PC 320 History ..Pictures are clickable

History Treasure Hunt at Brigg BASH
getting First Prize with Mum and Dad	prize

Heritage Weekend - History walks
Louth	Kirton
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At the Church	Ancient carving on the Church door lintel

Bad Science There is so much information in the world it can be come so confusing, there's so many things to think about, global warming etc. So it's best to be sure of your facts, which is what you get from proper science and scientific technique, but it seems that in the media so much space and time is given to alternative theories; disproportionately so. Often it turns out they are unsubstantiated theories. It seems that the media and public 1. Distrust science for some reason. 2. Want to believe the dreams of some wacky theories, maybe cos if they were true the possible gains are big : they can explain things simply and clearly, instead of the slow rigorous crawl of science, which leads often to ever more complex explanations. The The Guardian has it's Bad Science exposing bad science in the media. Also I bumped into a couple of books on Sceptical Science Voodoo Science - Robert Park (American Physics Society) my notes In response to media is full of Junk science, he makes the case for proper Science. Without truth you can't make good decisions, so junk science is an enemy of the people. His book explains why "good scientific practice" is important and successfully trashes a lot of wacky theories. In a similar vein I have been reading Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins my notes, which among other things tackles poets criticising science for removing the romantism from understanding. Also read Demon Haunted World By: Carl Sagan my notes. Also a campaign for people to respect proper science and exasperation about pseudoscience like astrology and how it gets more money. Also praises the constitution and how scientists wrote it in a scientific way. Also read Melvyn Braggs Book about the history of the English language Adventure of English notes interesting for people interested in English and Language.

Check Demiens Grandfather recomended Thomas L.Friedman books - The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century - in support of globalisation Unfortunately he recommended Enron as a community minded business helping the world - The Lexus and the Olive Tree - he cites Enron as a strong global company with the world's best interests at heart - Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11 - gets good reviews Turns out he has just made a TV documentary about global warming like Al Gore Finally, I finished my reasearch into the truth behind climate change. It's such a complex argument, but I came up with the idea of a quiz, so that people can begin by challenging the ideas that they already have. Climate Change Quiz, Answers, Climate Change detailed notes - check open2.net/marksteel Age of reason by Tom Paine , and Common Sense New Genetics book by Sykes - Oxfordancestors.com Europeans are descended from 7 women ..the reviews say a not too scientific pop science style http://www.bookgiant.co.uk/metapage.asp cheap but cannot ship overseas, WH smiths the same Good British culture links http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/ turkey organic farms 1-Oct-2006 End Date: 31-Dec-2006 http://www.availabilityonline.com/vfp/details.asp?campcode=TurGenOFC-06&begin=10/1/2006&end=12/31/2006 panama -Vacamonte - Kuna volunteering http://www.availabilityonline.com/vfp/details.asp?campcode=PanUagRef01-06&begin=10/1/2006&end=12/31/2006

University of TV and radio - There are hours of good documentaries on the TV and radio I learn so much. The only thing is, by the time I've watched them all another day has disappeared and brain ends up to full of interesting facts and ideas Radio 4 - Republicans use the song "This Land is Our Land", which Woodie Guthrie Song - wrote as a protest saying this land is our land aswell, but the rich won't let us have it one verse usually omitted talks about - the rich building a High wall 5 Breakfast Today weather forecast interesting poem BBC FOO Correspondant - There is one private ranch exists in Cuba - before helped Castro a lot -rated best bull ranch in the world Channel 4 - Doomsday - Tony Robinson - quality documentary - First thing, The end of the world isn't mentioned anywhere else in the bible except in the Book of Revealation part of the Book of St John - Doubts on credibility it has a different style so it seems it's not written by John - It seems to be a coded attack on Roman times not on the future - but of course many American evangilists take it literally - They become so twisted they will do anything to bring it to reality - They will actually do things to upset the Middle East peace process, cos since it's predicted the end of the Earth will end in war, the Glorious Coming of God will be delayed if there is peace. They do things like support new settlements on occupied land, try to rebuild the Temple of the Mount. - problems in Uganda from people being brainwashed by evangilists there is a doomsday fad , they don't don't take steps to plan or improve their lives : don't use condoms etc cos they don't need think about the future cos the doomsday is coming. The news media keep banging on and on about the same thing, you get to thinking the whole country is falling apart. But actually it's still better than all the other countries I have visited. I can't listen to the news anymore it makes me too stressed. All the English people are leaving cos it's too cold and housing is ridiculously expensive. Whilst at the same time immigrants are coming in to do all the work. essay about problems in the media... The superficiality in the media fueling the blame game instead of giving us the depth that will help us find solutions. e.g. It's easy to get Stop the war protestors to shout at Tony Blair., but actually, but it doesn't get them anywhere nearer their goal. Depth would help them find things like a face saving way for Blair to pull the the troops out himself. This is the same as John Nash's brilliant theory in the film Beautiful Mind. He says If there are 4 girls, but both men go for the beautiful one then they'll both end up with nothing. So If two sides are competing they can both end up losing. Instead they should agree to aim in different directions. Can we apply this principle to poles of the climate change debate or Conservatives vs Labour, cos they fight against each other they are detrimental to the good of the country. Iran Iran tried to make peace with US, after the fall of Iraq , the reply was "we don't talk to evil". I know that it might have not been sincere and the US had bad experience with Saddam playing them around, but to refuse to talk seem stupid. Also apparently there were sympathy demonstrations after 911 in Tehran Radio4 excellent book about Iran by the nobel Peace prize winning lawyer Iran Awakening By Shirin Ebadi - problem is the extreme mullahs twisting laws to oppress women and also the poor suffered. At least they have always allowed women access to education if not fair access to job. And new president seems to be helping the poor. Radio4 excellent play about Iran Each year a journalist must face her religious police moral interview. One time they make it ridiculously difficult, she doesn't know some trivial prayers by memory etc. So then she loses her job. Then the male boss of the moral police dept suggests that she should make a temporary marriage contract with him (she's divorced) , then the paperwork would get lost. 20,000 Iranians die in car accidents every year. read Mark Twain book .. Pudd'nhead Wilson His last stories so strong characters and interesting plots, but a feeling of being unfinished. good documentary about suicide some female suicide bombers in Palestine - of course things are complicated than we at first think : Their judgement is affected by psychological problems and trying to get back their honour. Also it was a surprise to see Palestinians treated in Israeli hospitals and that the jail was quite nice. As ever Two wrongs don't make a right. more Of course the Israeli government are terrorists, but the film revealed surprising kindness towards Palestinians - showed they received treatment from Israeli doctors in Israeli hospitals and the jail was pretty nice. (I guess one wouldn't execute a suicide bomber) One woman's brother and husband had been killed by the Israelis for their terrorist work, it's understandable she was angry, but of course not right to do a bad thing herself. She went to a restaurant and sat between 2 families with children and blew herself up. Other failed bombers : One girl received terrible burns in a maybe kitchen suicide attempt treatment. She had been taken to an Israeli hospital and since received treatment from Israeli doctors in the same hospital many times. But she was caught at the border wearing a bomb belt, which wouldn't go off. She was on her way to blow up the same hospital. The angle seemed to be she was unhappy and had tried to commit suicide; a great sin . So she is left with low honour and little possibility of marriage. If she had succeeded she feels she would have been a martyr and got back high honour. Not only that she was mentally damaged as she seemed to think that she would have got her 20 virgins in heaven (when the mullahs say women martyrs only get to be head virgin). Another woman looked a little western so had helped a bomber to get to a Jerusalem shopping street. Now she is in the same prison. What's her background ? It seemed she was a fairly liberal married woman with children, never wore a headscarf, now in prison she is very religious. When they checked her background an old nun seeemed to know the whole story : she'd grown up in a orphanage, discriminated against she was probably from mixed race parentage, she wasn't brought up a Muslim. She had married early, an up move for her, but her husband's family looked down upon her so she had terrible relations with them. But crucially the nun revealed not only was she a the bottom of the honor heap, cos her husband couldn't get a job, the only way she could feed her children was to be a prostitute. The nun thought when your honour is so low then of course she took the opportunity to get cash and greatly increase her honour by joining the bombers. It was able to show that not only were some of the suicide bombers logically incomptetent (as the bombing never help their cause), Their judgement is sometimes affected by psychological problems And their biggest motivation was not politics, but in a twisted society that looked down upon cos of the strict cultural rules putting pressure on women, them regaining their own honour motivated them. Two wrongs don't make a right. cc

I wanted to replace my pocket PC and Ebay is great. I bought a SPV M500 pocket PC phone for £100 with camera and a 1GB memory card for £14 . It's really good it plays music and videos etc, it's got GPRS internet , but not 3G.. It has Blue tooth, but not Wi-fi so I will have to buy a SDWifi card for 20 quid So I have been spending time sorting out all my stuff and making backups etc. I have decided that, I will go and hangout in Adelaide for the winter, get involved in Shakespeare and learn to play the guitar. Now I am ready to leave I will hitch down to London and spend a week or so visiting Museums and going to lectures. My new SPV phone. It's 2 years old, but it's pretty good I stored 350 books in the memory I've been

I can't stand being in Britain it drives me up the wall

: the media are always banging on about topic the are all sheep like covering for that few days endless speculation, twisted facts and total lack of perspective.  British people are so stupid, it seems everytime you talk to people it's always simple black and white thinking : "I'll tell you what it is - it's all them immigrants, them hoodies, them lying politicians, them greenies, them police thugs, them muslims, them evil corporations ..... The Americans ", above all it's Them and not Us It's all dramatic you can't say anything is doing OK with a few problems - no no, : everything is a "Crisis" : the schools, the prisons, the health service etc. For Pete's sake the richest most comfortable nation in the world they have no idea what a real crisis is. Yes peoples simplistic thinking allows them to blame everything Climate Change, war, human rights, on "the Americans", which they always qualify by saying they mean the government not the people. Get a sense of perspective American government makes a lot of fuck ups ,but by only talking about Americans they ignore the 95% of the world's evils created by governments which are far far worse - it;s easy to name 30 Saudi, China, Russia. All their solutions are so simple and immediate  :we have to -" lock 'em all up, love one another, chill out."  There's no appreciation for the depth of the technicolor world, the importance of critical thinking, that the facts are complicated and need checking, that stats can be deceiving, that you need time for research, thinking and implementation. And God forsake the thought of saying "we don't know", well quite often we should say this. And forget any idea of perspective it's always the most minor things that are given attention whilst important things are ignored. Climate change to wars the British public haven't got a fucking clue. The thing is it's far worse in almost all other countries, but somehow you expect better of Britain. People do understand the importance of fairness and justice, and no corruption, but I despair with all their STUPID ideas. . Rip-off Britain etc.  So many things are irrational  It's Alice in Wonderland here .. For their mortgages you could live in a hotel in another country for 3 lifetimes. An example of irrationality : All those people who think they can solve Global warming by energy efficient light bulbs and no standby will almost certainly wipe all their gains out by using Christmas tree lights, cutting down a tree and buying Christmas presents. - If the UK switched all coal powered stations off today the effects would be wiped out 13 months later by new power stations in China. Lookout for these key errors :it's simple, all we need to do is, can easily solved. Stop the whinging and work together for better solutions. Good decisions come from good research, scientific principles and logic. Then testing ideas and accepting modifications if needed. Loony decisions come from assumptions, knee jerk reactions, not checking your facts or logic, tunnel vision, "politics"

Gotta Go - away from the winter in the UK

There's no point in staying in the UK in the winter and I want to go somewhere English speaking so that I can get involved in a Shakespeare production and maybe learn some guitar, so I decided to try Adelaide in Australia .

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