I came across a new word today and thought to look it up. Well, it is not exactly a new word, but it was used in quite an unexpected context. The abyss is what we expect it to be, a deep, unfathomable hole, pit, mine labyrinth or whatever else may have the physical quality of depth, such as the sea. We speak of the abyss for depths beyond the fathoms we can count on two hands. So what is abyssal?
Continue readingScience
Health Care or Profit
I am astonished. I find myself in agreement with a sociologist. ‘The market in health care is not a means of achieving competitive efficiency but a pseudo-market for creating private value at public expense.’
But I suppose agreement comes in that he is speaking to the least favourite part of my education in accounting, economics. Now when a sociologist speaks to economics one would wonder whether you need to find a pinch of salt, but then you already know that you need more than a pinch when you read any of my comments on economics, so my agreement with the man does not lend any support to what he wrote.
Continue readingEvil: the problem of it
You will have heard it said: I cannot believe in God. Look at the evil in the world! Or perhaps more personally: I saw how they treated each other even though they believed in God. I cannot believe in that.
I should like to show that the very reason that is given for not believing in God, is the very reason that says you must believe in him. Now this is a short article and will not necessarily answer all the questions you may have, and certainly will not be an exhaustive description of all the possible understandings of the problem.
Continue readingPartial eclipse
What more can I say? shortly after 11…
Editors
There is increasing evidence that the editor no longer reads the articles placed in the newspaper critically. Sometimes the most obvious mistakes are made, up with which the later Sir Winston would not have put but which featured often in the Grauniad. Take this as a recent example:
“Up to half of people died when the Black Death swept through Europe in the mid-1300s.”
Continue readingUnvaccinated?
The BBC have run an analysis ‘Unvaccinated’. It is available for eleven months.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0019g27/unvaccinated
‘Covid-19 is on the rise again in the UK. After multiple lockdowns and more than 197,000 deaths, experts are warning we’re now entering a fifth wave of the pandemic. So why are around four million adults in the UK still yet to receive a single dose of the vaccine? In this timely, eye-opening investigation Professor Hannah Fry seeks to understand why so many remain unvaccinated against Covid-19.
Continue readingThe heavens declare
The James Webb pictures have started to be released.
If you know anything about William Blake you will know of his impressive imagination. When you see something like Gerrard Hoffnung’s the Symphony Orchestra you might wonder whether it was inspired by Blake’s last judgement, turned on its head of course. What is the point of this? Well it was Martin’s The Great Day of His Wrath that set me off. It is but a short ride in a fast machine, if you can bear with it.
Continue readingA conjunction
Whilst Saturn sings above the tree
Jupiter jives in mystery
And Mars meanders in the sky.
The crooked Moon hangs upon the cloud
Which Venus feigns to not come nigh
Where Mercury rests within her shroud.
Proscription
Happy new year to y’all. Well, at least in the UK it is for corporation tax. Income tax customers have to wait another five days for their new year.
We are presently in a period of grace granted by the EU, so I understand, for green and blue. My step-grandfather was a seaman and had tattoos, the outlines of which were still discernible though quite shadowy or blurred by the time I was old enough to even take any notice of them.
Continue readingWater
The penalties for disobedience
Apparently water refuses to obey the rules. It is one minute and three seconds in here:
BBC teaching video: Why water is one of the weirdest things in the universe
Does this not mean that there is something wrong somewhere? Apparently water is made up of two very light chemicals, hydrogen and oxygen and the rules say that…Coco shall not repeat the obvious mistake.