About 24 percent of alcoholics die in accidents, falls, fires, and suicides.
***
Results of a survey show that 76 percent of women make their bed every day, compared to 46 percent of men.
???
Microwave
Because microwave ovens cook so fast, microbes can survive on the surface of the food. To counteract this problem, cover the cooking dish with another dish of glass or ceramic, not plastic. The steam that accumulates will heat the surface, thus killing any surviving microscopic critters.
***
Neptune
The coldest place in the solar system is the surface of Neptune's largest moon Triton, which has a temperature of -391 degrees Fahrenheit, only 69 degrees Fahrenheit above absolute zero.
***
Survival
Even if the stomach, the spleen, 75 percent of the liver, 80 percent of the intestines, one kidney, one lung, and virtually every organ from the pelvic and groin area are removed, the human body can still survive.
Recently, while I was on a shopping trip in a department store in Chapel Hill*, I heard a UNC student talking to her date on the down escalator. She said, "Hey Bubba, what do they do when the basement gets full of steps?"
There is no way that chemical reactions and electrical impulses among the brain's cells can explain a sense of right and wrong, the beauty of a sunset, or the rational and moral choices we continually make. No material of any kind, either in the brain or outside of it, has any qualities to explain our ability to understand ideas such as truth, justice, holiness, mercy, and grace. These concepts are totally nonphysical. They do not originate within the brain, nor are they a conditioned response to anything anywhere in the entire physical universe.
Indeed, the brain does not think at all. If thoughts originated in the brain, we would be prisoners of our brains, wondering what our brain would think of next, and compelled to do whatever the brain decided. On the contrary, every person is convinced that he or she makes rational choices by weighing alternatives, not because the brain gets an impulse to make the body act in a certain way. While we are prone to react impulsively to the stimuli of physical temptations that breed lust, we are not forced to do so. The moral struggles we all experience to resist temptation are proof that we are not stimulus-response mechanisms ruled by impulses but that we do make genuine choices, though our choices are not always rational or morally right.
"It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord." -- President Abraham Lincoln
You have the highest of human trusts committed to your care. Providence has showered on this favored land blessings without number, and has chosen you as the guardians of freedom, to preserve it for the benefit of the human race. May He who holds in His hands the destinies of nations, make you worthy of the favors He has bestowed ... -- President Andrew Jackson*
Because an increasing number of people are having heart attacks while gambling, the big, high-class casinos are now equipped with sophisticated defibrillators. They are computer-controlled to deliver the exact electric shock needed to revive a heart attack victim. That is, if you're at a big, high-class casino.
At the cheaper casinos downtown, they just drag you across the carpet and touch your finger to the doorknob.
Three former U.S. presidents have died on July 4th. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826. President James Monroe died on July 4, 1831.
It's a bittersweet day in the ancient Near East thousands of years ago: The thrill of being home again after years of exile is tempered by the humiliation of still being vassals of Persia. A tattered band of Hebrews gathers for several days of prayer, worship, and teaching.
Nehemiah leads the former exiles in a time of national confession and repentance. Then they pledge themselves in a binding agreement to live for God and obey His commandments. Nehemiah draws up a new governing charter for Israel, drafted in accordance with God's laws.
It would be a pattern for generations to come. Thousands of years later, in 1620, the Pilgrims draft yet another governing charter-the Mayflower Compact. They open their Bibles and read the account of Nehemiah. In imitation of the covenant pattern described there, they draw up their own set of mutual obligations.
The Mayflower Pilgrims saw themselves as the New Israelites building a New Jerusalem in the American wilderness. So the Old Testament pattern of government by charter seemed only fitting.
The tradition started by Nehemiah continued throughout the settlement of the New World. Every Puritan colony drew up its own constitutional charter following the pattern of the Mayflower Compact.
It began in 1639, when the great Puritan evangelist Thomas Hooker directed the drafting of Connecticut's constitution. The Reverend Hooker required that each article in the constitution be justified by references to Scripture.
This document became the blueprint for the constitution of every other colony in the New World. When it was time to construct a national constitution, the drafters imitated the pattern already set in the colonies.
So we can trace a straight line from Nehemiah, dedicating himself and the people to God in ancient Israel, to the founding of our own nation and form of government.
It's good to remind ourselves that the constitutional freedoms we enjoy did not come out of nowhere. They did not come from the ancient Greeks, who contributed in many other ways to our Western heritage. Nor did they derive from secular philosophies, though these, too, have contributed to our heritage.
No, America's most fundamental ideas about law and freedom stem from the biblical idea of a covenant, an agreement freely entered into between God and His people, outlining their mutual duties and privileges.
The great statesman Daniel Webster, on the 200th anniversary of the Pilgrims' landing, noted that the American Founders sought to base all our institutions, civil and political, on the truths of the Christian religion.
History textbooks often ignore the biblical roots of the American system of government. Under the banner of so-called "separation of church and state," our school books are silent about the religious influences that shaped our nation's history-to the point where many Christians do not even realize the enormous impact our faith has had on the American heritage.
Let us commit ourselves to educating ourselves and our children on the impact the Christian faith has had on America's constitutional form of government. And then let's recommit ourselves to the practice of confession and prayer for our nation. For there's truly no greater hope in times like these.
Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love, and in endurance. --Titus 2:2
Worthy of respect! What a goal for our lives whether we are men or women! Don't you want your life to reflect the character of God because our faith expresses itself in a life of self-control. This work of the Spirit in our lives happens only as we dedicate ourselves to being what He is at work trying to accomplish in us.
Labor Day is made for picnics and cookouts. There's nothing better than gathering family, friends and food in nice weather.
Labor Day might be the last time of the summer season that you'll get the chance to fire up the grill. Betty Crocker has recipes, party ideas and grilling tips to make sure it's a success.
I lift up my eyes to the hills -- where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
--Psalm 121:1-2
In a world of startling beauty and a universe of dazzling diversity, our hearts are to be drawn back to the One who made it and now sustains it. He knows us and will help us if we will believe what He has tried so many ways to say: "I love you as my child and I care what happens to you and those you love."