Posts Made By: James Brown

http://www.astromart.com/forums/viewpost.asp?forum_post_id=702220&poll_id=&news_id=&page=

John Agnew said:

Every time this happens, my fundy friends start squawking about the End of Days, and how this is a sign.

John:

Is this just a rhetorical device, or do you really know some actual "the end is near" types? I know only a few fundies in real life and I have never heard them opine about end-game signs and such. It might just be the crowd I run with though.

Has Pat Robertson said anything really stupid and offensive about this quake yet?

Jim

Rod Kaufman said:

Same story in Utah, with the way be dug up and lit up by conservative Republicans...

Wow, I had no idea that California liberals didn't use energy!

Jim

Rod Kaufman said:

I note Shell oil shut down some of the drilling rigs in Pinedale Wyoming...

Have you ever been to Pinedale Rod? As you might remember, I go backpacking out of Pinedale every couple of years. I was kind of apprehensive when I arrived this August, primarily because of your doom and gloom reports of oil boom ruination.

"Downtown" Pinedale is basically the same as it ever was. Same restaurants, same bars, same family owned hardware store. Same paper "Cattle Brands of Fremont And Sublette Counties" paper placemats the steak joint has had since forever. It's a serviceable place, but not that fancy.

The outskirts are definitely a little more developed, recognizing that this is remote Wyoming and not that many people live there, boom or not. There are two new hotels and a few gas stations, that's about it. We stayed in town the night before and the night after we were in the wilderness. I think the two new hotels were built for outdoorsmen, not oilmen though. Some of the little residential communities have tidy cabins and log homes now, when a decade ago they had shabby trailer homes.

Pinedale still looks and feels pretty much the same as it has since 1978. I’m sure it's subtly bigger. It is still very much Wyoming though. Not like Denver at all. Not even in the same universe as Southern California.

The wilderness is as unspoiled as ever. The new gas field is(I think) in the dusty prairie way north and west of town well away from the wilderness. The map of the gas field I saw made it look quite compact compared to the immensely wide open spaces west of the Wind River Mountains. We did not see any of the new wells. The skies were of course the kind of dark that most folks never experience.

Here is the view from the parking lot of the Best Western (no kidding), looking east across the high prairie to Fremont Peak, the evening before we went in.

Hi Erwin:

Somehow, I always feel better after reading one of your cut-n-paste jobs.

Jim

That's a really cool image Jim! I've spent the last several minutes trying to find this object in my resources. Based upon the coordinates you gave, I can pick out the 5 or 6 brightest stars of your image in my copy of Uranometria 2000, but the dark nebula must have been deemed too "insignificant" to include. It sure is pretty!

Jim

Rod Kaufman said:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-roberts-speech10-2010mar10,0,4550858.story
In other words, I/m picking up my ball and going home...

Seriously Rod, this is the message you get from that article? If I come to your house for a dinner and you mock me in front of the other guests, do you expect me to come back next week for more of the same? Who is more of the cad, you for mocking me or me for refusing to return for a second round?

I don't have any problem with Obama being critical of the Court's recent ruling. Neither does Roberts apparently. I think that it is very unseemly for Obama to go for public opinion points in the State of the Union Speech in the way he did. Fortunately the Court is relatively immune from public opinion pressure, by design.

The standing and cheering bit from Congress is odious. It is odious when R's do the cheerleading too.

Why is it that only the Court exhibits any kind of decorum in Washington?

Jim

John Agnew said:

Just a quote from Thomas Jefferson that I thought I'd post for your contemplation:

"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."

Hi John:

As you might guess from my constitutional law postings I'm a big Jefferson fan. Also, I don't have any problem at all with this quote in the intended context.

This quote troubles me though, if examined in a broader more generalized context. What I am getting at is this:

In general, is ignorance preferable to error?

Maybe not. Ptolemy was wrong about the workings of the solar system of course, but at least he asked the pertinent questions. Later, other scientists corrected Ptolemy's error. In the case of solar system dynamics or any other scientific inquiry is ignorance better than error? I would say no. Those who make initial errors at least get the ball rolling. Those who elect ignorance don't move the field toward enlightenment at all.

I also think that this quote fails when applied to human sociology or the arts too. Doesn't the maxim "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" contradict this quote if the quote is applied to human dynamics?

Clyde, music is your vocation. Consider that I, a renowned opera ignoramus, might favor the simple works, maybe those directed to a child, over those works universally recognized by students of opera as the true masterworks of the field. Objectively, my opinion regarding the merits of various operas is in error. But still, isn't that preferable to ignorance of the art form altogether?

Anyway, I know that I am taking this quote out of context. Still, I think a truly great quote ought to be applicable more or less universally. In any case, thanks for posting this and helping me get my noodle revved up for the day.

Jim

That is a really sweet trio Tyler. I love the colors.

Jim

Rod Kaufman said:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/cbo_health-care_reform_bill_cu.html
Now if it had increased it, you'd have the Republicans advertising it on national TV...

Hi Rod:

Aren't you a little concerned that this is a garbage in/garbage out budget calculation? Richard posted a link the other day detailing the rather implausible assumptions underlying the positive budget report.

I could see the claim that this reform will decrease the deficit being Obama's "They will greet us in Baghdad with Roses" moment.

Jim