Katty

Not upgrading to 11 sounds like a perk to me. My husband has 11, and I still have 10, and I hate working on his computer. They went and changed everything again.

Sounds good if you don't plan on storing a lot of videos. 128GB isn't a whole lot if you have a lot of video or graphical files, but if you just stream videos, mostly, that's fine.

Ugh this is the kind of thing that makes atheists feel justified in thinking Christians are stupid and gullible, and that Christian generosity is insincere and reward motivated.

I agree. I was just being a bit cheeky. I find the summer olympics to not be all that interesting, save synchronized swimming. I prefer winter with ice-skating.

What if I root for a country I don't live in and am not from? Can I root for Paraguay, or possibly Panama? I like the Latin world, for some reason.

I kind of agree. France is apparently the most visited country in the world by tourists. It doesn't need an Olympic event. Finland, Lichtenstein, or Luxembourg could have used the tourism from it more. I imagine the preaching cart schedule will be mad during that time.

I thought about asking a friend to go with me, but decided that Paris is crowded enough when there's not a special event going on.

Having married a northerner with a Yorkshire dad, I've learned really important things about money, one of them being: don't buy something unless you have the money (even in the form of a debit card) in your pocket when purchasing it. If you want to buy something on credit to build credit, the best way, from what I've heard is to use a credit card, then pay off the credit card with the next payment cycle.

I know I've shared this on this forum before, but that was years ago; this is a great webpage to provide a visual representation to show the home remedies that the most to least effective, or least proven to be effective, according to science. I like looking at it from time to time. I think the best way to be is to eat healthy, stay hydrated, and exercise as a first line of defense, seek an effective home remedy as a second, and go to a doctor when that fails, from time to time. While antibiotics are great, there's evidence that they're being over-used and that can lower their effectiveness, overall. It's good to be balanced. Often we can build up immunity and heal from many ailments naturally, but it won't work for everything. Sometimes you do need medication or another kind of therapy, particularly for something major such as cancer... https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-oil-scientific-evidence-for-nutritional-supplements-vizsweet/

Okay I'll consider doing that. I think I can still edit my flight online

We plan on David(@Ferb) getting a rewards card before we go on the big trip to America. It'll help with having money that we can spend there as well. We probably won't have time to garner many rewards on there, but it might be worth it, especially if rewards include cash back or something we can use on something other than travel. I was also considering going back to see my family in the fall if I can, so it might work towards that as well.

Thank you She'll be a year when we take a shorter trip this year, and about 19 months when I plan on going to America. I booked a flight with EasyJet, which, being a budget airlines makes you sit the baby on your lap until baby is 2. I don't have a huge problem with that. So long as the flight is incident free, it shouldn't cause any problems. I liked that they also allow me to check her pushchair and carseat. She's probably going to have an easier time on mommy than she would have had on a bassinet anyway. The only trouble is extra leg room in the mid section would have been more than the back section, so I chose to go to the front of the back section, hoping that part might have a bit more leg room. If it's a struggle for the first flight, it'll only be a couple hours anyway. I decided to have a week long "practice trip" because I'm so nervous about flying trans-atlantic with a baby (or young toddler by then) and not really knowing what to expect. I decided on going to Munich. It's not the cheapest destination flight wise, but looked pretty affordable when it came to accommodation, day trips, and things to do.

I agree that a leaning is obvious in what we say, but it's also easy to portray a leaning in one direction without realizing it? If you grew up in a place where the school you went to, the media and everyone you knew were far left leaning, you would probably see moderately left leaning as neutral, until you saw something that contradicted that view, and it would probably take a lot to contradict that view in your mind. I'm speaking specifically of things that Christians say. I don't believe anyone in the world is capable of being neutral, which is why it's such a challenge for us. In the long run, I'm just glad it's Jehovah and not me that's going to sort all this out in the end

I don't think the issue is as simple or as clear cut as a lot of us would like to believe. Like all of Jesus' disciples including his apostles, we are influenced by the culture we grew up in, and, particularly in America and Europe, different regions are wholly disunited in their views on what abortion is, if same sex marriage constitutes as a marriage that should be recognized and even what a woman is. If we're from left leaning issues, we can easily be more tolerant of progressive views. Whereas if we grew up in a conservative culture, we'll view those, we'll quickly dismiss such ideas as insane. Where there are clear truths as defined in the Bible, of course, we must agree with what the Bible teaches, but when the Bible is not clear we can easily insert the view that comes from the culture in which we grew up, before weighing out what Bible principles state. It's an easy way to operate, but, I'm not convinced it always comes with the right answer. I might be wrong on this, but I only think it's a problem if you find your thinking to be more aligned with the thinking of worldly people in your region than with Bible principles or with the thinking of your brothers and sisters in other regions. I'm not saying Witnesses should agree on everything that the Bible is not clear on: absolutely not! However, at some point, it does become divisive, because, let's face it: there are beliefs that predicate among people in California or New York that are outright offensive to people from Texas or Florida, and vice versa. We should probably be aware if our beliefs are offensive to others. I hope my thoughts aren't too offensive. I am a very opinionated person, and I do try hard not to offend. There are a lot of news sources and a lot of ideas that I see people post that I would perceive as being more left leaning than anything, and I've been trying to just let it pass, because I get that the person posting it very likely believes they are posting the neutral stance on things. I don't think the bias is really something you ever really see until you see something that makes you aware of it. But if someone sincerely believes they are neutral and intends to be neutral even if others perceive their statement as being politically biased in some way, is it still neutral? You can't say intent doesn't matter in this case. Of course Jehovah takes into account our personal attitudes.

Yeah but video travelling doesn't work for me. I have to see my family in person. It would be unfair to my mom. I don't plan on going everywhere. My idea was to have a little trip under my belt in a relatively safe place so that I have a better idea on how to handle our baby on a 14 hour trip. There's never going to be an ideal time to go anywhere before the new system comes, and I'm treating this first 'practice trip' like it might be my second to last chance to go anywhere outside the UK, and my trip to America like it might be my last trip to America, at least until the new system. I don't think the Russia-Ukraine or Gaza situation is going to spread to effect the Americas or Western Europe much more than it has already.

I'm considering going on at least one trip in the fall, and a trip to see my family in January-February. I wanted to know if others had advice for keeping the prices of travelling as low as possible, but not so low that it significantly lowers the quality of the holiday. I thought I might open this thread so people can share ideas for what would be good destinations for people with different desires regarding travel, and different starting points. My starting point is Manchester international and Western Europe tends to be bring the least expensive destinations So, what I know so far is: to look at Skyscanner, and I look both on Skyscanner and Google Flights and track prices from both. I've also looked at Kayak, which shows the best time frame to book a hotel from any given destination I also look at Google maps and map 3.5 star+ hotels in whatever city I'm thinking of going to, in whatever month I plan on going. I look at deals on lastminute.com I also look at places on Booking.com, and am signed on to Booking Genius, plus my chequing account has allows me to get 4% cash back on booking.com provided I book by 30th of June, and the first Genius booking is 10% off. I also plan on getting a rewards chequing account which comes with travel insurance (for £19 a month) during the time period I want to travel. I also plan to book directly on the airline. I'm wondering if there's anything more I could be doing. I noticed there is a site called JW bnb which I follow on Instagram, and I wonder if anyone has tried it? So, for me, what I'm planning, so far is: A week in, or in and around Munich for November. I know that sounds dreadful, but it's not the most popular time to go, and, so far, hotels look really inexpensive for the quality, and I plan on a lot of indoor activities. Then I plan on, probably, 2 weeks in Louisiana in January/February, and maybe doing another week in July, since I've seen July is actually the best time to go. I might do more next year, we'll just have to wait and see how things turn out. I can have my baby as a lap baby until she's 2, and when she's 2, she'll need a separate seat. It's okay if no one has any extra tips beyond what I've written. I figured this could also be a thread to discuss best/most inexpensive destinations to fly from, best times to go, personal experiences with different booking sites, etc.

I remember reading that the brain saves energy by anticipating what it's going to see. If this man wasn't born blind, and this is happening in places he's already seen, I could see that happening. It's like the brain is filling the gaps based on memory and association with other senses, as it's been shown that smell can be a greater memory trigger than sight. One of the things dementia does is get the brain mixed up between present and past experiences, so he could have a sort of 'memory sight'. If he is born blind, however, that would be remarkable.

jw library runs on kindle fire. The only thing that irks me about fire, however, is that it's full of ads, and you can't open it without an ad showing until you swipe, and it always seems to show the ads for the more immoral kids of literature when I was doing ministry.

This reminds me of something that always irked me about the news following 9/11. It was always "Hey here's a place that would wreak havoc if terrorists attacked it. Hey lets advertise it on the 10 o'clock news so that everyone including Al Quaida members can see it." I mean, in hindsight, hardly any of these places were attacked, but it just seemed so reckless to me. I don't believe the ship hitting the Baltimore bridge was intentional, but the news should stop giving people who hate America ideas. I mean America is doing a good enough job of ruining itself right now. It doesn't need help.

Yes, It is heinous the way a lot of Christians have aligned themselves with politicians, including Trump. Churches should definitely not be involved in politics. I think of how blessed we are to be neutral, also, when I see pro-life protesters being arrested for their protests against abortion, based on their personal values, or parents being put on a watchlist for protesting at schoolboard events. I will add that it's equally heinous how many churches have supported Pride events and BLM protests as well. The Church of England's stance is to "smash the patriarchy" and is calling for "anti-whiteness", all aspects of left wing rhetoric. I'll be brutally honest, the bigger threats to my neutrality are when conservative leaders pass legislation to protect the rights of parents. I do have a weakness for rooting for that kind of thing as a mom, or really just someone who cares about children. I do remind myself that they are a major part of Satan's world, and no one because a world leader without showing their support of Satan. I know my bias and work to continually suppress it. The bias that is harder to be consciously aware of, however, is a leftist bias, and I'm convinced that this is the case, because Critical Theory is so deeply interwoven into modern culture and media, we've stopped noticing its prevalence. There's a saying: "Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth". Critical Theory is that lie, today. It has become a kind of truth, to the point that I have even seen Witnesses calling out or fact checking their brothers for not believing in these ideas. I will post a link to show what Critical Theory encompasses, to show what I'm talking about. https://www.simplypsychology.org/critical-theory.html I'm not saying this to make anyone feel called out, so I want to share my own personal experience with my own past struggles with neutrality: When I was in my late 20's I was struggling a lot with being single and working in jobs that were not far above minimum wage. I would often grumble that I couldn't be given a living wage for my hard work. I used to be outright offended when I saw images of women with signs that read "I don't need feminism because...", and would roll my eyes thinking "easy for you to say. You have a husband. Some of us have to work for a living." I used to read feminist literature, including Bad Feminist by Roxanne Gay. I used to read asexual literature, because I thought I was asexual and thought it was cool that asexual was about to be considered to be a part of the LGBTQ community, because I used to believe the LGBT were the cool people. I used to liken Trump to Hitler, or, at least, Napoleon, and found him absolutely odious. I used to believe in and complain about the wage gap. I used the think there should be legislation that didn't marginalise single people so much, and even went so far as to be angry at the stance on same-sex marriage, not because of the homosexuality element, but because I believed that not elevating civil unions or allowing unmarried people to, more easily, share resources would lead to further marginalization of single people. I used to think Clinton was a great president, that George W Bush was the devil and that Hilary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi (both very leftist Democrat politicians) were great role models. I'm mentioning all this, because I don't recall a single time, I felt guilty for not having a neutral stance on things, but, when the Women's march took place when Trump was elected, there was a lot of stuff happening that didn't make a lot of sense to me, so, looking into things, I started getting into Conservative media, and, it wasn't until I started watching a lot of Youtube channels and reading journals with a strong conservative bias that I began to feel guilty that I wasn't being neutral on a lot of points. Since then, I've learned to be more balanced with my views, and the media that I take in. I wanted to share this experience to illustrate how easy it is to fall into the rabbit hole of taking on a viewpoint that is more consistent with leftists not, considering for a moment that my ideas were being shaped by a political ideology, but how hyper-aware I became once it was coming from the conservative side.

Last Thursday, I think the main point of the Local Needs was to explain to a British Audience what slacks are. (they call them trousers here)

This song makes it difficult to not be so angry at what they're doing to our brothers and sisters in Russia, because what they're really doing is separating families for no good reason.

That's a shame. Hopefully a Morisson Amazon order will have things packed a bit better since it is coming from a supermarket that's used to packaging consumables. I wouldn't consider to buy food on Amazon, unless it's something like ingredient food, and then, there are other online shops I'd get a lot of things from first.

Is this vanilla Amazon or a shop on Amazon. I'm about to make a big Morisson's order on Amazon, and I'm guessing it'll be delivered from the nearest Morisson's so I'm not sure if it's the same packing/delivery process.

I'm surprised this wasn't mentioned yet, but what happened to the Roanoke colony? What did Croatoa mean? Did they end up being immersed into the tribe? Were most of them killed? Was was the Voynich manuscript about, and what language was it written in? Who made Stonehenge and why? And, more recently, what happened to the Dutch girls who went missing in Panama? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_of_Kris_Kremers_and_Lisanne_Froon