IN A SILENT WAY...

The Symbolism of Freemasonry, by Albert G. Mackey (1882)

2013-03-19T17:04:00.002+00:00

Title Page and Front Matter
Preface
Contents
I. Preliminary. The Origin and Progress of Freemasonry
II. The Noachidæ
III. The Primitive Freemasonry of Antiquity
IV. The Spurious Freemasonry of Antiquity

V. The Ancient Mysteries
VI. The Dionysiac Artificers
VII. The Union of Speculative and Operative Masonry at the Temple of Solomon
VIII. The Travelling Freemasons of the Middle Ages

IX. Disseverance of the Operative Element
X. The System of Symbolic Instuction
XI. The Speculative Science and the Operative Art
XII. The Symbolism of Solomon's Temple
XIII. The Form of the Lodge
XIV. The Officers of a Lodge
XV. The Point Within a Circle
XVI. The Covering of the Lodge

XVII. Ritualistic Symbolism
XVIII. The Rite of Discalceation
XIX. The Rite of Investiture
XX. The Symbolism of the Gloves
XXI. The Rite of Circumambulation
XXII. The Rite of Intrusting, and the Symbolism of Light
XXIII. Symbolism of the Corner-Stone
XXIV. The Ineffable Name
XXV. The Legends of Freemasonry

XXVI. The Legend of the Winding Stairs
XXVII. The Legend of the Third Degree
XXVIII. The Sprig of Acacia
XXIX. The Symbolism of Labor
XXX. The Stone of Foundation
XXXI. The Lost Word

The Voynich Manuscript (1404–1438 AD)

2013-03-17T20:25:00.004+00:00

Named after the Polish-American antiquarian bookseller Wilfrid M. Voynich, who acquired it in 1912, the Voynich Manuscript is a detailed 240-page book written in a language or script that is completely unknown. Its pages are also filled with colorful drawings of strange diagrams, odd events and plants that do not seem to match any known species, adding to the intrigue of the document and the difficulty of deciphering it. The original author of the manuscript remains unknown, but carbon dating has revealed that its pages were made sometime between 1404 and 1438. It has been called "the world's most mysterious manuscript." http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/photos/10-of-the-worlds-biggest-unsolved-mysteries/voynich-manuscript

The Library and Museum of Freemasonry - Search the Collections

2013-03-12T19:24:00.001+00:00

http://www.freemasonry.london.museum/catalogue.php

UVB-76 Radio Signal, 4625Khz (AM & USB Feed)

2013-03-10T17:08:00.001+00:00

MAIN FEED: UVB-76 (AM demodulated, 4kHz bandwidth

USB FEED: UVB-76 (USB on 4.625MHz, 4.5kHz bandwidth)

Beta: Prijemnik Feed: Scheduled by PRIYOM.org (USB)

AM desync.com sponsored FEED: UVB-76 (AM, 4.5kHz)

USB desync.com sponsored FEED: UVB-76 (USB, 4.5kHz)

UVB76, or The Buzzer", is the call sign of shortwave radio that broadcasts on the frequenzy 4625Khz, AM, since 1892. The call consists of a short, repetitive buzz tone replicating itself 25 times a minute, 24/7. Fron time to time, the buzzer signal is interupted and a voice transmission in Russian takes palce. The actual purpose of the station remains unknown. Conversations and other background noises can be heard behind the buzzer, suggesting that the buzz tones comes from a device placed behind a live open microphone.

Voice messages from UVB-76 were very rare until a sudden spate of activity in the latter half of 2010.They are usually given in Russian by a live voice and repeated. Before 2010, only three voice messages were ever verifiably broadcast on UVB-76:

At 2100 UTC on December 24, 1997: "Ya UVB-76, Ya UVB-76. 180 08 BROMAL 74 27 99 14. Boris, Roman, Olga, Mikhail, Anna, Larisa. 7 4 2 7 9 9 1 4."
At 0418 UTC on December 9, 2002: "UVB-76, UVB-76. 62 691 IZAFET 36 93 82 70"
At 0757 UTC on February 21, 2006: "UVB-76, UVB-76. 75-59-75-59. 39-52-53-58. 5-5-2-5. Konstantin-1-9-0-9-0-8-9-8-Tatiana-Oksana-Anna-Elena-Pavel-Schuka. Konstantin 8-4. 9-7-5-5-9-Tatiana. Anna Larisa Uliyana-9-4-1-4-3-4-8." (Wikipedia)

Voice messages (S28 - Priyom.org)
S28's channel marker is sometimes interrupted to send voice messages. Usual format of them is:
[callsign] 93882 NAIMINA 7414 3574
There were many speculations about meaning of numbers and a word. First proposed theory by members of Priyom.org assumed first 5 figure group means ID of receiving unit. Now it's believed to be checksum of message. Old theory regarding two 4 figure groups believed they are coordinates. Now they are assumed as instructions in codebook. Currently there isn't any definite theory regarding codeword.
When S28 was called UZB-76, message was read as "93 882 NAIMINA 74 14 35 74, 9 3 8 8 2 Nikolaj Anna Ivan Mihail Ivan Nikolaj Anna 7 4 1 4 3 5 7 4". After starting using callsign MDZhB, codeword was read directly using Russian phonetic alphabet, but numbers were read in same way (93 882...).

There were also logged formats including more than one codeword:
79992 BONGU 9923 7768 BRONShchIK 7117 5770 (for some time very common format - check activity pages - but not heard recently)
28138 KARIAMA 7756 0151 AGGRADACIYa 0551 5597 GLAShATEL' 7678 5508 (very rare format)
48713 BRYaNTA 4893 6991 ORTOLAN 7463 1198 PROKLIZA 6910 4566 HROMATIZM 5954 0194 (extremely rare format, occured only two times)
S28 was reported for first time as early as in 1976 and as late as in 1982. Before first logged voice message ENIGMA group called it XB. Before 1990 it was reported as 2-second tone varying in pitch, then buzzer.
In September 2010 activity of the station has increased a lot, described on activity pages. Since then we have continuous (24/7) observation of 4625 kHz.

UVB-76 repeater supplied by Laid

http://uvb-76.blogspot.com/

The former transmitter was located near Povarovo, Russia at
56°5′0″N 37°6′37″E / 56.08333°N 37.11028°E which is about halfway between Zelenograd and Solnechnogorsk and 40 kilometres (25 mi) northwest of Moscow, near the village of Lozhki. The location and callsign were unknown until the first known voice broadcast of 1997. In September 2010, the station's transmitter was moved to near the town of Pskov. This may have been due to a reorganization of the Russian military. (Wikipedia)

Audio Sample: Download sample

The purpose of UVB-76 has not been confirmed by government or broadcast officials. However, the former Minister of Communications and Informatics of the Republic of Lithuania has written that the purpose of the voice messages is to confirm that operators at receiving stations are alert.Another theory concerns an article published in the Russian Journal of Earth Sciences which describes an observatory measuring changes in the ionosphere by broadcasting a signal at 4625 kHz, the same as UVB-76.However, this would not explain the voice or morse code messages.

In 2011 a group of urban explorers explored the abandoned buildings at Povarovo.They claim that it is an abandoned military base. A radio log record was found. It is likely that voice messages are some sort of Russian military communications. Other claims arethat the broadcast is constantly being listened to by military commissariats. (Wikipedia)

The Buzzer can be heard in the UK on 4625khz after dark, buzzing relentlessly. Just before the top of every hour, the signal changes, as in this example. The Buzzer has been on the air since at least 1987. The station is not I.T.U. registered, and has no callsign. See Enigma Newsletter number 11.

http://priyom.org/number-stations/slavic/s28.aspx

On September 8 2011, a year after UVB-76 changed its callsign to MDZhB, it transmitted a message using another new callsign: 94ZhT. It is unknown yet whether there is any significance to this change.

FREEMASONRY EXPLAINED

2013-03-08T20:59:00.000+00:00

FREEMASONRY - JUST WHO ARE THE FREEMASONS?

That's not a surprising question. Even though Freemasons are members of the largest and oldest fraternity in the world, MASONS or FREEMASONRY, and even though almost everyone has a father or grandfather or uncle who was a Mason, many people aren't quite certain just who Masons are or what freemasonry is about.

The answer is simple. Freemasons are members of a fraternity known as Freemasonry or Masonry. A fraternity is a group of men (just as a sorority is a group of women) who join together because:

There are things they want to do in the world.
There are things they want to do "inside their own minds."
They enjoy being together with men they like and respect.

(we'll look at some of these things later)

FREEMASONRY EXPLAINED - WHAT IS IT?

No one knows just how old freemasonry is because the actual origins have been lost in time. Probably, it arose from the guilds of stone masons who built the castles and cathedrals of the Middle Ages. Possibly, they were influenced by the Knights Templar, a group of Christian warrior monks formed in 1118 to help protect pilgrims making trips to the Holy Land.

In 1717, Freemasonry members created a formal organization in England when the first Grand Lodge was formed. A Grand Lodge is the administrative body in charge of Freemasonry in some geographical area. In the United States, there is a Grand Lodge of Freemasonry in each state and the District of Columbia. In Canada, there is a Grand Lodge of Freemasonry in each province. Local organizations of Freemasony are called lodges. There are freemasonry lodges in most towns, and large cities usually have several. There are about 13,200 lodges in the United States.

WH0 ARE THE MASONS?

Freemasons are a unique institution that has been a major part of community life in America for over two hundred and fifty (250) years. It is America’s largest and oldest fraternity, and one that continues to be an important part of many men’s personal lives and growth.

The fraternity of masons are an organization of men bound together with a philosophy of moral standards, mutual understanding and brotherhood in which all men are on a level and equal.

WHAT ARE THE MASONS?

Masons are men who have decided they like to feel good about themselves and others. They care about the future as well as the past, and do what they can, both alone and with others, to make the future good for everyone.

Many men over many generations have answered the question, "What are the Masons?" One of the most eloquent was written by the Reverend Joseph Fort Newton, an internationally honored minister of the first half of the 20th Century and Grand Chaplain, Grand Lodge of Iowa, 1911-1913.

IS FREEMASONRY A RELIGION?

Although Freemasonry is not a religion, its emphasis on the Fatherhood of God ensures that the Brotherhood of Man follows naturally. This coupled with the obligation to abide by the Golden Rule, particularly with a fellow Mason, makes for one of the strongest bonds of society. When you meet other Masons, the odds are very high indeed, that they will treat you as you would like to be treated.

The goal of this site is to serve as a forum for communication with the membership of the Michigan Masons in the Grand Lodge of Michigan, as well as an information resource for masons and non masons alike in Michigan and around the world.

WHEN ARE MEN CONSIDERED MASONS?

Freemasons and virtue:
When they can look out over the rivers, the hills, and the far horizon with a profound sense of their own littleness in the vast scheme of things, and yet have faith, hope, and courage -- which is the root of every virtue.

Masons and nobility:
When they know that down in their heart every man is as noble, as vile, as divine, as diabolic, and as lonely as himself, and seeks to know, to forgive, and to love their fellowman.

Freemasons and sympathy:
When they know how to sympathize with men in their sorrows, yea, even in their sins -- knowing that each man fights a hard fight against many odds.

Fraternal friendship:
When they have learned how to make friends and to keep them, and above all how to keep friends with themselves.

Masons and life:
When they love flowers, can hunt birds without a gun, and feels the thrill of an old forgotten joy when he hears the laugh of a little child.

Happiness:
When they can be happy and high-minded amid the meaner drudgeries of life.

Masons and rememberence:
When star-crowned trees and the glint of sunlight on flowing waters subdue themselves like the thought of one much loved and long dead.

Freemasons and aiding a distressed voice:
When no voice of distress reaches their ears in vain, and no hand seeks their aid without response.

Faith:
When they find good in every faith that helps any man to lay hold of divine things and sees majestic meanings in life, whatever the name of that faith may be.

Masons and fellow man:
When they can look into a wayside puddle and see something beyond mud, and into the face of the most forlorn fellow mortal and see something beyond sin.

Hope:
When they know how to pray, how to love, how to hope.

Masons and their God:
When they have kept faith with themselves, with their fellowman, and with their God; in their hand a sword for evil, in their heart a bit of a song -- glad to live, but not afraid to die! - Masons.

Mason and Secrets:
Such men have found the only real secret of Masonry, and the one which it is trying to give to all the world. These are the Masons.

FROM BRITAIN TO AMERICA, HOW?

In a time when travel was by horseback and sailing ship, Masonry spread with amazing speed. By 1731, when Benjamin Franklin joined the fraternity, there were already several lodges in the Colonies, and Freemasonry spread rapidly as America expanded west. In addition to Franklin, many of the Founding Fathers -- men such as George Washington, Paul Revere, Joseph Warren, and John Hancock -- were Masons. Masons and Freemasonry played an important part in the Revolutionary War and an even more important part in the Constitutional Convention and the debates surrounding the ratification of the Bill of Rights. Many of those debates were held in Masonic lodges.

WHAT IS A LODGE?

The word "lodge" means both a group of Freemasonry members meeting in some place and the room or building in which they meet. Freemasonry or Masonic buildings are also sometimes called "temples" because much of the symbolism Freemasonry uses to teach its lessons comes from the building of King Solomon's Temple in the Holy Land. The term "lodge" itself comes from the structures which the stonemasons built against the sides of the cathedrals during construction. In winter, when building had to stop, they lived in these lodges and worked at carving stone.

If you've ever watched C-SPAN's coverage of the House of Commons in London, you'll notice that the layout is about the same. Since Freemasonry came to America from England, we still use the English floorplan and English titles for the officers. The Worshipful Master of the Lodge sits in the East. "Worshipful" is an English term of respect which means the same thing as "Honorable." He is called the Master of the lodge for the same reason that the leader of an orchestra is called the "Concert Master." It's simply an older term for "Leader." In other organizations, he would be called "President." The Senior and Junior Wardens are the First and Second Vice-Presidents. The Deacons are messengers, and the Stewards have charge of refreshments.

Every lodge has an altar holding a "Volume of the Sacred Law." In the United States and Canada, that is almost always a Bible.

SO IS FREEMASONRY EDUCATION?

Yes. In a very real sense, education is at the center of Freemasonry. We have stressed its importance for a very long time. Back in the Middle Ages, schools were held in the lodges of stonemasons. You have to know a lot to build a cathedral -- geometry, and structural engineering, and mathematics, just for a start. And that education was not very widely available. All the formal schools and colleges trained people for careers in the church, or in law or medicine. And you had to be a member of the social upper classes to go to those schools. Stonemasons did not come from the aristocracy. And so the lodges had to teach the necessary skills and information. Freemasonry dedication to education started there.

It has continued. Freemasons started some of the first public schools in both Europe and America. We supported legislation to make education universal. In the 1800s Masons as a group lobbied for the establishment of state-supported education and federal land-grant colleges. Today we give millions of dollars in scholarships each year. We encourage our members to give volunteer time to their local schools, buy classroom supplies for teachers, help with literacy programs, and do everything they can to help assure that each person, adult or child, has the best educational opportunities possible.

And Freemasonry supports continuing education and intellectual growth for its members, insisting that learning more about many things is important for anyone who wants to keep mentally alert and young.

Freemasonry teaches some important principles. There's nothing very surprising in the list. Freemasonry teaches that:

Since God is the Creator, all men and women are the children of God. Because of that, all men and women are brothers and sisters, entitled to dignity, respect for their opinions, and consideration of their feelings.

Each person must take responsibility for his/her own life and actions. Neither wealth nor poverty, education nor ignorance, health nor sickness excuses any person from doing the best he or she can do or being the best person possible under the circumstances.

No one has the right to tell another person what he or she must think or believe. Each man and woman has an absolute right to intellectual, spiritual, economic, and political freedom. This is a right given by God, not by man. All tyranny, in every form, is illegitimate.

Each person must learn and practice self-control. Each person must make sure his spiritual nature triumphs over his animal nature. Another way to say the same thing is that even when we are tempted to anger, we must not be violent. Even when we are tempted to selfishness, we must be charitable. Even when we want to "write someone off," we must remember that he or she is a human and entitled to our respect. Even when we want to give up, we must go on. Even when we are hated, we must return love, or, at a minimum, we must not hate back. It isn't easy!

Faith must be in the center of our lives. We find that faith in our houses of worship, not in Freemasonry, but Freemasonry constantly teaches that a person's faith, whatever it may be, is central to a good life.

Each person has a responsibly to be a good citizen, obeying the law. That doesn't mean we can't try to change things, but change must take place in legal ways.

It is important to work to make this world better for all who live in it. Freemasonry teaches the importance of doing good, not because it assures a person's entrance into heaven -- that's a question for a religion, not a fraternity -- but because we have a duty to all other men and women to make their lives as fulfilling as they can be.

Honor and integrity are essential to life. Life without honor and integrity is without meaning.

WHAT ARE THE REQUIREMENTS TO JOIN THE MASONS?

The person who wants to join Freemasonry must be a man (it's a fraternity), sound in body and mind, who believes in God, is at least the minimum age required by Masonry in his state, and has a good reputation. (Incidentally, the "sound in body" requirement -- which comes from the stonemasons of the Middle Ages -- doesn't mean that a physically challenged man cannot be a Mason; many are).

Those are the only "formal" requirements. But there are others, not so formal. He should believe in helping others. He should believe there is more to life than pleasure and money. He should be willing to respect the opinions of others. And he should want to grow and develop as a human being.

HOW DOES A MAN BECOME A FREEMASON?

Some men are surprised that no one has ever asked them to become a Mason. They may even feel that the Masons in their town don't think they are "good enough" to join. But it doesn't work that way. For hundreds of years, Masons have been forbidden to ask others to join the fraternity. We can talk to friends about Freemasonry. We can tell them about what Freemasonry does. We can tell them why we enjoy it. But we can't ask, much less pressure, anyone to join.

There's a good reason for that. It isn't that we're trying to be exclusive. But becoming a Mason is a very serious thing. Joining Freemasonry is making a permanent life commitment to live in certain ways. We've listed most of them above -- to live with honor and integrity, to be willing to share with and care about others, to trust each other, and to place ultimate trust in God. No one should be "talked into" making such a decision.

So, when a man decides he wants to be a Freemasonry Mason, he asks a Mason for a petition or application. He fills it out and gives it to the Mason, and that Mason takes it to the local lodge. The Master of the lodge will appoint a committee to visit with the man and his family, find out a little about him and why he wants to become a member of the Masons, tell him and his family about Freeasonry, and answer their questions. The committee reports to the lodge, and the lodge votes on the petition. If the vote is affirmative -- and it usually is -- the lodge will contact the man to set the date for the Entered Apprentice Degree. When the person has completed all three degrees, he is a Master Mason and a full member of the Freemasonry fraternity.

Buddhism - Sacred Images: Green Tara

2010-02-10T18:31:00.000+00:00

Green Tara: Loving goddess who protects us against dangers and eradicates all obstacles to our awakening. Of green color, symbolising miraculous wisdom, her face shines as 100 full moons.
When meditating, chant her mantra 108 times: Om tare tuttare ture svaha!

Her green-coloured body symbolizes that she is the fully purified wind element and can respond swiftly to the prayers of those in need. In lifetime after lifetime, Tara has manifested in female form to demonstrate that enlightenment is attainable by men and women alike. http://www.meditationinliverpool.org.uk/HTML-Pages/Images-Of-Buddhas/Green-Tara.html

FREE WEST PAPUA! - PAPUA MERDEKA!

2010-02-10T10:23:00.000+00:00

My name is Benny Wenda, I am a West Papuan independence leader and chairman of the Koteka Tribal Assembly. My village was bombed by Indonesia when I was a child and many of my family were killed. Later, I began to campaign peacefully to free my people. For this 'crime' I was arrested, tortured and threatened with death.

I managed to escape to Britain, where I now live in exile. Many of my people are still suffering. They have been killed, raped and tortured. Life is hard for them. All we are asking for is the freedoms that you enjoy every day - the freedom to speak your mind, to live without fear and to choose your own government.

Please hear my peoples' cry for help. Please support the Free West Papua Campaign.

The forgotten land of West Papua is under brutal Indonesian military occupation. Its tribal people are being slaughtered, and their unique environment destroyed.

West Papua is the western half of the island of New Guinea. It borders the independent state of Papua New Guinea and lies just 250km north of Australia.

Swathed in tropical rainforest which is second in size only to those of the Amazon, it is home to many unique species of wildlife including tree kangaroos and beautiful birds of paradise. It is also one of the world’s most resource rich areas containing huge reserves of oil, gas, copper, gold and timber.

The indigenous population number about 1 million Melanesian Papuans, many of whom still live subsistence or hunter gatherer tribal lifestyles. The diverse tribes of New Guinea speak some 15% of the world’s known languages, despite having less than 3% of the world's population.

www.freewestpapua.org

office@freewestpapua.org

http://open.spotify.com/track/59v6ScIH5ExZEn2NJVlsZm

War: The Lie Goes On...

2009-10-20T08:40:00.003+01:00

The lack of arms controls allows some to profit from the misery of others.

•While international attention is focused on the need to control weapons of mass destruction, the trade in conventional weapons continues to operate in a legal and moral vacuum.
•More and more countries are starting to produce small arms, many with little ability or will to regulate their use.
•Permanent UN Security Council members—the USA, UK, France, Russia, and China—dominate the world trade in arms.
•Most national arms controls are riddled with loopholes or barely enforced.
•Key weaknesses are lax controls on the brokering, licensed production, and 'end use' of arms.
•Arms get into the wrong hands through weak controls on firearm ownership, weapons management, and misuse by authorised users of weapons. http://www.globalissues.org/article/74/the-arms-trade-is-big-business

Noam Chomsky: On Israel´s Security Problems and the US Democratic Deficit (Amnesty Magazine, Sept. 2009)

2009-10-13T08:36:00.007+01:00

Israel´s invasion of Gaza in January hadn´t the slightest pretext. They claim they had to defend themselves against rockets and that´s accepted by human rights groups and fairly generally, but it´s perfect nonsense ... You don´t have a right to use force in self-defense unless you´ve exhausted peaceful means. They refused even to try the peaceful means, which were easy enough. They could have accepted a ceasefire for the first time ever. When they partially accepted one for a few months in 2008 there were no Hamas rockets ...

They do not have a security problem, except for what they are creating ... Israel made a fateful decision in 1971: president Sadat of Egypt offered Israel a full peace treaty which would have ended the security problems - Egypt´s the only significant Arab military force - in return for a withdrawal from the Occupied territories. And all he cared about was the Sinai - there was nothing in the proposal about the Palestinians. Well Israel refused. They were settling the northeast Sinai, expelling thousands of Bedouins, destroying their villages, planning to build a huge seaport. They in fact chose expansion over security, and that continues to the present day. The one exception is the Taba, Egypt, negotiations in 2001, which they called off. OK, so long as they choose expansion over security, they´re going to a have a security problem.

The irrelevance of popular opinion in the US is quite dramatic. take the leading domestic issue right now, which is health care; it´s a catastrophe. The debate that´s going on is in fact surreal in many ways, not just Sarah Palin and the death panels, but there was a front-page story in the New York Times, reporting that the Obama administration had made a secret deal with the pharmaceutical industry in which it promised not to allow the government to use its purchasing power to negotiate drug prices, as is done in every other country and as, for example, the Pentagon can do for buying paper clips. But it´s legally barred in the United States and that´s the major reason why drug prices are twice as high as in most of the world. Obama promised secretly that we´re not going to tamper with this. About 85 percent of the population think we should negotiate drug prices - but they´re not even mentioned, inf act I don´t think you can even find a report of the polls. As long as you have this democratic deficit, it´s going to be hard to deal with the problems ... The US has some of the worst health outcomes in the industrial world, with twice the per capita expenditure. It´s pretty well understood how to relieve them ...but it´s not going to happen until the democratic deficit is overcome. The public wants it, but Congress and the White House don´t. AMNESTY MAGAZINE, SEPTEMBER 2009

Herschel Views Deep-space Pearls On A Cosmic String (ScienceDaily, Oct. 2, 2009; and ESA)

2009-10-05T10:45:00.003+01:00

On Sept. 3, Herschel aimed its telescope at a reservoir of cold gas in the constellation of the Southern Cross near the Galactic Plane. As the telescope scanned the sky, the spacecraft’s Spectral and Photometric Imaging REceiver, SPIRE, and Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer, PACS instruments snapped the pictures. The region is located about 60° from the Galactic Centre, thousands of light-years from Earth.

The five original infrared wavelengths have been colour-coded to allow scientists to differentiate extremely cold material (red) from the surrounding, slightly warmer stuff (blue).

The images reveal structure in cold material in our Galaxy, as we have never seen it before, and even before a detailed analysis, scientists have gleaned information on the quantity of the material, its mass, temperature, composition and whether it is collapsing to form new stars. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091002093801.htm

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Herschel/SEMUABGNA0G_0.html

Charles Darwin film 'too controversial for religious America' (Telegraph.co.uk, 11.09.09)

2009-09-17T08:27:00.004+01:00

By Anita Singh, Showbusiness Editor
Published: 4:53PM BST 11 Sep 2009

Creation, starring Paul Bettany, details Darwin's "struggle between faith and reason" as he wrote On The Origin of Species. It depicts him as a man who loses faith in God following the death of his beloved 10-year-old daughter, Annie.

The film was chosen to open the Toronto Film Festival and has its British premiere on Sunday. It has been sold in almost every territory around the world, from Australia to Scandinavia.

However, US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution.

The film has sparked fierce debate on US Christian websites, with a typical comment dismissing evolution as "a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over a century of trying".

Jeremy Thomas, the Oscar-winning producer of Creation, said he was astonished that such attitudes exist 150 years after On The Origin of Species was published.

"That's what we're up against. In 2009. It's amazing," he said.

"The film has no distributor in America. It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it's because of what the film is about. People have been saying this is the best film they've seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6173399/Charles-Darwin-film-too-controversial-for-religious-America.html

HUMAN RIGHTS AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH: 1921 - Pankhurst freedom celebrated with tea (A Century in Photographs;Times Books 1999)

2009-09-11T15:49:00.008+01:00

.

Suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst and her supporters enjoy a celebratory cup of tea following her release after six months in prison. She was a radical figure in the movement to gain votes for women and was sent to prison a total of 15 times. In 1920 she visited Russia, where she met Lenin, and on her return was associated with Britain´s most prominent Communists. The sentence was for the publication of subversive matter in The Women´s Dreadnought, a weekly paper she produced for working-class women.

Sylvia´s political career centred around the suffragette movement. Her mother. Emmeline Pankhurst, and her sister, Christabel, were founding members of the Women´s Social and Political union, established in 1903. Sylvia became honorary secretary. Using the slogan "Votes for Women and Chastity for Men", the suffragettes set fire to churches, blew up stations, threw bricks through windows, cut telegraph wires and tied themselves to railings. As the radical branch of feminism, the Pankhursts and their supporters were frequently the butt of music hall jokes and were sometimes physically attacked. While in prison many went on hunger strike and were subjected to force-feeding, a practice previously restricted to lunatic asylums.

Sylvia parted company from her mother and sister when war broke out in 1914. Her relatives believed their demonstrations should stop in the interests of the war effort but Sylvia promoted pacifist and socialist ideas, forming a breakaway group, the Women´s Peace Army, which demanded a negotiated peace. By the time Sylvia emerged from yet another stretch in prison in 1921, the women´s movement had made some progress: women over 30 and conforming to certain property qualifications were given the vote in 1918, and in 1921 Dr. Marie Stopes opened the first birth-control clinic, in north London. In 1927 Sylvia went on to outrage the British public further when she became an unmarried mother.
(Extract from The Times: A Century in Photographs; London 1999)
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ARCHAEOLOGY: The Step Pyramid of Zangkunchong

2009-09-02T09:23:00.008+01:00

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This step pyramid is 31.58 by 31.58 meters square and 12.4 meters high and is located at Ziban, China. Placed in front of the KukNae castle (Ziban) to the west south, contains 12 stone plates, the largest of which measures 2.7m long and 4.5m high, and leans against the first step. Although there were originally four guardian stones, only one survived. It is called 'Paechong', meaning "guardian tomb" in Korean.

Probably constructed during the Kokuryo period, perhaps pre- 500 A.D., it was once known as the tomb of the Great Kwangkaeto.

Inner Chamber´s coffins and ceiling

SCIENCE VIDEOS: Hih-Speed Robot Hand (Ishikawa Komuro´s Lab)

2009-08-26T12:42:00.002+01:00

Ishikawa Komuro Lab's high-speed robot hand performing impressive acts of dexterity and skillful manipulation.

For more information, see Hizook.com -- http://www.hizook.com/blog/2009/08/03...

Twisting and Turning DNA to Build Tools for the Body (International Herald Tribune; 13.08.09)

2009-08-21T08:43:00.006+01:00

Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cance Institute and Harvard University have taken a step toward creating parts for molecular machines out of DNA. In a paper in Science, Hendrik Dietz, now with the Technical University of Munich, Shawn M. Douglas and William H. Shih describe twisting and curving DNA into shapes using strands of DNA that self-assemble into rigid bundles, with the individual double helixes joined by strong cross-links. Manipulating the base pairs in the helixes causes the bundles to bend in a specific direction. The goal is to build a machine that could, say, deliver a drug to a precise spot in the body. Henry Fountain

A 12-tooth gear, at about one-tenth of a micrometer, assembled from strands of DNA. Science/AAS

The Many Musketeers - One for all, all for one: Paulson, Kashari, Rubin, Goldman Sachs, etc.

2009-08-15T14:26:00.012+01:00

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Bush's Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, was chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs before he joined the government in 2006. He used to be the Goldman CEO and spent $85 billion to buy a failing insurance giant that happened to owe his former firm a lot of money.

Paulson appointed former Goldman Sachs vice-president, Neel Kashkari, to decide who got the bailout money as head of the Office of Financial Stability. Kashkari, in turn, appointed Reuben Jeffery, a Managing Partner at Goldman Sachs, as interim chief investment officer.

Other important players in the Treasury were Dan Jester, Steve Shafran, Edward C Forst, and Robert K Steel, all Goldman people. Goldman executives at the key New York Federal Reserve Bank were also involved in the bailout discussions, including Stephen Friedman, the head of the board of governors.

Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin, who did so much to prepare the ground for the collapse of 2008, was CEO at Goldman Sachs. Rubin, the Co-Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, was also named in Obama's interim team.

Two of Rubin's 'protégés', Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers, were appointed by Obama to decide his economic policy. Goldman Sachs paid Summers $135,000 for a single day's 'appearance' in 2008. Geithner, a former executive of Kissinger Associates and member of the Council on Foreign Relations, appointed Goldman Sachs lobbyist, Mark Patterson, as his chief of staff at the Treasury.

Who was the biggest single private donor to Obama's election campaign? Goldman Sachs.

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Britain revealed as a dumper of toxic waste (The Times; July 18, 2009)

2009-08-12T12:11:00.003+01:00

The Times
July 18, 2009
Ben Webster, Environment Editor, and Dom Phillips in São Paulo

Britain was accused yesterday of dumping toxic household and industrial waste in developing countries on two continents in breach of an international convention.

Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, ordered an investigation into two British companies linked to 90 shipping containers containing 1,400 tonnes of waste. They included syringes, condoms and nappies. The companies that received the waste — sent from Felixstowe to three Brazilian ports — said that they had been expecting recyclable plastic.

In a separate case, the Ministry of Defence was unable to explain how one of its computers was found by The Times on a notorious dump on the outskirts of Accra, Ghana. Children as young as 5 extract scrap metal from electrical items there and are exposed to potentially lethal chemicals.

Inspectors from Brazil’s environment agency, Ibama, found hospital waste in several containers, reportedly including bags of blood. Another container was full of dirty toys with a note in Portuguese saying they should be washed before being given to “poor Brazilian children”.

Ingrid Oberg, an Ibama official, who opened containers found in the port of Santos on national television news, said: “Whoever put this rubbish into the containers in the UK knew what they were doing and knew where they were going, so it is a criminal act. England needs to assume responsibility.”

Roberto Messias, Ibama’s president, said: “We will ask for the repatriation of this garbage. Clearly, Brazil is not a big rubbish dump of the world.” The agency said that it was considering taking action against two British companies it believed were connected to yesterday’s find — Worldwide Biorecyclables Ltd and UK Multiplas Recycling Ltd.

Mr Benn admitted that there could be weaknesses in the enforcement of rules on sending waste overseas, including a European directive banning the export of any electrical waste. Speaking to The Times about the discoveries in Brazil, he said: “If, having looked into this particular case, there are lessons that need to be learnt about enforcement, then we will do that.”

Early Britons May Have Been Cannibals (The Times; 08.08.09)

2009-08-09T09:35:00.007+01:00

Early Britons could have been cannibals, research has suggested. Cut marks made by a stone tool, and a fracture, were noticed on a 9,000-year-old human arm bone found in 1866 in Kent´s Cavern, Devon. Rich Schulting, an archaeologist at the University of Oxford, said: "The location of the fracture is where the cut would be made if dismemberment had taken place. The fact the markings are all in the same place indicates they were made to remove muscle attachments from the bone while it was still ´fresh´."

The bone is part of an exhibition at Torquay Museum until September 6.

http://www.kents-cavern.co.uk/

Created a living computer from E. coli Bacteria that can solve complex mathematical problems (Jacob Aron; The Guardian, 24.07.09)

2009-07-30T12:40:00.006+01:00

Posted by
Jacob Aron Friday 24 July 2009
guardian.co.uk

A team of US scientists have engineered bacteria that could solve complex mathematical problems faster than anything made from silicon.

The research can be used to solve a puzzle known as the Hamiltonian Path Problem. Imagine you want to tour the 10 biggest cities in the UK – one route might start in London (number 1) and finish in Bristol (number 10), for example. The solution to the Hamiltonian Path Problem would be the route that takes in each city just once.

This simple problem is surprisingly difficult to solve. There are over 3.5 million possible routes to choose from, and a regular computer must try them out one at a time to find the one that visits each city only once. Alternatively, a computer made from millions of bacteria can look at every route simultaneously. The biological world also has other advantages. As time goes by, a bacterial computer will actually increase in power as the bacteria reproduce.

Scanning electron micrograph of E. coli bacteria. A rapidly growing colony can be programmed to act as a hugely powerful parallel computer. Photograph: Getty

Programming such a computer is no easy task, however. The researchers coded a simplified version of the problem, using just three cities, by modifying the DNA of Escherichia coli bacteria. The cities were represented by a combination of genes causing the bacteria to glow red or green, and the possible routes between the cities were explored by the random shuffling of DNA. Bacteria producing the correct answer glowed both colours, turning them yellow.

In addition to proving the power of bacterial computing, the team have also contributed significantly to the field of synthetic biology. Just as electronic circuits are made from transistors, diodes and other devices, so too are biological circuits. Synthetic biologists have worked together to create the Registry of Standard Biological Parts, and this new research has contributed more than 60 new components to the list. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2009/jul/24/bacteria-computer

World's Largest Shark Species at Risk (National Geographic, January 17, 2008)

2009-07-26T09:45:00.006+01:00

Photograph by David Doubilet/NGS

Whale sharks are the world's largest living fish species, growing up to 40 feet (12 meters) long.

They move near the surface, feeding on the plankton and krill that mass in these waters during the winter months. Around the world, shark populations have declined dramatically in recent years, mainly due to overfishing.

Most at risk are migratory sharks, including whale sharks, which are known to travel more than 8,000 miles (12,875 kilometers) across the Pacific Ocean, from Mexico to the Tonga Islands, according to Zeb Hogan, a fisheries biologist with the University of Reno in Nevada. "Every time a migratory shark moves from one spot to another, there's a greater chance that it might be targeted by fishermen or subject to habitat destruction," Hogan said.

Stefan Lovgren in La Paz, Mexico

READ MORE AT: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080117-whale-sharks.html

The Bru na Boinne Complex: 1,000 years older than Stonehenge.

2009-07-21T08:50:00.011+01:00

Did you know that within 50 miles of Dublin the passage tombs of the Bru na Boinne Complex (built between 3300 and 2900 B.C.) are 500 years older than the Great Pyramid of Giza and about 1,000 years older than Stonehenge?

Newgrange is a burial mound, 250 feet across and 40 feet high. It covers one acre. Inside the mound a 60 foot long passage leads to a cross-shaped chamber featuring a corbelled roof (a roof of progressively overlapping stones topped with a capstone) rising to 20 feet. After 5,000 years the roof has remained intact and waterproof.

Newgrange, like many ruins of ancient civilizations, is aligned with a particular equinox. In this case on the winter solstice, or shortest day of the year, a narrow beam of sunshine shines directly onto the passage into the chamber and illuminates the floor of the chamber, lasting for about 17 minutes. Every year tens of thousands enter a drawing to be one of the 50 or so allowed inside to witness the event.

Newgrange was surrounded by huge standing stones about 1,000 years after it was originally built. Bronze Age peoples placed 37 stones around Newgrange, although only 12 remain.

Knowth is twice the size of Newgrange. It is the largest of the passage graves situated within the Bru na Boinne complex. Knowth contains two passageways into the burial chamber and has 127 curbstones.

More than one third of all known megalithic art in all Western Europe is found at Knowth. It seems stones were even “recycled” and carved on one side, then later flipped and carved on the other. The artwork at Knowth contains a large variety of images, such as crescents, spirals, lozenges, and serpentiform.

Scientists believe the mound at Knowth was originally aligned with the spring and summer equinoxes, however that alignment does not exist today. The original passages have been destroyed or distorted so it is impossible to conclusively determine if the alignment ever existed.

Knowth appears to have also been used as a burial site by the Celts as some 35 graves have been found during excavation. Most graves are those of females; however one grave contained the bodies of two young decapitated men buried together with a gaming set.

By Joy Crutchfield
http://www.mcalesternews.com/features/local_story_178184608.html

Victims Champion The Sharks That Hurt Them (The International Herald Tribune; Friday, Juli 17, 2009)

2009-07-20T08:02:00.007+01:00

Nearly a dozen shark/attack victims -many of them badly scarred or missing limbs- have urged the U.S. Congress to protect a sea creature they'd rather not run into again.

The group wants to strengthen laws protecting sharks from "finning," in which their fins are sliced off and they are left to dead. The growing market for fin meat, adelicacy in Asia, threatens many shark species around the world, they say.

Bull Shark

"We bring pretty instant credibility," Chuck Anderson said Wednesday. He is a school athletic director in Summerdale, Alabama, who spent 13 days in intensive care and lost most of his right arm after being attacked by a bull shark while swimming in the Gulf of Mexico in 2000.

Shark Fin Soup

Mr. Anderson and other attack victims met with senators and staff members here. The lobbying blitz was organized by the Pew Environment Group to pass a bill that would strengthen an existing ban on finning in U.S. waters.

The Measure, which supporters say would close loopholes and allow for stronger enforcement, easily passed the House by voice vote in March and is now in the Senate. Among other things, it would prohibit sea vessels from carrying illegal fins and it would allow the United States to call attention to other nations that are not following through with finning bans.

Swine Flu Vaccine: Baxter International and its dubious reputation.

2009-07-18T10:43:00.011+01:00

Jane Burgermeister has filed bioterrorism charges with the FBI against Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, based in Austria; Baxter AG, also in Austria; and its parent company Baxter International in Deerfield, Illinois. Baxter International is providing much of the swine flu vaccine for mass inoculation. This is the same Baxter International that sent bird flu virus to European laboratories 'by mistake' earlier this year and it was mixed with a seasonal flu virus to create a much more dangerous strain.

Last year at least 81 people were killed by Baxter International's contaminated blood-thinning product, heparin, which was made in China from, among other things, pig intestines. The contaminated heparin also seriously injured hundreds of others and it was revealed that the factory of Baxter's Chinese supplier had never been inspected by either American or Chinese public 'protection' agencies.

More than 50 dialysis patients died in 2001 because of faults with Baxter International equipment, and this month Baxter Healthcare Corporation, a subsidiary of Baxter International, reached an out-of-court settlement of two million dollars with the State of Kentucky. Baxter had been caught inflating the cost of intravenous drugs sold to Kentucky Medicaid by as much as 1,300 per cent.

This is clearly a company you can trust and it is now is a major source of the swine flu vaccine that governments across the world want to impose upon entire populations with the most minimal safety checks. The vaccine is being fast-tracked through the regulatory system with safety trials lasting less than a week. The London Times reported: 'Regulators at the European Medicines Agency said the fast-tracked procedure has involved clinical trials of a "mock-up" vaccine similar to the one that will be used for the biggest mass vaccination programme in generations. It will be introduced into the general population while regulators continue to carry out simultaneous clinical trials.'

DAWN.COM (Wednesday, 15 Jul, 2009 ): Activists say Malaysia is losing battle to save Tigers

2009-07-17T09:35:00.006+01:00

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is losing the battle to save its dwindling population of wild tigers, a conservation coalition warned Wednesday after a series of raids that netted tiger carcasses and bones.

‘It is clearly time to admit that we are fast losing the battle to save our tigers to an army of smugglers and poachers intent on killing every last one,’ said the Malaysian Conservation Alliance for Tigers (MyCat).

‘They enter our protected areas with ease, and illegally trap, kill and export our wildlife with little fear,’ said the alliance which includes WWF Malaysia and watchdog Traffic Southeast Asia.

MyCat demanded that Malaysian authorities take action to stop the illegal trade in tiger parts. It listed a series of seizures of dismembered tigers in recent months, from the Thai-Laos border right down to Malaysia itself, including three kilograms (six-and-a-half pounds) of tiger bones found in northeastern Kelantan state last month.

The coalition said that investigations into the seized tiger parts found that some were from sub-species not found in the wild in Asia, including the Siberian tiger.

It said the findings suggested that captive tigers, such as those found in zoos and theme parks, were finding their way into the illegal wildlife trade where they are butchered for traditional medicine.

‘Swift and severe action must follow,’ MyCat said. ‘If we cannot stop captive tigers from government-supervised institutions from being illegally traded, there is little hope of protecting wild tigers,’it said.

Malaysia is estimated to have just 500 tigers still living in the wild. The loss of such a species can have a damaging effect on the ecosystem which is why many environmentalists are also concerned. –AFP http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/sci-tech/21-activists-say-malaysia-is-losing-battle-to-save-tigers-sz-40

Marcus du Sautoy: Pefect Numbers (The Times, July 1 2009)

2009-07-17T08:43:00.009+01:00

(...) As a mathematician I was beginning to feel a bit left out. We´got Pi Day, which we celebrate on march 14, but how about adding a World Maths Day to the June calendar? On Sunday, when I looked at the date, it suddenly dawned on me why 28/6 would be the pefect day to celebrate World Maths Day - literally the pefect day because 28 and 6 are what mathematicians call perfect numbers.

A number is called perfect it, when you take all the smaller whole numbers that can be used to divide the number and you add them together, you get the original number. For example 6 is divisible by 1, 2 and 3. Add these together and you get 6. Similarly, 28 is divisible by 1, 2, 4, 7 and 14, which add up to 28. These are the first two pefect numbers. The next is 496.

Perfect numbes have been studied since ancient times and were regarded as having mystical significance. The 4th-century philospher Saint Augustine believed that God created all things in six days precisely beause the number 6 is a perfect number. In Jewish mysticism, it was because 28 was a perfect number that the mystics believed that God Chose it as the number of days that it takes the Moon to travel round the Earth, so defining the lenght of the Jewish month.

But it was the great Greek mathematician Euclid who discovered the exciting connection between perfect numbers and another important sort of number: the primes. By adding up powers of 2 he found that whenever the answer was a prime number then there was a way to use that prime number to get a perfect number. For example, 1 + 2 + 4 = 7, which is a prime number. If you multiply that prime by the last power of 2 in the sequence you get a perfect number. In this case 7 x 4 = 28. The next time you get a prime by adding up powers of 2 is 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 = 31. Multiply 31 by 16 and you get 496, the third perfect number.

Euclid was able to prove that this always worked. Whenever the powers of 2 add up to a prime, you get a perfect number by multiplying the prime by the last power of 2 you added. But was every perfect number discovered this way? It wasn't until nearly 2,000 years later that mathematicians were able to give a partial answer to this. Both Descartes and Fermat wrote to the French monk Mersenne with their discovery that every perfect number must come from the primes that are sums of powers of 2.

Mersenne acted as something of a medieval intenet hub, broadcasting discoveries across Europe, and it is his name that is now given to the primes that are got by adding powers of 2. Whenever a new Mersenne prime is discovered it leads to teh discovery of a new perfect number. So far we have dicovered 47 perfect numbers, the largest of which has nearly 26 million digits.

But there are still many mysteries that surround these perfect numbers. Are there infinitely many of them? Or is the 47th perfect number the last one? Thanks to Descartes and Fermat, we know how to get even perfect numbers. But it is still unknown how to get and odd perfect number. Indeed most mathematicians believe there is none.

So when June comes round again next year, and it's time to give thanks for the badgers and the oceans, why not celebrate a bit of mathematics on the perfect day: June 28.