Biden: Days into job, news of $1 trillion deficit

Vice President Joe Biden greets supporters during a campaign event at the Century Village Clubhouse in Boca Raton, Fla., Friday, Sept. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)

Vice President Joe Biden greets supporters during a campaign event at the Century Village Clubhouse in Boca Raton, Fla., Friday, Sept. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)

FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) ? Vice President Joe Biden says that he and President Barack Obama had been on the job less than a week when a top economic adviser told them the country was facing a trillion-dollar budget deficit.

Biden says that Obama replied, "But I haven't done anything yet."

Biden blames the deficit on the previous Bush administration, adding that it "put two wars on a credit card" and gave tax cuts to the wealthy after inheriting a balanced budget and revenue surplus from the Clinton administration.

Biden hammered GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney for comments on a leaked video in which Romney describes 47 percent of Americans as paying no federal income tax and believing "they are victims."

Biden made his remarks Saturday to more than 2,000 people in Fort Myers, Fla.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-09-29-Biden/id-2efc1d95da714b2b8f4f5b54be58d433

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"Rules of Engagement" - Michael Stark

Sermon

Rules of Engagement

1 Pet 5:6?11

?Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.? [1] Civilised nations have drafted rules to guide their conduct, even in war. In the aftermath of World War II, the first three treaties previously drafted in 1864, 1906 and 1929, were updated. Nations bound themselves to abide by these protocols of war and further agreed to a set of rules for humanitarian treatment of prisoners of war, for treatment of the wounded and for handling civilian non-combatants. These rules are commonly known as the Geneva Conventions of War. Modern wars, often referred to as limited engagements, tend to disregard these conventions, though those warring against the western powers demand that their own people be treated in accordance with these protocols. Christians are engaged in a protracted war with the ruler of this world. Those dark powers aligned with the evil one are merciless and without pity. They disregard all pleas from the wounded or those caught up in the war. However, we who are identified with the King of kings and the Lord of lords are bound by His Word to conduct ourselves according to the rules of engagement that He has given us. It will be to our benefit to know His will and to ensure that we do His will. These, then, are the rules of engagement given by the Son of God. CONTEXT ?Believers are engaged in a conflict; this is not a brief conflict?it began before the fall of our first parents and has continued unabated since that time. A powerful angel, once known as Day Star [see ISAIAH 14:12], rebelled against the True and Living God. Because of His beauty, he grew proud and determined in his heart to displace the Lord God from His eternal throne [see ISAIAH 14:13, 14]. He was cast out of heaven and to the earth [see EZEKIEL 28:12-19]; there, he was instrumental in deceiving our first mother and plunging the world into its present condition of sin and ruin. He is set in opposition to God and to all who seek to serve the Lord God of Heaven and earth. He is the enemy of the soul, slandering the saints before the Most High [cf. JOB 1:6-12; 2:1-7]. For the moment, he functions as ?the ruler of this world? [JOHN 12:31] and ?the god of this world? [2 CORINTHIANS 4:4], though his destiny is destruction when he shall at last be cast into the lake of fire [REVELATION 20:9, 10]. The American President may fight wars on a timetable; but this is a war that must be fought until victory is achieved. We do believers no favour when we fail to inform them that because they are born from above, they will be thrust into battle the remainder of their lives. They did not choose to fight; but they will be forced to fight. Paul warns believers that ?We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places? [EPHESIANS 6:12]. Moreover, the fight is not conducted with weapons of metal or explosives. We are taught, ?The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ? [2 CORINTHIANS 10:4, 5]. If we are Christians, we will fight. Though we may attempt to absent ourselves from the battle, if we are children of the Living God, we cannot excuse ourselves from the conflict. The battle will come to us; we cannot flee from it. Consequently, the rules of engagement Peter will now deliver are directed to all believers. I understand very well that he has been addressing the elders in the first four verses of this chapter. However, listen to this fifth verse as he transitions to addressing all within the assembly. ?You who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ?God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble?? [1 PETER 5:5]. Underscore the initial phrase of the final sentence of this verse. ?Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another.? When Peter writes ?all of you,? he ensures that none can avoid the application of what he is about to write. The admonitions that follow are for all saints. The plea is for each of us to submit to those who are wise, whom God has appointed to oversee the congregation. Watch their lives; follow their example. Accept their decisions; don?t attempt to second-guess them. Respect their years of experience and honour their seasoned lives. BE HUMBLE ? ?Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.? What Peter has just enjoined, he now emphasises through repetition. Humility is valued in those who would be great. On one occasion, after the disciples had been arguing about who was the greatest among them, Jesus responded with what must have been a startling statement. It is assuredly a statement that is foreign to much of modern Christendom! ?If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all? [MARK 9:35]. It was a teaching that would be repeated soon after. ?You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many? [MARK 10:42-45]. In the midst of battle, it is distressingly easy to gain an inflated opinion of ones abilities. The wicked one is a master at seizing the advantage over the saint that dares forget the maxim, ?The battle is the Lord?s? [1 SAMUEL 17:47; see 2 CHRONICLES 20:15]. We must engage the enemy, struggling as though the Faith depends upon our success in the conflict, yet, always conscious that victory belongs to the Master. To our modern minds, Peter?s words sound quaint, pass? and even antiquated. We have been trained, even within the congregation of the Lord, to value the independent mind or the entrepreneurial spirit as desirable. God, however, esteems the humble soul that does not struggle to promote herself; rather, she accepts that it is God?s business to promote her. Peter seeks to assure readers that if they will but humble themselves under God?s hand, He is responsible to promote them in His time. Moreover, the humility revealed consists of casting all our cares on Him, knowing that He cares for us. Humbling ourselves under His hand implies that we are prepared to accept whatever He gives?whether discipline or deliverance. Humility before God implies that we allow Him to orchestrate our lives at His tempo, not ours. The instruction does not conform to the world?s advice or expectation. Frankly, it requires discipline?hard discipline?to put Peter?s command into practise. To walk in dependence upon the Lord means that one throws himself onto His mercy. It means that we are prepared to serve Him with radical abandon. It means that we see the congregation as the Lord?s church, and not as our church. We cast our cares and concerns on Him because we are convinced that He cares for us. We believe that He is in control, and we refuse to wrest from His hand control of our lives or control of our congregation. BE SOBER-MINDED ? ?Be sober-minded.? Let me rephrase this rule: ?Be clear-minded.? Focus! Twice before, Peter has issued this command in this same letter. The verb that is translated into English as ?Be sober-minded,? conveys the concept of maintaining self-control while others are being intoxicated. It speaks of taking control of your response to the shifting tide of the conflict. Let?s look at Peter?s use of this verb in each of the instances it is found in this letter. First, he calls believers to be spiritually sober because they have assurance of God?s grace. Here is how he says it, ?Preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ? [1 PETER 1:13]. Believers are to fix their hope fully on the grace that awaits us at Christ?s return. In short, Peter calls believers to think on the return of Christ the Lord. Many of our fellow saints have begun to live for the moment; it?s easy to do so. Here is the great tragedy?it is distressingly easy for any of us to become so caught up in the moment that we neglect the eternal. In an earlier day, saints in the southern United States were wont to caution, ?Don?t sacrifice the permanent on the altar of the temporary.? They were cautioning that we must not become so focused on the daily grind that we neglect what truly matters. Christ is coming again and we shall be caught up together with all the saints to meet Him in the air. I?ve frequently cited the statement that John gives believers in his first missive. ?Little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. ?See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God?s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure? [1 JOHN 2:28-3:3]. As he cautioned readers concerning the time in which we live, Peter wrote, ?The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers? [1 PETER 4:7]. Because we are aware of the proximity of Christ?s return, we are self-controlled and we maintain a sober spirit because we want our prayers to count. Is it possible that one great reason for a flaccid prayer life is that we are not clear-minded? Is it possible that we who are called by the Name of the Son of God have witnessed our prayers grow debilitated, enervated, sapped of all spiritual vitality because we have lost our focus? It is not only possible?it is probable that this is the case. We need to be encouraged to focus, to be sober-minded. Rudyard Kipling, considered by many to be the unofficial poet laureate of Great Britain, penned a poem that speaks of what is necessary to manhood. It idealises manliness. Though his words may be unpopular in contemporary society, we would do well to consider what he wrote in light of Peter?s admonition to believers engaged in this great conflict. If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream?and not make dreams your master; If you can think?and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on"; If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings?nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run? Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And?which is more?you'll be a Man my son! [2] We Christians must be sober-minded, as stated in our text, because we may be assured that we will face satanic attack. On several occasions, I?ve been charged by an agitated grizzly. There are many grizzlies in the mountains about us, and from time-to-time, we who go into the bush will encounter bears. Whether it is a sow with cubs or perhaps a bear protecting a food source, the animal may well attack. At such times, panic is not likely to ensure a successful outcome for the one attacked; a successful outcome in which no harm is done to either the bear or the person demands that the one attacked remain sober-minded, clear-headed, alert. We Christians are like people hiking through the bush, knowing that Satan, as a wild beast, lurks in the alders. Thus, we must remain clear-minded. As the time nears for the return of the Master, we must be all the more diligent to keep our wits about us. Satan seeks to unnerve us, prompting terror. We, however, must refuse to give in to such terror; we must remain focused, conscious of the harm he can inflict but prepared to resist him when necessary. STAY ALERT ? ?Be watchful.? Because we are at war, there can be no dereliction of duty. Throughout the New Testament are multiplied admonitions to be alert. Jesus cautioned His disciples to watch. ?Watch therefore [for the Master?s return], for you know neither the day nor the hour? [MATTHEW 25:13; see also MATTHEW 26:41]. It is an admonition Paul issued on several occasions. ?Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong? [1 CORINTHIANS 16:13]. You may also recall Paul writing, ?Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving? [COLOSSIANS 4:2]. This was also the warning that Paul delivered to the Ephesian elders when they met him at Miletus. ?Be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears? [ACTS 20:31]. One of the final benedictions of the Word refers to those who remain awake. ?Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed? [REVELATION 16:15]! The Bible assumes we are at war and that we must always be alert. The word Peter chooses is meant to be strong. We would not be out of line to translate it, ?Wake up!? [3] While the same root word is used in all the references just mentioned, Peter employs ingressive, programmatic form in order to emphasise the need for a new course of action. In light of proximity to the return of the Master and because of the furious rage of the adversary, Peter?s concern is that believers do not permit themselves to be lulled into drowsing. This is no time to let one?s guard down; the consequences of permitting yourself just a little bit of rest can be disastrous. Satan slinks about, padding softly and pouncing to rend and destroy the unwary soul; thus, we must remain alert. His one purpose is to destroy us, discrediting the testimony about our Great Commander. He roars in an attempt to frighten us, hoping that in doing so we will be stampeded. If we maintain our wits, remaining sober-minded and alert, then we may anticipate that He will seek to injure us, removing us from the fight. Our testimony, our hope, our holiness and even our lives may well be at stake in this battle. Many saints?men and women of valour?have fallen in battle, wounded and rendered ineffective because they were distracted for a moment, allowing the enemy to rush in on them. The names of many of these saints ring in my ears even to this day, and their faces haunt my memory. Let me tell you about one of those quality men. John had built a large church in an unlikely location. Situated in a small community, he saw more people attend church each Sunday than lived in the town. And he was a powerful servant of the Lord God. It started as a momentary flirtation?a woman serving as janitor for the church began to pay attention to him, and he was flattered. Surely, a little harmless flirtation wouldn?t hurt, or so he thought. However, such seemingly innocuous indiscretions have a way of giving advantage to the evil one. The flirtation grew into something physical, and the heady intoxication of stolen waters drove him onward. John would enter the pulpit on a Sunday morning to discover a note conveying a salacious, lascivious message meant for his eyes only. He would preach, but his mind was wandering. It couldn?t last; it never does. Either he would need to repent, or he would be exposed. Exposure it was. His wife and several of his deacons caught him and the janitor in flagrante delicto. She was a married woman with little children; he was a married man with college-age children. He was removed as pastor. His marriage was in tatters; her marriage was destroyed beyond repair. His reputation was ruined in that community, as was hers; the good name of the church took a decided hit. Even friends who had supported him for many years would no longer speak with him; and she began a series of transient relationships with numerous paramours. Fortunately for John, his wife was willing to work with him to restore their marriage; and a few friends were willing to hold him accountable, encouraging him in his Christian walk. I?m pleased to say that John and his wife were able to repair their marriage. He no longer pastors, nor should he. He does, however, attend a good church that is aware of his fallen, broken nature. He is able to assist in the church he and his wife now attend, though he will not ever be allowed to preach or assume pastoral duties, a condition reflecting the biblical position. The evil one took advantage of his inattention; but John provided the opportunity because he had ceased being watchful. Thus, he was responsible for giving Satan an advantage. Here is the great tragedy, what happened to this choice saint of God can happen to me, and it can happen to you, if we fail to maintain a watch. Not every failure will be a sexual transgression?it may be an ethical error, a small lie that wouldn?t hurt anyone or even acting out the covetous desire of our fallen heart. Not every indiscretion will result in immediate failure; but every indiscretion opens us to satanic assault and weakens our will to stand firm. When indiscretion does happen, deal with it immediately. It has been well stated that we must keep short accounts with God. God?s truth still comforts the saint, ?If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness? [1 JOHN 1:9]. Surely, this is the cautionary warning underlying Paul?s testimony to the Corinthians. ?Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified? [1 CORINTHIANS 9:24-27]. RESIST THE ADVERSARY ? ?Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith.? If you are one of those deluded souls living under the impression that Satan is not real, you are living in a dream world. If you have been deceived by some liberal church leader who denies the Word of God, you will shortly gain a new name?victim! Satan is not the opposite of God; Satan is a created being?an angel who can do nothing without God?s permission. However, he is a fallen angel; and because he is an angel, he is powerful?more powerful than we could ever know. He has had millennia to perfect his wiles and his guile. Nevertheless, the Christian needs to know that Satan is not all-powerful; he is restrained by the divine will. God alone may be said to be all-powerful, omnipotent. Satan knows your depravity, and he knows the depths of your depravity better than you know it. Moreover, you must not imagine that you are able in your own power to stand up to this fallen angel. You must be focused on Christ, confident in His grace and in His power. You are responsible to know the Author of this Faith and His grace so that you can be fully confident in Him. Though he may appear as an angel of light, Satan is prepared to terrify you if he can. Peter?s instruction concerning the wicked one mirrors that which James issued. The brother of our Lord has written believers, ?Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you? [JAMES 4:7]. What will you do when you face Satan nose-to-nose? When the wicked one probes the perimeter to your life as he seeks a weak point, what will you do? When he roars, trying to terrify you with his frightful bawl, how will you respond? Will you panic? Run? Surrender? These responses must never be considered! Peter instructs us to ?resist him, firm in your faith.? Let me say without equivocation, we do not resist Satan with confidence in our power or in our ability. We are to be firm in the Faith of Christ the Lord. For most modern Christians, the only image they have of lions is usually one drawn from National Geographic Wild, or perhaps from watching a Disney movie. Perhaps you have seen a lion in a zoo; but you know that those caged beasts are not permitted to display the raw power their wild cousins use each day for survival. For those early Christians to whom Peter was writing, their image of lions was not so placid or idyllic. Some who would receive Peter?s letter would have witnessed the gory spectacle of the Roman amphitheatre. They would have witnessed condemned believers?some undoubtedly known to them?torn by tooth and claw; they would have seen the horrifying image of the blood of these saints dripping from the fangs of lions in the arena. It is in the harsh glare of such a terrifying scene that Ignatius, Overseer of Antioch, wrote of his impending death. ?I am writing to all the churches and am insisting to everyone that I die for God of my own free will?unless you hinder me. I implore you: do not be ?unseasonably kind? to me. Let me be food for the wild beasts, through whom I can reach God. I am God?s wheat, and I am being ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I might prove to be pure bread. (2) Better yet, coax the wild beasts, that they may become my tomb and leave nothing of my body behind, lest I become a burden to someone once I have fallen asleep. Then I will truly be a disciple of Jesus Christ, when the world will no longer see my body. Pray to the Lord on my behalf, that through these instruments I might prove to be a sacrifice to God. (3) I do not give you orders like Peter and Paul: they were apostles, I am a convict; they were free, but I am even now still a slave. But if I suffer, I will be a freedman of Jesus Christ, and will rise up free in him. In the meantime, as a prisoner I am learning to desire nothing.? [4] Ignatius, presiding elder of Antioch, was a student of the Apostle John. He wrote the six letters that remain his legacy [5] at some point between A.D. 98 and 117. The letters were composed within a very brief time, perhaps a matter of weeks, after he was arrested and sentenced to death in the arena under the Emperor Trajan. His words in this portion of the letter that I have cited gives us some idea of how Peter?s words would have been understood by his readers. The image of a lion seeking the believer was shockingly real to these early believers. I encourage you to resist the devil. I do not encourage you to go looking for the devil?he will find you if you are living for the Master! There are quite enough Christian cowboys who imagine God has appointed them to run the devil out of town. Jude tells us that the archangel Michael was restrained in the presence of Satan. ?When the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, ?The Lord rebuke you?? [JUDE 9]. I can testify that no one is wise who looks for trouble in the spiritual world; but, when trouble comes, you may be assured that God will care for His own. Your responsibility is to stand firm in your faith, confident in the One in whom you have believed and secure in His grace. ENDURE SUFFERING ? ?[Know] that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.? When you face the wicked one, know that you are not alone. Indeed, Christ stands with you as surely as he stood with the three Hebrew men cast into the furnace because they dared refuse to bow to the king?s idol [see DANIEL 3:1-30]. His promise remains for all who are known by Him, ?Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age? [MATTHEW 28:20a]. However, in these words, Peter reminds us that the brotherhood throughout the world is likewise suffering. Because you are a Christian, whether living in Canada, in Iraq, in China, in India or in Russia, you may anticipate opposition and persecution. It is a lie perpetuated by the evil one himself that if you are a Christian you will never suffer. Jesus warned his disciples that they could anticipate opposition and assault because they were His followers. Listen to a few passages that speak of such antagonism toward the Faith. ?If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ?A servant is not greater than his master.? If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ?They hated me without a cause?? [JOHN 15:18-25]. Jesus also warned, ?Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person?s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it? [MATTHEW 10:34-39]. The Master?s warnings were echoed by the Apostles. For instance, consider John?s word, ?Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you? [1 JOHN 3:13]. Paul spoke often of suffering as a believer. ?We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God?s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us? [ROMANS 5:3-5]. Here is another instance of Paul?s teaching concerning enduring suffering. ?You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him? [2 TIMOTHY 2:1-4]. He continued by cautioning Timothy, ?Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful? for he cannot deny himself? [2 TIMOTHY 2:8-13]. Let me speak candidly, pointedly?it is increasingly likely that we will experience opposition and yes, even suffering, here in Canada as well as in the United States. This opposition will come because we who know the Master as ruler of life are compelled by this knowledge to stand firm in this Holy Faith. However, the Christian must never permit himself or herself to respond with choler or act with malice toward those who are antagonistic toward the Master or who seek to injure us because of our faith. Our responsibility is to remember the rules of engagement which Christ Jesus has given us. Always remember that it is the evil one who motivates the animosity we Christians may experience; he is the enemy, not those mere mortals who foolishly perform his will. Believers in the Lord Jesus will accept the admonition of the Apostle, ?The Lord?s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will? [2 TIMOTHY 2:24-26]. ANTICIPATE VICTORY ? ?After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.? Did you get that? You will suffer; however, after the suffering and the pain that attends the battle, you will receive God?s promised award?God Himself will restore us. He will confirm us, strengthen us and establish us. Listen to what Peter wrote as he began this letter. ?Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God?s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time? [1 PETER 1:3-5]. Fix your attention on that glorious phrase, ?a living hope.? ?A living hope? is that for which we are born again. We who are believers in the Risen Lord of God now possess ?a living hope.? In this fallen world, it can be distressingly easy to despair and thus lose hope. People often complain that they can see no way out; they cease trying to be righteous, or they cease trying to preserve their marriage, or they cease seeking after God or they just quit. However, we who are Christians, we who are children of the Heavenly King have been ?born again to a living hope.? Practically speaking, this means we live in anticipation of the fulfilment of what has been promised by Him who redeemed us. Thus, Peter continues by speaking of the practical impact of those who anticipate victory. ?In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith?more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire?may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls? [1 PETER 1:6-9]. The noise of battle is for but a brief while; know that it is preparing us for eternal glory. In the midst of battle, we now enjoy God?s grace and calling [see 1 PETER 5:10]. Though we may grow weary, and though we may question how successful we have been, we are confident that God is in control. Child of God, we serve Him who is too wise to make a mistake and too good to ever permit His child to suffer needlessly. Paul is correct when he writes, ?We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal? [2 CORINTHIANS 4:16-18]. Paul also encourages each believer in the Risen Son of God with this glorious reminder: ?I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us? [ROMANS 8:18]. He continues by noting that ?the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God? [ROMANS 8:19]. The Master is coming again. His coming will put down rebels and ensure that Satan and his minions will never be free again. More than that, Jesus is coming ?to be glorified in His saints, and to be marvelled at among all who have believed? [2 THESSALONIANS 1:10]. That will be the fulfilment to Jesus? prayer of the Father: ?All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them? [JOHN 17:10]. ?To Him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen? [1 PETER 5:11]. Amen, indeed. Our God is on the throne. He is watching over us even as we struggle. The outcome is certain. I read the end of the Book; I know how it ends; and so do you. ??Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.? ?Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. ??I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.? ?The Spirit and the Bride say, ?Come.? And let the one who hears say, ?Come.? And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price. ?I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. ?He who testifies to these things says, ?Surely I am coming soon.? Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! ?The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen? [REVELATION 22:12-21]. [1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright ? 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. [2] Rudyard Kipling, ?If,? (The poem first appeared in Kipling?s collection, ?Rewards and Fairies? in 1909.) http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/Rudyard_Kipling/kipling_if.htm, accessed 25 September 2012 [3] See J. Ramsey Michaels, Word Biblical Commentary: 1 Peter, vol. 49 (Word, Inc., Dallas, TX 1998) 297 [4] Ignatius, ?To the Romans,? in Michael William Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, Updated ed. (Baker, Grand Rapids, MI 1999) 171 [5] To the Smyrnaeans; To Polycarp; To the Ephesians; To the Magnesians; To the Philadelphians; To the Trallians; and To the Romans

Source: http://sermons.logos.com/submissions/121673

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Michael Jordan Appears to Miss Golf Attire Memo at Ryder Cup (Photo)

Michael Jordan very well could be the greatest basketball player the world has ever seen, but the list of things he's not so good at seems to be getting significantly longer.

A baseball player? Not so great. An NBA owner? There have certainly been better. Now Jordan can add something new to his list of shortcomings: fashion mogul.

Although Jordan certainly brought a winning presence to the Medinah Country Club in Illinois this weekend, his outfit was not up to par. Donning acid-washed jeans and what appeared to be the dry land version of a life preserver, Jordan stuck out like a sore thumb in a sea of polo shirts and khaki pants.

The captains and representatives of the U.S. welcomed Jordan with open arms on the first tee box Friday morning, but those who woke up to watch the first shots of the opening round probably wish they hadn't. One would think that someone who has lost as much money on a golf course as Jordan would at least know how to dress for the occasion.

Check out the photo below to fully understand the horrors of his attire.

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Source: http://www.nesn.com/2012/09/michael-jordan-appears-to-miss-golf-attire-memo-at-ryder-cup-photo.html

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Doctors Grow New Ear on Cancer Victim's Arm

When Sherrie Walter lost her ear to cancer two years ago, she told herself she'd never be one of those survivors attaching a prosthetic ear every day.

"The concept of having to tape something to my skin every day didn't feel like that was who I was," the 42-year-old mother of two told ABC News. "I could just see my kids running around with it, yelling, 'I have mommy's ear!'"

But doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore offered Walter a chance at a new ear -- a permanent one built from her own tissue.

The groundbreaking procedure, described as one of the most complicated ear constructions in the U.S., involves removing cartilage from the rib cage to form a new ear, which is then placed under the skin of the forearm to grow.

"It was under my arm for about four months," Walter said. "I just thought I was something from science fiction."

This week, Walter received some of the finishing touches on her ear, with doctors sculpting and carving tissue to reposition it.

"Family and friends say it looks great," Walter said. "I'm not looking until the big reveal."

Walter's journey began in 2010, when a sore in her left ear was diagnosed as basal-cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer.

"My dermatologist looked at it for less than five minutes and said, 'You have cancer,'" Walter said.

In October 2012, Walter was told the cancer had spread to her ear canal. She went through a 16-hour procedure to have the entire ear, neck glands, lymph nodes tissue and part of her skull removed.

That's when a team of doctors stepped in and told Walter she had options.

"I described to her how prosthetic ears have to be fixated somehow and sometimes fall off," said Dr. Patrick Byrne, an associate professor in otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Sherrie's skull bone had been removed, so the only way of attaching a prosthetic would be through tape and glue. We both agreed that wasn't an option."

Byrne, who pioneered the procedure, said most ear reconstruction uses facial and neck skin, but most of Walter's skin had been removed from those areas.

Doctors opted to place the ear under the forearm.

"We've talked for years about finding the right patient, in terms of age and health and a good support system. Sherrie had all that," Walter said.

In November 2011, Walter's new ear was inserted under the surface of her forearm skin.

"We implanted the ear near the wrist and just let it live there so all the skin could grow," Byrne said.

After four months, the ear was removed from her arm and re-attached to her head.

The entire process took 20 months.

Since the re-attachment in March, Byrne and his team have been working on the cosmetic aspect of the ear, fully matching it to her right ear.

"Her reveal will be in about a week, and that's going to really be an amazing," Byrne said.

For Walter, the reveal of her new ear is the opportunity to give other cancer survivors hope.

"I just want people to learn from the story and understand that they have options out there," Walter said. "Talking to your doctor and realizing you have options. Because honestly, anything is possible."

Also Read

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/doctors-grow-ear-cancer-victims-arm-191904326--abc-news-health.html

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Jonathan Ames on Life, Writing and Spalding Gray | The Sag Harbor ...

Jonathan Ames

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By Annette Hinkle

As a writer, you could say that Jonathan Ames has certainly explored the boundaries of what?s possible through a myriad of mediums and life experiences. He?s written novels, memoirs and comics, worked as a newspaper columnist, an on-stage storyteller and was the creator, writer and producer of ?Bored to Death? the TV series which ran for three seasons on HBO. He?s also been an occasional actor (he was a ?porn-extra? in one film) and had a brief career as an amateur boxer known as ?The Herring Wonder.?

Often confessional, frequently provocative and largely experiential, Ames built a reputation for putting it all out there in his writing ? whether he was sharing stories of his childhood traumas or sexual misadventures. On Wednesday, October 3 Ames will be the first guest in the fall Writers Speak Wednesdays series at Stony Brook Southampton.

Given all his successes, Ames is now in a well-earned position to offer aspiring young writers a bit of guidance in pursuing their own careers. But Ames will tell you, it was another talented (and extremely confessional) writer who inspired him when he was just starting out ? Spalding Gray, the renowned monologist and Sag Harbor resident who took his own life in 2004 following a car accident that left him with debilitating injuries.

?I first saw him in ?86 at Lincoln Center,? recalls Ames. ?A woman I was dating took me to the show, and I remember loving it. Even though it was Lincoln Center there was something Beat Generation about it. For me anyway.?

?I was 22 years old and here?s someone going up there being so vulnerable and honest and real while performing,? adds Ames. ?A few years later, I don?t know if I forgot about it, but I began to tell stories.?

By that point, though Ames had published his first novel, ?I Pass Like the Night,? he was struggling with his new writing projects. So he went to MacDowell Colony, an artists and writers retreat in New Hampshire, where he had received a residency. Coincidentally, Spalding Gray had also once had a MacDowell residency (he shared details of the writer?s block he experienced there in his monologue ?Monster in a Box?). And like Gray, Ames found he was also having trouble getting his words down on paper during his time at MacDowell.

?But when I was talking at the dinner table they?d all laugh,? recalls Ames of the other artists and writers at MacDowell. ?Same things at the support groups, I?d tell my stories and they laughed.?

?One night I ended up telling stories at the library in the colony,? he adds. ?I don?t know if I had Spalding in my mind, but he was in my conscious.?

That was 1990, and in the years that followed, Ames began to go on stage to tell very personal stories from his life. But these were not like stand-up comedy routines or theatrical one-person shows that involve a lot of movement on stage.

?I kind of did what Spalding did with the desk and the glass of water ? stripped down and talking at a mic,? explains Ames. ?Then in ?99, I met him socially at a party and was very shy, a little like a baseball fan seeing Joe DiMaggio or Derek Jeter. I asked if his technique was like mine, where he knew the basic outline, but used improv so he told it fresh every time. He said he did.?

In 1999, Ames received a Guggenheim fellowship and brought his original (and some would say shocking) one-man show ?Oedipussy? to an off-off-Broadway theater. And by the time of Gray?s death, Ames had become known as a downtown Manhattan performer and he knew a lot of the same people as Gray. So when Gray?s widow, Kathie Russo, and Lucy Sexton put together the theatrical piece ?Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell,? which consisted of excerpts from Gray?s monologues and writings, they tapped Ames as one of the initial five performers to share Gray?s words on stage.

?After a few experimental performances in small theaters I was in the PS 122 run,? says Ames. ?We did five nights in a row, then I went on the road with them to a couple different cities and theaters.?

While Ames would not say his own method of baring his soul on stage was directly because of Gray, he does call him ?a kindred spirit.? And though he performed his on stage pieces while still working on his books, Ames did not find that one form of writing segued into the other.

?It was a dual track ? I?d write during the day, perform at night,? he says. ?The performance was more ephemeral, more of the moment. Later I had a column in an alternative paper for three years. A lot of the stories I told on stage I turned into prose for my column. My column was my adventures.?

?For me, performing grew out of struggle to write a second book ? but I found I could just talk,? he says. ?That led me back to writing. It was this bifurcated life. I was better known as a writer than a performer. In the downtown world I was known as both.?

Now that he?s older (Ames is 48), finds his focus has changed and he admits he is less eager to share the nitty gritty details of his personal life with his public. In the HBO series ?Bored to Death,? actor Jason Schwartzman may have played a struggling novelist named Jonathan Ames who moonlights as an unlicensed private detective, but the show, which ran from 2009 to 2011, was wholly fictional ? not confessional.

?I?ve written four novels and four collections,? he says. ?I haven?t really been doing the confessional work for quite some time. As I get older it becomes more difficult because I think I want to be more private and don?t want people reading into things as much.?

?It?s an issue I?m struggling more with now than when I was young and more courageous on some level,? says Ames. ?When you?re trying to make your way, you do that by being brave. Maybe I?ve gotten less brave.?

It?s not just true of the writing. Ames, a.k.a. ?The Herring Wonder? who once enjoyed going a few rounds in the ring, whether in the school yard, as performance art spectacle or a serious amateur bout, has also hung up the boxing gloves. His nose has been broken more times than he cares to remember.

?I haven?t had a fight since 2007. I don?t think I?ll box again,? he says. ?I enjoyed the romance of getting into the ring, but not getting hit or hurting someone else. I was more into putting on the costume.?

Jonathan Ames speaks as part of Writers Speak Wednesdays at Stony Brook Southampton at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, October 3, 2012. Sponsored by the in Creative Writing and Literature program, the talk will be held in the Radio Lounge on the second floor of Chancellors Hall. For information, call 632-5287 or visit www.stonybrook.edu/mfa. Admission is free and open to the public.

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Source: http://sagharboronline.com/sagharborexpress/arts/jonathan-ames-on-life-writing-and-spalding-gray-19846

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Marine-turned-country star sings about PTSD

By Bill Briggs, NBC News contributor

Everything you see in the music video happened to Marine-turned-country-singer Stephen Cochran: Pushing the girl away, boozing into oblivion, the gun on the blanket. It all went down last year.?

Courtesy of Stephen Cochran

Stephen Cochran, a former Marine recon scout and now a country-music singer, has penned a new song about PTSD - combat-related symptoms that almost claimed his life in 2011.

Even the actor who portrays Cochran is, himself, a former Marine and Iraq veteran who knows of post-traumatic stress, who has wrangled with identical demons. The actor was not acting.

The only on-screen tweak from reality was?the type firearm shown. In his dimmest hour, behind a locked door in his Nashville home, exhausted, alone, and telling himself: ?I?m done,? Cochran rested a loaded shotgun against his bed.

?I was just trying to get the nerve. I had it planned out,? Cochran told NBC News. ?I didn?t know what was wrong with me. I was tired of taking all these pills. I was going through a breakup. Couldn?t write anymore. Watching everything fall apart. I was ready to check out.?

---

Then: salvation, and a surreal rescue scene worthy of an epic ballad. His dog, Semper Fi, began scratching relentlessly at his door, bloodying her paws. Next, Cochran?s ex-fianc? unexpectedly entered the house, simply to retrieve a forgotten item, he said. She saw the anxious dog. She expected the worst. She barged into the bedroom, spotted the gun and physically restrained Cochran.?

But from anguish came inspiration. Amid an existence long blurred by PTSD ??the residue of Afghanistan firefights, Marine buddies lost in combat, and his own nearly fatal injury???one question blazed in Cochran's head. He jotted it down: ?How do you paint a picture back in focus??

?It was the only way I could describe trying to put your life back together, literally trying to do the impossible,? he said.

Around that single thought, Cochran penned an entire song, ?Pieces,?an ode to the blackness from which he was aching to escape, a tale of reconnecting the scattered fragments of his shattered world, and a message of solidarity for his military brothers and sisters. The single ? part of a CD with the same title???will be released in this country on Nov. 11. The song already has charted in Europe.

?It?s not just my story. So many of us think about (suicide) because you just get so tired, so tired of being the crazy guy. Or of hearing: ?He?s weird.? Or of hearing: ?We can?t hire you because we really don?t know what post-traumatic stress is and you might come back and kill us all.?

?I really wrote it as my own healing, for what I was going through,? added Cochran, 33, who teamed with fellow musician Trevor Rosen to complete the song. It took them only 15 minutes.

But after playing it at several veterans? benefits, Cochran heard from service members up and down the chain of command how they, too, connected with the lyrics. That feedback has turned ?Pieces? into the soundtrack of the singer?s ongoing crusade.

?We have an epidemic of suicides in the military right now.?At this point, we are physically losing both of these wars in the United States of America, not overseas.

Related: First opera about Iraq War reaches out to veteran suffering from PTSD

?If we want to stop our suicides, we need a complete overhaul in our ?warrior? terminology in this country, in the way we train our families (how to relate with homecoming veterans). That?s what I want to start with ?Pieces,? and the video. I want to get a bridge between our civilian population and the veterans. And I want to reach into the rooms of some of these guys and girls ??who are just sitting in the dark and watching TV all day like I did???and let them know: You?re not alone.?

Perhaps the most ironic thread of Cochran?s story coils back to the days of his first, true musical success. In 2007, one year after retiring from the Marines, he scored a country hit with ?Friday Night Fireside,? the culmination of a childhood dream for a guy raised in Nashville. The accompanying video was voted No. 1 by Great American Country?fans for five straight weeks.

courtesy of Stephen Cochran

After his the light-armoured vehicle crashed in Afghanistan, Stephen Cochran fractured vertebrae and suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2004. Told he would never walk again, an experimental procedure by VA surgeons restored his steps.

Two years later, Cochran became the national spokesman for research and development at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs ??his thank you for a successful, experimental surgery performed by VA surgeons who repaired his broken back. In 2004, Cochran had splintered several lumbar vertebrae when the vehicle in which he was riding through southern Afghanistan slammed into gaping hole that once held an anti-tank mine. He couldn?t feel or move his legs for months, and was told by doctors that he?d never take steps again. He walked.

The former Marine reconnaissance scout, part of the U.S. force that first knocked the Taliban out of Afghanistan?s Helmand Province, next teamed up with the VA to become its national co-chair for voluntary service. In that role, Cochran toured America, urging veterans to seek help for combat stress, ?to let them know you don?t have to suffer in silence,? recalled Rosetta Fisher-Oliver, the VA?s chief of voluntary service for Tennessee and for parts of Kentucky and Georgia.

In 2011, Cochran recorded the music video ?Hope??for the VA to try and cement his get-help pleas to fellow troops. What few knew: Cochran was losing his own hope.

?We worked on that video together, and the week he was supposed to make the video, I tried to get in touch with him, just to check to see that he was going to be on time,? said Fisher-Oliver.

She was unable to reach him, however, because Cochran was by then seeking treatment ? after reaching the brink of suicide in his bedroom.

?Here?s a person who?s trying to get the message out and he?s still struggling with issues too,? she said. ?He later told me: ?I almost wasn?t here.? ?

Cochran now acknowledges that he carried ?almost dual personalities? during that time. In front of fellow veterans and fans, he sang, smiled, shook hands and signed autographs. ?But I also had to deal with this monster I have inside my head and inside my gut, all day.? At home, his family and his then-fianc?, he admitted, took the brunt of his mood swings and emotional detachment.

courtesy of Stephen Cochran

After breaking his back in Afghanistan, Cochran was greeted by a fellow Marine. He later regained the ability to walk.

?You?re screaming out: Please help me understand what I?m going through, because I have no clue! That?s why you see the high number of divorces in the military,? Cochran said. ?I told my fianc?: ?I don?t know what I?m dealing with so the best thing for you to do is just leave and you?ll thank me later.' ?

She left.

But in what could have been Cochran?s final minutes, she came back, and burst into his bedroom.

After Cochran artfully turned that horrid moment into a song, he met the man picked to portray his downward spiral in the ?Pieces? video: Daniel Dean, a Nashville songwriter and actor. He also looks a bit like Cochran. He seemed like a logical choice.

In talking with Dean, though, Cochran learned that the man was a Marine sniper who did three tours in Iraq. And they both had lived for years with the lingering anxieties that often remain for veterans who log months of combat exposure.

?He told me: 'This is my story, too,'? Cochran remembers. ?That dude lived that.?

They also agreed with the concept that ?Pieces? would be not just the first music video to delve so deeply into PTSD. It would break ranks with dozens of other standard, country-music videos about the U.S. military ? mini movies that often include battle scenes that, some critics say, glorify war.

?Stephen does country music and so do I, and there?s a lot of military songs and a lot of them are pretty much B.S.? Dean said. ?You?ve got the Toby Keith type stuff?and that?s all right for what it is. But very rarely does a song hit a military person the way this one does.

?Just because it?s real. It?s one of the things I doubt you?ll hear any of the other country stars singing about. It?s (usually) more of the patriotic angle. Most military members aren?t songwriters like Stephen and I. So, I guess that lets us be able to sing things that you can?t say or can't deal with.??

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Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/28/14128747-a-country-song-about-ptsd-all-youve-got-left-are-these-pieces?lite

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Get Creative With Handmade Christmas Gifts

Don?t let your budget deter you from having an enjoyable Christmas season. This is a time to remember, and it?s not all about the expense of a gift, but the thought that you put into the gift. Yes, there are those who may feel different, but for the people who are close to you in your life, they are more likely to be appreciative of the time and care you put into the gift than how much money you spent on it. People love being recognized and thought of, and managing your budget with handmade Christmas gifts is a wonderful opportunity to show how much you care.

Here are some ideas to get you going:

Dessert Baking Jar

This is a cute idea to share one of your favorite dessert recipes, such as cookies or a special bread (like banana bread or cranberry bread). First, use your creativity and computer skills and type up your recipe on fancy Christmas stationary. You can either glue it to a medium sized jar or tie it with a ribbon to the top of the jar.

Your recipe should state what needs to be added to the dry ingredients. Also include what type of baking pan to use, oven heat, cooking time, and any other specifics to make this recipe special.

Fill the jar with all the dry ingredients for the recipe. Be sure to add the ingredients one at a time to the jar, so it creates a nice pattern. Decorate the lid in Christmas paper and tie ribbon around the top of the jar to give it that original Christmas look.

Recipe Gift Basket

Creating a gift basket of your favorite dinner recipe, or a favorite of the recipient, makes a unique and special Christmas gift. If you collect baskets during the year from gifts you received, you can save time and money by recycling one of those.

First, fill the basket with all the non-perishable ingredients needed for the dinner meal. For example, if the recipient of your gift loves pasta, you can purchase two different types of pasta, pasta sauce, special spices, and maybe even a bottle of wine that goes with the dish. Decorate the basket with Christmas ribbon and don?t forget to include a recipe if it requires special preparation.

Mini Scrap Book

Grandparents and those relatives that live far away from you will enjoy and cherish this gift idea. Gather pictures of your children, or you and your significant other, or even just of you doing different things during the year.

Purchase an inexpensive plain drawing journal with no lines so you can paste your pictures and write a little blurb about the significance of the picture. If you have children, you can also include milestones in their life, which will be heartwarming to grandparents who adore their grandchildren. Wrap it with some fancy ribbon and you got a special gift that mainly only cost your time.

Personalized Notecards

Everyone loves blank notecards that they can use for any occasion. If you know what your friend or family member loves, you can create personalized notecards at a minimal cost. Purchase blank envelopes and cardstock white paper. Cut the cardstock paper in half along its width, then fold in half to create a notecard. Now decorate with ribbon, stationary, material, stickers, etc., that represent the recipient.

Source: http://toddsblogs.com/shoppingandproductreviews/2012/09/28/get-creative-with-handmade-christmas-gifts/

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Security concerns keep FBI from scene of ambassador's murder: Official

More than two weeks after militants killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans at a diplomatic mission in Libya, FBI investigators have not gone into the city where the attack took place due to security concerns, a federal law enforcement official said today, even if such concerns haven't stopped journalists from operating freely in the same city.

"In a perfect world, we'd be there. No one is preventing us from going there," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Security and safety are the big issues that will dictate when things change."

An FBI team arrived in Libya last week to investigate the Sept. 11 assault on an American diplomatic mission in Benghazi that took the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens, a State Department computer expert and two former U.S. Navy SEALs, but has been waiting for days to actually go to the scene of the attack.

PHOTOS: Remembering the Fallen in Libya

In the days after the Benghazi assault, reporters were able to walk into the battered buildings that were targeted. CNN obtained a partial diary written by Ambassador Stevens that the network said had been left on the floor at one of the structures and several international broadcast reports appeared to show the buildings completely unsecured.

"The site is greatly degraded at this point," the law enforcement official said. "What is left?"

The FBI says on its website that the bureau "plays a critical role" in any response to major incidents abroad involving Americans. The bureau said it works with the State Department and must obtain permission from any host country to conduct a foreign investigation.

The FBI declined to comment on the failure to reach the crime scene, which was first reported by CNN, and both the State Department and the White House directed all questions about the investigation to the bureau.

The Libyan ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Dabbashi, told ABC News that neither he, the Libyan ambassador to the U.S., nor the Libyan foreign minister had seen the reports about the FBI team having any trouble at all in their investigation and said their American counterparts had not brought it up.

"There is full security cooperation between the Libyan authorities and the U.S. authorities," Dabbashi said. All three high-level Libyan officials are in New York for the U.N. General Assembly.

Even if the FBI team goes in now, a former FBI agent familiar with foreign crime scenes said it will be extremely difficult to learn anything useful from the scene of a two-week-old crime.

"That scene is going to be pretty well picked over," said Chris Swecker, former FBI Assistant Director and FBI on-scene commander in Iraq in 2003. Swecker said it was "shocking" that reporters could walk through the attack site but American investigators haven't been able to get there.

"Once [the FBI team is] on the ground, they are very capable, but getting to the crime scene is important," he said.

READ: American Killed in Libya Was on Intel Mission to Track Weapons

White House Now Calls Incident 'Terrorist Attack'

The CNN report came the same day White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters for the first time that President Obama believes the deadly assault was, in fact, a "terrorist attack."

The Obama administration had come under fire from Republican lawmakers for what they called inaccurate characterizations of the incident, particularly citing U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice's early description of the attack as being a protest against an anti-Islam film that was "hijacked" by violent actors.

For days the administration did not use the phrase "terrorist attack," even as reports emerged suggesting it was a well-coordinated assault that may not have been connected to any demonstrations. National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen became the first high-level official to publicly use the term on Sept. 19 and the next day Carney said he believed it was "self-evident" that it was an act of terrorism.

President Obama spoke before the United Nations Wednesday and referred to the incident, but did not use the term "terrorism." The same day, Carney told reporters "it is certainly the case that it is our view as an administration, the President's view, that it was a terrorist attack."

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/security-concerns-keep-fbi-scene-ambassadors-murder-official-155440649--abc-news-topstories.html

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Mars rover driving through ancient riverbed

The Mars Rover has detected the first on-the-ground evidence of an ancient streambed. If there was water, could Mars have supported life? NBC's Tom Costello reports

By Alan Boyle

A close look at pebble-filled layers of rock has convinced scientists that NASA's Curiosity rover is driving through a dried-up stream bed on Mars where water flowed vigorously billions of years ago. They say it's the kind of place that just might have supported life when the planet was young.

"This is a rock that was formed in the presence of water," Caltech's John Grotzinger, project scientist for the $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory mission, said today during a televised news conference at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

The evidence is in the shape, size and composition of the rocks that Curiosity came across at multiple sites during its landing on Aug. 5. Conglomerate rocks, consisting of pebbles cemented together within layers of sediment, were seen at three sites:

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• Goulburn, a bedrock formation that was exposed by the blast from Curiosity's descent.
• Link, a rock outcrop that was seen once Curiosity headed out from the landing site.
• Hottah, an uplifted slab of craggy rock that was given a visual inspection two weeks ago.

Hottah in particular showed clear evidence of rounded pebbles that were too big to be smoothed by the action of the wind. Some of the rocks are as big as golf balls. The best explanation for the gravelly pebbles was that they were eroded by the vigorous flow of water, said Curiosity science team member Rebecca Williams, a senior scientist at the Arizona-based Planetary Science Institute.

The Hottah slab, which measures 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 centimeters) thick, looks as if "somebody came along the surface of Mars with a jackhammer and lifted up a sidewalk that you might see in downtown LA, sort of like in a construction site," Grotzinger said.

NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS

A closeup view of the "Hottah" rock outcrop shows the characteristic pebbly rock that is associated with the action of a flowing stream. Broken surfaces of the outcrop have rounded, gravel clasts, such as the one circled in white, which is about 1.2 inches (3 centimeters) across. The rock formation was named after Hottah Lake in Canada's Northwest Territories.

The Planetary Science Institute's Rebecca Williams describes new images from Mars.

NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS / PSI

This set of images compares the Link outcrop of rocks on Mars (left) with similar rocks seen on Earth (right). The image of Link, obtained by NASA's Curiosity rover, shows rounded gravel fragments, or clasts, up to a couple of inches (few centimeters) wide, within the rock outcrop. In accordance with the Mars mission's tradition, Link takes its name from a rock formation in Canada's Northwest Territories.

The evidence from the ground meshes well with the evidence from orbit indicating that Curiosity is near an 11-mile-wide (18-kilometer-wide) fan of material that may have washed down a channel in ancient times, when Mars was warmer and wetter, according to William Dietrich, a planetary scientist at the University of California at Berkeley.

"These stones ... are very, very revealing to us about the process," Dietrich said. Some previous research has suggested that water flowed on Mars only for brief periods, separated by long, cold, dry spells. That scenario might not have provided enough time for life to get a foothold on the Red Planet in ancient times. But Dietrich said the patterning of the channels within the fan suggested that water streamed through the area for well beyond a thousand-year time scale.

"We can step away from the idea that there was a single burst of water ... that built it all in a day," he told reporters.

Based on the size of the gravel seen by Curiosity, Dietrich estimated that the water moved at a speed of about 3 feet (1 meter) per second, at a depth somewhere between ankle and hip deep.

"Plenty of papers have been written about channels on Mars with many different hypotheses about the flows in them," Dietrich said in a NASA news release. "This is the first time we're actually seeing water-transported gravel on Mars. This is a transition from speculation about the size of streambed material to direct observation of it."

NASA / JPL-Caltech / Univ. of Ariz.

This image shows the topography, with shading added, around the area where NASA's Curiosity rover landed. Higher elevations are colored in red, with cooler colors indicating transitions downslope to lower elevations. The map highlights an alluvial fan of material, apparently issuing from a channel named Peace Vallis. The black oval indicates the targeted landing area for the rover known as the "landing ellipse," and the cross shows where the rover actually landed.

NASA / JPL-Caltech / UC-Berkeley

This image shows a dry streambed on an alluvial fan in Chile's Atacama Desert, revealing the typical patchy, heterogeneous mixture of grain sizes deposited together. On Mars, Curiosity has seen two rock outcrops close to its Bradbury Landing site that also record a mixture of sand and pebbles transported by water. Scientists say the mixture was probably deposited along an ancient streambed.

So far, the scientists' conclusions are based exclusively on visual observations by Curiosity's high-resolution Mastcam imager. Further imagery, along with chemical readings from other instruments on the rover, will likely be used to fill out the story of the ancient stream bed, Grotzinger said.

The main goal of Curiosity's two-year primary mission is to assess how habitable Mars was in ancient times. That's why mission managers chose 96-mile-wide (154-kilometer-wide) Gale Crater as Curiosity's landing site. It has that alluvial fan, which appears to issue forth from a channel that has now officially been designated Peace Vallis. It also has a 3-mile-high (5-kilometer-high) mountain, known as Aeolis Mons or Mount Sharp, which could preserve billions of years' worth of Mars' geological record.

Grotzinger noted that the three requirements for habitability typically listed by astrobiologists are the presence of liquid water, the availability of an energy source (such as sunlight) and the presence of carbon-based compounds that can be used as the building blocks of life.?

"Now we've got a hall pass for the water examination," Grotzinger joked.

Theoretically, a long-flowing stream could be a habitable environment. "It is not our top choice as an environment for preservation of organics, though," Grotzinger said in NASA's news release. "We're still going to Mount Sharp, but this is insurance that we have already found our first potentially habitable environment."

Even if the rover's instruments detect the right kinds of carbon compounds, that would not serve as confirmation of ancient life on Mars. That would "have to wait for another mission," Grotzinger said. ?

More from Mars Curiosity:

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Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Source: http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/27/14126504-martian-rocks-reveal-that-rover-is-driving-through-dried-up-martian-streambed?lite

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Valmont Industries makes its mark across China

See a photo showcase of China by World-Herald photographer Matt Miller.

Click here for The World-Herald's China Connection.

***

SHANGHAI ? If you want to see ways that a Nebraska company can make money from China's infrastructure spending boom, just look up.

At the decorative street lights lining a downtown Shanghai shopping street.

At the sturdy pairs of steel support poles, each as big around as a mature tree, holding up numerous electrical power lines.

At the thousands of symmetrical lights curving gently over miles of a new elevated highway near one of Shanghai's two modern airports.

Each of those poles has contributed to profits earned by Omaha-based Valmont Industries, which posted $148?million in sales last year in China. And as China continues to spend billions of dollars annually on massive infrastructure projects, Valmont officials are confident that they can sell lots of additional poles in the future.

?When you are not in the pole business, you never notice how many poles there are,? said Huang Xiao-yong, president of Valmont's China operation. ?But there are poles everywhere.?

Poles for lights, signs, power lines and cellphone towers accounted for a large share of Valmont's China sales, although the $148 million figure also includes the company's irrigation systems and metal handrails and walkways for industrial plants.

Valmont's business dovetails nicely with some of China's infrastructure spending, which includes highways, bridges, airports, deep-water shipping ports, subways, high-speed rail lines, power plants, hydroelectric dams, refineries, schools, electric power grids and cellphone networks.

?China has long been the world's largest investor in infrastructure, building roads sometimes even before the towns that they will eventually serve exist,? an International Monetary Fund report said this year.

The Chinese government began to accelerate infrastructure spending in 1998, said Shuanglin Lin, an economics professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. China needed to upgrade its transportation, communications and energy systems in order to make the country more modern and support its growing export business.

?The demand for infrastructure is high,? said Lin, who also heads the China Center for Public Finance at Peking University in Beijing.

In addition, he said, the spending has helped create jobs and keep the Chinese economy moving, even as the world economy has slumped.

For example, China this month approved more than 20 local infrastructure projects worth more than $150 billion to boost the economy. China's growth rate had dipped to 7.8 percent in the first half of 2012 ? low by recent Chinese standards, although it's much better than the U.S. economy.

Valmont is poised to take a slice of that spending, with five company-owned factories in China that serve the local market as well as other Asian nations and Australia.

While China sales alone accounted for a relatively small fraction of Valmont's total revenues of nearly $2.7 billion last year, the company's success there points to future opportunities elsewhere in the developing world.

In all, Valmont already does 45 percent of its business outside North America, up from 25 percent a few years ago.

?You look at the developing world and you see they need everything we produce,? said Terry McClain, senior vice president and chief financial officer at Valmont.

Valmont and its CEO, Mogens Bay, have worked with China for a long time.

In the 1970s, Bay was the China representative for the East Asiatic Co., a Danish firm involved in shipping, industry and trade. While there, he met Valmont founder Robert Daugherty, who had come to China to sell irrigation systems. Soon Bay joined the Nebraska company, eventually rising to the top position in 1993.

A few years later, Valmont built the first of its Chinese factories on the undeveloped outskirts of Shanghai. When the plant began producing poles in early 1996, there were no nearby businesses. Instead, there was a rice paddy across the street, and sometimes half of the roadway was covered with grain that the farmer had spread out to dry.

Sixteen years later, the Songjiang Industrial Area surrounding Valmont's factory is a microcosm of the changes that have turned China into the world's largest manufacturer. The former rice paddy now holds a factory for Pierre Cardin products. Nearby, there's a huge complex for a Taiwanese manufacturer of laptop computers, including enough worker dormitories to house a college full of students.

Initially, Valmont owned 70 percent of the Shanghai factory, where long steel plates are bent and welded into tubes. The remainder was held by Shanghai Steel Shaped Tubing Co., but the Nebraska company has since bought out its Chinese partner.

Valmont's factory differs from most of its neighbors because it isn't designed to use cheap labor to ship products back to the U.S. Nearly everything the plant makes is sold to customers in China or nearby countries.

The same is true of Valmont's other Chinese factories: two additional pole plants, another that makes irrigation pipe and related structures, and one that fashions metal ?access systems? such as ramps and catwalks. The latter factory was acquired in 2010 when Valmont bought Delta PLC.

Valmont has moved slowly in growing its business in China, McClain said.

?We go in and plant seeds,? he said, ?rather than make major bets.?

Occasionally, McClain said, Valmont doesn't have enough capacity in its U.S. plants to handle an order of utility poles destined for North America, so the company uses one of its Chinese factories to make some components for those poles and ship them to the U.S. for assembly. The alternative, he said, would be to refuse the entire order ? hurting job prospects in the U.S.

Meanwhile, he said, Valmont needs to have factories in China in order to make sales there, partly because the Chinese government often mandates locally made products. In addition, he said, it would be cost-prohibitive to ship heavy steel poles and irrigation pipes from, say, the Valmont factory in Valley, Neb., across the Pacific Ocean.

Some poles are about 10 feet in diameter and 250 feet high.

There's also an advantage to having company engineers based in China when they are determining the load requirements of poles for a specific location in China, McClain said.

?You have to be local to make the products,? he said. ?We just view Valmont as a global company. We have to be global.?

For irrigation systems, Valmont makes the pipe and steel structures in China for the Chinese market, but produces gearboxes and sophisticated controls in the U.S. That means irrigation pivot sales in China create some jobs in Nebraska, although Valmont officials were unable to estimate the number.

Similarly, Valmont said it could not quantify how many jobs in the company's Omaha headquarters can be attributed to pole manufacturing in China or other foreign countries. But McClain said there is obviously some impact.

?Whenever we get more sales in China, we create employment in the U.S.,? he said.

Valmont officials acknowledge that they face tough competition in the pole business from Chinese rivals. Huang, the company's China president, maintains that the company's products beat the competition because Valmont uses better quality steel, better galvanization and better engineering design. But that doesn't always win the contract.

Arnold Ursaner, a financial analyst who studies Valmont, said the company is most successful on major projects, such as the tallest utility poles installed in the trickiest locations.

?In China, Valmont does well on larger products with higher engineering content,? said Ursaner, president of CJS Securities in White Plains, N.Y. ?On smaller projects with less engineering, the markets are highly competitive.?

Valmont officials agreed with that assessment, noting that they typically win contracts based on their reputation for high quality poles that remain standing during hurricanes and other disasters.

In early 2008, Huang said, ice and snow storms wreaked havoc on some power transmission lines in the northern part of China, but no Valmont pole was damaged.

?We've never had a pole fall,? Huang said.

McClain said Valmont is mindful of the need to protect the company's intellectual property ? the technology that has been developed in the U.S. and may give Valmont products a market advantage.

China doesn't have an established track record on respecting intellectual property, he said. Nor are commercial contracts honored as much as they are in the U.S. legal system.

Those aren't insurmountable challenges, McClain said, but they are issues that the company must face.

?You have to make sure that's respected locally,? he said.

Valmont also could be affected if China's economy keeps slowing down, despite recent efforts by central and local governments to prime the economic pump with infrastructure spending.

Ursaner said any slowdown in China's economy could ripple across Asia, which also could affect Valmont operations in other countries in the region.

Lin, the UNO professor, said it's obvious that the extra Chinese government spending is needed to stimulate the economy, given lagging Chinese exports to Europe and the U.S. At the same time, he said, China is struggling with rising government debt to pay for the infrastructure work even as social welfare spending is going up.

?Debt is a problem,? he acknowledged.

Even so, Lin said, China has enough important infrastructure needs that high spending is likely to continue at least for another decade despite concerns about the debt burden.

McClain said Valmont should be able to find ample markets for products like power poles in China and throughout the developing world, because those nations still need to build electrical power systems.

About 1.6 billion people worldwide ? one out of five people ? have no electrical power at all and will be looking to obtain it eventually. And Valmont is poised to do its part.

Contact the writer:

402-444-1114, paul.goodsell@owh.com

Source: http://www.omaha.com/article/20120923/MONEY/709239939

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Home Documents Are Essential When Developing Your Loved ...

When you are making your loved ones tree property records are necessary. These types of records can give you relevant information such as where the property was found and where you ancestors owned property. Accomplishments and any land records can be found on all your family members as well as well as family relationships.By studying up these records, you might even discover who the adjoining landowners were, who the neighbors were, and in some cases long ago only family members such as cousins, guardian, Grand-parents etc all lived in close proximity of each other. Managing a check on regional landowners can help trace related information, as additional information could be on their records and not on your families? records.It can be a large amount of fun creating a family tree and property records play a significant part. Besides learning what land your ancestors held, and where in actuality the land was found or who they were married to, you may also trace the towns? background on how they lived, and how they dressed etc. if you?ve never sought out records before you need to have some information, and you also need to understand how to understand old deeds along with bring a plat map.There is just a variety of resources on the web where you can buy plat maps, homestead programs, land grants and bounty land warrants. Sites like the General Land Office Records Automation and the Bureau of Land Management are very valuable sites, as these sites give you access to Federal Land records. These sites may also offer you impression access given between 1820 and 1908. Pictures of the Military Land Warrants are also available and date back once again to 1810, where property was honored to people because of their military services.All these property records are well maintained and will afford you accurate and complete data. But, there are records that have not been recorded, as a result of them returning further than the 1800?s. You will also find home elevators the initial transfer of land titles given to individuals by the Federal government.Once you have approved title transfer you can then associate the individuals such as the warrantee, heir, assignee or patentee to a specified area, along with the time of issue. You can also obtain certified copies of property records, once you have tested the records as reliable and this can be performed either electronically or by mail.

See our site for more information about criminal records

Source: http://articlepdq.com/health-fitness/home-documents-are-essential-when-developing-your-loved-ones-tree/

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