Sunday, November 27, 2011

seven commandments of survivors

This was a fascinating article, an audio article by Dee Ann Miller.

The audio can be downloaded here.

http://www.archive.org/details/7CommandmentsOfSurvivors

I will let this post pretty much speak for itself.


Bill




Survivors are fielded with commandments that come from the spiritual community,
even if you aren't a survivor of clergy abuse.

You have heard many commandments:

Thou shall keep quiet - would be one

Thou shalt preserve the institution

Shall shalt not bear false witness - meaning that you are lying

Shall shalt not speak against your neighbor

on and on it goes as if these were these are the voices of God.

For survivors who have a deep religious faith or have had one

It is important in the renewal of spirituality to understand that everything that one is commanded from the institutional leaders is not necessarily helpful

I thought giving you 7 commandments could be helpful

So here they are:

Commandment one - thou shall NOT blame thy self when others do not get it.
They suffer from short sightedness and blind spots. You are not responsible for changing that. THEY ARE!

Commandment two - thou shall NOT set a timetable for your healing, OR for the healing of the larger community. While time alone can not heal - healing takes time.

Number 3 - thou shall not accept without question anyone else's prescription for your healing. YOU alone can judge when, and how to proceed. When to take a rest, and when to celebrate.

Number 4 - Thou shall not fail to celebrate small successes. You may the only one that recognizes them, and the only one that can reward yourself for them.

Commandment number 5 - thou shall NOT isolate thyself. No matter how strong the temptations seem, or how overwhelming the struggle taking time to be alone may help. But staying in isolation stifles creativity and leads to OVER AWFULIZING!

Commandment #6 - Thou SHALT surround thyself with beauty. Beautiful people, nature beautiful music and enriching experiences. Reminding yourself that all of these good things produces strength, and growth.

Commandment #7 - Thou SHALL stand TALL! even when feeling low. Showing to the world what you are learning about yourself as you overcome.


This audio is part of the collection: Community Audio

Artist/Composer: Dee Ann Miller
Keywords: clergy abuse; domestic violence; verbal abuse; emotional abuse; physical abuse; sexual abuse; faith; church

Creative Commons license: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0

Friday, November 04, 2011

Wind Power Fraud

This cut and paste is lifted directly from the CR4 web site with permission. The author's pen name is zgm. Personally, I would have liked to see a lot more internal links or foot notes. Does any of my good readers have an opinion?

Excerpts from my book "Conned with the Wind"

WIND ENERGY

PRODUCTIVITY

Intermittency


Intermittent energy requires reserves for inactive periods.
One cannot expect households to stop their heating or
refrigerators, nor industry to stop its operations, just
because the wind stopped blowing.

Now, reserves must come from plants capable to start, stop,
change the rate in matter of minutes, which practically
restricts them to fossil plants (oil, gas, coal). Fossil
plants are the most polluting even in permanent regime.
In the irregular regime of reserves their pollution ratio
is still increased by a large factor.

An intermittent source provides only that part of its
installed capacity, which corresponds to the periods of
activity.
Now, wind turbines shut down for:
-wind too weak,
-wind too strong (for security reasons),
-wind-blasts (for security reasons),
-ideal conditions, when all wind turbines work at full
capacity, because it would heat white the high tension lines,
which were not build to accommodate wind energy picks.

Their productive capacity, corresponding to the periods of
activity has been evaluated in the 2005 report of E.On, the
leading German electricity provider controlling about
15 000 wind turbines.

A quote from E.On report_2005

"In 2004 two major German studies investigated the size of
contribution that wind farms make towards guaranteed capacity.
Both studies separately came to virtually identical conclusions,
that wind energy currently contributes to the secure production
capacity of the system, by providing 8% of its installed
capacity.
That is, wind power construction must be accompanied by almost
equal construction of new conventional power plants, which will
be used very nearly as much as if the wind turbines were not
there."

Translated to ordinary language, E.On considers wind power
as mere window dressing behind which the real work is done
by fossil reserves.


Internal energy consumption


Large wind turbines require a large amount of energy to operate.
Other electricity plants generally use their own electricity,
and the difference between the amount they generate and the
amount delivered to the grid is readily determined. Wind plants,
however, use electricity from the grid, which does not appear
to be accounted for in their output figures. The manufacturers
of large turbines do not include electricity consumption in
the specifications they provide.

In order not to overcharge the body of the essay, the details
of the internal energy consumption are presented in Appendix.
In their light it seems reasonable to assume that wind turbines
consume more than 50% of energy they produce in their own
operation.

With the internal consumption added to intermittency reducing
the productive capacity to 8% of the installed, wind turbines
may produce less energy than they draw - perhaps unpaid for -
from the grid.


Adjusted PIR


E.On's PIR (Productive/Installed Ratio) of 8% does not account
for the internal energy consumption (about 50% of produced
energy). Accordingly adjusted PIR of 4% tallies with the study
of the Deutsche-Energie Agentur, which concludes:

"while wind power capacity will reach 48 GW by 2020 in
Germany, the source is so intermittent and unreliable that
it is equivalent to only 2 GW of stable fossil fuel capacity."

Now, 2/48 is indeed equal to 4%.


Wind share of electricity production


Media give the wind share of electricity production
arbitrarily, without any justification, as 19% for Denmark,
11% for Spain and Portugal, and 7% for Germany and Ireland.

The German Wind Energy Association (BWE), which cannot be
suspected of anti-wind bias claims only 5% for Germany.
This claim is based upon an estimated PIR of 16%.

Corrected for the adjusted E.On's PIR of 4%, the wind share
in German electricity production may be reasonably evaluated
at 1.25% (0.5% * 4/16).

Media overestimate the wind share of German production
by the factor of 5.6 (7 / 1.25).

Applying this factor to media estimates quoted above, we
get corrected estimations for:

Germany - 1.25% instead of 7%
Spain and Portugal - 2% instead of 11%
Denmark - 3.4% instead of the famous 19%.


SOME USUAL CLICHES ADVERTISING WIND POWER


CLICHE: Wind energy is a practical, efficient alternative.
COMMENT: 18 000 German wind turbines produce 1.25% of German
electric energy. To have an idea of wind efficiency, imagine
a train replacing electric or diesel engines with sails.
Wind energy is a NON-ALTERNATIVE.

CLICHE: Wind energy is clean.
COMMENT: True for 8% of time. For the rest, taken integrally
with reserves it is the most polluting form of energy.

CLICHE: Wind energy is an alternative to Nuclear.
COMMENT: False. Shelving for the moment that Wind is a
NON-ALTERNATIVE to anything:
In order to replace French Nuclear one would
have to cover all available places in France
THREE TIMES with turbines, change France to 3 layers of
turbines standing on top of one another. With fossil plants
on top of them for 92% of the installed wind power.


SOME ADDITIONAL CHARACTERISTICS


One does not get a full picture just by negating false cliches.
Let's recall some characteristics of wind power less known to
the public.

COST. A wind KWH is 9 times more expensive (in France and
Germany) than the traditional. That, for the operative 8%.
For 92% of reserve use the ratio varies from 14 to 40 under
normal reserves availability (see next paragraph). The extra
cost is carried by the citizen in form of tax increase
(state subventions of wind power), or electricity bill.

IMPACT ON RESERVES AND ON GRID. Reserves control is one of
most complex issues of electric grid management. Reserves
are used, of course, not only to support wind power, but
to compensate any unforeseen drop in supply, like failure
of a transformer, etc. Reserves management is in hands of
a central command unit of a provider. Once facing emergency
(e.g. a meteo message warning of closing the turbines), the
manager considers an internet site offering reserves by
international auction. Offer and demand determine the price,
which usually fluctuates between 14 and 40 times that of
traditional supply. Occasionally it reached 500 and more.
But what if there are no available reserves?
Simply a black-out like that in the US, in Greece and in
Italy. One or two wind turbines of course don't count. But
thousands contribute seriously to disequilibrate the grids.
A study concludes that if the increase trend continues, the
wind power may cause a several months black-out for whole
Europe, with devastation comparable to that of the WWII.
The only way to avoid it is to follow E.On's example and
to build dedicated fossil reserve plants with capacity
nearly equal to that of the new wind plants.

SUBSOIL. Pictures from the energy companies show slim towers
rising cleanly from the landscape or hovering faintly in the
distant haze, their presence modulated by soft clouds behind
them. But a 200- to 300-foot tower supporting a turbine
housing the size of a bus and three 100- to 150-foot rotor
blades sweeping over an acre of air at more than 100 mph
requires, for a start, a large and solid foundation.
On a GE 1.5-MW tower, the turbine housing, or nacelle, weighs
over 56 tons, the blade assembly weighs over 36 tons, and
the whole tower assembly totals over 163 tons.
As FPL (Florida Power & Light) Energy says, "a typical turbine
site takes about a 42Ã-42-foot-square graveled area." Each tower
(and a site needs at least 15-20 towers to make investment
worthwhile) requires a huge hole filled with steel rebarâ€"
reinforced concrete (e.g., 1,250 tons in each foundation at
the facility in Lamar, Colo.). According to Country Guardian,
the hole is large enough to fit three double-decker buses.
At the 89-turbine Top of Iowa facility, the foundation of each
323-foot assembly is a 7-feet-deep 42-feet-diameter octagon
filled with 25,713 pounds of reinforced steel and 181 cubic
yards of concrete. The foundations at the Wild Horse project
in Washington are 30 feet deep. At Buffalo Mountain in Tennessee,
too, each foundation is at least 30 feet deep and may contain
more than 3,500 cubic yards of concrete (production of which is
a major source of CO2). On Cefn Croes in Wales the developer
built a complete concrete factory on the site, which is not
unusual, as well as opened quarries to provide rock for new
roads -- neither of which activities were part of the original
planning application.
On many such mountain ridges as well as other locations,
it would be necessary to blast into the bedrock, as Enxco's
New England representative, John Zimmerman, has confirmed,
possibly disrupting the water sources for wells downhill.
At the Waymart plant in Pennsylvania, the foundations extend
30-40 feet into the bedrock. At Romney Marsh in southern England,
foundation pillars will be sunk 110 feet. For each 6-feet-deep
foundation at the Crescent Ridge facility in Illinois, another
24 feet was dug out and filled with sand. Construction at a
site on the Slieve Aughty range in Ireland in October 2003
caused a 2.5-mile-long bog slide.

ENVIRONMENT. German League of Landscape Protection compares
wind turbines devastation of environment with that of the 30
years war.

BIRDS. The "Bird Grinders" kill millions of birds a year in
Germany.

NUISANCES. Noise, stroboscopic effects, disco effects, and
infrasounds impact the health and the quality of life of
close residents. These effects were used as tortures by Nazis
and/or Gulag, more acutely of course, but qualitatively alike.

PROJECTIONS. 50 kg blocks of ice projected at 1 km.
In several cases of brakes failure 30m long and 3 tons
heavy blades were projected at 500m.


REAL MOTIVATION


One may ask, why wind turbines are so progressing, if they
are inefficient, polluting, depletable, costly, devastating
environment, harmful to neighbors' health, life quality and
life itself?

Money is the answer. Wind power is probably the biggest fraud
of the century. The German wind lobby grifted in the present
decade 50 billion Euros from the taxpayers in form of
subventions, tax reductions, interest free credits and law
obliging providers to buy Wind Energy at 9 times the current
cost.

One estimates that 30% of this money goes to bribe involved
politicians from ministers and lawmakers to village mayors.


CHOKING REAL ALTERNATIVES


But we did not yet tell the worst: draining all money and
resources, the Wind Monster chokes other really clean and
sustainable alternatives.

In Brittany, traditionally competent in things of the sea,
a company produced an efficient prototype of "hydrolienne",
a sea current turbine. Now, that is clean, permanent (no
reserves) and environment friendly. The company is going
broke for want of 500 thousand Euro.
A small fraction of grifted billions could save it and
its product.


ABS REPORT


Some of crucial assertions of the present essay are supported
by the ABS report, as can be seen in the following excerpts:

The most important findings of this report highlight studies
that raise critical concerns challenging some of the claims
made for wind power.

These studies are the first real evidence showing how wind
actually works, as opposed to what has been claimed, and
come from some of the most authoritative voices on energy
in the world. Reports from E.On Netz, the system operator
with the largest wind power feed-in in the world, and
Eltra of Denmark, which had the largest percentage wind
power contribution, show disturbing results.

E.On cites a study from the Deutsche-Energie Agentur. The
report was sponsored by the German government and all sides
of the industry. Among bombshells contained inside, the study
suggests that while wind power capacity will reach 48 GW by
2020 in Germany, the source is so intermittent and unreliable
that it is equivalent to only 2 GW of stable fossil fuel
capacity.

... because of this variability in wind, back-up fossil fuel
plants must be operated at low load to maintain system
reliability. There is new evidence that shows that switching
base load fossil fuel plants on and off to balance a system
produces higher carbon emissions than continuous operation,
certainly not a supposed benefit from switching to renewable
energy sources.

Because wind installations tend to be concentrated in areas
with high wind speeds, regional grids are heavily overloaded
at times of maximum feed-in. Each country studied reported
extreme difficulties in balancing the grid. A further 2,700 km
of costly high voltage transmission lines will be required
in Germany to accommodate new wind capacity.


POSTFACE


Setting benefits of wind power against its drawbacks we find

on the one hand nearly nothing - wind power boils down to
a political window dressing, concealing the fossil reserves
doing practically all the work in the background;

and, on the other hand:
-highest pollution rate of the irregularly operating
background reserves,
-economic disaster,
-environment devastation comparable with that of the 30 years
war,
-choking of all pertinent renewable energy options,
-and last, but not least, effects used by the Nazis as
tortures inflicted on neighboring populations.

We read in the ABS report: "ABS Energy Research's report
does not relegate wind power to the dustbin... objective
analysis is essential."

They had to cream their report with a bit of political
cosmetics, but "objective analysis" seems, indeed, essential
and clearly indicates that dustbin is the only suitable place
for wind power and that the citizens are taken for ride by
the fraudulent mafia and corrupted governance.


APPENDIX.

Internal energy consumption.


NOTE: The present appendix is still a stub. The highly
technical and complex details kept undisclosed by wind
turbine manufacturers request still a lot of probing,
evaluating and editing. Consisting of direct quotations
of several American studies, it may contain confusions
of terms and units such as might appear in the originals.

Among the functions of wind turbines using electricity are
the following:

-Yaw mechanism keeping the rotor perpendicular to the wind.
(the nacelle (turbine housing) and blades together weigh 92
tons on a GE 1.5-MW turbine).

-Blade-pitch control keeping the rotors spinning regularly.

-Lights, controllers, communication, sensors, metering, data
collection, etc.

-Heating the blades which may require 10%-20% of the nominal
(rated) power

-Heating and dehumidifying the nacelle.

-Oil heater, pump, cooler, and filtering system in gearbox.

-Hydraulic brake locking the blades in very high wind.

-Thyristors graduating the connection and disconnection
between generator and grid.

-Magnetizing the stator. The induction generators used in
most large grid-connected turbines require a large amount of
continuous electricity from the grid to actively power the
magnetic coils around the asynchronous "cage rotor" that
encloses the generator shaft; at the rated wind speeds, it
helps keep the rotor speed constant, and as the wind starts
blowing it helps start the rotor turning (see next item);
in the rated wind speeds, the stator may use power equal to
10% of the turbine's rated capacity, in slower winds possibly
much more.

-Using the generator as a motor (to help the blades start
to turn when the wind speed is low or, as many suspect,
to maintain the illusion that the facility is producing
electricity when it is not, particularly during important
site tours) it seems possible that the grid-magnetized
stator must work to help keep the 40-ton blade assembly
spinning, along with the gears that increase the blade rpm
some 50 times for the generator, not just at cut-in (or
for show in even less wind) but at least some of the way
up towards the full rated wind speed; it may also be
spinning the blades and rotor shaft to prevent warping when
there is no wind, or - some cases have been reported - just
to show that turbines are not idling.

-It may be that each turbine consumes more than 50% of its
rated capacity in its own operation. If so, the plant as a
whole, which may produce only a part of its rated capacity
would be using (for free!) twice as much electricity as it
produces and sells.

-Whatever the actual amount of consumption, it could seriously
diminish any claim of providing a significant amount of energy.
Instead, it looks like industrial wind power could turn out
to be a laundering scheme: "Dirty" energy goes in, "clean"
energy comes out. That would explain why developers demand
legislation to create a market for "green credits" -- tokens
of "clean" energy like the indulgences sold by the medieval
church. Ego te absolvo.

-In large rotating power trains such as this, if allowed to
stand motionless for any period of time, the unit will
experience "bowing" of shafts and rotors under the tremendous
weight. Therefore, frequent rotating of the unit is necessary
to prevent this. As an example, even in port Navy ships keep
their propeller shafts and turbine power trains slowly rotating.
It is referred to as "jacking the shaft" to prevent any tendency
to bow. Any bowing would throw the whole train out of balance
with potentially very serious damage when bringing the power
train back on line.

-In addition to just protecting the gear box and generator
shafts and bearings, the blades on a large wind turbine would
offer a special challenge with respect to preventing warping
and bowing when not in use. For example, on a sunny, windless
day, idle wind turbine blades would experience uneven heating
from the sun, something that would certainly cause bowing and
warping. The only way to prevent this would be to keep the
blades moving to even out the sun exposure to all parts of the
blade.

-So, the point that major amounts of incoming electrical power
is used to turn the power train and blades when the wind is
not blowing is very accurate, and it is not something the
operators of large wind turbines can avoid.

-In addition, there is the likely need for a hefty, forced-feed
lubricating system for the shaft and turbine blade assembly
bearings. This would be a major hotel load. One can't imagine
passive lubrication (as for the wheel bearings on your car)
for an application like this. Maybe so, but it would be very
surprising. Assuming they have to have a forced-feed lubrication
system, given the weight on those bearings (40 tons on the
bearing for the rotor and blades alone) a very robust (energy
sucking) lubricating oil system would be required. It would
also have to include cooling for the oil and an energy-sucking
lube oil purification system too."

One need only ask utilities to show how much "dirty"
electricity they purchase because of wind-generated power
to see that something is amiss in the wind industry's claims.
If wind worked and were not mere window dressing, the industry
would trot out some real numbers. But they don't. One begins
to suspect that they can't.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Ammonia in Hamburger

Safety of Beef Processing Method Is Questioned

Published: December 30, 2009

Eight years ago, federal officials were struggling to remove potentially deadly E. coli from hamburgers when an entrepreneurial company from South Dakota came up with a novel idea: injecting beef with ammonia.

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Beef Products Inc.’s ammonia-treated beef.

Carol Guzy/Washington Post

A Beef Products Inc. processing plant in South Sioux City, Neb. The company injects fatty beef trimmings with ammonia to remove E. coli and salmonella.

Seth Perlman/Associated Press

Both McDonald’s and Burger King use Beef Products’ processed beef as a component in ground beef.

Rick Wilking/Reuters

Readers’ Comments

"The humane treatment of the animals is at best an afterthought, as is the welfare of all the humans who consume these products."
Muzykant, Cambridge, MA

The company, Beef Products Inc., had been looking to expand into the hamburger business with a product made from beef that included fatty trimmings the industry once relegated to pet food and cooking oil. The trimmings were particularly susceptible to contamination, but a study commissioned by the company showed that the ammonia process would kill E. coli as well as salmonella.

Officials at the United States Department of Agriculture endorsed the company’s ammonia treatment, and have said it destroys E. coli “to an undetectable level.” They decided it was so effective that in 2007, when the department began routine testing of meat used in hamburger sold to the general public, they exempted Beef Products.

With the U.S.D.A.’s stamp of approval, the company’s processed beef has become a mainstay in America’s hamburgers. McDonald’s, Burger King and other fast-food giants use it as a component in ground beef, as do grocery chains. The federal school lunch program used an estimated 5.5 million pounds of the processed beef last year alone.

But government and industry records obtained by The New York Times show that in testing for the school lunch program, E. coli and salmonella pathogens have been found dozens of times in Beef Products meat, challenging claims by the company and the U.S.D.A. about the effectiveness of the treatment. Since 2005, E. coli has been found 3 times and salmonella 48 times, including back-to-back incidents in August in which two 27,000-pound batches were found to be contaminated. The meat was caught before reaching lunch-rooms trays.

In July, school lunch officials temporarily banned their hamburger makers from using meat from a Beef Products facility in Kansas because of salmonella — the third suspension in three years, records show. Yet the facility remained approved by the U.S.D.A. for other customers.

Presented by The Times with the school lunch test results, top department officials said they were not aware of what their colleagues in the lunch program had been finding for years.

In response, the agriculture department said it was revoking Beef Products’ exemption from routine testing and conducting a review of the company’s operations and research. The department said it was also reversing its policy for handling Beef Products during pathogen outbreaks. Since it was seen as pathogen-free, the processed beef was excluded from recalls, even when it was an ingredient in hamburgers found to be contaminated.

The Beef Products case reveals a schism between the main Department of Agriculture and its division that oversees the school lunch program, a divide that underscores the government’s faltering effort to make hamburger safe. The U.S.D.A. banned the sale of meat found to be contaminated with the O157:H7 strain of E. coli 15 years ago, after a deadly outbreak was traced to Jack in the Box restaurants. Meat tainted with salmonella is also a hazard. But while the school lunch program will not buy meat contaminated with salmonella, the agriculture department does not ban its sale to the general public.

Even so, E. coli outbreaks nationwide have increased in recent years. And this summer, two outbreaks of particularly virulent strains of salmonella in hamburger prompted large recalls of ground beef across several states.

Although no outbreak has been tied to Beef Products, officials said they would thoroughly scrutinize any future industry innovations for fighting contamination “to ensure that they are scientifically sound and protect public health,” and that they were examining the government’s overall meat safety policies.

The founder and owner of Beef Products, Eldon N. Roth, declined requests for interviews or access to the company’s production facilities. Responding to written questions, Beef Products said it had a deep commitment to hamburger safety and was continually refining its operation to provide the safest product possible. “B.P.I.’s track record demonstrates the progress B.P.I. has made compared to the industry norm,” the company said. “Like any responsible member of the meat industry, we are not perfect.”

Beef Products maintains that its ammonia process remains effective. It said it tests samples of each batch it ships to customers and has found E. coli in only 0.06 percent of the samples this year.

The company says its processed beef, a mashlike substance frozen into blocks or chips, is used in a majority of the hamburger sold nationwide. But it has remained little known outside industry and government circles. Federal officials agreed to the company’s request that the ammonia be classified as a “processing agent” and not an ingredient that would be listed on labels.

Within the U.S.D.A., the treated beef has been a source of friction for years. The department accepted the company’s own study as evidence that the treatment was effective. School lunch officials, who had some doubts about its effectiveness, required that Beef Products meat be tested, as they do all beef used by the program.

School lunch officials said that in some years Beef Products testing results were worse than many of the program’s two dozen other suppliers, which use traditional meat processing methods. From 2005 to 2009, Beef Products had a rate of 36 positive results for salmonella per 1,000 tests, compared to a rate of nine positive results per 1,000 tests for the other suppliers, according to statistics from the program. Beef Products said its testing regime was more likely to detect contamination.

Despite some misgivings, school lunch officials say they use Beef Products because its price is substantially lower than ordinary meat trimmings, saving about $1 million a year.

Another snapshot of processed beef’s performance emerges from confidential records of tests in 2007 by the food giant Cargill. In the preceding year and a half, Cargill, which used more than 50 vendors, suspended three facilities for excessive salmonella; two were Beef Products plants, records show.

Since introducing the treated meat, Beef Products has faced the challenge of balancing safety with taste, records and interviews show.

Pathogens died when enough ammonia was used to raise the alkalinity of the beef to a high level, company research found. But early on, school lunch officials and other customers complained about the taste and smell of the beef. Samples of the processed beef obtained by The Times revealed lower levels of alkalinity, suggesting less ammonia was used.

Beef Products acknowledged lowering the alkalinity, and the U.S.D.A. said it had determined that “at least some of B.P.I.’s product was no longer receiving the full lethality treatment.”

Beef Products said it had submitted new research to the agriculture department showing that its treatment remained effective with lower alkalinity. Agriculture officials said Beef Products’ latest study is under review.

A Safety Solution

Headstrong and self-assured, Eldon N. Roth had the good fortune of being in the right place at the right time.

Mr. Roth spent the 1990s looking to give Beef Products a competitive edge by turning fatty slaughterhouse trimmings into usable lean beef.

Mr. Roth and others in the industry had discovered that liquefying the fat and extracting the protein from the trimmings in a centrifuge resulted in a lean product that was desirable to hamburger-makers.

The greater challenge was eliminating E. coli and salmonella, which are more prevalent in fatty trimmings than in higher grades of beef. According to a 2003 study financed by Beef Products, the trimmings “typically includes most of the material from the outer surfaces of the carcass” and contains “larger microbiological populations.” Beef Products said it also used trimmings from inside cuts of meat.

Mr. Roth was well suited to tackle the problem, friends say. Though lacking a science background, he had a knack for machinery and obtained patents for over two dozen pieces of equipment and methods used in processing beef.

“He looked and looked at stuff and always wondered, why can’t it be done this way?” said Dr. David M. Theno, a food safety consultant and friend of Mr. Roth. “He is like a lot of inventors. Not everyone sees Eldon’s vision.”

One of Mr. Roth’s early trials involved running electricity through the trimmings to kill bacteria, Dr. Theno and others said. Mr. Roth eventually settled on ammonia, which had been shown to suppress spoilage. Meat is sent through pipes where it is exposed to ammonia gas, and then flash frozen and compressed — all steps that help kill pathogens, company research found.

The treated beef landed in Washington in 2001, when federal officials were searching for ways to eliminate E. coli. Beef Products already had one study showing its treatment would do that; another company-sponsored study by an Iowa State University professor that was published in a professional journal seconded that finding.

Mr. Roth asserted that his product would kill pathogens in untreated meat when it was used as an ingredient in ground beef — raising the prospect of a risk-free burger. “Given the technology, we firmly believe that the two pathogens of major concern in raw ground beef — E. coli O157:H7 and salmonella — are on the verge of elimination,” Mr. Roth wrote to the department.

The Food and Drug Administration signed off on the use of ammonia, concluding it was safe when used as a processing agent in foods. This year, a top official with the U.S.D.A.’s Food Safety and Inspection Service said, “It eliminates E. coli to the same degree as if you cooked the product.”

Carl S. Custer, a former U.S.D.A. microbiologist, said he and other scientists were concerned that the department had approved the treated beef for sale without obtaining independent validation of the potential safety risk. Another department microbiologist, Gerald Zirnstein, called the processed beef "pink slime" in a 2002 e-mail message to colleagues and said, “I do not consider the stuff to be ground beef, and I consider allowing it in ground beef to be a form of fraudulent labeling.”

One of the toughest hurdles for Beef Products was the Agricultural Marketing Service, the U.S.D.A. division that buys food for school lunches. Officials cited complaints about the odor, and wrote in a 2002 memorandum that they had “to determine if the addition of ammonia to the product is in the best interest to A.M.S. from a quality standpoint.”

“It is our contention,” the memo added, “that product should be labeled accordingly.”

Represented by Dennis R. Johnson, a top lawyer and lobbyist for the meat industry, Beef Products prevailed on the question of whether ammonia should be listed as an ingredient, arguing that the government had just decided against requiring another company to list a chemical used in treating poultry.

School lunch officials said they ultimately agreed to use the treated meat because it shaved about 3 cents off the cost of making a pound of ground beef.“Several packers have unofficially raised concern regarding the use of the product since the perception of quality is inferior,” the 2002 memo said. “But will use product to obtain lower bid.”

In 2004, lunch officials increased the amount of Beef Products meat allowed in its hamburgers to 15 percent, from 10 percent, to increase savings. In a taste test at the time, some school children favored burgers with higher amounts of processed beef.

Beef Products does not disclose its earnings, but its reported production of seven million pounds a week would generate about $440 million in annual revenue, according to industry records.

Dr. Theno, the food safety consultant, applauds Mr. Roth for figuring out how to convert high-fat trimmings “with no functional value.”

“There were some issues with that,” Dr. Theno said. “But he, and God bless him, amassed a tidy fortune for it.”

As sales took off, Mr. Roth started offering a buy-back guarantee: If any of the most virulent E. coli was found in ground beef containing Beef Products meat, the company would buy the tainted meat.

This was based on Mr. Roth’s initial prediction that his treated beef could kill E. coli in any meat it was mixed with. The company acknowledges that its subsequent study found no evidence to back that up, although it says it is now trying with an enhanced treatment. The guarantee remains on the company Web site: “Contact a B.P.I. sales representative today to take the challenge!”

Odor and Alkalinity

As suppliers of national restaurant chains and government-financed programs were buying Beef Product meat to use in ground beef, complaints about its pungent odor began to emerge.

In early 2003, officials in Georgia returned nearly 7,000 pounds to Beef Products after cooks who were making meatloaf for state prisoners detected a “very strong odor of ammonia” in 60-pound blocks of the trimmings, state records show.

“It was frozen, but you could still smell ammonia,” said Dr. Charles Tant, a Georgia agriculture department official. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Unaware that the meat was treated with ammonia — since it was not on the label — Georgia officials assumed it was accidentally contaminated and alerted the agriculture department. In their complaint, the officials noted that the level of ammonia in the beef was similar to levels found in contamination incidents involving chicken and milk that had sickened schoolchildren.

Beef Products said the ammonia did not pose a danger and would be diluted when its beef was mixed with other meat. The U.S.D.A. accepted Beef Product’s conclusion, but other customers had also complained about the smell.

Untreated beef naturally contains ammonia and is typically about 6 on the pH scale, near that of rain water and milk. The Beef Products’ study that won U.S.D.A. approval used an ammonia treatment that raised the pH of the meat to as high as 10, an alkalinity well beyond the range of most foods. The company’s 2003 study cited the “potential issues surrounding the palatability of a pH-9.5 product.”

Soon after getting initial approval from the agriculture department, the company devised a plan to make a less alkaline version of the beef, internal company documents show. Beef Products acknowledged in an e-mail exchange that it was making a lower pH version, but did not specify the level or when it began selling it.

In 2008, after the school lunch program temporarily suspended a Beef Products plant for salmonella contamination, the company wrote in a letter that its effort to combat ammonia “aroma” might have reduced the alkalinity below the initial target levels. It said it was taking steps to ensure that the alkalinity remained elevated.

Samples of the treated beef obtained by The Times this month showed a pH as low as 7.75, according to an analysis by two laboratories. Dr. Michael P. Doyle, a food industry consultant and director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, said one point on the exponential pH scale was a considerable difference, and “could have a significant effect on the antimicrobial effectiveness of the ammonia.”

This month, Beef Products provided The Times with new research that the company said showed that E. coli and salmonella were undetectable at a pH level of 8.5. The agriculture department said it did not learn that Beef Products was using lower levels until October, after inquiries by The Times, and that it was studying the company’s research.

McDonald’s, whose hamburgers have contained Beef Products meat since 2004, declined to say if it monitored it for pH. But Danya Proud, a chain spokeswoman, said, “We expect the pH level to meet the specifications that are approved by the U.S.D.A.”

Contamination and Notification

At 6:36 a.m. on Aug. 10, the Beef Products plant in South Sioux City, Neb., started up its production line for the school lunch program. In 60 minutes, the plant produced a batch of 26,880 pounds of processed beef that tested positive for E. coli.

Six days later at the same plant, another 26,880-pound lot was found to have salmonella, government records and interviews show.

Within hours of confirming the contamination, the school lunch division of the Agriculture Department in Washington began investigating.

Just down the hall at department headquarters, the division that oversees meat for the general public did not conduct its own inquiry for another month and half, after receiving questions from The Times.

The problems in South Sioux City came shortly after school lunch officials had suspended a Beef Products plant in Holcomb, Kan., for excessive salmonella. The main U.S.D.A. was not notified of the suspension by school lunch officials, and the plant continued to supply other customers.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has since directed school lunch officials to share information about their suspensions with the department’s meat safety division.

In addressing the latest contamination cases in Nebraska, Beef Products said it suspected a glitch in its treatment operations, referring to ammonia gas by its chemical name, NH3, according to an e-mail message to school lunch officials.

“The system was stopped for two minutes in order to install a new valve,” the company said. “When the system was restarted, there was product flow for approximately one minute without NH3 flow.”

After the school lunch officials replied that the glitch might explain only one of the two episodes, Beef Products shifted focus to its suppliers, saying it would more closely scrutinize them for contamination.

Under the U.S.D.A.’s new policy for Beef Products, the company itself is also likely to get more scrutiny.

Cargill, one of the nation’s largest hamburger makers, is a big buyer of Beef Products’ ammoniated trimmings for its patties. Company records show that Beef Products, like other suppliers, has periodically exceeded Cargill’s limits on acceptable bacteria levels. That led Cargill to stop buying meat from two Beef Products plants for several months in 2006 after company tests showed excessive levels of salmonella.

But the following year, when Cargill faced an E. coli outbreak, it ruled out Beef Products as a possible culprit, citing the U.S.D.A.’s view that the ammonia treatment provided a “lethality step” for the pathogen. In addition, Cargill officials said recently, they suspect that another supplier, not Beef Products, was the problem. As a result, Beef Products did not face as wide a recall as other Cargill suppliers.

Recently, another E. coli outbreak was traced to a hamburger maker in upstate New York that also used multiple suppliers, including Beef Products. This time, the agriculture department said Beef Products was being recalled with other suppliers, although a source of the contamination had not been identified.

“This will continue to be our approach going forward,” the department said.

Griff Palmer contributed reporting.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Fact checking by the Washington Post

People who play politics with our lives. Like Mr. Perry.

You know, you CAN be right wing, and not be a silly fool. But influential people with an agenda like Trump and Perry just make me face palm. They are not dumb...they are just wildly partisan, and I CANNOT believe for an instant that they actually BELIEVE the b.s. that they spout when they get up on their hind legs. That others may believe it...well...there goes the palm to my face again.


Below is part of an article by the Washington Post's fact checker.... Glenn Kessler.

You can read the rest of it (its good and worth the read!) here.

Clearly, truth has taken a back seat to...damned near everything!


“I do believe that the issue of global warming has been politicized. I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. I think we’re seeing it almost weekly or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change. Yes, our climates change. They’ve been changing ever since the earth was formed. But I do not buy into, that a group of scientists, who in some cases were found to be manipulating this data.”

— Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Aug. 17, 2011

This is a pretty sweeping statement about global warming by the newly announced GOP candidate for president. Perry has long been a skeptic of the science behind global warming, having highlighted that stance in his book, “Fed Up!”

But these remarks, made in New Hampshire on Wednesday, seem to take his skepticism to a new level, with significant and specific allegations:

1. A substantial number of scientists have manipulated data so they will have dollars rolling into their projects.

2. Almost weekly or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.

How true is this?

The Facts

The question of whether humans have contributed to climate change in recent years has generated increasing skepticism among the American public, especially as proposals to deal with the problem, such as reducing carbon emissions, have come with high price tags. But Perry is wrong to suggest that that skepticism has gained strength among scientists.

To the contrary, various surveys of climate researchers suggest growing acceptance, with as many as 98 percent believing in the concept of man-made climate change. A 2010 study by the National Academy of Sciences, which surveyed 1,372 climate researchers, is an example of this consensus. After all, it was first established in 1896 that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could help create a “greenhouse effect.”

There have been similar studies by, among others, the United States Global Change Research Program, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Yes, there are a few skeptics in the field, but even they generally do not question that human activity is warming the climate. A collection of statements by various scientific societies that support the consensus on climate change can be found here.

In response to our queries, Perry spokesman Mark Miner sent us a link to something called the Petition Project, which claims to have collected the signatures of 31,487 “American scientists” on a petition that says there is “no convincing scientific evidence” that human release of greenhouse gasses will “cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the earth’s climate.” The petition is a bit old, having been started in opposition to the 1997 Kyoto agreement on global warming.

But this petition doesn’t back up Perry’s claim of a growing army of scientists opposed to the climate change theory.

Only 9,000 of the signers actually have PhDs, and the list of signers’qualifications shows only a relatively small percentage with expertise on climate research. (One study estimated that under the petition’s rather expansive definition of a “scientist,” more than 10 million Americans would be qualified to sign it.) Judging from news reports, the number of signers has barely budged from 2008, further undercutting Perry’s claim of a groundswell of opposition.

Another Perry spokesman, Ray Sullivan, provided links to a number of recent articles that he said demonstrated skepticism in the scientific community. We reviewed the articles, and they are anecdotal in nature, not evidence of the groundswell of opposition suggested by Perry.

Despite our repeated requests, neither spokesman provided any evidence to back up Perry’s claim that “a substantial number of scientists … have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects” — perhaps because that particular scandal appears to be a figment of Perry’s imagination.

Perry appears to be referring to hundreds of e-mails that were stolen from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Britain and then disseminated on the Internet in 2009. One e-mail made references to adding a “trick” in the data, leading climate change skeptics to claim the data was manipulated.

But, although Perry claimed the scientists “were found to be manipulating this data,” five investigations have since been conducted into the allegations — and each one exonerated the half-dozen or so scientists involved.

So, in contrast to Perry’s statement, there have not been a “substantial number” of scientists who manipulated data. Instead, there were a handful — who were falsely accused.

The Pinocchio Test

Perry’s statement suggests that, on the climate change issue, the governor is willfully ignoring the facts and making false accusations based on little evidence. He has every right to be a skeptic — all scientific theories should be carefully scrutinized — but that does not give him carte blanche to simply make things up.

Four Pinocchios

Monday, August 01, 2011

The Retro-RotorEncabulator

or

For a number of years now, work has has been proceeding in order to bring perfection to the crudely conceived idea of a machine that would work to not only supply inverse reactive current, for use in unilateral phase detectors, but would also be capable of automatically synchronising cardinal grammeters. Such a machine is the 'Retroencabulator'. Basically, the only new principle involved is that instead of the power being generated by the relaxive motion of conductors and fluxes, it is produced by the modial interactions of magneto- reluctance and capacitive directance.



The original machine had a base-plate of prefabulated amulite, surrounded by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two spurving bearings were in direct line with the pentametric fan, the latter consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzelvanes, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar vaneshaft that side fumbling was effectively prevented. The main winding was of the normal lotus- o-delta type placed in panendermic semiboloid solts in the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a non-reversible termic pipe to the differential girdlespring on the 'up' end of the grammeter.

Forty-one magnestically placed grouting brushes were arrranged to feed into the rotor slip stream a mixture of high S-value phenyhydrobenzamine and 5 percent reminative tetraiodohexamine. Both these liquids have specific pericosities given by p=2.4 Cn where n is the diathecial evolute of retrograde temperature phase disposition and C is the Chomondeley's annual grillage coefficient. Initially, n was measured with the aid of a metapolar pilfrometer, but up to the present date nothing has been found to equal the transcetental hopper dadoscope.

Electrical engineers will appreciate the difficulty of nubbing together a regurgitative purwell and a superaminative wennel-sprocket. Indeed, this proved to be a stumbling block to further development until, in 1943, it was found that the use of anhydrous nagling pins enabled a kyptonastic boiling shim to be tankered.

The early attempts to construct a sufficiently robust spiral decommutator failed largely because of lack of appreciation of the large quasi-pietic stresses in the gremlin studs; the latter were specially designed to hold the roffit bars to the spamshaft. When, however, it was discovered that wending could be prevented by the simple addition of teeth to socket, almost perfect running was secured.

The operating point is maintained as near as possible to the HF rem peak by constantly fromaging the bituminous spandrels. This is a distinct advance on the standard nivelsheave in that no drammock oil is required after the phase detractors have remissed.

Undoubtedly, the Retroencabulator has now reached a very high level of technical development. It has been successfully used for operating nofer trunnions. In addition, whenever a barescent skor motion is required, it may be employed in conjunction with a drawn reciprocating dingle arm to reduce sinusoidal depleneration.

Friday, July 29, 2011

The Authoritarians

At last! A scientific reason why some people are twits.

http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians.pdf

A long read, do it in several managable bites. But worth the effort!

Monday, June 06, 2011

Denialists

Denialists are so cute.

I have noted many similarities between various "denialist" movements over the years.
So, just what IS a denialist? Is that a conspiracy theorist? Well, yes, it can be. But not always. A denialist, in the modern sense of the word, is a sort of rebel, a person who looks at the "established order" and discovers that they can either become an invisible cog in the great big wheel, or they can become what we used to call a "non-conformist".
They will look at the traditional rebellion method. Motorcycle riding...dammit, now its mainstream. Punkdom! Hmm...once the City of London started paying the punks to walk around Carnaby Street showing off their blue and red hair, it became mainstream. And its SO hard to rebellious when you are mainstream. Seattle Grunge? Have you SEEN the price they charge for those ripped trousers? Yet another sell out. Just like pot smokers and casual sex...yup...been decriminalized, so its not shocking any more.

So what CAN you do if you want to NOT be invisible in the machine? Well, you could loudly let people know that you don't vaccinate your kids, and its WRONG to deny them entry to the public school. Or you can join clubs and buy books, telling people on your blogs, your store, your church or whatever that "THEY" are controlling the worlds' banks, that "THEY" are keeping your kids from getting jobs or "THEY" are making sure that uncle Walter is not going to get his MRI, or for that matter, "THEY" are going to take all our guns away.

These people are "denialists".

I would not give a rats ass about stupid people except of course that, first of all, they are actually not stupid, and secondly, in reality, they really do NOT have my better interests at heart.
Two weeks ago, I attended the funeral of a very good friend, Kurt. He was a graduate of the Bergen Belsen school of "how to fuck folks up real good!" He told me a few years ago that he was seeing things happening in the modern world which reminded him of Vienna in 1937. I asked him what they were. His laundry list of social indicators was not what I expected!

Firstly, he said, the most important thing was the prevalence of a "conspiracy". In his day, it was a conspiracy that the Jewish banking establishment was the cause of the great world wide depression, which hit Germany and Austria harder than it hit the US and Canada! Now, there are so many conspiracy "theories" that they even hold conventions! Jesse Ventura even has a TV show which examines some of these conspiracies.

Secondly,
They always bring in fake experts to fuel the fire. Then, it was people who were enamoured with the concept of Eugenics (Ve shall have der Master Race!) (Jews are dogs, Blacks cannot fly airplanes.) Nowadays it is people who push explosive finding dowsing rods, and homeopathic medicine.

Thirdly, he noted that they always were very selective about their so called evidence. They would point to one Jewish Industrialist, and brand the entire tribe with collusion. They would note a couple of blond haired "Aryan" Olympic gold medalists, and would try very hard to ignore the Jim Thorpes and Black Kenyan distance runners. They even got Jim's medals taken away from him because of a summer of pro football, since they could not get them recinded because he was a native American.

Forthly, he noted that when they came up with nutty ideas like "Master Race" and "Jewish Banking Conspiracy", they would demand overwhelming proof from people who thought otherwise. Proof was lost in the book burnings of 1938, as the works of Jews, Communists, and pretty much any body who dissented from the "party line" went up in smoke. He noted that then, like now, you simply cannot prove a negative. (You think the ghost of Merlin is NOT whispering in my ear? Well prove it!) You think that there is no real conspiracy among the Jewish bankers of the world? Well, prove that there IS NO conspiracy! Can't do that. Well, in the absence of proof one way or the other, I guess there IS a conspiracy then!

Fifthly, he noted that they would use logical fallacies. The Taliban feels that people should stay healthy by going to the gym, get a job to support your family and read the holy book. Therefore, anything which suggests that you go to the gym or get a job must be radical moslem thought! He felt that the thing he hated most was what he called the "straw man". That was a concept that was brought up supposedly supported by the "opposition" and was easy to demolish. His exact words were "you cannot defend yourself against a straw man!" I wanted more examples, and he reminded me that many people in Europe thought Franklin Roosevelt was a Jew and therefore America was in the pay of the Jewish community. So, I asked him, what do we have nowadays that are like that? Well, he said, Chiropractors have been known to actually kill people with their spinal manipulations, and when called upon this, they simply say "Well, sure, but look how many people die under Medical Doctor's care?" This neatly sidesteps the issue that you don't need chiropracty, and like many things which are pleasant (smoking comes to mind) it might even kill you. So why would they need to side step at all? So, (I asked him) are you suggesting Chiropractors are Nazis? "Oh heck no...its just that they use the same tactics to cover the uncomfortable truth that there is no basis to their beliefs. (That was a relief!) (Oh, a link to support this statement is here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiropractic)

Sixthly, create doubt. Even if you cannot win the arguement for science, you can perhaps get "equal time" for "Intelligent Design". Even if you cannot round up all the gypsies, you can somehow blame every theft on them. Even if the reason your loser brother in law cannot get a job is because he is a walking dick head, you can always suggest that more money would be available if we could only kill all the mental defectives. Even if you know that one in thousand kids will get autism whether they are vaccinated or not, it is somehow more comforting to think that it was some sort of contaminated vaccine which made little Johnny autistic.

Rest in Peace Kurt. The tatoos were faded but the pscyhic scars remained. To any who suggest that it is all just fun and games, remember, it they delude themselves about someting like, (say) magnet therapy or detoxification, are they setting themselves up to delude themselves about something else? Say,
something that could hurt me?

Sunday, May 22, 2011

The end of the world



Clearly we have not had an end of the world. But is it any wonder considering how many times there was NOT an end of the world?


The fabulous encylopedia of the paranormal has has this to say about the end of the world.

You can read the rest of them here...

http://www.randi.org/encyclopedia/appendix3.html


Forty-Four End-of-the-World Prophecies——That Failed

See also Bacon, Roger and end of the world.


Divine prophecies being of the nature of their Author, with whom a thousand years are but as one day, are not therefore fulfilled punctually at once, but have springing and germinant accomplishment, though the heightfulness of them may refer to some one age.
—— Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626)


A favorite subject of prophets has always been the end of mankind and/or the demise of our planet and/or the collapse of the entire universe. Part of the technique, for some, is to place the date far enough ahead that when The End fails to arrive, the oracle is no longer around to have to explain why. Others, often to encourage the surrender of property and other worldly chattels by the Believers, prepare excuses well in advance and manage to survive the great disappointment that often follows a failed prediction. In any case, the resilient fans never discredit the notion; they merely redesign the details and settle back once more to confidently await doom.

Here is a short list of some rather interesting end-of-the-world prognostications, beginning with biblical references and ending with some contemporary seers and their doomsayings. Judging from the record earned by the soothsayers in this matter, we may safely assume that our planet will continue very much the same as it is for some considerable period into the future.



B.C.-A.D. According to the New Testament, The End should have occurred before the death of the last Apostle. In Matthew 16:28, it says:

Verily, I say unto you, there be some standing here which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.

One by one, all the apostles died. And the world rolled on for everyone else. . . .



A.D. 992 In the year 960, scholar Bernard of Thuringia caused great alarm in Europe when he confidently announced that his calculations gave the world only thirty-two more years before The End. His own end, fortunately for him, occurred before that event was to have taken place.



December 31, A.D. 999 The biblical Apocrypha says that the Last Judgment (and therefore, one supposes, the end of the world) would occur one thousand years after the birth of Jesus Christ. When the day arrived, though it is doubtful that there was all the panic that was reported by later accounts, a certain degree of apprehension was probably experienced. It was said that land was left uncultivated in that final year, since there would obviously be no need for crops. According to the Encyclopedia of Superstitions, public documents of that era began, "As the world is now drawing to a close . . ." Modern authorities suspect that historians Voltaire and Gibbon may have created or at least embellished this tale to prove the credulous nature of medieval Christians.

Significantly, Pope Sylvester II and Emperor Otto III momentarily mended their considerable political differences in anticipation of a certain leveling of those matters.



A.D. 1033 Theorists pressed to explain the A.D. 999 bust decided that the 1,000 years should have been figured from the death of Christ rather than from his birth. Bust number two followed.



September 1186 An astrologer known as John of Toledo in 1179 circulated pamphlets advertising the world's end when all the (known) planets were in Libra. (If the sun was included in this requirement, this should have occurred on September 23 at 16:15 GMT, or at that same hour on October 3 in the new calendar.) In Constantinople, the Byzantine Emperor walled up his windows, and in England the Archbishop of Canterbury called for a day of atonement. Though the alignment of planets took place, The End did not.



A.D. 1260 Joaquim of Flore worked out a splendid calculation that definitely pinpointed A.D. 1260 as The Date. Joaquim had a bent pin.



February 1, 1524 This was one of the most pervasive Doomsday-by-Flood expectations ever recorded. In June of 1523, astrologers in London predicted that The End would begin in London with a deluge. Some 20,000 persons left their homes, and the Prior of St. Bartholomew's built a fortress in which he stocked enough food and water for a two-month wait. When the dreaded date failed to provide even a rain shower in a city where precipitation is very much to be expected, the astrologers recalculated and discovered they'd been a mere one hundred years off. (On the same day in 1624, astrologers were again disappointed to discover that they were still dry and alive.)

The year 1524 was full of predicted disaster. Belief in this date was very strong throughout Europe. An astrologer impressively named Nicolaus Peranzonus de Monte Sancte Marie, found that a coming conjunction of major planets would occur in Pisces (a water sign) that year, and this strengthened the general belief in a universal final deluge.

George Tannstetter, another astrologer/mathematician at the University of Vienna, was one of very few at that time who denied The End would occur as predicted. He drew up his own horoscope, discovered that he would live beyond 1524, and denied the other calculations were correct. But George was considered a spoilsport, and was ignored.

A "giant flood" was prophesied for February 20 (some say February 2) of 1524 by astrologer Johannes Stoeffler, who employed his skill to establish that date in 1499. Such was the belief in his ability that more than one hundred pamphlets were written and published on his prediction.

The planets involved in this dire conjunction were Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, along with the sun. Neptune, unknown then, was also in the sign Pisces. Other major influences, Uranus and the moon, were not. Nor was Pluto, also unknown then. But the date of this conjunction was February 23 (old calendar), not the twentieth.

In response to the 1524 prophecies, in Germany, people set about building boats, while one Count von Iggleheim, obviously a devout believer in Stoeffler's ability, built a three-story ark. In Toulouse, French President Aurial also built himself a huge ark. In some European port cities, the populace took refuge on boats at anchor. When it only rained lightly on the predicted date where von Iggleheim had his ark, the crowd awaiting the deluge ran amok and, with little better to do, stoned the count to death. Hundreds were killed in the resultant stampede. Stoeffler, who had survived the angry mob, re-examined his data and came up with a new date of 1528. This time there was no reaction to his declaration. Sometimes people actually get smart.

Incidentally, the 1878 Encyclopaedia Britannica described 1524 as "a year, as it turned out, distinguished for drought."


(Now lets skip several decades of moon shine. You can read the rest of it here. It is remarkable reading!
http://www.randi.org/encyclopedia/appendix3.html)


April 3, 1843 (And also July 7, 1843, March 21 and October 22, 1844) William Miller, founder of the Millerite church, spent fifteen years in careful study of the scriptures and determined that the world would conclude sometime in 1843. He announced this discovery of what he called "the midnight cry" in 1831. When there was a spectacular meteor shower in 1833, it seemed to his followers that his prediction was close to being fulfilled, and they celebrated their imminent demise. Then, as each date he named failed to produce Armageddon, Miller moved it up a bit. The faithful continued to gather by the thousands on hilltops all over America each time one of the new dates would dawn. Finally, on October 22, 1844, the last day that Miller had calculated for The End, the Millerites relaxed their vigils. Five years later, Miller died, still revered and not at all concerned at his failed prophecies.

The movement eventually changed its name and broke up into a number of modern-day churches, among them the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, which today has over three million members.



1874 A date calculated by Charles Taze Russell of the Jehovah's Witnesses (which see) for The End.



1881 Those who delighted in measuring the various passages of the Great Pyramid of Giza, presumed to be the tomb of Cheops, calculated that all would be over in 1881. Careful remeasuring and some imagination gave a better (but not much better) date of 1936. That was improved upon by other students who decided upon 1953 as the terminal year. Further refinements and improvements of technique are still being made. If we get a new date, we'll let you know.



1881 Mother Shipton is supposed to have written:

The world to an end will come
In eighteen hundred and eighty-one.

The prediction, as well as the rhyme, are faulted. A book titled, The Life and Death of Mother Shipton, written in 1684 by Richard Head, was reprinted in a garbled and freely "improved" version in 1862 by Charles Hindley. In 1873 Hindley admitted having forged that rhyme and many others, but his confession caused no lessening of the great alarm in rural England when 1881 arrived.

The world not having ended in that year, the above spurious verse has since been published in a refreshed version which substitutes "nineteen" for "eighteen" and "ninety" for "eighty." The world, according to most authorities, did not end then, either.



1936 One set of Great Pyramid measurers came up with this date.



1914 One of three dates the Jehovah's Witnesses promised The End. The others were 1874 and 1975.



1947 In 1889, "America's Greatest Prophet," John Ballou Newbrough, said that for sure in 1947:

all the present governments, religions and all monied monopolies are to be overthrown and go out of existence. . . . Our present form of so-called Christian religion will overrun America, tear down the American flag, and trample it underfoot. In Europe the disaster will be even more terrible. . . . Hundreds of thousands of people will be killed. . . . All nations will be demolished and the earth be thrown open to all people to go and come as they please.

It wasn't a great year, but it wasn't all that bad.



1953 Again, a group of Great Pyramid nuts with their tape-measures figured out this year as the last. Back to the King's Chamber, guys.



1974 Interestingly enough, the conjunction of heavenly bodies that occurred back in 1524 was far, far more powerful than the more recent one described in a silly book titled The Jupiter Effect, written by two otherwise sensible astronomers who, in 1974, predicted dreadful effects on our planet as a result of a March 10, 1982, "alignment" of planets. Other astronomers denied that any effect would be felt, and when the date came and went, as you may have noticed, no one noticed. One of the authors reported that some earthquakes which had occurred in 1980 had been the "premature result of The Jupiter Effect," and the public yawned in amazement.



1975 One of the several dates promised by the Jehovah's Witnesses as The Date. Wrong.



1977 John Wroe, who is described by the kindliest historian we can find as a "foul-mouthed, ugly, dirty lecher," in 1823 inherited the leadership of the Southcottian sect in England when an End-of-the-World prophecy by John Turner failed. Learning from the example, Wroe took no chances. He made his Armageddon prophecy for 1977. A 1971 book, Prophets Without Honor, says of Wroe:

At a time when thermo-nuclear powers face each other across the Iron and Bamboo Curtains, it is well to remember that——as far as can be judged from the scanty records——John Wroe, indeed, was a true prophet!



1980 A very old Arabic astrological presage of doom specified that when the planets Saturn and Jupiter would be in conjunction in the sign Libra at 9 degrees, 29 minutes of that sign, we could kiss a big bye-bye to everything——camels, sand, mosques, the whole bag. That astronomical configuration almost took place at midnight of December 31 (new calendar), 1980, a date calculated by astrologers many years ago as the one spoken of. Jupiter was at 9 degrees, 24 minutes, and Saturn was at 9 degrees, 42 minutes, so the calculation was close to correct. However, nary a camel blinked an eye.



1980s The unsinkable Jeane Dixon, ever optimistic and daring, predicted in 1970 that a comet would strike the earth in the "mid-80's" at a place that she knew, but did not deign to tell. That information was to be held until a "future date." Perhaps she is now prepared to tell us? She said of this event that it "may well become known as one of the worst disasters of the 20th century." But then Jeane also said that, "I feel it will surely be in the 1980's that [an un-named person] will become the first woman president in the United States." Back to that ephemeris, Jeane.



1996 It has been reasoned by biblical scholars that since one day with God equals one thousand years for Man, and that God labored at the creation of the universe for six days, Man should labor for six thousand years and then take a rest. Thus, using other scripturally derived numbers, the world should end sometime in 1996. It didn't.



July 1999 In Quatrain X-72, Nostradamus declared:

L'an mil neuf cens nonante neuf sept mois
Du ciel viendra grand Roy deffraieur
Resusciter le grand Roy d'Angolmois.
Auant apres Mars regner par bon heur.

The year 1999, seven months,
From the sky will come a great King of Terror:
To bring back to life the great King of the Mongols,
Before and after Mars to reign by good luck.

Sure.



And you can read the rest of them here....

http://www.randi.org/encyclopedia/appendix3.html


Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Fraud and Death

This article is a British article, about the dowsing device that killed so many people in Iraq.

Let me state this very clearly. Dowsing does not work. I have seen proof.

This device claims to dowse to find explosives, and of course, has failed to find any.

My heart goes out to the injured and dead people that this son of a bitch killed in his search for money.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/9377875.stm

Sunday, January 02, 2011

The eighteenth camel

http://www.ted.com/talks/william_ury.html

conflict resolution.

The third side.....there is ALWAYS a third side. The third side is the society you live in.