Ferri Tales

On April 19, 2011, Iranian cleric Kazem Sedighi said, “Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes." I guess if enough people are committing adultery simultaneously, it could cause an earthquake, but I doubt it. As a species, we are getting more rotund, but not nearly enough to move the Earth, if I may wax poetic for a moment. Regardless, the cleric is actually blaming immodestly dressed women as the primary cause. On the same day, Jennifer McCreight, then a senior in the Purdue University College of Science, proposed an experiment, appropriately named Boobquake, to test the cleric's hypothesis. The experimental protocol called for women to dress immodestly on a predetermined day so that "with the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I'm sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the gro...

Notice the guy in the lower left. .

In his letter-to-the-editor ( Review, 8/6/11 ), Bob Hawthorne wrote, "If you want to solve health care, provide manufacturing jobs where good benefits are the norm. Want to resolve the mortgage crisis, provide manufacturing jobs so people can earn a decent salary and buy a house." He writes that the President and Congress are doing nothing to improve the current economy. Exactly, at least not while a Democrat sits in the White House. The Republicans will not allow any legislation to pass which would make the current administration look successful. They would prefer to destroy the economy rather than let a Democrat do what is necessary to help. Deficits don't matter - except when a Democrat is president. The debt ceiling doesn't matter - except when a Democrat is president. Reagan tripled the national debt, raised taxes eleven times, and raised the debt ceiling 17 times. Bush Jr. doubled the debt, and raised the debt ceiling 7 times. The Republican ...

I agree with Vincent Calaman ( Review letter, July 29 ) about the size of the universe. It is really really really big. Mr. Calaman points out that "no man will ever travel" beyond our solar system. This may be true for decades, if not for centuries. The nearest star beyond our Sun is 4.3 light-years away. This is 25 million million miles. If you travel at a million miles per hour (approximately 6 times faster than the fastest man made object) it would take 25 million hours or almost 2900 years to get there. Everything else is a lot farther away. It took under 70 years to get from the first flight at Kitty Hawk to a man on the Moon. Mankind has approximately 4 billion years before our Sun uses up its hydrogen fuel and expands to engulf and destroy the Earth.  A lot of technology can be developed in that time, assuming we survive and we stop wasting our time looking to the Bible for answers to technical questions and actually do some real science. For answers to non-technic...