James-Smith blog

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The Mystery Of The Christmas Star

Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 (320 days 22 hours ago.) Viewed 708 times.

The Star of Bethlehem, also called the Christmas Star, in Christian tradition is a star that revealed the birth of Jesus to the three Wise Men (Magi).

According to the bible (Gospel of Matthew) the Magi were "men from the east" who were inspired by the appearence of the Star to travel to Jerusalem.

Christians regard the Christmas Star as a miraculous sign given by God to mark the birth of Christ. Some theologians have claimed that the star fulfilled a prophecy, known as the Star Prophecy.

So, what exactly was the Christmas Star? Astronomers have proposed various explanations including a super-nova, a planet, or a comet. It has been speculated that the star could have been an astrological event. Some even claim that the Christmas Star was nothing more than a science fiction story.

Of course, we do know that the Christmas Star did not first appear to the Magi on December 25. Indeed, it was Pope Julius I who selected the 25th of December to celebrate Christmas Day. The reason he chose that day is still very unclear. Although it is possible that it was a way to bring Christian religion to a pagan holiday.

The actual day of the year that the Star may have appeared has been a subject of speculation for years. The Bible, (Luke) records that at the birth of Christ, shepherds were watching over their flocks by night. There were only two specific times in a year when this was done, namely when lambs were being born in the spring or autumn. At other times of the year they were kept safely in their sheep-folds to protect them from wild animals.

The New Testament of the Bible (Revelation 12) tells of the birth of Christ when the constellation Virgo (the woman in the heavens) was clothed with the sun and had the moon at her feet. This would indicate that Jesus was born when the sun and moon were in Virgo. In other words, at the time of the September New Moon, or shortly thereafter.

However, before we conclude that the Christmas Star first appeared on a September day, consider what new scientific research has to say.

The Nativity is generally accepted to have occurred somewhere in the historical time frame between 3B.C. and 1 A.D. This is the period that Australian stargazer and the editor of Sky and Space magazine, Dave Reneke would analyze with complex computer software.

His goal was to chart the exact positions of all celestial bodies and map the night sky. In effect, advanced computer software was used to re-create night over the Holy Land exactly as it appeared more than 2,000 years ago.

Reneke discovered that a bright star really did appear over Bethlehem over 2000 years ago. He said his research showed that: " Venus and Jupiter became very close in the year 2 B.C. and they would have appeared to be one bright beacon of light" in the night sky.

As for the exact date of the appearance of this beacon of light, Mr Reneke pinpointed the planetary conjunction, which appeared in the constellation of Leo, to the exact date of June 17.

So, if the Christmas Star heralding the birth of Christ did arrive on June 17th, a few changes may be in order here. After all, we have consistently been nearly six months late in spreading our annual holiday cheer and those Christmas in July promotions should really be called after Christmas mark down sales every year.

James William Smith has worked in senior management positions for some of the largest financial services firms in the United States for the last twenty five years.He has also provided business consulting support for insurance organizations and start up businesses. Mr. Smith has a Bachelor of Science Degree from Boston College. He enjoys writing articles on political, national, and world events. Visit his website at http://www.eworldvu.com.

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A Nobel Peace Prize And A Weather Balloon

Posted Tuesday, October 07, 2008 (1 year 31 days ago.) Viewed 98 times.

If we don't sign a personal check, it has no value and it cannot be cashed. In fact, the lack of our signature on any written legal contract means that there has not been a binding agreement reached on the terms stated in the document.

So, without a legal signature, we cannot open a bank account, buy a house, get a car loan, open a credit card, or even file a tax return. The truth is that our signature defines us and legally binds us.

The same thing is true with the greenhouse signature. Like our own signature, finding a CO2 signature in the atmosphere would define it as the cause of global warming and be binding evidence that the problem is indeed man-made.

The fact is that each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the most warming would occur first. According to computer models, the signature of an increased greenhouse effect would be a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. If an increase in CO2 is indeed the cause of global warming, the hot spot would be found there.

Indeed, this greenhouse signature could be conclusive evidence of human involvement in global climate change. The implications from a discovery concerning the cause of global warming would be enormous. The proponents of man-made global warming want us to believe that the reason that our planet has warmed over the last one hundred years is due to an increase in CO2 gas emissions that is the by product of the behavior of man.

Therefore, if humans are the cause of this increase in global climate temperature, it is also under our control to change our behavior and save the planet from a future catastrophe of increasing global temperatures due to the continuing rise in man-made CO2 gas emissions. The price would certainly be high since it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to change the current global economy by reducing its reliance on fossil fuel.

This man-made global warming story has been supported by 50 billion dollars of worldwide research and media hype since 1990. It is the story that Al Gore and the United Nations (IPCC) have promoted for years and it is the reason both won the Nobel Peace Prize last year.

However, there was another story about global climate change that did not receive any media attention in 2007. Several months before Al Gore and the United Nations (IPCC) won the Nobel Peace Prize for warning the world about the dangers of man-made global warming, a weather balloon (radiosonde) slowly descended through the atmosphere over the tropics. The instrument had just measured the temperature at that spot where the greenhouse signature would be found if humans were indeed the cause of global warming.

This weather balloon was only the latest in a series of measurements in the atmosphere over the tropics. Indeed, scientists have been measuring the atmosphere in search of that greenhouse signature for decades. The result of their testing has been always the same, and this latest measurement was no different.

The fact is that there is no hot spot in the atmosphere over the tropics. The greenhouse signature for man-made global warming once again could not be found. As a result, there is evidence by a lack of a greenhouse signature that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of global warming.

The truth is that after spending 50 billion dollars on global climate research since 1990, the only reasonable scientific conclusion that can be reached today is that significant man-made global warming does not exist.

There is not one single piece of evidence that points to CO2 gas as the cause of recent global warming, but there is evidence in the atmosphere above the tropics that it does not. This evidence is the main reason why so many scientists are now abandoning the big, lucrative, international business that man-made global warming has become.

Now, let's consider another question. What major global climate event did you hear about last year? Was it the Nobel Peace Prize for warning the world about man-made global warming that was awarded to Al Gore and the United Nations (IPCC)? Or was it the result from that weather balloon measuring atmospheric temperature high above the tropics which shows that the greenhouse signature doesn't exist?

Of course, the Nobel Peace Prize award dominated last year's headlines. The media eagerly publicized the man-made global warming story about a Nobel Peace Prize award to a celebrity and a United Nations Panel (IPCC) for promoting an unproven climate theory. It did not report the important scientific implications of the measurements from that weather balloon.

The truth is that, despite 50 billion dollars of global research, there is still is no evidence that man has created global warming. However, the lack of a greenhouse signature high above the tropics is proof that significant man-made global warming simply does not exist. Sooner or later the mainstream media is going to have to report the facts.

James William Smith has worked in Senior management positions for some of the largest Financial Services firms in the United States for the last twenty five years. He has also provided business consulting support for insurance organizations and start up businesses. Please visit his website or his daily blog.

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Is E-Vote Security The Hanging Chad Of Election 2008?

Posted Saturday, September 27, 2008 (1 year 42 days ago.) Viewed 143 times.

The most clever advertisement on television today is when the Maytag repairman saves the day at a polling booth by holding up a handful of crumpled ballots that he has just removed from a voting machine.

I watched that advertisement the other day as I was reviewing the latest public opinion polls from the 2008 Presidential Election. These latest polls told the same story as nearly every other Presidential tracking poll this year. It is a very close race for the White House in the 2008 election.

Indeed, it is a race that on election day may be decided by a handful of votes in a few battleground states. So, while contemplating another very close election, i wondered about the American voting system. I asked myself two question: Is our voting system fixed or will there be more controversy surrounding hanging chads and disputed votes on election day 2008? Will this election be decided in the legal system again or by accurately counting the total vote?

First, we should consider that the American voting system has dramatically changed since 2000. Funding from The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in 2002, has permitted states and counties to replace outdated punch card and lever voting machines with electronic voting systems.

As a result, during the November 2006 general elections, just 12.7 percent of registered voters nationwide used the outdated equipment, compared with 45 percent in 2000. So, many Americans will vote in the 2008 election using equipment that represents the latest technology.

However, before polling places consider throwing away the telephone number of the Maytag repairman, they may want to read the latest test results concerning electronic voting equipment.

Several recent studies commissioned by the states of California and Ohio concluded that most Electronic Voting Systems are plagued by security glitches, and the technology has yet to prove itself as the solution many were looking for. The study concluded that such systems could allow voters and poll workers to place multiple votes, crash the systems by loading viruses, and fake vote tallies.

Of course, the American taxpayer should ask why these security questions were not resolved by election officials throughout the United States prior to the purchase of these electronic voting systems from Diebold (now called Premier), several years ago. The answer may be that in their haste to secure the latest in voting technology, many election officials did not exhibit proper due-diligence.

The fact is that the security of the voting equipment is so bad in the battleground state of Ohio, Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, is suing Premier, the maker of the touch-screen voting systems in which Ohio has invested more than $62 million since 2005.

In her complaint, Brunner states: "We believe that Premier's equipment has failed to perform as required by its contracts and according to state law. We have taken this action to recover taxpayer funds spent for voting systems used in half of the state's 88 counties."

The truth is that paperless voting is not secure and will not be in time for the 2008 Presidential election. If this 2008 election is very close, it may well be that the security of the electronic vote becomes as controversial as the hanging chad was in Florida in the year 2000 in several battleground states.

Indeed, the 2008 Electronic Voting Machine may be something that not even the Maytag repairman can easily fix.

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