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Harley-Davidson® Screamin' Eagle®/Vance & Hines rider Ed Krawiec rode a Harley-Davidson® V-Rod® motorcycle to an emotional Pro Stock Motorcycle class win at the 43rd annual Toyota NHRA SuperNationals at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park. A native of the area and the former manager of the racetrack, Krawiec had never scored a Pro Stock win at the venerable New Jersey drag strip.
"This is the biggest win of my career," said Krawiec, the reigning Pro Stock Motorcycle world champion. "This is my home track. I've got hundreds, or maybe thousands of family, friends and supporters here watching. I lost here in the finals in 2009 and the team has not won here since 2004, and I was afraid I'd never get another chance, so this is really sweet."
Krawiec has won three of four events in 2012, and the Harley-Davidson® Screamin' Eagle®/Vance & Hines team is undefeated on the season, as Screamin' Eagle rider Andrew Hines got a win the one time Krawiec did not make the final.
As if he needed icing on the cake, Krawiec also twice set a new Elapsed Time track record in Friday qualifying, running a 6.794-second Elapsed Time in the first round and besting that mark with a 6.782-second blast in the second round. Hines qualified the team's other Harley-Davidson V-Rod in sixth position at 6.874 seconds.
In Sunday eliminations, Hines beat Geico Suzuki rider Karen Stoffer in the first round, and then lost to Lucas Oil Buell rider Hector Arana Jr. in round two, running 6.934 seconds to 6.858 for Arana Jr.
"Something happened to my bike in the second round of qualifying, and we were never able to get the performance back," said Hines. "It stopped responding to changes in the tune-up, so we'll tear it down when we get back to the shop and see what happened."
Krawiec opened eliminations with a free pass when Joe DeSatis fouled at the start on his Suzuki. Krawiec then bumped off two former class world champions, beating Matt Smith Racing Buell rider Matt Smith in round two and advancing in round three when GT Racing Suzuki rider LE Tonglet fouled. That set up a final-round match with Lucas Oil Buell rider Hector Arana Sr., the number-two qualifier who had one of the quickest bikes in the field on Sunday but who also had a series of late reaction times at the start that resulted in very close wins. In the final, however, Arana left 0.052 seconds early to hand Krawiec the 14th win of his career.
"The weather changed a little today and we lost some of our tune-up, while the Aranas seemed to really get a handle on their tune-up" said Krawiec. "When you don't have the quickest bike, it's time to be a good rider and not make mistakes. When I lost the final here to Craig Treble I thought I had a better bike and held back at the start. I was not going to let that happen again."
With three wins in four events, Krawiec now has 466 points and a 141-point lead in the 2012 Pro Stock Motorcycle standings. Hines remains in second place with 325 points. Arana Jr., who lost to his father in the semi-finals, is third with 301 points, followed by Hector Arana Sr. with 293 points and GottSpeed Racing Buell rider Michael Ray with 235 points.
The Pro Stock Motorcycles will next race on June 28 – July 1 at the 15th annual O'Reilly Auto Parts Route 66 NHRA Nationals at Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, Ill.


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Chart music, groups and personalities, TV, stage and film.
Music for all guitars: acoustic, electric and bass.
Piano examination music, piano tutors, repertoire, scales and sightreading. Solo piano, piano duet, piano (6 hands), organ, electronic keyboard groups. Also Accordion and concertina.
Flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, saxophone and recorder. Exam pieces, studies, sightreading, scales. Solo, duet, trio, quartet and flexible ensemble.
Trumpet, trombone, horn, tuba, B flat bass, E flat bass, euphonium, baritone, solo, duet, trio, quartet & flexible ensemble.
Violin, viola, cello, double bass, solo, duet. See Ensemble for violin groups, string quartet, flexible schools string group, & harp.
Drums, tuned and un-tuned percussion, tutors, DVD, videos and percussion ensemble.
Flexible ensemble, jazz ensemble, ABRSM music medals and chamber music.
Wind/Concert band, Big Band, Brass Band, Marching Band, and American style 'band methods'.
Large scale works for orchestra, chamber orchestra, string orchestra including contemporary music.
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Songs, carols, choral, church, and opera (including libretti). Works for soprano, alto, tenor, bass and baritone Soloists with orchestra.
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subset: commoncrawl


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One of the fun things about being a librarian is that sometimes publishers will send us "advance reader's editions." These are books that have not yet been published and often times they have not even been reviewed. Usually when we read a book, we've already read upteen reviews for it or at least heard about it from Oprah. So it's very refreshing to pick up a book without having any preconceived ideas about it. Well, okay, in this case Stephen King had written a blurb recommending it, so I did have some idea. And no, it's not a horror book. It's called The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski.
Edgar, born mute and communicating through sign, is a boy growing up on a farm in Wisconsin, a farm on which they raise and train the special (and fictional) Sawtelle breed of dogs. Life is pretty peaceful for the family until his uncle Claude returns and decides to stay. Later, when Edgar's father dies unexpectedly, Edgar tries to prove that Claude had something to do with it. Unfortunately, his plan backfires, and Edgar is forced to flee into the nearby Chequamegon wilderness. Struggling to survive and provide for the three yearling dogs that accompany him, Edgar grows up quickly.
The ending may not be what you hope for or expect, but it is precisely because of it that I predict this book will become excellent fodder for future book discussion groups. Look for it when it comes out!


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This book provides Bolt Action players with all of the information they need to field the military forces of the Soviet Union. From the bitter urban warfare of Stalingrad, through the Winter War against Finland and the final drive to Berlin, the detailed army lists provided in this supplement allow players to construct Soviet armies for any theatre and any year of the war.
- Introduction
- Army Lists
- Theatres


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16:1 | The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD. | |
16:2 | All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the LORD weigheth the spirits. | |
16:3 | Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established. | |
16:4 | The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. | |
16:5 | Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD: though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished. | |
16:6 | By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil. | |
16:7 | When a man's ways please the LORD, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. | |
16:8 | Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right. | |
16:9 | A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps. | |
16:10 | A divine sentence is in the lips of the king: his mouth transgresseth not in judgment. | |
16:11 | A just weight and balance are the LORD's: all the weights of the bag are his work. | |
16:12 | It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness: for the throne is established by righteousness. | |
16:13 | Righteous lips are the delight of kings; and they love him that speaketh right. | |
16:14 | The wrath of a king is as messengers of death: but a wise man will pacify it. | |
16:15 | In the light of the king's countenance is life; and his favour is as a cloud of the latter rain. | |
16:16 | How much better is it to get wisdom than gold! and to get understanding rather to be chosen than silver! | |
16:17 | The highway of the upright is to depart from evil: he that keepeth his way preserveth his soul. | |
16:18 | Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. | |
16:19 | Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud. | |
16:20 | He that handleth a matter wisely shall find good: and whoso trusteth in the LORD, happy is he. | |
16:21 | The wise in heart shall be called prudent: and the sweetness of the lips increaseth learning. | |
16:22 | Understanding is a wellspring of life unto him that hath it: but the instruction of fools is folly. | |
16:23 | The heart of the wise teacheth his mouth, and addeth learning to his lips. | |
16:24 | Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones. | |
16:25 | There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. | |
16:26 | He that laboureth laboureth for himself; for his mouth craveth it of him. | |
16:27 | An ungodly man diggeth up evil: and in his lips there is as a burning fire. | |
16:28 | A froward man soweth strife: and a whisperer separateth chief friends. | |
16:29 | A violent man enticeth his neighbour, and leadeth him into the way that is not good. | |
16:30 | He shutteth his eyes to devise froward things: moving his lips he bringeth evil to pass. | |
16:31 | The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness. | |
16:32 | He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. | |
16:33 | The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD. |


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She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Becoming George Sand, and reported the following:
Page 69 of my book Becoming George Sand is actually a pivotal moment, where my present-day characters Maria and Edward are arriving in Soller, Majorca and settling down to have lunch together in a restaurant; the reader already knows what Edward only suspects, that Maria is having an affair with someone else. Together, away from home, they are finding a fragile peace which will soon be broken.Learn more about the book and author at Rosalind Brackenbury's website.
Visit the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.
--Marshal Zeringue


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Start your search by selecting from one or more of the pull down menus. For example, select from the Topics menu, and the Languages menu to narrow your search.
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Download the PDF version of this review. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat installed on your system please click here on Adobe Acrobat Reader to download. |
In 1948 Westminster Seminary professors John Murray and Ned Stonehouse wrote a doctrinal study for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church entitled The Free Offer of the Gospel. The study was published by that church and remains its major teaching on God's grace in the Gospel. The writing of the study was fueled by a major doctrinal conflict in the OPC between Dr. Gordon H. Clark and the faculty of Westminster Seminary concerning Clark's fitness for ordination. Cornelius Van Til led the seminary faculty in a Complaint against Clark's understanding of the Confession of Faith. One of their chief objections concerned Clark's view of the so-called "sincere offer" of salvation to all men, including the reprobate.
A similar controversy had plagued the Christian Reformed Church during the 1920s, and that controversy originated among the faculty at Calvin Seminary. In 1924 the CRC controversy ended with the exodus of the Calvinists from the Christian Reformed Church under the leadership of Herman Hoeksema, and the formation of a new church, the Protestant Reformed Church. It is worth noting that a number of the Westminster faculty had been members of the Christian Reformed Church, were former professors at Calvin Seminary, and were influenced by the Christian Reformed view of common grace.
In 1945 Herman Hoeksema published a series of editorials on the so-called Clark-Van Til controversy in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in The Standard Bearer, the magazine of the Protestant Reformed Church. Hoeksema wrote:
"Here, too [on the issue of the sincere offer of the Gospel], the Complaint [against Clark] reveals, more clearly than anywhere else, its distinctly Christian Reformed tendency, particularly its sympathy with the three well-known decrees of the Synod of Kalamazoo, 1924.
"The Complainants put it this way: 'In the course of Dr. Clark's examination by Presbytery it became abundantly clear that his rationalism keeps him from doing justice to the precious teaching of Scripture that in the gospel God sincerely offers salvation in Christ to all who hear, reprobate as well as elect, and that he has no pleasure in anyone's rejecting the offer but, contrariwise, would have all who hear accept it and be saved' (The Text of a Complaint, 13)."
Hoeksema continued:
"The difference is not that the Complainants insist that the gospel must be preached to all men promiscuously, while Dr. Clark claims that it must be preached only to the elect. That would be quite impossible.... They are agreed that the gospel must be preached to all men.... But the difference between them does concern the contents of the gospel that must be preached promiscuously to all menÖ. It is really not a question to whom one must preach, or how he must preach, but what he must preachÖ. According to the Complainants the preacher is called to proclaim to all his hearers that God sincerely seeks the salvation of them all.... According to Dr. Clark, however, the preacher proclaims to all his hearers promiscuously that God sincerely seeks the salvation of all the elect....
"[The Complainants] say that in the preaching of the gospel God sincerely offers salvation in Christ to the reprobate, that He would have them, the reprobate, accept the gospel, and that He would have them be saved. 'God our Saviour will have all the reprobate to be saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth' (The Text of a Complaint, 13, 14). And it is with the doctrine of universal salvation in mind that they write: 'The supreme importance for evangelism of maintaining the Reformed doctrine of the gospel as a universal and sincere offer is self-evident' (The Text of a Complaint, 14)Ö. Now, you might object, as also Dr. Clark does, that this involves a direct contradiction: God sincerely seeks the salvation of those whom He has from eternity determined not to save. Or: God would have that sinner live whom he does not quicken. Or: God would have the sinner, whom he does not give the faith, to accept the gospel.... You might object that this is not rational. But this objection would be of no avail to persuade the Complainants of their error. They admit that this is irrational. But they do not want to be rational on this point. In fact, if you should insist on being rational in this respect, they would call you a 'rationalist', and at once proceed to seek your expulsion from the church as a dangerous heretic. The whole Complaint against Dr. Clark is really concentrated in and based on this one alleged error of his that he claims that the Word of God and the Christian faith are not irrational.... To accuse the Complainants of irrationalism is, therefore, of no avail as far as they are concerned. They openly admit, they are even boasting of, their irrational position. To be irrational is, according to them, the glory of a humble, Christian faith."1
What Hoeksema justly condemned as irrational was the Complainants' bold assertion that the Scriptures contain apparent but irreconcilable contradictions. The Complainants wrote: " ... the Reformed doctrine of the gospel as a universal and sincere offer of salvation is self-evident. Again, we are confronted by a situation that is inadequately described as amazing. Once more there is a problem which has left the greatest theologians of history baffled.... But Dr. Clark asserts unblushingly that for his thinking the difficulty is non-existent.... Dr. Clark has fallen under the spell of rationalism. Rather than subject his reason to the divine Word he insists on logically harmonizing with each other two evident but seemingly contradictory teachings of that Word.... Dr. Clark's rationalism has resulted in his obscuring ... a truth which constitutes one of the most glorious aspects of the gospel of the grace of God."2
In The Free Offer of the Gospel (hereafter FOG), authors Murray and Stonehouse assert:
"God himself expresses an ardent desire for the fulfillment of certain things which he has not decreed in his inscrutable counsel to come to pass. This means that there is a will to the realization of what he has not decretively willed, a pleasure towards that which he has not been pleased to decree. This is indeed mysterious...." 3
Had FOG been published in England in the 1640s, Murray and Stonehouse would have been applauded by the Remonstrants and attacked by the great English Puritan John Owen, who wrote,
"They [the Remonstrants] affirm that God is said properly to expect and desire divers things which yet never come to pass. 'We grant,' saith Corvinus, 'that there are desires in God that never are fulfilled,' Now, surely, to desire what one is sure will never come to pass is not an act regulated by wisdom or counsel; and, therefore, they must grant that before he did not know but perhaps so it might be. 'God wisheth and desireth some good things, which yet come not to pass,' say they, in their Confession; whence one of these two things must need follow, -either, first, that there is a great deal of imperfection in his nature, to desire and expect what he knows shall never come to pass; or else he did not know but it might, which overthrows his prescience." 4
Owen's argument, of course, does not even consider that there might be contradictions in God's mind. That "advance" in theology had to await the twentieth century, the neo-orthodox theologians, and their unwitting disciples at Westminster Seminary. If Owen had made his reply to the Complainants in 1944 or to Murray and Stonehouse in1948, he would have been condemned as a "rationalist" and drummed out of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Between the seventeenth century and the twentieth, the theologians' attitude toward logic had changed considerably. It is the modern view of logic that Murray and Stonehouse accept.
Logic and Scripture
Christ and the apostles frequently used logical arguments, sometimes almost formal in arrangement, to silence the Scribes and Pharisees. In Luke 20:1-8 the chief priests, scribes, and elders accosted Christ and asked him, "Tell us, by what authority are you doing these things? Or who is he who gave you this authority?" Christ's response was to pose a simple dilemma: "I will also ask you one thing, and answer me: The baptism of John-was it from Heaven or was it from men?" Impaled on the horns of the dilemma, the priests, scribes, and elders sought to escape by professing ignorance. Of course, in professing ignorance, they left themselves open to another objection, the same one that Christ made to Nicodemus: "Are you the teacher of Israel and do not know these things?" But Christ did not let the matter end there; he went on to answer their question, though they did not like his answer. In verses 9-19 he tells a parable and then tells them the meaning of Psalm 118:22. Immediately they sought to kill him, but did not do so because they feared the people.
In Luke 20:27-40, Christ destroys the Sadducees by deducing the resurrection from the name of God: "Now even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord 'the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' For he is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to him." In the parallel passage in Mark 12, Christ says-and all who would limit the role of logic in understanding and explaining Scripture should note it well-"Are you not therefore mistaken, because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God? ... You therefore are greatly mistaken." Christ reprimanded the Sadducees for failing to draw the inescapable logical conclusion from the Old Testament premises: All those of whom God is God are living, not dead; God is God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; therefore Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are living.
Likewise, the epistles of Paul are packed with logical arguments defending the faith. In Galatians 3:16, Paul deduces from the singular word seed the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant in Christ. This in turn has further implications found in verses 26-29: the spiritual identity of Old and New Testament believers.
In Romans 4, Paul denies that Abraham was justified by works and argues that justification is by faith alone, a conclusion he draws from Genesis 15:6 and Psalm 32:1, 2. In Romans 9:6-13 Paul deduces God's eternal love for the elect and hatred for the reprobate from Genesis 21:12; 18:1,14; 25:23; and Malachi 1:2, 3. Thus when seminary professors attack logic, they betray their ignorance of Scripture or their unbelief of the Word of God.
In 1944 the leading Complainant against Clark's use of logic was Dr. Cornelius Van Til. To this day, Dr. Van Til remains a leading proponent of the doctrine that Scripture contains irreconcilable paradoxes. He asserts:
"There are those who have denied common grace. They have argued that God cannot have any attitude of favor ... to such as are the 'vessels of wrath.' But to reason thus is to make logic rule over Scripture. Against both Hoeksema and Schilder, I have contended that we must think more concretely and analogically than they did.... All the truths of the Christian religion have of necessity the appearance of being contradictory.... We do not fear to accept that which has the appearance of being contradictory.... In the case of common grace, as in the case of every other biblical doctrine, we should seek to take all the factors of Scripture teaching and bind them together into systematic relations with one another as far as we can. But we do not expect to have a logically deducible relationship between one doctrine and another. We expect to have only an analogical system." 5
One should immediately recognize Van Til's rejection of the Westminster Confession's claim to be a logically deducible system of truth: "The whole counsel of God ...is either expressly set down in Scripture or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture." The great Princeton theologian, Benjamin Warfield, clarified the attitude of the Westminster divines toward Scripture and logic in his book, The Westminster Assembly and Its Work:
"It must be observed, however, that the teachings and prescriptions of Scripture are not confined by the Confession to what is 'expressly set down in Scripture.' Men are required to believe and to obey not only what is 'expressly set down in Scripture,' but also what 'by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture.' This is the strenuous and universal contention of the Reformed theology against Socinians and Arminians, who desired to confine the authority of Scripture to its literal asseverations; and it involves a characteristic honoring of reason as the instrument for the ascertainment of truth. We must depend on our human faculties to ascertain what Scripture says; we cannot suddenly abnegate them and refuse their guidance in determining what Scripture means. This is not, of course, to make reason the ground of the authority of inferred doctrines and duties. Reason is the instrument of discovery of all doctrines and duties, whether 'expressly set down in Scripture' or 'by good and necessary consequence deduced from Scripture': but their authority, when once discovered, is derived from God, who reveals and prescribes them in Scripture, either by literal assertion or by necessary implication.... It is the Reformed contention, reflected here by the Confession, that the sense of Scripture is Scripture, and that men are bound by its whole sense in all its implications. The reemergence in recent controversies of the plea that the authority of Scripture is to be confined to its expressed declarations, and that human logic is not to be trusted in divine things, is, therefore, a direct denial of a fundamental position of Reformed theology, explicitly affirmed in the Confession, as well as an abnegation of fundamental reason, which would not only render thinking in a system impossible, but would discredit at a stroke many of the fundamentals of the faith, such e.g. as the doctrine of the Trinity, and would logically involve the denial of the authority of all doctrine whatsoever, since no single doctrine of whatever simplicity can be ascertained from Scripture except by the use of the processes of the understanding.... [T]he recent plea against the use of human logic in determining doctrine has been most sharply put forward in order to justify the rejection of a doctrine which is explicitly taught, and that repeatedly, in the very letter of Scripture; if the plea is valid at all, it destroys at once our confidence in all doctrines, no one of which is ascertained or formulated without the aid of human logic." 6
In contrast to this Scriptural view, Van Til denies the possibility of a deductive system and asserts that the "analogical truths" we have all appear to be contradictory. Apart from this unscriptural denial of the role of logic and the perspicuity of Scripture, one must ask the question: What is the meaning of a "system" of non- deducible paradoxes?
Although Westminster Seminary's apologetics professor John Frame endorses Van Tilianism, he presents an excellent analysis of Van Til's proposal: " ... the necessity of formulating doctrines in 'apparently contradictory' ways certainly increases the difficulty of developing a 'system of doctrine,' especially a system such as Van Til himself advocates.... How may it be shown that one doctrine 'requires' another, when our paradoxical formulations fail even to show how the two are compatible? His stress on apparent contradiction, though it does not render Christianity irrational or illogical, does seem at least to make very difficult if not impossible the task of the systematic theologian." 7
Mr. Frame should understand that Van Til's views do make Christianity irrational and illogical. They are incompatible with systematic theology. More fundamentally, Van Tilianism, in the words of Warfield, "logically involves the denial of the authority of all doctrine whatsoever." To accept Van Tilianism is to reject, implicitly, the whole of Christianity. The two are not logically compatible. Therefore, we conclude that the Complainants' charge of "rationalism" against Clark was founded upon an unscriptural and anti-Confessional rejection of logic and constitutes an inexcusable attack upon one of the central teachings of the Reformation: Scripture interprets Scripture.
Some Great Theologians
During the Clark-Van Til controversy in the OPC, the Complainants alleged that there are other mysterious paradoxes in the Bible besides common grace and reprobation. They sought to discredit Clark by claiming that these paradoxes had left the greatest theologians of history baffled. They quoted from Berkhof, Calvin, Vos, A. A. Hodge, and Abraham Kuyper to support their position; but their quotations do not support their position. The reader is encouraged to study Hoeksema's discussion of these quotations published in The Standard Bearer [now in the book, The Clark-Van Til Controversy].
One must keep in mind that Clark was accused of rationalism not because of the particular solutions he offered for the alleged paradoxes, or at least not primarily for that reason, but because he attempted to find solutions. It was indeed amazing that a group of theologians would actually accuse a brother theologian of heresy because he tried to solve theological problems. Hoeksema's comments are pertinent:
"No theologian has ever proceeded from the assumption of the Complainants. Dogmatics is a system of truth elicited from Scripture. And exegesis always applied the rule of the regula Scripturae, which means that throughout the Bible there runs a consistent line of thought, in the light of which the darker and more difficult passages must be interpreted. The Complainants virtually deny this...." 8
John Owen's comments quoted previously revealed the Complainants' leanings toward Remonstrant doctrine. But both the Christian Reformed and the Orthodox Presbyterian doctrines of common grace are more specifically similar to the seventeenth-century heresies of the School of Saumur, France, under Cameron and his pupils, Amyraldus and Testardus. A. A. Hodge described these "novelties":
"Their own system was generally styled Universalismus Hypotheticus, an hypothetic or conditional universalism. They taught that there were two wills or purposes in God in respect to man's salvation. The one will is a purpose to provide, at the cost of the sacrifice of his own Son, salvation for each and every human being without exception if they believe-a condition foreknown to be universally and certainly impossible. The other will is an absolute purpose, depending only upon his own sovereign good pleasure, to secure the certain salvation of a definite number....
"This view represents God as loving the non-elect sufficiently to give them his Son to die for them, but not loving them enough to give them faith and repentance.... It represents God as willing at the same time that all men be saved and that only the elect be saved. It denies, in opposition to the Arminian, that any of God's decrees are conditioned upon the self-determined will of the creature, and yet puts into the mouths of confessed Calvinists the very catch-words of the Arminian system, such as universal grace, the conditional will of God, universal redemption, etc.
"The language of Amyraldus, the 'Marrow Men', Baxter, Wardlaw, Richards, and Brown is now used to cover much more serious departures from the truth. All really consistent Calvinists ought to have learned by now [1867] that the original position of the great writers and confessions of the Reformed Churches have only been confused, and neither improved, strengthened nor illustrated, by all the talk with which the Church has ... been distracted as to the 'double will' of God, or the 'double reference' of the Atonement. If men will be consistent in their adherence to these 'Novelties', they must become Arminians. If they would hold consistently to the essential principles of Calvinism, they must discard the 'Novelties'." 9
Both the Complainants and the Amyraldians assert a "double will" in God, and Hodge's warning is just as relevant today as it was over a hundred years ago.
Proponents of common or universal grace have appealed to the Dutch Reformed theologian, Abraham Kuyper, as a proponent of their view. The Protestant Reformed historian and theologian, David Engelsma, corrects this error:
"It is widely assumed that the well-meant gospel offer, or free offer, has strong backing in the Dutch Reformed theologian, Abraham Kuyper.... This assumption is false.... [I]t is not true that Kuyper held the doctrine of the well-meant offer-not even in De Gemeene Gratie; on the contrary, he was an avowed foe of the theology of the offer.... Kuyper's common grace had nothing to do with this universal grace. The common grace of Kuyper was merely a favor of God that gives the world 'the temporal blessings' of rain, sunshine, health, and riches, and that restrains corruption in the world so that the world can produce good culture. It was not a grace that aimed at the salvation of the reprobate, a grace that was expressed in a well-meaning offer of Christ, or a grace that was grounded in a universal atonement....
"Kuyper feared-prophetically, as history shows! -that misuse would be made of [his] doctrine of common grace, 'as if saving grace were meant by it', with the result that 'the firm foundation that grace [genade] is particular would again be dislodged'....
"An outstanding and very clear instance of the fatal development of common grace into universal, saving grace is the first point of the doctrine of common grace adopted by the Christian Reformed Church in 1924....
"One finds on every hand that men ground their teaching of a grace of God for all in the preaching, i.e., the well-meant offer, in God's common grace, thus transforming common (non-saving) grace into the universal (saving) grace of historic Romanism and Arminianism. In doing this, they are deaf to Kuyper's pleas not to make this mistake....
"The Orthodox Presbyterian theologians, Murray and Stonehouse, are guilty of this....
"Kuyper [was] encouraged to defend particular grace by the fact that 'in earlier, and spiritually better, ages, I would have found plenty of allies'. He points to a 'cloud of witnesses' which did not know a grace which is not particular. This cloud of witnesses includes Augustine, Calvin, Peter Martyr, Rivet, Voetius, Witsius, Beza, Zanchius, Gomarus, Turretin, and many others.... The teaching of 'universal or common grace', on the other hand, which is the 'doctrine of Rome, the Socinians, the Mennonites, the Arminians, and the Quakers, crept into the Reformed Churches from without, especially through Amyraut and the Saumur school.'" 10
If Kuyper and Hodge were disturbed by the widespread influence of common grace in the last century, is it any wonder that Clark and Hoeksema were forced to separate from such a fierce and firmly implanted error seventy-five years later?
The Exegesis of Scripture
Anyone who proposes a theological doctrine must support his claim from Scripture. In the opinion of Cornelius Van Til, "The most important thing to be said about John Murray is that he was, above all else, a great exegete of the Word of God." 11 We shall see.
In FOG Murray exegeted several passages of Scripture in support of his peculiar view that "God himself expresses an ardent desire for the fulfillment of certain things which he has not decreed in his inscrutable counsel to come to pass" and that "there is in God a benevolent loving kindness towards the repentance and salvation of even those whom he has not decreed to save.... [T]he grace offered is nothing less than salvation in its richness and fullness. The love or lovingkindness that lies back of that offer is not anything less; it is the will to that salvation." 12 The passages Murray appeals to are Matthew 5:44-48; Acts 14:17; Deuteronomy 5:29; 32:29; Psalm 81:13ff; Isaiah 48:18; Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34; Ezekiel 18:23, 32; 33:11; Isaiah 45:22; and 2 Peter 3:9.
Matthew 5:44-48
Murray himself admits that "This passage does not indeed deal with the overtures of grace in the gospel.... What bearing this [passage] may have upon the grace of God manifested in the free offer of the gospel to all without distinction remains to be seen." 13
Unfortunately the bearing of this passage upon the free offer of the Gospel is not made clear in FOG. At the end of their essay, Murray and Stonehouse do conclude, however, that "our provisional inference on the basis of Matthew 5:44-48 is borne out by the other passages. The full and free offer of the gospel is a grace bestowed upon all.... The grace offered is nothing less than salvation in its richness and fullness. The love or lovingkindness that lies back of that offer is not anything less; it is the will to that salvation." 14
This sort of exegesis, as we shall see shortly, rests upon a most peculiar hermeneutical principle: Passages of Scripture which do not support common saving grace demonstrate common saving grace in a passage that, by the exegete's own admission, does not deal with saving grace. Perhaps this is an example of the sort of non-deducible "analogical truth" that Van Til has praised and recommended. But let us proceed to those other passages on which Murray and Stone house rest their case.
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
Let us compare Murray's exegesis of this verse with Francis Turretin's, John Owen's, John Gill's, and Gordon Clark's:
"God does not wish that any men should perish. His wish is rather that all should enter upon life eternal by coming to repentance. The language in this part of the verse is so absolute that it is highly unnatural to envisage Peter as meaning merely that God does not wish that any believers should perish.... The language of the clauses, then, most naturally refers to mankind as a whole.... It does not view men either as elect or as reprobate." 15
"The will of God here spoken of 'should not be extended further than to the elect and believers, for whose sake God puts off the consummation of ages, until their number shall be completed.' This is evident from 'the pronoun us which precedes, with sufficient clearness designating the elect and believers, as elsewhere more than once, and to explain which he adds, not willing that any, that is, of us, should perish.'"16
"'The will of God,' say some, 'for the salvation of all, is here set down both negatively, that he would not have any perish, and positively, that he would have all come to repentance....' Many words need not be spent in answer to this objection, wrested from the misunderstanding and palpable corrupting of the sense of the words of the apostle. That indefinite and general expressions are to be interpreted in an answerable proportion to the things whereof they are affirmed, is a rule in the opening of the Scripture.... Will not common sense teach us that us is to be repeated in both the following clauses, to make them up complete and full,-namely, 'Not willing that any of us should perish, but that all of us should come to repentance'? ... Now, truly, to argue that because God would have none of those to perish, but all of them to come to repentance, therefore he hath the same will and mind towards all and every one in the world (even those to whom he never makes known his will, nor ever calls to repentance, if they never once hear of his way of salvation), comes not much short of extreme madness and folly ... I shall not need add any thing concerning the contradictions and inextricable difficulties wherewith the opposite interpretation is accompanied.... The text is clear, that it is all and only the elect whom he would not have to perish." 17
"It is not true that God is not willing any one individual of the human race should perish, since he has made and appointed the wicked for the day of evil, even ungodly men, who are fore-ordained to this condemnation, such as are vessels of wrath fitted for destruction; yea, there are some to whom God sends strong delusions, that they may believe a lie, that they all might be damned.... Nor is it his will that all men, in this large sense, should come to repentance, since he withholds from many both the means and grace of repentance...." 18
"Arminians have used the verse in defense of their theory of universal atonement. They believe that God willed to save every human being without exception and that something beyond his control happened so as to defeat his eternal purpose. The doctrine of universal redemption is not only refuted by Scripture generally, but the passage in question makes nonsense on such a view.... Peter is telling us that Christ's return awaits the repentance of certain people. Now, if Christ's return awaited the repentance of every individual without exception, Christ would never return. This is no new interpretation. The Similitudes viii, xi,1, in the Shepherd of Hermas (c. A.D. 130-150), ... says, 'But the Lord, being long-suffering, wishes [thelei] those who were called [ten klesin ten genomenen] through his Son to be saved.' ... It is the called or elect whom God wills to save." 19
Murray's interpretation of 2 Peter 3:9 conflicts with the rest of Scripture. He arrogantly refuses to let his understanding of the passage be governed by the principle that all the parts of Scripture agree with one another. He implicitly denies, as the Confession that he professed to believe asserts, that one of the marks of Scripture is the "consent of all the parts."
Ezekiel 18:23, 32; 33:11
"Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die," says the Lord God, "and not that he should turn from his ways and live? ... For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies," says the Lord God. "Therefore turn and live! ... I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from this way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?"
"It does not appear to us in the least justifiable to limit the reference of these passages to any one class of wicked persons.... It is absolutely and universally true that God does not delight in or desire the death of a wicked person ... This ['turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways'] is a command that applies to all men without any discrimination or exception. It expresses therefore the will of God to repentance.... God does not will that any should die....There is the delight or pleasure or desire that it should come to be, even if the actual occurrence should never take place.... In terms of his decretive will it must be said that God absolutely decrees the eternal death of some wicked and, in that sense, is absolutely pleased so to decree. But in the text it is the will of God's benevolence ... that is stated, not the will of God's decree...." 20
"If it is equally in God's power to convert men as well as to create them, it follows that the reprobate are not converted, because God does not wish their conversion; for if he wished it he could do it: and hence it appears that he does not wish it." 21
"Although God declares that he 'does not will the death of the wicked, but that he turn from his way and live,' it does not follow that he has willed and planned from eternity the conversion and life of everyone, [even] subject to any condition, for ... it is certain that this refers to God's will as commanding, not to the will of his good pleasure...." 22
"The expostulation, Why will ye die? is not made with all men; nor can it be proved that it was made with an who were not eventually saved, but with the house of Israel, who were called the children and people of God; and therefore cannot disprove any act of preterition passing on others, nor be an impeachment of the truth and sincerity of God. Besides, the death expostulated about is not an eternal, but a temporal one, or what concerned their temporal affairs, and civil condition, and circumstances of life...." 23
"Ezekiel 18 presents several difficulties. Verses2, 4, and 20 could in isolation be taken as contradictory of Romans 5:12-21.... Another difficulty, one that occurs in several books of the Bible, including Romans 2:10, 14, 25, occurs in Ezekiel 18:19, 21, 22, 27, 28, 31. These verses, in both books, sound as if some men could merit God's justification on the basis of their own works of righteousness. But the context in Romans and Galatians and elsewhere teaches justification by faith alone. Now, if these contexts so completely alter the superficial meaning of the verses in question, one must be prepared to alter the Arminian interpretation of verses 23 and 32.... Therefore the contiguous verses in Ezekiel, the context of the book as a whole, and the references in the New Testament indicate that God has no pleasure in the death of Israel....Ezekiel 33 contains similar statements, which must be given the same interpretation." 24
If the Complainants were correct in thinking that Clark was heretical for attempting to apply logic to Scripture, Calvin and Turretin must be heretics as well. Calvin's argument makes a very neat syllogism: All that God wishes he does; God does not convert the reprobate; therefore, God wishes not to convert the reprobate.
A further comment needs to be made. In their exegesis of this passage and several others, Murray and Stonehouse violate one of the laws of logic repeatedly by making inferences from imperative sentences. Luther condemned such elementary blunders with these words: "By the words of the law man is admonished and taught, not what he can do, but what he ought to do. How is it that you theologians are twice as stupid as schoolboys, in that as soon as you get hold of a single imperative verb you infer an indicative meaning... ?" 25
Deuteronomy 5:29; 32:29; Psalm 81:13; Isaiah 48:18
"Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear me and always keep all my commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever....Oh, that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! ... Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways! ...Oh, that you had heeded my commandments!"
"[H]ere we have the expression of [God's] earnest desire or wish or will that the people of Israel were of a heart to fear him and keep all his commandments always.... [T]herefore we have an instance of desire on the part of God for the fulfillment of that which he had not decreed, in other words, a will on the part of God to that which he had not decretively willed." 26
"[T]hese words do not express God's desire of their[Israel's] eternal salvation, but only of their temporal good and welfare ..." 27
"[I]n all these expostulations there is no mention of any ransom given or atonement made for them that perish... but they are all about temporal mercies, with the outward means of grace.... [T]here are no such expostulations here expressed, nor can any be found holding out the purposes and intention of God in Christ towards them that perish. Secondly, ... all these places urged ... are spoken to and of those that enjoyed the means of grace, who ... were a very small portion of all men; so that from what is said to them nothing can be concluded of the mind and purpose of God towards all others.... Fifthly, that desires and wishing should properly be ascribed unto God is exceedingly opposite to his all-sufficiency and the perfection of his nature; they are no more in him than he hath eyes, ears, and hands." 28
This last comment of Owen's points up the defective view of God held by Murray and Stonehouse. Some people are confused by the anthropomorphisms in Scripture: They think that God actually has hands, arms, eyes, and wings. Others, like Murray and Stonehouse, are confused by the anthropopathisms of Scripture: They think that God actually has emotions and passions, which he suffers. In fact, half of FOG is given over to attempting to prove not only that God has desires, but that he has unfulfilled desires, desires that he knows will never be fulfilled. God, according to Murray and Stonehouse, is a pathetic victim of unrequited love. This is not the sort of God described in chapter 2 of the Westminster Confession of Faith.
Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34
"O, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing."
"In this passage there should be no dispute ...[W]e have the most emphatic declaration on the part of Christ of his having yearned for the conversion and salvation of the people of Jerusalem." 29
"By these words, Christ shows more clearly what good reason he had for indignation, that Jerusalem, which God had chosen to be his sacred ... abode, not only had shown itself to be unworthy of so great an honour, but ...had long been accustomed to suck the blood of the prophets. Christ therefore utters a pathetic exclamation at a sight so monstrous ... Christ does not reproach them with merely one or another murder, but says that this custom was ...deeply rooted.... This is expressive of indignation rather than compassion." 30
"That the gathering here spoken of does not design a gathering of the Jews to Christ internally, by the Spirit and grace of God; but a gathering of them to him internally [externally?], by and under the ministry of the word, to hear him preach.... [I]n order to set aside and overthrow the doctrines of election, reprobation, and particular redemption, it should be proved that Christ, as God, would have gathered, not Jerusalem and the inhabitants thereof only, but all mankind, even such as are not eventually saved, and that in a spiritual saving way and manner to himself, of which there is not the least intimation in this text."31
Acts 14:17
"This text does not express as much as those considered already [Matthew 5:44-48]." 32
Since, by Murray's own admission, Matthew 5:44-48"does not indeed deal with the overtures of grace in the gospel," need we say more? Only this: Murray's principal principle of hermeneutics seems to be the ten leaky buckets theory. That theory holds that while a passage may not be relevant to a certain doctrine, by putting several such irrelevant passages together, the doctrine is established. This principle doesn't hold water, and Murray leaks.
Isaiah 45:22
Look to me, and be saved, all you ends of the Earth!
"This text expresses then the will of God in the matter of the call, invitation, appeal, and command of the gospel, namely, the will that all should turn to him and be saved. What God wills in this sense he is certainly pleased to will. If it is his pleasure to will that all repent and be saved, it is surely his pleasure that all repent and be saved.... [H]e declares unequivocally that it is his will and, impliedly, his pleasure that all turn and be saved." 33
It must be expected that those who despise logic should make silly blunders like that above. Notice the word impliedly. Murray is obviously making a logical inference. But is the inference valid? His argument is this: Since God has commanded all men to repent, he has willed that all men should repent. It simply does not follow. The whole is a logical fallacy. Perhaps the reader will see this better if we apply it to Abraham: If God commands Abraham to kill Isaac, then it is God's pleasure that Isaac be killed. Of course, it never was God's pleasure that Isaac be killed, as we are told. Murray again makes an invalid inference from an imperative verb. Dr. Murray should have scowled less and studied logic more.
In addition to avoiding logical blunders, theologians should strive to use precise language. Murray's exegesis relies on an ambiguity in the word will. Will can mean either command or decree. It is God's will (command) that murder not be committed, and it is his will (decree) that Jesus should be murdered. There is no contradiction in this statement once one sorts out the two meanings of the word will in Scripture. But Murray would have us believe that God wills and not wills murder-and salvation-in a similar sense. He fails repeatedly to distinguish between God's decree and God's command. That is why his use of the word impliedly fails in this passage. God is commanding all the ends of the Earth to look to him and be saved. He is not wishing, still less decreeing. God is unequivocal, but Murray is not.
The reader may wonder what all this has to do with "practical" Christianity. It has the most serious implications. The inherent contradictions in Van Tilianism generally and in FOG in particular thwart the preaching of the Gospel. The content of the Gospel is itself confused: Did Christ die for all men, does he wish the salvation of all men, or did he die only for his people and actually accomplish their salvation? If the Bible teaches ideas that cannot be reconciled with each other, if all the teaching of the Bible is apparently contradictory, then no one, including the preacher, has the foggiest idea what the Bible says. The result is an increasing indifference to theology and doctrine and a growing interest in other sorts of religiosity. Intellectual Christianity, already abandoned in most denominations, is being rapidly replaced by activist, aesthetic, and experiential religion in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church as well.
Saving grace is not common. It is particular. Sin is common. For forty years the Orthodox Presbyterian Church has been confused about this matter. Perhaps there are some within it who will choose Paul, Calvin, Luther, Turretin, Hodge, Warfield, Owen, Gill, Kuyper, Hoeksema, and Clark rather than Murray, Stonehouse, and Van Til. If so, they had better do it quickly, for the deadly effects of irrationalism have already seriously eroded the foundations of that church.
1. The Standard Bearer, June 1, 1945, 384-386. These editorials have been reprinted and are available from The Trinity Foundation in the book The Clark-Van Til Controversy.
2. Text of a Complaint, Minutes of the Twelfth General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 29.
3. The Free Offer of the Gospel, no city, no publisher, no date, 26.
4. The Works of John Owen, volume 10. The Banner of Truth Trust, 1967, 25.
5. Cornelius Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1973, 165-166.
6. Benjamin B. Warfield, The Westminster Assembly and Its Work, Mack Publishing Company, 1972, 226-227.
7. John Frame, "The Problem of Theological Paradox," in Foundations of Christian Scholarship, Gary North, ed. Ross House Books, 1976, 310.
8. Herman Hoeksema, The Clark-Van Til Controversy.
9. Archibald A. Hodge, The Atonement.. Evangelical Press, 1974,375-378.
10. David Engelsma, Hypercalvinism and the Call of the Gospel. Reformed Free Publishing Association, 1980, 109-115.
11. Quoted in Iain H. Murray, The Life of John Murray. The Banner of Truth Trust, 1984, 93.
16. Francis Turretin, Institutio Theologiae Elencticae, as quoted by David Engelsma, Hypercalvinism, 96.
17. John Owen, 348-349.
18. John Gill, The Cause of God and Truth. Baker Book House, 1980, 62-63.
19. Gordon H. Clark, I & II Peter. Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1980, 71.
21. John Calvin, Commentary on Ezekiel. Baker Book House, 1979, 248.
22. Francis Turretin, Institutio Theologiae Elencticae, in Reformed Dogmatics, John W. Beardslee, ed. Baker Book House, 1977, 437.
23. John Gill, The Cause of God and Truth, 24.
24. Gordon H. Clark, Predestination in the Old Testament. Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1978, 41-42.
25. Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will. James Clarke and Company, 1957, 151.
27. John Gill, The Cause of God and Truth, 5.
28. John Owen, Hypercalvinism, 400-401.
30. John Calvin, Commentary, volume 17, 105-106.
31. John Gill, The Cause of God and Truth, 29. Gill's exegesis of the verse is unsurpassed but too lengthy to quote here. He explains how commentators have seen both indignation and compassion in it.
March/April 1987


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Posts Tagged 'Mt. Wilson'
24′ telescope working at LTO
First Light The Little Thompson Observatory (LTO) in Berthoud, is proud to announce that it acquired First Light through its historic 24" (610 mm) Telescope on Friday, November 16. The first objects viewed were the Pleiades Star Cluster and the Andromeda Galaxy. A team of dedicated volunteers has been working diligently over the past five years to make this event possible. Preliminary results of visual observations through the eye piece indicate that the telescope is in excellent working ... Full Story


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- States:
- Tennessee
No one can argue about the late Elvis Presley's status as an icon.
Whether you remember his music and films, or have simply heard stories from those influenced by him, you know who he is. And when you think of Elvis, your mind will wander to Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee, the King of Rock 'n' Roll's home for 20 years.
A Grand Welcome at Graceland
What better place to stay during my visit to Graceland than at The Guest House at Graceland, a luxury hotel that opened in 2016? After a 10-minute drive from Memphis International Airport, I stepped out of my taxi humming "Blue Suede Shoes."
The next morning, as the tour bus took me up the sweeping driveway to what is probably the most famous residence in history, I was excited to learn more about Elvis' life. This house meant the world to Elvis, and he loved to share it with his family and friends.
As I crossed into the marble foyer, I imagined being greeted by the King himself and escorted into the living room, complete with a custom 4.5-meter sofa, white carpets and a black baby grand piano. I was then led into the kitchen and saw the first microwave oven ever sold in Memphis.
Elvis Presley's living room at Graceland, his mansion in Memphis, Tennessee
Entertainment Rooms
Downstairs in the television room, Elvis had three TV sets so he could watch all three networks at once, not missing anything; there were only three stations in those days. The ceilings were mirrored as was the wet bar. Across the hallway, the pool room features multicolored, hand-pleated, fabric-lined walls to set the mood for a friendly game of billiards.
Probably the most famous room in the house is the Jungle Room, one of Elvis' favorites. This was where he relaxed with friends and family and recorded songs for two of his albums. From the dark wood-paneled walls to the fountain and green shag carpet, it was easy to imagine this being a very relaxing spot for Elvis and the Presley family.
Three television sets in the TV Room at Graceland
Adjacent Buildings to Explore
Next to the mansion, the Trophy Building displays hundreds of awards, including Elvis' Grammys and his Gold and Platinum records. Elvis had a lot of firsts in 1956, when he was only 21: his first national television appearance, his first studio album and his first movie.
In the Racquetball Building, I saw some of the legendary stage costumes Elvis wore during concerts. It was in this building that I got my first feeling of just how important this man was, and still is, to fans all over the world. People stood mesmerized by the memorabilia and images showing on the television screens. In the Elvis Presley Automobile Museum, more than 20 of Elvis' beloved cars, motorcycles and "anything with an engine that moved fast" are on display, showing a playful side to the King.
Memorabilia on display in the former racquetball room at Graceland
Meditation Garden
My final stop on the tour of Graceland was the Meditation Garden, where Elvis is laid to rest along with members of his family. Next to the stained glass windows and the fountain, people paid their respects in silence.
Visiting Graceland was an unforgettable journey through the life and career of the greatest entertainer in history. In the words of the King, "Thank you very much" for joining me. Now, go eat a peanut butter and banana sandwich and plan your own trip to Graceland!
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A 2004 inductee into the Modern Drummer magazine's Hall of Fame with a 12-year run as the best progressive rock drummer in the magazine's reader's poll, as well as various live and clinic awards, means one thing: Dream Theater's Mike Portnoy knows his way around a drum set.
But when it comes to Portnoy's playing, percussion timbres are integral. That's why Latin Percussion is pleased to announce the LP Mike Portnoy Percussion Kit, a limited-edition pack, with only 250 available. Each kit consists of an LP Rock Ridge Rider Cowbell, based on the Rock Cowbell. It features a red Jenigor plastic bar across the top edge, secured firmly with specially designed rivets. The Jenigor bar has a damping effect and, in addition, protects the bell's metal edge from denting. According to Mike's preferences, the LP Rock Ridge Rider Cowbell is somewhat higher in pitch than the LP Rock Classic Ridge Rider bell. It has all the body of the traditional rock bell but with a little more high-end cut.
The LP Mike Portnoy Percussion Kit also contains another essential instrument for capturing both the Sixties sound and the range of tonalities in prog: the LP Mountable Cyclops Tambourine. Its rounded edges provide extra durability against sustained drumstick striking, while nickel-plated steel alloy jingles deliver the bright, projecting sound that defines Brit pop! A patented jingle pinning system locks the jingles in place. The inclusion of LP's forged eye-bolt assembly enables secure placement on standard 3/8" diameter rods, or on hi-hat stand pull rods.
In addition, there's an LP Mount-All Percussion Bracket, which includes a black powder-coated Z-rod that is ideal for any 3/8" diameter mountable percussion.
Well, all that's fine, but what about the goodies? Here's the goodies: an 11" Mile Portnoy Max Splash Cymbal from Sabian, a set of Pro-Mark sticks (TX420N -- Portnoy's favorite), a Mike Portnoy: In Constant Motion DVD (personally autographed by the man himself), and an extra-large, long-sleeve t-shirt with a facsimilie of Portnoy's signature on the right chest area and the words "Carpe Diem" neatly scripted in black along the left sleeve. U.S. list price is $429.85.
There'll be no complaining -- Portnoy's or otherwise -- with this package.


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Elephant sock puppet
The best sock puppets are distinctive, one-of-a-kind creations made from old bits and bobs. This elephant puppet requires some basic sewing skills but can be made using items found around the home.
What you need:
- A pair of large grey socks (one for the main body and the other for spare parts)
- Scissors
- Cotton wool (or anything to stuff your trunk with – scrunchy paper will do)
- 2 x buttons
- Needle and thread
Optional extras:
- Black thread (to make wrinkles)
- Pipe cleaner (to shape the trunk)
Number of players:
First you need to make the trunk and ears.
Cut the end off the spare sock and make it into a trunk by stuffing it with cotton wool. If you have a pipe cleaner, put the pipe cleaner in to help it hold its shape. If you don't have a pipe cleaner, just leave your trunk floppy.
Cut ear shapes out of the rest of the spare sock. Sew the ears into place on the sock you are using for the puppet.
Sew the buttons on for eyes.
If you are feeling super-crafty, use the black thread to stitch horizontal lines onto the trunk for wrinkles; scrunch the fabric as you stitch for a realistic look.
Add a few lines onto the tip of the trunk for nostrils.
Sew the trunk into position on the sock puppet.


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AG magazine (in print)
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Literature- and poster projects
of the real lizards, family Lacertidae
(Select a country below for a different checklist)
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Lacerta agilis argus
The east of Germany (border to the nominate form begins in the south-east of Schlesweig-Holstein, extends between the Elbe and Weser rivera and along the western border of Bavaria into western Tyrol).
Source: ELBING et al. 1996
Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia
Lacerta agilis argus: 49 references
Lacerta agilis argus © 2007 Jürgen Gebhart


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ATLANTA (AP) ? Viewsonic's new tablet has a unique solution for consumers who are still clinging to Microsoft's Windows, even as Google's Android operating system gains traction: It offers both.
The ViewPad 10 is a dual-boot unit. It can launch either Windows 7 or Android as you start the computer.
Out of the box, the specs are impressive. The ViewPad has a 10.1-inch display, which is larger than the iPad's 9.7 inches. It weighs less than two pounds, has built in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and is stuffed with a relatively fast Intel 1.66 GHz processor. It costs $599 for the 16-gigabyte version, and $679 for double the memory.
The ViewPad has a built-in camera. The resolution is just 1.3 megapixels, well short of what the iPhone and other smartphones offer. So, don't expect great images.
The device also features a mini VGA port, a standard audio jack, two USB ports and a MicroSD card slot. It's pretty full-featured for a tablet.
The computer comes with Windows 7 Home Premium installed, and I updated the test unit with version 2.2 of Android, also known as Froyo.
I spent some time with Android first, as I was already familiar with that environment as an owner of an Android-powered phone from HTC. The ViewPad didn't present as rich an experience as the phone, primarily because the graphical interface that presents the shortcuts, widgets and navigation on the tablet isn't as advanced as those on smartphones. HTC's smooth "Sense" environment for phones, for example, is among the best-of-breed for presenting the Android tools and apps.
Moreover, the apps shortcut on the tablet didn't present the full offering of apps available on Google's Android Market. Instead, it took me to a much smaller selection at something called "AndAppStore." A direct link to the full slate of those Market apps would have been better, but the device appears to be hamstrung.
Google does not allow the Android Market to be pre-installed on Android 2.2 tablets with screen sizes larger than seven inches. And Viewsonic has no current plans to update the ViewPad beyond that version of the operating system. So there's an impasse that leaves the ViewPad wanting.
You could try to install a more recent version of Android, such as Honeycomb, on your own. But it requires advanced technological skills, and there's no guarantee from the manufacturer or Google that the ViewPad will perform well.
Once apps are launched, they work as expected. They're quick to start up and easy to use. But most apps for Android are designed for a smaller display, not something as large as the ViewPad. The 10.1-inch display size, in most cases for me, was wasted on the Android side of this dual-boot device.
The better half of the ViewPad is Windows 7.
It ran fast and was pretty intuitive about responding to the right icons, scroll bars and objects on the display that I was trying to touch. It was a new experience for me to navigate the Web in Firefox by swiping across the screen. It fared well ? better than surfing for content on the Android side.
When it came to more intricate programs, interacting with the tablet was challenging.
You could try to edit photos with Adobe Photoshop for Windows, but you'd be making the task much harder than it would be in a traditional mouse and cursor environment. Trust me, I tried.
Every erroneous tap propelled me into a wrong window or menu that had to be backed out of and started over. The first thing that came to my mind was to undo an action with "CTRL+Z", but the keyboard wasn't there unless I swiped it onto the screen from its little hidden perch in a corner of the display.
I'll leave Photoshop, and a few other detail oriented tasks, for traditional computers with real keyboards. Tablets, at this stage, are better for content consumption than content creation.
Despite my success with a variety of Windows experiences (movie watching, Gawker reading, Flickr photo browsing and Facebook time-crushing) the tablet experience begs for apps. Better apps. Finger-friendly apps.
Browsers work to deliver this content, but full-fledged apps brewed up especially for human digits work better. They're designed with bigger touchable regions and fewer (if any) tiny scrolling controllers.
It's swell of Microsoft to make Windows 7 touch-friendly, but the company needs to fashion a tablet-specific version of its operating system to compete with Android and iOS.
Is dual-boot for the tablet worth it? Not really at this point. Android is best left to phones. But with a few improvements or perhaps a dedicated tablet operating system, Windows will fit in quite nicely in this growing computer segment.
Ron Harris can be reached at http://twitter.com/Journorati


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This product was added to our catalog on Wednesday 11 February, 2015.


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Where is the fungus found?
Several different fungi found throughout the world can cause ringworm, however, the vast majority of cases in cats and dogs are caused by Microsporum canis, Microsporum gypseum, or Trichophyton species. The fungus is most commonly found either on an infected animal or in the living quarters of infected animals. Spores from infected animals can be shed into the environment and live for up to 24 months. Humid, warm environments encourage growth of the fungus. Spores can be on brushes, bedding, furniture, or anything that has been in contact with an infected animal or the animal's hair. Cats can be asymptomatic carriers and harbor and shed the organism without showing signs of infection. Animals thought to be chronic carriers can be routinely cultured to determine if they are actual carriers.
How is ringworm transmitted?
Ringworm can be transmitted by direct contact with fungal spores. These spores can be found on a infected animal, on infected grooming equipment or brushes, in a contaminated boarding facility or cattery, or in the environment where an infected animal has visited. Because ringworm spores can survive for long periods in the environment your cat can contract ringworm from just about anywhere other dogs or cats have been. Fortunately, most healthy adult cats have some natural resistance to ringworm and never develop symptoms from the fungus. Young cats under a year old are most often infected. Cats with a suppressed immune system from diseases or overuse of steroids are also more susceptible to contracting the disease. Senior cats, free-roaming cats, and those who are under stress, malnourished or have other diseases such as parasites or viral infections also appear to be at increased risk. In addition, genetic factors may play a role, as Persians appear to be more susceptible to ringworm.
What are the signs of ringworm?
Cats with ringworm may have skin lesions which can appear different depending on where they occur and how long they have been present. The classic symptom is a small round lesion that is devoid of hair. The lesion will often have scaly skin in the center. Small are often found in the lesion. The lesion may start as a small spot and continue to grow in size. The lesion may or may not be irritated and itchy. Lesions are most common on the head, ears, and tail. In some infections, the fungus will not be in a circle and can spread across the face, lips, chin, or nose and look like an autoimmune disease or other generalized skin disease. Occasionally, the infection will occur over the entire body and create a generalized scaly or greasy skin condition. Hair loss may be mild or severe. In some cases the first sign may be excessive shedding, and hairballs may occur when large parts of the body are affected. Scratching at the ears is also common. Ringworm can also occur in the nails, often causing them to grow malformed.
How is ringworm diagnosed?
Ringworm cannot be diagnosed by simply looking at a lesion, but at least one of several testing methods must be used. One method is through the use of a specialized black light called a Wood's lamp. Several species of the ringworm fungus will glow a fluorescent color when exposed to a Wood's lamp. However, it is estimated that up to half of the most common species of M. canis do not fluoresce under a Wood's lamp, and T. mentagrophytes does not fluoresce. Other substances may fluoresce and cause a false positive reading. In addition, a healthy animal may have spores on his coat but may not have an active infection. So, this is not the most accurate method.
Another method for identifying ringworm is to pluck hairs from the periphery of the lesion and examine them under the microscope. Between 40% and 70% of the infections can be diagnosed this way.
The most reliable way to identify a ringworm infection is by collecting scales and crust from the skin and coat and performing a fungalculture. Your veterinarian will commonly use a toothbrush to collect the sample of hair and scales from the cat to culture. There are special culture mediums designed specifically for identifying ringworm infections. Your local veterinarian can easily perform this routine culture.
Cats with ringworm should always be evaluated for underlying disease(s) that may have made them more at risk for this fungal infection.
How is ringworm treated?
In healthy shorthaired kittens and cats with small isolated lesions, the lesion is often treated with a topical cream containing an antifungal such as miconazole or thiabendazole. In addition, it is important to treat any underlying conditions, provide good nutrition, and prevent the spread to other animals and humans.
In more severe cases, a combination of oral and topical treatments is generally used. Often the lesions are clipped so the topical treatment can reach the skin. Many veterinary dermatologists feel that all longhaired cats must be shaved completely to achieve any success with ringworm treatment. Care should be taken not to irritate the skin when clipping, as this may cause the infection to spread. Also, realize that the clipped hair, clippers, and any grooming instruments that come into contact with an infected animal will harbor the spores and must be heat or chemically sterilized before being used on any other animal. The recommended topical treatment is lime sulfur dips. These dips have a bad odor and can temporarily turn the coat a yellowish color, but they are extremely effective and should be used if recommended by your veterinarian.
Alternatives to lime sulfur dips include miconazole shampoos and rinses, and enilconazole (available in some countries). Oral antifungal agents are generally recommended for any cat with severe generalized lesions, for longhaired cats, and in cases where the nails are infected. Oral antifungal agents may also be recommended when there is no response to topical therapy after 2-4 weeks of treatment. Itraconazole is the preferred drug of choice, and terbafine may also be used. Griseofulvin is another alternative, but has a higher risk of adverse effects.
Treatment is generally continued until there have been two negative cultures a week apart.
Some veterinarians have recommended using Program® (the once-a-month flea pill) at a higher dose to treat ringworm in cats, but it has been shown to be ineffective against ringworm.
How can ringworm be controlled in the environment?
Because the ringworm fungus can survive for such long periods in the environment, it is critical that an effective cleaning plan be used in all infections. Spores are very light and are carried in the air, so wherever there is dust and hair, there may be spores. Whenever cleaning, avoid sweeping and other types of cleaning that may actually spread spores through the air. Vacuuming, damp mopping and using a Swifter-type mop are generally recommended. Carpets should be steam cleaned and disinfected. Heating and cooling ducts and furnaces should be professionally vacuumed and filters replaced if a culture from the ducts comes back positive. Furniture and drapes should be vacuumed and the vacuum cleaner bags should be disposed of promptly. Housing units that contain wood or rusty metal should be re-painted. After vacuuming or mopping, clean with water and a detergent solution. Then, use bleach diluted to 1:10 with water and left on for at least 10 minutes to kill most of the organisms. All grooming tools, bedding, kennels, cat carriers, and cages should be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected with bleach, as well.
How can ringworm be controlled in catteries?
Some of the most difficult cases of ringworm come from catteries or small breeders, particularly those with Persian or Himalayans. Eliminating ringworm from these units can take months to years of diligent treatment. Remember that it will take a complete commitment to properly eliminate ringworm from a cattery. The owner must be willing to devote a large amount of time and make some difficult decisions if success in treatment is to be achieved.
There are several different approaches to controlling and eliminating ringworm in a cattery. The first approach includes total depopulation of the cattery, decontamination of the facility, and repopulating with only animals that test negative on three consecutive cultures performed at two-week intervals. The second approach is to treat the entire colony and facilities with appropriate topical medications, systemic therapy, and environmental cleanup. The colony is isolated and breeding and showing are interrupted. The third option would be to treat only infected kittens. This third option is only suitable for a breeder that produces kittens for the pet cat market and usually is not recommended for most breeders. Breeders will need to work very closely with their veterinarian to develop the best program for their facility.
Cultures should be performed on new cats coming into the cattery or returning from a show or a breeding. They should be quarantined and dipped once with lime sulfur. Since dogs and humans can carry ringworm into a cattery, both human and canine visitors should be kept at a minimum.
How is ringworm prevented?
Ringworm is a disease where an ounce of prevention is truly worth more than a pound of cure. If you have cats in your home, be very careful about bringing a new kitten into your household. Cat shows, kennels, and grooming facilities can also be a source of infection and caution should be used when exposing your cat to these places. Breeders of Persians and Himalayans need to be especially cautious about bringing any new animal that has not been cultured into their facility. If any sign of ringworm is seen, make sure you isolate the infected cat and seek prompt veterinary attention.
Is ringworm transmissible to people?
Yes. Ringworm can be transmitted between cats and people. Persons with suppressed immune systems, such as those with HIV infections or AIDS, and those undergoing chemotherapy may be especially vulnerable. Persons should wear gloves when handling affected animals and wash hands well afterwards. If you contract ringworm, treat with an OTC anti-fungal, such as Lotrimin.


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May Performance [2024/5/9]
- 【Time】
- 4:00pm-4:50pm
- 【Performers】
- Hakata Geigi
- 【Program Contents】
- Dance performance by Hakata Geigi
- Zashiki asobi experience
- Geigi question and answer time
- Souvenir photo with geigi
- 【Cost】
- 3,000 yen (per person)
- 【Places available】
- 20 guests (Chair seating – first come, first served)
- 【Number of remaining seats available】×
- ◎:Many seats available ◯:Seats available
△:Last seats left ×:Sold out
▲:Please call for availability
◎Reservations must be made in advance at least three days prior to the performance date.
*Performances may be cancelled due to underbooking. We thank you for your understanding.


text:
White Mermaid Tail with Silver Chains Pierced Earcuff (EC99241)
White Mermaid Tail with Silver Chains Pierced Earcuff (EC99241)
Regular price
Regular price
Sale price
Unit price
Be a part of the newest trend in fashion with this funky ear cuff!
A single, lower earlobe Piercing is needed to wear this design, with the top part clipping to side/top of the ear and adjusted as needed.
This ear cuff is designed to be worn on the left or right ear, and the cuff can be worn either at the top of the ear or halfway down the ear.
The tightness can be easily adjusted by prising apart or squeezing together for a snug fit.
Ear cuffs are a great way to wear ear accessories without the need for additional piercings.
Please note that due to a variety of monitor settings, the colour/s, as seen on your monitor, may slightly vary from the actual colour/s.


text: This rum is aged for a minimum of seven years in 'once used' bourbon casks until it can be bottled and enjoyed to the full. This rum is packed with mouth watering flavors that include maple, chocolate, honey and toffee and presents a rich full-bodied taste that tapers off in to the classic rum finish. It can be enjoyed neat as a sipping rum, or over ice, equally it can mix a stunning contemporary take on a Manhattan or an Old Fashioned.


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Updated September 25, 2021 at 11:25 PM ET
A storm brewing in the Atlantic is now a "major hurricane," but forecasters say it currently poses little threat to land.
The National Hurricane Center said Saturday that Sam was bringing wind speeds higher than 110 miles per hour, the threshold for a storm to be dubbed a major hurricane.
It's the fourth storm to receive such a designation this year, according to Andy Latto, a hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center.
By Saturday evening, Sam strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 145 miles per hour. It is expected to continue to strengthen overnight.
As of Saturday evening, Hurricane Sam was located about 1,000 miles east-southeast of the Northern Leeward Islands and about 630 miles northeast of the French Guiana coast, moving west-northwest at 10 miles per hour.
No coastal warnings or watches are in effect — and while Hurricane Sam is currently delivering strong winds, it's not likely to make landfall in the Caribbean or mainland United States.
"There's an upward trough — a cold front — going through the southeastern United States already," Latto told NPR. "The associated trough that helps drive that front will help turn this system to the north later on, sometime by the early to middle parts of next week."
Latto said there is a slight chance the hurricane could hit Bermuda, but modeling currently shows it's likely to miss the island.
He also noted that this is the time of the year when forecasters begin to shift their focus from the eastern Atlantic basin near Africa to the western part of the ocean.
"Even though something like Sam most likely won't be reaching the United States, keep vigilant and keep and eye on things — because there is always a secondary peak that comes from the western part of the basin later on," Latto said.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Lakers' Pau Gasol -- I Hope Lamar Returns to the NBA
Lakers' Pau Gasol I Hope Lamar Returns to the NBA
L.A. Lakers center, Pau Gasol, is optimistic that Lamar Odom -- his friend and former teammate -- will make a triumphant return to the NBA ... but admits he's still in the dark about what's going on in Lamar's life.
All 7-feet of Pau hit up Katsuya in Hollywood last night ... where he told us he hasn't had any contact with Lamar since he began his crack-fueled downward spiral ... but he still thinks Lamar can come back.
"The main thing is that he's healthy and happy," Gasol told us ... but he also knows what it's gonna take for Lamar -- or any pro-baller -- to be competitive in the NBA.
"In my profession," he said, "if you don't train hard, you get off the train."


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The National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) has decided, in order to "protect the integrity" of its helmet standards, that modification of helmets with third-party after-market add-ons will now be deemed as voiding its certification, which can only be regained if the helmet is retested with the add-on.
The July 16, 2013 announcement, made with little fanfare and no advance warning to the public or interested parties, was greeted with predictable enthusiasm by helmet manufacturers (whose licensing fees fund NOCSAE), but is being heavily criticized, not just by the companies affected, particularly those in the emerging field of helmet impact sensors, but by football safety advocates and at least one national football organization, which see the ruling as a severe setback to their collective efforts to improve concussion safety through technological innovation.
Broad impact
By its plain language, the new NOCSAE rule covers any after-market item that "changes or alters the protective system [of a helmet] by adding or deleting protective padding to the inside or outside of the helmet, or which changes or alters the geometry of the shell or adds mass to the helmet, whether temporary or permanent."
It is thus broad enough, by its terms, to void the NOCSAE certification for helmets to which have a wide array of after-market products have been attached, including clear plastic face shields, decals, chin straps (including Battle Sports' Impact Indicator, and popular football chin straps from Nike and Under Armour), and colored pinnie scrimmage caps.
Its biggest impact, however, is likely to be on the manufacturers of two specific types of products: those making small, lightweight impact sensors designed to be attached to the inside or outside of a helmet, such as Shockbox, Brain Sentry, Safe Brain, and gForce Tracker sensors; and supplemental helmet protective padding products, including Shockstrip, Guardian Cap, and Unequal Technologies' Gyro and Maxx. [Update: On August 7, 2013, Unequal announced via PR Newswire that it had obtained a "clarification" from NOCSAE that, according to Unequal, "because Unequal supplemental head padding in a helmet is not intended to, and does not, permanently attach to the helmet, the use of Unequal product will not void a helmet's certification."]
In just the first two weeks after the ruling was issued, it already appears to be having a profound impact on the manufacturers of after-market products, with some reporting mass cancellations of orders which could drive some out of business. [Update: for the effect the NOCSAE ruling is having on Guardian Cap, and the "Catch-22" the company has found itself in as a result, click here]
It is also likely to have a profound, and some critics say, extremely negative effect on football player safety. While NOCSAE consistently points out that adherence by football helmet manufacturers to its standard - first issued in 1973 and still designed to certify only that the helmet can withstand the high impact forces necessary to fracture a player's skull - is ostensibly voluntary, it is followed by governing bodies at every level of football. NOCSAE's action to void certification for helmets equipped with third-party add-ons and require retesting and recertification is thus likely to make schools and youth football programs extremely reluctant, if not entirely unwilling or legally unable, to allow such add-ons out of liability concerns, with the action coming at the worst possible time, just as programs are gearing up for the 2012 football season.
"Real step backwards"
While a spokesperson for USA Football said the organization does not sanction helmets, and expressed support for the NOCSAE statement, Jon Butler, Executive Director of Pop Warner, however, expressed disappointment at the NOCSAE ruling, at least with respect to the use of helmet impact sensors. "I hope that NOCSAE will reverse their ruling as it is a real step backwards. We have been doing [beta] testing [of impact sensor-equipped helmets], as have many others, and this needs to continue. How can we do testing without kids wearing the [sensor-equipped] helmets?" Butler wondered.
The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), the national governing body for high school football, issued a statement in August 2012 from its Rules Committee saying that, absent a clear answer on the question of the net impact of exterior helmet padding on its protective ability, the decision about their use would remain within the discretion of high school teams, coaches, athletes, and parents. The statement specifically mentioned supplemental helmet padding manufactured by Pro Cap (no longer in business), Guardian Cap, and Shockstrip, and did not cover helmet sensors.
Despite repeated requests, NFHS has thus far refused to comment.
It should be noted, however, that Article 1, Rule 1‐5.1.a. of NFHS's rule entitled "Mandatory equipment" which, in pertinent part, requires that a player participate wear a properly fitted helmet "which shall be professionally manufactured and not altered to decrease protection, ... which met the NOCSAE test standard at the time of manufacture." (emphasis supplied). A strict reading of that language would appear to allow a helmet to which a third-party, after-market product has been affixed so long as the alteration does not decrease protection so long as the helmet met the NOCSAE test standard at the time it left the manufacture.


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BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (AP) — Police made dozens of arrests in Louisiana's capital city during weekend protests around the country in which people angry over police killings of young black men sought to block some major interstates.
Riot police in full gear stopped a group of protesters in Baton Rouge late Sunday in their attempt to walk onto Interstate 110 in Baton Rouge, thwarting a protest tactic that social justice activists have increasingly tried in several U.S. cities.
Tensions between black citizens and police have risen since last week's killings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, and Philando Castile in Minnesota by white officers, and a retaliatory attack on white police by a black sniper in Dallas that killed five officers and wounded others.
More than a thousand people left a Black Lives Matter rally in Memphis, Tennessee, and walked up a bridge over the Mississippi River on Sunday night, temporarily blocking all traffic on Interstate 40.
At a West Coast protest, hundreds of people poured into the streets of in Southern California late Sunday night, blocking traffic for several minutes on the 405 Freeway. Authorities told the Los Angeles Times there were no arrests and no reports of violence.
Elsewhere, hundreds blocked a segment of Interstate 94 in Minneapolis-St. Paul on Saturday. And hundreds also blocked motorists recently on part of Interstate 264 in Portsmouth, Virginia. Demonstrators have also tried but failed in recent days to block highways in Atlanta and Columbia, South Carolina.
Some government and law enforcement officials have been outspoken in seeking to discourage protesters from blocking traffic.
"While I appreciate the peaceful intent of this weekend's rallies, I'd ask that we not put our fellow citizens or law enforcement at risk — which is exactly what attempting to block highways does," South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said in a statement.
In Louisiana, some 2,000 people rallied peacefully Sunday outside the Capitol building, State Police Maj. Doug Cain said, calling that initial protest "very organized and peaceful."
Then, by Sunday night, a few hundred people aimed for an on-ramp of Interstate 110 in Baton Rouge.
After a lengthy standoff, helmeted police in riot gear moved in, pinning some of the protesters as others fled. Some 30 to 40 people were taken into custody for trying to block a highway, sheriff's spokeswoman Casey Rayborn Hicks said.
Video footage showed officers reaching into a crowd and pulling individuals away.
The arrests brought the count to more than 160 taken into custody in recent days in the Louisiana capital. One officer was hit by a projectile and injured in the weekend protests, authorities said.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said late Sunday he was "very proud" of his state's law enforcement response. Speaking at a news conference, Edwards said he didn't believe using riot gear to push protesters away from highway ramps was overly aggressive.
"I can assure everyone we are hearing the protesters," the governor said. "We are listening to their voices. But I'm especially gratified that our citizens here in Louisiana, to a very large degree, have decided to protest in a constructive and peaceful manner."
A Baton Rouge police spokesman, Sgt. Don Coppola, had blamed the large number of arrests on outside agitators. Police have confiscated three rifles, three shotguns and two pistols during that protest, he wrote in an email.
But most of those detained live in and around Baton Rouge and neighboring New Orleans and faced a single charge of obstructing a highway, the sheriff's spokeswoman Hicks said.
Some of the recent demonstrations in Baton Rouge began at the convenience store where 37-year-old Alton Sterling was killed while two police subdued him. The U.S. Justice Department has launched a civil rights investigation.


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Hats were a crucial part to any respectable appearance for women. To go bareheaded was simply not proper. Unlike men, the style of hat for a woman would change and be designed to match their outfits.
Our selection of ladies hats ranges from the simple bonnets and caps of the working class to the exotic millinery of the Victorian & Edwardian upper class.
We are proud of our full line of ladies period clothing, suitable for movie and TV production, theatrical, living history and performing arts requirements, and are also perfect for vintage weddings. We hope you find what you are looking for, and please contact us if you have any questions!
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