A few thoughts, but alas not mine, emails here that I am blogging sent to me by me sweetie. The first, I have changed as much of the grammar and spelling as I can but am leaving some of the syntax intact. The person is not a native speaker of English. And then on to the seismographic (the Earth moves in mysterious ways) content, plus a very sweet picture.
Yours,
The SweetHeart of the Valley,
Y
Subject: one Greek's view of religion
STOP THE WAR NOW
Dear friends,
All we lived and tried the bitter shock from the abominable massacre against Qana, by the Israeli's forces. In this 65 non-combatant people-most of them children-lost their lives.
The martyr lands of Palestine and Lebanon have suffered great genocides and massacres by many invaders, in the name of their own god. The butchers belong to the three cosmopolitan, dogmatic religions that have been conflicted for 2,000 years for the "sacred city" of Jerusalem.
It is time to make our self-criticism in depth and find out the real cause of the disputes and wars; one of them is the three Abrahamic religions. Of course many thinking Hellenes have already abandoned the Judeo-Christianity for the idealist and naturalist Ancient Hellenic religion of 12 Gods (6 women and 6 men under the chairmanship of Zeus) At least it is a democratic and progressive and cultural religion that did not make religious wars and respects the tolerance.
It is time for the humanity to make a religious and philosophical shift toward the spiritual religions (e.g.: the Olympian, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hindu, etc). I would call it metaphysical philosophical adaptation to the new scientific and technological findings. The philosopher that invented the scientific logic and terms, the Socrates, said "One know that nothing know" I wonder how and when the different prophets and patriarchs met the god?
Nobody and never has seen the God. The religions are human intellectual structures (myths) and every people live their own myth and worship their own god or gods, according to their spiritual and psychological maturity and mentality.
The Jewish origin religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) come from a shephardic people of the Middle East. Today these religions have been surpassed. They are dangerous fossils of the past and are used by the international authority to deceive, divide and rule the people and rob their wealth.
I would say that only with the scientific research of Mother Nature we are able to enter into the secrets of the Universe and the Nature and go closer to the God (for the believers in God). Of course nobody is or will be able to unveil completely the whole mystery of the Universe and know the absolute truth. Today is up merged a common religion for all the humanity. It is the SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, when it serves and benefit the human being and the environment .
Therefore, we have to change our present way of thinking and acting, since it is unreasonable and very harmful for the psycho-spiritual and materialistic existence of the human beings. Also it is bad for the humanity as a whole, as well as destructive for the environment (see the ecological catastrophe on the beaches of East Mediterranean due to the Israeli bombing of oil tanks and refineries of Lebanon. We don't have even the logic and instinct of the tarnish crab that made great efforts to survive from the catastrophe)
The new way of thinking and doing must be based on the Logic, Humanity, Solidarity, Kindness, Nobility, Ecology, Cooperation, Peace, Direct Democracy (with dialogue and social justice), "Metron"(moderate path), Tolerance, Truth (in Science-Technology, Mass Media) etc.
The first presupposition to proceed toward the new era is to:
A/ STOP ALL THE WARS
B/ The Destruction of all Nuclear Weapons.
These nightmarish hours for Lebanon we must demand and cry: STOP THE WAR NOW
Friendly Yours,
Major Gen. Kostas Konstantinidis (Ret) Author- Columnist
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Subject: San Andreas
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,,1804331,00.html
Quaking with excitement
Dan Glaister measures the temperature of expectancy rising over the San AnDr.eas fault
The Guardian Friday June 23, 2006
There was a palpable air of excitement among the geeks and gurus of the geological community this week. Their moment, they seemed to suggest, was finally coming. Precisely when it would arrive was the source of some speculation.
"It is fully charged for the next big event", "Yuri Fialko, a geophysicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, told National Geographic.
Tom Rockwell, a geologist at San Diego State University, told the San Diego Union Tribune: "The San AnDr.eas is 10 months pregnant".
Mary Lou Zoback of the US Geological Survey agrees enthusiastically with that description. The fault's condition was, "past all reasonable estimates of when it should go", she told National Geographic.
The source of the excitement was a report in the journal Nature detailing the findings of Dr. Fialko, who has gathered eight years' worth of radar data from the European Space Agency and 20 years of information from global positioning measurements on the ground. His paper makes for uncomfortable reading, particularly if you live in southern California. Dr. Fialko calculates that since the last major earthquake on the southern San AnDr.eas Fault in 1690, which had an estimated magnitude of 7.7, the pressure has been building.
The 1287km (800 mile) San AnDr.eas fault-the most famous of California's faults, although many contend that the Hayward fault could wreak more destruction-is formed by two plates of the earth's crust grinding away at each other: the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate.
Dr. Fialko has measured the surface movement of these two plates at about 2.5cm per year. He argues that over 300 years this translates to almost 9m buried 16km down in the earth's core. With no outlet for the accumulated tension in the last three centuries, Dr. Fialko says it is likely that the pressure will be released in one blast-with the surface moving to catch up with the movement of the plates in the earth's core.
Dr. Fialko anticipates the fault, which runs from inland San Diego up to an area 50 miles (80km) east of Los Angeles, moving an equivalent 9m.
Beyond the scientific speculation, there are other clues that the fault could be limbering up for an appearance: southern California has seen an increase in the frequency of minor tremors in recent decades, a trait that appeared in the 70 years leading up to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
And just what might this release of pressure feel like? In his book A Dangerous Place: California's Unsettling Fate, the late journalist Marc Reisner recalled the grumblings and grindings of the earth's tectonic plates during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, a 7.1 biggie in the San Francisco Bay area.
"It began with a sonorous, bottom-octave moan, steadily blending with the sounds of things straining, fracturing, cracking, settling, popping, and shattering; but what I remember most vividly is the grinding, the unearthly noise of great surfaces and structures grating together."
Like many of California's earthquakes, Loma Prieta brought some good luck along with the destruction, taking place during the World Series baseball finals when the San Francisco Giants played neighbouring Oakland's Athletics.
As Reisner and others point out, had that game not been on, there might have been many more cars on the collapsing Bay Bridge that October day.
Just when and how big the future quake might be is unknown. Dr. Fialko speculates that it will match the 7.7 estimated for the 1690 quake, and as for the timing, he suggests that southern Californians are living on borrowed time.
"When the event will occur, we cannot tell," he said. "It could be tomorrow or 20 years from now, but it appears unlikely the fault can take another few hunDr.ed years of slow strain accumulation."
Back to Loma Prieta. In 1988 a panel of geologists and seismologists put the chance of a major quake on the San AnDr.eas Fault around San Francisco in the next 30 years at 28%. It came the following year.
So should we all scarper (not sure what this was originally)? Dr. Fialko, who works just north of San Diego, thinks he is safe where he is. "I think we'll stay put," he told the Union Tribune. "Compared to LA, I think we're in good shape."
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And more about how the Earth moves in mysterious ways:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5191384.stm
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And last but so not least, a great pic I happened to come across:
Can you tell me who these lads are? (And I hope this shows up--my computers at home are to say the least Jurassic, I hate them, but am stuck with them for now until employment).
