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|6 years ago :: Sep 12, 2011 - 9:50PM #1
I'm posting a systematic, daily-bread style commentary on the book of Genesis, practically verse by verse from the creation of the cosmos to Joseph's burial in Egypt. I'll get to your favorite places in Genesis eventually, so I'm requesting that responders not run ahead with their questions, remarks and/or comments but wait till we get to the appropriate location.
Barring emergencies, accidents, unforeseen circumstances, and/or insurmountable distractions, vacations, difficulties, computer crashes, brute force, and dumb luck et al; I'm making an effort to post something fresh and new to read on this thread every day including Sundays and holidays.
All the really cool stuff is in Genesis: the origin of the cosmos, the origin of homo sapiens, Adam and Eve, the origin of marriage, the Devil, the first lie, the first transgression, the origin of human death, the origin of clothing, the first baby, Cain and Abel, the first murder, the Flood, the tower of Babel, and the origin of Yhvh's people. Big-name celebrities like Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac and Ishmael, Rebecca, Jacob and Esau, and Joseph are here too. (Sorry, but Moses vs. Pharaoh and the parting of the Red Sea are in Exodus; and Samson and Delilah are in Judges)
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|6 years ago :: Sep 12, 2011 - 9:57PM #2
. The author of Genesis is currently unknown; but commonly attributed to Moses. Scholars have estimated the date of its writing at around 1450-1410 BC; which is pretty recent in the grand scheme of Earth's geological history— a mere 3,400 years ago. Since Moses penned Exodus (Mrk 12:26) it's conceivable that he also penned Genesis; but in reality, nobody really knows. Genesis may in fact be the result of several contributors beginning as far back as Adam himself; who would certainly know more about the creation than anybody, and who entertained no doubts whatsoever about the existence of a supreme being since he knew the Creator himself from close encounters of a third kind. That would explain why the book begins with an in-your-face deistic account of the origin of the cosmos, rather than waste words with an apologetic argument to convince agnostics that a supreme being exists. As time went by, others like Seth and Noah would add their own experiences to the record, and then Abraham his, Isaac his, Jacob his, and finally Judah or one of his descendants completing the record with Joseph's burial. Genesis is quoted more than sixty times in the New Testament; and the Lord himself authenticated its Divine inspiration by referring to it in his own teachings (e.g. Mtt 19:4-6, Mtt 24:37-39, Mk 10:4-9, Luke 11:49-51, Luke 17:26-29 & 32, John 7:21-23, John 8:44 and John 8:56).
The author of Genesis is currently unknown; but commonly attributed to Moses. Scholars have estimated the date of its writing at around 1450-1410 BC; which is pretty recent in the grand scheme of Earth's geological history— a mere 3,400 years ago. Since Moses penned Exodus (Mrk 12:26) it's conceivable that he also penned Genesis; but in reality, nobody really knows.
Genesis may in fact be the result of several contributors beginning as far back as Adam himself; who would certainly know more about the creation than anybody, and who entertained no doubts whatsoever about the existence of a supreme being since he knew the Creator himself from close encounters of a third kind. That would explain why the book begins with an in-your-face deistic account of the origin of the cosmos, rather than waste words with an apologetic argument to convince agnostics that a supreme being exists.
As time went by, others like Seth and Noah would add their own experiences to the record, and then Abraham his, Isaac his, Jacob his, and finally Judah or one of his descendants completing the record with Joseph's burial.
Genesis is quoted more than sixty times in the New Testament; and the Lord himself authenticated its Divine inspiration by referring to it in his own teachings (e.g. Mtt 19:4-6, Mtt 24:37-39, Mk 10:4-9, Luke 11:49-51, Luke 17:26-29 & 32, John 7:21-23, John 8:44 and John 8:56).
†. Gen 1:1a . .When God
What was God doing in the dateless infinite past before the current universe came into existence? (I say "current" because there's another in the works (cf. Isa 65:17, 2Pet 3:10-13, Rev 21:1). Who really knows? But a creative genius like that couldn't possibly have been sitting around for zillions of years smoking cigarettes and counting flowers on the walls with nothing to do.
The word for "God" is from the Hebrew 'elohiym (el-o-heem'). It's a plural word and means, ordinarily, just simply "gods". Its uses are very broad and can even apply to human beings in positions of authority like in Psalm 82 and Psalm 45 (cf. John 10:34-36). 'Elohiym isn't really the Almighty's personal name, but an abstract deistic term that pertains to all sorts of gods, along with, and including, the supreme one.
†. Gen 1:1b . . began to create heaven and earth—
The word for "heaven" is from the Hebrew word shamayim (shaw-mah'-yim) and means: to be lofty; the sky (as aloft; the plural (heavens) perhaps alluding to the visible arch in which the clouds move, as well as to the higher ether where the celestial bodies revolve). So the word "heaven" is ambiguous and can mean the breathable air in our planet's atmosphere as well as the stratosphere and the vast celestial regions of space. Shamayim corresponds to the "air" in the Navy SEAL acronym that stands for Sea, Air, and Land.
The word for "earth" is from 'erets (eh'-rets) and means: to be firm; the earth (at large, or a specific region) Erets is sometimes spelled with a zee; eg: ERETZ Magazine, or in the phrase Eretz Israel— meaning, of course, the land of Israel.
The Lord made this comment about the creation of Man; which has a bearing on the meaning of the phrase "began to create."
†. Mtt 19:4 . . Haven't you read; he replied, that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female
Wasn't the human race actually created on the sixth day? Yes, it was. So apparently Christ understood the word "beginning" to be an inclusive term comprising the entire creation endeavor, rather than a precise moment, because he obviously meant the human race was created during the construction of the current natural order of things, but not right at the gun.
Continued > >
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|6 years ago :: Sep 13, 2011 - 9:26AM #3
†. Gen 1:2a . . the earth being unformed and void
The Hebrew word for "unformed" is from tohuw (to'-hoo) and means: to lie waste; a desolation (of surface), i.e. desert; figuratively, a worthless thing; adverbially, in vain. Which indicates that in its "unformed" condition the earth was pretty much good for nothing.
The word for "void" is from bohuw (bo'-hoo) and means: to be empty; a vacuity, i.e. (superficially) an undistinguishable ruin; which indicatges that in that condition you couldn't tell the earth was even a planet.
The terms tohuw and bohuw, don't imply the complete absence of matter. They just imply ruin and chaos. The very same wording is used in another part of the Bible regarding the land of Israel in an utter shambles because of God's judgments against it.
†. Jer 4:22-28 . . For My people are stupid, they give Me no heed; they are foolish children, they are not intelligent. They are clever at doing wrong, but unable to do right.
. . . I look at the earth, it is desolate and empty (tohuw and bohuw); at the skies, and their light is gone. I look at the mountains, they are quaking; and all the hills are rocking. I look: no man is left, and all the birds of the sky have fled. I look: the farm land is desert, and all its towns are in ruin— because of Yhvh, because of His blazing anger.
. . . For thus testified Yhvh: The whole land shall be desolate, but I will not make an end of it. For this the earth mourns, and skies are dark above— because I have spoken, I have planned, and I will not relent or turn back from it. (cf. Deut 29:22-28)
The construction of planet Earth, was an orderly step by step process. If you were to visit a housing tract under construction out here in the West, you wouldn't see the beautiful homes that people move into. You would first see the neighborhood as unimproved land.
Then the surveyors come and measure and mark the locations for water, sewer, power, and property lines. Then huge earth moving machines come in and scrape off all the arable topsoil and haul it away. After that, smaller machines cut in streets and storm drains, and mold the land into home sites while the utilities people install sewer lines, electricity, water and gas pipes, and wiring for telephones, cable television, and broadband. Then other workers show up and start making foundations while yet others are making sidewalks. Then carpenters show up and begin framing. Pretty soon, roofers are nailing on shingles, and the structures begin to resemble homes. Then sheet rock guys install wallboard, cabinet makers hang the cabinets, other men install showers, sinks, and bathtubs, while yet others lay down carpet and vinyl flooring.
Before you know it, a real neighborhood appears with parks, paved roads, and street lighting. But at first, everything is confusing and disordered; and all the building materials are laying around in heaps and piles looking more like a refuse disposal site than a habitable neighborhood.
That's the way the Earth began: as a chaotic heap of building materials, which were then utilized to construct a habitat for living organisms.
†. Isa 45:18 . . For thus said the Lord, The Creator of heaven who alone is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who alone established it— He did not create it a waste, but formed it for habitation:
The big question of course is where did the Earth's building materials come from? Did they always exist, or did God invent them just especially for the Earth now in existence? Were those materials left-overs from another Divine project prior to the current universe, or maybe even parallel to it?
Regardless of how, or out of what, they were made, the origin of the materials has to be founded in a Creator. It is both maddening and futile to consider any other possibility. By faith we understand much more about the origin of the cosmos than ever could be understood by the unaided mind of natural reason and the god of empirical evidence.
†. Heb 11:3 . . By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's vocal command, so that what is visible was made from something invisible.
Faith doesn't violate reason; on the contrary, faith is both a friend and a help to Man's rational understanding of his own existence.
†. Gen 1:2b . . with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water—
At this point, there was no ordered cosmos, nor any planets, nor an Earth, nor anything solid: just a massive chemical matrix, while the wind of God held it all in place like corralled livestock; because as yet, no physical laws were in force to make matter behave the way it does as we know it.
The ancient Jews understood the "wind" of Gen 1:2 to be God's spirit.
T. and darkness was upon the face of the abyss, and the Spirit of mercies from before the Lord breathed upon the face of the waters. (Targum Jonathan)
T. and the Spirit of mercies from before the Lord breathed upon the face of the waters. (Jerusalem Targum)
NOTE : Targums are very old Aramaic paraphrases of the Hebrew bible. They were authoritative, and spoken aloud in the synagogues along with the Hebrew of the Torah and Haftarah readings. Public readings of the Scriptures in ancient synagogues were accompanied by a translation into Aramaic because that was the spoken language of many of the eastern world's Jews during the 500+ years between Ezra and Matthew. The normal practice was that after each verse was read from the sacred Torah scroll, an official translator known as the Turgeman, or Meturgeman, would then recite orally an Aramaic rendering.
Targums were utilized in the synagogues before, during, and after the times of Jesus— being necessary because many of the Jewish people of that day could not understand Hebrew. That's still true today. Because of their assimilation and world-wide dispersion, the vast majority of modern Jews cannot read, nor speak, nor understand the Hebrew language. Today, no doubt the most important, and the most influential translations of the Scriptures are no longer in Hebrew or in Aramaic, but in English, e.g. the JPS Tanakh and the Stone Tanach.
The Targum of Onkelos is commonly included along with a traditional Torah scroll in modern synagogues, but its teachings have pretty much fallen by the wayside and for the most part, ignored.
Anyway; the universe was dark, and undisciplined; and all the cosmos' building materials were a swirling, chaotic mass of matter— but totally lacking the natural energies and forces that would hold things in place and make them react with each other. The creation of light, coming up next, would rectify that situation.
Continued >>
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|6 years ago :: Sep 14, 2011 - 8:27AM #4
†. Gen 1:3 . . God said: Let there be light; and there was light.
The Hebrew word for "light" in that passage is from 'owr (ore) and means light in every sense of the word; which Webster's defines as: illumination, truth, a set of principles and standards, spiritual illumination, served (as coffee) with extra milk or cream, ignite, guide, animate (give life to), dawn, and others. So then "Light" can't be narrowly defined, but rather, it's one of the Bible's many ambiguous words.
The illumination of Gen 1:3 is not said to actually glow— no glowing celestial bodies were created until the fourth day— so that during the interim, even while Light was in the universe, you still couldn't see anything. According to the Bible, the light of Gen 1:3 is not a supernatural kind of light, but a created kind of light— not light that was introduced into the void from outside, but was from within, and was a kind of light with the potential to forge the universe into a living, active, organized, energetic structure rather than just a heap of chaotic debris.
†. 2Cor 4:6 . . For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
The light of creation shined "out" of darkness rather than into darkness as if Light was introduced to dispel the dark and brighten things up. A safe assumption is that at least one of the meanings of the light of Gen 1:3 refers to the natural laws of physics that would regulate how matter in the current cosmos would behave. In other words; where there's light there's order, as opposed to darkness where's there's chaos and confusion.
Without the laws of physics, the universe would instantly fragment itself and nothing would hold together. There'd be neither natural nor artificial light, no energy, no motion, no gravity, no atomic attraction, no magnetism, no molecules, no liquids and no solids. The laws of physics were created to make matter behave the way it does and to hold the entire creation together in a cohesive, understandable, sensible unity— making it possible to utilize elements from the liquid matrix to form an orderly Earth rather than one of tohuw and bohuw.
Note : The light of John 1:4-9 is different than the light of Gen 1:3. John's light pertains to a power that makes man the conscious, perceptive being that he is rather than something in a vegetative state like rhubarb or chaparral.
Introduction To The Memrá
According to 1Tim 6:16, creation's architect is shrouded in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen nor can see. Since the Master Architect himself in person is somehow untouchable, it's necessary to provide a viable link between the Forbidden Being and His earthly creations. One of the important links regarded in ancient rabbinical thought was The Word, called memrá in Aramaic (from the Hebrew and Aramaic root, 'mr which means: to say). The memrá concept— that of a Divine Verbal Mediator between the Forbidden Being and the creature Man— occurs hundreds of times in the Aramaic Targums.
The Architect's voice has been of utmost importance ever since the first day of creation week. It's the primary way that the Forbidden Being implements His will. It's also how the Mysterious Life communicates and interacts with human beings, and how The Life reveals itself in a way they can understand. On the one hand, the Forbidden Being has done this somewhat through human writings. But there is much more to the Untouchable Potentate's speech than just ink and letters. Those materials merely constitute an inert, man-made material record. On many occasions, when The Life's words were actually expressed, they effected far more power and impetus than that of a mere page of transcript.
Why did The Life even bother to speak during creation? Why didn't The Architect just do His work silently without utterance or sound? To whom, or for whom, was He speaking when He said; "Let there be light."
Answer : there's a creative, dynamic force in The Almighty's voice, a power and energy in His words, a tangible release of Divine life. His voice is an extension of His nature, a movement of His will— alive, powerful, and effective— not just letters, syllables, and sounds. There is vigor and activity in the Mysterious Being's voice extending far beyond the applications of thought and communication.
According to the Targums, which were at one time accepted as sacred Jewish beliefs, God's voice is a sentient life; actually The God himself. So then, the Memrá is to be worshipped, and served, and obeyed, and spoken to as the Ultimate Sovereign.
The Jewish apostle John, no doubt schooled in the Targums several years before he met the Bible's Christ, opened his gospel with these words :
†. John 1:1-3 . . In the beginning was The Word, and The Word was with God, and The Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.
John then proceeded to reveal that the Christ of the Bible is the very Voice of creation personified.
†. John 1:14 . .The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us
†. John 8:58 . . Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.
†. Rev 3:14 . .These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.
Modern Judaism accuses John of fabricating his Christology from Greek philosophy. However, John 1:1-3 was a very Jewish belief back in his day, and nothing said in that verse would have raised a single objection from any of his peers and contemporaries because that passage reflects 100% Targum teachings that were commonly dispensed in the synagogues of that day.
The Targums taught that God's voice— the Memrá —reigns supreme upon The Almighty's throne.
T. Deut 4:7 . . For what people so great, to whom the Lord is so high in the Name of the Word of the Lord? But the custom of (other) nations is to carry their gods upon their shoulders, that they may seem to be nigh them; but they cannot hear with their ears, (be they nigh or) be they afar off; but the Word of the Lord sits upon His throne high and lifted up, and hears our prayer what time we pray before Him and make our petitions. (Targum Jonathan)
According to the Targums, Jacob, an important progenitor of the people of Israel, worshipped God's voice as his own god.
T. Gen 28:20-21 . . And Jacob vowed a vow, saying: If the Word of Yhvh will be my support, and will keep me in the way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the Word of Yhvh be my God. (Targum Onkelos)
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|6 years ago :: Sep 14, 2011 - 2:49PM #5
It is too bad that more of us don't take the advice of Rabbi Maimonides that the first eleven chapters of Genesis are "mythology and borrowed folklore" to fill in the gap before Israel became a self aware cultural identity. It is a rich and powerful story.
the floggings will continue until morale improves
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|6 years ago :: Sep 14, 2011 - 11:44PM #6
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|6 years ago :: Sep 15, 2011 - 10:30AM #7
In essence; Day and Night simply label two physical conditions— the absence of light, and/or the absence of darkness. Labeling those physical conditions may seem like a superfluous detail, but when analyzing crucifixion week in the New Testament, it's essential to keep those physical conditions separate in regards to the Lord's burial and resurrection if one is to have any hope of deducing the correct chronology of Easter week. In other words: in regards to crucifixion week; Day is when the sun is up, and Night is when the sun is down. (cf. Mtt 12:39-40)
Anyplace there's light, there is no true darkness because light always dispels darkness. However, darkness is powerless to dispel light. In other words; science and industry have given the world a flashlight; but they have yet to give the world a flashdark. So then, light is the superior of the two and rules the dark. That is a biblical axiom; and, typically, light is good, and dark is just the opposite.
Light has huge significance in the Bible. Whether in the form of atomic energy, spiritual truth, good times, or all that is noble; true Light (in the biblical sense) always brings with it blessing and order, and Dark always brings just the opposite; for example :
†. Mtt 8:11-12 . . I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
†. Job 10:20-22 . . My days are few, so desist! Leave me alone, let me be diverted a while before I depart— never to return— for the land of deepest gloom; a land whose light is darkness, all gloom and disarray, whose light is like darkness.
†. Amos 5:18-20 . .Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light; as if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?
In contrast to those passages; the 60th chapter of Isaiah characterizes Messiah's kingdom as a place of perpetual Light.
†. Isa 60:19-20 . . No longer shall you need the sun for light by day, nor the shining of the moon for radiance [by night]; for Yhvh shall be your light everlasting, your God shall be your glory. Your sun shall set no more, your moon no more withdraw; for Yhvh shall be a light to you forever, and your days of mourning shall be ended.
†. Gen 1:5b . . And there was evening and there was morning, a first Day.
The Hebrew word for "evening" is 'ereb (eh'-reb) which means: dusk. And the word for "morning" is boqer (bo'-ker) which can mean either dawn (as the break of day) and/or morning (as the early part of day)
The Bible's dusk is a bit ambiguous and somewhat different than Webster's dusk, which is defined as: (1) the darker part of twilight especially at night, and (2) darkness or semidarkness caused by the shutting out of light
In the Bible, evening is actually anytime between high noon and sunset when the sun is losing altitude as opposed to morning which is anytime between sunrise and high noon when the sun is gaining altitude. So then: morning is the AM part of a day, and evening is the PM part of a day.
The terms evening and morning therefore are limited to daylight hours since Day is clearly defined as a time off light rather than a time of darkness.
Was there really an evening and a morning as we know them? No, of course not; the Sun wasn't in existence yet. I think evening and morning, in respect to creation week, are only meant to convey that God works only in light as opposed to working in the dark. When someone works in the light; they have nothing to hide. (cf. John 3:19-21)
So: how long was the first day of creation? was it twelve hours, a thousand hours, a million hours, a billion hours?
Students of earth sciences are well aware it's not all that difficult to prove that the Earth as we know it is at least 4.5 Billion years old and that homo sapiens has existed on it for only a relatively teensy percentage of those years. But how do we reconcile the Bible with that knowledge?
One way that seems to work pretty well for some people is the thousand-year theory.
†. 2Pet 3:8 . . But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
But that theory won't work because it would mean that the earth as-completed on the sixth day was only 6,000 years old; which is nowhere close to harmonizing with the earth's geological age.
Another is the gap theory; which inserts an arbitrary number of years in between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2, suggesting that the original cosmos underwent a colossal cataclysm at some time in the distant past requiring God to rebuild it from the rubble; which He accomplished in six days of 24 hours each. But that won't work either because it puts dinosaurs together with homo sapiens.
An interesting modification of the gap theory is one that inserts arbitrary amounts of time not only between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2, but also in between each of the six days. That theory is plausible since the Bible doesn't really say that creation's six days run consecutively with no delay between them; but that theory puts dinosaurs together with homo sapiens.
A fourth theory, one that satisfies my scientific curiosity, is the epoch theory; which suggests that the lengths of creation's days are actually indeterminable. This is not without precedent. For example Gen 2:4 labels the whole of creation week itself as just one day.
Ironically, modern man has a much better understanding of the "week" of creation than the author himself who penned Genesis. He was aware that God created the cosmos and the earth, but didn't really know very much about how God went about it. We today do.
Some Bible students regard science an enemy of the Bible; but that is not only a very isolationist attitude but self-defeating as well. Science and religion are not enemies; no, to the contrary, science itself reinforces religion. Galileo believed that science and religion are allies rather than enemies— two different languages telling the same story. In other words; science and religion are not at odds; no, in reality, science is just simply too young to understand; but it's rapidly catching up.
If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend watching History Channel's two-season series titled: How The Earth Was Made. The earth's geological past, and its present, are just astounding. The series takes some liberties here and there— especially in its theories about the origin of the blue planet's huge volume of water —but by and large, it's very informative; and quite useful to students of Genesis.
Continued > >
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|6 years ago :: Sep 16, 2011 - 8:53AM #8
†. Gen 1:6a . . God said: Let there be an expanse
The word for "expanse" is from raqiya' (raw-kee'-ah) and means: a great extent of something spread out, a firmament, the visible arch of the sky.
The expanse here in Gen 1:6 is doubtless included in the "heavens" of Gen 1:1 where the sky is labeled shamayim (shaw-mah'-yim). Raqiya' is distinct from shamyim in that it indicates the location of the earth's atmosphere; which is sort of sandwiched between the earth's surface and the vacuum of space.
†. Gen 1:6b-8 . . in the midst of the water, that it may separate water from water. God made the expanse, and it separated the water which was below the expanse from the water which was above the expanse. And it was so. And God named the expanse Sky.
We can easily guess what is meant by water that's below the sky. But is there really water that's above it? Yes, and it's a lot! Earth's atmosphere alone holds roughly 2,900 cubic miles of water in the form of vapor.
Suppose you had a tank one mile wide, and one mile high. What length would it have to be to contain 2,900 cubic miles of water. Answer: 2,900 miles; and the tank would stretch from San Diego California to the Brooks Range in Alaska.
Now supposing we again make the tank one mile wide, but this time only as tall as the Eiffel Tower. How far would a tank of those dimensions containing 2,900 cubic miles of water go? Answer: the Eiffel Tower is 984 feet tall; which is .1863636 miles. So a tank 1 mile wide, and .1863636 miles tall, whose volume is 2,900 cubic miles, would be 15,561 miles long.
If that tank was poked into the Earth, it would go all the way through the planet, out the other side, and keep going for another 7,634 miles into space; which is roughly 31 times further out than a Space Shuttle orbit. Laid South to North, the tank would circle the globe from Antarctica past Bangladesh to the North Pole and keep going over the pole southwards for yet another 3,151 miles to Minneapolis Minnesota.
The number of gallons of water in a single cubic mile is 1,100,956,999,000 gallons. That's over 1.1 trillion gallons of water. Multiply those gallons by 2,900 to obtain the number of gallons in the form of vapor dissolved at any given time in Earth's atmosphere; and you get 3.2 quadrillion— which is fourteen zeroes after the 2; and looks like this:
A quadrillion is a thousand trillions. The US national debt hasn't topped a hundred trillion yet, and still a good ways off from a quadrillion. God help us if it ever gets to a quad. By then, we'll all be working side by side with the child labor in Chinese factories.
Global warming isn't as unnatural as some folks would have us to believe; but rather, it's an essential element in our environment. Global warming is the result of two sunlight catchers: gases and water vapor. Some of the more familiar global warming gases are carbon dioxide, fluorocarbons, methane, and ozone. But as popular as those gases are with the media, they're bit players in comparison to the role that ordinary water vapor plays in global warming. By some estimates; atmospheric water vapor accounts for more than 90% of global warming; which is not a bad thing because without atmospheric water vapor, the earth would be so cold that life as we know it could not exist here.
†. Gen 1:8b . . And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.
†. Gen 1:9 . . God said : Let the waters below the sky be gathered into one area, that dry ground may appear. And it was so.
If you're a student of geology, then you know Gen 1:9 speaks volumes and fully deserves some serious consideration. Shaping the earth's mantle in order to form low spots for the seas and high spots for dry ground was a colossal feat of magma convection and volcanism combined with the titanic forces of tectonic plate subduction; all of which require oodles and oodles of centuries to accomplish.
At the ocean's deepest surveyed point— the Challenger Deep; located in the Mariana Islands group, at the southern end of the Mariana Trench —the water's depth is over 11,000 meters; which is about 6.8 statute miles (36,000 feet). That depth corresponds to the cruising altitude of a Boeing 747. At that altitude, probably about all you're going to see of the airliner without straining your eyes is its contrail.
Note : were Mt Everest to be submerged in the Challenger Deep it would still have about 7,000 feet of water over its peak. The discovery of fossilized sea lilies at the summit of Mt Everest proves that the Himalayan land mass hasn't always been mountainous; but at one time was the floor of an ancient sea bed. This is confirmed by the "yellow band" below Everest's summit consisting of limestone: a type of rock made from calcite sediments containing the skeletal remains of countless trillions of organisms who lived, not on dry land, but in the ocean.
†. Ps 104:5-9 . . He established the Earth on its foundations, so that it shall never totter. You made the deep cover it as a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. They fled at your blast, rushed away at the sound of your thunder— mountains rising, valleys sinking to the place you established for them. You set bounds they must not pass so that they never again cover the Earth.
That Psalm is stunning; and clearly way ahead of its time. It says that the land masses we know today as mountains were at one time submerged; and it isn't talking about Noah's flood. The speech of "mountains rising, and valleys sinking" isn't Flood-speak, no, it's geology-speak. I seriously doubt that the Psalmist knew about the science of tectonic plates, magma pressure, and the forces of subduction, but he was clearly somehow aware that the Earth's surface is malleable. And that's true. With just the right combination of temperature and pressure, solid rock can be made to bend; even forced to hairpin back upon itself like taffy.
†. Gen 1:10 . . God called the dry ground Land, and the gathering of waters He called Seas. And God saw that this was good.
"good" meaning not that the dry ground and seas are perfectly moral, but rather, perfectly suitable for the purposes that God had in mind for them.
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|6 years ago :: Sep 17, 2011 - 8:52AM #9
†. Gen 1:11a . . And God said : Let the earth sprout vegetation
The elements God used to create plant life for the Earth, were drawn from the Earth, just as later He will manufacture Man out of the Earth too. So far, the Earth itself, plus everything destined to be a part of the Earth, has come out of the shapeless, liquid matrix of Gen 1:2.
Although God verbally commanded vegetation into existence, it didn't just pop into being without some prior planning. After all, how could God create a maple tree if He didn't have some concept of its biological structure, or even what it would look like?
The soil requirements of different species vary widely, and no generalizations can be made concerning an ideal soil for the growth of all plants; e.g. avocado trees; which thrive just fine in the relatively dry, sunny climate and alkaline soil of San Diego; do poorly in the acidic soil and much wetter, not-so-sunny climate of Oregon's Willamette valley. There are upwards of 30,000 different soils in the USA alone.
Along with the soil requirements of various species of vegetation is the time it takes nature to make the stuff— upwards of three hundred years to a millennium to make just one inch. In other words; it took an enormous number of years after the formation of dry land for the earth's crust to weather and break down on its own to make soil enough for plantings. But then, if there is one thing the Bible's God has plenty of; it's time, so it's not inconceivable that God let nature take its course to produce its own soils normally rather than miraculously; I mean, after all, we're not talking about 24-hour solar days in the creation story; but rather, we're dealing with epochs of indeterminable duration.
Some expositors feel that God created the earth an "aged" earth; that is: the geological age of the earth is artificial and the first soils were miraculous starter soils. Well, that's okay if it works for them, but I think it's far more interesting to suggest that God just let nature take its course and do the job it was designed to do.
†. Gen 1:11b-12 . . seed-bearing plants, fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it. And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation : seed-bearing plants of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that this was good.
All plants, both then and now, were created on the third day. Every plant since then, and all plants that will ever be, pre-existed in the cell structures, and in the DNA, of the original flora. This principle of living things holds true not just for vegetation, but for animal and human life too since God created nothing else after the sixth day; not even newborn babies.
God produced the origin of species, but from then on, the various species reproduced themselves with subsequent adaptations and mutations; which is okay except that the ability to adapt and mutate has made possible serious problems with organisms like Escherichia coli O157-H7.
That deadly little pathogen didn't exist in nature till the 20th century. It's the progeny of regular E-coli adapting itself to overcome the antibiotics used to control disease in large-scale, overcrowded, unsanitary feed lots where animals are rapidly fattened up on a brief diet of genetically modified corn prior to slaughtering them for food.
Although the creator made O157-H7 possible; I doubt if anybody would have any luck suing Him for product liability since it's homo sapiens' own greed and stupidity that forced E-coli O157-H7 into the food distribution system. Its mommy was just trying to give her lethal little offspring the tools necessary to survive. It's like chaos theorist Dr. Ian Malcolm said in Jurassic Park: "Life finds a way."
†. Prv 1:32 . . The prosperity of fools shall destroy them.
†. Gen 1:13 . . And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.
†. Gen 1:14a . . God said : Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky
On the fourth day, God spent time up in the higher reaches of the Sky. It might seem odd that He began work on the surface of the Earth, and then before finishing, stopped short and moved off into space. Why not finish building down here on the planet first?
Because many types of plants and animals need sunlight if they're to be strong and healthy. At this point in the creation, planet Earth was very dark and freezing cold. The dark side of the Moon gets down to like 279º below zero; so it was time to turn the Earth into a greenhouse.
Oxygen is a must gas for sustaining life on earth and a very large percentage of it is produced by photosynthesis which is a chemical process that works best in sunlight. No doubt God introduced a starter kit of oxygen into the atmosphere, but it would eventually wax stale without some sort of filtration system and a method for replenishing breathable oxygen. Plant life plays a major role in both filtration and replenishment; hence the need to get the Sun shining as soon as possible.
The atmosphere contains about 19.5 to 23.5 percent oxygen at any given time and even with all the fossil fuel burned around the world, the destruction of savannas, prairies, woodlands, wetlands, and rain forests, coupled with volcanic activity, the percentage remain fairly stable.
The lights created in verse 14 are luminous objects; and one of them; the Moon, doesn't generate its own light. It reflects light from the Sun. But for practical purposes, both of them shed light upon the Earth just as God intended for them to do.
†. Gen 1:14b . . to distinguish Day from Night;
On the first day; God defined Day as a condition of light; and Night as a condition of darkness. Here, it's further defined that Day on earth is when the sun is up; and Night on earth is when the sun is down. These definitions occur so early in the Bible that they easily escape the memories of Bible students as they slip into the reflexive habit of always thinking of Days as periods of one earth rotation of 24 hours. That's okay for civil time keeping; but can lead to misunderstandings when interpreting biblical schedules, predictions, and/or chronologies.
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|6 years ago :: Sep 18, 2011 - 9:26AM #10
†. Gen 1:14c . . they shall serve as signs for the set times— the days and the years;
The word for "signs" is from 'owth (oth) and means: a signal; e.g. a flag, beacon, monument, omen, prodigy, evidence, etc.
The Sun and the Moon are very useful time keepers. The period of time between full moons, roughly 29.5 earth-rotations, is handy for dividing the year into major divisions. Though the moon doesn't divide the year into equal months, it is nevertheless close enough for practical purposes. If you were to tell somebody your intention to visit them in five moons, they would have a pretty good idea when to get ready for your arrival.
The Earth's orbit is handy too because it makes the Sun appear to move along a vast circular path in space called the Ecliptic. The Sun's location along the Ecliptic, relative to the stars, at any given time, is always against the backdrop of one of the signs of the Zodiac. So a person familiar with those signs, can, without even looking at a calendar, come pretty close to telling you the month of the year. That may seem superfluous to us modern city slickers, but if you were a farmer or a rancher living in ancient times, or even today living in a third world country, that information might come in very handy. When the Sun gets back to the same place in the Zodiac, everyone is older by one solar year, depending on their sign.
†. Gen 1:15-18a . . and they shall serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth. And it was so. God made the two great lights, the greater light to dominate the day and the lesser light to dominate the night, and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth, to dominate the Day and the Night, and to distinguish light from darkness.
Stars illuminate the Earth too. They may appear too dim for that purpose, but that's because our unaided human eyes are not all that sensitive. If you have never looked at the universe through a pair of binoculars on a pitch black night, by all means try it sometime. You will be amazed at its brilliance! Some animals' eyes are more sensitive to light than the human eye so starlight is perfectly adequate for their nocturnal way of life.
George Ellery Hale, the man who concerted construction of the Palomar telescope, was dismayed at all the starlight going to waste in our world. That's why he was so obsessed with building instruments with huge mirrors to collect and focus starlight from a surface area much larger than his own eye.
The pupil diameter of the average human eye in the dark is roughly 7 millimeters; yielding a surface area of about 38 square mm. Palomar's 200 inch mirror yields a surface area of approximately 20,268,299 square mm. That is a significant gain in light collection; a ratio of about 2,895,471 to 1.
Every square inch of your neighborhood is bathed in starlight on a clear night. If you could see all of it falling around your house, you might have to squint or wear dark glasses when you went out at night.
Scientists have attempted to estimate the age of the universe by calculating the number of light-years between Earth and distant objects. For example: this past decade, Hubble telescope detected a galaxy at a distance of 12.8 billion light years and named it A1689-zD1. Is the cosmos therefore 12.8 billion years old? Maybe not; read on.
Chronologically; the Bible's God began constructing the Earth before He began creating the stars; which means that, biblically, the Earth is older than the sun, moon, and stars. But geologists have pretty good reasons to believe the Earth to be only something like 4.5 billion years old; while A1689-zD1 appears to be a minimum 12.8 billion years old; indicating that A1689-zD1 is the Earth's senior by at least 8.3 billion years; but there's a rub.
Astrophysicists have ways to analyze the light from celestial objects in order to calculate their distance, but to my knowledge they have yet to discover a way to analyze light's age. It's reasonable to assume the age of the light visible on Earth from A1689-zD1 is 12.8 billion years old; but is it really?
A theory that satisfies me is that stars, regardless of their distance, became visible on Earth the instant God created them— no delay, and no waiting period. He just punched their light right on through because it was His intent in Gen 1:15 for the cosmos' first stars to shine upon the Earth, and they did so on day four.
A very interesting aspect of starlight is that the universe is expanding in all directions. In other words: every galaxy in the cosmos is moving away from every other galaxy. And not only is it expanding; but the velocity of its expansion is not slowing down; but rather, contrary to expectations, the velocity of the cosmos' expansion is accelerating; which means that the stars God created on the fourth day are quite a bit farther away now than when God made them. How much farther away I don't know; but it's my guess the difference is significant. But that increasing velocity has to result in a stretching of the light emanating from distant objects much like the Doppler effect of sound waves reaching your ears from a receding source of noise like cars, trucks, and airplanes. Wouldn't that work an effect upon red shift and subsequently an erroneous estimation of an object's distance? I don't know, maybe astrophysicists have figured out a way to compensate.
But what's the point of putting all those objects out there in deep space? Well, for one thing, they're not only brain teasers; but they're actually quite pretty. They decorate the night like the ornaments people put up during holidays. The night sky would sure be a bore if it was totally black. But decorated with stars; the night sky is like a beautiful tapestry, or a celestial Sistine Chapel. It makes better sense that way than to try and find some other meaning for it.
†. Ps 19:2 . .The heavens declare the glory of God, the sky proclaims His handiwork.
The universe is simply a magnificent work of art— just as intriguing, if not more so, than the works of Picasso, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Monet, Vermeer, and da Vinci — testifying to the genius of an engineer-artist without peer. It was never meant to be a home for Mr. ET. Sadly, many intelligent people like Carl Segan look to the sky for the wrong reasons. Personally, I think it's futile to look to the sky for SETI reasons. Why not just look to the sky for inspiration instead of intelligent extraterrestrial life? What's so bad about visiting the sky as a Metropolitan Museum of your maker's many-faceted talents?
†. Rom 1:19-22 . . For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what He has made. As a result, they have no excuse; for although they knew God they did not accord Him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead, they became futile in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened. While claiming to be wise, they became fools
Which would you rather be: a fool, or an idiot? Well, I'd prefer being the idiot: at least he has an excuse for being stupid.
†. Gen 1:18b-19 . . And God saw that this was good. And there was evening and there was morning: a fourth day.
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Vine Street also offers betteropportunities for future expansion, officials said.
On the lower, relatively flat portions of the line, the streetcars will cover aroute that resembles an elongated, twisted figure eight through Over-the-Rhineand Downtown. The streetcars will travel primarily along Main and Walnutstreets from Downtown's riverfront through the Central Business District, thenmove several blocks to the west to run up and down Race and Elm streets in Over-the-Rhine before proceeding into Uptown on Vine.
Cincinnati has secured roughly 90% of the projected $128 million construction cost. It has applied for another $35 million federal grant to cover the remainder. Preliminary construction on the streetcar line is expected to start before year'send, with service scheduled to begin in spring 2013.

subset: commoncrawl


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Visit the museum every First Sunday of the month! Local aviation history comes alive on First Sundays. Our Chain of Hangars is open for you to explore from 9:00am until 2:00pm. (Except when cancelled for rain.) And it's all free!
Arriving by car from the east, exit the Santa Paula Freeway (SR 126) at 10th street, turn right off the ramp, and then a quick left onto Harvard Boulevard. Turn left at the next signal at Eighth Street, under the freeway, left onto Santa Maria Street and park in the lot. Arriving from the west, exit the freeway at Palm Avenue, turn right and then a quick left onto Santa Maria Street, about a half mile to the end at the parking lot.
Now you can pick up a free map from our home museum hangar, and start your tour. You are free to visit the hangars in any order you wish, either by walking the airport, or catching the tram.


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New Advocate column focuses on senior health
April 5, 2013 at 11:05 a.m.
Updated April 4, 2013 at 11:05 p.m.
When you have your health, you have everything.
This common expression is the basis for a new column in Saturday's Advocate. Medical social worker Katie Sciba writes about why staying fit matters even more as we age and offers advice about how to do that.
Sciba works for AARN Health Services, a family-owned home health care agency in Victoria. She also blogs and has a book contract with Smyth & Helwys Publishing.


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Waubun man faces charges after three people struck in DL Walmart parking lot Saturday
A Waubun man is facing criminal vehicular operation and driving after cancellation charges after running over three pedestrians in the Walmart parking lot Saturday afternoon.
According to Detroit Lakes Police, Charles Irwin Hanson, 81, was waiting for a parking spot to open when he hit three pedestrians who were all transported to Essentia Health St. Mary's with incapacitating but non-life threatening injuries.
The accident that was reported around 2:20 p.m. began with Hanson backing into a southbound vehicle, driven by Christine Marie Runquist, 48, of Deer Wood, before accelerating southbound toward the store's entrance.
Hanson "almost hit the Walmart store while turning northbound," according to the accident report.
Pedestrian Jeri Leigh Fjelstad, 54, of Waubun, was thrown between two vehicles when she was run over by Hanson, authorities said.
The other two pedestrians who were injured were identified as Caroline Kay Gerving, 65, of Erskine, Minn. and Linda Marie Emerson, 64, of Coon Rapids, Minn.
Hanson told police his accelerator became stuck and he was unable to stop.
Hanson was arrested pending charges of criminal vehicular operation and driving after cancellation.
"His driving record reflects a number of administrative actions dating back to 2002, where he was required to submit to re-examination by physicians, eye doctors and the department of vehicle services' examiners," Police Chief Kel Keena said.
Hanson has also had prior arrests for driving without a license, where it was suspended, canceled or withdrawn, Keena added.
The injured pedestrians were all transported by ambulance to Essentia Health St. Mary's. Hospital personnel said Monday that Fjelstad and Emerson are listed in stable condition, while Gerving was treated and released.


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Russia national team coach Fabio Capello has named a strong team to face the U.S. on Nov. 14 in Krasnodar, including every player featured in last month's World Cup qualifying victories over Portugal and Azerbaijan.
All but one of the 26 players named Tuesday is based in Russia, with seven playing for reigning Russian champion Zenit St. Petersburg. Among them is captain Igor Denisov and forward Alexander Kerzhakov, the 29-year-old forward who has 22 goals in 68 international appearances.
"We expect a very interesting game there against a side that is probably one of the top five or six teams right now in Europe, doing very well," U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann said last week.
Because of the game's location and timing (during the MLS Cup playoffs), the U.S. roster is expected to be comprised almost entirely of players based in Europe. Klinsmann will unveil his team following this weekend's MLS games.
The U.S. is 0-2-2 against Russia, with the most recent meeting taking place in 2000, and 1-6-3 all-time against the Soviet Union/CIS/Russia. Capello, who coached England during the 2010 World Cup, is 4-0-1 with Russia since taking over in July.
Here is Russia's team for Nov. 14 exhibition in Krasnodar, which will kick off at 10 a.m. ET and be televised on ESPN2.
Goalkeepers: Igor Akinfeev (CSKA Moscow), Alexander Belenov (Kuban Krasnodar) and Vladimir Gabulov (Anzhi Makhachkala).
Defenders: Alexander Anyukov (Zenit St. Petersburg), Alexei Berezutsky (CSKA Moscow), Vasily Berezutsky (CSKA Moscow), Vladimir Granat (Dynamo Moscow), Sergei Ignashevich (CSKA Moscow), Renat Yanbayev (Zenit St. Petersburg) and Andrei Yeshchenko (Lokomotiv Moscow).
Midfielders: Diniyar Bilyaletdinov (Spartak Moscow), Vladimir Bystrov (Zenit St. Petersburg), Denis Cheryshev (Real Madrid), Igor Denisov (Zenit St. Petersburg), Alan Dzagoev (CSKA Moscow), Viktor Faizulin (Zenit St. Petersburg), Denis Glushakov (Lokomotiv Moscow), Dmitry Kombarov (Spartak Moscow), Magomed Ozdoyev (Lokomotiv Moscow), Alexander Samedov (Lokomotiv Moscow) and Roman Shirokov (Zenit St. Petersburg).
Forwards: Artem Dzyuba (Spartak Moscow), Maxim Grigoriev (Lokmotiv Moscow), Alexander Kerzhakov (Zenit St. Petersburg), Alexander Kokorin (Dynamo Moscow) and Fyodor Smolov (Anzhi Makhachkala).


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When you suddenly find yourself the star of the most-watched reality television show on cable, what next? It's time for a big splurge, of course, which is exactly what the ladies of "Duck Dynasty" have in mind.
Of course, in true Robertson fashion, Jep's wife Jessica and Jase's wife Missy are keeping their big purchases practical.
"I'm fixin' to buy a vehicle because mine has broken down on me all year long," Jessica told Yahoo! TV at the A+E Networks upfront presentation on Wednesday. "So I'm going to just bite the bullet and get a vehicle."
Her said vehicle of choice? "A Ford F-150 XLT," she confessed. "I like the burgundy color." The sticker price for the 2013 model currently starts at $29,345 MSRP.
[Related: How the 'Duck Dynasty' Couples Met]
Missy, on the other hand, is going a little bigger. Like, a whole kitchen bigger.
"We're in the middle of remodeling and I'm getting the kitchen of my dreams," she said. "I'm getting a six-burner with a griddle range."
Unfortunately, having the perfect kitchen doesn't make her the perfect chef.
"I've gotta learn to cook like Ms. Kay," she admitted. "Even though I've been in the family for 22 years, I don't think I'll ever learn to cook like her. But I'm going to give it an honest try."
When asked about the experience of going from the bayous of Louisiana to a red carpet event in New York City, they both described the feeling as "surreal." But their newfound notoriety isn't yet getting them all the perks of fame. They haven't received any calls from posh clothing designers begging to dress them, for instance.
"We're waiting on that, by the way," Jessica said with a wink.
See the "Duck Dynasty" crew join the rest of the stars of A+E Networks on the red carpet:


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Have just purchased Acronis True Image 10 Home to use on my XP pc, along with ZAPro 7.0.337.000 and KAV 18.104.22.168. I have never used a backup or imaging software before, and would like some help.
Does any know of any possible problems I may encounter between ZAPro 7.0.337.000, KAV 126.96.36.199 and Acronis True Image 10 - and how I can get round them ?
I would appreciate any help/instructions anyone can give me, as I am new to backup/imaging programs.
I have not found much about this topic on this forum previously.
Thanks in advance.
Operating System:Windows XP Pro
Software Version:7.0
Product Name:ZoneAlarm Pro


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FreakScore is a weighted average of all aggregated professional and user review scores. Read more
This product has a FreakScore of 5.1* out of 10 based on 2 scores.
*Score is uncertain and deviates toward category average due to low number of scores.
The ViewSonic® VPC190 All-in-One PC features a ergonomic monitor Read more


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He says the reason we are against social spending is to make people more desperate; in fact, I am against *federal* social spending because it is *unconstitutional*...
I think that the federal gov't stuffs a lot of what it does into the commerce clause... and most of it would (or should, IMHO) be found to be unconstitutional *if*tested*.
I do wonder tho, how this is *different* from other kinds of spending that are shoved down our throats via the commerce clause?
I think the bigger issue (at least for


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Tigers focus on Putz at Meetings
Closer action in Vegas could lead to trade with Mariners
By Jason Beck / MLB.com
While the Tigers are going back over the possibilities in a buyer-friendly closer market, a trade for Putz remains their primary option. The two sides had discussions Tuesday, but have yet to find a match.
"Busy," Dombrowski said, without specifically mentioning the Mariners. "We had a lot of conversations with a lot of clubs and agents."
Their conversations with Seattle, however, were the highlight of the day as the Tigers tried to continue filling items on their Winter Meetings to-do list at a brisk pace.
A native of Trenton, Mich., downriver from Detroit, Putz could be the short-term answer for the Tigers at closer while giving the onetime 40-save stopper the chance at a rebound season. Putz converted 15 saves in 23 chances over an injury-plagued 2008 season that saw him limited to 47 games, his lowest appearance total since he broke into the big leagues full-time in 2004.
Putz is under contract for next year at a salary of $5.5 million, with either a $9.1 million club option for 2010 or a $1 million buyout.
With the Mariners in search of left-handed power hitting to make up for the expected loss of free-agent outfielder Raul Ibanez, the crux of the dealings is believed to involve young Tigers sluggers Jeff Larish and Matt Joyce. Both left-handed hitters saw time with Detroit this past season, and both have a strong chance to play a role on the big club next year, though neither would likely be in starting lineup every day.
Larish is the more versatile player in the field, having spent extensive time at third base in the Arizona Fall League in addition to his role this past season at first. He could also potentially play the corner-outfield spots, though the Tigers haven't tried him there.
"Yeah, absolutely," manager Jim Leyland said Tuesday when asked if he felt Larish could be an outfielder. "That's one thing I like about him is his versatility."
That may be key for the Mariners, who need a first baseman but could also pursue deals involving their other position players. Seattle has been rumored in trade talks that would send Adrian Beltre somewhere else, such as Minnesota, but it's far from certain whether Larish could be an everyday third baseman. But then, Joyce could slot the left-field void left by Ibanez's departure.
In other words, the Mariners could use both Larish and Joyce.
"There have been a few that have been very intriguing," Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik told reporters in regards to player names that have come up in trade discussions so far.
The Tigers could deal one and still have one left on the bench as a left-handed power bat amid a predominantly right-handed lineup. Take away both Larish and Joyce, and the Tigers don't have a replacement left-handed bat in the system ready to step in.
"We've been minus left-handed hitters," Leyland said. "I think what we're talking about is to just get some sense of a little more balance than what we had."
For now, that leaves trade talks out of balance.
"It goes to the overall picture of if you think you can improve your ballclub, short-term and long-term," Zduriencik said. "But there have been some points of the discussions that haven't allowed them to go forward, beyond just the fact that we've had discussions."
As for Larish and Joyce, Leyland said, "We're very high on those guys. Exactly how that will play out, I don't know. I think they've both got a loud sound to their bat. We're very high on them, extremely high. You would have to certainly say that they're in the mix, for sure."
They would prefer them to be in their mix. But as Dombrowski pointed out about trading and holding onto young players, "Right now, we're trying to win. That's just where we are."
"There's some guys in our organization that I really prefer to not trade, and I don't think we're going to trade," Dombrowski said. "We've traded a lot of guys, but you also have to weigh who you're getting in return, how much you're really giving up, what kind of depth you have in your system, all those different things."
This particular move is a weighty one, since the Tigers don't have that depth. And while the signings of Rodriguez and Wood take two names off the market, they also removed two clubs from discussions with the Mariners. At this point, the market for Putz appears to center on the Tigers, with the Brewers and Cardinals also having inquired.
The Brewers, who need a closer, are an intriguing option, since it is where Zduriencik served in various roles in player development. He knows their system inside and out. Milwaukee general manager Doug Melvin, however, reportedly told local media that he didn't see a fit with Seattle in any trade talks.
Detroit, meanwhile, has kept in touch with the free-agent closer market. The Tigers' interest this offseason is known to have included career saves leader Trevor Hoffman, Brandon Lyon and David Weathers, but Dombrowski cautioned, "All the names are not out there that we've expressed interest in."
That seemed to be an indication that the Tigers have at least some interest in former Rockies closer Brian Fuentes, which Foxsports.com reported later Tuesday night.
"We could do a lot of different things," Dombrowski said. "We're exploring a lot of different options. My list is long in my pocket, and we'll keep pursuing it."
Dombrowski confirmed that the Tigers "did inquire a little bit" about Wood.
For now, the relief market is dominating the talk for the Tigers, who pretty much wrapped up their other big concerns when they traded for catcher Gerald Laird and agreed to terms on a deal with shortstop Adam Everett. Their only other point of discussion Tuesday, Dombrowski said, was at backup catcher.
When Dombrowski was asked whether he felt a deal was close, he said he didn't know. When asked if he anticipated getting a closer before leaving the Winter Meetings on Thursday, he said no.
"Could it happen? Maybe," Dombrowski said.
Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.


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This is a queen size top I just finished. It is from Keepsake by DarleneZimmerman. I like the way it covers my entire bed, more like a bedspread than a quilt. It still needs to be quilted, hope to get than done before labor day.
Right now life is getting in the way. Hope the pic comes through OK, it's been a long time since I posted. Thanks for looking.


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Either way, that little instance of hyperbolic déjà vu is a minor point for such a major release as Premiere Pro 2.0, and while the format support it celebrates is an important feature (all the more so because Premiere, unlike Final Cut, enables you to work with all those formats in the same timeline), it's not even the most interesting aspect of Adobe's new release, nor is Premiere Pro 2.0 the only major product rev that Adobe is unleashing today. They've also got 2.0 versions of Encore DVD and Audition, the long-awaited After Effects 7.0, and a spruced-up product suite called the Adobe Production Studio that (in its Premium configuration) improves on the earlier Adobe Video Collection by incorporating the popular Adobe Illustrator CS2 vector tool. It also boasts heightened integration via the new Dynamic Link capability, which enables users to work with files in multiple applications without rendering, and make changes in a single application (like, say, a color change in Photoshop) that are applied to the project file everywhere it's accessed and edited. And as you might expect, another key new feature of the Production Studio—leveraging Adobe's earth-shaking 2005 acquisition--is integration with Macromedia Flash.
One of the heralded new features of Premiere Pro 2.0 is support for DVD authoring directly from the timeline. Adobe introduced this capability in Premiere Elements 2.0. As in Elements, it doesn't give you tremendous flexibility, and doesn't appear to be as advanced as the implementation in Avid Liquid 7, which incoporated this feature several revs ago. Premiere Pro 2.0 also promises native HDV editing, without creating massive CineForm files as in previous implementations, which is a significant technological feat since MPEG-2 transport streams are essentially groups of pictures (GOPs) consisting of one editable frame and a bunch of unviewable math, which must be laboriously process to make those frames into accessible edit points. It's also got a cool new multicam feature with support for up to four cameras and real-time preview. While Apple and Avid can handle significantly more cameras—allegedly up to 99—Premiere's advantage (over Final Cut, anyway) is support for multiple formats in a timeline, so if you have HDV from one camera feed and DV from the others, there's no issue with mixing formats or editing the video natively. Other formats supported by Premiere 2.0 include HDCAM, D5HD, and Windows Media (no DVCPro yet). You can also mix 24p and 60i in the same sequence, according to Adobe.
Premiere Pro 2.0 also boasts multiple nestable timelines, Flash export, and support for high-resolution images up to 4096x4096. Another intriguing issue is the "Feet+Frames" timecode options. This allows editors working with material sourced from film to use a time reference system better suited to their acquisition medium by displaying time code information in terms of feet rather than frames.
Adobe has also used this release to introduce an ingenious new utility called Clip Notes. Designed to enable the same sort of handy project review and annotation in Premiere Pro files that you get in PDF files, Clip Notes allows clients to place notes in a project at the exact frame where there comment applies (say, to adjust the color or re-frame a particular shot). The comments are saved in a compact metadata file that the editor can then open and find all the Clip Notes flagged in the timeline precisely where the frame in question is found. The most obvious appeal here is to corporate videographers for whom client review is a regular part of the process; similarly, event shooters who may work with editors in remote locations can use Clip Notes for much more efficient exchanges on particular in-progress edits.
Another feature included with Premiere Pro 2.0 is the Adobe Bridge file management tool we first saw with Photoshop CS 2, which provides organization and quick access to media and project files in multiple formats. The new version also includes three-way manual color correction and a Fast Color Corrector feature that makes it easier to adjust hue and saturation in multiple clips at once.
While there are far too many new features among the many applications found in the Adobe Production Studio (After Effects in particular) to do justice to them here, what's interesting is the re-constitution of the bundle from the previous Video Collection, which was arguably the standard-setter for multi-application postproduction bundles. Adobe still appears to lead the pack in the degree of integration offered; they've extended that here via Dynamic Link, which enables users to work with project files from multiple Adobe applications in other apps with the sort of fluidity that was only available to Photoshop project files in the previous version. The key here is that you need neither render nor import to work with files in different applications in the Studio set.
The Premium version of Adobe Production Studio, which retails for $1,699, includes full versions of After Effects 7.0 Professional, Premiere Pro 2.0, Photoshop CS2, Audition 2.0, Encore DVD 2.0, Illustrator CS2, Dynamic Link, and Bridge.
Adobe Production Studio Standard, which lists for $1,199, includes full versions of After Effects 7.0 Standard, Premiere Pro 2.0, Photoshop CS2, Dynamic Link, and Bridge.
On January 17, to coincide with the product's release, Adobe will begin a five-city tour to present the new Production Studio and train users in specific applications. Coordinated by the 4EVER Group, the tour will include stops in Philadelphia (January 17), Orange, California (January 18), Chicago and Dallas (January 24), and Atlanta (February 1). For more information, click here.


text:
created memory in Jade Goody
05-06-1981 22-03-2009
Jade Goody
Jade Goody
05-06-1981 22-03-2009
Jade has left us. Jade died in her sleep on Mother's Day at the age of 27. We will miss this brave soul.
Jade has left us. Jade died in her sleep on Mother's Day at the age of 27. We will miss this brave soul.
a big inspiration to alot of people & such a positive person with 2 gorgeous boys .you will always be missed,sending my thoughts xx
created memory in Jade Goody
i turned on my tv and you were on so vibrant and energised . i didn't know wat the program was about until the second apisode. Wow i watched you till the end and all the way thru it you were so posative, i even taped your wedding. R.i.p. Jane Goody, save me a place
created memory in Jade Goody
I somehow stumbled across your name and story, not even knowing who you were.. But I was drawn in, any way. I've been reading a lot abt. you. Not only were you very beautiful BUT interesting, as well.
I hope you are at full peace in heaven, enjoying it's pleasures YET still able to keep your eye on your sons here on earth.. God bless you, Jade. oxo
rip jade .. you were so brave and a brilliant mum it must of been so hard for you ... a true person and sadly missed xxxx
inspration to everyone how she coped so well knowing she was leaving this earth without her 2 boys. fantastic and natural lady and loved by so many. rest in peace xxxxxxxxxx
created memory in Jade Goody
You were amazing set a propper roal moddel out to adults
GREAT sense of humour my favourite in big brother!
You should have taken ur smeering though that was what caused all of this tragedy and i cant believe ur gone x
miss you x have a nice time up there :)
love u lots
created memory in Jade Goody
in life someone touches you and are jade is and alway will her smile ,brave laughing eyes her voice brings a smile no word could match you jade you are one of gods special people a real mum daughter and grandauther love you alway s a special angel sent for a reason you made it hun through even you had lot of pain take care princess jade xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
created memory in Jade Goody
When watching ultimate BB final on Friday there was defo one person missing, Jade. She would have won the title hands down I cried buckets when they run the VT on Jade. Your kids and Mum must have been bursting with pride.
RIP JADE xx
i was diagnosed with cervical cancer January 20th 2010. I beat it! and me and the girls keep fighting to get the screening age lowered.
we will do it, i promise. i hope your having sweet dreams xxxx
i no its hard for her mom n sons and husband n fam she was my insperation i havehad a hard upbringing and i have been on my own and had to bring my sisster up on my own she was my hope that one day i will follow her footsteps she was loud bubbly and happy she had her momments but doesnt every one big brother should never of sent her in a second time or sent her to india that sent her over i no ther are lots of peaple wrighting things but we remember jade as she was she said what she thought and dint take CRAP of no one thats y i liked her xx ripp jade
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text:
Follow-up to LG Optimus G planned for Q3 2013
20 Comments
1. ajac09 (Posts: 1482; Member since: 30 Sep 2009)
come on I want a 6.3 phone with a tegra 4 or a qualcom 800..
8. TROLL (banned) (Posts: 4851; Member since: 13 Apr 2012)
Or a Exynos5450 at 2.9GHZ™®©
11. xperiaDROID (banned) (Posts: 5629; Member since: 08 Mar 2013)
2.9GHz is not enough!
How about 3.1GHz, Qualcomm Snapdragon 1000, octa-core processor with Android 5.1.1 Key Lime Pie and 5000mAH battery. And LG somehow can make the phone with an ultra slim body in just 6.00mm and 101g lightweight!
Oh wait! This is a concept! Nooooooooooooooo! xD
17. cezarepc (Posts: 718; Member since: 23 Nov 2012)
No need for exaggerations, I'd be happy with the ff:
-4.7" to 5" 1080p screen (AMOLED/LCD doesn't matter)
-greater than or equal to 3000mah battery (removable)
-(28nm or better) quad-core soc, 2GB ram (A7,A9, A15), having a low-power core is a plus
-memory card slot
-8mp bsi sensor (or better), with stills and video recording having the same aspect ratio when used simultaneously.
-plastic body (preferably matte) for easy and cheap replacement
There. GS4 is the closest to these. But if LG can top this off with an A15 that would be gu-reat.
19. xperiaDROID (banned) (Posts: 5629; Member since: 08 Mar 2013)
I agree! But how about make the camera to 20MP, that would definitely wow a lot of peoples, and LG can compete with Sony! :)
20. cezarepc (Posts: 718; Member since: 23 Nov 2012)
Like I said, no need to exaggerate. Existing components can make my list happen man.
2. BadAssAbe (Posts: 475; Member since: 22 Apr 2011)
I love the LG Optimus G, too bad the phone didn't really sell big even though it got really high rating.
Only negative thing said about it was LG Software updates
3. wumberpeb (Posts: 453; Member since: 14 Mar 2011)
Took 3 months for Jellybean, what's wrong with that?
4. TheLolGuy (Posts: 483; Member since: 05 Mar 2013)
Yeah people can't keep bringing up software updates forever... you guys are like a broken record.
12. imkyle (Posts: 1087; Member since: 18 Nov 2010)
Given their old track record, 3 months like wum said is pretty damn good and fast.
14. puckhead (Posts: 81; Member since: 13 Jan 2013)
I have it, I bought it on launch day. AND it just got the JB update the other day for AT&T so I am pretty happy with it. Its a great phone especially now with JB
5. xperiaDROID (banned) (Posts: 5629; Member since: 08 Mar 2013)
Good luck LG! :)
6. Note2waitingonNote3 (banned) (Posts: 87; Member since: 19 Mar 2013)
Nothing will really matter. Come September and October the Galaxy Note 3 will reign supreme till July 2014. No Motorola Xphone or Nexus 5 or silly iphone 5s/6 or the new Lg Optimus G will never compare.
10. yyuu1000 (Posts: 244; Member since: 26 Jul 2012)
You know what the nexus 5 will be like? Wow you are a legend, sike
15. puckhead (Posts: 81; Member since: 13 Jan 2013)
you just wrote " NO .... wil never compare" thats 2 negatives, that means they will compare...
which btw the alot of ppl dont want a phone with an amoled display
16. asingha94 (Posts: 295; Member since: 08 Apr 2012)
Or samsung would not exist!!
7. OpTiMuS_BlAcK (Posts: 418; Member since: 04 May 2012)
Nice, I expect another creative back panel~
9. TROLL (banned) (Posts: 4851; Member since: 13 Apr 2012)
Really nice and sexy stylish modern looking phone this is™®
13. Taters (banned) (Posts: 6474; Member since: 28 Jan 2013)
Hmm, can't decide if I should wait for this or not.
18. TheBitterTruth (unregistered)
LG should change thier Optimus UI. It looks great but not professional like Sense, Touchwiz and Xperia.


text:
Read the full story here Web Link posted Wednesday, July 18, 2012, 7:41 AM
Town Square
Pleasanton schedules meeting tonight on Touriga, Palomino drives traffic concerns
Original post made on Jul 18, 2012
Read the full story here Web Link posted Wednesday, July 18, 2012, 7:41 AM
Comments (21)
a resident of Pleasanton Valley
on Jul 18, 2012 at 8:29 am
We live across the street from WG Elementary and down the street from the Post Office -25 mph zone w/speed alert signs on the pole in front of the neighbors house. 2 questions: 1.)When PPD put a cop (1-2x per year)down a side street the average is 3 tickets in 20-25 mins. I though our new(ish) Police Chief was going to make speeding a priority and, 2.) I would have thought that areas/streets around schools, particularly when there is a thoroughfare, would be a great place to explore the idea of speed bumps to slow down traffic (if the sign is correct, drivers have been clocked as fast as 50 mph, 35-40 is fairly routine) If the City had $550K to remove round-abouts that were a challenge on Vineyard, surely they have the money to install speed bumps around town.
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Jul 18, 2012 at 10:45 am
Good idea. People have been driving way to fast along these streets.
a resident of Vintage Hills
on Jul 18, 2012 at 10:52 am
I'm a 53 year resident on Touriga Drive. We met with the City a few years ago about the speed issue and at that time we did NOT want speed humps. They are ugly, hard on vehicles, and might affect house value for the homes they are placed in front of. We were told they are also placed close together, not spaced out like we first thought before going to the meeting. I would love to hear from residents of Crellen who have to drive over those humps daily or live in front of one on if they would do it again?
We asked for more 25MPH signs (which we received)and the electronic speed awareness sign (we only received one, coming DOWN Touriga. It would have been nice to have one placed for traffic going UP the Touriga.
The speeding is NOT solely associated with traffic to the school. Speeders are racing up & down the street at all times and on weekends. As twice a day dog walkers, we have noticed MANY speeders turning left into the housing area just up from the Touriga/Palamino intersection.
In talking to some of my neighbors, we would like to see a stop sign placed on Touriga, either Touriga/Crellen or Touriga/Palamino. Touriga/Palamino would solve the problem of pedestrians crossing at that intersection and not being seen because of parked cars on Touriga at that corner and the curve of the road that prevents clear view for safe crossing. A BIG SAFETY CONCERN. We already had the City paint the corner red, but the curve is so great it didn't help much.
We also need a electronic speed awarenes sign that shows your speed going UP Touriga.
Hope to see my neighbors on July 26!
a resident of Vintage Hills
on Jul 18, 2012 at 10:52 am
I would encourage the Weekly when writing about speeding in residential areas, to remind drivers to monitor their own speeds. No one likes speeders on their street as it makes it more dangerous for residents and others walking, biking, jogging and other activities. This public safety idea costs the City of Pleasanton and the tax payers nothing.
a resident of Vintage Hills
on Jul 18, 2012 at 10:54 am
Oops, 53 year resident of Pleasanton, 35+ year resident of Touriga Drive!
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Jul 18, 2012 at 11:06 am
Removing the roundabouts was the biggest waste of money ever. I can't believe the city spent over half a million to appease "inconvenienced" residents. Roundabouts do work because they make you really slow down when necessary.
I wish there would be many more of them.
a resident of Amberwood/Wood Meadows
on Jul 18, 2012 at 11:50 am
Agree with Jim. Once the locals get use to roundabouts they are a lot better at moving traffic than 4 way stops. In Europe they would have horrendous traffic back-ups if they did not have roundabouts.
Question - why does Fremont still have school buses but not Pleasanton? Why can Fremont school administrators budget for this traffic mitigating convenience but Pleasanton administrators cannot find the money?
It is so bizzare to watch moms in giant SUVs drive their little child to school, one after another after another turning left from Valley onto Hopyard on the way to Donlon elementary. All the while you are thinking, isn't this why school buses were invented, duh!
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Jul 18, 2012 at 2:49 pm
I hope they don't add to the ugliness and stupidity of them by painting "HUMP AHEAD" all over the road like in Castro Valley.
I lived near the ones in CV for a time and they did not improve conditions. You could still go faster then the speed limit over them and then there were the people whom I think believed that the faster you go over them the less you feel them.
a resident of another community
on Jul 18, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Dear 'hump ahead',
My friends and neighbors use the term "undulatons ahead." Admittedly, however, there always exists the possibility that the little people won't know what that means. Usually gating off one's community is the better bet.
Mitt = Always looking to improve America's neighborhoods.
a resident of Vintage Hills
on Jul 18, 2012 at 3:36 pm
Vintage Hills school traffic would be reduced greatly if Ruby Hill provided a bus for its students instead of sending thousands of cars into the Vintage Hills neighborhood. Imagine the howls of protest if that many cars went through Ruby Hill twice a day. Speed bumps on Touriga and Palamino put the burden on Vintage Hills residents. But the bulk of the problem originates in Ruby Hill. If they can afford a gate, they can afford a bus, which also would save them a lot of trips.
a resident of Vintage Hills
on Jul 18, 2012 at 3:40 pm
Trust me folks, speed humps don't work! Just stand in my driveway for 5 minutes and you'll see what I'm talking about. They are ugly and ineffective. Drivers either drive straight down the middle of the street to try and line up their wheels in the openings or they just go over them at the usual 35 - 40 mph. Please don't add any more to the neighborhood; a total waste of money. What does work? More patrolling and handing out tickets, not warnings. Look what it did for Vineyard Ave, btw First and Bernal Sts. It slowed it down and became known as a speed trap.
a resident of Vineyard Hills
on Jul 18, 2012 at 4:54 pm
We live on Arbor Drive which connects with Touriga for access to the rest of Pleasanton. I have observed this problem and can empathize with those who live on Touriga and are endangered by the traffic. One simple solution might be to simply ban left turns from Vineyard Avenue onto Touriga during the school commute hours. The simplest route would then be to travel to Bernal, which is designed for that heavier traffic. A related issue is the routine violation of stop signs on side streets entering Touriga such as Crellin and Palamino. Let's put our heads together and see if we can solve this problem without adding those speed bumps that seem to merely label the neighborhood as less desirable without doing much to "calm" the traffic.
a resident of Downtown
on Jul 18, 2012 at 11:35 pm
To Rick: If PUSD had delivered on the Neal School, the people of Ruby Hill wouldn't have to drive to Vintage Hills at all...
a resident of Downtown
on Jul 19, 2012 at 9:30 am
Funny that when your neighborhood is affected by speeders you all want the police to come out and write tickets. However, when you speed in MY neighborhood, the police are just "harassing the taxpayers" by citing speeders.
a resident of Mohr Park
on Jul 19, 2012 at 9:47 am
If the residents decide on round-abouts, make sure they aren't like the idiotic one on Kamp Dr. at Rheem Dr. Coming south on Kamp it makes sense, but going north it is just a straight shot, and NO ONE knows what to do. Go for the use of stop signs, and pedestrian crosswalks with flashing lights (though I often notice people NOT stopping at the one on Santa Rita in front of Safeway and rarely do people stop at the one on Mohr and Iron Horse Pkwy).
a resident of Vintage Hills
on Jul 19, 2012 at 9:57 am
I have seen speed humps that are wide and fairly short in height. If you roll over them at 15 miles per hour, you hardly notice them. You go over 25 and the front and back of your car bottoms out. Pretty funny to watch. We could sit in lawn chairs and enjoy the show
a resident of Vintage Hills Elementary School
on Jul 19, 2012 at 6:49 pm
I think Lisa's suggestion of at least one extra Stop sign on Touriga is a good one. At Crellin or Palomino?
An extra Stop sign close to the intersection with Tawny might make it easier for children trying to cross there. I think a Stop sign would be safer than a pedestrian crossing, because drivers would then be in the habit of stopping, whether pedestrians were waiting to cross or not. (It seems to me that the pedestrian crossing on Bernal between Kottinger and Palomino is an accident waiting to happen, because drivers rarely have to stop there. Thus when pedestrians ARE there, drivers sometimes don't notice them until it's almost too late.)
But I have just one request:-
Please, PLEASE, I beg you - no more traffic lights!
Their number has increased so dramatically in recent years that at one point I even started wondering whether some bigwig in the planning department had purchased shares in a traffic light company!
a resident of Kottinger Ranch
on Jul 19, 2012 at 10:45 pm
MrsJJJ: AGREED! The traffic lights can be maddening! There are certain times of day that it can take 25 minutes for what should be a 10-12 minute drive! I avoid certain lights like the one at West Las and Hopyard. Oh that light is crazy long.
a resident of Vineyard Avenue
on Jul 21, 2012 at 12:01 am
I have often wondered who let H.C. Elliot put in the race track called Touriga? If it had more curves speeders would have to slow down more. Oh well,' water over the dam".
a resident of Vintage Hills
on Jul 24, 2012 at 9:22 am
Dear Neighbors on Touriga,
Be very clear on what you are asking for at the meeting on Thursday. If I wasn't out of town, I would come myself to tell you that speed humps don't work. Trust me, you don't want these ugly things on your street along with an extra Speed Bump sign in your yard. Stand on the corner of Crellin and Montevino (the upper part of Crellin Rd.) and watch how fast the speeders (and I'm not talking just teenagers here) take these humps up AND down Crellin Rd. All speed humps do is divert traffic to another street for many drivers and the same speeders still speed as per usual. Also take a look at the planter boxes installed on Montevino and Crestablanca as a slow-down measure. Interesting how this more attractive neighborhood solution was installed for these homes and Crellin got concrete humps. I agree there is a problem with speeding in our neighborhood (and many others) but installing speed humps is not the solution. They are ugly, ineffective and detract from the beauty of the neighborhood (think Oakland/Berkeley neighborhoods) if that's really what you want.
a resident of Ridgeview Commons
on Apr 24, 2017 at 9:25 pm
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text:
The City Council will hold its annual budget retreat beginning at 6 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday at the Richardson Woman's Club, 2005 North Cliffe. The retreat is open to the public and will be broadcast live online at cor.net/citv and on CITV, Time Warner Cable channel 16 and ATT U-Verse channel 99. Replay broadcasts will be aired at 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through Aug. 4 and will be available on-demand online.
The City Plan Commission meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday will be recorded and broadcast on CITV during its regularly scheduled replay times at 8 a.m. Thursday and noon Saturday, July 19. It will also be available to view on-demand on the City's website.
For more information about the 2013-2014 Fiscal Year Budget, visit cor.net/AnnualBudget.
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text:
Improving Quantitative Studies of International Conflict: A Conjecture (ICPSR 1218)
Principal Investigator(s): Beck, Nathaniel L., University of California-San Diego; King, Gary, Harvard University; Zeng, Langche, George Washington University and Harvard University
In this article, the authors address a well-known but infrequently discussed problem in the quantitative study of international conflict: despite immense data collections, prestigious journals, and sophisticated analyses, empirical findings in the literature on international conflict are often unsatisfying. Many statistical results change from article to article and specification to specification. Accurate forecasts are nonexistent. The authors offer a conjecture about one source of this problem: the causes of conflict, theorized to be important but often found to be small or ephemeral in prior research, are indeed tiny for the vast majority of dyads, but they are large, stable, and replicable wherever the ex ante probability of conflict is large. The authors provide a direct test of their conjecture by formulating a statistical model that includes its critical features. The approach, a version of a "neural network" model, uncovers some structural features of international conflict and also functions as an evaluative measure by forecasting. Moreover, it is easy to evaluate whether the neural network model is a statistical improvement over the simpler models commonly used.
Access Notes
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This study is provided by ICPSR. ICPSR provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis for a diverse and expanding social science research community.
Study Description
Beck, Nathaniel L., Gary King, and Langche Zeng. Improving Quantitative Studies of International Conflict: A Conjecture. ICPSR01218-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2000-05-02. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR01218.v1
Persistent URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR01218.v1
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Subject Terms: international conflict, statistical models
Geographic Coverage: Global
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text:
- Japanese Grand Prix - Qualifying
Hamilton laments 'big mistake' with set-up
- Report:
Vettel heads Red Bull lockout
- Race:
- Japanese Grand Prix
- Drivers:
- Lewis Hamilton
- Teams:
- McLaren
Lewis Hamilton admits that "a big mistake" with set-up has left him uncompetitive after qualifying ninth for the Japanese Grand Prix.
After being second in both free practice sessions on Friday, Hamilton looked like being a close challenger to the Red Bulls for pole position, though a lack of a flying lap in FP3 clouded the situation. Hamilton revealed that he tried to revert to a similar set-up to the one he had used on Friday but that it was a move that had backfired.
"I'm not puzzled, I just made a big mistake with the set-up; a big, big mistake," Hamilton said. "When the qualifying starts you can't do anything to change it so you're stuck with it. So we were just driving around with masses and masses of understeer which we had in P2 and we made some changes in to P3 but it went the opposite way, it went to oversteer. We didn't really know what to do so we went back to the set-up yesterday and made a couple of small changes to it but it was a disaster."
With the cars now under parc ferme conditions, Hamilton confirmed he expected a similar struggle in the race.
"Honestly I don't think it's going to be good, but I will do absolutely everything I can with it. Again we have masses of understeer so I expect my front tyres will be the limitation tomorrow - which is usually the rears - but I'll push as much as I can. I'll get everything I can out of the car and I'll hope that maybe looking after my tyres better than the others maybe I can pinch some points off some people."


text:
Tee to Green: Hillman gets great view of Ryder Cup
While many of us would like to forget the painful finish from the Ryder Cup two weekends ago, the dramatic event is one that will remain fresh in Berkshire Hills head professional Josh Hillman's mind for a long time.
Hillman was at Medinah Country Club working for the PGA of America while taking in the excitement and great golf.
"The atmosphere was amazing," Hillman said. "Patriotism was alive and well. The spectators were proud to be Americans and took their pride to new levels."
Of course, there were plenty of European fans making their presence felt.
"I saw 12 men dressed up as Uncle Sam and eight Euros wearing all blue jumpsuits and Rory [McIlroy] wigs," Hillman reported.
Still, while both sides rooted their lungs out, things remained civil.
"It wasn't like a typical Yankees-Red Sox situation where people can be rude and harsh," Hillman said. "The fans supported each other and were respectful. I think that's the nature of golf."
With plenty of birdies being made, it may have seemed that Medinah wasn't all that tough. Hillman says that wasn't the case.
"The course was a bear," Hillman said. "The average player would really struggle. The shorter rough made it a little easier but the course is very long and there are a lot of uphill and downhill shots. Holes like 12 and 16 are true doglegs and are 460 and 480 yards."
And the putting surfaces were NASCAR fast.
"The greens were in perfect shape, but there are a lot of slopes, and they were cutting and rolling them after each set of matches," Hillman said.
As for Europe's heroic comeback, being on site gave Hillman a slightly different perspective than those who favor the choke theory over the Europe-was-just-better theory.
"Just about everyone on the grounds knew that the U.S. did not lose it, the Euro team went out and won it," Hillman said. "From the numbers I saw, it didn't matter who [U.S. captain] Davis Love put with who, the Euros just played that strong."
A look strictly at the numbers confirms what Hillman says about the Europeans' performance. Based on the scores posted, a different lineup wouldn't have mattered.
European captain Jose Maria Olazabal front-loaded his lineup in a move that produced results even he couldn't have imagined. His first five out -- Luke Donald, Ian Poulter, Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose and Paul Lawrie -- were a combined 19 under. Love's first five -- Bubba Watson, Webb Simpson, Keegan Bradley, Phil Mickelson, and Brandt Snedeker -- were a mere 2 under. Overall, the 12 Euros were 20 under, the U.S. contingent just minus-6.
In three of those first four matches, the U.S. cracked down the stretch with Simpson losing Nos. 17 and 18, Bradley losing 15 and 16 and Mickelson dropping the last two holes, though in his case credit to Rose, who birdied both.
While admitting hindsight is 20-20, I have to question sending out the unpredictable Watson in match No. 1 and -- while understanding that Love's Cup rookies had performed well -- having first-timers in three of the first five matches. All five of Europe's leadoff hitters had previously experienced the suffocating Ryder Cup singles pressure.
Of course, on Saturday afternoon, none of this looked like it would matter with the U.S. up 10-4 and looking at perhaps a seemingly insurmountable 11-5 margin.
"Everything was going great until Poulter decides to birdie the last five holes," Hillman said. "All of a sudden, everyone was asking if a comeback was coming."
But still, down 10-6 on U.S. soil? Really?
"I think the fans still firmly believed the U.S. would win," Hillman said. "We're always good in the singles, but Europe came back pretty strong in the afternoon. I don't think people realized it was going to happen until near the end."
For me, the moment of realization came when Jim Furyk stepped away from his par putt on No. 17 perhaps a half-dozen times. Considering his recent meltdowns at the U.S. Open and WGC Bridgestone, that was a terrible sign. He ended up missing the putt and the last two holes to lose to Peter Hanson in what, along with Steve Stricker's loss to Martin Kaymer, sealed the deal.
As frustrating as the loss is for U.S. fans, the Cup once again proved to be golf's most exciting and dramatic event.
"The real winner of this Ryder Cup, in my opinion, was the game of golf," Hillman said. "Everything about it was positive."
Well, almost everything.
To contact Richard Lord:
(413) 496-6236.
If you'd like to leave a comment (or a tip or a question) about this story with the editors, please email us. We also welcome letters to the editor for publication; you can do that by filling out our letters form and submitting it to the newsroom.


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INDIANAPOLIS - Louisville guard Kevin Ware badly injured his lower right leg during the Midwest Regional final against Duke on Sunday and had to be taken off the court on a stretcher.
A game official told several reporters that a bone has snapped. Trainers immediately covered the leg with a towel and placed Ware on a backboard, then lifted him onto a stretcher.
During the accident, Ware's leg came down awkwardly and broke while he attempted to block a shot during the first half of the game. CBS showed two slow-motion replays of the injury right after it happened then not again, concentrating on the reaction of people around him.
The segment was not replayed during the halftime coverage. The network sports chairman Sean McManus says that was because of the graphic nature of the footage.
CBS is telling its NCAA basketball crew not to show replays of Ware's gruesome injury during Sunday's tournament game.
He was taken to nearby Methodist Hospital, according to a statement from tournament officials. MORE: Louisville overcomes injury, beats Duke.
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