BPR Mailing List Digest: 12/03/99

Philologos
BPR Mailing List Digest
December 3, 1999

Digest Home | 1999 | December, 1999

To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Is Christianity a 'hate crime'?
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 03 Dec 1999 08:48:06 -0500

From: owner-bpr@philologos.org

FRIDAY DECEMBER 3 1999

Is Christianity a 'hate crime'? 100,000 Southern Baptists
determined to meet in Chicago, despite opposition

Chicago's rebuff of the Southern Baptist Convention's plans to
meet in the Windy City next summer, on the grounds that the
large Christian group might foment "hate crimes" against
minorities, is sounding alarm bells among Christians who fear
that merely speaking openly about their core religious beliefs
will soon be considered a crime.

The Southern Baptist Convention -- with a membership of 15.8
million and representing more than 40,000 churches nationwide --
has been planning for two years next summer's evangelistic
outreach in Chicago. Along with performing good deeds --
including housing rehabilitation and medical clinics -- the
initiative also would encompass church-starting, door-to-door
evangelism and block parties.

But when the Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan
Chicago sent a letter to Paige Patterson, head of the Southern
Baptist Convention in Nashville, urging the Baptists to
reconsider their plans, the Baptists were shocked and dismayed.

It seems Chicago's council leaders --representing 40 mainline
denominations, Jewish synagogues, and African-American
denominations -- believe the outreach might spark violence and
hate crimes against minority religious groups in the city. "We
are particularly disturbed that the two groups who appear to be
among your primary targets, Muslims and Jews, have during the
past six months been victims of faith-based terrorist violence
in Chicago," said the letter urging the Baptists to stay home.

"While we are confident that your volunteers would come with
entirely peaceful intentions, a campaign of the nature and scope
you envision could contribute to a climate conducive to hate
crimes," said the letter.

Rabbi Ira Youdovin, executive director of the Chicago Board of
Rabbis, and chief author of the letter, cites the fact that that
six Orthodox Jews were shot and wounded in July outside of their
synagogue on Chicago's North Side, as well as last May's
vandalism against a Mosque in Villa Park, as examples of "hate
crimes" that might be replicated by the presence of the
Christian outreach there.

The council also includes Cardinal Francis George of the
Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, the Rev. Paul Rutgers, a
Presbyterian minister and Bishop C. Joseph Sprague of the United
Methodist Church's Northern Illinois Conference.

The Southern Baptist campaign "smacks of a kind of non-Jesus-
like arrogance," said Sprague, according to an Associated Press
report. "I am always fearful when we in the Christian community
move beyond the rightful claim that Jesus is decisive for us, to
the presupposition that non-Christians ... are outside God's
plan for salvation."

Sprague, who oversees 425 United Methodist Churches in the
Northern Illinois Conference, told WorldNetDaily that the
Council was concerned that the presence of Southern Baptist
missionaries in Chicago next year could upset the unity that has
carefully developed between Protestants, Catholics and Jews in
Chicago during the past few years.

"We did not in any sense want to suggest that we did not want
them to come to this area. They are welcome to come," said
Sprague, "if they're coming to join with us in acts of mercy and
justice on behalf of this community in general, and specifically
on behalf of the marginalized and dispossessed." But Sprague
makes it clear that traditional Christian evangelism is not
acceptable or welcome. "We are not interested in their coming to
proselytize or to suggest, however well intentioned, that Jews,
Hindus, or others are second class."

The problem, according to Sprague, is that proselytizing with
the kind of attitude that one group is saved, while another is
in need of saving, can provide "fodder" for deranged or
demonized persons to attack religious minorities. To suggest
that other religious groups are second-class citizens can be
dangerous, because it feeds into the ideology of hate groups, he
said.

When it comes to Christian views on homosexuality, the
prohibition against proselytizing is even stronger. Christians
who treat homosexuals as second-class citizens are setting them
up for persecution in a "fear-ridden society," said Sprague.

"This sets them [homosexuals] up for the deranged and demonic
to go after them. We have example after example of gay and
lesbian Christians being treated less than lovingly by virtue of
that kind of mentality."

Does Sprague consider preaching against homosexuality, even
within a church, a hate crime?

"It not always does, but it certainly can. It creates a climate
in which hate can fester," answered Sprague. "It's like, if I
plow my yard, it doesn't necessarily make it a garden, but it
means it has become prepared to become a garden."

Sprague is far from alone in his view that Christians should
not criticize the homosexual lifestyle. According to the Women's
Division of the United Methodist Church, "An example of giving
societal permission to engage in violence against gay and
lesbian people is the recent media campaign with the misleading
slogans of 'Truth in Love' and 'Hope, not Hate.' Such slick
campaigns, though couched in seemingly kind and Christian words,
promote bigotry," the Women's Division wrote in a 1998 report.

"Christian groups like the ones sponsoring this campaign have
consistently waged campaigns of fear and misinformation. ..."
The Women's Division was referring to Focus on the Family, the
Family Research Council and other conservative religious
organizations that are attempting to help homosexuals who want
to leave the lifestyle.

Commenting on the women's division policy, Faye Short, a
conservative Methodist, asks, "Are we fast approaching the point
within our society when Christians can no longer make public
statements that convey principles of biblical morality? Will we
be disallowed from upholding the biblical model of marriage and
family," she said in Good News Magazine. "And, shall we, as
women of the church, allow ourselves to be co-opted into
unwittingly supporting public opinion and homosexual advocacy
opposing Christian organizations that dare to proclaim the
biblical standard?"

Baptists: Ready or not, here we come Nevertheless, the Southern
Baptist Convention still plans to bring 100,000 missionaries
into Chicago next summer to conduct evangelism campaigns. The
Chicago effort is part of the Baptists' "Strategic Cities
Initiative," which will also target Phoenix, Los Angeles and
Boston.

"We are not targeting groups," said James M. Queen, executive
director of the Chicago Metro Baptist Association. "We want to
show love, show our faith. Everybody needs to hear the gospel."

But grave concerns remain. In response to the Council's letter,
Dr. Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty
Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said, "To say
that Southern Baptists should refrain from an evangelistic
campaign because it might, as the council said, 'contribute to a
climate conducive to hate crimes,' is not a very far step away
from then claiming that the act of witnessing itself to those
whom you believe need to be saved is a 'hate crime.'"

"I think it is instructive that those who criticize Southern
Baptists' efforts to evangelize cities or groups always preface
their criticism by acknowledging Southern Baptists' right to
express our beliefs, Land continued. "It seems they affirm our
right to express our beliefs as long as we agree not to do so."

R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of the Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., agrees: "To link New
Testament evangelism with hate crimes is cowardice posing as
compassion. This is political posturing, not a serious argument.
It saddens me to see so many supposedly Christian leaders who
are determined to avoid evangelization at all costs."

Anti-Christian bigotry on the rise? Is it true, as conservative
religious groups and commentators have been contending for
years, that there is a rising tide of anti-Christian bigotry in
our culture?

Southern Baptist Convention spokesman William Merrell observes,
"I believe there is a growing climate of hostility that is
directed against Christians ... who find themselves as the
targets of a great hostility in this culture."

In late September, presidential candidate Gary Bauer cited the
shootings at Wedgewood Baptist Church in Forth Worth, Texas, the
targeting of Christians at Columbine High School in Littleton,
Colo. and the shootings of praying students in Paducah, Ky., as
examples of a "disturbing pattern." In fact, there has been
almost no media coverage pointing out that these were anti-
Christian acts of violence against sincere believers.

Bauer's views were echoed by House Majority Leader Dick Armey
in a Sept. 29 speech. "We are witnessing a rising level of
bigotry against people of faith, especially Christians," said
Armey.

The Congressman pointed to the comments by Barry Lynn, of
Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, on
CNN's May 21 Crossfire show. Lynn criticized the acclaim given
to Cassie Bernall, a young girl who was shot at Columbine when
she said she believed in God. According to Lynn, "I think that
what we've done here is to take this one victim, turned it into
an example of martyrdom, and then used it to become the
springboard for even more exploitation of this tragedy by people
with a religious, political agenda."

Armey observed that, after the memorial service for slain
Columbine students, the Denver Post editorialized May 1 against
what it called the "disenfranchising" nature of the memorial
service. The editorialist noted, "While the service deftly
satisfied the needs of fundamentalist Christians, it estranged
too many others who came in search of healing." The Post urged
that future services be more "inclusive, not divisive."

Then Armey takes aim at the Justice Department's own "Healing
the Hate" middle school curriculum, which suggests to school
counselors that children may be dangerous if they grow up in a
"very religious" home.

"This, without one shred of evidence showing any linkage
between Christians and any of these terrible acts of violence
that our nation has faced," said Armey. The Justice Department
says one of its goals in publishing this curriculum is to
"reshape attitudes and beliefs" of middle school students.

The "Healing the Hate" curriculum begins with this quote from
President Clinton: "Prejudice and contempt, cloaked in the
pretense of religious or political conviction, are not different
.. they fuel the fanaticism of terror."

Can't read Bible on radio in Canada "Conservatives are in a
pickle," writes Jonathan Alter in Newsweek. "They like to say
that ideas have consequences. Well, the consequences of
condemnation can turn out to be death. ... But just as the white
racists created a climate for lynching blacks, just as hate
radio created a climate for militias, so the constant degrading
of homosexuals is exacting a toll in blood. ... Discerning
clergymen and moralists can hate the sin and love the sinner;
but by the time the homophobic message reaches the angry guys
sitting in the bar, that distinction has been lost."

Focus on the Family founder Dr. James Dobson contends that if
such anti-Christian trends continue in the U.S., Christians will
face the same kind of restrictions on their free speech and
faith as believers currently do in Canada.

"In Canada," says Dobson, "certain portions of Scripture can no
longer be read on radio or television. If broadcasters chose to
elaborate on Romans 1, for example, or other Scriptures that
address the subject of homosexuality, they would be charged with
unethical practices because officials would interpret the
comments as hateful. Focus couldn't even cite certain medical
information related to AIDS on a recent broadcast because,
again, it might have offended the homosexual community. That's
where I believe gay and lesbian activists in this country are
taking us."

Worldwide persecution of Christians While the Southern Baptists
sponsor 5,000 "home missionaries," they also support more than
4,000 foreign missionaries in 126 countries. So the problems
confronting Christians overseas are also on their minds.

In September, a Roman Catholic priest was killed in India for
his "illegal" attempts to convert Hindus to Christianity. But
that's just the beginning.

In the Sudan, Islamic forces have force-starved an estimated
1.5 million "infidels" in recent years.

Muslim gangs in Java have ransacked hundreds of churches. In
China, police continue to arrest members of underground
Protestant churches.

Open Doors, a religious freedom group founded by Brother
Andrew, reported on several instances of persecution last month.
In Turkmenistan, a pastor spent 12 days in prison before being
freed and fined one month's wage for holding unsanctioned
meetings. In Indonesia, 30 Christians were massacred by soldiers
on the island of Ambon. In Chechnya, Russian Orthodox priests
are being kidnapped and in Turkey, 40 Christians have recently
been arrested for worshipping in an "illegal" church.

However attitudes toward Christianity have changed in America
in recent decades, a parallel shift seems to have occurred
worldwide.

What about the future of Christianity in America? Will
evangelism be chilled, or even silenced -- or perhaps just
neutered -- due to an ever-more-intolerant culture? Will it end
up as an underground movement as it is in many corners of the
world?

Phil Roberts, of the Baptists' North American Mission Board,
sees it this way: "As a result of this effort" to evangelize in
Chicago next summer, "Canada and the United States will either
have been closer to being truly and fully evangelized -- or we
will see our culture becoming increasing pagan."

Frank York is a reporter for WorldNetDaily.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/19991203_xex_is_christian.shtml

See David Kupelian's commentary, The Christian haters.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_kupelian/19991203_xcdku_the_christi.shtml

_________________________
To subscribe to BPR send a message to bpr-list@philologos.org
with the word "subscribe" in the subject. To unsubscribe send a
message to the same address with the word "unsubscribe" in the
subject.

See http://philologos.org/bpr for additional info.

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Gas masks controversy
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 03 Dec 1999 09:25:12 -0500

From: owner-bpr@philologos.org

December 1, 1999
Use of gas masks restricted
KIRO 7 Eyewitness News and SeattleInsider.com

The Mayor of Seattle has issued an order restricting the use of
gas masks.

Anti-WTO protesters have used gas masks to avoid breathing tear
and pepper gas sprayed by police trying to control crowds.

The Mayor's office says the order was made under the
declaration of civil emergency, which was declared Tuesday.

The order, effective immediately, makes it illegal to purchase,
sell, convey, possess, carry or transport gas masks within the
city limits.

Violators are subject to fines of up to $500 and imprisonment
of up to 180 days.

http://www.seattleinsider.com/news/1999/12/01/wtogasmasks.html

-------

A supplier of gas masks (gas-masks.com) said today it will file
a suit against the city of Seattle for outlawing the sale and
possession of gas masks. "I'm very angry," said company
president Mark Miclette. "I could understand if it was a violent
weapon, but this is something people need to protect from the
air they breathe."

http://morrock.com/index.htm

-------

gasmasks.com to file lawsuit against city of Seattle for
outlawing the sale and possession of gas masks. President Mark
Miclette states, "With the FBI warning US citizens about the
possibility of biological and chemical terrorism, how dare
Seattle not allow it's citizens to protect themselves! No one
has the right to do this. Doesn't the US Constitution mean
anything any longer?"

http://www.gas-masks.com/

See http://philologos.org/bpr for additional info.

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - DayWatch items (12/2/99)
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1999 09:42:53 -0500

From: "Moza" <moza7@netzero.net>

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans who believe that the United
States is in moral decline do not need a constitutional amendment
to support religious expression, opponents of a religious freedom
measure introduced in Congress contend. Supporters of the
Religious Freedom Amendment, however, insist that Supreme
Court decisions restricting prayer in public schools and religious
expression on public property are to blame for moral decay and
can be reversed only by amending the Constitution. Full Story:
http://www.mcjonline.com/news/news3671.htm

TENNESSEE -- Thanks to the individual donations of local
community and business leaders, public school students in
Chattanooga have the option to study Bible history as a social
studies elective. However, the program funded by the independent
Public School Bible Study Committee since 1922 has only one real
problem - it's so popular that the committee's $750,000 annual
budget can't keep up with the demand for the courses. Full Story:
http://www.mcjonline.com/news/news3674.htm

WASHINGTON -- The United States and Russia Wednesday
unveiled joint video-linked command centers to oversee both
countries' 132 atomic reactors in an effort to prevent a nuclear
mishap during the Y2K rollover. The United States budgeted about
$6 million over the past two years to assist the countries of the
former Soviet Union make their plants Y2K compliant.

See http://philologos.org/bpr for additional info.

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - I am a camera
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1999 09:42:54 -0500

From: "Moza" <moza7@netzero.net>

I am a camera

Imagine recording every life experience with a device built into the
lens of your glasses. When an image excites you, the device
snaps images more quickly. Meanwhile, your shoes count your
footsteps, your underwear adjusts the room temperature, and your
friends keep in touch via the laser beamed into your eye from your
glasses. Strange? For Steve Mann, it's reality. A lecturer in
electrical engineering at the University of Toronto, he is the inventor
of wearable technologies with names like WearComp and EyeTap.
For years Mann was considered a crank. Now at age 37, industry
is finally waking up to his ideas. Alison Motluk met him in his
Toronto office

You used to walk around with a big camera and an antenna
mounted on your head. Did people think you were nuts?

Back in the 1970s, people would walk across the street to avoid
me. But in the 1980s, I had a certain following. The change from
1970s to 1980s was helmets to sunglasses.

So you're a pioneer of wearable computers. What are you wearing
now?

Could you do a little striptease for me?

I don't normally like to do strip shows.

OK, but what are all those wires doing under your shirt?

There are a number of wires, between 16 and 32 typically. There
are also electrodes on the body to measure respiration and heart
rate. What you do when you get up in the morning is put on this
undershirt that fits snugly on the body and takes all the readings. It
doesn't look too bad. The wires can be worked into the clothing.
Traditionally, artificial intelligence tries to replace humans with
machines, but what I'm trying to do with wearable technologies is
to extract intelligence from the human host.

How do the sunglasses work?

They contain a device I invented called the EyeTap which
reconstitutes every ray of light that hits the lens. The glasses
absorb this light and replace it with beams of laser light, which
shine into my eye. This is under computer control. If you stop the
program, you can't see--they are just like blindfolds.

What kind of information can they collect?

If I am walking down the street and somebody pulls out a shotgun
and asks me for my wallet, my heart rate will shoot up and my
footsteps will slow down. Because the electrodes sewn into my
undershirt are monitoring my vital signs and feeding the information
into the EyeTap device, it will recognise something unusual is
happening.

How will it respond?

By collecting more images. It collects up to 60 pictures per
second. If I am sleeping, it may slow down to one picture every
three or four hours. When is something a Kodak Moment? When
there's an inexplicable rise in heart rate that doesn't arise from
physical exertion.

Why would anyone want to do this?

We all like to remember things. You must have a family album.
There's a sense of really wanting to capture images and remember
our visual lives. Traditionally, you "point and click". But an even
easier way to go is to "look and think". People place a great value
on stories they can tell to their grandchildren. But right now, people
have a mere scattering of images in shoeboxes.

How many years would it take me to watch your life history?

It could take your entire life.

Why would anyone want to?

It's funny. When I began putting my EyeTap images on the Web, I
had 30 000 people a day or so sifting through my site. And I
thought, "Wow, that's a lot of people who'd rather watch my life
than live their own lives."

What's the difference between your grandchildren watching your
EyeTap images and my having to watch my grandmother's video of
her bus trip to Graceland?

Choice. In the future, imagine that you could explore the lives of
your deceased grandparents or great-grandparents, and trace
through the highlights of their lives. You could fast-forward past a
bus trip to Graceland or go back to their home towns and see what
things were like when they were young, and how much life has
changed. And with a technology I'm developing called Thoughtcam,
you won't need to spend weeks tediously trawling through the
digital archive of someone's life experiences to find what you want.
You'll be able to use your own thoughts and physiological states
as a rapid index to theirs.

What do you mean?

It can read physiological signs. When you experience those again,
Thoughtcam can pull out selected portions from the database.
Right now it only works with the individual who put the data in,
because it knows that individual's vital signs. But the goal is to
make it so that it can learn the differences between your
physiological data and mine, so your mental states can sift through
my data.

So if I had been wearing an EyeTap when my boyfriend and I
divided up the housework last month, yesterday when we
disagreed about what we'd decided, I could have automatically
summoned up the episode.

Oh, yeah. Hopefully, you'd be able to index into that database and
get into the same mental state you were in. These are what I call
computer-induced flashbacks.

Much like real memory.

Yeah.

A lot of business people ask you to give keynote speeches. But
you don't actually turn up to deliver them...

I give the lecture to myself at home. The sound from me is piped
through the PA system and images from my right EyeTap are sent
out through a large-screen TV at the front of the hall. I can hear the
audience through the back channel. Everyone knows about the "fly
on the wall", this is really a "fly in the eye". You're not on the wall,
you're in my eye, seeing the event more or less as I saw it. The
audience thinks they're me.

But when I am here talking to you I am not seeing what you are
seeing. I am seeing you, for example.

Most of the people I talk to already know what I look like. What's
more interesting for them is if they can get inside my head. If I am
buying a sofa, my wife can look at the upholstery and tell me if she
likes it. She can be inside my eye.

Has that really happened?

Yeah, often she'll send me a message saying something like,
"Hey, can you look around the back of the sofa?"

Your wife sits at home watching you on a screen and then she
types you an e-mail?

Yeah.

And how do you get it?

Through the EyeTap. It's not just a screen. It can also alter my
perception of reality. All the world's a Web when I've got my
glasses on--it puts reality and cyberspace on an equal footing. For
instance, I can block out real-world spam. When you're driving
down the highway and you see a Calvin Klein underwear ad? You
can filter that out. I've come up with a mathematical algorithm that
takes things on planar surfaces and filters them out. If there's a
certain ad that I don't want to see, I can press Control-K and
append it to my kill file. I only have to see them once.

What about people you don't like?

You could, in principle, put them into your kill file. But there's a
practical reason not to: you don't want to bump into them.

Did you wear the EyeTap during your wedding ceremony?

Since "I am a camera", we didn't have an outside photographer.

Why do you think EyeTap might be useful for the visually impaired?

The filters can strip down a scene to what you really need to see--
for example, the edges of stairs or door frames. With laser light
going right into your eye, it's bright and clear and traced right on
the retina. It's the visual equivalent of a hearing aid.

And people with Alzheimer's?

They have trouble remembering faces. The "wearable face
Recogniser" gives you that ability. It's got virtual name tags.

If a child used this EyeTap from a very young age, do you think
their brain would develop normally?

What do you mean by normal? I could make the argument that
traditionally a child grows up in the wilderness. A five-year-old child
in a house with a ringing telephone and a TV--their brains may not
develop normally if normal is viewed as the "natural" way. What
we're talking about here is evolution. Calculators--do they cause
brain rot? Clothing--does it cause body rot?

Is EyeTap going to cause memory rot?

No, a visual memory prosthetic is a good thing. I wrote my thesis
on WearComp. Standing in line at the bank, I would just chug
away, get another bit of it done. Or take lecturing. I can bring a
projector to class, plug my body into it and simply teach off that.
Instead of using a chalkboard, I write on a notepad and just look
down at it.

What were you like as a kid?

Before I started kindergarten, I was building electric circuits and
was interested in electrical engineering. I had decided I wanted to
be a telephone repairman when I grew up, because of everyone I
saw, those were the people with the most wire.

How far could we go in wearing the technology we need to live our
lives?

It was once said that a diaper is just a wearable restroom facility.
There must be a compromise between what we wear and what we
rely on the environment to provide. Wearable nuclear power plants
are never going to catch on. But since we have smart floors, smart
furniture, smart light bulbs, smart toilets and smart elevators, why
not smart people--people equipped with information processing
hardware?

Tell me about the "smart underwear" device.

The simple one that controls the thermostat can be anything. It can
be wired into a sock or a pair of undershorts. It enters into the
feedback loop of the thermostat. You basically just replace your
thermostat with this little radio receiver. Then you put on the smart
clothing and then the temperature of the room is adjusted to
maintain a constant comfort level.

And if you and I are both in the same room?

Then we have a problem. That's why when I got married I sort of
moved away from using the smart underwear. Now we just fight
over the thermostat.

From New Scientist, 4 December 1999
http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19991204/iamacamera.html

via: isml@onelist.com

See http://philologos.org/bpr for additional info.

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - The Torch of the Maccabees to the Temple Mount
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1999 09:51:41 -0500

From: "Moza" <moza7@netzero.net>

The Torch of the Maccabees to the Temple Mount

"He who is with G-d will come with me"

On 7th December [1999], the fourth day of the Feast of Hanukkah,
the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement in Israel
will hold one of the most unique events in the life of the holy land of
Israel.

Full story:
http://www.templemountfaithful.org/han-99.htm

See http://philologos.org/bpr for additional info.

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Watching Mars Polar Landing Events on the internet
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1999 10:09:42 -0500

From: "Moza" <moza7@netzero.net>

                          Mars Polar Lander Landing
                Watching The Landing Events Over The Internet
          http://marslander.jpl.nasa.gov/lander/landing_internet.html

The Mars Polar Lander launch will be transmitted live in
various ways over the Internet. In most cases, the broadcasts
will be using NASA TV as their source. NASA TV is a resource
designed to provide real-time coverage of NASA activities and
missions as well as providing resource video to the news media,
and educational programming to teachers, students and the
general public.

NASA TV NTV is broadcast on GE-2, transponder 9C, C-Band,
located at 85 degrees West longitude. The frequency is 3880.0
MHz. Polarization is vertical and audio is monaural at 6.8 MHz.

For the NASA TV schedule and the Mars Polar Lander timeline for
December 3, see this page:

http://marslander.jpl.nasa.gov/lander/landing_timeline.html

* NASA TV

Several organizations transmit NASA TV over the World Wide Web.
Plugin software is normally required to view the NASA TV
transmissions, and it is highly recommend that you install and
test the plugin well in advance.

A live video broadcast of NASA TV from broadcast.com is
available here:

http://www.broadcast.com/events/nasa/marslanding/

A list of other sites where NASA TV is broadcast is available
here:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv/ntvweb.html

* JPL WebCast

The camera for this WebCast is installed in the Mars Mission
Support Area at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This camera
provides a 360-degree live streaming video of the room and NASA
TV audio will be included. RealPlayer G2 or RealPlayer 7 Beta is
the required plugin and it works on a Windows 95/98/NT
(unfortunately, the Mac versions of RealPlayer haven't been
upgraded yet to support this particular camera). A 56K modem or
better connection and a Pentium II or better are recommended for
best results. For a sample view of look here:

http://marslander.jpl.nasa.gov/lander/behere.html

Once you have the plugin installed, then use this URL:

http://play.rbn.com/?url=planetfest/mission/live/behere.rm&proto
=rts p

When the link is selected, the RealPlayer will popup a message
stating that it's missing a plug-in and needs to contact
RealNetworks. Once it does this, it prompts again that it has
found the "Be Here iVideo" plug-in and requests confirmation to
install.

Select "Yes".

The plug-in gets installed and playback begins.

At this point, you'll begin to see the live broadcast from JPL.
The cursor will change to a 4-arrow cursor when in the video
window indicating that you can navigate the video. To navigate
the video, it's "click and drag" inside the video window to
control the direction of the video. Zoom is accomplised with the
Shift and Ctrl keys -- Shift Zooms In, Ctrl Zooms Out.

* JPL WebCam

We have another camera installed in the Mars Mission Support
Area at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This Webcam updates once
a minute and does not require any plugins, just view it through
your browser:

http://marslander.jpl.nasa.gov/lander/jpl.html

* Ames WebCast

Ames Research Center is also providing a live WebCast from JPL.
A RealPlayer plugin is required, and the Ames Webcast events has
been scheduled to not conflict with the events on the NASA TV
schedule:

http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/ltc/mars/polar.html

See http://philologos.org/bpr for additional info.

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Iraqis pray for rains as minister warns of another dry year
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1999 12:14:23 -0500

From: <owner-bpr@philologos.org>

12/02/1999 09:47:00 ET

Iraqis pray for rains as minister warns of another dry year

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Thousands of Iraqis held special prayers for rain
Thursday after a year of drought that decimated cattle and crops.

Agriculture Minister Abdel-Ilah Hamid Saleh joined the nearly 3,000
worshippers at the site of a former airport in Baghdad, where Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein is constructing what is billed as the largest
mosque in the Muslim world.

Many wept as they raised arms to the sky and recited verses from the
Koran, Muslims' holy book, pleading with God to preserve Iraq's cattle and
crops this year.

The prayers were performed on direct orders from Saddam and officials
said they were carried out simultaneously throughout the country.

More than 1 million sheep were reported to have perished and yields of
wheat, barley and other cereals were at least 70 percent lower than
expected after too little rain this past year. The drought further
strained a country already crippled by nearly nine years of U.N. trade
sanctions.

Saleh, the agriculture minister, said rain was already late this year,
delaying planting that should have been done in October and November.

"Now we are in December and the amount of rain (that has fallen) is not
enough to start sowing .... So we are in a very, very critical situation,"
he told The Associated Press.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in Baghdad agreed.

"The present state is so perilous .... Absence of rain this year is
going to have a catastrophic impact on animals, orchards and vegetable
growing areas in addition to other crops," Dr. Al Khair Khalaf-Allah of
FAO said.

The drought-induced grain shortfall prompted the government to rely
almost entirely on food shipments under the U.N.-approved oil-for-food
program. Wheat imports surpassed 1.5 million tons every six months and
Iraq's food import bill swelled to nearly $2.2 billion a year.

Iraq needs about 4 million tons of wheat a year. The amount of domestic
production shipped to state silos last year was estimated at 700,000
tons. The country only produced about 100,000 tons of rice last year,
while consumption is at least 750,000 tons a year.

via: hblondel@tampabay.rr.com

See http://philologos.org/bpr for additional info.

Philologos | Bible Prophecy Research | Online Books | Reference Guide

Please be advised that this domain (Philologos.org) does not endorse 100 per cent any link contained herein. This forum is for the dissemination of pertinent information on an end-times biblical theme which includes many disturbing, unethical, immoral, etc. topics and should be viewed with a mature, discerning eye.