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Recently, I attended a Susan G. Komen luncheon with my wife, Nayna. If you have been reading this blog for a while, you will know that she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007, and underwent a lumpectomy, chemotherapy and radiation. She continues Tamoxifen treatment. The good news is that all test have shown her to be cancer free!
At the luncheon, my wife wore a name tag with her name and "Survivor 2." Other people in the room had name tags with "Survivor" and a number but some had "Co-Survivor" and a number. The event had started earlier in the morning and I only attended the luncheon. As a result, I did not get a name tag. But I learned that I was a "Co-Survivor 2." I am a Co-Survivor for 2 years of my wife's breast cancer.
Being diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer was a life altering experience for my wife. It was for me too.
My wife has told me several times that I have become a better person because of the experience. I always told her "no no," but actually, I have to agree with her. I have become a better person.
Cancer really stops you in your tracks. We all have to worry about business, finances, school, etc. But with cancer you have to suddenly worry about living. My family had to deal with the real thought of losing my wife. I have always tried hard at work and to save money. Don't get me wrong, money is a very good thing to have. It helps to be able to afford medical treatment -- which can be very expensive, even with insurance. But we often hear about rich celebrities or politicians who suffer and die from cancer and other diseases. It is not a matter of money. These people have access to and can afford the best medical treatment in the world. But with cancer, there is a big unknown. You can only seek the best treatment possible and hope for the best.
Hope and pray. I don't think I ever really appreciated prayer until my wife's cancer. I prayed a lot. Worried, studied, prayed, and worked out. Our family and friends offered their prayers. But even strangers, when they saw my wife with no hair and wearing a scarf or hat, would come up and pray for her. It was amazing.
And it helped.
I discussed with my wife how I seemed to be a better person as a result of her cancer. She always tells people how I was always there for her and tried my best to help her through the grueling, frightening, and confusing medical process. To me, that is what any spouse would do (although I learned that some spouses cannot handle it and even leave their loved one when the diagnosis is made). Trying my best was nothing special. My wife would have done more for me.
But as a result of the process I did change. I have become more patient, perhaps because cancer puts things in a different perspective. Things that seemed big before cancer don't seem quite as big now. I have also become more sympathetic for people who are suffering from illnesses or diseases, such as cancer.
I have written this before and it may sound strange. My second son bought a Toyota Tacoma. It was a great truck. Suddenly, we noticed lots of Tacomas on the road. They seemed to be everywhere. Because our son had one, we noticed them.
After my wife was diagnosed with cancer, we suddenly noticed other women with breast cancer in particular, and people with cancer in general. It was like seeing Tacomas on the road. Of course, the people were always there, we just didn't notice or perhaps did not want to notice. But with my wife's cancer, we discovered many people who had suffered from breast cancer and others who were currently under treatment.
I have to say that I think we did not want to think about cancer because we were afraid that thinking about it would make it happen. Ignoring cancer, to the extent possible, was our superstitious way of warding it off. You can't ignore it when it is in your own family, and of course, you shouldn't ignore it anyway.
I can't tell you how much I suffered for my wife, while at the same time trying to be strong for my children, mother, and extended family. Like I said, I worried all the time, then I tried to research all the time (while worrying), while also keeping up with work. In desperation, I turned to working out more as a way to escape. When I could not take worrying or researching any more, I would lift weights, ride a stationary bike, walk on a treadmill, all while still teaching and practicing Karate. Thank goodness for my sons who exercised me. Otherwise, I think I would have stressed myself to death. And thank goodness for our extended family and friends who all pitched in to help and just be there for us.
So as a result of seeing what my wife went through, and what I went through trying to help her, as well as what our family and friends went through, I am much more sympathetic when I hear that someone or their loved one is ill or suffering from a disease. I can feel for them, not just intellectually acknowledge their situation.
I feel bad that it took something like my wife's breast cancer to make me a better person. That is why I have taken so long to write about it. I feel that we should always try our best and work on our character. But I have to say that life tests us and in the process we learn and change. I am better because of something that happened to my wife.
I am a Co-Survivor 2. I hope to see that number grow larger and larger. And I hope the same for all Survivors and other Co-Survivors.
And for the husbands, boyfriends, sons, and fathers out there, when I have gone to breast cancer events with my wife, there are too few men! Breast cancer does not only affect women. Men can get it too. But for those of us with wives, mothers, daughters, loved ones and friends with breast cancer, we have to be there for them.
Men should not feel awkward going to a breast cancer event. Take it from me, Survivors, Co-Survivors, and the great people who work in organizations such as the Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the American Cancer Society, are the nicest people you could meet. You don't catch breast cancer by going to these events, you catch humanity.
For everyone who has asked, my wife is doing great! And I'm not as stressed out anymore, but still work out. I just got a Total Gym 1700, but that's another topic.
And for anyone out there with cancer or any other disease or illness, my prayers are with you.
Charles C. Goodin
Co-Survivor 2 (And Counting)
Recently, I attended a Susan G. Komen luncheon with my wife, Nayna. If you have been reading this blog for a while, you will know that she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007, and underwent a lumpectomy, chemotherapy and radiation. She continues Tamoxifen treatment. The good news is that all test have shown her to be cancer free!
Posted by Charles C. Goodin on Friday, October 30, 2009


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Giants' title earns congrats from Obama
On Tuesday, a day after the Giants won their first title since 1954 and their first since moving to San Francisco, President Barack Obama called the organization to offer his congratulations and recalled the excitement he felt five years ago. More >
Alumni applaud World Series victory
Though so many Giants greats were denied the championship ring that the 2010 club earned with its five-game victory over the Texas Rangers in the 106th World Series, those that were contacted reacted to the team's achievement with unbridled enthusiasm. More >
Giants' victory parade set for Wednesday
The parade route taken when the Giants were welcomed to The City by the Bay will be used once again, this time when the World Series trophy is welcomed to City Hall. The festivities kick off at 11 a.m. PT Wednesday, starting at the intersection of Montgomery and Washington streets. More >
Draft and develop: Giants set example for all
The Giants' core is homegrown and superb. And it's that fact that should provide hope to every club throughout baseball -- if you draft and develop well, look at the rewards you can reap. More >
Bochy backbone behind Giants' success
Bruce Bochy's steadying influence, along with his managerial acumen, furthered the Giants' successful bid for their first World Series title in San Francisco history on Monday night. More >
Fans flock to AT&T Park to continue celebration
The scene early Tuesday afternoon at AT&T Park was calmer than it had been the previous night, but less than 24 hours after the Giants won the World Series, Giants fans and San Franciscans still were basking in their new title of world champions. More >
Giants make quick work of history
The 2010 Giants season was defined by nail-biting moments and an expectation of things being as difficult as possible, but when it came time to clinch the ultimate prize, it was a surgical and swift end. More >
Texas beat Nov. 1, 2010 More >
Fans: Y'all made us proud this year
As the visiting Giants celebrated in the middle of the field at Rangers Ballpark, a crestfallen crowd began the chant: "LET'S GO, RANGERS! LET'S GO, RANGERS!" More >
Renteria's bat among Hall-bound artifacts
The Giants' first World Series title since the franchise moved to San Francisco in 1958 was earned in historic fashion on Monday night with a 3-1 win over the Texas Rangers, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., has already come calling. More >
2010 World Series by the numbers
In this special, champagne-soaked edition of By The Numbers, we count down the 56 reasons the Giants are once again the World Series champions. More >
Giants win the Series! Giants win the Series!
A rare mix of veteran rejects and budding stars completed an unlikely ascent to the Major League summit Monday night, as the Giants made franchise history with a 3-1 triumph over the Rangers in Game 5 of the World Series, ignoring their underdog status to capture the 106th Fall Classic, four games to one. More >
East Coast roots bloom into West Coast champs
The World Series victory by the Giants on Monday night at Rangers Ballpark didn't fall far from the Yankees family tree. More >
Giants leave Series with respect for Rangers
After Monday's 3-1 victory nailed down their first Series title since the franchise was in New York in 1954, the Giants paid plenty of respect to the runnerup Rangers. More >
Unheralded bats key to Giants' triumph
The Giants rode superb homegrown pitching to their first World Series title in San Francisco, but don't shortchange their hitting. The weak link of this juggernaut, people said? Forget it. More >
Giants bask in championship glory
The Giants' collection of "misfits" and second-chancers basked in the glory of San Francisco's first World Series title after Monday's 3-1 win. More >
Rowand reigns again, ends another drought
For the second time in five years, Aaron Rowand found himself standing in a visitor's clubhouse in the "Lone Star State," soaked in champagne and trying to put to words what it meant to win a World Series title. More >
Front office revels in end to title drought
Bill Neukom was in the middle of an earnest discussion about how the Giants would strive to remain atop the Major Leagues' elite. He was interrupted by infielder Juan Uribe, who playfully doused him with beer. More >
As spectator, Zito joins in Giants' celebration
No matter what you might say about Barry Zito's contract or the regression in results or his plethora of idiosyncrasies, Zito was willingly taking ownership of a piece of the Giants' World Series championship. More >
Title journey: And the sun shines on the Bay!
Less than a half-hour after the Giants clinched the World Series with a 3-1 victory over the Rangers in Texas in Game 5, the corner surrounding AT&T Park was locked down and designated for one thing: celebrating. More >

subset: commoncrawl


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Sweden: Coaching and Performance
I am just on my way home from ten days in Sweden. I was invited over by Thomas Olsson as part of the music education IB Expo. Also along for the journey were guitarist Henry Kaiser, drummer Morgan Ågren and the Swedish group Midaircondo.
We basically set up camp in Varberg in this fantastic hotel and traveled out to different cities each day. The hotel was probably the nicest place I have ever stayed. Not because it was a fancy place – it wasn't. But it was just right. Small nice rooms, open buffet for breakfast 6-10am and for dinner 6-10pm. It had a wonderful open dining area around the entire main floor. There was a whiskey bar and smoking room. And the 'special sauce' on the place was a bathhouse on the first floor that was a remake of Lenin's favorites bathhouse in St. Petersburg. More than a wee bit strange to have busts and photos of Lenin all over the place, but it was very, very nice being down there. See the photos:


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Eminem - I Need a Doctor lyrics
[Hook: Skylar Grey]
I'm about to lose my mind
You've been gone for so long, I'm runnin' outta time
I need a doctor, call me a doctor
I need a doctor, doctor to bring me back to life
[Verse 1: Eminem]
I told the world one day I would pay it back
Say it on tape, and lay it, record it so that one day I could play it back
But I don't even know if I believe it when I'm sayin' that
Doubts startin' to creep in, every day it's just so grey and black
Hope, I just need a ray of that, cause no one sees my vision
When I play it for 'em, they just say it's wack, but they don't know what dope is
And I don't know if I was awake or asleep when I wrote this
All I know is you came to me when I was at my lowest
You picked me up, breathed new life in me, I owe my life to you
But for the life of me, I don't see why you don't see like I do
But it just dawned on me you lost a son, demons fighting you, it's dark
Let me turn on the lights and brighten me and enlighten you
I don't think you realize what you mean to me, not the slightest clue
Cause me and you were like a crew, I was like your sidekick
You gon either wanna fight me when I get off this f**in' mic
Or you gon' hug me, but I'm outta options, there's nothin' else I can do cause
[Verse 2: Eminem]
It hurts when I see you struggle, you come to me with ideas
You say they're just pieces, so I'm puzzled, cause the sh** I hear is crazy
But you're either gettin' lazy or you don't believe in you no more
Seems like your own opinions, not one you can form
Can't make a decision you keep questionin' yourself
[Lyrics from: https:/lyrics.az/eminem/look-at-me-now/i-need-a-doctor.html]
Second guessin' and it's almost like you're beggin' for my help
Like I'm your leader, you're supposed to f**in' be my mentor
I can endure no more I demand you remember who you are
It was YOU, who believed in me when everyone was tellin'
You don't sign me, everyone at the f**in' label, let's tell the truth
You risked your career for me, I know it as well as you
Nobody wanted to f** with the white boy, Dre, I'm cryin' in this booth
You saved my life, now maybe it's my turn to save yours
But I can never repay you, what you did for me is way more
But I ain't givin' up faith and you ain't givin' up on me
Get up Dre I'm dyin', I need you, come back for f**'s sake
[Verse 3: Dr. Dre]
It literally feels like a lifetime ago
But I still remember the sh** like it was just yesterday, though
You walked in, yellow jump suit, whole room, cracked jokes
Once you got inside the booth, told you, mic smoke
Went through friends, some of them I put on, but they just left
They said they was ridin' to the d**h, but where the f** are they now?
Now that I need them, I don't see none of them
All I see is Slim, f** all you fair-weather friends, all I need is him
f**in' backstabbers, when the chips were down you just laughed at us
Now you bout to feel the f**in' wrath of Aftermath, faggots
You gon' see us in our lab jackets and ask us where the f** we been?
You can kiss my indecisive a** crack, maggots
And the crackers' a**, little cracker jack beat
Makin' wack math, backwards producers, I'm back bastards
One more CD and then I'm packin' up my bags and as I'm leavin'
I'll guarantee they scream, "Dre, don't leave us like that man!" cause


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If you go, hours are:
Opens Feb. 10, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
Feb. 13, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
Feb. 16, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
Feb. 17, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
Feb. 20, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
Feb. 23, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
Last day, Feb. 24, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
FORT WALTON BEACH � The Joy Circle of the First Presbyterian Church at 134 Beal Parkway S.W. one block north of U.S. Highway 98) will host their 12th SERRV International Craft Market on seven days in February.
SERRV International was founded by the Church of the Brethren and has been offering fairly traded craft and food items for sale, often through markets held by local churches. The previous markets hosted by the church were each an overwhelming success. Most available items were sold and those who attended appreciated attending a showcase of international craftsmanship.
For more than 60 years, SERRV has worked to eradicate poverty through direct connections with low-income artisans and farmers. They market their crafts and foods, find joint solutions to their challenges, and help them grow and embrace the future.
SERRV supports their artisans and farmer partners in making sustainable development choices with materials and production techniques, financial resources, and social programs that benefit entire communities.
SERRV partners are given a voice and are treated with respect. They earn a fair income, send their children to school, develop projects like community wells and clinics, and create a better future with renewed dignity.
As a non-profit organization, SERRV uses all proceeds from purchases and donations to promote these values in the 32 countries where they work. SERRV�s experience has taught them that breaking the cycle of poverty builds stronger societies, economies, and peace.
The SERRV Market will have craft and food items on display and available for purchase from many regions of the world.The one-of-a-kind items each will have a compelling story. Stories of creative and talented individuals who are sharing their rich heritage and artistic talents with the world.
The women of the Joy Circle have been poring over SERRV catalogs to choose the items to have available at the market. There will be some favorites from previous years like the Divine Chocolate bars, which have sold out in every previous market and will be available in two sizes in milk, dark and white chocolates with lots of variations to add to the fun.
The market will still have Just Coffee, which is shade-grown, fairly traded coffee that is small-batch roasted in many different blends as well as the Eswatini jams, and Za�atar spice mixture that come from Swaziland. This year, for the first time, there will be Camino Hot Cocoa in milk, dark and chili and spice flavors.
The SERRV Market always has a large assortment of handmade jewelry items from places like Africa, Mexico, India, Mali, Indonesia, Chile, Jerusalem and others. The jewelry will be created with unique designs in many different styles and includes an especially varied assortment of cuff bracelets. The market will have scarves in all styles, patterns and materials, including silk, lightweight cotton and the soft bamboo from Nepal.
For the cat lover, there will be onyx statuettes, balsa wood peeping kittens, a group of three long-tailed abizia wood cats to hold rings or a stylized tabby cat silver pin. There will be unique and special purses, or bags and an assortment of unique musical instruments, as well as items for Easter or Valentines Day.
There will be some small items such as lucky three-legged pigs, small glass decorative tropical fish, a Nativity carved in an alabaster egg, small notebooks of handmade paper from Nepal, and a mini singing bowl with Tibetan script around the outside of the bowl in a brocade bag.
The market has always had unique Nativities, and this year they range from a special ivory soapstone carving of the Holy Family that is 10 inches high, to brightly colored angelic hand-painted wall art from Mexico.
Some new items include an embroidered pillow of the tree of life, black owl palewa stone bookends, a cobalt flower appetizer tray from Vietnam, decorative accent fish sculptures that are hand carved from sengon wood and then intricately finished with a rich batik and a set of three soapstone birds that are realistic and modern in styling.
An assortment of soapstone, ceramic, woven, lacquered, papier mache, capiz, shesham, gorara stone, combarbalite stone, gourds, glass, onyx, recycled paper, wooden boxes decorated with powdered gemstones under glass, hand blown glass, palewa stone, floral brass inlay, metallic frost etched on glass, and sustainably harvested mango wood decorator items will be on display.
There will be trivets, wind chimes, basket sets all woven in traditional styles, bowls, vases, hanging racks, candle holders, covered boxes, games and puzzles, magazine racks, musical instruments, banks, book ends, aprons, cookbooks, and more.
First Presbyterian�s SERRV Market gives residents and visitors the opportunity to shop for crafts from around the world without leaving town and helps to eradicate poverty in the world by paying artisans fairly for their work. It is not a fundraiser for the church.
For more information, call the church office 243-3732 or Carol Davis 243-4777.


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When the Supreme Court takes up the issue of the constitutionality of the health care law this week, small business owners will be front and center in the debate.
The National Federation of Independent Business, along with 26 states, is among those challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
The law, popularly known as Obamacare, passed nearly two years ago and scheduled to go into effect in 2014. Whether it does is now up to the Supreme Court, which will hear three days of oral arguments for and against it.


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Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, aided by an extraordinary outpouring of Internet support Monday, hauled in more than $4.2 million in nearly 24 hours.
Paul, the Texas congressman with a libertarian tilt and an out-of-Iraq pitch, entered heady fundraising territory with a surge of Web-based giving tied to the commemoration of Guy Fawkes Day.
Fawkes was a British mercenary who failed in his attempt to kill King James I on Nov. 5, 1605. He also was the model for the protagonist in the movie "V for Vendetta." Paul backers motivated donors on the Internet with mashed-up clips of the film on the online video site YouTube as well as the Guy Fawkes Day refrain: "Remember, remember the 5th of November."
Paul's total deposed Mitt Romney as the single-day fundraising record holder in the Republican presidential field. When it comes to sums amassed in one day, Paul now ranks only behind Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton, who raised nearly $6.2 million on June 30, and Barack Obama.
Other political news of note
Animated Boehner: 'There's nothing complex about the Keystone Pipeline!'
House Speaker John Boehner became animated Tuesday over the proposed Keystone Pipeline, castigating the Obama administration for not having approved the project yet.
- Budget deficits shrinking but set to grow after 2015
- Senate readies another volley on unemployment aid
- Obama faces Syria standstill
- Fluke files to run in California
- Animated Boehner: 'There's nothing complex about the Keystone Pipeline!'
Paul spokesman Jesse Benton said the effort began independently about two months ago at the hands of Paul's backers. He said Paul picked up on the movement, mentioning it in speeches and interviews.
"It's been kind of building up virally," Benton said.
The $4.2 million represented online contributions from more than 37,000 donors, fundraising director Jonathan Bydlak said Monday night.
Paul has been lagging in the polls behind Republican front-runners. But he captured national attention at the end of September when he reported raising $5.2 million in three months, putting him fourth among Republican presidential candidates in fundraising for the quarter.
Paul as of Monday had raised more than $7 million since Oct. 1, more than half his goal of $12 million by the end of the year, according to his Web site.
Paul advocates limited government and low taxes like other Republicans, but he stands alone as the only GOP presidential candidate opposed to the Iraq war. He also has opposed Bush administration security measures that he says encroach on civil liberties.
© 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Welcome to Rasmussen's Solvang. Our family has been selling a fine collection of quality Scandinavian products since 1946. We are located in the Danish community of Solvang, California. Come visit us if you're in town. If you are unable to visit us personally, we would like to welcome you to our internet shop. We have collectibles from Royal Copenhagen, Porsgrund, and Bing and Grondahl; beautiful glassware from Kosta Boda and Orrefors; whimsical mobiles from Flensted; unique baltic amber jewelry; delicious Fazer chocolates; and a large variety of enchanting tomten. Like krumkakes and abelskiver? We have pans and irons to make these Scandinavian treats, or try your hand at lefese making for a new kind of sandwich. Also, check out our extensive selection of Christmas decorations. We hope you enjoy our products.
Click here to begin your shopping journey.
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This post has been updated. See below for details.
An infinite jest, Chicago lyricist Chance the Rapper's stellar new mixtape "Acid Rap" begins with a woman's seductive voice -- chanteuse Lili K. -- uttering, "Even better than I was the last time, baby, ooh oooh oooh, we back, we back, we back."
Over the following 13 songs the assured voice of Chance runs through a surreal tale of pills, rap, a Chicago high school for gifted students, cigarette stink, "chauffeurs with road rage," cocoa butter kisses, Chuck E. Cheese and LSD. "I think we're all addicted," he sings on "Cocoa Butter Kisses," adding that "if I sip any Henny my belly might just be outie."
A free mixtape released this week, "Acid Rap" is a surreal, smart, skillful batch of tracks. The man born Chancelor Bennett, 20, has a confidence matched only by the playfulness with which he deploys it. In both delivery and phrasing, he revels in an obvious love of the elasticity of language.
PHOTOS: Best albums of 2012 | Randall Roberts
He continues to reference the topic of his first mixtape, last year's "#10day," with wit. That week-and-a-half was when Chance got suspended from high school. During that time he created "#10day." He's even better on "Acid Rap."
He sings, he raps, he smokes lots of cigarettes, all the while offering scenes of a city, Chicago, with a skyrocketing murder rate and gang violence that's received international attention.
Luckily a group of young rappers are documenting it. Along with Chief Keef, Rockie Fresh, Lil Reese and King Louie, Chance is telling stories that capture the scene. And, of course, the influence of fellow Chicagoan Kanye West permeates the release. But unlike West, Chance is still reporting from the streets, and doing so with a keen eye, albeit it a tripped-out one connected to the brain of a young artist admittedly on acid and nicotine and running wild.
Safe for impressionable youth? Hardly. But his best rhymes are so skillfully crafted that you forgive him his indiscretions. (Or at least I do.)
PHOTOS: Celebrities by The Times
Chance is as exciting musically as he is verbally, with chaotic taste in beats and an equally chaotic — and drug-fueled — lifestyle. "Juice" features a free-spirited beat — this is some forward-thinking stuff — that suggests everything from speakeasy jazz to Outkast to Hammond B3 funk. "Swallow them synonyms like cinnamon Cinnabun / kept all them sentiments down to a minimum," he raps on "Everybody's Something."
"Cocoa Butter Kisses" is about the stank of cigarette smoke on a kid with "burn-holes on all my hoodies -- all my homies think it's dank." "Lost" is a woozy jam involving a night on cocaine and sex. Chance's way with describing his many vices lifts his already inspired guests, which include Action Bronson, Childish Gambino, Ab-Soul and B.J. the Chicago Kid. Even old-school "speed rapper" Twista steps up.
Best: Like David Foster Wallace's classic postmodern tome "Infinite Jest," "Acid Rap" works as an M.C. Escher-esque loop with no beginning or end. At the conclusion of the final track, "Everything's Good (Good Ass Outro)," the voice of the Lili K. arrives to offer more reassurance. "I'm Good," she sings. Then the work ends abruptly -- except that if you're listening on repeat, "Acid Rap" loops back to track 1, where she introduces the tape once again.
This time Lili's assurance has a new context: That she's "even better than she was the last time, baby" has context. We've just heard how good "Acid Rap" was the first time. This time is going to be even better? And the time after that even better? And, if we listen forever, each time we'll be reassured that it will continue to rise? That's some "Inception"-level stuff.
But, then, so far, after dozens of listens, "Acid Rap" has continued to ascend. With each turn of the loop, more of Chance the Rapper's exquisite way around a phrase, thought, hallucination or epiphany becomes clearer, revealing itself to be better than it was the last time.
Listen to "Good Ass Intro" here, or download the full (and free) "Acid Rap" mixtape. (Note: Both the track and the full "Acid Rap" mix contain much cussing.)
Update, 1:43 p.m. May 6. The original version of this post didn't identify the singer who opens and closes "Acid Rap." Her name is Lili K., and her name has been added above.
Sigur Ros to get animated for "The Simpsons"
Kanye West reveals June 18 as ... something
Appreciation: Remembering Kris Kross's Chris Kelly, and the power of 'Jump'
Follow Randall Roberts on Twitter: @liledit


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EpiDoc Summer School, July 14th-18th, 2008Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
Attendees (who should be familiar with Greek/Latin and the Leiden Conventions) will need to bring a laptop on which has been installed the Oxygen XML editor (available at a reduced academic price, or for a free 30-day demo).
The EpiDoc Summer School is free to participants; we can try to help you find cheap (student) accommodation in London. If any students participating would like to stay on afterwards and acquire some hands-on experience marking up some texts for the Inscriptions of Roman Cyrenaica project, they would be most welcome!
All interested please contact both email@example.com and firstname.lastname@example.com as soon as possible. Please pass on this message to anyone who you think might benefit.


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Zebra 12PK Z-SLCT 4D 1.20 X .85 LABL 1500 PER ROLL 12 PER CASE, Zebra 800999-007.
* We have limited quantity of 800999-007 in stock. Our inventory changes constantly and quantities listed are based on available stock. This item comes with our 100% Money-Back Guarantee.
I purchased a battery for my Gateway cx2610 laptop from Code Micro. I was very happy with the produ...
Jason G.
Great NorthWeb
Our department needed two discontinued drive modules for our servers. Code Micro delivered on time. ...
Mark E.
Citi Corp


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Let's open our Bibles to the sixth chapter of Genesis. Now I have a lot to say to you before I begin. Most people are not interested in the Bible as history. They do not view the Bible as the single source of divine truth. They do not view the Bible as the truth about the condition of man and his universe. At best, the Bible is considered by most people a piece of religious literature and ancient curiosity, irrelevant to the life of man in a modern world. Particularly the Old Testament, and more particularly the book of Genesis.
The truth is, however, that in spite of what most people believe, the Bible is in fact the most relevant book and the only accurate source to understand why the world is the way it is and why human life is the way it is. In fact, it is impossible to understand the modern world, the world in the year 2001 without understanding not only the Bible, but the book of Genesis. If we do not understand Genesis, we do not understand origins. And if we don't understand origins, then we don't understand why we are the way we are. To put it as simply as possible, the world is the way it is and human life is the way it is because of sin...sin. Everything from storms, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions to wars, crime, divorce, immorality, all human suffering at all levels whether it is cataclysmic on a global scale or a national scale, or an individual life, all of it, all environmental problems, all natural disasters, all conflicts, all pain, all suffering, all disappointment, all unfulfillment, all dissatisfaction is due to sin. Now there's only one place to go in all literature existing in the world to find the inspired record of how sin entered the world, and that is Genesis chapters 1 through 3. It was the sin of Adam and Eve under the temptation of Satan that brought the curse on the universe and affected everything. And everything that is wrong in the universe which affects every one who lives in this material realm is the result of sin.
To say that the Old Testament is irrelevant, to say that Genesis is irrelevant is exactly opposite the truth. In fact, if you do not believe the book of Genesis, you cannot understand why things are the way they are. The benchmark, the essential reality existing in the universe is sin. Disobedience and rebellion is in the very fabric of life. Man voluntarily in the Garden put himself in harm's way, willingly brought himself under the dominion of the devil and remains in that bondage. And no matter how hard he tried, you cannot change his nature nor can he change by his own will power and effort the sovereign power of Satan being exercised over him. He cannot stop tragedy on an environmental level, on a global level, on a national level, or even on an individual level. He cannot mitigate its tragic and deadly consequence. All the work of all the environmentalists, all the work of all the peace organizations, all the work of all the arbitrators, all the work of all the people all the time trying to make life better don't do it. In fact, we're killing people off now today faster than ever, even though we have, quote/unquote, progressed this far. What we have gotten good at is developing more ways to slaughter each other.
Human history then is all about sin. And the Bible is the record of sin entering into the world and its effect and its impact. In fact, the Bible frankly is the history of sin. In fact, you could just take the front of your Bible where it says "Holy Bible," cross that out and write, "The history of sin." That's what it is. It starts in Genesis and it culminates in Revelation. And what you have is the record of sin. It goes from the entrance of sin, its initial entrance into the world, to its final judgment. It comes in to the world in Genesis and then in the end God creates a new heaven and a new earth and there is no sin forever there. The Bible is the history of sin.
Now as you study the Bible, I'm going to give you a big picture here, as you study the Bible this becomes very identifiable to you. And there are a number of ways in which you can understand it. Let me give you a little series of principles to remember. The Bible teaches that all calamity is due to sin. Everything that is wrong is wrong because of sin. Everything that is wrong is wrong because we are sinful people living in a sin-cursed world. In verse 5 of Genesis 76 it says, "The wickedness of man is great on the earth, every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Verse 11 says, "The earth is corrupt in the sight of God. The earth is filled with violence." Verse 12, "God looked on the earth, behold it was corrupt, all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth." And all of this that comes after this, all the calamities from the Flood on through all of human history at every level, whether they're personal calamities, or global calamities, all of them are due to sin. And if you don't understand the role that sin plays, then you can't understand why things are the way they are. All calamity is due to sin. It is the effect of the cause which is sin.
But there's a second principle. God sometimes brings special calamities on man as divine judgment. Now the distinction there is that there are problems in the world, there are calamities in the world, there are disasters in the world, there is illness, and suffering, and pain, and sorrow and death and all of that is just in the fabric of a fallen creature in a fallen environment. But add to that, not only is there that sequential calamity that is just born out of the fallenness in which we exist, but God sometimes bring special calamity on top of just the normal calamity because He intervenes with judgment. We have found that here as well. Verse 6 says, "The Lord saw the wickedness of man." He saw it. In verse 7 He said, "I'll blot out man." Now it's not just a question of cause and effect, now it's just not a question of natural consequences in a fallen universe, it's not just the law of entropy that matter is breaking down, everything tends toward disintegration, now you have divine calamity being injected. And verse 13, "And God said to Noah, 'The end of all flesh is come before Me.'" God sometimes steps in and adds to the natural course of things supernatural judgment.
The third principle to add, and this is what we learn in the history of sin and we see it here in Genesis 6, is that God always warns before He does that. God always warns before He does that. Verse 3 says, "The Lord says, 'My Spirit shall not strive with man forever.'" Then He goes on to say, "Nevertheless his days shall be 120 years." And what did God do during those 120 years? He had Noah doing what? Preaching righteousness. God said I'm going to destroy the world, but He gave 120 years of warning. All calamity is due to sin, but on top of the natural calamity in a fallen world, there is supernatural calamity which God sometimes brings as judgment. But before He brings it, He always warns.
Fourthly, God is patient before He brings that judgment. So patient, so patient that sometimes it appears that He isn't even there. Sometimes it appears as if He doesn't seem to mind our sinfulness. All calamity is due to sin, the natural course of life. God sometimes brings supernatural calamity in addition to that, He always warns first, and He's patient. A fifth principle, God brings that judgment on His own initiative when in His mind iniquity is full. That's a phrase God uses in Genesis 15:16. When the iniquity is full in His mind, when He has had enough, He will step in. He did it with the Flood. He did it in chapter 19 with Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain. If you follow history, you will find it repeated. He did it with Israel. He did it with the northern kingdom Israel. He sent the Assyrians when the iniquity was full and they had spurned His warnings and He had run out of His patience and added to all of the normal calamities of life came the Assyrian slaughter and the captivity of the northern kingdom. He did it to the nation of Judah in the south when the iniquity was full. He had warned, and warned and warned, prophet after prophet after prophet, finally His patience was exhausted and when iniquity is full, in came the Babylonians for the slaughter. He made such promises to Nineveh as well, to come in and preaching warning about His judgment.
What you have in the Bible is that kind of emphasis and you see it even in the New Testament as He warns Jerusalem and the patience ran out and iniquity was full in 70 A.D. and destruction came. Even before that it came to Chorazin, it came to Bethsaida, it came to Capernaum.
Let me add one more principle to that little list, number six. All that historic calamity from the Flood on recorded in the Bible, and there's calamity in the Bible on Egypt, and there's calamity in the Bible on Moab, and there's calamity in the Bible on nations around Israel, all that calamity is a preview of the ultimate calamity when God sends Jesus to destroy sinners at the end of human history. Now that really is the first major message of the Bible. The first major message of the Bible is not God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. The first major message of the Bible is that God will, God must punish sin. His holy nature requires it. And He will on top of natural calamity and disaster and suffering and death bring supernatural judgment, but He will always warn first. He will extend patience, but He will act sovereignly when in His mind iniquity is full and that is but previews of coming attractions. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once wrote that God and sin are eternal incompatibilities. He will punish individuals, He will punish groups, He will punish cities, He will punish nations, and He will punish the globe when in His mind iniquity is full.
Now in Genesis 6 we have the divine record of the severest judgment that has ever fallen on the world, a calamity like no other. And there have been calamities throughout human history. There have been calamities by volcanoes. I've visited several times, even a few months ago in the city of Pompeii, where Vesuvius buried that population of upwards of 40 thousand people. There have been floods, and there have been tidal waves, and there have been all kinds of natural disasters, as we well know, going on even today. There have been plagues and diseases wipe out thousands upon thousands of people. But there has never been, never been anything like the Flood, a calamity like no other calamity. And God's patience was exhausted. God's warnings were ignored and this massive devastation fell upon the world. And as I've been telling you, it came about sixteen hundred and fifty years after the creation, in about 1650 years God drowned the entire earth with the exception of eight people, Noah and his wife, and three sons and their wives.
And I'm sure that after people had lived through those years, they got comfortable with their sin and life was going on and they were progressing and they were developing societies and civilization and they were learning how to build and they were learning how to raise life stock and they were learning how to do metallurgy, as we learned, and they were learning how to write poetry and they were learning how to develop music. Life was going on. And they must have thought that it would just always go on like that. And they became comfortable with their sin, comfortable with their indifference toward God. And God one day determined that their iniquity was full and drowned them all.
Well, it's been forty-five hundred years since then, or more. And I would say that we could be due. If it only took 1650 years for the first destruction of humanity, how is it that we've survived for 4500 years? At any time the Lord desired He could bring the next great calamity. The next great calamity is described for us in the book of Revelation, and as well in a very important passage in 2 Peter chapter 3 where it tells us, as we learned last time, that as the Lord destroyed the world by water, the next time He'll destroy it by fire at the coming of Jesus Christ. The elements will melt with fervent heat. The whole creation, as we know it, will be uncreated. It will be disintegrated. Now that is the major first message of the Bible, that man is sinful, that he is hopelessly sinful, that he is incurably sinful, that he is because of his sin living from one disaster to another, one calamity to another, which is the natural effect of sin. And injected on top of that, to compound his problems, there is the supernatural judgment of God which can fall at any time on the world, or on nations, or on cities, or on communities, or on families, or on individuals. That's the first great message of the Bible.
But there's a second message. The second message is equally critical and it is this. When during the time of God's patience and warning sinners repent, He will forgive their sin. That is the second and necessary corollary to the first. Because when God is patiently warning, He is calling sinners to repentance. In the midst of this we read in verse 8, "Noah found favor in the eyes of God," or, "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." We read in verse 9 that he was a righteous man, blameless in his time and he walked with God. In the midst of the worst of times, in the midst of the warnings of God in the time of His patience before His decision to bring judgment because his iniquity is full, He is calling sinners to repent. And even in the midst of judgment there is grace. Back in chapter 3 when God was pronouncing a curse on the participants in the Fall in the Garden in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15, God says, "I'll put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel." What is that? That is God telling the serpent that there's going to be a seed of a woman who is going to come and crush the serpent's head. And there is God's grace. There is God's promise that though He is going to pronounce a curse on man and a curse on woman, He also is going to bring one out of woman, born of woman who will crush the serpent's head. And so there will be a deliverer, that is the introduction really to the Savior, to the Messiah, to the one who destroys the work of Satan and overturns sin. And so even there you have the promise of the seed of the woman who would bruise the serpent's head. And later on in verse 21 you have God offering a sacrifice and taking garments of skin to cover the nakedness of Adam and his wife, and there is a picture of substitutionary death and atonement and covering. So here in the very midst of the curse, God is saying, "But I will crush Satan's head, I will conquer Satan and I will cover the sinner's shame."
Those two truths then really are the story of the Bible. It is the history of sin. But you'd have to give it a second title. It is also the history of grace. Two truths flow through Bible history, sin and salvation, blessing and cursing, judgment and mercy. This is the only way to understand the Bible and it's the only way to understand human history. Things go wrong because of a sinful universe. It is the natural outworking of fallenness. But you add to that that things go wrong because God supernaturally determines at certain intervals to judge sinners. You can't always tell which is the natural course of sin and which is the divine judgment. But at the same time, God always warns through His Word, through those who speak for Him, and He is patient until iniquity is full. That's the Bible. And we see those two themes right from Genesis on through, judgment and grace, blessing and cursing, sin and salvation.
And as we study the Bible we want to get something very foundational established. What the Bible tells us is historical fact. The creation is fact. The Fall is fact. The Flood is fact. It is exactly the way the Bible says it happened. This is history. There are a lot of reasons why I believe that. The most compelling one for me among many, the most compelling reason I believe that Genesis, along with the rest of the Bible, is fact is because Jesus said so. Listen to Luke 17:26, the words of Jesus, "And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it shall be also in the days of the of Son of Man. They were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and the Flood came and destroyed t hem all." Jesus believed in Noah, a real man. Jesus believed in a real ark. And Jesus believed in a real Flood that destroyed everybody.
You cannot hold on to Jesus, listen, you cannot hold on to Jesus, you cannot hold on to the gospel, you cannot hold on to the New Testament and reject Genesis cause Jesus believed the historical record of Genesis. So did all of the apostles. So when we're studying Genesis, we're studying facts. Noah was a real person, a real family, lived in a real time, built a real boat and floated during a real flood that destroyed the world.
Now listen to this. All we know about God, I'm not saying you can't know there is God, you can know there is God without the Bible, but all you know about God personally is because of Scripture. What you know about man in his fallenness, in his nature, is because of Scripture. What you know about sin is because of Scripture. What you know about judgment is because of Scripture. What you know about grace is because of Scripture. What you know about salvation comes from the Bible. Let me say it this way. Natural revelation will lead you to an unknown God, the Bible will make Him known. The Athenians, the Greeks, could reason to a God that they called the unknown god, and that's where natural revelation will get you. Only the Bible makes Him known.
So when we're studying the book of Genesis, and I just wanted to lay this out because I want you to understand this, when we're studying the book of Genesis, we're studying real history and you get weary of these liberals who come along and want to turn it into a bunch of fantasy stories and allegories and all of this and not accept it for what it really is. This is the record of God's judgment on the entire planet. Now let's go back to the text. I told you I had a lot to say before I begin.
Now we look at the record here in Genesis chapter 6, and we're looking at verses 8 on down in particular tonight, but we'll pick up what we saw last time. As we look at the record starting in verse 5, this is the section in which the Lord says why He destroys the world. And it's the same reasons that He'll do it next time. And what it says in verse 5 is that God saw, or the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth. And we said the first point is it all started with what the Lord saw...it all started with what the Lord saw. He saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, that every intent, or every imagination, every devise, every design, every plan of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And down in verse 11, the corruption is mentioned again. The earth was corrupt collectively, totally. The earth is filled with violence which is the product of corruption. Verse 12 again, the Lord looks, it's corrupt. All flesh has corrupted its way upon the earth.
Humanity is wicked to the core and the wickedness has continued to manifest itself in a continually degraded society. And society has gotten worse and worse and worse. And we can understand that. Our society is worse than it was a hundred years ago in terms of its blatant immorality. It's worse than it was 75 years ago. It's worse than it was 50 years ago. It's worse than it was 25 years ago. Literature is worse, it's more base, it's more gross, it's more filthy than it was in the past. Music is far worse than it was in the past. Public discourse is more evil. Language is more vile, raunchy, sorted and perverted, etc., etc., etc. We have lived long enough, some of us, to see this happening. And what happens is, give man time and his degraded and depraved heart will give him greater and greater collective license to degrade society. And the Lord saw that. Of course, it was even aggravated by the activity of demons as indicated in verses 1 and 2 who were coming down and seducing men and women to follow them and to be followers of Satan on the promise that they would escape the judgment of God and they would become like God, the same ole lie that he told in the Garden. And people got involved with demons which compounded their wickedness. And that's what the Lord saw.
Secondly, we noted what the Lord felt. Verse 6, "The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth and He was grieved in His heart." This is what He felt. He felt sadness. He felt grief over what man had become. And the Lord expressed that sorrow in human terms. It was as if He was sorry He made them. Obviously God isn't sorry in the sense that He was getting information He didn't expect. He wasn't sorry in the sense that it hadn't turned out the way He thought it would, He knew exactly how it would turn out. But that didn't make Him any less sorrowful and it didn't make man any less guilty. And His sadness is not tied to some surprise, but His sadness is tied to the fact that He has no choice. His holiness demands destruction. It is necessary, it is inevitable, it is consistent with who He is. His holy nature has no choice but to punish him, and that brings Him grief. So we saw what the Lord saw and we read what the Lord felt.
Thirdly, we come to what the Lord said. And this brings us to verse 7. "And the Lord said, 'I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals, to creeping things, and to birds of the sky, for I am sorry that I made them." He had no choice, as I said. His holy natured demanded that He have righteous reaction to sin. This is the second speech, by the way, the first one noted back in verse 3, "Then the Lord said, My Spirit will not always strive with man." And God speaks to reveal what He wants to say. God spoke perhaps even through Noah. But He spoke and this is what He said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land," or the face of the earth.
You know, back in chapter 5 verse 29, Lamech, a man named Lamech, different than the one in chapter 4, lived 182 years and became the father of a son, and that son was Noah. Called his name Noah saying this one shall give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord had cursed. You know, he believed that he was going to have a child that would bring peace to the world, that would bring rest from labor. Remember, I told you people were living to be 900 years old and we can't even work for 55 years without thinking we deserve retirement and Social Security. Imagine living to be 900 and sixty-nine years and working your whole life. And so this man was saying I'm going to have a son that will bring rest, but I don't think the rest that Noah brought was the rest that he was planning. He brought rest to the troubled world, all right, by drowning the entire civilization. He brought rest from the toil. He brought rest from the wickedness for a while. And God has been patient in this time. God has been warning. But He says, "Soon," actually 120 years, according to verse 3, "And I will blot out."
I want to talk about that word because that is very, very important. Machah in the Hebrew, very precise word, very graphic language. This word has the intent of erasing something. In fact, of erasing something written in a book. The literal meaning of the word is to remove something off of something else. It's been there on something and I'm removing it off of that.
In...I need to give you some illustrations of it. It's very important, you'll know why in a moment. In Numbers chapter 5, verse 23, "The priest shall then write these curses on a scroll and wash them off into the water of bitterness." Same term, same idea, it's washing something off, literally removing it off of something upon which it has been placed. In that case it's words put on a scroll and washed off. You have a similar usage in the thirty-second chapter of Exodus and verse 32, "But now if Thou wilt forgive their sin and if not, please blot me out from Thy book that Thou hast written." Again, it's the idea of erasing words out of a book. Wiping them off. "And the Lord said to Moses, 'Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book, wipe his name off the book, remove it.'"
You have the same thing in Psalm 69 and verse 28. There are other uses of this word and I'm not going to take the time to give them all to you. For erasing names, same kind of idea, Isaiah 43:25, Isaiah 44:22, Jeremiah 18:23, Psalm, I think it's 109 about verse 14 or so, there is also a reference in 2 Kings chapter 2, the same idea of removing something off of something else, most easily understood as an erasing of something. And that is the commonest use of that term.
So the idea is that God is literally going to wipe man off the earth. And that's what it says. Back to Genesis 6. "I will wipe man whom I have created from the face of the land," very precise term. Literally the face of the earth. This is not a local flood, as some have suggested, a little rain around the Mesopotamia valley. This is a worldwide holocaust. In 2 Peter 3:16 it says, "The world perished." In Genesis 7 verse 23, "He blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the earth." In the eighth chapter of Genesis and verse 21, "The Lord smelled the soothing aroma, the Lord said to Himself, 'I will never again curse the ground on account of man for the intent of man's heart is evil form his youth, I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done.'" All the language indicates the complete removal of every living thing on the land, erasing them off the planet.
Now let's go back. He says, "From man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky who can't fly permanently. They had to come down and even the rain threw them down and they would all be destroyed. Everything that lives on land. That might be a hindeates(???) which is a way of saying all creatures, just naming those, but He is specific. The creeping things, everything that creeps and crawls on the earth from insects to snakes, the flying things, everything that flies in the air, the animals, the mammal family and man, they will all be drowned. That's what the Lord said.
Now I want to digress for a moment to explain something to you. As I was studying this a week or so ago, it struck me that the enormity of this kind of destruction of billions of people, remember some have calculated seven billion or up, brought about the question of bones, skeletal remains. Shouldn't there be billions of bones discovered by Palaeontologists in the strata? Well first of all you need to understand that when they look at the strata and they say, "You know, this age was this piece, and the next piece was this next age, and the next piece was this age," and you have this time line, that's not true...that's not true. That strata is put down by a force going this way, not layered like that through time. And by the sheer force of that, certain things in that sediment are crushed into that force. It...actually the strata geology is a great argument for the Flood cause that's the only way you can get that strata is by a force like this, not layer after layer after layer laid down over trillions of years. But shouldn't there be then in that massive amounts of bones in the sediment which was the mud that was flowing rapidly when...during the Flood the heavens broke up and we'll say more about that when we get there, the fountains of the deep opened up. I believe the earth had fissures in which water came out. The continents as we know them today are formed and the mountains as we know them around the world were formed by the cataclysm of the Flood as well. The earth was not the same earth as it is now. It is called by Peter the earth that perished. We have a different one. And shouldn't we look into the fossil record and find human bones and the bones of these mammals and so forth?
Well the earth, it says in 2 Peter 3:6, that then was overflowed with water and it perished. That earth literally was destroyed. That earth itself was changed, mountains were changed, continents were changed. In that destruction an upheaval of water, that forming of mountains and forming of continents, organisms were trapped and buried in that deep mud which hardened in the sedimentary rock, fossilizing quickly the organic remains that were trapped there.
I was reading a little article from December 13thin the L.A. Times just this last December and it says, "Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley were once under water and excavations for the subway that they've been doing have yielded two thousand two hundred fossils of fish along with the tusk, a few bones and some teeth." They find a little handful of remains of mammals which really could be a product of the Ice Age that came after the Flood, but they find lots of fish. And let me tell you why. When we study fossils, when scientists go into that, they don't find many mammal bones. You might be surprised to know there are, latest count that I could find, about 1200 remains of dinosaur skeletons in the world. That's not very many because even dinosaurs have a low fossilization potential. All land creatures have a very low fossilization potential. When land animals drown, they bloat and float, that's what they do. And then they come apart. Sea water, bacteria, scavengers shred them. Whatever is left of land animals and birds drowned by the intense rain and lack of food, whatever remains of them when the waters subside are lying on the surface and they disintegrate rapidly. If their bones are caught in the rising mountains and the shaping of the continents in the massive movement of earth and mud flows, they would grind like a...like a glacier does and grind their bones to powder.
So scientists tell us we shouldn't expect to find fossils of land animals and man in any large amount, particularly of man. Why? Because man is the most intelligent. And what's he going to do when it starts to flood? He's going to make a boat or a raft and move up higher and he's going to move up higher and when he can't get any higher, he'll figure out how to float. There was water in the earth that perished and they had boats and there was fish. So they knew what a boat was. And so typically humans would be rising all the time to the top and their corpses when they finally succumbed to the flood would bloat and float, end up on the surface and any ones that were caught in the massive mudslides, as I said, would be ground to powder. So you don't find very many human bones deep in the sediment.
Marvin Lubernour(??) has written a book, Bones of Contention, it's called. I'm quoting him. "A very common myth today is that not many hominoid fossils have been discovered. The reality is that by 1975 or '76, approximately four thousand hominoid fossil individuals had been unearthed." It's not very many. "The period since that time has seen more intense and successful research of hominoid fossils. No one knows how many have been found to date. However, by my own reckoning, a conservative estimate is that a total of hominoid fossil individuals discovered could exceed six thousand." Which sort of makes the point, doesn't it? There aren't very many. There aren't very many. There are some. There are not many.
Now, you say, "Well, I mean, you're sure this is an accurate understanding?" Well let me support it a little bit, okay? Now just follow this little scientific analysis here and this comes out of scientific sources. Ninety-five percent of all fossils that have been discovered are marine fossils, water, invertebrates, especially shell fish by clams, corals, and trilobites because they have a hard shell that can survive. Ninety-five percent of all fossils are marine. They were in the water and when they were down in the water, they got buried by the sediment, trapped in it. Listen to this, "Of the remaining five percent of all fossils, ninety-five percent are marine, of the remaining five percent, ninety-five percent are algae and plant fossils." And now we're at 99.75 percent of all fossils. We have .25 percent left, 95 percent of those are other invertebrates insects. Now we have .0125 percent left and that includes all vertebrates. And most of them are fish. That makes sense, doesn't it? And the little tiny amount that are mammals consist of less than one bone as the source of reconstructing that mammal.
So what the Flood did is very clear. If you had a flood, if you had a worldwide flood, you would expect to find down in the sediment those creatures that lived in the water, those plants that sunk into the water, that algae. And you would expect the float and bloat principle to push the animals to the top and you would expect to find the least of all the humans because they had enough intelligence to ride as high as they could go. When God said I'm going to erase all of those off the planet, here we are and when we go to look for the fossils, we find .0125 are vertebrates and most of those are fish. And you know what? He did blot them out, off the face of the earth.
Now that's what the Lord saw, what the Lord felt, and what the Lord said. We'll see more about the Flood. Now let's look lastly at what the Lord gave because this is the other thread that runs through the Bible, what the Lord gave. Verse 8, "But," you might want to circle that, that's really an important word, isn't it? Really important, "But Noah," I like the old translation, "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." You know the tune, don't you? That was an old song, rightly sung. What did the Lord give? He gave grace. He gave favor. The Lord looked down on Noah and He gave him grace, that's what it says.
You say, "Well, Noah was probably unaffected by sin." No, he was a sinful guy. We're going to find out how sinful at the end of chapter 9. You don't need to look ahead. It will be there when we get there. It's pretty ugly...pretty ugly. He was a sinner. He was even a sinner after the Flood. He was a sinner before the Flood, but he escaped wrath and he escaped judgment. Why? Turn to Hebrews 11. When you come to the New Testament, you have in that great eleventh chapter of Hebrews the heroes of faith. This is so...I mean, you can't miss this one. Hebrews 11:7, it doesn't say by works, does it? It says by...what?...by faith Noah being warned by God about things not yet seen. What hadn't been seen? A Flood, the breaking up of the earth, rain. God said it's going to rain and what is that? It never had rained. But he was warned by God about things not yet seen, I love this, "In reference he prepared an ark for the deliverance or salvation of his household." He was living in the middle of the desert, there wasn't an ocean there. And there never had been any rain. God said it's going to rain, it's going to rain, you're going to have to have a boat to float above the water or you'll drown. And he believed God, acknowledged the warning and you can be sure that God told him that he was going to drown the whole world because of...what?...sin. "He believed God in reverence, I love that, in worship he prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which He condemned the world." His faith stood as a stark condemnation of everyone else. While they mocked and laughed and ridiculed this stupid man for 120 years, building a boat, but because of his faith, because he stood against a condemned and sinful world, he became an heir of the righteousness which is according to...what?...faith.
People say how were people saved in the Old Testament? By faith. He believed what God had said. He didn't yet know about the Messiah and the cross and the resurrection. But he believed what God said. And God counted his faith as sufficient and gave him grace and righteousness. So God told Noah about sin. He told him that He saw the wickedness of man on the earth and everything about him was only evil continually. He told him that he was going to punish him for his corruption and violence. He told him in verse 13, "The end of all flesh has come before Me and I'm going to destroy them all. You need to build a boat to protect yourself if you believe Me." And he believed God and God forgave his sin and God granted him the righteousness which is according to faith. God literally clothed him with His own righteousness because of his faith. He is a clear illustration of salvation. He entered into a covenant with God. Look at verse 18, "I will establish My covenant with you." He entered into a relationship with God by faith. He was saved, if you will. He believed God. You know what? He said, "God, don't destroy me. Don't punish me. Don't drown me with the rest of the world. Forgive me, I want to escape Your judgment." He demonstrated his faith by doing what God told him to do, building an ark. And because he received grace through faith, verse 9 says, "Noah was a righteous man."
The word here for righteous in the Hebrew is tsaddiq. It means wholly righteousness, w-h-o-l-l-y, totally. It cannot refer to an occasional righteousness. It doesn't mean now and then he was righteous. He was completely righteous. He was blameless. Now there's only one way he can become that way. You can't be perfect, none of us can. He couldn't, you can't, I can't. It must mean that God viewed him as righteous and the only way that God could ever view you as righteous is if He covered you with His righteousness, right? As if He granted you His righteousness. And that is what that is saying. God granted to Noah the garments of salvation, to borrow the language of Isaiah, the garment of righteousness. And He covered that man so that he was viewed by God as righteous. Why? Because God placed all of Noah's sins on Christ who one day on Calvary bore them and took the full punishment for Noah. He was justified. And He says he was blameless in his time. That was something. Everybody else was blame worthy. But God didn't blame him. In his time, what does that mean? That means at the time of his life, in the time when everybody else was wicked he was blameless. How do you get blameless and righteous? Only one way, God has to impute that righteousness to you.
So here was a man who believed God when no one else did and his wife and his sons and their wives also. And God counted his faith as sufficient and graciously forgave his sin, covered him with righteousness and put his sins on Christ who in the mind of God, of course, was the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. Chapter 7 verse 1, "The Lord said to Noah, 'Enter the ark, you and all your household, for you I have seen to be righteous before Me in this time.'" His family was righteous. They had come in faith and been graced with righteousness.
For that 120 years, 2 Peter 2:5 says, "He was a preacher of righteousness." He had been made righteous. He preached that God would grant you righteousness not your own but His own righteousness if you'll put your faith in Him, confess your sin and repent. Sad to say, he couldn't convince anybody but his wife and family. So Noah was justified.
You want to know something about justified people? You never get justified without getting sanctified. And look what it says, end of verse 9, "Noah did...what?...what did he do?...he walked with God." There's no justification without sanctification. He walked with God. It reminds you of Enoch in chapter 5 verse 22, speaks of conduct, speaks of sanctification. He was a justified man, he was a sanctified man.
You know what's encouraging? God knew the heart of Noah, He knew the heart of his wife and the heart of his sons and the heart of their wives. And God always knows who belongs to Him in the midst of any judgment. At the end of the Old Testament, Malachi talks about the day of the Lord. And Malachi says, "Those that belong to God were speaking to one another." They were afraid of the judgment. God revealed to Malachi, "The Lord knows those that are His." He knows and there were eight in the world that were His.
Then verse 9, "These are the generations of Noah." That's simply a signature, the toledoth of Noah. This is the story of Noah. Back in chapter 2 verse 4, "This is the generation of the heavens and the earth." Chapter 5 verse 1, "This is the generation of Adam." Chapter 10 verse 1, "This is the generation of Shem, Ham, Japheth." Chapter 11 verse 10, "This is the generation of Shem." In verse 27, "This is the generation of Terah." And you can kind of flow through the book of Genesis moving from one record of family to the next record of family. First is the record of the creation of the heavens and the earth, then Adam, and progresses along. This is the generation of Noah. And it goes from chapter 6 verse 9 over to chapter 9 verse 29 and then chapter 10 verse 1 picks up the generation or the toledothof his sons.
Verse 10 says, "He became the father of three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth," and we'll say more about them later. All three believers with their wives and their mother. They were part of the eight souls, 1 Peter 2...2 Peter 3 talks about...1 Peter 3...being saved.
The point of this passage, writes Alan Ross, is that the wickedness of pagan idolatry and fornication brings pain to God and judgment to the world, a judgment that can be escaped only by God's grace. That is the point. But isn't that the point of the whole Bible? Isn't that what the whole Bible is about, that idolatry and sin brings pain to God and He warns and He waits and then He act?
Now we started looking at this section by considering 2 Peter and the scoffers who say, "Where is the sign of His coming, all things continue as they have from the beginning." He's not going to come, He never has. We don't believe that. Everything's always been the same. And you remember Peter says, "Have you forgotten the Flood? Are you going to be willfully ignorant that God destroyed the entire world?" You see, the Flood is really history's most powerful evidence of the final destruction of this earth.
And why did it happen? Preoccupation with physical appetites, materialistic attitudes and interests, devotion to pleasure, rebellion against God and unbelief, corruption, violence, all of these things, communing with Satan, even blasphemy as they mocked God in the face of the preaching of Noah, all of these things. God judged them once after 1650 years, here we are over 4500 years later. Why do we think that we will escape? The standards haven't changed.
I want to close by having you turn in your Bible to Matthew 24. This is an important place to close. Matthew 24 is the great sermon of Jesus on His Second Coming. Verse 37, "For the coming of the Son of Man it will be just like the days of Noah." See, this is a very important parallel. "The coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah, whereas in those days they were...which were before the Flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage." Just life as usual. "Until the day that Noah entered the Ark and they didn't understand until the Flood came and took them all away, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be."
You see, here is the great historic testimony to the Second Coming judgment. It happened once in the days of Noah. And it will happen again. Verse 44 adds, "For this reason you be ready too." Noah was and his family, you be ready too, "For the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will."
We don't have a boat to get into but Christ is the Ark, isn't He? Christ is the Ark. And in Christ we rise above that final judgment.
Lord, thank You again for the richness of the treasure of Your truth. We bless You for placing us in that ark of safety, to rise above not only the floods of life that take their natural course in this world, but to rise above that supernatural judgment. We thank You that we will be lifted above the coming devastation, not by any virtue of our own, but by faith in the Ark, the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank You for granting us that grace to believe, for justifying us, covering us with Your righteousness and sanctifying us that we might walk with You. Amen.
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Though fans of zombie-cide already knew about the existence of Dead Rising on the Wii, Capcom has finally made it official and provided some details about the upcoming game. In addition, the port has been given the subtitle treatment and henceforth will be known as Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop. No, I did not make that up.
The game will use the same engine as Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, and it will take advantage the system's motion sensitive controller for aiming, shooting, swinging and throwing weapons, as well as shaking off zombie attacks. It also looks as though the remake will fix on the bigger complaints about the original, such as the rather annoying save system.
Like the original, Chop Till You Drop promises a ton of enemies on screen and the ability to use any item in the mall as a weapon. It is set to hit store shelves this winter.
Ben's thoughts
I actually thought the save system added a decent level of tension to the game; running to a save point with little to no health and a horde of zombies following you while you desperately searched for a better weapon may have caused some controller-throwing frustration, but it certainly also made you a play more cautiously than if the game had a save-anywhere system.
We don't know exactly how it will be fixed, though; the information just states, "Improved save functionality allows for more seamless gameplay." So we'll see.


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New editions of CornCam and SoybeanCam are scheduled to open this spring. But, also this year, the fun begins at www.DairyCam.com , a new Web site from the Northeast Iowa Community College.
Fact sheets and reports
The Agricultural Database for Decision Support Center (ADDS), a nonprofit group, has added a Beef InfoBase to its extensive collection of research reports and articles.
ADDS is a service bureau that provides information for dairy, pig and now beef groups supplied by various extension offices and the journal of the American Registry of Professional Animal Scientists. Subject areas include herd and animal health, business management, facilities and equipment, and feeding and nutrition. National commodity groups sponsor the informational databases. Price for a CD complete with all the papers is $99, which includes a 12-month subscription to the center's Web site, or $35/yr. for a Web site subscription only. Contact ADDS Center, Dept. FIN, Box 930369, Verona, WI 53593, 608/848-9055, www.adds.org or circle 188.
Unique pipe fittings for tanks
You only need one hole to install these bulkhead pipe fittings, which not only reduces installation time, but also eliminates the extra bolt holes that conventional fittings require and that can lead to extra leak points.
These fittings have wide, thick gaskets that seal them to tanks. The gaskets are tightened with variable pressure to mount against stock tanks in steel or cement. Fittings are available in PVC or stainless steel and in sizes for 2- to 24-in. standard piping. The flanged fittings can be removed and used elsewhere, again and again, according to the manufacturer. Price range: $280 to $1,450 for 2- to 12-in. fittings. Contact ModuTank Inc., Dept. FIN, 41-04 35th Ave., Long Island City, NY 11101, 718/392-1112, www.modutank.com or circle 187.
Livestock news and views
Genzyme Transgenics has engineered goats to give milk that contains antibodies that can serve as human medicines. BASF, Bristol-Myers Squibb and leading cancer specialists are working with Genzyme to engineer livestock to produce large volumes of proteins for cancer treatment.
Soon, you may welcome mosquito bites while out doing chores. Several companies are trying to produce antigens in mosquitoes' saliva, turning the insects into living vaccines for various diseases.
The EPA has proposed a new definition of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) that would make more operations subject to regulation. Now, most CAFOs are classified as those with 1,000 or more head; the proposed regulation could reduce that number to 300 head. Harvard Business Review, AgriTalk


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Product DetailsThis Hammer Studios classic is far closer to the letter (and spirit) of the Bram Stoker novel than the Bela Lugosi version of Dracula. The premise finds the infamous count journeying from his native Transylvania to England, where he takes a headfirst plunge into the London nightlife, and begins to rack up victim after victim. In the process, Dracula also runs into his arch-nemesis, Van Helsing (Peter Cushing), which ignites a battle of wills between the two. Heavily censored in Britain when released (with the goriest moments truncated), this outing was restored by the BFI in the mid-late 2000s. It put Lee and Cushing on the map and paved the way for many sequels starring the two, and for many non-Dracula follow-ups with these actors as well.
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Nevada Approves Google Auto-Driving Cars, Issues "AU" Plates With Infinity Symbol
Forget it, Las Vegas Strip. Move over Area 51. Perhaps cruising up the Extraterrestrial Highway will be Nevada's latest tourist attraction, Google auto-driving cars sporting new autonomous vehicle license plates.
Google has been working to get official approval to test its self-driving cars in several US states. They've operated in California, where so far they've been deemed legal by existing laws. But Nevada just became the first state to give official sanction to testing such vehicles.
Approval To Test, Supervision Still Required
This doesn't mean that the cars will be out there driving themselves without controlled supervision by an actual driver. As this AP story notes, Nevada requires there be two operators in the car, one behind the wheel.
In California, the cars have routinely run with only one driver behind the wheel. Recently, the driver was even allowed to be in the passenger side, as Steve Mahas — who is blind — was behind the wheel as the car's first official non-Google "driver."
So what do Nevada's new regulations allow? They seem to give official sanction to further testing, plus something for Nevada crow about.
The state's Department of Motor Vehicles posted the news over the weekend, complete with a picture of one of the three Google cars that Google plans to test sporting the new plate:
The DMV also posted images of what a human sees, as the car drives itself up the Las Vegas Strip:
Also posted, an image of what the car sees:
Nevada is hoping that more companies will begin testing cars in the state, providing more information about its new regulations and how to apply here. It also foresees those new plates someday changing to a green color, which would represent autonomous vehicles being used by the general public, rather than in testing. From the state's news release:
"I felt using the infinity symbol was the best way to represent the 'car of the future.'" Department Director Bruce Breslow said. "The unique red plate will be easily recognized by the public and law enforcement and will be used only for licensed autonomous test vehicles. When there comes a time that vehicle manufactures market autonomous vehicles to the public, that infinity symbol will appear on a green license plate.
That statement explains the red color, the infinity symbol but not the "AU" initials rather than "AV" for "autonomous vehicle." My best guess is that AU stands for the first two letters in "autonomous."
Related Articles
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- Google's Self-Driving Car, Manually Driven, In Fender-Bender Near Company HQ
- Google's Automated Cars: The Perfect Venue For Ads
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- Blind Man Is First "Driver" Of Google's Self-Driving Car & Why It Was Legal
- Meet Project Glass: Google's Siri For Your Eyes
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Madden NFL 12 continues the rich tradition of the storied franchise by bringing fans closer to the NFL than ever before. Featuring all 32 teams, stadiums, and your favorite players in the league, Madden NFL 12 is True to the Game.
Madden NFL 12 continues the rich tradition of the storied franchise by bringing fans closer to the NFL than ever before. Featuring all 32 teams, stadiums, and your favorite players, Madden NFL 12 is True to the Game. Whether battling your rivals on the couch or online, leading your favorite team to the Super Bowl in Franchise mode, or building the ultimate dream team in Madden Ultimate Team, Madden NFL 12 is True to the NFL, True to the Franchise, True to the Game.
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· All-New Collision System: Now maintain full control of players up to the point of impact - from tackling to blocking - providing the most authentic collisions in franchise history. This new system uses a player's momentum and over 100 new tackle animations, including 40 gang tackles, to provide more impactful hits, stolen tackles, and consecutive hit tackling.
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Beginning in 2006, after using precision ag technologies on his farm for more than a decade, Mike Ellis hit precision pay dirt. That's when he began testing planter and sprayer systems that allow him to shut off small planter and sprayer sections to minimize overlap.
After two years, he is seeing consistent savings in the 9% range on seed and at least 12% on herbicides. And he has paid off the technology investment in full.
"This is huge as far as a technology that will profit farmers," says Ellis, who farms several thousand acres with brothers Bob and Jim in the Shelbyville, KY, area. "I know we have paid for the equipment investment in two years [including a $20,000 investment in sprayer upgrades]."
"This the first time with precision agriculture technologies where it is easy to look at your records and see the technology has paid for itself," adds Scott Shearer, a precision ag researcher at the University of Kentucky. Shearer has documented the impact on the Ellis operation as it has adopted the new technologies.
Sprayer, planter modifications
The Ellis self-propelled sprayer, which has 48 nozzles spaced every 20 in. on an 80-ft. boom, was set up using a 30-section controller. The spray controller, from Topcon Precision Agriculture, has the most sections currently available. The outer six nozzles on each wing were controlled individually. The remaining 36 center nozzles were controlled in pairs using the remaining 18 controller channels. Nozzle shutoff was controlled using solenoids from Capstan Ag Systems.
Two planters — a 12-row planter with splitters, and a 24-row rig — were set up in various configurations. The 12-row rig was set up in one-, two- and three-row sections using a 10-channel controller, depending on whether it was configured for 12 rows for corn or 23 in the splitter mode for soybeans. The 24-row planter was set in single-row sections using the 30-channel controller.
By comparing likely "applied" areas using the nozzle control technology versus sprayer runs without the technology, Shearer documented herbicide savings in several fields ranging from 16 to 27%. He also compared year-to-year glyphosate expenditures across the entire farm. Glyphosate volume fell 12% from 2005 to 2006, even though Ellis used the 30-section sprayer on only about half the treated acres. Ellis also saved about $200 per field in Roundup Ready fields with grass waterways because waterways didn't have to be reseeded.
Field shapes affect potential savings, both for planters and sprayers, Shearer notes. It is possible to overplant a triangular field by about 4.2% with a 16-row planter without by-the-row controls. A field with a curved boundary can easily result in an 8% overplant.
Continued refinement
Shearer is convinced that planting and spraying by the row and nozzle — or in two- or three-row/nozzle sections — is likely to be profitable for many growers.
As controllers with the computing power needed for individual rows and nozzles become available, other precision benefits will emerge. For example, herbicide application could become more accurate in turns as sophisticated controllers are programmed to vary rates along the boom, Shearer says. Planters could benefit from similar technology, although individual row drives would be needed to accomplish this. "I am convinced that we will need individual electric row-unit drives," Shearer says. "I truly believe that is where we are headed."


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Taking it to the Rails: WiMAX on Trains
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UK-based Nomad Digital uses WiMAX to provide Internet access on trains--because, conveniently enough, both radio waves and railways go in straight lines.
Nigel Wallbridge and Graeme Lowdon founded the UK-based company Nomad Digital in 2002 to provide wireless connectivity to the public transportation sector. Nomads key differentiator, Wallbridge says, is its proprietary solution for enabling seamless hand-off between Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and just about any other technology.
Its all about taking low-cost technologies and making them mobile, he says.
Last month, Nomad launched a pilot WiMax network in Stockholm, Sweden to provide Internet access on the Stockholm-to-Norrtalje route 676 commuter bus. Aside from that deployment, however, the company has generally targeted trains rather than buses, providing Wi-Fi access on Virgin Trains West Coast Main Line route (covering 528 miles of rail) and offering T-Mobile HotSpot access on the Heathrow Express train from Heathrow Airport to central London.
The response, Wallbridge says, has been extremely positive. Although the Heathrow Express ride is only 15 minutes long, he says the company is seeing average session times that are actually longer than 15 minutes.
Youd think that in 15 minutes there wouldnt be that much interest in getting onto a shuttle train ride like that, opening your laptop, and going through a sign-in processbut its immensely popular, he says. People want to have that connection.
Wallbridge says Nomad is also working on supporting cell phone coverage.
On lots of railways around the world, there isnt sufficient voice coverage, he says. In that case, we put picocells on the train. The passengers cell phone speaks to the picocell in the carriage, and the carriage connects through our network to an IP network back to the network management center, and then is hauled back to the mobile network operators.
And Nomads deployments arent just for the passengers.
Without a doubt, this market has been kick-started by the hotspots businessbut today, thats a relatively small part of what we do, Wallbridge says. Were providing communications between railways companies and their staff on the train. Were providing remote CCTV monitoring of the train. Were providing monitoring of on-board systems. Were downloading information about where the train is, and whether all the doors and brakes and air conditioning systems are working.
Nomad uses WiMAX for the majority of the backhaul, switching to a 3G network only in difficult areaswhich are, generally speaking, curves.
Think of what a railway line looks like: its straight lines connected by curves, Wallbridge says. We can do the straight lines very easily: we take a directional antenna and we point it straight down the railway line. But think of the curvethere may be just a few meters on that curve, and say theres an S bendyoud have to put in a base station just to cover that small part. So why bother?
Instead, the company simply switches over to 3G for those few seconds, then hands off seamlessly back to the WiMAX connection for the next straight line. Its those straight lines, Wallbridge says, that led him to rail deployments in the first place.
I know it sounds ridiculous, but that was one of the early things I noticed: radio waves go in straight lines, and so do railways, he says.
Nomad works with railroads in one of two wayseither by selling the system to the railroad or by acting as a service provider.
Some railroads say, Wed love these services, but we just cant afford the capex to build the network, Wallbridge says. And if the metrics of the railway are right, if theres lots of ridership, if we think we can sell tons of services to tons of different people, then well build the network at our cost, and operate it and sell services on it.
While the company has largely used Redline WiMAX equipment in the past, Wallbridge says Nomad isnt married to any single manufactureror even to any single technology.
Were pretty neutral on that, he says. Because we have this ability to switch between networks, we can add new technologies very, very cost-effectively.
In future deployments, Wallbridge says the challenge will be to continue to meet an ever-increasing demand for bandwidth.
Two or three years ago, we could manage with 2 Mbps to the train, but now were delivering 6 Mbps, and were looking ahead to delivering 20, he says. Thats just the nature of the beast.
And looking forward, Wallbridge says it wont only be about trains and busesthe companys next target, he says, might just be cars.
I dont really know what the killer application is going to be, but its going to be there: people are going to want high-bandwidth connections to their vehicles, he says. Maybe theyre monitoring things on the vehicle, maybe navigation services, information servicesall of that stuff is coming.
Los Angeles-based writer Jeff Goldman is a frequent contributor to Wi-FiPlanet.