The Daily Bluster

It was the Reverend James Ussher (1581-1656) who calculated the Earth’s age as only 6,000 years old. This would make the Earth a veritable infant, as planets go. However, science puts Earth’s age as around 4.54 billion years; creationists, however, don’t let anything as trivial as scientific facts get in the way of how they view the world around them.   That’s why Pat Robertson’s admission that James Ussher was not “inspired” by the Lord when he calculated the Earth’s age—in short, he does not believe that the Earth is only 6,000 years old—is surprising. This is contrary to most religious fundamentalist’s views that Earth was created in 4000 BC (around the time urbanization was starting in Mesopotamia). Pat Robertson also said that Christians should not “cover up” scientific evidence that Earth is, in fact, billions of years old.    Look, I know that people will probably try to lynch me when I say this, but Bishop Ussher wasn’t inspired by the Lord ...

The longest record for an officially confirmed sniper kill is held by British Corporal Craig Harrison . The feat occurred in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in November 2011. Corporal Harrison killed two Taliban fighters (two consecutive shots!) at a distance of 8120 feet, or 2.47 kilometers. A third shot also sent a Taliban machine gunner straight into martyrdom. Before that, the previous record for the longest kill was held by Corporal Rob Furlong of the Canadian Army . He sent to Islamic paradise an Al Qaeda fighter from 2.43 kilometers away in 2002 during Operation Anaconda , also in Afghanistan.  At these distances, the bullets can take several seconds to reach their intended targets.  Corporal Harrison used an Accuracy International L115A3 rifle for his record-breaking shot. Like this one: Corporal Furlong, on the other hand, used a Mcmillan TAC-50 : U.S. Navy Seal sniper Chris Kyle , in his autobiography “American Sniper,” states that hi...

...(T)he only thing left to do is shout -- not moan, or complain, but yell out at the top of your voice whatever it was you had to say. What you've never said before. What perhaps you don't even know till now--Jean Anouilh Two news articles made me think of the quoted passage above. First—“ SC asked to declare cybercrime law illegal .”  This bill—the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012—was passed in the Philippine Senate that Senator Guingona is trying to amend. The article quoted Senator Guingona as saying, “Without a clear definition of the crime of libel and the persons liable, virtually any person can now be charged with a crime—even if you just like, retweet or comment on an online update or blog post containing criticisms.” What is alarming is that the Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda agrees with the bill. They find nothing wrong with it.  Seriously. Senator Tito Soto ( the unapologetic plagiarizer nonpareil ) apparently had a hand in the inclusi...

              After the Sumerians and the Akkadians , another group of Semitic people from the deserts of Arabia arrived in Mesopotamia around 1900 BC and built the first Babylonian empire.               The new arrivals built upon the prevailing culture in the area, which was Sumerian. Led by Hammurabi, the Babylonians made the first collection of laws in history, the famous ‘Code of Hammurabi.” The "Code"on a clay tablet               The code had a stern sense of justice, and the principle of “eye for an eye” was advocated here. Punishment for criminals was usually death.  Hammurabi consolidated and united the Babylonians in building a mighty empire. He improved irrigation, and organized a well-trained army. Temples were repaired, and he promoted the chief Babylonian god Marduk over older Sumerian gods. The Babylonians also added to the knowledge of astronomy, ...

Image is from here . Funny, but unfortunately the joke's on the voters. But I guess it’s true what they say—we get the leaders we deserve.  After all, it’s the people who are responsible for putting men and women like these in power. Reminds me a little of Senator Tito Sotto, (incidentally also a TV comedian) who shamelessly copied parts of his privilege speech from bloggers and is apparently unapologetic about it. He seems to be oblivious of the ethics involve in such matters.  If he were a student who copied word-for-word some parts of his assignment from the internet, he might get in trouble with his teacher, but that's about it. But he’s a Senator, for Christ’s sake. So yes, we do have a bit of a situation. The trouble is, the Senator does not even realize the sordidness and the tackiness of his actions. In his mind, he should not even have to apologize--although his aide made an apology of a sort to the blogger, however lame the apology was. T...

I’ve always been a reader. The very first book I’ve read (I might have been a fourth or fifth grader) was a kid’s version of Henry Ford’s biography. Lots of black and white photos of weird-looking cars, and no mention of union-busting or Mr. Ford’s infatuation with the Nazis and rabid anti-Semitism. I then discovered the Hardy Boys , and I must have spent a good chunk of my allowance on these books, for I seem to remember entire bookshelves filled with hard-bound Hardy Boys books. Where they are now I have no idea. A happy place Then I got on to Mark Twain, then to the more “serious” authors—Victor Hugo, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, and many others. My library cards have always been filled with library stamps. It got so that librarians in the schools I attended (from high school to college) would let me search  for myself the books I wanted to borrow—they got tired of searching for books that I wanted, which was often located i...

And I wonder if you know That I never understood That although you said you’d go Until you did I never thought you would. Empty Chair is my absolute favorite Don McLean song. The song’s lyrics somehow capture heartbreak without being sappy. He sings about steps echoing in an empty room, a whiff of fragrance left behind, an empty chair, and facing another night of silence staring at the moonlight, at shadows that are no longer there. Beautiful lyrics, haunting tune. Best listened to when alone in a half-dark room.  It was said that singer Lori Lieberman heard Don McLean singing this song in a concert, and inspired her to write a poem, which in turn inspired the song “Killing Me Softly With His Song.” (Lori Lieberman recorded the original version of Killing Me softly…) Turns out to be not the case. As Charles Fox, the composer, recounted , "I think it's called an urban legend. It really didn't happen that way. Norman Gimbel and I wrote that ...

Much have been said about the world ending in 2012, because of that Mayan calendar . However, scientists have discovered an extended Mayan calendar that doesn’t stop at 2012. So if you are planning to attend (or hold) an end-of-the-world-party this December, you might want to rethink that.  It turns out that the Mayan calendar extends further than 2012; and, like all calendars, it really has no limit on the number of years it can count. The Mayan calendar has its own units of counting the passage of time, its own “cycles,” that would be comparable to our days, months, or years. For example, the current Mayan “cycle,” or baktun (a cycle approximately 394 years long) , will end this year. However, it is a repeating cycle, much like our years, decades, and so on. So there is a good chance that a new baktun shall begin again. (image is from here ) In any case, there are scientists that had already questioned the accuracy of the conversion of dates from the Mayan...

Since ancient times, people had been digging up bones and other mineralized remains of creatures that lived and died a long, long time ago. When dinosaur bones were unearthed in China about a thousand years ago, people wondered about the kinds of animals that had these bones. This was probably the start of dragon legends. All over  the world, there are places that if one digs deep enough, one may find some ancient shells, bone fragments, a piece of petrified wood, or even a leaf print. These relics are called fossils. They are usually found through digging. In fact, the term "fossil" comes from a Latin word that means, "to dig." Fossils are remains of ancient life; they give us clues about the distant past. Countless animals and plants that lived a long time ago were preserved in different ways. In hot and dry places, actual bones or teeth of an extinct creature are sometimes preserved; in moist places, the relic may be replaced by a rock-like copy of ...

Simply put, monotheism is the belief in the existence of a single god, in contrast to polytheism, which is a belief in the existence of many gods. Until the advent of monotheism, polytheism was the norm among the early civilizations. Civilizations that worshiped many gods were traditionally more accepting and more tolerant of the gods of other people, e.g., the Sumerians, Hittites, etc. (Hittite state documents unearthed by archaeologists often bear the invocation “The Thousand Gods of the Hatti.”)  The first monotheistic religion may have been the worship of the Sun God Aten in ancient Egypt, which was established by Amenhotep IV (1364-1347 BC). Aten However, this did not last, as a subsequent pharaoh eradicated the worship of Aten. Then sometime before the 6 th century in Persia, Zoroaster (or Zarathustra) founded Zoroastrianism, which many  scholars believe to have influenced the three major religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.   Zoroastr...