Area 11 Quotes

So I offer my definition of theology: theology is the application of Scripture, by persons, to every area of life.11

The left is expert at framing debates. They have buzzwords they use to direct the debate toward unwinnable positions for you. They are tolerant, diverse, fighters for social justice; if you oppose them, by contrast, you are intolerant, xenophobic, and in favor of injustice. Now, all these terms are – to be polite – a crock, if considered as absolute moral values. The left is wildly intolerant of religious people and conservatives; that’s why they’re interested in forcing Christian bakers to cater to same-sex weddings. They are anti-intellectual diversity, particularly in areas of American life in which they predominate; that’s why they stifle conservatism on campus and in the media. And as for social justice, if social is supposed to be opposed to individual, then social justice is by definition unjust. The left’s use of magical buzzwords places you in a corner, against supposed universal values that aren’t universal or universally held.

Cartography. A watershed is an area of land, usually mountains or forests, that drains into a river. History is also a river. Wouldn’t you say so?

On July 3, 1999, a cluster of thunderstorms developed in the Black Hills area of South Dakota and began to track to the northeast.

The scale of the laying of mines in Italy and in North Africa cannot be imagined. At the Kismaayo-Afmadu road junction, 260 mines were found. There were 300 at the Omo River Bridge area. On June 30, 1941, South African sappers laid 2,700 Mark 11 mines in Mersa Matruh in one day. Four months later the British cleared Mersa Matruh of 7,806 mines and placed them elsewhere.

The devil delights in reminding us daily of all our mistakes from the past. On Monday he reminds us of Saturday and Sunday’s failures; on Tuesday he reminds us of sins committed on Monday, and so on. One morning I was spending my time with the Lord, thinking about my problems and all the areas in which I had failed, when suddenly the Lord spoke to my heart: “Joyce, are you going to fellowship with Me or with your problems?” It is our fellowship with God that helps and strengthens us to overcome our problems. We are strengthened through our union with Him. If we spend our time with God fellowshipping with our mistakes from yesterday, we never receive strength to overcome them today. Meditating on all of our faults and failures weakens us, but meditating on God’s grace and willingness to forgive strengthens us: For by the death He died, He died to sin [ending His relation to it] once for all; and the life that He lives, He is living to God [in unbroken fellowship with Him]. Even so consider yourselves also dead to sin and your relation to it broken, but alive to God [living in unbroken fellowship with Him] in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:10-11, emphasis mine) Our

Second depressing finding: subliminal signaling of race also affects the fusiform face area, the cortical region that specializes in facial recognition.11 Damaging the fusiform, for example, selectively produces “face blindness” (aka prosopagnosia), an inability to recognize faces.

I liked George W. Bush, but his second term was a disaster area. So was much of his first term. I don’t feel the necessity to defend his Iran policy, because it was terrible. Period. Ronald Reagan was not a god. He himself would have said that. Don’t follow people. Follow principle.

San Francisco has the most billionaires per capita in America, 1 per 11,000 people. The Bay Area is third in the world, behind New York and Hong Kong. It also has among the highest number of homeless per capita. The gap between the richest in history and the poorest is called the Silicon Chasm.

firefighters cannot extinguish a fire in a twenty- or thirty-thousand-square-foot open floor area in a high-rise building. A fire company advancing a 2½-inch hoseline with a 1¼-inch nozzle discharges only three hundred gallons per minute and can extinguish only about twenty-five hundred square feet of fire.

Vatican city is an independent state created by the Lateran treaty of 11th Feb 1929 which was signed by Pope Pius XI, the holy see and the Italian government.  It covers an area of 108 acres on the hill west of the Tiber river. It is separated from the rest of Rome by high walls on all sides except at the Piazza of St Peter. 

particularly interesting about Cajal is that he achieved his greatness even though he wasn’t a genius—at least, not in the conventional sense of the term. Cajal deeply regretted that he never had a “quickness, certainty, and clearness in the use of words.”10 What’s worse is that when Cajal got emotional, he lost his way with words almost entirely. He couldn’t remember things by rote, which made school, where parroting back information was prized, agony for him. The best Cajal could do was to grasp and remember key ideas; he frequently despaired his modest powers of understanding.11 Yet some of the most exciting areas of neuroscientific research today are rooted in Cajal’s original findings.12

As late as AD 1400, the vast majority of farmers, along with their plants and animals, clustered together in an area of just 11 million square kilometres – 2 per cent of the planet’s surface.2 Everywhere else was too cold, too hot, too dry, too wet, or otherwise unsuited for cultivation. This minuscule 2 per cent of the earth’s surface constituted the stage on which history unfolded.

What a sad and frightening time it was. Thousands of firefighters and other rescue workers swarmed the sixteen-acre disaster zone, searching for survivors. The area, which became known as Ground Zero, was extremely dangerous. Underground fires smoldered, and the smoke was a toxic mix of melted plastic, steel, lead, and many poisonous chemicals. Few of the rescue workers had on proper protective clothing or masks. And as it quickly became clear, there were not very many survivors to find. Only fourteen people were pulled out of the rubble alive, all within the first twenty-four hours of the collapse. About 50,000 people had been working in the buildings that day. Two thousand and sixteen died. Also among the dead: 343 firefighters and 60 police officers who were in or near the

We are God’s dissidents every time we respond in offices, in communities, in churches, in schools, and in any areas of abuse. We do this as a part of systems, many of them with good and godly aims. We must not go to sleep. We must watch. We must not assume that our family, church, community, country, or organization is always right just because the people in it use the right words. We must never agree to “protect” the name of God by covering ungodliness. In Ephesians 5:11, Paul warns us not to participate in the deeds of darkness but instead to expose them. Understand that you cannot singlehandedly change an entire system; you are not called to do so. Yet we are to speak truth about our systems. This is difficult to do and sometimes quite risky. Just ask Martin Luther King Jr. Ask Martin Luther himself. Ask those in the #MeToo movement. When systems change, it is often little by little and usually at great cost. When you feel overwhelmed, remember this: people are sacred, created in the image of God. Systems are not. They are only worth the people in them and the people they serve. And people are to be treated, whether one or many, the way Jesus Christ treated people.

OK,’ I said. ‘I’ve had a look at your requests for individual areas of responsibility and it’s all worked out quite well. I’ll run through the teams and then we’ll get down to specifics. Firstly . . .’ From somewhere above our heads, a door slammed. Footsteps raced around the gallery. Matthew appeared at the top of the stairs, white-faced and frightened. ‘Mum. Mum. Come quick. Uncle Markham’s scalded his willy.

There may be areas in which our outer person thinks we have forgiven others—especially those most formative to us in childhood—but counsel and prayer reveal that such forgiveness is far from complete. It may be that coping mechanisms from childhood are still causing us to act and react in childish ways (see 1 Corinthians 13:11). Or bitter roots may have sprung back to life, causing us to defile others and reap harmful consequences that we cannot, without counsel, even explain.

The reason we haven’t solved the race problem in America after hundreds of years is that people apart from God are trying to create unity, while people under God who already have unity are not living out the unity we possess. The result of both of these conditions is disastrous for America. Our failure to find cultural unity as a nation is directly related to the church’s failure to preserve our spiritual unity. The church has already been given unity because we’ve been made part of the same family. An interesting point to note about family is that you don’t have to get family to be family. A family already is a family. But sometimes you do have to get family to act like family. In the family of God, this is done through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. A perfect example of spiritual unity came on the Day of Pentecost when God’s people spoke with other tongues (Acts 2:4). When the Holy Spirit showed up, people spoke in languages they didn’t know so that people from a variety of backgrounds could unite under the cross of Jesus Christ. The people who heard the apostles speak on the Day of Pentecost were from all over the world, representing at least sixteen different geographical areas, racial categories, or ethnic groups (Acts 2:8–11). But in spite of the great diversity, they found true oneness in the presence of the Holy Spirit. Spiritual oneness always and only comes to those who are under God’s authority because in that reality He enables them with the power of His Spirit.

This is exactly why world domination is such a stupid idea. I don’t think you get a single chance to take it easy if you’re in a ruling position. Now I understood why the other demon lords didn’t seem to care much about lands outside their boundaries. If you wind up inadvertently taking over some destitute area or another, you’re obligated to address whatever people are dissatisfied about there. People talk about eliminating disparities like it’s easy, but from the eyes of the one doing it, it never went that way.

PROLOGUE   Zoey “Wow, Z, this is a seriously awesome turnout. There are more humans here than fleas on an old dog!” Stevie Rae shielded her eyes with her hand as she looked around at the newly lit-up campus. Dallas was a total jerk, but we all admitted that the twinkling lights he’d wrapped around the trunks and limbs of the old oaks gave the entire campus a magickal, fairy-like glow. “That is one of your more disgusting bumpkin analogies,” Aphrodite said. “Though it’s accurate. Especially since there are a bunch of city politicians here. Total parasites.” “Try to be nice,” I said. “Or at least try to be quiet.” “Does that mean your daddy, the mayor, is here?” Stevie Rae’s already gawking eyes got even wider. “I suppose it does. I caught a glimpse of Cruella De Vil, a.k.a. She Who Bore Me, not long ago.” Aphrodite paused and her brows went up. “We should probably keep an eye on the Street Cats kittens. I saw some cute little black and white ones with especially fluffy fur.” Stevie Rae sucked air. “Ohmygoodness, your mamma wouldn’t really make a kitten fur coat, would she?” “Faster than you can say Bubba’s drinkin’ and drivin’ again,” Aphrodite mimicked Stevie Rae’s Okie twang. “Stevie Rae—she’s kidding. Tell her the truth,” I nudged Aphrodite. “Fine. She doesn’t skin kittens. Or puppies. Just baby seals and democrats.” Stevie Rae’s brow furrowed. “See, everything is fine. Plus, Damien’s at the Street Cats booth, and you know he’d never let one little kitten whisker be hurt—let alone a whole coat,” I assured my BFF, refusing to let Aphrodite mess up our good mood. “Actually, everything is more than fine. Check out what we managed to pull off in a little over a week.” I sighed in relief at the success of our event and let my gaze wander around the packed school grounds. Stevie Rae, Shaylin, Shaunee, Aphrodite, and I were manning the bake sale booth (while Stevie Rae’s mom and a bunch of her PTA friends moved through the crowd with samples of the chocolate chip cookies we were selling, like, zillions of). From our position near Nyx’s statue, we had a great view of the whole campus. I could see a long line at Grandma’s lavender booth. That made me smile. Not far from Grandma, Thanatos had set up a job application area, and there were a bunch of humans filling out paperwork there. In the center of the grounds there were two huge silver and white tents draped with more of Dallas’s twinkling lights. In one tent Stark and Darius and the Sons of Erebus Warriors were demonstrating weaponry. I watched as Stark was showing a young boy how to hold a bow. Stark’s gaze lifted from the kid and met mine. We shared a quick, intimate smile

However, federal Prohibition also came with a loophole, which allowed alcohol to be sold for “medicinal purposes.” This prompted Harry Bronfman to create a wholesale drug company that permitted him to import alcohol in bulk and provide it to area pharmacies. He placed its offices next door to one of the family’s ritzier hotels, the Balmoral, and its business model involved offering doctors a bonus for each liquor prescription they wrote if that prescription was fulfilled by a pharmacy whose liquor was furnished by the Bronfmans.11

But if Ukraine was no longer as important as when it had been the world’s third-largest nuclear power, in one aspect it still commanded presidential attention: tensions with Russia, particularly over the former Soviet fleet in Crimea.20 Clinton worried personally about this issue because, as he said to Kuchma on May 11, 1995, “we came to appreciate earlier than the Europeans the strategic importance of Ukraine to all of Europe in the 21st century.” He was convinced “that peace in a broad area depends on what happens to Ukraine and Turkey.

In the months leading up to their expedition, the Apollo 11 astronauts trained in a remote moon-like desert in the western United States. The area is home to several Native American communities, and there is a story – or legend – describing an encounter between the astronauts and one of the locals. One day as they were training, the astronauts came across an old Native American. The man asked them what they were doing there. They replied that they were part of a research expedition that would shortly travel to explore the moon. When the old man heard that, he fell silent for a few moments, and then asked the astronauts if they could do him a favour. ‘What do you want?’ they asked. ‘Well,’ said the old man, ‘the people of my tribe believe that holy spirits live on the moon. I was wondering if you could pass an important message to them from my people.’ ‘What’s the message?’ asked the astronauts. The man uttered something in his tribal language, and then asked the astronauts to repeat it again and again until they had memorised it correctly. ‘What does it mean?’ asked the astronauts. ‘Oh, I cannot tell you. It’s a secret that only our tribe and the moon spirits are allowed to know.’ When they returned to their base, the astronauts searched and searched until they found someone who could speak the tribal language, and asked him to translate the secret message. When they repeated what they had memorised, the translator started to laugh uproariously. When he calmed down, the astronauts asked him what it meant. The man explained that the sentence they had memorised so carefully said, ‘Don’t believe a single word these people are telling you. They have come to steal your lands.

before he went back to helping the boy. Missing from the Warrior tent were Kalona and Aurox. For obvious reasons, Thanatos had decided the Tulsa community wasn’t ready to meet either of them. I agreed with her. I wasn’t ready for … I mentally shook myself. No, I wasn’t going to think about the Aurox/Heath situation now. Instead I turned my attention to the second of the big tents. Lenobia was there, keeping a sharp eye on the people who clustered like buzzing bees around Mujaji and the big Percheron mare, Bonnie. Travis was with her. Travis was always with her, which made my heart feel good. It was awesome to see Lenobia in love. The Horse Mistress was like a bright, shining beacon of joy, and with all the Darkness I’d seen lately, that was rain in my desert. “Oh, for shit’s sake, where did I put my wine? Has anyone seen my Queenies cup? As the bumpkin reminded me, my parents are here somewhere, and I’m going to need fortification by the time they circle around and find me.” Aphrodite was muttering and pawing through the boxes of unsold cookies, searching for the big purple plastic cup I’d seen her drinking from earlier. “You have wine in that Queenies to go cup?” Stevie Rae was shaking her head at Aphrodite. “And you’ve been drinkin’ it through a straw?” Shaunee joined Stevie Rae in a head shake. “Isn’t that nasty?” “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Aphrodite quipped. “There are too many nuns lurking around to drink openly without hearing a boring lecture.” Aphrodite cut her eyes to the right of us where Street Cats had set up a half-moon display of cages filled with adoptable cats and bins of catnip-filled toys for sale. The Street Cats had their own miniature version of the silver and white tents, and I could see Damien sitting inside busily handling the cash register, but except for him, running every aspect of the feline area were the habit-wearing Benedictine nuns who had made Street Cats their own. One of the nuns looked my way and I waved and grinned at the Abbess. Sister Mary Angela waved back before returning to the conversation she was having with a family who were obviously falling in love with a cute white cat that looked like a giant cottonball. “Aphrodite, the nuns are cool,” I reminded her. “And they look too busy to pay any attention to you,” Stevie Rae said. “Imagine that—you may not be the center of everyone’s attention,” Shaylin said with mock surprise. Stevie Rae covered her giggle with a cough. Before Aphrodite could say something hateful, Grandma limped up to us. Other than the limp and being pale, Grandma looked healthy and happy. It had only been a little over a week since Neferet had kidnapped and tried to kill her, but she’d recovered with amazing quickness. Thanatos had told us that was because she was in unusually good shape for a woman of her age. I knew it was because of something else—something we both shared—a special bond with a goddess who believed in giving her children free choice, along with gifting them with special abilities. Grandma was beloved of the Great Mother,

I interpret your question as applying more to financial stability in the euro area than to the euro itself. I do not think there has been a crisis. The euro is the single currency of 330 million people and enjoys a high degree of confidence among investors and savers because it has delivered price stability remarkably well over the last 11½ years. What we had was a situation in which a number of countries had not respected the Stability and Growth Pact. These countries have now engaged in policies of fiscal retrenchment that were overdue. They have to implement vigorously these policies which are decisive for the preservation and consolidation of financial stability in Europe.

The Pacific, greatest of oceans, has an area exceeding that of all dry land on the planet. Herman Melville called it "the tide-beating heart of earth." Covering more than a third of the planet's surface--as much as the Atlantic, Indian, and Arctic oceans combined--it's the largest geographical feature in the world. Its awesome 165,384,000 square km (up to 16,000 km wide and 11,000 km long) have an average depth of around 4,000 meters. Half the world's liquid water is stored here. You could drop the entire dry landmass of our planet into the Pacific and still have room for another continent the size of Asia. One theory claims the moon may have been flung from the Pacific while the world was still young.

Obviously, in those situations, we lose the sale. But we’re not trying to maximize each and every transaction. Instead, we’re trying to build a lifelong relationship with each customer, one phone call at a time. A lot of people may think it’s strange that an Internet company is so focused on the telephone, when only about 5 percent of our sales happen through the telephone. In fact, most of our phone calls don’t even result in sales. But what we’ve found is that on average, every customer contacts us at least once sometime during his or her lifetime, and we just need to make sure that we use that opportunity to create a lasting memory. The majority of phone calls don’t result in an immediate order. Sometimes a customer may be calling because it’s her first time returning an item, and she just wants a little help stepping through the process. Other times, a customer may call because there’s a wedding coming up this weekend and he wants a little fashion advice. And sometimes, we get customers who call simply because they’re a little lonely and want someone to talk to. I’m reminded of a time when I was in Santa Monica, California, a few years ago at a Skechers sales conference. After a long night of bar-hopping, a small group of us headed up to someone’s hotel room to order some food. My friend from Skechers tried to order a pepperoni pizza from the room-service menu, but was disappointed to learn that the hotel we were staying at did not deliver hot food after 11:00 PM. We had missed the deadline by several hours. In our inebriated state, a few of us cajoled her into calling Zappos to try to order a pizza. She took us up on our dare, turned on the speakerphone, and explained to the (very) patient Zappos rep that she was staying in a Santa Monica hotel and really craving a pepperoni pizza, that room service was no longer delivering hot food, and that she wanted to know if there was anything Zappos could do to help. The Zappos rep was initially a bit confused by the request, but she quickly recovered and put us on hold. She returned two minutes later, listing the five closest places in the Santa Monica area that were still open and delivering pizzas at that time. Now, truth be told, I was a little hesitant to include this story because I don’t actually want everyone who reads this book to start calling Zappos and ordering pizza. But I just think it’s a fun story to illustrate the power of not having scripts in your call center and empowering your employees to do what’s right for your brand, no matter how unusual or bizarre the situation. As for my friend from Skechers? After that phone call, she’s now a customer for life. Top 10 Ways to Instill Customer Service into Your Company   1. Make customer service a priority for the whole company, not just a department. A customer service attitude needs to come from the top.   2. Make WOW a verb that is part of your company’s everyday vocabulary.   3. Empower and trust your customer service reps. Trust that they want to provide great service… because they actually do. Escalations to a supervisor should be rare.   4. Realize that it’s okay to fire customers who are insatiable or abuse your employees.   5. Don’t measure call times, don’t force employees to upsell, and don’t use scripts.   6. Don’t hide your 1-800 number. It’s a message not just to your customers, but to your employees as well.   7. View each call as an investment in building a customer service brand, not as an expense you’re seeking to minimize.   8. Have the entire company celebrate great service. Tell stories of WOW experiences to everyone in the company.   9. Find and hire people who are already passionate about customer service. 10. Give great service to everyone: customers, employees, and vendors.

Adrian gets the Saab. Everything else is for you to take care of. You’ve got the house keys. The cat eats tuna fish twice per day and doesn’t like shitting in other people’s houses. Please respect that. There is a lawyer in town who has all the bank papers and so on. There is an account with 11,563,013 kronor and 67 öre. From Sonja’s dad. The old man had shares. He was mean as hell. Me and Sonja never knew what to do with it. Your kids should get a million each when they turn eighteen, and Jimmy’s girl should get the same. The rest is yours. But please don’t let Patrick bloody take care of it. Sonja would have liked you. Don’t let the new neighbors drive in the residential area. Ove At the bottom of the sheet he’s written in capitals “YOU ARE NOT A COMPLETE IDIOT!

Entrepreneurship itself is an emergent system, where companies create the conditions for experimentation and learning to occur, often symbiotically with customers. In 1978, Eric von Hippel (my PhD advisor at MIT) pioneered the notion of user-driven innovation.10, 11 Back then, the conventional wisdom was that innovation only came from corporate, government, and university research-and-development labs. While some still believe this today, Eric's insight proved to be prescient in many areas, especially in the information age, as the widespread adoption of open-source software and Lean Startup methodologies have demonstrated.12 Twitter is a tangible example since three of the platform's most popular features—the @ reply, the # hashtag indexing, and retweet sharing—were all generated bottom-up by users.

Moreover, sleep deprivation starts to starve the brain. There is a reason why we start to eat comfort food—doughnuts, candy—when we’re tired: our brains crave sugar. After twenty-four hours of sleep deprivation, there is an overall reduction of 6 percent in glucose reaching the brain.9 But the loss isn’t shared equally; the parietal lobe and the prefrontal cortex lose 12 to 14 percent of their glucose. And those are the areas we need most for thinking: for distinguishing between ideas, for social control, and to be able to tell the difference between good and bad.10 To Charles Czeisler, professor of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School, encouraging a culture of sleepless machismo is downright dangerous.11 He’s amazed by today’s work cultures that glorify sleeplessness, the way the age of Mad Men once glorified people who could hold their drink.

Take, for example, the following sentence: “I prefer to eat with a fork and a camel.” Your brain has just generated an N400 wave, an error signal evoked by a word or an image which is incompatible with the preceding context.11 As its name suggests, this is a negative response that occurs at about four hundred milliseconds after the anomaly and arises from neuronal populations of the left temporal cortex that are sensitive to word meaning. On the other hand, Broca’s area in the inferior prefrontal cortex reacts to errors of syntax, when the brain predicts a certain category of word and receives another,12 as in the following sentence: “Don’t hesitate to take your whenever medication you feel sick.” This time, just after the unexpected word “whenever,” the areas of your brain that specialize in syntax emitted a negative wave immediately followed by a P600 wave—a positive peak that occurs around six hundred milliseconds. This response indicates that your brain detected a grammar error and is trying to repair it.

I Forgive You Smart people know how to hold their tongue; their grandeur is to forgive and forget. PROVERBS 19:11 MSG Great power comes in these three little words: I forgive you. Often they are hard to say, but they are powerful in their ability to heal our own hearts. Jesus taught His disciples to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” He knew we needed to forgive others to be whole. When we are angry or hold a grudge against someone, our spirits are bound. The release that comes with extending forgiveness enables our spirits to commune with God more closely, and love swells within us. How do you forgive? Begin with prayer. Recognize the humanity of the person who wronged you, and make a choice to forgive. Ask the Lord to help you forgive the person(s). Be honest, for the Lord sees your heart. Trust the Holy Spirit to guide you and cleanse you. Then step out and follow His leading in obedience. By forgiving, we can move forward, knowing that God has good things in store for us. And the heaviness of spirit is lifted, and relief washes over us after we’ve forgiven. A new sense of hope and expectancy rises. I forgive you. Do you need to say those words today? Father, search my heart and show me areas where I might need to forgive another. Help me let go and begin to heal. Amen.

A survey of oceanic (i.e. remote) islands found that, as far back as records exist, they have been accumulating alien plants. In 1860 the average oceanic island had less than 1 introduced plant for every 10 natives. By 1940 the ratio was 1 alien for every 2 natives, and today the ratio is about 1:1. Despite all these new arrivals there have been very few extinctions among the original inhabitants, so the number of plant species on such islands has approximately doubled. Thus, although left to themselves remote islands tend to have rather few species (compared to similar continental areas at the same latitude), so many species have been introduced to Hawaii that it now has as many plants as a similar area of Mexico. Moreover, the evidence suggests that remote islands are by no means ‘full’ of plants, and that there is room for even more alien plants to establish, and thus for total plant diversity to increase: at the current rate the average oceanic island will have 3 aliens for every 2 natives by 2060. Do we have any idea how many different plant species might eventually be able to coexist on an island like Hawaii? No, we don’t. Or, to express that conclusion in a more general form, in a report from US ecologists Dov Sax and Steve Gaines: ‘we have a relatively poor understanding of the processes that ultimately limit how many species can inhabit any given place or area

The largest and most rigorous study that is currently available in this area is the third one commissioned by the British Home Office (Kelly, Lovett, & Regan, 2005). The analysis was based on the 2,643 sexual assault cases (where the outcome was known) that were reported to British police over a 15-year period of time. Of these, 8% were classified by the police department as false reports. Yet the researchers noted that some of these classifications were based simply on the personal judgments of the police investigators, based on the victim’s mental illness, inconsistent statements, drinking or drug use. These classifications were thus made in violation of the explicit policies of their own police agencies. There searchers therefore supplemented the information contained in the police files by collecting many different types of additional data, including: reports from forensic examiners, questionnaires completed by police investigators, interviews with victims and victim service providers, and content analyses of the statements made by victims and witnesses. They then proceeded to evaluate each case using the official criteria for establishing a false allegation, which was that there must be either “a clear and credible admission by the complainant” or “strong evidential grounds” (Kelly, Lovett, & Regan,2005). On the basis of this analysis, the percentage of false reports dropped to 2.5%." Lonsway, Kimberly A., Joanne Archambault, and David Lisak. "False reports: Moving beyond the issue to successfully investigate and prosecute non-stranger sexual assault." The Voice 3.1 (2009): 1-11.

In the months leading up to their expedition, the Apollo 11 astronauts trained in a remote moon-like desert in the western United States. The area is home to several Native American communities, and there is a story–or legend–describing an encounter between the astronauts and one of the locals. One day as they were training, the astronauts came across an old Native American. The man asked them what they were doing there. They replied that they were part of a research expedition that would shortly travel to explore the moon. When the old man heard that, he fell silent for a few moments, and then asked the astronauts if they could do him a favour. ‘What do you want?’ they asked. ‘Well,’ said the old man, ‘the people of my tribe believe that holy spirits live on the moon. I was wondering if you could pass an important message to them from my people.’ ‘What’s the message?’ asked the astronauts. The man uttered something in his tribal language, and then asked the astronauts to repeat it again and again until they had memorised it correctly. ‘What does it mean?’ asked the astronauts. ‘Oh, I cannot tell you. It’s a secret that only our tribe and the moon spirits are allowed to know.’ When they returned to their base, the astronauts searched and searched until they found someone who could speak the tribal language, and asked him to translate the secret message. When they repeated what they had memorised, the translator started to laugh uproariously. When he calmed down, the astronauts asked him what it meant. The man explained that the sentence they had memorised so carefully said, ‘Don’t believe a single word these people are telling you. They have come to steal your lands.

On 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the surface of the moon. In the months leading up to their expedition, the Apollo 11 astronauts trained in a remote moon-like desert in the western United States. The area is home to several Native American communities, and there is a story – or legend – describing an encounter between the astronauts and one of the locals. One day as they were training, the astronauts came across an old Native American. The man asked them what they were doing there. They replied that they were part of a research expedition that would shortly travel to explore the moon. When the old man heard that, he fell silent for a few moments, and then asked the astronauts if they could do him a favour. ‘What do you want?’ they asked. ‘Well,’ said the old man, ‘the people of my tribe believe that holy spirits live on the moon. I was wondering if you could pass an important message to them from my people.’ ‘What’s the message?’ asked the astronauts. The man uttered something in his tribal language, and then asked the astronauts to repeat it again and again until they had memorised it correctly. ‘What does it mean?’ asked the astronauts. ‘Oh, I cannot tell you. It’s a secret that only our tribe and the moon spirits are allowed to know.’ When they returned to their base, the astronauts searched and searched until they found someone who could speak the tribal language, and asked him to translate the secret message. When they repeated what they had memorised, the translator started to laugh uproariously. When he calmed down, the astronauts asked him what it meant. The man explained that the sentence they had memorised so carefully said, ‘Don’t believe a single word these people are telling you. They have come to steal your lands.’ Empty Maps

This might be perhaps the simplest single-paragraphy summation of civilizational advances, a concise summary of growth that matters most. Our ability to provide a reliable, adequate food supply thanks to yields an order of magnitude higher than in early agricultures has been made possible by large energy subsidies and it has been accompanied by excessive waste. A near-tripling of average life expectancies has been achieved primarily by drastic reductions of infant mortality and by effective control of bacterial infections. Our fastest mass-travel speeds are now 50-150 times higher than walking. Per capita economic product in affluent countries is roughly 100 times larger than in antiquity, and useful energy deployed per capita is up to 200-250 times higher. Gains in destructive power have seen multiples of many (5-11) orders of magnitude. And, for an average human, there has been essentially an infinitely large multiple in access to stored information, while the store of information civilization-wide will soon be a trillion times larger than it was two millenia ago. And this is the most worrisome obverse of these advances: they have been accompanied by a multitude of assaults on the biosphere. Foremost among them has been the scale of the human claim on plants, including a significant reduction of the peak posts-glacial area of natural forests (on the order of 20%), mostly due to deforestation in temperate and tropical regions; a concurrent expansion of cropland to cover about 11% of continental surfaces; and an annual harvest of close to 20% of the biosphere's primary productivity (Smil 2013a). Other major global concerns are the intensification of natural soil erosion rates, the reduction of untouched wilderness areas to shrinking isolated fragments, and a rapid loss of biodiversity in general and within the most species-rich biomes in particular. And then there is the leading global concern: since 1850 we have emitted close to 300 Gt of fossil carbon to the atmosphere (Boden and Andres 2017). This has increased tropospheric CO2 concentrations from 280 ppm to 405 ppm by the end of 2017 and set the biosphere on a course of anthropogenic global warming (NOAA 2017). These realities clearly demonstrate that our preferences have not been to channel our growing capabilities either into protecting the biosphere or into assuring decent prospects for all newborns and reducing life's inequalities to tolerable differences. Judging by the extraordinary results that are significantly out of line with the long-term enhancements of our productive and protective abilities, we have preferred to concentrate disproportionately on multiplying the destructive capacities of our weapons and, even more so, on enlarging our abilities for the mass-scale acquisition and storage of information and for instant telecommunication, and have done so to an extent that has become not merely questionable but clearly counterproductive in many ways.

For instance, emotional memories are stored in the amygdala, but words are recorded in the temporal lobe. Meanwhile, colors and other visual information are collected in the occipital lobe, and the sense of touch and movement reside in the parietal lobe. So far, scientists have identified more than twenty categories of memories that are stored in different parts of the brain, including fruits and vegetables, plants, animals, body parts, colors, numbers, letters, nouns, verbs, proper names, faces, facial expressions, and various emotions and sounds. Figure 11. This shows the path taken to create memories. Impulses from the senses pass through the brain stem, to the thalamus, out to the various cortices, and then to the prefrontal cortex. They then pass to the hippocampus to form long-term memories. (illustration credit 5.1) A single memory—for instance, a walk in the park—involves information that is broken down and stored in various regions of the brain, but reliving just one aspect of the memory (e.g., the smell of freshly cut grass) can suddenly send the brain racing to pull the fragments together to form a cohesive recollection. The ultimate goal of memory research is, then, to figure out how these scattered fragments are somehow reassembled when we recall an experience. This is called the “binding problem,” and a solution could potentially explain many puzzling aspects of memory. For instance, Dr. Antonio Damasio has analyzed stroke patients who are incapable of identifying a single category, even though they are able to recall everything else. This is because the stroke has affected just one particular area of the brain, where that certain category was stored. The binding problem is further complicated because all our memories and experiences are highly personal. Memories might be customized for the individual, so that the categories of memories for one person may not correlate with the categories of memories for another. Wine tasters, for example, may have many categories for labeling subtle variations in taste, while physicists may have other categories for certain equations. Categories, after all, are by-products of experience, and different people may therefore have different categories. One novel solution to the binding problem uses the fact that there are electromagnetic vibrations oscillating across the entire brain at roughly forty cycles per second, which can be picked up by EEG scans. One fragment of memory might vibrate at a very precise frequency and stimulate another fragment of memory stored in a distant part of the brain. Previously it was thought that memories might be stored physically close to one another, but this new theory says that memories are not linked spatially but rather temporally, by vibrating in unison. If this theory holds up, it means that there are electromagnetic vibrations constantly flowing through the entire brain, linking up different regions and thereby re-creating entire memories. Hence the constant flow of information between the hippocampus, the prefrontal cortex, the thalamus, and the different cortices might not be entirely neural after all. Some of this flow may be in the form of resonance across different brain structures.

Today, the world remembers the tragic events of September 11, 2001. We are still shocked and dismayed at the infamy of those cowardly attacks. During the past year, we have come to know the heroic acts of men and women whose courage and selflessness were manifest on that terrible day. So many lost their lives. So many friends and families have been deprived of dear ones. Today we pause to remember and join in tribute to those whose lives were taken and to those who have carried on so bravely in their absence. We know that much good has come of these dreadful circumstances. From the smoke and ashes of New York, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, and other areas of the world has arisen a greater sense of unity and purpose in ridding the earth of evil and providing for the freedom and security of all people. We endorse the righteous efforts of God-fearing people everywhere in this important endeavor. May our Father in Heaven smile upon us all, comfort those who continue to mourn, and guide the leaders of nations in the quest for justice and liberty, is our sincere prayer. Thank you.

POINT TO PONDER: God smiles when I trust him. VERSE TO REMEMBER: “The Lord is pleased with those who worship him and trust his love.” PSALM 147:11 (CEV) QUESTION TO CONSIDER: Since God knows what is best, in what areas of my life do I need to trust him most?

This pattern became particularly apparent in the 2000s. In 2002 the presidential election was won by Álvaro Uribe. Uribe had something in common with the Castaño brothers: his father had been killed by the FARC. Uribe ran a campaign repudiating the attempts of the previous administration to try to make peace with the FARC. In 2002 his vote share was 3 percentage points higher in areas with paramilitaries than without them. In 2006, when he was reelected, his vote share was 11 percentage points higher in such areas. If Mancuso and his partners could deliver the vote for Congress and the Senate, they could do so in presidential elections as well, particularly for a president strongly aligned with their worldview and likely to be lenient on them. As Jairo Angarita, Salvatore Mancuso’s deputy and the former leader of the AUC’s Sinú and San Jorge blocs, declared in September 2005, he was proud to work for the “reelection of the best president we have ever had.” Once elected, the paramilitary senators and congressmen voted for what Uribe wanted, in particular changing the constitution so that he could be reelected in 2006, which had not been allowed at the time of his first election, in 2002. In exchange, President Uribe delivered a highly lenient law that allowed the paramilitaries to demobilize. Demobilization did not mean the end of paramilitarism, simply its institutionalization in large parts of Colombia and the Colombian state, which the paramilitaries had taken over and were allowed to keep.

In the spring of 2004, the FBI arrested Mohammed Junaid Babar, an al Qaeda agent, as he returned to the U.S. from a terrorist planning meeting in Pakistan (CNN News – August 11, 2004). Facing the potential of a 70 year federal prison sentence, Babar confessed that al Qaeda “was planning a spectacular attack on American soil–a nuclear 9/11 that will occur simultaneously in major metropolitan areas throughout the country.” His testimony was confirmed by another al Qaeda participant at the same Pakistani planning session, Sharif al-Masri (The Day of Islam).

Thai, like Vega, is Asian and openly gay. Before he died, Vega told police he’d been “attacked by three African-American males, all around 18 years of age.” It was the tenth such attack in that area in two months, all near the corner of Martin Luther King Way and Othello Street.11 After the attack, Thai went door to door to find out how widespread the problem was. He was conducting his own crime survey. Thai knocked on 49 doors. 32 people were home. How many of them had been victims of a crime since moving to the neighborhood? All but three. Many victims told Thai they’d never reported the crimes to police. “It happens to them so often that after 2 or 3 times they stopped reporting because they didn’t see any progress,” said Thai. Thai’s survey was clearly unscientific, but it does raise the question--is crime going unreported in the south end?12 Thai learned that many in his neighborhood were victims, but most were not statistics. No arrests. No reports. It never happened.

Using ShotSpotter, The New York Times reports that neighbors called police only 10 percent of the time that guns were fired in a high-crime area of San Francisco. In Oakland, 22 percent of gunshots prompted 911 calls. Chief Chris Magnus of Richmond, Calif., a community of 120,000 north of Berkeley that routinely ranks among country’s most violent cities, recalled listening to a ShotSpotter recording of a gun battle in 2010 that involved more than 100 rounds fired from four guns. “It was just mind-boggling,” he said. “This is like 11 at night on a summer night, and nobody even called it in.”2

The Islamic mindset is: if a Muslim is dwelling in nations or areas along with Kafir, then their death, along with the infidels, is permitted. Since 9/11, tens of thousands of Americans have converted to Islam (New York Times, October 21, 2001).

Because Matthew wrote in Greek, which dominated in Syria’s urban centers, rather than Aramaic, which dominated in rural areas, Matthew’s core audience might have been located in an urban setting. Many scholars thus suggest that Matthew writes especially for Antioch in Syria. Antioch had a large Jewish community, one of the few Jewish communities not devastated by the Judean war; it also was an early Christian center of mission to Gentiles (Ac 11:20; 13:1–3; Gal 2:11–12).

PRESTIGE PARK SQUARE QUICK FACTS: 1. PROJECT NAME: PRESTIGE PARK SQUARE 2. PROJECT DEVELOPER:PRESTIGE GROUP 3. PROJECT LOCATION: BANNERGHATTA ROAD,BANGALORE 4. PROJECT ZONE: SOUTH BANGALORE 5. DEVELOPMENT TYPE: HIGH-RISE APARTMENTS 6. DEVELOPMENT STAGE: PRE LAUNCH 7. LAND AREA: 8 ACRES 8. UNIT TYPE: 2, 3 & 3.5 BHK 9. SBA: 1115 - 1855 SQ FT 10. BUDGET: RS. 65 LAKHS 11. TOTAL TOWERS: 3 TOWERS 12. POSSESSION: 2021 ONWARDS 13. NO OF UNITS: 586 UNITS 14. TOTAL FLOORS: 2B+G+26/27 FLOORS 15. APPROVALS: BDA/BBMP prestigeparksquare.ind.in 9590101000

Set in the cliffside overlooking a beautiful beach, Azure is a coffee shop and then some. The iconic white building features an open-air eating area, with more swanky chairs and quirky bean bags than you could ever imagine. Charming lanterns are scattered around the place, making me long to be here at sunset to watch the waves by candlelight.

They are tolerant, diverse, fighters for social justice; if you oppose them, by contrast, you are intolerant, xenophobic, and in favor of injustice. Now, all these terms are – to be polite – a crock, if considered as absolute moral values. The left is wildly intolerant of religious people and conservatives; that’s why they’re interested in forcing Christian bakers to cater to same-sex weddings. They are anti-intellectual diversity, particularly in areas of American life in which they predominate; that’s why they stifle conservatism on campus and in the media.

Bagi sobat sekalian yang sedang penasaran dengan penyakitnya, kenapa ada kutil di kemaluan? berikut sedikit informasi tentang penyakit kutil di kemaluan atau yang sering disebut juga dengan nama kutil kelamin. Sebenarnya apa sih kutil kelamin itu? Sebelumnya sobat perlu ketahui, bahwa penyakit ini masuk dalams alah satu kategori Penyakit Menular Seksual (PMS). Baik langsung saja, silahkan simak penjelasan di bawah ini. Untuk Info Hubungi Kami HP/WA 081 329 878 999 Definisi Kutil Genitalis atau dengan nama lain Kondiloma Akuminata merupakan kutil di dalam atau di sekeliling vagina, penis atau dubur, yang ditularkan melalui hubungan seksual. Kondiloma akuminatum ialah vegetasi oleh Human Papiloma Virus tipe tertentu, bertangkai, dan permukaannya berjonjot. Tipe HPV tertentu mempunyai potensi onkogenik yang tinggi, yaitu tipe 16 dan 18. tipe ini merupakan jenis virus yang paling sering dijumpai pada kanker serviks. Sedangkan tipe 6 dan 11 lebih sering dijumpai pada kondiloma akuminatum dan neoplasia intraepitelial serviks derajat ringan. Kutil genitalis sering ditemukan dan menyebabkan kecemasan karena: Penyebab penyakit ini adalah virus papilloma.Pada wanita, virus papiloma tipe 16 dan 18, yang menyerang leher rahim tetapi tidak menyebabkan kutil pada alat kelamin luar dan bisa menyebabkan kanker leher rahim. Virus tipe ini dan virus papiloma lainnya bisa menyebabkan tumor intra-epitel pada leher rahim (ditunjukkan dengan hasil Pap-smear yang abnormal) atau kanker pada vagina, vulva, dubur, penis,mulut, tenggorokan atau kerongkongan. Kutil genitalis paling sering tumbuh di permukaan tubuh yang hangat dan lembap. Pada pria, area yang sering terkena adalah ujung dan batang penis dan dibawah kulit depannya (jika tidak disunat). Pada wanita, kutil timbul di vulva, dinding vagina, leher rahim (serviks) dan kulit di sekeliling vagina. Kutil genitalis juga bisa terjadi di daerah sekeliling anus dan rektum, terutama pada pria homoseksual dan wanita yang melakukan hubungan seksual melalui dubur. Untuk Info Hubungi Kami HP/WA 081 329 878 999 Kutil biasanya muncul dalam waktu 1-6 bulan setelah terinfeksi, dimulai sebagai pembengkakan kecil yang lembut, lembap, berwarna merah atau pink. Mereka tumbuh dengan cepat dan bisa memiliki tangkai. Pada suatu daerah seringkali tumbuh beberapa kutil dan permukaannya yang kasar memberikan gambaran seperti bunga kol (blumkol). Pada wanita hamil, pada gangguan sistem kekebalan (penderita AIDS atau pengobatan dengan obat yang menekan sistem kekebalan) dan pada orang yang kulitnya meradang, pertumbuhan kutil ini sangat cepat. Untuk Info Hubungi Kami HP/WA 081 329 878 999 Diagnosis ditegakkan berdasarkan gejala dan hasil pemeriksaan fisik. Kutil yang menetap bisa diangkat melalui pembedahan dan diperiksa dibawah mikroskop untuk meyakinkan bahwa itu bukan merupakan suatu keganasan. Wanita yang memiliki kutil di leher rahimnya, harus menjalani pemeriksaan Pap-smear secara rutin. Obat Kutil kelamin | Obat Kutil kelamin Ampuh | Obat Kutil kelamin Herbal | Obat Kutil kelamin Alami | Obat Kutil kelamin Tradisional | Obat Kutil kelamin Tanpa Operasi | Obat Kutil kelamin Pria | Obat Kutil kelamin Wanita | Obat Kutil kelamin di Apotik | Salep Kutil Kelamin | Obat Kutil kelamin Salep

Transforming grace works when you believe that Jesus gives it to you. The moment you believe in Jesus’ grace to change you, you are changing. The more you continue to believe it, the more you will continue to change. Paul writes, “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). Paul is saying that you are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ when you count it to be true; that is, when you believe it. If you want to change and be like Christ—whether in the area of pornography or anything else—you must believe that in Jesus you have the power to change. When you believe the power is yours, it is yours.

I used to have no set time for leaving the office. It was not unusual for me to leave the office at 11 p.m. Now, I live by this thought: “The work expands to fit the time allotted to complete it.” If I decide that I MUST leave the office by 5 p.m., I know that I must complete my work by that time, and I rarely disappoint myself.

The Historical Setting of Genesis Mesopotamia: Sumer Through Old Babylonia Sumerians. It is not possible at this time to put Ge 1–11 into a specific place in the historical record. Our history of the ancient Near East begins in earnest after writing has been invented, and the earliest civilization known to us in the historical record is that of the Sumerians. This culture dominated southern Mesopotamia for over 500 years during the first half of the third millennium BC (2900–2350 BC), known as the Early Dynastic Period. The Sumerians have become known through the excavation of several of their principal cities, which include Eridu, Uruk and Ur. The Sumerians are credited with many of the important developments in civilization, including the foundations of mathematics, astronomy, law and medicine. Urbanization is also first witnessed among the Sumerians. By the time of Abraham, the Sumerians no longer dominate the ancient Near East politically, but their culture continues to influence the region. Other cultures replace them in the political arena but benefit from the advances they made. Dynasty of Akkad. In the middle of the twenty-fourth century BC, the Sumerian culture was overrun by the formation of an empire under the kingship of Sargon I, who established his capital at Akkad. He ruled all of southern Mesopotamia and ranged eastward into Elam and northwest to the Mediterranean on campaigns of a military and economic nature. The empire lasted for almost 150 years before being apparently overthrown by the Gutians (a barbaric people from the Zagros Mountains east of the Tigris), though other factors, including internal dissent, may have contributed to the downfall. Ur III. Of the next century little is known as more than 20 Gutian kings succeeded one another. Just before 2100 BC, the city of Ur took control of southern Mesopotamia under the kingship of Ur-Nammu, and for the next century there was a Sumerian renaissance in what has been called the Ur III period. It is difficult to ascertain the limits of territorial control of the Ur III kings, though the territory does not seem to have been as extensive as that of the dynasty of Akkad. Under Ur-Nammu’s son Shulgi, the region enjoyed almost a half century of peace. Decline and fall came late in the twenty-first century BC through the infiltration of the Amorites and the increased aggression of the Elamites to the east. The Elamites finally overthrew the city. It is against this backdrop of history that the OT patriarchs emerge. Some have pictured Abraham as leaving the sophisticated Ur that was the center of the powerful Ur III period to settle in the unknown wilderness of Canaan, but that involves both chronological and geographic speculation. By the highest chronology (i.e., the earliest dates attributed to him), Abraham probably would have traveled from Ur to Harran during the reign of Ur-Nammu, but many scholars are inclined to place Abraham in the later Isin-Larsa period or even the Old Babylonian period. From a geographic standpoint it is difficult to be sure that the Ur mentioned in the Bible is the famous city in southern Mesopotamia (see note on 11:28). All this makes it impossible to give a precise background of Abraham. The Ur III period ended in southern Mesopotamia as the last king of Ur, Ibbi-Sin, lost the support of one city after another and was finally overthrown by the Elamites, who lived just east of the Tigris. In the ensuing two centuries (c. 2000–1800 BC), power was again returned to city-states that controlled more local areas. Isin, Larsa, Eshnunna, Lagash, Mari, Assur and Babylon all served as major political centers.

Bring agendas to your 1-1s when you have things you need to talk about. When you want to work on projects, ask. Advocate for yourself. When your manager isn’t helpful, look for other places to get help. Seek out feedback, including constructive feedback on areas to improve. When that feedback comes to you, take it graciously, even when you don’t agree with it.

the Mediterranean region’s climate started to warm and become wetter starting 18,000 years ago, archaeological sites become more numerous and widespread, creeping into areas now occupied by the desert. The culmination of this population boom was a period called the Natufian, dated to between 14,700 and 11,600 years ago.7 The early Natufian was a sort of golden era of hunting and gathering. Thanks to a benevolent climate and many natural resources, the Natufians were fabulously wealthy by the standards of most hunter-gatherers. They lived by harvesting the abundant wild cereals that naturally grow in this region, and they also hunted animals, especially gazelle. The Natufians evidently had so much to eat that they were able to settle permanently in large villages, with as many as 100 to 150 people, building small houses with stone foundations. They also made beautiful art objects, such as bead necklaces and bracelets and carved figurines, they exchanged with distant groups for exotic shells, and they buried their dead in elaborate graves. If there ever was a Garden of Eden for hunter-gatherers, this must have been it. But then crisis struck 12,800 years ago. All of a sudden, the world’s climate deteriorated abruptly, perhaps because an enormous glacial lake in North America emptied suddenly into the Atlantic, temporarily disrupting the Gulf Stream and wreaking havoc with global weather patterns.8 This event, called the Younger Dryas,9 effectively plunged the world back into Ice Age conditions for hundreds of years. Imagine

THE GIRL was moody getting out of the car, making a sour face to let him know she hated the shabby house and sun-scorched street smelling of chili and episote. To him, this anonymous house would serve. He searched the surrounding houses for threats as he waited for her, clearing the area the way another man might clear his throat. He felt obvious wearing the long-sleeved shirt. The Los Angeles sun was too hot for the sleeves, but he had little choice. He moved carefully to hide what was under the shirt.

Several years ago, not long after the terror attacks on September 11, our police department managed to bilk Homeland Security out of a few million bucks so it could arm up and join the national craze of ETF—Extreme Terror Fighting. Never mind that our city is far away from the major metropolitan areas, or that there has been absolutely no sign of any jihadists around here, or that our cops already had plenty of guns and ninja gear. Forget all that—we had to be ready! So in the arms race that followed, our cops somehow got a new tank. And once they learned how to drive it, then, hell, it was time to use it.

The Zero Effort Model is based on twelve universal principles:   1. I want to be happy and successful in my life.   2. I am aware that I do not need a thought to be happy and wise. I need a thought only to be successful in life. Happiness is a moment and success is a circumstance/event in my life.   3. I am convinced that it is much easier to first train myself to be happy and wise and then to go after success.   4. I will no longer worry about results. I will no longer worry about the actions that lead to results. I will no longer worry about the thoughts that give strength to my actions. I will work only on creating great impressions and forming noble intentions.   5. I will start my day by visiting feel-good areas.   6. I feel good about myself when I create great impressions and form noble intentions. This gives me the strength to discriminate between a thought, the feelings associated with the thought, and the present moment. I understand that this discrimination is vital for helping me lead a happy life without effort.   7. As my power of discrimination slowly increases my dependency on the mind decreases.   8. I notice that the gap between my two thoughts gradually widens when I become less dependent on my mind. When this happens, I become more alert.   9. I begin to spend more time in the present moment, which gives me terrific strength and makes me feel very good about myself. As I progress in this direction, my days are filled more with moments and less with thoughts.   10. I gradually allow the moments to direct the circumstances of my life.   11. Only when I have allowed the moments to direct the circumstances of my life will I finally command my mind to generate the thoughts that will help me achieve my goals.   12. I will be successful in every area of my life. I will work, but my work will be free from effort. I will think, but my thoughts will no longer have any affect on me. I will achieve all my goals, but the goals will no longer bring responsibility to me.   Through these twelve principles, you will learn the fine art of being happy, wise, and successful in your life with zero effort.

Climate Italy’s climate varies greatly from north to south. In the Alps, at the top of the boot, snow lingers on the highest peaks throughout the summer. The foot of the boot has hot, dry summers and mild winters. In summer, the temperature can easily reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) or higher. This climate draws many northerners to the Mediterranean beaches in the winter. Rome, Italy’s capital, is in the middle of the boot. It’s average high temperature in January is about 52°F (11°C), and its average high temperature in July is 86°F (30°C). In 2003, Italy suffered a heat wave in which the temperature reached 100°F (38°C) or more throughout the summer. An estimated three thousand people, mostly elderly, died. Rain is the heaviest during the fall and winter months. The rainiest areas are in the north. The city of Udine, in the northeast, receives about 60 inches (150 centimeters) of rain a year, but only about 18 inches (46cm) fall on southern Sicily each year.

Sadiq al-Mahdi, former prime minister of Sudan, would agree. On March 24, 1999, he wrote to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, that “the traditional concept of JIHAD does allow slavery as a by-product.”11 And so slavery persists to this day in some areas of the Islamic world. The BBC reported in December 2008 that “strong evidence has emerged of children and adults being used as slaves in Sudan’s Darfur region”—where a jihad rages today.12 Mauritanian human rights activist Boubakar Messaoud asserted in 2004 that in that country, people are born and bred as slaves: “A Mauritanian slave, whose parents and grandparents before him were slaves, doesn’t need chains. He has been brought up as a domesticated animal.”13 Three years later, nothing had changed. Messaoud explained in March 2007, “It’s like having sheep or goats. If a woman is a slave, her descendants are slaves.”14 Likewise in Niger, which formally abolished slavery only in 2003, slavery is a long-standing practice. Journalist and anti-slavery activist Souleymane Cisse explained that even Western colonial governments did nothing to halt the practice: “The colonial rulers preferred to ignore it because they wanted to co-operate with the aristocracy who kept these slaves.”15 Islamic slavery has not been unknown even in the United States. When the Saudi national Homaidan Al-Turki was imprisoned for holding a woman as a slave in Colorado, he complained that “the state has criminalized these basic Muslim behaviors. Attacking traditional Muslim behaviors was the focal point of the prosecution.”16 Where did he get the idea that slavery was a “traditional Muslim behavior”? From the Koran. Slavery: it’s in the Koran. And if it’s in the Koran, it is unquestionably right.

On 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the surface of the moon. In the months leading up to their expedition, the Apollo 11 astronauts trained in a remote moon-like desert in the western United States. The area is home to several Native American communities, and there is a story – or legend – describing an encounter between the astronauts and one of the locals. One day as they were training, the astronauts came across an old Native American. The man asked them what they were doing there. They replied that they were part of a research expedition that would shortly travel to explore the moon. When the old man heard that, he fell silent for a few moments, and then asked the astronauts if they could do him a favour. ‘What do you want?’ they asked. ‘Well,’ said the old man, ‘the people of my tribe believe that holy spirits live on the moon. I was wondering if you could pass an important message to them from my people.’ ‘What’s the message?’ asked the astronauts. The man uttered something in his tribal language, and then asked the astronauts to repeat it again and again until they had memorised it correctly. ‘What does it mean?’ asked the astronauts. ‘Oh, I cannot tell you. It’s a secret that only our tribe and the moon spirits are allowed to know.’ When they returned to their base, the astronauts searched and searched until they found someone who could speak the tribal language, and asked him to translate the secret message. When they repeated what they had memorised, the translator started to laugh uproariously. When he calmed down, the astronauts asked him what it meant. The man explained that the sentence they had memorised so carefully meant ‘Don’t believe a single word these people are telling you. They have come to steal your lands.

Waiting in the reception area, she had flicked through a news magazine that had been lying on the table for clients to read while waiting for their appointment. On the cover there had been a picture of a well-known politician, a man famous for his rudeness and aggression. She had looked at the eyes--the piercing, accusing eyes, and had seen only an impenetrable, defensive anger. Nothing--no forced smiles nor rehearsed protestation of concern, could cancel out the cold selfishness of those eyes.

You should also make fresh supplies available to him immediately after he surmounts a challenge that costs him a lot of resources, as Chapter 11 explained. In shooter games, these traditionally take the form of boxes of ammunition and medical kits for restoring health, stored in an area immediately beyond a large group of enemies.

The oxymoronic term blindsight may seem bizarre, but it accurately describes these individuals’ Shakespearean condition: to see, but not to see. A lesion in the primary visual cortex should make a person blind, and it does deprive such patients of their conscious vision—they assure you that they cannot see anything in a specific part of the visual field (which corresponds precisely to the destroyed area of cortex), and they behave as if they were blind. Incredibly enough, however, when an experimenter shows them objects or flashes of light, they accurately point to them. 10 In a zombielike manner, they unconsciously guide their hand to locations that they do not see—blindsight indeed. Which intact anatomical pathways support unconscious vision in blindsight patients? Clearly, in these patients, some visual information still makes it through from the retina to the hand, bypassing the lesion that makes them blind. Because the entry point into the patients’ visual cortex had been destroyed, the researchers initially suspected that their unconscious behavior arose entirely from subcortical circuits. A key suspect was the superior colliculus, a nucleus in the midbrain that specializes in the cross-registration of vision, eye movements, and other spatial responses. Indeed, the first functional MRI study of blindsight demonstrated that unseen targets triggered a strong activation in the superior colliculus. 11 But that study also contained evidence that the unseen stimuli evoked activations in the cortex—and sure enough, later research confirmed that invisible stimuli could still activate both the thalamus and higher-level visual areas of the cortex, somehow bypassing the damaged primary visual area. 12 Clearly, the brain circuits that take part in our unconscious inner zombie and that guide our eye and hand movements include much more than just old subcortical routes.

April 19 Beware of the Least Likely Temptation “Joab had defected to Adonijah, though he had not defected to Absalom.” 1 Kings 2: 28 Joab withstood the greatest test of his life, remaining absolutely loyal to David by not turning to follow after the fascinating and ambitious Absalom. Yet toward the end of his life he turned to follow after the weak and cowardly Adonijah. Always remain alert to the fact that where one person has turned back is exactly where anyone may be tempted to turn back (see 1 Corinthians 10: 11–13). You may have just victoriously gone through a great crisis, but now be alert about the things that may appear to be the least likely to tempt you. Beware of thinking that the areas of your life where you have experienced victory in the past are now the least likely to cause you to stumble and fall. We are apt to say, “It is not at all likely that having been through the greatest crisis of my life I would now turn back to the things of the world.” Do not try to predict where the temptation will come; it is the least likely thing that is the real danger. It is in the aftermath of a great spiritual event that the least likely things begin to have an effect. They may not be forceful and dominant, but they are there. And if you are not careful to be forewarned, they will trip you. You have remained true to God under great and intense trials—now beware of the undercurrent. Do not be abnormally examining your inner self, looking forward with dread, but stay alert; keep your memory sharp before God. Unguarded strength is actually a double weakness, because that is where the least likely temptations will be effective in sapping strength. The Bible characters stumbled over their strong points, never their weak ones. “Kept by the power of God”—that is the only safety (1 Peter 1: 5).

According to record, what Hitler actually said in his speeches depended very much upon the audience. In agricultural areas, he pledged tax cuts for farmers and new laws to protect food prices. In working-class neighborhoods, he talked about redistribution of wealth and attacked the high profits generated by business owners. When he appeared before financiers or captains of industry, Hitler focused on his plans to destroy communism and reduce the power of the trade unions.

Diaz moved as though to get out. “No, ma’am,” Dox said, scoping the area. “Tell me where the phone is and you stay put. Just in case there are any unfriendlies in the area.” “Behind a book called Recursion, by Blake Crouch. Level three. Fiction.

At 1:11 a.m. on Sunday, August 13, the East German radio service interrupted their Night-time Melodies show for a special announcement: “The government of the States of the Warsaw Pact appeal to the parliament and government of the GDR and suggest that they ensure that the subversion against the countries of the Socialist Bloc is effectively barred and a reliable guard is set up around the whole area of Berlin.” The message was clear, but many in the West didn’t hear it, as tuning into East German radio programs for enjoyment was unheard of. The

enthusiasm for their subject to motivate them, to bring their subject alive and make learning an exciting, vivid and enjoyable experience.    It is teachers’ passion for their subject that provides the basis for effective teaching and learning. These teachers use their subject expertise to engage students in meaningful learning experiences that embrace content, process and social climate. They create for and with their children opportunities to explore and build important areas of knowledge, and develop powerful tools for learning, within a supportive, collaborative and challenging classroom environment. (DfES, 2003a: paras 1–

The name ‘Mesopotamia’ means ‘( the land) between the rivers’ and reflects the Greek rendering of the Hebrew Aram-naharaim (Aram of the two rivers), the area of the upper and middle Tigris and Euphrates, the location of places associated with the Patriarchal traditions such as Haran (for example, Gen. 11: 31) and Nahor (Gen. 24: 10).

First, let us take a quick pass of the 11 questions. Some of them might seem trite or useless at first glance. . . . But lo! Things are not always what they appear. What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why? Or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life? What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months (or in recent memory)? My readers love specifics like brand and model, where you found it, etc. How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite failure” of yours? If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it—metaphorically speaking, getting a message out to millions or billions—what would it say and why? It could be a few words or a paragraph. (If helpful, it can be someone else’s quote: Are there any quotes you think of often or live your life by?) What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve ever made? (Could be an investment of money, time, energy, etc.) What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love? In the last five years, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved your life? What advice would you give to a smart, driven college student about to enter the “real world”? What advice should they ignore? What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise? In the last five years, what have you become better at saying no to (distractions, invitations, etc.)? What new realizations and/or approaches helped? Any other tips? When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, or have lost your focus temporarily, what do you do? (If helpful: What questions do you ask yourself?)

the New York Times reported that heroin usage by American troops in Vietnam “had reached epidemic proportions.” “Tens of thousands of soldiers are going back as walking time bombs,” an officer was reported as saying. “And the sad thing is there is no real program under way, despite what my superiors say, to salvage these guys.” They were returning from a war they were hated for to a country unwilling or unable to help them with their addictions. This was particularly hard for Black veterans, and the armed forces had a disproportionately high percentage of Black service members. Back in 1965, approximately 11 percent of the population was Black, but a quarter of Americans who died in combat in Vietnam were Black, and in 1967, 23 percent of combat troops were Black. And back home, resources and tax dollars were being stripped from densely populated areas where the Black population was high. The quality of the schools and neighborhoods diminished.

When he first hung out his shingle as a professional writer, in 1981, after several years running a small jazz club in Tokyo, he discovered that the sedentary lifestyle caused him to gain weight rapidly; he was also smoking as many as sixty cigarettes a day. He soon resolved to change his habits completely, moving with his wife to a rural area, quitting smoking, drinking less, and eating a diet of mostly vegetables and fish. He also started running daily, a habit he has kept up for more than a quarter century. The one drawback to this self-made schedule, Murakami admitted in a 2008 essay, is that it doesn’t allow for much of a social life. “People are offended when you repeatedly turn down their invitations,” he wrote. But he decided that the indispensable relationship in his life was with his readers. “My readers would welcome whatever life style I chose, as long as I made sure each new work was an improvement over the last. And shouldn’t that be my duty–and my top priority–as a novelist?

The area around King’s Lynn is marked as ‘tidal flat deposits’ and she knows that this will be clay and silt, built up during the millennia north Norfolk was covered by the sea (Lynn is the Celtic word for lake), so the soil is shallow and lime-rich over chalk or limestone.

ANNE THORNDIKE, A primary care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, had a crazy idea. She believed she could improve the eating habits of thousands of hospital staff and visitors without changing their willpower or motivation in the slightest way. In fact, she didn’t plan on talking to them at all. Thorndike and her colleagues designed a six-month study to alter the “choice architecture” of the hospital cafeteria. They started by changing how drinks were arranged in the room. Originally, the refrigerators located next to the cash registers in the cafeteria were filled with only soda. The researchers added water as an option to each one. Additionally, they placed baskets of bottled water next to the food stations throughout the room. Soda was still in the primary refrigerators, but water was now available at all drink locations. Over the next three months, the number of soda sales at the hospital dropped by 11.4 percent. Meanwhile, sales of bottled water increased by 25.8 percent. They made similar adjustments—and saw similar results—with the food in the cafeteria. Nobody had said a word to anyone eating there. BEFORE AFTER FIGURE 8: Here is a representation of what the cafeteria looked like before the environment design changes were made (left) and after (right). The shaded boxes indicate areas where bottled water was available in each instance. Because the amount of water in the environment was increased, behavior shifted naturally and without additional motivation. People often choose products not because of what they are, but because of where they are. If I walk into the kitchen and see a plate of cookies on the counter, I’ll pick up half a dozen and start eating, even if I hadn’t been thinking about them beforehand and didn’t necessarily feel hungry. If the communal table at the office is always filled with doughnuts and bagels, it’s going to be hard not to grab one every now and then. Your habits change depending on the room you are in and the cues in front of you.

he willingly receives from the first Philippian he evangelizes (Acts 16:15; cf. Phil. 1:5), and he indefinitely continues to reject the Corinthians’ gift (1 Cor. 9:15; 2 Cor. 11:12). He rejects support most frequently in the context of initial visits, but that is because reciprocity is most frequently offered in the context of an initial visit. The apostle only receives support as colabor, and when he arrives in an unevangelized area, there are rarely colaborers to be found.

First, civilisations come about—which is to say develop from primitive societies into civilisations—through challenge and response, a concept ‘probably derived from J.C. Smuts’ Holism and Evolution’.[11] For example, Egypt can be said to have developed from successfully responding to the challenge of how to live in an area surrounded by harsh desert.

Philosophy could be characterized with only a bit of irony as what is left if you begin with the sum total of human thought and subtract those areas in which clear progress has been made.

Ezekiel then gives great detail as to the cleanup and burial of the massive fallen dead invaders. He tells us that the burial process will involve many men hired specifically to engage in the “continual task of passing through the land to bury.” It will require seven months to bury the dead. (Ezekiel 39:12). Ezekiel prophecies that the slain will be buried in an area that will be called the “Valley of Hamon-Gog,” literally ‘the place of many dead Russians.’ (Ezekiel 39:11).

Initially working out of our home in Northern California, with a garage-based lab, I wrote a one page letter introducing myself and what we had and posted it to the CEOs of twenty-two Fortune 500 companies. Within a couple of weeks, we had received seventeen responses, with invitations to meetings and referrals to heads of engineering departments. I met with those CEOs or their deputies and received an enthusiastic response from almost every individual. There was also strong interest from engineers given the task of interfacing with us. However, support from their senior engineering and product development managers was less forthcoming. We learned that many of the big companies we had approached were no longer manufacturers themselves but assemblers of components or were value-added reseller companies, who put their famous names on systems that other original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) had built. That didn't daunt us, though when helpful VPs of engineering at top-of-the-food-chain companies referred us to their suppliers, we found that many had little or no R & D capacity, were unwilling to take a risk on outside ideas, or had no room in their already stripped-down budgets for innovation. Our designs found nowhere to land. It became clear that we needed to build actual products and create an apples-to-apples comparison before we could interest potential manufacturing customers. Where to start? We created a matrix of the product areas that we believed PAX could impact and identified more than five hundred distinct market sectors-with potentially hundreds of thousands of products that we could improve. We had to focus. After analysis that included the size of the addressable market, ease of access, the cost and time it would take to develop working prototypes, the certifications and metrics of the various industries, the need for energy efficiency in the sector, and so on, we prioritized the list to fans, mixers, pumps, and propellers. We began hand-making prototypes as comparisons to existing, leading products. By this time, we were raising working capital from angel investors. It's important to note that this was during the first half of the last decade. The tragedy of September 11, 2001, and ensuing military actions had the world's attention. Clean tech and green tech were just emerging as terms, and energy efficiency was still more of a slogan than a driver for industry. The dot-com boom had busted. We'd researched venture capital firms in the late 1990s and found only seven in the United States investing in mechanical engineering inventions. These tended to be expansion-stage investors that didn't match our phase of development. Still, we were close to the famous Silicon Valley and had a few comical conversations with venture capitalists who said they'd be interested in investing-if we could turn our technology into a website. Instead, every six months or so, we drew up a budget for the following six months. Via a growing network of forward-thinking private investors who could see the looming need for dramatic changes in energy efficiency and the performance results of our prototypes compared to currently marketed products, we funded the next phase of research and business development.

WHY SATAN HATES FAITH We can already see from the aforementioned things that faith is an integral part of the Christian life. I would even go so far as to say that without it we cannot really live a Christian life at all. So why does the subject of faith seem so elusive to so many people? The Bible tells us in Hebrews 11:6, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him [God]....” Satan knows that if you and I learn to walk by faith in every area of our lives, we will ultimately be pleasing to God. Therefore, the enemy has strategically brought confusion in the area of faith. It seems that faith has become a taboo word. Over the past 20 years, the church has embraced many dimensions of the New Testament paradigm, such as prophecy, apostolic ministry, the gifts of the Spirit, and revival culture; however, it seems that we have still fallen short in the area of faith. This subject has been smeared with abuse, misunderstanding, ignorance, and outright fear. Once we learn to tap into this kind of faith, we are accessing the realm of the supernatural, and it is in this environment that we experience the miraculous.

Not only did God keep these promises, as Israel was re-born as a nation on May 14, 1948, but He also caused them to search out the names of the towns and villages in the areas where they settled. They used the same names in the same areas, thus settling according to their old estates. (“I will settle you according to your old estates” – Ezekiel 36:11). How many nations have been wiped out, the people scattered across the face of the earth, and then, almost 2,000 years later, their descendants returned to the very same area, re-forming their nation with the same national identity and adopting the same name? Only Israel can make that claim.

We can already see from the aforementioned things that faith is an integral part of the Christian life. I would even go so far as to say that without it we cannot really live a Christian life at all. So why does the subject of faith seem so elusive to so many people? The Bible tells us in Hebrews 11:6, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him [God]....” Satan knows that if you and I learn to walk by faith in every area of our lives, we will ultimately be pleasing to God. Therefore, the enemy has strategically brought confusion in the area of faith. It seems that faith has become a taboo word. Over the past 20 years, the church has embraced many dimensions of the New Testament paradigm, such as prophecy, apostolic ministry, the gifts of the Spirit, and revival culture; however, it seems that we have still fallen short in the area of faith. This subject has been smeared with abuse, misunderstanding, ignorance, and outright fear. Once we learn to tap into this kind of faith, we are accessing the realm of the supernatural, and it is in this environment that we experience the miraculous.

Does God expect us to be holy? In Leviticus 11:44, 45, God says “consecrate yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am holy.” In all of this, God is teaching His people to live antithetically. That is, He is using these clean and unclean distinctions to separate Israel from other idolatrous nations who have no such restrictions, and He is illustrating by these prescriptions that His people must learn to live His way. Through dietary laws and rituals, God is teaching them the reality of living His way in everything. They are being taught to obey God in every seemingly mundane area of life, so as to learn how crucial obedience is. Sacrifices, rituals, diet, and even clothing and cooking are all carefully ordered by God to teach them that they are to live differently from everyone else. This is to be an external illustration for the separation from sin in their hearts. Because the Lord is their God, they are to be utterly distinct. In v. 44, for the first time the statement “I am the LORD your God” is made as a reason for the required separation and holiness. After this verse, that phrase is mentioned about 50 more times in this book alone, along with the equally instructive claim, “I am holy.” Because God is holy and is their God, the people are to be holy in outward ceremonial behavior as an external expression of the greater necessity of heart holiness. The connection between ceremonial holiness carries over into personal holiness. The only motivation given for all these laws is to learn to be holy because God is holy. The holiness theme is central to Leviticus (see 10:3; 19:2; 20:7, 26; 21:6–8).

CONCERT CHECKLIST 1. Secure a date on the calendar. Be sure it is listed on the official school calendar to protect it. 2. Reserve a performance venue for the concert and for final rehearsals. 3. Have tickets printed if they are to be used. 4. Plan the printed program and get it to the printer by the deadline date. 5. Plan the publicity. The following types of publicity can be utilized to draw a sizable concert audience: Radio releases Television releases Newspaper releases Online listings School announcements Notices to other schools and/or organizations in the area Posters for public placement 6. Send complimentary tickets to: Civic leaders Board of Education Superintendent People who have helped in some way Key supporters Key people to stimulate their interest 7. Have the president of the choir send personal letters of invitation to people that are special to the music program (newspaper editor, Board of Education, Superintendent, civic club presidents, supporters etc.). 8. Appoint a stage manager. He should be someone who can control the stage lighting, pull curtains, shut off air circulation fans that are noisy, and see that the stage is ready for the concert. 9. Arrange for ushers. 10. Check wearing apparel. Be sure that all singers have the correct accessories (same type and color of shoes, no gaudy jewelry for girls, etc.). 11. Post on bulletin board and tell students the time they will meet for a pre-concert warm-up. High school students will perform best if they meet together at least forty-five minutes before the concert.

Revelation 13:11 pinpoints “another beast.” In prophecy a beast represents a great nation. It comes “out of the earth,” or wilderness area. It starts out young, like a lamb. It is lamblike with Christian characteristics. It has “horns,” but no crowns. It has no kings. Specifically, it has “two horns like a lamb,” indicating a separation between “the things that are Caesar’s” (government) and “the things that are God’s” (religion), which is the plain teaching of Jesus Christ. It achieves superpower status near the end of time. It influences the world’s economy. It eventually rejects its own fundamental principles. It finally “speaks like a dragon.” It enforces the mark of the beast. Any Sherlock Holmes fans here? After careful detective work, the conclusion is inescapable. Be honest. How many nations on Planet Earth today are anywhere near being capable of fulfilling all twelve of these specific, heaven-inspired

must choose a geological deposit to mark our time, one that is uniquely human-born, I would suggest the area of Mare Tranquilitatis, the Sea of Tranquility, on the Moon, where the Apollo 11 astronauts first stepped onto the soil of another world, hopped about, did experiments, took rocks and soil, and left behind machines, flags, and footprints. Those boot marks will fade in a few million years as micrometeorites grind them into the surrounding dust, but the overall disturbance of this site, including the alien artifacts we left there, will surely be detectable for as long as there is an Earth and a Moon. This could not have been produced by any other species.

#11—What if I could only subtract to solve problems? From 2008 to 2009, I began to ask myself, “What if I could only subtract to solve problems?” when advising startups. Instead of answering, “What should we do?” I tried first to hone in on answering, “What should we simplify?” For instance, I always wanted to tighten the conversion fishing net (the percentage of visitors who sign up or buy) before driving a ton of traffic to one of my portfolio companies. One of the first dozen startups I worked with was named Gyminee. It was rebranded Daily Burn, and at the time, they didn’t have enough manpower to do a complete redesign of the site. Adding new elements would’ve been time-consuming, but removing them wasn’t. As a test, we eliminated roughly 70% of the “above the fold” clickable elements on their homepage, focusing on the single most valuable click. Conversions immediately improved 21.1%. That quick-and-dirty test informed later decisions for much more expensive development. The founders, Andy Smith and Stephen Blankenship, made a lot of great decisions, and the company was acquired by IAC in 2010. I’ve since applied this “What if I could only subtract . . . ?” to my life in many areas, and I sometimes rephrase it as “What should I put on my not-to-do list?

When the doors opened, Bud led them into a reception area where an older woman with curly blond hair sat at a desk. She recognized Bud and waved them past. “He’s back there somewhere. If he’s not in his office, just ask. They’re having some kind of problem.” Cole nudged Pike and whispered, “Already? We just arrived.

One cannot examine the actions of the Secret Service on November 22, 1963, without concluding that the Service stood down on protecting President Kennedy. Indeed, the 120-degree turn into Dealey Plaza violates Secret Service procedures, because it required the presidential limousine to come to a virtual stop. The reduction of the president’s motorcycle escort from six police motorcycles to two and the order for those two officers to ride behind the presidential limousine also violates standard Secret Service procedure. The failure to empty and secure the tall buildings on either side of the motorcade route through Dealey Plaza likewise violates formal procedure, as does the lack of any agents dispersed through the crowd gathered in Dealey Plaza. Readers who are interested in a comprehensive analysis of the Secret Service’s multiple failures and the conspicuous violation of longstanding Secret Service policies regarding the movement and protection of the president on November 22, 1963, should read Vince Palamara’s Survivor’s Guilt: The Secret Service and the Failure to Protect. The difference in JFK Secret Service protection and its adherence to the services standard required procedures in Chicago and Miami would be starkly different from the arrangements for Dallas. Palamara established that Agent Emory Roberts worked overtime to help both orchestrate the assassination and cover up the unusual actions of the Secret Service in the aftermath. Roberts was commander of the follow-up car trailing the presidential limousine. Roberts covered up the escapades of his fellow secret servicemen at The Cellar, a club in downtown Ft. Worth, where agents, some directly responsible for the safety of President Kennedy during the motorcade, drank until dawn on November 22. He also ordered a perplexed agent Donald Lawton off the back of the presidential limousine while at Love Field, thus giving the assassins clearer, more direct shots and more time to get them off. Also, although Roberts recognized rifle fire being discharged in Dealey Plaza, he neglected to mobilize any of the agents under his watch to act. To mask the inactivity of his agents, Roberts, in sworn testimony, falsely increased the speed of the cars (from 9–11 mph to 20–25 mph) and the distance between them (from five feet to 20–25 feet).85 No analysis of the Secret Service’s actions on the day of the assassination can be complete without mentioning that Secret Service director James Rowley was a former FBI agent and close ally of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, as well as a crony of Lyndon Johnson. Hoover was one of Johnson’s closest associates. The FBI Director would take the unusual step of flying to Dallas for a victory celebration in 1948 when Johnson illegally stole his Senate seat through election fraud. Johnson and Hoover were neighbors in the Foxhall Road area of the District of Columbia. Hoover’s budget would virtually triple during the years LBJ dominated the appropriations process as Senate Majority Leader. Rowley was a protégé of the director and one of the few men who left the FBI on good terms with Hoover. Rowley’s first public service job in the Roosevelt administration was arranged for him by LBJ. The neglect of assigning even one Secret Service agent to secure Dealey Plaza, as well as cleaning blood and other relatable pieces of evidence from the presidential limousine immediately following the assassination, seizing Kennedy’s body from Parkland Hospital to prevent a proper, well-documented autopsy, failing to record Oswald’s interrogation—all were important pieces of the assassination deftly executed by Rowley.

On June 18, 1964, about 11:30 a.m. Mrs. Juanita Brooks, who had been shopping, was walking home along an alley in the San Pedro area of the city of Los Angeles. She was pulling behind her a wicker basket carryall containing groceries and had her purse on top of the packages. She was using a cane. As she stooped down to pick up an empty carton, she was suddenly pushed to the ground by a person whom she neither saw nor heard approach. She was stunned by the fall and felt some pain. She managed to look up and saw a young woman running from the scene. According to Mrs. Brooks the latter appeared to weigh about 145 pounds, was wearing “something dark,” and had hair “between a dark blond and a light blond,” but lighter than the color of defendant Janet Collins’ hair as it appeared at the trial. Immediately after the incident, Mrs. Brooks discovered that her purse, containing between $35 and $40, was missing.

Do you remember when George Michael was arrested for having sex in a public bathroom?” “Sure. It was here?” “Hampstead Heath, indeed. This has been a gay cruising spot forever, but from my understanding, there is very little prostitution. It has always been more about cottaging.” “Cottaging?” “God, you’re naïve. Cottaging. Anonymous sex between men in bushes, public toilets, like that. Cash rarely changes hands. Still, young hustlers could try to ply their trade here, perhaps locate a potential sugar daddy or network for clients. I would suggest heading into the park and veering left toward the public toilets. Continue down the lane past the ponds. That seems to be the apropos area.” “You’re

Poppies in Afghanistan: The Taliban and the Heroin Trade Harvesting opium in Afghanistan Ghaffar Baig/ Reuters/Corbis Most Americans knew little about Afghanistan or the Taliban prior to September 11, 2001, but those who follow the heroin trade have focused on Afghanistan for decades. Afghanistan has long been a major area of opium production, but the “golden triangle” of Southeast Asia (Burma, Laos, and Thailand) historically dominated opium production. By 1999, though, Afghanistan had become the undisputed world leader in opium production despite being an Islamic state ruled by the Taliban, which publicly opposed opium use. In 1999, the Taliban representative to the United States, Abdul Hakeem Mujahid, said, “We are against poppy cultivation, narcotics production and drugs, but we cannot fight our own people” (Bartolet & Levine, 2001, p. 85). Even before 9/11, the United States accused the Taliban of profiting from opium and heroin production, and using those profits to fund terrorist activities. Under pressure from the United Nations, the Taliban announced bans on poppy cultivation in 1997, 1998, and 2000, but there was little evidence of any decreased production. In 2001, though, a ban was put into place that apparently really did reduce poppy production. Cynics have pointed out that the Taliban was simply trying to increase prices by temporarily cutting the supply; whatever the reason, when the Taliban lost control of Afghanistan, the poppy made a comeback. In this war-ravaged and economically depressed nation, growing opium is one of the few ways that farmers can make a living. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has urged his people to declare jihad (holy war) on drug production, but opium farming still accounts for nearly half of the domestic economy, and Afghanistan supplies nearly 80% of the world’s heroin (Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2013). In recent years, opium production has declined in Afghanistan, but a close relationship between heroin traffickers and the insurgency continues to create difficulties for that country’s reconstruction process (Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2013).

When you try to understand God’s purpose for your spirit so you can have the passion He desires for you, it requires a certain amount of trust and belief. Trust that God is in control, and believe that He will give you what you need to achieve and succeed! If you struggle in this area, here are some verses to look up and some of God’s promises to think about. 1. God will never abandon you. (See Hebrews 13:5.) 2. God wants the best for you. (See Jeremiah 29:11.) 3. God wants the best from you and He will do everything He can to help. (See John 14:26.)

BEWARE OF THE LEAST LIKELY TEMPTATION “Joab had defected to Adonijah, though he had not defected to Absalom.” 1 Kings 2:28     Joab withstood the greatest test of his life, remaining absolutely loyal to David by not turning to follow after the fascinating and ambitious Absalom. Yet toward the end of his life he turned to follow after the weak and cowardly Adonijah. Always remain alert to the fact that where one person has turned back is exactly where anyone may be tempted to turn back (see 1 Corinthians 10:11–13). You may have just victoriously gone through a great crisis, but now be alert about the things that may appear to be the least likely to tempt you. Beware of thinking that the areas of your life where you have experienced victory in the past are now the least likely to cause you to stumble and fall.     We are apt to say, “It is not at all likely that having been through the greatest crisis of my life I would now turn back to the things of the world.” Do not try to predict where the temptation will come; it is the least likely thing that is the real danger. It is in the aftermath of a great spiritual event that the least likely things begin to have an effect. They may not be forceful and dominant, but they are there. And if you are not careful to be forewarned, they will trip you. You have remained true to God under great and intense trials—now beware of the undercurrent. Do not be abnormally examining your inner self, looking forward with dread, but stay alert; keep your memory sharp before God. Unguarded strength is actually a double weakness, because that is where the least likely temptations will be effective in sapping strength. The Bible characters stumbled over their strong points, never their weak ones.     “. . . kept by the power of God . . .”—that is the only safety (1 Peter 1:5).

Of the candidate wild ancestors of domestic sheep, genetic evidence implicates the mouflon (Ovis orientalis), which inhabits mountainous areas from the Caucasus south through southeastern Europe and southwestern Asia (Figure 8.5).11

Fighting arts have evolved in to two distinct areas since it stopped being appropriate to practice them for the purposes of warfare – tanks, guns and armoured strike drones have kind of pissed all over that parade.

A. Areas of Responsibility (pursuant to Article 11 of the Act on the Establishment and Operation of the Korea Communications Commission) 1. Broadcasting regulation 2. Telecommunications regulation

A little something I picked up from one of my romance novels. Apparently some guys are into having that area fondled more and turns out my husband is one of them. Just when I thought I knew everything about him. Well...everything about him in the sex department, anyway.

Conservatives get trapped in this gambit routinely, because they figure that the enemy of their enemy is their friend: if the left is attacking someone, he must be worth defending. But that’s not true. I liked George W. Bush, but his second term was a disaster area. So was much of his first term. I don’t feel the necessity to defend his Iran policy, because it was terrible. Period.