Singular Saints

ScienceDaily (2009-03-24) — Individuals who eat more red meat and processed meat appear to have a modestly increased risk of death from all causes and also from cancer or heart disease over a 10-year period, according to a new article. In contrast, a higher intake of white meat appeared to be associated with a slightly decreased risk for overall death and cancer death.

I came across an interesting factoid the other day which challenged on of my assumptions about space-time. Although I knew that the rotational velocity of the earth is slowing, I didn’t consider how that may have had an impact on the creation story.   Genesis 1:5 says: “And God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” The Hebrew word used here is yom (ש”ע) יום .

According to the article on Wikipedia; The length of one day about 4.5 billion years ago was about six hours. It was 21.9 hours 620 million years ago as recorded by rhythmites (alternating layers in sandstone). Because of the way the second is defined, the length of a day is increasing by about 1.7 milliseconds per century.

Depending on how literal you want to be about the creation story, this would have the effect of speeding up the “daily” rate of progress on the infant earth by about 400%, since a day is the time interval between light and darkness.

ScienceDaily (2008-06-16) — Scientists have identified brain patterns that help healthy older people regulate and control emotion better than their younger counterparts. The study identified two regions in the brain that showed increased activity when participants over the age of 60 were shown standardized pictures of emotionally challenging situations. (Click for more details.)

One of the more unusual aspects of LDS scripture is the inclusion of three facsimiles of portions of Egyptian Funerary writings in the Book of Abraham.  Over the years a great deal of ink has been spilled over the question of whether Joseph Smith got it right and if so, how close did he get?   A couple of years ago I began studying hieroglyphics and Egyptian religion in an effort to try to broaden my understanding of the subject.  After buying copies of about a dozen books, viewing another dozen web sites and combing them all for relevant information, I decided to put up an article on Wikipedia on the subject of the Joseph Smith Hypocephalus, also known as Facsimile No. 2 from the Book of Abraham. (BTW - of all the books, I recommend “Hieroglyphics The Writings of Ancient Egypt” by Maria Carmela Betro and “How to Read Egyptian” by Collier and Manley, as they are both current and relevant.)

Most of the prior commentary on the subject is hopelessly out of date, based on hundred year old observations by Egyptologists who laid the foundations for the current understanding of ancient Egyptian language and culture.  Over the past 30 years some significant progress has been made in those fields and some of it is very relevant to this little scrap of papyrus.  Joseph Smith’s explanations are very interesting in the context of our current understanding of the Egyptian creation stories, particularly the involvement of a god named MN.  Some of my comments in the article may approach original research or synthesis, but it’s fascinating none the less. I found the ideographic meanings of the symbols for Khnum-Ra particularly interesting.  I tried to be strictly factual about the subject and avoid drawing any conclusions about Joseph Smith’s skill at translation or any other of the red herring/straw man issues that are usually woven into this sort of discussion.  I hope you find it interesting.

While we’re considering the dust kicked up over the LDS Church’s involvement in the GBLT rights issue, here’s another thing to be aware of; It’s already a law that the Federal Government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states.  This is contained in Public Law 104-199 which you can view here. The Wikipedia article is available here. The bill was passed by Congress by a vote of 85-14 (85%) in the Senate and a vote of 342-67 (83%) in the House of Representatives and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on September 21, 1996.

So, why aren’t the protesters encircling the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument or White House? Maybe I shouldn’t give them any new ideas…

I was cleaning up some old e-mails and found a link to the commencement speech that Steve Jobs gave at Stanford back in 2005.  It’s a good read. Click here to view it in a new window.

The news outlets are carrying a story that the California’s Fair Political Practices Commission says it will investigate allegations that the Mormon church failed to report non-monetary contributions to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign.   In an effort to get the facts straight, here are a few relevant points:

The California Fair Political Practices Commission administers the Political Reform Act.

The Political Reform Act requires government officials to file “Statements of Economic Interest” in order to disclose possible financial conflicts of interest.  The main point of the act is that a public official may not take any part in a governmental decision in which the official has a disqualifying conflict of interest.

The act requires officials to report investments and ownership interests in business entities, real property, sources of income and gifts. The Political Reform Act applies only to financial conflicts of interest of public officials, It does NOT apply to other types of conflicts or biases. It was written to give voters in California some sense of comfort that their elected officials were not influencing legislation that would personally benefit them. 

How Californians Against Hate is going to torque this law around to pertain to volunteer efforts by members of the LDS Church, or even active involvement by church officials, is a hard for me to understand, but I suppose where there’s a willing attorney, there a way. On their web site the Knights of Columbus, New Haven, CT is listed as the top donor at $1,425,000. (The LDS Church doesn’t even make the expanded list.)

If you’d like to know what the California State Attorney General has to say about the purpose, application and scope of The Political Reform Act click here.

This item came across the UPI wire the other day.  Turns out the location of the solar system may not be as fixed as we all assumed.  Adds some sauce to the question of how we got here and from where.

Published: Sept. 16, 2008 at 1:34 PM 

Sun might be a long-distance traveler  

SEATTLE, Sept. 16 (UPI) — U.S.-led scientists say the sun might have traveled far from where it  formed, contradicting a belief that stars generally remain static. University of Washington researchers used a supercomputer to create simulations that show, at least in galaxies similar to the Milky Way, stars such as the sun can migrate great distances. 

If that’s true, scientists say it might change the theory that there are parts of galaxies — so-called habitable zones — that are more conducive to supporting life than other areas. 

“Our view of the extent of the habitable zone is based in part on the idea that certain chemical elements necessary for life are available in some parts of a galaxy’s disk, but not others,” said Rok Roskar, a doctoral student in astronomy and lead author of the study. And, he added, if the idea of habitable zones doesn’t hold up, it would change scientists’ understanding of where, and how, life could evolve in a galaxy. 

The research that included Thomas Quinn of the University of Washington, Victor Debattista of the University of Central Lancashire in England and Gregory Stinson and James Wadsley of McMaster University in Canada appears in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. 

This last weekend the Sunday School Lesson covered the material in 3rd Nephi 9 about the events that happened in the Western Hemisphere at the time of the crucifixion.  While reading the descriptions of the changes to the land, the thought came to me that it sounded like a massive earthquake.  I wondered if there might be any geologic evidence for any large earthquakes on the North American continent, so I did a Google search and came up with some interesting information, which I’ve blended here:

The most widely felt earthquakes in the recorded history of North America occurred in 1811-1812 near New Madrid, Missouri. (About 400 miles south of Independence.) A great earthquake,  estimated at magnitude 8, occurred on the morning of December 16, 1811. Another occurred on January 23, 1812, and a third, the strongest, on February 7, 1812.

The quakes were felt across two-thirds of the United States and in Canada. They changed the elevation of land by as much as 20 feet.  Large areas sank into the earth, fissures opened, lakes permanently drained, new lakes were formed and forests were destroyed over an area of 150,000 acres (600 km²). Many houses at New Madrid were thrown down. “Houses, gardens, and fields were swallowed up”.  This temblors caused permanent changes in the course of the Mississippi River, giving the illusion that it was flowing backward. The crew of the New Orleans (the first steamboat on the Mississippi, which was on her maiden voyage) reported mooring to an island only to awake in the morning to find that the island had disappeared.  Along the Tennessee/Arkansas state line, geological features are still present almost 200 years after the events, showing the former course of the river.

Survivors reported that the earthquakes caused cracks to open in the earth’s surface, the ground to roll in visible waves, and large areas of land to sink or rise.  Damage was reported as far away as Charleston, South Carolina, and Washington, D.C.  In Bootheel Mo, the land was so damaged that it was even unfit for farming for many years. It was the largest burst of seismic energy east of the Rocky Mountains in the history of the United States and was several times larger than the San Francisco quake of 1906.

Several lines of research suggest that the catastrophic quakes happen in the New Madrid region every 500-600 years.  A 7.5 or greater quake, happens every 200- 300 years.

Obviously, these facts are not conclusive evidence that an earthquake did occur around Jackson County 1975 years ago, but to my way of thinking they increase the possibility, as seismologists believe the area has been seismically active (and in the same place) for 750 million years.

-df

For those of you who may be in a major panic over the stock market situation it might be helpful to take a look at the historic performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is made up of  30 stocks that are a reasonable snapshot of American businesses.

Prior to this week the largest drop on the Dow was on October 19, 1987, when it fell 22% from 2600 to 1800. Two days later it rose 10%. It was back to 2600 two years later. The next big one day drop (14%) happened on September 17th, 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Looking at some longer term moves, the Dow dropped 35% from 11,500 in January of 2000 to 7500 in October of 2002. From there, it rose to 86% to 14,000 last October.

If we take the really long term view, the Dow has averaged about 5% over the past 100 years.  A 5% annual rate of interest will double your money every 14 years. There’s a handy compound interest calculator which you can use to figure out how fast your money can grow at different rates. (Plug in $40.94 - the starting value on May 26, 1896 - and 111 years at 5.3% and you’ll get $12,638.54, which is right where the Dow was on May 30th of this year.

Don’t let the big numbers scare you. In fact, this could be a great opportunity to pick up a few shares of a company like GE, Delta Airlines or Apple Computer, all of whom have been dragged down but offer good products.