texans, the state where the outbreak is centred, do not have medical insurance. (That includes Thomas Eric Duncan, the only person to die from Ebola in the US.) It would be less but Texas governor, Rick Perry, refused to cooperate with the federal government to expand Medicaid under the provisions of Obamacare.
Finally, Ebola serves as a proxy for the many long-held Conservative prejudices about Obama – that he is an African-born interloper come to destroy America. A 2010 poll showed that just under a third of Republicans believed Obama was a “racist who hates white people”. Michael Savage, another rightwing radio host, calls him “Obola”. “Obama wants equality and he wants fairness, and it’s only fair that America have a nice epidemic or two … to really feel what it’s like to be in the third world. You have to look at it from the point of view of a leftist.”
From the point of view of this leftist, what really terrifies the right about Ebola is that it shows – albeit in a deadly, scary, tragic way – that we are all connected. It shows that no matter how strong the gates around your community, how high the wall on your border, how sophisticated the alarm on your house; no matter how much you avoid state schools, public transport and public libraries; no matter how much you pay the premium to retreat from the public sphere – you cannot escape both your own humanity and the humanity of others, and the fact that our fates are tied. If you want to feel secure in Texas, regardless of your race, income or religion, it’s in your interests that people have healthcare in Monrovia.
One thing blogging and good copywriting share is a conversational style, and that means it’s fine to fracture the occasional rule of proper grammar in order to communicate effectively. Both bloggers and copywriters routinely end sentences with prepositions, dangle a modifier in a purely technical sense, or make liberal use of the ellipsis when an EM dash is the correct choice—all in order to write in the way people actually speak.
But there are other mistakes that can detract from your credibility. While we all hope what we have to say is more important than some silly grammatical error, the truth is some people will not subscribe or link to your blog if you make dumb mistakes when you write, and buying from you will be out of the question.
Here are five mistakes to avoid when blogging and writing web copy.
1. Your vs. You’re
This one drives me insane, and it’s become extremely common among bloggers. All it takes to avoid this error is to take a second and think about what you’re trying to say.
“Your” is a possessive pronoun, as in “your car” or “your blog.” “You’re” is a contraction for “you are,” as in “you’re screwing up your writing by using your when you really mean you are.”
2. It’s vs. Its
This is another common mistake. It’s also easily avoided by thinking through what you’re trying to say.
“It’s” is a contraction of “it is” or “it has.” “Its” is a possessive pronoun, as in “this blog has lost its mojo.” Here’s an easy rule of thumb—repeat your sentence out loud using “it is” instead. If that sounds goofy, “its” is likely the correct choice.
3. There vs. Their
This one seems to trip up everyone occasionally, often as a pure typo. Make sure to watch for it when you proofread.
“There” is used many ways, including as a reference to a place (“let’s go there”) or as a pronoun (“there is no hope”). “Their” is a plural possessive pronoun, as in “their bags” or “their opinions.” Always do the “that’s ours!” test—are you talking about more than one person and something that they possess? If so, “their” will get you there.
4. Affect vs. Effect
To this day I have to pause and mentally sort this one out in order to get it right. As with any of the other common mistakes people make when writing, it’s taking that moment to get it right that makes the difference.
“Affect” is a verb, as in “Your ability to communicate clearly will affect your income immensely.” “Effect” is a noun, as in “The effect of a parent’s low income on a child’s future is well documented.” By thinking in terms of “the effect,” you can usually sort out which is which, because you can’t stick a “the” in front of a verb. While some people do use “effect” as a verb (“a strategy to effect a settlement”), they are usually lawyers, and you should therefore ignore them if you want to write like a human.
5. The Dangling Participle
The dangling participle may be the most egregious of the most common writing mistakes. Not only will this error damage the flow of your writing, it can also make it impossible for someone to understand what you’re trying to say.
Check out these two examples from Tom Sant’s book Persuasive Business Proposals:
After rotting in the cellar for weeks, my brother brought up some oranges.
Uhh… keep your decomposing brother away from me!
Featuring plug-in circuit boards, we can strongly endorse this server’s flexibility and growth potential.
Hmmm… robotic copy written by people embedded with circuit boards. Makes sense.
The problem with both of the above is that the participial phrase that begins the sentence is not intended to modify what follows next in the sentence. However, readers mentally expect it to work that way, so your opening phrase should always modify what immediately follows. If it doesn’t, you’ve left the participle dangling, as well as your readers.
P.S. You may find it amusing to know that I, like David Ogilvy, have never learned the formal rules of grammar. I learned to write by reading obsessively at an early age, but when it came time to learn the “rules,” I tuned out. If you show me an incorrect sentence, I can fix it, but if I need to know the technical reason why it was wrong in the first place, I go ask my wife.
by BRIAN CLARK
GENEVA - People everywhere are living longer, according to the "World Health Statistics 2014" published today by WHO. Based on global averages, a girl who was born in 2012 can expect to live to around 73 years, and a boy to the age of 68. This is six years longer than the average global life expectancy for a child born in 1990.
WHO’s annual statistics report shows that low-income countries have made the greatest progress, with an average increase in life expectancy by 9 years from 1990 to 2012. The top six countries where life expectancy increased the most were Liberia which saw a 20-year increase (from 42 years in 1990 to 62 years in 2012) followed by Ethiopia (from 45 to 64 years), Maldives (58 to 77 years), Cambodia (54 to 72 years), Timor-Leste (50 to 66 years) and Rwanda (48 to 65 years).
“An important reason why global life expectancy has improved so much is that fewer children are dying before their fifth birthday,” says Dr Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General. “But there is still a major rich-poor divide: people in high-income countries continue to have a much better chance of living longer than people in low-income countries.”
Gaps between rich and poor countries
A boy born in 2012 in a high-income country can expect to live to the age of around 76 – 16 years longer than a boy born in a low-income country (age 60). For girls, the difference is even wider; a gap of 19 years separates life expectancy in high-income (82 years) and low-income countries (63 years).
Wherever they live in the world, women live longer than men. The gap between male and female life expectancy is greater in high-income countries where women live around six years longer than men. In low-income countries, the difference is around three years.
Women in Japan have the longest life expectancy in the world at 87 years, followed by Spain, Switzerland and Singapore. Female life expectancy in all the top 10 countries was 84 years or longer. Life expectancy among men is 80 years or more in nine countries, with the longest male life expectancy in Iceland, Switzerland and Australia.
“In high-income countries, much of the gain in life expectancy is due to success in tackling noncommunicable diseases,” says Dr Ties Boerma, Director of the Department of Health Statistics and Information Systems at WHO. “Fewer men and women are dying before they get to their 60th birthday from heart disease and stroke. Richer countries have become better at monitoring and managing high blood pressure for example.”
Declining tobacco use is also a key factor in helping people live longer in several countries.
At the other end of the scale, life expectancy for both men and women is still less than 55 years in nine sub-Saharan African countries – Angola, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lesotho, Mozambique, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
Facts From "World Health Statistics 2014"
The top three causes of years of life lost due to premature death are coronary heart disease, lower respiratory infections (such as pneumonia) and stroke.
Worldwide, a major shift is occurring in the causes and ages of death. In 22 countries (all in Africa), 70% or more of years of life lost (due to premature deaths) are still caused by infectious diseases and related conditions. Meanwhile, in 47 countries (mostly high-income), noncommunicable diseases and injuries cause more than 90% of years of life lost. More than 100 countries are transitioning rapidly towards a greater proportion of deaths from noncommunicable diseases and injuries.
Around 44 million (6.7%) of the world’s children aged less than five years were overweight or obese in 2012. Ten million of these children were in the WHO African Region where levels of child obesity have increased rapidly.
Most deaths among under-fives occur among children born prematurely (17.3%); pneumonia is responsible for the second highest number of deaths (15.2%).
Between 1995 and 2012, 56 million people were successfully treated for tuberculosis and 22 million lives were saved. In 2012, an estimated 450 000 people worldwide developed multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.
Only one-third of all deaths worldwide are recorded in civil registries along with cause-of-death information.
