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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 24, 2018 18:30:57 GMT
And yet just this morning on the news, they were saying that about 2000 exoplanets have been discovered so far, and they were dismayed that it is so few, considering the size of the galaxy.
Jeez, I wouldn't worry about that before we have any sort of plan of getting to them.
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Post by patricklondon on Aug 25, 2018 5:12:19 GMT
It is just a ragged rock. Are you sure it isn't the rugged rock that the ragged rascals run round and round?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2018 15:13:39 GMT
MIDSUMMER MARDI GRAS this evening!!!!!!! (Kerouac's favorite New Orleans fete!!! )
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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 25, 2018 15:44:38 GMT
Will you be wearing clothes?
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 25, 2018 15:52:34 GMT
Oh gawd ~ she'd gonna be on the loose!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2018 16:18:13 GMT
Will you be wearing clothes? SKIMP ALWAYS PREVAILS!!!!! (and, yes I'll be on the loose but more of a "prance". I can't keep up with these youngins' anymore!!)
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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 25, 2018 19:11:00 GMT
We need pictures!!!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2018 20:27:54 GMT
If you go to nola.com and Facebook Krewe of O.A.K. tomorrow and google in Midsummer Mardi Gras, they will be all over the place by professional photographers.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 25, 2018 22:03:10 GMT
I sort of have a fondness for Pluto because my dad told me how amazed and intrigued he was when it was discovered. He would have been eleven at the time. I was amazed that a planet had been discovered within recent memory. And I have a fondness for Pluto because one of the first biographies I read was of Clyde Tombaugh the farmer-astronomer who discovered it. www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pluto-discovered
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 25, 2018 22:46:19 GMT
Your fondness is of a higher intellectual order than my fondness! (I can't read your link because *&%^# History Today always navigates me to a Spanish language home page instead of the linked article. )
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Post by Kimby on Aug 25, 2018 23:18:16 GMT
Pluto discovered
Pluto, once believed to be the ninth planet, is discovered at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, by astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh.
The existence of an unknown ninth planet was first proposed by Percival Lowell, who theorized that wobbles in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune were caused by the gravitational pull of an unknown planetary body. Lowell calculated the approximate location of the hypothesized ninth planet and searched for more than a decade without success. However, in 1929, using the calculations of Powell and W.H. Pickering as a guide, the search for Pluto was resumed at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona. On February 18, 1930, Tombaugh discovered the tiny, distant planet by use of a new astronomic technique of photographic plates combined with a blink microscope. His finding was confirmed by several other astronomers, and on March 13, 1930–the anniversary of Lowell’s birth and of William Hershel’s discovery of Uranus–the discovery of Pluto was publicly announced.
With a surface temperature estimated at approximately -360 Fahrenheit, Pluto was appropriately given the Roman name for the god of the underworld in Greek mythology. Pluto’s average distance from the sun is nearly four billion miles, and it takes approximately 248 years to complete one orbit. It also has the most elliptical and tilted orbit of any planet, and at its closest point to the sun it passes inside the orbit of Neptune, the eighth planet.
After its discovery, some astronomers questioned whether Pluto had sufficient mass to affect the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. In 1978, James Christy and Robert Harrington discovered Pluto’s only known moon, Charon, which was determined to have a diameter of 737 miles to Pluto’s 1,428 miles. Together, it was thought that Pluto and Charon formed a double-planet system, which was of ample enough mass to cause wobbles in Uranus’ and Neptune’s orbits. In August 2006, however, the International Astronomical Union announced that Pluto would no longer be considered a planet, due to new rules that said planets must “clear the neighborhood around its orbit.” Since Pluto’s oblong orbit overlaps that of Neptune, it was disqualified.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 25, 2018 23:32:31 GMT
Hey! Thank you, Kimby. Most interesting!
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 27, 2018 13:50:10 GMT
It's the 50th anniversary of that amazing Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The U.S. has such wonderful political parties!
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Post by rikita on Aug 28, 2018 8:33:15 GMT
30 years today since the airshow disaster at Ramstein, killing 70 people and injuring up to 1000 (depending on source). there are lots of photos etc. on the news here right now ...
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2018 11:27:22 GMT
It's been 13 years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Mississippi Gulf Coast and subsequently breached the levees in New Orleans and flooded the city and then some...
Not a day goes by since then when some reference is not made to "her".
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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 29, 2018 12:54:17 GMT
Were the levees not adequately maintained?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2018 13:03:10 GMT
Were the levees not adequately maintained? I don't even know where to begin or for that matter end in reply to this Mick. Let's just say it was the ultimate cluster f*ck waiting to happen and evidence of the potential for what did ultimately happen is well documented and actually predicted.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 29, 2018 13:37:28 GMT
Man messed with Mother Nature by channelizing the big river, then building cities in the delta which is normally nature’s way of flood control. Then barrier islands of protective mangroves were eliminated, allowing storm surges higher and farther inland. The levees gave people a false sense of security. And made things worse for some wards when they failed.
That’s my non-New Orleanean take on it.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 29, 2018 13:38:43 GMT
I remember one famous quote -- was it by Bush or by Brown? -- "no, New Orleans is not filling up like a bowl" -- said at the time that New Orleans was filling up like a bowl.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 29, 2018 13:45:42 GMT
Switching gears. The King of Pop would have turned 60 today! Parties celebrating Michael Jackson will be happening without him.
One of my surprise favorite movies:
BTW, this month the Eagles greatest hits album superseded Thriller as the best-selling album of all time.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2018 14:34:14 GMT
I remember one famous quote -- was it by Bush or by Brown? -- "no, New Orleans is not filling up like a bowl" -- said at the time that New Orleans was filling up like a bowl. One key word that was omitted was like a GUMBO bowl...
Kimby, much of what you say is true but, not totally accurate. What you do say is much more of a future foreboding I'm afraid to say.
What happened with the levee breeches had more to do with substandard maintenance of the existing levees that were no nowhere near the Mighty Mississippi but in outlying areas that had been developed way beyond optimum protection at that time although, very neglected by the Army Corpse Corps of Engineers. People who reside along the Mississippi River are super well protected as the ACOE has made the levees super reinforced and it has always been considered the "high ground", or "the isle of denial", and "the sliver by the river" which is where the city was founded and built upon. The areas of devastation were originally swamps, built on top of landfill. One of the major reasons why we bought our property where we did.
The ACOE headquarters sit atop the Mississippi River levee about a quarter of a mile from where we live.
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 3, 2018 10:35:11 GMT
On September 3, 1783, the United States became independent upon the signature of the Treaty of Paris.
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Post by patricklondon on Sept 9, 2018 10:05:25 GMT
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 11, 2018 17:43:24 GMT
New raw video from the terrible day.
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 11, 2018 17:47:55 GMT
17 years later and it's still hard to watch.
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Post by Kimby on Sept 11, 2018 20:28:53 GMT
On this date in 1941, ground was broken for the Pentagon. Exactly 60 years to the day later, AlQaida terrorists crashed a plane into it.
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Post by lagatta on Oct 4, 2018 14:13:17 GMT
The mass murder at the WTC (and other places) was the first major event I watched in real time on my first internet-connected computer. On to a more pleasant event. Today is the 4th of October, the feast day of Saint Francis and WORLD ANIMAL DAY, by no means restricted to Catholics and other Christians. www.worldanimalday.org.uk/ Not only for our non-human animal companions, but also for the protection of wild animals great and small, and improving the welfare of farm and working animals. I studied in Perugia, so close to Assisi that each hill town has a clear view of one another (also handy for waging largely symbolic battles)and many Buddhists and other people of non-Christian heritage travelled there to pay their respects to the Saint (as well as Saint Claire). Perugia, a small town, is of course horribly overtouristed, though it isn't as lugubrious as some of the other religious destinations anyporters have described in photos and words, as few people are travelling there seeking a cure. There is also an annual peace march between Perugia and Assisi.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 4, 2018 14:22:00 GMT
Today is the 60th anniversary of the 5th republic (constitution) in France. For at least 10 years, some people (almost exclusively on the left) have been clamouring for a 6th republic because constitutions need to be rewritten for modern conditions from time to time. Otherwise they get overloaded with amendments and cancellations of amendments.
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Post by Kimby on Oct 4, 2018 20:05:33 GMT
I’d be fearful over what would happen if the US constitution were revised now. Too many nut-jobs in America today...
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 4, 2018 20:22:51 GMT
Yes, there's a right time and a wrong time to revise constitutions. Last time was by Charles de Gaulle, who often had questionable ideas of how a country should be run but nevertheless a sufficient amount of integrity. The biggest change between the 4th and the 5th republic was election of the president by direct universal suffrage. That might be a good start of a new American constitution. (Unfortunately, election of senators in France is still through an electoral college. )
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