A view into the mind of Jason

Welcome to Evilness
Friday, March 29 2024 @ 09:26 MDT

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Who knew that stuff you learned in school...

Astronomy...would be useful someday. Well in all seriousness I did, but this made some of the theory a little less theoretical. My bi-monthly edition of SkyNews showed up shortly after the end of the postal strike with a beautiful Hubble shot of the interacting galaxies known as Arp 273 (click on the photo for the large version from the Hubble site). Looking at the photo, things look strangely familiar...
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The Stupid - It Burns!

US PoliticsEven by the standard for stupid set up by conservatives in both the US and Canada, this takes the cake. An Arizona state senator (Republican - naturally) singlehandedly sets back her own agenda by pointing a loaded pistol at a reporter, in the state assembly building!
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More dying suns

AstronomyBefore my premature bug-out due to severe weather this weekend, I did manage to do some imaging. Sticking with the theme related to the Ring nebula photos posted here another bright summer planetary nebula M27 - the Dumbbell nebula was the target on Saturday night.
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Harper's war on the media...

Canadian Politics...or Terry Milewsk learns that to Harper and his followers, the only balanced reporting is that which parrots the propaganda put out by the PMO. Now I don't think that Terry is that naive, but the exchange between him and former Tory PMO Chiefs of Staff Guy Giorno and Norman Spector is illuminating in that it shows the true feelings of Harper and his minions towards a free and democratic society.
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Ring in the sky.

AstronomySo having my CCD imager back from the shop some time ago I've been itching to use it again but was delayed by poor weather and ironically observations for one of my courses. Well my course ended at the beginning of June and Friday night was clear for a change. This allowed me to do some tests to help determine the linear range of the imager (not exciting work) but also to take some images of M57, the Ring Nebula in Lyra. It also let me test an auto-guiding setup which allowed imaging times of 60 seconds, twice what was possible without the auto-guiding.
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You know a Conservative Government is out of line when...

Canadian Politics... the editorials in the Calgary Herald, a paper that is usually a mouthpiece for the Harper Conservatives is taking them to task for an action. In this case the Herald editorial writers, normally people who haven't met a union they couldn't slam, are calling out the Harper Tories for ordering the striking Air Canada and locked out Canada Post workers back to work only hours after the strikes happened.
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The Sun is Turning Off!

AstronomyOk not really, but the solar dynamo looks like it's going to be quiet for the next few years. What this means is the current 11 year sunspot cycle, number 24, will likely peak at a lower set of sunspot numbers than the previous two cycles. Further, the decline in the Sun's magnetic field would seem to indicate that the next cycle, number 25 may be very small if not happening at all.
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Why what we do to the environment matters not to nature.

Science!With the climate change debate raging on, despite what the science is actually saying, there is a need to look at the long view. Now I don't mean a short long term of a couple of hundred or even thousand years. I mean an actual long view in the millions of years. So what will climate change mean in the long term? Well not much.
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Stelmach blames teachers for layoffs.

Alberta PoliticsLame duck Alberta premier Ed Stelmach, showing the typical Tory ability to lie their face off, decided yesterday to blame Alberta's teachers for their own impending layoffs. Stating that the Alberta Teachers' Association refused to take pay cuts, Stelmach then said that that was the reason for teacher layoffs. Stelmach is so off the mark on this one that his own education minister has contradicted him. So what does this all mean?
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It's election day - VOTE!

Canadian PoliticsGet out and vote. If you want Harper and his cronies out of office, you need to get out and vote. If you like Harper and his cronies, you need to get out and vote. People all over the world are dyeing for the right to vote, the least you can do is get off your butt and spend 30 minutes of your day to cast a ballot. Note sure where to vote? Go here.