To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Flash in sky baffles experts
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 08:57:46 -0500

From: <owner-bpr@philologos.org>

September 23, 1999,
San Jose Mercury News

http://www7.mercurycenter.com:80/premium/nation/docs/bigflash23.htm

Flash in sky baffles experts

Astronomers puzzle over energy burst

WASHINGTON -- Astronomers worldwide are tracking down a
mysterious and unusual burst of energy that exploded like a flash bulb
in the sky last week, lingered several hours and disappeared.

The sudden flash turned a star too dim to see except with a good
telescope into one almost visible to the naked eye. But the outburst
really wowed astronomers in invisible wavelengths -- X-ray, gamma
ray and radio -- where it flashed more than 120 times stronger than
normal, to become briefly the brightest thing in the sky.

Messages flashed through cyberspace as astronomers buzzed about
something very peculiar going on. "It's become a kind of global
detective story," said American University astronomer Richard
Berendzen

Astronomer: 'Wow!'

On Sept. 15, as a storm approached in Australia, Rod Stubbings, an
amateur astronomer, snatched a glance at a star that is known to
flicker a bit in the southern constellation Sagittarius.

"Wow! This is some outburst," Stubbings recalled via e-mail. "I
closed up the observatory, ran inside and reported the outburst."

Then the worldwide hunt started. Researchers scoured the spectrum
from long-range radio waves to very short wave X-rays and gamma
rays. Astronomers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
diverted a NASA X-ray telescope to take a look.

"This one came screaming out of nowhere at us," said MIT researcher
Donald Smith.

Smith enlisted the help of radio astronomers at observatories across
the United States.

"Something really unusual is going on," said astronomer Bob
Hjellming at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in New
Mexico. "It's gotten odder and odder as we've gotten pieces of data
on it."

Gamma-ray astronomers started an independent investigation. They
were floored by what they saw.

"It's kind of like you were sitting out on your porch seeing a rabbit
going hopping across and then another and another and then a 500-
pound gorilla is going across. And you're sitting there saying, `Did
this really happen?' " said Mike McCullough, a gamma-ray scientist at
the University Space Research Association in Huntsville, Ala.

Hunt for explanation

Scientists agree the phenomenon was real, but now comes the hard
part: What was it?

The mysterious flash came from somewhere between 1,300 and 3,300
light-years away in the Milky Way, Hjellming determined. That may
sound far away, but in astronomical terms, it's just a bit down the
street in our own galactic neighborhood.

At first, different astronomers, looking at the outburst in their
particular field of expertise, couldn't get the whole picture, much like
blind men describing an elephant by feeling different parts of its body,
Hjellming said. But a theory started to jell via the Internet.

Experts' best guess -- and they say that's all it is -- is that a super
compact object, either a black hole or neutron star, suddenly
swallowed much of a neighboring star and shot out enormous high-
energy jets. Scientists hope to have a photo of the jets next week.

"That's really a huge part of science: finding a mystery and solving it,"
McCullough said. "And that's what's going on here."

via: hblonde1@tampabay.rr.com

--- BPR

BPR Web Site - http://philologos.org/bpr

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - U.N. Discusses Gun Control Measure
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 09:37:35 -0500

From: owner-bpr@philologos.org

Saturday September 25 12:09 AM ET

U.N. Discusses Gun Control Measure
By PETER JAMES SPIELMANN
Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - In a bid to curb civil wars, ethnic
massacres and terrorism, the U.N. Security Council on Friday
discussed an initiative by the U.N. chief to implement greater
gun-control measures around the world.

At the end of the first ministerial debate on small arms,
council members called for new measures to discourage arms from
reaching conflict zones and also called for effective
implementation of arms embargoes.

``Small arms and light weapons are primary tools of violence in
many conflicts taking place in the world,'' Annan told the
council.

``The proliferation of small arms, ammunition and explosives
has also aggravated the violence associated with terrorism and
organized crime.

``Even in societies not beset by civil war, the easy
availability of small arms has in many cases contributed to
violence and political instability,'' he said.

With at least 200 million firearms are owned by American
citizens, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright announced
the United States would refrain from sellings arms to war zones
not already covered by arms embargoes.

``We encourage other nations to establish and observe such
moratoria,'' she said. ``We have passed laws making it illegal
for traffickers subject to American law to broker illicit deals
anywhere. We ask others to crack down on brokering as well.''

British Foreign Minister Robin Cook told the Council: ``It is a
tribute ... that nuclear weapons have never been used for half a
century, and that chemical weapons have rarely been used.

``However, over the same period the assault rifle has become
the weapon of mass killing. ... Over the last decade alone,
conflicts fought with only small arms have killed over 3 million
people, mostly civilians,'' Cook said.

``Five million dollars will buy approximately 20,000 assault
rifles - enough to equip the army of a medium-sized state,'' he
noted.

The ministers met to discuss a report by Annan which
recommended among other things:

-Better enforcement of U.N. arms embargoes on nations and
regions in conflict.

-Nations should require arms manufacturers to put serial
numbers and identification marks on weapons so the diversion of
legitimate sales into the black market can be monitored.

-Nations should share information on the registration of guns
and on legal transactions, in order to trace black market deals.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/19990925/us/un_gun_control_5.html

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Israelis meet Arabs at UN
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 09:47:47 -0500

From: owner-bpr@philologos.org

Israelis meet Arabs at UN

The Israeli Foreign Minister, David Levy, has held an
unexpected meeting with his counterparts from more than 10 Arab
countries, including Saudi Arabia.

Mr Levy said he regretted that representatives from Syria and
Lebanon has not taken part.

"We won't make peace if everyone goes their separate ways," he
said. "I hope this will change because we have to talk."

The 90-minute meeting - planned in secret and jointly sponsored
by the US and Russia - took place on the fringes of the United
Nations General Assembly in New York.

"What was interesting was that discussions about the millennium
were in the air, and the fact that this was the time to begin a
new century with a comprehensive agreement," US Secretary of
State, Madeleine Albright, said after the meeting.

The Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, also attended - as
did representatives from the European Union, Japan and the UN
itself.

No formal statement was issued after the talks, which was the
largest gathering of Middle Eastern government representatives
to discuss regional peace since the Sharm el-Sheikh summit on
counter-terrorism in Egypt four years ago.

http://news.bbc.co.uk

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Weekend News Today items (9/24/99)
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 18:21:13 -0400

From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>

Leaders of all religions to meet in Rome; Vatican in final
stages of preparations for inter-religious meeting

Weekend News Today
By Staff Writer
Source: EWTN

Fri Sep 24,1999 -- The Vatican is in the final stages of
preparation for the Inter-Religious Meeting that will be held
from October 24-28. Leaders of all religions will meet in Rome
to study the common contribution that believers can make to
humanity in the next century. The meeting will include a visit
to Assisi, the city of peace.

The inter-religious event takes place on the eve of the
Jubilee. As the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue
states, John Paul II has requested that in this last year of
preparation for 2000, dedicated to God the Father, "reflection
(be made) on the relation between God and men, by promoting
relations among the religions."

There will be two important moments during the meeting. The
first is the Assembly itself, which will be attended by 200
people: 80 Christians of different denominations and 120 from
other religions; it will be held in the Vatican Synod Hall. The
second is a significant meeting in St. Peter's Square on October
28, with thousands of faithful present. The Assembly will
include the traditional African, American and Hindu religions,
the monotheist religions, and some new Japanese religions.

Over the last few months, many inter-religious congresses and
activities have been held in different dioceses of the world.
Speaking to Vatican Radio, Cardinal Francis Arinze, president of
the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, said these
initiatives have served to appreciate the desire of Catholics to
meet with other believers, and to address in greater depth the
Church's mission, which preaches Jesus Christ, the only Savior
of all mankind.

"This is important. Many Catholics feel a certain confusion,
because they think that to open to other believers in a certain
sense means to betray the Christian ideal. Although the risk
exists, there is an answer to avoid it. By being firm in the
faith, we can meet with other believers, share with them the
beauty of the news of Christ's salvation, and show genuine
interest in what they believe, what they do, and how they
worship. In this way, greater solidarity and collaboration can
be promoted in today's world," Cardinal Arinze concluded.

'Global infantility' threatens Israeli society

Weekend News Today
By Andra Brack
Source: Ha'aretz

Fri Sep 24,1999 -- Israeli society is facing two existential
dangers in the form of "global infantility" and the "erasure of
its collective memory disk," the writer Amos Oz said yesterday
at a reception held in his honor by President Ezer Weizman. Oz
was honored for having his 1968 novel Mikhael Sheli (My Michael)
included as one of the century's 100 greatest novels as chosen
by German publishing and communications giant Bertelsmann. Oz
began his remarks by recalling the revival of the Hebrew
language and the flowering of Hebrew literature. "But all that
is now in tremendous danger -even mortal danger," he warned -
but not because of the infiltration of foreign words into the
language or because the "tenacity for Hebrew" has diminished, he
said. Part of the threat, he said, has to do with a global
phenomenon, "a kind of infantilization of the entire human
species." All one has to do is pick up a newspaper or turn on
television to encounter this, Oz said. The root of this
infantilization, he argued, lies in capitalism, "which knows
that you sell things more easily to small children than to
adults, and stupefies us into buying things, and makes us buy
things that stupefy us." Another factor is the advent of the
"New Age," the vain beliefs that "cascade us with insipid
nonsense." In Israel, he said, the global infantilization
process combines with a "phenomenon in which the disk of
collective memory is being erased." Indeed, "there are people
who have an interest in erasing that memory and who do
everything in their power to destroy the collective memory and
install in its place non-memory or other memories."

Temple Mount Faithful to lay Temple Mount cornerstone on Sukkot

Weekend News Today
By Andra Brack
Source: IsraelWire

Fri Sep 24,1999 -- "Barak and Beilin want to turn over control
of the Temple Mount of Jerusalem to Arafat and give away the
city forever," reads the Temple Mount Faithful media release
date September 22, 1999. On the second intermediary day of the
Sukkot holiday, Monday, members and supporters of the Temple
Mount Faithful will once again attempt to place a cornerstone
for the Third Temple in the Old City of Jerusalem at 9:00am.
Participants will meet at the Mugrabi Gate of the Temple Mount.
Since the liberation of the Temple Mount of the Old City of
Jerusalem in June 1967, the control of the Mount has been turned
over to the Moslem Wakf which has barred any and all Jewish
prayer on the Mount. The Temple Mount Faithful annually attempts
to place the cornerstone for the Third Temple but is repeatedly
prevented from doing so by the Wakf officials and the Israel
Police.

World's first commercial spy-quality satellite launched today

Weekend News Today
By Kelly Pagatpatan
Source: UPI

Fri Sep 24,1999 -- Billed by its maker as the world's first
commercial high-resolution Earth-imaging satellite, the Ikonos
satellite is set for liftoff Friday from Vandenberg Air Force
Base in California. The Ikonos satellite sits atop an Athena 2
booster, ready for a boost into Earth orbit. Takeoff is set for
11:22 a.m. PDT (2:22 p.m. EDT). Some 90 minutes later, the
Ikonos is scheduled to be in its proper orbit, circling 400
miles above Earth.From that vantage, the Ikonos spacecraft can
take high-resolution images of the Earth, distinguishing objects
on the surface as small as three feet in size. Whisking about
the planet every 90 minutes, the satellite will have the ability
to revisit any location on the globe every three days and use
its high-powered camera, or snap lower resolution pictures more
frequently. The camera system onboard Ikonos can produce
detailed pictures comparable to early generation military spy
satellites, and can spot objects as small as trucks, boats and
ships. The name Ikonos is derived from the Greek word for
"image." The Athena launcher is named for the Greek goddess of
wisdom, skill and justice. The imagery products churned out by
the Ikonos will be sold and marketed by the satellite's
operator, Space Imaging of Denver. Lockheed Martin Astronautics
in Denver built the Athena booster, with the Ikonos spacecraft
constructed by Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems in
Sunnyvale, Calif. Brender said Ikonos is built to relay imagery
that can be utilized for a variety of market applications, from
environmental monitoring and eyeing the health of crops, to
charting urban sprawl and looking for oil and other resources.
The business of providing spy-satellite quality images on the
commercial market is seen as a growing enterprise. According to
a report issued this month from the international consulting
group Frost & Sullivan, geographic information system computer
software, coupled to satellite imagery, has created new
capabilities and opportunities for commercial remote sensing.
One issue that U.S. commercial remote-sensing marketers are
wrestling with is the ability of the American government to
enforce "shutter control" over private satellites. News
organizations might like the idea of high-flying cameras to peer
down on future military conflicts, disasters. If a commercial
satellite photographed something with U.S. national security
interests, the Secretary of Commerce, with advice from the State
Department and the Defense Department, can issue U.S. firms an
order curtailing specific imaging operations.

Temple Mount Activity

Weekend News Today
By Andra Brack
Source: Arutz 7

Fri Sep 24,1999 -- Attorney-General Elyakim Rubenstein has
requested that the Supreme Court reject the petition brought by
the Temple Mount Faithful against the Moslem Waqf's construction
works on the Temple Mount. The petitioners demand that the
government act to put a halt to the Arabs' extensive works under
the Al-Aksa mosque in preparations for another mosque there.
Rubenstein claims that the extreme sensitivity of the site must
be taken into account, as well as the fact that the works are
almost completed. The Temple Institute has completed the
construction of a Menorah, similar to the one used in the Holy
Temple. Institute Head Rabbi Yisrael Ariel told Arutz-7's Yosef
Zalmanson today that the Menorah was constructed not for profane
or for personal use, but rather "for the sake of the
commandment." On the other hand, the Menorah was not officially
consecrated for Temple use, so as to avoid the Halakhic (Jewish-
legal) prohibition of deriving benefit from Temple property.
"It, or other Menorahs, will be consecrated when the Temple is
rebuilt," Rabbi Ariel said. The Menorah is two meters high, and
is made of 42 kilograms of pure gold.

Poll of adult Israelis concerning Wye 2

Weekend News Today
By Andra Brack
Source: IsraelWire

Fri Sep 24,1999 -- The results of the Gallup Poll of adult
Israelis (includes Arab Israelis) on Wye and Arab Intentions: 1.
Do you believe that the Arabs are interested in reaching an
overall peace with Israel or will they never give up on their
desire to destroy it? -- 36% Want overall peace. -- 54% Want to
destroy Israel -- 10% Don't know
2. Do you support or oppose the new Wye agreement signed
this week in Sharm el-Sheik? -- 54% Support -- 25% Oppose -- 21% Don't know.

========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Spirits in the Silicon World
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 18:51:39 -0400

From: "Moza" <moza@butterfly.mv.com>

From Pioneer Planet,
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/seven-days/1/living/docs/034386.htm
-
Published: Saturday, September 25, 1999

Spirits in the Silicon World

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology theologian looks to smart robots for
insight into religious questions.

MARGIE WYLIE RELIGION NEWS SERVICE

For thousands of years, mythical robots have been used to explore the
question of what makes humans human.

In the Middle Ages, Jewish cabalists spun myths about golems, clay creatures
animated by the secret name of God. The ancient Greeks sought to create a
homunculus, a tiny proto-person servant. More recently, Mary Shelley's
``Frankenstein'' creature and the android ``Star Trek'' crew member
Commander Data have raised the question: ``Can man-made creatures have
souls?''

Anne Foerst's calling is to ask that question, but not about mythical
creatures. As resident theologian at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Foerst has spent the past four
years pondering how increasingly smart machines may affect our sense of
humanity.

``I think that computer science, and especially artificial intelligence, is
the field for religious inquiry,'' says Foerst, a German research scientist
who has served as an ordained minister and holds a doctorate in theology as
well as degrees in computer science and philosophy.

In biology or astronomy, the questions theologians ask deal with God as a
distant and powerful being. But in the field of artificial intelligence, the
theological issues are more ``personal,'' addressing God's relationship to
an individual being.

A human being asks, ``Who am I? What am I doing here? What's the meaning of
my life?'' Foerst says. ``Humans have a very strong sense of specialness,
and these machines challenge that specialness in extremely profound ways.''

Lab director Rodney Brooks invited Foerst to work as theological adviser for
a new generation of smart robots that learn by doing, just like humans.

One of these is Brooks' brainchild, Cog, a robot built in roughly human form
except that he carries his ``brain'' on his back in a laptop computer. Cog
is designed to discover and adapt to the world much the same way a human
baby does.

Traditionally, artificial intelligences -- such as the chess-playing IBM
computer Deep Blue -- are software applications primed with vast amounts of
data and then given complex rules for how to make decisions and for how to
learn to make other decisions. But such a disembodied intelligence, Brooks
argues, cannot possibly experience the world as humans do. Only through
experience as a physical being can smart robots develop emotions, which he
argues are prerequisite for a truly intelligent being. So the aim is for Cog
to become conscious of his body, his surroundings and someday, it is hoped,
his ``self.''

When that happens, asks Foerst, then what?

``At some point, Cog-like robots will be part of our community,'' she says.
If these robots look like us, act like us, and are aware, then shouldn't we
welcome them into the community of mankind? Should we baptize them, she
asks.

The way theologians answer that question may shed more light on how humans
treat each other than how they treat smart robots, Foerst says.

``We're pretty strict about how we define humanity,'' she says. ``We often
actually exclude humans from the human community by saying, `You are just a
Jew or just an African.' ''

Foerst says, ``Isn't it better to widen up the criteria of what it means to
be human to include chimps and some smart robots, so then we avoid the
danger of excluding some people?''

When she isn't asking big questions about human identity in a technological
age, Foerst also acts as the lab's gadfly, a role she clearly relishes. ``I
make people aware of their assumptions about artificial intelligence,'' she
says, noting that computer scientists often fail to recognize their own
mythological or religious biases and end up calling them science.

Religious examination isn't always embraced by the scientific field, and in
the super-rational world of artificial intelligence, Foerst's work is
especially controversial. Many scientists in this field fear that, at best,
theology muddies students' thinking. At worst, it denies that re-creating
the spark of human intelligence is at all possible.

In 1997, she created the ``God and Computers'' project, a credit course and
lecture series that explores the links between religion and artificial
intelligence. It was attacked as ``evangelical'' by none other than Marvin
Minsky, the MIT professor who founded the Artificial Intelligence Lab in
1959. Minsky, like others at the school, thinks studying theology is
incompatible with computer science.

``The act of appearing to take such a subject seriously makes it look as
though our community regards it as a respectable contender among serious
theories,'' Minsky comments by e-mail. ``Like creationism and other
faith-based doctrines, I suspect it is bad for young students.''

But Brooks, who describes himself as a scientific rationalist and ``strong
atheist,'' says he can understand how faith can coexist with science. ``From
a scientific point of view, my kids are bags of skin full of molecules
interacting, but that's not how I treat them. I love them. I operate on two
completely different levels, and I manage to live with these two different
levels.''

Brooks reasons, ``I suspect the same can be said of religious scientists.''

As computer science bumps against the limits of rationality, more of its
practitioners are feeling freer to explore their faith. Leading computer
scientist Donald Knuth recently wrote a book called ``3:16'' in which he
examined the third chapter and 16th verse of every book of the Christian
Bible.

``I thought at first I would be ridiculed; I had this feeling like I was
coming out of the closet or something,'' says Knuth, professor emeritus for
the art of computer programming at Stanford University. ``I hesitantly
admitted to a few people that I was working on this book on weekends, but
got an unexpectedly warm reaction.''

Knuth says he found ``a lot of computer scientists have a God-shaped hole in
their hearts.''

Foerst says Minsky is right to be suspicious.

``Some theologians are very anti-technology,'' she says. ``The first
reaction they always have is fear: `These robots are different from us.
Humans were created in the image of God.' They are not even willing to
consider those questions. They are themselves stuck in the myth of human
specialness.''

As part of her work, Foerst tries to educate ministers and theologians about
the science of artificial intelligence.

Brooks says his ``ultimate megalomaniacal goal'' is to build a robot ``that
is indistinguishable from a human -- which I won't do before I die. I admit
that.''

But some milestones are already past.

Today, deaf people can hear again with electronic cochlear implants that tap
directly into a nerve in the ear. Silicon corneas are in the works. And
these two examples are just the beginning.

``As we start to connect silicon to biological material, in living humans,
where is the boundary between personhood and machinehood?'' Brooks asks.

via: isml@onelist.com