text:
The evolving genomic landscape of Barrett's esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma
Gianmarco Contino, Thomas L Vaughan, David Whiteman, Rebecca C Fitzgerald
Cancer and Genomic Sciences
We have recently gained unprecedented insight into genetic factors that determine risk for Barrett's esophagus (BE) and progression to esophageal adenocarcinoma (EA). Next-generation sequencing technologies have allowed us to identify somatic mutations that initiate BE and track genetic changes during development of tumors and invasive cancer. These technologies led to identification of mechanisms of tumorigenesis that challenge the current multistep model of progression to EA. Newer, cost-effective technologies create opportunities to rapidly translate the analysis of DNA into tools that can identify patients with BE at high risk for cancer, detect dysplastic lesions more reliably, and uncover mechanisms of carcinogenesis.
657-673.e1
https://doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2017.07.007
Adenocarcinoma/diagnosis
Barrett Esophagus/genetics
Carcinogenesis/genetics
DNA Copy Number Variations
Esophageal Neoplasms/diagnosis
Genome-Wide Association Study
10.1053/j.gastro.2017.07.007Licence: None: All rights reserved
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016508517359085Licence: None: All rights reserved
Dive into the research topics of 'The evolving genomic landscape of Barrett's esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
Barrett Esophagus Medicine & Life Sciences 100%
Adenocarcinoma Medicine & Life Sciences 64%
Technology Medicine & Life Sciences 54%
Carcinogenesis Medicine & Life Sciences 42%
High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing Medicine & Life Sciences 26%
Costs and Cost Analysis Medicine & Life Sciences 17%
Contino, G., Vaughan, T. L., Whiteman, D., & Fitzgerald, R. C. (2017). The evolving genomic landscape of Barrett's esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma. Gastroenterology, 153(3), 657-673.e1. https://doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2017.07.007
Contino, Gianmarco ; Vaughan, Thomas L ; Whiteman, David ; Fitzgerald, Rebecca C. / The evolving genomic landscape of Barrett's esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma. In: Gastroenterology. 2017 ; Vol. 153, No. 3. pp. 657-673.e1.
@article{c3b501ea2625471589a5cf5e45848aee,
title = "The evolving genomic landscape of Barrett's esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma",
abstract = "We have recently gained unprecedented insight into genetic factors that determine risk for Barrett's esophagus (BE) and progression to esophageal adenocarcinoma (EA). Next-generation sequencing technologies have allowed us to identify somatic mutations that initiate BE and track genetic changes during development of tumors and invasive cancer. These technologies led to identification of mechanisms of tumorigenesis that challenge the current multistep model of progression to EA. Newer, cost-effective technologies create opportunities to rapidly translate the analysis of DNA into tools that can identify patients with BE at high risk for cancer, detect dysplastic lesions more reliably, and uncover mechanisms of carcinogenesis.",
keywords = "Adenocarcinoma/diagnosis, Barrett Esophagus/genetics, Carcinogenesis/genetics, DNA Copy Number Variations, Esophageal Neoplasms/diagnosis, Genome-Wide Association Study, Germ-Line Mutation, Humans, Mutation",
author = "Gianmarco Contino and Vaughan, {Thomas L} and David Whiteman and Fitzgerald, {Rebecca C}",
note = "Copyright {\textcopyright} 2017 AGA Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.",
doi = "10.1053/j.gastro.2017.07.007",
pages = "657--673.e1",
journal = "Gastroenterology",
Contino, G, Vaughan, TL, Whiteman, D & Fitzgerald, RC 2017, 'The evolving genomic landscape of Barrett's esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma', Gastroenterology, vol. 153, no. 3, pp. 657-673.e1. https://doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2017.07.007
The evolving genomic landscape of Barrett's esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma. / Contino, Gianmarco; Vaughan, Thomas L; Whiteman, David; Fitzgerald, Rebecca C.
In: Gastroenterology, Vol. 153, No. 3, 09.2017, p. 657-673.e1.
T1 - The evolving genomic landscape of Barrett's esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma
AU - Contino, Gianmarco
AU - Vaughan, Thomas L
AU - Whiteman, David
AU - Fitzgerald, Rebecca C
N1 - Copyright © 2017 AGA Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
N2 - We have recently gained unprecedented insight into genetic factors that determine risk for Barrett's esophagus (BE) and progression to esophageal adenocarcinoma (EA). Next-generation sequencing technologies have allowed us to identify somatic mutations that initiate BE and track genetic changes during development of tumors and invasive cancer. These technologies led to identification of mechanisms of tumorigenesis that challenge the current multistep model of progression to EA. Newer, cost-effective technologies create opportunities to rapidly translate the analysis of DNA into tools that can identify patients with BE at high risk for cancer, detect dysplastic lesions more reliably, and uncover mechanisms of carcinogenesis.
AB - We have recently gained unprecedented insight into genetic factors that determine risk for Barrett's esophagus (BE) and progression to esophageal adenocarcinoma (EA). Next-generation sequencing technologies have allowed us to identify somatic mutations that initiate BE and track genetic changes during development of tumors and invasive cancer. These technologies led to identification of mechanisms of tumorigenesis that challenge the current multistep model of progression to EA. Newer, cost-effective technologies create opportunities to rapidly translate the analysis of DNA into tools that can identify patients with BE at high risk for cancer, detect dysplastic lesions more reliably, and uncover mechanisms of carcinogenesis.
KW - Adenocarcinoma/diagnosis
KW - Barrett Esophagus/genetics
KW - Carcinogenesis/genetics
KW - DNA Copy Number Variations
KW - Esophageal Neoplasms/diagnosis
KW - Genome-Wide Association Study
KW - Germ-Line Mutation
KW - Humans
KW - Mutation
U2 - 10.1053/j.gastro.2017.07.007
DO - 10.1053/j.gastro.2017.07.007
SP - 657-673.e1
JO - Gastroenterology
JF - Gastroenterology
Contino G, Vaughan TL, Whiteman D, Fitzgerald RC. The evolving genomic landscape of Barrett's esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma. Gastroenterology. 2017 Sep;153(3):657-673.e1. https://doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2017.07.007

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Record net revenue for Marfrig in Q3
Published: 09 November, 2018
The Brazilian meatpacker, which acquired a controlling interest of U.S. based National Beef in June 2018, has posted record net revenue of R$11 billion (US$2.94 billion) in the third quarter of 2018, up +21% year-on-year.
Marfrig says adjusted EBITDA also achieved a record in the quarter at R$1.08 billion (US$289.35 million), with margin of 9.7%. Operating cash flow is also reported to have improved significantly, to R$804 million (US$215.44 million). These consolidated results include the full impact of the National Beef business. According to Marfrig, despite the U.S.-China trade war tensions and the increasing U.S. protectionism, the global scenario in the beef industry remained positive.
The cattle availability in the U.S. combined with stronger domestic and international demand are said to have supported better margins. In Brazil, cattle slaughtering was 6.3 million head in the quarter, representing increases of +4.3% over the same quarter in 2017, and +8% over the previous quarter. Despite signs of improvement in domestic consumption, Marfrig says its margins in Brazil remained under pressure in face of the uncertain political and economic environment.
On August 20, the Company announced the divestment of U.S. based Keystone for an enterprise value of US$2.4 billion. Deducting from this amount the interest held by noncontrolling shareholders, Marfrig's net proceeds, which will be used to reduce its gross debt, is US$2.2 billion. The deal was approved by the antitrust authorities in the U.S., Japan and China, as well as by Brazil's BNDESPAR, but the approval by the antitrust authority in South Korea is still in progress, and the transaction is expected to be concluded in 2018.
JBS posts record net income in 2019
Reduced losses for Marfrig
Meatpacking giant JBS posts net loss in Q4
Meatpacking giant JBS returns to profit


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text:
Blix put Iraq in a no-win situation. Before setting off to inspect it in 2002/early 2003, he told a reporter that 'not seeing something, not seeing an indication of something, does not lead automatically to the conclusion that there is nothing'. So if he found weapons there would be war, and if he didn't find weapons, well, there might still be war. The pro-war lobby saw what it wanted to see in Blix's suspicions-filled final report to the UN in January 2003, with one account rightly arguing that it 'greatly strengthened the American and British case for war'. Far from trying to prevent war, the weapons inspectors -- with their demented scaremongering between 1998 and 2003 -- provided Washington and London with the perfect justification for their military venture.
Only a fool would idolise Blix. The spat between him and the US and the UK is no principled stand-off between anti-war and pro-war camps. Rather it is a struggle amongst clashing invading forces, with Blix defending the right of his people to occupy and blackmail the 'moral lepers' of Iraq for the rest of time, while Bush and Blair preferred to launch all-out war against those 'moral lepers'.
-- Brendan O'Neill's "Hans Blix's Stalinist rewriting of history" (Spiked).
Posted by Third Estate Sunday Review at Sunday, August 01, 2010 Links to this post
"NBC's Chuck Todd, Sleepless and Depressed Over JournoList" (Peter Hart, FAIR):
Peter Hart, if you want to ever be taken seriously how about your write a piece on FAIR and how you and FAIR ignored sexism throughout the Democratic Party primaries? How about you do that? How 'bout you explain your single sentence at the end of May and how it took Hillary being called a "bitch" on CNN for you to say a word — a single sentence.
Ava and C.I. documented it here, if you've forgotten, Peter.
http://thirdestatesundayreview.blogspot.com/2008/05/tv-american-oh-dull.html
And how about you talk about FAIR's action alert on the last debate between Barack and Hillary? And how about you talk about what Journolist did on that?
FAIR used to be FAIR. In 2008, it showed a really ugly side and I've seen nothing to indicate that it intends to change.
By the way, where's the article on Barack's homophobia?
You stayed silent when he put homophobes on stage in South Carolina (read Kevin Alexander Grey's piece in The Progressive for what FAIR wouldn't tell you), you stayed silent when he did it again in the general election and you stay silent all the time.
P.S. Stop sending me your FAIR alerts. I do not highlight sexists and homophobes at my blog. Stop sending me your 'alerts.'
-- Rebecca takes the fight for truth to so-called FAIR.
Another week, another long edition. Along with Dallas, the following helped on this edition:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, and Ava,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen
What did we come up with?
Hans Blix is a serial liar. It was amazing to see so many believe in his lies. Here's one person who called them out.
Rebecca taking on FAIR.
Editorial: Hans Blix's Fairytale
Isaiah did the illustration, we thank him. This is the Iraq focus for this edition.
TV: Burn what?
Ava and C.I. wanted to review something else this week. I asked them to cover Burn Notice. ("I" being Jim.) Hopefully, when you read this you will agree it was the right call.
VA's lost billions
Reporting on a Congressional hearing last week. Isaiah did the illustrations of Bob Filner and Steve Buyer.
The naval gazing roundtable. We really did intend to expand to some other topics. That never happened. Betty's kids did the illustration and we thank them.
Radio moment of the week
A new feature that we hope will be a regular one. First out of the gate, Doug Henwood.
Katha Pollitt Journolist
Isaiah did the illustration of our modern day Charlotte Rae.
Mike, Elaine, Wally, Cedric, Ann, Stan, Marcia, Kat, Betty and Rebecca wrote this and we thank them for it.
And that's what we managed to complete that was publishable.
Hans Blix, the hero supreme. The legend, the man, the miracle.
If you believe that, you're on the hard stuff and need to check into rehab.
Tuesday, Hans Blix prattled and preened before the Iraq Inquiry in London. As many waited for the truth, Blix conjured another Hans -- Christian Andersen -- as he told a pleasing fairytale, one in which War Criminal Tony Blair was as brave and true as King Arthur.
To hear Blix tell it, even when the evil witch George W. Bush came along, Tony was still true of heart.
The problem, Hans explained, was that the US was driving a runaway train and Blair was trapped on it. And, for good measure, he insisted that Blair always worked within the United Nations framework.
Many an overgrown British tot sighed contentedly, able to drift off into slumber at last knowing that empire was a US thing and that the Brits had been unwillingly pulled into an illegal war.
And like all fairytales, to believe in it, you had to suspend disbelief. You had to believe that a wooden puppet could turn into a human boy; that mermaids not only existed, they pined for washed out colorless human beings; and that, given the choice, any woman would willing step into a pair of glass slippers.
To believe Hans Blix's fairytale, you had to suspend disbelief and you had to forget a lot of details and facts. Such as the MI5 Director General refuting Tony Blair's claim that England could be attacked with WMD by Iraq.
Eliza Manningham-Buller: As I said to Lady Prashar, we regarded the threat, the direct threat from Iraq as low. We did think -- and it comes in that letter -- that Saddam Hussein might resort to terrorism in the theatre if he thought his regime was toppled, but we did not believe he had the capability to do anything much in the UK. That turned out to be the right judgment. What the letter -- has been redacted from the letter, like I say, in general terms is that is partly as a result of action we took. But I don't think the threat in the UK was anything other than very limited.
You had to forget what Blair's Deputy Legal Adviser told the Inquiry January 26th:
Committee Member Usha Prashar: Can I just then confirm, what were your views of the legal position on the use of force against Iraq before the Security Council Resolution 1441?
Elizabeth Wilmshurst: They were the same as described by Sir Michael Wood this morning, that it would be necessary to have a resolution of the Security Council, if force against Iraq were to be lawful, that the other lawful reasons for the use of force were not present at that time.
Commitee Member Usha Prashar: But there was a consistent view of all the law officers with the FCO [British Foreign & Commonwealth Office]?
Elizabeth Wilmshurst: Of all of the legal advisers within the FCO, yes.
There is so much testimony that you had to forget to believe the fairytale.
You had to, for example, forget that Blix testified, "I came out right from September 2002 on to the very end when I said, 'Yes, there might be weapons of mass destruction'."
What was Blix tasked with?
Determining whether or not Iraq had WMD. As Blix explained to the Inquiry, he thought they did. He investigated and couldn't say they didn't but he thought they did and he passed that along.
Did Iraq have WMD?
Shouldn't Blix have known that?
Blix is responsible for the Iraq War as surely as War Criminal Tony Blair and War Criminal George W. Bush.
It's obvious to all but those who really need to believe in fairytales.
USA network's Burn List is currently in season four and that may be the most puzzling thing about the show.
Jeffrey Donovan stars as Michael, a former secret agent for the United States, who was "burned." When they're done with you -- for whatever reason -- they burn you. Michael now attempts to make a living in the real world and the most unsettling thing there may be how little prepared he is for the private sector. Don't they teach CIA agents marketable skills?
Donovan delivers endless voice overs throughout the show which, no one's supposed to notice, undercuts the notion that Michael is the 'strong silent' type. Playing the weak and bubbly type is Bruce Campbell looking like at least sixty large pizzas exploded inside of him in under ten minutes. Campbell's performance is nothing but a grin, like George Peppard in the original A-Team. The term for it isn't "acting," think of it as "funning.'' Sharon Gless plays Michael's mother Madeline and Gabrielle Anwar plays Michael's business partner and sometime lover Fiona.
Season four finds Coby Bell added to the cast as Jesse. Who is Jesse? Another secret agent who got burned. And he got burned my Michael! It's like the life cycle of plants and secret agents.
The A-Team really is the template for this show. It's instantly forgettable and completely disposable. It's not even a confection -- the way Covert Affairs is -- because it's far too drab. In fact, the only thing memorable about the show is the homo-erotic undercurrent forever threading its way through each episode. Michael's fond of speaking to 'bad guys' on sexual terms. Posing as a drug supplier, he tells a Miami drug dealer that when he's ready to get serious, tap him on the hip and they'll meet up in the champagne room.
When he's delivering one of those lines, undercover, he's often using a very bad southern accent that makes him sound like a New Jersey man hitting the Big Apple and determined to market himself as a Midnight Cowboy. Which only adds to the homo-eroticism.
There's nothing erotic or sexual about FAIR. In an earlier time, they might have been dubbed Salt Peter. Last week, FAIR's Peter Hart lashed out at Chuck Todd (MSNBC). Why?
Roger Simon (Politico) quoted Todd stating of Journolist, "I am sure Ezra [Klein] had good intentions when he created it, but I am offended the right is using this as a sledgehammer against those of us who don't practice activist journalism. Journolist was pretty offensive. Those of us who are mainstream journalists got mixed in with journalists with an agenda. Those folks who thought they were improving journalism are destroying the credibility of journalism. This has kept me up nights. I try to be fair. It's very depressing."
Them's fighting words to neutered tabby Peter Hart. See, no one's supposed to talk about Journolist. If they do, Hart's going to hiss and scratch. Todd explained why he had a problem with the list and Hart begins ridiculing Todd for not saying something similar about the Iraq War. (Note, Rebecca called out Hart in the comment section.)
"I'm all for journalists feeling in some way responsible for the reputation of their profession," smirks Peter. "In that spirit, I wonder if the media's coverage of the Iraq War keeps Chuck Todd up at night, many billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives later? Does Andrew Breitbart's destruction of a community organizing group--aided by credulous media coverage--bother him much?
On the latter, it's really important for Peter to continue lying about ACORN. We don't support falsified voter registration -- whether done by Republicans or Democrats. ACORN got into enough trouble over the years on its own. When Juan Gonzalez attempted to present a balanced picture of the pros and cons of ACORN on Democracy Now! he was cut off and no one on the left has tried it since. ACORN was a group started and run by White people with a few token African-American faces for public consumption. It was a White man, Dale Rathke, in fact, who stole the most money from ACORN (nearly one million dollars from 1999 to 2000) -- a White man whose brother founded the organization. Despite the fact that ACORN depended not only on private donations but also on state and federal monies for funding, this crime -- embezzlement is a crime -- was covered up and not reported to the authorities. Peter covers for ACORN because he's part of the White radical set that tries to manipulate people of color. This is evident by many facts but, keeping it simple, he is a co-host of CounterSpin, this supposed 'modern man,' thereby ensuring that a person of color is kept out. Apparently the need to create opportunities for people of color does not, in Peter Hart's mind, demand that he surrender the microphone to, in fact, a person of color.
FAIR is a lot like ACORN. For example, they love to trot out Janine Jackson as proof of their racial diversity. Janine got into the all-White crowd by marrying in. You don't get much Whiter than FAIR. Remember that the next time they're yammering away about this act of racism or that act of racism. Jeff Cohen, Norman Solomon, Steve Rendall, Peter Hart, Jim Naureckas . . . FAIR's a White world and, yes, it's a man's world.
As for Iraq, Peter Hart's quite the funny man, isn't he? Iraq. FAIR pretending to give a damn about Iraq?
FAIR is supposed to put a spotlight on the stories that need covering. CounterSpin discussed Iraq last when?
You have to drop back months and months to March. And before that you drop back even further. When it is time to supposedly talk Iraq, they tend to go with little Mamas boys -- you know, Iraqis who are 'fighting' the occupation . . . from the safety of the US. Those cowards know who they are. And it's no great surprise that they and FAIR would cling together -- birds of a feather, after all.
So Peter lies about ACORN (again) and wants to toss out Iraq, try to get mileage from a war FAIR's all but forgotten (except, of course, for grandstanding purposes). But he never deals with reality. Like a secret agent, Peter engages in distraction.
"Look the Iraq War!"
As opposed to the reality that Journolist is and was a scandal. That FAIR collaborated their efforts ('action' alerts) with Journolist on many occasions.
Peter Hart hopes the story is buried because there are so many loose ends that right-wingers will allow to dangle. Not knowing the left, they won't make the connections. The Daily Caller appears (at present) to be done with Journolist which is really too bad because a lot more was being exposed than Tucker Carlson & Co. thought. When Peter Hart's slamming Chuck Todd, you better believe Petey has s**t his underoos over Journolist.
Because continued publication of Journolist e-mails would have created a Burn List. Not a right-winger thing, but something on the left. On the left, we're not fond of liars. Now, granted, a lot of Republicans who grew tired of Bush and decided to call themselves Democrats embrace liars. They lived through the 90s, they were in bed with liars. Or, like Arianna Huffington, they themselves were liars.
But the real left, the left that's left today, left tomorrow and left yesterday? We don't put up with liars. Not even for our side. In fact, we cringe when we discover liars on our side. And that's what had Peter worried. It wasn't just the 400 members. It was also how the talking points were distributed (including on CounterSpin). And it went to the larger point we've been making for years now.
Drop back to our 2008 writing, specifically look at "Panhandle Media." No, it is not normal for all magazines on the left and all radio stations on the left to all agree on one candidate in a primary. That doesn't happen normally or, in fact, naturally. Journolist was only one of the many ways Team Obama conspired to fool the public.
Grasp that independent media gives lip service -- only lip service -- to grassroots and people participation. They decry backroom deals. At least publicly. Privately, they got on board the Barack bus early on and conspired to bully and destroy anyone who would not hop on board. We know independent journalists -- or journalists working for so-called 'independent' publications and programs. We've heard the horror stories. We've heard how the line came down before 2008 that Hillary would be portrayed as a bitch and Barack as a saint, that every bad thing about Barack would be buried.
Knowing inside stories, we watched with fascination as the Journolists were published, noting how X had connections to this radio program, that TV program, this magazine and how the talking points would be amplified at all. The Daily Caller, by contrast, half-the-time didn't have any clue as to what they were publishing.
For example, why did people following every piece on Journolist published by The Daily Caller, end up writing this site last week to ask us if it was true (as we noted in "Serving under Richard Nixon, Chris Hayes (Ava and C.I.") that Chris Hayes' wife serves in the Administration? Yes, it is true and we provided links you could click on to verify that. But that's what we're talking about.
And all sorts of interesting linkages could be made, a network of deception could be charted. But Tucker seemed to have no idea what he had or maybe he just got scared off by the attacks from the likes of Petey Hart.
If you've ever listened to Pacifica Radio for any length of time, you are familiar with the pledge drives. That's when various hosts insist that you are getting real news -- despite the lack of news programs on Pacifica -- and that you are getting unbiased opinions and that you are getting, from Pacifica, something you couldn't get anywhere else. And that pitch would be a lot more laughable if anyone ever stopped to grasp just how much coordination is going on.
Peter Hart has to attack. He can't find employment in the real world.
If he got a burn list, what would he do then?
Probably take part in plodding non-adventures like Michael Westen. Badly written episodes which try to fill gaping holes in the plot by non-stop voice over narration and lots of explosions. Burn Notice is the type of show that's dated about thirty minutes after an episode airs. That's about thirty minutes more of currency than most 'independent' radio programs have.
The Department of Veterans Affairs cannot account for billions. This was well established Wednesday in a House Committee on Veterans Affairs hearing. Chair Bob Filner noted, "The US Dept of Veterans Affairs is the second largest agency in our system of government and each year, they are authorized billions of dollars to care for our nation's veterans. Miscellaneous obligations are used by the VA to obligate funds in circumstances where the amount to be spent is uncertain. They are used to reduce administrative workload and to facilitate payment for contracted goods and services when quantities and delivery dates are unknown."
And the Government Accountability Office can't track it. This was very clear from the testimonies of the GAO's Susan Ragland and Glenn Slocum -- even with the GAO attempting to be "diplomatic" as US House Rep. Cliff Stearns pointed out.
Chair Bob Filner: If you had to give a grade between your initial report and now, what would you give?
Susan Ragland: Oh.
Chair Bob Filner: I'm a teacher, so.
Susan Ragland: Oh, I guess I'd say somewhere between a C+ or a B-. Somewhere in there.
Chair Bob Filner: Sounded like an F to me, but what do I know?
The VA sent the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Finance Edward Murray, the Chief Financial Officer W. Paul Kearns III and Chief Procurement and Logistics Officer Frederick Downs, Jr. to testify. Kearns would provide a breakdown of missing/unaccounted for monies:
2007: $6.9 billion
2008: $11 bilion
2009: $12 billion
That adds up to $41.9 billion.
Ranking Member Steve Buyer would repeatedly express his hope that the money was merely unaccounted for but repeatedly note how, when the money can't be tracked, there is a huge temptation for fraud and worse.
Committee member Jerry McNerney would repeatedly express how the VA and the Congress needed to get on top of this issue before the press started running with it. McNerney was worrying for no reason. Despite an open hearing, despite $41.9 billion being missing/unaccounted for, the press pretty much ignored the hearing. No major daily paper reported on it the next day. McNerney
Rep. Jerry McNerney: As Mr. Searns pointed out, we've seen an increase from five billion to 12 billion in the use of form 1358. t just seems to me that form 1358 must be so easy to use that everybody in the VA wants to use it. I mean is that why people are using it more? Is that why the -- it's just easier to use? It requires less discipline? Less work? Is that what's happening?
Edward Murray: I-I-I -- 135 -- 1358 form is used primarily, should be used primarily for non-far type uh procurement transactions, things like that. Beneficiary travel, meal tickets, purchase care under Title 38 that does not require a far based contract.
Ranking Member Steve Buyer: You've just said "should be." We're all getting really annoyed here. Please be responsive to the gentleman's question.
Edward Murray: There are 23 approved uses for this -- for that form.
Rep. Jerry McNerney: Right.
Edward Murray: They've been vetted. That is the uses for that form. They should only be used for that 23 approved uses.
Rep. Jerry McNerney: It just seems to me that form 1358 ought to be eliminated and form 2237 ought to be expanded and used for everything because look what the problem -- look what the situation is that you're in right now. I mean, if 2237 requires more discipline then that's what people should be using. Uh, I mean, do you have a way to respond to that?
No, he didn't have a way to respond to that.
Chair Filner stated, "I am angry that the VA leadership continues to be unresponsive to these issues on cost controls. I understand the need to obligate funds before you know the exact cost, however, these expenditures need to be tracked, itemized, and carefully reviewed. This particular procurement process is a disaster waiting to happen. As the Committee charged with oversight of the VA, we will continue to press for action until we are assured that waste, fraud, and abuse is prevented." Ranking Member Buyer would note to the GAO witnesses that "the VA's own audits showed a continued a disregard for your recommendations and, "I mean, right now, you could look back and the last three or four [VA] Secretaries -- I mean, they have, since 2000, increased these directives without execution."
For more on this topic, refer to C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" and Kat's "The House Veterans Affairs Committee was pissed" and C.I.'s "VA can't account for $41.9 billion in tax payer monies."
Jim: Roundtable time and we've got some news topics and hopefully some time for some fun topics. This is one of the rare roundtables we do where we are all actually face to face. Our e-mail address is thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com. Participating are The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava, and me, Jim; Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude; Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man; C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review; Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills); Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix; Mike of Mikey Likes It!; Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz); Ruth of Ruth's Report; Trina of Trina's Kitchen; Wally of The Daily Jot; Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ; Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends; Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub. Betty's kids did the illustration.
Jim (Con't): First up, Iraq. Still a political stalemate. If you're lost, they held Parliamentary elections in March. This has happened only one other time in Iraq since the start of the war and that was December 2005. As C.I. has pointed out, in 2005, Iraq took four months and seven days to pick a prime minister. Today makes it four months and 25 days. It's really amazing that some people want to scream success.
Dona: And what's worse is that it's alleged Democrats doing the success screaming.
Trina: Well one of those is my state's governor, Governor Who is what he's known as statewide -- Deval Patrick. He's a nothing, a glossy from a magazine who can't actually do any real work and our state's been suffering. For those unaware, Team Deval is the same people who later brought you the Barack presidency. So it's another male model who poses for the cameras but never gets down to doing the actual job he was elected to do.
Mike: Like my mother just said, we don't take him seriously in the state. I hope he's not re-elected. He's done nothing and that's why he's known as Governor Who. Were it not for his posing, we wouldn't be aware he was even still around. He's been ineffective and his term can be seen as "Governor Who" in that it's as if the office has gone unfilled for years now.
Jim: Okay. We've got a number of e-mails. Let's go to Journolist first. Isaiah, why don't you explain what that was and then we'll deal with the e-mails.
Isaiah: Sure. Ezra Klein, now at The Washington Post, started a list-serv entitled Journolist which eventually included 400 journalists, reporters and government and political operatives -- though the latter classification was not supposed to be taking part. On the list, vile things were said -- and I'm with Elaine on this, the problem was that they were said privately while publicly they wanted to pretend they never harbored such a thought -- and coordination of talking points were laid out. It's a ridiculous slap in the face to the notion of independent journalism -- I'm referring to all journalism which is supposed to be independent, not the beggar press. They've been outed and now everyone rushes to insist it's no big deal.
Jim: Including the ridiculous Peter Hart whose nonsense enraged Rebecca. Last week's edition largely focused on Journolist. Ty, break down on the e-mails.
Ty: Setting aside the fan mail to Ava and C.I., 85% of those e-mailing enjoyed the coverage in some manner, 10% felt other stories should have been covered and 5% were strongly of the belief that there was no story in Journolist.
Jim: So first off, let's get a few things down. We have never participated in an online circle jerk. Haskell e-mails insisting that "night time bloggers in your group regularly coordinate messages." That would not include anyone from Third -- Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava, C.I. and myself. So we're tossing out for the others to comment if they'd like to.
Marcia: We don't coordinate messages. Can we leave Wally and Cedric out of this discussion? They can come at the end, but what they do is so different from what the others of us do, that it's really not fair to include them in this discussion.
Jim: That's fine.
Marcia: Okay. Ruth, Betty, Ann, Mike and I have all written at our sites about a 'scraps' e-mail. That goes out each day from C.I. It's things that might have made the snapshot if there was more room. It goes out to all of us who post at night during the week. We can grab anything from that if we want to. We don't have to grab a thing and most of the time, we probably don't. I think I grab about one thing a week on a good week. We generally do a round-robin of calls to see what's going on. Betty and my cousin Stan talk every night before they blog. Ruth and I talk every night before we blog. Mike generally talks to all of us -- including Elaine whom he lives with. Setting aside theme posts -- there are times when we'll come up with a theme like "favorite movie" and all blog on that at night -- we're not coordinating. We're trying to avoid stepping on each other. If Rebecca's blogging about, say, apples, okay, I'm not going to blog about apples, I'll blog about doughnuts, but I'll e-mail an article on apples to Rebecca since I know she's tackling the topic. Rebecca and I or Ruth and I may end up blogging on the same topic because one of us calls the other and says, "This is really important, it's not a topic that fits into Iraq so C.I. won't be able to cover it, how about we team up and both cover it?" When that happens we generally note that. There are times when we disagree on a topic. Ruth and I will grab the same topic and write about it from different opinions. That's not talking points, that's not messaging and there's nothing hidden about it.
Stan: And I'll pick up now. Betty and I are on the phone. We highlight Hillary Is 44 if there's a new post. We include the Iraq snapshot. Between the two of that, we grab different things. Sometimes we're just commenting on Hillary Is 44. If so, we've discussed it to make sure we're not hitting on the same thing. I really just talk to Betty and Mike each night before blogging. Mike will call specifically to ask if I need any help, which I appreciate, in tracking something down. He'll also give me a rundown on what others are planning to blog about. And Betty and I talk usually as we're blogging. We're on the phone with each other. I talk to my cousin -- Marcia's my cousin -- all the time. We're generally not talking about blogging.
Betty: Mike usually calls me when I'm on the way home from work. Like Stan said, he goes over what people are thinking about blogging about. I usually have no idea. If I have an idea, I've usually called Ann because it's something I think is more her beat and I'll make sure she's fine -- she always has been -- with me covering it either instead or as well. I love everyone in this roundtable but I'm really thrilled about Ann because we do have so many similar thoughts. I was standoffish to Ann at first. I didn't go to the wedding -- and had a solid excuse for that -- and I was very protective of Cedric. I had this attitude of: Who is she and who does she think she is? It was probably about three or four months after their wedding before I started warming up to Ann.
Jim: You know this story, Ann?
Ann: Oh, yeah, we've talked about it.
Betty: And she was finding herself online when she started, as we all have to stumble along to find our voices. But when she found her voice, it was so obvious that Ann was like someone who would be my best friend in high school. And that's why I say that if I worry, it's generally that Ann would be the one writing on it. Rebecca -- whom I love -- and I could write on the same topic from the same opinion and have completely different posts but Ann and I tend to think along the same lines. And that's why I always want to give her the chance to grab something on her beat and not just rush to do so.
Stan: And, as Marcia pointed out, none of this has ever been hidden. We mention this all the time at our sites, Betty and I. Forget that there's no strategizing going on, there's also nothing hidden.
Elaine: Well anyone who reads my site would never accuse me of being part of some grand conspiracy. More and more, I write less and less. I live with Mike so I hear from him. I usually speak to Rebecca and C.I. several times a day on the phone. That's noted at my site. If I speak to Kat or Ava, I generally note that. My site's a journal, not a news site, not an opinion site, just a journal. It doesn't read like any great thought or planning was behind it because none was.
Jim: Do you speak to anyone else on the phone?
Elaine: Wally. I'll get Wally or Kat or Ava sometimes when I'm calling C.I. Betty and I probably talk twice a week on the phone but we're not talking about blogging.
Betty: No, we are not. Elaine hates blogging.
Elaine: We're usually talking about what we're reading. It's the same when I'm speaking to Trina. What are you reading? Is it a good book, do you recommend it? Betty, Trina, Dona and I read the most fiction of anyone participating in this roundtable and we tend to have our own little book club. In addition, I usually e-mail or call Isaiah after one of his comics goes up.
Jim: Which is one of Haskell's points, the conspiracy with the comic.
Kat: Oh dear Lord. The comic is something Isaiah works hard on. Let me tell the story. In 2004, I started doing music writing for The Common Ills because I loved the website. And that was my way of adding something. Ruth would do the same with her "Ruth Reports" which were a look at NPR programs, a critique of them. Isaiah also wanted to do something. He looked at the site and saw nothing but text. He used to draw comics all through school and figured he could do that to help the site have a visual image. So in 2005, he became the site's cartoonist. It gave the site a visual. He was probably one of the first comics doing what he did for a site. As opposed to just doing their own site. We put up one of his comics on Monday if he's had one go up on Sunday because (a) we like what he does and (b) we get to use a visual at our site. There's no great conspiracy wherein we say to Isaiah, "Draw this and we'll post you." It's just an automatic thing we do.
Mike: Yeah and you have people providing links to Kat's album reviews for the same reason.
Trina: I'm with Elaine in that my blog has less and less work and becomes more and more of a chore. I'm in a difficult spot right now because more and more time is taken up by e-mails, people e-mailing my site. It's really cut into my writing time. Not that my writing is all that great. But if you're finding any great conspiracy at my site, let me know because I'm not seeing it. Monday night we all blogged on Journolist and that was because we were all shocked by the e-mails that were published. Actually, we didn't all blog on it. I know Mike didn't. I'm not even sure Betty did. But a lot of us did blog on it because we were offended. Just briefly, this was a set of Journolist e-mails on Sarah Palin's pregnancy and it was offensive to read. It was offensive on so many levels. That was a case of someone -- I think Rebecca -- finding them and passing them around in e-mails. Was it you, Rebecca?
Rebecca: Yeah. I was just so disgusted and Ann called me after I sent them out, called me right away and we both said we were blogging about it. And Elaine did as well, and Marcia and Ruth. Stan and Betty had their own thing going on and so did Mike.
Jim: Okay. Cedric and Wally?
Wally: Well, I have to confess, there is a conspiracy. Cedric and I get together and figure out talking points and then post them at our sites. Only we call them "joint-posts" because we write them together! Hello! That's so ridiculous that anyone would think that. Cedric and I are doing humor posts. We can't even drop to participate in the fun theme posts the rest of the gang does like "favorite eighties song." But we're somehow able to come up with a grand conspiracy? Get real.
Cedric: Yeah. It's crazy. There's no big conspiracy. I live with Ann, we're married and I can tell you that most nights she doesn't even want to blog. I can also tell you that if anyone suggests a topic to her that night, she'll grab it just to avoid Fresh Air. There's no conspiracy.
Jim: And far from conspiring to get things up at other sites, an argument can be made that I conspire to keep everything here. I'm forever asking C.I. not to write something or, if it's written, to bring it over here and not put it up at The Common Ills. But let's talk about what's offensive about Journolist. As a journalist, you're not supposed to be coming into a story with a set of talking points. What you're writing is supposed to have required thought and observation. The idea that I'm going to be on a list-serv and pick up talking points that I'll then use in my writing is offensive. But that is why Journolist existed and Ezra Klein or anyone can claim otherwise but they're lying. And we've never liked Ezra. We've been on to his game from the start. He participated in the CJR circle jerk, we know all about Ezra and how he whored to get an online name. It's what Journolist was about. It's what his Washington Post blog is about. He's just a whore. There's no reason to believe him because his tongue goes where the money leads, he's a whore. We are independent, we have always been independent. We've never attempted to toe a party line, obviously. We were offered circle jerks, we turned them down.
Jess: I don't want to get too far into Peter Hart's crap, but I do want to point out that these were reporters for MSM outlets. They were not all columnists. You had Bloomberg News reporters, Newseek reporters, Washington Post reporters -- Ezra Klein isn't a reporter -- and you had so much going on that was secretive. It was offensive. They should never have engaged in it and a reporter's job is not to put one over on the public but repeatedly you have a Luke Marshall or a Katha Pollitt insisting that's what must be done. It's taken for granted that whoring is the way to go. It's offensive. It's offensive to journalism as a profession. It never should have taken place.
Jim: And we're going to stop there because Dona's pointing to time. We actually had other topics to discuss but that'll wait until next time. Isaiah, by the way, has done at least four illustrations for this edition that we'll be using. This is a rush transcript.
Ava and C.I., Wally and Kat, spend nearly every week on the road and a new feature we're implementing this week is "Radio moment of the week." For the inaugural highlight, they selected Doug Henwood.
Doug Henwood: Over the long term, economic growth is a function of labor force growth and the productivity of that labor force -- that is how much workers can produce in an hour or year of labor times the number of workers and then growth would be the product of the growth of those two things. The Congressional Budget Office apparently assumes, I say apparently because they do not disclose this explicitly, the labor force will grow very slowly around .3 to .4% a year. That's half the current rate -- less than half the current rate -- and about half the rate the census bureau projects the population will grow in the coming decades. If that's true, if that is that labor rate will grow at least than half the rate the census bureau projects population will grow, then the share of the adult population working will shrink to levels we haven't seen since, well, maybe forever. At the same time, they're assuming record low growth in productivity -- something like a third below the long term average and below the rate clocked in the much maligned 1970s, the period of the famed productivity slow down. These assumptions are very similar to those underlying projections that the Social Security system will go broke. but if the economy grows at something closer to its long term average then that won't happen and the massive growth in debt won't happen either because the government will collect more in taxes than it would if we were really locked in a semi-permanent slump. So what's going on here is the CBO pushing these strange projections to promote an austerity agenda cutting social spending and privatising social security? If so, that's worth investigation. Or are they really serious that a 70 year near depression awaits us soon? Inquiring minds want to know?
Doug Henwood made those comments on last week's Behind The News which airs on WBAI Thursdays at five p.m. (here for WBAI archives). KPFA airs the show on Saturdays . . . sometimes. (It did not air Saturday.) In addition, you can stream at the Left Business Observer website. And if you're unable to stream (or do not benefit from streaming), click here and you can read a text version of Henwood's commentary.
Ideally, this feature will highlight something you should give at least a few minutes to thinking about. When possible, it will be less statement of fact and more a question posed to radio listeners.
The laughable 'journalist' Luke Mitchell had yet again tried to outline on Journolist (September 8, 2008) how they would message when David Roberts corrected him that it is the job of journalists to "say what they think/, not to support Obama." A chagrined Katha Pollitt whined back, "Well, Okay, j-list isn't the place. But people who think message discipline is a good idea can start another list, and promote the weekly message there."
Katha Pollitt, bad 'poetess' and columnist for The Nation magazine, wants to create "message discipline" among reporters. Katha's "message discipline" includes passing herself off publicly as a Democrat. She's not a Democrat. "Message discipline" for Katha is hiding her entire life in a political closet. "Message discipline" is what the Communist Party used to preach, after all. Katha's used to "message discipline," she's just not used to independent thought.
And that may be the most unsettling thing about Katha and Journolist. See, to be a columnist, you have to appear authentic. Your opinions must appear to be your own.
So, for example, if you write the following publicly in September 2008:
John McCain chose the supremely under-qualified Sarah Palin as his running mate partly because she is a woman. If you have a problem with that, you're a sexist. She talks incessantly about being a mother of five and uses her newborn, Trig, who has Down syndrome, as a campaign prop. If you wonder how she'll handle all those kids and the Veep job too, you're a super-sexist. "When do they ever ask a man that question?" charges that fiery feminist Rudy Giuliani. Indeed, Palin, who went back to work when Trig was three days old, gets nothing but praise from Phyllis Schlafly, James Dobson and the folks at National Review, who usually blame all the ills of modern America on those neurotic, harried, selfish, frustrated, child-neglecting, husband-castrating working mothers. Even stranger, her five-months-pregnant 17-year-old, Bristol, gets nothing but compassion and respect from Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and others who have spent their careers slut-shaming teens for having sex--and blaming their parents for letting it happen.
You shouldn't have written the following privately August 30th, 2008: "Unfortunately, palin is kind of cool. she's not a brittle pastel- suited nut, like some of the eagle forum types. if she weren't in politics, we would probably really like her."
Katha Pollitt wrote that . . . for private consumption.
All a columnist has is the trust people place in them. When they betray that trust, when they wore it out, they not only disgrace themselves, they destroy the bond between journalist and reader.
"We can't be passive. she won't destroy herself," insisted Katha on Journolist, advocating for destroying Sarah Palin.
In the September Nation column, she insists, "Count me as a feminist who never believed that being PTA president meant you could be, well, President."
That's grossly sexist. And, by the way, what's so awful about being president of the PTA? We would assume a successful PTA president might know a great deal more than a failed community organizer, for example.
This piece is written by Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Kat of Kat's Korner, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz, Ruth of Ruth's Report, Marcia of SICKOFITRADLZ, Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends, Ann of Ann's Mega Dub and Wally of The Daily Jot. Unless otherwise noted, we picked all highlights.
"I Hate The War" -- most requested highlight by readers of Third.
"The World Today Just Nuts "Barack Addresses Netroots Nation" -- Isaiah weighs in on President Lazy.
"Iraq snapshot," "The House Veterans Affairs Committee was pissed," "VA can't account for $41.9 billion in tax payer monies" and "Iraq snapshot" -- C.I. and Kat report on Congress.
"There's only one term for Laura Rozen," "Catty gossips," "thank you to maggie mahar,"
"Ryan Donmoyer is a gossipy little girl," "Fat Ass Katha Pollitt," "Laura Rozen: Conspiracy Nut,"
"They're kidding themselves," "Bloomberg News' Ryan Donmoyer is a 'birther'," and "Roger Simon weighs in on the Journolist scandal" -- some of last week's Journolist coverage in the community.
"US Killings in Afghanistan" -- Betty covers the WikiLeaks.
"barack's latino issues" -- Rebecca weighs in on Barry O.
"Lynne" -- Lynne Stewart remains a political prisoner.
"THIS JUST IN! SOLD TO WHOM!!!!" and "If he was selling, who was buying" -- Wally and Cedric on the ex-governor's scandals.
"Covert Affairs" -- Ann weighs in on TV.
"Potatoes in the Kitchen" -- Trina on seasoning.
"the gulf disaster" -- the Gulf Disaster continues.
"Good luck to Christiane Amanpour"
"Mothers"
"Charlie Rangel" & "Charlie Rangel" -- Kat on the Rangel scandals.
"Rebecca socks it to the FAIR Alley PTA," "Peter Hart has no heart," "The unfair FAIR gets called out" and "The unfair FAIR" -- Marcia, Elaine, Mike and Ann on Rebecca and FAIR.
"Aretha II" and "Aretha" -- Marcia on Aretha's issues.
"Valentine's Day" -- Stan's Friday movie night.
"Peggy Kerry's Allergic Reation to Peace" -- Isaiah dips into the archives.
"Iraq Inquiry, Gulf Disaster" -- Mike on the two disasters.
"THIS JUST IN! ONCE MORE INTO THE VIEW!" & "New bookings!" -- Wally and Cedric on the Boob hitting the Boob Tube.


Australia, Cocos Keeling Island, Beach, 2001 - Diary entry June 29, 2001 - Today was a diving day.... We had to go back to near where we dived this morning, a disappointment to me. Oddly enough, a dive where there was nothing new to do was interesting, because I just lost myself getting close to a lion fish (at one point I let her fins touch into my hand as the tide moved her body). Karen, the guide, signaled that the lion fish was dangerous, and then I took particular notice of the spines on the back. Also, she pointed out two moray eels to me. In particular, the Moon Wrasse was unbelievably beautiful. I give it my award for best design: violet and yellow patterns, starting out more yellow on the back end, intermingled with violet, then transitioning to more violet and less yellow toward the front. then on the snout, there were luminescent pink/maroon lines running down irregularly. Just on one little part where the fin met the body were three distinct colors: the pink/maroon, the violet and the yellow. It seemed like a flag from an African country.


text:
Q: Conventions for Stability field of Cabal packages Cabal allows for a freeform Stability field:

stability: freeform

The stability level of the package, e.g. alpha, experimental, provisional, stable.

What are the community conventions about these stability values? What is considered experimental and what is provisional? I see only few packages are declared as stable. What kind of stability does it refer to, stability of the exposed API or the ultimate bug-free state of the software?

A: Currently this field is a very poor guide to the stability of the library, so is mostly ignored. Duncan Coutts (one of the main Cabal and Hackage developers) has said that he eventually plans to replace this field entirely, with something like a social voting system on Hackage.
Personally (and I'm not alone) I just always omit the stability field. Given that it's going to go away, its probably not worth losing any sleep over what to put into it.

A: The original intended meanings were:

*

*experimental: the API is unstable. It may change at any time, i.e.: any version number change;

*provisional: the API is moving towards stability.  It may be changed at every minor revision, but should provide deprecated versions of features;

*stable: the API is stable.  Only additions should be made at minor releases.  After changes in the API, deprecated features should be kept for at least one major release.

As the other answers pointed out, the community seems not to be following these guidelines anymore.
As Simon Marlow points out, this is described in a design proposal for the first set of Hierarchical Haskell Libraries.  The original link is dead, but you can find a copy in the wayback machine.

A: The field is mostly defunct now, and shouldn't be used.  As Max said, it will probably be replaced by something meaningful in the future.
If you're interested in the history, the field originated in a design proposal for the first set of Hierarchical Haskell Libraries. That document describes the original intended meanings for the values.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


29 May 2014, at 9:43a.m.
SCOTLAND - Europe's decision to impose a paltry fine on Italy for defying the ban on laying cages is a slap in the face for Scottish egg producers, says the National Farmers Union of Scotland.
It was announced this week that Italy has been found guilty of failing to comply with the EU ban on battery cages, which came into force on 1 January 2012. Following lengthy court proceedings, the European Court of Justice found Italy guilty of failing to implement the Welfare of Laying Hens Directive of 1999. Despite a 13-year lead in period to the ban coming into force, the Italian authorities claimed they did not have sufficient time to make sure all farms were compliant in time.
Disappointingly, as far as retribution goes, Italy will only have to pay the legal costs of the case and the commission did not ask for any further financial penalties to be levied against them. In the Union's view, that level of fine will do nothing to drive compliance with existing or future welfare rules across the EU. A case against Greece regarding non-compliance with the laying cage ban has still to be resolved but NFUS understands that, if found guilty, the country would also only face paying legal costs.
In a double blow for Scottish producers, the European Union has no plans to inspect compliance with the laying cage ban in the member states that failed to meet the January 2012 deadline. By comparison, Scottish and UK egg producers invested heavily in their egg production systems to ensure 100 per cent compliance by that date.
NFU Scotland's Animal Welfare Policy Manager, Penny Johnston said: "It is incredibly frustrating to hear that Italy will effectively go unpunished for allowing its farmers to continue to use illegal cage systems, undercutting our egg producers for the last two-and-a-half years.
"That is unacceptable; it is a slap in the face to all nations – including Scotland - that took the steps and bore the costs of upgrading egg systems. To add insult to injury, the fine makes a mockery of the penalty system given that this was a clear and deliberate flouting of the rules.
"There is another case against Greece still outstanding. Again it would appear that the commission has also only asked that costs of the court case be paid by Greece if found guilty.
"These lamentable efforts in delivering and enforcing animal welfare legislation sends out a message to Member States that failure to comply with current or future rules will only result in a 'slap-on-the-wrist'. That means Europe is ill-serving its consumers and undermining the excellent standards being met on those Scottish and UK farms producing eggs.
"To regain trust, a programme of inspections is needed in all those countries that 'struggled' with compliance. Last year, the Union challenged representatives from the Commission's Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) and its Animal Welfare Unit on the poor progress on inspections to verify Member States are compliant with both the ban on conventional laying cages and the partial ban on sow stalls that came into force at the start of 2013.
"It is apparent that in the intervening months, no improvement has been delivered. The Commission's attitude towards inspection and enforcement of these important pieces of welfare legislation fails to ensure that all producers across Europe are abiding by the same set of rules.
"European consumers deserve better and Europe must review and address the significant failings in the way it goes about introducing and enforcing welfare legislation," Ms Johnston said.


text:
Q: IllegalStateException: The path to the driver executable must be set by the webdriver.gecko.driver system property; (Selenium) commenting out the configuration results in this crash:
thufir@doge:~/NetBeansProjects/selenium$
thufir@doge:~/NetBeansProjects/selenium$ gradle clean fatJar;java -jar build/libs/selenium-all.jar

BUILD SUCCESSFUL in 1m 17s
4 actionable tasks: 4 executed
Jul 09, 2017 3:03:39 PM net.bounceme.dur.web.selenium.Main main
INFO: init..
Jul 09, 2017 3:03:41 PM net.bounceme.dur.web.selenium.Scraper scrape
INFO: {webdriver.gecko.driver=/usr/bin/firefox, url=http://www.google.com, url2=file:///home/thufir/wget/foo.html}
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IllegalStateException: The path to the driver executable must be set by the webdriver.gecko.driver system property; for more information, see https://github.com/mozilla/geckodriver. The latest version can be downloaded from https://github.com/mozilla/geckodriver/releases
    at com.google.common.base.Preconditions.checkState(Preconditions.java:738)
    at org.openqa.selenium.remote.service.DriverService.findExecutable(DriverService.java:124)
    at org.openqa.selenium.firefox.GeckoDriverService.access$100(GeckoDriverService.java:41)
    at org.openqa.selenium.firefox.GeckoDriverService$Builder.findDefaultExecutable(GeckoDriverService.java:115)
    at org.openqa.selenium.remote.service.DriverService$Builder.build(DriverService.java:330)
    at org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver.toExecutor(FirefoxDriver.java:207)
    at org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver.<init>(FirefoxDriver.java:108)
    at org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver.<init>(FirefoxDriver.java:104)
    at net.bounceme.dur.web.selenium.Scraper.scrape(Scraper.java:24)
    at net.bounceme.dur.web.selenium.Main.run(Main.java:20)
    at net.bounceme.dur.web.selenium.Main.main(Main.java:15)
thufir@doge:~/NetBeansProjects/selenium$
thufir@doge:~/NetBeansProjects/selenium$

How or where do I integrate this?
{
    "capabilities": {
        "alwaysMatch": {
            "moz:firefoxOptions": {
                "binary": "/usr/local/firefox/bin/firefox",
                "args": ["--no-remote"],
                "prefs": {
                    "dom.ipc.processCount": 8
                },
                "log": {
                    "level": "trace"
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

I don't even know what that means.
code:
package net.bounceme.dur.web.selenium;

import java.util.Properties;
import java.util.logging.Logger;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver;

public class Scraper {

    private static final Logger log = Logger.getLogger(Scraper.class.getName());

    public Scraper() {
    }

    public void scrape(Properties p) {
        log.info(p.toString());

        String key = "webdriver.gecko.driver";
        String url = p.getProperty("url");
        String value = p.getProperty(key);
        // System.setProperty(key, value);
        // System.setProperties(p);

        WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();
        driver.get(url);
    }

}

Preferrably the configuration would be in a properties file.  What would the key/value pairs for that properties file?

A: You can perform the following steps:

*

*Download the latest geckodriver from github.com/mozilla/geckodriver/releases

*Check the location of firefox on your machine.
On Mac Firefox is at location: /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin
On Windows Firefox should be at the location:  C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe
Here is the code:
 System.setProperty("webdriver.gecko.driver","/Users/monika/Downloads/geckodriver 2");  //the location of geckodriver on your machine
 FirefoxOptions options = new FirefoxOptions();
options.setBinary("/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin"); //This is the location where you have installed Firefox on your machine
options.addArguments("--no-remote");
options.addPreference("dom.ipc.processCount",8);

FirefoxDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver(options);
driver.get("http://www.google.com");


text:
The Complete Works of Joseph Conrad: Victory
in his head, and with a sort of guarded attitude, as if afraid someone would reproach him with the death of Morrison.
Naïve Heyst! As if anybody would. . . . Nobody amongst us had any interest in men who went home. They were all right; they did not count any more. Going to Europe was nearly as final as going to Heaven. It removed a man from the world of hazard and adventure.
As a matter of fact, many of us did not hear of this death till months afterward—from Schomberg, who disliked Heyst gratuitously and made up a piece of sinister whispered gossip:
"That's what comes of having anything to do witk that fellow. He squeezes you dry like a lemon, then chucks you out-sends you home to die. Take warning by Morrison."
Of course, we laughed at the innkeeper's suggestions of black mystery. Several of us heard that Heyst was prepared to go to Europe himself, to push on his coal enterprise personally; but he never went. It wasn't necessary. The company was formed without him, and his nomination of manager in the tropics came out to him by post.
From the first he had selected Samburan, or Round Island, for the central station. Some copies of the prospectus issued in Europe, having found their way out East, were passed from hand to hand. We greatly admired the map which accompanied them for the edification of the shareholders. On it Samburan was represented as the central spot of the Eastern Hemisphere with its name engraved in enormous capitals. Heavy lines radiated from it in all directions through the tropics, figuring a mysterious and effective star—lines of influence or lines of distance, or something of that sort. Company promoters have an imagination of their own. There's no more romantic temperament on earth than the temperament of a company promoter. Engineers came out, coolies were imported, bungalows were put up on Samburan, a gallery driven into the hillside, and actually some coal got out.
These manifestations shook the soberest minds. For a time everybody in the islands was talking of the Tropical Belt Coal, and even those who smiled quietly to themselves were only hiding their uneasiness. Oh, yes; it had come, and anybody could see what would be the consequences—the end of the individual trader, smothered under a great invasion of steamers. We could not afford to buy steamers. Not we. And Heyst was the manager.
"You know, Heyst, enchanted Heyst."
"Oh, come! He has been no better than a loafer around here as far back as any of us can remember."
"Yes, said he was looking for facts. Well, he's got hold of one that will do for all of us," commented a bitter voice.
"That's what they call development-and be hanged to it!" muttered another.
Never was Heyst talked about so much in the tropical belt before.
"Isn't he a Swedish baron or something?" • "He, a baron? Get along with you!"
For my part I haven't the slightest doubt that he was. While he was still drifting amongst the islands, enigmatical and disregarded like an insignificant ghost, he told me so himself on a certain occasion. It was a long time before he materialized in this alarming way into the destroyer of our little industry-Heyst the Enemy.
It became the fashion with a good many to speak of
Heyst as the Enemy. He was very concrete, very visible now. He was rushing all over the Archipelago, jumping in and out of local mail-packets as if they had x been tram-cars, here, there, and everywhere organizing with all his might. This was no mooning about. This was business. And this sudden display of purposeful energy shook the incredulity of the most sceptical more than any scientific demonstration of the value of these coal-outcrops could have done. It was impressive. Schomberg was the only one who resisted the infection. Big, manly in a portly style, and profusely bearded, with a glass of beer in his thick paw, he would approach some table where the topic of the hour was being discussed, would listen for a moment, and then come out with his invariable declaration:
"All this is very well, gentlemen; but he can't throw any of his coal-dust in my eyes. There's nothing in it. Why, there can't be anything in it. A fellow like that for manager? Phoo!"
Was it the clairvoyance of imbecile hatred, or mere stupid tenacity of opinion, which ends sometimes by * scoring against the world in a most astonishing manner? Most of us can remember instances of triumphant folly; and that ass Schomberg triumphed. The T. B. C. Co. went into liquidation, as I began by telling you. Theo Tesmans washed their hands of it. The Government cancelled those famous contracts. The talk died out, and presently it was remarked here and there that Heyst had faded completely away. He had become invisible, as in those early days when he used to make
a bolt clear out of sight in his attempts to break away į from the enchantment of "these isles," either in the
direction of New Guinea or in the direction of Saigonto cannibals or to cafés. The enchanted Heyst! Had he at last broken the spell? Had he died? We were
too indifferent to wonder over-much. You see we had on the whole liked him well enough. And liking is not sufficient to keep going the interest one takes in a human being. With hatred, apparently, it is otherwise. Schomberg couldn't forget Heyst. The keen, manly Teutonic creature was a good hater. A fool often is.
"Good evening, gentlemen. Have you got everything you want? So! Good! You see? What was I always telling you? Aha! There was nothing in it. I knew it. But what I would like to know is what became of that–Swede."
He put a stress on the word Swede as if it meant scoundrel. He detested Scandinavians generally. Why? Goodness only knows. A fool like that is unfathomable. He continued:
"It's five months or more since I have spoken to anybody who has seen him."
As I have said, we were not much interested; but Schomberg, of course, could not understand that. He was grotesquely dense. Whenever three people came together in his hotel, he took good care that Heyst should be with them.
"I hope the fellow did not go and drown himself," he would add with a comical earnestness that ought to have made us shudder; only our crowd was superficial, and did not apprehend the psychology of this pious hope.
"Why? Heyst isn't in debt to you for drinks, is he?" somebody asked him once with shallow scorn.
"Drinks! Oh, dear, no!"
The innkeeper was not mercenary. Teutonic temperament seldom is. But he put on a sinister expression to tell us that Heyst had not paid perhaps three visits altogether to his "establishment." This was
t mez
You Heyst's crime, for which Schomberg wished him nothing 1. Am less than a long and tormented existence. Observe f one ti the Teutonic sense of proportion and nice forgiving 7, it at temper.
At last, one afternoon, Schomberg was seen approachfer. I ing a group of his customers. He was obviously in
high glee. He squared his manly chest with great importance.
"Gentlemen, I have news of him. Who? Why, thaty hing i Swede. He is still on Samburan. He's never been x what away from it. The company is gone, the engineers
are gone, the clerks are gone, the coolies are gone, everything's gone; but there he sticks. Captain Davidson, coming by from the westward, saw him with his own eyes. Something white on the wharf; so he
steamed in and went ashore in a small boat. Heyst, 2 21 right enough. Put a book into his pocket, always
very polite. Been strolling on the wharf and reading. 'I remain in possession here,' he told Captain Davidson.
What I want to know is what he gets to eat there. A 2e piece of dried fish now and then-what? That's com
ing down pretty low for a man who turned up his nose at my table-d'hôte!"
He winked with immense malice. A bell started ringing, and he led the way to the dining-room as if into a temple, very grave, with the air of a benefactor of mankind. His ambition was to feed it at a profitable price, and his delight was to talk of it behind its back. It was very characteristic of him to gloat over the idea of Heyst having nothing decent to eat.


text:
You are here: Home / ISU coaches moves over to Iowa Games
ISU coaches moves over to Iowa Games
The Iowa Games have a new employee. Executive director Jim Hallihan has announced that Kevin Bourke is the new director of sports and operations.
Bourke spent the past five seasons as the men's cross country coach at Iowa State and has also been an assistant track coach for 17-years.
Bourke says he enjoyed his years at Iowa State, but has wanted to get into sports administration.
Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Cyclones


One of the biggest issues with building web pages is ensuring that those pages are cross-browser and device compatible. This means that they should look good and function properly in as many browsers and on as many devices as possible.
Many code editors include some kind of browser compatibility tool that takes a look at all the tags in your files and determines whether those tags and any attending attributes are compliant with the latest W3C recommendations for your selected DTD in the most popular current browsers.
These tools should be able to quickly identify coding issues, such as whether the code contains any deprecated tags like <center> and <b>, which should be identified and changed or removed.
Though the browser compatibility test typically doesn't show you how any found errors will look in browsers that don't support a particular tag or attribute, the test results often list the browser type and version that may have difficulty displaying the identified content so that you can do your own testing to correct the error.
For instance, using Dreamweaver's Browser Compatibility tool, you might see an error. The tool identifies and describes the Three Pixel Text Jog issue, which cannot be properly displayed in Internet Explorer 6.0.
From the Browser Compatibility tab in the Results panel, click the green arrow button in the upper-left corner and choose Check Browser Compatibility from the drop-down menu.
Depending on the number of found issues, the report might take a few minutes to generate. Be patient.
Like the other tabs in the Results panel, the results for this tool display in a list at the bottom of the Results panel with an Error, Warning, or Message icon next to each issue found. In addition, this panel displays detailed results about each found issue along the right side of the panel.
To correct any issues found, double-click the line in the Results panel that contains the issue, and Dreamweaver automatically opens the page that contains the error.
The code in question is highlighted and/or displayed with a red or green wavy underline in Dreamweaver's Code view to assist in making a correction or adjustment. To reveal a pop-up tip window within the code that identifies the error and lists the browsers that don't support it, place your cursor on top of the wavy underline.


Tonight, we are expecting some good, "old" friends to join us for dinner. It has been years since we served the same church together. Those years bonded us together, so the time that has transpired in the mean time is really no big deal. I fully expect us to pick up right where we left off.
When last we met, their six year old daughter had just been born. I remember crying as I held that little answered prayer that her parents had waited years for God to provide. My ten year old was the age my Piper is now, four. God had already led us away from that sweet church, but they were still ministering there.
In the years that have passed, a lot has changed. While my husband is in the same ministry position, they serve a different congregation in Missouri. They are preparing to send their daughter to first grade in the same month we expect the arrival of our third. God has brought various experiences and people in and out of all of our lives. We have all grown in our relationship with Him and we are not the same.
Despite all the changes, we still know their hearts for our God and they know ours. We still share a passion for serving Him and seeing Him glorified. We still understand the precarious positions we can find ourselves in in ministry.
This evening, we will talk about the old times as we relive inside jokes and start stories with "Remember when...." We will share new stories about what God has done in each of our lives and families since we were last together. We will look to the future as we openly and honestly share with a couple that we each explicitly trust.
Friends like these, especially in the ministry, are a true blessing and, all too often, much too rare. God has provided various kinds of friends at each place He has called us to serve. Sometimes, He didn't provide friends like this couple, and taught us to lean more on Him. Sometimes, He ministered to us through friends like these.
I thought it might be neat to use the comment section to write simple "Thank You" prayers for Old Friends. Even if it was just for a season, I am grateful for the time I have had with these "Old Friends." I will start us off . . .
Then I had better help Wally in the kitchen! He has gotten both the baked beans and the hash brown casserole in the oven. Now he is making the hamburger patties! Have I ever mentioned how thankful I am that God gave me a man who can cook AND enjoys doing so?
Throughout the Bible, names have had a great deal of meaning. God gives and even changes names. Their meanings are not accidental. Even the many names we have for God Himself are valuable to our understanding of Him and our spiritual growth.
My husband, Wally, and I have taken naming our girls pretty seriously. Not only are their names an intricate part of their identity, we also pray that their names will "fit" them, truly describing who they are.
Our oldest daughter is named after the minister who performed our wedding and his family. Their surname, Riley, is her first name. Her middle name is my grandmother's name, Christine. We were only able to finalize her name when I researched the meanings and put them together: Riley Christine- "valiant Christ-follower." We have prayed this would describe her from that day forward.
Piper Gail is our second born. "Piper" is an author who has been influential to both Wally and myself. The meaning of "Piper" is "one who plays the pipe." "Gail" is my mother's middle name and is short for "Abigail," meaning "her father's joy." Our prayer is that Piper will live her life in such a way that she brings joy to her Heavenly Father and is an act worship to Him, just as an instrumentalist would play his or her "pipe" in an offering of praise.
We have chosen a name for our third little girl who we are expecting to make her appearance near the of September. "Eliza" is short for the Biblical name "Elizabeth" and means "oath of God." Her middle name will be the same as Wally's mother, Joy. We are already praying, giving this life back to the One who is entrusting her to us, that she will be so committed to Him that He will fill her life with His joy that He can use it to transform the lives that surround her.
I have enjoyed sharing with Riley how and why we chose her name. I look forward to having similar conversations with her sisters as God provides the opportunities. I want to be intentional to point all three of them back to Jesus with every chance I have.
I also want to point them to His various names and meanings too.
Throughout my journey with Christ, different names of His have held more meaning to me. As God has revealed something to me about His personal nature or how He cares for me, certain names have just seemed to come alive to me.
During this season, Provider and Sustainer have fit. With the loss in my family, being nearly 37 and pregnant, and in all the craziness going on around us in this fallen world, He has been, continues to be and promises to remain both to me.
What about you? What names of God have taken on new meanings in your spiritual life lately? What is God revealing about Himself to you through His own names?
Yesterday after the second service at our church, I called my husband on the way home. (Is your family like ours, most often driving 2 vehicles to church because of various meetings and commitments?) Wally, who works for our local association, had just finished preaching three services for one of the other churches in the county. We agreed that I would pick him up and we would head to a Zaxby's for a quick bite to eat because the "grocery fairy" hadn't visited our house in a long while.
As we entered the restaurant, we quickly noticed how full the fast-food, chicken chain was with most every table taken. I spied friends from our home church and they waved us over to claim a table near theirs. Wally ordered and I began the prepping the table with our young daughters.
Eventually, we did get to eat. The staff was quick to clean up the sticky mess and a new cup of soda was gotten. Wally explained to me why half the patrons at the place looked so familiar to me. There were at least three churches from our association present.
Looking back on it now, I pray that our reaction to our daughter's accidental spill modeled a Christ-like response. Yes, if I handled things poorly I had the potential of being "discussed" literally all over the county. But, honestly, that didn't enter my mind at the time. You see, Ladies, we, not as ministers' wives, but as Christians are ALWAYS on display.
Clarksville is the 5th fastest growing area in the United States and has an un-churched rate of over 80%. These two facts are mind-staggering to me. The odds are pretty good that 8 of every 10 people there didn't know Jesus yesterday.
If we hadn't handled the spilt soda well, not only would we not have represented the association well, we would have also misrepresented our Jesus. It was obvious that we had our Sunday church clothes on. What kind of hypocrites would we have appeared to be if we had reamed out the girls right there . . . literally in front of God and everyone?
Yes, being a minister's wife does hold me to a DIFFERENT standard, but it is no higher, or better, or harder than being held to Christ's standard. He has called me to holiness. He is whose name I represent. He is my true audience of One.
Just a reminder this morning that He is the One we serve.
As ministry wives we often talk about how important it is for Believers to pay attention to who they are listening to. We know it is vital to be sure we are seeking Godly counsel, Godly wisdom, Godly advice and that our family is doing the same thing. We are diligent about making sure who our children and teens are hanging out with because we know how influenced they are by their peers. We are careful about what we watch on TV, what radio stations we listen to, what teaching/preaching we are hearing to be sure it is Biblical.
There is something that we listen to and believe that sneaks into our minds and totally miss it. Ourselves!!!
· My husband does not love me or he would….
If you and I would stop and honestly take inventory of what we tell ourselves we might be amazed at how much of what we say is not true!! Much of what we tell ourselves are lies and then we not only believe them, but we act on them!!
As I was reading through Psalm 119 the other day I came upon a verse that hit me straight in the face!! Verse 29 says "Keep me from lying to myself; give me the privilege of knowing your law." What!!??? "Keep me from lying to myself"!!!??? Oh, my chili how I needed to hear that!! I am FOREVER lying to myself and am convicted that I MUST begin to tell myself the Truth!!
Let me encourage you as well….listen to what you are saying to yourself….seek the Lord to determine what is Truth and what are Lies….then…..TELL YOURSELF THE TRUTH!!
Would you be willing to share with us some of the lies you tell yourself? Perhaps it would help many of us see that we are telling ourselves the same things!! Be free my friend!
There is a saying that goes something like this: "You don't know what you have until it is gone." That is so true! I have been back in Arkansas for almost a year and half and missing my Tennessee sisters is still a very real emotion. Oh, I can keep up with you ladies through Facebook, but it is not the same. I cannot come to retreats or give you a hug in person. In Nashville area alone, I had some pretty wild and crazy ministers' wives friends who brought a lot of laughter to my soul.
I do not say all this to sound sad or to be emotional. God is doing a good work here in Arkansas among the ministers' wives. We still have a long ways to go but we are working toward a goal of connecting our wives. Our big accomplishment this year is that we now have a public blog spot called A Common Bond. You can find our link at www.minwives.com. Like Tennessee, our contributors are volunteers but we share a common bond of being sisters in the ministry. I hope you will take a moment to read some of the post from our writers and leave a comment.
Through working with the ministers' wives here, I have discovered some pretty special ladies. In my association we have formed a Ministers' Wives Fellowship and try to meet once a month. We are small right now but it is great fellowship. Our recent outing took us to a little place in Keo, Arkansas called Charlotte's. Girls, you have to get there early and make sure to order your homemade pie first! (Yes, I had homemade chocolate pie.) It was great fun, and I discovered the blonde pastor's wife at my table is a fellow chocoholic. Ah, the joys of bonding!
I will always miss my Tennessee sisters but God is developing new bonds among my sisters here. I am personally glad we live in the technology age, because no matter where God plants us in our ministry journey, we can still connect. We can still ask for prayers, encouragement, advice, and share a funny thought.
Isn't that what being a sister in the ministry is all about?
Arkansas sisters enjoying some homemade pie from Charlotte's.
Have you ever felt beat down and worn out by ministry? Have you felt disappointed or angry with a certain member of your congregation or about a certain situation within the church? Have you been attacked for your ministry? Have you ever just wanted to throw in the towel, say "I quit" and then overdose on chocolate? I certainly have, and I believe we can all honestly admit that we have at least thought these thoughts.
Personally, I have wanted to lash out so many times at hateful, evil people in the church, but God always restrains me. Just last night I overheard a conversation in which one gentleman did not like any changes that were occurring within the church. He was absolutely against any and everything even though the church body is excited about what God is doing. I wanted so badly to remind this gentleman that God was in the process of doing something wonderful and exciting in our church. However, God would not allow me to speak. He reminded me that as ministers we are to be humble servants. He reminded me that Jesus suffered great trials, frustrations, and at times was extremely heartbroken. Hmm, I wonder if Jesus wanted to to quit and towel in the towel when He was being nailed to the cross. Even if He did, I am so glad Him followed through on His final mission so that I could have eternal life.
Ladies, our families are called to the highest service-God's service. You certainly do not go in to this line of work for money, fame, or even to please everyone. Many times ministers and their families never receive a thank you for their work. However, 1 Peter 5:6 reminds us that we are to be humble servants. One day when we reach our eternal home, we will be exalted by the Creator Father God and be presented with riches and honor.
How are you being God's humble servant?
Well, ladies, it's that time again! That's right: Vacation Bible School! Are you ready?
We all know that this is a special time of outreach and evangelism for many churches. This year our Bible verse theme is 2 Timothy 1:7, "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." If you read my blog earlier this week, I also shared this verse when I wrote about facing our fears. I had mentioned that God has solutions from His Word on how to deal with those menacing feelings of fear and worry. So from the VBS curriculum adults, and as well as kids, can learn how to face fear and learn to trust God.
I look forward to teaching the little ones about how they can overcome fear in their own lives, and also let them have fun in the process! This year I am once again working with the first and second graders (that age seems to be a "good fit" for me since I also teach the same age group in Sunday School and Children's Church). The subject of fear has come up many times in different lessons I have taught them in the past, and it is interesting to see kids talk through what makes them afraid; the best part is getting to show them that God is bigger than anything that they can face, and He is always with them---and we need to learn that important lesson too! We do serve a mighty BIG GOD who can calm ALL of our fears!
So for all of us who are gearing up for another year of fun, fast-paced lessons , crafts, music, and snacks, let us remember that we do our work for the Savior, and may the Lord do a mighty work through your church as He uses you this year to minister to the masses in VBS!!
What are you afraid of? If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that we are afraid of something…..right? Personally, I detest snakes, spiders, and most slithery creatures. But what about the fears that we cannot necessarily touch with our hands, such as fear of failure, loneliness, inadequacy (what pastor's or minister's wife has not faced this fear!), rejection, persecution, failing health, insufficient finances, and many more than I could possibly name. These fears are very real, and the effect that they have on us can be debilitating.
God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7 (KJV) (This is our VBS theme verse this year!) God has given us power…we have the Holy Spirit, and we don't have to be afraid.
Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. Isaiah 41:10 (NASB) God is our protector, and He is ALWAYS with us.
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Joshua 1:9 (NASB) We are commanded by our Lord to be strong and have courage, and once again He promises to be with us at all times and in all places.
So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34 (NASB) The Lord is in all our "tomorrows". We can trust Him to provide for the future.
When I am afraid, I will trust in You. Psalm 56:4 (NIV) We can completely trust our God to ease our fearful hearts.
Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? Of course not. Matthew 6:27 (NLT) Our lives are not extended, nor the quality of our lives enhanced by fear and worry.
Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you. Isaiah 46:4 (NIV) How wonderful of the Lord to promise to take care of and sustain us even into our "golden years".
Of course, this is not an exhaustive list, but we can see from the Scriptures that we have promises from a Faithful God that we don't have to succumb to fearful and worrisome thoughts.
So when those kissing cousins fear & worry start to invade your mind and heart, and incite you to take your focus away from the Lord, remember His Word. Sometimes our own flesh and the enemy of our souls, Satan, are relentless in getting us to take our minds off of Christ.
Saturday was a very busy day....running around trying to get some things accomplished. Worked on a baby shower gift most of the afternoon......worked on V.B.S......wrote birthday cards for May and June....(Yes, I know.....I am VERY late with May's....but I figured, better late than never.) Also, made cheese ball for baby shower.....washed clothes, etc.
I did not have to cook supper. Our son smoked Cornish hens, which I might add were delicious. And, our daughter-in-law fixed the rest which was also delicious, especially the homemade key lime pie.
Tonight, I took a shower....worked on the church bulletin.....and finally sat down to finalize the preschool Sunday School lesson.
In our busy lives....it is not always easy to find those quiet still moments............so you need to grab the moment when you can.
Tomorrow will be another busy day. Sunday School and Church which is 32 miles north. Grab some lunch and head to Children's Hospital in Knoxville to visit a church family......then back to church by four for the baby shower....then church at six....then meet our daughter afterwards to exchange things.