Posts Tagged ‘solar energy’

News & Submissions 12/29/2010

Wednesday, December 29th, 2010

Dig deeper to find the real news
As voted by the Religion Newswriters Association’s members, among the year’s most consequential religion newsmakers were Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, Pope Benedict XVI, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, and the U.S. bishops.

How would you have ranked them? Has their influence been harmful or constructive? What issue or person do you expect to have the biggest impact in the year to come?

Many of the noted figures making the biggest waves in the world of religion journalism in 2010 have a troubled, sometimes hostile, relationship to religious minorities in general, and modern Paganism in particular. Their prominence and influence are a constant reminder that our freedoms are sustained by secular ideals of a separation between church and state, a concept under constant attack by those who would prefer a “Christian America,” or at least one that gave special dispensation to their majorities. This tension is often characterized as a mere difference of opinion, but this is a fundamental disconnect that allows outlandish statements and associations to be ignored by mainstream media outlets. Read full story from washingtonpost.com

Berwyn Mountains “UFO” mystery deepens
THE mystery behind the famous Berwyn Mountains “UFO” incident has deepened after a document revealed a major military operation was underway that night.

Dubbed the “Welsh Roswell”, on January 23 in 1974 locals reported hearing a huge bang, felt earth tremors and saw a brilliant light in the sky over the Berwyn Mountains.

Now a document from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency has surfaced, which reveals a military operation – codenamed Photoflash – was scheduled for that evening.

It involved about 10 military aircraft and a series of powerful flashes across the North Wales coast and Liverpool Bay. Read full story from dailypost.co.uk

Ice Sheets Act as Giant Solar Mirrors Controlling Future Climate Change
Recent Antarctica research may provide critical clues to understanding one of the most dramatic periods of climatic change in Earth’s history – and a glimpse into what might lie far ahead in the planet’s climate’s future.

The giant ice sheets of Antarctica behave like mirrors, reflecting the sun’s energy and moderating the world’s temperatures. The waxing and waning of these ice sheets contribute to changes in sea level and affect ocean circulation, which regulates our climate by transporting heat around the planet Read full story from dailygalaxy.com

Year in Review: Top Stories of July 2010
As the year 2010 draws to a close, it’s a good time to reflect on some of the top stories we’ve seen here at About Pagan/Wiccan. There were archaeological discoveries, tales of religious discrimination, news stories about church/state separation issues, and more. Let’s take a look at some of the most significant stories of 2010, and see how July played out for us. Read full story from Patti’s Paganism / Wicca Blog

Image of the Year: Billion-Year Old “Black Widow” Pulsar Ripping Through Milky Way at 1 Million KPH
The “Black Widow” pulsar is zipping through the galaxy at a speed of almost a million kilometers per hour. A bow shock wave due to this motion is visible to optical telescopes, shown in this image as the greenish crescent shape. The pressure behind the bow shock creates a second shock wave that sweeps the cloud of high-energy particles back from the pulsar to form a cocoon.

The Black Widow,  a class of extremely rapid rotating neutron stars called millisecond pulsars, is emitting intense high-energy radiation that appears to be destroying a companion star through evaporation. Read full story from dailygalaxy.com

Atheists Excluded from Mayoral Prayer Service
Atheists Excluded from Mayor-Elect Gray’s Inauguration Humanist Celebrant Denied Equal Time at Ecumenical Prayer Service

For Immediate Release Contact: Amanda Knief, Government Relations Manager Phone: 202-495-9974 Email: amanda@secular.org

December 28, 2010 (Washington, D.C.) – Atheists, agnostics, humanists, and other nontheistic Washington, D.C. residents will have no representation at Mayor-Elect Vincent Gray’s first official inaugural event—an ecumenical prayer service entitled “One City … Praying Together” at 8 a.m. Sunday, January 2, 2011.

“We would prefer that a government function such as an inauguration not be entwined with religion,” said Amanda Knief, a Humanist Celebrant and government relations manager for the Secular Coalition for America (SCA). “However, we find it overtly discriminatory when we request to be part of an ecumenical prayer service that is supposed to unite the entire city and are told there is no place for nontheists.” Read full story from richarddawkins.com

Archaeologists to probe Sherwood Forest’s ‘Thing’
A team of experts hope to shed new light on one of Nottinghamshire’s most mysterious ancient monuments.

A ‘Thing’, or open-air meeting place where Vikings gathered to discuss the law, was discovered in the Birklands, Sherwood Forest, five years ago.

In January 2011 experts plan to survey the hill and see if they can detect signs of buried archaeology and the extent of the site. Read full story from bbc.co.uk

Celebrate the New Year with Intoxicated Animals
When someone starts getting a little too sloshed at a New Year’s Eve party, you can tell them to stop acting like an animal, literally. Many animals seem to enjoy getting a good buzz on just as much as humans.

In fact, some animals may have introduced humans to a number of drugs, including psychedelic mushrooms, alcohol, caffeine, and cocaine.

Even the legend behind Santa’s flying reindeer may have its roots in a psychedelic experience.

Reindeer are known to feed on the fly agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria), then stumble about, twitching and making strange noises. The mushrooms contain the hallucinogen muscimol. Read full story from discovery.com

World Religion Day offers spiritual party
World Religion Day will be held Jan. 23 at The Highland Center. As a treat for many locals, keynote speaker will be neurosurgeon Dr. Anil Nanda.

Nanda will represent the Hindu faith.

“I don’t think faith is something you wear on your arm,” Nanda said. “Thomas Jefferson said faith is how you treat other people.”

Each year at World Religion Day there are upwards of 17 different religions represented along with educational services about the different religions. Read full story from shreveporttimes.com

Planet 100: Is it Time to Solar the Sign? (Video)
The White House may have plans to reinstall solar panels on its roof but across the country another of the world’s iconic landmarks is perfectly positioned to harness the energy of the sun.

Situated high in the Hollywood Hills, the Hollywood sign has been a cultural landmark since it’s erection back in 1923. Now a group of environmentalists are hoping to light the sign using solar energy. Read full story from treehugger.com

Letter from rabbis’ wives urge Israeli girls to avoid dating Arabs (source cnn)

News & Submissions 12/06/2010

Monday, December 6th, 2010

Pagan prisoners given time off to worship the Sun God
Hundreds of criminals are to be given four days a year off prison work – to celebrate pagan festivals.

Prison governors have been issued with a list of eight annual pagan holidays and told pagan inmates can choose four to celebrate.

The festivals include Imbolc – The Festival of the Lactating Sheep – which falls on February 1 and is dedicated to the goddess Brighid. Read full story from dailymail.co.uk

Kinky pagan has appeal rejected by rights tribunal
The man who claimed Vancouver police discriminated against him and refused to give him a chauffeur’s permit because he was a pagan whose sexual practices included bondage, domination, sadism and masochism has lost his appeal to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.

Peter Hayes had filed a complaint against the Vancouver Police Board and Const. Kevin Barker after Barker refused to give him the permit needed for his employment as a limousine driver in May 2005.

Hayes said he was denied the permit on the grounds of his religion and sexual orientation. Read full story from edmontonjournal.com

“Wonders in the Sky”: Why we’ve always been obsessed with UFOs
UFO skeptics take note: Strange flying objects have been haunting our planet for much longer than many people think. Over 3,000 years ago, in the Egyptian Nile Valley, a man reported looking into the sky to see a “shining disk” descend and tell him to build a new city. On Sept. 11, 1787, in Edinburgh, Scotland, a group of people reported, “a fiery globe larger than the sun” moving eastward in a horizontal direction and dipping below the horizon before exploding behind a cloud. Eight years later, in the Quangxi province of China, a “large star” rose and fell three times, followed by another star that “crashed in a village.”

According to Jacques Vallee, the French-born astronomer and co-author (with Chris Aubeck) of the hypnotic new book “Wonders in the Sky: Unexplained Aerial Objects from Antiquity to Modern Times,” these stories are important not only because they show that flying things have been capturing our imagination for centuries, but because of what they say about our most cherished beliefs and deepest fears. In the book, Vallee and Aubeck list 500 claims of sightings, in chronological order, between the years 1460 BC and 1879, and argue that the commonalities — references to light, round shapes, erratic flight and terror in the observer — offer us real insight into human behavior and our need to find explanation for things we cannot explain.

Salon spoke with Vallee from his home in San Francisco about our religious connection to UFOs, the controversy surrounding his own work — and our endless cultural obsession with flying objects. Read full story from salon.com

Has Environmentalism Lost Its Spiritual Core?
Environmentalism began as a religion. Certainly that’s how paleo-greens like John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, would have seen it. Muir was awakened to nature when he first explored Yosemite in the 1860s, and he felt it in a religious way — he called what would become one of the nation’s first national parks “the grandest of all special temples of Nature.”

Muir’s biographer, Donald Worster, has written that Muir saw his mission as “saving the American soul from total surrender to materialism.” David Brower, a spiritual successor to Muir who would found Friends of the Earth, would say of his staunchest green allies that they had “the religion.” Environmentalism — rooted in nature and the outdoors — was an antidote to secular, technological modern life. Read full story from time.com

“Swamp Loggers” Stumble Upon Bigfoot Nest?
According to the Bigfoot research team, Discover Bigfoot, on one of the latest episodes of the reality television show Swamp Loggers, the crew stumbles upon a Bigfoot nest out in the forests of North Carolina. Some of the crew members from the show photographed their find. The photos show matted grass and large mounds of scat surrounding the nest. The Discover Bigfoot team makes an argument about the similarities of gorilla nests and these so-called Bigfoot nests. Read full story from ghosttheory.com

Ocean Acidification Threatens Global Fisheries
Ocean acidification is likely to threaten the world’s fisheries without sharp cuts to carbon dioxide emissions produced by human activities, the U.N. Environment Programme said Friday.

As CO2 emissions have risen, largely from the world’s increasing appetite for burning fossil fuels, oceans have absorbed more and more of the greenhouse gas. That has shifted the chemistry of the seas, which are now 30 percent more acidic than they were before the start of the Industrial Revolution. Read full story from scientificamerican.com

Oriental hornets powered by ‘solar energy’
The Oriental hornet has a unique ability to harvest solar energy, scientists have discovered.

The large wasp species has a special structure in its abdomen that traps the sun’s rays, and a special pigment that harvests the energy they contain.

The discovery helps explain why these hornets have a large yellow stripe across their body and why they become more active as the day gets hotter.

It also changes our understanding of how insect metabolism can work. Read full story from bbc.co.uk

‘If I am deported to Nigeria I will face death for witchcraft’
Campaigners are fighting the deportation of a Nigerian woman who claims she could be killed for witchcraft after her one-year-old daughter died.

Cynthia Owie came to Britain on Boxing Day 2008 with her baby daughter, Daniella. She was given leave to remain when Daniella contracted meningitis and required hospital treatment.

Ms Owie was told she would be deported after her daughter died last year, as she had no grounds to extend her stay. Read full story from thisislondon.co.uk

Brave Atheist Activists Illegally Arrested, Later Vindicated
A recent episode at the Hawaiian Capitol is stirring public consciousness on the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which calls for a separation of Church and State. Atheist activists Mitch Kahle and Kevin Hughes stood up in protest when the Hawaiian Senate president introduced a reverend to say an invocation prayer. Kahle bravely declared the following,

“I object. My name is Mitch Kahle and I object to this prayer on the grounds that it’s a violation of the first amendment of the constitution of the United States. I object”

Guess what happened next? Read full story from ISSA

Senator Inhofe Boycotts ‘Holiday’ Parade (source Fox news)

Religion — The Bad Parent (source theramin trees)