Died, 1879

Bernedette Soubirous of Lourdes (1844-1879).
Her well preserved body as it is today at Nevers, France.
Some other miracles.

Our Lady of Gudalupe in Los Angeles

A very tiny piece of Juan Diego's tilma (cloak)
is on display at the Los Angeles cathedral.
The rest is in Mexico City.

Illegal immigration into the US from Mexico

Steven Vincent

Steven writes about the Thugs of Basra
Censorship, jihad style.

Cooling towers

A lot of heat is "lost" making electricity.
Maybe you can see where it goes.

Products from crude

Almost half of all crude oil is refined into gasoline.
[DoE chart]

2001 energy sources and uses

97 Quadrillion BTUs.
------------------------------------
40 Quadrillion BTUs from oil
23 Quadrillion BTUs from coal
24 Quadrillion BTUs from natural gas
10 Quads from Uranium and Hydro
------------------------------------
56 Quads lost in conversion
35 Quads productive work done
06 Quads equivalent of oil not used for energy
------------------------------------
[original graph by Lawrence Livermore Labs]
------------------------------------
If we used oil at the same rate per capita as the Europeans,
we would reduce our imports of oil by 20 Quads or 80%

Of the 27 quads used for transportation, two thirds or 18 quads is used by cars. If we doubled "average" mpg, we would reduce imports by 9 quads or 36%.

The 2004 CAFE standard for the majority of new vehicles is 20.7
The bad people are unlikely to change the CAFE standards anytime soon. But car pooling can be done now. Even a Hummer can get good "passenger miles per gallon" if it has enough passengers.

Per Capita oil usage: US vs Europe

The Europeans use half as much oil per capita as we do.
[DoE chart]

Peace

1531 Mexico
Mary gives Juan Diego a sign.
Our Lady of Guadalupe.

War

The jihadists are counter-revolutionairies says Frederick Turner.

Religious states vs My Kingdom is not of this world

1) Christendom in 526.
2) The Plymouth Colony
3) The Tower of Babel
Attempts to take heaven by force.

Do you support terrorism?

Where do those terrorists get all that money?

Artificial gravity

If there is no difference between acceleration effects and real gravity, why do we call it artificial gravity? If real gravity is an acceleration effect, then it is probably time to
give up hope for anti-gravity.

Galactic rings

How can a galaxy have spiral arms and circular orbits?
The stars are not in circular orbits; they are in spiral orbits.
What causes the spiral? The orbital decay is due to friction.
Friction with what? Something.    Something tiny I think.
---2008/07/28 different idea
These may be new, temporary, structures recently formed by the collision of two galaxies, and soon to be blended away, after a revolution or two.
Antennae Galaxies

Mistakes were made

in the past.
That the courts decided to have Terri starve to death demonstrates that they felt queasy about killing her.
Big Deal.

Limiting death of brain cells

Anticonvulsants used as detoxification agents are thought to be potentially neuroprotective and neurotrophic. reference
See a discussion of "neurotrophic" in Wikpedia

Beyond Rangoon

Aung San turns 60. She is a jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner, in Burma. Some of her story is seen as backdrop in the movie: Beyond Rangoon, with Spaulding Gray.
[News story 9-29]

Loser

Help us.

Set in Port-au-Prince

"You really intend" Doctor Magiot asked me, "to take over the hotel?"
"Why not? I have a little experience of restaurant-work. I can see great possibilities of improvement. My mother was not catering for the luxury-trade."
"The luxury-trade?" Doctor Magiot repeated. "I think you can hardly depend on that here."
"Some hotels do."
"The good years will not always continue. Not very long now and there will be the elections..."
"It doesn't make much difference, does it, who wins?"
"Not for the poor. But to the tourist perhaps."
He put a flowered saucer upon the table beside me -
------
LA County library
OC Library
------
See also Herman Melville's "The Confidence Man"

Death and Taxes

Actually, Love and Taxes.
Josh Kornbluth is an ex-communist monologist who is interested in tax policy. Taxes allow the government to do what we, presumably, ask it to do for us.
How will we recognize a good tax system if we see one?
A partial answer.

Kibeho, Rwanda

Prophetic apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary
in Kibeho, Rwanda 1981-1983/1989
before the 1994 slaughter

Uncle Sam wants you, to think

The nation that will insist upon drawing a line between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking done by cowards.
from the US Naval Academy web site, Stephen Frantzich

Be sure you're right then go ahead

Apparently, this is not so easy
see Amazon
Editorial Reviews
       Amazon.com
the first review, by John Moe,ending:
"In an age where Westerners have trouble comprehending what drives Islamic fundamentalists to kill, Jon Krakauer advises us to look within America's own borders."

Apple

Don't take the first bite.

Rudolph Virchow (1821-1902)

The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor,
and the social problems should largely be solved by them.
from Mountains Beyond Mountains, the story of Partners In Health. See some examples.

Social Security Crisis, a crisis of confidence

President Bush is willing to mislead regarding Social Security.
Yes, maybe we should invest some national retirement resources into productive assets in addition to current expenses. But before people will be willing to change the system, we need to be able to trust the system that will change the system.
A system run by people with disordered priorities.

Estimating powers of 2

How many grains will be on the final square if you put one grain on the first, and twice as many on each successive square?
The answer is 2**63.    But how many is that?
Divide the exponent by ten to get the number of commas in the answer:   the answer has six commas and is three tenths of the way, logarithmically speaking, to the seventh comma.
2**10 is 1024. This is approximately 1,000. One comma.
2**60 is six commas: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000
2**(60+3) is six commas times two cubed = 8 quintillion.
The actual number is 9+ quintillion.
-----
Note that 2 commas is a million, not a billion, unfortunately.
Similarly 2**40,  4 commas, is a trillion, not a quadrillion

Salt

RC Sproul speaks (mp3/5MB) about Terri.

All men are brothers

In 5 generations, I have 2**5 ancestors (32).
In 50, I have 2**50, a quadrillion.
50 generations ago is 1500 years ago, or 500 AD.
My chart has a quadrillion boxes in 500 AD.
The point: all of us are related.

Wage Peace

There is a movie posted on the Friends site that is worth seeing. Essentially, I think, it says we are all human, all brothers, and all the killing is so sad.

Don Bosco's dream

Don Bosco's vision The flagship commander - the Roman Pontiff - seeing the enemy's fury and his auxiliary ships very grave predicament, summons his captains to a conference. However, as they discuss their strategy, a furious storm breaks out and they must return to their ships. When the storm abates, the Pope again summons his captains as the flagship keeps on its course. But the storm rages again. Standing at the helm, the Pope strains every muscle to steer his ship between the two columns from whose summits hang many anchors and strong hooks linked to chains.

A thousand words

And such photos are unavailable. In addition, many 'sadistic, cruel, and inhuman ' photos are unavailable, to use the phrasing of the witty Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The Turing Test for intelligence

The Turing Test has been recently modified so that there is only one contestant, and the judges job is not to choose between two contestants, but simply to decide whether the single contestant is human or [not]. *from Univ of Toronto
Barbara Weller has recently been a judge in a running of the Touring Test, with Terri.
As was Heidi Law.

I want to live

Barbara Weller testifies to the court that she is convinced that Terri tried to repeat: I want to live.
Terri passed the Touring Test for intelligence.

Eleven

22 He said, While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, Who knows, the LORD may be gracious to me, that the child may live. 23 But now he has died; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.

Terri: Film at Eleven

2005, March 26th (AP) Terri's brother, Bobby Schindler, challenged Felos to allow videos and photos to be released, so the public can see her condition. "They're mischaracterizing the condition today, just as they have been ... It's sick."

2002, October 2nd - Michael files petition to prohibit the media from seeing Terri’s recent neurological examination videotapes or airing the videos to the public after they have been presented to the court as evidence.

Fear

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge Proverbs 1:7

The right to bear arms

Weapons in the battle for hearts and minds.
In the expectation that tyranny will be opposed.
-------
The Pentagon realizes that it is images that sell the story, Aftergood says. The reason that there is a torture scandal is because of those photographs. There can be narratives of things that are much worse, but if they aren't accompanied by photos, they somehow don't register.
*taken from Mat Welchs Reason article
-------
"Power corrupts. So does powerlessness."     C.J.Richard
[book] Ch 2: Effects of the Great Awakening

Ralph Nader

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader says a profound injustice is being inflicted on Terri Schiavo.

Fr Frank Pavone

No court anywhere has the authority to authorize the starvation of a human being.

She won't feel anything

She looks beautiful, says Michaels attorney, and peaceful.

Already gone

Which do you believe: Terri (1) is already gone,
or (2) is here but does not want to live like this.
If you think (1) she is already gone, not much can be done.
You can understand why those who think she isn't are so upset. And see the Slate article If Terri Were a (Broken) Toaster.
If you think (2) she is here, surely you don't think that Michael should decide her fate, since he says she left 15 years ago.

Alter or abolish

We hold these truths to be self-evident
-1-that all [people] are created equal
-2-that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights
-3-that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
-4-that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among [People], deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
-5-that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it

Freedom of the (Printing) Press

Freedom of the printing press is the right to free expression.
It is the same right as the right to speak, and related to the right to assemble.
--------
John Adams to Jefferson, 1815:
What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the Revolution; it was only an effect and a consequence of it. The Revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected, from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years before a single drop of blood was shed at Lexington. The records of thirteen legislatures, the pamphlets, the newspapers in all the colonies, ought to be consulted during that period to ascertain the steps by which the public opinion was enlightened and informed concerning the authority of Parliament over the colonies.
*as quoted in The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. B.Bailyn, p.1
----------
Slate article, on Freedom of the pamphleteer and the broadsider:
The professional press ... didn't even exist until the late 19^th century.
----------
Freedom of the press is a "fundamental personal right" which "is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets.
US Supreme Court. Branzburg v. Hayes (1972)

Our history: human rights v property rights

We have treated people as property:
Slavery. Abortion.

We have killed people for property:
genocide of Native Americans, with wmd. Mexicans.

Bioethicist James Hughes says Terri is "sentient property" in a
National Review article

Man attempts to water vegetable in Florida

Bo Gritz, candidate for president in 1992,
is arrested with two of his aides.
Ethical discussion about what we have come to.

No cars in Venice

Even Americans walk in Europe.
It can be done.

Tax gasoline?

Europeans tax gasoline at a substantially higher
rates than it is taxed in the US. If we raised the
gas tax, for what would the additional tax be used?
For support of the Defense Department, which has
been forced to spend billions securing access to oil.
About half of crude oil is made into gasoline.

How many unlawful combatants can you count in the picture below?

Guantanimo was thought to be beyond the oversight of US courts.
See: The Torture Papers, reviewed at NPR , or at Amazon.
-----
From the Declaration of Independence :
Complaint 18:
"depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury"
Complaint 19:
"transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences"
-----
Many of these people were turned in for money.[Inside the Wire]
-----
[US Army report on Abu Ghraib Prison, 2004]
"I call on all governments to (prosecute) all acts of torture."
President George Bush, June 26, 2003