Arthur C. Clarke

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I just read that he has died at age 90.

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What a wonderful scientist and writer. The concept of geostationary satellites (like are used for satellite TV) was his idea. Years ago.

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Really a true gentleman.

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LINK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Clarke

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Ordinary Everyday Murderers

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The excellent German publication Der Spiegel published an article today of such extraordinary importance that I have copied it in its entirety below. My Aunt was a delightful, wonderful lady. She was a medical student in Germany when WWII broke out. She told me on several occasions that the normal people had no idea what was happening to the Jews.

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--------------- Nazi Atrocities, Committed by Ordinary People
--------------------------------------------- By Georg Bönisch and Klaus Wiegrefe

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From doctors to opera singers, teachers to truant schoolchildren, the extermination of European Jews was the work of roughly 200,000 ordinary Germans and their helpers. Years of research -- not yet complete -- reveal how sane members of a modern society committed murder for an evil regime.
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Walter Mattner, a police secretary from Vienna, was there in October 1941 when 2,273 Jews were shot to death in Mogilyov in Belarus. He later wrote to his wife: "My hand was shaking a bit with the first cars. By the tenth car, I was aiming calmly and shooting dependably at the many women, children and babies. Bearing in mind that I have two babies at home, I knew that they would suffer exactly the same treatment, if not ten times as bad, at the hands of these hordes." After World War II, it was obvious to most observers that such acts could only have been committed by sadists and psychopaths, under orders from a handful of principal war criminals surrounding Adolf Hitler. It was a comforting way of looking at things, because it meant that ordinary people were not the real perpetrators.
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But the horrifying results of an opinion poll that the Americans conducted in their occupation zone in October 1945 could have raised doubts even then about the version of the story that blames everything on a few pathological criminals. Twenty percent of the respondents "agreed with Hitler's treatment of the Jews." Another 19 percent said that although they felt that his policies toward Jews were exaggerated, they were fundamentally correct.
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It took until the 1990s before historians and other experts embarked on a large-scale search for those men (and women) who carried out the Holocaust. The research isn't complete yet, but the results available to date are shocking.
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The researchers found that the perpetrators included both committed Nazis and people who had nothing to do with the Nazis. The murderers and their assistants included Catholics and Protestants, the old and the young, people with double doctorates and poorly educated members of the working class. And the percentage of psychopaths was not higher than the average in society as a whole.
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The number of perpetrators is now estimated at 200,000 Germans (and Austrians). They were police officers like Walter Mattner, concentration-camp personnel, members of the SS, or administrators. Another 200,000 Estonians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians and other foreigners also helped kill Jews, some because they were forced to do so and others voluntarily.
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Crimes of Conviction, Crimes of Excess
Like Satan in the Old Testament, evil had many faces. There were those who committed crimes out of conviction, the dedicated Nazis in the police force -- members of the SS and the military who, like Hitler, were convinced that the Jews were the root of all evil. Some committed their first murders in the 1920s and 1930s. There were also those who committed crimes of excess, taking advantage of the Jews' lack of rights in Eastern Europe to rape and steal. In Western Galicia, for example, members of the occupation police force would spend their free time shooting Jews in the ghetto or blackmailing them for their jewelry.
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There were those who just carried out orders from above, like Major Trapp of Reserve Police Battalion 101. According to witness testimony, Major Trapp was in tears when he ordered the shooting of 1,500 women, children and elderly Jews near Warsaw, all the while saying: "An order is an order!" In July 1942, his men drove the victims out of their houses, loaded them into trucks and took them to a remote clearing to be executed. They shot them in the head or in the back of the neck, and in the evenings the soldiers' uniforms were covered with bone fragments, brain matter and bloodstains.
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Just as there is usually more than one perpetrator, there is a host of reasons why perfectly normal men turn to murder: years of indoctrination, blind faith in leaders, a sense of duty and obedience, peer pressure, the downplaying of violence as a result of wartime experiences, not to mention the lust for Jewish property.
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One man who seemed to have no trouble switching from his desk to the massacres in the East was Dortmund native Walter Blume, born in 1906, the son of a teacher and a lawyer who completed the German equivalent of the bar examination with a poor grade of "adequate." Nevertheless, in 1932 Blume got a job as an assistant judge on the district court in his hometown.
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Blume's career in the Hitler regime started on March 1, 1933, shortly after the Nazis came to power. His first position was as head of the political division at the police headquarters in Dortmund. After joining the Nazi Party and the Storm Troopers (SA), he became head of the Nazi secret police, or Gestapo, in the eastern city of Halle, in Hannover and later in the capital Berlin. The main purpose of rapid rotation in high-ranking positions, typical of the Gestapo, was to provide opportunities to gather repressive experience.
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Starting on March 1, 1941, Blume headed the personnel department in Division I of the so-called Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office, or RSHA). His first assignment was to assemble suitable personnel for one of the murder commandos of the so-called Einsatzgruppen (Special Action Groups), a force consisting of roughly 3,000 men, known as the "Gestapo on Wheels." This group followed Hitler's army as it marched eastward and was charged with the immediate liquidation of "Jewish Bolshevism" and the "excision of radical elements."
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Blume himself led a unit known as Special Commando 7a, which was part of Einsatzgruppe B. According to Blume's own records, his unit killed roughly 24,000 people in Belarus and Russia between June and September 1941. A short time later, Blume returned to the RSHA, where he was promoted to the position of division head and SS banner leader. In August 1943, he went to Athens, where he and two associates of Adolf Eichmann organized the deportation of Greek Jews to the Auschwitz extermination camp.

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Blume was placed on trial in Nuremberg in September 1947, together with 22 other men, whose regular occupations qualified them as members of upper-class civil society. They included a dentist, a professor, an opera singer, a Protestant pastor, a teacher -- and a few journalists. Fourteen were sentenced to death, but only in four cases was the sentence carried out. US High Commissioner John McCloy pardoned the rest, including Blume, and they were gradually released from prison over the years. Blume went on to become a businessman.

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Most of the perpetrators were never punished. There have been 6,500 convictions to date, and only 1,200 of them were for murder or manslaughter.
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Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
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LINK: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,542245,00.html
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Ultravolet Light

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Light can be described by the length of its sine wave, just like radio waves can. Typically the human eye can see from 380 to 750 nanometers. Lots of other animals, reptiles, and insects can see perfectly well the colors that are beyond the range that humans can.
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Red is on the long wave part of the spectrum at approx 725 nm. And blue or purple is at the shorter wave length end of the spectrum around 400 nm.
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Beyond the blue or purple is the light which we cannot see (but lots of insects and animals can see). It is called ultraviolet light or UV. Some minerals have an interesting property: When they are illuminated with ultraviolet light (which is invisible to the human eye), they emit light in the part of the spectrum which is visible to humans. This is called fluorescence. If the visible light continues even after the UV light is shut off, this is known as phosphorescence.
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The cheap black lights that you can buy at Wal-Mart emit longwave UV light which has a wavelength of around 400 - 315 nm. This is also called UV-A. A good commercial light will typically emit light at 368 nm.
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You have to spend more to get a light which shines as shortwave UV about 280 - 100 nm. This is known as UV-C. It is germicidal and hazardous to your eyes. You need to wear glasses which stop the UV-C if you are going to be around it. 254 nm is the common wavelength of commercial lamps.
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Between LW and SW UV is UV-B or medium wave UV light. Many commercially available medium wave lights shine at 312 nm. It is so neat to look at minerals which fluoresce in 3 distinctly different colors when illuminated by each of the above colors of UV light. I now own two shortwave UV lamps made by Don Newsome of UV Systems. LINK: http://www.uvsystems.com/

I also have two Way Too Cool lamps made by William Gardner. LINK: http://www.fluorescents.com/uv.html
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The build quality is excellent from both manufacturers. I would recommend both. It has taken me about a year to come to this conclusion, but after using the lights from both companies under many different circumstances, I clearly think you get more for your money with the Way Too Cool lamps.
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Gasoline Prices

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Americans are worried. Really worried. Because gasoline prices have now exceeded $3.00 per gallon. And there is talk they may go as high as $4.00 a gallon within a year. I grew up in America. In high school I remember paying $0.299 per gallon. Its' a good thing gasoline was cheap too, because my '56 Chevy had two four barrel carburetors. Fuel economy was not a high priority in the 1960's.
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During the last half century I have lived in Europe twice. During the 1970's I lived in Germany for a few years. I was in the U.S. Army sitting in an office at 3d Armored Division Headquarters in Frankurt on the Main. My goal was to avoid being killed in Vietnam. Then later in my life I was the General Manager of the European Division of an American food processing company for 15 years. I early retired and moved back to America just over one year ago.
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This morning I built a quickie spreadsheet to convert British Pounds per Liter of petrol to U.S. Dollars per American Gallon of gasoline. Thanks to the wonders of communication technology and the internet, it was easy to determine from the BBC that in England the average price of unleaded is now over $8.45 per gallon and is going up quickly.
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This upward price trend is going to continue. Crude oil is becoming more difficult to find and pump out of the ground. The demand for cars and gasoline among the two large population countries in the world, China and India, is suddenly growing at an accelerated rate. In America new refrinery capacity is not being added for various reasons - environmenmtal and regulatory issues, and a gradual shift to increasing amounts of ethanol.
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I don't especially feel the higher prices. In fact the prices here in America still seem pretty low to me. My Toyota Corolla normally gets 40 mpg, and my 250cc Honda scooter gets between 60 and 70 mpg.
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General Motors and Ford are beginning to see the consumer trend away from their heavy, 10-12 mpg cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks. Maybe the American consumer is in the early stages of catching on to the reality of the situation.
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My Toyota is quiet and comfortable to ride in. It has a great air conditioner and a nice sound system. And with the cruise control set I can drive all day long at 75 mph (120.7 km/hour). I see these fat ass fools driving their gas guzzlers, speeding up and slowing down erratically, and generally just pouring their fuel down the toilet. And it makes me wonder about the survivability skills of these bozos.
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3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510.....

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Happy π Day. - More commonly called Pi day. - Not to be confused with Pie Town in Catron County, New Mexico which got its name from the edible variety of pies.

March 14-- or --3.14
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Pi or π is is one of the most important mathematical constants. It represents the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter in Euclidean geometry, which is the same as the ratio of a circle's area to the square of its radius. Many formulas from mathematics, science, and engineering include π.
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Quarter of teen girls have sex-related disease

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Reuters reported today that one quarter of all teen girls have a sex-related disease, and that the rate is higher among black girls. This seems so high that it is hard to believe.
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They got the information from the the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention so maybe is right. Good grief. This is not good.
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Too many years of the Christian Right and the Republicans preaching abstinence. Their policy of guilt, lying, and ignoring is unwise. Kafkaesk. We have got to get all this out in the open.
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LINK: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1157399920080311
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Drain The Bottom Of Your Hot Water Heater

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---------------------------------------------(--- (click on the picture and it will enlarge)cl
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Twelve months ago I hooked up a garden hose to the faucet on the bottom of the water heater, and I drained out the calcium/magnesium that had settled out. Doing this is important because it takes much more energy to heat the water through this coating on the bottom of your hot water heater tank. A lot of white gunk came out when I did it 12 months ago.

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By draining out the bottom regularly you save money on natural gas.

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Today I did it again. I was really shocked at how much white stuff came out. After only one year. I'll bet that many people NEVER drain the bottom of their water heater.

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New Sins

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Over the weekend Catholic Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, the Vatican's number two man in the sometimes murky area of sins and penance, spoke of modern evils. He said that causing envionmental blight is now a sin. In recent months, Pope Benedict has made several strong appeals for the protection of the environment, saying issues such as climate change had become gravely important for the entire human race.
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The people who drive around with only one person in these 12 miles per gallon pickup trucks and SUVs have already been directly linked to supporting terrorism and the bankrupting of the American economy by sending so much of the country's money to Saudia Arabia. Now the Catholic church says they are sinners because of their air pollution and their contribution to global warming.
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Not to mention that they are just plain stupid and wasteful. When there are millions of poor people in American who cannot afford health insurance, for these dumb jerks to be driving around in their tanks, many of which are financed on 72 month loans, goes far beyond dumb.
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These same people probably don't read books either. Just like their President George W.
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LINK: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL109602320080310
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She Is A Monster

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Samantha Power - a Harvard professor who has advised Mr Obama on foreign policy - resigned on Friday.
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She had told the Scotsman newspaper, "She is a monster, too - that is off the record - she is stooping to anything."
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Seems like an accurate description to me.
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In Wyoming Obama absolutely overwhelmed her with 59% versus 40% for the Monster.

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"Especially in the intermountain West, people are hungry for something different, people are hungry for someone who's a uniter, who can bring together a coalition of change," said Gabe Cohen, Obama's state director in Wyoming.

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Steve's Internet Radio Station

Through the Flickr Nikon D80 photography group I have had a gentleman name me as a contact. In looking at his profile he seems to be a very interesting guy.
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Among many other things he runs an internet radio station out of Seattle. It is worth checking this out:

LINK: http://community.loudcity.com/stations/steve-fm/files/show/listen.html
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Senator John McCain

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Yesterday Big Mac and his wife had a private lunch with President Bush, then they held a photo opportunity where they each kissed each other's asses. McCain said how much he admired Bush.
Link: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/03/06/bush_says_mccain_will_stay_the_course_in_iraq/


McCain said he had "great admiration, respect, and affection" for Bush and welcomed the president's help both in fund-raising and on the campaign trail.
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McCain said he wanted to have as many campaign events together with Bush as "the president's heavy schedule" allowed. "And I look forward to that opportunity," he added.
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I think his support of the most ineffective president in the history of the nation will come back to haunt him. So will his statement that if we have to stay in Iraq 100 years, he supported us continuing the war until we are victorious. On the other hand neither Obama nor Clinton has said that they will pull all the troops out of Iraq. Hillary talks about "beginning" the withdrawal.
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The chairman of the Democratic party, Governor Howard Dean was quoted at length on NPR yesterday afternoon. In a very reasonable sounding tone of voice he said that McCain is not at all what he appears on the surface. That although McCain has supported high standards of ethics, many times apparently he felt that these standards did not apply to himself. So the general election campaign is going to get down and dirty.
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At this stage I still think that if the choice is Senator Clinton versus Senator McCain, even though I am a dyed in the wool Democrat, I would either have to vote for McCain or maybe just stay home and not vote at all.
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Sorry Mrs. Rodham-Cinton. It doesn't matter how smart you are, or how evil and mean a gutter fighter you are with your bloody fangs showing, you do not have the skills to unite all sides of the political spectrum. In fact large parts of the population want to gag and retch every time you come on TV.
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Homophobia

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I don't care in the least what two gay men do in the privacy of their own home. Same with two lesbians. I'm just not at all interested as long as they don't try to shove it in my face. If they are rude and do so, then I will be happy to shove my sexuality in their face. Rhetorically or literally.
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Right now in Calfornia the court system is trying to deal with the question of what is the definition of Marriage. Really simple.
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Normally you live together. Or not. -- And have sex with each other. Or not. -- But if you decide to make a baby, then you get married to legitimize the kid. -- Simple.
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Marriage is what a Man and Woman do. And there really is not much point in doing it unless you are going to have a kid.
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Vermont towns vote to arrest Bush and Cheney

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According to Reuters, Voters in two Vermont towns on Tuesday approved a measure that would instruct police to arrest President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for "crimes against our Constitution," local media reported.

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------------------------- Very Good!

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LINK: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0454699420080305

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United States Presidential Election

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March 4, 2008 was an interesting day with primary elections in the big states of Ohio and Texas and also two smaller primaries.

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I worked the polls in support of Obama.

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According to National Public Radio this is the situation this morning:

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Obama had a total of 1,477 delegates, including separately chosen party and elected officials known as superdelegates, according to the Associated Press count. He picked up three superdelegate endorsements Tuesday.

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Clinton had 1,391 delegates. It takes 2,025 to win the nomination.

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Wyoming offers 12 delegates in caucuses Saturday; Mississippi has 33 at stake next week. The biggest remaining prize is Pennsylvania, with 158 delegates, April 22.

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Smithsonite

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This mineral was named after James Smithson (1754-1829) the British chemist and mineralogist, a founder of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., who distinguished the mineral from calamine (hemimorphite).

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Sometimes it fluoresces. This little piece I have does light up brightly when illyuminated with ultraviolet light.

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Immigrants

The movie Border by Chris Burgard is an award winning classic.

My copy of it finally came in. It is really great. LINK: http://www.bordermovie.com/

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There is a quote in the movie from John F. Kennedy dated March 29, 1961.

Today we need a nation of minutemen citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life, and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.

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Men Are Men and Women Are Cattle

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This is the motto in the Islamic religion. Especially in Saudia Arabia.

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Take the time to watch this video. It is good.

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------------ Link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=mHh0NdR5Jh0

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----------------------------- Link: http://www.dotsub.com/films/moredemands/index.php?autostart=true&language_setting=en_1618

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Decision Making For Dummies

I saw this picture on Flickr and really liked it. Do we want a tough bitch who has good ideas, or a gracious gentleman who has a bit less experience and fewer political insider contacts?

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A Return To Civility

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I don't think I'm alone or special in wanting a return to civility.
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The more negative stuff Hillary and Bill do and say about Obama, the more repulsed I am by Senator Clinton.
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John McCain is also a civil gentleman. Its not just a coincidence that he and Obama are the ones who are being chosen by the American people.
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El Paso Mineral and Gem Society

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The speaker for the meeting this month was great. He was the assistant principal at Canutillo High School. He spoke on the geology of the Organ Mountains just east of Las Cruces, New Mexico.
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He was a good speaker, and he really knew what he was talking about.
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Through him I met a Freshman at Canutillo High. He and his dad run a small business importing minerals from Mexico. I went over to their place yesterday evening.
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I was really pleased. They had a good selection of fluorescent calcite and aragonite (polymorphs) which both have the chemical formula of calcium carbonate but different crystal lattice structures. This is a close up picture of some calcite crystals from Chihuahua which have phantoms in them.
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