Thursday, February 22
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...
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...
Wednesday, February 21
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...
Illegal Immigrants
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...
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...
Tuesday, February 20
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
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
Colonoscopy
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...
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...
Monday, February 19
Iran Soon Can Send Nuclear Bomb to Israel
Iran is drawing closer to possible conflict as it simulates attacks on an Israeli base and signals that it could create a nuclear weapon if officials ordered it..
"Iranian braggadocio about their nuclear program is reaching new and unprecedented levels," Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital.
"Iran’s former atomic energy chief is essentially hinting that Tehran has all the pieces of a nuclear weapon in place but disassembled," Taleblu said. "This commentary should be raising red flags for anyone who thought diversion of fissile material was the only thing that needed to be prevented and accounted for with international monitoring." READ MORE...
Eating Healthy
It was not an easy task because I had tried twice before and failed.
I addition to cigarettes, I gave up red meat, fried foods, and sugars. It was not that easy because I really loved a cheeseburger and French fries. However, after several years, I would allow myself a cheeseburger and fries once or twice a year, and each time I ate one, it did not taste that good.
I switched from beef to turkey burgers and while the taste was not all that great, after several years I learned to enjoy the taste. I also switched to eating chicken, turkey, all sorts of veges and a variety of different kinds of beans. To this day, I do not like eggplant or Brussel sprouts.
My consumption of soft drinks is limited to caffeine-free diet Pepsi, Root Beer, and Dr. Pepper. My coffee intact is also caffeine free and it watered down. My water comes from flavored SAM's water.
Rice and Noodles are also part of my diet but I do not consume great amounts. As far as the rice is concerned, I use Basmati and only cook 1/4 of dried rice to support my meals. My extra thin spaghetti noodles are bundled no bigger than the diameter of a quarter.
Salads are seldom incorporated in my diet but when they are, I usually eat a chef salad or a grilled chicken salad.
I count my calories and attempt to eat between 1600 and 1800 a day. If and when I exceed 2000, I usually eat light the next day, so the average of two days falls in between 1600 and 1800. Over the last year, my weight has decreased from 260 to 215.
When I break my diet, and outside of a hamburger or a pizza, I will eat lasagna, spaghetti, a slice of apple pie, or a piece of strawberry cheesecake, or a cake doughnut. I also like captain's crackers and lemon Oreos.
My total cholesterol level both good and bad is 70... so, I must be doing something right.
Einstein's Discoveries Lead to Gravitational Laser
Einstein’s work was crucial for the current understanding of gravitational waves and the development of stimulated radiation that culminated in the invention of lasers. Dr Jing Liu, from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, has combined the two into an intriguing proposal: it is possible to create the gravitational equivalent of a laser.
Let’s start with the basics. The word laser stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. A laser is made of light all with roughly the same frequency (or, in other words, it is monochrome) and it is coherent, so it can be focused to a tight spot or can be used to create ultrashort pulses. By stimulating a quantum mechanical energy transition, it is possible to get light out all with the same frequency.
Natural lasers exist and they are called masers – with the "m" standing for microwaves. These astrophysical masers come from a bunch of sources, including comets, stellar atmosphere, and even the aurorae of Jupiter. So if light can make a laser, could gravity as well? READ MORE...
Sunday, February 18
In The NEWS
Nike to lay off 1,500 employees amid restructuring.
The job cuts amount to roughly 2% of the sneaker company's total workforce and will occur in two phases between now and the end of May. The reductions are part of a broader restructuring plan that Nike hopes will help it save at least $2B over the next three years so it can invest in its growth areas, which include women's shoes and the Jordan line.
Bookkeeping
> This year's Super Bowl brought 882 private jets to Las Vegas airports.
> Usher's music sees a nearly 550% boost in Spotify streams after the Super Bowl.
Browse
> The world's smallest armadillos: pink fairies.
> Hubble telescope views a massive star forming.
> The top 100 pizza spots in the US in 2024, according to Yelp.
> Breaking down Iowa star Caitlin Clark's top moments using art.
> AI imagines new dog breeds to represent America's states.
> Man finds 70-year-old love letter in a toolbox.
Listen
> The economics of ATMs and why you have to pay a surcharge.
Watch
> The science of microwave ovens and what to avoid cooking in them.
> How a drying, toxic US lake could turn into the "Saudi Arabia of lithium."
> The family who has created neon signs for Hollywood (and hoards them).
> A mother cat feeds her kittens.
Long Read
> Prison inmates craft string instruments from wrecked migrant boats.
> How a financial advice columnist got scammed out of $50K.
> Explaining cholesterol and heart disease. (w/visuals)
Most Read of the Week: The gory origins of Valentine's Day.
Historybook: Football player and actor Jim Brown born (1936); Vanguard 2 launched as first weather satellite (1959); Michael Jordan born (1963); Volkswagen Beetle passes Ford Model T to become world’s bestselling car (1972); Golf great Mickey Wright dies (2020).
SOURCE: 1440 News
In God We Trust
That forced behavior did not push me towards the church and religious beliefs but against it. If religion, faith, and beliefs were so important, why did I have to be forced to go?
My biggest issue with religion and God is the fact that THE BIBLE is full of all sorts of contradictions, the least of which is the timeline for the Universe and creation.... The bible says that creation is only 6,000 years old in Genesis.
That is simply not true or accurate which undermines having trust in God.
On the other side of the coin, there is a greater probability of a creator than there is of not being a creator... therefore, the creator may or may not actually be God. Instead, the creator could be just an advanced form of extraterrestrial that had visited earth.
This theory is supported in global mythologies and the stories they have shared about visitors coming down to earth from the heavens.
Even our own native Americans have cave drawings of travelers coming down to earth from the heavens.
Were these travelers the same God that was referenced in the Bible?
And if so, does that enable us to have trust in this God since the truth was never shared with us?
NASA Found a Super Earth
A NASA telescope orbiting our planet has spotted an intriguing super-Earth — a world some 30 to 70 percent bigger than Earth.
This rocky planet is in another solar system 137 light-years away, which in the vastness of space is considered relatively close (a light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles). The exoplanet, called TOI-715 b, is about 1.5 times the size of Earth. And, crucially, this world orbits inside the habitable, or "Goldilocks," zone.
"That’s the distance from the star that could give the planet the right temperature for liquid water to form on its surface," NASA explained on its website. "Several other factors would have to line up, of course, for surface water to be present, especially having a suitable atmosphere."
TOI-715 b orbits quite close to its star (each orbit lasts just 19 days) — but scientists don't think its a hellish, scorching world, like some other exoplanets. That's because its star is a "red dwarf," which is both cooler and smaller than our medium-sized star, the sun. READ MORE...
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