The Observant Astronomer

On global warming

2007-02-07T15:21:00.000-05:00

If you want some real science, check out for instance the next issue of the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics. An important article by Robert Erlich will expound the link between solar resonant thermal diffusion waves, and terrestrial climate change. They give a fairly precise overlay for climatic variations through the last 5.3 million years, and appear to explain the sudden emergence in time of the already-known 100,000-year “Milankovitch cycle”, while eliminating many of the problems previously associated with it.

Don’t know what I’m talking about? Then why would you have an opinion on global climate change?

Changing Mars

2006-12-06T15:48:00.000-05:00

At a press conference today, NASA announced seeing new things on the surface of Mars. By comparing Now and Then photos of the same places, they've seen evidence for water outflows and meteor impacts taking place in the past five years. Two gullies show evidence for new outflows, and several new craters have been spotted. Water comes up and rocks come down, and we can see the effects.

Mere Rhetoric live blogs the press conference, including the Q & A session. Another interesting example of science journalists in action. Watch out for the press articles, and see how well they correspond to what was really discovered.

Observing Observatories

2006-11-28T16:38:00.000-05:00

From the world wide wanderers comes some photos of the top of Mauna Kea, home to the Northern Hemisphere's biggest collection of big telescopes.

Courtesy of Ask Maps, here's the same place from on high.

Now from Google Maps, Observatorio del Tiede on Tenerife and its companion Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos on La Palma in the Canary Islands.

In the Southern Hemisphere we have the Very Large Telescopes of the European Southern Observatory on Cerro Paranal and some more telescopes on La Silla. (Low resolution I'm afraid, from both sources. As are Cerro Tololo and Cerro Panchon homes of CTIO and Gemini South respectively. Coverage in the Andes just isn't what it ought to be.)

And, in a class all its own, here is Israel's biggest observatory from the same vantage point.

Relatives

2006-11-22T18:15:00.000-05:00

My uncle is Ishmael and my brother is Esav, and you wonder why I've got troubles?

-Jacob

VC: The Life of Sarah (Season 1: Episode 5)

2006-11-17T12:00:00.000-05:00

We open within a dark tent. There is a body lying on the ground. The flap opens letting in the midday light from outside. The body is Sarah's. Avraham enters and mourns. [Roll opening credits]

The gate of Hevron. The town council is in session, with many of the townsfolk in attendance, when Avraham approaches them. Out of respect, they wait for him to speak.

"I am a stranger and resident amongst you. Grant me land for a grave with you, that I may bury my dead."

The council spokesman responds, "Hear us, my lord. You are a Prince of G-d with us. Take the best place and bury your dead. None of us will withhold a burying place. Bury your dead."

Avraham bows before them and stands again. "If this be your will, then please, I ask of Ephron ben Zohar the Cave of Machpelah on the edge of his field. I will pay him full price for it as grave."

There is a commotion amongst the onlookers. Ephron is pushed forward into the town council.

"My lord! It is yours. The field and the cave? Consider them yours. Before all those present, I have given it to you. Bury your dead."

Again Avraham bows.

"Listen to me, Ephron. I will pay you full price. Take it that I may bury my dead."

"No problem. What is 400 silver shekals? Good ones, mind. Bury your dead."

Avraham brings out his silver and weighs out to Ephron several large bars.

***

The cave entrance is in the side of a hill at the end of a field. The funeral procession reaches the cave, and Sarah is taken inside.

Avraham and Eliezer are in the shade of the tree we saw last episode, near the entrance of Avraham's tent. Avraham looks much older than when we last saw him. With Sarah's death, the years are beginning to weigh on him.

"Eliezer, I want you to swear that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canannites. I want you to go back to my family and bring him a wife from there."

"But what if she won't come with me? Shall I take him there?"

"No! Don't take him back there. G-d will guide you and you will find a wife for Yitzchak there. But if she won't come back, you are free of this oath. Just don't take my son there."

Eliezer swears the oath.

***

Eliezer is leading a group of men guiding a line of ten muzzled camels. As the sun drops low, they stop near a well outside a walled town. Eliezer prays to G-d that whichever girl he approaches for water, who is willing to also water his camels, she should be the one intended for Yitzchak.

We switch to inside the town. Walking towards the gate is a beautiful maiden carrying a large jar on her shoulder. She's friendly with her neighbours. Helping here and there as she walks. As she approaches the well, the water rises up and she easily fills her jug. She is turning to leave when a stranger comes up to her. It is Eliezer.

"Excuse me, miss. Might I have a drink of water from your jug?"

The girl looks at him and at the camels behind him. She gives him a drink, and then offers to water his camels, as well. She starts running back and forth between the well and the drinking trough. The camels move forward thirstily.

After they are finished drinking, Eliezer gives the girl some jewellery and asks her family, and whether they have place for him to stay the night.

"I am the daughter of Besuel ben Nahor. Of course we have place. Come along."

***

Eliezer falls upon the ground and praises G-d for guiding him to the house of Avraham's family.

The next shot is at Besuel's family compound. It is a busy place. Rivka's brother Lavan is directing the servants, when Rivka comes running in. She goes to her mother's house and Lavan, attracted by the gold, follows. Standing in the doorway, he overhears Rivka telling their mother about the stranger at the well. Lavan runs off.

Eliezer is still at the well when Lavan comes out to greet him and invite him back to his house. They enter into the city.

Back at the compound, Eliezer is sitting down to eat with Rivka's father and brother. Night has fallen. The room is lit by oil lamps. They place food on a low table in front of him, but he refuses to eat until he has spoken his piece. He tells them of his oath and the events at the well and then asks, "Now, if you intend to deal kindly and truly with my master, allow your daughter to be Yitzchak's wife?"

Lavan and Besuel answer, "From what you have said, this has been ordained by G-d. We cannot refuse you. Take Rivka as G-d has said."

As at the start of the ascent, Eliezer prostrates himself on the ground and praises G-d.

***

Rivka and her mother enter, while Eliezer goes out. He soon returns laden with rich gifts for everyone. They all eat and drink in celebration.

The next morning he meets Lavan and his mother in the compound.

"Send my to my master," he asks.

"You are free to go," they reply, "but let Rivka remain here yet a few months."

"Do not delay me after G-d has made me successful in my mission. Let us go."

"Well, let us ask Rivka what she wants."

The call for Rivka, and before long she comes. When asked, she agrees to go.

The camels are all loaded. Rivka is on one. Her nurse, Devorah is on another. They take their leave and head out into the desert.

It is another field and again it is evening. Yitzchak is walking in the fields. He looks up and we follow his glance. In the distance he sees camels approaching.

Rivka is looking back the other way and sees a lone man walking in the field. She falls part way off her camel. Eliezer helps her down and she asks "Who is that man?"

"He is my master."

Rivka turns back to the camel and rummages in her baggage until she finds what she is looking for. A veil, which she puts on. Yitzchak soon joins them.

Back at the tent, Yitchak brings her in and the darkness we saw earlier is dispersed.

***

Avraham with lots of family around him. His second wife, their six sons, and a whole pile of grandchildren.

Another funeral procession approaches the Cave of Machpelah. This time it is led by Yitzchak and Ishmael. Avraham is laid to rest beside Sarah.

Yitzchak and Rivka settle near Beer-Lahai-Roi. It is a quiet camp.
***

In contrast, we see scenes of Ishmael and his large family. Ishmael, too, dies and is buried. There are hundreds at the funeral.

Last update: 2006 Nov 17

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VC: Appearances (Season 1: Episode 4)

2006-11-09T23:42:00.000-05:00

The episode opens with the soft focus that we've seen indicate the immanent presence of G-d. It as if the things we are seeing don't quite exist. Avraham is sitting at the entrance to his tent, fiddling with his bandages. A tree provides some shade.

The soft focus takes on shimmering quality, as if of great heat, and, out of the mirage-like distance, three men appear. We focus in on them. They seem to be looking at the tent, trying to decide whether to approach or move on. Avraham stands, excuses himself and comes running towards them. The visitors are invited back to the tent, given water to wash with, and offered food. Avraham goes into the tent to coordinate the meal with Sarah and Ishmael.

Sitting in the shade of the tree, the visitors eat with Avraham attending. We watch with Sarah through the entrance of the tent.

One of the visitors asks Avraham, "Where is Sarah your wife?"

Avraham points towards us. "She is in the tent," he replies.

The visitor says in a loud voice, ensuring it carries to Sarah, "I will surely return to you a year from now and Sarah will hold her son."

We hear Sarah mumbling to herself with a chuckle. "After all this time, this old body will be young again? And my old man will father a son?"

And things suddenly go soft as G-d reappears and speaks to Avraham. "Why does Sarah laugh? Is anything beyond me? Next year this time, Sarah will have a son." The camera focuses on Sarah's consternation.

***

Sarah, in fear, denies she laughed, but G-d knows she did.

The camera goes back outside as Avraham escorts the visitors on their way. They climb a hill. There Avraham stops as the visitors walk down the other side, towards the cities of S'dom and Amorah visible in the distance. The camera zooms past them, focussing on the cities, and then into them. Once again, we are treated to scenes of evil and depravity.

Avraham is still watching as G-d appears to him.

"Avraham, the outcry from S'dom and Amorah has become great for their sins are grave. They have sinned enough. I shall destroy them tomorrow."

"Lord, what if there are a few righteous people there? Maybe fifty? Surely you wouldn't destroy them with the wicked?"

"I will spare them for the fifty, if they exist."

"And if there are only 45?"

"OK, 45"

"40?"

"Four cities for 40."

"30?"

"Three"

"20?"

"Two"

"What about if there are even ten righteous people?"

"Fine, one city shall survive for the sake of 10, but no fewer."

And G-d departs in the direction of S'dom. Avraham takes one last look, and turns back towards his tent.

***

Two of Avraham's visitors come to the gates of S'dom in late afternoon. They cast long shadows ahead as they approach the city from the west. Who do we find sitting at the gate? Why it is Lot! Like Avraham at the start of the episode, he invites them home. After some initial reluctance, they agree. The three sneak through the back streets of S'dom and finally reach Lot's house. Lot is bringing them food, when we hear a mob gathering outside his door. Things become very tense.

Lot stands outside his door to confront the mob. They are demanding he send out his guests. Lot tries to reason with them.

"Look, my brothers, these men are my guests. But, I've got two virgin daughters at home. Why don't I give you them instead?"

"Get away," shout the leaders of the mob. "You've only been here a short time and suddenly you think you're fit to judge us? We'll show you how we treat visitors!"

As Lot is about to be seized by the crowd, the door opens behind him and he is pulled back inside. Outside, the mob suddenly looses cohesion. They have been struck blind.

Back inside, the meal is forgotten. "What family have you got in town?" ask Lot's rescuers. "You've all got to leave town now. G-d has sent us here to destroy this place."

Lot hesitates, and they argue through the night. As light starts to fill the eastern sky, his guests take him, his wife, and two daughters back outside the gate where they first met. "Flee for you life," the tell him. "Flee to the mountains, and don't look back."

Still Lot has time to argue. "No, my Lord. You've been very kind. Let me just escape to Zoar. It is small, and not worth destroying."

***

They are anxious to get on with their work, so they agree to spare Zoar. Lot arrives at sunrise. Behind him, cataclysm. Avraham is back on his hill top looking down at the valley. It is full of fire and smoke. Destruction is utter.

Lot flees Zoar in the midst of all this. His wife looks behind, and turns to salt. Lot doesn't see this and flees to the mountains. He arrives in a cave with his daughters, and collapses.

The daughters look out the mouth of the cave. Nothing remains of the cities they fled. They fear that they are the only ones alive. So they plot to continue the human race with they're father's unknowing help, aided by a few bottles of wine they find hidden in the cave. Some time later, they hold their infant sons.

Avraham has moved south and now is in Gerar. Sarah has been seized again and is in the bedchamber of King Avimelech, who is sleeping elsewhere. Avimelech dreams and hears a voice.

"Behold! You are a dead man because of the married woman you have taken."

"Lord, what have I done wrong? They told me she was his sister. And I haven't touched her!"

"Only because I wouldn't let you. Return her to her husband. He is a prophet and will pray for you. Otherwise, you and yours will die."

In the early-morning darkness, Avimelech wakes with a start and calls his servants. All are frightened. He sends some one to bring Avraham. There is turmoil as Avraham enters the throne room. Avimelech crosses the room to speak to him.

"What have you done to us? What did I do to you that you have brought me and my kingdom to such a great sin? And now we are all closed up and unable to pass a thing. Why? What did you see that you did this?"

Avraham replies, "I saw there was no fear of G-d here and that you would kill a man to take his wife. Besides, she is my half-sister. So, when G-d sent me from my father's house, I said to her, 'Tell them you're my sister, so they don't kill me.'"

Avimelech calls for Sarah and, following her dramatic entrance, restores her to Avraham with many gifts and an offer to settle wherever Avraham sees fit. Avraham prays to G-d and all of Avimelech's household are cured. Everyone rushes off to take care of their business.

The ascent ends with Sarah holding baby Yitzchak.

***

Yitzhak is named and a feast is made when he is weaned. There is great rejoicing, and all the great people of the generation are there: Shem, Ever, and Avimelech among them.

Time passes, and Ishmael has gone bad. He takes to shooting arrows at Yitzhak as the boy toddles by. Sarah comes to Avraham and demands that Hagar and Ishmael be sent away. Avraham is distressed. That night, G-d comes to him and tells him to listen to Sarah.

In the early morning, Avraham rises and sends Hagar and her son away with some food and water..

Hagar is wandering in the wilderness, carrying Ishmael. The boy is obviously very ill. Hagar puts him down under a tree. He is fevered and there is no more water to drink. Hagar moves away from the dying boy, unable to bear watching him die. She sits down and weeps.

The an angel appears to comfort her. She looks up as the angel departs and sees a well. In joy she gives a recovered Ishmael water. We end with domestic scenes. Ishmael hunting in the wilderness. He and his Egyptian wife.

***

Avimelech and his general come to Avraham's tent. When Avraham greets him, he comes straight to business.

"G-d is with you in everything you do. Swear to me by G-d that you will not deal falsely with me, my son, or grandson. As I've treated you well; treat me and this land well."

Avraham agrees, but raises another point. "I have dug this well, but your servants have taken it."

"I don't know anything about it, and this is the first I've heard about the matter," Avimelech replies.

So Avraham gives Avimelech sheep, goats, and cattle and they swear oaths. Avraham has also set aside seven ewes. Avimelech gets curious.

"What's with those sheep?"

"I'm giving them to you as my witness that I dug this well."

They name the place Beer Sheva, and Avimelech returns to Gerar with his entourage, plus livestock. Avraham settles into providing hospitality for wayfarers and the years pass.

***

Avraham is asleep when G-d comes to him.

"Avraham!"

"Here I am."

"Take you son..."

"Which one?"

"Your only one..."

"They're both only children..."

"Whom you love..."

"I love them both."

"Yitchak! And take him to the land of Moriah and bring him up there as a sacrifice on the mountain I'll show you."

Avraham wakes with a start. By the early-morning light, he rushes off to fulfill this new command. He's got his donkey, two servants, Yitzchak, and a load of wood. Sarah watches as the small caravan departs northward.

They've been travelling for a couple of days. Avraham looks up, and we see one mountain in particular standing out. He gives Yitzchak the wood, takes the fire and knife and they head for the mountain leaving the other two with the donkey.

Avraham and his son walk in silence for a while. Finally Yitzchak speaks.

"Father..."

"Yes, my son?"

"I'm puzzled. We've got fire and wood, but where is the lamb? What are we supposed to be sacrificing?"

"G-d will see to the offering. My son." Yitzchak looks startled, but continues walking with his father.

They arrive at the place. There is an open spot on the side of the hill. Avraham builds an altar and arranges the wood on it. They he ties up Yitzchak and lays him on top of the wood. Methodically, he picks up the knife and raises it over his son.

An angel calls out. "Avraham! Avraham!"

Without moving, Avraham replies, "Here I am."

"Don't touch the lad. Not even a scratch. Now I know that you haven't withheld even him from me."

Avraham, hearing a noise, looks up at the thicket on the other side of the clearing. There is a ram caught there. He unties Yitzchak and helps him down, then takes the ram and offers it as an offering instead. As the fire burns, he names the place.

Again he hears the angel. The angel gives him G-d's blessing and promises him endless numbers of offspring. Avraham returns to the others and they head toward Beer Sheva.

Back at his inn, Avraham hears news from his brother Nahor.

Last update: 2006 Nov 9

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VC: Go! (Season 1: Episode 3)

2006-11-03T11:56:00.000-05:00

The last episode ended with the focus on one family of travellers settling in Charan. We begin this episode following some of them as they travel onwards: Avram, his wife, his nephew Lot, and their servants and cattle. It is an impressive procession as they head southward. As the travel montage continues, we see Avram stop twice, build altars, and bring offerings. The land gets drier; there is a drought. And once again Avram head off, heading towards Egypt.The travel scenes end as they get near to the Egyptian border. Avram stops to talk to his wife.

"Sarai, you are a beautiful woman and I'm afraid that if the Egyptians get a look at you they'll kill me and kidnap you. So, do me a favour. If they ask, tell them you're my sister, and everything will be fine."

***

The next ascent begins with Avram, Lot, and their baggage at the Egyptian customs post. Behind them is the fervent greenery of the Nile valley, a welcome contrast of the desert we've been travelling through lately. Customs inspectors are rooting through the baggage. They come upon a large box and open it up, staring at the contents.

They come back to their boss, still talking to Avram, Sarai in tow.

"Well, well. What have we here?" asks the chief, pointing at Sarai.

"Smuggled goods," they reply.

"Confiscated!", he shouts, to Avram's dismay, and orders her sent to Paro. Avram is waved through, with thanks for his contribution to the Egyptian king, who will be sure to provide ample compensation for Avram's generosity with his sister.

Than night, the palace is in an uproar. The king has gone to spend the night with Sarai, but we find him rolling on the floor in agony instead. And he's not the only one. As we pan through the palace, it seems everyone is in pain, in the most intimate places. Avram is summoned.

"What have you done to me?" asks Paro. "Why didn't you tell me she was your wife? You said she was your sister! Take her and go!"

So once again we see Avram and his greatly enlarged entourage travelling. Back the way they came. Returning to places we've seen before, but this time much greener.

***

Now we see Lot, also with lots of cattle and servants. And his servants are arguing with Avram's. The main question seems to be where to pasture all these animals. The local fields are getting crowded.

Avram comes to Lot to settle the issue.

"Look Lot," he says. "Things can't go on like this. If there isn't enough room around here for both of us, then we'll just have to go our separate ways. Look around. Let me know where you want to go with yours, and I'll take mine the other way."

Lot thinks about this and says, "That river valley, Kikar HaYarden, looks nice and fertile. I'll head down that way." So off he goes, and the camera focuses in on the inhabitants of the cities dominating the valley. What we see is very disturbing.

Returning to Avram, G-d appears to him. He promises him the entire land and children as numerous as the sand.

***

The scene changes to a conference in a palace somewhere. Four kings are conferring. Their five vassals in Kikar HaYarden have rebelled and it is time to punish them.

This ascent has lots of battle scenes with men armed with spears and swords, and plenty of horse-drawn chariots. The four kings attack the five. The five loose, flee, and some are captured after falling into pits of mud. The five cities are plundered, and among the captives we see Lot.

Avram is sitting by his tent talking with three friends, when a giant comes to visit. "Lot, your nephew has been captured."
Avram organizes a small posse and takes off in pursuit.

By the time they catch up it is dark. Avram attacks, the enemy army, frightened, flees, and the captives, including Lot, are rescued. All return home. Along the way they stop near the mountain top city of Shalem. The king, Malchi-Tzedek, comes out to meet them. It is a meeting of royalty, but the one he blesses is Avram.

***

After Malchi-Tzedek's praise, the king of S'dom asks only for his people, offering all the plunder to Avram as a reward. Avram, in a stirring speech, declares that he as taken nothing and wants nothing for himself. He then return home.

Avram is asleep in his tent when G-d appears to him and promises him his protection and great reward.

"But Lord", he asks, "what good is this to me if I have no children? There is no one to leave all this to except my servant Eliezer?"

"He will not be your heir. You will yet have children. Now come outside. Look up and try to count the stars; so will be your offspring." Avram does not respond.

***

The same scene as before. Again G-d promises him the land. Avram asks for a sign that this will be so, and G-d instructs him what to do.

We see slaughtered cattle lying on the ground. An ox, a goat, and a ram, each cut in half with a space between. Also two birds. Birds come out of the sky and try to eat the meat, but Avram drives them away. As the sun sets, Avram falls asleep, and receive a prophecy.

"Know that your children will dwell in a strange land 410 years. I will judge that nation and will bring them back here with great wealth. You will come peacefully to your fathers, and in the fourth generation the will come back here. Then the evil of the current inhabitants will be full to be dealt with." As darkness falls, a firey torch and smoky furnace pass between the animal parts.

We are now back by Avram's tent and Sarai comes over to him with her Egyptian maid, Hagar.

"Look, we've been here 10 years and G-d has kept me barren. So come to my maid, and perhaps I'll have children through her."

Next scene, Hagar is being insufferable to Sarai. She's pregnant.

Sarai tells Avram, "I'm sorry I even suggested you take Hagar. She's become impossible to live with."

"So do what you want. She's your maid." And Sarai makes life so miserable for Hagar that the Egyptian runs away.

Hagar is in the wilderness, sitting near a well, when she is approached by an angel.

"Hagar, Sarai's maid. What are you doing here?"

"She drove me away," Hagar replies.

A series of angles appear, swooping in to deliver their messages and then swooping away again.

"Go home to to your mistress and do what she says."

"Great and uncountable will be your offspring."

"You will become pregnant again and bear a son. Call him Ishmael, for G-d has heard you. He will be a wild man and rule his neighbours."

And soon we see Hagar with a small boy. Ishmael.

Thirteen years pass. G-d appears to Avram again to make a covenant. Avram falls on his face as G-d says, "No longer are you 'Avram', now you are 'Avraham', for you will father nations."

***

G-d is still speaking.

"I will be G-d forever to you and your descendants. And I will give to you and them this land of Canaan. For your part, circumcise yourself and your household, and all your sons at eight days. Thus will be my covenant in your flesh.

"As to your wife, her name I change as well. No longer 'Sarai', but now 'Sarah'. And I will bless her and she will have a son, and from him will come your nations."

So Avraham prostrates himself again, and laughs at the news. "Let Ishmael live before you," he asks.

"But Sarah will bear a son, and you will call him Yitzchak and with him will be my covenant for all generations. Ishmael I will also bless. He will have twelve sons and become a great nation. But the covenant is with Yitzchak."

The episode ends with Avraham circumcising himself and his household.

Last updated: 2006 November 9

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Back to Hubble

2006-10-31T12:36:00.000-05:00

Here's a piece of good news for astronomers. NASA Administrator Michael Griffin gave the go-ahead to day for a final visit by the space shuttle to service the Hubble Space Telescope. The crew of seven has been announced and includes three veterans of previous servicing missions. Among the other objectives, two new instruments---the Cosmic Origins Spectograph and Wide Field Camera 3---are to be installed. (COS replaces the now useless COSTAR. WFC3 will replace WFPC2 and provide upgraded capabilities.)

VC: Noach (Season 1, Episode 2)

2006-10-26T17:03:00.000-04:00

We see Noach, with whom the last episode ended, in a tight shot. As the camera pulls back we see that he is walking in an ancient marketplace. We see him staring at the ground, so as to avoid seeing what is going on around him. As the continues to widen we see in full the corruption hinted at in the previous episode. We see idols all over and demonstrations of various sorts of sexual immorality. What are that dog and cat doing in the corner over there? We see evidence that the market is barely functioning, however. To one side, as we pass through, a bargaining session ends with the purchaser just grabbing a jar and walking off with it, only to have it stolen in turn by a passing gang.

We cut to Noach, now reaching his home outside the town. He stops when he hears G-d speak to him. We hear G-d's instructions for the ark, and we see the ark take shape, first as a vision, and then in reality as Noach takes 120 years to put it together. He is working on a hill, in full view of the town below. People stop by to ask what he is doing, but ignore his warnings of doom. "Life is good", they say, laughing at him. With the ark finished, Noach starts gathering food and loading it in to the ark. Still, no one listens.

***

At the funeral of his grandfather Methuselah, Noach stops as the procession continues. Again G-d speaks to him, this time with his final instructions. Once the seven days of mourning are over, the flood will begin. The animals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and insects started coming. Most in single pairs, some few of seven.

It is a week later. Noach, his sons, and their wives are by the ark atop a hill outside the town. It is starting to rain. The last of the animals have boarded when an angry mob approaches from the town. We hear them threatening to destroy the ark and kill Noach. Bears and lions intercept them before they can come close, and, as the rain becomes heavier, Noach and his family reluctantly climb aboard, and the door slams heavily behind them.

***

Then the rain really lets loose. Water starts welling up from the ground, as well as falling heavily from the sky. It rains and rains and rains. The water rises rapidly and lifts the ark off its hill. The stormy waters climb higher and higher, covering the hills and the mountains. And still it rains. Inside the ark, Noach struggles to feed and care for all the animals in his keeping.

An outside view. The rain and wind have stopped. Outside the ark there is nothing but water. Endless, endless, expanses of water. The ark floats on the now calm water, but we have no sense of it actually going anywhere. The ark starts to rise out of the water. Unnoticed until now, the water level has been dropping, and the ark has obviously grounded. Before long, the highest mountain tops are emerging from the flood.

Noach unlatches a window and looks out. Around him are the mountains of Ararat. Further beyond there is still water. We see the ark from outside. Noach reappears at the window and releases a raven. The bird flies about and insists on going back inside.

With the landscape somewhat drier, Noach again appears at the window, this time with a dove. The bird flies off, below it we see nothing but water beyond the mountains. It cannot land and returns to the ark. Again Noach sends out a dove, this time to a yet drier landscape. This time the dove picks up an olive leaf and brings it back. And yet a third time the dove flies off, and this time does not return. So Noach opens the door, and there is no water to be seen anywhere. The earth was dry.

***

The door to the ark is wide open, and all the animals are coming out again and heading off in various directions. Noach builds an altar and selects one each from the groups of seven to bring as sacrifices. G-d speaks to Noach and blesses him and his family, commanding him to be fruitful and multiply, but to take care that his descendants not fall into bloodshed or immorality.

***

Above Noach a brilliant rainbow appears and we hear G-d promise not to bring another flood. His rainbow, he says, will be a sign and reminder of his promise.

***

His great task complete, Noach leaves his sons to carry on with things and tends to his newly-planted vineyard instead. The vineyard bears fruit, and before long the first vintage is ready. Noach gets drunk and goes to his tent to sleep it off, his clothes in disarray. His son, Ham, sees him there naked, and goes in. Later, the other two sons cover up their wounded father, heads averted so as not to see his shame. When Noach wakes, he curses Ham's descendant Canaan, while blessing Shem and Yaphes.

We now have a series of vignettes introducing the descendants of of the three brothers, the nations coming from them, and their lands. We also meet Nimrod, a powerful leader from the family of Ham.

***

In the last ascent of the episode, we see all the people travelling and arriving in a river valley in a land they call Shinar. They like the look of it, and, after a great meeting and long discussion, the decide to settle there and build a city and a tall tower. So amidst scenes of brick making, and urban construction, the city begins to grow and the tower climbs towards the heavens.

We sense, as at the end of last week's episode, G-d's displeasure with the activities of man. And then things start going horribly wrong. We'd been watching some bricklaying high on the tower. Up until now it had been an orderly process. Now when the bricklayer asks for bricks, he gets mortar. Or at least we think he asked for brick, because suddenly we can't understand him. Nor can we understand anyone else. Construction stops. Various groups head off in different directions, trying to get as far as possible from these sudden foreigners.

Again, as in the first episode, we see a line of familial descent leading from Shem through nine generations to Terach, his three sons, Avram, Nahor, and Haran, their wives and families living in Nimrod's city of Ur Kasdim. After Haran's death at the hand of Nimrod we see the remainder of the family flee the city planning to go to the land of Canaan. The episode ends with them settling in Charan.

Last updated: 2006 October 26

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The Visual Guide to Chumash: Overview

2006-10-19T13:30:00.000-04:00

This pioneering series is without parallel. Long after its initial run, the 53 episodes remain in syndication, broadcast on a weekly basis. Such is their following that widespread celebrations are held annually to mark the conclusion of the series and its re-commencement. The programs are so deep and detailed that they repay constant and repeated viewing and study. With the start of the new run, I have decided to begin a series celebrating this acclaimed work. In this series of postings, I attempt to bring out some of the visual impact of the episodes. Besides being a summary, the focus is on elaborating the images of the series, including some of the cinematographic effects in use.

These are very much a work in progress, and I will be unashamedly altering and modifying them as I see fit. In fairness, while their original posting dates will remain unchanged, I will indicate the update date both in the posting and in the table of contents.

I follow the following conventions. The 53 "episodes" are unevenly divided into five "seasons" and I will examine each episode individually. The postings in this series will have "VC:" at the start of their titles. The posting for each episode is divided by *** into the traditional seven "ascents". This allows for an appreciation of the dramatic tension introduced by the breaks in the episode. The dialogue has been freely adapted and is perhaps more colloquial than one might expect, but this is in keeping with my purpose in trying to heighten the impact in text of a visual medium. Comments are welcome.

Proceed now to The Index, or to the first episode.

VC: Index

2006-10-19T13:25:00.000-04:00

Overview

Season 1: At the Beginning

At the Beginning (2006 10 19)
Noach (2006 10 26)
Go! (2006 11 9)
Appearances (2006 11 9)
The Life of Sarah (2006 11 17)
The Offspring of Yitzchak
Yaacov: Departure
Yaacov: Dispatch
Yaacov: Settled
At the End
Approach
Yaacov Lived

VC: At the Beginning (Season 1: Episode 1)

2006-10-19T13:20:00.000-04:00

This series opens with a flourish of spectacular special effects as we are introduced to the protagonist of the series. if not his purpose. After a timeless moment of calm darkness we hear, "Let there be light!", and, with an unbearable flash of ethereal light, everything begins. Subsequent creations flash by before we can begin to understand what is happening. At some level, we sense there must be a pattern to all the activity, but it happens too quickly to comprehend. Light and dark, sky and sea, land and plants, sun and moon, fish and birds, animals and man follow each other in quick succession. Each good. And then, as suddenly as it began, everything stops. In the west, the sun sets, followed by a day-old moon, and all is quiet. It is Shabbat.

***

When the light returns at the start of the second ascent it is seemingly to an earlier time. We see an empty land, full of potential. As a mist covers the ground, a man-like shape appears from the earth. We cannot tell if it is a male or a female, for it has aspects of both. But he or she, or perhaps they, get up and look around at the barren landscape. Then it rains, and the plants burst from the ground like released springs. We see a garden take shape, with beautiful trees, and a mighty river running through it. G-d takes the man to the garden and points out to them one tree in particular with the commands, "Eat from any tree, but this one, the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. For on the day you eat from it, you will die."

The man is alone, so G-d brings to them all the birds and animals that the man should name them. The entire creation passes before us in pairs and each species is given its name.

***

The third ascent opens with the man still giving names to the last of the animals. And, when it is all done, they are still alone. So they complain to G-d, and we see them fall asleep. When they awake, they are indeed two, male and female, mate for each other, naked, innocent, and unashamed. As the camera pulls back, we see the snake in the bushes, parting the branches with his hands, watching the man and his wife. From the expressions on his cunning face—desire towards the woman, hate towards her husband—we know he is plotting something.

When the man moves off to tend the garden, the snake strikes up a conversation with the woman. Ever so casually, the topic moves to food.

"So," asks the snake, "does G-d let you eat from the trees?"

"Oh yes," responds the woman. "We're allowed to eat any fruit except for one tree in the middle of the garden. On that one G-d said, 'Don't eat from it and don't touch it, or you'll die.'"

"Don't believe it," says the snake. "You won't die. G-d just wants to keep that one to himself. If you eat from it you'll be like G-d and know good and evil." As the conversation continues the two walk over to the tree and the snake causes the woman to touch the tree. When she doesn't instantly die, the snake pushes her further: "See what happened? If you can touch it, you can eat it, right?" And with that, he leaves her there to think about it.

But not for long. She reaches out and takes a fruit and eats it. Still, nothing happens. So when the man returns, she gives him one too. The only difference seems to be that they notice that they're naked, so they quickly cover themselves up with fig leaves. When, soon after, they hear G-d walking in the garden, they dive into the trees to hide. (We never see G-d ourselves, but it is always clear somehow when he is taking an open part in the proceedings.)

"Hello? Man? Where are you?", calls out G-d.

The man and woman sheepishly creep out from behind the tree they've been hiding behind. The man says, "Over here. I heard you coming and was afraid because I was naked, so I hid."

"Who told you, you were naked? You ate from the tree didn't you?" accuses G-d.

The man whips around and points at his wife. "She gave it to me!"

G-d turns to her as well. "What have you done?" he asks. And she replies, "The snake tricked me!"

G-d has heard enough and hands out punishments. The snake is summoned and stripped of his arms and legs and sent off to eat dirt and fight forever with the people. The woman is given the difficulty of children and the man that of his livelihood. Then he makes them proper clothes.

***

The fourth ascent sees G-d making his final decrees in the matter of the forbidden fruit. Adam and Chava are banished from the garden, and as they walk away, angels with fiery swords appear behind them, barring the way.

When next we see them, some time has clearly passed, since they now have children. The two boys, Kayin and Hevel, have chosen different occupations and have become rivals. Kayin is a farmer like his father; we see him tending the fields, working the land. Hevel minds sheep.

Kayin gets the idea to bring an offering to G-d. So he sets out some flax seed, a praiseworthy plant. Hevel, not to be left out, brings a firstborn sheep. G-d accepts only Hevel's offering, to Kayin's clear annoyance and dejection. G-d warns him to watch himself and behave correctly.

Sometime later Kayin visits Hevel in the field and starts a conversation. We can't hear what they are saying, but suddenly Kayin suddenly attacks his brother, stabbing him over and over. Hevel falls, blood gushing out, soaking into the ground, as Kayin walks away.

But he is not alone for long. G-d comes to him and asks, "Where is Hevel your brother?"

"How should I know? Am I his sitter?"

"What have you done? Your brother's blood is crying out to me from the earth! So, the earth will be even more cursed to you than before. It will produce nothing. And you will wander the earth."

"Is my sin more than you can bear? I cannot hide from you. I will wander the land and will be killed myself."

G-d agrees to protect Kayin from retribution for seven generations and places a letter of his name on his forehead. Kayin wanders off. In a quick succession of scenes we see him marry and raise a family. He builds a city and sees children born to his children.

***

The brief fifth ascent consists of domestic scenes with the last child born in the fourth, Kayin's great-great-great grandson Lemech, his two wives Adah and Tzilah, and their children: Yaval the nomad cattle-herder, Yuval the musician, Tuval-Kayin the smith, and their sister Na'amah.

***

What happens here is very obscure. The end result is Kayin and Tuval-Kayin dead at the hands of Lemech.

With Hevel dead and Kayin in exile, Adam and Chava have another son, Sheit, who in turn fathers Enosh. And we see the people of that time forgetting G-d and applying his name to other things.

The ascent continues with the line of descent from Adam through the seven generations. In the sixth generation, Chanoch, a simple but sincere fellow, follows G-d. G-d is concerned that Chanoch will be misled by his ill-behaved neighbours, so suddenly on day, Chanoch isn't there any longer.

***

The final ascent brings us three more generations, ending with the righteous man Noach, his wife Na'amah seen earlier, and his three sons: Sheim, Cham, and Yafet. We see images of widespread corruption and wickedness. With G-d's ominous announcement that a general housecleaning is in order, we are left with him looking favourably on Noach as the episode ends.

Last updated: 2006 October 19

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Gloibal Varming

2006-09-29T11:41:00.000-04:00

So now, apparently, we Jews are responsible for global warming too. An outfit called the "Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life" dumped a pile of fliers in shul the other day exhorting Jews to change their light bulbs. After all,

the Jewish community has an intrinsic responsibility to respond to the daunting environmental problems confronting us and future generations.

So, no longer are we to be permitted to use incandescent light bulbs. It is now, according to the unpronounceable COEJL, a halachic imperative to only use "energy efficient, cost effective compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs".

"If not now, when?" they ask. And then answer that we're to do this "as a community" on Hanukkah. So, get going and apply to your "institution's Point Person" for your quota of CFLs and, come Hanukkah, replace your incandescents with CFLs. One per night, I suppose, would be in order. This way we can become "energy observant"!

Their enthusiasm is misplaced, however, in that they are ignoring the real Jewish contribution to global climate change: Shabbos. Never mind the energy wasted by light bulbs. Consider the energy wasted by leaving on the stove and other appliances for 26 hours straight. And for what? After the cholent has come off, that stove is likely heating up nothing but the blech. And if your household is anything like mine, there are too many burners on all night anyway, since the main objective is to keep the food hot for the Shabbos evening meal. Waste, waste, waste. Further, consider the amount of carbon dioxide and other toxins being given off by the Shabbos candles. An incredibly convenient suggestion in this regard is to "replace an outdoor light fixture with one that has a motion-detector" on the first day of Hanukkah, which, fittingly, is on Shabbos this year. Incomplete combustion of wax candles is considered to be a major Jewish contribution to global CO₂ production. Never mind the methane produced as a result of kiddushes and cholent beans. So, once we've replaced all our light bulbs, as our next contribution to "protecting creation", we'll be called upon to sit in the dark and eat cold food one day a week. The Karaites will be pleased to see their position justified by the Rabbinics at last.

Shuttle on the Sun

2006-09-25T16:55:00.000-04:00

Click on the link for a spectacular image of the Shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station silhouetted against the Sun.

(hat tip to Jay Manifold who estimates it was taken with a 13cm telescope)

Today's picture shows the reality behind the infamous "Face on Mars". Is that a road going up the side?

Chasiva v'chasima tovah 5767

2006-09-22T11:09:00.000-04:00

I seem to be getting a lot of hits at the moment from people googling "chasima". I don't know if this is what you were expecting, but if not, I don't know what that was, and probably don't want to know either. As in, for existence, "goth". One Shabbos afternoon, not so long ago, a young woman sitting on her front asked me as I went by if I was a "Goth". I stopped dead and asked for a repetition of the question, wondering what she was talking about. And was she particular about my being a Visigoth or an Ostrogoth? I was tempted to just reply, "No, I'm a Vandal", but decided to just say no and keep going. I found out something more about gothkeit from the events in Montreal last week. So, I'm not googling chasima, if you don't mind.

The shul I daven on weekdays has two luachs on the wall giving details of the customs of the year. One from Colel Chabad and one from Ezras Torah. And yes, they do get confused from time to time over which minhag to follow. Anyway, the two end off with some wishes for the new year. One has

ולשנה טובה נכתב ונחתם שנה גאולה וישועה אמן

and the other

תחל שנה וברכותיה
ותשובה ותפלה וצדקה מעבירין את רועה הגזירהס

with the last line in real big letters. The next year's luach starts exactly the same way. So, whatever your viewpoint, may you and yours, and all Yisroel, be blessed in the new year with a good, sweet, and healthy year, a year of peace, and a year of redemption.

The problematic election of 2016

2006-09-19T13:48:00.000-04:00

(Warning: Really obscure Canadian content)
Debated yesterday* for the first time in Ottawa is Bill C-16, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act which introduces fixed election dates for Canadian Federal Elections. The date would be the third Monday in October in the fourth year after the previous election, except where it is "in conflict with a day of cultural or religious significance or a provincial or municipal election" in which case we pick an alternate day which "must be either the Tuesday immediately following the Monday that would otherwise be polling day or the Monday of the following week."

All well and good, except that we'd better hope that no election comes due in 2016, 2043, 2073, 2100, or 2114 in the next century or so. Otherwise, despite their best intentions, observant Jews will still have to vote in advance. For in all those years, election day is the first day of Sukkot, and neither alternate day is any more suitable.

(*It is amusing, in light of the events of last May, to see the Liberals worrying about the definition of "confidence".)

The largest dwarf planet has been named

2006-09-14T15:26:00.000-04:00

OK, no more references to "Xena". 2003 UB₃₁₃ and its satellite now have official IAU approved names to go along with the official number given last week. The largest dwarf planet is now Eris and its moon is Dysnomia. Considering the ruckus it caused, a fitting name.

Aluminum & Mercury

2006-09-11T11:30:00.000-04:00

Over at Treppenwitz they're being kept at night by thoughts ofaluminium and mercury. These two elements keep astronomers up at night too.

It's much easier to make a large aperture telescope with a mirror than with a lens. You only have to get the curvature right on one surface, it doesn't have to be perfectly clear, and it is a lot easier to support a big lump of material from behind, than by holding on to a thin edge. First, mirrors were made of solid metal. Speculum, a copper-tin alloy, being the favourite. Speculum corrodes and needs to be repolished every few months, so a big telescope would have two such mirrors, each to be used while the other was being cleaned up. In the 19th century, after the technology had been developed to coat glass with uniform metal films, silver-coated mirrors were favoured. The main problem with silver is that it tarnishes. Silver oxide is black, as evidenced by your silver kiddush cups and candlesticks. So periodically, before the point was reached where the reflecting mirror wasn't, the entire mirror had to be pulled out of the telescope, the silver removed and a new coating deposited.

Aluminum cured this problem, and also is more reflective to boot. The technology to make aluminum mirrors arrived in the early 1930's and almost all reflecting telescopes now use this. Aluminum oxide, in large lumps, looks like this or this with a few impurities. Clear and hard, a perfect protective coating.

Mercury, as David notes, does this in, but there are mercury telescopes. Mercury is a shiny reflective metal; too bad it's a liquid. The trick is to put a thin layer in a rotating tub and make a Liquid Mirror Telescope. The largest is 6m across, and serious telescope makers are thinking about a 100m behemoth to be deployed on the Moon. The advantage is that a liquid mirror telescope is much cheaper to construct than a conventional telescope. The disadvantage is that it can only look up. But for the purposes of a telescopic survey, that's just fine.

Defining "Planet" IV

2006-09-07T16:17:00.000-04:00

I won't promise that this is the last posting on the topic, but two consequences of the IAU resolutions have come to my attention.

First, the Minor Planet Center, charged by the IAU to keep track of all the minor planets, have now decided that dwarf planets are to be given official numbers in the catalogue of "minor planets", since the first of them (1) Ceres, already has one. This doesn't preclude a separate catalogue, and scheme for dwarf planets, but they're trying to keep things tidy. So from now on it is (134340) Pluto.

Second, somebody in California legislature clearly thinks he could be doing something more useful than this. The question is whether all his "co-authors" are in on the joke.

Defining "Planet" III

2006-08-24T11:48:00.000-04:00

After having ten days to think about, and discuss the issue, the International Astronomical Union General Assembly has declared itself on the definition of planet. (You can read the on-line part of the discussion in this electronic supplement to the GA newspaper.)

Their discussions have led to a revised set of definitions. These are in two resolutions, each with a possible amendment.

Resolution 5 (Resolutions 1-4 relate to coordinate systems in space and time and IAU housekeeping) is the planet definition resolution. It divides the solar system into three groups: Planets, dwarf planets, and Small Solar System Bodies, as follows:

(1) A planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.

What's new here is clause (c). The idea here is that a planet dominates the mass distribution in its immediate vicinity. There can be a small amount of stuff left (e.g. the Trojan asteroids associated with Jupiter), but any number of similarly-sized objects in similar orbits violates this clause. Thus both Ceres and Pluto are excluded. Historically, this is how Ceres was demoted the first time, and now Pluto has joined it in the next category. The end result is that there are eight currently known planets. (The amendment would have added "classical" to this definition, leaving the word "planet" on its own still undefined, but this was defeated.)

(2) A dwarf planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.

The new clauses here are (c) and (d). Clause (c) distinquishes the dwarf planets, while (d) excludes Charon in particular. There are no double planets under this definition.

(3) All other objects except satellites orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as "Small Solar System Bodies".

This term replaces "minor planet" now that the dwarf planets have been segregated out. This term is very unwieldy and I suspect something else will come into general use. Half the time I get the "S"s mixed up and say "Solar System Small Bodies".

Resolution 6 defines a new class of ~~object~~ dwarf planet with Pluto as the prototype. Up until now ~~we've been calling them~~ they've been included under the rubric of "Kuiper Belt objects", but the failed amendment would have ~~changed this to~~ called them "plutonian objects".

Left undecided was what we should call the current asteroid belt, now that it is made up of a combination of dwarf planets and small bodies. Shall these be '"ceresian objects" travelling in the "ceresian object belt"?

UPDATE: except satellites in paragraph 3 was a late amendment according to my source in Prague who has also clarified the purpose of Resolution 6. The amendment was very narrowly defeated, and an "IUA process" will be established to come up with a better name.

Tisha b'Av

2006-08-24T11:47:00.000-04:00

(I know Tisha b'Av was three weeks ago, but I figure better to post this now than to leave it on the drive for a year.)

If Tisha b'Av is the most difficult fast, it isn't because of its length, or even because it starts and ends late (at extreme northern latitudes anyway). No, it is difficult because it is the most boring of all the fast days. Yom Kippur is longer, but you are kept so busy, and, one hopes, spiritually heightened, with all the goings on that there often isn't time to think about your empty stomach. But on Tisha b'Av? I know someone who spends most of The Nine Days trying to figure out what she can do on the day itself. Perhaps "This", or "That" useful, productive occupation. My response is that you're not permitted to do This or That because you are supposed to sit on the floor and cry because the Beis Hamikdash is in ruins. For most of us, though, that's a pretty difficult level to reach.

One year, I went to the Kotel on Tisha b'Av. After maariv and Eicha, a neighbour invited us to go up to up to Yerushalayim with his family, so we all piled into their station wagon and went. We had to park some distance away, but then we walked into the Old City to get as close as we could to that focal ruin. It must have been around one in the morning at this point. The crowds had gone home, but some people still lingered. I expected strong displays of emotion, crying and weeping. Visible sadness, at the very least. Instead it was almost a festive atmosphere. Some sat on the stone paving of the plaza and chatted. Others were still saying kinos. There was a sense of waiting for something, but no one was quite sure what. Standing at the Kotel, looking up at the place where the Temple ought to stand, I tried to feel something, but couldn't.

This year I was in a shtible in the provinces (i.e. outside London) on Tisha b'Av. In most places I've been, everyone just says the daytime kinos at his own pace, but there everyone takes turns leading a few kinos. I wasn't the only visitor. There was another fellow, and for whatever reason, he couldn't figure out the proposal when it was first explained. So he took his place on the other side of the room and started saying kinos by himself, while the rest of us started up the first round. And before long, we heard sobbing. Sobbing that went on for the better part of the several hours. Here was a person who was actually feeling something on Tisha b'Av! Now I am the sort of person who keeps his emotions under tight control, but I tried a little experiment after an hour or so of crying behind me. While continuing to say the current kina, I opened the gate I keep closed upon grief and allowed it out. I didn't quite cry, but the grief welled up for a while until I bottled it back up before it could overwhelm me. I think I'll let it out again next year though, if we're still here in exile. If we can stimulate simcha on Simchas Torah, surely a bit of stimulated mourning is also in order.

Signage

2006-08-18T11:42:00.000-04:00

A number of times while in the UK I passed by a building of the established faith which had the following sign out front:

This life is meant for caring.

And the next life, it's meant for casual indifference?

Defining "Planet" II

2006-08-18T10:27:00.000-04:00

Further to my previous post, here is an interesting article from the US Naval Observatory discussing the time when (1) Ceres was last a planet, and how it lost that status.

And this is a new technical paper (in PDF format) by Steven Soter at AMNH that discusses an alternative physically-motivated definition of planet. (The middle bit is somewhat technical, but Section 1 gives a good historical summary, and the rest can be skimmed with profit.) This is an eight-planet solution.

After a couple of day's reflection, I think that, if the proposed definition passes, and especially if the number of planets under this definition becomes unreasonable (e.g. 53 planets as claimed by Brown), then the end result will be the same as Soter's. As written, the proposal creates a primary distinction: classical planets (Mercury through Neptune) vs. plutons ( Pluto, Charon, 2003 UB₃₁₃, and probably more). All of the latter are also included in the category of dwarf planets, in addition to Ceres, and possibly 3 other asteroids. Now, when the number of plutons becomes excessive, and the category of dwarf planets overloaded, it will be convenient to forget that plutons are planets and both "pluton" and "dwarf planet" will take on the connotations now attached to the soon-to-be-discarded "minor planet". The upshot will be a sensible eight-planet solar system, but with time to soften the emotional blow a sudden, full-scale demotion of Pluto would entail.

Defining "Planet"

2006-08-16T00:20:00.000-04:00

The 26th Triennial General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union has opened in Prague, and the first press release deals with the proposed definition of the word planet. The Globe and Mail has a reasonably good popular level article. (CNN's is appallingly bad and manages to not only suggest that this is the only reason for having a GA, but also confuses the solar system with the galaxy. Of this sentence:

Far outside the realm of science, astrologers accustomed to making predictions based on the classic nine might have to tweak their formulas.

there is little that can be said.)

In short, the proposal is that planets are objects which orbit a star and are in hydrostatic equilibrium. (I.e. that the gravitational force inwards is balanced by pressure outwards. "Small Solar System Bodies", the excluded category, are supported by chemical and mechanical forces, i.e. the strength of their constituent rocks.)

The novelty is the distinction between the eight classical planets---Mercury through Neptune---and a new class called "plutons", which are planets in highly eccentric or inclined orbits. The prototype is Pluto, which, with its moon Charon, are to be considered a double planet. Newly discovered 2003 UB₃₁₃ would also be a pluton, with possibly many more waiting in the wings. The currently minor planet (a term to be deleted from the lexicon under the proposal) (1) Ceres would regain its planetary status. All of these would be called "dwarf planets". There are potentially another dozen dwarf planets (all but three plutons) waiting in the wings.

There will be several session to discuss the issue over the next two weeks, with a vote likely on 24 August.

Light Travelling

2006-08-15T15:38:00.000-04:00

What with the new travel restrictions, Shabbos we got into a discussion of the practicalities of travelling without cabin baggage, especially on long flights. At that point it wasn't clear that the no-baggage requirement only held on the UK to US flights. So what, we wondered, would a person do if he were flying to, say, Australia? It's a 20-hour flight from the UK, you'll have to daven shacharis at least once, usually twice, along the way, not to mention mincha and maariv. So you'd better have the siddur memorized, because you can't take it on the plane. That's possible, but memorization isn't going to help you with tefillin. Skipping the mitzvah would be a victory to the Islamists, so what to do?

Option 1: Somebody, Chabad say, puts a carefully tested pair of tefillin on every plane. Just in case. Be generous, Rashi and Rabbenu Tam. Also a set of straps for lefties. Some siddurim too, of various nusachs.

Option 2: On Shabbos you could wear tefillin in the street because they are a garment. So the solution is to wear your tefillin onto the plane. We should resurrect the custom of wearing them constantly. Tallis too. Then they become recognized religious garb and we can't be prevented from bringing them wherever we want to.

Books are also banned, unless they're purchased on the other side of security. So we need to get all the airport bookshops to sell small siddurim, tehillim etc. along with all the newspapers and other travel necessities.

Option 3: The authorities finally get their act together and recognize who the real threat is. Just a clue: It isn't observant Jews, certainly not those travelling with a bunch of children. We aren't the ones liable to impregnate a holy book with explosives. So ban the exploding Koran's, not the Chumashim.

The future of travel

2006-08-15T12:16:00.000-04:00

My recent trip back from the UK (see the post below) had me musing on where this will all end up. We're now at the stage of no hand luggage and obligatory shoe checks. Perhaps the next plot will involve some other garment of clothing. So, on arrival at security, we'll be asked to take off all our clothes and wear a government supplied garment for the trip. When I mentioned this to my wife, she added that it had better be tnius (modest) or she wasn't going to fly. So then it hit me. The ultimate point of this Islamist plot. A chador for everyone!

Travelling light

2006-08-15T11:39:00.000-04:00

As you are probably aware, terrorists in the UK have been plotting to blow up many US-bound airliners using liquid explosives. Consequently, security has been greatly tightened on all flights out of the UK, but especially those destined for the United States. All liquids, lotions, gels, creams etc. are now banned from cabin baggage. The only exception is baby food and formula, which you'll probably have to taste to prove they're edible. I saw a notice to this affect at the US airport I arrived at, so it appears to be a new universal rule.

For the US flights out of the UK, however, no hand baggage at all is allowed. The only exception here is one clear plastic bag with your travel documents, wallet, and keys, as well as the minimum quantity of prescription medicine (non-liquid) and hygiene items needed for the trip. That's it. No exceptions. You could buy non-liquids after passing through security and get them on the plane, provided you had the receipt. So, everyone in the waiting area was on page one of their book.

Now as someone travelling with N>>1 children, and used to shlepping several heavy bags containing: tallis & tefillin, laptop computer, cameras, food for the trip, entertainment for the children, changes of clothing for the little ones, this was a little daunting. But, like the restrictions imposed by keeping Torah, it was actually quite liberating and enlightening.

For one thing, there was little chance we'd forget anything on the plane. Disembarkation was faster since there was nothing for anyone else to pick up either. And it was great for working on your bitachon (trust in G-d). Would the airplane have kosher meals on board? Would your stuff survive the trip in the hold? Would the children drive you crazy? Or even sit in their seats without bribes?

For us it worked out just fine, but I can imagine any series of possible disasters, especially if we'd had to make a connecting flight. Still, I'll have to give some serious thought to how much to take on board next time.

Return from the mysterious east

2006-08-15T11:25:00.000-04:00

The absence of postings over the past three weeks has not been due to a lack of material, but more a lack of easy internet access while travelling abroad. We've been visiting various places located between 52 and 53 degrees North latitude and 1 degree East and 5 degrees West longitude and I have several new observations to post. I'll try and dole these out over the next few days as I get back into a more routine schedule.

Breakfast at The Observer's

2006-07-21T15:16:00.000-04:00

My young son insists that I prepare his breakfast in the morning, since only I know exactly how much milk to add to his Rice Crispies. And how to mix them properly. So I asked him the other day what he was going to do when he got to yeshivah and I wouldn't be there to make him breakfast.

"I won't eat", he replied.

That is one stubborn customer.

Watching the war

2006-07-20T15:17:00.000-04:00

I don't know whether I'm going to be commenting much on the war Israel finds itself in, but I can't let it go any longer without at least acknowledging it. I've been following events from The Muqata and Israellycool, both of whom are live blogging the war. They deserve our gratitude for their dedication to informing us out here. Let's hope and pray that they don't need to do this much longer.

The Glorious 17th

2006-07-10T13:14:00.000-04:00

For what it's worth, the 230^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is this Thursday, on the Jewish calendar anyway. Mind you, that's the same day Moses came down from Mt. Sinai with the first set of tablets and got slightly upset with what had been going on in his absence. Make of it what you will.

Encounter on a Bus

2006-07-07T15:21:00.000-04:00

Apropos of parshas Balak, I discovered today that while prophecy may have ceased amongst the Jews, it is apparently still extant among the non-Jews.

When I got on the bus this morning, I should have realized something was going on. The woman in front in the black bowler and yellow tee-shirt with the hand-written slogan "Jesus was such a nice Jewish boy" should have been a dead give-away. But I moved on to the back of the bus, as is my habit, and sat down at one end of one of the long lengthwise benches and pulled out my pocket Tehillim (Psalms) to say some on the ride into town.

Before long I've been poked on my arm. The nicely dressed woman at the other end of the bench has a question for me.

"Is that Hebrew?", she asks, pointing at the Tehillim.

"Yes", I reply.

"Are you Jewish?"

"Yes."

"Jesus Christ was Jewish," she informs me.

"Um," I respond politely.

A half-page later I get to hear the prophecy.

"You know what God told me at 8:30 this morning?"

"No."

"He said Jesus Christ is back, somewhere in the Middle East."

Mind you, he doesn't seem to brief them very well.

"What's that your reading?" she asks, a page or so later.

"Psalms", I reply.

"Is it true the Bible was originally written in Hebrew and Arabic?"

"Just Hebrew," I reply.

"Not Hebrew and Arabic?" she persists. It's possible she's gotten Arabic and Aramaic mixed up, but, for the sake of a few passages here and there, I'm not going to go into it.

"No, just Hebrew."

After another chapter, she informs me, "I like Jewish people. My husband was Jewish. He was so delicious." I don't think she meant that literally.

Virtual Blogging

2006-07-06T14:06:00.000-04:00

Over the past two months of silence, I've written several fascinating posts. Well, I thought they were anyway. The problem is that they never got passed down my fingers into actual text, having remained at the more rarified level of my thoughts. And, having thought about them long enough, I got them out of my system with nary a trace left behind. Brilliant turns of phrase, cogent arguments, revealing anecdotes, not even lost to the bit bucket, but just words that never made it outside my head. Which is fine for me, but what good is it to you, my ten loyal visitors? So let me try and resurrect one or two of those posts, or download to my fingers something else new. Especially for those of you taking a break on your way to Arcturus. Mind you, there's lots of old stuff to look at while you're waiting, most of which doesn't even have Hebrew in it.

Going from Here to There

2006-07-05T15:55:00.000-04:00

Google won't let you do it, but ask.com will. It's an 18 hour drive, although it takes a bit of time to figure it out. I couldn't get it to give me walking directions, though.

(N.B. The result is browser dependant. It'll work under Firefox, but not with Safari 1.3. Leave a comment if you like on which browsers it works with.)

Beggars I've Met

2006-05-04T16:08:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I met the Basilisk. His name, he said, was Robert, as he stood under his battered umbrella, smelling of alcohol, looking for money.

Heresville-7 has its share of people with their hands out, some more enterprising than others, and, perhaps it's the hat, or my open and accommodating face, but I seem to attract them. Or perhaps they just hit on everyone, and I'm just an easy mark. It's hard to tell, but I was the only one on that block that the Basilisk came up to, before or after. Not that I always give them anything, but I'm a sucker for a good story. On my walk from my office to the bus stop, a journey of some ten minutes or so, I pass through some of their favourite spots to linger. Some I have to deal with on a daily basis. Other only on occasion.

There was, for example, the Poet. A young woman, looking for a few dollars to pay for a night's stay in the homeless shelter. Trying to stay away from the police who were looking for an excuse to harass her. The first time I encountered her, I declined to give her anything. So she cursed me for being a stingy Jew, and, hurt, embarrassed, and angry, I continued along my way. The next day, I met her again. I tried to avoid her, but she crossed the road to approach me, and offered a fulsome apology for her behaviour of the day before. This I accepted and she proceeded to tell me something of herself. She fancied herself a poet, and offered to share some of her poetry with me. So, we walked along together. She recited some of her poems, and I gave her some cash for the apology and for the poetry. Over the next few months our paths would cross from time to time and we'd exchange poetry for eating money. I don't remember a word, and I'm no judge of poetry, but to my ear her poems had a tone of realism and optimism. I've not seen her is some time now. I hope things are well with her.

Perhaps I'll write another time about the Flower Lady and the Can Man, but I want to capture the Basilisk while he's fresh in my memory. I was waiting at the bus stop, standing under the shelter in the rain when he came over to me. About my height, shiny studs in his ear, short hair tightly braided in the back. His voice was low; his diction less than clear. He stared me in the eye, put out his hand to shake, and struck up a conversation. Or more of a monologue, as his eyes had me captured, unable to speak, unable to turn away.

"I won't lie to you, or tell you a story," he said. "I've done things that are wrong. Now I'm just looking for a few dollars to stay over the night and stay away from the police. When I could, I always helped people out. If they asked me, I gave them what I could. I helped them out." So I reached into my pocket hoping to find a single in there, but out came a fiver. Were his eyes more intense? He could see my discomfort and offered to give me change. So I asked him for three dollars back. He came up with one and I took it, unable to insist, unwilling to appear cheap, bound by his eyes which never left mine.

Now he offered his fist, which I matched with mine for a light tap. He asked my name. Which I offered. He asked where I was going on the bus, and why, and after I answered asked me, "What's my name?"

"Robert," I replied. Which pleased him, and, after another handshake, and a reminder that he had helped others in the past, he let me go and proceeded along the street, leaving me with the impression that I've not seen the last of him.

Lost in Translation

2006-03-29T16:26:00.000-05:00

I've written before about the problem of science journalism from the scientist's perspective. Here's a report on a physics colloquium at USC on the same topic, but from the journalist's perspective.

One interesting point is that the news media require an article to be "news" and science just isn't about making news in general. Almost any study builds upon earlier work, and new results are incremental. But a newspaper article needs a flashy headline and lede, so every study is a breakthrough. Worse, the publication of some study today doesn't mean that anything in particular happened on 27 March 2006. The research was completed months ago, and possibly took years to do. But the newspaper article has to take the perspective that something happened, which distorts the whole thing. Until the editors can get their heads around this distinction, science journalism will continue to be insipid.

Astronomy illuminates the glory of God

2006-03-22T14:35:00.000-05:00

And here's a view of what we should be doing experiments on and why. (Also, you get lots of nifty pictures.)

Experiments on Prayer

2006-03-22T14:25:00.000-05:00

There have been a number of published experiments testing the proposition that prayer aids sick people. Early ones claimed to see an effect, but later ones claimed no such effect leading to arguments and polemic. It seems to me, however, that from a Jewish perspective, such experiments are doomed to failure for their premise is faulty.

These experiments generally work as follows. The experimenter takes a sample of ill people and divides them into two groups. One has people praying for them, the other does not. The experimenter then looks at the survival rate of the two groups. Should it be the same, it is claimed that there is no effect. Should the group being prayed for do better, it is claimed that prayer is efficacious. I suppose that should the control group do better, it would be claimed that prayer is dangerous and should be stopped immediately. Whatever the outcome, the conclusion is founded on the assumption that the two groups are equivalent, and that any statistical difference in their outcome is a result of being prayed for.

Leave aside the twiddles and flourishes and the details of the experimental protocol. Never mind whether it matters that Jews are praying for Christians, or vice versa, or whether athiests or agnostics should be included either as the ill or the prayers, or any other such details. The experiment is fundamentally flawed from the moment the ill people are divided into groups. In the interests of not biasing his results, the experimenter uses some "random" method to divide the patients into groups. Perhaps he pulls names from a hat, or balls from a lottery machine. Or, more likely, a computer is involved. Whatever the case, the intent is that the two groups be completely equivalent so that the result can be attributed, or not, to the effects of the prayers.

But, remember, the very premise of the experiment is that there possibly exists something, call it "God" for convenience, who can be influenced by "prayer" to change the outcome for the sick person. What is the nature of this "God"? I don't know what the experimenters were thinking, but the G-d that Jews know of is omnipotent, omniscient, and ever present; directly involved in the day to day running of the world. So, when the experimenter "randomly" divided up his patients, was it not G-d who actually determined which group they would go into? And was it not already known before Him how long each would live, and what the effects of the prayers would be? So, then, was it not the case that the results of these experiments would be exactly, precisely, what G-d wanted them to be, whether positive, negative, or ambiguous? Perhaps there ought to be a theologian on the granting panel next time someone proposes to run experiments on G-d.

Customs of the day

2006-03-15T10:54:00.000-05:00

15 Adar

On the day after Purim it is the custom to wear leather shoes buffed to a high gloss. If possible, one should travel to a railway station or airport to have the polishing done by a craftsman, who should be paid with an open hand. One who uses a machine, or does it himself, also fulfills the custom. One should also listen to shiny shoe music. In view of these customs, the day is known as Shoe Shine Purim.

The Number of Stars in the Universe

2006-03-10T14:45:00.000-05:00

A reader asks

What can you tell me about chazal's take on the number of stars and what modern science says today and are the numbers the same and whether you feel that this is a proof of torah shbaal peh?

The relevant text is Gamara Brachos 32b:

אמר לה הקב"ה בתי י"ב מזלות בראתי ברקיע ועל כל מזל ומזל בראתי לו שלשים חיל ועל כל חיל וחיל בראתי לו שלשים לגיון ועל כל לגיון ולגיון בראתי לו שלשים רהטון ועל כל רהטון ורהטון בראתי לו שלשים קרטון ועל כל קרטון וקרטון בראתי לו שלשים גסטרא ועל כל גסטרא וגסטרא תליתי בו שלש מאות וששים וחמשה אלפי רבוא כוכבים כנגד ימות החמה

where Reish Lakish quotes Hashem as saying he created 12 constellations, for each constellation 30 chiel, for each chiel, 30 ligyon, for each ligyon, 30 rehaton, for each rehaton, 30 karton, for each karton, 30 gistera, and for each gistera, 365 thousand myriad stars. Multiply it out and you've got 12 x 30⁵ x 365 x 1,000 x 10,000 or about 10¹⁸ stars. An impressively large number, indeed.

So what does "science" have to say about this question? In context, we must be asking how many stars are there in the observable universe. This, at least, is finite, since the further away we look the further back in time we look and the universe has a finite age according to current understanding. Stars are found in galaxies, so, to estimate the number of stars in the universe we need to worry about three factors: The typical number of stars in a typical galaxy, the number of such galaxies in a typical volume of space (the galaxy density), and the total volume containing galaxies.

The most recent such estimate for the number of visible stars in the universe is that of Prof. Simon Driver, presented at the 2003 General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union. He comes up with 7 x 10²² stars. And this is probably a lower limit since he's only counting stars within the reach of his telescope.

Well, he doesn't really count the stars. What he's done is count the number of galaxies within a (relatively large) strip of sky and estimated how many stars are in those galaxies from their brightnesses. Then he's multiplied that number by the total number of such strips needed to cover the whole sky. Or at least that's what I assume he's done based on the article. Nothing has been published regarding the calculation.

My correspondent quotes some old mail-Jewish discussions on the subject.

The number itself is amazing (10^18). This is (cosmically speaking) pretty darn close to the current estimate of 10^22.

gemara (Brachot 32b) _does_ count the number of stars in the sky, or at least calculates the number, and comes up with 12*(30^5)*364*(10^7) = 1.0512 * 10^18. On a logarithmic scale, this is surprisingly close to the best modern astronomical estimate, which is about 10^21.

How accurate is Prof. Driver's number? Without knowing how he does it, I couldn't say. Given the sort of assumptions he's likely making I would be surprised if he's off by more than a factor of 100 or so in either direction, though. Which is important, because his number is 70,000 times larger than that of R"L. Those who would like to claim that the two numbers are equivalent are guilt of innumeracy. Just because two numbers are large, doesn't mean that they are the same, and a factor of 70,000 is far too large to brush under the table. Let me illustrate what this factor means. Pick a stretch 6 km long on your favourite highway. The Moon is 70,000 times further away. Can you actually claim that bit of highway is as far as the Moon?

Some attempts to deal with the numbers:

What I cannot figure out is which assumptions the astronomers are making that could be tweaked in order to make the numbers match better. The simplest would be to lower the number of stars in an average galaxy to 10^4. But that seems awfully small. Any thoughts?

By the way the wording of the passage is curious Reish Lakish doesn't have the vocabulary to state such a big number so he talks in terms of what we would call galaxies and galactic clusters.

Avg galaxy ("gastara") = about 4x10^9 stars
Avg local cluster ("karton") = 30 galaxies
Avg supercluster ("rahaton") = 30 clusters

It goes on to say that superclusters are grouped into clusters of about 30 (megasuperclusters?) and that these are in turn grouped into an even bigger pattern of about 30 (hypermegasuperclusters?) of which the universe has a total of (about) 365.

Moreover from my amateurish research it seems that one of the prevailing theories of cosmic structure is that it is fractal and is not the calculation of Berachot 32a an example of fractal structure (4billionx30x30x30x30x360)?

Is this a "proof" of Torah sh'bal-peh? I wouldn't say so, and I think it a mistake to argue so. From one perspective, R"L would need another three layers of factors of 30 to be in the same ballpark, but his way of calculating the number of stars has nothing to do with the way they are really distributed in the universe. All those groups of 30s correspond to nothing observed, and resorting to "fractal geometry" and "hypermegasuperclusters" doesn't make it any better.

From another perspective, who is to say that the Prof. Diver's number is correct? Let any of his assumptions be wrong, and that number could increase, or decrease, possibly significantly. I think it presumptuous to assume that as of today science has "the correct answer" which can be used to validate Torah.

Besides, the whole argument misses, I think, the point of that gemara. The context is that Knesset Israel is complaining to HaKodsh Baruch Hu (i.e. G-d) that she has been forgotten by him. R"L has Hashem answer that he's created an incredibly unimaginable number of stars, every last one of which are for the sake of the Jewish people; how can she say he's forsaken her? In that context, is the number really intended to be precise? One can read it, instead, as a deliberate hyperbole, with no intention that the actual number be taken seriously. What is much more interesting, perhaps, is that R"L is willing to suggest that there are vastly more stars than those that are visible to the naked eye. If you want to hang something on this gemara, I think that that is a somewhat more fruitful direction than innumerate and presumptuous comparisons of very large numbers of dubious precision.

The rain in Spain ...

2006-02-22T12:22:00.000-05:00

was mainly less than 2 inches, although 3.30 inches fell in the plain at Cordoba.
[From the Tropical Cyclone Report on Hurrican Vince, the first recorded tropical cyclone to hit Iberia]

Cliffhangers

2006-02-09T17:00:00.000-05:00

You've got to hand it to the Rabbis who divided up the Torah into weekly portions and the portions into aliyot. They really understood dramatic tension; how to keep the customers coming back for more. The classic example is the end of Mikeitz, where Yoseph sends his brothers back home without Binyamin. Cue ominous music. Roll closing credits. Make sure to tune in next week! But, really, for most of the first season-and-a-half ("Beginnings" and "Names"), there's hardly an episode that doesn't end without some dramatic tension or foreshadowing.

Take the second season so far:

Episode 1: Names
Moshe, having seen his first attempt to extract his people from slavery, only to have things go from bad worse, complains to G-d that this wasn't what he signed up for. G-d responds: Just watch me!

Episode 2: Revelation
Despite being wacked with seven horrible plagues, Paro appears to finally relent and agree to let the people go. But, once the hail ends, he hardens his heart again, just as G-d said he would.

Episode 3: Come to Paro
The Jews finally leave Egypt. Moshe gives them some new mitzvahs to keep. Ends on a high note giving closure to this part of the arc.

Episode 4: After Paro Sent Them
Here's an ominous title. This episode finally finishes off the Egyptian part of the story. It ends with a big battle scene and G-d's promise of perpetual war with Amalek.

Coming next week:
Episode 5: The Father-in-Law's Visit

There's a lot less dramatic tension from here on in though, especially in Season 3 ("Calling"). And Season 5 ("Words") is really a beautiful set of speeches that perhaps lose something from being chopped up. But that, perhaps, is a reason for the custom to read the whole thing together on Hoshanah Rabbah night. Nonetheless, would a "Viewer's Guide" not be in order?

Terrorist Booking Agency

2006-02-02T17:05:00.000-05:00

Mark Steyn has a review up for Speilberg's latest movie Munich. Comparing the movie to its source he writes

...there’s a short almost parenthetical paragraph in Jonas’s book about the Israeli team arriving in Athens ‘to find the safe house in which they spent that first night filled with Arab terrorists’. In the print version, it’s a booking screw-up which the Israelis turn to their advantage by passing themselves off as Red Army Faction...

So, somewhere there is a travel agency that caters just to terrorists. Call it "Terrorist and Nationalist Travel", or "Bookings On Overseas Missions", or something. Perhaps they even have their own website these days. A sort of terrorist expedia. Let's give them a call and see what services they provide.

Good afternoon, BOOM Travel, how may I help you?

Safe houses? Certainly sir. We have Europe's finest collection of safe houses. We have locations in all the biggest cities. Most at very inconvenient locations for the locals.

Yes, we can arrange for very discreet airport pickup and transportation to the safe house. Will your party all be arriving together?

Separately. Of course, I fully understand. That is not a problem. Just let us know when they'll be arriving and we'll have unremarkable cars and drivers on hand. Are you planning on aquiring weapons locally, or smuggling them in? We can put you in touch with local providers if that would be of assistance.

Yes, we can provide maps and other information. Were you planning on a military or civilian target?

No, we can provide information for both. Price will depend on the target, of course. Now, will you be requiring a translater?

No, that's fine. Take your time to decide on your operational details. Please do try and call well ahead though. If you are planning an operation in peak season, you'd better book well ahead, as our safe houses may be full.

Well, thank you for calling. Just let us know if we can be of further assistance.

Elections

2006-01-28T23:23:00.000-05:00

I've refrained from posting about the election campaigns that concluded this week, but I do want to make one point. Anyone who thinks that Hamas's victory was about removing a corrupt regime is guilty of confusing the Palestinian election with the Canadian.

Hubble Season

2006-01-19T12:05:00.000-05:00

Just in case anyone is wondering if I fell off the Earth at perihelion, there is a good reason why blogging is even lighter than usual at the moment. It is the time of year when observational astronomers indulge in the annual ritual called HST Proposal. This is when we put aside all other work, or as much as possible, to come up with really good ideas to convice the Time Allocation Committees to give to our wonderful selves some of that rare and precious Hubble Space Telescope time. Competition is fierce for there are seven astronomers vying for every available HST orbit. (HST time is measured in orbits of the telescope about the Earth. Each one represents about 40 minutes or so of observing opportunity. The other half of the orbit, the Earth is usually blocking the target.) I'll have to explain another time (bli neder) why this is really important just now, but I've got to get back to work. Deadline is Jan 27th, so I should reappear after that.

Perihelion

2006-01-04T12:50:00.000-05:00

Today the Sun and Earth are as close to each other as they ever get. Come 3 July they'll be as far apart as they get, i.e aphelion. Unlike the solstices and equinoxes, these events have no significance for the Jewish calendar. Nor do they take a stance on the centrism question. Further, we can clearly see that it is not now winter in the Northern Hemisphere because the Sun is further away.

But there is one practical effect of perihelion, for although the shortest northern day was back at the time of the winter solstice, at mid-northern latitudes this is the time of year with the latest sunrise. Call it vasikan season, when, if you are in the right place, even if you sleep in, you can still daven shacharis in the best manner, with Shema just before sunrise and Tefillah at sunrise.

Yehudah's Precocious Progeny

2005-12-26T11:50:00.000-05:00

According to the simple reading, the story of Yehudah and Tamar takes place after Yoseph is sold down the river. Twenty-two years later, the Bnei Israel follow him down to Egypt. In those twenty-two years, the following events take place, more or less sequentially.

1. Yehudah marries Bat-Shua.
2. She bears three sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah.
3. Er grows up and marries Tamar.
4. Er dies.
5. Onan marries Tamar, and dies.
6. Some time passes while Tamar waits for Shelah to grow up. Meanwhile, Bat-Shua dies and Yehudah is consoled.
7. Eventually Tamar realizes that, while Shelah is now old enough to marry her, Yehudah has no intention of giving him to her, or vice versa. So, she arranges to "meet" Yehudah at the crossroad.
8. Peretz and Zerach are born 7 months later.
9. Peretz grows up.
10. Peretz fathers Hezron and Hamul.
11. They all go to Egypt.

The chronology here is difficult. In a period of 22 years, there has to be time for two generations (Er/Onan/Shelah and Peretz) to grow to marriageable age and father children. At maximum, they could be 11, but they must have been younger than this.

Lets be as generous as possible. Assume all pregnancies last seven months and Bat-Shua becomes pregnant again immediately after giving birth. Then there are two years for step 2. We know Peretz and Zerach are premature, and lets assume Hezron and Hamul were also, and twins to boot, so this is another ~14 months. Now assume the "many days" in Bereishit 38:12 is another year, so there are 18 years available for both Shelah and Peretz to grow up. Split it between them and they are, at most, 9 years old. Let Shelah be a more reasonable 13, and Peretz was 5 when he went down to Egypt with his two sons.

Lets look at this from another angle. How old were Er and Onan when they were punished by Hashem? According to the reasoning above they couldn't have been older than Shelah. But, according to Rashi at the beginning of Chayei Sarah, one is not liable to punishment until the age of twenty! So, 14 months for Er and Onan to be born, 20 years for Onan to be liable to punishment, 7 months for Peretz to be born, and the 22 years are used up before Peretz is out of diapers.

So, ignore the simple meaning of 38:1, and perhaps Yehudah got married before Yoseph was sold. At that time Yehudah was about 21. (He's Leah's fourth son, and Yoseph was born 7 years after his parent married, so Yehudah can't be more than about 4 years older.) They'd been back in Canaan for 11 years at this point (17 years less the 6 years Jacob worked for the sheep). Now Yehudah was 10 when they left Lavan, so give him a couple of years to grow up and marry and we have still have Peretz fathering children at 9 or younger.

If we put aside that Rashi, and assume marriages and punishment at 13, and premature babies, then I think things can be squeezed into the 33 years:

Yehudah to reach 13 and marry: 3 years
Three sons born: 2 years
Shelah to grow up: 13 years
Tamar denied Shelah: 1 year
Tamar's pregnancy: 7 months
Peretz to grow: 13 years
Fathers premature twins: 7 months
Total: 33 years, 2 months

but it remains difficult. And, anyway, how would Rashi reconcile it?

פך שמן (A jar of oil)

2005-12-20T17:00:00.000-05:00

"So", I was asked in shul the other day, "just how big is a cruse?"

We all know that the Maccabees found one jar of undefiled menorah oil when they searched the Temple. It was just enough for one day, but it miraculously lasted for eight. I always envisioned it was some tiny bottle, misplaced in the rubble, but was that the case? The answer appears to be given in Mishnah Menachot 9:3. (Also in the Bavli, appropriately on דף פח (yes, I know the spelling is פך (and, oddly, there it is the 3rd Mishnah in Chapter 10. But I digress. Deeply.))):

ושלושה ומחצה למנורה, מחצי לוג לכל נר

So, three-and-a-half log was the daily quantity for the menorah. A log is roughly a pint, so that "little" jar was just under two quarts (or liters). Now this was presumably a tightly sealed earthenware jar, so what we have here is the earthenware equivalent of a two-liter pop bottle. Not so little, after all.

Hashem echath

2005-12-11T01:30:00.000-05:00

This evening I was discussing with some others the halacha regarding keriah shema that one is to ensure that the final dalet in "echad" is not pronounced as a "reish". One way to look at this is just as an orthographic caution lest the similarity between the two letters lead one to proclaim "Hashem acher" (Hashem is other) rather than one.

But I got to speculating about another interpretation of this law, especially in conjunction with the adjacent halachah that one is to draw out the dalet even longer than the preceeding chet. On the face of it, this seems strange. To draw out a fricative like a chet is easy, but how do you draw out a stop like a dalet? Further, we are warned not to pronounce it like a dalet with a dagesh.

So, as I said, I got to wondering. Is it possible that in ancient Hebrew an undageshed dalet was a fricative in the same way as beis-veis, pay-fay, kaf-chaf, and tav-sav? If so, then presumably it was a voiced dental fricative, perhaps /th/ as in "then". In such case, the tongue placement isn't so far off that of reish, and it might actually have been a practical mistake in pronunciation they were warning against, not just orthographic confusion. Similarly, the warning against pronouncing it with a dagesh makes more sense.

There is probably nothing new in this suggestion. After all, dalet is one of the six בגדכפ״ת letters, of which four still have the stop/fricative variants indicated by a dagesh. If gimmel and dalet were once similar, then we have three voiced/unvoiced pairs of such letters: the labials beis and pay, the dentals dalet and tav, and the gutterals gimmel and kaf.

Opposite perspectives

2005-12-05T16:42:00.000-05:00

What does it say about the difference between frum American Jews and Israelis that the former use tissues for toilet paper, and the latter use toilet paper for tissues?

Seasonal Notice

2005-11-29T15:00:00.000-05:00

So, it is The Season once again. Yes, that time of year when long-suffering non-Jews bend over backwards to be as inclusive as possible while celebrating their Holiday. So important is it, that they cannot bear to think that there are those of us who simply don't care what they are doing in late December. The Boston Holiday Tree is typical. The Season used to bother me, until I spent a couple of fin Decembers in Eretz Yisrael. Now I find it to be just so much background noise.

The flyer for the department's annual "Holiday Party" appeared in my mailbox last week, RSVP requested. So I informed the department secretary that, once again, I won't be attending their Christmas Party. But if they were really sincere in their quest for inclusiveness, they wouldn't be holding it on a Friday evening.

Then there was the kindly British Professor who made it his business to see that all the foreign members of the department had somewhere to go for Christmas Dinner. He invited me. I declined. He invited the Israeli post doc. He also declined, and added, for good measure, that he'd be coming into work that day.
"But, but," protested the Prof, "What about your wife?"
Responded the puzzled Sabra, "She'll be at home."
"At home!?", inquired the aghast Professor.
"Well that's where she generally is when I go to work."

Do they get overtime if the hurricane season goes into December?

2005-11-29T14:36:00.000-05:00

THE LARGE NON-TROPICAL LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM LOCATED ABOUT 730 NMI EAST OF BERMUDA HAS ACQUIRED ENOUGH CONVECTION NEAR THE CENTER TO BE CLASSIFIED AS TROPICAL STORM EPSILON...THE 26TH NAMED STORM OF THE APPARENTLY NEVER ENDING 2005 ATLANTIC HURRICANE SEASON.

The Incredible Jerusalem Compass

2005-11-29T12:15:00.000-05:00

An advertisement for this device just came across my desk. It is for a patented, non-electronic, compass that is guaranteed to point towards Jerusalem. Indeed, according to Rav Moshe Halbershtam, "It is a fine device—mainly, that it points directly towards Eretz Yisroel, directly towards Jerusalem, directly towards the holy site of the Beis HaMikdash, directly towards the Holy of Holies—just as is taught in the Gemora."

So, until now facing in the general direction of Jerusalem has been good enough. Suddenly we need to face precisely? Is this a great circle route, or a straight line through the Earth? Will we need to reorient all our shuls? And, can you change the location it is pointing to? Does it do, say, Mecca?

UPDATE: I asked the advertiser about the claimed patents and they just directed me to the manufacturers website at koshercompass.com. There, we find, that there are only "international patents pending" and that it was invented by "Moshe" a "married student in one of Jerusalem's popular Yeshivahs". It is claimed to "defy the laws of nature". Too good to be true, I think. Anyway, anyone have $25 to blow on this and see if it really works? Additional finances for either extensive travel, or postage will be required for a full test.

FURTHER UPDATE: I have located what is apparently the patent application in question. The inventor is indeed Moshe, but he now apparently lives in New Jersey. It is listed as a "Novelty Item". As one of the anonymous commentators speculated, it is indeed a standard compass with the magnetized needle hidden and another, non-magnetized, needle suspended above it set to point east. At point 14 it points out that similar devices could be made for other locations ". For example, a compass indicating South can be marketed in Finland and Russia," etc. At point 16, it is designed to "appear to defy the laws of physics" by minimizing the space for the magnetized needle.

So, it will only work from one location. It does not point any more accurately to Jerusalem than any other compass. It just saves you having to turn 90 degrees. It is indeed incredible. Literally, too good to be true. Further commentary is left to the reader.

ANOTHER COMMENT: Correspondence seems to indicate that the advertised item moves beyond the linked patent application. Josh Waxman on parshablog has some related thoughts on how it might actually work, which also occurred to me. See my comment there for further thoughts.

Experts talking off the cuff

2005-11-23T15:35:00.000-05:00

No need to belabor the obvious on this

A leading constitutional expert says it has been more than a century since a federal government was defeated on a stand-alone non-confidence motion.

“It wouldn't have been in the 20th century – it would have to be before,” said Ned Franks, professor emeritus at Queen's University.[Globe and Mail]

but the closest was King's motion in 1926 that Meighen's governement was illegally constituted. Other than that, since confederation, no motion like this has ever been passed. (My earlier summary on the issue)

Manned spaceflight

2005-11-08T14:39:00.000-05:00

In this post I commented on the relative roles of men and robots in space exploration. The linked article emphasizes a point I make there in passing. What is needed is a change of focus from science to colonization. Then men win hands down.

Geocentrism is not geocentric(The Great Divide: Methodology)

2005-11-06T23:16:00.000-05:00

Back in March, when I last wrote on this subject we saw that the Pre-SR astronomers wanted to predict the positions of the planets in the sky. But how did they go about it? Post-SR astronomers do it by using the tools of calculus, i.e. they write down the appropriate differential equations, apply some initial conditions, and integrate the combined system. In practice, given the uncertainties inherent in observations, rather than only one initial position and velocity, a large number of past observed positions are used to constrain the solutions of those equations so that the error in their post-diction of those observations is the minimum possible. Then things are integrated forward to get predictions of future positions, in three dimensions. For the state of the art visit the Solar System Dynamics pages at JPL. The underlying assumptions are, for the most part, Newton's Three Laws of motion, and his Law of Gravitation---General Relativity is required for Mercury's orbit. Comets suffer from additional forces due to their losing mass---but the principle is the same: Sum up all the forces acting on a body and this is its acceleration. Integrate the acceleration to get the velocity, and the velocity to get the position.

Pre-SR astronomers worked from a different set of assumptions. In their view, the planets moved exclusively on circles which turned at constant angular rates. This restriction posed something of a difficulty since the observed planets don't move at constant rates in the sky. The superior planets (Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) even, at times near opposition, move backwards on the sky, which is hard to explain with constantly rotating circles. So, the Pre-SR astronomers had to employ a variety of schemes to get variable apparent motions from their constant true motions. Epicycles were small circles containing the planet and were carried around but the large circle. The large circles, deferents, themselves were placed off center (eccentric) with respect to the Earth so that their apparent motions would be faster when they were closer to the Earth and slower when they were more distant. This works even better when the planet moves at a constant speed not as seen from the center, but from the equant point placed symmetrically on the opposite side of the circle's centre from the Earth. This last device, however, represents a step away from a uniformly rotating circle and proved controversial for that reason.

What is striking about all this is just how non-geocentric this geocentric model really is. The Earth is contained within the region where the planet (including the Sun) travelled, but it is not at the centre of any of the circles of motion. In the case of the Sun, the centre of the deferent is offset by 1/24^th of its radius. Further, different eccentricities are needed for different planets, so the deferents don't have a common centre about a fictitious point, never mind the Earth. About the only thing that is geocentric is the spherical annulus containing all this apparatus. All planets have their closest and furthest points from the Earth (perigee and apogee). The apparatus for a planet necessarily lies between a pair geocentric spheres with the radii of perigee and apogee for that planet. The motion of the planet itself is not geocentric at all.

In this period all the calculations of planetary motion were expressed in terms of angles on circles of relative sizes, since no one knew how far away any of the planets were. There were some inaccurate estimates as to the relative distances of the Moon and Sun, but that was about as far as things went. Even the order of the planets was a matter of conjecture. Indeed, this subject was about the only thing Ptolemy didn't settle in the Almagest. He did produce an ordering in a later work called Planetary Hypotheses, but there wasn't any observational evidence to support it. (Quite frankly, the whole subject was of secondary importance since it had no practical affect on their objectives.) Once an order has been chosen, and on the assumption that the spherical annuli were tightly nested, the relative distances of the planets, and the stars, immediately follow. But these distances are entirely arbitrary. Consequently, anyone wanting to resurrect a geocentric model of this type has his work cut out for him.

NASA can send spacecraft around the solar system on a complicated trajectories shaped by passages by several other planets along the way. Ptolomaic astronomers would be entirely incapable of doing this successfully in the event they had been able to even conceive of it. Let the modern geocentric astronomer produce a physical model able to replicate this feat, and we'll have something to talk about.

Older than Methuselah

2005-10-31T14:01:00.000-05:00

Methuselah may have lived a long time, but there are hints in the Midrash that the longest lived human was someone else.

Rashi brings down the following three, apparently sequential, passages from Breishis Rabbah 23:3-5 in his comments to Breishis 4:22-25:

1. On 4:22 "Naama, she is the wife of Noah."
2. On 4:24 Seventy-Seven, the explanation of Lamech's speech to his wives that they had dissociated themselves from him once they had fulfilled the mitzvah of procreation because of the decree against the descendents of Cain after seven generations.
3. On 4:25 Adam knew etc., he explains that Lamech took his wives to Adam Harishon to decide the matter. Adam says to the wives that it is not up to them to make calculations about Hashem's decrees. They respond, well in that case, why have you separated from your wife? Immediately we have that Adam again knew his wife and Shes was born.

1. (Premise) On the basis of the sequence of verses and the midrash that Lamech's wives had had children, that these children were the ones listed in 4:21-22, including Naama, and that they were already born before the events leading to 4:24.
2. (Fact) Shes was born in 130.
3. (Inference) Naama was born before 130.
4. (Fact) Noah's children were born in or after 1556.
5. (Conclusion) Naama was at least 1,426 years old when she had children and lived at least another hundred years to board the ark.

Astronomical straight lines

2005-10-29T23:42:00.000-04:00

It's been kind of cloudy and rainy here of late, so the re-appearance of the Sun on Simchas Torah led to the following exchange:

Not-me: Hey, what's that bright thing in the sky?
Me: Looks like a G2 dwarf.

Another oldie but goodie:

Not-me: What's that stuff coming through the window?
Me: H-minus continuum, mostly.

Public Service Announcement

2005-10-29T23:07:00.000-04:00

I have been requested to make the following clarification regarding the available evidence for life anywhere in the universe beyond the Earth.

There isn't any. Not a scrap. Nothing credible at all.¹

And no, it isn't being kept secret somewhere. You couldn't keep news like that quiet for more than a few days.

You may now resume your idle theological arguments in that regard.

¹The only exception could be the claimed nanofossils in a meteorite from Mars found in Antarctica several years ago. This remains controversial, however.

The importance of making distinctions

2005-10-27T23:00:00.000-04:00

It is well known that the Snake gets Chavah (Eve) and Adam into trouble by playing on the inappropriate application of a gezerah (fence) around a mitzvah. Adam was commanded not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But Chavah tells the Snake that G-d had commanded them not to eat or touch The Tree on pain of death. So the Snake pushes her against the tree and, when she doesn't instantly drop dead, convinces her that eating the fruit is equally safe. At which point she gets Adam to eat too.

Now it is a known Rabbinic activity to enact precautionary prohibitions to keep us distant from sin. Many of the prohibited activities of Shabbos, for example, are of just this sort. Wasn't Adam doing exactly the same thing in adding the prohibition on touching the tree? But look again at what Chavah tells the Snake: "G-d said not to eat from or touch the tree." By attributing to G-d Adam's fence, Chavah is set up for trouble.

From this we learn that it is important to keep track of who prohibits what, and for what reason, lest a rabbinic instruction or a community standard be elevated to the level of a divine commandment, punishable by exclusion.

Reasons not to travel in a Chinese rocket

2005-10-14T13:40:00.000-04:00

It seems that the Chinese have launched their 2nd manned space mission. Based on the linked CNN report, I have my doubts about the viability of the program.

China's Shenzhou 6 briefly fired its rockets to adjust its orbit early Friday as the spacecraft began its third day of a mission meant to help prepare for the eventual launch of a Chinese space station.

The maneuver was carried out after the capsule was found to have been dragged closer to the Earth by gravity, said the Web site of the Communist Party newspaper People's Daily. It said the "maintenance operation" lasted a few seconds, and there was no indication the crew was in any danger.

Or as an earlier version had it,

Astronauts discovered the craft had "slightly deviated from its designed orbit" and was moving a little closer to the Earth due to gravity, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Either this is a bad translation, or the Chinese press needs to learn some orbital mechanics. Either the capsule was delivered to the wrong orbit, or atmospheric drag was the culprit for lowering it. Gravity is keeping it going around. Which reminds me of an error I saw in a children's science encyclopedia according to which gravity stops at the altitude where spacecraft orbit, which is why astronauts float around, and then resumes around the orbit of the Moon. Here they seem to be dipping in and out of the gravity zone.

The official Xinhua News Agency said a new road to the landing site in grasslands of the northern Inner Mongolia region opened Friday as the space program prepared for the capsule's return.

Whew! I'm glad they got that finished in time, although I imagine the astronauts would have been more comfortable to see this before they launched.

Recovery crews spent Thursday practicing rescue work, launching helicopters to the primary landing area in the Inner Mongolia region, Xinhua said.

After all, the road wasn't open yet.

Communist leaders hope the manned space program's triumphs will stir patriotic pride, shoring up their standing amid public anger at corruption and a growing gap between rich and poor.

Chinese space officials say they hope to land an unmanned probe on the Moon by 2010 and want to launch a space station.

but since

The Shenzhou -- or Divine Vessel -- capsule is a modified version of Russia's workhorse Soyuz. China also bought technology for space suits, life-support systems and other equipment from Moscow, though officials say all items launched into space are made in China.

I do wonder what Russian hardware they plan on modifying for this purpose.

Duchening

2005-10-06T17:02:00.000-04:00

This is one of those customs that just never seems to work for me.

Here we are, on one of the solemnest or most joyous days of the year. The Cohanim, heirs to the holiness of Aaron HaCohen, venture to the front of the shul to do their hereditary mitzvah and bless the congregation. Little children, down to babes in arm, crowd into the men's section, trying to find their fathers amongst the crowd of tallis wearing men. Your beloved children gather around you, and, with the conclusion of Modim, you extend your arms, lift the tallis, and protectively cover the wee ones as you listen to the ancient melody and holy blessing, mind filled with all the proper kevanahs. The children, down to the babe in arms, are still, quiet, nay, attentive, facing forward and answering "Amen" as appropriate.

Or, at least that's what's happening under everyone else's tallis.

Under mine, not a one of them is standing still. This one is sitting down. That one is pulling his sister's hair and she turns around to complain. The other one keeps ducking in and out, unable to keep still. The baby can't stand to be covered up under that stuffy wool blanket. I try to keep them covered, but they won't have it. All the movement is causing the tallis to fly all over the place, ending up heading to the floor as I grab it with the hand not holding the baby, as my yarmulke, pulled off by the tallis, heads down to the floor. The toddler has had enough, starts screaming, and heads out.

Ribbono shel Olam, forgive my unruly children. We need all the brochas we can get.

K'siva v'chasima tovah

2005-10-03T11:29:00.000-04:00

May you be inscribed and sealed for a good, healthy, sweet, & prosperous new year.

The Spongy Moon

2005-09-28T16:38:00.000-04:00

Cassini passed by SVII/Hyperion a couple of days ago at a distance of 1000 km and snapped the best pictures ever of the tumbling moon. It's a mess. Craters everywhere. Even on cliffs. But the surface must be pretty crumbly since many craters seem filled in, much like failed attempts at sand castles. There are lots more raw images at the raw images site. Just select Hyperion and browse away.

UPDATE: They've processed some of the data now and have released some new stuff both on SVII/Hyperion and SIII/Tethys. Don't miss the movie.

Long division

2005-09-28T10:06:00.000-04:00

Overheard while walking through campus:

I opened the book and the first problem was a long division. [chuckle] I didn't know what to do. I haven't done long division in 10 years. [ironic chuckle]

10 years? Must be a grad student.

Science Journalism: A Case Study

2005-09-27T17:20:00.000-04:00

Jay Manifold points to an important article on why science journalism is so bad. Go read it. Then come back here for a not untypical case study.

Done?

O.K.

This started out last Shabbos evening when I was stopped in shul by someone who wanted my response to an item he'd heard from Rush Limbaugh. Apparently some "Swiss and German" scientists had discovered that the Sun was currently "hotter than it had been for a thousand years", with the implication that this was what was causing global warming. Now I'd not heard anything about this remarkable study, and my informant was unable to to give me any more details. Some things rang false about it though. First, the sun's temperature isn't the issue, what is important is the total energy output of the Sun, its luminosity, or brightness. Second, how could they possibly know what the temperature, or luminosity of the Sun was, a thousand years ago? Third, even if they did, how big an effect did they actually measure?

A quick Google search led to this Telegraph article from July 2004 with the following lede:

Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research.

So, we have a year old study, and the issue is "brightness" as expected.

A study by Swiss and German scientists suggests that increasing radiation from the sun is responsible for recent global climate changes.

Here are the Swiss and Germans.

Dr Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research, said: "The Sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures.

60 years, not 1000.

"The Sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively recently - in the last 100 to 150 years."

Or maybe a few hundred.

Dr Solanki said that the brighter Sun and higher levels of "greenhouse gases", such as carbon dioxide, both contributed to the change in the Earth's temperature but it was impossible to say which had the greater impact.

So maybe it is something down here after all.

There then follows some boilerplate on Kyoto et al. followed by some actual information on what Dr. Solanki actually studied.

To determine the Sun's role in global warming, Dr Solanki's research team measured magnetic zones on the Sun's surface known as sunspots, which are believed to intensify the Sun's energy output.

The team studied sunspot data going back several hundred years. They found that a dearth of sunspots signalled a cold period - which could last up to 50 years - but that over the past century their numbers had increased as the Earth's climate grew steadily warmer. The scientists also compared data from ice samples collected during an expedition to Greenland in 1991. The most recent samples contained the lowest recorded levels of beryllium 10 for more than 1,000 years. Beryllium 10 is a particle created by cosmic rays that decreases in the Earth's atmosphere as the magnetic energy from the Sun increases. Scientists can currently trace beryllium 10 levels back 1,150 years.

And here we have the thousand year number.

Note the following about the described study:
a) The luminosity of the Sun is measured with two proxies: sunspots and beryllium 10.
b) The "dearth of sunspots" and "cold period" refer to the Maunder minimum, which corresponded with the period known as the "Little Ice Age". This occurance is the main data point supporting a connection between sunspots, solar luminosity, and terrestrial climate.
c) While the sunspot proxy isn't too bad an indicator of solar luminosity, the beryllium 10 measurement is actually a proxy for the sunspot number, so you have two sets of uncertainties to get through before you can draw a causal connection.

The article then goes on to discuss just how much this effect would affect global temperature, but never states how big an effect there was.

So, armed with the author's name, I tracked down the original research on the Astrophysics Data System and found two papers, one in Solar Physics and one in Nature. (Alternate link) It is the latter paper that appears to be the source of the Telegraph article, although it wasn't published until 28 October 2004, having been submitted 20 Feb 2004 and accepted 1 Sept. 2004. So, presumably, it was really a press release of some sort. (Odd though. Nature really frowns on any advance publicity for papers submitted there. Indeed, there is a press release, but it is dated 28 October 2004, as it ought to be.)

I won't go into all the details of the study, except to note the last sentence of the Nature abstract

Although the rarity of the current episode of high average sunspot numbers may indicate that the Sun has contributed to the unusual climate change during the twentieth century, we point out that solar variability is unlikely to have been the dominant cause of the strong warming during the past three decades.

Indeed, in a previous paper they write

In particular, the Sun cannot have contributed more than 30% to the steep temperature increase that has taken place since [1970].

I doubt the poor journalist ever saw this though, and depended on some suitably filtered version of the study. So, a paper that finds small, and cyclic, variations in the solar luminosity, and specifically states that it is not the dominant cause of global warming is transmuted into a claim that the Sun is causing global warming.

Surplus, but not enough of a surplus.

2005-09-22T15:29:00.000-04:00

If the fate of the 2004-2005 Federal surplus is any indication, the NDP can forget about every collecting on the Blank Cheque Act. If this were the 2005-06 surplus, not a dime would be dispersed, since it is only the excess over $2billion that can be spent.

Educating Rita

2005-09-22T14:55:00.000-04:00

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, there were those who claimed to see the reason why New Orleans was destroyed. With Hurricane Rita bearing down on the Texas coast it's time to update the explanations. If R. Yosef et al. are too busy at the moment, the most obvious point is that President Bush didn't get Katrina's message, so this time his home state is the target. Should Washington, D.C. be watching out for Hurricane Beta?

Civil rights in Israel

2005-09-15T23:40:00.000-04:00

Ben Chorin links to an important report on the systematic violation of civil rights during the recent protests against the Gaza withdrawal. Violation, indeed dismissal, of the rule of law is an indicator of the potential for tyranny. After all, there is a very good reason why, in last week's parsha, we have the commandment for the Jewish king to have a Sefer Torah by his side at all times.

Usually it is the executive that sees itself as above the law. When the judiciary no longer has respect for the rule of law, you know there is a problem. Unfortunately, this has been a problem in Israel for quite some time. Whether the events of the past few months will be a catalyst for change remains to be seen.

General Relativity in Real Life

2005-09-15T11:40:00.000-04:00

Some people seem to think that you need to be near a black hole to experience the General Theory of Relativity. This is to misunderstand Einstein's fundamental chidush (novelty). In the Special Theory the fundamental point was that the speed of light, c, is a constant. In the General Theory the point is that gravity is just another kind of acceleration. So, if you want to feel the effect of gravity as geometry, take a bus. Any local transit bus will serve, but you want one that makes lots of stops. Preferable with a driver who likes to drive fast in between and brake hard. And for this experiment, take one that isn't too crowded. Don't sit down though.

Now, when the bus is travelling at an even pace, walk down the aisle. Just like the sidewalk, no?

Wait until the driver starts braking for a stop, and start walking towards the front of the bus. Now you should feel like you're walking up down a hill. A steep one if the driver is braking hard. Why? Einstein told you: Acceleration = Gravity.

A post for Erev Shabbos

2005-08-26T14:29:00.000-04:00

For those who have always wondered about the Zoharic passage Kegavnah before Borchu on Shabbos evening, check out the link above.

For those interested in the continuity between East-European and North American traditions, read the link above.

For those who have wanted an answer about something for a long time, the link above has someone in the same boat.

Homeopathy no better than sugar pill: Metastudy

2005-08-26T00:52:00.000-04:00

Could that be because it is a sugar pill?

But be sure to check out the special pleading by the naturopath further down.

I'm reminded of the one time I actually consulted a naturopath at the urging of my brother-in-law. I was there with my wife and young baby. After going down his list of recommendations for diet, lots of lettuce I seem to remember, and so forth, this naturopath looked over at our baby and pronounced that babies shouldn't travel faster than some particular velocity. "Relative to what?", I wondered.

There's no predicting the weather

2005-08-12T11:24:00.000-04:00

The link is to the archive for Tropical Storme Irene currently making its way through the North Atlantic. It is amusing to follow through the Discussions. This is a case where the various weather models are providing very poor guidance to the forcasters, and they are having to rely on their experience rather than the computer modelling. Take for example Discussion 4, or Discussion 19. This is probably going to turn into a hurricane, but no one here knows where it is going. It is too bad that they don't give a graphic comparing the predictions to the actual path though. That would be very interesting.

DST revised

2005-08-11T11:18:00.000-04:00

The link will take you to the appropriate section of the text of Energy bill signed on Tuesday by President Bush. The revised rules for DST in the US are now:

2nd Sunday of March through the 1st Sunday of November effective 1 March 2007.

So this will not affect anything this year or next. Section 110(c) calls for a study to see if it actually saves any energy. If it doesn't Congress can put things back the way they were. The language is a compromise between the House version, which was 1st March through last November, effective immediately, and the Senate version, which was to leave everything alone.

So, rest easy for now. You've got a couple of years to worry about getting to work when an early minyan is impossible.

Wise Telescope to be launched into orbit.

2005-08-11T10:07:00.000-04:00

So which one is the real Wise Observatory, this or this?

Soft Fruit

2005-08-10T16:40:00.000-04:00

As I was eating my 4040 at lunch, having finally gotten the last of the glue off, I got to wondering just who was behind the conspiracy to put sticky labels on every last plum, peach, and pear, as well as all the other fruits and vegetables. Well it turns out that the power behind this is a group called the Produce Electronic Identification Board, under the auspices of the Produce Marketing Association. These numbers are called Price Look-Up codes (PLUs) and you can see for yourself what a 4153 is here. The idea, apparently, is that there are just too many different kinds of produce in the stores these days and the poor check-out clerks cannot be expected to tell the difference between a gala apple and a braeburn.

Now the Food Marketing Institute needs to get their act together because, despite their claim, 3009 is supposed to be a Russet apple, not a cut of lamb.

According to these people in Missouri, an additional digit on the front may or may not be a cause for worry.

And, if you're really annoyed by the stickers, just wait until the tattoos start showing up.

Still life with tattooed fruit, anyone?

Cassini Saturn+1

2005-07-19T13:47:00.000-04:00

I haven't mentioned Cassini lately, but the first anniversary of it's arrival at Saturn was last Friday. To mark the day, the link above gives what the Cassini people list as the 10 most important discoveries of the first year. The day before, Cassini made another close pass of Enceladus. Results should be available soon.

Rational Rabbis

2005-07-18T01:55:00.000-04:00

I've been rereading recently Menachem Fisch's 1997 book of this title. Fisch is a philosopher of science, which has led him to what I find to be fascinating reflections on the methodology and intentions of the Babylonian amoraim.

The first part of his book explains what he means by "rational inquiry". It is a process characterized by testing and troubleshooting both the subject matter of field of study and its methodology. As an example, he gives the field of science which endeavours to understand and explain the functioning of the world. Certain problems present themselves, and science produces theories to resolve these problems. In turn, these theories make predictions, and should the predictions be born out, the theory is strengthened. On the other hand, theories whose predictions are contradicted by observation are rejected. But, more than this, a rational study is one where the standards themselves by which success in solving problems are measured, are themselves subject to such troubleshooting.

It is Fisch's thesis that the Talmudic sages were engaged on just such a rational endeavour. This is not to say that they were doing science. Far from it. Rather, they applied the rational approach to Torah.

In the Tannaitic material recorded in the Bavli, especially the material relating to the Yeshiva in Yavne, Fisch discerns a dispute between two schools of thought, or attitudes, towards the development of Torah shel b'al peh. The first, exemplified, or stereotyped, by R. Eliezer ben Hyrqanus, is what he calls traditionalist. The traditionalist holds that the strongest support for a viewpoint is that it was learned from one's teachers extending back to Moshe b'Sinai. In the traditionalist's view, precedent is absolute.

Opposing the traditionalist, is the anti-traditionalist who, in Fisch's view, is a rational actor. Tradition must be tested against new cases and more developed thoughts, and, where necessary, refuted and overturned. For the anti-traditionalist, everything is open to question.

In Fisch's reading, the Bavli's version of the Yavne stories clearly supports the anti-traditionalists, most tellingly in the famous dispute regarding the tanuro shel acknai (Bava Metzia 59a-b), the story where we learn Lo be shamaim he, that the Torah is not in heaven, but decided by the Beis Din in this world.

By the time the amoraim were developing the Bavli, the anti-traditionalist position was triumphant and the issue no longer in dispute. Yet, the compilers of the Bavli chose to write as if the opposite were the case. Nonetheless, they left sufficient hints that the advanced study should be able to learn how he ought to conduct his study. Fisch's prime example is the sugya on Berachos19b where a revolutionary statement of R. Yehuda in the name of Rav is discussed. Fisch does a much better job of discussing the implications of this sugya than I ever could, but the essence of the discussion is that although Rav's dictum stands in blatant contradiction to the proceeding mishnah, the confrontation is completely ignored, and the later position is adopted as normative. It is as if to highlight the fact that the amoraim felt free to rewrite the halachic system where necessary.

And yet, as it has come down to us, the anti-traditionalists have vanished to the extent that their voice is no longer heard. According to Fisch, it is because they tried to do too much simultaneously when the Bavli was compiled. They tried to set it up to be read both as an undergraduate textbook on the surface, and as a graduate level research notebook for the advanced student. In the end, however, the project was just too complex to continue for generations. A problem the compilers of the gemara themselves feared as Fisch shows in his reading of the tragic ending to the lives of R. Yochanan and Resh Lakish (Bava Metzia84a).

Fisch brings one further contrast between the traditionalist and the anti-traditionalist viewpoints that I find fascinating, and which parallels the development of science. He learns this from the story in Menachos 29b, once again in the name of R. Yehuda, in the name of Rav, where the tale is told of Moshe Rabbenu's visit to the academy of R. Akiva. And poor Moshe doesn't understand a word of what is going on, although he is comforted to hear R. Akiva say that what they are learning comes from Sinai.

As Fisch explains the passage, we are being taught that the development of halacha is something that can only be understood retrospectively, not prospectively. This is characteristic of a rational inquiry where it is impossible to predict what problems will need to be solved, and by what methods, and with what information, they will be resolved. This is essentially the anti-traditionalist's position. Halacha is subject to review as circumstances warrant. For the traditionalist, on the other hand, there is no problem looking at history from either direction, for halacha is not subject to change.

Fisch's book is much richer in argument and example than what I am able to put in this review. I strongly recommend it to those who are not afraid of a non-traditional perspective. The corollaries of this approach for current discussions on Chazal and Science, are left, for the present, to the reader.

Inconsistency

2005-06-17T14:15:00.000-04:00

An amusing exchange from yesterday's House of Commons Hansard.

Mr. Pierre Poilievre: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the member repeatedly directed his comments straight over to the member over here without going through the Chair. We would urge all members to follow the Standing Orders and direct their comments through the Chair.
The Speaker: I quite agree with the member for Nepean--Carleton. I did not hear the remarks. I was having a discussion with someone else and missed it. When I listened in after seeing him rising on a point of order, I only heard one such error and it was the word “you” which I assume, of course, was not directed at me.

Mr. Gary Carr: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member may know, I was Speaker of the Ontario legislature. I definitely know the rules and I was going through you, Mr. Speaker, to the hon. member. I will always say “through Mr. Speaker”.

Carr was indeed Speaker of the Ontario house during the course of the 37th Parliament there, from 1999 to 2003. What is ironic is that, contrary to the tradition in Ottawa referred to above, in the Ontario house, while Carr was Speaker, it became the custom to refer to other members directly by name, and not through the Speaker at all. There was already a trend this way in earlier Ontario Parliaments, but it became very prominent in the 37th and now in the 38th. (Ontario Hansard)

Gentlemen, we have a Nassi!

2005-06-07T14:33:00.000-04:00

I'm somewhat bemused by this resurrected Sanhedrin. On the one hand, it's about time. On the other, no one outside Arutz 7 seems to be taking it at all seriously. Here we have a wide range respected Rabbanim who are actively working to reestablish halachic jurisprudence, and the response seems to be indifference. I don't know that one wants to rely on Newsweek to identify great rabbis, though.

Geocentrism II

2005-06-06T00:51:00.000-04:00

In this post in the Jewish Worker, Nobody requests clarification of the observational arguments against geocentrism in the light of late 58th century science. It will be useful to distinguish two further pairs of geocentrisms beyond the diurnal vs. annual distinction of my original post on the subject. Let us consider the oppositions of strong and weak geocentrism and physical and philosophical geocentrism.

By strong geocentrism, I refer to the concept that the Earth is indeed fixed, and all the observed heavenly motions are the true physical motions, and are not reflections of the motions of a moving Earth. This concept requires that there be something that the Earth is fixed with respect to. Consequently, strong geocentrism is inconsistent with relativity, where no such absolute frame of reference is possible. Ironically, while the Cosmic Microwave Background does appear to give an absolute reference frame even within General Relativity, the Earth is moving with respect to it.

To be consistent with relativity, we need to turn to weak geocentrism. In this view, what is claimed is not that the Earth is absolutely fixed, but rather that the preferred reference frame is the one where the Earth is unmoving. Note that the reference frames under comparison are accelerating ones, and consequently are not equivalent in the sense that steadily-moving, i.e. inertial, frames are.

Now let us consider four observations that suggest that it is the earth that is moving, and not the rest of the universe. In three of the four cases, apologetic arguments can and have been made that the observation does not present a proof for a moving Earth. (The fourth result is too new for the apologists to have gotten around to yet.) The problem with the apologetics is that they are mutually incoherent, and do not lead to an overall, consistent description of the universe. A series of special pleadings do not make for a universally useful physical theory.

1) Stellar parallax When viewed from different positions in space, the apparent position of a nearer star on the sky moves with respect to those further away. This is most visible as a consequence of the Earth's annual motion about the center-of-mass of the solar system, but, with sufficiently sensitive instruments, parallax can be observed when comparing the apparent positions of a nearby object in the evening and in the morning. This diurnal parallax is certainly visible for solar system objects with modern instruments, although the effect for Mars was likely just beyond the reach of the greatest of the naked-eye observers, Tycho Brahe.

2) Stellar aberration This is a change in the apparent position of stars due to the finite speed of the light reaching us from the stars. Depending on the direction of motion of the observer, the light detected will come from slightly different directions, much like a moving umbrella must lean forward to keep the person under it dry. This has diurnal, annual, and steady components. (This one is admittedly hard to visualize, but does depend on a moving Earth.) For both parallax and aberration, either it is the Earth that is moving, or the rest of the universe is set up so that it looks like it is the Earth that is doing the moving.

3) Foucault's pendulum Set up a freely hanging pendulum swinging back and forth in a certain plane. Over the course of the day, the apparent plane of the pendulum will appear to rotate with respect to markings on the Earth around the pendulum. There is no force on the pendulum to change its plane of motion, rather the Earth is rotating underneath it.

4) Lense-Thirring effect This is the new one. In General Relativity a rotating mass "drags" the fabric of space time as it rotates. This is a subtle effect, but has now been measured for the Earth.

Sliced with Occam's razor, the simplest interpretation of these observations is that it is the Earth that is moving. In addition to ad hoc apologies to explain these observations, we also have to posit that most of the universe is moving vastly faster than the speed of light to maintain its daily rotation around the earth. That they suffer instantaneous and incredibly forceful accelerations whenever an earthquake changes the length of the day.

While Mach's Principle is often invoked to support the geocentric position, it seems to me that this is to misunderstand the principle itself, while elevating to confirmed status an idea that remains controversial.

In terms of physical geocentrism, such observations lead one to reject strong geocentrism for its physical incoherence. Weak geocentrism, while admissible, is not much practical use, since all calculations are required to include extraneous terms to account for the fixedness of the Earth. The justification for this position is not physical, but rather philosophical; some reason beyond physics for choosing such a reference frame over all others. And philosophical geocentrism is not a scientific position at all.

This is supposed to be a good idea?

2005-05-31T13:51:00.000-04:00

So now they want to make it safer to search the web while driving, by making the whole thing voice-activated. After all, driving takes no mental effort, so it would be perfectly safe for people to "use their driving time to work".

Robots and Men in Space

2005-05-31T13:34:00.000-04:00

In a comment to the previous post, rebeljew writes:

I read in Robert Park's newsletter "What's New" that it will only save 4.5M, but that the administration is looking to apply more budget to the manned Moon/Mars initiatives. He feels that is an ill devised scheme as he does not think manned missions will yield anything worth the costs. Agree?

The manned vs. robotic debate is one of long standing.
In terms of science return, it's pretty clear that robotic missions give more bang for the buck. They may be more limited, but they are much cheaper. After all, you don't have to protect fragile lifeforms if you send a robot, and you certainly don't have to worry about bringing it back.

The main benefit of manned missions is the flexibility inherent in having people there. But this has never really been demonstrated that strongly since the only manned exploration missions were the Apollo series, and they were certainly aimed more at politics than science. After all, only a small fraction of moon walkers were trained scientists. It isn't clear that the current proposal isn't more of the same sort of boondoggle.

That said, there is something to be said for a manned space infrastructure. As Robert A. Heinlein famously wrote, "Once you get to Earth orbit, you're halfway to anywhere in the solar system." The problem is that the further implementation of this concept is probably better defined in the science fiction literature than in either the President's or NASA's current visions. We were supposed to already be past this stage by now. Something went wrong somewhere, and the initials SS are a hint.

News from the outer solar system

2005-05-27T14:10:00.000-04:00

A Lag B'Omer roundup.

The venerable Voyager 1 spacecraft is now officially on the way out of the solar system. Data in 2002 controversially suggested that it had reached the termination shock where the velocity of the solar wind becomes subsonic as it encounters pressure from interstellar space. Now, new observations from Dec 2004 conclusively show that the spacecraft is now in the heliosheath beyond the termination shock. This now allows scientists to estimate the location of the actual boundary of interstellar space. Voyager 1 may cross this point as soon as 2014. There still will be enough power to send a message back. But, funding for the mission is set to end this year, so no one may be listening.

Who ordered that? Newly released Cassini observations of S1/Titan have identified an odd spot on the surface. This might be some indication of recent geological processes on the surface, but at the moment they're baffled.

Another body that would float: In the 27 May 2005 issue of Science Anderson et al. show, based on Galileo and Voyager data, that JV/Amalthea's density is 857 +/- 99 kg/cubic meter. Ice is 930, and water even more. Unlike Saturn, Amalthea's longest dimension is only 125 km, so there would be no problem finding a body of water large enough to float it in.

Finally, in the historical reconstruction department, Nature published this week a series of papers with a model of how the outer solar system ended up arranged the way it has. The trigger was when the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn briefly entered a 2:1 resonance (2 Jupiter orbits per Saturn one). Resonances are notorious for mixing things up. The result of this one appeared to be to flip Neptune out past Uranus, collecting all sorts of rubbish along the way: Pluto and its companions in the Kuiper belt. What didn't get captured got flung around all over the place, accounting for Jupiter's Trojan companions, and the Late Heavy Bombardment.

Canada: Revised Constitutional Conventions

2005-05-22T01:02:00.000-04:00

Her Excellency, The Rt. Hon. Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada,
The Rt. Hon. Paul Martin, Jr.,
and
The House of Commons

By their actions, and inactions in May 2005,
Hereby tentatively establish the following revised conventions to the Constitution of Canada

1) "Confidence" votes are limited to either votes on budget bills, or must explicitly mention the word "confidence", and in any event, are only confidence votes if so designated by the government.
2) Defeat on all other motions, even if they clearly demonstrate that the government lacks control of the House, are henceforth merely "Procedural".
3) A defeat on such a Procedural motion may be followed by a Confidence motion, but a nine day gap is sufficiently soon.
4) It is in order for the government to resort to any means to secure support in the interim.
5) The reserve powers of the Crown are abolished.
6) The government need not secure the confidence of the House of Commons, so long as it maintains the confidence of the popular media and the voting public.
7) The confidence of the voting public is to be established by a poll on the following question: "Do you want an election now?"
8) (Presumptive) The above revisions only apply if the Perpetual Natural Governing Party is in power. All the old conventions will still apply should any other party manage to temporarily gain power.

[It is ironic that the notion of a confidence motion has narrowed so suddenly and drastically now that the Liberals have a minority. Previously, the concept was so broad that every vote was considered to be a confidence vote, lest unruly backbenchers get out of line and vote against the government. Remember the vote on the Hepatitis C compensation?]

[This, I hope, will be the last posting on this topic for a while, assuming I can rid my nostrils of the stench.]

[UPDATE: Related thoughts at The Monarchist]

Waiting for the end

2005-05-19T12:09:00.000-04:00

Andrew Coyne writes in yesterday's National Post

I had thought the feeling of nausea that washed over me at the news was one of disgust. I now realize it was vertigo. The bottom has fallen out of Canadian politics. There are, quite literally, no rules any more, no boundaries, no limits. We are staring into an abyss, where everything is permissible.

Further

Is it a constitutional crisis if no one understands it is? A government without the support of a majority of Parliament has spent billions it has no legal authority to spend and dangled offices that are not in its power to bestow, in hopes of recovering that majority.

Mark Steyn:

Unlike King/Byng or Sir John Kerr firing Gough Whitlam, what makes this a constitutional crisis is that there’s no crisis: Parliament votes, and Martin shrugs; Martin fiddles the math, and Canada shrugs. And the chaps at The Ottawa Citizen think the big question now is: “Is there room for moderate, urban conservatives in the new Conservative Party?”

And our current Governor General shrugs too.

All we are left with is the hope for one or two honourable MPs to do the right thing and put this dicatorship out of our misery. What do we have? Several MPs falling ill over the last 24 hours. And an MP who is polling his constituents as to whether they want an election. As if that were the issue.

The damage to the Canadian polity has been done. The door has been opened, and, if Paul Martin doesn't walk through it, someone in the future surely will. If the government falls today, some hope remains for repair. Especially if they are soundly defeated at the next election. Let them win today, or at the election, and Canadians, happily bribed with their own money, will have to settle for a perpetual Liberal dictatorship.

UPDATE: From David Warren, after the vote:

At the end of a second week of disgrace in Parliament, I can find no upside.

The Canadian constitution was overthrow.

But as a people, we have proved incapable of connecting the dots between our national decline, and the bottomless corruption of our legal and political order.

I will leave it there. For what point can there be in a writer continuing to bemoan something that is simply lost? The dignity and decency of Canadian life had been leeching away, for so long, that we are now past writing any “lament for a nation”. The Canada of which I was once so proud now sleeps with the worms.

Landing on Titan

2005-05-18T16:47:00.000-04:00

The folks responsible for the Huygens lander have now pieced together some mosaics from the images the DISR instrument took on the way down. I find the large-scale stereographic projection to be the more impressive of the two in that it is easier for the untrained eye to interpret. The trained eyes at ESA clearly interpret the details in terms of liquid methane rains and sub-surface seepage flowing down to the lakebed.

The 13 May issue of Science contains a series of papers with early results of the Titan investigations. One discusses the interesting similarities between Titan's atmosphere and the Earth's. The more digestable press release is here.

Stronach Crosses

2005-05-17T12:25:00.000-04:00

I wasn't going to post today on Canadian politics. Really. But...

Nine days is a long time in politics. More than time enough to teach that horse to sing. Or to find the right person's price. Now there is the distinct chance that a government that lost a string of non-confidence votes, that in all honour should have resigned last week, will survive. As with the sepratists, the only vote that counts is the one they win. So hundreds of years of parliamentary tradition are pushed aside for political expediency. Unchecked tyranny.

This is how democracies end

2005-05-15T02:02:00.000-04:00

As we contemplate the state of Canadian democracy in view of the crisis in Ottawa, it is worthwhile contemplating the referedum being held in BC on Tuesday in connection with the general election there.

The current BC Government fulfilled an election promise to review the nature of the voting system in the province. In a quite unique proceeding, they set up a Citizen's Assembly to discuss whether BC ought to change from first-past-the-post, and if so, to what. The membership of the assembly was chosen at random from an interested subset of the BC electorate and spent weekends over the better part of a year to learn about voting systems, to discuss them, and to devise a new system. Ultimately, they decided that a change was necessary, and recommended their "BC-STV" system.

This variant of the single-transferable-vote works with multi-member ridings. The voter gets a list of candidates and ranks them as desired. The counting is somewhat complicated, but the upshot is that the results will be closer to proportionality than at present. The voting requires some thought, but that is required to give control to the voters, rather than the parties. In some systems, the party sets the order of the candidates, but here it is the voter's choice as to which candidate he prefers. The Assembly listened to the voters, and gave them what they thought the people of BC wanted; real control over the Legislature.

It goes to a vote on Tuesday and requires a 60% overall positive vote and majorities in 60% of the ridings to pass. If you believe the UBC Election Stock Market (scroll down), it hasn't got a chance of passage. And if it doesn't, the reason will be the over 60% of British Columbians know very little about it, and probably don't care.

Citizen apathy is the greatest danger democracies face. If British Columbia turns down the chance for a more-directed say in the election of its legislators, then they deserve to have plenty more Legislatures like the last one (77 of 79 seats for the Government). And they can stop complaining about it.

In the same vein, the Globe and Mail is running with this meme about "angry Stephen Harper not sitting well with the electorate". The issue isn't that Harper is angry. He has every right to be angry. Red-hot-flaming furious. No, the scandal is that most Canadians aren't angry. That the newspapers seem to think that what's important are polls showing that most of the people polled "don't want an election now". That the media seems to thing that the reactions of focus groups to political talking points are important. That even when the election takes place, 40% won't even bother to go and cast their simple, one mark, first-past-the-post ballot. That Canadians don't understand the workings of their own governance.

In Ukraine, in Lebanon, in Iraq, the people there understand what is at stake in a democracy. But complacent old Canada? Rob us blind. We don't care. Bribe us with our own money. We'll vote for you again. Deny the fundamental workings of the Westminster system. Game the confidence of the House. Whatever.

Democracy fails when the citizenry no longer cares enough to know what is going on, to know how the system ought to work. If we can't figure out anything more complicated than a first-past-the-post ballot, if we can't recognize that the governement has lost the confidence of the house unless the word "confidence" is expressly used, if even the Governor-General can't see it, or won't do anything, then democracy in Canada is dead and it is time to hang out an advertisement for a dictator.

If you're in BC and you care about democracy, vote YES. Meanwhile, contact the Prime Minister, contact the Governor-General, write your local paper. Get angry.

(Also read David Warren's cogent comments on the situation.)

UPDATE: Things may not be as bad as all that in BC. As Andrew Coyne points out, things are looking up for a YES victory, and from the grass-roots level.

Current situation predicted by RCAF

2005-05-13T03:10:00.000-04:00

For further evidence that the 38th Parliament has descended into farce, let me recall a Royal Canadian Air Farce episode from a good long time ago. This was back when they were on the radio. One week, it must have been during the 1979 election, they had one of their show-long sketches. The election had been held. The Liberals and NDP on one side, and the Tories and Social Credit (yes, that's how long ago this was) on the other had exactly the same number of seats. The balance of power was held by the Independant Member for Kicking Horse Pass. Hilarity results. No, the Governor-General did not have to intervence.

Abdication

2005-05-13T02:38:00.000-04:00

As a further indication of the Liberal Government's lack of control of the House, and endless depths of fraudulent duplicity, consider the only business to have been transacted in the last three days. In the face of impending non-confidence motions, three bills have been unanimously hustled through all remaining stages in the House and booted on to the Senate. In the case of the first: No debate. No committee hearings. No amendments. In the words of the motion

deemed read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole, deemed considered in Committee of the Whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at report stage and deemed read a third time and passed.

Bill C-45, An Act to provide services, assistance and compensation to or in respect of Canadian Forces members and veterans and to make amendments to certain Acts. This bill revises veteran's benefits.

These next two were sitting at report stage and were amended:

Bill C-13, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the DNA Identification Act and the National Defence Act The rush here is to get the bill in place before an infamous sex offender is released from prison, so as to have her DNA on record.

Bill C-40, An Act to amend the Canada Grain Act and the Canada Transportation Act Required to implement a WTO ruling against Canada in order to prevent US retaliation.

Having passed the House in a rush, how are the Liberal Senators dealing with these?
C-45 was sent to committee.

The other two will be first dealt with next Tuesday, if the Senate keeps to its usual practices, and the 38th Parliament hasn't been dissolved.

Three more promises the Liberals have no intention of fulfilling.

UPDATE: Yesterdays Senate proceedings have been posted. Bill C-45 was reported back out of committee unamended, passed at third reading and given Royal Assent. The other two bills are on the order paper for Monday, when, unusually, the Senate will sit, assuming we don't have a dissolution before then.

UPDATE 2: The premise of this posting seems to be incorrect. The Senate is dealing with these cases with extra speed. Both C-13 and C-40 were given second reading on Monday 16 May and sent to committee. Judging by the way C-45 was dealt with, I expect both bills to be reported back quickly for third reading and royal assent before Thursday's endgame.

UPDATE 3: Completely incorrect. Indeed they were.

Resign or be Fired

2005-05-12T13:44:00.000-04:00

The situation in Ottawa has gone past farce and into travesty. The Liberals have lost three confidence votes in as many days. It is long past time for the Governor General to invoke the Reserve Powers and give him the sack. Outrage Canadians should write the Governor-General at info@gg.ca and urge her to do her job, politely and respectfully of course, before the entire Canadian polity becomes unsourced.

UPDATE: I got a nice, neutrally-worded, response from the Governor General's office. Three paragraphs: 1. Thanks for the e-mail. 2. It would be inappropriate to speculate on what the GG's going to do. 3. If you haven't already, tell the PM what you think, complete with a link to the PMO's website. Signed by one Yonatan Lew.

Confidence vs. Procedure

2005-05-10T16:00:00.000-04:00

The Liberals are trying to claim that the motions in amendment to the concurrence motions are "procedural" in nature and are not motions of confidence. The Conservatives have moved that:

the First Report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, presented on Thursday, October 28, 2004, be not now concurred in, but that it be recommitted to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts with instruction that it amend the same so as to recommend that the government resign because of its failure to address the deficiencies in governance of the public service addressed in the report.

Their argument seems to be that the motion is only an instruction to the committee to amend the report so as to call for the government's resignation, and that it would not be until the committee presents its amended report, which is then concurred in, that the government would be defeated. Now the notion of confidence is a slippery thing, but a look at the Canadian historical record suggests that the government's position is nonsense.

Only 4 Canadian governements have been defeated on non-confidence motions. The 1974 Trudeau minority and 1979 Clark minority both fell on sub-amendments to budget motions and promptly resigned. Similarly, Diefenbaker was defeated in 1963 on a Supply motion. The only other case was Meighen's (yes Meighen) government in 1926, to which I'll return.

But what about King's 1926 government you ask? Well, that is the clearest precedent, and the one the Tories are relying on. The 1926 version of the Liberal government was embroiled in a scandal regarding the Deptartment of Customs and Excise. On 18 June 1926, a special committee reported on their investigation (Journals of the House of Commons, 1926, p. 444-9). On 22 June, the Conservatives moved concurrence in the report and proposed an amendment calling on the committee to be called back into existence, and to amend their report in terms that amounted to censure of the government. Unlike the present case, it did not explicitly mention confidence, or call for the government to resign, but stated inter alia (Journals, p. 461) that:

Governement ministers had been involved in what was going on at Customs and Excise and had used their influence

Their failure to take prompt and effective remedial action is indefensible

This practice is detrimental to the best interests of the country

King fought the amendment by proposing a sub-amendment to remove the censure. It was defeated on 25 June . A further series of true procedural motions, i.e. adjournment etc., were defeated that day until he finally managed to adjourn the House (Journals 475-481). On 28 June, after attempting, and failing, to get a dissolution from Governor-General Byng, he resigned. King clearly felt that the amendment was a matter of confidence. When it became clear he would lose, he resigned.

There was a similar case in November 1873 when the government of Macdonald, mired in the Pacific Scandal, resigned rather than face a motion of non-confidence. Mackenzie became Prime Minister and immediately prorogued parliament, but did not request dissolution until the following January.

What of our fourth case of non-confidence? After King's resignation, Meighen agreed to become Prime Minister, and, in accord with the conventions of the day, promptly resigned to face re-election in a by-election. But he wanted to get certain bills passed, so he didn't prorogue, but appointed the rest of the Ministry as Ministers without Portfolio, which didn't require resignation and re-election. King wouldn't stand for it, and managed to pass a motion censuring the government as improperly constituted. Confidence was not mentioned explicitly. Meighen promptly requested dissolution, which Byng had to grant.

There are two other cases of interest to the Liberals. In 1983 the Trudeau government was defeated in Committe of the Whole on a clause of a tax bill. They ignored it. More relevant to the present case is that of the February 1968 defeat of the minority Pearson government at third reading of a tax bill. Pearson chose not to regard this a confidence vote, since the bill had been passed twice before, but immediately introduced the following motion:

That this House does not regard its vote on February 19th ... as a vote of non-confidence in the Government.

No other business was attended to until this motion had been decided. The Liberals won, and that was the end of the matter.

If the amendment to the concurrence motion passes, the Martin government's only option to immediate resignation is a motion like Pearson's. But that will only delay the inevitable. If he does neither, than he should expect a call from the Governor-General.

FURTHER: One thing that ought to be mentioned is that the amendment instructs the committee to do something. I don't think it has the option of refusing without being in contempt of the House. This negates the Liberal's whole "2-stage" approach to the question.

Blank Cheque Act

2005-05-10T03:20:00.000-04:00

Jack Layton Bribe Act?

NDP Prop Up the Governement Act?

Slush Fund Act?

What We Thought of Later Act?

aka

An Act to authorize the Minister of Finance to make certain payments

Whatever you call it, this is one remarkable bill. As the name states, it permits the Minister of Finance to spend up to $2 billion of 'excess' surplus. The spending power isn't limited though. It is allocated as follows (clause 2.(1)):

a) for the environment, including for public transit and for an energy-efficient retrofit program for low-income housing, an amount not exceeding $900 million;

(b) for supporting training programs and enhancing access to post-secondary education, to benefit, among others, aboriginal Canadians, an amount not exceeding $1.5 billion;

(c) for affordable housing, including housing for aboriginal Canadians, an amount not exceeding $1.6 billion; and

(d) for foreign aid, an amount not exceeding $500 million.

Here's the fun part 2.(2):

The Governor in Council may specify the particular purposes for which payments referred to in subsection (1) may be made and the amounts of those payments for the relevant fiscal year.

Since (3.) the Governor in Council (i.e. Cabinet) can do just about anything with this money, how much do you want to bet that a large fraction will be required for "public advisement" of the Liberal largess?

Desparate times call for desparate measures, I guess.

But this is what happens when you lose sight of the true reasons for why you are doing what you are doing. Without a firm grounding, the doing becomes an end in itself and, in the end, the doing will end too. The only problem is that in this case, ending the end requires the cooperation of the electorate. Well, first a majority of the House of Commons. First chance is when the last order on this page of today's Order Paper get's called ~5:30 PM EDT. Meanwhile, the Liberals are denying that this is a confidence matter. The crisis is upon us.

UPDATE: Hansard for yesterday is now up. Looks like things got pretty lively. It reminds me of the last days of the Frank Miller government in Ontario, but that is a topic for another time.

Yom Hashoa

2005-05-06T17:03:00.000-04:00

Bluke articulates a discomfort I've long felt towards these communal Holocaust commemorations. My father is a survivor. He was 11 when the war started, and his family escaped from Lodz before the Germans set up the ghetto there. He was in various camps after the village they hid in was reduced. He used to tell me stories about his experiences during the war as bedtime stories. Not the horrible stuff. More his various attempts to gain a little more food, to make life a little easier. His father, a'h, died in a boxcar as the Germans shuffled them about in the last weeks of the war, but his mother and sister survived. My grandmother a'h had a number tattooed to her arm. To this day, dealing with the government gives me the shakes. At any time, in the back of my mind, they are coming for me to drag me off to who-knows-where. So, it isn't like I'm ignoring history.

But I've never felt comfortable participating in these ceremonies and commemorations. Even before becoming observant, something just didn't feel right about them. Is it that they were too focused on all the death? "They wanted to kill us just because we're Jews." Remembering that becomes the total of Jewish existence. Well, that and buying Israel bonds. Germany and Israel. Death and..., more death? And marches. March of the Living. Walks for Israel. How did marching become a mitzvah?

So I sit them out. If the point of the exercise is to remind the world that we're still around, well I don't need to go, a couple of times a year, to listen to speeches at the town Holocaust memorial to do that. Let me take the bus with a yarmulke and tzitzis. Let me cancel my classes for Chol HaMoed. Let them see me with my Jewish children. And let them stand around memorial sculptures and think about hate and death. I've got better things to do.

Reserve Powers of the Crown

2005-05-06T02:16:00.000-04:00

Or,

On How to Convert a Political Crisis into a Constitutional Crisis.

CTV is reporting that even if defeated in an obvious non-confidence motion, the Liberal government will ignore the result and continue to govern.

On Thursday, the Speaker of the House endorsed a Conservative Party effort to hold a vote of confidence in the government by May 18.

The Tory-sponsored motion asked the Commons Finance committee "to recommend that the government resign."

But House Leader Tony Valeri shrugged it off, saying the motion is only a procedural matter that has no binding effect on the government and that the Liberals would not step down from power if it should pass.

The pundits are baffled. What is to be done? Can the Liberals actually get away with this?

Of course not. They have simply fogotten their Eugene Forsey. The answer lies in two words:reserve powers. In the reserve powers of the Crown lie the final line of defense against tyranny in the Westminster system. Ultimately, if a government goes rogue, the Crown's reserve powers allow the Queen, or her Governer-General in the Canadian case, to dismiss the Prime Minister. All she has to do is find a caretaker Prime Minister who is willing to agree to request a dissolution and I'm sure Stephan Harper would be willing to go along with this scenario.

The situation is not so far-fetched. The 1975 Australian constitutional crisis provides an example of just this mechanism in action. G-G Sir John Kerr dismissed Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister and appointed Malcolm Fraser in his place, provided Fraser would pass supply (the trigger to the crisis) and request a dissolution. This he did, and went on to win a handsome majority.

UPDATE: The Speaker's ruling (including a summary of the arguments on the point of order) is now online.

Hiatus ended

2005-05-02T13:34:00.000-04:00

I'm back after a Pesach hiatus. I've got some new posts brewing on various topics, but workload will determine when they will appear. Meanwhile, the Cassini people have released a bunch more images from the latest flybys of Titan and Enceladus. The latter is sufficiently intriguing that the spacecraft will be passing much closer to the surface on the July 14 pass.

HST celebrates its 15th anniversary in orbit with some new pretty pictures.

The death watch on the Liberal government in Ottawa continues. Lots of fun political strategems in play as the Tories try to bring down the Liberals and force an election. They're hoping that Canadians will finally have lost their ability to hold their noses and elect the patently corrupt Grits. (The linked article refers back to the famous King-Byng affair of 1926. Note that under current rules Meighen would likely not have gone down immediately to defeat. In those days, ministers, on assuming office, had to resign and stand for re-election. Byng had the constitutional right of the affair, but King was the master politician of his day and played the public beautifully in gaining reelection.)

Round about the time things may come to a head in Ottawa, the election in British Columbia will be held. This is the first under BC's fixed election date law. At the same time, a referendum on the plan to move to a new election method will be held. If passed, the next BC election will be the first modern Canadian experiment in proportional representation.

Cleaning your computer for Pesach

2005-04-19T02:42:00.000-04:00

Zman Biur offers practical advice.

Rabbi Blumenkrantz and Homeopathy

2005-04-18T00:29:00.000-04:00

This is the time of year when the observant American Jew is busy consulting the various guides to kashrus on Pesach. One of the most thorough, and stringent ones, is the annual publication by Rabbi Avrohom Blumenkrantz.

In the chapter on medicine, he devotes two pages to the question of homeopathic remedies. For the most part, this year's text is the same as in previous editions with the following remark on page 11-364 following a full discussion of the extent of the dilutions involved:

Since homeopathy is very effective, nontoxic, cheap, and in most instances easily accessible to the layman without prescription more and more frum people are using it.

This year he adds a new paragraph at the end (page 11-365):

Whenever we wrote that homeopathic medications may be used is[sic] only if at least some of molecules[sic] from the original "medication" are still in existence in the dilution. But if the dilution is such that there is[sic] no molecules left from the "medicine"- then one would NOT be allowed to use it. See Below.

"Below" refers to an article dated Adar 5765, entitled Some Halachic Concerns Regarding "Alternative Health" by Rav Menachem Kelinman, author, Hisna'ari Mal'Ofor which points out the often forbidden roots of various alternative-healing practices, including homeopathy. The prohibitions involved relate to serious issues of Avodah Zarah, kishuf (sorcery) and k'fira.

It appears that Rabbi Blumenkrantz is reconsidering his support for homeopathy. It will be interesting see if the contradiction has been removed from next year's edition.

Washing Dirty Laundry

2005-04-08T12:38:00.000-04:00

As I was folding the midweek laundry, I was contemplating the remarkable skill of the lady who owns the laundromat we frequent. Now you may wonder why a laundromat, but the reason is quite simple. It is more convenient to go there than to do the laundry in house. At home, the nearest place to install a washing machine is down two flights of stairs in the nethermost depths. This is very common in North America, at least in the parts where there are basements.

It is a dirty secret, but the reason for this is that it seems impossible for North American washing machines to be housebroken. The American family lives in fear of their washing machine spontaneously spilling its load, flooding the room, seeping through the floor, melting the plaster, and ultimately destroying the homestead. So, banished it must be to the basement, to minimize harm from the inevitable disaster.

British washing machines don't seem to have this problem. In Britain one has one's washing machine in a room within the living area; usually either in, or adjacent to, the kitchen. One switches easily from dinner to laundry without the need to haul heavy loads up and down endless, narrow stairwells.

Similarly in Israel, but, given the standard construction of Israeli apartment buildings, an unruly washing machine poses no risk in any event. After all, the standard way of washing tile floors there is to dump a bucket of water on it and push the water and dirt down the conveniently placed drain.

But American washing machines are simply too dangerous to keep in the kitchen. So, faced with all those stairs, we take the simpler alternative of twice-weekly visits to the local laundromat. There we can take advantage of the efficiency of parallel processing, doing all the laundry in the time required for but a single load in the serial-style basement laundry. The remaining bottleneck is folding.

Which brings me back to the remarkable skill of the laundromat owner. Here is a woman who is able to quickly transform a mound of dry laundry into an identically sized stack of precisely folded garments. Through regular practice and a focus on the essential point, an unruly situation, an unstable pile, is brought to order.