Posts Made By: James C Chandler Jr

Better watch out and hang onto yer wallets, because BO is fixing another crisis. "If you think health care is expensive now, wait til it's free!"

http://www.somalicruises.com/rates.php

Here is perhaps an old tired question.

Perusing the Orion catalog, there are the SkyGlow broadband light pollution filters and then at about double the price are SkyGlow Imaging filters.

The Imaging filter and the Broadband filter both share near-identical dual main passbands-- One fairly wide passband around Blue-Green, another wide passband around Red.

For the extra money, the Skyglow Imaging filter gives three extra narrow passbands in Violet, Yellow-Green, and Orange.

Just eyeballing the filter shapes, it looks like the Broadband filter's 'total light attenuation' would be about 50 percent, since about half the spectrum is attenuated and the other half of the spectrum is not atenuated.

Eyeballing the Skyglow Imaging filter shape, it looks like maybe the 'total light attenuation' might be about 30 percent because of the extra three narrow passbands. Therefore the Skyglow Imaging filter MIGHT be about 1.375X brighter than the Skyglow Broadband filter. Additionally, the color balance would have to be better in the more-expensive Skyglow Imaging filter (because of the additional color passbands).

For PURELY VISUAL observing-- If the higher price doesn't matter-- Would the Skyglow Imaging filter offer noticeably improved brightness and color compared to the Skyglow Broadband filter?

This would be typically used in a CPC 1100 in moderate light pollution, or possibly small inexpensive refractors.

I'm so lazy that the CPC 1100 might never leave the backyard, so the light pollution is always gonna be there. If a skyglow filter actually makes a diff, I'd probably just leave it mounted in the diagonal all the time. If it wouldn't make enough of an improvement to leave in there most of the time, maybe it wouldn't be enough of an improvement to bother buying the thing to begin with?

Thanks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FoekBjhtWE

Folks are fickle. The popularity may turn around. The slope and magnitude so far looks remarkably similar to GWB's.

Since the press remarked so frequently about BHO's historic popularity, it is interesting that both Nixon and Carter (among others) enjoyed higher initial numbers and a 'slower slide' toward unpopularity.

It may be a danger if the negative slope remains rather drastic. Too much temptation to wag the dog.

Has anyone heard what happened to the toxic paper?

Got to wondering, since apparently billions or trillions of toxic paper is not even important as Michael Jackson trivia.

Maybe Treasury officials burn toxic paper in 55 gallon drums every night-- Cheerful fires as the homeless relax after a hard day, savoring the delicate flavor of MD 20/20 and Boones Farm?

Or mysterious convoys of black semi's, carrying all the toxic paper for thousands of years safe underground storage at the Nevada Yucca Mountain nuclear facility?

Donated to George Soros in case he can figure out some way to use it?

Found this article, which is less romantic, but no less puzzling:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124804469056163533.html

Yet another ignorant quandary.

The talking heads say that the stock market has recently boomed because real estate sales have risen. This is taken as evidence of increased consumer confidence or whatever.

Dunno anything about it. Am a little fish with tiny resources. Me & wife were thinking about maybe buying some real estate because of pessimism, rather than optimism. The reasoning-- If we expect recent irresponsible expansion of the money supply to cause severe inflation-- Maybe not quite hyperinflation-- Sub-sub-hyperinflation or whatever-- Perhaps no worse than 'mild' Carter malaise 10+ percent annual inflation.

In that game, if real estate prices and interest rates are temporarily low, then if you finance real estate it ought to be an incredible bargain and inflation hedge, because the bulk of the payments will be made in the future when money has become relatively worthless.

Dunno. Maybe the specific motivation/strategy doesn't matter as long as people are buying real estate. Gives the same economic result regardless of the individual actors' motivations?

OTOH, if a big percent of folks are buying real estate for the same reason me&wife were thinking-- Expectation that money will be nearly worthless sometime in the future-- If that is whats happening, it would not be a statistic to encourage folks to buy into the stock market, erroneously thinking folks have become more optimistic about the economy?

A few months ago heard an NPR news snip of a Geithner senate hearing. When asked if there is a limit how much the govt can borrow, the reply was something like, "Yes of course there are limits, but we really don't know what they are." Can't find a direct quote or video clip.

Wonder if we are about to find out? Supposedly bond sales are not going well. With tax revenues low, if we get to the point where no one will buy the bonds, wonder how long the Fed alone can keep printing money and buying bonds before it all hits the fan?

In that case what would the govt do? Raise taxes or cut spending? The govt seems completely lacking the thrifty gene, but OTOH it wouldn't take many tax hikes before an irresistable 'throw the bums out' wave would sweep the nation?

I hardly ever watch SciFi channel anymore. Now they even forgot how to spell SyFi. Don't recall ever seeing a made-for-SciFiChannel movie that was anywhere near worth the time to watch it.

Anyway, happened on an apparently made-for-SyFi movie tonight, "Infestation". It is not 2001 Space Odyssey or anything, but pretty amusing so far.

Infestation seems a good movie in the same way that Night of the Living Dead or Tremors are good movies.

If you like jazz/funk and blinding guitar work, this youtube video might be interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzxfyLfhwwQ

If the musical intro seems tiresome, fast forward and listen from about 2:00 before you give up on it. That is where guitarist Jimmy Herring starts doing his thang.

There is a large cluster of Atlanta musicians loosely associated with Col Bruce Hampton as the nominal hub and spiritual leader, with history going back to the late 1960's. A long time ago I'd hang out with some of those guys. They have just been 'doin that thang' forever.

This Project Z outfit was one of many relatively-short-lived bands taken from that big sub-set of musicians. This band doesn't contain Col Bruce. Went internet-looking for an old high school bud Ricky Keller and discovered he had died a few years back. He was a multi-instrumentalist and recording engineer/producer many years in Atlanta but I hadn't talked with Ricky for years. Ricky plays bass in the Project Z video.

Most of these guys are still active. Very good musicians.

If you go searching Bruce Hampton videos, you need a certain warped taste and sense of humor to appreciate the musical incarnations which include Col Bruce. Bruce is probably schizophrenic, or at least he gives a good simulaton. Those guys have a certain warped sense of humor that might be pretty unique to Atlanta, though Austin has some of that too.

Bruce has a lot of Atlanta fans, but if he is actually up on stage it typically degenerates into crazy weird. Bruce isn't what one would consider a fabulous player, but he seems to attract talented players that love him. They always have fun. But if looking for not-quite-so-weird videos, you would search for videos of his friends when Bruce wasn't up on stage. Bruce is kinda an Atlanta version of Captain Beefheart.

This video clip is at an Augusta GA concert, James Brown's home town. "Augusta's Ankle" contains many brief musical references to James Brown riffs and beats. I like it.