Free Blog

The war and conflicts of the world for the past 100 years
Is analogous to the 100 years of war between the French and English
Only at a global scale.

At something called the Fox Reality Channel Really Awards last night, grandmother-exploiting Survivor villain Johnny Fairplay and unkillable Breaking Bonaduce star Danny Bonaduce engaged in a reportedly very one-sided physical altercation on stage, in which Fairplay suffered some lost teeth and a broken toe after being body-slammed by his better-muscled antagonist. (Bonaduce claims the tooth-shattering piledriver was administered in self-defense.) While we haven’t seen any leaked footage from the awards ceremony emerge yet–please, Fox Reality Channel, get to YouTubing–TMZ did manage to capture some of the fight’s aftermath, where an artful shot of a discarded, bloody tissue hints at the carnage that took place inside.

If you’ve read any of my other articles, you’re going to think I’m sounding like a broken record. But that’s fine with me. So before I go into the exercises to perform for the shoulder muscle, I’m going to repeat myself 

If your diet isn’t right, don’t even bother reading this article. If you eat a small salad and a tin of tuna a day, it doesn’t matter what else you do, you’re just not going to make any gains. Either go and read up on proper muscle building nutrition, or read on.

There are three main shoulder muscles, known as the deltoids. There are more, but I like to keep things simple. Those muscles also have names, but for simplicity, we’re just going to call them the front, middle and back muscles. Each of these need to be worked in order to build the shoulders that you dream of.

Chances are, the problem is too much, rather than too little. You see, the front shoulder muscle is also worked whenever you do any chest work. Everytime you jump on the bench, you are also heavily working that front shoulder muscle. And I’m yet to meet a guy who doesn’t do any chest work. So in order to work out if you’re doing too much or too little for this muscle, think about your current workouts and think if it will hinder your front shoulder development in any way.

The middle deltoid is a favourite with many bodybuilders. It’s the one that will give you the vince delmonte look about you. It is also quite hard to build. While it is involved in a lot of the compound movements that you will perform, it won’t grow on it’s own as well as the front deltoid. So I recommend that your shoulder work out have some sort of dumbell raise thrown in. This will help you develop a broader physique without adding that much vince delmonte review to your frame overall.

The rear deltoid is like the forgotten deltoid. Since it is at the back, people are always neglecting it. However, for a complete picture, you simply cannot forget this poor, misunderstood sean nalewanyj. Since it is rather small, I don’t recommend doing all that much work on it. If your workout doesn’t consist of many pull ups, then perhaps you should try some isolation exercises. I would recommend that you perform pull ups anyway, but if for whatever reason, you can’t perform these, then some bent over dumbell flyes would suffice. This doesn’t mean you go easy though.

Clownfish are not found in the Atlantic Ocean. Clownfish live in a mutual relationship with sea anemones or in some case settle in some varieties of soft corals or large polyp s…

Here’s one version of a sermon I’ve preached 800+ times (that’s not a misprint)! You ask, ‘Should anything be preached that often?’ My response: anything I believe is worth saying is worth saying again. This little-understood story has themes implicit within it which are pivotal to our understanding of the Christian faith.

Rowland Croucher

Text: Acts 4:32-5:11

Preachers don’t like this story, apparently. I once spent a morning in a large seminary library hunting for sermons on Ananias and Sapphira and couldn’t find any. The two most read preachers’ magazines - Expository Times and Pulpit Digest - didn’t have a single sermon on this passage. Folks dropping dead in church (it happens occasionally) isn’t nice.

There are some big questions here. Why did they do it? How did Peter know? Why was the punishment so severe - and so swift? Why did God deem this sin so bad? “Did they go to heaven?” one woman asked after I’d preached on this passage.

There are no easy answers. And yet with all our questions this story is an acted parable of the Christian gospel; it’s about sin, judgment, and the possibility of grace.
SIN

In most of our English translations the story begins with the little word “but”. Luke, the author of Acts, sets up a study m contrasts. There are Barnabas, a man filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 11:24), and Ananias, whose heart was filled with Satan (5:3). One was utterly truthful, the other a liar. Here are counterpointed faith and unbelief, selflessness and selfishness, goodness and deceitfulness, sacrifice and sacrilege, trust in God and the worship of self (”hubris,” pride), total commitment and base hypocrisy.

The setting was “paradise regained.” They had all things in common, real community: shared resources, sensitivity to others’ needs, security - not in material things, but in the risen Christ. It’s the closest to Utopia the world has ever seen. Sinners - even murderers of the Lord Christ - were repenting and being forgiven and accepted; the sick were being healed; great grace was upon them all.

But in the midst of all this beauty and harmony, the serpent enters the garden again. It’s an horrific story. And yet, we feel, Ananias and Sapphira were just ordinary people like us. Don’t we sometimes engage in “impression management” to manipulate others’ opinion of us? Who of us hasn’t sometimes pinched stuff from our employer for personal use? Or falsified our tax return a little bit? Or withheld the truth, or covered up with a “white lie”?

Their motives were probably pretty ordinary - perhaps even defensible. Perhaps their generous or heroic selves were inspired by the generosity of Barnabas. Their fearful selves wondered what would happen in their old age if they gave away all their assets. Their critical selves asked questions about the “bums” on the receiving end of these handouts. Their distrustful selves may have raised questions about the apostles’ honesty; the church hadn’t appointed auditors yet. But in the end their egocentric selves won; they wanted glory without sacrifice, the kudos Barnabas had received without having to pay the price.

Yes, they were ordinary people - very ordinary. What sins might we have committed if we were sure we’d never be found out? If you had carried out some of the evils you planned or dreamed about, you’d be in jail for life. The sin of Ananias and Sapphira was not greed, but deception, hypocrisy - and who of us hasn’t done worse?

But there’s something more insidious, subtle, dangerous here,.. Ananias was engaged in an act of worship. Barnabas had laid his gift “at the apostles’ feet,” and this same expression is used of Ananias. Their offerings weren’t merely to the apostles, but to God. Their motivations, the “thoughts of their hearts,” were therefore God’s concern. Here is the worst kind of hypocrisy - the sort that got Christ so angry - hypocrisy bordering on sacrilege. It wasn’t just a matter of pretending to be devout but really being a liar and a cheat; though they were that.

Sacrilege goes a lot further; it’s robbing God of what is rightfully God’s, “stealing Divine glory,” withholding what we have professed as belonging to the Lord. Ananias and Peter are not just two mortals confronting each other. Here the battle is joined between God and Satan, whose instruments they have become.

Astonishing. Perhaps this man and his wife were in the group on which the Holy Spirit fell so dramatically at Pentecost and had also been baptized in water as they joined the church. Previous to that Ananias may even have been among the seventy apostles preaching the Kingdom, healing the sick, casting out evil spirits (Luke 10:9, 17). Let us never forget there is no sin that is impossible for any one of us to commit. There but for the grace of God we go too.

JUDGMENT

Such was the spiritual power among those people that this sin was immediately detected and judged. How do we explain this sudden death? Members of traditional societies - our Australian aborigines, village people in Papua New Guinea have no problem at all with a story like this, with their experience of the power of “pointing the bone” and of witchcraft. In the (ignorant) West we have to explain it - psychosomatically. (William Barclay, for example, with his penchant for naturalistic explanations of the biblical miracles, reminds us that when Edward I blazed in anger at one of his courtiers the man dropped dead in sheer fear.)

Interestingly, a similar thing had happened twice before. In Eden a man and a woman tried to deceive God, and the result was death. Then there was Achan “stealing” what rightfully was God’s: he and his whole family and possessions were destroyed. Adam, Achan, Ananias - at the beginning of each “fresh start” God was making with God’s people, the same thing happened. Surely these things are written for our instruction.

Awesome, fearful. As a pastor I wonder what kind of worship service I would have led for the following three hours?! Nothing in our clergy handbooks helps us here. Then, imagine the moment of horror when Sapphira wanders in: every face would have told her the story, if she’d noticed. In the awful silence, they could then hear the footfalls of the young men who’d just buried her husband.

But why this immediate capital punishment with no opportunity for repentance? It’s not fair, you say. Negatively, the responses tumble over each other: Who said life was supposed to be fair? Who sets up valid criteria for fairness? Human categories of what’s fair are constantly changing. And who’s in charge, anyway, in the ultimate sense?

And who’s to know whether, as it’s been put simplistically, God was somehow “destroying a body to save a soul”? We’ll have problems in this “bent world” if we put our faith in systems of fairness - or in our systems of anything. Our trust is in a righteous, just God, who can handle the moral judgments of the universe without too much help from us. On the other hand, we can reverently say: “God has a lot to answer for.”

C.S. Lewis, in The Problem of Pain, says God’s attitude to sin is analogous to that of a surgeon to cancer. The destructive tissue has to be removed. God!s judgment is love at work destroying what is destroying us. Sometimes the divine surgery is radical (as in this story); sometimes it’s postponed.

GRACE

Peter makes it very clear that Ananias didn’t have to follow the course he did. He was in full control at every point (5:4). This wasn’t “primitive communism.” Private property had not been abolished; no one was being forced to sell his or her possessions. The sharing was voluntary, not a precondition of entering the church. And I’m sure we can say that even after Ananias and Sapphira decided to bring only part of the money, they still had an alternative course of action open to them.

John Claypool imagines another scenario:

If they had just said: “Here is where we would like to be - with Barnabas’ kind of trust and generosity. But we find we are not there yet …. All we can do now is give part of the proceeds. Would you help us grow toward what we would like to become?”‘

Then there would have been healing and nurture and grace mediated through others in the caring fellowship. But instead there were deceit and death.

The way of Ananias is not only an ancient way, it is practiced in politics and business every day. Wasn’t it President Theodore Roosevelt who called those people on Capitol Hill “the Ananias club”? I wonder what might have happened if President Richard Nixon had come clean and told all he knew about Watergate a year before his resignation?

Ananias and Sapphira had a warped view of God - apparently as a sort of cosmic “neurotic perfectionist” who could not accept them if they were imperfect. Occasionally I visit or counsel people who are perfectionists; they got the impression from someone that life has to be highly organized for them to be happy. Often they had parents who rarely praised them for anything. If only Ananias and Sapphira had realized that God is not like this. God is a grower of persons and not in the business of mass production. There’s no such thing as instant sanctification.

But they also had a defective view of their fellow Christians. They were fearful about their inability to measure up, and obviously felt they wouldn’t be accepted by others if they confessed to being less than Barnabas. Hypocrites also have another problem - a huge inferiority complex. They are unable to accept their own uniqueness and imperfections. Maturity is all about living with imperfection, your own, your parents’, others’. Hypocrites have to play a sort of one-upmanship game in which they come out best in every comparison.

The essence of grace, on the other hand, is acceptance - by God of us, and of others and of ourselves. Grace is love-before-worth. It creates worth in another rather than responding to worth in the other.

So grace abounds where sin abounds. And as the church is a society of people on the receiving end of God’s grace, it’s the community par excellence where we accept others fully on the same basis as God has accepted us (Rom. 15:7): solely on the basis of grace - not law, not doctrine, not sacramental observance, but grace alone!

If only Ananias and Sapphira had understood this! By their behaviour they were denying the most fundamental truth in the Christian faith: we cannot earn significance. We can’t achieve wholeness, salvation, through our own efforts. Greatness in Christ’s kingdom is a given, a gift, that we gratefully receive in spite of our failures and our sin.

So, Ananias, Sapphira, you didn’t have to earn what you’d inherited.

Don’t strive to be a luminary; just let your light shine. You don’t have to be like Barnabas. You are intended to be your own person, to be what no other is and to do what no other can do. So you can “go to church” and be just who you are. You don’t have to play the sick “over-under” games our society forces on us. Church is the place where grace reigns and where all acting stops. You can hang up your mask with your hat at the door. That’s why Christ’s Church is “glorious,” according to the New Testament - not because it’s perfect, but because it’s being redeemed.

Here’s where nobodies become somebodies, “no-people” become “God’s people” (1 Peter 2:10).

1. John Claypool, unpublished sermon “Growing is Acceptable,” preached March 2 1975, at Broadway Baptist Church, Fort Worth, Texas.

GridIron Club spaghetti dinner Thursday
The Trigg County GridIron Club is having a spaghetti Dinner and meet the Wildcats Thursday at the school cafeteria. 

For a $5 donation, you can eat in or carry out a spaghetti dinner and meet the Wildcat football team.Carry outs will begin at 4pm.  All proceeds benefit the Trigg County GridIron Club.

FBI Election Warning
Jim Bernazzani, the tough-talking special agent-in-charge of the local FBI office,

offered a warning to political candidates and a message to voters in the Oct. 20

primary: FBI agents do not endorse candidates. ‘It is a fundamental breach of FBI

ethics,” Bernazzani says. The agent’s image and the FBI seal were posted on a campaign

Web site for Senate District 7 candidate Paul Richard, who hopes to succeed term-limited

state Sen. Francis Heitmeier in the West Bank district. Other candidates include

Heitmeier’s brother, David Heitmeier, and Jonathan Bolar. Bernazzani says Richard should

expect a call from FBI lawyers in Washington. ‘This was done obviously without my

knowledge and I was surprised,” Bernazzani says. ‘The general counsel in Washington,

D.C., has been notified and they will take immediate steps tomorrow morning to get my

image and the FBI seal removed.” Richard’s Web site last week featured televised images

of Bernazzani over a campaign message attacking Francis Heitmeier and, separately,

quotes from a recent press conference in which Bernazzani decried ‘brazen” corruption in

Louisiana. ” Johnson

GOP Neutrality
The Orleans Parish Republican Executive Committee has taken a neutral position in

several races in which there are GOP candidates on the Oct. 20 ballot, including the

race for lieutenant governor. Incumbent Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, a Democrat, apparently

has a base of GOP support in New Orleans for his re-election effort, even though many

Republicans helped re-elect Mayor Ray Nagin last year over Landrieu. Landrieu faces two

Republican challengers ” Baton Rouge state Rep. Gary Beard and country singer Sammy

Kershaw. In other races, the local GOP committee has issued ‘no endorsement” in the

following legislative races: Senate District 4, where incumbent Democrat Ed Murray has

one GOP challenger, Thomas Kennedy; Senate District 5, an open seat where perennial

candidate Andrew Gressett, a Republican, is again running; and House District 95, an

open seat where Erin Anderson is the lone Republican candidate in a field of eight.

Meanwhile, in House District 98, where three GOP candidates have qualified, the local

committee has endorsed Murray Nelson; and in House District 94, the committee has

endorsed Republican challenger Adrian Bruneau over Republican incumbent Rep. Nick

Lorusso. In the New Orleans at-large City Council race, the committee endorsed Democrat

Jackie Clarkson. No Republican qualified in that contest. ” DuBos
The Word on WRDA
By now we all know how important the Water Resources Development Act could be for

Louisiana. Everyone from the governor down to the state senator from Bourg is touting

the measure as the key to coastal restoration, hurricane protection and flood control

(there’s also a sprinkling of pork in the bill for bridges and local programs). The bill

has at least $3.6 billion, or 17 percent of its total, set aside for Louisiana. Congress

passed the legislation overwhelmingly, but President George Bush has threatened a veto

even in the face of a promised override by lawmakers. Congress hasn’t passed a WRDA bill

in seven years. The latest buzz on Capitol Hill is that ‘W” may have the last word on

WRDA after all ” sort of ” by using a pocket veto, or taking no action on the bill

within 10 days of receiving it, thus making it an official law or act without his

official blessing. ‘Things are looking up,” says state Sen. Reggie Dupre, who spoke via

phone from Washington. ‘Either way, I think we have a bill.” Stephanie Allen, press

secretary for U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, says the president has given no indication that

he won’t veto the bill. ‘Given the strong, bi-partisan votes on the conference report in

the House and Senate, it would make sense that he might reconsider and not have the

fight with Congress,” Allen says. When a bill is passed, technical corrections and other

work begin to make the bill absolutely perfect before it’s actually sent to the

president, Allen adds. While it is unclear as to exactly when the 10-day countdown will

begin, it should be very soon. ” Alford
13 Choices, Little Time
Thirteen candidates for the New Orleans City Council At-Large seat ” recently vacated by

the admitted corruption of Oliver Thomas ” are scheduled to face off at a two-hour forum

beginning at 7 p.m. next Thursday (Oct. 11) at Xavier University. The Xavier forum will

be co-hosted by the Urban League of Greater New Orleans, the Committee for a Better New

Orleans/Metropolitan Area Committee and the local League of Women Voters. ‘This is the

most important race in New Orleans,” says Keith Twitchell, president of the CBNO/MAC.

‘Clearly, the need for leadership in the city is great and council at-large is a

significant position. So, we really need to make a choice.” Twitchell says despite a

recent reconciliation, tensions between Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration and the council

have ‘reached an all-time high.” Attorney Scott Shea, who served as a District A City

Council member (2000-2002), agrees. ‘The current council is under enormous pressure

because of crime and the recovery.” Shea says. ” Johnson
Picking Horses
Monroe Mayor Jamie Mayo has endorsed gubernatorial candidate Walter Boasso, a state

senator from Arabi who is running as a Democrat. It’s proof that Boasso has been working

the black community as promised, but more endorsements will need to come out ” and fast

” if Boasso wants to build momentum in the black community. Statewide, many black

leaders are caucusing to determine whom to support in the governor’s race. Our sources

say the contest is between Democrat Boasso and Independent John Georges. To no one’s

surprise, those are also the two candidates with the most money. Meanwhile, Congressman

Bobby Jindal, the GOP contender from Kenner, got the nod from Louisiana Independent

Pharmacies Association this week, which represents more than 600 independent

pharmacists. ” Alford
Following Cleo
As veteran state Sen. Cleo Fields, a Democrat from Baton Rouge, waited to hear from the

Louisiana Supreme Court as to whether he can legally dodge term limits and seek a fourth

term in the Senate, other candidates for his job took their shots. The most aggressive

is Jason DeCuir, a fellow Democrat whom Fields blames for the lawsuit challenging his

candidacy. Fields was able to make a case for his candidacy because of a 2006 law

authored by ” get this ” conservative Republican then-Rep. Peppi Bruneau, who pushed the

bill to help fellow Republican state Rep. Wayne Waddell of Shreveport. Both Waddell and

Fields were elected mid-term in special elections, and the bill sought to clarify when

they officially took office for purposes of constitutionally imposed term limits. After

the measure passed the House, it was discovered that it would benefit Fields as well as

Waddell, but that did not stop GOP lawmakers from supporting it. Bruneau, in fact,

showed up at the Supreme Court hearing in a show of support for Fields’ cause. In case

Fields doesn’t make the cut, he has already chosen a successor who will benefit from his

legendary GOTV operation: Democratic state Rep. Yvonne Dorsey, the speaker pro tem of

the House, who is term-limited herself in the House. Fields told reporters last week in

New Orleans that he would have her back. Others running in Senate District 14 include

Republicans Scott Lemoine and Willis Reed and Democrat Steven K. Shilling. ” Alford
Tough Ordinance
The recent spat between Mayor Ray Nagin and the City Council over the availability of a

city department head could have been worse than the council’s issuance of a few

subpoenas and some hurt feelings. The City Charter allows the council to remove city

department heads and other ‘unclassified appointees” who do not enjoy full civil service

protection. Section 3-125 of the Charter states: ‘The Council may bring charges against

any person appointed to the unclassified service for lack of qualifications,

incompetence, neglect of duty” or job-related ‘gross misconduct.” An unclassified

appointee also may be removed for failure to comply with a lawful directive of the Civil

Service Commission or the new Inspector General. If the mayor or department head does

not remove the accused, the council may order a public hearing with lawyers, the calling

of witnesses and the presentation of evidence. If ‘found guilty as charged,” the council

may then suspend or fire the unclassifed appointee, after a majority vote of its seven

members, the charter states. No one at City Hall could recall the draconian measure

being used. ” Johnson
Back on the Road
Driving Louisiana Forward, a well-heeled coalition of local chambers and construction

and engineering interests, is launching a statewide media campaign this week to garner

support from legislative and statewide candidates. The campaign consists of more than

1,000 radio spots and online banner ads. The radio spots will run on statewide news-talk

stations and the banner ads will appear on select newspaper Web sites. ‘It’s imperative

that the next Legislature and the next governor address our transportation funding

crisis by providing additional, recurring funds to our roads, bridges and port

infrastructure,” says Jennifer Marusak, communications director for Driving Louisiana

Forward. The group proposes shifting transportation-related fees (such as vehicle sales

taxes) from the general fund to the Transportation Trust Fund, as well as shifting

nontransportation-related expenses currently in the trust fund (such as state police

traffic control and DOTD retirement and health benefits) to the general fund. “Alford
You Man Enough?
The New Orleans League of Women Voters is looking for a few more good men. The

nonpartisan voter information organization has lost 40 percent of its 173 members since

Hurricane Katrina hit two years ago. The League, which now has 15 male members, is

emphasizing diversity as it tries to meet increased demand for voter information. ‘We

welcome men,” says League president Lea Young. ‘Our main focus is voter information,

good government.” Young says her boss, Civil Sheriff Paul Valteau, is a member of the

League, and past League presidents include community activist Jim Segreto. But the

majority of the League’s membership consists of determined, strong-willed women. ‘It is

intimidating,” past-president Linda Walker warns. Members must be U.S. citizens and dues

are $60 a year. Visit www.lwvno.org for more information. ” Johnson
Morgan City Muck
Republicans don’t have it tied up just yet, but House District 51 in Morgan City is

looking like an easy flip for the GOP. Incumbent state Rep. Carla Dartez, a Democrat,

has become an easy target. Her husband, Lenny J. Dartez, a member of the Democratic

Party’s State Central Committee, was arrested Tuesday for harboring illegal aliens

through his construction business. Last month, Rep. Dartez was given a summons for

improper lane usage after hitting a pedestrian with her vehicle. That conjured memories

of other incidents. In 2003, she suffered four skull fractures and a dislocated shoulder

from a motorcycle accident during Mardi Gras. In 1998, she was booked with a

first-offense DWI in addition to driving without headlights, improper lane use and

speeding. The attack ads should write themselves in this race, and GOP sources claim

Dartez’s re-elect numbers had already dropped below 30 percent before the immigrant

issue surfaced. ” Alford

MOSCOW (AFP) — Russia on Thursday marked the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, the tiny satellite whose crackly beeps launched the Space Race between the Cold War superpowers.

“We Were First,” trumpeted a headline in the popular Izvestia daily.

“At 22:28 Moscow time on October 4, 1957, humanity entered a new space age. The Soviet Union sent the Earth’s first artificial satellite into orbit.”

Veterans of the Soviet space programme laid flowers near the Kremlin wall at the grave of Sergei Korolyov, the pioneer who created Sputnik yet whose name remained a state secret all his life.

A monument to the satellite, whose name means fellow traveller, was unveiled near Moscow.

President Vladimir Putin sent a congratulatory message to Russia’s space scientists, saying: “The launch of the Earth’s first satellite was a truly historic event, which started a space age.”

First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, widely considered a contender to succeed Putin, led a tour by schoolchildren of the Korolyov research centre near Moscow.

“Fifty years in cosmic terms is a mere instant and yet it fundamentally changed the nature of all humanity,” Ivanov was quoted by RIA-Novosti news agency as saying.

Sputnik 1 was a huge propaganda coup for the Soviet Union in its rivalry with the United States and is being interpreted in the same vein 50 years later amid heightened Russian assertiveness.

“On that day, October 4 1957, America was seized by panic,” Russia’s space agency Roskosmos recalled in a statement announcing a special film on the launch.

The event was at first played down in Soviet official media but quickly prompted awed headlines in Western newspapers and caught the United States badly off balance.

The hurried launch of a US satellite in December 1957 was a disastrous failure — a “flopnik,” as the London Daily Herald observed in a headline — for it barely got off the ground before bursting into flames.

By then Russia had already launched Sputnik 2, which carried Laika the dog into orbit. Laika became the first space casualty, but also a household name.

Sputnik 1, a silvery orb with four spiky antennae whose primitive signals were picked up by radios around the world, also helped inspire a generation of astronauts and scientists.

The satellite was the first of several early achievements for the Soviet Union’s space programme, including sending the first human, Yury Gagarin, into orbit in 1961 — another stinging loss of face for the United States.

The United States later took the upper hand with the first manned mission to the Moon in 1969.

Their race over, the Soviets and Americans began to cooperate in space and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 pushed space spending “almost entirely into the civilian sector,” Italian astronaut Robert Vittorio told AFP in Turin.

Today, though, the militarisation of space is back on the agenda, reflected by dual-use (civilian and military) hardware in orbit and China’s testing of an anti-satellite weapon on January 11, Vittorio observed.

On Wednesday, the Russian and US space agencies signed agreements in Moscow under which Russia will provide technology for US missions to scan the surface of the Moon and Mars, particularly searching for water traces that could make the Moon suitable for human habitation.

“These two projects demonstrate the commitment by our countries to continue to look for opportunities where it is mutually beneficial to cooperate,” NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said at the signing ceremony.

Russia’s space programme suffered severe funding cuts after the collapse of the Soviet Union but has been partly revived thanks to greater state financing and international partnerships.

Putin has exhorted Russia’s space scientists to up their game, but also acknowledged the “negative impact” of economic hardship in the 1990s.

Russia plans to send a probe to a moon of Mars and a manned Moon mission by 2025.

The Recruiter Roundtable is a monthly feature that collects career and job-seeking advice from a group of recruiting experts throughout the United States. The question we put before our panel this month is:

What is the one piece of fashion and/or grooming advice you wish more candidates would heed before going on an interview?

Get the Details Right
The night before the interview, lay out your wardrobe to make sure everything fits, is free of wrinkles and is current with today’s styles. Also take the time to polish your shoes. While this may sound minor, showing up with scuffed shoes may signal to the employer you lack attention to detail. Finally, remember that the interview is not your time to make a fashion statement, so avoid tight clothing, limit your jewelry, and go easy on fragrances.

The interview is your opportunity to show hiring managers how talented you are, and maintaining proper appearance will ensure they focus on your abilities rather than your attire.
– DeLynn Senna, executive director of North American permanent placement services, Robert Half International

Accessorize With Mints
I wish more candidates would take a strong breath mint before their interviews. It may sound silly, but you would be surprised how distracting bad breath can be during an interview! Gum also works, but remember to discard your gum BEFORE the interview.
– Bob Hancock, independent staffing consultant

What Are Your Revealing?
Look in the mirror: If too much is showing, don’t wear it! While low-cut blouses or shirts are in fashion, most are inappropriate for the workplace, including the initial interview. The interviewer could possibly be distracted by the inappropriateness of the candidate’s attire and therefore not focused 100% on the interview. This is unfortunate for both parties; the candidate may not be getting the positive reaction to answers they want, and the interviewer may be less apt to probe for the information they need to make a solid hiring decision.
– Joelle Thies, staffing specialist recruiter, Wells Fargo

The Smell of Success Is Scent-Free
If your perfume or cologne enters the room before you do, chances are your scent may be interfering with your chances of landing the job. You’ll see subtle signs from the interviewer — he’ll lean away from you, she’ll wrinkle her nose or open a window. If someone on the interview team has allergies or asthma, and if you’re meeting with them in a small room, your strong scent will be just the excuse they need to leave the room quickly, without them getting a chance to hear the details about the brilliant marketing campaign you developed at your last company.

The focus during the interview — and afterward when the interview team gets together to discuss your interview — should be on your accomplishments, abilities, and why you’re the right person for the job. So keep it scent-free.
– Cheryl Ferguson, recruiter, The Recruiter’s Studio

LONDON (AFP) - A newly discovered Faberge egg made for a top banking dynasty is expected to fetch up to nine million pounds (13 million euros, 18 million dollars) when it is sold in London next month, auction house Christie’s said Thursday.

The egg was made for the Rothschild family in 1902 by Peter Carl Faberge and contains a diamond-encrusted cockerel which pops out every hour to flap its wings and nod its head while opening and shutting its beak and crowing.

One of only three known examples featuring a clock and a mechanical figure, it is unusually large and is enamelled in pink with gold detailing.

“The discovery of this masterpiece is the most exciting of my 40-year career,” said Anthony Philips, Christie’s international director of silver and Russian works of art.

“We expect this remarkable object to be of profound interest to private collectors and institutions from around the world.”

Faberge, a Russian jeweller whose name is synonymous with extravagant craftsmanship, made 50 eggs for the Russian royal family but is only known to have created 12 eggs to similar standards for private clients.

The Rothschild egg will be auctioned on November 28 as part of a week of Russian art sales at Christie’s which is expected to attract a string of big bucks bids from wealthy Russian business people in London.