St Valentine ‘not saint of love’

Britain’s Roman Catholic Church is advising lovelorn singles to direct their February 14 requests for love to St Raphael, rather than St Valentine.

Over the years St Valentine has come incorrectly to be associated with finding love, the Church says.

He is the patron saint for those who have already found their soulmate.

St Raphael is the patron saint for happy encounters and it is to him those fearing the Valentine’s post should properly direct their prayers.

Divine intervention

Clare Ward, spokeswoman for the Catholic Enquiry Office, the official body providing information on Catholic life, said that while the distinction between the saints has always been clear within the Church it has, over the years, been blurred outside.

“Saint Valentine passed a note to his jailer’s daughter, whose sight he is thought to have cured,” she said.

“The note had no romantic content, but it’s from this story that the tradition of sending notes of appreciation has come from. – bbc

What is Valentine’s Day? Here is the BBC’s definition:

Valentine’s Day, or St Valentine’s Day, is celebrated every year on 14 February.

It’s the day when people show their affection for another person (or people!) by sending anonymous cards, flowers or chocolates with messages of love.

And traditionally on Valentine’s Day in a leap year – every four years – women can propose marriage to their partner!

On the other hand, some know it as “Single’s Awareness Day” because it is on this day that people who are not in relationships feel extra lonely, when they are reminded that another year has passed, during which their impossibly high standards, painful shyness, awkwardness, ugliness, bad luck, mental disorders, lizard dung collection, or whatever, has kept them isolated.

If you are feeling blue: Eat if you are hungry, if not, exercise. Right now! Then, get a local paper, make a plan and get out and do something. Go see a love poem marathon, a play or a movie. Many events are free, you just have to look. If you like chemical solutions, I’ve been taking 50 mg of 5HTP every day for the past few months. I’m going to stop for a while after reading some cautions. Exercise is the best way to go in terms of getting happy chemicals into your brain safely.

Day before Valentines Day

Day before Valentines Day, originally uploaded by xeno735.

Your fortune: Things will work out.

The great Atlantic Ocean swimming hoax

Over the weekend, in between depressing news about the economy and the continued sagas of Michael Phelps and Alex Rodriguez, an inspirational story appeared on the Associated Press news wire. It detailed American Jennifer Figge’s accomplishment in becoming the first woman to swim across the Atlantic Ocean. Many media outlets (including Yahoo!) jumped on the story that seemed almost too good to be true. That’s because it was.

The AP originally reported that Figge swam from the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Africa to Trinidad (2,100 miles) in 25 days while escorted by a boat. She was said to have rested every night and hopped back in the water in the morning.

Figge woke most days around 7 a.m., eating pasta and baked potatoes while she and the crew assessed the weather. Her longest stint in the water was about eight hours, and her shortest was 21 minutes.

There were problems with the story from the start. A few of the less-important ones included the fact that Cape Verde is at least 2,400 miles, not 2,100, from Trinidad. And the African islands are about 500 miles off the western coast of the continent, meaning Figge had a huge head start on her trip across the Atlantic. (It’d be like somebody saying they ran across America after starting in Cincinnati.)

Those are trivial though. The real issue stemmed from the fact that swimming 2,100 miles in 25 days is impossible. (Some newspapers picked up on this.) It’s infinitely more impossible when somebody only spends 21 minutes swimming during one of those 25 days. Michael Phelps swimming his fastest would take about 20 days to cover that distance. And that’s his fastest pace, sustained for three weeks, without ever stopping. Impossible.

Yet, somehow, the AP ran the story even though a few seconds of thought and a pocket calculator was enough to disprove it. They ran a correction yesterday that read, in part:

Figge swam only a fraction of the 2,100-mile journey. The rest of the time, she rested on her crew’s westward-sailing catamaran. Her spokesman [said] that her total swimming distance has not been calculated yet, but that due to ocean hazards including inclement weather, he estimates she swam about 250 miles.

Swimming 250 miles is nothing to scoff at; but it’s not 2,100

via The great Atlantic Ocean swimming hoax – Fourth-Place Medal – Olympics – Yahoo! Sports.

Yeah, but she still gets points for actually swimming in the Atlantic Ocean! That freaks me out. I’d get sea sick. Not to mention the giant Chineese underwater sea leeches and all the nuclear submarines launching nuclear missiles at each other all the time.

Cosmologists ‘See’ The Cosmic Dawn

The images, produced by scientists at Durham University’s Institute for Computational Cosmology, show the “Cosmic Dawn” – the formation of the first big galaxies in the Universe.

The Cosmic Dawn began as galaxies began to form out of the debris of massive stars which died explosively shortly after the beginning of the Universe. The Durham calculation predicts where these galaxies appear and how they evolve to the present day, over 13 billion years later.

The researchers hope their findings, which highlight star forming galaxies, will improve their understanding of dark matter – a mysterious substance believed to make up 80 per cent of the mass in the Universe.

Gravity produced by dark matter is an essential ingredient in galaxy formation and by studying its effects the scientists eventually hope to learn more about what the substance is.

The research is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and was funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and the European Commission.

The work combined a massive simulation showing how structures grow in dark matter with a model showing how normal matter, such as gas, behaves to predict how galaxies grow.

Gas feels the pull of gravity from dark matter and is heated up before cooling by releasing radiation and turning into stars.

The simulation images show which galaxies are forming stars most vigorously at a given time. Although the galaxies are biggest at the present day, the rate at which they are making new stars has dropped greatly compared with the rate in the early Universe.

via Cosmologists ‘See’ The Cosmic Dawn.

cops arrest teen in $37,000 candy con | Shameful News

An Ohio teenager allegedly tried to pull off a sweet deal by ordering more than $37,000 of candy online and charging the bill to his former high school.

Police say the 18-year-old used a Middletown High School purchasing number to place orders for thousands of lollipops and candy bars from Michigan-based The Goodies Factory. It wasn’t clear how he accessed the number.

The candy company became suspicious, contacted the school and was told by detectives to send an empty box.

Police say he had the order shipped to his home and was arrested after the fake delivery.

The teen faces two counts of felony telecommunications fraud. He was being held in Middletown City Jail on more than $30,000 bond.

via cops arrest teen in $37,000 candy con | Shameful News.

Mystical force stirs spoon-bender Geller to splash out on ‘pyramid of the Forth’

RELAXING in his luxury Thames-side mansion, Uri Geller, the world-famous spoon-bender, was suddenly riveted by an advert for the sale of a mystical Scottish island.

But while the prospectus for Lamb Island, off the east coast of Scotland, listed the disadvantages – “it is completely bare, and uninhabitable because it’s so rocky, does not come with planning permission” – Mr Geller realised it was his chance to be part of a legend linking Robert the Bruce, King Arthur and the ancient kings of Ireland.

Mr Geller’s attraction to Lamb Island, a volcanic outcrop in the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh, is its claim to be one of the three “great pyramids of Scotland”, which mirror the layout of the pyramids at Giza, near Cairo in Egypt. The other islands are Craigleith and Fidra.

Last night Mr Geller, 62, who paid £30,000 for the island, said: “It might seem forbidding, but it is one of the keystones to British mythology, and I am thrilled to be its owner.

“I am fascinated by the connection between the pyramids and these islands. It has been known for centuries – you can read about it in a 15th-century manuscript called the Scotichronicon by Walter Bower, the Abbot of Inchcolm.

“So when I heard Lamb Island was for sale I felt a strong instinctive urge to buy it – and the more I delved into the history and archaeological lore that surrounds it, the more certain I became that this was one of the most significant sites in Britain.”

According to research published by Jeff Nisbett, a historical investigator, in the magazine Atlantis Rising in September 2002, lines drawn between Scotland’s three important Templar sites – Temple in Midlothian, Rosslyn Chapel and the Isle of May – cut through Craigleith and Fidra, with Lamb Island between them.

The Isle of May is believed by some scholars to be the real location of Avalon, where King Arthur was laid to rest.

via Mystical force stirs spoon-bender Geller to splash out on ‘pyramid of the Forth’ – Scotsman.com News.

White House may move to buy mortgages

The White House is considering a proposal to head off potentially millions more home foreclosures by using federal funds to buy up at-risk loans and then refinance them with more affordable terms.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and other Obama administration officials met Wednesday with a group of top bankers, community groups and financial industry representatives to discuss the plan.

So far, government efforts to prevent foreclosures have focused on pressing the lending industry to work with at-risk homeowners voluntarily and provide them with more affordable payment terms. But the new proposal signals a shift to a more direct government approach, according to John Taylor, president of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, who attended the meeting with Geithner, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan and other Obama administration officials.

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“What they heard from all segments of the industry is nearly universal support for going in and purchasing these loans,” said Taylor.

The proposal is one of several being discussed as the White House completes the details of its comprehensive plan to stabilize the financial system and limit a wave of new foreclosures expected over the next few years. Others include legislation to speed up loan modifications and efforts to make new mortgages more affordable.

Under the proposal, the government would draw on $50 billion in funds already approved for the financial bailout to buy up millions of mortgages at a discount. A $300,000 mortgage on a house now worth $200,000, for example, might be bought at a 30 percent discount.

The homeowner then would be able to refinance the smaller mortgage with lower monthly payments. The government could then sell the loan back to investors, freeing money to buy more loans.

via White House may move to buy mortgages – Personal finance- msnbc.com.