Posts Made By: Mike Strieber

Mike Strieber said:

I have no doubt if the "internets" was around in Newton's days he would have recognized an additional law we are all now familiar with. "The longer a thread gets the more irrelevant the discussion becomes."

Enough with the "nail in the coffin" thread fellas, start a new thread. Going through 10 pages of that thread to get to current affairs is enough. Many folks are going to miss the story about the "tan tax".
Mike

...or how Australia is God's country....with beautiful women and FREE healthcare!! 8O

Steve Thornton said:

I guess all those ranting against the socialists, commies, marxists, liberals and fascists involved in health care reform will have to add the health insurance companies to their list. Will the last person in the haters room please turn out the lights?

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1974757,00.html

I'm shocked. I would have thought they would totally be repulsed by the 30 million new customers the government just forced on them. When we're next forced to buy GM cars I'm sure the auto-worker unions will be outraged as well.

Steve Thornton said:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1974757,00.html


This is a link work seeing again. If I were a Republican politician, I would be pissed. They lost the Health Reform vote and succeeded to unify the Democrats at the same time. Their overlords, the health insurance companies took a nanosecond to see which side their bread was buttered on and now they're gung-ho for reform.

The polls(USA Today/Gallup) now show the American people supporting reform by 49% to 40%. The Republican take-no-prisoners attitude have left them with their teabagger buddies supporting revolution and violence. All Boehner can do is say,

“Well, there are a lot of angry Americans and they are angry over this health care bill. They’re angry about the fact that the Democrats here in Washington aren’t listening to them. But I’ve got to tell you that violence and threats are unacceptable."

Sort of like the joke, "Well, aside from that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?"

And now, from two of the Republican leaders, you get Sarah Palin, targeting congressional Democrats with a map of Democratic districts with a gunsight on them and she says to RELOAD. Nice classy move. And then there's Mitt Romney, who criticized the heath reform bill, which was very similar to the one he helped institute in Massachusetts. Nothing like intellectual consistency. I guess he was against it after he was came up with it. That was when he was a liberal before he was a conservative.

I may disagree with Republicans, but I have to admit, they are damned entertaining.

Steve,
You’re falling into your own trap. Regurgitating talking points from what you saw on TV last night or the Huffington Post today makes you look as shallow as the media sources you get it from. Liberally biased media outlets and congressional Democrats are playing this up like it’s unique to Republicans, and that the Tea Party is an unruly, violent mob. Remember when Stupak said this?…

“All the phones are unplugged at our house — tired of the obscene calls and threats. She won’t watch TV…”
And that his position on the healthcare debate was “a living hell”.

Do I need to remind you that he was opposed to the legislation then? I feel pretty comfortable in stating that wasn’t the Tea Party folks making the threats. Perhaps you can provide me a link to where you voiced your outrage at those threatening Stupak before he flipped?
Most sane people don’t advocate the use of violence and have denounced it. Did you see this quote from Boehner today?…

“That's not the American way. We need to take that anger and channel it into positive change. Call your Congressman, go out and register people to vote, go volunteer on a political campaign, make your voice heard - but let's do it the right way.”

Probably not, because you won’t see that side of it on MSNBC, or if you do it’s to spin it, suggest he was lying, and highlight what he didn’t say. You also won’t hear that Democrats across the country already have commercials out capitalizing on, and playing up the threats, while they ask for money. The threats suck and are unwarranted; playing it up like MSNBC and some Democrats is stupid and potentially even more dangerous. Sane people don’t play politics with threats. Let the police handle it, not Rachel Maddow.

BTW, most “decent” minded people quit using the term “teabaggers” months ago. I think even MSNBC has quit using it so I believe it's ok for you to now as well.
Mike

Rod Kaufman said:

Sarah, how's that hopey changey thing working for you now?
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/05/mccain-says-hes-no-maverick/?fbid=f9Gbf1i2IyA

Not sure what the article has to do with Palin or what your point is Rod. However, it appears to me things are working out pretty good for Palin. A couple of her own TV shows, a gig on the leading news network, fund-raising appearances, campaigning, in the news every day, best selling book, an interview "get" perhaps only second to Obama, I'd say she's in demand and doing quite well. And with the left fumbling over each other in an attempt to try and discredit her, she is only becoming more popular. Besides that, she’s in a terrible position.
Mike

Jim Brown said:

[SIZE="Large"]"You realize that there are some people out there think the guy who really needs to get a life is the astroimager out there spending ten thousand dollars on equipment to take the ten millionth picture of M42" [/SIZE]

A. McConahay 3/10/10




I gotta agree with Alex's tongue in cheek wisdom, but I still can't resist posting my M42. I'm always posting these "late" in the season, because Denver sits just to the East of me and I can't image until an object is transiting or setting to the West.

This rendition includes 10 sub-frames each of Ha, OII, R, G and B at 15 minutes and 10 sub-frames for each filter at 2 minutes. I also took 20 L frames at each time interval and used maybe 17 of them/per time interval. It all totaled up to about 130 sub-frames and slightly over 19 hours of imaging time. Fortunately I have CCD Commander dialed in, so I was able to image all night over the course of a few January to early March days.

I just upgraded my old laptop, and that made a ton of difference as far as being able to process all of this data.

The processing is basically an LRGB with Ha supplementing the Red and L channels and OIII supplementing the Blue, Green and L channels too. As you guys know, I had to process the nebula core and interior separately to avoid washing out the brighter parts. This was a real project, with a ton of processing choices.

But I like the results, hopefully you do too. Thanks for any comments.

A full sized jpeg is located here:

http://home.comcast.net/~jameslbrown/pwpimages/Final%203.jpg

TEC APO 140 with flattener, FLI Microline 11002M, FLI wheel and focuser, Baader filters, Astro-Physics Mach 1, Maxim DL, Photoshop CS2, CCD Commander, Focus Max.

Jim

Excellent Jim, my new background image.
Mike

Rod Kaufman said:

Dems prevail!:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100414/ap_on_el_ho/us_congress_wexler_s_seat
Looks like the tea party has some Palin moose stew to eat tonight...

A referendum Rod? One election, in a liberal bastion, replacing an uber-liberal, a district that voted overwhelmingly for Obama, 40% seniors, and a two to one margin of democrats v. republicans... Yeah, I'd say, this certainly ends the healthcare debate. The only thing sillier than this guy calling it a “referendum” is you repeating his words.

Oh, but of course Virginia, New Jersey, and Scott Brown were meaningless right? It’s only a referendum when liberals win. Gee, I wonder which elections were more significant. I’ll let you decide.
Mike

Rod Kaufman said:

It's nice to hear the commander-in-chief telling it like it is to the amorphous entity known as the tea party:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/16/obama-says-tea-partiers-owe-him-a-thank-you/?fbid=f9Gbf1i2IyA
Other than Palin, I doubt if very many of them make 250,000/year to be affected era by Reagon-era tax burdens. Do you?
So what does the tea party do? Those haters respond by calling the Obama administration, "gangster land". The relentless BS of those and their ilk that yell marxism, socialism, communism, Armageddon, death panels, you'll disconnect granny from the ventilator, etc, etc...

Bush wishes he had it so good Rod. In fact read your own posts during the Bush era. So please...

Mark Rieck said:

Quite simply Mike, attempting to engage those who either choose to or are incapable of discerning fact from fiction and opinion from fact, ends up proving itself to be a waste of time. That goes for tea baggers to the minority leaders of the House and Senate. Until sane conservatives distance themselves from those that literally make a living stoking hatred via contrived bunk....forget it.

Myself and millions of Americans like me haver been called a Communist, a liar for sharing that I was a registered Republican for most of my life, told we only voted for Obama because he is half black, watched those who are INARGUABLY compulsive liars lauded as heroes, witnessed countless numbers of our neighbors have the historical record rewritten for them simply because they COULD be taken advantage of, and on the whole watch an alarming number of our citizens appear to adopt a level of bigotry and ignorance many of us thought dead for half a century.

I understand your point Mark, in fact at the root it is pretty much the same thing I said. I witnessed the same sort of rhetoric during the Bush era here. Because I supported some of Bush's policies I was called a Nazi, warmonger, ignorant, and greedy. I said it many times here, there are a lot of things I didn't like about Bush and made it clear I thought it was time for him to go. That didn't matter though as in those days anything Bush was bad. And while I generally don't agree with most of Obama's policies I like the guy. However, I believe his legacy will be policy related, not the fact that he's a "secret Muslim" or wasn't born in the US. I consider that "fringe" stuff. Even if he is a Muslim he's sure is doing a lot of kicking ass on Al Qaeda and the Taliban with the troop surge in Afghanistan and the increase in drone attacks.

But I must say as well, take a look at the content of your response here. You just labeled conservatives "teabaggers", insane, compulsive liars, and bigots. The same accusations could be made of the left from the right; from the radicals the left watches on MSNBC to the violent protesters frequently seen on the left. Hitler moustaches on the sitting president became vogue with Bush, not Obama. I believe it's indisputable that the anti-Bush protesters were far more vile than what you see now in the form of Obama dissention.

Regardless, while you may experience frustration here, as I did for a long time as well, your voice is still important. While I rarely agree with your position I still value your input. The forum is much more fun with debate. In fact the reason I started this thread was in the hope I could bring some of you guys back.
Mike

Floyd Blue said:

Look, I am not trying to stir things up, but I will say that it does not seem that the response to the oil disaster was that prompt. I also must say that the 10-11 days that it took before Obama flew down to check it out, was not really a rapid response either. IF this had been Bush, there would be flames licking around his feet for this, but Obama does seem to slip past any kind of poor press.
However, it is much more important what he does now to move toward a solution. I do not mean that I think he should have some special plan to cap the well, that is something that BP will have to figure out. But rather how well he brings together all the resources available to try to minimize the damage. It this respect, it is his Katrina or 9-11, he will be judged by the next few weeks or at least should be. This is the first real test of his ability to make big decisions and to lead. It will be interesting whether he takes charge or just places blame.

I tend to agree with you Floyd. Certainly later we can debate whether the response was quick enough, but at this point it appears it was not. And you are most definitely correct when you suggest Bush would have been roasted on a spit for a comparable response from his administration. There is no question about that. In fact I've seen many signs the media are trying to protect Obama over the last few days. Just last night Rachel Maddow had a world-renowned environmentalist on and when he suggested the response was slow and inadequate she quickly jumped in to say..."you mean from BP right? Not the government". Clearly he was taken aback by her eagerness to interrupt him and you could see the look in his eyes that he screwed up...according to her. The MSM is clearly making the headline about BP, not the administration. They are in a protection mode, as is the administration. Those who continue to suggest there is no bias are in denial.

Will this become Obama's Katrina? No, it will not. There are too many people out there who control the message who will not let that happen.
Mike