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Atheist Arrogance?
While reading "Micha's post":http://catallarchy.net/blog/archives/2005/03/01/good-and-hard/ it occurred to me that atheists appear to tend toward more arrogance than I see in most religious people. An excellent example is my wife's ex boyfriend, who she calls an "evangelical atheist" because he took pleasure in attacking other people's religious beliefs.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that socialism and atheism seem to go hand in hand? There must be a certain humility in believing there is a higher power than you, at least when you believe you do not know for sure what that higher power's purpose is for you, or even if it has one. Certainly some people believe that God talks to them and only to them. However, it takes a special kind of arrogance to believe that you (or any human for that matter) can direct an economy. This is the same kind of arrogance that allows one to say with certainty "there is no God" and that others should join the "reality-based community."
Do understand that I'm talking about a particular kind of atheist here. There is, of course, the Sartrian atheist, who says "Holy crap! There's no God! Now what do I do?" The same sort of humility can come from the belief that one is alone in the universe and has no set purpose as from the belief that there is someone much more powerful than you. But there is also the type of atheist who believes that he or she can be God, because the position is open. This person, in my opinion, must be watched far more closely than the Jerry Falwells of the world.
As for me, I'm an existentialist agnostic who is prone to flights of fancy. I don't believe it is possible to know whether there's a God, so I'll be skeptical of anyone who claims to know either way. Even if God calls you up on the telephone, you still have to use your own judgement to determine if it really is God, and then you have to decide whether or not "he" is crazy.
For the record, I think
For the record, I think there is enough reason to believe there is a God. The rest is faith. I also think that for someone to believe that this universe is here because of time + matter + chance requires faith.
The odds that this universe came to be without a designer are so minute that by mathemeticians standards they are 0, infinitesimal.
In that regard, we have the same starting point. Neither the theistic worldview nor the atheistic worldview can be proven.
For all the
For all the atheists/naturalists out there - in response to a number of earlier posts, I am quite curious as to how you decide a theistic being is immoral. Please explain to me how the naturalistic worldview enables you to decide what is good/evil and right/wrong.
If possible, let's avoid the semantics.
How would you go about
How would you go about proving there's not a God? If you were God, how would you go about proving it to me?
I just wanted to know if your basis for believing that one cannot know if there is a God is logical deduction, a gut feeling, or whatever and what the line of reasoning is.
Of course no one can prove there is no God - that's why atheism is a very interesting position for those who pride themselves in basing their beliefs on fact. Can't really answer you second question I cannot think like an infinite being. Are you making the assumption that God would need to prove himself to you or me?
bq. I swear, you'd think
bq. I swear, you'd think an agnostic would understand atheists...
I do understand atheists. What I don't understand is atheists who claim to "know" there is no God, any more than I understand those who "know" there is a God. Calling your faith in the non-existence of God "reality-based" is as ridiculous as a dogmatic theist telling me I'm going to go to hell for the reason du jour.
Holy crap! There are no
Holy crap! There are no Leprachans! now what do I do?
I swear, you'd think an agnostic would understand atheists, but they seem to be more dogmatic than theists. Every solid consistent definition of God that I have heard of is either disprovable, or inconsequential.
You appear to buy into a definition of god whos existence can neither be proven or disproven. Clearly, such a thing can have no effect on the real world. Any such effect would be evidence for it's existence. However by definition there are no such effects.
Why just one such non-verifiable god? Why not many such gods? If there need be only one such god and I am presented with many then how to choose? Seems to me such concepts present more problems than solutions. It becomes even more problematic when morality is based on gods word. If god A says butter the toast on the top, but god B says butter it on the bottom and both gods are non-verifiable then you are in a multi-level quandry. There are four possibilities for existence, even if both gods told you to do the same thing it may not be the right thing to do anyway.
From an atheist perspective there is no more arrogance in not believing in god than in not believing in Leprachans. You are taking a theist perspective as agnostics tend to do. Is it arrogant for me to scoff at the idea of searching for pots of gold when I see a rainbow? When you figure out the difference let me know. I see no difference.
I guess I'm a really odd
I guess I'm a really odd duck then. I'm an agnostic strong atheist. I do not believe in any gods. I believe I can prove that no being can exist with characteristics worthy of the title of godhood. And I'm willing to hear counter-arguments. I also have a number of smart, theistic friends. Their right to believe goes hand-in-hand with my right to disbelieve. The two are inseparable. Any other possibility is to constrain the choices available to both sides, eliminating freedom. Freedom of religion that does not encompass freedom from religion is a sham. It's a short step from there to saying that you have the freedom, but you may not disbelieve in a monotheistic god, a christian god or even the god of a particular denomination. :wall:
bq. Is it arrogant to state
bq. Is it arrogant to state flatly that Zeus doesn't exist, or to note that a benevolent interventionist God wouldn't allow backyard pool drownings, much less catastrophic tsunamis? Even if it is arrogant, so what? Arrogant pronouncements might also be true.
It is arrogant to state that you know for a fact that something is true or not true when you don't. The most you can say is that you believe or are "pretty sure" Zeus doesn't exist, while admitting that you're playing the odds.
Indeed, it's arrogant even to state that a "benevolent interventionist" wouldn't allow tsunamis or backyard pool drownings, especially if you imagine God as viewing the human race as a single child, rather than a collection of children. If you protect your children from everything that could possibly hurt them, they will not be able to take care of themselves as adults. One can hardly call preventing your children from learning valuable lessons "benevolent."
This is the same situation I
This is the same situation I could imagine with someone claiming to be God: how do you know they're not a fraud?
If she could turn a glass of Lake Erie water into a 1961 Cheval Blanc, that'd be close enuf for me!
bq. Question: By what reason
bq. Question: By what reason have you concluded that it is not possible to know whether there is a God or not?
How would you go about proving there's not a God? If you were God, how would you go about proving it to me?
I can imagine a universe where there was someone you could actually meet who everyone acknowledged was all powerful and few dared question, but we do not live in such a universe.
I don't know how much SF you read, but in David Brin's Uplift universe, every living intelligent race except humanity knows who "uplifted" it through genetic engineering. Eventually, a race comes along claiming to be the long lost benefactors of humanity, and they build a cult following. However, they were frauds. This is the same situation I could imagine with someone claiming to be God: how do you know they're not a fraud? Even if almost everyone believes, there still must be some doubt.
Yeah, but why should I
Yeah, but why should I respect the moral judgement of a God who, on the one hand, tells me not to engage in the occasional killing, while He is evidently doing them wholesale. That's a heck of a special pleading.
I can think of a few reasons to accept his rules:
1. (for the believers) he's the judge, jury and executioner.
2. he knows the plan, we do not.
3. the section of the 10 rules that deals with how to deal (or not deal) with others (i.e. the restrictions on murder, fraud, theft, etc.) is in line with natural rights, and has considerable empirical evidence that one is generally better off following them.
Anyway, I just wanted to point out that Christian theology has dealt with the concept of God being both a benevolent intervenor and allowing disasters to occur. Now, if someone can point out a good work on how God can be omniscient and his Creation can have free-will simultaneously...
Is it arrogant to ... note
Is it arrogant to ... note that a benevolent interventionist God wouldn't allow backyard pool drownings, much less catastrophic tsunamis?
It could just be ignorance. Christian's believe that there is a final reward and immortal soul. Many also believe that their mortal life is a set of trials and tribulations intended to make their souls somehow better for God's plan in the afterlife. If that is the case then a benevolent interventionist God may very well not just allow but actively cause quakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, tornados, wildfires, and all sorts of natural disasters. If the soul is immortal, then such disasters bring the dead victims to the ultimate reward that much sooner. Hardly a bad thing.
Do understand that I'm
Do understand that I'm talking about a particular kind of atheist here
I think that's the most important thing to note. I've often called myself an "evangelizing atheist" too, because I enjoy arguing religion with others, as well as trying to "convert" them. I would hope that anyone who believes something enough to call it a religion (or atheism) would consider it worth arguing and trying to convince others of. (Obviously not to the point of irritation)
But as far as the "playing god," you're only talking about one type of atheist, of which I'm not one. (Well, except for those lines in "Stranger in a Strange Land") The only kind of atheist who wants to play god is one who accepts the religious belief that morality flows ONLY from the divine -- ergo without god, you can be god and define morality any way you see fit.
I'm an atheist who still holds that there is absolute morality (just not defined by god), and nothing I can do will change the fact that murder is wrong. I think the hypothetical atheists you denounce as playing god have a ideological problem, but it's in their overall moral philosophy, not specifically their atheism.
...in which case Ted Bundy
...in which case Ted Bundy and Charles Manson, maybe even Stalin, were doing His work, and should be emulated.
I think you could also make
I think you could also make the claim that atheism and libertarianism go hand in hand, at the very least for the highly Randian subset of libertarians.
Somehow, I'm thinking that
Somehow, I'm thinking that He's got it under control and doesn't need anyone's help there. Especially since He gave us a list of things not to do to each other.
Yeah, but why should I
Yeah, but why should I respect the moral judgement of a God who, on the one hand, tells me not to engage in the occasional killing, while He is evidently doing them wholesale. That's a heck of a special pleading.
BTW, I don't have much vested in this argument. I'm an agnostic, I think. I'm not sure.
There seems to be both an
There seems to be both an epistemological and a sociological angle to this post.
Epistemology first: It's simply not possible to prove the statement "there is no God." Atheists who think that it is possible are wasting their time chasing their tails. That doesn't make it the idea of God any less a meaningless concept though. It's a null value, an empty concept; it can provide us with no information and is defined entirely as something that is ultimately unknowable. As such we can chop it neatly out of our ontology without losing anything, and in fact we're more likely to gain by ridding ourselves of useless ideas that can only muddy our thinking.
Now, the sociology: while atheism and socialism frequently do travel together, there's quite a rich history of socialist Christians, and from my own personal observation I find that most libertarians tend to be atheists or agnostics of some flavour. So I don't think this dog is going to hunt. As David Masten pointed out above, the relevent feature here is elitism/authoritarianism. One side thinks they can tell people how to live their lives because God told them so, the other side simply takes God out of the equation. Ironically enough the second type is generally more dangerous, but they're both cut from the same cloth anyway.
"Is it arrogant to state
"Is it arrogant to state flatly that Zeus doesn't exist, or to note that a benevolent interventionist God wouldn't allow backyard pool drownings, much less catastrophic tsunamis? Even if it is arrogant, so what? Arrogant pronouncements might also be true."
I would say it is somewhat arrogant. And the detriment of arrogance, I believe, is that it means one is not listening to counterarguments.
Is it arrogant to state
Is it arrogant to state flatly that Zeus doesn't exist, or to note that a benevolent interventionist God wouldn't allow backyard pool drownings, much less catastrophic tsunamis? Even if it is arrogant, so what? Arrogant pronouncements might also be true.
But there is also the type
But there is also the type of atheist who believes that he or she can be God, because the position is open. This person, in my opinion, must be watched far more closely than the Jerry Falwells of the world.
I find little difference between the person who thinks they can do God's job and the person who claims to know all of God's will. The arrogance is the same, both claim a right to be lord over others.
Interesting thoughts, Sean.
Interesting thoughts, Sean. I enjoyed reading your post and found your position as a true agnostic refreshing. In my experience, agnostics are typically atheists that either are afraid of the stigma the term brings or don't want to deal with the existential and logical baggage inherent in atheism.
Question: By what reason have you concluded that it is not possible to know whether there is a God or not?
Sean, "I wonder if this has
"I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that socialism and atheism seem to go hand in hand?"
How so?
If I'm going to believe something exists, I would like to see evidence.
"There must be a certain humility in believing there is a higher power than you,"
There are a lot of higher powers than me. Smarter people, stronger people, richer people, better looking people. They all exist. There is observable proof of their existence.
Why should I consider the existence of a god any more credible than the existence of an invisible naked lady who sits on my head in times of trouble? There are equal amounts of proof for each.
Just because it was strange
Just because it was strange doesn't excuse hanging up on me.
I did receive a pretty
I did receive a pretty strange phone call yesterday.
In that regard, we have the
In that regard, we have the same starting point. Neither the theistic worldview nor the atheistic worldview can be proven.
For me, the better standard is not "which worldview can be proven?" but "which worldview can be disproven?"
A naturalistic worldview can be disproven through observation, deduction, science, etc. The natural Ptolemaic model of the universe was disproven in this manner. As was the Newtonian model of physical laws. The worldviews that replaced the earlier worldviews better explained relevant observations than the predecessors.
As is stated above, a theistic worldview cannot be completely disproven. Certain aspects of it might be disproven over time, such as the notion of the world resting on the shoulders of a large man or the sun being driven across the sky by a chariot. But the questions of a "higher power" cannot be disproven by science, because science deals with the realm of human observation.
Yet, that is precisely why I consider myself a naturalist an not a theist. All observable facts are potentially discoverable and explanable by science at some point in the future. All theories that I hold a preference for are disprovable at some point in the future. Why should I deal with that which is not disprovable? If it cannot be disprovable, why should I spend my time and effort on it? Science has much more rigorous standards than theism.
The odds that this universe
The odds that this universe came to be without a designer are so minute that by mathemeticians standards they are 0, infinitesimal.
I am interested in your reasoning behind this statement, as you certainly havn't provided any. Certainly there was a first cause behind the universe as we know it, but how people assume that proves design as opposed to a natural phenomenon is unclear.
Jason: I suppose "gut
I suppose "gut feeling" is a better description of my belief that we cannot know if there's a God than "logical deduction." I simply cannot think of a situation where I would consider myself to "know" either way.
Are you a Leprachaun
Are you a Leprachaun agnostic also? If not then use your own logic on yourself. When you can prove the non-existence of Leprachauns you get back to me. In the meantime, without your proof, I feel perfectly comfortable saying that Leprachauns do not exist. Why? Because there is no credible evidence that they do.
Similarly, there is no credible evidence that Thor, Vishu, Allah, or the Christian God exists. It's as simple as that.
Pots of gold at ends of rainbows, walking on water, staffs turing into snakes, rainbow ends, reanimated dead, wooden boats large enough to hold all life, are evidence of make believe not credibility. Every religion that claims the existence of a god or gods has huge credibility problems, not only because the claim is so outlandish, but because the evidence presented to back it up is know to be utterly impossible. There are no ends to the rainbow, and people don't walk on water. It is obvious these stories are the beliefs of gullible goat herders. Ones that need to be drilled into the young as no sane adult would put any credence in them.
Johnathan Wilde, you want to
Johnathan Wilde, you want to weigh in on Doug Allen's "9 1/2 weeks" post? We need a naturalist in there.
"Are you a Leprachaun
"Are you a Leprachaun agnostic also?"
My concept of choice is the frisbee. I usually say, while I admit there is a very remote chance that all I know of the world is completely wrong, and that maybe every frisbee I've ever seen is just some kind of optical illusion, or alien-powered hologram, nevertheless I'm willing to say that I believe frisbees do exist. By the same token, I'm willing to say God does not exist, though I suppose there is a chance I am wrong.
Sorry Ruth, I wouldn't touch
Sorry Ruth, I wouldn't touch an abortion topic with a 10 foot pole. :razz:
You arrogant agnostics make
You arrogant agnostics make me sick.
This is one of these blog
This is one of these blog pieces that stakes out a position based on what is invariably untrustworthy evidence: that is anecdotal evidence. Its nearly pointless to address it because its likely based more on the author's prejudices than it is on the sort of sound analysis needed to address an issue like this. Indeed, that it is prone to cherry picking should be obvious.
On the problem of evil people have batted around I am reminded of the following:
"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness." - Joseph Conrad
If you want to read an arrogant Christian's work, just read some Bunyan. :)
Anyway, there are plenty of ready defenses of atheism out there on the web. All you have to do, is well, look. :wink:
I suggest the following:
Doug Krueger, What Is Atheism? A Short Introduction
A popular work.
Michael Martin, Atheism: A Philosophical Justification
An academic/scholarly work.
Matt McIntosh,
Atheists come in generally in two colors. Strong and weak atheists. The latter are far more common IMHO.
Anyway, I've met far too many libertarians that are atheists to believe that there is some special connection between socialism and atheism (though obviously my only evidence is anecdotal).
Johnathan Wilde,
The Newtonian world wasn't disproven; it was adjusted though. Newton's three laws still apply, as do his discoveries in optics.
Yet, that is precisely why I
Yet, that is precisely why I consider myself a naturalist an not a theist. All observable facts are potentially discoverable and explanable by science at some point in the future.
Ok, that's a fair statement. But science is a search for causes - what happens when there is no cause? What do you do when science offers no viable explanation? What caused the big bang? Since natural law didn't exist in the singularity, science is not going to be able to give us an answer - not now, not a 100 years from now.
What caused the big bang, Jonathan?
Jason, It didn't exist
It didn't exist there?
And who says that someday we can't replicate it either outside our universe via a "natural experiment" (we watch and observe what is going on) or a via an experiment that we ourselves undertake?
I am interested in your
I am interested in your reasoning behind this statement, as you certainly havn't provided any. Certainly there was a first cause behind the universe as we know it, but how people assume that proves design as opposed to a natural phenomenon is unclear.
I really like the direction you are going better because I don't have time to look up and document a long series of infinitesmal probabilities. But here is an example.
Chandra Wickramasinghe, professor of applied mathematics at the University of Cardiff, Wales, said that the statistical probability of of a single enzyme is 1 in 10 to the 40,000. The formation a single enzyme, the building block of the gene, whcih is in turn the building block of the cell, would require more attempts than there are atoms in all the stars of all the galaxies in the entire known universe.
Just a single enzyme.
To answer your question about the first cause, if you believe that the big bang is responsible for the formation of the universe as just about all scientists do, then the question is, as you alluded to, what caused the big bang? Prior to the big bang there was nothing. In the singularity as they call it, all natural law breaks down. So we know that natural forces did not cause the big bang.
What then caused it? Either nothing caused something to come from nothing or something not contained by the natural world caused something to come from nothing.
The theists believe that it is more likely that something (God) that is uncaused and exists outside of nature is a better explanation for the first cause than nothing (what rocks dream about).
Any talk of positive and negative energy or swirling particles of any sort is intellectually dishonest because we know that matter and energy did not exist prior to the big bang.
On the problem of evil
On the problem of evil people have batted around I am reminded of the following:
Interesting, is this not anecdotal evidence, what you just proclaimed "nearly pointless"?
You're kind of pulling the rug out from your own argument here. It's ok, I just wanted to point out that using Humes empirical test for meaning is useless in the world we live in. The very statement that for something to be meaningful it must be measurable and quantifiable is itself not meaningful by its own standard.
And who says that someday we
And who says that someday we can't replicate it either outside our universe via a "natural experiment" (we watch and observe what is going on) or a via an experiment that we ourselves undertake?
Are you referring to the big bang? The simple answer is that we will never be able to compress the entire universe including ourselves into a singularity and be there to observe whether a huge bang occurs.
Replicating it in the lab is out of the question because you would be trying to form somthing from something. That does not meet the established conditions.
Jason, Well, the argument
Well, the argument from first (the Cosmological Argument) cause for theists always falters on the question of "What caused God?" Indeed, all the theist does is merely shift the locus of debate re: the uncaused cause instead of solving it.
Note that some interpretations of Quantum Mechanics allow for a universe where some events have no cause at all. :dizzy:
Jason Saadeh, Well, you are
Jason Saadeh,
Well, you are assuming that we are the only universe going. :)
The Newtonian world wasn't
The Newtonian world wasn't disproven; it was adjusted though. Newton's three laws still apply, as do his discoveries in optics.
As a complete description of reality, his classical mechanics model of physical laws was disproven.
Johnathan Wilde, True, but
Johnathan Wilde,
True, but we still use them and they still are valid, unlike Ptolmey's model. Indeed, the latter is only useful as a cautionary tale as far as I know. :dead:
Gary, Once we posit that
Once we posit that something outside of nature exists, you cannot project natural laws on it. That is the whole point.
Theists say that God is the uncaused cause. Natural phenomena have causes. You cannot project natural law on something exists outside of the natural world.
The cosmological argument simply says that something creating something out of nothing is more reasonable than nothing creating nothing out of something. In fact, it is antithetical to reason to believe the latter.
Quantum mechanics is a very iffy argument. I'm assuming you're referring to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. We can't know the speed and location of subatomic particles at the same time.
1.) This is about predictability, not causality - it does not prove the movement of electrons is uncaused
2.) Our attempts to observe them may be the very cause of this unpredictability
and most importantly
3.) Without the Law of Causality, we don't have science. If we determined that some things don't have causes, all of science is untenable. That would not be very helpful for us.
What is meant by arrogance?
What is meant by arrogance? If by the fact that most atheists see themselves as more informed in science, philosophy, and history- ues, this is true. If by the fact that few people are willing to come out and challenge theists, then certainly no. I have a friend who's an atheist (I'm agnostic) and while he would qualify on the first score on the second he's scared shitless. His daughter is not even allowed to talk religion w other children for fear she'll be ostracized.
Most of the above comments have focused on the definition of atheism, when it's the def of arrogance in question. DAN
Jason, I have never seen
I have never seen "something creating something out of nothing". I have only seen 'something creating something out of something'. We have evidence in quantum physics of "Something from nothing". So I do not think your conjecture is more reasonable.
Besides, to paraphrase you, you are just projecting your warped understanding of natural law onto things you imagine exist outside the natural world.
Dan, You are right, and she
You are right, and she would be ostracized. I would go further. It is "arrogance" on our part to speak up at all. That's the point. We are uppity niggers if we dare speak up. How "arrogant" of us not to know our place. It's just fine for the believers to constantly voice their belief not only in church but in every venue from our money to congress, but don't let the atheists speak up. Hell, we'll see a black woman as president long before an avowed atheist.
Brian, Show me how we get
Show me how we get something from nothing in quantum physics. We don't. And if we did, it is pointless for you and I to talk about science.
Second, I am not projecting my "warped understanding of natural law" onto imaginary things. I am not projecting any understanding of natural law. I am suggesting that science tells us that everything has a cause but science cannot give us a cause for the big bang. Therefore, the cause of the big bang is unscientific.
Of course I use logic and what I know of this world to learn something of this uncaused cause, by I don't try to subjugate it to natural law. There is a difference.
Well, you are assuming that
Well, you are assuming that we are the only universe going.
C'mon, man! Naturalists cannot explain how this universe got here and now you're positing others?
Brian, You seem to have a
You seem to have a lot of animosity toward Christians. I am one. But I agree with the thesis of your post. Too many that call themselves Christians want to silence critcs. That misses the point of Jesus' message.
Religious faith is stupid.
Anyone who's lived in a Blue State has probably encountered the problem of the Evangelical Atheist . . . the person who has discovered the Void and considers it their bounden duty to share their newfound joy with everyone around them, through force if...


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Ready 2 Network meets every second Wednesday.
We meet at The Globe Centre, St. James Square, Accrington, BB5 0RE and the meetings normally last from 07:00am to 09:00am.
As well as a great opportunity for networking with like minded business people, we also provide many additional events for the benefit of our members.

subset: commoncrawl


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If you have questions concerning an upcoming event or need additional information, please contact the Northern Oklahoma College Development Office at 580.628.6214.
Former Oklahoma State Regent Carl Renfro and the late Carolyn Renfro established the Carl and Carolyn Renfro Endowed Lectureship Program with a gift in 2006. The primary purpose of the endowment is to provide support to cultivate and enhance the cultural and community enrichment offerings in northern Oklahoma to include lecture and performance series at Northern Oklahoma College Tonkawa and in the Ponca City area.
General Admission Ticket - $20.00 each
General admission tickets may be purchased at a cost of $20 per ticket (non-refundable) on a first-come, first-served basis. The event will be held at the Kinzer Performing Arts Center (KPAC) in Tonkawa.
Overflow tickets for the performance will be live streamed into the KPAC Band Room 130, and available at no charge.Tickets may be purchased, beginning April 2nd beginning at 9 am with a credit card by calling 580.628.6214 or in person at Northern Oklahoma College Development Office, Vineyard Library-Administration Building, Tonkawa.
On behalf of Northern Oklahoma College, we are pleased to welcome The Oak Ridge Boys - Shine the Light Tour to the biannual Carl and Carolyn Renfro Endowed Lectureship Program. The dinner and concert event is scheduled for Thursday, April 25th at Northern Oklahoma College Tonkawa. This event is sponsored by the Carl and Carolyn Renfro Endowed Lectureship and Northern Oklahoma College.
Table for 8 - $400.00 - SOLD OUT!
OPTION #1: You may purchase a reserved table seating eight (8) for $400, which includes dinner in the Renfro Center at 6 pm prior to the 7:30 pm concert and preferred seating in the lower section of the Kinzer Performing Arts Center(KPAC). Doors open at 5:45 p.m. for the dinner.
Individual Ticket - $20.00 each - SOLD OUT!
OPTION #2: Individual tickets may be purchased at a cost of $20 per ticket on a first-come, first-served basis for seating in the upper section of the KPAC. Doors open at 7 pm.
Tickets may be purchased, beginning March 5th with a credit card by calling 580.628.6214 or in person at Northern Oklahoma College Development Office, Vineyard Library-Administration Building, Tonkawa.


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J.Lo Drop In Class
June 9, 2017 @ 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm$10
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Jello Shots and J-Lo, anyone? Come and "Get Right" for the weekend and learn a fun Jennifer Lopez inspired choreography with Melissa! This class is about mingling, having fun with the ladies (and gents if you'd like) and letting go! Open to ALL levels of dance!
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$10 for class and Jello Shots (while supplies last)- Jello shots not your thing? No problem, please feel free to BYOB!
Class starts at 7:30pm (you can arrive as early as 7:00pm for mingling and J-LO Shots!)
Open to all ages but 21+ and up for J-LO shots!
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Purple Balm came across this post from the Care Workers Charity and why the role of a care worker requires a special person. Care work is not just a job, but a rewarding and fulfilling experience.
Care work is a hugely rewarding, yet at times, challenging profession.
Looking after the most vulnerable people in society is a pivotal role in health and social care, maximising their quality of life in the face of illness and disability.
In this article, we'll explore the essential qualities and personality traits for a career in care work.
This is perhaps the most important quality a care worker can exhibit. While skills and training are paramount to maintain high working standards, it's passion for helping those in need that makes the real difference.
Along with passion, dedication to the profession is paramount. Many in our care community view their work as more of a calling than a job. They are the people that friends and family members look to in times of need. For many care workers, the role is part of their identity and putting others first comes naturally. It's this calling that, despite the pressures of the work, makes the care worker community so strong.
This isn't the type of experience you may imagine, as no formal qualifications or training are needed before entering care. However, often care workers come from distinct backgrounds and bring varied life experience to their work, meaning they can relate to clients more effectively. Such experience in other fields of life, or simply getting through other challenges, adds a tremendously to the care worker-client relationship.
If clients are withdrawn or exhibit behavioural issues, having a friendly presence is vital to ensure they feel happy and safe. Being open and warm helps care workers build rapport with their clients and not only develop better working relationships, but also long-term friendships.
Care workers regularly encounter individuals from varied backgrounds with diverse health issues, which may impair their ability to communicate. Interacting clearly with clients, who may have individual needs, will assist with effective working practices. Good communication with colleagues also ensures that clients receive a standardised level of care.
Unfortunately, isolation is a situation that many clients face daily, with numerous negative consequences. Humans are social by nature, and therefore just being present is a huge part of care work. In addition to physical assistance, engagement and listening to clients is one of the most valuable services a care worker can provide.
Health and social care is a complex area, not least because of the wide range of conditions encountered. Being alert to small changes in a client's presentation may help screen any potential health complications before they become serious. Additionally, conducting routine risk assessments and problem-solving where appropriate ensures care workers stay safe at work while delivering the highest quality of care.
Don't worry if this list seems overwhelming. Many of those drawn to care work embody these qualities naturally.
The practical skills needed for care work can be taught and practised, but often it's the softer, people skills, that make care workers so exceptional in their role.


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Respond Faster. Resolve Smarter.
More than ever, organizations need a way to instantly and accurately spin up a precise multi-team, business-wide response for any type of incident, as well as accelerate the speed of resolution for unexpected disruptions and to take advantage of opportunities. When issues requiring real-time action aren't responded to in a way that optimizes for focused agility, it leads to a lack of ownership, prioritization, and alignment during critical response, when every second counts.
With PagerDuty Modern Incident Response, teams benefit from sophisticated response automation capabilities, integrated triage and ITSM workflows, stakeholder communication, streamlined learning through integrated postmortems, and much more. By identifying and automating best practices, teams eliminate chaos in resolving and preventing future issues.
PagerDuty Modern Incident Response enables:
- Precision response at scale
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- Democratization of incident best practice
- And More!


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Under the Dome
State attempts to dismiss retirees' health plan lawsuit fail
A lawsuit brought by state retirees against the state employee health plan in early 2012 is slowly making its way through the courts.
The state Supreme Court last week denied a request from state lawyers that it review a unanimous state Appeals Court decision that allows the lawsuit to move forward.
The suit will now move to a trial on its merits, said plaintiffs' lawyer Christopher Whelchel.
I. Beverly Lake Jr., a former Supreme Court chief justice, was one of the original 27 retirees to sue the state health plan in April 2012, claiming that the state breached contracts when it dropped health insurance plans or changed premiums for plans in which they were enrolled.
One of the named plaintiffs has died since the suit was filed, said Whelchel. The suit asks for health insurance options to be restored to eligible retirees, which Whelchel put at about 175,000 people.
State lawyers have used a sovereign immunity defense in an effort to get the suit dismissed. The trial judge denied the motion in May 2013. The state appealed. An Appeals Court panel agreed unanimously with the trial judge in June 2014.


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Princess Punk Street Style Contest
In the fun fashion game Princess Punk Street Style Contest, Ariel, Rapunzel and Aurora have entered a dress-up contest. The style is punk, and this is so different from what the princesses usually wear that they have called you in to help them. Can you give these Disney girls a fantastic punk makeover?
Game ControlsMouse: Use your mouse to play
(0 votes)
0 / 10


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The Grenell resignation -- who's the boss?
That might seem an odd assertion since Grenell quit rather than being fired, and the campaign issued a statement that "We wanted him to stay because he had superior qualifications for the position he was hired to fill." Romney, however, never stood up to the pressure over Grenell. The campaign did not even make use of him for "the position he was hired to fill", since he immediately became the target of a firestorm of fundie fulmination. As for Romney himself, a "Sister Souljah moment" might have been too much to hope for, but given the virulence of the attacks on a member of his campaign, a firm public statement of support and a finessed but clear rebuke of Fischer would not have been amiss. In fact, as far as I can see, the campaign did nothing meaningful to prevent Grenell from being hounded out.
I even wonder if hiring Grenell was something of a trial balloon, via which Romney was testing how much tolerance the Christian Right would show toward deviation from its orthodoxy as he tries to pivot toward the center for the general-election campaign. If so, he has his answer.
And we have ours. To all those who think Romney is a closet moderate who only took extreme positions for the sake of the primary contest, and would govern from the center if elected, think again. He likes to claim that the only reason he governed as a moderate in Massachusetts was that he had an overwhelmingly-Democratic state legislature to contend with, and I think he's telling the truth there, in the sense that matters most. It's not that he is or isn't a closet moderate; I don't know, and that isn't the point. The point is that he's willing to be a captive of the political forces acting on him. If he won't stand up to Fischer over an issue of campaign staffing, why should we think that, as President, he'd stand up to Boehner and McConnell and the whole menagerie of theocrats and bigots that infest the right wing these days? Look at the right wing of today as a whole, and what you're seeing is what you'd get from a President Romney.
Update: For more on the true cowardice and appeasement displayed by the Romney campaign, see here, especially the updates at the end.


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For subtlety and convenience, slot an integrated dishwasher into your kitchen. From slimline to full-size and economy to intensive settings, these appliances suit families and individuals alike. With Wi-Fi models, you can remotely control your dishwasher from your bed if you want to – it will even remind you if you've forgotten to add the dishwasher tablet.
Our washing machines and tumble dryers combine convenience with power. Their spacious drums can accommodate loads up to 13kg, and handy timer programmes mean you can arrive home to a freshly-completed wash. Pushing for space and time? A washer dryer will get the load done all by itself, so you can skip off and enjoy your day.
Check out our selection of cookers for all your inner foodie needs. Our range cookers are perfect for pro (or almost-pro) chefs. These gadgets provide multiple cooking areas, plenty of tray space, and up to 8 gas burners. If you're cooking up a feast, this will certainly do the job.


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Greeter - Full Time - Honolulu Airport Alamo
Alamo Rent a Car has an exciting opportunity for a Full Time Greeter at the Honolulu Airport location!
The Greeter provides superior, friendly, efficient service during all aspects of the rental car process; greeting and fulfilling customer needs as they relate to the overall rental process. They provide customers with appropriate vehicle selection as determined by the rental program guidelines. Creates and maintains a friendly, efficient environment for all customers. Assists in making all transactions quick and efficient. Performs all responsibilities with a focus on the needs of our customers and in accordance with our Quality Standards.
The full time position will be scheduled 40 hours per week and work Saturdays and Sundays.
- Work proactively with drivers, service agents, handheld return agents and managers to ensure proper vehicle supply.
- Welcome members to the facility when they exit the bus or arrive on the lot.
- Direct customers to exit booth, provide local directions and maps and provide return directions where applicable.
- Assist members with questions and concerns to minimize counter visits.
- Communicate customer service issues to management.
- Ensure that hangtag information is completed correctly.
- Maintain clean low mileage fleet mix requirements.
- Maintain Ready Line for cleanliness.
- Thank member for their business.
- Provide upgraded vehicles on request.
- Perform other customer service related duties in addition to those listed, to ensure our service meets the needs of our customers.
Equal Opportunity Employer/Disability/Veterans
- Must be at least 18 years of age.
- Must be authorized to work in the United States and not require work authorization sponsorship by our company for this position now or in the future.
- Must have completed education at a minimum of a high school diploma or GED or equivalent.
- Basic level experience and understanding of a PC and Microsoft Office Products preferred.
- 1 year prior customer service experience preferred.
- Must have a valid driver's license with a satisfactory driving record (no more than 3 moving violations on driving record in the past 3 years and no DUI/DWI in the past 5 years).
- Apart from religious observation, must be able to work 40 hours per week including nights, weekends and holidays.


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Carrie Rengers
New Wichita law office forms out of dissolution of Hutchinson firm
There's going to be a new Wichita law firm on May 1, but it looks a lot like an existing firm.
Gilliland & Hayes, a Hutchinson firm that formed in 1959 and has four offices across Kansas, is dissolving.
The Wichita office of the firm is transitioning to Gibson Watson Marino.
Attorneys, who include John Gibson, Michelle Watson, Andrew Marino, Richard Samaniego, Justen Phelps and Patricia Dengler, will still practice in their existing Gilliland & Hayes space at the Epic Center downtown. The phone number will stay the same, and the new website is www.gibsonwatsonlaw.com.
Watson says the parting is amicable. She says the four offices began discussing decentralizing some of the business operations.
"Then it just became a conversation about we're practicing as a firm in name only. It might make sense to go ahead and go our separate ways."
The Hutchinson office off Gilliland & Hayes will become Gilliland Green.
Gilliland & Hayes attorneys in Overland Park and Manhattan are joining existing firms.
Watson says the transition will allow the Wichita firm more control over its operations.
"Obviously, we want to continue the same services that we've been giving to clients all along," she says.
"We can establish a strong legacy for the future, just with a new name and some ability to have a say so of our business plan and the future of our firm."


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Other Children's Programs
Nursery and Toddler Program
Infant and toddler care is available in the Nursery. Adult babysitters with CPR and First Aid training are employed to care for the children during both worship services on Sunday morning. Parents may bring their child to the Nursery before the worship services begin or at any time during the service. Parents will be issued a pager when the child arrives. If a child gets distressed and cannot be comforted, the pager system allows parents to be quietly contacted during the worship service.
Children are invited to participate in the monthly Communion service beginning in grade one. The students and their Shepherds enter the sanctuary just prior to the start of the Communion service to sit with and share the Lord's Supper with their families. A child's participation is completely at the discretion of their parents. At Acton Congregational Church, the table is open to all who believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, no matter what their church background or denominational affiliation. A parent/child class for 1st graders is offered on the Friday afternoon prior to the first Sunday in October when the children take communion for the first time. Additional resources and children's books about Communion are available on the Faith Formation website, in the Ellen Swenson Resource Room or in the Hosmer Children's Library.
Bibles for Second Graders
At Acton Congregational Church it is a long held tradition to present our second graders with Bibles of their own. The presentation of Bibles takes place during the 9:15 worship service on the Sunday following the beginning of the new Sunday School and church year. A parent/child class is held on Friday afternoon that same weekend. The children are given the New International Version (NIV) of The New Adventure Bible. Each Bible is inscribed with the child's name and includes a dictionary, concordance, color charts and maps, time lines, helpful study notes and information about life in Bible times.
Faith Formation and Bible Skill Benchmarks
Please partner with us to teach your child the foundations of our faith. Note that this list is only a sampling of what we hope your child will grow to learn and understand by the time they begin Confirmation classes in 8th grade. Click here for Faith Formation and Bible Skill Benchmarks.
Children in Music
Music and singing is a big part of Sunday School, especially for grades 1-6. Tremendous care is taken to teach songs and hymns foundational to our Christian faith and that correspond to the monthly Rotation theme. Both the Grace Notes Workshop and Communion Sunday Gatherings provide opportunities to sing together. The Children's Choir is for children in kindergarten through 6th grade; it provides special music in worship several times a year. Practices are held at 10:30 AM in the fall and spring. The choir is directed by Amy Stimac.
Our Sunday school offering is collected at the beginning of class. Age-appropriate offering envelopes are available for children in preschool-6th grade if desired. The children's offering will be donated throughout the year to agencies and projects chosen by the Sunday School children and teachers. In addition to mission and outreach projects sponsored through the Goodwill Missions workshop, two larger service projects will be promoted that involve the entire congregation - typically one in the fall and one in the spring.
Hosmer Library
The Hosmer Children's Library is located upstairs off Hartman Hall. The Library is open for browsing and book borrowing any time that the church is open, and especially during Fellowship hours. Each year, books are added to the library in honor of the Sunday School volunteers. These books are purchased from funds in the Sunday School budget.


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New Ebola Vaccine Gives 100 Percent Protection
In a scientific triumph that will change the way the world fights a killer, an experimental Ebola vaccine tested on humans in the waning days of the West African epidemic has been shown to provide 100 percent protection against the lethal disease.
The vaccine has not yet been approved by any regulatory authority, but it is considered so effective that an emergency stockpile of 300,000 doses has been created for use should an outbreak flare up again.
Since Ebola was discovered in the former Zaire in 1976, there have been many efforts to create a vaccine. All began with a sense of urgency but then petered out for lack of money. Although only about 1,600 people died of Ebola over those years, the grotesque nature of their deaths has lent the disease a frightening reputation.
Ultimately, only the explosive 2014 outbreak that took 11,000 lives in Africa and spread overseas, killing a handful of people in Europe and the United States, provided the political and economic drive to make an effective vaccine.
The test results of the trial in Guinea were released Thursday in The Lancet.
周四,《柳叶刀》(The Lancet)公布了在几内亚的实验结果。
The vaccine was not ready in time to stop the outbreak, which probably began in a hollow, bat-filled tree in Guinea and swept Liberia and Guinea before being defeated. But the prospect of a vaccine stockpile has brought optimism among public health experts.
The vaccine opens up new, faster, more efficient ways to encircle and strangle the virus. .
The new vaccine has some flaws, experts said. It appears to work against only one of the two most common strains of the Ebola virus, and it may not give long-lasting protection. Some of those who get it report side effects like joint pain and headaches.
The Lancet study was done in 11,841 residents of Guinea last year. Among the 5,837 people who got the vaccine, none came down with Ebola 10 or more days later. There were 23 Ebola cases among the thousands of others not immediately vaccinated.


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St. Norbert Third at Rose-Hulman Early Bird Invite
From Sports Information Director, March 19, 2016 | Men's Track & Field
by Dan Lukes, firstname.lastname@example.com, (920) 403-4077
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. - St. Norbert College finished in third place the Rose-Hulman Early Bird Invitational at Cook Stadium in the Green Knights' outdoor season opener.
The Green Knights totaled 127.5 points to narrowly finish in third place, just behind Baldwin Wallace University's 128 points. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology won the team title with 258.5 points.
St. Norbert swept the top three spots in the 400-meter dash. Ryan Grandlic won the event with a time of 48.88 seconds. Jon Gregory followed in second place at 49.28 seconds and Tyler Lewis was third in 49.60 seconds. Grandlic added a third-place finish in the 200-meter dash in 22.63 seconds.
Jack Feuerstein won the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 15.98 seconds.
Andrew Lemay was third in both the 800- and 1,500-meter runs. Lemay ran 2:03.58 in the 800 and finished the 1,500 in 4:14.68. Colin O'Brien was third in the 100-meter dash in 11.30 seconds.
Jacob Wittmershaus finished third in the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a time of 9:56.21. Evan Broyles added a third-place finish in the hammer throw with a distance of 146 feet 7 inches.


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I'm an Expat Mum/Wife from Norway who is living in Edinburgh. We've lived here for only a month and I look forward to spending 1 year here, maybe more. I have just started this blog.. I will try to keep posting more..;)
Lisa is a winner of Top 25 European Moms - 2013
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Twenty-fifth Color and Imaging Conference (CIC25)Color Science and Engineering Systems, Technologies, and Applications
September 11-15, 2017Lillehammer, Norway
Please join us in Lillehammer, Norway for the 25th CIC, the premier annual international conference on color and imaging topics. We always have a great mix of industrial and academic participants from many countries, and our single-track format makes it easy to engage with all the speakers. Short courses taught by global experts, topical workshops, an exhibit, and a robust social program offer additional opportunities to learn, teach, and engage. Come help us celebrate the historic 25th year of the event!
Get your submissions ready, consider sharing your expertise through a short course or workshop, help us get the word out, and prepare for a great week in Norway! We're looking forward to seeing you and enjoying an excellent conference together.
Technical papers are invited in, but not limited to, the following:
CIC25 workshops will consist of short presentations and moderated discussion of the following topics. If you are interested in contributing to a workshop, please contact the workshop chairs via firstname.lastname@example.com.
Authors have the option to submit either a traditional conference paper, which will be published in the proceedings only, or a paper that will also appear in the Journal of Imaging Science and Technology (JIST). Papers submitted via either option will be considered for CIC presentation.
How to Submit Conference Papers:
Original work on relevant topics will be considered by the CIC Review Committee when submitted in the form of a 4-6 page draft paper by March 1, 2017. Papers should represent unpublished work, provide a clear indication of originality, contain at least preliminary results, and include references to prior work.
A double-blind review process is used to select papers based on criteria including technical soundness and novelty. Final decisions on acceptance and presentation format (oral or interactive paper) are at the discretion of the Technical Program Committee. Notices of acceptance will be sent out in mid April. Upon acceptance, instructions are provided for the preparation of the full paper, which is published in the conference proceedings.
Final papers are due July 11, 2017. Direct submission inquiries to Diana Gonzalez (+1 703 642 9090 x106; firstname.lastname@example.com).
How to submit a Journal (JIST-first) Paper:
Journal papers differ from conference papers in that they meet the standards of the Journal of Imaging Science and Technology (JIST) in terms of scope, originality, relevance of topic, completeness of background and references to prior work, completeness of results and discussion, and quality of language. Refer to JIST Author Guidelines and Information.
Complete JIST CIC25 2017 papers are due, submitted directly to JIST, by March 1, 2017 and are fast-tracked for review. Accepted papers are published in JIST, appear in the CIC proceedings as reprints, and are presented at CIC within the technical papers program. Decisions and requests for revision, if required, will be sent to authors by the end of April. Revisions of provisionally accepted papers are due within 10 days following the decision letter. Upon acceptance of papers, first authors will register for CIC, and will be asked to pay JIST page fees reduced by 50%. Submit papers via jist.msubmit.com for the JIST submission link and further instructions.
All text above via http://www.imaging.org/site/IST/Conferences/Color_and_Imaging/IST/Conferences/CIC/CIC_Home.aspx, accessed 27/11/16.
For further information, including all practical details and submission links, please see http://www.imaging.org/site/IST/Conferences/Color_and_Imaging/IST/Conferences/CIC/CIC_Home.aspx.
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Law of Attraction, Intuitive & Spiritual Coaching
Stasia Sowers is a Certified Law of Attraction Practitioner and Ordained Spiritual Coach. Her focus is on the achievement of goals through CLARITY & AWARENESS.
Stasis offers 3 coaching options, namely Law of Attraction Coaching, Spiritual Coaching and Forgotten Not Lost (FNL) Foundations Coaching based on her Lulu published work, Forgotten Not Lost.
Additionally, Stasia is gifted with the communication challenges of Expressive Language Disorder and Dyslexia. While she now recognizes it as a blessing, she hasn't always understood it as such. Stasia has also experienced firsthand the devastating effects that result from the abuse inflicted by Bullying and has made it a life mission to educate community not only about what Bullying is, but also about it's destructive effects on those who experience it. Additionally, she strives to bring awareness to those Hidden Disabilities that so often make people easy targets for such treatment and is always happy to help others navigate through the interference that these negative experiences insert into people's lives.(ie: Expressive Language Disorders such as Language Retrieval Impairment, Dyslexia and other related disorders such as ADD and ADHD)
Stasia has certainly walked through the economic challenges that are frequently experienced by people who have had to face obstacles similar to her own. Because of this, Stasia works hard to help others overcome such challenges, assisting them in identifying and removing blocks which create poverty mindsets, lack and discouragement. She is proof such economic challenges can be overcome. It was because of her personal experiences, and love for people, that she created her "Poverty to Prosperity" Project... to help those in need, become prosperous. The "Poverty to Prosperity" Project allows Stasia to offer a sliding scale to those clients who are unable to afford coaching otherwise. (Offered at Stasia's discretion on a case by case basis) She also works through her local meetup group, Navigating a Better Life, offering her services at a discount. Even if you're not local, take a look! http://www.meetup.com/Empowerment-Meetup/, because she offers online workshops and Skype sessions ... providing something for everyone in every location! As one of Stasia's passions, it is her small way of giving back to Community.
Click here to try again.


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Creek Walking0
July 17, 2011 by Joseph C. Neal
In early July there are serious questions about moisture. All is wilt in my yard. But as I head toward the Buffalo River's upper valley, the sun is an iridescent orange mass pulsating pinks through a jagged green tree canopy, moisture-laden blue clouds scattered above. A cardinal sings fresh and new at the rise.
At the Buffalo in Boxley valley, fog is so dense there's no sun and no mountain tops, and the humidity — or hume ah did ditty as my Dad once put it humorously – is close to light rain. But the valley is cool, moist, green, like an extended spring. Won't need canoe, kayak, or anything fancy today. The Buffalo is low but flowing, and perfect for a creek walk.
There's no one else at the Ponca low water bridge, like I'm the first post-Ice Age human in the valley. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds zip among astonishing pink flowers on an old mimosa leaning precariously over the river. I hear chips and soon have a close Louisiana Waterthrush, all pink legs and tail-bobbing across smooth brown cobbles. Nearby I spot another, also working for bugs, and it sings like May.
Powerlines run above the old bridge, and this morning fledgling Northern Rough-winged Swallows perch on the wires. As late as June 24, adult swallows were still feeding them nearby in rock crevice nests. Now adults forage up and down the Buffalo, snagging insects. At the powerline they pause briefly mid-air, poking food in open mouths. A Yellow-billed Cuckoo flies across the river and up on the mountainside, I hear a Scarlet Tanager's hoarse singing, but can't see it.
Here are the rules: walk like a Great Blue Heron, slow, watchful, one foot at a time. Stick to the shallows, look at and listen to everything. Don't walk too far: think density of experience, rather than distance or endurance.
Already at 8:30, there are jug-o-rums of bullfrogs, and right in front of me, on an elm leaning 15 feet over the water, a thick midland water snake, with copperhead-like brown stripes. I'm imaging the wild frenzy of swinging paddles if a canoe floats under this limb and the disturbed but entirely harmless water moccasin drops off and into the boat. But today there's water enough only for creek walking.
In the shallows, with my feet in flowing water, I attend the busy affairs of a miniature forest of water willow (Justicia americana). The engaging flowers remind me irises, petals with blue, purple, white. I sit on a convenient cobble and watch clearwing hummingbird moths making the rounds of flowers, plus spider-webby combos of black and orange on crescent butterflies, silver spotted skippers, various bees, and stunning damsel flies. Have I left anything out? Well yes, quite a lot, but it's an empire unto itself, a universe indifferent to what we view as critical and important. You can't convert butterflies to dollars, and that is the bottom line: whole and complete without us and our values. And a darter investigates the strange universe of my feet.
Category Bird Notes, Columns, Outdoors | Tags: bird notes, birds, Columns, Joseph Neal, Outdoors


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While many people think that web design is simple, there are a lot of factors affecting the overall look of your website. Even if you have the basic understanding of ASP, PHP, CSS, and HTML, you need to use these effectively to build a functional and user-friendly site.
You may also get the help of professionals specialising in web design in Bromley, if you live there or in other neighbouring areas. These web designers can advise you on what works best for your goal.
Here's a list of questions to ask yourself before designing your website:
What is the goal of the website?
You must answer this question to proceed with designing your company's website. What is the website aiming for? Does it intend to sell products? Does it aim to inform? These should be clear to you and the web designer so that the relevant elements can be added to the pages of your site.
Who is your target market?
Every business has a target market. By knowing who your audience is, you can present content that your target customers will find useful and valuable.
How will your visitors navigate through the website?
Visitors may leave your website if they could not find what they are looking for in the first few minutes. Sitemaps, search boxes, drop-down menus, and the main navigation page are some of the things you can include on your site.
Is your web design SEO-friendly?
Anything that involves the web should always consider the SEO factor. If you are running a business, SEO or search engine optimisation will help users find your website on Google.
How are your website's page response time and speed?
No matter how aesthetically pleasing your website is, it would not appeal much to your visitors if it takes too long to load. Always consider the loading speed of every page when designing your website.
It is important to carve out a plan for your website to have a successful implementation; a web designer could be helpful in this case. Be sure to find a professional who has sufficient knowledge and skills to come up with a creative design.


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"So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the king's wrath subsided." Esther 6:10a
In Proverbs 11:8 we read, "The righteous is delivered from trouble, and it comes to the wicked instead." The day before they hanged Haman, Haman was forced to lead Mordecai through the streets dressed like royalty. The very next day Haman was led through the streets with his face covered in humility on his way to being hung on the very gallows he prepared for Mordecai.
Often we cry out to the Lord, "Why do the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer?" The answer to that question is that ultimately they don't. Although there are times that statement seems true, we find time and time again in the Word of God that ultimately that is not the case. The greatest example of this was when Satan thought he won by getting the crowd to crucify Jesus, but the cross turned out to be the instrument of his defeat.
I love what David Guzik wrote about this: "The death of a substitute satisfied the wrath of the king. In the case of Mordecai and Haman, it was the guilty dying in the place of the innocent; in the case of us and Jesus, it is a matter of the innocent dying in the place of the guilty."
Join us on Wednesday night at 6:30pm at the Portillo's home as we open Esther 7 and learn about how the in the end "The Righteous Will Prosper". God bless you all and hope to see you there!


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BUFFALO, NY – Both the men's and women's tennis teams will be home at Miller Tennis Center this weekend as the women's tennis team is home for a pair of matches, while the men will return home on Sunday.
Beginning on Saturday, the 4-1 women's program will host Mercyhurst at 12:30 pm. The Lakers are 2-1 on the year and this will be the second straight Division I opponent for Mercyhurst as they lost 5-2 to St. Bonaventure on Wednesday.
On Sunday, both the men's and women's teams will host Quinnipiac at the Miller Tennis Center at 11:00 as both matches will happen simultaneously. The Quinnipiac women are 2-3 heading into their weekend opener against Niagara.
On the men's side, the Bulls split their two matches down in Florida last weekend and they own a 2-2 record, including a 4-3 win over Mercer last Saturday. The Quinnipiac men are 1-3 on the year heading into their match with Niagara on Saturday evening.
All the matches are free to the public and will occur at the Miller Tennis Center, which is at 5959 Sheridan Drive, Williamsville, NY 14221.


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SmarterSafer.org is out with its ideas for reforming the National Flood Insurance Program:
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, floods cost the United States more than $75 billion over the five-year period ending in 2008, or an average of more than $15 billion per year. These costs continue to spiral upward. Adopting federal polices that discourage development and other destructive and degrading activities in floodplains is critical to protecting communities and ecosystems from existing and potential climate change impacts such as sea-level rise, increased storm surges and flooding.
SmarterSafer.org – a coalition comprised of taxpayer groups and environmental organizations, as well as insurance and reinsurance industry groups – recognizes that adopting federal policies that lead to responsible development will benefit insurance consumers, the environment, and taxpayers.
The priority goals of SmarterSafer.org include:
Reducing loss of life and injuries due to floods
Decreasing the risk of flood losses
Reducing the costs of floods
Encouraging the provision of private capital to back flood insurance
Reducing the demand for federal disaster assistance
Preserving and restoring natural and beneficial floodplain functions
SmarterSafer.org seeks improvements in federal flood and disaster assistance programs that encourage better floodplain management, reduce property losses and costs to taxpayers, protect and restore critical ecosystems and improve public safety. Improved direction and coordination among all federal agencies' floodplain-related activities is necessary to meet these important objectives.
The SmarterSafer Coalition also wants to reform FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) in order to enable the program to meet its primary objectives of reducing flood losses and heightening awareness about flood risks. Keeping development out of dangerous and environmentally sensitive areas represents an effective and yet often overlooked method of reducing flood losses.
Suggested Reforms to the NFIP and Related Flood Policies and Programs:
1) Adjust NFIP rates to reflect the actual risk of living in flood-prone areas. Many properties covered under the NFIP obtain below-market rates that mask the true risk of living in floodplains. As a result, the federal government is subsidizing development in dangerous and environmentally sensitive areas, forcing taxpayers to help defray the cost of properties that are in danger zones and leaving them on the hook to rebuild homes and businesses that incur flood damages. Phasing in risk-based rates, including a catastrophe factor, would save tax dollars. Risk-based rates including a catastrophe factor should apply to all properties. Some form of means-tested premium payment assistance (via grants or tax credits) to incumbent low-income homeowners is vitally important to ease any transition.
2) Require FEMA to establish policies that restrict NFIP coverage for new construction and ban rebuilding in high-hazard, environmentally sensitive areas; Assure that future mapping identifies such critical areas. Very high hazard areas — such as high velocity floodways, mountain canyons and coastal erosion areas — must be identified in flood mapping.
3) Reduce reliance on levees for new development and redevelopment; Evaluate levee protection so that high levels of public safety are maintained. Preserving and restoring the natural and beneficial floodplain function, along with land use planning that steers development out of the floodplain, provides the most cost-effective safeguard to communities against flooding.
4) Require FEMA to recommit to a national hazard mitigation policy that emphasizes stronger standards, including rules that place homes and businesses in areas safe from flooding. FEMA should promote wise floodplain management and greater use of non-structural mitigation techniques, such as voluntary buyouts, building elevations and open space preservation to reduce flooding risk. Communities should be required to prohibit all government-subsidized development from the mapped very high hazard areas. Similarly, federal subsidies of all kinds should be cut for communities that do not strengthen land-use and building code standards. The CLIMB project in Boston showed the estimated costs of 'reacting' to moderate floods is four times the cost of 'preparing' for floods through the use of natural floodplain protection. This is in line with the research conducted by the Multihazard Mitigation Council which found that a dollar spent on mitigation saves society an average of four dollars.
5) Require FEMA to revise the Community Rating System. The Community Rating System (CRS) offers discounted insurance rates to communities that voluntarily adopt and implement policies that exceed FEMA requirements to reduce flood risk. FEMA's CRS scoring and rating criteria should be revised to include greater incentives for the implementation of projects that restore and/or protect natural and beneficial functions that reduce flood risk and improve mitigation. In addition, FEMA must closely monitor communities' compliance. Communities that successfully attract private capital to underwrite flood risk should also receive consideration under CRS.
6) Require FEMA and all other federal agencies to use the best available data on recent flooding and potential climate change when producing flood maps and include '500-year flood' zones. Flood maps guide local planning and development patterns. FEMA must end the practice of revising floodplain maps to remove areas in the floodplain that have been filled, leveed off or major obstructions are placed in floodways, as development in these areas still puts people and property in harms way and force floodwaters onto other communities. This year's floods on the Mississippi have once again shown that floodplain development, including changes on land cover, urbanization and other land use changes, increase flooding in downstream areas. Using our best available science, including identification of reasonably foreseeable "future conditions," to guide future planning documents is a common-sense strategy to prepare for actual and future flood risk. Also, this year the Midwest experienced its second '500-year flood' in 15 years. With experts suggesting that climate change may result in more intense and frequent flooding in coming years, it is important to use the '500-year flood' zone to inform planning decisions if people and properties are to remain out of harm's way.
7) Require FEMA's flood maps to show 'residual risk' areas that would be inundated due to levee or dam failure, and apply the same standards for flood insurance purchase to properties in residual risk zones. Many Americans have no idea that they live behind a levee or below a dam until flood waters are rushing under their doors. Others falsely believe that levees and dams – and those responsible for their maintenance – will always keep them safe from floods. This provision would assure better land use and building controls in residual risk areas, help dispel the false sense of security from dams and levees, and prevent catastrophic disasters.
NFIP MUST NOT be expanded to include wind coverage. The NFIP is already over $19 billion in debt. Expanding the NFIP to include wind insurance would also perpetuate the damage-
repair-rebuild cycle by subsidizing more risky development. Congress should not further destabilize a program that already costs taxpayers more than $6 billion a year and is financially insolvent.
9) NFIP should establish pilot programs intended to encourage private and partially private provision of flood insurance. Current private flood insurance programs are generally available to more affluent populations. Congress and FEMA should investigate ways to encourage the private and partially private provision of flood insurance for all Americans.
10) NFIP should limit the number of times that it rebuilds the same property.
Severe repetitive losses place an enormous burden on taxpayers, communities, and the environment. Although a variety of mitigation, insurance, and conservation measures can serve to place limits on repetitive losses, Congress should establish a firm rule that no property should be rebuilt more than twice.
11) In reforming the NFIP, Congress and the President should consider the floodplain management consequences of federal programs outside of the NFIP and the FEMA. A variety of other programs in agencies ranging from the Department of Defense (Army Corps of Engineers) to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (Section 8 housing vouchers) have vast impacts on the manner in which the United States uses and manages areas that are likely to experience floods. Any comprehensive reform of the NFIP must take the consequences of these programs into account and modify them in ways that are likely to promote sound water resources management policies. Ideally, some aspects of existing programs, such as the Corps' water resources projects, should be reformed directly alongside the NFIP. In other cases, the Congress should consider the creation of a new standing commission (or the revival of a dormant one) to provide ongoing monitoring and advice as to the likely floodplain management consequences of federal programs. The Administration, likewise, should work to improve and update the Executive Orders that set floodplain management and mitigation policies that impact federal facilities, and launch a review of all regulations that impact flood plain management.
12) Federal policy towards flooding should emphasize a multi-faceted mitigation strategy. Nearly all sizeable bodies of water will flood surrounding lands at one time or another. As a result, no single measure or series of measures ever could address all floods. Thus, insofar as the federal government engages in efforts to address the consequences of flooding, it should have a wide range of tools at its disposal. Levies, land buyouts, individual home mitigation measures, open space preservation efforts, and restrictive development guidelines for federally subsidized programs all have roles to play in any integrated strategy. Measures like levy construction that have received ample subsidies in the past might see their subsidies reduced or eliminated, while others, such as encouragement for individual home retrofitting, may be prudent places for government to invest additional resources.


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Create a delightfully kitsch oven-shaped celebration cake, ideal for the baking fan.
To view this project's edibles, equipment and instructions, you will need to sign in or join Cakes & Sugarcraft Magazine - it's FREE and only takes a minute.
Baking fans will love this oven-shaped celebration cake complete with a delicious tray of freshly-baked cookies. Perfect for birthdays and many other special occasions, the delightfully kitsch design can be adapted to include favourite colours or bakes depending on the recipient.
Occasion: Any
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Featured in Spring 2014 issue
Project by Karen Taylor
author of Retro Oven Cake
Karen Taylor is an experienced cake decorator and has been decorating cakes for over 10 years. She studied at Birmingham College of Food for three years, gaining NCFE levels 1, 2 and 3 in Cake Decorating, and has won many awards for her designs including Silver and Bronze medals at Salon Culinaire.


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Parking charges planned for Kennet Leisure Centre
Fri, 25 Aug 2017
ALL's set for this year's Chapel Row Fayre tomorrow (Saturday).
A full 2017 programme will include sheep racing, ferret racing, a dog show, craft tent, funfair, bouncy castles, tombolas, raffles, vintage cars and many more displays and stalls.
This year there will also be a children's fancy dress competition.
Refreshments include a beer tent, tea tent, Dave the ice cream man, Graham's hog roast, a burger tent and a Pimm's tent.
Entrance to the fair and parking is free and it will take place on the green, opposite the Bladebone pub.
As well as being a family day out, the fair will also be raising money for local charities Alexander Devine Children's Hospice, West Berkshire Mencap, Newbury Macmillan, Motor Neurone Disease Association and ABF The Soldiers' Charity.
The fair had to be cancelled in 2015 owing to a shortage of committee members.
However, a dedicated team worked hard to ensure that it returned with a bang in 2016 for its 20th anniversary.
The fair was first set up 21 years ago and since then it has raised £160,000 for local charities.
Saturday's event will start at 1pm.


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2014 is winding down. You're caught up with shopping, parties, getting your home ready for visitors… A thousand one and one things need your attention. Although you're busy, take a few minutes to think about your hopes and goals for your freelance writing career in 2015.
The Big Changes for Writers in 2014
Here are the changes I saw in 2014. (They're in no particular order.)
1. Self-Publishing Got Bigger
Yes, there are challenges. Many authors are complaining about slowing sales; there are reasons for that. I don't think we've even begun to tap self-publishing's potential.
2. Content Marketing Took Off: Brands Are Publishers Now, and Many Companies Are Developing Content Strategies
"Organic" traffic took a hit in 2014, along with search engine rankings. Google isn't handing out free traffic. Companies are realizing they need to pay for traffic. This presents its own challenges, so email marketing is important again.
Content marketing has jumped into the "pay for it" basket in a couple of ways: companies are taking content seriously. They're hiring journalists, editors, and are developing content teams. They're also paying for native advertising, and sponsored content.
3. Everyone's Getting Their Head Around Social Media
Social media's growing up. Companies need big data applications to make sense of ecommerce and social media data. You hear terms like a "360 degree view of the customer" thrown around.
Writers are wary of spending too much time on social media, and rightfully so — we're all busier than ever. However, I think 2014 shows that writers need to pay attention to social media, or get left behind as their clients' needs change.
4. Blogging Is STILL a Way to Develop a Home Business Without Any Capital Except Your Sweat and Determination
Bloggers like Pat Flynn show that it's still possible to turn your skills into a business of which you can be proud.
All the nomad bloggers blogging their way around the world show that people will follow bloggers who tap into their own aspirations. Mommy bloggers and foodie bloggers continue to do well.
(Please let me know what changes you saw, and experienced: send me an email message, or contact me on social media.)
What challenges YOU in 2015?
My biggest challenge is time. There just aren't enough hours in the day or week.
I'd love to know what you find challenging, going forward. Please leave a comment here, or send me a message using the form below, or contact me on social media. You'll be helping me to make this blog truly useful for you in 2015.
There are huge opportunities for all writers now. We're spoiled for choice. 🙂
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by Hazel Stark
Co-Founder/Co-CEO and Naturalist Educator
From November 2017 until early January 2018, a hardy group of Mountain View Elementary School students became "Forest Detectives" during an 8-part Maine Outdoor School after school series. For an hour each week, students explored, learned, played, and journaled about the forest lives around their school. To learn about the first half of that program, focused on mammals, birds, fungi, and bugs, check out our previous article here.
For the second half of this program, snow and ice accumulated, temperatures dropped, and new signs of their forest neighbors emerged. They looked for animal tracks and acted out the different ways animals move in a race that awarded not the fastest, but the most accurate representation of a given species' movement. They identified evergreen trees and compared the differences between firs, spruces, cedars, and pines. They even spooked a partridge twice, identified snowshoe hare and ermine tracks, and modeled their forest landscape in the snow.
At the end of the program, all students reported that they had had fun, learned a lot, and wanted Maine Outdoor School to come back to their school!
Do you know someone who would be interested in MOS programming? Learn more about our Educational Programs and contact us!
For more news like this, please sign up for our quarterly e-newsletter here.


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Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) recently set out its plans for the UK for the next twelve months. In a time when political instability is causing some concerns, the automotive giant has shown their confidence in the area. They plan to create 5,000 new motor trade jobs across their facilities in England, taking their total workforce to over 45,000 worldwide.
Of the new jobs around 1,000 of them will be for electronic and software engineers. JLR is planning to release more electric vehicles in the future and is investing in their facilities and workforce to allow this. In fact it is believed that more than 50% of the new models will have an electric version thus the huge demand for specialists with knowledge of electronics and software.
The recruitment process for the new motor trade jobs is expected to begin over the next year. JLR are looking at ways they can attract the most talented people to take up the roles. As well as traditional methods of applying for jobs they are also planning to use a smartphone application. This gives potential applicants more opportunities to use the most appropriate method of applying for them.
Those who choose to apply via smartphone applications will find themselves undertaking a very interactive and engaging process. As part of this there will be a number of challenges to complete that will require them to display skills such as problem solving, persistence, and lateral thinking. As a result the company will be able to find out more about prospective applicants.
This new recruiting process is designed to help fast-track the most promising job seekers. It will also help JLR to deal with some of the challenges in the market such as high demand for talent and low supply.
Jaguar Land Rover has enjoyed a record year when it comes to sales. Demand from North America and China has been very high as both markets have increased the number of luxury cars being purchased. The prospects for the future of the company are good; that is why they are planning to create so many new motor trade jobs.


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Christopher Howard, 29, was located in Waterbury and taken into police custody based on a Bristol arrest warrant charging him with violating Connecticut General Statutes 53a-59/ Assault in the First Degree and 53a-95/ Unlawful Restraint in the First Degree. He was held on a court set $500,000 bond.
The arrest stems from a domestic assault/stabbing investigation on June 16.
Police said that on June 16 at 8 a.m., the department received a 911 call reporting a woman was injured on Landry Street near Divinity Street in Bristol. Police said patrol officers responded to the scene and located the woman bleeding from a knife wound to her neck. Police said the woman was transported to an area hospital.


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By Laura Lovejoy
First things first, you will notice that this is a blog post on what you should know about men, from a man and I am most certainly not a man. This is because the men in my life struggle to string sentences together so I have done my research and while this isn't exactly quoted directly, all of the below came from straight from the horse's mouth. This might not be true for every man on the planet, but when it comes down to the men I know – this hits the nail firmly on the head.
Give them space after a fight. Women like to talk and, if you're anything like me, you like to talk about as much and as soon as possible. Men tend to not work that way. In fact, they like to not talk at all or at least not right away. And that's not a bad thing. The number of times a simple argument gets escalated in our house because I want to talk and Clint wants to calm down is ridiculous. Give them their space after a fight, let them calm down and the talking will be far more effective.
Give them space even when you haven't had a fight. Men like to feel like men. That includes going down the pub and being with other men. Let them go. This is easier said than done when you've given them their space before and they have abused your trust but you have to try, it's far better for your relationship than him feeling trapped by your side all the time.
They like things about you that you're not even aware of. Us girls spend so much time and money getting things waxed, cut and dyed and while that's great and it's nice to take yourself whether you're in a relationship or not, men like lots of little things you're not even aware of. Like how cute you look when you wear certain pj's or how you snore really quietly when your sleeping.
They like compliments too. It's easy for women to get used to being the ones who receive all the compliments and forget to compliment your boyfriend every now again. I will hold my hands up to not being great at dishing out the compliments but a simple 'you look nice today' or 'I like your hair like that' goes a long way in boosting someone self-esteem and at the end of the day it's just a bloody nice thing to do.
Men aren't good at emotions. This is a no-brainer, right? I feel like most women have experience of men that aren't great at showing emotions and when they do they come out in the most bizarre ways. Just because your boyfriend doesn't sit there and cry it doesn't mean they don't care as much as you, you just have to accept their way of dealing with things. It's ok for someone to express emotions in different ways but it's important they are expressed in a healthy way! Less pub and more gym for example.
Any other men out there got more advice on what women should know about men? Comment below!


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5 Worst Albums of 2010
Well, obviously these aren't the worst of the worst: the worst music of the year never got heard by anybody other than its makers. So let's just say that these are the most overhyped/
1. Congratulations -- MGMT
Honestly, it's just embarrassing when a band relentlessly hypes the album after their commercial breakthrough by saying "Oh, we just decided to get completely weird and experimental! We downloaded all these albums by these people no one's ever heard of like the Chrysanthemums and R. Stevie Moore and we were like, 'Yeah, that's the kind of stuff we're gonna do!' It's gonna be so freaky and bizarre, everyone's going to think we've lost our minds!" And then the album comes out and it's nothing but utterly ordinary mainstream alt-rock trying hard to seem hip and quirky by writing lyrics namechecking Brian Eno and Dan Treacy. The sad thing is, these guys are so clueless that they probably still think this is an amazingly weird and adventurous record.
2. Maya -- M.I.A.
Joan Didion once wrote "The have nots, it turns out, aspire mainly to having." That pretty much sums up M.I.A.'s third album. Having long since squandered whatever hip rebel-grrl cred she once had by becoming a part-time fashion designer and marrying a billionaire's son and basically becoming the new Gwen Stefani, the embarrassing thing about this album isn't how she pretends she still has political views, but how completely bored and lifeless she sounds, like she recorded all of her vocal tracks while idly paging through a back issue of Vogue.
3. Treats -- Sleigh Bells
Take a girl who was in a fourth-string Spice Girls knockoff at the start of the 2000s. Add a guy who was in one of those cookie-cutter Hot Topic emo bands a few years later. Move them from Florida to Brooklyn and make them pretend that's where they're from. Forcefeed them albums by the Ting-Tings, Matt and Kim and other bands that market research indicates might be What The Kids Are Listening To. Sign them to a major label imprint that's pretending to be an indie (for extra credit, name the pseudo-indie Mom & Pop Records). Record an album of the most irritatingly cliched, openly cynical indie-
4. Crush -- Abe Vigoda
This one just pisses me off. A couple years ago, I closed a review of Abe Vigoda's previous album by saying they were in a position where they could conceivably make one of the defining records of their generation. Instead, they decided they're rather become a bad imitation of early Interpol. Fuck you, Abe Vigoda.
5. Up From Below -- Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes
Okay, this album actually came out last year, but no one actually heard it before this year when its supremely irritating single "Home" started showing up in movie trailers and commercials. Pretentious faux-hippie bullshit from a bunch of useless neckbeards. It's like all the most irritating aspects of the Arcade Fire and the Polyphonic Spree overpowered those bands' good points and joined forces to create a vortex of suck.