Bug's Bleat - - GCF: Moving Labels

Volume 7, Issue 03

Hello ALL,

We had the pleasure of cooking for Dream Center again last Saturday. I bet we had more fun than anyone else that day.
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Vanessa broke her ankle this week. The Doctor told her it was the best kind of break and should heal fine. She’s learning to use crutches and told me she watched the same movie four times yesterday. She couldn’t get to the VCR so she just kept rewinding it and watching it over.
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Annette and I have been battling a spring cold. We’ve been shouting “Unclean” “Unclean” whenever we approach a group of uninfected people.
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Claiborne shared this website with us. The photos are a great example of the problem with too much time on our hands.
“What do photographers do when they are bored?” From one of the choir members at FUMC.
http://www.sunbelt-software.com/stu/bored/
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http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts-for-features-special-editions/003348.html - - Facts For Features: Martin Luther King Jr. Day and African-American History Month: February 2005
The birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. has been observed as a federal holiday on the third Monday in January since 1986. To recall and celebrate the positive contributions to our nation made by people of African descent, American historian Carter G. Woodson established Black History Week beginning on Feb. 12, 1926. In 1976, as part of the nation’s bicentennial, the week was expanded into Black History Month.
As of July 1, 2003, there were an estimated 38.7 million U.S. residents who were either black or black and at least one other race. This race group then made up 13.3 percent of the total U.S. population.
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Whatever Your Life's, Work Do It Well

"Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better. If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music; sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper, who swept his job well.'"
Dec. 3, 1956 - Montgomery, Alabama, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
If all workers performed their jobs as Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed out, we would not have to be concerned with the widespread ineptness, foul ups, and breakdowns that plague our society today. If persons in occupations such as agriculture, machine trades, construction, printing, textile, medicine, engineering, clerical, sales, professional, technical, and managerial performed their jobs as Michelangelo painted pictures, and as Shakespeare wrote poetry, we would indeed have a magnificent society. -
Tyrone T. Dancy
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Arkansas Department of Health's Southwest Region's bioterrorism meeting Friday Jan, 28th. The meeting will be held at the Betty White Conference Center at the Warner Brown building from 9:30 -12:30.
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Intercessors, Please pray over these requests, they are vital !!

ALCON,
As a transportation battalion, my unit will be delivering the voting machines and the ballots to villages and cities throughout Iraq during the upcoming elections. (January 30/31) Our convoys are prime targets for the insurgents because they do not want the equipment to arrive at the polling stations nor do they want the local Iraqi citizens to have the chance to vote; timely delivery must occur so that the elections occur. Encourage your friends and family members and those within our churches to pray specifically for the electoral process. Historically, the previous totalitarian regime would not allow individual citizens to vote. Democracy will not be realized in Iraq if intelligent and competent officials are not elected to those strategic leadership positions within the emerging government; freedom will not have an opportunity to ring throughout this country if the voting process fails. Announce this prayer request to your contacts throughout your churches, neighborhoods, and places of business. Those with leadership roles within the local church post this message in as many newsletters and bulletins as possible. There is unlimited potential for God's presence in this process but if we do not pray then our enemy will prevail (See Ephesians 6:10-17) A prayer vigil prior to the end of the month may be an innovative opportunity for those within your sphere of influence to pray. This is a political battle that needs spiritual intervention. A powerful story about God's intervention in the lives of David's mighty men is recorded in 2 Samuel 23:8-33. David and his warriors were victorious because of God's intervention. We want to overcome those who would stand in the way of freedom. David's mighty men triumphed over incredible odds and stood their ground and were victorious over the enemies of Israel. (Iraqi insurgents' vs God's praying people). They don't stand a chance.
I will pray with my soldiers before they leave on their convoys and move outside our installation gates here at Tallil. My soldiers are at the nerve center of the logistic operation to deliver the voting machines and election ballots. They will be driving to and entering the arena of the enemy. This is not a game for them it is a historical mission that is extremely dangerous. No voting machines or ballots. No elections. Your prayer support and God's intervention are needed to give democracy a chance in this war torn country. Thank you for reading this e-mail. Please give this e-mail a wide dissemination.
Thank you for your prayer support for me and my family. Stand firm in your battles.
Blessings,
Lyle
CH (CPT) Lyle Shackelford
Battalion Chaplain
HHD, 57th Transportation Battalion
Providing With Mobility
"Keep Em Moving"
vernon.shackelford@adder.arfor.army.mil
vernon.lyle.shackelford@us.army.mil
833-1264
"Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."
-Joshua 1:9
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Springhill, LA will spend $18 million renovating and building new school buildings.
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Glover Memorial Church of God in Christ Women will be selling fish dinners on January 28. They will sell at 11am and also at 5:30pm. Each dinner will be $5.00. Call Margaret Hunnicutt at 6498 if you desire a dinner by Thursday, January 27 or you can call the church at 547-2071 the day of the sell. This sell is to have the women go on their annual retreat.
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Feb. 1 Ladies’ Night Out will be held 5:30-8 p.m. in the Donald W. Reynolds Campus and Community Center at Southern Arkansas University. A total of 36 companies, institutions and individuals will have booths at Ladies’ Night Out.
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HELLO FROM PAUL AND DEBBIE IN AFRICA

Dear Friends,

Paul and I were so blessed to spend the holidays with our families. We made some wonderful memories with our children during Christmas and New Years. We'll never forget it! We arrived back in Arusha on Friday, January 7th and spent that weekend resting. I experienced jet lag like never before. The Bible College began on Monday the 10th with orientation in the morning and a class that afternoon. Paul is so excited about this group of students. There are 47 students and a couple more supposedly on the way. They're so grateful and happy to be in Bible school and so hungry for God's word.

Between now and when we return to the states in March, we'll be getting materials translated, typed, and copied for the next Module which begins June 6th. There's always much preparation that goes into each Module or session of school. There can be problems that arise once classes begin too. For instance, one of the students this time doesn't speak English or Swahili. He speaks Portugese. We're not quite sure yet how we'll help him with this, but the Lord has the answer.

As always, we thank you for your continued support, prayerfully and financially. God is so good!! We are honored to be a part of what He is doing in Tanzania and in New Life Outreach Bible College. Our mailing address in the states is Paul Troquille Ministries, P.O. Box 781, Magnolia, AR 71754.

With much love,
Paul and Debbie
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SAU will spend $11 million on a new science and technology building. They’re also planning on building a new band hall and practice facility for around $2.5 million.
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Brandon Cotten and I have been working on Annette’s new computer this week. I got the software loaded and Brandon transferred the files from her old computer. We plan to put it in her work station tomorrow.
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Dusty’s playing “Upward” basketball again this spring. The games are great. You can see them at 11:00 am every Saturday at Central Baptist.
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Annette and I are looking forward to a new season of “Monk” on USA network (Fridays at 9 pm). See “Change won't push `Monk' over the edge” By Sid Smith Tribune arts critic http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/tv/mmx-0501210018jan21,0,734065.story?coll=mmx-television-heds
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Two of our church computers are down, victims of a vicious program that fills the screen with pop up after popup. I tried Ad-Aware but the computer would boot each time I tried to run it. So I was thinking about trying MS Anti-Spyware, a new “beta” program on them. The alternative is to format the drives.

Coincidentally, a piece of spyware showed up on my home computer Monday and all normal attempts to kill it failed.

Fortunately, Terry Stockdale wrote us and said;

“ Joke -- "Did you hear about Microsoft's Anti-Malware program? It's called 'fdisk.' "

More seriously, Microsoft has a beta version of its new anti-spyware/anti-malware program for download directly from Microsoft. Microsoft recently bought GIANT AntiSpyware on which this is based. The link to the free beta is http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/about.mspx

The email newsletters that I have seen, so far, have recommended trying this beta. Most have also reminded us that Microsoft has said not committed to provide this as a free product and has indicated that it will probably charge for it in the near future.”

So, I loaded the MicroSoft program and it cleaned everything spic and span. Then I took it to the church and it successfully cleaned one of the trashed computers (the other one keeps crashing when I try to download the program.)

Terry also advised; “Be sure to take along Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy. Ad-Aware has been the big winner so far for me.
Check these pages I added to my site:
http://www.terrystockdale.com/computers/malware.shtml
http://www.terrystockdale.com/computers/antivirus.shtml
There are a couple online virus scanner links on my antivirus page.

Terry”
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Should you not want to cook on a Sunday.............

First United Methodist Church child development center is hosting a fish fry Sunday, February 6, 2005 -- 11:00 am - 1:00 pm – Dine in or carry out
$10.00 includes fish, fries, slaw, hushpuppies and drink

Proceeds go to new playground equipment

Contact Don Vash (235-6112) for tickets
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Some of you are probably already aware that Richard Lewis lost all his household possessions yesterday to a house fire. If you would like to make a donation to help Richard, please contact Tom Brady.
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Did y’all watch the inauguration during which President Bush invoked "expansion of freedom" as the "calling our time." Declaring that "America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one," the president said, "All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know the United States will not ignore your oppression or excuse your oppressors."
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"Rockin Romania" has been invited to the White House to participate in honoring the workers who've struggled to save Romanian Orphans. We'll keep you posted.
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The World Championship Rotary Tiller Race, held each June at the Emerson PurpleHull Pea Festival, was telecast twice yesterday on Discovery Channel’s “Monster Nation” program. The 2005 PurpleHull Pea Festival will be June 24 and 25, with the tiller race on Saturday, June 25.
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www.aaa.com Regular Mid Premium Diesel
Current Avg. $1.83 $1.94 $2.02 $2.03
http://www.fuelgaugereport.com/
Today’s WalMart price for Regular = $1.79
~~~~~
Recipe of the week; Oh So Good French Onion Soup Courtesy Rachael Ray


Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Yield: 4 servings


User Rating: 4 Stars


1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
6 medium onions, thinly sliced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons fresh thyme, picked and chopped or poultry seasoning
1 bay leaf, fresh or dried
½ cup dry sherry
6 cups beef stock
4 thick slices crusty bread, toasted
2 ½ cups shredded Gruyere or Swiss cheese

Heat a deep pot over medium to medium high heat. Work next to the stove to slice onions. Add oil and butter to the pot. Add onions to the pot as you slice them. When all the onions are in the pot, season with salt and pepper and 1 teaspoon fresh thyme. Cook onions 15 to 18 minutes, stirring frequently, until tender, sweet and caramel colored. Add bay leaf and sherry to the pot and deglaze the pan drippings. Add 6 cups stock and cover pot to bring soup up to a quick boil.

Arrange 4 small, deep soup bowls or crocks on a cookie sheet. Preheat broiler to high. Once soup reaches a boil, ladle it into bowls. Float toasted crusty bread on soup and cover each bowl with a mound of cheese. Sprinkle remaining fresh thyme on cheese and place cookie sheet with soup bowls on it under hot broiler until cheese melts and bubbles.

Copyright 2004 Television Food Network, G.P. All rights reserved.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD-9936-22045,00.html
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This week we share excerpts from “Da Bleat” of Friday, 21 January 2000.
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We’re always looking for stories as well as jokes and other contributions. Don’t hesitate to share any offerings with us.
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Don't forget ... "Da Bleat" is now on the web. Just go to http://bugsbleat.blogspot.com
~~~~~
Feel free to share the "Bleat" with any and all. That's why we publish it.
~~~~~
BREAKPOINT Commentaries
by Chuck Colson. - Prison Fellowship
Liberty for the Captives
President Bush’s Second Inaugural Address
January 21, 2005

The presidential inauguration, no matter who is being sworn in, is a glorious moment, showing the world how freely elected governments work. But to my mind, the second inaugural address of George W. Bush was not only beautifully written and delivered, but also historic and memorable, for two major reasons.

First, the president’s address focused on liberty and what it means to the world. This was the most idealistic and moralistic presidential message since Franklin Roosevelt summoned us to the heroic task of saving the world from tyranny in World War II.

As President Bush was speaking, I could hear in his words echoes of Luke 4:18: “Proclaim liberty to the captives.” And he talked about freeing the slaves of oppression. As the president has consistently made clear, freedom is God’s gift to mankind. It cannot be given nor taken away by governments. This was precisely the point made by John Kennedy in 1960 and the point made by the writers of the Declaration of Independence: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Building on that theme, Bush correctly and eloquently said that there is no justice without freedom, no human rights without liberty.

The speech was not only idealistic, it was also pragmatic. What Bush recognizes is that every attempt to paper over differences in the Middle East for the last fifty years has failed. The differences run too deep. So how do we help to solve the region’s problems? We introduce its oppressed peoples to democracy and freedom. This is why our troops are in harm’s way in Iraq—because if liberty and democracy come to that country, imperfect and dangerous though the process may be, Iraq can swing the balance of power in the Middle East. The potential for real peace is there. This is why we must fervently pray for the administration’s success.

Second, the address marked an extraordinary moment for the conservative movement. One White House insider told me this week that, in his opinion, Bush is seizing the mantle of idealism from contemporary liberalism. In the twentieth century, the idea of spreading human liberty and defending human dignity was the cause of liberals, especially under Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy. Conservatism was primarily a reactionary political movement, unwilling to engage in bold, idealistic causes.

There has now been a complete role reversal. It is the conservatives who, led by President Bush, are summoning us to greatness: to spread liberty, to free the slaves, to defend human dignity. As my White House friend said, “This president is intent on shaping history, not impeding it.” It’s the liberals who are reacting, unwilling to defend liberty.

With this inspiring speech, President Bush has set America firmly on the course of pursuing liberty and justice throughout the world. I hope that all Americans, regardless of political party, are ready to respond to the president’s call to defend God’s gift of liberty for the oppressed. As he phrased it, “Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself—and in your days you will add not just to the wealth of our country, but to its character.”

For further reading and information:

Today’s BreakPoint offer: Stay informed on worldview issues all year—subscribe today to BreakPoint WorldView magazine! Upcoming issues will address human rights, religious freedom, pop culture, the arts, church life, and more.

Read President George W. Bush’s Second Inaugural Address on the White House website. See further coverage of the 2005 Inauguration .

“President Bush Addresses the United Nations General Assembly ,” The United Nations, New York, New York, White House Office of the Press Secretary, 23 September 2003.

Read the Declaration of Independence .

BreakPoint Commentary No. 050112, “ A Change in the Weather: The Bush Doctrine .”
BreakPoint Commentary No. 031124, “ Raising Our Sights: God, Morality, and Foreign Policy .”
BreakPoint Commentary No. 031024, “ Ordered Liberty: Remembering Russell Kirk .” (This commentary talks about Russell Kirk’s “core doctrines” that are “necessary for a healthy republic.”)
Charles Colson with Anne Morse, “ The New Civil War ,” Christianity Today, February 2005.
Allen Hertzke, Freeing God’s Children (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004).
Joseph Loconte, The End of Illusions (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004).

Copyright 2005 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/.
~~~~~
Words of the Week:
slake: to satisfy or quench; also, to cause to lessen.
profuse: plentiful; copious.
hubris: overbearing pride or presumption.
apogee: the highest point.
voluble: characterized by a ready flow of speech.
bibulous: of, pertaining to, marked by, or given to the consumption of alcohol.
perfunctory: done routinely.
omnipresent: present in all places at the same time.
from Dictionary.Com
~~~~~
"Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop Than when we soar." - William Wordsworth

No man or woman who tries to pursue an ideal in his or her own way is without enemies. -Daisy Bates (1863-1951)

We think in generalities, but we live in details. -Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made. -Groucho Marx (1890-1977)

Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again. -James R. Cook

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing; it was here first.

If all pulled in one direction, the world would keel over. -Yiddish proverb

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." - Charles Darwin

"In every part and corner of our life, to lose oneself is to be gainer; to forget oneself is to be happy." - Robert Louis Stevenson

"The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it." - Arthur Schopenhauer

"If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it." - Margaret Fuller

"We must meet hate with love. We must meet physical force with soul force. There is still a voice crying out through the vista of time, saying: Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you. Then, and only then, can you matriculate into the university of eternal life. That same voice cries out in terms lifted to cosmic proportions: He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword. And history is replete with the bleached bones of nations that failed to follow this command. We must follow nonviolence and love." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Silence is as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unhewn marble of great sculpture. The silent bear no witness against themselves." - Aldous Huxley

"Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens." - J. R. Tolkien
"He is no more than the chief officer of the people, appointed by the laws, and circumscribed with definite powers, to assist in working the great machine of government erected for their use, and consequently subject to their superintendence." - Thomas Jefferson
~~~~~
FLASH CARD "Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles, and kindnesses, and small obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart and secure comfort." (Sir Humphrey Davy)
*****
FLASH CARD "It is only when I am doing my work that I feel truly alive." (Federico Fellini)
*****
FLASH CARD "Hear me! For I am such and such a person. Above all, do not mistake me for someone else." (Friedrich Nietzsche)
*****
FLASH CARD "Chemistry stands at the pivot of science. On the one hand it deals with biology and provides explanations for the processes of life. On the other hand it mingles with physics and finds explanations for chemical phenomena in the fundamental processes and particles of the universe. Chemistry links the familiar with the fundamental." (P.W. Atkins)

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GCF: Moving Labels

Emailed to me another humor list (Pastor Tim's Clean Laugh List) -Tom
Subscribe to Pastor Tim's Clean Laugh list at the website:
Subscribe

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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Having moved 15 times during our 37-year marriage, we appreciate movers who take the time to label carefully boxes they pack for us.

The accuracy of labels can make a huge difference when we try to find something right away.

My favorite was done by one guy who attached this sticker to a box - obviously not knowing how to spell the best one word description: "Animals you hit with a stick at a Mexican party."
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GCF: Square One

Found at The Shark Tank (Computerworld) -Tom http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardware/story/0,10801,98353,00.html
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User tells tech support employee that she needs a CD.

Tech asks, "A blank CD or a prerecorded one for testing?"

"Blank," she says.

"CD-R or CD-RW?" asks the tech, who then has to explain the difference.

After deciding that a CD-R was needed, the tech gets one out of the supply cabinet.

She stops him and says, "That's not the kind of CD I need. I need a square CD."

Tech gives her diskette and she goes away happy.
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GCF: Broken Engagement

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
---------------------------------
Dear Marty,

I have been unable to sleep since I halted your engagement to my daughter.
Will you forgive and forget?

I was much too sensitive about your Mohawk, tattoo and pierced nose. I now realize motorcycles aren't really that dangerous, and I really should not have reacted that way to the fact that you have never held a job.

I am also very sure that some other very nice people live under the bridge in the park. Sure my daughter is only 18 and wants to marry you instead of going to Harvard on full scholarship. After all, you can't learn everything about life from books.

I sometimes forget how backward I can be. I was wrong. I was a fool. I have now come to my senses and you have my full blessing to marry my daughter.

Sincerely,
Your future father-in-law.

P.S. Congratulations on winning the lottery!
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GCF: Sports Fanatic

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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My son is a sports fanatic and he has well-worn T-shirts, caps, and sweatshirts from every local team. One night, we were getting ready for an annual fund-raiser for our local theater organization.

My wife called out to my son, "This is a pretty fancy dinner. You'll have to wear a sports jacket."

My son answered, "Which team?"
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GCF: Ms Fix-It

Emailed to me another humor list (Pastor Tim's Clean Laugh List) -Tom Subscribe to Pastor Tim's Clean Laugh list at the website: Subscribe
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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.

Dianne suggested, "Why don't you drag it out to the garage and show it the lawnmower?"
(((\ \>|-/ )-----------------------( \-| \\\\ \-/ / \ \-/ ////
\ / Why is it that no matter what \ /
\ -/ color bubble bath you use, \- /
/ / the bubbles are always white? \ (((\ \>|-/ )-----------------------( \-| \\\\ \-/ / \ \-/ ////
\ / Outside of traffic, \ /
\ -/ there is nothing that holds this \- /
/ / country back as much as committees. \ (((\ \>|-/ )-----------------------( \-| \\\\ \-/ / \ \-/ ////
\ / To some golfers, the \ /
\ -/ greatest handicap is the \- /
/ / ability to add correctly. \ (((\ \>|-/ )-----------------------( \-| \\\\ \-/ / \ \-/ ////
\ / Most of us go to the grave \ /
\ -/ with our music still inside of us. \- /
/ / \ (((\ \>|-/ )--------------------( \-|\\\\ \-/ / \ \-/ ////
\ / The trouble with bucket seats \ /
\ -/ is that not everybody \- /
/ / has the same size bucket. \ \\\\ \-/ / \ \-/ ///// / \ / )| Thomas S. Ellsworth |( / / | tellswor@slonet.org | \ -( (- | http://www. slonet.org/~tellswor | -) )-
(((\ \>|-/ )---------------------( \-| *** 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] The Optimist

In honor of today being Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (in America), here's a great quote:

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King, Jr., Speech at Civil Rights March on Washington, August 28, 1963 (Thanks to Thought for the Day)
-----

There is a story of identical twins. One was a hope-filled optimist. "Everything is coming up roses!" he would say. The other twin was a sad and hopeless pessimist. He thought that Murphy, as in Murphy's Law, was an optimist. The worried parents of the boys brought them to the local psychologist.

He suggested to the parents a plan to balance the twins' personalities. "On their next birthday, put them in separate rooms to open their gifts. Give the pessimist the best toys you can afford, and give the optimist a box of manure." The parents followed these instructions and carefully observed the results.

When they peeked in on the pessimist, they heard him audibly complaining, "I don't like the color of this computer . . I'll bet this calculator will break . . . I don't like the game . . . I know someone who's got a bigger toy car than this . . ."

Tiptoeing across the corridor, the parents peeked in and saw their little optimist gleefully throwing the manure up in the air. He was giggling. "You can't fool me! Where there's this much manure, there's gotta be a pony!"
-=+=-
[GCFL.net] Remote Control

"Cash, check or charge?" I asked after folding items the woman wished to purchase. As she fumbled for her wallet I notice a remote control for a television set in her purse.

"Do you always carry your TV remote?" I asked.

"No," she replied. "But my husband refused to come shopping with me, so I figured this was the most evil thing I could do to him."
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[GCFL.net] What Do You Want to Hear?

Three buddies die in a car crash. They go to heaven to the new arrival orientation.

They are all asked, "When you are in your casket and friends and family are mourning you're death, what would you like to hear them say about you?

The first guy says, "I would like to hear them say that I was a great doctor of my time, and a great family man."

The second guy says, "I would like to hear that I was a wonderful husband and school teacher who made a huge difference in our children of tomorrow."

The last guy replies, "I would like to hear them say...
LOOK, HE'S MOVING!"

Received from Melissa C. Knight.
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[GCFL.net] Tequila

A ten-year-old girl asked and received help from a librarian on how to use the card catalog. In a little while, the girl approached the librarian again, wanting to know how to spell "tequila."

"T-e-q-u-i-l-a," spelled the librarian, as the girl thanked her and went back to her search. A short time later she came to the desk, looking quite distraught.

"I just can't find it," she said. "What book are you looking for, honey?" the librarian asked.

Replied the little girl, "Tequila Mockingbird."

Received from Anonymous.
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[GCFL.net] Marriage Counseling

After just a few years of marriage filled with constant arguments, a young man and his wife decided the only way to save their marriage was to try counseling. They had been at each other's throats for some time and felt that this was their last straw.

When they arrived at the counselor's office, the counselor jumped right in and opened the floor for discussion. "What seems to be the problem?" Immediately, the husband held his long face down without anything to say. In contrast, the wife began talking 90 miles an hour, describing all the wrongs within their marriage.

After 15 minutes of listening to the wife, the counselor went over to her, picked her up by her shoulders, kissed her passionately and sat her back down. Afterwards, the wife sat speechless.

The marriage counselor looked over at the husband, who stared in disbelief. The counselor said to the husband, "Your wife NEEDS that at least twice a week!"

The husband scratched his head and replied, "I can have her here on Tuesdays and Thursdays."

Received from Steve Sanderson.
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SMILEAWHILE [Mergers]
From: "Roy D. Knight"

The following are from my good friend (I hope), Terry Bradfield. Pastor Roy :-)
MERGERS
In the wake of the Exxon/Mobil deal and the AOL/Time Warner deal, here are the latest mergers we can expect to see:
1. Hale Business Systems, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Fuller Brush, and W.R.Grace Company merge to become Hale Mary Fuller Grace.
2. Polygram Records, Warner Brothers, and Keebler Crackers merge to become Polly-Warner-Cracker.
3. 3M and Goodyear merge to become MMMGood.
4. John Deere and Abitibi-Price merge to become Deere Abi.
5. Zippo Manufacturing, Audi Motors, Dofasco, and Dakota Mining merge to become Zip Audi Do Da.
6. Honeywell, Imasco, and Home Oil merge to become Honey I'm Home.
7. Denison Mines, and Alliance and Metal Mining merge to become Mine All Mine.
8. Federal Express and UPS merge to become FED UP.
9. Xerox and Wurlitzer will merge and begin manufacturing reproductive organs.
10. Fairchild Electronics and Honeywell Computers will merge and become Fairwell Honeychild.
11. 3M, J.C. Penney and the Canadian Opera Company will merge and become 3 Penney Opera.
12. Grey Poupon & Dockers Pants will merge and become Poupon Pants.
13. Knott's Berry Farm & National Organization of Women will merge and become Knott NOW!
Chaplain (LTC) Michael T. Bradfield
(Personnel Systems Coordinator)
Office of the Chief of Chaplains
ATTN: DACH-PEC
2511 Jefferson Davis Highway
Arlington, VA 22202-3907
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sent to me by a former Wesleyan College student now doing CE ministry in Ohio, one LauraMay Sorkin. Blame her! Not me! Pastor Roy
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THE BROKEN-DOWN CAR.
A man is driving down the road and breaks down near a monastery. He goes to the monastery, knocks on the door, and says, "My car broke down. Do you think I could stay the night?"

The monks graciously accept him, feed him dinner, even fix his car. As the man tries to fall asleep, he hears a strange sound. The next morning, he asks the monks what the sound was, but they say, "We can't tell you. You're not a monk." The man is disappointed but thanks them anyway and goes about his merry way.
Some years later, the same man breaks down in front of the same monastery. The monks accept him, feed him, even fix his car. That night, he hears the same strange noise that he had heard years earlier. The next morning, he asks what it is, but the monks reply, "We can't tell you. You're not a monk."
The man says, "All right, all right. I'm dying to know. If the only way I can find out what that sound was is to become a monk, how do I become a monk?"
The monks reply, "You must travel the earth and tell us how many blades of grass there are and the exact number of sand pebbles. When you find these numbers, you will become a monk."
The man sets about his task. Forty-five years later, he returns and knocks on the door of the monastery. He says, "I have traveled the earth and have found what you have asked for. There are 145,236,284,232 blades of grass and 471,281,219,999,129,382 sand pebbles on the earth." The monks reply, "Congratulations. You are now a monk. We shall now show you the way to the sound."
The monks lead the man to a wooden door, where the head monk says, "The sound is right behind that door."
The man reaches for the knob, but the door is locked . He says, "Real funny. May I have the key?" The monks give him the key, and he opens the door. Behind the wooden door is another door made of stone. The man demands the key to the stone door. The monks give him the key to the stone door, and he opens it, only to find a door made of ruby. He demands another key from the monks, for the door of ruby, and the monks provide it. Behind that door is another door, this one made of sapphire. So it went until the man had gone through doors of emerald, silver, topaz, amethyst... Finally, the monks say, "This is the last key to the last door."
The man is relieved to no end. He unlocks the door, turns the knob, and behind that door he is amazed to find the source of that strange sound.
-=-
But I can't tell you what it is because you're not a monk.
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Some REALLY BAD Knock-Knock Jokes I just rec'd from Mikey's Funnies, an email joke list put out by Youth Specialties, Inc. I warn you!!!! But I must also confess that a couple of them I still don't get (maybe its my youthful age!!!). Pastor Roy
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KNOCK-KNOCK FUNNIES
(true groaners)
knock knock (KK)
who's there? (WT)
aardvark
aardvark who?
aardvark a million miles for one of your smiles....
KK
WT
sam and janet
sam and janet who?
sam and janet evening, you will see a stranger...
KK
WT
gorilla
gorilla who?
gorilla my dreams, I love you
KK
WT
little old lady
little old lady who
I never knew you could yodel!
KK
WT
orson
orson who?
orson was a song of tomorrow, our hearts were as high as the sky...
KK
WT
annie
annie who?
annie thing you can do, I can do better...
KK
WT
akron
akron who?
akron give you anything but love, baby...
KK
WT
donna
donna who?
donna sit under the apple tree...
KK
WT
mary lee
mary lee who?
mary lee we roll along...
KK
WT
anna maria alberghetti
anna maria alberghetti who?
anna maria alberghetti in a taxi honey, better be there about half past
eight...
KK
WT
irish
irish who?
Irish I could sing bass (baritone, lead, tenor, on-key, better, etc.)
KK
WT
tara
tara who?
tara-ra boom-de-ay! tara-ra boom-de-ay!
KK
WT
dishes
dishes who?
dishes the song that never ends
KK
WT
olive
olive who?
olive you truly, truly dear...
KK
WT
dexter
dexter who?
dexter halls with boughs of holly...
KK
WT
wanda
wanda who?
wanda come over and ring a few?
KK
WT
ammonia
ammonia who?
ammonia a bird in a gilded cage...
KK
WT
one shoe
one shoe who?
one shoe come home, bill bailey? one shoe come home...
[forwarded by Bill's Punch Line: tcmrtalk@airmail.net]
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Subject: GCF: Before and After
From: "Thomas S. Ellsworth"
Emailed to me from another humor list (The Funnies) -Tom To subscribe to "The Funnies" send a blank e-mail to: andychaps-the-funnies-subscribe@egroups.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/
---------------------------------------
When I was younger, I remember receiving the inevitable homework assignment to write an essay on "something I am thankful for". Then I'd spend a lot of time sitting in my room trying to figure out just what in the world that could possibly be; and I'd end up writing down everything I could think of from God to environmental consciousness. But after having children, my priorities have clearly changed:
BEFORE CHILDREN: I was thankful to have been born the USA, the most powerful free democracy in the world.
AFTER CHILDREN : I am thankful for Velcro tennis shoes. As well as saving valuable time, now I can hear the sound of my son taking off his shoes -- which gives me three extra seconds to activate the safety locks on the back seat windows right before he hurls them out of the car and onto the freeway.
BEFORE CHILDREN: I was thankful for the recycling program which will preserve our natural resources and prevent the overloading of landfills.
AFTER CHILDREN : I am thankful for swim diapers because every time my son wanders into water in plain disposables, he ends up wearing a blimp the size of, say, New Jersey, on his bottom.
BEFORE CHILDREN: I was thankful for fresh, organic vegetables.
AFTER CHILDREN : I am thankful for microwaveable macaroni and cheese --
without which my children would be surviving on about three bites of cereal and their own spit.
BEFORE CHILDREN: I was thankful for the opportunity to obtain a college education and have a higher quality of life than my ancestors.
AFTER CHILDREN : I am thankful to finish a complete thought without being interrupted.
BEFORE CHILDREN: I was thankful for holistic medicince and natural herbs.
AFTER CHILDREN : I am thankful for pediatric cough syrup guaranteed to "cause drowsiness" in young children.
BEFORE CHILDREN: I was thankful for all of the teachers who had taught, encouraged and nurtured me throughout my formative years.
AFTER CHILDREN : I am thankful for all of the people at Weight Watcher who let me strip down to pantyhouse and a strategically placed scarf before getting on the scale each week.
BEFORE CHILDREN: I was thankful for the opportunity to vacation in exotic foreign countries so I could experience a different way of life in a new culture.
AFTER CHILDREN : I am thankful to have time to make it all the way down the driveway to get the mail.
BEFORE CHILDREN: I was thankful for the Moosewood Vegetarian cookbook.
AFTER CHILDREN : I am thankful for the butterball turkey hotline.
BEFORE CHILDREN: I was thankful for a warm, cozy home to share with my loved ones.
AFTER CHILDREN : I am thankful for the lock on the bathroom door.
BEFORE CHILDREN: I was thankful for material objects like custom furniture, a nice car and trendy clothes.
AFTER CHILDREN : I am thankful when the baby spits up and misses my good shoes.
BEFORE CHILDREN: I was thankful for my wonderful family
AFTER CHILDREN : I am thankful for my wonderful family.
\\\\ \-/ / The trouble with doing \ \-/ ////
\ / something right the first time \ /
\ -/ is that nobody appreciates \- /
/ / how difficult it was. \ ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><>
"I don't think I'll ever have a mother's intuition. My sister left me alone in a restaurant with my 10-month-old nephew. I said, "What do I do if he cries?" She said "Give him some vegetables." It turns out that jalapeno is not his favorite.
\\\\ \-/ / I joined a health club last \ \-/ ////
\ / year, spent about 400 bucks. \ /
\ -/ Haven't lost a pound. \- /
/ / Apparently you have to show up. \ ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><>
I had purchased a talking metronome while I was attending a conference in New York for music teachers. Before my son and I boarded our flight home, I hefted my carry-on bag onto the security-check conveyor belt. The guard's eyes widened as he watched the monitor. He asked what I had in the bag, then slowly pulled out the six-by-three-inch black box covered with dials and switches. Other travelers, sensing trouble, vacated the area.
"A metronome," I replied weakly, as my son cringed in embarrassment.
"It's a talking metronome," I insisted. "Look, I'll show you." I took the box and flipped a switch, realizing that I had no idea how it worked, "One... two... three... four," it said. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
As we gathered our belongings, my son whispered, "Aren't you glad it didn't go 'four... three... two... one...?'"
\ -/ If I'm not back in 5 minutes, \- /
/ / wait longer... \ ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><>
Rick, fresh out of accounting school, went to a interview for a good paying job. The company boss asked various questions about him and his education, but then asked him, "What is three times seven?"
"22," Rick replied. After he left, he double-checked it on his calculator (he *knew* he should have taken it to the interview!) and realized he wouldn't get the job.
About two weeks later, he got a letter that said he was hired for the job! He was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but was still very curious. The next day, he went in and asked why he got the job, even though he got such a simple question wrong. The boss shrugged and said, "Well, you were the closest."
\\\\ \-/ / \ \-/ ////
\ / A road map will tell us \ /
\ -/ everything we need to know... \- /
/ / except how to fold it up again. \ ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><>
Subject: Cell phone
From: "Terry Neal"
A young man wanted to get his beautiful blonde wife something nice for their first wedding anniversary. So he decides to buy her a cell phone. She is all excited, she loves her phone. He shows her and explains to her all the features on the phone.
The next day the blonde goes shopping. Her phone rings and it's her husband, "Hi hun," he says "how do you like your new phone?" She replies "I just love, it's so small and your voice is clear as a bell but there's one thing I don't understand though."
"What's that, baby?" asks the husband.
"How did you know I was at Wal- Mart?"
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[GCFL] Deja Vu
You've probably heard of "deja vu," the illusion of having previously experienced a situation that is happening now. Here are some related expressions
Feel like I've...
...milked this cow before: deja moo
...seen this strange animal before: deja gnu
...smelled this bad odor before: deja phew
...visited this menagerie before: deja zoo
...scared this person away before: deja boo
...read this mystery book before: deja clue
...been in this courtroom before: deja sue
...felt this bad before: deja rue
...felt this sad before: deja blue
...expanded this way before: deja grew
...seen this slime before: deja goo
...learned this stuff before: deja knew
...waited in line before: deja queue
...eaten this dinner before: deja stew
...pursued this person before: deja woo
...forgotten this your name before: deja who
...had this feeling of deja vu before: deja too
...seen these twins before: deja two
...used this beer recipe before: deja brew
...been on this airplane before: deja flew
...came up with this innovation before: deja new
...fed these pigeons before: deja coo
...sketched this portrait before: deja drew
...ended this relationship before: deja through
...felt this ill before: deja flu
...sheared this sheep before: deja ewe
...munched on this gum ball before: deja chew
...sat through this sermon before: deja pew
...played in this wet grass before: deja dew
...admired this scenery before: deja ooo
...lost it under the bed before: deja shoo
...exposed the real facts before: deja true
Received from Profusions of Puns Gaggles of Groaners List.
-=+=-
Last week I went to a seminar called "Stressand Disease" by Dr. Nickolas Hall, an expert in psychobiology. He gave an example of a coping skills for job stress which I would like to share with you.
When you have had one of those TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT days, try this.
On your way home after work, stop at your pharmacy and go to the section where they have thermometers. You will need to purchase a rectal thermometer made by *Q-Tip Be very sure that you get this brand.
When you get home, lock your doors, draw the drapes, and disconnect the phone so you will not be disturbed during your therapy.
Change to very comfortable clothing, such as a sweatsuit and lie down on your bed.
Open the package containing the thermometer and remove the thermometer and carefully place it on the bed side table so that it will not become chipped or broken. Take the written material that accompanies the thermometer and as you read it you will notice in small print the statement that every rectal thermometer made by Q-Tip is PERSONALLY tested.
Now close your eyes and say out loud five times, "I'm so glad that I do not work in quality control at the Q-Tip Company."
(Apologies to anyone that might work for Q-Tip Quality Control)
Received from Ed Bryson via Richard Bragg.
-=+=-
Great Writer
There was once a young man who, in his youth, professed his desire become a great writer.
When asked to define "great" he said, "I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, howl in pain and anger!"
He now works for Microsoft, writing error messages.
-=+=-
A short lesson on Southernisms
If you are from the northern states and planning on visiting or moving to the South, there are a few things you should know that will help you adapt to the difference in lifestyles:
The North has sun-dried toe-mah-toes, The South has 'mater samiches.
The North has coffee houses, The South has Waffle Houses.
The North has switchblade knives, The South has Lee Press on Nails.
The North has double last names, The South has double first names.
The North has Ted Kennedy, The South has Jesse Helms.
The North has an ambulance, The South has an amalance.
The North has the Mafia, The South has the Klan.
The North has Indy car races, The South has stock car races.
The North has Cream of Wheat, The South has grits.
The North has green salads, The South has collard greens.
The North has lobsters, The South has craw dads.
The North has the rust belt, The South has the Bible Belt.
If you run your car into a ditch, don't panic. Four men in a four-wheel drive pickup truck with a tow chain will be along shortly. Don't try to help them, just stay out of their way. This is what they live for.
Don't be surprised to find movie rentals and bait in the same store.
Don't buy food at this store.
Remember, "ya'll" is singular, "all ya'll" is plural, and "all a'll's"
is plural possessive.
Get used to hearing "You ain't from round here, are ya?"
You may hear a Southerner say "Ought!" to a dog or child. This is short for "Ya'll ought not do that!" and is the equivalent of saying "No!"
Don't be worried at not understanding what people are saying. They can't understand you either.
The first Southern expression to creep into a transplanted Northerner's vocabulary is the adjective "big'ol," truck or "big'ol" boy. Most Northerners begin their Southern-influenced dialect this way. All of them are in denial about it.
The proper pronunciation you learned in school is no longer proper.
Be advised that "He needed kill'n" is a valid defense here.
If you hear a Southerner exclaim, "Hey, ya'll, watch this," stay out of the way. These are likely to be the last words he'll ever say.
If there is the prediction of the slightest chance of even the smallest accumulation of snow, your presence is required at the local grocery store. It doesn't matter whether you need anything or not. You just have to go there.
When you come upon a person driving 15 mph down the middle of the road,
remember that most folks learn to drive on a John Deere, and that is the proper speed and position for that vehicle.
Do not be surprised to find that 10 year olds own their own shotguns, they are proficient marksmen, and their mammas taught them how to aim.
In the South, we have found that the best way to grow a lush green lawn is to pour gravel on it and call it a driveway.
If you do settle in the South and bear children, don't think we will accept them as Southerners. After all, if the cat had kittens in the oven, we wouldn't call 'em biscuits.
Received from FranCMT2.
-=+=-
Childrens Books that Didn't Make the Cut
1. You Are Different and That's Bad
2. The Boy Who Died From Eating All His Vegetables
3. Hammers, Screwdrivers and Scissors: An I-Can-Do-It Book
4. The Kids' Guide to Hitchhiking
5. Curious George and the High-Voltage Fence
6. The Little Sissy Who Snitched
7. Whining, Kicking and Crying to Get Your Way
8. Eggs, Toilet Paper, and Your School
9. Places Where Mommy and Daddy Hide Neat Things
Received from Mandy.
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Mary had a little lamb...
From: "David & Bobbie McClellan"
Subject: 10 WORDS THAT OUGHT TO BE IN THE DICTIONARY
AQUADEXTROUS (ak wa deks'trus) adj. Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off with your toes.
CARPERPETUATION (kar'pur pet u a shun) n. The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string or a piece of lint at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance.
DISCONFECT (dis kon fect') v. To sterilize the piece of candy you dropped on the floor by blowing on it, assuming this will somehow "remove" all the germs.
ELBONICS (el bon'iks) n. the actions of two people maneuvering for one armrest in a theater.
FRUST (frust) n. The small line of debris that refuses to be swept onto the dust pan and keeps backing a person across the room until he finally decides to give up and sweep it under the rug.
LACTOMANGULATION (lak'to man gyu lay' shun) n. Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk container so badly that one has to resort to the "illegal" side.
PEPPIER (pehp ee ay') n. The waiter at a fancy restaurant whose sole purpose seems to be walking around asking dinners if they want ground pepper.
PHONESIA (fo nee'zhuh) n. The affliction of dialing a phone number and forgetting whom you were calling just as they answer.
PUPKUS (pup'kus) n. The moist residue left on a window after a dog presses its nose to it.
TELECRASTINATION (tel e kras tin ay' shun) n. The act of always letting the phone ring at least twice before you pick it up, even when you're only six inches away.
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Oxymoronic Sayings:
Some people say that I'm superficial, but that's just on the surface.
On one hand, I'm indecisive; but on the other, I'm not.
If there's one thing I can't stand, it's intolerance.
The world's full of apathy, but I don't care.
Perspective is in the eye of the beholder.
Prejudiced people are all alike.
What is the probability that something will happen according to the odds?
Exaggeration is not all it's cracked up to be.
Evil is not all bad.
I'm still not sure if I understand ambiguity.
Always be on the lookout for conspicuousness.
There's no such thing as nonexistance.
Cooperation can only be reached if we work together.
As far as I'm concerned, treachery will sometimes bring loyalty into question.
He doesn't have much of a reputation or so I've heard.
I disagree with unanimity.
I have my doubts about disbelief.
Avoid Alliteration...Always.
Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
One should never generalize.
Avoid cliches like the plague.
Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
I have a twin brother; he's identical, but I'm not.
Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
Death to all fanatics!
An oral contract isn't worth the paper its written on.
If we do not succeed, we run the risk of failure.
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous!
I always wanted to be a procrastinator!
Rehab is for quitters!
The shortest distance between two points is how far apart they are.
Don't be redundant by repeating yourself.
Grammar has gots to be one of the most importantest things ever?
My identity lies in not knowing who I am.
I am becoming increasingly worried that there isn't enough anxiety in my life.
I have this nagging fear that everyone is out to make me paranoid.
Free advice is worth what you paid for it.
I keep telling myself that I am a pathological liar, but I am not sure if I believe it.
There are only three kinds of people; people who can count and people who can't.
Reality is a big, nasty, vicious dragon, but I don't believe in dragons.
Life is full of uncertainties...or I could be wrong about that?
Not only am I redundant and superfluous, but I also tend to use more words than necessary.
Always remember you're unique...just like everyone else!
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Subject: THREE PASTORS ...........................
From: "Rogers Family"
After the revival had concluded, the three pastors were discussing the results with one another.
The Methodist minister said, "The revival worked out great for us! We gained 4 new families."
The Baptist preacher said, "We did better than that! We gained 6 new families."
The Presbyterian pastor said, "Well, we did even better than that! We got rid of our 10 biggest trouble makers!"
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MAY I PLAY THROUGH???????????
A man was about to tee off on the golf course when he felt a tap on his shoulder & a man handed him a card that read "I am a deaf mute. May I play through, please?"
The first man angrily gave the card back, and made it clear that, no, he may NOT play through, and that his handicap did not give him such a right. The first man whacked the ball onto the green & left to finish the hole.
Just as he was about to put his ball into the hole he was hit in the head with a golf ball, laying him out cold. When he came to a few minutes later, he looked around & saw the deaf mute sternly looking at him, one hand on his hip, the other holding up 4 fingers.
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Subject: SAMURAI AUDITIONS
From: Robert Lyons
Back in the time of the Samurai there was a powerful emperor who needed a new head Samurai so he sent out a declaration throughout the country that he was searching for one. A year passed and only 3 people showed up: a Japanese Samurai, a Chinese Samurai and a Jewish Samurai.
The emperor asked the Japanese Samurai to come in and demonstrate why he should be head Samurai.
The Japanese Samurai opened a match box and out pops a little fly.
Whoosh goes his sword and the fly drops dead on the ground in 2 pieces. The emperor exclaimed: "That is very impressive!"
The emperor then asked the Chinese Samurai to come in and demonstrate.
The Chinese Samurai also opened a match box and out pops a fly. Whoosh goes his sword. The fly drops dead on the ground in 4 pieces. The emperor exclaimed:
"That is really very impressive!"
The emperor then had the Jewish Samurai demonstrate why he should be the head Samurai. The Jewish Samurai also opened a match box and pops a fly.
His flashing sword goes whoooooooossshhh, whoooooooossshhh whoooooooossshhh whoooooooosshhh whoooooooossshhh. A gust of wind fills the room, but the fly is still alive and buzzing around.
The emperor, obviously disappointed, asks: "After all of that, why is the fly not dead?" The Jewish Samurai smiled, "Well, circumcision is not intended to kill......"
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25 Signs that Your Getting OLD
From: "Loumu"

1. You're asleep, but others worry that you're dead.
2. Your back goes out more than you do.
3. You quit trying to hold your stomach in, no matter who walks into the room.
4. You buy a compass for the dash of your car/truck.
5. You are proud of your lawn mower.
6. Your best friend is dating someone half their age, and isn't breaking any laws.
7. Your arms are almost too short to read the newspaper.
8. You sing along with the elevator music.
9. You would rather go to work than stay home sick.
10. You enjoy hearing about other people's operations.
11. You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.
12. People call at 9:00 p.m. and ask, "Did I wake you?"
13. You answer a question with, "Because I said so."
14. You send money to PBS.
15. The end of your tie doesn't come anywhere near the top of your pants.
16. You take a metal detector to the beach.
17. You know what the word "equity" means.
18. You can't remember the last time you laid on the floor to watch television.
19. Your ears are hairier than your head.
20. You talk about "good grass" and you're referring to someone's lawn.
21. You get into a heated argument about pension plans.
22. You got cable for The Weather Channel.
23. You can go bowling without drinking.
24. You have a party and the neighbors don't even realize it.
25. People send you this list.
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Crosswalk - You Make Me Laugh: - - Rare Bible

A collector of rare books ran into an acquaintance who told him he had just thrown away an old Bible that he found in a dusty, old box. He happened to mention that Guten-somebody-or-other had printed it.

"Not Gutenberg?" gasped the collector.

"Yes, that was it!"
"You goober! You've thrown away one of the first books ever printed. A copy recently sold at auction for half a million dollars!"

"Oh, I don't think this book would have been worth anything close to that much," replied the man.

"It was scribbled all over in the margins by some clown named Martin Luther."

*Thanks to Pastor Tim for this joke!*
http://www.cybersalt.org/cleanlaugh

Call For A Ride

Jill's car was unreliable and she called John for a ride every time it broke down. One day John got yet another one of those calls.

"What happened this time?" he asked.

"My brakes went out," Jill said. "Can you come to get me?"

"Where are you?" John asked.
"I'm in the drugstore," Jill responded.

"And where's the car?" John asked.

Jill replied, "It's in here with me."

*Thanks to Pastor Tim for this joke!*
http://www.cybersalt.org/cleanlaugh

Wedding Tears

During my brother's wedding, my mother managed to keep from crying until she glanced at my grandparents.

My grandmother had reached over to my grandfather's wheelchair and gently touched his hand.

That was all it took to start my mother's tears flowing.

After the wedding, Mom went over to my grandmother and told her how that tender gesture triggered her outburst.

"Well, I'm sorry to ruin your moment," Grandmother replied,

"but I was just checking to see if he was still alive."

*Thanks to Pastor Tim for this joke!*
http://www.cybersalt.org/cleanlaugh

Fly Bye

A woman walked into her house to find her husband stalking around with a fly swatter. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"Hunting Flies" he responded.

"Oh, killing any?" she asked.

"Yep, 3 males, 2 Females," he replied.

Intrigued, she asked. "How can you tell?"

He responded, "Three were on the TV remote, 2 were on the phone."

*Thanks to Pastor Tim for this joke!*
http://www.cybersalt.org/cleanlaugh
Five Tech Replies

Five things you don't want to hear from Tech Support:

1. "Duuuuuude! Bummer!"

2. "In layman's terms, we call that the Hindenburg Effect."

3. "Your problem can be fixed, but you're going to need a butter knife, a roll of duct tape and a car battery."

4. "Press 1 for Support. Press 2 if you're with '60 minutes.' Press 3 if you're with the FTC."

5. "Hold on a second, please ... Mom! Timmy's hitting me!"

*Thanks to Pastor Tim for this joke!*
http://www.cybersalt.org/cleanlaugh

Career Choice

A father is asked by his friend, "Has your son decided what he wants to be when he grows up?"

"Yes, he wants to be a garbage collector," replied the boy's father.

His friend thought for a moment and responded, "That's a rather strange ambition to have for a career."

"Well," said the boy's father, "he thinks that garbage collectors only work on Tuesdays!"

*Thanks to Pastor Tim for this joke!*
http://www.cybersalt.org/cleanlaugh

*Eye Laugh*

"Horsing Around"
http://www.cybersalt.org/go.php?id=cw603

"Tourist Wash"
http://www.cybersalt.org/go.php?id=cw604

"Plow Acceptance"
http://www.cybersalt.org/go.php?id=cw601

"Cat Surprise"
http://www.cybersalt.org/go.php?id=cw602
"RCMP"
http://www.cybersalt.org/go.php?id=cw577

"Quality Time"
http://www.cybersalt.org/go.php?id=cw597

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- * Copyright2004 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 - - http://www.madkane.com/haplesssurfersguide.html - - Hapless Surfer's Guide To Privacy Policies "Do you cringe at the very sight of yet another bewildering privacy policy? I offer, as a public service, my extremely unofficial guide to privacy policies..."
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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NASA: Human Space Flight - - http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/home/index.html - - This NASA site presents the latest in space news including: Space Shuttle, Space Station, and Behind the Scenes of Human Space Flight.
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"Unintentional injuries at home have become a major public health problem across the country, according to a series of new Home Safety Council-funded studies conducted at the University of North Carolina Injury Prevention Research Center. 'Between 1992 and 1999, we found that an average of 18,048 unintentional home injury deaths occurred annually in the United States,' said Dr. Carol W. Runyan, director of the center and professor of health behavior and health education and pediatrics at UNC schools of public health and medicine. 'In addition, for 1998 alone, more than 12 million nonfatal unintentional injuries that required medical attention occurred at home.' Falls, poisoning and burn injuries were the leading causes of such deaths at home, she said."
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The Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project - - http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/ - - Initiated by the Atlanta-based The King Center, the Martin Luther, Jr. King Papers Project is one of only a few large-scale research ventures focusing on an African American. In 1985 the King Center's founder and president Coretta Scott King invited Stanford University historian Clayborne Carson to become the Project's director and senior editor. As a result of Dr. Carson's selection, the Project became a cooperative venture of Stanford University, the King Center, and the King Estate.
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"Forty years after the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and decades after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. made strides in racial equality, America remains split along racial lines - divided by the color green. Economic equality has become the paramount civil rights issue of the 21st century, civil rights advocates said as they prepared to celebrate King's birthday on Monday. Fewer blacks than whites own their houses, get fair loans, invest in the stock market or sit on corporate boards, or have any real control over much of the trillions of dollars flowing in mutual funds, pension plans and the financial markets, they said. 'Very real gains have been made on some parts of the economic front and the education front and most particularly on the job front," said Thomas Shapiro, professor at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. "(But) those gains are being reversed through widening racial wealth gaps.' There is a difference between income and wealth, which the latter includes investments in stocks or pension plans, equity from paying a mortgage, and assets that can be used to pay for education or retirement. And wealth is where the biggest differences persist."
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100 Best Companies for Working Mothers - - http://www.workingmother.com/bestlist.html - - This site allows you to view profiles of the '100 Best Companies for Working Mothers' as selected by Working Mother magazine.
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"The astronauts who will make NASA's first shuttle flight since the Columbia disaster said January 6, 2005, they are confident it will be a safe voyage, and while they won't be able to fix a hole the size of the one that doomed Columbia, they will have options the last crew did not. 'There has been so much testing done that our confidence has gone way up,' said Air Force Col. Eileen Collins, commander of the mission aboard Discovery. She noted that she and her crew have been 'very, very heavily involved' in the day-to-day flight preparations and decision-making. 'I am confident enough that we're not going to have a hole the size of what Columbia had' because of improvements to the fuel tank to prevent foam shedding, she said. 'If that does happen, we will know it. In fact, if we have a very small hole or a very small crack, we'll know that, too, and if that happens, we have the potential repair techniques.' The seven astronauts will also have the international space station as a haven, if their shuttle is damaged beyond repair by fuel-tank debris."
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2003 Fact Sheet: Prostate Cancer - - http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/prostate/prostate.htm - - Prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer, other than skin cancer, among men in the United States, and it is second only to lung cancer as a cause of cancer-related death among men. The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2003, about 220,900 new cases of prostate cancer will be diagnosed and 28,900 men will die of the disease.
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"Scientists have discovered why eating a Mediterranean diet rich in fruits, vegetables and particularly olive oil can help to protect women from developing breast cancer. The key is oleic acid, the main component of olive oil. Dr Javier Menendez, of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, said oleic acid blocks the action of a cancer-causing oncogene called HER-2/neu which is found in about 30 percent of breast cancer patients. 'We have something now that is able to explain why the Mediterranean diet is so healthy,' Menendez told Reuters. Doctors and researchers had been aware that eating a Mediterranean diet reduced the risk of breast cancer and other illnesses such as heart disease. But until now they did not know how."
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Inauguration Day: Jan. 20, 2005 - - http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts-for-features-special-editions/003426.html - - Every four years on January 20, the oath of office is administered to the president-elect and vice president-elect of the United States, at the U.S. Capitol - by 12 noon. This year's inaugural theme, 'A Vision of America,' commemorates the anniversaries of two significant events in American history that helped shape our nation: the centennial of Theodore Roosevelt's formal inauguration as president in 1905 and the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition reaching the Pacific in 1805.
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"Most Americans see health care and insurance costs as a more pressing problem than malpractice lawsuits, a survey says, although the Bush administration often cites litigation as a reason for high medical bills. The Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization that studies health care issues, and the Harvard School of Public Health said reducing malpractice jury awards ranked 11th on a list of 12 items people thought should be health care priorities for the president and Congress. Named most often, by 63 percent of respondents, was lowering the cost of health care and insurance, followed closely by making Medicare more financially sound and increasing the number of Americans with insurance. While not viewing malpractice reform with the same sense of urgency as the administration, Americans did say it was needed. Three out of five said malpractice lawsuits were a very important factor in causing higher health care costs, just below the 63 percent who mentioned high profits made by drug and insurance companies."
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"I Do Solemnly Swear...": Presidential Inaugurations - - http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/pihtml/ - - This Library of Congress site is a collection of approximately 400 items or 2,000 digital files relating to inaugurations from George Washington's in 1789 to George W. Bush's inauguration of 2001. This presentation includes diaries and letters of presidents and of those who witnessed inaugurations, handwritten drafts of inaugural addresses, broadsides, inaugural tickets and programs, prints, photographs, and sheet music. Related site: Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States. - - http://www.bartleby.com/124/
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Everyday Mysteries - - http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/mysteries-home.html - - Fun science facts from the Library of Congress. This site will help you get the answers to many of life's most interesting questions through scientific inquiry. All of the questions presented on this Web site were asked by researchers and answered by librarians from the Library of Congress, Science Reference Services.
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"Two studies shed new light on the link between diet and cancer, bolstering evidence that red meat may raise colorectal cancer risks but casting doubt on whether fruits and vegetables can help prevent breast cancer. The new research doesn't settle the questions, partly because both studies asked about eating habits only in adulthood. Some researchers think that may have less impact on cancer risk than lifelong eating habits. Breast cancer risk, especially, may be more dependent on a woman's diet during adolescence, when breast cells are rapidly dividing and are more vulnerable. Still, both studies are consistent with evolving thinking about specific foods and their influence on cancer risks. The studies are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In numerous previous studies examining diet and cancer, the relationship between meat consumption and colorectal cancer is the among the strongest, with most finding that eating lots of red meat and processed meats increases the risk."
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USA: Crossword Puzzle - - http://puzzles.usatoday.com/ - - USA Today offers a daily crossword puzzle. You can choose either regular or master skill level. Regular level players can get hints for words. Incorrect letters are marked in a different color. Archived crosswords are also available. Related site: Refdesk Crosswords Page. - - http://refdesk.com/crosswrds.html
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"Cave men lived a healthy lifestyle: Their calorie intake stayed low because food was hard to find, and they exercised regularly to bring home the bacon. The government wants Americans to follow that approach. Today, however, food is at their fingertips, driving has replaced running and people are fatter than ever. New dietary guidelines issued January 12, 2004, place more emphasis on counting calories and exercising daily, along with swapping whole grains for refined ones and eating a lot more vegetables and fruits. The advice is not really new. But Americans don't heed it, so the government sees the guidelines as an opportunity to change people's ways. The recommendations will be incorporated into the familiar Food Guide Pyramid, which most Americans know about but which few actually follow. The Agriculture Department is revising the pyramid for the first time since 1992, when it was developed."
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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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CPR 'not being done very well'
January 19, 2005
BY LORI RACKL Health Reporter

CPR is a key lifesaving technique, but doctors, nurses and paramedics often don't perform it the right way, according to two studies published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In one study, University of Chicago researchers measured how closely hospital staff follow guidelines for cardiopulmonary resuscitation, a series of chest compressions and breaths that can save the lives of cardiac arrest victims.

They studied 67 people who went into cardiac arrest at University of Chicago Hospitals and found rescuers often didn't push down hard enough or frequently enough on patients' chests. Another mistake: They breathed air into victims' lungs too much -- potentially throwing patients' blood pressure out of whack.

Other research has pointed to deficiencies in CPR delivery, but the two Journal studies were the first to use new monitors to judge rescuers' resuscitative skills in actual patients. The research was partially paid for by Laerdal Medical Corp., a Norwegian company that helped develop the monitoring equipment.

"CPR has been around for 50 years, but until now we haven't had a precise, reliable way to assess how well it's being done," said Dr. Lance Becker, study author and director of the emergency resuscitation research at U. of C. "Now we find that it's not being done very well."

When the heart stops beating normally, CPR can save lives by either restoring regular rhythm or keeping victims in a holding pattern until they get shocked with a defibrillator. CPR guidelines call for pressing the chest down about 1.5 inches at a rate of 100 compressions a minute. The rescuer also should deliver 12 to 16 breaths a minute.

'Major problem in treatment'

The second study, which took place in Europe, looked at the CPR skills of paramedics and nurses treating cardiac arrest patients outside the hospital. Many of the same problems surfaced.

The two studies "document a major problem in the treatment of cardiac arrest," a condition where the survival rate is "dismal," according to an editorial in the Journal. The editorial says that CPR guidelines need to be simplified, a process that could get started as early as next week at an American Heart Association meeting in Dallas.

Both studies were too small to detect whether survival rates were different because of flawed and optimal CPR. But, Becker said, "it only makes sense that better CPR would make more of a difference."

http://www.suntimes.com/output/health/cst-nws-badcpr19.html
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Very true!!!!
Mary Had A Little Lamb
Mary had a little lamb, His fleece was white as snow.
And everywhere that Mary went, The Lamb was sure to go.
He followed her to school each day, T'was even in the rule.
It made the children laugh and play, To have a Lamb at school.
And then the rules all changed one day, Illegal it became;
To bring the Lamb of God to school, Or even speak His Name.
Every day got worse and worse, And days turned into years.
Instead of hearing children laugh, We heard the shots and tears.
What must we do to stop the crime, That's in our schools today?
Let's let the Lamb come back to school, And teach our kids to pray.
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The Biggest Mathematical Miracle in the World!]
Date: Daphne Roberts

The Biggest Mathematical Miracle in the World!
Moses and the people were in the desert, but what was he going to do with them? They had to be fed, and feeding 2 or 3 million people requires a lot of food. According to the Quartermaster General in the Army, it is reported that Moses would have to have had 1500 tons of food each day.
Do you know that to bring that much food each day, two freight trains, each a mile long, would be required! Besides you must remember, they were out in the desert, so they would have to have firewood to use in cooking the food. This would take 4000 tons of wood and a few more freight trains, each a mile long, just for one day. And just think, they were forty years in transit.
And oh yes! They would have to have water. If they only had enough to drink and wash a few dishes, it would take 11,000,000 gallons each day, and a freight train with tank cars, 1800 miles long, just to bring water!
And then another thing! They had to get across the Red Sea at night. (They did?) Now, if they went on a narrow path, double file, the line would be 800 miles long and would require 35 days and nights to get through. So, There had to be a space in the Red Sea, 3 miles wide so that they could walk 5000 abreast to get over in one night. But then, there is another problem.
Each time they camped at the end of the day, a campground two-thirds the size of the state of Rhode Island was required, or a total of 750 square miles long...think of it! This space just for nightly camping. Do you think Moses figured all this out before he left Egypt? I think not! You see, Moses believed in God. God took care of these things for him.
Now do you think God has any problem taking care of all your needs?
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verse of the day -- Harley E. Hudson

... so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:17 - 19 (NASB)

Our grandsons have a small plastic terrarium. In that terrarium live two hermit crabs. (I could send you pictures if you wish.) We were at their house this evening for a birthday party and somewhere along the line someone brought out the terrarium. We did not “ooh and ahh” at the terrarium. We were interested in the inhabitants. The crabs are what make the terrarium interesting. It has no beauty in and of itself. As a matter of fact, it is just a mass produced, ugly box.
So it is with these “jars of clay” in which we dwell. The thing that is of real interest is what’s inside … the personality, the character, the “real us”. Unfortunately, the “real us” is usually a bit on the ugly side. We may project an image of perfection for our audience, but inside we find a heart covered with black splotches of sin. The mental image is rather revolting. Even those who love us find us unappealing at times. Some even are rejected by those who should love them most … all because the ugliness becomes too great to look upon.

What is a person to do? Today’s verses, in combination with yesterday’s, hold the answer. Remember, we are strengthened by the Holy Spirit (yesterday) so that “Christ may dwell” in our hearts “through faith” (today). When God sees us, He does not see the “plastic terrarium” in which we dwell. He doesn’t even see the ugly creature that we know dwells there. He sees the true inhabitant – His Son, the Christ!

Imagine with me for a moment that you are judging a children’s beauty pageant. It is your job to find the prettiest child in the competition in order that you can crown her/him as best of show. But, something happens when the first child steps upon the runway. Instead of seeing Bobby or Sally, you see your own precious child. You shake your head and try to cast off the vision, but the vision will not be cast off. The first child leaves and the second child steps up. You expect to see a new face, but the same thing happens … and it happens with each contestant entered into the competition. Who do you vote for? It would be impossible to choose a “winner” because each contestant is your own beloved child. They are ALL winners in you eyes.

So it is with the Father. He looks at us and sees Jesus, the apple of His eye. There is no way He could turn His back on Jesus – and we are the recipient of God’s love because of who He sees in us!

WOW! We have all the love the universe and beyond can contain. We are so loved that there is nothing that can separate us from Daddy! We are ALL WINNERS! This is what Paul means when he says that we will be able to comprehend “the breadth and length and height and depth” of God’s love through Christ. Now I don’t expect to be able to understand it all now, but this I will tell you. I understand it better today than I did when I was twenty, or thirty, or even forty. Now I know WHY I am so loved … Father looks at me and sees Jesus.

What do you put in the column? “I have Christ dwelling in me … and I am loved like God loves Jesus.” That’s a big one! You might want to underline it.

Harley
/~*=*~I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints …
Ephesians 1:18 (NASB)

Have you ever walked into a room at night and the lights suddenly went out? If you are like me, you usually have an awareness of what is around you. Are the cabinet doors open? Is there a drawer pulled out? Have I left a garment or shoes lying in the middle of the floor? But there are those times when you are “just going to be a minute” and you let your guard drop. It’s those times that bother me the most. In those moments I don’t KNOW what lies between me and the door. It is then that I shuffle instead of making a quick stride or two to the light. It is then that I hold my arm in front of me for fear that I might smash into an open cabinet door.

We have come to enjoy living in the light. We take it for granted. It is always there. Either the sun shines or the light switch is available or there are multiple bulbs in the fixture. We don’t even think twice about going into a dark room because we know where we can get the light to drive the darkness away. But in some ways we DO live in the dark. Paul tells of one in today’s verse.

We live without understanding what is available to us. I picture it like this. A man is walking through his back yard and sees a glint. He reaches down and picks up a coin. He looks at it carefully, rubs it against his pant leg, looks again, and determines that the coin is an ancient gold piece. He rushes to the coin dealer and trades that coin for a few thousand dollars and is happy. He is “walking in the light” of newfound wealth. He knows he has more now than he did when he arose to begin the day. What he doesn’t know is that just under the surface of that spot in the yard lies an old chest full of hundreds of gold coins just like the one he sold. He needs to investigate further to see what the real “light” is.

Paul prays that we will have the “eyes of our hearts enlightened.” Paul, from his experience with God, knows something that you and I don’t. He knows that beneath the surface of our Christian faith, now matter how well developed, lays a wealth that we have not begun to comprehend. We have an inheritance of which we have only begun to scratch the surface. We think it is great that we are saved and going to heaven someday. Meanwhile we must slog through the miseries of this life in order to get there. We read the parable of the prodigal son and think that the pig sty is the world and we will not enjoy the riches of “home” until we reach heaven. We may feel that we have “tapped out” all of the joy and peace that we can on this side of “the Jordan” and only after we have crossed those “cold waters” will we know comfort.

My friends, that is not what God is telling us. We need to wake up and understand that what we see is not what God sees for us. We have a hope for much more … and that hope is realized beyond our wildest imaginations in the here and now. Like the man in the backyard, we need to investigate further. We need to adjust our agendas to bring them more in line with God’s agenda for us, and when we do, God will open up the storehouses of His great treasures for us. They will be at our disposal to help us say and do all that He wants us to do. God has indeed called us for a particular work. He did not call us to work forty hours a week and struggle to get by. He did not call us to survive from day to day. He called us to walk by His side as we together, He and I, fulfill His dream for us. And, my friends, that dream is far richer, far greater that anything we have ever dreamed before!

So, add “called of God” and “rich” to your list of how God sees you. Later on we will see what we are to do with all that He is showing us.

Harley
/~*=*~… and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
Ephesians 1:19 - 23 (NASB)

My feet are certainly happy that I have a head … they tend to ache without having to think! Could you imagine what would happen if each part of my body had its own brain? The left foot might decide to go shopping while the right food decides it’s time to pray and kneels down. The rest of the body might agree with one or the other, or the various parts might have minds of their own and want to do something totally different. The right eye might want to drive down the street while the left wants to look at a pretty girl or handsome guy! I don’t know all that much about anatomy, but I know that this combination is an invitation to a disaster! My body needs a single mind with the ability to direct all parts of my being in total harmony. The simple reality is this: my foot has enough to do without having to decide where to go. It is quite satisfied going where the brain tells it and does a really nice job of getting the body to where it should be!

According to Paul, I received a new “head” when I became a believer. “… and gave Him as head over all things to the church …” Put that in your column of how God sees you! I HAVE A NEW HEAD! That means I don’t have to think for myself any more. I don’t have to figure out what is important and what is not. I don’t have to decide where to go or what to do!

Before you think I’ve gone off my rocker and call for the men in white coats, let me explain. I am not saying that I don’t have to “think at all”. What I am saying is that if I follow Jesus as my “head”, then He will direct my paths – and isn’t that what God has said in His word at least since Solomon was writing proverbs? “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and He will direct your paths.” (Proverbs 3:5) I can rest in peace knowing that God knows what I will be doing tomorrow. I can enter the day with confidence knowing that God is in total control. I can experience everything that comes my way knowing that God is using it to mature me and help others along the way. Even the tough things that enter my life are there for God’s glory and my good. I can face them with the knowledge that God will walk me through those dangerous paths. I can sleep at night knowing that when the dark days are over, God has a bright world waiting for me.

It takes a great load off my mind! I don’t have to be “in control!” Indeed, God is NOT my co-pilot. He is my PILOT, CO-PILOT, and NAVIGATOR. I can sit down and enjoy the ride!

Harley
/~*=*~ And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) …

Ephesians 2:1 - 5 (NASB)

Years ago, Melanie and I took a car trip up Pike’s Peak in Colorado. As we began our trip, there were times that I wondered if I was driving in the right direction (there is only one road up the mountain so it had to be right) because it seemed like I was driving down hill. Even when we reached the tree line, it was sometimes hard to know we had been climbing for an hour. As we began the journey to the peak, it became obvious that we were now in “foreign” territory. There were no trees and the road was hung on the side of the mountain. But it was only when we finally reached the top and looked back that we knew how far we had come. Colorado Springs was just a “postage stamp” on the green and brown “envelope” of the landscape before us!

Paul takes a moment in today’s verses to help us look back on life to see how far we have come. “You were dead,” he says, “in your trespasses and sins …” Hey. What does this mean “dead”? I’ve never been dead a day in my life. Oh yea? We were all dead – because of our sinfulness. We have all indulged the lusts of our flesh. We had all followed the sinful imaginations that our mind wishes were true. We had all sinned … and the penalty for sin is death. Adam and Eve died because of their sin in the garden. They were separated from the source of life, God. They lost direct contact with the One who gave them a reason to live. Eve suffered pain of childbirth because of sin. Adam had to till the soil and make it produce by the “sweat of his brow” because of sin.

Have you ever had an argument with someone that results in the silent treatment? You know, your wife or husband doesn’t talk to you for days on end? How did you feel? Alone … even in a crowd? Separated? Like a relationship was dead? That is at least part of what Paul is talking about – only worse. The ultimate separation because of sin occurs when a person dies without salvation and spends an eternity in hell. According to Jesus, it is possible to see from hell into the heavenly realm. The rich man called to Abraham asking for the beggar to relieve the suffering of hell. Separation from God. Separation from life. Both equal death.

That’s where we were. But God was not satisfied with that separation … and neither were we. We wanted resolution. We wanted LIFE. The only problem was that we couldn’t afford the cost. We couldn’t raise enough capital to buy life … not one minute of it. Now is where some of those things on our list come into play. Remember, God’s mercy shines on us. And that mercy saw us in our unredeemed condition, our dead condition, and God’s abundant love paid the price to buy our lives.

Now, instead of being DEAD, we are ALIVE in Christ! Write that on your list. You are alive … alive in a way that the world will never know. Alive with such abundant life that you should never be bored again because the life God has given you, should you choose to appropriate it, is more than you can possibly imagine!

Harley
/~*=*~… and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:6 - 7 (NASB)

Do you remember in the beginning of this series that I said the important phrase is “in Christ”? By now you should have an impressive list of who we are “in Christ” or because of Christ Jesus. We are saints. We are gifted, a member of God’s family, and holy and blameless. We are adopted and have access to God’s riches. We are redeemed. We are recipients of God’s mystery. We have an inheritance from the Father, God. We are sealed with the Holy Spirit, God’s promissory note that what He says He will do, He will do. I am wise and understanding, growing in my knowledge of God. He has a treasure for us that far surpasses anything we could possibly imagine. We are called of God and rich beyond measure. And yesterday we discovered that we are alive, truly alive, in Christ.

If I don’t miss my count, that is fifteen things that we have discovered that we are IN CHRIST. How does that stack up against your list of how you see yourself … or even the list of how you want others to see you? Which list do you prefer? God’s list or yours? Personally, I think I prefer God’s list. Mine is rather puny by comparison.

“But wait! There’s more!” Isn’t that what the game show announcers say when a person has won a prize … with a surprise ending? And indeed there is. The list continues to grow. Today we see that we are “resurrected” with Christ. We all know that He was crucified, buried in a tomb, sealed in it with a huge stone, guarded by Roman soldiers … and still managed to regain life on the third day! We also know that that life was different. He was not limited to earthly laws. He could appear in a locked room. He could be in one place at one moment and another in the next. Though His body showed the scars of His suffering, it was perfect in that it was transformed into a spiritual body. We also know that because of His death, our sins are forgiven, and we can stand before the Father restored and spiritually whole. We also know that because of His resurrection, we will someday enjoy eternal life. WAIT A MINUTE! Eternal life is not something that begins when we die. It is not something that we receive in “the sweet by and by”. Look at the verb tense … it is PAST TENSE. God has already accomplished the resurrection and the seating with Him in heavenly places!

So you don’t feel like you are in heaven? Neither do I, but the more I know about how God sees me, the more I seem to be “heavenly”. When I at least begin to understand what God sees in me, then I am more conscious of God’s hand in my life. I see that the pain and suffering have a purpose. I see that the trials have made me strong. I see that the events in my life are for a purpose … and others have come into the Kingdom because I had a part in their lives. I see that because I am stronger, others become stronger as well.

Hmmm. So I am resurrected and seated with the Father … now. That sounds good to me! Ok. I’ll add “resurrected” and “seated with the Father” to my growing list. I wonder what else God has in mind for me.

Harley

c. 2005 Harley E. Hudson

If you received Verse of the Day as a forward and you wish to have your own subscription, simply send an e-mail to hhudson719@earthlink.net and request a free subscription.
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TGIF-Today God Is First

The Skillful Worker
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Friday, January 21, 2005
by Os Hillman

Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will serve before kings; he will not serve before obscure men. ~ Proverbs 22:29

The Lord has called each of us to be excellent in what we do. Those whom God used in the Kingdom as workplace ministers were skilled and exemplified excellence in their field. Not only were these men skilled, they were filled with God's Spirit.

Then the Lord said to Moses, "See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship" (Exodus 31:1-5).

Consider Huram, the master craftsman of bronze in whom Solomon entrusted much of the temple designs. He was a true master craftsman (see 1 Kings 7:14).

Consider Joseph, whose skill as an administrator was known throughout Egypt and the world. Consider Daniel, who served his king with great skill and integrity. The list could go on—David, Nehemiah, Acquilla and Priscilla.

I recall the first issue of an international publication we began. It was common to hear the comment, "It doesn't even look like a Christian magazine." They were saying the quality and excellence exceeded what they equated to Christian work. What a shame. Has inferior quality become synonymous with Christian work? May we strive for excellence in all that we do for the Master of the universe.

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving (Colossians 3:23-24).

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To contact Os Hillman, request reprint permission, or to book Os to speak in your town write to os@marketplaceleaders.org. Marketplace Leaders Website: http://www.marketplaceleaders.org/ Copyright 2004
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Please recommend this TGIF daily devotional to everyone interested in applying their faith to their worklife. Tell them to subscribe at http://www.TodayGodIsFirst.com

Os Hillman Copyright 2004
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NewsScan Daily, 2005 ("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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"ABOVE THE FOLD"

AMAZON IN SPACE
The space company Blue Origin, created by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has built an aerospace testing and operations center near the little town of Van Horn, Texas. The company plans to begin flight operations in six to seven years with a "sub-orbital space vehicle that will take off and land vertically to take three or more astronauts to the edge of space." Bezos, a billionaire, chose the Texas location because he spent his summers on his grandfather's ranch in the area, where he learned about self-reliance and perseverance. (New York Times 18 Jan 2005)

GPS EVERYWHERE
The rules about the use of GPS devices are widely varied: whereas a federal judge in New York has ruled that police have a right to place tracking devices on vehicles without a warrant (since the drivers should have no expectation of privacy on public roads), California has restricted car rental companies' use of GPS to track customers (a law adopted after a company fined customers $3,000 because their GPS system indicated the cars had crossed the state line into Nevada in violation of the rental agreement). But the fact is that GPS is here to stay: David Gilmore, the court-appointed transportation administrator for D.C. Public Schools, says of the use of GPS to monitor school bus drivers in that jurisdiction: "As uncomfortable as this might make them, they are now being watched by satellite every minute of their workday, like it or not." (Washington Post 14 Jan 2005)

TECHNOLOGY AND THE MUSLIM EXPERIENCE
Dozens of Islamic Web sites now exist -- some chat-based, allowing for a dialogue about the religion, but many taking a militant stance, promoting holy war. Pilgrim and cleric Sheik Armiyawo Shaidu of Accra, Ghana, says the extremists have taken better advantage of technology than moderate Muslims: "This kind of advancement in communication has provided a very unnecessary but prominent platform to the extremists who are sending across negative messages that is not only harming people but also our peaceful religion. These people (terrorists) have successfully used these tools to confuse the minds of Muslims who are open to extremist views. I think we need a more pro-active approach to the problem and plan ahead of time to beat them to their own game." (AP/San Jose Mercury News 17 Jan 2005)

WILD WEB JUSTICE
Ohio trial court judge James L. Kimbler has set up a personal Sony digital camcorder in his courtroom and using it to post online video of people being sentenced for robbery, rape and other crimes. Kimbler says, "It's all public record anyway. If the general public and law students know what we do it increases their understanding." Lloyd Snyder, a professor of legal ethics, predicts: "This is coming. With 'Court TV' available, people are getting used to having things like this out there, and it's also entertainment. It is the right of the defendant to be tried in the open. There is no correlative right for a defendant to have a private trial." (AP/USA Today 18 Jan 2005)

VERIZON & YAHOO JOIN TO OFFER BROADBAND
A new deal between content provider Yahoo and phone company Verizon will give subscribers to Verizon's high-speed Internet services access to customized and premium content from Yahoo under a multiyear agreement that combines the companies' offerings into a single brand. Yahoo executive Steve Boom says that since the service is "all bundled with the DSL price" there is "no additional cost to the end user." The combined service will be available in Verizon's territory of 29 states and the District of Columbia. (AP/18 Jan 2005)

FBI AXES CARNIVORE, EATS INVESTMENT
The FBI has abandoned its custom-built Internet surveillance technology, dubbed Carnivore, and is now using commercial software to eavesdrop on computer network traffic during investigations of suspected criminals, terrorists and spies. In addition, it's asking Internet service providers to conducting wiretaps on targeted customers, when necessary. Carnivore initially was developed because commercial tools available in 2000 were inadequate, but FBI spokesman Paul Bresson says the Bureau moved a while ago to using popular commercial wiretap software because it's less expensive and has improved in its ability to copy e-mails to and from a specific Internet account without affecting other subscribers. "We see the value in the commercially available software; we're using it more now and we're asking the Internet service providers that have the capabilities to collect data in compliance with court orders," says Bresson. The FBI didn't disclose how much it had spent on Carnivore, but outside experts estimate expenditures at somewhere between $6 million and $15 million. (AP 18 Jan 2005)

ONLINE MUSIC STORES SWIM INTO THE MAINSTREAM
The number of online music stores quadrupled to more than 230 in 2004, according to a report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. More than 200 million tracks were sold in the U.S. and Europe in 2004, a tenfold increase over the previous year, and IFPI says research firm Jupiter is predicting the $330 million online music market to double in 2005. "The biggest challenge for the digital music business has always been to make music easier to buy than to steal. At the start of 2005, as the legitimate digital music business movies into the mainstream of consumer life, that ambition is turning into reality," says IFPI chairman and CEO John Kennedy. (Reuters/Washington Post 19 Jan 2005)

ROAD MAP LAYS OUT THE ROUTE TO DIGITAL HEALTH RECORDS
A group of 13 health and information technology organizations have presented the Bush administration with recommendations for a "national road map" for development of a national health information network. The 54-page document borrows heavily from the technical and policy approach of the Internet, suggesting that the federal government limit its involvement to initial financing and endorsement of basic technical standards. A separate "standards and policy entity" would then take over management of the proposed system. The report concluded that a national health network should not include a central database of patient records, nor should it require people to carry "health ID cards." Patients would control their own records, and the optimal design of the network would use open, standard technology for maximum interoperability of disparate systems. Many medical groups have begun investing in creating local networks that connect electronic patient records and the study warns that failure to move swiftly to establish open communications standards between these networks may result in a large savings opportunity lost. "If we're not careful, we'll have little islands of excellence that don't talk to each other," says Jan Walker, lead author of a separate article on the subject recently published in Health Affairs. (New York Times 19 Jan 2005)

CONSUMER ELECTRONICS GIANTS UNITE AGAINST PIRACY
Some of the biggest names in consumer electronics, including Sony, Samsung Electronics, Philips Electronics and Matsushita Electric Industrial, have teamed up with Intertrust Technologies to form the Marlin Joint Development Association, which will coordinate their efforts to develop standard specifications for antipiracy software. The motivation behind the united effort is to impose some kind of uniformity on the consumer electronics industry, thereby avoiding the confusing array of digital rights management software options currently being used by computer hardware and software makers. "The CE industry has been pretty quiet," says Intertrust CEO Talal Shamoon. Now, they're "detonating their DRM." Intertrust was jointly purchased in 2003 by Sony, Philips and other investors. The Marlin effort comes on the heels of an earlier venture called the Coral Consortium, which was designed to ensure that different DRM programs were interoperable. (Wall Street Journal 19 Jan 2005) (sub req'd)

GOOGLE MOVES TO OUTSMART SEARCH MANIPULATORS
Google is implementing a new tactic for blocking "link spammers" -- people who use the comment form on Web forums or blogs to place a link pointing back to their own Web site. The strategy is used to trick Google's PageRank technology into boosting a Web site's ranking in its results. The problem has become particularly rampant in the age of blogging, when publishers have little recourse to stop outsiders from littering their comment forms with bogus links. Google's answer, says search expert Danny Sullivan, is to give publishers a "no follow" tag that they can insert on a Web page to indicate that comments or links are not their own and signal Google as it indexes the Web that the pages are to be overlooked. "The tag provides you a way to flag links that are basically not yours," says Sullivan. "The reason why that's helpful is because they won't count those links. It makes the idea of spamming less attractive." Blog publisher Six Apart says it will adopt the tagging standard for its roughly 6.5 million blogs. "We're interested in deploying this tool so that all the search engines, whether it's Google, Yahoo or MSN, can properly distinguish content published by the author from content from commentors," says Six Apart VP Anil Dash. (CNet News.com 18 Jan 2005)

MICROSOFT HOPES TO SELL OUTLOOK TO HOTMAIL USERS
Microsoft will begin selling subscriptions of its Outlook e-mail program to Hotmail customers for $59.95 a year, hoping that people will pay the fee in order to organize their e-mail, contact lists and calendars in their online Hotmail. Industry analyst Ted Schadler of Forrester Research says the price "seems pretty steep to me." Microsoft Office Outlook Live also will include 2 gigabytes of online storage, plus the ability to send attachments of up to 20 megabytes. (AP/Washington Post 20 Jan 2005)

DO PEOPLE DO ANYTHING BESIDES LISTEN TO MUSIC?
A report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) says that music fans in the U.S. and Europe legally downloaded more than 200 million song tracks in 2004 -- compared to just 20 million the previous year. IFPI top executive John Kennedy says, "Digital music is now in the mainstream" -- yet he worries that the digital music market continues to be threatened by piracy. He would like to see the piracy issue placed higher on government agendas and more responsibility shown by Internet service providers for misuse of their networks. (AP/San Jose Mercury News 20 Jan 2005

GEORGIA LEGISLATION WOULD MAKE SPAM A FELONY
Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue has proposed a Slam Spam E-mail Act that would make it a felony to send more than 10,000 misleading e-mails during a 24-hour period, make large sums of money off unsolicited e-mail, or involve juveniles in sending it. Speaking at Earthlink's Atlanta headquarters, Perdue promised, "We're going to clean up spam in Georgia and put our citizens back in control of their online lives." EarthLink chief executive Garry Betty, who hosted Perdue's news conference, said that up to 80 percent of all e-mail is spam. (Atlanta Journal Constitution 20 Jan 2005)

TEEN SUED BY APPLE GETS FREE HELP FROM LAWYER
San Francisco lawyer Terry Gross, a specialist in freedom of speech and the Internet, will defend 19-year-old Nicholas Ciarelli against a lawsuit brought by Apple charging the Harvard freshman and Web publisher revealing Apple trade secrets on his Web site, www.ThinkSecret.com. Gross, whose services will be given on a pro bono basis, says that his client used proper news-gathering techniques and deserves First Amendment protection. (AP/USA Today 19 Jan 2005)

BE MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE (FROM YOUR CELLPHONE)
Toshiba has developed software that will make it possible for people to edit documents, send e-mail, and reboot their PCs remotely from their cellphones, allowing them to work anywhere. Toshiba will begin offering the service in Japan by the end of March through CDMA1X mobile phones offered by KDDI Corp. Toshiba is initially targeting the corporate work force, but says individuals can use it to record TV shows, work security cameras and control air conditioners tied to home networks. (AP/Los Angeles Times 20 Jan 2005)

THE FUTURE OF P2P
While Hollywood and the music industry has spent the last few years demonizing peer-to-peer networks, big business is eyeing the technology's potential for "commoditization" (translation: $$$). "Old media always tries to stop new media. When they can't stop it, they try to control it. Then they figure out how to make money and they always make a lot of money," says StreamCast Networks president Michael Weiss. P2P networks can be used to share any type of file -- photos, software, licensed music and other digital content. The BBC has already embraced the technology, and will be using P2P to offer most of its programs for download this year. Even some commercial entertainment companies are working on business models that would enable them to make money off of it, such as paid-for-pass-along, in which firms receive money each time a file is shared. (BBC News 21 Jan 2005)

INTEL SPEEDS 'VANDERPOOL' TO MARKET
Intel is touting the virtues of its Vanderpool technology, which enables a user to run two operating systems on the same PC by dividing the resources inside so that the machine functions like two or more independent computers. The chip giant had originally planned to roll out Vanderpool for desktops in 2006, but now says it will make it available in desktop chipsets and processors this year. Intel also plans to release dual-core processors this year, which are designed to perform two separate functions at once and dovetail nicely with the Vanderpool virtualization software. (CNet News.com 20 Jan 2005)

SMITHSONIAN SONG CATALOG ONLINE
Some 30,000 songs from the Smithsonian Folkways catalog -- including such greats as Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger -- went on sale yesterday for 99 cents apiece at MSN's Music Store. About two-thirds of the proceeds will go to the Smithsonian. MSN Music has encoded the tracks in the Windows Media format, and will have exclusive rights to sell the Smithsonian collection through September. When that expires, the Smithsonian hopes to launch its own music download service, offering more extensive text and documentation features than are currently available. (New York Times 20 Jan 2005)

ONE-CHARGER-FITS-ALL
University of Cambridge spinoff Splashpower is moving closer to realizing its goal of launching the SplashPad charger -- a plastic pad the size of a mouse pad that can recharge phones, cameras and other digital gadgets just by placing them on it. Splashpower has filed a series of patents describing the underlying technology: Inside the pad, an array of coils spread a low-power magnetic field over the pad's flat surface so that devices placed anywhere on the pad intercept charging flux. Splashpower-compatible devices will feature a thin, flat sheet of metal alloy with a coil wound around it that acts as a receiver. Current induced in the coil when it is on the charging pad is then fed to the device's charging circuit. The company hopes to license the technology to portable gadget makers, and co-founder James Hay says he's confident "it will definitely happen. We could see the first drop-and-charge devices before the end of the year." (New Scientist 21 Jan 2005)

E-WASTE IS PILING UP
Consumers' penchant for constant upgrades -- new cell phones, a sleeker laptop -- is causing havoc in the environment, and with technology products now accounting for as much as 40% of the lead in U.S. landfills, e-waste has become one of the fastest-growing sectors of the U.S. solid waste stream. The International Association of Electronics Recyclers estimates that Americans dispose of 2 million tons of electronic products a year -- including 50 million computers and 130 million cell phones -- and China, which has served for years as the final resting place for Americans' unwanted TVs and computers, is becoming overwhelmed by the volume. Some high-tech companies are taking matters into their own hands -- Hewlett Packard and Dell job out their e-waste handling to environmentally sensitive recyclers such as RetroBox -- but such efforts are still quite limited and unable to cope with a problem that's reaching crisis proportions. Meanwhile, the U.S. is the only developed country not to have ratified the 1992 Basel Convention, the international treaty that controls the export of hazardous waste. "There's a real electronics-waste crisis," says Basel Action Network coordinator Jim Puckett. "The U.S. just looks the other way as we use these cheap and dirty dumping grounds." (Washington Post 21 Jan 2005)

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HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: ROBERT WILHELM BUNSEN
Today's honorary subscriber is the German chemist Robert Wilhelm Bunsen (1811-1899), whose name should be instantly recognizable by anyone who ever took a laboratory course in chemistry and heated a beaker of chemicals with the ubiquitous "Bunsen burner" -- a gas burner consisting of a vertical metal tube with holes near the bottom to admit air, a movable collar to regulate the air flow, a stopcock to control the gas, and a short pipe at the bottom, connected to a rubber hose, to carry the gas from its source to the burner.
While Bunsen invented or improved numerous pieces of laboratory equipment, the Bunsen burner was not his invention, but rather a laboratory tool he popularized to such an extent that it became linked to his name. Two inventions that were properly his and rightly bear his name are the Bunsen cell that converts chemical energy into electrical energy and the Bunsen photometer that measures the intensity of a light source.
After taking his doctorate in chemistry at the University of Göttingen, Bunsen taught at the universities of Marburg and Breslau and elsewhere. As a professor at Heidelberg (1852-99), he built up an excellent school of chemistry. Never married, he lived for his students, with whom he was very popular, and his laboratory. He chiefly concerned himself with experimental and analytical work.
Early in Bunsen's career he found an antidote to arsenic poisoning, but at great personal cost -- losing the sight in one eye from an explosion and nearly killing himself from arsenic poisoning. His studies of the gaseous products of blast furnaces showed considerable waste of heat and led him to develop efficient methods of measuring volumes of gases and cutting down heat losses. In this connection he went to Iceland where he studied their geysers and explained their workings. He was the first to obtain magnesium in the metallic state and study its physical and chemical properties, demonstrating the brilliance of the flame when magnesium is burned in air, an effect of later importance in photography.
Perhaps his highest achievement is one he shares with his younger associate, Gustav Robert Kirchhoff. Working together they invented the technique of spectrum analysis and almost immediately discovered two new elements, caesium and rubidium.
[To find a library copy of Wilhelm Ostwalds' biography of Bunsen, visit RLG's RedLightGreen service at or if you want to brush up your chemistry with "The Idiot's Guide to Chemistry" go to .

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: LILY PONS
Today's Honorary Subscriber is the brilliant coloratura soprano Alice Josephine Pons (1904-1976), who performed under the name Lily Pons. Pons made her American debut at New York City's Metropolitan Opera House in January 1931 where her performance in "Lucia di Lammermoor" was an immediate critical and popular success. The exquisite beauty of her diminutive figure, and her marked dramatic ability made her a favorite with audiences for a quarter of a century. With her 22-inch waist and petite frame, Pons quickly caught the attention of opera audiences accustomed to buxom sopranos. Her every performance became a sellout and she became partly responsible for saving the Met from bankruptcy during the depression. She sang regularly at the Met and at the opera house of Colon, Buenos Aires, and toured widely in Europe, Great Britain, Australia, and the United States.
Born in Draguignan, near Cannes, France, Pons's parentage included French and Italian roots. Taught piano as a child, she entered the Paris Conservatory at age thirteen. Ill health and World War I interrupted her studies for several years. After the war she began calling herself Lily Pons when she played ingenue roles at the Paris Théâtre des Variétés.
In 1923 she abandoned the stage to marry August Mesritz, a lawyer and newspaper publisher. He encouraged her to study singing and in 1925 she began taking lessons from Alberti di Gorostiaga. In 1928 she made her operatic debut in Lakmé in Mulhouse, Alsace, and after a few years singing in France's provincial opera houses, the New York Met gave her the audition that touched off the fabulous career that made her one of the highest-paid performers in history.
Pons was one of those operatic singers who also had a voice with appeal by lovers of popular music. In the late 1930s she was recruited as a popular radio performer and was sought after by Hollywood to appear in motion pictures. Her several movies included "I Dream Too Much (1935)", "That Girl from Paris (1936)", and "Hitting a New High (1937)".
In June 1938, having divorced her first husband, she married conductor André Kostelanetz. In the same year she was awarded the Legion of Honor by France. She became a naturalized American citizen in 1940, and during World War II she sang for troops in North Africa, Europe, and India. She was also honored for her work on behalf of the blind. She and Kostelanetz made numerous highly successful joint concert tours until their divorce in 1958.
In 1956 she celebrated her 25th anniversary as the Met's reigning diva in 1956, and used the occasion to signal her practical retirement as a performer, although her formal retirement was put off until 1964. Her last public performance took place in May 1972 at a Promenade concert of the New York Philharmonic, with her former husband André Kostelanetz conducting. She died in Dallas, Texas, on February 13, 1976.
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[To find a library copy of "Lily Pons: A Centennial Portrait," visit RLG's RedLightGreen service at -- or to purchase a CD of Pons's singing of Mozart, Rossini, et al., go to .

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: FEDERICO FELLINI
Today's Honorary Subscriber is the Oscar-winning Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini (1920-1993), best known for his flamboyant, sometimes grotesque film fantasies. His 1960 film "La Dolce Vita," a stinging indictment of contemporary Roman decadence, made him an international media star.
Starting out as a journalist and gag writer, Fellini drifted into films as a scriptwriter, first in collaboration with Roberto Rossellini on the neorealist films "Open City" and "Paisan." He debuted as a director with the satirical comedies "The White Sheik" and "I Vitelloni." With "La Strada," the powerful 1954 fable, Fellini won the Oscar for best foreign film. A second Oscar came two years later for "Nights of Cabiria." Fellini's third Oscar winner, the 1963 film "8 1/2," used stream-of-consciousness techniques to depict the inner filmmaking struggles experienced by a director.
Fellini's next films --"Juliet of the Spirits," "Satyricon," and "Roma" -- were less critically acclaimed, but in 1974 Fellini won a fourth Oscar for "Amarcord," a stirring depiction of adolescence under fascism set in his hometown of Rimini. After the mid-1970s none of Fellini's films attained the celebrity of his earlier productions, but he retained his fame as a director with a filmmaking style original enough to be called "Felliniesque."
Fellini was born in Rimini on the Adriatic coast of Italy, where his father was a food-products salesman. After schooling at Bologna, Fellini went in 1938 to Florence, where his talent for drawing got him work on a humorous weekly and on science fiction serials. In 1939 he went to Rome in the hope of becoming a journalist and sold caricatures in restaurants. He was able to avoid military service during World War II, and in 1940 he became an editor of Marc'Aurelio, a popular satirical weekly magazine. In 1943 he wrote a radio serial in which the actress Giulietta Masina appeared. They married that same year. When Allied forces took Rome in 1944, Fellini opened a shop, in which he drew caricatures and made voice recordings for Allied soldiers.
Fellini became a friend and associate of the director Roberto Rossellini, who put him to work as a scriptwriter and assistant director. Fellini fell in love with the movie business and with the help of Rossellini (and later the prominent Italian director, Alberto Lattuada), gradually gained the experience he needed to become a director in his own right.
Critics have hailed his best films, which were all partially written by him, as artistic blends of realism and social satire, with an uniquely Fellini touch of fantasy. So much were his films the product of his own inner being, that it was not unusual for Fellini to have the story unfold as the film was being made.
[To find a library copy of a profile of Fellini edited by Lietta Tornabuoni, visit RLG's RedLightGreen service at -- or to purchase the DVD of "La Dolce Vita" go to .

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: SIR HUMPHRY DAVY
Today's Honorary Subscriber is the English chemist Sir Humphry Davy, who discovered important chemical compounds and elements (including sodium and potassium), invented the miner's safety lamp, and became one of the greatest exponents of the scientific method. He also experimented with the use of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas.
Davis was the first person to isolate sodium and potassium by passing an electric current through the fused hydroxides of these elements. Other elements he was the first to isolate included barium, boron, calcium, magnesium, and strontium. His miner's safety lamp, now called the Davy lamp, used a wire mesh to keep the lamp flame from igniting explosive mine gases. The Davy lamp was first used in British mines in 1816, and its success in reducing the number of explosions led to his being made a baronet.
Davy was an especially brilliant speaker, and his chemical lectures and demonstrations became fashionable social events, attended by many prominent persons. In 1807 a Davy lecture series earned a prize from Napoleon, which Davy traveled to Paris to receive in person, even though France and England were at war. Davy dismissed criticism by saying that the nations were at war, "but not their scientists."
Davy was the elder son of middle-class parents and was educated at the grammar school in nearby Penzance. In 1795, a year after the death of his father, he was apprenticed to a surgeon and apothecary, with the expectation of a career in medicine. He also had aspirations to write poetry, but put them aside in 1798, when he was appointed chemical superintendent of the Pneumatic Institution at Clifton to investigate the possible therapeutic uses of various gases. Davy investigated the oxides and acids of nitrogen, as well as ammonia. He nearly lost his life inhaling water gas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide.
In 1803 he was made a fellow of the Royal Society and an honorary member of the Dublin Society. For his researches on voltaic cells, tanning, and mineral analysis, he received the Copley Medal in 1805, and he was elected secretary of the Royal Society in 1807.
Besides creating an amazing list of scientific achievements, Davy also found time for other pursuits. He was an avid fisherman and in 1928 he wrote "Salmonia: or Days of Fly Fishing," a work similar to Izaak Walton's that contained engravings from his own drawings. He never lost his early interest in poetry, and his friends included the literary scions Coleridge, Southey and Wordsworth, who unlike modern critics thought well of his poetry.
Davy's health began to fail rapidly in 1827, and he was forced to resign the presidency of the Royal Society. In 1829 he settled in Rome, Italy, calling himself "a ruin amongst ruins." He spent his last months before dying that year writing a series of dialogues, published posthumously in 1830 as "Consolations in Travel, or the Last Days of a Philosopher."
***
[To find a library copy of "Consolations in Travel," visit RLG's RedLightGreen service at: -- or to purchase a copy Davy's published works go to .

Note: We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy programs.]

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Activities and Events of Interest
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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 your 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.

01. Sgt. Nathaniel T. Swindell, 24, of Bronx, N.Y., died Jan. 15 in Mosul, Iraq, from a non-combat related injury. Swindell was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, Fort Lewis, Wash.

02. Sgt. Jayton D. Patterson, 26, of Sedley, Va., died Jan. 15 as result of hostile action in Babil Province, Iraq. He was assigned to 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

03. Cpl. Paul C. Holter III, 21, of Corpus Christi, Texas, died Jan. 14, due to a non-combat related incident at Camp Ramadi, Iraq. He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.

The Department of Defense announced the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Dead are:
04. Pfc. Francis C. Obaji, 21, of Queens Village, N.Y., died Jan. 17 in the 86th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, after he was involved in a motor vehicle accident Jan. 16 in Baghdad, Iraq. Obaji was assigned to the Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 69th Infantry Regiment, New York, N.Y.
05. Spc. Alain L. Kamolvathin, 21, of Blairstown, N.J., died Jan. 16 in Baghdad, Iraq, when he was involved in a motor vehicle accident. Kamolvathin was assigned to the Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 69th Infantry Regiment, New York, N.Y.

The Department of Defense announced the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Dead are:
06. Staff Sgt. Thomas E. Vitagliano, 33, of New Haven, Conn., died Jan. 17 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, when a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated near his position. Vitagliano was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, Camp Casey, Korea.
07. Pfc. George R. Geer, 27, of Cortez, Colo., died Jan. 17 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, when a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated near his position. Geer was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, Camp Casey, Korea.

08. Pfc. Jesus Fonseca, 19, of Marietta, Ga., died Jan. 17 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, when a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated near his position. Fonseca was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, Camp Casey, Korea.

09. Capt. Christopher J. Sullivan, 29, of Princeton, Mass., died Jan. 18 in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his parked vehicle. Sullivan was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
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Remember that for every soldier killed in modern war, 10 are wounded. Don't forget to pray for them and their families.
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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.(12/24)

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.)

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, especially in January when we've got the program. Here's our list of January speakers; January 25 - - Gary McKinnie.
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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."
"A simple way to take measure of a country is to look at how many want in ... and how many want out." - - Tony Blair
"Information is the currency of democracy." - Jefferson
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - - Margaret Mead
~~~~~
Hope you enjoy the newsletter.
Again, thanks to all our contributors this week.

God bless and GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!
Heb 2:14-18 Isa 43:1-2 Jer 44:9-10 John 10:37-38
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 Dreamcenter kids enjoying our pancakes and “Upward” basketball teams praying before their game.
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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