Tuesday, March 17, 2009

TODAY IS WEDNESDAY - MARCH 18, 2009

THE MORNING SHOW
with
JIM & KAREN
on
Spirit FM

LIFE CHANGING WORD

LOVE DARE # 28.

Love makes sacrifices

He laid down His life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers. 1 John 3:16

Life can be hard. But what we usually mean is that OUR life can be hard. We’re the first to feel it when WE’RE the ones being mistreated or inconvenienced. We are quick to sulk when we’re the ones who feel deprived or unappreciated. When life is difficult for us, we notice.

But too often the only way we notice that life is hard for our mate is when they start complaining about it. Then instead of genuinely caring or rushing in to help, we might think that just have a bad attitude. The pain and pressure they are under doesn’t register with us the way it does when it is OUR pain and pressure.

This doesn’t happen when love is at work. Love doesn’t have to be jarred awake by your mate’s obvious signs of distress. Love makes sacrifices. It keeps you so tuned in to what your spousse needs that you often respond without being asked.

Even when your mate’s stress comes out in words of personal accusation, love shows compassion rather than becoming defensive. Love inspires you to say “no” to what you want, in order to say “yes” to what your spouse needs.

TODAY’S DARE: What is one of the greatest needs in your spouse’s life right now? Is there a need you could lift from their shoulderse today by a daring act of sacrifice on your part? Whether the need is big or small, purpose to do what you can to meet the need.


PHONER TOPIC

DESCRIBE YOUR REALTIONSHIP WITH GOD IN ONE WORD and you can’t use the words awesome or amazing.



TODAY IS…..

Today is Awkward Moments Day, a time to celebrate the humor of life's uncomfortable situations

Today is Forgive Mom & Dad Day, a day to let your parents down off the wedding cake into a world of mere humans

Schick began selling the first electric razor on this date in 1931. Before that, men had to scrape off their beards with blades, and go into work every morning with toilet paper stuck to their faces.

On this day in 1931 Schick introduced the first electric shaver. And, ironically, on the same day a New Jersey man dropped his new electric shaver into a sink full of water and accidentally invented the home permanent.

1961: Poppin’ Fresh, the Pillsbury Doughboy was born. We know about the Doughboy's Grandmommer and Grandpopper and his baby brother, Bun Bun, and Flapjack the Dog and Biscuit the Cat. But Pillsbury has been very secretive about Poppin' Fresh's parents. And then there is the whole controversy over whether or not Poppy is Pop N Fresh’s girlfriend or his sister. It really all is quite disturning actually.


2005: Doctors removed the feeding tube keeping Terri Schiavo alive after an wide-ranging fight over the brain-damaged Florida woman's care that involved Congressional leaders. She died 13 days later.


In The News…..

You what AIG stands for? Adventures in greed.

Pay Loopholes
Banking firms are looking for new ways to get around the new federal pay caps. Instead of million dollar bonuses Wall Street brokers and traders are expected to get something much more valuable, like a free parking space in Manhattan for a whole month.

Downsized Homes
The economic downturn has more Americans shifting to smaller homes. For example, Bernie Madoff just traded a 3,500 square foot penthouse for a 9 x 10 windowless studio in lower Manhattan. But no worries…it is still a “gated community”.
There’s another tape from Osama bin Laden. In it he attacks Arab leaders, he calls for renewed jihad, and he gives his NCAA picks.


MICHELLE OBAMA INSTRUCTS STAFF TO TURN THE WHITE HOUSE FOUNTAIN GREEN FOR ST. PATRICK’S DAY

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House is going green for St. Patrick's Day.
The water in the fountains on the north and south lawns of the White House has been dyed green to mark the national holiday of Ireland.

First Lady Michelle Obama came up with the idea for the festive touch, said spokeswoman Katie McCormick Lelyveld. She was inspired by the St. Patrick's Day celebrations in her hometown of Chicago, where the city marks the holiday by dyeing the river green.

"It's a little piece of home for our new home," said Lelyveld, who is also from Chicago.

Lelyveld said it's the first time the water in the White House fountains has been dyed. The green hue will stay until the dye runs outs.

President Barack Obama marks St. Patrick's Day with separate meetings in Washington with Irish leaders and he'll also attend St. Patrick's Day events in the White House and on Capitol Hill.


AMERICAN IDOL PLANS ON LAUNCHING TRADING CARDS OF CONTESTANTS

LOS ANGELES – "American Idol" fans will soon be able to trade Carrie Underwoods for Danny Gokeys.

"Idol" production company FremantleMedia and trading card publisher Upper Deck are launching a new line of trading cards featuring images of past and current contestants as well as the judges and host of the Fox singing competition. The 138-card line is set to debut April 21.

"The 'American Idol' brand has always been really strong in the interactive space," said Nora Wong, FremantleMedia senior manager of consumer products. "With the trading cards, it's an old school way of interacting with the fans. It's another form of expression for the fans to demonstrate their connection with the show and collect their favorites."

Six special cards autographed by past "Idols" will be randomly slipped into the five-card packs. Regular cards will feature rejected hopefuls such as William Hung and Nick Mitchell, past winners like Ruben Studdard and David Cook, and popular finalists including Adam Lambert and Jennifer Hudson.

What about long-gone first season co-host Brian Dunkleman?

"That remains to be seen," said Wong.



CHAOS CAUSED BY PENNIES…A GOOD IDEA GONE HORRIBLY WRONG!

TALLAHASSEE -- The plan was simple: Pile more than 2.6 million pennies on the steps of the Capitol for a rally by parents, teachers and other educators.

Only that many pennies -- one to represent every student in the state of Florida -- weighs some 15,000 pounds.

And under those Capitol steps? A parking garage used by state lawmakers, Cabinet members and their staff.

''We didn't want to chance it,'' said Cathy Schroeder, spokeswoman for the Department of Management Services, which handles requests for rallies and demonstrations at the Capitol, but said no to the penny plan.

Still, the pennies are coming. In trucks and buses, in plastic bags and jars, some in rolls, others loose with traces of lint and household goo.

Hundreds of thousands have arrived already. In an undisclosed location near the Capitol. More than 300,000 were delivered Monday by Chuck McNaughton, who sells hay in Brevard County.

The Florida Education Association organized the penny drive as a way to show support for a proposal by state Rep. Dwight Bullard, D-Miami, that calls for a three-year, 1-cent raise in the state sales tax to fund education.

Brinks was hired to count and transport the $26,000 in coins before their eventual donation to the Children's Home Society of Florida. Until then, only a handful of people know where they are.



TOP TEN REASONS TO GO TO CHURCH

1. It’s a way to get a healthy glow without makeup.
2. Elvis started out in a church choir … so can you.
3. Goodness and mercy will follow you all the rest of your life–which are better than the IRS or FBI.
4. In this economy, it might be good to be hooked up with Someone who can turn water into wine.
5. You can walk down an aisle and approach an altar without having to gain a mother-in-law.
6. The Biblical admonition to “greet one another with a holy kiss” boosts your social life.
7. Hard Times? Kids getting on your nerves? Free coffee and child care at church!
8. The sound of money dropping is the offering, not your stocks.
9. Robes, candles, music…and it’s less expensive than a spa.
10. With April 15 coming, remember, Man does not live by Turbotax alone.

Bill Shuler is the pastor of the Capital Life Church in Arlington, Virginia.



POWER LINES MESS WITH ANIMAL MAGNETISM

Cows face different direction because of power lines. Without power lines they will always face the north. Yes….another stupid research study to tell us this!

Researchers, who reported last year that most cows and deer tend to orient themselves in a north-south alignment, have now found that power lines can disorient the animals.

When the power lines run east-west, that's the way grazing cattle tend to line up, researchers led by Hynek Burda and Sabine Begall of the faculty of biology at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

They also found that cows and deer grazing under northeast-southwest or northwest-southeast power lines faced in random directions.

The research team studied cows and deer using satellite and aerial images.

In their report last August, Burda and colleagues suggested the north-south orientation was in response to the Earth's magnetic field.

The new study adds weight to the animals responding to magnetic effects, because power lines also produce a magnetic field. And the effect was most noticeable close to the power lines, declining as the magnetic field of the electric lines was reduced by distance.

Wind and weather can also affect which ways cows choose to face, but without such factors about two-thirds of them tended to align north-south when away from power lines.

The Earth's magnetic field is thought to be a factor in how birds navigate, and other animals also are believed to respond to it.



NEW AIRLESS VEHICLE TIRE COMING SOON CALLED THE “TWEEL”!

Michelin is reinventing the wheel and it could one day revolutionize the way we drive.

The Tweel, whose name comes from a combination of the words tire and wheel, is an airless tire that features a conventional tire tread connected to a central wheel connected to flexible spokes.

Taking the air out of the wheel eliminates flats, blowouts and checking your car's tire pressure.

"It's not an evolutionary advancement of the pneumatic tire, it's a revolution," said Michelin engineer Bart Thompson. "It's something completely different."

The main roadblock to using the Tweel for everyday driving is the faster you go, the noisier they get. Uses that involve heavy loads and high speeds are still a challenge the company is working to solve, Thompson said.

Tweels for passenger vehicles won't be in stores for a decade, but the public got its first glimpse this past January when a prototype lunar module using the Tweel participated in the inaugural parade.

While engineers are still working out ways to use the new tire in conventional driving situations, the tire already has applications in the construction industry. It also is being used in mobility systems for the disabled and in the Segway.

The company is also exploring military applications. In testing, the Tweel survived an explosion from a simulated roadside explosive.

It's also being engineered for an eventual out-of-this world trip.

"We are engineering the Michelin lunar wheel to work with manned vehicles and with unmanned robotic vehicles," Thompson said.

The Tweel, which unlike conventional tires can survive the extreme temperatures of space, will be part of NASA missions to the moon or Mars within the next three to five years, he said.



IT’S LENT SO IT IS TIME TO DECIDE: FISH STICKS OR…FISH FILETS?

In the beginning, there was the fish stick. Made of minced fish -- we never knew exactly what fish, just that it was something that formerly bore fins -- and wrapped in a crispy coating that combined the crunch of cornflakes with the grainy texture of cornmeal. It was a staple freezer food for decades and many a suburban kid of the 1960s, '70s and '80s.

Invented in Great Britain in the 1950s as a way to make the herring catch a bit more palatable to the folks at home, fish sticks quickly jumped the pond and entered our freezers.

The proportion of breading to actual fish in most fish sticks is pretty appalling, but many a harried parent has used them to fulfill Lenten fish Fridays. With a half-sheet pan and a hot oven, you can have enough cooked in 15 minutes to feed a fair-sized crowd.

Whether through evolving tastes or the American urge to make everything just a little bit larger, various other battered or breaded frozen fish chunks have appeared in grocery freezers. Most call themselves "fish fillets," although their resemblance to what a restaurant would call a fillet is very limited unless some new species of triangular fish has been discovered. They do contain far more meat than fish sticks, and there's a fairly wide variety of coatings wrapped around them. Some manufacturers have even gone so far as to specify which fish is being offered, from flounder to catfish.

In this taste comparison, we picked seven frozen fish fillet products, two each from the major players in the industry and three from smaller (but still widely available) makers. Each entry was rated by a panel of five testers on taste, appearance, texture and accuracy of cooking instructions. Each tester could award a maximum of 20 points per entry, for a possible perfect score of 100.

Mrs. Paul's Crunchy Fish Fillets: (serving size 2 fillets) 280 calories, 14 grams fat, 40 mg cholesterol, 510 mg sodium, 25 grams carbs

The only real knock on these was the appearance. Out of the oven, they suffered from blotchy browning and looked somewhat unappetizing. However, the coating was nicely crispy with very little greasiness, and the fish was firm without being chewy. It lacked any real defining flavor, but that's more a hallmark of the category than an individual failing. Final score: 84.

Fisher Boy Golden Crunchy Tenders: (serving size 3 tenders) 230 calories, 11 grams fat, 30 mg cholesterol, 450 mg sodium, 22 grams carbs
elf, with a watery, flimsy texture. The coating was the crunchiest of the test, possibly even too crunchy for very young diners. There was a bit of a greasy aftertaste, but it wasn't overpowering or unpleasant. Final score: 81.

Gorton's Crunchy Golden Fish Fillets: (serving size 2 fillets) 240 calories, 12 grams fat, 30 mg cholesterol, 500 mg sodium, 23 grams carbs

The Gorton's fisherman probably should have thrown this one back. The coating was heavy and greasy, and the fish was limp and flavorless. One tester stated that they tasted very salty, although that wasn't echoed by the others. The appearance was quite good, with even browning and very few burned spots. Final score: 73.

Morning Fresh Farms Crunchy Fish Fillets (serving size 2 fillets) 290 calories, 14 grams fat, 40 mg cholesterol, 600 mg sodium, 29 grams carbs.

Our tasting panel is normally a fairly well-mannered group, but the comments on this product vacillated between "school cafeteria food" and "prison food." The coating was thin and gummy, without any real flavor, and the fish had the texture of wet bread. Final score: 32.

The last three entries go beyond the norm either in coatings or type of fish used. They can be pricier than others.

Gorton's Potato Crunch Fish Fillets: (serving size 2 fillets) 240 calories, 14 grams fat, 25 mg cholesterol, 790 mg sodium, 20 grams carbs.

This one made two of the testers decide they wanted to immediately begin rolling random foods in potato chips to see if that improved their taste, too. The coating was the real star here, with the crunch of a good potato chip and just the right hit of saltiness. The fish was of middling quality, but it's safe to say this would be the most kid-pleasing of any of the items tested. Final score: 91.

Mrs. Paul's Lightly Breaded Flounder Fillets: (serving size: 1 fillet) 160 calories, 7 grams fat, 25 mg cholesterol, 200 mg sodium, 12 grams carbs

At 3 fillets per package for the same price as a box of 6 to 8 standard fillets, a greater difference in quality and flavor was a fair expectation here. While they were perfectly adequate, there wasn't much to distinguish them from fillets made from more humble (or at least less prominently identified) fish. The coating was a bit too crispy and tended to flake off the fish, which was nicely firm. One tester noted that these, with their square shape, would make great fish sandwiches. Final score: 88.

Pubhouse Battered Fish: (serving size: about 2 pieces) 140 calories, 5 grams fat, 30 mg cholesterol, 370 mg sodium, 12 grams carbs

On a per-ounce cost, this was easily the most expensive item in the test, but the added expense paid off. The fish, firm and fresh-tasting, is coated with a beer batter that crisps up very well in the oven. If you've got a deep-fryer, these would work even better and you could pull off proper fish and chips. Final score: 96.

The Pubhouse fillets really stood in a class by themselves, but they don't make the cut as the best buy for this test. At a price equivalent to the standard-coating fillets, the Gorton's Potato Crunch fillets are an easy pick for best buy, closely followed by the Fisher Boy Crunchy Tenders.



YAHOO LAUNCHES NEW FRIEND FINDING SITE: FRIENDS ON FIRE

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Yahoo has released a Facebook application called Friends on Fire
Like Google Latitude, service lets people share their location with each other
Friends on Fire doesn't work on cell phones; Yahoo is working on a mobile version
Users can set what level of detail they want to share, from exact location to non

Taking a different approach to Google's Latitude software, Yahoo has released a Facebook application called Friends on Fire that lets people share their location with each other.

Google Latitude is an island unto itself, using Google's own technology for cell phone-based location detection and for managing who gets access to your location.

Friends on Fire, though, stitches together a variety of services: Yahoo's Fire Eagle, a service that can store and share your location with authorized applications, and Facebook, which handles the issue of identifying who your friends are and granting them permission to see your location.

The service is intriguing, though as with any service that has to tiptoe carefully around a lot of privacy landmines, it can be somewhat burdensome to set up. It's great that Yahoo is making something real out of its Fire Eagle service, which previously was more about plumbing than a faucet.

Fire Eagle is an intermediary. It relies on other services to tell it where you are and on other services to do something useful with that location data; only services you specifically authorize may do anything at all with Fire Eagle.

"There are services that are more immediate than Fire Eagle, but as we get more apps, the value of updating once and having it shared across all your services is more important," said Fire Eagle leader Tom Coates in an interview just before he headed to the SXSW conference to announce the new technology

At the same time Yahoo is releasing Friends on Fire to consume Fire Eagle location data, it's also releasing a Firefox plug-in to update Fire Eagle with your location through the browser.

The plug-in, which uses Firefox's Geode plug-in to actually determine your location based on nearby wireless networks and other data, adds a toolbar button that lets you tell Fire Eagle where you are. You have to specifically enable Fire Eagle to accept data from the plug-in, just as you have to authorize Fire Eagle to share data with Friends on Fire.



“HONEY THE CROPS ARE TEXTING US AGAIN!”

May I have your attention, please? This is your pachysandra calling. I'm thirsty.
As if we're not getting enough electronic stimulation already, a new device enables plants to send a text message when they need a drink.

A sensor developed by Israeli scientists sends text messages to farmers when crops need water, or to homeowners when the Ficus is thirsty. It is currently being prepped for international commercial markets.

Israel Agricultural Ministry plant physiologist Dr. Eran Raveh and his earth-scientist partner Dr. Arie Nadler spent seven years perfecting the hammer-shaped sensor that gauges moisture levels in plants and trees and sends real-time alerts to mobile phones or computers when water levels are low.

"The idea behind creating the sensor was to cut irrigation costs by up to 50 percent," Raveh told Fox News.



TIMES ARE TOUGH…IF YOU WANT TO FILE A LAWSUIT THE COURTHOUSE SAYS YOU’LL HAVE TO BRING IN YOUR OWN PAPER TO PRINT IT ON

MOUNT GILEAD, Ohio (AP) -- An Ohio city court says it will only accept new case filings from people who bring their own paper.

Judge Lee McClelland of Morrow County Municipal Court in north-central Ohio says the court has just enough paper to handle hearing notices and other documents for pending cases.

McClelland says the court will stop accepting case filings Monday because it cannot afford to reorder more paper. He told The Columbus Dispatch that the county still hasn't paid the bill for basic supplies the court ordered in November.
McClelland says several county agencies have volunteered to provide paper to handle their own filings.

The Morrow County prosecutor declined to comment on the new filing rules.

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