Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[genocide roach]

I didn't know they had black people in Dehli.

~gR~

 

[Pessimism]

Mathematical Fortune Telling

Academic faces trial over headscarf article
From correspondents in Istanbul, Turkey | October 19, 2006

AN eminent 92-year-old Turkish archaeologist is to go on trial for inciting religious hatred because she angered Islamist circles with a scientific paper saying that the use of headscarves by women dated back to pre-Islamic sexual rites.

Muazzez Ilmiye Cig, who devoted her career to studying the Sumerians, the first known urban civilisation dating from the 4th millennium BC, is to appear in court on November 1 in Istanbul, her editor Ismet Ogutucu said.

In a book published last year, Cig said the headscarf - a controversial issue in Turkey - was first worn by Sumerian priestesses initiating young people into sex, but without prostituting themselves.

A lawyer from the western city of Izmir took offence and filed a complaint against Cig, resulting in a prosecutor charging both her and her publisher with “inciting hatred based on religious differences”.

If convicted, the two risk up to three years in jail.

Apart from her formidable academic career, Cig is a staunch defender of mainly Muslim Turkey's strictly secular political system.

She recently wrote to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's wife Emine, calling on her to discard her Islamic headscarf and set an example to young people.

“She can wear whatever she likes at home, but as the wife of the prime minister, she cannot wear a cross or the headscarf,” Cig said in an interview published Monday in the popular daily Vatan.

The Islamic-style headscarf is viewed by secular Turks as a symbol of political Islam and is banned by law in public offices and universities.

The issue has polarised Turkish society, particularly since Mr Erdogan's Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party swept to power in 2002 with an end to the headscarf ban high on its list of electoral promises - one it has so far been unable to keep.

And a huge "lol" to the church!

Italy's Padre Pio 'faked his stigmata with acid'

By Malcolm Moore in Rome
Last Updated: 2:36am BST 24/10/2007

Padre Pio, Italy's most-loved saint, faked his stigmata by pouring carbolic acid on his hands, according to a new book.

The Other Christ: Padre Pio and 19th Century Italy, by the historian Sergio Luzzatto, draws on a document found in the Vatican's archive.

The document reveals the testimony of a pharmacist who said that the young Padre Pio bought four grams of carbolic acid in 1919.

"I was an admirer of Padre Pio and I met him for the first time on 31 July 1919," wrote Maria De Vito.

She claimed to have spent a month with the priest in the southern town of San Giovanni Rotondo, seeing him often.

"Padre Pio called me to him in complete secrecy and telling me not to tell his fellow brothers, he gave me personally an empty bottle, and asked if I would act as a chauffeur to transport it back from Foggia to San Giovanni Rotondo with four grams of pure carbolic acid.

"He explained that the acid was for disinfecting syringes for injections. He also asked for other things, such as Valda pastilles."

The testimony was originally presented to the Vatican by the Archbishop of Manfredonia, Pasquale Gagliardi, as proof that Padre Pio caused his own stigmata with acid.

It was examined by the Holy See during the beatification process of Padre Pio and apparently dismissed.

Padre Pio, whose real name was Francesco Forgione, died in 1968. He was made a saint in 2002. A recent survey in Italy showed that more people prayed to him than to Jesus or the Virgin Mary. He exhibited stigmata throughout his life, starting in 1911.

The new allegations were greeted with an instant dismissal from his supporters. The Catholic Anti-Defamation League said Mr Luzzatto was a liar and was "spreading anti-Catholic libels".

Pietro Siffi, the president of the League, said: "We would like to remind Mr Luzzatto that according to Catholic doctrine, canonisation carries with it papal infallibility.

"We would like to suggest to Mr Luzzatto that he dedicates his energies to studying religion properly."

 

[cookiecutter]

I hate headscarves

and lol @ people who actually thought stigmata was real

 

[The Ozzman]

Turns out dark matter might not exist:

Two Canadian astronomers think there is a good reason dark matter, a mysterious substance thought to make up the bulk of matter in the universe, has never been directly detected: It doesn't exist.

Dark matter was invoked to explain how galaxies stick together. The visible matter alone in galaxies—stars, gas and dust—is nowhere near enough to hold them together, so scientists reasoned there must be something invisible that exerts gravity and is central to all galaxies.

Last August, an astronomer at the University of Arizona at Tucson and his colleagues reported that a collision between two huge clusters of galaxies 3 billion light-years away, known as the Bullet Cluster, had caused clouds of dark matter to separate from normal matter. Many scientists said the observations were proof of dark matter's existence and a serious blow for alternative explanations aiming to do away with dark matter with modified theories of gravity.

Now John Moffat, an astronomer at the University of Waterloo in Canada, and Joel Brownstein, his graduate student, say those announcements were premature.

In a study detailed in the Nov. 21 issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the pair says their Modified Gravity (MOG) theory can explain the Bullet Cluster observation. MOG differs from other modified gravity theories in its details, but is similar in that it predict that the force of gravity changes with distance.

"MOG gravity is stronger if you go out from the center of the galaxy than it is in Newtonian gravity," Moffat explained. "The stronger gravity mimics what dark matter does. With dark matter, you take Einstein and Newtonian gravity and you shovel in more dark matter. If there's more matter, you get more gravity. Whereas for me, I say dark matter doesn't exist. It's the gravity that's changed."

Using images of the Bullet Cluster made by the Hubble, Chandra X-ray and Spitzer space telescopes and the Magellan telescope in Chile, the scientists analyzed the way the cluster's gravity bent light from a background galaxy—an effect known as gravity lensing. The pair concluded that dark matter was not necessary to explain the results.

"Using Modified Gravity theory, the 'normal' matter in the Bullet Cluster is enough to account for the observed gravitational lensing effect," Brownstein said. "Continuing the search for and then analyzing other merging clusters of galaxies will help us decide whether dark matter or MOG theory offers the best explanation for the large scale structure of the universe."

Moffat compares the modern interest with dark matter to the insistence by scientists in the early 20th century on the existence of a "luminiferous ether," a hypothetical substance thought to fill the universe and through which light waves were thought to propagate.

"They saw a glimpse of special relativity, but they weren't willing to give up the ether," Moffat told SPACE.com. "Then Einstein came along and said we don't need the ether. The rest was history."

Douglas Clowe, the lead astronomer of the team that linked the Bullet Cluster observations with dark matter (and now at Ohio University), says he still stands by his original claim. For him and many other astronomers, conjuring up new particles that might account for dark matter is more palatable than turning a fundamental theory of how the univese works on its head.

"As far as we're concerned, [Moffat] hasn't done anything that makes us retract our earlier statement that the Bullet Cluster shows us that we have to have dark matter," Clowe said. "We're still open to modifying gravity to reduce the amount of dark matter, but we're pretty sure that you have to have most of the mass of the universe still in some form of dark matter."

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/071029-mm-mog-theory.html

 

[genocide roach]

thanks ozzman. that stuff really interests me.
~gR~

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Hm, I thought dark matter was supposed to be the matter that was too far from our position in the universe to be observed. Whoops...

 

[cookiecutter]

I <3 science

 

[Pessimism]

I du twu

 

[Pessimism]

http://delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs...70347/1006/NEWS

Man Shits Out Penis

A surgery meant to reverse a colostomy on a Dover man went horribly wrong last year, resulting in fecal mater being discharged from his penis and urine passing through his colon, according to a lawsuit filed in Superior Court.

During the procedure, the suit alleges doctors at Kent General Hospital improperly stapled the colon to the bladder instead of the rectal stump. This left the patient with diarrhea, as well as gas and liquid stool passing from his penis.

 

[Valerie]

Turns out dark matter might not exist:



http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/071029-mm-mog-theory.html

Something along that line:

Could humanity's observation of dark energy have shortened the life span of the universe? The answer is "yes" according to the author of a new scientific paper that has recently come to light. Featured in the latest edition of New Scientist magazine, the subscriber-only story, "Has observing the universe hastened its end?", discusses the paper and its claims.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/pos...ay-shorten-the-life-span-of-the-universe.html

 

[cookiecutter]

http://delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs...70347/1006/NEWS

Man Shits Out Penis

Screw major scientific discoveries, Valerie, this is real news!

 

[Valerie]

Screw major scientific discoveries, Valerie, this is real news!

I first thought it meant the guy shit, and his penis came out.

 

[cookiecutter]

So did I

 

[Crimson Velvet]

God dammit, the link is gone!

 

[Vimana]

I just learned in History that if a democratic candidate wins the draft will probably be re-instated in 2 years or something like that. But I have one kidney and I used to have a heart murmur. So no war for me. (I hope)

 

[skeptik]

What the fuck kind of retarded extremely right wing teacher told you that absolute horseshit?

 

[Pessimism]

Who the fuck told you that?

edit: Shit I was beaten!

 

[cookiecutter]

I just learned in History that if a democratic candidate wins the draft will probably be re-instated in 2 years or something like that. But I have one kidney and I used to have a heart murmur. So no war for me. (I hope)

Totally and completely true. Also if the democrats win, they will force you to gay marry a person of a different race.

 

[genocide roach]

yeah, vote republican!

seriously, if they bring back the draft, i'm gettin out. i dont wanna work with a bunch of liberal douchebags who will complain all day long about how the war is bad
~gR~

 

[The Heartbreak Kid]

I would say the same if I was American.