9/11 Cross 2002

Flashback to 2002

Jordan said that the Christian symbol must be part of the memorial because most of the victims were Christian, "the plurality of which were Catholic, and the majority of the rescue workers were Catholic as well. The Irish took the biggest hit." 

"We didn't find any artifacts of the Star of David for Jewish people or the Crescent for Muslims as yet," he said. "Of course, this was not built as a cross," he continued. "It is a T-beam, found in every one of the buildings destroyed at the World Trade Center site." 

Jordan said that the cross was about 20 feet tall with the cross beam being six to seven feet across.[1]

The man who wrote Healer is a fraud.

I know this is old news, but for about a decade I have not been paying attention too much of Christian music.  I do feel dirty for singing Healer as a worship song.  I do wish that I had known.  Still, I wish that there was some type of system to stop these guys who are so good at lying.

From 2006 to 2008, Pastor Michael Guglielmucci faked cancer to cover up his 16 year pornography addiction.  He wrote Healer about his fraudulent cancer even going so far as to wear oxygen tubes.  After coming out about the fake cancer, Guglielmucci still claims the vomiting, hair loss, and breathing problems were real. All money made from Healer will go to charity.  Guglielmucci's father promised to pay back all money donated for his son's cancer treatment.[1]  Here is the music video for Healer where he pretends to have cancer.



Here is his interview.

Susan B. Anthony on Ernestine Potowski Rose

The one distinct feature of our association has been the right of individual opinion for every member.  We have been beset at each step with the cry that somebody was injuring the cause by the expression of sentiments which differed from those held by the majority.  The religious persecution of the ages has been carried on under what was claimed to be the command of God.  I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.  All the way along the history of our movement  there has been this same contest on account of religious theories.  Forty years ago one of our noblest men [Phillips] said to me, “You would be better never [to] hold another convention than allow Ernestine L. Rose on your platform;” because that eloquent woman, who ever stood for justice and freedom, did not believe in the plenary inspiration of the Bible.  Did we banish Mrs. Rose?  No, indeed! 

~ Susan B. Anthony defending Cady Stanton’s heretical Woman’s Bible at 1896 NAWSA convention.  She took a rabbit trail to defend Potowski Rose.

The Mrs. Rose that Anthony is referencing was controversial item.  In 1854, the Chaplain of Congress forbade her to give lectures in the Capitol, because of her religious beliefs.  The Chaplain admitted that barring her violated her First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion.[1]

Heidi Klum's Halloween costume

Heidi Klum's Halloween costume[1]

Scale of the Universe

Want to feel small? Scale of the Universe

History of Halloween

The Jacko lantern in the next video is a turnip.  Turnips were used before switching to the American pumpkin.

October 31, 1517 Happy Halloween & Reformation Day

I understand that in Italy they torture poor people by depriving them of sleep. ‘Tis a torture that cannot long be endured.[Martin Luther's thoughts on disease]

Real OWS Primer

I have been doing a small amount of research into the Occupy groups and there is great diversity.  Below is a link to a great primer on the subject.  The only thing that I would add is that I learned all of my information from the media.  Also, one visit does not an expert make.
Everything The Media Told You About Occupy Wall Street Is Wrong

Doubt that Aristotle ever tested by experiment.

Galileo Galilei's Discourses on Two New Sciences 1638

[T]he variation of speed in air between balls of gold, lead, copper, porphyry, and other heavy materials is so slight that in a fall of 100 cubits a ball of gold would surely not outstrip one of copper by as much as four fingers. Having observed this I came to the conclusion that in a medium totally devoid of resistance all bodies would fall with the same speed. 

For I think no one believes that swimming or flying can be accomplished in a manner simpler or easier than that instinctively employed by fishes and birds. When, therefore, I observe a stone initially at rest falling from an elevated position and continually acquiring new increments of speed, why should I not believe that such increases take place in a manner which is exceedingly simple and rather obvious to everybody? 

I greatly doubt that Aristotle ever tested by experiment.[1]

AYYYYOOOO Galileo!

Bachmann and taxes

• Bachmann notes that the tax rate in 1950 was 5.8% of GDP.  
• She credited this as the reason that women were able to stay home with their families.
• The overall tax rate in 1950 was actually 24.6 percent, 3.1 percent less than the 2011 tax rate of 27.7 percent.
• Since the average tax payer was paying near the same amount as today, it is hard to imagine this caused single earner households.
• Bachmann argued that insurance agencies should be allowed to discriminate based pre-existing conditions.  
• She argues that people with pre-existing conditions make insurance too expensive for the rest of us: "a cost to everyone who’s in this room.”
• She also suggested that birth right citizenship could be banned through a new law without a Constitutional Amendment.[1]  

You cut taxes and the tax revenues increase.

The green line is when the 2006 speeches were made.

President Bush, 11/13/02: "Well, we have a deficit because tax revenues are down. Make no mistake about it, the tax relief package that we passed -- that should be permanent, by the way -- has helped the economy, and that the deficit would have been bigger without the tax relief package."

President Bush, 1/7/03: "This growth and jobs package is essential in the short run; it's an immediate boost to the economy. And these proposals will help stimulate investment and put more people back to work, is what we want to have happen. They are essential for the long run, as well -- to lay the groundwork for future growth and future prosperity. That growth will bring the added benefit of higher revenues for the government -- revenues that will keep tax rates low, while fulfilling key obligations and protecting programs such as Medicare and Social Security."

Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, 1/8/03: "The entire [tax cut] package the President does believe will lead to growth, which will over time grow the economy, create additional revenues for the federal government and pay for itself."

Vice President Cheney, 1/30/03: "The President's proposals will reduce the tax burden on the American people by $670 billion over the next 10 years. By leaving more money in the hands of the people who earn it, people who will spend and invest and save and add momentum to our recovery, we'll help create more jobs and ultimately increase tax revenues for the government."

President Bush, 5/7/03: "[T]he other way to deal with the deficit is to put policies in place that increase the revenues coming into the Treasury. And the best way to encourage revenues coming into the Treasury is to promote policy which encourages economic growth and vitality. A growing economy is going to produce more revenues for the federal Treasury. The way to deal with the deficit is not to be timid on the growth package; the way to deal with the deficit is to have a robust enough growth package so we get more revenues coming into the federal Treasury."

President Bush, 8/6/05: "The tax relief stimulated economic vitality and growth and it has helped increase revenues to the Treasury. The increased revenues and our spending restraint have led to good progress in reducing the federal deficit. Last month we learned that the deficit is now projected to be $94 billion less than previously expected. I set a goal of cutting the deficit in half by 2009, and we are ahead of pace to meet that goal."

President Bush, 2/8/06: "One of the interesting things that I hope you realize when it comes to cutting taxes is this tax relief not only has helped our economy, but it's helped the federal budget. In 2004, tax revenues to the Treasury grew about 5.5 percent. That's kind of counter-intuitive, isn't it? At least it is for some in Washington. You cut taxes and the tax revenues increase. See, some people are going to say, well, you cut taxes, you're going to have less revenue. No, that's not what happened. What happened was we cut taxes and in 2004, revenues increased 5.5 percent. And last year those revenues increased 14.5 percent, or $274 billion. And the reason why is cutting taxes caused the economy to grow, and as the economy grows there is more revenue generated in the private sector, which yields more tax revenues."

Vice President Cheney, 2/9/06: The President's tax policies have strengthened the economy, as we knew they would. And despite forecasts to the contrary, the tax cuts have translated into higher federal revenues... Nobody's perfect, but when revenue projections are off by 180 degrees, it's time to reexamine our assumptions and to consider using more dynamic analysis to measure the true impact of tax cuts on the American economy. Recognizing this, the President's recently submitted budget would create a new Dynamic Analysis Division within the Treasury Department to analyze major tax proposals. The evidence is in, it's time for everyone to admit that sensible tax cuts increase economic growth, and add to the federal treasury.

President Bush, 7/11/06: "Some in Washington say we had to choose between cutting taxes and cutting the deficit. You might remember those debates. You endured that rhetoric hour after hour on the floor of the Senate and the House. Today's numbers show that that was a false choice. The economic growth fueled by tax relief has helped send our tax revenues soaring. That's what's happened."

The Malaria Vaccine is due to come out in 2015

The vaccine is the result of 24 years of research and is 50% effective.  This is the last stage of African trials and it should be out by 2015.  Malaria kills more than 780,000 people per year, most of them babies or very young children in Africa.[1]

Shorter College adopts the Liberty Way?

The AJC has been hearing from folks about Shorter University’s decision to require employees to sign a “Personal Lifestyle Statement” forbidding premarital sex, adultery and homosexual sex. 

The Personal Statement also requires that employees be active members of a local church. And the employees must agree to not drink in public places where students may see them, including restaurants, concerts and sports events. Nor can they attend a Shorter function if they consumed alcohol six hours prior to the event.[1]

What Copernicus did with the firmament

The last ring is the firmament of the fixed stars.  ---->

The reason for this delay was that, on the face of it, the heliocentric cosmology was absurd from a common-sensical and a physical point of view. Thinkers had grown up on the Aristotelian division between the heavens and the earthly region, between perfection and corruption. In Aristotle's physics, bodies moved to their natural places. Stones fell because the natural place of heavy bodies was the center of the universe, and that was why the Earth was there. Accepting Copernicus's system meant abandoning Aristotelian physics. How would birds find their nest again after they had flown from them? Why does a stone thrown up come straight down if the Earth underneath it is rotating rapidly to the east? Since bodies can only have one sort of motion at a time, how can the Earth have several? And if the Earth is a planet, why should it be the only planet with a moon? 

For astronomical purposes, astronomers always assumed that the Earth is as a point with respect to the heavens. Only in the case of the Moon could one notice a parallactic displacement (about 1°) with respect to the fixed stars during its (i.e., the Earth's) diurnal motion. In Copernican astronomy one now had to assume that the orbit of the Earth was as a point with respect to the fixed stars, and because the fixed stars did not reflect the Earth's annual motion by showing an annual parallax, the sphere of the fixed stars had to be immense. What was the purpose of such a large space between the region of Saturn and that of the fixed stars? 

These and others were objections that needed answers. The Copernican system simply did not fit into the Aristotelian way of thinking. It took a century and a half for a new physics to be devised to undegird heliocentric astronomy. The works in physics and astronomy of Galileo andJohannes Kepler were crucial steps on this road.[1]

The Upside of Quitting?

In a Freakonomics episode called "The Upside of Quitting" a woman quit her 70,000 dollar a year job to make 300,000 dollars a year as a high end prostitute.  She is the 1%. :)

The ending parts about women quitting the Amish are also great.

Misadventures in Baby Making

Freakonomics discusses[1]

• the 160 million girls who were aborted in Asian countries
• Levitt rehashes his abortion reduces crime theory.  Basically when he was researching there were one million abortions and three million births.  One out of four births being aborted since Roe v Wade explains to him why crime plummeted in the early 90's when these kids would have been teenagers.  Today there is about one million abortions, but there are about four million births.[2] If Levitt is right, as the abortion rate plummets crime should increase.  Today, the abortion rate is not 25%, but 19.6%.  There are 4,247,694 and 1.21 million abortions.  However these extra children may not be the (unwanted by their mothers) children that Levitt thinks would commit crimes.  If Levitt is right about unwanted children tending to be aborted, perhaps crime will not increase.
• Dubner also discusses the new blood test for pregnant women that will replace the amniocentesis.  More women will be able to find out about their down syndrome child sooner and with out threat of miscarriage.  Dubner worries that this might lead to more abortions. 

Norway Spousal Rape

• 1 out of 10 women in Norway are raped.
• Norway is one of 127 nations that does not explicitly outlaw marital rape.  12 of these nations are members of the EU.
• Norway and other Scandinavian countries got there relatively early, in the 1960s and 1970s. But Germany only removed its spousal exemption in 1997. In 1993, North Carolina became the last U.S. state to do so. Until 1992, Britain had a common-law principle that assumed the marriage contract implied consent.
• Despite the law the social pressures are against wives coming forward.[NYT]

OWS primer?

I have not really blogged anything about OWS, for a lot of reasons.  One, as my header suggests, I like to cite everything I say.  I just have not taken the time to compile sources.  Two, the more I read, the more complicated things get.  These people remind me a lot of the political diversity that the Tea Party had when they first started.  These people come from diverse backgrounds. (Occupy L.A. is populated by Democrats, libertarians, socialists and anarchists — not to mention 9/11 Truthers, Oath Keepers, End the Fedders, sound-money guys, and a sizable contingent of homeless and mentally ill people looking for free food.)   Even if they can agree on the problems, I am unsure that they can come up with a cooperative solution.  What would a capitalist and a communist protester agree on?

Here are a couple of neat things about the protests.

• A few weeks ago there were some anti-Semitic protesters, but afterwards more protesters celebrated the feast of tabernacles.[1][2][3][4]   
• A woman was raped at Occupy Cleveland.  There have been sexual assaults in Occupy Oakland and Occupy Seattle.  Occupy Baltimore passed out a memo that said the following: 

The pamphlet says that members of the protest group who believe they are victims or who suspect sexual abuse "are encouraged to immediately report the incident to the Security Committee," which will investigate and "supply the abuser with counseling resources." 

The directive also says, in part, "Though we do not encourage the involvement of the police in our community, the survivor has every right, and the support of Occupy Baltimore, to report the abuse to the appropriate authorities."

This seemed to many people to discourage women to report sexual assault to someone who can actually do something like the police.[5]   

The Occupy Baltimore has revised their memo, but have not leaked it to the media yet.[7]

• A veteran of the Iraq war is working to develop homemade gas masks and body armor for the Occupy Oakland protesters.[6]   

Update: 10/29/11 5:05pm

Aquinas Firmament

Whether there are waters above the firmament? ~ Thomas Aquinas 

Objection 1: It would seem that there are not waters above the firmament. For water is heavy by nature, and heavy things tend naturally downwards, not upwards. Therefore there are not waters above the firmament.

Objection 2: Further, water is fluid by nature, and fluids cannot rest on a sphere, as experience shows. Therefore, since the firmament is a sphere, there cannot be water above it.

Objection 3: Further, water is an element, and appointed to the generation of composite bodies, according to the relation in which imperfect things stand towards perfect. But bodies of composite nature have their place upon the earth, and not above the firmament, so that water would be useless there. But none of God's works are useless. Therefore there are not waters above the firmament.

On the contrary, It is written (Gn.1:7): "(God) divided the waters that were under the firmament, from those that were above the firmament."

I answer with Augustine (Gen. ad lit. ii, 5) that, "These words of Scripture have more authority than the most exalted human intellect. Hence, whatever these waters are, and whatever their mode of existence, we cannot for a moment doubt that they are there." As to the nature of these waters, all are not agreed. Origen says (Hom. i in Gen.) that the waters that are above the firmament are "spiritual substances." Wherefore it is written (Ps.148:4): "Let the waters that are above the heavens praise the name of the Lord," and (Dan.3:60): "Ye waters that are above the heavens, bless the Lord."To this Basil answers (Hom. iii in Hexaem.) that these words do not mean that these waters are rational creatures, but that "the thoughtful contemplation of them by those who understand fulfils the glory of the Creator." Hence in the same context, fire, hail, and other like creatures, are invoked in the same way, though no one would attribute reason to these.

We must hold, then, these waters to be material, but their exact nature will be differently defined according as opinions on the firmament differ. For if by the firmament we understand the starry heaven, and as being of the nature of the four elements, for the same reason it may be believed that the waters above the heaven are of the same nature as the elemental waters. But if by the firmament we understand the starry heaven, not, however, as being of the nature of the four elements then the waters above the firmament will not be of the same nature as the elemental waters, but just as, according to Strabus, one heaven is called empyrean, that is, fiery, solely on account of its splendor: so this other heaven will be called aqueous solely on account of its transparence; and this heaven is above the starry heaven. Again, if the firmament is held to be of other nature than the elements, it may still be said to divide the waters, if we understand by water not the element but formless matter. Augustine, in fact, says (Super Gen. cont. Manich. i, 5,7) that whatever divides bodies from bodies can be said to divide waters from waters.

If, however, we understand by the firmament that part of the air in which the clouds are collected, then the waters above the firmament must rather be the vapors resolved from the waters which are raised above a part of the atmosphere, and from which the rain falls. But to say, as some writers alluded to by Augustine (Gen. ad lit. ii, 4), that waters resolved into vapor may be lifted above the starry heaven, is a mere absurdity. The solid nature of the firmament, the intervening region of fire, wherein all vapor must be consumed, the tendency in light and rarefied bodies to drift to one spot beneath the vault of the moon, as well as the fact that vapors are perceived not to rise even to the tops of the higher mountains, all to go to show the impossibility of this. Nor is it less absurd to say, in support of this opinion, that bodies may be rarefied infinitely, since natural bodies cannot be infinitely rarefied or divided, but up to a certain point only.

Reply to Objection 1: Some have attempted to solve this difficulty by supposing that in spite of the natural gravity of water, it is kept in its place above the firmament by the Divine power. Augustine (Gen. ad lit. ii, 1), however will not admit this solution, but says "It is our business here to inquire how God has constituted the natures of His creatures, not how far it may have pleased Him to work on them by way of miracle." We leave this view, then, and answer that according to the last two opinions on the firmament and the waters the solution appears from what has been said. According to the first opinion, an order of the elements must be supposed different from that given by Aristotle, that is to say, that the waters surrounding the earth are of a dense consistency, and those around the firmament of a rarer consistency, in proportion to the respective density of the earth and of the heaven.

Or by the water, as stated, we may understand the matter of bodies to be signified.

Reply to Objection 2: The solution is clear from what has been said, according to the last two opinions. But according to the first opinion, Basil gives two replies (Hom. iii in Hexaem.). He answers first, that a body seen as concave beneath need not necessarily be rounded, or convex, above. Secondly, that the waters above the firmament are not fluid, but exist outside it in a solid state, as a mass of ice, and that this is the crystalline heaven of some writers.

Reply to Objection 3: According to the third opinion given, the waters above the firmament have been raised in the form of vapors, and serve to give rain to the earth. But according to the second opinion, they are above the heaven that is wholly transparent and starless. This, according to some, is the primary mobile, the cause of the daily revolution of the entire heaven, whereby the continuance of generation is secured. In the same way the starry heaven, by the zodiacal movement, is the cause whereby different bodies are generated or corrupted, through the rising and setting of the stars, and their various influences. But according to the first opinion these waters are set there to temper the heat of the celestial bodies, as Basil supposes (Hom. iii in Hexaem.). And Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. ii, 5) that some have considered this to be proved by the extreme cold of Saturn owing to its nearness to the waters that are above the firmament.[1]

Best thing on OWS so far

Heaven is a wondeful place, filled with glory and grace,

I found this picture on wikipedia.  A firmament is a dome that eventually touches the earth that it covers.  Here a man finds the horizon and looks through into heaven.  Notice the wheel within a wheel in the corner.

NASA and water?

Book trailer for Witches

Hindu Exorcism

Solar Cycle

Calvin's Explanation on the Firmament.

source Wikipedia

Calvin thought that the firmament need not be interpreted literally, allegorically, or philosophically.  He merely thought that God taught in relation to what people thought they saw.  According to Calvin, Moses said that there was a firmament, because people's natural sense told them there was a barrier above them holding back the water.

For it appears opposed to common sense, and quite incredible, that there should be waters above the heaven. Hence some resort to allegory, and philosophize concerning angels; but quite beside the purpose. For, to my mind, this is a certain principle, that nothing is here treated of but the visible form of the world. He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. Here the Spirit of God would teach all men without exception; and therefore what Gregory declares falsely and in vain respecting statues and pictures is truly applicable to the history of the creation, namely, that it is the book of the unlearned. The things, therefore, which he relates, serve as the garniture of that theater which he places before our eyes. Whence I conclude, that the waters here meant are such as the rude and unlearned may perceive.~ Calvin's Commentary on Genesis[1]

However Calvin was a geocentrist.  Why? Because he was rude and unlearned to the Heliocentric Theory.  Psalm 93:1-2 says the following.

93:1 The Lord reigns!

He is robed in majesty,

the Lord is robed,

he wears strength around his waist.

Indeed, the world is established, it cannot be moved.

93:2 Your throne has been secure from ancient times;

you have always been king.

This is how Calvin looked at these verses.

A simple survey of the world should of itself suffice to attest a Divine Providence. The heavens revolve daily, and, immense as is their fabric, and inconceivable the rapidity of their revolutions, we experience no concussion — no disturbance in the harmony of their motion. The sun, though varying its course every diurnal revolution, returns annually to the same point. The planets, in all their wanderings, maintain their respective positions. How could the earth hang suspended in the air were it not upheld by God’s hand? By what means could it maintain itself unmoved, while the heavens above are in constant rapid motion, did not its Divine Maker fix and establish it?[2]

 In Calvin's mind the Bible taught that there was a solid firmament above us to communicate to the ignorant.  Clearly Calvin believes that the Bible also teaches the sun revolves around the earth.  Like the firmament is there any need to appeal to allegory or metaphor?  Perhaps the Bible says that the sun revolves around the earth, because until Galileo every reader believed that it did.  Perhaps the world "cannot be moved" "such as the rude and unlearned may perceive."

Youngest Super Nova Discovered

Those that predict accurately Extreme Events are wrong more often

FANG: In the Wall Street Journal survey if you look at the extreme outcomes, either extremely bad outcomes and extremely good outcomes, you see that those people who correctly predicted either extremely good or extremely bad outcomes, they’re likely to have overall lower level of accuracy. In other words, they’re doing poorer in general.

SJD NARR: Uh-oh. You catching this?

FANG: Those people who happen to predict accurately the extreme events, we also look at their–they happen to also have a lower overall level of accuracy.

DUBNER: So I can be right on the big one but if I’m right on the big one I generally will tend to be more often wrong than the average person.

FANG: On average–

DUBNER: On average.[1]

Dogmatism makes you a worse predictor

TETLOCK: That experts thought they knew more than they knew.That there was a systematic gap between subjective probabilities that experts were assigning to possible futures and the objective likelihoods of those futures materializing.

DUBNER: Let me translate that for you. The experts were pretty awful. And you think: awful compared to what? Did they beat a monkey with a dartboard?

TETLOCK: Oh, the monkey with a dartboard comparison, that comes back to haunt me all the time. But with respect to how they did relative to, say, a baseline group of Berkeley undergraduates making predictions, they did somewhat better than that. Did they do better than an extrapolation algorithm? No, they did not. They did for the most part a little bit worse than that. How did they do relative to purely random guessing strategy? Well, they did a little bit better than that, but not as much as you might hope.

DUBNER: That “extrapolation algorithm” that Tetlock mentioned? That’s simply a computer programmed to predict “no change in current situation.” So it turned out these smart, experienced, confident experts predicted the political future about as well, if not slightly worse, than the average daily reader of The New York Times.

TETLOCK: I think the most important takeaway would be that the experts are, they think they know more than they do. They were systematically overconfident. Some experts were really massively overconfident. And we are able to identify those experts based on some of their characteristics of their belief system and their cognitive style, their thinking style.

DUBNER: OK. So now we’re getting into the nitty-gritty of what makes people predict well or predict poorly. What are the characteristics then of a poor predictor?

TETLOCK: Dogmatism.

DUBNER: It can be summed up that easily?

TETLOCK: I think so. I think an unwillingness to change one’s mind in a reasonably timely way in response to new evidence. A tendency, when asked to explain one’s predictions, to generate only reasons that favor your preferred prediction and not to generate reasons opposed to it.[1]

Cell Theory: 1838

The Cell Theory
When Schleiden and Schwann proposed the cell theory in 1838, cell biology research was forever changed. The cell theory states that:

1. All life forms are made from one or more cells.
2. Cells only arise from pre-existing cells.
3. The cell is the smallest form of life.

The cell theory also provides us with an operational definition of "life." The tutorial on prokaryotes, eukaryotes, and viruses explores this concept in more detail.[1]

Preliminary Jewish Abortion Research

I am curious as to what Iron Age and Bronze Age Jews believed about when life began.  The closest that I have been able to normally find is Rabbinic Judaism.  Christianity jumped on the Aristotle band wagon embracing the quickening.  A couple of ignorant thoughts:

• Obviously, they would have no idea about modern reproduction.  Cells were not discovered until 1655.   Sperm was not discovered until 1677.  The egg was not discovered until 1827.  The idea that human life begins when egg meets sperm originated in 1843.  Before the microscope there would have been no way for anyone to know that life originated outside the womb.  When sperm was discovered, they thought that life may have originated with the sperm[3].  
• Once sperm meets egg the cell divides and eventually it becomes a blastocyst that implants in the uterus.  Without a microscope, one could not know about implantation.  The modern pregnancy test allowed us to know about many more pregnancies that would be miscarried.
•  The earliest indicator of pregnancy was the missed period.  The earliest indicator of life was the first movement.  Movement post-Aristotle was thought of as life and it may have seemed suitable to confer on this the quickening.
• Judaism did not grow in a vacuum and since it encountered Hellenism, it had to deal with the quickening.  What did pre-Hellenistic Jews believe?

Abortion


Jewish law not only permits, but in some circumstances requires abortion. Where the mother's life is in jeopardy because of the unborn child, abortion is mandatory. 

An unborn child has the status of "potential human life" until the majority of the body has emerged from the mother. Potential human life is valuable, and may not be terminated casually, but it does not have as much value as a life in existence. The Talmud makes no bones about this: it says quite bluntly that if the fetus threatens the life of the mother, you cut it up within her body and remove it limb by limb if necessary, because its life is not as valuable as hers. But once the greater part of the body has emerged, you cannot take its life to save the mother's, because you cannot choose between one human life and another.[1]

Here are the outer limits of the Jewish positions on abortion: 1) Unlike in Catholicism, in Judaism the fetus isn't a legal person until it's born, so abortion can't be murder. (This isn't even as different from Catholicism as it seems. The Catholic Church itself didn't insist that life began at conception until 1869. Before that, the Church tolerated abortions through the 40th day of pregnancy.) 2) The fetus, although perhaps not a legal person, is a potential one with a limited number of legal rights (such as the ability to inherit property in certain cases), so abortion is like murder, even if it isn't exactly the same thing... 

...The one thing everybody agrees about, whether abortion resembles murder or not, is that in the case of a threat to the mother's life, Jewish law requires you to save her rather than the fetus. (Catholics save the fetus, on the grounds that the mother bas been baptized and will go to heaven, whereas the fetus has not and is condemned to limbo, if not to hell. Jews don't worry as much about the afterlife.)... 

...Rabbis also offer a dizzying menu of views about how early or late into a pregnancy the procedure can be performed, ranging from only up to 40 days after conception to up to the beginning of the third term. (If the birthing process seems likely to be fatal for the mother, you can remove the fetus at the very last moment--until the head crowns, at which point the fetus becomes a person with a soul and a full legal identity.) These debates derive from different verses than the ones cited above. In one such verse, the fetus is deemed to be little more than water until quickening (in the ancient world, 40 days after insemination).[2]

Blackstone on Abortion

1. Life is the immediate gift of God, a right inherent by nature in every individual; and it begins in contemplation of law as soon as an infant is able to stir in the mother's womb. For if a woman is quick with child, and by a potion, or otherwise, killeth it in her womb; or if any one beat her, whereby the child dieth in her body, and she is delivered of a dead child; this, though not murder, was by the antient law homicide or manslaughter. But at present it is not looked upon in quite so atrociousatrocious a light, though it remains a very heinous misdemesnor.


An infant in ventresa mere, or in the mother's womb, is supposed in law to be born for many purposes. It is capable of having a legacy, or a surrender of a copyhold estate made to it. It may have a guardian assigned to itq; and it is enabled to have an estate limited to it's use, and to take afterwards by such limitation, as if it were then actually bornr. And in this point the civil law agrees with ours.[1]

On My Mind/From My Heart: Are We Trusted and Are We Trustworthy?

On My Mind/From My Heart: Are We Trusted and Are We Trustworthy?: My family is heavily populated by people with a communications and journalism background. My undergraduate degree is in communications, my...

Jerry Jr. comes outs of the new tunnel

So act according to your wisdom, and do not let his gray hair go down to Sheol in peace.

"So act according to your wisdom, and do not let his gray hair go down to Sheol in peace. 1 Kings 2:6

What does progressive revelation mean?  Throughout history, the Lord did not reveal all of the truth at once.  There are over 900 years between the construction of the Temple and the birth of Christ.  After the Temple, Elijah, Elisha, Micah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Amos, Obadiah, Joel, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi were born.  Those alive for the Temple construction would not have had access to most of what we consider to be messianic prophecies.  He would not even have had some of the Psalms.  Honestly what use would much of it have been to someone who existed before the Assyrian Empire, before even the Axial Age?  One of the things that was not imparted to the pre-axial Jewish people was a distinction between heaven and hell.  They believed in an underworld destination for both the righteous and the wicked.  This was a place where they would be silent and heard no more.  Below are some reference, most containing Sheol, that I hope will prove my point.  All but one are from the Iron Age and the one from Isaiah is from the Axial Age. 

For there is no mention of You in death; In Sheol who will give You thanks? Psalms 6:5

"What profit is there in my blood, if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise You? Will it declare Your faithfulness?” Psalms 30:9

Let me not be put to shame, O LORD, for I call upon You; Let the wicked be put to shame, let them be silent in Sheol. Psalms 31:17

For my soul has *had enough troubles, And my life has drawn near to *Sheol. Psalms 88:3

Will You perform wonders for the dead? Will the departed spirits rise and praise You? Selah. Psalms 88:10

If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. Psalms 139:8

For the living know they will die; but the dead do not know anything, nor have they any longer a reward, for their memory is forgotten. Ecclesiastes 9:5

"For Sheol cannot thank You, Death cannot praise You; Those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness. Isaiah 38:18

Occupy Jupiter

Jupiter has marked the sky of the Occupy protests so this is hilariously appropriate.

Angry Birds the Movie

NASA | Ten Years of Global Fire Observations

19th-century American Women: Another Portrait of African American Muslim Yarrow...

19th-century American Women: Another Portrait of African American Muslim Yarrow...: . 1822 James Alexander Simpson (American artist & teacher) Yarrow Mount. Peabody Room, Georgetown Public Library Georgetown artist James ...

Humanists and Nigerian Witches

One of the interesting things about the Nigerian witch hunters is that they have been combated by a group of humanists.  These humanists do not believe in the gospel, but they also do not believe in witchcraft.  They are in an unique position to persuade parents that their children are not witches.  However they have been persecuted for their attempts.

Nigerian Humanists have won the latest round in an ongoing battle with witch hunters. Today, 4 Feb. 2010, the Federal High Court in Calabar struck out the case brought against Leo Igwe, International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) Representative in West Africa, by Helen Ukpabio of the Liberty Gospel Church. 

In November last year, Ukpabio went to court claiming that conferences organised by the Nigerian Humanist Movement to tackle witchcraft related abuses infringed on her right to spread the gospel. She asked the court to order the child rights campaigners to pay her two hundred billion naira (1.3 billion US dollars) as damages for “infringement of their rights.” 

“The Church instituted this court action to stop their arrest and prosecution for the attack of July 29 in Calabar,” said Igwe, referring to a physical assault on him last year. About 200 members of the Liberty Gospel Church disrupted an anti-witch hunt conference that Igwe organized in July 2009. (Video of the attack is available here: http://www.iheu.org/iheu-representative-attacked.) The conference highlighted the role of Liberty Gospel Church in ‘trials’ of children suspected of being witches. Many children have been killed after having been found guilty by such ‘trials.’ IHEU has raised the issue of witch hunts in many international forums, including the United Nations Human Rights Council and the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights. 

Ukpabio and her lawyers were not in court. So the lawyer leading the defence team, Barrister Madaki, asked the court to strike out the case due lack of diligent prosecution. And the court granted his request. 

“The striking out of this case is a welcome development,” said Igwe. “It is a victory for justice, human rights and the rule of law in Nigeria. The Nigerian Humanist Movement and its partner groups will continue to work and campaign to eradicate all forms of human rights abuses in the name of witchcraft.”[1]

More on the Nigerian Humanist Movement:

The Nigerian Humanist Movement was founded in 1996 to promote Humanism, defend secularism and provide a sense of community to all non-religious and freethinking Nigerians - atheists, skeptics, rationalists, agnostics and freethinkers. Nigeria is a deeply religious society. And in most cases people relate, interact and marry along religious lines. Religious affiliation becomes a decisive factor when one is seeking employment, doing a business or wants to be admitted into a school or university. Those who do not profess any religion are treated as second class citizens. So in Nigeria most non-religious people are in the closet. They lack any association or community they can call their own. The rights of non-religious people are not recognized. The voice and interests are not represented at public debates and discourse. So NHM was formed to fulfill this important need- to defend the rights and interests of Humanists and the general public and to realize a Humanistic society....  

Since its inception NHM has taken part in several campaigns against anti-personnel landmines, child labor, female genital mutilation, ritual killing, witchcraft, caste discrimination, shari’a law and homophobia.[2]

Witch Doctors Are Importing Children to the UK

I posted something about witch killing in Nigeria. It turns out that traditional African spiritual healers (witch-doctors) have smuggled in at least 400 African children to Britain.  Most of these children come from Uganda (East Africa), but at least one came from Nigeria (West Africa).  Also seriously, Uganda has an Anti-Human Sacrifice Police Task Force?  Awesome.

African children trafficked to UK for blood rituals 

By Chris Rogers BBC News, Kampala and London
[October 12, 2011] 

Over the last four years, at least 400 African children have been abducted and trafficked to the UK and rescued by the British authorities, according to figures obtained by the BBC. It is unclear how they are smuggled into the country but a sinister picture is emerging of why. 

Whether it is through leaflets handed out in High Streets or small ads in local newspapers, witch-doctors and traditional African spiritual healers are becoming ever more prominent in Britain. 

The work many of them do is harmless enough, but there is evidence that some are involved in the abuse of children who have been abducted from their families in Africa, and trafficked to the UK. 

According to Christine Beddoe, director of the anti-trafficking charity Ecpat UK, a cultural belief in the power of human blood in so-called juju rituals is playing a part in the demand for African children. 

"Our experience tells us that traffickers can be anybody. They can be people with power, people with money or people involved in witchcraft," she explains. 

"Trafficking can involve witch-doctors and other types of professionals in the community who are using those practices. 

"Violent and degrading

Figures compiled by Ecpat, combined with those of the Metropolitan Police and Ceop, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, show that at least 400 African children have been abducted and trafficked to the UK and rescued by the British authorities. 

Testimonies from many of these children have revealed that once they arrive in Britain, they are exposed to violent and degrading treatments, often involving the forced extraction of their blood to be used for clients demanding blood rituals. 

Some of these victims agreed to share their experiences on the promise of anonymity because they still fear their abusers. 

One boy explained how witch-doctors took his blood to be used in such rituals: "The traffickers or witch-doctors take your hair and cut your arms, legs, heads and genitals and collect the blood. They say if you speak out I can kill you." 

Another victim feared for her life, saying the "witch-doctor told me that one day he would need my head. 

"Sometimes I would wake up and he would be standing over me with a knife, every night I was terrified that he would do it." 

Meanwhile, a girl from Nigeria remains convinced the spell performed on her means she can never identify her traffickers, for fear her family will die. 

"They told me I was evil and made bad things happen. I believed it and that this was my punishment and what my life would be."Human blood ritual. 

Witch-doctors, or traditional spiritual healers as they prefer to be known, are becoming more prominent in Britain. 

Many offer "life changing rituals", involving prayer and herbs. A price tag of £350 ($547) would not be uncommon. 

But there are some who engage in more sinister practices. 

Posing as a couple with financial problems, I visited 10 witch-doctors. All offered herbal potions to end our money worries, but two also made the offer of a ritual involving human blood. 

Although, there is no evidence that they themselves were involved in the trafficking and abuse of children, it contributes to a disturbing picture of abduction and abuse. 

According to a US State Department report, Uganda has become one of the main source countries for children to be bought and smuggled to Britain. Some 9,000 children have gone missing in the country over the past four years. 

The ease with which a child could be procured was apparent when, posing as a British trafficker, I went looking for help in the cafes and bars in the underworld of the Ugandan capital, Kampala. 

For $250 (£160) a reformed criminal introduced us to Yunus Kabul, who boasted he had been abducting children for witch-doctors in Africa and abroad, for years. 

During our conversation he offered as many children as we required. 

"I have enough, a hundred, no problem. I have so many communications. I have a network across whole of Uganda." 

Mr Kabul arranged a meeting at an isolated hotel. Unaware he was being recorded, he described how he got hold of children for his customers. 

"It all depends how they want it done? I can take you to a family home, I would have no problem to get a child officially or there is a way of doing it secretly, abduct a child."
I asked Mr Kabul if the police would cause a problem. 

"I have to find a house where we can take the supply, the children, in a remote area. So the police cannot find them," he explained. 

Mr Kabul demanded a fee of £10,000 ($15,600) per child. I withdrew from the negotiations.
The head of Uganda's Anti-Human Sacrifice Police Task Force, Commissioner Bignoa Moses, admits there is a problem: "We cannot rule out that children end up abroad because as of now we don't have the capacity to monitor each individual and many simply disappear." 

Back in the UK, despite the testimony of so many victims, the cultural belief in the power of juju is a huge challenge for the authorities. 

One senior police detective says part of the problem is the silence that surrounds the matter.
"While juju is widely believed, it is rarely spoken about publicly. People think even talking about juju might lead to something bad happening to them," says Det Ch Supt Richard Martin, head of the Metropolitan Police's Human Exploitation and Organised Crime Command. 

"This presents officers with enormous difficulties when it comes to investigating these crimes and bringing the perpetrators to justice."[BBC]

Nigerian Witch Killings Primer

Let me put this in context.  Nigeria is a big place.  It is a nation of about 149 million people.  This witch killing is largely taking place in the Akwa Ibom State which has a population of only 3.9 million.  This in no way reflects the majority Nigerian opinion.  Because of international media attention, the Nigerian government has been clamping down on the practice that began only about a decade ago.   OK on to the Human Rights report.

Children accused of witchcraft were kidnapped, tortured, and killed. In September media reported that the public outcry and effort by the government, particularly in Akwa Ibom State, had caused a drop in new cases of children abused for alleged witchcraft. According to two local NGOs, Stepping Stones Nigeria (SSN) and the CRARN, attackers drove nails into children's heads, cut off fingers, tied children to trees, and abandoned them in the jungle. Self-proclaimed "bishop" Sunday Williams publicly claimed to have killed 110 child witches and asserted that Akwa Ibom had as many as 2.3 million witches and wizards among its population of 3.9 million. In 2008 authorities arrested Williams and charged him with torture and murder; he was arraigned in May 2009, and the case continued at year's end. The government did not acknowledge the wider problem of accusing children of witchcraft. The state governor, reacting to international press stories of persecution of children accused of witchcraft in Akwa Ibom, issued arrest warrants for the leaders of the SSN and the CRARN for alleged misappropriation of funds and personal gain. The cases were pending at year's end with outstanding warrants for the shelter's directors.

On September 24, in Akwa Ibom State, a father was arrested after he buried his six-year-old twin sons in a shallow grave; the boys were rescued when villagers heard their cries. The father believed the boys were wizards who were responsible for the death of his wife, their mother. The police asserted that they were ready to arrest anyone who committed a crime under the guise of witchcraft, but a clan leader complained that, rather than celebrating the father who discovered witchcraft in his children, the police were called.

 In July 2009 police in Eket, Awka Ibom State, raided the CRARN shelter that housed 150 abused and neglected children, some of whom had fled their homes after being accused of witchcraft. Police beat children who tried to stop the arrest of two staff members. The two were released later after the governor's office intervened; two girls, aged 11 and 12 years, were left unconscious.[2010 Human Rights Report: Nigeria]

Further Reading
[Children are targets of Nigerian witch hunt]
[Child 'witches' in Africa][Nigeria 'child witch killer' held]
[Children abused, killed as witches in Nigeria]

Update Christine O'Donnell is not a witch.

Monday Myths: Ear Candling creates a vacuum

Ear candling is an ancient practice that supposedly removes wax from the ears, thereby improving physical and spiritual well-being. Practitioners use a tapered tube, about a foot long, made out of a rolled-up sheet of cotton that has been coated with beeswax, and sometimes infused with honey or herbs. 

They insert the narrow end of the tube, or ear cone, into the patient's ear, and set the other end on fire. The flame supposedly creates a vacuum that sucks ear wax into the tube. After 15 minutes or so, the practitioner douses the flame and pushes a stick through the tube, pushing out ash and melted wax that has been darkened by the smoke so it resembles ear wax.
But it is not ear wax, as several researchers have demonstrated. 

For example, clinical psychologist Philip Kaushall, along with Justin Neville Kaushall, performed ear candling the traditional way, and then burned other ear candles that were not inserted in the ear. The residue was always the same. 

"Hence the wax that is pushed out from an ear cone is not from the ear, as purported, but rather is a product of the candle itself," they concluded in an article published in Skeptical Inquirer. Ear candles don't produce a vacuum either, so they could not possibly suck wax from the ear. 

"Since wax is sticky, the negative pressure needed to pull wax from the canal would have to be so powerful that it would rupture the eardrum," says Lisa M.L. Dryer, MD, writing for quackwatch.org, a web site devoted to combating health-related frauds, myths, fads, and fallacies.[WebMD]

19th-century American Women: Earliest known portrait of practicing American Mus...

19th-century American Women: Earliest known portrait of practicing American Mus...: . One of the earliest formal portraits of an African American - a well-known oil painting of a kufi-wearing free black man painted by Charl...

Rick Perry does not know if the birth certificate is real

Governor, do you believe that President Barack Obama was born in the United States?I have no reason to think otherwise.

That’s not a definitive, “Yes, I believe he”—
Well, I don’t have a definitive answer, because he’s never seen my birth certificate.

But you’ve seen his.I don’t know. Have I?

You don’t believe what’s been released?I don’t know. I had dinner with Donald Trump the other night.

And?That came up.

And he said?He doesn’t think it’s real.

And you said?I don’t have any idea. It doesn’t matter. He’s the President of the United States. He’s elected. It’s a distractive issue. [1]

More from the Catholic Encyclopedia

Divorce was a social program to take care of women.   Also, the Catholic Encyclopedia seems to argue that  forbidding divorce raises the civil and social status of women.

In modern countries which permit divorce, and yet call themselvesChristian, the wife can take advantage of the practice about as easily as the husband; but his is undoubtedly due to the previous influence of Christianity in raising the civil and social status of woman during the long period in which divorce was forbidden. In the long run divorce must inevitably be more injurious to a women than to men. If the divorced woman remains single generally has greater difficulty in supporting herself than the divorced man; if she is young her opportunities of marrying again may, indeed, be about as good as those of the divorced man who is young; but if she is at or beyond middle age the probability that she will find a suitable spouse is decidedly smaller than in the case of her separated husband. 

The fact that in the United States more women than men apply for divorces proves nothing as yet against the statements justset down; for we do not know whether these women have generally found it easy to get other husbands, or whether their newcondition was better than the old. The frequent appeal to the divorce courts by American women is a comparatively recent phenomenon, and is undoubtedly due more to emotion, imaginary hopes, and a hasty use of newly acquired freedom, than to calm and adequate study of the experiences of other divorced women. If the present facility of divorce should continue fifty years longer, the disproportionate hardship to women from the practice will probably have become so evident the number of them taking advantage of it, or approving it, will be much smaller than today.

The Divorce Crisis of the 1890's :)

If I can spout about history from memory, US judges are increasingly merciful to the wives.  The Victorian women are increasingly viewed as pure and victims, therefore judges are more prompted to save them from their husbands.  

In some of the non-Catholic countries divorce is extremely easy and scandalously frequent. Between 1890 and 1900 the divorces granted in the United States averaged 73 per 100,000 of the population annually. This was more than twice the rate in any other Western nation. The proportion in Switzerland was 32; in France, 23; in Saxony, 29; and in the majority of European countries, less than 15. So far as we are informed by statistics, only one country in the world, namely, Japan, had a worse record than the United States, the rate per 100,000 of the population the Flowery Kingdombeing 215. In most of the civilized countries the divorce rate is increasing, slowly in some, very rapidly in others. Relatively to the population, about two and one half times as many divorces are granted now in the United States as were issued forty year ago.[1]

RadioLab

Awesome RadioLab podcast, but it does contain adult material.

Obama beat his own deportation record

The agency removed 396,906 undocumented immigrants from the United States in the 2011 fiscal year, a slight increase from the previous year's 392,826 removals.[1]

That was about 30,000 more than Bush did in his final year.

Ussher's B-day

“In the beginning, God created heaven and earth, which beginning of time, according to this chronology, occurred at the beginning of the night which preceded the 23rd of October in the year 710 of the Julian period.” ~ Bishop Ussher - The Annals[1]

Astronomy Anemone (Veronica Belmont)

Science is the one field where being wrong may be just as important as being right.

The North American Nebula (Hidden Universe Galaxy Explorer)

The Galactic Center Revisited (Hidden Universe Gallery Explorer)

Dust Cloud 600 light years long.

Memo from the Elementary School Principal

PRAYER AROUND THE FLAGPOLE: The event takes place every Monday at 8:15 at the flag pole next to the office and is sponsored by our area Pastors. This is not to be confused with the “Pray around the flagpole” which is annual on the 4th Wednesday in September. Our pray around the school’s flagpole event is to pray for the nation, for each other, and for our school. Many outstanding people are leading information session to our congress for them to understand the first amendment. Pastor Steven Andrew states: “Our children need God back in schools,’ and he is calling Christians nation-wide to bring back the Holy Bible and Christian prayer to schools. The First Amendment was for Christianity, not other religions. The First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law…prohibiting the free exercise of [Christian] religion.” Including God, the Constitution says, “The year of our Lord” and “except Sundays.” Our Founding Fathers fought for God’s unalienable rights of Christian life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Freedom comes from obeying God. Let’s get active to bring back the Holy Bible and Christian prayer to schools.” Our prayer around the flagpole gatherings are permissible because they are community led and take place outside of class time.[1]

The principal says that he does not agree with the quotes.  He says he was not trying to endorse the prayer event.  He does believe that the First Amendment applies to all religions.  The actual pastor who will be leading the event, Pastor Baker, says he believes that the First Amendment applies to all religions.

So then why did the principal quote at length another pastor's views that the First Amendment only applies to Christianity?

"This is his opinion and what he says,” Davis said about Andrew’s article. “To me it just looked like it all went together with the morals. I don’t think it was a stretch at all for him to make those comments or for me to share them.”[2]

Given the rest of the memo, I am tempted to believe the principal.  He goes on to talk about Congress and tax policy.  Pastor Baker leads the prayer events at three other schools.  It is not Baker's fault that another pastor wrote something and it is not Baker's fault that the principal decided to quote it in a school memo.   Baker did cancel the events at all four schools originally, but then renewed them at all four schools.  He believes that to cancel would admit that there was something wrong in the first place.

The principal on the other hand really screwed this up.  Yes, the faculty need to be notified. However, the way he notified them was ridiculous.  If he did not endorse the event, he sure did seem like it.  He quoted a constitutional opinion that was contrary to the school's policies. 

If the principal was not trying to endorse the event with a school memo, he did a poor job.  I feel sorry for the pastor who is leading the event who seems like a reasonable guy to get sideswiped by this principal.

Livestock are raising new antibiotic resistance genes

Newly Discovered Reservoir of Antibiotic Resistance Genes 

Waters polluted by the ordure of pigs, poultry, or cattle represent a reservoir of antibiotic resistance genes, both known and potentially novel. These resistance genes can be spread among different bacterial species by bacteriophage, bacteria-infecting viruses, according to a paper in the October Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. 

"We found great quantities of bacteriophages carrying different antibiotic resistance genes in waters with fecal pollution from pigs, cattle, and poultry," says Maite Muniesa of the University of Barcelona, Spain, an author on the study. "We demonstrated that the genes carried by the phages were able to generate resistance to a given antibiotic when introduced into other bacteria in laboratory conditions," says Muniesa. 

Although we often think of antibiotic resistance genes as evolving into existence in response to the antibiotics that doctors use to fight human disease and that agribusiness uses to fatten farm animals, microbes had undoubtedly been using both antibiotics and resistance genes to compete with each other for millions of years before antibiotics revolutionized human medicine and resistance genes threatened their efficacy to the point where the World Health Organization considers them to be one of the biggest risks to human health. 

Thus, the Spanish researchers suspect, based on their study, that these resistance gene reservoirs are the product of microbial competition, rather than pressure from human use of antibiotics. They note that the pasture-fed cattle in their study are not fed antibiotics, and they suggest that even if antibiotic feed additives were banned, new resistance genes might emerge while old ones spread from these reservoirs into bacteria that infect humans. 

And if resistance genes are being mobilized from these reservoirs, it becomes important to understand how the resistance genes are transmitted from phage to new bacterial species, in order to develop strategies that could hinder this transmission, limiting the emergence of new resistance genes, says Muniesa. 

(M. Colomer-Lluch, L.Imamamovic, J. Jofre, and M. Muniesa, 2011. Bacteriophages carrying antibiotic resistance genes in fecal waste from cattle, pigs, and poultry. Antim. Agents Chemother. 55:4908-4911.)

Women Can Self-Test for HPV, Easily and Accurately

Women Can Self-Test for HPV, Easily and Accurately 

A team of German researchers has shown that women can accurately test themselves for human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, the most common cause of cervical cancer. The research is published in the October Journal of Clinical Microbiology. 

"The high sensitivity of this self-sampling method guarantees to identify nearly all HPV-infected women," says first author Yvonne Delere, of the Robert Koch Institute of the Ministry of Health, Berlin. 

Worldwide, cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women, with half a million new cases and a quarter million deaths, annually, according to the World Health Organization. Virtually all cases are linked to certain strains HPV. 

In the study, the researchers compared self sampling with conventional endocervical brush samples obtained by gynecologists in two groups of women 20-30 years of age, with (55 women) and without (101 women) a recent suspicious cytological smear. The two sampling methods were in accord in the two groups 84 and 91 percent of the time, respectively. Overall, the women rated the self-sampling method easy, at 12 on a scale of 0 (easy) to 100 (difficult).
The Netherlands has already introduced the new technique into cervical cancer screening programs, and Delere hopes to see the method become widespread in developing countries, where women frequently lack easy access to medical personnel and testing. 

The researchers note that concordance between the conventional and the self-sampling methods is good despite the fact that the techniques sample different areas. The cervical brush sampling is directed towards the transformation zone, the area on the cervix where abnormal cells most commonly develop, while the lavage includes the whole cervical area. 

"The higher prevalence of HPV, hr-HPV, and HPV16 in cervicovaginal lavage samples may be explained by additional infections at extracervical sites," according to the paper. "Since these infections may be a reservoir for virus infecting the cervical epithelium at the transformational zone, they are probably epidemiologically relevant. Therefore, cervicovaginal lavage sampling may be superior to cervix-directed sampling for future HPV prevalence studies." 

Among teenaged girls, the transformation zone lies on the cervix's outer surface, where it is more vulnerable to infection than it is in adult women. 

The self-sampling device, the Delphi Screener, is a sterile, syringe-like device containing five milliliters of buffered saline. One operates it by plunging the handle, releasing the saline into the vagina, holding it down for five seconds, then releasing the handle, so that the device retrieves the fluid. Next, one plunges the lavage specimens into prelabeled coded tubes, and mails it to the laboratory. 

(Y. Delere, M. Schuster, E. Vartazarowa, T. Hansel, I. Hagemann, S. Borchardt, H. Perlitz, A. Schneider, S. Reiter, and A.M. Kaufmann, 2011. Cervicovaginal self-sampling is a reliable method for determination of prevalence of human papillomavirus genotypes in women aged 20 to 30 years. J. Clin. Microbiol. 49:3519-3522.)

Spitzer Space Telescope: The Musical

Behind the Scenes: Dead Stars (Sean Astin, Sandeep Parikh)

Behind the Scenes: When Galaxies Collide (Felicia Day, Sean Astin)

How Baffling...

"How baffling it was that even the most cunning and clever people would frequently see only what they wanted to see, and would rarely look beyond the thinnest of facades. Or they would ignore reality, dismissing it as the facade. And then, when their whole world fell to pieces...they would tear their topknots or rend their clothes and bewail their karma, blaming gods or kami or luck or their lords or husbands or vassals--anything or anyone--but never themselves." - James Clavell, SHOGUN[1]

Tea Party Nation Members Refuse to Hire

Call For A Strike of American Small Businesses Against The Movement for Global Socialism
Posted by Melissa Brookstone on October 18, 2011 at 1:15am

 “I’m on strike!” - Ellis Wyatt, from the end of the movie "Atlas Shrugged, Part 1", based on the novel by Ayn Rand 

Resolved that: The Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled Senate, in alliance with a global Progressive socialist movement, have participated in what appears to be a globalist socialist agenda of redistribution of wealth, and the waging of class warfare against our constitutional republic's heritage of individual rights, free market capitalism, and indeed our Constitution itself, with the ultimate goal of collapsing the U.S. economy and globalizing us into socialism. 

Resolved that: President Obama has seized what amount to dictatorial powers to bypass our Congress, and that because the Congress is controlled by a Progressive socialist Senate that will not impeach one of their kind, they have allowed this and yielded what are rightfully congressional powers to this new dictator. 

Resolved that: By their agenda and actions, those in our government who swore oaths to protect and defend our Constitution have committed treason against the United States. 

Resolved that: The current administration and Democrat majority in the Senate, in conjunction with Progressive socialists from all around the country, especially those from Hollywood and the left leaning news media ( Indeed, most of the news media. ) have worked in unison to advance an anti-business, an anti-free market, and an anti-capitalist ( anti-individual rights and property ownership ) agenda. 

Resolved that: These same factions expect that, by carrying out a radical anti-business agenda, which includes the passage and inflicting of Obama"Care" on our nation, class warfare and redistribution of wealth, and expanding the government, while killing businesses in this country with an environment hostile to business, including excessive regulations ( the average business must now spend about $11,700 per year per employee to comply with government regulations! ), and by borrowing and wasting more money than has been spent in the entire previous existence of our republic, that they will "create jobs", when in fact all they have "created" have been government jobs that consume wealth, and don't "create" it. 

Resolved that: Our President, the Democrats-Socialists, most of the media, and most of those from Hollywood, have now encouraged and supported "Occupy" demonstrations in our streets, which are now being perpetrated across the globe, and which are being populated by various marxists, socialists and even communists, and are protesting against business, private property ownership and capitalism, something I thought I'd never see in my country, in my lifetime. 

I, an American small business owner, part of the class that produces the vast majority of real, wealth producing jobs in this country, hereby resolve that I will not hire a single person until this war against business and my country is stopped. 

I hereby declare that my job creation potential is now ceased.

“I’m on strike!”[Tea Party Nation]