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Dual Clusters near Antares

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Posts Made By: James Brown

June 15, 2004 11:11 PM Forum: Religion

Re: Supreme Court Weasels Out On Separation Of Chu

Posted By James Brown
Bill, I don't think that there is an "answer" or one correct consensus interpretation of this language from the Declaration of Independence. My own opinion is that the founders had varying views on religion, and thus were purposefully ambiguous when drafting the Declaration and later on they protected all types of faith when drafting the free exercise and establishment clauses of the First Amendment.

I posted the beginning of the Declaration because I read the original post to state that certain key founders knew of the “dangers of religion” and acted accordingly. In other words, they acted to protect the government from religion, or maybe they acted to protect the non-religious from religious persons. Both views are IMO incorrect. Actually, the founders were concerned about protecting religion from government.

June 29, 2004 04:29 PM Forum: Politics

See the baby?

Posted By James Brown
Mike, your post is intriguing and provocative. But I don't get your point. (I am very sleepy from moving this weekend and Monday.) I doubt you are suggesting that all of the people listed in your post should have been aborted. I honestly don't get the connection to DM's post below. Jim

July 15, 2004 02:57 PM Forum: Politics

Presidential Insults

Posted By James Brown
Is there any evidence other than a teenager who called a radio show that this actually occured?

July 20, 2004 10:57 PM Forum: Religion

Is it coincidence?

Posted By James Brown
The remarkable coincidence IMHO is that we are living in a "present" which happens to be only one or two human generations from the very special point in the history of our universe (at least locally) where a few gifted samples of our species (i.e. Albert Einstein) had evolved the intelligence to invent modern physics and actually consider the question, "what is time?" in a scientific way. How cool and lucky is that!

To more directly address your muse, in what other time can one exist other than the present? Thus I think we do, "perceive the 'present' to be during our lives simply because it is the only 'time' we are aware of" This leads to one of the fascinating things about amateur astronomy, we can look back into the distant past and see it now as it was then.

July 23, 2004 02:15 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

aluminum

Posted By James Brown
These guys are great too: www.onlinemetals.com

July 26, 2004 04:50 PM Forum: Solar System Observing

Shoemaker-Levy 9 and Jupiter...

Posted By James Brown
I remember viewing it that night with a Televue Genesis SDF. The blackness of the impact points in the clouds was so dramatic, so high contrast compared to typical Jovian features, that even my wife was impressed, and she is usually a quick-glance, "gee that's pretty" type of viewer.

Alas, I made no sketches, and I don't recall the fading-dispersal of the marks in the cloud tops over the next week or so. Maybe it got cloudy here? I sure remember where Jupiter was in the sky, where my tripod was on the deck etc. that first night. It was the astronomical equivalent of a "where were you when JFK was shot..." event.

It's hard to believe its been ten years 8O .

July 30, 2004 05:34 PM Forum: Religion

Disenfranchised

Posted By James Brown
In my state at least (Colorado) we have an alternative oath along the lines of telling the truth under penalty of perjury... Even though I believe in God, what you describe is wrong, a clear violation of the establishment clause by state action. It's also not a minor violation in my book, such as a passive 10 commandment display etc. would be. -Jim-

August 3, 2004 03:38 AM Forum: Politics

Re: Post Dem Convention poll results in

Posted By James Brown
"It won't take much of a bump to tip the scales" - Tom -

Agreed, I think Bush is extremely vulnerable. Like it or not, it is all about the electoral college. Rasmussen tracks the likely electoral college outcome on a state by state basis. It would only take the loss of one state carried by Bush in '00 (like Ohio) to tip it the other way.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/election_2004.htm

August 3, 2004 09:36 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Eye dilation. (It's more intresting than it sounds)

Posted By James Brown
I'm not sure if it would work. When my eyes are dilated by the eye doctor, I can't focus on anything. I have no idea if it is because of the overdose of photons, or because the eye focusing muscles are de-activated by the drops too.

August 5, 2004 12:14 AM Forum: Takahashi

Takahashi Teegul

Posted By James Brown
Hi Gary, I use a Lapides Teegul with an 80mm triplet refractor. It may be a bit lighter than a FS 102 but not much. The mount is superb. I think the tripod you mate it with will have a lot to do with overall system stability. I really like the slow motion controls on the Teegul. They work smoothly and allow for easy tracking at reasonably high powers.

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