Mount Wilson Threatened by Fire

Historic Mount Wilson Observatory in California is being threatened by wildfires. The mountain staff have been evacuated as the Station fire closes in.

Mount Wilson is a great old observatory. It is home to the historic 100 inch Hooker Telescope. It was the largest in the world when it was built in the early 1900's and played pivotal role in Edwin Hubble's observations that proved the universe is expanding and led to the Big Bang Theory. Mount Wilson houses several other telescopes as well, including the CHARA array which does some very high resolution interferometry.

You can view the observatory webcam as long as it functions. I am embedding the current image.

Firefighters are on the scene and hopefully can save this historic site.

Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.

iPhone Commercial for Obsessive Ex-Boyfriends

There should also be ex-girlfriends' apps to kick the jerk's ass.

TNT's ETOC 2009 - RJ Gritter - Freestyle Sequence

That is jaw dropping. It's hard to believe that some of that is even real.

Provided courtesy of a fellow blogger.

LA Times Refutes Journal Times Report

One of Gery Woelfel's sports columns in the Journal Times received a response from the Los Angeles Times which labeled his report "not only outdated, but absolutely inaccurate."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2009/08/report-clippers-in-serious-conversations-with-ramon-sessions.html

It has been suggested that perhaps Rick Parrish, publisher of the Journal Times, will want to contact his attorneys to see if there has been a copyright violation.

Personally, I think it's OK to say anything you want as long as you don't call someone a skank.

Will The Charges Against Becker Be Dismissed Thursday Today?

Bumped for timeliness.



I say yes. If I had money, I'd bet on it. Lame duck Judge Simanek will rule the search of the hard drive illegal and toss out all of the charges except those related to asking a city employee to fix a personal computer.

That is the way it must go down in order to save face and protect the guilty. And just like sex predators preach to their prey, we will be told that it is time to let it go, move on, get over it, etc. Deny the past and bury it. That is what pervs do and what Racine has done for generations. Then it explodes in rage and perversion of its own, and everyone stands around mouthing, "Why?"

Party on!

----------

UDATE: Becker's motions to have charges dismissed because of an allegedly illegal search of his computer's hard drive were denied by Judge Simanek today. The judge also denied Becker's request for a jury from outside of Racine county.

Full story here: http://www.journaltimes.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_d8d114a0-933c-11de-a99a-001cc4c002e0.html

Eating crow here:


Denying the jury request could come back to haunt us. They should let him have an out-of-town jury, or, better yet, just change the venue, to protect against any charge of impropriety. Anyone who sees the evidence, and isn't on the take, would convict him.

Installing a Husband

This had been circulating the internet, author unknown. I found it at Dvorak's Blog and will repost for fun.

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelery applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as NBA 5.0, NFL 3.0 and Golf Clubs 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.

Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?

Signed,

Desperate

***************************************************************

DEAR DESPERATE

First, keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system.

Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme. html and try to download Tears 6.2 and do not forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed, Husband1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewellery 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1.
Please note that Beer 6. 1 is a very bad program that will download the Tooting and Snoring Loudly Beta.

In addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend: Cooking 3.0.

Good Luck !

Tech Support

ISN'T THIS A GREAT USE OF TAX DOLLARS

Generally I am not good at talking about politics, but this deserves watching!

Anyone coming to the Paul Ryan listening session in Sturtevant?

If so, stop and introduce yourself. Id love to meet ya in person! Village Hall at 11:15. Be early. Should be interesting. If you need directions, let me know!

Jackson Brothers to Star in TV Reality Series

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8221815.stm

Pardon me while I go puke.

Dear Madame Zoltar

NOTE: Madame Zoltar was caught in some wind shear while astral projecting yesterday off the shore of a Bahamas island. She suffered no major injuries, but thought it best to wait another day or so before attempting to return to the mainland. She was unable to write her blog for us this week and sends on her deepest regrets. I know that I speak for all of the JT Irregulars when I say that we wish Madame Zoltar a speedy and full recovery, and we look forward to hearing from her as soon as possible

The Crater of Eternal Darkness

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) continues to return spectacular images. The one featured today might seem like an odd choice as it is almost totally black.

This is Erlanger Crater near the Moon's north pole. It's diameter is about 10km (6 miles) Unlike Earth, the Moon's axis is tilted only about 1.5 degrees. Therefore, the Sun never gets more than a couple of degrees high in the sky near the poles. If you have a crater with nice high walls, there are places where the Sun never shines. The bottom of these craters have temperatures that hang out around -375F (or about 50 Kelvin).

Why do we care about dark spots? In these very dark craters that do not receive Sunlight, water ice can happily sit and wait for oh, say, humans to land nearby and have a ready source of water. Exploring crater such as this is one of the reasons we launched LRO.

Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.

What Grade Do I Want to Get In "Stupidity"?

Do you want to get an A meaning you are very good at stupidity or an F meaning you are lousy at it? Occidental College offers a course in stupidity. From the catalog...

"180. STUPIDITY.

Stupidity is neither ignorance nor organicity, but rather, a corollary of knowing and an element of normalcy, the double of intelligence rather than its opposite. It is an artifact of our nature as finite beings and one of the most powerful determinants of human destiny. Stupidity is always the name of the Other, and it is the sign of the feminine. This course in Critical Psychology follows the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Gilles Deleuze, and most recently, Avital Ronell, in a philosophical examination of those operations and technologies that we conduct in order to render ourselves uncomprehending. Stupidity, which has been evicted from the philosophical premises and dumbed down by psychometric psychology, has returned in the postmodern discourse against Nation, Self, and Truth and makes itself felt in political life ranging from the presidency to Beevis and Butthead. This course examines stupidity."

Yeah...um, duh, me can't comment on that!

Are we really turning the corner?

I don't think so. We see the news that we're rounding the bend but when you look at reality, things don't add up. Sure, after a three billion infusion for used car trade ins at the dealerships, it "looks" like we've gotten over that hump. Now that the glut of unsold new cars is pared down, will we see the factories start back up churning out more? I think not as it would only create another glut. We didn't create jobs with this give away, we got rid of a portion of the glut.

Home sales. HOME SALES ARE UP! shout the headlines. WOW, this is good thing we say... that is until we look at the home prices of the sold houses. Oh my, but that is not a good thing to do. I did a search of MLS listings and the house prices on the unsold units are in free fall. It is no wonder house "sales" are up. When you list a house for 1/4 to 1/3 of it's assessed value, it will eventually sell. The abandoned house next door sold for 102k four years ago. It has been lowered again and now lists at 49.9k. A house on Blane going for just 52k has the notation "70k under assessed value" yet sits unsold.

Businesses are still laying off. Where people gotthe bucks to buy all the new cars is beyond me. What they are trying to do is fool folks in to thinking times are fat once again and in that way entice them into consuming and spending like we did. Sorry, only governments that print their own money are foolish enough to do so. The rest of us will continue to tighten our belts and hunker down while we wait for the otber shoe to drop. And best believe it, that shoe will drop.

Organization and Housekeeping

To all authors, especially authors who have sidebar status:

Please begin to use the label feature.
(located on the bottom bar of the body of your message)

Readers can then click that label and find all of the previous related posts; A simple, yet neat and useful feature. Helps facilitate finding blogs that you know were posted but have made their way into the archives.

Here We Go Again

WH Warns Massive Swine Flu Spread

Dire Report Says 50 Percent Infection Rate, Up to 90,000 Deaths Possible This Flu Season From H1N1

"Up to half of the population of the U.S. could come down with the swine flu and 90,000 could die this season, according to a dire report from the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology."

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=8403214

Maybe I'll just start drinking again . . .

Farm Paintings

What I like about these paintings are the combination of the old and the new. What I mean is, the old farm houses, etc and the new kids. Looking at the cloths of the kids some are even wearing “T” shirts.

Click here to visit Robert’s Web Site

How to Unlock a Car

Health Care Plan

To prepare for the new healthcare reform package, we felt it necessary to develop a new medical symbol that truly depicts the Health Care Plan you will be getting!

Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity Online

I just found out that the planetarium show Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity is now available on Hulu. This show takes you through a lot of the science
behind black holes with some computer simulations of what would happen if you feel in one. I know the effect isn't quite the same on a small computer screen as it is on a big dome with digital projectors, but it is still worth checking out.

Goat

I just read a story about a woman in Winona Minnesota that went to a store, and told the clerk she had a goat in her trunk. The clerk went out to look, and she had a PURPLE painted goat with the number 4 carved in it's fur, and was taking it to the butcher. He called Animal Control, and they took the poor goat with them. That's darn near as bad as picking your dog up by the ears.

Racine Uncovered Merges with Racine News

http://racinenews.org/2009/08/24/racine-uncovered-merges-with-racine-news/

This should be a great mix. More Racine news. More people informed about what is happening in the area. More voices to be heard.

Congratulations to Racine News and Racine Uncovered.

Rainbows...I Have Got to Get a Polarizing Filter!

I was outside as a storm was rolling in and saw a nice rainbow.

I was looking at it with my sunglasses on...I have polarized sunglasses. Rainbows are polarized so you get a very different view of them if you rotate your sunglasses 90 degrees. I should get a polarizing filter for my camera, but I don't have one so I just held up my sunglasses in front of the camera.

So you can see the rainbow nicely. I rotated the sunglasses 90 degrees and snapped the next photo mere seconds later (no visible changes took place in the rainbow if you looked at it with your eyes).

Note how the rainbow almost totally disappears! What's up here?

Okay, rainbows always appear opposite the Sun (this is looking east as the Sun was in the west). Blue light slows down more than red light when it passes into the raindrop and bends more so the blue and red light (and all the other colors) get separated. This process is called dispersion. The light then reflects off the back of the raindrop and heads toward you (and undergoes a second round of dispersion when it leaves the raindrop). The angle of reflection necessary to see a rainbow is about 42 degrees.

When light reflects off of a surface, it becomes polarized. If the angle is right, it can become almost completely polarized. For rainbows, the polarization is about 94% for the primary rainbow (and 90% for the secondary rainbow, when visible). By turning my polarizing filter so it is exactly perpendicular to the angle of polarization of the rainbow, I can block almost all the light at least all that my camera can detect!)

Next time I am at a photo shop, I am buying a polarizing filter for my camera.

Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.

Implants have serial numbers?

Jennifer Fiores was murdered presumably by her millionair husband. This gold digger had a whirl wind courtship by a reality TV star and quick annulment right after. Whoever murdered her, cut off her fingers, and pulled her teeth to stimy identification. The cops had no trouble though.


"Her teeth had been pulled out and her fingers cut off, apparently to impede her identification. Investigators used the serial numbers on her breast implants to identify her, said Farrah Emami, spokeswoman for the Orange County district attorney's office."