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Is Living in a Senior Community Right for You?
Accepting and embracing change can be difficult, especially when it's time to say goodbye to a house you've been coming home to everyday for years. Replacing that home is impossible, but there are numerous advantages to living in a senior community.
One of the advantages is not mowing the lawn, no more cleaning the bathroom, no more shoveling snow from the driveway and steps, etc. There are many communities that even do the cooking for you, so you don't have to think about what's for dinner? Leave the taxing chores of homeownership behind and move forward with a senior community that eliminates the heartaches of owning a home.
The word "community" literally means "people with common backgrounds". It's a breathe of fresh air to be invited into a community where there are other seniors with similar backgrounds living in the same area. Residents immediately become a part of a welcoming community and are bound to make some great new friends among their fellow residents.
We don't think you'll be likely to be bored at a senior living community. With activities ranging from exercise classes (including yoga), to swimming and aerobic classes, trips to museums, movie nights, arts & crafts, dancing, restaurant outings, and even singles nights, senior activities now days are slightly more active than your typical bingo night. Today's seniors want an active retirement and are no longer favoring shuffleboard and sing-alongs.
Residents also have a peace of mind when it comes to medical assistance while living in a senior community. Emergency response systems are in each apartment area or often times as a pendant on the residents' themselves. Too often seniors fall within their own home and are unable to receive immediate help. The reliable staff members along with the emergency response systems will help you feel safe and secure.
Senior communities may not be for everyone, but as seniors age and aren't always able to handle day to day household chores or need the peace of mind that comes along with emergency response systems, these communities can bring color back into a grey world. Friendships blossom, activities are abundant, and the ease of living in a community is welcome. With an open mind, the advantages begin to far outweigh the disadvantages.


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Fish GamesMost Played Highest Rated Newest
Exclusive Games New Games
Candy Motocross Crash 2Candy Motocross Crash 2
Exclusive Games New Games
Christmas Elf DeliveryChristmas Elf Delivery
Great WhiteGreat White
Ridiculous Fishing OnlineRidiculous Fishing Online
Underwater DecorationUnderwater Decoration
Fish Games - Free Online Games
Going fishing with your dad or with your grandpa can always be a good way to relax, don't you think? These games we have selected can be very different form each other. Jump in our boat and see for yourself.
In some situations you will be the fish avoiding the fisherman, swim in dangerous oceans, maybe even eat some small creatures in order to survive. Or some other times you will be on a lake fishing the biggest capture ever, or participate to big fishing competitions. You need to have some skills ready to be used. We have plenty of interesting free online games based on this theme.
Grab your tools: fishing rod, the bait, the hook and get to work. Have fun!
Check out this Fish Games list on page 1. We have a total of 5 Fish Games and the most popular are: Aquar.io, Great White, Ridiculous Fishing Online and many more free games. This page lists the games from 1 to 5. This list of Fish Games received a rating of 3.97 / 5.00 from 41 votes.

subset: commoncrawl


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Camping, bears and my new do
Hi everyone,
As you may recall, I got another big chop when my hair was damaged by a flat iron. This short curly do has come in handy this week as I planned to camp with my hubby at a few national parks. Ok, I confess, I'm NOT a "roughing it" kind of girl. Sooooo, when we pulled up to our cabin (Laurel Hill State Park) the other night I loved the gorgeous natural scenery but I was taken aback to realize that there was no bathroom, no shower, no water in our unit (public showers down the road a bit).
Wow. But it was game over for your girl, the woods and this whole camping idea when someone spotted a BIG bear (Blue Knob State Park). The park ranger made matters worse when she said, "Well, don't run" when I asked what we should do if we crossed paths with the bear.
HA, camping trip over, we booked the next few nights at a Best Western.
So, what does this have to do with hair? Well, I can honestly say that aside from a dousing with water and a dab of gel, I haven't thought about my hair one bit. The freedom NOT to think about what I'll do with my hair if I want to take a swim or if we get caught in a downpour, or if we're away from running water for a day…ahhhh, that has been liberating. The swatting gnats, flies and peering onto the horizon for lumbering bear-like gaits, all while keeping my finger on the remote car lock so that I can high tail it to the car if need be, not so much.
Outside of the fear of being eaten by a bear, I've truly enjoyed our time in the outdoors. Seriously, national parks are indeed a national treasure. If you have a chance, visit one. 🙂


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After he travelled from Leeds to London for a recent shoot, Usman from Sonder Creative shared his thoughts on using Fat Lama over on his YouTube channel. He hired a Beholder gimbal and a Panasonic GH5 from local London photographers. Watch the video below to see how he got on and to hear his thoughts on the gear and on how peer rental is changing the practice of independent photographers.
'They're Passionate About What They're Doing'
"One thing that really struck me was the customer service. The customer service is incredible. You can really tell that the staff members care and they're passionate about what they're doing and they want to help and I really, really appreciate that! This was the first time that I was renting equipment from Fat Lama, and I have to say the whole process was just so easy. It was so seamless for me to go from Leeds to London, rent some equipment out, do a shoot, return the equipment and come back."
'The Price Was Definitely Cheaper'
"The price was definitely cheaper than renting from another rental company or so on. The other advantage is, because I was renting from other people who actually own this equipment and use this equipment, they were able to give me a bit of an insight and just give me a heads up on a couple of things, tweak some of the settings, show me a couple of things that I could do. That was so useful, especially when it comes to time restraints – you don't want to be faffing around with things, you just want to get things done. So from a professional standpoint, I highly, highly recommend this website. You can get equipment which you don't necessarily need for every single shoot but you just need it for one particular thing. I think that for creatives as a whole, this website is going to be incredibly powerful."
'It Makes My Job A Lot Easier'
"The other thing is the sheer variety of the kind of things that you can rent on this platform. You can rent things like a pair of Nike trainers, to a caravan, to an Arri Alexa… That's right, you can rent an Arri Alexa from this website with a technician, and the price is actually very reasonable! I really do recommend this platform and I can see the potential. Everything that you rent out is 100% insured and you've got that peace of mind, which makes this viable for professional use. This has changed my perspective in terms of how I'm going to be doing shoots in the future because now, I've got access to a lot of equipment that I didn't necessarily have in the past, or maybe it was just a bit too expensive for it to be viable for whatever shoot that I'm doing. Now I can go to a location and I can rent out equipment – I can even rent out props like tables and chairs and things – and it makes my job and my life and my work a lot easier. For that reason, I'm really excited about what this web site holds for the future, how it's going to progress and I can't wait to see how things develop!"
Rent camera equipment from fellow photographers today.
For video marketing tips, check out StagePhod.


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I had pointed to this senate hearing on DSGE models.
I was reading this charter presented at the hearing. It does the unthinkable — explains DSGE models in English.
First what does DSGE mean?
The dominant macro model has for some time been the Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium model, or DSGE, whose name points to some of its outstanding characteristics. "General" indicates that the model includes all markets in the economy. "Equilibrium" points to the assumptions that supply and demand balance out rapidly and unfailingly, and that competition reigns in markets that are undisturbed by shortages, surpluses, or involuntary unemployment. "Dynamic" means that the model looks at the economy over time rather than at an isolated moment. "Stochastic" corresponds to a specific type of manageable randomness built into the model that allows for unexpected events, such as oil shocks or technological changes, but assumes that the model's agents can assign a correct mathematical probability to such events, thereby making them insurable. Events to which one cannot assign a probability, and that are thus truly uncertain, are ruled out.
And how does it work?
The agents populating DSGE models, functioning as individuals or firms, are endowed with a kind of clairvoyance. Immortal, they see to the end of time and are aware of anything that might possibly ever occur, as well as the likelihood of its occurring; their decisions are always instantaneous yet never in error, and no decision depends on a previous decision or influences a subsequent decision. Also assumed in the core DSGE model is that all agents of the same type – that is, individuals or firms – have identical needs and identical tastes, which, as "optimizers," they pursue with unbounded self-interest and full knowledge of what their wants are. By employing what is called the "representative agent" and assigning it these standardized features, the DSGE model excludes from the model economy almost all consequential diversity and uncertainty – characteristics that in many ways make the actual economy what it is.
The DSGE universe makes no distinction between system equilibrium, in which balancing agent-level disequilibrium forces maintains the macroeconomy in equilibrium, and full agent equilibrium, in which every individual in the economy is in equilibrium. In so doing, it assumes away phenomena that are commonplace in the economy: involuntary unemployment and the failure of prices or wages to adjust instantaneously to changes in the relation of supply and demand. These phenomena are seen as exceptional and call for special explanation.
All this is pretty well put. It then explains how this model became so popular in policymaking and provides references for the same. There is also a discussion of economists interpretation of DSGE models.
Useful stuff.
It is amazing to see all this debate enfold. But again the problem is not with models. The problem is with economists and some super-economists who just sold this model all over the world. The limitiations were just put on the backburner. In moderation years it looked too good to be true as it fitted so well. And in times like this again it looks too good to be true as it nothing really fits and is unbelievable that we let this model go this far.


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Rami Malek Will Make Freddie Mercury Proud
The same Rami Malek who stars in the hacker series 'Mr. Robot' is currently in the midst of filming the biopic for Freddie Mercury titled Bohemian Rhapsody. The film will follow the Queen frontman as he progresses through the years, leading up to the legendary performance at the Live Aid concert in 1985.
Now, someone was able to sneak in some footage of Malek on stage as Mercury, and boy, has he got the moves down pat.
Only a month ago, the full cast was released for the remaining members of the band. Drummer Roger Taylor will be played by Ben Hardy, bassist John Deacon will be played by Joe Mazzello. Gwilym Lee will have the honor of playing guitarist Brian May.
Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury in the upcoming biopic pt 2 pic.twitter.com/PHNDoodZQd
— Rami Malek (@ramigifs) September 13, 2017
The Live Aid charity concert was organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure and held at the iconic Wembley Stadium in 1985. The concert also saw the likes of U2, Elton John, David Bowie, Sting, The Style Council, Spandau Ballet, and Phil Collins.
Just watching the original video below gives me the chills.
It is currently scheduled to be released in December of 2018.


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Opening Hours | Tours | Café | Prices | TripAdvisor | FAQ
Opening Hours
|Monday – Friday
|10:00am – 4:00pm. Daily guided tours at 11:00am and 2:00pm
|Access only on pre-booked tour at 11:00am (minimum 6 persons)
|Bank Holidays
|Access only on pre-booked tour at 11:00am (minimum 6 persons)
|Last Admission
|Monday – Friday 3:00pm
|We are closed for lunch
|Between 12:45pm – 1:45pm Monday to Friday.
Latest admission for self guided tours prior to lunch is 12 noon. The Officers Mess Cafe is open during these times.
Guided Tours of the Barracks
Will take approx 1.5 hours and will include an exclusive tour of Goldenbridge Cemetery (weather permitting)
Group Tours
Including schools, colleges, historical societies, etc. (minimum 6 persons).
To organise a group tour please contact:
Phone: +353 1-222 8400
Email: email@example.com
Language Tours
C'est avec plaisir que nous vous proposons des visites guidées pour francophones en 2018.
Pour plus de renseignements, contactez-nous: firstname.lastname@example.com
Richmond Barracks will be closed for tours on the following dates/times:
- Closed on Sundays
- Saturdays & Bank Holidays: pre-booked 11:00am tour for groups 6+ only
- On dates for Mondays at The Mess and Melodies & Memories there are no 11am tours.
- Friday 15th November – Closed – Private Event
- Tuesday 26th November – No 11am Tour – Private Event
- Thursday 28th November – No 2pm Tour
- Friday 29th November – Closed – Private Event
- Christmas Closing :
- Christmas Eve (Tuesday 24th December) open 10.00am – 1pm
- Re-open on Thursday 2nd January 2020 at 10am
"The Officers Mess" Café
"The Officers Mess" Café operated by The Caterers is now open for business serving a delicious selection of freshly baked pastries, cakes, desserts, gourmet sandwiches and MORE to our visitors and the local community.
Opening Hours: 10am – 4pm, Monday to Friday.
To reserve a table or make a group reservation please contact firstname.lastname@example.com or t. +353 1-4602999
Admission Prices
Guided Tours
|Senior citizens
|Family 2 Adults and 3 Children
Self-guided Visit of Richmond Barracks
|Senior citizens
|Family 2 Adults and 3 Children
Reviews on TripAdvisor
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I buy tickets at the door? Yes.
How much does it cost? Admission with a guided tour is €8. Senior citizens and students pay €5.
Do I have to take a guided tour? No you don't. You can wander around yourself and the price is €6. But if you take a guided tour you will get an exclusive and haunting tour of Goldenbridge Cemetery into the bargain.
Is Richmond Barracks Closed for lunch?
Yes, it is closed for lunch between 12:45pm – 1:45pm Monday to Friday. Latest admission for self guided tours prior to lunch is 12 noon. The Mess Cafe is open during these times.
Are there discounts for groups? Yes. Please call +353 1-222 8400
Is Richmond Barracks suitable for children? Certainly is! We have worksheets for kids of all ages, an old fashioned class room and a scary visit to Goldenbridge Cemetery.
How can I arrange a school tour of the museum? To arrange a class visit, email email@example.com.
Is Richmond Barracks wheelchair accessible? Yes it is.
Is there parking? Yes, there is free on street parking outside the barracks
Can I hold a private event at the museum? Yes, the barracks makes a perfect venue for events up to 150 persons. Please call +353 1 222 8400 for more information on rates.


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Celebrating 80 Years of Client Success Stories • 1937-2017 • Blog 9 of 12
In 2008, Holland Advertising : Interactive convinced Jeff Ruby, one of the nation's most renowned restaurateurs, that his name was an effective part of his brand.
When our Cincinnati advertising agency started working with Ruby, three of his restaurants did not show his name in their logos. One of the three restaurants was known as The Waterfront – a fine dining restaurant floating on the Ohio River. And without any sort of wager, Holland had bet Jeff Ruby no one knew The Waterfront was owned by him.
Our marketing strategy then went into solidifying the corporate identity for Jeff Ruby's Culinary Entertainment and all of its corresponding restaurants. Holland designed each logo with an oval shape and gold/black/white color scheme. Inside each oval, we placed the name of the restaurant in a distinguishable font, and finally, Ruby's recognizable signature. Once the logo for each restaurant was created, we put together an elaborate Brand Standard book to ensure these methods were used perfectly in all marketing outlets.
With the Brand Standard set, our Cincinnati advertising agency then launched several campaigns. From February to July, we ran a 14×48 ft. rotary bulletin through Norton Outdoor; In March 2008, we ran a coupon through RSVP's promotional post-cards targeting people between the ages of 30-64 and who were highly-educated earners with household incomes; And finally, in April 2008, we ran a 7-week flight of a 30-second spot and a 10-second spot on network T.V.
After it was all said and done, Jeff Ruby saw an 18% sales lift during the 90-day promotional period as a result of the direct mail and the expressway billboard. Tom Norton of Norton Outdoor commended Holland saying it was the best branding work that had ever been done in Cincinnati. In fact, our Cincinnati advertising agency was proven to be right when Jeff Ruby said people dined in his restaurants and commented on how they didn't know he owned The Waterfront as well as his two other restaurants.
Since then, Jeff Ruby has continued to keep his name on the logos of his restaurants. Even though he may have lost the "bet," he did win a cohesive brand that was easily recognizable to consumers. In fact, after all these years he has kept his brand standards almost exactly the same with only a few minor changes if any.
Are you in need of a strategic and cohesive brand? Contact Bryan Holland at 513.744.3001, or email him at email@example.com and you can become one of our many client success stories.
You can review some of our work with Jeff Ruby below:


text: For over 35 years, the Metro Milwaukee Florists Delivery Co-op members have been delivering your fresh flower arrangements across the county or across the street. All members meet daily at our warehouse and exchange your personally chosen floral arrangement or plant. Then your arrangement or plant is delivered by a member whose store is located the closest to the recipients address. This is a cooperative effort to save gas and time. All this adds up to savings for you the consumer! Check our Member directory for a listing of the Milwaukee's area finest florists and participating Metro Milwaukee Florists Delivery Co-op members today!


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What Big Teeth You Have
Event cancelled
Date: 18 Feb 2017-19 Feb 2017
Time: 07:00 PM-07:00 AM (UTC +10:00)
Venue: RMIT Storey Hall Annex, 336 Swanston Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3000
More information: RMIT Gallery is open Monday to Friday 11am–5pm, Thursday 11am–7pm, Saturday 12–5pm, and closed Sunday and public holidays.
Cost: Free
"What big teeth you have" is a light show with bite emerging from the façade's suffragette hues to form billboard-sized sentinels of Swanston Street.
In a bold new incarnation of her ongoing Girlie Werewolf Project, celebrated printmaker Jazmina Cininas will morph the face of the Storey Hall annex into a shape-shifting roll call of lupine ladies from throughout the centuries. Join us in this hybrid fantasy.
Getting there
Venue: RMIT Storey Hall Annex, 336 Swanston Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3000
RMIT Storey Hall Annex is located diagonally opposite Melbourne Central Railway Station. Public transport is suggested for travel to White Night events. Please take note of changed traffic conditions for White Night.


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SM2 Strategic has released results from its Spring 2013 survey of physicians at U.S. cataract surgery centers with femtosecond lasers.
More on the survey results at: Healio Ophthalmology.
Laser-assisted cataract surgery is currently available at seven AmSurg centers. If you are a patient interested in learning more about the benefits of laser-assisted cataract surgery, visitReVistaLaser.com. If you are an ophthalmologist interested in learning more about how an AmSurg partnership can benefit your surgery center, including the potential for adding a femtosecond laser, please contact us at firstname.lastname@example.com or 877-741-0085.


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About Covenant Life Language & Interpretation Right Order & Right Judgment Salvation Mechanics
Who is baptism for?
11 minutes to read Is it for babies? Or believers only? It is for new covenant members— who the Bible explicitly identifies as regenerate believers.
There are people who have wanted me to write a series on this issue. I'm afraid I am going to disappoint them; I believe the matter of who we should baptize is fundamentally a very simple one; far too many words have been wasted complicating it; thus I am going to focus quite relentlessly on the key question which decides the outcome of all the others.
Here it is:
Who is a member of the new covenant?
This is what it all boils down to, because there is one overriding axiom with which all Christians—or all that I've spoken with and read on this matter—agree:
The sign of a covenant should only be given to members of that covenant.
If you disagree with this axiom there is little I can say to you; but if you agree with it, then there is little else we need to worry about. The question of what continuities and discontinuities exist between the various old covenants and the new one, between circumcision and baptism, and so on, are all very interesting, but completely beside the point. The question is as simple as determining the qualifications for membership in the new covenant, and giving the sign of that covenant—baptism—to only those people who qualify.
Is that believers only? Or do infants qualify too?
It is a very easy question to answer:
31 "Look, the days are coming"—a declaration of Yahweh—"and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their ancestors on the day of my grasping them by their hand, bringing them out from the land of Egypt; my covenant that they themselves broke, though I myself was a master over them"—a declaration of Yahweh. 33 "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days"—a declaration of Yahweh: "I will put my law in their inward parts, and on their hearts I will write it, and I will be to them God, and they themselves will be to me people. 34 And they will no longer teach each one his neighbor, or each one his brother, to say, 'Know Yahweh'—for all of them will know me, from their smallest and up to their greatest"—a declaration of Yahweh—"for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will no longer remember." Jeremiah 31:31-34
Here Yahweh promises to make a new covenant with his people—the covenant we are currently under. It will be different to the old one because:
- The people it is made with will not break it;
- They will not break it because they will all know Yahweh—that is, they will all have an intimate relational knowledge of him apart from human teaching (the same kind of "knowing" we find in Matthew 7:23).
How is it that the members of this covenant will "know" Yahweh in this way? Ezekiel 11:19–20 explains:
And I will give to them one heart, and a new spirit I will giver in their inner parts. And I will remove their heart of stone from their body, and I will give to them a heart of flesh, so that they may walk in my statutes, and they will keep my regulations, and they will do them, and they will be to me a people, and I myself will be to them as God. Ezekiel 11:19–20
This promise is reiterated in Ezekiel 36:24–27, and alluded to in John 6:44–45:
No one is able to come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, 'And they will all be taught by God.' Everyone who hears from the Father and learns comes to me. John 6:44–45
Being drawn by God is an allusion to Jeremiah 31:3, which frames the passage about the new covenant later in that chapter. Being taught by God is a direct reference to Isaiah 54:13, but is also a clear allusion to Jeremiah 31:33–34—the covenant people of God do not need to be taught by men in Jeremiah 31:34 because they have been taught by God.
I trust I don't need to labor the obvious point: Those who are drawn by God, taught by God, and come to God, are taught, drawn, and come through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Ezekiel 36:27 explicitly says that God's Spirit will reside in their hearts. To paraphrase into more familiar theological language, they are regenerated, gifted with faith, and respond in love.
They are, in other words, believers.
According to Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the new covenant is made with these people, and only with these people. Covenant members kept breaking the old covenant. The new covenant is not like that. That's because while membership in the old covenant was by birth, membership in the new covenant is by rebirth—and you can't be spiritually "unborn". You can't break the new covenant because the new covenant is the one in Jesus's blood—the one where God covenants to save you if you accept Jesus' work on your behalf. And accepting that work is a gift of the Spirit, which is not a gift you can return.
(If you're not a Calvinist, this is all going to fall apart on you; but if you're not a Calvinist, hiccups over covenant theology are not your biggest problems.)
Broadly speaking, everyone physically descended from Abraham was given the sign of the old covenant, because the old covenant was a covenant of physical descent and physical blessings. That's why its sign was placed on the generative organ. By the same token, everyone spiritually descended from Abraham is given the sign of the new covenant, because the new covenant is a covenant of spiritual descent and spiritual blessings. That's why its sign is a metaphor for the Spirit's work in washing away sin.
Put in very simple terms:
The qualification for membership in the new covenant is the indwelling Spirit causing regeneration and faith.
That is why the Spirit is called a seal and a guarantee (2 Corinthians 1:21–22; Ephesians 1:14; 4:30; Romans 8:16). The new covenant comes with a promised inheritance. Every member of the new covenant is an heir to the promise. Every member of the new covenant receives the Spirit as a seal of the promise. Anyone who has not received the Spirit is not an heir to the promise. Anyone who is not an heir to the promise is not a member of the new covenant. That's because while the inheritance of the old covenant was the land of Israel, the inheritance of the new covenant is the land of heaven. Those in the new covenant are those who are going to heaven.
So who should we baptize?
Easy. People who qualify for membership in the covenant. That is, people who are temples of the Holy Spirit. People who are regenerate, have faith, and love God.
In other words, we should baptize believers, and only believers.
But what about…
In one sense, there is no "but" here. The logic is simple and airtight. If our axiom is right—we should only apply the sign of the covenant to members of the covenant—and if the Bible says unequivocally that only those who are indwelt by the Spirit are members of the covenant, then whatever you think other passages are saying, they cannot be saying we should baptize infants, since we have no way of knowing whether any particular infant is regenerate. Indeed, if you didn't already have the notion of infant baptism in yer noggin, you wouldn't find it in any other passages—it literally is not there.
That said, we should at least have a response to pedobaptist arguments. So let me briefly canvass four of the main reasons pedobaptists most commonly give for baptizing babies:
1. The Bible models entire households being baptized
Pedobaptists appeal to the example of Lydia, of whom Acts 16:15 records, "she was baptized, and her household as well." So, the argument goes, everyone who was under the "covenant head" of that household received the sign of the covenant. This would have included young children, if she had any.
Ignoring that this is simply incoherent in light of how membership in the new covenant works, and ignoring that it's an argument from silence since we don't know if Lydia had young children—and probably did not given that she appeared to have no husband and traveled 300 miles from her hometown on business—let's suppose she did and see how this hermeneutic works when applied to other passages about households.
- In Acts 16:31, Paul and Silas tell the jailer, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household" (cf. Acts 11:14). Do pedobaptists think that the faith of the "covenant head" saves everyone under him? Obviously not. Salvation is by personal faith; not vicarious faith. And indeed, the very next verses record that "they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house…and he was baptized at once, he and all his family" (Acts 16:32–33). But if pedobaptists can recognize that the unconditional language of the salvation of a household is implicitly conditioned on a response of faith, why can't they recognize that the unconditional language of the baptism of a household is implicitly conditioned on a response of faith?
- Paul instructed Timothy to "greet Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus" (2 Timothy 4:19). Was Timothy expected to greet the babies too? Or are we supposed to infer that since that would be silly, therefore Onesiphorus certainly had no babies? Obviously neither—when one writes such things, one does not intend to include those who are obviously excluded by implication; neither does one expect one's reader to be so incompetently wooden that he can't conceive of implicit exceptions. Such "exegesis" is the kind of embarrassing bunglefest we expect from village atheists.
- By the same token, Paul notes that he "did baptize also the household of Stephanas" (1 Corinthians 1:16)—and he mentions that, "the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves to the service of the saints" (1 Corinthians 16:15). Did the babies convert? Are the babies devoting themselves to the service of the saints? Alternatively, is it impossible that Stephanas had babies, since that would make Paul's comments false? Again, obviously not; to make such inferences is simply embarrassingly incompetent. Even in our low-context culture, we recognize obvious implicit exceptions. In the high-context culture of Paul's time, it would have been taken for granted that he wasn't talking about every single member of the household without exception. But then there is no reason whatsoever to imagine the same is not true of Lydia's household, supposing she had children.
2. The promise is "for you and your children"
Peter, addressing the Jews at Pentecost, told them:
38 "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself." Acts 2:38–39
Pedobaptists argue that since baptism is part of the promise made in verse 38, and Peter explicitly says that children are included in that promise in verse 39, therefore we should baptize children.
There are several points of confusion in this analysis:
- Firstly, the promise is not a promise of baptism; it is the promise of forgiveness for sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
- Secondly, this being the case, there is an obvious and elementary distinction between who the promise is for, and who the promise is to. The promise is for everyone (John 3:16 is an obvious example)—which is why God commands all people everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30), and why Peter uses a merism to emphasize that he isn't just offering a particular solution to the particular problem of these particular Jews, which was that they had crucified Jesus. But the promise is not to everyone—it is only to those with faith (Hebrews 6:12).
- This is obvious when you consider that Peter draws no divide between the children and those far off. His point is not that we should baptize children and those far off—which pedobaptists notably do not do—but that we should preach the gospel to them!
3. "Your children are holy"
Paul explains to the Corinthians:
For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. 1 Corinthians 7:14
This is, very puzzlingly, perhaps the most commonly-cited passage by pedobaptists. To be "holy" is obviously not synonymous with being regenerate here, since the exact scenario Paul is speaking to is a case of an unregenerate spouse. The word "holy" simply means set apart; the Greek word is hagazio, which while obscured in English translations, Paul uses earlier in 1 Corinthians 1:2; 3:17; 6:1, 2, 11 to refer to the way the Corinthian believers are set apart from their pagan environment. Obviously an unbelieving spouse and the child of a believer are set apart in a notable sense by being in the believer's family. But how would this suggest they are included in the covenant?
The real kicker for pedobaptists here is how comically inconsistent they are in applying this passage. On the one hand, they say we should baptize children, since the children are made holy. On the other hand, they don't think we should baptize the unbelieving spouses of believers—even though the primary focus of this passage is that the spouses are made holy! But if being made holy is equivalent to covenant inclusion, and if household baptisms involved everyone in the family, shouldn't pedobaptists at least try to baptize unbelieving spouses?
4. If it's okay to baptize unregenerate adults, it's okay to baptize unregenerate infants
This is a particularly odd argument. The basic objection is that since credobaptists sometimes baptize people who later fall away, credobaptism fails to meet its own standard, by applying the sign of the covenant to non-covenant members. Therefore, if it is okay to baptize those we have a reasonable expectation are regenerate as adults, we should also baptize those we have a reasonable expectation are regenerate as infants.
But this is an obvious category error. We have no such reasonable expectation of infants, since infants cannot evidence regeneration! Faith is the only outward mark of covenant membership—and infants cannot exercise faith. Even if the children of believers more commonly become believers, and even if we have much hope in the mercy of God and his honoring of familial lines, we have no expectation that our children are covenant members. We simply don't know. Moreover, if covenant membership is by knowing God and being taught by him, how could infants be included?
We can only give the sign of the covenant to people who, so far as we can tell, qualify as covenant members, and can qualify as covenant members—namely, those who make credible professions of faith. What else could we do? Obviously we shouldn't give the sign of the covenant to people who don't appear to be covenant members (namely young children and unbelievers). And the fact that we sometimes misidentify people as covenant members, so they later turn out not to be (cf 1 John 2:19), hardly invalidates the principle of trying to identify them.
If we knew the heart as God did, we could avoid ever baptizing the unregenerate. But since we don't have that ability, we rely on the outward signs as best we can. The fact that some people trample the Son of God underfoot and profane the blood of the covenant is hardly a reason for us not to baptize those who profess Jesus as lord and savior. If they profess falsely, that's on them—not us. We can only do our best to faithfully identify those who are true believers, and obediently baptize them to the exclusion of all others.
Sort of continued in 'What does baptism signify?'
11 comments
I believe we part ways after your statement "The sign of a covenant should only be given to members of that covenant." I fully agree with that, but find myself on different ground from there.
As you know there are among the faithful those who take a different path from that point and it seems harsh to class them close to or among the village atheists or call them "comically inconsistent"
Our brothers and sisters with whom we disagree in one or more areas should also be spoken to and about with gentleness and respect!
I agree that it can be very frustrating when people do not get what is so clear to us, but I believe how we deal with / respond in that frustration says more about us then about them. I am still learning that.
I believe that in any covenant that involves God, God is the initiator. I believe that in baptism he extends and gives his covenant promises to the person baptised, adult or child (and in it is case confirmed by a profession of faith or confirmation). As you say at the end of your post, man does not know the heart as God does. So, sadly, there continue to be too many instances that the covenant is made with unregenerate people, i.e. people who finally reject the gracious promises God has given them in their baptism.
I believe that covenant members form the visible covenant community, but that will obviously depend on how you define each group.
I have not answered as well as I should have but it is hard to summarise pages of explanation in a few lines.
Truth Unites... and Divides
Brilliant, Bnonn! Thanks for this post because it's helpful when engaging with Lutherans and Presbyterians.
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Hey Pieter, I apologize if I was unfair with that remark; it strikes me as comical perhaps only because I find it so frustrating, given how clear the question seems.
Do you think the new covenant is made with unregenerate people? Do you draw no distinction between covenant members, and the visible covenant community?
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
I believe that in any covenant that involves God, God is the initiator.
Well we agree on that. Jeremiah couldn't have put it more plainly: God initiates the new covenant by writing his law on someone's heart. He "knows" that person, and they "know" him (cf Romans 8:29).
I believe that in baptism he extends and gives his covenant promises to the person baptised
Okay, but doesn't that go completely against the idea that God initiates the covenant relationship? If baptism initiates the covenant relationship, then isn't man doing the initiating?
Moreover, for God to give his covenant promise to the person baptized means that God promises them salvation. But Jeremiah says that the very thing which distinguishes entering into that promise, as opposed to entering into the Mosaic promise, is that doing so is irrevocable. You can't back out. God's people broke the Mosaic covenant; but they cannot break the new covenant. So if baptism makes you a new covenant member, baptism would save you. That's what the Catholics think; indeed, it seems that infant baptism arose precisely because of the belief in baptismal regeneration. But Protestants can't take that out. So you seem to be saddled with a highly inconsistent position here.
So, sadly, there continue to be too many instances that the covenant is made with unregenerate people
But Jeremiah says the covenant is made only with regenerate people. It is incoherent to speak of the new covenant being made with unregenerate people, because the very mechanism for a person's entering the covenant is by God regenerating him!
Do you mean that too many unregenerate people have the sign of the covenant applied to them? Well, okay, I agree—but then the solution is to stop applying the sign of the covenant to people who show no evidence of being regenerate. Ie, stop baptizing babies :)
Is baptism a sign of the new covenant: yes. Does it initiate it or is it even necessary for salvation: no.
To use your own words: it appears comically inconsistent to me that the new covenant is supposed to be for all believers (we agree on that one) but then you suggest that we decide who that refers to, i.e. Someone has to exhibit signs of his faith in order to receive the sign of baptism. Why?
In the end it is a sign though, it is not necessary for salvation. To that end I'm happy to agree to disagree.
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Hey Daniel, I'm not sure I get the objection.
I don't think baptism initiates anyone into the covenant. Obviously the way to be initiated into the covenant is by regeneration; by being born again. Baptism signifies this.
I've noticed that pedobaptists always seem to couch the question in terms of "us" deciding who to give baptism to. This strikes me as odd, and I suspect it has something to do with our disagreement. I don't think it is up to the church to determine whether someone is in the new covenant. Since membership is spiritual, rather than physical, no one can know if someone is a member except that person. It isn't the church's job to say, "Yes, this person qualifies as a covenant member; let's baptize him." Rather, it is the job of the individual covenant member, when he is joined to the covenant by regeneration, to seek out the sign of that covenant. To say, "I have been reborn; please baptize me as the Lord commands." It isn't the church's job to then determine that he is indeed a covenant member; rather, it is merely their job to act responsibly and check that there aren't any obvious signs that he isn't a covenant member. That is, they are not burdened with trying to determine something that cannot be positively known until the resurrection. Their only burden is to guard the church from obvious goats. Their determination is not a positive one, but merely a negative one.
Obviously a church should reserve the right to not baptize anyone whose fruit belies their profession. But if the fruit is there, then baptize him. It's not on them if his profession is false. It's on him for seeking out a sign that wasn't meant for him in the first place.
I confess I can't really make sense of your question. You agree that the new covenant is for all believers, but then you ask why we should require someone to exhibit signs of belief before giving them the sign of entry into the new covenant? Huh?
Maybe I put my earlier question a little too abridged for the sake of clarity. Let me put it that way: it seems we all agree the new covenant is spiritual and to that extend purely depending on God's grace. The faith gets planted in a believer by the Holy Spirit and the believer responds in faith.
I don't think it requires my or anyone's cognitive recognition of this chain of events to belong to the covenant, it's solely depending on God.
Now, the point you made about the churches role, I would probably agree. Just though I don't think a decision is required by the believer, hence the role of the church is not so much as making sure no one joins under false precedences, but to baptize new believers, no matter what age.
The way I see it, a human being cannot and doesn't have to request the Holy Spirit, it is simply coming to all.
If we cannot see in people's hearts, why not go ahead and baptize them on that presumption.
"In other words, we should baptize believers, and only believers."
That's short and sweet.
I suppose that "very puzzingly" is meant to say "very puzzlingly". Personally I would replace it with "strangely enough".
Hi Bnonn. I appreciate and have been blessed by much of what you write. But I have to agree with Pieter on at least one thing. It behooves us to speak with a great deal more grace than some of your comments here, and also in other places. Kindness and gentleness/meekness are fruit of the Spirit that many of us need to grow more in.
Re: If we knew the heart as God did, we could avoid ever baptizing the unregenerate.
God new Ishmael's heart. He'd even told Abraham that His promised were NOT to and through Ishmael, and yet He commanded Abraham to give Ishmael the sign of His covenant. So even if we could read the heart… we'd be going beyond God's specific command and example. In the mission case, the Church ought to baptise on profession – even Simon Magus was baptised.
Whether the children of believers were and are included in God's covenant and so should receive the sign is a discussion for another day and probably another forum.
And along those lines… I think you (and others) greatly over-emphasise the natural aspects of God's covenant with Abraham, and underestimate/understate the spiritual aspects of the same.
God bless you
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Hi Wytse, this is the problem with young men having a platform to say whatever they want on the interwebs. Sometimes they have insights that benefit others, and sometimes they benefit from access to a larger group of people to critique them…but either way, their words are there as a standing record, years after they had forgotten all about them.
At some point I would like to write a followup to this article, critiquing it as if it were not me who had written it in the first place. I think that would be more helpful than simply removing it. Four years ago, when I wrote it, I hadn't yet come to any real appreciation of the doctrine of household that underpins the entire history of redemption (a kingdom, of course, being just a household writ large). As such, I had a pretty different view of covenant headship; a view I'd surmise is fairly standard among highly individualistic Western evangelicals.
The central issue around baptism, as I see it now, is that both baptists and pedobaptists immerse presumptively; i.e., they both presume that the baptized should be regarded as a covenant member, and often that presumption turns out to be wrong. The question is which presumption is more reasonable: that only someone who has expressed faith is a covenant member; or also someone who is under the covenant headship of a covenant member.
My worry with the latter is that it seems to potentially commit a category error: the covenants are different, and so the kind of headship is different.
My worry with the former is that, having come to understand the ramifications of household theology, and the socio-religious nature of first century houses, I have entirely reversed my previous position on the significance of households being immersed in Acts.
There are also other issues which I don't think baptists have sufficiently grappled with (and I had not when I wrote this piece). The foremost among these is Jesus' remark in Luke 18:16 that "the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." Baptists are too quick to dismiss this as saying nothing about immersion (which is strictly true), while failing to note the implication from the lips of our Lord himself that, should those children have died that very day, they would have been heaven-bound. (On this topic, another compelling cross-evidence is Matthew 18:10, which I believe refers to human spirits rather than to guardian angels; see my piece Angels and ghosts.)
Overall, I would say the evidence of the New Testament is inconclusive regarding the recipients of immersion (but not the mode; hence I eschew the Christianese term baptism; it just means immersion). However, I would say it leans quite strongly toward including infants, and I also think the circumstantial evidences are pretty strong—especially the sociological case made by e.g., Paul Manata (see On baptism and its proper subjects), and the near-universal tradition of pedobaptism. If immersing infants were truly against God's intentions, he would have made it clearer in Scripture, and superintended history away from it.


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South Australia's heavy use of wind power wasn't the cause of last month's statewide energy blackout, but nine of 13 wind farms switching off during severe storms played a role in the shutdown.
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has updated its initial review into the blackout and says it's now known that five system faults occurred within 88 seconds on September 28, prompting the interconnector with Victoria to drop out and the power network to go down.
It says the inability of the wind farms to withstand voltage disturbances was the result of safety settings which forced them to disconnect or reduce turbine output when transmission lines were brought down.
But it says the intermittent nature of wind energy was "not a material factor" in the blackout.
Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said the report put to bed suggestions South Australia's high use of wind energy was the cause of its problems.
"This isn't about intermittent energy, this is about a storm and the storm caused the blackout," Mr Koutsantonis told reporters on Wednesday.
"But that doesn't mean that there aren't issues for us about integrating renewable energy into the grid."
Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said it was important to note the issue with the wind farm safety settings and that those issues had now been addressed.
But he said AEMO would continue to examine the circumstances of the blackout in more detail before delivering its full report to COAG energy ministers, something the operator has forecast to take up to six months.
The Australian Energy Council said AEMO's updated findings reinforced the need to modify the way electricity grids with a high penetration of renewable energy were managed.
Chief executive Matthew Warren said the ongoing investigation would inform how more stable and reliable systems could be run in the future.
However, the Climate Council said AEMO still hadn't answered why it failed to take action before the forecast storms.
Spokesman Andrew Stock said the severity of the abnormal weather conditions was obvious and AEMO could have taken steps to increase the security of energy supply.
The Australian Wind Alliance said AEMO's latest findings clearly showed that wind farms were not to blame for the lights going out, with SA's wind farms doing exactly what they were programmed to do when the storm hit.
The Australian Youth Climate Council said the report showed the blackout was not a technology problem.
"The message from the experts is clear, the dramatic storm triggered safety controls in our power network which brought the system down" spokesman Dan Spencer said.


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Topic : Financial planning brochure templates.
Author : Fern Janssen.
Published : Thu, Sep 19th 2019 13:29 PM.
Format : jpg/jpeg.
First of all we need to determine what constitutes a good business plan template. Firstly it should provide information and guidelines about all the important aspects of business. If it lacks information or is not detailed enough then your company will face the consequences. Secondly, the business plan template should be completely realistic and the profit estimates should be prudent. Lastly it should teach you how to conduct research to fill in the blanks and come up with a more detailed plan.
Without proper planning it is impossible to succeed no matter how much capital you have. On the other hand, if you have a fool-proof plan you can make a lot of money in a very short amount of time. This article will guide you through the planning process so that you can improve your chances of success.
Nevertheless, templates still make planning easier, as well as, save a lot of money. They are less expensive alternatives to actually hiring professionals to make planning business work. An individual can choose from the many types of available business plan templates. Aside from appealing designs, the suitability of the plan template to his business must also be taken into consideration. In other words, if his business is about crafts, then, a business template for baking will clearly not work. Similarly, if the operating system of his computer is Windows, he should select a template that is compatible with Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel.


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Network Access Control (NAC) Market - Expected to Grow from USD 681.3 Million in 2015 to USD 2,645.5 Million by 2020
23 Mar, 2016, 09:10 GMT
DUBLIN, March 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --
Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/3v6cc4/network_access) has announced the addition of the "Network Access Control Market - Global Forecast to 2020" report to their offering.
The Network Access Control (NAC) market is estimated to grow from USD 681.3 Million in 2015 to USD 2,645.5 Million by 2020, at a high Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 31.17% during the forecast period. Network security is gaining a significant importance among the corporates due to the increasing number of untrusted devices accessing their networks. Hence, increasing adoption of NAC in various industries is seen, which is driving the growth of the market.
The report provides detailed insights into the global Network Access Control market, which is segmented by product type, service, deployment type, user type, vertical, and region. The NAC hardware solution by product type holds the highest market share, whereas the software solution is expected to show great opportunities within the next five years.
The traditional NAC technology used to grant or deny access to enterprise networks depended on the security profile of an endpoint. Advancement in NAC technology expanded the access control with access policy enforcement as per the business requirements. Due to this and various beneficial outcomes, there has been increasing investment on the NAC technology across the world.
The NAC market by user type includes large enterprises and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Adoption of the NAC technology is no longer limited to large enterprises, but SMEs are also seen increasingly adopting this technology, which is estimated to present great opportunities in the next five years.
The Network Access Control market is booming, and within the next five years, it will present huge potentials with high adoption rate contributing to the high growth of this market. The report provides detailed insights into the global NAC market. The market has been segmented into many industry verticals, namely BFSI, government & defense, healthcare, educational institutions, retail, industrial manufacturing, IT & telecom, energy & power, and others.
Key Topics Covered:
1 Introduction
2 Research Methodology
3 Executive Summary
4 Premium Insights
5 Market Overview (Page No. - 31)
6 Network Access Control Market: Industry Trends
7 Network Access Control Market Analysis, By Product Type
8 Network Access Control Market Analysis, By Service
9 Market Analysis, By Deployment Type
10 Market Analysis, By User Type
11 Network Access Control Market Analysis, By Vertical
12 Geographic Analysis
13 Competitive Landscape
14 Company Profiles
Companies Mentioned:
- Auconet, Inc.
- Avaya, Inc.
- Bradford Networks
- Cisco Systems, Inc.
- Extreme Networks, Inc.
- Forescout Technologies, Inc.
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP
- Impulse Point
- Key Innovator
- Portnox
- Pulse Secure, LLC.
For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/3v6cc4/network_access
Media Contact:
Research and Markets
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Related Links
SOURCE Research and Markets


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MIDAS Knowledgebase
Does an Annual Support Subscription support older/legacy versions of MIDAS?A "legacy" version of MIDAS is defined as any version of our scheduling software which precedes the current latest version (which may be determined from the changelog)
An ongoing Annual Support Subscription entitles you to be able to update to the latest version of MIDAS, and as a general rule, we are only able to provide support for the current version of MIDAS.
Therefore, should you have an active Annual Support Subscription and require support relating to a legacy version of MIDAS, you will be encouraged to update to the current version in the first instance.
However, we do understand that when we release a new update to MIDAS, it's not always convenient or practical for organizations to update to the latest release immediately. For this reason, when we release a new update for our web based scheduling software, we will continue to provide limited support for the most recent legacy version for the remainder of your Annual Support Subscription, or until a subsequent newer update is released, whichever is sooner.
"Limited" support for the most recent legacy version means that whilst we will be able to answer questions relating to it, generally no further updates will be made available to it.
So, for example, if the latest version of MIDAS (as indicated in the changelog) is v4.14, customers with a valid Annual Support Subscription will be able to receive support for v4.14 and v4.13. Support for v4.12 and earlier however may not be available.
← Return to Knowledgebase


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Many serious potholes at intersection of Wellburn and Addingtone
Reported in the Roads category by Nicholas de Swardt at 13:25, Friday 8 February 2019
Sent to Harare, SMART Harare, Ward 8, and Zone 7 5 minutes later
Wellburn road continues to deteriorate - please can we at least try to patch some of the more serious holes on the intersection as it is becoming dangerous to enter addington lane.
Provide an update
Please note that updates are not sent to the council. Your information will only be used in accordance with our privacy policy


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Sunday, December 28, 2008
My Xmas Vacation
-We took the cat. She did not like the car ride and I feel very guilty for making her go. She did love my inlaws oil vein heater and stayed infront of it the whole time we were there. Here she is cuddled between my feet on the ride down. Check out my awesomely coordinated Christmas socks and shoes.
-We went to mass and Father Dave gave another dreary and overall terrible homily about how Mary would have been told to abort Christ if she'd been pregnant today. Father Dave and priests like him are the reason that people leave the Catholic Church.
-At the end of church my husband's cousin's 2 year old projectile vomited over 3 pews, all over his mother and grandma and some innocent by standers. There are still times I'm glad I don't have children, and that is one of them. The family tried to clean it up but so much had already soaked into the pew cushion, so they flipped it over!!! Yes, that's right, there is a puke soaked cushion in a certain Catholic Church just festering. Gross. Don't feel bad for those by standers, they were a couple and the wife was clearly pregnant, I'm sure she'll get used to getting puked on.
-My SIL pissed me off. I tried to avoid talking to her much. Then on Christmas day she sat down at a table near me with a diet soda and said "I'm going to need a bunch more of these today." Ok, I know that you're never suppose to tell someone how to parent (or gestate) but there was a recent study that says smaller amounts of caffeine than previously thought will harm a fetus and increase the risk of miscarriage, so I couldn't help myself. I told her she shouldn't drink too much caffeine. She says back, "Well, my gynecologist says it's ok." So I say, "yeah, but this is a really recent study, your Dr. probably hasn't even read it yet." And then, with a lot of tone she says "Well, I'm sure if my dr. says it's fine then it is!" I hope everyone reading this understands where I was coming from. I was really pissed off by her. We didn't talk the rest of the trip, they left to go home while I was in the shower (and they didn't have to leave that soon).
-I emailed my SIL and apologized today... I'm not sorry for what I said, I'm sorry she took it the wrong way. But I'm still pissed. I told her in my email that I'd had a really bad month and spent more time crying lately than sleeping and was full up on hormones and am very sensitive right now. She wrote me back, but's it's clear that she didn't get it. She said some stuff like "I was wondering if something was wrong." Hey, then why didn't you ask me? It's not something I just want to start spouting out. She knew I was having infertility problems. And "You never congratulated me on being pregnant." No fuck I didn't congratulate you. I don't feel like it right now. Pregnant asshole.
-We had to leave the Christmas festivities to go back to the parent's house (we were at grandma's house) to feed the cat. This was after the SIL confrontation. I told DH I DID NOT WANT TO GO BACK OVER THERE. This of course started a fight. He just does not get what I'm feeling right now. I think he got it a little better after about 3 hours of me crying that night. At least I didn't have to go back, but I felt terrible and looked like shit the next morning (no sleep that night of course).
-DH's best friend came over before we left on Sat. He his wife had to work so it was just him and his baby girl. She was really delightful. DH's friend asked us to please have kids soon and preferably a boy so they could marry and we would all finally be family. I really like DH's friend, and I knew he meant well, but once me and DH were on the road and I let him know that was exactly why I didn't want to see his friends while we were down. I think my husband is starting to get it. We shall see.
-My odometer turned over 150,000 miles... I need a new car.
-I couldn't find Fluffy cat. My inlaws have some barn cats and there is one that I really like and I had my husband spay her and get her vaccinated last year so that she would be healthy and stop having kittens (they always die). She never came around. The only other two barn cats left were around. I got this pic of the momma cat sleeping in the manger scene... it kinda breaks my heart that they are not better taken care of. They get fed, but that's it... they are too wild to take to the vet. I hope the Fluffy cat is ok.
6 comments:
- Celia said...
I have Think Geek bookmarked already for all engineer gift giving occasions. WOW. We are soul mates now. hee hee.
You know Mr. and I had our first married people fight about NASA. It was a total NASA throw down after I said NASA sucked and it should all be privatized cause it was a total waste of tax dollars. I had to apologize and eat sh*t and everything.
- December 28, 2008 at 8:05 PM
- Celia said...
Also, wouldn't it have been a shame if that kid had yakked on Father Dave?
We had a miserable priest named Father Jerry(a real contributer to me switching to Lutheranism) he was always at our family parties like a big cloud. Being nice to him no matter what was a fine lesson in patience that really prepped me for retail.
- December 28, 2008 at 8:11 PM
- April said...
wow! that's a lot to take in. what is wrong with SIL? seriously? arg!
here's to a better 2009! cheers.
- December 28, 2008 at 8:53 PM
- Celia said...
I am gonna have to read this a few more times. "Pregnant asshole" is hysterical.
- December 28, 2008 at 9:43 PM
Protestants have those same kind of pastors as your priest. Last years sermon included my parent pastor suggesting "IF you don't know how to make babies I suggest you ask your parents how its done" Not quite the birds and bees opener many had in mind!
LOL at the little one puking on the pew...oops. Hope its the priest who found it! ICK.
- December 29, 2008 at 12:07 PM
This must be SIL from Hell week because this is the 3rd story I've heard today about crazy SILs.
Hurry up 2009!
- December 29, 2008 at 1:49 PM


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Josh Donaldson is the epitome of that player you love when he's on your favorite team but otherwise, you can't stand him.
The Rangers had to deal with Donaldson 19 times a year over the past couple of seasons when he was the starting third baseman for the Oakland A's, and a constant thorn in the Rangers' sides. He plays hard in the field, as evidenced by his ridiculous catch in the stands the other night, and he has a big, powerful bat that can change the game with one swing. Oh, and he's just smug and brash, making him a hated target for opposing fans.
The Rangers will have to deal with Donaldson this weekend as the Rangers head to Toronto, where Donaldson was unexpectedly traded this winter. Over the past 24 games he's played against the Rangers, Donaldson is batting .337 with five homers, nine doubles and 14 RBIs. With that said, he's entering the series in a cold spell at the plate and is just 2-for-11 lifetime against Friday's starter Nick Martinez.
Sports Connection
Connecting you to your favorite North Texas sports teams as well as sports news around the globe.
Something has to give this weekend. Either Donaldson's slump continues or he busts out of it and gets back to his Ranger-killing ways.


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- KIPP Austin's Daycare is provided by Extend-A-Care (www.eackids.org)
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Product details
A sporty fresh green makes this women's t-shirt a real favourite for relaxing moments! With the inscription "Hope" on the chest and his casual cut it is much more than a simple basic. Thanks to its slightly rounded V-neck and hem it sits very comfortably and flatters the skin with soft single jersey made of 100% cotton. Simply combine with the matching pants from the popular Mix+Relax series and enjoy the best SCHIESSER quality!
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The Loft, formally known as the Tudor Room can cater for up to 100 people, occupying the top floor of the building, this room commands great views over the Burnley skyline and the town's historic mill chimneys. The Loft has an inbuilt projector, screen, PA system and disabled access/facilities.
To enquire about hiring the Loft click here.


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Did e-mail leaks cost Hillary Clinton the presidency?
Her campaign manager says yes. Republicans say no.
The argument over technology and politics has only intensified since the election and on Tuesday it became one of the hottest topics at a major Bay Area cyber security conference.
"Those e-mails were stolen by a foreign government, by Russian, and released for the purpose of helping Donald Trump and hurting Hillary Clinton," said Robby Mook, Clinton's campaign manager.
Mook believes cyber security played a big role in the election.
"And did it affect the election? Absolutely it affected the election," Mook said. "This election was lost by a very small margin."
Republicans argue that it was much more than e-mail leaks that cost Clinton the election.
Mook admits his side could have done several things better, but also said future elections will likely have the same concerns about cyber security.
"I'm just here to make sure that people are focused on the cyber security issue," Mook admits. "It is of great importance to our democracy."
Now, after facing a leak, Mook is warning others to tighten up.
"All I care about is that we have good policies in place to prevent this in the future," Mook said.
Many of the companies attending RSA said they will be talking about cyber security and politics during the conference largely because of hacking of the Clinton campaign.


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To: Montessori Families
Re: School Performance Profile score (SPP)
On Tuesday, October 31st there was an article in the Erie Times News regarding the Pennsylvania School Performance Scores (SPP) which were just released for all PA schools.(See below) The article notes the good news that Montessori Regional Charter School showed significant gains in our overall SPP score - a 20 points improvement from the previous year. We attribute this progress to the incredible focus of our teachers on presenting new material on English Language Learning skills and, most importantly, our student's enthusiasm for the new material. We could not be more proud of our students and staff for this achievement.
State testing and state scores are only one of many measures of the success of our school. At Montessori Regional Charter School we place equal emphasis on every student's academic progress as well as their social and emotional growth. Helping the whole child to love learning, think creatively, and explore their world is the hallmark of their MRCS education.
And yet, as a public charter school, we know preparing our students for high school and beyond is also important. We do this by rigorously integrating Pennsylvania state standards into our Montessori curriculum. In doing so, we ensure that our students will excel in any academic environment.
We want to provide the opportunity to fully understand the principles of the Montessori Method and how it impacts your child's love of learning. To that end, we will be holding a Montessori Method and Philosophy seminar on Wednesday, February 7th 2018 at our South Campus. Childcare will be available at no cost.
This presentation, led by Montessori teachers, will discuss the principles of Montessori at each developmental phase, provide hands on opportunities to learn Montessori materials and give families a glimpse of a "day in the life" of a Montessori student. We hope that you will mark your calendar and plan on attending. The seating will be limited to assure opportunities for small group discussion so please sign up early if you plan to attend.
Finally, we want to thank all of our families for supporting your children's education at Montessori Regional Charter School. We know and appreciate that you made a choice to attend MRCS and we commit to honoring that choice by working to continually improve the educational experience of your child and your family. We will continue to ask for and provide opportunities for you to give us valuable feedback about how we can continue to grow and develop as a school community.
We want to take this opportunity to wish everyone the best in the next few busy months. We look forward to continuing to work with you as the New Year arrives.
Mark Zielinski, Chief
Academic Officer
Pennsylvania School Performance Profiles also show big improvements at Erie Rise, Montessori. Erie's Collegiate continues high marks.
Fairview High School ranks as one of the biggest achievers in Pennsylvania.
It scored 101.1 out of 100 on its Pennsylvania School Performance Profile for 2016-17, giving it the second-best ranking for a public high school statewide, according to newly released data from the state Department of Education.
The rating is based on standardized test scores, attendance, graduation rates and other academic measures during the 2016-17 school year.
The plus-100 rating puts the 600-student Fairview High School in rare company.
Only Downingtown S.T.E.M. Academy, in the Downingtown Area School District, about 40 miles west of Philadelphia, scored higher among high schools statewide: 104 out of 100.
"This is a pretty big deal, to be No. 2 in the state," Fairview School District Superintendent Erik Kincade said. "It is definitely a pretty big deal."
Fairview High School is the highest-ranked public high school in Erie County. Fairview High School scored 99.1 on the SPP for 2015-16. Its 2016-17 score of 101.1 is its highest ever, Kincade said.
Among the other notable findings in the SPP data, released late Friday:
‒ Two Erie County charter schools showed some of the largest improvements from 2015-16.
The SPP score for the Erie Rise Leadership Academy Charter School, at West 10th and Cascade streets, jumped from 32.2 in 2015-16, which made it the worst-performing public elementary school in the city of Erie, to 50.7 in 2016-17, which placed it higher than five elementary schools in the Erie School District.
The SPP for the Montessori Regional Charter School, with campuses in Erie and Millcreek Township, rose from 56.3 in 2015-16 to 76.4 in 2016-17. The new ranking places the school above all the elementary and middle schools in the Erie School District and above one elementary school in the Millcreek Township School District, Chestnut Hill Elementary.
‒ The scores for the 11,500-student Erie School District, the largest in the region, remained generally low, with signs of improvement in some areas and setbacks in others.
Erie School District's Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy, a college-preparatory high school, remained the exception. It scored 89.7 in 2016-17, down from 91.3 in 2015-16, but still making Collegiate second in Erie County behind Fairview High School.
Collegiate's student body is 29 percent economically disadvantaged, according to the SPP data, compared to 19 percent for Fairview High School, which is the lowest for a high school in Erie County.
The 1,700-student Fairview School District, one of the most affluent in the region, has a student body that is 21.31 percent economically disadvantaged, also the lowest in the county, according to the SPP data. In the Erie School District, 74.9 percent of the students, or the highest percentage in the county, are economically disadvantaged.
At Erie Rise, which enrolls children through eighth grade, 100 percent of the students are listed as economically disadvantaged.
The improved SPP score at Erie Rise is the result of the mandatory school improvement plan that the 411-student school submitted to the Erie School District a year ago because of previous poor academic performance, Erie Rise CEO Terry Lang said.
He said the school also introduced courses to teach students how to take the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, or PSSA, tests, whose scores are a key element of each SPP. And he said the school focused on mathematics education.
Lang said he wants Erie Rise to perform better than 50.7 on the SPP, but said he is encouraged by the latest results.
"We still have room to grow," he said.
At the Erie School District, officials are reviewing the data in the context of the district's financially driven reconfiguration, in which it closed two elementary schools in the spring and merged three of its four high schools at the newly created Erie High.
Those changes mean the district's structure will be different when students take the newest round of state-mandated tests. The SPP data will be the last for East and Strong Vincent high schools and Central Career & Technical School.
Also, the 2016-17 data will be the last for Pennsylvania under the School Performance Profile format. For 2017-18, the state is switching to a Future Ready PA Index, which the Department of Education said will feature "a broad range of indicators," such as English language acquisition and career readiness.
The Erie School District plans to expand its curriculum and magnet school programming in the years ahead with some of the $14 million in additional recurring state aid that the General Assembly approved last week. The district had sought the funding to achieve financial stability after years of deficit spending and cutting programs.
"We are reviewing the new SPP scores now that they have been released," Erie School District spokeswoman Daria Devlin said on Monday. "There are some bright spots in terms of schools making major improvements but, overall, we recognize there is a great deal of work to do."
Erie Times News
Latest News >


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Don't Feed the Artists is a fortnightly show featuring interviews with independent musicians, recorded in person in Denton, TX.
From Austin, this week's guest is Strange Mother y'all! We talk about venn diagrams, how they named their band, wrestling, the music scene in Austin, and more!
Strange Mother - Blueberry for NPR's Tiny Desk
See Strange Mother in Austin at Cheer Up Charlies on August 3rd
Harry Styles - Harry Styles
Parcels & Daft Punk - Overnight
Kendrick Lamar - Damn
The Chronic 2001
Parquet Courts - Light Up Gold
Number Girl
What're You Listening To? Email us and let us know!
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A letter to JPMorgan: Dimon is wrong -COLUMN
By Anat Admati, guest columnist. The views expressed are her own
PALO ALTO, California, June 15 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) –
Dear JPMorgan Chase Directors
I own some JPMorgan Chase (JPM) shares through mutual funds in my retirement account. I have read Mr. Dimon's recent letter to shareholders and some of his public comments. I write to urge you to reconsider JPM's actions related to capital regulation. For the overall economy, as well as for JPM, these actions are misguided.
The economic pain from the financial crisis was substantial and is still being felt. A major cause of the crisis was the excessive leverage used and the risky investments made by many financial entities. The resulting distress of large institutions was extremely costly and disruptive to the economy.
Bank debt involves legally-binding promises. Shareholders, by contrast, do not have fixed claims but are entitled to the residual after debt is paid, the "spread." A drop in the value of the bank's assets can lead to difficulties in fulfilling its debt obligations. The more debt is used relative to equity, i.e., the higher the leverage, the more likely this is to happen.
High leverage makes the financial system fragile. One institution's distress can have severe implications for the entire system, causing market freezes, runs and lending contraction.
Requiring banks to operate with much-reduced leverage, using significantly more equity to fund their investments even beyond currently proposed regulation, is likely the most straightforward and cost-effective approach to improving the health and stability of the financial system and preventing future crises. It must be the key ingredient in any meaningful financial reform and can reduce the need for other, more costly measures. This would greatly benefit the economy and JPM.
Mr. Dimon claims that higher capital requirements would increase JPM's cost, but his reasoning is flawed.
It is critical first to distinguish capital and liquidity requirements. Capital requirements are not about what banks "hold." They do not mandate that banks passively "set aside," or "hold in reserve" funds, not putting them to productive uses. Banks' investments are not constrained by capital requirements. Capital requirements refer only to how banks fund themselves. It is investors, not the banks, who hold the debt and equity (so-called "capital") claims that banks issue. Liquidity requirements, by contrast, do constrain the types of assets banks hold, and they can be costly. Capital and liquidity requirements refer to different sides of the balance sheet.
A flaw in Mr. Dimon's argument concerns the "market-demanded return on capital" that he claims banks must earn. In a well-functioning financial market, investments in Treasury bills "demand" a lower return than investments in risky mortgages. The required return on capital depends on the risk to which it is exposed. When funding with a mix of debt and equity, the lower the leverage, the lower the riskiness of equity per dollar invested, and therefore the lower the return investors require as compensation for bearing the equity risk.
According to Mr. Dimon, the reduction in the required return on equity as a result of reduced leverage is "not likely to be materially significant." Is he suggesting that sophisticated investors who can value complex derivatives and other securities are unable to value JPM's equity properly? This is hard to believe. JPM's overall funding costs, averaging the required return on the various debt claims it issues (some of which might decline if JPM is better capitalized) and the required return on equity, need not change just because more equity is used.
Mr. Dimon's letter displays JPM's return on equity (ROE). ROE does not measure shareholder value because it is affected, through the market, by leverage and risk. Reaching a target ROE can be helped by leverage and risk without benefitting shareholders. Thus, if increased capital requirements lead to lower average ROE, this need not mean lower value, because it reflects the reduced riskiness of equity.
JPM's overall funding costs will likely increase somewhat if it reduces its leverage, but the key reason for this is that government subsidies make debt more attractive than equity as a source of funding.
First, using more debt can save on corporate taxes because interest payments are tax deductible.
Another source of subsidy for debt relative to equity is due to underpriced explicit and implicit government guarantees. Such guarantees allow JPM to borrow at rates that do not fully reflect the riskiness of its assets. Mr. Dimon argues that JPM does not benefit from subsidized guarantees, but credit rating agencies such as Moody's explicitly state that government support is built into the debt ratings of large US banks, including JPM.
Since high leverage increases systemic risk, subsidizing debt funding and leverage is paradoxical and distortive. This is akin to providing subsidies to a polluting input (high leverage) when there is an otherwise equally costly "clean" input (more equity) for producing the same product (funds). It makes no sense to subsidize pollution when there are cheap alternatives.
Removing the preferential tax treatment of debt relative to equity, and even giving incentive for better capitalization would make for a healthier system. For the US economy, however, if JPM's pays more taxes, this is not a true cost. Any additional taxes JPM pays can be redirected to the economy, possibly reducing taxes elsewhere.
The "safety net" of the financial system, created to maintain stability and prevent inefficient panics and runs, has broadened since the crisis. It is widely believed that a "systemic" institution will likely receive government support in a crisis. Excessive guarantees create significant and corrupting distortions, including unnatural growth, distorted competition, and reduced incentives to manage risk properly.
It is difficult to remove implicit guarantees, since it might be better in a crisis to provide support. Increased reliance on equity creates more "self insurance" through the private markets, properly placing more downside risk with shareholders who benefit from the upside. It is the most direct approach to addressing the "too-big-to-fail" problem and the moral hazard it creates.
Basel III requires that, in normal times, equity represents at least seven percent of "risk-weighted assets." Capital ratios measured this way, which ignored AAA-rated securities (effectively pretending they were cash), provided little clue of looming problems leading to the crisis. Many banks, including Lehman Brothers just prior to its default, appeared reasonably well capitalized. When off-balance sheet items, contingent claims and the real market value of holdings were included, many banks turned out to have only one to three percent equity relative to total assets.
Basel III mandates a minimal leverage ratio of three percent equity relative to total assets. Contrary to Mr. Dimon's claims, Basel III requirements are dangerously low and allow the financial system to remain excessively fragile.
JPM "fortress balance sheet" has about eight to nine percent equity, depending on whether the book or market value of equity is used. Behind and "off" the simple-looking balance sheet is a massively complex set of assets with trillions of dollars in notional amount. A major shock that would reduce JPM's assets significantly, possibly stemming from difficulties its counterparties realize, can create distress even for a relatively well-positioned bank such as JPM.
The overriding policy objective in the United States must be a stable and healthy financial system that supports the American economy without imposing unnecessary risks and costs on its citizens. Insisting that banks are better capitalized is among the best approach towards this goal. Banks can perform all of their functions and support the economy, earning economically appropriate profits, with 20 percent or more equity funding. High leverage is not inherent to banking.
The recent financial crisis exposed the flawed design and poor enforcement of prior capital regulations. Basel III is insufficient. It also maintains a problematic system of risk weights. US regulators should advocate re-examining Basel III; meanwhile, US banks should withhold equity payouts.
Removing distortive tax incentives for financial institutions to choose high leverage that hurts the economy is critical. If banks remain highly leveraged, additional approaches must be found to address "too-big-to-fail" distortions.
Many provisions in Dodd-Frank focus on how to handle crisis situations rather than on prevention and ongoing system health. Resolving a large global institution would remain disruptive and costly. If multiple institutions are distressed, the economy may again suffer severe consequences. Prevention must be the key.
In his letter, Mr. Dimon proposes that surviving banks should pay to resolve a fellow bank to avoid using public funds. This has some merit, but since JPM is a relatively strong bank, it would expose JPM shareholders to the risk of having to cover the resolution costs of "dumb banks" (to use Mr. Dimon's language). Requiring that all banks be better capitalized would serve the interests of the economy and also those of JPM.
Relative to other proposed regulations that can be truly costly to JPM and possibly to the economy, increased equity requirements do not entail significant costs. If the tax effect is neutralized and implicit guarantees are insignificant, as Mr. Dimon claims, JPM funding costs will be essentially unchanged, and with lower leverage, there may be less need for onerous liquidity requirements or breaking up banks.
JPM should support, and should even encourage, well-designed regulation that further reduces leverage in the financial system and should urge regulators to enforce it effectively. JPM should advocate changes in the tax system to remove the advantage of debt over equity. Doing so would provide JPM and Mr. Dimon the opportunity to help lead the debate on capital regulation to a conclusion that will strengthen JPM, the banking system and the economy.
Anat Admati
Anat Admati is the George G.C. Parker Professor of Finance and Economics at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. To see more of her written work on the topic of capital regulation in banks, please click here http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/admati.etal.html.
(This article was first published by the Compliance Complete service of Thomson Reuters Accelus. Compliance Complete (http://accelus.thomsonreuters.com/solutions/regulatory-intelligence/compliance-complete/) provides a single source for regulatory news, analysis, rules and developments, with global coverage of more than 230 regulators and exchanges.)
We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/
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