LeSellers

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Everything posted by LeSellers

  1. I read the story as well, but the tether need not be at the Equator. True, it will be more effective there, but even at ~45° North or South, it will still be effective. It won't be at 90° to the earth: it'll always be parallel to one on the Equator and radial to the earth's axis, i.e., 45° south- or northward. Further north or south than 45°, the Earth's spin might not be adequate to keep the tether stable. If we only had the technology to create a fiber strong and light enough to make it so. Lehi
  2. While that is true, it is equally untrue to say that all organic producers use pesticides. There is no standard for the label "organic". General Mills and General Foods have co-opted the term and others, following in their wake have corrupted it. There are producers "out there" who do not use pesticides and other patent (a key word) pesticides, and who rely on natural controls (lady bugs, Neem oil, BT, etc.). There are dairymen who do not feed their cows hormones and antibiotics. By necessity, their products cost more since they cannot afford to supply our food at the same price Big Agri does. But there is a demand and the Law of Supply'n'Demand is always in effect. But, back to bees … Lehi
  3. Only some of them — those who get their paychecks from the government or Monsanto. Look, you have your data, but there is some discrepancy between what you're projecting and what I'm reading from the people who are fighting the war. My trust in "science" is tempered by the fact that they get their money from power-grubbing politicians and bureaucrats, who, in turn, get their money from Monsanto and Bayer. Lehi
  4. One of the errors most people around the world have is that USAan science (and a host of other fields) is "corporate sponsored". That's only true in a fraction of cases. What the problem is is that USAan science is government-sponsored. Grants and direct funding from a host of tax money sources, including to and within universities, has tainted science (from "global warming" – or whatever they call it these days – to AIDS) such that the vast majority of research must toe the government line of risk defunding. That is problem enough, but the government line so toed invariably leads to greater government involvement in whatever "problem" these "researchers" discover. Now, I must admit that government here is strongly influenced by corporations, so your point is true indirectly. Nonetheless, corporations are amoral: they are in it for the money, as they should be. But government is in it for the power. And that is most definitely not the way it should be. Our Dept Agriculture (among others, the EPA, for example) gets a lot of money from agribusiness. Congressmen get a lot of money from agribusiness. Agribusiness wants to "steer" the decisions, regulations, and laws so it can make money. And the ROI is impressive. But government is in it for the power, as noted above. And, if making laws that give money to the lobbyists also advances its agenda, everybody wins. Well, everybody who's just a taxpayer, consumer, or other outsider. Lehi
  5. Another article pointing to the same problem and the same probable cause. Here's an exerpt: Lehi
  6. I feel a bit like Mormon: I didn't tell you 1/100 of what there is. Lehi
  7. And we wonder who appointed you to define doctrine. Lehi
  8. You can't possibly be lumping me in to such a class. Of all the Christians someone could mistake me being, "main stream" ain't on the list. Lehi
  9. And I submit that you don't know what I know, and that you are not in a position to judge, and that your assumptions are erroneous. Lehi
  10. There's no problem with that. It's discussing, especially in a public forum like this, where the problems arise. Heber C. Kimball once said that he didn't share his insights/revelations even with his wife because, when he did, the Lord stopped showing him new stuff. Lehi
  11. What you say above is true. But I cannot divulge what I may or may not know on the matter: it would be vulgar. Lehi
  12. And, without further light and knowledge, how could we possibly comment on these? And, with that light and knowledge, who would want to divulge* the sacred whisperings of the Spirit? * divulge, from the Latin, to make common or vulgar. Lehi
  13. Yes. The Brethren already are. In a stake conference several years ago, one of them spoke and said that the rich kids from Sandy, Ut, were not becoming good missionaries because they couldn't do without their phone, computers, cars, and other toys. And that's just one indicator. But we should also worry about the "poor" Saints who have the same values and goals, the only difference being they can't afford them. Lehi
  14. You need to be consistent. Immorality is immorality, irrespective of the laws (many of which are extraordinarily immoral). Lehi
  15. At least one grtf-welfare school district has toyed with the idea of requesting or forbidding parents from "helping" their children, or even reading to them, since it "tilts the playing field". GRTF-Welfare schools were designed to divorce children from their parents (in Mann's own words, not mine). That's one reason there is homework: to take even more time away from family-centered activities and to re-enforce the "we know best" attitude implied, if not stated outright. Lehi
  16. The Community of Christ (the name was changed in 2001, aIr, by the first non-Smith from the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). The claim that Joseph III and his heirs would always run the RLDS/CoC was poo-pooed into oblivion at the time W. Grant McMurray took the office. He resigned under interesting, and unspecified, circumstances. When the Saints left Nauvoo, one of the important things they did not take with them was the JST manuscript. Emma had it in her possession, and refused to give it to the Church that was leaving her (by her own choice). As its custodian, she eventually gave it to the RLDS Church through her son, JS III. In the late 1860s the RLDS decided to print the JST (they call it the Inspired Version of the Holy Scriptures), and formed a committee to make that happen. But, when they got the manuscript, they discovered that Joseph didn't have a "manuscript", he had "notes". Putting it together for the printer (a process called "engrossing") took years for the seven-person committee. They made a lot of choices about what to include and what to leave out from among the three versions (called manuscripts 1, 2, & 3), and sometimes made what most might consider mistakes by choosing an earlier version over a more difficult-to-understand later version. However, one of the RLDSs sent Parley P. Pratt (who was intimately involved in the translation with Joseph) a copy of the first printing. He sat down and read it through, and said that those who had done it had done it well. Earlier, John Bernheisel (I forget how to spell his name), a doctor, was passing through and visited Emma in Nauvoo. He asked her to see the ms, and she allowed him to look at it and take notes. He produced what we call the "Bernheisal manuscript". It is useful, but he made copyist errors and didn't do a complete transcription, so it isn't as helpful as we might like, but it does (or did) give us a view into the text, and a touchstone to the printed version's accuracy. He included his own interlinear notes, at one point saying "this I not understand." Feelings between the LDS and RLDS churches were bad to horrid until the mid-70s, aIr. The only way for a Saint to buy a copy of the IV/JST was to get it from Herald House (the RLDS publisher). I got mine from Deseret Book in the mid 70s, but it was more expensive there than I could have bought it directly from the publisher. I think it may have been that HH wouldn't discount the cover price for DB. That's an assumption based on one experience: I haven't even tried to verify it. This animus abated about this time, and it was due to several factor, not least on the efforts of Robert J. Matthews. The most important LDS scholar to review the mss was Dr. Matthews (A Plainer Translation: Joseph Smith's Translation of the Bible--A History and Commentary). The thawing probably came about when he asked for permission from his friend, the RLDS Church historian, to examine the mss. This friendship had been on-going for years, so it was not a surprise that he granted it. Dr. Matthews examined every page of the extensive mss, and the Bible needed to "decode" the text. He made hand-written copies of the mss and made identical (as far as possible) marks in his own copy of the Bible. See his book for more details. Following the change, and when the Brethren decided we needed a better edition of the Bible, we got permission to use the IV/JST in foot- and end- notes in the LDS edition of the AV. I could go on (and on, and on), but I hope this will suffice. Lehi
  17. Sorry, going on a 68 year-old memory card is sometimes fraught with peril. Lehi
  18. No, no!, a thousand times NO!!! "Life expectancy" is not a useful measure unless you attach an age. The assumed age is "birth", so, while a neonate could expect to live 40 years in the i, his father, presumably at least 15, would have an LE of at least 60, and his living grandfather, aged, say 45, would have an LE of 70 or so. All life expectancy tell us is that half of the people alive at a given age will be dead at another age in the future. Since half or more of all children died before age 5 until about the mid XIX, the LE at birth was necessarily low. but when someone lived to age, say, 20, his LE wouldn't be a whole lot different for a twenty-year-old today. Lehi
  19. There's something to that, but the evidence I refer to is the fact that we don't hear of Joseph (alive) much past Jesus' thirteenth year. It was His mother and brothers who came to see Him preaching, and His mother alone at the cross. Of course we have more, but this is the evidence I weigh most heavily. Lehi
  20. That bothers me not in the least. It would not bother me today, as long as they married and both were in their right minds. One of the big things I hate about grtf-welfare schools is that they infantilize children. Admiral David Farragut commanded his first warship at age 14. Benjamin Franklin wrote articles for a fairly large newspaper when he was less than 16 under the pseudonym Prudence Dogood. It's virtually impossible for an adolescent (which didn't even exist back then) to do anything of the sort. So they have regressed back to what we expect of them, which is, essentially, nothing. Lehi
  21. I think there was no "limit", per se. But in the culture He grew up in, girls married at age 14~16, and there is evidence that Joseph was in his forties or fifties when he married Mary. I suspect it was more an issue of sexual maturity than a specific age. Lehi
  22. It sortta kinda depends on the difference between boys and girls, too. Mary was probably 14 or 15 when she bore the Son of God. Lehi