How The University Of Buffalo Changed The World

Just a reminder for local UB students my theory about how the school really changed world history.

This is in the compound posting on this blog, "Investigations" December 2018 as 20) THE UNIVERSITY RECRUITING DRIVE THAT REALLY CHANGED THE WORLD

A world-changing event in history really requires some analysis. It is the U.S. naval mission to Japan in 1852. It was intended to force Japan open to trade with the U.S. But there are just so many questions about it.

First, unlike European nations, the United States was not a colonial power. It opposed colonialism. The Philippines would become a quasi-colony of the U.S., after it was inherited following the Spanish-American War, but that was nearly fifty years later.

Second, Japan was an isolated and feudal country, or at least that was the way it was usually perceived, and it wanted to keep it that way. What would Japan have to trade, in 1852, that would interest the U.S.so much? It didn't have significant manufacturing of goods to export, and it wasn't known for resources that could be traded for imports. Neither was it known for spices or any specialized agricultural products, such as tea or cacao, that could be exported.

Third, as far as the situation in the U.S., this did not take place during the "Gilded Age" when there were wealthy industrialists seeking either markets, resources or, labor. That era was decades away. In 1852, the Civil War was still ahead and it was not even certain that the union would hold together. It becomes difficult to understand what sense this adventure to the other side of the world could make.

Fourth, The U.S. had just gained, by way of the Mexican War, the vast territories of the west. With all of that to be explored and settled, and all of the resources that it contained, why would the U.S. need to send this expensive mission to the other side of the world to force a feudal country open to trade? It could not be a need for laborers from Asia because there were settlers from China, which was much more populous than Japan. In 1882 a law was actually passed actually banning immigration from China.

Japan was closed because, with all of the foreign ships seen passing by, it considered outsiders as barbarians and was wary of being made into a colony. It had the historical memories of two attempted invasions by the Mongols. But it didn't want to be completely isolated. There was one thing that it had a voracious appetite for from the outside world. That one thing was knowledge.

The leaders of Japan knew that the outside world was making progress. They realized that cutting Japan off from that progress would only make it more vulnerable. There had been a policy of acquiring knowledge for quite some time, known as Rangaku. The only westerners that were allowed to land by ship were the Dutch, and they were only allowed one trip per year. Actually, there was a law that no foreign ships could land in Japan at all but an artificial island, called Dejima, was created at Nagasaki for the Dutch to land on.

The Japanese sought all the knowledge that they could get from their Dutch visitors. They had many Dutch books about science, technology and, world geography translated. The Dutch brought all manner of technical devices to Japan, from machines and clocks, to telescopes and microscopes.

As a result of this U.S. naval mission, Japan did open up and set about modernization but it would bring very wide-reaching and unexpected changes to the world.

In Japan the change would bring the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate and restore the emperor to full power. This is known as the Meiji Restoration. Kyoto had been the capital of Japan for a thousand years but, in the sign of the new era the emperor chose to move the capital to Tokyo, where the shogunate which held the real power had been based although the emperor ruled from Kyoto, and that is why Tokyo is the great city that it is today.

Russia had the potential to be a great naval power but was hindered in that it lacked a port that was free of ice all year. Before the development of modern China, in the final years of the Qing Dynasty, Russia leased a naval base from China. But nearby Japan felt threatened by the arrangement and a naval battle ended up being fought over this location that changed the course of the world. The naval battle in 1905 between Japan and Russia, as well as a great battle on land, would bring major changes to the world.

It led to the rise of Japan as a world power. But this would put it technologically ahead of it's Asian neighbors. The Second World War in the Pacific, as well as the far-reaching changes that followed the war, would not have happened without this. There would have been no attack on Pearl Harbor and no dropping of atomic bombs. This battle can also be considered as the beginning of modern naval warfare.

It weakened the Romanov Dynasty in Russia, opening the way for the October Revolution to succeed twelve years later. The immediate result of this lost battle was the 1905 Revolution. It didn't topple the Romanov Dynasty but two years after that, Lenin, Stalin and, Trotsky met in London to plan the coming revolution.

Without this naval battle, the October Revolution likely would not have succeeded even if it had happened. This would probably have meant no Communism and the very different course of the Twentieth Century that would have brought about.

We can scarcely imagine what the world might be like today had there not been this 1905 battle that is really not well-known, and wouldn't have happened without Japan being forced open by this U.S. naval mission, after which it set about modernization. Without Germany and Austria-Hungary taking this battle as a sign of the weakness of the Romanov position, the First World War might never have happened.

Since the Second World War sprang from the First, that wouldn't have happened either. Since the development of nuclear weapons was spurred by the Second World War we might not have those, or nuclear power at all. Since it was the changes brought about by the world wars that ended the colonial era, there seems to be no reason why it wouldn't have continued until today.

The relationship between the races would be different. The white race had largely convinced the world, as well as itself, that it was the superior race. But the hideous slaughter of World War One, which almost exclusively involved the white race, began to cast doubt on that. All races have shown themselves to be capable of barbarity but this was unlike anything the world had seen before.

But that brings us back to why the forcing of Japan open in the first place was necessary or how it could really be beneficial to the U.S. The mission had been ordered by a little-known U.S. president named Millard Fillmore. He had been vice-president and became president upon the death of Zachary Taylor. He did not even get the nomination of his party for the following election. Millard Fillmore is remembered today primarily around Buffalo, where a hospital and a main avenue are named for him.

The Buffalo connection can be seen in that Commodore Matthew Perry was chosen to lead the naval mission to Japan. He was the younger brother of Oliver Hazard Perry, who was a hero of the War of 1812 in the Buffalo area and today has a housing development named for him.

The opening of Japan would likely have eventually happened in time anyway but Millard Fillmore completely changed the world by sending this mission, if only it was clearer why.

But maybe a look at what Millard Fillmore did before he became president might provide an answer. We know that while it might have been difficult to see a basis for trade with Japan that would justify the naval mission that was sent, what Japan had long sought from the outside world was knowledge. Just as soon as it was opened up by force it began sending students abroad to study, although not to America as it was by then preoccupied with it's Civil War.

Before becoming president, Millard Fillmore had founded a university. He had been the chancellor of the university, and a teacher there. The only conclusion that I can come to is that filling his university with eager Japanese students is at least a major part of the reason for this mission to Japan in 1852. That makes more sense than any other reason. It was the university recruiting drive that really changed the world.

This is Millard Fillmore's university today, the University of Buffalo known in local parlance simply as UB. There are actually two separate campuses. This is the older South Campus. There is also the larger North Campus, in Amherst NY.

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Does The Temple Really Have To Be Rebuilt?

It would be helpful to be familiar with the posting on this blog about Bible prophecy, "The End Of The World As We Know It".

The general feeling among those who are expecting the fulfillment of biblical prophecies of the "Last Days" in our time is that the Jewish Temple must be rebuilt before the beginning of the Tribulation Period. The Tribulation Period will last for seven years and will include the time that the Antichrist will effectively reign over the world and the tribulation sent by God on the world.

The Book of Daniel, which is a very important prophetic book, twice mentions an "Abomination of Desolation" which is a defilement of the Temple in the Last Days, which will be committed by the great leader of the time, who we commonly refer to as the Antichrist.

According to the prophecies the Antichrist will cause the Jews' sacrifices to cease. The place where sacrifices had to take place was the Temple and for the sacrifices to cease that means, at some point, they must have begun. These sacrifices have not taken place since the time of the Romans.

In the New Testament the Second Book of Thessalonians, Chapter 2 Verse 4, states that the Antichrist will go into the Temple and proclaim himself as God.

All of this is taken to mean that the Temple must be rebuilt, for the Tribulation Period and Apocalypse to take place, since it does not exist now. There is a movement in Israel to rebuild the Temple that has all of the correct religious utensils ready.

The Temple was originally built by King Solomon, son of King David, and this First Temple is also referred to as Solomon's Temple. David had purchased a hill, Mount Moriah, in his capital city of Jerusalem, to build a Temple in commemoration of where a plague had been halted. 

But it was David's son, Solomon, who was to build the Holy Temple because David had been a warrior and had shed so much blood. The Temple was to replace an earlier worship center, known as Shiloh, which had been destroyed in a raid.

Solomon's Temple, atop Mount Moriah, served as the focal point of the Jewish religion for about four hundred years, until it was destroyed in the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians which began in 587 B.C. The Jewish people, minus the "Ten Lost Tribes" which had earlier been taken away by the conquering Assyrians and scattered around the Assyrian Empire, were taken away to captivity in Babylon. Babylon had earlier risen up against and conquered Assyria, displacing it as the great power of the day.

Within a few decades Babylon was conquered by Persia. The Persians allowed the Jews to return to their homeland, and rebuild their Temple, if they wanted to. But the Jews had not been slaves in Babylon, unlike their earlier bondage in Egypt they shared in the prosperity of the city and many were doing quite well. It is almost certain that the majority of Jews in Babylon chose to stay, and not to return to Israel.

But this actually made Israel more devout because the most religious people were the ones that returned. The Second Temple was rebuilt, although it was definitely not as elaborate as the First Temple had been. It was at the same site as the First Temple, atop Mount Moriah.

Centuries later Israel was ruled by the Romans. The governor of Judea was Herod the Great. He dismantled the Second Temple in order to rebuild it on a magnificent scale. This was the Temple at the time of Jesus. Herod's Temple probably exceeded Solomon's original Temple in magnificence. 

Herod had brought in massive stones and built a great retaining wall around Mount Moriah. The remaining space was then filled in. This formed what we refer to today as the Temple Mount. It was not entirely filled in. There is a "basement" of the Temple Mount, in the southeast corner of the Mount, that used to be called Solomon's Stables and has now been converted into a mosque. At the southern end of the Temple Mount there were several stairways to the top, which used to be known as the Hulda Gates. There is a tunnel inside the Western Wall.

However Herod's magnificent Temple would be destroyed not long after it was completed, when the Jews rebelled against Roman rule. The Temple was razed and all that remained was the Temple Mount. Moslems later built the two mosques on the Temple Mount.

The Temple has never been rebuilt, since it's destruction by the Romans, although many who expect the biblical prophecies of the Last Days to be fulfilled believe that it must be rebuilt in time for the Antichrist, as described above.

Herod built the Temple Mount around Mount Moriah so the original site of the Temple is where the Dome of the Rock now stands. This mosque is so-named because it stands over what is called the "Foundation Stone". Long before King David bought the site to build the Temple, this stone is believed to be where Abraham was ready to sacrifice his son, Isaac.

We know that the first half of the Antichrist's seven-year reign will be a time of great peace and prosperity. But Moslems consider the Temple Mount ( Noble Sanctuary ) as their third holiest site, after Mecca and Medina. The Foundation Stone, within the Dome of the Rock, is considered to be from where Muhammad ascended to Heaven.

The Temple Mount is such a sacred site, to Jews, Moslems and, Christians, that Israel wisely allowed a Jordanian organization called the Waqf to administer the site after it recaptured the Old City of Jerusalem, in the 1967 Six-Day War, in order to keep the peace.

The idea that Moslems might acquiesce to allowing the Dome of the Rock to be razed so that the Jews can rebuild their Temple on it's original site is utterly unimaginable. At least one in five people is a Moslem. If anything should happen to the Dome of the Rock, and the Jewish Temple should be rebuilt on it's original site in it's place, close to two billion Moslems are going to be extremely upset and the world most definitely would not be living in peace and prosperity.

But let's take a closer look whether the Temple actually needs to be rebuilt on it's original site for the biblical prophecies of the Antichrist in the Last Days to be fulfilled.

The general feeling is that the Temple must be rebuilt on it's original site, no other location will do. But the Bible gives instructions for building the Temple. The First Temple, Solomon's Temple, was built according to these instructions. But the Second Temple, rebuilt after the Jews' return from exile in Babylon, is known to have been nowhere near as elaborate as the First Temple, and therefore not built exactly according to the instructions. Herod built the spacious Temple Mount for his rebuilding of the Temple, which certainly was not in the original plan.

As it stands now the Temple Mount effectively serves as an open-air Temple, including the Jewish area at the Western Wall. The Temple Mount itself is globally considered as an ancient treasure. Would it even be worth it to tear much of it up just to put a modern structure on it? It might end up greatly diminishing the whole thing.

There are references to the Antichrist and the Temple, in the "Last Days" as described above. Jesus, in the Gospels while Herod's Temple was still standing, foretells correctly that the Temple will be so completely destroyed that "not one stone will remain upon another", but there is no prophecy of the Temple being rebuilt after being destroyed.

What about the reference to the Antichrist entering the Temple and proclaiming himself to be God, in the Second Book of Thessalonians Chapter 2 Verse 4, after Herod's Temple had been destroyed?

Let's carefully consider the word "Temple". When the New Testament was being written Christianity was an illegal and underground religion. The Jewish religion was authorized under Roman law but Christians lost that legality when they separated from Judaism. A "church" in those days referred not to a building but to clandestine meetings of believers in private homes. This is where a fish got started as a symbol of Christianity, since some of the Apostles had been fishermen, it was a clandestine symbol for a meeting of believers.

When this prophecy of the Antichrist in the "Temple" was written Christians were in hiding. They were not building church buildings, certainly not the great cathedrals and basilicas that would come later. There was only one word in use for a great religious building and that word was "temple".

The Antichrist might declare himself to be God at the Temple Mount. But it could also mean any great cathedral or basilica.

Remember that in "The End Of The World As We Know It", on this blog, we saw how St. John, author of the Book of Revelation, was an ancient man without the slightest understanding of modern technology. God showed him visions of things taking place in the distant future, and he described them to the best of his ability. 

St. John's description of bizarre giant flying "locusts", in Chapter 9, is just as perfect of a description of modern helicopters as the equally bizarre "lions", later in the chapter, are of battle tanks. All that we have to do is apply the same principle to the prophecy of the Antichrist in the "Temple".

Bible Prophecy News Concerning Robots

Are readers who are following the developments in the fulfillment of Bible prophecies of the "Last Days" in our time considering AI and robotics relative to the prophecy in the Book of Revelation, Chapter 13, about the False Prophet, referred to as the "Second Beast" causing an image of the First Beast, the Antichrist, to apparently come to life?

This entire subject is described in the posting on this blog, "The End Of The World As We Know It" last posted June 2021. That posting describes the seemingly bizarre prophecies in the Book of Revelation as being easily explainable as God giving an ancient man, St. John, visions of things going on in the distant future. St. John had no comprehension at all of modern technology and explained what he saw to the best of his ability.

This image of the Antichrist that "comes to life" will compel everyone to worship the Antichrist and to have killed those who don't. The image will also force everyone to have a "mark" in order to engage in business. We saw in that posting that the "mark" is actually smart phones, and today vaccine passports are required as a "mark" on the phone that it's holder has been vaccinated.

In the same way the "image" of the Beast is easily explained as AI powered robotics. The following six-minute video about AI in religion was on the BBC this morning. The shortage of priests is not a problem anymore because now there are AI priests.

In other developments concerning AI and robots, Singapore is going to use robot police officers.

Here is the video, or you can Google "BBC God and Robots". The title of the article is "Will AI Transform Religion?"

www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-58983047

A Journey Across Canada

This week was the fiftieth anniversary of Canada's policy of multiculturalism. Pierre Trudeau, father of the current prime minister, made multiculturalism the official policy of Canada, the first nation in the world to do so. Let's have a look at Canada today in recognition of what a great success this policy has been.

We have already visited Canada's three largest cities. 

Today I live just south of the border. I did live in Canada for several years as a child. That was covered in the posting "Remembering The Old Neighborhood". We also celebrated Canada's 150th birthday with the posting, "Canada At 150".

Our visit today is to Canada, other than it's three largest cities. Let's start in the east and move westward.

One of the earliest European settlements in North America is St. Johns, in Newfoundland. Newfoundland only became a part of Canada in 1949.

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Moncton is the largest city of the province of New Brunswick. Much of the original population of New Brunswick was loyalists leaving America when it declared independence in 1776.

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The four easternmost provinces of Canada, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and, Prince Edward Island, are known as Atlantic Canada. The largest city of Atlantic Canada is Halifax, in Nova Scotia. On December 6, 1917, during the First World War, a Norwegian ship collided with a French ship that was carrying munitions. The resulting explosion destroyed an entire section of Halifax and killed about 2,000 people. The explosion was later used to predict the effects of nuclear explosions. The destroyed section of the city has been rebuilt, and this is what it looks like today.

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The smallest Canadian province is Prince Edward Island. The city of Charlottetown is actually the birthplace of the Canadian confederation.

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Quebec City is the provincial capital of the primarily French-speaking province of Quebec. One of the most outstanding buildings in the world is the Chateau Frontenac, adjacent to the Citadel in this historic city on the St. Lawrence River. The Chateau Frontenac is the massive hotel that was built, near the end of the Nineteenth Century, out of orange brick.

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Next would come Montreal, which we have already visited.

Ottawa, in the province of Ontario, is the capital city of Canada. The first of the following scenes is at the Canadian Parliament. The tower at parliament is called the Peace Tower. Ottawa was chosen by Queen Victoria as Canada's capital because it was centrally located between the English-speaking and French-speaking parts of the then-colony. This choosing of a capital city because of it's central location was why King David chose Jerusalem. It was also why Washington D.C. and Canberra were built where they were.

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Next, moving across Canada from east to west, would be Toronto, which we have already visited.

One of the best-known intersections in the world is that of Main Street and Portage Avenue in Winnipeg, which is in the province of Manitoba. That is because this intersection is considered as "The Crossroads of Canada".

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When I came across the ocean as a young boy, our initial destination was Saskatoon, in the province of Saskatchewan. We stayed in a motel while my father looked for a job. When Google Street View became available, I thought I would recognize the place that we had stayed, and looked around the city until I found it. 

The Hotel Bessborough is Saskatoon's version of the Chateau Frontenac, another of Canada's great railroad hotels, like the Royal York in Toronto. This is not where we stayed. The following scenes of downtown Saskatoon begin there.

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Calgary, in the province of Alberta, is known for rodeos. It grew from Fort Calgary, which was named for a town in Scotland. Alberta is a source of oil. The following views of Calgary begin on the street known as Stephen Avenue.

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Further north in Alberta is the provincial capital of Edmonton. It used to be known as Canada's center of leftward ideas, "Redmonton".The following scenes begin in Winston Churchill Square.

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Next would come Vancouver, which we have already visited in the posting on this blog, Vancouver, B.C.

Finally, we arrive at the west coast of Canada. At the southern end of Vancouver Island, In the province of British Columbia, is the city of Victoria. it's version of the Chateau Frontenac or the Bessborough Hotal is the Empress Hotel. The following views of Victoria begin in Bastion Square.

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Canada's Long-Forgotten Space Program

In the 1960s Canada had a space and high-altitude research project based not on rockets but on ballistic projectiles. A specially-built vehicle, carrying a payload, would be fired to high altitude by artillery, without any method of propulsion of it's own. It was known as the High Altitude Research Project, or HARP.

The Canadian scientist most closely associated with this project was one Gerald Bull. He later worked for Saddam Hussein, allegedly to build a "supergun", and ended up being assassinated.

This idea of launching a space vehicle with a gun is the same principle as launching it with a rocket, except that the propellant remains on the ground rather than traveling with the vehicle. But the project never did get a vehicle into space. No object has ever been launched into space from the earth's surface by ballistic means.

But that was then and this is now. I think it might be time to give this program another look, given that there are materials available today that are far stronger than any in the 1960s.

I have long wondered if there will be a new generation of guns. This includes the former posting, "Next Generation Guns".

Explosives generally fall into two categories, high explosives and low explosives. High explosives include dynamite and TNT. Low explosives include gunpowder and cordite. As the names imply, high explosives are much more powerful than low explosives.

Guns use the detonation of low explosives to propel a bullet through the barrel. But with an exploding artillery shell it would be high explosives in the shell. The reason that low explosives, usually gunpowder hence the name, is used as a propellant is simply that the detonation of high explosives would blast the gun apart.

The barrels and firing chambers of guns are virtually always made of steel, and it has been steel or iron for the centuries that guns have been in use. But in recent times super-strong materials have been developed, many times stronger than steel.

What if the firing chambers and barrels of guns could be made of a material that was strong enough to withstand the detonation of high explosives? That would make possible the use of high explosives, instead of gunpowder, to propel the bullet or shell. Guns would be much more powerful and have longer range.

It would not be necessary to completely replace the gunpowder with high explosives. As guns are made of super-strong materials, much stronger than steel, high explosives could be gradually mixed in with the gunpowder. This would progressively increase the power and range of the gun. 

There would be an issue with guns that are held by a person because more power would mean a stronger recoil. The firing of the gun would, of course, make more noise.

This might be called Third Generation Guns. The second generation could be defined as rifling. A rifle is a gun with grooves added to the inside of the barrel, which causes the bullet to spin. This spin cancels out random variations in the density of the bullet, which causes it to stray from a straight line. A rifle thus tends to be more accurate than a gun without the grooves in the barrel.

Now back to Canada's old project to launch a ballistic projectile into space. Exactly the same principle applies to this as to guns. Today there are super-strong materials available that were unimaginable in the 1960s. 

The "gun", as well as the launch vehicle, can be made of these new materials so that high explosives can be used as the propellant, instead of the old gunpowder or cordite. This will provide far more launching power and range, and it should finally be possible to put ballistic vehicles into space. 

Canada's long-forgotten space program was just ahead of it's time.

Manchester And Sports

Manchester has really made itself into the world capital of sports. Both the most famous sports team on the planet and the world heavyweight boxing champion are from the same city.

Even though Manchester's cathedral is over 500 years old, it was not an important city until the Industrial Revolution began there. At one time, more than half of the cotton items that were made in the world were made in Manchester. It was all about industry.

England was a logical place for the Industrial Revolution to get it's start. The country is not rich in resources, but two things that it does have in abundance were the early industrial essentials of coal and iron ore. London was the capital and had too many important buildings so that it didn't want the smoke that comes with industry, so the Industrial Revolution began some distance away, in Manchester.

The city has the most famous sports team in human history, Manchester United. Every year, hopefuls come from all over the world for a chance to play for this team.

Manchester is inland, but used to have a port because a canal was built to link it to the sea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_Manchester#/media/File:POMFirstCotton.png

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Ship_Canal#/media/File:Tanker_ship_canal.jpg

Next to the Manchester Arena is the very old Chetham's Library.

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Friedrich Engels, the co-developer of Communist theory in the Nineteenth Century, lived for a long time in Manchester. Karl Marx, in exile in London, came to Manchester to visit Engels. The two met in this library, and their discussion was the beginning of the world-changing book, "The Communist Manifesto".

Thus, we could say that the modern economic landscape of Communism and Capitalism at opposite ends, and socialism as a reaction against both as the middle ground, began with the factories of Manchester. Engels and Marx thought that it would be better if the workers themselves owned the factories in which they worked, instead of many workers working for a few wealthy people. 

The French Revolution began the replacement of kings with either republics or dictatorships, but the left against right economics began here. The modern terminology of left and right actually began in Britain's parliament when members would sit to either the left or the right of the aisle, depending on their political views.

Despite Manchester being the beginning of modern industrial society, England, with the typically Protestant attitude of think-for-yourself individualism, probably wasn't the best place for the collectivization of Communism to get started. But it would eventually spread to about a third of the world, and would also greatly affect the other two-thirds.

The following scenes begin near the Manchester Arena, and just outside the cathedral.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.4849155,-2.2443303,3a,75y,242.46h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-d2wTK9PgsT8%2FWQ4hOBTqYsI%2FAAAAAAAAAtA%2Fwy41hXWDP8kFPRqMPVDWjKbqd_PwMvVbwCLIB!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2F-d2wTK9PgsT8%2FWQ4hOBTqYsI%2FAAAAAAAAAtA%2Fwy41hXWDP8kFPRqMPVDWjKbqd_PwMvVbwCLIB%2Fw203-h100-k-no-pi0-ya272.77106-ro-0-fo100%2F!7i9728!8i3972

These scenes begin in Piccadilly Gardens, near central Manchester.

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.4808591,-2.2368934,3a,75y,346.93h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sImeEKKtVnOs3n8e2BeCf7w!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DImeEKKtVnOs3n8e2BeCf7w%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D354.86386%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

The following scenes begin just outside Albert Square.

Quite a bit has gone on at the Midland Hotel that you see in these scenes of central Manchester. I see it as a hub fostering business in the area in the same way that we saw in the posting on this blog, "The Waldorf-Astoria".

Adolf Hitler, who had studied architecture, was an admirer of the hotel. He possibly saw it as some kind of future headquarters, and made sure that no bombs landed anywhere near it. This hotel is where Charles Rolls first met Henry Royce, and the rest is automotive history.

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.4794799,-2.2455968,3a,75y,110.77h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1st01HEeVTgyaKLQkAz9cS_w!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dt01HEeVTgyaKLQkAz9cS_w%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D122.502914%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Scientific Literacy

Remember that everyone should have a background in science in the Twenty-First Century. I have been interested in science since I was 8 years old. I set out to provide a strong background in scientific knowledge in 100 paragraphs. 

Thoroughly learn everything in all of the paragraphs in the posting that is linked to and you will have the background in science and practical mathematics that you really should have. Actually there are 104 paragraphs. Mathematics is included but not biology.

http://markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2014/03/scientific-literacy_22.html

The Caribbean Tax Havens

With the unveiling of the "Pandora Papers", which surpasses the earlier "Panama Papers" in revealing the extent of tax avoidance by using shell companies in tax havens, let's have another look at Caribbean tax havens and their background history.

Here is what I think is an amazing example of how history repeats itself. It has been added to the compound posting on this blog, "How History Repeats Itself".

The leaders of the major western nations recently announced a crackdown on global corporations that got away with not paying taxes. Such corporations often have their headquarters in a nation with low taxes, even though they do most of their business in other nations with higher taxes. The plan was to force these companies to pay taxes according to where most of their business was done, regardless of where their headquarters was located.

The focal point of places to put money in order to avoid paying taxes on it is the Caribbean. Possibly the best-known so-called tax haven in the world is the British Virgin Islands.

I notice something really interesting about how history repeats itself.

In the Caribbean is the island of Jamaica. Back in the days of piracy there was a notorious hangout for pirates on Jamaica's south coast, not far from present-day Kingston, known as Port Royal.

Piracy is a little bit complicated. My understanding is that a pirate was simply a robber. A privateer or buccaneer or, in French terminology, a corsair was a pirate who only raided ships of nations with which his country was at war. With no coast guard or radios to call for help many ships were at the mercy of pirate ships.

So much of the plunder that the pirates got was brought to Port Royal. It was buried under the sea by a terrific earthquake.

Can you see the historical similarity between Port Royal and the modern-day tax havens of the Caribbean? I have never seen this pointed out.

Just as pirates once prowled the Caribbean and brought their plunder to Port Royal, today there are tax havens in the area where it is quick and easy to set up a shell company, a company that exists only on paper, that can hold money without putting the money in the real name of it's owner, and where little or no tax has to be paid on it.

Maybe Captain Morgan could be the patron saint of these Caribbean tax havens.

My Theory Of Salt

There was awards of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded this week for work relating to the earth's climate.

Let's take this opportunity to see how there are so many relatively simple things all around us that no one has ever pointed out. That is what so much of this blog is about. Here is something very important, but simple, about climate that had never been pointed out.

First we know that the water on earth must have come from one or more comets, which are basically composed of ice. Salt is so closely associated with water that it must also have arrived by comet, as we see in the following posting:

www.markmeekphysics.blogspot.com/2009/06/mystery-of-salt.html?m=0

One thing that I cannot see written about much is how the salt in the oceans modifies the weather on earth. A simple school experiment shows that water without salt evaporates faster than water with salt, so salt in water slows the evaporation process.

With more powerful storms being the result of global warming, which causes more water to evaporate, what kind of wild weather would we have if there was no salt in the oceans to slow down evaporation? This question is explored in the following posting:

www.markmeeklife.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-vital-role-of-salt.html?m=0 

Finally here is something that is very important to understanding our earth but I cannot see has ever been pointed out. Since salt must have arrived on earth, along with water, by comet the fact that there are salt mines and salt deserts on earth tells us that salt is being removed from the sea by tectonic processes that cause the uplifting of seafloor to become dry land.

This must mean that there was less rainfall in the past because more salt in the sea would have hindered evaporation. This has tremendous implications, meaning that there would be less fresh water available on land and less oxygen dissolved in the sea, because the splashing of raindrops dissolves the oxygen in water that fish need to breathe.

It may well have been impossible for life on earth to develop as it did until much of the salt had been removed from the sea. The concentration of salt in seawater today averages about 3.5%. 

I did an extensive search on Google and Yahoo and was amazed that this had apparently never been pointed out. It is explained in the following posting:

www.markmeeklife.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-removal-of-salt-from-sea.html?m=0