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Bug's Bleat - - GCF: Baby Cry?
Volume 6, Issue 49
Hello ALL,
We had a "URL" problem on one of our comments last week. Either I miscopied the URL or someone in Europe connected it to a real uncool site. Either way, I want to apologize if anyone was misdirected.
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I forgot to mention the main lessons I learned from shaving my head.
1. A freshly shaved head (from one formally fully covered by long hair) looks like a giant white pimple.
2. A freshly shaved head has no resistance to UV rays. I wore a hat but it didn't cover the back of the head and neck that had been previously shielded by long hair. I had a tremendous sunburn and had to sleep with my head off the bed for several days.
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The World Championship Rotary Tiller Race from Downtown Emerson Arkansas is scheduled to air on the Discovery Channel Monster Nation show on Friday, December 24, at 6pm. At this point our race is slotted for show number 30,if you go to their website to check the schedule. We will try to stay on top of this, if there is any changes we are aware of, we will let you know. See you in the movies.
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IBM announced today that they were going out of the PC business. The company's new focus is its services and outsourcing businesses, which it calls Business Transformation Services, a market IBM CEO Sam Palmisano says is worth $500 billion a year. For example, it signed a $300 million, 10-year technology outsourcing deal with the government of British Columbia Friday. Under the deal, 170 provincial employees will be offered jobs at IBM.
The New York Times reported Friday that IBM is in serious discussions with the Lenovo Group, China's biggest maker of personal computers, and at least one other unidentified prospective buyer for a sale that could bring between $1 billion and $2 billion. Other possible buyers could include Japan's Toshiba Corp., analysts said.
Our first experience with personal computers was with the Apple IIE. We used them at work for controlling some processes and I used one for maintaining a lock database.
The first one we bought at home was a Commodore 64 (for 64k of memory.) But it wasn't really a personal computer since we didn't have a way to save programs or transfer files. That brings us up to 1987 and the first time I was "right" in my married life.
I'd been wanting a computer for a long time and Annette finally wore down and we bought our IBM XTAT Personal Computer. It had a 20 Mb hard drive, 640k of memory and ran at the blistering speed of 7 MHz!
A few months after installing this " business computer of the 90s" (as Bill Gates referred to it) Annette said, "buying this computer was a good idea."
So I was a husband who was right!
Today, we ordered two IBMs (40Gid hard drives, >500 Mb of RAM and running at 1.7 GHz) for our "Man Down" radio project. Looks like these could be the last IBMs we buy.
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James Scott Bell is probably the best author of Christian Fiction I have ever read. And certainly one of the best fiction authors I've ever read PERIOD. I encourage you to check out your local library and see for yourself. Read the first chapter of any of his books and see if you can put it down.
His latest books include "A Certain Truth" and "Breach of Promise."
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Central Baptist has led a local crusade to encourage people to cease doing business with "Movie Gallery" video stores due to their stocking hard-core p o r n. Today, we heard that they had pulled the offensive materials from their local store.
Could it have anything to do with the fact that hundreds of local families quit doing business with them?
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Annette's 35-month-old Dell crashed Sunday. As in the Hard Drive is DEAD! The good news is it's still under warranty. The bad news is all her databases, letters, photos and e:mail addresses are GONE.
After the Dell guy installs a new hard drive tomorrow, we're taking the old one to someone who may be able to recover her data.
Thanks to Keith Burton who helped us diagnose the problem and get with Dell. Thanks to Terry Stockdale who gave us some great contacts for hard drive recovery and recommendations on backup methods.
Remember; Jesus Saves
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Don't forget, Albemarle will be distributing the Petit Jean hams for employees on Thursday, December 9.
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Also, If you plan to do any shopping at J.C. Penney on Sunday, December 5, please pick up 20% discount card at South Plant Security, South Plant Adm. Lobby, or West Plant Security.
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Congratulations to Stuart and Emily Whitten on the birth of their second child! Andrew Dwight was born 11/29/2004 weighing 8 lb., 2 oz. and was 21 inches long.
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The Minden HamFest is scheduled for Saturday, December 4 at the Minden Civic Center
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There's still time to go to; http://tinyurl.com/4o3hm to pick up a great toy or ten.
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Have you bought a DVD player yet. They're changing the format again. See Hollywood Backs Toshiba on DVD Format in the serious section.
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We're sharing selected items from the December 01, 2000 "Bleat" this week.
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Don't forget ... "Da Bleat" is now on the web. Just go to http://bugsbleat.blogspot.com
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Here's the latest from Tom Broom, our old (emphasis on OLD) classmate who is headed to the Mideast on his last Army Reserve Deployment.
Well, the last few days I have been run through the mill. To get clearance for the smallpox vaccine I had to get a routine echo-cardiogram. The doc didn't like the result of this test so I had to do a "stress" echo-cardiogram. The result of the stress echo-cardiogram suggested that my heart was not pumping properly even though the doc confirmed the test sometimes resulted negatively if your "heart plumbing" has been changed as mine has. My Army medical records were incomplete so I provided my private records. My records were not enough to clear me so an arteriogram was ordered either the confirm the negative results of the echo tests or to clear me. This all happened last Friday with the arteriogram scheduled for this past Monday.
Suzanne flew down to be with me during the arteriogram. The results of the arteriogram confirmed that I am ok and I was cleared for deployment with smallpox only if exposed during a bio-attack. I was placed on medical leave for a few days but am to return to dot a few "i's" to dot and cross a few "t's" after the holiday. Docs suggested they wanted to adjust my heart medication a little due to slightly elevated blood pressure and to make sure all the holes they poked in me were closed and healing.
It is great to know that the Army is so cautious with the health of their soldiers -- even us "over the hill" soldiers.
Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers as they were felt deeply by myself and Suzanne. Please pass this email on to others that may be interested. I am using Suzanne's email so I don't have everyone's email addresses but wanted to provide an update since there are a number of rumors circulating about my condition.
Tom
PS: after I finish my appointments next Monday I will join my battalion already at Fort Hood doing convoy live fire exercises. We will be at Fort Hood for another 7 days. Once we return to Fort Sam Houston we should be departing for theater shortly thereafter. Will keep you posted.
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Study: Cigarettes Cost Society $40 a Pack
Nov 26, 9:30 AM (ET)
DURHAM, N.C. (AP) - Cigarettes may cost smokers more then they believe. A study by a team of health economists finds the combined price paid by their families and society is about $40 per pack of cigarettes.
The figure is based on lifetime costs for a 24-year-old smoker over 60 years for cigarettes, taxes, life and property insurance, medical care and lost earnings because of smoking-related disabilities, researchers said.
"It will be necessary for persons aged 24 and younger to face the fact that the decision to smoke is a very costly one - one of the most costly decisions they make," the study's authors concluded.
Smokers pay about $33 of the cost, their families absorb $5.44 and others pay $1.44, according to health economists from Duke University and a professor from the University of South Florida. The study drew on data including Social Security earnings histories dating to 1951.
Incidental costs such as higher cleaning bills and lower resale values for smokers' cars were not included.
Most smoking studies rely on a snapshot of annual costs, said co-author Frank Sloan, an economics professor and the director of the Center for Health, Policy, Law and Management at Duke's Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy.
Despite the finding that smoking is a costly habit for individuals, society carries less of a burden than generally believed, the study's authors determined.
"The reason the number is low is that for private pensions, Social Security, and Medicare - the biggest factors in calculating costs to society - smoking actually saves money," Sloan said. "Smokers die at a younger age and don't draw on the funds they've paid into those systems."
Given the high costs, it is "remarkable," the authors conclude, that money from the 1998 settlement involving 46 state attorneys general and major tobacco manufacturers largely are not being spent on smoking-cessation or related programs.
But even after taking into account the cost savings from early deaths, smoking still costs society $2.20 a pack for such things as sick leave, life insurance outlays and medical care not paid by smokers. The researchers concluded that after subtracting the 76 cents a pack smokers pay in state and federal taxes, society's net cost is $1.44 a pack.
Many states use the money to cover budget deficits or, as in North Carolina, on economic development in tobacco communities.
The study's other co-authors are Jan Ostermann, Christopher Conover and Donald H. Taylor Jr. of Duke, along with Gabriel Picone of the University of South Florida. Their research was supported in part by a grant from the National Institute on Aging.
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Gas Prices Unchanged
www.aaa.com Regular Mid Premium Diesel
Current Avg. $1.93 $2.05 $2.12 $2.16
http://www.fuelgaugereport.com/
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Tortilla Soup
2 fresh limes cut into wedges
8 fresh corn tortillas cut into strips (corn tortilla chips can be substituted)
Shredded cheddar cheese
Fresh chopped cilantro
Cooking Directions
In a large pot over medium heat, start by adding the vegetable oil.
Add the onions, green pepper, jalapeñños and garlic. Cook until the onions become translucent.
Add the cayenne pepper, cumin and chili powder, cook for 1 -2 minutes.
Add the chicken breast and cook for another 3-5 minutes stirring the chicken breast to start them cooking.
Add the chicken broth, stewed tomatoes and the salt. Bring this to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer. Cover and cook for 20 minutes.
Add corn and cook for another 5 minutes
Garnishes
In a deep fryer, heat oil to 350 degrees. Fry corn tortilla strips until golden brown. Salt and drain on paper towels prior to serving.
Chop green onions and place in a bowl
Cut lime into wedges to squeeze the juice on the soup
Chop cilantro to sprinkle on the soup
Serving Directions
Place fried tortillas or tortilla chips into bowl.
Ladle soup in bowls
Garnish with chopped green onion, chopped cilantro, juice from lime and cheddar cheese
Enjoy !!!
Doug is currently a lieutenant with the City of Green (Ohio) Division of Fire, where he has served for 19 years as a firefighter/paramedic. Among his many services to the fire-rescue industry, he also is a Contributing Editor to National Fire & Rescue magazine and a firehouse chef for his department. For this and other recipes, keep checking in with NF&R at www.nfrmag.com, or you can contact Doug by e-mail at dcincurak@sbcglobal.net.
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BREAKPOINT Commentaries
by Chuck Colson. - Prison Fellowship
Shocking Questions
Yes, There Are Answers
December 3, 2004
Note: The following commentary includes graphic descriptions. This is not suitable for children.
"I'm at my wits' end," the young woman wrote. "I've asked pastors, friends, parents, God, and message boards this question and still haven't received an intelligent answer that I can live with. Why are homosexual acts wrong? I'm a Christian and believe in the Bible, but this part always stumps me."
According to my friend, Dr. J. Budziszewski, author of the excellent new book, Ask Me Anything: Provocative Answers for College Students, disturbing questions like this show that church leaders aren't providing young people with the whole picture about sexuality. They may be faithfully teaching God's rules, but when asked why God made these rules, too often they say, "Take two aspirin, and wait for the questions to go away."
The good news, says Budziszewski, is that we can answer disturbing questions. Where are the answers found? In our creational design.
"People say homosexuality isn't natural," the young woman complained in her letter, "but that can't be true because it's found among animals." Budziszewski answers, "But our nature is how God designed us. What's natural for human beings isn't whatever you can find some animal doing; it's whatever fulfills our design. Men and women were plainly designed for each other not men for men, nor women for women." Children can be born in no other way.
"But homosexual acts don't harm anyone," said the young woman. Budziszewski answers, "The idea that homosexual acts don't harm anyone isn't even close to being true; they harm those who perform them at every level. To begin with the most obvious level the physical how could it not harm a man to suffer physical trauma because body parts are repeatedly forced into bodily openings that were designed for a radically different function?" And the rates of a long, long list of diseases are also much higher among practicing homosexuals, and contrary to popular belief, this is true for lesbians as well as for "gay" men.
At the emotional level, Budziszewski explains, the damage of homosexual acts is just as grave. God designed the male-female pair to balance each other; by contrast, same-sex mating drives them out of balance. If you want an example, think of the anonymous, no-brakes promiscuity of men who have sex with hundreds, even thousands, of other men.
"And what about spiritual harm?" asks Budziszewski. "In homosexual acts, you're seeking union with someone who is only your own mirror image, so in a way, you're still trapped inside yourself. You haven't experienced the power of marital sexuality to take you beyond the Self; you're rejecting the challenge of union with someone who is really other. In that way, homosexual acts are less like marital intercourse than like masturbation with another body."
That's frank, even startling language, but what's happened to our culture is startling too. When young people confused by the culture ask questions, they need clear, unvarnished answers to set their thinking straight. That's why I recommend this great new book Ask Me Anything: Provocative Answers for College Students.
God's rules for sex are never arbitrary; they are based on how He made us. As Budziszewski rightly says, it's all in the design.
For further reading and information:
Today's BreakPoint offer: In Ask Me Anything a great Christmas gift for the college student you know! a professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas, Dr. J. Budziszewski (aka Professor Theophilus) answers piercing, real life questions, the same urgent questions he receives from students on campus or through his regular column on the webzine, boundless.org.
J. Budziszewski, How to Stay Christian in College (Th1nk Books, 2004). The 1999 version is also available for half-price.
J. Budziszewski, What We Can't Not Know: A Guide (Spence, 2003).
J. Budziszewski, " 'Little Platoons': God's Design for Our Relationships ," BreakPoint WorldView, March 2003.
Read Dr. Budziszewski's " Office Hours " and " Ask Theophilus " columns at Boundless.
Charles Colson, Answers to Your Kids' Questions (Tyndale, 2000).
Copyright 2004 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BREAKPOINT with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries. Prison Fellowship Ministries may withdraw or modify this grant of permission at any time. To receive "BREAKPOINT" commentaries daily, you can subscribe for free at http://www. breakpoint. org/.
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Words of the Week:
ne plus ultra: the acme; also, the most profound degree.
empyrean: the highest heaven; the heavens; the sky.
malversation: misconduct in public office.
egregious: outrageously bad.
cajole: to coax.
Promethean: of or pertaining to Prometheus; also, boldly original.
contretemps: something inopportune or embarrassing.
from Dictionary.Com
~~~~~
"A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. One must fight for a life of action, not reaction." - Rita Mae Brown
"The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order." - Alfred North Whitehead
"... the great thing to learn about life is, first, not to do what you don't want to do, and, second, to do what you do want to do." - Margaret Anderson
"There are no persons capable of stooping so low as those who desire to rise in the world." - Marguerite Guardiner
"We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice - that is, until we have stopped saying 'It got lost,' and say, 'I lost it.' " - Sydney J. Harris
"Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together." - Vincent Van Gogh
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FLASH CARD” Not all who wander are lost." (J.R.R. Tolkien)
*****
FLASH CARD "Being human is itself difficult, and therefore all kinds of settlements (except dream cities) have problems." (Jane Jacobs)
*****
FLASH CARD "What is tolerance? -- it is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly -- that is the first law of nature." (Voltaire)
*****
FLASH CARD "A man's manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
*****
FLASH CARD "If I wished to punish a province, I would have it governed by philosophers." (Frederick the Great)
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GCF: Baby Cry?
Emailed to me from another humor list (Marty's Joke of the Day) -Tom To subscribe to Marty's Joke of the Day, send a blank email to: martysjotd-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
If this was forwarded to you, please consider your own subscription to Good Clean Fun. It's free! A smile will enhance the quality of your life. Just send an email to: good-clean-fun-subscribe@egroups.com or visit the Good Clean Fun web site http://www.slonet.org/~tellswor/ UNSUBSCRIBE INFO for Good Clean Fun is at the end of this email. This email was scanned by Norton AntiVirus 2004 before it was sent.
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At 3:00 a.m. the young wife shook her husband awake, telling him to check the baby.
He sat up for a full minute listening, then protested, "But I don't hear her crying."
"I know." she replied, "It's your turn to go see why not!"
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GCF: Adoption
Emailed to me from another humor list (Marty's Joke of the Day) -Tom To subscribe to Marty's Joke of the Day, send a blank email to: martysjotd-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
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The couple was delighted when their long wait to adopt a baby came to an end. The adoption center called and told them that there was a wonderful Russian baby boy available. The couple accepted him without hesitation.
On the way home from the adoption center, they stopped by the local college so they each could enroll in night courses.
After they filled out the forms, the registration clerk inquired, "What ever possessed you to study Russian?"
The couple said proudly, "We just adopted a Russian baby. In a year or so, when he begins to talk, we want to be able to understand him."
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GCF: Sucker Bet
Emailed to me from another humor list (Marty's Joke of the Day) -Tom To subscribe to Marty's Joke of the Day, send a blank email to: martysjotd-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
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A fellow is getting ready to tee-off on the first hole when a second fellow approaches and asks if he can join him. The first says that he usually plays alone but agrees to let the second guy join him.
Both are even after the first couple of holes. The second guy says, "Say, we're about evenly matched, how about we play for five dollars a hole?"
The first fellow says that he usually plays alone and doesn't like to bet but agrees to the terms. Well, the second guy wins the rest of the holes and as they're walking off of the eighteenth hole, and while counting his $80.00, he confesses that he's the pro at a neighboring course and likes to pick on suckers.
The first fellow reveals that he's the Parish Priest at the local Catholic Church to which the second fellow gets all flustered and apologetic and offers to give the Priest back his money. The Priest says, "No, no. You won fair and square and I was foolish to bet with you. You keep your winnings."
The pro says, "Well, is there anything I can do to make it up to you?"
The Priest says, "Well, you could come to Mass on Sunday and make a donation. Then, if you bring your mother and father by after Mass, I'll marry them for you."
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GCF: Say What?
Emailed to me from another humor list (The Funnies) -Tom To subscribe to The Funnies, send a blank email to: andychaps-the-funnies-subscribe@egroups.com
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In the ascertainment of an excogitation of linguistic proclivity, one might ascribe to the mentation that a phratry exists in which some encyclopedists designedly cultivate a nonplussed ambience hypothecated to befuddle the vox populi.
TRANSLATION: Judging from the words some people use, you'd think they purposely write to confuse the average person.
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GCF: Can't Wait
Emailed to me from another humor list (Marty's Joke of the Day) -Tom To subscribe to Marty's Joke of the Day, send a blank email to: martysjotd-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
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Everyone was seated around the table as the food was being served. When little Logan received his plate, he started eating right away.
"Logan, wait until we say our prayer," his mother reminded him.
"I don't have to," the little boy replied.
"Of course you do," his mother insisted, "we say a prayer before eating at our house."
"That's at our house," Logan explained, "but this is Grandma's house and she knows how to cook."
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\ / If you have everything, \ /
\ -/ you value nothing. \- /
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\ -/ I have an exceptionally high Q.I. \- /
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\\\\ \-/ / Alarm Clock: \ \-/ ////
\ / A small mechanical device \ /
\ -/ used to wake up people who \- /
/ / don't have children. \ \
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\ / a point when you stop lying \ /
\ -/ about your age and start \- /
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\ / I ordered a pizza online. \ /
\ -/ How do I download it? \- /
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/ )| Thomas S. Ellsworth |( \
/ / | tellswor@slonet.org | \ \
-( (- | http://www. slonet.org/~tellswor | -) )-
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*** Good Clean Fun ***
Stop for a visit, leave with a smile! To join Good Clean Fun, email: good-clean-fun-subscribe@yahoogroups.Com To leave Good Clean Fun, email: good-clean-fun-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.Com Or visit the Good Clean Fun web site at http://www. slonet.org/~tellswor/
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[GCFL.net] Courage Ain't Skill
My sister has the courage--but not always the skills--to tackle any home-repair project.
For example, in her garage are pieces of a lawnmower she once tried to fix. So I wasn't surprised the day my other sister, Dianne, and I found our sister attacking her vacuum cleaner with a screwdriver.
"I can't get this thing to cooperate," she explained when she saw us.
"Why don't you drag it out to the garage and show it the lawnmower?" Dianne suggested.
Received from Andychaps "The Funnies".
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[GCFL.net] Dismayed Shopkeeper
The shopkeeper was dismayed when a brand new business much like his own opened up next door and erected a huge sign which read BEST DEALS.
He was horrified when another competitor opened up on his right, and announced its arrival with an even larger sign, reading LOWEST PRICES.
The shopkeeper was panicked, until he got an idea. He put the biggest sign of all over his own shop-it read...
MAIN ENTRANCE.
Received from Bob Savage.
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[GCFL.net] New Son-In-Law
A very successful businessman had a meeting with his new son-in-law.
"I love my daughter, and now I welcome you into the family," he said. "To show you how much we care for you, I'm making you a 50-50 partner in my business. All you have to do is go to the factory every day and learn the operations."
The son-in-law interrupted, "I hate factories. I can't stand the noise."
"I see," replied the father-in-law. "Well then, you'll work in the office and take charge of some of the operations."
"I hate office work," said the son-on-law. "I can't stand being stuck behind a desk all day."
"Wait a minute," said the father-in-law. "I just make you half-owner of a moneymaking organization, but you don't like factories and won't work in an office. What am I going to do with you?"
"Easy," said the young man. "Buy me out!"
Received from Bob Savage.
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[GCFL.net] A Novice Skier
One day a novice skier went up a mountain that any beginner should have avoided. No one would have blamed her if she stayed behind. At 12 below zero, even Frosty the Snowman would have opted for a warm fire. Hardly a day for snow skiing, but her husband insisted. So she went.
While waiting in the lift line, she realized she was in dire need of a restroom. Assured there was a restroom at the top of the lift, she endured the bouncy ride, only to find there was no facility. She began to panic. Her husband had an idea: why not go out into the woods? Since she was wearing an all white outfit, she'd blend in with the snow.
What choice did she have? She skied past the tree line and arranged her ski suit at half-mast. Unfortunately, her husband hadn't told her to remove her skis.
Inadvertently, she began sliding backwards across the slope, without a chance to make herself presentable. With arms flailing and skis sailing, she sped under the very lift she'd just ridden and collided with a pylon.
As she scrambled to cover herself, she discovered that her arm was broken. Fortunately, her husband raced to her rescue. He summoned the ski patrol, who transported her to the hospital.
While being treated in the emergency room, a man with a broken leg was carried in and placed next to her. By now she'd regained her composure enough to make small talk. "So, how'd you break your leg?" she asked.
"It was the strangest thing you ever saw," he explained.
"I was riding up the ski lift and suddenly there was this crazy woman skiing backwards, at top speed, with her ski suit down around her knees. I couldn't believe my eyes, so I leaned over to get a better look. I guess I didn't realize how far I'd moved. I fell out of the lift."
The he turned to her and asked, "So, how'd you break your arm?"
Received from Steven & Janice Flude [edited].
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[GCFL.net] Irate Driver
A man was being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow, just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.
The tailgating woman hit the roof, and the horn, screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection with him. As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a cell.
After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.
He said, "I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping the guy off in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the 'Choose Life' license plate holder, the 'What Would Jesus Do" bumper sticker, the 'Follow Me to Sunday School' bumper sticker and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car."
Received from Janet Price.
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Brought to you by GCFL.net: The Good, Clean Funnies List "A cheerful heart is good medicine!" (Prov 17:22a) Remember when the funniest jokes were the clean ones? They still are! GCFL.net: The Good, Clean Funnies List: Good, clean funnies five times a week, for free . . .AND NO ADS! The latest GCFL funny can always be found on the web at http://gcfl.net/archive/latest.php
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Canadian Border Problems
The following appeared in the Columbus Dispatch on 11/16/04 written by Joe Blundo, a Dispatch columnist.
Headline: Canada busy sending back Bush-dodgers.
The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration.
The re-election of President Bush is prompting the exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they'll soon be required to hunt, pray and agree with Bill O'Reilly.
Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal-rights activists, "environmentalist," and Unitarians crossing their fields at night.
"I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota. The producer was cold, exhausted and starving. "He asked me if I could spare a latte, tofu, and some free-range chicken. When I said I didn't have any, he left in search of a more socially acceptable farm.
In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, he tried installing speakers that blare Rush Limbaugh across the fields. "It was a very effective deterrent," he said.
Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals near the Canadian border. They use Volvo station wagons to lure them, then drive them across the border and leave them to fend for themselves.
"A lot of these people are not prepared for rugged conditions," an Ontario border patrolman said. "I found one carload without a drop of drinking water. They did have a good supply of Napa Valley cabernet, and some brie though."
When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border, often wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumors have been circulating about the Bush administration establishing re-education camps in which liberals will be forced to drink domestic beer and watch NASCAR.
Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating and organic-broccoli shortage and renting all the Susan Sarandon movies.
"I feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said. "How many art-history majors does one country need?"
In an effort to ease tensions between the United States and Canada, Vice President Dick Cheney met with the Canadian ambassador and pledged that the administration would take steps to reassure liberals that "We're going to have some Peter, Paul &Mary concerts. And we might put some endangered species on postage stamps."
Thanks to Sam Boggs
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CHRISTMAS FIREMAN
In a small Southern town there was a "Nativity Scene" that showed great skill and talent had gone into creating it. One small feature bothered me. The three wise men were wearing firemen's helmets. Totally unable to come up with a reason or explanation, I left. At a "Quick Stop" on the edge of town, I asked the lady behind the counter about the helmets. She exploded into a rage, yelling at me, "You damn Yankees never do read the Bible!" I assured her that I did, but simply couldn't recall anything about firemen in the Bible. She jerked her Bible from behind the counter and ruffled through some pages, and finally jabbed her finger at a passage. Sticking it in my face she said "See, it says right here, 'The three wise man came from afar.'"
Thanks to Steve Dixon
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Why Computers Sometimes Crash!
(Read this to yourself aloud - it's great!)
If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port, and the bus is interrupted at a very last resort, and the access of the memory makes your floppy disk abort, then the socket packet pocket has an error to report.
If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash, and the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash, and your data is corrupted cause the index doesn't hash, then your situation's hopeless and your system's gonna crash!
If the label on the cable on the table at your house, says the network is connected to the button on your mouse, but your packets want to tunnel to another protocol, that's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall......
And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss, so your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse; then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang, 'cuz sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang.
When the copy on your floppy's getting sloppy in the disk, and the macro code instructions is causing unnecessary risk, then you'll have to flash the memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM, and then quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your Mom!
Well, that certainly clears things up for me. How about you?
Thank you, Bill Gates, for bringing all this into our lives
Thanks to Daphne Roberts
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A man tried to sell his neighbor a new dog. "This is a talking dog," he said, "and you can have him for five dollars."
The neighbor said, "Who do you think you're kidding with this talking dog stuff? There's no such animal."
Suddenly the dog looked up with tears in his eyes. "Please buy me, sir," he pleaded. "This man is cruel. He never buys me a meal, never bathes me, never takes me for a walk. And I used to be the richest trick dog in America. I performed before kings. I was in the army and was decorated ten times."
"Hey!" said the neighbor. "He can talk. Why do you want to sell him for just five dollars?"
"Because," said the seller, "I'm getting tired of all his lies."
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Emailed to me from another humor list (Enjoy The Laugh) -Tom To subscribe to Enjoy The Laugh, send a blank email to: EnjoyTheLaugh-subscribe@egroups.com
GCF: Dog Weather Forecaster
To tell the weather, go to your back door and look for the dog.
If the dog is at the door and he is wet, it's probably raining. But if the dog is standing there really soaking wet, it is probably raining really hard.
If the dog's fur looks like it's been rubbed the wrong way, it's probably windy.
If the dog has snow on his back, it's probably snowing.
Of course, to be able to tell the weather like this, you have to leave the dog outside all the time, especially if you expect bad weather.
Sincerely,
The CAT
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Emailed to me from another humor list (The Funnies) -Tom To subscribe to The Funnies, send a blank email to: andychaps-the-funnies-subscribe@egroups.com
GCF: Dangerous Criminal
One night, a lady stumbled into the police station with a black eye. She claimed she heard a noise in her back yard and went to investigate. The next thing she knew, she was hit in the eye and knocked out cold.
An officer was sent to her house to investigate, and he returned 1-1/2 hours later with a black eye.
"Did you get hit by the same person?" his captain asked.
"No," he replied. "I stepped on the same rake."
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Emailed to me from another humor list (The Funnies) -Tom To subscribe to The Funnies, send a blank email to: andychaps-the-funnies-subscribe@egroups.com
GCF: Punctuality
For thirty years, Johnson had arrived at work at 9 A.M. on the dot. He had never missed a day and was never late. Consequently, when on one particular day 9 A.M. passed without Johnson's arrival, it caused a sensation. All work ceased and the boss himself, looking at his watch and muttering, came out into the corridor.
Finally, precisely at ten, Johnson showed up, clothes dusty and torn, his face scratched and bruised, his glasses bent. He limped painfully to the time clock, punched in, and said, aware that all eyes were upon him, "I tripped and rolled down two flights of stairs in the subway. Nearly killed myself."
And the boss said, "And to roll down two flights of stairs took you a whole hour?"
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Emailed to me by a friend (Thanks, Julie) -Tom
GCF: Medical Pun (a groaner)
A man rushed into the doctor's office and shouted, "Doctor! I think I'm shrinking!!"
The doctor calmly responded, "Now, settle down. You'll just have to be a little patient."
(OK, you can groan now!)
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From an old newspaper clipping I have been saving. -Tom (Don't ask me why.)
GCF: No Button To Stay Put
Exclusive to the Los Angeles Times from the Washington Post (Printed Wednesday, November 10, 1971)
WASHINGTON -- Health, Education and Welfare Department workers at the 18-story Parklawn Building here were treated recently to a memo on proper elevator button-pushing technique.
The guidelines explain that employees who wish to descend should push the elevator "DOWN" button.
On the other hand, those wanting to go up should push to "UP" button.
Pushing both at the same time, H.E.W. warns, is counter-productive.
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From the Good Clean Fun Archives. Originally posted 11/27/1998
GCF: Grandfather Turkey
Just before Thanksgiving, the holding pen was abuzz as Mother Turkey scolded her younger birds. "You turkeys are always into mischief," she gobbled. "If your grandfather could see the things you do, he'd turn over in his gravy."
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Emailed to me from another humor list (Good Jokes!!) -Tom To subscribe to Good Jokes!!, send a blank email to: good-jokes-subscribe@egroups.com
GCF: The English Teacher
An English teacher at Iowa State University spent a lot of time marking grammatical errors in her students' written work. She wasn't sure how much impact she was having until one overly busy day when she sat at her desk rubbing her temples.
A student asked, "What's the matter, Mrs. Sheridan?"
"Tense," she replied, describing her emotional state.
After a slight pause the student tried again, "What was the matter? What has been the matter? What might have been the matter... ?"
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Emailed to me from another humor list (The Funnies) -Tom To subscribe to The Funnies, send a blank email to: andychaps-the-funnies-subscribe@egroups.com
GCF: Changing Times - 1
We had made some changes in our lives. My husband had lost 50 pounds and after eight years of being a housewife, I had taken a job in a restaurant.
When I returned home after my first day at work, I gave my husband a big hug.
He seemed to cling to me longer than usual.
"Did you really miss me that much today, dear?" I asked.
"No," came the reply. "But you smell so much like pancakes that I hate to let you go."
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Emailed to me from another humor list (The Funnies) -Tom To subscribe to The Funnies, send a blank email to: andychaps-the-funnies-subscribe@egroups.com
GCF: Changing Times - 2
I have five siblings, three sisters and two brothers. One night I was chatting with my Mom about how she had changed as a mother from the first child to the last. She told me she had mellowed a lot over the years:
"When your oldest sister coughed or sneezed, I called the ambulance. When your youngest brother swallowed a dime, I just told him it was coming out of his allowance."
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Emailed to me from another humor list (Klean Jokes Daily) -Tom To subscribe to Klean Jokes Daily, send an email to: subscribe-kjd@lists.2guys-ezines.com
GCF: Breakfast
Deciding to eat healthier breakfasts, my brother-in-law declared that oatmeal would now be his cereal of choice. But after eating his first bowl, he told my sister, "I hope I develop a taste for the stuff. It goes down real rough."
"Well," she asked, "how long did you cook it?"
"You're supposed to cook it?" he said.
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Emailed to me from another humor list (Klean Jokes Daily) -Tom To subscribe to Klean Jokes Daily, send an email to: subscribe-kjd@lists.2guys-ezines.com
GCF: Questionaire
An Army private filling out a questionnaire for a correspondence course was stymied by the question, "How long has your present employer been in business?"
He thought for a moment, then wrote, "Since 1776."
Emailed to me from another humor list (PixDaily) -Tom To subscribe to PixDaily, send a blank email to: PixDaily-subscribe@egroups.com
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GCF: Psychology Course
During a phone conversation, my nephew mentioned that he was taking a psychology course at university.
"Oh, great," I said, "Now you'll be analyzing everyone in the family."
"No, no," he replied. "I don't take abnormal psychology until next semester."
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\ / Love is blind. \ /
\ -/ Marriage is the eye-opener. \- /
/ / \\
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\ / You are making progress \ /
\ -/ if each mistake is a new one. \- /
/ / \ \
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\ / How many roads must a \ /
\ -/ man travel down before \- /
/ / he admits he is lost? \ \
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\ / If you lend someone $20, \ /
\ -/ and never see that person again; \- /
/ / it was probably worth it. \ \
\\\\ \-/ / Sign on high school \ \-/ ////
\ / bulletin board: "Free every \ /
\ -/ Monday through Friday. Knowledge. \- /
/ / Bring your own container." \ \
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\ / An unbreakable toy \ /
\ -/ is useful for breaking other toys.\- /
/ / \ \
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\ / In just two days, \ /
\ -/ tomorrow will be yesterday. \- /
/ / \ \
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\ / For every action, there is \ /
\ -/ an equal and opposite criticism. \- /
/ / \ \
\\\\ \-/ / There are only two things a \ \-/ ////
\ / child will share willingly: \ /
\ -/ communicable diseases \- /
/ / and his mother's age. \ \
\\\\ \-/ / \ \-/ ////
\ / I need not suffer in silence \ /
\ -/ while I can still moan, \- /
/ / whimper and complain. \ \
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\ / Drive carefully, \ /
\ -/ we need every taxpayer we can get.\- /
/ / \ \
\\\\ \-/ / \ \-/ ////
\ / If you find yourself in a hole, \ /
\ -/ the first thing to do \- /
/ / is stop diggin'. \ \
\\\\ \-/ / \ \-/ ////
\ /I asked my wife if she will love \ /
\ -/ me when I am old and gray and \- /
/ / flabby. She replied, "Yes, I do." \ \
\\\\ \-/ / \ \-/ ////
\ / Do illiterate people \ /
\ -/ get the full effect \- /
/ / of alphabet soup? \ \
\\\\ \-/ / \ \-/ ////
\ / Accept it: \ /
\ -/ some days you're the pigeon, \- /
/ / and some days you're the statue. \ \
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New Rules
From: Ken Sibley
A proposed revision to the rules of Golf is being sought in South Florida. Once a player has hit an errant shot, that player will be allowed to call "GORE" while the ball is still in flight. The player can replace the ball in the same spot and hit it again. The player can do this until satisfied the ball is going where it was intended to be hit it in the first place.
You should note that this will not replace the traditional call of "FORE" as this should be used in addition to the "GORE" call. The new call will cause the time of play to be extended until such time the player can claim the hole. This revision is causing some consternation to the PGA, but proponents say it is only fair.
At this time St. Andrews officials are wary, however if enough proponents stick to this proposal it will probably be approved by popular vote and by the government judicial authorities. Canvas your friends and don't give an inch.
Note that a recent test of this new rule was recently played out in an exclusive club in Palm Beach County Florida and the first hole only took 14 days to complete!!!!
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You Make Me Laugh - Turtle Ears
Tradition here in the office is to keep a notepad with the punch lines from the various jokes that pass through.
I was flipping pages and found "Turtles have such tiny ears!"
I couldn't remember the joke. After searching everyone's memory banks, one of the folks remembered:
"Why is turtle wax so expensive?"
*Thanks to Pastor Tim for this joke!*
http://www.cybersalt.org/cleanlaugh
Happy Anniversary
The other day while driving home, after beng delayed at my office, I suddenly saw flashing lights in my rearview mirror.
The police officer pulled me over for speeding. I explained to him that I was rushing home to be with my wife on our first anniversary.
But rather than letting me off, he wrote out the ticket, handed it to me, and said,
"Congratulations. The first year is paper, right?"
*Thanks to Pastor Tim for this joke!*
http://www.cybersalt.org/cleanlaugh
King of The Jungle
The lion was proud of his mastery of the animal kingdom. One day he decided to make sure all the other animals knew he was king of the jungle. He was so confident that he bypassed the smaller animals and went straight to the bear.
"Who is the king of the jungle?" the lion asked.
"Why, of course, you are," the bear replied. The lion gave a mighty roar of approval.
Next he asked the tiger, "Who is the king of the jungle?"
The tiger quickly responded, "Everyone knows that YOU are, oh mighty lion."
Next on the list was the elephant. "Who is the king of the jungle?" the lion asked.
The elephant immediately grabbed the lion with his trunk, whirled him around in the air five or six times and slammed him into a tree. Then he pounded him onto the ground several times, dunked him under water in a nearby lake and finally dumped him out on the shore.
The lion - beaten, bruised and battered - struggled to his feet.
"Look," he told the elephant, "just because you don't know the answer is no reason to get upset."
*Thanks to Pastor Tim for this joke!*
http://www.cybersalt.org/cleanlaugh
*Eye Laugh*
"Red Sea Seed"
http://www.cybersalt.org/go.php?id=cw567
"Cat Pull Over"
http://www.cybersalt.org/go.php?id=cw574
"School Zone Changes"
http://www.cybersalt.org/go.php?id=cw578
Daily devotionals are available at http://link.Crosswalk.Com/UM/T.asp?A1. 39. 17757. 1. 494611 You can access more information on Crosswalk's Fun page http://www.Crosswalk.Com/fun/! Crosswalk gives credit to the author of a joke when author is known. Feel free to send notification to admin@cybersalt.org in cases where credit has not been given to the author! -SUBSCRIPTION INFO- * Copyright2002 Crosswalk.Com, Inc. and its Content Providers. All rights reserved. Introducing www.Crossguide.Com Where Christians find Products, Services & Ministries.
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"Don't strive for recognition, but work for achievement." -- Vanessa Malone
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Madeleine Begun Kane Latest Columns - - munspeakablemeetings.html - - Those Unspeakable Meetings "Do men and women communicate differently at work? Yes, according to proponents of the "men and women are from different galaxies" school of thought. Women are said to be self-effacing and apologetic. Men, on the other hand, are described as convincingly confident ... even when they don't have the slightest idea what they're talking about..."
Madeleine Begun Kane, Humor Columnist
http://www.madkane.com
http://www.madkane.com/notable.html (Notables Weblog)
http://www.madkane.com/bush.html (Dubya's Dayly Diary)
Subscribe to MadKane Humor Newsletter (weekly) here:
http://www.madkane.com/email.html
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Search Engine Watch - - http://www.searchenginewatch.com/ - - This site provides tips and information about searching the web, analysis of the search engine industry, and help to site owners trying to improve their ability to be found in search engines.
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"All U.S. states and Washington, D.C. have narrowed the gap between wages earned by men and women, but no state has eliminated it, according to a study released on November 16, 2004. A report from the Institute for Women's Policy Research, a research group in Washington, D.C., said at the current pace of wage gains, it will be another 50 years before income earned by men and women is equal in the United States. The report used 2000 data from the U.S. Census Bureau and 2002-2003 data from the Current Population Survey, a monthly households survey conducted by the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It found that nationwide, median wages for women in 2002 were 76.2 percent of men's wages. The group's first survey in 1996 showed that women in 1989 earned 68.5 percent of men's wages."
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Tutorial: Finding Information on the Internet - -
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html - - This tutorial presents the substance of the Internet Workshops (current schedule) offered year-round by the Teaching Library at the University of California at Berkeley. The content on this site has been updated to reflect our new "Research Quality Web Searching" class. The title reflects our belief that there is a lot great material on the Web - primary sources, specialized directories and databases, statistical information, educational sites on many levels - and we have better tools for finding this great stuff. Related site: A Basic Tutorial on Searching the Web. - - http://www.sc.edu/beaufort/library/pages/bones/bones.shtml
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"An unmanned experimental jet broke a world record for speed on November 16, 2004, cruising over the Pacific Ocean at just under 7,000 miles per hour in a NASA test of cutting-edge 'scramjet' engine technology. The X-43A aircraft flew at a speed of around Mach 9.6 - nearly ten times the speed of sound - after a booster rocket took it to around 110,000 feet and then separated. A modified B-52 airplane had carried the experimental plane and booster aloft. It was the last of three test launches for the X-43A series and its supersonic-combustion ramjet or 'scramjet' engine. The scramjet scoops up oxygen from the air rather than carrying liquid oxygen in a tank like an ordinary rocket. Scramjet technology, NASA has said, could open the way to cheaper, safer and faster flights into the upper atmosphere, with smaller and lighter craft."
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Portion Distortion Quiz - - http://hin.nhlbi.nih.gov/portion/ - - Anyone eating on the run or at restaurants has probably noticed that food portions have gotten larger. Some portions are called "super size," while others have simply grown in size and provide enough food for at least two people. With this growth have come increases in waistlines and body weight. To see if you know how today's portions compare to the portions available 20 years ago, quiz yourself on Portion Distortion I (2003) and Portion Distortion II (2004). You will also learn about the amount of physical activity required to burn off the extra calories provided by today's portions. Site is provided by the National Institutes of Health.
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"Archeologists say a site in South Carolina may rewrite the history of how the Americas were settled by pushing back the date of human settlement thousands of years. An archeologist from the University of South Carolina today announced radiocarbon dating results of burned plant material dated the first human settlement in North America to 50,000 years ago. 'Topper is the oldest radiocarbon dated site in North America,' said Albert Goodyear of the University of South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology. That would make it significantly older than previously discovered sites, which were thought by most scientists to be from man's earliest venture into the Americas, about 13,000 years ago."
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How Mars Works - - http://science.howstuffworks.com/mars.htm - - Mars has fascinated us for years.This HowStuffWorks site examines the fascinating world of the red planet. Site looks at the major geologic features of the planet, the climate, how the planet was formed, what may have happened to it and is there or was there water and/or life on Mars. Related sites: Mars Exploration Rover Mission - - http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html - - and BBC: Exploring Mars - - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in-depth/sci-tech/2003/race-for-mars/default.stm.
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"Humans were born to run and evolved from ape-like creatures into the way they look today probably because of the need to cover long distances and compete for food, scientists said on November 17, 2004. From tendons and ligaments in the legs and feet that act like springs and skull features that help prevent overheating, to well-defined buttocks that stabilize the body, the human anatomy is shaped for running. 'We do it because we are good at it. We enjoy it and we have all kinds of specializations that permit us to run well,' said Daniel Lieberman, a professor of anthropology at Harvard University in Massachusetts. 'There are all kinds of features that we see in the human body that are critical for running,' he told Reuters. Lieberman and Dennis Bramble, a biology professor at the University of Utah, studied more than two dozen traits that increase humans' ability to run. Their research is reported in the science journal Nature. They suspect modern humans evolved from their ape-like ancestors about 2 million years ago so they could hunt and scavenge for food over large distances."
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Aging Parents and Elder Care - - http://www.aging-parents-and-elder-care.com/ - - This site offers advice, comprehensive checklists, and links to key resources designed to make it easier for caregivers to quickly find the information they need and avoid missing things that are important in the care for their loved one.
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"Two-thirds of older Americans take part in leisure-time physical activities, but poor nutrition remains a problem, especially when it comes to fruit and vegetables, according to the latest snapshot of aging. Doctors and communities must encourage older Americans to adopt healthier lifestyles, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Merck Institute of Aging & Health. 'They are not doing all they can, not only to enjoy more years in their lives but also more life in their years,' said Dr. Terrie Fox Wetle, president of the Gerontological Society of America, which released the survey at its annual meeting."
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Atomic Clock: The Official U.S. Time - - http://www.time.gov/ - - This public service is cooperatively provided by the two time agencies of United States: a Department of Commerce agency, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and its military counterpart, the U. S. Naval Observatory. Readings from the clocks of these agencies contribute to world time, called Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The time maintained by both agencies should never differ by more than 0.000 0001 seconds from UTC.
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"Marine scientists say they have discovered 178 new species of fish and hundreds more new species of plants and other animals in the past year, raising the number of life-forms found in the world's oceans to about 230,000. Discoveries being made public include a gold-speckled and red-striped goby fish, found in Guam's waters, that somehow lives in partnership with a snapping shrimp at its tail. While the goby stands sentinel, the shrimps digs a burrow that both use for shelter. Another surprise for biologists was a colony of rhodoliths, a coral-like marine algae, found in Prince William Sound in Alaska. The hard, red plants, which resemble toy jacks, roll like tumbleweeds in the beds used as nurseries by shrimp and scallops."
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America's Job Bank - - http://www.ajb.org/ - - Visit this site and see how it can help you find the job that's right for you. Thousands of new jobs are posted daily by employers searching for someone like you.
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The number of Americans using fast Internet connections doubled from 2001 through late 2003, still below some expectations and especially low among minority groups and people in rural areas, according to a report by the Bush administration. During the election campaign, President Bush advocated affordable access to high-speed Internet services for all Americans by 2007. The Commerce Department report, prepared in September but undisclosed until after the election, said use of fast Internet connections grew dramatically through October 2003 to 20 percent of U.S. households. The report praised such services for fueling online banking, entertainment and commerce."
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Our Church, Magnolia Christian Center, has the following mission statement. Our purpose is to build a great church for the glory of God through the great commission and the great commandment. MCC' Vision - That MCC will be a place hopping with children, energized with teenagers, balanced with diversity and transformed by the power of God! We want to turn uninterested people into interested people and win the lost to make fully devoted followers of Christ.
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Hollywood Backs Toshiba on DVD Format
Nov 29, 9:43 AM (ET)
By YURI KAGEYAMA
TOKYO (AP) - Japanese electronics maker Toshiba Corp. is getting support from four Hollywood studios for its next-generation DVD format which is expected to be used in players, recorders and other products that go on the market late in 2005.
The Toshiba high-definition DVD format is competing against a rival technology called Blu-ray disc, and it is unclear which format will eventually dominate the market.
Both formats promise increased storage capacity and movie resolution superior enough to get the most out of high-definition TV sets.
The lineup of movies is considered crucial to selling electronic products. But analysts say studios are likely to bring out films for whatever format that becomes the standard and are ultimately unlikely to be loyal either format.
In separate statements released Monday, the U.S. studios Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios, Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema said they will offer titles in the Toshiba HD DVD format but did not say which titles or give other details.
Paramount Home Entertainment, a unit of Viacom Inc. (VIAB), and General Electric Co. (GE)'s Universal Pictures said the offerings will be released next year. Warner Bros. and New Line, both part of Time Warner Inc. (TWX), did not give a date in a joint statement.
Rival technology Blu-ray disc, backed by Sony Corp. (SNE), which owns the Hollywood movie studio Sony Pictures, and is leading a consortium buying the studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. (MGM)
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic brand products, and other companies back Blu-ray, and News Corp. (NWSA)'s Fox Entertainment Group Inc. (FOX), which includes Twentieth Century Fox, is a board member of the association that backs Blu-ray.
Blu-ray can store more digital programming than HD DVD, but proponents of HD DVD say it will be cheaper for manufacturers because it is uses technology that more closely resembles that used in current DVDs.
Universal Studios Home Entertainment President Craig Kornblau said in a statement he favors HD DVD over other standards.
"We have evaluated all of the emerging home entertainment technologies and have selected the one which we feel is the most beneficial to our consumers," he said.
Toshiba plans to start selling its first HD DVD products, a player and a recorder, and a laptop with a built-in HD DVD drive in late 2005.
Yoshihide Fujii, corporate senior vice president overseeing the digital media business, said Toshiba is targeting annual HD DVD-related sales of 5 billion yen ($49 million) in 2005, and expects that to climb to 300 billion yen ($3 billion) by 2010.
Fujii said the spread of flat TVs is boosting the demand for high-quality digital movies and other content. The endorsement from Hollywood is a plus for HD DVD, but he stopped short of saying the deals were exclusive and refused to provide details.
"Even if we come out with the hardware, without content, it's just a box," he told reporters at a Tokyo hotel.
HD DVD has been endorsed by a forum made up of more than 200 companies.
"We believe that HD DVD has clear advantages in cost of manufacturing and ease of replication, offering consumers the highest quality viewing experience at the most affordable price," said Thomas Lesinski, president, Paramount Pictures, Worldwide Home Entertainment.
"We're confident that retailers and consumers alike will support this compelling technology," he said.
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TGIF-Today God Is First
The Spirit of Competition
Friday, December 03, 2004
by Os Hillman
I in them and You in Me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me. ~ John 17:23
A story is told about F.B. Meyer, the great Bible teacher and pastor who lived a century ago. He was pastoring a church and began to notice that attendance was suffering. This continued until he finally asked some members of his congregation one Sunday morning why they thought attendance was down.
A member volunteered, "It is because of this new church down the road. The young preacher has everyone talking and many are going to hear him speak."
His name was Charles Spurgeon. Meyer, rather than seeking to discourage this, exhorted the entire congregation to join him and go participate in seeing this "move of God" as he described it to his congregation.
"If this be happening, then God must be at work."
Meyer, even though he was an accomplished preacher and teacher, recognized where God was at work and joined Him in it. [The author heard this on a radio show from Key Life Ministries with Steve Brown, based in Orlando, Florida.]
Can you imagine this story taking place in our competitive world today? Competition has penetrated the Church so much that many churches and Christian organizations approach ministry like a sports event. They view their mission as a business that seeks to gain market share among Christians - donors, members, influence - all under the name of God. I am sure God looks down at us and asks, "Whatever happened to John 17:23?" Sometimes we must remind our fellow servants that we are all on the same team! We should be seeking to impact the Kingdom of God, not increase our own market share.
When Jesus made this statement about unity in John 17:23, it represented the key to bringing salvation to many. He was saying that when His Body is unified, the non-Christian would be able to see who Jesus really is - the Son of God. Are you contributing to unity in the Body of Christ? Or are you contributing to a spirit of competition? Ask God where you can be an instrument of unity in His Body.
Os Hillman Copyright 2004
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NewsScan Daily, 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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NewsScan Daily is underwritten by RLG, a world-class organization making significant and sustained contributions to the effective management and appropriate use of information technology. NSD is written by John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas, editors@NewsScan.Com.
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NEW IBM CHIP FOR BROADBAND APPLICATIONS
A new chip from IBM will be used next year in such consumer-product applications as high-definition TV sets from Sony and Toshiba and a "home server for broadband content" from Sony. Sony and Toshiba cooperated with IBM in the chip's development. Code-named "Cell," the chip is made up of a 64-bit power processor core and multiple processor cores for handling such broadband applications as video games, movies and other digital content; it will also be able to handle video streams from cable and satellite systems, decompressing encoded information and expanding it for display on high-definition plasma screens. Future applications will allow a viewer to do things such as: reorient digitized video as it's received to provide views from above or an end-zone view; take a TV character and place him in a videogame; or interact with a commercial to see how the advertised clothing would look on an image of the viewer stored in the system. (Wall Street Journal 29 Nov 2004)
RECORDING INDUSTRY SUES KAZAA
Australia's recording industry has filed a lawsuit to shut down the Kazaa file-swapping network, which it calls "an engine of copyright piracy to a degree of magnitude never before seen" because it allows users to freely exchange songs, movies and TV programs without paying royalties to the copyright owners. Sharman Networks Ltd., which owns Kazaa, will argue that it not only warns users not to commit music piracy but also that it has no control over what people actually do with the "peer-to-peer" software it provides. But the recording industry points out that Sharman provide software that helps users filter pornography and viruses -- yet don't provide software to filter out files containing copyrighted material. (San Jose Mercury News 29 Nov 2004)
CHASING TIVO
DirecTV plans to offer a digital video recorder (DVR) service that will duplicate almost all of the features now available from TiVo (currently its partner) and, in addition, provide the kind of video-on-demand programming now available on cable. DVRs make it possible for viewers to schedule and record TV shows on a hard drive, and also to pause and replay live TV. But TiVo has told analysts to beware of "vaporware" (nonexistent software that's still just in the talking stage), and TiVo CEO Mike Ramsay says, "NDS has delayed their product offering into later next year. I think we have got a fairly clear runway with DirecTV that we certainly want to take advantage of." Ramsay adds, "When it is time to compete, we will focus on that, too. And I think we'll do very well." (USA Today 29 Nov 2004)
HOLLYWOOD BACKS TOSHIBA ON HD-DVD FORMAT
Four major Hollywood studios have announced their support of Toshiba's high-definition DVD format, which is competing against the Blu-ray rival technology backed by Sony. Paramount Home Entertainment and Universal Pictures have pledged to begin offering titles in the new Toshiba format next year, while Warner Brothers and New Line Cinema did not give a date for their HD-DVD debut. Blu-ray is capable of storing more digital programming than HD-DVD, but proponents of HD-DVD say that because the Toshiba technology more closely resembles that used for current DVDs, it will cut manufacturing costs. Toshiba plans to begin selling its first HD-DVD products -- a player and a recorder, as well as a laptop with a built-in HD-DVD drive in late 2005. (AP 29 Nov 2004)
WIMAX PROSPECTS LOOKING UP
Upstart TowerStream is offering a new take on wireless broadband, delivering high-speed connections to business customers through antennas perched atop highrises in urban areas. The service, dubbed WiMax (worldwide interoperability for microwave access), uses fixed antennas to send and receive signals across entire metropolitan areas. The radio signals and antennas are unaffected by bad weather and provide a cheaper alternative to data cables buried below streets that are vulnerable to accidental severing by construction crews. Although other companies are getting into the WiMax business, TowerStream is currently the market leader, with a lock on prime locations like the top of the Empire State Building and the MetLife Building in New York City. "The real estate is the hard part of the business," says TowerStream COO Jeff Thompson. "When you tell people you can reach 10,000 clients, they don't believe you." It took him more than two years to negotiate those leases, but Thompson's optimism is warranted, say many analysts. The high-speed wireless Internet market is worth about $400 million globally and could quadruple in the next few years, according to the WiMax Forum, a group of WiMax equipment makers and providers. (New York Times 29 Nov 2004)
PC MAKERS FACING HARD TIMES
Three of the top 10 PC makers may drop out of the global PC market by 2007, starved by stagnant demand during the 2006-2008 timeframe, according to a new report by Gartner. The near-term forecast is a little brighter -- Gartner predicts annual shipment increases of 11.3% and annual revenue increases of about 4.7% between 2003 and 2005. But by 2006, most corporations and consumers will have replaced their oldest computers, completing the latest PC replacement cycle, which occurs about every four years for PCs and every three years for laptops. Emerging markets such as China will boost revenues during that time, but not enough to offset slack demand elsewhere, says Gartner, which declined to say which companies might drop out of the PC race. "The bottom line here is that the vendor landscape will look very different in the next couple of years," says a Gartner analyst, adding that there's still time for PC makers to enact cost-cutting measures that would enable them to survive the anticipated drought. (CNet News.com 29 Nov 2004)
NEW BROWSER VULNERABILITY TARGETS NON-IE MODELS, TOO
Since its debut, Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser has been plagued by a steady stream of "flaw discovery" announcements followed by the requisite patches. Usually those flaws are exclusive to the Microsoft model, but a new vulnerability also affects the Mozilla Browser, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Apple Safari browsers. This latest bug, called the Infinite Array Sort Denial of Service Vulnerability, causes the affected browsers to execute an infinite JavaScript array sort, which in turn causes a crash. The flaw was discovered by independent security researcher Berend-Jan Wever, who also uncovered the IFRAME vulnerability that affects banner ads. (InternetNews 29 Nov 2004) http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3440971
SMARTER IM-ING
Now there's a new service called IM Smarter that stores copies of conversations for later retrieval, a feature that could become quite handy as instant messaging makes inroads into the corporate world. Inventor David Weekly characterizes IM Smarter as an electronic "secretary" that takes notes and alerts you to important events. "The logging will appeal to people who passed notes in school and would keep them in a shoe box. And there are people who use IM for business purposes and want to keep those conversations." IM Smarter's storage capabilities lend fuel to an emerging debate over how ephemeral instant message conversations should be. Many IM-ers assume their conversations disappear when they (and their correspondents) log off. The IM Smarter service is currently free, but Weekly hopes to add advertising to support it, and eventually launch an ad-free premium service that allows users to set up IM alerts for tracking changes to Web sites or eBay auctions. (San Jose Mercury News 29 Nov 2004)
BETTER TRAVEL DEALS AVAILABLE OFF THE BEATEN PATH
The Web has revolutionized the travel business, but road warriors and leisure travelers should look beyond the Big Three -- Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity -- to find the best deals. A group of upstart "travel aggregators" such as Mobissimo, SideStep, Cheapflights, Qixo, Kayak Software and FareChase are hoping to snag some of the more intrepid bargain-seekers as people look for holiday get-aways. "Many consumers are becoming frustrated with the online travel experience," says Mobissimo co-founder Svetlozar Nestorov. "Our goal is to make it better." The potential is huge, according to Forrester Research, which estimates 29.4 million U.S. households will use the Internet to book $53 billion worth of travel in this calendar year. "The online agencies really represented 'Travel 1.0' because they democratized the process of booking travel and made it available to all of us," says SideStep marketing VP Phil Carpenter. "The next generation is represented by the travel search engines. We're 'Travel 2.0.'" (AP/Los Angeles Times 29 Nov 2004)
TOPIC MAPS PROVIDE CONTEXT FOR SEARCH RESULTS
Databases and search engines can spew out thousands of "results," but how many of them are really on target? And how much time do you want to spend sifting through straw to find the gold? Enter "topic maps" -- smart indices that improve search by categorizing terms based on their relationships with other things. For instance, topic maps can sort out the different results for "Franz Ferdinand," the doomed Austrian archduke, and "Franz Ferdinand," the alternative rock group named after him. "The payoff (of topic maps) from the user standpoint is that you are no longer confronted with everything in the world that is known about the subject," says Patrick Durusau, chairman of a topic maps technical committee at OASIS, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards. Topic maps are currently used at the Internal Revenue Service to organize its tax forms and to coordinate with the Social Security Administration, and at several U.S. Department of Defense agencies for intelligence-gathering purposes. According to one expert, the legal and pharmaceutical industries are the next ones likely to adopt the topic map approach to indexing their data. (Wired.com 30 Nov 2004)
CYBERSPACE ACTIVISM
The German-based Web portal Lycos Europe is offering a screensaver program that chokes spam servers by flooding them with junk traffic. The company argues that what it's doing is perfectly legal, but former FCC chief technologist David Farber comments: "You don't stop a bad thing by being bad yourself. The idea of somebody coming and hitting you and you hitting back, you both end up very hurt. It just aggravates an already serious problem." And noted computer security expert Dorothy Denning, a professor of defense analysis at the Navy Postgraduate School, points out that cyberspace activism of the kind offered by Lycos Europe is likely to have only minimal impact on spam because "the cost of adding extra bandwidth may be worth the reward" that spammers get from their activities. She adds: "The interesting question is whether or not that company [an anti-spam activist company] might be liable under some law, and would probably be liable, certainly, at least under a lawsuit by the spammers." (AP 30 Nov 2004)
'VIRUS-THROTTLE' SOFTWARE FROM HP
Software engineers at Hewlett-Packard are developing "virus-throttling" software to slow the spread of viruses and worms on the Internet by identifying suspicious behavior. HP chief technology officer Tony Redmond says, "Any worm or virus that depends on its ability to spread itself will be hurt by this technology." Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, says the overall idea "makes sense," and adds, "It's an arms race, not a simple war. I've been hearing people talk about the notion of throttling for a long time, and it's a spectacular idea if HP can get it to work." (Washington Post 30 Nov 2004)
LOWER PRICES ON THIN TVs (BUY NOW!)
A glut of liquid crystal display (LCD) flat-panel televisions will cause prices to drop by as much as 30 percent over the course of 2005; however, electronics retailers would just as soon not hear that kind of talk, and Lee Simonson of Best Buy admits: "We do not want to talk about predictions of price drops. We want people to buy now." According to a survey by the Consumer Electronics Association, the most desired holiday gift this season is a plasma TV, but Mike Fidler, an executive vice president at Sony, says that LCD TV's will drop so much in price that plasma will go away in three to five years.(AP/New York Times 29 Nov 2004)
WIRELESS IN PHILADELPHIA
Verizon has struck a deal with the city of Philadelphia to provide wireless Internet access as a municipal service. A spokeswoman for Philadelphia Mayor John F. Street says the two parties "reached an understanding that protects our interests and allows us to move forward with the Wireless Philadelphia initiative." Under the Pennsylvania legislation, any political subdivision would have to get the permission of the local telephone company to provide a telecommunications service for a fee, including broadband Internet, and if the company rejects the plan it would have to offer a similar service within 14 months. (San Jose Mercury News 30 Nov 2004)
MICROSOFT IN INDIA
Microsoft will open its sixth research center in Bangalore next month, and focus its researchers on ways to create, store and search information in multiple languages, technology for use in emerging markets, and other specialties. Microsoft also currently operates research campuses in Beijing; Cambridge, England; Redmond, WA; as well as San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Microsoft research executive Rick Rashid says the company is adding the new Indian campus to take advantage of the crop of promising computer science students coming out of universities in that country. (AP/ USA Today 1 Dec 2004)
OUTSOURCING ULTIMATELY GOOD FOR EVERYONE
Espen Andersen, associate professor at the Norwegian School of Management BI and research affiliate with The Concours Group, says in the ACM's online publication Ubiquity: "In terms of labor economics, offshoring is relatively unimportant -- it will affect only a very small proportion of jobs, both in the USA and in Europe. I think McKinsey calculated that something like 3 million jobs could disappear off shore during the next 5 years in the United States. I don't mean to be callous here, but 3 million jobs in this context is essentially nothing! I have been told by labor economists that the American economy loses between 25 and 30 million jobs every year, but gains 27 to 32 million jobs. So 3 million jobs disappearing over 5 years is nothing. Of course, it's traumatic to the people it happens to, but in terms of the statistical picture and what actually happens to these people, most of them get new jobs at no real financial downside, except in the transition phase. And the economy gets better for it." (Ubiquity 30 Nov 2004)
MICROSOFT LAUNCHES FREE BLOGGING SERVICE
Microsoft launched a free consumer-oriented "blogging" service called MSN Spaces, which provides a platform and tools for the creation of personal Web logs (blogs) that include pictures, music and text. Users will be allowed to post as much as 10 megabytes of digital images -- the equivalent of 250 photos -- to their site, and will have the option of sharing it with a select group of contacts or with the general public. Microsoft's move comes in response to similar services offered by rivals: AOL offers a service called Journals and Google last year bought Pyra Labs, which runs the Blogger service. In addition, several independent Web sites such as LiveJournal.com also offer blogging services. (Wall Street Journal 2 Dec 2004)
'BLOG' HEADS THE LIST OF MOST-LOOKED-UP WORD FOR 2004
U.S. dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster says "blog" topped the list of most looked-up terms on its Web site during the last 12 months. The word will now appear in the 2005 print version of Merriam-Webster's dictionary, defined as "a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments and often hyperlinks." However, Oxford University Press says "blog" is already included in some print versions of its Oxford English Dictionary and has entered mainstream usage. "I think it was the word of last year rather than this year," says an Oxford U. Press spokesman. "Now we're getting words that derive from it such as 'blogosphere' and so on." According to the Pew Internet & American Life project, a blog is created every 5.8 seconds, and blog analysis firm Technorati estimates that the number of blogs in existence now exceeds 4.8 million. Other top 10 terms on the Merriam-Webster list were related to natural disasters that struck the U.S. this year ("hurricane" and "cicada") and the election ("partisan," "incumbent" and "electoral"). (BBC News 1 December 2004)
SUBSCRIPTION-BASED MUSIC WILL DRIVE SALES
Subscription-based digital music services, such as the revamped Napster and RealNetworks' Rhapsody, are gaining in popularity among young adults (those aged 18- to 24-years), and a new report from JupiterResearch predicts that such services eventually will outgrow the a la carte song downloads that are favored by younger music fans (13- to 17-year-olds). The survey results also showed that CDs won't be replaced by digital music sales any time soon -- even as far out as 2009, digital music sales are projected to comprise just 12% of total consumer music spending. About half of the adults polled believe that music recorded on a physical disc is more valuable than digital. "CDs offer higher sound fidelity, aren't burdened with awkward copy protection and are compatible with pretty much every way people listen to music," says Jupiter analyst David Card. "MP3 players and portable rentals could turn around that value perception, but it will take time." (CNet News.com 1 Dec 2004)
ESPN TO KICK OFF WIRELESS PHONE SERVICE NEXT YEAR
ESPN says it will launch its own branded wireless phone service next year, dubbed ESPN Mobile. The service, which represents the first in a series of branded cell phone services planned by ESPN-owner Walt Disney Co., will lease space on Sprint's nationwide PCS network. ESPN Mobile will be marketing its own handsets, accessories and applications, including access to sports headlines, photos, ringtones and streaming audio and video over Sprint's high-speed data network. (1 Dec 2004)
LG PHILIPS PLANS $5-BILLION FLAT-PANEL TV FACTORY
The LG Philips LCD Company, a joint venture of LG Electronics of South Korea and Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands, is planning to build a $5.1-billion plant to produce large (42-inch and 47-inch) liquid crystal display (LCD) television sets. LG Philips, which is the world's second largest maker of LCD TVs, plans to begin mass production of its new line in the first half of 2006. The companies hope to process 45,000 sheets of glass a month during the first half of 2006, increasing to 90,000 sheets a month later on. The market for LCD TVs is expected to grow 21%, to $43 billion, in 2005, according to market research firm DisplaySearch. (New York Times 2 Dec 2004)
IBM MAY BE LEAVING THE PC BUSINESS
IBM is said to be talking with Chinese PC-maker Lenovo, which was formerly known as Legend, about the possible sale of IBM's PC operations (though IBM neither confirms nor denies the rumor). Samuel J. Palmisano, who became IBM's chief executive in 2002, has been recasting it as a service organization offering itself as a consulting partner with its corporate customers. Industry analyst Mark Stahlman explains, "Palmisano's getting out of businesses that aren't growth opportunities and concentrating on what IBM does best. PC's are not where the growth is." And Gartner research vice president Leslie Fiering says: "Exiting the market may be the only logical choice for global vendors bleeding profits and struggling for share. The PC divisions of HP and IBM are vulnerable to being spun off if their drag on margins and profitability are deemed too great by their parent companies." (New York Times 3 Dec 2004)
EX-CIA CHIEF WORRIES ABOUT INTERNET SECURITY
Former CIA Director George J. Tenet sees the Internet as "a potential Achilles' heel" in the fight against terrorism, endangering "our financial stability and physical security if the networks we are creating are not protected." Calling for new cybersecurity measures, Tenet says: "I know that these actions will be controversial in this age when we still think the Internet is a free and open society with no control or accountability, but ultimately the Wild West must give way to governance and control." He believes that access to the Web might need to be limited to those who can show they take security seriously. (UPI/Washington Times 3 Dec 2004)
THE SEARCH SOFTWARE USED BY THE IN-CROWD
Analysts working for U.S. intelligence and other federal agencies looking for documents and data stored on computers inside their own agencies they use software made by the Convera Corp. in Virginia, which offers specialized services and offer such features as the ability to automatically notify intelligence analysts when a new document matching a search query is added to the agency's database, and to search for patterns within data, identifying relationships buried in mountains of separate documents. Helen Mitchell, head of enterprise search for the FDA, says: "Before, people couldn't find everything if things were misfiled or they didn't have the time or resources. With the Convera software, and the technology for searching documents and patterns, they can find documents even with misspellings." Convera plans to make its Internet search engine available to regular computer users for free sometime next year. (Washington Post 4 Dec 2004)
RECYCLED BLOGS: FROM BLOG TO PRINT
Tony Perkins, the Silicon Valley publishing entrepreneur who made the magazine Red Herring an icon of the dot-com boom years, is creating a new quarterly print publication called AlwaysOn, that will repackage, in printed form, material taken from Internet blogs. It will draw heavily from postings on www.alwayson-network.com, a technology-focused blogging community that Perkins created after Red Herring's collapse. He hopes to make money through a combination of advertising and an annual $49 subscription: "It makes my heart go pitter patter when I think about it. I really think this is where the media is going to go in the future." (AP 3 Dec 2004)
YEAH, PULL THE GAMES (JUST LET THEM WATCH PRO BASKETBALL)
The superintendent of a Missouri correctional center says he "didn't closely review" the videogames the prison inmates were using, because he'd been led to believe that "these games had more like cartoon violence." But now he's taken a look at them, and Missouri's most violent criminals will no longer be able to play video games that simulate murders, carjackings and the killing of police officers. In one game, "Hitman: Contracts," players use meat hooks and silencer-equipped pistols to carry out violent contract killings. One correctional officer defends the games this way: "It has a good effect on helping us run the prison and make sure they're busy and not trying to work on ways to escape or harm others. That's kind of our bottom line -- public safety." But criminal justice professor Jim Houston points out: "These kinds of games reinforce a criminal lifestyle that caused them to get into prison in the first place." (AP/USA Today 2 Dec 2004)
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DR. MIKE'S NEW BOOK
Those of you buying presents for friends and associates might want to consider the new book by Dr. Mike Litrel, who developed many fans in the NewsScan community when we published a few of his columns. His book is called "The Eyes Don't See What the Mind Don't Know," and you can go to <>http://www.doctor-mike.net/> to learn more about it. Dr. Mike is donating the proceeds from book sales to a women & children's center.
HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: FREDERICK THE GREAT
Today's Honorary Subscriber is the medieval monarch Frederick II (1194-1250), known to his contemporaries as Stupor Mundi (Wonder of the World) for his breath of knowledge and brilliant mind.
Frederick was an excellent administrator and an able soldier, and his broad cultural outlook and intellectual gifts made him something of Renaissance man ahead of his time. He understood several languages and encouraged the development of poetry and sculpture. His book on falcons and relevant facts of bird life, based entirely on his own research, earned him a place in the history of science and is still considered first-rate natural history by experts.
Frederick belonged to the royal Hohenstaufen family. He was the son of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI and Constance of Sicily. Because of circumstances created by his father's premature death at age 32, Frederick was reared by his mother in her native Sicily. When he came of age, Frederick inherited the crowns of both Germany and Italy, but he preferred to live in Sicily, where he remained even after he was named Holy Roman Emperor in 1220. Frederick governed his Sicilian kingdom well. He established the University of Naples in 1224 and made the University of Salerno the best school of medicine in Europe.
His decision to rule from Sicily, however, gave him constant problems with both the German princes and the Northern Italian provincial rulers, who sought greater independence from Imperial control. Frederick also had conflicts with the popes, who saw the Emperor as a rival power. In 1227 Pope Honorius III excommunicated Frederick for violating his vow to go on crusade. This motivated Frederick to set out for Jerusalem the next year. Using diplomacy and not arms, Frederick succeeded in recovering Jerusalem from the Muslims who had conquered it. He then crowned himself king of Jerusalem in 1229.
In consolidating his power over his Italian kingdom, Frederick erected a chain of castles and border fortifications, enlarged major harbors and established a navy and a fleet of merchant vessels. He instituted measures designed to bring trade under state control, and make the manufacture of certain products the monopoly of the state. Finally, he created a civil service for which candidates were trained at the state university he had founded in Naples in 1224, the first in Europe.
Frederick also created a new constitution the Kingdom of Sicily that was the first codification of a European state's administrative law since the reign of Justinian in the 6th century. Frederick's codes contained ideas that anticipated political principles that would be favored by the Enlightenment. Frederick's struggles with rebellious German and Italian princes and papal authorities continued unabated until his sudden death in 1250. He was buried in the cathedral of Palermo near his first wife, his parents, and his grandfather.
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[To find a library copy of "Frederick II: A Medieval Emporer" by David Abulafia, visit RLG's RedLightGreen.com:
WORTH THINKING ABOUT: ETIQUETTE AND PENMANSHIP
In his biography of George Washington, author Joseph J. Ellis calls into question the conventional wisdom about the first president's Rules of Civility:
"Several biographers have called attention to his hand-copied list of 110 precepts from The Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation, which was based on rules of etiquette originally composed by Jesuit scholars in 1595. Several of the rules are hilarious (#9, 'Spit not into the fire ... especially if there be meat before it'; #13, 'Kill no vermin, or fleas, lice, ticks, etc. in the sight of others'); but the first rule also seems to have had resonance for Washington's later obsession with deportment: 'Every action done in company ought to be done with some sign of respect to those that are present.' As a reminder of an earlier era's conviction that character was not just who you were but also what others thought you were, this is a useful point that foreshadows Washington's flair for disappearing within his public persona. But the more prosaic truth is that Rules of Civility has attracted so much attention from biographers because it is one of the few documents of Washington's youth that has survived. It is quite possible that he copied out the list as a mere exercise in penmanship."
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[Source: Joseph J. Ellis, "His Excellency"; to find a library copy of Ellis's "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation," visit RLG's RedLightGreen.com:
HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: ANNE HUTCHINSON
Today's Honorary Subscriber is the early colonial America religious dissenter Anne Marbury Hutchinson (1591-1643), whose ideas provoked an intense religious and political crisis in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the years 1636 to 1638.
Initially a follower of prominent puritan clergyman John Cotton, she and her husband, William Hutchinson, followed Cotton to Massachusetts in 1634. But once settled in the Bay Colony, she began to disagree with certain tenets of orthodox Puritanism, and specifically she denied that mere conformity with puritan laws and covenants was a sign of godliness. Instead, she insisted that true godliness came from inner experience of the Holy Spirit, and she declared that persons under such a "covenant of grace" might commune directly with God. These views challenged the principles of Massachusetts's religious and political system, which demanded the regular observance of religious laws and acceptance of the Bible as the sole source of those laws.
Hutchinson's ideas were branded as a form of Antinomianism, the heresy of believing that moral law does not bind Christians. In 1936 a political crisis arose when one of her supporters, Henry Vane, was elected governor.
An alarmed Puritan public succeeded the following year in returning John Winthrop to the governorship, and under his leadership an ecclesiastical synod condemned Hutchinson's views in August 1637. She was brought to trial in November of the same year and was found guilty of sedition and contempt. Excommunicated by the Boston church in March 1638, she was expelled with her family and a small group of followers, whereupon she settled at Pocasset (now Portsmouth, R.I.). There, with the assistance of a sympathetic Roger Williams, they purchased land from the Indians. In 1642, however, quarrels with other Rhode Island settlers forced Hutchinson to move to Pelham Bay, N.Y., where in 1643 she and all her children save one were massacred by hostile Indians, an event regarded by some in Massachusetts as a manifestation of divine judgment.
Born Anne Marbury in England, Hutchinson was the daughter of a clergyman silenced for preaching against the established Church of England. Although without formal education, she grew up learning much by listening to her father and his friends discuss religion and government. At 21 she married William Hutchinson, her childhood sweetheart, with whom she would have 14 children.
Active in religious affairs, she traveled frequently to hear John Cotton preach. In 1633 Cotton was forced to leave England because of his Puritan sympathies. With Hutchinson's eldest son, Edward, he fled to New England. The Hutchinsons with their other children followed the next year and settled in Boston, where she began to hold regular religious meetings in her home. Her brilliance and biblical knowledge attracted large numbers of people, including leading merchants and many ministers. At first discussion centered on reviewing, sometimes harshly, recent sermons, but soon the meetings became opportunities for Hutchinson to expound the theological views, which ultimately led to her downfall.
[To find a library copy of "Divine Rebel," a biography of Hutchinson, visit RLG's RedLightGreen.com:
WORTH THINKING ABOUT: CITY LIFE
Journalist and fiction writer Suketu Mehta uses his personal experience to alert us to what city life may be like in the near future: "There will soon be more people living in the city of Bombay than on the continent of Australia. Urbs Prima in Indis reads the plaque outside the Gateway of India. It is also the Urbs Prima in Mundis, at least in one area, the first test of the vitality of a city: the number of people living in it. With 14 million people, Bombay is the biggest city on the planet of a race of city dwellers. Bombay is the future of urban civilization on the planet. God help us.
"I left Bombay in 1977 and came back twenty-one years later, when it had grown up to become Mumbai. Twenty-one years: enough time for a human being to be born, get an education, be eligible to drink, get married, drive, vote, go to war, and kill a man. In all that time, I hadn't lost my accent. I speak like a Bombay boy; it is how I am identified in Kanpur and Kansas. 'Where're you from?' Searching for an answer -- in Paris, in London, in Manhattan -- I always fall back on 'Bombay.' Somewhere, buried beneath the wreck of its current condition -- one of urban catastrophe -- is the city that has a tight claim on my heart, a beautiful city by the sea, an island-state of hope in a very old country. I went back to look for that city with a simple question: Can you go home again? In the looking, I found the cities within me.
"I am a city boy. I was born in a city in extremis, Calcutta. Then I moved to Bombay and lived there nine years. Then to New York, eight years in Jackson Heights. A year, on and off, in Paris. Five years in the East Village. Scattered over time, another year or so in London. The only exceptions were three years in Iowa City, not a city at all, and a couple more in New Brunswick, New Jersey, college towns that prepared me for a return to the city. My two sons were born in a great city, New York. I live in cities by choice, and I'm pretty sure I will die in a city. I don't know what to do in the country, though I like it well enough on weekends."
[Source: Suketu Mehta, "Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found," from Knopf. To find a library copy of Mehta's book "Hunger," visit RLG's RedLightGreen.com:
HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: J.R.R. TOLKIEN Today's Honorary Subscriber is the English writer and scholar John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973), the renowned professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University who is best known for reinstating fantasy as a serious literary genre.
Tolkien set the stage for publishing his own original fantasy, "The Hobbit," by a 1936 lecture entitled "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," in which he established the aesthetic value of the mythological creatures -- Grendel and the dragon -- in medieval poetry. He followed up "The Hobbit" with a critical theory of fantasy, "On Fairy-Stories," published in 1939.
After that he absorbed himself almost completely in composing his two mythological romance masterpieces, "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy published in 1954-55, and "The Silmarillion," published in 1977. In these imaginative sagas, Tolkien created an elaborate fantasy world in which the inhabitants have their own language and mythology.
Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa. His father died when he was 4 years old and the family returned to England where Tolkien was educated at King Edward's School in Birmingham and at Exeter College, Oxford. In 1915, he enlisted in the Lancashire Fusiliers, and before leaving for France he married his longtime sweetheart, Edith Bratt. Tolkien saw action in the Battle of the Somme, but trench fever kept him frequently hospitalized during 1917. After the war he joined the Oxford University faculty, holding posts in philology and in English language and literature, enjoying a career that lasted until his retirement in 1959.
Tolkien's work on creating the fantasy world portrayed in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy began as early as his teen years. The work later gained shape and depth from his professorial studies of the heroic literature of northern Europe -- Beowulf, the Edda, and the Kalevala. The spirit of these poems and their languages inspired his humorous and whimsical literary creations, such as heroes who are short and stout, with very furry feet. Tolkein invented an imaginary land, Middle Earth, describing in meticulous detail its language, its geography, and its exciting history, which included fantastic tales of battles between good and evil. "The Hobbit; or, There and Back Again" was written to introduce readers to this special world, where its inhabitants, elves, dwarfs, wizards, and the furry-footed hobbit Bilbo Baggins fight and win against an evil dragon. Tolkein's fantasy tales became immensely popular in the 1960s, especially among young adults. A film adaptation of "The Lord of the Rings" has enjoyed great popular success in theatres and on video media, due in part to stunning computer animations. Today, Tolkein's books continue to sell well and hobbit has become a household word.
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Activities and Events of Interest
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December 4, 2004 - The 18th Annual Christmas and Candlelight in Old Washington
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December 5 El Dorado 3:00 p.m. Holiday Concert Kim Crosby, Soprano
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MCC New York City Mission Trip December 14 - 18
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January 10 El Dorado 7:30 p.m. In Honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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February 5 El Dorado 7:30 p.m. Krystle Maczka, Piano
February 6 Magnolia 2:00 p.m. "
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March 5 Camden 7:30 p.m. Premier String Quartet
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April 3 El Dorado 3:00 p.m. Xiang Gao, Violin
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MCC Tanzania, Africa Mission Trip, July 2005. Get you7r passport!
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"September 11 WDYTJWD" W. P. Florence
Justice first, then peace."
"September 11" Never forget.--Tony Moses
"ONE NATION UNDER GOD ...the only way"--Phillip Story
"We have nothing to fear but fear itself." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Keeping my head down but face toward Heaven" - - Jody Eldred, ABC News Cameraman in Kuwait
"Remember Pearl Harbor? Remember 9/11!" --"Bug"
Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity. - - George Carlin
"Stop telling God how big your storm is. Instead, tell the storm how big your God is!" - - Queen E. Watson
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NEVER FORGET! We're listing the names of our soldiers killed weekly. These records can be found at http://www.defenselink. mil/releases/ This posting covers the last two weeks.
The Department of Defense announced the death of two soldiers supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. They died on November 24 in Deh Rawod, Afghanistan, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their unit. Both soldiers were assigned to the Army's 2nd Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division (Light), Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.
01. Cpl. Dale E. Fracker, Jr., 23, of Apple Valley, Calif.
02. Cpl. Jacob R. Fleischer, 25, of St. Louis, Mo.
03. Sgt. Benjamin C. Edinger, 24, of Green Bay, Wisc., died Nov. 23, at the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Md., from injuries received as result of enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq on Nov 14. He was assigned to 2nd Force Reconnaissance Company, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.
04. Pfc. Ryan J. Cantafio, 22, of Beaver Dam, Wisc., died Nov. 25, as result of enemy action in Al Andar Province, Iraq. He was assigned to the Marine Corps Reserve's 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, headquartered in Chicago, Ill.
05. Pvt. Brian K. Grant, 31, of Dallas, Texas, died Nov. 26 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, when his unit was attacked by enemy forces using small arms fire. Grant was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, Camp Howze, Korea.
06. Pfc. Harrison J. Meyer, 20, of Worthington, Ohio, died Nov. 26 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, when his unit was attacked by enemy forces using small arms fire. Meyer was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, Camp Howze, Korea.
The Department of Defense announced the death of six Marines who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
07. Cpl. Kirk J. Bosselmann, 21, of Napa, Calif.
08. Lance Cpl. Bradley M. Faircloth, 20, of Mobile, Ala.
09. Lance Cpl. Jeffery S. Holmes, 20, of White River Junction, Vt.
10. Lance Cpl. David B. Houck, 25, of Winston Salem, N.C.
11. Lance Cpl. Joshua E. Lucero, 19, of Tucson, Ariz.
12. Sgt. Nicholas S. Nolte, 25, of Falls City, Neb.
Nolte died Nov. 24 at the National Naval Medical Center Bethesda, Md., from injuries received Nov. 9 as a result of enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. Holmes died Nov. 25, Faircloth and Houck died Nov. 26, and Bosselmann and Lucero died Nov. 27, all as a result of enemy action in Al Anbar Province Iraq.
Bosselmann, Faircloth, Holmes and Houck were assigned to 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C. Lucero was assigned to 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C. Nolte was assigned to 2nd Low Altitude Air Defense Battalion, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point N.C.
13. Lance Cpl. Jordan D. Winkler, 19, of Tulsa, Okla, died Nov 26 due to a non-combat related incident at Camp Fallujah, Iraq. He was assigned to Combat Service Support Battalion 1, Combat Service Support Group 11, 1st Force Service Support Group, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.
The Department of Defense announced the death of two soldiers supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. They died Nov. 28 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, when their unit was conducting a dismounted patrol and they encountered enemy forces using small arms fire. Both were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Camp Howze, Korea. Killed were:
14. Staff Sgt. Michael B. Shackelford, 25, of Grand Junction, Colo.
15. Sgt. Carl W. Lee, 23, of Oklahoma City, Okla.
16. Sgt. Trinidad R. Martinezluis, 22, of Los Angeles, Calif., died Nov. 28 in Baqubah, Iraq, when his 5-ton vehicle rolled over and pinned him underwater. Martinezluis was assigned to the Army's 201st Forward Support Battalion, 1st Infantry Division, Vilseck, Germany.
17. Spc. Jeremy E. Christensen, 27, of Albuquerque, N.M., died Nov. 27 in Ad Duilayah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his patrol vehicle. Christensen was assigned to 1st Squadron, 4th Armored Cavalry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, Schweinfurt, Germany.
The Department of Defense announced the death of two Marines who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
18. Lance Cpl. Adam R. Brooks, 20, of Manchester, N.H.
19. Lance Cpl. Charles A. Hanson Jr., 22, of Panacea, Fla.
Both Marines died Nov. 28 as a result of enemy action in Babil Province, Iraq. They were assigned to 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C.
20. Pfc. Stephen C. Benish, 20, of Clark, N.J., died Nov. 28 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, when he received enemy fire while on a dismounted patrol. Benish was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Camp Howze, Korea.
21. Cpl. Gentian Marku, 22, of Warren, Mich., died Nov. 25 as a result of enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. He was assigned to 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.
22. Lance Cpl. Blake A. Magaoay, 20, of Pearl City, Hawaii, died Nov. 29 as a result of enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. He was assigned to 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.
23. Sgt. Michael A. Smith, 24, of Camden, Ark., died Nov. 26 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., from injuries sustained in Baghdad, Iraq, on Nov. 7 when he was attacked by enemy forces using small arms fire. Smith was assigned to the Army National Guard's 1st Battalion, 153rd Infantry Regiment, Texarkana, Ark.
The Department of Defense announced the death of two soldiers supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. They died Nov. 29 in Baghdad, Iraq, when their military vehicle struck an improvised explosive device. Both were assigned to the Army National Guard's 1st Battalion, 69th Infantry Regiment, New York, N.Y. Killed were:
24. Sgt. Christian P. Engeldrum, 39, of Bronx, N.Y.
25. Pfc. Wilfredo F. Urbina, 29, of Baldwin, N.Y.
The Department of Defense announced the death of three Soldiers supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. They died Nov. 27 in Bamian, Afghanistan, when their contract aircraft crashed. All were assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division (Light), Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Killed were:
26. Lt. Col. Michael J. McMahon, 41, of Connecticut.
27. Chief Warrant Officer Travis W. Grogan, 31, of Virginia Beach, Va.
28. Spc. Harley D. R. Miller, 21, of Spokane, Wash.
29. Spc. Sergio R. Diazvarela, 21, of Lomita, Calif., died Nov. 24 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his dismounted patrol. Diazvarela was assigned to 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, Camp Howze, Korea.
The Department of Defense announced the death of two soldiers supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. They died Nov. 30 in Fallujah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their military vehicle. Both were assigned to 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. Killed were:
30. Sgt. Pablo A. Calderon, 26, of Brooklyn, N.Y.
31. Sgt. Jose Guereca, Jr., 24, of Missouri City, Texas
32. Gunnery Sgt. Javier Obleas-Prado Pena, 36, of Falls Church, Va., died Dec. 1 at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany, from injuries received Nov. 25, as result of enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. He was assigned to 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.
33. Cpl Zachary A. Kolda, 23, of Corpus Christi, Texas, died Dec. 1 as result of enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. He was assigned to the Marine Forces Reserves' 1st Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Houston, Texas.
34. Spc. Daryl A. Davis, 20, of Orlando, Fla., died Nov. 29 in Iraq when his HMWWV was involved in a traffic accident. Davis was assigned to the Army National Guard's 144th Transportation Company, Marianna, Fla.
35. Spc. Erik W. Hayes, 24, of Cascade, Md., died Nov. 29 in Al Miqdadiyah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his military vehicle. Hayes was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, Vilseck, Germany.
36. Spc. David M. Fisher, 21, of Green Island, N.Y., died Dec. 1 in Baghdad, Iraq, when his unit was on patrol and the HMWWV in which he was riding rolled over. Fisher was assigned to the Army National Guard's 1st Battalion, 101st Cavalry Regiment, Newburgh, N.Y.
37. Spc. Isaac E. Diaz, 26, of Rio Hondo, Texas, died Dec. 1 in Sharona, Afghanistan, when his military vehicle rolled over. Diaz was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division (Light) from Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.
38. Cpl. Bryan S. Wilson, 22, of Otterbein, Ind., died Dec. 1 as result of a non-hostile vehicle incident in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.
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Join the Delta Diamondbacks 24-hour prayer team sponsored by First Baptist Church of McNeill by calling Debi Scott at 695-3403.
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War Prayer list for those in harms way.(10/10)
Remember to pray for the American soldiers stationed everywhere around the globe and especially in Iraq. Times have been and are very tough and it would be nice if you would all just say a prayer for their safety and for their families. Our own Delta Diamond Backs, local national guard personnel are now patrolling Bagdad. They are part of the 1st Cavalry Division's, 39th Infantry Brigade.
Please update us when you know of someone who comes home (or is activated for service.)
Major William Anderson - U.S. Air Force - Bagdad
Command Sergeant Major Tom Broom - U.S. Army - Kuwait
Kyle Burleston - U.S. Marines - Iraq
Jim Carrol - U.S. Navy Intelligence
Greg Davis - U.S. Army - Bagdad - Mark Davis's oldest son. Greg has two children; Jhett,
12 and Baily 3
Lang Doster - National Guard - Iraq - Angel Cranston's Brother
Sgt. Douglas E. Chappel - Kuwait
Alaina Downey - USAF - Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri - Steve Downey's daughter
Michael Drake - U.S. Navy - Persian Gulf
Lisa Dyson - U.S. Army Intelligence - Johnny Dyson's daughter
Jeremy Lee Eades U.S. Army - Roger and Jerri Eades son.
John Ford - U.S. Army Korea - Steve and Sharon Ford's son
Dickie Hartsfield's son - U.S. Army - In Bagdad
Warren Haynie from Lewisville - Serving in Iraq
Matthew Johnson - Marines
Robby Johnson - USAF C-130 Crew Chief
Brennan Jones - U S Marines - Iraq
James A.Jones - US Navy
Pat Keister - USMC -
Terris Lyons - National Guard - Back home in Minden
Mick McDaniel - U.S. Air Force, unknown location - Richard Matherne's son-in-law
David Mitchell - U.S. Army - In Bagdad
Opheline Moore - USArmy -
Brian Morgan - US Navy - in the Gulf somewhere
C.H. Osman - CAPT USN - Pentagon
Andrew Paladino - US Army SRA - Don and Ronda Paladino's Boy
Nick Paladino - US Army Ssgt - Don and Ronda Paladino's Boy
Bob Polk - Kuwait
Todd Raymond - USAF - Germany - Another MCC young man.
Bryan Ross - Wayne Specie Roy and Loretta Specie's
Jason Varner Deployed to an unknown Location Roy and Loretta Specie's
Lloyd Young - USMC - North Carolina - Cindy Martin's son
Please let us know of any updates to this list. James F.McClellan -
KC5HII@Magnolia-Net.Com Also, at kvma.Com they have a list of people over seas.
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Scheduled Activities
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Alcoholics Anonymous meets at 8 p.m.Monday - Friday.At noon on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and at 7 p.m.Sunday at 914 N. Vine
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Columbia County Amateur Radio Club meets Every second Thursday @ 7:00 p.m.Union Street Station.And YOU'RE invited.Net is every Sunday at 20:30 on 147.105.
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Columbia County Diabetes Support Group - Every third Monday, 7:00 p.m. room 222, Magnolia Hospital
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"Focus on the Family" with Dr. James Dobson weekday afternoons at 1 PM on KVMA am 630 it's a great show!
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MCC - Abraham Prayer - Sunday at 5:00 p.m and Wednesday from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm
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MCC - Early Morning Prayer - Monday - Friday, From 6:30 am to 8:00 am
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MCC - "Beth Moore" Video Class - Thursday nights at 5:45 pm
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MCC - "Faith Builders" Small group meets at 1051 Columbia 36 the second and fourth Tuesdays, 6:30 pm to 7:45 pm.
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MCC - Firm Foundations Class, Sunday 9:30 to 10:15 a.m
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MCC - Meadow Brook Nursing Home Ministry Tuesday from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m
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MCC - Mom's Day Out - Every Tuesday and Thursday from 9 to 2.$10 for the first child, $5 for the second.Call 234-3225 for reservations.
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MCC - Nursing Home Ministry - Meadowbrook Every Tuesday from 10 to 11 am. Taylor, the last Thursday each month.
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MCC - Over comers: Fridays @ 7:00 p.m- Director, Traci Foster invites you to a 12 step Christian support program.For anyone with a life controlling problem. Child care is provided.
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Men's Prayer Breakfast held every Tuesday morning at 6 AM in Miller's Cafeteria. If you aren't a regular participant at the Men's Prayer Breakfast, you're missing some great food, fellowship and inspired teaching of the Word. Hope to see you there.
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Emergency Phone Number 911
(Fire, Police, Ambulance, Sheriff, etc. )
Central Dispatch 234-5655
(Non - Emergency Number)
Direct Numbers
Ambulance - 234-7371 (24 Hour)
Jail - 234-5331 (24 Hour)
Poison Control - 800-222-1222 (24 Hour)
http://www. aapcc. org/
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"Fight till you win!" - - Mark Brazee
"Bring 'em on!" - -President George W. Bush
"There is not enough darkness in the world to put out the light of one candle."
"Laugh whenever you can and cry if you need to." -- "Bug"
"I read the end of the book. We win!" -- "Bug"
"We may not be able to cure the world, but we don't have to make it sicker." -- "Bug"
"There just ain't enough fingers for all the holes in the dike." - - "Bug"
"If you can read this e-mail, thank a teacher. - - If you read it in English, thank a serviceman."
~~~~~
Hope you enjoy the newsletter.
Again, thanks to all our contributors this week.
God bless and GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!
Psa 77:3-6 Psa 77:1-3 Prov 7:1-3 Rom 4:3-5 Hag 2:4-5
God is Good and Faithful CU 73 IC JFM CSP NREMT-I KC5HII
P. S. If you'd like to be added to the distribution, just drop us E-mail at KC5HII@Magnolia-Net.Com. We offer "Da Bleat" as text, a "Blog" and as a newsletter with pictures in Word and PDF format. For the "Blog" version just go to http://bugsbleat.blogspot.com/ to see the latest issue. This week, "Word" and "PDF" subscribers get to see photos of our Albemarle SET team learning "Team Building" skills.
Let us hear from you if we can switch you over to the "Word" or "PDF" version of "Da Bleat".
If you'd prefer to read "Da Blog" version, just drop us a note at KC5HII@Magnolia-Net.Com and we'll switch you from e:mail delivery to "Da Bleat" Blog. Of course "Da Bleat" is now on the web. Just go to http://bugsbleat.blogspot.com to see the latest issue (usually updated sometime Friday evening or Saturday morning.
We appreciate your encouragement. We also appreciate your communication when you desire to be taken off our mail list. If you are on this mail list by mistake or do not wish to receive "Da Bleat," please reply back and tell us to discontinue service to you. This email was scanned by Norton AntiVirus 2004 before it was sent.
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