Somewhat Political

 

Family Controversy

There has always been the feeling that family was the most important unit around and that it should be preserved at all costs.

While that might have been the case in the 1800s and 1900s, I is clearly not the case today.

In fact, family is not even close to being the strong unit that it once was, especially since there are so many single parent households out there.

Those family units that have managed to stay together, that is to say, not get divorced, no longer have the closeness they once had due to people's ability to move around so freely.

My family for instance, started in North Carolina and has ended up in New York, Tennessee, Michigan, South Carolina, Kentucky, as well as North Carolina.

Birthdays are not the same, Thanksgivings are not the same, and Christmas is not the same as not everyone can get together each year.

While the divorce rate has maintained a 50% level for over 10 years, those families that do not get divorced, fall apart once the parents die.  It was the parents that kept the family together and the children have no desire to maintain a strong family unit.

Wealth is another issue that separates the children of these families because if one sibling becomes wealthy, there is a good possibility that his or her wealth will not be shared with the other siblings, increasing the animosity.

However, in those families where the parents did a better job of bringing the siblings together, there is no problems with sharing the money.

WE ARE EXPERIENCING THE DEATH OF THE FAMILY UNIT 

 

Those Wonderful Church Bulletins

The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.

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Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.

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The sermon this morning: 'Jesus Walks on the Water. ' The sermon tonight: 'Searching for Jesus.'

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Ladies don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.

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Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help.

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Miss Charlene Mason sang 'I will not pass this way again,' giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.

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For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

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Next Thursday there will be try-outs for the choir. They need all the help they can get.

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Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.

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A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.

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At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be 'What Is Hell?' Come early and listen to our choir practice.

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Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.

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Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.

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The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.

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Pot-luck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM - prayer and medication to follow.

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The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.

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This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.

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The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the Congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.

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The Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door.

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The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.

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Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.

Billionaires That Belong to BRICS

(L to R) Brazil’s President Michel Temer, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, China’s President Xi Jinping, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi pose for a group photo during the BRICS 

Summit on September 4, 2017.    Wu Hong | Afp | Getty Images




Millionaire population in the BRICS countries will see a substantial surge over the next decade contributing to the largest increase in wealth across any group of nations, according to a recent report by Henley & Partners.

Millionaire count in the BRICS countries — which together hold $45 trillion in investable wealth — is forecast to rise by 85% over the next 10 years, the investment migration consultancy noted in its report published in partnership with global intelligence firm New World Wealth.


The BRICS bloc, which is composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, has expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates this year, with Saudi Arabia also set to join the bloc.

Currently, there are 1.6 million individuals with investable assets of more than a million in the group.     READ MORE...

Rude Democrat

 

Biggest Tree on Earth

 

Oxytocin Influences Animal Behavior

Oxytocin (OXT) is a hormone that is known for its effects on psychological well-being and emotional bonding in animals. Interestingly, research has shown that this natural chemical in the brain plays a crucial role in other cognitive processes as well, including learning and memory. 

Now, scientists may have discovered exactly how OXT influences memory in animals by studying "OXT neurons" that contain OXT receptors and function differently based on the availability of the chemical in the brain.  READ MORE...

Bear

 

Illegal Immigrants

There are many people, including people like Elon Musk, the billionaire that believe, the illegal immigration was designed by Democrats in the hopes that these immigrants will need government help for the rest of their lives and vote democratic...

Personally, I don't give a shit if that happens or not, because what concerns me is:

• no immunizations
• no skills
• no education
• no English
• illegal drugs
• they will create slums
• will drain US resources
• may be criminals
• robots will take over jobs

I think that this spring and summer, we will begin to see some of these problems begin to manifest themselves, specifically in some of our larger cities where these illegals will congregate because of perceived jobs.

Right now, local governments are giving them food, shelter, and clothing but no jobs.  What's going to happen when these local governments run out of money and have to increase taxes to pay for these illegals?

What I fear more than anything else is that there will be Americans who do not want the illegal immigrants here and will not treat them kindly.

What I also fear is that the illegal immigrants, most of who are Hispanics will begin to push the blacks farther and farther down the socio-economic ladder and the blacks will retaliate, seeing Hispanics as a greater threat than whites.

What I worry about is because of all these illegal immigrants, our quality of life will start to decrease because taxes will not be able to keep pace increase demand.  We will begin to look like poor countries in Europe.

This will be exacerbated by humanoid robots taking our jobs...

Skateboard Granny

About Consciousness

The Philosophical Hard Problem
Some say consciousness is mysterious. But there are two ways to think about this. One is that consciousness is mysterious in the way that the idea of a soul that survives death is, and the other is in the way that the mechanism of evolutionary inheritance was before DNA was discovered.


Today, the mystery of consciousness is often discussed in terms of a special quality—the way it feels to be consciousness. This phenomenal feeling is to be what makes red seem red, and fear feel fearful. Unconscious states come with no such feelings. Philosopher Thomas Nagel refers to these feelings as “qualia," and David Chalmers, another philosopher, has argued that qualia constitute the “hard problem” of consciousness.     READ MORE...

Lucky Man

 

Sunshine of Your Love

 

Extinct Human Ancestor Walked Upright

Anthropologist D. Carl Johanson … has discovered a skull fragment, shin and thigh bones of a 3-million-year-old man in Ethiopia…. The bones belonged to an ape man (hominid) of the genus Australopithecus.… “We have absolute, concrete evidence that our ancestors walked on two legs over 3 million years ago,” the 30-year-old scientist told a news conference.

Update
Exactly when upright walking emerged in the evolutionary history of humans remains hotly debated. Fossil analyses suggest that several hominid species ambled around on two legs about 5 million to 7 million years ago. An upper leg bone of the oldest known, 7-million-year-old Sahelanthropus tchadensis, bears signs of upright walking including an inner projection near the hip joint, scientists reported in 2022 (SN: 9/24/22). But not all paleoanthropologists are convinced those features prove a two-legged gait. And some scientists think the bone belonged to an ape that may have walked upright at times.     SOURCE:  Science News

Deer

 

Colonoscopy

 I am having a colonoscopy today - my last one was three years ago and the one before that was either 3 or 5 years, I cannot remember.  Last time, the doctor indicated that my results were so good that he did not think I needed another one for either 5-10 years out.  I disagreed with him and requested that I have one every 3 years because of my history of cancer.  He agreed.

While many people have no desire to have a colonoscopy, I don't mind even though the preparation that one has to go through is unpleasant.  If I have colon cancer or something else, I want to make sure that I find it as soon as possible so that it can be treated.

I am not the kind of person that thinks he can treat cancer with herbs and remedies from nature, sometimes referred to as natural medicines.  I suppose that natural medicines might work, if you incorporate them into your lifestyle at an early age, like the Chinese, Japanese, Native Americans, and other do, but AMERICANS on the whole do not want to live like that.

So far, I have been lucky with my two cancers and have managed to stay alive for over 15 years since first diagnosed.  Some cancers are treated and go away.  My cancers will never go away, so I will have to endure treatments for the rest of my life.

At 76 years of age, I doubt that will be too much longer but one never knows.  I would like to live another twenty years and outlive my mother who died just before her 96 birthday.

So, I encourage you to eat healthy and exercise and do not put off being checked out by the doctor.  Death does not care if you have been macho...

Balance

Spark Plug of Nuclear Fusion

Nuclear fusion is what powers stars, the most common source of energy in the universe. And yet, we can’t easily recreate it here on Earth because we cannot compress hydrogen in the same way that gravity does in the core of stars. To bypass that requirement, the inertial fusion approach uses lasers to compress a pellet of fuel so much that it ignites.

The NIF uses an indirect method. Their system has some of the most powerful lasers in the world hitting a container called a hohlraum, getting converted to x-rays. It’s the x-rays that then compress the pellet of fuel and release energy. The method presented in new research from scientists at the University of Rochester approached fusion by directly slamming the pellet of fuel with lasers.  READ MORE...

Wrong Question Asked

 

Car Chase Scene in Bullitt