Posts Made By: James Brown

Here is a view of the towers of San Gimignano in Tuscany. This town was founded in the 3rd century BC by Etruscans, the original natives of Tuscany. It is named after St. Gimignano who is said to have saved the village from Attila the Hun. The remaining towers date to the 11th and 13th centuries. There were once over 40 of these towers, built by wealthy families for personal defense.

Jim

Good luck to you. We got our dog from the shelter some years ago. She's quite attractive and super loyal. When it comes time for the next dog, the shelter's where we'll go again.

Jim

Kurt Endres said:

I hate to do this, but I feel that I've been left no choice.

Approximately 2 months ago I sent AM member Richard Davis ( Woodsman on CN ) a deposit for one of his custom eyepiece cases. There was a slight delay in building it (original quoted time was 2 weeks) because he had to wait to get the specified wood, and I was understanding of that. Anyway, on may 18th, Richard contacted me and stated that he had received the rest of the materials needed for completion and that he would keep me informed of the progress....never heard from him. After numerous attempts to contact Richard, I have yet to receive a reply :C I actually, out of concern for him, posted on CN to see if anyone had heard from him lately as I felt that maybe something was wrong- he hadn't posted in a while.

Well, this morning, I found out that he has been posting over here in the politics forum . I immediately sent him a message...and again have been ignored. I Really didn't think that Richard was a person of questionable character, but now?

Sometimes a little communication works wonders :S

Hi Kurt:

I know that Richard's Astromart private message box has never worked. It is simply broken for reasons unknown. I will bump him in politics and I imagine you'll hear from him soon.

Jim

Floyd Blue said:

TMB 130-FT f/7
APM 130 f/6
TEC 140 f/7

What are your opinions on these for AP work, which would you say was the better?

Hi Floyd:

I'm not surprised that no one has jumped in and said "I've tried all 3 and like x better than y for these reasons..." Who but a committed equipment junkie would have the time and money to try all three of these telescopes which are similar in size and quality? I am confident that any differences you see between published images from scope x versus scope y in this group are going to be more the result of the photographer's skill and local seeing conditions than optical differences.

Your MI250 will support any of these with stability to spare. I've had no problems with my TEC on a G-11 or a Mach 1, So I think you'll be in great shape if you decide to up-size a bit.

Jim

Jeffrey Counsil said:

Since when does a foreign country have a right to file a lawsuit against any of our States for an internal affair????

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/22/mexico-files-lawsuit-overturn-arizona-immigration-law/%3Chr%20class=/?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a16:g12:r1:c0.230961:b35148114:z6

Jeff:

For starters, Mexico has not filed any lawsuit. Also, Mexico is not asking to be a party in an existing lawsuit. The Fox article is exceptionally misleading in that regard. I can't tell if the Fox journalist is just a moron, or if they are being intentionally deceptive. I do know that this particular article has misled you and many others into thinking that Mexico has sued to have the AZ statutes overturned.

The reality is that lawyers representing Mexico have filed an amicus brief arguing against the Arizona statutes. So have the ACLU, and many other groups who think that these laws should be stricken. You could file one yourself in support of the laws, or more likely a group of you and many like-minded persons could band together, hire a lawyer and file an amicus brief. Several will no doubt be filed in support of Arizona too.

Basically, with an amicus, a non-party group that cares about the outcome of a case offers up its opinion. The amicus says to the court "here's our opinion on the law and issues, for what it's worth..." The judge hearing this case can read these briefs if he or she likes. The judge can be persuaded or not, depending on the judge's own take on the matter after reviewing all of the evidence. This is a mountain/molehill headline ginned up by Fox to rattle the uninformed.

(By the way, I think the AZ laws are fine in intent. I've expressed my view that they might run afoul of the law on jurisdictional/preemption grounds, but that is not at all clear to me.)

Jim

Robert Provin said:

Here is a short review of Gould's NOMA concept that pretty much reflects the views of many scientists:

http://www.godslasteraar.org/html/gould_s_non_overlapping_magist.html

For my part, NOMA is a quaint fiction since many of faith feel science is in error when it contradicts their myths. The evidence does not count. Then they want to have their myths taught in our science classrooms, I suppose to correct the perceived errors!

Robert

Robert:

I would submit that you are making the mistake of thinking that most Christians think along the line of what Doug does. This is an error. Fundamentalist literalists are a small subset of Christianity, both worldwide and in the states. Your link did not work for me, but Dawkins' criticism of NOMA, which I read elsewhere appears to be: NOMA can't work because the religious can't resist mixing science and theology. That is a flawed premise.

J

The calves tended to stay in little groups of 3-5.

A mother and child moment.

I like this photo quite a bit.

A rest-group