What..?

John Travolta and Tom Cruise seem to have demonstrated that Scientology can help you stay at the top of your profession despite its very controversial views on things like mental health. Personally, I'm not sure that like his namesake (Old Mother Hubbard) the inventor of Scientology didn't have a bare cupboard too and that his followers have been forced to quietly reinvent almost everything in a more pragmatic and less science-fiction based vein. However science and religion are not incompatible and it is merely the growing tendency of headline grabbing by misguided individuals with controversial theories to sell that might make it seem so.

It all depends on how you calculate 'top', Maddan. Here is a list of some of Travolta's movie earning over the last decade or so... Hairspray (2007) US$14 million including ca. US$3 million perquisites Ladder 49 (2004) US$20 million Primary Colors (1998) US$18 million Mad City (1997) US$17 million Face/Off (1997) US$15 million Michael (1996) US$15 million Phenomenon (1996) US$18 million Broken Arrow (1996) US$17 million. Human curiosity may well turn out to be the end of us all, Chuck. Let's cause the biggest explosion we can and see what happens - maybe we'll find the Higgs bosun or create a mini black hole or arrrgggghhhh!

To be honest Maddan I just posted the more recent films which Wiki listed the earnings for - I liked him best in Pulp Fiction but I enjoyed many others and even, surprisingly, Hairspray where I thought he played a very convincing woman. You're probably right that his star is decending but it's slow and he's still A-listed. I liked Swordfish too but I think it was more to do with the charms of Halle Berry than John Travolta :O)

Further to Science causing the End Of The World :- As you probably know - Walter Wagner, a trained nuclear physicist, and colleague Luis Sancho filed a lawsuit in Hawaii to prevent the Large Hadron Collider from starting up based on worries that the CERN particle accelerator will produce black holes or hypothetical particles known as strangelets that could destroy the Earth... CERN has responded with a report drawing the conclusion that there is no basis for any conceivable threat of either dangerous black holes or strangelets. That's alright then - and there's no danger from eating beef from cattle with BSE (unless you live in Korea) ;O) CERN said something that didn’t exactly fill me with confidence – I can’t remember the exact quote but it was something like “If Black Holes can be created from the particles created in the LHC then they will probably break back down into similar particles.” So, they won’t grow and swallow the Earth then... probably! Found the quote "...“if they (Black Holes) can be produced in the collisions of elementary particles, they must also be able to decay back into them.” Reassuring that they know so much about Black Holes isn't it :oO

Still, talking about the end of the world it's worth considering that it might actually be caused by Big Oil – otherwise known as the Bush Foundation. :O) Did you wonder why the US recently publicised news of Israeli air manoeuvres... It seems that in 2003, Iran began demanding oil payment in Euros, although the oil itself was still priced in U.S. dollars. Since that time Iran has wanted to establishing an Iranian Oil Bourse, with the goal of competing with the NYMEX and IPE and adding a fourth price marker to West Texas Intermediate crude, Norway Brent crude and the UAE Dubai crude but priced in Euros not dollars... since it is estimated that about 70 percent of the world's international foreign currency reserves are held in dollars a petroeuro could persuade many to switch to the Euro as the American economy continues to fall into recession with possibly catastrophic consequences for Big Oil and the American economy. Now, unlike Iraq, Iran has “friends” including both China and Russia which makes an invasion of Iran a much trickier problem. Having learned their lesson regarding using nonexistent weapons of mass destruction as an excuse for invasion the US is now using the threat of FUTURE WMD as a potential reason for invasion... with Bush saying ‘Okay, they probably haven’t got any yet but they soon will have!’ So coupled with the recent reports of Israel bombing a secret Syrian reactor last year http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/03/syria.israelandthepalestinians reports of Israel doing practice bombing runs for Iranian nuclear sites are simply a means of upping the pressure on Iran! Just as a matter of interest why does no-one complain to Israel about its dropping bombs on Syria? I noticed that instead it was America that was criticised for not alerting the IAEA before the site was bombed so the Americans must have known about and approved the bombing. As an excuse, or maybe simply a reason why... (from the Guardian article) :- After months of rumour, speculation and leaks, Bush administration officials told Congress in late April that they were certain Syria was building a nuclear facility with help from North Korea, and it was "not intended for peaceful purposes". Everyone knows that Israel has nuclear facilities which are not intended for peaceful purposes but I suspect America would not condone anyone bombing those! While I’m at it... The recent decision to reduce damages against Exxon Mobil from two and a half billion dollars (less than 2 days revenue) to half a billion shows just how much power Big Oil commands nowadays. For those 32,000 commercial fishermen, Alaska natives, property owners and others harmed by the spill who have been waiting almost 20 years for compensation you would have thought the drop in the value of the dollar in all that time would have been enough! Still, considering Big Oil runs America I suppose they should be happy they will get something – eventually! http://news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=8710294

Thanks Moimo, yes, have put Iraq and Iran in the wrong order. I will edit it now but it will jump to the bottom and so the sequence will be out of synch. You're spot on that greed is the cause of most of the problems of the world... the bible puts it well : "The love of money is the root of all evil!"