Much Better

I slept well last night. The first time in several days. Slept until 9:00! Wow - that is almost 1.5 hours longer than I have been sleeping.

And I feel better today. Much, much better.

A little sleep, a lot of prayer from friends and by myself - and I'm feeling better.

What really surprises me is that I came to this understanding after reading the news and some blogs this morning.

The stock market fell almost 280 points yesterday. There were more tornadoes, this time in an area of the US where they happen but are not common, all over the world more animals died under strange circumstances, more volcanoes are threatening to erupt, Fukishima continues to spew out radiation with no end in sight and with no idea when it will actually be 'contained', and violence is breaking out or continuing all over the world (like in Yemen), sometimes in ways and places that are not expected, like on airplanes. Plus, an Islamic cleric is okaying human slavery and praising jihad (again, as usual). And to top it all off, more food is now unsafe to eat, E.coli mystery spreads concern across Europe (to say nothing of all the Genetically Modified Food now in our food supply chain!).

So, there you go - bits and pieces of all the wonderful news today. And yet - I'm feeling myself (a very Russian way of saying that!) much better today.

Thank you, thank you for your prayers. I so needed them.

Now, I need to go get dressed - it is almost noon! And then I need to get a load of wash in the washer and then get the chicken ready for the oven. We have company coming over for dinner tonight. Probably should clean up the livingroom, too - they will need a place to sit down and eat. haha!

Cheyenne thinks this is a good place to sleep!

Emotional Rollercoaster News

Wow. What a morning it has been! As usual, drinking my morning coffee and reading blogs, news and facebook. One of the blogs I read posted this video - well worth the time it takes to download and watch. I was struck by the words of one of the translator: "We have no idea. We have had the Word of God for so long. We have taken it for granted. We have resources, we have translations, we have all these different things, and we don't, we don't cherish it. We don't realize what a precious gift we have and hold in our hands, and these guys were realizing that."

I am convicted. Deep in my heart and soul - I am convicted of that truth.

~*~*~*~*~*~
From there, I went to the news and this article on FoxNews caught my eye immediately: Thousands of Christians Displaced in Ethiopia After Muslim Extremists Torch Churches, Homes. People are being killed and persecuted by Muslims in Ethiopia simply for being Christians. Martyrs for Jesus Christ.

Our time is coming. It won't be long.

~*~*~*~*~*~
Last night before I went to bed I saw on the USGS page that there had been a 6.8 earthquake in Myanmar (also known as Burma). So far the news is telling us that over 40 people are known to have died. The death count is expected to rise.

This area of the world is not a very siesmicly active area. Yes, there are earthquakes there occasionally, rarely. But over the past couple or 3 weeks there have been several.

I laugh to myself because I noted immediately the first time Myanmar came up on the list and commented about it to Mel. I picture myself as a little ant, or maybe a big grasshopper - the scent of something new comes my way, I pause in whatever I'm doing and my antenna just start wiggling all over the place, trying to work it out. If you never watch bugs, you have no idea what I'm writing about. hahahahahahahaha I needed a good mental laugh right now.

Oh, and this is not the "big one" I think is going to happen. ;-)

~*~*~*~*~*~
When I googled "missionaries to Burma", the first name that came up Adoniram Judson. I have a feeling that anyone who has been in a church for very long will at least have heard that name.

Actually, when I think about it, that is not true. Our modern churches are so weak and worldly that I doubt 1 out of 100, or even 1 out of 1000 in most church circles today would have any clue who Adoniram Judson was. Or Amy Carmichael. Or Jim Elliott. Or maybe even Hudson Taylor. Sad. Very sad.

Whenever I think of missionaries to Burma, the wrong names come to mind. Gladys Aylward (missionary to China) and Isabel Kuhn (missionary to the Burmese Lisu people of Thailand and China). Two women who have inspired me in my own walk with Christ and in missions.

I wonder - how many of the people in the earthquake area have ever heard the name of Christ? Is there a church there? The news article only mentioned Buddhist temples that had been destroyed.

~*~*~*~*~*~
Scientists' Research Warns Humanity May be Facing 'Vortex of Death' is a very interesting article for a couple of reasons. This article addresses the upcoming Solar Maximum that has already begun. We are in Solar Cycle 24 now. The Minimum that we just came out of was one of the longest ever recorded and scientist are very puzzled over the whys and hows of it all. I'm not going to go into details here because if someone is interested there is so much info on the internet now - why repeat it?

What makes this particular article interesting to me is the fact that a couple of Melinda's Ladies (women who attend her Bible study on Fridays) talked all about magnetism and the sun while they walked home with her last week after the study. It was a "we're going to die! we're going to die! we're all going to die!" Chicken Little kind of conversation. Melinda wasn't sure what they were exactly talking about. When she told us I did have an idea, but had not seen it all put together in an article kind of format. Apparently this info in this kind of format hit the news stands and/or channels here sometime last week. After all, a lot of the research was done by a Russian.

(I find it interesting that a Russian is the one who came up with this. Over and over again I've heard people say things here that we are taught the exact opposite about in the States - yet the Russian view is proven to be correct - i.e. fat is good for you and you should eat it, not do what Americans do and try to never ever eat it. Just one example. I pay attention more now.)

Scientists have been talking about the Solar Minimums and Maximums for several years now. I've mentioned them before, posting photos from www.spaceweather.com and other places of the totally blank sun and how many days it had been blank, and so forth and so on. I'm interested in this stuff, after all! Not just because of things like this particular article (I do recommend reading the article, by the way, it is interesting, if a bit scary and sensational), but because of the natural processes that are happening around us all the time and we are just beginning to catch glimpses of what is really happening.

There is no doubt about it - we live in unusual and interesting and without Christ Jesus as Savior and Lord, frightening times. I can't blame man's sinfulness on what is going on in and on the sun, but I am sure that the sun affects us in ways we have no clue about right now. The sun does, after all, rule the day! And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day. Genesis 1:14-19

And one of my favorite Psalms which I set to my own music and can sing to you if you'd like, promises me that the sun will not harm me by day, nor the moon by night:
Psalm 121
A song of ascents.
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
Psalm 121
(bold emphasis mine)

So, what do I think of this article? Hmmm - this is one of those that I need to really do some deep thinking over. Right off the top of my head I have some opinions (I always have opinions!) and I think it fits right in with the Times in which we live - the End Times.

God does do miracles, I have no doubt of that. But it seems to me that most often God uses means to accomplish His will. There are going to be miracles in the coming days, yes. But much of what is written about in the Revelation and other prophetic books may simply be natural means that God uses to accomplish His perfect will here on earth.

~*~*~*~*~*~
And now - time to do the dishes and get ready for my Russian lesson in a couple hours!!

Sheep Eat What??

Sheep Help Scientists Clean Up Explosives Residue
, FoxNews, February 12, 2011

A team of scientists is feeding TNT to a flock of sheep.

A. Morrie Craig, a veterinary scientist at Oregon State University, has found that the cud-chewing mammals can efficiently clean up explosives-contaminated soil, of which there are 1.3 million tons throughout the U.S. TNT and other explosives from military munitions training and the remnants of old factories remain in the ground for decades.

This residue rarely poses an immediate health threat, but officials at the Department of Defense fear that it could seep into groundwater or poison plants (which has happened before). Conventional cleanup techniques, such as incinerating the soil, are expensive and time-consuming. Sheep will work for free.

In 2004, Craig discovered that the bacteria in a sheep's stomach that help digest cellulose can also rapidly convert TNT into a harmless compound. In recent experiments, he and researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture fed sheep TNT for three weeks and found that it broke down so completely that no traces of it or any related compounds remained in the animals' feces.

Craig and his colleagues plan to plant grasses in TNT contaminated soil to suck up the explosives. While the sheep munch away, the bacteria in their digestive tract take care of the rest. Craig's lab is testing the grazers on soil from a military base. He estimates that a flock of 20 could clear an acre of grass in a month, and completely rid it of munitions residue in less than three years.

Craig points out that even if a TNT-eating sheep's meat found its way onto a barbecue, it could never explode or cause health problems: "The ingested TNT is broken down into small molecules that are in no way similar to the original compound."

How cool is that? I knew I liked sheep for other reasons than bouncy white lambs in the spring, wool that turns into yarn and the kids song, Mary Had a Little Lamb!

Persecution of Christians

Christian ‘Genocide’ In The Mideast
January 18, 2011 - 10:08 AM | by: Greg Burke
(found in FoxNews)

Dec. 31, 2010: Coffins of slain Christians killed in the attack at St. George Chaldean Church in Baghdad, Iraq. (AP)
Christians have been getting pushed out of the Middle East for some time now, but the attacks on them have recently become particularly ferocious.

It’s enough to look at the bombing at a Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt, on New Year’s Day that left 23 dead, or the brutal siege on St. George Chaldean Church, a Catholic church in Baghdad that killed more than 50.

“If you look at the technical definition of what genocide is, it is the attempt to annihilate a particular group because of their ethnicity or their religion,” says David Alton a Catholic member of Britain's House of Lords. “And certainly that is what is happening to many of the ancient churches of the Middle East.”

Lord Alton, a prominent campaigner for religious freedom, told Fox News in an interview that radical Muslims target Christians as a way of hitting the West.

“They use Iraq as a staging post for that, and as a pretext for attacking groups they say are U.S. allies, and so Christians are in the firing line for that reason,” Alton notes. “It is absurd in many respects, but it is a very convenient piece of shorthand for those who carry out the attacks.”

John Pontifex of Aid to the Chuch in Need points out that the rise of radical Islam is putting extreme pressure on other religious groups, but especially Christians.

As the number of Christians falls drastically in the Middle East, Pontifex says, the radicals rejoice.

“Extremist groups have made it clear that because of this change in numbers, they are getting close to achieving their objective, which is the wipeout of Christianity in some of its oldest heartlands.”

While Christians are hardest hit in the Mideast, that’s not the only region they’re feeling pressure, whether it be slighter forms of discrimination, or outright violence.

Pontifex estimates that there are 30 or more countries where Christians suffer “very severely,” and that “in certain of those countries, that persecution is very endemic and very persistent and has as its objective an end to the Christian presence.”

Pope Benedict’s annual speech to diplomats last week focused on religious freedom as a fundamental human right, and mentioned the attacks in Iraq and Egypt.

Benedict also called for Pakistan to overturn its blasphemy law, saying it serves as a “pretext for acts of injustice and violence against religious minorities.”

Egypt responded by recalling Aly Mekhemar Hamada, its ambassador to the Holy See to Cairo for consultations. Before leaving, Hamada gave an interview in which she said her government did not agree that Christians suffered discrimination in Egypt.

And in Pakistan, the response on the street was a not a friendly one, as protesters burned the Pope in effigy.

My Own Personal Drone!

Celebs beware! New Pandora's box of 'personal' drones that could stalk anyone from Brangelina to your own child

They could put your mind at ease - or do very much the opposite.

A new arms race is on and it could change everything from the way we parent to how we get our celebrity gossip.

For the technology currently being used by the CIA to ferret out terrorist leaders in the hills of Pakistan is set to arrive in a neighbourhood near you - and there's nowhere to hide.

Coming to a sky near you? A remote CCTV camera drone circles in the sky during a political rally in Britain last year. Drones are set to play a large part in the future of policing - but could they affect our personal lives also?

Personal drones - smaller, private versions of the infamous Predator - are the next hot technology for people looking to track celebrities, cheating lovers, or even wildlife.

And it could be a dream tool for the paparazzi, named after the Iralian for buzzing mosquitoes.

Now the metaphor is coming to life. Several personal drones are scheduled for completion next year.

A police constable in Liverpool tries out the force's new remote-controlled UAV. Liverpool police have already used such drones to make at least one arrest

The officer can see from the drone's perspective using a special pair of goggles
Already in the UK police are using drones to track thieves. In February, the Air Robot was deployed by Merseyside police after officers lost an alleged car thief who had escaped on foot in thick fog.

Using the device's on-board camera and thermal-imaging technology, the operator was able to pick up the suspect through his body heat and direct foot patrols to his location.

It led officers to a 16-year-old youth, who was hiding in bushes alongside the Leeds-Liverpool canal, in Litherland, Merseyside.
The drone, which measures 3ft between the tips of its four carbon fibre rotor blades, uses unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology originally designed for military reconnaissance.

The battery-powered device can have a range of cameras attached to its main body, including CCTV surveillance or thermal imaging cameras.

It is designed to hover almost silently above crime scenes and send live footage to officers on the ground, but the unit can also 'perch and stare' from a solid platform, allowing the operator to capture hours of footage from a hidden vantage point.

Merseyside Police is one of a handful of forces trying out the devices which, at £40,000 each, are far cheaper to use for small-scale operations than a conventional helicopter.

They have been using the drones for two years, mainly to help in search and rescue operations, to execute drug warrants and to crack down on anti-social behaviour.
The Home Office is now exploring how the craft can be used to give back-up to police, ambulance and fire services.

A Predator drone like the ones used to hunt down terrorist leaders in Pakistan (file photo). The military must follow rules of engagement with such technology, but there are no such rules governing private use yet

Spy drones are considered the future of policing, although critics have voiced concerns that they could be a worrying extension of Big Brother Britain.

Last month arms manufacturer BAE Systems said it was adapting military-style UAVs for a consortium of government agencies led by Kent police. Documents showed the force hoped to begin using the drones in time for the 2012 Olympics.

But they also indicated that the drones could eventually be used to spy on the civilian population, by rooting out motorists suspected of antisocial driving, for covert urban surveillance and to monitor 'waste management' for local councils.
Similar concepts are already being developed in the U.S.

'If the Israelis can use them to find terrorists, certainly a husband is going to be able to track a wife who goes out at 11 o'clock at night and follow her,' New York divorce lawyer Raoul Felder told the Journal.

The technology is swiftly moving beyond military and even police circles - already unmanned aircraft that can fly predetermined routes cost just a few hundred dollars and can be operated by an iPhone.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and former Navy fighter pilot Missy Cummings is working to develop a 'Personal Sentry' drone about the size of a pizza box that warns soldiers if danger is approaching from behind.
But, she said, 'that military stuff is kind of passe'.

'It doesn't take a rocket scientist from MIT to tell you if we can do it for a soldier in the field, we can do it for anybody.'

She told the Wall Street Journal that she could use such technology to follow her young child on the way to school by planting an electronic bug in her lunch box or backpack.

'It would bring a whole new meaning to the term hover parent,' she said.
The FAA has not approved the use of personal drones just yet. But a spokesman said the agency is working with private industry on standards that could allow the broader use of drones.

Grey areas already exist, however - particularly with the recreational use of drones.

There are no regulations governing recreational drone use. Instead the FAA recommends - emphasis on 'recommends' - such drones be flown away from populated areas, from aeroplanes, below a certain altitude and so on.
And if people claim their drones are for personal use, that could theoretically get around many FAA regulations.

So while the military has to follow rules of engagement regarding drone use, there is - as yet - no similar set of rules regarding privacy for domestic use of drones.
'If everybody had enough money to buy one of these things, we could all be wandering around with little networks of vehicles flying over our heads spying on us,' Ms Cummings said.

'It really opens up a whole new Pandora's Box of: What does it mean to have privacy?

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1327343/Personal-recreation-drones-developed.html#ixzz1AohM8xLc

Waffles Getting Scarce? :-)

A funny article from FoxNews today (below with link). Another reminder of how fragile out food production and distribution system really is, though.

Leggo My Eggo Shortage
ATLANTA — Dear Kellogg: Leggo my Eggo!

Kellogg Co. says there will be a nationwide shortage of its popular Eggo frozen waffles until next summer because of interruptions in production at two of the four plants that make them.

The company's Atlanta plant was shut down for an undisclosed period by a September storm that dumped historic amounts of rain in the area. Meanwhile, several production lines at its largest bakery in Rossville, Tenn. are closed indefinitely for repairs, company spokeswoman Kris Charles said in an e-mail.

It will take until the middle of 2010 before shelves around the country are stocked at pre-shutdown levels, Charles said.

Already customers are noticing near-empty Eggo shelves on the freezer aisle at many grocery stores.

Stay-at-home mom Joey Resciniti says she bought one of the last two boxes of Eggos at a Walmart in Cranberry Township, Pa., on Monday. The frozen waffles are a favorite of her 4-year-old daughter, Julia.

"We have eight of them, and if we ration those — maybe have half an Eggo in one sitting — then it'll last longer," said Resciniti, who blogs about being a mother. "I told my husband that maybe I need to put them on eBay."

Charles didn't know how long the Atlanta plant was shut down, but said that it's back at full production now.

The existing stock of Eggos will be distributed nationally based on stores' sales histories of the waffles, Charles said.

"We are working around the clock to restore Eggo store inventories to normal levels as quickly as possible," she wrote in the e-mail.

Eggo first hit the shelves in 1960, and its cult following grew in the following years. Kellogg started using the famed slogan "Leggo my Eggo" in 1972. For years, the waffles have been a staple for busy moms and college students looking for a quick breakfast.

This week, news of the shortage spread quickly on Twitter as shoppers reported not being able to find the breakfast food. Fans of Eggos lamented their scarcity on the waffle's Facebook page, which has more than 400 members.

Eggos are also made at plants in San Jose, Calif., and Blue Anchor, N.J.

In The News: Illinois Woman Hits Two Deer in 10 Minutes

This article really should be retitled: "Illinois Woman HIT BY Two Deer in 10 Minutes". We were hit by a deer once. Jumped off the side of the road right into the side of our car and then ran off. Really messed up our front passenger side fender. Sometimes I think they are kamakazi deer.


Illinois Driver Hits Two Deer in 10 Minutes
Sunday, November 08, 2009

JERSEYVILLE, Ill. — Kathryn Gowin was already spooked after she hit a deer with her Ford Explorer last week in southern Illinois.

Then 10 minutes later, she hit another one.

Gowin says she's been driving the back roads near her Bunker Hill home for more than 30 years, and she's never hit a deer.

She says the first deer darted into the driver's side of her SUV, damaging her wheel well, grill, bumper and headlight.

Since her car was drivable and she was close to home, Illinois State Police told her to drive the rest of the way.

But half a mile later, a second deer lunged into the road, this time into the passenger side. It took out her right front fender and door.

She was uninjured. It isn't clear whether the deer fared as well.

Am I REALLY Reading This In The News?????

On FoxNews this evening:

Large Hadron Collider 'Being Sabotaged from the Future'
Monday, October 19, 2009

Scientists claim the giant atom-smashing Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is being jinxed from the future to save the world.

In a bizarre sci-fi theory, Danish physicist Dr Holger Bech Nielsen and Dr Masao Ninomiya from Japan claim nature is trying to prevent the LHC from finding the elusive Higgs boson. Called the "God particle," the theoretical boson could explain the origins of mass in the universe — if physicists can find the darn thing.

The scientists say their math proves nature will "ripple backward through time" to stop the LHC before it can create the God particle, like a time traveller who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.

“One could even almost say that we have a model for God,” Dr Nielsen says in an unpublished essay. “He rather hates Higgs particles, and attempts to avoid them.”

"While it is a paradox to go back in time and kill your grandfather, physicists agree there is no paradox if you go back in time and save him from being hit by a bus," Dannis Overbye wrote in the New York Times.

"In the case of the Higgs and the collider, it is as if something is going back in time to keep the universe from being hit by a bus."

“It must be our prediction that all Higgs producing machines shall have bad luck,” Dr Nielsen told the New York Times.

European science agency CERN designed the world's biggest particle accelerator to shoot beams around a freezing 27km concrete ring underground near Geneva, smashing atoms together in search of the elusive "God particle" believed present at the Big Bang.

The multi-billion-dollar machine, built over almost 20 years, was set to launch in late 2008 but broke down after it overheated during a test run.

The relaunch was pushed back to late 2009 as more parts had to be replaced, and CERN was recently scandalised when a LHC scientist was found to have approached al-Qaeda for work.

The LHC - which features in sci-fi plots such as Dan Brown's Angels and Demons and the new TV show FlashForward - has been dubbed a "doomsday device" with claims it will open black holes.

Last year, Professor Brian Cox of Manchester University told the UK Telegraph that LHC scientists had received threatening emails and phone calls demanding that the experiment be halted.

But Prof Cox, ex-keyboardist for 1990's pop group D:REAM, dismissed the hysteria in rock-star style.

"Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a tw—," he said.

The LHC is set to start up again next month.

- with Reuters

Blob of Goo

Ok, I just can't leave this one alone! :) My sister used to live in Barrow - too bad she's not there now so she could give me an on-site update about what this stuff is!

Huge blob of Arctic goo floats past Slope communities
IT'S NOT OIL: No one in the area can recall seeing anything like it before.

By DON HUNTER
dhunter@adn.com

Published: July 14th, 2009 10:48 PM
Last Modified: July 15th, 2009 02:02 PM
(video link: Unknown substance in the Chukchi Sea)

Something big and strange is floating through the Chukchi Sea between Wainwright and Barrow.

Hunters from Wainwright first started noticing the stuff sometime probably early last week. It's thick and dark and "gooey" and is drifting for miles in the cold Arctic waters, according to Gordon Brower with the North Slope Borough's Planning and Community Services Department.

Brower and other borough officials, joined by the U.S. Coast Guard, flew out to Wainwright to investigate. The agencies found "globs" of the stuff floating miles offshore Friday and collected samples for testing.

Later, Brower said, the North Slope team in a borough helicopter spotted a long strand of the stuff and followed it for about 15 miles, shooting video from the air.

The next day the floating substance arrived offshore from Barrow, about 90 miles east of Wainwright, and borough officials went out in boats, collected more samples and sent them off for testing too.

Nobody knows for sure what the gunk is, but Petty Officer 1st Class Terry Hasenauer says the Coast Guard is sure what it is not.

"It's certainly biological," Hasenauer said. "It's definitely not an oil product of any kind. It has no characteristics of an oil, or a hazardous substance, for that matter.

"It's definitely, by the smell and the makeup of it, it's some sort of naturally occurring organic or otherwise marine organism."

Something else: No one in Barrow or Wainwright can remember seeing anything like this before, Brower said.

"That's one of the reasons we went out, because in recent history I don't think we've seen anything like this," he said. "Maybe inside lakes or in stagnant water or something, but not (in the ocean) that we could recall ...

"If it was something we'd seen before, we'd be able to say something about it. But we haven't ...which prompted concerns from the local hunters and whaling captains."

The stuff is "gooey" and looks dark against the bright white ice floating in the Arctic Ocean, Brower said.

"It's pitch black when it hits ice and it kind of discolors the ice and hangs off of it," Brower said. He saw some jellyfish tangled up in the stuff, and someone turned in what was left of a dead goose -- just bones and feathers -- to the borough's wildlife department.

"It kind of has an odor; I can't describe it," he said.

Hasenauer said he hasn't heard any reports of waterfowl or marine animals turning up.

Brower said it wouldn't necessarily surprise him if the substance turns out to be some sort of naturally occurring phenomenon, but the borough is waiting until it gets the analysis back from the samples before officials say anything more than they're not sure what it is.

"From the air it looks brownish with some sheen, but when you get close and put it up on the ice and in the bucket, it's kind of blackish stuff ... (and) has hairy strands on it."

Hasenauer said the Coast Guard's samples are being analyzed in Anchorage. Results may be back sometime next week, he said.

The two Coast Guard experts sent up to overfly the area with the borough said they saw nothing that resembled an oil slick, Hasenauer said.

"We brought back one sample of what they believe to be an algae," he said, and a big algae bloom is one possibility.

"It's textbook for us to consider algae because of all the false reports of oil spills we've had in the past. It's one of the things that typically comes up" when a report turns out not to be an oil spill after all.

But, he said, "there's all types of natural phenomena that it could be."

Meanwhile, the brownish-blackish gunk is drifting along the coast to the northeast, Brower said.

"This stuff is moving with the current," he said. "It's now on beyond Barrow and probably going north at this point. And people are still encountering it out here off Barrow."

For the most part, the mystery substance seems to have stayed away from shore.

"We did get some residents saying it was being pushed against the shoreline by ice in some areas," Brower said, "but then we get another east wind and it gets pushed back out there."


Find Don Hunter online at adn.com/contact/dhunter or call 257-4349.

Tacky and Stupid

This is a tacky and stupid headline:

"Despite Expected Arrest, Chandra Levy's Parents Still Grieving"

As if an arrest would cause the grief over their daughter's murder to stop. I'm sorry, FoxNews, but you can do better than this! Shame on you!

FoxNews

Our Mean Big Sister, Andromeda

So this morning I'm reading the news while I wait for the water to come back on at which time I will head to the kitchen to mix-up another batch of Christmas cookies to take to church tomorrow for our Eastern Christmas celebration. (How's that for a sentence that needs to be divided into at least two, if not more, sentences?)

Yes, tomorrow is Christmas! I'll take down all the decorations after we get home tomorrow afternoon. The tree has been up for a month and I will miss it's beautiful lights. But that is a post for tomorrow.

As I was reading about the Russia vs. Ukraine 'gas war' I shivered a bit and decided I really need to go put my sweatshirt back on because it truly is chilly in here this morning. The turtleneck alone is fine when I am wandering around from one room to the other, making the bed, folding clean clothes and picking up stuff scattered around the room. But sitting here drinking another cup of coffee and reading - well, 64+ degrees is just a bit too cool for comfort. My back and shoulders are cold. Be right back....

Ok, I'm back. I fed the fish while I was at it. Little Fishy in the fish pond was begging oh-so-cutely when I walked past and I realized I had not fed the poor little guy yet this morning. His water is so cold, being unheated, that he spends most of his days and nights floating around on the water side or belly up, looking for all the world like he's dead. I just leave him be now since he is always so startled and looks really scared when I come up and tap the side of the pond near where he floats to see if he is still alive. I haven't seen the algae eater in several days so I'm not sure if he's still alive or if the cold did him in. I'm hoping he's just staying cozy next to the filter motor. The other two fish, in their little tanks on the table, are fine, more active at night when it's warmer in here after a day of people sometimes turning on the electric heater for a few minutes until the electric meter starts smoking again. I'm glad these 3 fish seem to be cold-weather hardy.

All of that to get to the point of why I decided to write and opened up this page to start with! The morning news!

I was thrilled to learn this morning that the Milky Way (the galaxy in which we all live) has recently gained weight. Now we are better prepared for the big collision with our formerly bigger sister galaxy, Andromeda, yes, for the collision that is definitely coming! We may even come out the winners in the coming collision!

"Previously we thought Andromeda was dominant, and that we were the little sister of Andromeda," Reid said. "But now it's more like we're fraternal twins."

That's not necessarily good news. A bigger Milky Way means that it could be crashing violently into the neighboring Andromeda galaxy sooner than predicted (notice that there is no period at the end of that thought. I took it out because I'm going to insert some thoughts here.)

When I read those two paragraphs I laughed. First of all, my dear husband is a fraternal twin. When he and his brother were growing up they were NEVER the same size. Ralph was always several inches and many pounds heavier than Mel. They were, at times, like the twins in the movie Twins (Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito as twin brothers). Until people got to know them they just couldn't believe two boys so different in looks, size and personality could really be twins. But they were - they still are, actually. :) ) So some scientist and news reporters comparing two galaxies to 'fraternal twins' instead of 'sisters' made me laugh. Who said twins, fraternal or maternal, have to be alike? Ha!

When I read those two paragraphs, after laughing I just shook my head and thought to myself, "Why in the world does everything have to be scary, reported in such a way that it is meant to make people frightened?" Good grief! Two galaxies colliding in space is really not something anyone can do anything about after all. We can't set up a government commission to study how best to keep Andromeda at bay, or change the route of the Milky Way. We can't throw billions and gazillions of dollars at the problem in hopes that scientists will make some discovery that could possibly change the course of two galaxies traveling through space. I mean after all we are going pretty fast here. "...Reid was able to determine the speed at which the spiral-shaped Milky Way is spinning around its center.

That speed — about 568,000 miles per hour — is faster than the 492,000 mph that scientists had been using for decades. That's about a 15 percent jump in spiral speed." (Gosh! - that's faster than our taxi driver yesterday!!) And that is just the speed we are going around in circles around a big black hole after all, to say nothing of the speed at which we are hurtling through space toward our formerly bigger-than-us sister.

I enjoy reading articles like this one. First of all there is interesting information sandwiched in-between sentences written for the purpose of frightening the populace. And second, they make me laugh and brighten up my day. After all, why should I be concerned that Ukraine and Russia are fighting over the price of natural gas, gas with which I cook our food, gas which heats our flat, gas which in many ways actually keeps us alive here in Ukraine - why should I be concerned about that when, gasp! Andromeda and the Milky Way are going to collide and we'll all die in the collision when both galaxies are torn apart and a new galaxy is created "billions of years from now."?? (Notice that this ended with a period because is the end of the previously quoted sentence.)

Well, the water is back on - time to go make Christmas cookies. I think I'll make them ALL stars and frost them in a bunch of pastel colors because stars do come in a variety of colors in space, and then I'll sprinkle them with multi-colored sprinkles and think of all the planets and moons which surround all the stars in space. And then I'll put them in a container and call that container "Space - The Final Frontier."

But I promise - I will NOT shake it, drop it or otherwise cause my stars to collide with each other in there!

quotes from FoxNews article: Milky Way Galaxy Suddenly Much Bigger, Heavier (Even the headline makes me laugh! "Suddenly" ha ha ha - Put it on a diet!!!)
(This is NOT the Milky Way, but the people at Hubble Space Telescope say it looks like the Milky Way...) Spiral Galaxy NGC 3949: A Galaxy Similar to the Milky Way

This IS Andromeda - looks pretty safe to me... Andromeda Galaxy M31

The Cost of Food

Yesterday Mel and I walked down to the city center and had lunch at a favorite pub. I was shocked when I looked at the new menu prices. In the four months we were in the States, the prices for many of the dishes has doubled. One of the salads was over 60 UAH, which is roughly $11. As we did while overnighting near Heathrow, we chose the cheapest items on the menu and ended up spending around $22, 10% tip included. That amount of money would have bought us better meals a year ago, or would have even fed three of us a whole meal.

When shopping at the grocery store or market we noticed immediately that the foods we buy here the most - meat, cheese, veggies - are more expensive now to buy here in Kherson than they were to buy in Woodland Park at one of the more expensive supermarkets. To say the least, we were shocked. Prices on some items have doubled - eggs and hard sausage, as well as others.

On top of that, the dollar is worth less now than it was a year ago. Some people are asking to be paid in Euros now instead of dollars. As the dollar falls, we have less buying power here, and the prices continue to rise. At this point we are okay, but I wonder how much our rent is going to go up next time we pay?

I don't know how the average Ukrainian can afford these prices. The poorer Ukrainians could not afford to buy meat or cheese before, now many cannot afford to buy eggs as well. Dairy has also gone up at an alarming rate. We are going to see more and more hungry people, more people digging through the garbage looking for scraps to feed themselves or their pets.

We have been talking about this with different people since we got back. Today FoxNews has an article on this very issue, Food Prices Soaring Worldwide Thanks to Weather, Global Economy Changes, only they are reporting that this rise in food prices is world wide and Ukraine is only mentioned in passing. Some countries are already having food riots. People in the poorest countries are going hungry. At least here in Ukraine there have been no food riots that we know of.

I am reminded of the Book of Revelation and the four horses of the apocalypse. One of them includes death by Famine. I usually think of famine as a local issue - there is a famine in Bangladesh, or India, or some place that is not where I live. Now there is a real possibility of world wide famine.

Why does this knowledge stun me? I guess I have always thought something like that would always happen 'some place else,' not where I live, or 'sometime in the future,' not during my life time.

My eyes are more open now.

I Needed A Good Laugh Today

Following (in pink) is the beginning of an article I read this evening. I had a very good laugh inside while reading it. I am reminded of something a woman said to me once....

I am not a big meat eater. In fact, when I am eating meat I cannot think of the animal from which it came, or I get nauseated and can't eat any more of it. The first time this happened to me, that I remember, was when I was eating some really, really good "fried chicken" at my grandparents one day. My grandmother casually mentioned (or maybe it was my mother) that it was rabbit, not chicken. I almost vomited right there on my plate. All I could think of was those beautiful soft furry animals outside in their hutches - and I was EATING one of them!! Ei yi yi.

Many years later when we were in our first pastorate, one of the women in the church and I were talking about my dislike of eating a lot of meat and how much I really didn't like eggs at all (again - just the idea of what an egg IS turns my stomach...). She looked at me in disgust - she was in her 70's at the time - and said, "Next thing I know you'll be saying you can't eat carrots because every time you see one you are thinking that while it's being pulled up out of the ground it's crying out 'don't eat me, please don't eat me!'"

Okay, point taken. I still eat veggies OFTEN, every day, several kinds every day. But I also am aware that they have a kind of life and that life of any kind should not be wasted. Yes, food sometimes goes bad in my fridge or storage area. Every time it does, though, I am reminded of the starving children in some 3rd world country who are going hungry (hmmm - what about that old woman going through the trash outside? it's closer than I am comfortable with). AND I think - this plant was alive, God created it for me to eat and I have wasted God's gifts to me - the beauty of its life and it's nutrition for my body.

NO! I am NOT a New Age person! Seriously! But I do think of these things!

So, without further ado, here is the beginning of the article and the link to it. I confess - it did make me laugh.


National Geographic News
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Plants Can Recognize, Communicate With Relatives, Studies Find
James Owen
for National Geographic News

June 14, 2007

Plants have family values, too, it seems, with new research suggesting they can recognize close relatives in order to work together.

An ability to tell family from strangers is well known in animals, allowing them to cooperate and share resources, but plants may possess similar social skills, scientists believe.

Susan Dudley and Amanda File of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, report they have demonstrated for the first time that plants can recognize their kin.

This suggests that plants, though lacking cognition and memory, are capable of complex social interactions.

"Plants have this kind of hidden but complicated social life," Dudley said. (click on "National Geographic News above for the link)