Walkabout

Well I will be on a trip until the end of the week with limited or no Internet. So catch all of you on Friday or Saturday.

To tide everyone over, some quick comments.

Rep. Bennie Thompson [D-MS] needs to talk to his staffers. Sending an email to people wanting to review health facilities at two NASCAR raceways advising them to get shots for Hepatitis A and B when there is no evidence such warning is needed speaks volumes of someone's prejudice I think. Thankfully Bennie is not my Representative but this is very embarrassing.

Now about Pluto. Astronomer David Thoren, using the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, has taken the clearest pictures yet of Pluto and its three moons: Charon, Nix, and Hydra. If Pluto has three moons, it raises questions in my mind about the arbitrary designation of Pluto as a dwarf planet. Hopefully the flyby of New Horizon mission in 2015 will settle some questions about Pluto and perhaps restore it to being a planet.

And to fuel the fans of Dan Brown plus more traditional conspiracy theory cultists that have been salivating over the missing Knight Templars and their treasure fleet since it vanished from France, something interesting has emerged from the much talked about Vatican Archives. Professor Barbara Frale several years ago stumbled across a mis-filed document of Pope Clement V that declared that the Templars had not committed heresy but did suffer from sin. Since there is a Papal finding of no heresy of the faith, the good name of the Templars for 700 years has been maligned and as noted previously fueled a cornucopia of conspiracy theories. The Vatican Archives are releasing 799 copies of this finding of Pope Clement V along with documentary evidence of the torture the Templars suffered at the hands of authorities like King Phillip the Fair of France. Price will be measly $8,333 so get in those PayPal payments now. To 1redthread, thanks for alerting me to this.