This is a good demonstration that all these
arbitrary and selected "compensations" for
crimes committed generations ago are
in the same class with all sorts of
"affirmative actions" and "positive
discrimination", that cause further
divisions and antagonism between
religious/ethnic/gender/etc groups,
solve no pronblems, except easing
the guilty feeling of a limited number
of middle-class people who committed to
keep the very system intact at all price,
  that was capable of "facilitating"
most of the unjustices of the
past and present.


Eva



>
> [snip]
> >Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree Jr., Harvard Afro-American
> >Studies chairman Henry Louis Gates Jr., and many other black
> >intellectuals say they are considering legal and legislative action to
> >secure reparations for the descendants of enslaved blacks.
>
> [snip]
>
> I have followed some of the reparations discussion but what I have heard
> was not an attempt to get money for descendents of slaves but free college
> level education and more affirmative action.
>
> What about cities like Tulsa where 300 blacks were killed in a race riot
> and blocks of homes burned down by whites, many of who were deputized by
> the sheriff.  IIRC this was during the early 1920's and was a result of a
> white mob wanting to lynch a black man for molesting a white woman.    Has
> one thin dime been paid to these victims?
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Joe Needham ICQ: 1674329  AOL Instant Messenger:  JoeNeedham
> --------
> Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?"
> Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."
> -- Charlie Brown, "Peanuts"
>
>

On Sun, 27 Feb 2000, Fred wrote:

<<I hold the above 4 to be universal statements about ALL police
everywhere in the United States. There may be small pockets of exception
here and there, but I doubt it. Given the above to be true of all or
nearly all cops then, can we possibly sleep well at night?>>

In other words, the answer to bigotry is more bigotry, eh?

  - snopes

+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
|    Urban Legends Reference Pages --> http://www.snopes.com          |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+

>Wade T. Smith posted an article that ran in the _Boston Globe_,
>29 February 2000:
>>
>> Prominent black scholars join push for reparations
>>
>> In a sign that the issue of paid reparations for American slavery could
>> be moving from the fringes of black political debate into the mainstream
>> civil rights agenda, a group of prominent black academics is looking
>> into a possible class-action lawsuit on behalf of descendants of those
>> injured by slavery....

I'm still going ahead with my case against Eva because her Hungarian
ancestors brutally forced my Celtic ancestors to leave their homes along
the Danube and settle in cold and wet Britain.  The Oz company that
allegedly poisoned those rivers in Hungary is just the start of my revenge.


Barry Williams
the Skeptic of Oz

>
>The baboons, says Rendall, lack what psychologists call the "theory of
>mind," an understanding that others have minds with thoughts, knowledge and
>perceptions different from their own.


A human failing as well.

Marc t.


=================================================================
Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerves give to wisdom

-Mark Twain

gj bart wrote:
>
> >  The shark had just taken a $200 bet from the mark when the officer
> > stepped in to break things up.  The fun started when the shark refused
> > to return the mark's money: he wanted to just fold up and move with
> > the $200 in his pocket, without even running the game.  The FoaF
> > eventually convinced him by pulling his cuffs out of his pocket...
> >
> >  If there's anything which demonstrates the inherent lack of rational,
> > critical thought in the average human, it's the fact that NY street
> > hustlers do so well.
>
>      I think you might be using too big a brush here.  The great majority
> of folks just walk on by or look on with bemusment at these sorts of
> operations.  Typically the victim is a young male, often just paid.

  I'm not saying everyone gets taken, or that everyone's an idiot.
But I am saying that there are enough idiots to make this racket
plenty lucrative for the hustlers, which is depressing.

>      Casinos might be a better argument along these lines, though
> even there I doubt most patrons go with the expectation of
> winning.

  On what do you base your doubt?

--
James H.G. Redekop   http://www.residents.com/  The Residents
tzoq@...   http://www.residents.com/Goons/ The Goon Show

On 03/01/00 08:15, Marc Tyler said this-

>>The baboons, says Rendall, lack what psychologists call the "theory of
>>mind," an understanding that others have minds with thoughts, knowledge and
>>perceptions different from their own.

>A human failing as well.

Well, it's not a genetic, or a developmental failing in humans- the
apparatus is there- I would suggest, however, that it is a
political/memetic failing of culture if human potential is not reached,
and it is not, as you say, reached in all cases, sadly and prosecutorily
with many societies, especially the fundamental and strongly ideological
societies of cults and despots, and the bureaucracies that congregate
around them.

It is very much in memetics' box of chores to identify and erase the
potential-robbing effects of manipulative hierarchies, IMHO.

There are others out there.

- Wade

From Salon at:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2000/02/28/farrakhan/index.html?CP=SNA&DN=
310 .

Louis Farrakhan makes a bid to unify Islam in America -- and to be its No.
1 evangelist.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Ted Kleine

Feb. 28, 2000 | CHICAGO -- Louis Farrakhan wants to be Allah's apostle to
all Americans.

"Islam is to consume America," he prophesied Sunday in a speech marking
Saviours' Day, the annual convention of his Nation of Islam. "Islam is to
consume England, and one day, these great nations will become servants of
God. If God is going to establish his kingdom at the top of the mountain,
who is the top of the mountain? America!"

{sniped}
=============================================================

Dean A. Batha
Los Angeles, CA
dabatha@...

Eva Durant wrote:
>
> So in what ways people become
> eunuchs in India? Are they still
> looking after harems?
> Who and why are made to choose
>  this career - even before becoming
> a politician wasn't in the offing
> for this profession.
> Just curious.
As the story states they are accepted as normal citizens just like homosexuals
and transsexuals.
There are no more harems but they make living by forcing bridegrooms or young
parents to make donation to them under threat of public humiliation.
--
Have a peaceful and joyous day.
Aditya Mishra
Primary e-mail: a018967t@...
Primary homepage: http://www.smart1.net/aditya
ICQ # 1131674 Phone #: (954)746-0442  Fax # (209)315-8571
Random thought of the day:
	 No problem is so large it can't be fit in somewhere.

>
> I'm still going ahead with my case against Eva because her Hungarian
> ancestors brutally forced my Celtic ancestors to leave their homes along
> the Danube and settle in cold and wet Britain.  The Oz company that
> allegedly poisoned those rivers in Hungary is just the start of my revenge.
>

1. By the time the Hungarians arrived in the
   Carpathian Basin (a.d.800ish),
   there were no celts around here, only slavic
     kingdoms.
2. I am as pure as can be jewess by ethnic origins.
3. I am thoroughly cosmopolitan - just as the present
    and past fascists of Hungary and Austria describe
    my annoying jewish/communist character...

Eva

>
> Barry Williams
> the Skeptic of Oz
>
>

At 15:11 03/01/2000 +0000, Eva Durant wrote:

>1. By the time the Hungarians arrived in the
>   Carpathian Basin (a.d.800ish),
>   there were no celts around here, only slavic
>     kingdoms.

I belive Eva is right. It was the Romans who drove the Celts out of
mainland Europe, and back to Scotland and Ireland. The Huns, Vandals,
Franks, Moors, Visigoths, Ottoman Turks, etc..., came by centuries later to
drive out what was left of the Byzantine and old Roman Empires.

Dean A. Batha
Los Angeles, CA
dabatha@...

"Dean A. Batha" wrote:
>
> "Islam is to consume America," he prophesied Sunday in a speech marking
> Saviours' Day, the annual convention of his Nation of Islam. "Islam is to
> consume England, and one day, these great nations will become servants of
> God. If God is going to establish his kingdom at the top of the mountain,
> who is the top of the mountain? America!"

  Could we send all the Christian Fundies & Nation of Islam types off
to some unused part of the world (say, Utah) and let them fight it out
without bothering the rest of us?

--
James H.G. Redekop   http://www.residents.com/  The Residents
tzoq@...   http://www.residents.com/Goons/ The Goon Show

>Also, something to remember about cops.
>
>
>--
News Item on NPR yesterday concerning Miranda rights: A training bulletin
from the California Attorneys General states that officers should ignore
a suspects Miranda rights if he or she has much to gain and little to
lose in doing so.  It is apparently not uncommon for cops to talk to
suspects "off the record" in order to secure confessions.  Like Hunter
Thompson said, "There is no off the record".

Marc T.

===========================================================================

Cynicism - The most reliable predictor or human behavior.

From MSNBC at: http://www.msnbc.com/news/376204.asp .

MSNBC users click and tell

Thousands face problems due to dalliances with online erotica

Feb. 29 — While cybersex sites offer the vast majority of users an outlet
for safe sexual pursuits, hundreds of thousands of Netizens may be at risk
of serious problems as a result of their dalliances with online erotica. So
suggests a new analysis of a survey of more than 9,000 MSNBC.com readers.

AT LEAST 8 out of 10 visitors to sex sites are at risk of developing
problems with relationships or at work — a great many of whom did not
suffer from sexual addictions before they logged on, said study author
Alvin Cooper of the San Jose Marital Services and Sexuality Centre in San
Jose, Calif.

These are people who report spending 11 hours or more a week in online
sexual pursuits, a sign of “destructive behavior,” said Cooper, who is also
an MSNBC “Sexploration” columnist.

And one in 100 Netizens is seriously hooked on erotica sites or X-rated
chat rooms, he said. This severely addicted group — which Cooper dubbed the
Cybersex Compulsives — is characterized by both spending more than 11 hours
a week on sex sites and scoring highly on a standard psychological scale of
sexually compulsive behavior.

While 1 percent may not seem like a significant figure, Cooper pointed out
that it represents some 200,000 people given that 20 million people visit
sex sites each month.

“Just like the alcoholic who ends up on skid row, the Cybersex Compulsive
is in dire need of help,” he said. “These people could lose everything.”

CLICK AND TELL
The click-and-tell poll — one of the first studies to measure addiction to
sex sites and chat rooms — invited MSNBC users who had at least one
cybersex encounter to answer 59 questions about what kind of sex sites they
visited, how long they spent in such pursuits and what they got out of it.
(MSNBC.com always notes that by their very nature, surveys posted on its
Web site are nonscientific.)

Over 13,500 people completed the survey, which was posted on the site over
a 7-week period during March and April of 1998. After discarding surveys
that were incomplete or filled out by people under 18, a final sample of
9,177 respondents was evaluated.

Cooper’s first analysis, which appeared in the April, 1999 issue of
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, a journal of the American
Psychological Association, focused on people who utilize cybersex sites in
a way that is recreational — not detrimental.

The latest analysis, to appear in the next month’s issue of Sexual
Addiction and Compulsion, looks at those for whom cybersex presents a major
threat to their well-being.

THE FINDINGS

Among other findings:

[1] One of the most alarming survey findings, Cooper said, is that seven in
10 participants said they kept their online sexual pursuits secret from others.

“Denial and secrecy are what keep an addiction going,” Cooper said.

[2] Students, women and homosexuals are at greatest risk of being cybersex
compulsives. Cooper’s speculation: These are sexually suppressed
populations for which cybersex offers a form of escape.

“Even in the 21st century, women and gays are at risk for social sanctions
if they do not act in accordance with the norm,” he said. “On the Net, they
are ‘free.’” Likewise, the Net offers previously sheltered students the
opportunity to experiment, Cooper said.

But newfound freedom for any of these groups is a double-edged sword, he
said, which can leave one vulnerable to destructive forms of sexual behavior.

[3] The greater the amount of time one spends online in sexual pursuits,
the greater the problem.

One in five men and one in eight women admitted using their work computers
as their primary lifeline to access sexual explicit material online. And
other studies have revealed that 70 percent of e-porn traffic occurs
between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays.

“This cyberslacking raises concerns,” Cooper said. “People are willing to
risk the jobs,” he said, noting that most employers, whether explicitly or
implicitly, forbid cybersex soirées.

CALL TO ACTION

The high-tech industry needs to be more proactive in educating users about
the risk of visiting online sex sites, according to Cooper.

“Alcohol and cigarettes both carry health warnings on their labels,” he
said. “But no one warns the visitor to cybersex sites about its potential
consequences.”

WHAT TO DO

Clinical psychologist J. G. Benedict, who maintains a private practice in
Denver, said that the findings “present data which may be of use in the
treatment of persons who have ‘overdosed’ on the contents of adult Internet
sites and whose lives have been adversely affected.”

While abstention or “an austere diet” of cybersex might be the best course
of action for addicts, that might be as impossible as suggesting to a
“peeping tom” that he just stop such behaviors, the experts agree.

Rather, if you suspect you have a problem, seek out a person you trust and
confide your fears, Cooper advised.

Then, if you still think you may be on the road to self-destruction, there
are a number of avenues open to you: 12-step groups such as Sex and Love
Addicts Anonymous, therapy or even self-help evaluations online.

“Once you break the cycle of denial and secrecy, you can better evaluate
just how much help you need and, if necessary, get on the road to
recovery,” Cooper said.
============================================================================

Dean A. Batha
Los Angeles, CA
dabatha@...

About this reparations business.

Can we stay off politics for a while?  I guess you could make a tortured
argument that we're really talking about public consequences of uncritical
thought etc. etc., but in that case,, you can find a skeptical/critical
angle to everything.  From where I stand, this has nothing to do with
anything paranormal, and so it doesn't belong here.

Now, if it were the descendants of alien abductees who were demanding
compensation, *that* would be on topic...

	 Taner Edis,  list owner who wants to hear of alien love
	              slaves, not the real sort

>Taner Edis,  list owner who wants to hear of alien love
>              slaves, not the real sort

Wasn't there recently published a book about just this subject?

And, Garry Shandling's new movie....

The incubus is a powerful image in the sexual consciousness, what with
the male predilection towards rape and all.... ;-)

People don't have wet dreams, they get taken aboard dream castles and
ravaged....

- Wade

"Wade T.Smith" wrote:
>
> The incubus is a powerful image in the sexual consciousness, what
> with the male predilection towards rape and all.... ;-)
>
> People don't have wet dreams, they get taken aboard dream castles
> and ravaged....

         This calls for some reparations -- no doubt about it!

         Bill Bennetta

At 08:02 PM 02/29/2000 -0600, Nancy Craig wrote:
>At 09:57 PM 2/24/2000 -0500, James H.G. Redekop wrote:
>
>>Jack Kolb wrote:
>>>
>>> member Laura Dobson opined that there was "no scientific
>>> proof" that human beings evolved from more primitive life forms.
>>>
>>> "Our national science standards are invalid," Dobson said.  "The
>>> national science standards are not scientific."
>>
>> What are Dobson's qualifications to make this judgement?
>
>Let's see... she's a kindergarten teacher who gets her facts from a Florida
>evangelist who says the Loch Ness Monster is proof that evolution is false
>(the dinosaurs didn't die out).
>
>I swear I didn't make that up!
>
>Nancy "and I *chose* to move to Tulsa!" Craig
>necraig@...

I forwarded the original post to the astro-l list where creationism is
sometimes discussed. I got a reply from the list owner asking where are the
Oklahoma scientists and why aren't they actively countering these claims? I
searched the web, including the NCSE and American Atheists sites and didn't
find any information. Do you as an Oklahoma resident or anyone else on the
list know what, if anything, the scientific community is doing to
counteract this?


Ron Ebert
ron.ebert@...
.................
I've heard this line, or similar from theists before, "prove love exists". The
answer is of course that God(s) exist in the same sense that love exists: as
an emotional response by humans to their environment, and not as an objective
property of the universe. When a human being dies the property "love" dies too
and doesn't continue to float around on its own. The same with the gods.

Gene Kuschnir - Skeptics list

>>> All men are potential sex criminals, say two evolutionary psychology
>>> proponents in a controversial new book.
>>
>> Is that statement of the obvious supposed to be "controversial"?
>>
>
>They don't mean "potential" as in "having the ability to", they
>mean "potential" as in "having a genetic predisposition to".  They

        Would the existance of such a gene really be that
far fetched though?

       Wouldn't a predisposition to rape confer some reproductive
advantage?

        Has rape ever been conclusively observed in other species?
(I've heard that dolphins sometimes engage in rape, though I
wonder how "consent" is defined with respect to animals)




__________________________________________________________
Get your FREE personalized e-mail at http://www.canada.com

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_662000/662172.stm

Japan's Defence Agency has delayed the introduction of a new computer system
after discovering that it used software developed by members of the Aum
Shinrikyo cult.

The discovery has prompted fears that the cult - which carried out the fatal
gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995 - could use the software to
infiltrate government computers and gain access to vital defence information
Tokyo police said the Defence Agency was one of 90 government bodies and
private firms which had ordered software produced by the cult.

A Defence Agency spokesman told the AFP news agency: "We had been expecting
to introduce the system today but halted the plan for the time being as it
is too dangerous.

"Nobody knows what they have done to the system and we need to check it
thoroughly."

Chief Cabinet Secretary Mikio Aoki told a news conference: "It should not be
impossible to replace the software with that developed by other companies."

Subcontractor

The Defence Agency signed a contract for the computer system with the Japan
Electronic Computer Co Ltd last October.

The company, which is not linked to Aum, was to supply the system linking
networks at 20 army garrisons across Japan, giving them internet and e-mail
access, the defence agency spokesman said.
However, the computer firm "told us they had discovered one of the
subcontractors they used was linked to Aum".

The spokesman said the Defence Agency was "investigating whether Aum
members, under the pretext of developing software for the agency, had a
chance to figure out ways to break the firewall" that prevents illicit
access to its networks.

Tokyo police said software firms run by Aum members had also provided
products for the Construction Ministry, the Education Ministry, and the Post
and Telecommunications Ministry.

Raids

The deals were discovered on Tuesday after police launched raids on eight
apartments belonging to cult members.

Local reports said about 40 Aum followers were operating five software
companies and conducted sales activities covering 500 major companies by
offering large discounts.

Twelve people were killed and thousands more were injured when Aum launched
the sarin gas attack on Tokyo's subway system in March 1995.

Aum preached that the world was coming to an end and the cult must arm
itself.

However in January this year, the cult issued a statement deposing jailed
Shoko Asahara as leader, changing its name to Aleph, and vowing to introduce
reforms - which included a promise to obey the law.

At 12:42 AM 03/01/2000 -0000, Iain Forsythe wrote:

>No, I don't think they are equivalent, but that the a-temporal view is to be
>preferred for philosophical reasons. I think the paradoxes of Schrodinger's
>Cat, etc. show the fatal weakness in the conventional interpretation of QM.
>Suppose we have a line of observers, starting with a RNA strand that changes
>shape if it is stuck by a beta particle from a radioactive source, and
>including all its descendents through to Wigner's Friend. Where does the
>observer stop being an observer? I don't think you can have quasi-observers
>in QM, as the wave functions for the unobserved and observed particles
>differ, and either the wave function has collapsed or it hasn't. So where do
>you draw the line? Or do you want to include RNA as an observer, in which
>case proceed backward until you come to carbon synthesis in stars. Is carbon
>an observer?
>
>Also, explain what I pointed out earlier:
>Who observes the universe? So far, all the alternatives I have come across
>seem just plain silly. God? Meaningless question (About as explanatory as
>saying that observers exist so that the universe does. Give me a break). Or
>how about having a continuous infinity of universes?

This whole business of observer created reality and collapse of the wave
function is false. It's based on a misunderstanding of reality. Reality at
its base is quantum, not classical. The "classicalness" we see comes about
from the decoherence of wave functions. A classical object like a cat is
actually made up of a huge number of superpositioned states. Half dead/half
alive is one such superposition set, but there are zillions of ways and
states for a cat to be alive, and an even greater number for the cat to be
dead. These countless alive states and countless dead states each have some
probability that you have to take into account when you talk about the cat
as a whole. Each individual state is present with some tiny probability,
but the actual macroscopic real cat behaves as an aggregate of all these
possible states.

When you average over all these possible live and dead states, all the
pieces representing what would be a genuine superposition of live and dead
actual cats cancel out. Microscopically they are all there, macroscopically
all the mixed live and dead bits of the wave function manage to negate each
other. When a measurement is made on the cat, such as with Schroedinger's
means of releasing or not a poison gas based on a radioactive counter, you
make a momentary change in one of the cat's superpositioned states that is
immediately canceled out by decoherence - the interactions I've just
described. The cat will no more be in a superpositioned state than at any
other time.

For an excellent and extended discussion of this whole business, see "Where
Does the Weirdeness Go, Why Quantum Theory Is Weird But Not As Weird As You
Think," by David Lindley, 1996. You'll also see why quantum consciousness,
many worlds, Bohmian superluminality, and all the other nonsense is
completely unnecessary.


Ron Ebert
ron.ebert@...
*****************
The point is, you have to break out of human-centered thinking. Humanity and
human concerns are so unimportant and negligible that they have nothing to do
with ultimate reality. - Vic Stenger

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/eo/20000229/en/20000229644.html

"Multi-Millionaire" Bride Under Fire

Another day, another report of trouble for Who Wants to Marry a
Multi-Millionaire?

Darva Conger, 34, the show's "winning" bride, is fighting accusations that
she lied about her military service.

Conger, who billed herself as a Gulf War veteran, reportedly never served
in the Persian Gulf. According to Inside Edition, which acquired her
military records, the emergency room nurse was a staff sergeant at Scott
Air Force Base in Illinois, serving there from 1990-95. Before that
assignment, she was stationed in Korea and at Hill Air Force Base in Utah.

When asked about her record on Inside Edition, Conger said, "I am a Gulf
War veteran. I was on active duty in the Air Force at the time of the Gulf
War. Anyone on active duty at the time of that war is considered a Gulf War
veteran."

However, some members of the military dispute her interpretation.

"You can't call yourself a Gulf War veteran if you've never been to the
Gulf," retired Army Colonel Daniel Smith, director of research at the
Center for Defense Information, told the TV tab.

Conger wed Rick Rockwell on the Fox television special February 15 after
Rockwell picked her from among 50 contestants. After a brief, chaperoned
"honeymoon," in which she and Rockwell stayed in separate rooms and never
consummated the marriage, she said she went on the show as a lark, made an
"error in judgment" by agreeing to the union and plans to seek an annulment.

Rockwell himself has come under fire for lying about his job (he says real
estate mogul; reports say publicity-seeking stand-up comic and motivational
speaker) and for his alleged quick temper. His ex-fiancée obtained a
restraining order against him for hitting and threatening her; he says he
just yelled at her and let the air out of her tires.

Meanwhile, the Internet Entertainment Group, which runs several Web porn
sites, placed an ad in the Los Angeles Times (Conger's hometown paper)
yesterday offering the blushing bride $1 million to pose nude for its Club
Love site. An IEG rep says the spread would be "tastefully done" by one of
the top photographers in the world. Conger has yet to respond to the offer.

And while all the bad publicity surrounding Multi-Millionaire has led Fox
to drop any similar shows in the future, the program that inspired it could
be getting a sequel. The British producers of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
are developing a follow-up to their hit international quiz show, and ABC
has the inside track for U.S. rights to the project.

According to Daily Variety, the Millionaire spinoff would feature a single
contenstant answering questions of increasing difficulty in a single
category of which the contestant is an expert.

This may be of relevance to those interested in the psychology behind
the
acquisition of strange beliefs. Jerry.

-----Original Message-----
From: PSYCHE Discussion Forum (Biological/Psychological emphasis)
[mailto:PSYCHE-B@...] On Behalf Of Patrick Wilken
Sent: 29 February 2000 11:57
To: PSYCHE-B@...
Subject: PAPER: Biased Retellings of Events Yield Biased Memories


Biased Retellings of Events Yield Biased Memories
Barbara Tversky,  Elizabeth J. Marsh

Cognitive Psychology pp. 1-38
Vol. 40, No. 1, February 2000

When people retell events, they take different perspectives for
different
audiences and purposes. In four experiments, we examined the effects of
this
postevent reorganization of events on memory for the original events. In
each
experiment, participants read a story, wrote a biased letter about one
of the
story characters, and later remembered the original story. Participants'
letters contained more story details and more elaborations relevant to
the
purpose of their retellings. More importantly, the letter perspective
affected the amount of information recalled (Experiments 1, 3, and 4)
and the
direction of the errors in recall (Experiments 1 and 3) and recognition
(Experiment 2). Selective rehearsal plays an important role in these
bias
effects: retelling involves selectively retrieving and using story
information, with consequent differences in memory. However, biased
memory
occurred even when the biased letters contained little, if any, specific
information (Experiment 4) or contained the same amount and kinds of
story
information as a neutral control condition (Experiment 3). Biased memory
is a
consequence of the reorganizing schema guiding the retelling
perspective, in
addition to the effects of rehearsing specific information in retelling.

Correspondence and reprint requests should be addressed to Barbara
Tversky at
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2130.

Full text, subscribers only:
http://www.idealibrary.com/links/artid/cogp.1999.0720/production/pdf

     --------------------------------------------------------------------
    |* Dr. Jerry Goodenough
*|
    |* Philosophy Sector                      Tel: +44 (0)1603-593406
*|
    |* School of Economic & Social Studies    Fax: +44 (0)1603-250434
*|
    |* University of East Anglia              E: j.goodenough@...
*|
    |* Norwich NR4  7TJ     England
*|
     --------------------------------------------------------------------

gj bart <bronco@...>
>Casinos might be a better argument along these lines, though even
>there I doubt most patrons go with the expectation of winning.

Say huh? If that's the case, why don't casinos just jack up the odds even
worse against the players?

>And then there are us card counters...

Who, if they do *everything* right, can raise their odds to as "high" as
50-50.

*************** Regards, Dave Palmer  <dpalmer@...> **************
As much as the author would like to spend precious minutes of the rapidly-
dwindling time remaining in his life responding to your kind and thoughtful
letter about how he is going to spend eternity in a lake of fire being eaten
by rats, he regrets that he is unable to do so, due to the volume of such
mail received.
************************* http://www.magicdave.com *************************

On Wed, 1 Mar 2000, Dave Palmer wrote:

<<Say huh? If that's the case, why don't casinos just jack up the odds
even worse against the players?>>

Because there's a difference between "not winning" and "losing your
shirt."  *Some* people have to win with sufficient frequency for the rest
to be convinced they have a realistic chance of winning.

<<Who, if they do *everything* right, can raise their odds to as "high" as
50-50.>>

Depending on the rules, the player's advantage can exceed break even.
But when you factor in the free room and food comps that regular players
get, even breaking can be profitable.

  - snopes

+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
|    Urban Legends Reference Pages --> http://www.snopes.com          |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+

There was a study done a while back on infanticide in apes.  Turns out there
was a reproductive advantage to a male killing a mother's baby as she would
immediately become fertile (and he could then impregnate her).  There was no
mention as to possibility of this occuring in humans as a reproductive
strategy.



-----Original Message-----
From: Looney Tunes [mailto:martiandude@...]
Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2000 8:59 AM
To: skeptic@...
Subject: Re: Born to rape


>>> All men are potential sex criminals, say two evolutionary psychology
>>> proponents in a controversial new book.
>>
>> Is that statement of the obvious supposed to be "controversial"?
>>
>
>They don't mean "potential" as in "having the ability to", they
>mean "potential" as in "having a genetic predisposition to".  They

        Would the existance of such a gene really be that
far fetched though?

       Wouldn't a predisposition to rape confer some reproductive
advantage?

        Has rape ever been conclusively observed in other species?
(I've heard that dolphins sometimes engage in rape, though I
wonder how "consent" is defined with respect to animals)




__________________________________________________________
Get your FREE personalized e-mail at http://www.canada.com

Old Testament prophets such as Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
and Isaiah ministered to Israel by
crying out
                                against the paganizing of God's people. Those who
bore the name of Jehovah upon the earth

                                had brought heathen culture into their lives and
worship.

                                Though I am no prophet, and American Christians
are not Israel, there are alarming
parallels
                                between the way Israel blended contemporary
heathen culture with the worship of Jehovah
and
                                the accommodations to modern culture being made
by today's church. The spiritual
corruption of
                                both and the judgment of God upon both are
inescapable.

                                A friend of mine who is writing a book asked me
and others to list six of the greatest
challenges
                                facing Fundamentalists and biblical Christianity
in the 21st Century. I gave him the
following:

                                     To resist the paganizing of believers as
Israel was paganized and heathenized by the

                                     religious end lifestyle concessions they
made to the people and to the worship of
                                     surrounding nations.

                                     To deal with the departure from biblical
doctrine and the corresponding transition
to an
                                     ever-changing and ecumenical faith based
upon pragmatism and accommodation to
                                     popular religious trends and emotions.

                                     To refuse to allow the entertainment world
to immerse us and desensitize our souls
and
                                     produce carnality.

                                     To open our eyes to the sin of unnecessary
factionalism among Bible-believing
Christians
                                     brought on by our inability to keep a
balance of doctrine and practice and by the
error of
                                     misapplying Scripture in on attempt to make
it endorse our opinions and preferences.

                                     To stir evangelistic enterprise in
fulfillment of the Great Commission. The
diminution of
                                     evangelistic enterprise to cults which call
themselves Christian, including
Catholicism and
                                     Mormonism, is frightening.

                                     To rekindle preaching about sin, hell, and
judgment, the absence of which has
resulted
                                     in the disappearance of the fear of God
among His people.

                                The education of students at BJU includes regular
doses of eye-opening, biblical warnings
about
                                the perils facing the Church in the latter days.
We believe their education is incomplete
without
                                scriptural understanding of the devil's
corrupting purposes toward the Church that Christ
bought
                                with His own precious blood. Satan, the prince of
darkness, wants his people to be in the
darkness
                                of scriptural ignorance. He is a master at
blinding eyes.

                                Christian education at BJU consists of bringing
the light of Scripture to open young
eyes, both to
                                what God is doing and to what the devil is doing.
It is possible to receive academic
education
                                without that light, but it is not possible to
have Christian education without it.

                                Bob Jones III

----- Original Message -----
> Dear List,
>
> My apologies if I have been somewhat silent recently. The reason is that
> I am deeply involved in the very extensive travel and research for my
> new book "Underworld" (which is scheduled for publication in Autumn
> 2001).
>
> I am presently in southern India collecting legends and traditions of
> the ancient Dravidian people of this area -- legends that speak of lost
> lands now covered by the ocean. These legends seem to be confirmed by
> underwater discoveries at sites such as Poompuhur, including a
> mysterious U-shaped stone structure, three miles off the coast at a
> depth of more than 80 feet.
>
> Having just covered almost 2000 miles overland, going from town to town,
> and temple to temple, I am covered in dust and grime, and very, very
> tired. But I have had some wonderful experiences on this trip and
> learned a great deal that will, I hope, make the new book a real
> contribution to knowledge. From here Santha and I go on to Sri Lanka and
> then to the Maldives, where we hope to be diving around the Equatorial
> Channel, before returning to India to complete a series of dives at the
> submerged city of Dwarka in the far north-west. Excavations on land at
> Dwarka show a culture of the Indus Valley period -- approximately 1500
> BC -- but the underwater ruins may be another story altogether. Massive
> stone walls have been found at depths of up to 30 feet.
>
> After we return from India we will have barely two weeks at home before
> going on to Japan for another very lengthy trip involving a great deal
> more diving and again extensive overland travel -- in this case
> exploring the mystery of Japan's prehistoric Jomon culture.
>
> I will try from time to time to keep you updated on this but most of all
> request your forebearance when I am silent. If you don't hear from me,
> and things seem quiet on the website, please know that it is because I
> am up to my ears -- literally -- in the detailed research and fieldwork
> that I need to do to make the next book everything it should be.
>
> Because the website is so important to me, and because I hugely
> appreciate the feedback I receive, I am travelling with a laptop
> (something I once promised myself I would never do!). The technology
> does make it possible for me to be in touch and send messages like this
> but -- in India at least -- it is sometimes very difficult. Picture
> me sitting with my portable computer in a horrible, hot,
> mosquito-infested little international direct-dial telephone booth (run
> as a private business) on the dirty and noisy main street of a town
> where not a single hotel has direct-dial facilities. The computer
> manages to make a connection to my service-provider in London. I start
> to send messages I have prepared offline -- then the line cuts. I repeat
> the procedure ten times without success. Finally I give up...
>
> Thanks for your patience, and your support. It really means a lot to me.
> Warm best wishes,
>
> Graham

--
Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA)
< fortean1@... >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: Fortean Times * Northwest Mysteries * Mystic's Cyberpage *
    TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program
------------
Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List
    TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org >
Southeast Asia (SEA) service:
Vietnam - Theater Telecommunications Center/HHC, 1st Aviation Brigade
    (Jan 71 - Aug 72)
Thailand/Laos
  - Telecommunications Center/U.S. Army Support Thailand
    (USARSUPTHAI), Camp Samae San (Jan 73 - Aug 73)
  - Special Security/Strategic Communications - Thailand
    (STRATCOM - Thailand), Phu Mu (Pig Mountain) Signal Site
    (Aug 73 - Jan 74)

Since I'm involved with combatting Islamic creationism in a minor way,
I occasionally get strange Muslim creationist e-mail, particularly
from this guy.  It seemed amusing enough this time that I thought
others would like to take a look...

	 Taner Edis


-------- Original Message --------
From: Timur Rudayev <rudayev21@...>
Subject: THE EYE (EVOLUTION)
To: edis

  = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
          =                                 =
          =       RICHARD DAWKINS = DOG     =
          =                                 =
          =       CARL SAGAN = DONKEY       =
          =                                 =
          =       STEPHAN JAY = COW         =
          =                                 =
          = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =




Hello You see this but PLEASE DO NOT ASK any question such as who
wrote this
table. Because no one wrote it. It was written by itself.

About a week along I am not at home. I forgot my computer on. Our
electriy
have problem. The voltage is some times high, sometimes low. This
caused small
electric shock of the computer. So this caused same files to occure.
Like a
mutation. And this caused for these letters to come into being. So the
table.
Like the sun energy caused to life arrose, the electric energy caused
to this
letters to write this. we may call electronical evolution.


Yes we can witness phsical evidence of evolution easily. Everything is
evolving. This is scientific. Sience explains inevedible evidence of
evolution. Here is the other letter of my computer. Yes they are
written
electrical causes. I had problem about my computer. Some files
occuring as I
mentioned before. Like mutations. And they occurred these letters.


Of course evolution explains everything. we have coped with dogmas. I
like
EVOLUTION FACT extremly much.

The electronical  evolution of the letter do not have to be in shape.
They
occure anyway. So they can establish a small sentence.


Here are the forms of Richard Dawkins. Writer the book named BLIND
WATCHMAKER.
If you read his book, you will already see he explains everything
about
Evolution. Yes as we examine Materialistic Science we find new
evidence of
evolution. We can only cope with other dogmas Providing that we learn
THE FACT
OF EVOLUTION.



    RICHARD DAWKINS = DOG


       Phase By Phase :


Phase 1-          . . . . u . ,


Phase 2-          v . ð e N. - .t


Phase 3-          Ro. .D .A.. Ny - .rG


Phase 4-          RIf.sD .Aq. NS = cOG


Phase 5-          RICj.RD .AWlNS = cOG


Phase 6-          RICH*ARD wAWKINS = DOG


Phase 7-          RICHARD DAWKINS = DOG


The letters could evolve so. Since the DNA in the retina tissuse could
be
written by chences, it is much more possible for these Letters to
occure by
electrical mutations.

CHALLANCE TO ALL DOGMAS! EVOLOTION EXPLAIINS EVERYTHING. NONE OF THE
MATERIALIST SCIENTIST WON'TALOW CREATIONIST DOGMAS ANYMORE.


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

Of course this is one of the theory for the life to start on the
earth.

If you are interested about Creationism. Please read the essay below:

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

IN THE NAME OF ALLAH, THE BENEFICENT, THE MERCIFUL

   THE GNAT AND THE PERFECT CREATION IN THE NATURE

The gnats. They sting you then cause itching of you during summer
time. What
do we know about those small animals (insects)?
They have a superior flying system. The gnat can shake their wings
about 500
times in a second. Yes 500 times. Of course this is an amazing event.
The
muscles of connecting with the wings must be extremely elastic and
strong in
order to succeed in this. And the muscles should find efficient
energy. So the
gnat has the special respiration system. Besides due to the shape of
the
transparent wings the gnat has a superior acting advantage in the air.
It can
fly back-front, up-down easily. It has much more superior flying
advantage if
it is compared with any helicopter. (Let's remember the skorsky is
designed by
examining the flying style of the dragonfly). As a result the
transparent
wings have a superior design.

THE EYE OF THE GNAT

The eyes of the gnat are smaller than the fly or the turtledove etc.
In fact
its eye occur because of combining of about 100 ommatidins. In the
worlds of
the insects each ommatidin is a small eye and because of the global
shape of
the eye and the perfect location of the ommatidins the fly or the gnat
can see
about 360 degree. Yes each ommatidin is located perfectly to do this
mission.
About the eyes a great deal of researches are carried on. How can the
eye
occur? Let's focus on the theory of evolution.

ATHEISTS MAY CLAIM ALL OF THESE ARE DUE TO MUTATIONS OR NATURAL
SELLECTION

Can it be possible. According to Darwinian biology of course. But
there is a
point of which Darwin was afraid of. Darwin said:

IF IT IS PROVEN THAT A COMPLEX ORGAN CAN NOT OCCUR BECAUSE OF SMALL
IMPROVMENTS FOR MILLIONS OF YEARS, MY THEORY WILL UTTERLY COME TO END.

Now year 2000 and the sicence has examined the living beings and prove
this
finding all organs have an IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY. And this demolishes
Darwinism as Darwin stressed.

Let's focus on this to understand this important subject better.
Evaluationists may claim the eyes can occure by natural sellection or
mutations. In Darwinian biology mutations can occure by chances,
natural
sellection is a deterministic process. As the organs have  advantage,
they can
live and adapted to diffrent life covditions. But if some of them
don't have,
those organs die. According to mutations in darinian biology. But
mutations
are usually harmful and they seldom have no effect. Occuring a new
property
for an organ because of mutaitions likes an eartquake constructing a
new city.
In fact mutations demolish the balance of the genes. They can't cause
more
developed generation to occure. But in spite of this let's accept some
mutations are beneficent. But this never hampers the collapse of
evoluation.
This is because each organ has like the eyes has a property named "
IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY ". This means a complex organ has small parts
in it.
The organ can only work, providing that all parts of it work. If one
of the
small parts doesn't work, or doesn't exist the organ can't work. So if
any
organ can't do its mission, it disapears according to natural
sellection. In
order for an organ to exist, all parts of it must be exist at the same
time.
Therefore this means Creation.

Let's examine the human eye. The eye can work because of perfect
working and
design of the other organs such as the pupil, the lens, the cornea,
the
eyeball, the retina etc. If one of then doesn't not exist, the eye the
man
can't see. For instance let's image and accept that the eye occured
for
millions of years with its ball, retina, the pupil, the lens thanks to
natural
sellection and mutations, if it has no cornea tissue, it can't see. So
it
can't transfer this knowledge can't transfer to its D.N.A. According
to the
theory of evolution the organs that cannot work desappear. So the eye
would
have been disappeared. Therefore it is impossible for an eye to
occurre for
millions of years. All parts of the eye should work perfectly at the
same
time. As a result the eye can only work, providing that its all organs
work in
perfect hormony.

GLORIFY THE NAME OF YOUR LORD, THE HIGEST WHO HAS CREATED ALL THINGS
AND WELL
PROPTIONED THEM. (SURAH AL-A'LA: 1 - 2)

According to the Materialists of course the evolution still explain
all of
these easily, it is SCIENTIFIC (!) isn't it? Here is one of the reply
of an
evolutionist, a small part from the essay of Richard Dawkins, GREAT
SCIENTIST
(!)

" Thus the creationist's favourite question "What is the use of half
an eye?"
Actually, this is a lightweight question, a doddle to answer. Half an
eye is
just 1 per cent better than 49 per cent of an eye, which is already
better
than 48 per cent, and the difference is significant. A more ponderous
show of
weight seems to lie behind the inevitable supplementary: "Speaking as
a
physicist, I cannot believe that there has been enough time for an
organ as
complicated as the eye to have evolved from nothing. Do you really
think there
has been enough time?" Both questions stem from the Argument from
Personal
Incredulity. Audiences nevertheless appreciate an answer, and I have
usually
fallen back on the sheer magnitude of geological time. "

I thing Mr Dawkins want to ignore the facts again saying " Half an eye
is just
1 per cent better than 49 per cent of an eye, which is already better
than 48
per cent, and the difference is significant. The greatest fallacy.
Image an
eye, despite its impossible all parts of it work perfectly. But the
organs
secreting tear (eye water). These organs do not exist. The eye of
course
neither can produce such an organ, nor causes the next generation to
produce
this organ. It only becomes blind by drying. The eye cannot work
unless all
parts of the eye work and exist proprerly.

For the baloney evolutionist essay of Richard Dawkins you can visit:
http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/peepers.htm

( By the way Richard Dawkins says THE BLIND WATCH MAKER. I don't
understand he
says there is no designer, howewer he says MAKER. In fact he admits
the
existance of THE MAKER. He knows the wacth of course cannot be made
out of
nough)

Now our example is human eye. But we see much more different eye shape
that
utterly demolishes the theory of evolution. The gnat is a good example
of
irreducible complexity.

Let's return our subject the Gnat. The gnat can easily find you in the
dark
night in your bedroom. Even if your whole body is under the cloth but
your
hand or foot. Okay how does it succeed in doing this? The answer shows
a
superior design. Because the gnat is armed with superior receptors
that are
sensitive to heat, gas and humidity. Therefore it can find the victim
easily.
The heat sensitive receptors are similar the system used in the army
to see in
the night. Because of its special organ named " tarsi " located on its
front
arms, it can fell the heat waves coming from the victim. Moreover it
can find
the vessels (the most suitable vessel) under the skin, because of this
sensitive receptor.

STINGING THE VICTIM

The gnat lighting on the body has special tools to sting you. It finds
the
most suitable point to dig a hole. These tools are named " palpy " In
its
trunk there are 6 knives. Each of them has a special design. As four
of them
cutting the skin, two of them become a tube by combining. Then the
gnat pushes
this tube in the hole (cut skin). So it sucks the blood. And the most
important property of this special tube is being elastic; therefore
the gnats
move it in the hole easily. And it sucks the blood.
But there is a great problem for the gnat. Due to the special cells of
the
blood (trombosides, trombimes) the blood may become clot. This
prevents the
gnat from sucking the blood. But the gnat solved this problem in
advance. It
injects a special liquid in the hole. And this liquid prevents the
blood from
becoming clot. And the gnat makes a local anesthesia due to this the
victim
does not feel that he/she is being stinted.
Of course these properties of the gnat is one of the greatest problems
for
darwinism. First the gnat has a special, heat sensitive receptors to
find the
vessels in the dark. Second it has a much more complex mechanism to
suck the
blood. Cuter knives, special tube occurred by combining of two knives.
And the
amazing chemical secret to prevent the blood from becoming clots. Does
the
gnat know the chemical property of the human blood? Even if it has
learned it
by chances or natural selection how can it produce the chemical secret
to
hamper it? Is the gnat a chemical expert? Of course no. It has even no
brain
but the thin nerveses. Of course it can't calculate all of them.
Evolutionists
will obviously claim that this is due to mutations and natural
selection for
millions of years. But it is impossible. First of all this system is
irreducible complex. If the gnat didn't have the heat receptors, it
couldn't
find the vessel. Or it couldn't cut the skin and suck the blood, if it
didn't
have even one of 6 special knives. Or even if all parts of this system
exist
but the special secret that prevents the blood from becoming clot, the
gnat
couldn't suck the blood. So the whole generation of this kind of gnat
would
die. Because the gnat suck the blood for its eggs as protein. So it is
impossible for this system to occur step by step or because of the
mutations
or natural selection. And since the occurring of the all parts is not
impossible for the theory of evolution, it is obvious that this system
is
created by the Lord.

MY LORD INCLUDES ALL THINGS IN HIS KNOWLEDGE. (SURAH AL-AN'AM: 80)

              THE METHOMORPHOSIS OF THE GNAT

First the female gnat lays its eggs on the static water shaking like a
boat.
To stick the eggs, it uses a special secret. Then the larvas come from
the
eggs. The larvas are sized 1,5 mm. There are three stages of their
body; the
head, the chest and the belly. They live under the water. They grow
about 6 -
7 times in a week. The larva must remain under the water by hanging in
order
to breathe. And by a special mechanism is feed by eating the bacteria
in the
water. It has a special mechanism to breathe. A special shnoker
(tube). There
is a great problem again. The water may enter in the thin tube. And of
course
this causes the death of the larva. But because of the special lipid
on the
thin tube (around the hole of the thin tube) this great problem is
solved. The
lipid hampers the water to enter in the tube.

The growing larva needs to hack its skin. To do this it need a special
tool.
It has a special organ behind the head. The larva chances its skin 4
times
during its metamorphose. Then the larva becomes a pupa that is the
last phase
of the metamorphose. It takes a few days.

While the larva is chancing into pupa the thin tube is closed. But
this means
the larva can't breathe. However two new breath tube occur on front of
the
pupa. So the gnat can live because of extremely special program again.

The pupas are just under the water and they do not have to be feed.
Because
the pupa period takes only 3 - 5 days. At the end of the pupa period
the gnat
changes the last skin. This event is extremely amazing. Due to the
amazing
science of Allah, it gnat can come out of the water without touching
the
water. If it happen to touch, the wings become wet, so it can't fly
and it
dies by drowning. The transparent and aerodynamic wings, the legs,
Muscles due
to which the gnat can shake the wings 500 times in a second, the legs
complete
their development in the pupa period.

Yes a new living being comes out of the water with its eyes, the
system to cut
and suck the blood, heat sensitive receptors, etc. As a result the
metamorphose has completed. The larva has chanced into a much more
different
flying being, flying machine thorough this metamorphoses in a few
days.

AND IN THE BEASTS THERE IS VERILY A LESSON FOR YOU.
                     (SURAH AL MU'MINUM: 21)

When we focus on this event, we can easily witness the evolution has
completely bankrupted again. Because that theory, lie depends upon
chances of
the nature. But this metamorphose do not bear even any smallest wrong.
Even
any smallest wrong causes the death of the gnat. In other words
metamorphose
is extremely irreducible complex event. And it is one of the contless
and
marvelous proofs of Allah, on account of Creation Science.

UNTO HIM BELONGS WHOSE EVER IN THE HEAVENS AND IN THE EARTH. ALL ARE
OBTAINED
UNTO HIM. HE IS WHO ORIGINATES THE CREATION, THEN CAUSES IT TO RETURN
AGAIN,
AND IT IS EASIER FOR HIM. HIS IS THE SUBLIME SIMILITUDE IN THE HEAVENS
AND IN
THE EARTH. HIS IS THE MIGHY, THE WISE. (SURAH AR-RUM: 26 - 27)

The Lord of the Heavens' message is obvious, if you want to see. The
Lord who
creates all of this will judge all of us on the Day of Judgment. It is
inevitable and it is a promise to us from our God. Life is not
purposeless.
Dearest Brothers & sisters, we send you this message out of a desire
to warn
you and to bring you good news. There is only one straight path to
Heaven.
This is the way of Allah, the Qur'an and the Suhhah of Oru Prophet
Muhammed.
And the Qur'an is the living miracle of him. Atheists may not believe
the
miracles of the Prophes Jesus or the Prophet Moses. Because of course
they are
in historical reports. We can't witness them. But the miracles of the
Prophem Muhammed is living Qur'an. As we see in these kind of animals
in such
as the gnat. And it will be as miracle on the Day of Ressuraction. If
Allah
wills it, you will find it by reflecting a small animal, insect, the
gnat.

ALLAH DOES NOT DISDAIN TO COIN EVEN A GNAT AS A PARABLE, OR A LARGE
CREATURE.
AS FOR THOSE WHO BELIEVE, THEY KNOW THIS IS THE TRUTH FROM THEIR LORD.
BUT
THOSE WHO DESBELIEVE SAY "WHAT DOES GOD WISH TO TEACH THOSE BY SUCH
PARABLE?
(SURAH AL-BAQARA: 26)

In this phase mateiralists may claim that they don't believe in the
Lord since
He is unseen. They find rigth to deny the Day of Judgement. Now let's
focus on
this sucject. How do we see? How do we hear, touch, smell, and taste?
Can we
see the real world or the universe properly? Of course no.
Let's examine seeing event. In order to see, our retina changes the
light
energy into electrical signals. Then it converts it to the brain. So
we see.
Our each sense organs work with this Principe. As a result everything
that we
see, hear, smell. Taste. Touch, is in our brain, our skull. Now I ask
our eyes
are tools to see, again our ears are tools to hear etc, our brain is a
piece
of meat, okay in fact who sees, who hears, who tastes who fells?
Let's focus on this example in order to realize the subject better.
For
instance in our dreams we can see, hear, taste, smell and touch. In a
winter
night we may be in a hot beach in our dreams. We may see the sunshine,
hear
the voice of people around the beach and we may swim. We feel the
heat, we see
the sunshine and we fell the water. But in fact we are in our bed, our
eyes
are closed and there is no sunshine, since it is nigh and there is not
any
people to hear their voices. Yes all of them are due to electrical
signals in
our brain. So everything that we see or etc is in our brain due to
electrical
signals. Yes we have witnessed everything that we have lived
by now in our brain, inside of our dark skull. Therefore we can't
reach the
external world, out of our skull properly. We can witness everything
as much
as our sense organs permit. We may use some technologic tools, to see
info
red, X-rays but all of these are limited. We may see 1/100, 1/100000,
1/10000000000, or 1/0000000000000000000 of the real universe. In other
words
we can only see as much as Allah permits.

HE KNOWS WHAT IS BEFORE THEM (EVERYTHING THAT ALLAH HAS CREATED) WHAT
LIES
BEHIND THEM. THEY CAN GRASP ONLY THAT PART OF HIS KNOWLEDGE WHICH HE
WILL.
(SURAH AL-BAQARA: 255)

As a result we live in a universe whose size can't be imaged. We live
in a
world that can't be imaged properly too. We live in an enormous world.
In fact
these results are very scary for all of us. We should be live
according to the
rules of the Creator. We live due to the Lord. As His reward is very
good, his
punishment is very formidable too. No one does attempt to the Lord,
because no
one has ever reached the real world. All of these examples prove us,
since we
can't reach the real world properly, how illogical denying Allah is.
Despite
all of these evidevce of THE SUPERME BEING of the universe atheists
can easily
say "We ignore the religion, science explains everything." This is one
of the
ways of escaping facing from the facts,an obvious silly action. And
one of the
greatest fallacy idea of atheists. As you know we face with amazing
science.
We find the scientific rules, amazing biological, phsical rules. As we
learn
new thigs about the universe, the nature we like the sicence and
admire the
science. Yes we face with amazing and eternal science. Now we ask
ourselves
this question: There is a great and eternal science but whose science
is this?
Since there are amazing and marvelous rules, events etc, there is an
Administrator. As it is mentioned in the Qur'an this Superme Being is
Allah
who has eternal science, knower of everything.

BUT THE GOD OF YOU ALL IS ONLY ALLAH. THERE IS NO GOD BUT HE ALONE.
ALL THINGS
HE COMPREHENDS IN HIS KNOWLEDGE (SCIENCE).
(SURAH TA - HA: 98)


Now we are figthing with desbeliever Russian Army in Chechenia. We are
demolihing them. They have occupaid our territory and have killed most
of our
innocent people. And of course they will pay an high bill because of
this.
Besides they want to show us as terrorists. We are not terrorists.
Image
Russia has occppaid territory of US. Such as Alaska. Of course
American Army
would figth. And what would you thing of, if you US army is accused
being
terrorists against Russain Army?
Besides we shall demolish the concept of Materialism utterly by the
permission
of Allah. Unless the Russians withdrawn, shall demolish the concept of
Materialism on Scientific area all over the world. Because that is the
greatest deceit of the science history.




                                      Allahuekber



                                      Timur Rudayev
                                     ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF DAGESTAN

____________________________________________________________________
Get free email and a permanent address at
http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1

>At 15:11 03/01/2000 +0000, Eva Durant wrote:
>
>>1. By the time the Hungarians arrived in the
>>   Carpathian Basin (a.d.800ish),
>>   there were no celts around here, only slavic
>>     kingdoms.
>
>I belive Eva is right. It was the Romans who drove the Celts out of
>mainland Europe, and back to Scotland and Ireland. The Huns, Vandals,
>Franks, Moors, Visigoths, Ottoman Turks, etc..., came by centuries later to
>drive out what was left of the Byzantine and old Roman Empires.
>
>Dean A. Batha
>Los Angeles, CA
>dabatha@...

I knew those Vandals were up to no good.


Barry Williams
the Skeptic of Oz

http://www.post-gazette.com/regionstate/20000229mapreg4.asp

Tuesday, February 29, 2000

By Michael A. Fuoco, Post-Gazette Staff Writer







Chistopher Columbus or Leif Ericson?

Worm holes or caliper measurements?

Titanium dioxide as a 20th century additive or as a centuries-old product
of chemical breakdown?



    Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Michael A Musmanno would have been
cheered by the latest challenge to the so-called Vinland Map. An outspoken
critic of the map based on his own studies, he died on Columbus Day, 1968,
before much of the latest scientific challenge to the authenticity of the
map had surfaced. (Undated PG file photo)


Such a scholarly battle royal has raged ever since Yale University
announced 35 years ago that it had obtained a chart -- the so-called
Vinland Map -- purporting to show that Viking explorers, and not Columbus,
had discovered America.

The most recent salvo in the academic war over the map's authenticity was
fired by physicist Douglas McNaughton, who conducted a study in
preparation for an exhibition on Vikings in April at the Smithsonian
Institution in Washington, D.C.

McNaughton arrived at the same conclusion promoted 35 years ago by a noted
Italian-American jurist from Stowe -- the Vinland Map is probably a fake.

Announcement of McNaughton's findings wasn't the first time that
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Michael A. Musmanno's adamant -- some
might say vitriolic -- position on the map had been backed up by scholars.

In 1973, an independent geochemical analysis by Dr. Walter C. McCrone
showed that the map ink contained materials that would not have been
available as a commercial pigment until about 1920.

But Musmanno never could use much of the scientific support for his view
because he died -- appropriately enough given his passion for the man --
on Columbus Day 1968 at the age of 71 before much of it had come out.

No matter. Musmanno never for a moment doubted he was right about the map
and Columbus. While he may have been right about the former he probably
was wrong about the latter because archeologists now agree that a site at
L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland attests to the pre-Columbian presence
of the Norse.

For the three years preceding his death, Musmanno never wavered in his
belief that Yale scholars were less than scholarly in "documenting" the
map's authenticity or that they had engaged in an "outright gratuitous
sneer" at the Italian explorer by announcing the discovery on Oct. 11,
1965, and putting it on public display the next day -- Columbus Day.

Yale had conducted "a publicity campaign seemingly quarterbacked by a team
consisting of PT Barnum and Machiavelli," Musmanno wrote in his 160-page
book on the controversy, "Columbus WAS First."

"Not content with exhibiting it as the mere unverified cartographic curio
it is, those responsible for the custody of the map at Yale have succumbed
to the temptation of slitting open their ungainly goose of a map to
extract the golden egg of publicity and sensationalism."

Ouch!

Musmanno's book was published in 1966 on Columbus Day.

Yale parried that a reasoned response to Musmanno's tome was impossible
because he had launched an emotional rather than a scholarly attack.

If they thought that would shut him up, they didn't know Musmanno, the
proud son of an Italian immigrant; the holder of seven degrees from five
universities; a passionate defender of doomed anarchists Sacco and
Vanzetti; a thrice-decorated veteran in World War II; a Nuremberg
war-crimes tribunal judge; the author of more than a dozen books.

The Yale Bulldogs had met a bulldog in his own right.

"It is rather symbolic that the person who speaks for Yale is anonymous as
is the drawer of the monstrosity called the Vinland Map," Musmanno
responded, noting his position was based on cartographic, historic and
geographic research.

When the map's existence was revealed, Yale and British museum scholars
said it was drawn about 52 years before Columbus set forth, basing their
opinion in part on worm holes which, they said, coincided with worm holes
in two pre-Columbian manuscripts. That proved the three documents had been
bound together, they asserted.

Musmanno wasn't buying it and, with Yale's OK, traveled to New Haven and
measured the worm holes with metric rule and calipers. His calculations
indicated they didn't match, leading him to call the map a "hoax."

McNaughton took a different tack. The physicist and independent scholar of
early maps analyzed chemical tests of the map's ink and comparisons with
authenticated maps of the 15th and 16th centuries. He said he found
persuasive evidence that the map, whose value has been assessed at $25
million, appeared to have been contrived in the early 20th century and
modeled after 16th century Portuguese maps of the North Atlantic.

The parchment itself, McNaughton said, may be the only thing about it that
is from the pre-Columbian 15th century.

"It has been called a fake since it was first seen by cartographic
historians," he wrote in a chapter for a book, "Vikings: The North
Atlantic Saga," to be published in conjunction with the opening of the
Smithsonian exhibition. "Nothing about the map style, the ink, the lack of
provenance, or its unknown date of production suggests otherwise."

Other scholars and scientists who have studied the map generally supported
McNaughton's conclusions. They said few experts still defended the map's
pre-Columbian origins. Officials at Yale say they are open-minded.

But even with those conclusions, the debate just won't go away. Some
defenders of the map's medieval origins have taken sharp issue with the
new interpretations.

Jacqueline Olin, a chemist and research associate at the Smithsonian
Center for Materials Research, said that, if anything, "I'm more and more
convinced of the map's authenticity."

She said the presence of titanium dioxide, or anatase, in the ink, often
cited as evidence of 20th-century manufacture, would just as easily be
there as a consequence of deterioration of the ink since the middle ages.

State Superior Court Judge William F. Cercone, Musmanno's nephew, said
yesterday the fact the Vinland Map debate has continued so long is absurd.

"[Musmanno] showed they were in error," Cercone said. "How many times do
you have to point out to a great university like Yale that it's wrong?

"People want to carry this on for whatever ulterior motive but you can go
on for ages arguing about something that's fallible.

"It's been proven to be in serious error," he said. "For them to continue
on another piece of evidence shows their inability to face historical
facts."

Somewhere -- probably not the Valhalla of Norse mythology -- Uncle Michael
is likely smiling.