Heat Wave is a very enjoyable mystery, way superior to anything I expected.
Daily Archives: September 2, 2010
Stephen Hawking Says God Is Unnecessary
by Mike Gray Alan Boyle writes on MSNBC’s Cosmic Log that the widely-circulated quote from cosmologist Stephen Hawking needs some amplification: British physicist Stephen Hawking’s latest book is already making waves with his observation that science can explain the universe’s origin without invoking God. “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing,” Hawking and his co-author, Caltech physicist Leonard Mlodinow, write in “The Grand Design,” which is due to be issued next week. “Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.” That’s the quote that lit the fuse in The Guardian as well in The Times of London, which published an excerpt from the book in its Thursday edition. But by itself, the quote doesn’t have much “there” there. If Hawking is saying merely that something can arise from nothing willy-nilly, that’s not much of an explanation for the origin of the universe. What he’s actually saying in the book is that when we study the universe’s origins, we have to work our
Watching the Watchers: The Desirability of Video Evidence and the Official Move to Limit It
by Mike Gray Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who watches the watchers?) — Attributed to Juvenal, Satire 6 (writing in an entirely different context) Phil Elmore, on WorldNet Daily, reports on a disturbing trend, a move on the part of authorities to outlaw videographers when the latter catch the former abusing their Constitutional powers: Just what are the consequences for filming someone in public – specifically, for filming a police officer in public? As the technology to record video becomes ever more accessible and less expensive, the prevalence of handheld video cameras (often in the form of wireless phones) has increased dramatically. Public surveillance by our government has increased, too, and we as Americans must contend with the shadow of Big Brother looming larger over us with each passing day. The good thing about video, however, is that it makes no judgments, provided it is not edited in bad faith or filmed from a compromising angle. A video of an incident tells the truth about what happened more accurately than any eyewitness can relate. So why are more and more law enforcement and government officials trying to make criminals of citizens who record encounters with police? In some states the move
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