Finite

Re "Multiple-choice God," editorial, Sept. 17 The survey results on God's attributes, provided by the John M. Templeton Foundation and Baylor University, offer a multiple-choice selection of only four attributes: authoritarian, benevolent, critical and distant. The option missing was "All of the above." Trying to define God the infinite with the finite human intellect is like pouring a trillion pounds of sugar into a one-pound bag. AKHTAR H. EMON Rancho Palos Verdes The Times editorial states that 85% to 90% of Americans say they believe in God. This means that 10% to 15% of Americans are nonbelievers, atheists or agnostics.

Dailey Mayo received some stunning news in the mail last week: an 85% rate increase for the long-term-care insurance he has had for 15 years from the California Public Employees' Retirement System. The retired sales manager in Pasadena said his monthly premium of nearly $400 would jump to $738, or about $8,850 annually, under this plan. "I'm 82 now and I might need this care soon," he said. "It really ticks me off that they are doing this. " More than 110,000 CalPERS policyholders are receiving similar news after the pension fund's board approved the changes late last year.

TAPACHULA, Mexico - With the first light of day, a team of investigators using shovels and brushes begins picking through the red dirt of the Garden Pantheon cemetery, a ramshackle resting place where a mass grave sits cordoned off by yellow police tape. Black and blue tarps (and one advertising Coca-Cola) shield the work from the intense sun and prying eyes. Slowly, over the next weeks, the team will exhume dozens of bodies that have been dumped, nameless, in the mass pauper's grave toward the back of the cemetery, in this city near Mexico's border with Guatemala.

A stamp in Heidemarie Kremer's passport reveals her health status as HIV-positive. Because of the disease, Kremer -- a native of Germany -- has been barred from becoming a legal resident of the United States. She and her two children are fighting possible deportation, and their plans for the future are on hold. But that soon may change. This month, the federal government cleared the way for HIV-positive foreigners to visit the country and apply for green cards, lifting a bar that has been in place for more than two decades.

And now, she is the patient. For decades, as a surgeon, researcher, professor and medical celebrity of sorts, Susan Love has led the charge against breast cancer and for women's health. She served on President Clinton's cancer advisory board. She set up a research foundation. Her book on breast cancer is on the short shelf for clinicians and counselors. And last June, when, like so many women, she was feeling and doing fine, the diagnosis came. Except it wasn't breast cancer but leukemia.

I'm headed out to check out "Fantasy," a topless revue on the Las Vegas Strip, because I'm supposed to interview the show's then-star, former Playboy centerfold Angelica Bridges. But I hadn't spent much time with my Little Brother from Big Brothers Big Sisters in a while, so I ask him if he'd like to join me. "Really?" Jamie asked. "I can do that?" Indeed, he's 20 now. He's not old enough to legally gamble, drink or visit nightclubs here. In other words, he can't do much of anything fun on the Strip.

Scientists have produced strong new evidence challenging one of the most fundamental assumptions in biology: that female mammals, including women, are born with all the eggs they will ever have. In a provocative set of experiments involving mice, Chinese researchers have shown for the first time that an adult mammal can harbor primitive cells in her ovaries that can become new eggs and produce healthy offspring, they reported Sunday.

Finite Graphics in Camarillo was acquired by Belcor Inc. for $1.2 million and 500,000 shares of Belcor's common stock, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Belcor, an Irvine-based maker of polyethylene bags and other products, said the deal was completed May 31.

The argument that the solution to our stagnant economy would be monetary assistance to the middle and lower classes, thereby increasing consumption and spurring the economy, convinces me. Of course, I belong to one of those classes. Economists and politicians tell us that an economy must grow if it is to survive. However, the logic of it leaves me uneasy. If an expanding economy requires increasing consumption, then continuously expanding consumption is required for a healthy economy.

Infiniti's 1999 G20 is a David Copperfield car. What you think you're seeing is not exactly what you might be getting. It's sleight of merchandising, with hyperbole and product handling quicker than the eye. We're also dealing squarely with the illusion of luxury and performance through the allusion of a name: Infiniti. Which by price, status and perception has long occupied the same haughty box seats as Acura, Audi, BMW, Cadillac, Lexus and Mercedes-Benz.