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Raise the debt ceiling already!
Here is the email I sent my US representative Dave Camp:
Dear Mr. Camp,
I am writing to you to urge you to vote to raise the debt ceiling. Preferably with no strings attached. The amount of hate coming from the extreme right towards Mr. Obama must be more that just his politics. Heck he’s farther right than I am, and I consider myself a moderate.
We cannot continue to be a great country by starving the government, the poor and elderly. I know “investing” is a bad word to you Republicans, but America must invest in jobs, our infrastructure, and our future or our drop from a first world to a third world country will be rapid. To do this we must spend and if necessary raise taxes.
Get on with it, Sir.
Respectfully,
Bob Moler
I live in the politically red side of the State of Michigan, where the joke is, on the shores of Grand Traverse Bay, “A view of the bay is worth half your pay.”
It’s no joke.
07/26/11 – Ephemeris – The Milky Way
Tuesday, July 26th. The sun rises at 6:22. It’ll be up for 14 hours and 53 minutes, setting at 9:15. The moon, 3 days past last quarter, will rise at 3:01 tomorrow morning.
The Milky Way, which is rising to pass overhead later in the evening is what we see of a huge structure of stars of which we are a part. We call it the Milky Way galaxy. It’s a spiral galaxy with a straight bar of stars through the center, a barred spiral galaxy about a hundred thousand light years across. It’s part of a small cluster of galaxies called the Local Group. Besides these three dozen galaxies, the Milky Way has small satellite galaxies orbiting it. The largest of these are the two Magellanic clouds seen from the southern hemisphere of earth. Even now a tiny galaxy is colliding with our galaxy. We can penetrate to the center of our own galaxy in infrared light, but not visible light from our location 26,000 light years away.
* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
The Milky Way 360 degrees - Wikipedia
This is a mosaic of photographs showing the Milky Way as seen from the earth. The summer Milky Way we see is from just right of center to the left edge.
07/25/11 – Ephemeris – The constellation Aquila the eagle
Note: Due to a bad cable modem, this program was not uploaded in time for broadcast. It will be repeated at a later date.
Monday, July 25th. The sun rises at 6:21. It’ll be up for 14 hours and 55 minutes, setting at 9:16. The moon, 2 days past last quarter, will rise at 2:10 tomorrow morning.
The southernmost star in the Summer Triangle of three bright stars is Altair, high in the south southeast in the evening. It’s in the head of the constellation Aquila the Eagle. Altair is flanked by two stars, the eagle’s shoulders, and farther out are the wing tips. Other stars to the lower right are in its body and a last three in its tail. Near the tail binoculars will show a fuzzy spot that telescopes show as a compact star cluster, sometimes called the Wild Duck Cluster for its nearly triangular shape. Aquila is flying northeastward through the Milky Way, where it is split in two by a cloud of gas and dust. According to mythology the Trojan boy Ganymede was taken to heaven at the behest of the god Zeus by this eagle.
* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 