Mother Almost Dies from Unborn Baby’s Fingernail: Left in Coma Needing 22 Blood Transfusions

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Born five weeks premature, twins Amelie and Ava only just made it into this world after being resuscitated with oxygen. But they’re not the only ones who are lucky to be alive.

Their mother Angela Cottam almost died after a suspected fingernail or hair from one of them passed into her bloodstream during their birth. The rare condition – which affects only one in 80,000 births – caused 32-year-old Mrs Cottam to suffer severe internal bleeding and her lungs collapsed.

The primary school teacher lost seven pints of blood, needed 22 transfusions and spent 12 hours in a coma, when her family was told she might not pull through.

Mrs Cottam, who is married to Peter, 33, said: ‘I feel so lucky to be here and really blessed that both the girls are with us because it could have been so different.

‘There are moments when I’ve been on my own and I’ve had a little cry and thought “What if?” But I try not to dwell on that and just thank my lucky stars the doctors and midwives on duty that day recognised what was happening.

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Policy Wonk With No Military Experience on Shortlist to be 1st Female Defense Secretary

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It’s a long way from playing volleyball at Beverly Hills High School to being the most powerful woman in Washington, but Michele Flournoy could cap such a remarkable journey if President Obama selects her as Defense secretary.

Flournoy, little known outside the world of military policy, is on the shortlist to lead the Pentagon in Obama’s second term. She would be the first woman in that role.

An inveterate policy wonk who first worked in the Pentagon under President Clinton and later co-founded a respected think tank, Flournoy, 52, has spent two decades climbing to the top of Washington’s notoriously male-dominated national security establishment, winning the admiration of military officers and politicians from both parties even as she remained out of the spotlight.

Although a child of Hollywood — her father was a TV cinematographer, her mother a onetime theater actress — she long ago abandoned Los Angeles for the distinctly unglamorous world of defense policy. She never served in uniform but has been at the center of her generation’s most important debates over the future of the U.S. military, from arms control in the Reagan years to the counterinsurgency strategies employed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When Obama took office in 2009, Flournoy returned to the Pentagon in the department’s No. 3 position — undersecretary of Defense for policy — but resigned last February, saying she wanted to spend more time with her three children.

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Woman Hiding With Kids Shoots Home Intruder Multiple Times

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A woman hiding in her attic with children shot an intruder multiple times before fleeing to safety Friday.

The incident happened at a home on Henderson Ridge Lane in Loganville around 1 p.m. The woman was working in an upstairs office when she spotted a strange man outside a window, according to Walton County Sheriff Joe Chapman. He said she took her 9-year-old twins to a crawlspace before the man broke in using a crowbar.

But the man eventually found the family.

Defendant Paul Slater

“The perpetrator opens that door. Of course, at that time he’s staring at her, her two children and a .38 revolver,” Chapman told Channel 2’s Kerry Kavanaugh. The woman then shot him five times, but he survived, Chapman said. He said the woman ran out of bullets but threatened to shoot the intruder if he moved.

“She’s standing over him, and she realizes she’s fired all six rounds. And the guy’s telling her to quit shooting,” Chapman said.

Victim’s Husband Donnie Herman

The woman ran to a neighbor’s home with her children. The intruder attempted to flee in his car but crashed into a wooded area and collapsed in a nearby driveway, Chapman said.

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Photo of Baby Reaching Out From Womb During C-Section Goes Viral

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A new photo of a baby reaching out of the womb and holding a doctor’s finger during a Caesarian section delivery has gone viral and is being passed around Facebook by tens of thousands of people.

A Phoenix-area couple took the picture during the delivery of Nevaeh — Heaven spelled backward — and a local news report says even the physician and hospital nursing staff were surprised by what unfolded.

“It was such an amazing photo. [Hospital staff] had possibly heard of it happening but they had never seen a photo of it,” said Alicia Atkins, Nevaeh’s mother.

Few lives will be as well documented as little Nevaeh’s. Her mother is a professional photographer who owns A Classic Pin-Up in Glendale. However, it was her dad, Randy, who snapped the picture.

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New Year Diets Destined to Fail: Women Describing Themselves as ‘Fat’, ‘Heavy’ or ‘Chubby’ are Doomed Before They Begin

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The latest research has revealed that women are literally talking themselves fat with eight in ten women saying they believed a positive attitude was the key to losing weight but over half using self critical words when starting a diet.

The research revealed over two thirds of women use the word ‘fat’ to describe an area of their body although six in ten say it makes them feel more negative about themselves than more positive words such as ‘curvy’.

It seems many women also start off with a mindset destined for failure with only a third of women actually starting a diet believing they will lose weight and three quarters having daily negative thoughts about their body. However, over two thirds of women said when they have successfully lost weight in the past they recalled having a positive attitude and ‘talked themselves up’.

Self help author and life coach Janet Thomson, who specialises in weight loss, said: ‘When women are looking to lose weight they want to change something about themselves and of course are more likely to use words such as “fat” for this reason. ‘However what they don’t realise is this sort of negativity can become a self-fulfilling prophecy so it is important to channel positive feelings about themselves and their goals when trying to lose weight as it gives them a much better chance of success.’

According to the research, four in ten said they also talked more negatively about their body when they were with friends with a quarter admitting these open ‘flaw exposing’ coffee shop conversations bring them down. However four in ten women said they felt more motivated if a friend had lost weight or had a more positive attitude to their body.

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Biblical Baby Names Fall Out of Favor in US, Uptick in Names from Pop Culture such as Erotic Shades of Grey

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Biblical names are out and pop culture is in for America’s newborns – if this year’s list of most popular baby names are anything to go by. The once hearty trend of parents naming their babies after Biblical scripture has shown a steady decline in recent years according to an annual baby name report by BabyCenter.com.

What can be gathered in supplement shows a perhaps surprising uptick in inspiration from pop culture such as erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey, TV show Downton Abbey and even Apple electronics.

TOP 10 BOYS NAMES:

Aiden
Jackson
Ethan
Liam
Mason
Noah
Lucas
Jacob
Jayden
Jack

TOP 10 GIRLS NAMES:

Sophia
Emma
Olivia
Isabella
Ava
Lily
Zoe
Chloe
Mia
Madison

That’s a stark contrast from 12 years ago when Biblical names dominated the top 10 list, in 2000 it being: Michael, Jacob, Matthew, Joseph, Joshua, and Andrew.
For girls in 2000 it was Hannah, Sarah and Elizabeth.

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Why the Founding Fathers Matter

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It has become typical in school text books, in public discussions, and in the smug wisdom of Progressives, to diminish the words and actions of those who led the founding of the United States. However, now that the nation has gone through what Al Gore called a “wrenching transformation” away from limited government, free enterprise, and individual liberty (all major ingredients to making the US the freest and most prosperous nation in history) it’s time to listen again to their wisdom.

Thomas Jefferson warned us to …

Avoid Sustainable Development: “When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.”

Avoid the Welfare State: “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.” “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

Avoid Massive Government Debt: “It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.”

Avoid Government Over-regulation: “My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.”

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Matt Damon: ‘The Game is Rigged’

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Matt Damon rather infamously said in 2011 that he wouldn’t mind if President Barack Obama — whom the actor had supported in 2008 — was a one-term president because he’d rather have a “one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done.” (The comment even earned Damon some flak from the president himself.) But, he still did his part to give Obama a second term, admitting that he still voted for him in November.

“I assume there will be some Supreme Court appointments in this next term; that alone was reason to vote for him,” Damon told Playboy magazine in its January 2013 issue. “I don’t think I said anything a lot of people weren’t thinking. It’s easier now more than ever in my life to feel the fix is in, the game is rigged and no matter how hard you work to change things, it just doesn’t matter.”

Damon also was asked for his thoughts on Clint Eastwood’s performance at the Republican National Convention (the two worked together on 2010’s “Hereafter”).

“I heard the backlash, but I never saw the whole thing because I just didn’t want to see my friend … you know. Look, his knowledge of filmmaking is so vast and deep that he can wing it beautifully on the set. What he did at the RNC was an unrehearsed bit he decided to do at the last minute. You can’t go onstage and do 12 minutes of stand-up completely unrehearsed. But I agree with what Bill Maher said — Clint killed it at the convention for 12 minutes, and the audience loved him. I wouldn’t do that unless I spent a month rehearsing.”

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The Disappearing American Father: 1/3 of US Children Now Born Without a Father at Home

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Fathers are fast disappearing from American homes and one in three children, or approximately 15 million live without one according to the U.S. Census. The problem is especially pronounced in black families, where the figure increases to over half or around five million children.

In fact as the census recorded the fact that 160,000 new families with children were added, the number of two-parent households decreased by 1.2 million and nearly five million live without a mother. These astonishing figures can be unfavorably compared with 1960, when just 11 percent of all American children lived in homes without fathers.

Blame for the prevalence of low income families where children fall into crime and drugs has been laid at the door of these damning numbers.

‘People look at a child in need, in poverty or failing in school, and ask, ‘What can we do to help?’ said Vincent DiCaro, vice president of the National Fatherhood Initiative.

‘But what we do is ask, ‘Why does that child need help in the first place?’ And the answer is often it’s because the child lacks a responsible and involved father’…

Men walking away from babies is a problem concentrated to the inner cities, with Baltimore having only 38 percent of families that have two parents and St. Louis has 40 percent of families that have two children. The primary indicator for the problem is income – 12 percent of black families who live below the poverty line boast two parents, while among poor Latino families that figure is 41 percent and 32 percent among white families.

In all but 11 states, most black children do not live with both their parents while across every state, seven out of ten white children do.

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Plea For Help From Chinese Labor Camp Worker Paid $1.61 per MONTH Found Stuffed in Oregon Woman’s Halloween Decorations from Kmart

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photo credit: kent wang

Oregon mother Julie Keith expected to find Styrofoam headstones in the graveyard kit she bought at Kmart for Halloween. What she didn’t expect was a desperate plea for help from one of the Chinese laborers forced to make the holiday decorations in brutal conditions.

The 42-year-old charity worker from Portland discovered the chilling letter hidden between the two novelty headstones when she opened the kit in October.

‘Sir: If you occasionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization,’ the unsigned note, that was folded into eighths, read.’Thousands people here who are under the persicution [sic] of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever.’

The letter’s author said the Halloween product was made in Masanjia Labor Camp in Shenyang, China, where laborers are forced to work for 15 hours a day without time off on the weekends and holidays.

‘Otherwise, they will suffer torturement, beat and rude remark. [sic] Nearly no payment,’ they wrote in choppy English accompanied by Chinese characters. The plea said workers at the labor camp make only 10 yuan per month – the equivalent to $1.61.

The China director at Human Rights Watch, Sophie Richardson, told The Oregonian that the origin or authenticity of the letter couldn’t be confirmed. ‘We’re in no position to confirm the veracity or origin of this,’ she said. ‘I think it is fair to say the conditions described in the letter certainly conform to what we know about conditions in re-education through labor camps.’

China’s re-education through labor is a system of punishment that allows for detention without trial. Masanjia labor camp is located in the industrialized capital of the Liaoning Province in northeast China.

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