markomalley

What? PCUSA got too PC for you? I sympathize completely! But don't sell ex-Wayfers short. After all...we are both ex-Wayfers...

In all honesty, if it were closer, I would probably join the Maronite church :-O But it's not...the nearest one is about 30 miles from my house. A little too far for getting involved in a parish...

Sunnyfla, **CAVEAT. I AM NOT TRYING TO RECRUIT YOU TO GO INTO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. JUST WANT TO PROVIDE GENERAL ADVICE** I think that GreasyTech has a really good question...why do you want to find a church? If you've just had a thought 'Gee, I'd really like to find a church to go to,' without answering that underlying question, then you may never, ever be satisfied... So let's look at some of the possible answers: You want a nice group of people to associate with in a relatively 'clean' environment. You want to worship God in a valid fashion. You want to get involved in the social ministries of some church and help the community. You want to have a forum within which you'll be able learn and/or teach the Bible. You have kids and want those kids to have a nice group of kids that have some kind of moral structure. etc. etc. etc. Any of those are valid areas of concern...and you may have one or more of them or may have a reason I haven't listed at all. First, there are some theological issues that you will have to either deal with or will have to have to ignore. There are a few marks of Christianity that are out there that the vast, vast majority of groups believe. The trinity Water baptism admittedly, there are differences whether the baptism is considered a sacrament or an affirmation/ordinance, but baptism is done one way or the other The destination of the soul after death Your choices are extremely limited if you choose neither to subscribe to, or are able to ignore those three basic marks (particularly the Trinity): Jehovah's Witness Oneness Pentacostal (practice water baptism, in Jesus name only) Unitarian-Universalist (not Christian, but a group of nice, accepting people_ Christian Scientist And a few others... And so, you can either ignore it or you can find one of these churches that agree with those perculiarities that distinguished TWI, or you will have to deal with those issues. (Or just stay away) If you are simply looking for a church as a social exercise, there are a huge number of groups out there that provide that kind of environment. A lot of them out there mostly preach "positive thinking," "God loves you," "do good by others," and so on and really don't get into any kind of deep theology. There are a lot of good folks in those churches. And as long as you keep the TWI-unique beliefs to yourself, you're not going to run into issues with them. If you are looking for study/worship experiences or if you have kids that you want to get some religious formation, you'll have to deal with the theological issues. On that subject: I was where you are now about 8 years ago. I wanted to get back into church after being gone from TWI for years, being disgusted by the offshoots I'd seen, and so on. Maybe a nice Methodist, Lutheran, or UCC church. No interest in a fundamentalist church or a Pentacostal type church, of course (not after TWI). However, I'd allowed TWI to be able to knock enough holes in all of the issues I identified above and had 'learned' the TWI theology so well that it was tough to consider that they might be wrong. Repeatedly in the years after leaving TWI, I'd go through the 'proofs' that were shown in books like ADAN, JCNG, etc. and saw that, using Wierwille's methodology, he built his case. Something happened about 8 years ago, though, and I decided to re-look at the key 'marks' of TWI (JCNG, ADAN, RHSN, PFAL, etc.) through a different prism: I decided to see if I could prove the traditional orthodoxy that these TWI 'marks' displaced could be proven. I reasoned with myself that those orthodox 'marks' had been in place for centuries before Wierwille. Many heroes celebrated in twi (Luther, Bullinger, etc) were always celebrated with the caveat, 'except they believed in the Trinity...,' 'they were great, but fear kept them from acknowledging that JC was not God,' etc....Well, I let myself consider the fact that maybe these great men were correct and VPW was wrong...(dangerous thought, I know). So, I decided to examine those doctrines through the prism of themselves. In other words, not can the doctrines be disproven by examining isolated scriptures, but can the doctrines be substantiated in scripture...and can the isolated verses be understood in light of these doctrines? And I found out that they could. But, as with everything, YMMV (your mileage may vary). The point is that you can, if you're willing, come up with an understanding that they (regular churches) could actually be right! Now as to what type of church. That is as much a matter of style as anything. I personally prefer the beauty of a nice liturgical service. And, in fact, even though I am Catholic, the Latin Rite liturgy is not my preference: I actually prefer the beauty of the Eastern churches. There is a tremendous amount of symbolism in the services that, if you understand the significance of the symbols, makes for a tremendously rich worship experience. However, I fully acknowledge that some people don't feel comfortable with the liturgical worship style. Once again, it's something that (imho) for a person in your position, is a matter of comfort. The only advice I'd give is to: understand the nature of the liturgy used -- there are plenty of resources on the web to explain any liturgy used in by any church in this country. If not a liturgical service, try to understand the order of how they worship. Whether liturgical or not, once you understand what is going on, you need to feel comfortable with it. All should be 'decent and in order' (IMHO) Anyway, hope this helps! (btw, if you want something that comes close to resembling the 'first century church,' I'd suggest finding either a Chaldean church, or if one of those is not near where you live, a Maronite or Melkite church. The Chaldeans are from Mesopotamia (Aramaic), the Maronites (Syriac) and Melkites (Greek) are both from Antioch. Even if it's not your cup of tea, it is very interesting to see how their liturgies operate)

I know my daughter had warning of this through an Internet safety briefing at her school last spring. Just thought I'd pass it on... MySpace.com Subject of Sex Assault Probe By Associated Press Thu Feb 2, 11:42 PM HARTFORD, Conn. - Police are investigating whether as many as seven teenage girls have been sexually assaulted by men they met through the popular Web site MySpace.com. The girls, ages 12 to 16, are from Middletown and say they were fondled or had consensual sex with men who turned out to be older than they claimed. None of the incidents appeared to be violent, said Middletown Police Sgt. Bill McKenna. He said it was difficult to determine the exact number of victims because some girls have been reluctant to disclose that they met their assailants online. The social networking Web site allows users to create profiles that can include photos, personal information and even cell phone numbers. In a statement Thursday, MySpace.com said it was committed to providing a safe environment for its users. The site, which includes safety tips, also prohibits use by anyone younger than 14, though a disclaimer says the people who run the site can't always tell if users are lying about their ages. AP Story

What WW and ex10 said, sort of: Also add the following: Mat 16:17 And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. Mat 16:18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. Mat 16:19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (standard note: Matthew was originally written in Aramaic. Both the word Peter and the word Rock are the aramaic word "keepa" -- meaning rock -- contrary to the private interpretations made by a lot of folks these days) Mat 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Mat 28:20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." .......................... If you ever do a word study on the word "keys", you will note that the "keys" were a symbol of authority that a ruler gave his prime minister (or a master gave his very most trusted servant); it was literally symbolic of trusting the person with the "keys to the kingdom." I think that I've put the study up here before someplace... WW did well by quoting John 16, but he should have kept going: Jhn 16:8 And when he comes, he will convince the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: Jhn 16:9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; Jhn 16:10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more; Jhn 16:11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. Jhn 16:12 "I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. Jhn 16:13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. Jhn 16:14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. Jesus is forecasting the day of Pentacost to the apostles in this conversation. We can see elsewhere how He provided the authority to all of the apostles. The quote from Matthew 16 that I provided above shows how he formally provided 'prime ministerial' authority to Peter. Note that he said "upon this rock I will build my church." He said that he would do the building. The remainder of the John 16 verses that I provided show in a little way how the comforter would work with the apostles to do God's will and to build that Church. The other piece of it, as brought out in Matthew 28:20 (quoted above) show that He promised the apostles that He would be with them until the end of the age (the greek word aion: which means forever, to the end of the world, or to the end of the age. It is derived from the word 'aei': meaning always). Now we can see how he inteded to set up His church and that He would provide them the comforter... But if we look at Matthew 18:20, we see "where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them." This becomes even more real through the Pauline theology of the "body of Christ" Rom 12:5 "so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another." 1Cr 12:27 "Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. " etc. So, hopefully, this provides a synthesis of how your friend's statement, "Someone Jesus Christ has not gone anywhere, but is here on earth building His church." Now you can get a lot more literal with this, but to do so you have to look at the theology of the historic Church (Latin, Greek, Eastern) and leave behind the theology of western Protestantism. And I don't think that too many people around these parts care about what the Maronite (Antioch) church, the Chaldean church, the Coptic church, etc. teach about that subject...so I'll leave it alone...

Seriously, don't bother...it's pretty well played out.

From the 30 January New Yorker magazine: The Cuddle Puddle of Stuyvesant High School Researchers find it shocking that 11 percent of American girls between 15 and 19 claim to have same-sex encounters. Clearly they’ve never observed the social rituals of the pansexual, bi-queer, metroflexible New York teen. Alair is wearing a tight white tank top cut off above the hem to show her midriff. Her black cargo pants graze the top of her combat boots, and her black leather belt is studded with metal chains that drape down at intervals across her hips. She has long blonde curls that at various times have been dyed green, blue, red, purple, and orange. (“A mistake,” she says. “Even if you mean to dye your hair orange, it’s still a mistake.”) Despite the fact that she’s fully clothed, she seems somehow exposed, her baby fat lingering in all the right places. Walking down the sterile, white halls of Stuyvesant High School, she creates a wave of attention. She’s not the most popular girl in school, but she is well known. “People like me,” she wrote in an instant message. “Well, most of them.” Alair is headed for the section of the second-floor hallway where her friends gather every day during their free tenth period for the “cuddle puddle,” as she calls it. There are girls petting girls and girls petting guys and guys petting guys. She dives into the undulating heap of backpacks and blue jeans and emerges between her two best friends, Jane and Elle, whose names have been changed at their request. They are all 16, juniors at Stuyvesant. Alair slips into Jane’s lap, and Elle reclines next to them, watching, cat-eyed. All three have hooked up with each other. All three have hooked up with boys—sometimes the same boys. But it’s not that they’re gay or bisexual, not exactly. Not always. (snip) Since the school day is winding down, things in the hallway are starting to get rowdy. Jane disappears for a while and comes back carrying a pint-size girl over her shoulder. “Now I take her off and we have gay sex!” she says gleefully, as she parades back and forth in front of the cuddle puddle. “And it’s awesome!” The hijacked girl hangs limply, a smile creeping to her lips. Ilia has stuffed papers up the front of his shirt and prances around on tiptoe, batting his eyes and sticking out his chest. Elle is watching, enthralled, as two boys lock lips across the hall. “Oh, my,” she murmurs. “Homoerotica. There’s nothing more exciting than watching two men make out.” And everyone is talking to another girl in the puddle who just “came out,” meaning she announced that she’s now open to sexual overtures from both boys and girls, which makes her a minor celebrity, for a little while. When asked how many of her female friends have had same-sex experiences, Alair answers, “All of them.” Then she stops to think about it. “All right, maybe 80 percent. At least 80 percent of them have experimented. And they still are. It’s either to please a man, or to try it out, or just to be fun, or ’cause you’re bored, or just ’cause you like it . . . whatever.” With teenagers there is always a fair amount of posturing when it comes to sex, a tendency to exaggerate or trivialize, innocence mixed with swagger. It’s also true that the “puddle” is just one clique at Stuyvesant, and that Stuyvesant can hardly be considered a typical high school. It attracts the brightest public-school students in New York, and that may be an environment conducive to fewer sexual inhibitions. “In our school,” Elle says, “people are getting a better education, so they’re more open-minded.” That said, the Stuyvesant cuddle puddle is emblematic of the changing landscape of high-school sexuality across the country. This past September, when the National Center for Health Statistics released its first survey in which teens were questioned about their sexual behavior, 11 percent of American girls polled in the 15-to-19 demographic claimed to have had same-sex encounters—the same percentage of all women ages 15 to 44 who reported same-sex experiences, even though the teenagers have much shorter sexual histories. It doesn’t take a Stuyvesant education to see what this means: More girls are experimenting with each other, and they’re starting younger. And this is a conservative estimate, according to Ritch Savin-Williams, a professor of human development at Cornell who has been conducting research on same-sex-attracted adolescents for over twenty years. Depending on how you phrase the questions and how you define sex between women, he believes that “it’s possible to get up to 20 percent of teenage girls.” Of course, what can’t be expressed in statistical terms is how teenagers think about their same-sex interactions. Go to the schools, talk to the kids, and you’ll see that somewhere along the line this generation has started to conceive of sexuality differently. Ten years ago in the halls of Stuyvesant you might have found a few goth girls kissing goth girls, kids on the fringes defiantly bucking the system. Now you find a group of vaguely progressive but generally mainstream kids for whom same-sex intimacy is standard operating procedure. “It’s not like, Oh, I’m going to hit on her now. It’s just kind of like, you come up to a friend, you grab their foot,” Alair explains. “It’s just, like, our way of saying hello.” These teenagers don’t feel as though their sexuality has to define them, or that they have to define it, which has led some psychologists and child-development specialists to label them the “post-gay” generation. But kids like Alair and her friends are in the process of working up their own language to describe their behavior. Along with gay, straight, and bisexual, they’ll drop in new words, some of which they’ve coined themselves: polysexual, ambisexual, pansexual, pansensual, polyfide, bi-curious, bi-queer, fluid, metroflexible, heteroflexible, heterosexual with lesbian tendencies—or, as Alair puts it, “just sexual.” The terms are designed less to achieve specificity than to leave all options open. To some it may sound like a sexual Utopia, where labels have been banned and traditional gender roles surpassed, but it’s a complicated place to be. Anyone who has ever been a girl in high school knows the vicissitudes of female friendships. Add to that a sexual component and, well, things get interesting. Take Alair and her friend Jane, for example. “We’ve been dancing around each other for, like, three years now,” says Alair. “I’d hop into bed with her in a second.” Jane is tall and curvy with green eyes and faint dimples. She thinks Alair is “amazing,” but she’s already had a female friendship ruined when it turned into a romantic relationship, so she’s reluctant to let it happen again. Still, they pet each other in the hall, flirt, kiss, but that’s it, so far. “Alair,” Jane explains, “is literally in love with everyone and in love with no one.” (snip) Their sexual behavior is by no means the norm at their school; Stuyvesant has some 3,000 students, and Alair’s group numbers a couple dozen. But they’re also not the only kids at school who experiment with members of the same sex. “Other people do it, too,” said a junior who’s part of a more popular crowd. “They get drunk and want to be a sex object. But that’s different. Those people aren’t bisexual.” Alair and her friends, on the other hand, are known as the “bi clique.” In the social strata, they’re closer to the cool kids than to the nerds. The boys have shaggy hair and T-shirts emblazoned with the names of sixties rockers. The girls are pretty and clever and extroverted. Some kids think they’re too promiscuous. One student-union leader told me, “It’s weird. It’s just sort of incestuous.” But others admire them. Alair in particular is seen as a kind of punk-rock queen bee. “She’s good-looking, and she does what she wants,” said a senior boy. “That’s an attractive quality.” (snip) Even as cultural acceptance of gay and bisexual teenagers grows, these kids are coming up against an uncomfortable generational divide. In many of their families, the ‘It’s fine, as long as it’s not my kid’ attitude prevails. Some of the parents take comfort in the belief that this is just a phase their daughters will grow out of. Others take more drastic measures. Earlier this year at Horace Mann, when one girl’s parents found out that she was having a relationship with another girl, they searched her room, confiscated her love letters, and even had the phone company send them transcripts of all her text messages. Then they informed her girlfriend’s parents. In the end, the girls were forbidden to see each other outside school. Even Jane, whose parents know about her bisexuality and are particularly well suited to understanding it (her mother teaches a college course in human sexuality), has run up against the limits of their liberal attitudes. They requested that she go by her middle name in this story. “My mom thinks I’m going to grow up and be ashamed of my sexuality,” she says. “But I won’t.” To these kids, homophobia is as socially shunned as racism was to the generation before them. They say it’s practically the one thing that’s not tolerated at their school. One boy who made disparaging remarks about gay people has been ridiculed and taunted, his belongings hidden around the school. “We’re a creative bunch when we hate someone,” says Nathan. Once the tormenters, now the tormented. (snip) The cuddle puddle may be where a flirtation begins, but parties, not surprisingly, are where most of the real action takes place. In parentless apartments, the kids are free to “make the rounds,” as they call it, and move their more-than-kissing hookups with both genders behind locked bathroom doors or onto coat-laden beds. Even for bisexual girls there is, admittedly, a Girls Gone Wild aspect to these evenings. Some girls do hook up with other girls solely to please the guys who watch, and it can be difficult to distinguish between the behavior of someone who is legitimately sexually interested and someone who wants to impress the boy across the room. Alair is quick to disparage this behavior—“It kinda grosses me out. It can’t be like, this could be fun . . . is anyone watching my chest heave?”—but Jane sees it as empowering. “I take advantage of it because manipulating boys is fun as hell. Boys make out with boys for our benefit as well. So it’s not just one way. It’s very fair.” She’s not just making excuses. These girls have obliterated the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” stranglehold that has traditionally plagued high-school females. They set the sexual agenda for their group. And they expect reciprocation. “I’ve made it my own personal policy that if I’m going to give oral sex, I’m going to receive oral sex,” says Jane. “Jane wears the pants in any relationship,” Ilia says with a grin. “She wears the pants in my relationship, even though she’s not part of it.” When the girls talk about other girls they sound like football players in a locker room (“The Boobie Goddesses of our grade are Natalie and Annette,” or “Have you seen the Asian girl who wears that tiny red dress and those high red sneakers?,” or “Carol is so hot! Why is she straight? I don’t get it”), but there’s little gossip about same-sex hookups—partly because the novelty has by now worn off, and partly because, as Alair puts it, “it’s not assumed that a relationship will stem from it.” It seems that even with all the same-sex activity going on, it’s still hard for the girls to find other girls to actually date. Jane says this is because the girls who like girls generally like boys more, at least for dating. “A lot of girls are scared about trying to make a lesbian relationship work,” she says. “There’s this fear that there has to be the presence of a man or it won’t work.” But dating gay girls isn’t really an option either, because the cuddle-puddle kids are not considered part of the gay community. “One of the great things about bisexuality is that mainstream gay culture doesn’t affect us as much,” says Jane, “so it’s not like bi boys feel that they have to talk with a lisp and walk around all fairylike, and it’s not like girls feel like they have to dress like boys.” The downside, she says, is that “gays feel that bis will cheat on them in a straight manner.” In fact, there’s a general impression of promiscuity that bisexual girls can’t seem to shake. “The image of people who are bi is that they are sluts,” says Jane. “One of the reasons straight boys have this bi-girls fantasy is that they are under the impression that bisexual girls will sleep with anything that moves and that’s why they like both genders, because they are so sex-obsessed. Which isn’t true.” If you ask the girls why they think there’s more teenage bisexual experimentation happening today, Alair is quick with an explanation. “I blame television,” she says. “I blame the media.” She’s partly joking, giving the stock answer. But there’s obviously some truth to it. She’s too young to remember a time when she couldn’t turn on Showtime or even MTV and regularly see girls kissing girls. It’s not simply that they’re imitating what they’ve seen, it’s that the stigma has been erased, maybe even transformed into cachet. “It’s in the realm of possibilities now,” as Ritch Savin-Williams puts it. “When you don’t think of it as being a possibility, you don’t do it. But now that it’s out there, it’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, that could be fun.’ ” Of course, sexy TV shows would have no impact at all if they weren’t tapping into something more innate. Perhaps, as research suggests, sexuality is more fluid for women than it is for men. Perhaps natural female intimacy opens the door to sexual experimentation at an age when male partners can be particularly unsatisfying. As one mother of a cuddle-puddle kid puts it, “Emotionally it’s safer—it’s difficult in this age group to hold onto your body. You’re changing. There’s a safety factor in a girl being with a girl.” Then, laughing, she asked that her name be withheld. “My mother might read this.” (remainder snipped) Sorry for the length, folks...but I already cut out about half the article. I am posting this because it is an interesting commentary on the state of the youth. While people of our generation are debating between gay and straight, etc., it appears that, at least in this particular clique, they've moved completely beyond any kind of sexual labeling and are just into sex...with whomever... Is this an indicator of where society at large is going to be in 25-30 years?

This is a tough one for me to figure... If it were anybody but Wal Mart ... Women sue Wal-Mart over access to emergency contraception BOSTON --Three Massachusetts women backed by pro-abortion rights groups sued Wal-Mart on Wednesday, saying the retail giant violated a state regulation by failing to stock emergency contraception pills in its pharmacies. The suit filed in Suffolk Superior Court seeks a court order compelling the company to stock the so-called "morning after pill," in its 44 Wal-Marts and four Sam Club stores in Massachusetts, all of which have pharmacies. "Wal-Mart apparently thinks it is above the law," said Sam Perkins, a lawyer for the three plaintiffs. A new state law that took effect late last year following heated debate on Beacon Hill requires all hospitals to provide the morning-after pill to rape victims. It also allows pharmacists to dispense the pill without a prescription, but does not require it. The suit, backed by Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts, NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts and Jane Doe Inc., argues Wal-Mart is violating a state policy that requires pharmacies to provide all "commonly prescribed medicines." They are suing to force compliance with the regulation through the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act. "Massachusetts pharmacies are required to stock all medications that are commonly prescribed to meet the usual needs of the community," Perkins said. Dan Fogleman, a spokesman for Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart, said the company "chooses not to carry many products for business reasons," but he declined to elaborate. However, in a letter to Perkins regarding the lawsuit, Wal-Mart attorney John W. Delaney wrote that Wal-Mart has "long had the corporate policy of declining to make available EC (emergency contraception) medication, based on, among other things, a view that EC medication is not 'commonly prescribed' and within the 'usual needs of the community.'" Delaney also wrote that if a Wal-Mart pharmacy doesn't carry a certain prescription, the pharmacist is instructed to refer the customer to a different drug store. He added that Wal-Mart would formally request clarification of the state regulation from Attorney General Tom Reilly or the state's Board of Pharmacy. He said if either directs the company to carry certain products, "Wal-Mart will abide." Fogleman said Wal-Mart stores in Illinois stock Plan B, as required by state law. But the drug is not stocked by Wal-Mart in any other state. The morning-after pill provides a high dose of hormones that women can take up to five days after sex to prevent pregnancy. Some abortion opponents believe emergency contraception is a form of abortion because it blocks the fertilized egg from being implanted on the uterine wall. The plaintiffs are Katrina McCarty, 29, of Somerville, Julia Battel, 37, of Boston, and Dr. Rebekah Gee, 30, of Boston. All three were turned away when they tried to buy emergency contraception pills at area Wal-Marts. The women said they knew they would be refused when they went to the Wal-Marts in Quincy and Lynn and that the action was planned with the abortion rights groups and lawyers. After being refused, McCarty and Battel went to other pharmacies and got their prescriptions filled. CVS, the state's largest pharmacy chain, stocks the pill at all of its pharmacy locations, as do the state's other major pharmacy chains. "I did this on behalf of my patients," said Gee, who is completing her residency at Brigham and Women's/Massachusetts General Hospitals in Obstetrics and Gynecology. "Women shouldn't be refused needed medication." The lawsuit also seeks $25 in damages for each woman, plus attorneys' fees, which is all they're entitled to under the state's consumer protection law. Perkins has asked Wal-Mart to settle the matter within 30 days. Perkins did not know of similar lawsuits against Wal-Mart in other states. Now, personally, I think that Wal Mart should stand by their principles and refuse to stock this. (No surprise, huh) But if the state presses them, they should close all 44 stores and 4 Sams Clubs and leave the state.

Now, now Belle. You simply must Renew your Mind. You are obviously under some Devil Spirit influence. Everybody knows that VHS is a counterfeit from the Pit of Hell. The only Godly and Profitable tape format is Beta

From Kenya, not Nigeria?

Personally, I was thinking, "As the Stomach Turns..."

The thing to notice here is the egoism. Jesus: "not my will, but thine, be done" Paul: "But he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. For not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth." Victor: "Boy, if I learned this Word of God, everybody will listen to ME....!!!"

From The Ontario (CA) Daily Bulletin: Authorities seize "bathtub cheese" Authorities seized 600 pounds of "bathtub cheese" from a small ranch in southwest Riverside County last week. The seizure of the illegally produced cheese was one of the largest on record in California, according to the Department of Food and Agriculture. The cheese was seized last Saturday by a multiagency task force that included CDFA officers, Ontario police and Riverside and San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies. Also seized were wooden cheese presses, molds and other items used in production. Two men at the ranch were cited for illegal cheese production. Officials refer to illegally produced cheese as "bathtub cheese" because of the often unsanitary conditions in which it is made. Dirty production techniques encourage the growth of harmful bacteria such as salmonella and listeria, which pose serious health risks, according the the CDFA. CDFA spokesman Steve Lyle said he didn't know where this cheese was being sold. But illegally produced cheese is most commonly sold on the streets and at open-air markets, he said. - Rod Leveque, (909) 483-9325

Is the Superbowl <b>This</b> Sunday? Oh, man. Who's playing? I always hate the superbowl...I mean, starting at 9 PM is bad enough, but what about when they go into extra innings?

Read the story and then click on the videos linked below! Chinese 4x4 gets zero in safety test The first Chinese car to be sold in Europe has scored zero — the worst-ever score — in safety tests. The JiangLing Landwind was displayed at the Frankfurt Motor Show last week and is expected to arrive in British showrooms within months. It is already on sale in Holland, Germany and Belgium and has been billed as the vanguard of a new invasion of Chinese vehicles. The two-ton 4x4 scored zero stars in crash tests last week by the ADAC, the German automobile club, which carries out tests for Euro NCAP. “It had a catastrophic result,” said a spokesman for the ADAC. “In our 20-year history no car has performed as badly.” Testers calculated that a driver would be unlikely to survive a head-on collision at 40mph, and in a side-on collision at 30mph the driver would suffer severe head and chest injuries due to a lack of side protection. “This car seems to belong in the 1990s in terms of engineering,” said Chris Patience, head of technical policy at the AA Motoring Trust. “We will wait for the official Euro NCAP results, but if it really is that bad we hope people will think very carefully before buying this car.” With an expected £10,000 price tag, the Landwind is designed to rival cars such as the Kia Sportage and Hyundai Tucson, both about £5,000 more expensive. The Chinese maker plans to sell at least 1,000 models before July 2006. Source: London Times Exterior Video of Crash Test Interior Video of Crash Test

Rascal, I sympathize with you more than you could possibly know. I was reading through some stuff this morning (conveniently enough) and would like to suggest the following: ...(Let me) clarify further this aspect of salvific liberation which is the work of Christ. It belongs to the very essence of his messianic mission. Jesus spoke of it himself. In the parable of the Good Shepherd, for example, he said, "I have come that they (the sheep) may have life and have it to the full" (Jn 10:10). He is referring to the abundance of new life which is a sharing in the life of God himself. Again in this way the newness of the humanity of Christ is realized in man as being a new creation. That is what Jesus says in figurative but evocative language in his conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well in Sychar. "'If you only knew the gift of God and who it is who is saying to you "Give me to drink," you would have been the one to ask and he would have given you living water.' The woman said to him, 'Sir, you have no means of reaching down and the well is deep, how could you get this living water?' Jesus replied: 'Whoever drinks this water will get thirsty again; but anyone who drinks the water that I shall give, will never be thirsty again. The water that I shall give will turn into a spring inside him welling up to eternal life'" (Jn 4:10-14). Jesus also repeated this truth in similar words to the crowd, when he was teaching them during the feast of Tabernacles. "Whoever is thirsty, let him come to me and let whoever believes in me come and drink. As Scripture says, from his breast shall flow a river of living water" (Jn 7:37-38). Rivers of living water are an image of the new life in which men share by virtue of the death of Christ on the cross. The tradition of the Fathers and the liturgy understand in the same sense the text of John which stated that from the side (the heart) of Christ, after his death on the cross there came forth blood and water when a Roman soldier struck his side (cf. Jn 19:34). According to an interpretation which is dear to many of the oriental Fathers and now accepted by different exegetes, rivers of living water shall also flow from the breast of the man who drinks the water of the truth and grace of Christ. "From the breast" means from the heart. A new heart is created within man as the prophets announced very clearly, especially Jeremiah and Ezekiel. In Jeremiah we read: "This will be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel when those days arrive, says the Lord. I will plant my law and write it in their hearts. Then I will be their God and they shall be my people" (Jer 31:33). Ezekiel states even more explicitly: "I shall give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I shall remove the heart of stone from you and give you a heart of flesh instead. I shall put my spirit in you and make you live according to my precepts and make you observe and keep my laws" (Ez 36:26-27). It is a question therefore of a profound spiritual transformation which God himself works within man by means of "the breath of his Spirit" (cf. Ez 36:26). The rivers of living water of which Jesus spoke mean the source of a new life which is life in the spirit and in truth, a life worthy of "true adorers of the Father" (Jn 4:23-24). Is that the kind of stuff you're talking about?

I hate to sound like a broken record, but in this administration, we ARE under grace and the gift of holy spirit does not operate us. There's nothing wrong with you for being disgusted or feeling unforgiving. Consider that David was anointed by Samuel and the spirit of the Lord came on him from that day forward (1 Sam 16:13). The only difference between the spirit David received and the gift of holy spirit we all received is that ours is permanent because Christ is in us and David's wasn't. There is no difference in the quality of the spirit. Seems to me that the way that their ability to lead should be judged is as follows: 1Ti 3:1 The saying is sure: If any one aspires to the office of bishop, he desires a noble task. 1Ti 3:2 Now a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, dignified, hospitable, an apt teacher, 1Ti 3:3 no drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and no lover of money. 1Ti 3:4 He must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way; 1Ti 3:5 for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he care for God's church? 1Ti 3:6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may be puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil; 1Ti 3:7 moreover he must be well thought of by outsiders, or he may fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. 1Ti 3:8 Deacons likewise must be serious, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for gain; 1Ti 3:9 they must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. 1Ti 3:10 And let them also be tested first; then if they prove themselves blameless let them serve as deacons. 1Ti 3:11 The women likewise must be serious, no slanderers, but temperate, faithful in all things. 1Ti 3:12 Let deacons be the husband of one wife, and let them manage their children and their households well; 1Ti 3:13 for those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith which is in Christ Jesus. Tts 1:5 This is why I left you in Crete, that you might amend what was defective, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you, Tts 1:6 if any man is blameless, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of being profligate or insubordinate. Tts 1:7 For a bishop, as God's steward, must be blameless; he must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, Tts 1:8 but hospitable, a lover of goodness, master of himself, upright, holy, and self-controlled; Tts 1:9 he must hold firm to the sure word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to confute those who contradict it. Tts 1:10 For there are many insubordinate men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially the circumcision party; Tts 1:11 they must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for base gain what they have no right to teach. Tts 1:12 One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, "Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons." But, hey, YMMV.

Say, Raf...looks like you're right again. 'Brokeback Mountain' leads Oscar nods Tuesday, January 31, 2006 Posted: 1405 GMT (2205 HKT) ( CNN) -- "Brokeback Mountain," the story of two male ranch hands who become romantically involved, led all films with eight nominations for the 78th annual Academy Awards. "Brokeback," based on a short story by E. Annie Proulx, picked up nods for best picture, best director (Ang Lee), best actor (Heath Ledger), best supporting actress (Michelle Williams) and best supporting actor (Jake Gyllenhaal). Its screenplay adaptation, by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, also received a nomination. remainder snipped

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Coretta Scott King, who surged to the forefront of the fight for racial equality in America after her husband Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in 1968, has died at age 78.She had suffered a stroke and a heart attack in August. Mrs. King's steely determination, grace and class won her millions of admirers inside and outside the civil rights movement. Rep. John Lewis, a Democratic congressman from Georgia and civil rights leader, said it was "a very sad hour.""Long before she met and married Dr. King, she was an activist for peace and civil rights and for civil liberties," he told CNN. "She became the embodiment, the personification (of the civil rights movement after Dr. King's death) ... keeping the mission, the message, the philosophy, ... of nonviolence in the forefront." At the White House, Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president, told Fox television's "Fox and Friends": "President Bush and first lady Laura Bush were always heartened by their meetings with Mrs. King. What an inspiration to millions of people. I'm deeply saddened by today's news." PUSHED TO THE FRONT Coretta Scott King played a major back-up role in the civil rights movement until the death of her husband, who was assassinated on a Memphis motel balcony on April 4, 1968, while supporting a sanitation workers strike. Mrs. King, who was in Atlanta at the time, learned of her husband's shooting in a telephone call from Rev. Jesse Jackson, a call she later wrote, "I seemed subconsciously to have been waiting for all of our lives." As she recalled in her autobiography "My Life With Martin Luther King Jr.," she felt she had to step fully into the civil rights movement. "Because his task was not finished, I felt that I must rededicate myself to the completion of his work," she said. Determined to make sure Americans did not forget her husband or his dream of a color-blind society, she created a memorial and a forum in the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta. The center has archives containing more than 2,000 King speeches and is built around the King crypt and its eternal flame. '>http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle....;

Detroit bishop reveals he was once abused by priest By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY A 75-year-old Detroit Catholic bishop stunned his church, Ohio legislators and victims of sexual abuse nationwide Wednesday when he revealed one reason he supports victims' rights to sue, no matter how long ago the abuse occurred: He was molested by a priest more than 60 years ago. Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, 75, of Detroit speaks Wednesday at a press conference in Columbus, Ohio. By Kiichiro Sato, AP "I have more insight into why it is so difficult for victims to come forward within the legal time limits, to expose themselves, open up their privacy to the public," Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton said. When he was a 14-year-old student in a high school seminary, Gumbleton said, a professor in his 40s took him to a cottage, wrestled with him and put his hands down his pants. "I knew it wasn't right, and I didn't want it to happen anymore," he said in a telephone interview before a news conference in Columbus, Ohio. There, he joined with the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests in lobbying the Ohio House of Representatives. The House is considering legislation, already passed unanimously by the state Senate, to open a one-year window in the statute of limitations on sexual abuse by clergy. Gumbleton is the first bishop to publicly support such a window. Ohio bishops, like the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, are adamantly opposed. "I am not out to get the Ohio bishops, but I care about these victims. I have a deep sense of compassion for how difficult it has been for them," he said. As a teenager, he said, he was troubled but not traumatized, and he never told his parents about the incident. The professor, whom he did not identify, died a decade ago, he said. He thought but never knew for certain that no one else was victimized. "We all think we were the only one," said Barbara Blaine, founder and president of the abuse survivors network. Gumbleton argued that full disclosure of the abuse is essential to hold perpetrators and the church accountable, heal victims and restore the church's "moral credibility" at a time when "more than a few feel that church social teachings ring with hypocrisy." In a written statement released earlier, Gumbleton said he spoke only for himself, as a priest for 49 years, a bishop for 37 years, and "out of my own experience of being exploited as a teenager through inappropriate touching by a priest." "It might seem easier to keep the evils hidden, to move on and trust that the future will be better. But I am convinced that a settlement of every case by our court system is the only way to protect children and to heal the brokenness within the church," he wrote. But Mark Chopko, general counsel for the bishops group, said Wednesday that creating a window for litigation is "fundamentally unjust," and he wondered whether Gumbleton "thought through all the implications" of such legislation. "His whole life has been committed to helping the poor and those disserved by society. What happened to him was wrong. But this 'window' is also wrong," Chopko said. "It won't protect one more child in the USA." The abuse scandal has cost the church more than $1 billion in settlements with victims, care and counseling for victims and priests, and prevention programs. Three dioceses facing claims — Portland, Ore., Tucson and Spokane, Wash. — have filed for bankruptcy, and the Archdiocese of Boston shuttered dozens of parishes. In California, which changed its law in 2003 to allow more than 800 accusers to file suit, hundreds of negotiations are stalled in a battle between the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and insurance companies over liability for claims. More than 5,000 priests abused more than 11,000 minors in a 55-year period, according to a study sponsored by the bishops and conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The bishops also instituted an elaborate prevention and reporting program in every parish and an annual national audit of bishops' compliance. "The church is fundamentally committed to a just resolution of these claims," Chopko said, even when they are "desperately out of date and barred by the statute of limitations." Chopko said the window "undermines these efforts" while prompting "an outpouring of litigation," driving dioceses to or over the edge of bankruptcy. "It could result in an disruption in parish life, or cutback in services to save money. The people who bear the brunt sit in the pews today and those, by and large, are the poor and the vulnerable."

Actually, its the government: his employer (!!!) that will reimburse for his job-related travel expense.

David already answered the YMMV question. "Token" is a facaetious expression, meaning that I'm one of the one or two Catholics you all keep around so that you can say you're a tolerant bunch. Again, the expression "token" is intended as a facaetious comment, i.e., humor. Dry humor.

David, I am not arguing that there are Biblical criteria for avoiding contact with a person. That essentially boils down to the point where an individual is attempting to lead others astray with his harmful beliefs. Rom 16:17 I appeal to you, brethren, to take note of those who create dissensions and difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught; avoid them. Tts 3:10 As for a man who is factious, after admonishing him once or twice, have nothing more to do with him, Tts 3:11 knowing that such a person is perverted and sinful; he is self-condemned. etc., etc. Likewise, my level of charity will be less when it comes to inviting a person into my home and exposing my family to a person than if I was going into their environment. To that degree, I can actually agree with what TheMex is saying. Likewise, if a person constantly disrupts a public function...I can understand inviting that person to stay away unless they choose to play a constructive role... In either of those cases, do you stop caring for that person? In either of those cases, do you stop trying to minister to that person? Or do you do only what is needed to make sure that the person is not able to infect the rest of the body with his divisive nature? However, we're not talking about whom I would invite into my home, we're talking essentially about a shunning process when we talk about M&A, TWI style. The specific examples TheMex listed were, Homos, rapist, and other tipe of criminals and sinners. He didn't list heretics. He didn't list schismatics. When I specifically asked him: So, during the "Christ administration", the proper thing to do was to minister to the homosexual to deliver him. But during the "Grace administration", the proper thing to do is to kick the homosexual to the curb. During the "Christ administration", the proper thing to do was to minister to the murderer to deliver him. But during the "Grace administration", the proper thing to do is to kick the murderer to the curb. During the "Christ administration", the proper thing to do was to minister to the rapist to deliver him. But during the "Grace administration", the proper thing to do is to kick the rapist to the curb. The answer I got back was, and I quote, " :) ". So, I take it that this is what he means. That's not what my Bible says is supposed to happen with people who are in grievous sin. My Bible says that the sick are the ones who need a physician. This is not to say that their sins are to be tolerated...in fact, according to Paul's counsel to Titus, we are to rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith. But rebuking a person is different than shunning the person. The only Biblical excuse I can see for shunning is if the person is causing schisms in the Church. If I'm wrong, please show me. But that's the only cause I can see for shunning a person.

No offense intended, ex Forgot to put the requisite YMMV down...