The past decides to kick just a bit. Fortunately, he does not have all of the church behind him.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- A tiny Appalachian church in Pike County has voted to ban interracial couples from joining its flock, pitting members against each other in an argument over race.
Members at the Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church voted Sunday on the resolution, which says the church "does not condone interracial marriage."
Member Melvin Thompson crafted the resolution but said Wednesday that he is not racist. The church secretary, Dean Harville, disagrees. The resolution followed a visit to the church by Harville's daughter, who is white, and her African boyfriend.
"I am not racist. I will tell you that. I am not prejudiced against any race of people, have never in my lifetime spoke evil" about a race," said Thompson, the church's former pastor who stepped down earlier this year. "That's what this is being portrayed as, but it is not."
He called the matter an "internal affair" of the church.
Harville said an appearance at the church by Stella Harville and her boyfriend, Ticha Chikuni, prompted the vote. Harville said the couple visited the church in June and Chikuni sang a song for the congregation.
Harville, the church's secretary, said he was counting the church offering after a service in early August when he was approached by Thompson, who told him Harville's daughter and her boyfriend were no longer allowed to sing at the church.
"If he's not racist, what is this?" Harville said of Thompson.
Harville and Thompson each said the church's governing conference will meet soon to attempt to resolve the issue. Thompson said he believed the resolution would be overturned.
The vote by members on Sunday was 9-6, Harville said. It was taken after the service, which about 35 to 40 people attended. Harville said many people left or declined to vote.
The resolution says anyone is welcome to attend services, but interracial couples could not become members or be "used in worship services or other church functions."
Stella Harville met Chikuni at Georgetown College where he is a resident director of a dormitory. They are set to be married next year, Dean Harville said.[1]
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
2005: Newt and the Individual Mandate
Is this Gingrich, Obama, or Bismark? I can not tell. :) Here in 2005, Gingrich seems to support the individual mandate.
Don't always listen to the American People.
Pledge to America, page 15
Ensure Access For Patients With Pre-Existing Conditions:Health care should be accessible for all, regardless of pre-existing conditions or past illnesses.We will expand state high-risk pools, reinsurance programs and reduce the cost of coverage.We will make it illegal for an insurance company to deny coverage to someone with prior coverage on the basis of a pre-existing condition, eliminate annual and lifetime spending caps, and prevent insurers from dropping your coverage just because you get sick.We will incentivize states to develop innovative programs that lower premiums and reduce the number of uninsured Americans.
In 2009 a poll said that 63% of people thought that insurance companies must cover those with pre-existing conditions. 26% preferred that insurance companies should cover those with pre-existing conditions. In a December 2010 poll CNN found that 64% oppose an insurance company denying someone coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
The GOP says they are listening to the American people. One, I am a Bush conservative and still believe that doing what is best, in spite of opposition, is true leadership. Governing by polls is simply a mistake. (Don't get me started on the "nobody speaks for the Tea Party") Also, it is a logical fallacy to assume that the majority is right. Two, it is simply not the case that the GOP is following the "will of the American people". The majority of Americans liked the "public option". The majority of Americans oppose the War in Afghanistan. The majority of Americans want to increase taxes on the wealthy. Still, the majority of Americans oppose the health care law and individual mandate. You can never represent the will of the American people. Even if you could that doesn't mean that you should.
What bothers me the most is not the people who expound this foolishness. I am most bothered by the masses who believe this foolishness. Something is not working right in their heads since they believe things that are so irrational. What else may you be able to convince them by telling them that it is the "will of the American people"? Already many have been convinced that anti-miscegenation groups are not racist or that the anti-miscegenation groups were never there. Already 1/3 of the Tea Party does not believe that Obama is a natural born citizen. Many believe that a man who constantly denies that he is a communist is an "avowed communist".
High risk pool data in 2008
2009 Poll
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/09/23/poll-make-insurers-cover-people-with-pre-existing-conditions/
Council of Conservative Citizens at Tea Party
Hannity denies their existance
CNN 2010 Health Care Poll
Majority Favor Public Option
Afghan poll
http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/03/cnn-poll-u-s-opposition-to-afghanistan-war-remains-high/
Van Jones "avowed communist"
Tea Party Birthers
Monday, November 28, 2011
Really don't like this sect
Husbands authorised to beat their Wives (2nd S. ii. 108.219.297.) — Perhaps the following curious extract in connexion with this subject may be worth recording in " N. & Q.:"
" Wife-beating advocated by a Clergyman, SfC. — A very large number of wife-beating cases have recently been brought before the magistrates at Whitehaven, where there exists a sect of professing Christians who propagate the opinion that the practice is in accordance with the ■word of God. The Rev. Geo. Bird, formerly rector of Cmnberworth, near Hiiddersficld, has established himself there, and drawn together a congregation; and within the last few weeks it has transpired that he holds the doctrine that it is perfectly scriptural for a man to beat his wife. About six weeks ago, James Scott, a member of Mr. Bird's congregation, was summoned by his wife for brutally beating her because she refused to attend the same place of worship that he did. When before the magistrates, Mrs. Scott said she had no wish her husband should be punished if he would promise not to illuse her badly again. When asked by the magistrates whether he would make the requisite promise, he refused, saying,' Am I to obey the laws of God, or the laws of man ?' As he would not give the promise, the magistrates committed him to prison for a mouth, with hard lnbonr. The Rev. Mr. Bird has since delivered a course of lectures on the subject of Scott's conviction. He contends that it is a man's duty to rule his own household; and if his wife refuse to obey his orders, he is justified, according to the law of God, in beating her in order to enforce obedience."— The Examiner, Oct. 11. 1856.[1]
John Chrysostom preached against spousal abuse
And I say not this for a wife to be beaten; far from it: for this is the extremest affront, not to her that is beaten, but to him who beateth. But even if by some misfortune thou have such a yokefellow allotted thee, take it not ill, O woman, considering the reward which is laid up for such things and their praise too in this present life. And to you husbands also this I say: make it a rule that there can be no such offence as to bring you under the necessity of striking a wife. And why say I a wife? since not even upon his handmaiden could a free man endure to inflict blows and lay violent hands. But if the shame be great for a man to beat a maidservant, much more to stretch forth the right hand against her that is free. And this one might see even from heathen legislatures who no longer compel her that hath been so treated to live with him that beat her, as being unworthy of her fellowship. For surely it comes of extreme lawlessness when thy partner of life, she who in the most intimate relations and in the highest degree, is united with thee; when she, like a base slave, is dishonored by thee. Wherefore also such a man, if indeed one must call him a man and not rather a wild beast, I should say, was like a parricide and a murderer of his mother. For if for a wife's sake we were commanded to leave even father and mother, not wronging them but fulfilling a divine law; and a law so grateful to our parents themselves that even they, the very persons whom we are leaving, are thankful, and bring it about with great eagerness; what but extreme frenzy can it be to insult her for whose sake God bade us leave even our parents? [1]~ Saint John Chrysostom - Homilies on First Corinthians - Homilie XXVI
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) proclaimed the truth of Copernicus's heliocentric universe, but he went one step further. Copernicus had said that the firmament existed beyond the solar system. Bruno argued the universe was infinite. He was burned at the stake in 1600.[1]
Saturday, November 26, 2011
David J. Hufford Part 2
David Hufford argues that sleep paralysis defies current natural explanations and is therefore likely supernatural.
Sleep Walking Cats
They unparalyzed cats during their REM sleep! What kind of mad scientists are you that you create sleep walking cats!
NARRATOR: Nature, it appeared, had devised a special state of paralysis to house our dreams, one in which they remained internal experiences. It was a conclusion that seemed impossible to deny, when researchers learned to switch the paralysis off.
This cat looks as if it's awake; in fact, it's deep in REM sleep.
This dog appears to be running; it too is in REM sleep, and, like the cat, dreaming.
To see these dreams played out, scientists disabled the part of the brain that paralyzes muscles during REM sleep.
PATRICK MCNAMARA: And what we see when you do this, with cats in particular, is that they can walk around during REM sleep, and their behavior is not random, it's not chaotic. They're not just doing any old crazy thing. They appear to be doing the kinds of behaviors that cats like to do, like stalk a prey, you know, play with a mouse or something. So presumably that's what they dream about when they go into REM sleep, so that's what we think is happening.[NOVA]
NARRATOR: Nature, it appeared, had devised a special state of paralysis to house our dreams, one in which they remained internal experiences. It was a conclusion that seemed impossible to deny, when researchers learned to switch the paralysis off.
This cat looks as if it's awake; in fact, it's deep in REM sleep.
This dog appears to be running; it too is in REM sleep, and, like the cat, dreaming.
To see these dreams played out, scientists disabled the part of the brain that paralyzes muscles during REM sleep.
PATRICK MCNAMARA: And what we see when you do this, with cats in particular, is that they can walk around during REM sleep, and their behavior is not random, it's not chaotic. They're not just doing any old crazy thing. They appear to be doing the kinds of behaviors that cats like to do, like stalk a prey, you know, play with a mouse or something. So presumably that's what they dream about when they go into REM sleep, so that's what we think is happening.[NOVA]
Not exactly only naturally...
Percentage of food animals that are artificially inseminated.[Freakonomics]
Amount of food animals that we consume.
In his own words, Chuck Smith's French tongues story
But on Sunday evening we were meeting in the clubhouse in East Bluff. I cannot remember if it was ’68 or ’69, but we were meeting on Pentecost Sunday. And at that time there was probably 45 to 50 of us on Sunday evenings. And we were able to have a much more informal Bible study. I just sat with them and we just shared the Scriptures. We were going through the Bible, even then, but it was in a very informal way. And at the end of the study, because there was just a very small group of us, I said, “You know this is Pentecost Sunday, the Sunday that we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church.”
And we had a lady in our fellowship whose name was Lynn, who had a remarkable gift of tongues. Whenever she spoke in tongues, she spoke in French. And so, I said, “You know, let us just worship the Lord. And Lynn, just exercise your gift that God has given to you of speaking in tongues because it is just us here and it is Pentecost Sunday. We will have sort of a memorial since this is Pentecost Sunday.”
So Lynn began to speak in tongues (speaking in French), and I can understand enough of French that I knew that she was giving thanks to God for a beautiful song. Now because I could intellectually understand some of the French words, I did not make any endeavor to exercise my gift of interpretation. I was afraid of trying to interpret when, naturally, I knew some of the words. I had sort of the gist of what she was saying naturally, and I was afraid of some kind of a natural or supernatural hang-up. I might get out into nah-nah land and not come back between the two. So I did not make any endeavor to interpret.
However, my wife began to interpret. And it was very beautiful as she was thanking God for the beautiful new song that He had put in her heart, which was her love song to Him. And she spoke of the joy and the blessing of singing of her love for Him. Of course it was rather significant because she had been singing in nightclubs and did have a beautiful voice. And so it was quite significant that she was rejoicing in a new song that God had given to her, a song of praise and love unto Him.
We closed the meeting and we had a fellow who was going with this girl in Palm Springs and she was having some problems and he brought her down that night so that I could counsel with her after the service. So as we sat down to counsel, she said, “Before we start talking about the things that I need to talk to you about,” she said, “I am curious as to what was going on here tonight at the end. The woman who spoke to the group in French and the other woman who translated for the group.” And I said, “Would you believe that neither of those women know French?” She said, “No, I would not.” And I said, “Well, it is true.” I said, “Neither of them know French.”
And I took her to the Scriptures and I showed her the gift of speaking in tongues and the gift of interpretation. And I said, “What you saw was what Paul is talking about here in Corinthians, where one speaks in an unknown tongue and another interprets.” She said, “Well I lived for five years in Paris.” She said, “She was speaking the most beautiful French.” She said, “She was using an aristocratic pronunciation.” She said, “It was not just the common French. She had an aristocratic pronunciation.” I said, “Well, what would you expect from the Lord.” And she said, “The other lady translated it perfectly.” I said, “Well, I know that she does not know French. That is my wife!” She said, “Well, before we go any further, I have to receive the Lord.” And so we had the joy of leading her to the Lord as the result of that experience of seeing the genuine exercise of the gift. And here is one of those cases where tongues did become a sign to an unbeliever, as she saw the gift of tongues and the interpretation.[1]
So Lynn began to speak in tongues (speaking in French), and I can understand enough of French that I knew that she was giving thanks to God for a beautiful song. Now because I could intellectually understand some of the French words, I did not make any endeavor to exercise my gift of interpretation. I was afraid of trying to interpret when, naturally, I knew some of the words. I had sort of the gist of what she was saying naturally, and I was afraid of some kind of a natural or supernatural hang-up. I might get out into nah-nah land and not come back between the two. So I did not make any endeavor to interpret.
However, my wife began to interpret. And it was very beautiful as she was thanking God for the beautiful new song that He had put in her heart, which was her love song to Him. And she spoke of the joy and the blessing of singing of her love for Him. Of course it was rather significant because she had been singing in nightclubs and did have a beautiful voice. And so it was quite significant that she was rejoicing in a new song that God had given to her, a song of praise and love unto Him.
We closed the meeting and we had a fellow who was going with this girl in Palm Springs and she was having some problems and he brought her down that night so that I could counsel with her after the service. So as we sat down to counsel, she said, “Before we start talking about the things that I need to talk to you about,” she said, “I am curious as to what was going on here tonight at the end. The woman who spoke to the group in French and the other woman who translated for the group.” And I said, “Would you believe that neither of those women know French?” She said, “No, I would not.” And I said, “Well, it is true.” I said, “Neither of them know French.”
And I took her to the Scriptures and I showed her the gift of speaking in tongues and the gift of interpretation. And I said, “What you saw was what Paul is talking about here in Corinthians, where one speaks in an unknown tongue and another interprets.” She said, “Well I lived for five years in Paris.” She said, “She was speaking the most beautiful French.” She said, “She was using an aristocratic pronunciation.” She said, “It was not just the common French. She had an aristocratic pronunciation.” I said, “Well, what would you expect from the Lord.” And she said, “The other lady translated it perfectly.” I said, “Well, I know that she does not know French. That is my wife!” She said, “Well, before we go any further, I have to receive the Lord.” And so we had the joy of leading her to the Lord as the result of that experience of seeing the genuine exercise of the gift. And here is one of those cases where tongues did become a sign to an unbeliever, as she saw the gift of tongues and the interpretation.[1]
Friday, November 25, 2011
Aliens may be all in your head
From Harvard:
Many of the people who believe they have been abducted by aliens are bombarding Susan Clancy with hate e-mails and phone calls. The Harvard researcher, who has spent five years listening to the stories of some 50 abductees, has described her (and their) experiences in a new book to be published in October.
Clancy, 36, likes most of these people. "They are definitely not crazy," she says. But they do have "a tendency to fantasize and to hold unusual beliefs and ideas. They believe not only in alien abductions, but also in things like UFOs, ESP, astrology, tarot, channeling, auras, and crystal therapy. They also have in common a rash of disturbing experiences for which they are seeking an explanation. For them, alien abduction is the best fit."
As you might guess, the people behind all that hate mail and the phone calls don't buy that. They were there, she wasn't, they insist.
In her book, "Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens," to be published by the Harvard University Press, Clancy describes a typical reaction. "Can you believe the nerve of that girl (Clancy)," one abductee says. "She comes to me, like, 'Oh, I believe you've been abducted! Let me interview you to learn more.... Oh, what really happened [she says] is sleep paralysis.' Riiight! How the - - does she know? Did it happen to her? There was something in the room that night! I was spinning. I blacked out ... it was terrifying.... I wasn't sleeping. I was taken. I was violated, ripped apart - literally, figuratively, metaphorically, whatever you want to call it. Does she know what that's like?"...
...Bizarre effects aside, sleep paralysis is as normal as hiccups. It's not a sign of mental illness. About 25 percent of people around the world have experienced it, and about 5 percent get the whole show of sight, sound, tactile hallucinations, and abduction.[Continue...]
The majority of subjects underwent at least one full or partial out-of-body experience, while some experienced several. Subjects who became conscious while dreaming were instructed to transform the “lucid dream” into an out-of-body experience by returning to the physical body in order to separate from it.
Visual contact with UFOs or “extraterrestrials”: 10 cases for 7 volunteers (35%)
(Some other volunteers were close to achieve the same result, but were unable due to overwhelming fear in the right moment)
The fact that UFOs and extraterrestrials may be deliberately encountered in a controlled manner and within a few days proves that such experiences are a product of the human brain. It was the first experiment to ever prove that close encounters with UFOs and extraterrestrials are a product of the human mind. The experiment also demonstrated that alien contact is not indicative of the existence of otherworldly civilizations, but rather of a poorly studied state of consciousness that people occasionally fall into inadvertently (the Phase).[Continued...]
Honey Laundering?
The Food and Drug Administration says that any product that's been so ultra-filtered that it no longer contains pollen isn't honey. However, the FDA does not check honey sold here to see if it contains pollen. The food safety divisions of the World Health Organization, the European Commission and dozens of others have ruled that without pollen there is no way to determine whether honey came from legitimate and safe sources.
Ultra filtering is a process where honey is heated, sometimes watered down and then forced at high pressure through extremely small filters to remove pollen, which is the only foolproof sign identifying the source of the honey.
Food Safety News bought more than 60 jars, jugs and plastic bears of honey sold in various outlets in 10 states and the District of Columbia. The contents were analyzed for pollen by Vaughn Bryant, a professor at Texas A&M University and one of the nation's premier melissopalynologists, or investigators of pollen in honey.
Bryant, who is director of the Palynology Research Laboratory, found that among the containers of honey:
• 76 percent bought at groceries had all of the pollen removed. Stores included TOP Food, Safeway, Giant Eagle, QFC, Kroger, Metro Market, Harris Teeter, A&P, Stop & Shop and King Soopers.
• 100 percent of the honey from drugstores like Walgreens, Rite-Aid and CVS Pharmacy had no pollen.
• 77 percent of the honey from big box stores like Costco, Sam's Club, Walmart and Target had the pollen filtered out.
• 100 percent of the honey in the small packets from Smucker, McDonald's and KFC had the pollen removed.
On the plus side, Bryant found that every one of the samples from farmers markets, co-ops and "natural" stores like PCC and Trader Joe's had the full, anticipated, amount of pollen.
If you have to buy at major grocery chains, the analysis found that your odds are better of getting honey that wasn't ultra-filtered if you buy brands labeled as organic. Out of seven samples tested, five (71 percent) were full of pollen.
This is an issue because most of this filtered honey probably originally comes from China, where it is tainted by illegal animal antibiotics and heavy metals--but without the pollen, it is impossible to trace its origin. Also, some nutritionists say pollen imparts health benefits.
The FDA actually cracked down about 10 years ago on crappy Chinese honey imports, so China just started "laundering" their honey through other Asian countries like India and Vietnam. Of the 208 million pounds of honey the U.S. imported over the last 18 months, almost 60 percent came from Asian countries, according to FSN.
"FDA does not consider 'ultra-filtered' honey to be honey," agency press officer Tamara Ward told Food Safety News, but added: "We have not halted any importation of honey because we have yet to detect 'ultra-filtered' honey." But many in the honey industry and some in the FDA's import office told FSN that they doubt the FDA checks more than 5 percent of all foreign honey shipments. FSN says the FDA has ignored repeated pleas from Congress, beekeepers and the honey industry to develop a U.S. standard for identification for honey.
And therein lies the sting.[1]
A Pilgrim Thanksgiving
My son was led by his teacher in the "children's prayer" before his Thanksgiving Party Meal, because they were learning about the holiday.
God is greatShe was trying to teach the children that Thanksgiving was about giving thanks to God. However, I could not help, but think about what the Pilgrims, English Separatists, would think about mostly unbaptized children reciting a prayer to commemorate their meal. I am not convinced that reciting a prayer on a national holiday conformed to their Separatist beliefs.
God is good
Let us thank him for our food
By his hand we all are fed
Give us Lord our daily bread[1]
- The Pilgrims did not believe in reciting men's prayers. They objected to the English Book of Common Prayer. The "prayer book" that you see mentioned in many recounts was a psalm-book written by Henry Ainsworth. Ainsworth specially prepared a psalm-book (published in 1612) for the Pilgrims in Holland based on his translation of the Book of Psalms. Also of note the Pilgrims did not use the King James translation of the Bible published in 1611. They used an older English translation developed in Geneva.[2][3]
- The Pilgrims believed that marriage was a civil affair not a religious one. Marriages were performed by civil servants/magistrates rather than clergy. In the England of the Pilgrims' day you could actually be arrested for not being married in a church.
- The Pilgrims believed that children were mandated to be baptized to wipe away original sin. However they only baptized children who had at least one parent in the church. Those that did not have a parent in the church were only allowed to be baptized after they came of age making their own personal profession of faith. The Pilgrims thought that groups like the Anabaptists deprived the Christian flock of young lambs.[4]
- The Pilgrims did not celebrate Christmas or even Easter. These were not Holy Days, but days invented by man to commemorate Jesus Christ.[5]
I know my son's teacher meant well. She led a liturgical prayer in order to teach the children about the history of Thanksgiving. This history, she viewed in very modern Christian terms. I have been looking for who wrote the Children's prayer, but I have not been able to find out. I thought the prayer might date to the 19th Century, but I can only find it in the 20th Century. Thank you google books.
This is my point entirely. The Pilgrims never would have prayed a prayer that was written centuries after their deaths. Even if the prayer had been written in the 17th Century, their religious beliefs forbade them from reciting it. The children who had married parents in the room, probably had some sort of religious ceremony. The Pilgrims would have objected to those ceremonies. They also would have been aghast at the great number of unbaptized children in attendance. I would be keeping my son outside the Christian flock, you see. The novel point is that these English separatists did not believe in holidays like Christmas, Easter, and therefore Thanksgiving. They might have a day of thanksgiving, but it never would have been an annual event. In trying to teach my child the Christian history of Thanksgiving she failed on a number of points.
What changed? The Pilgrims were a small separatist group. They were the extreme end of the puritan spectrum. In 1629, Charles I dissolved Parliament opening the door for active persecution of the more moderate Puritans. During what is known as the Great Migration, Puritans fled England to other countries. They came to Massachusetts by the thousands, quickly outnumbering the little struggling colony at Plymouth. Over the centuries these moderates would increasingly moderate until they were more open to annual holidays by man.[6][7]
Thursday, November 24, 2011
William Herschel
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Wallace v Jaffree
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.The State of Alabama, no less than the Congress of the United States, must respect that basic truth.[1]
John Leland 1791 - He is so happy that most Virginians now believe that slaves can feel pain.
Often people do not realized how far we have come. Racial prejudices used to be ingrained in the science of the day. I could find quotes from the 1960's, but these from the 1780-90's blow my mind. Here is something that then abolitionist Elder John Leland noted on Virginian slavery in 1791.
I am heartily glad, that I can say that the spirit of masters has greatly abated since I have been in Virginia; it is now confessed, by many, that negroes can feel injuries, hunger, pain and weariness, and I hope this spark of good fire will be raised to a flame, in due time.
"Letter of Valediction on Leaving Virginia, in 1791" ~ Elder John Leland[1]
PS - Just for fun here is some Jefferson:
I have supposed the black man, in his present state, might not be in body and mind equal to the white man; but it would be hazardous to affirm, that, equally cultivated for a few generations, he would not become so.
To General ChasTellux 1785
The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture [miscegenation] with the whites, has been observed by every one. and proves that their inferiority is not the effect merely of their condition in life.
Notes On Virginia 1782
Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation. We will consider them here, on the same stage with the whites, and where the facts are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed. It will be right to make great allowances for the difference of condition, of education, of conversation, of the sphere in which they move. Many millions of them have been brought to, and born in America. Most of them, indeed, have been confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own society; yet many of them have been so situated that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters; many of them have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always been associated with the whites. Some have been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best works from abroad. The Indians ... will often carve figures on their pipes not destitute of design and merit. They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country. so as to prove the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation. They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated--! Butnever yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never saw even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture.
—Notes On Virginia 1782
Jefferson's supremacist thoughts on African Americans cataloged in 1900[2]
Monday, November 21, 2011
Random Questions Involving Herschel
I have been flipping through a 1904 history book and looking at how they viewed the fantastic discoveries Sir William Herschel.
- Discovered Uranus doubling the size of the Solar System
- Discovered that the Sun was just another star. The stars were around the same size as our Sun and some were bigger.
- He discovered what he considered as Nebula that were 2 million light years away. These Nebula were later discovered to be other galaxies by Hubble.
Monday Myths: Men Cannot Breastfeed
“We can also agree that men can’t breastfeed, and breastfeeding clearly has benefits for children in that it provides sources of immunity that are beneficial to children.”~ David Thompson - Perry v. Schwarzenegger [1]However though rare, men have been known to lactate and even breast feed. My favorite story is a Sri Lankan widower who had a starving daughter. In desperation he tried to breast feed her and discovered that he could.
There have been countless literary descriptions of men miraculously breast-feeding, from The Talmud to Tolstoy, where, in Anna Karenina, there is a short anecdote of a baby suckling an Englishman for sustenance while on board a ship. The little anthropological evidence documented suggests it is possible. In the 1896 compendium Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, George Gould and Walter Pyle catalogue several instances of male nursing being observed. Among them was a South American man, observed by Prussian naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, who subbed as wet nurse after his wife fell ill as well as male missionaries in Brazil that were the sole milk supply for their children because their wives had shriveled breasts. More recently, Agence France-Presse reported a short piece in 2002 on a 38-year-old man in Sri Lanka who nursed his two daughters through their infancy after his wife died during the birth of her second child.
In her 1978 book The Tender Gift: Breastfeeding, medical anthropologist Dana Raphael claimed that men could induce lactation simply by stimulating their nipples. The eminent endocrinologist Robert Greenblatt of the Medical College of Georgia concurred. But Jack Newman, a Toronto-based doctor and breast-feeding expert, insists that in order to produce milk, a hormone spike must occur. "That Tolstoy quote suggests that the father just put the baby to the breast and he would produce milk; I think that's pretty unlikely," he says. "It could be that you have this man with this pituitary tumor and he produces milk once the baby starts suckling."
Newman explains that medical disruptions involving prolactin, the hormone necessary to produce milk, have resulted in spontaneous lactation. Thorazine, a popular antipsychotic used in the mid-20th century, impacted the pituitary gland—the pea-size endocrine gland located near the base of the brain—often causing it to overproduce prolactin. If prolactin levels remained high, milk could follow. According to Newman, lactation is listed as a possible side effect of the heart medication digoxin. A pituitary tumor could also induce milk production: "It would be the same reason—increased prolactin levels&mdashin the one case drug-induced, in the other due to a tumor or some other sort of neurological problem."
In a 1995 article for Discover titled "Father's Milk," Pulitzer Prize-winning author and one-time physiologist Jared Diamond reconciles the nipple stimulation and hormone quandary, pointing out that such stimulation can release prolactin. He also notes that starvation—which inhibits the functioning of hormone-producing glands as well as the hormone-absorbing liver—can cause spontaneous lactation, as observed in survivors of Nazi concentration camps and Japanese POW camps in World War II. "The glands recover much faster than the liver when normal nutrition is resumed," he writes, "so hormone levels soar unchecked."
Males of many different mammalian species have the potential to lactate, although only one, the Dayak fruit bat of Southeast Asia, does so spontaneously. Diamond points out, however, that with the societal norm of fathers helping to rear their young, male milk production could actually be to our advantage, especially with all the career women trying to balance the demands of job and family. Why else would men still have nipples?
"Up until a certain age, boys and girls, as fetuses, are indistinguishable, really, so women retain some remnants of the vas deferens, which is the canal that sperm follows," Newman answers. "If you have no Y chromosome, then certain hormones are released that say, 'Okay, we'll set up this child's breast tissue to develop at puberty so that she will be able to produce milk.' Men didn't [secrete those hormones], so we don't usually have breast tissue."
"Actually a significant number of boys around the age of puberty do develop breasts," he continues, "so the tissue is there, but it regresses." In short, men may not have full-fledged breasts but they certainly can lactate, under extreme circumstances.[Scientific American]For Further reading:
[Are the men of the African Aka tribe the best fathers in the world?]
[Father's Milk]
[Man Milk]
Also some infants are born temporarily lactating. One study found this "Witch's Milk" in 38 out of 640 infants.[3]
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Baxter mentioned Atheists?
Certainly the Atheists of 1691 were those "against God" not those that do not believe in God.
And to see devils and other spirits ordinarily, would not be enough to bring our Atheists to the saving knowledge of God, without which all other knowledge is vain. They that doubt of a God (the most perfect, eternal, infinite being), while they see the sun, and moon, and stars, the sea and land, would not know him by seeing created spirits. ~ Richard Baxter The certainty of the world of spirits fully evinced -1691[1]
What evidence do they have that aliens are demons?
From Norman Geisler's deposition for McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education November 14, 1981
Q. Do you have any professional opinion, as to the existence of UFO’s
A. Yes. I believe that UFO’s exist.
Q. And how are they connected with Satan?
A. I believe that they are part of a mass deception attempt, that they are means by which Satan deceives because he is a deceiver and he is trying to deceive people. He did it from the beginning in the Garden of Eden, and he has been doing it now through the years. And this is one of the ways that he is deceiving people.
Q. Your description of demons, I take it, are those other angels that fell with Satan. And they exist now?
A. Yes.
Q. And your experience with the occult — how did that relate to your view of the existence of Satan?
A. I think occult phenomena, such as the moving of physical objects through the air, and so forth, such as is manifest, for example, in the Empire Strikes Back. The Luke Skywalker, the ability to move physical objects. I think that this is a demonic power that you get by occult practices. It has been done in time immemorial. It is condemned in the Bible. And it is still manifest in the world today.[1]
Gelato Mio outstandingly apologizes for their mistake
Skepticon is NOT Welcomed to my Christian BusinessSkepticon is a conference in Springfield, Missouri for the Skeptic's movement. Skepticism is the philosophy of applying the scientific method and the detection of logical fallacies to your life. However the movement is increasingly becoming dominated by atheists. Just looking at this year's speaking guests I see a number of popular atheists: Dan Baker, Greta Christina, Jen McCreight, Hemant Mehta, PZ Myers, David Silverman, and Rebecca Watson.[1] Over a thousand are said to have attended this year and the facility housing the conference refused to put "Skepticon" on the marquee.[2] I will let the owner of Gelato Mio explain the sign.
To the Public: I sincerely apologize for the posting of the note in the window. It was an impulse reaction to an event that I witnessed and it was only up for a few minutes before I came to my senses and realized it shouldn't have been up at all.
So you know, nobody was turned away and everyone was given the same high level of service they have come to expect. Out of the hundreds of event attendees that I served on Friday and Saturday, all of them were extremely polite and enjoyed their time in my restaurant. The event that greatly offended me was conducted by one man and I shouldn't have reacted the way I did.
Even small business owners make mistakes, and I sincerely apologize to those whom I offended.
All the Best,
Andy-[3][4]
Kudos to him. The real reason that I am posting this is that I love when people admit their mistakes and repent. He made a mistake for a few minutes and he took the sign down. There are few things more Christian than confession and repentance.
PS - One of the speakers, PZ Myers says that the local businesses gave them a 10% conference discount.[5]
Update 10:22pm
PSS- I have seen a number of people noting that what he did may have been very illegal. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title II Sec 201 says in part
Update 10:22pm
PSS- I have seen a number of people noting that what he did may have been very illegal. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title II Sec 201 says in part
All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.[6]Though he did not single out atheists/non-theists he did for a few minutes forbid Skepticon attendees from eating his gelato. These attendees were seemingly forbidden for being non-Christian from eating at his Christian business. This is very illegal and a crime. However no one was actually forbidden. He made the sign in a moment of haste and took it down in a repentance of reason. We all would not want to be judged by our worst moments.
Radiolab: Deception
- A lie is a purposeful falsehood given without notification.
- They interview a con-woman.
- People who are conned have a hard time trusting again.
- Liars have more neural connections than non-liars.
- Depressed people are the most honest people.
Lies, liars, and lie catchers. This hour of Radiolab asks if it's possible for anyone to lead a life without deception.
We consult a cast of characters, from pathological liars to lying snakes to drunken psychiatrists, to try and understand the strange power of lying to yourself and others.
Radiolab: Patient Zero
Around 1908, HIV jumped into the human population. Around 1966, HIV entered into the United States.
- It is thought that HIV originated after a chimp in Cameroon ate two different species of monkey with two xenospecific viruses. These viruses by chance managed to infect the same cell. During the duplication process, the enzymes duplicated parts of the two viruses into the same virus.
- Also they explore the origin of the high five
- First they tackle Typhoid Mary
Saturday, November 19, 2011
False Confessions May Lead to More Errors in Evidence, a Study Shows
A man with a low IQ confesses to a gruesome crime. Confession in hand, the police send his blood to a lab to confirm that his blood type matches the semen found at the scene. It does not. The forensic examiner testifies later that one blood type can change to another with disintegration. This is untrue. The newspaper reports the story, including the time the man says the murder took place. Two witnesses tell the police they saw the woman alive after that. The police send them home, saying they “must have seen a ghost.” After 16 years in prison, the falsely convicted man is exonerated by DNA evidence.
How could this happen? “False confessions can corrupt other evidence, both from laypeople and forensic experts,” says John Jay College of Criminal Justice psychologist Saul Kassin, summarizing a new study conducted with Daniel Bogart of the University of California Irvine and Nova Southeastern University’s Jacqueline Kerner. The findings, which will appear in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science, have far-reaching implications for judges and juries, prosecutors and defense attorneys.
Confessions, when true, are an important tool in convicting criminals. But false confessions frequently play a major role in convicting innocent people. Experiments show that juries and potential witnesses are influenced by confessions even if they know they were coerced. Also in the lab, experienced polygraph examiners, fingerprint experts, and other experts, when informed of a confession, see what they expect to see—that is, evidence of guilt.
To back up these findings with real-life data, the psychologists thoroughly reviewed the trial records of 241 people exonerated by the Innocence Project since 1992. Of these, 59—or 25 percent—involved false confessions, either by the defendant or an alleged accomplice. One-hundred eighty—or 75 percent—involved eyewitness mistakes. The analysis revealed that multiple errors turned up far more often in false confession cases than in eyewitness cases: 69 percent versus fewer than half. And two thirds of the time, the confession came first, followed by other errors, namely invalid forensic science and government informants.
Kassin believes the findings “greatly underestimate the problem” because of what never shows up in court: evidence of innocence. Told the suspect confessed, “alibi witnesses back out, thinking they’re mistaken,” police stop searching for the real culprit. “We show that confessions bring in other incriminating evidence that is false. What we don’t see is a tendency to suppress exculpatory evidence.”
The study throws doubt on a critical legal concept designed to safeguard the innocent: corroboration. Appeals courts uphold a conviction even if a false confession is discovered, as long as other evidence—say, forensics or other witness testimony—independently shows guilt. “What these findings suggest is that there may well be the appearance of corroboration,” says Kassin, “but it is false evidence that was corrupted by the confession—not independent at all.”
Already, many states require that interrogations be taped, so that confessions are not coerced or taken when the suspect is in psychological distress. With this study, “Juries and judges have more reason to critically evaluate the conditions under which that other evidence was taken, too.”[1]
Scientists Fight University of California to Study Rare Ancient Skeletons
"The Archaeological record is consistently being pushed back, our roots are lost in the mist, waiting to be discovered."Believing their civilization to be at least 12,000 years old (10,000 B.C.), they claim that every single Pre-Columbian human remain in Southern California is their ancestor.[1][2] In 1976, during construction on the home of the University of California Chancellor, two skeletons were unearthed. These skeletons were dated using radio-carbon dating to between 9600-9000 years old. These are considered to be the oldest skeletons found on North America. Now notice the Kumeyaay rationalization: 9600-9000 years old and their civilization is 12,000 years old, therefore these skeletons are from the Kumeyaay tribes. They have been attempting to use the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act(NAGPRA) to claim the remains.[3][4]
Radiolab: Do I know you?
How do you know your mother is really your mother? It's simple, right? You look at her, you recognize her, enough said. Well, in this podcast...it may not be that simple.
It turns out that recognizing people, even the people we know the best, is more about how they make us feel than what we see in front of our eyes. And when your feelings about someone get jumbled, it can be disorienting, even traumatic. In this the podcast we talk to Dr. Carol Berman and Dr. V.S. Ramachandran to explore the psychology and neurology behind a rare but disturbing delusional disorder called Capgras.[1]
In the classic 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the residents of a fictional town in California are beset by the feeling that their friends and family have been replaced by impostors. In the movie, this apparent delusion is not delusional at all: The townspeople are in fact being replaced — by aliens, no less.
Numerous sci-fi films since have capitalized on our fear of being surrounded by duplicates — replicas who look just like our loved ones but are not. And while there have so far been no confirmed cases of a human being replaced by an alien or any other life-form, the feeling that your loved one has been replaced by someone else can be very real.
Consider these two true stories:
A 37-year-old woman came into the office of Carol Berman, a psychiatrist at New York University Medical Center, with a strange complaint. She had returned to her house recently to find a man sitting on her couch. He was familiar, sort of, and he was wearing her husband's clothes. But something didn't feel right to this woman. She felt a strange kind of emptiness when she looked at him. She was struck by the very deep sense that her husband had somehow been replaced by this strange man.
A student at the University of California, San Diego was severely injured in a car accident. After several weeks in a coma, he regained consciousness and seemed to be doing fine. But according to V.S. Ramachandran, a neuroscientist at the university, when the patient's mother came to see him, he exclaimed, "Who is this woman? She looks just like my mother, but she's an impostor! She's some other woman pretending to be my mother."
Rare Delusional Disorder
Both patients, it turns out, were suffering from a rare delusional disorder, called Capgras. Capgras delusion can be brought about by a variety of conditions — changes in brain chemistry associated with different mental illnesses, or physical trauma to the brain — but the delusion always involves the distinct feeling that the people around you have been replaced by impostors. While they may look and act just like the real person, some essence of the person is missing, almost as though "the soul of the person isn't in there," Berman says.
Ramachandran thinks that Capgras can be better explained by a structural problem in the brain. According to Ramachandran, when we see someone we know, a part of our brain called the fusiform gyrus identifies the face: "That looks like mom!" That message is then sent to the amygdala, the part of our brains that activates the emotions we associate with that person. In patients experiencing Capgras, Ramachandran says, the connection between visual recognition and emotional recognition is severed. Thus the patient is left with a convincing face — "That looks like mom!" — but none of the accompanying feelings about his mother.Currently, no one is certain of the underlying cause of Capgras, and there are different ways of explaining what is happening to these people. According to Berman, Capgras might be caused by psychological dissonance. There are usually things about the people close to us that we don't like. Normally, we combine these things with the parts we do like and develop a general emotional response to the whole person. But in some extreme cases, a change in character or a newly noticed behavior can just be too difficult to accept, to integrate into the whole. And so, rather than reframing our sense of who that person is, our brain just says: "That must not really be him."
That's Not My Mother
Ramachandran holds that we are so dependent on our emotional reactions to the world around us, that the emotional feeling "that's not my mother" wins out over the visual perception that it is. The compromise worked out by the brain is that your mother was somehow replaced, and this impostor is part of a malevolent scheme.
Ramachandran thinks there's good evidence for this explanation of Capgras, in part because of an odd quirk in his patient's behavior. When his mother calls him on the phone and he hears her voice, he instantly recognizes her. Yet if she walks in the room after that call, he is again convinced that she is an impostor.
Why? Ramachandran says that our visual system and auditory system have different connections to the amygdala, so while the auditory recognition triggers an emotional response in his patient, visual recognition does not.
Treating The Illness
Capgras is very rare, and little is known about how to treat it. Those who have been afflicted with Capgras due to physical brain trauma may eventually re-establish the connection between perception and emotion. (Ramachandran's patient, for example, eventually recovered from his delusion.) And patients who experience Capgras alongside other mental disorders may be helped by medication. But for many Capgras patients, there is no treatment, and no amount of talk or reasoning can cure them.
While the feeling that the people around you have been replaced by impostors is certainly terrifying to imagine, the effect on the supposed impostor can be devastating, too. Carol Berman's husband began suffering Capgras after the onset of a particular kind of dementia in which neural transmission between different parts of the brain decays. Some days he knows that Berman is his wife. But other days, the woman who walks through the door is an impostor.
"I hope he's recognizing me," says Berman, "but you never know what you're going to get when you get back home."[2]
Radio Lab: Memory and Forgetting
What is self in a world where your memories can be deleted?
This hour of Radiolab, a look behind the curtain of how memories are made...and forgetten.
Remembering is an unstable and profoundly unreliable process--it’s easy come, easy go as we learn how true memories can be obliterated, and false ones added. And Oliver Sacks joins us to tell the story of an amnesiac whose love for his wife and music transcend his 7-second memory.[1]
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
Muslim and Christian women unite in Liberia.
Trailer for the film PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL.
"The film is inspiring, uplifting and is a call to action for all of us"
-Desmond Tutu, Winner 1984 Nobel Peace Prize.
Pray the Devil Back to Hell is the extraordinary story of a small band of Liberian women who -- armed only with white T-shirts and the courage of their convictions - came together in the midst of a bloody civil war, took on the warlords, and brought peace to their shattered country.
Pray the Devil Back to Hell reconstructs the moment through interviews, archival footage and striking images of contemporary Liberia. It is compelling testimony to the potential of women worldwide to alter the history of nations.
Trailer for the film PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL.
"The film is inspiring, uplifting and is a call to action for all of us"
-Desmond Tutu, Winner 1984 Nobel Peace Prize.
Pray the Devil Back to Hell is the extraordinary story of a small band of Liberian women who -- armed only with white T-shirts and the courage of their convictions - came together in the midst of a bloody civil war, took on the warlords, and brought peace to their shattered country.
Pray the Devil Back to Hell reconstructs the moment through interviews, archival footage and striking images of contemporary Liberia. It is compelling testimony to the potential of women worldwide to alter the history of nations.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Foreclosure Problems
Supreme Court Sets Historic Showdown For Health Law
The Supreme Court said Monday it will review President Obama's health care overhaul, setting up an election year legal showdown.
In an apparent effort to be as comprehensive as possible, the court certified four questions for review. First, and most important: Did Congress exceed its constitutional authority in requiring virtually all Americans to have basic health care coverage?
The second: If the individual mandate is unconstitutional, does the rest of the law stand? Even the government now says there would be no way to provide the goodies everyone likes in this law without the expanded pool of people paying into the system.
The third question: Does the law impose unconstitutional conditions on the states by requiring them to pay 5 percent more into Medicaid by 2017 to cover the increased number of people under the program?
And the last question: Is it is premature to decide the first three?
As if to underline the significance of the case, the court allocated 5 1/2 hours for oral argument, the longest argument in modern times.
Were the court to invalidate the statute in its entirety, it would roll back many of the provisions already benefiting millions of Americans.
One of the most popular lets young people up to age 26 stay on their parents' health insurance plans. Another makes almost everyone with current health insurance eligible for preventive care services like immunizations and cancer screenings without having to pay a deductible or copayment.
And seniors on Medicare are seeing the gap in their prescription drug coverage — known as the doughnut hole — gradually being closed. All those things would go away if the law were struck down in its entirety.
In deciding to examine the health care law, the court selected as a vehicle a challenge brought by Florida and 25 other states, plus the National Federation of Independent Business. Of the four cases ruled on by the lower appeals courts to date, this was the only one in which any part of the law was struck down. It is also the biggest case, with challengers from many states and from the private sector as well.
The justices may also have chosen the Florida case because the lawyers who represent the parties in the states' case are old hands before the court and well-known for the quality of their work. The justices do take that kind of thing into consideration in choosing among cases, particularly a case like this one with huge economic and political ramifications.
The argument is likely to take place in March, with a decision by the end of June, four months before the 2012 election.
Just how that timing will play in the campaign is uncertain. On the one hand, if the court were to uphold the law, it might galvanize opponents seeking to have Congress revoke it. But if the law were struck down, it might take some steam out of the anti-Obama movement.
In the past, it has usually been those on the losing side of major Supreme Court cases who tend to get motivated. For example, Roe v. Wade, the famous case that legalized abortion, is credited with creating the modern anti-abortion movement.
And yet, in this instance it probably wouldn't help President Obama to have his defining domestic legislative achievement struck down as unconstitutional right as he is running for re-election. It could give Republicans a huge "I told you so"moment. So the political fallout in this case isn't easy to predict.
The length of the oral argument set by the court for the health care challenge is a recognition of the case's importance. At 5 1/2 hours, the argument will be the longest in more than 45 years.
Time set aside for argument has changed markedly over the course of American legal history. Before 1849, there was no time limit at all, and counsel would often go on for days. In 1849, the increased caseload caused the justices to set a two-hour limit per side, which was reduced to one hour in 1925, and a half-hour per side in 1970, which is where it remains for most cases today.
But big cases, with many parties and complexities, sometimes get more time. The 1974 Nixon tapes case lasted three hours. Bush v. Gore went 90 minutes. The 1971 Pentagon Papers took two hours; the challenge to the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law in 2003 was four hours.
Some of the longest arguments in the 1950s and 1960s involved civil rights. The landmark test of segregated schools was argued for five hours when it first came to the court. The 1965 challenge to the Voting Rights Act was argued for seven hours, over two days. The health care challenge is likewise expected to be argued over two days.
Monday's Supreme Court announcement that it would review the health care law was greeted with praise both by the law's supporters and by its opponents. That's because the one thing everyone wants right now when it comes to this law is certainty.
Both states and businesses that are planning for big changes starting in 2014 want to know if those changes are going to happen, and to what extent. Business and government are spending money now and want to make sure that money is not wasted.
Indeed, even the 26 states suing to have the law struck down are hedging their bets. Only four states have actually turned down all federal money to plan for the changes that are scheduled to take place.
While the odds are still that the court will not strike down the law in its entirety, insurance companies are quite panicked about the possibility that the mandate could be ruled unconstitutional but other parts of the law requiring insurance companies to insure people with pre-existing conditions would be upheld.
Those two have been considered inextricably linked, particularly by the insurance industry, which says it can't afford to cover sick people if healthy people don't also have to sign up for insurance.[NPR]
Obama is not an American
I am taking notes again. :)
- Obama is not an American. He does not have American Values.
- Bill Ayers is an expert on forging documents.
- Obama has a fake passport from Connecticut
- Obama is a communist
- Obama may have committed treason
- If they ever prove Obama is not an American, every law he has signed could be revoked.
- The birth certificate is fake
- There is a smiley face on the bottom of the fake birth certificate.
- Where is the microfilm for the President?
- Senator Obama said he was from Kenya
- If we all get our books off of Kindle the government can control what we read.
- Michelle Obama said his home country was in Kenya
- Obama has said two hospitals
- Jerome Corsi is complaining that the microfilm is too perfect for the newspaper announcements.
- Corsi thinks that Obama planted the microfilm in the library
- They call you names, because you ask interesting questions
- Obama has never shown his birth certificate according to these four ladies.
- "Even he doesn't have a piece of paper, he not an American. He's a Communist. He's not capitalist. He hates our country. He went around the world apologizing for us, when we've done more to help others...He doesn't love America or his wife she doesn't love America until she got to be on million dollar vacations that our tax payers paid for." ~ Victoria Jackson
An Undercover Muslim in Detroit
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