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Hi to all track cycling fans,
I'm working on the realtime visualizations for the track cycling events of the Six-days racing, especially for the Madison. I have certain questions related to the range to which some data can vary. I haven't manage to find the actual data anywhere, so I would be very grateful if someone with knowledge of these things can answer my questions. It doesn't necessarily has to be from six days, the things you know from UCI world championships or Olympics are also very helpful.
Lap gains:
1. How long does it take on average for a rider to gain a lap? What about extreme case (the fastest lap gain you know of, or the slowest).
2. How often does a lap gain attempt fail? What is the percentage of successful lap gains? How often is this a result of nobody joining the rider in a pursuit, or of the peloton speeding up, or the errors of the rider?
3. How many lap gains are common for an one hour Madison? What about edge cases?
6 days specific questions:
1. As I understand, each six day racing has different rules with counting points, is true? Like in Six day Amsterdam 2014 racing each 200 points gained were converted into a lap. But that didn't happen on very the last event somehow, so the winner determination was unexpected for me. And those rules differ from race to race but I can't find the regulations anywhere. What is the most common practice of points/laps conversion? Does someone has a link to such regulations?
2. Do you know where I can find full description of one of the (possibly recent) six day races with listing of all of the events on each day and the points awarded for the winners? What would be the most helpful is the detailed results of some 6 days with the breakdown of scores and laps (like e.g. team A was a winner of the 6 days in London in 2015 and they got points for the following events, taking such places on such days: .... and gained N laps in the following events on such days: ... ). I have seen the link to http://results.sixday.com/ and was hoping to get data from there but the link never displayed any data, and I'm trying to access it for more than half a year already.
3. Is there a 6 day event where the full video coverage of all events is accessible?
4. How often does a lead change happen? How about the changes in the first 3 places?
5. What is the usual difference at the end of 6 days between leaders, mid-range riders and outsiders in terms of laps and points?
1. How often do extraordinary event happen, like crashes, disqualifications, race suspensions, accidental miss of the hand-sling?
Thank you so much!


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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is growing Canada's debt faster on a per capita basis than any other peacetime government leader in this country with the exception of those who struggled with recessions, says the Fraser Institute's director of fiscal studies.
"This is unprecedented in history," said the think-tank's Charles Lammam in an interview Tuesday. "You'd have to go back more than 100 years to see a prime minister who increased the debt without a recession or a world war."
Tuesday, the Fraser Institute released a report written by Lammam and co-author Hugh MacIntyre. Dubbed An Analysis of Federal Debt in Canada by Prime Ministers Since Confederation, the report, reveals the percentage by which all but three prime ministers either added or subtracted to the national debt, using as their metric the value of that debt in 2017 dollars on a per capita basis. Three prime ministers were excluded from the report because they served three months or less.
"Of the prime ministers who did not face a global conflict or economic downturn during their tenure, the analysis finds that by the end of his term in 2019, Justin Trudeau is expected to be the largest debt accumulator," states that report.
According to the report's authors, the current prime minister is expected to grow to national debt by 4.73 per cent by the end of his term of office.
"We're talking about $100 billion in federal debt," said Lammam. "That's approximately $1,400 for every man woman and child in Canada."
During war years or recessions, other prime ministers have added a lot more to the debt in percentage terms than the current prime minister.
The biggest percentage jump in the national debt came during the First World War and the recessions of Nova Scotia-born Prime Minister Robert Borden's tenure. According the Fraser Institute report, the Conservative prime minister almost tripled the national debt on a per capita basis, increasing it by 188 per cent.
Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, who served during the Second World War, two recessions and a couple of economic downturns, also massively added to the Canadian debt. King raised the debt by 145 per cent during his time in office. During his first stint in office – at a time when there was no global conflict - he had cut the debt by five per cent.
It's the current prime minister's father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who holds the dubious distinction of raising the country's debt by the third-highest percentage of 57 per cent. But the senior Trudeau also had to wrestled with economic troubles in Canada, including two recessions during his second term as prime minister.
When his son won the election to become the current prime minister in October two years ago, he inherited a far different fiscal reality from then outgoing Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
"(Prime Minister) Justin Trudeau came into office approximately halfway through the fiscal year and immediately increased government spending. These increases contributed to a budget deficit of $1 billion, whereas Harper's 2015 budget planned for a surplus of $1.4 billion," states the Fraser Institute report.

subset: commoncrawl


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Use this overview to familiarize yourself with dye-sub printing and decide whether the technology is right for your shop.
Sublimation is defined as the conversion of a solid to a gas without going through the liquid state. The solid in the case of decorative graphics is sublimation ink that has been printed and dried onto a specially coated transfer paper. Applying the graphic to a substrate by using a heat press at a temperature between 400-425°F causes ink to shift from a solid to a gas and transfer onto any polyester surface.
The quality of the transferred image depends on several variables: the type of printer used, artwork, ink, paper, heat press, and the substrate. It sounds a little daunting, but sublimation printing really is easier than it sounds—especially now that our industry has matured and many companies teach end users how to be successful with sublimation inks on a wide variety of substrates! A great place for beginners to learn about the process is to go online and start researching companies that sell sublimation inks and supplies and, of course, by watching some YouTube videos on the subject before buying a system. Industry trade shows are another great place to learn about sublimation.
My first encounter with a sublimation transfer was in the early 1980s. I was so impressed by the vivid colors and the soft hand that my first reaction was that sublimation printing would replace screen printing altogether! Of course, that never happened, because there wasn't a good method to print sublimation inks in house at that time, polyester substrates were limited and expensive, and sourcing the inks was difficult. But by the late 1990s, all of these issues started to rapidly change with the discovery that sublimation inks could be printed digitally via the computer and inkjet printer. With the printing side of the equation solved, the next hurdle was finding consumables for sublimation. Soon, multiple manufactures started producing polyester-coated blank goods: mugs, mouse pads, key chains, and a wide variety of textile products.
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Personal Page at AllOver30: Lynn
Age: 47
Height: 5'7" (171 cm)
City: Harlingen, Texas
Occupation: Restaurant Manager
Turn-Ons: Kissing my neck
Best/favourite sexual experience: In our bedroom being 69'd, being brought to an orgasm that my whole body tingled and my breath was taken away.
All other pictures and movies of Lynn are for members of All Over 30!
All Over 30 Copyright © 2007-2009, YoyoMoms.com


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The remittances sent home every year by the African Diaspora should create a doorway to still greater opportunities, and the key to this door is financial access. While remittances do impact the living standards of beneficiaries directly, the banks that pay out the remittances month after month should offer recipient families a basic financial package including savings accounts, payment services and small loans for microenterprise. This should facilitate growth from current levels of remittances saved and invested. Leveraging of remittances through financial inclusion is certain to increase their development potential.
Last year, an estimated 30 million migrants sent cross-border remittances worth $60 billion to recipients in Africa, benefitting an estimated 120 million people. To better leverage these individual remittances an integral approach is required, bringing together government, banks, communities and development agencies. The authorities must regulate to promote competition, entice banks to engage with the unbanked and enable the use of new, cheaper technologies. Banks must respond by seeking new profit opportunities in providing services to remittance beneficiaries. Communities should strengthen financial literacy programs to prepare people to take advantage of their access to credit for productive purposes, with support from government, civil society and Diaspora organizations. Finally, the international development organizations must provide the technical assistance and capacity building required to coordinate and implement these activities.
Current rates to send money to most parts of Africa are far too high at an average 12 percent, compared to a global average of 8 percent. It is unacceptable that the neediest should face the highest costs, reducing the net impact of remittances. Let's not fail to recognize the power of individual remittances for Africa's growth. Let's up the competition, lower prices and put Africa's remittance dollars to work.
Join the Conversation
l was quite impressed with the world bank group for this great opportunities the key to the door for financial access,am happy for this ideas and plan, connecting with the beneficiaries directly,All Africa's living in adjust poverty are happy with this News, because whatever plan the world bank group have will get to them, cos when something like this happen so of us doesn't know or it will not reach them that why there's so much poverty in Africa today,this poor people are mainly ;Framers, small scale business, and entrepreneur , they are creative,so productive so of them manufacture things using our local materials ,they are into so many things, so of this poor people are young women, men and youth, that want to start their business, no one to help or empower them,some of us want to become an entrepreneur, maybe the area some of them were before is not moving well, they want to change to the area that is more demanding, in doing this they will employ men, women and youth in the society this also reduce unemployment,yes getting the remittance system right for Africa through financial this will increase their development potential, l and all the Africa men women and youth living in poverty our thanks goes to world bank group and their team for giving New life and hope to the poor,Thanks and God bless you all.
Am very excited for the idea and plan from world bank Group this great opportunities the door for financial access dealing with the beneficiaries directly, l support getting the remittance system right in Africa, because sometimes we doesn't it doesn't get to some of us,that why there's a lot poverty in Africa today, some of us doesn't have some one to help or empower them to start business,some of us are passing through hardship,l and other Africa living in poverty really thanks world bank group for this great opportunities is going to give us New life, l thank world bank group for connecting with me not rejecting because am poor and the level of my education, thanks and God bless you all .


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Later this week, I am going to guest teach a class of a friend of mine. the subject will Fukyugata Ichi Movement Principles. Here is my outline:
- To block/strike from where the hands are
- To move by falling
- To turn without turning
- Hanmi (slanted body alignment)
- To fold/squeeze the body, delayed
- To draw the feet (zig zag)
- To move on a line (as with a bo)
- Timing of block/strike and foot placement/shifting the weight
- Elbows as if tied with rubber bands
- Bounding energy
- Koshi...
I enjoy guest teaching, as it gives me an opportunity to work on the way I explain and demonstrate the principles of movement and body dynamics.
Charles C. Goodin


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Labor Cost To Remodel A Small Bathroom. Here are a number of highest rated Labor Cost To Remodel A Small Bathroom pictures on internet. We identified it from obedient source. Its submitted by processing in the best field. We put up with this kind of Labor Cost To Remodel A Small Bathroom graphic could possibly be the most trending subject once we allowance it in google lead or facebook.
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A year in the White House can make even life on the campaign trail look sluggish. Since he took the oath of office a year ago, Barack Obama has faced a near constant stream of crises, with mixed results. The Dow Jones industrial average has gone up 33%, but the unemployment rate now at 10% has risen at the same pace. The credit panic has mostly abated, but monthly home foreclosures continue to grow. Obama sent more troops to Afghanistan, while planning to draw down troops from Iraq. Americans still praise the President as a "strong leader" who is "honest and trustworthy," but about half of the country thinks he has been irresponsible with federal spending and not focused on their top priorities jobs and the economy.
By far the biggest issue now facing Obama after a year in office is that his time for doing things may already be running out. The surprisingly narrow Senate contest in Massachusetts on Jan. 19 seemed to nail home the point: America still wants change, and Obama is not the only vehicle. On his anniversary, as Obama's aides recalibrate for the years to come, here is a look at what the President has been able to accomplish and what he still hopes to do.
Next Health Care Reform


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The longer my hair gets, the less I want to wash it. Not only to protect the ends and keep it healthy, but goodness, to save time! It takes some serious work to get it cleansed, dried and styled. I wear it as a badge of honor how long I can go between washes. I'm currently at about 2-3, but hoping to get it to 3-4. I might actually be a little too excited about it, as my husband keeps telling to stop bragging about how "dirty" my hair is. Whatever, I think it's awesome.
All of this unwashed glory would not be possible without dry shampoo. I can't be without it. I've been testing them religiously, and have become quite selective. I found some that only seem to reinforce the fact that my hair is unwashed and others that magically infuse new life into my strands for days. I wanted to share my VIP picks, in hopes you can start living the dirty hair life, too. It's a life that involves cool shower caps and more sleep in the morning!
The scent of Lulu Organics Lavender + Clary Sage Hair Powder ($30) is unbeatable. Very herbal and soothing — I actually think in the process of absorbing excess scalp oil it also manages to relax me. It also gives my hair a nice texture. Rub a dab of this between your fingers and then massage into your scalp and brush hair. Easy and done!
This brand is new to my radar, but they seem to do it all, including hair. Acure Organics Argan Stem Cell + CoQ10 Dry Shampoo ($12.99) is another powder formula that, in addition to Argan and CoQ10, uses corn starch, white clay and essential oils of lavender and chamomile to cleanse hair. It has a very fine, almost silky, texture. I like this one on clean, "first day" hair sometimes as I think it seems to work invisibly. There is no trace of this in your hair, but it does a great job of absorbing oil.
I've reviewed Lush No Drought ($12.95) before, and it's still a favorite. I have a thing for powder dry shampoos, obviously. I love how citrusy this one is, with lime and grapefruit.
If I'm going aerosol, it's Batiste ($8.99) all the way. I really like the Blush version, but this Brit can is adorable, no? This gives me serious volume and is super convenient on the go. I stock up on this when it's on sale at Ulta! It's practically the only aerosol dry shampoo I will use. No weird texture issues to be had with this one, which makes it a standout.


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Dear Slice: Thanks for the Tip on New Haven
Slice mail answered.
Clicking in to the Slice inbox today, we've got ...
Hello, Love your website. Just made it to Frank Pepe for the first time and thought I'd share.
Drove from New York City to Cape Cod this past Saturday and pulled over in New Haven. Couldn't remember the name of the pizza places in New Haven, so the first cop I saw I asked for directions to "that famous pizza place." He gave me directions to Frank Pepe.
I arrived there at 1:45 p.m., and even though it was 95 and humid, there was a line down the sidewalk. And even though I was alone, I had to wait 20 minutes for a table. I couldn't believe how many people were there. Hello, it's 95 and humid why aren't you all at the beach?
Anyway, waitress was super nice. I told her I was a "newbie." She suggested a bacon and onion pie. I wasn't feeling that, so I ordered two large pies: the original tomato and mozzarella and the summer special, fresh local tomatoes, garlic, mozzarella, and basil.
Waited maybe 15 minutes before the pies came out. Original tomato came out first, then when the summer special arrived, they moved me (from table 26 to table 11) because both pies wouldn't fit on the table! People were looking at me like I was a pig, but I didn't care.
The original pie was possibly the best pie I'd ever had. The summer special was good but not among the best. I still have some in my fridge and am going to eat some right now!
But thanks to you for the experience because I never would've known New Haven had great pizza without your website! Keep up the great work!
Best, Geoff M.
Dear Geoff, Finally, a nice email this week! I'm glad you discovered some great pizza through Slice. That's what I started this site to do, and hearing stories like yours makes it all worth it.
And, yeah, some of the people might have looked at you funny, but I bet most of the people in there totally relate to your double-fisted pizza pie ordering. More power to you!
Thanks for the nice email and the intel on the summer special.
Hasta la pizza, Adam
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For the past few years, Kangai has been a wanderer, but his return to his hometown has triggered a series of deaths linked to his past. He joins a group of psychic teenagers who solve mysteries under the watchful eye of the government. In Yousei, he and his group are sent undercover to a local university where they must dig up the remains of a top secret experiment. Upon arrival, they discover the project lead missing, and an old acquaintance racing them for the same information.
Only registered members can share their thoughts. So come on! Join the community today (totally free - or sign in with your social account on the right) and join in the conversation.


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Monday, March 19, 2012
The Wednesday Night Club
Not long ago, I "discovered" the Wednesday Night Club. Clearly I have not been paying attention. Either that, or the Club has been operating under my radar, in a zone of weird energy that I prefer to stay well away from.
Actually I don't know anyone else who had heard of it, either, although -- oddly -- I have been sensing its existence for years. It turns out that a number of people I normally avoid are associated with this weekly "salon" which has been meeting without interruption since 1982. Jailed media baron Conrad Black, and Dr. Peter Roper, the psychiatrist who electro-shocked Montrealers including my father in 1962, have both been welcomed and feted by the Nicholsons (David and Diana) who host the Wednesday Night meetings. Their guest list goes on to embrace people in politics, medicine, the media -- some of them famous, others not so much.
Since about 2001, The Wednesday Night Club seems to be out of the woodwork, having been written up in The National Post as well as the Globe and Mail,and most recently Montreal's ultra-Zionist Metropolitain newspaper.
It's fascinating, of course, to note the club's close ties to the new MUHC mega-hospital project, especially via Dr. Marc Roper, who is deeply involved in planning and recruitment for the project. Marc Roper is the son of Peter Roper, the former RAF pilot who helped pioneer military mind control in Canada. In 2003, while I was researching my family's involvement in the notorious MKULTRA program, I had an accidental encounter on the Montreal metro with one of Dr. Marc Roper's patients, a former Vietnam veteran from Manitoulin Island in Ontario, who showed me his drug prescription, written out by Dr. Roper, for his PTSD symptoms which at the time manifested as pacing and shouting during rush hour. In keeping with family tradition, Dr. Roper apparently still works for the Canadian military.
It's nice to know that David and Diana Nicholson have been keeping these old Montreal traditions alive for the past thirty years, since they first opened their doors to receive Canada's elite, at 33 Rosemount Avenue, the former address of Conservative Defense minister Pierre Sevigny, whose famous affair with east German spy Gerda Munsinger forced his resignation in 1963, which was also the year Dr. Ewen Cameron was forced to leave McGill over CIA-funded experiments on unwitting Montrealers, including children.
Interesting, too, that after all these years, people who should have been prosecuted for crimes against humanity still turn up on the list of welcomed luminaries.
I only learned about the Nicholsons, and their weekly salon, by accident when a friend sent me a link to one of their photostream images in which an ex-neighbour of mine appears next to Dr. Marc Roper. I was surprised, to say the least, to see these two "together" even if their togetherness was accidental. On the other hand, how purely accidental is it that they were both in the Nicholsons' living room one Wednesday evening in 2008, given that these gatherings are by invitation only?
The house has a long-standing connection with military intelligence. Its former owner Pierre Sevigny was Conservative Minister of Defence when he was named as the "spy" in the Gerda Munsinger scandal which helped bring down the Diefenbaker government. The Nicholsons, who moved out in 2010, have had to deal with rumours linking them to the CIA, while the same could be said for a number of their guests.
It also strikes me as rather fascinating that, back in 2007, when I attempted to get my own and my father's medical records dating back to the MKULTRA years, I was referred to Lynne Casgrain, the Ombudsperson at the Montreal General Hospital, who I would guess is probably related to the late Pierre Casgrain, another friend of the Wednesday Night Club, and also happened to be the partner of Westmount Mayor and Wednesday Night guest Peter Trent.
Is it surprising that Ms. Casgrain had also been the President of my writers' association back in 1999 when I was on the board of that? I was just as surprised to see her occupying the position of ombudman, giving me all sorts of questionable reasons why I really had no right to my own medical files from McGill, dating back to early childhood when I was first hospitalized for pneumonia, although the evidence suggests I was one of a group of children funnelled into Dr. Cameron's experiments on Montreal children.
A city with so many toxic secrets needs its own underground secret police. Perusing the guest list of the Wednesday Night Club, I see a number of other gatekeepers, including editor Alan Hustak, who stood watch for a good half hour in the library of the Montreal Gazette while I was going through the files on the Allan Memorial in 2003.
Long story short, I have many reasons to suspect that the Wednesday Night Club has its tentacles firmly embedded in the subterranean world of Montreal's medical and political elite, who in recent years have extended their reach into media and publishing. As the secrets of unethical research on humans threaten to pour out, the sons and daughters of medical "pioneers" like Wilder Penfield move into the world of media where they can prevent the public from knowing the truth about covert eugenics programs that have been operating under our collective noses for several generations.
Another Wednesday Night guest is Dr. Nicholas Steinmetz, whose son Andrew Steinmetz is an editor at Vehicule Press, and sent me a speedy rejection of the opening chapters of My Cold War, my memoir about growing up as a child of an Air Force intelligence officer caught up in the secret experiments at the same Montreal hospital for which Andrew worked as a night clerk for nine years.
Small world.
It all makes so much sense, doesn't it, that the funding would continue, under new forms of cover and control? There's nothing new here, really, except the links, and a sense of surprise that so many criminal conspiracies could have come together under one roof at 33 Rosemount Avenue, in Westmount.
Posted by Ann Diamond Mother of Darkness at 6:19 AM 6 comments:
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News & Notes
Project Supporting Disaster-Stricken Farmers and FishermenAug 23 (Tue ), 2011
Project Supporting Disaster-Stricken Farmers and Fishermen
Copyright Daichi wo Mamoru Kai
Daichi wo Mamoru Kai ("Association to Preserve the Earth"), a provider of organic food home-delivery services, launched on April 1, 2011, a project to help Tohoku farmers and fishermen get their production operations running again.
The March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake caused many producers in primary industries like farming and fishing to lose their production infrastructure such as farm fields, ports, and processing plants. While it is hoped that disaster areas will recover and production will resume quickly, repairing ports, acquiring new fishing boats, and restarting organic agriculture in fields inundated by the tsunami will likely take years.
The project will provide assistance to enable affected producers to restart their activities in a new environment, utilizing vocational skills they already have. The association will provide various forms of intermediary support. For agriculture, it will ask farmers who were unaffected by the disaster and whose growing practices meet the association's organic and other standards to host affected farmers. For fisheries, it will consolidate support by requesting fisheries associations to donate idle fishing boats and other aid .
Aiming to provide recovery assistance that suits individual needs, the project will act as an interface between producers in Japan who want to lend their support and affected producers who have specific requests. For the time being, the association will send information to affected producers who have a contract with the association, but in the future plans to accept non-contracted producers as well.
Courtesy of Japan For Sustainability


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How Faculty, Families and Community Leaders Respond to Community College Reform
In a series of studies of higher education since 1993, Public Agenda has consistently noted that when many leaders and elites speak about higher education, they seem to be envisioning the four-year institution that they attended, and much of what they say reflects this preconception. As a result, community colleges are sometimes left out of the dialogue, despite the fact that a major proportion of the nation's undergraduates attend a community college.
The Achieving the Dream initiative intends to shift that focus and to shine the spotlight on the nation's 1,265 community colleges. The goals of the initiative are to enhance the achievement of community college students, especially those facing the greatest obstacles, to help all students have the best possible chance to achieve their dreams, and to enhance the ability of community colleges to develop an educated citizenry and workforce.
How will Achieving the Dream goals and strategies be accepted by critical stakeholders in and around the community colleges themselves? In this qualitative research project, we selected three diverse community colleges participating in Achieving the Dream and in each case focused on relatively understudiedand potentially criticalstakeholders: full-time and part-time faculty, families of students and community leaders. Our aim was to form hypotheses on how these constituencies might respond to central elements of the Achieving the Dream initiative.
Overall, the focus groups and individual interviews indicated strong support for many of the goals espoused by Achieving the Dream. But among some constituenciesparticularly full-time faculty memberswe also found concerns, questions and reservations. We believe that unless those hesitations are addressed, it will be difficult to realize the ambitious goals envisioned by Achieving the Dream.
This Public Agenda report, offers insight into how the "Achieving the Dream" initiative's goals will be received by critical stakeholders in and around community colleges.


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Product Description
Designed from top to bottom to pleasure you!
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• Gyrating tip for G Spot stimulation and a more life-like feel
• Spinning beads massage you with 5 different speeds
• Powerful rabbit ears tickle and tease your clit with 7 speeds & patterns
• Penis-shaped tip for easier penetration
• Ribbed shaft thrills you with every move
• Dual motors let you control the vibration and rotation separately
• Made from TPR, a rubbery material known for its softness and durability
• Measures 1.5 inches across and 5.5 inches long, insertable
• Powered by 4 AA batteries, sold separately
With dual motors and 4 AA batteries, this rabbit vibrator offers an incredible amount of power and pleasure! There are dozens of non-jamming pleasure beads that spin around the shaft – massaging you inside and out! At the same time, the tip is gyrating deep inside you – teasing your G Spot for a more natural and life-like feeling. And you can't forget the powerful rabbit ears that tickle and tease your clit. They're even powered by their own vibrator motor to maximize their power and your pleasure!
And the fun doesn't stop there. Even the shaft of the vibrator is designed to increase your pleasure. The penis-shaped tip makes penetration easier and more natural. And the vibrator's shaft is covered with ribs to provide additional stimulation with every thrust!
The rabbit vibrator is made from TPR, a rubber-like material. TPR is soft and durable like rubber, but it's considered to be healthier for your body.
The rabbit vibrator measures 1.5 inches across at its widest point and 10.5 inches long, with up to 5.5 inches insertable. The push button controller features 5 rotation speeds and 7 vibration speeds and patterns with separate buttons so you can change them independently. There's also a separate on/off switch so you don't have to cycle through all the options to turn the vibrator off. The back of the controller slides off to hold 4 AA batteries, sold separately.
Adam and Eve recommends the Eve's Sexy Things Rabbit Vibrator for vaginal and clitoral stimulation.
The rabbit vibrator is compatible with Adam & Eve's water-based or silicone-based sex lubes. After using the sex toy, wash it thoroughly in warm water with antibacterial soap. Once the rabbit vibrator is dry, store it in a cool, dark place with the rest of your sex toy collection.
Related Product Guides
What makes rabbit vibes so different from other types of sex toys?
If you've got a question about vibrators, then Adam and Eve has the answer!
Picking the right material for your vibrator is nearly as important as deciding what type you want.


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In games like Pocket Legends and Arcane Legends, friends can work together to complete a mission. Suppose we had that in Battle Dragons.
We can have really hard PvE missions that one person cannot complete. But, two tribe members working together can clear the missions. And, reload the resources so that we get some loot for each run, at least to compensate for the cost of building the troops.
Also, if we have repeatable PvE missions, perhaps some smart programmer can figure out how to add some variation instead of using the same static maps. What if the game randomly chose from existing player maps to use in PvE? Some math could be done on player maps to determine level of difficulty, and appropriate level maps can be used in PvE.


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ReleasesBack to
Art Blakey
For a short time in the late '50s trumpeter Dizzy Reece was an up-and-coming jazz artist. However, success eluded him and he quietly faded into obscurity, only occasionally releasing material after the early '60s. As a matter of fact, the sessions that became Comin' On! languished in the Blue Note vaults for almost four decades. Rediscovered in 1999, these dates feature six well-rounded hard bop compositions by Reece along with three standards. The tracks from April 3, 1960, not only document the Blue Note debut of tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine but also employ the talents of the Jazz Messengers' rhythm section of the time, pianist Bobby Timmons, bassist Jymie Merritt, and drummer Art Blakey. By July 17, 1960, the only musician remaining from the previous date was Turrentine, sharing tenor duties with Musa Kaleem, who is also heard on flute. (The later session's rhythm section had changed to pianist Duke Jordan, bassist Sam Jones, and drummer Al Harewood.) Neglected, although spirited, sessions from an underrated trumpeter and composer. ~ Al Campbell


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News Release
FINRA Expels Hudson Valley Capital Management and Bars CEO for Defrauding Clearing Firm and Customers
WASHINGTON — The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced today that it has expelled NY-based Hudson Valley Capital Management and barred Chief Executive Officer, Mark Gillis, from the securities industry for defrauding its clearing firm and customers by using their funds and securities to cover losses caused by Gillis' manipulative day trading.
FINRA found that in 2012, Hudson Valley, acting through Gillis, used the firm's Average Price Account to improperly day trade millions of dollars of stock. Gillis then manipulated the share prices of these stocks and withdrew the proceeds of his day trading through accounts he controlled. When Gillis' fraudulent trading caused significant losses in the firm's account, he covered those losses by making unauthorized trades involving customer accounts. Gillis purchased thousands of shares of securities in the open market in the firm's account and allocated these shares to customers at markups between 177 percent and 280 percent. Gillis also converted a customer's funds to pay for an unauthorized stock purchase and caused another customer to sustain a loss of approximately $400,000. When confronted about unauthorized trades that occurred in their accounts, Gillis lied to two customers about the transactions to hide his misconduct, and lied to FINRA staff during sworn testimony.
Cameron Funkhouser, Executive Vice President of FINRA's Office of Fraud Detection and Market Intelligence, said, "FINRA strives to quickly address egregious broker misconduct. In this instance, FINRA fully investigated Mr. Gillis and Hudson Valley Capital Management within weeks of Gillis perpetrating his fraudulent scheme, and obtained evidence that led to the disciplinary action announced today."
Hudson Valley failed to supervise Gillis' trading activities at the firm; thus, Gillis was able to conduct his fraudulent trading scheme without restriction. Gillis' scheme caused a net capital deficiency for Hudson Valley in excess of $350,000.
FINRA's investigation was conducted by the Office of Fraud Detection and Market Intelligence, the Department of Member Regulation Sales Practice and the Department of Enforcement.
Investors can obtain more information about, and the disciplinary record of, any FINRA-registered broker or brokerage firm by using FINRA's BrokerCheck. FINRA makes BrokerCheck available at no charge. In 2011, members of the public used this service to conduct 14.2 million reviews of broker or firm records. Investors can access BrokerCheck at www.finra.org/brokercheck or by calling (800) 289-9999. Investors may find copies of this disciplinary action as well as other disciplinary documents in FINRA's Disciplinary Actions Online database.
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Now let's open our Bibles to Revelation chapter 3 and we come to the last of the letters to the seven churches, the letter to the church at Laodicea, the church that made the Lord Jesus Christ sick...the lukewarm church.
These letters, as you know, are directed at seven churches, actual churches, historical churches in actual cities in Asia Minor. But they transcend their time and space and they become model letters to various kinds of churches that exist in all eras of church history. They illustrate for us the character of churches in our own day, in fact since Pentecost. And Laodicea, is the last, is the worst. Five churches with serious problems have already been addressed and they are on somewhat of a descending scale. As you move through the seven letters, remember two of them had no condemnation, that's Smyrna and Philadelphia. The other five progressively degenerate.
There was Ephesus, the church still strong doctrinally, but the church that left its first love. There was Pergamos which had not denied the faith but was tolerating sin. There was Thyatira where there was still some good things going on but full-blown compromise with evil had taken place and the majority seemed to have been involved. Then there was Sardis, a church with only a few genuine believers, a church which had a name but was actually dead.
And now at the bottom, if you will, is Laodicea. This is an unsaved church. In fact, if there were any believers in this church they aren't even referred to in the letter at all. It is a church that is characterized by lukewarmness which becomes a metaphor for being non-saved people. Laodicea has the grim distinction of being among all seven letters the only one in which Christ has nothing good to say. It is unmitigated, unspared condemnation. There is in this church apparently absolutely no redeeming feature. This is the unsaved, unregenerate false church.
Also, because of the nature of the church this is the most threatening epistle. This is the most blistering rebuke. And it is sent to a proud church.
Now the richness of this letter will become apparent to you as we endeavor to examine it. It begins in chapter 3 and verse 14 and runs to the end of the chapter. In order to understand, however, the richness that is contained in the letter, you really have to understand some background. And we're going to work our way through that background, listen carefully and it will make the whole letter come alive to you.
First of all, we begin in verse 14, "And to the angel," that is the messenger, the one who was to deliver the letter, the word angel, angelos, being angel or messenger. This was the seventh of the messengers that had received these letters from the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos. And as they moved from city to city, each one would arrive at his own church with the letter for that church. We don't know whether each of them had a copy of the whole of the apocalypse, the whole of the revelation. But we do know that each one would have a copy of the letter specifically for their own church. This being the seventh, this man must have made the journey by himself. Alone he travels to Laodicea to give them a letter which surely he has read and reread.
"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write," and here we're introduced to the correspondent. "The amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God, says this." Now you remember that in each case the letter begins with an identification of the one who writes, none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. You also remember that for the most part the identifying characteristics are taken from the vision of Christ that is given in chapter 1.
However, in this case this is a somewhat unique introduction. The Lord identifies Himself here in three titles. He calls Himself the amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.
First of all, the amen. That is a unique title. And it probably reflects a Hebrew original. Back in Isaiah 65:16 it says, "The God of amen." That's Hebrew for truth, or affirmation, or certainty. God was called the God of truth then, the God of certainty, the God of affirmation. Whatever God says is so, whatever God says is true, whatever God says is certain therefore He's the God of amen.
Now the word "amen" is often used in Scripture as a word to affirm the veracity of a statement. Sometimes it is used before a statement and when it is it is usually translated "verily, verily," or "truly, truly," but in the Greek language, for example, it is"amen, amen." You often see before some very significant statement"amen, amen." And there it is to affirm the truthfulness of what is to be said.
Sometimes you see it at the very end. And at the end it is to seal the certainty of what has been said. Amen means firm, fixed, certain, faithful, unchangeable. Those are all words that surround the meaning of amen.
Now how is Christ here the amen? Well we could say that He is the amen in the sense that He is God. If God is the Old Testament amen, certainly Jesus Christ being God in human flesh is the New Testament amen. But there's more to it than just the reference to deity. He could have chosen a number of things to refer to Himself as God, but choosing the amen takes it a step further. He is the amen because He is true, He is the amen because He is certain.
But more than that, more specifically even than that general affirmation, Scripture tells us in 2 Corinthians 1:20 a very important truth. It says, "For all the promises of God in Him are amen." All the promises of God in Him are amen. What does that mean? That means that all God's promises and all God's covenants are guaranteed and affirmed by the person and work of Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament God said I will forgive your sins. God could never do that if it were not for the person and work of Christ, right? Because forgiveness was purchased by His atoning death. All of the promises that God made to take men and show them mercy and loving kindness, grace and give them a Kingdom and a hope and an eternal life are bound up in Jesus Christ fulfilling His work. So that everything that God ever planned or purposed for man, everything that God ever promised for man finds its amen in Jesus Christ. God's promises are all certain in Him. They all become sure in Him. And so, Jesus Christ is God's amen, the one who confirmed all the promises.
Then He identifies Himself as the faithful and true witness. This further elucidates the same line of thinking as the word amen. As I noted, amen has reference to truth and certainty and He follows that up by saying He is the faithful and true witness. Not only is Jesus by His work the amen, or the one who makes the promises of God certain, but every time He speaks what He says is also true. What He did puts the amen to punctuate the promises of God, what He says is always true. He is the faithful and true witness. He is completely trustworthy. He is perfectly accurate. His testimony never fails to be reliable. In fact, in John 14:6 He said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." He is, of course, the perfect true witness.
Back in John chapter 3 in verse 31 we read this, "He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth is from the earth and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all...speaking of Himself...what He has seen and heard of that He bears witness and no man receives His witness. He who has received His witness has set His seal to this, that God is true." Jesus comes, He speaks. Men reject Him. But whoever accepts what He says is saying God is true. He is the amen of God, He is the faithful, true witness who speaks the very Word of God. He is then living verification and confirmation of the promises of God in everything He does and He affirms the truth of God in everything He says. He is absolutely true.
And this is a good way to begin the letter because it affirms to the people in Laodicea that He knows what He's talking about. That whatever assessment He gives of the church is absolutely accurate, that whatever promise He offers the church is absolutely affirmed in His perfect work. When He rightly assesses their unredeemed condition, He is a faithful and true witness to that condition. When He offers them the promise of fellowship in verse 20 which is a promise of salvation, He can offer that because He is the amen who seals the covenant of God, the promise of God.
The third thing He says about Himself is He is the beginning of the creation of God. The English here, frankly, is a bit ambiguous. But that ambiguity disappears when you understand what He means by what He says. When He says He is the beginning of the creation of God, He doesn't mean that the first thing God ever created was Him. He doesn't say He was the first creature God ever created. He says He is the beginning of the creation. What He means by that is He is the source of it. He is the power by which creation began.
It should be noted for you that this letter sent to the church at Laodicea has much in common with Paul's letter to the church at Colossae. They were very close together. In fact, you could say that three cities were sister cities...Hierapolis, Laodicea, and Colossae. Apparently there was a heresy in Colossae about Jesus Christ. And that heresy said that He was a created being and not at all God. It wouldn't be too hard to surmise that that heresy that depreciated the deity of Jesus Christ had gone up the road a little bit and hit Laodicea. And when Jesus says here He is the beginning of the creation of God, He is the arche, He is saying essentially the same thing that Paul said in Colossians chapter 1 verse 15, "He is the image of the invisible God, theprototokos of all creation, of all those who have ever lived He is the supreme one." And of course, in His humanity He did become man. But he says, "By Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created by Him and for Him. He is before all things...that is prior to them...in Him all things hold together. He is the head of the body of the church." Here it is, "He is the beginning."
Apparently there was some question about Him because obviously Jesus had become a man, was born. He, of creation, was theprototokos, the supreme person ever born. But though He was born as man He always existed as God and while as man He had a beginning, as God He was the beginning. And so here, I believe, is a very important note. I believe the reason you have an unsaved church in Laodicea is because they had an errant doctrine about Christ. It was their heretical Christology that produced an unregenerate church. And what our Lord is saying to them in this letter is you must understand who I am, I am the one who has confirmed all the promises and covenants of God, I am the one who speaks truth and only truth and I am the beginning of the creation.
Colossae was ten miles away. Those two churches were sister churches. It is very likely that whatever Christological heresy had filtered its way into the Colossian church and attacked the deity of Christ, and reduced Him to a created angelic being had also affected the church in Laodicea. This church had bought in to that erroneous view of Christ and consequently was unsaved and lost. That is a tragic thing. But always you will note the damning error is the error about Christ, is it not? Start naming the cults and what is in common with all of them? They deny what? The deity of Jesus Christ.
When Paul was closing the letter to the Colossians, verse 16 of chapter 4, the last little part of Colossians, he said, "When this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans." Why? Well they must have been into the same error. And then he says, "And you for your part, read my letter that is coming from Laodicea." That would have been the epistle that we know as Ephesians...most likely. So whatever was going on in Colossae probably had spilled over, only the church in Colossae was fighting it and the church in Laodicea had bought it.
So when He calls Himself the beginning, He is the arche, that is the beginner, the originator, the initiator. It's the same idea as in Revelation 22:13 where He says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." He is the first, He is the Alpha, He is the originator, He is the beginning. John put it this way, "By Him were all things made that were made."
So, the Lord Jesus Christ is preeminent as the amen, as the faithful and true witness, and as the creator. He is sovereign, saving God, the uncreated source of creation.
So, the letter begins, "The Lord who has created everything, the faithful and true witness to the Word of God, the one in whom all spiritual promises are fulfilled says this..."
Now I want to talk a little bit about the city, the city of Laodicea because it's absolutely essential and fascinating to understand this city. It was located in the Lycus River Valley, the southwest area of Phrygia. Of the seven cities in the letters, it is the most southeasterly. It is 45 miles southeast of Philadelphia and would be about directly east of Ephesus about 100 miles. So these seven letters traverse a little bit of a loop in Asia Minor. Hierapolis, one of the sister cities six miles north, Colossae, ten miles to the east and south a bit. Because of the Lycus Valley being one of the most common routes of travel to the west, people obviously wanting to travel through a valley rather than across mountains.
Laodicea became a very important city. Anytime these cities were on a trade route they became significant. Not only was it a significant city on the east/west trade route, but it was also a significant city on the north/south road from Pergamos and Sardis, moving south to the coast. So they were crisscrossing all these people who went east and west and north and south and coming through the city of Laodicea. It had been founded by Antiochus II in the third century B.C. He named it for his wife.
The modern name of this Turkish city is Eskee Hizar(??), still there. Eskee Hizar means in Turkish "the old fortress," named for some of the ancient ruins. It is interesting to note that it had a large Jewish population and that large Jewish population probably was the starting point for the development of the church. You say,"Where do we find that it has a large Jewish population?" Quite, interesting. Every year Jews had to pay a temple tax, didn't matter where they lived or where they were, they had to pay that, that was part of their religious duty and they had to pay that temple tax, any male Jew over twenty-one. It amounted to half a shekel. In 62 B.C. Flockus(?) the governor put a stop to any exporting of gold from Laodicea. We have this in archaeological records. He needed it to back the currency. So he said no gold can be exported out of Laodicea.
Well, the Jews always paid their tax with gold. They would do this, all the Jews in a local town would get together, they would put it all together in one lump of gold, that's how they would pay their tax, one lump package of gold. In spite of Flockus' order they sent their gold anyway back to Jerusalem to pay their temple tax. The Laodicean authorities confiscated it and they weighed it in at what amounts in our terms to about twenty pounds. Twenty pounds would be equal to about 7,500 shekels. So you can see that there were quite a number of Jews. That's only the males over twenty one, plus the females and the children. Significant number of Jews.
These Jews existed in the midst of a pagan culture. They had probably come there because they were entrepreneurial and wanted to start their businesses. And they found themselves in the midst of pagan culture and morality and they became mixed with it. And if you read in the Talmud, you will read, interestingly enough, about Laodicea. And you will read that Laodicean Jews had come to the apex of ease and laxity. It probably was that Jewish contingent that was the first point of evangelization. That was certainly Paul's normal process and though Paul never went to Laodicea, when the church was founded there it was probably founded something along the path of his kind of strategy which was to go to the synagogue first. There would have been a synagogue there for sure with that many Jews, a very large one.
Now there's something else to know about this city and I think it's fascinating. Crucial to this city was its water supply. There were some local streams in the area but as the population grew and developed the local streams and rivers were inadequate. In fact some of them dried up in the winter. And so water had to be brought in. Well the only way they could bring it in there was by an underground aqueduct. And being very enterprising they managed to build an aqueduct and the water flowed down this aqueduct into the city of Laodicea. It did have an impact on their strength militarily because anybody could come along and conquer them by just cutting off the water supply, finding where the aqueduct was, identifying it, sealing it off and just sitting out and waiting until the siege of the city accomplished its end as the people had no water. And though it was fortified architecturally, an enemy could find the aqueduct and leave them rather helpless. So it never became much of a military power.
Kenneth Dodders(?) written some interesting things about this city and he says this, "They couldn't use the Lycus or the Maeander Rivers for drinking because they were too dirty. Besides, the Lycus River often dried up during the dry season. Most of the springs in the area are hot springs full of gasses and other chemicals. The Laodiceans had no choice, they had to pipe in water from a distant spring through twin lines of stone pipe, each stone was about three feet across and hallowed through the middle. The water carried by those pipes was so charged with impurities that it dropped much of its load in flow. The calcium carbonate gradually clogged the pipes. The water was collected in a central water tower, then distributed through the streets by pipes radiating from it. The water tower and sections of the terra cotta pipes are still visible even today. It is evident, at least, that the water it carried was bad, for thick deposits of calcareous impurities can still be seen almost choking the surviving section of the pipes. So whatever water finally got to the city was dirty, impure.
Another writer says the orientation of the aqueduct has suggested to archaeologists that the springs at the modern town of Denzilly(?) five miles to the south were the source. So here ran this little aqueduct to get them water. This was a major issue because a city can't exist, obviously, without that.
A second key feature that's going to come into play in the letter that dominates the city is the commercial aspect. There are several things you need to know about the commercial aspect of the city. First of all, it was a banking center...it was a banking center. It was very wealthy apparently because it was on the crossroads, north, south, east, west, it became a business hub and it became a banking center for people moving in all directions to put their funds. They became so very wealthy that when in 60 A.D. the city was totally flattened by an earthquake, Rome offered to give them some money to rebuild and they refused it saying they had plenty of their own. The people of Laodicea prided themselves in rejecting the offer of financial help from Rome and rebuilt the city far more beautiful than it had ever been and they did it with their own funds.
Tacitus writes, "Laodicea arose from the ruins by the strength of her own resources and with no help from us." Tacitus, the Roman historian. And so they were extremely wealthy.
A second feature in the commercial area had to do with the wool industry. Laodicea became famous for its wool industry and the major product, this is very interesting, was a soft wool that was glossy black in color, shiny black. It was used for clothing and it was used also for weaving into carpets, both locally and after export.
The third key feature about the city in a commercial sense was its medical school. It had about thirteen miles north of the city a very famous medical school. It was basically established in connection with an ancient temple that was associated with the god identified later by the name of Aesculapius, the god of healing who is still around in old medical literature. The medical school had famous teachers, but the thing that was most prominent in the medical school was they developed a certain salve for the eye. And people from all over that part of the world when they had an eye ailment would come to this medical school near Laodicea to get the eye salve that they would then put on their eyes which would bring some measure of comfort and healing.
So as you look at the commercial aspect of Laodicea you see finance, black wool and eye salve. And all three of those industries play a major part in this letter. And so does the water supply.
The third thing I want to mention about is the church. "He says to the angel of the church in Laodicea," now there's no record of the founding of the church but we can sort of put two and two together. While the Apostle Paul was ministering in Ephesus his friend Epaphras evangelized the Lycus valley. And he even evangelized Laodicea, that's in Colossians 1:7. Out of Ephesus where Paul was building this sort of mother church, people were going and founding other churches and Epaphras went to Laodicea about a hundred miles to the east and a bit south and founded the church there. By the time Paul wrote Colossians in the early sixties, he had not personally visited Laodicea or Colossae for that matter. He told Philemon, you remember, in verse 22 of Philemon that he wanted to come and visit Colossae. He said he would be soon released and be able to come and visit there.
So Paul never went there. It is possible that Archippus, a son of Philemon, was a real leader in that church in Laodicea, as well as in Colossae since the churches were associated with one another in proximity.
So the church was founded during the same period of time as the others in the ministry of Paul in Ephesus. As we noted earlier, it got infected with a deadly heresy that misrepresented the deity of Jesus Christ. I think that's inherent in the title there and in the situation in the church--corrupt, unsaved, lost.
Sardis was dead but had a few living, worthy believers. Thyatira was compromising, sinful and idolatrous, but had some who held the truth. Laodicea was a church that was absolutely no church, it was tares without wheat. Somebody asked the question, "Well what about the messenger? Was he genuine?" Probably, probably was. It may well have been that a messenger had to be selected from somewhere else to take the letter, we don't know.
In each of these letters we've also come to a fourth point, the commendation. However, there is no commendation here so there's nothing to say. Verse 15 He says, "I know your deeds, period, and I've got no comment." There isn't anything to say to commend anything you do.
So that takes us to the condemnation. And the condemnation is very important, verses 15 and 16. "I know your deeds that you are neither cold nor hot. I would that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth." Whoa...strong language. I know your deeds. I know them intimately and I know them infallibly. I know your deeds. Just a footnote on that. Deeds always reveal what a person is...always."By their fruits you shall know them." Romans 2 verses 6 to 8, Paul makes it as clear as anywhere in the Bible, "God will judge you on the basis of your deeds." "God will render to every man according to His deeds." "To those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, He'll give eternal life. To those who are selfishly ambitious and don't obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, He'll bring wrath and indignation."
You say, "Wait a minute, I thought we were saved by grace and faith and all of that." That's right, we are. But whether we are saved or not shows up in our deeds. James says the same thing. Your faith is made known by your works.
So He says I know your deeds and therefore I know your heart. I can see by what you do what you are. That is a very important statement with sweeping implications in the New Testament. A person who is a Christian manifests it. A person who is not manifests it.
And then the statement, the most relentless, overpowering rebuke yet. And the rebuke says, basically, "I spit you out of My mouth because you're lukewarm." This takes us back to our comments about the water supply. In Hierapolis, six miles to the north, there was some famous springs, hot springs. In fact, they were one of the most well-known and popular places for healing. The water was hot and you went there and sat in that water and it had therapeutic power. It is still used today. Hierapolis had hot water and that hot water was therapeutic.
In Colossae, ten miles south and east, there was a cold stream. We learned that the stream was perennially running and perennially cold like typical water that flows from the high mountains. That water was thirst quenching. That water was famous because of its cool, clear character.
They didn't have the hot therapeutic water of Hierapolis and they didn't have the cold clear refreshing water of Colossae, they had the foul, dirty, tepid water that flowed for miles through an underground aqueduct. It wasn't hot and it wasn't cold. Not hot enough to relax and restore, not cool enough to refresh and quench. Laodicea couldn't provide the refreshment of Colossae, it couldn't provide the healing of Hierapolis. Its lukewarm water was absolutely useless. Any visitor who came there who wasn't used to the stuff would put it in his mouth and immediately emit it, spit it out.
And the word "lukewarm," chliaros, is simply a word for tepid water. One historian says, "The water supply of Laodicea was derived from an artificial pipeline, bringing water which was literally lukewarm and so impure as to have an emetic effect."
What is the spiritual significance of this? Simply that the Laodicean church made Christ vomit. It was a sickening church. Some churches make the Lord weep. Some churches make the Lord angry. This one made Him sick. Back in chapter 2 and also in chapter 3 we saw His anger toward some churches, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis. But here He's sickened.
Now how are we to interpret these three categories? What does cold mean? Well that's not too tough. Cold means spiritually cold, open outright rejection of Jesus Christ, repudiating the gospel. He says you're not cold, I mean, you're just not openly, outright, rebellious, rejecting Christ and repudiating Christianity.
But on the other hand, what does hot mean? Zealous, spiritually alive and awake and eager and fired up, as it were, for the Lord. He says you're not that either. You're not boiling for...with spiritual zeal for the Lord, nor are you openly outright cold.
There are many in the world who are completely cold to the things of Christ. The gospel leaves them absolutely unmoved. It arouses no spiritual response. They have no interest in Christianity, no interest in the church. They make no pretense. They certainly aren't hypocrites. They don't even go near things that have to do with Christ. They are lost and they could care less. They don't want to hear the Word of God at all.
On the other hand, believers are marked by a response to spiritual truth and they're zealous and they're fervent. And He's saying metaphorically, I can take it if you were like Hierapolis because then you'd be real. I could even take it if you were like the cold water of Colossae. That's better than being the foul water of Laodicea, lukewarm. Who are they? Professing Christians...go to church, claim to know the Lord, but aren't saved. They're content with self-righteous religion. They're hypocrites playing games. They're the kind of people described in Matthew 7 where Jesus says,"M"Many will say unto Me in that day, `Lord, Lord,' and I will say unto them, `Depart from Me, I never knew you. You may have done many works in My name and prophesied and cast out demons, but I don't know you.'"
They're like those in 2 Timothy 3:5 who have a form of godliness but without power. They're like the Jews in Romans 10 who have a zeal for God but not according to a true knowledge. They're just hypocrites touched someway by Christianity but not belonging to Christ. And there is something obnoxious about them. They nauseate Christ. They make Him sick.
There's much more hope, frankly, for one who has been untouched by the gospel. There's much more hope for one who has made no pretense of knowing Christ. Do you understand that? Than there is for the one who makes the pretense but his life illustrates that he's not really honored Christ at all. In fact, I would say there's no one farther from the truth in Christ than the one who makes an idle profession without real faith. He is really in Satan's hands. They had bought a satanic lie about Christ. They were in religion up to their neck. They called it Christianity. They said they were a church. Satan was in control.
In the history of the church and in my experience, no one has been harder to reach for Christ than a false Christian. Satisfied with the measure of his good works, satisfied with his attitude toward God and they sit in churches across the world. It would be easier to win a harlot, it would be easier to win a criminal, it would be easier to win an agnostic or an atheist, it's easier...Jesus certainly said...to reach the Publicans and the harlots than it is the Pharisees and the Sadducees. There's more hope for the salvation of an atheist than a spoiled half-hearted conceited hypocrite who thinks he knows the truth and pretends to accept it. Like the Pharisees, they don't feel their need. They have that lukewarmness of religion. They sense no chill. If they were cold enough to feel the bitterness and the severity of their sin, they would be more readily brought to the knowledge of Christ. But these conceited self-deceived hypocrites, this lukewarmness made Christ sick.
John Stott once wrote, "The Laodicean church was a half-hearted church. Perhaps none of the seven letters is more appropriate to the twentieth century church than this. It describes vividly the respectable, sentimental, nominal, skin-deep religiosity which is so wide spread among us today. Our Christianity is flabby and anemic, we appear to have taken a lukewarm bath."
This is a people who aren't saved. But it's not an outright rejection. It's not a repudiation. It's not a hostility toward the Lord Jesus outwardly. They probably named His name. But I submit to you that Jesus said, "I would rather have you cold than like this. I'd rather you be a prostitute than a Pharisee. I'd rather you be a sinner who knows his sin than a hypocrite who doesn't recognize it. I'd rather you be a Publican beating on your breast saying...God, be merciful to me, a sinner...who feels the coldness of his lostness than a Pharisee who says...I thank You that I'm not as other men." Anything is better than lukewarmness.
But there was even something worse than being lukewarm and that was their self-deception. Look at verse 17. Here's the second condemnation. "Because you say I am rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked." Look at that, first part of the..."Because you say." Do you remember the study we did in Matthew chapter 7 and we talked about the "if we sayers" and the"if we doers"? If we say...if we say...if we say, Jesus said doesn't mean anything. What matters is if we do, if we do, if we do. It's not the people who say, it's the people who do the will of My Father.
So here are the "if we sayers" again, the unregenerate religionists who want to name the name of God and the name of Christ and show you everything they've done and He says they're doing it again, they're saying...and here's what they're saying, "I am rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing."
It reminds me of the rich young ruler, does it you? Matthew 19? As I told you, Laodicea was a very wealthy city. It had material wealth, it gave its people a false security. They were famous for that wealth and apparently the church thought it was wealthy, too.
You say, "Were they talking about money here?" No, no, I don't really think they were talking about money. I think they thought they were rich in spiritual reality. I think they thought they had spiritual riches. Let me go a step further. I think the heresy in Colossae was a form of incipient Gnosticism, a sort of a preview to what later became known as Gnosticism. And Gnosticism comes from the word gnosis which means "to know." In other words, there were people who believed that they had attained to the ascended knowledge. Christ was not enough for them. They had gone beyond Christ. Christ was just an emanation from God, an angelic being on a descending ladder of beings that go from good to bad. And He was somewhere up in the good category.
The gnostics said, "But we have ascended beyond the simplicity of Christ. Christ is only a part, a component. We have reached the ascended knowledge. We have gone beyond that. And that's why Paul in Colossians chapter 2 so explicitly says of Christ, "In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and you are complete in Him and don't you let anybody spoil you through philosophy and empty deceit and think there's something more elevated than Christ." That same heresy had found its way over here, no doubt, and these people are saying, "We are the ascended ones." If this isn't the typical, hypocritical, liberal line. "All of you mindless fundamentalists. All of you people who just believe the simplicity of the Bible are not educated. You're not erudite. You haven't attained to the ascendent knowledge." We are anti-intellectual.
No, they had spiritual pride. They were rich. They had become spiritually wealthy. They had attained the ascended knowledge. They had gone past that simple belief about Christ that these uneducated and non-trained Christians believe. They think they're spiritually rich. So they said I am rich, that's their state, and have become wealthy, that's...that's the process to that state. They did it by themselves. I'm rich and guess who got me there? Me. And I have need of nothing. That's a self-righteous works system, isn't it? I've attained it all. I've reached the elevated level.
This is the hardest person to reach. The intellectual apostate, the intellectual unsaved hypocrite who stays in the church. Liberal churches flood our country, Europe, Canada, the world...full of people who think they have ascended beyond. They have an aberrant view of Christ. They see Him not as the creator God. They have an infatuation with their own intellect and assume that they have been elevated beyond the simplicity of fundamental truth. And they have developed a self-righteous work system that makes them think they are the spiritually elite who need absolutely nothing. And when you come with the simple gospel, they laugh.
These are the ones, by the way, in the words of Jesus, Matthew 7:13 and 14, who are on the broad road. It's a road of religion that says heaven but it ends up in hell. They're the ones who build their house on the sand in Matthew 7:24 to 27.
So He says to them, "You say...Ha...and you don't know." Boy, that's got to be a blast. You say you have all this spiritual stuff and you don't know anything. The truth is you are wretched and miserable. Why? Because you are poor and blind and naked. Whew...you are wretched, that's your state. You are miserable, that's your condition. Because you are poor and blind and naked.
Here we see it clearly. The lukewarm condition is lostness. It is the sickening condition of thinking you are spiritually rich when you're bankrupt, of thinking you are beautiful when you are wretched, of imagining you are to be envied when you are to be pitied, of believing you see clearly everything when you see nothing. You are stone blind...a feeling you are clothed in spiritual finery and you are stark naked. That's what He's saying. You've got it exactly opposite.
You may have a bank account in the spiritual bank, you may be wearing the shiny black wool, and you may have the eye salve, but you're poor, you are poor and you are blind and you are naked.
This is a person to be pitied. That's what it means, miserable and wretched. You have no riches. You have no clothes. You have no vision, no sight. Spiritually naked, spiritually blind, spiritually bankrupt. This is the message I would preach in a liberal church.
Verse 18 gives us the command, this is fascinating. Listen to this command. "I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire that you may become rich and white garments that you may clothe yourself and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed and eye salve that you may anoint your eyes that you may see." Whew...now you see how the industry of that city comes into play? I advise you, I'm giving you some counsel. Isn't the Lord gracious? He says you make Me sick but My grace compels Me to give you an invitation.
He could have turned them into cinders by the breath of His mouth. But it's an invitation to a church full of hypocrites. And it reminds me that they still are worthy of an invitation, are they not? From a gracious God? He says you need to buy from Me.
Well you say, "Now wait a minute, what do you mean buy?" Well it's the same kind of buy as Isaiah 55 verse 1, you remember that wonderful chapter which is an evangelistic appeal. In Isaiah 55:1, let me just read it to you so you'll have it exactly as it was written. The call of God to the unregenerate sounds like this, "Oh everyone who thirsts come to the waters, you who have no money come, buy and eat." Did you get that? You who have no money, come buy and eat. So this is the kind of thing you can buy when you don't have anything. You come and buy it. You say, "Now wait a minute, if I don't have anything, what do I buy it with?" Are you ready for this? The only thing you have is...what?...your own wretched condition. So that's all you can offer.
So you come and you say I'll give You me for You, is that a deal? Jesus said that, what will a man give in exchange for his soul? What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world, can he give that in exchange for his soul? No. What can you give in exchange for your soul? Only yourself, that's what repentance is. I renounce myself, I yield myself, I give myself to You.
And He says, "I want you to buy three things. You give yourself to Me, that's the price, all that you are for all that I am, and first of all, I'll give you gold refined by fire that you may become rich." Pure gold refined by fire, no impurities. Ah, they thought they were rich in spiritual truth, they thought they were rich in spiritual reality, they thought they were transcendent, you know. They were bankrupt. He says I'll give you spiritual gold, I'll give you the spiritual riches, I'll give you what is pure and what is valuable and what is priceless. I'll endow you with such spiritual riches you never dreamed of. I'll give you a true and tested faith.
First Peter 1:7, "The proof of your faith is more precious than gold." What is the gold He's talking about? I think a real faith, a true faith. First Timothy 6:18, James 2:5 lend credence to that interpretation. I think He's saying come to Me and just give Me yourself and I'll give you a pure faith, a true faith, a proven faith that is priceless gold. What does that mean? A real relationship to Me, a genuine belief that affirms that you're a true Christian.
Then He says, "Buy white garments that you may clothe yourself." Get rid of those black ones. Get a white one. Back in Isaiah 61:10 Isaiah said that God wants to clothe us with the robe of His righteousness. We know in chapter 3 of Revelation verse 4 He said that people who walk with the Lord will walk with HIm in white for they are worthy. Over in Revelation 7:9 you see the saved multitude and they are in white robes. And over in chapter 19 verse 8 it says that she is clothed in fine linen, white or bright and clean and this fine linen is the righteousness of the saints. So He says I'll give you a true faith, a pure faith, a saving faith, a confident faith and then I will give you righteousness. I'll give you a righteous nature and I'll give you righteous acts.
And then He says I want you to get some eye salve to anoint your eyes so you can really see. You know what they used to do? There was some kind of a powder that they found, it's called in some history books "Phrygian Powder." And they knew that if they placed it on the eye it had a very soothing effect, a therapeutic effect, actually a medicinal effect. And so what they would do is they would put that powder in some coarse dough and then they would place that coarse dough on the eyes and somehow they would seal it so it remained there for a length of time. It brought healing and restoration to the eyes. And He says to them, in effect, "You think you see but you don't see. But if you come to Me I'll give you eye salve and you'll see."
Salvation is the gold that makes people spiritually rich in faith. Salvation is the white robe that covers our sinful nakedness. Salvation is the eye salve that gives us the knowledge of God and of His truth. What's He offering? An abiding faith, an abiding righteousness, an abiding understanding. You are poor, you are blind, you are naked. Let Me fix that.
All that comes together when the sinner offers the price which is himself and when he repents to follow Jesus Christ. Let's pray.
Father, we thank You for the wonder of this text. We thank You for its insightfulness for what we have learned, what we've seen. Thank You for the elucidation of this truth to help us understand churches around us all over the place that are like this Laodicean church, they make You sick, they make us sick. But even though they made You sick, You still were gracious and You said if you'll repent I'll make you rich, I'll clothe you and I'll give you sight.
Father, give us that same sickening feeling when we see those churches that have blasphemed the name of Christ, that have substituted false spiritual knowledge and that have developed a system of self-righteousness which makes them smug and self-satisfied. May we be nauseated by them. May we want nothing to do with them and yet may we have the compassion of Christ to call them out of their condition, to help them see their poverty and their nakedness and their blindness. It isn't easy for someone like that to be saved, better they were cold, better they were cold...but even so, we must faithfully call them to repentance. And may we do that as You give us opportunity. And may there be some people in churches like that who hear this message tonight or on tape or on the radio somewhere down the line when it's played, who in hearing come to truth and in giving themselves as the purchase price they are given in return gold, a white garment and eye salve. Be gracious, Lord, to many caught in Laodicean churches. For Your own glory we pray. Amen.
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I was very much disappointed at the fact that, Manchuria and Chilly Chicken etc, are found only the the Chinese restaurants in India.
Last weekend we have been to our friend's place in Munich, and suddenly the two men J and J wanted to have something spicy and so we decided to make Chilly Chicken, after browsing on net for the recipe, and after mix and match from here and there, we came up with this recipe.
For Chicken:
Chicken Breasts: 500 gms, cut into bite sized pieces
Cornflour: 1 tbsp
Egg: 1
Salt: to taste
Ajnimotto: 1/4 tsp
Ginger Garlic Paste: 1 tbsp
Pepper Powder: 1 tsp
Oil: for frying
To Finish:
Oil: 2 tbsp
Green Chillies: 8 to 10, slit length wise, acc. to your taste buds
Capsimcum: 1 large, cut into cubes
Onions: 1 large, cut into cubes
Chopped Ginger: 1 tbsp
Chopped Garlic: 1 tbsp
Salt: to taste
Soya Sauce: 2 tbsp
Ajnimotto: 1/4 tsp
Red Chilly Sauce: 1 tbsp
Cornflour: 1 tbsp, mixed in little water
Spring Onions: to garnish
How I did it:
- Mix chicken with all other ingredients, mentioned under 'For Chicken'.
- Heat oil in a wide pan, and fry the chicken.
- Keep aside.
- Take an other deep pan, add little oil.
- When hot, add green chillies and chopped ginger and garlic.
- Then add Onions and Capsicum.
- Add little salt and fry for 5 mins.
- Add Soya Sauce, and ajnimotto and Chilli Sauce.
- Fry for 2 mins more.
- Add the fried chicken pieces and 2 to 3 tbsp of cornflour mixed in water.
- Mix well and fry for 2 more mins.
- Serve Hot.
Spicy, yummy.. and though it comes under chinese cusine, its truly Indian at heart :)


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Advanced Placement (I-G)
The Advanced Placement (AP) programs are designed to increase the number of low-income students participating in AP classes and taking AP tests by helping to pay test fees for low-income students in AP classes and expanding access to AP classes through increased teacher training and other activities.
Increasing AP course participation and test completion have become important goals, as one way to improve the rigor of high school curricula and students' readiness for college. AP courses challenge students to master college-level work while in high school. The tests, which are designed, administered, and scored by educational entities such as the College Board and the International Baccalaureate Organization, provide objective measures of skill that colleges value, often awarding students college credit for passing the exams with a certain score. As parents, students, teachers, and colleges have come to view AP courses as a signal of educational excellence, the number of exams taken has risen from less than 200,000 in 1981, to more than 1.4 million in 2001.
WHAT'S NEW--The No Child Left Behind Act
Reduces Bureaucracy and Increases Flexibility
- Moves authorization for the program to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act from the Higher Education Amendments, allowing the program to be better integrated with other efforts to raise standards and increase academic achievement at the secondary level.
- Designates more entities as eligible to receive grants and provide services. In addition to states, local school districts and national nonprofit educational entities with expertise in AP services are now eligible to receive competitive grants.
How It Works
Title I, Part G, now includes two separate programs.
- Advanced Placement Test Fee Program: Grants are awarded to states to pay test fees for low-income students enrolled in AP courses. Funds are allocated to states based on the number of low-income students in the state in relation to the total number of low-income students in the nation.
- Advanced Placement Incentive Program: One- to three-year, competitive grants are awarded to state education agencies (SEAs), school districts, and national nonprofit educational entities with expertise in AP services. Grants are designed to expand access to and participation in AP courses and tests for low-income students through teacher training, developing "pre-AP" and AP courses, coordinating and articulating curricula between grade levels to enhance student preparation for AP courses, and promoting online AP course-taking for students in schools that are unable to offer AP courses. Funding priority will be given to projects that demonstrate a pervasive need, involve business and community organizations in grant activities, provide matching funds, increase participation in online AP courses, focus on English, math, and science AP course-taking, and focus activities on districts and schools with high concentrations of low-income students.
How Performance Is Measured
All grantees (states, and in the case of the Incentive Program, local school districts and eligible national nonprofit entities) must report annually to the U.S. Department of Education on the number of students in the state or project, by subject area and by student demographic characteristics, who are taking an AP course, taking an AP test, and scoring at the different levels of proficiency.
Key Activities For The State Education Agencies
State education agencies must report AP participation and test outcome data to the U.S. Department of Education.


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Roddy White has thrown down the gauntlet. The Atlanta Falcons wide receiver believes his undefeated team can turn 8-0 into 16-0.
"I think we got the pedigree to do it," White told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "You know how we are on offense and defense and how we are as a team. This locker room's very, very united right now. Every week, we expect to win. There's not a time that I felt like we went into a ballgame (so) far this year that I felt like we (weren't) going to win."
The Falcons haven't traveled this far by chance. Their eighth-ranked offense has rained down 27.5 points per game. Quarterback Matt Ryan is comfortably operating the no-huddle attack and finds himself in the middle of an MVP-type season.
The defense isn't dominant but allows just 17.9 points per game, fourth in the NFL. The Falcons aren't covering up a major weakness.
Can they do it? Only the 1972 Miami Dolphins have registered a perfect season. The 2007 New England Patriots were the most recent team to go undefeated through the regular season, but that team was bounced by the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII.
The Falcons have won a handful of tight games in recent weeks, but nobody's really tested them. They knocked off the Denver Broncos in Week 2, but three additional wins have come against a weak AFC West. The meat of the Falcons' schedule is ahead, with two games each against the improving New Orleans Saints and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The New York Giants come to town in Week 15.
The undefeated chatter is window dressing. Under coach Mike Smith, the Falcons have learned how to succeed in the regular season. January has been their poison. Unless that changes two months from now, none of this will matter.
Follow Marc Sessler on Twitter @MarcSesslerNFL.