Posts Made By: James Brown

Lee Spain said:

. . . all the bowls. That would be pretty cool. The toughest bowls should be the Outback and Cotton Bowls.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/ncaa/scoreboards/divia/today/

Lee, I'm thinking that the Gator Nation might want to have words with you, after you started such a blatant jinx-inducing thread.

Jim

Bill Burghardt said:

The activity on that "OTHER" forum makes me wonder if Herb finally discovered a way to let this forum die a gentle death?

It would seem so Bill, and I am guilty as charged. You see, I enjoy arguing for argument's sake far too much to go back up there again, at least any time soon. My prediction and hope is that the ID forum will fade to a quiet level when everyone else gets bored with the same circular and endless conversation.

I did enjoy reading up on current paleontology, the Burgess Shales and other interesting scientific topics. It is amazing that virtually the entire texts of major scientific treatises are now available for free through Google books.

Does anyone have a good religion/philosophy topic queued up?

Jim

Lee Spain said:

LSU 87, Ohio State 3

I'll take the Buckeyes and the points. But seriously; LSU 31 OSU 28

Jim

Michael O Gaynes said:

I've built (and heavily modified) a couple of kits, neither of which are still available. An Arion Adonis vacuum-tube based integrated amp from Ireland, and a phono pre-amp from a company in Seattle(?). The Northwest has a fairly large D.I.Y. community, I believe.

I also built my own speakers from a design by Lynn Olson. A decade ago, I was amazed by what one could find the internet.

For those of you who like to build your own scopes and mounts, get out you soldering irons and give it a try.

Hi Michael:

Wow! me too. I built Olson's Ariel Speakers about 5 years ago. This is perhaps my finest woodworking accomplishment to date. I am powering the Ariels with Welborne Labs kits from Ron Welborne here in Colorado. The power amps are 300B based Laurel IIs and the pre-amp is Ron's Ultrapath. I had as much fun building everything as I do listening to the system.

Jim

No, he was on the radio.

Jim

jess tauber said:

See http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/01/15/pope.protest/

The more things change, the more they stay the same. With the 400th anniversary of the first astronomical use of the telescope, *could* things get any more interesting? Isn't this guy infallible?

Galileo must be spinning in his grave, in a slightly elliptical motion.... 8)

Jess Tauber

If anyone cares, this article covers the particularly Italian politics of this tempest pretty well:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/world/europe/16pope.html?ref=europe

This blog has a few quotes from the offending speech:

http://ncrcafe.org/node/1541

Jim

Matthew Bernick said:

I'm heartbroken!

Just bought a Stellarvue AT1010 from ebay and the lens assembly came apart in shipment. Result: 1 broken lens and the other is pretty scratched up. Anyone here have experience with this kind of damage? The OTA is otherwise in OK shape. Can the lens cell be replaced with a new one? Or is it a total loss (not worth the cost)?

Fortunately the ebayer has been nice about this and is willing to reimburse me if needed. Shipping was via UPS, but the packing job (by seller) was inadequate (in soft case, but loose in box w/some air packs thrown in along w/diagonal and EPs in bolt cases). I emailed Vic at Stellarvue, but haven't heard back yet.

Thanks!

Hi Matthew:

I'd say you are really lucky to have a seller from ebay step up to the plate and offer to reimburse you for the damage. I hope he follows through. I think that you are far far better off buying telescopes here where the members are quite familiar with delicate equipment and know how to pack it properly.

Jim

Lee Spain said:

I think Obama is going to smoke Hillary in S.C. He'll probably go on to get the Democrat nomination. I have no idea on the GOP side.

Who do you guys think will win the nominations?

I still think it will be Clinton v. Giuliani. Clinton is ahead in Florida and Nevada. She should be back on track heading into Super Tuesday. The Republican side is a toss-up but McCain's surge possibly only reflects the fact that Giuliani chose to sit out the small initial primary states. If Giuliani fails in Florida, all bets are off. If he wins, then he will have the best mojo heading into Super Tuesday where he is currently polling as the front runner in the major states.

This is a really fun primary season by the way. Never before in my voting lifetime has it been so wide open and unpredictable on both sides of the aisle.

Jim

Rod Kaufman said:

Counting down the days until this nightmare ends and another Republican one begins...

Whoa. Here you are conceding the general election again... (see below) What's up with that?

Jim

jess tauber said:

Anyone see the reports about claims that your liberal or conservative comes to his/her conclusions not through careful thought or consideration, but through inborn personality characters?

I caught this (genetically induced) opinion: http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20080211/cm_huffpost/085898

It has me thinking that if valid, then we really need to divide the planet in two and build a wall- conservatives would grumble about the liberal side and try to take over....

Jess Tauber

Hi Jess:

I would fall firmly in the "learned behavior" camp, with respect to matters political. Look how many of us cycle from liberal in college to conservative and maybe back to liberal later on in life, all based upon life circumstances, education and our changing values, circumstances and biases etc. The genetic component to political inclination is likely to be quite minor in my opinion. I could be wrong, but at least I have Winston Churchill on my side.

By the way, you left out (or possibly overlooked) the original artwork accompanying the expanded "political genetics" opinion piece. The art will further clue us into the bias matrix of the author; but that is not my reason for posting it. Actually, one would have to be stone cold dead to not appreciate the bias point of this particular columnist.... literally every noble characteristic of mankind is associated with liberalism and every base characteristic, well, you know how it goes in certain opinion circles.

Nonetheless, I am posting the art because it is intriguing and kind of a cool picture. More importantly, Rod, Dwight, brian, even you will like it a lot. I'm always looking out for my friends on the left.

Take care,

Jim