Origins of the Words "fig" and "boy" in the Concept of Half-Grown - LexiLine Journal 502

The terms for "fig" in Afro-Asiatic are pretty much all variants of the completely different word "tin" - see those terms at the databases of the Tower of Babel site of Sergei Starostin.

In Latvian "tin" means "to twine", i.e. hence this in our opinion originally refers to a "vine" of sorts, whence, perhaps, the Biblical phrase:

"But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken it."

As we read at at the Israel government site for tourism :

"Figs can be seen ripening under the summer sun throughout Israel, their distinctive aroma perfuming the air around springs and streams from Caesarea Philippi in the north to Ein Gedi in the south. The word fig is one of several in English that probably comes from Hebrew: paga means an unripe fig. The fruit gave its name to two villages on the Mount of Olives. One is Bethphage, Beit Pagi, which means "house of unripe figs," through which Jesus passed before the triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Matt. 21:1, Mark 11:1, Luke 19:29). The other is Bethany, Beit Te'enah, which means `house of the fig." ... Summer visitors to Israel can recall that "each man sitting under his own vine and fig tree" ... is a biblical symbol of peace." [emphasis added by LexiLine]

That alleged word origin makes sense if we examine the similar term puika in Latvian, meaning "boy", i.e. "an unripe male, a young male (in this sense)", also in the Latvian variant term puisis, with similar terms found in the following languages: Swedish: pojke sv(sv) c, Estonian poiss-, Hebrew `חור (bakhúr) m, Irish: buachaill ga(ga) m., Portuguese pequerrucho m., Sicilian: picciriddu m. (child); picciottu m. (teenager), or Welsh: bachgen cy(cy) m. - or, as noted at MacBain's Dictionary, bucach means a boy (dial.): "growing one".

At some point the guttural sound at the end was lost and we got the English word boy.

The oldest conceptual meaning however will be given to us by the Latvain variant of puika "boy" which is puisis. Since puse in Latvian means "half", and in Latvian pusaudzis (literally "half-grown, from pus-aug") means "adolescent" or pusaudze (g//dz permutation) means "youngster", we see that the Hebrew term and all the other Indo-European terms derive from the basic concept of "unripe" in the sense of "half-grown".

The analysis is eminently clear. What the mainstream linguists and etymologists have written about these terms is confused, incompetent babble.
______________

Marchidan21 replied:

In romanian:
cuţit = knife/dagger
pici = young boy
pitic = small one, dwarf
(Piticot = name of a dwarf from romanian old story)
pui = young bird/animal/children
puică = young female bird / young girl
puiet = small tree/plant
fag = name of a tree
http://dexonline.ro/
Marchidan21
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William Glyn-Jones replied:

Latvian puisis for boy reminds me of Latin puer, boy.

The logic of what you suggest makes sense in as much as figs have long been connected symbolically, for obvious reasons with gonads, and because on a fig tree two years’ fruit are present at once, divided distinctly in to the two categories of big, mature, and those small, and half the age. If the Hebrew Pagi are the unripe figs, this would make sense. All the same, not convinced, especially about “half-grown” as original origin for the non-Latvian words for boy, when there are other explanations. “Small” seems likely in at least two of the cases sited:-

Sicilian: picciriddu m. (child); picciottu m. (teenager) – these must be related to Italian for small, piccolo.

Welsh: bachgen cy(cy) m. –boy. In Welsh, bach means small.

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Andis Kaulins wrote:

Here is an interesting list of Bantu words for "unripe" which in my opinion support my analysis of the word for "fig" as being rooted in the concept of being "half ripe".
source - http://language.psy.auckland.ac.nz/bantu/word.php?v=410:

ID	Language	Nominal Prefix	Radical	Gram.	Genre	Cognacy	Annotation
02209.	Asu G.22		vísì	A	multiclasse
01724.	Basaa A.43a	∅/bì-	sùá	N	7, 8
01299.	Bemba M.42	íʧ̑ì	pòmpò	N			unripe fruit
01300.	Bemba M.42	ì	ßòòßò	N			unripe groundnuts
00900.	Bukusu E.31c		-ßìsì	Ad
00423.	Kinyamwezi F22		βɩ̀sɩ́	A
02581.	Koyo C.24	è	bìsì	N	7-8
03410.	Lega D.25		bɩ́sɩ̀	A
03035.	Rumanyo (Gciriku) K.38		ßîʃù	A	multiclasse
04269.	Yao P.21		vísí	A

Etymology of the Word "CUT"- LexiLine Journal 501

Ishinan writes:

N.Gmc. *kut- A Reconstruction in Need of Revision Based on

Earlier Semitic Linguistic Occurrences.

ABSTRACT - Various etymologies have been offered for the word "cut". The hypothetic attributions range from the Celtic, Latin to the Germanic. However one can dispel these reconstructions by reexamining deeper the root of "cut" in Semitic languages. This essay attempts at proving that the present etymologies of the word cut are patently false.

Best viewed by clicking on the following URL:

http://www.theegyptianchronicles.com/ANEW/QTT.html

The following facts and theories summarizes the extend of this fallacy:

FACTS: Cut ranks 114th on the Swadish list of 207 words in the English language.

According to the OED, the origin of "cut" and its original sense is uncertain.

The current cut, a word only of Modern English, being the proper word for incision, for which OE. used snithan, ceorfan, is known from, the 16th c. While cut, with the sense of "lot", goes back before 1300.

There is no cognate word, and no derivative from any word meaning "CUTTING", used in the other Teutonic languages; in these, the word LOT, with its cognates, is the native term.

The word "cut" is not recorded in OE. (nor in any WGer., dialect), and there is no corresponding verb in Romanic.

Mod. Norwegian kutte - to cut (chiefly used by sailors), according to the OED, is certainly adopted from English.

HITHERTO RECONSTRUCTIONS:

According to the Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, CUT: [OE. cutten, kitten, ketten; is prob. of Celtic origin; cf. W. cwta to shorten, curtail. However, this conjectured derivation of cut from Welsh cwta "short"' is, in the opinion of Prof. Rhys, quite untenable. Neither cwta nor any of its derivatives have any relation whatever to the use of a knife or other cutting instrument; while the South Wales cwt =cut cwt, gash, e.g. in the hand, is a mere adoption of English.

Finally, "Online Etymology Dictionary" offers two posibilties: 1) Scandinavian origin, from N.Gmc. *kut-, 2) from O.Fr. couteau "knife". (First occurrence in O.French is in 1316 versus Middle English in c.1275.)

REDISCOVERING THE ROOTS OF "CUT"

A proper investigation of the etymology of cut would take us back in time to Ugarit, an independent Canaanite kingdom from the 18th century BCE (present day Syria), which offers the following interesting clue found in Keilalphabetische Texte aus Ugarit 1.114.

KTU 1.114 - is about a tale of Ilu, the chief Ugaritic god, known as the "father of mankind. Ilu is holding a party with all the Ugaritic pantheon gods, at which the moon disguises itself as a dog and runs about under the tables begging for scraps. Ugaritic is attested in texts from the 14th through the 12th century BC.

"KTU 1.114" The text describes a drinking society of Ilu, an institution which had its counterpart on earth. Ilu invites all gods for the carving. He encourages them to eat, and to drink wine unto satiety, to drink must unto drunkenness. The more important guests appear to be seated at the table, whereas others have to be content with a humble place under the table. The moon-god Yarikhu puts down the "'saddle-meat" presumably before every deity. He tears it out [qtt] like a dog. He throws some pieces of bread to the miserable gods under the table, that is, to those he knows. `Athtartu and `Anatu pity the god who is passed over and feed him demonstratively the best pieces of meat, a haunch and a shoulder."

REFERENCE: The Ugaritic Texts in Ugaritica 5. Review author[s]: A. F. Rainey. Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 94, No. 2. (Apr. - Jun., 1974), pp. 184-194.

It is quite obvious that the Ugaritic word qtt (qopa+taana+taana) in KTU1.114 is demonstrably three millennium earlier than the first occurrence of "cut" in Middle English (c.1275), Old French or Welsh.

While the word "qtt" is not attested in the Northwest Semitic sister languages, such as Akkadian and Hebrew/Aramaic, it is the Classical Arabic that provides us with further irrefutable proof that the word is of a Semitic origin.

Below are the various Arabic definitions of the word qtt (qaf+ta'+ta').

QTT:

1- in a general sense: separate with or as if with an instrument, i.e. he cut it, meaning a hard thing, cut it breadth wise across, or crosswise, he so separated it; he pared the reed for writing, cut off its head breadth wise across, or crosswise, the blacksmith pared, and made even, the hoof of the beast.

2- A slice cut off of anything, a portion, share or lot. Hence in the Qur'an 38. 15, they say: "Our Lord! Hasten to us our lot (Qittana) before the Day of Reckoning!" In chronology, this suwrah belongs to the early middle Makkan period. c.615 CE.

CONCLUSION: qtt (cut) is found in Ugaritic ( Northwest Semitic) three millennium earlier than in any Indo-European suggested example . While Classical Arabic example with its derivative sense (lot) occurred some six to seven centuries prior to its first appearance in any Celtic or Germanic language. In addition of qtt, Arabic has qt` (qaf+ta'+`ayn) with the exact range of meanings.

____________

t = emphatic t

____________

Ishinan

______________

Andis Kaulins replied:

Ishinan,

Once again, you have clearly succeeded in pointing out that current mainstream linguistic ideas about Indo-European etymologies are in great neeed of amendment, here in the case of the etymology of the word "cut".

I might add to your analysis Hebrew: חתוך (khatukh) m., חתוכ�" (khatukha) f. see http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cut

However, once again I must point out that the Indo-Europeanists have failed in large part because they again have not looked to Latvian for possible roots. Latvian provides us with two alternative etymological lines.

1. Latvian cirt-, cert-, karta-
One possibility is that "cut" is modern term in English which has lost a weak "R" in front of the T. In Latvian we have numerous terms with the base word cirt-, or cert- meaning "to cut, fell, hew, chop, etc." That same base is also found in Latvian karta- "slice, section, layer, etc."
We maintain this same base in English words such as carve, which the clueless Indo-European linguists ascribe to an alleged root *gerbh-, which of course is preposterous, since gerb- in Latvian is a root meaning "to dress, to put on clothes". That is why the word gerben in German means "to tan, to dress hides", i.e. it is a term referring to the old means of making clothing from the hides of animals.
We find the same bases for cut in for example Danish: skåret and Swedish skuren meaning "having been cut". See http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cut
which of course has its Latvian comparable skarnis "butcher" [but also skart "to touch"].

2. Latvian kost-, kod- "to bite"
The second possibility, if we are looking for an etymological line of developoment without an intervening R, is the Latvian word for "bite (with the teeth), i.e. to "cut" using the teeth, which preceded modern tools and implements and must be viewed as the oldest form of human "cutting" viz. "chewing" for which a word would have been given. English here has retained the word cud, i.e. that which is chewed, i.e. "cut" with the teeth.

Minerva Phaistos Conference in London 31 October - LexiLine Journal 500

I will be giving one of 12 papers to be presented at the
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE PHAISTOS DISK
to be held on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of its discovery
Friday, 31 October – Saturday, 1 November 2008
at the Society of Antiquaries of London, Burlington House, Piccadilly.

The conference is organised and sponsored by Minerva ,
the International Review of Ancient Art & Archaeology.

For full details, see http://www.minervamagazine.com/images/Phaistos_Conference_Advert.pdf .
Attendance is limited to 100 persons, so if you happen to be in the London area that weekend,
I will be giving my paper sometime Friday,
so I will be glad to meet any of you there who might have an interest in coming,
presuming that there are places still available.

I have quite a potentially sensational presentation planned, so it may well be worth your while to attend.

Dalarran Holm Stockie Muir & The Whangie in Scotland : White Cairn Corriedow viz. Corriedoo : g-Eridani Zaurak - LexiLine Journal 499

One of the readers of my book, Stars Stones and Scholars has drawn my attention to Standing Stone NX639792 at Dalarran Holm, of which I was previously not aware.
I have some new discoveries as a result, though let me say that this is VERY speculative and may be quite a stretch. But is quite interesting, nevertheless.

This location of the megalith NX639792 at Dalarran Holm is very close to the White Cairn at Corriedow (probably better called Corriedoo for GPS map purposes), which according to my book Stars Stones and Scholars marked t-Eridani in the ancient survey of Scotland. See also http://www.stonesofwonder.com/dalarran.htm

If the rest of my identifications are accurate, then this megalith at Dalarran Holm must mark the star gamma-Eridani (Zaurak) in the system that I have published.

In 3117 BC (i.e. -3116 by astronomy), Zaurak is exactly on the celestial meridian, i.e. on the line running from the North Pole through the Vernal Equinox to the South Pole, about 30 degrees angular separation from Aldebaran, which I presume was the star which the ancients took to mark the Vernal Equinox in that era.

Pursuant to my system in Stars Stones and Scholars, Aldebaran is marked in Scotland by the cairn at Stockie Muir. We now can also add a bit of color to this location because Stockie Muir is close to a singularly unique location called the Whangie (meaning "slice" [of the Earth?]). Here is where we get onto rather speculative footing....

The Whangie is described shortly at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lidwit/497624327/ as "A strange geological feature that is about 50 ft deep and 300 ft long and was probably caused by glacial movement way back in the dim and distant past. The more colourful explanation however is the local myth suggesting that it was a crack caused by the devil whipping his tail during a meeting with witches and warlocks. Either way it's an interesting walk and popular with climbers although they were hiding on our visit."

Presuming that the ancients did not carve the Whangie out of solid rock to mark the celestial meridian in ca. 3117 BC (we do not know if this could have been done, given the puzzling geological explanation currently in vogue), they may nevertheless have regarded the Whangie - if it is in fact a natural geological formation - as part of their megalithic survey system. Or they may have used a natural formation and "customized" it. Here is a longer description of the Whangie well worth quoting from ElectricScotland.com at Rambles Round Glasgow New Kilpatrick and the Whangie:

"Descending the farther side of the hill, we soon descry the gray storm-beaten rocks of the Whangie. On approaching the spot the first thing that strikes the visitor is an immense confused heap of jagged trap, piled against the hillside, and threatening in various places to topple over, while countless fragments of every size and shape are strewn about in the wildest irregularity, as if a congregation of demons had been, in some past epoch, engaged here in a diabolical stone-battle. On closer inspection, however, it is seen that a vast section of the hill has been by some means or other wrenched asunder, leaving a lengthened and deep chasm yawning along the line of separation, and that the shattered appearance of the external surface has been produced by the violence of the convulsion which caused the original disunion. Entering the narrow ravine, we proceed as it were into the bowels of the firm-fixed earth. The passage is tortuous and uneven, the projections of one side corresponding with singular exactness to the hollows on the other. In width the Whangie, as this terrible fissure is called, varies from 2½ to 10 feet; its medium depth being about 40 feet, while its length is 346 feet. The external wall, if we may use the term, is fearfully fractured in several places, and on peeping through the crevices and beholding the apparently tottering masses overhanging the steep below, the spectator involuntarily shrinks back as if his touch would send them thundering down. Save a stunted rowan-tree or two, projecting from the rifted summit of the chasm, the Whangie is utterly devoid of sylvan adornment."

It is particularly the length of the Whangie, 346 feet, which captured our attention. Could a part of the Whangie be a man-made "slice" of the Earth? 346 feet is also the length of the outer circumference edge of the ring of Sarsen stones at Stonehenge.

Martin Doutré argues at http://www.celticnz.co.nz/US10.html that :

"The outer ring was based upon two PHI reductions of the Aubrey Circle and was coded to a circumference of 345.6 feet (172.8 X 2). This was 1/378000th of the size of the Earth under the sexagesimal system, which broke the circle of the Earth into degrees, minutes and seconds of arc."

I disagree with Doutré that this length was intended to represent 1/378000th of the circumference of the Earth. Rather, I think the ancients thought it represented 1/360000th of that circumference, which would be a circumference of 124560000 modernly measured feet or 4152000 yards or 23590 miles (ca. 38000 km), which compares well to the modern calculations of the Earth's circumference at the Equator of 24901.55 miles (40075.16 km) as well as the Earth's circumference between the North and South Poles of 24859.82 miles (40008 km).

In terms of ancient measures, I also think it likely that these 346 feet as measured by today's foot would have been 400 feet in ancient days, giving this ancient foot a value of .865 in terms of our modern foot. The ancient 400 feet as 1/360000th of Earth's circumference would have meant that the ancients calculated that circumference as 144000000 of their feet which would make one degree of the Earth equal to 400000 of their feet, which derives from dividing the circumference of the Earth of 144000000 feet by 360 = 400000 ancient feet which equals about 346000 modern feet.

That is pretty close to the Law of King Athelstan of England (see http://www.lawpundit.com/blog/2004/08/law-of-king-athelstan-of-england.htm) which has elsewhere been calculated at 365000 feet for one degree of Earth measure.

346000 feet is about 65 miles.
So how far is Standing Stone NX639792 at Dalarran Holm from Stockie Muir? It is about 65 miles. See http://www.export911.com/convert/distaCaIc.htm

For these coordinates, see
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/5183
Stockie Muir (alternate name: Aucheneck)
Nearest Town: Milngavie (10km ESE)
OS Ref (GB): NS479812 / Sheet: 64
Latitude: 55° 59' 58.2" N
Longitude: 4° 26' 21.26" W

For these coordinates, see
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/7653/dalarran_holm.html
Dalarran Holm
Nearest Town: New Galloway (2km SW)
OS Ref (GB): NX639792 / Sheet: 77
Latitude: 55° 5' 18.09" N
Longitude: 4° 7' 57.62" W

If the ancients were measuring the size of the earth along the celestial meridian in ca. 3117 BC, using, inter alia, Stockie Muir (represented by the star Aldebaran) and Standing Stone NX639792 at Dalarran Holm (represented the star gamma-Eridani (Zaurak)), then the distance between them may have been measured by the ancients as one degree of Earth latitude.

Accordingly, Standing Stone NX639792 at Dalarran Holm could very well be viewed to be an important stone in the ancient astronomical survey by astronomy.

Update

As written in Glasgow's Evening Citizen 100 years ago by Hugh MacDonald:

"The Whangie is a vast section of the hill that has by some means been wrenched asunder, leaving a lengthened and deepened chasm yawning along the lines of separation." It must have caught the public's attention, for The Whangie became one of the most popular walks in the Glasgow area, overlooking the Stockiemuir towards Loch Lomond and the hills of the Trossachs."

The Whangie runs virtually East-West. See Edenmill Farm and its walks.

Geologically, The Whangie and Auchineden Hill have been explained as follows:

"The Whangie is a strange geological phenomenon, being the result of "glacial plucking" caused by extreme temperatures which froze the slabs of rock to the glacier. As the glacier moved, it "plucked" the hillside, causing a split, leaving the rock walls rising sheer on either side of the gap."

We might note that a speculative analysis of the name of Stockie Muir near the Whangie might support our speculative interpretation, as Stockie is similar to German Stock meaning "stick" and Gaelic stoc meaning "pillar" while Muir is similar to Greek μοί�α el(el) f meaning "degree", i.e. in this case "one measuring stick as a degree", though we must recall that muir in Gaelic generally means "sea" but can also mean "spear", whereas the modern interpretation of place names has muir meaning "moor" or "hill", both of which fit this wet, boggy location.

There is nevertheless an unmistakeable connection between Stockie Muir and The Whangie. As noted at The Modern Antiquarian, the rocks that form the Stockie Muir Chambered Cairn "undoubtably came from the Whangie".

That Whangie means "thick slice" in Scottish dialect shows that the term is perhaps related to Indo-European terms for "furrow" such as Latvian vaga (*vanga) or the Finno-Ugric Finnish vako or Estonian vagu.

One argument for suggesting some human intervention in creating this stone corridor is the flatness of the path through the rock, as if made for being walked through, and that there is not a one-to-one correspondence of the sides of the Whangie on each side, denying the theory that they walls were split naturally in all cases. Again, man may have helped here or there to make this split the length it is. See, for example, the photos at ScottishSport.co.uk. In addition, there appear to be anthropomorphic figures carved in the sides of part of the Whangie. For more photographs of the Whangie, see the Air na Creagan Mountaineering Club, biotron at Flickr, British Blogs, and Allan Gilliland.

A video walk through the Whangie is found at this YouTube Video but the piercing music attached to the video may not be to your taste, in which case you may want to turn down the sound in the event that you view the video.

Cosmology and Legal Theory - LexiLine Journal 498

I just posted this to my LawPundit blog and as the subject matter bears on Einsteinian cosmology, I post a copy here at LexiLine for those who are interested.

Law, Physics, Legal Theory, Cosmology, Fine-Tuning and the "Useful Parameterization of Ignorance"

"What is Law?" and to what degree does "Law" by nature approximate the intricate system of fine-tuning required for the Einstein-based Lambda-CDM (ΛCDM) model of cosmology to work as predicted?

Most people think that they know what "Law" is - nearly - but perhaps we know less than we think about this intricate virtually self-adjusting societal mechanism, which seems to have a dark energy soul of its own. Let us take a look at ΛCDM for means of instructive comparison.

As described at the Wikipedia, ΛCDM is "the simplest known [cosmological] model that is in general agreement with observed phenomena" of the workings of the universe, a model which nevertheless "says nothing about the fundamental physical origin of dark matter, dark energy and the nearly scale-invariant spectrum of primordial curvature perturbations", the essential parameters of the model, and "in that sense ... [ΛCDM] is merely a useful parameterization of ignorance."

This parameterization is kept alive by fine-tuning:

"In theoretical physics, fine-tuning refers to circumstances when the parameters of a model must be adjusted very precisely in order to agree with observations."

In the case of ΛCDM, these fine-tuning adjustments are in fact enormous.

In a universe consisting of 100% of whatever it is that it is, ΛCDM assigns only 4% of the energy density of our present universe to the basic matter and the energy with which we are all familiar, i.e. the world of "atoms (and photons) that are the building blocks of planets, stars and gas clouds in the universe".

By contrast, 22% of the universe's energy density is said by ΛCDM to be made up of cold dark matter whose particles interact only via gravity (but never otherwise touch or collide).

The remaining and considerable majority of 74% of the universe is allegedly made up of a hypothetical dark energy that permeates all of space but which no one has ever seen:

"Two proposed forms for dark energy are the cosmological constant, a constant energy density filling space homogeneously, and scalar fields such as quintessence or moduli, dynamic quantities whose energy density can vary in time and space."

The name quintessence, fittingly, "comes from the Classical elements of the ancient Greeks, where a pure "fifth element," the aether, was thought to fill the Universe beyond Earth."

The names may have changed over the millennia, but the cosmological theories of the moderns are still remarkably similar to those of antiquity. Whether we call it aether or quintessence, or cold matter or dark energy, 96% of the universe is still explained by physics in terms of unseen cosmic parameters, which, like ancient but later provenly faulty planetary epicycles, apparently fit the observations - after fine-tuning, of course.

Modern cosmology has thus rightly been labeled "the useful parameterization of ignorance". What we do not know about the universe - and that is at least 96% - we have nevertheless been able to compartmentalize into useful physical "laws". A lack of knowledge has never been a great barrier to the creation of theories. Quite the contrary.

Let us now turn to legal theory. Does any great difference exist between the parameterizations of cosmology and those of Law? What do we really know? For example, are jails and prisons, crowded to the brim as the dungeons in the days of antiquity, the right answer to the questions of the criminal law? Do our civil sanctions fit the crimes they punish? Do issues such as abortion at their core reflect something other than law? Is the right to freedom of religion the same as the right to defy secular law for allegedly religious reasons? What part of Law is accounted for by "known" legal energy and what part by the unknown? Are we really following the true path? Or is 96% or more based on a kind of fine-tuning of parameteriziations of our legal and jurisprudential ignorance? Do we merely do the best we can, under the observed circumstances? Or is there a "higher" unseen law - and, if so - whose law?

Compare What Is Law? by Bo LI (an attorney with the New York law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell) in Perspectives, Vol. 2, No. 4 where Bo Li writes, inter alia (as excerpted and commented below by LawPundit):

"... Recently, there has been a good deal of discussion on establishing the rule of law in China. In this short essay, I want to argue that to establish the rule of law in China, we should not only look at our courts; we should also reform our legislative practices. To understand my argument, it is important to understand the nature of law.

... Law existed in the state of nature, while legislation exists only in a (man-made) positive legal order. Law does not have to be written. In its original meaning, law "is the story of how things work... Man can know, through the use of his reason, what is in accord with his nature and therefore good" (Rice, 1999, p. 30). The Latin words 'ius' (law) and 'iustum' (justice) are intimately connected. Law, therefore, necessarily embodies justice, which is rooted in nature and knowable through reason. As Aristotle puts it, "there is in nature a common principle of the just and unjust that all people in some way divine [discern], even if they have no association or commerce with each other" (Aristotle, 1991, p. 102). [LawPundit: compare that to cold dark matter above] Marcus Tullius Cicero defines "Law" as "the highest reason, implanted in Nature, which commands what ought to be done and forbids the opposite.... What is right and true is also eternal, and does not begin or end with written statutes.... [LawPundit: compare that to dark energy above] It may thus be clear that in the very definition of the term 'Law' there inheres the idea and principle of choosing what is just and true" (Cicero, 1959, pp. 44-51). Ultimately, the rules that we want for governing human society are rules based on our nature and our basic sense of justice. These rules are natural or moral laws. In other words, in its original meaning, "law" means the natural or moral law, which are in accord with our basic sense of justice. In contrast, legislation (positive law) is man-made law, which can either be just or unjust....

What we need to do is to agree that law is not the same as legislation, and that there are dynamic higher laws that can only be discovered through a gradual, incremental and interactive process. Nobody can have knowledge about, or proper incentive to abide by, all higher laws. As such, the division of lawmaking power under a system of checks and balances, with properly trained judges as important law finders, assures us that we are at least as close to the higher laws as we ever can."

Is there a great difference between modern Cosmology and modern Legal Theory?
Not much.

The Archaeology of Britain and O.G.S. Crawford - LexiLine Journal 497

Current Archaeology, in reviewing a new book on O.G.S. (Osbert Guy Stanhope) Crawford, known as "Ogs", titled Bloody Old Britain by Kitty Hauser, calls Crawford "one of the greatest figures of 20th century Archaeology" and writes next to a photo of Crawford as follows:

"Crawford on his bike. Note the roll of 6 inch Ordnance Survey maps across the handlebars. In the background is the garage at his lodgings where during the war he stored most of the archaeological records, thus preserving them from the bombing which destroyed the OS offices. These records now form the basis of Sites and Monuments Records throughout the country." (emphasis added)

Crawford was a controversial figure, who, among other things, served as the first field archaeologist at the Ordnance Survey, who was one of the inventors of aerial archaeology, and who in 1927 founded the well-known and still influential periodical Antiquity .

The book has also been reviewed by Tom Fort at the Telegraph in Mapping Britain's Archaeology, Simon Heffer at the Literary Review in No Ordinary Surveyor, and by Simon Garfield at the Guardian in A real backwards man.

A mention is found at the blog Carolyn Trant & Parvenu Press.

Tom Fort writes about Crawford in Hauser's book in this text, excerpted from his review :

"Crawford's supreme attribute was his eye; in Hauser's words, 'he saw things where others saw nothing.' With it, he was able, as he himself put it, to decipher the palimpsest: to make out the burial mounds, abandoned settlements, Celtic fields, Roman causeways, Iron Age tracks and other vestiges of the remote past.

Having served as a mapper and aerial reconnaissance officer during the First World War, Crawford was aware of the extraordinary way in which photographs taken from the air could reveal whatHauser calls 'the ancient text' of the landscape.

Most famously, he used negatives stored by the RAF to identify the avenue leading from Stonehenge to the river Avon.

Until Crawford came along, field archaeology was pretty much left to gentleman amateurs interested in ley lines, morris dancing, obscure fertility rites and other aspects of imaginary Old England. As Hauser demonstrates, Crawford turned it into a professional discipline, both through his work for the OS, and his editorship of Antiquity, the journal he founded to promote his version of the search for the past.

He was a visionary, in a limited way, and prodigiously hard-working."

Enjoy the book,

Global Warming a Solar Cycle ? - LexiLine Journal 496

The Foundation for the Study of Cycles, founded by Edward R. Dewey, of which I was a contributing member* many years ago, studied long-term and short-term cycles of all kinds, including solar cycles, which I - already 30 years ago - saw as a key to understanding various cyclic fluctuations in nature and in human society.

I had noticed years ago that it was not just our own planet Earth that showed evidence of global warming but also the planet Mars, a confluence of planetary melts which suggested to me then that a solar (sun-caused) explanation of some kind was likely.

I have now run across a February 28, 2007 article at National Geographic News by Kate Ravilious titled Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says, where Ravilious wrote: "In 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row. Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun. "The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars," he said."

See also Russia Blog for a comment on the article.

A solar explanation is to my mind far more sensible than the far-fetched theories (e.g. orbital forcing) being propagated by some mainstream scientists that cycles in planetary ice ages are caused by minimal changes in the wobble of a planet's orbit and tilt. We might rightly call this farcical theory of mainstream science "The Tilted Very Wobbly Theory of Climate Change". The trouble with this wobbly and surely incorrect theory is that global warming appears to be hitting the entire solar system, not just Mars.

As written at Live Science by Ker Than in Sun Blamed for Warming of Earth and Other Worlds:

"Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist at Liverpool John Moores University who monitors studies and news reports of asteroids, global warming and other potentially apocalyptic topics, recently quoted in his daily electronic newsletter the following from a blog called Strata-Sphere:

"Global warming on Neptune's moon Triton as well as Jupiter and Pluto, and now Mars has some [scientists] scratching their heads over what could possibly be in common with the warming of all these planets ... Could there be something in common with all the planets in our solar system that might cause them all to warm at the same time?""

But such facts do not disturb mainstream scientists trying to protect their private theories.

The alternative - equally unsubstantiated - notion that man is primarily responsible for global warming fails to explain, for example, why Lake Baikal, the greatest repository of fresh water in the world, has been experiencing a temperature increase over the last 137 years, far longer than can be explained by man-made causes. Rising lake temperatures over such a long period of time suggest a bigger influence than man's humble changes to the environment. Man again, elevates himself above nature here, which is often a mistake.

Indeed, most people, in mainstream science and out, have simply been "brainwashed" by wobbly orbits or man-made climate change theory and thus are not open to contrary discussion. I find Abdussamatov's thesis - contrary to the very weak science against the theory - to be much more plausible in looking to long-term cycles in solar activity as the primary cause for a global warming which has hit not just Earth but the rest of our Solar System.

Just look at these photos of sun cycles and read these pages about how the Sun works.

It is quite clear that when the Sun is in a periodic "glowing" phase, the entire solar system must heat up fairly quickly. Earth is a mere speck of dust as compared to the size and impact of the Sun.

Indeed, the existence of solar cycles is undisputed, and no one doubts that these cycles affect the climate:

1. Long-term Variability in the Length of the Solar Cycle by Michael L. Rogers and Mercedes T. Richards, Penn State University

2. THE SOLAR WOLF-GLEISSBERG CYCLE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE EARTH by Shahinaz M. Yousef, A stronomy &Meteorology Dept. Faculty of Science -Cairo University

3. Radiocarbon content variations and Maunder Minimum of solar activity

The question is one of degree - literally - which the mainstream scientists are currently incompetent to measure accurately. In our view, longer-term cycles such as the ice ages will be related to longer-term solar cycles covering thousands of years.

Comments on this topic by others:

UnSpace cited in more detail to Abdussamatov's findings as follows:

"Today, I was able to find the book "Multi-Wavelength Investigations of Solar Activity: Proceedings of the 223th [i.e. rd] Symposium of the International Astronomical Union Held in Saint Petersburg, Russia June 14-19, 2004," edited by Alexander V. Stepanov, Elena E. Benevolenskaya and Alexander G Kosovichev. Pages 541-542 had the article "About the long-term coordinated variations of the activity, radius, total irradiance of the Sun and the Earth's climate" by Habibullo I. Abdussamatov,¹ Pulkovo Observatory, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

I found the following quote to sum up the essential arguments presented:

"Moreover, according to the data of Borisenkov (1988)², in each of the 18 deep Maunder-type minima of solar activity, revealed over the span of the last 7500 years, the cooling of climate had been observed, while warming occurred during the periods of high maxima. Thus, the integral radiation has always been essentially higher at the maximum, and it had noticeably decreased at the minima. Therefore, quasi-periodic variations of the solar activity during both the 11-year cycle and 80- and 100-year cycles are accompanied by proportional variations of the integral flux of solar radiation, which result in geophysical effects. (p. 541)""

National Post

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* If you read my 1975 article "The Kondratiev Cycle and Saros Cycle in Eminent Births 1700-1800 : Compared to Prices in Southern England for the Same Period" here is why grain prices, for example, and solar activity are causally related, in plain common sense, as found at JoeCobb.com: "Two centuries ago, the astronomer William Herschel was reading Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations when he noticed that quoted grain prices fell when the number of sunspots rose. Gales of laughter ensued, but he was right. At solar maxima, when the sun was at its hottest and sunspots showed, temperature was warmer, grain grew faster and prices fell. Such observations show that even small solar changes affect climate detectably. But recent solar changes have been big."