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A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant turtle." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the turtle standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!" – From Stephen Hawking's A brief History of Time
Religions need books because they don't have gods.
Ignoring the blatantly obvious special pleading, why have an uncaused causer, rather than a simple uncaused cause? Why is a causer more probable than a cause?
Either is fine, I have used the terms interchangeably - sorry about that. As I pointed out I don't think this argument proves a 'god' in any sense, but even the existence of something uncaused (and thus unique) is, to my mind, troubling enough.
What special pleading?
Quote from: penfold on February 26, 2013, 06:46:19 AMWhat special pleading?"Everything has a cause, except this one thing".
Why is the existence of something uncaused so troubling?
That's the result of the argument, it is not assumed, so how can it be a case of special pleading - which is when one ignores a true premise to reach a fallacious conclusion?
If you wish you may add the premise "there are no uncaused objects"; I would have a lot of sympathy with that - in fact on balance it is my view, but it does come at a price: An infinite chain of causation the existence of which has no reason (see the part regarding answer (a) in the OP).
So either we accept this result of an uncaused cause or we jettison the the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Both of which, as outlined above, I have problems with.
Well, it is legitimate not to be. Certainly figures like the physicist Rodger Penrose are fine with it. On the other hand there are those like physicist Fred Hoyle (an arch opponent of Big Bang theory) who find it really unacceptable.
My real reservation about this conclusion is that we have no evidence for such a thing. In our experience every event has a cause; an uncaused cause is an event whithout cause. In general I am suspicious of any argument which predicts the existence of a type of object we have absolutely no empirical evidence for.
From my understanding, special pleading is when you assume that the laws of logic apply to everything except what you don't want them to apply to. That includes conclusions; not just premises.
So what if there's no reason behind existence? I don't get what's so wrong about that.
Quote from: penfold on February 26, 2013, 07:02:56 AMSo either we accept this result of an uncaused cause or we jettison the the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Both of which, as outlined above, I have problems with.Ignoring the false dichotomy there, you having a problem with them is irrelevant to whether or not they are true.
What about virtual particles? They appear and disappear without any cause or reason behind them. They just exist.
My point is exactly this; either the universe is finite and there is an uncaused cause; or the universe is infinite and existence is a matter of 'brute fact' - ie without explanation.
No, special pleading is the ignoring of premises or evidence to reach a false conclusion: eg.P1. All politicians are corrupt.P2. Bill is a politician.*However I assume that Bill is a special case and so I will ignore P1* (- special pleading clause)C. Bill is not corrupt.see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading[Incidentally I do think that Aquinas' original conclusion is a case of special pleading, as it assumes that only God can have the character of being uncaused. But as long as there is no "this is what we call God" coda in the conclusion I don't agree this argument does involve any special pleading at all.]
Thomas Aquinas has five arguments for the existence of God (his "five ways"). The second way runs as follows:Premise 1: Every effect has a cause.Premise 2: Every cause is itself an effect. Premise 3: The chain of causation (predicated by Premises 1 & 2) cannot go on forever.Conclusion: There is an uncaused causer, which we call God.
Well it also predicts that the universe is infinite - which again, is big claim to justify by logical argument alone.
However I agree that it may be the case that the universe is without reason. (Your point about truth being independent of our concerns about it is very well made) I am willing to accept this may be the truth, and I probably do. However the scientist and philosopher in me is somewhat wounded by the notion that not only do we not know the reason for existence; but a forteriori we cannot possibly know.
I don't believe this is a false dichotomy at all. My point is exactly this; either the universe is finite and there is an uncaused cause; or the universe is infinite and existence is a matter of 'brute fact' - ie without explanation.
Indeed. Many cosmologists now see quantum fluctuations as the 'beginning' of the universe, precisely because they do seem to fit the category of 'uncaused'. However this is a complexity here, because quantum fluctuations still require the existence of space/time to occur within. So I am not convinced that this really helps us as much as some seem to think.
Quote from: penfold on February 26, 2013, 06:30:15 AMThomas Aquinas has five arguments for the existence of God (his "five ways"). The second way runs as follows:Premise 1: Every effect has a cause.Premise 2: Every cause is itself an effect. Premise 3: The chain of causation (predicated by Premises 1 & 2) cannot go on forever.Conclusion: There is an uncaused causer, which we call God.Bold mine. Read that and tell me it's not special pleading.
The universe is not infinite. Infinity exists only as a concept.
Quote from: penfold on February 26, 2013, 07:41:44 AMHowever I agree that it may be the case that the universe is without reason. (Your point about truth being independent of our concerns about it is very well made) I am willing to accept this may be the truth, and I probably do. However the scientist and philosopher in me is somewhat wounded by the notion that not only do we not know the reason for existence; but a forteriori we cannot possibly know.Bold mine. I have no idea what that means. Please explain it.
Quote from: penfold on February 26, 2013, 07:41:44 AMI don't believe this is a false dichotomy at all. My point is exactly this; either the universe is finite and there is an uncaused cause; or the universe is infinite and existence is a matter of 'brute fact' - ie without explanation.Anfauglir just posted a third option.
Who said they required the existence of space/time? Regardless, they are uncaused. This indicates that more than one event could have been uncaused.
The turtles go down a looooong way.....but underneath THAT is an armadillo.
There is a third possibility to the universe being caused, or being infinite. Consider the following loop.1) Matter begins to expand out from a singularity - the point in time we call "the beginning".2) Matter forms planets and suns and whatnot.3) Suns collapse into black holes.4) Black holes crush and compress the universe of spacetime.5) Eventually, we are left with one gigantic black hole, that compresses all matter into one super-dense singularity - a singularity so dense and tightly packed that time begins to run backwards.6) The singularity travels back in "time", unable to expand because at every point in time it reaches, there is already a universe around it that prevents it......7) ...until, suddenly, it arrives at a point in "time" where it is unconstricted by the universe. GOTO 1.I recall there is significant evidence for the crucial part of step 5, though for the life of me I cannot remember where I read it. But if it were possible, then what we have is one, single universe, endlessly creating itself and always following the same pattern of existence.....or, possibly, due to Quantum, creating a myriad of self-creating universes every second.Doesn't require a "creator". Doesn't require the universe to be infinite in either direction of time.
Secondly, and far more importantly, this cyclical model does not escape the problem at all; essentially you have taken response (a), that the universe is infinite; the only difference being you have given a specific type of infinity - that of a closed four-dimensional loop (which from the four-dimensional perspective of causation is infinite; just as a two dimensional analysis finds a sphere to be infinite). You are still positing a chain of infinite causation, and you are essentially denying that the whole system of cyclical causation has a cause itself. This is absolutely fine, but just as with the 'turtles all the way down'; you are denying the Principle of Sufficient Reason (see OP); in that you are denying the question of "what causes this cyclical process taken as a whole?" has a meaningful answer. What you've proposed is a valid possible cosmology (proposed originally, I believe, by George Gamow) but it does not help with the problem raised by the Principle of Sufficient Reason.
True. But then I can't see how ANY hypothesis would meet the requirements of the PoSR, since it just hits the turtle problem. PoSR seems to have equal problems with both models of the universe (infinite, or caused) - with the infinite universe, PoSR cannot apply - but with the caused universe, PoSR equally cannot apply, since we will at some stage have to say "just because". An uncaused causer is as big a breach of the PoSR as the alternative, because we are saying "there is no reason - it just is".For that reason, I cannot see what use there is in the PoSR at this level, since it is incompatible with either of the two possible answers. I therefore see no need to accept Liebniz' principle since in universal terms it permits of no answer. Clearly there IS a universe, of some description - it exists, even if only in my mind - and so therefore to accept a premise that does not allow for that universe's existence would be ridiculous at best!
Okay, first off, why is a sphere infinite under 2D analysis? I realize you can never come to the end point of a sphere, nor can you go to its beginning point, but that doesn't make it infinite. Eventually you'll run out of 'new' coordinates and will thus be revisiting existing ones; the number of coordinates it contains is finite. Along the same lines, while you may never be able to reach the end of a closed 4D loop, it is still finite. I think you're conflating 'infinite' and 'unbounded', in other words.
As for the Principle of Sufficient Reason, I don't think you need to violate it in order to have 'uncaused' events. Anfauglir's scenario is a good example of how you can have an event that fundamentally causes itself. That is, the singularity that caused the universe was caused by the universe (more specifically, the universe was caused by its own tendency to collapse into a singularity). This is not the same as saying that "it just happens", though. Assuming that this is actually how things work, there are of course reasons for it happening this way, which we can probably discover (or possibly cannot, but those reasons still exist regardless of whether we can discover them).So, I think instead of saying that we have 'uncaused' events, we need to say that we have self-caused events - events caused by the chain of events that the first event caused.
The biggest problem with the "uncaused causer" perspective (aside from its special pleading ramifications, as OAA pointed out) is that it views the origin of the universe using the laws of physics as they are today, but the ToR shows that those laws break down at the singularity before the BB. Time did not exist before the BB, so the cause/effect dynamic as we know it was impossible. To paraphrase Hawking, god could not have created the universe because there was no "time" in which he could have.
I always say what I mean. But sometimes I'm a sarcastic prick whose tone can't be properly communicated via text.
In terms of the Big Bang as the beginning of time; this putative claim (which is highly contested - eg by String Theory, Inflationary Theory and Quantum Gravity Theory) does not help it is merely a version of the 'uncaused cause' response. There is no problem to suppose that time did have a start point, but that implies where was a primary event; which was itself necessarily uncaused / self-causing. That is a perfectly acceptable result of the argument. For my reasons for finding it uncomfortable see the 'answer (b)' section of the OP.
i) The universe is eternal (an infinite chain of causation) and we cannot ever hope to find a reason for it.ii) The universe has a beginning and thus requires the existence of something unique, an uncaused causer.
No event in Anfauglir's model is actually self-caused; every event has a cause which is not self-identical. The chain of causation, while repetitive is still infinite unbounded. Thus the problem as stated still stands.
Your point about self-caused events is a good one, but this simply another way of talking of an uncaused causer.In other words we are still left with the essential problem; either the universe is infinite unbounded and we can necessarily give no reason for existence or the universe is finite bounded and we require the existence of an uncaused (or self-causing) cause.
Sorry, my bad; the argument is cosmological so the first two premises are empirical and have the caveat "in our experience" - they are not statements of absolute fact, merely statements of observation. Should have made that clear. Sorry about that, really lazy simplification of mine. The argument as I wrote it is indeed a case of special pleading; however it is not Aquinas' argument which should include the caveat "in our experience".


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Merry Christmas 2013Posted
Some of you may have noticed some issues with this page over the last several days. Seems a bit of odd code somehow found it's way into the CSS causing the blog to redirect to an unknown page. It has also interfered with us receiving many emails from viewers. The issue has since been corrected and I am working on moving the page over to a secure private server to avoid this from happening again in the future. Til such time no further posts will be written here.
We ask for your patience and thank you for your interest to date.
We wish you and your family a very safe and Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year 2014!

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Pack of 10 high quality miniature terracotta flower pots with drainage hole.
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MIAMI - Not only do they have the best records, but Notre Dame and Alabama are also two of the richest college football teams in the land.
The Wall Street Journal reported how much each college football franchise is worth on Monday.
The Journal said the Fighting Irish was valued at just more than $597 million. That ranks 4th in the country.
The Crimson Tide were valued at $474 million. That ranks 8th in the country.
The University of Texas topped the list with a valuation of $761 million.
The University of Florida ranked 3rd on the list with a valuation of $600 million.
Florida State University was 33rd on the list with a valuation of $159 million, immediately followed by the University of Miami at $157 million.
Copyright 2013 by Local10.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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In Australia, there's a flavor of the Ironman Triathlon that's essentially a lifeguarding skills competition. Given that nation's love of the beach, it's fairly popular featuring ski-paddling, boarding, swimming, and beach-running.
It also features nudity, at least when that last event takes place on a nude beach, as it did this past weekend in Perth. Spectators in the altogether were able to watch a 3.6km portion of the race, which I'm sure just added to the scenery. [TEN TV Australia]


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Here is the link to films on gardening from Bullfrog Films. All include
public performance rights for public screening in the community.
Contact me when you are ready to reserve any of these titles.
Elizabeth Stanley
Bullfrog Films
-----Original Message-----
From: firstname.lastname@example.com
[mailto:firstname.lastname@example.com] On Behalf Of Steve Fesenmeier
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2006 11:00 AM
To: email@example.com
Subject: [Videolib] great films for garden clubs
I am looking for great films - shorts, not more than 60 mins. - to show
to local garden clubs next April. Does anyone have experience
programming such films? What kind of films do gardeners want to see?
Here is a short article I wrote about my wife's garden club - she is
almost as busy with it and two higher level groups -as I am with
films...Steve Fesenmaier, e-mail me at - email@example.com
Charleston Garden Club Shows Films to Fourth Graders - Just One of
Many Projects
By Steve Fesenmaier May 17, 2006
One of Charleston's oldest garden clubs, the Forest Ridge Garden Club,
celebrated its 50th anniversary last fall. Every year the club does
something to help local schools celebrate Arbor Day in April.
(http://www.arborday.org/states/?state=WV) The last few years they have
loaned Weberwood Elementary, one of Charleston's finest elementary
schools, the Oscar-winning animated film, "The Man Who Planted Trees."
This year the club loaned the school a second film - Pare Lorentz' "The
Plow that Broke the Plains" - to show the kids the importance of soil
conservation. The principle reported that she showed both films to the
4th grade students. If YOU want to learn or show children the value of
trees, you can purchase "The Man Who Planted Trees" on DVD from
Amazon.com for about $30 or even borrow a copy from a local public
library. Your library can borrow the VHS copy from the West Virginia
Library Commission. No film I have ever seen shows better how one person
can change the world with persistence. Lorentz' landmark film, showing
the destruction of the Great Depression, "Plow," is still the finest
film ever made on soil conservation.
Recently the Forest Ridge Garden Club won three major awards from the
Kanawha Garden Council - best large garden club, best yearbook, and best
mini-garden award. They also recently posted a major sign recognizing
the club, its first, in Churchill Island, and decorated the 50-foot pine
tree for the holiday season with large ornaments, a star on the treetop
as well as lights.
For more than a decade The Forest Ridge Garden Club has been presenting
garden films during one of its nine monthly meetings. They have watched
films on world-famous flower shows like the Chelsea Flower Show, films
on xeriscaping (growing plants with little moisture) and watched Bob
Gates' first film on MTR, "All Shook Up." They plan on watching Jim
Surkamp's award-winning film about 19th century gardener, national
garden author and historian Danske Dandridge, " Immortal Essence: The
Life and Writings of Danske Dandridge" sometime during their 2006-07
season. Caroline "Danske" Dandridge (1854-1914) wrote over a hundred
acclaimed poems, 200 gardening articles, and four history books. A web
site of her writings is at
http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/dandridge/index2.htm. Garden clubs around
the state should check with their local libraries for videos and other
materials on gardening, garden history, and films on protecting the WV
The club, like many others around the state, raises funds each year to
send one or two children to Junior Conservation Camp at Cedar Lakes or a
Senior Conservation Camp at Webster Springs where they learn about the
Maxine Scarboro, a long-time member of this club, founded the two
programs when she worked at The Dept. of Natural Resources, latter
serving as president of the National Women's Club in Washington, DC. Few
realize that this summer statewide program is one of the main reasons
why there are hundreds of garden clubs around the state - helping
educate children as well as improve the flowers, plants, and trees in
their communities. Visit the Forest Ridge Garden Club website at
To learn more, contact President Nancy Veazy, Telephone - 345-6785
email@example.com. In case someone wants to 'check us out' at our fall
meeting it will take place on The Sept. 20th meeting at Mrs. Veazy's
house - 2015 Weberwood Drive -- 6:30 p.m.
VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of
issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic
control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in
libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve
as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel
of communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video
producers and distributors.
VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and distributors.


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Campus Happenings
NDUS Blog
NDUS Home
North Dakota University System Demonstrates Responsiveness to State Needs
Posted on 6/17/2010
For Immediate Release:
For More Information Contact:
June 17, 2010
Debra A. Anderson, Director of Public Affairs
North Dakota University System
Phone: 701.328.2962
North Dakota University System Demonstrates Responsiveness to State Needs
BISMARCK, N.D. - BISMARCK, N.D. - North Dakota University System colleges and universities are performing very well when measured by the accountability standards established by the Legislative Assembly, the State Board of Higher Education and the Roundtable on Higher Education, according to a report presented at today's SBHE meeting at North Dakota State University, Fargo, N.D.
"The North Dakota University System is deeply committed to meeting - and exceeding - the expectations of the people and state of North Dakota," said Bill Goetz, NDUS chancellor. "The 2009 Accountability Measures Report includes 33 measures of the system's responsiveness to state needs and addresses important issues such as affordability, accessibility, fiscal responsibility, academic quality and responsiveness to the private sector. The University System has made remarkable progress since accountability measures reporting began in 2001, and we will continue on this path of service to our state."
Now in its 10th year of publication, the annual accountability measures report was created to respond to expectations set forth in 2001 legislation and updated in each subsequent legislative session. Passage of Senate Bill 2003 signaled that the NDUS can and should play a larger role in enhancing the economic and social vitality of North Dakota. Referred to as the "flexibility with accountability" legislation, it empowered the NDUS to act more entrepreneurially and, at the same time, provided consensus on what the system would be held accountable for.
"The 11 colleges and universities that make up the North Dakota University System perform very well when compared to other states and national standards," said Richie Smith, president of the State Board of Higher Education. "A separate report also shows that we have one of the most productive state systems of higher education in the nation. Clearly, North Dakotans can be very proud of our university system.
"The past decade has been one of tremendous accomplishment, but State Board of Higher Education members and University System officials understand there's always room for improvement," Smith said. "We are committed to the delivery of high-quality education and enhancing the state's economic and social vitality. The annual accountability measures report is one measurement tool by which we will continue to evaluate the University System's progress toward achieving this dual mission."
To view the North Dakota University System's 2009 Accountability Measures Report, go to:
2009 Accountability Measures Report
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A Christian fellowship group that has been on the Wright State University campus for over 30 years was denied registration as a student group this year for its faith-based policies.
Representatives of Campus Bible Fellowship, which ministers to students at secular colleges, reported that they were turned down by school officials earlier this year when they tried to re-register the group.
The Office of Student Activities at the Ohio-based university named two reasons for the denial, according to CBF representatives.
First, CBF refused to adopt university-mandated nondiscrimination language in its membership requirements that would have forced the group to nix a requirement that voting members maintain religious and behavioral standards.
Second, Wright State objected to the requirement in CBF's constitution that voting members "accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior" and subscribe to the group's articles of faith.
The group, which primarily emphasizes Bible study, has not been able to meet on the campus since and has turned to a civil liberties group for help.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which defends First Amendment rights – including religious liberty – on college campuses, has written a letter to university's president, calling for an immediate reversal of the ban on the Wright State CBF chapter.
"A Christian group has the right to be Christian, a Jewish group has the right to be Jewish, and a Muslim group has the right to be Muslim," said FIRE President Greg Lukianoff.
"Courts have affirmed this principle time and time again," he added. "It is shocking that in a free society, public universities like Wright State still don't seem to understand or respect this crucial component of religious liberty."
The Feb. 12 letter from FIRE to Wright State President David R. Hopkins cited a federal legal precedent setting forth the principle that "if Wright State is to allow expressive organizations to exist on its campus at all, it must allow religious organizations to exist, to define their missions, [and] to select their own members."
According to FIRE, the university's attorney Gwen Mattison had informed a FIRE representative over the phone that the ban would be lifted for the remainder of the academic year. However, when FIRE wrote in an e-mail, attempting to confirm the details of the phone conversation, Mattison dismissed the details as "incorrect."
The decision to ban CBF, said FIRE, goes against Wright State recognition procedures.
"It is understood that some student organizations may be created for the purpose of deepening the religious faith of students within the context of a denominational or interdenominational grouping, and that some student organizations may be created for the purpose of perpetuating a national cultural tradition," states a Student Handbook on student activities.
"Where these purposes are clearly stated in the constitution or bylaws of a student organization and appear to be reasonable, a student organization may be granted recognition through customary procedures as an exception to this policy," the handbook reads.
Robert L. Shibley, FIRE's vice president, said the university should repeal its decision before the matter ends up in court.
"It makes no sense for the university to force a group that exists to communicate its version of the Christian message to accept voting members or leaders who reject that very message," said Shibley.
Schools: Wright State University Cases: Wright State University: Christian Group Banned from Campus


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Topic: second stage spiritual (Read 28216 times)
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Active Member
Posts: 131
Re: second stage spiritual
Reply #15 on:
Jun 23, 2009, 03:43 AM »
I just wanted to say, Steve, THAT WAS SO VERY WELL SAID!
Love and blessings,
Active Member
Posts: 55
Re: second stage spiritual
Reply #16 on:
Jun 23, 2009, 10:17 AM »
I agree with Steve: I think Eckhart Tolle is 1st stage Spiritual. I don't see him promoting himSELF as "the answer" or "the way." I think he'd be much more prolific (more books coming out all the time, as if to convince everyone of his authority and promote his name/keep it in the media) if he were a 2nd stage Spiritual Soul.
With regard to Joseph Smith, I see someone like Warren Jeffs (a Sagittarius, interestingly enough, and the FLDS 'prophet' who was arrested for charges related to alleged arrangement of extralegal marriages between his adult male followers and underage girls) as a 3rd stage Consensus Soul. Man-made religion is for the consensus, in Wolf's words. So, to me, Joseph Smith using man-made religion, man-made laws regarding "right" and "wrong" behavior, etc., to motivate/manipulate people (depending upon your view) is a 3rd stage Consensus thing. His 'revelations' were for the Consensus, for those on a religious path -- not for those on a spiritual path to the Natural God (a very big difference!).
Of course, these are just my views. I think it's great to have a forum like this, where everyone can respectfully share views and opinions.
Love and blessings to all,
Active Member
Posts: 99
Re: second stage spiritual
Reply #17 on:
Jun 23, 2009, 11:54 AM »
Ari and Lesley,
Just wanted to let you know that I WILL get to what little I know about the stages of samadhi. My energy level just isn't what it used to be and varies wildly from day to day and sometimes even hour to hour. Also, due to low oxygen levels, it just takes more effort to concentrate than it used to! LOL Just didn't want to leave you hanging.
Active Member
Posts: 55
Re: second stage spiritual
Reply #18 on:
Jun 23, 2009, 12:15 PM »
Be well, Adina...we love you.
chuck h
Posts: 30
Re: second stage spiritual
Reply #19 on:
Jun 23, 2009, 04:07 PM »
Hi Steve!
Thank you so much for your thorough and thoughtful answer.
It did not shock or dismay me at all. If you were to go the thread about Pluto's polarity points, started by Linda, you will find my story. It is rather long, so to briefly recap...I had been conditioned early by Catholicism and later by Mormonism, married a Mormon girl at age 21. For 17 years we were relatively happy and stable. Then, on a lark I went to an astrologer. Intrigued beyond what I'd have imagined, I sought more information. Jeff Green did my second reading at Astrology Et Al...before his first book. He wondered about my Pluto conjunct N Node in 9th...All these years later, Linda graciously helped me approach the Polarity point issue again, and wow, here is Jeff again, and his daughter, and all you wonderfully helpful loving people at this spiritual treasure chest.! Such a joy!
To shorten the story, I was fascinated. The truth of these things touched my Soul and I ceaselessly studied everything metaphysical I could get my hands on. I was drawn into, driven to go deeper... and it finally was a major element in ending the marriage. During the next 15 years, As T-Pluto entered my 12th, squared Sun, conjuncted Scorpio Moon (an exact square to N-Pluto/N Node), then crossed Asc an amazing transformation occurred within.
I understand and agree with everything you said, Steve. I worded the question as I did because my family is Mormon and I want to show respect for the fine and honorable people that Mormons are because there are many misunderstandings out there, so I guess I'm a little protective of them. At the same time I was interested in the forum's views of Joseph Smith, the man.
This topic is hugely helpful for us new-comers to EA. As was mentioned above, these stages (second) MUST be gone thru, so there need be those to lead. No wrongs, no rights, just eternal progress (by the way, a major tenet of Mormonism is ' Eternal progression')…the slowly awakening and expanding Soul as it returns to Source….so it's quite possible That Joseph Smith was a necessity in the scheme of things? That's kind of what I was wondering.
So, if it seemed a 'leading question', I apologize. As a result of your response I do see things more clearly now.
Thanks again,
Active Member
Posts: 124
Re: second stage spiritual
Reply #20 on:
Jun 23, 2009, 06:27 PM »
Hi Chuck,
just wanted to say how wonderfully honest and articulate you were....
Thanks for your honesty and curosity!!!!!!
Very Active Member
Posts: 323
Re: second stage spiritual
Reply #21 on:
Jun 23, 2009, 07:05 PM »
hi Chuck
Thank you for your heartfelt and thoughtful response. All I can say is this path of Soul unfolding (not merely EA, but the Soul itself - EA is just a tool given us to assist in that process - not the cause, but like a roadmap) is long, slow, at times difficult, progressive, and in the end, the only real thing there is in all of this life.
"Earth " is not an easy reality to navigate, in anyone's book. As some have stated here before, the elements of Goddess's intent, Natural Law, are sharing, cooperation, and inclusion. And above all else, each lending a helping hand, when requested, to those they encounter who are sincerely trying to walk that path. That is the real purpose behind EA, and the reason for this message board existing. Obviously that is not the predominant paradigm operating on Earth at this point in time/space.
It is clear to me, from what you wrote, that getting from where you were to where you are was no small amount of changes. And I know the resistance, judgment, and misunderstanding that are an inevitable part of someone making that scale of changes. Of course, on one level, it is fated and inevitable, but few people know that when they are in the thick of those changes, and it takes a lot of courage to be willing to move in the intended new directions. The questioning of "am I crazy?", "is this right?", "am I making terrible decisions that I will regret?", and all the rest of it. And the growing realization that next to no one you know seems to be moving their own lives in any similar direction, they in fact seem quite content staying as they are.
EA, and this place, are really for people who are facing those issues in their own lives, grappling with making those changes, or, having already made them previously, wondering now "what do I do next?", "where am I going now?", etc.
This place is as a community of like-minded Souls, themselves busy engaging in individuating, and spiritually advancing. As a percentage of the population, the numbers are small, but there are many many people on such paths. And its often difficult to find others taking it as seriously as one is in their life. So here is a place such people can connect, find support, comfort, and learn some things in the process. And Souls who, like Stephen, know within themselves that their Soul's deepest desires are to help others with the same - to learn about the lessons they need to learn to prepare themselves so the help they offer is genuine, from their own life experiences of walking the path and going through the changes, not just tossing platitudes, slogans, and book advice at others.
Adina and I had a conversation earlier, and she is going to start a new post talking about her observations on evolutionary stages, how to spot them in people, and the types of questions and mistakes people new to this paradigm tend to make while learning about stages. Please all feel free to join in and ask questions, offer insights, etc.
Also, especially for those newer to EA, feel free at any time to start a post asking a question, like this one about 2nd stage spiritual. Discussing the application of EA "theory" to real life, real behavior, is a really important part of learning the paradigm. It doesn't start getting real, beyond the intellectual, until you start seeing that what EA is describing is not just concepts, but the deepest issues, patterns, and behaviors in someone's life, far beyond the realm we typically conceive of as "astrology".
A major reason for this board, for the practice charts people start, for the questions, is to help make it real for people.
When I used the term "osmose EA" yesterday, I meant exactly that. As the paradigm sinks ever deeper into one's consciousness it literally can change one's thinking, ways of perceiving life. Osmose is a Scorpio/Pluto word - it means more or less to completely and deeply merge with something - to ingest it, to become one with it. In the process it expands us beyond our present limits (Scorpio). That is the point of all this.
I also want to add another mini-plug - the reason we hold these EA conferences is not to make money (sometimes money is made, sometimes not so much) or to sell things, but primarily to give the live in-person experience of an EA
. Sitting in a room with people for 2 or 3 days when the whole atmosphere is all about EA jumpstarts that osmosis process. It gets very real very quickly. And then you are sitting with people with an orientation towards Natural Law, natural process of giving sharing inclusion. That to me is equally important to the material being presented, because that is where true osmosis occurs - its a way of life, an experience, a lot more than just ingesting some more information. I highly encourage anyone who is serious about learning EA to come to the October conference. There you will experience it in action, way beyond just learning about it. And the personal connections made do deepen and grow.
chuck h
Posts: 30
Re: second stage spiritual
Reply #22 on:
Jun 23, 2009, 07:30 PM »
Thank you so much for your kindness, Pam, Steve, and lesley
Thank you for understanding and acceptance. Looking forward to being more involved...in peaceful commentary.
Active Member
Posts: 55
Re: second stage spiritual
Reply #23 on:
Jun 24, 2009, 02:52 PM »
Hi Chuck,
So nice to have you here...God bless peaceful commentary!
Love and blessings,
Active Member
Posts: 131
Re: second stage spiritual
Reply #24 on:
Jun 24, 2009, 03:19 PM »
Hi Chuck and all,
This peaceful discussion is INDEED heartwarming! Thank you Chuck for being here!
Love and blessings,
chuck h
Posts: 30
Re: second stage spiritual
Reply #25 on:
Jun 24, 2009, 07:32 PM »
You guys are just great!
And so compassionate.
Thank you Lesley and Lia...
If this is the kind of spirits EA produces, count me in!
much love,
Very Active Member
Posts: 293
Re: second stage spiritual
Reply #26 on:
Jun 25, 2009, 09:01 AM »
Hi, wanted to say that this is a wonderful thread/discussion! I also wanted to add my thoughts about the 2nd stage spiritual. It seems to me that this stage is a "purification by fire." In other words, the evolutionary intentions of this stage is to test the Soul as its commitment to serving God/the Source in the context of "the final destruction of the ego in terms of identifying with itself). The bottom line is sincerity of intentions-if the Soul truly desires this type of transformation and wants to make the neccessary changes that must occur in this stage, then, wow, people like Yogananda and Sri Yuekestar and other masters are produced. Of course, there are examples of other Souls who do not make it mast this stage (as have allready been stated). In any case, the point I want to make is that it is a very intense phase of evolution but if the sincerity and intentions of the Soul are geniune then great results/growth occur.
Active Member
Posts: 179
Re: second stage spiritual
Reply #27 on:
Jun 25, 2009, 04:40 PM »
Hi all, thank you for this connection. I have a question about evolutionary stages and skipped steps, and wonder if it is the start of anew thread, but will post it here for now. I sense that when I am working in the area of my skipped steps my perception of my evolutionary condition seems to shift. Its as though when I work in the arenas of my skipped steps my view also returns the evolutionary condition I was in at the time I skipped the lesson. Is this possible? maybe it could explain some confusion for me around assessing evolutionary conditions and also how to embrace the nature and quality of the step I am learning to integrate this time around. Thank you to the river that carries this wisdom...Heather
Very Active Member
Posts: 293
Re: second stage spiritual
Reply #28 on:
Jun 26, 2009, 09:08 AM »
Hi Heather, to me it sounds like you are describing either a transition into another evolutionary state, or resolving skipped steps carried over from the past. We all have left over issues to resolve, and in terms of identifying the evolutionary state always go for the "bottom line" orientation of the individual.
The Soul can be "on the cusp" or transitioning from obe evolutionary state into the next (this can happen within any evolutionary states/conditions). When this happens, the Soul will express quaities of both evolutionary states, and flip flop back and forth between them untill the transition into the higher evolutionary state is fully integrated. If you have skipped steps in the chart, and are "on the cusp" of evolutionary states then this process is intensified, or magnified. it is not the first time the Soul has attempted to make the transition into the higher evolutionary state.
ari moshe
Most Active Member
Posts: 1195
Re: second stage spiritual
Reply #29 on:
Jun 26, 2009, 09:49 AM »
Hi, wanted to say that this is a wonderful thread/discussion! I also wanted to add my thoughts about the 2nd stage spiritual. It seems to me that this stage is a "purification by fire." In other words, the evolutionary intentions of this stage is to test the Soul as its commitment to serving God/the Source in the context of "the final destruction of the ego in terms of identifying with itself). The bottom line is sincerity of intentions-if the Soul truly desires this type of transformation and wants to make the neccessary changes that must occur in this stage, then, wow, people like Yogananda and Sri Yuekestar and other masters are produced. Of course, there are examples of other Souls who do not make it mast this stage (as have allready been stated). In any case, the point I want to make is that it is a very intense phase of evolution but if the sincerity and intentions of the Soul are geniune then great results/growth occur.
thank you deva, that was clarifying. so the dyanmics of the entire chart are put to a test as any identification with ego is challenged.
each soul at that stage will be blind to the ways in which they are identified with their ego (otherwise identification wouldn't happen)- so the intensity of sketchiness or scoundralness that happens is dependent entirely upon how willing the soul is to cooperate with the evolutionary imperative of that stage.
is this a correct understanding? can we use osho as an example of a second stage spiritual and where according to ea he was not willing to fully surrender?
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DOWNERS GROVE – State Rep. Ron Sandack's Republican primary challenger Keith Matune says Sandack invited him to a meeting at a Downers Grove restaurant Sunday to tell him members of the House Republican Organization will soon release unflattering personal information about Matune.
Sandack, who has been supported by the House Republican Organization in his re-election bid, said that the meeting was a courtesy and that there was nothing he could do to stop the information from coming out.
"I thought I was being neighborly with Mr. Matune and giving him a quiet heads-up, and he instead issued a factually erroneous press release," Sandack said in a phone interview Tuesday. "I'm not responding to that nonsense.
"He's tripping all over himself trying to explain himself. He has a pretty loose grip on the facts and reality, and I don't want to get into a back and forth with him. It doesn't serve my purposes. I'm the representative of the 81st District, and I'm interested in continuing to talk about the issues that matter to [residents] in the 81st."
The 81st District includes parts of Downers Grove, Westmont, Woodridge, Lisle, Naperville, Darien and Bolingbrook.
Matune, who serves on the Downers Grove District 99 School Board, issued a press release Monday.
It alleges Sandack was implying a threat to release information contained in a Chicago Tribune blurb from 1991 that stated "a Woodridge man was arrested and charged with being a fugitive from justice after police discovered he is wanted on a larceny charge in Montgomery County, Va. Police said they stopped a car driven by Keith R.W. Matune, 21, of 5921 Jackson Drive early Friday on the 6200 block of Belmont Road for driving with bright headlights. Matune, who was taken to Du Page County Jail, will be extradited to Virginia, police said."
Matune's press release claims that during the incident, officers refused to comply with the extradition request and that he was not placed under arrest and was promptly released.
"Keith's attorney immediately made full restitution on his behalf and all charges were dropped within 24 hours," the press release states.
Mugshots obtained and published online by the Illinois Observer contradict Matune's account that he was not arrested in the incident. The mugshots appear to show Matune holding a DuPage County Sheriff's Department placard with the date mentioned in the newspaper blurb – May, 7, 1991.
When asked about the mugshots Tuesday, Matune said, "I was going on my recollection. Yes, there's mugshots and it doesn't look good. I don't recall any of that stuff. I'm not saying it didn't happen. I don't recall because it was taken care of so quickly."
Matune described the 1991 larceny incident as a misunderstanding in his press release.
"Keith unintentionally wrote a $150 check that was returned for insufficient funds while attending college out of state," the press release said. "While home for the summer, Keith was stopped by local police for a broken headlight and was notified during the stop that there was an out of state warrant issued for an insufficient check.
"Keith was completely surprised and unaware of the situation. The officers refused to comply with the extradition request; Keith was not placed under arrest and was promptly released. Keith's attorney immediately made full restitution on his behalf and all charges were dropped within 24 hours."
According to Matune, the Illinois State Police database shows no record of arrest, which is reflected in his employment applications.
Further, as a condition of working in public schools, Matune said he has passed a minimum of four background checks with fingerprinting.
In the press release, Matune apologized for the "missteps made as a college student, including an indecency charge during a fraternity prank," it reads. "These incidents happened more than 20 years ago and since that time he has become a husband, father, Illinois teacher and IHSA coach of the year."
"Keith feels the most important part of this election are the specific issues that impact the daily lives of middle class families, not the politics of personal destruction. He is running to be the next state representative to fight for all Illinois families, because of the challenges they face by the heavy burden of taxation, high unemployment and the increasing inability to afford college for our children.
"These are the most pressing issues facing the people of the 81st District, not the youthful mistakes of a college student more than two decades ago."
The General Primary Election will be held March 18.


text:
The New Orleans Bar Association's Young Lawyers Section hosted its annual bowling tournament on Sunday, February 24th at Rock 'n' Bowl. In addition to testing the bowling skills of our area's lawyers, the tournament's proceeds support the works of The Pro Bono Project and its efforts to provide free, quality civil legal services to the poor of Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard, Plaquemines, St. Tammany, and Washington parishes. Special thanks to our sponsors and to YLS Bowling Chairs, Kristen Schorp and Tommy Peyton for making this event possible.
Congratulations to Liskow and Lewis for coming in first. Herman, Herman & Katz took second with King, Krebs & Jurgens finishing third. Blue Williams won the costume contest for their "Bowlable Hours". Highest female score was earned by Renee Roland of King, Krebs & Jurgens. Todd Lindren, Liskow & Lewis, took the highest male score.


text:
Jimmy Kimmel's seven-month-old son Billy underwent a second successful heart surgery on Monday.
The Jimmy Kimmel Live! late-night talk show host and his wife Molly McNearney welcomed their second child in April, but little Billy required surgery for a rare congenital heart defect at three days old.
He required two more operations following the initial surgery and one of those procedures took place on Monday.
"Jimmy's son Billy had a scheduled and successful heart surgery this morning," ABC announced in a statement.
While Kimmel is off work with his family this week, his talk show will be presented by guest hosts. Chris Pratt took the reins on Monday night, while Tracee Ellis Ross, Neil Patrick Harris and Melissa McCarthy will host the rest of the week's shows.
Kimmel also shares three-year-old daughter Jane with Molly, as well as daughter Katherine and son Kevin with his ex-wife Gina Maddy.


text:
On May 17, results of the AgHeritage Farm Credit Services Director elections were announced.
On May 17, results of the AgHeritage Farm Credit Services Director elections were announced. Central Region Director Keith Watkins and Northern Region Director Michael Taylor were re-elected and Tracy Borgognoni was elected to the Southern Region. All will serve four year terms.
Keith Watkins of Griffithville, on 1,650 acres owned and 2,000 acres rented, grows rice, soybeans and wheat. He also has a 150 head cow/calf operation. Keith has been a member of the AgHeritge FCS Board since 2008 and serves as a member of the Finance Committee. He is also a former Nominating Committee Member. Keith serves on the Riceland Foods Board, Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board, White County Farm Bureau Board and Little Red River Irrigation District Board. Keith is a member of First Baptist Church of Griffithville and is a graduate of Griffithville High School.
Michael Taylor of Bald Knob farms 631 acres owned and 1,361 acres rented as a partner of Taylor Brothers Farms. In addition to growing rice and soybeans, Michael has 139 acres of CRP grass and hardwood trees. Michael has been an AgHeritage FCS Board Member since 2001 and currently serves as Chairman of the Board. Michael is a member of the AgHeritage FCS Executive Committee, Finance Committee, Human Resources Committee and Member Relations Committee. He is also a former AgHeritage FCS Nominating Committee Member. Michael is a member of the White County Farm Bureau Board where he currently serves as Secretary-Treasurer and Soybean Committee Chairman. He is a member of Russell Missionary Baptist Church. Michael has a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture and a Master of Science in Agronomy from the University of Arkansas.
Tracy Borgognoni of Lake Village farms 965 acres owned and 2,000 acres rented where he grows cotton and soybeans. Tracy is a former AgHeritage FCS Nominating Committee Member. He is a member of the Beouff Tensas Eco-Restoration & Irrigation Project Board and Crooked Bayou Watershed Board. Tracy is a member and President of the Parish Council of St. Mary's Catholic Church of Lake Village and has a Master of Business Administration in Accounting from the University of Arkansas.
Other Board members are: Dwain Morris, Board Vice Chairman; Russell Bonner; Jerry Burkett; Mike Burkett; Chuck Culver, Outside Director; Mike Ellis; Terry Richardson, Outside Director; Clay Schaefer; and Ken Shea.
AgHeritage FCS shareholders elected to the Nominating Committee were: Ronald Aaron (Batesville); Jeffrey Reidhar (Brinkley); Scott Young (Dermott); Brandon Parker (Lonoke); Tommy Young (Newport); Greg Baltz (Pocahontas); Nicky Hamilton (Searcy); Donald Branson (Star City); and Frank Prislovsky (Stuttgart).
AgHeritage Farm Credit Services is a financial cooperative with owned and managed assets in excess of $850 million as of December 31, 2011, that provides credit and related services to more than 2,900 farmers and ranchers in 24 Arkansas counties. Branch offices are located in Batesville, Brinkley, Dermott, Lonoke, Newport, Pocahontas, Searcy, Star City and Stuttgart.


text:
Grand Theft Auto IV Walkthrough
|Portrait of a Killer (cont.)
|United Liberty Paper
When you arrive at your destination, a plethora of red dots will appear on your HUD. These represent all of the enemies in the area, and naturally you're going to need to eliminate them all, not only your intended target. Thankfully, as seen in the screens below, there's a great place to begin firing upon as the driveway slants upwards. You can peek over it and begin firing away at foes (use a shotgun for nearby enemies and automatic weaponry for those far away). Then, as you work your way towards the left, use the various cars as cover, being sure to dodge enemy bullets as you keep the heat on.
It's a good idea to aim a machinegun up at the roof of the garage and begin thinning out the enemies there. That's because, using a ladder on the building itself, you'll need to head up there, and preemptively clearing the enemy ranks before your climb will make surviving your brief stay on the roof a lot easier. After clearing what enemies you can (kill at least three foes before your climb), you can then climb up and begin exterminating any remaining foes. The baddies up here have better cover to utilize, so take things slowly and target one foe at a time to make the situation easier for you.
Now, when all of the red dots but one have disappeared from your HUD, that means that it's time to go after your mark. You'll notice that the red icon has a black line on it, however, indicating that the foe is either above or below you. To get to him on the higher-up roof adjacent to the building, you'll need to head to the far right of the initial roof and boost yourself up onto some metal crates. Use these crates to climb and jump up to the roof where the foe is located. Then, do him in with a firearm of your choice. Case closed.
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|Continue Walkthrough...
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text:
User:Chris D Hirst/Plasma
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Tutorial
- 3 Walkthrough
- 4 References
PlasmaDNA[1] is a free to use computer programme developed by the University of Helsinki to allow the easy mainpulation of DNA in silico. In the hands of an experience user, it can be used to fully plan out the assembly of a synthetic construct from base parts, genome sequences, cDNAs - basically any DNA input for which a text or FASTA file can be found. The ability to attempt a cloning strategm in silico before going into the lab can help identify bottlenecks and critical paths while allowing the user to visually see what they are producing.
While other programmes can do this, PlasmaDNA is free, very user friendly and produces highly detailed plasmid maps in 3 flavours. Some lab members already create PlasmaDNA (.pof) files for all the vectors and constructs they build. This, and the ability to visualise cloning, can prove very useful to aid understanding and debugging when issues arise.
PlasmaDNA can be accessed here.
This tutorial should also help to familiarise anyone unfamiliar with BLAST[2] searches. BLAST searches are incredibly useful for identifying sequences, homolgy and checking sequencing results, just to name a few uses! If you are having difficulty with BLAST (particularly with how to interpret the results), most life-science members of the team should be pretty good with it.
If you follow this tutorial, you should be able to use most of the features of PlasmaDNA. If you get stuck at any point, try having a play around with the programme! Most difficulties can easily be solved by trial and error. If you don't understand what you are doing (both with PlasmaDNA and BLAST searching), let me know and I'll help you.
Be aware that although the story behind this is hypothetical (ie. fictional) it is not implausible. The Registry has improved its quality control so should now be far more reliable!
Your lab needs to produce and re-characterise BBa F2620 under a new set of conditions but has lost the original DNA of the testing construct (similar to BBa T9002). To make matters worse, someone has been prepping samples without keeping a back-up stock with the distribution, meaning that some of the ideal building components are missing. Fortunately, there are other similar intermediates yet to be prepped that you can use to rebuild this.
Your supervisor reminds you that you are short on time, so you decide to use three different methods (Standard BioBricks Assembly, 3A Assembly and Clonetech™ In-Fusion[3] - Figure 1 in this manual gives a good overview) to speed up your workflow.
Another student has attempted to get BBa F2620 from the Registry plate and succesfully transformed the cells but upon gel analysis all their transformants contain an empty plasmid! It will be quicker, therefore, to make your test construct in two halves - BBa I13018 and BBa K116617 - and assemble them into the expression vector later.
Before starting, you decide to in silico test your cloning stratergy.
You have access to all the consumables you will need and the following BioBricks:
BBa R0040
BBa I0462
BBa R0062
BBa E0240
BBa pSB1C3 Backbone
Standard Expression Vector
- As you are going through the tutorial, try to approxiamte how long you think each step would take in lab
Importing Sequences
PlasmaDNA can import sequences in one of three formats: Plain text, FASTA (similar to plain text) and .pof (Plasma) files.
To start off this tutuorial, enter the sequence of BBa R0062 (from the parts registry) and remember to add the BioBrick prefix and suffix!
Import a vector containing BBa E0240 from this .pof file
Restriction Enzyme, ORF and Primer Analysis
The Output viewer should already be open. If not, open it (button in the top left of the control panel) and look at the output of the two inputs. One should be a complete circular vector and one should be a short linear piece. The view is currently set to restriction analysis - ie. it shows all the restriction enzyme cutting sites on the sequences. Two alternative viewer modes are ORF analysis - this looks for Open Reading Frames (ie. coding regions) in the sequence according to a user set threshold (default is generally ok) and primer analysis - compares the input sequence to known primer sequences.
There are currently three known ORFs in E0240 and none in R0062, however the ORF analysis function indicates there is an extra coding region in E0240. Determine the nature of the coding region - either by part knowledge or using the blast function in the ORFs menu and add it to the current project.
Add the primers from this text file to this project on PlasmaDNA (using the add primer button not enter sequence button - Make sure you enter the binding sequence and 5' sequence correctly!), then look at the two fragments under primer analysis.
- Can you suggest a use for the pSB1 (A2/A3/AK3) and pSB1 Reverse (A2/A3/AK3) Primers? Is there anything odd about the primers which should be bared in mind when they are used?
Restriction Cloning - Biobricks RFC 10 (BBa K116617)
The first step, addition of R0062 and E0240 to make K116617 should be carried out using Standard BioBrick Assembly as this will maintain the scar present in K116617 (and T9002) and can be done in parallel to production of the other half.
Restriction Cloning should be carried out based on a procedure of Digestion to generate relevant insert and vector fragments and then ligation together (in lab, gel purification and PCR purification - to remove enzymes - would also be carried out between the digestion and the ligation).
- What enzymes will R0062 and E0240 need to be cut with for them to go together correctly?
Digest R0062 and E0240 (Digest! button) with the appropriate enzymes and select (effectively in silico purify) the correct fragment to keep. Now open the ligation window and attempt to ligate the two parts together.
- What is the final lab step in cloning before selection of correctly assembled products which isn't needed in silico?
- Approximately how long do you think each of these steps takes in lab?
Analysis of cloning results
The output of the ligation will be a plate of transformed cells. It is not necessarily true that all the transformants will contain correctly assembled DNA (in many cases, the majority will be incorrect - often 'background' ie. undigested or re-ligated vector. Usually a 'background plate' will also be transformed to give an idea of the numbers). It is therefore necessary to select for the correctly assembled DNA.
With a large number of transformants, a three step approach is the most appropriate (with a small number, skipping step one and going straight to mini-prep and gel analysis may be more appropriate).
The first step is clonoy PCR - simply put, PCR is carried out on all the DNA from a colony (obtained by boiling) to look for a correctly sized Multiple Cloning Site (MCS) - ie. the prefix, suffix and everything inbetween! Carry out PCR on the ligated fragment using the pSB Fwd and pSB Rev primers using the PCR window.
- Is the fragment approximately the right length for K116617?
- Is there any 'cheat' teachnique you could use to help you select for this correctly assembled DNA?
The second step is to mini-prep (lab only - grow up cells and extract plasmid DNA) and then use a restriction digest to check that the insert and vector are the correct sizes.
- How many enzymes would it be useful to use in this step and which ones would you choose?
Digest the ligated fragment using the digest button as before.
- Do the sizes of the vector and insert match what they should be?
The final step is the most important. Mutations occaisonally occur and can alter the function of your part or device if you are unlucky, therefore all parts that are made should be sequenced to ensure there has been no mutations (particularly when PCR has been used). Open the fragment and sequence information window and perform an Align BLAST Search[2] against the sequence of BBa K116617.
- Have any errors been picked up? If so are they important?
- Approximately how long do you think each of these steps takes in lab?
It may be useful for you to delete old, no longer needed fragments, or to re-name new fragments to stop confusion later. Both these functions can be carried out in the fragment sequence and information menu (Orange box in above diagram). Once you are sure you have validated that the part is correct, delete the old fragments and label the new ligation K116617.
3A Assembly - PCR and Biobricks (BBa I13018 )
To construct the I13018 past of the F2620 testing construct (simialr to T9002), it is necessary to combine BBa R0040 and BBa I0462.
For easy, speedy selection of correct transformants you decide it would be better to transform into a vector with a resistance other than Ampicillin when making the first half of the construct (I13018). By transforming by 3A Assembly into pSB1C3, correct transformants will be resitant to Chlorampheniol rathern than Ampicillin.
To assemble this, R0040 and I0462 must be cut ready for insertion into the plasmid back bone. In particular, R0040 mustbe cut front insert and I0462 must be cut back insert. The sequences of the two BioBricks can be found in this .pof file.
A vector is required to clone the pair of inserts. Plasmid backbones are now supplied along with the registry distribution and can be amplified by PCR. For submission, pSB1C3 is preferred so this should be amplified using the SB-3P and SB-2Ea primers. This amplified backbone can now be cut with EcoRI and PstI to allow ligation of the three pieces.
- What extra step between the PCR amplification and the EcoRI and PstI digestion would be required if this was carried out in lab?
The two cut inserts should first be ligated together, this will generate a linear product which can be ligated into the PCR amplified and cut vector. The resulting construct should be tested (in silico approximateion to selection) as before.
Cloning - In-Fusion™ (Similar to BBa T9002)
In Fusion™, like many PCR based methods relies on homology between two sequences of DNA and while PlasmaDNA is not designed with homology methods in mind, with a few work-arounds and use of Word, it can be adapted to make this method work.
The three regions with homology sequences should be generated using PCR with appropriate primers (Region 1 is I13018, Region 2 is K116617 and Region 3 is the Expression Vector) - see the primer text file.
The sequence of the expression vector can be found in this .pof file.
Upon generation of the three fragments, the two insert fragments should be ligated together, generating two circular products.
- Which one of the two circular products is correct - this should be easy to spot if you look up T9002 and have fully labelled vectors!
Select the right ligation of the pair - this will now have both inserts but with two copies of the homolgy regions! Either by eye, or by transfering the sequences to word, scan the sequence for the linking sequence pair - if the correct ligation was chosen, this will be a duplication in the middle eg.
One of the pair of homologus sequences should be removed to generate the correct sequence ie. -
Once this has been done, the sequence should be amplified again by PCR using the forward primer of region 1 and the reverse primer of region 2 and the resulting fragment ligated together. Spotting the ligation will be more difficult this time, the simplest method is to add both, then check the first and last 20 bases.
- How can the first and last 20 bases be used to spot if the chosen ligation was the correct one of the two?
When the right ligation has been selected, again remove the dupliacted homology regions. You should now have the finished testing construct in a suitable expression plasmid.
- The testing construct differs from the aimed for construct (BBa T9002) by the homology region in the middle of this construct. Is this homology region likely to alter the results which would be obtained from the non-standard part compared to T9002?
- Try blasting the entire sequence of the finished construct (in expression vector) against the nucleotide collection. What main reason would there be for using this expression vector (given the constructs location) rather than a normal BioBrick vector?
Files can be exported in one of a few different formats - .pof files contain ALL the information included in the project, (including primer sequences and updated ORFs), FASTA files contaion just sequence information of the relevant DNA fragments or vectors and the other output format is JPEG which is useful if you want nice pictures for your wiki!
Simply click the export link to save your constructs!
- Angers-Loustau A, Rainy J, and Wartiovaara K. PlasmaDNA: a free, cross-platform plasmid manipulation program for molecular biology laboratories. BMC Mol Biol. 2007 Sep 17;8:77. DOI:10.1186/1471-2199-8-77 |
- Altschul SF, Gish W, Miller W, Myers EW, and Lipman DJ. Basic local alignment search tool. J Mol Biol. 1990 Oct 5;215(3):403-10. DOI:10.1016/S0022-2836(05)80360-2 |


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Plymouth city budget has an easy night
PLYMOUTH – After a stormy process of putting it together, the 2011 budget for the city of Plymouth had a very quiet public hearing last night.
After a month of consternation over raises and paid holidays the Plymouth Common Council held its public hearing on the coming year's budget and if initial public reaction is any indication, the Council appears to have arrived at a budget that's at least acceptable to the public.
No one spoke for or against the budget when the floor was opened for public comment.
Plymouth Fire Chief Andy Metsker did address the Council when the floor was opened for department heads to speak and addressed the issue of the cutting back of paid vacation time for fire personnel.
For more see tomorrow's Pilot News.


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Taken (UK - DVD R2)
Scott McKenzie has a special set of skills and he will kill you if he finds you...
Liam Neeson plays former spy Bryan Mills, who quit his job to spend more time with his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace), who he rarely saw when she was growing up. When Kim heads off to Europe to with a friend, the over-protective Bryan finds his fears realised when they are both kidnapped. He then turns into the Bryan of old, heading off to Paris to track down the people who took his daughter and take his revenge if he finds that anything has happened to her.
The paragraph above is one way of summarising the plot of Taken. An easier way is just to say 'Liam Neeson goes to Europe and kills everyone'. If I wasn't reviewing this movie, I could easily write up a Guilty Pleasures article about it. Anyone sitting down to watch Taken probably knows what to expect from a Luc Besson-produced action movie—a fast-moving plot, giant leaps of faith and plenty of choreographed fight sequences. However, Taken is a little more brutal than you might expect (apparently this is the extended harder cut), which gives this movie a bit of an edge over the likes of The Transporter.
Taken opens as a story of a fractured family trying to comes to terms with their separation. Bryan desperately wants to be part of his daughter's life again but can't help treating her like a child, even though she's twenty-five... erm I mean a seventeen year-old played by a twenty-five year-old. There's a bit of a detour via Holly Valance's Britney Spears-a-like singer that points towards the ultimate resolution and finally we get into the main story. Kim tricks her dad into letting her go to Europe to follow U2 on tour, but of course it all goes wrong from there and that's when Bryan laces up his ass-kicking boots.
Before I go any further, I'd like to point out that you did read that correctly. This seventeen year-old (played by a twenty-five year-old) and her friend are following U2 round Europe on tour. Come on—U2? This is just one of the many points in the story where I was left scratching my head. While the plot moves along quickly and has the general feel of a pulpy thriller novel, the way Bryan gets from one scene to another within the allotted running time does mean there are a few clunkers and leaps of faith. That's on top of the fact that everyone in Europe appears to be evil and apparently the only way French director Pierre Morel could enforce a certain character's Frenchness (and therefore telling us he can't be trusted) is to have him carry a baguette around with him.
Liam Neeson pretty much phones in his performance, but this is not a movie where method acting would reap great rewards. I can't remember seeing him in such a pure action movie before, which is maybe why he chose to give it a go, but he does look a bit awkward from time to time, especially when he's running through the streets of Paris or doling out dodgy dialogue. It's always nice to see Famke Janssen, but once Kim goes missing she doesn't have much to do. Even though I've pretty much complained about the movie throughout this review, I have to say it is very good fun. Taken is a definite 18-rated action movie and while it may not rank up there with Crank as a completely mental masterpiece, it's definitely worth a go if you're in the mood for some mindless violence.
Taken is presented in 2.35:1 and given that I've been mainly reviewing high definition releases recently, I was relatively impressed with the quality on show here. The movie features a lot of scenes in the dark, and I failed to notice significant compression problems in the picture. The black level is good and the colours during the lighter scenes are suitably strong. There is a decent level of detail here as well so fans of the movie will be happy with the picture quality of this release.
The movie comes with a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track and the standard is pretty much up there with the video quality. Music, dialogue and effects all have their place in the soundtrack and the volume of each doesn't interfere with the rest. As expected, the surround channels are given more of a workout in the action scenes but I did notice something that may or may not be a problem. During some scenes, gunshot effects are followed by a very quiet point in the soundtrack. I assume this is intentional to hammer home the emotional effect of the gunshots but it did take me out of the movie from time to time.
Not much excitement to be had here. The disc opens with trailers for Quantum of Solace, Max Payne and The Day the Earth Stood Still. The Making of featurette shows behind the scenes footage and plenty of interviews with the cast and crew, however when Liam Neeson tells us how much he likes the movie, it feels like he's trying to convince himself he's made the right decision to star in it. It's worth noting that there are no automatic English subtitles for the interviews with the French director, but there are French subtitles for some clips with English language.
The same goes for the next extra feature, which is called 'Avant Premiere'. It's a bit of a misnomer because we get clips from before, during and after the premiere in Paris. It's another puff piece including interviews with Liam Neeson, Pierre Morel, Luc Besson and members of the audience gushing about the movie. Finally we get 'Inside Action' which shows side-by-side comparisons of behind the scenes footage and the final edit of six key scenes.
Taken is pretty much Man On Fire for people who only have a spare ninety minutes available in their lives. The plot chugs along from one action scene to another and with your brain turned off there is a lot of fun to be had. The DVD presentation is pretty good but the slim set of extras isn't. I guess there just wasn't much left to say—everyone who made the movie is probably secretly pleased with themselves, but publicly ashamed just to keep up appearances. If you do sit down to watch this movie, follow BBC Radio Five Live's movie critic Mark Kermode's advice and ask yourself—in the final showdown, who's driving the boat?
Review by Scott McKenzie
Chris Gould Editor Join Date: May 2001 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 7,171
Kermode's review was amusing. The baguette thing is true!
Gene Lariv Member Join Date: March 2004 Location: United States Posts: 215
What the? How come this already got a R2 DVD release while we gotta wait til' January 30th to see it in theaters? Strange.
Chris Gould Editor Join Date: May 2001 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 7,171
Because America isn't the centre of the Universe
Worst Nightmare Senior Member Join Date: July 2002 Location: Australia Posts: 6,716
Great movie - I wonder what he would have done with Australias 240 volt AC supply....
Phil92 Member Join Date: January 2008 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 760
Chris Gould wrote: Because America isn't the centre of the Universe
Very well said, Chris.
Very well said, Chris.
Gene Lariv Member Join Date: March 2004 Location: United States Posts: 215
Chris Gould wrote: Because America isn't the centre of the Universe
Ain't that the truth. I'm scared to live in a nation that's crumbling. Help!
Ain't that the truth. I'm scared to live in a nation that's crumbling. Help!
theguyver01 Member Join Date: January 2009 Location: United States Posts: 2
Anyone know if this Blu-Ray will play on a US Blu-Ray player?
Andy3105 Member Join Date: April 2008 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 175
Did this ever hit theatres???
MrE26 Member Join Date: December 2005 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 40
theguyver01: Anyone know if this Blu-Ray will play on a US Blu-Ray player?It's highly unlikely as it's released by Fox, & they region code everything.
Andy3105 wrote: Did this ever hit theatres???Yeah, although it only showed in my local cinema for a couple of weeks.
Andy3105 wrote: Did this ever hit theatres???Yeah, although it only showed in my local cinema for a couple of weeks.
theguyver01 Member Join Date: January 2009 Location: United States Posts: 2
Can you please let me know when it comes out on the 9th?
Suitable only for persons of 18 years and over
Disc Details
Release Date: 9th February 2009
Discs: 1
Disc Type: Single side, dual layer
RCE: No
Video: PAL
Aspect: 2.35:1
Anamorphic: Yes
Colour: Yes
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 English
Extras: Making of, The Premier Launch, Inside Action
Easter Egg: No
Feature Details
Director: Pierre Morel
Cast: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Xander Berkeley, Holly Valance
Genre: Action and Thriller
Length: 89 minutes
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Grundy County, Tennessee Genealogy Guide
|Other TN Resources
| TN Birth, Death, Marriage,
Divorce & Death Records
TN Ancestor Records
TN Military Databases
TN Data Collections
TN Historical Newspapers
Social Security Death Index
Create a Free Family Tree
Grundy County, Tennessee (Map It) was created on January 29, 1844 from Coffee County, Warren County, Franklin County and later, Marion County. This Grundy County was named in honor of U.S. Attorney General Felix Grundy (1777–1840). Learn More About State of Tennessee History
Grundy County is bordered by Warren County (north), Sequatchie County (east), Marion County (south), Franklin County (southwest) and Coffee County (west) .
Grundy County Cities and Towns include Altamont, Beersheba Springs, Coalmont, Gruetli-Laager, Monteagle, Palmer, Tracy City . A Map of Grundy County, Tennessee contains detailed information about roads and boundaries, these maps may include rural communities, churches, and cemeteries.
Grundy County, Tennessee Courthouse Records
Grundy County, TN Courthouse
The Grundy County Courthouse is located in Altamont, Tennessee. Learn More About State of Tennessee Court, Tax, Land and Probate Records.
Please contact the each clerk's department to confirm mailing address, hours, fees and other information before visiting or requesting information because contact information sometimes changes. The Clerk's Office DOES NOT DO RESEARCH. The documents are available to interested parties, barring confidential issues. Most staff will assist people in finding the materials, but it is up to the individual to do the research.
The following dates indicates what vital, land, probate, and court records are in Grundy county or in the Tennessee State Library & Archives. The date listed for each category of record is usually the earliest registration filed. The earliest date does not indicate that there are numerous records for that year and does not mean that all such events were actually registered. There were fires at the Grundy County courthouse in 1853 and 1890, most early records were destroyed.
- Grundy County Clerk has Marriage Records from 1850 and Probate Records from 1838. The County Clerk maintains Marriage & Divorce records. It also has jurisdiction over probate cases. Wills, administrations, and all other records pertaining to probate are recorded in the respective county clerk's office. If the will or administration was contested, the records of these actions may be filed in the circuit court or chancery court.
- Grundy County Register of Deeds has Land & Deed Records from 1852. The County Register of Deeds has land records beginning with county organization, land records are available from the register of deeds at the Sevier county courthouse. Land and property records include transfer of real estate or personal property, mortgages, leases, surveys, and entries.
- Grundy County Clerk of Circuit Court has Chancery Court Minutes from 1856, Circuit Court Minutes from 1848 and County Court Minutes 1844. The County Clerk of Circuit Court has jurisdiction over property disputes, and circuit courts oversee criminal cases, divorces, and adoptions. Early courts included courts of common pleas and quarter sessions.
- Grundy County Property Assessor has Tax Records from 1850-1900 and are located at the Tennessee State Library and Archives. The County Property Assessor is responsible for the evaluation of all real property, the cadastral mapping of the county, valuation of all business personal property and maintaining ownership records. The property assessor prepares the tax rolls for the trustee and all the municipalities. Tax lists can be used to locate families, document historic properties and study community history. Early tax lists generally include all white males over 21 and indicate whether they owned land or slaves.
- Grundy County Health Department issues birth certificates and death certificates (deaths which occurred in that county within the past three years, and a few county health departments keep death records for longer periods of time).
Grundy County, Tennessee Census Records
- Learn More: State of Tennessee Census Records
- U.S. Federal Population Schedules: 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880 (free index), 1890 (fragmented), 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940
- U.S. Federal Census Slave Schedules: 1850 and 1860
- U.S. Federal Census Mortality Schedules: 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880
- Selected U.S. Federal Census Agriculture Schedules: 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880
- Selected U.S. Federal Census Industry Schedules: 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880
- Union Veterans Schedules: 1890
Grundy County, Tennessee Vital Records
- Learn More: State of Tennessee Vital Records
- Birth Records: from January 1914 to present, also for Nashville since June 1881, for Knoxville since July 1881, and for Chattanooga since January 1882
- Marriage, Divorce and Death Records: from the past 50 years to present.
- Locations: Tennessee Office of Vital Records, Tennessee State Library and Archives
- Vital Records Online: USAVital or Social Security Death Index
- Vital Records by Mail: Birth Certificate, Marriage Certificate, Divorce Certificate, Death Certificate Applications.
- In Person: Tennessee Office of Vital Records, 1st Floor, Central Services Building, 421 Fifth Avenue, North, Nashville, TN 37243; PH: 615-741-1763
Grundy County, Tennessee Resources
- State of Tennessee Archives and Societies
- Grundy County Historical Society
- RAOGK Volunteers for Tennessee
- Grundy County, Tennessee Message Boards
- Grundy County, Tennessee Genealogy Forum read and post messages with other genealogy researchers for Grundy County
- Genealogical "Fact Sheets" About Grundy County
Grundy County, Tennessee External Links
- Historical Newspapers from Tennessee (1795 - 1929 )
- Tennessee Newspaper List by County and City
- Grundy County, Tennessee Books - Amazon
- Tennessee Real Estate Assessment Data Property Search
- Grundy County Records on Microfilm - Order County Microfilm Inventories and Reels
- Early Grundy County Records Available on Interlibrary Loan
- Grundy Co., Tennessee - FindaGrave
- Grundy County Tennessee History Site Copyrighted 1890's map plus others.
- Grundy County History and Culture
- Grundy County, Tennessee Links - Cyndi's List
- Grundy Co. TNGenweb
- Grundy County, Tennessee Ancestry Database Collections
- Grundy Co. D.O.T. County Highway Map
- Grundy County, Tennessee Military Records


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Marlon Wayans is having the last laugh, and we're laughing with him.
He oversaw the fluorescence of the lucrative "Scary Movie" franchise with brothers Shawn and Keenen Ivory, but they all three unceremoniously sat out the third-fifth installments. In "A Haunted House 2," Marlon digs at the post-Wayanses "Scary" sequels and lets it be known that he has scores to settle.
Aside from references to the more current fright films "The Conjuring," "The Possession," "Sinister" and the "Insidious" and "Paranormal Activity" series, "A Haunted House 2" for the most part doesn't reinvent the wheel.
As with the original "A Haunted House," Wayans' Malcolm moves into a new house with a new girlfriend and proceeds to redefine the term "sex toy" — it's just a different house, girlfriend and toy this time. Notably, the original's gay panic has here been supplanted by hang-ups over interracial dating.
The film's no-holds-barred humor can best be described as "In Living Color" without television's FCC oversight. From Honey Boo Boo to the Kardashians, from Chris Brown to Paula Deen, from Angry Birds to "Hoarders," it spares nothing and no one.
Some instances of impiousness work better than others. Wayans parodies the politically incorrect so deftly that Stephen Colbert could use a lesson. Though his edgier waggery on taboo subjects only goes to show that rape, child molestation and police brutality simply aren't laughing matters.
'A Haunted House 2'
MPAA rating: R for crude and sexual content, nudity, pervasive language, drug use and some violent images.
Running time: 1 hour, 27 minutes.
Playing: In general release.


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Suzanne's "Color in Harmony" Room
Like this entry? Favorite it below!
- Name:
- Suzanne
- Location:
- Salt Lake City, UT
- Division:
- Light
- Inspiration for my palette:
- The room was looking tired and dingy. I decided that I wanted a crisp and classic look (with a twist). I retiled the fireplace with herringbone Carrara marble tiles and painted it a glossy white. I chose white Billy bookshelves, which we hacked together, as a counterpoint to the unstained woodwork that had previously dominated the room. I painted the walls a light soft grey which contrasts nicely with the dark wood trim. To prevent the room from looking too stark, I've included things with lots of texture from the David Trubridge pendant, the wood logs, the jute covered chair to the sheepskin rug. Gold/brass accents round out the decor. The room does double duty as a library/music room so there's a lot going on in here but fortunately my son chose a drum kit that matches the decor perfectly (copper sparkle).
- Colors used in my room:
- Behr Sterling Grey on the walls with accents of white, gold/brass, natural wood and oatmeal.
- Tips for using color successfully:
- Go to Pinterest or google images and pin a bunch of different rooms. You should then see a pattern emerge of what style best suits you. Take your inspiration from the palettes that you're drawn too.
- Palette:
- Color in Harmony


text:
Here at phil&teds and Mountain Buggy, we are committed to helping families adapt&survive and live life without limit. We take great pride in supporting causes that give back to the communities that have supported us for over 20 years.
Here at phil&teds and Mountain Buggy, we are committed to helping families adapt&survive and live life without limit. We take great pride in supporting causes that give back to the communities that have supported us for over 20 years.
Neuroblastoma Australia is one organisation that we proudly support that needs not just our efforts but yours as well. The Run 2 Cure Neuroblastoma fun run held in Sydney, Australia is dedicated to raising funds for neuroblastoma research programs, such as significant and promising research currently taking place at the Children's Cancer Institute Australia.
Give these brave kids a fighting chance and show your support too. In turn, we will show ours and will be giving away a phil&teds Smart and Mountain Buggy nano . All you need to do is enter the race and you're eligible to win.
Support this great cause, get involved and come out for a fun day in the sun!
Sienna's Story
Sienna was born in London on the 27th of July 2007 and was a perfectly happy and healthy baby girl. We moved to Sydney when she was 7 months old, with the vision of a relaxing and peaceful life by the beach.
Our world fell apart. However, 6 weeks later, Sienna had a temperature, which was a originally dismissed as a common infection. When the temperature reappeared 2 days later we took her to Sydney Children's Hospital in Randwick. Two doctors announced the news to us; a very large tumour had been found.y the beach.
Sienna had the most aggressive type of neuroblastoma called 'mync amplification'. She needed to follow a high risk treatment, involving high dose chemotherapy, surgery, a stem cell transplant and radiotherapy. Sienna had a 40% chance of survival.
At the age of 10 months, Sienna was declared to be in remission. She developed a real zest for life! She was extremely energetic and didn't believe in sleep! Sienna loved going to the zoo to see her favourite 'anmals'; she loved drawing, painting, dancing and watching Playschool.
We were hopeful that the disease had well and truly disappeared, but during her routine scans in September 2010, we received the devastating news that there was a new tumour...
The chance of survival after a relapse with neuroblastoma was around 1%. However, this tumour was in a new site and had not spread elsewhere, so we embarked on the next round of treatment with radiotherapy and different chemotherapy.
We hoped this would buy us time; a new drug was set to be available in 2010 that showed promise. Sydney Children's Hospital tried to secure Sienna the new drug in 2009, when a limited supply was available, but the governing organisation only gave it to children who had not yet relapsed.
Tragically, time was not on our side. Sienna relapsed again at the end of radiotherapy, with 6 new tumours appearing. We were then told the news no parent wants to hear: our precious daughter would die from this disease.
We had a glimmer of hope when we were reliably informed that the chemotherapy had good results. This glimmer turned into a glow when results showed that 5 out of the 6 tumours had responded. The 6th tumour was in the original site and had grown slightly. We hoped the last tumour would respond with more chemotherapy.
Sienna was her usual self; a busy, giggling and cheeky toddler. Unfortunately, our hopes were destroyed when the final tumour grew extremely fast and aggressively. Our brave daughter could have bet the disease if her personality alone was the determining factor, but her neuroblastoma was simply too aggressive.
Sienna became a little angel on February 3rd 2010, at just 2.5 years old. She missed the birth of her little brother Jamie, who was born 5 days later. We all miss her dreadfully.
Lucy and Oliver Hoffman.


text:
I wrote this for a different group of people but when I mentioned it in another thread, someone expressed an interest in seeing it here.
It's pretty long for DW but here goes!
Extreme is the new Normal
The headlines have been coming at us every week for a few years now, it seems: Hottest Ever … Record Floods … Highest on Record … Coldest Winter … Record-breaking Drought … and on they go. A vague concern that there are too many of them is certainly justifiable, since extreme events shouldn't be frequent events: anything that happens often ought, by definition, to be normal. So what's going on?
Putting it as simply as possible, our idea of 'normal' weather is our accumulated experience of weather over thirty or more years - depending on our age! - but weather over thirty or more years is climate, and the climate is changing.
I have been recommending the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's 'Climate Trend Maps' (http://reg.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/reg/ ... ndmaps.cgi) to people ever since I discovered them. Visiting the site gives you immediate, graphic, images of the changes which have been occurring in our climate since 1900.
The site lets users select variables (rainfall or temperature) and look at the way they have changed over the last hundred years. Click on 'Annual Rainfall' for any period since 1900 and a trend jumps out at you: the whole East coast and the extreme South of Western Australia (yes, that is where about 22 of our 22.5 million people live) is getting drier. Looking at different timeframes, you find that the change has been speeding up: the average annual rainfall in Townsville, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne has decreased by more than 50 mm per decade over the last forty years. Look at average temperature, and almost the whole map turns red - the only areas that have cooled are little spots in the desert around Kununurra.
Look at North Queensland's weather on a seasonal basis and you will see that our summers and autumns are drier but winters and spring a little wetter - though not enough to make up for the wet season decrease. Our temperatures are up, just a little, right across the board: annual average and all seasonal averages.
What about the rest of the world? There is a global version of the Trend maps at http://reg.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/c ... ndmaps.cgi but it doesn't show much detail. Let's look at an overview from one of the world's biggest climate monitoring agencies instead.
According to NOAA scientists (http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories201 ... stats.html), "2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest year of the global surface temperature record, beginning in 1880. This was the 34th consecutive year with global temperatures above the 20th century average." The NOAA summary goes on to say:
One of the climatologists' general predictions for what happens when CO2 builds up in the atmosphere is the obvious one, that the Earth as a whole warms up: Global Warming. Accompanying that, however, is that local climate will change by far more than just getting a bit warmer: Climate Change, regionally, will be complex and not all in one direction. As well, weather events will become more extreme. The NOAA summary mentioned a few of last year's events, but the IPCC (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_dat ... spms1.html) puts it more generally:NOAA wrote:• 2010 was the wettest year on record, in terms of global average precipitation. As with any year, precipitation patterns were highly variable from region to region.
• The Arctic Sea Ice had a record long growing season, with the annual maximum occurring at the latest date, since records began in 1979. Despite the shorter-than-normal melting season, the Arctic still reached its third smallest annual sea ice minimum on record behind 2007 and 2008.
• A negative Arctic Oscillation (AO) in January and February helped usher in very cold Arctic air to much of the Northern Hemisphere. Record cold and major snowstorms with heavy accumulations occurred across much of eastern North America, Europe and Asia. The February AO index reached -4.266, the largest negative anomaly since records began in 1950.
• From mid-June to mid-August, an unusually strong jet stream shifted northward of western Russia while plunging southward into Pakistan. The jet stream remained locked in place for weeks, bringing an unprecedented two-month heat wave to Russia and contributing to devastating floods in Pakistan at the end of July.
That's directly from AR4, published in 2007 and based on research up to about 2005. Worryingly, all the newer research shows that impacts are greater and arriving earlier than predicted.IPCC wrote:Human influences have:
• very likely contributed to sea level rise during the latter half of the 20th century
• likely contributed to changes in wind patterns, affecting extra-tropical storm tracks and temperature patterns
• likely increased temperatures of extreme hot nights, cold nights and cold days
• more likely than not increased risk of heat waves, area affected by drought since the 1970s and frequency of heavy precipitation events.
If the climate is changing, our accumulated experience of weather over our lifetime misleads us.
We think, 'Fifty years ago when I was a kid it never rained in summer, forty years ago when I was a teenager it never rained in summer, thirty years ago when my kids were little it never rained in summer, so this year's wet summer is weird and isn't likely to happen again.' But climate change means our best guide to next summer's weather is the 1990s and 2000s weather, not the 1950s and 60s. The same goes for all our other climate-related expectations - fruit tree flowering, bird migrations and the like.
And that's why we're seeing all those headlines now. It is impossible to point to a single weather event, whether it's a flood or a drought, a hailstorm or a cyclone, and say, 'That is due to global warming,' but it is certainly possible to point to a whole cluster of extreme events and say, 'These are due partly to global warming.'
Like it or not, extreme is the new normal.
And if we don't like it, we know who to blame.