A Candle in the Dark

A while ago, I had come across a worrying index in the science section of a library. However, I recently discovered that the errant index was actually corrected!

ORIGINAL

CORRECTED

Huzzah! Cheers to the librarian or whoever got it fixed!

Well, she turned me into a newt.

After sitting through the long “training session” of the speech recognition package which comes with Microsoft Office 2003, I was ready to test it out with the opening passage of my favorite book.

As I got off the plane he was making for me holding up a stack of cardboard with my name’s to build on it. I was on my rate will confidence of signed this and he need not cost those devoted to this seemingly hopeless prospect of improving the presentation of signs on commercial television. Be all the measures had kindly send a driver.

“Who you mind if I ask you a question” he asked as you read it from a bag.
“Know I didn’t mind”
“Isn’t a confusing to have the same name as that site is very?”
It to me a moment to understand. Was the winning Monday? Finally it dawned on me.
“I am that site is dry eye” and said.
he’d lost and then smiled. “Sony and that’s my problem I thought it was yours to two”

No prizes for guessing where this is from.

20 years ago this day, Richard Feynman died due to cancer.

There are the rushing waves
mountains of molecules
each stupidly minding its own business
trillions apart
yet forming white surf in unison.

Ages on ages
before any eyes could see
year after year
thunderously pounding the shore as now.
For whom, for what?
On a dead planet
with no life to entertain.

Never at rest
tortured by energy
wasted prodigiously by the sun
poured into space
A mite makes the sea roar.

Deep in the sea
all molecules repeat
the patterns of one another
till complex new ones are formed.
They make others like themselves
and a new dance starts.

Growing in size and complexity
living things
masses of atoms
DNA, protein
dancing a pattern ever more intricate.

Out of the cradle
onto dry land
here it is
standing:
atoms with consciousness;
matter with curiosity.

Stands at the sea,
wonders at wondering: I
a universe of atoms
an atom in the universe.

– Richard Feynman, the Value of Science, from the public address to the NAS in 1955.

That’s what the well titled Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, thinks is inevitable in the United Kingdom ¹.

Sharia law in UK is ‘unavoidable’

The Archbishop of Canterbury says the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK “seems unavoidable”.

Dr Rowan Williams told Radio 4’s World at One that the UK has to “face up to the fact” that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.

Dr Williams argues that adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law would help maintain social cohesion.

For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court.

He says Muslims should not have to choose between “the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty”.

There have been some interesting responses to his comments, including a good deal of criticism.

Now, the Archibishop’s suggestion begs the question, why stop only with Sharia Laws? What about followers of other religions who “do not relate to the British legal system”? But wait, the UK already has religious courts. The Jewish Beth Din courts work alongside the UK judicial system in an entirely voluntary manner, and only deals with civil disputes.

But what about other religions? In 2001, a whole 0.7 percent of the British population identified their religion as Jedi ². Why not allow the Jedi Code to act as an alternate set of laws?

Anyway, to quote the anonymous Mohammed Jones, “Islamic human rights are real – and so is Sayed Pervez Kambaksh.”

EDIT:

As is Fawza Falih.

Notes
[1] – Sharia law in UK is ‘unavoidable’ (BBC News)
[2] – 2001 UK Census