Posts Made By: Erwin Miller

I certainly have no love for Republican loose cannons, but Obama's promises have morphed from, "change you can believe in" to change you can forget about. The waffling that has come out of the White House on the public option makes one dizzy in its contemplation. When a watered down health care plan is finally enacted you can bet your booties that the insurance companies will retain their mountain of profits. And the last time I checked Americans are still dieing in Iraq. If he is not a liar, he is certainly fudging the truth. If there is a real liberal in American politics will he please stand up!

Ralph Nader gave this prophetic speech in Toronto August of 2008. It is well worth watching. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE7PFbK5L88&feature=related

Steve Hollenbach said:


And what prayer could I offer? Only:
"Thanks."




Steve

And just who are you thanking random chance? I'll offer up this prayer composed by the greatest of "star priests".

"Look skyward now...
and see above... INFINITY
Vast and dark and deep
and endless... your heritage:
Silent clouds of stars,
Other world uncountable and other suns
beyond numbering
and realms of fire-mist and star-cities
as grains of sand...
drifting
Across the void...
Across the gulf of night...
Across the endless rain of years...
Across the ages."

Robert Burnham Jr.

His words still reverberate throughout the celestial cathedral. Genuflect now you "pilgrims of the stars"

John Agnew said:

I've been thinking about getting a scope(& mount) that would be more easily dealt with on a camping trip than my C9.25 CPC. My initial thoughts were leaning towards an ETX 127 or something similar. I know there are some nice refractors of about the same size that might work too, but I'd like to keep the price below $700. What small scopes will give me the best views of DSO's? I just spent a few weeks in an area with amazing skies, armed only with a small pair of birding binocs. Never again.
We can continue the refractor vs reflector fight here, I suppose.

I have at my disposal 4 telescopes from 20" down to 90mm and consider none of them grab and go. Banging through the patio door with even just a 90mm Mak I do not consider ease of use. For me a grab and go scope is not even a scope, but binoculars. When I am in the grab and go mood I head for the closet where I keep my collection of astro binoculars. Have you thought about augmenting your birding binoculars with a good astronomical binocular? An excellent Fujinon 16X70 FMT-SX binocular coupled with a collapsible lawn chaise for reclined observing will lead to delightful views and instant gratification with virtually no set up. Think about it.

Not only was I clouded over until just before the impact, but we had snow and the temperature was quite uncomfortable. I was surprised to see that the weather channels hour by hour forecast turned out to be quite accurate. At about 5:00 I looked out of the patio door and lo and behold the sky had cleared. However I did not relish the idea of humping either my 10" or 20" through the snow and setting it up. After viewing the televised event I was certainly glad that I hadn't.

It is certainly apparent that man's puny attempts at worlds in collision had little "impact". Mindless aggregates of brutish matter do a far better job of carving voluminous craters and raising plumes of streaming matter. We had better get back to practicing being masters of the universe. (squeak!)

Inexpensive aluminum tubes can be purchased from Home Depot, Lowes, or any such hardware supplier. Dave Kriege of Obsession will supply you the truss clamps and any additional necessary hardware. http://www.obsessiontelescopes.com/ATM_parts/index.html

There are some interesting charts here. http://www.physicsforums.com/blog.php?b=488 It would seem from this data that the 2008 crash is more paralleling the 1987 crash than the 1929. Of course in both 87 and 08 we had more rigorous and more rapid government intervention. Is this to say that government intervention will stave off long term downturns in the business cycle? I myself will not bet on that. My dollars will continue losing value under my mattress.

In my contrarian view Wall Street feeds off of productivity rather than generating it. And what is coming down the tubes is falling productivity. So the investor class should be tightening their belts rather than loosening them. The current rebound in the stock market is more of that irrational exuberance that we witnessed prior to the precipitous crash. Wall Street wants desperately to believe in a revcovery, but belief does not make it so.

The numerous American troops who have died in Afghanistan of late certainly would not agree with the committee's selection.

By the way Cloudynights locked a thread on this very topic just the other day. A good reason for many of their members to migrate to this forum. Political events affect every avenue of our lives and we most certainly should be allowed to speak about them. Or are we tongueless cattle to be herded through a maze of barricades?

You haven't cut out my tongue and burned me at the stake........yet, so you are OK by me (in the tone said by Dr. Scott to Riff Raff).

I am not envious of your forlorn job. We are all human and suffer from myriad biases be it political, economic, or what have you. Until we develop a computer that can deliver totally unbiased decision making we are stuck with a human like you. Of course then their will be the complaints about the inhumanity of the decisions. However if you have ever read, "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" you would know of the potential dangers that lie in that direction as well.

Regards and clear skies,

Erwin Miller

Anti-Empire Report

Nov 07, 2009 By William Blum

William Blum's ZSpace Page / ZSpace

"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets." — Voltaire

Question: How many countries do you have to be at war with to be disqualified from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize?

Answer: Five. Barack Obama has waged war against only Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. He's holding off on Iran until he actually gets the prize.

Somalian civil society and court system are so devastated from decades of war that one wouldn't expect its citizens to have the means to raise serious legal challenges to Washington's apparent belief that it can drop bombs on that sad land whenever it appears to serve the empire's needs. But a group of Pakistanis, calling themselves "Lawyers Front for Defense of the Constitution", and remembering just enough of their country's more civilized past, has filed suit before the nation's High Court to make the federal government stop American drone attacks on countless innocent civilians. The group declared that a Pakistan Army spokesman claimed to have the capability to shoot down the drones, but the government had made a policy decision not to. 1

The Obama administration, like the Bush administration, behaves like the world is one big lawless Somalia and the United States is the chief warlord. On October 20 the president again displayed his deep love of peace by honoring some 80 veterans of Vietnam at the White House, after earlier awarding their regiment a Presidential Unit Citation for its "extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry". 2 War correspondent Michael Herr has honored Vietnam soldiers in his own way: "We took space back quickly, expensively, with total panic and close to maximum brutality. Our machine was devastating. And versatile. It could do everything but stop." 3

What would it take for the Obamaniacs to lose any of the stars in their eyes for their dear Nobel Laureate? Perhaps if the president announced that he was donating his prize money to build a monument to the First — "Oh What a Lovely" — World War? The memorial could bear the inscription: "Let us remember that Rudyard Kipling coaxed his young son John into enlisting in this war. John died his first day in combat. Kipling later penned these words:

"If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied."

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/734.html