Dec 19, 2010

Unto Us


“A Baby Changes Everything”
by Faith Hill

May The Promise Of Yesterday
Be Your Star Of Tomorrow ...
Wrapped In Love,
Born In A Manger.
:Pj

Merry Christmas

Dec 13, 2010

Crystal Cathedral
Hour of Power Service For December 11th.


Joy! To The World

(Don't forget to turn off the music box below)

Dec 12, 2010

Gylne Tider - Let It Be
A Great CHRISTMAS Message

Believers Find Mixed Blessings In Pope's Comments

Some Catholic believers in the Americas greeted Pope Benedict XVI's comments on condoms as a sign that the church was stepping into the modern debate in the fight against AIDS, though the church was adamant Sunday that nothing has changed in its views banning contraception.

Churchgoers had praise and wariness for the pope's comments that condoms could be morally justified in some limited situations, such as for male prostitutes wanting to prevent the spread of HIV.

Others cautioned it could open a doctrinal Pandora's box. And the exact meaning of what the pope said was still up for interpretation.

"That's a theological mind trap," said Wendy Lasekan, a 47-year-old stay-at-home mom, after Sunday morning Mass at Saint Michael Catholic Church in Worthington, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus.

"In some cases, it would be justifiable — or acceptable — to use a condom," she said. "If your goal would be to prevent the spread of AIDS, that would be a charitable act."

Ellen Reik, a 79-year-old retired housewife who attended Saint Michael, said if taken out of context, the pope's remarks could renew the debate over the morality of birth control — both as a contraceptive and a means to curb the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

Several more believers who spoke to The Associated Press following Sunday services in the United States and South America felt the pope's comments marked a tentative step into a more modern stance in the global fight against AIDS.

Jean Jasman, an 81-year-old state worker from Montpelier, Vt., called the stance a departure from church doctrine on condom use, "but it's to the betterment of humanity, if we can help prevent the spread of this horrendous disease."

Lois Breaux rolled her eyes when asked about the Pope's statements as she was leaving Mass at St. Kieran Church in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami.

"About time รข€” and it wasn't enough," she said. "As a Catholic, they need to recognize this is an epidemic. The church needs to stand up and say what he did, but he should have gone further."

Vatican officials strongly emphasized Sunday that the church's position on contraception has not changed.

The pope spoke in an interview given to a German journalist. Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano on Saturday published excerpts from the book, "Light of the World," three days ahead of publication. In the interview, Benedict says that in certain cases, such as for a male prostitute, condom use could be a first step in assuming moral responsibility for stemming the spread of the virus that causes AIDS.

The Holy See's chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, stressed that Benedict was not "morally justifying" the unbridled exercise of sexuality and the church's main advice in the fight against AIDS remains the same: promoting sexual abstinence and fidelity among married couples.

The pope's comments caught some followers off-guard with the frank discussion of a taboo topic.

"I was shocked. I thought, 'Why even mention that?' It was unnecessary," said Joan Caron, 86, of Oldtown, Maine, who attended Mass at the Basilica of the Assumption in Baltimore, the nation's oldest Roman Catholic cathedral. "I was just shocked that he'd even bring the word up."

In Brazil, home to more Roman Catholics than any other country, 71-year-old Idalina Fernandes said she thought it was strange when she first heard the news.

"The pope and the church had been criticized for being too strict regarding this subject, but I guess we can't close our eyes to the problems we have today in the world," said Fernandes, who helps organize Masses at a small church in Sao Paulo. "I never thought the pope would say something like that, but the world is different today, the Church seems to know that."

The fine distinctions in the pope's comments were clear to Cliff Krieger, 68, of Lowell, Mass., who said it was good that the discussion on preventing disease was taking place, though he generally approves of the church's position on contraception.

"I think that the church is saying that use of condoms is missing the point about what sex is about," he said. "There are a lot of people who are ... just using it for pleasure for themselves, as they might be using cocaine on the weekend. So I think the church's stand is generally a pretty good one."

Speaking shortly before Mass began at St. Mary of the Lake Roman Catholic Church in Lakewood, N.J., 42-year-old Jason Randall said he strongly supports the church's position that forbids the use of condoms and other contraceptives.

But he felt the pope's comments show that sometimes exceptions are needed for almost every rule.

"I know it's a cliche to put it this way, but if it helps prevent even one death or one person getting sick, it's worth it," Randall said. "I believe in a loving God, one who does not want people to suffer, whether they be saints or sinners."

"I think that the church needs to realize that sometimes you have to make adjustments with the times and that saving people's lives and protecting life is ultimately the most important thing," said Josephine Zohny of Brooklyn, N.Y., after leaving Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. –Yahoo News

To Read Pop’s Previous Article click here
WINTER

Winter has come
And chilly breezes blow
Seventy miles an hour
At thirty-five below.

You know that winter's here
When the snow's up to your butt
And taking a breath of fresh air
Means your nose gets frozen shut.

The winter snow may be beautiful
As cold days hang around
But I really long for springtime
'Cause I'm frozen to the ground!

Arsenic-Munching Germ Redefines 'Life As We Know It'

A strange, salty lake in California has yielded an equally strange bacterium that thrives on arsenic and redefines life as we know it, researchers reported on Thursday.

The bacteria do not merely eat arsenic -- they incorporate the toxic element directly into their DNA, the researchers said.

The finding shows just how little scientists know about the variety of life forms on Earth, and may greatly expand where they should be looking for life on other planets and moons, the NASA-funded team said.

"We have cracked open the door to what is possible for life elsewhere in the universe," Felisa Wolfe-Simon of the NASA Astrobiology Institute and U.S. Geological Survey, who led the study, told a news conference.

The study, published in the journal Science, demonstrates that one of the most notorious poisons on Earth can also be the very stuff of life for some creatures.

Wolfe-Simon and colleagues found the strain of Halomonadaceae in California's Mono Lake, formed in a volcanic region and very dense in minerals, including arsenic.

The lake is teeming with life, but not fish. It also contains the bacteria.

"Life is mostly composed of the elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur and phosphorus," the researchers write in Science.

These six elements make up the nucleic acids -- the A, C, T and G of DNA -- as well as proteins and lipids. But there is no reason in theory why other elements should not be used. It is just that science never found anything alive that used them.

The researchers grew microbes from the lake in water loaded with arsenic, and only containing a little bit of phosphorus.

SCIENTISTS AMAZED

The GFAJ-1 strain of the Halomonadaceae grew when arsenic was in the water and when phosphorus was in the water, but not when both were taken away. And it grew even with "double whammy" of arsenic.

"It grew and it thrived and that was amazing. Nothing should have grown," Wolfe-Simon told a news conference.

"We know that some microbes can 'breathe' arsenic, but what we've found is a microbe doing something new -- building parts of itself out of arsenic."

Paul Davies of NASA and Arizona State said the bacterium is not a new life form.

"It can grow with either phosphorous or arsenic. That makes it very peculiar, though it falls short of being some form of truly 'alien' life belonging to a different tree of life with a separate origin," he said.

But it does suggest that astrobiologists looking for life on other planets do not need to look only for planets with the same balance of elements as Earth has.

"Our findings are a reminder that life-as-we-know-it could be much more flexible than we generally assume or can imagine," said Wolfe-Simon.

"If something here on Earth can do something so unexpected, what else can life do that we haven't seen yet? Now is the time to find out."

James Elser, an expert on phosphorus at Arizona State University, said such bacteria may be useful for generating new biofuels that do not requite phosphate fertilizers, treating wastewater or cleaning up toxic waste sites. –Yahoo News
Cartoonist Unknown

Dec 5, 2010

Welcoming The Season


Opera Company of Philadelphia "Hallelujah!"
Random Act of Culture

Researchers Explain How Cats Lap Liquids With Eleganc

US researchers on Thursday unveiled the secret of how cats lap water or milk with such elegance, a phenomenon that happens so fast it cannot be followed by human eyes.

Cats are among the many species that, unlike humans, cannot close their mouths and create suction.

With help from from high-speed video taken of a felines lapping liquid, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Princeton University found that household cats and larger felines like tigers balance gravity and inertia as they imbibe liquids.

The research will appear in the November 12 issue of the journal Science.

Scientists already knew that when cats insert their tongue into a bowl of liquid, the top surface of the tongue touches the liquid first, then the tip curves like a letter J to form a sort of ladle.

This was first observed by an MIT engineer, who filmed a cat lapping liquid in 1940.

However by studying the images researchers have now determined that there is no ladling effect, but instead the cat's tongue darts in and out so quickly that the action forms a column of liquid.

"Cats, unlike dogs, aren't dipping their tongues into the liquid like ladles after all," read a statement from the MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Instead, the smooth tip of cat's tongue "barely brushes the surface of the liquid before the cat rapidly draws its tongue back up.

"As it does so, a column of milk forms between the moving tongue and the liquid's surface. The cat then closes its mouth, pinching off the top of the column for a nice drink, while keeping its chin dry."

The liquid column "is created by a delicate balance between gravity, which pulls the liquid back to the bowl, and inertia, which in physics, refers to the tendency of the liquid or any matter, to continue moving in a direction unless another force interferes."

The cat "instinctively knows just how quickly to lap in order to balance these two forces, and just when to close its mouth. If it waits another fraction of a second, the force of gravity will overtake inertia, causing the column to break, the liquid to fall back into the bowl, and the cat's tongue to come up empty."

Cats average about four laps per second, with each lap bringing in about 0.1 milliliters of liquid, the researchers said, adding that larger felines lap at a slower pace. –Yahoo News

Pope Says Condoms May Be OK In Some Circumstances

Pope Benedict XVI said in comments released Saturday that the use of condoms may be acceptable in some cases to prevent the transmission of AIDS, possibly foreshadowing a shift in the Roman Catholic Church's stance on the issue.

The pontiff, speaking to the author of a book that will be published next week, cited the example of a prostitute.

"There could be single cases that can be justified, for instance when a prostitute uses a condom, and this can be a first step towards a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, to develop again the awareness of the fact that not all is allowed and that one cannot do everything one wants," Benedict said.

The Vatican newspaper on Saturday released excerpts from the book, "Light of the World: The Pope, the Church, and the Signs of the Times," written by German journalist Peter Seewald and pubilshed by Ignatius Press.

CNN Senior Vatican Analyst John Allen cautioned that Benedict's comments do not rise to the level of official Vatican policy, but show the pontiff has flexibility in the church's opposition to birth control.

Allen said that a portion of the book refers to condom use among male prostitutes.

"I think the point he was trying to make, when somebody is using a condom, not so much to prevent new life, which has always been the Catholic Church's big concern, but to prevent the transmission of disease than it would be OK," Allen told CNN.

Although Benedict did not mention it, his statements indicate he may also find condoms appropriate in the case of heterosexual couples where one of the partners has a sexually transmitted disease, Allen said.

Catholic theologians and a special Vatican commission have previously said that condoms may be acceptable in some cases to prevent AIDS, Allen wrote in a blog Saturday.

The pontiff's comments appear to signal a shift in his thinking about condoms and AIDS.

Speaking about AIDS in 2009, he told journalists during a trip to Africa that "You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms," the pope told reporters. "On the contrary, it increases the problem." -CNN Belief Blog
A Modern Day Miracle

The Scholar & The Apple

The University of Chicago Divinity School holds an annual "special lecture day" in its Theology Center Auditorium which is open to the general public and during which each attendee is allowed to bring a sack lunch and eat while listening to one of the "greatest minds" [invited by the University] lecture on some scholarly topic.

One particular year [according to the story], the famous theologian, Dr. Paul Tillich, gave a lengthy lecture in which he tried to "prove" that Jesus' resurrection is false and unfounded. He quoted from book after book, and cited various scholarly works. He then concluded that according to the "respected authorities and experts", there is no such thing as Jesus' resurrection historically, therefore, the traditional belief of the church is groundless, mere emotional "mumbo-jumbo" because it is based on "just a relationship with a risen Jesus", who, in fact, "never rose from the dead in any literal sense".

He then asked the audience if there were any questions. After several seconds, an elderly, dark-skinned man with a head of short-cropped, woolly white hair stood up.

"I got one question," he said as all eyes turned toward him. He reached into his sack lunch and pulled out an apple and began munching on it. "Doctor Tillich..." [CRUNCH, MUNCH...] "I have a simple question..." [CRUNCH, MUNCH...] "I have never read those books you've read and quoted from..." [CRUNCH, MUNCH...] "...and I can't recite the Scriptures in the original Hebrew or Greek like you and your fellow scholars..." [CRUNCH, MUNCH...] "...and I know nothing about Niebuhr and Heidegger..." [CRUNCH, MUNCH...and he finished the apple...] "...All I want to know is: this apple I just ate...was it sour or sweet?"

Dr. Tillich paused for a moment and answered in a typical exemplary scholarly fashion: "I cannot possibly answer that question since I have not tasted your apple."

The man dropped the apple core into his crumpled paper bag, looked up at Dr. Tillich, and said calmly, "Neither have you tasted my Jesus, have you?"

The more than 1,000 people in attendance that day could not contain themselves. The auditorium erupted into applause and cheers. Dr. Tillich thanked his audience and promptly left the platform.

Have you tasted Jesus?

Author Unknown
Christmas In North Myrtle Beach
Pics from Sun News

Holy Humor

There was a very gracious lady who was mailing an old family Bible to her brother in another part of the country.

"Is there anything breakable in here?" asked the postal clerk.

"Only the Ten Commandments." answered the lady.

Author Unknown

Dec 1, 2010

WORLD AIDS DAY


AIDS
Is Everyone’s Business
Prevention Begins With You