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The Credit Control Act of 1983: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization of the Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs, House of Representatives, Ninety-eighth Congress, First Session, on H.R. 1742 ... June 16, 1983
United States. Congress. House. Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs. Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1983 - Credit control - 135 pages
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H R 1742 text of
Brobeck Stephen executive director Consumer Federation of America 51
Thomson Thomas D prepared statement on behalf of the American Bankers
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AFL-CIO American Bankers Association auto bill billion borrowers capital Chairman LAFALCE Chief Economist Committee Congress consumer credit control inflation corporate acquisitions corporate takeovers Council for Low countries credit allocation Credit Control Act credit control authority credit financed credit for productive credit markets Crocker National Bank decline deficits discretionary income dollar economic activity economic growth economic recovery ECONOMIC STABILIZATION effect experience with credit Federal Reserve Board financial markets fungible Haak high interest rates higher impact imposition of controls increased industry investment Japan lending levels Low Interest Rates LUNDINE mergers and acquisitions MINISH monetary policy money market funds money supply months mortgage nonproductive purposes OAKAR prime rate problems quarter of 1980 recession reduce interest rates SAVIN Schechter second quarter sector small business standby authority standby credit control statement Subcommittee Thank THOMSON tight money tion tool Turner U.S. banks U.S. dollar unemployment United VENTO window guidance


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Big Pharma doesn't appear to be looking forward to having to go back to the drawing board on health-care reform if the landmark legislation is somehow struck down by an upcoming Supreme Court decision.
"The decision affects the timing but it really doesn't affect the debate of a lot of the issues…like how do we deal with Medicare, how do we deal with the states over Medicaid expansion, and so on," PhRMA President John Castellani told MarketWatch at the pharmaceutical industry trade group's annual meeting on Thursday.
Even if the legislation was allowed to stand as is, he said, several aspects of the bill would still need further clarification, such as the oversight and scope of the independent advisory boards.
"All those issues have to be addressed. The Supreme Court decision is very important but if you look over a long period of time… the fiscal condition of the country is going to force Congress to look at a whole set of the issues that are encompassed in the Affordable Care Act," said Castellani.
And what would be most disruptive to the industry if the current act is struck down?
Topping the list, said Castellani, would be the loss of a regulatory pathway for the approval of generic biologics, or biosimilars, which was finally established, after years of debate, under the Affordable Care Act. If the act is scrapped, the industry may have to wait some time for the provision to be reintroduced in Congress.
Also at issue is how scrapping of the act would impact certain prescription drug benefits included under Medicare Part D.
"If it's struck down, then it all has to be reconstructed," added Castellani.
Meanwhile, Sanofi CEO Chris Viehbacher, PhRMA's outgoing chairman, told listeners during his speech Thursday that overturning the bill would "have a massive impact on our businesses," according to Dow Jones Newswires.
[Updates to clarify John Castellani's comments and add remarks from Chris Viehbacher.]
--Val Brickates Kennedy
Follow The Tell on Twitter@thetellblog


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Observer: Richard Berry
Location: ??
Date: March 18, 1996 10:06 UT - 12:50 UT
Sequence of 9 images taken March 18 UT, with a time resolution of about 15 minutes. These images are highly processed to reveal low-contrast features in the tail of the comet.
I shot a 60-second integration every 80 seconds using Cookbook 245 CCD on a 6"f/5, 4"f/5, or 200mm lens. I grouped the images and registered them on the comet nucleus. I then created an image from the median of these frames, which largely eliminates the "moving" stars. I then used the following process: CB245 script language: RANK 20 .8 / RANK 12 .5 / GUMA 24 1.6. This enhances low-contrast features and ignores the elliptical brightness contour that dominates the raw data.
The rank process compares the brightness of a pixel with its neighbors inside a given radius. In square of radius 10, there are 441 pixels. Sort the pixels in the region into ascending order of brightness. If the pixel at the center is the 235th in brightness rank, it is assigned a value of (235/441)*4095.
The "gain" of the rank process becomes higher the more uniform the region is. It best detects features roughly equal in dimension to the radius. It is insensitive to large brightness differences.
To get higher time resolution, I registered all frames on the nucleus and then created a median image. I used the rank minimum function to erode details in the median image and then smoothed it with a 24-sigma Gausssian and then subtracted this from each of the data frames. This removed the gross brightness contour of the comet. I then stretched the difference, ran a big Gaussian mask over it, and saved it.
Richard Berry
Comet 1996 B2 Hyakutake Home Page


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Hello everyone!
A little background to this post to help out with my question. I am a student ambassador for a program called S.T.E.M. ( Science. Technology. Engineering. Mathematics.) We work in local cities with schools and we help to increase the interest in the STEM disciplines. When we visit with the school we usually have an activity and information on how the activity is going to help them learn about a certain STEM field.
I am looking for more activities for our group to use. We usually have between 1 & 2 hours to do the activities and we have a decent financial backing. We visit classrooms with K-8 students so I would like them to be appropriate for those ages. So, if you have any ideas that you have see, please post them and if there is a website, video, or instructions that are related to it I would appreciate a link to them as well.
Thanks everyone!
Views: 201
You're probably aware of this site, but...
No, I actually haven't seen this one before. Thanks for the info!
This will be one of them that I test for sure next semester with our group. Thanks for the link!
One of my favorites involves hands-on aerodynamics via "walkalong gliders" (aka "indoor slope soaring"). How-to at: http://sites.google.com/site/controllableslopesoaring/
Excellent introductory video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXZ352ErX_s


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I had a great time running this crime blog the past couple years, but unfortunately a move back in January off the crime beat and away from reporting has made it impossible to devote the time to the blog I once did.
Some of you probably already noticed the past several months have had far fewer posts than I once posted when I would do a few a day.
So unfortunately this will be the final post on my Santa Fe Crime blog. Thank you all for reading. The numbers were surprisingly good for a crime blog like this so I hope it is continued in some form by someone down the road.
On to the next adventure…


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On Saturday the CCRI women's soccer team traveled to New Rochelle, NY to take on the No. 15 ranked (NJCAA DI1 Poll) Mustangs of Monroe College. The Lady Knights fell to the 15th ranked Mustangs 2-0. With the loss the Lady Knights drop top 0-3 on the season.
As the game began the Lady Knights took it to the Mustangs and dominated play for the first 10 minutes. The teams played relatively even until the Mustangs' forward Ana Rodrigues broke in alone on Tri-Captain goalkeeper Alex Place (East Greenwich, RI) and scored an unassisted goal giving Monroe a 1-0 halftime advantage.
As the second half began the two teams battled back and forth with both having some scoring chances. At one point the Lady Knights had a golden opportunity to score but just missed an open net shooting the ball about a foot wide along the ground. Both teams continued to battle evenly until the Mustangs' Ana Rodrigues struck again, giving a beautiful back heel pass to winger Gemma Craine sending her in on goal all alone on another breakaway giving Monroe a commanding 2-0 lead in the contest. That is how the game would end in a 2-0 Monroe College victory.
Lady Knights' Head Coach Dennis Grassini commented after the game: "Monroe is a very good team but I thought we played pretty well and even up for most of the contest. Alex Place played another outstanding game in goal today. You couldn't blame her one bit. We gave up two breakaway goals today and that was our demise. Betti Worth (Manchester, England) played outstanding. She is solid as a rock for us! Even though we came up short today Coach Bannan and I saw a lot of positives within our game. We had our scoring chances but we didn't make the most of our opportunities today. We have a real tough and competitive schedule this season but some untimely injuries have set us back a bit but I am confident that we will recover and be there at the end when it really counts."
The Community College of Rhode Island, New England's largest comprehensive community college, enrolls nearly 18,000 students in credit courses and thousands more in non-credit and job training classes. Its athletic program boasts 12 varsity programs and an academic support program for all student-athletes.
This page developed and maintained by CCRI Athletics. Send comments and suggestions to email@example.com.


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The Division of General Internal Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) is seeking a dynamic leader to develop a new Comprehensive Women's Health Program through the expansion of our Women's Health Research Program. This position is made possible by a generous gift from the Melitta S. and Joan M. Pick Charitable Trust and will hold the distinguished title as the Georgia Carroll Chair in Women's Health.
Candidates for this role should be nationally recognized in women's health and should be engaged in established and funded clinical or outcomes research in women's health. The successful candidate will hold a faculty appointment with the Medical College of Wisconsin and will work collaboratively with providers in multiple areas of expertise to develop this program. Reporting to the Chief of General Internal Medicine, the new Endowed Chair will develop the Comprehensive Women's Health Program that focuses on gender differences more broadly to spark research, teaching and clinical practice to enhance health outcomes for women throughout southeastern Wisconsin. The ideal candidate will have the option of serving as Section Chief for Research in the Division of General Internal Medicine.
For additional information or confidential inquiries, please contact Jennifer Schaulin at (682) 223-5782 or via email at firstname.lastname@example.com. The Medical College of Wisconsin is an EEO/AA Employer M/F/D/V
The Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) is a private, academic institution dedicated to leadership and excellence. The college educates approximately 900 medical students, 520 graduate students and supervises 900 physicians-in-training in graduate medical education (residency and fellowship training) programs. The college in the nation's 10th largest medical school in terms of enrollment and it provides continuing education to more than 15,000 health professional registrants each year. The Medical College of Wisconsin is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and the Liaison Committee for Medical Education (LCME). The LCME awarded accreditation to MCW in 2014. The college research enterprise generates >$180 million/year, including ~$93 million of NIH funding; which ranks 45th among medical schools nationwide. Through its clinical operations, MCW physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and psychologists care for more than 530,000 patients representing more than 2.4 million patient visits.
Froedtert Hospital is the primary adult hospital affiliate of MCW and is staffed by MCW physicians providing care in all medical specialties and subspecialties. Froedtert and MCW are at the forefront of new technology and care in many areas, including cancer, heart and vascular diseases, brain injury and disorders, spinal cord injury, transplant, communication disorders, digestive diseases, diabetes, orthopedics, urology and women's health. A 500-bed hospital, Froedtert, has the only adult Level 1 Trauma Center in eastern Wisconsin.
Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center is a level 1A hospital, and is one of the busiest and most comprehensive centers operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Approximately $10 million in research (funded primarily by the VA and the NIH) is conducted by MCW faculty members at the Zablocki VA.
© 2016 Indiana Psychological Association


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For we must consider that we shall be a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world.
Category: Achievement


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I invite you to open your Bible to 1 Timothy chapter 2,
1 Timothy chapter 2. The first eight verses have to do with evangelistic praying, praying for the unsaved. This is a great responsibility for the church, a serious calling which the Lord has committed to us.
I want you to keep in mind that as Paul is writing to Timothy, Timothy is in Ephesus. He has been left there by Paul after his first Roman imprisonment for the purpose of setting things right in the church. That great Ephesian church which Paul himself had pastored for three years, that great church which was so solid and so strong, born in a marvelous moving of the mighty Spirit of God had begun to drift. They had fallen into false doctrine. They had fallen into sin and ungodliness and many things needed correction in the church. And Paul has left Timothy there to do that. He then writes him this epistle to outline very carefully those things most needful of his attention and effort.
And as chapter 2 opens up, Paul begins to give him specific instruction in regard to the things in the Ephesian church that need to be dealt with. The first subject in the first eight verses is this matter of praying for all men to be saved. Apparently in the Ephesian church there had developed certain theology that said not all men could be saved. There's no reason to pray for all men, there is perhaps no reason to even proclaim to all men. Salvation had for them become an exclusive kind of gift belonging only to perhaps some special lawkeeping Jews or some elite mystical Gentiles who had attained a certain level of inside knowledge of the things of God. Whatever the specifics may have been, they had developed a doctrine of exclusivity in regard to salvation and were no longer interested in fulfilling the great commission. Their preaching no doubt effectively demonstrated this and so did their praying, or better, their lack of it.
And so, in verses 1 to 8, Paul gives Timothy the instruction that God wants all men to be saved, not just a few elite Jews and Gentiles, but that salvation is provided for all men. And he must communicate that to the church in such a way as to mandate them to understand that.
Now we're very much aware over the last couple of weeks of the importance of this matter of praying for the lost. We are also very much aware of the great commission of going into all the world and making disciples of all nations. And this fits in perfectly with that. If you've been raised in the church like I have, you have on many occasions heard missionary speakers say, "I know you cannot go to the field, but even while you're home you can at least pray." And we have through the years prayed for the evangelism of missionaries and preachers and teachers all over the world. And this is a call for us to renew that commitment to evangelistic praying.
And so as we go back to the text, do I need to remind you that the heart of it is at the end of verse 1? It says there that we are to offer supplication, prayer, intercession and giving of thanks are to be made for all men. And that's the heart of this passage. The idea of "all men." Verse 2 says all that are in authority. Verse 4 says God will have all men to be saved. And verse 6 says Christ gave Himself a ransom for all. The idea here then clearly is an affirmation that we are to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to all men and we are to support that taking with prayer. It is a call to evangelistic prayer, an essential element in the fulfillment of the great commission.
Now as you know, if you've been with us, there are five elements in this passage that call us to evangelistic prayer...the nature, the scope, the benefit, the reason and the attitude connected to such praying. We've already discussed the nature of evangelistic prayer, back at verse 1. Do you remember it? Those four words describing facets of prayer, supplications, prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks instructed us as to the nature of evangelistic praying.
Secondly, we looked at the scope of evangelistic praying at the end of verse 1, it is for all men. No limitation, includingverse 2 saysall that are in authority. All men at all levels of human society who are without the Lord are to be the objects of our prayers, most particularly those who are leaders over us.
Then we noted last time the benefit of such praying at the end of verse 2, the result being that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all godliness and moral earnestness. When the church maintains its integrity and stays within the realm of spiritual life, it will be to a society a benediction and a blessing rather than a threat and it will find that it will enjoy more tranquility which will prosper the speeding of the gospel. And that is the word that Paul is instructing Timothy and us as well. Conditions of peace and rest, the absence of strife and anxiety benefit the church in the work of evangelism. And so the church then should be known in society as those people who seek to make friends out of those that are unsaved, who pray for their salvation both people and leaders alike. We desire to live lives of godliness and lives of moral integrity. We desire to pursue the things of God, to proclaim the gospel of salvation in the most effective way and we can do that if we are no threat to the disruption of national life, social life, political life, things that are beyond the purview of the life of the church. So we seek to contribute to peace that we may be accepted as those who love the souls of men and thus find a hearing with those around us. And being not a threat to society but a benediction as God answers our prayers and many are saved we find the tranquility that allows us the freedom of ministry we would so desire.
Now that brings us to the fourth point where we left off last time, the reason for evangelistic praying. Why are we to do this? Yes, we understand we are to do it. Yes, we understand we are to do it for all men. Yes, we are to do it in order that we might receive a side effect benefit ourselves. But coming to verse 3 and going all the way through verse 7 we find the lists...the list rather, a list of the elements within the reason for evangelistic prayer. Now I want you to understand that this is a theological portion. It is rich. It is at sometimes profound but at the same time very clear and very binding to our conscience.
First of all, we are to be engaged in praying for the lost regularly because it is morally right. It is beneficial and it is good. Verse 3, "For this...that is praying for all men's salvation...is good." It is good for them. That's the idea. It is beneficial to them. It is excellent for them. It brings them into the knowledge of God. It brings them by God's grace in response to our prayers to salvation. None of us would disagree with that. We would all agree that salvation would be of great benefit to any man or any woman. We would all agree that it would be excellent for anyone to know the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is precisely the point. It is good, it is beneficial.
Secondly we saw last time, we are to pray for the lost because it is consistent with God's will. Verse 3 says it is acceptable, that is God receives it with delight. He applauds it. He welcomes it. "Because He is God our Savior who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." He wants all men saved from sin, rescued from judgment and He wants them all to come to the knowledge of the saving truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So God heartily receives this because this is reflective of His desire. His will is that men be saved, that all men be saved. And we noted that that will expressed there is the desire of God's heart. He desires men to be saved. He desires all men to be saved.
Now let me extrapolate a little bit on that because I know there are people who question that doctrine. To come at it another way, we would all agree without equivocation that God does not desire people to sin. Could we agree with that? We do not believe that God desires people to do evil, to sin, to be disobedient, to be unholy, to fail to give Him glory. No, we would all agree with that. In fact the spectrum of evangelical theology would agree to that. We desire...we know God desires men not to sin. We do not for a moment advocate anything different than that. So turn the table a bit, we would all agree then that God desires all men to be holy. No one would argue that. God desires all men to be righteous. God desires all men to be sinless. God desires all men to give Him glory and give Him honor and give Him respect. God desires all men to be obedient. I mean, He commands men over and over and over and over to be obedient. He calls for righteousness. He calls for holiness. He calls for sinlessness. He calls for everyone on the face of the earth to give Him honor and give Him glory. He calls for all men everywhere to repent. Nobody debates that. We all know God wants men to be holy.
Therefore, we conclude that people sin though God does not want them to. That's obvious. People are unholy though God does not want them that way. People do not give God glory though God does not want them not to give Him glory. Then why is it such a hard thing for some people to realize that people also go to hell though God does not want them to? God wants all men to be saved. That is the desire of God.
And so, we remember then what we saw last week. We are to pray for all men because it is beneficial to all men to be saved. Would we all agree with that? It's not beneficial to go to hell without Christ. It is beneficial to be saved. And secondly, it is consistent with the holy will of God who wants all men saved and knowing the truth of Christ.
Now thirdly, and here we get into a profound argument on the part of Paul, the third element in his reason for evangelistic praying is that it is reflective of God's nature as one God. It is reflective of God's nature as one God...notice verse 5, "For there is one God...or, For God is one." There's only one God. God is one. I mean, contrary to the popular dribble that you hear all the time, oh everybody has his God and it really doesn't matter what your God is as long as you're sincere. There's one God for the Moslems and one God for the Buddhists and one God for the Jews, one God for the Christians, and in India there's 50 gods for everybody. Every temple has its reigning deity, its presiding deity. And there are millions upon millions of deities and idols and gods all over the world designed by men. But the Scripture here says that that's not true, as it says in 1 Corinthians 8, an idol is zero, an idol is nothing. If you want to spend your life worshiping nothing, that's your privilege. But that's folly. God is one. There's only one God. In Isaiah 44:6 God said it as clearly as it could be said, "I am the first and I am the last and beside Me there's no other." That covers the ground.
And that's why you see Mark 12:29 to 31 says, "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one therefore you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength." Why? You can give all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, all your strength to God because there's nobody else to give it to. There's only one. So you love that one God with all the capacity you have to love and worship.
Now this unity of God, the Lord our God is one, the shima of Deuteronomy 6 is the central truth in all the Old Testament scripture as over against the polytheism of the nations surrounding Israel, many gods, many gods, Israel stood for one God. Now this is Paul's point. There's only one God. What do you mean by that? What he means is if there were many gods then there would be many ways of salvation, right? And isn't that what the people in the world teach today? Sure. I mean, the world says, "Well, there's a God for these people and these people and as long as you're sincere, it's going to be okay. Every God has his way, every God has his means of salvation." So if there are many gods, then there are many ways of salvation. And if that's true, there's no need for evangelism, right? You don't need evangelism, everybody's got their own way, leave them alone. They'll come home wagging their tails behind them. It will all work out in the end.
But, Paul says since there is only one God and one Savior God, then that one God stands in the same relationship to all men in relationship to Salvation. If there is one God and that one God is the Savior and that one God desires all men to be saved, then He is the God of all in whom all must believe if all are to be saved, therefore we must pray for all. Since the God of all men wants all men to be saved, prayer for all men is consistent with His nature. The foundation then, beloved, of the universality of the gospel is bound up in the oneness of God. Listen to Romans 3 as Paul begins to delineate the gospel in verse 29, he said, "Is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also of the nations? Yes, of the nations also seeing He is one God." There's only one God. Therefore all men must come to the same God, therefore all men must hear the same way and therefore we must pray for all men. There's only one God. And it is the unity of God that justifies the universal scope of evangelism.
In 1 Corinthians 8:4 I alluded to this a moment ago, it says an idol is nothing in the world because there is no other God but one. And then verse 6, there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in Him. There's only one God. Now listen. That one God who stands in the same relationship to all men is the only God, is the only Savior God. If men are to be saved, they're going to be saved by that one God and they're going to be saved through relationship with that one God. And since that one God desires that all men come to salvation, we are then to pray for all men. No one, no nation, no group, no religious group, no religion is outside the necessity of coming to the only God who can save.
So, we are to pray evangelistically because it is beneficial, because it is consistent with God's will, it is reflective of God's nature. Fourthly, it is consistent with the person of Christ. Not only with the person of God with His nature but with Christ. Notice verse 5 again. There is not only one God, but there is one mediator between God and men, and the Greek text says "man...no article...man Christ Jesus." A better way to translate that to get the intent of the Greek would be, "There is one God and one mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus Himself man."
Now here we find the consistency with the person of Christ. How many mediators are there? One. So we can't say, "Well, there are lots of ways to heaven," like the Bahai people say, lots of doors, you can go this way, that way, you can follow this leader, that leader, this leader. No, there's only one. And we're back to the same thing. One God, one mediator, one way of salvation, therefore we pray for the whole world. God wants the whole world saved and the only way they can be saved is through that one mediator to that one God.
In Job chapter 9 we are introduced to the concept of a mediator as Job cries out in the midst of his distress. And he says in verse 32 in wanting to communicate with God, he says, "For He is not a man as I am that I should answer Him and we should come together in judgment." He says I don't know how to get to God, He's not a man, I can't just communicate with Him. We can't sit down and work this thing out.
And then in verse 33, "Neither is there any mediator between us." He uses the word "daysman" which is a word for an arbiter or an umpire or a mediator. There's no mediator between us, listen to this, that might lay his hand on both of us. And here was Job in the middle of his distress crying out, "Where is somebody who can put his hand on God and his hand on me and bring us together?" Well, that cry is answered in Christ, isn't it? Christ is that mesites, that mediator, that go between, that one who intervenes between two for the purpose of restoring peace and friendship or of ratifying a covenant, making a promise, forming a compact. And there's only one mediator. Listen to that, only one. There aren't any levels of deities that you have to climb through as the pregnostic people were probably teaching in Ephesus. There aren't a lot of intermediary gods, subgods, they called them "aons." You don't go through the veneration of angels and you don't go to God through saints, somebody in saints, somebody in Mary, there is only one mediator, just one that is the daysman who puts His hand on both God and man and brings them together and it is Christ Jesus, man Himself...or Himself man. And the word for man here is the word anthropos, we get anthropology from it. It is the generic word for man. Aner is the word for "male." And we'll see that in a little while when we get to verse 8. But here is the generic word. He became man. He was God always, He became man. He is the perfect God man. As such He takes God and man and brings them together. And so Christ Jesus is that mediator.
In Hebrews 8:6 it tells us that He is a mediator. He is a surpassing mediator. The text says He has obtained a more excellent ministry. He is the mediator of a better covenant which was established on better promises. In chapter 9 of Hebrews and verse 15 it says He is the mediator of a new covenant. In chapter 12 verse 24, again the mediator of the new covenant. So He is the one who takes God and man, restores peace and friendship, ratifies a covenant, forms a compact and builds a relationship between God and man. He's taken His stand between the offended God and the offending sinner and He has mediated to bring them together.
How many mediators are there? Only one...only one who can bring man and God together. Therefore, listen carefully, therefore Jesus Christ stands in relation to all men in the same ultimate position. If there's only one God, He's the only one who can save. If there's only one mediator, He's the only one who can bring you to that saving God. Therefore all men in order to come to salvation must come through Christ to God. And that is why Acts 4:12 says "Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." There's only one. So what Paul is saying is, "Look, Timothy, we pray for all men because God wants all men to be saved and God is the only one who can do it and Christ is the only mediator through which they can come to that salvation." All men have the same Savior God and the same mediator and thus we must pray for the salvation of all men because apart from Christ they are damned eternally. Do you understand that? That's why this is such a serious issue. I am amazed how readily we pray for physical problems and how hesitantly we pray for salvation. And physical problems are not really the significant issue.
Fifthly, in looking at the reasons why we are to pray evangelistically, it is not only consistent with the person of Christ, but it is the intention of the atoning work of Christ. Go back again to verse 6. Speaking of Christ Jesus who was man as well as God and brought God and man together, it says, "Who gave..." and that word is loaded with content. He gave. John 10:18, Jesus said, "No man takes My life from Me, I...what?...I lay it down by Myself," voluntarily. Who gave...and what did He give? Himself, not a portion of Himself, not something He possessed, not something He owned, not something He really didn't need, He gave everything. That's the totality of it. Christ Jesus voluntarily gave totally Himself as a ransom for all.
Now the word "ransom" here is just loaded with meaning. It is not the simple word for ransom, which is lutron, it is antilutron and there's a huper preposition connected with it in the phrase. And it just fills up the meaning. It's not a simple word for ransom where somebody's kidnapped, you go pay a ransom, you get him back. It is the idea of a substitutionary ransom. You put yourself there and free that person by your own enslavement. It is as if a father was receiving a note about a kidnapped child and the note demanded that he go and become the kidnapped person for the freedom of his beloved child. Christ becomes the victim that we might be set free. So it is more than the simple word "ransom" which means the priced pay for the release of a slave. It is the idea of an exchange. Christ exchanged His life for our lives. He died our death. He bore our sin. He took our place. He gave Himself totally as a substitutionary payment for our sin.
For whom did He do this? He was a ransom for all. Would you just circle that? That's the point here. Did Christ die for a few? He died for all. That's what it says. And that's Paul's key idea. He is not here, by the way, intending to give a complex treatment on the theology of the atonement. He is not here trying to emphasize all that could be said about the substitutionary ransom of Jesus Christ. His point here is the "all." What he wants you to understand is that Christ who is the one mediator came to do a work on the cross in behalf of man and God that would provide a ransom for all men.
And finally, the last element in the reason for evangelistic praying...and we could say so much more about what has been said...but the last element comes in verse 7. And it is this, we are to pray for all men to be saved because this fits Paul's own divine commission. And Paul brings himself in. This is really an interesting statement. "For this...for what?...for the salvation of all men...For this, because Christ is mediator, because God is Savior, because Christ died as a ransom for all and proved it when He came at the right time and because of this and for this, I am ordained a preacher and an apostle."
In other words, he's saying what in the world am I doing if this thing isn't for everybody? The word "preacher" is from the verb form kerusso, it has to do with a herald, a proclaimer, a public speaker. In those days they didn't watch television, didn't read books, didn't have newspapers. Basically if you had an announcement, you went into the city square and you made your announcement. It was the time of hot communication. It was a time when you verbalized. The herald went around and made all the announcements the people needed to have and communication was out in the open and people preached in the open and they taught in the open and philosophers spoke in the open and opinions were given in the open and Paul became one of those openair preachers, one of those public heralds proclaiming the gospel of Christ. And what he is saying is, why I was ordained by God to go out and publicly proclaim a gospel that if limited belies my very calling. And then I was called not only to be a herald but an apostle. And the word there is...has reference to one being sent as a messenger. Here I am an apostle to the nations, here I am a messenger from city to city and nation to nation, publicly heralding the gospel of Christ, what am I doing if this isn't applicable to everybody?
He says, "I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not." You know that I've been called as a herald to publicly proclaim. You know I've been called as a messenger to extend the truth of saving grace as far and wide as God allows me. As a herald I speak publicly. As a missionary I reach all I can reach. And you know this is the truth and I'm not lying. You know that's my calling, he's saying. You know that's my ordination. And there may be a little bit of rebuttal in his saying that because there might be some in the church that would sort of take issue with the strength of his conclusions here and he reminds them that he's speaking the truth.
And then he says in the end of verse 7, "Also I am a teacher of the nations in faith, "that is THE faith, content and verity, that is sincerity of heart. I'm one who teaches with right content and a right heart of sincerity. And I'm a teacher of the nations. The word "the nations" is key, you ought to underline that. That's the key idea. I've been sent to the nations, to the nations of the world. And I'm supposed to publicly proclaim to all of these people that Jesus saves and that Christ is a ransom for all and call them to salvation. How can I do that if that's not true? There's an integrity problem here, he says. I mean, I've been ordained for this. In fulfilling the great commission, Mark 16:15, to preach the gospel to every creature. Paul says with the faith, the content and a sincere heart, I go out to speak the truth.
And, beloved, I really believe this is a powerful, powerful statement on the mission responsibility of the church for the world. We are called to world missions. Why? Because it is the will of God that all men be saved. Why? Because there's only one God for them all and there's only one mediator for them all who died for them all. And we are called as preachers and missionaries to reach them all. And how could we ever believe for a moment that we were saying something that isn't true if He did not die for all and if God did not will that all be saved? Then we ought to say that. But we can't because we know better. And so there is a powerful argument for the universal proclamation of the saving gospel of Jesus Christ.
And in conclusion, after giving all those other elements, he gives us lastly the attitude of evangelistic praying. What is to be the attitude? Now I want you to notice carefully verse 8, there is a "therefore" there which ties it in. And then there's a change of subject in verse 9 with the words "in like manner." That's where the subject changes. That same word appears later on in chapter 3 verse 8 and in chapter 8 verse 11 where the subject changes each time. But the subject hasn't changed in verse 8. It's a therefore built on the first seven verses.
Here's the attitude. Here we come to the practical application. All right, we've all been made aware that we're to pray for the lost. We all know why we're to do that. All right, therefore "I will that men pray in every place lifting up holy hands without wrath and dissension."
Now this tells us about the attitude with which we are to pray. But before we look to that attitude, I want you to notice he says "I will," and he uses not the word thelo which is the will of desire used back in verse 4 where it says God will have all men to be saved. That was the will of desire. This is boulomai, the will of mental purpose. It's almost like I demand, or I command, or I purpose that this should happen, or I lay this down as an absolute. Paul is now in a commanding mode. Therefore because of what we have just seen, this tremendous, tremendous statement about why we are to pray for the lost, I'm telling you the men are to pray in every place.
Now would you please notice that where it says "men," it is to andros(?), the plural of aner which is man, not in the generic sense but man in the male sense as opposed to gune which is the female. So he is saying men as males, that is to say in the life of the church when the church comes together and it is time to pray for the lost, the men are to do the praying. Now this is the emphasis. It is very clearly used here. That is to say Paul selects his terms carefully. I will that the men, or the males, pray. Now in the Jewish synagogue in the Old Testament time, only men were permitted to pray. The stress here leads one to believe that this was carried into the church in terms of the leadership of the church being as we know in Scripture belonging to the men in the public worship. And apparently in Ephesus this was being tested by some women who were usurping the male role. We'll find that, by the way, next week in verses 9 to 15. And that will be a real barn burner, so hold on to your seat for next week.
But nonetheless, it is God's pattern for the life of the church that men are those who lead in the public worship. And in this situation he is affirming that. He says I demand of you not just a simple wish of my heart, but I lay this down...boulomai as a demand...that the men do the praying. The men do the praying. The term "everywhere" in the Authorized is actually "in every place." Most interesting. Most interesting. That little phrase is used four times by Paul, "in every place." Here, 1 Corinthians 1:2, and 1 Thessalonians 1:8, in all four places refers to the official assembly of the church. It became a little colloquial expression for the assembling of the church. And what he is saying is that when the church comes together in its duly recognized and official assembly, I demand that the men do the praying. And the word here for pray is habitually pray. It is to be the common practice that this prayer go on in behalf of the unsaved people and that it be carried by the men.
Now I don't want to make women upset by saying this. I have to deal with what the Scripture says. And we'll get to the balancing aspects next time. But you need to know what God's Word says. And people will say, "Well, wait a minute, pastor. First Corinthians 11:5 and following says that if women pray and prophesy, they should do so with their head covered in a demonstration of modesty and humility and submission, therefore 1 Corinthians 11:5 indicates that women can preach or proclaim and they can pray. Is that not so?" The answer is yes. First Corinthians 11 says a woman should if she does prophesy or proclaim God's truth, if she does pray she is to do so with a role of submission being made manifest. And when a woman prays or prophesies in that Corinthian culture with her head uncovered, sort of showing off her freedom, she violates the standard of God. Now, yeah, I agree with that. How could you not agree with it? It's in the Scripture. The point you have to realize is that's 1 Corinthians 11. You go on a few chapters, you come to 1 Corinthians 14 and in 1 Corinthians 14 about verse 35 it says, "Let the women keep silence in the churches." All you have to do is compare the two. Women can pray and women can proclaim the Word but not in the duly constituted assembly of the church in its official worship. That's obvious and it's confirmed right here, verse 11, "Let the women learn in silence with all subjection and I do not allow them to teach or usurp authority over the men but be in silence." All the time? Twentyfour hours a day life long? Of course not. Of course not.
What he is saying here is when the church comes together in its duly constituted worship. And the key little phrase is that little phrase "in every place." The point is, when the church comes together under the leadership of men which is obvious, he'll describe the qualifications of those leaders in chapter 3 and they can't be anything but men, and so we look at the men, they are the leaders. And he says when they come together for assembly, these are the men who are to rise to pray in the normal fashion of the church.
You say, "Well, where can a woman proclaim?" A woman can proclaim the Word of God in...with her friends. She can proclaim as the Psalms say a great host are the women who publish the good news. She can teach in many, many environments. But not in the official assembly of the church when it comes together in every place for the purpose of worship and leadership and teaching. That is for the men to do the leading. And that's what the Scripture delineates very clearly. That's why 1 Corinthians 14 says the women are to be silent in the churches and it's affirmed here as well.
So, when the church meets the men do the praying. And that is a strong statement made here. It never was that unpopular, frankly, until more recent years when the church has decided to jump on the women's liberation bandwagon. And there's really no necessity for that. And by the way, the fact that God has set leadership in the church and those who are to submit in the role of men and women shouldn't threaten anybody because we're equal spiritually before God, Galatians 3:28. And I don't know why anybody should be more upset about that then they would be about the fact that I've been called by God to preach and all the rest of you men have been called by God to listen to me. Does that mean that I'm elevating myself and you're all secondclass citizens and you ought to all demand that you should preach just like I do so every day we have someone else up here? Of course...we wouldn't even think of such a thing. The point is you have to have authority and submission in all dimensions of life and the fact that women are rebelling against this is reflective of the unbiblical nature of our society. And it's a sad thing when the church finds itself in the midst of the milieu of that kind of chaos. Women who can pray and lead people in the understanding of the Word of God in a home Bible study, in a fellowship group, in a prayer meeting, in a class situation where there's no taking the role of authority over a man can find the fulfillment that God would have them have as they lead other women, as they lead children, as they share in prayer with men in a fellowship group or whatever it might be.
Last Wednesday night we met in little groups and prayed together, men and women. We had a wonderful time. That is not threatening. We shared things out of the Word of God together. But when the church comes together in its assembly officially, the men come to lead in prayer to pray for the lost. And I want you to know that I'm committed in my heart that when we meet together we're going to have the men come and pray for the lost as I did this morning, as we did in the first service, as we will have tonight another one of our men coming to pray for the salvation of a certain nation of people in the world.
Now I want you to notice the attitude, and we'll wrap it up very briefly. The attitude with which you pray, lifting up holy hands without wrath and dissension. Now what does this mean, lifting up holy hands? Does this mean...this? With the hands in the air and swaying? Or this...? What? I've seen all of that.
You know, people...it's amazing...well, it says "lift up holy hands." That's right. You know the question I always want to ask those people? If I took 50 hands and just stuck them through a curtain, could you pick out the holy hands? You know what a holy hand looks like? Is this a holy hand? He's not talking about physical hands. What is a holy hand? It was customary in that time for the Jews to turn their hands as they prayed even in the Old Testament, you can look in the Old Testament, 1 Kings 8:22, Nehemiah 8:6, Psalm 63:4, I think also Psalm 134:2, Psalm 141:2 and also in Isaiah 1:15, you'll see illustrations of them lifting the hands to the Lord. The hands are one thing and the arms are something else. But there's nothing wrong with that. We have a customary posture for prayer, we bow our heads and close our eyes. They didn't do that. That's right, that's not biblical. I don't know where that came from. I think its probably started maybe...well certainly since New Testament times and maybe not very long ago. And it's okay, whatever the custom might be, that's nice. It doesn't really matter.
The point here is not that when you pray you've got to have your hands in the air, the point here is that the one who prays must have holy hands. What does that mean? The hand is the symbol of the activities of life. Most of the things you do in life involve your hands. And the point is whoever prays ought to be the kind of person who is living a holy life. That's the point. There are no such thing as holy hands in themselves. Purity of hands is simply a way to express the idea of purity of life.
So, who are the men who are to pray? Those who have clean hands. What does that mean? They've washed them with soap? No, clean hands in the sense of pure living and a pure heart, as Psalm 24 says. So clean hands and a pure heart of Psalm 24, or here you have the same thing, holy hands and without wrath and dissension. The "without wrath and dissension" refer to the inner attitude...not anger, not dissenting against God or men. That is pure hearted with a loving heart.
By the way, the word "holy" here is not the word hagios which is the normal word for holy, it's hosios which means the opposite of polluted, unpolluted, unstained by evil. So when those men stand up to pray who are to pray for the lost, they're to be men whose lives are holy and men whose hearts are pure. Wonderful...that's the attitude...that's the attitude.
Well, the greatest model of evangelistic praying is the Lord Jesus Christ. In Isaiah 53:12 it says this, "He made intercession for the transgressors," isn't that wonderful? Jesus prayed for sinners. What did He pray? That they would be saved. When did He do that? On the cross, "Father...what?...forgive them." What did He mean by that? Save them, pardon them, lead them to repentance. You say, "Did God answer His prayer?" Did He? On the day of Pentecost how many were saved? Three thousand...within a few weeks five thousand more...in a few chapters the church exceeded 20 thousand people. Did the prayer get answered? It did. Jesus prayed for transgressors. His prayer was, "Father, forgive them," and the Father did forgive them in response to the prayer of His Son. He's our pattern and He's our model.
Do we pray for the lost like that? John Knox prayed, "Give me Scotland or I die." And history tells us that very few times in all the annals of man has one single individual so changed an entire nation as John Knox was used by God to change Scotland to the salvation of souls. Charles Godel(?) once asked, "If you were to open your desk and take out your daily diary, would there be in it any record of nights of anguish and prayer for lost men such as would be found in the diary of the Son of God?"
And David Brainerd that marvelous missionary to the Indians along the Delaware River who died so very young, once wrote, "I care not where I live or what hardships I go through so that I can but gain souls to Christ. While I am asleep, I dream of those things. As soon as I awake, the first thing I think of is this great work and all my desire is the conversion of sinners. And all my hope for that is in God."
George Whitfield cried out, "O Lord, give me souls or take my soul."
Is that our attitude? That's where evangelism begins, beloved, it begins in your prayer life and in the prayer life of the church when it comes together to worship. We need to covenant in our own hearts to pray personally and I commit to you the promise that we shall play publicly for the lost, that God shall be pleased with our obedience and the salvation of souls. Let's pray together.
Thank You, Lord, for this word. O how rich we are. We know what You want. You have told us so clearly. Now, Lord, give us the strength of Your Spirit to be obedient to what You've asked.
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Alister Crowley and LRH? Scientology and Satanism
I had heard LRH was a practicing free Mason as well for awhile. I read an interview in Penthouse 1983 with his son and his son said in this article that he performed satanic abortion rights on his own mother. That he himself was a failed abortion attempt...that there was this constant effort to produce a "moon child" the offspring that would have the most royal soul. Maybe the anti-christ... its unclear
you can read the interview with Penthouse and L Ron Hubbard jr here
http://www.lermanet.com/scientologynews ... w-1983.htm
Could this have been the attempt behind Suri? Is Scientology cleverly disguised Satanism?


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The 2011 Lexus IS250C is one of those convertibles that can go from serious business with the hardtop up to all out fun and open air with the press of a button. We are currently testing a matador red IS250C and we can report right from the start that this car is first class and as smooth as silk is so many ways. Take a look at our gallery then check back for our upcoming review on Bullz-Eye
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Please come and check me out I'm at he San Jose Improv with my great friend Christina Pazsitsky. It will be a great show hopw to see you guys there on Friday and Saturday. Looking forward to making you laugh! Dave
Author: daver
Bangladesh Here I Come!
Off to Bangladesh! 20 hour flight, I'm sure I'll have some great material by the time I land… Stay tuned!


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L'Anse names new board member
L'ANSE – Carrie Meyer is the new superintendent and Melissa Scroggs is the new Junior/Senior High School principal at L'Anse Area Schools, as of July 1, and now the district's Board of Education will have a new face as well.
The board interviewed two candidates Monday, Ken Summers and Mandy Lambert, for the board position vacated by Patricia Loosemore, and nominated and approved Summers to fill the spot.
Summers, who was named 2012 Distinguished Alumni at LAS, recently moved back to the area, and he and his wife, Bridget, own The Mercantile Exchange Inc. on 1 North Main Street, the former home of L'Anse Hardware.
"Both would have been excellent board members. Both had very responsible answers to the questions," Meyer said in a phone interview Tuesday. "… (Summers) will be joining the board after he does his oath of office."
He'll be present at the August board meeting, and his partial term will end on Dec. 31, 2014. The position will be on the November 2014 ballot. Summers is also filling a partial term on the L'Anse village council after John VanDusen went on military leave.
Also Monday, the board approved one-year contract addendums and 1.5 percent raises for Laura Mathieu as business manager, Tom Sprague as elementary principal and John Juntunen as maintenance-custodial-transportation supervisor. Meyer's contract was also amended to have the same type of insurance as others, with higher deductibles and co-pays.
In public comment period the board heard concern from a parent about the elimination of a bus run, which will likely require some parents to drive their children to bus stops. Board President Jason Ayres noted using two buses was inefficient to the rural area, and the reduction of bus routes will save the district close to $70,000.


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Haha, Adele, added these last ones just for you (we started taking all these stupid whacked out pose photos at the end that were never meant to make it onto the blog... but here they are anyway. Probably the funnest bit!)
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! New Margiela boots that are finally mine. Wanted these for ages but could never find them at a price I could afford... until the other week! Stoked! Wearing them with orange blazer from ZARA, lace top from Savers or the like, Black and white pants by DI$COUNT, white neck piece from a shop in Rome.
Happy Russian Orthodox (and other people who celebrate it) Christmas!!!!!


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collegestudent22 wrote:You seem to have a lack of understanding of how the Vietnam War was conducted and what a no-fly zone is. To put it succinctly, the Vietnam War was mainly lost BECAUSE the bombs were controlled, not by those that found the targets, but by talking heads in Washington D.C. A no-fly zone is only patrolled by fighter aircraft to shoot down enemy aircraft - in Vietnam, mostly to ward off any potential interference from the USSR.
Sorry, I incredibly clumsily mis- typed. Too much Libya in the news lately. Substitute "free- fire zones" for "no- fly zones".
As a sidenote, that's an... incredibly interesting account of why the Vietnam War was lost.
collegestudent22 wrote:Saddam killed those children. Not any sanctions. Increased child mortality was observed in Iraq's (government controlled) south and center, but not in the (then independent) north, where child mortality decreased (wonder why?). In fact, it was the necessary items for survival (food/medicine) that were EXEMPT from the sanctions.
Ostensibly exempt, but with a very very narrow definition of 'necessary for survival' that excluded a lot of things that WERE necessary for survival. It's been well documented by a lot of people, and Joy Gordon has a neat little summary of it here.
collegestudent22 wrote:The US has no history of up and murdering their own people or innocents in nearby countries for political disagreement, either.
... really? You honestly, honestly believe that the support the US provided to a whole slew of Latin American dictators isn't comparable with "up and murdering innocents in nearby countries for political (/economic) disagreement"?


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Open MPI powers 8 petaflops
A huge congratulations goes goes out to the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science and Fujitsu teams who saw the K supercomputer achieve over 8 petaflops in the June 2011 Top500 list, published this past week.
8 petaflops absolutely demolishes the prior record of about 2.5 petaflops. Well done!
A sharp-eyed user pointed out the fact that Open MPI was referenced in the "Programming on K Computer" Fujitsu slides (which is part of the overall SC10 Presentation Download Fujitsu site). I pinged my Fujitsu colleague on the MPI Forum, Shinji Sumimoto, to ask for a few more details — does K actually use Open MPI with some customizations for their specialized network? And did Open MPI power the 8 petaflop runs at an amazing 93% efficiency?
He answered me: yes. Here's what he said:
It is true. Several extensions have been made because of low latency communication for point-to-point, reduction of memory consumption, and multiple network interface with specified one not trunking, etc. Some of these can be contributed to Open MPI community, however, currently we are still development phase, will be next year.
We thank Open MPI development team very much.
Question: How awesome is that?
Answer: Incredibly awesome. 8 petaflops awesome, in fact.
(to be fair, a colleague at Oracle pointed out that the SPARC chips powered the 8+ petaflops — ok, fair enough — but an efficient MPI implementation played a big part, too).
In an effort to keep conversations fresh, Cisco Blogs closes comments after 60 days. Please visit the Cisco Blogs hub page for the latest content.


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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced in 2009 that Pfizer Inc's smoking-cessation drug Chantix would need to carry a restrictive "black box" warning label, the move didn't really surprise the market.
The drug's sales had already been declining. By the end of 2009, they had dropped to $700 million, down from $846 million the previous year.
"When this drug launched, a lot of people expected a blockbuster drug, with over $1 billion in sales, but then the reports of the side effects started coming in," Damien Conover, an analyst with Morningstar, told Reuters Health.
The FDA's response came after hundreds of reports of erratic behavior and several suicides. Now, Pfizer faces a civil lawsuit involving at least 1,200 patient complaints.
In retrospect, experts say all of this could have been avoided — or at least predicted — had the company's clinical trials been designed differently. Pfizer tested Chantix on thousands of smokers in order to get FDA approval, but the clinical trials excluded people with depression.
That's despite the fact that the disorder is especially common among smokers: More than 40 percent of smokers are depressed, compared to just 7 percent of the general population, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Mental Health.
Doctors have long known that depression often coincides with other disorders, such as addiction and heart disease. Yet clinical trials for these related conditions routinely exclude patients with depression.
This strategy may benefit drug companies during the early testing stages, but it can backfire once the treatment is released into the real world.
"Adherence is often an issue with depressed participants," said Dr. Anne Thorndike, an internist who studies smoking cessation at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "But how generalizable can the results be if depression is excluded?"
Pfizer's decision to exclude smokers with depression was not unusual, and was within FDA guidelines.
Sanofi-Aventis did the same thing with the weight loss drug rimonabant (Acomplia) and saw the drug banned in Europe after being linked to suicide shortly after it was approved there a few years ago.
Last summer, an FDA panel rejected Boehringer Ingelheim's "female Viagra" drug, flibanserin, in part because it wasn't tested on women with depression. The company discontinued work on the drug a few months later.
A recent search by Reuters Health of the federally run ClinicalTrials.gov database revealed the practice is common in smoking cessation studies.
Of 38 actively recruiting large-scale late-stage studies known as Phase 3 clinical trials, 21 excluded people with mental illness, and 10 did so for depression specifically.
Late-stage studies of heart disease were the same: 27 of 154 studies, or about 17 percent, excluded patients with mental illness.
In some trials, the exclusionary language was quite specific. For example, a heart disease study in Cleveland only excluded participants taking certain kinds of antidepressants.
In others, the exclusion criteria were vague. Several trials excluded participants with "significant" psychiatric disorders, and a few avoided the topic altogether, with disclaimers warning that anyone deemed incapable of adhering to the study protocol could be excluded.
Clinical trials are supposed to mirror the potential patient population as much as possible, but drug companies frequently screen out participants with a history of psychiatric illness, citing safety concerns and fears that their disorder will interfere with the study protocol or cloud the results.
"For drug companies, there's always a balance between trying to limit the study population to those people who will have minimal side effects and have the best treatment response," says Dr. Frank Greenway, an obesity specialist who conducts clinical trials at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Researchers have used similar reasons in the past to justify the exclusion of women and the elderly from clinical trials.
Excluding depressed patients may have negligible effects on some studies. For example, a trial of a treatment for a rare blood disorder. But given how common depression is, some researchers argue such exclusions make little sense in studies of diseases that affect the general population, particularly those that are known to overlap with depression, such as addiction, obesity, chronic pain, and heart disease.
Excluding patients who are more likely to have serious side effects will probably help limit the number who drop out before the end, wrote the authors of a recent article on clinical trial guidelines in the journal Pain.
"Nevertheless," they said, "the greater the number of exclusion criteria in a clinical trial, the less likely its results will be generalizable to the population of patients in the community from which its sample is drawn."
The exclusion of depressed participants could be inadvertent in some cases.
"Clinical trial design is time-consuming, so there's a temptation to copy and paste exclusion criteria from one study to another," said Brian Egleston, a biostatistician at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who has studied the exclusion of gays and lesbians from clinical trials.
For example, a cancer researcher studying smoking cessation might recycle exclusion criteria from a cancer study and wind up excluding patients with psychiatric disorders without meaning to. "You sort of hope researchers will be thorough and thoughtful, but that doesn't always happen," he said.
To Dr. Gregory Simon, an obesity researcher at Group Health Research Institute in Seattle, Washington, excluding participants with depression from weight loss studies amounts to discrimination because it denies them access to potentially helpful treatments.
"People with depression are very often excluded from studies of treatments for obesity, and people with bipolar disorder are almost universally excluded, but there's no reason these patients shouldn't be studied," he said.
Other researchers note that depression can have an effect on treatment response. For example, a study that Thorndike at Mass General published in 2008 in the Archives of Internal Medicine showed that smokers with depression were 22 percent more likely to relapse.
And last fall, researchers at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs published a study in the Archives of Surgery linking depression to increased complications during surgery. There is also evidence that certain drugs, including beta-blockers and some sleep medications, may worsen depression symptoms.
Pfizer will soon have a better idea of how depression and other psychiatric disorders affect the way people respond to Chantix. In addition to the black box label, the FDA is requiring the company to conduct a large follow-up study on participants with mental health problems.
The company is complying, but representatives have also argued in the media that nicotine withdrawal could be responsible for the psychological effects associated with the drug. "No causal relationship has been established," Pfizer spokesman MacKay Jimeson said. Jimeson confirmed that the company is starting the new Chantix study, but it's unclear how long the trial will take to complete.
Thorndike predicts that eventually all smoking cessation trials will have to include patients with depression, for practical reasons if nothing else. The FDA is also in the process of putting together a guideline for assessing suicide risk during clinical trials — the first draft was published in September — that could help alleviate safety concerns over including participants with psychiatric disorders.
"So many patients are on antidepressants now. Researchers can't be too picky," said Thorndike.
Editing by Ivan Oransky


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I have been talking with parents about appropriate sleepaway camp options for almost 20 years now. These conversations have been quite educational. Parents who have attended camp have a clear idea of what they're looking for, although they are often trying to recreate their camp experience (if it was a good one). For these experienced camp parents, if they went to a coed camp, they often look at coed camps. Parents looking for a single sex camp often attended such a camp as a child or teen. On the other hand, one parent may not have gone to camp, so isn't so sure about why their child can benefit from being away from home. We are all products of our environment, our life experience, and our choices are often reflective of such.
So, if you as a parent have never gone to a sleepaway camp, think about the first time you were away from home for an extended time. Perhaps it was college. How did you adjust? Would it have been easier if you had experienced an away camp, even for a few weeks? Campers grow, gain independence, learn to live with others, learn to ask for help from young adults they can relate to (often different than their parents), learn new skills and improve existing skills, and much more. Talk to people who have been to sleepaway camp and they have usually made life long friendships and truly believe in the magic of camp.
Finding the right camp is the difficult task. Does your child or teen do better in a smaller, more individualized environment or do they thrive around many kids? Is a competitive sports camp the place for your child or an arts camp? Or, is a general camp that offers a wide variety of programs the right place? What is the underlying philosophy of the camp and the values that it supports? How old and experienced are the staff? Are they invested in working with campers, while also having a strong skill set in certain activities? What is the communication policy of the camp? Is it geared to the best interests of the campers or the potentials fears and demands of parents?
If you're interested in talking finding the right camp, contact Camp Finders. I have been talking with parents about the questions above and many more. I have also visited all of the camps that I recommend and continue to receive good evaluations from families about these camps every year. Besides running Camp Finders, I'm also the owner and director of Maine Arts Camp, which has further enhanced my years and experience in the camp industry.
I look forward to hearing from you about the life changing experience that camp can be!
Rick Mades
Owner of Camp Finders & MySummers (a staffing site for camps)
Thursday, March 28, 2013
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