Posted on 06/23/2007 1:28:02 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
(AP) SALT LAKE CITY -- Mitt Romney said Saturday that criticism of his Mormon religion by rival GOP presidential campaigns is happening too frequently.
“Clearly, any derogatory comments about anyone’s faith—those comments are troubling. The fact they keep on coming up is even more troubling,” Romney said during a fundraising trip in the home state of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Mormon church is one of the fastest-growing religions and claims about 12.5 million members worldwide. But many evangelical Christians in crucial primary states such as Iowa and South Carolina consider the faith a cult.
Romney’s remarks follow an apology from GOP rival John McCain’s campaign for comments about the Mormon church allegedly made this year by a volunteer.
Also recently, Republican presidential hopeful, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, issued a similar apology for a campaign worker’s e-mail to Iowa Republican leaders that was an apparent attempt to draw unfavorable scrutiny of Romney’s religion. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani apologized after the New York Sun noted that a campaign aide had forwarded to a blogger a story about unofficial Mormon lore. Legend has it that a Mormon would save the Constitution, the story said. The campaign aide passed the story along with a note: “Thought you’d find this interesting.”
Romney said in a large presidential race there always will be some volunteers or workers who cannot be controlled. But he said the difference between derogatory comments that originated from the McCain campaign and others is that the Arizona senator has not personally apologized to him.
“In the case of Senator Brownback and Mayor Giuliani ... they called immediately. They each spoke with me personally. I don’t have any issue with that at all,” Romney said.
He said McCain “can do whatever he feels is the right thing. There’s no need for me to suggest how people respond to things that go on in the campaign.”
Tucker Bounds, a McCain campaign spokesman, said the McCain campaign has already apologized.
“It’s a very sincere apology. There is absolutely no place for those type of comments in our campaign,” he said.
Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, said he had not spoken with McCain since the last presidential debate, on June 5.
Romney used a fundraiser hosted by Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller to criticize the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. It banned unregulated, unlimited contributions from corporations, unions and wealthy individuals to national political parties and federal candidates.
“The bill ought to be repealed,” he said. “It’s been the wrong course for American campaigns.”
Romney said he favors unlimited donations as long as they are immediately disclosed on the Internet.
Romney was attending fundraisers in Salt Lake City and in Logan on Saturday.
Actually, I'm an engineer. I really don't pay a lot of attention to the market so I don't have any useful information.
He says that in the pictures it looks like a galaxy is budding a quasar. If he is right then all of our physics are wrong.
I disagree with you here. Most of the physics we use in our daily life are based on Newton’s work. None of that work comes into question. In fact, anything that has been proved to be true is safe. The only thing Arps investigation calls into question is the big bang view of the universe. That hypothesis was based on Einstein’s theory that made gravity king. The plasma crowd thinks that the much stronger electrical force needs to be given more consideration.
Why should we reject the simpler explanation that it is two galaxies in collision?
I see no reason why the ejection model precludes galaxies from colliding. In fact we should expect to see this happening when two proto galaxies are ejected from separate locations with vectors that put them on a collision course.
If there is a good simple explanation why pick an extreme explanation that has no theoretical backing.
I would agree with you if we stipulate that the theory in question is backed by observational data. When they don’t agree, is it the theory that’s flawed or is the observational data incorrect? The theorist can imagine something that brings order to the situation but when his invention is unobservable it becomes an exercise in faith. Modern Cosmologists accept without question that black holes exist. The observable universe would be unexplainable without them. Never mind if somebody else can show you how the electrical force can act as the galactic engine. That goes against the dogma that the main stream scientists hang onto.
My quest during the last year has been sobering. I knew that science sometimes goes down dead end paths but I always believed that the sciences were pure enough to correct their course when things went wrong. History, on the other hand, shows us that paradigm shifts don’t come easily and it appears to me that we are in the throws of just that kind of shift. Arp, Peratt, and others who share similar views are ignored, marginalized, and ridiculed. Their observations and ideas are not challenged as much as they are discarded out of hand. Don’t bother me with observations that question my science (religion). Some research I did yesterday backs up this conclusion. I’ll share it with you when I’ve had more time to flesh it out.
I think that it will be combination of Gravity and electricity.
I agree with this statement and so does Anthony Peratt.
“With apparent inevitability, an increasing number of electrical engineers have extended their plasma interests beyond Earth, into such realms as interplanetary "space weather" and plasma laboratory astrophysics. Their fundamental view on cosmology is that electromagnetic forces sculpt the broad outlines of the universe; gravitational forces shape the details only after electromagnetic forces have first drawn the diffuse matter close enough together for gravity to become significant.”
That is why they invented the mythical dark energy and dark matter. They are just a constant that they can throw into their equations to make them consistent with the observations of the Universe. Much like Einstein’s famous mistake.
I agree that these constructs are place holders that keep things together until they come up with something that explains the true picture. My problem is that by refusing to acknowledge contrary evidence they are spinning their wheels and wasting the tax payers money. As for Albert’s famous mistake, it was the expansion of the universe that caused him to recognize his error. That expansion was “proved” by using redshift as a measure of recessional velocity. Albert was probably correct in abandoning his constant, but the mechanism as to how the universe is expanding may be totally different than what he was led to believe.
This whole episode points to one of the main problems we face today. Einstein was brilliant and his insights brought about a paradigm shift. He was a mathematician. He had an idea in his mind as to how the universe worked and his formulas weren’t working as he expected so he threw in his cosmological constant to mold his formulas to the way he envisioned the cosmos to work. It is somewhat sleight of hand. It looks good on paper but what about reality. I think that Einstein was a great theorist and his work has led the way in moving research along some very productive paths. He was not infallible though and when observation or a better theory leads us away from his work then we need to have the courage to move forward. It is important for us to never forget that Einstein himself was not satisfied with his work.
All of the history of Physics is pointing to a GUT. That means that the Plasma boys probably have part of the picture right and the Gravity boys have part of the picture right. Both are missing something. That something is probably going to come from the strong and weak forces. Someone is going to see the connection between the small and large forces and then the rest of us will say aha it is obvious : )
I agree with you here although it may not be obvious. I have more to share with you if you’d like. It has been good for me to bounce these things off of someone else.
Why should we reject the simpler explanation that it is two galaxies in collision?
I see no reason why the ejection model precludes galaxies from colliding. In fact we should expect to see this happening when two proto galaxies are ejected from separate locations with vectors that put them on a collision course. No dark matter required. In fact if you look at Dr. Peratt’s simulation it appears that this sort of collision (or near collision) between two budding galaxies is what leads to the ubiquitous spiral form that we see so predominantly in the universe today.
Just what is Plasma Theory? I know the standard dogma. What I want to know is what is the new theory that explains the universe in a way that gravity doesn’t. Just saying electricity is 100 times stronger than Gravity doesn’t mean much too me because typically it is much weaker with distance.
I am just trying to get a good handle on it. I will reply again when I have something intelligent to say, but any help in leading me to a simple explanation would be appreciated.
There is not an all encompassing theory that explains it all in the plasma world. As I stated earlier, this is one of the reasons the plasma guys aren't gaining a wider audience. The following from Dr. Peratt's web site is interesting.
Plasma astrophysics is currently being done with machines called pulsed-power generators, which currently operate in the 0.5-2 megajoules range and are located at Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Under construction is Atlas, a large pulsed power generator for studying instabilities in the various states of matter. Also mentioned is X-1, a 20-megajoule behemoth , so called after the bright source in the constellation Cygnus A. An appreciable fraction of machine usage for these large machines will be devoted to plasma astrophysics.
and this
"Just as gravity was the basis for astrophysics in the twentieth century," assert today's advocates of the plasma model, "electromagnetism will be in the twenty-first century." This claim and challenge is offered with growing conviction, thanks to a diverse collection of auspicious developments:
1. Radically advanced equipment is becoming available for testing in the laboratory plasma behaviors that are surprisingly comparable to those in cosmic space.
2. Clear evidence of inter- and intra-galactic magnetic fields have been found.
3. Current filaments have been detected in the interstellar medium.
4. Supercomputer capabilities are now so great, and plasma modeling is so advanced, thanks to efforts to model nuclear weapons, that a new era of modeling cosmological phenomena is upon us.
In the details of these developments, as presented in four accompanying sidebars, we see the emerging face of astrophysics in the twenty-first century.
I think a workable theory will emerge from the modeling that comes from these new technologies. That new theory will answer the difficult questions that the gravity guys can't explain or explain using unverifiable constructs.
I started my reading on the subject at this site.
Another place to get some interesting reading is the Thunderbolts Picture of the Day site. They get into many areas dealing with the electrical force in the solar system and beyond. The article is always short but interesting. Today's article deals with what we have been talking about, an electric model for a galactic engine. The picture of the day archive contains some very interesting articles on a number of different subjects.
Get back to me when you can. The flow of the conversation will be driven by our research and life's vicissitudes.
Like I said I think it is going to be the integration of the all the forces that will help this all to make sense.
My problem so far with the Plasma boys is that they don't seem to have anything more than. Hmmm, this looks very similar, I wonder if there is a connection? We need to have a theory to explain it and all the theories I have seen seem really out there.
Why?
I thought this one had died out!
The epitath for a thread entitled "Romney: "Attacks on Mormon Religion Troubling..Of course, it was just, (as my kids used to say) "A Naccident"!
I know that EEE was planning on a 2500 post thread ;)
Tomorrow, we are winding up a weeks worth of VBS; Vacation Bible School.
The wife (and now me, too) was wondering whether Catholics have anything like that.
And I'm wondering if the LDS do as well.
The Electric Universe tends to be more real science, but it is relatively closely related to the Plasma Universe people. Kind of like the difference between ID, feedback and Evolution. Everyone knows the creationists have done too much LSD, but at least the ID folks provide an occasional humorous interlude : )
Mac person? As in Macintosh Computers?
The Electric Universe tends to be more real science, but it is relatively closely related to the Plasma Universe people.
The Electric Universe people and the Plasma Cosmologists are one in the same.
Kind of like the difference between ID, feedback and Evolution. Everyone knows the creationists have done too much LSD, but at least the ID folks provide an occasional humorous interlude : )
Some of the creationists are definitely guilty of trying desperately to put a square peg into a round hole. The intelligent design guys do make some interesting points. I'd like to move our conversation into this area at some point if you're interested. I'd like to get your slant on these issues.
That's right. Right now I am lusting after an Octocore Pro. So a month or two after Leopard is out that is what I will be using.
The Electric Universe people and the Plasma Cosmologists are one in the same.
Oh, no. Remember when I told you I wasn't up to speed on the Plasma stuff? The Electric Universe people aren't trying to invent a whole new physics system, they are trying to fit the electric stuff in, not rewrite everything.
Some of the creationists are definitely guilty of trying desperately to put a square peg into a round hole. The intelligent design guys do make some interesting points. I'd like to move our conversation into this area at some point if you're interested. I'd like to get your slant on these issues.
Sure and you know that there are some big threads on this whole subject?
I will wet your appetite ^^_^ Think about this, consciousness causes the wave packet to collapse. Could consciousness have created the universe? What is consciousness? Think membrane and the Sum of all paths with feedback.
That's way cool. I was an owner of an original 128k Macintosh. I'm currently using a dual 2 GHz Power PC Tower running OS 10.3.9. It is still an awesome machine and does everything that I need. We will probably upgrade to Leopard when it comes out. I won't be getting one of the new Intel Macs until this one gives up the ghost or becomes obsolete (I think Leopard will be the last OS to support the old hardware).
You'll have to provide me some links to the EU sites you've been visiting. Everyone I've ever seen looks favorably on the work of Peratt and Arp. No EU sites I've seen accept Black Holes and Dark Matter.
BUMP
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