So, guns were fired near children on a leaky boat we turned back to Indonesia — which did not want it.

And this was an “on-water activity” Scott Morrison won’t discuss lest it please the “enemy” in his “war”. He is behaving like a Somalian pirate now and his sanity should be investigated. He is behaving, some would say, like George W Bush.

Grounds now exist for lawyers to look into the sacking of this government.

They are bringing us near a shooting war with Indonesia. They are threatening to sell the ABC. They are ending the possibility of a calm and comfortable old age for those now fifty. They are declaring war on science, and history. In the hottest weather we have ever had, they are proposing to end the one thing we have done to cool it down.

They are shooting guns near children on the high seas.

Their deeds are part of a pattern the Right has been in for years.

They admit no mistakes. They flaunt their disasters as victories. Vietnam was a ‘noble cause’. The Surge ‘worked’. Iraq, now in its ‘birth-pangs’, is nonetheless better off than it was in 2002 — although every shopping mall and religious festival may be blown into flying chunks of meat by suicide bombers. Fukushima should not slow down our ‘progress’ to nuclear power. Though saving Holden would have saved us from recession, saving Holden was a horrible idea. Afghanistan, though a strategic catastrophe and a waste of Australian lives, was ‘bitter-sweet’.

So... if a policy fails, we keep on doing it. If it succeeds, like the Burke-Rudd Niugini Solution, we abandon it.

The Right believes in a national crisis, infinitely prolonged.

If the Niugini plan works, we must revert at once to ‘turning back the boats’, which does not work. If a simple tax rise would preserve the good things we want to keep, we must not try it. We are not here to fix things, but swell the impression of crisis, debacle, catastrophe. Though our economy was envied worldwide, it was a shameful, disastrous failure. Though ABC radio is the best such entity on earth, it must be sold off, urgently. The job of government is not to govern, but to stand at the salute while the Free Market goes thundering by.

It is time the Senate numbers examined this government’s lies, backfires, backflips and foolish policies and lawyers told them their options. An election, held now, would landslide Labor in. An election held after the ABC is sold and more and more information hidden – like Morrison’s, lately – would be much more chancy.

The time is now.

We should move, now.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/morrisons-pirates,6069

 

From the NYT

...

If countries permit continued high emissions growth until 2030, the draft report found, the target will likely be impossible to meet, at least without a hugely expensive crash program to rebuild the energy system, and even that might not work.

If emissions do overshoot the target, the report found, future generations would likely have to develop ways to pull greenhouse gases out of the air. It is fairly clear this will be technically possible. It could be achieved, for instance, by growing bioenergy crops that take up carbon dioxide, burning the resulting fuel and then injecting the emissions into underground formations.

The leaked draft is the third and final segment of a major report that the climate change panel is completing in stages. The first segment, published in Stockholm in September, reviewed the fundamental physical science of climate change, finding a 95 percent or greater likelihood that human activity is the main cause of the ongoing planetary warming.

The second segment, focusing on the probable impacts of climate change, leaked in October and is due for publication in Yokohama, Japan, in March; a major finding is expected to be that the food supply is at serious risk as warming continues.

The third segment, prepared by a committee made up largely of economists and policy analysts, many of them with some scientific training, focuses on policies that could limit the overall damages from climate change, and is to be published after an editing session in Berlin in April.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/science/earth/un-says-lag-in-confronting-climate-woes-will-be-costly.html?hp&_r=0

 

A UKIP councillor has blamed the recent storms and heavy floods across Britain on the Government's decision to legalise gay marriage.

David Silvester said the prime minister had acted "arrogantly against the Gospel".

In a letter to his local paper he said he had warned David Cameron the legislation would result in "disaster".

UKIP said Mr Silvester's views were "not the party's belief" but defended his right to state his opinions.

Divine retribution

“

Mr Silvester, from Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire, defected from the Tories in protest at Mr Cameron's support for same-sex unions.

In the letter to the Henley Standard he wrote: "The scriptures make it abundantly clear that a Christian nation that abandons its faith and acts contrary to the Gospel (and in naked breach of a coronation oath) will be beset by natural disasters such as storms, disease, pestilence and war."

He added: "I wrote to David Cameron in April 2012 to warn him that disasters would accompany the passage of his same-sex marriage bill.

"But he went ahead despite a 600,000-signature petition by concerned Christians and more than half of his own parliamentary party saying that he should not do so."

He then went to on blame the prime minister for the bad weather...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-25793358

-------------------------------

Gus: It would be funny if some people did not believe this shit... Unfortunately, some of these fools get elected by other fools... But the god of the bible spent some of his time sending plagues of frogs and swarms of locusts to annoy the shit out of his sinning followers... As some astute atheist postulated, we've got to sin plenty more, otherwise Jesus would have been crucified in vain if no-one ever sinned...

The bad weather of course and there is some more on the way is due in part to global warming which is the resultant of us sinning by burning fossil fuels...

 

 

A nun who gave birth to a baby boy in the central Italian city of Rieti, said she had no idea she was pregnant, local media report.

The 31-year-old was rushed to hospital with abdominal pains, which she thought were stomach cramps.

The young mother, who is originally from El Salvador, reportedly named her newborn Francis after the current Pope.

The mayor of Rieti, Simone Petrangeli has appealed to the public and media to respect the woman's privacy.

The news has drawn international attention to the small city of 47,700 inhabitants.

The nun called the ambulance on Wednesday morning. A few hours later she gave birth to a healthy baby boy.

"I did not know I was pregnant. I only felt a stomach pain," she was quoted as saying by the Ansa news agency.

People at the hospital have begun collecting clothes and donations for the mother and her child, Italian media say.

The woman belongs to a convent near Rieti, which manages an old people's home.

Fellow nuns at the convent said they were "surprised" by the news.

Local pastor Don Fabrizio Borrello told journalists that the nun planned to take care of the baby.

"I guess she's telling the truth when she says she arrived at the hospital unaware of the pregnancy."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25787757

--------------------

Gus: may the new boy, Francis, have a good life...

 

 

Bob Ellis reflects on Kevin Andrews’ announcement today that public support for underprivileged and disadvantaged Australians must be slashed.

I WAS MOCKED when I wrote in December that the Abbottites would ‘redefine disability’.

But today, Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews announced he was doing it, thereby terrifying two million Australians who thought their disabled children ‒ or their disabled nephews and nieces ‒ would be looked after well after they were gone.

Plus half a million physically challenged people, of course.

Two and a half million votes are a lot to lose, but the Abbottites are not very good at figures, so there you go.

They sense that something is wrong, though. One by one their ministers are being airbrushed from visibility.

Will Christopher Pyne be ever again on ABC Q&A? I doubt it. Will Julie Bishop shake hands with Bambang Yudhoyono ever again? Will Scott Morrison front up to 7.30 ever again? Of course not. We are getting, quicker than we thought, a police-state-on-training-wheels more daft than our most hyperbolic fears.

Was this what we voted for? No, it wasn’t. Abbott was on a ‘unity ticket’ with Labor on NDIS and Gonski. He shared the ‘broad aims’ of the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd years, of a kinder, fairer, cooler Australia. And here we are. And there you go.

Has there been a more mendacious government ever elected here?

 

Robin Askin’s came close. They wished only to make millions out of illegal gambling and claimed there wasn’t any. But this lot wants to make more miserable, cowed and fearful twenty million Australians, and three million more smug and secure. On the way to this, they don’t mind how many refugees they heckle and how many cripples they kick in the crotch.

 

 

http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-andrews-announcement,6082

-----------------------------------

Yes, the Aussie government has decided to kick the poor in the crotch...:

 

 

Australia’s welfare system is to be overhauled, with only the age pension exempted from potential reforms announced by the social services minister, Kevin Andrews.

 

Andrews has used the latest figures available, 2012’s statistical overview of income support customers, to label the country’s welfare system “unsustainable”, the Australian reports.

The two main areas of focus of the welfare reforms are the disability support pension – which he labelled a “set-and-forget payment” – and Newstart, with the government looking to move people from the payments into the workforce.

“Work is the best form of welfare,” Andrews said.

The proposal has been labelled “ideologically driven” by the chief executive of the national council of St Vincent de Paul society, John Falzon.

The overview shows the number of people receiving government payments in 2012 was 5,033,323, with the age pension making up almost half that number at 2,282,592, though Andrews has ruled out changes in that area.

He compared Australia to European countries in recession, saying the country risked the same fate if welfare was not reformed.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/21/australias-unsustainable-welfare-system-to-be-overhauled-says-minister

-----------------------------------

It is an insult for a minister-for-the-rich-bastards to say to most honest fair people of this fair country that "work is the best form of welfare..."

Most people want to work HONESTLY. Most people want a fair wage for a fair amount of work and live with improvements. But, the rich tend to GAMBLE big rather than "work"... Most of the people who make "huge" amount of money do it at the expense of the wage earners by betting on money (which they call work and "investments") without regard to the working person other than as a disposable commodity... and by stretching the tax system beyond its moral limits. On top of this the campaigning Abbott swore that he was supporting the NDIS that was instituted by Julia — that fair woman who collected brickbats because she was a woman doing things of grandeur, her way. Now the Abbott team is breaking this election promise, under the scarecrow of budget restraint, when the same team of ningnong gave tax repreive to the wealthy and are now hitting the poor in the gonads...

Who are the rich bastards then?...

------------------------------

 

 

...

And who are these lucky few? Mainly they’re executives of some kind, especially, although not only, in finance. You can argue about whether these people deserve to be paid so well, but one thing is clear: They didn’t get where they are simply by being prudent, clean and sober.

So how can the myth of the deserving rich be sustained? Mainly through a strategy of distortion by dilution. You almost never see apologists for inequality willing to talk about the 1 percent, let alone the really big winners. Instead, they talk about the top 20 percent, or at best the top 5 percent. These may sound like innocent choices, but they’re not, because they involve lumping in married lawyers with the wolves of Wall Street. The DiCaprio movie of that name, by the way, is wildly popular with finance types, who cheer on the title character — another clue to the realities of our new Gilded Age.

Again, I know that these realities make some people, not all of them hired guns for the plutocracy, uncomfortable, and they’d prefer to paint a different picture. But even if the facts have a well-known populist bias, they’re still the facts — and they must be faced.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/20/opinion/krugman-the-undeserving-rich.html?hp&rref=opinion

-----------------------------------------------------

 

 

The world's wealthiest people aren't known for travelling by bus, but if they fancied a change of scene then the richest 85 people on the globe – who between them control as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population put together – could squeeze onto a single double-decker.

The extent to which so much global wealth has become corralled by a virtual handful of the so-called 'global elite' is exposed in a new report from Oxfam on Monday. It warned that those richest 85 people across the globe share a combined wealth of £1tn, as much as the poorest 3.5 billion of the world's population.

 

The wealth of the 1% richest people in the world amounts to $110tn (£60.88tn), or 65 times as much as the poorest half of the world, added the development charity, which fears this concentration of economic resources is threatening political stability and driving up social tensions.

It's a chilling reminder of the depths of wealth inequality as political leaders and top business people head to the snowy peaks of Davos for this week's World Economic Forum. Few, if any, will be arriving on anything as common as a bus, with private jets and helicopters pressed into service as many of the world's most powerful people convene to discuss the state of the global economy over four hectic days of meetings, seminars and parties in the exclusive ski resort.

Winnie Byanyima, the Oxfam executive director who will attend the Davos meetings, said: "It is staggering that in the 21st Century, half of the world's population – that's three and a half billion people – own no more than a tiny elite whose numbers could all fit comfortably on a double-decker bus."

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jan/20/oxfam-85-richest-people-half-of-the-world

 

------------------------

 

 

Voters' perceptions of the Australian economy have deteriorated since the Abbott government came to power in September, a new survey has found.

The weekly Essential Research online poll found only 34 per cent believe the economy is in good shape, down from 40 per cent when questioned shortly after election day.

Twenty-six per cent describe the economy as in poor shape, up from 25 per cent, while 36 per cent think the state of the economy is neither good nor poor.

A third of the 1087 respondents believe the economy is heading in the wrong direction, up from 26 per cent, while 38 per cent see the direction as correct, down from 44 per cent.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/21/australian-economy-has-suffered-since-tony-abbott-took-power-public-feels

--------------------------------------

 

 

Gus: But one of the ways the poor are exploited is not so much through their work as slaves — or as low-paid workers as in China and other "poor" countries — but through encouraging crass "consumption of goods" that make the wealthy wealthier and the poor quite "sick" while becoming laden by humongous debt. Without enticing consumers (at the poor end of the scale), outrageous wealth would be stagnant, over-manufacturing would be idle and money exchange super-profits (gambles where most of the wealth is generated) would be non existent.

Meanwhile, it is highly possible that without consumerism, the planet would not be at risk of burning out. We know that... but this is why the rich are forking huge amount of money to discredit the sciences that show the risks faced by the planet.

Meanwhile, the amount of bets on derivatives "by the rich" is about ten times the worth of the entire economy of the world... Somewhere, someone is losing their pants while others are loading cash by the truckload. It's an insane premise and furthermore it is often unsustainable without trickery of sort — such as when someone is loading the dice, as seen in the subprime debacle. Banks should have sunk, people should have been sent to prison for doing far more damage to all, than stealing a loaf of bread for being hungry.

Wealth has had privileges far beyond "the jungle out there" — which most rich people often quote as a way to excuse their exploitation of others. As well, the wealthy designs some schemes to over-feed the hunger of the poor with unhealthy crap (sugar and fats) for indecent profit. 

--------------------------

 

 

There are now far more obese people in the developing world than in richer countries. With the numbers of the obese and overweight nearly quadrupling in the past 30 years, developing countries need to understand the underlying structural factors driving this shift. While changing diets are identified as the immediate culprit, rapid urbanisation, auto-centric city planning, and shifting food supply chains are the little discussed and underlying drivers of this trend which must be considered.

According to a January 2014 report published by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), 1.46 billion people, or one in three adults, are now overweight or obese. While this is a global problem, the increase has been more dramatic in the developing world (up nearly fourfold) than in the richer countries (up 1.7 times). 

While some might argue that the developing world had some "catching up" to do on the obesity front, this pace of change is problematic for at least two reasons. First, many low and middle income countries continue to suffer from the burden of infectious diseases, and their health systems will now be further stretched by the increase in non-infectious diseases that normally accompany obesity. Second, several low-income countries continue to suffer from persistent food insecurity among their poorer members of society. As such, obesity represents a sort of misallocation of food resources that is bad for health on both sides of the equation. 

While these twin double burdens (infectious and non-infectious diseases, as well as obesity and hunger) also exist in wealthy countries, their co-existence is now most pronounced in the developing world. As such, obesity in these countries is a public health concern that can no longer be seen as a minor nuisance. While the ODI identified changing diets as the immediate culprit, rapid urbanisation, auto-centric city planning, and shifting food supply chains are causal factors that must be better understood and addressed.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/01/why-get-fat-2014178958980806.html

This is not the future we did seek, even twenty years ago, but it is the future that the wealthy have been imposing on us so that they can gorge on cash, while we survive badly and become a burden to the health and welfare systems of the world...

The perversity here is that the rich want us to pay as well for the lofty damage they did inflict upon us via clever enticing to consumerism. They control the food industry and the fat-burning farms... The rich also control the private health funds so to speak — they hate the social medicine as there is no cash there to be made from the sick, the infirm and the distressed... They prefer tobacco companies trickery-like that leads to addiction and a life of sick;y maintained misery for those hooked (poor) consumers.

Compassion has long been replaced at the high echelons with fancy care (quick-fix or over-servicing) for profit plus life insurance with caveats... Cash is the religion of the rich.

The poor has long been a commodity to provide the rich with cash...

The merchants are in full control of our lives. It's time to chase them from our inner temples.

 

 

 

Eve and Adam (in a parallel universe)...

4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Good Goddess made the earth and the heavens.

5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Good Goddess had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, 6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the Good Goddess formed a woman from the dust of the ground and breathed into her nostrils the breath of life, and the woman became a living being.

8 Now the Good Goddess had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there she put the woman she had formed. 9 The Good Goddess made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground — trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is GOLD. 12 (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

15 The Good Goddess took the woman and put her in the Garden of Eden to enjoy it and take care of it. 16 And the Good Goddess recommended to the woman, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

18 The Good Goddess said, “It is not good for the woman to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for her.”

19 Now the Good Goddess had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. She brought them to the woman to see what she would name them; and whatever the woman called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the woman gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

But for Eve, no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Good Goddess caused the woman to go in Labour; and while she was in massive pain, she made her give birth to a baby, then closed up the place with blood. 22 Then the Good Goddess made a man from the baby she had taken out of the woman's loins, and she brought him to the woman.

23 The woman said,

“This is now bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
he shall be called ‘man,’
    for he was taken out of me.”

24 That is why a woman leaves her mother and father and is united to her husband, and they become one flesh.

25 Eve and her husband were both naked, and they felt no shame. But that was too much information for the prudish descendants who have since represented Eve and Adam with fig leaves on their you-know-what...

-----------------------------

Meanwhile back on earth:

A Republican member of Congress says in a recently released book that a wife is to "voluntarily submit" to her husband, but that it doesn't make her inferior to him.

Rep. Steve Pearce's (R-N.M.) memoir, "Just Fly the Plane, Stupid!" was released last month. Its publication -- and his acknowledgment in the book of the controversial nature of the submission debate -- come as the Republican Party reevaluates how it talks to and about women.

In the book, Pearce recounts his rise to owning an oil-field service company and winning election to Congress. In the book, the Vietnam War veteran says that both the military chain of command and the family unit need a structure in which everyone plays his or her role.

He said that, in his family's experience, this meant that his wife, Cynthia, would submit to him and he would lead.

"The wife is to voluntarily submit, just as the husband is to lovingly lead and sacrifice," he writes, citing the Bible. "The husband’s part is to show up during the times of deep stress, take the leadership role and be accountable for the outcome, blaming no one else."

Pearce, who is Baptist, emphasizes repeatedly in the chapter that submission doesn't mean inferiority but rather that husbands and wives play different roles. He also says it doesn't mean his wife doesn't have a say in major decisions.

"The wife’s submission is not a matter of superior versus inferior; rather, it is self-imposed as a matter of obedience to the Lord and of love for her husband," he writes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/01/22/gop-congressmans-book-the-wife-is-to-voluntarily-submit-to-her-husband/?hpid=z4

 

The Fall

3 Now the hippopotamus was more crafty than any of the animals the Good Goddess had made. The hippopotamus said to the woman, “Did the Good Goddess really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

2 The woman said to the hippopotamus, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but the Good Goddess did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

4 “You will not certainly die,” the hippopotamus said to the woman. 5 “For the Good Goddess knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will grow as smart and as fat as me.”

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree did not do much for the dumb animal, though pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining weight, she decided to go on a diet. 

8 Then the woman and her husband heard the Good Goddess as she was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Good Goddess among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Good Goddess called to the woman, “Where are you?”

10 The man answered first, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

11 And the Good Goddess said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

12 The man said, “no... The woman — she decided not to eat the fruit... but the giraffe pointed out that my block and tackles were ungainly hanging out. ”

13 So the Good Goddess said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The hippopotamus told me the trick. You eat the nice forbidden fruit and you grow a big fat arse. Not for me, thank you...”

14 So the Good Goddess said to the hippopotamus, “Because you have revealed my intent to tempt these two dorks, you went against the script of the original sin I had plotted since the first day of eternity"... so:

“Cursed are you above all livestock
    and all wild animals!
You will live with your belly in mud
    and you will eat water-lilies
    all the days of your life.(plus ça change, plus c'est le même chose... thought the hippo)
15 And I will put scientific curiosity
    between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring and hers;
She will study your bone-head,
    and you will take a weedy meal.”

16 To the woman Good Goddess said,

“I will make your pains in childbearing less severe;

with epidural injection, you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband and a bit of tennis,
    and he will obey you.”

17 To Adam the Good Goddess said, “Because you listened to your wife and did not eat the fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of your obedience;
    through boring toil 9 to 5 you will eat food from it
    or until I give you a tractor.
18 It will produce bounties of GM crops for you,
    and you will eat the plants of the field and become obese.
19 By the smile on your brow
    you will also be entertained by comedians
until you return to the ground,
    since from it you were taken;
for lust you are
    and to lust you will return.”

20 Eve named her husband Adam, because she would become the mother of all the living (including the incestuous, the loonies, the poor, the warriors, murderers, the rich, the middle class and the politicians).

21 The Good Goddess made garments of lovely tight leopard skin for Eve and a rag bag for her husband. 22 And the Good Goddess said “The woman has now become a smart-arse, knowing a good bod from a fat one. She must not be allowed to reach out her hand and take also from the tree of healthy-life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Good Goddess banished mum from the Garden of Eden to tell hubby to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After the Good Goddess drove the pair out, she placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life, preparing a fire that was the precursor of global warming. The Good Goddess knew that eventually the dorky humans would enjoy the comfort of carbon and cook themselves to death... This was the original sin, still being prophetised by scientists.

 

 

A few years back, space exploration was the talk of town. Not Twitter nor Facebook, nor global warming, nor the Obeid lampposts... from the 1920s, American comic books were serving us dangerous extraterrestrials with nasty desires, while earlier (1865), Jules Verne took us to the moon in good fun.

So, the Yanks were going to the moon in 1969, the Ruskies had the first satellite they called Sputnik in 1958 and every one who could do it was blowing up atomic bombs in the Van Allen belt for fun and scientific observation — while preparing for "space" warfare in the 1960s...

 

But things like space are not simple. As we destroy planet Earth with zeal, somehow calmly ignorantly but surely, some astronauts have recently highlighted the urgency to find a new planet to live on... I have been on the case for more than 50 years. More of this at the end.

 

Space travel is a curly one as one can imagine. One could accidentally encounter the Daleks of Doctor Who, unless we are fighting Blake's Seven for survival on a hostile alien darkish planet, near the Rubbish Horse galaxy... Time can be warped but. 

 

So far, we've got a few blokes and sheilas orbiting the earth in a steel-can with recycling facilities... And the long-term prognostic is not good. We're not made for space conditions yet... Sure we could eventually adapt but it's a bit like diving under the sea. We're not made for this dangerous caper despite the technological improvements... 

While some people hype themselves to go to Mars and possibly not come back in a semi-suicide mission, we have to consider the "hostility" of space versus the amazing nurturing ability of this little planet that we are trashing in the name of progress — as if it had no other values than the money we make from the plunder of "resources"...

Soon, we will have to realise we cannot go on like thieves robbing our mother's place every second nights. Even if the place is made of gingerbread and candies, it's no magic pudding...

Thus before being able to live in space en masse, we've got to learn in earnest how to care for the planet we've been generated from...

---------------------------------

And there are massive events in space that could show us who's boss...

Presently some cosmologists and scientists are awaiting the day — possibly in September this year (2014) when the "black hole" at the centre of the galaxy, of which our little world is part of, could be swallowing some mighty amount of nebulous gas that is presently accelerating in a vortex around it... This amazing feast is part of a cosmic event of what has been described in the past as singularities. 

The existence of such super gravitational fields was suspected by Stephen Hawking that he described as black holes where gravity was so strong nothing escaped. A "black hole" might be the size of an average house but may contains many times the amount of matter that makes up an entire galaxy around it... A black hole is where matter and energy collapse into what could be thought of as nothingness... The earth itself would be crushed into the size of a pin-head should it fall into a black hole...

Hawking recent recalculation and other scientific observations have shown that he was nearly correct when he defined the gizmos, but for the fact that as a black hole swallows matter and crunches it into a near zero "volume" size, it also emits a lot of stuff. Thus things can "escape" from a black hole or to be more precise, the black hole expels stuff, including MASSIVE amount of X-ray radiation...

Many black holes that have been observed to do so were first name Quasars... because they were so bright — millions of times brighter than the stars around them. Some Quasars emit so much radiation that they reach into other galaxies in their vicinity... Though the black hole is the centre of the quasar (the super bright "starry" sphere), they seem to act as if as one...

Thus the sense of trepidation for our cosmologists to observe our own galaxy's hungry beast soon. The fireworks could be spectacular and deadly. Lucky, the solar system is somewhat sitting not far from the edge of the galaxy that we can see in the clearest of desert skies and that we've called the "Milky Way"...

It seems that there is a stable relationship between the black hole at the centre of galaxies and the "size" of the corresponding galaxy... Though some Quasars have been observed with no galaxy around them. It's possible that the black hole swallowed the lot...

The processes are somewhat very complex and scientists are barely gnawing at the edge of the black hole conundrum. 

The other thing that is still missing in our understanding of the black holes is the role played by "dark energy" in their behaviour — and "dark energy" is another curly conundrum of space. 

Calculation and observations of space mechanics goes against the grain of what we would expect. We'd think that the entire universe would collapse back unto itself according to the law of gravity, but it does not. To the contrary, the universe is accelerating in an expanding fashion — and the "extra" space/void is being filled up by more "dark matter" without announcing where it's coming from. It's there, but not seen nor measured except calculated by abstractions showing us the observable universe is missing nearly three quarter of its "quantity". Dark matter and dark energy are thus the estimate of the missing bit.

 

Of course, the universe does not see us.

 

Nor is there a Magellanic cloud somewhere where a bearded old fellow is keep a tab on our misdemeanours in our piddley lives...  

 

We only exist in the delta time-shift of our individual memory. There could be billions of other planets in the universe with conditions similar to that of the earth or just favourable to the rise of different life-forms if any. There would have been many gardens of Eden with forbidden fruit. And may I dare say, plenty more to come up to speed. I mean where evolution or life itself has not started yet but will do in say a couple of billion years, conditions prevailing. 

The universe has no morality. It has no meaning nor purpose. Our accidental evolution — or that of the Daleks should they exist on planet Zork — is no more than that. And we should thank our "lucky" stars for being alive in a world with no meaning but for us to evolve our purpose as we wish — without destroying the joint, though there is no pure morality against us destroying the joint. It's a comfort choice where the parameters are complex but observable.

Morality, or the control of our interactions to manage a civil society, has been our own to invent and we've been good at it. Except we muffed it. On the ruling civilities of our interactions we've mostly tacked on the idea of a god watching over us, as if we still were little kiddies in a play-pen. We will never grow up until we get rid of the religious shackles that stop us from being adults in a complex universe — a universe of dumb beauty with forces within that could swallow stars and galaxies as well as create them, all without purpose...

------------------------

Now, should we seriously wish to conquer space, we need to capture the relationship between gravity and dark energy (as if dark energy were anti-gravity) on a local scale. This may prove to be very difficult as the fine balance at which our planet is poised around the sun could be upset by any of the smallest tinkering with gravitational forces. The closest and only planet that could prove "habitable" is Mars... Iit's not obvious in regard to quality of life and it's a long shot. The next planet we know of that could provide "habitable" conditions sits about 500,000 light years away from here... I've been there and back, but one tend to age funny... And I believe it's already tenanted. 

------------------------------

But now here comes Hawking with a new paper in which he declares boldly that “there are no black holes.” A reasonable person might conclude either that he thinks April Fool’s Day came early this year, or that Dr. Hawking has been spending a wee bit too much time enjoying the local ales.

The truth, however, is a lot less entertaining and a lot more obscure than that. To understand what Hawking actually meant, you have to wade into the treacherous waters of relativity and quantum theory—familiar territory for Stephen Hawking and his ilk, but a place where the rest of us risk drowning...

Read more: Hawking: Black Holes Do Exist—But it's Complicated | TIME.com http://science.time.com/2014/01/27/black-holes-hawking/#ixzz2rgN1q2Y4

 

-------------------------------

HOUSTON — In space, heads swell.

A typical human being is about 60 percent water, and in the free fall of space, the body’s fluids float upward, into the chest and the head. Legs atrophy, faces puff, and pressure inside the skull rises.

“Your head actually feels bloated,” said Mark E. Kelly, a retired NASA astronaut who flew on four space shuttle missions. “It kind of feels like you would feel if you hung upside down for a couple of minutes.”

The human body did not evolve to live in space. And how that alien environment changes the body is not a simple problem, nor is it easily solved.

Some problems, like the brittling of bone, may have been overcome already. Others have been identified — for example, astronauts have trouble eating and sleeping enough — and NASA is working to understand and solve them.

Then there are the health problems that still elude doctors more than 50 years after the first spaceflight. In a finding just five years ago, the eyeballs of at least some astronauts became somewhat squashed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/28/science/bodies-not-made-for-space.html?hpw&rref=science&_r=0

 

The new star of Bethlehem was of course a gigantic short-lived quasar...

the prophet...

When Moses came back down the mountain laden with tablets, there were 14 major commandments and 613 sub paragraphs of things not to do... The Hebrews would have been up in arms worried how they could remember all this, as they could not read the small print... Moses offered to downsize the proposal to a good dozen but the Hebrews demanded no more "commandments" that they could count on the fingers of their hands...  Moses obliged and the Hebrews knew from there on which sin they committed by counting on their fingers. 
Of course, before and after all this, new prophets came and went, most indicating that one day a super prophet would come along and get rid of the original sin that had plagued humans since day one, when our two dorky ancestors, Eve and Adam, were expelled from the Garden of Eden. We know it's true because it's written in the bible. Ahem... 
Mohamed declared himself to be the last and utmost prophet in his own gig — proclaiming anyone else declaring to prophetise would be declared a false prophet and eradicated.
Telling prophecies is an art form that demands an audience of gullible and frustrated struggling people. A blank canvas. For example, the record shows that the Moses "commandments" came directly from Egyptian "common" law at the time — a country from which the Hebrews were escaping from...
in the seventh century AD, Mohamed thus invented his new religion with things that god told him and that his younger wife (he had eleven wives and 19 concubines or so) — whom he married when he was 54 and she was nine years of age — wrote the new dictums down... Of course Mohamed had to go and fight all the mongrels who did not believe in his religion, and those who tried to eliminate him — in the same manner as the Hebrews fought bloody wars amongst themselves and as well against their neighbours to show and tell anyone which god was the real one and who had sinned, whatever that meant.
So the holy book is full of nasty battles inspired by god, chocablock with vengeance inspired by god and hell to pay as decreed by god. But nowadays, Joe Hockey's god, that of the bible no less, is not a revengeful geezer anymore and has become forgiving. loving and generous, for whatever reason... Joe must know, he is an Aussie...
But way before this, humans in other parts of the planet, had "philosophers" such as Confucius and Budda. They did not prophetised much though. They told followers of a way of life for "enlightenment" which is a short word to express the rise of the spirit over mortal mundane thingies. Of course, around 25,000 years ago, the rainbow serpent "spirit" rose above the plains — like a precursor to the monsoons in the north of Australia, inspiring Aboriginal people to their own kind of enlightenment and knowledge...
The Romans and the Greeks had a couple of hundred gods fighting it out in the heavens... The Romans even had a god of the door-mat whose only duty was to make sure you entered a building safely.
Most of all the religious system have had their diviners and prophets who told of things to come, and should these things not come, the diviners would find ways to explain the non-happening. 
See, most of what has been "prophetised" (predicted) by humans until proper scientific analysis came along, was also strongly aligned with morality and behaviour. You behave bad, something bad will happen to you. In some belief systems, this is referred to as Karma. So should the prediction be a fizzer, the only explanation was that people changed their behaviour to good or bad, according to the slant of the "prophecy". Fat cows and lean times might have been due to El Nino, but one could prophetise about it, especially as the weather is an iffy one to predict, even with the best computer. The association of disaster and bad behaviour still happens today. Say an earthquake destroy a village in Italy recently, some religious nut will place the blame squarely on the debauched people in the village. This one is easy. No-one ever on earth "behaves perfectly", thus there is always some "sinners" to be blamed for calamities, especially gays and lesbians. Piece of cake. 
But one can be at a loss as to what constitutes bad behaviour. For example, Mohamed's marriage to his far younger bride would make him a serious pedophile today in most civilisations. Abraham, on the other hand, was given girls to copulate with for surrogacy and they called them concubines... His tryst with Agar, an Egyptian "chambermaid" was organised so he could have a child with her, a "firstborn named Ishmael, the patriarch of the Ishmaelites."
Eventually, the prophets and diviners started to cut back on the number of gods in order to eliminate the false gods which was always the one the other people believed into. So, the Muslim, the Jews and the Christians started to have their own versions of the same events, especially those that were interpretable. For the Muslims, Agar is the matriarch of monotheism, while to the Christians, the descendants of Agar are somewhat tainted as carnal by nature and thus mere exiles... To the Baha'i, their "Bab" is a descendant of Agar, believing that god made a promise to spread Abraham's seeds... ("Coming from Africa" with Eddie Murphy and James Earl Jones comes to mind).
The name Agar or Hagar is now used in Israel to name new-born girls, by lefty parents who want proper reconciliation with the Arab world and the Palestinians.
Agar is also used as an example of "surrogacy"... or/and slavery.
Eventually we all know that sex and procreation is on god's mind.
As well as war... 
All through the bible, war is more prominent than sex. 
by the mid 700s, the Arabs Muslims were on a conquest of Europe to be stopped at the battle of Tours in France and pushed back to Spain where they built some remarkable dwellings and mosques. 
By the mid 1000, the popes and their templars were fighting religious battle in Palestine and in the Cathar country...
By the mid 1500, every dog and his god were fighting in useless religious wars — protestants versus catholics — mostly for kings to collect as much land as possible... though by the end of hostilities, exhausted parties had already forgotten the original purpose of the fights though some of the fights had no other purpose but to kill someone else in the name of god....
Meanwhile , most other "secular" battles between kings and other kings were fought in the name of god as the thrones were of course divinely given to them rulers, though they had to fight tooth and nail to keep the seat warm. The list of wars, battles, victories and defeat is long — a long list of psychopath humans fighting other psychopaths for supremacy, property and rights to pollute your brains with religious thoughts..
All of this started a long time ago when a clever monkey discovered he had more leverage over other monkeys with a stick in his paw... Sometimes the stick would be used as a weapon, sometimes it would be shown as sacred object as if it was a sceptre in the hand of king. A god-given stick it was... 

Gus Leonisky
Professor of history...

 

Karkamis, Turkey - Al-Qaeda fighters have struck a bloody blow in scenes of medieval violence in Syria's northern border-town of Jarabulus. Fighting came to a head on January 17, between rebel groups Liwa al-Tawhid Brigade and the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the town, when reinforcements arrived from Raqqa and reclaimed the city in a brutal four-hour battle.

By nightfall, at least 10 men had been beheaded, their heads mounted on spikes, and more than 1,000 refugees fled the 3kms across the border to Turkey.

It's a shocking turn of events for residents and Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters alike, who just a week ago believed they were hours away from expelling the al-Qaeda group from their city altogether after surrounding the last 40 fighters in the city's cultural centre.

But when an ISIL car bomb killed 33 people - all women and children - the FSA brigade called for backup. Instead, what arrived was a 70-car ISIL convoy from Raqqa, an ISIL stronghold 160kms to the south-east. Fighters say half of the militants wore their usual black uniform and half wore camouflage like the FSA, and were uncharacteristically clean-shaven. The disguised fighters tied white bands around their arms to distinguish themselves from the real FSA.

Beheadings

More than 100 men were taken from their homes and escorted to the main square for what turned into a bloodbath.

Muhammad Jader, 22, and his uncle Ali, 35, were among those arrested.

"They lined us up against the wall," Jader told Al Jazeera, "and the emir told them not to waste bullets. Suddenly they grabbed one guy and pinned him down on his stomach. Then one man from ISIL put his knee on his back, shouted 'Allahu Akbar' and cut off his head with a knife.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/01/al-qaeda-slaughters-syria-killing-fields-2014121112119453512.html

Gus: As mentioned above, religious wars, battles and godly fights have been a feature of the history of religion. Cain killed his brother Abel, did he not? From then on it's all down-hill and the barbaric aspect of war in the name of god is beyond the pale. Whether it's drones sending rockets from the sky on nests of terrorists or terrorists committing war crimes which in their beliefs is to kill the infidels and the Shia, the resultant is utterly distressing and ugly. 

The treachery of disguise is also a low blow. Here we have to demand that Saudi Arabia stop the supply of arms and moneys to these thugs but then who am I kidding?

---------------------------------------

Berlin has often been criticized in recent years for selling weapons to questionable regimes. Now, the German government is backing a billion-euro deal for 100 patrol boats.

The German government has often drawn serious criticism for supporting defense deals with countries known to have democratic deficiencies. In the latest controversial move, SPIEGEL has learned that the new government in Berlin wants to secure a major defense deal with Saudi Arabia by offering Hermes export credit guarantees.

 
The information comes from a classified letter from a senior official in the Finance Ministry to the German parliament's budget committee. The letter states that the German government intends to provide guarantees for the planned export of more than 100 patrol and border control boats to the Gulf state with a total value of around €1.4 billion ($1.9 billion). In the letter, official Steffen Kampeter writes of the "high importance in terms of economic and employment" of the deal, which includes contracts for the Bremen-based Lürssen Shipyard. Kampeter, a politician with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union, asked for the "confidential handling of the business data" because negotiations are still in progress and competition is expected from other countries.
From Der Speigel

 

It was among the most ardently-followed debates about evolution since the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. Live-stream coverage on YouTube attracted more than 500,000 viewers. About 900 people snapped up $25 tickets to see it in person.

All this for a debate, Tuesday night, that saw the bow-tied American writer and television presenter Bill Nye "The Science Guy" pitted against the Australian creationist Ken Ham, head of the Answers in Genesis organisation.

Ham’s group runs the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, which hosted the debate. The museum propagates the view that the events in Genesis are literally true. Ham argues that every human is descended from Adam and Eve, that God created man and all land animals on the same day 6,000 years ago and that there were dinosaurs on Noah's Ark.

Not entirely dissimilarly to Steve Carell's character in the film Evan Almighty, Ham is aiming to raise $24.5m to build an Ark Encountertheme park 40 miles south of Cincinnati, Ohio. If he succeeds, the park will feature an Ark built according to biblical dimensions, and what will presumably be a very capacious petting zoo.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/feb/05/bill-nye-science-debate-australian-creationist-ken-ham

Gus: it is quite sad and fairly annoying that in these days of scientific rigour we still have to have debates about genesis versus evolution... And the saddest thing of all is that, in this case in the US, the creationist idiot is an Australian. As a migrant to Aussieland in the early 1970s I had the same arguments at the Australian Museum forums in which science REALITY was totally ignored by creationists who invented some silly pseudo-credence of their own to prove something like the dodo never existed... or that shells on top of mountains were placed by god when he fiddled with his creation on the fourth day or so... In the end, my only stupid final attack was to say the bible was a shit book. A book full of shit!... End of story. It was not possible to discuss anything worthwhile with flat-earth theorists who, later on, became "intelligent design" followers. Same shit... It was not worth the breath of scientific research, including genetics (in an embryonic stage at the time) or the science of atomic decay to explain why A + B = C or the atom bomb to morons. Creationists are morons and it can be proven with nothing more than a slide-rule. But WHY OH WHY  are we still having these cul-de-sac arguments that lead nowhere but to another fist fight, like those we had verbally at the end of "our debates"?...

Why waste energy on trying to prove something to idiots? Well, "all" there is to be studied in a very BRIEF FORMAT is at the USUAL SUSPECTS... Go for your life and read to the end because as information was made more and more available, science has developed a very clear picture of the evolution process, including human evolution, specific to this little planet while creationism still deals with fairies...

 

 

 

 

Widespread ignorance exists among children and parents about the contents of the Bible, research has suggested.

Surveys for the Bible Society found almost three in 10 young people were unaware the story of the birth of Jesus came from the Bible.

A similar number of children had never read or heard about tales of the Crucifixion or Adam and Eve.

The report was based on a poll of 800 children aged eight to 15 and about 1,100 parents.

Good values

The study revealed a generation of children with little knowledge of the most important stories forming the basis of Christianity, and parents who often knew little more.

Of the children who were questioned, more than a third failed to identify either the Good Samaritan or David and Goliath as Biblical stories.

Many of the parents who responded saw the Bible as a source of good values for their children.

But almost half did not recognise the story of Noah's Ark as coming from the Bible, and many confused Biblical stories with plotlines from well-known films such as Harry Potter.

The Bible Society commissioned the study as part of its Pass It On campaign to encourage parents to give the stories to their children.

The group said the findings were "symptomatic of the fact that many children indicate they have never read, seen or even heard these stories".

'Immense contribution'

In a foreword to the report, Bishop of London Dr Richard Chartres said sharing Bible stories "is as vital now as it has ever been".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26078614

----------------------------------

Yes, when one reads the bible, one sees "good value" especially if you are a vengeful warring polygamist king with a tendency to have it off with concubines with the blessing of the masses... Don't read that previous sentence should you be under the age of 15...

But apart from these constants throughout the great book, there are a few sweet stories like Samson and Delilah, Daniel being fed to the lions that fortunately had indigestion or Jesus chasing the merchants from the temple, like Abbott chased the scientists out of his government's bureaucracy...

Page after page, there are also great stories of murders and killings, some under the influence of god's will, some under the temptation of the devil... So, who can forget the vanity of the devil, which god in his goodness allowed to survive as nastiness incarnate and become the manager of HELL? One can suppose god needed a real baddie to keep the fire burning to maintain the damnation of crummy humans forever. Most sins are sex related, sometimes with the neighbour's wife or a donkey.

Yes kiddies, if you sin — say, steal a biscuit at the school fete — and don't confess to a pedophile priest, your future is assured in HELL, burning forever eternally in pain, a situation which indicates to Uncle Gus that the omnipotent god must be a sadist to allow such a monster's existence... But fear not, kiddies, because according to Joe Hockey, "god is all forgiving" and all loving... Makes sense? No? 

Should you be a fanatic extremist MALE Muslim, your good book can be interpreted so you become a sadist like god and be as barbaric as you can muster, as well as being a fantastic misogynist — as long as your anger is directed towards "infidels" or inferior Muslims... 

Uncle Gus

god's librarian

 

 

Gus: Philosophers play the most important part in our ethical survival. Without ethics, humanity would not survive... I know this is a bold premise, but philosophers add a necessary counterpoint to religious fanatics and warriors. Without philosophers giving us a reasoned sense of our humanity, morality would be BRUTAL, as shown by the warriors of Al Qaeda and their various affiliated groups, and the morality of the other two Abrahamic religions, Christianity and Judaism, all celebrating war as option A. Human survival would always be depending on a state of fear, distrust, robbery and fighting — all leading to a lesser value of societies to the point they could become extinct.

Most philosophers encourage the negotiated settlement of our disputes and of limiting disputes by presenting a more "scientific" approach to life. Modern scientists are by and large providers of information for "scientific" philosophers to point us in a direction which is more complex and more real than the simplistic beliefs of religious dogma. Aristotle still provides us with a working formula to write about our emotions and conflicts with usually a resolution of drama.: the three act play.

Confucius and Buddha never wanted to be gods, demi-gods nor prophets. They understood efficient paradigms of relationships between humans — and between humans and the universe including nature, without having to fight and steal, which had been the case of most social constructs since day one, including "peaceful" societies that had to defend against hordes of invaders, conquerors and basically all thieving scoundrels — from common robbers to kings who often acted under the claim of god's will... 

Most modern philosophers still encourage peace by using no violence, while most politicians are very ambivalent about peace they seek and the desire to fight, and raise an army. Politicians are rarely philosophers. The axing of an philosophy department by Tony Abbott shows he never understood much except biffo — biffo against anyone whom he does not like as they come to pass him in the night or day. Philosophy teaches us to understand our primal hates, dislikes, likes and love — or should I rephrase this: philosophy should teach us this understanding. 

In our modern societies we unfortunately still weave a concoction of deceit, in which we twist the meanings of philosophers ideas in order to suit our beliefs and our low intellectual desires in favour of entertainment. We still hang on to prejudices driven by ego build by reactive thoughts of the past, rather than develop present "adjusted" thoughts. And one of the main problem that encourages this process are the various prejudices in people at various levels of "intellectual" development. We are not the same nor are we at the same stage of "enlightenment", philosophically.

The best of philosophers can still be dragged into undesirable conflicts by third parties... It is up to us to resist the temptation of "revenge"... So far, few world leaders have been able to "turn the other cheek". 

Jesus, in line with Plato, Confucius and Buddha was a "philosopher" though he was attached to a religious belief, possibly on order to enforce a turn of the page so to speak... Mohammed was a warrior with an acquired morality. Mohammed was not a philosopher. He called himself a prophet. Prophets are no scientists either. 

Buddha did not create a "religion". But people who have been captured by his ideas, have ritualised his teachings and by and large this had turned his teachings into a religion where hope of reincarnation is the driving mantra rather than basic cordial humanism. 

Sustained atheism demands far more input from philosophers and scientists than any other system of behaviour. It's the right call for ethical behaviour.

---------------------------------------------------

 

 

What Jews and the Chinese have in common

By Michael Goldfarb

Like most people on their first trip to China, I felt like an ocean swimmer trying to get back to shore pulling against a particularly vicious riptide, overwhelmed and slightly panicked.

It was not just the gigantism - the number of people, the epic infrastructure projects, the impenetrable air pollution.

It was that the place in many ways looks familiar - but just off-kilter, as in a dream - all those Western brand names on advertising hoardings, but you cannot read the ads because they are all in Chinese.

I had this strange feeling of knowing but not having a clue most intensely when I visited Shandong University in Jinan recently.

Shandong reminded me very much of the University of California at Berkeley in the US, only with 57,000 students - instead of 35,000 - buzzing and biking purposefully around from class to class, and they were much, much more earnest.

At the heart of the campus is a newish 27-storey building with a giant clock on the top, which houses the department of religious studies.

Religion was the reason I had come to Shandong. I was making a programme about the simultaneous origins of Buddhism and Confucianism; Shandong is close to Qufu, Confucius' home town and a centre of modern Confucian scholarship.

The university's religion department also houses the Centre for Judaic Studies, China's one and only department of Jewish studies.

Its existence is one of those off-kilter things. Sure, American and British universities have Jewish study programmes, but in China? I was surprised.

But the man who runs the centre, Professor Fu Youde, told me I should not be. Confucian and Jewish culture have much in common.

"The core of Confucianism and Judaism is ethical," he explained. 

...

 

Anyway, I wonder if the Chinese can get the core of Jewish humour, its bitter irony. Heinrich Heine, 19th Century poet and essayist, described it best: "I try to tell my grief and it all becomes comic."

Prof Fu does not think humour matters.

"Jokes are important for Jewish literature," he said. "But as a culture, the core of Judaism is the law, as given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai."

"Well, I am not so sure about that," I replied, "Jewish culture is not simply the law. The culture has been shaped by how Jews have responded to persecution over the 2,500 years since the law was first written down in the form we know it."

 

read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26067154

----------------------

 

The times of Gautama's birth and death are uncertain: most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE,[1] but more recent opinion dates his death to between 486 and 483 BCE or, according to some, between 411 and 400 BCE.[15][note 5] However, at a symposium on this question held in 1988,[1][16] the majority of those who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha's death. These alternative chronologies, however, have not yet been accepted by all other historians.[17][18] The discovery of a possible Buddhist shrine dated to 550 BCE at the Maya Devi Temple, Lumbini may push back the Buddha's birth date.[19]

No written records about Gautama have been found from his lifetime or several centuries thereafter. The Gandhāran Buddhist texts, the oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts, reported to have been found in or around Haḍḍa near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan and preserved in the British Library today, was written in the Kharoṣṭhī script and the Gāndhārī language on twenty-seven Birch bark scrolls from the first century BCE to the third century CE.[20]

read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha

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Confucius (551–479 BC)[1] was a Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history.

The philosophy of Confucius emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity. His followers competed successfully with many other schools during the Hundred Schools of Thought era only to be suppressed in favor of the Legalists during the Qin Dynasty. Following the victory of Han over Chu after the collapse of Qin, Confucius's thoughts received official sanction and were further developed into a system known as Confucianism.

Confucius is traditionally credited with having authored or edited many of the Chinese classic texts including all of the Five Classics, but modern scholars are cautious of attributing specific assertions to Confucius himself. Aphorisms concerning his teachings were compiled in the Analects, but only many years after his death.

Confucius's principles had a basis in common Chinese tradition and belief. He championed strong family loyalty, ancestor worship, respect of elders by their children and of husbands by their wives. He also recommended family as a basis for ideal government. He espoused the well-known principle "Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself", an early version of the Golden Rule.

read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius

 

--------------------------------------------

 

Plato (/ˈpleɪtoʊ/;[1] Greek: Πλάτων, Plátōn, "broad";[2] 428/427 or 424/423 BC[a] – 348/347 BC) was a philosopher in Classical Greece. He was also a mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his most-famous student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science.[3] Alfred North Whitehead once noted: "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."[4]

 

Plato's sophistication as a writer is evident in his Socratic dialogues; thirty-six dialogues and thirteen letters have been ascribed to him, although 15–18 of them have been contested. Plato's writings have been published in several fashions; this has led to several conventions regarding the naming and referencing of Plato's texts.[5] Plato's dialogues have been used to teach a range of subjects, including philosophy, logic, ethics, rhetoric, religion and mathematics. Plato is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. His writings related to the Theory of Forms, or Platonic ideals, are basis for Platonism

...

The trial of Socrates is the central, unifying event of the great Platonic dialogues. Because of this, Plato's Apology is perhaps the most often read of the dialogues. In the Apology, Socrates tries to dismiss rumors that he is a sophist and defends himself against charges of disbelief in the gods and corruption of the young. Socrates insists that long-standing slander will be the real cause of his demise, and says the legal charges are essentially false. Socrates famously denies being wise, and explains how his life as a philosopher was launched by the Oracle at Delphi. He says that his quest to resolve the riddle of the oracle put him at odds with his fellow man, and that this is the reason he has been mistaken for a menace to the city-state of Athens.

If Plato's important dialogues do not refer to Socrates' execution explicitly, they allude to it, or use characters or themes that play a part in it.

read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato

 

Uncle Gustaphian

Philosopher 

 

 

 

 

It could be seen as a major contradiction that the "Big Bang Theory" was devised by a monsignor.

 

In 1946, Monseigneur Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître — a Belgian, a distinguished mathematician and physicist as well as an ordained priest — published his L'Hypothèse de l'Atome Primitif (The Primeval Atom Hypothesis), which in short was the formulation of the "Big Bang Theory"...

13,798,000,000 years ago plus or minus a few billions, the hot dense core state of the universe exploded and has since been expanding. 

Of course many scientists have taken to the idea and, since Lemaître formulated his hypothesis, have done far more calculations, observations and experiments, to give a clearer picture of what most likely happened within a micro-second of the event and the "dispersion" of matter ever since.

Complex experiments are being done with the Large Hadron Collider, CERN, particle accelerator in France and Switzerland, and other particle accelerators in the world. The latest SCERN discovery has been the most primal quark we know that has been called "the god particle" or the Higgs Boson (Nobel prize in 3013). A huge machine — 27 kilometre long tunnel, with powerful magnets — the Large Hadron Collider cracks open the smallest of particles into smaller particles.

So here we are, 68 years later, with a much greater knowledge of the event called the Big Bang and a few episodes of a fun TV show about scientists nerds and gals...

It would take far too long to explain or even catalogue all the discoveries made on this subject, on this site. Please do you own investigation and understand the value of this work — including the research presently centred on dark energy and dark matter.. 

When the pope of the time started to appropriate Lemaître's Big Bang Theory as part of creationism, Lemaître asked the pope to stop mentioning creationism and the Big Bang together any further... The two did not make sense together. He also asked the pope to stop making any proclamation about cosmology. The pope obliged. 

Lemaître's work had nothing to do with religion but science and mathematics. In the 1920s, he was also working on the idea of the Plank's Constant and published the theory at least two years before Plank did. The International community having failed to read his work in English, granted Plank the "notoriety" of the idea.

Yesterday (10/2/14), the "oldest star visible" was revealed to the public. It has been discovered in one of the corner of the universe by a team of scientists working at the Siding Spring Space Telescope. The star was formed about 13.6 billion years ago.

Through various accurate calculations, we know that the solar system is about 4.6 billion years old, though the sun itself may be a tad older. The age of the earth thus is calculated at 4.54 billion years plus or minus a few years.

Life on earth started approximately about 3.8 billion years ago... Fossils of early life-forms, bacteria (3.6 billion) and stromatolites (3.5 billion), can be found in rocks in the north west of Australia amongst other places.

Evolution of life took its time, then accelerated. 

Already at the beginning, the association of atoms that form the core molecules of life, the RNA and the DNA developed from very basic enzymes, also acquired imprint of change.

Chemical reactions have various length of time. We know for example that a dynamite explosion is a short live violent chemical reaction that creates an explosion while quickly changing "from one state to another". We know that some polymerisation of plastic can take a few hours. We know that the process of change in the DNA  "transformation" has now taken about 3.6 billion years till today. 

The DNA molecule has acquired the ability to "rejuvenate" by duplicating itself and then die. It has also acquired the ability to modify itself in a number of variants that have led to "speciation" (evolved in various species). We know that some forms of this speciation became cannibalistic as some of the species started to steal parts or whole of other species. 

We know that without proper "duplication" the DNA eventually looses its integrity and "dies" or become erratic and is unable to sustain complex forms of life... (cancer).

We know that at some stage, there were associations of cells. some association as "sisters" that formed more complex species (multi-cellular bodies), some like in corals and lichens that created a symbiosis in which different "speciations" became entwined. 

One of the most important association is that of the mitochodrion with basic cells... It has been suggested that the mitochondria in cells resulted from a virus-like DNA finding comfort inside a bacteria. The two prospered and created the branch "animalia" and plants that develop the ability to be photosynthetic...

Life — the duplicating survival of the DNA molecule — managed to sustain itself in a changing environment and against itself. The environment on the planet was conducive to improvements along the way. Water is an essential component that provides the spacial fluidity and transfer of ingredients necessary for DNA duplication. Life also self destroyed by exhaustion of non-duplicated DNA and cannibalism... 

The other very important factor in the sustainability of life is, despite larger species today, the process only exists in its minutie and detailed changes. The size of cells has not changed much since the early days, The chemical changes are very precise and tiny. 

Most life-forms also developed ways to fight other forms of life trying to destroy it or cannibalise it. Our own body has a complex array of cells designed to attack any invaders — the immune system. Plants develop poisons to stop grazing animals. Life has no meaning and a self-developed relative purpose: exist. Most forms of life have to steal proteins (complex chemical of life) to survive, in general from other species... 

At first, from 3.6 billion years ago, life only developed in the oceans. Around 570 MILLION years ago, the first exoskeleton animals appear. Vertebrate animals started to appear about 525 million years ago. Around 400 million years ago, the first land plant appeared when sea plants developed on the margins of oceans. LIFE WAS NOT CONFINED TO SEA from then on. Animals and plants developed ways to carry their own water supply as required. For example, the human body is made of 60 to 70 per cent water. We only carry about 15 kilograms of "other" matter than water. We need to replenish the water regularly: we drink. Our skin forms a semi-impermeable barrier against water loss and water absorption. 

By 65 million years ago, the dinosaurs became extinct... But around 120 million years ago, the first mammals appeared. When the dinosaurs disappeared, the mammals took over the space... about 5 million years ago, the monkey discovered the stick. By now, humans have become king and rapist of the planet. 

Through all this there were some major changes on the surface of the planet. The first atmosphere would not have been breathable. The release of "free" oxygen happened mostly via the bacteria and algae processing the soup of the sea. There were some major environmental events that could have led to the extinction of life, but some species survived. Others did not. The process of survival, evolution and extinction still happens today. 

As one single species, homo sapiens, takes over more and more space on the planet, there are possibilities that many other forms of life will disappear. This has been noted by homo sapiens:— extinction of species by loss of habitat, hunting, and changes in the environmental conditions such as global warming.

The rest is our future. As we have developed a consciousness, like other animals — that is to say an awareness of self and of surroundings — via our senses, our analytical ability is being fogged up by our own success. This analytical ability is also fogged by our social interactions in which stated beliefs have become paramount rather than proper observation of change. Beliefs dull our ability to think. 

Scientists present us with a dire picture due to our refusal to see beyond our beliefs. This could be our slow self-extinction event. 

Gus Leonisky 
professor of spaced-out

 

eternal life, relatively... for DNA...

As we humans developed a complex social memory and various means to record and reconstruct past events — means such as writing, study of observations, compiling information, artistic endeavours and story-telling (nowadays using camera stills and movies) — we have engendered a sense of continuum over millennia, upon which we have grafted some various "understandings", right or wrong, though individually we live 75 years on average. 

Individually, we die. We hope to live forever. We don't. This is not the way life constructed itself in evolution. 

Life is a chemical reaction. The chemical reaction of DNA. The chemical reactionS of DNA in individuals — from single cells to complex beings.

Complex simplicity.

Other complex chemicals developed in tandem with RNA (Ribonucleic acids) and DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acids) as these became reactive to environmental factors — all in order for the DNA to stay integral as long as possible... We know this clearly for example with observed adaptation of virus to the various drugs we use to fight them. Viruses are prominently pure DNA molecule with various coatings, mostly proteins. 

Like all other DNA molecules, viruses survive by duplication and when environmental factors are "extreme", they go into a form of hibernation (or die if the environmental factors are beyond extreme) or they adapt quickly to new conditions if those are not "extreme" enough. We know viruses can evolve to survive the change.
Most viruses need a specific host that provided material for their style of duplication. One of the basic step of DNA survival is adaptation to change. The mono-cellular structure is basic in these requirements but the associations of cells in complex structures need some more specific environmental characteristics to survive the change. Some structure can survive, some may not in various environmental characteristics. it's a game of chance where the odds are in the cells favour and with bets on the better survival strategy possible — a bit like an insurance policy in which we have to pay a premium, not with a pay out or an "evolutionary" next step necessarily. Other mono-cellular life-forms like bacteria can also "quickly" adapt to change of environmental factors.

Steps of DNA survival include:
- The ability to survive change within a range of varied environmental factors.
- the ability to be in the right environment. to acquire or find the right elements and other molecules to sustain the process of survival.
- the ability to variegate. 
- the ability to protect itself.

Even in the early DNA "reactivity", some basic processes are essential: submissiveness and aggressiveness of the molecule. Submissiveness is the ability to be "penetrated or interfered with by foreign bodies that can then be "digested", be processed or evolved together with, while aggressiveness is the search for such "foreign bodies" for impending duplication or the simple step in which the "foreign body" is acquired by accident of proximity. Simple cell sense of proximity to other cells is also part of the acquiring and defence process. DNA thus became a self sustaining self-determinant chemical reaction — in step with or against the environmental factors as long as these do not destroy the molecule. The oldest single individual on earth is presently about 15,000 years old. The DNA from which it evolved is 3.8 billion years old. It's a tree that replanted its new shoots many times in one of Tasmanian mountain sides but it still is the same tree, though the "old" stock died.

As the interactive processes of DNA became more and more complex, especially with duplicating viruses and bacteria searching for "material" to build "duplicate" molecules, it became easier to "steal" already complexed molecules for this purpose rather than to "build from scratch" with basic elements — though these still could have been needed for satisfactory duplication. The new complex chemicals started to provide mitigation of threats and also provided comforts (safety). The process took about two billion years to develop to the next level in which reactivity became a bit more sophisticated.

Association of similar cells became a better "protection" against the environment — which included other cells in search of duplicating material.

In the long term adaptation of DNA to circumstances led to a "natural status" in evolution. DNA is life. life is DNA. Nature is the variety of DNA in evolution.

Change to DNA happened when changing availability of duplicating material and environmental factors provided different reactivity. The key factors of DNA is duplication of "itself" and "reactivity" in order to stay integral or survive with a minimum of change that maintains its reactivity in new circumstances. Otherwise it dies. Death is the end of the chemical reaction which is part of the process nonetheless, but death (end of the chemical reaction integrity) is often instilled in the process long after duplication, not because of duplication.

In short obsolescence is a big part of DNA processes. Like all chemical reactions, there is an end-result in which the final balance is stable (arrested, self-terminated) or degraded so much not many viable changes can be sustained. The only way the DNA can continue to exist is by making a "younger" duplicate. When a cell divides, it is hard to know which is the youngest duplicate, but the process actually rejuvenate both parts, thus extending the longevity of both. 

In complex structures such as in the human body, the duplication eventually degrades the DNA so much, the entire structure "ages" and dies from one or more components failure. This is why "stem cells" are at the forefront of research as "stem cells" are rarely degraded since they are "virgin" duplicates (or original) cells that have not specialised yet into a specific role. Modern technology can entice stem cells to develop into a particular organ structure.

In complex structure, cells and group of cells become dedicated to the survival of the whole. It is quite amazing that greater living things have developed various speciated structures within, we call organs... This is PART OF THE PROCESS OF EVOLUTION. In order to survive in a complex structure, cells had to become "specialists"— from bones to heart — to sustain the whole.

The next steps became better defence, signalisation of speciation (shape, odour, colours, scents, education), feeding, ejecting, duplicating, stylism (interpretation of environmental factors when faced with options of equal value), dying.

Religion is stylistic mumbo jumbo in which the interpretation of reality is simplistic and erroneous. But religion provides a comforting position for a consciousness which has difficulty accepting its obsolescence.

The human genome has been mapped. A genome is the various association of DNA molecules in cells. In humans they are in the Chromosomes sequences.

The main feat is when a cell divides, all the various components HAVE TO DIVIDE at the same time. There is a very precisely clocked mechanism in place. Should some of the "new" cell miss out on some parts, the cell will degrade. This can happen through "ageing" (the duplicating cell is "old" and somewhat "degraded"), through unsuitable environmental factors present at the time or a misfire in the duplication. Various intrusion from foreign bodies can interfere with the duplication, such as certain enzymes or "microbes" (other form of life in search of "food"). A lot of cancer research is focused on enzyme interference.

The next step is the awareness of the structure to itself and to the environment with various reactivities that can lead to basic survival and/or quality of survival in which the need of the next is not as urgent. This can create spare time for being, leading to he development of "entertainment". We call this awareness of self, consciousness. Most living animals are aware of their own existence but we, humans, because of our superiority complex, find difficult to accept this. Yes, we have humbly seated ourselves with the gods eating their lunch when we should be proud to be with the intelligent monkeys...


Gus Leonisky
Professor of monkey business

 

 

Scientology is a curly one. 

I would sarcastically suggest that scientology tries to pass itself as a religion for, I guess, tax minimisation purposes and money management, while on the the other side of the ledger scientology is pure psychological manipulations of adherents, who for the majority accept willingly (under the belief of scientology) such manipulations. 

So what defines a religious beliefs? Usually a "religious belief" need to to extort the value of the mortal life into an eternal life. There is thus a "spiritual" after-life and usually a being at the lever of all stuff, including stuff ups and Bob is your uncle... For the Christians, Jews and Muslims the name of the beast is God. For the Scientologists, the name is Thetan. So my guesses above are wrong, as the Scientologists "believe" in reincarnation and the separation of the spirit from the body... Belief is the key word in religion. 

Most religions are simplistic in their methods of indoctrination though powerful in the repeat of message that does create a habit of association: you believe this, you get eternal life... you don't believe, you get eternal hell. Of course, in order to make the message stick, there is a vast array of rituals, like the mass, the theatre of the Vatican — or the arse in the air while being on one knees facing Mecca for the Muslims... Recently, the churches, especially the side-kicking singing happy christian churches have come to realise that the message need to become more refined and targeted, including some uplifting words wrapped up in full-colour glossy brochures. In many cases these uplifting words have been "selected" and "interpreted" from the bible to give "positive" outlook on life, while the misery vengeful and murderous sections of the bible are non-existent in the "brochures"...

 

For the scientologists, the rituals are more discreet and they are psychologically tailored. One could say there is very little ritual but series of tests in which adherents can climb steps towards "higher enlightenment", should they pass the tests. Similar steps exist in the Buddhist "non"-religion towards enlightenment, though Buddhism has some rituals attached to its purpose.

In scientology, the main belief is that "man is good". Like most other religions, scientology was created by a "man", not a woman. Most gods in many religions, monotheistic or not are men. I mean male. Thus the way around this male/female thingy is to neutralise the higher geezer into a spirit... No gender issues...

In Scientology, there are processes used to cleanse one's spirit, akin to "confession', but if my sources are right, it involved saying nothing to anybody else, but being under scrutiny of someone's gaze for a length of time during which the intense session make us lift the carpet of our own deceit and we see where we went wrong in a way to dissipate the influence of the wrong we've done. 

Like in other church structures, one scientologist is "free to be" except one is only free to be within the set parameters of the church. The indoctrination is powerful and uses psychological manipulations in the most effective manner. Anyone trying to escape can find it difficult physically (the church may use "punishment" for trespassers and difficult mentally, as any trespass can be see as a violation of the universal spirit, though to me, it's a lot of bullshit... The word "scientology" is cleverly crafter to included the idea of science in it. The only science in scientology is the art of psychological manipulations.

 

It is my belief that Ron Hubbard, the creator of the "church of Scientology" died laughing at the hoax he perpetrated on his fellow "men".

 

Gus Leonisky

Professor of psychology

 

------------------------

In conclusion here, a few decades before scientology and "intelligent design" were invented:

 

I cannot understand why we idle discussing religion. If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination. It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were so much more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have personified these forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when we understand so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions. I can't for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way. What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of the poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might have prevented. If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied ones. They are also much easier to exploit. Religion is a kind of opium that allows a nation to lull itself into wishful dreams and so forget the injustices that are being perpetrated against the people. Hence the close alliance between those two great political forces, the State and the Church. Both need the illusion that a kindly God rewards—in heaven if not on earth—all those who have not risen up against injustice, who have done their duty quietly and uncomplainingly. That is precisely why the honest assertion that God is a mere product of the human imagination is branded as the worst of all mortal sins.
Paul Dirac, Physicist.

 

 

 

Evangelist Anne Graham Lotz has warned that severe punishment is coming to America — anything from a massive earthquake to a nuclear strike — which she said will be a "game-changer."

Lotz, founder of AnGeL Ministries, told the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association's Decision Magazine on Monday that God is trying to get America's attention through the natural disasters and violence that have already befallen the country.

She warned that even more severe punishment could be on the way, however.

"And I'm talking about something like a nuclear strike, an earthquake that splits us in two, an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack that devastates our electrical grid. Something major that would be a game-changer for America, because we are so defiant and rebellious and idolatrous and immoral, and we know better," she said.

The Daniel Prayer author warned that America continues to sin and refuses to repent, which is when God backs away.

"You don't repent and you continue to sin and you become defiant, and He backs away further until in the end, God just turns you over to yourself," she said.

"That's where America is today. Look at the end of Romans 1. He's just backed away from us, turned us over to ourselves. As they say, 'America, how's that working for you?'"

The daughter of Billy Graham argued that the global conflicts and tensions are only the "birth pangs" before the return of Jesus Christ, reminding Christians that Matthew 24:7 in the Bible speaks of a time when "nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines, pestilences and earthquakes in various places."

read more:

https://www.christianpost.com/news/anne-graham-lotz-nuclear-strike-earth...

 

These idiot preachers have never tried to understand physics and natural dynamics. THERE IS NO RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SIN AND CATASTROPHES. Understood? Sin is only a religious notion of not playing fair. Sin is a delusion of purpose. Catastrophes happen because the natural world has events like volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. Some catastrophes are human made like war and global warming. No sin is involve in this. Only our disregard for ourselves and our disdain of nature. That Trump is a punishment that came to Yamerika is only due to "political games" that can be played deceitfully. No godly purpose in that. GOD DOES NOT EXIST.

GOD IS MUD.

---------------------------------

For researcher Matteo Degiacomi, the challenge was to figure out which one of the essential ingredients was fundamental to the beginning of life on Earth. “The most important things for life: you need to have DNA and proteins. Technically that’s quite problematic because nowadays to make proteins you need DNA, but to work with DNA you need proteins – so it’s a kind of chicken and egg. Which came first?” Degiacomi said.

Both Erastova and Degiacomi think the answer lies in a unique type of clay that was present on early Earth and which could also be found on other planets with a similar geological composition. In their research, published in the journal Nature Communications, the team found that amino acids inserted themselves between layers of wet and drying mud and then, over thousands or millions of years, joined together to form chains of proteins that spread out and into the world.

“We have a good belief that the amino acids were there. Amino acids are charged as is the clay, the layers are charged, amino negative, clay positive,” Erastova said. This interplay of charges is one of the reasons the amino acids can form a chain inside the protected environment of the layered mud.

read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/416581-scientists-unlock-life-puzzle-protein/

 

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Physicist Stephen Hawking has died at the age of 76, his family has said.

Key points:

• Stephen Hawking was dubbed one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists since Albert Einstein
• He was given only two years to live when he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 1963
• Professor Hawking's worked ranged from the origins of the universe, through to the prospect of time travel

 

He died peacefully at his home in Cambridge in the early hours of this morning (local time), according to a statement from his family.

"His family have kindly requested that they be given the time and privacy to mourn his passing, but they would like to thank everyone who has been by Professor Hawking's side — and supported him — throughout his life," the statement said.

Professor Hawking, who was dubbed one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists since Albert Einstein, died on what would have been Einstein's 139th birthday. 

Professor Hawking's children Lucy, Robert and Tim said they were deeply saddened by their father's passing.

 

Read more: 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-14/stephen-hawking-dies-aged-76/9547454

 

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Stephen Hawking will spend eternity in the company of some other tremendously influential English scientists.

The cosmologist and science communicator, who died March 14 at age 76, will have his ashes interred in Westminster Abbey later this year, officials with the famous London church announced today (March 20).

“It is entirely fitting that the remains of Professor Stephen Hawking are to be buried in the Abbey, near those of distinguished fellow scientists. Sir Isaac Newton was buried in the Abbey in 1727. Charles Darwin was buried beside Isaac Newton in 1882,” the Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend John Hall, said in a statement.

 

Read more:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stephen-hawking-to-be-interre...

 

 

If my memory is correct he will also be in good company in "relative eternity" with Aphra Behn buried in another corner... See:

http://yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/322

 

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