Reader Dennis Middlebrooks of New York writes:

The History Channel aired a program called "The Next Nostradamus" Sunday night. The show began by claiming Nostradamus was right on target with his predictions and was "a mortal man with immortal insights into the future."  Incredibly, the show equates astrology with astronomy and states that Nostradamus developed a method to predict the future by casting horoscopes for the entire globe!  The show also claimed that Copernicus and Galileo were astrologers and described alchemy as the "science of converting lead into gold."  I kid you not.

In this article, I ran an item about one “astrologer Sir Bejaan Daruwala,” and I expressed my wonder that he’d been granted that honor, perhaps either for being an astrologer or for endorsing “Global Zodiac Rings and Pendants,” miraculous gems that vibrate the naïve into ecstasies of spending

I got into a discussion with my long-time friend Michael Hutchinson, in the UK, via Skype – if you don’t know Skype, you’ve missed the boat – and we exchanged strange pronunciations of words. You might know that the place name Leicester is pronounced – by the English – as “Lester,” and Worcester becomes Wooster” when spoken. Michael provided these:

Family names:

Cholmondley – "Chumley"

Featherstonehaulgh – "Fanshaw"

Colquhoon – "Cahoon"

Beauchamp – "Beecham"

Please, so that you can get some idea of just how miserably-managed the government health services are in the UK, go to http://dcscience.net/?p=454 and read Prof. David Colquhoun’s account. His “Improbable Science” entries have been railing against stupidity in medical science for years now, and you will see just how ignorant, inept, and recalcitrant these “quangos” are.