BBC sky at night: Pluto and New Horizons

The other night, I watched a very informative BBC Sky at Night documentary on Youtube about the flypast of the New Horizons probe on planet/dwarf planet Pluto last year.  I didn't realize that Pluto and its moon Charon can actually qualify as a binary pair because the barycentre that they both orbit is outside of Pluto itself.  Presenter Chris Lintott really knows his stuff and is a worthwhile successor to the late Patrick Moore.

Star Wars: the force awakens

I have just watched the DVD of 'Star Wars: the force awakens'. The story was basically a rehash of episode 4 "A new hope", but with new characters.  Only the burgeoning relationship between the force sensitive characters Rey and Finn add anything new to the storyline.  There was an excellent cameo by Harrison Ford as Han Solo as he confronts his son and antagonist - Kylo Ren.  Apart from that its a bit of a disappointment unless you are a serious hard core Star Wars fanatic.

Naz Shah

I just found this little upload from Youtube

Its about that nasty, smelly, anti-semitic Labour MP Naz Shah, who has resigned from being a parlimentary aide to shadow chancellor John McDonnell. Here Labour front bencher Lisa Nandy MP is taken to task for it, with Liam Fox MP adding a few titbits. A couple of telling comments.

1. Nandy says that the majority of Labour members are not antisemitic.  That's ok then, so it means a minority are.  So when will Labour do something about them?
2. Naz Shah said she did not agree with some of the racist images and posts that she shared.  So why did she share them then? She's either too thick or thinks the public is too thick.
3. Liam Fox makes a very telling point, its not only the images and posts that you share but also the underlying sentiment behind it.  This suggests that Shah strongly believed in antisemitism. 

So another Labour member has been rumbled for anti-semitism, in other news, scientists discover that doing push ups is good for your biceps.

finally finished 'In search of the Trojan war'

Last night I watched the final episode of 'In search of the Trojan war' on DVD. Despite being more than 30 years old, this is an excellent BBC documentary.  In the final episode, Michael Wood explores not only the fall of Troy but also the fall of Mycenae Greece which according to Homer, sacked Troy.  He then goes on to talk about the Bronze Age Collaspse, which plunged the Eastern Med into a 500 year long dark age.  A dark age where people stopped writing things down and went back to oral histories being passed down by mouth.

Steve Davis

The snooker legend, that is Steve Davis finally announced his retirement after 38 years of playing professionally. Whilst I was not a great fan of his, he came across as a true gentlemen and treated his sport with great dignity.  I will always remember this moment of his(jump to 13:40).

Quantum entanglement and large objects

If you have ever wondered why quantum physics don't apply to anything bigger than sub-atomic particles, astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson explains why.  Enjoy!

Israel/Palestine: An Arab Christian perspective

Last night I went to a talk given by Dr Munther Isaac at St Andrews Church in Tsim Sha Tsui on the problems faced by Palestinian Christians in both Israel and the so-called occupied territories. It was interesting and it was not what I expected. Dr Isaac was very open about the problems faced by Christians namely, persecution, violence and poverty but he put everything down to.... the Israelis, especially Israeli Jews.

He mentioned the security wall but failed to mentioned that Israelis built the wall to prevent suicide bombers from blowing innocent people up. Although he did acknowledge persecution from muslim fundamentalists, the cause of which was bizarrely down to the Israelis.  Somehow in Dr Isaac's world if the Israelis or zionists just vanished into thin air then all the problems faced by Christians in the Middle East would vanish.  He failed to mention some of the racist bits of sharia law which subjected non-muslims to dhimmi or second class status.  In contrast in Israel everyone has the same equal rights be they Jew, Christian, Muslim or anything.

In other words, Dr Isaac presented a very antizionist view of the conflict.  At the end I asked why during the 400 years of occupation by the Ottoman Turks did the Palestinians fail to even try gaining their own freedom.  He replied that nationalism like that was a recent phenomena which I found quite an unsatisfactory answer.