Posts Made By: Paul Kammueller

Craig Smith said:

To compare light-gathering ability of a compound scope versus a refractor, shouldn't the area of the secondary mirror be subtracted? Don't compound scopes really only have the light gathering ability of a 10-15% smaller refractor?

Technically, yes, a 10" SCT should be about equivalent to a 9" refractor. But since differences of brightness this subtle are difficult for the human eye to detect, the factor is usually ignored.

jess tauber said:
I just finished a few moments ago watching the South Park episode 'The Passion of the Jew'- a sendup of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. By the end I was having a merry time (to put it mildly). Ironically, I was working on the Yahgan translation of Acts of the Apostles during the show. Life's full of surprises...

I'm afraid I don't speak Yahgan. What's it say?

The #1 enemy is the party or parties who made the decision to tie up our defense forces in a wild goose chase for imaginary WMD's, expending our troops stamina, our citizens' tolerance for conflict, our nation's credibility, AND our international goodwill, thus crippling our capacity to mount any effective response to those threats that actually exist.

There's your #1 enemy right there. :C

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that nobody's out to get you. I would be very cautious. Fake certified checks and cashier's checks are a common ruse to buy valuable items with phony money. It can take a while for a check like this to bounce.

Do you suppose the urgency has anything to do with our elections coming up? I guess they figure that if they're going to take the war up to the "next level" they'd better do it soon before the balance of power in Washington changes.

As for the troop levels, while the first mistake was going to Iraq to start with, the second mistake was going in and trying to conduct an occupation with grossly insufficient troop/population ratios, 1/3 to 1/5 of what military convention would tell you is necessary. Everyone was warning about this rookie mistake at the onset of the occupation, but the warnings were ignored.

I think it was largely a case of politics trumping military reason. The neo-cons wanted to show those silly libs just how painless and inexpensive war can be and in the process look like geniuses to the public in general. It was a critical moment of haughty right-wing hubris, a massive politically-motivated gamble, which has cost the lives of many American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

Mark Norby said:
But, NO, let's not make the Muslims mad, they might blow up one of our office buildings, or schools. The nut cases that would do that do not need a "good" reason to murder. They do it because their religious leader has convinced them that it's a ticket to Paradise. Sorry, for such a long post, I had to vent a bit. But I'm not sorry for what I said.

Think logically for a minute. No, the extreme cases don't need a reason. But really what do you accomplish in adopting their philosophy, by simply putting on another face hateful of an entire foreign religion? All it does is it chases more of the fence-sitters over to their side. Dancing on a stage with a severed head isn't going to accomplish anything in terms of defeating extremists, and moreover from a political standpoint it is actually helpful to them. The complete lack of political and propaganda savvy on our side of the ocean is unnerving to me: seems like every time the extremists make a noose, we obligingly stick our head in it.

And like I said, from a practical standpoint your average theatre company or opera troupe doesn't have he resources to fight an open war with Islamists. That stuff is better left to the military. But if you feel that strongly about it, there is no one stopping you from putting on your own little production for your muslim friends.

As for the cabs and alcohol issue, I generally agree that's a little out of hand and those drivers would probably best find other work -- but I hear a compromise may be to have different-colored lights on the 'dry' cabs which would prevent people from standing in line for a cab only to be turned away -- this way the market can resolve the issue by creating a business opportunity for those drivers who aren't so fussy about transporting alcohol.

Mark Norby said:
Heard on the radio that the Muslims in the country where olympic events are scheduled in a few years-I forget which games/country at the moment-I think it was Iceland, want the games to be delayed because they would fall in the month of Ramadan. Ridiculous. They wouldn't be postponed for Hannakah, Passover, Christmas or Easter.

Actually I looked up some history, it looks to me like they don't have the Olympics during Christmas, Hannukah, Passover or Easter either. So it doesn't look like muslims are getting special treatment or anything.

Ditto what you said. Tomorrow is a very big day. I've never been more anxious to hit the polls as I am for tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow is all about restoring the balance of power in the political landscape. I'm hoping the crazed one-sided political juggernaut of the last several years will be stopped dead in its tracks, and be forced to exercise some actual thought through the necessity of deliberation and compromise.

It's also about sending a signal to one of the two major parties from this former swing-voter: that I'm sick of the lies, sick of made-up reasons for a war, sick of the incompentence, sick of the fear, being told I have to fear Saddam, fear the gays, not trust the scientists, not trust each other, yada yada yada.

We cannot win a war outside our borders while leaders wage a war of lies, hate, fear and ignorance inside our borders.

Sorry I'm usually not like this, but it's the night before elections and the directions this country has taken has me incensed. I'm done.

Go to the polls angry -- come back liberated.

Scavenging is just recycling biowaste so I wouldn't consider that a fall from grace. Predation is also recycling but it involves a victim - though it helps the 'victim' species improve itself by introducing a survivorship bias toward stronger traits.