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Written by Jess R.
Week 38 of 52 (I can't believe it's almost the end of 2010)
Big Mario's New York Style Pizzeria
1009 E. Pike St.
Seattle, WA 98122
(206) 922-3875
Rank: 4/5
Type of Establishment: Pizzeria
Visit: After arriving at Elysian Brewing Co.'s Pumpkin Beer Fest at 11:30AM, we were starved by 2PM. Big Mario's was right down the street and had the potential to fill our stomachs and our need for quality beer.
Beers on Tap (at time of visit):
Lagunitas IPA
Stella Artois
Coors Light
Blue Moon
Georgetown Manny's Pale Ale
Miller High Life
Rolling Rock
Stone Porter
Sierra Nevada
Hales Kolsh
Maritime Flagship Ale
HUB Abominable Ale
Bottle List:
Expect your average Budweiser, Bud Light, Corona and Rainer in a can.
Food Options:
Now, I am a girl who grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Since then, I have lived in Ohio, New Orleans and Seattle and had yet to find a place that rivals the pizza I grew up on, the pizza that was easy to grab on-the-go and was always so good no matter what time of the day or night. As of Saturday, October 16th, 2010, my world has changed. Big Mario's offers pies and slices with variety, weight and a price tag I appreciate. With a Lagunitas IPA in my hand, I ordered the sausage and pepperoni slice as well as the fresh basil and mozzarella slice (I was hungry). The slices are fresh, oily, cheesy, with a thin crust that has the perfect amount of soft, doughy texture. This is the best pizza in Seattle- hands down.
Some background on the owner, Mario Velliotti may convince you of the authenticity even more. I present to you, a little piece of history from Big Mario's website:
In the winter of 1964, Mario Vellotti emigrated from Naples, Italy to live and work on Mulberry Street in New York City. Mario made his early living tossing pizza and cooking in some of New York's most notorious kitchens; Angelo's, Casa Bella on Mulberry Street and Nanni Al Valletto on 59th Street. Later Mario joined his brother and uncle in the family business, opening their world-famous pizzerias in all five Burroughs, including Sal's on Broome Street, Bensonhurst's J & V and the original Patricia's in the Bronx. Big Mario is in Seattle now…enjoy!
Bar Opinions:
Big Mario's boasts a narrow space and provides a pizzeria feel without the starkness. Instead, this venue is a pizzeria with a comfortable, neighborhood bar atmosphere. Baseball was on the one TV, several taps of micro-brews were available behind the bar and board games were there to keep you occupied. This is a place I could hang out at all day just grazing on pizza slices.
Located in the edgy Capital Hill neighborhood of Seattle, I felt like I was back home in Brooklyn– hanging out with friends, watching the Yanks and eating delicious slices. With the addition of Seattle's dedication to craft beer, I must say, I am in love. From here on out, this is the place in Seattle that I will turn to and satisfy my pizza craving.
And if having amazing pizza and micro-brews wasn't enough, Big Mario's keeps things exciting this Halloween by celebrating with the best of them on Saturday, October 30th. Event details below.
Sat Oct 30
1st Annual Big Mario's Halloween Party & Lookalike Contest!
Dress like Modern Big Mario or 1971 Big Mario
1st Place winner each night gets $250 Tab at Mario's, 2nd Place $100 tab
Free! 21+ Only.
This is going to be hilarious! So stop by big Mario's for a delicious pie, a beer and maybe you'll even meet the man behind it all, Big Mario circa 2010.
Filed under: 52 Weeks: 52 new places, in the 52 weeks of 2010., Seattle, US, The Grog Spot Tagged: Big Mario's, Brooklyn Pizza, Elysian Brewing Co., Hales Brewery, HUB, Lagunitas, Stone Brewing Co


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It's becoming more and more clear that ranking reports are no longer reliable. Users are noticing personalized SERPs more and more and they're catching on to obvious inaccuracies generated by traditional ranking report software. These inaccuracies are caused by differences in query IP, query data, account status, web history, personalized settings, social graph and/or other. As a result, there is a growing shift away from rank report software to analytics for accurate SEO measurement.
Prior to personalized search results, SEO relied heavily on ranking reports in order to measure SEO campaign performance. SEOs create "ranking reports" with software that submits automated queries directly to search engines, a.k.a. "scrapes search engine results." Despite the fact that automated queries are against Google Webmaster Guidelines, waste energy and cost Google millions of dollars each year to process, scraping search engine results is still a popular practice. Obviously it's in the engines best interest to take steps to prevent these queries.
Analytics software on the other hand is different, it works independently of search engines. Analytics relies heavily on code embedded within pages as well as human interpretation of data. Until recently, analytics software has been used only to "tell a story," but not for the precise measurement SEO requires. Site analysis focuses on trending and establishing a "comfort level" with data determined to be "good enough" by the analytics specialist. Analytics platforms are designed for anyone to use, specialist and non-specialist alike. In many cases, analytics specialist themselves have little analytics experience, expertise, knowledge about how search engines work or an understanding of searcher intent. How can we expect anything different, when WAA itself still doesn't teach things like transactional queries?
"To optimize scent trails, make sure that when the intent is transparent, the scent trail on any chosen term matches that intent. It doesn't matter if the trail starts with PPC (pay-per-click) or organic search. Prospects usually hope to find one of two things: the answer they seek or a link that takes them to the answer."
- The Web Analytics Association "Knowledge Required for Certification" (also available in non-www version)
Analytics tracking code is usually implemented by URL without consideration for user path, intent, source or origination. In most cases the implementation is performed by someone other than the analytics specialist interpreting the data. According to some estimates as many as 45% of pages implemented with Google Analytics contain errors. Conversions from organic SERPs are the most difficult to track back to the original referrer. To compound that problem, site issues often prevent even flawless analytics implementations from reporting. Analytics failures are costly, often go unnoticed and undetected because NOTHING is in place to report when analytics doesn't report.
Quick examples & thoughts:
- Even if Avinash himself, implements Omniture and Google Analytics tracking code on every page of your site, users entering from SERPs via 301 or 302 redirect won't be attributed as "Organic." According to Google, "If your site uses redirects, the redirecting page becomes the landing page's referrer. For example, if a user searches for a specific keyword, such as 'used books' on Google, there will not be any referring data showing that this keyword was searched on Google. Instead, the referral will be shown as the redirecting page."
- High traffic major converters or blank pages that send users to a competitor? Either way, nobody will ever know because these pages lack analytics tracking code. URL naming conventions for most sites follow a specific pattern. Use the site operator to quickly spot check for URLs that seem out of the ordinary to be certain they include analytics tracking code implementation and aren't redirected. It's pretty common to find legacy pages from older versions of sites indexed.
- If these folks are quick evaluators, analytics tracking code might not execute before a new page loads and this SEO conversion might be credited somewhere else. Analytics won't measure landing page load time even though it's a highly important metric for users. Flash or otherwise, pages like these always have issues when it comes to tracking organic conversions.
- If your site goes down chances are you'll never know because analytics reporting goes down as well. Using a website monitoring service is always a good idea, just to be sure that conversions really are down and not your entire site.
Takeaways, until SEO expectations are more clear to the analytics community, SEOs should insist on performing SEO analytics audits as usual. When hiring analytics specialists, look for applicants who are willing to address websites from the user perspective and outside of analytics. Folks willing to question data accuracy and those able to identify analytics obstacles are highly desired. Key being, SEO is as concerned with what analytics is tracking as it is about what analytics should be tracking.

subset: commoncrawl


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The stub of a metal pole still juts from the triangular plot of land. It's all that's left of a state historical marker dedicated there in May 1974.
A grand pecan tree still graces the grounds along Sylvan Avenue at Seale Street in West Dallas. But gone are the plants laid in for the marker ceremony. Long gone are Victor and Willie Bilbo, who lived there after their marriage in 1913.
The marker was probably stolen for its metal. So the assumption goes.
But there is no melting away its message, no denying the past presence of Victor and Willie's Bilbo Jitney Line.
These days, buses, taxis, light rail and an expanding streetcar system offer public transportation around Dallas.
For such service in 1915, the city had three privately owned streetcar companies and a horse-drawn wagon here and there. Plus those up-and-comers: the motorcar and truck.
Demand for such mobility was brisk across the nation that year, with Texas reporting an estimated 77,000 automobiles. Enterprising motor vehicle owners — or even renters — put them to work, carrying passengers along a loosely scheduled route for a fee.
Jitneys, or jitney buses, the rides were called. As in jitney, slang for nickel, a typical fare.
They began operating in Dallas in January 1915 and numbered more then 500 a month later, the local streetcar companies' manager reported that year.
Nationwide, the streetcar industry became concerned about this unregulated competition.
Jitney drivers "would lay in wait, and when they would see a streetcar coming, they would pull up and offer their riders cheaper fare," said Johnnie Myers, who is writing a history of Dallas streetcar lines.
Dallas leaders responded by imposing rules, such as requiring jitney drivers to post a bond, secure a chauffeur's license and prohibit passengers from riding on vehicle doors.
Building a business
While the city, streetcar interests and jitney operators wrangled in court, Victor "Red" Bilbo built a business, moving people between the downtown courthouse and points west.
In 1915, at age 21, he started driving for jitney operator V.G. Schrader, learning quickly that the job required more than skill with a steering wheel.
"When two competitive drivers met on the mud or dirt road, they stopped the car and fought for the right of way," Graneta Bilbo Goodwin wrote in a biography of her father. "Passengers waited patiently, then proceeded with the winning driver."
Goodwin's unpublished biography, Wheels, and recollections-based research for the Bilbo Jitney historical marker continue the story.
After several weeks of conflict, Schrader wanted out and sold Bilbo his fleet, two Ford Model T touring cars, for $160.
The Bilbo Jitney Line rolled on, bringing motorized public transportation to western Dallas County, linking downtown and the likes of Cement City, the oil company center of Gates, the Sowers and Eagle Ford communities and Irving. And, in time, serving Cedar Hill, Midlothian and Grapevine.
Downtown, Bilbo drivers circled the courthouse square or parked on Commerce Street near where the Kennedy Memorial now stands. Their routes west included Commerce Street, near the future marker site, and Eagle Ford Road, today's Singleton Boulevard.
The neighborhoods could be rough, as could the unpaved roads. Flat tires, breakdowns, wrecks and run-ins with opposing drivers were part of the experience.
Workers, shoppers, schoolchildren, anyone paying the fare climbed aboard Bilbo's sometimes-packed rides.
When all the seats of the five-passenger Model T's were filled, "people sat on the doors; stood on the wide running boards; sat on the fenders; and in sunny weather … sat on the car top and hung their feet over the back of the car," C.L. "Slim" Alexander, a Bilbo jitney driver, recalled in a 1973 letter of support for the historical marker.
The Model T's were replaced with Chryslers, Packards, a Studebaker and other cars in what became an eight-vehicle fleet. Whatever they drove, Bilbo men would deliver passengers to their home in bad weather and food and prescription drugs to the ill. Free rides to school events, church and Sunday school were a common courtesy.
"I can never forget the gratitude I felt for the transportation service provided for the West Dallas area by V.C. Bilbo and his fleet of jitneys," Mabelle Robinson wrote in a marker support letter. "The drivers were our neighbors and friends, and we greeted them and our fellow riders by name."
Hauling people, goods
In a 1965 interview with The Dallas Morning News, Bilbo recalled fighting to protect his routes and how his wife, who kept the books, would heat water on cold mornings to pour on his vehicles' carburetors.
He told of hauling goods, as well as people. And he recalled bouncing a young Bonnie Parker, the outlaw-to-be, on his knee.
Bilbo's jitney ride lasted 12 years, ending in 1927 after the Texas Railroad Commission gained authority to regulate the state's bus services.
In her biography, Graneta Bilbo Goodwin said a "national bus company" had secured a permit to operate her father's route and others and he was "told that Jitneys were no longer in business."
In the end, rising costs and increasing regulations ended the jitneys' run, Johnnie Myers said.
Bilbo went on to expand his trucking business. Bilbo Transports, almost a century old, is now owned by his grandson, Allan Bilbo, in Irving. Victor and Willie Bilbo retired to their ranch near Fort Worth in 1955, and both died in 1968.
Goodwin, a history buff, spent years compiling her father's story and pursuing other projects, such as a marker for the La Reunion colony cemetery in West Dallas. She and her brother, Victor Bilbo Jr., sponsored the Bilbo Jitney Line marker.
"She was heartbroken" when the piece turned up missing, recalled her son, Larry Goodwin, and didn't want to replace it. "She said it's not worth the money because it will just get stolen again." Graneta Goodwin died in 1996.
T.L. Wheeler Jr., an attorney and West Dallas property owner, apparently wanted to help right the wrong. Texas Historical Commission records show that he paid $402 for a replacement marker and that the "dedication material" was sent to him in October 1991. But the commission has no proof it was actually installed.
Members of the Bilbo family say they didn't know Wheeler, who died last year, and had never heard about a marker replacement.
A member of the Dallas County Historical Commission said that group also had no information about such a project.
A longtime Wheeler employee said he often supported people and causes in West Dallas, but she, too, hadn't heard about a marker or the Bilbo Jitney Line.
Follow Roy Appleton on Twitter at @rappleton and @oakcliff_news.


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As you travel from course to course in Golf Story, you might notice that the landscape looks a little ... familiar. You never get to see the full picture until the very end of the game, but when you do, you'll immediately recognise where Sidebar Games drew inspiration from:
I think this is awesome!!


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Zany, witty 'November' on stage in New Milford
The president of the United States is in the Oval Office in the midst of an intense phone conversation, but he's not talking to politicians or diplomats -- he's trying desperately to get off the phone with his wife.
After several of his attempts to hang up fail, he lies and tells her the country is about to go to war with Iran. Even that doesn't work! Ultimately the conversation sets in motion an international crisis that would be troubling if it wasn't so entertaining.
That's just one of the many zany, witty and bitingly satirical moments in "November," a 2007 comedy written by David Mamet. It's now being staged by TheatreWorks in New Milford, just in time for election season. The production runs through the weekend of Oct. 5 and 6, and fans of Mamet's work and the straight-faced absurdity of political satires such as "Dr. Strangelove" won't want to miss it.
TheatreWorks regularly offers high quality professional shows and "November" more than lives up to the high standard set by past productions at this theater. Directed by Richard Pettibone, the show is flawlessly executed and brings Mamet's words to life with skill and nuance.
Pettibone also provides the excellent movie-set quality set design. His direction and staging strikes exactly the right tone, which allows the cast to make even the play's most ridiculous scenes believable.
Mamet has achieved cult status in the world of theater and beyond thanks to plays such as "Glengarry Glen Ross" and "Sexual Perversity in Chicago," films like "The Cherry Orchard," "The Spanish Prisoner" and "Spartan," and the TV series "The Unit." Those familiar with his work know he's fond of dropping f-bombs and "November" features a steady and often laugh-inducing bombardment of profanity.
"November" tells the story of bumbling President Charles Smith, (Tom Libonate). It's days before he's up for re-election and his approval rating is lower than "Gandhi's cholesterol." Smith's party (Mamet diplomatically never mentions which party he actually belongs to) has stopped running ads because it doesn't want to waste any more money on the campaign.
Smith decides to stage a last-ditch effort to win the election, mostly because if he doesn't get re-elected he'll be leaving office completely broke. As we follow his re-election efforts, Mamet incorporates a variety of themes -- some purely comical, others politically charged.
Explored in varying degrees of detail are the real-life practice of presidents pardoning turkeys prior to Thanksgiving, gay marriage, Indian casinos, the use of torture, and last but not least -- nuclear war.
Libonate's portrayal of Smith is full of well-timed one-liners; highlights include his telephone conversations with his wife and the leaders of other countries, which recall Peter Sellers' classic conversation with the Russian leader in the film "Dr. Strangelove."
Jonathon Jacobson's performance as Archer Brown, the president's chief adviser, could be used as a textbook definition of how to properly play it straight during a comedy. His serious deadpan demeanor never cracks in even the slightest way, no matter what's happening around him, or how crazy the scene.
Mike Ritts turns befuddlement into an art form as the confused and agitated representative of the turkey industry -- his facial expressions are comedic gold. The cast is rounded out by Robyn Matiland, as the president's morally conscious screenwriter, Clarice Bernstein, and Matt McQuail as a cartoonish Indian chief who makes a late appearance in the show.
While the play might lack some of the power which has made much of Mamet's work so classic, it is a well-written, smart and frequently funny piece presented here with infectious and joyful zest. Over the next two weekends if you and your friends are debating what to do, I strongly suggest casting your vote for "November."


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Of Full Moons and Changing Mindsets
Posted on 02 July 2013
Our last tuna tagging activity happened to fall on a full moon last March. Normally, three days around full moon are rest periods because it is believed that tuna don't take bait during such times. Thus, the boat I normally use wasn't available because the captain had arranged a social appointment.Our last tuna tagging activity happened to fall on a full moon last March. Normally, three days around full moon are rest periods because it is believed that tuna don't take bait during such times. Thus, the boat I normally use wasn't available because the captain had arranged a social appointment.
I found this situation strange. Believing that tuna don't take bait during these bright nights is like believing that these animals consciously fast every full moon.
Getting a boat and organizing a crew when everyone else is not fishing is no easy task. It took me some convincing to get a boat captain willing to go on another boat with his crew to help me out. His name was Rio and he was willing to take his crew to this "high risk" adventure to prove a long-standing belief wrong. It also helped that their boat had been dry docked the past two weeks undergoing repairs and they needed some income. Joining this trip meant, at the very least, that they would be eating regularly.
While the boat was being prepared for the trip, several fishers with sinister smiles were milling around, cracking jokes about our decision to go out into the sea under a full moon. As we moved slowly away from the dock, I heard some of their parting words such as "bring home the baits with ice," referring to what they assumed would be unused bait and ice from this futile trip.
When I asked the crew why tuna never take bait during full moons, none of them knew the answer. Such has been the practice ever since and no one has really gone against this practice. Rio further reasoned that bait availability is limited during full moons.
Despite not getting any tuna tagged on the first two nights, our hopes never diminished because each night, several tuna would take the bait but just manage to escape.
On the third night, we decided to fish further out, some 100 km from the nearest land mass. We rested during the day on one of the Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) in the area. I even tried using a handline for small fish, using lures to pass the time. I was able to catch a rainbow runner, a skipjack, and two banded jacks! The FAD was teeming with fish and so Rio decided to fish here for the night. This never happened though because by late afternoon, a purse seine vessel came into view and drove us out of our identified fishing area.
Prompted to decide where to fish, we navigated further north to a "secret area" that has given Rio and his team more catch than most of the boats in their village.
This proved to be a real tuna area. I was able to tag five tuna within an hour and a half! The frenzy began at 3:00am when two huge dorados (15 kg each) and a tuna almost simultaneously took the bait, messing up the 10 or so hooks we lowered into the water.
It was chaos and took about half an hour to haul both fish, untangle the lines, and set new ones. At 3:45am, the second tuna took the bait. It took between 10-15 minutes to haul and attach the tag. The other four tuna came in succession of 10 minutes after each tuna was tagged and released.
There was jubilation and wide smiles from the fishers. By sunrise, a total of 6 yellowfin tuna and two dorados weighing around 340 kg were caught. All crew members, save for Rio, caught a tuna each. Never in their fishing experience had they reaped such good catch in so short a time.
Happy with our loot, we immediately sailed home.
It was late afternoon when I paid the fishers. This trip proved their long-standing belief wrong: that tuna don't take bait during a full moon. The news of our success convinced many boats to sail the next day.
We had the last laugh.
Posted by Jose Ingles (Jingles)


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Thirty-three percent of small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have been infected with malicious software (malware) spread through social network sites including Facebook, which takes the top spot for social networking-related malware infections, followed by YouTube and Twitter, according to a new survey.
And more than one-third of those infected have paid a hefty price to repair damages, some more than $5,000, according to Panda Security's First Annual Social Media Risk Index for SMBs, which surveyed 315 U.S. businesses with 1,000 or fewer employees between July and August.
Much of the problem stems from employees misusing company computers for social media use. Twenty-three percent of SMBs said their employees violated company privacy policies on popular social media sites, according to the survey. The survey indicated that the majority of companies have already put formal governance and employee education programs in place.
Businesses say they are too reliant on social media for business purposes to ban it altogether.
"Social media is now ubiquitous among SMBs because of its many obvious business benefits, yet these tools don't come without serious risks," said Sean-Paul Correll, threat researcher at Panda Security, in a statement.
Correll said Panda's survey was designed to uncover the top concerns of SMBs about social media and determine how those concerns correlated to actual malware infection, privacy violations and financial losses.
The top concerns of SMBs around social media include privacy and data loss (74 percent), malware infection (69 percent), loss of employee productivity (60 percent), damage to their reputations (50 percent), and network performance/utilization problems (29 percent), according to the survey.
But despite these concerns SMBs haven't been deterred from reaping the business benefits of social media, according to the survey. Seventy-eight percent of respondents said they use these tools for research and competitive intelligence, as well as to improve customer service, drive public relations and marketing initiatives and directly generate revenue.
The most popular social media tool among SMBs is Facebook—69 percent of respondents said they have active accounts on Facebook, while 44 percent are on Twitter, 32 percent are on YouTube, and 23 percent have LinkedIn accounts, according to the survey.
However, 71.6 percent of SMBs said they were infected with malware while on Facebook and 73.2 percent said the use of Facebook by employees violated their privacy policies. YouTube came in number two for malware infection (41.2 percent), while Twitter contributed to a significant amount of privacy violations (51 percent). Companies said they lost money because of employee privacy violations on Facebook (62 percent), followed by Twitter (38 percent), YouTube (24 percent) and LinkedIn (11 percent) according to the survey.


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The (World's Greatest?) Frozen Banana Daiquiri/
Something that may or may not surprise you: I'm one of those people who likes to scour the Internet for variousDIYtutorials and then implement them all over my house, oftentimes to the mild chagrin of the PhoBlograpHusband. (Two nights ago, our kitchen table was occupied for 12 hours by our crockpot, wrapped in a beach towel, 'cuz I was making yogurt.) If I were born fifty years earlier, I would have been a devout Hints from Heloise kinda housewise. As it stands, since the start of summer my freezer has contained a big Ziploc full of banana peels and eggshells, so I can spend my weekends making nutritious, eggshell-and-banana peel fertilizer for my outdoor plants.
Also in my icebox are whole, way-overripe bananas whose peels have turned brown. The peels will inevitably see the inside of the aforementioned Ziploc; the bananas themselves are there because a few weeks ago I read online about making a soft-serve, ice cream-like dessert using nothing but frozen bananas and a blender. Given that pregnancy has kicked my ice cream addiction into disgusting overdrive, I thought this was worth a shot. I also thought, frozen banana daiquiris.
Frozen daiquiris -- a regular daiquiri (rum, lime juice, sugar) buttressed with pureed fruit and crushed ice -- get a bad rap, of course, because their crushed-ice component has allowed them to become conflated with Slurpees and slushies, and so now they are most commonly made from chemicals and food coloring, served out of a whirring machine at someplace like a Sandals resort. This is tragic, because how often do we get to enjoy the wholesome flavor of pureed fruit in our cocktails? Who wouldn't enjoy the foamy, frothy wonderfulness that an ice-blended cocktail provides? (Even I capitulate to the delectable siren call of a Frappuccino at least once per summer.) And when was the last time you got to freaking drink a banana?
A frozen banana daiquiri seems like it should be arduous to make, but it is not. It is surprisingly simple (dump stuff into blender, turn blender on) and it is surprisingly good: Smooth and creamy, with a nice, tangy, lime-y undertone, and not at all too sweet. What I found most surprising was how well its constitution held up. I figured this drink would start separating, rum and melted ice sloshing atop a swamp of banana mush, within minutes. It absolutely did not. All in all, this cocktail was so impressive and enjoyable that Sean took it upon himself to drink the whole thing (after my one, obligatory sip). He even stored it in the fridge while he went to play Frisbee for two hours, came back and drank the rest and it still held up.
So how do we make the World's Greatest Frozen Banana Daiquiri? I think I'm still working on that. What I know so far is, you definitely want to use at least a 50-50 ratio of light and dark rum. I suspect 100% dark rum would be most pleasurable (but we ran out). Yes, you can taste the alcohol in the recipe below, but it wouldn't hurt to be stronger still. My other suspicion is that this should be topped with a healthy sprinkling of cinnamon or nutmeg. The banana and lime flavors do play nicely against one another, but I think there's room in there for a third, outta-left-field flavor.
Of course, most frozen banana daiquiri recipes you're going to find online are going to tell you a) light rum only, and b) garnish with a Maraschino cherry. Take that shit to the Bahamas, yo!
The (World's Greatest) Frozen Banana Daiquiri
3/4 ounces Kraken Black Spiced Rum
3/4 ounces Bacardi Light Rum
1 tablespoon triple sec
1 1/2 ounces lime juice
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 banana, medium/large, preferably frozen and preferably overripe, sliced up into a handful of pieces
1 cup crushed ice (usually takes about 3-5 ice cubes depending on size)
Lime peel, to garnish
Combine all ingredients except peel in blender. Blend on a low speed for five seconds, then blend on a higher speed until drink is smooth. (Shouldn't take more than 10 seconds.) Pour into chilled hurricane, martini or cocktail glass. Garnish.
Tasting Notes
OK, so what rums would kick this drink into World's Greatest territory? Honestly, name your poison. If I had more than a splash left of the Kraken, I would've gone whole-hog Kraken. Spiced Navy rums would be great, I'm guessing; I'm partial to Sailor Jerry.
You don't *have* to cut up the banana beforehand, or pre-crush the ice -- but I did both, the latter using my hand-cranked Ice-O-Mat. It'll just cut down on your blender time. This is important to someone like me who has a crappy blender as I'm always worried I'm going to kill the damn thing someday. And I really did only need to blend on high speed for like another 5-10 seconds.
You want to use an overripe banana because the riper it is, the more sugars it's got in it. You know how when you eat an underripe banana, it can sometimes have that unpleasantly bitter, "green" taste to it? I don't know why, but that taste tends to come out even more when you puree the banana, even if it's a just-ripe banana. I know this from trying to make the banana "ice cream" using a just-ripe banana. Stick with as-overripe-as-you-can bananas.


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Dissecting the Facebook Gift Scam: How They Get You
"Get free stuff!" is a common lure scammers use on Facebook. It doesn't matter if the pitch is for a free airplane ticket, a free iPad, or just a voucher for a free coffee. Everyone likes getting something for free.
Scammers are using Facebook elements such as "Likes" and comments to make gift scams more believable to users, Troy Hunt, a software architect and security researcher who has analyzed passwords from past breaches, wrote last week on his blog. The Facebook gift scam takes a "cunning" approach and "chains together numerous illusions" and other methods to trick victims, Hunt wrote.
While the bulk of Hunt's analysis focused on a supposed $400 voucher promotion from Australian retailer Woolworths, there are similar scams for other retailers, including Starbucks, Costco, and Harvey Norman, he said.
"The scam relies of the power of social media leverage by making the victim the advocate for the scam. It's their wall that's telling all their friends how awesome the scammer's page is," Hunt wrote.
It all begins with a friend. Or more precisely, a post from a Facebook friend in the Newsfeed advertising a voucher or a free gift from a company. Users who click on the link first land on the promotion page, which displays a share widget, user comments, and a Like button. After the user completes all three steps (and ensures friends will now see the post in their Newsfeeds), the user is redirected several times before landing on the final scam page. It may be a survey site, a form asking users to fill out information to win a prize, or some other malicious site. There will be no sign of that initial free gift, though.
Social Engineering
The scam's promotion site has three social engineering elements to trick users: a "vouchers remaining" counter, list of user comments, and the number of Likes the page has received. The counter "Free Vouchers Remaining" triggers a sense of urgency, because it implies the user needs to act fast before other people snatch them all up, Hunt said. The counter decrements a random number approximately every second. Since it's not regularly dropping by 1 or 2 each time, it looks more believable, Hunt said.
The user comments are also fake. In fact, the page isn't even displaying the Facebook widget to pull the comments in, but a static image of random users, according to Hunt's analysis. The over 6 million likes on the page is also a static image. Clicking on it kicks off the multiple redirects to send the user to the final scam page.
"Undoubtedly there are many different routes the scam can take, there would be more than one variant of it and almost certainly there are multiple other parties implementing similar scams," Hunt wrote.
Making the Scam Work
While acknowledging that these scams do work, most of them have a "terrible success rate," Hunt said. To maximize the success rate, scammers may first do a quick check of the user's location. For the Woolworths scam, the user clicking on the link in the Newsfeed triggers a piece of JavaScript code which checks the user's location. Users outside Australia, Albania, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada are redirected to Google and never see the actual scam, Hunt found. Presumably, if the retailer being used in the scam had a bigger presence in the U.S., the target location would have included U.S.-based users.
"This scam is only intended to entrap victims for certain target countries," Hunt wrote.
Scammers are also hiding their tracks by jumping all over the globe. Hunt looked at the Woolworths scam and found that the domain name of the promotion site is registered to a "James Smith" in Albania. The IP address of the server hosting the promotion site belongs to a German host, Hunt said. The fact that users are redirected repeatedly before landing on ultimate scam page also makes it difficult to trace the scam.
People in Australia are being scammed by a user in Albania using a server hosted in Germany. "Who do the cops speak to?" Hunt asked, noting that the geographic distribution of these kinds of scams make them too complex to investigate.
If It Sounds Too Good…
By tricking users, scammers may be receiving rewards for click-through rates as users click on every page, earning affiliate dollars for referring users to the site, or having surveys filled out. It could also lead to identity theft.
As far as Hunt is concerned, if the scam sounds too good to be true, it probably is.


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By Lisa Capobianco
Staff Writer
With the holiday season and colder weather in full-swing, Southington Community Services has stocked up on gifts and donations for residents in need.
Community Services has recently kicked off its annual "Adopt a Family" for Christmas, with over 50 volunteers and growing. Mark Fazzolari, the assistant director at Community Services, said the amount of people wanting to participate in the cause is continuous. Families, schools, businesses and churches have shared their holiday joy, signing up to buy gifts for anonymous families in need, he said.
"We have received a lot of calls from the community," Fazzolari said.
For Fazzolari, seeing how the cause has a positive impact on volunteers serves as a rewarding experience.
"They just love seeing the kids' faces," said Fazzolari, who added that families who receive gifts one year will give back the year after through donations. "We appreciate all the help we get from the community."
For Southington Community Services volunteer Robin Taillie, participating in Adopt-a-Family serves as a rewarding experience for her. A participant in the program for the past five years, Taillie said she decided to get involved because she sees the need to give back to the less fortunate on a daily basis.
"It is great. I usually try to be there on the day of the gift distribution," said Taillie, who has adopted a family of five this year. "When you see the looks on their faces, they just cannot believe the generosity."
Adopt a Family serves as just one way Community Services gives back during the holidays. As the temperatures get colder, more people may need heating assistance. Currently, Fazzolari said Community Services has helped fill out 500 applications overall for heating assistance, and the number grows every year.
According to Community Services' website, people who need heating assistance must bring copies of full 30-day bank statements for all accounts that show current balances, a bank statement with a logo, proof of all stocks, CDs, bonds, and IRA's (for applicants age 59 or older), and a rent receipt and lease if the rent includes heat. For proof of primary source of heat, residents who have oil must have the name of their vendor and ensure that it participates in the program. Residents with Yankee Gas or Electric must have their current Yankee Gas or CL&P bill. The bill must have the name of a family member age 18 or older who lives at the current address of the applicant's home.
Besides an increase in heating assistance, Community Services has also seen a growing need for food assistance. Although it has not affected Southington directly yet, the recent cut in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits is estimated to be $5 billion in fiscal year 2014, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). From November 2013 through September 2014, the cut equals $29 per month for a family of three, reported CBPP. According to CBPP's website, the cut will affect 424,000 SNAP recipients in Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 in Connecticut alone.
"A few people came with questions, but the town has not really been affected by it yet," Fazzolari said.
Fazzolari said close to 70 families walk through the doors of Community Services daily to receive bags of groceries. But Community Services plans to hold more food drives, with the help of different businesses in town.
Within the last three months, civic groups, businesses, and families have also reached out with donations for "Adopt a Shelf," piling a shelf with a variety of food.
"Every couple of weeks we are getting a new shelf," Fazzolari said. "We could not do it without the support of the community."
Looking to lend a hand; Community Services stocks up for holidays
By Lisa Capobianco


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Posted by: SapphicSari« on: January 06, 2018, 05:44:43 pm »
Unpopular opinion: I like Ritsuko's version of Overmaster. Yes, she strains a lot, but it has a lot of charm for me. I like that her seiyuu is able to let loose a bit. It's a rock song, and she fits it well. Besides, she screams the lyrics in I Want too.


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We have been studying the Gospel of Luke, and it seemed to me that every week has been a high point in the series. If you ask me what has been the favorite message through the Gospel of Luke, I would be totally unable to pick one. I feel like every Sunday is like an Everest of truth. But this morning we are going to set Luke aside, because this is the Lord's table, and I'm gonna talk to you just a little more personally from the heart. I may be more the pastor than I have been sort of playing the role of the preacher and the prophet the last few weeks as we've gone through Luke. This gives me an opportunity to speak personally my concerns as we come to the Lord's table, and I certainly welcome that.
It's always a challenge when I know we're gonna have the Lord's table to try to discern what is the best word to bring you from the Lord. And as I was realizing it was coming up, the Lord planted something in my experience that really provided all that I needed by way of direction.
Last week, we had a pastor's conference here of Russian pastors, Russian pastors who are now in the United States. As you know, we've ministered over there in Russia and countries of the former Soviet Union for years. But many of those people have come to the United States. And many, many pastors are over here pastoring the groups of Russians that are setting up communities in many places. And we had 170 of these pastors with us last week for a conference. Some of them have been here a few years. Some of them have been here a few weeks. And it was all translated through electronics. It was a great, great conference.
One of the things that Russian pastors love to do is ask questions. I've learned through the years that you have to be ready to answer all kinds of questions. I have spent literally uncounted hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of answering questions all over the former Soviet Union as they pour out their queries about the meaning of Scripture and ministry and the work of God and so forth. It's...it's such a rich and wonderful, wonderful time to do that with 'em.
Well, it was no different with the Russian pastors who were here last week. They wanted time for questions, and they did it the same way they do it in Russia. They write it on all kinds of bits and pieces of paper, and the paper comes floating up from the...the pews. If there are balconies in the church, the whole time you're preaching and teaching, paper is...is falling out of the balcony like wounded moths...just sort of tumbling down, and it lands on somebody's shoulder, and up it comes. And by the time you're finished, there's a...a pile, you know, eight inches to ten inches deep all over the table. And so as we were having the question and answer time last week, the paper started coming, and it...it gets to be more than you can ever answer.
So there's a certain sense of which you hope the Lord directs the selection process so you can get at the important questions. Well, as we were going through the questions, a question came up, and this was the question: "What are you doing to ensure the future...consistency and stability in ministry of Grace Community Church after you're gone?"
Now that's a fair question...and I...I think at the time I understood the question. Well, I mean I understood the simple surface of the question, but I think I also understood the motivation for the question. Those Russian pastors know my name. They knew me by name, because so many books have been translated into Russian, so they know who John MacArthur is. And they've read the books, and they've read the commentary, so many of them in their own language, of course, that probably they have many times preached the material that they found in the books. So they're very familiar with me.
What they were not familiar with was the church. They had not been to the church. We had never had a conference for these...these folks. They had never been here. What really, I think, overwhelmed them was what they found when they arrived here. They found not just me, but they found a whole church. They found a college. They found a seminary. They found a staff, pastors and elders and lay people, who were gifted and capable of instructing them and helping them and assisting them and strengthening them and answering their questions. They found a...a resource for answers for the growth of their church, for the teaching of the Word of God. They literally discovered a treasure house here.
And the question really was framed by that motivation. They were looking at me and saying, "Okay, you're getting old. What guarantee do we have that, when you're gone, this place will still be able to minister to us?" That's really what they were asking. Because I believe they...they know that our theology is compatible. They know we're serious about loving God and loving Christ and honoring His word. And they are, too, and they feel this kindred spirit with us, just as I've told you many, many times they do over there, when they've never been here. But once they've been here, it's intensified.
And so the question is, "What are you doing to secure the future of this church so that when you're gone we can still depend on this place?" That's a good question...and I suppose the question could be answered a number of ways. I...I mean I...I...I talk a little bit about the fact that we have strong leadership and strong pastoral staff and elders. And we have a strong doctrinal statement. And the people in leadership understand that. And that our people understand it. That you are well taught in the Word of God and etc., etc., and go through all of that. But I think we know all those things. And those things are pretty obvious.
As I began to sit back and really assess what is the greatest threat to this church, I don't really think the greatest threat to this church is the fact that it won't be able to find somebody else to preach the Bible. I don't think the great threat to this church is that somehow the leadership is weak. It's not. Not even the congregation is weak. We...we know what our doctrine is. We've been at it a long time. We've been in this groove for a while. We...we understand the Biblical philosophy of ministry, of Biblical theology. We have a Biblical worldview. We are pretty well focused. We've got strong leadership on all fronts. I'm...I'm not so concerned about those areas. I'm...I'm...I'm not really concerned about persecution. Because, if persecution comes, that'll probably make the church even stronger. As it boiled down in my mind, I came to one conclusion. That the thing I fear most is the danger of blessing. The danger of blessing.
Now most people would agree with the axiom, "Too much of a good thing can be bad," right? I mean we all understand that. Too much money makes somebody indulgent, irresponsible, crass, materialistic. Too much popularity makes one proud, selfish. Too much power makes one implacable, compassionless, invincible, abusive...Too much blessing, that's a problem, too.
You know, wisdom tells us, I mean just plain human wisdom, tells us that a measure of self-denial is healthy. That a measure of deprivation is beneficial. That it's good to have some needs that you can't immediately and easily meet. That it's very beneficial for your character to be faced with some weaknesses which you cannot easily overcome. Even being resented, even being resisted, even being...rejected, even being hated, even being persecuted can be beneficial. What is really hard to handle is to have all you want of what you want when you want it. That's really hard to handle, because then self-control, self-denial, and discipline disappear. And where a person lives in undisciplined freedom, they live on the edge of self-destruction...
Now, amazingly, this can happen in the Kingdom of God. It really can. It has. Turn in your Bible for a moment to the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy chapter 6...Children of Israel had been in Egypt for 400 years. They, in Egypt, were slaves...in the truest sense of the word - the ancient kind of slavery. They basically had very little. They existed as one step above beasts of burden, animals. They...they lived in poverty and deprivation and weakness and need and abuse. All of that in Egypt. Four hundred years. And then God, in a mighty display of power, brought a man by the name...name of Moses to a place of usefulness and ordained Moses to lead Israel out of the land of Egypt. Two million slaves, two million strong, leaving a country. Can you imagine such an exodus? Against the will of the country.
In order to do that, God had to bring a series of ten deadly plagues, the likes of which the world had never and has never seen. Through the process of those horrible plagues, loosened the death grip that the Egyptian monarchy had on the children of Israel, and they were allowed to begin to leave. You remember the final, culminating miracle was that God sent the death angel to execute the first-born. But for every Jewish family that sprinkled the Passover blood on the door, the death angel passed by and spared that first-born. And in that great miracle of judgment, there was also a miracle of deliverance, and that was all that Egypt could take. And they said, "Get out of...get out of this country. We can't take anymore devastation from your God." And so the children of Israel were released. It wasn't long, however, before pharaoh pursued them with his army. You know the great miracle. The Red Sea opened. They walked across on dry land. Pharaoh tried to follow, and the whole army was drowned. They were then led into the wilderness as a result of these massive liberating miracles.
After wandering the wilderness, were given the privilege, 40 years of wandering. But after the wandering time was over, they were given the privilege of going into the land of Canaan. When they went into the land of Canaan, they went into the land of milk and honey, the land which is the most fruitful piece of earth there is, a wonderfully fruitful agriculturally. And, of course, the original land extended as far east as all the Arab oil fields. A very, very wealthy piece of earth. God gave them the best that He had, and they went into the land.
The Canaanites had built the land. The Canaanites had flourished in the land. They went, literally, and took over the land from the Canaanites, and it was the best place.
In Deuteronomy chapter 6, God recognizes this and there comes a warning. Verse 10, "So it shall be when the Lord your God brings you into the land of which He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you large and beautiful cities which you did not build, houses full of all good things which you did not fill, hewn out wells which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, when you have eaten and are full, then beware lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage."
You see, that was the great fear. That was God's warning to them the danger of blessing. You stepped into a land. You didn't build the cities. They were there. Great, magnificent cities built by a very advanced civilization in the ancient world, the Canaanites. You moved into homes, and you lived in homes and houses that you didn't build, and they were filled with all kinds of instruments and implements and artifacts and whatever, and you didn't make any of those. And then you went out to get water from wells you never dug, and you plucked grapes from vines you never planted, and harvested wonderful olives from trees that you never planted.
I mean this is abundance. This is God, generous God, pouring out all good things on His beloved nation, Israel. And He says, "And so you're gonna be living in the danger of blessing." The danger is you're gonna forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt. And so in verse 13, He says, "You shall fear the Lord your God, and serve Him, and shall take oaths in His name." That is, you need to make covenants and promises to God to be faithful. "You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are all around you, for the Lord your God is a jealous God among you. Lest the anger of the Lord your God be aroused against you and destroy you from the face of the earth."
Well, this is serious language. Here He is in one breath talking about blessing and blessing and blessing and blessing. And in another breath, He's talking about destruction. That is the danger of blessing. The danger of blessing.
Now the New Testament presents to us another gripping illustration of this, and I wanna have you look at it with me this morning for just a few moments as we prepare for the Lord's table. First Corinthians chapter 10, 1 Corinthians chapter 10. I sadly report to you that God's fears were justified, because just exactly what God warned them not to do is exactly what they did. In fact, they enjoyed all the Canaanite cities. They enjoyed all of the homes and all of the things that were in them. They enjoyed the wells and the water. They enjoyed the vineyards. They enjoyed the olive trees. They enjoyed everything that was in the land flowing with milk and honey. And they, in spite of all of that, turned to idols. The kingdom split. The northern kingdom was taken into captivity and destroyed in 722 B.C. The southern kingdom went into captivity 586 B.C. and taken to Babylon, and God did bring destruction on that land. It was a sad, sad disregard of a very clear warning of the danger of blessing.
You have a similar situation in 1 Corinthians. The Apostle Paul is writing to a very blessed church. They are...in many ways, a favorite of his. And that's because he spent nearly two years with them. Only in Ephesus did he spend any longer time, three years. And so he's come to love these people, and he's interacted with them. He's made a second visit to them. He overall writes them four letters, two in Scripture and two in not. Very familiar with these people. And they are very beloved to him. They have his heart. He...he can be heartbroken over them. He can be depressed over them. He can rejoice over them, because they really have his heart...
In introducing us to these Corinthians in chapter 1 and verse 4, Paul says, "I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which is given to you by Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in everything by Him." Now that just sorta sets the stage. You have it all. You were enriched in everything by Him. This was an amazing group. They were a church planted by Paul. You can't get any better than that. Probably the greatest preacher ever next to Jesus. So they had Paul as their founding pastor. They have been exposed to the teaching of Peter. They have exposed to the teaching of the great Old Testament scholar Pollus. They...they had it all. They had everything God could possibly give. The best of everything.
In chapter 1 verse 7, he says, "You come short in no gift. You lack nothing. You have had all the teaching, all the instruction, all the blessings, all the treasures, everything, and you lack no gift. You've got it all. It's all there." In fact, in chapter 4 verse 8, he says, "You're full. You're filled to the brim. There is nothing lacking."...
One of the things in a situation like that is, when you get everything, when you have the best teacher, and when you have the best other teachers, and you've heard the teaching of Peter and Pollus, in addition to the teaching of Paul. And when you have all the gifted people and the gifted leaders and...and when your church has been born in an explosion of divine power and...and when your theology is right, and your leadership is strong, and all everything is going the way you...you think it should go, and God just continues to pour out blessing on you, you are living in a situ...situation very similar to Deuteronomy 6. You are in the danger of...of compromising because you have so much blessing.
In chapters 8 to 9, 8 and 9, Paul addresses the issue of...of freedom. That's one of the blessings you have, is freedom. Freedom to enjoy all God's good gifts. Freedom from the law as your taskmaster. Freedom from the ceremonies and rituals and routines that were part of the shadow that preceded the substance who is Christ. You're free from the fear of death, because Christ has died your death. You're free from the punishment of sin, because Christ has borne your punishment. You're free from the curse of the law, because Christ became accursed for you. And so here we are enjoying all this Christian freedom. Here is this church, blessed to the max, blessed to the full, enjoying all the riches that Christ can dispense, all the best teachers and teaching, and all the fullness of freedom that comes in Christ...That's a very dangerous situation to be in.
And I would suggest to you its not at all unlike our situation. Here we are a church that's really had the best of everything, and that in the purposes and sovereignty of God, and many of you, most of you have come here, and you didn't build this place, and you didn't dig these wells. But you live in this place, and you drink the water from these wells, and you pluck the fruit from the vines and the olives from the trees. And you enjoy all the fullness of the wealth of teaching and instruction and leadership and ministry that goes on from the cradle to the grave here in so many dimensions. And so you, like the Corinthians, like the people of Israel, live in the danger of blessing. And I guess if I have a concern, that probably would be the one I wanted to pick because of its subtlety. Other things can be more obvious than this one. The danger of blessing. Here is this blessed group.
Well, at the end of chapter 9, Paul says something I think is very important to them. In the midst of everything they have, in the midst of all the blessing of God, he reminds them, "Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize." You know, it would be easy to conclude that they're not in a race at all. They're in an easy chair. This is the opposite of a race. Who's running? We're...we're so comfortable. This is great. We come, and we get the best of teaching, the best of everything. God has granted to us so many good things. We live in a flourishing economy, as the Corinthians did, and life is just very, very good. This was a busy city, a trade city. There was a measure of wealth, a wonderful part of the world. The area of Greece where things grow wonderfully well, especially vineyards and olive trees. And we have it all. What do we need?
And Paul has to remind them that the spiritual life is not to try to find the most comfortable place and settle in. The place that you have to be is in the midst of a race, running a race to win the prize. It's not enough to just say, "I don't care about the prize. I just...I'm just happy to sit in the easy chair until it arrives in heaven." There's something more than that. There are...there are crowns. There are rewards for those who run. So Paul says, "You gotta remember this is a race. You have to run in such a way that you may win the prize." You...and then in verse 25 he says, "And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate." And he introduces the idea of moderation here. There's a limitation on what you can indulge yourself in. You have so much. I mean here we are living in really a garden spot on the face of the earth in southern California. We live in a nation which provides for us what we can't provide for ourselves. The only people in our society who go wanting are people who aren't sober or on drugs or who chose to run from the law. I mean for almost everybody in our society, there is some provision for the necessities of life and more. We have the best of everything, and here we, in our church, have the best of everything that God can dispense to His beloved church.
And we can easily forget that this is a race. I mean where does persecution come in? Where does self-denial come in? Self-deprivation? When are we confronted with our weakness? We...we hear the word "need." That's an interesting word. What does that mean?...
And so he says you've gotta realize that, if you're gonna run, you gotta be temperate. You've gotta be moderate. There is a place for self-denial. You can't just take your freedoms and run them to the limits and beyond...And in order to accomplish this, in verse 27, skipping down, he says, "I discipline my body and bring it into subjection." The word for discipline here is usually translated buffet, right? I buffet my body. That's the old King...King James, and that was original like in some other translations. I buffet my body. By the way, that's spelled the same as buffet, but it's a very different concept.
Paul is not saying, "I buffet my body." He's saying, "I buffet my body." The actual Greek word means to...to deliver a punch below the eye. That's a knockout punch...that's the knockout punch. I...I have to literally fight, first of all, I'm like a runner who has to run to win a prize. I'm like a boxer who has to box, not as somebody who beats the air, not a shadow boxer. I have to deliver a blow. And interestingly enough, the blow has to be on me. I literally have to deliver a knockout punch to my otherwise...hankering flesh, bodily desire...
So Paul says, "Look, I have everything. You have everything. We all have everything. We are the richest." In fact, in chapter 4, he talks about, "Now you are full. Now you are rich. You reign as kings. You have it all. There's nothing more that could be given. God has given it all to you. And unless you're serious about self-denial, moderation, submission, and delivering a knockout punch to your flesh, you are going to become...end of verse 27...disqualified." Ah documas, tested and found flawed...
You see, that's exactly what can happen in a church like this. What can happen in a church like this is you have everything, and so out the window goes self-denial, self-discipline, deprivation, moderation, submission, and self-control, self-discipline, self-denial...
Those things, by the way, are not virtues in themselves. They're only virtued...virtues when they're exercised toward those things that are destructive. When you deny yourself, you deny yourself sinful things. But you can become so comfortable in your life that sin subtly sneaks in, and you become materialistic without even knowing it. And you become worldly without even knowing it. And you become immoral without even knowing it. You stop short of the actual act of adultery, but you fill your mind with all the garbage in the world. I mean there's so many subtle ways that, if you're not in a defensive mode, if you're not competing, if you're not running the race, if you're not ready to deliver the knockout punch to your bodily desires, you're gonna be drawn into this. And my great concern for the...for the Grace Church of the future when I'm gone is that it would be all that it is now and far more, by God's wondrous grace. But I know that can only happen if we maintain a measure of strength, a measure of self-discipline, self-denial, and self-control in the midst of immense blessing...
You know, if you're living in Russia, if you're living in Siberia, if you're living in Samara where Kevin is going, out there where you can hardly get your next meal, where there's a certain level of desperation to get your next breath, where you have no money, and the...the economy's crumbling around you, where there are only so many resources available to you, even in the church, where life is very simple and very one-dimensional. There's not much there, there's a level of dependency that exists there just by virtue of the fact that you can't survive any other way. Self-denial is almost imposed upon you there, because you don't have much to choose from. When you go to a market, as I did a few months ago when I was there, and you walk in, and essentially you take home whatever is there, and that's all there is. And when you took what you got, there wasn't something for the next person. That's a different kind of life...That you train yourself for self-denial in that kind of environment. We don't do well at that in America...
Now, to make his point even more strongly, come to chapter 10, 1 Corinthians 10. I'll make this brief. Paul uses an illustration. He's already used an illustration, just a sort of worldly illustration from boxing and running. Now he's gonna use a Biblical illustration. Chapter 10 verse 1, "Moreover, brethren...that is, moreover, I'm continuing on the same subject here...I don't want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud. All passed through the sea. All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. All ate the same spiritual food. All drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them. That rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well-pleased, for their bodies, their carcasses, their corpses were scattered in the desert or the wilderness."
That's a very interesting little five-verse section there. Paul says, "You know what I'm concerned? I'm concerned about the danger of blessing. I'm concerned about you being rich, having everything, coming behind in no gift. I'm concerned about you enjoying all these liberties and all these freedoms that are yours in Christ. And this grace upon grace upon grace upon grace, all your sins are forgiven, and you're not under the law, etc., etc., and I'm concerned that you're not gonna discipline your body. You're not gonna strike a...a knockout punch against your otherwise hankering flesh. I'm concerned about all of that. So lemme remind you about Israel. Lemme remind you about Israel.
"Let's go back...he says...let's go back to...to Israel. Let's go back to when they came out of Egypt." They all came out, oh, the word "all" is used five times in those verses, and he's looking at the solidarity of the nation. He's looking at everybody's. This is paralleling the church. They all had it. They, he says, "All our fathers," meaning our forefathers, our...our ancestors. "All of our fathers were under the cloud." What does that mean? The glory cloud, the Shechinah cloud that led Israel when they wandered in the wilderness. They came out of Egypt. You remember they were led by a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of cloud by day.
So he says, "They were all under the cloud. They all experienced divine direction, divine leadership, divine guidance. And...he says...they all passed through the sea. The whole nation went through the Red Sea. They all experienced divine deliverance...divine rescue, miraculous." So this is a people who are used to miracles. They had seen ten miracles take place, miracles of judgment in Egypt. And then the great miracle of being led out of Egypt, being led by a Shechinah glory cloud, the very presence of God in visible form. And then the divine miracle of deliverance when the sea opened, and they walked through, and it closed to drown pharaoh's entire army.
Then verse 2 says, "All were literally immersed into Moses in the cloud and in the sea." That's an interesting statement. Lemme tell you, it simple means this: immersed, not in the sense of getting wet, but of being merged. In other words, you were all literally one with your leader. There were no factions. There were no divisions. There were no separated groups. There were no cultic offshoots. They came out as one mass of people, all together under one man's leadership, the man that God had appointed, the man Moses.
So they knew solidarity in leadership. They experienced divine, miraculous leading, divine, miraculous deliverance, and divine, miraculous leadership under Moses. One great God-given leader who led them through all those experiences of following the cloud and passing through the sea. Then they were given divine provision. They all ate the same spiritual food, the same manna, the same birds that God provided. God provided. You remember their food. They wanted meat, He gave them bird flesh to eat. They...they were otherwise given manna, which God provided for them on a regular, routine basis, so they all experienced not only divine direction, divine care in delivering them from Egypt, divine rescue, a divine leader, solidarity with that leader, namely Moses, but divine provision of food and water. They all drank the same spiritual drink. And the spiritual drink was the drink provided by the spiritual source who is God.
And I've been in that desert out there a number of times, and you could go a long time without finding water out there. But God made sure the two million people wandering for 40 years always had water. And sometimes it even came out of a...a rock. I mean this is a people who have had God's best. What more can God do than miraculously provide all of this for them? They literally lived their whole lives in a miraculous environment. Miracle upon miracle upon miracle by which God cared for His people. And actually, it tells us in verse 4, the spiritual rock that followed them was Christ. This is a wonderful, wonderful little play on words. This is the pre-incarnate Christ, before He was born in Bethlehem, He existed eternally as God the Son, the second member of the Trinity. And, of course, He ministered to Israel. He would be Israel's Savior. There would come a time, as we all know, when He would die for the sins of Israel.
But before the incarnation, He literally was with them, following them in their wilderness wanderings so that the...the very Christ Himself was in the midst of His people. We could say it this way: They had been given divine care and guidance out of Egypt. They had been given divine deliverance, miraculous deliverance through the Red Sea. They had been given divine provision of food and water. And they had been given a divine Savior, whose presence was with them at all times. They were always under the special care of the rock who is Christ who followed them, who was really the source of all the miracles that met their needs.
It's a very different way to view Christ than the incarnate way. We look at Him in His incarnation, and we see a Man. We look at Him in His pre-incarnation ministry to Israel, and we see Him as God.
Well, that's very much like Corinthian church. The Corinthian church had been led out of paganism. The Corinthian church had been rescued and delivered from the...from death and judgment. The Corinthian church had been given spiritual food and spiritual drink. The Corinthian church had the presence of the glorified risen Christ in their midst, and the same for us, the same for you. You've been led out of the land of paganism. You have been led through and out the other side of judgment unscathed. You have been provided the water of life and the bread of life through the Word of God, that you have lived with the Savior in your midst, in your presence, as He moves in your life and dwells within you. You have all these privileges. This is all the best that God can give. And the sad reality of verse 5 is, in spite of that, with most of them, God was not well-pleased, and their corpses were scattered all over the desert.
That's pretty shocking...I mean Israel...that whole generation, two million, died in the desert, never went in. From the first generation that came out, only two people went into the Promised Land, Joshua and Caleb. The rest of the first generation died out. And it was the second generation with Joshua and Caleb that went into the Promised Land. So when it says, "With most of them, God was not well-pleased," it was a lot of people. A whole two million...God wasn't pleased.
It's a sad story of the danger of blessing, isn't it? But what were the things that caused this...tragedy? Verse 6, and I'll look at them just briefly. First of all, he says, "These things became our examples." This is not just history. This is example. "To the intent that we should not lust after evil things an they also lusted." First problem, they started to desire the things of the world. They wanted what they had in Egypt. They wanted what other people had. This is worldliness. This is...this is craving. Literally, it says, I think in the NAS, "They craved."
The...an attitude that longs for the evil things of the world. They wanted the health, the wealth, the fame, the entertainment, the sexual experiences, whatever it is that the world passes out. That's exactly what they wanted. Then they got into idolatry, verse 7. "Don't become idolaters, as were some of them, as it is written...and it quotes out of Exodus 32 where..."the people sit down to eat and drink, get drunk, and then rose up to have sexual amusement." They...they got into the world. They got into idolatry. They committed, in verse 8, sexual immorality. And in one day, 23,000 fell. The Levis killed 3,000, and 20,000 died of a plague, according to Exodus 32.
And then there were others who tested Christ, or tested the Lord in verse 9. They presumed on God. They pushed God as far as He would go to see where He would break. They extended their sin as far as it could go. They see how far they could push the envelope or push the edge, as we say it today. This is presumption. Presumption. And the Lord sent venomous snakes to bite them...and you can read about that in Numbers chapter, I think it's chapter 21. And then there were others, verse 10, get this, who complained. That's right, they complained, and they were destroyed by the destroyer. You know how many were destroyed? How many complainers were destroyed? It's interesting. Fourteen thousand seven hundred died.
Some people would say, "Well, certainly grumbling isn't in the category of major sins." It is in the category of major sins...Well, here were the sins, just quickly. Worldliness, idolatry, immorality, presumption, complaining. I mean what did they have to complain about? Tell me. And why would they presume on the miraculous goodness of God? And why would they wanna be immoral when God had given them everything within marriage to provide blessing? And idolatry, that's unimaginable. Why would they worship a golden calf when they knew the true and living God who delivered them from Egypt? And why would they want what the world had to give when it was the world that had tried to destroy them?...
Well, it's always the way it is. You give people blessing upon blessing upon blessing upon blessing, and they become spiritually lazy, and they don't exercise self-discipline, restraint. And they fall into patterns of sin. And so, in verse 11, Paul says, "Now all these things happened to them as an examples." He says it again. This isn't just history. This is example. "They're written for our admonition upon whom the end of the ages have come." The end of the age began when Messiah came, so we're living since He came, so that's us. This is an example, folks. When you're greatly blessed, beware. When you're greatly blessed, beware. You're living in a time of grave danger.
And that'll take us right back to verse 27, you better learn self-discipline, self-denial, moderation...or you're gonna wind up being disqualified...
I...I don't wanna presume anything, but I would venture to say it's certainly safe to say there are few churches in this generation who are as blessed as you...It's...it's...it's an incredible thing that God has done here. And on the one hand, we rejoice in it. But on the other hand, there is an element of danger in this. Great danger, that you begin to feel so comfortable, so blessed, you begin to feel so much the favor of God, that God is doing so much to show His love for you, that are somehow privileged beyond others, which gives you a little bit of liberty in how you live your life. And you become so much a spiritual consumer, that you find that spiritual easy chair, and you no longer desire to exercise self-denial, self-discipline, self-control, setting priorities, learning to be weak so that you can depend on His strength. You...you begin to...drift closer and closer to old familiar sins, and you find they begin to encroach upon your life.
That's my great fear for the future of the church. I don't really think we're gonna go down the doctrinal drain anytime soon...What could happen to us is that we become smug and self-indulgent, and we overuse our freedom, and we abuse great, great grace...That's why, when we come to this table, it's so important that we always pull ourselves up short. And the Lord's table, for us, is a time to ask, "Have I indulged my liberties too far?" Right? "Have I gone too far?...Am I pursuing self-discipline in every area in the midst of all this blessing?" It's time to examine our hearts. Let's do that.
Father, as we come to the table, it is our desire to look into our hearts and to see what is there, not for own sake, but that we might see the truth of our sinfulness. And, Lord, where we have played on the edges of worldliness, or even indulged ourselves in the...in the values and thought life and patterns and entertainment of the world, or whether we have found ourselves drawn into material things that have begun to consume us, or whether we have become idolatrous and created all kinds of gods in our lives, all kinds of things that we love more than You, or whether we've become immoral or presumptuous or just complaining and griping and grumbling about this and that because it isn't all exactly the way we want it. Lord, please expose our hearts to us and wash us clean. Create in us a clean heart, clean from all that.
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text:
The mysteriously familiar face of a deceased young woman shakes young surgeon Fabian (33) out of his lethargy. On a whim, he leaves Berlin for Portugal, determined to win back his former girlfriend Doro (31), who works at an architectural company in Lisbon.
IMDB Rating: N/A
Release Date: 21 Jan 2016
Genre: Drama
Runtime: N/A
Stars : Golo Euler, Luise Heyer, Albano Jerónimo, Pirjo Lonka
Actor : Golo Euler, Luise Heyer, Albano Jerónimo, Pirjo Lonka
Writers : Sebastian Bleyl, Jonas Rothlaender
Director : Jonas Rothlaender
Language : German
Country : Germany, Portugal


text:
It's not that I didn't want a puppy. Just that I was reluctant, concerned about the responsibility and nightly barking. And available space in our ever-shrinking house. And the mess. And what would happen if it ever got out the front door and into the big, scary world on its own.
Yet we've somehow managed to survive human children despite these same fears. Besides, I am outnumbered in my home, three to one. So last spring during a temporary parental vacation from sanity, we brought home not one, but two, puppies; the thresholds for love and pain being sides of the same coin, who's counting?
We got them from a "rescue," though I use the term loosely. The only thing puppies as cute as these needed rescuing from was overexposure from "Your Daily Dog" Facebook posts or cuddle asphyxiation by overzealous kids.
The drive home with the pups was not unlike the drive home from the hospital the day either of my daughters was born. Glassy-eyed parents wondering what the hell they'd just gotten themselves into; mystified that anyone would trust them to keep anything more than a houseplant alive; the smell of urine wafting from the backseat as we tried to come up with just the right name.
Mortitia? Beelzebub? Abstinence? Deduction? Pimple?
We made it easy on ourselves with the daughters: Thing 1 and Thing 2. So we let them pick the names.
The black and white terrier bore a striking resemblance to a Lilliputian Claude Rains as Captain Renault in "Casablanca," mixed with the madcap exuberance of Salvador Dali. Isabella, Izzy for short, she was christened by Thing 1. And the world is her salt lick.
The russet-colored, marshmallow-breasted shepherd was barely able to stand on her own four feet. Perhaps because it was her favorite soda in the brief lifetime of a child's whim, Thing 2 dubbed her Dr. Pepper. But since the name comes with no advertising revenue (I checked), we just call her Pepper.
The pups still, these many months later, have permanent smiles on their smug little snouts; their very presence in our home is a practical joke at my expense.
The best advice I got from the pet shop clerk on Day 1 when I wandered in, dazed and confused, with nary a Milk-Bone in our house: Crate the puppies. Had we crated Thing 1 at night when we brought her home, the wife and I might not have had to abandon our apartment's sole bedroom to her and sleep on a futon in the living room.
We've forsaken the back porch and yard to our canine squatters, a peace treaty that has proven invaluable. Especially when one has found a twig the other simply must have. Though Pepper was a runt, she gained 50 pounds after her first meal and easily dwarfs Izzy in a skirmish. But she's hindered by the gangly legs of a teenage boy and dangerously poor peripheral vision. Izzy, with her low center of gravity, speed and innate caginess, strikes with the accuracy of a mosquito on meth.
Their battles are mighty and take on hysterical dimensions when waged on the hardwood floor. Imagine Bambi on ice trying to sever Thumper's jugular. I only wish my kids — or I — could get over a fight as quickly as these dogs do.
Pepper is the advance team in their covert assaults. Long and lean, able to reach morsels on the kitchen counter. She knocks them down and Izzy swoops in to consume the bounty. They are a peculiar yet symbiotic pairing. Think Laurel and Hardy. Kramden and Norton. Ren and Stimpy.
To my chagrin, for Halloween my ladies bedecked them with costumes: Pepper a felt fabric hot dog, complete with mustard, ketchup and relish; Izzy a miniature pumpkin. Dear gourd. So I guess we're now "that" family.
My most fascinating discovery? Styrofoam in, Styrofoam out. I learned this digestive truism upon finding the yard dotted with what looked like morsels of rocky road. Thankfully, the destroyed packing foam in the garage warned me otherwise.
My most welcome discovery? Seeing Thing 1 and Thing 2 playing with them, curling up contentedly on the couch with their first dogs. And on rare occasion picking up rocky road in the backyard.
And as my two human Things grow older and less enamored with their father, it is nice to come home to little critters who think you're the greatest thing in the world. Even if you've only been gone five minutes.
So it's not that I don't like our dogs. Just that — well, you get the picture.
PATRICK CANEDAY thinks acid-wash jeans will make a comeback. Friend him on Facebook. Contact him at email@example.com. Read more at www.patrickcaneday.com.


text:
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text:
Hello everyone,
I was planned to have a Disney Infinity day on Saturday 16/01/16, where we could help each other out and share Magic Bands + My Cruise Band
Help each other with some of the multi-play feats:
Killer Combos
Also the ones in Toy Box Takeover and Toy Box Speedway
Date: 16/16/2016
local time: 1200 GMT to Late
theme: Just fun
console type: XBOX ONE
Everyone one welcome even if it just for 5 minutes. This will also help others to make new friends!
Please invite people, I have post the same message on Google+ Disney Infinity Fans and Collectors


text:
A job fair for military spouses will be held Thursday at NAS Jacksonville. Sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's National Chamber Foundation, the fair is for spouses of active duty, National Guard, reserve and military veterans.
It will include large companies, small companies and nonprofits.
The fair takes place 10 a.m.-1 p.m. at the River Cove Conference Center, Bdlg. 10, Mustin Road.
Register for free at hoh.greatjob.net. Walk-ins are allowed.


text: Welcome to this weeks photo contest thread! THEME: High contrast black and white. I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with! Rules: You may only submit one photo per contest. Please do not comment on photos until after the judging has taken place. The contest runs for exactly one week, starting NOW! (see time/date stamp at the start of this thread) At the end of the week, The Judge (last week's Winner) will choose a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place photo, providing as much feedback as possible. (Judge has 24 hours to make decision) The 1st place Winner will start a new thread with the topic/theme of their choice, and act as the Judge for that contest. (Winner has 48 hours to create new theme)


text:
Thursday, May 12, 2011
The Pigeons Have Come Home to Roost
photo credit-Eric the Fish
Creative Commons license
A medical license is a precious thing. Most people that have one have worked darn hard to get it. They've put in decades of education, paid a lot of money, and sat for numerous exams. They usually feel proud to have earned their diploma, and often don't think much about their medical license, once they've passed the appropriate exams (that is, they don't think about it until they get close to their mandatory re-certification exams every 10 years). The license is often viewed as just "one more hoop" that they have to jump through before they can practice.
But perhaps they should think about their license a bit more. While their diploma from their university and certificates from post-graduate training are (mostly) their own, their license represents the social contract that society has with members of the professions. A medical license granted by the government gives one broad authority-you get to set up shop in your field, admit patients to the hospital, charge fees that are often paid (at least in part) by insurance companies and the government, and have people allow you to cause them all sorts of pain and embarrassment, all in the pursuit of curing or alleviating whatever ails the patient that walks through your door. The state allows members of the profession (collectively) to have great say in educational standards, and grants them at least some exclusivity (keeping competition from untrained persons suppressed, which also protects the public). In return, members of the profession have obligations towards the state/community in which they are licensed. They are to be honest, have a positive obligation to keep current in medical knowledge in their field, not practice in areas in which they are not trained, put the patients' welfare before their own, and always strive not to harm patients.
While it is upsetting when people in the community are hoodwinked by, say, a dishonest roofing contractor, people get more upset when a doctor acts unethically. Even in today's busy world, where people see multiple different doctors, the medical encounter between patient and physician remains an intensely personal one, "protected" by this social contract. It is because of this that people get more upset.
Fortunately, the profession, and the pubic, have a way of "righting the ship" when things go wrong. State medical boards are usually mainly staffed by physicians, with a few members of the general public. All of these members are usually appointed by the governor of the state, in a (fairly) non-political manner. The only compensation usually received typically is a small per diem to cover travel expenses to the capital city (which is usually where meetings are held).
In any profession there will be frauds and crackpots. That being said, my experience is that the vast majority of physicians have worked very hard to get where they are, and really seem to be motivated to do the best for their patients. But in order to retain the trust of the public it is necessary that those who practice fraudulently are weeded out.
It is a big deal to take someone's license away. As I mentioned, they have spent decades of their life preparing to sit for their exams, and invested hundred's of thousands of dollars, before ever seeing their first paying patient. Thus investigations of impropriety usually take time. A medical board is not in the business of stifling innovative practice, and must guard against disciplining doctors whose only crime is being smarter than the norm. But the board IS charged with protecting the public, and thus has to identify and discipline those who ignore their responsibility to practice in accord with scientifically sound practices, and who would view their license as merely a cash generating vehicle.
The Maryland State Board of Physicians has suspended the medical license of Mark Geier, M.D., in an emergency measure to protect the public while he has a hearing before final disposition. In their 48 page report, the Board details how Geier practiced bad medicine (making mis-diagnoses of precocious puberty without standard physical exam or laboratory findings being documented), performed fraudulent research (no consent forms, totally improper in-house IRB committee, poor research design and execution), and allowed his untrained and unlicensed son to practice medicine in his office in his absence. Kathleen (Neurodiversity Weblog) and Prometheus (A Photon in the Darkness) both have very good posts detailing a lot of the bad things he's done, and why he richly deserves to have his license yanked.
Reading through this report, one thing is eminently clear. Mark Geier will never practice medicine in Maryland again. Boards don't get this much damning evidence documented, and then let someone off with a slap on the wrist. While his final discipline may read something like "License revoked with no re-application for at least 5 years", there is no way that any future board will let him get his license back. Not after this.
In regards the other states that Geier has licenses to practice medicine, his license remains active at this time. That (in most cases) will automatically change once his permanent suspension or revocation action takes effect. Most state boards automatically put the same restriction on your license as other states do, unless you can prove to them that you don't deserve it. I am not aware of anyone ever overturning one of these automatic revocations. So while he technically can still practice somewhere else, one can take solace that that option will soon close for him.
While this SHOULD put an end to those spinning wild theories and foisting wholly unproven treatments on autistic patients, it won't. But perhaps it might give a few of those unethical practitioners that have medical licenses just a bit of pause now, as they realize that perhaps their own hucksterism might have the light of truth shined on it next.
6 comments:
- ......I'm Anonymous said...
This was the most sensible thing I've read on this subject.
- May 12, 2011 at 2:43 PM
- Club 166 said...
- May 12, 2011 at 6:44 PM
- Happy Elf Mom said...
Thank you. It IS a big deal to have a license revoked, not something that is done lightly. I am not sure that physicians really put the patients' well-being before their own if they enter into agreements with insurance companies not to mention this or that treatment, though... another post.
Have missed you 'round. Hope all is well and the sun is shining with you all and esp. Buddy Boy. :)
- May 13, 2011 at 9:19 PM
- Club 166 said...
Blogger Crash yesterday ate a comment and my response.
......I'm Anonymous said...
This was the most sensible thing I've read on this subject.
May 12, 2011 2:43 PM
I'm not pasting it here just because it was so nice-really!
But thanks to Anonymous, and Happy Elf Mom!
I'm very busy nowadays, but at least next week I'm done with school (for now). That should free up some more time for being online. :)
- May 14, 2011 at 1:47 AM
- Daisy said...
I've recently had to trust several members of the medical profession and I'm on a waiting list to see yet another. The only one that didn't meet my needs wasn't an MD; she held a PhD and a number of other alphabetical degrees. I feel lucky; if my trust had been betrayed in the way that Geier betrayed his patients' trust, it would be not only bad medicine, but could interfere with my seeking treatment in the future.
I'm glad to hear there are procedures in place to handle situations that result in bad medicine. Thank you for sharing this post.
- May 14, 2011 at 5:35 PM
- Club 166 said...
Sorry to hear of your latest challenges, Daisy.
I think that the long, grueling training process weeds out most (but certainly not all!) of those who would treat patients badly, just to make a buck. Every time one renews their license (every one to two years, depending on the state) one must answer a bunch of questions (under penalty of perjury and losing one's license) that cover everything from drug use to traffic tickets. Automatic reporting mechanisms are in place, such that if one has an adverse action taken against them at a hospital (or another state), then it is automatically reported to the medical board. Not a perfect system, but at least there IS a system, and it mostly works.
- May 14, 2011 at 8:07 PM