vol VII: Notes

2017

Notes

Sunday 12 March 2017 - Saturday 18 March 2017

[Notebook: DB 80: Cosmic plumbing]

[page 322]

Sunday 12 March 2017

Sitting here in my divine Universe feeling divinely excited about the possibilities while still curiously reluctant about promoting the idea. On the other hand I have overcome many of my inhibitions about talking about my theological ambitions, which are generally ridicules from both sides insofar as the Church sees ne a an apostate ad te scientific community cannot see its way to seeing that scientific theology is possible, given the bad reputation the Magisterium has gained for itself in scientific circles. Finish the theological studies article and then try to refine it to a scientifically testable hypothesis. Perhaps this needs a new theological ansatz based on a new methodological view. Begin with the Darwin Quote on the breadth of hypotheses.Quote this in theological studies. ['In scientific investigations . . . it is permitted to invent any hypothesis, and if it explains various large and independent classes of facts, it rises to the rank of a well grounded theory.' Charles Darwin: The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Wikipedia] Magisterium - Wikipedia, The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Selection - Wikipedia

Sexual selection: selection for making the necessity of reproduction for survival, ie beatitude lies in reproduction, a final cause as imagined by Aristotle and Aquinas. Without it species do not exist (cannot exist). Sp the pleasures of mating and writing are both founded in the need to reproduce to exist.

Darwin, Descent of Man: 'The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts'

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and that to a very large degree we cannot control them, which gives the thought police an opening to call us all sinners.

Bacterium: a little soap bubble filled with life [bubble is penetrated by communication equipment].

Natural theology should be as simple (and rich) as music, as demonstrated by quantum mechanics — superposition.

No physical embodiment of information lasts forever, which begets a desire for reproduction.

Monday 13 March 2017

Reproduction is the answer to error [the cause of death]

One can only reproduce oneself if there is a computable route from the plan (genotype) to realization (phenotype) So we begin with the ℵ₁ permutations of the Turing machine [mapped to the natural numbers].

Mathematical modelling: an event is a Turing machine which has no intrinsic space-time coordinates. These are provided by the network,which assigns an address to every process.

The Word was made flesh: ie spoken, constructed, realized.

Alt-right cancer propagated (de facto) by the Church whose Good News is Fake News [thankyou Trump for the new term].

We judge by a standard and judges (among others) attempt to express these standards in writing. Mathematicians judge by two standards: consistency and interest?

Can God die? Parts of it, at least, like me.

Tuesday 14 March 2017

Progress seems slow but satisfactory. Reading a bit more on fixed points: Casti, Agarwal, Debreau. Casti: Five Golden Rules, Agarwal et al: Fixed Point Theory, Debreu: Theory of Value

NYT: Fake news at the root of our civilization. Donald Trump and his crooked cronies have created a kingdom of lies, but they are not the first. It has been standard ruling class practice at least since the legendary [Moses] appointed himself Yahweh's spokesperson and deployed murder and the divine right of kings to establish control of the Hebrews on their way out of Egypt [to the Promised Land]. The Exodus - Wikipedia

Resistance: Newton's third law. Newton's Laws of motion - Wikipedia

We know the fundamental environmental problem: we see it as a material resource rather than a spiritual divinity.

Parochial vs universal values. The fundamental value is human symmetry, ecological symmetry, global symmetry, theological symmetry. What do these concatenations of words mean?

Wednesday 15 March 2017

What we wish to do is propagate the fundamental symmetries through the system, so maximizing entropy [the bigger the symmetry space, the more information is to be found in each point]. Entropy is maximized by realizing actual structures. The transfinite scale of entropy has a Platonic existence. To make this structure physical we need to develop stable structures which need error free communication which requires packaging, ie a symbolic representation, the most error resistant being a binary symbol. How do we realize 0 and 1?

The growth of marriage from an economically and politically controlled event to a romantically driven event that recognizes the natural bondings that lead to mating, reproduction and replacement of aging members of the species.

An Essay on Marriage (ie bonding at all levels)

We are all travelling through time, even when we stay in one place. [One's place is defined by one's address in the network.]

Mind vs matter, ie abstract vs concrete: although she is absolutely gorgeous, I do not wish this to deflect me from my theoretical course, but rather use the romantic energy to intensify the quest after a long period of idling along, the maximum possible speed in doldrumlike conditions of imaginational aridity.

Why are people like Trump so committed to damaging society? : For their own wealth, the uncontrolled ability to rape and plunder.

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Dynamics is measured by mappings. A function is a set of [correspondences] a trajectory. A different function, from N to N is another trajectory or set of correspondences.

Functions exist outside time but physically time is the basic ordering parameter, so that a function is executed in a time sequence of events leading to a fixed point, a solution.

Politics: controlling the flow of information. McMaster. McMaster: Dereliction of Duty

Thursday 16 March

The fundamental problem: avoiding the evidence, the largest known example being the unjustified assumption of a God with Judaeo-Christian properties.

Romantic dynamics is built around a necessary attractor of ephemeral events: reproduction, It is the sine qua non for long term existence of complex systems that are inevitably subject to failure, ie ℵ₁/ℵ₁ = 1, probability wise, eventually swamping the ℵ₀ deterministic processes.

Trump gives us a clear modern understanding of how brazen lies can become established truth if they have enough money = power behind them. Fortunately Trump is operating within a constitutional system sufficiently powerful to contain him, but the Catholic Church grew in the days of monarchical rule so it became a natural fit to the prevailing

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political ecology.

We might say that there is nothing wrong with monarchy as long as the monarch is divinely perfect, like the Judaeo-Christian Gsod. Monarchs working under divine right are inclined to claim this perfection for themselves but most of them do not take long to descend to violent crime and corruption.

Fake news - false prophecy.

The proof of any formal hypothesis comes in the application, where the model meets the data [reality. In the building trade when the plan to erect a difficult structure succeeds or fails]. Our first step is to explain the existence of time. The key is the vast difference between random and controlled possibilities. The random ones may appear at any moment (given the conservation of energy) and given conservation, each appearance requires the annihilation of sn old fixed point and the creation of a new one. The result is a sequence of events (actions) that is effectively a random walk through transfinite space. A stochastic chain. Stochastic - Wikipedia

On the other hand computation enables us to construct deterministic chains that can reproduce themselves. Given conservation of energy again, the more the reproductive chains reproduce themselves the less energy is available for the stochastic chains.

Reproduction requires requisite variety and error free communication. Each step in a computation is a communication. [a processor is 'conscious' (self-controlled) in the sense that it computes its own next step from its current state].

Cybnernetics and resistance.

Friday 17 March 2017

We love to provoke one another to elicit a response This may cover the spectrum from polite questions through physical interaction to murder (you respond by dying, so apparently solving some problem, ie answering a question [who will rid me of this troublesome priest?]). Thomas Becket - Wikipedia

The invisibility of God.We all find it rather difficult to communicate with one another and there are frequent misunderstandings, particularly where romance is involved. Our feelings are often a mystery to us, although it might be reasonable to attribute them to our long evolutionary history. As we have explained a few times, a processor cannot exhaustively communicate its processes without effectively coming to a halt, so only the conclusions of our mental processes enter our consciousness, and we are often perplexed about how we think or feel. Ultimately, however, feeling or passion seems to be the winner and we can often enter close liaisons against our better judgement. The invisible processes that underlie our consciousness, like our communications with one another are part of the divine dynamics and may be understood as the divinity dwelling within us. Just had a smoke, the magic sometimes works.

Saturday 18 March 2017

If we stand at any point in the environment we are part of a network which is feeding us with sights sounds and a vast array of other inputs, mostly unconscious. Our conscious attention is time division multiplexed as we become aware of first one feature of our environment (traffic lights) and then another. As sources, we try

[page 329]

to get the attention of other elements of our input space, getting the children to school, talking North Korea out of nuclear aggression and so on. In most cases we get the best results out of minimal violence which means playing a long game getting to know the nature of the source to be influenced.

Identify western God and indigenous Land, here we call it the environment. My envirnment is the set of every source tht has communicated with me.

Looking for gaps in the story. The only way to find them is to write the story out at length, 10 000 words. Last did this with things like Essay on Value, Why is the Universe Quantized, etc, to be found in Essays. Scientific-theology is coming along. Perhaps we can synchronize its sections with the chapter in the book length version. An Essay on Value, Why is the Universe quantized?

What we need to develop are the mathematical properties of the transfinite network which is quite closely analogous to the mathematical community.

Copyright:

You may copy this material freely provided only that you quote fairly and provide a link (or reference) to your source.

Further reading

Books

Click on the "Amazon" link below each book entry to see details of a book (and possibly buy it!)

Agarwal, Ravi P., and Maria Meehan, Donal O'Regan, Fixed Point Theory and Applications, Cambridge University Press 2009 'This book provides a clear exposition of the flourishing field of fixed point theory. Starting form the basics of Banach's contraction theorem, most main results and techniques are ceveloped. . . . The theory is applied to many areas of current interest in analysis. . . . '  Amazon   back

Casti, John L, Five Golden Rules: Great Theories of 20th-Century Mathematics - and Why They Matter, John Wiley and Sons 1996 Preface: '[this book] is intended to tell the general reader about mathematics by showcasing five of the finest achievements of the mathematician's art in this [20th] century.' p ix. Treats the Minimax theorem (game theory), the Brouwer Fixed-Point theorem (topology), Morse's theorem (singularity theory), the Halting theorem (theory of computation) and the Simplex method (optimisation theory).  Amazon   back

Debreu, Gerard, Theory of Value: An Axiomatic Analysis of Economic Equilibrium, Yale University Press 1972 Amazon customer review: 'This is not an easy book. The mathematics are very rigorous, but everything is well defined, and it is self-contained. However, it pays to read this short book. If you want to understand the foundations of the modern economic analysis, this the place to look.' A Customer  Amazon   back

Dennett, Daniel C, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Penguin Viking 2006 Jacket: 'In this daring and important new book, DCD seeks to uncover the origins of this remarkable family of phenomena that means so much to so many people, and to discuss why--and how--they have commanded allegiance, become so potent and shaped so many lives so strongly. What are the psychological dnd cultural soils in which religion first took root? Is it an addiction or a genuine need that we should try to perserve at any cost? Is it the product of blind evolutionary instinct or rational choice? Do those who believe in God have good resons for doing so? Are people right to say that the best way to live the good life is through religion. In a spirited argument that ranges through biology, history, and psychology, D explores how religion evolved from folk beliefs anbd how these early "wild" strains of religion were then carefully and consciously domesticated. At the motives pf religion's stewards entered this process, such features as secrecy, and systematic invulnberability to disproof emerged. D contends that this protective veneer of mystery needs to be removed so that religions can be better understood, and--more important--he argues that the widespread assumption that they are the necessary foundation of morality can no longer be supported. ... '  Amazon   back

Gaddis, John Lewis, The Cold War: A New History, The Penguin Press 2005 Jacket: 'Many will remember what it was like to live under the shadow of the Cold War: the ever-present anxiety that at some point, because of some miscalculation or act of hubris, we might find ourselve sin the middle of a nuclear holocaust . . . How did this terrible conflict arise? How did wartime allies so quickly become deadly foes after 1945 and divide the world into opposing camps, each armed to the teeth? And how, suddenly, did it all come to an end? Only now that the Cold War has been over for fifteen years can we begin to find a convincing perspective on it. John Lewis Gaddis's masterly book is the first full, major history of the whole conflict and explains not just what happened, but why it happened . . . Gaddis has synthesized all the most recent scholarship, but has also used minutes from Politburo meetings, startling information from recently opened Soviet and Asian archives, ... and above all the words of the leading participants themselves -- showing what was realy on the mind of each, with a very dramatic immediacy. . . .'  Amazon   back

McMaster, Herbert Raymond, Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam, Harper Perennial 1998 'Dereliction Of Duty is a stunning new analysis of how and why the United States became involved in an all-out and disastrous war in Southeast Asia. Fully and convincingly researched, based on recently released transcripts and personal accounts of crucial meetings, confrontations and decisions, it is the only book that fully re-creates what happened and why. It also pinpoints the policies and decisions that got the United States into the morass and reveals who made these decisions and the motives behind them, disproving the published theories of other historians and excuses of the participants.'  Amazon   back

Links

Ana Swanson, Trump's head-spinning shift on the conmy has left his supporters behind, 'Josh Feinman, chief economist of Deutsche Asset Management, says it's important to remember that the economy does look healthy, and that the country has made enormous progress since the recession. Still, there's longer-term trends "that have been at work for decades and that transcend this cycle, that have nothing to do with the Great Recession per se, and that have made a lot of folks feel insecure [and] politically, socially, economically marginalized,” Feinman said.' back

Australian Associated Press, pope may be backsliding on paedophile crackdown, Catholic official says, 'The Pope may be retreating from his crackdown on paedophile priests as Vatican bureaucrats do all they can to undermine reform efforts, a senior Australian Catholic official has warned. The Catholic Church in Australia could end up as a “marginalised rump” unless there is real change to an institutional culture hell-bent on self-protection and self-preservation, the chief executive of the church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council, Francis Sullivan, has said.' back

Barry Friedman, We spend $100 billion a year on policing. We have no idea what works , Throughout the rest of government, we use cost-benefit analysis to answer these sorts of questions. (Many economists prefer to call it benefit-cost analysis, or BCA, rightly asking: Why worry about the costs until we know if there are any benefits?) Whether it is environmental regulation, workplace safety, financial rules or the provision of health care, BCA is pervasive. But as a 2014 report by the Vera Institute of Justice pointed out, BCA has not been widely taught or used in criminal justice. That’s a stark understatement when it comes to policing. back

Bruce G. Blair, Why Our Nuclear Weapons Can Be Hacked, Bruce G. Blair, a research scholar in the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton, is a founder of Global Zero, a group opposed to nuclear weapons. 'In 2010, 50 nuclear-armed Minuteman missiles sitting in underground silos in Wyoming mysteriously disappeared from their launching crews’ monitors for nearly an hour. . . . Was this a technical malfunction or was it something sinister? Had a hacker discovered an electronic back door to cut the links . . .It was a harrowing scene, and apprehension rippled all the way to the White House.' back

Dana Milbank, The GOP matserminds behind Obamacare's 'deathspiral', 'Obamacare isn’t failing; it’s being destroyed. And those committing the sabotage ought to own whatever happens next, whether they pass a replacement or not.' back

David Barnett, Torrey Canyon: How marine life is returning to the Cornish coast 50 years after one of the world's worst oil spills, 'Exactly 50 years ago today the SS Torrey Canyon, a Liberia-registered tanker chartered to British Petroleum, was wrecked on rocks off the Cornish coast. The ship, built in the USA in 1959, had the capacity to carry 120,000 tons of crude oil, and with a full cargo was on her way from a refinery in Kuwait to Milford Haven in Wales when disaster struck.' back

Eleanor Ainge Roy, New Zealand river granted the same legal rights as a human being, 'In a world-first a New Zealand river has been granted the same legal rights as a human being. The local Māori tribe of Whanganui in the north island has fought for the recognition of their river – the third-largest in New Zealand – as an ancestor for 140 years. On Wednesday, hundreds of tribal representatives wept with joy when their bid to have their kin awarded legal status as a living entity was passed into law.' back

Francisco J. Ayala, Darwin and the scientific method, 'Abstract There is a contradiction between Darwin's methodology and how he described it for public consumption. Darwin claimed that he proceeded “on true Baconian [inductive] principles and without any theory collected facts on a wholesale scale.” He also wrote, “How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!” The scientific method includes 2 episodes. The first consists of formulating hypotheses; the second consists of experimentally testing them. What differentiates science from other knowledge is the second episode: subjecting hypotheses to empirical testing by observing whether or not predictions derived from a hypothesis are the case in relevant observations and experiments. A hypothesis is scientific only if it is consistent with some but not other possible states of affairs not yet observed, so that it is subject to the possibility of falsification by reference to experience. Darwin occupies an exalted place in the history of Western thought, deservedly receiving credit for the theory of evolution. In The Origin of Species, he laid out the evidence demonstrating the evolution of organisms. More important yet is that he discovered natural selection, the process that accounts for the adaptations of organisms and their complexity and diversification. Natural selection and other causal processes of evolution are investigated by formulating and testing hypotheses. Darwin advanced hypotheses in multiple fields, including geology, plant morphology and physiology, psychology, and evolution, and subjected them to severe empirical tests.' back

Haider Javed Warraich, What Our Cells Teach Us About 'Natural Death', 'The most sophisticated form of cell death, however, is unlike the other two types. Apoptosis, a Greek word used to describe falling leaves, is a programmed form of cell death. When a cell becomes old or disrepair sets in, it is nudged, usually by signaling molecules, to undergo a form of controlled self-demolition. Unlike in necrosis, the cell doesn’t burst, doesn’t tax the immune system, but quietly dissolves. Apoptosis is the reason our bone marrow doesn’t weigh two tons or our intestines don’t grow indefinitely. back

The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Selection - Wikipedia, The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Selection - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication is a book by Charles Darwin that was first published in January 1868. A large proportion of the book contains detailed information on the domestication of animals and plants but it also contains in Chapter XXVII a description of Darwin's theory of heredity which he called pangenesis.' back

Jack Goldsmith, Yes, Trump Is Being Held Accountable, 'All of these actors and institutions are holding the Trump presidency to account. They are endeavoring to uncover the truth about the manifold Russian mysteries. And they can, if they see fit, take action with effects ranging from publicity and embarrassment to political damage with electoral consequences to criminal prosecution to impeachment if appropriate.' back

James Ward, Keri Chiveralls, Lorenzo Fioramonti, Paul Sutton and Robert Costanza, The decoupling delusion: rethinking growth and sustainability, 'But we would argue that what people are observing (and labelling) as decoupling is only partly due to genuine efficiency gains. The rest is a combination of three illusory effects: substitution, financialisation and cost-shifting. . . .Rather than fighting and exploiting the environment, we need to recognise alternative measures of progress. In reality, there is no conflict between human progress and environmental sustainability; well-being is directly and positively connected with a healthy environment.' back

Jonathan Smith, Sessions doesn't want to investigate police. Here's why we need to., 'Michael Brown’s death on the streets of Ferguson, Mo., on Aug. 9, 2014, changed the national conversation about policing and race. Police abuse became daily front-page news; the Black Lives Matter movement was born; race and inequality turned into mainstream political issues. Underlining much of the discussion after Brown’s shooting was a March 2015 report by the Justice Department’s civil rights division that detailed how the Ferguson police department and municipal court had destroyed the lives of thousands of African American residents. Statistics, data analysis and scores of startling stories filled the report.' back

Lisa Feldman Barrett, The Law's Emotion Problem, 'The idea of inferring mental states is so intuitive that we assume, as Justice Kennedy did, that it’s part of a universal human nature. But it’s not. My lab has visited several remote cultures, far from Western civilization, that view emotions as mere actions, rather than something you feel. These cultures, which include the Himba of Namibia and the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania, see someone who is smiling and laughing as just smiling and laughing — not “happy,” a word that implies a mental state. In these cultures, physical actions, not mental states, are sufficient to help predict a person’s next action, and moral responsibility for harm is less based on intention.' back

Magisterium - Wikipedia, Magisterium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The magisterium of the Catholic Church is the church's authority or office to establish its own authentic teachings.That authority is vested uniquely by the pope and by the bishops, under the premise that they are in communion with the correct and true teachings of the faith. Sacred scripture and sacred tradition "make up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God, which is entrusted to the Church", and the magisterium is not independent of this, since "all that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is derived from this single deposit of faith."' back

Maisy Rika, Tangaroa Whakamautai, Lyrics Te ararau o Tangaroa E rere ki te papaurunui (x3) Tahora nui ātea Te manawa o te moana Te mauri o Tangaroa Tangaroa whakamautai Tangaroa whakamautai Tūtara Kauika He poutiriao Te wai o Tangaroa Te wai o Tangaroa Te tangi a te tohorā He tohu nō aituā Te mau a Tangaroa Te mau a Tangaroa He kaitiaki He taonga He tipua He ariki He taniwha He tipua He kaitiaki He taonga He tipua Tangaroa whakamautai Nā Maisey Rika i whakapākehātia. English translation by Maisey Rika The various waterways of Tangaroa Flow back into its voluminous source (x3) The vast expanse The heart of the ocean The life-force of Tangaroa Tangaroa commander of the tides A pod of whales (or in reference to Tūtara Kauika the historical whale guardian ancestor) A supernatural phenomenon Evolving from the waters of Tangaroa The waters of Tangaroa The cry of the whale Signals a warning The power of Tangaroa The power of Tangaroa Tangaroa commander of the tides A guardian A precious treasure A strange / supernatural being A god Of the ancient prehistoric realm A guardian A precious treasure A strange / supernatural being Tangaroa commander of the tides. back

Maisy Rika, Ruaimoko (ft Anika Moa), 'Rū nui, rū roa Riu nui, riu roa Rua nui, rua roa Te rū i riu Te rū i te rua Te rū i mokotia Te riu i mokotia Te rua i mokotia Ruaimoko, Ruaimoko, Ruaimoko Ka tanuku koa te tihi o Aorangi, ka tanuku E rere rā taki atu taki mai ngā wai o Waitaki, e rere rā E rere rā taki mai ngā waipuke i aku kamo, e rere rā Aku kura ki te hau Nāku i tiki i te pōuriuri I te pō tangotango I a Hinemanuhiri, i a Ruaimoko E tuki rā i te whēnua Nā Te Kāhautu Maxwell i whakapākehātia. English translation by Te Kāhautu Maxwell Causing earthquakes Creating valleys Creating caverns Earthquakes creating valleys Earthquakes creating caverns The earthquake that tattooed the land The valleys that tattooed the land The caverns that tattooed the land Ruaimoko God of earthquakes tattooer of the land The summit of Aorangi has collapsed, has fallen The waters of the Waitaki ebb and flow, likewise the tears of my eyes well fourth The loved ones that I seek out in the darkest night The never ending night of Hinemanuhiri And where Ruaimoko resides whom shakes the land violently back

Margaret Sullivan, Pro-Trump media sets the agenda with lies. Here's how traditional media can take it back., 'Once the president tweets it, it’s undeniably news, picked up everywhere and re-amplified — especially by right-wing sites. Derek Thompson of the Atlantic called this a “conspiracy-theory feedback loop.” And a very effective one it is. A major new study, published in Columbia Journalism Review, detailed just how influential the new media ecosystem has become, calling it a determining factor in Trump’s election. back

Matt Richtel, Are Teenagers Replacing Drugs with Smartphones?, 'But researchers are starting to ponder an intriguing question: Are teenagers using drugs less in part because they are constantly stimulated and entertained by their computers and phones?' back

Newton's Laws of motion - Wikipedia, Newton's Laws of motion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Newton's laws of motion are three physical laws that together laid the foundation for classical mechanics. They describe the relationship between a body and the forces acting upon it, and its motion in response to said forces. They have been expressed in several different ways over nearly three centuries, and can be summarised as follows. First law: When viewed in an inertial reference frame, an object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by an external force. Second law: The vector sum of the external forces F on an object is equal to the mass m of that object multiplied by the acceleration vector a of the object: F = ma. Third law: When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.' back

Paul Daley, 'Didgeru is his voice': how Djalu Gurruwiwi embodies the sound of a continent, back

Stochastic - Wikipedia, Stochastic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The word stochastic is an adjective in English that describes something that was randomly determined.The word first appeared in English to describe a mathematical object called a stochastic process, but now in mathematics the terms stochastic process and random process are considered interchangeable.The word, with its current definition meaning random, came from German, but it originally came from the Greek word στόχος (stokhos, "aim").' back

Taika Maititi, PoiE, 'The new music video released from the hit NZ movie Boy - courtesy Whenua Films NZ' back

The Exodus - Wikipedia, The Exodus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, The Exodus (from Greek ἔξοδος exodos, "going out") is the founding, or etiological, myth of Israel; its message is that the Israelites were delivered from slavery by Yahweh and therefore belong to him through the Mosaic covenant.[1][Notes 1] It tells of the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt following the death of Joseph, their departure under the leadership of Moses, the revelations at Sinai (including the Ten Commandments), and their wanderings in the wilderness up to the borders of Canaan.' back

Thomas Becket - Wikipedia, Thomas Becket - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Thomas Becket (. . . ] 21 December c. 1119 (or 1120) – 29 December 1170) was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until his murder in 1170. He is venerated as a saint and martyr by both the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. He engaged in conflict with Henry II, King of England over the rights and privileges of the Church and was murdered by followers of the king in Canterbury Cathedral. back

Tim Berners-Lee: , I invented the web. Here are three things we need to change to save it, 'It has taken all of us to build the web we have, and now it is up to all of us to build the web we want – for everyone. The Web Foundation is at the forefront of the fight to advance and protect the web for everyone. We believe doing so is essential to reverse growing inequality and empower citizens. You can follow our work by signing up to our newsletter, and find a local digital rights organisation to support here on this list. Additions to the list are welcome and may be sent to contact@webfoundation.org' back

Valerie Strauss, Teacher to Ohio Gov. Kasich: 'You are in the dark about life in the classroom', '. . . all working teachers applying for license renewal in Ohio —[must] get some “on-site work experience with a local business or chamber of commerce. . . . Why? Ryan Burgess, director of Kasich’s Office of Workforce Transformation, told reporters that it would help teachers get a better idea for what jobs are available to students and what skills employers need. Well, Julie Rine is one teacher who begs to differ. She wrote and sent a letter to the governor . . . ” back

William Grimes, Derek Walcott, Poet and Nobel Laureate of Carribean, Dies at 87, 'Derek Walcott, whose intricately metaphorical poetry captured the physical beauty of the Caribbean, the harsh legacy of colonialism and the complexities of living and writing in two cultural worlds, bringing him a Nobel Prize in Literature, died early Friday morning at his home near Gros Islet in St. Lucia. He was 87.' back