Inexplicable

Shortly after massacre
Demise susceptible
Come out of almighty
Crazily overwhelming

Frustration

Embarked in this case firstly Beijing
Come back, arrrgh back to bout
Abakan, Novosibirsk, Moscow, Beijing
Come back, crazily dismayed

Mastercard, Mastercard
Come back
Noooooooo!
Back to?
Of course, inefficency astounds me
Go to bed

Political

Prazdnik, prazdniks, all of them
Psyche
Prazdniks such as Huh? True.
Boris Yeltsin, prazdnik
Valentines roled
ANZAC, no matter how, conundrum

Overt Stalin, Hitler despots, Stalin
Propagandised, lustre
Hitler, Churchill, Churchill
Dietrich Boenhoeffer’s assasinate Hitler
In the process of, of, no,
Of course such as abhorrent gusto fireworks
Hitler
Babushka, Babushka?
Prazdnik?
Babushka?
Babushka retreated
Healing

Well done Mr Howard

I am proud of John Howard taking a stand to ban the upcoming Australian cricket tour of Zimbabwe. It is sad that this has taken so long though. Robert Mugabe has been a tyrant for many years in Zimbabwe. But it must be said that John Howard has been the number one world leader to move against Mugabe, and again he deserves praise for this. It was Howard who strongly moved to have Mugabe and Zimbabwe removed from the British Commonwealth of nations, as a result of this the rest of Europe took notice and withdrew their relationships.
People have argued that sport and politics should be kept separate. What a modernist world view- that things can be so disconnected. Geoff Marsh (former Australian test cricketer) has questioned whether such a boycott would do any good. This ban and boycott will do a lot of good. Mugabe will not have his propaganda victory now. People will know that Australia are refusing to tour because of his regime. It is now up to the rest of the cricketing world to follow suit.
The suggestion that the games be played in South Africa is a reasonable one, and would not be a big stress on the Aussie team who will be in South Africa for the Twenty20 world champiionship in September anyway.
I fear that the ICC will not change as a result of this though. I would prefer that Cricket Australia refused to tour as a challenge to the ICC and their corruption, but I guess that was never going to happen.

What a bang!

I'm fascinated by all things astronomical. I remember looking through a high powered telescope as a kid and seeing a very vivid picture of Jupiter. The universe out there has so many amazing mysteries to behold. Many times as humans we have been astonished and amazed at the beauty we see here on earth, but the magnitude of the universe just takes all of this to the nth degree.
I'm not reporting anything new because this news has already been reported by the media. but I wanted to "re-report" the Supernova that happened this week, because I think it is amazing.

SOME FACTS.
1) Name of star: SN2006gy
2) Discovery: September 2006 by post doctoral researcher Robert Quimby, with the help of NASA's x-ray telescope "Chandra."
3) Mass of star: Described as "freakily massive" SN2006gy was 150 times the mass of the sun. This is thought to be as large as a star could possibly be. (Although the universe holds many mysteries and in my humble opinion there could be even larger surprises in space.)
4) Distance from earth: 240 000 000 light years. In Galaxy NG1260 (This is a loooong way. Our galaxy the milky way is about 100 000 light years across and that is BIG. But this is the distance of 2400 Milk Ways away).
5) Energy of explosion: 100 times bigger than a typical supernova it is by far and away the largest ever recorded.
6) Age of star: It had a short life, burning hard and fast, it was 1 million years old. Compare this to our own Sun, thought to be 4.5 billion years old.
7) Length of supernova: SN2006gy has been burning at supernova for more than 250 days, much longer than other stars. The peak of its burn lasted 70 days, where as the longest any other has lasted has been 2 weeks. Most supernovas burn out after one month.
8) Brightness of supernova: 100 000 000 000 (one hundred billion) times brighter than our Sun.

So this has been the most massive of star and supernovas ever known. It is thougt that the mass of SN2006gy was so huge that it could not bare its own weight, as a result it produced so much gamma radiation that some of the energy was converted into particle and anti particle pairs. This gravitational force pulled the star in upon itself which triggered a series of thermonuclear reactions and eventually its early supernova.

The star Eta Carinae which is 7500 light years away, placing it in the Milky Way, is losing its mass rapidly, which is the precursor to a supernova. This means that it could go supernova any time from 7499 years ago to 40 000 years from now. If it does it will probably be so bright that people in the southern hemisphere could read by night. Since Australia has never had white nights, if this lasted for a couple weeks, I am sure it would create quite the party atmosphere.

Bring on the end

Bring on the end of "cricket." What's that you say, am I not a huge cricket fan. Yes, I love the game of cricket but I hate what it has become, or more specifically I hate what the International Cricket Council has become. They are a greedy corrupt organisation, and the recent world cup only highlighted this situation.
A little trivia for you, the ICC recently gave $2 million to China for development of the game there. Yet the only Chinese who play cricket are forced to by their governement and have never heard of the game before. Cricket in China is just another communist plot for world domination, and they will happily steal away childhood dreams to do so. At the same time the ICC only gave $75 000 to Kenya who are on the brink of Test status, which will only be granted at the ICC's whim. Kenya have done everything they can as far as performance is concerned. Apparently their grounds are not up to scratch. So why wasn't the $2 million given to Kenya.
We all know what a farce the world cup was, high ticket prices that locals could not afford, ridiculous internet fees for journalists, fans with t-shirts from non-sponsors being evicted, making Australia and Sri Lanka play in the dark, the list goes on.
But the final proof that the ICC are corrupt is their handling of the issue of Zimbabwe. South Africa were rightly banned from international cricket during the regime of apartheid, but Zimbabwe have been allowed to continue during Mugabe's ever worsening regime. The week started with John Howard suggesting he would pay any fine imposed by the ICC on Cricket Australia, should they boycott Zimbabwe. Alexander Downer rightly states that an Australian cricket tour there would be a propaganda coup for Mugabe. But the ICC have turned around and said to Cricket Australia thay a withdrawl is only valid for safety reasons, and that a fine would be a "minimum $2 million." Worse yet, the fines would go to the Zimbabwe Cricket Board, which in reality is also controlled by Mugabe and so he would get the money too.
If Howard realises that the money would go to Mugabe and does not pay, then Australia could face suspension from International Cricket. I say, bring it on. Bring on the end to this International Cricket farce. If Australia are suspended from world cricket for boycotting Zimbabwe, it will only highlight how corrupt the ICC is. This may be the catalyst for the end of the ICC.
With two billionaires ready to swipe, one in India and one in the Caribbean with new Twenty20 competitions, a revolution in world cricket is about to happen. And I can't wait for it to happen either, so long as test cricket survives,

John Howard could just ban the cricket team from touring and the ICC would have to respect that. That never happens in Australian sport though. If he were to do that he would be protecting the ICC. If he does not then he is helping their demise. I applaud you John Howard for your part in helping to dismantle a corrupt ICC.

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Turkey

I thought that a little follow up to our Turkey trip would be in order, but I have decided to write about it on this blog instead. While we were in Turkey there were some home style executions of 3 believers in the eastern city of Millatya. I read the description of their execution in a letter from the protestant church of Smyrna. It is a disturbing an upsetting description of how one German M and two Turrkish believers were disembowled alive and died a slow death. These men are truly heroes of the faith. What is even more astounding is that the wife of one of the Turks had the opportunity to say on Turkish national news at the funeral that she forgives the killers. Such a concept is unheard of in the Is-c world. They expect blood for blood.

There are only around 3 000 Turkish believers out of a population of 72 million. Until recently most new believers came in through correspondence courses over the internet. Recently that has changed, more are now coming to believe through Turkish friends. The Turkish public have overall being shocked at the recent killings. And even though most Turks are afraid and unaware of what Christianity is, there is a shifting tide.

I sensed an openness from a young man that I talked with, while on holidays. I sense that something will happen in Turkey. It is time to take this country up in prayer. Now is the time for change in that land.

New astronomical discoveries

It was in the news last week that a new planet capable of supporting life has been found. The planet orbits a star called Gilese.
Salient facts:
Name: Gilese 581c.
Star: Orbits a star called Gilese 581. Which is believed to be 50 times cooler than earth.
Distance from star: The orbiting distance is around 6 million miles from its star. (Earth is 93 million miles from the Sun).
Orbiting time: 13 days, a rather short year.
Temperature range: Commonly between 0C and 40C.
Mass of planet: 5 times that of earth.
Pole to pole distance: 12 000 miles compared to Earth's 8 000 miles.
Gravity: Twice that of earth.
Composition: Unknown- could be rock, could be ice, could be a combination.
Distance from earth: 20.5 light years. (A little too far with our current technology).

There has been a lot of talk about whether this planet could support life or not. There has also been a lot of talk about the probablity of other such planets in the galaxy. There are many in the astronomical community who seem determined to discover extra-terrestial life and some how to use it as clinching proof against the existence of God. Let me go on the record now as saying that if there is life on any other planet in the universe, that the God we know and worship is the same Creator of this life also. As far as any theological questions are concerned, they seriously would have to wait until such a fact was established and if any contact with sentient life had been made.

There were a lot of people who were rather scared about Galileo's theories and discoveries. He was a branded a heretic for saying that the earth is round. Today we know this is true and it has not undermined our faith or the Bible at all. Neither would the existence of extra terrestial life.

What ever the case may be, this is an exciting discovery. What is even more important is the discovery or faster than light travel. This would make true exploration of our galaxy possible. On that note, there are two scientists- a German and a French who recently claim that some "black holes" could actually be worm holes, but there is no test to prove this yet, other than sending a probe in and seeing if it could return.