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CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.
My hopes and for astronomy in the 2020's.
- By DennisF
- Physical & Life Sciences
- 1 Replies
"One of the first supercomputers were put to work on our great endeavor to explore the moon and space, and the microprocessor was built and used to make it happen."
It seems to me that "hope springs eternal", particularly at the start of a new year, and a new decade, in a relatively new century.
My personal love of astronomy began as a young child who grew up in the 1960's and followed the Gemini and Apollo missions with keen interest. Watching us landing human beings onto another celestial body in space was absolutely amazing, particularly for a 9 year old. The feeling that I had during that first moon landing was wonderful. For the very first time in history, human beings the world over were 'one' humanity, and capable of achieving almost anything by working together. We all stopped to watch TV with with awe and pride, and scientific wonder at that impressive human achievement. We all got to look back at our small blue planet from a whole new perspective. The whole Earth and every human being was living on a small blue ball in space. It looked so small from the surface of the moon. Every human being on Earth was living on that single ball in space. There was also a realization that humans chose what to do, and we chose what to do with our planet. We could choose to war against one another, we could continue to pollute and destroy the planet, or we could choose to join together and work together to protect our planet and to explore space. Anything and everything seemed 'possible' back then, and technology was growing by leaps and bounds. One of the first supercomputers were put to work on our great endeavor to explore the moon and space, and the microprocessor was built and used to make it happen.
Today, an ordinary cellphone has many times the processing power of those early supercomputers, and we can program them with our fingers rather than punch cards.A 2020 cell phone even makes our early 60's vintage "star trek communicators" look rather primitive.
The technology that we apply to space has *never* been more powerful, and it's never returned more useful scientific data.
The problem in astronomy in 2020 is not a lack of technology or useful data, but rather a lack of any ability to openly question the big bang theory, particularly as it relates to the inclusion of electrical current in space, possible causes of photon redshift (tired light/plasma redshift), and alternatives to exotic forms of matter.
I must say I was a tad disappointed and disillusioned by the first round of Parker Solar Probe papers. I guess I hoped they would 'see the light' in terms of the electric fields and current flow patterns in interplanetary space. Unfortunately astronomy remains stuck into the 2020 equivalent of Ptolemy. Nothing can change unless astronomers are ready to openly embrace scientific alternatives to relatively primitive 1960's beliefs about the universe.
I can't even look at a 2020 SDO image of the sun in the x-ray spectrum without seeing blindingly obvious "evidence" of electrical currents that run through the solar atmosphere. It's the electrical current, and electrical resistance to that current which "heats up" the coronal plasma and coronal loops, and heats up the million degree plasma filaments which are observed to be traversing that plasma medium.
The magnetic field orientation changes in the solar atmosphere cannot be properly understood *without* understanding the current flow patterns, and orientation of those current flow patterns in the interplanetary plasma medium.
Astronomer's conscious effort to avoid discussing and describing those current flow patterns in space has created a scientific crisis in that particular field of science. Rather than embracing empirical physical explanations which have worked in the lab for more than a century, today's astronomers rely upon mythical forms of matter and energy, and magical magnetic fields that do the impossible and which simply do not work in the lab.
There is no such thing as a 'magnetic switchback'. There are magnetic "fields" (3D, not 2D topology lines), but fields are simply oriented in various *three* dimensional ways, and those 3D orientations change over time, which also induces current in the surrounding conductive plasma.
It's still amazes me that Kristian Birkeland knew more about solar atmospheric physics in 1920 than virtually all of the solar physicists today in 2020, save perhaps the likes of Anthony Peratt and Donald Scott and people who aren't even professionally employed in the field of solar physics.
We can't accurately describe events in the solar corona without understanding the current flow patterns that direct the plasma, and which generate the heat (resistance), which in turn generates the x-rays we observe in SDO images.
In a hot, electrically active plasma environment as we see around the sun, the current flow patterns in the plasma cause the various "magnetic field lines" to form, sustains those fields over time, and causes them to change over time, including all the magnetic field topology changes observed over time.
The recognition of the role of that electrical current is the key to understanding solar atmospheric physics, not *just* MHD theory.
I hope that the Parker Solar Probe team eventually comes out of the closet on this topic, but alas, I was not impressed by their first attempt. It seemed like a last desperate effort to avoid dealing with the electrical elephant in the room and the electrical aspects of solar physics. It's really a pre-Tesla/Birkeland understanding of the universe.
The universe is *not* a vacuum medium as it was thought of in the 1960's. It's a *plasma* medium, and specifically it is a *current carrying* plasma medium.
With that single "realization", it's instantly possible to explain and replicate in the lab, solar coronal loops, sustain a hot solar corona, and replicate all the things we see in space in the lab on smaller scales.
I hope professional astronomers do a little soul searching the 2020's because a 1960's view of a sterile vacuum universe simply won't cut it anymore. It's useless as an explanation for anything in the plasma of space.
Anyway, I hope you all have a happy new year and new decade. I look forward to the possibilities in astronomy this decade and throughout this next century.
I think the last decade will be seen as the decade of particle physics research at CERN in LHC experiments. We learned a lot about the particle physics part of our universe over the last decade, including the completion of the standard model of particle physics, along with the elimination of many different non-standard models.
It's important to point out that in all those efforts in particle physics research, no evidence was found to support any non-standard particle physics model, and no evidence of new forms of matter or energy were observed.
IMO the PSP team is in best position to revolutionize astronomy as we understand it, or it can choose to wallow around with a concept that Hannes Alfven described as "pseudoscience" till the day he died, and which fails to work in the lab to produce any of the important relevant aspects of solar physics. I sure hope they choose to turn on the electrics fields and electrical current soon, and return to the lab, and explanations that actually work in the lab.
The 1960s IBM computers used by NASA in Houston were not really "supercomputers". Control Data Corp. was building the most powerful (highest operations/second) computers into the 1970s. Also, there were no microcomputers (actually, I think you mean microprocessors) until the Intel 4004 in the early 1970s and even that took a board of logic circuits to work. The first microcomputer - a complete processing unit in a single integrated circuit - had to wait until the mid 1980s to early 1990s, depending on how complete a "computer" is considered to be.
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Virginia Knights receive religious freedom award after spat with federal government
- By Michie
- OBOB General Politics Forum
- 0 Replies
A council of Knights of Columbus in Virginia has received a religious freedom award after it won a dispute earlier this year with the government over celebrating Mass at a federal cemetery.
The First Liberty Institute awarded the Knights of Columbus Council 694 its Philip B. Onderdonk Jr. Religious Liberty Award in recognition of the Petersburg council’s successful challenge to a federal rule prohibiting Mass at Poplar Grove National Cemetery. The religious freedom group assisted the knights in their challenge.
The Knights’ council has held an annual Memorial Day Mass at the Petersburg-area cemetery for decades, yet the National Park Service (NPS) had determined in 2023 that the observance was prohibited due to it being a religious service.
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Virginia Knights receive religious freedom award
A Knights of Columbus council in Petersburg, Virginia, has received a religious freedom award after it won a dispute over celebrating Mass at a federal cemetery.
www.catholicnewsagency.com
Candles
- By Michie
- One Bread, One Body - Catholic
- 4 Replies
Mind Your Beeswax
Why does the Catholic Church make use of the lighted candle, particularly the beeswax candle, in the Mass? The answer may suprise you.
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Pope Francis begins historic apostolic journey to Southeast Asia and Oceania
- By Michie
- One Bread, One Body - Catholic
- 24 Replies
Pope Francis: US Presidential Election a Choice Between ‘The Lesser Evil’
.The Pope’s comments come 3 days after the first presidential debate between Trump and Harris in which both abortion and migration were significant topics of debate
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Pope Francis: US Presidential Election a Choice Between ‘The Lesser Evil’
- By Michie
- One Bread, One Body - Catholic
- 0 Replies
The Pope’s comments come 3 days after the first presidential debate between Trump and Harris in which both abortion and migration were significant topics of debate
Pope Francis speaks to journalists aboard the papal plane during an in-flight press conference on Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, on his return from his nearly two-week tour of Southeast Asia. (photo: Daniel Ibañez/CNA / EWTN)
Pope Francis said that American voters face the choice between “the lesser evil” in the U.S. presidential election during an in-flight press conference Friday on his return from his nearly two-week tour of Southeast Asia.
Speaking aboard the papal plane, a chartered Singapore Airlines flight, on Sept. 13, the pope encouraged Catholics to vote with their conscience.
“In political morality, in general they say that if you don’t vote, it’s not good, it’s bad. You have to vote, and you have to choose the lesser evil,” he said.
“What is the lesser evil? That woman, or that man?” he continued, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris and her Republican opponent, former president Donald Trump. “I don’t know. Each one, in his or her conscience, must think and do this.”
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www.ncregister.com
Pope Francis said that American voters face the choice between “the lesser evil” in the U.S. presidential election during an in-flight press conference Friday on his return from his nearly two-week tour of Southeast Asia.
Speaking aboard the papal plane, a chartered Singapore Airlines flight, on Sept. 13, the pope encouraged Catholics to vote with their conscience.
“In political morality, in general they say that if you don’t vote, it’s not good, it’s bad. You have to vote, and you have to choose the lesser evil,” he said.
“What is the lesser evil? That woman, or that man?” he continued, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris and her Republican opponent, former president Donald Trump. “I don’t know. Each one, in his or her conscience, must think and do this.”
Continued below.
Pope Francis: US Presidential Election a Choice Between ‘The Lesser Evil’
.The Pope’s comments come 3 days after the first presidential debate between Trump and Harris in which both abortion and migration were significant topics of debate
Worried About the Economy? The Trump-Harris Debate Had Little to Offer You
- By Michie
- OBOB General Politics Forum
- 0 Replies
ANALYSIS: Poll after poll shows the economy is the No. 1 issue for voters. Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump seemed to have forgotten that Sept. 10 in their first — and possibly only — televised debate.
People watch the Sept. 10 presidential debate between former U.S. president and Republican nominee Donald Trump and U.S. Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in Nashville, Tennessee. (photo: SETH HERALD / AFP via Getty Images)
In the storm of an unprecedented presidential campaign — which has featured, among other things, an assassination attempt of a former president and a last-minute swap-out at the top of the Democratic ticket — the iron law of American electoral politics held steady: Voters want to hear about the economy — and little else.
A vast sea of election-year polling has confirmed and reconfirmed Democratic strategist James Carville’s famous dictum that “It’s the economy, stupid.” Days before the first (and possibly only) presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on Tuesday in Philadelphia, Pew Research Center released a poll that found overwhelming concern over the economy among the general electorate — a full 81% of voters rate the economy as a “very important issue,” far more than any other.
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www.ncregister.com
In the storm of an unprecedented presidential campaign — which has featured, among other things, an assassination attempt of a former president and a last-minute swap-out at the top of the Democratic ticket — the iron law of American electoral politics held steady: Voters want to hear about the economy — and little else.
A vast sea of election-year polling has confirmed and reconfirmed Democratic strategist James Carville’s famous dictum that “It’s the economy, stupid.” Days before the first (and possibly only) presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on Tuesday in Philadelphia, Pew Research Center released a poll that found overwhelming concern over the economy among the general electorate — a full 81% of voters rate the economy as a “very important issue,” far more than any other.
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Worried About the Economy? The Trump-Harris Debate Had Little to Offer You
ANALYSIS: Poll after poll shows the economy is the No. 1 issue for voters. Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump seemed to have forgotten that Sept. 10 in their first — and possibly only — televised debate.
Ecclesiology; do you have bishops?
- By Daniel9v9
- General Theology
- 36 Replies
Yes, I know many Lutheran churches have bishops. As mentioned before, I have the joy and privilege of being one. I’d be glad to explain in more detail if you like, but in short, we retain the office in our freedom in Christ, but we don’t believe it’s a higher office by divine right, because the Scriptures use the terms commonly translated as Elder (presbyteros) and Overseer (episkopos) interchangeably, meaning, there’s only one pastoral office in the Bible. Yet we do see the apostles and the NT church arranging themselves as they see fit, for the sake of good order. So we do the same.
So do Baptists have bishops in a biblical sense? Yes, because they do have men occupying the pastoral office. And do they have bishops in a threefold office sense? Yes, I think so, if we consider what they may call a Senior Pastor. I know they can have deacons. But if your primary goal is to poke at the KJV only idea — fair enough!
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‘Madman’ shoots up home of Pastor Greg Locke with one of his children inside
- By Michie
Pastor Greg Locke says family won’t return home after drive-by shooting
Controversial Tennessee Pastor Greg Locke says he and his family will not be returning to their home following a surreal drive-by shooting in which gunmen riddled his house and truck with 60 bullets
www.christianpost.com
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Harris relents on muting debate microphones
- By zippy2006
- News & Current Events (Articles Required)
- 54 Replies
Now that I have watched some/enough of the debate, I think my points were borne out. The moderators asserted their authority in a way that was partisan and unhelpful. The CNN moderators were much better.
This was particularly clear in the woman moderator's first "fact check" where she just declared on her own authority that Trump is wrong about the problematic "partial birth abortion" sort of phenomena that has been occurring for some time. Where did the woman receive such authority as the mouthpiece of truth? I don't even know her name!
Muir, on the other hand, gave an authority for the second fact check, which was much more appropriate. But in any case, having the moderators climb into the ring and start wrestling is never a good idea, and the possibility that they can do it without bias is probably non-existent.
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Aurora police identify 10 known Tren de Aragua members following reports of gang activity
- By Michie
Police in Aurora, Colorado, identified 10 members of a Venezuelan gang as part of an ongoing investigation into reports of gang members living in the city and committing acts of violence, with crimes ranging from aggravated assault to shootings at apartments.
The Aurora Police Department has been investigating reports of the Venezuela prison gang Tren de Aragua operating in the city.
On Wednesday, the department releasedthe names of 10 members the police said have been "committing acts of violence against members of the migrant community" in the town.
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Aurora police identify 10 known Tren de Aragua members following reports of gang activity
Police in Aurora, Colorado, identified 10 members of a Venezuelan gang as part of an ongoing investigation into reports of gang members living in the city and committing acts of violence, with crimes
www.christianpost.com
