O My!

O MY!

I have been gone for a while. I didnt forget about my blog, life got a little busy.

I study the Bible with Jehovah's Witnesses and I LOVE IT!!!
I recently became an unbaptized publisher.
I am happy!!

Look at how Michael is studying Stevie. Amazing…

Greatness studying greatness! You must learn!

2011 District Convention: Let God's Kingdom Come!

Sounds interesting huh? I cannot wait for the District Convention! It will be local this year so I can just take the bus. *happy dance*

Creme of Nature

As of February, i have incorporated Creme of Nature's Detangling Shampoo into my regimen. I have been itching to try this because I've heard many positive reviews. I was randomly at the Kroger grocery and saw that the shampoo was on sale for $2.99. I HAD to get it. After using my creamy aloe, I applied the Sunflower & Coconut shampoo and WOW. I was very impressed! The shampoos have a new fragrance which I is lovely. This shampoo left my hair soft and manageable. My hair has never felt so good. Now I am not one that believes in "bad" ingredients, (I will discuss this in depth later), but here are the ingredients

Water - Aqua , Sodium Laureth Sulfate , Cocamidopropyl Betaine , Glycol Stearate , Polyquaternium-10 , Cocamide DEA , Amodimethicone , Polysorbate 20 , Polyquaternium-7 , Isostearyl Ethylimidazoliniumethosulfate , Citric Acid , Tetrasodium EDTA , Coconut Oil - Cocos Nucifera - Certified Organic , Sunflower Seed Oil - Helianthus Annuus - Certified Organic , Peppermint Leaf Extract - Mentha Piperita , Basil Extract - Ocimum Basilicum , Polygala Senega Root Extract ,Watercress Extract - Nasturtium Officinale , Sage Leaf Extract - Salvia Officinalis , Thyme Extract - Thymus Vulgaris , Rosemary Leaf Extract - Rosmarinus Officinalis , Grapefruit Seed Extract - Citrus Grandis , Glycerin , Fragrance - Parfum , Benzyl Benzoate , Coumarin , Hydroxycitronellal , Limonene , Linalool , Methylparaben , Propylparaben , Methylchloroisothiazolinone , Methylisothiazolinone , Red 4, Yellow 5 , Red 33, Blue 1 

To be continued

Has Evil Won?

THE idea of a cosmic struggle between the forces of good and evil has prompted endless speculation by writers and philosophers throughout history. There is a book, however, that contains the accurate history of the battle between God and the Devil. That book is the Bible. It sheds light on the issues involved in this conflict and provides the means of determining who has really won.

Soon after the creation of the first man and woman, an unseen spirit creature, Satan the Devil, challenged God's rulership. How? By subtly suggesting that God withheld good things from his creation and that humans would fare better independent of him.—Genesis 3:1-5; Revelation 12:9.

Later, in the days of the patriarch Job, Satan raised another issue. Seeking to break Job's integrity to God, Satan said: "Skin in behalf of skin, and everything that a man has he will give in behalf of his soul." (Job 2:4) What a sweeping claim that was! By using the general term "a man" instead of the name Job, Satan brought into the arena of doubt the integrity of every human. He, in effect, asserted: 'A man will do anything to save his life. Give me a chance, and I can turn anyone away from God.'

The victory in the battle between God and the Devil is determined by the answering of two questions: Is man successfully able to rule himself? Has the Devil managed to turn everyone away from the true God?

Can Humans Successfully Rule Themselves?

For thousands of years, humans have experimented with various types of rulership. Different forms of government, such as monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, autocracy, Fascism, and Communism, have been tried in the course of history. Does not the very fact that there has been an ever-present need to experiment indicate that these different ways of governing are inadequate?

"The Roman people found themselves engaged almost unawares in a vast administrative experiment," writes H. G. Wells in A History of the World, published in 1922. He continues: "It was always changing, it never attained to any fixity. In a sense the experiment failed. In a sense the experiment remains unfinished, and Europe and America today are still working out the riddles of the worldwide statecraft first confronted by the Roman people."

The experiment in government continued through the 20th century. That century ended with democratic rule gaining greater acceptance than ever before. Democracy theoretically reaches out to embrace everyone. But has democracy shown that man can rule successfully without God? Jawaharlal Nehru, former prime minister of India, called democracy good but added: "I say this because other systems are worse." Former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing said: "We are witnessing a crisis of representative democracy."

Even in the fifth century B.C.E., the Greek philosopher Plato detected a weakness in the democratic way of ruling. According to the book A History of Political Theory, he attacked "the ignorance and incompetence of politicians, which is the special curse of democracies." Many of today's politicians lament the difficulty in finding talented individuals who are qualified to serve in government. People "are annoyed by leaders who appear small at a time when the problems facing them are so big," said The Wall Street Journal. It continued: "They are disgusted with finding indecision and corruption when they look for direction."

Now consider the rulership of King Solomon of ancient Israel. Jehovah God gave Solomon outstanding wisdom. (1 Kings 4:29-34) How did the nation of Israel fare during Solomon's 40-year reign? "Judah and Israel were many," answers the Bible, "like the grains of sand that are by the sea for multitude, eating and drinking and rejoicing." The account also states: "Judah and Israel continued to dwell in security, everyone under his own vine and under his own fig tree, from Dan to Beer-sheba, all the days of Solomon." (1 Kings 4:20, 25) With a wise king ruling over them as the visible representative of the invisible Supreme Ruler, Jehovah God, the nation enjoyed unsurpassed stability, prosperity, and joy.

What a stark contrast between man's rulership and God's! Can anyone honestly say that Satan has won on the issue of rulership? No, for the prophet Jeremiah accurately declared: "I well know, O Jehovah, that to earthling man his way does not belong. It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step."—Jeremiah 10:23.

Can Satan Turn Everyone Away From God?

Has Satan been successful in his claim that he can turn everyone away from God? In chapter 11 of the Bible book of Hebrews, the apostle Paul names a number of faithful men and women of pre-Christian times. Then he declares: "The time will fail me if I go on to relate about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David as well as Samuel and the other prophets." (Hebrews 11:32) Paul simply refers to these loyal servants of God as a 'great cloud of witnesses.' (Hebrews 12:1) The Greek word used here for "cloud" means, not a detached, sharply outlined cloud with definite size and shape, but a huge formless cloud mass. This is appropriate because the faithful servants of God in the past have been so numerous that they are like a huge cloud mass. Yes, down through the centuries, unnumbered multitudes of people have exercised their free will and chosen to give their allegiance to Jehovah God.—Joshua 24:15.

What do we find in our time? The number of Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide has increased to over six million despite the terrible persecution and opposition they experienced during the 20th century. An additional nine million or so associate with them, and many of these are taking decisive steps to enter into a close personal relationship with God.

The ultimate answer to Satan's claim that he can turn humans away from Jehovah came from God's own Son, Jesus Christ. Not even excruciating pain on a torture stake broke his integrity. As Jesus took his last breath, he cried out: "Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit."—Luke 23:46.

Satan uses everything in his power—from temptations to outright persecution—to try to keep humans under his control. Using "the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the showy display of one's means of life" to tempt people, he seeks either to keep or to entice them away from Jehovah. (1 John 2:16) Satan has also 'blinded the minds of the unbelievers so that the illumination of the glorious good news about the Christ might not shine through.' (2 Corinthians 4:4) And Satan does not hesitate to resort to threats and to exploit fear of men to accomplish his aim.—Acts 5:40.

Those on God's side, however, are not overcome by the Devil. They have come to know Jehovah God and 'to love him with their whole heart and with their whole soul and with their whole mind.' (Matthew 22:37) Yes, the unwavering loyalty of Jesus Christ and of countless humans adds up to a colossal defeat for Satan the Devil.

What Does the Future Hold?

Will human experiments in government go on indefinitely? The prophet Daniel foretold: "In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be brought to ruin. And the kingdom itself will not be passed on to any other people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it itself will stand to times indefinite." (Daniel 2:44) The Kingdom that the God of heaven sets up is a heavenly government in the hands of Jesus Christ. It is the same Kingdom that Jesus taught his followers to pray for. (Matthew 6:9, 10) That Kingdom will destroy all human governments at "the [upcoming] war of the great day of God the Almighty" and will affect the entire earth.—Revelation 16:14, 16.

What is in store for Satan? The Bible describes this future event: "[An angel of Jehovah] seized the dragon, the original serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. And he hurled him into the abyss and shut it and sealed it over him, that he might not mislead the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended." (Revelation 20:1-3) Only after Satan is hurled into the abyss of inactivity will the Thousand Year Reign of Jesus Christ begin.

What a delightful place this earth will then be! Gone will be wickedness and those who cause it. The Bible promises: "Evildoers themselves will be cut off . . . But the meek ones themselves will possess the earth, and they will indeed find their exquisite delight in the abundance of peace." (Psalm 37:9-11) Their peace will not be threatened from any source—human or animal. (Isaiah 11:6-9) Even millions who, out of ignorance and because of lack of opportunity to know Jehovah, sided with the Devil over the course of history will be brought back to life and given divine education.—Acts 24:15.

By the end of the Thousand Year Reign, the earth will be brought into a paradisaic condition, and mankind upon it will have been brought to human perfection. Then Satan will be let loose for "a little while," only to be destroyed forever along with all opposers of God's rulership.—Revelation 20:3, 7-10.

  

Whose Side Will You Take?

The 20th century was a time when Satan wreaked havoc upon the earth. Rather than indicating that he has won, however, the conditions on the earth constitute a sign that we are in the last days of this wicked world. (Matthew 24:3-14; Revelation 6:1-8) Neither the intensity of wickedness on earth nor the majority viewpoint is an issue in discerning who has won. The determining factors are whose way of ruling is best and whether anyone has served God out of love. On both counts, the victory belongs to Jehovah.

If the allowed time has already proved Satan wrong, why does God permit wickedness to continue? Jehovah is showing patience "because he does not desire any to be destroyed but desires all to attain to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9) God's will "is that all sorts of men should be saved and come to an accurate knowledge of truth." (1 Timothy 2:4) May you use the remaining time to study the Bible and 'take in knowledge of the only true God and of the one whom he sent forth, Jesus Christ.' (John 17:3) Jehovah's Witnesses will be happy to help you gain that knowledge so that you too can join the millions standing firm on the victorious side.

Learn more at The Watchtower

Earth's Acid Test

Environment: Earth's acid test

As the oceans rapidly grow more acidic, scientists are scrambling to discover how marine life is likely to react.

Quirin Schiermeier

Download a PDF of this story.

The Friday night beers made Sam Dupont forget all about his sea urchins. Earlier that day, in April 2010, the young Belgian eco-physiologist had put a batch of urchin larvae into a bath of highly acidic water to see how their skeletons would fare. When nothing obvious happened after a few hours, Dupont decided to join some friends at the pub and check on the experiment later in the evening. But he didn't remember until Sunday, at which point he was sure that the precious larvae would be dead.

But when Dupont returned to work at the Sven Lovén Centre for Marine Sciences in Kristineberg, Sweden, on Monday, he found the larvae still swimming around in their tank. Their internal skeletons had dissolved away, but otherwise the creatures seemed to be functioning well.

Dupont's chance finding underscores how much scientists have yet to learn  about the growing threat of ocean acidification, which is caused by rapidly rising atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. The acidity of sea water has climbed by 30% over the past 150 years, and some regions have already become corrosive enough to inhibit the growth of corals and other species for part of the year. According to projections, most creatures with calcium carbonate shells, such as mussels and snails, could run into problems within a few decades. By the end of this century, the acidification could even impede the growth of important groups of plankton, thus endangering entire marine ecosystems, from fisheries to coral reefs.

Although the urchin experiment hints that some organisms are able to survive brief exposures to highly acidic water, other studies are revealing unexpected problems that might threaten even creatures without hard shells, such as fin fish . Preliminary work suggests that responses could be highly variable, depending on factors such as water temperature, a creature's evolutionary history and the availability and quality of food.

Countries are only now revving up the coordinated research programmes needed to assess how marine ecosystems will react to the increasingly acidic waters. "We simply have not conducted the basic experiments," says Richard Feely, an oceanographer with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle, Washington, which last year launched a US$5.5-million programme of research into the problem. But with the current pace of acidification, scientists do not have much time to come up with answers.

Carbon sink

Without the oceans and their vast ability to absorb carbon dioxide, Earth would be warming up much faster than it currently is. The seas take up about 9 billion tonnes of the gas each year — almost one-third of the 30 billion tonnes emitted globally.

Once it enters the ocean, CO₂ reacts with water to produce carbonic acid, which releases positively charged hydrogen ions. Acidity is measured in pH, a logarithmic scale on which low numbers mean high acidity; neutral water has a pH of 7, but sea water is naturally alkaline, owing to the salts dissolved in it. Since the mid-nineteenth century, the average pH of ocean surface waters has dropped by 0.1 units, to a current value of about 8.1. Unless nations sharply curb their emissions, atmospheric CO₂ is expected to at least double from its preindustrial concentration by sometime in the second half of this century, and scientists project that ocean pH will fall by a further 0.3–0.4 or so units. Sea water could then contain at least 150% more hydrogen ions than it did at the onset of the industrial era.

Those extra ions cause problems by binding with dissolved carbonate ions to form bicarbonate. With fewer free carbonate ions in the water, organisms struggle to absorb enough to build shells and skeletons made of calcite and aragonite — two different forms of calcium carbonate. And if sea water becomes permanently undersaturated with respect to those minerals, hard parts made of them will start to dissolve.

"There is absolutely no doubt that calcifying organisms will calcify less if conditions become more acidic," says Jean-Pierre Gattuso, an oceanographer at the National Centre for Scientific Research in Villefranche-sur-mer, France, who coordinates the European Project on Ocean Acidification (EPOCA).

This has happened before. Some 55 million years ago, during an episode of extreme global warming driven by a spike in atmospheric CO₂, the pH of sea water is thought to have dropped to levels similar to those expected at the end of the twenty-first century. Ocean sediment deposited during that period contains very little carbonate and no fossils of microorganisms with calcium carbonate shells, indicating that the sea water became too corrosive for calcifying algae such as deep-sea foraminifera, driving many to extinction¹. Today, acidification is progressing at least ten times faster than it did 55 million years ago.

Click for larger version.

Researchers expect to see problems pop up first in polar seas, because cold water absorbs more CO₂than warmer water (and because the melting of sea ice dilutes the concentration of carbonate ions). In 2008, measurements showed that regions of the Arctic Ocean had become undersaturated with respect to aragonite for part of the year², and scientists suggest that further portions of the Arctic and Southern Oceans will cross that chemical threshold within the next decade. If CO₂ continues to rise at current rates, half of the Arctic Ocean could be undersaturated with respect to aragonite year-round by 2050 (see 'Into the red zone').

Even in temperate waters, pH changes may already be having an impact. In the United States, the West Coast shellfish industry has asked scientists to study a dramatic rise in oyster mortality seen in hatcheries off Oregon and Washington since 2005.

During the summer, upwelling currents in these seas carry deep-ocean water, naturally under-saturated with respect to calcium carbonate, onto the continental shelf. Researchers wonder whether the acidification of surface waters has combined with these upwelling currents to cause some of the recent shellfish problems.

At the moment, scientists can offer few conclusions. Although they can make broad predictions about the progress of ocean acidification, they know very little about how it will affect marine animals in different climate zones, alter the composition of ecosystems and, ultimately, influence the marine food web.

To complicate matters, acidification is just one of many environmental changes confronting marine life. Organisms also face increasing stress from ocean warming, pollution, fishing pressure, sea-ice loss and shifting patterns of currents and mixing of deep and shallow water. Some scientists think that progressive ocean acidification will limit the ability of marine organisms to survive such stresses.

Sea of variables

Dupont and his colleagues in Kristineberg tried to answer some of the basic questions about acidification by filling 264 tanks with a range of organisms, including scallops, halibut, brittle stars, sea urchins and lobsters. In a four-month lab experiment that ended this week, they observed the performance of the various animals in each combination of six temperatures (6–18 °C) and two pH values (8.1 and 7.7), measuring growth, respiration, shell and tissue structure, internal pH and survival rates. They are just starting to analyse the data.

With his previous urchin test, Dupont says, "we've seen that some species can cope with extremely low pH values, at least in the short term". But that might not be true for longer exposures and higher temperatures. "We expect that the response to combined stressors is very site- and species-specific."

A separate study of two populations of spider crabs (Hyas araneus) suggests that how animals respond to acidification depends on their climate zone. In lab experiments, the growth rate and fitness of larvae from the North Sea decreased markedly in acidic waters, whereas an Arctic population from 3,000 kilometres farther north was more sensitive to warming than increased acidity³.

Even individuals from the same species and climate zone can react quite differently. In one lab study⁴, blue mussels (Mytilus edulis) from the North Sea showed a 25% drop in calcification rates at values of atmospheric CO₂ of 740 parts per million, about what is expected by 2100 if emissions are not curbed. But a different population seemed to do just fine in such waters: these mussels live in the nearby Baltic Sea, where CO₂-rich waters well up for parts of the year, causing the pH in the sea to drop as low as 7.5 (ref. ⁵). Frank Melzner, an environmental physiologist at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR) in Kiel, Germany, who led the Baltic study, suggests that the mussels can survive there because they have developed the physiological capacity to regulate the pH in their cells and build up a protective layer of proteins and carbohydrates that shelters their shells. But only well-nourished organisms can afford such defences, he says. "It seems that some organisms can biologically control the effects surprisingly well — but it certainly requires energy."

There is plenty of food in the Baltic. Where nutrition is less abundant, populations seem to decline when faced with increased acidity. That is one of the lessons from a study off the Italian island of Ischia in the Gulf of Naples, where underwater volcanic vents have been spewing CO₂ into the comparatively food-poor Tyrrhenian Sea for millennia. A survey of life around the site found that normally common calcifying organisms, including corals and sea urchins, were absent from the spots with low pH. Instead, the researchers discovered a thriving community of species that are immune to elevated CO₂ or even benefit from it, such as sea grasses and invasive algae⁶.

Jason Hall-Spencer, a marine biologist at the University of Plymouth, UK, who oversees the research off Ischia, says that the massive difference between the responses of animals there and in the Baltic illustrates how little is known. To really understand the problem, "you'd like to test the combined effects of ocean acidification and other stressors on hundreds of species and their interactions", he says.

Click for larger version.

And calcifying organisms are not the only creatures at risk (see 'Future shocks'). Even fish could be vulnerable: experiments have shown that elevated CO₂ impairs the sense of smell in juvenile clownfish (Amphiprion percula), which could make it difficult for them to find the sea anemones in which they like to live⁷.

Growing urgency

In the past few years, nations have started to devote resources to the research challenge. Europe's €16.5–million (US$22.9-million), four-year EPOCA project, which began in 2008 and encompasses 31 laboratories in 10 countries, aims to monitor the effects of ocean acidification on marine organisms at various scales, from cells to ecosystems and then across the entire globe. One of the programme's priorities is to determine whether there are any tipping points, beyond which any increase in acidity would hurl marine ecosystems towards catastrophic changes.

In the United States, President Barack Obama's administration plans to submit a proposal to Congress in the next month or so for an integrated national research programme on ocean acidification, which would draw together researchers from across the federal government. The president's 2011 budget called for $11.6 million for research on the subject, but Congress has yet to pass a budget for the current fiscal year. National research programmes are also under way in Germany, Britain, Japan, China, South Korea and Australia.

The largest field experiment conducted so far is an offshore study by EPOCA, involving algae and bacteria in large floating containers exposed to varying levels of CO₂. The research took place between May and July last year, off the island of Spitsbergen in the Arctic Ocean. A group of 35 researchers collected daily measurements of 45 variables affecting the 'mesocosm' within the oversized containers, from nutrient cycling to trace-gas production by calcifying algae. The experiment is to be repeated in April and May this year off Bergen in Norway, where the team hopes to observe how acidification affects a bloom of coccolithophorids — important calcifying algae that produce dimethyl sulphide, a trace gas that seeds the formation of clouds.

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"We need to understand much more about how ocean acidification affects real ecosystems than we can hope to learn from dose-response experiments on isolated species," says Ulf Riebesell, a biological oceanographer at the IFM-GEOMAR, who leads the study.

A sense of urgency is propelling these studies. Governments have shown no signs of stemming CO₂ emissions any time soon, and there is talk of tackling the problem of methane and other greenhouse gases first, leaving the tougher issue of CO₂ for a later generation. That might slow the global temperature rise, but it won't keep the seas from growing ever more corrosive. 

Quirin Schiermeier is a senior reporter with Nature in Munich.

• References

  1. Zachos, J. C. et al. Science 308, 1611-1615 (2005).
  2. Yamamoto-Kawai, M. , McLaughlin, F. A. , Carmack, E. C. ,Nishino, S. & Shimada, K. Science 326, 1098-1100 (2009).
  3. Walther, K. , Anger, K. & Pörtner, H. O. Mar. Ecol. Progr. Ser. 417, 159-170 (2010).
  4. Gazeau, F. et al. Geophys. Res. Lett. 34, L07603 (2007).
  5. Thomsen, J. et al. Biogeosciences 7, 3879-3891 (2010).
  6. Hall-Spencer, J. M. et al. Nature 454, 96-99 (2008).
  7. Munday, P. L. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 1848-1852 (2009).

Hair Talk

So I recently contacted Organic Root Stimulator to express my love for their products!

                    

I have been using their product since I was 16. My hair had grown longer than ever before.

I'm so excited to share my hair journey via photos and maybe even videos. 

My favorite products are the creamy Aloe Shampoo, the Replenishing conditioner, 

the Hair Lotion, Olive Oil Creme, and the Olive Oil hairspray. I think it's a good idea to share 

progress on the internet. Personally, I HATE infomercials. I rather watch videos on youtube 

because I know these are REAL everyday people like myself. 

The reason I am on a journey is because I have cut my hair and it was recently damaged!

I miss the health. I literally ran to beauty supply stores and Walgreens and re-stocked "My Olive Oil"

stash. I hair feels and looks a lot better. I plan to have pics up by next month.

 Please don't get overwhelmed with me talking about my hair. I will also share other things I like on this site. Now I might overwhelm someone with chemistry topics, thus I am a chemistry major. 

If you are black and feel like your hair just doesn't grow. I invite you to become a Hairlista! Its pronounced Hair-LEE-Sta. You will learn a lot about black hair care! So click, join, and build yourself a healthy hair regimen. 

My Regimen: 

Shampoo 1x week: ORS Creamy Aloe Shampoo
DC 1x a week: ORS  Replenishing Conditioner
Heat Protectant (blow dry and flat iron 1x a week): ORS Hair Lotion
Oil scalp with JBCO (shampoo days)

Moisturizer:
ORS Olive Oil Creme (very good for ends)

Sealant:
Hollywood Beauty Castor Oil (smells soooo good)

Day Before Relaxer:
Oil ("grease") scalp with Softee Coconut Oil grease

Relaxer every 7-8 weeks (salon)

Stretch once a year during summer months up to 10-12 weeks.