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House Poised to Debate CISPA: Where Are We Now?
The House of Representatives is expected to begin debate on cyber-security legislation today, despite claims from privacy groups and technology experts that there are serious problems with the bill.
Introduced by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) in November, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) defines a new framework that would allow companies and governments to share information collected online with one another in order to fight cyber-attacks. CISPA is just one of several pieces of cyber-security legislation currently making its way through Congress.
Rogers said the bill would "help the private sector defend itself from advanced cyber threats."
Many privacy watchers, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Center for Democracy and Technology, were concerned the broad language used in the CISPA could threaten people's privacy in unacceptable ways. On Apr. 24, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence responded to those concerns by approving several amendments proposed by Rogers and Ruppersberger.
While two of the core issues remain unresolved, the amendments addressed some of the others.
There were concerns that CISPA, if passed, would allow businesses to monitor employee activity online. Under existing wiretapping laws and electronic privacy communications laws, sharing email messages and Facebook posts would require a court order. With CISPA, companies would be able to hand over the data to the government and "bypass all existing laws, as long as they claim a vague 'cybersecurity' purpose," the EFF said.
The Definitions Amendment proposed by Rogers and Ruppersberger narrow what types of data may be identified, obtained, and shared, as well as the purposes for which it may be used. Under the amendment, only information that directly pertained to a network or system vulnerability, a threat to the integrity, confidentiality or availability of such system or network, efforts to destroy such a system, or efforts to gain unauthorized access to such systems, could be shared.
Minimization, Retention, and Notification
Another criticism focused on the fact that there were no restrictions in place on why the data could be shared. It should be made clear that "information shared for cyber-security should be used for cyber-security purposes, not unrelated national security purposes or criminal investigations," said CDT senior counsel Greg Nojeim in a statement.
Rogers and Ruppersberger announced the Minimization, Retention, and Notification Amendment to prohibit the government from retaining or using information for purposes other than what is specified in the law. The Use Amendment further clarified that the government would only be able to use the information to protect against a cyber attack, investigate cyber crime, protect national security, protect against theft or bodily harm, or to protect minors from explicit content featuring children.
Not Good Enough
"In sum, good progress has been made," CDT said in a statement. However, "The bill falls short because of the remaining concerns - the flow of Internet data directly to the NSA and the use of information for purposes unrelated to cybersecurity," added the group.
Under the original terms of CISPA, companies could also share any information with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The DHS would also then be able to share the information with other government agencies, including the National Security Agency. As the bill currently stands, there's nothing stopping the agencies from sharing data and there's little oversight.
CDT also advocated a more restrictive amendment restricting the government to using the data for only cyber-security purposes, as opposed to the five categories listed in the Use Amendment.
CDT's Nojeim noted that other representatives had proposed amendments to address the remaining issues. Reps. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) had proposed amendments to "fix" the NSA problem, and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) would fix the "use for national security" problem, Nojeim wrote.
"We worked very hard to improve this bill. Now that the House leadership has decided to block amendments addressing two of our core issues, CDT cannot stand silent. We must oppose CISPA," the group concluded.
For more from Fahmida, follow her on Twitter @zdFYRashid.


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Jobs for Life partners with churches and organizations to enable unemployed and underemployed obtain and maintain meaningful employment
�Jobs for Life� is here!
In my last two articles here, I have written about Jobs for Life and what this program or ministry can do in Kinston.
JfL partners with churches and organizations to enable unemployed and underemployed individuals obtain and maintain meaningful employment. The JfL process seeks to transform lives and communities through the dignity of work. In doing do, JfL offers a unique solution to poverty and joblessness in communities and to individuals across the country.
The heart of the process is the JfL class, which consists of 16 sessions and teaches timeless biblical principles concerning work and the ways those principles are applied in the marketplace. The class takes the students on a journey to discover who they are, their unique value and the principles they need to overcome roadblocks in their lives. These classes will help students learn how to get and keep a job.
I wrote before that plans were underway to establish two JfL sites, at The Gate and at Spilman Baptist Church. Those are now established. The Gate has completed more than half of the 16 sessions with young adults, and Spilman will start its sessions for adults beginning Sept. 22.
We are looking for students and volunteers for JfL. We need volunteers to mentor and encourage the students, and others to pray for this ministry. The Spilman site is ready to enlist students.
Call Wanda Hall at The Gate, 252-933-3223, or me at Spilman Baptist Church, 252-522-3011, for more information, to volunteer or enroll as a student.
Jobs for Life could be a game changer for Kinston.
The Rev. Randy Outland is pastor of Spilman Memorial Baptist Church in Kinston. Reach him at email@example.com.

subset: commoncrawl


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Hi Marta Flores.
I am Hardik Patel. I have recently came to Spain and I am living here on illegal base. I have one question which makes me so confused. If you can give me advice on that i will be really thankfull to you.
I have read all forums and websites there is 2 types of "Permisode Residencia". 1. Arriago Social and 2. Arriago Laboral. In Arriago Laboral it says when you stayed permemamtly in Spain for 2 years and you have worked atleast 6 months than you can apply for the Resident Permit. With Police Criminal report and Work Inspection report. My question is when someone stays on illegal base how he can get letter from work inspection that shows he have worked for 6 month to 1 year in 2 years. That means do i need to work with contract or do i need to work legally with paying Tax and social contributions?
Please give me feedback.
I hope i will get good advice on this.
Thanking You.
Kind Regards,
Hardik Patel.


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Bulldogs Win For Third Time In Last Four Years
GOLD RIVER, Calif. – For the third time in the last four years, Yale has the fastest women's crew in the nation. The Bulldogs varsity eight captured the grand final at the NCAA Championships, holding off a late charge from Virginia to win by nearly a second. Yale led from wire-to-wire and finished in 6:24.76, just ahead of the second-place Cavaliers, who came in at 6:25.75.
"Our plan was to control the race from the start," said Yale head coach Will Porter. "It's been very rare that this crew has let anyone walk by them. When I saw them with a length lead with 500 meters left, I was pretty sure we had enough of a cushion to win."
The Bulldogs grabbed the lead right out of the gate and increased it to more than two seconds at the midway point. It stayed at nearly a length with 500 meters to go before Virginia started to close the gap.
"It was a really gutsy race," said Taylor Ritzel, Yale's stroke. "I was even a little surprised how fast we got out, and we paid the price for that a bit at the end, but we were able to pull it out."
Joining Ritzel in the boat were Dara Dickson, Stephanie Madner, Catherine Hart, Caroline Nash, Maren McCrea, Alice Henly, Tess Gerrand and Mia Kanak. Six of the nine – Hart, McCrea, Henly, Gerrand, Ritzel and Kanak - are seniors and were racing for the final time in their Yale careers.
"I kept reminding them `this is your last 500 meters at Yale,' this is your last 100 strokes,'" said Kanak, the coxswain.
Princeton finished third with a time of 6:27.06, followed by California, Stanford and Southern California.
Virginia won the NCAA team title for the first time in school history with 87 points, edging out California, who finished with 83 points. Yale was sixth with 66 points.
Ritzel, Henly and Gerrand have been a part of all three NCAA varsity eight championships. Kanak has coxed the varsity eight to two NCAA crowns and also guided the second varsity to the NCAA title last year. McCrea was in the winning boat for the second time, while Hart took home her first NCAA gold medal.
"This is a phenomenal class," Porter said. "It's incredibly hard to win an NCAA title. It's as good a class as there has ever been in collegiate rowing. They know how to win."
"It's hard to imagine that we could have this kind of success," said Gerrand, who sat in the No. 7 seat.
The varsity eight's preparation for the grand final started last night when they all met in a room at the hotel, closed their eyes and listened to Kanak make the calls the way she thought the race would play out.
"Visualization is a really important tool," Kanak said. "You have to be physically strong, but you also have to be just as strong mentally. The race actually ended up very similar to how we thought it would."
Yale's other two boats competed in petite finals. The second varsity of Catherine McDermott, Mary Jo Toothman, Kathryn D'Andrea, Natalie King, Armine Afeyan, Kathleen O'Keefe, Allix Wilde, Eliza Hastings and coxswain Sarah Brownlee finished sixth with a time of 6:49.42.
Wilde, who helped the second varsity to the NCAA crown last spring, was the only senior in the boat.
The varsity four of Amanda Grady, Alexandra Fields, Elizabeth McDermott, Mary Pat Wixted and coxswain Erica Segall placed third with a time of 7:24.25.
Wixted, who won two Eastern Sprints gold medals during her time at Yale, was the only senior in the four.
"This was a great lesson for them," Porter said. "To see the level of competition and to see the amount of hard work that goes into it will only benefit them. That will be the core group of our team in the next few years."
Report filed by Tim Bennett, Yale Sports Publicity
Video Courtesy Chris Modlin:


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Our Lord's Church Fall Festival fundraiser Oct. 19
SOLON– Our Lord's Church will hold its ninth annual Fall Festival Saturday, Oct. 19, from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. at the church, located at 131 N. Market St., Solon.
A soup luncheon will start at 10:30 a.m. serving homemade chili, chicken noodle, and chicken tortilla soup, along with hot dogs and chili dogs. The bake sale will include Kolaches, pies, cakes, cookies, bars, some candy, fresh farm eggs, bread from the Sykora Bakery and other member specialties. The church will again be selling Dutch Letters, a pastry from Pella, and fresh cheese curds from the Kalona Cheese Factory. Both of these items are available by advance orders (See the form in the NoJoCo, Solon Economist and North Liberty Leader). All orders must be received and paid for by Oct. 14. Many crafts, gift items, costume jewelry and Dee Meister's beautiful photo note cards will be available.
Come with family or a friend anytime and enjoy one of the many sweets along with a free beverage. It's a great place to meet friends or family for lunch.


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Flame-throwing Dodgers reliever Ronald Belisario—who missed all of 2011 and part of the 2010 season—faces a 25-game suspension at the start of this season because of a positive cocaine test, he told reporters today. Belisario said he couldn't leave Venezuela last year because he had tested positive for cocaine at some point, though he doesn't know who administered the test or when. He spent time in the MLB substance abuse treatment program in 2010, but Belisario says it wasn't for cocaine.
He says he only used the drug once. Only once? How did he stay so much skinnier than Jonathan Broxton?
Ronald Belisario says positive cocaine test was reason for absence [LA Times]


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In our time in the Word of God tonight, we are returning to the nineteenth Psalm and talking about the sufficiency and the authority of Scripture. Through the years we have taught the Bible as our little slogan at Grace To You goes, "Unleashing God's truth one verse at a time." We have gone through book after book after book. In fact, there is really only one book left in our study of the New Testament. I've basically taught verse by verse through the entire New Testament with the exception of the rest of Luke and the gospel of Mark. We have gone through verses in the Old Testament. We've gone through chapters in the Old Testament. We've gone through some books of the Old Testament. In fact, when I first came to Grace Church on Wednesday night we started through the Old Testament and I made it all the way to Psalm 73 before scheduling things changed on Wednesday night and we stopped at that point.
Why? Why do we do that? Why do we pay such close and intense attention to the Word of God? Why do we concern ourselves with the details, with the words, with the syntax, the meaning, the context? Why is it that we are so obsessed with the interpretation of Scripture?
Well the answer, of course, is it is the Word of God. It is the living Word of God. And by it God is known to us and the truth about God is known to us. And in the Word of God we find divine truth, absolutes. In the scientific world there are absolutes. There are fixed points. There are unchanging laws to which all things relate. Science is like biology or botany or physiology, or astronomy, even mathematics, principles of engineering. They all function on the premise that there are unalterable fixed dependable truths and realities.
And though we see that in the scientific world and we base our scientific lives on that, when we turn to the moral world we think we can live without any absolutes. We have decided that we live in a split universe where there is order, there is fixed principle in the physical realm, but absolute independence and self-direction in the spiritual world. What a terrible mistake that is. We think we can choose any ethical system, we can choose any moral system and somehow still remain at harmony with the rest of life. Of course that's wrong. Just as clearly as the Bible reveals that there is scientific or physical order in the world, so it reveals that there is moral order in the world built in by God that is fixed and when violated brings about tragic effects.
We know the principle of sowing and reaping in the material world, and it also operates in the spiritual world. People always ask me if AIDS is the judgment of God...of course it is in the same sense that sclerosis of the liver is judgment because of consumption of alcohol or emphysema is a judgment because of a life of inhaling carcinogens. It's the law of sowing and reaping because there are fixed principles. If they are violated in the physical realm then consequences occur. God made a law called gravity. You may not believe in it, you may not like it, you may even be an atheist, but try jumping off a building and see which way you go. The law of gravity will go into effect no matter what you believe.
And that is true in the moral and spiritual realm as well. It doesn't matter what your moral beliefs are, what your value system is, what your ethical system is. It doesn't matter what you think. It doesn't matter what your view is. There is the truth in the moral world and it is the truth that God has authored and when you violate the moral laws, you catapult yourself into disaster, just as when you violate physical laws.
Why is it so shocking to us that there are absolute laws in the moral realm, the spiritual realm when we are basically building our lives all the time on their stability in the physical and material realm? God has established these moral laws, God has established these spiritual principles and He has revealed them in the Bible. It is the most incredible book, it is a supernatural book written by God through human authors who wrote down exactly what God wanted said. It is amazing in every way, but it's not just amazing and fascinating, its purpose is that we might know the laws of God, that we might know divine principles.
And the Bible attests to its own validity in a myriad of ways. People ask the question, "How do we know the Bible is really true?" Well the testimony of the Bible itself is very convincing. First of all, there is the Bible's testimony from experience. What is that? Well that is to say if you believe as the Bible tells you to believe, if you obey as the Bible tells you to obey, if you live as the Bible tells you to live you will experience the power of God. You will experience forgiveness, you will experience peace and joy, hope...everything Scripture indicates. You will experience answered prayer, assurance. Your own experience is an indicator that the Bible speaks truly. It is a valid indicator, but perhaps it has some weaknesses because other people have experiences in various other ways. But at least it is one way in which you can verify the Bible...by giving testimony to its truth as it works by the Holy Spirit in your life.
But secondly, we've been talking about science...even science is an indicator that the Bible is true because when the Bible speaks scientifically, it speaks truly. In the opening chapter of Genesis, as we know, the Bible gives the only really viable explanation of the existence of the universe and the Earth and all of creation. The Bible gives us the only reasonable understanding of the world the way it is through creation and catastrophe, the six-day creation and the world-wide flood described later in Genesis. The Bible affirms what science has discovered called "The First Law of Thermodynamics," which is the law of the conservation of mass and energy. Science knows that mass and energy is fixed, no more mass and no more energy can come into existence, nor can it go out of existence. And this is to say that everything was created at one time and remains the same. Science understands that but the Bible also says that. Isaiah 40:26, "Behold who has created these things? He calls them all by name by the greatness of His might for He is strong in power, not one of them fails." That is the conservation of mass and energy, nothing in the end is diminished. It is all fixed. Nehemiah 9:6, "Thou hast made heaven and the earth and all things therein, the seas and all things therein, and Thou preservest them all." They are sustained. Ecclesiastes 1:10, Solomon said, "Is there anything of which it may be said, 'See, this is new?' It has already been from of old." Nothing is coming into existence, nothing is going out of existence. That is the first law of thermodynamics and that's exactly what the Bible says.
The Bible also affirms what science calls "The Second Law of Thermodynamics," the law of increasing disorder. Nothing comes into existence, nothing goes out of existence but everything continues in a continuum downward toward continuous disorder, disintegration. There's never a loss of mass, there's never a loss of energy, but its ability to produce or to function at the highest level breaks down and order moves toward disorder and all processes will ultimately cease and the universe will ultimately die.
Well the Bible says this. The Bible says this in Romans 8, it says the whole creation groans, the whole creation feels the impact of its fallenness. The whole creation is personified in Romans 8 as experiencing its own disintegration. The whole creation groans, the whole creation is subject to corruption. It suffers pain, etc.
The Bible talks about the science of hydrology, the science of water and its cycle. Water in the seas, drawn up into the clouds through the evaporation that the sun produces, the water evaporates, goes into the clouds, the clouds move across the land, out of the clouds comes the rain redepositing the water on the earth as rain and snow and hail and as the water comes down it moves into streams, the streams flow into rivers, the rivers go back into the sea. And that's the cycle, back into the sea, back into the evaporation, back across the land and so it goes. All of that is described in the Bible. That puzzled men until the seventeenth century, by the way. People believed in some kind of subterranean reservoirs from where the water was coming. Now we know it's evaporation, transportation, and precipitation. This is what's in Isaiah 55:10, this is what is in John 36:27 and 28, this is clearly described in Scripture.
You can look at the Bible from the standpoint of astronomy. The old ideas of the earth and the solar system were very strange. A flat earth, obviously, was the original idea. An earth just suspended in space without motion. Copernicus came along, 1473 to 1543, presented the idea that the earth was in motion. People were astounded. It was the seventeenth century when modern astronomy kind of began to grow and we began to realize that we were in an infinite universe. Isaiah 55:9 referred to the height of the heavens. Job 22:12 refers to the height of the stars. Jeremiah 31:37 says that they are limitless. There is old Jeremiah, the prophet of God, millennia before science ever concluded the vastness of the stars and even Jeremiah understood the reality because of the revelation of God. Listen to what he wrote, from the Lord, "Thus says the Lord, if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out below, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel." Nobody can go into the depths of the earth and nobody could ever go to the end of the heavens...the vastness of the solar system cannot be measured.
The telescope was invented in the seventeenth century. That's when they began to understand that. Hippocrates...(maybe meant Hipparchus) before that said there were one thousand and twenty-two stars. Ptolemy said that's wrong, there's one thousand and fifty-six. Kepler said no, there's one thousand and fifty-five. Well Jeremiah knew two thousand years before those guys. Jeremiah understood the vastness of the universe because it was revealed to him by God. Jeremiah 33:22, "The host of heaven can't be counted. The stars are like the sand of the sea." Well there's a hundred billion we now know in our galaxy.
Job says, "The Lord hangs the earth on nothing." Job says, "The earth is turned like the clay to the seal." There was a...if you wanted to sign your signature, there was a piece of soft clay and they used to use a stylus to write in clay and you had a...like a cylinder, like a rolling pin, with raised letters for your signature and you rolled it across the soft clay like that to imprint your signature in it. And the Bible says the earth is turned like the clay to the seal, that is it rolls on an axis, hanging on nothing, Job 26:17. (Job 26:7) It is also called the circle of the earth. The word is klug(?), it means a sphere. Job, the oldest book in the Bible, speaks of the earth as a sphere.
The Bible also says God imparted weight to the wind. Nobody knew that before Galileo. When you look at the comments the Bible makes about science, they're pretty staggering. There is another science called isostasy, some of you have been in engineering know about isostasy. Isostasy is the study of the balance of the earth. It is a study of equilibrium, the depths of the sea, the height of the mountains, all of that weight of the earth is important so that the earth moves in an orderly and smooth fashion. If it rolled on its axis like a ball out of balance, we'd all be lurching every so often. But there's perfect balance. Isaiah 40 verse 12, "Who has measured the waters in the hallow of His hand, measure the heaven with the span and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? God alone," Isaiah 40. Fifteen hundred years before Christ Isaiah under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit talked about the balance of the earth, the science of isostasy.
Remember when people used to get sick they'd bleed them because they thought that helped? If they had only read Leviticus 17:11, "The life of the flesh is in the blood." Now we know if people get sick you give them blood...losing it is dangerous. They took it then, now we give.
Well, you could look at the Bible's prophecies as well as its scientific comments and you would find that a hundred and fifty years before He was born the Bible predicted there would be a man named Cyrus who would let the Jews be released from captivity to return and build Jerusalem again. And that is in Isaiah 44:28. His name was given a hundred and fifty years before he was ever born. Ezekiel 26:27 and 28 the Bible predicts the destruction of the city of Tyre which took place to the very letter as it was described in that section of Scripture in great detail.
The Bible predicts also, Nahum chapter 1, the destruction of the city of Ninevah which was a massive fortified city, a huge, huge hundred-foot inner wall fifty feet thick, towers two hundred and some odd feet high, fifteen gates, seven miles in circumference, 150 foot moat, a double wall two thousand feet from the inner wall. I mean, it was an incredible fortification and yet the prophet said it would be destroyed, and it was. And I could go on and on about these things.
When you get in to the Bible there are some very remarkable things. You will find that the Bible is always accurate. Everything it says is accurate, absolutely accurate. Then you could also consider the miracles of the Bible. How do you explain them? How do you explain all the eye witnesses to the miracles?
And then, in my mind, the top indicator of the truthfulness of Scripture is Christ because no humans could ever invent Christ. You can look at all the holy books you want, you can look at all the religious literature you want in the world and you will never find any personhood, any personality, any leader, any guru, any ahmam(?), any anything or anyone who can even come close to Jesus Christ. He could never be the invention of men.
No matter how you look at the Bible, whatever you come across in reading of the Bible, all of the indications are there that this is a book written by God. Its power released in your life produces the experiences that it promises. Scientifically whenever it speaks it is absolutely accurate, long before science discovered those things the Bible revealed them. You can look at its prophecies, predicting things and they came to pass to the letter. You can look at its miracles, they're inexplicable apart from God. But most noticeably the Bible is about Jesus Christ. He's the theme of every book. He's the subject of Scripture. The Old Testament prepares for His coming, the New Testament records His coming and promises His return. And Christ is not possible as a human invention.
And so what we have in our hands is an amazing book. But let's go to where we need to go. I'm not here to prove the Bible is true, I can't do that. That's a work of the Holy Spirit through the Word. But I want to show you that whenever the Bible does speak prophetically, whenever it speaks scientifically, whenever it speaks experientially, whenever it speaks miraculously, when it speaks concerning Christ it speaks the truth and therefore that truth stands up to all true and honest examination.
What is most important for us is to see the power of the Word of God in our lives. We go back to where we started with that experience thing. While that may not be the singular best defense of Scripture, it is for us the most important thing. I'm glad to know that the Bible talks about the balance of the earth, I'm glad to know the Bible presents miracles, I'm glad to know the Bible has prophecies, I'm glad to know the Bible presents Christ, but what I really want to know is what is the able to do in my life? That's what compels me. I want the Bible to be something more than I admire. As written by I want it to be what God intended it to be, the Word of life for me. And so for that we go back to Psalm 19, back to Psalm 19, so let's look at it.
This amazing chapter I have preached on many times around the world many, many places. Always this section of Scripture produces profound blessing. And I want you just to look particularly at verses 7 to 9 of Psalm 19. And as we saw last time in Psalm 19:7 to 9 we have six statements about the Bible, six statements about Scripture. "The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, or clear, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true, they are righteous all together." Six statements about the Bible, but these six sum up the sufficiency of Scripture.
Everything we need to know is here. It's all here. Everything that the human heart longs for, you long for transformation, you long to be different than you are, the Word of God can totally transform your soul. You long for wisdom, you long for discernment, you long to be able to sort out the issues of life, the Bible is able to make you wise. You long for joy, for a settled happiness, for deep peace, the Bible rejoices the heart. You long to see in the dark and understand the dark issues of life, the Bible enlightens your eyes. You long for something that is enduring, something that is permanent, something that is trustworthy, the Bible endures forever. You long for something that is consummately right and righteous, that is the Word of God. All that you could ever want in life the Bible provides.
Now you notice in those six statements there are six titles for Scripture, as I told you last time, it's called the law, the testimony, the precepts, the commandment, the fear, the judgment. So the Lord...of the Lord...is used six times because He is the author, six titles. Then six characteristics...perfect, sure, right, clear, clean, true. Then six benefits...restores the soul, makes wise the simple, rejoices the heart, enlightens the eyes, endures forever, and produces or provides full comprehensive righteousness. This is a magnificent statement about the Scripture.
Now last time we looked at the first line, let's go back to verse 7, "The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul." And we went through that, I'll just mention it. The law of the Lord looks at the Bible as God's manual for human life. God who built man gave the manual for his maximum operation. It is the law by which man is to live. It is the moral law, the ethical law, the spiritual law by which man is to conduct himself. It is perfect, and I told you that word "perfect" means complete. It has the idea, of course, of perfect as opposed to imperfect, but more the idea of complete as opposed to incomplete. That is the Bible is complete, it is perfect in terms of providing everything that is necessary to know the law of God which produces the benefit of totally transforming the soul, nephesh, the inner person. This is an incredible statement in and of itself.
The Bible is so perfect, so comprehensive, so error free and complete as to totally transform the entire inner person. It is all you need for total transformation, conversion, regeneration, restoration, spiritual birth, sanctification, everything a person needs. The Word of God provides it all. It does the mighty work of total transformation. It is the Word of God that brings about regeneration. Remember we read 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 23, "We're born again through the Word." It is the Word of God that brings about sanctification. "Sanctify them through Thy truth," Jesus said, "Thy Word is truth." The Word is the agent of total transformation. It is the power of God to change people.
So if you want change in your life, the place you go is the Word of God. We compared that with Psalm 119 because Psalm 119 expands on Psalm 19 and it expands all of that and we read a number of verses in Psalm 119 last time that emphasize the power of Scripture to totally transform the whole person. That's why we preach the Word because it has the power to totally transform.
Let's look at the second one then. The second statement is in verse 7, one of my favorites. "The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." Testimony...what is that? Well, law looks at the Bible as divine instruction. Testimony looks at the Bible as divine witness. The Bible is God's own self-revelation. It is God's own testimony to who He is and what He requires in creed and conduct. It is God's own personal testimony to the truth. Consequently it is trustworthy, it is sure. When you open the Bible, God is speaking. It is God's testimony. I love that. It is the testimony of the Lord, and as such, He says, it is sure.
In a world of things you can't trust, here is one you can. The Bible's own claim is that it is unwaveringly and unmistakably trustworthy. It is reliable. Peter said in 2 Peter 1:19, he said, "I was on the mountain at the transfiguration and I saw Jesus Christ transfigured and I saw the majestic glory of Christ." And he immediately says, "But we have a more sure word." Experience is fine, Peter says, and I had the ultimate experience, I was there with James and John to see the transfiguration. I was there to see Moses and Elijah show up. It was an unimaginable experience to see the glory of God in Jesus Christ manifest so much so that they were knocked immediately into a coma. Some people would think that that's a greater experience than the Word...Peter says no, just the reverse is true, we have a more sure Word. A more sure Word than my testimony would be God's testimony, right? I might misunderstand my experience, I might misinterpret my experience. I might misinterpret a wonder and a miracle. The fact of the matter is I was asleep for most of it.
It reminds me of the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, he says, "I know a man who was caught up to the third heaven," remember that? Well who was that? It was Paul. "I went to the third heaven." You say..."Wow, that...you went to the third heaven, you mean you went up to the heaven where God is?" The first heaven being the heaven of air we breathe, the second heaven being the celestial heaven. The third heaven being where God lives. Paul says, "Yeah, I went up there. I went up there." But he said, "I don't want to boast about it because it's not profitable...it's not profitable." I mean, it doesn't have any profit. Why? Because it's only my experience and I don't know that I can even interpret it, in fact...he said...I can't even talk about it because I...I can't even tell you about it. Furthermore, it's not repeatable and you can't experience, so what value does it have to you? I'm not going to make an issue out of it, he said, I'm not going to boast about it.
Well Peter is saying essentially the same thing. Paul could have boasted. I mean, how many people do you know that have gone to the third heaven? That's enough to put you on TBN for a long time. (Laughter) Peter says, "Look, I was at the transfiguration, I saw the veil of Jesus' flesh pulled back and the glory of God manifest through Him, but I want to tell you, we have a more sure Word. And he goes on to say that the more sure Word is the Word of Scripture, that's the more sure Word...Scripture.
So here we find this second statement then, the testimony of the Lord is sure. My testimony is not. I may have had some spiritual experiences, you may have had some spiritual experiences, they're not trustworthy. I'm not sure I can even define them. I'm not sure I can even tell you what actually happened. I can only tell you what I felt or what I experienced but that's not a sure word. Paul says it's not helpful, and Peter says there's something far more sure than even a legitimate experience and that is the testimony of the Lord. So don't listen to my experience, listen to His Word.
And this sure Word...I love this, he says, "Makes the wise...makes the simple wise." To understand this you need only to know in the Hebrew language words which in Greek would be somewhat abstract, in Hebrew tend to be very concrete and the word for "simple," you know, in an abstract sense, the word for "simple" means somebody who lacks discretion, discernment, maturity, wisdom. Somebody...simple would be a synonym and it is often a synonym in the Proverbs for a "fool," somebody who is stupid, ignorant, uneducated, lacking in discernment, discrimination, wisdom. But the actual concrete root of that word is an open door. To them a simple-minded person had the door of their brain opened and everything came in and everything went out. That was the problem. They lacked discretion. They couldn't keep bad things out and they couldn't keep good things in.
You know, people say, "I'm open-minded." Well, a Jew would say, "Shut it. Bad stuff is coming in and good stuff is going out." You have a door on your house to discriminate, don't you? You have a door on your house to discriminate. That's the point of discrimination. And you even have a peep hole so you can discriminate. And you look through there and you decide who you want in and who you don't. That's the imagery.
A simple person couldn't make that value judgment. Naive, unexperienced, undiscerning, uninformed about the matters of life and the Bible, the revelation of God, can take the simple person who can't discriminate and can't discern and make that person wise. What a statement...chakam, it's a rich Hebrew word, means "skilled in the practical aspects of holy living." It's a big word. Wise again is not cognition, like in the Greek word for wisdom, sophia, it's not just a concept, it's not just mental, it's...it's skill in aspects of holy living. The Hebrew has never separated behavior from thought. In fact the biggest fool of all was somebody who knew it and didn't live it. Wisdom in the Hebrew, the word chakam, means to master the art of living, to live in perfect accord with the knowledge of God. And God in the Scripture is always the source of chakam. It is the ability to make a right choice at the right moment in life and to conduct yourself with heavenly wisdom. It is the practical matter of living life in a godly way. It is practically putting the truths of the revealed Word of God into action. You want to have the ultimate wisdom? You're not going to find it in psychology, or philosophy, or sociology or any form of human wisdom because, as we remember in 1 Corinthians, Paul says, "By wisdom man knew not God and the wisdom of man with God is...what?...foolishness." Why do preachers go outside the Bible as if there was some spiritual wisdom somewhere else?
This is supported wonderfully, turn to Psalm 119, I just have to point these verses out that support this because they're repeated so often, it just reinforces it. In verse 27, David prays, "Make me understand the way of Thy precepts so I will meditate on my wonders." I want to understand, I want to be wise, I want to understand the way of Your precepts, I want to understand the path that Your principles direct me into. Verse 34, "Give me understanding in order that I may observe Thy law and keep it with all my heart." Always it is the knowledge of something with a view to conduct.
In verse 66, "Teach me good discernment and knowledge." In verse 98, "Thy commandments make me wiser than my enemies." Verse 99, "I have more insight than all my teachers, for Thy testimonies are my meditation." Verse 100, "I understand more than the aged because I have observed Thy precepts." He is saying basically...I am wiser than all my enemies, I have more insight than all my teachers, I understand more than the aged because I know the Word. Psalm 104, "From Thy precepts I get understanding," Psalm 119:104. Psalm 119:125, "I am Thy servant, give me understanding that I may know Thy testimonies."
Over to verse 1...I think it's 169, "Let my cry come before Thee, O Lord, give me understanding." And where am I going to find it? "According to Thy Word." And then 171, "Thou dost teach me Thy statutes."
That's all he wanted. He didn't say, "Help me to learn philosophy, help me to learn psychology, help me to draw wisdom all around." He just said, "Give me the Word, give me the Word, give me the Word." The Word of God is all you need to totally transform your whole inner person, that's the first principle.
The second principle is the Word of God is all you need to become skilled in all aspects of holy living. This is a sufficient Word, sufficient for all situations.
There's a third expression here in verse 8 that builds this tremendous strength of Scripture sufficiency into our minds, verse 8, "The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart." The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.
Now this looks at Scripture as precepts. That's a word we hear today. The New King James, the old King James, I think, used the word "statutes." Basically it means doctrines, principles. The Bible is instruction for man's life. The Bible is God's own testimony. But the Bible is also principles, doctrines, truths, guidelines. And you can look at it in all those ways, it's a multi-faceted diamond, as we have said. And so you look at Scripture and what you're seeing is the doctrines that the Lord has given us and He says they are right...right means not so much right as opposed to wrong, but the Hebrew means they set out a right path because you're always not thinking about concepts but behavior. And so the word "right" used here isn't so much right as abstractly opposed to wrong, but a right path. The idea here is that we have doctrines, principles, truths in the Scriptures that lay out the path that we're to walk on. It shows us the true path. We're not left without a guide, without knowing how to live our lives. We don't wander around in a fog of human opinion. We have a true word from God and when we walk in that path that that word lays out, you notice what the benefit is, it rejoices the heart.
The Word is not only a lamp unto our feet that lights the path, the Word is the path. And when you walk in that path, it rejoices your heart. Well what is that saying? Well, you remember what John said, "These things I write unto you, little children, that your joy may be full." What he was saying is...I'm writing you this theology, I'm telling you these spiritual truths because if you know them and you live them, you will experience joy. Jesus said, "Happy is the man who hears My Word and does it."
You want real joy, you want real happiness? Do the Word of God. Jeremiah preached and nobody listened, but in Jeremiah 15:16 he said, "Thy words were found and I did eat them and Thy Word was in me, the joy and rejoicing of my heart." It was almost a soliloquy, it was almost a pensive solo. Nobody listened to Jeremiah, absolutely nobody. Eventually they were so sick of hearing him they threw him in a pit. But he said this, "I heard, Thy words were found and I did take them in and they were in my heart the joy and rejoicing of my own heart."
Where are you going to find joy? Where are you going to find deep peace, satisfaction? By walking in the path that the Scripture lays out. That is a basic principle. You don't need the voices of angels, you don't need to listen for God to talk to you some way, you don't need some supernatural experience, you don't need a vision, you don't need a miracle to find joy, you don't need some mystical science of the mind by...in order to be led by God in to some fullness of life. If you are depressed, if you are anxious, if you are fearful, if you are doubting, if you are joyless, if you are unhappy, if you are miserable, then the answer to your problem is to get back in the path and walk in obedience to the revealed Word of God and the benefit is your heart will rejoice. All your true pleasure and all your true delight and all your true joy comes from following the Word of God.
I hope this is accumulating in your mind. If you ever ask the question...why am I always teaching the Word of God? Because it is the Word of God alone that can totally transform the whole person. It is the Word of God alone that can make you skilled in all aspects of holy living. It is the Word of God alone that can bring true and lasting joy to your heart. So why would I do anything else?
And again, going to Psalm 119 is an exercise we have to engage in because there in that long Psalm which I will never go through verse by verse, so we'll just borrow bits and pieces as we go, but in that long Psalm, verse 14, we find the same affirmation. "I have rejoiced in the way of Thy testimonies." David says...I find all my joy in Your testimony...I find joy in Your testimonies as much as all riches. If I had everything the world had to offer, it would not exceed the joy I have in Your truth, Your Word.
Over in verse 54 of Psalm 119, and every verse, by the way, all 176 with the exception of the last one, all 175 of these verses extol the virtue of Scripture...either called statutes, commandments, precepts, word, whatever. But it's every verse is about Scripture and in verse 54, "Thy statutes, the Scripture, are my songs in the house of my pilgrimage." I just go through life singing the Word of God. Why? Because it's my joy.
In verse 76, "O may Thy loving-kindness comfort me according to Thy Word to Thy servant." When I need comfort, I go to the Word and I find in the Word that You are a God of loving-kindness, a God of compassion, that sums up compassion, grace, mercy, tenderness, kindness. I know You to be such a God. I find it in the Word and I'm comforted by that.
Verse 111, "I have inherited Thy testimonies forever for they are the joy of my heart." Verse 114, "You are my hiding place and my shield. I wait for Your Word. When I feel like I'm being assaulted and attacked, I reach out for Your Word." There is the source of true joy.
What does the Bible provide? Total transformation of the whole person in regeneration and sanctification. What does it provide? It provides wisdom, so that one can become skilled in all aspects of holy living. What does the Bible provide? Joy, all joy, consummate joy, complete joy and lasting joy.
Number four, the fourth of these statements is the second one in verse 8, "The commandment of the Lord is clear, or pure, enlightening the eyes." We saw that Scripture can be viewed as divine instruction. Scripture can be viewed as God's own testimony and it is. Scripture can be viewed as doctrines, principles, truths which lay out the guidelines for life. And Scripture can also be viewed as commandments, divine decrees. That is, Scripture comes not to make suggestions to us, but it comes as a mandate, it comes authoritative, it comes binding, it comes non-optional. These are divine decrees from God. This is not just God saying this is a good way to go, this is God saying...you better go this way or you'll be damned forever. Disobedient means judgment and obedience means reward.
And so, when you're looking at the Bible you're looking at commandments...absolute, authoritative commandments in the Bible. And it says here, looking at the characteristics, it is pure. Actually a better translation of this word is clear, lucid. You find it translated that way other places, for example I think it's Song of Solomon chapter 6 verse 10 or so, it's translated clear. It means easy to see. The idea here is that Scripture that takes the things that are hard to understand and makes them easy to understand. It enlightens all the darkness. It makes the things that you can't understand understandable. And that has to do with the mysteries of life. There are so many people who have no clue where we came from. Can you imagine just believing that we were protoplasm waiting to become manure that came about as a result of a cosmic accident? There's no rhyme or reason for anything. Or can you just imagine not knowing where we came from, why we're here or where we're going? Can you imagine transporting that kind of concept into the struggles of life, you could be an angry person a lot.
I remember being in my office many years ago here and somebody came banging on my door, a young person banging on the door. "Come, come quickly, come quickly." And I ran down the street right here on Roscoe Boulevard and into a house and a mother had in her arms a little baby a couple of months old, blue and dead and wanted me to try to do something to get life back into the baby. And here was a mother with no clue what was going on, no understanding whatsoever. And God, if there was a God, looked to her like the worst person imaginable...what in the world was God like who would put this precious little life in my arms and then rip it away from me? What kind of God does that? I've seen that a lot. I've seen mothers go into the casket and take a dead baby up out as if they could somehow put life back in. I've seen...done funerals, I remember some in the rain one time with kids, teen-aged kids who had been killed because of gun shot in a drug activities, mothers weeping...what's going on, how am I to understand this?
And life is full of those dark realities. That's why people have so much fear because they can't sort out why things happen and they live in fear. It's just very dark. And then they try to fill it with all kinds of experience and happy things and you take some drugs, if you need to, some tranquilizers, or drink a lot if you get too much fear. And we live in a pretty comfortable life where you can sort of absorb yourself in materialism. You know, I read that people actually overeat because they're afraid. It somehow calms their anxieties, or people shop to sort of...sort of crush or quash their anxieties. And then, of course, when they get the bill for overdoing it on their credit card, they have different kinds of anxiety so solve those they go shop more. I think when you look at death, that's the real dark, dark reality. Where did we come from? Why are we here? And why is life so painful? How do these little ones come into our lives and either they're snatched away or they're killed in a car accident or they grow up to be rebellious teen-agers, drug addicts, criminals, my husband leaves me and I can't support my family, etc., etc., etc.? I mean life is just full of so much pain and people cannot sort it out.
But the Bible is clear. I understand why there's trouble in the world, don't you? I understand that. I understand why there's death in the world. I understand what happens when a little baby dies. I understand the force of sin in the world. I also understand the mercy and grace of God that takes the little one to heaven. I see those things.
I often tell the story when I'm teaching this chapter about John and Nora Romanowski who were missionaries that our church supported some years back and they were missionaries in Brigham City, Utah. It's a tough place to be a missionary and trying to reach Mormons. John was pastor of Brigham City Bible Church and that's an interesting name for a Bible church, isn't it? Brigham City Bible Church. Anyway, they had two daughters and a son, a son named Kevin and two beautiful daughters who were in their late teen-aged years and they came down here one summer for their family vacation. They had wanted to bring their daughters down, one daughter they were enrolling in the Master's College who was going to start school a month or so after their family vacation, after hard, hard duty up in Utah. They welcomed the opportunity to drive down here and bring their family. But they were inveterate missionaries so they managed to bring two unconverted foreign exchange students with them to evangelize them on their vacation. So there were two boys from Italy with them.
They went out to the college, they registered their beautiful oldest daughter in school on Saturday. They left the college and on that same Saturday they drove along the road there, they came to Sierra Highway and for reasons that I don't understand, John pulled his car out into the intersection at Sierra and Placerita Canyon without looking and a truck was coming down the hill going about 60 miles an hour full force, hit the car. The two daughters were in the back of...like a van, catapulted out the rear, dead instantly. The car was hit behind their seat so that they were not severely injured, John and Nora weren't but everything was just devastated and the three boys were so severely injured that they were all three in Intensive Care. The shoes flew off John and Nora, their glasses were shattered, they were battered and bruised and there they are at the height of a wonderful time of vacation. They had come to go to Grace Church to be refreshed. And sitting in the middle of an intersection with a holocaust, kids all over the street.
You could ask the question...this is a missionary, this is somebody who gave his life to serve the Mormons...you know, God how are You going to let this happen? They came down here for some rest after faithful service, how can this be? I mean, my son Mark happened to be coming along and he saw this and he called me, and as soon as I could I got to John and I'll never forget the conversation. I said to him, "I don't know what to say to you, John, I can't even...I can't even fathom what this is like." And for some reason I just said something like, "What were you thinking?" I'll never forget his answer, he said, well he said, "My first thought is maybe this is a dream but I know that's not true." And he said, "John, my second thought is this, isn't God gracious?" He said, "Isn't God gracious that He took my two daughters to heaven that loved Christ and spared those two unconverted boys?" I'll tell you, that's seeing very clearly at a very dark time. He understood the realities of eternity. And then he said, "You know, I wanted my girls to have a big church experience, I just didn't think it would be the church triumphant in heaven." And then he said, "I wanted them to hear a big choir, I just didn't think it would be the angels." Boy, what clarity, huh?
He stood in this pulpit along with his wife cause they were here for weeks while the boys recovered and gave his testimony here. And it was a testimony of the grace of God. You know, the Old Testament, and particularly in the Proverbs and the Psalms says, "I have hope in Thy Word." How is it that he understood what was going on? How is it that he understood that the death of his daughters catapulted them into the presence of Jesus Christ? He understood that because of the Scripture, didn't he? And so you see what the verse says, the commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes.
In contrast to the muddled, muddled musings of men who are absolutely blind, we see the truth of life and death and time and eternity. This is what Romans 15:4 calls the comfort of the Scriptures.
We had a funeral service here yesterday for little Cindy Lee. You all, most all of you, saw little Cindy, she is a little tiny Chinese girl who signed in the deaf choir when we had them up here...little Cindy. Well, she was quite a remarkable little lady. She was 38 when she died, isn't that right, Patricia, 38, I think. Her life began when she was placed on the doorstep of a nun in China and she was wrapped in newspaper. Somebody didn't want her, so they just dumped this little one on the doorstep of a nun. Well through God's providence, a Chinese family in San Francisco adopted her, she came here. Because she was completely deaf, she decided to come to Cal State Northridge for the deaf program and there the Lord reached down and took her life and made her His own and she was saved. She was part of our church. Right up to the very end her testimony was absolutely glorious. She wanted to see Patricia and I, she was dying of cancer, and we went over to see her and she sat down...it was kind of fun when you sit down with somebody who has to go through an interpreter, you've got to get all the right angles, and she had a whole bunch of questions and they were all about heaven. She sort of thought I maybe had been there, I have really limited information about heaven. But she went through all this listing of questions about heaven. You know, she was going on the vacation of her life and she wanted me to sort of develop a brochure, you know, of what, you know, pictures of your mansion, the bedroom, you know, the scenery. And I did the best I could but, you know, the Bible says, "Eye hasn't seen nor has ear heard, nor has it entered into the hearts of man the things that God has prepared for them that love Him," right? So I'm limited to the Scriptures so I just tried to tell her what the Scripture was like.
She was really anxious to go. She prepared not only her own heart but everybody around her to enter into the joy of her Lord. How different is that from the way people who don't know the Scriptures and don't know Christ face death? That's why Proverbs 6:23 says that the Scripture is a lamp and its teaching is light. It just turns the light on in the darkest places.
I don't want to have to turn to worldly wisdom to understand the dark things. There isn't anybody who has the knowledge of things never seen, except the unseen God. And He's the one who reveals everything. In Psalm 119 again and we're going to do this at every one of these points and we'll just stop with this one, Psalm 119 again the same testimony is given over and over that there is light in the darkness through the Scripture. Look at verse 52, "I have remembered Thy ordinances from of old, O Lord, and comfort myself." Whenever he went through a dark place, the psalmist turned to the truth. Verse 59 he says, "I considered my ways, I looked at the direction I was going and I turned my feet to Thy testimonies." Verse 81, "My soul languishes for Thy salvation. I wait for Thy Word." He says, "My eyes fail with the longing for Thy Word, while I say, 'When will Thou comfort me?'" Whenever he got in a situation that was dark, he longed for the truth that would comfort him. He became like a wineskin in the smoke. Verse 83, "And again he turned to the Scripture, to the statutes of God."
"The arrogant...verse 85...have dug pits for me, men who are not in accord with Your Word and all Your commandments are faithful. They have persecuted me with a lie, help me. They have almost destroyed me on earth, but as for me, I didn't forsake your precepts." Whenever he got into the deepest, darkest places, he turned to the truth of God. Verse 92, "If Thy law had not been my light, I would have perished in my affliction." I never could have endured the dark things of life if I hadn't had Your truth. Verse 105, "Your Word is a lamp to my feet. Your Word is a light to my path." Verse 130, "The unfolding of Your words gives light." One forty, "Your Word is very clear, very pure, therefore Your servant loves it."
I mean, you just...everything is clear from the Word of God, everything...everything. All the light of spiritual life is found in the Word of God. The Word is sufficient for total transformation, it's sufficient to bring about salvation, sanctification, totally transforming you into the very image of Christ. And the Word of God is sufficient for wisdom, skill in all aspects of holy living. The Word of God provides all that you need for complete, consummate, and constant joy. And the Word is the light that makes the darkness disappear.
This is why we teach the Word. It does everything we need done. You want to be totally transformed? You know people, many people, wish their life was different. The Word of God will totally transform your life. You want to be skilled in all aspects of living? The Word of God provides the instruction for that. You want to know true and lasting and abiding and deep and profound and unshakable joy? The Word of God will show you the path and when you walk in it you'll experience that. Do you want to see clearly the unseen things, the mysteries of life, the dark things? You want the light to be shed abroad in the dark places so that everything becomes crystal clear? The Word of God does that.
This is the Scripture's own testimony in this magnificent concise portion. Well, there is more to come in verse 9 and then the rest of the chapter which we'll look at next time. Let's bow in prayer.
We desire to say thank You, Father, for Your Word and that seems so meager. It is everything to us, everything. We have been regenerated by the Word. We are being sanctified by the Word. We are being edified, built up, made wise, skilled in all areas of living by the Word. We are given joy through the Word and everything becomes clear to us. What an amazing book this is. How distinctively does it commend itself to us as the living and abiding Word of God. There is no other book that can even come close, this alone is Your revelation. And again, we say we know You only wrote one book, the Bible, and in it You said everything you needed to say to us. You provided all we need. We thank You for this complete Word. And now the responsibility is ours to study it and to live it and obey it and honor it and fight for it and proclaim it faithfully, and may that be our true prayer in Your Son's name who is the living Word. Amen.
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Another freshly ripped installment of late-90's artifacts culled from the remains of my long-lost, recently found, cd collection from mine own younger days. These two drops offer up some of the weirder long-form, lo-fi concrete experimentations out of the OTC camp. Out-of-print rarities, both.
The highfalutin lo-fi interactivity that Olivia Tremor Control first explored with the ambient bonus disc included on early pressings of Dusk at Cubist Castle reached its apex with the vinyl version of "The Opera House." A quadraphonic odyssey spread across two 7"s, each featuring the titular psych-pop nugget that leads off Cubist Castle backed with differing musique concrète experiments clocking in at just under 15 minutes apiece, the presentation allows for listeners to create unique songs by playing back the records simultaneously in various temporal combinations and RPM speeds. Similar in conception to the Flaming Lips' Zaireeka, "The Opera House" requires three turntables for maximum mindf*ck action, but the extra effort is worth it. Like those old "Choose Your Own Adventure" books on which kids of the '80s grew up, the paths and possibilities "The Opera House" lays out are endlessly labyrinthine and completely immersive. (Jason Ankeny, Allmusic)
Olivia Tremor Control : Opera House EPs A+B(Blue Rose Record Company, 1996)
2. Black Swan Radar (With Capillary Radar) 14:55
3. The Opera House 3:15
4. Black Swan Radar (With Enveloping Bicycle Folds) 14:55
5. Black Swan Radar (With Capillary Radar + Enveloping Bicycle Folds) *Ghost-Capital Edit: Tracks 2 & 4 combined. Soundcloud audio sample above)
""The Late Music, was born out of a small message hidden in the liner notes of The Olivia Tremor Control's Music from the Unrealized Film Script, Dusk at Cubist Castle, requesting that people submit recordings of dream descriptions to the band. The album consisted of seven untitled pieces incorporating the submissions with different other ambient sounds and musical fragments. (Wikipedia)
Black Swan Network : The Late Music (Camera Obscura, 1997)
7 Tracks, all Untitled.


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Since 1982, Carolyne Barry and her workshops have been one of the most successful independent full training programs in Hollywood. Barry has trained thousands of professional actors and is recommended by agents, casting directors, and former students. Barry is recognized as one of the top Commercial Audition teachers. In 2009 she was the winner of Back Stage West's Favorite Commercial Teacher in Los Angeles. For more information see www.CaroylneBarry.com
See my full review of her book here
Video edited by Donovan Scott


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Discussion in 'E36 M3 (1995-1999)' started by Scott Mc, Dec 28, 2008.
Ouch. At least it got a top end rebuild.
CR, do you have an E36? I have noticed since reading this post that it is actually easy to moneyshift this trans and that the gates feel different from my other cars. The tips given don't seem to work quite right. I'll keep at it just to make sure, but it is definitely different from the E30 trans.
One thing I have noticed about the E36 (having driven them almost exclusively since '95) is that, in the M3 at least, when the transmission mounts start to get old, the transmission will definitely shift to the side under heavy acceleration. That changes the gate position just enough to screw you up if you're not paying attention. I have gone to poly transmission mounts on them now, for just that reason.
I'm not sure why it's so easy to money-shift the E36 but it is. I have a good friend that's been autocrossing and tracking his E36 M3 since he bought it new in '95. He's a great driver and has a ton of seat time in the car but even he hit 2nd trying for 4th at the track last year. Fortunately for him, he was fast enough on the clutch that he avoided any damage but it was REALLY close. It's just one of those quirks with the E36 I guess.
So. . . it's back together again?
Actually, if you escaped the money shift with a top-end rebuild, consider yourself lucky! And don't beat yourself up too badly; I know of an experienced, careful, successful racing driver who managed a VERY expensive downshift in a 135i. . . .
Every time I hear of such an incident, I think, "There but for the grace of God. . . ." It's easy to say, "Naaaah, never happen to MEEEeee, I'm more CAREFUL than that!" But I remember a double-clutch downshift (no, it's not really necessary, but it's harder to unlearn than it was to learn) once where for some reason I hesitated before coming off the clutch: intuition? Luck? Turned out I had not come down into fourth, but rather into second. . . . If I had proceeded normally, you guessed it. And I am VERY careful with gearboxes, having spent years keeping spindly Saabs together. Their gearboxes were made out of tissue paper.
By the way, the E36 is hardly the only candidate. Today's six-speeds have VERY narrow gates. Moreover, guys driving the S54 engine like to believe it really has a redline of 8,000 rpm; think of running it up to eight in third, then banging a fast shift into---HOLY JESUS! I HIT SECOND!
I guarantee that guy's hurtin' more than you!
I won't mention names, but someone I know, who is now a succesful racer, managed to go from 2nd to REVERSE (luckily-ish for him on a downshift) during an autox. This was on his E30 M3 when he was 18 or 19. He got away with a bent shift arm actuator.
Heard of another guy in Richmond that moneyshifted his nearly new E46 M3. The computer logged that the redline before the motor completely fragged was 8300 (IIRC, maybe 8400.) Because daddy was such a good customer (read rich), though, it got warrantied!!!
Wow, that's really f***ing annoying. It seems nowadays ich people get away with almost anything.
What I don't get though is why they didn't charge the hell out of him if he was rich? Bah. Probably because he'll buy his next BMW from them cash.
I've read online about this and found legions of people who have moneyshifted their E36 M3's. That's just... insane!
And how the hell did that guy go from 2nd to reverse? I can't go into reverse without breaking my right arm! This was true even before my SSK and bushing renewal...
Autoxing can be very intense.
That pretty well sums it up! At my very first autocross ever, my brother let me drive his new (wow...that was 20 years ago...!?) E30 M3. I tried to go to first for a really sharp right-hander and couldn't figure out why I couldn't get it into first. After 3 or 4 tries it finally went in but it wasn't until after I finished the run that they told me I was obviously trying to put it into reverse because the grinding noise was horrific! I had no idea because I was so involved in the run. If I had pushed a little harder, there's no telling what ugly things may have happened to that little M3. Like MooseheadM5 said...it's intense.
He never did let me drive that car again....
I don't have one; have driven them in schools. Yes; that gate is narrow. When somebody comes up with a better way to avoid screwing the pooch on a bad shift, I'll be glad to push it.
I had that exact problem. Hard braking at the end of a straight and down shift. Several times I could not get into gear. Once I had to go off at Oak Tree (VIR) because I was coasting through the turn trying to find the gear. Tranny mounts took care of it for a while. Until my return spring pretty much was stuck.
But I have been lucky. 2 or 3 close calls so far.
Well, this is all very enlightening. As a new M3 owner, I'm glad I came across that crazy shifting method on the UUC website that also seems to be endorsed by the Bondurant school. I'm no racecar pro so I'll give it a go and how that shifting method works.
Haven't had any close calls yet, but seeing as I just typed that I bet tomorrow I'll accidentally shift from 3rd to 2nd on the way up to 4th. Go figure.
I definitely use that method on my other cars, but it doesn't seem to work the same way on the ti. I always have to pause and make a very deliberate shift. Anyone have other ideas? They were new mounts 3 years ago (maybe 10k?) but I do drive it hard when I drive it.
Doesn't seem to be a bad way to shift the M3. Takes a little getting used to it. Worth it if it will help prevent a "money shift."
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A Sworn Oath to David
We do not serve a king who is far off and unacquainted with our creaturely state. Rather, we have a Priest-King who has shared the human condition and has experienced the things we have experienced, albeit without sin (Heb. 2 ...Read More
Perfect Forever
Matthew Henry comments on Genesis 14, writing, "Jesus Christ, our great Melchizedek, is to have homage done him, and to be humbly acknowledged by every one of us as our king and priest; and not only the tithe of all ...Read More
A Priest Forever
Perhaps the most thrilling promise of Psalm 110 is that God will set the Davidic king as ruler over all. Jesus was this king, and even now He fulfills this through His people (2 Tim. 2:12a). Are you facing ...Read More
Blessed Be Abram
Abram's tithe to the king of Salem is illustrative of what the people of God must do for the kingdom. Today, review your finances and look at how you schedule your time. Consider giving more of your time and ...Read More
Inferior to Melchizedek
There is a tendency among Christians to think that our salvation depends on our own faithfulness to the Law. But when we act as if this is so, we deny that Christ's priesthood is superior to the priesthood of ...Read More
Not Without an Oath
God has sworn that Christ will most certainly be High Priest forever. His covenant will never pass away. We never have to fear if we trust in Christ alone because He will make us holy and He will vindicate us ...Read More
Blessed by the Superior
Hebrews 7 can say that Melchizedek lives because Moses never tells us how he dies. The point is not that Melchizedek never died but that what we see in the narrative resembles Christ who truly lives yesterday, today, and forever ...Read More
Tithes from Abraham
Our Lord is not unconcerned with history. He does not just keep restarting His plan in a brand new way but, as we have seen with Melchizedek, always unfolds His plan in a way that has continuity with the past ...Read More
Resembling the Son
In comparing Christ to Melchizedek it can be easy to think that the primary focus is on how Christ resembles Melchizedek. But in 7:3 we are told that it is Melchizedek who resembles Christ. As you seek to emulate ...Read More
This Melchizedek
Read the account of Melchizedek and Abraham found in Genesis 14:17–24 in preparation for our study over the next few days. Note that even in the earliest days of redemption, God sent the king of Salem to bless ...Read More


text:
Minecraft is a first-person fighter/sandbox construction game created by Mojang AB.
A great game! I don't know how many hours I have played this game, I would say at least 300+ and it's still as fun! I started playing this game in mid alpha
Highest Rated (134 agree) 10/10
Minecraft is a small building game that looks like it will be very boring at first glance. You look, and you see blocks, you see animals and you see people building dirt houses. Without knowing the mechanics, it cannot be understood. However, once you play, you can suddenly see why people enjoy the game. Minecraft is portrayed as a building game. You put blocks down and build things, which is reflected in the only easily accessible free version. Minecraft is NOT simply a block building game. It…
Nov 4 2010 by Kizzycocoa


text:
The #1 lawyer directory with 1376 lawyers in Philadelphia and 193,624 total listings.
Hajinian Christopher V Atty in Philadelphia, PA
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text:
Brigham Young University has suspended one of its star basketball players for violating the school's honor code. Six-foot-9 forward Brandon Davies' transgression: Having sex with his girlfriend.
The honor code at the Mormon-affiliated university requires students to "live a chaste and virtuous life." In addition to premarital sex, students are also required to attend church regularly and abstain from alcoholic beverages, tobacco, tea, coffee and substance abuse. "Davies will be suspended from the team for the rest of the season and, according to [a] spokeswoman, his future at the school has yet to be determined," reports the Washington Post.
Davies is also "one of only three Black players on the team," which ranked third nationally, reports Outsports. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints officially ended its historical exclusion and teachings against Blacks in 1978.
Davies' suspension was announced Wednesday before the team faced off against New Mexico. BYU was upset 82-64. On Saturday, the team clinched a 102-79 victory over Wyoming. Davies was "allowed to help the team cut down the net after they clinched a share of the conference regular season title," reports the New York Daily News.
"If the school was willing to suspend its top-ranked basketball team's leading rebounder and No. 3 scorer for having sex with his girlfriend," asks Outsports. "What would they do to a gay student? The students would be lucky if they were only kicked out."


text:
12:47pm PT by Eriq Gardner
It might sound extraordinary, but a legal dispute over merchandise associated with The Wizard of Oz , Gone With the Wind and Tom and Jerry has been raging for more than a decade. On Tuesday, the 8thCircuit Court of Appeals revisited the dispute by affirming both a $2.57 million judgment and permanent injunction in favor of Warner Bros.
AVELA, Dave Grossman Creations, X One X Productions and Leo Valencia became the defendants in the lawsuit after they acquired restored versions of movie posters and lobby cards,extracted images of famous movie and cartoon characters and put them on shirts, lunch boxes, music box lids, playing cards and more.
When Warner Bros. sued for infringement of its intellectual property, the defendants asserted the publicity materials were distributedwithout copyright notices, and pointing to old law, argued these materials were therefore injected into the public domain. Thus, the defendants suggested, there was nothing improper with selling an image of, say, Rhett Butler next to his famous Gone With the Wind line, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
In 2011, the 8th Circuit rejected this logic , writing at the time that "the scope of the film copyrights covers all visual depictions of the film characters at issue, except for any aspects of the characters that were injected into the public domain by the publicity materials."
In other words, the only thing that the defendants had freedom to do was to recreate nearly identical copies of themovie posters and lobby cards. To juxtapose images extracted from the publicity materials with phrases from the film or to create images in three dimensions went over the line as far as the federal appeals court was concerned.
The fight didn't end there.
The case then went back to a Missouri district court, which awarded statutory damages in the amount of $10,000 for each of the 257 copyrights at issue. Additionally, the judge issued an injunction prohibiting AVELA from licensing any images or phrases from the films or cartoons, with the exception of exact reproductions of publicity materials in the public domain.
On Tuesday, 8th Circuit judge Raymond Gruender writes the sequel.
Gruender rejects the argument that the statutory damages award violated AVELA'sSeventhAmendment due process rights by not submitting the question of damages to a jury. He decides that such a claim wasn't properly before the appeals court because AVELA failed to make jury demands throughout the litigation. The appellate judge also decides that the $2.57 million isn't disproportionate to the offense, finding rationality in the lower court's attempt to deter future infringement and provide sufficient restitution.
Head - Digital Marketing, adidas
Coming soon...
Digital Marketing Leader, IBM
Achint Aurora is an experienced digital maven with 18 years of diverse experience in Digital Marketing and Transformation Consulting. She is currently working with IBM, as a Digital Marketing Leader, focusing on performance growth marketing, for India South Asia.
Prior to IBM, Achint was working as a Digital Practice Lead at HCL Technologies, with focus on digital transformation projects. She was instrumental in conceptualizing multiple digital innovation workshops, to help identify the digital disruptions and transformation approach, for global clients. She also has worked with renowned agencies like Tribal DDB India, Lintas, Starcom and ibs, implemented digital marketing consumer strategy for 40+ brands, and has quite a few award winning digital stories to her credit. She is also the winner of Aegis Graham Bell Award for 'Innovation in Services to Telcos, 2010'.
Head – Media Digital Marketing – Marico, India
Ankit is a media professional who has worked in various profiles in media across the publisher, media agency, broadcaster the advertiser domains.
He started his career with Dainik Jagran as part of their national sales team. His next job with MindShare Fulcrum gave him exposure to cutting-edge work on media and in-particular digital with HUL's portfolio of brands, after which he moved to NDTV to be part of the team which launched their general entertainment channel, NDTV Imagine, as part of the Marketing team.
He currently works with Marico Ltd. as Head – Media Digital Marketing, India Global Centre of Excellence with a portfolio spanning markets across the Middle East, Africa Asia regions.
He continues to pursue his passion for learning as a visiting faculty for the Symbiosis Institute of Media Communication.
Ankit has an MBA specializing in Advertising from Symbiosis, Pune.
Digital, Content Direct Marketing, India Lead - Schneider Electric
Media Head, Ola
He is currently with Ola cabs as head of media and Marketing alliances and was previously with Microsoft India. He is a marketing professional with expertise in not only creating consumer facing communication but with complete knowledge of Media and key expertise across consumer understanding, touch point planning and optimization. Aspire to excel and innovate with relevant and delightful solutions, keeping pace with the ever changing consumer needs and behavior.
Explore the comos and enjoy great wine at this fun and educational event led by Dan Johnson. Guests will explore the galaxies, search for planets, nebula, exploding stars and orbiting satellites. Event includes a wine tasting of the winery's eight wines while the sky darkens, followed by an informative presentation. Take turns looking through one of the largest privately-owned telescopes in the Midwest. Enjoy the great wine and amazing program in any weather - rain or shine.
Space is limited and pre-payment is required. Reserve your spot by calling (816) 858-5528 or visit www.kceclipseandsips.com
Cost: $29/person or $50/person if you also attendSatruday's Sippin' Solar Gazing event.
Baltimore Bend Winery is in the direct line of the 2017 total solar eclipse. Join the winery from August 19 - 21 for a weekend to remember. The winery will open on August21 at 10 a.m. for Midday Mooning, a celebration of the eclipse. From live music and tours to a special Eclipse wine release, stop by for some fun. Enjoy a BBQ brisket lunch courtesy of Waverly Apple BBQ, viewing glasses, a commemorative Eclipse stemless wine glass and a wine tasting. Cost to attend Midday Mooning is $40/person. Reserve your space today.
Celebrate the solar eclipse all weekend long at Les Bourgeois Vineyards. The winery will kick off the event on Saturday with a moonshine release from their Rocheport Distillery Co. along with cocktail samples, live music and extended menu options at the A-Frame. The fun continues all weekend ending with the total solar eclipse finale on Monday. After the eclipe, hang out and enjoy tunes and old-fashioned BBQ.
The event is free and open to the public.
Serenity Valley Winery offers an entire weekend of events to celebrate the Total Solar Eclipse. Enjoy three days of fun, refreshments, balloon glow, entertainment, music, vendors and more.
Extending the investigation of
, the goal of the present study was to further explore the bias in the spatial distribution of fixations towards locations on the chessboard that are related to the familiar but non-optimal move (henceforth, the Einstellung move). Specifically, we monitored the eye movements of both novice and expert chess players while they selected white's best move (i.e., choose-a-move task) for a variety of chess problems that were designed to induce the Einstellung effect. As shown in
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, all of these problems contained an Einstellung move that resembled a familiar checkmate solution but which was modified such that checkmate was no longer possible. The Einstellung move was located inside a target region in one corner of the board (in Bruno Magli Ennio Cheap Buy dZ8d7
the target region is indicated with a dotted line), and there was always an optimal move located outside of the target region.
White is to move in all problems. As discussed in the text, each problem contained a familiar move (i.e., the Einstellung move) that was associated with a checkmate solution that was not possible due to the position of Black's defenders. The Einstellung moves were always located within the target region (shown here with a dotted line). For problem 1, the Einstellung move was a reasonable move (i.e., Ba7), and for the remaining problems the Einstellung moves were blunders (i.e., Problem 2: Qg7; Problem 3: Qa7 or Qa8; Problem 4: Rg8 or Nf7). For all four problems, the optimal move on the board was located outside of the target region (i.e., Problem 1: Ng2; Problem 2: Na3; Problem 3: Rg5; Problem 4: Rb3). See Appendix S1 for further details.
As described in
Figure 1
Appendix S1
, we examined two different types of problems. The first type of problem (see Problem 1 in
Figure 1
) closely resembled the problems used by
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(Experiment 2), because the Einstellung move constituted a good move that was advantageous for white, although it was not as good as the optimal move. For this type of problem, we expected to replicate [7] and [8] by showing that many of the chess players would choose the Einstellung move, rather than the optimal move. Moreover, based on the findings of [7] , we expected that the chess players would have trouble disengaging their attention from the familiar solution, as shown by a high percentage of time spent fixating the target region containing the Einstellung move. In contrast, for the second type of problem, we examined a novel situation in which the Einstellung move was a blunder rather than a good move (see Problems 2, 3 and 4 in Figure 1 ). We expected that this change might reduce the magnitude of the Einstellung effect, such that chess players would be better able to select the optimal move, and to disengage their attention from the familiar solution. Thus, our rationale for including two different types of problems was to try to uncover boundary conditions that might modulate the strength of the Einstellung effect. In addition, we explored expert/novice differences in the magnitude of the Einstellung effect as reflected in the quality of the chosen moves and the degree to which looking behavior was biased towards the target region.
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text:
The Lost Ride CD-i @ 10 years of Blender Art
>> Saturday, October 29, 2011
NeoGeo made under the name of Enji the 3d Graphics for the hit CDi "The LostRide". Unique video footage of 10 years of Blender Art; the software tools that the game was made with.
Also watch the end world in this video: http://youtu.be/vx-TQL9i0NQ


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Memory Eternal! + Victor Mihalca
MEMORY ETERNAL! VICTOR MIHALCA fell asleep in the Lord on Sunday, June 19th, at the age of 64. He is the father of Khouryieh Delia Haddad and the father-in-law of Fr. Mousa Haddad of the Church of the Virgin Mary in Alsip, IL. He is survived by his wife Terezia, his daughter Delia, and his grandchildren Anthony and Philip. May the Lord give rest to the soul of His servant Victor, and may his memory be eternal with all the Saints!
Condolences may be sent to the family at firstname.lastname@example.com
+May his memory be eternal!


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BATH — A new cost-sharing formula that will assess the five member communities of Regional School Unit 1 on a per-pupil basis passed, 580-138, in a district referendum Tuesday, according to unofficial numbers.
Bath approved the change, 190-6. Arrowsic voted 82-1 for the formula, and Phippsburg, OK'd it 270-2. The new formula was defeated in West Bath, 68-17, and Woolwich, 61-21.
The RSU 1 Board of Directors unanimously adopted the new plan last December for implementation in the 2014 fiscal year budget cycle.
Local contributions from the RSU 1 communities are raised through taxes. Prior to the current fiscal year, the contributions had been split into two portions: a minimum amount the state requires, and an additional portion. State subsidy to the district had been based on the "essential programs and services" model.
The other local contribution – the additional amount each community must raise, beyond the EPS model – stipulated a cost-sharing formula based on equal thirds: student population, state valuation of a community and the community's population in the most recent census.
The board opted last year to apply the thirds formula to its entire local tax calculation. While some members of the public had supported the change, the decision drew criticism from some municipal officials, prompting a committee to seek a cost-sharing plan that would be equitable to RSU 1 communities.
The committee recommended a per-pupil formula.
RSU 1's total fiscal 2013 budget is $26 million; $17.3 million is assessed to the five communities – $8.6 million to Bath, nearly $500,000 to Arrowsic, nearly $3 million to Phippsburg, $2.2 million to West Bath and $3.1 million to Woolwich.
The cost per pupil for each community varies. In Bath it is more than $7,200, while in Arrowsic the cost is more than $12,300, and in Phippsburg it's more than $12,500. West Bath's cost is more than $9,300, and in Woolwich the cost is more than $7,900.
In calculating what the cost-per-pupil assessment would have been for this fiscal year, miscellaneous revenues and debt service payments received by the state were subtracted from the $26 million budget, to reduce that amount to $23.4 million. That number was divided by the total number of RSU 1 students (2,092) to get an average cost per student of $11,189.
While subsidies and special education reimbursements are currently spread between all five communities, the new formula will direct those funds to the actual communities generating the revenues.
The Maine Department of Education determines a community's ability to fund education for its students, based on the state's valuation of that community and a state-set mil rate for education. If a community, such as Bath, has more students than the state has determined it can pay, the state will fund the difference through a subsidy.
Bath and Woolwich receive subsidies, while Arrowsic and Phippsburg receive a special education reimbursement. West Bath receives neither.
The subsidies for fiscal 2013 totalled $6.1 million, reducing the $23.4 million budget to $17.3 million. When that amount is divided by the number of students in each community, the costs per pupil are about $7,000 for Bath, $10,700 for Arrowsic, $10,700 for Phippsburg, more than $11,100 for West Bath and nearly $8,600 for Woolwich.
This calculation shows the cost per pupil for fiscal 2013, had the formula been applied for this current budget. The costs per pupil for Bath, Arrowsic and Phippsburg are lower per student with the new formula, while the expenses for West Bath and Woolwich – the two communities that voted against the change – are larger.
Alex Lear can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 113 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @learics.
Monday's NBA notebook: Antetokounmpo named NBA MVP
Boston Red Sox
Boston wins on Hernandez single in ninth
Monday's major league roundup: Yankees tie home run record in victory
Portland Sea Dogs
Sea Dogs' six-run fifth inning tops Fisher Cats
Monday's Sports Digest: Michigan wins opener of College World Series finals