Posts Made By: James Brown

We had a lot of fun watching this cow elk and freeloader from our back deck this evening.

The Kelo eminent domain case shocked me on two levels. Like 100% of the Astromarters who have weighed in, I am appalled at the decision.

In addition, although I guess it should not surprise me (we are all conservatives here after all) the unified voice of the Astromart politics crowd concerning Kelois a bit shocking.

The Kelo opinion presents the opportunity for some Supreme Court musing:

There are three main voting blocs on the Court. The liberals, consisting of Ginsburg, Stevens, Souter, and Breyer; the center-right bloc O'Connor and Kennedy; and the Conservative bloc of Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas. In Kelo, Kennedy sided with the liberals and O’Conner with the conservatives. I find it interesting who appointed a couple of these justices:

Liberals:

Stevens – Ford 8O
Souter – Bush I 8O
Ginsburg – Clinton
Breyer – Clinton

Center- Right:

O’Connor – Reagan 8O
Kennedy – Bush I

Conservatives:

Rehnquist – Nixon
Scalia – Reagan
Thomas – Bush I

Obviously, the president who picks a justice is not gauranteed that the justice will turn out as anticipated. Please remember this when the upcoming fight over one or two supreme court appointments becomes contentious. When Teddy Kennedy predicts the end of the union if so-and-so is confirmed, he is full of it. But you knew that….

Also remember that judicial conservatism is a very good thing if it is your home being bulldozed for a hotel. A hotel that (in the possibly objective) opinion of your local commisionars is necessary for the economy of your community. This is collective-think at its worst.

- Jim -

Do you think that conservatives would disagree with this Charley Reese piece?

J

These twin fawns and momma doe amused me all morning. They grazed, nursed and romped across the ravine from our home; about 200 or 250 yards away (I think). Given the distance, I had to pull out the big lens. All of these shots were taken with my 980mm f.l. TEC APO 140 and a Canon Digital Rebel (300D) at prime focus.

The view through the camera viewfinder was quite noticeably vignetted, but the images are not. The camera must deal with full light vignetting with internal software? Only one of these images (this one) is cropped.

I hope you enjoy the images of these fawns as much as I enjoyed watching them! - Jim -

Hi all: This fellow has been hanging around the ravine behind our house the last few weeks. I am guessing that he is the sire of the twin fawns I posted below. The fawns have this dude's black face mask, which is not shared by the two smaller bucks who follow the big one around. This shot was taken with a Cannon 300d through a TEC APO 140 at prime focus.

Thanks for looking! - Jim -

A young bull, taken from the roadside in Rocky Mountain National Park, with a Cannon Digital Rebel and Tamaron zoom lens. - Jim -

My wife and I were wondering how a "mouse" was pooping on our front doorbell, four feet off of the ground, it seemed like every night....

Well, this little brown bat seems to be the answer. I did not notice his creepy pal in the low light until this flash shot was developed. (Canon 300D, Tamron zoom lens.)

I can't wait for Halloween!

- Jim -

What do you have against whales Ray? If cetaceans want to form business associations it is none of our business. I don't get it.

- Jim -

Jim Babcock said:

Currently, a son, 5 nephews, 2 first cousins, 2 brother-in-laws, and others more distantly related. This does not include close personal friends, employees that report directly to me, and other friends of the family. Others are in Afghanistan or deployed elsewhere.

And you?

Jim:

Although I agree with James Lacey's take on the merits of Mr. Dodson's stupid implicit attack on the validity of your opinion....

I must say that I have not seen this effective a touché presented on this forum in a long time. 8O Well done.

- The other Jim B. -

Hi, seems to be a Trifid kind of day!

This is a composite image: the widefield scene is 9x300 seconds with an unmodified Canon 300D digital camera. The detail of the M20 nebula is 60 min. 1x1 Lum. and 30-30-30 RGB 2x2 with a SBIG 402 ME with internal color filter wheel.

I manually scaled, rotated and pasted the nebula into the 300D shot with Photoshop Elements (The basic version that came with the camera).

Both portions of the image were taken with a TEC APO 140.

Thanks for any comments! Jim