Posts Tagged ‘history’

So much for the bookmakers

Posted: February 12, 2009 by datechguy in doctor who, fun
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As a reward for his Full scholarship and fees package that he got I cleaned out my oldest’s folder at That’s Entertainment today. Looking though the stuff there were several back issues of Doctor Who Magazine. The December issue has the following to say concerning the soon to be replaced 10th doctor:

At the time of going to press on October 30th bookies Paddy Power made Paterson Joseph their 3-1 favorite. With Christmas Special Star David Morrissey close behind at 5-1.

The odds list included John Simm (8-1), Russell Tovey (10-1), Anthony Head (10-1), Harry Lloyd (18-1), John Barrowman (33-1), Marc Warren (33-1), Dean Lennox (50-1), Richard E. Grant (14-1), Hugh Grant (100-1), James Nesbitt (6-1), Robert Carlyle (14-1), Jason Statham (18-1), Aidan Gillen (18-1) , Ben Whishaw (20-1), Julian Walsh (20-1), Nigel Harman (20-1), Bill Nighy (25-1), Stephen Fry (25-1) he would have been pretty good I think, Chiwetel Ejiofor (25-1), David Suchet (33-1), Paul Bettany (33-1) he’s more of a Master type to me, Joel Beckett (40-1), Christopher Villers (66-1) Ricky Gervais (80-1), Vinnie Jones (100-1), Robbie Williams (150-1).

Cripes the return of the 9th doctor Christopher Eccleston was even given 40-1 odds but nobody at all had Matt Smith on their radar.

Those guys much must have made a fortune.

Two more votes for Plan A

Posted: February 12, 2009 by datechguy in Blame Bush, opinion/news
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There are two new votes for my economic plan A today. One (via glenn) is from Philip Greenspun’s blog:

What did these guys want the government to do? Nothing, basically. “Back in the 19th Century, there were a lot of steep crashes, guys got wiped out, and the economy came back quickly.” What’s different now? The government is a lot bigger and more powerful. Rich companies and people can put some of their wealth into lobbying and demand that the government prevent them from getting wiped out (or at least slow the process).

Barack Obama promised on Monday not to rest as long as this economic downturn persisted. He promised to act decisively, change whatever had to be changed, spend whatever had to be spent. This is precisely what worries the investors to whom I spoke. They’d rather see the audacity of doing nothing.

The second comes from the news itself:

Sales at U.S. retailers unexpectedly halted a record six-month slide in January, an advance that may not be sustained as job losses climb.

The 1 percent increase followed a 3 percent drop the prior month, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Excluding cars, the gain was 0.9 percent. Last month’s rise reflected higher gasoline prices and more spending on items including clothing and food.

Perhaps our democratic friends don’t want to risk a recovery that they can’t take credit for. If they can postpone it for say 18 months it might look really pretty come election time.

Even worse if it comes too fast then someone might think to Blame Bush for it!

Promoted from Hotair Jumping ahead

Posted: February 10, 2009 by datechguy in catholic
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Was going to wait on this since today I was going to write on the existence of Christ but this link at Hot Air annoyed me. It is one of my pet peeves The idea that indulgences are “returning” is nonsense, they never left.

Like the Latin Mass and meatless Fridays, the indulgence was one of the traditions decoupled from mainstream Catholic practice in the 1960s by the Second Vatican Council, the gathering of bishops that set a new tone of simplicity and informality for the church. Its revival has been viewed as part of a conservative resurgence that has brought some quiet changes and some highly controversial ones,

There is a method to all of this, to encourage the sacrament of confession:

Getting Catholics back into confession, in fact, was one of the motivations for reintroducing the indulgence. In a 2001 speech, Pope John Paul described the newly reborn tradition as “a happy incentive” for confession.

“Confessions have been down for years and the church is very worried about it,” said the Rev. Tom Reese, a Jesuit and former editor of the Catholic magazine America. In a secularized culture of pop psychology and self-help, he said, “the church wants the idea of personal sin back in the equation. Indulgences are a way of reminding people of the importance of penance.”

“The good news is we’re not selling them anymore,” he added.

To remain in good standing, Catholics are required to confess their sins at least once a year. But in a survey last year by a research group at Georgetown University, three-quarters of Catholics said they went to confession less often or not at all.

Under the rules in the “Manual of Indulgences,” published by the Vatican, confession is a prerequisite for getting an indulgence.

The mocking of the church in comments let to the following rant that I repeat here… I will go in to more detail when the time comes later in my writing on Christianity. (more…)

Chapter 2: My take on Science vs religion

Posted: February 6, 2009 by datechguy in catholic, opinion/news
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I was answering a comment in the Ben Stein thread it hit me that the answer was the post I’ve been meaning to write on the subject so I’ve promoted and expaned it.

It is rightly said that if one is not willing to have your religious belief challenged then it must not be worth much. If you can’t defend your faith it is unlikely to be worth defending

I think that is true for science as well. In fact science progresses by the process of idea, observation, experiment, deduction, and reassessment repeated over and over again.

This process has three results:

Affirmation of some existing conclusions
Rethinking of some existing conclusions
Totally new directions that we’ve never thought of

All these things have one core component; the pursuit of truth. As truth is the reason to be Christian the pursuit of scientific truth must be embraced. (more…)

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