SkyLive

cool!

• Find key information, position data and sky charts for Planets, Asteroids, Comets, Interplanetary Probes. 
• Use the Observing Guide to plan observations of the Solar System objects visible tonight from your location. 
• Create accurate and interactive maps of the sky visible from any location up to the year 2035 using our Online Planetarium. 
• Discover our 3D Solar System Simulator

enter your location anywhere in the world--provided there isn't light pollution such that you can't see the night sky; then, click on "night guide".

TheSkyLive: The Solar System at your Fingertips

Because of its size, only stars in our Milky Way galaxy can be seen with the naked eye. Andromeda, the closest galaxy to our Milky Way, is 2.2 million light years away. If you can locate it in the night sky, then it appears to be faint and relatively dim. 

Because of their distances in our own galaxy, stars appear to be fixed. Alpha Centauri, the closest star to us, is 4.37 light years, or 25.689 trillion (25,689,044,169,700) miles, from us, making the 93 million miles from us to the sun look like a walk in the park.

Because we are moving, spinning and rotating around the sun, the position of the stars relative to us changes. 

The moon, planets in our solar system and satellites, and asteroids and comets when they enter our solar system, because they are relatively close to us and moving, move across the night sky relative to the relatively-fixed stars.  

With TheLiveSky you can track the planets and other celestial and man-made objects (satellites) from your location.

psychoanalyzing trump

"Who, really, is Donald Trump? What’s behind the actor’s mask? I can discern little more than narcissistic motivations and a complementary personal narrative about winning at any cost. It is as if Trump has invested so much of himself in developing and refining his socially dominant role that he has nothing left over to create a meaningful story for his life, or for the nation. It is always Donald Trump playing Donald Trump, fighting to win, but never knowing why."

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/the-mind-of-donald-trump/480771/

trump's first executive order

Mount Trumpmore

a congress with some guts could trump trump...

Six ways Congress can curb a runaway president

nah--congress doesn't have any guts.

guts

does congress have the guts to trump trump?

Six ways Congress can curb a runaway president

I doubt it.

Face it--our two party system of government is broken. 

File:Two party system diagram.png - Wikimedia Commons

It needs to be fixed.

dishonest media

who is disliked more: trump or the media?

as it turns out, a September 2016 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that more people have a favorable opinion of Trump and Clinton than people have of the media.

http://thefederalist.com/2016/09/22/voters-hate-trump-hillary-not-much-hate-media/

"why?" you ask.

because of media "reports" like this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/09/29/media-hype-aside-clinton-still-has-the-edge-in-this-race/

dishonest media.

File:EU-Media-Futures-Forum-pic 0.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

our two party system of government is broken

In an excellent article National Public Radio gathered together dozens of statistics to show how the nation that Trump inherits (and the rest of the world) has changed over time.

http://www.npr.org/2017/01/19/510491692/the-america-donald-trump-is-inheriting-by-the-numbers

Here's one that struck me:

Party identification

Party ID can hop around from month to month and year to year, but one recent trend is clear: Increasingly, Americans have decided to identify as independents, leaving the major parties behind.(Sources: 1, 2)36% D, 33% I, 30% R(January 2009)25% D, 44% I, 28% R(January 2017) 
Notwithstanding the fact that the percentages don't add up to 100% (2009 = 99%; 2017 = 97%): 

1. 11% fewer Americans identify themselves as democrats in 2017 as in 2009
2. 11% more Americans identify themselves as independents 
3. 2% fewer Americans identify themselves as republicans

It's clear to me--Americans are realizing more and more that our two party system of government is broken, and needs to be fixed.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Two_party_system_diagram.png

God's Providence

File:Stained glass, Holy Family Church, Teconnaught, September 2010 crop.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

"Catholic theology

In Acts 17 Paul says, "[I]t is he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything.... In him we live and move and have our being,..." Augustine of Hippo is perhaps most famously associated with the doctrine of Divine Providence in the Latin West. Augustine held that since God's governance takes place in the universe comprising a vast multitude of relatively independent individuals differing in nature, function, and end, this implies the continuous control and unifying governance of a single supreme Being.

However, Christian teaching on providence in the high Middle Ages was most fully developed by Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologica. The concept of providence as care exercised by God over the universe, his foresight and care for its future is extensively developed and explained both by Aquinas himself and modern Thomists. One of the foremost modern Thomists, Dominican father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, wrote a study of providence entitled "Providence: God's loving care for man and the need for confidence in Almighty God." In it, he presents and solves, according to Catholic doctrine, the most difficult issues as related to providence."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_providence

the Ununited States of Bickering

Bickerer-in-chief

Bickerer-du-jour

former Bickerer-in-chief

Madam Bickerer

attack dog

attack dog

attack dog

attack dog

hatchet man

and many, many other republicans and democrats

It's time to put an end to our two party system of government.

File:Two party system diagram.png - Wikimedia Commons

the urbanization of northern Virginia

• Painsville (formerly Gainesville)
• Assburn (aka Ashburn)
• Wouldn'tlive (formerly Woodbridge)

• runaway development
• hideous traffic
• air, noise and other pollution
• lack of public facilities (parks, etc.)
• crime

Lowdown County (formerly Loudoun County) and No Prince County (formerly Prince William County) know how to ruin a good thing.

This is how it started: The Audacious Plan to Turn a Sprawling DC Suburb Into a Big City | Washingtonian

Forget the hype. The fact is that developers, and their local government co-conspirators, have ruined northern Virginia. 

look up

grateful

a grateful nation honors those who gave the last full measure of their devotion to their country and its citizens.

Korea: Marine Manned Machinegun Alone - Found Dead Next Morning With Over 200 Dead Enemies Around Him

balls

The sport of choice for the urban poor is BASKETBALL.
The sport of choice for maintenance level employees is BOWLING.
The sport of choice for front-line workers is FOOTBALL.
The sport of choice for supervisors is BASEBALL.
The sport of choice for middle management is TENNIS. And....
The sport of choice for corporate executives and officers is GOLF.

THE AMAZING CONCLUSION: The higher you go in the corporate structure, the smaller your balls become. There must be a ton of people in Washington playing marbles!

https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/wgej4/size_of_your_balls/

correction: not "marbles"--beebees!

File:BB copper and nickel plated.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

corruption

"House Republicans on Monday voted to eviscerate the Office of Congressional Ethics, the independent body created in 2008 to investigate allegations of misconduct by lawmakers after several bribery and corruption scandals sent members to prison."

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/a349ef57fb6b4b4f82809b3c7b0d4c68/house-gop-votes-gut-independent-ethics-office

Small wonder that politicians are viewed with such disdain. We have the best government that money can buy!

poll

In a Moscow "man-on-the-street" poll this woman was just asked: 
"What do you think of Vladimir Putin?"
https://www.justpo.st/post/36818

lol