On My Way from Bangladesh to Vermont

I am on my way now from Bangladesh to Burlington, Vermont. Thus, there will be a pause in the news postings on this blog for a day or so.

Thanks to my fantastic hosts and the many new friends I made.

Dangers of Being Fish-Faced

OK, I am sorry for what happened to her. It was tragic. But, this kind of stuff happens when you bathe in the ocean and let your face look like a handsome fish. You become part of the foodchain. I am unhappy with my commentary here, but will try to remember it next time I go swimming.

From http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7394384.stm

Pelican 'bombs' bather in Florida
A woman required 20 stitches to her face after a pelican crashed into her in the sea off Florida, apparently diving for fish.

The bird, which died in Thursday's collision, ripped a gash in Debbie Shoemaker's face as she bathed near the city of St Petersburg.

The city fire chief said he had never heard of a diving pelican hit a person.

Pelicans grow to up to 30lb (13kg) and can dive from heights of 60 to 70 feet (18 to 21 metres).

Ms Shoemaker, 50, returned home on Friday, the Associated Press reports.

On My Way to Bangladesh

An exciting journey. I get to add both Bangladesh and Dubai to my list of visited places.

I am going to Dhaka to work with some great folks on the All Asian Debating Championships to be held at North South University. Their website is at http://nsuallasians.com/home/.

Old friend Jason Jarvis will be there, as well as new friends Sarajit, Sinha and Zunaed. I also look forward to meeting Adiba. Stalin and Prof. Kamal will also be there.

I am excited about going to this country where they are so vigorous about debating. It should be exciting. I am also looking forward to a powerful cultural experience. I am very lucky to get opportunities such as this one.

Reports from the trip will be coming.

Police Car with a Difference

The above police car was used for a week before the officers noticed the lettering on the side.

It turns out the lettering was applied by a worker at a firm who was on his last day before retirement.

I wonder what people thought when they saw this car come to their aid and read the side of the car.

"Hell Kitty" Assault Rifle - Very Scary

From http://blog.riflegear.com/archive/2007/12/26/hello-kitty-ar-15---evil-black-rifle-meets-cute-and.aspx

So called "Assault Weapons Bans" such as the now expired 1994 Clinton ban and the one still in place in states such as California seek to ban rifles that our misguided legislators feel have no purpose in civilian hands. They identify "evil features" they can use to generically classify these "military style" weapons in sweeping terms. Of course these features, such as plastic pistol grips, barrel shrouds, and bayonet lugs have absolutely nothing to do with the firearms potential lethality in the real world and are merely cosmetic features. After all, it really doesn't matter what color the firearm is if it fires the same ammunition right? Well, in the "spirit" of the California Assault Weapon Ban I decided to do my best to alleviate the fears of my fellow citizens and gun-banning legislators when I put together a new AR-15 for my wife. Below is the result of my painstaking work to transform an Evil Black Rifle (EBR) into a Cute Pink RIfle (CPR). Introducing the Hell Kitten AR-15!

This rifle is 100% legal in California because it is based on an "off-list" lower receiver made by Stag Arms and has no evil features at all, instead featuring a fixed stock instead of the evil collapsible stock, a muzzle brake in place of the vile flash-hider, and a MonsterMan Grip instead of the heinous and malicious plastic pistol grip. The C Products magazine looks like a 30 round magazine body but is permanently modified to only allow 10 rounds.

Farewell to Leon

Leon Sempsrott, on my porch, in May of 2007

My dear friend Leon Sempsrott passed away on Friday at the age of 77.

Leon was driving his four wheeler in Puertecitos and had an accident that had caused multiple injuries, and it apparently was more than he could stand.

Leon was a fine gentlemen, helped everyone who asked him for assistance, watched over our community in Puertecitos Baja California, and always helped me in any way he could.

What I want to remember about Leon are a large number of things, including:

• He always was there when you needed him. He had expert advice for everything form propane tanks to power plants to fishing lures to cooking to animal lore to, well, you name it, he was a source of it.
• He was always incredibly active. He didn't just grow old and fade away, he continued to lead an active life (some say too active) and enjoyed himself. He was not an elder person waiting for death, he was a vibrant individual who was enjoying life.
• He was as kind as could be. Children in the area could always count on his generosity, those down on their luck would receive help from him and he even helped people he did not particularly like whenever they needed it.
• Leon did what he wanted. He valued freedom and used it to the maximum. His autonomy was celebrated every day of his life.
• His sense of humor and jolly nature were infectious and kept us all entertained and positive.
• He loved that little plot of land he lived on in Pertecitos and helped us all love it as well.

Leon served. He served his country as a diver in the military and always served his friends and neighbors. I wish that I could say I had helped as many people as Leon did.

Tonight, I am having a sip of rum and remembering you, Leon, and celebrating all of the great stories about you that I will be telling for the rest of my life.

Froggy's on Video, he is, he is

People asked about Froggy, and I even found a clip of his magic antics.

Enjoy.

On My Way to Europe and Froggy the Gremlin

It is late and I should be in bed. I am flying to Europe tomorrow for the Better World conference and it will be a long and tiring trip.

I decided to use the Internet for something constructive and started looking up children's television programs from the 1950's, when I was quite young and we had three channels in the Los Angeles suburbs.

I had a lot of fun reviewing Bozo the Clown, a fairly popular program in many parts of America, and I even have a Bozo mini-punching bag and the term "Bozo" has always been popular for me. The mini-punching bag was a gift, by the way.

Then there were a couple of boring cartoon programs I researched, including Skipper Frank's Cartoon Carousel and Engineer Bill. I even had a "red light green light" milk drinking gm official glass to use along with Engineer Bill.

Other programs were a bit racier, including the Soupy Sales programs of various incarnations and versions.

But the real deal wasn't even on very long but had a huge impact on me as a very young boy. I am talking about Froggy the Gremlin. On the program Andy's Gang there was a big clock, and it would chime and Andy Devine would say, "Plunk your magic twanger Froggy" and in a puff of smoke this strange rubber frog would appear and begin his antics.

Froggy was a troublemaker. He made fun of everyone and used low level magic to mock people. Usually there was some "expert" who came in to explain something or how to do something and Froggy would lead them astray and make them mess up always with hilarity. Then he wold vanish in a puff of smoke. Froggy was the bad boy who was interested in defying authority and using mockery to do so. This is pretty progressive stuff for 1958. I loved it.

Froggy had a number of remarks and speech paterns I still use from time to time but no one recognizes them, of course. Froggy always would arrive and say, "Hiya kids, hiya, hiya!" He would always repeat the verbs at the end of the sentence, like "I will be good from now on, I will, I will." He had a gravelly growl much deeper than his little green rubber body.

So, Froggy, thanks for the inspiration. I'm off to Europe and the conference now.

I am the Fool in April

Yes, I will have a lot of travel and a lot of details. Please pardon me while I both complain and express my satisfaction at how busy I am going to be promoting debate. This six-week period leads up to three weeks on the beach in Mexico, so there is no need for you to feel sorry for me.

4-5 April HWSmith round robin in Geneva, NY
9-14 April Thinking & Speaking a Better World Conference, Ljubljana, Slovenia
17-18 April Alumni fundraising activities in New York City
19-20 April Free weekend at home
24-26 April National Public Policy Forum finals, New York University, NYC
27 April Lawrence Debate Union Banquet
1 May Fly to Bangladesh for All Asians Debating Championship
14 May Leave Bangladesh for USA
16 May Leave Vermont for three weeks in Mexico

Doctor Who is Back!

Click here to see the trailer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/doctorwho/ram/s4_trailer2?size=16x9&bgc=CC0000&nbram=1&bbram=1&nbwm=1&bbwm=1

Story from http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/feature-news/2008/04/02/doctor-who-is-back-91466-20706776/

Doctor Who is back
Apr 2 2008 by Karen Price, Western Mail
WRITER Russell T Davies has revealed that one of his main aims when reviving Doctor Who was to create a weekly “event” for the whole family.
Despite the fact that episodes of the cult sci-fi show may feature the infamous Daleks and much gore, the Welshman was keen to resurrect the Time Lord after generations of children missed out on his adventures.
The fourth series penned by Davies starts on Saturday when David Tennant, in the title role, is reunited with TV funny woman Catherine Tate, who appeared in the Christmas Day 2006 episode.
She is one of a handful of big names, including ER actress Alex Kingston, Felicity Kendal and Sarah Lancashire, who Davies has introduced in a bid to make the show “bigger and blowsier”.
The series was revived by BBC Wales in 2005 and it is stars like Tate and Kylie Minogue, who appeared in the last festive episode, who are helping pull in younger audiences.
“We knew there were lots of people who’d not seen it before. We were writing for them, really,” says Davies on bringing back Doctor Who after 16 years.
“All the elements of the show were there, the Tardis, the sonic screwdriver, but it was a clean start,” he says. “The dread was that mum and dad would sit down and watch the show, but the kids wouldn’t because, let’s face it, you don’t want to do what your parents do when you’re a kid, and anything they watch is automatically bad.
“That was a very big worry at first, but I think it was a cynical view of families. It turns out kids love sitting with their mums and dads to watch TV, especially ‘event’ television like X Factor finals and things like that.
“I just knew if we could create that sense of event every week we’d stand a chance of being successful and getting an audience. And I was right,” he says.
And it is not just families which Doctor Who is appealing too – it seems famous names are also queuing up to appear in the show.
After starring in the Christmas 2006 special, The Runaway Bride, Tate loved the show so much that she wanted to commit to a full run of the programme.
“We had no idea Catherine was going to come back to us, none at all,” says Davies, whose other credits include writing award-winning series Queer As Folk and creating hit Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood.
“We couldn’t believe we got her for the special really, she’s so in-demand. And not just that, Catherine generates her own stuff, she’s a writer too, so she’s always busy.
“It came about after Catherine had a meeting with Jane Tranter, BBC Head of Fiction. Jane rang me and said Catherine had gone on and on about Doctor Who and how much she’d enjoyed the special. Jane said, ‘I might be mad, but if you ask her to do the series, I think she’ll say yes.’
“I thought it was ridiculous, but my colleague Julie [Gardner, BBC Wales’ head of drama] jumped on a train to go and meet with Catherine two days later. I didn’t go because I was busy saying, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, we’ll never get her’.
“But Julie went and Catherine agreed to a whole series and cancelled all her plans there and then! She moved to Cardiff for nine months to film as well, which is some commitment.”
And Davies is delighted to have secured the star, who has won critical acclaim for her sketch series The Catherine Tate Show.
“She’s absolutely fantastic,” he says. “That’s why we wanted to bring Donna back and why I wanted to write more for her.
“Obviously Catherine can do comedy with her eyes shut, and there’s a lot of comedy in Doctor Who, but when she hits the tragedy – and there’s a lot of tragedy for her character in this series – Catherine gives the most stunning performance.
“Seriously, when I pack my bags on Doctor Who, I am knocking on Catherine’s door and asking what we’re doing next. She’s brilliant.”
Davies also heaps praise on Scottish actor Tennant – the second Doctor Who he has worked with.
“There’s a danger we don’t talk about David often enough. He’s so powerful, and brave, and scintillating as The Doctor, there’s almost a danger of him blinding everything else. That’s why we have to have an equal aboard the Tardis in the companion. Suddenly it becomes a different dynamic and we see David upping his game to compete with Catherine. It’s amazing.”
But Davies admits that when it comes to guest stars, it can be difficult writing scenes for them.
“You can’t really write with a guest star in mind – well only in very exceptional cases.
“Kylie Minogue was one, and Catherine Tate’s first appearance another, where we booked them up well in advance,” Davies tells the Radio Times.
“But normally, it’s not possible because you only really start on an episode six weeks before you film it, so you never know whether someone’s going to be free.
“There’s a great danger in writing for someone and then they get offered a film, or they just don’t fancy it. So it’s dangerous territory to enter.
“If anything, we’ve tried to make the casting bigger because we’ve tried to make it a bigger and blowsier show.”
Davies is also keen to recruit the cream of the crop.
“You’ve just got to cast well. When you have David Tennant in the leading role, you can’t surround him with rubbish. You owe it to him to give him a cast that will excite him.”
One thing Davies won’t give away is storylines but he says there’s a lot to look forward to during the 13-episode run, including more in the way of darker material for Tennant as well as some comedy moments.
“I can say monster race the Ood are back, and they look fantastic, plus there are various other surprises, with everything building toward the most staggering climax you will ever see!”
Doctor Who is on BBC1 on Saturday at 6.20pm
What has Doctor Who done for Wales? Don’t miss the Western Mail Magazine this Saturday
A guide to the new episodes
Episode 1: Partners in Crime (guest star: Sarah Lancashire)
Set in modern-day London where a brand new diet pill is being tested by the mysterious Adipose Industries. The Doctor starts investigating when there are unexplained deaths and strange creatures in the shadows – but an old friend of his is also on the case.
Episode 2: The Fires Of Pompeii (guest stars: Phil Davis, Peter Capaldi and Sasha Behar)
Set in Pompeii AD79 where psychic powers are running rampant, a secretive Sisterhood conceals a horrifying High Priestess and beneath the ground, vast creatures are stirring. Donna challenges the Time Lord like no one has ever done before.
Episode 3: Planet Of The Ood (guest star: Tim McInnerny)
It’s Donna’s first visit to an alien world but, on the icescapes of a distant planet, the greatest danger might be from the human race itself.
Episode 4: The Sontaran Stratagem and Episode 5: The Poison Sky (guest star: Christopher Ryan)
Freema Agyeman returns as Martha Jones who is back home again in her new job as medical officer for a worldwide army dedicated to fighting alien menaces. But the menace is bigger than ever.
Episode 6: The Doctor’s Daughter (guest stars: Georgia Moffett and Nigel Terry)
David Tennant takes the Doctor into new territory with what is described as his “most spellbinding performance yet”.
Episode 7: The Unicorn And The Wasp (guest stars Felicity Kendal and Fenella Woolgar)
A classic murder mystery with a country house, vintage cars, a flapper, a vicar, a body in the library – and the disappearance of Agatha Christie.
Episode 8: Silence In The Library and Episode 9: River’s Run (guest stars Alex Kingston and Colin Salmon)
Two episodes of terror with an abandoned library, moving shadows, the gruesome Nodes and the horrifying Data Ghost.
Episode 10: Midnight (guest stars: Lesley Sharp, Lindsey Coulson, David Troughton)
Midnight is a planet leisure world with golden spas, diamond landscapes and anti-gravity restaurants. For once the Doctor’s left powerless and terrified as the knocking on the wall begins...
Episode 11: Turn Left (guest star: Chipo Chung)
The strands of Donna’s story begin to draw to a terrible climax as she finds her life, her family, her entire world being devastated. Only one person can help – and it’s not the Doctor.
Episode 12: Untitled and Episode 13: Journey’s End (guest stars: to be revealed)
The finale is a double bill but the title of episode 12 is remaining under wraps so it doesn’t give the game away. But there’s a threat on an epic scale as an ancient enemy is resurrected and the whole universe is thrown into danger. (guest star: Sarah Lancashire)

New Particle Collider May Destroy Planet, Says Lawsuit

From http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/27/823924.aspx

The builders of the world's biggest particle collider are being sued in federal court over fears that the experiment might create globe-gobbling black holes or never-before-seen strains of matter that would destroy the planet.

Representatives at Fermilab in Illinois and at Europe's CERN laboratory, two of the defendants in the case, say there's no chance that the Large Hadron Collider would cause such cosmic catastrophes. Nevertheless, they're bracing to defend themselves in the courtroom as well as the court of public opinion.

The Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, is due for startup later this year at CERN's headquarters on the French-Swiss border. It's expected to tackle some of the deepest questions in science: Is the foundation of modern physics right or wrong? What existed during the very first moment of the universe's existence? Why do some particles have mass while others don't? What is the nature of dark matter? Are there extra dimensions of space out there that we haven't yet detected?

Some folks outside the scientific mainstream have asked darker questions as well: Could the collider create mini-black holes that last long enough and get big enough to turn into a matter-sucking maelstrom? Could exotic particles known as magnetic monopoles throw atomic nuclei out of whack? Could quarks recombine into "strangelets" that would turn the whole Earth into one big lump of exotic matter?

Former nuclear safety officer Walter Wagner has been raising such questions for years - first about an earlier-generation "big bang machine" known as the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider, and more recently about the LHC.

Last Friday, Wagner and another critic of the LHC's safety measures, Luis Sancho, filed a lawsuit in Hawaii's U.S. District Court. The suit calls on the U.S. Department of Energy, Fermilab, the National Science Foundation and CERN to ease up on their LHC preparations for several months while the collider's safety was reassessed.

"We're going to need a minimum of four months to review whatever they're putting out," Wagner told me on Monday. The suit seeks a temporary restraining order that would put the LHC on hold, pending the release and review of an updated CERN safety assessment. It also calls on the U.S. government to do a full environmental review addressing the LHC project, including the debate over the doomsday scenario.

On Monday, District Judge Helen Gillmor assigned the case to a magistrate judge, Kevin S.C. Chang, for an initial conference on June 16. Wagner said he planned to ask for a more immediate hearing on the request for a restraining order - that is, once he has served the federal government with the court papers.

The case is currently being handled by the U.S. attorney's office in Hawaii, where Wagner and Sancho both live,`but that may not necessarily be where the legal proceedings end up. The Justice Department's Environmental and Natural Resources Division, based in Washington, is also being brought in on the case, assistant U.S. attorney Derrick Watson told me in an e-mail Wednesday.

In Washington, Justice Department spokesman Andrew Ames noted that the court papers had not yet been received. "We don't have any comment," he told me Thursday. "We'll comment in court when it's appropriate."

Debating doomsday
The defense attorneys would likely dwell on the regulatory and procedural questions rather than the worries over a cosmic catastrophe. Those worries have been around for years, and most physicists have scoffed at them for almost as long. The doomsday scenarios raised by Sancho and Wagner include:

Runaway black holes: Some physicists say the LHC could create microscopic black holes that would hang around for just a tiny fraction of a second and then decay. Sancho and Wagner worry that millions of black holes might somehow persist and coalesce into a compact gravitational mass that would draw in other matter and grow bigger. That's pure science fiction, said Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist at the City College of New York. "These black holes don't live very long, and they have microscopic energy, and so they are harmless," he told me.

Strangelets: Smashing protons together at high enough energies could create new combinations of quarks, the particles that protons are made of. Sancho and Wagner worry that a nasty combination known as a stable, negatively charged strangelet could theoretically turn everything it touches into strangelets as well. Kaku compared this to the ancient myth of the Midas touch. "We see no evidence of this bizarre theory," he said. "Once in a while, we trot it out to scare the pants off people. But it's not serious."

Magnetic monopoles: One theory suggests that high-energy particle collisions might give rise to massive particles that have only one magnetic pole - only north, or only south, but not the north-south magnetism that dominates nature. Sancho and Wagner worry that such particles could be created in the LHC and start a runaway reaction that converts atoms into other forms of matter. But physicists have seen no evidence of such reactions, which should have occurred already as the result of more energetic cosmic-ray collisions in Earth's upper atmosphere.
The cosmic-ray argument has been applied to the black-hole and strangelet scenarios as well. If such dangerous things can be created, why haven't they already eaten up Earth, along with other planets, stars or whole galaxies in the billions of years since the universe arose? To answer that question, Sancho and Wagner pose a counterargument: Perhaps cosmic-ray collisions really are creating tiny black holes or strangelets, but those little bits of doomsday zip by too fast to cause any trouble. In the LHC, they say, the bad stuff could hang around long enough to be captured by Earth's gravity and set off a catastrophe.

In response, particle physicists are developing counter-counterarguments - based on their theoretical work as well as data from astronomical observations and experiments at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider. For instance, the physicists would say that enough of the doomsday particles still should have been captured by neutron stars or cosmic gas clouds to have an impact. No such impact has ever been seen. Therefore, no doomsday.

CERN spokesman James Gillies told me that a 2003 assessment of the doomsday scenarios was being updated with the new information. Release of that updated report - the one that Sancho and Wagner apparently have been waiting for - is "imminent," Gillies told me.

Questions about the doomsday scenarios may well come up at CERN on April 6, during a public open house at the LHC. Some researchers have gotten the word to be prepared to talk about microscopic black holes and strangelets if asked.

Reality check
Saying something is absolutely impossible doesn't always come easy. Some scientists find it difficult to state categorically that such-and-such a theoretical catastrophe has no chance of happening, and Fermilab spokeswoman Judy Jackson told me that the doomsayers have "cynically distorted" that natural reluctance to rule out even the most outlandish theoretical possibilities.

The doomsaying can continue as long as scientists hold out even a tiny sliver of uncertainty. Jackson cited the example of Paul Dixon, a psychology professor at the University of Hawaii at Hilo who has been saying for more than a decade that experiments at Fermilab's Tevatron accelerator are in danger of touching off an artificial supernova. Dixon is still going strong: He submitted an affidavit in support of the LHC lawsuit filed by Sancho and Wagner.

The current lawsuit could well be decided not by scientific arguments but rather by narrower regulatory issues. On that point, Jackson said that Fermilab has followed U.S. environmental regulations, just as CERN has followed European regulations. "Of course there are plenty of environmental laws and regulations, and they have all been followed to the letter," she said.

However, Jackson said CERN shouldn't be held to U.S. requirements when it comes to operating the LHC - even if the collider happens to be using magnets built by Fermilab. "Just because we built them doesn't mean we have any say over French environmental regulations," she said.

For his part, Wagner said he hoped Fermilab and the other defendants in the lawsuit would take another look at the doomsday scenarios - and speculated that a restraining order might not even be necessary. He noted that the startup schedule for the LHC has been repeatedly delayed, which would give more time for further safety assessments. (CERN's schedule currently calls for first collisions by the end of August, and the word is that the collider may not reach its full power of 14 trillion electron-volts until next year.)

Wagner suggested that cosmic-ray observations by the Pierre Auger Observatory and the yet-to-be-launched Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, could shed new light on the debate. "The way I look at it, this should be a basis to look for more funding to find a solution to the problems we raised," he told me.

I'm pretty sure most physicists won't see it that way. They're generally anxious to spend their time and their grant money using the LHC rather than chasing down cosmic improbabilities. The doomsday lawsuit could conceivably be dismissed once it comes up for a hearing - that's basically what happened to Wagner's earlier lawsuit against the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider. But in the meantime, feel free to make your own arguments, counterarguments and counter-counterarguments in the comment section below.

Bonus round: For a different perspective on doomsday, check out this little tale from the late science-fiction great Arthur C. Clarke.

Update for 2:20 a.m. ET March 27: Documents relating to Sancho v. Department of Energy have been uploaded to LHC Concerns, a Web site that voices worries about the Large Hadron Collider. Also, CERN has a Web page that addresses the worries, plus links to safety reports for the Large Hadron Collider and the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider. You'll find more discussion of all this on Slashdot.

Ultra Security Bedroom Set

To help the paranoid sleep better at night.

The Quantum Sleeper is a bed that converts into a bullet-proof, airtight shelter that is shielded from biochemical attacks with filtered ventilation and rebreathing equipment. Options include a toilet, a short-wave radio, and motion detectors.

Gizmodo writes: Some might call being trapped in a small, airtight box getting buried alive. Others realize that it's a completely rational response to the potential threats in a post-9/11 world. Featuring 1.25" polycarbonate bulletproof plating, the Quantum Sleeper seals you into your mattress in emergency situations. You breathe filtered O2, use the built-in facilities and wait comfortably for the world to not be over. Sound a bit unsettling? No way. Just look at that happy couple basking in their thoughtful preparation, the husband grabbing his wife lovingly, always ready to perform the Heimlich should the opportunity arise.

Go figure.

Doctor Who program called "Greatest lie Satan ever told"

Simon White and his lifesize Tardis

From http://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/trowbridgenews/display.var.2134279.0.dr_who_tardis_on_sale_on_ebay.php

Dr Who Tardis on sale on eBay
By Benjamin Parkes

A TROWBRIDGE Christian who renounced the evil of Dr Who in favour of his religion is selling his collection on internet auction website eBay.

Simon White, 47, became obsessed with Dr Who from a very early age and started collecting and building life-size models.

He shares his home in Boundary Walk with a full-size Tardis that he built himself, a huge Dalek, two Cybermen and model of Dr Who's robotic dog K-9.

The collection, which Mr White estimates is worth nearly £7,000, was built up over a number of years but is to be cast aside because of his religious beliefs.

Dr Who and his materialistic obsession with it represents the "greatest lie that Satan ever told" according to Mr White.

He said: "I loved science fiction as a kid. It was the Tardis that did it for me. You could get in that box and go anywhere.

"I started collecting Dr Who stuff starting with the Dalek, which I got from an old exhibition in Brighton.

"Me and a friend spent two years making the Tardis and I became obsessed. I made a model of K-9, then a full size Cyberman with authentic Dr Who parts. I couldn't stop.

"I had to retire early from my job as a nurse at the Royal United Hospital in Bath in 1998 because I was suffering from bipolar disorder.

"I turned to drink and became an alcoholic and the Dr Who obsession was the only thing that kept me going. I wouldn't have given it up if you'd have put a gun to my head."

Having discovered Christianity Mr Smith has renounced his old life and is putting the whole collection up for sale in local trade magazines and on eBay.

He said: "God delivered me from the evil that is Dr Who, materialism and alcoholism.

"Through my relationship with Jesus I saw that none of this was making me happy and I was born again like Lazarus.

"It's a timely tale as we come up to Easter. I wanted to tell others that no matter what trouble you are in God can deliver you from the evil. If you are prepared to have a relationship with him then God can help. I have been resurrected. My old life is dead, my new life is alive."

If you are interested in buying the Dr Who figures contact the Wiltshire Times & Chippenham News on (01225) 773643.

In Kansas with Jackson Green

I have flown to Kansas City and then driven on to Manhattan, Kansas to visit with my new grandson, Jackson Green. The son of Sarah Jane and Justin Green was born a week ago this evening and seems to be doing well.

I arrived in Manhattan at about 2 AM Friday morning, and after a morning of mostly sleep, I dropped in and spent some nice hours with Jackson, Sarah and Justin along with grandmother Sally and her partner Doris who are visiting from Germany. Megan Harlow, one of my former students who is now an assistant debate coach at Kansas State also dropped by, and it was good to visit with her. It was a nice day of conversation punctuated by Jackson waking up, eating and looking around. Jackson seemed very well-tempered and enjoying the attention, which is pretty good for one week old.

The house has been very well fixed up for the transition to a child, and a lot of new work in the basement has expanded the living space in their very nice home. Sarah notes that croquet season is not far away.

I will be here tomorrow for more visiting before returning to Vermont on Sunday.

So, I guess I am a grandfather.

Welcome Jackson Matthew Green

Sarah Jane and Justin Green have announced that Jackson Matthew Green has arrived in this world. Their 6 pound 15.5 ounce baby boy was born on Friday March 7 2008 at 6:50 PM in Manhattan, Kansas at a birthing center.

Yes, it is true, I am now a grandfather. So the tides of time and the march of the generations continue.

Sarah is proud of how it went, and especially that she "pushed him out without an epidural." She says that the Reggae dub music that I sent her worked very well during labor. She was home very quickly and is now settling in for the long tenure of raising a child.

I liked the way that she and Justin, both very active debate coaches, had taken March off so that they could focus on family. They are about as intense as it gets when it comes to debate coaching, so it showed a considerable sense of priority.

I am very proud of how they have planned for and executed all of this, and now we get the benefit of watching Jackson develop and grow.

I am flying out Thursday, will spend Friday and Saturday there, and then will fly back on Sunday. You can expect another report then.

For more details and pictures, go to
http://sarahjustinandbabygreen.blogspot.com/

I am going to call him Jax.

Recreational Flashlight Becomes Powerful Killing Tool

This is very scary. I know my buddy Bob from Mexico sent it to me with perhaps a different emotion in mind, but this scared me. The smirk on this guy's face is also sort of frightening. I'll never think about a thick wallet in the back pocket the same.

"Death Star" Gamma Ray Gun May BE Pointed Directly at Earth

A composite of 11 images of Wolf-Rayet 104, an unstable binary star system that could direct a deadly burst of gamma rays at Earth.

From http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,335186,00.html

'Death Star' Gamma-Ray Gun Pointed Straight at Earth
Thursday, March 06, 2008

Earth could be in for a neighborhood dispute with a death star, according to an Australian astronomer.

A spectacular rotating pinwheel system just down the astronomical road from Earth — 8,000 light years away — includes an unstable Wolf-Rayet star that could explode.

Eight years ago, WR104 was discovered in the constellation Sagittarius by Sydney University astronomer Peter Tuthill.

A Wolf-Rayet star is the last step on the way to a supernova — the explosion of a star at the end of its life.

Images from the Mauna Kea in Hawaii telescope show that every eight months the two stars at the centre of the pinwheel orbit each other, leaving a trail of hot gas, carbon and dust.

"Viewed from Earth, the rotating tail appears to be laid out on the sky in an almost perfect spiral," Tuthill said. "It could only appear like that if we are looking nearly exactly down on the axis of the binary system."

Tuthill and his team worry this box-seat view might put us in the firing line when the system finally explodes.

"Sometimes, supernovae like the one that will one day destroy WR104 focus their energy into a narrow beam of very destructive gamma-ray radiation along the axis of the system," he warns. "If such a 'gamma-ray burst' happens, we really do not want Earth to be in the way."

Even a short gamma-ray burst at supernova strength could zap away half the Earth's ozone layer, drastically increasing the amount of deadly space radiation that penetrates our atmosphere.

One leading theory blames the Ordovician mass extinction of 443 million years ago on such an interstellar gamma-ray burst.

There's no need to move planets just yet, however, because Tuthill is uncertain whether Earth is precisely on WR104's axis.

"We probably have hundreds of thousands of years before it blows, so we have plenty of time to come up with some answers," he said.

Tuthill's research is published in the latest edition of the Astrophysical Journal.

Bats Dying from "White Nose Syndrome"

The one error I see is that they have found what it is that is afflicting the bees and are already dealing with it in an efficient way. Now for the bat mystery.

From http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23169737/

By Michael Hill

updated 3:15 p.m. ET, Thurs., Feb. 14, 2008

ROSENDALE, N.Y. - Bats in New York and Vermont are mysteriously dying off by the thousands, often with a white ring of fungus around their noses, and scientists in hazmat suits are crawling into dank caves to find out why.

"White nose syndrome," as the killer has been dubbed, is spreading at an alarming rate, with researchers calling it the gravest threat in memory to bats in the U.S.

"This is definitely unprecedented," said Lori Pruitt, an endangered-species biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Bloomington, Ind. "The hugest concern at this point is that we do not know what it is."

A significant loss of bats is chilling in itself to wildlife experts. But —like the mysterious mass die-offs around the country of bees that pollinate all sorts of vital fruits and vegetables — the bat deaths could have economic implications. Bats feed on insects that can damage dozens of crops, including wheat and apples.

"Without large populations of bats, there would certainly be an impact on agriculture," said Barbara French of Bat Conservation International of Austin, Texas.

White nose syndrome has afflicted at least four species of hibernating bats, spreading from a cluster of four caves near Albany last winter to more than a dozen caverns up to 130 miles away.

Alan Hicks, a wildlife biologist with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, said he fears a catastrophic collapse of the region's bat population and is urgently enlisting experts around the country to find the cause.

It is not even clear if the fungus around the bats' noses — something scientists say they have never seen before — is a cause or a symptom. It may be a sign the bats are too sick to groom themselves, said Beth Buckles, a veterinary pathologist at Cornell University.

The die-offs could be caused by bacteria or a virus. Or the bats could be reacting to some toxin or other environmental factor. Whatever it is, afflicted bats are burning through their winter stores of fat before hibernation ends in the spring, and appear to be starving.

The Northeast has generally had mild winters in recent years. But Hicks said he doubts that is the culprit in some way, since there are no reports of large die-offs in warmer states.

Nor are there any known links between what is wiping out the bees and what is killing the bats. The cause of the bee deaths is still a mystery, though scientists are looking at pesticides, parasites and a virus not previously seen in the U.S.

Researchers said there is no evidence the mysterious killer is any threat to humans. Scientists venturing into the caves wear hazardous-materials suits and breathing masks primarily to protect the bats, not themselves.

Hicks said it is possible that a cave explorer introduced the problem in the Albany-area caves and that it spread from there. "It could have been some caver in Tanzania with a little mud on his boot and a week later he's in a cave in New York," he said.

Reggae Lectures Now Available Online

From my class SPCH214 - Rhetoric of Reggae Music, here are a few video lectures I made a few years ago. You will need RealPlayer installed to watch them, but they seem to pop right up and stream pretty well.

Go to http://www.uvm.edu/~debate/watch/?M=D

twotonemovement.rm 14-Feb-2008 10:30 46.8M
reggaeuk.rm 14-Feb-2008 10:29 49.8M
reggaerhetandimages.rm 14-Feb-2008 10:28 95.7M
reggaerasrhetmovemen..> 14-Feb-2008 10:26 46.6M
reggaedub.rm 14-Feb-2008 10:25 58.4M
reggaebarrow_2.rm 14-Feb-2008 10:24 89.5M
reggaebarrow_1.rm 14-Feb-2008 10:22 96.5M
reggaeafrica.rm 14-Feb-2008 10:20 50.4M
reggaestructure_2.rm 14-Feb-2008 10:14 50.1M
reggaestructure_1.rm 14-Feb-2008 10:13 55.5M
dancehall_4.rm 14-Feb-2008 10:12 49.5M
dancehall_3.rm 14-Feb-2008 10:11 45.6M
dancehall_2.rm 14-Feb-2008 10:10 35.1M
dancehall_1.rm 14-Feb-2008 10:09 49.6M
tosh.RM 14-Feb-2008 10:08 99M
marley.rm 14-Feb-2008 10:06 105M
reggaeorigins_4.RM 13-Feb-2008 20:32 42.1M
reggaeorigins_3.RM 13-Feb-2008 20:31 46.7M
reggaeorigins_2.RM 13-Feb-2008 20:30 50.2M
reggaeorigins_1.RM 13-Feb-2008 20:29 48.7M
reggaerbackground_1.RM 13-Feb-2008 20:28 40.8M
reggaebackground_4.RM 13-Feb-2008 20:27 27.8M
reggaebackground_3.RM 13-Feb-2008 20:26 54.7M
reggaebackground_2.RM 13-Feb-2008 20:25 58.7M
womenofreggae_2.RM 13-Feb-2008 20:23 95.1M
womenofreggae_1.RM 13-Feb-2008 20:21 98.7M
wordsoundpower_2.RM 13-Feb-2008 20:17 95.9M
wordsoundpower_1.RM 13-Feb-2008 20:15 97.5M
rasta_part3.RM 13-Feb-2008 16:27 98.8M
rasta_part2.RM 13-Feb-2008 16:25 97.6M
rasta_part1.RM 13-Feb-2008 16:22 93.7M

I Appear in WIRED Article on Doctor Who

One of Doctor Who's biggest American fans, Alfred Snider, poses with a police box reminiscent of the TARDIS space machine on a visit to London. Photo courtesy Alfred Snider

I guess this proves that people notice when you are really obsessed with something for a long time. Thanks to Mike Calore for helping hook me up with this.

From http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/news/2008/02/dr_who#

New Doctor Who Regenerates Fan Base
By Renée Davidson 02.14.08 | 12:00 AM

The long-running campy BBC TV series Doctor Who is back on the airwaves after a 15-year absence, and the U.S. fan base is growing rapidly. This weekend, hundreds of fans will gather in Los Angeles for Gallifrey One, the biggest Doctor Who convention in the country.

"The Time Meddlers [fan club] has gotten a lot of new fans coming to our doors since the new show came on," says Aaron Cistrelli, president of the 20-year-old Los Angeles-based Time Meddlers.

Doctor Who is one of the U.K.'s longest-running television shows, and is currently enjoying a huge surge in popularity. The most-recent Christmas special, "Voyage of the Damned," was viewed by 12.2 million people, or 50 percent of the British viewing audience.

Doctor Who chronicles the adventures of a gadget-loving alien known as "the Doctor," who travels through space and time in the TARDIS, an unreliable space and time machine that looks like a 1950s British police box.

The show returned to U.K. TVs in 2005, and several PBS stations in 2006, but because Doctor Who never enjoyed the massive syndication that Star Trek did, the U.S. fan base is smaller. It might be smaller, but it is perhaps far geekier.

No fewer than 40 local fan clubs across the nation give Whovians a chance to socialize offline. The Time Meddlers maintains a library of Doctor Who movies and episodes, and meets once a month to watch the show.

Today, DoctorWhoForum.com claims more than 18,000 active members who congregate online to debate the relative merits of recent episodes, compose Who-related poetry, and exchange images of Doctor Who actor David Tennant's backside.

Alfred Snider, who might be the biggest fan in the Whoniverse, has been hosting a weekly Doctor Who theater event in his Vermont home for more than 15 years. In this way, classic fans have kept the series alive for a new generation of fans.

"I knew [the show] would come back, but I never thought it would be this good or this popular," says the 57-year-old professor of forensics.

Snider named his 28-year-old daughter after Sarah Jane Smith, one of the Doctor's longtime companions. He sometimes carries one of the Doctor's gadgets, a sonic screwdriver, and has attended Chicago TARDIS, the "other" Doctor Who convention, four times.

When I reach him, he is in a cellphone store upgrading to a new BlackBerry. "It's funny you should call right now because I was just expressing concern about getting my ring tone on the new phone. It's the theme song from Doctor Who."

While many fans also appreciate Star Trek, Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica, many find simple space travel a bit boring. After all, their beloved blue TARDIS can travel to any time and any place, from the Big Bang to the end of the universe.

"I've been a fan since I was growing up," says Matt Abbott, a 35-year-old software engineer from San Francisco, who plans to attend the Gallifrey Convention for the first time this year.

At the convention, fans will get a chance to look inside the TARDIS, meet actors and writers from the show, participate in panel discussions, purchase Doctor Who toys and memorabilia, and dress as their favorite Doctor Who characters for Friday night's masquerade ball.