A Candle in the Dark

Praying man let his daughter die

A US jury has found a man guilty of killing his sick 11-year-old daughter by praying for her recovery rather than seeking medical care.

The man, Dale Neumann, told a court in the state of Wisconsin he believed God could heal his daughter.

She died of a treatable disease – undiagnosed diabetes – at home in rural Wisconsin in March last year, as people surrounded her and prayed.
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“If I go to the doctor, I am putting the doctor before God,” he said. “I am not believing what he said he would do.”

Indian man ‘sacrifices’ five-year-old girl for male child

A rural Indian witch doctor beheaded a five-year-old girl as part of a bizarre ritual to help a villager produce healthy male heirs, police said Thursday.

Vandana Kumari was murdered on Tuesday in Lakhimpur Kheri district, 200 kilometres (124 miles) from the Uttar Pradesh state capital Lucknow, police officer Ravi Srivastava told AFP by telephone.

Occult practitioner Mewalal Chauhan recommended the “human sacrifice” when the child”s neighbour Ram Niwas came to him for help, Srivastava said.

From a ‘senior vatican official‘

“We have laws, we have a discipline, we have a doctrine of the faith,” the official says. “This is not just theory. And you can’t start backpedaling just because the real-life situation carries a certain human weight.”

Deepak Chopra practices levitation with Jackson in deep contemplation

I wonder what MJ was contemplating? Perhaps he thought, “Now that’s off the wall”. Or maybe twas “This guy sure can jump high from a squat!”.

But I’m pretty sure it wasn’t: “Why does the TOI print such drivel?”

Transcript:

Barton: Dr Chu, I don’t want to leave you out. You’re our scientist. I have one simple question for you in the last six seconds. How did all the oil and gas get to Alaska and under the Arctic Ocean?

Chu: (Laughs) This is a complicated story, but oil and gas is the result of hundreds of millions of years of geology and in that time also the plates have moved around. And so, it’s a combination of where the sources of the oil and gas…

Barton: Isn’t it obvious that at one time it was a lot warmer in Alaska and on the North Pole? It wasn’t a big pipeline that we’ve created from Texas and shipped it up there and put it under ground so we can now pump it up?

Chu: No, there are continental plates that have been drifting around throughout the geological ages.

Barton: So it just drifted up there.

Chu: Uh…That’s certainly what happened. It’s a result of things like that.

Chairman: The gentleman’s time has expired.

And from his twitter page, Joe Barton boasts,

I seemed to have baffled the Energy Sec with basic question – Where does oil come from?

The sad part is, he probably doesn’t bother to listen to the explanation the Prof. Chu provided in the limited time, or follow up and try to learn the actual science.

From the BBC,

Punjab disability ‘uranium link’

Tests on children with cerebral palsy or mental disabilities in the Indian state of Punjab have revealed high levels of uranium.

A charity based in Faridkot city said chemical analyses of hair specimens collected from 149 children in its care showed “unexpected amounts” of toxins.

The result has baffled the authorities as there are no known sources of uranium in Punjab.

Here’s the Punjab health minister Lakshmi Kanta Chawla on the issue

“This is not a health subject. We don’t know how children are showing such high concentrations of uranium”, Punjab health minister Lakshmi Kanta Chawla said.

“It is for the central government in Delhi to deal with the problem.”

A prime example of why politicians are redundant. It’s because they exist only to deflect any sort of responsibility up the hierarchy, before it gets lost in the singularity at the top.

The author Terry Pratchett – whose novels have sold millions of copies worldwide – has been made a knight in the New Year Honours list.

The writer, 60, who is best known for his hugely popular Discworld series of comic fantasy novels, received the honour for services to literature.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7804693.stm

About time.

So, when do we get to see Sir Richard the Godslayer?

HC to decide fate of IIT-M director in two months

Reiterating that the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras director M S Ananth’s appointment to the post for a second term would be subject to the outcome of a writ petition against him, the Madras high court has asked a single judge to hear and dispose of the matter in two months.
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A former student of the IIT-M, E Muralidharan had filed the quo warranto writ petition, seeking to know on what authority the director was holding the post. He alleged that there were irregularities in the appointment.
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What’s going on? I suspect there’s a deeper issue here…