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It's all too predictable. A day after a gunman killed six people and wounded 18 others at Northern Illinois University, The New York Times criticized the U.S. Interior Department for preparing to rethink its ban on guns in national parks.
The editorial board wants "the 51 senators who like the thought of guns in the parks -- and everywhere else, it seems -- to realize that the innocence of Americans is better protected by carefully controlling guns than it is by arming everyone to the teeth."
As usual, the Times editors seem unaware of how silly their argument is. To them, the choice is between "carefully controlling guns" and "arming everyone to the teeth." But no one favors "arming everyone to the teeth" (whatever that means). Instead, gun advocates favor freedom, choice and self-responsibility. If someone wishes to be prepared to defend himself, he should be free to do so. No one has the right to deprive others of the means of effective self-defense, like a handgun.
As for the first option, "carefully controlling guns," how many shootings at schools or malls will it take before we understand that people who intend to kill are not deterred by gun laws? Last I checked, murder is against the law everywhere. No one intent on murder will be stopped by the prospect of committing a lesser crime like illegal possession of a firearm. The intellectuals and politicians who make pious declarations about controlling guns should explain how their gunless utopia is to be realized.
While they search for -- excuse me -- their magic bullet, innocent people are dying defenseless.
That's because laws that make it difficult or impossible to carry a concealed handgun do deter one group of people: law-abiding citizens who might have used a gun to stop crime. Gun laws are laws against self-defense.
Criminals have the initiative. They choose the time, place and manner of their crimes, and they tend to make choices that maximize their own, not their victims', success. So criminals don't attack people they know are armed, and anyone thinking of committing mass murder is likely to be attracted to a gun-free zone, such as schools and malls.
Government may promise to protect us from criminals, but it cannot deliver on that promise. This was neatly summed up in book title a few years ago: "Dial 911 and Die." If you are the target of a crime, only one other person besides the criminal is sure to be on the scene: you. There is no good substitute for self-responsibility.
How, then, does it make sense to create mandatory gun-free zones, which in reality are free-crime zones?
The usual suspects keep calling for more gun control laws. But this idea that gun control is crime control is just a myth. The National Academy of Sciences reviewed dozens of studies and could not find a single gun regulation that clearly led to reduced violent crime or murder. When Washington, D.C., passed its tough handgun ban years ago, gun violence rose.
The press ignores the fact that often guns save lives.
It's what happened in 2002 at the Appalachian School of Law. Hearing shots, two students went to their cars, got their guns and restrained the shooter until police arrested him.
Likewise, law professor Glen Reynolds writes, "Pearl, Miss., school shooter Luke Woodham was stopped when the school's vice principal took a .45 from his truck and ran to the scene. In (last) February's Utah mall shooting, it was an off-duty police officer who happened to be on the scene and carrying a gun".
It's impossible to know exactly how often guns stop criminals. Would-be victims don't usually report crimes that don't happen. But people use guns in self-defense every day. The Cato Institute's Tom Palmer says just showing his gun to muggers once saved his life.
"It equalizes unequals," Palmer told "20/20". "If someone gets into your house, which would you rather have, a handgun or a telephone? You can call the police if you want, and they'll get there, and they'll take a picture of your dead body. But they can't get there in time to save your life. The first line of defense is you."


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Perky Cress
1 Soup = 242 Kcal
- 1 bag of COMPLETE VEGETABLE SOUP
- 300 ml skimmed milk (0,1 %)
- 1 small kohlrabi (100 g)
- 1-2 tablespoons of cress (chopped)
- Pepper to taste
Notice: Alternatively you can also use fresh dill or marjoram.
Dice the kohlrabi and cook it in the milk. Take out part of the kohlrabi dices, puree the remaining part together with the milk. Stir in 1 bag of Vegetable Soup, add the kohlrabi dices again as well as the cress. Add pepper and cress to taste.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Building a Better Mouth Trap
By now we've all seen them: those awesome, slow-motion images of White Sharks being fed at the surface. The gaping jaws of the Great White Shark have become a potent image of the modern world. Celluloid has popularized and magnified the image of the Great White, which has come to epitomize the ultimate in predation and the archetype of sharkdom. But this popular conception does not do justice to the diversity of sharks and their 'pancake' cousins, the skates, rays, sawfishes, and guitarsharks. Collectively termed elasmobranchs (meaning 'strap-gills'), these cartilaginous fishes are a highly varied group of marine vertebrates, encompassing an amazing range of forms and lifestyles.
Fossil evidence suggests that elasmobranchs have been primarily predatory from their earliest beginnings and throughout their long evolutionary career, from the Middle Paleozoic some 425 million years ago to the present. Over that enormous timespan they have undergone several major adaptive radiations including some truly bizarre tinkering with shark design and survived at least eight mass extinctions that many other types of creature did not. The most recent elasmobranch radiation coincided with the mammalian radiation that eventually produced ourselves. Modern elasmobranchs are thus the distillation of millions of years of experiments on how to build a predator. They are a fundamental life form, united by numerous elegant and highly evolved structural, physiological, and behavioral features. While undeniably ancient, there is nothing 'primitive' about today's sharks and rays.
The vast majority of living sharks and rays are predatory. Of some 1,100 species of extant elasmobranchs, only 13 (1.2%) the Basking Shark (Cetorhinus maximus), Megamouth Shark (Megachasma pelagios), Whale Shark (Rhincodon typus), Manta Ray (Manta birostris) and about 9 species of Devil Rays (genus Mobula) have forsaken the actively predacious habits of their kin and adapted to a more placid 'grazing' lifestyle. These thirteen species of filter-feeding elasmobranch are not particularly closely related, representing four separate evolutionary lineages. What makes the shift to filter-feeding particularly intriguing is that all four lineages undertook the shift at about the same time, between 60 and 30 million years ago in the Cenozoic Era. Thirty million years may seem an awfully long time in terms of a mortgage, but it represents only 7% of the total period elasmobranchs have existed. What environmental pressures precipitated this profound dietary shift? How have these animals been modified for a filter-feeding mode of life? And, given the groups' enormous long-term success as predators, why have they done so?
Elasmobranch filter-feeding mechanisms can be conveniently divided into two categories: 1) modified gill rakers and, 2) spongy elaboration of the gill bars. Filters of the first category are relatively coarse, being composed of modified dermal denticles (placoid scales), and are found in two cold-water species, the temperate Basking Shark and the deep-sea Megamouth Shark. The gill rakers of the Basking Shark are bristle-like, some 3 inches (7.5 centimetres) long in an average 30-foot (9-metre) specimen and number about 10 per inch (4 per centimetre) of gill bar. In contrast, the gill rakers of Megamouth are papillose ('finger like') with a spongy cartilaginous core, arranged in four rows along each gill bar and about 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 centimetres) long in a 15-foot (4.5-metre) specimen. Filters of the second category are finer, composed of pinkish-brown spongy tissue arranged in flattened, horizontal plates that bridge the 'gaps' between successive gill bars. This category of filter is found in the Whale Shark and the Manta and Devil Rays, which inhabit primarily tropical to warm-temperate seas with relatively thin plankton biomass. The Basking Shark, Megamouth, Whale Shark, Manta and Devil Rays each has different accessory feeding structures, which are correlated with differing feeding behaviors.
The Basking Shark is a passive filter-feeder, relying on ram-jet ventilation to force plankton-bearing water through its pharynx and out the gills. The Basking Sharks' diet consists almost entirely of a single genus of copepod (Calanus), with a smattering of fish eggs and arrow-worms; this prey specificity suggests that the gill raker filtration system of the Basking Shark may not be as simple as it appears. About 1,500 tons (1,360 tonnes) of water an hour pass through a Basking Shark's gigantic gill slits; periodically (every two to three minutes or so), a feeding Basking Shark flutters its gills sharply, possibly to swallow accumulated planktonic food trapped by the gill rakers. During spring and summer, the planktonic prey of the Basking Shark is abundant, but even under the most favorable conditions, this shark must work hard to make a living. It has been calculated that a 22-foot (6.7 metre) Basking Shark requires about 663 calories per hour just to propel its massive body through the water; when plankton supply falls off during early winter, the Basking Shark can typically consume only 2 pounds of copepods about 410 calories an hour. So in winter, a Basking Shark would be using up more energy in swimming than it could get from its food. Since numerous Basking Sharks have been captured in winter without their gill rakers, it has been suggested that when plankton concentrations fall below sustenance levels the Basking Shark sheds its gill rakers and switches to bottom feeding or hibernates until plankton concentration increases again in the spring. If this is true, the seasonal shedding of gill rakers by the Basking Shark would be the only known instance of an annual moult in fishes.
Because most plankton is found near the surface, the mesopelagic Megamouth Shark faces some serious challenges in acquiring enough to eat. Due to its nutrient-poor deep-sea habitat, Megamouth has mushy muscles and a poorly calcified skeleton, making it a rather weak swimmer. The huge, bathtub-sized jaws and supporting arches are highly mobile, suggesting that Megamouth feeds by expanding its pharynx and sucking prey into its mouth. This pharyngeal vacuum may be enhanced by simultaneously raising the huge and highly mobile basihyal ('tongue'). In addition, Megamouth has two sheets of guanine-silvered tissue hanging inside the upper jaw. It has been speculated that Megamouth may be bioluminescent, relying on light to lure its prey (deep-sea shrimp and jellyfishes) within range of its extensible jaws. If true, this deep-sea shark may be the world's largest bioluminescent organism. First captured off Oahu, Hawaii in November 1976, Megamouth has been hailed as the most astounding ichthyological discovery since the 1938 capture of a live coelacanth off East London, South Africa. To date, only 14 specimens of Megamouth are known (from Hawaii, California, Japan, Western Australia, Brazil, Senegal, Indonesia, Philippines). All of this was pretty much academic until October 1990, when a Megamouth Shark made international news. A 16-foot specimen was captured live in a driftnet off Dana Point, California, fitted with two sonic tags, released and tracked for two days. This individual Megamouth Shark remained at a depth of about 50 feet (15 metres) during the night then dived to 490 feet (150 metres) at dawn. Thus, like many other deep-sea creatures, Megamouth is a vertical migrator following its planktonic prey toward the surface at night and back into deeper water before dawn. In other words, Megamouth is a commuter!
Growing to a length of at least 50 feet (15 metres), the Whale Shark is the largest fish on our planet. Unlike the weakly-muscled Megamouth, the Whale Shark has powerful swimming, throat, and gill pouch musculature. The bellows-like gill pouches make the Whale shark a versatile filter-feeder, enabling it to consume a wide variety of planktonic crustaceans and even small to mid-sized fishes such as sardines, anchovies, and mackerels. Because of its ability to suck food into its mouth, the Whale Shark is not dependent upon forward motion to operate its filters and often assumes a vertical posture when feeding. It has been reported that Whale Sharks enhance the efficiency of vertical feeding by 'bobbing' up and down in 15 to 20-second cycles, pausing at the surface to allow food-bearing water to rush into their mouths and strain through their spongy gill plates; this behavior has been recently filmed by the Cousteau Society off Cuba. There are numerous reports of associations between Whale Sharks and schooling pelagic fishes, particularly skipjack and albacore. These large fishes may be feeding on smaller fishes congregating to feed on the same plankton concentrations as the Whale Sharks. Stewart Springer reported that he once saw several tuna appear to leap into the mouth of a vertically-feeding Whale Shark at the completion of each 'bobbing' cycle. If Whale Sharks actually swallow the large fishes they suck in (accidentally or otherwise), they must add considerably to the Sharks' protein intake!
The exquisitely graceful Manta and Devil Rays rely on ram-jet ventilation to force plankton-bearing water through their ridged gill plates. But unlike the temperate water Basking Shark, these tropical rays have forward extensions of the pectoral wings called 'cephalic fins'; these flexible, horn-like fins may assist Manta and the lesser-known Devil Rays in concentrating plankton and channeling it into their mouths. Their wing-like pectoral fins give these rays extraordinary maneuverability, enabling them to circle and wheel tightly around their planktonic prey. It is possible that such acrobatic behavior may serve to further concentrate plankton and facilitate feeding. When they have finished feeding, Manta Rays can furl the cephalic fins into hydrodynamically-sound 'cutwaters'; I have seen Mantas fold their cephalic fins so that they meet at the midline of the mouth, resembling paddle-shaped 'hands' of a Far Eastern guru reciting mantras ('Mantra Rays'?), then depart rapidly. Unfortunately very little else is known about the feeding behavior of these beautiful rays.
For all their diversity, filter-feeding elasmobranchs share several features in common. Their heads are broad and their mouths have returned to the ancestral terminal position (most modern sharks have 'subterminal' jaws located on the underside of the head). Teeth are reduced in size and significance though not necessarily in number: the Whale Shark may have more than 27,000 teeth arranged in some 310 rows. The gill mechanism is elaborated to include sieve-like bristles or spongy filter plates. All filter-feeding elasmobranchs are quite large ... and some are downright gigantic. Large size not only reduces an organism's risk of predation, but also increases swimming efficiency no small consideration if one's food supply is thinly distributed across entire ocean basins. And last but not least, those filter-feeding elasmobranchs which prey largely on planktonic crustaceans need special enzymes to break-down the chitinous exoskeletons (chitin is a complex heterosaccharide, similar to cellulose, and just as difficult to digest). These are all pretty major modifications. In many ways, these modifications resemble those of the baleen whales which, by no small coincidence appeared at about the same time as the filter-feeding elasmobranchs. What environmental conditions might account for such a wholesale shift to filter-feeding?
Sixty million years ago our planet was undergoing some major changes. India and Africa had split away from Gondwanaland, but South America, Antarctica, and Australia retained a land connection. The Atlantic and Southern Indian Ocean widened, while the Pacific diminished. Equatorial energy input from the sun was restricted in ocean basins, rendering oceanic currents rather sluggish. The creation of new seas and reduction in size of older seas disrupted oceanic circling patterns and radically changed the global climate. The general warm and humid conditions typical of Jurassic and early to mid-Cretaceous cooled toward the end of the Cretaceous; the Paleocene continued this trend, but was followed by warming in the Eocene. Mass extinctions, during which many different types of life die out within a relatively short period, occur at roughly 26-million-year cycles. During the Cretaceous Extinction, 15% of marine invertebrate families (about 50% of existing species) died out, including bivalves, gastropods, and cephalopods; many aquatic vertebrates also died out at about this time, including numerous families of bony fishes and marine reptiles. This 'sweeping away' was followed by a 'Post- Cretaceous Explosion' of diversity. Planktonic diatoms underwent major radiations, while copepods, dinoflagellates and coccoliths remained strong. Reef-building corals increased in abundance and diversity, creating more habitats and feeding niches. In response, elasmobranch and especially bony fish diversity flowered.
It was under these conditions that the filter-feeding elasmobranchs evolved. Despite the major physical and behavioral modifications required, filter-feeding has much to recommend it. By feeding directly on the lowest and most productive end of the food chain, filter-feeding elasmobranchs and baleen whales are able to circumvent the fundamental energy problem inherent to most food chains. But evolution is conservative, tending to leave functioning designs well enough alone. The chief benefits associated with a dietary shift from predation to filter feeding are: 1) specialization reduces feeding competition and, 2) large size reduces predation risk and 3) large size allows retention of metabolic body heat, allowing functioning in cold water. The chief drawbacks to filter-feeding are: 1) food supply is thinly distributed, requiring much swimming effort to secure sufficient nourishment and, 2) food supply is subject to wide fluctuations in relative abundance, especially in temperate zones. But to persist over 60 million years the benefits must outweigh the costs, and the compromise be well worth it.
Those four elasmobranch lineages which needed the least modification were 'preadapted' to make the big shift from predation to filter-feeding. (Preadaptation is an unfortunate term, suggesting that organisms somehow evolve features in 'anticipation' of benefit under future environmental conditions; in truth, almost the exact opposite occurs: those organisms which have NOT inherited the potential to take advantage of an environmental change are selected against by the environment ... luck of the genetic draw.) The Basking and Megamouth Sharks are lamnoids (related to the Great White and thresher sharks, respectively), a group characterized by short snouts, long gill slits, and large size. The Whale Shark is an orectoloboid (related to the Nurse and Zebra Sharks), a group which features a near-terminal mouth, broad head, and large gills with powerful muscles. The Manta and Devil Rays are mobulids (related to the sting and eagle rays), a group having relatively short snouts, teeth modified into crushing plates, large gills and body size.
So what precipitated the Big Shift from active predation to a more placid 'grazing' lifestyle? Intense competition for nectonic (swimming) prey at the benthos and throughout the water column and/or a high concentration of plankton at least seasonally might have favored the shift from active predation to a filter-feeding mode. Perhaps an opportunistic, short-term seasonal dietary shift in the ancestral types became fixed under conditions of reduced competition. Natural selection then refined each form of filter-feeding elasmobranch, maximizing its planktivorous efficiency. Although they do not fit the popular JAWS image, the filter-feeding elasmobranchs represent some of the latest and most advanced experiments in shark design.
NOTE: In 1999, several of the assumptions behind these calculations were shown by David Sims to be faulty, resulting in an overestimation (by about three times) of the energy Basking Sharks require to swim. [Return to text from footnote]


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This article is more than 1 year old
Intel sees virtualization as key to child-proof PCs
Locked down
IDF Spring 05 A pair of Intel's finest code pushers took the stage this week at the Intel Developer Forum to explain the merits of virtualization technology. In this particular case, the staffers looked to hype reasons why business users and consumers might like to have PCs that run different types of operating systems or might like to carve up PCs into different partitions. Intel, you see, if awful proud of some "hooks" it has come up with that make it easier for software makers to create partitions and the like.
"(Virtualization) is kind of like a swiss army knife," said Greg Bryant, a director of marketing in Intel's digital enterprise group. "It can be used for a lot of things."
It's true enough that virtualization has become very popular in the server market. VMware, in particular, has earned heaps of praise for being able to run multiple OSes on the same server. The case for similar technology on the desktop is less clear.
Connectix - now owned by Microsoft - does make a VirtualPC product that lets Mac users run Windows software and lets Windows users run old applications on their new computers.
Intel expects to see some business users build on these concepts. Companies might, for example, set up one partition that can run only approved software. Users can install iTunes or Doom or whatever unsafe software they like in another partition. Software makers might also create a type of "service operating system" that could be accessed no matter what has happened to the main copy of Windows or Linux.
"This lets you isolate the systems and recover if there is a malicious attack," Bryant said.
What do consumers get?
Well, they can partition off the operating system into "for adult" and "for children" compartments.
"I really don't want my kids messing with the Quicken files we use to pay our bills," said Bill Leszinske, a director of marketing in Intel's desktop group. Leszinske would return to this bad child theme again and again.
PC makers might also try and fine tune their systems to handle certain functions better. Why go through the time and trouble of booting Windows when you just want to play a DVD? Here comes the instant-on DVD partition, Leszinske said.
While the Intel marketeers did provide a couple of useful suggestions, they didn't have answers for some of the more difficult questions posed by the IDF crowd. Things like, "Do we really need separate partitions for our evil children? Doesn't a separate login do the trick today?" "What happens when Microsoft wants us to pay for four licenses for our four partitions?" "Do we install Norton four times?" "How about Service Pack 3?"
"There are some of the tough things we have to get to," Leszinske said.
So far, this type of technology seems much more useful in the server world. It's not at all clear that consumers need to do lots of PC carving. That is unless you have really crap kids, apparently.
But whether or not Intel is ready to answer some of these "tough" questions, it is ready to release the technology. Expect to see virtualization appearing in a PC near you later this year. It will pop up in the new Itanium due out by year end as well and then in Xeons and mobile chips in 2005. ®
Related stories
Oracle gets really, really virtual with VMware
Itanium inventor bobs to surface as chip's savior?
On Microsoft's Virtual Server 2005


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Published 12:00 am Tuesday, July 23, 2013
By Staff Report
LONDON (AP) — A beaming Prince William and his wife, Kate, have shown their newborn baby boy to the world.
Kate carried the future monarch outside St. Mary's Hospital in central London Tuesday so he could be photographed by the waiting press.
The photos are likely to be reprinted for decades as the baby grows into adulthood and his role as a future king.
The young family is expected to head to an apartment at Kensington Palace.


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A small number of PlayStation 3 owners are having trouble installing Prototype on their consoles. Here's how to trick your PS3 into letting you play, straight from Activision support.
Some PS3 owners are experiencing an error that tells them there is not enough space on their hard drive to install Prototype. Activision is working on a patch for the title that will fix the install issue, but in the meantime, the affected will have to engage their PS3 in a battle of wits. First, hide around the corner, jump out with a loud "boo!", and slip the disc into your PlayStation. That's not part of the official instructions mind you. I just thought I would help make it fun. The real solution lies in changing the amount of data on your hard disk by 700 megs. This means either removing that much, or adding that much. Activision suggests several different ways of doing this.
If your PS3 tells you that you have insufficient hard drive space to install, even if you do, you are going to need to change the available space on your hard drive by 700 MB. This can be done in a number of ways including the following:
- Installing or uninstalling another PS3 game that allows hard drive installation.
- Downloading game demos.
- Removing downloadable content.
- Adding / removing MP3's or movies from the hard drive.
- Etc.
Or, you could simply wait until the fix is available and leave your data alone, but odds are you've got some huge install or demo you can do without just lurking there in the shadows of your hard disk, waiting to enable the game.
PS3 Prototype Installation Issue [Activision Support - Thanks Jolan!]


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Physical Therapist
- 50% Pediatrics 50% Adults
- Treat both Ortho and Neuro Conditions
- All 1-on-1 Patient Care
- Work with a multidisciplinary team
- $5,000 Relocation Bonus Available
About the Position:Our ideal candidate will possess the heart of a servant leader who truly cares about patient care. We are not looking for an individual who is just looking for their next "job" but someone who wants to invest in a career to help patients understand what has happened to their bodies through their injury/condition.
Qualifications & Requirements:
- Bachelor's, Masters or Doctorate of Physical Therapy from an accredited program
- Open to New Grads and Experienced Therapists
- Must be detail oriented but also able to see the big picture
- Excellent communication skills across all levels
- Collaborative, team building personality style
- Servant leader mindset
- H-1B Visa Sponsorship not available
For immediate and confidential consideration, please submit your resume via the link below.
Nealy Pierce is leading the way for Nursing Leadership, Therapy, and Pharmacy opportunities. We take the time to understand your situation and what is most important to you before recommending any opportunity. If you are looking for another position, check out our Available Positions @ Jobs.NealyPierce.com. We are working on new positions all the time, so if you can't find what you're looking for email email@example.com and a Career Consultant will reach out to you to get a better understanding of what you're looking for and if we have something available.


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WASHINGTON – Manufacturers had their weakest growth in two years in July, a sign that the economy could weaken this summer.
The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing executives, said Monday that its index of manufacturing activity fell to 50.9 percent in July from 55.3 percent in June. The reading was the lowest since July 2009 — one month after the recession officially ended.
Any level above 50 indicates growth. The manufacturing sector has expanded for 23 straight months.
Still, new orders shrank for the first time since the recession ended. Companies slashed their inventories after building them up in June. Output, employment, and prices paid my manufacturers all grew more slowly in July.
The disappointing report on manufacturing is the first major reading on how economy performed in July. It suggests the dismal economic growth in the first half of the year could extend into the July-September quarter.
"The ISM manufacturing report for July is a shocker and strongly suggests that the disappointing performance of the economy in the first half of the year was not just temporary," said Paul Dales, a senior U.S. economist for Capital Economics.
Stocks fell after the report was released. They had risen ahead of the report on the expectation that Congress will approve a deal Monday to increase the nation's borrowing limit. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 117 points in midday trading. Broader indexes also declined.
In a separate report, the Commerce Department said builders began work on more projects in June, pushing construction spending higher for a third straight month.
Construction spending rose 0.2 percent in June, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $772.3 billion, the government said. But even with the gains, spending remains slightly above an 11-year low hit in March and is just half of the $1.5 trillion pace considered healthy by most economists.
The economy expanded at a dismal 1.3 percent annual rate in the April-June period after an even worse 0.4 percent increase in the first three months of the year, the government said Friday.
The factory sector has expanded in every month but one since the recession ended in June 2009. The ISM's index topped 60 for four straight months at the start of the year.
But manufacturing has stumbled in recent months. A parts shortage stemming from Japan's March 11 earthquake disrupted automakers' supply chains, cutting into the output of new cars. And high gas prices left Americans with less money to spend on discretionary items, such as vacations, furniture and appliances.
The index fell in May to 53.5 from April's reading of 60.4. That was the sharpest one-month drop since 1984.
Employers have responded by pulling back on hiring. The economy added just 18,000 net jobs in June, the fewest in nine months, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent. Hiring by manufacturers was nearly flat in the April-June period.
The government issues its July employment report on Friday.
Several regional manufacturing surveys for the month of July have been mixed. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank said its manufacturing index rose to 3.2, signaling that the sector is growing again in that region. It had contracted in June for the first time in nine months.
And a private survey in Chicago showed that manufacturing expanded in July, but at a slower pace than in June.
Meanwhile, a survey by the New York Federal Reserve Bank found regional manufacturing activity shrank in July.
Manufacturing represents only about 11 percent of U.S. economic activity and can contribute only so much to the broader economic recovery. For unemployment to fall significantly, consumer income and spending also must pick up.
The ISM, a trade group of purchasing executives based in Tempe, Ariz., compiles its manufacturing index by surveying about 300 purchasing executives across the country.


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Determined to slim down, Calvin Gardner opted to put his money where his mouth was: He bet $300 that he could drop 50 pounds in six months.
It was a gamble, but the odds were good. If he succeeded, he'd more than triple his money. The only downside: he'd lose his cash if he didn't lose the weight.
The unusual betting scheme Gardner chose is offered by the HealthyWage company, which essentially has become a bookmaker for the fat and flabby. Of course, like any good odds maker, the company seems to come out in the black.
Just 1 in 4 who place the bet actually end up collecting, the company's founder, David Roddenberry allows.
Gardner was one of the lucky 25 percent. But that's probably because the 25-year-old San Diego graduate student was highly motivated. His weight had crept up during a busy school year in which he'd gone from a trim 170 pounds to a stout 220. He stumbled upon HealthyWage online and immediately signed up. In less than six months, Gardner shed 50 pounds and turned $300 into $1,000.
Research shows that people vastly improve their odds of losing weight if there's cold, hard cash involved, according to Dr. Kevin Volpp, a professor of medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine and director for health initiatives and behavioral economics at the Wharton School, both at the University of Pennsylvania.
"We as humans are really wired to focus on immediate gratification rather than delayed benefits," Volpp explains. "And because any single indulgence doesn't affect health that much, we can rationalize that we're going to have an ice cream cone and some fries today and we'll start dieting tomorrow -- or next week. Our focus is on the present."
The idea behind monetary incentive programs is to nudge the equation we form in our brains a little bit more toward the long-term benefits. And that's something that appeals to corporate America.
With health care costs skyrocketing, in part because of the fattening of the American population, some companies are using the "stick" approach -- motivating employees to be healthier by raising their health insurance premiums if they smoke or are too fat.
The HealthyWage program is more about the "carrot" -- offering people a chance to win money by shedding pounds.
HealthyWage's Roddenberry got into the weight-loss business because, he says, as an ex-hedge fund manager, he personally understood the power of money. The company offers a variety of weight-loss programs to individuals and companies -- all with a financial incentive. Dieting betters are required to verify their weight loss through a health club or a physician.
What works best, according to Roddenberry, are programs where participants put some of their own cash at risk. "You have to be more committed to put up your own money," Roddenberry says.
The 1 in 4 payouts might seem like a bad deal, but Roddenberry argues that clients are still winning because they've stayed with a weight-loss program for six months to a year.
Gardner isn't sure he'd have worked out most days, slashed calories and dropped the pounds without the promise of a big payout.
"It kind of set a deadline for me so I couldn't procrastinate anymore," he says. "And being a poor student, the idea that I could turn $300 to $1,000 was pretty motivating."


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I've been meaning to read Jonathan Haidt's new book "The Righteous Mind", on the recommendation of many readers who say it is an epic synthesis of human morality that merges Darwinism with political ideology.
From a customer review at Amazon:
[A]ccording to Haidt's and others' research, there are at least six mental 'modules' that go into moral and poltical decisions, and it is difficult to argue that any one (or two or three) are more important than others. And they are: care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation and liberty/oppression. Some people (often of the political left) care most about care/harm and fairness/cheating in their emphasis on egalitarian politics that aim to provide care for those in need and create fair rules in the sense that everyone, relatively speaking, starts on an 'even playing field.' Others (usually conservatives) have tempermants that focus on authority/suversion and loyalty/betrayal, focusing on maintaining or promoting institutions that foster some level of deference to authority (in legitimate hierarchies), and loyalty (whether to country, God, family, etc).
One point Haidt makes is that conservatives score stronger than liberals on the disgust (sanctity/degradation) module of morality. (Interestingly, liberals appear to have no ability to even relate to this aspect of human morality, whereas conservatives can relate, albeit with a weaker degree of intensity, to putatively liberal moral modules such as fairness and care.)
Conservatives feel stronger revulsion toward disgusting things than do liberals, who, apparently, like to wallow in shit, (or to reframe it in a nicer way: like to experience unique vistas). So when the conservative thinks about gay sex and the penis pushing hard into another man's anus, he recoils with revulsion. The liberal merely shrugs his shoulders. Not a sermon, just a naughty thought.
Which brings me to pondering something critical to the maintenance of our nation's infrastructure: do liberal men, with their higher threshold for disgusting things, tend to fuck fat chicks more often than conservative men fuck fat chicks? Is the liberal male more open than the conservative male to slumming it?
Have any of you readers noticed differences in the strictness or laxity with which your liberal and conservative friends hold their standards for opposite sex partners? Have you noticed if the libs you know like to dumpster dive with dirigibles more than you'd be comfortable doing? Have you noticed if the conservative men you know are more judgmental of fat chicks? Do your con or lib male friends date skinnier, hotter women?
This post is purely speculative, because personally, I have not noticed much of a difference between men of differing political persuasions in their willingness to tumble with a landfaring tanker that couldn't be more parsimoniously explained by differences in sexual market value, rather than liberal comfort with or conservative distaste for the dung heap of humanity. Some leftie men I know, while they preach a good bit about beauty being subjective, are quite the unforgiving judgmental pricks when it comes down to decision time, and they make their choice for 0.7 waist-hip ratio slender babes (when they can).
On the other hand, the flabby swingers and dirty scenesters I've met were all, to a tee, left wing cranks. As are the postmodern aka smear menstrual blood on a canvas """artists""".
I wonder if Haidt addressed this pressing question in his book? If he did, his may be the best book ever written in the PC era. Kudos would go to him.
Now I can already hear the liberals who read this blog whining that disgust is a weak moral module that should have no impact on public policy or personal choice. Consenting adults, and all that. But the utility of disgust is underrated by the neckbeard crowd. Disgust helps uphold lofty norms, and demands the best of society's members. Disgust makes lebensraum liveable, and raises the beauty aesthetic. Disgust protects a tribe against being overrun by beastly invaders.
Disgust, it could even be plausibly argued, created female beauty. Generations of men over the eons, sufficiently disgusted by ugly chicks and fat cows, have done their part to bang and reproduce with the best looking women, and that gift is bequeathed this day to us, their descendants, in the form of barely legal porn and hot Russian tennis minxes. If our ancestors had all been live-and-let-live liberals with a weak disgust reflex, we modern men might be hitting on hairy cavewomen with long, dangly breasts and anvil-shaped jaws that could shell walnuts.
I mean, if you can pick up a steaming shit without flinching, maybe you shouldn't have too much say in local zoning laws.
I have a very strong disgust reflex, for those of you wondering. If I see even a tiny superfluous fold on a chick's belly, I get my whiteboard pointer and poke the offensive fatty deposit a few times, until she takes the hint. Protractors and tape measures are often utilized to emphasize the teachable moment.
Related, here's a good discussion on the morality of disgust, over at Mangan's.


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Your Ultimate Guide to Choosing Healthy Fats
Your Ultimate Guide to Choosing Healthy Fats
Healthy fats can help promote heart health. Here are some tips for working more healthy fats into your diet.
Confused about good fats and bad fats? You're not alone. Aside from questions about weight loss, the topic of healthy fats seems to come up more than any other. Many people I talk to remember the low fat diet era of 20 years ago—just as they remember the high fat/low carb era that followed right behind. Then suddenly it wasn't merely about how much, or how little fat we should be eating, but whether or not we were eating the right kinds of fat.
What Are Healthy Fats, and Why Are They Good For You?
Fats can be divided up into two broad categories: saturated (unhealthy fats) and unsaturated (healthier fats). Of the two, the unsaturated fats are considered better for you, since these fats are derived primarily from plant foods and can help to keep blood cholesterol levels within a normal range. On the other hand, a diet with a lot of saturated fats (found primarily in animal products like butter, cheese, whole milk and meat), can contribute to a rise in cholesterol.
Unsaturated fats can be further broken down into two categories: monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats. You'll find monounsaturated fats in nuts, seeds, olive oils and avocados. They're considered heart-healthy when eaten in moderate amounts.
Polyunsaturated fats can be further classified as either omega-3 or omega-6 fats. While your body requires both types, you need them in the proper balance to promote health. The problem for most of us is that we eat too many omega-6 fats (fried foods, snack foods and sweet baked goods) and not enough fish, nuts, seeds and leafy greens that provide the omega-3s.
Be Choosy With Fats To Keep Calories in Check
Now, added fats do add calories to your diet. All oils, regardless of their source, have about 120 calories a tablespoon. Just because olive oil is a healthy fat, doesn't mean you should pour it all over your food.
How to Get More Healthy Fats Into Your Diet
The foods that contain heart-healthy fats include nuts and seeds, olives and olive oil, seafood and avocados. Here are some ways to work more of these healthy fats into your day.
Nuts and Seeds
Almonds, pistachios, walnuts and pecans are considered tree nuts, which have more heart-healthy omega-3 than peanuts (not actually nuts, but beans). Here are some ways to include more nuts and seeds into your diet.
- • A handful of nuts make a filling snack.
- • Try stirring some nut butter into oatmeal, yogurt or protein shakes; or spread some on apple slices for a quick snack.
- • Finely ground nuts make a delicious crispy coating for fish or chicken. Dip fish fillets or chicken breasts into beaten egg white, then lightly coat with ground nuts. Season with salt and pepper, then bake or saute.
- • Sprinkle nuts or seeds into green salads, on top of cooked vegetables, yogurt or hot cereal, and into your shakes.
- • Add nuts and seeds to trail mix.
- • Tahini (sesame seed paste) makes a delicious base for a salad dressing or sauce.
Olive Oil and Olives
Olive oil is also one of the richest sources of heart-healthy monounsaturated fat. If the flavor of extra-virgin olive oil is too strong for you, look for light olive oils that have the same calories as regular olive oil, but are lighter in flavor.
- • Use olive oil to replace vegetable oils and butter when you cook.
- • Make your own salad dressing with 2 parts olive oil, 1 part lemon juice or vinegar; salt and pepper to taste.
- • Use a tiny bit of olive oil to flavor cooked vegetables.
- • Add whole olives to salad, or chopped olives to pasta sauces, or stirred into whole grain dishes after cooking.
- • Try an olive spread on whole grain crackers. Whip up chopped olives, garlic and a little tomato paste in the blender.
Fish fat naturally contains heart-healthy omega-3.
- • Canned tuna and salmon are super-convenient. Flake some tuna or salmon on top of a green salad for a quick meal.
- • Add frozen cooked shrimp and scallops to soups or pasta dishes.
- • Use fish instead of chicken in some of your favorite dishes like tacos or one-dish meals.
- • Order fish more often in restaurants.
Avocados are technically a fruit and a good source of monounsaturated fat. Here are a few of my favorite uses for avocado.
- • Use mashed avocado as a substitute for mayonnaise in tuna salad or egg salad.
- • Mash into guacamole with a little lime juice and salt; use cut veggies rather than chips for dipping.
- • Try a few slices of avocado in an omelet, or on top of hard-boiled eggs.
- • Mix diced avocado, mango and red onion with a little lime juice and cilantro into a delicious salsa.


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Plum Long Sleeve Ribbed Bodycon Dress
Plum Long Sleeve Ribbed Bodycon Dress
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We point you to the May 2014 interview of the Catholic Herald with Bishop Athanasius Schneider conducted by freelance journalist Sarah Atkinson.
The full text of the interview has been made available courtesy of the Latin Mass Society of England & Wales and has been approved by the bishop (emphases are ours). Please visit there to spike their numbers and see the photos provided.
Interview with Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana, Kazakhstan for Catholic Herald
BAS: 'To my knowledge and experience, the deepest wound in the actual crisis of the Church is the Eucharistic wound; the abuses of the Blessed Sacrament.
'Many people are receiving Holy Communion in an objective state of mortal sin...This is spreading in the Church, especially in the western world. There people very rarely go to Holy Communion with a sufficient preparation.
'Some people who go to Holy Communion live in irregular moral situations, which do not correspond to the Gospel. Without being married, they go to Holy Communion. They might be divorced and living in a new marriage, a civil marriage, and they go nevertheless to Holy Communion. I think this is a very, very grievous situation.
'There is also the question of the objectively irreverent reception of Holy Communion. The so-called new, modern manner of receiving Holy Communion directly into the hand is very serious because it exposes Christ to an enormous banality.
'There is the grievous fact of the loss of the Eucharistic fragments. No one can deny this. And the fragments of the consecrated host are crushed by feet. This is horrible! Our God, in our churches, is trampled by feet! No one can deny it.
'And this is happening on a large scale. This has to be, for a person with faith and love for God, a very serious phenomenon.
'We cannot continue as if Jesus as God does not exist, as though only the bread exists. This modern practice of Communion in the hand has nothing to do with the practice in the ancient Church. The modern practice of receiving Communion in hand contributes gradually to the loss of the Catholic faith in the real presence and in the transubstantiation.
'A priest and a bishop cannot say this practice is ok. Here is at stake the most holy, the most divine and concrete on Earth.'
Q. You are standing out on your own in this?
BAS: 'I am very sad that I am feeling myself as one who is shouting in the desert. The Eucharistic crisis due to the modern use of Communion in hand is so evident. This is not an exaggeration. It is time that the bishops raise their voices for the Eucharistic Jesus who has no voice to defend himself. Here is an attack on the most Holy, an attack on the Eucharistic faith.
'Of course there are people who receive Holy Communion in the hand with much devotion and faith, but they are in a minority. The vast mass, though, are losing the faith through this very banal manner of taking Holy Communion like common food, like a chip or a cake. Such a manner to receive the most Holy here on earth is not sacred, and it destroys by time the deep awareness and the Catholic faith in the real presence and in the transubstantiation.'
Q. Is the Church going in the opposite direction from where you are going?
BAS: 'It seems that the majority of the clergy and the bishops are content with this modern use of Communion in hand and don't realize the real dangers connected with such a practice. For me this is incredible. How is this possible, when Jesus is present in the little hosts? A priest and a bishop should say: "I have to do something, at least to gradually reduce this. All that I can do, I have to do." Unfortunately, though, there are members of the clergy who are making propaganda of the modern use of Communion in the hand and sometimes prohibiting receiving Communion on the tongue and kneeling. There are even priests who are discriminating those who kneel for Holy Communion. This is very, very sad.
'There is also an increasing stealing of hosts, because of distributing Communion directly in the hand. There is a net, a business, of the stealing of Holy Hosts and this is much facilitated by Communion in the hand.
'Why would I, as a priest and bishop, expose Our Lord to such a danger, to such a risk? When these bishops or priests [who approve of Communion in the hand] have some item of value, they would never expose this to great danger, to be lost or stolen. They protect their house, but they do not protect Jesus and allow him to be stolen very easily.'
Q. In respect of the questionnaire on the issue of family – people are expecting big changes.
BAS: 'There is on this issue a deal of propaganda, put about by the Mass media. We need to be very careful. There are the official anti-Christian mass media worldwide. In almost every country it is the same content of news, with the exception perhaps of the African and Asian countries or in the East of Europe.
'Only on the Internet can you spread your own ideas. Thanks be to God the Internet exists.
'The idea of changes in marriage and moral laws to be done at the upcoming synod of bishops in Rome, comes from mostly the anti-Christian media. And some clergy and Catholics are collaborating with them in spreading the expectations of the anti-Christian world to change the law of God concerning marriage and sexuality.
'It is an attack by the anti-Christian world and it is very tragic and sad that some clergy are collaborating with them. To argue for a change the law of God, they use in a kind of sophism the concept of mercy. But in reality this is not mercy, this is cruel.
'It is not mercy, for instance, if someone has a disease to leave him in his miserable condition. This is cruel.
'I would not give, for instance, a diabetic sugar, this would be cruel of me. I would try to take someone out of this situation and give them another meal. Perhaps they won't like it to begin with, but it will be better for them.
'Those of the clergy who want admit the divorced and remarried to Holy Communion operate with a false concept of mercy. It is comparable with a doctor who gives a patient sugar, although he knows it will kill him. But the soul is more important than the body.
'If the bishops admit the divorced and remarried to Holy Communion, then they are confirming them in their errors in the sight of God. They will even close down the voice of their conscience. They will push them more into the irregular situation only for the sake of this temporal life, forgetting that after this life, though, there is the judgment of God.
'This topic will be discussed in the synod. This is on the agenda. But I hope the majority of the bishops still have so much Catholic spirit and faith that they will reject the above mentioned proposal and not accept this.
Q. What is this crisis you mention?
BAS: 'This is a broader crisis than the reception of the Blessed Sacrament. I think this issue of the reception of Holy Communion by the remarried will blow up and show the real crisis in the Church. The real crisis of the Church is anthropocentrism, forgetting the Christocentrism. Indeed, this is the deepest evil, when man or the clergy are putting themselves in the centre when they are celebrating liturgy and when they are changing the revealed truth of God, e.g. concerning the Sixth Commandment and human sexuality.
'The crisis reveals itself also in the manner in which the Eucharistic Lord is treated. The Eucharist is at the heart of the Church. When the heart is weak, the whole body is weak. So when the practice around the Eucharist is weak, then the heart and the life of the Church is weak. And when people have no more supernatural vision of God in the Eucharist then they will start the worship of man, and then also doctrine will change to the desire of man.
'This crisis is when we place ourselves, including the priests, at the centre and when God is put in the corner and this is happening also materially. The Blessed Sacrament is sometimes in a cupboard away from the centre and the chair of the priest is in the centre. We have already been in this situation for 40 or 50 years and there is the real danger that God and his Commandments and laws will be put on the side and the human natural desiring in the centre. There is causal connection between the Eucharistic and the doctrinal crisis.
'Our first duty as human beings is to adore God, not us, but Him. Unfortunately, the liturgical practice of the last 40 years has been very anthropocentric.
'Participating in liturgy is firstly not about doing things but praying and worshipping, to love God with all your soul. This is true participation, to be united with God in your soul. Exterior participation is not essential.
'The crisis is really this: we have not put Christ or God at the centre. And Christ is God incarnated. Our problem today is that we put away the incarnation. We have eclipsed it. If God remains in my mind only as an idea, this is Gnostic. In other religions e.g. Jews, Muslims, God is not incarnated. For them, God is in the book, but He is not concrete. Only in Christianity, and really in the Catholic Church, is the incarnation fully realised and this has to be stressed therefore also in every point of the liturgy. God is here and really present. So every detail has meaning.
'We are living in an un-Christian society, in a new paganism. The temptation today for the clergy is to adapt to the new world to the new paganism, to be collaborationists. We are in a similar situation to the first centuries, when the majority of the society was pagan, and Christianity was discriminated against.'
Q. Do you think you can see this because of your experiences in the Soviet Union?
BAS: 'Yes, [I know what it is] to be persecuted, to give testimony that you are Christian.
'We are a minority. We are surrounded by a very cruel pagan world. The temptation and challenge of today can be compared with the first centuries. Christians were asked to accept the pagan world and to show this by putting one grain of incense into a fire in front of the statue of the Emperor or of a pagan idol. But this was idolatry and no good Christian put any grain of incense there. They preferred to give their lives, even children, lay people, who were persecuted, gave their lives. Unfortunately there were in the first century members of the clergy and even bishops who put grains of incense in front of the statue of the Emperor or of a pagan idol or who delivered the books of the Holy Scripture to be burned. Such collaborationist Christians and clerics were called in those times "thurificati" or "traditores".
'Now, in our days the persecution is more sophisticated. Catholics or clergy are not asking to put some incense in front of an idol. It would be only material. Now, they neo-pagan world wants us to take over its ideas, such as the dissolution of the Sixth Commandment of God, on the pretext of mercy. If some clergy and bishops start to collaborate with the pagan world today in this dissolution of the Sixth Commandment and in the revision of the way God created man and woman, then they are traitors of the Faith, they are participating ultimately in pagan sacrifice.'
Q. Can you see a split coming in the Church?
BAS: 'Unfortunately, for some decades some clergy have accepted these ideas of the world. Now however they are following them publicly. When these things continue, I think, there will be an interior split in the Church of those who are faithful to the faith of their baptism and of the integrity of the Catholic faith. There will be a split with those who are assuming the spirit of this world and there will be a clear split, I think. One can imagine that Catholics, who remain faithful to the unchangeable Catholic truth may, for a time, be persecuted or discriminated even on behalf of those who has power in the exterior structures of the Church? But the gates of the hell, i.e. of the heresy, will not prevail against the Church and the Supreme Magisterium will surely issue an unequivocal doctrinal statement, rejecting any collaboration with the neo-pagan ideas of changing e.g. the Sixth Commandment of God, the meaning of sexuality and of family. Then some 'liberals', and many collaborators with the spirit of this world, many modern "thurificati et traditores" will leave the Church. Because the Divine truth will unresistingly bring the clarification, will set us free, and will separate in the midst of the Church the sons of the Divine light and the sons of the of the pseudo-light of this pagan and anti-Christian world. I can presume that such a separation will affect each level of the Catholics: lay people and even not excluding the high clergy. Those clergy who accept today the spirit of the pagan world on morality and family declare themselves Catholics and even faithful to the Pope. They even declare extremists those who are faithful to the Catholic faith or those who are promoting the glory of Christ in the liturgy.'
Q. Do you feel you have been declared an extremist?
BAS: 'I have not been declared as such formally. I would say such clergy are not in the majority but they have acquired a lot of influence in the Church. They managed to occupy some key positions in some Church offices. Yet this is not power in the eyes of God. Truly powerful are the little ones in the Church, who conserve the faith.
'These little ones in the Church have been let down and neglected. They have kept the purity of their faith and they represent the true power of the church in the eyes of God and not those who are in administration. Thanks be to God, the numbers of these little ones are growing.
'I spoke for instance with young students in Oxford [picture left] and I was so much impressed by these students, I was so glad to see their purity of faith and their convictions, and the clear Catholic mind. Such examples and groups are growing in the Church and this is the work of the Holy Spirit. This will renew the Church. So I am confident and hopeful also in respect of this crisis in the Church. The Holy Ghost will win this crisis with this little army.
'I am not worried about the future. The Church is Christ's Church and He is the real Head of the Church, the Pope is only the Vicar of Christ. The soul of the Church is the Holy Spirit and He is powerful. However we are now experiencing a deep crisis in the Church as it happened several times in two thousand years.
Q. Will it get worse before it gets better?
BAS: 'I have the impression that it will be worse. Sometime the things have to go to the depths and then you will see the collapse of this anthropocentric, clerical system, which is abusing Church administration power, abusing the liturgy, abusing the concepts of God, abusing the faith and the piety of the little ones in the Church.
'Then we will see the rising of a renewed Church. This is already preparing. Then this liberal clerical edifice will crash down because they have roots and no fruits.'
Q. Some people would say you are worrying about unimportant things, what about the poor?
BAS: 'This is erroneous. The first commandment which Christ gave us was to adore God alone. Liturgy is not a meeting of friends. It is our first task to adore and glorify God in the liturgy and also in our manner of life. From a true adoration and love of God grows love for the poor and our neighbour. It is a consequence. The saints in two thousand years of the Church, all those saints who were so prayerful and pious, they were all extremely merciful for the poor and to care for the poor.
'In these two commandments are all the others. But the first commandment is to love and adore God and that is realised in a supreme manner in the sacred liturgy. When you are neglecting the first commandment, then you are not doing the will of God, you are pleasing yourself. Happiness is to fulfil the will of God, not to fulfil our will.'
Q. How long will it be before the Church is renewed?
BAS: 'I am not a prophet. We can only presume. But, if you look at the history of the Church, the deepest crisis was in the fourth century, that was Arianism. This was a tremendous crisis, all the episcopacy, almost all, collaborated with the heresy. Only some bishops remained faithful, you could count them on the fingers of one hand. This crisis lasted more or less 60 years.
'Then the terrible crisis of the so-called Obscure century, the 10th century, when the papacy was occupied by some very wicked and immoral Roman families. They occupied the papal chair with their corrupt sons, and it was a terrible crisis.
'The next period of harm was the so-called exile of Avignon and was very damaging to the Church, causing the great occidental schism. All these crisis lasted some 70-80 years and were very bad for the Church.
'Now we are, I would say, in the fourth great crisis, in a tremendous confusion over doctrine and liturgy. We have already been in this for 50 years. Perhaps God will be merciful to us in 20 or 30 years? 'Nevertheless we have all the beauty of the divine truths, of divine love and grace in the Church. No one can take this away, no synod, no bishop, not even a Pope can take away the treasure and beauty of the Catholic faith, of the Eucharistic Jesus, of the sacraments. The unchangeable doctrine, the unchangeable liturgical principles, the holiness of the life constitute the true power of the Church.'
Q. Our time is seen as a much more liberal era in the Church.
BAS: 'We have to pray that God will guide his Church from this crisis and give to his Church apostles who are courageous and holy. We need defenders of the truth and defenders of the Eucharistic Jesus. When a bishop is defending the flock and defending Jesus in the Eucharist, then this bishop is defending the little ones in the Church, not the powerful ones.'
Q. So you don't mind being unpopular?
BAS: 'It is quite insignificant to be popular or unpopular. For every clergy the first interest is to be popular in the eyes of God and not in the eyes of today or of the powerful. Jesus said a warning: Woe of you when people speak good of you.
'Popularity is false. Jesus and the apostles rejected popularity. Great saints of the Church, e.g. SS Thomas More and John Fisher, rejected popularity and they are the great heroes. And those who today are worried with the popularity of the mass media and public opinion, they will not be remembered in the history. They will be remembered as cowards and not as heroes of the Faith.'
Q. The media has great expectations of Pope Francis.
BAS: 'Thanks be to God, Pope Francis has not expressed himself in these ways that the mass media expect from him. He has spoken until now, in his official homilies, very beautiful Catholic doctrine. I hope he will continue to teach in very clear manner the Catholic doctrine.'
Q. On sharing Holy Communion with Anglicans and others?
BAS: 'This is not possible. There are different faiths. Holy Communion is not a means to achieve unity. It is the last step, not the first step. It would be a desecration of the Holy. Of course, we have to be one. Yet we have differences in belief, some substantial differences. The Eucharist is a sign of the deepest unity. It would be a lie, it would be contradictory to logic sharing Holy Communion with non-Catholics.
'Ecumenism is necessary in order to be in contact with our separated brethren, to love them. In the midst of the challenge of the new paganism, we can and have to collaborate with serious non-Catholics to defend the revealed Divine truth and the natural law, created by God.'
'It will be better not to have such a structure when the State is governing the life of the Church, such as for instance the appointments of the clergy or the bishops. Such a practice of a state church would damage the Church itself. In England e.g. the State is governing the Church of England. Such an influence of the State can corrupt spiritually and theologically the church, so it is better to be free from such an established state church.'
Q. On women in the Church.
BAS: 'Women are called the weaker sex, given they are physically weaker, however they are spiritually stronger and more courageous than men. It is courageous to give birth. Therefore God gave the woman a courage that a man doesn't have.
'Of course, there were many courageous men in the persecutions. Yet God loves to choose the weak ones to confuse the powerful. For instance the Eucharistic women, about which I spoke in my book Dominus Est worked in their families and desired to help the persecuted priests in a very exceptional way. They would never have dared to touch the holy hosts with their fingers. They would refuse to even read a reading during Mass. My mother, for example who is still living in Germany, aged 82, when she first went to the West, she was shocked, scandalised, to see women in the sanctuary during Holy Mass. The true power of the Christian and Catholic woman is the power to be the heart of the family, the domestic church, to have the privilege to be the first who gives nourishment to the body of his child and also to be the first who gives nourishment to the souls of the child, teaching it the first prayer and the first truths of the Catholic faith. The most prestigious and beautiful profession of a woman is to be mother, and especially to be a Catholic mother.'


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Type: MediaAMP
Dr. Erin Dillon-Naftolin, a UW Medicine psychiatrist working at Seattle Children's, discusses teen anxiety and depression—what's behind it and the proven methods of treating it. Access this ...
Two of his comrades died instantly. Hill was rescued and has wanted to pay back by giving life. Twelve years later, he paid that debt with a piece of his liver. He became a living liver transplant...
Type: MediaAMP
Unrelated to alcohol, sugar consumption is the root of most liver transplants in young Americans, a recent study shows. Dr. Judy Chen of UW Medicine's Weight Loss Management Center, talks about...
Surgeons at UW Medicine in Seattle have performed the first liver transplant in the Pacific Northwest involving a warm blood-perfusion device to transport the organ between donor and recipient. Paul...
Type: MediaAMP
Patient Paul Hamilton and transplant surgeon Dr. Jorge Reyes discusses the experience after a transplant involving a "liver in a box" device.


text: Redefine Your Comfort Zone Inadequate hand protection can lead to worker distraction, loss of focus or even glove removal leaving workers dissatisfied unproductive or worse potentially at risk. For those 6 out of 10 workers exposed to oil daily outdated solutions are still being used which can lead to frustration and discomfort. We can help reduce this frustration by redefining the worker's comfort zone.


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Touka Gettan
Related episode
Touka Gettan
Category: Romance , Drama , Supernatural
Anime info:
Touka Gettan is set in the land of Kamitsumihara, where traces of magic and legend can still be seen. The land has been under the protection of the Kamiazuma clan since it was founded. The story revolves around T?ka Kamiazuma, the main protagonist, and his encounter with a young girl named Momoka Kawakabe who comes to stay with the clan. Their meeting sets off a chain of events that will bring an ancient legend to life.


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We all have heard at some point or another about our need to stretch properly. But did you know that like any part of your training, stretching or flexibility training should also follow the FITT principle?
Frequency – Ideally, stretching should be done everyday to maximize the benefits and improve overall flexibility. However, this does not always happen especially for busy individuals like you and me. Try to include a sensible stretching routine after every workout that you do.
Intensity – A good stretch should feel good. Joints should never be stretched beyond their Range of Motion (ROM) that it becomes painful. The focus of the stretch should be to bring the joint just to a point of slight tension.
Time – As a standard for static stretching, holding a stretch for 30 seconds produces beneficial results. If you are doing a passive stretch (assisted by your personal trainer or someone else) this would be easy to do. You might need more motivation to hold the stretch for every joint for at least 30 seconds if you are stretching on your own. Stretching is usually the part of the workout that gets cut short when time is running out. A good workout design would ensure that this essential part of the training would not be left out.
Type – Mainly, you can do either Dynamic or Static stretching in your workouts. There are other kinds of 'advanced' stretches that you can do depending on your need, like the PNF (Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation) Stretch, AIS (Active Isometric Stretch), etc. Stretching can also be done using other equipment such as elastic bands, yoga straps, foam roller, and even your towel.
Here are some tips on how to stretch properly:
• Work within your limits. Do not try to overstretch your joints and muscles. If you are in a group exercise class such as yoga or pilates, don't be intimidated by those who can touch their nose to their knees (it sometimes looks weird anyway). Remember that the stretch should feel good.
• Incorporate breathing to your stretching routine. This works well especially when you're doing the static stretching as cool down. Do long breaths, exhaling upon relaxation and then slowly inch your way to a greater ROM.
• Do static stretching only after your muscles are warm. Muscles lengthen more easily when they are warmed up.
Try other kinds of stretching activities such as pilates, yoga, and breathing classes to make your stretching more fun and interesting.
The article was shared with the author's written permission. The article reflects the author's own thoughts and it originally appeared on www.coachbillygoco.com.


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Start spreading the news: Bride-to-be Nicole Richie is spending the weekend in New York — not the Beverly Hills mansion of her dad Lionel Richie, the reported site of her imminent wedding to longtime love Joel Madden.
On Friday night, the designer and L.A. native, 29, Tweeted about her arrival in the Big Apple: "Aaahhhhh FINALLY a proper winter. And I had to go all the way to New York to get it."
After a delivery truck was spotted at Lionel Richie's home on Friday, some speculated that Saturday or Sunday might be the big day for Richie and Good Charlotte singer Madden, 31.
Together for four years, the couple has two kids: daughter Harlow, 2, and son Sparrow, 15 months. They confirmed their engagement in February. Although she has shared very few details — or exact dates — for their wedding, Richie had a bachelorette bash in Mexico in September with Christina Aguilera and other pals.
Back in March, she teased to Ellen DeGeneres that she'd tie the knot "soon…It's a big deal."
Madden was similarly vague about the wedding planning at an Oscars pre-show . "[Planning will be] the same thing as our engagement," the rocker said. "We're kind of doing it at our own pace. We have no idea right now."


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An undergraduate major in political science is used by many students as a background for graduate study—and eventually employment—in such fields as law, public policy, public administration, business administration, and international relations.
Other fields that may be directly open to graduates include public opinion and market research, city or county management, urban planning, policy analysis, social work, municipal management, secondary school teaching, TV and radio, journalism, lobbying, criminal justice, campaign management, and legislative staff work.
The Political Science Department Placement Program is designed to assist students both in identifyng the possibilities after Albion and in beginning their post-graduate careers. The program offers information on internships, graduate schools, and employment opportunities for Albion political science majors and graduates. Stop by the department office or contact us for more information.
Also, visit our Career Resources page for links to internships, jobs, lists of nongovernmental organizations and think tanks, and more.


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Reformed Churchmen
We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Church of England, Synod of Dordt & Heidelberg Catechism
Queen Elizabeth I's Opinion of Sacred Pictures
Extensive Online Bibliography: English Reformation


text: Verizon FiOS's blazingest 50Mbps downstream/20Mbps upstream package is no longer confined to the pit of the tri-state NY/NJ/CT area and select other locales. Starting next week, it'll be available across Verizon's entire, growing FiOS footprint in 16 states. (Though it'll run $139.95 a month to NY and VA's bargain $89.95/month.) Also, everyone who got 15/15 Mbps now has the option for 20/20 symmetrical ($64.95 a month), and its lower end packages are getting juiced from 15/2 Mbps to 20/5 Mbps, and from 5/2 Mbps to 10/2 Mbps (uh, why do you people have FiOS?). Overall, a nice day to be a FiOS customer, even more so than before. *Kicks stupid cable modem* [Verizon]


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You shall not post this on anywhere for public use
You shall not sell this for public use
Do not replicate and forward without permission
Do not claim this as yours
Do Not Translate it into your languange and claim ownership
High above the western seas of Johto, Silver continues to hover on Honchkrow while thoughts keep running through his head. The evil organization Team Rocket that was once disbanded has apparently been resurrected again, and he has no clue as to what their intention could be. He wonders who might be the current person in charge, and the image of his father, Giovanni, instantly flashes across his mind. Yet, he quickly dismisses the idea, and decides that it doesn't matter who the culprit behind everything is. The fact that the organization's evil deeds are causing distress to people's lives is a good enough reason for him to thwart their revival at all cost.
Honchkrow turns its head around to let out a quack, and Silver looks down to see that they have arrived at the newly constructed Safari Zone, which lies in the middle of the wilderness in the west of Cianwood. The red-haired boy lets go of Honchkrow's feet to land on the footbridge outside the park's front gates, and sends out his most trusted childhood companion, Weavile.
Initially, he thought that his teacher, Lance, might know of something about Team Rocket's resurrection and thus paid him a visit at the secret chamber. However, the man was nowhere to be found, and he encountered Clair instead. According to the Blackthorn Gymleader, there is a high chance that Lance has been ambushed, and the last words that the man exchanged with Clair over the phone were 'Safari Zone', 'Plate' and 'Arceus'. Having no idea about what 'Plate' and 'Arceus' mean, Silver could only follow the trail of 'Safari Zone', where he hopes to discover something.
Stepping through the gates of the park, Silver immediately finds himself surrounded by a huge crowd of visitors and their Pokemon. Hikers and Bug Catchers eagerly await their turn to enter the frontdoor, while Youngsters and Lasses purchase all sorts of supplements and foreign Pokeballs from the marketplace. To be frank, the place suggests anything but a lair where Team Rocket is lurking, and Silver starts to question himself if he has made the wrong decision to come here.
Silver walks through the stalls in the marketplace, and comes across one that sells artwork and poetry based on Suicune. He picks up a drawing of the legendary Pokemon, and sweatdrops at the extremely unflattering art. The stall owner, a purple-attired man with a white cape seems excited that Silver also finds interest in Suicune, and fervently explains that he has spent most of his life being a Suicune Hunter. He grins that his beautiful portrayals of the beast's elegance are only sold there, but before he could go on, Silver tosses the drawing away with a snicker, which causes the man to fume with rage.
Silver strolls around some more, and just as he intends to leave for the lack of apparent useful information he could find, he gets caught up in a fanatical crowd pushing their way into the Safari Zone, and ends up being dragged along into the entrance building. Before long, he finds himself holding a sachet of Safari Balls, together with two pockets of mud and bait, the latter being sampled merrily by Weavile.
Standing on a platform overlooking the entire room, a moustached old man welcomes his visitors and introduces himself as Baoba, the warden of the Safari Zone. He explains that the Safari game only costs an entrance fee of 500 dollars, and participants will be given 30 Safari Balls to capture Pokemon within the park for as long as they wish or until the balls run out. With a roar of encouragement, Baoba opens the gate which has a Nidoking symbol on it, and the room of excited trainers instantly gush into the park.
Silver shares a look with Weavile, and decides that they might as well check out the insides of the Safari Zone to look for any traces of Lance. They leisurely walk past the gleeful young trainers who chase after all sorts of rare Pokemon, and Silver muses that the place could also serve as a good training ground. Making his way through the tall grasses, Silver enters the Marshland area, and as he waddles across the muddy ground, a pair of gleaming eyes silently watches him from a tree nearby. Silver senses the faint stir however, and as soon as the creature lashes out from the tree, revealing itself to be a wild Arbok, Weavile is already in standby mode and leaps forward to fight.
It soon becomes clear that Arbok is of no match to Weavile, and Silver quickly sees that his opponent is a relatively weak one. He decides to try out the Safari Ball, and prepares a toss. However, a booming voice suddenly yells for him to stop, and the Suicune Hunter guy he saw at the marketplace earlier rushes out with his Electrode to cease the fight between Arbok and Weavile.
Silver freezes in his motions, and the man hollers that while it is alright to walk around the park with one's Pokemon, it is absolutely forbidden to use them to fight. He states that participants in the Safari challenge must use either the bait or mud only, and accuses Silver for not paying heed to the warden's instructions at the entrance building.
The red-haired boy responds to the allegation with silence as he indeed didn't listen to what Baoba said, and the purple-attired man, seeing Silver's somewhat embarrassed look, apologizes for startling him with such a rude tone. He hopes Silver understands that they must keep order in the park, else the bad mannered guests will drive away everyone else and force the Safari to close down, something which will greatly trouble him.
Silver believes that the man means he will have nowhere to sell his Suicune art, and wonders if he is part of the staff. The man shakes his head, and says he is simply a Suicune Hunter, gathering information around to seek his goal. He starts to get enthusiastic again talking about his work, and strikes a pose to introduce himself as Eusine, calling himself a restless traveller who chases after the legendary Pokemon Suicune.
Silver gets a little taken aback at the man's weird actions, and tries to rationalize in his mind whether he is a friend of foe as they make their way to a bridge that hangs between two cliffs. Indeed, the man's actions are beyond eccentric, and he is on the hunt for a legendary Pokemon. However, there is really no telling if he has other intentions, or if he knows of any important information. The boy decides to test the man, and reaches into his pocket to take out the red-coloured plate. He deliberately flashes it in front of Eusine to catch his attention, but the Suicune Hunter simply puts on a baffled look.
High up on the cliff behind them, someone else fixes his eyes on the Plate in a completely different manner. Spying on the two with a pair of specs, the purple haired Team Rocket General, Petrel, now knows for sure that Silver was the one who knocked out his pack of Koffings at Lance's secret chamber and snatched away the Plate they obtained there. The battered Koffings, now gathered close to their trainer, put on angry looks and Petrel pats one on the head, promising them that he will seek revenge on the boy.
Back on the bridge, Silver sees that Eusine has no peculiar reaction to the Plate at all, and believes that he probably has no connection to Team Rocket. Suddenly, tears start to well up in Eusine's eyes, and he begins to get a running nose. Within seconds, the mucus from his nose oozes heavily out of control, and the man breaks into a big bad sneeze, startling Silver and causing Weavile to run in fear. Eusine panics as his face is gradually glued up by tears and mucus, and he desperately wants to know what is wrong with him. Silver notices a cloud of smoke slowly surroundind them, and quickly flips out his Pokedex to identify it as gas released from Koffing's body, capable of causing constant sniffles, coughs and teary eyes.
Silver hurriedly covers his nose with his handkerchief, and wonders if he is facing the same enemy at Lance's secret chamber as it is Koffings he is dealing with again. His query is immediately answered, and Petrel steps out from his hiding place to greet the boy with a grin. He is sure that Silver must wonder why this gas strategy wasn't used back in the chamber, and says he would have if his Pokemon weren't carrying out their mission alone at that time. Now that he is there to give command, he hopes Silver will not be stupid enough to think that he could gain victory the same way twice.
Silver notices the 'R' symbol on the man's uniform, and demands to know who he is. Petrel introduces himself with a cocky smirk, and says he is one of the Four Generals currently in command of Team Rocket. The answer causes Silver to squint his eyes, and with a snicker, the boy calls Weavile forward, who delivers a powerful Icy Wind on the Koffings, freezing up the pores on their bodies.
Petrel grunts that the frozen pores have stopped the outflow of gas, but soon decides that it is of no big deal because there is already enough smoke in the area to give one bad sniffles and teary eyes, which Eusine and his Electrode are currently suffering from. He smirks that there is in fact more than just the gas, and as soon as he says that, something fast moving ambushes Weavile, inflicting a sharp pain on its right arm. The dark weasel instantly falls on its back and shrieks in agony, and Silver quickly checks on it to find a severely bitten wound, characteristic of a Raticate's Hyper Fang.
The culprit in question then leaps towards Silver from behind, and the boy angles his body aside to evade, but still sustains a cut on his right cheek from Raticate's tail. He looks around to trace the tracks of its opponent, but the cloud of smoke around them has gotten so thick that it is impossible to see through. Petrel grins that they are trapped now, and Silver soon hears a loud gnawing noise followed by sounds of ropes being ripped apart. Before he realizes what is going on, the wooden bridge they are standing on crumbles into pieces, and everything starts to plummet. Acting out of reflex, Silver reaches out to grab onto one end of the torn rope, which hangs from what is remained of the bridge, and fastens his other hand around the wrist of Eusine to keep the man from falling. On his leg, Weavile clutches tight with its arms, and the three sway back and forth on the single rope, staying suspended right above a perilous stream that runs torrentially at the bottom of the cliff side.
The TR General compliments Silver for his extremely good reflex, even in situations of limited vision, but giggles that there is no way he can fight back now. Raticate picks up the rope which Silver is holding onto, and gets ready to snap it. Petrel asks Silver to hand over his Plate, and wonders if its red hue points to its identity as the Draco, Flame or Fist Plate. However, he decides that it doesn't matter anyhow, for together with his Toxic and Earth Plates, he will have three pieces, bringing them another step closer to completion.
Silver's eyes widen with surprise when he hears that there are more than one Plates, and demands to know if there are multiple ones out there. Petrel sticks out his tongue, and blames himself for letting information slip from his mouth again. Yet, seeing how Silver is about to meet his end anyway, he decides to let him die with clarity, and states that there are indeed more than one, and to gather them all is the aim of Team Rocket.
Having his query answered, Silver puts on a smirk, and says he shall have three Plates after snatching those of Petrel in that case. The statement both startles and confuses the TR General, and in the next instant, Silver lets go of the rope he is holding on, and plummets into the water below with Eusine and Weavile. Their fall causes a big splash, much bigger than Petrel expected, and the water that washes up causes him to tumble backwards with Raticate.
Before Petrel could figure out what is going on, he feels the sharp claws of Weavile on his neck, and is forced to put his hands up as Silver rises out from the waters on his Red Gyarados. Towering over the TR General, the boy demands him to hand over his two Plates, and wants to know exactly how many Plates there are in total…Thanks To Coronis For Writing this for us
446: VS Weavile
Volume 41


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South Hill crash sends motorcyclist to hospital
A car crashed into a motorcyclist on Tuesday morning, breaking his leg.
The crash happened around 9 a.m. at 22nd Avenue and Freya Street. According to Spokane County deputies, the driver of the car was trying to cross Freya Street. The driver did not see the motorcyclist, crashing into him.
Deputies said the motorcyclist was taken to a hospital with a broken leg.
The driver of the car was given a ticket for failure to yield.


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Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Ismael
(Sept. 'Ismaél; Vulg. Ismahel, in I Par., i, 28, 20, 31).
The son of Abraham and Agar, the Egyptian. His history is contained in parts of Gen., xvi-xxv, wherein three strata of Hebrew tradition (J, E, P) are usually distinguished by contemporary scholars. The name "Ismael", which occurs also in early Babylonian and in Minæan, was given to the child before its birth (Gen., xvi, 11), and means: "may God hear". As Sarai, Abram's wife, was barren, she gave him, in accordance with the custom of the time, her handmaid, Agar, as concubine, in order to obtain children through her. Agar's conception of a child soon led to her flight into the wilderness, where the angel of Yahweh appeared to her, bade her to return to her mistress, and fixed the name and character of her future son. After her return to Bersabee, she brought forth Ismael to Abram, who was then eighty-six years old (xvi). Ismael was very dear to the aged patriarch, as is shown by his entreaty of God in Ismael's behalf, when the Almighty promised him a son through Sara. In answer to this earnest entreaty, God disclosed to Abraham the glorious future which awaited Ismael: "As for Ismael, I have also heard thee. Behold, I will bless him, and increase, and multiply him exceedingly: he shall beget twelve chiefs, and I will make him a great nation." Ismael was not the destined heir of the covenant; yet, as he belonged to Abraham's family, he was submitted to the rite of circumcision when the patriarch circumcised all the male members of his household. He was then a lad of thirteen (xvii). Abraham's tender love towards Ismael manifested itself on another occasion. He resented Sara's complaint to him, when, on the great festival given at the weaning of Isaac, she requested Agar's and Ismael's summary dismissal because she "had seen the son of Agar the Egyptian playing with [or mocking] Isaac her son". Ismael was Abraham's own "son", and indeed his first- born. At this juncture, God directed Abraham to accede to Sara's request, comforting him with the repeated assurance of future national greatness for Ismael. Whereupon the patriarch dismissed Agar and Ismael with a modicum of provision for their journey. As their scanty provision of water was soon exhausted, Ismael would have certainly perished in the wilderness, had not God shown to Agar a well of water which enabled her to revive the dying lad.
According to God's repeated promise of future greatness for Agar's son, Ismael grew up, lived in the wilderness of Paran, became famous as an archer, and married an Egyptian wife (xxi, 8-21). He became the father of twelve chiefs, whose names and general quarters are given in Gen., xxv, 12-16. Only one daughter of Ismael is mentioned in Holy Writ, where she is spoken of as one of Esau's wives (cf. Gen., xxviii, 9; xxxvi, 3). The last incident known of Ismael's career is connected with Abraham's burial, in which he appears associated with Isaac (xxv, 9). Ismael died at the age of one hundred and thirty-seven, "and was gathered unto his people" (xxv, 17).
In his Epistle to the Galatians (iv, 21, sqq.) St. Paul expands allegorically the narrative of Ismael and Isaac, urging upon his readers the duty of not giving up their Christian freedom from the bondage of the Law. Of course, in so arguing, the Apostle of the Gentiles did not intend to detract in any way from the historical character of the narrative in Genesis. With regard to the various difficulties, literary and historical, suggested by a close study of the Biblical account of Ismael's life, suffice it to say that each and all will never cause a careful and unbiased scholar to regard that account otherwise than as portraying an ancient historical character, will never induce him to treat otherwise than as hypercritical every attempt, by whomsoever made, to resolve Ismael into a conjectural personality of the founder of a group of Arabic tribes. And this view of the matter will appear most certain to any one who compares the Biblical narrative with the legends concerning Ismael which are embodied in the Talmud, the Targum, and the other rabbinical works; while the latter are plainly the result of puerile imagination, the former is decidedly the description of an ancient historical figure.
See bibliography to , to which may be added, DRIVER in HASTINGS, Dict. of the Bible, s. v. Ishmael; SELIGSOHN in The Jewish Encyclopedia, s. v. Ishmael.


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Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 [Used - Like-New]
Regular price
Shipping Fee: $2.99
Shipping Method: Standard Shipping (estimate: 5-10 days)
Pro Evolution Soccer is a video game built on pride, the pride that comes from making the most realistic soccer experience one can have within the world of gaming. Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 does not disappoint and this year, the voices of fans world-wide have been heard. Based in Japan, Winning Eleven Productions has instituted a host of anticipated changes that make PES 2010 the best yet. In PES 2010 you'll find yourself on the largest stage in digital soccer: The Champions League. Imagine you're in a 1-1 tie in stoppage time against Manchester United. You've broken their defense and are sprinting full throttle into a man to man match of wits and reflexes with Edwin van der Sar... Do you have what it takes to punch it in for the win?
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