Chinese Water Torture, Or, How The Axis Of Evil Is Coming Back To Haunt Consensus Cosmology

Drip.........drip.....drip.............

A interesting paper (re)appeared on the arxiv.org preprint site a few days back, on August 26, 2013.

When you want to know about the Axis of Evil, how it has been claimed to be a foreground, a scanning beam error, a data reduction error, an artifact of the attempt to clean the CMB maps, etc.....

You will quickly find yourself looking very carefully for any papers on the subject from the team Copi, Huterer, Starkman, Schwarz.

These guys have been doing the heavy lifting on the Axis for years.

What is interesting about the new paper is that it is not new.

It is a revision.

The paper appeared in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society back in 2008.

Here is a very interesting excerpt:

"One is therefore placed between a rock and a hard place. If the WMAP ILC is a reliable reconstruction of the full-sky CMB, then there is overwhelming evidence (de Oliveira-Costa et al. (2004); Eriksen et al. (2004); Copi et al. (2004); Schwarz et al. (2004); Copi et al. (2006); Copi et al. (2007); Land & Magueijo (2005a,b,c,d); Raki ́c & Schwarz (2007); for a review see Huterer (2006)) of extremely unlikely phase alignments between (at least) the quadrupole and octopole and between these multipoles and the geometry of the Solar System — a violation of statistical isotropy that happens by random chance in far less than 0.025 per cent of random realizations of the standard cosmology.  If, on the other hand, the part of the ILC (and band maps) inside the Galaxy are unreliable as measurements of the true CMB, then the alignment of low-l multipoles can- not be readily tested, but the magnitude of the two-point angular correlation function on large angular scales outside the Galaxy is smaller than would be seen in all but a few of every 10,000 realizations.

We can only conclude that (i) we don’t live in a standard ΛCDM Universe with a standard inflationary early history; (ii) we live in an extremely anomalous realization of that cosmology; (iii) there is a major error in the observations of both COBE and WMAP; or (iv) there is a major error in the reduction to maps performed by both COBE and WMAP. Whichever of these is correct, inferences from the large-angle data about precise values of the parameters of the standard cosmological model should be regarded with particular skepticism."

Nota bene: iii and iv are both ruled out by Planck. Which leaves i and ii :-)

My guess- it is no more than that- is that the Copi Huterer Starkman Schwarz team are about ready to come out with new papers incorporating the Planck data, and this revision is part of the groundwork.

Stay tuned!

On The Hypotheses Which Underlie the Digital Areopagus..........

The disaster at the Digital Areopagus continues.

Having silenced all the interesting voices- well, not all- the site is collapsing, at least as measured in volume of comments and contributors.

Why?

Because the site is premised upon a false assumption.

The site desires to excommunicate all those who passionately believe the difference between atheism and Catholicism matters, and matters enough to fight for.

Brandon has failed because Brandon is an Abandon-The-Bastions neo-Catholic.

The world has already rejected this Neo-Catholicism, and why not?

It is a disgraceful perversion of the Faith; its triumph in the post-conciliar age has coincided with the most awful collapse of Catholic Faith and morals in history.

By their fruits you shall know them.

Now.

I have a contrary hypothesis.

I believe we need, not a Digital Areopagus, but a Digital Lepanto.

I would be willing to join with atheists and agnostics in financially contributing to a site, the moderation of which would be in the hands of a council of contributors, each of whom contribute equally financially toward the upkeep of the site, and all of whom must agree in order for any Memoryholing of any kind to take place.

Brandon's idea was great.

His execution was profoundly poor.

This offer stands.

Any takers?

Copernican Principle, RIP, Continued: Earth-Oriented Preferred Direction Confirmed at 8 Sigma!

Extending recent studies on the radio sky dipole, this one reports the preferred direction to be detected at 8 sigma in flux-density measurements.

Excerpt:

"There now exist many independent observations which indicate a preferred direction pointing roughly towards Virgo. It is unlikely that all of them can be explained by some systematic effect. For example, the NVSS data is more likely to pick a preferred axis pointing towards the poles due to systematic effect arising due to sources with low flux (Blake & Wall 2002). The direction observed, however, is nearly perpendicular to that. The dependence of direction with the cut on flux density might be explained by this systematic effect. This is consistent with our observation that the direction parameters are stable for the case of flux weighted (Kothari et al. 2013) and polarization flux weighted number counts. Furthermore it seems very unlikely that systematic effects would pick the same direction in so many different observations, i.e. radio polarizations orientations (Jain & Ralston 1999), optical polarizations (Hutsem ́ekers 1998), CMBR quadrupole and octopole (de Oliveira-Costa et al. 2004), radio number counts (Blake & Wall 2002; Singal 2011) and radio polarization flux (present work). In all likelihood this alignment of axes (Ralston & Jain 2004) is caused by a physical effect."

REPOST: How Civil Unions Destroyed Marriage In America

To mark the final abdication of the rule of law in the Former Republic of California, a repost.

This is how we lost marriage in this disintegrating nation.


I reproduce my response below,  from the comments section of  this blog , to a decent, compassionate, Christian commentator "Anonymous", whose comments provide an insight into why it is that we now stand on the very knife's edge of surrendering the power to rewrite the marriage laws into the hands of a very dark, very violent, very fascist movement determined to use those laws to indoctrinate children into homosexualist anti-values in public schools, without the slightest ability on the part of the children or the parents to do a single thing about it.

The tactic is an old one.

Ask the Trojans.

About the Horse.

****************************************

"I think much of the support for redefining marriage comes from a sense of compassion for the rights of others."

>> Exactly. It was framed as a civil rights issue from the beginning, by very smart and committed people who understand how to push the right buttons in an electorate (as well as a Catholic Church) which has a long and proud history of responding to civil rights issues.

Of course, it never was a civil rights issue at all. I will prove it in a moment.

A: "However, truth matters as well,"

>> Truth can never be opposed to truth. If it were ever the case that a civil right was being denied SSA individuals, then truth would be on the side of the same sex marriage movement.

Truth has never been on the side of the SSM movement, because there was never a civil rights issue involved in the first place.

I will prove it in a moment.

A: "and the truth is that the sexual union of a man and a woman potentially can produce a child. There is a level of responsibility that exists in this particular type of relationship that is unique because of that. The commitment made by a man and a woman in marriage provides the best situation for raising the children produced by their sexual union in a stable and loving relationship."

>> Now *that* is the truth. Every syllable.

A: "On the other hand, there are rights that should be available to those in loving and committed relationships, but I would like to suggest that these relationships extend to a broader group than those in sexually active relationships. There are widows who live together after the deaths of their husbands, adult siblings who form a household, divorced mothers who support each other in raising their children together who just as much as same sex couple would benefit from many of the rights given to married couples."

>> Sigh.

There it is.

This is why we now stand at the very precipice of handing the power to rewrite the marriage laws to a movement that is implacably determined to employ those laws as the basis for sophisticated indoctrination of every public school pupil in America in homosexualist anti-values, *values which are profoundly in opposition to both Faith, and reason.*

The SSM movement insists that, somehow, the rights society has always extended to married couples,, *ought to be extended to ____________ (fill in whatever category you are sympathetic to, it doesn't matter which)........once the idea that marriage *rights* ought to be given to *non-married* people, the list will have no end. It cannot possibly have an end, because the foundational assumption of SSM has been implicitly granted, and that point is this:

There is no such thing as marriage!

Marriage is simply another word for Federal Friendship Benefits. Or widow benefits. Or  couples benefits. Or any other kind of Federal benefits.

Marriage is simply a word that refers to (for now) two *people* who want to *commit* to each other (until they don't).

*Having bought into this, defeat is utterly certain*.

The SSM movement *always knew it, it was their strategy from the beginning to manipulate the compassion of people of Faith so they would surrender their religious liberty, and their children as well, before finally waking up to the scam- too late.

Here we get to the point where I can demonstrate the proof I promised earlier, that SSM was *never in any way about civil rights*.

A: "That does not mean we should redefine marriage to include all these loving and committed relationships, but perhaps we do need to find a way to extend rights without diminishing the importance of marriage for the stability and future of our children and our society."

>> God bless you and your Christian heart, Anonymous. You have been duped, effortlessly.

*All of those rights were specifically granted, in the form of civil unions, and the very next morning the lawsuit challenging marriage on 14th Amendment grounds was filed*.

*It was always planned that way*.

Because, you see, if the law limits marriage to gender-complementary couples *for good reason*- the very reasons you outline above!- then there *is no civil rights question involved for same sex couples concerning marriage!

*But*- and please admire the true sophistication and ferocious intelligence behind this ploy- *but* as soon as the principle has been established, in law, of the entitlement of same sex couples to the *rights and privileges previously extended by society only to married couples*.........

Now there *IS* a civil rights issue!

If they are entitled to the same rights and privileges, *there can be no basis at law to deny them the title MARRAIGE, since marriage has been defined out of existence in the very act of extending its benefits to non-married couples!

Of course these lawsuits succeeded.

It was always intended to dupe softhearted and compassionate and decent Catholics (and others) like you, Anonymous- into proposing the very solution which would doom marriage altogether.

It is my sad duty to have to tell you this.

It is my even sadder duty to tell you that in a better age, Catholic Bishops- REAL CATHOLIC BISHOPS- would have seen this coming ten miles off (that is what a Shepherd does- he sees the wolf before the flock does).......

Instead our bishops were completely blind.

As blind as you.

But it is not your fault.

It is, however, their fault.

May God, through the merciful intercession of His angels and saints, sealed with the irresistible plea of the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, protect us now.

Big Bang "Dipole Modulation" Model Cannot Account for Observations That Show the Universe Aligned With Earth

Here is the latest paper from the team previously reported on this blog, which has been examining the remarkable fact that the universe seems to be aligned with the equinoctial plane of supposedly-insignificant Earth.

First, a reiteration of the problem:

"These observations suggest a violation of the cosmological principle and might indicate that one needs a revision of the Big Bang cosmology." 

Second, a reference to the proposed solution from within the assumptions of consensus "Big Bang" cosmology:

"It has been suggested that the anisotropic modes, generated during the pre-inflationary phase might re-enter the horizon before the current time [15–18]. Hence these might explain the observed anisotropy even within the framework of the inflationary Big Bang model. "

Third, the bad news for the Copernicans:

"This suggests that the hemispherical anisotropy found in [7–12] cannot be consistently attributed to the dipole modulation model, Eq. 1.1. The true anisotropy model is likely to be more complicated and might contain higher order multipoles." 

Blood in the water, folks.

Young scientists are beginning to put things together.

Watch for "The Principle", almost complete now with incredible new animations, superb narration by Kate Mulgrew, and the first-ever high-definition visuals incorporating the observational evidence that our place in universe is very, very special......indeed, in important ways, very much like what we would have expected to see if the Scriptures and the Church had been right all along!

Hilarious! Atheists Go On Strike at Digital Areopagus!

Over at the Digital Areopagus, the atheists have gone on strike.

Really.

They have packed up and left.

It seems that one of their leading lights, epeeist, has run afoul of Brandon and been banned.

The Memoryholing of Catholics at the site has already been addressed here.

But lately, the discussions have been allowed to develop more freely, and it clearly hasn't gone as the atheists had hoped.

Now of course there is one little bit of consolation for the New Atheist Brights.

They got me banned, which may have been the idea all along.

It was fun while it lasted ;-)