Posts Made By: Robert Schmall

[QUOTE]Judson Mitchell said:

Look Out Chicago! I saw a totally black woolly bear headed south.

that was a Green Bay Packer fan in winter molt.

Mark Kuba said:

My take is Global Warming is nearly completely theoretical, with enphasis on the Retorical.
Political Science rather than science. It belongs in the same unscientific catagory as the philosophy, not science, of "the many worlds theory" or any variations of string theory.

From the Manchester Guardian, hardly a liberal rag:

The denial industry, which has no interest in establishing the truth about global warming, insists that these emails, which concern three or four scientists and just one or two lines of evidence, destroy the entire canon of climate science.

Even if you were to exclude every line of evidence that could possibly be disputed – the proxy records, the computer models, the complex science of clouds and ocean currents – the evidence for man-made global warming would still be unequivocal. You can see it in the measured temperature record, which goes back to 1850; in the shrinkage of glaciers and the thinning of sea ice; in the responses of wild animals and plants and the rapidly changing crop zones.

No other explanation for these shifts makes sense. Solar cycles have been out of synch with the temperature record for 40 years. The Milankovic cycle, which describes variations in the Earth's orbit, doesn't explain it either. But the warming trend is closely correlated with the accumulation of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. The impact of these gases can be demonstrated in the laboratory. To assert that they do not have the same effect in the atmosphere, a novel and radical theory would be required. No such theory exists. The science is not fixed – no science ever is – but it is as firm as science can be. The evidence for man-made global warming remains as strong as the evidence linking smoking to lung cancer or HIV to Aids.

Chad Cummins said:

I am just curious if anyone in this group is doing any spectographic analysis or anything that they publish. Variable stars? Just wondering really if outside of comets what else people work on or discover...

Sure. Sky and Tel ran an article last year on significant contributions by amateurs to the search for extraterrestrial planets. Califiornia amateur Ron Bissinger (a really nic guy, BTW) was one who analysed data on transits, IIRC.
Bob

Cigarettes kiled my youngest brother (46), my sister (62) and my mother (OK, 83 is a good long life, but they still killed her.) I quit 35 years ago and now I hate those things; as far as I'm cocerned they should be taxed out of existence or banned outright. There's a good bilboard here in South Texas: "I'll quit when cigarettes hit $____ a pack." Quit your bitchin'
Bob

Obviously an SCT, but you could ID it more completely, e.g., mfgr and size. Howewver, there may be others like it offered by "innocent" sellers, so consider giving the ad number. Maybe Herb can advise on this.
Bob

Jerry:
Bryce is the best observing site I've ever used. I've been to the Davis Mountains for TSP, Arizona, Colorado, North Dakota and lots of others, but the combination of 8,000 foot altitude, low humidity, no lights and no air pollution makes for sensational observing. It's the only place where the full 3+ degree extent of M31 is obvious to the naked eye.

Ranger Chad Moore has been conducting instrumented measurements of sky quality in the national parks and has been the impetus behind a volunteer program that puts amateurs in the parks for observing sessions with the public. I was at Bryce in '05 for 5 weeks with Ron Bissinger and others. I won't forget Ron unpacking at a remote site and worrying about mountain lions to the point where he kept his back to his truck all night.

Rod Kaufman said:

Well, I've seen the handwritten account of the gunfight from Wyatt Earp at the Gene Autry museum but it now appears additional eyewitnesses gave their testimony as well:
http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=12347853&hpt=T2
It would be interesting to compare notes...

Anything that I've seen from valid historical sources points out Earp as a pimp and a gambler who was never more than a deputy sheriff. We seem to get a lot of our belief system about the Old West from Old Television shows. Amazing that a period that lasted for just 20 years could have such enormous influence on our national character. Or can we blame the media?

What method do you use to keep track of the number of ads you've placed?

[QUOTE]david elosser said:

For the good or the bad, Obama's kissing that Moon mission goodbye.
David E

It's for the good. President Obama hasn't killed anything that didn't deserve killing. When President Bush redirected us to the moon, he forgot one detail: paying for it. NASA's budget was laughably insufficient to send a mouse to the moon by his target date of 2020. Obama has redirected NASA once again, toward more international cooperation, privatization and use of instrumented missions rather than human-occupied. It cost 6 times as much to send a human into space and the scientific payback (and that's what it's about, right?) is nearly the same. Granted, we won't have astronauts reading scriptures, but we can do that ourselves on Sunday.

Putting humans back on the moon is not justified other than as practice for a Mars mission, and we have the capability to do that now. We have landing sites on Mars, we know about long-term effects of living in space, we will have the delivery vehicle soon, and we will certainly get in our warmups on the moon. IMHO, when most of us talk about "we need to go back to the moon," what is not said is, "in my lifetime." We want to identify with those people out there and be able to say to our grandchildren, "I saw it on TV." (and they'll ask, "what's a TV?")

There is absolutely no political reason to go back to the moon, nor is it in our national interest other than what I've said above. The scientific benefits wouldn't justify the cost, and going back would actually delay a Mars mission. I can deal with it.


There is

Jack Day said:

Going back to Jim's point about a potential disaster in California, this warning was issued not long ago. Pretty interesting / convincing. California is SCREWED!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2FHAg5TnB4

I am in Washington, and going to start getting prepared ASAP!

the Southern California Earthquake Center, which has 600 scientists as members, has scheduled its annual meeting in Palm Springs from September 11-15. Do they know something?