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In the news - Paul's blog

Archive for the ‘In the news’ Category

PostHeaderIcon Xmas (or Festivus for the rest of us)

labarumI meant to make this my Xmas post, but hey, I’m a procrastinator.  Bite me!

Anyway, I recently read the CNN commentary “You can’t take Christ out of Christmas” by a certain Roland S. Martin. You can read it here:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/20/roland.martin/index.html

Somewhere in the article Mr. Martin tells us:

And I’m sorry, forget X-M-A-S. Malcolm X? Yes. X replacing Christ? No. 

I immediately decided to write a post about this in order to clarify this misconception to ignorant people like Mr. Martin. Share knowledge and educate .. you know.

But before I get to XMAS and the origin of the word, I must confess that I was somewhat surprised that an obvious deeply religious man like Mr. Martin can be so ignorant concerning ages old habits and traditions of his own religion. After reading such a grand blooper, I wondered who IS this Mr. Martin? Forunately, the footnotes in his article shed some some light on this question:

Roland S. Martin is a nationally award-winning journalist and CNN contributor. Martin is studying to receive his master’s degree in Christian communications at Louisiana Baptist University, and he is the author of “Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith.”

I admit, I had no clue what “Christian Communications” meant. So I looked it up: you can get an idea here:

http://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-communication.html

I guess the command “Be kind to one another – Ephesians 4:32” sums it all up nicely. And in that respect, I fear that Mr. Martin, in calling people “idiots” and their different views “ridiculous” and “pathetic”, still has a looooong way to go in his studies.

I can’t resist quoting a few more gems from this article. Says Mr. Martin:

What the heck are “Seasons Greetings”? Can someone tell me what season we are greeting folks about? 

Then a bit later he answers his own question by the befuddling:

we should continue to remember that Jesus is the reason for the season.

Thereby a) acknowledging that he DOES know what season we’re greeting and b) acknowledging his ignorance concerning the REAL reason for the seasons (the Earth’s axis being tilted to its orbital plane).

Here’s another curious remark:

Don’t get me wrong; I’m very respectful of other religions.

A rather non-Christian attitude! The Bible is less respectful of other religions (Deuteronomy 13:6-10). And I won’t even mention the Inquisition.

And when Mr. Martin said:

we shouldn’t dismiss Muslims when the annual pilgrimage to Mecca is held during December. In fact, Americans are so ignorant of other faiths..

Speaking of “ignorant of other faiths”: I wonder if Mr. Martin is aware of the fact that the annual pilgrimage to Mecca is not necessarily always in December. But what IS clear, is that Mr. Martin is ignorant of certain aspects of even his OWN faith, which brings us back to his nonsensical remark about the word Xmas.

I won’t touch on the mystifying reference to Malcolm X (which is, to adopt Mr. Martin’s Christian Communications writing style, “so ridiculous that it’s pathetic”). I only would like to explain that the X in Xmas, contrary to what Mr. Martin seems to believe, does NOT stand for ‘crossing out Christ from Christmas’. To abbreviate ‘Christ’ by the letter X is a centuries old CHRISTIAN tradition and is based on the Greek spelling of “Christ”. This ages old symbol for Christ(usually depicted as a combination of an X and P) is known as Labarum. In modern typesetting, the P is now often dropped and just the X remains. But it is STILL a thoroughly Christian (Xian!) symbol and tradition.

It’s ironic that Mr. Martin is now discarding part of his own Christian heritage, solely based on a religious ignorance that he so easily accuses other Americans of.

Mr. Martin… here are some simple research tips for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xmas:

In ancient Christian art, X and XP are abbreviations for Christ’s name. In many manuscripts of the New Testament and icons, X is an abbreviation for Christos ..

http://www.christmaspast.info/forums/Main01/messages/647932485.html

The scribes who copied New Testament manuscripts had no intention of taking Christ out of the New Testament. They used the abbreviation simply to save time and space. …

http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/xmasabbr.asp

Oh, and yes, I DO know that Xmas is a holiday that got hijacked by Christianity from a much older Pagan tradition and that it’s based on celebrating the winter solstice (in the Northern hemisphere), but I fear that would be too advanced a topic for Mr. Martin.

See for instance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas#Pre-Christian_origins

In part, the Christmas celebration was created by the early Church in order to entice pagan Romans to convert to Christianity without losing their own winter celebrations

PostHeaderIcon 666

749For a long time, Judeo-Christian people have considered the number 666 to be the mark of The Beast (The Devil Himself).

Interestingly, it now appears that this number once had a lower value: 616 to be exact.

See:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_the_Beast

In May 2005, it was reported that scholars at Oxford University using advanced imaging techniques[9] had been able to read previously illegible portions of the earliest known record of the Book of Revelation, from the Oxyrhynchus site, Papyrus 115 or P115, dating to the mid to late third century. The fragment gives the Number of the Beast as 616 (chi, iota, stigma), rather than the majority text 666 (chi, xi, stigma).[1] The other early witness Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (C) has it written in full: hexakosiai deka hex(lit. six hundred sixteen).[10]

Significantly, P115 aligns with Codex Alexandrinus (A) and Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (C) which are generally regarded as providing the best testimony to Revelation. Thus, P115 has superior testimony to that of P47 which aligns with Codex Sinaiticus and together form the second-best witness to the Book of Revelation. This has led some scholars to conclude that 616 is the original number of the beast

This means that the devil’s number is subject to inflation!

Which made me wonder what the devil’s number is TODAY.

So, after two years of focussing my considerable mathematical knowledge and skills on this problem I can now reveal the 21st century value of the number of The Beast.

It’s …

 749.

(I’m SO sorry for the folks in Reeves, Louisiana:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,318765,00.html)

PostHeaderIcon Nonsensors

The shuttle launch has been scrubbed again. Technicians have been unable to fix the faulty engine cutoff sensors since last Thursday. The same sensors that have plagued earlier launches too. Which suggests they were never fixed in the first place. Which is scary, because a bad sensor can result in cutting the engines before the shuttle is in orbit.

You don’t want that to happen.

From this CNN article, the following quote had me frown..

The sensors are much like the low-fuel indicators in an automobile. As the shuttle rockets toward space, the sensors monitor the amount of liquid hydrogen in the external tank and automatically shut off the main engines when the tank is empty.

I have a tip for NASA: remove those sensors!

That would fix the problem with them reporting an empty tank, while in fact it still contains fuel.

But, you may ask, how would they then tell when the tank is really empty?

Easy: the engines will shut off!

PostHeaderIcon Contortionist?

I just read something in the news that had me scratching my head. (Happens a lot!).

Before I share the link to the article with you, please .. humor me!

Please perform this little experiment: Have someone handcuff you, hands behind your back.

What? No handcuffs? Booooring!! Anyway, if you lent someone your handcuffs, or lost them, then just do this: put your hands behind your back.

Then, hook your two pinkies, so as to emulate the idea of having your hands handcuffed behind your back.

Don’t let go! Keep those pinkies hooked!

Done that?

Good!

Now … strangle yourself!

Then let me know what you think of this article!

PostHeaderIcon A kind man …

I just read this article about the suicide of a man who tried to blackmail Tom Cruise for a little over a million bucks.


Said his lawyer:

I was greatly saddened by his loss and I found him to be a very kind man.

Look at some other things the man was ‘dealing’ in:

  • Paris Hilton’s diaries
  • photos of Paris Hilton in various stages of undress and other personal items that had been stolen from a storage locker
  • a sex video of Dustin Diamond, who played Screech on “Saved by the Bell”
  • a video of skater Tonya Harding’s wedding night
  • topless shots of rescued U.S. Army POW Pfc. Jessica Lynch

So I guess bottom dwelling scum suckers can actually be ‘very kind’ people.

Who would’ve known…

PostHeaderIcon The Preacher and the Pornographer, or .. an unlikely friendship

falwell flynt

Leave the Tinky Winkies alone!

Yelled by Hustler Magazine’s publisher Larry Flynt in a telephone conversation with … Jerry Falwell, referring to Falwell’s warning to parents that “the purple Teletubby character was, in fact, gay”.

In 1988, Jerry Falwell sued Larry Flynt for $50 million for libel, after Flynt had published a parody on then popular Campari ads where he had Falwell describing his “first time” as having been with his mother, “drunk off our God-fearing asses,” in an outhouse, while obviously referring to having sex, rather than the ads’ “first times of drinking Campari”.

Flynt lost the case three times in a row, but, to his own astonishment, won the case in Supreme Court.

Yet these two men … became ‘friends’. A more unlikely friendship is hardly imaginable.

And maybe ‘friends’ is stretching it a bit. It’s not that there was ANY form of mutual respect or admiration, but Falwell would visit Flynt whenever he was in California, and Flynt had a ‘direct’ line to Falwell and called him personally whenever he thought they needed to discuss certain issues.

Read Larry Flynt’s own account of this unlikely ‘friendship’ here: –link-.

I bet Larry Flynt misses the late Jerry Falwell … maybe we should hook ‘m up with Fred Phelps! Now THAT would be interesting!

PostHeaderIcon Patience

nasa shuttle atlantis patience

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, California (AP) — Atlantis and its seven astronauts took a cross-country detour and landed safely in the Mojave Desert Friday

I just woke up.

It’s a wonderful day here in Florida, close to Cape Canaveral: Sunny, no wind, and not a single cloud!

Had Mission Control waited another 24 hours with bringing Atlantis home, NASA would have saved 1.7 million bucks.

AND we would have experienced our beloved two ‘booms’.

On the other hand, we now get to see the shuttle return home on top of a Boeing 747, hopefully doing a low level flyby at Cocoa Beach again.

Always an amazing sight.

(link to article –link-)

PostHeaderIcon ivreal

4real nameA New Zealand couple, who wanted to register their newborn child, has been told that their selected name for the boy ‘4real’ is against the rules: Names cannot start with a number.

Registrar-General Brian Clarke said the rules are designed to prevent names that are “likely to cause offense to a reasonable person.”

How a name that starts with a number is likely to offend a reasonable person is anyone’s guess.

Anyway, if the rule is going to be enforced, I’d like to suggest to the new parents to use Roman numerals:

IVREAL

(Link to story –link -)

PostHeaderIcon Free Energy, Steorn, Orbo and … possibly … one million bucks?

Escher waterfallFor centuries countless people have searched for the holy grail of physics: The perpetuum mobile: A device that would go on and on forever, without the need for external energy. Or even more interestingly: a device that would actually produce more energy than what is put into it. Wouldn’t that be nice? Free energy!

So far, however, such devices have never been constructed and shown to work as promised.

And there is a very plausible reason for that unfortunate failure: such a device would have to violate one or both of two VERY basic laws of nature. It would either break the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy), the second law of thermodynamics (entropy never decreases) or both.

It’s not my intention to go into the physics side of all this. Nor will I go over the long history of failed attempts. I just like to focus on the latest folks who are making claims of being able to produce free energy.

And I also will make a prediction or two.

The folks I’m referring to is the company Steorn (link), their ‘free (and clean and continuous) energy’ technology is called ‘Orbo’, they are based in Ireland and their spokesman and CEO is Sean McCarthy.

How are these folks different from all those that have claimed the same and failed miserably?

Quite frankly: Not that much.

The only obvious difference I can see, is that these folks seem to be very good at marketing! They have a very professional web site, have some ‘convincing’ (well…) stories to tell, they REALLY seem to be serious about getting ‘name and brand recognition’, are engaging in discussions in forums, engage the scientific community and generally seem very eager to tell everyone in this world about their ‘claim’: their name is all over the Internet.

All of which will probably raise a bunch of red flags and trigger some alarm bells for folks who have been following the ‘free energy’ clubs around the world: the “Investment Scam’ light will flash as a warning and reminder of previous claims.

Then what are the similarities with previous claims?

Quite a few, but just let me mention the single most obvious one:

THEY CAN’T DEMONSTRATE A WORKING DEVICE!

Another one would be their claim: “BUT WE WILL HAVE A WORKING DEVICE REAL SOON NOW!”

Think about it! You have this great idea! You discovered something that all physicists, to this day, have overlooked (the temporal variance of of magnetic viscosity, in Steorn’s case) and you realize you could build a ‘free energy’ machine with it. What would you do? Would you withdraw in your garage and build a proof of concept and then take this working prototype to investors to help you turn this into a commercial success? Or would you go to investors FIRST, telling them you WILL BE able to build this, but first you need a bunch of money? I can tell you what would I would do, and I can also tell you how I would react as an inversor if you tried to get some money out of me with this ‘device’.

But anyway, Steorn is going to demonstrate this device .. *drum roll* .. this July!

This world will never be the same!

Unless, … some of my predictions come true!

The simplest prediction of course is “No demonstration of a working ‘free energy’ device will take place in July 2007”.

Of course, as Sean McCarthy already has admitted: “.. It is simply a question of money ..” (link), not showing anything wouldn’t be good for those streams of investor money.

So they already came up with the obvious cop-out:

Q: What progress do you have with the continuous motion testing?
A: We have made huge progress on this – we expect to be demoing this version in July. …I would say 80-90% of the way.

80-90%? 

Let me give an example here: Suppose I claim to have a ‘free energy’ device. Let me be VERY modest here, and claim 101% efficiency. The device will demostrate this by dropping a ball from 10 feet. Without any added energy from outside, you will see the bouncing ball reach a height of 10.01 feet!

However, I’m still working on refinements and I’m not quite there yet (I need more money!). So I’ll demonstrate to you (in July 2007) my device as it is now. I will already announce that what you will see is that the dropped ball will bounce to 80 – 90% of its original height! Impressive right? I’m REALLY getting there.. ALMOST there, just a few more percentage points! Please hand me your money.. I really need to finish this! And hey, you just SAW I’m ALMOST there…

Needless to say that a device that ALMOST produces free energy, is NOT a ‘free energy’ device. There are of course cases where ‘almost’ can be impressive or desireable (I wish I ALMOST was a billionaire!), but this is a case where ‘almost’ doesn’t get any points.

It’s probably not easy to find investors for this: most of those interested have their money tied up in premium swamp land in Florida and the Brooklyn Bridge!

Here’s another prediction: I will make this company’s claim known to James Randi, whose JREF organization (link) offers ONE MILLION BUCKS to anyone who can … well … put simply … break laws of nature. I’m sure he’ll agree these folks qualify …

My prediction: The JREF will get to keep their money!

And yet another prediction: before too long this device will show up in the Museum of Unworkable Devices (link)!

Notes:

1. Thanks to my dear friend Leo W. for bringing this to me attention.

2. “A device that would go on and on forever, without the need for external energy”: Of course, ANYTHING goes on and on forever when in motion and no other force acts on it! (Newton made that very clear!): I’m talking here about a machine whose internal ‘motions’ keep going on without addition of energy from outside!

3. This site lists quite a few attempts by folks who didn’t let their thinking be clouded by knowledge of the laws of nature: link.

4. And here’s an interesting link in case you yourself think you can get rich off of the free energy craze: link.

5. Steorn’s announcement: See Sean McCarthy explain (?) it all: link.

“Ex nihilo nihil”
Anaxagoras, Greek
philosopher 500 B.C

PostHeaderIcon On making $43,750 per hour

FordFord, who posted a $12.7 BILLION net loss last year, paid its CEO Alan Mulally $28 MILLION for four months work.

This is just plain wrong.

Link to article: link


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