Christie, Agatha, The Mysterious Mr Quin, St. Martin's Minotaur 2002 Amazon product decription: 'A conjurer of skill with an instinct for detection, Mr. Harley Quin has an almost magical flair for appearing at the scene of the most remarkable crimes. But is it just a trick of light that haunts his shadow with a ghostly apparition? Is it fate that invites him to a New Year's murder? And what forces are at work when his car breaks down outside Royalston Hall, an isolated estate with a deadly history?'  
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Catholic Catechism p1, s2, c3, a12 IV, IV Hell, '§1035 'The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire."The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.
§1036 The affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. They are at the same time an urgent call to conversion: "Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few." ' back

Feynman, Leighton & Sands FLP III:07, Chapter 7: The Dependence of Amplitudes on Time, 'We want now to talk a little bit about the behavior of probability amplitudes in time. We say a “little bit,” because the actual behavior in time necessarily involves the behavior in space as well. Thus, we get immediately into the most complicated possible situation if we are to do it correctly and in detail. We are always in the difficulty that we can either treat something in a logically rigorous but quite abstract way, or we can do something which is not at all rigorous but which gives us some idea of a real situation—postponing until later a more careful treatment. With regard to energy dependence, we are going to take the second course. We will make a number of statements. We will not try to be rigorous—but will just be telling you things that have been found out, to give you some feeling for the behavior of amplitudes as a function of time.' back

Graham Readfearn, WA court challenge launched against huge Burrup Hub gas projet, ' Environmentalists have launched a court challenge against approvals for a mega gas project in Western Australia that could lead to the release of billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases. Lawyers for the Conservation Council of Western Australia (CCWA) want a judicial review of decisions made by the state’s environment agency which they say allowed for unlimited amounts of gas to be processed at two plants that are part of the Burrup Hub proposal. Papers were lodged in WA’s supreme court on Monday against the chairman of the state’s Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and gas company Woodside, which is leading the major LNG expansion. back

Hall effect - Wikipedia, Hall effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Hall effect is the production of a voltage difference (the Hall voltage) across an electrical conductor, transverse to an electric current in the conductor and a magnetic field perpendicular to the current. It was discovered by Edwin Hall in 1879.' back

Imposter syndrome - Wikipedia, Imposter syndrome - Wikipedia, the fre encyclopedia, ' Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, impostorism, fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a "fraud". Despite external evidence of their competence, those experiencing this phenomenon remain convinced that they are frauds, and do not deserve all they have achieved. Individuals with impostorism incorrectly attribute their success to luck, or interpret it as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent than they perceive themselves to be. While early research focused on the prevalence among high-achieving women, impostor syndrome has been recognized to affect both men and women equally. back

Jeffrey Kahn, The 'No Fly List' operates in secret, and its power to exclude is vast, 'Or ask Rahinah Ibrahim, now a distinguished architect and scholar. As a Stanford University graduate student she found herself arrested and handcuffed in front of her young daughter when she sought to travel from San Francisco to an academic conference. Her eight years of litigation finally uncovered that an FBI agent had mistakenly watchlisted her; the presiding judge labeled it “a bureaucratic analogy to a surgeon amputating the wrong digit”. (Full disclosure: I testified on behalf of Dr Ibrahim at the first and only such trial held so far.)' back

Joseph Stalin - Wikipedia, Joseph Stalin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Joseph Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili  – 18 December 1878[1]  – 5 March 1953) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. In the years following Lenin's death in 1924, he rose to become the leader of the Soviet Union.' back

Josephson effect - Wikipedia, Josephson effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Josephson effect is the phenomenon of supercurrent—i.e. a current that flows indefinitely long without any voltage applied—across a device known as a Josephson junction (JJ), which consists of two superconductors coupled by a weak link.' back

Lars Eklund, CERN: discovery sheds light on the great mystery of why the universe has less 'antimatter' than matter, ' We counted the number of decays from the two samples and compared the two numbers, to see how this difference varied as the oscillation progressed. There was a slight difference – with more decays happening for one of the B0S mesons. And for the first time for B0S mesons, we observed that the difference in decay, or asymmetry, varied according to the oscillation between the B0S meson and the anti-meson.' back

Margaret O'Brien Steinfels, 'Eternally Begotten': Where is the Son of God Before Bethlehem, 'Metaphysics. Not a word we ordinarily think of during Christmastide and Epiphany. Yet, unexpectedly, it provided me with new reflections on the deepest meaning of the birth of Jesus and the Incarnation—the seen and the unseen. I happened to be reading the chapter titled “Metaphysics” in Marilynne Robinson’s much lauded recent collection of essays, The Givenness of Things. In fact, I opened to that chapter eager to see how the resuscitation of “metaphysics” was proceeding.' back

Mary Gautier, Tall Orders: As Ordinations Drop, Challenges Rise, back

Mutafa Aykol, A Medieval Antidote for ISIS, 'A good place to start understanding the Islamic State’s doctrine is by reading Dabiq, the digital English-language magazine that the group puts out every month. One of the most striking pieces I have seen in it was an 18-page article in March titled “Irja’: The Most Dangerous Bid’ah,” or heresy.' back

Mystical experience - Wikipedia, Mystical experience - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Since the 19th century, mystical experience has evolved as a distinctive concept. It is closely related to "mysticism" but lays sole emphasis on the experiential aspect, be it spontaneous or induced by human behavior, whereas mysticism encompasses a broad range of practices aiming at a transformation of the person, not just inducing mystical experiences.' back

Nawaf Obaid, Only Saudi Arabia can defeat Isis, 'In terms of [Isis'] source, most point to Saudi Arabia; in terms of stopping it, most point to the United States. However, a closer look at Isis reveals that it is engaged in an entrenched theological war with the Saudi religious establishment to determine who justifiably espouses the purest tenets of Sunni Islam. As the custodian of the two holy mosques in Mecca and Medina and the host of the world’s Muslims for the pilgrimage, Saudi Arabia leads one and a half billion Muslims in fighting Isis. The kingdom’s leadership of the recently announced Muslim coalition to fight terrorism in all its forms confirms that Saudi Arabia is not only not the source of Isis but it is the terrorist group’s central opponent and the only nation that can fully and legitimately defeat it once and for all. More than 34 countries have joined the coalition. back

Nazism - Wikipedia, Nazism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Nazism, known officially in German as National Socialism (German: Nationalsozialismus), is the totalitarian ideology and practices of the Nazi Party or National Socialist German Workers’ Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. . . . The Nazi Party presented its program in the 25 point National Socialist Program in 1920. Among the key elements of Nazism were anti-parliamentarism, Pan-Germanism, racism, collectivism, eugenics, antisemitism, anti-communism, totalitarianism and opposition to economic liberalism and political liberalism.' back

Pinocchio (2019 film) - Wikipedia, Pinocchio (2019 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Pinocchio is a 2019 Italian fantasy film, co-written and directed by Matteo Garrone, and based on the 1883 book The Adventures of Pinocchio by Italian author Carlo Collodi. Pinocchio was a passion project for Garrone, who drew the first storyboard of the story at the age of six. Unlike previous Garrone films, which were directed towards adults, Pinocchio is aimed at both adults and children. Most characters, including Pinocchio himself, were created through prosthetic make-up rather than CGI.' back

Quantum Hall effect - Wikipedia, Quantum Hall effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, back

Rachel Nuwer, Ivory From Shipwreck Reveals Elephant Slaughter During Spice Trade, ' In 2008, workers searching for diamonds off the coast of Namibia found a different kind of treasure: hundreds of gold coins mixed with timber and other debris. They had stumbled upon Bom Jesus, a Portuguese trading vessel lost during a voyage to India in 1533. Among the 40 tons of cargo recovered from the sunken ship were more than 100 elephant tusks. More than a decade after the ship’s discovery, a team of archaeologists, geneticists and ecologists have pieced together the mystery of where the tusks came from and how they fit into the overall picture of historical ivory trade.' back

Richard Kraut - Plato, Plato (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), First published Sat Mar 20, 2004; substantive revision Thu Sep 17, 2009 'Plato (429–347 B.C.E.) is, by any reckoning, one of the most dazzling writers in the Western literary tradition and one of the most penetrating, wide-ranging, and influential authors in the history of philosophy. . . . Few other authors in the history of philosophy approximate him in depth and range: perhaps only Aristotle (who studied with him), Aquinas, and Kant would be generally agreed to be of the same rank.' back

Vance Packard - Wikipedia, Vance Packard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In The Hidden Persuaders, first published in 1957, Packard explores the use of consumer motivational research and other psychological techniques, including depth psychology and subliminal tactics, by advertisers to manipulate expectations and induce desire for products, particularly in the American postwar era. He identified eight "compelling needs" that advertisers promise products will fulfill. According to Packard these needs are so strong that people are compelled to buy products to satisfy them. The book also explores the manipulative techniques of promoting politicians to the electorate. The book questions the morality of using these techniques.' back