A distant comet that was as faint as magnitude 18 on October 20th has suddenly brightened by a millionfold, altering the naked-eye appearance of the constellation Perseus.
This startling outburst of Comet Holmes (17P) may be even stronger than the one that occurred 115 years ago, in November 1892, when the comet was first spotted by English amateur Edwin Holmes.
According to IAU Circular 8886, issued Wednesday October 24th by the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams in Cambridge, Massachusetts, A. Henriquez Santana at Tenerife, Canary Islands, was the first to notice the outburst shortly after local midnight on the 24th. The comet was then about 8th magnitude, but within minutes Ramon Naves and colleagues in Barcelona, Spain, caught it at magnitude 7.3.
*snip*
When I got home I did a search for it on my Starry Night program to find out exactly where I could find it. It help me find this little guy so easily. Once I got the general location, I looked for it with my binoculars and after getting a good fix on its location, I pulled out my reflector telescope. The kids were so excited. I zoomed into it and all I heard was "it's so small!" (see next picture below).
Well, as a matter of fact, it was pretty small. It looked like nothing more than a little fuzzy white dot. No big long tail and nothing like Hale-Bop was back in the 90's, but it was visible by the naked eye, it was a comet, and the kids can chalk up one more exciting thing about astronomy brought to them by dear old dad ...and that alone is more special than anything else I can think of. :)
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." - Exodus 22:18
...or for that matter, hold political office.
We've know for more than a decade now that the queen of filth has been working feverishly at positioning herself to one day take control of the most powerful nation on earth and now there is a very real possibility that she may actually reach that goal. As frightening as it may appear, it is even more frightening to consider that if she does get in, it will most likely be without the public's knowledge of just who they are electing and what the consequences of her presidency would mean to the future of this country and the rest of the free world.
Finally, an army is massing to take down this threat to our nation, the likes of which has never been witnessed in our 230 year history. The best way to warn the rest of the public is to educate them on what a rotten, lying, conniving, cold hearted communist bitch this carpet bagging New York Senator is and summarily dispatch her and her ilk to the ash heap of American history.
Here is a trailer for a movie soon to be released that just might help "swift boat" this witch's chances of ever becoming president or holding political office again...
And just to up the ante, here is the well known 12 part documentary exposing the real Clinton legacy...
Ok folks, I did my my part. Now it's time for you to do yours. Get the word out to everyone you can and help burn this filthy witch, but good!!!
First off, let me say that my prayers go out to all affected by the vicious wildfires ravaging SoCal. Fire is non-discriminatory, knows no social boundaries and one cannot help but feel great sadness for those affected by loss of property and life. My good friend and hero from the left coast, Claire (a.k.a. e-Claire from e-biscuit.com) lives in California and although I believe she lives well north of the fires, I do hope her and her family are ok. I don't know what I would do if anything happened to her :(
With that said, I must say that after watching the reports on the fires sweeping through Malibu, it struck me as a little disturbing, hearing all the concern over the homes and properties of the rich and famous folks living there. I mean, the reporting by the mainstream media seems so focused on the efforts by firefighters to save these multi-million dollar estates and IMO, very little attention appears to be directed towards the average folks loosing everything they worked so hard for their entire lives. Now don't get me wrong here; I'm not looking at this situation in terms of class envy, but all I keep hearing is this litany of how it is so sad that Hollywood's most affluent are suffering at the hands of mother nature's wrath and how brave firefighters are struggling to their limits to save these pricey posh digs.
As I was hearing about the destruction laid in the wake of the fire's path and watching these reporters appearing so distraught over the possibility of these mansions being reduced to cinders, the first thing that came to mind was God's destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah - sorry folks, that's just what I thought of. With all the crap being sold to us these days by Hollywood liberals and wealthy know-it-all hypocrites, combined with the daily moonbattery exhibited by the socialist libtards, atheistic humanists and leftist politicians in that state (Schwarzenegger included), part of me has to wonder if the Good Lord has a hand in this. No, on second thought, I take that back. I know He has a hand in this. Once again, don't get me wrong here, bad things happen to good folks every day (I'm living proof of that), but fire has long been know as a primary form of God's purification of man for man's wickedness in society.
Regardless of who is affected by this hell on on earth, I do pray for them. Quite frankly, you would be very surprised if you knew those who I've prayed for over the years. My point in telling you all this is to make you aware that purification through fire is also a time for rebirth. I firmly believe this to be true in regard to ALL natural and even some man made disasters. Perhaps I just see it as God's way of reminding us of our mortality, how vulnerable we truly are and how we are always and continually at His mercy.
One of the few things I can say that makes me feel good about living where I do is the fall time scenery here is one of the highlights of my year. Unlike the citiots (city folk that are as dumb as a bag of rocks when out in the country), I get to enjoy the beautiful views in this neck of the woods everyday. When the trees start turning colors in the fall time, Mamma and I like to pile the family in the car and go for scenic drives.
On Saturday we drove up to the Shawangunks as we do every year to take in the views. The first image was taken in Pine Bush, NY, only 5 minutes from my house. It shows Shawangunk mountain range in the background which is just over the Orange County border into Ulster County. This low mountain range stretches from Port Jervis (where NY, NJ, and PA meet) up to Kingston (roughly half way up the Hudson).
*click the image in order to view it full scale*
Once we reach the top on the opposite side of the mountain, we stop at the scenic overlook to enjoy a breathtaking view of the foothills of the Catskill Mountains with the Neversink Valley below. If you look on the right side of the picture, you can see the Catskills off in the distance.
*click the image in order to view it full scale*
Just so you know, almost 16 years ago I proposed to my wife on top of the cliffs located behind me in relation to where the camera is positioned. Someday I'll scan and post a couple of pictures from that little excursion.
I am pleased to learn that there are some art critics left in this world with a good head on their shoulders and the common sense to know what an ignorant and evil POS SOB Che Guevara really was.
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - A glass monument to revolutionary icon Ernesto "Che" Guevara was shot up and destroyed less than two weeks after it was unveiled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's government.
Images of the 8-foot-tall glass plate bearing Guevara's image, now toppled and shattered, were shown Friday on state television, which said the entire country "repudiated" the vandalism.
The monument on an Andean mountain highway near the city of Merida was unveiled Oct. 8 by Vice President Jorge Rodriguez and Cuba's ambassador to Venezuela to mark the 40th anniversary of Guevara's death.
Chavez venerates Guevara as a model socialist for all Venezuelans. He named a state-funded adult education program "Mission Che Guevara," and murals of the iconic revolutionary have become a common sight in Venezuela.
Police said they had yet to identify those responsible. The Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional published a copy of what it said was a flier found by the monument signed by the previously unknown "Paramo Patriotic Front."
"We don't want any monument to Che, he isn't an example for our children," the flier read. It called Guevara a "cold-blooded killer" and said the government should raise a monument in Chavez's hometown of Sabaneta, in the nearby lowland plains, if it wants to commemorate the Argentine-born revolutionary.
*snip*
Wanna know more about how ignorant and evil this RCBMF (ratcommiebastardmotherfucker) Che Guevara really was?
Thank you folks for hanging in there until I got back. Last week was a minor hell for me but I'm glad to say that things worked out and it's time once again to get back to business at hand. The first thing I wanted to do when I got back was to update the jukebox with more of my favorite Zappa tunes. I've been going through the rest of the albums I had and realized that I hadn't even posted half of what I considered to be his most memorable performances... not to mention more of the stuff he did with Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet). I figured that since I was pulling out and dusting off the collection, I might as well do a thorough job of it, pull together all my favorites and throw it out there for your listening enjoyment. WOW, what a trip down memory lane! It'll probably take me a little while longer to get through it all so for now it's still a work in progress. As I go through each album, I'll continue to update the jukebox.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED SERVICE TO YOUR COUNTRY. YOU ARE INDEED A TRUE PATRIOT! GOD BLESS YOU!!!
I know I'm supposed to be taking care of other business until next Thursday, but I was so appreciative of this man's actions that it compelled me to offer my most sincere gratitude. I only wish we had more like him.
Just wanted to let you all know that I will be absent probably until next Thursday, 10/11/2007. I've got some pressing issues that need to be addressed and need the time to straighten things out. Not to worry, I'm in good health and no, they're not throwing me in jail... least not yet anyway :)
Also, I've been putting together a new selection of music for the MoFiZiX MuZiX jukebox. Hopefully I'll have it all together by time I return. Until then, you good folks will have to hold the fort.
MOSCOW -- The chief of Russia's space forces on Thursday said Moscow would have to retaliate if others deploy weapons in space -- a stern warning to the United States.
While Col.-Gen. Vladimir Popovkin did not name any specific country, he was clearly referring to U.S. plans for space-based weapons, which the Kremlin had vociferously opposed.
"We don't want to wage a war in space, we don't want to gain dominance in space, but we won't allow any other nation to dominate space," Popovkin said in televised remarks. "If any country deploys weapons in space, then the laws of warfare are such that retaliatory weapons are certain to appear."
President Vladimir Putin has criticized U.S. plans for space-based weapons, saying it could trigger a new arms race.
When China tested an anti-satellite missile in January, Putin said that the move was a response to U.S. plans for space-based weapons.
Russia and China have strongly pushed for an international agreement banning space weapons, but their proposals have been stymied by the United States.
"It's necessary to legalize the game rules in space," Popovkin said. He warned that the complexity of space weapons could trigger a war.
*snip*
Honestly, just who did you think is really controlling the chess pieces?
POSTED: 3:53 pm EDT September 24, 2007 UPDATED: 10:19 pm EDT September 24, 2007
Back behind the towering corn is a message that can only be seen from the air.
It is one of the most infamous symbols of hate -- a swastika -- cut into acres of cornfields in Washington Township, Mercer County.
A New Jersey State Police helicopter on a routine maintenance mission made the discovery Friday.
The swastika was located off of Hankins Road, near where similar swastikas were found in July 1998 and June 1999.
No arrests were made in the previous cases.
Investigators found that the most recent swastika appeared to have been hand-cut and covered an area of several acres.
"This should be in the past, and we should have learned from our mistakes, and to bring up something that brings back such awful memories, I think, is disgusting," said Joe Pica, whose property is one of many that border the fields.
Monday, neighbors said they hope it was kids who didn't know any better.
As a traditionalist Catholic living in America, I consider myself someone who stands apart from many others in this country who are appearing more and more as Catholics in name only or CINOs. I find it appalling, that many of them think most priests are pedophiles, priests should be allowed to marry, women should be priests, all war and capital punishment is evil, God is excepting of homosexuality, and human life doesn't really begin until childbirth. I also find it equally disturbing when I hear them rag about how Pope Benedict XVI is some right wing nazi who is unsympathetic to progressive Catholic views. Frankly speaking, Catholicism should have never evolved into its present day format, but what liberal Catholics are failing to realize is that 40 years ago, Fr. Joseph Ratzinger was instrumental in orchestrating the progressive transformation of the Church known as the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, or Vatican II.
Even though Pope Benedict has said that Vatican II did not accomplish what he originally intended, he is determined to hold fast to the new dogmatic principals.
Well, it appears that "God's Rottweiler" has for some time now been espousing philosophies which leave me a bit unnerved and without proper clarification might cause an even larger rift between conservative capitalists and the socialists within the Church.
The Pope is expected to use his first address to the United Nations to deliver a powerful warning over climate change in a move to adopt protection of the environment as a "moral" cause for the Catholic Church and its billion-strong following.
The New York speech is likely to contain an appeal for sustainable development, and it will follow an unprecedented Encyclical (a message to the wider church) on the subject, senior diplomatic sources have told The Independent.
It will act as the centrepiece of a US visit scheduled for next April – the first by Benedict XVI, and the first Papal visit since 1999 – and round off an environmental blitz at the Vatican, in which the Pope has personally led moves to emphasise green issues based on the belief that climate change is affecting the poorest people on the planet, and the principle that believers have a duty to "protect creation".
What can I say? I love my Church and I am committed to following its teachings, but this latest directive from the Pope is leaving a horrible taste of sulfur in my mouth. Enviro-mental-illness is typically a leftist agenda and to hear this guy come out in defense of "green" issues in this fashion is literally scaring the bejezus out of me. I mean, WTF? Is my beloved Pope being demoniacally possessed by Algore???
Doesn't the Pope realize that capitalism is the economic powerhouse which fuels charitable contributions in the first place? Doesn't the Pope know how his directives will be used by the environmental propagandists to push their godless and socialist agendas? Doesn't the Pope realize that by working to change the hearts of men consumed by greed, he can promote compassionate capitalism which in turn can help others to help themselves instead of living the rest of their lives as slaves to welfare and entitlement systems of socialism?
Pope Benedict XVI should instead be making it clear that socialism without God at the center is nothing more than atheistic communism which seeks to enslave the human race!
I can understand if he's concerned that humans should be more charitable and I can understand if he's concerned that humans should be more conscious of conserving natural resources. As I have said in the past; I am a conservationist, not an environmentalist. The conservationist is mindful of not trashing his surroundings or squandering its resources. I believe in sound and practical environmental management. I am dead set against littering. I also believe in giving back to the earth what I take. But to suggest that I or even the largest corporation on earth can have any impact on altering global climate trends is pure folly! When you think of the levels of carbon dioxide man contributes to our atmosphere compared to that which comes from volcanoes and all the oceans around the world, how can anyone possibly think that by our efforts, we can make any significant change?
Here, allow me to share with you the show that has pissed off the enviro-mental-patients, blown away the theory that man-made CO2 has anything to do with global warming and that all this enviro-mental-madness is absolute bunk...
Not surprisingly, all the nut cases who worship at the church of Algore have issued a fatwah pledging holy jihad against the scientists and the makers of this television series. The internet is full of condemnation over it and the lies being thrown out there to discredit the documentary speak volumes on the character of the people against it.
Ultimately, what I see going on here is another misguided attempt by the Church to increase the numbers of faithful by appealing to the trend of the day. This is not unlike the attempt that was made back 40 years ago when Vatican II was instituted. By loosening the orthodox principles on which our Catechism was founded, you inevitably risk sacrificing the strength of the Church as a whole.
After posting about John McCain's hypocracy in his comments about Rudy's Second Amendment stance, I happened to be reading a post over at SondraK's site which reminded me about Fred Thompson's support of McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform.
Fred Thompson finally made clear his position on the statist campaign finance restrictions embodied in the McCain-Feingold bill. And conservatives are clearly not going to be pleased.
When the former star of TV’s “Law and Order†series and newly-minted presidential candidate spoke to reporters on the porch of the Grand Hotel here, I asked Thompson whether he was proud of his role in enacting the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation in ‘01.
“Yes," replied the former Tennessee senator without hesitation.
To be honest, I completely forgot about his involvement in getting that legislation passed through the Senate. In researching this flub on Thompson's part, I found a post over at Michelle Malkin's site, HotAir.com, that has an interview between Fred Thompson and Laura Ingraham, where Laura grills Fred over his support of the McCain-Feingold bill.
As for the rest of the article from Human Events, Thompson goes on to admit that the reform bill did not produce the results he expected and states that he intends to revisit the details of that piece of legislation which many conservatives agree was one of the worst infringements on America's right to freedom of speech in recent history.
..."You will recall that the central part of the legislation was getting rid of soft money [from the political process]." He then went on to remind me that he came from a background in the private sector and, in that sector, it would have been thought unseemly for "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to be poured in to influence someone's decision. In the public arena, "it got to be the norm" because of the soft money, upon which there were no limits for donations to the two major political parties." The contributors, he said, would then, "harass legislators before they vote on anything. This was not a good idea." Continued
Thompson went on to remind me that it was his amendment to McCain-Feingold that, "raised the hard money index" and he was also proud of that.
If there is anything in McCain-Feingold that "has not worked out," he went to say, it is "placing limitations on ads [by independent groups] in the [political] process. Thompson hinted that he would support legislation to change this, since "the Supreme Court has better things to do with its time than hear cases on unfair limitation." (Earlier this year, by a decision of 5-to-4, the Supreme Court struck down parts of McCain-Feingold that dealt with limiting ads by independent groups.) He also said that the landmark campaign finance legislation he held shepherd to passage (and which President Bush signed in '01) has created a larger bureaucracy to enforce regulations and "that part hasn't worked out."
*snip*
I do hope that he is sincere about fixing that ridiculous law and hopefully he will avoid throwing stones in glass houses or slipping in any hypocritical piles of dog shit as well. That being said, IMO, Fred would still make a damned good and strong leader.
