Posts Made By: Maurice Clark

Hi Sandy,

Considering that according to the Bible, the entire world was overturned and destroyed by the flood, I would be very skeptical of anyone claiming to know where the garden of Eden was located.

Regards,

Maurice

Bill Burghardt said:

that the forum only got this quiet on weekends!

Hi Bill,

Blame it on the New Horizons launch and the need to try and get ready for the new semester. Introducing a new course and trying to write 14 new labs..... all between now and Monday.........!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 8O aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggggggggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tempting to just quit and go back to the land of clear dark WARM skies!

Cheers,

Maurice

Hi all,

I see this brohar over the cartoons is continuing to grow. A number of newspapers across Europe have reprinted them in protest at the Muslim outrage.

Personally, I am not sure what to think about this. Half of me wnats to say "Good for them. Make the Muslims stuff it!" however the other half wonders if this could be giving them an excuse to take offence.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4670370.stm

Sometimes I wonder if we are looking at the start of a long war between the Muslim world and the west!

Cheers,

Maurice

Hi Sandy,

If you want to get some idea on what most astronomers think about astrology (including me) have a look at this website.

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/astrology.html

Have fun.

Maurice

Hi all,

Just read that Bush appointee George Deutsch has resigned.

http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/

Who you might ask? He was the one who tried to gag any discussion on global warming by NASA scientists.

http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2006/02/04/outrage-at-attacks-on-nasa-science/

Did he resign because of the uproar that that caused in scientific circles? No! apparently he was caught out having lied on his resume. Claimed he had a degree when he didn't. Somebody within the administration did not do their homework!

Cheers,

Maurice

Hi Bill,

A sincere wish that the rest of 2006 will be much better than its start.

Take it easy.

Maurice

Hi Jim,

From your post, I can only assume that you do not bother to listen to NPR news services. I have given up on trying to listen to commercial radio in the USA. Apart from being constantly blasted with dishonest ads, the blatant biasness of the so-called "news" stations and their pathetic, anemic parodies of what actually constitutes "news", is sickening. At least late at night NPR switches over to BBC World Service. Try listening to that sometime. It might be a great shock to you, but at least you would get some exposure to what the rest of the world considers news.

It is interesting, but in Oz we have the ABC. Taxpayer funded, totally independent, yet every time there is a right-wing government in power, they try to emasculate it. It would seem like there is a commonality between out 2 countries. In both, right-wing governments hate it when an independent media actually has the temerity not to toe the party line. Similar things happened in the UK with the BBC.

If you are really concerned with your president's fiscal irrsponsibility, then why don't you get something done about where the real waste is?

Regards

Maurice

Hi all,

I caught a little of CSPAN radio on Sunday night. I think it was a replay of NBC "Meet The Press". They were talking with a republican (not sure if senator or congressman) about the wiretapping controversy.

When asked why the Bush administration did not go to the courts for warrents, the politician kept stating that this was too slow. Even when reminded that warrents could be obtained up to 3 days after.

What really stunned me though was his comment that the administration had no need to get warrents, because "the president has the constitutional authority to ignore any act of congress during a time of war".

I am sure that there are plenty of people here who would have a better understanding of the USA constitution than I, so couold anyone tell me if this is correct? Can the USA president really ignore any law during wartime? If so, then to me this is really scarey!

Cheers,

Maurice

Hi Bill,

Astronomy..... ASTRONOMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What are you trying to do here!!!??????????

How dare you try and bring astronomy into this forum!!!!! At least Steve tried to bring it back on course with his comment about an alter and a sacrifice! 8)

Actually it brings to mind one incident from when I was teaching an observing course in Minnesota. After 4 weeks of not being able to use the scopes, I made the comment that we would need to sacrifice a virgin to appease the could gods. To which one student commented, "where would we find a virgin at this college?" 8O

Maurice

Hi all,

NASA has just released a statement saying that the DAWN mission to Vesta and Ceres has been reinstated after being canceled a couple on months back.

It looks like there was sufficient pressure brought on the bureaucrats to make them change their minds for once!!

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/mar/HQ_06108_Dawn_reinstates.html

Maurice