Posts Made By: James Brown

Very cool Tom. Thanks for posting this.

Jim

Rod:

You left out the best quote in the article. Sharpton's hyperbole is like something you would read in the Onion... Does the Associated Press have him on speed-dial?

[COLOR="Blue"]"The photo was shown to New York City civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton, who issued a statement demanding that the vice president "leave immediately, denounce the club and apologize for going to a club that represents lynching, hate and murder to black people.""[/COLOR]

Jim

Tyler Allred said:

I would like to try some long exposures to capture the tail better.

Cool rendition of the comet Tyler. I would like to go deep too... maybe tomorrow? I am wondering if I can auto-guide on the nucleus?

Jim

Very nice!

Jim

Very dramatic Floyd. Did you flip the image left to right? In my refractor images of the same region, the horse looks to the left.

Jim

Thanks for the nice words everyone. I am really tickled with how this image turned out.

Jim

Nice shot Ivan! It looks like we were imaging at about the same time last night based upon the background star field.

It is too bad you missed the earlier part of the show. Hopefully the comet will remain bright and continue to change on a daily basis. A second eruption would be very cool.

Take care, Jim

Jim Babcock said:

I think that this kind of candor would make Obama hard to beat in a general election. Of course his opponent would do his best to use it against him.

I agree. Obama's openness is going to resonate with a public which is jaded by politicians who tap dance around any type of straight answer.

On a side note, how many times have you read some of our Astromart lefties opine that W. must still be drunk, or coked up all the time...? Hopefully the Righties will exhibit some class and refrain from offensively using Obama's welcome and honest admissions of relatively common youthful poor judgment.

Jim

Jim Babcock said:

Ron Paul.

Which of these Democrat gems seems scarier to you:

Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Biden, Dodd, Gravel, Kucinich, or Richardson

I'm not Rod of course, but Edwards is the scariest of the big 3.

Jim Babcock said:

Jim Brown said:

the worst case scenario is that states (blue states I presume) who have the votes can enact bans.

Actually I think you answered one of my big question: what is the furthest that the Court can legally go. I agree that the spinners will say that this could eliminate all such bans, but is it possible legally that the Court could actually word their ruling in such a way that it could have that affect? Even if they legally could, I would be amazed if they did.

Jim:

Here is some preliminary rambling... (This could be off base) The way I interpret what I've read so far (which is not that much) is this:

If DC wins, the right of any jurisdiction to ban handguns will be ratified. Some jurisdictions have already or will do just that. Others will not.

If Heller wins, no handgun ban is permitted anywhere under the 2nd Amendment. This is what the DC Circuit Court ruled (a 2-1 split decision). If Heller wins, no handgun ban would be the basic law of the land and the lower Courts would have a frenzy of cases demanding interpretation of various gun control statutes in light of the Heller decision.

DC raises an interesting point in their petition. They say that they do not infringe the right to bear arms because they only ban handguns, not rifles or shotguns. They say that since they allow these other types of weapons, there is no 2nd Amendment foul. I would guess that the Court might go with some similar type of analysis. I think this is likely because if the Court were to say that any ban of any type of "arms" violates the 2nd Amendment, they would seem to be opening the door to private ownership of bazookas and bombs etc.

So the Court will at least have to define "arms."

In other words, unless they find the 2nd Amendment inapplicable to non-militia citizens they must draw the line somewhere. Will they draw the line between handguns and rifles? Between handguns and military weaponry? Who knows? Any split-the-baby decision is going to be tricky and convoluted. You can bet that there will be a lot of wrangling over what is defined as "arms." If I were a gun fancier, I would hope that the lawyers representing Heller did not get too greedy. If the Heller lawyers overreach by arguing that the 2nd Amendment protects the right to bear any type of arm (machine guns, bazookas etc.) they might end up with a gutted 2nd Amendment and a ban of hunting rifles in hard core anti-gun jurisdictions.

An easy out is for the Supremes to say the petitioner is not part of a militia, so he has no constitutional right to bear a handgun. That ruling would kick it back to the various states and cities to make rules or not make rules as they see fit. If I were a gun control advocate I would hope that the lawyers for DC did not get too greedy. It is not going to be easy for the Court to overlook 250 years of heritage and simply conclude that the 2nd Amendment only relates to militia men. If the DC lawyers overreach, they might end up losing the opportunity to regulate handguns in the big cities.

The only thing that absolutely can not happen as a result of this case would be the Court extending a gun ban nation wide. Even if the 2nd Amendment is gutted, any ban will have to be left up to the voters/legislature of each state or city.

Jim