text:
Table of Contents
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Part VII
Part VIII
Part IX
Part IV: The Virgin Birth and
The Incarnation
Version renders the first part of Acts 17:26 as follows: "[God]
hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all
the face of the earth." The Revised Standard Version renders
this, "[God] hath made from one every nation of men to live
on all the face of the earth," omitting the word "blood."
The omission reflects the fact that some of the most reliable
and ancient manuscripts show the latter reading. For reasons
which are worth careful consideration, the issue may be an important
one both from a theological point of view and from the point
of view of a proper understanding of the processes of growth
in Christian character after conversion.
When we commonly speak of a group
of people as belonging within a single family, we refer to them
as "blood relatives." And if we say that all men are
of "one blood," the usually accepted inference is that
ultimately all men belong within a single family and can be traced
back to the same father and mother. This common father and mother
would be Adam and Eve.
It is quite possible that this
is all Paul had in mind, namely, that the human race is a single
family, all the members of which have shared the same father
and mother. But I think that something more may be intended by
Paul, who, directed by the Holy Spirit, modified the common phrase
for blood relationship by the omission of the word "blood."
He was not simply tracing the human race back to the common parentage
of Adam and Eve, but back to a single progenitor, Adam.
In short, Paul was underscoring the fact that since Eve was taken
out of Adam in the first place, we can quite properly speak of
all men having descended not from a single pair, but from
a single individual.
theological significance of this fact stems from the requirement
that the Lord as Redeemer must truly represent all men.
But this requirement could not have been fulfilled if Eve, instead
of being formed out of Adam, had been an entirely separate creation.
The point is worth careful consideration, for genetically speaking,
if Eve had been created independently of Adam and then the two
had been mated, their union would have resulted not in a single
line of descendants, but in two lines. If Adam and Eve
were separate creations, each with a truly individual and independent
identity in terms of their genetic constitution, their descendants
would actually form three distinct lines or recognizable
strains. Two of these would be pure strains, owing their character
to either Adam or Eve and sharing nothing of the hereditary
constitution of the other parent. The third would be a
hybrid composed of an amalgam of each, of both Adam and Eve
in varying proportions.
A similar situation was the basis
of some correspondence in The New Scientist recently.
In an earlier issue of this journal, Hans Eysenck reaffirmed
his view that Negroes as a "race" have a slightly lower
I.Q. than whites. This has, expectedly, aroused much heated debate.
The issue itself is not the question in the present context,
but rather the definition of the word "race" and more
particularly the concept of a "pure race." Is
there such a thing as a pure race? In the correspondence that
ensued, two geneticists from the Medical Research Council of
the Institute of Animal Genetics in Edinburgh, C. Auerbach and
G. H. Beale, (38)
argued that if one starts any line with two animals of
supposedly independent origin, one can never speak of their descendants
as a pure race. Applying this to man, they observed:
Man's ancestor was not a single
individual that, by asexual reproduction, handed on all its genes
to its progeny, thus fathering a true-breeding line of individuals.
Man's ancestor was not a single
individual that, by asexual reproduction, handed on all its genes
to its progeny, thus fathering a true-breeding line of individuals.
And this is
precisely the point. Unless man was such an asexual (or
a bisexual) individual, he could not father a single line
for he must then start the line by mating with some other independent
fountain of genes. This is as true of a specially created "help"
as it would have been had he mated with some ape-like creature
with nearly human character. To create a single line, this mate
must be formed out of himself with identical genes. For this
reason God must make all men of one, if all men equally
are to be potentially redeemable by a single
38. Auerbach, C., and Beale, G. H., Letter
to the Editor, New Scientist, May 29, 1969, pp.491f.
Saviour who is truly
representative of Adam, Eve must have derived her genes from
Had God decided to start the human
race on its way by the union of a first man and a first woman
who were separately created and therefore totally unrelated,
there would have been a very important consequence. For no
single Redeemer could then ever have appeared as a Second Adam
to act as an appropriate substitute for those individuals who
happened quite by chance to have fallen within the pure line
traceable to Eve but not to Adam. Such individuals would all
be entirely "in Eve" and in no sense "in Adam."
The moment we allow for an independent creation of Adam
and of Eve, we bring into being as an inevitable consequence
three distinct strains, one of which must of necessity be composed
of individuals who would be carrying nothing whatever of the
hereditary constitution of Adam. They would, in fact, be as unrelated
to Adam as Eve was by the fact of her independent creation. It
is statistically certain that such individuals would always be
appearing among the descendants of Adam and Eve, no matter how
many generations removed they might be from the first pair.
In such a situation, no single
individual could thereafter ever truly represent all the descendants
of Adam and Eve. This may sound incredible. It may seem absurd
to suggest that in a race of men all descended from the first
pair, Adam and Eve, there could still be a significant number
of people whose hereditary constitution owed nothing to the first
father, Adam. Yet it is so.
Let me attempt an analogy, with
apologies to dog lovers who may object to my hypothetical experiment.
Suppose we have in the world (perhaps due to some war) only two
dogs left. One is a pure Alsatian and the other a pure Spaniel:
the first a male, the second a female. We decide they should
be mated in order to perpetuate the canine species. The first
litter produces a family of marvelous little bundles of fluff
and energy (and wetness!), all of which display the same amalgam
of character halfway between the two breeds, exactly as one might
expect. After an appropriate interval of time, we cross two of
the puppies. According to genetics, we may now expect to have
the following proportion of types in this third generation: instead
of all the puppies having the same delightful mixture of characters,
the statistical probability is that one quarter of them will
be pure Alsatian (like their grandfather), one quarter pure Spaniel
(like their grandmother), and the balance of them are the hybrid
or mixture of characters observed in the preceding generation.
So we have within two generations recovered in physical type
and in
genetic constitution
both the grandfather and the grandmother lines, to which we have
added a mongrel crossbreed line as well. And if we wish, we can
now arrange to perpetuate these three lines indefinitely as
distinct and separate varieties. In the pure Spaniel line we
would see the elimination of all genetic constitutional influences
of the original Alsatian "father," i.e., by analogy
the "Adamic" strain. (39)
In other words, transferring this
analogy to the human race, we see that if Adam and Eve were separately
created, they could give rise to a human family in which something
of the order of one quarter of the population would be constitutionally
non-Adamic. It would not be true to say any longer that all men
were of one blood (Acts 17:26) and a significant portion of the
human race would in actual fact be pure Eve and unrelated "by
blood" to Adam. They would be, as it were, pure Spaniels,
owing nothing to an Alsatian grand sire. A Redeemer who
was to be truly, in every way, representative of all men in order
that His sacrifice might be efficacious for "whosoever will"
must then find that He cannot act as an appropriate substitute
for some 25 percent of the world's population who are constitutionally
"pure Eve."
To revert to the Alsatian and Spaniel
situation once again. Suppose that by some chance circumstance
all the original experimental hybrid animals were destroyed and
that only three pure-line Alsatians and one pure-line Spaniel
remained. And let us imagine, for the sake of argument, that
you happen to be the fond possessor of two Alsatians and I of
the Spaniel and the other Alsatian. Then let us make one further
supposition, namely, that quite by accident you killed my Spaniel.
Now, how can you compensate me for my loss? By giving me one
of your Alsatians? Even if it were of the right sex, it would
not compensate. You can only compensate for the death of my Spaniel
by giving me a Spaniel as a substitute: the Alsatian is not appropriate
for my purposes.
All analogies, except those used
by the Lord in His parables, soon turn out to be sadly incomplete.
But this one may serve to show
39. One reason why my analogy would break
down in reality is that we have no reason to suppose an Alsatian
and a Spaniel do really represent separate creations. Somewhere
back along the line they must converge to a single ancestor.
Hence no matter how pure we may think the purebred Spaniel is,
we are mistaken. Such a line still carries some of the hereditary
constitution which had long ago been shared by the Alsatian,
so that with sufficient time and care we could probably recover
the Alsatian strain out of our pure Spaniels. To this extent
the analogy is not a true one, for in the event of an entirely
independent creation there would be no such common ancestor as
we can safely assume there is for the pure-line Alsatian and
for the pure-line Spaniels. No amount of cross-breeding of Adam
and Eve's progeny could ever bring into being the supposed common
ancestor again, since it never existed if Adam and Eve were separate
that on the principle
set forth in the Old Testament of an eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth, a basic principle adhered to in ancient law and
in primitive law today all over the world, the substitute must
be fully adequate and proper for the thing substituted if satisfaction
is to be given. If Adam and Eve had indeed been created as separate
individuals, we could in fact have three distinct lines, one
which might be called "in Adam," in which the heredity
of Eve was excluded; one which might be called "in Eve,"
in which the heredity of Adam would have no part; and a cross
which shared some of both Adam and Eve. No one single substitute
could stand in for all these descendants. Approximately one-quarter
of all mankind (if we apply the ordinary Mendelian laws of percentage)
would be beyond reach.
By contrast, consider what the
situation actually was according to Genesis. Adam contained Eve
as part of his genetic constitution. He was an Adam/Eve creation
in one individual. When Eve was taken out of him, she was indeed
given an independent existence, but her blood relationship to
Adam was as complete as it could possibly be. Any "pure"
line of Eve could still exist among us, but it could never be
said of it that it had nothing of Adam's hereditary constitution,
for it did, Eve herself being the link in the genetic
chain leading us back ultimately to Adam. Relationship by descent
from Eve means relationship by descent from Adam, for Eve was
"descended" from Adam.
It may appear to some readers that
this is a mundane subject, hardly befitting the divine mystery
of the Incarnation. Yet it is important to bear in mind that
Christianity is not simply a system of beliefs articulated independently
of the physical framework in which man lives and moves and has
his being, but has been wrought out in the real space-time world
in which he lives. His body is to be redeemed as well as his
spirit. The whole man came under judgment. The body suffered
a physical assault upon its integrity, just as the spirit did.
Both were mortally wounded. Both became sick. Both came under
judgment. But God has provided a means by which man may be wholly
saved, by ensuring the redemption of his body and the rebirth
of his spirit. We constantly stress man's spiritual needs but
seem to feel much less concern for the ultimate destiny of the
body. Yet in the New Testament the word "redemption"
is applied exclusively to the body. And the very fact of the
Incarnation and of the bodily resurrection of the Lord settles
once for all the importance of man in the eyes of God, not merely
as a spiritual creature who happens to have a body, but as a
creature who in eternity will have a glorified body as an essential
part of his being. It was therefore
necessary that the Redeemer
should be able to act substitutionally for the whole man, for
the corporeal side of his being as well as for the spiritual
side. Because all men are derived ultimately from a single
person, Adam, a Second Adam can truly represent them as individuals
both as to the bodies they inhabit and the persons that they
are. It is not merely the saved who will be resurrected in body,
but the unsaved also; for Jesus tasted death "for every
man" (Hebrews 2:9) Thus, as in Adam all die, so in
Christ shall all be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:22).
This brings us to the final topic
of this Paper, namely, the method by which God is able to implant
in the believer's heart a "new man," a new nature,
a new personality, which, though appropriate to him as a unique
individual, is nevertheless the consequence of the indwelling
presence in every believer of one and the same Person, Jesus
Christ. The new man in Christ is not a reformed "old man,"
but is in fact the Lord Jesus incarnate once again in the heart
of the believer. This fact is abundantly confirmed in the New
Testament. The new life of the Christian is not the old life
set aright but is the actual presence of Christ within.
All the infinite variety of human
personality that has found expression through the centuries in
the individual lives of those who came out of Adam's loins must
have been latent in Adam at the first. So in the Second Adam
this vast potential reappeared and found expression in His
life. When He now enters into a human heart, He is incarnated
anew. But no one of us could possibly display His character in
its total range; and so He distributes part of Himself, as it
were, to each believer that He may display to the world just
that measure of His total personality which is completely appropriate
to that indwelt soul.
I suppose if man had never fallen,
each one of us individually would have displayed this fragment
of the total potential in Adam as a natural outgrowth of our
constitution as one of his children. But now the new life is,
instead, the supernatural outgrowth of a new constitution as
a child of God indwelt by the Second Adam. Perhaps at any moment,
were it possible to add us all together, we should find that
the Lord Jesus was still altogether and wholly present in the
world. In this sense we each provide a small channel for Him
to express Himself, and all together form the vehicle, the Body,
of which He is the Head and by which He still dwells with men.
Consider the following passages:
Perhaps Galatians 2:20 is one of the best known and most explicit
passages of this nature: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless
I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me." In 2 Corinthians
13:5 Paul wrote: "Know ye not your own selves, how that
Christ Jesus is in you...?" In writing to the Colossians
Paul said, "To whom God would make known what is the riches
of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ
in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27). And again
in Colossians 3:4: "When Christ, who is our life shall appear,
then shall ye also appear with him in glory." We are not
filled with some kind of impersonal power that descends from
His presence: when we open the heart's door, it is He Himself
who enters in. In Revelation 3:20 John wrote that Jesus said:
"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear
my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will
sup with him, and he with me." And it was the same John
who told us how awareness of His presence within is brought home
to us, when he said, "And hereby we know that he abideth
in us, by the spirit which he hath given us" (1 John 3:24).
In the same Epistle he wrote "Ye are of God, little children,
and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you,
than he [that is, Satan] that is in the world" (1 John 4:4).
And again, "And this is the record, that God hath given
to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath
the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not
life" (1 John 5:11,12).
In describing the conflict in himself
which, like the rest of us Paul also experienced, he could nevertheless
take great comfort from the knowledge that the new Paul delighted
in the law of God. Why? If we render the Greek of Romans 7:22
literally, it is "according to the man inside." The
Authorized Version has "after the inward man," but
the real source of Paul's new life was Jesus Christ, the Man
Like the precious ointment in Mary's
alabaster vase (Mark 14:3), we have this treasure in these earthen
vessels of ours (2 Corinthians 4:7). The treasure is the Lord
Jesus Christ Himself. It is by Him that we "are filled with
the fruits of righteousness" (Philippians 1:11) and therefore
"filled with all joy and peace in believing" (Romans
15:13). In Ephesians 3:19 Paul writes praying that we may be
"filled with all the fulness of God." And what is the
fullness of God? Jesus Christ -- "For in him dwelleth all
the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9); "for
it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell"
(Col. 1:19)
Consequently, when all these apportioned
"fillings" within the individual are summed together,
the end result is "His Body," the fulness of Him that
filleth all in all. Thus in due time we shall all
come in the unity of
the faith "unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature
of the fulness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:15).
The Seed which is introduced into
the new man is Christ (Galatians 3:16), and this Seed is sinless.
The Seed which is born in the believer is incorruptible (1 Peter
1:23) for it is Christ Himself. I am persuaded that this is the
meaning of 1 John 3:9: "Whosoever is born of God doth not
commit sin; for his [God's] seed [Christ] remaineth in him [the
believer]: and he cannot sin because he [Christ] is born of God."
That portion of Jesus which He is pleased to commit into my keeping
and into your keeping, a portion which is exactly suited to my
nature or to your nature, is incorruptible and cannot be the
source of any sin. If we will allow Him, He will grow at the
expense of our old nature, the new Adam displacing the old. Christianity,
unlike all other religions, is incarnational in the sense that
God proposes to set free in the world through the believer the
Lord Jesus so that the new life becomes nothing less than Himself
reliving in us. (40)
Although it is the same Lord who
unveils Himself in each child of God, the unveiling in some measure
takes the shape of the vessel it indwells so that, contrary to
expectations, no two Christians will have the same character,
even though it is the same Lord who indwells them. It is true
that if any man be in Christ Jesus he is a new creature, old
things have passed away, behold, all things have become new (2
Corinthians 5:17). Yet not all old things have passed away. While
the old self is not reformed, it is not simply replaced either.
It is a common experience to find that in a subtle way something
of the old personality does remain. Simply to by-pass it, to
cast the old self aside as meaningless, would seem to do violence
to all that the experiences of the past have contributed to its
molding. Almost every child of God can look back and see how
at certain critical points before conversion, the hand of the
Lord had been at work arranging events so that experience might
act upon the soul to form a certain kind of character.
The fact is that in each one of
us Christ "distributes" Himself aptly, as experience
has molded our capacity to receive His person. As Dan Crawford
put it, looking back over twenty-two years without a break in
Central Africa, "With the converted African, Christ's mercy,
like the water in a vase, takes the shape of the vessel that
holds it." (41)
And I do not think he meant by this only that the Lord expects
no more of us than circumstance has prepared us for, but rather
40. See further on this, "The Development
of Personality: The Old and the New," Part IV in Man
in Adam and in Christ, vol.3 in The Doorway Papers Series
41. Crawford, D. M. C., Thinking Black, Morgan and Scott,
London, , 1914, p.484.
He finds ways of expressing
His own Person to the fullest possible extent without doing any
violence to what we have become. He respects not merely our limitations,
but our capacities, too. Culturally, the African Christian is
still an African, as the Hebrew Christian remains Hebrew. Moreover,
the converted child remains a child, and the converted woman
remains a woman, even though it is the same Lord who is expressing
Himself in each.
It is not too difficult to see
how this can be. The structure of every kind of personality existed
in the first man and has since been divided by inheritance, fragmented
and re-distributed by natural circumstance so that each of us
has a small portion of the total potential and all of us together
may perhaps sum up what was latent in Adam. In Adam all of us
were waiting to be born.
Out of Adam were derived not only
all men as individuals, but whole nations sharing a certain recognizable
temperament. The distinctive personality of the Chinese in contrast
to the Italian for example, however we may account for it (whether
by cultural influence or by heredity), was latent in Adam, only
as yet unexpressed.
When the Lord indwells the Chinese
Christian it is, as it were, a "Chinese indwelling,"
and with the African an "African indwelling." Humanly
it is inconceivable that a single person could so express himself
through such different channels without contradiction. But as
all these potentials were in Adam, so they were in Christ. Adam
could only consistently sustain one character because of his
human limitations, but no such limitations existed for the Son
of God. That this is really so is intimated for us in the New
Testament by the existence of four Gospels, each of which presents
us with a type of personality that seems distinct. (42) Matthew saw in Jesus a
kingly Person, Mark saw in Him precisely the opposite -- a Servant
par excellence. Luke saw in Jesus a man, pre-eminently Man
in every way; whereas John saw Him pre-eminently as the Son of
God. All these were seen by different people in one man, apparently
without any conflict. We are not particularly aware of this divergence
of view either, until it is drawn to our attention.
I am sure other such portraits
might easily have been written and preserved for us as Gospels
had God so wished it. One might have been written by a Negro
who, living as one of the disciples and spending much of each
day in His presence, would nevertheless have somehow seen Jesus
as a Negro like himself, not merely in temperament,
42. The four-fold portrait of Jesus: see chapter 3 of
"The Harmony of Contradiction" Part
II in Hidden Things of God's Revelation, vol.7 of The Doorway
Papers Series
but even in facial aspect
and skin colour. One might have been so written, but it would
be misleading if it overlooked the fact that half of the Lord's
genetic complement was derived through Mary, who was a Jewess
and presumably not coloured, else Joseph would not have been
willing to adopt Him as his legal son. But this complement still
only accounted for half of the total. We have no way of
knowing about the other half which God the Holy Spirit provided.
I think it is a terrible mistake
that we should presume to portray Jesus Christ as a white man,
and it is certainly in direct contravention to the injunction
against the making of images. Many black men who are now prominent
leaders in America and who are violently anti-white state that
they reject Christianity outright because Jesus was a white man.
(43) He was
a white man; but He was also a Negro, Chinese, and American Indian.
He was all men. He was the Son of man, of mankind. And
He was all these things because He was Adam again, out of whom
all these were originated in the first place.
It is not at all uncommon nowadays
to see Christmas cards in which Jesus is represented as a "national"
by the people who produce the card. I have examples of Hawaiian
pictures of this kind, Negro pictures, and Chinese pictures.
They are all perfectly justified in one sense only: namely, that
Jesus is identified appropriately as a Saviour who was a Hawaiian,
a Negro, or a Chinese. Yet in all other ways such pictures are
quite inappropriate, since in the very nature of the case they
exclude His identification with men of other races. There is
no way of producing "images" or pictures of the Lord
which do not distort the truth, even while they may in a small
way clarify it. The truth here is spiritually, not visually,
What seems to me quite clear is
that from the very beginning God planned the creation of man
along such lines as to make it possible for all men to be redeemed
with a total redemption that ensures, if they will but accept
it, the ultimate salvation of the whole man in all his individuality,
black or white, young or old, male or female. And the full glory
of this redemption will be mediated entirely through the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. In a unique way each child of God will
be a perfected spirit in a glorified body, our spirit a reflection
of His and our body re-fashioned like unto His glorified body,
but still identifiable as the individuals we are; yet
43. As an example, the black novelist James
Baldwin was quoted in Time magazine for July 19, 1968,
as saying that he rejected Christianity completely because "the
Christ I was presented with, though He was born in Nazareth under
a hot sun, was presented to me with blue eyes and blonde hair;
and all the virtues to which I, as a black man, was expected
to aspire to had by definition to be white."
owing everything to
one man, the man Christ Jesus. And it required that all be derived
originally out of one and not out of two who had independent
Only God could have formed
such a plan as this.
O the depth of the riches both
of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his
judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known
the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counselor?
For of him, and through him, and
to him are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.
(Romans 11:33, 34, 36)
O the depth of the riches both
of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his
judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known
the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counselor?
For of him, and through him, and
to him are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.
(Romans 11:33, 34, 36)


text:
Client: Gemma Power Systems
Location: Oxford, Connecticut
POWER Engineers provided detailed engineering and design services for the CPV Towantic Energy Center located in Oxford, Connecticut. The plant is an 805 MW combined cycle electric generating station based on a 2×1 plant configuration and featuring GE 7HA.01 combustion turbine and steam turbine technology. The facility includes an air-cooled condenser and dual-fuel operational capabilities and supplies power to more than 800,000 Connecticut homes. POWER also provided engineering and design of the associated 14-breaker utility switchyard to the switchyard contractor.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
US Stocks Higher in New Year Trade
NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S. stocks are starting the new year higher thanks in part to gains in technology companies and retailers, some of the market's biggest gainers from 2017. Natural gas prices are rising as cold weather continues to grip much of the U.S. Bond yields are also rising. Asian stocks climbed following strong economic data from China.
KEEPING SCORE: The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 14 points, or 0.5 percent, to 2,687 as of 10 a.m. Eastern time as investors got back to trading following a break for New Year's Day on Monday. The S&P 500 built on its 19 percent climb in 2017. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 110 points, or 0.5 percent, to 24,829. The Nasdaq composite jumped 65 points, or 1 percent, to 6,968. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks gained 8 points, or 0.6 percent, to 1,544.
CAN THEY DO IT AGAIN: Facebook rose $2.04, or 1.2 percent, to $178.50 and chipmaker Nvidia advanced $2.47, or 1.3 percent, to $195.97 as technology companies opened higher. The technology index of the S&P 500 surged almost 37 percent last year as big names including Facebook, Apple and Microsoft reached all-time highs. The Nasdaq climbed 28 percent.
Retailers also moved higher. Amazon added $9.22 to $1,178.70. Target rose $1.53, or 2.34 percent, to $66.78 and Kohl's added $1.57, or 2.9 percent, to $55.80. Early indications suggest shoppers had a busy holiday season and investors will look for confirmation of those reports in the weeks to come. Media companies also did well in the early going. Netflix jumped $6.02, or 3.1 percent, to $197.98.
BONDS: Bond prices slid. The 10-year Treasury note advanced to 2.45 percent from 2.41 percent. The yield on 2-year note rose to 1.92 percent from 1.89 percent.
The increase in bond yields sent high-dividend stocks like utilities, household goods and real estate companies lower. Higher bond yields make those stocks less appealing to investors seeking income.
The Federal Reserve expects to keep raising interest rates this year. If so, it will do it under new leadership, as Fed governor Jerome Powell will replace Chair Janet Yellen in February.
FORCE-FUL PERFORMANCE: On the last day of the year, "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" surpassed "Beauty and the Beast" as the top grossing film in North America in 2017. Its gross will reach $1 billion in the next few days even before the movie opens in China. Both "The Last Jedi" and the live-action "Beauty and the Beast" were made by Disney, which rose $1.79, or 1.7 percent, to $109.30 Tuesday morning.
NEW YEARS' RESOLUTION: Weight Watchers International climbed after it struck a deal with producer and recording artist DJ Khaled, who will represent the brand to millions of follows on Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Weight Watchers got a big boost a few years ago from a deal with Oprah Winfrey that also included a substantial investment in the company. Its stock added $2.51, or 5.7 percent, to $46.79.
ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude dipped 6 cents to $60.36 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, used to price international oils, fell 20 cents to $66.67 barrel in London. A rally late in the year sent crude oil to its highest price since June 2015.
Natural gas futures climbed 10 cents, or 3.5 percent, to $3.06 per 1,000 cubic feet. Natural gas is mostly used to heat homes and demand often rises in frigid weather.
CURRENCY: The dollar fell to 112.20 yen from 112.64 yen. The euro rose to $1.2044 from $1.2012. The dollar declined steadily in 2017 and the ICE U.S. dollar index slumped 10 percent, its biggest decline since 2003. The improved global economy was responsible for much of that decline, however, and the weaker dollar makes U.S. exports less expensive in other markets.
OVERSEAS: Germany's DAX fell 0.8 percent and France's CAC 40 shed 0.6 percent. The British FTSE 100 retreated 0.5 percent. Markets were more upbeat earlier in Asia following some strong economic reports.
A survey by Chinese business magazine Caixin found manufacturing grew in December at the fastest rate in four months. In India, a survey showed manufacturing hit a five-year high in December. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong gained 2 percent to and Seoul's Kospi gained 0.5 percent. Markets in Japan were closed for a holiday.


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12 Days of Patchmas – Day 6
"The best way to spread Christmas Cheer, is singing loud for all to hear." – Buddy, Elf (2003 movie)
We've updated your favourite Christmas carols for Day 6th of our 12 Days of Patchmas! The classic songs of the season have been laid out and designed by our team, and are ready for you to print out and enjoy. Festive songs deserve to be showcased in a festive way!
Click here to download our printable Christmas Carol sheets now!


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The importance of Corporate Nursing in Healthcare 2020
Prior to 2020, Corporate Nursing was somewhat of an unknown phenomenon. While Corporate Nurses have been around for years, the pandemic has seen a surge in the requirement for these sorts of professionals to assist larger organisations to ensure they are taking the correct measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. What exactly is Corporate … Continued


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19 Seriously Stylish Rooms That Rock The Color Green
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It's not easy being green. Unless you're literally any one of these rooms. Whether you're using the color as a nature-inspired neutral or as a vibrant, bold statement, green has a way of calming us and making us feel at one with the natural world. From emerald sofas and jungle green tiles to sage walls and minty draperies, all of these homes have me feeling green with envy. What about you? READ MORE »


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The Impossible Mission
I didn't have a name for this until yesterday.
I read the Airstrike Impossible trope, and realized what it was I was struggling with in Bliss Stage that I knew didn't exist in D&D.
When a task overwhelms a character in D&D, they often die — this may be monsters, a trap, or whatever. The world of D&D is perilous but you ultimately answer the question of whether the characters will overcome the challenge. Individual encounters are less about "will" they win, and more about "how."
And yet, Bliss Stage is somehow more perilous. Why?
Partly, I think it's because the dynamic is reversed. How the characters succeed (or fail) isn't answered except when a Pilot dies or Bliss-es out. It's on a per-encounter basis that you discover whether they will succeed.
And I think this is because the characters largely tend to survive encounters, at least in the beginning. The game is practically built around developing relationships, so it's assumed characters will survive initially.
Even if the Pilot "abandoned safety" in every encounter of their very first mission, it would take six encounters to kill them by the numbers.
How is any of this significant?
In Bliss Stage, virtually every mission the Pilots embark on is a suicide mission. No one comes out of a mission completely unscathed — but there wouldn't be a game if everyone simply died, so other effects must come into play.
However in D&D, any encounter might feasibly result in the death of an unlucky PC — this is more likely in some editions of the game than others — and while special circumstances may exist, the main way to die is by running out of hp.
There two main ways to die in Bliss Stage, so there's this complex relationship between life and death, and the characters in the game. And relationships only seem to get more complicated the longer I think about them.
What am I saying doesn't exist in D&D?
The Impossible Mission. The Suicide Mission. The subsequent fallout — because the question of how you succeed is answered during encounters, consequences are immediately known and available to you. "Did you die?"
"Not today."


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Here's a classic example of a deal I'd previously only share with my friends and family on Facebook. I hate posting anything that's not a straight up freebie, but passing on a free $176 is too hard. If even one Hiffer gets this, I'll be happy.
Basically, new members to Capital One 360 (previously known as ING Direct) can earn $76 by opening a free 360 Savings account before July 3. After that, you can earn an additional $100 by opening a free 360 Checking account before July 3 as well. Want more details?
- Apply for a free 360 Savings account.
- Deposit $500 or more into your account.
That's it. The $76 should hit your account by July 4th. At that point you'll have $576 in your account and you can withdraw your initial deposit. It's worth noting the free $76 can't be withdrawn from your account for 30 days. Though I don't really see a drawback to that since you'll earn interest on it and the withdrawal limit is lifted by August.
I personally use my 360 account as an emergency fund. You never know when you're suffer an accident or find a really great deal on a vintage Ninja Turtles lunch box.
Now getting the $100 requires a few more steps, but it's still pretty easy.
- Apply for a free 360 Checking account.
- Use your debit card to make 5 purchases OR use CheckMate to make 5 deposits OR any combo of the two that equals 5 withint 45 days.
- $100 will be added to your account.
Again, after you make 5 total deposits or purchases, you trigger should activate, you'll get the $100, and you can do whatever you want with the cash. I read through the fine print and didn't see any specifications on the deposits, so I'm telling my friends to simply open the Checking account then make 5 small deposits of $5 or $10 each.
So there you go. I don't know about you, but $176 sounds good to me. If you have any questions, leave a comment and I'll do my best to answer them!


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So here goes with my first 'Meet the Maker'. Just a little idea I had to indulge myself in all things crafty, to get to take lovely photos and then get to share it with all of you.
I've always been fascinated by crafts and crafts people. I used to own a wrought Iron hook made at a farm show when I was about 6. I was transfixed by the Blacksmith, taking a rod of Iron and turning it into beautifully crafted items. I think the purchased hook was a way of getting me to leave the stand so that the rest of my family (not quite so enamoured by a sweaty man beating a piece of metal with a hammer could do something more interesting. I don't have the hook anymore, it must have been lost during some move or another in my life, but the memory remains. It takes great skill and understanding of the materials you are using to be a great craftsperson but you shouldn't let that be a barrier to learning something new, we all start somewhere and very few of us ever become skilled to such a high level. For me it's the learning and the actual doing from which I gain the most satisfaction! The physical action of taking a material (whether that be clay, wool, wood or paper) and turning it into something else, something useful or just beautiful is ingrained in my being. I feel like a bit of a prat when I say 'I can't not make' but its so true. My first thought is always how can I make that rather than where can I buy that. Maybe in part this is because I'm a bit of a skinflint or at least never earnt huge amounts of money that means I can buy the things I might like to surround myself with. Or maybe it's just because I like the individual nature of handmade things, that fact that you can choose exactly what colour it will be and what size and what buttons you'll put on it. There in theory is no compromise as it's up to you what you decide to create.
So with this in mind, a nice shiny new blog to share scrumptious pictures on and a desire to get out and photograph more personal work I decided to start a series on 'Makers'. There are no specific requirements other than, it interests me, gotta be selfish sometimes and I am particularly interested in people who have a strong care for the environment (in other words they make a conscious effort for their craft not to negatively impact on the environment) or people who recycle, reuse or repurpose. I'm not bothered if it's your profession or your hobby, all that matters is that you're passionate about it and fancy sharing some of that passion and possibly some knowledge in an attempt to encourage others to have a go.
Our first maker is Irene. I met Irene through Rache at Green & Gorgeous where I go to photograph flowers and teach flower photography course. She used to work there so has been the (fairly) willing subject of my photography before. One of the lovely things about working somewhere like Green & Gorgeous is that like generally attracts like so I've been lucky enough to meet lots of wonderful people.
Rachel, Irene and I went to 'Unravel' to ogle all things woolly and I discovered just how much Irene loves wool. (We of course all left that day clutching something to take home and make! No great surprise there)
So we set a date and I arrived to photograph the process she goes through from an unwashed fleece to her weaving loom. It was fascinating. I've tried spinning and carding (explained later) years ago when I was about 12 I guess. I collected a load of wool of a barbed wire fence and a friend of the family showed me how to brush the wool and then attempt to spin it. I certainly didn't get hooked back then but I would have needed a load of kit and definitely didn't have the money at 12! Fast forward a few years and I went home buzzing, had the most amazing dream about a smiling yellow sheep that I bought and turned into a jumper. Anyway I digress that's another post!
Walking into Irene's home there are lovely handmade things everywhere, so many beautifully woven things and evidence of her experiments with Indigo dying and many other things! What follows is not an hugely in depth description of every part of the process it's a taster to pique your interest. Please ask any questions if you're interested though and I will do my best to get you an answer.
I asked Irene to say a few words on what got her started with weaving so here are a few words from the lovely lady herself.
"For as long as I can remember, I have enjoyed making things.Over the years I have tried several crafts, including pottery and stained glass making, but didn't stick with them. However, I have always loved wool, but have never really got on with knitting, and about ten years ago decided I would like to try weaving. I started by having lessons with a local weaver, then went and did a couple of courses with Janet Phillips, a very talented weaver who has also written a couple of books. I just love weaving! The fact that it is a very ancient craft, the planning of a project, winding a warp,putting the warp on the loom, setting it up then weaving. There is such a huge variety of things you can make with weaving and then theres spinning and dyeing, I found one thing leads to another….the possibilities are endless! I joined the Oxford Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers where you can meet like minded people and learn from them."
This is a fleece, the coat of a sheep 🙂 and as you can see from the photo below you can get a good quality fleece for not a lot of money. At this stage the fleece has literally just been shorn from the sheep, so it will still be grubby and have bits of grass or whatever said sheep might have dragged itself through. There are many different types of sheep so many different types of fleece available each with their own unique qualities and colours lock length and crimp (those are terms I have a lot to learn about, all I know at the moment is that the length is the actual length of the fibre, longer fibers are generally easier to spin and can be spun finer. The 'crimp' is how frizzy or curly it is, other than that it's a mystery to me!)
If your fleece is in a good clean condition it may well be possible to spin it without first washing and carding (brushing all the fibres into the same direction). If however it's quite dirty, the locks are too stuck together and it's full of knots of lumps of grass and other detritus then it's best to clean it up first.
We only worked on a small amount of fleece for the purposes of demonstrating the process. Irene separated a quantity of the wool that would fit in her sink and still have room to move freely when it was full of water. A good squirt of washing up liquid was added to warm running water to make sure that it was well mixed in before the wool was added. Warm water can be used ,and is better for cleaning the fleece, however, the fleece should be rinsed in water of the same temperature,and should not be agitated otherwise the fleece could felt.
Drain then gently squeeze the wool to get the majority of the water out. Lay it on an old towel and then roll up and twist to get as much water out as possible. Then you can lay it out to dry.
The next step is to 'Card' the wool. This can be done in either a machine (which you still have to rotate manually) or with hand carders. (in the basket below). To use the hand carders you place the wool on the left hand card, with all the locks of wool facing the same way then you pull the right hand card over, dragging the fibres in the same direction. then you pull the fibres off one card and replace on the other and repeat. It's more complicated than that and I found this great video to teach me, there's so much more technique involved than you'd initially think!!! How to Card wool
I will post more about this as this is how I'm going to process my fleece (Did I mention Irene gave me a fleece? I know, like I don't have enough to do! but you know after the yellow sheep dream it seemed like fate!) and I'm already learning that it's great for arm muscles and takes a lot of practice! Good fun though.
Irene usually uses an Ashford Drum Carder. The fleece still needs to be separated into staples and those staples teased out to make the carding easier but these bits of fleece are placed on the 'Licker' and gently pushed so that the first smaller roller collects them and transfers them onto the larger roller. The idea is to not put too much on the licker in one go but you can do a few lickers full before the large drum needs to have the wool removed.
When the wool is removed from the drum it's called a Batt and then when it's rolled up it's called a Rollag. The Rollag helps when spinning as all the fibres are now laying in the same direction and can be pulled easily from each other. Using a drum machine for longer fibers should give you a better result when spinning, particularly fine wools, as with the drum there's more chance that more fibres will be laying neatly in the same direction than with hand carders. Now on to the spinning!
Irene's spinning wheel was a little different to what I was expecting. It's an Ashford Joy 2 Single Treadle wheel that flat packs into a bag so you can pack it up and take it with you! You start by threading a piece of yarn called the leader,through the 'orifice and onto the bobbin so that you have a starting point. Pull a small amount of fibre from your rolag and twist the leader yarn and the fibre together, lightly applying pressure to the treadle so that bobbin starts to spin, as it spins the fibre starts to twist. As the yarn is created it is wrapped around the bobbin. Now the trick is to pull the fibre from the rolag at a nice consistent speed so that your new yarn is created even. Here in lies the skill and where the practice is needed. (I'm imagining my first yarn to be more than a little lumpy, but that has it's own charm right!) You can change the thickness of the new yarn by drawing more or less yarn from the rolag.
Because you are basically just twisting the yarn the only thing stopping it from coming undone is the fact that it's being wound onto the bobbin. This can cause problems later is the yarn will twist back on itself as soon as the tension is removed. You can solve this by plying the yarn, twisting two single ply yarns together so that they twist on themselves creating a 2 ply yarn. This is done on the spinning wheel. Fill two bobbins with your single ply yarn, then ply onto a third bobbin on the wheel, spinning anti clockwise.
In order to further wash and dye your yarn it needs to be wound into a skein. The skein stops the wool from getting tangled whilst at the same time allowing water and dye to move all around all the yarn, making sure of even coverage.
To make a skein you need a Niddy Noddy (I know! what a great name, I'd like one just so I can say 'Can someone please hand me my Niddy Noddy'). Once the yarn is wound on it's tied, loosely, at 4 points and can then be taken off.
We're not going to touch on dyeing in this post, way too much info! After you've dyed or washed the wool in a skein you can then wind it into a ball. The manual way of doing this is with a Nostepinne. A Nostepinne is a turned piece of wood, slightly tapered so you can easily slide your ball of wool off. by twisting the Nostepinne slowly and evenly as you wind the wool you can create lovely looking balls of wool. Take care not to pull the yarn tight as this can stretch it and also flatten the yarn meaning that it will lose some of it's original texture if it's left wound for too long.
The alternative to hand winding your yarn into a ball is to use an Umbrella Swift. You can see Irene her loading the umbrella swift with a skein of wool she'd purchased from Unravel. The swift can be opened to fit different sized skeins. It's an elegant looking thing isn't it! Bit fiddly to set up, but once you have it so that the skein is pulled tight enough to sit in the middle of the swift but not pulled taught you can undo the bits of wool used to hold the skein together. Lastly untie the ends so that you can start to wind the wool off.
Next is the Ball Winder (nice simple one to rememeber ha-ha). Attach the wool, wind the handle and you're off. Next thing you know you have a beautifully evenly wound ball of wool. Ta-da!
Weaving! This is going to be the briefest of introductions, there's so much involved, but hopefully it will go someway to demystifying it a little. Irene has quite a big loom, as in it really needs it's own room. You do not need a loom this big, you can get little table top ones, hand held ones, hanging ones. Something to suit everyone and every space
Irene had very kindly set up her loom with all the warp threads in place and had a started a piece of weaving so that I could see how moving the foot pedals helps her create the pattern in the finished fabric.
The Warp is the set of threads that run from the back to the front of the loom. Irene's loom is a 4 shaft loom, which has 6 foot pedals, each pedal is tied up to a combination of the 4 shafts, depending on the pattern being woven. The warp threads are individually threaded through the heddles. These are long thin pieces of wire each with a small loop through which the warp threads are passed.The order in which the warp threads are threaded through the heddles helps determine the finished pattern. Once the heddles are all threaded, the pedals are used to change the shafts. So all heddles on shaft 4 will move when pedal 4 is pressed. In this way ,by pressing the pedals and changing shafts in different orders a myriad of patterns can be woven.
You can of course create your own patterns, but if like me you're already a little befuddled by the whole thing I think the above book looks like a bloody good place to start! Like Irene said to me, there are enough patterns in this book to keep her going for years!!!
Irene writes out the patterns (Lifting Plans) from the books so that she knows which pedals to press on which rows to create her chosen pattern.
Next step: The Weft. This is the thread that goes from side to side and is the working thread. The wool is wound onto a smaller bobbin, the bobbin fits inside a shuttle. The shuttle is then thrown from side to side, through the weft and beaten down by the beater.
I love the fact that there are so many possibilities with weaving. In all honestly until I went through this process with Irene I'd always thought weaving was a bit restrictive but now I can see that thats not the case at all. If you want every single warp thread could be a different colour and you can vary the thickness and type of thread used and the patterns and….. like I said the possibilities are endless!
Below are a whole range of different items that Irene has made. I'm particularly liking the rug and blankets and thinking this might be a good direction to go in with my 'I dreamed of a yellow sheep' project.
I want to extend the hugest of thank you's to Irene for sharing with me her passion and enthusiasm for all things wooly! I left totally inspired and with the desire to learn new skills and the promise to return to experiment with some natural dying. I hope this has given you a little insight into how much work goes into producing something as simple as a cushion cover but also how much fun it can be!
Stay tuned for updates on my personal journey with my fleece, there'll be a blog on Stage 1 coming soon.


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ST. PAUL, Minnesota (CNN) -- Tonight, it starts for real.
Sen. John McCain will accept his party's nomination for president this week.
After a day of watching updates on Hurricane Gustav and taking care of some mundane procedural affairs, the 39th Republican National Convention will get down to the serious business of politics Tuesday evening in the midst of what may be the most inhospitable climate for the GOP since the Great Depression.
Gustav's domination of the news cycle is only the latest in a series of daunting obstacles for Sen. John McCain and the Republican Party this year.
With only nine weeks to go before voters head to the polls, President Bush is mired in Watergate-level approval ratings. Most people believe that the economy is in tatters. The war in Iraq remains deeply unpopular. Fewer than one in five voters believes that the country is on the right track.
Democrats are far more enthusiastic about voting this fall than Republicans. The GOP's congressional candidates appear headed for a shellacking in November.
Retiring Republican Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia may have put it best in a reference he made about the House GOP caucus this year: The "Republican brand is so bad right now that if it were a dog food, they'd take it off the shelf."
And yet, in spite of that bleak backdrop, McCain is nearly tied with Democratic nominee Barack Obama in most national polls. Watch Bill Schneider's polling analysis »
The latest CNN poll of polls -- an average of the most recent national surveys -- shows Obama leading McCain by 5 points, 49 percent to 44 percent. A clear majority of voters does not appear to be sold on Obama, and McCain's maverick reputation is keeping the race close.
So what exactly does McCain need to accomplish in what is, at least at the start, a subdued convention partly overshadowed by a hurricane? There are four key items on his convention to-do list.
First, reintroduce the public to war hero John McCain.
Democratic strategists want voters to think of McCain as an out-of-touch Beltway insider who doesn't know how many houses he owns.
Republican strategists want voters to think of McCain as the fighter pilot who spent more than five years in one house: the Hanoi Hilton.
The spotlight was initially going to shine most brightly on McCain's military record on Monday, a day convention organizers planned to focus on the theme of national service. Expect that to now be pushed back to Tuesday or later.
Second, McCain needs to make it clear that his first term will not be Bush's third term.
After watching the Democratic Convention last week, a casual political observer could be excused for confusing McCain with Dick Cheney. Speaker after speaker referred to an endless litany of failed "Bush-McCain" policies, a simple but potentially devastating strategy in a year in which most voters are hungry for change.
According to the August 23-24 CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, 50 percent of voters believe that McCain's policy positions and Bush's policy positions are indistinguishable; 49 percent believe they are different. McCain will have an exceedingly hard time finding 270 electoral votes in November if half of the electorate thinks he's the next Bush.
Over the past year, McCain has steadily shifted to the right in order to capture his party's nomination and placate the GOP base.
The Gov. Sarah Palin pick not only sealed the deal with conservatives; it fired them up. At this point, McCain may need to remind the larger general election electorate of the maverick senator who more than once has been willing to break with the Republican establishment on issues such as taxes, global warming, campaign finance, immigration, torture and the execution of the war.
Does this mean that McCain has to unveil a new moderate or even liberal policy agenda? No. But independents need to know that McCain is an independent thinker. They need to know he is willing to put the country ahead of his unpopular party.
In that vein, Bush's decision to skip the convention and instead travel to Texas to monitor Hurricane Gustav was a plus for McCain. While Bush will appear before the convention via satellite Tuesday night, the last thing McCain needed was a Democratic ad showing the unpopular president endorsing him in person in front of cheering delegates in St. Paul. iReport.com: Are you at the RNC? Share your story
Third, the McCain campaign can't afford to bungle Palin's rollout. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Just ask Dan Quayle.
McCain has taken a huge gamble by tapping the unknown, largely untested governor of Alaska. His hope is that she will continue to energize the GOP's economic and social conservative base while simultaneously closing the gender gap and buttressing his pro-reform image.
Palin currently has an approval rating of over 80 percent in her home state, in part due to her willingness to take on corruption in the Alaska GOP. Watch more on Palin's policies »
The downside? The McCain campaign has now undermined its argument that Obama is too inexperienced to sit in the Oval Office.
It's tough to argue that voters shouldn't support someone because he's been in the Senate less than four years when you're willing to entrust the presidency to someone who has been governor of a small state (in terms of population) for only twenty months. Before serving as governor, Palin was the mayor of Wasilla, an Anchorage suburb with a population of less than 7,000.
Obama's supporters are moving fast to label Palin as a dangerously inexperienced extremist. Palin is also struggling with the revelation of her 17-year old daughter's pregnancy, as well as allegations relating to a potential abuse of power tied to her firing of the state's public safety commissioner in July. Watch more on the Palin pregnancy announcement »
The convention will provide a critical opportunity for the McCain camp to put the best possible spin on these issues and instead ensure that voters see Palin as a fresh, energetic voice of change.
The fourth and final item on McCain's convention agenda: attack.
If the election of 2008 is indeed about the need for change, the easiest and most obvious option for voters is to change the party in the White House.
It's up to McCain to convince enough voters that Obama is too liberal, too inexperienced and too risky to sit in the Oval Office. McCain needs to use the convention to chip away at the public's largely positive image of the Democratic nominee. It will be awkward to do so right after asking Americans to put aside partisanship in the wake of Hurricane Gustav.
Getting all of these things done in three short days won't be easy. But if you're a Republican in this election cycle, nothing ever is.
All About John McCain • Republican Party • Sarah Palin


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Wednesday, March 19, 2014
This jars have painted last year just before I went to Turkey what is my old cheese jars. I painted this jars light pink blue and green color and i patterned them with stencil template. I decorated the lids with dantella and little wooden shapes.
Bu deniz temali olanlari da bir arkadasim siparis etti ve satin alip burdan Turkiyeye goturdu. Ben cok begenerek yaptim.
This year I started to make jars as coffee- tea -sugar jars. I noticed that there are many creative people who paint georgeous jars in the blog world. I realy jealous some painters. Thay make great jobs.
I painted this beach theme jars for my friend. I realy loved them.
My lovely spice jars. I love ginger bread cookie baby pictures.
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We offer Bat Mitzva Club for our students as well as for students from other schools that are in sixth grade and approaching this very important milestone in their lives. Students aged 11-13 in other grades are also welcome. Lessons take place every other week on Tuesdays from 5:30-8 p.m. during the first semester of the school year; February-June. Delicious dinners are included.
At the conclusion of the club, a beautiful party celebrates the initiation of religious maturity of the next generation's Jewish women! For more information, please reach out to us through our Contact Us page or call Chana at 4010-1616.


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Week in the Life - Day 2
I was too tired to post last night, so here's my account of yesterday.
Monday April 19th 2010:
A normal, busy Monday. Most days I feel like I am in constant motion, but by the end of the day wonder what I actually accomplished. I decided to record the chores/jobs/things I really DO do in a normal day so I can remember what it was like being a SAHM with two young children.
- Got boys up and dressed
- Made and ate breakfast with them
- Checked and answered emails
- Cleaned up breakfast dishes/kitchen
- Put a load of towels in laundry
- Made beds, cleaned bathroom, tidied living room
- Played with boys - made a giant train track in rec room
- Answered and made 4 phone calls
- Switched out laundry - put a second load in
- Put Sam down for nap
- Continued working on new Page Paks - got 10 complete and another 10 half done
- Sat down to have a coffee and surfed favorite blogs for about 10 minutes while Grayson watched a movie
- Got Sam up from nap
- Made lunch for boys...ate on my feet while feeding them
- Packed Grayson's snack and prepared his backpack for school
- Cleaned up kitchen (and boys!) after lunch
- Brought Grayson to school
- Did banking
- Went to Wal-Mart to pick up a few pantry items
- Picked up my dad and went with him to Rona to choose a new facucet for his bathroom renovation
- Stopped at my favorite scrapbook store to pick up a new inkpad...and a couple of new shades of Copics (I told you I was now obsessed!)
- Dropped dad off at home and took Sam home for a nap
- Played with my new Copics for 15 minutes and had a cold drink
- Oops...got back to neglected laundry!
- Grayson came home from school and we played bubbles in the backyard
- Got Sam up from nap
- Started supper and got things ready for Grayson's first soccer practice of the year
- Mistimed supper and undercooked it. Inedible. Boys had cheese and crackers instead
- Got a call from hubby...he had been rear-ended coming home from work. He was OK but would be late and would have to meet us at the soccer practice
- Got both boys out the door and up to the soccer field
- Met with coaches and got filled in on equipment (I am equipment manager this year thanks to hubby "volunteering" me!)
- Watched Sam, visited with grandma, my BIL and his girlfriend, and cheered Grayson on
- Loaded equipment and boys back into Jeep and headed home
- Got boys changed into jammies and made milk/snack for them
- Read two bedtime storybooks
- Helped boys brush their teeth and get into bed
- Cleaned up mess from ruined dinner
- Talked with Shane about taxes, bills and household money while he was sorting that out
- Took last load of laundry out of dryer
- Collapsed to watch Dancing with the Stars
- Almost fell asleep on couch, so I drug my tired self off to bed after putting on dishwasher and tidying up once more
OK...that makes me feel a little better...I am tired just looking at the list that is so typical of what most of us moms do in a single day! And I have no clue how many diapers I changed or how many times i intervened between two squabbling brothers! So that's what a pretty normal day looks like around here. I am reminded of the quote I often see on mommy blogs by Mary Jean Iron:
"Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so."
How true, how true.Here are a few pics from my normal day:
2 comments
Thanks for sharing. I often wonder if I'm the only mom with those feelings. Clearly I am not. I think you're amazing. That's quite the list for one day. The boys are getting so big! Oh how time flies! Trying to catch up on LOM.ReplyDelete
It's amazing what it adds up to when it is written all down (and a little overwhelming!)! :)ReplyDelete


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There is quite a bit of chatter around deploying Serverless platforms on-premises either on their traditional virtualized infrastructure or private cloud. Does Serverless on servers in your own data center make any sense? Does it defeat the very idea of Serverless? In this post, we will take a look Serverless from the point of view of both public cloud services and on-premises.
First things first: Serverless has servers
One of the most meaningless debates in the Twitterverse is Serverless has servers. In fact, Serverless is a very bad term to describe the abstraction leading the debates in an orthogonal direction much like the DevOps-NoOps debate of the past. Finally, it is about the developer abstraction and who is responsible for managing the underlying compute resources needed to deploy the abstraction and the pricing model (about which we will discuss below). This debate is no different from the public vs private cloud or PaaS vs private PaaS of the past. Keeping this "Serverless has servers" talking point aside, let us take a look at both public cloud service and on-premises deployment to understand the differences.
Serverless on Public Clouds a.k.a Functions as a Service
I am a big believer in developer level abstractions and have argued that PaaS is the future of cloud services circa 2010. My argument then is that if cloud computing is about abstracting away the complexities of infrastructure provisioning, then it makes sense to abstract away the complexities of even the runtime, middleware, database provisioning, etc.. A real cloud, in my opinion then, should offer an interface for developers to push their code and everything underneath is abstracted away through automation. The pricing model should be more utility like and should not involve complex calculations like provisioning IaaS. PaaS was attractive, but it was not attractive enough to get everyone to using the abstraction at the platform level, part of which was driven by the difficulty in the pricing model. Heroku came closer to a simpler pricing model, but it was not enough.
Fast forward today, we have Functions as a Service (FaaS) as the right level of abstraction with an invocation based pricing which is more efficient than PaaS. Some reasons for the success of FaaS are:
- First, and foremost, reason is the simplicity of the developer interface. The ease with which developers can deploy the functions code, either with a simple zip file or docker containers or through webhooks to source repositories or other cloud storage services, is the single biggest reason for the success of FaaS. We have spoken with developers at both startups and enterprises and developer experience is cited as the main reason for adoption
- Second reason for the success is in the modularity of the application architecture it enables. Microservices was fast gaining mind share as the right architecture for cloud (with its distributed nature and ease with which the architecture could enable DevOps) and it helped FaaS getting traction because it fits right well with the Microservices architectures. The adoption of this architectural pattern in both startups and enterprises paved the way for friction free adoption of Serverless functions
- The third reason is the pricing model. FaaS has a much more efficient pricing model than PaaS. The invocation based pricing makes FaaS a very attractive candidate for many use cases. However, caution is required in how the functions use storage, invocations and duration of processing but, in most cases, this is much more efficient than IaaS or PaaS pricing
The success of FaaS, like cloud, is mostly developer driven. Developers are focussed on the efficient way to solve a problem and the abstraction provided by FaaS fits right into those needs.
Serverless On-Premises
If you look at the history of (cloud) computing, the abstraction that gains traction in the public clouds (IaaS, PaaS, DBaaS, BaaS, XaaS) gets replicated on-premises, mostly driven by legacy enterprise vendors wanting to compete with the web scale cloud providers. In that context, Serverless coming to on-premises is not entirely surprising. As more and more enterprises embrace the fail fast philosophy for continuous innovation, FaaS is attractive for them in the dev-test environment because it allows them to experiment without having to wait for CFO's nod. When their experiments succeed, they want to bring it on-premises for production deployment. This has lead to proliferation of Serverless inside the enterprise data centers (yes, I said proliferation because it is already deployed on-premises and you can also see it from the Twitter poll below).
Serverless on-premises initially gained industry attention when IBM announced OpenWhisk project (which was donated to Apache Foundation later). As Kubernetes gained traction inside the enterprise, many Serverless platform based on Kubernetes has come into the market. Projects like Kubeless, Nuclio, OpenFaaS, etc. are good examples of Kubernetes based Serverless offerings (see this Github repo for a more exhaustive list). In the case of On-Premises offerings, it is about bringing the abstraction to the enterprise customers not comfortable with public clouds. We have seen it happen with Red Hat OpenShift and Pivotal CloudFoundry for PaaS and we are seeing the same story repeats for Serverless.
Clearly, the adoption of Serverless on-premises is not driven by pricing but, rather, due to the developer abstraction. The invocation based pricing model will not apply because the costs of underlying infrastructure are not trigger based and the pricing model for the platform will be mostly socket or node based. CFOs and some enterprise decision makers might prefer the predictability of costs and are comfortable with the pricing models of on-premises offerings
Serverless On-Premises – Does it make sense?
— Krish Subramanian (@krishnan) April 24, 2018
Summing up
The success of FaaS is driven mostly by the seamless developer experience and the invocation based pricing made the bottoms up adoption possible. The adoption in on-premises Serverless platforms are driven by the IT's need to provide a developer abstraction that enables event driven functions and the comfort of predictability in the costs. The Serverless market is still in early stages. Large-scale mainstream adoption is expected to happen in the next 3-5 years.


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Building Energy Gulf DMCC
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- Fortune Tower JLT
- + 971 4 276 6711
- www.buildingenergy.it
The growing demand for energy, which is constantly increasing and now paramount in any discussion on world economic development, is currently addressed from a variety of different sources: fossil fuels, coal, nuclear and renewable energy. It is now clear that the latter, also in the wake of ever-increasing technological innovations and by virtue of the environmental appeal, will become an increasingly important and central component of this energy mix.
The first objective is to reduce the percentage of CO2 emissions – as it has long been asserted by the Kyoto Protocol and subsequent international agreements – in relation to the effects of greenhouse gases.
The second, no less important, is to achieve greater independence from fossil fuels and other non-renewable sources: increasingly expensive, harder to find, less healthy and more dangerous in terms of refinement and use.
Renewable energy also has the advantage that it can be installed in much more stable areas, available to everyone and less constrained by political and governmental issues.
Building Energy's mission is, therefore, to develop its business in countries where it has already been successful, consolidating major projects, and to enter those countries with high potential in the renewable-energy sector, and whose governments support renewables in order encourage and attract both foreign investors and companies able to develop financial instruments and handle the construction of renewable energy plants
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◆Model: W1A Diving Light
◆Bulb: CREE XP-E R3 LED (max 75 lumens)
◆Color temperature: 6500 K
◆One output level: high only
◆Runtime: 120 min
◆Reflector: orange peel aluminum reflector
◆1.5 mm polycarbonate lens
◆Body material: durable aircraft-grade aluminum.
◆Angle of light beam: ca. 16° hot spot
◆Surface treatment: premium anodizing
◆Color: Black / Red / Blue / Golden
◆Battery: AAA Battery * 1
◆With diving mask clip
◆With polarity reversing protection
◆Operation voltage: 1.5 V to 0.8 V
◆Waterproof: 100 Meters underwater
◆Dimensions: 77 mm (length)*14 mm (dia. of lamp body)* 17 mm (dia. of lamp head)
◆Weight in air: 20 g. (without battery); 31 g. (with battery)
◆Underwater weight: 12 g. (with battery)


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Joanne Stathoulis had thought the family dog was sleeping when she went to feed the 145-pound Siberian husky. A closer look, however, showed that the dog was dead.
"Animal Control said it was three to six coyotes," Stathoulis said. "It was a horrible sight."
Stanthoulis is one of a growing number of Los Angeles County residents who say coyotes are killing their pets and becoming increasingly aggressive and dangerous.
In Long Beach, animal control officers say they have taken 401 reports of coyote sightings so far this year compared with 260 last year. Of the calls this year, 40 involved another animal being killed.
In neighboring Seal Beach, two pets have been killed by coyotes this year and six other pets were attacked.
Many of the newer complaints about coyotes have come from the Belmont Shore area, said Ted Stevens, bureau manager of Long Beach Animal Care Services.
"They have been pretty vocal," Stevens said of residents.
Some say they are frustrated by a lack of help from cities and government agencies. Often, cities say there is no problem; it's just coyotes being coyotes. The agencies claim there's nothing they can do, that it's up to residents to keep their pets inside and follow precautions, such as not leaving water and pet food outside.
But Stathoulis and other residents coping with coyotes aren't convinced.
"Never in a million years did I think they'd go after my Siberian husky," said Stathoulis, who lives in Whittier. "We shouldn't wait until some kid, God forbid, gets killed."
Attacks rare
Ken Pellman, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Agriculture Commissioner, said providing protection and letting coyotes be coyotes is a "delicate balance."
The average coyote tops out at about 35 pounds and usually is intimidated by humans.
"When coyotes are being coyotes, there's no problem," he said. "If a coyote is not afraid of people, then that's a problem."
The agency's coyote program was started in response to the death of Kelly Keen, 3, who was killed by a coyote 33 years ago in her front yard in Glendale.
The attack prompted Glendale, which borders the Angeles National Forest, to adopt strict rules concerning wildlife, city spokesman Thomas R. Lorenz said.
"That was a wake-up call not only for the city of Glendale but for communities throughout the United States," he said.
At the time, many cities were dealing with new issues associated with encroachment, or suburbs springing up on land that was wildlife habitat, according to Lorenz.
The city responded with an aggressive program aimed at keeping coyotes, mountain lions and bears in check and teaching residents how to live with them.
When a coyote is found to be too aggressive, Glendale contracts with the L.A. Department of Agriculture to have the animal killed. He said that hasn't been necessary for more than six months.
If a resident calls with a coyote complaint in Long Beach, animal control will respond if there is an imminent threat, such as children playing outside, Stevens said.
"But if they're just running down the street, we're not going to respond to it," he said.
128 attacks
A study presented to the North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference in 2004 and updated in 2013, argues that coyotes in some areas are losing their fear of humans and becoming aggressive. The study documented 128 coyote attacks on humans between 1977 and 2013, the majority of them in Southern California.
Robert M. Timm, a UC wildlife specialist who co-authored the study, said the number of attacks could be underreported due to reluctance of some agencies to generate negative publicity and a growing attitude that coyote bites are no longer news.
"It is unfortunate that many cities, counties, or other entities, such as managers of public-use facilities such as parks, find themselves caught between groups of citizens with opposing philosophies and attitudes toward suburban coyote management," Timm said. "Those who have suffered losses or threats to pets or children would in many instances want coyotes eliminated from suburbia, which is not feasible or even possible in most instances."
Southern Californians have "provided them an environment rich in food resources, and sometimes fed them, perhaps out of a developing 'Disney mentality' toward wildlife," Timm wrote.
Coyote advocates
Project Coyote, a Larkspur-based nonprofit that promotes coexistence with coyotes, advocates learning to co-exist with coyotes and other wildlife as the best solution to the problem.
Coyotes are not big and scary, but have long legs and hair. They weigh 18 to 35 pounds, according to the project, led by executive director and founder Camilla Fox and actor Peter Coyote.
Coyote attacks get a lot of publicity but are rare given the size of the coyote population, said Fox. To coexist, communities need to make sure coyotes don't get comfortable in neighborhoods.
Residents also should be taught the important role coyotes play in maintaining a habitat's ecological balance, by eating rodents and unsocial animals such as skunks, said Fox. They also play an important role in preserving bird populations.
A "resident coyote presence" also keeps "transient" juvenile coyotes, which are prone to cause problems, from moving into a habitat, she said.
She disagrees with Timm and Baker on selective removal, saying there is no data that show it's effective. Teaching coexistence does work, however, she said, but it's a long-term educational effort.
As part of an effort to coexist, Project Coyote advises eliminating access to dumpsters, garbage, bird feeders and fallen fruit.
Domestic cats are another coyote favorite, so cats should be kept indoors.
"Coyotes are here to stay, we need to learn to live with them," said Fox.
To report a coyote in the Long Beach area, call Animal Care Services at 562-570-7387 or visit longbeach.gov/acs/wildlife/report.
Staff writer Joe Segura contributed to this report.


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What is the best treatment for my acne scars?
Case by case for every patient is different. There are many different factors that dictate the plan of action for acne scar removal. The following are some common factors:
- Type of acne scar
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- Genetics or luck for level of response to treatment
Feel free to call us to make an appointment for a complimentary consultation for your acne scar evaluation. Explore your options for your individual case.
We offer the following types of treatment for acne scar removal:
Gentle topical treatment options to remove scars
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- Medium depth peel, concentrated glycolic acid, salicylic acid or mild TCA
- Laser treatment
Deeper surgical options to remove scars
- Surgical scar revision, subcision only
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If you are suffering from acne, feel free to call us to make an appointment to see Dr. Shafa. During your appointment, Dr. Shafa will evaluate your skin as well as overall health. After the type and cause of acne is diagnosed, Dr. Shafa will explain the variety of treatment options best suited to your needs and help select the best regimen for you and your skin. If you have questions prior to your visit, please do not hesitate to ask here.


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Archive for June, 2016
Delta Goodrem Collection of 20 fabulous songs-Enjoy the journey into her Universe
1…Delta Goodrem – Lost Without You
2…Delta Goodrem – In This Life
3…Delta Goodrem – Wish You Were Here
4…Delta Goodrem – Sitting on Top of the World
5…Delta Goodrem – Not Me, Not I ( Music Video)
6…Innocent Eyes – Delta Goodrem
7…Delta Goodrem-Butterfly
8…Delta Goodrem – On My Own
9…Delta Goodrem a little too late
Former Voice contestant Christina Grimmie shot dead in Orlando
Singer Christina Grimmie, who had competed on the US TV programme The Voice, has died of her wounds after being shot in Florida, police say.
HELLO TEAM I wanted to give you a fun 30 second preview of each song, in short 30 second promo form! 😀 Hope you guys enjoy these little snippets of my brand new EP. PREORDER NOW! https://itunes.apple.com/us…
//Officially comes out February 21! Check me out on the Rachel Platten tour as well, tour dates & tickets here!
They say a man opened fire on her when she was signing autographs after a concert in Orlando.
The assailant – who was tackled by Ms Grimmie's brother – then shot and killed himself. The 22-year-old singer died in a local hospital.
In 2014, Ms Grimmie finished third during season six of The Voice.
In a tweet, Orlando's police wrote: "With deep regret, we have confirmed Christina Grimmie, @TheRealGrimmie has died from her injuries."
Meanwhile, Ms Grimmie's publicist said: "It is with a heavy heart that we can confirm that Christina has passed and went home to be with the Lord."
Police say Ms Grimmie was shot about 22:45 local time on Friday (02:45 GMT Saturday) at The Plaza Live in Orlando.
The gunman opened fire as she was signing autographs for fans with Before You Exit band.
The attacker, whose name has not been released, had two guns.
Orlando Police Department spokeswoman Wanda Miglio said Grimmie's brother "immediately tackled the suspect".
"During the struggle, the suspect shot himself. The suspect was pronounced dead at the scene," the spokeswoman said.
She described Ms Grimmie's brother as a "hero" for stopping the attacker "from not hurting anyone else".
A police investigation is now under way into how the suspect had managed to enter the venue with the firearms.
News of the attack spread quickly on social media, with many fans voicing their shock and anger.
Ms Grimmie first came to prominence as a teenager for her renditions of hit songs, amassing a huge following on YouTube.
In 2011, she released her debut musical recording Find Me. Her second EP – Side A – followed in February 2016.
Henry Sapiecha


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Horror Movies
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Halloween Movies: Top Horror Films Of 20172017 was a great year for horror films. Check out this list for the best of the best.
Haunting Melissa AppThere aren't a lot of horror stories that have worked well on mobile devices but Haunting Melissa is at the top of the class.
Movie Review: 'Insidious: Chapter 2'Chapter 2 isn't hideous, but it's just not Insidious. It lacks the first outing's capacity to disturb.
The Ten Greatest Zombie Movies EverA list of the top ten zombie movies of all-time.
Movie Review: 'A Haunted House'"A Haunted House" is a sorry sendup of the popular and legitimately disturbing quartet of "Paranormal Activity" chillers and other found-footage flicks.
The Five Scariest Movies EverSpike Eskin gives his top five scary movies of all time.
The 10 Best Halloween Movies Of All TimeIt's the season for scary movies, so gather the family and be prepared for some terror. Here are the choices for the 10 best Halloween movies of all time.


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Feature Spotlight
Feature Spotlight: How Springbot's eCommerce Reports Take the Guess Work Out of ROI
Every day, you take multiple marketing actions — creating social media posts, sending newsletters, optimizing triggered emails, building retargeting ads, and more. These actions produce a lot of data, and by a lot of data we mean big data. How can you take that information and turn it into valuable insights to guide your marketing strategy? We have…Read More
Feature Spotlight: 3 Ways to Beef Up Your Discount Strategy with Unique Coupon Codes
Coupon codes can be a powerful tool to incentivize shoppers to make a purchase. But what happens when more discounted purchases than you budgeted for are being made? This can happen when a customer shares one of your coupon codes on a deal site and the code is distributed to people outside of your typical…Read More
Feature Spotlight: Manage and Prove Your Social ROI All in One Place with Springbot's Social Hub
One of the core features of our platform is robust social media management and reporting capabilities. Over the past months, we've worked to gather extensive customer feedback and industry best practices to create a new and improved one-stop-shop for all of your store's social media management and reporting. Designed for Shopify, Magento and Magento 2.0…Read More
Feature Spotlight: Instagram Shop Drives More Product Conversions
Nearly a year ago, we released our first Instagram integration that monetizes retailers' profiles by allowing customers to shop their products right from the app. To do this, store owners create a custom landing page through their Springbot dashboard that features selected products from their stores with the option to go directly to the product…Read More
New Capabilities from Springbot Helps Merchants Analyze Customer Value to Better Drive Sales
Springbot automates RFM modeling to help online merchants segment and tailor messages to quickly target their most valuable customers Atlanta, GA (PRWeb) February 23, 2016 Atlanta – February 23, 2016 – Springbot today launched RFM Segments as a way to help retailers streamline the process of segmenting their customer purchase data so they can…Read More
How Springbot's New RFM Segments Helps You Identify Your Most Valuable Customers
Springbot's product development team is completely obsessed with making our platform more valuable for our customers, and we're completely okay with that. Their latest feature release reflects their dedication to providing value to our customers by showing them the value of their customers. The new feature, RFM Segments, automatically groups a store's customer base…Read More
Feature Spotlight: Creating Email Segments Can Be Overwhelming, But Not With Springbot
If you're a regular visitor of this blog, you've probably heard us say time and time again that approaching customers with a one-size-fits-all marketing strategy is a big marketing don't. Segmenting your emails is one of the best ways to personalize your marketing, and it can lead to a 58% higher click-through-rate for your emails.…Read More
Feature Spotlight: Our New Customer Segmentation and Reporting Capabilities
Imagine you are the marketing manager for an online eCommerce store. It's Friday afternoon and your boss emails you with a last minute request: "We are behind on our monthly revenue goal. I would like to figure out our top 3 buying segments and create an email campaign that targets them with an exclusive offer. Can…Read More
Springbot's New Feature Lets You Track Revenue, Cost, & ROI of Promo Codes
Remember the new upcoming feature for promo codes we talked about? It's here! We've officially launched Promo Codes so you can track the total revenue, orders generated, revenue lost, average order value, and return on investment for each of the promo codes you use. This means you won't have to spend hours manually calculating these…Read More
Coming Soon: Track the ROI of your Promo Codes with Springbot's Newest Feature
You may see an increase in sales when you send out a discount code to your customers, but how do you know which channels the code performs best on? Which promo code leads to a higher average order value than the others? How much are your promo codes cutting into your bottom line? What's the…Read More


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Spike Milligan
The History Press, 2003/02/08 - 354 ページ
The biography of Spike Milligan, one of the most gifted, creative individuals of our time, and remembered as a true comic genius. However, many people are unaware that he battled throughout his adult life against anxiety and depression, neither of which he was able to conquer.
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Single Parent
Puckoon and Oblomov
Poets Clowning 17 Milligan Writer 18 The Other Spike
The Black
Conservationist Publishers Note Postscript
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Alan appeared army arrived artist asked audience Australia band Battery beautiful became Bedsitting Room began Bernard Miles Bexhill Bill Hall Bill Hall Trio called comedy dance delighted Desmond despair England Eric Sykes eventually father feel felt film friends funny gave girl Goon Show Graham Stark happy Harry Secombe Idiot Weekly India Jane Jimmy Grafton jokes June Kidgell knew Larry Stephens later Laura Leo Milligan letter Lily lived London looked Michael Bentine Monkenhurst mother musicians never night Oblomov occasion Paddy pain perhaps Peter Sellers photographs play poems Poona programme Puckoon Rangoon remember Road Robert Graves scripts scriptwriter Sean seemed Shelagh Silé sort Spike Milligan stage success talent talk Terence Terence Milligan theatre There's thing Toni took tour trumpet wanted weeks writing wrote young


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That is often call a dream, implying that it is impossible. I refuse to be so defeatist.
I refuse for I know the bodies are piling up of women and girls in the sex trade. I refuse for I know the constant destruction of trauma for the women lucky enough to exit.
I refuse because I want men to be real men and not buy any other human for their sexual wants. I refuse because I want to be in a society that any man who make the choice to use the sex trade is scorned and punished.
I refuse to allow the sex trade profiteers make women and girls into fuck-holes and disposable objects. I refuse to allow the quicker way for organised crime to make billions is constant supply of prostituted women and girls.
I am proud to fight for abolition, I know for much of time it must done in small steps, sometimes steps so tiny that they appear invisible. But I can and will dream of giant steps.
I dream of the day when it seen as laughable that we ever thought that men were entitled to a constant supply of the whore-class. There so he has a living porn-toy, so he can masturbate into a living object. There so he can pour in her agony and degrade her – but the good whore not only takes it, but boosts his ego too. I dream that I wake into a world that find that unimaginable.
I dream that we punish all men who make the choice to buy any aspect of the sex trade, and we junk their excuses.
We must make men accountable for buying. If we are to fined them, then make at least three times higher than they were paying for the woman or girl. But for me, fines ain't good enough, for I believe men who make the choice to buy a woman or girl, don't take fines seriously. I believe that the majority of men who use prostitutes are likely to rape, likely to batter, likely to play at killing her – and even when "gentle and decent" see her as sub-human and with no rights to say no – than they should go to jail for violence against women.
I want to live in a society that views johns as criminals – and stops believing their excuses and whining. See them as criminals, and give back prostituted women and girls their dignity and pride.
I dream that I live in a society that does not think so small that it thinks placing prostitution indoors is the answer.
Do not believe the propaganda that indoors prostitution is safer – anyhow what make you think that for the prostituted being "safer" is good enough. Prostitutes want to be safe from all rapes, safe from all beatings, safe from being owned, safe from brainwashing, safe from murder, safe from STDs, safe from unwanted pregnancy, safe from forced into porn, and utterly safe from male hate.
All that happens whatever the location – indoors or street-based – for it is the choice of the johns and the profiteers the amount of violence forced into the prostitute.
Indoors prostitution is often isolated, and with johns with too much money who can torture for hours, for days or for months.
It can never be safe – no panic button, no bodyguard, no camera – will or does prevent a sadistic john from raping, torturing or murdering a whore who is indoors.
Any how, in the real world of most of indoors prostitution, there is no protection for the managers make their profit by allowing rich sadistic bastards have free rein. Indoors prostitution is a quick and easy way for the profiteers to get rich – all they need is a constant supply of disposable fuck-goods, and the market that supply any and all porn-dreams the johns want with living bodies.
That is a brothel, that is a sex club, that is a sauna, that is high-class escorting, that so-called girlfriend experience, that is computer renting out of the prostituted, that the windows in Amsterdam, that's what sex tourists seek, that is peep-shows and on and on and on.
Dream bigger – make all prostituted women and girls free – stop dividing them into good victim-type prostitutes and bad "empowered" whores. Grow up and see there is no safety for any woman or girl who men choose to buy and sell.
I dream that the profiteers of the prostitution are inside jails long-term, minimum of ten years. Why has that becomes so unthinkable.
The profiteers have lorded it whilst women and girls are raped in the hundreds or thousands, have lorded it whilst sexual torturing become her norm, have lorded it whilst their good are murdered, commit suicide or loses sanity. So why not chuck them into jail.
Dream harder that when we view porn we see the pain, the terror and the deep grief etched into the faces of the women and girls trapped inside the porn image. See that and say no more.
No more saying there is no harm done in porn – not whilst porn actresses are raped, are tortured, are killed, are driven to suicide, only cope by getting addicted to drugs or alcohol, are living with internal injuries and or STDs, survive by complete detachment from their body.
I want to never hear, see or read again that porn prevent rape. Go to hell with that – so the women inside porn are not full humans, that it what you saying when you discount their constant raping.
I dream that the producers of hard-core porn are throw away to jail with long sentences.
They have laughed at the endless rapes that are their cash cows, laughed as they invent more and more ways to sexually torture and degrade women and girls, laughed as their goods become addicted, commit suicide or get murdered, laugh away the sexual diseases and internal injuries – they laugh as they count their money.
Well, I dream of stopping that laughter as they rot in jail.
I dream that women and girls will exit the sex trade and will given specialise help to re-build their lives.
I dream that there can therapy and or counselling that is focus on the impacted trauma that far too many exited women have.
I dream that there is hearing and listening to what is to raped to the point that it no longer rape, but just the role you have to be to survived.
I dream that there is a hearing and listening that sex trade is an issue of human rights, an issue of industrial sexual torturing, an issue of being made sub-human.
I dream that all those who fight against male violence against women and girls make the voices of exited women central – learn from us the depths of male hatred, the depths of our scapegoating that delude the non-whore-class that they are relatively safe, the depths of our knowledge of how to survive the unbearable.
These are my dreams that mean abolition must be a reality.
Join my dreaming and force a real change.