Lewisporte Newfoundland

An email describes what happened there on that awful day Sept. 11, 2001. An excerpt is follows.

Below is a 9-11 story from a different prospective.  Re-enforces your faith in our fellow human beings.  Here is an amazing story from a flight attendant on Delta Flight 15, written following 9-11: "On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, we were about 5 hours out of Frankfurt, flying over the North Atlantic. All of a sudden the curtains parted and I was told to go to the cockpit, immediately, to see the captain. As soon as I got there I noticed that the crew had that "All Business" look on their faces. The captain handed me a printed message. It was from Delta's main office in Atlanta and simply read, "All airways over the Continental United States are closed to commercial air traffic. Land ASAP at the nearest airport. Advise your destination." "No one said a word about what this could mean. We knew it was a serious situation and we needed to find terra firma quickly. The captain determined that the nearest airport was 400 miles behind us in Gander, New Foundland. He requested approval for a route change from the Canadian traffic controller and approval was granted immediately--no questions asked. We found out later, of course, why there was no hesitation in approving our request. "While the flight crew prepared the airplane for landing, another message arrived from Atlanta telling us about some terrorist activity in the New York area. A few minutes later word came in about the hijackings. "We decided to LIE to the passengers while we were still in the air. We told them the plane had a simple instrument problem and that we needed to land at the nearest airport in Gander, New Foundland to have it checked out. "We promised to give more information after landing in Gander. There was much grumbling among the passengers, but that's nothing new! Forty minutes later, we landed in Gander. Local time at Gander was 12:30 PM! .... that's 11:00 AM EST. "There were already about 20 other airplanes on the ground from all over the world that had taken this detour on their way to the U.S. After we parked on the ramp, the captain made the following announcement: "Ladies and gentlemen, you must be wondering if all these airplanes around us have the same instrument problem as we have. The reality is that we are here for another reason." Then he went on to explain the little bit we knew about the situation in the U.S. There were loud gasps and stares of disbelief. The captain informed passengers that Ground control in Gander told us to stay put. "The Canadian Government was in charge of our situation and no one was allowed to get off the aircraft. No one on the ground was allowed to come near any of the air crafts. Only airport police would come around periodically, look us over and go on to the next airplane. In the next hour or so more planes landed and Gander ended up with 53 airplanes from all over the world, 27 of which were U.S. commercial jets. "Meanwhile, bits of news started to come in over the aircraft radio and for the first time we learned that airplanes were flown into the World Trade Center in New York and into the Pentagon in DC. People were trying to use their cell phones, but were unable to connect due to a different cell system in Canada. Some did get through, but were only able to get to the Canadian operator who would tell them that the lines to the U.S. were either blocked or jammed. "Sometime in the evening the news filtered to us that the World Trade Center buildings had collapsed and that a fourth hijacking had resulted in a crash. By now the passengers were emotionally and physically exhausted, not to mention frightened, but everyone stayed amazingly calm. We had only to look out the window at the 52 other stranded aircraft to realize that we were not the only ones in this predicament. "We had been told earlier that they would be allowing people off the planes one plane at a time. At 6 PM, Gander airport told us that our turn to deplane would be 11 am the next morning. Passengers were not happy, but they simply resigned themselves to this news without much noise and started to prepare themselves to spend the night on the airplane. "Gander had promised us medical attention, if needed, water, and lavatory servicing. And they were true to their word. Fortunately we had no medical situations to worry about. We did have a young lady who was 33 weeks into her pregnancy. We took REALLY good care of her. The night passed without incident despite the uncomfortable sleeping arrangements. "About 10:30 on the morning of the 12th a convoy of school buses showed up. We got off the plane and were taken to the terminal where we went through Immigration and Customs and then had to register with the Red Cross. "After that we (the crew) were separated from the passengers and were taken in vans to a small hotel. We had no idea where our passengers were going. We learned from the Red Cross that the town of Gander has a population of 10,400 people and they had about 10,500 passengers to take care of from all the airplanes that were forced into Gander! We were told to just relax at the hotel and we would be contacted when the U.S. airports opened again, but not to expect that call for a while. "We found out the total scope of the terror back home only after getting to our hotel and turning on the TV, 24 hours after it all started. "Meanwhile, we had lots of time on our hands and found that the people of Gander were extremely friendly. They started calling us the "plane people." We enjoyed their hospitality, explored the town of Gander and ended up having a pretty good time. "Two days later, we got that call and were taken back to the Gander airport. Back on the plane, we were reunited with the passengers and found out what they had been doing for the past two days. What we found out was incredible. "Gander and all the surrounding communities (within about a 75 Kilometer radius) had closed all high schools, meeting halls, lodges, and any other large gathering places. They converted all these facilities to mass lodging areas for all the stranded travelers. Some had cots set up, some had mats with sleeping bags and pillows set up. "ALL the high school students were required to volunteer their time to take care of the "guests." Our 218 passengers ended up in a town called Lewisporte, about 45 kilometers from Gander where they were put up in a high school. If any women wanted to be in a women-only facility, that was arranged. Families were kept together. All the elderly passengers were taken to private homes. "Remember that young pregnant lady? She was put up in a private home right across the street from a 24-hour Urgent Care facility. There was a dentist on call and both male and female nurses remained with the crowd for the duration. "Phone calls and e-mails to the U.S. and around the world were available to everyone once a day. During the day, passengers were offered "Excursion" trips. Some people went on boat cruises of the lakes and harbors. Some went for hikes in the local forests. Local bakeries stayed open to make fresh bread for the guests. Food was prepared by all the residents and brought to the schools. People were driven to restaurants of their choice and offered wonderful meals. Everyone was given tokens for local laundry mats to wash their clothes, since luggage was still on the aircraft. In other words, every single need was met for those stranded travelers. "Passengers were crying while telling us these stories. Finally, when they were told that U.S. airports had reopened, they were delivered to the airport right on time and without a single passenger missing or  late. The local Red Cross had all the information about the whereabouts of each and every passenger and knew which plane they needed to be on and when all the planes were leaving. They coordinated everything beautifully. It was absolutely incredible. "When passengers came on board, it was like they had been on a cruise. Everyone knew each other by name. They were swapping stories of their stay, impressing each other with who had the better time. Our flight back to Atlanta looked li ke a chartered party flight. The crew just stayed out of their way. It was mind-boggling. Passengers had totally bonded and were calling each other by their first names, exchanging phone numbers, addresses, and email addresses. "And then a very unusual thing happened. One of our passengers approached me and asked if he could make an announcement over the PA system. We never, ever allow that. But this time was different. I said "of course" and handed him the mike. He picked up the PA and reminded everyone about what they had just gone through in the last few days. He reminded them of the hospitality they had received at the hands of total strangers. He continued by saying that he would like to do something in return for the good folks of Lewisporte. "He said he was going to set up a Trust Fund under the name of DELTA 15 (our flight number). The purpose of the trust fund is to provide college scholarships for the high school students of Lewisporte. He asked for donations of any amount from his fellow travelers. When the paper with donations got back to us with the amounts, names, phone numbers and addresses, the total was for more than $14,000! "The gentleman, a MD from Virginia, promised to match the donations and to start the administrative work on the scholarship. He also said that he would forward this proposal to Delta Corporate and ask them to donate as well. As I write this account, the trust fund is at more than $1.5 million and has assisted 134 students in college education. "I just wanted to share this story because we need good stories right now. It gives me a little bit of hope to know that some people in a far away place were kind to some strangers who literally dropped in on them. It reminds me how much good there is in the world. This is why our societal values are better than theirs.  Canada is a great country and it is an honor to have been born Canadian. Delta 15 commemoration.

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Bill Maher on Mohammed cartoons V2 2012

Bill Maher on Mohammed cartoons V2 2012

The Fuss: summary 

Is this what the furor is all about?

Dennett on atheism denial

Dennett on atheism denial

 

Fun talk by Daniel Dennett  at the recent Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne.

Learn about preachers who are secret atheists 

Enjoy.

 

 

Ontario Bible Ban

"The 8-3 vote at the Bluewater District board barring distribution of any non-instructional religious materials ended months of fractious and emotionally charged debate over the ending of the decades-old practice."

The Board has voted to disallow the distribution of Gideon Bibles.

Christianity which is supposed to be rooted in love resulted in several trustees receiving threats and hate mail accusing them of betraying their Canadian and Christian heritage.

The hypocrisy on display is expected and repulsive.

Nobel Prize in Physics 2011

A trio of scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics on Oct 4, 2011. Their discovery implied that the universe was expanding at an accelerating rate. This phenomenon is best explained by the concept of dark energy which is thought to make up 73% of the material in the universe. Dark matter accounts for 23% and visible matter constitutes the remaining 4%. Trouble is neither dark matter or dark energy has been identified. They are placeholders required to save the Big Bang theory from a radical re-write. Not unlike the mythical Higgs boson of particle physics and its massless cousin the dilaton. These particles are required to explain the rapid expansion (inflation) of the early universe that a modified Big Bang theory requires to overcome the objection that there are objects in the universe that would require more than the 13.7 billion years attributed to the age of the universe to develop.
The Higgs boson is being sought with the assistance of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and the Tevatron outside Chicago. These machines are particle accelerators which fling bits of matter at each other and the resulting collisions are analyzed for more fundamental particles in the resulting explosion. These machines work by accelerating particles via electromagnetic forces.
We know that the electromagnetic force is 39 times as powerful as the force of gravity upon which the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe is predicated. It is interesting to note that the electromagnetic force is not considered for the role of the accelerator in the supposed accelerated expansion of the universe. That would eliminate the need for the heretofore undetected dark energy.
Is there another explanation? See here.
In a universe powered by electrical plasma currents dark matter, dark energy, the Higgs boon and the dilaton would not be required. But an abandonment of the Big Bang theory might follow the exploration of the Electric forces at play in the universe. Does plasma physics hold the answers to cosmological puzzles? We live in interesting times.

Email about who controls Islam

I don't know about the first paragraph, but his point about the "peaceful majority" or "silent majority" is well taken. This appeared in a circulating email which continues on its way.

German View of Islam 

  This is by far the best explanation of the Muslim terrorist situation I have ever read. His references to past history are accurate and clear. Not long, easy to understand, and well worth the read. The author of this email is said to be Dr. Emanuel Tanya, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist.
 A German's View on Islam
 A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. 'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.'
 We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.
 The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.
 The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous.
 Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.
 The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.
 And who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'?
 History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.
Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts--the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
 Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, read this and think about it, and send it on - before it's too late.

 The following is encouraging. It was found at: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/cbc/100109/canada/canada_canada_muslim_fatwa_attack_canada_united_states

Attack on Canada, U.S is attack on Muslims: imams

MONTREAL (CBC) - A group of Canadian and U.S. Islamic leaders on Friday issued a fatwa, or religious edict, declaring that an attack by extremists on the two countries would constitute an attack on the 10 million Muslims living in North America.

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The 20 imams associated with the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada said this marked the first fatwa by the Muslim clergy declaring attacks on Canada and the U.S. to be attacks on Muslims.
"In our view, these attacks are evil, and Islam requires Muslims to stand up against this evil," the imams said in their fatwa.
Calgary Imam Syed Soharwardy, founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, said attacks on Canadian or U.S. soil are essentially attacks on Muslims.
"We are part of this society," he said. "This is my home, and if anybody attacks on Canada, in fact, attacks on my home."
The imams said it is a duty of every Muslim in Canada and the U.S. to safeguard the two countries.
"They must expose any person, Muslim or non-Muslim, who would cause harm to fellow Canadians or Americans," they said.
"It is religious obligation upon Muslims, based upon the Qur'anic teachings, that we have to be loyal to the country where we live," said Soharwardy. "We have no problems in Canada; we can practise our religion freely."
In Montreal, one of the signatories of the edict, Imam Nasir Qadri of the Anwar Musallah Mosque, said he spoke to his followers at his mosque about the issue Friday.
Most of them call Canada home and feel personally threatened by the attempted attacks, he said.
The 20 imams who signed the fatwa come from British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and Houston.
The fatwa comes just weeks after an attempted bombing on Christmas Day of a U.S. jet bound for Detroit from Amsterdam.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian man, has been indicted on six charges, which include attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted murder.

Guardian Angel on the Job

A man was walking in the street when he heard a voice: "Stop! Stand still! If you take one more step, a brick will fall down on your head and kill you."

The man stopped and a big brick fell right in front of him. The man was astonished.He went on, and after awhile he was going to cross the road. Once again the voice shouted: "Stop! Stand still! If you take one more step a car will run over you and you will die."

The man did as he was instructed, and a car came careening around the corner, barely missing him.

"Where are you?" the man asked. "Who are you?"

"I am your guardian angel," the voice answered.

"Oh yeah?" the man asked. "And where the hell were you when I got married?"


This quip reminds us that we live in a world of opposites. Good things happen but so do bad things occur.

Any theory of God must note both and account for both. It cannot wear rose-colored glasses or only see the glass as half full. It is nice to define God as benevolent but when bad things happen in His universe He must bear the responsibility for them.

If a human seeded a resort with toxic water, venomous snakes and poisonous fruit the perpetrator would be apprehended and thrown in jail as a criminal deserves. We seem to have a double standard where God is concerned and excuse the existence of elements inimical to human life as  necessary for God's plan which we humans are too dim to comprehend. We save God from censure and irrelevance and allow Him to act in mysterious ways even when we know that if He exists and dangers exist that He does not warn us about He is committing a sin. Our defense of His immorality is a double standard that we so often deplore when we find it amongst ourselves. We don't hold God to the same standard because that would destroy our faith in Him. We hang on in the hope that the existence of good AND evil somehow makes sense and we try to explain away natural evils such as disease as being necessary to teach us a lesson if we would only take time to discern what it was.

What lesson is the criminal teaching us?

The existence of God depends upon faith and ignoring the obvious. Religion teaches us to close our minds to reality and just believe.

Fortunately not all of us think that way and science acknowledges that there is evil in the world that needs to be understood in natural terms so that it may be overcome with knowledge and technology. We want to conquer disease not excuse or accuse its creator.

In a godless universe guided by evolution disease is an unsurprising outcome. The universe may be such that life can emerge from its interacting elements but that does not mean that life was in any way intended as an outcome. Disease and other natural events that are precarious for life don't care if humans are here or not. They just do their thing impersonally, without malice and will uncaringly snuff life out if life gets in the way of its activity.

Life may have emerged on earth but it will not survive without a constant struggle to defend itself against a harsh world that is no garden of Eden. Hurricanes have no malice against life but they do act in accordance with their nature and will wipe life out that does not take appropriate action to defend itself. To borrow a phrase from Richard Dawkins, we have grown up in the universe but without benefit of an operating manual. We have been writing our own guide for thousands of years. We learn of the toxic nature of some plants by watching the demise of a fellow human when our ancestors made the connection between death and eating a certain berry or mushroom. No heavenly father gave us a field guide to consult to spare us the necessity of victims to advance our ken. There is no one to care but us.

Life has emerged in spite of all the enemies allied against it. Once life took hold it is loathe to let go. It seeks to perpetuate itself though self-replication. While natural disasters can destroy individual lives catastrophic loss of all life is unlikely without a cataclysmic event. Such an event does await our descendants but not for billions of years. Perhaps we will have escaped into a safer region of space before our sun enlarges to engulf the earth.

In our part of the universe self-conscious life has emerged and in our part of the universe living beings will return to the constituent parts of matter at the end of life.  Life and death. Beginnings and endings. A world of opposites. We can't have one without the other. We battle against the enemies of life because we find that life is worth living. We seek to improve our existence and progress from God's country to a civilisation that is robust and fair. In the process as they are exposed we slough off old ideas that retard our progress.

In enlightened societies, gone or going are misogynist structures, slavery, belief in evil witches, demon possession, homosexuality is evil, masturbation is evil, working on Sunday is evil, human or animal sacrifice, belief that the world is flat, blasphemers should be killed, etc.

To create a fair and just society some old practices, attitudes, ideas and beliefs must be abandoned. They belong to our more ignorant history and should be left there. Unfortunately, to our misfortune, some still hold on to the discredited past with murderous tenacity.

A God theory must explain the good, the bad and the ugly we find in our domain. A god who wears nought but the coat of benevolence is a figment of our imagination. This idea runs smack into the harsh reality we face on a daily basis in our struggle to survive and prosper in a world filled with natural booby traps.

It is my contention that God exists in the same sense that Mickey Mouse, Superman, Santa and the Tooth Fairy do. As the Greeks did with their gods and the Hindus do with theirs: let us have fun with him and not take him too seriously. For we have made him as fallible as we are.