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#39045 From: "Jim Bechtel" <jimbechtel2@...>
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 9:27 pm
Subject: Re: Boilerplate for friends and relatives: [1 Attachment]
jimbechtel2@...
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A real pleasure to read. Thank you.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, December 22, 2009 11:46 AM
Subject: [Reason-Omaha] Boilerplate for friends and relatives: [1 Attachment]

I stopped sending greeting cards thirty or forty years ago; substituted a solstice letter.  Example below.  Suffer.  Or hit the DELETE key.

Sam



I stopped sending greeting cards thirty or forty years ago; substituted a solstice letter.  Example below.  Suffer.  Or hit the DELETE key.

Sam

#39044 From: Clayton Naff <claynaff@...>
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 9:09 pm
Subject: Re: Boilerplate for friends and relatives: [1 Attachment]
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Really nice, Sam! Well done. And congrats on your entry into a ninth decade. I doubt I'll match your ginko-like longevity, but hope to appreciate each hour along the way. Well, most of 'em, anyhow.

Wishing you joy of the season,


Clay

On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 11:46 AM, Sam Collins <sgcol50326@...> wrote:
I stopped sending greeting cards thirty or forty years ago; substituted a solstice letter.  Example below.  Suffer.  Or hit the DELETE key.

Sam






--
Clay Farris Naff
Executive Director, Lincoln Literacy Council
Member, National Association of Science Writers
Vice President, Nebraska Citizens for Science
www.claynaff.com
(402) 310-0572
Lincoln, NE
USA

#39043 From: "Mark Wooge" <mwooge@...>
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 6:04 pm
Subject: Dinner Pics
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#39042 From: "Jim Bechtel" <jimbechtel2@...>
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 5:59 pm
Subject: Re: Yale Environment 360 -- Stewart Brand’s Strange Trip: Whole Earth to Nuclear Power
jimbechtel2@...
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ï»ż
I actually have a couple issues of the old Whole Earth Catalog (WEC). Communes which gave up on the dominant culture and wanted to create their own separate societies had to meet certain basic needs, from which sprang important movements:
Energy self-sufficiency. Clear back in the 60s, the WEC included info on how to set up wind-generators, solar water heaters, hydro for small dams, etc.
Food self-sufficiency. The WEC provided info on organic farming and sustainable agriculture, movements which took off from the communes.
Information self-sufficiency. If you were serious about starting and running your own society, there were lots of things you needed to know, from architecture (eg, how to make rammed-earth bricks), health (eg, midwifery), tools (eg leather-working)  -to this day, a WEC makes fascinating browsing.
The need for information self-sufficiency even spawned the PC, the personal computer. When the only computers were mainframes, commune hackers partitioned off part of the drive for their own use, creating a "virtual PC." The rest is history, told in an article by Stewart Brand and in a book & TV documentary, "Accidental Empires," by R. Cringley. Brand believes (and he's not unique) that the environmental crisis is so extreme, and stupidity so powerful [*], that extreme measures are called for, even unbelievably risky things like geo-engineering.   
[*] Schiller: "Mit der Dummheit kaempfen Goetter selbst vergebens"  http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/35946.html
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, December 22, 2009 9:13 AM
Subject: [Reason-Omaha] Yale Environment 360 -- Stewart Brand’s Strange Trip: Whole Earth to Nuclear Power

 

Stewart Brand’s Strange Trip: Whole Earth to Nuclear Power

When the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog embraces nuclear power, genetically engineered crops, and geoengineering schemes to cool the planet, you know things have changed in the environmental movement. Stewart Brand explains how the passage of four decades — and the advent of global warming — have shifted his thinking about what it means to be green.

By Todd Woody [Yale Environment 360, 22 December 2009]

Stewart Brand helped shape the environmental consciousness of the 1960s and ‘70s with his Whole Earth Catalog, which became a bible of the counterculture and the back-to-the-land movement. An eclectic compendium of information and “tools” for innovative, environmentally friendly living, the Whole Earth Catalog reflected Brand’s ecological and technological interests, foreshadowing the rise of the San Francisco Bay Area’s computer and green cultures.

In the 1970s, Brand — a Stanford-trained biologist — started CoEvolutionary Quarterly to continue his exploration of environmental issues and the rise of new technologies like the personal computer and genetic engineering. In between writing books on computing and space colonies, Brand served as an advisor to California Gov. Jerry Brown. In the early 1980s, Brand co-founded The WELL — the Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link — an early electronic community in the pre-Internet days with Larry Brilliant, the epidemiologist who later become the first director of Google’s philanthropic arm.

In recent years, Brand, 71, has begun to rethink his earlier opposition to nuclear power and has embraced genetic engineering, geoengineering of the earth’s climate system, and other issues that were anathema to the traditional environmental movement. This evolution of his thinking has led to his new book, Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.

In it, Brand calls for the rapid deployment of a new generation of nuclear power plants to combat global warming, arguing that technological advances have made nuclear energy safer and any potential danger from nuclear waste pales compared to the damage inflicted by burning coal.

“The air pollution from coal burning is estimated to cause 30,000 deaths a year from lung disease in the United States, and 350,000 a year in China,” writes Brand. “A 1-gigawatt coal plant burns three million tons of fuel a year and produces seven million tons of CO2, all of which immediately goes into everyone’s atmosphere, where no one can control it, and no one knows what it’s really up to.”

Likewise, he says, environmentalists are misguided in their long-standing opposition to the genetic engineering of crops to increase yields and reduce pesticide use. In a move sure to rankle the local-food movement, Brand says organic farmers should also embrace GE crops.

Brand argues that humans have been reshaping the natural environment for millennia and thus should start exploring planet-wide technological fixes to the pending catastrophe of climate change, everything from injecting sulfates into the atmosphere to constructing a gigantic space shield to block solar radiation. And if the Whole Earth Catalog catered to the anti-urbanists of the 1960s, Brand now finds ecological salvation in the world’s mega-cities and their sprawling slums as “concentrators of efficiency and innovation.”

Brand lives on a converted tugboat in Sausalito, Calif., with his wife Ryan Phelan, founder of DNA Direct, a genetic testing service. Environmental journalist Todd Woody met Brand in his book-lined office — located nearby in a beached fishing boat on the Sausalito waterfront — and conducted the following interview for Yale Environment 360.

Yale Environment 360: Who did you write this book for?

Stewart Brand: For two versions of environmentalists — the ones who already know their environmentalism and the ones who are finding out their environmentalism because of climate change.

An assertion I make in the first chapter is that in light of climate change everybody’s an environmentalist. And in light of climate change people who already know they’re environmentalists are facing a changed situation. And I’m trying to help adjust the course in light of the situation and the technologies that are emerging.

e360: Is the environmental movement ideologically stuck in the 1970s?

Brand: It’s moved on in some areas. The environmental movement used to hate cities and is now halfway toward loving cities. The Sierra Club has been very active in supporting compactness in cities. Environmentalists don’t call themselves ecologists any more, and that’s good.

e360: Why is that good?

Brand: It’s good because most weren’t, and most people who said they were part of the ecology movement wouldn’t know one trophic level from another, or what a trophic level is, or what a food web is, or why a niche is a niche, or much less why horizontal transgenic gene transfer is normal rather than unnatural. So not being called ecologists is fine.

e360: Do you see a generational dividing line on nuclear power?

Brand: I’m somewhat speculating that there is a generation gap there. I think it’s probably much stronger with genetic engineering. There is no iGEM [the undergraduate International Genetically Engineered Machine synthetic biology competition] for grownups as far as I know. I take that as pretty much a good sign because geneticists and microbiologists are going to just own so much of this century.

e360: For anyone who’s younger than 35, nuclear power has not been an issue because there have been no new nuclear power plants built in this country for decades.

Brand: Well, that’s my surmise. What one would want to look at is some young anti-nuclear person, do they say Chernobyl? Do they say Three Mile Island? I don’t think they say Hiroshima or Nagasaki because that’s so far in the past. Even for me.

e360: One of the main arguments against nuclear is economic — it’s not viable in the marketplace. How much should the market play in pushing these technologies, versus the government?

Brand: It’s a strange kind of desperate argument. Probably that question applies most in the developing world where coal really is king, is the cheapest. If the market rules, coal wins almost everywhere. I’ve been saying, and I say in the book, that we have to get used to the idea that there’s a very serious role for the government here, basically to make coal expensive, and let the rest fight it out.

It’s not an issue in France and that’s why they have 80 percent nuclear. A bit of arithmetic I haven’t seen done yet is, if the U.S. were 80 percent nuclear, how many gigatons of carbon dioxide would not be in the atmosphere? We could have done that.

We didn’t for reasons very different than France. France was shattered by [the] 1973 [Arab oil embargo] and didn’t have their own coal, didn’t have their own oil. To get some energy independence, not because of anything environmental, they just went dead at it. They respect engineers in France way more than we do here and made the right thing happen and now have a huge export industry with selling energy to everybody in Europe, including all the green countries.

e360: NPR recently interviewed an Obama administration official on whether nuclear power should be an option to fight global warming. That official tried very hard to avoid even saying the word nuclear.

Brand: It’s a hot-button issue. Whether I raise it or not in talks, that’s what people want to talk about. What’s interesting to me, I’m going to go on book tour in England in January. England has just committed to ten new reactors. They’re tired of buying two gigawatts of nuclear power from France, among other things.

Frankly, my book is getting more uptake in England — even though it hasn’t come out there yet — than here. So I’m not sure if it’s my name or the subject or if they’re okay with nuclear, or what’s going on.

e360:: You were an advisor to Jerry Brown when he was governor and anti-nuclear sentiment was at its peak. If Jerry Brown becomes governor again do you see changes in policy?

Brand: We’ve talked about it. He hasn’t said, “Tell me more.” Back in the ‘70s when he first got into office, I said space is actually pretty interesting. Fifty percent of space technology comes from California. He was interested. We hired [astronaut] Rusty Schweiker, he did Space Day, he went to the first shuttle launch and landing. So he became Governor Moonbeam.

I haven’t heard him go that far on nuclear. I think it is still a third rail for all these guys. And I suppose part of what I’m trying to do is to take the charge off the rail.

e360: You don’t talk much about renewable energy in your book.

Brand: I think its very well covered so I don’t have much to add there other than nod, nod, nod, so let’s now talk about something I think I have some fresher information on.

But I think the main point I’m making with this book — and that’s why there’s two chapters about squatter cities and what’s going on in the cities and urbanization and so on — is that five out of six people don’t live in the developed world that has all this excess energy use.

They’re living much closer to the bone, and the greenest people in the world probably are the squatters in the slums of the world — a billion people. How lucky we are that they’re there, they’re getting out of poverty, they’re green as hell but they would really like electricity 24/7 and fresh water and sanitation and some other things that are going to involve more energy use. That’s either coal or nuclear as far as I can tell.

Whether we go to nuclear or not is not as important as whether they do. Or something else that is clean, scalable, and constant.

e360: What about solar?

Brand: My hope, frankly, was space solar because it’s 24/7. [California entrepreneur] Elon Musk flattened my ear on this subject. He said, “Look I do SpaceX so I know a lot about space, I do SolarCity so I know a lot about solar. I’m trying to kill anybody’s sense that there’s some realistic way to do ‘space solar.’”

He said even if you could get your solar collectors into orbit for free it still wouldn’t work. The costs and difficulties of beaming down electricity as microwaves with antennas on the ground don’t work out. For the time being, I’m persuaded by Elon on the matter.

e360: Nuclear power plants consume an incredible amount of water. Is that a concern?

Brand: Yep, water is an issue everywhere and every how. The tech I’d like to see is something more direct. That’s all hand wringing at this point. I don’t know anyone who has figured out how to turn heat into electricity without water.

e360: What has been the reaction to your proposals on genetic engineering and food?

Brand: Well, I’m a little surprised that Michael Pollan hasn’t come over because he has busted the industrialization of organic food.

The local growing of basically artisanal food is absolutely fantastic in a country where the basic nutrition problem is obesity. That’s not the major nutrition problem in much or most of the world. What they need is volume, which is the very thing the Green Revolution spoke to and answered. The second Green Revolution is the next set of good technology in agriculture. Not only green in the sense the first one was — higher yield, lower cost, cheaper food, better distribution and all that — but also green ecologically, environmentally green in terms of climate.

Kind of working backward to what the world wants and needs, and what the climate wants and needs, and ecology wants and needs, then genetic engineering looks like a very important tool.

e360: A theme running through the book is that the rest of the world has a different perspective on nuclear power and genetic engineering.

Brand: We tend to be north-centric, developed-centric. China is going full bore on nuclear. I’ve heard numbers as high as they want to build 400 reactors. And no doubt there will be problems. But there’s problems with dams, there’s problems with all these things. I think that’s the engineering essence I’m trying to have Greens become comfortable with.

When you’re trying to design solutions, you really, really have to get used to the idea of tradeoffs, risk balancing, short-term versus long-term. All this stuff that engineers are comfortable with.

I don’t want the romantic stuff to go away. I don’t want people to stop loving nature or loving some experience they’ve had with nature. They can if they want. Just add this other stuff. And so the line about the romantic loves the tree, but not its genome, and the scientist loves both.

e360: One of your more controversial chapters is on geoengineering, which strikes a lot of people, including scientists, as crazy and dangerous.

Brand: That must be next year’s controversy. I expected some pushback on that one. And I haven’t encountered it at all. Not in person, not in print. But it clearly wants and needs to be there. I think there’s all kinds of things to say.

Actually, the strongest pushback and non-embrace was in Al Gore’s new book. It’s a sentence in which he says we’ve done enough experimentation with the planet, that geoengineering is experimentation with the planet we do not need to do. He goes on about biochar [transforming organic waste into a charcoal-like fertilizer], as he should, but doesn’t think or treat that as geoengineering. I do. I think that kind of effort is a form of grass rootsy, and therefore good, geoengineering.

e360: Do you have concerns that support for geoengineering will be used by others as an excuse to carry on with business as usual?

Brand: Well, I don’t want to eliminate business-as-usual as an okay goal. I want to set aside a potential business as usual that ain’t bad. Suppose we had energy that had that quality of way more than we could use or need, and it was clean.

There is another set of people in the environmental movement who are what I’m calling calamatists, who feel that industrial civilization has committed crimes, sins against nature, and retribution is coming and we must repent, reform, and redeem ourselves in light of these terrible crimes and this terrible sin.

The way you can tell if someone is of that mode is to raise this: Suppose we had clean, squanderable energy available, what do you think of that? The ones that have that frame of mind would say that is the worst thing that could happen.

Again, I think that is not a perspective that makes a lot of sense in the developing world. You can go to African peoples and say what do you think of clean, squanderable energy, they would say, “Yes please. How soon?”

e360: Hasn’t cheap energy in this country lead to our sprawling development and other environmental problems?

Brand: Maybe, maybe. But one of the things the new urbanists changed are that suburbs as they came to be designed are boring stupid places to live. It’s not a question of whether you save energy by walking to the market, you sort of save your mind by walking to the market, by being able to bicycle the kids to school. The idea of parents, smart busy adults, having to be chauffeurs for their children has nothing to do with environmental issues at all — it’s just a weird way to live.

I just want that one on the table. Suppose we do get clean, squanderable energy. Is that okay or not okay? One scenario is that it is okay. [Local-food advocate] Alice Waters’ approach to food — artisanal growing of food — is a better approach to growing food. But you need a certain amount of prosperity and density and all these other fun things for that to happen. That is also a product of highly industrialized civilization.

Alice Waters needs a city and in the absence of a city you don’t get Alice Waters or Michael Pollan. The city is a market. It’s a sophisticated market.

e360: Thirty or 40 years ago if you picked up a book advocating these ideas, what would you have thought?

Brand: So 30 to 40 years ago I think I would have said to all the genetic engineering stuff — hot dog! I did say at that time “yes” to solar in space because I was pushing space colonies. The only practical reason that we could think of was that a business model for space colonies was beaming down solar.

Nuclear I would have said, “Bad idea,” and I did. Not actively and overtly. I just went in a somewhat knee-jerk mode and my own mode of long-term thinking at the time that it was too big a penalty to exact from future generations, because of the nuclear waste issue.

I think a lot of this stuff is shifting, and this book is a next-30-years to next-100-years book. Most of the issues we’re dealing with — [like] climate — will be sorted out one way or the other in this century. It’s going to be a thrilling century because so much is in play and so many balls are in the air.

POSTED ON 22 DEC 2009

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Todd Woody is a veteran environmental and technology journalist based in California who writes for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Grist and other publications. He previously was a senior editor at Fortune magazine, the assistant managing editor of Business 2.0 magazine and the business editor of the San Jose Mercury News.

© 2008 Yale Environment 360


#39041 From: Sam Collins <sgcol50326@...>
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 5:46 pm
Subject: Boilerplate for friends and relatives:
sgcol50326@...
Send Email Send Email
 
I stopped sending greeting cards thirty or forty years ago; substituted a solstice letter.  Example below.  Suffer.  Or hit the DELETE key.

Sam


1 of 1 File(s)


#39040 From: mpackard@...
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 4:40 pm
Subject: Re: Re:
mark_packard
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that was likely the same article I read.........not that either of us
needed to read it to know sometimes people get well for unknown reasons.





              Raymond Zbylut
              <rzbylut@...
              m>                                                         To
              Sent by:                  Reason-Omaha@yahoogroups.com
              Reason-Omaha@yaho                                          cc
              ogroups.com
                                                                    Subject
                                        [Reason-Omaha] Re:
              12/21/2009 08:42
              PM


              Please respond to
              Reason-Omaha@yaho
                 ogroups.com







I recall Skeptic Inquirer did a write up years back on Lourdes, and
Hospital patients who experienced spontanious cures of cancer, the results
showed the hospitals were as "miraculous," as is Lourdes, therefore
sponatious cures of certain illnesses are a natural happening. It does not
matter if a fish swims in holy water from the Vatican, Lourdes, or
from Carter lake, it can thrive in either or die in either,

#39039 From: Gary Hoffman <glhoffman@...>
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 3:13 pm
Subject: Yale Environment 360 -- Stewart Brand’s Strange Trip: Whole Earth to Nuclear Power
glhoffman
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Stewart Brand’s Strange Trip: Whole Earth to Nuclear Power

When the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog embraces nuclear power, genetically engineered crops, and geoengineering schemes to cool the planet, you know things have changed in the environmental movement. Stewart Brand explains how the passage of four decades — and the advent of global warming — have shifted his thinking about what it means to be green.

By Todd Woody [Yale Environment 360, 22 December 2009]

Stewart Brand helped shape the environmental consciousness of the 1960s and ‘70s with his Whole Earth Catalog, which became a bible of the counterculture and the back-to-the-land movement. An eclectic compendium of information and “tools” for innovative, environmentally friendly living, the Whole Earth Catalog reflected Brand’s ecological and technological interests, foreshadowing the rise of the San Francisco Bay Area’s computer and green cultures.

In the 1970s, Brand — a Stanford-trained biologist — started CoEvolutionary Quarterly to continue his exploration of environmental issues and the rise of new technologies like the personal computer and genetic engineering. In between writing books on computing and space colonies, Brand served as an advisor to California Gov. Jerry Brown. In the early 1980s, Brand co-founded The WELL — the Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link — an early electronic community in the pre-Internet days with Larry Brilliant, the epidemiologist who later become the first director of Google’s philanthropic arm.

In recent years, Brand, 71, has begun to rethink his earlier opposition to nuclear power and has embraced genetic engineering, geoengineering of the earth’s climate system, and other issues that were anathema to the traditional environmental movement. This evolution of his thinking has led to his new book, Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.

In it, Brand calls for the rapid deployment of a new generation of nuclear power plants to combat global warming, arguing that technological advances have made nuclear energy safer and any potential danger from nuclear waste pales compared to the damage inflicted by burning coal.

“The air pollution from coal burning is estimated to cause 30,000 deaths a year from lung disease in the United States, and 350,000 a year in China,” writes Brand. “A 1-gigawatt coal plant burns three million tons of fuel a year and produces seven million tons of CO2, all of which immediately goes into everyone’s atmosphere, where no one can control it, and no one knows what it’s really up to.”

Likewise, he says, environmentalists are misguided in their long-standing opposition to the genetic engineering of crops to increase yields and reduce pesticide use. In a move sure to rankle the local-food movement, Brand says organic farmers should also embrace GE crops.

Brand argues that humans have been reshaping the natural environment for millennia and thus should start exploring planet-wide technological fixes to the pending catastrophe of climate change, everything from injecting sulfates into the atmosphere to constructing a gigantic space shield to block solar radiation. And if the Whole Earth Catalog catered to the anti-urbanists of the 1960s, Brand now finds ecological salvation in the world’s mega-cities and their sprawling slums as “concentrators of efficiency and innovation.”

Brand lives on a converted tugboat in Sausalito, Calif., with his wife Ryan Phelan, founder of DNA Direct, a genetic testing service. Environmental journalist Todd Woody met Brand in his book-lined office — located nearby in a beached fishing boat on the Sausalito waterfront — and conducted the following interview for Yale Environment 360.

Yale Environment 360: Who did you write this book for?

Stewart Brand: For two versions of environmentalists — the ones who already know their environmentalism and the ones who are finding out their environmentalism because of climate change.

An assertion I make in the first chapter is that in light of climate change everybody’s an environmentalist. And in light of climate change people who already know they’re environmentalists are facing a changed situation. And I’m trying to help adjust the course in light of the situation and the technologies that are emerging.

e360: Is the environmental movement ideologically stuck in the 1970s?

Brand: It’s moved on in some areas. The environmental movement used to hate cities and is now halfway toward loving cities. The Sierra Club has been very active in supporting compactness in cities. Environmentalists don’t call themselves ecologists any more, and that’s good.

e360: Why is that good?

Brand: It’s good because most weren’t, and most people who said they were part of the ecology movement wouldn’t know one trophic level from another, or what a trophic level is, or what a food web is, or why a niche is a niche, or much less why horizontal transgenic gene transfer is normal rather than unnatural. So not being called ecologists is fine.

e360: Do you see a generational dividing line on nuclear power?

Brand: I’m somewhat speculating that there is a generation gap there. I think it’s probably much stronger with genetic engineering. There is no iGEM [the undergraduate International Genetically Engineered Machine synthetic biology competition] for grownups as far as I know. I take that as pretty much a good sign because geneticists and microbiologists are going to just own so much of this century.

e360: For anyone who’s younger than 35, nuclear power has not been an issue because there have been no new nuclear power plants built in this country for decades.

Brand: Well, that’s my surmise. What one would want to look at is some young anti-nuclear person, do they say Chernobyl? Do they say Three Mile Island? I don’t think they say Hiroshima or Nagasaki because that’s so far in the past. Even for me.

e360: One of the main arguments against nuclear is economic — it’s not viable in the marketplace. How much should the market play in pushing these technologies, versus the government?

Brand: It’s a strange kind of desperate argument. Probably that question applies most in the developing world where coal really is king, is the cheapest. If the market rules, coal wins almost everywhere. I’ve been saying, and I say in the book, that we have to get used to the idea that there’s a very serious role for the government here, basically to make coal expensive, and let the rest fight it out.

It’s not an issue in France and that’s why they have 80 percent nuclear. A bit of arithmetic I haven’t seen done yet is, if the U.S. were 80 percent nuclear, how many gigatons of carbon dioxide would not be in the atmosphere? We could have done that.

We didn’t for reasons very different than France. France was shattered by [the] 1973 [Arab oil embargo] and didn’t have their own coal, didn’t have their own oil. To get some energy independence, not because of anything environmental, they just went dead at it. They respect engineers in France way more than we do here and made the right thing happen and now have a huge export industry with selling energy to everybody in Europe, including all the green countries.

e360: NPR recently interviewed an Obama administration official on whether nuclear power should be an option to fight global warming. That official tried very hard to avoid even saying the word nuclear.

Brand: It’s a hot-button issue. Whether I raise it or not in talks, that’s what people want to talk about. What’s interesting to me, I’m going to go on book tour in England in January. England has just committed to ten new reactors. They’re tired of buying two gigawatts of nuclear power from France, among other things.

Frankly, my book is getting more uptake in England — even though it hasn’t come out there yet — than here. So I’m not sure if it’s my name or the subject or if they’re okay with nuclear, or what’s going on.

e360:: You were an advisor to Jerry Brown when he was governor and anti-nuclear sentiment was at its peak. If Jerry Brown becomes governor again do you see changes in policy?

Brand: We’ve talked about it. He hasn’t said, “Tell me more.” Back in the ‘70s when he first got into office, I said space is actually pretty interesting. Fifty percent of space technology comes from California. He was interested. We hired [astronaut] Rusty Schweiker, he did Space Day, he went to the first shuttle launch and landing. So he became Governor Moonbeam.

I haven’t heard him go that far on nuclear. I think it is still a third rail for all these guys. And I suppose part of what I’m trying to do is to take the charge off the rail.

e360: You don’t talk much about renewable energy in your book.

Brand: I think its very well covered so I don’t have much to add there other than nod, nod, nod, so let’s now talk about something I think I have some fresher information on.

But I think the main point I’m making with this book — and that’s why there’s two chapters about squatter cities and what’s going on in the cities and urbanization and so on — is that five out of six people don’t live in the developed world that has all this excess energy use.

They’re living much closer to the bone, and the greenest people in the world probably are the squatters in the slums of the world — a billion people. How lucky we are that they’re there, they’re getting out of poverty, they’re green as hell but they would really like electricity 24/7 and fresh water and sanitation and some other things that are going to involve more energy use. That’s either coal or nuclear as far as I can tell.

Whether we go to nuclear or not is not as important as whether they do. Or something else that is clean, scalable, and constant.

e360: What about solar?

Brand: My hope, frankly, was space solar because it’s 24/7. [California entrepreneur] Elon Musk flattened my ear on this subject. He said, “Look I do SpaceX so I know a lot about space, I do SolarCity so I know a lot about solar. I’m trying to kill anybody’s sense that there’s some realistic way to do ‘space solar.’”

He said even if you could get your solar collectors into orbit for free it still wouldn’t work. The costs and difficulties of beaming down electricity as microwaves with antennas on the ground don’t work out. For the time being, I’m persuaded by Elon on the matter.

e360: Nuclear power plants consume an incredible amount of water. Is that a concern?

Brand: Yep, water is an issue everywhere and every how. The tech I’d like to see is something more direct. That’s all hand wringing at this point. I don’t know anyone who has figured out how to turn heat into electricity without water.

e360: What has been the reaction to your proposals on genetic engineering and food?

Brand: Well, I’m a little surprised that Michael Pollan hasn’t come over because he has busted the industrialization of organic food.

The local growing of basically artisanal food is absolutely fantastic in a country where the basic nutrition problem is obesity. That’s not the major nutrition problem in much or most of the world. What they need is volume, which is the very thing the Green Revolution spoke to and answered. The second Green Revolution is the next set of good technology in agriculture. Not only green in the sense the first one was — higher yield, lower cost, cheaper food, better distribution and all that — but also green ecologically, environmentally green in terms of climate.

Kind of working backward to what the world wants and needs, and what the climate wants and needs, and ecology wants and needs, then genetic engineering looks like a very important tool.

e360: A theme running through the book is that the rest of the world has a different perspective on nuclear power and genetic engineering.

Brand: We tend to be north-centric, developed-centric. China is going full bore on nuclear. I’ve heard numbers as high as they want to build 400 reactors. And no doubt there will be problems. But there’s problems with dams, there’s problems with all these things. I think that’s the engineering essence I’m trying to have Greens become comfortable with.

When you’re trying to design solutions, you really, really have to get used to the idea of tradeoffs, risk balancing, short-term versus long-term. All this stuff that engineers are comfortable with.

I don’t want the romantic stuff to go away. I don’t want people to stop loving nature or loving some experience they’ve had with nature. They can if they want. Just add this other stuff. And so the line about the romantic loves the tree, but not its genome, and the scientist loves both.

e360: One of your more controversial chapters is on geoengineering, which strikes a lot of people, including scientists, as crazy and dangerous.

Brand: That must be next year’s controversy. I expected some pushback on that one. And I haven’t encountered it at all. Not in person, not in print. But it clearly wants and needs to be there. I think there’s all kinds of things to say.

Actually, the strongest pushback and non-embrace was in Al Gore’s new book. It’s a sentence in which he says we’ve done enough experimentation with the planet, that geoengineering is experimentation with the planet we do not need to do. He goes on about biochar [transforming organic waste into a charcoal-like fertilizer], as he should, but doesn’t think or treat that as geoengineering. I do. I think that kind of effort is a form of grass rootsy, and therefore good, geoengineering.

e360: Do you have concerns that support for geoengineering will be used by others as an excuse to carry on with business as usual?

Brand: Well, I don’t want to eliminate business-as-usual as an okay goal. I want to set aside a potential business as usual that ain’t bad. Suppose we had energy that had that quality of way more than we could use or need, and it was clean.

There is another set of people in the environmental movement who are what I’m calling calamatists, who feel that industrial civilization has committed crimes, sins against nature, and retribution is coming and we must repent, reform, and redeem ourselves in light of these terrible crimes and this terrible sin.

The way you can tell if someone is of that mode is to raise this: Suppose we had clean, squanderable energy available, what do you think of that? The ones that have that frame of mind would say that is the worst thing that could happen.

Again, I think that is not a perspective that makes a lot of sense in the developing world. You can go to African peoples and say what do you think of clean, squanderable energy, they would say, “Yes please. How soon?”

e360: Hasn’t cheap energy in this country lead to our sprawling development and other environmental problems?

Brand: Maybe, maybe. But one of the things the new urbanists changed are that suburbs as they came to be designed are boring stupid places to live. It’s not a question of whether you save energy by walking to the market, you sort of save your mind by walking to the market, by being able to bicycle the kids to school. The idea of parents, smart busy adults, having to be chauffeurs for their children has nothing to do with environmental issues at all — it’s just a weird way to live.

I just want that one on the table. Suppose we do get clean, squanderable energy. Is that okay or not okay? One scenario is that it is okay. [Local-food advocate] Alice Waters’ approach to food — artisanal growing of food — is a better approach to growing food. But you need a certain amount of prosperity and density and all these other fun things for that to happen. That is also a product of highly industrialized civilization.

Alice Waters needs a city and in the absence of a city you don’t get Alice Waters or Michael Pollan. The city is a market. It’s a sophisticated market.

e360: Thirty or 40 years ago if you picked up a book advocating these ideas, what would you have thought?

Brand: So 30 to 40 years ago I think I would have said to all the genetic engineering stuff — hot dog! I did say at that time “yes” to solar in space because I was pushing space colonies. The only practical reason that we could think of was that a business model for space colonies was beaming down solar.

Nuclear I would have said, “Bad idea,” and I did. Not actively and overtly. I just went in a somewhat knee-jerk mode and my own mode of long-term thinking at the time that it was too big a penalty to exact from future generations, because of the nuclear waste issue.

I think a lot of this stuff is shifting, and this book is a next-30-years to next-100-years book. Most of the issues we’re dealing with — [like] climate — will be sorted out one way or the other in this century. It’s going to be a thrilling century because so much is in play and so many balls are in the air.

POSTED ON 22 DEC 2009

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Todd Woody is a veteran environmental and technology journalist based in California who writes for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Grist and other publications. He previously was a senior editor at Fortune magazine, the assistant managing editor of Business 2.0 magazine and the business editor of the San Jose Mercury News.

© 2008 Yale Environment 360

#39038 From: "Jim Bechtel" <jimbechtel2@...>
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 11:21 am
Subject: opposed to health care reform
jimbechtel2@...
Send Email Send Email
 
Along with Mike Huckabee (and with as much reason):
 
 
 
 

#39037 From: "Skryja, David" <david.skryja@...>
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 5:47 am
Subject: FW: Earth pictures from space
dskryja
Offline Offline
Send Email Send Email
 

 

 

 Good photos; fairly bad music. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


1 of 1 File(s)


#39036 From: "Skryja, David" <david.skryja@...>
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 5:31 am
Subject: RE: vampires & angels, theocracy & fanaticism
dskryja
Offline Offline
Send Email Send Email
 

Devil stuff: 

 

http://www.angelfire.com/realm/shades/demons/bookdevilsanddemons/ranksofhell.htm  

 

http://www.angelfire.com/realm/shades/demons/bookdevilsanddemons/fallenangels.htm  

 

http://www.angelfire.com/realm/shades/demons/bookdevilsanddemons/titlepagebookdevilsanddemons.htm  

 

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04764a.htm  

 

ds.

              

From: Reason-Omaha@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Reason-Omaha@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of jopollack@...
Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 11:00 PM
To: Reason-Omaha@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Reason-Omaha] vampires & angels, theocracy & fanaticism

 

 

Gary,

I agree, it's a headache trying to make sense out of theology.  However, Satan as a fallen angel
belongs to Christian theology.  In Jewish theology, he doesn't get a very big billing.  He makes an
appearance in Job, but not really as an individual, more as a position to be filled for the purposes of the story.   The rabbi was consistent with Jewish theology.

John

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Jones <garyjones2@...>
To: Reason-Omaha@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, Dec 21, 2009 6:01 pm
Subject: Re: [Reason-Omaha] vampires & angels, theocracy & fanaticism



John,

 

Good point - but somewhere in the dim recesses of my mind, which is mostly recesses or maybe just out to recess lately, I seem to remember that Satan was described as an angel that had tried to overthrow God.  If that is in the Bible, then at least some angels did have free will and your rabbi was wrong.  On the other hand, trying to think rationally of winged beings I don't believe in gives me a headache.

 

Gary

On Dec 21, 2009, at 2:18 PM, Laurey Steinke wrote:



 

 

Yep, it was the same sort of thinking that led me to question the beliefs in which I was raised.  Petulant 2 year old was the phrase that came to mind.

 

-laurey

 

 

 

Oddly enough, a question about angels to a rabbi helped put me on the road to rationality.
He was expounding on a biblical passage where a host of angels was praising god, perhaps
out of Ezekiel (I've forgotten, and I'm too lazy to look it up.)  At any rate, I asked him if angels
had free will.  He replied that they didn't.  It immediately occurred to me that the vision of a
bunch of angels praising god ought to be about as impressive as if I'd designed a bunch of
wind-up toys to go around singing praises to me.  It would certainly suggest I had ego problems,
if nothing else!  More ridiculous than impressive, a sort of cheap trick.

John P. 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Bechtel <jimbechtel2@...>
To: Reason <Reason-Omaha@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sun, Dec 20, 2009 10:55 am
Subject: [Reason-Omaha] vampires & angels, theocracy & fanaticism

 

The continuing rise of the irrational:

1. "What are angels? Did we invent them the way we invented Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Boogey Man who frightens little children into being good? Where do angels come from?" Anne Rice asks these three questions and then ignores the central one about us inventing them.  Instead she answers the first: "Angels are dazzling expressions of God's love for his children," and second: "They come to us right out of the pages of the Bible, complete with their powerful wings." If the Bible says (or even just hints) they exist, then they must be real. (And maybe vampires too?)

What th'? Can you believe Parade magazine, which used to publish Sagan, now spreads this crap?

(And I think Rice's reputation is overblown, she quickly went downhill. For vampire tales I prefer Chelsea Quinn Yarbro.)

 

2. No separation of church & state for c 3/4 of mankind. 

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

1.

http://www.parade.com/news/2009/12/20-the-angels-among-us.html

The Angels Among Us

by Anne Rice

published: 12/20/2009

Related Features

1. How Spiritual Are We?

2. Spirituality in America

Author Anne Rice started the vampire craze 33 years ago with her novel "Interview With the Vampire." Recently, she has turned her thoughts-and writing-to angels. (Her latest novel is "Angel Time.") In this season of holiday spirit, we asked Rice why we need angels.
What are angels? Did we invent them the way we invented Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Boogey Man who frightens little children into being good? Where do angels come from?
These days, we see angels everywhere. Gift shops offer gold-and-silver angels as Christmas ornaments and statuettes. Angel faces are featured in beautifully framed paintings and on greeting cards. Angels in plastic or porcelain decorate mantelpieces and dashboards. Countless books on angels, some filled with accounts of visitations, others claiming to know secrets about angels, fill shelves. Some even suggest how to talk to angels and how to hear their voices in return.
Almost any schoolchild can describe angels. They are nearly always tall, slender beings with soft shoulder-length hair and graceful flowing robes. They may wear sandals, but they never wear shoes. Most of the time, their toes peek out from beneath their gowns. But what really makes an angel is a pair of huge, spreading, white-feathered wings. Even roly-poly baby angels, called cherubs, have those all-important white wings.
Wherever and however they appear, angels offer consolation. They smile with infinite patience; they look lovingly on those of us whom they guard. Friends offering angel gifts are seeking to remind us that angels provide safety and peace.

Angels are not a modern invention. And they may not be an invention at all. They come to us right out of the pages of the Bible, complete with their powerful wings. In the Book of Exodus, winged cherubim are carved on the Ark of the Covenant. And in the Book of Isaiah, the prophet sees the powerful winged seraphim singing before the throne of God.
A choir of angels sings to celebrate the birth of Jesus. And Jesus assures us that little children have their special guardian angels, while later on, in the garden of Gethsemane, an angel comes to comfort Jesus himself.
Indeed, all we know about angels comes from holy writ, and countless biblical scholars have developed our notions of guardian angels and angels sent to Earth in answer to our prayers.
Though no female angel appears in the Bible, there is no reason, apparently, that angels cannot take a female form. They themselves are beyond gender, and the bodies in which they appear are either illusions or specially made for a particular purpose and soon discarded once no longer in use. Angels are pure spirit; their natural dwelling place is Heaven. But they are always very busy on our behalf here on Earth.
It is no surprise that these beings fascinate us, splendid and ethereal as they are. We cannot help but wonder what angels think about as they come and go, intervening in our lives for the good. Do they have feelings? Do they like one assignment better than another? Do they learn from us as we learn from them?
Hollywood films have given us a variety of angel personalities, from the delightful little Clarence Oddbody of It's a Wonderful Life to John Travolta's beer-drinking, belching angel in Michael. In the TV shows Touched by an Angel and Highway to Heaven, the angelic stars, played by Roma Downey and Michael Landon, were known by their innate serenity and tireless good will.
Today, as readers and audiences obsess over vampires, one can't help but wonder if those fans aren't really seeking angels. After all, in the best-selling book (and blockbuster movie) Twilight, Edward the vampire is the protector of the young heroine Bella, saving her from evil humans as well as evil immortals. A good vampire also strives to protect against a bad vampire in the Vampire Diaries novels, now a show on the CW network. And in True Blood, the HBO series based on the popular books, waitress Sookie Stackhouse finds a stalwart guardian in the person of a handsome vampire as well.
Like angels, vampires are powerful and mysterious beings who aren't subject to the ravages of old age or time. Like angels, vampires are often described and portrayed as extremely beautiful. Like angels, vampires look human and sound human, though they are not.
But vampires are sad creatures. They speak to us of confusion and the longing to be human. They struggle in the darkness, lamenting the loss of the light.
Perhaps the whole vampire craze can be related to the age-old yearning for a loving, eloquent supernatural presence that will save us from the perils and disasters of ordinary life.
With angels we are most certainly on surer ground. Our oldest religious texts assure us that the Almighty does indeed have such wondrous messengers and helpers, and that He sends them to Earth only to do good. One cannot help but be glad that once the present vampire craze is over, angels will still be busy guarding their earthly charges and answering prayers.  
Angels are dazzling expressions of God's love for his children. Not only do they bring hope to the weary, but they are always pointing upward, promising that at the end of life's journey, they will be there to carry us to that greatest of all mysteries, the bliss and splendor of our heavenly home.

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

 

2.

70% lack freedom of religion

NEW YORK (AP) - In Indone°©sia, Muslim groups burn down a mosque belonging to the minor°©ity Ahmadiyya. In Singapore, the government refuses to recognize Jehovah's Witnesses. In Belgium, 68 religion-based hate crimes are reported in 2007 alone.
People living in a third of all countries are restricted from practicing religion freely, either because of government policies and laws or hostile acts by indi
°©viduals or groups, according to a report released this week by the Pew Research Center, "Global Restrictions on Religion."

That amounts to 70 percent of the globe's population, since some of the most restrictive countries are very populous.
Of the world's 25 most popu
°©lous countries, citizens in Iran, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and India live with the most restric°©tions when both measures are taken into account, the study in°©dicated.
"Where those two come to
°©gether is where it's most in°©tense," said Brian Grim, senior researcher at the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life.
The United States, Brazil, Ja
°©pan, Italy, South Africa and the United Kingdom have the fewest restrictions on religious practices when measured by both govern°©ment infringement and religion°©-based violence or harassment, according to the study.
Timothy Shah, a senior re
°©search scholar at Boston Uni°©versity who is familiar with the study, said he was struck by the fact that more than 30 countries have high levels of both govern°©ment and social restrictions on religion.
Shah pointed to Nigeria, where 12 majority-Muslim states adopt
°©ed the Islamic Shariah criminal code after returning to civilian rule in 1999, resulting in hostili°©ties against religious minorities.
The report found that the per
°©centage of the world's countries with high or very high govern°©ment restrictions is at about 20 percent, which amounts to 57 percent of the world's popula°©tion. These countries include Saudi Arabia, Iran and former communist countries, such as Russia, Belarus and Bulgaria, where state atheism has been re°©placed by favored religions that are accorded special protections or privileges.

 

 

 

-- 

Laurey Steinke, Ph.D
Assistant Professor
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Protein Structure Core Facility
985819 Nebraska Medical Center
Omaha, NE  68198-5819
T:  (402) 559-5176
F:  (402) 559-6646
http://www.unmc.edu/pscf/

 

 

 


#39035 From: jopollack@...
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 5:00 am
Subject: Re: vampires & angels, theocracy & fanaticism
jopollack@...
Send Email Send Email
 
Gary,

I agree, it's a headache trying to make sense out of theology.  However, Satan as a fallen angel
belongs to Christian theology.  In Jewish theology, he doesn't get a very big billing.  He makes an
appearance in Job, but not really as an individual, more as a position to be filled for the purposes of the story.   The rabbi was consistent with Jewish theology.

John


-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Jones <garyjones2@...>
To: Reason-Omaha@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, Dec 21, 2009 6:01 pm
Subject: Re: [Reason-Omaha] vampires & angels, theocracy & fanaticism



John,

Good point - but somewhere in the dim recesses of my mind, which is mostly recesses or maybe just out to recess lately, I seem to remember that Satan was described as an angel that had tried to overthrow God.  If that is in the Bible, then at least some angels did have free will and your rabbi was wrong.  On the other hand, trying to think rationally of winged beings I don't believe in gives me a headache.

Gary
On Dec 21, 2009, at 2:18 PM, Laurey Steinke wrote:

 

Yep, it was the same sort of thinking that led me to question the beliefs in which I was raised.  Petulant 2 year old was the phrase that came to mind.

-laurey


 
Oddly enough, a question about angels to a rabbi helped put me on the road to rationality.
He was expounding on a biblical passage where a host of angels was praising god, perhaps
out of Ezekiel (I've forgotten, and I'm too lazy to look it up.)  At any rate, I asked him if angels
had free will.  He replied that they didn't.  It immediately occurred to me that the vision of a
bunch of angels praising god ought to be about as impressive as if I'd designed a bunch of
wind-up toys to go around singing praises to me.  It would certainly suggest I had ego problems,
if nothing else!  More ridiculous than impressive, a sort of cheap trick.

John P. 



-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Bechtel <jimbechtel2@cox.net>
To: Reason <Reason-Omaha@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sun, Dec 20, 2009 10:55 am
Subject: [Reason-Omaha] vampires & angels, theocracy & fanaticism



The continuing rise of the irrational:
1. "What are angels? Did we invent them the way we invented Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Boogey Man who frightens little children into being good? Where do angels come from?" Anne Rice asks these three questions and then ignores the central one about us inventing them.  Instead she answers the first: "Angels are dazzling expressions of God's love for his children," and second: "They come to us right out of the pages of the Bible, complete with their powerful wings." If the Bible says (or even just hints) they exist, then they must be real. (And maybe vampires too?)
What th'? Can you believe Parade magazine, which used to publish Sagan, now spreads this crap?
(And I think Rice's reputation is overblown, she quickly went downhill. For vampire tales I prefer Chelsea Quinn Yarbro.)
 
2. No separation of church & state for c 3/4 of mankind. 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.
http://www.parade.com/news/2009/12/20-the-angels-among-us.html
The Angels Among Us
by Anne Rice
published: 12/20/2009
Related Features
1. How Spiritual Are We?
2. Spirituality in America
Author Anne Rice started the vampire craze 33 years ago with her novel "Interview With the Vampire." Recently, she has turned her thoughts-and writing-to angels. (Her latest novel is "Angel Time.") In this season of holiday spirit, we asked Rice why we need angels.
What are angels? Did we invent them the way we invented Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Boogey Man who frightens little children into being good? Where do angels come from?
These days, we see angels everywhere. Gift shops offer gold-and-silver angels as Christmas ornaments and statuettes. Angel faces are featured in beautifully framed paintings and on greeting cards. Angels in plastic or porcelain decorate mantelpieces and dashboards. Countless books on angels, some filled with accounts of visitations, others claiming to know secrets about angels, fill shelves. Some even suggest how to talk to angels and how to hear their voices in return.
Almost any schoolchild can describe angels. They are nearly always tall, slender beings with soft shoulder-length hair and graceful flowing robes. They may wear sandals, but they never wear shoes. Most of the time, their toes peek out from beneath their gowns. But what really makes an angel is a pair of huge, spreading, white-feathered wings. Even roly-poly baby angels, called cherubs, have those all-important white wings.
Wherever and however they appear, angels offer consolation. They smile with infinite patience; they look lovingly on those of us whom they guard. Friends offering angel gifts are seeking to remind us that angels provide safety and peace.
Angels are not a modern invention. And they may not be an invention at all. They come to us right out of the pages of the Bible, complete with their powerful wings. In the Book of Exodus, winged cherubim are carved on the Ark of the Covenant. And in the Book of Isaiah, the prophet sees the powerful winged seraphim singing before the throne of God.
A choir of angels sings to celebrate the birth of Jesus. And Jesus assures us that little children have their special guardian angels, while later on, in the garden of Gethsemane, an angel comes to comfort Jesus himself.
Indeed, all we know about angels comes from holy writ, and countless biblical scholars have developed our notions of guardian angels and angels sent to Earth in answer to our prayers.
Though no female angel appears in the Bible, there is no reason, apparently, that angels cannot take a female form. They themselves are beyond gender, and the bodies in which they appear are either illusions or specially made for a particular purpose and soon discarded once no longer in use. Angels are pure spirit; their natural dwelling place is Heaven. But they are always very busy on our behalf here on Earth.
It is no surprise that these beings fascinate us, splendid and ethereal as they are. We cannot help but wonder what angels think about as they come and go, intervening in our lives for the good. Do they have feelings? Do they like one assignment better than another? Do they learn from us as we learn from them?
Hollywood films have given us a variety of angel personalities, from the delightful little Clarence Oddbody of It's a Wonderful Life to John Travolta's beer-drinking, belching angel in Michael. In the TV shows Touched by an Angel and Highway to Heaven, the angelic stars, played by Roma Downey and Michael Landon, were known by their innate serenity and tireless good will.
Today, as readers and audiences obsess over vampires, one can't help but wonder if those fans aren't really seeking angels. After all, in the best-selling book (and blockbuster movie) Twilight, Edward the vampire is the protector of the young heroine Bella, saving her from evil humans as well as evil immortals. A good vampire also strives to protect against a bad vampire in the Vampire Diaries novels, now a show on the CW network. And in True Blood, the HBO series based on the popular books, waitress Sookie Stackhouse finds a stalwart guardian in the person of a handsome vampire as well.
Like angels, vampires are powerful and mysterious beings who aren't subject to the ravages of old age or time. Like angels, vampires are often described and portrayed as extremely beautiful. Like angels, vampires look human and sound human, though they are not.
But vampires are sad creatures. They speak to us of confusion and the longing to be human. They struggle in the darkness, lamenting the loss of the light.
Perhaps the whole vampire craze can be related to the age-old yearning for a loving, eloquent supernatural presence that will save us from the perils and disasters of ordinary life.
With angels we are most certainly on surer ground. Our oldest religious texts assure us that the Almighty does indeed have such wondrous messengers and helpers, and that He sends them to Earth only to do good. One cannot help but be glad that once the present vampire craze is over, angels will still be busy guarding their earthly charges and answering prayers.  
Angels are dazzling expressions of God's love for his children. Not only do they bring hope to the weary, but they are always pointing upward, promising that at the end of life's journey, they will be there to carry us to that greatest of all mysteries, the bliss and splendor of our heavenly home.
------------------------------------
 
2.
70% lack freedom of religion
NEW YORK (AP) - In Indone°©sia, Muslim groups burn down a mosque belonging to the minor°©ity Ahmadiyya. In Singapore, the government refuses to recognize Jehovah's Witnesses. In Belgium, 68 religion-based hate crimes are reported in 2007 alone.
People living in a third of all countries are restricted from practicing religion freely, either because of government policies and laws or hostile acts by indi
°©viduals or groups, according to a report released this week by the Pew Research Center, "Global Restrictions on Religion."
That amounts to 70 percent of the globe's population, since some of the most restrictive countries are very populous.
Of the world's 25 most popu
°©lous countries, citizens in Iran, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and India live with the most restric°©tions when both measures are taken into account, the study in°©dicated.
"Where those two come to
°©gether is where it's most in°©tense," said Brian Grim, senior researcher at the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life.
The United States, Brazil, Ja
°©pan, Italy, South Africa and the United Kingdom have the fewest restrictions on religious practices when measured by both govern°©ment infringement and religion°©-based violence or harassment, according to the study.
Timothy Shah, a senior re
°©search scholar at Boston Uni°©versity who is familiar with the study, said he was struck by the fact that more than 30 countries have high levels of both govern°©ment and social restrictions on religion.
Shah pointed to Nigeria, where 12 majority-Muslim states adopt
°©ed the Islamic Shariah criminal code after returning to civilian rule in 1999, resulting in hostili°©ties against religious minorities.
The report found that the per
°©centage of the world's countries with high or very high govern°©ment restrictions is at about 20 percent, which amounts to 57 percent of the world's popula°©tion. These countries include Saudi Arabia, Iran and former communist countries, such as Russia, Belarus and Bulgaria, where state atheism has been re°©placed by favored religions that are accorded special protections or privileges.





-- 
Laurey Steinke, Ph.D
Assistant Professor
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Protein Structure Core Facility
985819 Nebraska Medical Center
Omaha, NE  68198-5819
T:  (402) 559-5176
F:  (402) 559-6646
http://www.unmc.edu/pscf/





#39034 From: "rzbylut" <rzbylut@...>
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 4:59 am
Subject: Ray's letter to a Douglas County Official
rzbylut
Offline Offline
Send Email Send Email
 

NOTE: I deleted, and crossed out certain portions of this letter to protect the identity of the recipient:December 20th, 2009

 

Dear XXXXXXXXX

As I drove home today from a community gathering, I spotted a large semi truck stuck on the ice, and "round-about on Saddle Creek, about 12:15 P.M. I watched the other cars drive past, a normal thing for most people, how can they possibly help a struck trucker, they do not have shovel, chains, or other items that may be needed, I stopped however, got out of my car, and started removing snow from under his drive wheels, and we freed the truck after some work. He was lost, and did not know how to get to I-80, so I told this trucker to follow me, leading him up to Radial Highway, through Benson, and up Maple street to I-680 South.

Earlier that day I spent 1œ hours shoveling the sidewalk of a church on 37 & Lafayette streets, alone, no one asked me to do so, I did it because my beliefs and training is such to help when you see something which needs doing, or someone needs helping.

On the way home after helping that trucker, it occurred to me of the many similar acts I had done in my life. I was in Honolulu last week for a meeting, it was a one day event, and I looked forward to walking from Aloha Tower to Waikiki, as I had three hours before my flight departed. I spotted an old woman perhaps in her 80's she had stopped a few people as she walked in my direction, and held out a sheet of paper with direction, and an address of Social Services. People were too busy with their lives, and amusements to assist, eventually she came to me now perhaps a block away. She showed me the paper as she did to the others, and I sure did not know this street, nor the area on where Social Services were located, yet I said I would assist her. I won't burden you with the details, but eventually we ended up at the dept of education, on the third floor office, and they telephoned social services, and we got the directions, and made it. It took about 90 minutes, my Waikiki sightseeing was not to be, but what better way to spend a day than give someone in need help.

Sounds pretty corny does it not, "what a good boy scout indeed!" Yet, this is my way, it is not for everyone, but for me it is. I am also a donating member of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Doctors without Borders, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch that too is part of my way, helping those needing help.

It will soon be two years since I wrote letter's to the US Attorney In Omaha, Joe Steckler, Nebraska State Attorney General, Omaha Prosecutor Marty Conboy, the Omaha Chief of Police, each Deputy Police Chief, and Internal Affairs Division of the Omaha police describing the "alleged" assault by an Omaha Police Officer which occurred at approximately 5:40 P.M. January 23rd, 2009.

It is all over as now, since under advice of my attorney I pled nolo conendre to a much lesser charge, and paid a $75.00 fine. I spoke to a few of Omaha's community leaders before I made this decision as well, as it was offered by Prosecutor Conboy a month earlier. I discharged one attorney for telling me to take the plea bargain feeling he was not there for me. I then hired Attorney James Martin Davis as he has a reputation for being a strong advocate, yet when trial date came, he failed to show up in xxxxxxxx leaving me alone standing before xxxxxxxxxx sir, you allowed me the opportunity to find him, and he was out of town, yet his assistant "Jeanie," and another of the attorneys vouched for my veracity that indeed I had hired Mr. Davis, and paid the $5000.00 retainer he requested. You graciously allowed a new xxxxxxxxx date, and Mr. Davis, who seemed to me, not wanting give much work into my legal defense recommended I take the same plea bargain.

I argued that I hadn't had an a traffic ticket since 1986, which was in Burlingame, California, for speeding on Highway 101, traveling 10 miles over the speed limit. Nor had I ever been arrested, or had trouble with the police anywhere. My attorney informed me that you were once a xxxxxxxxxx and was notorious for jailing those who dared to accuse any law enforcement officer of impropriety, and I would indeed most surely be jailed due to the press & media attention in the months beforehand despite a fine background, awards, and accolades for community volunteerism, which I had generally initiated out of an altruistic and responsible personality.

The traffic prosecutor asked the judge to dismiss the traffic ticket as the video tape there was nothing to so much as be ticket for I assume, after all the vehicle was moving at approximately two miles per hour, and the judge did in fact dismiss the ticket.

I sought advice from Omaha's community leaders, and received conflicting advice, some said stick to your original decision of Not Guilty, despite what the outcome in court. Another said considering the magnitude of the alleged assault relative to other much larger assaults that also go unpunished in Omaha, it was simply not worth getting jail time over despite ones idealism.

The police officer who I wrote of which "allegedly," assaulted me was very profane, He wanted a to do more, but the audio tapes revealed he was rebuffed by OPD's traffic division, so in malice and extreme anger, again as revealed on the audio tapes, stated he would have my drivers license revoked under a Nebraska State Code which reads any police officer can request the DMV to revoke the drivers license of any driver the officer deemed unfit, and a hazard to the safety of other drivers. He did indeed do it, and I had to have two physicians sign off on a physical exam, & eye exam to prove I was fit physically to drive. Even the Omaha DMV people who tested me made it very short, they understood this law pertained mainly to elderly persons, and that this was nothing less than Machiavellian & malicious.

If indeed you were a law enforcement officer as I was told by my attorney, then you already know of such bad apples you had surely overheard their locker-room talk, and bar room bravado, these are the "bad apples" who are disciples of an authoritarian antinomianism, so confident they will never be found out, as others before them having indoctrinated them into these extra-judicial punishments they administer and still look like a hero. Bad apples are found in every industry, including the engineering community those who use substandard materials, and sign off on faulty work, yet most are not like that. "There are very many people who are convinced of their own cleverness to such an extent that they have never in their lives met any but fools." Carl Jung.

With Marty Conboy prosecuting me for telling what was "allegedly" done by OPD, as well my having my drivers license revoked, it sure seems that OPD does indeed have absolute power, and as Lord Acton wrote in in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, in 1887: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." Acton was preceded by William Pitt the Elder, who voiced a similar thought in a House of Lords speech in 1770: "Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it; and this I know, my lords, that where laws end, tyranny begins."

Although I do not know you, your record, nor anything of your stewardship of the xxxxxx, still I would hazard a guess that most people receiving a letter like this may be somewhat upset at the writer, as if the writer were "schooling," the reader. This is not the case, you have your values, and surely they have served this community well in your many years a xxxxx I simply am here to say this incident weighs heavily on my mind, and heart to this day.

Sincerely,

Raymond J. Zbylut

enclosures


#39033 From: "Harvey Madison" <hmadison99@...>
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 4:47 am
Subject: Re: Prayer Efficacy Research (Rant)
h.madison
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Sorry Laurey, but no, I haven't been levitated yet, and I have even lowered the bar for God by only asking the believer to pray to Him to levitate my wastebasket. Nothing statistically significant yet.

#39032 From: "rzbylut" <rzbylut@...>
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 3:41 am
Subject: Ray Z's Letter to the Nebraska ACLU
rzbylut
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November 28th,  2009

TO: ACLU Nebraska
941 O St # 706
Lincoln, NE 68508-3625

Dear ACLU,

We, the poor people of Omaha, cannot afford to hire attorneys to advise us, help
us, litigate for us. Those agencies we assumed would be there for the oppressed
have turned their backs on us time after time, as the legal help they could had
given simply is not be high profile enough to assure they and their
contemporaries will be praised, and made media heroes, which from the 1980's to
present is the only thing important to most of the younger generations.

Asking the police for any help whatsoever is akin to a mouse asking a Rat
Terrier to desist from abusing it. Asking Internal Affairs to investigate is a
joke, like asking a weasel to investigate other weasels if they broke into the
henhouse and ate the precious eggs.

ACLU Nebraska, and Citizens for Equal Protection sure sound like the ones we can
turn to for help, but it is the same in the Philippines where I lived nearly two
decades, as well as working in East Africa, (Kenya, Somolia, & Mozambique,) and
South Africa, where NGO's abound but do nothing for the masses unless it
guarantees these NGO's  high visibility to bring in funds from well meaning,
financially secure, and big hearted donors sincerely believing their funding
will be used for the rank and file oppressed.

Nelson Mandela  and many of the White and Black South Africans, as well as 
Ghandi,  and a whole plethora of true leaders too numerous to name in this
letter, risked their lives on a daily basis to help the oppressed & poor,  yet
with the truth painfully glaring back into the eyes of Omaha's poor & oppressed
like a noon-day sun reflecting off a highly polished mirror, our so called
`Legal Aid Advocates,' talk a lot of BIG talk, but cannot walk the walk, not
even little steps for simple advice.  America's and  moreso conservative "Go Big
Red's"  Legal Aid Advocates are nearly mirror images of the NGO's & Legal Aid
Advocates in those developing nations where I had spent over half of my life
working.

As did Mandela, Ghandi, and the many apartheid resisters in the South African
Congress and in the streets, we the poor have absolutely no alternative but to
take on these foes who oppress us, and murder our children yet call themselves
"guardians of the people,"  or more commonly the Omaha Police Department.

The term "grass roots," is overused, but I suppose it fit's the defensive
posture we are forced into, a "Grass Roots Fight to End Police Murder &
Oppression in Omaha."  The police declared a `war' on minorities,  the poor, 
youth,  and those they summarily deem unfit for their City.

We, the oppressed may not have legal learning, but we do have brains and as did
the abovementioned individuals I wrote of who truly advocated for others, we
will use our limited knowledge to bring the struggle right back at the doorstep
of our oppressors using communications via the internet, and cards such as
these, t-shirts, bumper stickers, so the entire world will know the bullshit we
poor & oppressed face daily as we try to raise our families, pay our mortgages,
and  simply put food on the table.  Hopefully, this human organ boycott will
work, hopefully businesses will refuse to hold any conventions in this  `Gaza
Strip' named Omaha. And finally with hope and a campaign of communications to
the NGO's (that do help,)  and leaders and people around the globe, Omaha will
be placed on the map just as Palestine is now.  Omaha Political elites who cheer
every minority death, and youthful pot smoker jailed, will be notoriously
regarded, and denounced  as were South Africa's Apartheid Ruling Elites.

My 2009 Memorial Day beating may seem insignificant, and my 2008 arrest and
jailing, not to mention the physical beating from a raging & screaming Omaha
Policeman may seem small potatoes to the ACLU, and other Nebraska Legal Aid
NGO's but to Marty Conboy, who zealously prosecuted me, for telling the truth on
one of `his' cops,  I may as well had burned down the Vatican in premeditated
arson for the pope and his ilk coving up the thousands of rapes of 10 & 11 year
old alter boys !   To me, it is the biggest event in my 54 years which I will
never forgive, nor forget.  I am certain those in Selma, Alabama will never
forgive nor forget  "Bloody Sunday,"  March 7, 1965 when 600 civil rights
marchers were attacked by state and local police with guns, clubs, police dogs,
and tear gas, and those assisting them the  'Ku Klux Klan'  commit unspeakable
acts of violence on the citizens of Selma for asking to be treated with dignity
& respect. Hell. I was just 10 years old when I watched it on our old RCA black
& white television, but I have not, nor ever will forget those images of those
snarling dogs whipped into a frenzy complete with foam coming out of their
massive jaws, as men women, and even little children were held at bay lest they
be ripped to shreds. I will never forget the hundreds of thousand gallons of
high pressure water shooting out of fire hoses pushing good people back like
specks of dirt on the city streets, nor will I forget the images of KKK members,
taking great pride and pleasure at the inhumanity and hatred they and the police
unleashed on it's own; the citizens of Selma.

One day I would hope the ACLU changes and does what it's founder, Roger Baldwin,
intended it to be rather than impotent media whore it has become. Generally in
closing I would write "Respectfully," as I end all my letters, but in this
letter I shall simply write "Sincerely,"  I am quite certain the  ACLU can
understand why.

Sincerely,


Raymond J.Zbylut
ex-supporter of ACLU Nebraska

Cc: ACLU Omaha, c/o Tristian Bonn

Ccc: Omaha Star Newspaper

#39031 From: Sam Collins <sgcol50326@...>
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 3:31 am
Subject: Re: Re: Evolution in a new Harris poll
sgcol50326@...
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A general problem with polls, more or less regardless of subject or excellence, is that in any group of humans a small percentage are either too dumb or tired or disinterested to read or listen to the questions, and another small percentage just like to screw the results up.  I'm sure clever statistical analysis can identify and eliminate at least some of these.  Their inevitable contributions don't add much to the insight to be got from the results though.

Sam

On Dec 21, 2009, at 11:01 AM, O'Reilly, Dan P. wrote:



Hello David, Gary, Clay and all,
 
David posts:
 
http://ncse.com/
*EVOLUTION IN A NEW HARRIS POLL*
For Harris's report (PDF), visit:
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/pubs/Harris_Poll_2009_12_15.pdf
...snip...
 
Gary sez:
 
Sorry to be a Grinch on this, but I wonder if a few of the 
respondents were irritated by the term, "believe in evolution'. That 
puts accepting the theory of evolution on the same footing as 
believing in astrology or the second coming. I think that the 
theory of evolution explains the available data better than any other 
hypothesis put forward. I cringe at statements that people "believe 
in evolution."
Clay sez:
 
Worse yet, when you give people the choice of believing in a) evolution or
b) creationism, you've set up a false choice that makes many people feel bad
if they pick a.
 
Dan sez:
 
I could not agree more.  Wording is everything in these polls.  Do you believe in Darwin's theory of evolution?  Do you think the theory of evolution is the best available explanation for what we observe in nature and the fossil record?  Do you believe in evolution or creation?  Huge differences in these questions and the responses they will generate.  If you read some of the details of the report, here's one for a hoot.  97 percent of the people who identified themselves as born-again Christians believe in God.  The flip side of that is that 3 percent of the people who identified themselves as born-again Christians do not believe in God. :)  Either someone is confused or the question was worded poorly. :)
 
Dan
 
Daniel P. O'Reilly
Creighton University Registrar's Office
2500 California Plaza
Omaha, NE  68178
402-280-4025
402-280-2527 FAX
 



=

#39030 From: "rzbylut" <rzbylut@...>
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 3:29 am
Subject: Ray Z, down but not out.
rzbylut
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I haven't been to many Cafe meetings, or Saturday meetings in some time, I've
been very busy with activism that more likely than not will have the same impact
as a bumble bee stinging the thick hide of an African Bull Elephant.

The A.C.L.U has now decided almost two years after the incident to take a look
at the video and listen to the audio tapes of the infamous January 22nd 2008
"alleged" assault.  Now know, I did not say assault as I have learnd always say
"alleged" assualt or Marty Conboy WILL PROSECUTE!  Maybe it was due to a letter
I sent to them that made them ashamed? I'll post that letter next for your
amusement.

Other NGO's have also expressed interest as well. I won't even think of having a
glimmer of hope or wishfull thinking, as wise man once wrote: "if one expects
nothing, then one will never be disappointed."

But these past two years I have been concentrating on this issue, and as I wrote
recently to a Douglas County Public Official, guilty men do not dedicate the
remainder of their lives after they had served their time, or paid thier fine,
the move on as they know the truth of their indiscretion. The innocent will
however are compelled to spend their remeining lives seeking the truth, and
seeking justice, it would be impossable to live with it otherwise.

Can there be any doubt why those poor & innocent sheep herders become committed
members of the Taliban, or hardened Disciples of Osama Bin Laden after being
tossed into Gitmo, or the other torture chamber in Bagdad, so a shithead can
pick up some easy dope money by turning in anyone to the CIA/US Armed Force
Intel.   It doesnt take a rocket scientist to understand the pyschological
pathology of this, nor of my committment which has taken me two years of work &
campaigning, and a Faust-like drive to continue on until I my ashes are flushed
down the toilet when eventuially an angry cop murders me for pissing off the
"Blue," by bringing thier misdeeds and "testilies" into the public arena once
again.

I'll be back, perhaps though much less opinionated, but unfortunately much more
focused on a singular obsession. I'll be wearing my hearing aid more often as
well, and keep my mind open more than before.

And thank you to those who believed in me from the start,and beleived in me
after the bogus conviction.

#39029 From: "Harvey Madison" <hmadison99@...>
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 2:54 am
Subject: Re: Prayer Efficacy Research (Rant)
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I pledge allegiance to the flag of the sovereign nation of Rationalia,
And to its Supreme Dictator for Life, Harvey Madison, for which it stands,
One nation, under sky, with lobster and free love for all (not to mention weed).
 
Apologies to Bill Watterson
creator of Calvin and Hobbs

#39028 From: Raymond Zbylut <rzbylut@...>
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 2:42 am
Subject: Re:
rzbylut
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I recall Skeptic Inquirer did a write up years back on Lourdes, and Hospital patients who experienced spontanious cures of cancer, the results showed the hospitals were as "miraculous," as is Lourdes, therefore sponatious cures of certain illnesses are a natural happening. It does not matter if a fish swims in holy water from the Vatican, Lourdes, or  from Carter lake, it can thrive in either or die in either,  


#39027 From: "Skryja, David" <david.skryja@...>
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 12:11 am
Subject: African and African-American genetics
dskryja
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http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-12/uop-gsc121809.php

 

21-Dec-2009

Genetic study clarifies African and African-American ancestry

Collaboration by University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University

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PHILADELPHIA –- People who identify as African-American may be as little as 1 percent West African or as much as 99 percent, just one finding of a large-scale, genome-wide study of African and African-American ancestry released today.

An international research team led by scientists from the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University has collected and analyzed genotype data from 365 African-Americans, 203 people from 12 West African populations and 400 Europeans from 42 countries to provide a genome-wide perspective of African and African-American ancestry.

The data reveal genomic diversity among African and African-American populations far more complex than originally thought and reflect deep historical, cultural and linguistic impacts on gene flow among populations. The data also point to the ability of geneticists to reliably discern ancestry using such data. Scientists found, for example, that they could distinguish African and European ancestry at each region of the genome of self-identified-African Americans.

Sarah Tishkoff, a geneticist at Penn, and Carlos Bustamante, a computational biologist at Cornell, led the study to analyze 300,000 genetic markers from across the genome from West African, African-American and European-American populations to see whether they could reliably distinguish ancestry.

The team found that, while some West African populations are nearly indistinguishable, there are clear and discernible genetic differences among some groups, divided along linguistic and geographic lines.

This newly acquired genetic data revealed a number of important advances, including:

·         The rich mosaic of African-American ancestry. Among the 365 African-Americans in the study, individuals had as little as 1 percent West African ancestry and as much as 99 percent. There are significant implications for pharmacogenomic studies and assessment of disease risk. It appears that the range of genetic ancestry captured under the term African-American is extremely diverse, suggesting that caution should be used in prescribing treatment based on differential guidelines for African-Americans.

·         A median proportion of European ancestry in African-Americans of 18.5 percent, with large variation among individuals.

·         The predominately African origin of X chromosomes of African-Americans. This is consistent with the pattern of gene flow where mothers were mostly of African ancestry while fathers were either of African or European ancestry.

·         A technique which can reliably distinguish African and European ancestry for any particular region of the genome in African-Americans. This could have implications for personalized ancestry reconstructions, personalized medicine and more effective drug treatments and could aid in developing more effective methods for mapping genetic risk factors for diseases common in African-Americans, such as hypertension, diabetes and prostate cancer.

·         The similarity of the West African component of African-American ancestry to the profile from non-Bantu Niger-Kordofanian speaking populations, which include the Igbo and Yoruba from Nigeria and the Brong from Ghana

·         A comparison of the West African segments of African-American genomes. This is wholly in line with historical documents showing that the Igbo and Yoruba are two of the 10 most frequent ethnicities in slave trade records; however, most African-Americans also have ancestry from Bantu-speaking populations in western Africa.

·         Population structure within the West African samples reflecting primarily language and secondarily geographical distance, echoing the Bantu expansion from a homeland in West Africa across much of sub-Saharan Africa around 4,000 years ago.

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"Africa, which is the homeland of all modern humans, contains more than 2,000 ethnolinguistic groups and harbors great genetic and phenotypic diversity; however, little is known about fine-scale population structure at a genome-wide level," said Tishkoff, professor in the departments of genetics and biology at Penn. "We were able to distinguish among closely related West African populations and showed that genetically inferred ancestry correlates strongly with geography and language, reflecting historic migration events in Africa.

"We were also able to show that there is little genetic differentiation among African-Americans in the African portion of their ancestry, reflecting the fact that most African-Americans have ancestry from several regions of western Africa. The greatest variation among African-Americans is in their proportion of European ancestry, which has important implications for the design of personalized medical treatments."

The study focused primarily on the genetic structure of West African populations, as previous genetic and historical studies suggested that the region was the source for most of the ancestry of present-day African-Americans. The results suggest that there are clear and discernible genetic differences among some of the West African populations, whereas others appear to be nearly indistinguishable, even when comparing more than 300,000 genetic markers. The researchers note that a larger sample size would likely reveal further substructure and diversity between these populations.

Analyzing patterns of population structure and individual ancestry in Africans and African-Americans illuminates the history of human populations and is critical for undertaking medical genomic studies on a global scale. Understanding ancestry not only provides insight into historical migration patterns, human origins and greater understanding of evolutionary forces, but also allows researchers to examine disease susceptibility and pharmacogenic response, and to develop personalized drugs and treatments, a frontier in public health.

There is also strong reason to believe that high-density genotype data from African and African-American populations may pinpoint more precisely the geographic origin of African ancestry in African-Americans, the researchers said. The study appears online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, David and Lucile Packard and Burroughs Wellcome Foundation.

Research was conducted by lead author Katarzyna Bryca and Adam Autona of the Department of Biological Statistics and Computational Biology, Cornell; Matthew R. Nelson of GlaxoSmithKline; Jorge R. Oksenberg and Stephen L. Hauser of the Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco; Scott Williams of the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Vanderbilt University; Alain Froment of the Unité Mixte de Recherche in Paris; Jean-Marie Bodo of the Ministére de la Recherche Scientifique et de l'Innovation in Cameroon; Charles Wambebe of the International Biomedical Research in Nigeria; and principal investigators Tishkoff and Bustamante.

 


#39026 From: Gary Jones <garyjones2@...>
Date: Tue Dec 22, 2009 12:01 am
Subject: Re: vampires & angels, theocracy & fanaticism
garyjones2@...
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John,

Good point - but somewhere in the dim recesses of my mind, which is mostly recesses or maybe just out to recess lately, I seem to remember that Satan was described as an angel that had tried to overthrow God.  If that is in the Bible, then at least some angels did have free will and your rabbi was wrong.  On the other hand, trying to think rationally of winged beings I don't believe in gives me a headache.

Gary
On Dec 21, 2009, at 2:18 PM, Laurey Steinke wrote:

 

Yep, it was the same sort of thinking that led me to question the beliefs in which I was raised.  Petulant 2 year old was the phrase that came to mind.

-laurey


 
Oddly enough, a question about angels to a rabbi helped put me on the road to rationality.
He was expounding on a biblical passage where a host of angels was praising god, perhaps
out of Ezekiel (I've forgotten, and I'm too lazy to look it up.)  At any rate, I asked him if angels
had free will.  He replied that they didn't.  It immediately occurred to me that the vision of a
bunch of angels praising god ought to be about as impressive as if I'd designed a bunch of
wind-up toys to go around singing praises to me.  It would certainly suggest I had ego problems,
if nothing else!  More ridiculous than impressive, a sort of cheap trick.

John P. 



-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Bechtel <jimbechtel2@cox.net>
To: Reason <Reason-Omaha@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sun, Dec 20, 2009 10:55 am
Subject: [Reason-Omaha] vampires & angels, theocracy & fanaticism



The continuing rise of the irrational:
1. "What are angels? Did we invent them the way we invented Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Boogey Man who frightens little children into being good? Where do angels come from?" Anne Rice asks these three questions and then ignores the central one about us inventing them.  Instead she answers the first: "Angels are dazzling expressions of God's love for his children," and second: "They come to us right out of the pages of the Bible, complete with their powerful wings." If the Bible says (or even just hints) they exist, then they must be real. (And maybe vampires too?)
What th'? Can you believe Parade magazine, which used to publish Sagan, now spreads this crap?
(And I think Rice's reputation is overblown, she quickly went downhill. For vampire tales I prefer Chelsea Quinn Yarbro.)
 
2. No separation of church & state for c 3/4 of mankind. 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.
http://www.parade.com/news/2009/12/20-the-angels-among-us.html
The Angels Among Us
by Anne Rice
published: 12/20/2009
Related Features
1. How Spiritual Are We?
2. Spirituality in America
Author Anne Rice started the vampire craze 33 years ago with her novel "Interview With the Vampire." Recently, she has turned her thoughts-and writing-to angels. (Her latest novel is "Angel Time.") In this season of holiday spirit, we asked Rice why we need angels.
What are angels? Did we invent them the way we invented Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Boogey Man who frightens little children into being good? Where do angels come from?
These days, we see angels everywhere. Gift shops offer gold-and-silver angels as Christmas ornaments and statuettes. Angel faces are featured in beautifully framed paintings and on greeting cards. Angels in plastic or porcelain decorate mantelpieces and dashboards. Countless books on angels, some filled with accounts of visitations, others claiming to know secrets about angels, fill shelves. Some even suggest how to talk to angels and how to hear their voices in return.
Almost any schoolchild can describe angels. They are nearly always tall, slender beings with soft shoulder-length hair and graceful flowing robes. They may wear sandals, but they never wear shoes. Most of the time, their toes peek out from beneath their gowns. But what really makes an angel is a pair of huge, spreading, white-feathered wings. Even roly-poly baby angels, called cherubs, have those all-important white wings.
Wherever and however they appear, angels offer consolation. They smile with infinite patience; they look lovingly on those of us whom they guard. Friends offering angel gifts are seeking to remind us that angels provide safety and peace.
Angels are not a modern invention. And they may not be an invention at all. They come to us right out of the pages of the Bible, complete with their powerful wings. In the Book of Exodus, winged cherubim are carved on the Ark of the Covenant. And in the Book of Isaiah, the prophet sees the powerful winged seraphim singing before the throne of God.
A choir of angels sings to celebrate the birth of Jesus. And Jesus assures us that little children have their special guardian angels, while later on, in the garden of Gethsemane, an angel comes to comfort Jesus himself.
Indeed, all we know about angels comes from holy writ, and countless biblical scholars have developed our notions of guardian angels and angels sent to Earth in answer to our prayers.
Though no female angel appears in the Bible, there is no reason, apparently, that angels cannot take a female form. They themselves are beyond gender, and the bodies in which they appear are either illusions or specially made for a particular purpose and soon discarded once no longer in use. Angels are pure spirit; their natural dwelling place is Heaven. But they are always very busy on our behalf here on Earth.
It is no surprise that these beings fascinate us, splendid and ethereal as they are. We cannot help but wonder what angels think about as they come and go, intervening in our lives for the good. Do they have feelings? Do they like one assignment better than another? Do they learn from us as we learn from them?
Hollywood films have given us a variety of angel personalities, from the delightful little Clarence Oddbody of It's a Wonderful Life to John Travolta's beer-drinking, belching angel in Michael. In the TV shows Touched by an Angel and Highway to Heaven, the angelic stars, played by Roma Downey and Michael Landon, were known by their innate serenity and tireless good will.
Today, as readers and audiences obsess over vampires, one can't help but wonder if those fans aren't really seeking angels. After all, in the best-selling book (and blockbuster movie) Twilight, Edward the vampire is the protector of the young heroine Bella, saving her from evil humans as well as evil immortals. A good vampire also strives to protect against a bad vampire in the Vampire Diaries novels, now a show on the CW network. And in True Blood, the HBO series based on the popular books, waitress Sookie Stackhouse finds a stalwart guardian in the person of a handsome vampire as well.
Like angels, vampires are powerful and mysterious beings who aren't subject to the ravages of old age or time. Like angels, vampires are often described and portrayed as extremely beautiful. Like angels, vampires look human and sound human, though they are not.
But vampires are sad creatures. They speak to us of confusion and the longing to be human. They struggle in the darkness, lamenting the loss of the light.
Perhaps the whole vampire craze can be related to the age-old yearning for a loving, eloquent supernatural presence that will save us from the perils and disasters of ordinary life.
With angels we are most certainly on surer ground. Our oldest religious texts assure us that the Almighty does indeed have such wondrous messengers and helpers, and that He sends them to Earth only to do good. One cannot help but be glad that once the present vampire craze is over, angels will still be busy guarding their earthly charges and answering prayers.  
Angels are dazzling expressions of God's love for his children. Not only do they bring hope to the weary, but they are always pointing upward, promising that at the end of life's journey, they will be there to carry us to that greatest of all mysteries, the bliss and splendor of our heavenly home.
------------------------------------
 
2.
70% lack freedom of religion
NEW YORK (AP) - In Indone°©sia, Muslim groups burn down a mosque belonging to the minor°©ity Ahmadiyya. In Singapore, the government refuses to recognize Jehovah's Witnesses. In Belgium, 68 religion-based hate crimes are reported in 2007 alone.
People living in a third of all countries are restricted from practicing religion freely, either because of government policies and laws or hostile acts by indi
°©viduals or groups, according to a report released this week by the Pew Research Center, "Global Restrictions on Religion."
That amounts to 70 percent of the globe's population, since some of the most restrictive countries are very populous.
Of the world's 25 most popu
°©lous countries, citizens in Iran, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and India live with the most restric°©tions when both measures are taken into account, the study in°©dicated.
"Where those two come to
°©gether is where it's most in°©tense," said Brian Grim, senior researcher at the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life.
The United States, Brazil, Ja
°©pan, Italy, South Africa and the United Kingdom have the fewest restrictions on religious practices when measured by both govern°©ment infringement and religion°©-based violence or harassment, according to the study.
Timothy Shah, a senior re
°©search scholar at Boston Uni°©versity who is familiar with the study, said he was struck by the fact that more than 30 countries have high levels of both govern°©ment and social restrictions on religion.
Shah pointed to Nigeria, where 12 majority-Muslim states adopt
°©ed the Islamic Shariah criminal code after returning to civilian rule in 1999, resulting in hostili°©ties against religious minorities.
The report found that the per
°©centage of the world's countries with high or very high govern°©ment restrictions is at about 20 percent, which amounts to 57 percent of the world's popula°©tion. These countries include Saudi Arabia, Iran and former communist countries, such as Russia, Belarus and Bulgaria, where state atheism has been re°©placed by favored religions that are accorded special protections or privileges.





-- 
Laurey Steinke, Ph.D
Assistant Professor
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Protein Structure Core Facility
985819 Nebraska Medical Center
Omaha, NE  68198-5819
T:  (402) 559-5176
F:  (402) 559-6646
http://www.unmc.edu/pscf/



#39025 From: "Skryja, David" <david.skryja@...>
Date: Mon Dec 21, 2009 11:51 pm
Subject: Tetrodotoxin and evolution
dskryja
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/science/22creature.html?ref=science 

 

December 22, 2009

Remarkable Creatures

Whatever Doesn’t Kill Some Animals Can Make Them Deadly

By SEAN B. CARROLL

Have you ever tried to think up the worst meal you could imagine? How about blue-ringed octopus, floral egg crab, basket shell snails and puffer fish.

Sure, some people may think these are delicacies, and puffer fish is certainly treated as such in parts of Asia. But each dish has something more important in common: they are all deadly. Each of these animals is chock full of a powerful neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin.

First isolated from the puffer fish, tetrodotoxin is among the most potent toxins known. It is 100 times as toxic by weight as potassium cyanide — two milligrams can kill an adult human — and it is not destroyed by cooking. Just half an ounce of the fish liver, known as fugu kimo in Japan and eaten by daring connoisseurs, can be lethal. When ingested, the toxin paralyzes nerves and muscles, which leads to respiratory failure and, in some cases each year, death.

In 1975, the Kabuki actor Bando Mitsugoro VIII ordered four fugu kimo in a restaurant in Kyoto, claiming he could resist the poison. He was wrong.

Tetrodotoxin is found in more than just marine creatures. It is present in high concentrations in the skin of certain newts in North America and Japan, and in several kinds of frogs in Central and South America and Bangladesh. The widespread occurrence of tetrodotoxin poses some intriguing riddles. First, how is it that such different animals, belonging to separate branches of the animal kingdom, have all come to possess the same deadly poison? And how is it that they are able to tolerate high levels of tetrodotoxin while others cannot?

The questions are particularly interesting because, in general, animal toxins are distinct and specific to each group. For instance, the venoms produced by snakes and scorpions are made of different kinds of toxins. But the tetrodotoxin found in each dish of that deadly buffet is identical.

One explanation could be that each of these animals has independently found a way to synthesize tetrodotoxin. But the toxin is a rather complex molecule that requires several chemical steps to assemble. It seems very unlikely that the molecule would be invented many times over in different animals. Rather, the evidence suggests that animals do not make the toxin themselves.

For instance, when puffer fish are raised in aquariums with filtered, bacteria-free water, they are nontoxic. Similarly, when Japanese newts or Panamanian frogs are raised on special diets, they lose their toxicity. These experiments indicate that tetrodotoxin-bearing animals obtain the toxin from the food chain. Indeed, several species of tetrodotoxin-producing bacteria have now been isolated from puffer fish, the blue-ringed octopus, certain snails and other animals. It appears that the animals become toxic by sequestering the bacterially produced toxin in their tissues.

While those discoveries solve the mystery of the source of tetrodotoxin, they do not quite explain how so many kinds of animals exploit it. Tetrodotoxin attacks an ancient feature of the animal kingdom, blocking channels that normally control the movement of sodium ions across nerve and muscle cell membranes and halting their electrical activity. All animals have these sodium ion channels, and the part of the channel that tetrodotoxin fits into and blocks is generally very similar among them.

This fact raises a simple question: Why aren’t puffer fish dead? How are tetrodotoxin-bearing animals able to withstand high levels of a substance that attacks their nervous systems?

One clue is that not all 120 or so species of puffer fish are toxic or resistant to tetrodotoxin. Toxic species can withstand about 500 to 1,000 times the concentration of tetrodotoxin compared with nontoxic puffers or other fish. The flower egg crab is similarly resistant, and the Japanese newt can withstand an even greater relative concentration of toxin. Most other crabs and newts are sensitive to tetrodotoxin. There must be something different then about toxic, tetrodotoxin-resistant species.

That difference becomes clear from examining their sodium channels in detail. Puffer fish have eight versions of these channels encoded by eight separate genes. Manda Clair Jost and her colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Chicago have discovered that in toxic puffer fish, most or all of these channels have evolved resistance to tetrodotoxin and different groups of puffer fish appear to have independently acquired resistance. Toxin-resistant channels have also been identified in a Japanese newt.

So the most plausible chain of events for the evolution of high-level toxin resistance is that mutations initially occur that afford some protection and that the continuing presence of tetrodotoxin in the environment selects for animals bearing additional mutations until, over time, many or all channels are highly resistant. In this sense, what does not kill the evolving animals makes them stronger, and deadly.

In most cases, tetrodotoxin is an effective defensive weapon. But in the game of natural selection, victory is rarely total or permanent. Predators could evolve resistance via the same path that made prey toxic, and this is exactly what has happened in some snakes in the western United States that now feast on highly toxic newts.

Unlike most snakes that are immobilized, sickened or killed when they try to ingest these newts, members of three species of garter snakes are able to dine on the toxic amphibians. A team of researchers led by Edmund Brodie Jr. of Utah State University and his son Edmund Brodie III of the University of Virginia found that the species have independently evolved tetrodotoxin-resistant sodium channels. Indeed, some snakes from California are so resistant that the dose of toxin needed to immobilize them is sufficient to kill 900 people.

Remarkably, some of the same channel gene mutations responsible for conferring partial resistance to tetrodotoxin have occurred in different snake species. Moreover, some of these and other mutations have also occurred repeatedly in puffer fish channels.

These precise parallels in channel evolution among species reveal a surprising facet of evolution that biologists had no inkling of before the ability to pinpoint adaptive changes in DNA — namely, that evolution is more reproducible than previously thought. The simple explanation for that profound insight is that given similar agents of natural selection (tetrodotoxin in this case), very different species living in different places on the planet will evolve similar or identical adaptations.

It follows then that evolution is somewhat predictable. Given the prevalence of tetrodotoxin-producing bacteria and the many known uses of the toxin as a defensive weapon strategy, we should expect to find more toxic animal species.

With luck, the discoveries will not be made at dinner.

Sean B. Carroll, a molecular biologist and geneticist, is the author of “Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origin of Species.”

 


#39024 From: "Skryja, David" <david.skryja@...>
Date: Mon Dec 21, 2009 11:43 pm
Subject: Interesting plant stuff that I didn't know until now
dskryja
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Excerpt from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/science/22angi.html?ref=science  

 

December 21, 2009 

Dr. Hilker and her colleagues, as well as other research teams, have found that certain plants can sense when insect eggs have been deposited on their leaves and will act immediately to rid themselves of the incubating menace. They may sprout carpets of tumorlike neoplasms to knock the eggs off, or secrete ovicides to kill them, or sound the S O S. Reporting in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Hilker and her coworkers determined that when a female cabbage butterfly lays her eggs on a brussels sprout plant and attaches her treasures to the leaves with tiny dabs of glue, the vigilant vegetable detects the presence of a simple additive in the glue, benzyl cyanide. Cued by the additive, the plant swiftly alters the chemistry of its leaf surface to beckon female parasitic wasps. Spying the anchored bounty, the female wasps in turn inject their eggs inside, the gestating wasps feed on the gestating butterflies, and the plant’s problem is solved.

Here’s the lurid Edgar Allan Poetry of it: that benzyl cyanide tip-off had been donated to the female butterfly by the male during mating. “It’s an anti-aphrodisiac pheromone, so that the female wouldn’t mate anymore,” Dr. Hilker said. “The male is trying to ensure his paternity, but he ends up endangering his own offspring.”

Plants eavesdrop on one another benignly and malignly. As they described in Science and other journals, Dr. De Moraes and her colleagues have discovered that seedlings of the dodder plant, a parasitic weed related to morning glory, can detect volatile chemicals released by potential host plants like the tomato. The young dodder then grows inexorably toward the host, until it can encircle the victim’s stem and begin sucking the life phloem right out of it. The parasite can even distinguish between the scents of healthier and weaker tomato plants and then head for the hale one.

 


#39023 From: Laurey Steinke <laurey.s@...>
Date: Mon Dec 21, 2009 8:20 pm
Subject: Re: Prayer Efficacy Research (Rant)
laurey19
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What?  You mean you haven't been levitated yet?  My dad was sure that you would be.  Bet he has some explanation though.....

-laurey

 
While in the shower yesterday morning, I had a flash of insight into the prayer efficacy studies that have been done (It kept me thinking so long that I ran out of hot water.). These studies have usually used statistically significant difference between two groups as the criterion for therapeutic success of intercessory prayer - a merely detectable difference. This, in my opinion, invokes a very sloppy and improper operational definition of prayer answering.
 
The proper definition of intercessory prayer is that which asks some deity for a certain desired result. So why are we defining a several-percent improvement in patient outcomes as success? Those who believe that prayers are answered use sources such as the Hebrew and Christian bibles for their definition of prayer-answering. Holy scriptures define it as a deity fully and immediately performing the prayed-for task. If these people believe that their god answers prayers, then the target patients in a study should be immediately relieved of the subject ailment, get up, and walk out. That, in my opinion, should be the experimental definition of success, nothing less. These studies are trying to get at the existence of a claimed process that has been thoroughly defined for them, and numerous examples given in their source literature. Why are they re-defining it as something else? To a believer, these studies' definition of prayer answering should be an insult. If a god answers a prayer, it is answered. How could anyone of faith accept a god so weak that he responds to prayers asking for a cure, by helping six percent of the ailing do just a little better?
 
Seems to me a proper experiment would recruit some pious, sincere and inclined pray-ers to pray for the immediate cure of patients with urgent and well-defined, heavily disabling diseases or injuries. This could be done while pray-ers and patients are together, and the results could be measured immediately with diagnostic exams. Perhaps the most secure test to measure results would be to target patients who had been recently declared medically dead. The Christian deity assured his followers that this was a legitimate purpose for prayer action.
 
I think it is indicative of our society's and even our medical research community's desire to affirm prayer-answering, that we have allowed sloppy criteria for success to be used, and avoided definitive tests of the claimed powers of prayer.
 
Thanks for "listening."


-- 
Laurey Steinke, Ph.D
Assistant Professor
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Protein Structure Core Facility
985819 Nebraska Medical Center
Omaha, NE  68198-5819
T:  (402) 559-5176
F:  (402) 559-6646
http://www.unmc.edu/pscf/

#39022 From: Laurey Steinke <laurey.s@...>
Date: Mon Dec 21, 2009 8:18 pm
Subject: Re: vampires & angels, theocracy & fanaticism
laurey19
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Yep, it was the same sort of thinking that led me to question the beliefs in which I was raised.  Petulant 2 year old was the phrase that came to mind.

-laurey


 
Oddly enough, a question about angels to a rabbi helped put me on the road to rationality.
He was expounding on a biblical passage where a host of angels was praising god, perhaps
out of Ezekiel (I've forgotten, and I'm too lazy to look it up.)  At any rate, I asked him if angels
had free will.  He replied that they didn't.  It immediately occurred to me that the vision of a
bunch of angels praising god ought to be about as impressive as if I'd designed a bunch of
wind-up toys to go around singing praises to me.  It would certainly suggest I had ego problems,
if nothing else!  More ridiculous than impressive, a sort of cheap trick.

John P. 



-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Bechtel <jimbechtel2@...>
To: Reason <Reason-Omaha@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sun, Dec 20, 2009 10:55 am
Subject: [Reason-Omaha] vampires & angels, theocracy & fanaticism



The continuing rise of the irrational:
1. "What are angels? Did we invent them the way we invented Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Boogey Man who frightens little children into being good? Where do angels come from?" Anne Rice asks these three questions and then ignores the central one about us inventing them.  Instead she answers the first: "Angels are dazzling expressions of God's love for his children," and second: "They come to us right out of the pages of the Bible, complete with their powerful wings." If the Bible says (or even just hints) they exist, then they must be real. (And maybe vampires too?)
What th'? Can you believe Parade magazine, which used to publish Sagan, now spreads this crap?
(And I think Rice's reputation is overblown, she quickly went downhill. For vampire tales I prefer Chelsea Quinn Yarbro.)
 
2. No separation of church & state for c 3/4 of mankind. 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.
http://www.parade.com/news/2009/12/20-the-angels-among-us.html
The Angels Among Us
by Anne Rice
published: 12/20/2009
Related Features
1. How Spiritual Are We?
2. Spirituality in America
Author Anne Rice started the vampire craze 33 years ago with her novel "Interview With the Vampire." Recently, she has turned her thoughts-and writing-to angels. (Her latest novel is "Angel Time.") In this season of holiday spirit, we asked Rice why we need angels.
What are angels? Did we invent them the way we invented Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Boogey Man who frightens little children into being good? Where do angels come from?
These days, we see angels everywhere. Gift shops offer gold-and-silver angels as Christmas ornaments and statuettes. Angel faces are featured in beautifully framed paintings and on greeting cards. Angels in plastic or porcelain decorate mantelpieces and dashboards. Countless books on angels, some filled with accounts of visitations, others claiming to know secrets about angels, fill shelves. Some even suggest how to talk to angels and how to hear their voices in return.
Almost any schoolchild can describe angels. They are nearly always tall, slender beings with soft shoulder-length hair and graceful flowing robes. They may wear sandals, but they never wear shoes. Most of the time, their toes peek out from beneath their gowns. But what really makes an angel is a pair of huge, spreading, white-feathered wings. Even roly-poly baby angels, called cherubs, have those all-important white wings.
Wherever and however they appear, angels offer consolation. They smile with infinite patience; they look lovingly on those of us whom they guard. Friends offering angel gifts are seeking to remind us that angels provide safety and peace.
Angels are not a modern invention. And they may not be an invention at all. They come to us right out of the pages of the Bible, complete with their powerful wings. In the Book of Exodus, winged cherubim are carved on the Ark of the Covenant. And in the Book of Isaiah, the prophet sees the powerful winged seraphim singing before the throne of God.
A choir of angels sings to celebrate the birth of Jesus. And Jesus assures us that little children have their special guardian angels, while later on, in the garden of Gethsemane, an angel comes to comfort Jesus himself.
Indeed, all we know about angels comes from holy writ, and countless biblical scholars have developed our notions of guardian angels and angels sent to Earth in answer to our prayers.
Though no female angel appears in the Bible, there is no reason, apparently, that angels cannot take a female form. They themselves are beyond gender, and the bodies in which they appear are either illusions or specially made for a particular purpose and soon discarded once no longer in use. Angels are pure spirit; their natural dwelling place is Heaven. But they are always very busy on our behalf here on Earth.
It is no surprise that these beings fascinate us, splendid and ethereal as they are. We cannot help but wonder what angels think about as they come and go, intervening in our lives for the good. Do they have feelings? Do they like one assignment better than another? Do they learn from us as we learn from them?
Hollywood films have given us a variety of angel personalities, from the delightful little Clarence Oddbody of It's a Wonderful Life to John Travolta's beer-drinking, belching angel in Michael. In the TV shows Touched by an Angel and Highway to Heaven, the angelic stars, played by Roma Downey and Michael Landon, were known by their innate serenity and tireless good will.
Today, as readers and audiences obsess over vampires, one can't help but wonder if those fans aren't really seeking angels. After all, in the best-selling book (and blockbuster movie) Twilight, Edward the vampire is the protector of the young heroine Bella, saving her from evil humans as well as evil immortals. A good vampire also strives to protect against a bad vampire in the Vampire Diaries novels, now a show on the CW network. And in True Blood, the HBO series based on the popular books, waitress Sookie Stackhouse finds a stalwart guardian in the person of a handsome vampire as well.
Like angels, vampires are powerful and mysterious beings who aren't subject to the ravages of old age or time. Like angels, vampires are often described and portrayed as extremely beautiful. Like angels, vampires look human and sound human, though they are not.
But vampires are sad creatures. They speak to us of confusion and the longing to be human. They struggle in the darkness, lamenting the loss of the light.
Perhaps the whole vampire craze can be related to the age-old yearning for a loving, eloquent supernatural presence that will save us from the perils and disasters of ordinary life.
With angels we are most certainly on surer ground. Our oldest religious texts assure us that the Almighty does indeed have such wondrous messengers and helpers, and that He sends them to Earth only to do good. One cannot help but be glad that once the present vampire craze is over, angels will still be busy guarding their earthly charges and answering prayers.  
Angels are dazzling expressions of God's love for his children. Not only do they bring hope to the weary, but they are always pointing upward, promising that at the end of life's journey, they will be there to carry us to that greatest of all mysteries, the bliss and splendor of our heavenly home.
------------------------------------
 
2.
70% lack freedom of religion
NEW YORK (AP) - In Indone°©sia, Muslim groups burn down a mosque belonging to the minor°©ity Ahmadiyya. In Singapore, the government refuses to recognize Jehovah's Witnesses. In Belgium, 68 religion-based hate crimes are reported in 2007 alone.
People living in a third of all countries are restricted from practicing religion freely, either because of government policies and laws or hostile acts by indi
°©viduals or groups, according to a report released this week by the Pew Research Center, "Global Restrictions on Religion."
That amounts to 70 percent of the globe's population, since some of the most restrictive countries are very populous.
Of the world's 25 most popu
°©lous countries, citizens in Iran, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and India live with the most restric°©tions when both measures are taken into account, the study in°©dicated.
"Where those two come to
°©gether is where it's most in°©tense," said Brian Grim, senior researcher at the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life.
The United States, Brazil, Ja
°©pan, Italy, South Africa and the United Kingdom have the fewest restrictions on religious practices when measured by both govern°©ment infringement and religion°©-based violence or harassment, according to the study.
Timothy Shah, a senior re
°©search scholar at Boston Uni°©versity who is familiar with the study, said he was struck by the fact that more than 30 countries have high levels of both govern°©ment and social restrictions on religion.
Shah pointed to Nigeria, where 12 majority-Muslim states adopt
°©ed the Islamic Shariah criminal code after returning to civilian rule in 1999, resulting in hostili°©ties against religious minorities.
The report found that the per
°©centage of the world's countries with high or very high govern°©ment restrictions is at about 20 percent, which amounts to 57 percent of the world's popula°©tion. These countries include Saudi Arabia, Iran and former communist countries, such as Russia, Belarus and Bulgaria, where state atheism has been re°©placed by favored religions that are accorded special protections or privileges.





-- 
Laurey Steinke, Ph.D
Assistant Professor
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Protein Structure Core Facility
985819 Nebraska Medical Center
Omaha, NE  68198-5819
T:  (402) 559-5176
F:  (402) 559-6646
http://www.unmc.edu/pscf/

#39021 From: "Jim Bechtel" <jimbechtel2@...>
Date: Mon Dec 21, 2009 6:44 pm
Subject: Re: Prayer Efficacy Research -Lourdes
jimbechtel2@...
Send Email Send Email
 
And nobody reports missing limbs growing back.
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 12:39 PM
Subject: Re: [Reason-Omaha] Prayer Efficacy Research (Rant)

 

re the law of large numbers, many very sick people visit Lourdes each
year..........many tens of thousands.........by natural causes/luck, some
get better for some reason. although they are few, people tend to remember
their stories and forget the 99% who die.

Mark P


#39020 From: mpackard@...
Date: Mon Dec 21, 2009 6:39 pm
Subject: Re: Prayer Efficacy Research (Rant)
mark_packard
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re the law of large numbers, many very sick people visit Lourdes each
year..........many tens of thousands.........by natural causes/luck, some
get better for some reason.  although they are few, people tend to remember
their stories and forget the 99% who die.

Mark P

#39019 From: "Jim Bechtel" <jimbechtel2@...>
Date: Mon Dec 21, 2009 3:33 pm
Subject: threat from pseudoscience
jimbechtel2@...
Send Email Send Email
 
 At the Solstice party (and thanks again to Laurey & Joel for hosting; it was great food, great conversation & great fun) George said he's been in dialogue with a new chiropractor who (like most) opposes vaccination. Let's hope she saw this morning's WH editorial (below).
Also, here are two excellent articles for her from the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine (I also have hard-copies of them):
How chiropractic threatens public health (by a whistle-blowing reformist chiropractor): http://www.chirobase.org/01General/risk.html
Their anti-vaccination campaign:
 
 
NAYSAYERS ESPOUSE DANGEROUS VIEW
Facts on vaccines

O
pponents of vaccination, who cling to the wrongheaded notion that vaccines for such diseases as whooping cough, measles and H1N1 flu threaten their children, make their point loudly and often. Their success, however, is others’ despair.
Using vaccination to break the spread of disease reduces the likelihood that a susceptible person will meet up with an infected person.
Thus, if 92 percent to 94 percent of a population is vaccinated against whooping cough, the resulting “herd immunity” will likely keep the 6 percent to 8 percent of unvaccinated individuals — infants too young to receive the vaccine, for example — safe.
When celebrities or other dissenters who denounce vaccines convince enough parents to withhold the usual childhood vaccines from their kids, the herd immunity threshold isn’t reached and an epidemic can sweep through an area.
New South Wales, a state on Australia’s north coast, provides an example. There, at least three ba­bies died and 19,000 people came down with whoop­ing cough, or pertussis, earlier this year. The anti­vaccine crowd was active in the area, convincing enough parents to withhold vaccines to thwart herd immunity. Thus, the epidemic.
One of the babies who died was 4-month-old Dana McCaffrey, who was unlucky enough to be born in an area of Australia where vaccination rates for pertussis were particularly low — only about 67 per­cent. Dana’s parents, Toni and David, are pressing an educational campaign in their country to counter the anti-scientific and dangerous propaganda being spread by opponents of childhood vaccines.
Decades upon decades of scientific research as well as the millions of cases of disease that have been prevented by vaccines provide proof. UNICEF has reported that each year, vaccination saves more than 2 million lives around the world.
Meanwhile, as a 2002 article in the British Medi­cal Journal reported, opponents of vaccines, whose cause goes back 150 years, haven’t changed their faulty arguments in all that time.
When vaccination opponents are believed, the con­sequences
can be horrendous — as the parents of Dana McCaffrey can sadly confirm.

#39018 From: "lclane2" <llane1@...>
Date: Mon Dec 21, 2009 5:50 pm
Subject: Re: Prayer Efficacy Research (Rant)
lclane2
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Prayer effects are less significant than the literature indicates. Note that 1
in 20 well designed experiments will be randomly significant at the 5% level as
will a higher proportion of badly designed experiments.

One can assure finding statistical significance by considering many hypotheses
(or many ways of classifying data) post hoc and then claiming that those that
show statistical significance were the starting hypotheses. Reviewers will be
obliged to accept your testimony that they were the original hypotheses. Of
course noboby will be able to reproduce the result, but then again what
competent researcher would want to repeat the experiment?

--- In Reason-Omaha@yahoogroups.com, "Jim Bechtel" <jimbechtel2@...> wrote:
>
> Harv;
> I like it! Yeah, why such a feeble statistical response from Yahweh, barely
detectable among the random fluctuations in studies? Hey, maybe the answer is
he's a Woody-Allen type under-achiever incompetent god, kind of a low-grade
moron?
> Clay;
> I like it! And let's extend it beyond an island & visas, to a world-wide
prohibition of science deniers from using the products of science. Computers
cannot be used for horoscopes, global warming deniers are forbidden to use
air-conditioning, creationists can't get flu shots (constantly upgraded for the
evolving virus threats), literalists must join the Amish and not use cars or
electricity, and abortion opponents will be required to turn down medical
services during pregnancies, praying instead for success of the pregnancy, and
holding funerals for specks, clots and clumps (with teeny tiny coffins) if the
pregnancy's unsuccessful.
>
>
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Clayton Naff
>   To: Reason-Omaha@yahoogroups.com
>   Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 8:22 AM
>   Subject: Re: [Reason-Omaha] Prayer Efficacy Research (Rant)
>
>
>
>   Harvey,
>
>      I like what you have written here, but I think I may have an even better
test of the efficacy of prayer.
>
>     I would like to propose that those of us who are not believers put our
nonfaith to the test: let us pick a day and time, and each take a public vow:
>
>   "I [state your name*] do solemnly affirm that if, upon buying this lotto
ticket and praying for a winning number, I am declared the winner of a
multimillion dollar jackpot,  I will upon accepting the check attribute my
winnings to the power of the deity and bear witness thereunto."
>
>   Now, if one of us should happen to win, it will be a small price to pay for
being a millionaire. As for the unlucky losers, the rest of us will of course
point out that highly unlikely things happen every day, that the power of big
numbers can produce what look like miracles, and that that idiot [state your
name] was always kind of wobbly when it came to atheism and I hope he chokes on
all that money! Etc., etc., etc.
>
>   The winner could then buy an island and found the tiny nation of Rationalia,
where visa requirements would include a declaration that the applicant rejects
all forms of superstition and paranormal nonsense. His former rationalist
friends would then have to make crawling apologies and say they knew all along
that he was a helluva great guy, yea, truly a prophet of straight thinking.
>
>   I think this would greatly advance the understanding of prayer, don't you?
#;-)
>
>   Best regards,
>
>
>   Clay
>
>   * tip o' the hat to Steve Martin and his Non-Conformist's Pledge
>
>
>
>
>
>   On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 10:44 PM, Harvey Madison <hmadison99@...> wrote:
>
>
>
>     While in the shower yesterday morning, I had a flash of insight into the
prayer efficacy studies that have been done (It kept me thinking so long that I
ran out of hot water.). These studies have usually used statistically
significant difference between two groups as the criterion for therapeutic
success of intercessory prayer - a merely detectable difference. This, in my
opinion, invokes a very sloppy and improper operational definition of prayer
answering.
>
>     The proper definition of intercessory prayer is that which asks some deity
for a certain desired result. So why are we defining a several-percent
improvement in patient outcomes as success? Those who believe that prayers are
answered use sources such as the Hebrew and Christian bibles for their
definition of prayer-answering. Holy scriptures define it as a deity fully and
immediately performing the prayed-for task. If these people believe that their
god answers prayers, then the target patients in a study should be immediately
relieved of the subject ailment, get up, and walk out. That, in my opinion,
should be the experimental definition of success, nothing less. These studies
are trying to get at the existence of a claimed process that has been thoroughly
defined for them, and numerous examples given in their source literature. Why
are they re-defining it as something else? To a believer, these studies'
definition of prayer answering should be an insult. If a god answers a prayer,
it is answered. How could anyone of faith accept a god so weak that he responds
to prayers asking for a cure, by helping six percent of the ailing do just a
little better?
>
>     Seems to me a proper experiment would recruit some pious, sincere and
inclined pray-ers to pray for the immediate cure of patients with urgent and
well-defined, heavily disabling diseases or injuries. This could be done while
pray-ers and patients are together, and the results could be measured
immediately with diagnostic exams. Perhaps the most secure test to measure
results would be to target patients who had been recently declared medically
dead. The Christian deity assured his followers that this was a legitimate
purpose for prayer action.
>
>     I think it is indicative of our society's and even our medical research
community's desire to affirm prayer-answering, that we have allowed sloppy
criteria for success to be used, and avoided definitive tests of the claimed
powers of prayer.
>
>     Thanks for "listening."
>
>
>
>   --
>   Clay Farris Naff
>   Executive Director, Lincoln Literacy Council
>   Member, National Association of Science Writers
>   Vice President, Nebraska Citizens for Science
>   www.claynaff.com
>   (402) 310-0572
>   Lincoln, NE
>   USA
>

#39017 From: "O'Reilly, Dan P." <daniel@...>
Date: Mon Dec 21, 2009 5:01 pm
Subject: Re: Evolution in a new Harris poll
daniel@...
Send Email Send Email
 
Hello David, Gary, Clay and all,
 
David posts:
 
http://ncse.com/
*EVOLUTION IN A NEW HARRIS POLL*
For Harris's report (PDF), visit:
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/pubs/Harris_Poll_2009_12_15.pdf
...snip...
 
Gary sez:
 
Sorry to be a Grinch on this, but I wonder if a few of the
respondents were irritated by the term, "believe in evolution'. That
puts accepting the theory of evolution on the same footing as
believing in astrology or the second coming. I think that the
theory of evolution explains the available data better than any other
hypothesis put forward. I cringe at statements that people "believe
in evolution."
Clay sez:
 
Worse yet, when you give people the choice of believing in a) evolution or
b) creationism, you've set up a false choice that makes many people feel bad
if they pick a.
 
Dan sez:
 
I could not agree more.  Wording is everything in these polls.  Do you believe in Darwin's theory of evolution?  Do you think the theory of evolution is the best available explanation for what we observe in nature and the fossil record?  Do you believe in evolution or creation?  Huge differences in these questions and the responses they will generate.  If you read some of the details of the report, here's one for a hoot.  97 percent of the people who identified themselves as born-again Christians believe in God.  The flip side of that is that 3 percent of the people who identified themselves as born-again Christians do not believe in God. :)  Either someone is confused or the question was worded poorly. :)
 
Dan
 
Daniel P. O'Reilly
Creighton University Registrar's Office
2500 California Plaza
Omaha, NE  68178
402-280-4025
402-280-2527 FAX
 

#39016 From: "Jim Bechtel" <jimbechtel2@...>
Date: Mon Dec 21, 2009 2:56 pm
Subject: Re: Prayer Efficacy Research (Rant)
jimbechtel2@...
Send Email Send Email
 
Harv;
I like it! Yeah, why such a feeble statistical response from Yahweh, barely detectable among the random fluctuations in studies? Hey, maybe the answer is he's a Woody-Allen type under-achiever incompetent god, kind of a low-grade moron?
Clay;
I like it! And let's extend it beyond an island & visas, to a world-wide prohibition of science deniers from using the products of science. Computers cannot be used for horoscopes, global warming deniers are forbidden to use air-conditioning, creationists can't get flu shots (constantly upgraded for the evolving virus threats), literalists must join the Amish and not use cars or electricity, and abortion opponents will be required to turn down medical services during pregnancies, praying instead for success of the pregnancy, and holding funerals for specks, clots and clumps (with teeny tiny coffins) if the pregnancy's unsuccessful.  
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 8:22 AM
Subject: Re: [Reason-Omaha] Prayer Efficacy Research (Rant)

 

Harvey,

   I like what you have written here, but I think I may have an even better test of the efficacy of prayer.

  I would like to propose that those of us who are not believers put our nonfaith to the test: let us pick a day and time, and each take a public vow:

"I [state your name*] do solemnly affirm that if, upon buying this lotto ticket and praying for a winning number, I am declared the winner of a multimillion dollar jackpot,  I will upon accepting the check attribute my winnings to the power of the deity and bear witness thereunto."

Now, if one of us should happen to win, it will be a small price to pay for being a millionaire. As for the unlucky losers, the rest of us will of course point out that highly unlikely things happen every day, that the power of big numbers can produce what look like miracles, and that that idiot [state your name] was always kind of wobbly when it came to atheism and I hope he chokes on all that money! Etc., etc., etc.

The winner could then buy an island and found the tiny nation of Rationalia, where visa requirements would include a declaration that the applicant rejects all forms of superstition and paranormal nonsense. His former rationalist friends would then have to make crawling apologies and say they knew all along that he was a helluva great guy, yea, truly a prophet of straight thinking.

I think this would greatly advance the understanding of prayer, don't you? #;-)

Best regards,


Clay

* tip o' the hat to Steve Martin and his Non-Conformist's Pledge

 

On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 10:44 PM, Harvey Madison <hmadison99@gmail.com> wrote:
 

While in the shower yesterday morning, I had a flash of insight into the prayer efficacy studies that have been done (It kept me thinking so long that I ran out of hot water.). These studies have usually used statistically significant difference between two groups as the criterion for therapeutic success of intercessory prayer - a merely detectable difference. This, in my opinion, invokes a very sloppy and improper operational definition of prayer answering.
 
The proper definition of intercessory prayer is that which asks some deity for a certain desired result. So why are we defining a several-percent improvement in patient outcomes as success? Those who believe that prayers are answered use sources such as the Hebrew and Christian bibles for their definition of prayer-answering. Holy scriptures define it as a deity fully and immediately performing the prayed-for task. If these people believe that their god answers prayers, then the target patients in a study should be immediately relieved of the subject ailment, get up, and walk out. That, in my opinion, should be the experimental definition of success, nothing less. These studies are trying to get at the existence of a claimed process that has been thoroughly defined for them, and numerous examples given in their source literature. Why are they re-defining it as something else? To a believer, these studies' definition of prayer answering should be an insult. If a god answers a prayer, it is answered. How could anyone of faith accept a god so weak that he responds to prayers asking for a cure, by helping six percent of the ailing do just a little better?
 
Seems to me a proper experiment would recruit some pious, sincere and inclined pray-ers to pray for the immediate cure of patients with urgent and well-defined, heavily disabling diseases or injuries. This could be done while pray-ers and patients are together, and the results could be measured immediately with diagnostic exams. Perhaps the most secure test to measure results would be to target patients who had been recently declared medically dead. The Christian deity assured his followers that this was a legitimate purpose for prayer action.
 
I think it is indicative of our society's and even our medical research community's desire to affirm prayer-answering, that we have allowed sloppy criteria for success to be used, and avoided definitive tests of the claimed powers of prayer.
 
Thanks for "listening."



--
Clay Farris Naff
Executive Director, Lincoln Literacy Council
Member, National Association of Science Writers
Vice President, Nebraska Citizens for Science
www.claynaff.com
(402) 310-0572
Lincoln, NE
USA


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