Largest Sundial In The World

Jantar Mantar, Jaipur Observatory, India.

Saturnian Moon Has Oxygen Atmosphere

This rediscovery was correcty predicted by post-Velikovskian Saturnist models.

National Geographic: Saturn Moon Has Oxygen Atmosphere.

An oxygen atmosphere has been found on Saturn's second largest moon, Rhea, astronomers announced Thursday

Cheyenne Primacy In The Great Sioux War

Liberty, M., Cheyenne Primacy: The Tribes' Perspective As Opposed To That Of The United States Army; A Possible Alternative To 'The Great Sioux War Of 1876', Nov 2006

The Sioux have been given star billing in “The Great Sioux War of 1876” on the basis of greater visibility and higher total numbers than other tribes. There has in fact been a kind of tunnel vision if not megalomania concerning Sioux prominence -- due in part to their great number of subdivisions and bands, all identified often simply as “Sioux.”

The opinion of other tribes that it was a Cheyenne war in 1876 rather than "The Great Sioux War" is made more plausible by the "Body Count" of seven Cheyenne camps destroyed by the army before 1876 -- more than those of all other tribes put together. Three more were destroyed that year, making a total of ten. According to historian Jerry Greene, the total number of camps of other peoples so destroyed was six (four before 1876) divided among the Shoshone, Arapaho, Piegan, and Lakota as listed below (Greene, personal communication, 1999.) ...

Even with the seven instances of Cheyenne camp destruction by US troops before 1876 (or six, if the first Platte Bridge fight is not counted) compared to four such instances of all other tribes combined before 1876, it is easy to see how the opinion may have prevailed among the tribes in general that the Cheyennes had been singled out for special and unusual punishment. ...

My premises are that:

1) The Cheyennes preceded the Sioux into the Black Hills, and thence into the Powder River Country south of the Yellowstone including Powder River, Tongue River, and the Littlehorn-Bighorn drainages. And they were arguably the prime force in all wars of the northern plains after 1860. (Contemporary Cheyenne remarks to this effect include that of late tribal historian Bill Tallbull, who said “The Sioux were just at the Fetterman fight to hold the Cheyenne horses,” and another, “The Crows did the scouting, the Cheyennes did the fighting, and the Sioux got the credit” (Mary Ellen McWilliams and moccasin telegraph to author, 1999.)

2) The Cheyennes preceded the Sioux in getting horses, later passing them on to the Oglalas with whom they were closely allied and intermarried (Grinnell 1956: 36-37 ; Stands in Timber and Liberty 1998: 116-118; Porter 1986:61; Moore 1996:94).

3) The Cheyennes were first to conduct tribal-level warfare, rather than that of individual bands or war parties -- “horse and scalp raids” in Utley’s terms. This happened against the Bannocks-Shoshonis in 1817, the Crows in 1820, and in four subsequent fights including two against the Pawnees as late as 1853 (Grinnell 1956: 25, 72. ) The tribal Sacred Arrows were carried by the tribe as a whole against these enemies in six recorded moves of the Arrows in 36 years, 1817- 1853 (Grinnell 1956: 72). Such attacks featuring the Arrows had to be made by the tribe as a whole.

It is not clear that any of the seven Lakota groups (Oglala, Hunkpapa etc.) ever went to war as entire societies in this way.

Lakota Religion: Intelligent Design

"Grandfather, Great Spirit, you have been always, and before you no one has been. There is no other one to pray to but you. You yourself, everything that you see, everything has been made by you. The star nations all over the universe you have finished [created]." -- Black Elk, medicine man, Black Elk Speaks, August 1930

Magical Tidal Forces

According to mainstream science:
1. Gravity answers all metaphysical questions (instead of 'God did it' just substitute gravity): gravity did it.
2. Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and Dark Flow explain all astronomical observations.
3. Tidal Forces explain all geological topography and falsifications of gravitation and plate tectonics.

Science Daily: Formation of Bulge on Far Side of Moon Explained.

ScienceDaily (Nov. 12, 2010) — A bulge of elevated topography on the far side of the moon -- known as the lunar far side highlands -- has defied explanation for decades. But a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, shows that the highlands may be the result of tidal forces acting early in the moon's history when its solid outer crust floated on an ocean of liquid rock.

LOL. Nevermind the fact that this is utterly impossible.

"Below we will show some of the simple physical reasons why the present geodynamic and geotectonic paradigms are so dramatically wrong, and why continents cannot move like 'rafts' on a 'sea' of convecting semifluid hot mantle." -- Stavros T. Tassos (seismologist) and David J. Ford (geologist), 2005

Tropical Forests Thrived During Ancient Global Warming

New Scientist: Tropical Forests Thrived in Ancient Global Warming.

South America's tropical forests flourished when temperatures skyrocketed 56 million years ago. Could this mean that climate change will spare the Amazon?

Carlos Jaramillo of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Balboa, Panama, and colleagues excavated pollen and other plant remains from three sites in Colombia and Venezuela.

Their samples span the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), when soaring levels of greenhouse gases caused global temperatures to rise by 5 °C in about 10,000 years.

The tropical forests then faced average temperatures up to 34 °C, compared with 27 °C today, yet contrary to expectations the pollens suggest plant diversity increased.

Each sample of 150 grains of pollen from the PETM contained an average of 36 species, compared with just 24 species in samples from older, cooler times. And the rate at which new species formed was significantly higher in the PETM than before it.

The trends are puzzling because models predict that the Amazon will burn and be reduced to savannah with future climate change

Abderite LOL.

Scientists Propose Alien Zombie Resurrection

Wired Science: All Life on Earth Could Have Come From Alien Zombies.

Life on Earth could have grown from the broken remains of alien viruses that, although dead, still contained enough information to give rise to new life.

Scientists have speculated that life could have come to Earth from space — a notion called panspermia — since the 1870s, when Lord Kelvin suggested microbes could have ridden here on a comet or meteor. Others have suggested tiny organisms could cross the galaxy embedded in dust grains, which could be nudged from one planetary system to another by the slight pressure of stars’ radiation.

However, most astrobiologists think that same radiation spells a death sentence for delicate microbes.

“That essentially kills panspermia in the classical sense,” said astrobiologist Rocco Mancinelli of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.

But maybe not, says astronomer Paul Wesson, a visiting researcher at the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Canada. In an upcoming paper in Space Science Reviews, Wesson argues that even if the actual microbes are dead on arrival, the information they carry could allow life to rise from the charred remains, an idea he calls necropanspermia.

“The vast majority of organisms reach a new home in the Milky Way in a technically dead state,” Wesson wrote. “Resurrection may, however, be possible.”

Whimsical Science

"Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy a coffin." -- Robert G. Ingersoll

Mel Acheson: Whimsical Science.

Spectroscopic evidence indicates the presence of material in what was thought to be empty space between the galaxies in the Sculptor Wall.

The Sculptor Wall itself is an artifact of assuming that a galaxy’s redshift (z) is a measure of its distance. With that assumption, the Wall stretches across the universe from near to far. The raw data, of course, only indicates that it stretches from low-z to high-z. With Arp’s assumption that high-z objects are ejected from low-z ones and evolve toward low-z themselves, the Wall is a family grouping of relatively nearby galaxies.

The newly discovered material between the galaxies has been named WHIM (Warm Hot Intergalactic Medium). There’s an already existing name for it—plasma—but the invention of a new name helps to obscure the electrical implications. The artist’s license also permits the WHIM to be drawn as a fog bank rather than the more likely filamentary cell.

Electrically discharging galaxies embedded in cells of plasma is a phenomenon that can be studied (on a smaller scale) in plasma labs on Earth. Such a study would take astronomy a giant step toward becoming a science and away from whimsical artistry.

Only 5 or 6 Exorcists In The United States

CatholicCulture.Org: Only 5 or 6 exorcists in United States Says Bishop.

To counter the shortage of exorcists in the United States-- Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield (Illinois), chairman of the US bishops’ Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance, says there are only five or six of whom he is aware-- the US bishops are holding a two-day conference on exorcism. Nearly five dozen bishops and 66 priests are expected to attend.

Exorcists Needed

Catholic News Service: Bishops' Upcoming Exorcism Conference Responds to Queries About Rite.

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- U.S. bishops are looking for a few good men to become exorcists.

In response to growing interest in the rite of exorcism and a shortage of trained exorcists nationwide, the bishops are sponsoring a two-day conference just prior to their 2010 fall general assembly Nov. 15-18 in Baltimore.

Interest in the Nov. 12-13 Conference on the Liturgical and Pastoral Practice of Exorcism proved great. When registration closed Nov. 1, 56 bishops and 66 priests had signed up.

Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., chairman of the bishops' Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance, told Catholic News Service he knows of perhaps five or six exorcists in the United States. They are overwhelmed with requests to perform the rite, he said.

"There's this small group of priests who say they get requests from all over the continental U.S.," Bishop Paprocki said.

"Actually, each diocese should have its own resource (person). It shouldn't be that this burden should be placed on a priest when his responsibility is for his own diocese," he said.

Under canon law -- Canon 1172 specifically -- only those priests who get permission from their bishops can perform an exorcism after proper training.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that an exorcism occurs when the church, in the person of an exorcist, asks "publicly and authoritatively" in Christ's name "that a person or object be protected against the power of the evil one and withdrawn from his dominion."

At baptism, the rite is performed in a simple form. A solemn or major exorcism, according to the catechism, "is directed at the expulsion of demons or to the liberation from demonic possession through the spiritual authority which Jesus entrusted in his church."

Scripture contains several examples of Jesus casting out evil spirits from people.

"We don't think that's poetic metaphor," Bishop Paprocki said.

The conference will encompass the spiritual, the theological and the practical. Speakers include Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Houston-Galveston, who will discuss the scriptural basis of evil. Father Dennis McManus, an assistant to New York Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, and Father Jeffrey Grob, pastor of St. Celestine Church in Elmwood Park, Ill., also will lead sessions.

Father Grob told CNS he will review diocesan protocol in the appointment of an exorcist as well as what canon law says about the rite. He also will offer recommendations on how to evaluate an individual to determine if an exorcism is necessary.

Despite the many requests for an exorcism, the actual number of people possessed by a demon is far fewer than people fear, Bishop Paprocki said.

The rite is considered a sacramental, which canon law describes as a sacred sign "by which effects, especially spiritual effects, are signified in some imitation of the sacraments and are obtained through the intercession of the church." The rite rarely is as dramatic as portrayed in movies and popular media, Bishop Paprocki said.

Other actions, especially reception of the sacraments, can drive out the devil as well, he added.

"The sacrament of penance is much more powerful than an exorcism," the bishop explained. "The work of the devil is much more regular and our response to that should be rather regular. It's not that you need a special exorcism to deal with the devil."

Church practice, which was updated in 1999, requires that a thorough investigation of the circumstances surrounding the individual thought to be possessed be undertaken. Physical and psychological exams are conducted. A priest also will examine the person. Family, friends and co-workers may be interviewed.

"There's a lot of preliminary work that has to go in with dealing with the people in terms of assessing what the situation is. We use the principal that we exclude the natural before going to the supernatural level," Bishop Paprocki said.

Father Grob used the image of an onion to explain how the evaluation process works.

"You have to peel away the layers and if there is general demonic activity, it didn't get there overnight," he explained. "There's not an instantaneous change in the person."

Signs of demonic possession might include:

-- Speaking in a language the individual does not know.

-- Scratching, cutting, biting of the skin.

-- Profound display of strength.

-- Sleeplessness.

-- Lack of appetite.

-- Aversion to anything holy, such as mentioning the name of Jesus or Mary, or the act of praying.

-- Strong or violent reaction to holy water.

Once the need for a formal exorcism is determined, the rite is conducted in a private setting such as a church, a holy space if no church is available, or a person's home, where family members can be present.

In a case where the possession is deep-seated, it may take more than one performance of the rite over a period of months or even years to dispel the devil, Bishop Paprocki said.

"We, because of Hollywood, have this kind of exaggerated sense of not only a very dramatic kind of possession, but also a very dramatic kind of exorcism. It ties in with our culture of quick fixes: You do it once and person is going to be liberated," he said.

Holy water, a crucifix, relics of saints and blessed salt are part of the exorcism rite.

"The reality is that a full exorcism is a rare thing," Bishop Paprocki said, "but we still have to have people who know how to do that because the reality is that it's not unheard of."

Exorcisms are more common in Europe. Dozens of priests are authorized to perform the rite, especially in Italy, France and Poland.

"It's not only performed more commonly (in Europe), but a lot less people get excited about it," Bishop Paprocki said. "It's not quite as exceptional as we would take it."

Evolutionists Wrong Again

Science Daily: New Statistical Model Moves Human Evolution Back Three Million Years.

ScienceDaily (Nov. 5, 2010) — Evolutionary divergence of humans and chimpanzees likely occurred some 8 million years ago rather than the 5 million year estimate widely accepted by scientists, a new statistical model suggests.

Science Fail

Business Insider: Former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger: Peak Oil Is Here But Politicians Are Ignoring It.

There is an old Spiritual, that is relevant here, the walls of those who doubted the peak, seemed to be impregnable. Nonetheless, you marched around the walls seven times, and then blew the trumpets, and the walls of Jericho came tumbling down.

That's the most logical and scientific argument I've ever seen from the Fossil Fuel Cult.