You like to soak up the sun, but your tastes are down to earth. Everyone thinks you're cute. Life is a winding road, and you like to take the curves in stride. Let other people compete in the rat race - you're just here to enjoy the ride.
Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.
 Puzzled: Israelis say Cruise and Holmes should just call their daughter Scram. (File photo) (Reuters) |  |
Suri, the name chosen by Hollywood couple Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes for their newborn daughter, is raising more than its share of interest in Israel.
It means "get out of here" in the local language, Hebrew.
News of the naming puzzled even those Israelis who thought they had seen it all after pop diva Madonna turned the ancient Jewish mystical tradition Kabbalah into a faith for the famous.
"I really don't know what they were thinking when they chose this name. It's a term that denotes expulsion, like 'Get out of here'," said Gideon Goldenberg, a linguistics professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
"It's pretty blunt."
Yaron London, a cultural commentator for Israel's Channel 10 television, had this rhetorical question for Suri's proud parents: "Why didn't you just go back to your ancestors' language, and call the kid 'Scram Cruise'?"
A Cruise family spokesman said last week that Suri has its origins in ancient Hebrew, as a variant on Sarah, the biblical matriarch. But that pronunciation is all but unknown in Israel.
There are exceptions.
Jerusalem journalist Surie Ackerman said her name was a formalised version of a nickname given by fellow ultra-Orthodox Jews in her native United States.
"It sounds strange to me that a non-Jewish, Scientology baby should be called Suri," Ms Ackerman said, referring to the alternative church which counts Cruise among its devotees.
"But there are plenty of strange names in the world."
And there are plenty of alternative meanings for Suri.
It's also a Nubian tribe, the word for "rose" in Persian, "sun" in Sanskrit and a term for a form of Alpaca's wool.
- Reuters
Furniture Row, a furniture company based in Denver, Colorado, is using the hood of its #78 Nextel Cup NASCAR race car this weekend to promote the National Day of Prayer coming up on Thursday, May 4.
Chairman Barney Visser and his company, Furniture Row, are the regular sponsors of the car, but decided to forgo the normal paint scheme to bring the message of prayer to millions of fans watching this weekend's NASCAR race at Talladega Speedway on national television.
Furniture Row operates 320 furniture stores in 31 states. Although the company's public relations manager said Chairman Visser prefers to shun the limelight, we thought you would like to thank him for promoting the "National Day of Prayer" on his #78 Nextel Cup NASCAR car.
Please send Furniture Row Chairman Barney Visser an email, letting him know you appreciate his company's promotion of the National Day of Prayer.
Another mother asked President Kennedy,
"Why did my son have to die in Viet Nam?"
Another mother asked President Truman,
"Why did my son have to die in Korea?
Another mother asked President F.D. Roosevelt,
"Why did my son have to die at Iwo Jima?"
Another mother asked President W. Wilson,
"Why did my son have to die on the battlefield of France?"
Yet another mother asked President Lincoln,
"Why did my son have to die at Gettysburg?"
And yet another mother asked President G. Washington,
"Why did my son have to die near Valley Forge?"
Then long, long ago, a mother asked...
"Heavenly Father, why did my Son have to die
on a cross outside of Jerusalem?"
The answers to all these are similar --
"So that others may have life and dwell in peace,
happiness and freedom."
This was emailed to me with no author
and I thought the magnitude
and the simplicity were awesome ...
IF YOU DON'T STAND BEHIND OUR TROOPS,
PLEASE, FEEL FREE...
For more information on obtaining the DVD, which also includes ultrasound and in-vitro video of unborn children as well as demonstrations of other abortion techniques, visit www.dyinglight.com. For more information on Dr. William Lile, visit http://www.prolifedoc.org.
Family Film Review: Take the Lead
Release Date: April 7, 2006
MPAA Rating: PG-13, for thematic material, language and some violence
Staring: Antonio Banderas, Alfre Woodard, Rob Brown
Genre: Drama
Recommended Age: 13+
Take the Lead, starring Antonio Banderas, is a wonderful movie that children ages 13 and up can enjoy with their parents. The film tells the story of a group of inner-city high school students who learn to ballroom dance.
Take the Lead is based upon the life of ballroom dancer Pierre Dulane. In the film Pierre (Banderas) volunteers to teach ballroom dancing to inner-city high school students in New York. He is assigned to watch the students in detention, who at first are reluctant to participate telling him that ballroom dancing is for "rich white folks." Eventually, after Pierre demonstrates the tango for them with the top student at his studio, they take an interest. When Dulane tells his students about the all city dance competition coming up the kids decide to enter. The kids combine ballroom dancing with hip hop music to create their own new and interesting style. As the film progresses, Pierre becomes a mentor to many of his students, helping them through hard times.
Although the film teaches the value of team work and perseverance through hard times, there is also some questionable content that parents should be made aware of. Foul language is used regularly, especially the word "ass." The "f" and "s" words also occur, though are very rare. There is also one instance where a derogatory term referencing female anatomy is used to call one of the characters a coward. The sexual content is kept to a minimum although the dancing, both hip hop and ballroom, is sometimes provocative, and it is implied that the mother of one of the students is a prostitute. There is a scene near the end of the film in which one of Pierre's students is threatened with a gun and beat up. There are also mentions of alcohol and drug dealing. Overall parents should seriously debate whether their children are mature enough to handle a movie that addresses these issues, although the positive messages do out weigh the negative content. Take the Lead is a wonderful and entertaining film that children 13 and up will enjoy.
► For more family movie reviews click here.
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April 13, 2006 AFA joins with Coral Ridge Ministries to offer The Da Vinci Delusion The Da Vinci Code is an attack on the very foundation of the Christian faith and it threatens to lead millions to believe that Jesus Chris was a fraud. I have just finished watching The Da Vinci Delusion, produced by my good friend, Dr. D. James Kennedy, and Coral Ridge Ministries. It is absolutely great! It is a DVD which Christians need to watch. On May 19, a blockbuster movie - The Da Vinci Code - will open in theaters. The book has sold nearly 40,000,000 copies. The book and movie make several false claims: While the book and movie claim to be based on fact, they clearly are not. Tragically many people, even Christians, will go away believing the book and movie are factual. AFA has teamed with Coral Ridge Ministries to offer The Da Vinci Delusion, a DVD which is, indeed, based on fact and which points out the errors of the "facts" presented in the The Da Vinci Code. Coral Ridge has produced an excellent DVD. The 60-minute video should be viewed by every Christian and shown in every church. It is filled with facts that are factual. The production is topnotch. The all-star lineup of participants serve as fact checkers, pointing out the errors called "facts". Those who watch this DVD will be prepared to intelligently discuss the book and movie with those who have been convinced that The Da Vinci Code is based on fact.
Sincerely,
Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and Chairman P.S. Please forward this e-mail message to your family and friends! |
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A businessman on his deathbed called his friend and said, "Bill, I want you to promise me that when I die, you will have my remains cremated."
"And what," his friend asked, "do you want me to do with your ashes?"
The businessman said, "Just put them in an envelope and mail them to the Internal Revenue Service. Write on the envelope, 'Now, you have everything.'"
Received from Frank.
For subscription and other information, go to our web page at http://www.GCFL.net, or send email to info at gcfl dot net.
A cheerful heart is good medicine... (Prov 17:22a)By Rev. Louis P. Sheldon
April 12, 2006 - Last week, the DVD version of C. S. Lewis’s “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe,” was released for sale in stores throughout the U.S. The story, if you haven’t read the book or seen the movie, is about a magical wardrobe, four precocious British children in World War II, and a kingdom called Narnia, a land in perpetual winter.
The major theme of the film is the conflict between an evil White Witch and Aslan, the Lion. Aslan dies and is resurrected from the dead to lead the children to battle against the witch and her evil demonic forces. Good overcomes evil in the end and Narnia’s perpetual winter is broken. The ice melts, flowers bloom, and Narnia becomes a spring time paradise.
In a letter written to a friend in 1958, C.S. Lewis explained Aslan in this way: “What might Christ become like, if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?”
C.S. Lewis had been an ardent atheist and a strict rationalist until he began encountering a network of Christians at Oxford University where he taught medieval and renaissance literature. After his conversion to Christ, he observed: “A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere [in reading the Bible].”
After hours upon hours discussing the reality of God and of Jesus Christ with his Christian friends, (including J.R.R. Tolkien) Lewis eventually came to the inevitable conclusion that there was a God, Jesus Christ was real, and that He had risen from the grave—just as it says in the Bible.
Once Lewis became a Christian, his writings in defense of Christianity and of the Gospel changed the lives of millions throughout the world. Lewis had the amazing ability to clearly and rationally explain why Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God and why it is reasonable to embrace him as Savior.
Writing in Mere Christianity, Lewis presented...
So it has been a while since I presented a new large scale model/sculpture. Could it be that Eric has burned out on LEGO building?
Not exactly.
The projects are just getting larger...
In April of 2000 while on a business trip I received a near-frantic email from someone with an unusual request. It seems that she represented a fellow with a company in Seattle (no, NOT Microsoft). Turns out that last September this guy was hired, and in his contract of employment it stipulated that he wanted a desk made out of LEGO.
The hiring company evidently really wanted...
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| April 6, 2006  Hallmark/ABC To Air The Ten Commandments April 9-10American Family Association asked Dr. John Oswalt, Old Testament professor at Wesley Biblical Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, to review the new Hallmark/ABC version of The Ten Commandments scheduled to air on April 9-10 on ABC. A review of Hallmark/ABC's The Ten Commandmentsby John N. OswaltResearch Professor of Old Testament Wesley Biblical Seminary Jackson, Mississippi There is a lot to like about the movie.
The unnecessary departures from the Biblical story line:
The distortions The Amalekites were raiders from the far north of the Sinai peninsula. They had no settlements south of Mt. Sinai. Their presence that far south in the peninsula was simply a sign that they saw the rag-tag crowd as "easy pickings" for a lightning aggressive attack. This is why the Bible pronounced a curse on them. They were not protecting their territory; they were slaughtering people they (wrongly) believed were helpless. It was the Levites who stood with Moses after the Golden Calf incident and they went through their own tribe picking out those who had led the false worship. The total killed (out of the huge group of people) was 3000. There was nothing like the wholesale slaughter depicted in the movie. The incident is only 3 verses long! |
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 The Ten CommandmentsOriginal movie in DVD. Starring: Charlton Heston Runtime: 219 minutes Order your copy today from the American Family Superstore! |
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The people who brought you Smokey the Bear urge citizen action to forestall climate change.
April 4, 2006
Two new Public Service Announcements released by the Ad Council say global warming could produce irreversible changes as soon as 30 years from now, and they urge individual citizens to take action.
The ads correctly summarize the bulk of scientific opinion, which holds that the earth will warm by 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) sometime in the next 20 to 54 years, and that this warming will be accompanied by severe weather events. It's not so clear what the ad's viewers can do about that.
On March 23, 2006, the Ad Council and Environmental Defense announced the start of a new public service campaign to raise awareness of global warming and educate individuals on what they can do to help.
Environmental Defense is a non-profit environmental advocacy group that has focused on the issue of global warming for several years. The Ad Council is a non-profit public service group that helps coordinate advocacy campaigns with various sponsors. Past campaigns have targeted such things as drunk driving and forest fires with the "Friends Don't let Friends Drive Drunk" and "Smokey the Bear" ads.
Is the Globe Warming?
The central message for the campaign, as explained on the Ad Council's website, is that " The most respected scientific organizations have stated unequivocally that global warming is happening, and people are causing it by burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests." That is correct.
Indeed, that conclusion is supported both by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the top science advisers of 11 leading industrial nations, including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
The IPCC is a UN organization which connects experts from around the world to study climate change, and includes the work of hundreds of contributors for its reports. Their most recent report, released in 2001, stated that the earth has warmed 0.6 degrees Celsius (1.1 degrees Fahrenheit) during the 20th century and that there was "new and stronger evidence" that human activity was the cause.
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences is a society of scholars chartered by Congress in 1863 to advise the government. In 2001 the NAS, in a report requested by the Bush White House, said :
National Academy of Sciences, 2001: Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise.
In June 2005, the science academies of 11 leading industrial nations (including the NAS) issued a joint statement urging prompt action on climate change:
Joint Statement, 2005: There is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring ... It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities.
Together, the two ads say that within 30 years the planet could see irreversible changes bringing severe weather events including heat waves, droughts and hurricanes. They also urge viewers to visit a website to learn what to do.
“Consequences are only 30 years away.”
The ad "Train" states, "Some say that irreversible consequences are only 30 years away." That's a fair characterization; mainstream scientific opinion holds that big changes could happen that soon.
| Ad Council ad "Train" (On Screen: Camera cuts between images of trees, grass and the outdoors) ( On Screen: A speeding train ) |
All of the studies cited by the ad's sponsors warn of irreversible consequences based on a prediction that temperatures will rise an additional 1.3 Celsius (2.3 degress Fahrenheit). The IPCC report predicts that will happen sometime between 2026 and 2060, depending.
IPCC Report, 2001: Results from coupled ocean-atmosphere climate models driven by a variety of GHG (greenhouse gas) emission scenarios indicate that the Earth will have warmed by 2 degrees Celsius relative to the 'pre-industrial' era (and by 1.3 degrees Celsius relative to the present) sometime between 2026 and 2060 . Much of this range is caused by uncertainties in future GHG emissions. To the extent that the global community continues to follow a "business-as-usual" path with a heavy reliance on fossil fuels and does not seek to limit GHG emissions, the climate will pass the 2 degree Celsius threshold sooner rather than later.
That's not a unanimous conclusion, however. The IPCC report notes reservations of some experts who think the science is not definitive enough to say temperatures will rise that quickly. One such dissenter is J. Patrick Michaels, a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists as well a contributing author of the IPCC report. He also maintains the World Climate Report blog, and is a fellow at the free-market, libertarian Cato Institute.
"Massive Heat Waves . . . Severe Drought . . . Devastating Hurricanes"
The "Tick" ad projects the message that today's children will grow up to be confronted by "massive heat waves," "severe drought" and "devastating hurricanes" as a result of man-made global warming.
| Ad Council Ad: "Tick" (Camera Cuts to Different Children to say each word with the "ticking" sound of a clock in the background.) |
To document these threats the Ad Council provides several peer-reviewed papers from science journals. The IPCC report stated:
IPCC Report: Some extreme events are projected to increase in frequency and/or severity during the 21st century due to changes in the mean and/or variability of climate, so it can be expected that the severity of their impacts will also increase in concert with global warming.
However, the IPCC consensus also noted some degree of uncertainty:
IPCC Report: The potential for large scale and possibly irreversible impacts poses risks that have yet to be reliably quantified.
One dissenter from the consensus view, Roger Pielke Jr., says perceptions regarding hurricanes in particular are skewed by recent major storms, and adds:
Pielke : Claims of linkage between global warming and hurricane impacts are premature . . . (and) any future changes in hurricane intensities will likely be small in the context of observed variability.
Pielke directs the University of Colorado's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research and maintains the Prometheus science policy web log.
"There’s still time,” "Our Future is Up to You."
Both television ads follow up with calls to action. The campaign's website has a section where individuals can calculate the amount of carbon dioxide they produce and see tips on "cutting the carbs," such as using energy-efficient lightbulbs and programmable thermostats, planting trees, washing clothes in cold water, driving less aggressively and less often, keeping tires properly inflated and turning off car air conditioners and "cracking the window" instead.
It's not clear what this would accomplish, however, even if a majority of Americans began following such advice. Many scientists say far more drastic reductions in emissions are needed. A Dutch report cited by sponsors says, for example, "Industrialized countries will need to reduce their emissions by 15-30% below 1990 levels in 2020."
Dissenters argue that drastic changes are not worth the effort. Michaels summarizes this point of view in a recent web post:
Michaels : Atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions are going to continue to grow until major technological advancements take place—advancements that are, at the very least, decades away. So whether or not the climate changes we are observing now are reversible is a non-issue. There is nothing substantive that can be done about it anyway.
However, the more widely held scientific opinion is that massive change is needed soon. The IPCC summary for policymakers urged nations to adopt a wide "portfolio" of painful and politically controversial actions, including taxes and regulations:
IPCC: The portfolio may include -according to national circumstances-emissions/carbon/energy taxes, tradeable or non-tradeable permits, land-use policies, provision and/or removal of subsides, deposit/refund systems, technology or performance standards, energy mix requirements, product bans, voluntary agreements, government spending and investment, and support for research and development.
--by Justin Bank and Brooks Jackson
den Elzen, M & M Meinshausen. "Multi-gas emission pathways for meeting the EU 2°C climate target," Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change. Cambridge University Press. 2005.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report, Cambridge University Press. 2001.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report: Summary for Policy Makers.
Joint Statement of Science Academies: Global Response to Climate Change, 2005
Michaels, Patrick J. "Non-Linear Climate Change," World Climate Report. 9 Aug 2004.
Michaels, Patrick J. "Observations, Not Models," World Climate Report. 14 April 2004.
Michaels, Patrick J. "Hot Tip: Post Misses Point," World Climate Report. 31 Jan 2006.
National Acadamies of Science. "Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions," The National Academies Press. 2001.
Pielke, Jr., R. A., C. Landsea, M. Mayfield, J. Laver and R. Pasch. "Hurricanes and Global Warming," Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Nov 2005.By Rebecca Grace
April 4, 2006
(AgapePress) - With today's DVD release of the blockbuster film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which grossed over $600 million at the box office, writer C.S. Lewis is thrust back into the limelight piquing an interest among audiences worldwide.
Just who is the mastermind behind the magical wardrobe and beneath the snow covered mountains of Narnia? Two notable film projects, one old and one new, attempt to answer this question and many others.
C.S. Lewis: Beyond Narnia
The literary genius is brought back to life in the one-hour docudrama titled C.S. Lewis: Beyond Narnia (2006), which released on DVD March 28. It originally aired on the Hallmark Channel in December 2005 and has since been packaged with bonus features including Narnia facts, trivia and a recipe for Turkish Delight.
Written and directed by Norman Stone, Beyond Narnia gives viewers a glimpse into the life of Lewis as they join him on his journey from childhood to adulthood.
Did Lewis really own a wardrobe? Was the author's home a safe haven for endangered children escaping war-torn London during World War II? Where did Lewis get the idea to write about a world inhabited by talking creatures? Did Lewis intentionally include biblical symbolism in the Narnian chronicles? Are his personal experiences reflected in his writings?
These are some of the many inquiries addressed in Beyond Narnia as Lewis, played by Anton Rodgers, narrates...(Story continues...)
