(UPDATE: the TN CHICK has lost her dog in an very urban area - Zoey has been gone for over 3 days now...)
(This sign appeared at our local zoo when "Precious" - our komodo dragon - came to live)
Blogging Events
Photo Hunt…a couple of days late. “13”
lunes Linkage
Organization of the Week
Throughout the year, Mel Trotter Ministries provides shelter, food, clothing, education, Biblical teaching, computer-based learning, and work training and experience to meet people at the physical and spiritual points of need.
Your gracious donation of $28.80 will provide food and care for 15 hungry, homeless, and hurting people. Men, women, and children are counting on you to provide help and hope.
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Audio Bibles in MP3 format (the only English one available is KJV - but there are a few languages that are available for download, free)
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I have purchased WAY more of this guy's music than I intended...
Please watch this youtube video (Denez Prigent and Lisa Gerrard singing for the soundtrack from "Black Hawk Down"
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Willow Creek discovers that you reach the lost by equipping the saints!
Hawkins says, “We used to think you can’t upset a seeker. But while focusing on that we’ve really upset the Christ-centered people.” He spoke about the high levels of dissatisfaction mature believer have with churches. Drawing from the 200 churches and the 57,000 people that have taken the survey, he said that most people are leaving the church because they’re not being challenged enough.
Because it’s the mature Christians who drive evangelism in the church Hawkins says, “Our strategy to reach seekers is now about focusing on the mature believers. This is a huge shift for Willow.”
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Rice for V.P.?
It should be a profoundly offensive notion to any freedom loving person in a democratic context, that the promotion of an inexperienced new face somehow represents black achievement while the promotion of a sitting Secretary of State, former National Security Advisor, former Stanford University Provost, and chief confidant to the sitting President of the United States should be considered a nasty ploy to garner black votes! Given the comprehensive evaluation we have had of her over the past twenty years but more specifically over the past ten years, she would seem the natural selection – contra wise, Obama and Clinton would seem the nasty ploy to garner black votes.
(...)
However, injecting considerations of race and gender in the case of Condoleezza Rice is incredibly infantile, ridiculous and arbitrary. The time to discuss that with regard to her was nearly a decade ago. Condoleezza Rice is now the most qualified name being explored for the Executive – certainly more qualified then Obama and Clinton with their resume's combined. I am not asking you to vote for the ticket that she may be associated with simply because she is a black woman...contra wise, I am asking you to vote based upon the content of her character and the quality of her leadership alone as judged through her experience and until it is confirmed that she is on the ticket, to dismiss with vehemence anyone who would reduce this possibility to a mere racial and/or gender consideration. Condoleezza Rice represents all that blacks and feminist have been fighting for these many years! Lets not dismiss her simply because she is a conservative: this is the change we've been waiting for – real live personal achievement with slave blood still running through her veins, Jim Crow memories yet playing on the canvas of her mind, and still single – the requisite consequence of female strength and independence.
(HT: Reformed Blacks of America)
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"What is a 'Reformed Church'?"
What is a Reformed church anyway? Why are they called “Reformed”? What do they believe? Where did they come from? What do they do? These are the types of basic questions I hope to introduce here. What I hope I am able to communicate to you here is that Reformed churches are Christian churches—believing that the Bible is the Word of God, that there is only one God who exists eternally as a Trinity, and that Jesus Christ is both God and man. Reformed churches are also Protestant churches—rejecting the claims of the Pope to be the Head of the Church, acknowledging instead that Jesus Christ is the Head of his Church, and that he rules and governs his Church by his Word and Spirit. Finally, Reformed churches are just that, Reformed churches—believing that sinful humans are saved by grace alone, from eternity past to eternity future, and that we experience this grace of God as the Holy Spirit uses certain means that God has appointed in the Church: the preaching of the Word and celebration of the Sacraments.
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and the photo of the week...
From "Michigan in Pictures"
Photo Hunt: Twisted
PhotoHunt 
(This is a sculpture at Meijer Garden - the artist is Dale Chihuly) This is all "blown" glass - VERY AMAZING
Fit Friday (4/11/08) – peanuts (???)
I tested negative for a peanut allergy...and yet have a very clear allergic reaction. I also tested VERY positive to a number of molds. Is this why? Is this also why I sometimes have the same reaction to wheat? Less often (but it happens) to tree nuts?
Peanut allergy is nearly always an allergy to the mold aflatoxin-as the name implies, a toxin from mold. Plenty of natural substances are toxic. From the USDA Web site (http://snurl.com/36ne): "Aflatoxin is a naturally occurring mycotoxin produced by two types of mold: aspergillus flavus and aspergillus parasiticus." Aflatoxin damages the liver, in both Eastern and Western medical terms, and is a potent carcinogen (something known to cause cancer). This mold is found primarily on peanuts, corn, wheat, soy, tree nuts, oil seeds and sorghum. Aflatoxin is sometimes measurable in milk excreted by cows fed with moldy feed.
I don't know...
Wordless Wednesday
lunes linkage – 4/7/08
Organization of the Week:
Our Mission
A national 501(c)(3) human rights organization, SPR works to put an end to sexual violence against men, women
(HT: Joe Carter - The Evangelical Outpost)
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On "Obama's Abortion Extremism"
But Obama's record on abortion is extreme. He opposed the ban on partial-birth abortion -- a practice a fellow Democrat, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once called "too close to infanticide." Obama strongly criticized the Supreme Court decision upholding the partial-birth ban. In the Illinois state Senate, he opposed a bill similar to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which prevents the killing of infants mistakenly left alive by abortion. And now Obama has oddly claimed that he would not want his daughters to be "punished with a baby" because of a crisis pregnancy -- hardly a welcoming attitude toward new life. (...)
I guess, as Barbara Boxer said...
When [she] was pressed to affirm that she opposed the medical killing of children after birth, she refused to commit, saying that children deserve legal protection only "when you bring your baby home." It was unclear whether this included the car trip.
(emphasis mine)
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Photo Hunt: Glass
Fit Friday (4/4/08): emphasis on pets
Our cat, Henry, is diabetic. A few months ago he dropped half of his weight and was walking as if he had had a stroke (only not side-to-side, his back half wasn't working right). The vet called his "neuropathy" - nerve damage due to diabetes. With insulin he might improve or he might not. He did improve, but not much.
THEN...we put him on a pretty strict low-carb diet and he put his weight back on (with less fat, more muscle) and his walking is nearly normal. You would not notice his limp-i-ness unless we point it out.
(my favorite information page: Binky's.)
Cats are carnivores in the wild! God designed them to eat meat. In fact, their "perfect" diet is the exact ratios that you would find in the carcass of a mouse (3 percent carbohydrate, 40 percent protein, and 50 percent fat).
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Recent studies show that cats with diabetes can be better and even sometimes brought into with a low-carbohydrate (sometimes called "Catkins", though more properly Hodgkins) diet. ( It's hardly surprising for cats, who eat about 5% calories from carbs in nature. Veterinarians are gradually switching their recommendations to a low-carb diet as well. The Feline Diabetes Message Board discovered the benefits of this diet along with "Zone" author Dr. Barry Sears and bestselling author Sherry Sontag, back in 1999.
There are a lot of vets out there that will tell you that a high-carb dry food diet is the #1 cause of diabetes in cats. In the summer, when Henry goes in for his checkup, I will not be surprised if his diabetes is well under control, or even in remission.
Dry food is a great convenience and may be necessary in some cases when the guardian is gone long hours or cannot feed on a regular schedule. But at least 50% of the diet (preferably 100% if you want to ensure optimum health!) should be a high-protein, high-moisture, low-carb diet such as canned or homemade food. Your cat will be healthier, and while you'll spend a little more on food up front, ultimately you'll save hundreds, if not thousands, on veterinary bills!
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There are very few low-carb dry foods and some of them are very expensive.
The Eukanuba is $15.99 for 7 pounds at PetSmart (and if you order through AA.com, you can get 4 sky miles for every dollar spent. I do this on the first of the month).
ChowHound carries Innova Evo food for cats and dogs.
* EVO Cat and Kitten Food is made WITHOUT GRAINS!
* EVO Cat and Kitten Food has the HIGHEST MEAT CONTENT of any dry cat food!
* EVO Cat and Kitten Food contains 50% PROTEIN, 22% FAT, and only 7% CARBOHYDRATES, the lowest in the industry!!
* EVO Cat and Kitten Food is made with the same ingredients as you might find in a typical ''wild'' feline diet - RAW, MEATY BONES & cartilage, veggies & fruit.
Evo for cats is $36.09 on Amazon (but you have to pay $12.00 in shipping). If you have a ChowHound, you can get it there and you can see the price is comparable). It is about 8% carbs, so it is in a pretty good range...the best for a dry food.
HERE is a chart for dry cat food by nutrition.
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Canned food:
A couple of the best low carb cat foods are from...Walmart. At least carb-count wise. We've found that the most economical way to handle the cat feeding issue is to feed canned most of the time (two or three cans a day) and to let him graze on the dry in between.
HERE is Binky's chart for canned food by nutrition.
I have a list of the preferred foods that I keep in my planner (including wet and dry food, taken from Binky's lists). My preferred foods include dry food at less than 25% of the calories coming from carb and canned foods at less than 5% of the calories coming from carb.
Thurday Thirteen – Cinderella
5. The Enchanted Anklet: A Cinderella Story from India translated and adapted by Lila Mehta 6. Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale, by John Steptoe 7. Prince Cinders, by Babette Cole** 8. Sootface: an Ojibwa Cinderella Story, retold by Robert D. San Souci 9. Tam Cam: The Vietnamese Cinderella Story by The Goi** 10. Yeh-Shen, a Cinderella Tale from China, by Ai-Ling Louie 11. Jouanah: A Hmong Cinderella** 12. Domitila: A Cinderella Tale from the Mexican Tradition 13. The Way Meat Loves Salt: A Cinderella Tale from the Jewish Tradition; by Nina Jaffe (There are over 500 versions of the Cinderella story from around the world, the oldest is "Rhodopis" from Egypt, around 2,000 years ago. The oldest written Cinderella story is "Yeh-Shen" from China, around 850 AD. ** indicates which of the stories are in my collection) |
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