Posts Made By: William Paolini

Like anything else, I think the answer is an individual one and not something one can make a blanket assessment of.

Yes, many times in these professions one is in the act of defense. However, it gets a little grey at times...like a pre-emptive strike, or being ordered to kill not having knowledge of the entire plan so you are trusting that the moral/ethics of you commanders are correct in the situation.

In the end, it does give one lots of ethical dillemas to struggle with. When I was in the military many of us discussed this often, the conflict between following one's interpretation of their faith, thou shalt not kill, with one's duty to country and having to do exactly that. Anyway, it was very much a difficult path to find and walk to have to reconcile both, but we all struggled and most did, making them both better soldiers and Christians/religious in the process IMO.

If you go through life never having to make any hard choices, you end up not growing as much as you could I would say. Every hardship has blessings that you can often not attain any other way.

Steve Hollenbach said:
If we are a people composed of multiple religions and of course many agnostics and atheists, how then do we set up our values for the society we live in? Is it not a double standard to try and maintain our beliefs, yet accept the law of the land even though it may not match our beliefs?

Great question....an no easy answer I'm sure. My take is...

You compromise where you are permitted, and do not compromise where you are not permitted. So where are you permitted to compromise? IMO where the issue is not directly and physically affecting you. So take the dreaded gay marriage discussion going on in the nation. "If" my beliefs see this as sin, as long as I do not participate in the act of gay marriage then no issue for me as I am not compromising the moral foundation of my beliefs. As Christ said, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." So really, I don't even see much many things which other do as compromise at all. Let people practice their beliefs and culture in peace, spiritual or non-spiritual. As long as they do not force and require me to do their practices and I am free to practice and voice my beliefs, then no issue. They can stand in the open and shout their beliefs all they want, more power to them, as this is exercising their freedom. I could do the same if I wished. No harm in letting voices speak in public.

If things get near or cross the line though, where some other group or a law is "forcing" me to do something against the moral standard of my beliefs, then there should be no compromise. If one were to compromise then in effect their beliefs are not really their beliefs as they will not stand by them. So, in the gay marriage example, if a law was being proposed that would force all churches to have to conduct gay marriages, then we have just crossed the line and are forcing others to violate their beliefs. There should be no compromise by them and they should stand and refuse to follow the law if enacted.

Interesting how the different translations have very slight differences, some that can make a big difference. Yes, the Amplified verse you show here brings out an important point that not so clear in the others.

However, the Contemporary English Version shows the verse with a very different meaning. Makes one wonder. "Teach your children right from wrong, and when they are grown they will still do right."

If you are really interested in getting into his psyche to try to figure out his motivations, then download his 1518 page manifesto titled "2083 - A European Declaration of Independence" - http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=1838331.

I'm only up to page 30, but seems his concern is the change of European society, and the entrance of political correctness, feminism, accommodating of gay issues, etc. and links it all to Marxism at work in present day society. So it seems he feels the European cultures are being killed off, and that it's systematic in nature, and that defenders of Europe need to stop it.

Alan French said:

A fascinating article with some implications for amateur astronomers.

And the implication would be not to have an observing contest with someone who was born and lived all their life in Boulder, Colorado??

I tracked down the study write up, as I'm always skeptical about news claims since they often stretch truths. You can find it here: http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/07/12/rsbl.2011.0570.full.pdf+html

I'm finding it a little hard to swallow as any firm conclusion. It is based on 55 skulls from their museum. A very small sample IMO. It also makes an assumption that the occipital lobe size meant the eyeball was actually bigger. They did address the possibility that it could have been insulative fat around the eye, but ruled that out based on mean temps from the individual's locations. This was a bit of a risky assumption IMO as they were not specific on what research they used to assess that particular temperatures could be ruled out. Bothersome to me was this and a few more assumptions they made relative to socket size. In other words, a more accurate approach would be to actually measure real eyeballs with live populations using an apporpriate imaging technique thereby eliminating all assumptions. There was not a lot about the 12 populations they used. This is pertinent because human eye sockets and eyeball size vary based on structural differences between humans of various races across the planet. Also no addressing of if same country/culture samples varied where there was a radical altitude change within the region. Most problematic was their lack of addressing socket and eyeball size differences between sexes in modern man, as well how significantly these are different depending if you have myopia or hyperopia -- for example, the most hyperopic individuals have an orbital volume 2.37 cm³ larger than the most myopic subjects (Chau, A., Fung, K., Pak, K., Yap, M (2004) Is eye size related to orbit size in human subjects? Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics, 24(1) 35-40).

All in all, a lot left wanting to draw any firm conclusions. Certainly "interesting" analysis and find, and enough so to warrent some further more detailed studies where not so many assumptions need to be made that could invalidate results. But stating based on this that there is an evolutionary variation in human eyeball size and brain processing correlated to altitude and dim light is a leap at best.

I'll tuck this story away in the interesting but not remotely strongly supported category. I think that probably one inch more in aperture in my telescope will do way more for bringing in faint fuzzies rather than asking what a Norwegian friend might see - LOL Thanks for finding and sharing this.

Indeed.

Well...

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But are these biblical end times? I don't think so. Why? Because I believe what Christ said, that the end will come like a thief in the night, and will not be predictable. It will just happen. All you can do is to be prepared every moment for when it does come.

Plossls, typically actually Symmetricals, are these days two identical doublets. Each doublet is cemented together. The two doublets are separated by a single spacer. Today's typical Plossl is 4 elements (there are some called Super Plossls that may have 5 elements). For the 4 element, 2 group variety, each doublet is typically plano-convex, so one side is flat and the other curved outward. The orientation of the two doublets is always having the two convex surfaces facing inward, and the two plano surfaces facing outward. So the top of the eye lens is a plano surface and the the bottom of field lens is also the plano surface.

A few varieties of these Symmetricals (again called Plossls these days) have instead of a plano surface on each double, have a slightly concave surface. You see this on TV's (which is their patent version), as well as a few others like the Sterling (Long Perng) Plossls. But regardless of variety, the convex surface of each doublet faces inward when you reassemble.

http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/opticsplanet/plossl-eyepiece.jpg

Interesting....that India is tha partner. Here's a bit of a compare:

http://fightercountry.org/news/air-force-news/sukhoi-t-50-5th-generation-fighter/71265