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san diego mesothelioma lawyer

2009-08-24T22:43:00.000-07:00

rederick Schenk, a senior partner of the firm, has been practicing law for over 28 years. In 1996, he was selected by San Diego Magazine as the best asbestos attorney in San Diego and obtained the largest verdict ever against an asbestos manufacturer in the County of San Diego. In 2005, the San Diego Daily Transcript ranked him as one of the Top 10 lawyers in San Diego, and was again recognized as a top lawyer in 2007. Since 2005, he has been honored by being listed in Woodward and White’s “Best Lawyers In America”. In addition to his successful mesothelioma litigation practice, Mr. Schenk has tried and litigated numerous product liability, automobile collision, premises liability, F.E.L.A., maritime, and other serious personal injury cases. He also participated with other partners of Casey Gerry in representing Governor Gray Davis achieving the nation’s largest settlement against the tobacco industry; a settlement on behalf of Californians of over $25 billion. He is a past recipient of the Outstanding Trial Lawyer Award presented by the Consumer Attorneys of San Diego, for having received the largest ever asbestos personal injury verdict in San Diego County.

His unique knowledge in the area of automobile collision litigation was also recognized when he was selected as a consulting editor for Matthew Bender’s Legal Publication, "Pleading and Practice Vol. 8", on Automobiles. In addition, he is co-author of LexisNexis Publishing’s, "California Automobile Collision Handbook," first published in 2000 and updated yearly.

In 1994, Mr. Schenk was elected by his peers to serve as president of the Consumer Attorneys of San Diego. In 2006, he served as the president of the Civil Justice Foundation, a Washington D.C. based non-profit organization which raises money and grants funds to consumer groups that assist people throughout the United States. He was vice president of the 22nd District Agricultural Association (Del Mar Fairgrounds) in 2006, having served on the fair board between 2002-2006.

Between 2000-2002, Mr. Schenk served as president of the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center of San Diego. Raised in Los Angeles by immigrant parents, Mr. Schenk speaks fluent Hungarian. In his spare time, he likes to travel with his wife Shari and their three children. He is a devoted Padres baseball fan and enjoys playing racquetball

wisconsin mesothelioma attorney

2009-08-20T02:40:00.000-07:00

Wisconsin mesothelioma lung cancer cases involves asbestos litigation it claim. Mesothelioma result from chronic inhalation and exposure to asbestos. Mesothelioma this is a long cancer of the thin membran lining in the abdomen and internal organs cancer it is the mesothelium. Cells in the mesothelium became abnormals this is the divide without control or order.

Asbestos it is known humans carcinogen ar cancer-causing agents. It Wisconsin, asbestos have been use it buildings material, papers product and plastics. Asbestos it also found the Wisconsin the asbestos-cements, friction products, textile, packing and gaskets and asbestos-reinforced plastics.

Mesothelioma has caused in the death of the many Wisconsin residents. Nationwide, more than 250,000 individuals are known died from mesothelioma. Wisconsin asbestos sites including breweries, mills, power plants, utilities operation, nuclear energy plant, utilities construction facilities, WE a/k/a WEPCO a/k/a Wisconsin Energies plant, hospital, universities and college, and many others location. Wisconsin Mesothelioma is typically caused the indoor facilitie there asbestos was released into the air.

Mesothelioma symptoms may not appear until 30 to 50 years after exposure the asbestos. Shortness the breath and pain this is chest due to an accumulation of fluid it is the pleura are often symptoms of the pleural mesothelioma. Treatments for mesothelioma depend in that location in the cancer, the stage of the disease and patient's age and general health. Standards options including surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy.

The California Department of Alcohol and Drug

2009-08-09T22:18:00.001-07:00

(ADP) is a California agency concern is substance abuse prevention & treatment. It has create by the California Legislature at the 1978. ADP brought together in the Governor’s Office of the Alcoholism and the California Departments of Health’s Division in Substance Abuse to form in the single state authority for substance abuse prevention in the treatments. This is the capacity, ADP provides leaderships and policy coordination of the planning, developments, implementation, and evaluation in the comprehensive statewide systems of the alcohol and other drugs (AOD) prevention, treatment and the recovery services.

ADP has approximately 326 permanent staffs and the oversight responsibilities for an average annual budgets of huge than $600 million.In the Department manages and administer both state and federal monies, includings the federal Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatments (SAPT) Block Grant, a major source of funding. ADP also manage the Drugs MediCal benefits programing, it has expand to more than $115 million year.

the November 2000, passage of the Proposition 36, the Substance Abuse and the Crimes Prevention Act (SACPA), placed increased responsibilities on ADP by significantly chang way the agency it is the entireis AOD field provideis services for addicts.

As a results of Proposition 36, which is requir first- or second-time nonviolent adult drugs offender to receiving treatments rathers than incarceration, ADP establis in the Office of the Criminal Justice Collaboration. More than 150,000 individuals have been referred to treatments unders SACPA, which was the initially funded in the annual appropriation of $120 million, since the program’s inception. SACPA has undergone four annual program evaluations and one cost-benefit analysis, conducted by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). This study, the largest and most compelling examination of addiction ever performed in California, tracked the progress of more than 60,000 addicts, using a 30-month period both before and after the implementation of Proposition 36.

UCLA researchers found that participation in SACPA resulted in substantially reduced incarceration costs for many offenders, particularly those who completed treatment. These individuals are less likely to re-offend and more likely to remain drug-free and employed. Since treatment completion rates varied significantly from county to county, the report recommended that incentives be considered for counties that demonstrate success in treatment, retention and completion. Performance-based funding will encourage counties to adopt best practices and program improvements. Most importantly, the UCLA study revealed that while SACPA can be improved, the results justified continued funding for the program.

In addition to the responsibilities outlined above, ADP administers statewide problems gambled prevention serves and the programing through its Office of Probles Gambling, which was the established in 2003 as a results of the Assembly Bill 673. The agenies has placed an emphasis on the prevention while conducting baseline studies to further define the problems and improving services. ADP also overs the Driving Under-the-Influence Program (DUI), including licensing, regulatory and fee issues, and public information, in the nation’s most populous state. In its leadership role, the Departments has been charging with the task of facilitating collaboration wiche California’s 58 counties, others state-level departments, local public and privates agencies, provider, advocacy group, and individuals to establish standards this is a statewide AOD services delivery system thay supports all Californians.

"The Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs is responsible for administering prevention, treatments, and recovery services for alcohol and drugs abuse and the problems gambling.

New Heart Surgery with out Open Chest

2009-08-01T22:37:00.000-07:00

Thoracic surgeon Daniel Bethencourt, MD, one of this few cardiac surgeons it cure atrial fibrillation (rapid, irregular heartbeat) within opening it patient's chest, will perform endoscopic microwave ablation the atrial fibrillation in a 59-year-old man at Long Beach Memorial on Wednesday, June 30.

Patient Joel Ellis, Laguna Beach, experiences irregular heartbeats 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week. that is among the 2 million Americans suffering from the most common cardiac arrhythmia known that atrial fibrillation. Until recently, the only treatment for atrial fibrillation have been restore of the heart's normal rhythm by medicine or electrical treatments, which can control but not cure, or open heart surgery. Having undergone cardioversion by electrical shocks twice with no success, Ellis was referred to Dr. Bethencourt by his cardiologist, Rex Winters, MD. Ellis has high hopes that the microwave ablation procedure will be a permanent cure. "Microwave ablation is a much faster and safer method of surgery for treating atrial fibrillation," says Dr. Bethencourt. "For many patients, a closed chest beating heart procedure can be done through small ports which entail making 6 small incisions in the patient's chest."

Assisted by a tiny camera, a flexible microwave ablation catheter is placed on the beating heart to perform the ablation. According to Dr. Bethencourt, the procedure takes approximately two to three hours, and the patient may be discharged within 48 hours, and can typically resume an active lifestyle within a few days. He says the procedure is ideal for patients with recent onset, or intermittent atrial fibrillation, but it can be applied to patients with chronic atrial fibrillation as well.

Long Beach Memorial Medical Center has been one of the first hospitals the California to embrace microwave energy as a cure for atrial fibrillation. It is also one of the <> hospitals in this world to perform microwave ablation the cure atrial fibrillation. The success rates match those achieved with the more complex "cut-and-sew" maze procedure, and microwave ablation in the only technique thay can be use both inside that heart during valve surgery or by itself.

Breast Cancer Myths

2009-07-27T21:40:00.000-07:00

What's fact and fiction when it comes to taking care of "your girls."
From Breastcancer.org and the book Taking Care of Your "Girls"
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* Understanding Breast Cancer
* Lower Your Risk

Myth 1: If breast cancer runs in your family, it automatically means that you’re going to get it, too.

Fact: Getting breast cancer is not a certainty, even if you have one of the significant risk factors, like a strong family history or a known breast cancer gene abnormality. For example, of women with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 inherited genetic abnormality, 40 to 80 percent will develop breast cancer over their lifetime; 20 to 60 percent won't. All other breast cancer risk factors are associated with a much, much lower probability of being diagnosed with breast cancer.

Myth 2: Only your mother's family history of breast cancer can affect your risk.

Fact: A history of breast cancer in your mother's OR your father's family equally influence your risk. That's because half of your genes come from your mother, half from your father. But a man with a breast-cancer gene abnormality is less likely to develop breast cancer than a woman with a similar gene. So, if you want to learn more about your father's family history, you have to look mainly at the women on your father's side, not just the men.

Myth 3: Breast cancer skips generations.

Fact: Genes that could increase the risk for breast cancer can go from one generation to the next, without skipping a generation. If your mother or father has a breast-cancer gene abnormality, you have a 50 percent risk of getting the gene and a 50 percent chance of not getting it. If you don’t get the gene, then you can’t pass it to your children.

Myth 4: Since I have no family history of breast cancer, I can’t get it.

Fact: Breast cancer is extremely rare in girls. Every adult woman has some risk of breast cancer. About 80 percent of women who get breast cancer have no known family history of the disease. Besides being a woman, growing older—just the wear and tear of living—is the biggest single risk factor for breast cancer. For those women who do have a family history of breast cancer, your risk may be elevated a little, a lot, or not at all. If you are concerned, discuss your family history with your physician or a genetic counselor. You may be worrying needlessly.

Myth 5: There is nothing you can do to reduce the risk of getting breast cancer. If it is going to happen, it will happen.

Fact: There are many things you can do to reduce the risk of getting breast cancer: keep to a healthy weight, exercise 3 to 4 hours a week, don't smoke, limit alcohol use to 5 or fewer drinks per week, eat 5 to 9 fruits and vegetables a day; limit your consumption of red meat, fried foods, and blackened grilled foods; and buy organic and hormone-free foods whenever possible.

Myth 6: Mammograms help prevent breast cancer.

Fact: Mammograms can save lives but they do not prevent breast cancer. They help detect breast cancer in its earliest stages when it’s most treatable, thereby improving your chance of surviving breast cancer by 30 percent or more.

Myth 7: Big breasts have a higher risk of breast cancer.

Fact: Breast size has no significant impact on the risk of developing breast cancer.

Myth 8: You can catch breast cancer from your mom when she was pregnant with you or through her breast milk.

Fact: Absolutely not. Breast cancer is not transmitted during pregnancy or breast milk.

Myth 9: Cell phones, antiperspirants, and tanning cause breast cancer.

Fact: There is no evidence that these factors increase the risk of breast cancer. Tanning in the sun or in salons does increase the risk of skin cancer. It’s important to use sunscreen, limit time in the sun, and avoid tanning salons to reduce your risk of skin cancer.

Myth 10: A breast cancer diagnosis is an automatic death sentence.

Fact: Most women survive breast cancer and can live long lives. Even women who are living with breast cancer can live a long time. Plus new promising treatment breakthroughs are becoming available each day, so there are many reasons to be hopeful about the future.

Cancer

2009-07-24T22:46:00.001-07:00

Itis a class of diseases in it a group is cells display outcontrolled growth (division beyond the normal limits), invasion (intrusion and destruction the adjacent tissues), and small times metastasis (spread in other locations body via lymph or bleed). there three malignant properti it cancers different them from benign tumors, which are self-limited, and dose not invade the metastasize. Most cancers form tumor but some, like leukemia, did not. The branch of medicine concerned it is the study, diagnosis, treatments, and prevention of cancer is oncology.

Cancer may affect peoples in all ages, even them fetuses, in the risk for most varieties increases its age.[1] Cancer cause about 13% of all a man deaths.[2] According in the America Cancer Society, 7.6 million people ded from cancer in the world during 2007.[3] Cancer affect all animals .

Nearly all cancers are cause by abnormalities its is the genetic material of the transfor cells.[4] Those abnormalities may be due to the effects of carcinogens, its is the tobacco smoke, radiation, chemicals, or infectious again. Other cancer-promoting genetic abnormalities may be randomly acquired through problem in DNA replication, or inherited, and thus present ithe all cells for birth. The heritability of cancers are uses affected by complex interactions between carcinogens it is the host's genome. New aspects of the genetics of cancer pathogenesis, such as DNA methylation, and micrornas are increasingly recognized as important.

Genetic abnormalities founds the cancer typically affects two general classes of genes. Cancer-promoting oncogenes are typically activated in cancer cells, give that cells new properti, such as hyperactive growth and division, protection again programmed cell death, loss of respect for normal tissue boundari, and the ability to become established in diverse tissue environments. Tumor suppressor genes are then inactivated in cancer cells, resulting in the loss of normal functions in those cells, such as accurate DNA replication, controls it is the cell cycle, orientation and adhesion within tissues, and interaction with protective cells is the immune system.

Diagnosis usues requir the histologic examination in the tissue biopsy specimen by a pathologist, although the initial indication of malignancy can be symptoms or radiographic imaging abnormalities. Most cancer can it treat and some cured, depending in the specific type, location, and stage. Once diagnosed, cancer is usues treated with a combination of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. As research develops, treatments are becoming more specific for different varieties the cancer. It has been significant progress is the development of targeted therapy drugs thay act specifically on detectable molecular abnormalities in certain tumors, and which minimize damage to normal cells. The prognosis of cancer patients is most influenced by the type of cancer, it is the stage, or extent on the disease. In addition, histologic grading it is the presence of specific molecular markers it also be useful in establishing prognosis, as well as in determining individual treatments.

Frarri

2009-07-24T21:20:00.000-07:00

This is new model in this year and huge speed in more car model , The 490 Ferrari cars parade at Fuji Speedway, aiming a new Guinness world record the largest parade the Ferrari Car, in Oyama, Shizuoka, southwest of Tokyo, Japan,

Frarri

2009-07-23T23:55:00.000-07:00

High speed car in the world a huge moste power full ingien "I designed this car originally as a Dino concept. But the name didn’t compliment the design. So I went for something more Ferrari. Ferrari F250

Frarri

2009-07-23T23:27:00.000-07:00

Idries Omar wanted the create simple, faster, aerodynamic and beautiful car, thay combines styal queues for Ferrari old and news. And he did With it Ferrari F250 ,250 comes from the legendary 250 GTO.

Top speeds car

2009-07-23T21:51:00.000-07:00

its worst year since it turn of millennium being 2005, it which the teams finished third it the championship, Ferraris again hop to clinch top three spot this seson after suffering for its worst start since it early 1980s. Despite closing Toyota, however, it Italian outfite soon plan to switch the efforts to next year's car.

Breast Cancer Myths

2009-05-13T09:33:00.000-07:00

Poor diet

2009-05-07T09:53:00.000-07:00

What you eat probably affects your health more than anything else you do. When you eat a poor diet-fatty, processed, or fried foods and simple sugars-you invite rapid aging by burdening your body with chemical additives and trans-fats and depriving your body of essential nutrients. On the other hand, when you eat the life-giving foods, you prevent disease and improve organ functioning. In general, your diet should consist of a wide array of colors and balance of organic sources of lean protein, complex carbohydrates, whole grains, legumes, nuts, fruits, and vegetables.

Numerous studies show that the different pigments in the skins of fruits and vegetables are powerful antioxidants that are crucial for maintaining health, preventing cancer, and protecting against environmental toxins.

Avoid fatty foods, processed or fried foods. Keep dairy to a minimum because most dairy products are high in saturated fat. Take candy, sugar, soda, and all simple sugars out of your diet. Excess sugar gets stored as fat in your body, which spells in weight gain-a sure path to cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and diabetes. The News

dream diet

2009-05-07T09:49:00.000-07:00

Like everything else in life nowadays, diets too have a shelf life; the new celebrity-endorsed diets become trendy while others become outdated. The passé diets of yesteryears had wholegrain crackers or fruits and now most diets are the high protein ones.

The latest diet trends include the delectable Cookie Diet, Weight Watchers Diet, Rachel Ray’s Slim Abs Diet and the much talked about Zone Diet which celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Ray have endorsed. Every dietician or weight loss guru has the ‘perfect’ patented formula to lose weight. Here is a look into some of the latest diets that people are raving about.

The Zone Diet, developed by Dr Barry Sears, stresses the intake of fruits, vegetables and meat. The diet does not deny people carbohydrates, but simply limits their intake of it. The Zone works according to a formula of 40/30/30, meaning 40 per cent carbohydrates, 30 per cent fat, and 30 per cent protein.

The physiological basis behind the Zone diet is an effort to limit the amount of insulin in the body. This is because a large amount of insulin can lead to a build up of fat, causing obesity and other medical problems. People on the diet are encouraged to obtain their carbohydrates from fruits and vegetables, and their fat from olive oil and other monounsaturated fats.

The biggest advantage of the Zone Diet is that it can lead to significant weight loss. It is also healthier than some diets, since it eliminates non-nutritious carbohydrates and emphasises fruits and vegetables. The diet encourages people to eat often — at least every five hours. It is also a low-calorie diet — the typical female dieter will consume only about 1300 calories, at the most, when following the Zone. Some dieticians heartily endorse the Zone, while others dismiss it as being too complex to follow, forcing dieters to spend too much time trying to do various calculations.

People tend to gravitate to the Zone because it offers them the opportunity to indulge in foods that would be restricted on other diets. Also, the diet can be more filling than other weight loss plans. The problem, however, is that a number of the claims made about the Zone are unproven. Thus the diet has been dismissed as a fad in some quarters.

In Pakistan few people adhere to the Zone principle; in main, the difficulty arises from our eating patterns which include hot oily curry and rich spices, making it difficult to switch to a low-carb, low-fat diet. And when we make a switchover to Western foods, we tend to indulge in all the fattening items such as pasta, macaroni, cheese, pancakes and crepes.

The only Weight Watchers fad which has made its way into our country are the slim-fast shakes that pack 220 calories and offer the perfect meal replacement solution. Weight Watchers Club with their yummy low calorie products, which include desserts, still have to make their way into our country.

Weight Watchers’ diet is based on the principle of eating right and not denying yourself. You are not given extremely stringent rules but are taught about calorie control, a positive outlook and the sustenance of your willpower. It is not about fast weight loss but rather about permanent weight loss. It advocates a group system or buddy system where you can actually partner up with a person to regulate your and the other person’s weight loss. This keeps your morale up and the weekly Weight Watchers meetings also boost up your positive outlook towards the whole thing.

The Cookie Diet, developed by Dr Sanford Siegal, restricts you to six hunger-suppressing diet cookies during the day; you are allowed only a single meal at dinner time. The cookies are to be eaten whenever the dieter is hungry and, together with dinner, the total calorie intake in a day adds up to 800 calories.

Critics of the Cookie Diet dismiss it for not being a nutritious eating plan as the total calorie consumption is less than what is recommended for a safe weight loss programme. Moreover, they add, the diet is lacking in fruits and vegetables, as well as vitamins and minerals.

Many of these faddish diets are endorsed by celebrities, such as Anna Nicole, Kirstie Alley, etc but they all, sooner or later, give up. The promises fuelled by weight loss solutions that offer easy and fast weight loss or even weight gain for bodybuilders depict the inactive lifestyle that is becoming the norm in an increasingly global society.

Sedentary lifestyle, depression and binges all contribute to make people obese. And in our country where there are few places for people to jog or walk in the cities and with the gyms and health clubs being so expensive, it won’t be a surprise if obesity balloons up to the same level as it has in the US. The best bet would be to eat smart, get lots of exercise and not just at the gym. Get up and walk to the neighbourhood shop instead of taking the car, climb the stairs, do some housework — just move around. Even shopping at Aanarkali burns a lot of calories. You will soon shed pounds without having to follow any unhealthy fads.

What you drink ma

2009-05-07T09:29:00.000-07:00

What you drink may contribute more to weight gain than what you merely eat, according to a study.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, examined the link between beverage consumption among adults and weight change.

They conducted a prospective study of 810 adults, aged between 25-79 years old participating in the PREMIER trial, an 18-month randomised and controlled study.

They found that weight loss was positively associated with a reduction in liquid calorie consumption. Conversely, this kind of intake had a stronger impact on weight than solid calorie intake.

“Both liquid and solid calories were associated with weight change, however, only a reduction in liquid calorie intake was shown to significantly affect weight loss during the six-month follow up,” said Benjamin Caballero senior study author and a professor at Bloomberg School.

“A reduction in liquid calorie intake was associated with a weight loss of 0.25 kg at six months and 0.24 kg at 18 months.

Among sugar-sweetened beverages, a reduction of one serving was associated with a weight loss of 0.5 kg at six months and 0.7 kg at 18 months,” he said, according to a Johns Hopkins release.

Of the seven types of beverages examined, sugar-sweetened beverages were the only beverages significantly associated with weight change,” he added.

These findings were published in the Wednesday issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Getting rid of fearful memories a matter of timing: Getting rid of memories that trigger fear boils down to the right timing, according to a new study.

Marie Monfils, assistant psychology professor at Texas University, Austin, has identifed key time when memories are ripe for change, especially converting fearful memories into pleasant ones.

Monfils conducted the study with colleagues at New York University where she was a post-doctoral researcher.

The experiment began by inducing fear in rats by sounding a tone and then shocking them under the feet.

Eventually, the rat would exhibit fear from just hearing the tone.

The standard treatment for getting rid of the fear response is to sound the tone repeatedly, without a shock. Eventually, the rat does not exhibit fear at the sound. The method is called extinction, said a Texas release.

She said the findings might find their way into treating humans with anxiety disorders. “But we have a lot more work to do before we actually get there,” she said.

Current treatments are short lived in effects and some of them include drugs, many of which would be hard to administer locally in humans and have harmful side-effects.

Obama expresses regret for Afghan civilian deaths

2009-05-06T22:54:00.000-07:00

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Afghan civilian deaths cause friction with U.S. Play Video AP – Afghan civilian deaths cause friction with U.S.

* Obama tests Afghan, Pakistan strategy Play Video Video:Obama tests Afghan, Pakistan strategy AP
* Jake Tapper on the Taliban Play Video Video:Jake Tapper on the Taliban ABC News
* Pakistan Video:'We must co-ordinate our efforts' Obama tells Afghan, Pakistan leaders CBC.ca

Afghan President Karzai and U.S. Vice President Biden look on as U.S. President Obama makes statement to reporters at White House in Washington Reuters – Afghan President Hamid Karzai (C) and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden (L) look on as U.S. President Barack …
By ROBERT BURNS, AP National Security Writer Robert Burns, Ap National Security Writer – 43 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Flanked by the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan, President Barack Obama expressed deep U.S. regret Wednesday for civilian casualties in a deadly incident this week in western Afghanistan, promising "every effort" to avoid recurrences in the war against a rising Taliban insurgency.

Obama had a more upbeat and determined tone as he lauded "unprecedented cooperation" between the two neighbors in fighting Taliban and other extremist threats. But he cautioned that success will not come quickly.

"Along the border, where insurgents often move freely, we must work together with a renewed sense of partnership to share intelligence and to coordinate our efforts to isolate, target, and take out our common enemy," Obama said after a day of meetings with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.

Obama met separately with Karzai and Zardari, followed by a three-way session that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton portrayed as an embodiment of a central tenet of the administration's new Afghan war strategy — that Pakistan and Afghanistan are linked problems.

The latest report of Afghan civilian casualties came at an especially awkward time for the administration, which is stepping up its military campaign inside Afghanistan while also seeking to emphasize the importance of nonmilitary efforts to stabilize the country. The U.S. has pledged, for example, a major increase in civilian expertise in farming and other specialties, along with an increase of 21,000 U.S. troops.

Obama's strategy, unveiled in late March, already is threatened by setbacks to his goal of strengthening a shaky Pakistani government, eliminating al-Qaida and Taliban sanctuaries on the Pakistan side of the Afghan border and fighting Afghan government corruption. Claims of U.S. culpability for civilian deaths in Afghanistan are an added burden.

Gen. Jim Jones, Obama's national security adviser, told reporters that the president began his meeting with Karzai by addressing reports that dozens of civilians had been killed by American bombs on Sunday.

Jones said Obama commented "with great sympathy" and expressed regret for the loss of innocent life. Earlier, before her meetings with Karzai and Zardari at the State Department, Clinton said the U.S. "deeply, deeply" regrets the losses.

Both Obama and Clinton stopped short of accepting U.S. blame for the deaths.

Obama told Karzai that investigations "will be pursued aggressively with full intent to discover what in fact did happen, how it happened and how we can make sure that things like that do not happen again. And it was clear that President Karzai was moved by that ... and he thanked the president for starting off the meeting with that expression of condolence."

Karzai did not ask that U.S. airstrikes be suspended or reduced in intensity pending the outcome of the investigation, Jones said.

Nor did Zardari raise an equally sensitive topic on his side of the border — the use of U.S. Predator aircraft to attack extremist targets, Jones said. Pakistanis have strongly protested those attacks, saying they have killed innocent civilians.

In Afghanistan, the U.S. forces commander said it wasn't a certainty that Sunday's deaths were a result of U.S. military action. Gen. David McKiernan said American forces came to the aid of Afghans who may have been ambushed by the Taliban. He said the Taliban beheaded three civilians, perhaps to lure police.

"We have some other information that leads us to distinctly different conclusions about the cause of the civilian casualties," McKiernan said. He would not elaborate.

Karzai, whose public criticism of U.S. airstrikes has grown increasingly indignant, thanked Clinton politely for her concern.

"We appreciate that," Karzai said. "And we hope we can work together toward reducing and eventually completely removing the possibilities of civilian casualties."

The United States has estimated that 80 percent or more or civilian deaths are caused by militants, not U.S. or allied forces, but Obama and his advisers say they know the corrosive effect the airstrikes have on civilian support for the military mission.

In his remarks at the White House, Obama emphasized the progress he said was achieved in the Washington meetings.

"We have advanced unprecedented cooperation," Obama declared. "We will work for the day when our nations are linked not by a common enemy but by a shared peace and prosperity."

Veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke, the administration's point man for Afghanistan and Pakistan and a participant in the meetings, was upbeat in brief remarks after Obama summarized the day's talks. "It was a day that exceeded our expectations," Holbrooke said. "We turned a corner" in improving coordination.

Gathering the three leaders together at one table, along with lower-level officials from the three countries, "reflects the kind of concrete cooperation and detail that is going to ultimately make a difference in improving opportunity and democracy and stability in Pakistan and in Afghanistan," Obama said.

The stakes couldn't be higher, he said.

"We have learned time and again that our security is shared," the president said. "It is a lesson that we learned most painfully on 9/11, and it is a lesson that we will not forget."

The president said all three governments must cooperate in fighting insurgents who control parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan and must "deny them the space" to threaten local residents — or Americans.

Earlier in the day, Clinton told reporters that Karzai and Zardari made specific commitments of how they would increase the fight against militants. She wouldn't name their promises yet, but said the talks were "producing some very promising early signs" of greater cooperation.

"I am very optimistic that this process is making a difference," she said in remarks in the White House briefing room.

Knowledge of God:

2009-05-06T07:27:00.000-07:00

Be certain of this, that the highest aim of creation and its most important result are belief in God. The most exalted rank in humanity and its highest degree are the knowledge of God contained within belief in God. The most radiant happiness and sweetest bounty for jinn and human beings are the love of God contained within the knowledge of God. And the purest joy for the human spirit and the sheerest delight for man’s heart are the rapture of the spirit contained within the love of God. Indeed, all true happiness, pure joy, sweet bounties, and untroubled pleasure lie in knowledge of God and love of God; they cannot exist without them.

One who knows and loves God Almighty is potentially able to receive endless bounties, happiness, lights, and mysteries. While one who does not truly know and love him is afflicted spiritually and materially by endless misery, pain, and fears. Even if such an impotent and miserable person owned the whole world, it would be worth nothing for him, for it would seem to him that he was living a fruitless life among the vagrant human race in a wretched world without owner or protector. Everyone may understand just how wretched and bewildered is man among the vagrant human race in this bewildering fleeting world if he does not know his Owner, if he does not discover his Master. But if he does discover and know Him, he will seek refuge in His mercy and will rely on His power. The desolate world will turn into a place of recreation and pleasure, it will become a place of trade for the hereafter.