Piece Of Art

A drawing of the 1631 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius  by Glovan Batista Passaro. The December 7, 1631 Transit of Venus was followed on December 16th by a violent, unexpected eruption of Mt. Vesuvius beginning around 6:00 am. Vesivius have been inactive for a great deal of time, probably since 1139. During the night of December 16-17, earthquakes occurred every 1-15 minutes. At about 11:00 am on the 17th, a large mass of ash, gas, and stones flowed down all sides of Vesuvius, causing the liquefaction of the mountain. Ten minutes later, a tsunami up to 6 to 15 feet of height hit the coast. By 6:00 pm on December 17th, the decline of activity began, lasting several days. The death toll was variously reported to be 3000 to 6000 deceased individuals in Pompeii and other locations. A Transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth, obscuring a small portion of the solar disk. During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a sm...

People are interested in Reptilians, Reptoids, and Reptiloids, no matter what you call them. Last weekend, I posted a thoughtful essay looking at the use of hypnosis in eyewitness investigations, entitled " Are Bigfoot Witnesses Really Seeing Reptoids? " Almost 10,000 people read it in the first 8 hours. Amazing reaction. So why are people so fascinated by the notion of Lizard People among us? Surely, folks can't consider there is any reality to this? Skepticism and critical thinking can't be dead, can it? I see that Nicholas Pell recently thought about this business in his posting, " The Odd Reptilian Theory and The People That Believe It ." Pell records an intriguing exchange with a friend of his. He was explaining the Reptilian hypothesis to a friend of his...then he was asked: “Who’s David Icke?” “Some weird British writer who thinks that Al Gore is a shape-shifting, blood-sucking reptile.” “How is he not?” I was stumped there. I suppose we'd find th...