Gauracandra

So symbols without the reality behind it is just empty talk. Like a lady’s man who says “I love you”, the lady knows the word love is empty. A computer robot is simply a machine made to behave and act in a certain way by the programmer or engineer. Somewhere behind the robot is a person. The joke from the robot comes from a person. Someone maybe 50 feet away is pushing the buttons and he has a voicebox to talk to others. He speaks into a microphone which distorts his voice to sound robotic. And the audience thinks “Ooh, this is interesting.” You can’t create intelligence. The no-self theorists will argue in a certain way. Not able to find a self they conclude that there is no self. With a computer robot they start to relate to it as if it were a person. Their argument is that since there is no self in the robot there is therefore no self in a person. They will argue you must accept either there is a self in both the machine and the person or you must accept there is no self in either the machine or a person. Why is this argument not acceptable? 1) It is based on the idea that behavior is identical with awareness. They are two different things. A person is connected to the awareness of his own existence and the existence of others. Without this you only have symbols without the essence. 2) They are saying that because people are deluded into thinking there is a self in the robot that therefore they are deluded into thinking there is a self in a person. What is the faulty logic here? That just because they are wrong in one situation that therefore they must be wrong in all situations. Yes, he is deluded to think of an airport robot is conscious. But now he sees his wife and sees a person with awareness. Just because they can be deluded doesn’t mean there is no self. 3) A person projects onto someone else what they themselves can experience. If a person makes the signs of fear, you think it is fear. What is this based on? It is based on your own experience of fear. This is evidence that you exist. You could not conclude someone was in the body unless you were aware of your own existence. If you did not know what it was to exist you could never conclude that someone else exists or feels certain emotions. 4) These people are not taking into account self-awareness. They are looking at how a person is deluded into thinking of a self in something else. A person makes a mistake of awareness in another form. Here is a computer here and a person here. They make a mistake. But they don’t try to answer self-awareness. Forget considering another person’s existence. What is this “I am” “I exist”? Awareness itself is aware of its self. Who can be deluded if no one is there? “Oh, you are just in an illusion that you exist.” Who is in the illusion that they exist? Who? You are. How can I be in illusion that I don’t exist? One of the statements of the Buddha is that one must break out of the illusion he exists. Nonsense. A robot cannot be deluded to think it exists. A robot has no experience of I exist. Just actions and reactions based on programmers. It is time for the no-self theorists to give up deluding the people that robots are conscious entities. They want you to consider that you are no different than a robot. That’s their point. Its is an identity crisis. They identify the body as the self. Since the body is a machine they conclude that we are simply robots. It is depersonalization. Trying to get rid of the self. So soon it will be believed there is no difference between things and people. This is most unfortunate.

Adam Smith was a great proponent of free-market capitalism. He viewed free-market capitalism as a system of “natural liberty”. However, he saw a very bad side as well. Capitalism focused on increased production through specialization. But this increased specialization created among people a narrower and narrower focus. This prevents the individual from seeing the bigger picture. He writes: “Another bad effect of commerce is that it sinks the courage of mankind, and tends to extinguish martial spirit. In all commercial countries the division of labor is infinite, and everyone’s thoughts are employed about one particular thing… The minds of men are contracted, and rendered incapable of elevation. Education is despised, or at least neglected, and heroic spirit is utterly extinguished.” The problem then is one of culture. Education to create a cultured society could counteract the deforming of the human character from commerce. Only a cultured society can be truly free. The more our culture degrades, it is necessarily so that we lose our freedom. Smith states that “in free countries, where the safety of government depends very much upon the favourable judgment which the people may form of its conduct.” If you have a strong culture you don’t need big government. If you have a mass of culturally ignorant people, then you get juries that award millions of dollars for spilling coffee on oneself. You have people faking injuries to drive up medical costs. If there was a strong culture, there would be mass participation in local churches. Congregations would take care of one another. Whether abortion, or crime, or the spreading of diseases, these are all signs of a breakdown in culture. This is why cultural education is necessary in public schools. In the U.S., schools were originally proposed by the churches as a way of creating cultured individuals. Yes that’s right, it was the churches that asked the government to create our public education system. It was all about character training. Now any mention of God, or saluting the flag comes with a lawsuit. Without cultural training, without a society centered on God, free market capitalism will degrade to the lowest common denominator. Liberty will be lost, and government will necessarily have to become larger and more dominant in our lives. “What great men do, common men follow.” But what happens when the common man makes the great man? If we are not cultured what will we have to guide us? Whether in politics, or entertainment, or art, or industry and finance.

This week’s Srila Siddhaswarupananda television program looks at the media’s likening of human beings to robots. There is a TV guide in today’s paper. Its interesting how people are starting to identify computers and machines as having human like personalities. One of the shows is about a Volkswagen named Herbie. Apparently the car has a relationship with its owner. They (from an article he quotes) compare a tire mark of a robot to the fingerprint of a man. There are so many examples, this is just one. There are so many examples in the mass media. One of the most popular movies in recent times was Star Wars. Two of the main characters were robots – R2D2 and C3PO. You find the same thing with the robots having conversations with each other. They experience suffering. One exclaims “We seem to be made to suffer.” They have emotions saying “No, I don’t like you either.” They experience love and concern for others. One robot (C3PO) mistakes cries of joy for cries of death. They insult one another, with C3P0 saying “That malfunctioning little twerp… help, please help…” At the end R2D2 is hurt and a concerned C3PO asks if he can be repaired. There is a toilet paper commercial of a robot guarding the Charmin to prevent people from squeezing the toilet paper. But the robot can’t help it and goes against the programming and squeezes it anyways. I didn’t see the movie, but in 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL the computer defies his programmers. Another series Battlestar Galactica has a robot pet dog. As far as materialists are concerned a dog is just a machine. We videotaped one episode where a bad computer robot was the fastest draw. Then the good guy had to go and kill the bad robot. Afterwards the good guy felt remorse for killing the robot. “No, I didn’t feel good killing him.” The moral of the story is its not good to kill people. Perhaps it takes someone as paranoid as myself to see a hidden danger in all of this. Blowing up your television set, smashing a computer, there is no difference with killing a person. Its just that the body is a more complex computer. This is what they are propagating directly or indirectly to children. One British psychological association defines man as: sensory devices, a computing system, an amplifying system, and mechanical linkages. They don’t include awareness because consciousness can’t be seen. Since the body is constantly changing how can there be a consistent self? This is their view. There is no being in the computer body. If you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. They are no-self theorists. The human body is just reacting. Can you show me awareness? Can you show me your self? The body is surely a machine, but I am not my body. A person is more than a body. So if they can get a machine to behave like a human then they are the same. The robot says “I love you”. All they see is behavior but not the internal experience of the person. These sounds are symbolic representations of an experience. The robot has no experience. When you say “love” it is an internal experience. Just because you can make a robot behave in certain ways does not negate the self. In dealing with words we need to understand that they are symbols for something else. They are not the object itself. Certain sounds, and certain symbols may mean “banana” in one language, but a banana may be other sounds and symbols in a different language. It would be impossible to cover this all in 30 minutes. But you have to make a distinction between behavior and inner experience.

Muslim Youths Change Football Team Names IRVINE, Calif. - After objections to team names like "Soldiers of Allah" and "Moujahideen" overshadowed a football tournament organized by Muslim youths, the players sacked most of the offending names and took to the field to more cheers than protests. Jewish leaders had objected to some of the planned names, and Muslim leaders asked the teams to reconsider. One member of a team called Intifada said a few of his friends quit because their parents were worried for their safety. Organizers said none of the names were meant to offend, and players refused to change some of them, including Intifada. "We're just playing football," said Sabih Khan, 18, a tournament organizer. "It's just sport. There's no politics involved." About 120 mostly Muslim men in their teens and early 20s played under clear skies at a suburban park as friends and family cheered from the sidelines. Five protesters waved placards at the park entrance, far removed from the football field. Their signs said, "Murder is not a game," and "When these guys throw the bomb, they really throw a bomb." "To me, these names glorify terrorism," said Barry Spatz, a Jewish psychologist from Laguna Niguel. He carried a sign showing pictures of victims killed by suicide bombers in Israel. "If Muslim youth want to get together and do something positive, that's fine. But this is an insult to me," Spatz said. Intifada means "uprising" in Arabic and is used by some Palestinians to describe revolts against Israeli occupation. "Moujahideen" translates as "holy warrior" and is associated with Islamic groups the United States characterizes as terrorist organizations. The protests had little effect on the competition. Fourteen squads battled for a first place trophy during the one-day tournament. Rather than threatening, some of the team names — including Fantizzle Fizzle — were just silly. The team name Muslim Rangers was replaced on a tournament list with Irvine Alumni. Warming up for his first game, Oomar Patel, 23, waved off the controversy. "To each his own," said Patel, a police officer in Garden Grove. "I'm just here to play football and have some fun."

Jewish people have a K and other symbols for various levels of Kosher. Can't vegetarians put pressure on these companies to create a symbol that tells exactly how 'vegetarian' a product is? I think this would be a good campaign for PETA to engage in.

I agree. There should be some basic standards. If you actually compare these Presidents to past Presidents its embarrassing. Go back and read some of the writings of Lincoln, Jefferson and others, and it is clear that todays crop just doesn't cut it. Perhaps it was because in the past the right to vote wasn't for everyone. Perhaps everyone shouldn't be allowed to vote. Maybe Presidential candidates should take a test, and voters should take a qualification test. Arithmetic and the Candidates Shouldn’t Every President Know Math? A List of Proposed Quiz Questions Commentary By John Allen Paulos Special to ABCNEWS.com Jan. 4— Watching political debates, I sometimes find myself hoping that the moderators will pose a simple arithmetical question or two. Queries about the war, taxes, and cultural issues usually elicit rhetoric and canned answers that most of the candidates could recite in their sleep, but even very simple arithmetical questions would require a bit of thought and calculation that they couldn't easily evade. Professional myopia may be part of the reason for my writing about this topic again, perhaps, but I do believe that some feel for mathematics (not algebraic topology or partial differential equations, but arithmetic) is essential to being an effective president. After all, almost every political issue has a large quantitative aspect: medicare and social security, the environment, military spending, tax and service cuts, social security, crime, and education, to name a few. A candidate who could answer, or at least reasonably respond to, the following questions would, I think, be sufficiently numerate to hold the job. To help insure this end, I hereby urge future debate moderators (both during the primaries and the general election) to announce that no candidate will be left behind, that each will be asked at least one basic numerical question during each debate. The answers the candidates provide might be more telling than their latest "bold new program" or inconsequential anecdote. They might even be amusing. The Quiz Below are just 10 of the many politically neutral questions that might be asked. The answers follow. 1. A crucial number to know is the population of the country of which you want to be president. What is the approximate population of the United States? of the world? What percentage of the latter is the former? 2. A news article claims that 15 percent of all strokes occur sometime between noon and midnight on either Friday or Saturday, perhaps because of increased celebrating on the weekends. Do you check with the Centers for Disease Control? Do you stop campaigning on weekends? What's your reaction to this statistic? 3. You must understand the electoral process, of course, so given the way the Electoral College is set up, what is the theoretically smallest number of votes a candidate can receive and still be elected president? 4. Approximately how many Americans died in the attacks on 9/11? There's no moral comparison, of course, but approximately how many die in auto accidents annually? from heart disease annually? 5. You're campaigning in a state in which the percentage of employees who to a particular drug plan has risen 1 percentage point, from 1.5 percent to 2.5 percent. By what percent has this figure risen? By what percent must it fall to return to its former level? 6. In Disproportia, a small Midwestern town, the average tax cut per household is $2,200, but the median tax cut is $150. What does this say about the distribution of taxable incomes in the town? If the founder of a high-tech company were to move into the community, which is more likely to rise, the mean or the median tax cut? 7. Roughly how big is the federal budget? What fraction of it is discretionary and non-military? By contrast, what is the gross domestic product (to the nearest trillion dollars)? 8. If the government spends $1,000 per second, it will take approximately 17 minutes to spend $1 million. At this rate, about how long will it take to spend $1 billion? How long to spend $1 trillion? One comparison: The $87 billion supplementary budget for Iraq is approximately how many times the annual U.S. contribution to the U.N.? 9. An ace pollster on your staff claims that 63.86 percent of 500 Americans surveyed support your foreign policy. What's your reaction to these numbers? 10. If FAWUA, the federal agency with an unpronounceable acronym, deposits $1 billion in an escrow fund at 7 percent, how long until the deposit is worth $2 billion? $4 billion? Alternatively, if the agency borrows $1 billion at 7 percent and makes no payments on it, how long until it owes $2 billion? $4 billion? The bottom line: A president should be able to put 2 and 2 together, both numerically (the easy part) and otherwise. The Answers 1. About 290 million. A bit more than 6 billion. A little less than 5 percent. 2. By itself that's not very impressive evidence. The time period after 12 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays constitutes 1/7 or 14.3 percent of the week so, as a first approximation, you'd expect roughly that percentage of strokes over any two days after 12 p.m. 3. Candidate X could receive as few as 11 votes and his opponent, candidate Y, tens of millions. Specifically, if California, New York, Texas, Florida, and the 7 other states with the most electoral votes each had a turnout of 1 voter who voted for X, and the other 39 states voted unanimously in the millions for Y, X would win. 4. Approximately 3,000, 40,000, and 700,000, respectively. 5. It's risen by 67 percent, but must be cut by only 40 percent to reach its former level. 6. By the definition of "median," half the households receive less than $150 in tax cuts, half more, so there are some very wealthy people in town. These people, like the new company founder, drag up the average tax cut much more than they do the median cut. 7. About $2 trillion, 20%, and a bit more than $11 trillion, respectively. 8. About 11.5 days for $1 billion, 32 years for $1 trillion, and roughly 250 times as much, respectively. 9. The question at issue is impossibly vague, the number surveyed is relatively small, and the precision of the figure is entirely bogus. Fire the pollster. 10. About 10 years and 20 years, respectively. It's important to know that the length of time it takes money to double at an annual interest rate of r percent is is 70/r. In this case 70/7 equals 10 years, and a second doubling requires another 10 years.

It seems pretty silly, but it was exciting to see the reactions as the probe landed. When Mars was close to earth, you could see it in the night sky. This little red dot, and it was kind of fantastic. It brought into some perspective the distances in our world.

The definition I've heard for "a cup o kindness" is to share a drink (usually Scotch whiskey). But when devotees sing the song, it refers to sharing cups of sweetrice /images/graemlins/smile.gif

'Crocodile Hunter' Won't Face Charges BRISBANE, Australia — "Crocodile hunter" Steve Irwin (search) has survived tussles with giant pythons, poisonous snakes and, of course, crocodiles. Now he faces accusations that he went too far and endangered his infant son. Irwin drew fire from child welfare groups, but the acting premier of Queensland state, Terry Mackenroth (search), said no charges would be filed for a stunt in which Irwin fed a crocodile with one hand while cradling his month-old son, Robert, in the other on Friday in front of an audience. "There won't be any charges brought against him; the department of children's services have done what they needed to do, to contact the family and to talk to them about it," Mackenroth said. "They've (the Irwin family) assured them that it won't happen again and I am sure that if it does they will be back in touch with them," he said. The incident at Irwin's popular reptile park in Beerwah (search), north of Brisbane, was captured on Australian television, and viewers later jammed phone lines to express their outrage. "I think he's a bloody idiot, he's addicted to the attention," crocodile farm owner Keith Cook told The Courier-Mail newspaper. At a news conference Saturday, Irwin said he probably would have done things differently with his son. "If I could have my time again I would probably do things a little differently," he said. "But I would be considered a bad parent if I did not teach my children crocodile savvy because they live here. They live in crocodile territory ... so they have to be croc savvy." He also claimed the danger posed by the crocodile was exaggerated. "It's all about perceived danger; I was in complete control," said Irwin, flanked by his father, his wife and his 5-year-old daughter, Bindi. "People say, 'Well, what if you had fallen?' But for that to take place a meteorite would have had to come out of the sky and hit Australia at 6.6 on the Richter scale like in Iran." Irwin has gained worldwide fame for his "Crocodile Hunter" show on the Animal Planet network, in which he chats excitedly about exotic and dangerous creatures — sometimes from extremely close proximity to the beasts. Animal Planet's Web site features several "Close Call Clips" that show Irwin getting bitten or merrily escaping the jaws of hungry reptiles. Friday's footage on Australian TV showed Irwin feeding a dead chicken to a 13-foot crocodile named Murray while he held Bob in the other hand. Murray snapped up the meat. "Good boy, Bob," Irwin said, according to the tabloid Herald Sun. He then balanced the boy on the ground after the crocodile had retreated to the water. Irwin's American wife, Terri, had handed the baby over to Irwin in the enclosure and giggled at the spectacle. "It was a wonderful sensory experience for him (the baby). He dug it," she said. In response to media criticism, Terri likened her children's experience with crocodiles to teaching youngsters to swim. "I watched children learning to swim at a very young age; they cry, they scream and they have nightmares about the water. Would you rather have a child learning to swim under duress or drowning peacefully in the pond in the backyard? I think teaching children about croc safety is extremely important." The stunt drew comparisons to singer Michael Jackson (search) handling of his infant son in Berlin in November 2002. A national newspaper, The Australian, called it "a bizarre act at his Sunshine Coast (search) zoo that mirrored Michael Jackson's dangling of his newborn over a balcony." Queensland state's workplace safety authority was investigating if Irwin violated safety laws, which bar unauthorized people from entering a crocodile enclosure that is part of a public display. Police officers went to the zoo to tell Irwin that people objected to the incident, but no charges were brought. Animal Planet released a statement on its Web site criticizing the stunt. "Based on the footage we have seen, we believe a mistake was made," the statement said. "That said, we know from the many years we have worked with Steve, that his family is the most important thing in his life and he takes his role as a father very seriously." Irwin has never been shy about putting himself — and occasionally his family — in what appear to be precarious situations. In its report, Channel 7 showed footage of Bindi swimming with a giant python, while Terri frequently joins him on his television jaunts. "Bindi is very croc-savvy and we live in crocodile territory so they (the children) have to be croc-savvy," Irwin told reporters. Child support and family groups said Irwin should never have exposed his son to such peril. "Most parents would cringe at the sight of such things," Bill Muehlenberg of the Australian Family Association told the Herald Sun. "One slip, one fall and he is the crocodile's lunch." Queensland's Families Minister Judy Spence was seeking unedited tapes of the incident. "I have seen the television footage and while I have no doubt the Irwins love their children very much, I believe it was an error of judgment to place a baby in a potentially dangerous situation," Spence said.

My New Years resolution was to purchase a 2004 calendar. This might not sound like much, till you realize that for all of 2003 I was using a 2002 calendar and subtracting one day from any date /images/graemlins/smile.gif The key to a good New Years resolution is to make it easiest enough to accomplish that it boosts your self-esteem /images/graemlins/smile.gif Now I can sit back for the rest of the year and coast /images/graemlins/smile.gif

So its the new year, and in the English speaking world the song 'Auld Lang Syne' is very popular (its the one sung in 'Its a Wonderful Life'). Everyone has heard of it but few I believe (including me) really know the lyrics. So as a public service, to avoid embarassment at next years New Years singalong, here are the lyrics and a short dictionary of the words: Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And auld lang syne? CHORUS: For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne, We'll tak a cup of kindness yet, For auld lang syne! And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp, And surely I'll be mine, And we'll tak a cup o kindness yet, For auld lang syne! We twa hae run about the braes, And pou'd the gowans fine, But we've wander'd monie a weary fit, Sin auld lang syne. We twa hae paidl'd in the burn Frae morning sun till dine, But seas between us braid hae roar'd Sin auld lang syne. And there's a hand my trusty fiere, And gie's a hand o thine, And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught, For auld lang syne Definitions for Auld Lang Syne auld lang syne literally means "old long ago". Better translation is perhaps "times gone by" be - pay for braes - hills braid - broad burn - stream dine - dinner/ evening time fiere - friend fit - foot gowans - daisies guid-willie waught - goodwill drink monie - many morning sun - noon paidl't - paddled pint-stowp - pint tankard pou'd - pulled twa - two

What are your thoughts. If you have to choose, must a temple for Radha Krsna look like an Indian temple? Can it look more western in western countries, more asian in asian countries? I always thought it would be interesting to have a temple with dragons and pagoda style with a Japanese rock garden, in Asian areas.

What qualities should a Radha Krsna Temple have? Part of my interest in modern and old churches/temples is that I'm searching for a "style" of building that properly captures the mood one desires when worshiping the Supreme Lords. I like the stave church design partly because it is all natural, and I think a closeness to nature is consistent with the mood of worship of Radha Krsna. So what qualities do you think should be in a temple?

Our scriptures don't discuss cloning. Still, there is no reason to say that just because something is a clone that it has no soul. The soul enters a body when life is activated. The fact that DNA is used more than once to create life doesn't mean a soul does not exist. Twins who come from the same fertilized egg, may be genetically identical (not sure if this is true, but I think so), but it doesn't mean one has a soul and another one doesn't have a soul. Aren't genetic twins exact replicas of each other? I'm not sure, but if so, then this is the same as a clone and answers the question.

has a reaction. So yes some animals may die due to vegetable harvesting. We can't prevent every single action. Still it is a question of degree. Those who don't see this degree are fools. This whole mad cow scare was interesting. One news show said there is made in the U.S. 30 Billion pounds of meat per year. If we assume say 3000 pounds per cow, that is like 10 million cows slaughtered every single year. So while a few groundhogs may get killed when corn is harvested, there is a long way to go before you get up to 30 Billion pounds of gopher meat.

is that there is NOTHING whatsoever in the constitution that would take away a parent's right to know what their daughter is doing. This judicial activism makes a farce out of democracy and the branches of government. Without a strict literalist interpretation of the constitution we are left to the whims of lifetime appointed judges with no checks or balances. People may argue that the consitution was flawed in this way or that way - FINE, THEN VOTE TO CHANGE IT. You have the right to vote for the President, your congressman and your Senator. But a judge who claims there is a constitutional right to have an abortion without the parent knowing about it is nuts. THAT IS NOT IN THE CONSTITUTION THEREFORE ITS NOT UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

It is pretty amazing to think that in one night 25000 people were killed in a single earthquake. And 6.5, while big, is not some giant event. That would rattle some buildings, probably take a few down, but unlikely to cause many deaths. Reminds me a bit of during this summers European heat wave, they were saying like 20,000 French died because they don't have airconditioning in France. I was like "You've got to be kidding me". We have a heat wave in America and MAYBE 60 elderly die, but nothing like 20,000 people dead. Its just bizarre.

I read (I wished I saved where) that something like 20 out of 30 missions to send survelience machines to Mars have disappeared. Here is the latest one. The European Space Agency launched a vehicle to monitor Mars and now has gone missing. Personally I think the aliens are abducting the space probes /images/graemlins/smile.gif Crater theory over missing Beagle LONDON, England (AP) -- Scientists have ruled out two possible explanations for their inability to pick up signals from Europe's Beagle 2 Mars probe and discovered another -- a large crater where the vessel was supposed to land. The European team has received no transmissions from the craft, which was supposed to touch down on the distant planet on Christmas Day to begin its search for Martian life. NASA's orbiting Mars Odyssey has passed five times over the spot where scientists hope Beagle landed, without picking up a signal. The latest attempt, between 0741 and 0901 GMT Monday, failed to pick up a bark from Beagle. Chief Beagle scientist Colin Pillinger said at a news conference that the team had received a new, detailed picture of the area where they believe the Beagle landed. While they cannot make out the ship itself, the image shows a 1 km (0.62 mile) wide crater at the center of the 70 by 10 km (43.5 by 6 mile) target area near the Martian equator, Pillinger said. It is possible, although unlikely, that the Beagle may be unable to communicate because it landed in the crater, he said. "This would be an incredibly unlucky situation," he said. Scientists have ruled out two other possible causes for the failure, mission manager Mark Sims said. Neither the Martian weather nor trouble with the hardware of the Beagle's clock appeared to be the source of the problem, he said. The vessel is programmed to transmit its signal when its orbiter or telescopes on earth are in position to receive it. If the clock had been damaged, the Beagle could have been "talking" and staying quiet at the wrong times. Sims said a problem with the clock's software was still possible. The team planned to send the clock a reset command Wednesday. Lord Sainsbury, Britain's science minister, said the government remained committed to unmanned space exploration and did not consider the mission a failure. "We've always recognized that Beagle 2 was a high risk project," he said. "We must in future resist the temptation only to do low-risk projects. ... Long term, we need to be working with the European Space Agency to ensure that in some form there is a Beagle 3." Scientists at Britain's National Space Center in central England are studying a functioning scale model of Beagle to work out what might have gone wrong. "They are keeping up their spirits," said Peter Barratt, spokesman for the British government's physics and astronomy research agency. Project leaders say the Beagle's mother ship, Mars Express, will offer the best hope of contacting the probe when its enters a lower orbit of the planet on Jan. 4. "That was always the prime chance for communication," Barratt said. "But if we get negative responses after a few tries, we will start to become concerned." Mars Express, which carried Beagle into space and set it free more than a week ago, is currently orbiting the planet as high as 188,000 kilometers (117,00 miles) above its equator. On Tuesday, European Space Agency scientists at mission control in Darmstadt, Germany, will fire Mars Express' engine in an attempt to shift its orbit. They hope to move it over one of the Martian poles -- necessary for it to survey the entire planet with its high-resolution camera and a powerful radar that can look for underground water. Scientists hope to gradually reduce the polar orbit and say that by Jan. 4, it should pass as low as 200-250 kilometers (125-155 miles) above the surface, enabling it to take close-up pictures and listen for Beagle. Britain's powerful radio telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory struck out again early Monday after sweeping the planet's surface for the craft's distinctive call sign, composed by the British band Blur. The 67-kilogram (143-pound) probe, which has a robotic arm to take soil and rock samples, was supposed to unfold its solar panels and transmit a signal confirming its arrival within hours of landing. An "analysis and recovery think tank" at Britain's space center is working on possible scenarios to explain why it has failed to make contact. Even if Beagle fails to transmit its call sign, team member Alan Wells said in a statement that the sensitive radio telescope at Stanford University in California, which has joined the hunt, could scan the surface for low levels of radiation emitted by the probe. Getting a working spacecraft to Mars has proven frustratingly difficult. Several vehicles, most recently NASA's 1999 Mars Polar Lander, have been lost on landing. The Soviet Mars-3 lander touched down safely in 1971 but failed after sending data for only 20 seconds.

Darkness is the absence (not opposite) of light (energy). Cold is the absence (not opposite) of heat (energy). Death is the absence (not opposite) of life (energy). There is always the positive (light, heat, life) that we can have more of or less of. Krishna is all attractive. And His attractive capability can extend infinitely. There does not need to be an infinite ugliness in order for there to be infinite beauty. There is no infite death, cold, or darkness. They simply exist or don't exist. But when we add the positive aspect of light, heat, or life, these can infinitely grow.

The foods we eat certainly do affect our consciousness. I'm of the belief that eating meat makes one more passionate. So there would be a direct link to meat eating and an increase in sex desire. I also believe that an increase in sex desire causes one to want to achieve more material wealth (because a wealthier person is relatively more attractive to the opposite sex all other things equal). Thus the countries that are the biggest consumers of meat (Western countries, and America at the top) are the wealthiest countries. Is it a perfect correlation? No, but I think it is a factor. I believe Srila Prabhupada made this connection first.

If the relationship is real, then no, I don't think you can be overly familiar with Krsna. However, if we aren't on such a high stage, then to enter a temple, or engage in service in a sloppy, careless manner is bad. We can hide behind "But I'm Krsna's best friend" but unless you really are then I'd say better to be more formal than less formal.

The guy adds a few new special effects to 20 year old movies, puts them back in the theaters, and earns hundreds of millions that easily finance his next three Star Wars film. The guy was shameless /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Time really does go by quickly. I don't have anything in particular to say except a small experience I've had. It happened to me once, when a devotee friend of mine passed away. I remembered after hearing of the death, doing what I could through the day. And then at one point, I sat down and opened a can of soda and started drinking. And it was one of the most bizarre experiences I've had. It was kind of a spiritual realization you find in the most mundane things in life. I started to feel the soda go down my throat. I could taste the sugar, and the bubbles. And in my mind I could see my friend's lifeless body and I knew he was dead and I was alive. And it was at that point that, for a brief minute or so of contemplation, in the most mundane of circumstances, that I felt this animating force that I take for granted. In time I'll go on in my life, drink sodas without thinking, but for a brief period I think I could understand subtly what the atma was.

I've always liked the explanation that the devotees of the Lord in disciplic succession are like a wire conducting electricity. Because each one is linked, when you come in contact with one you feel the current. The same could perhaps be said of the names of the saints. When you call upon them, you aren't calling the name of a mundane individual. You are calling on a person who is linked with God. Something that is linked with God is purifying. Now the question could be how purifying? For instance, I've seen statements that put gradations on the names of the Lord, which ones are more powerful and by how much. If this is legitimate, then I would have to think that a saints name won't be as purifying as the name of God (though this is speculative on my part). I suppose the purifying aspect is not even necessarily in the name, but in the sincerity in which it is called upon. If I say Krishna, Krishna, with little sincerity, and someone chants Prahlad with great sincerity, then I would think the sincere person will have much greater spiritual benefit. Is it possible you don't even know a name of God, but cry out sincerely? and receive benefit.

Since I heard of this study, I've been taking small amounts of cinnamon. I have no problem with diabetes, but cinnamon tastes great and this gives me an excuse to eat it by itself /images/graemlins/smile.gif A Spoonful of Cinnamon Helps Treat Diabetes By Alison McCook NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People with diabetes can help keep their bodies healthy by simply adding a dash of spice to their diet, new research reports. In a study, diabetics (news - web sites) who incorporated one gram -- equivalent to less than one-quarter teaspoon -- of cinnamon per day for 40 days into their normal diets experienced a decrease in levels of blood sugar, cholesterol and blood fats. And for people with diabetes, the less of those substances in the body, the better. Type 2 diabetes arises when the body loses sensitivity to insulin, a hormone that shuttles the sugars from food into body cells to be used for energy. As a result, the amount of sugar, or glucose, in the blood remains high, leading to fatigue and blurred vision. Over the long term, excess blood glucose can increase the risk of heart disease, kidney failure and blindness. The current findings suggest that a small amount of cinnamon can help protect diabetics from these and other potential complications of their condition, study author Dr. Richard A. Anderson of the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center in Maryland told Reuters Health. Diabetics could add a dash of cinnamon to their morning servings of coffee, orange juice or cereal, Anderson noted. "You can also make a cinnamon tea by simply boiling water with stick cinnamon," he suggested. Anderson noted that cinnamon may also help stave off the onset of type 2 diabetes in people at risk of the condition. He added that cinnamon contains some substances that can be toxic in high amounts, so people should be sure not to get too much of a good thing. "Certainly, a gram per day is not a high amount," he reassured. During the study, Anderson and his colleagues asked 60 people with type 2 diabetes to consume 1, 3, or 6 grams of cinnamon each day for 40 days, or the equivalent amount of wheat flour, as a placebo. Both the cinnamon and wheat flour were administered in capsule form. Reporting in the journal Diabetes Care, Anderson and his team found that all cinnamon-takers experienced a drop in blood levels of glucose, fats and cholesterol by up to 30 percent. No change was seen in the people taking placebo capsules. Anderson explained that cinnamon contains compounds that help make insulin more efficient, improving the hormone's ability to bring glucose to the cells that need it. As an added bonus, cinnamon contains virtually no calories, Anderson said, allowing diabetics to add zest to their meals without adding to their waistlines. Cinnamon contains less than 3 calories per gram, "negligible in the total dietary intake," Anderson said. Previous research has shown that cinnamon appears to help fat cells recognize and respond to insulin. In test tube and in animal studies, the spice increased glucose metabolism by about 20 times.