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Quotes; Government 1969-12-31 17:59:59 Government, which does not and did not grant us our rights, must not now seek to deny them by using fear as its justification.- Malcolm WallopA government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.- Ayn RandA democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.- Thomas JeffersonThe government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.- Woodrow WilsonThe danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.- Lord ActonGovernment is an unnecessary evil. Human beings, when accustomed to taking responsibility for their own behavior, can cooperate on a basis of mutual trust and helpfulness.- Fred Woodworth ...

Astronomy Picture Of The Day 1969-12-31 17:59:59 vdB 152: Reflection Nebula in CepheusExplanation: Described as a "dusty curtain" or "ghostly apparition", mysterious reflection nebula vdB 152 really is very faint. It lies about 1400 light-years away, along the northern Milky Way in the royal constellation Cepheus. Near the edge of a large molecular cloud, pockets of cosmic dust in the region block light from background stars or scatter light from the embedded bright star (top) giving parts of the nebula a characteristic blue color. Ultraviolet light from the star is also thought to cause a dim reddish luminescence in the nebular dust. Though stars do form in molecular clouds, this star seems to have only accidentally wandered into the area, as its measured velocity through interstellar space is very different from the cloud's velocity. This deep telescopic image spans about 7 light-years at the estimated distance of vdB 152. ... Astronomy

Astronomy Picture Of The Day 1969-12-31 17:59:59 Messier 96Explanation: Dust lanes seem to swirl around the core of Messier 96 in this colorful, detailed portrait of the beautiful island universe. Of course M96 is a spiral galaxy, and counting the faint arms extending beyond the brighter central region it spans 100 thousand light-years or so, about the size of our own Milky Way. M96 is known to be 38 million light-years distant, a dominant member of the Leo I galaxy group. Background galaxies and smaller Leo I group members can be found by examining the picture, but accomplished astro-imager Adam Block notes he is most intrigued by the edge-on spiral galaxy that apparently lies behind the outer spiral arm near the 10 o'clock position. The edge-on spiral appears to be about 1/5 the size of M96. If the spiral is similar in actual size to M96, then it lies about 5 times farther away. ... Astronomy

Astronomy Picture Of The Day 1969-12-31 17:59:59 Lunar Orbiter Views Crater CopernicusExplanation: To prepare for the Apollo landings, five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft were launched during 1966 and 1967 to gather detailed images of our fair planet's large, natural satellite. Dramatic views returned by the spacecraft cameras included this stark moonscape. The mosaic of 93 kilometer wide impact crater Copernicus features central peaks rising above the crater floor and rugged crater walls. ... Astronomy

Astronomy Picture Of The Day 1969-12-31 17:59:59 Analemma over the UkraineExplanation: If you took a picture of the Sun at the same time each day, would it remain in the same position? The answer is no, and the shape traced out by the Sun over the course of a year is called an analemma. The Sun's apparent shift is caused by the Earth's motion around the Sun when combined with the tilt of the Earth's rotation axis. The Sun will appear at its highest point of the analemma during summer and at its lowest during winter. Analemmas created from different Earth latitudes would appear at least slightly different, as well as analemmas created at a different time each day. The analemma pictured was built up by Sun photographs taken from 1998 August through 1999 August from Ukraine. The foreground picture from the same location was taken during the early evening in 1999 July. ... Astronomy

U.S.-led air raid kills seven Afghan children 1969-12-31 17:59:59 Kabul, Afghanistan - At least seven children were killed in a U.S.-led coalition air strike on a religious school in Afghanistan, the coalition said on Monday, amid rising anger over civilian deaths from foreign military operations.-Read the full story at reuters.comBy Sayed Salahuddin ... Children

Astronomy Picture Of The Day 1969-12-31 17:59:59 Monitoring M2-9Explanation: Exploring the myriad shapes found in the cosmic zoo of planetary nebulae, some astronomers have focused on the intriguing example of M2-9. About 2,100 light-years away and over one light-year across, M2-9 is known as a twin jet or butterfly nebula in reference to its striking bipolar symmetry. Monitoring M2-9 over many years from ground based telescopes has revealed the dramatic west to east (left to right) progression of features illustrated in this collage. The apparent motion could well be caused by an energetic rotating beam sweeping across the nebular material. Astronomers argue that the beam is collimated by interacting stellar winds in a double star system at the center of M2-9. The binary system of a giant star and hot white dwarf star orbit each other about once every 120 years. Click on the image to watch an animated gif of M2-9. ... Astronomy

Astronomy Picture Of The Day 1969-12-31 17:59:59 Eris: More Massive than PlutoExplanation: Eris, a dwarf planet currently orbiting the Sun at about twice Pluto's distance, has been measured to have about 27 percent more mass than Pluto. The mass was calculated by timing the orbit of Eris' moon Dysnomia. Images taken with a ground-based Keck telescope, when combined with existing images taken by Hubble Space Telescope, show that Dysnomia has a nearly circular orbit lasting about 16 days. Cataloged as 2003 UB313 only a year ago, infrared images also showed previously that Eris is actually larger in diameter than Pluto. The plane of Eris' orbit is well out of the plane of the Solar System's planets. In the above drawing, a scientific artist has imagined Eris and Dysnomia orbiting our distant Sun. No space missions are currently planned to Eris, although the robotic New Horizons spacecraft bound for Pluto has recently passed Jupiter. ... Astronomy

Video; John Lennon - Imagine 1969-12-31 17:59:59 ...

Astronomy Picture Of The Day 1969-12-31 17:59:59 A Daylight Eclipse of VenusExplanation: Something was about to happen. Just two days ago, two of the three celestial objects easily visible during the day appeared to collide. But actually, Earth's Moon passed well in front of the distant planet Venus. The occultation was caught from Switzerland in the hours before sunset. Moments after this image was taken, the Moon, visible as the crescent on the right of the above image, eclipsed Venus, appearing in gibbous phase on the lower left. Clouds that once threatened to obscure the whole event, were visible on the far left. About 90 minutes later, Venus re-appeared just to the right of the bright crescent. ... Astronomy

Video; Great Thinkers: Secular Quotes 1969-12-31 17:59:59 ...

Astronomy Picture Of The Day 1969-12-31 17:59:59 Stars and the Solstice SunExplanation: If you could turn off the atmosphere's ability to scatter overwhelming sunlight, today's daytime sky might look something like this ... with the Sun surrounded by the stars of the constellations Taurus and Gemini. Of course, today is the Solstice. Traveling along the ecliptic plane, the Sun is at its northernmost position in planet Earth's sky, marking the astronomical beginning of summer in the north. Accurate for the exact time of today's Solstice, this composite image also shows the Sun at the proper scale (about the angular size of the Full Moon). Open star cluster M35 is to the Sun's left, and the other two bright stars in view are Mu and Eta Geminorum. Digitally superimposed on a nighttime image of the stars, the Sun itself is a composite of a picture taken through a solar filter and a series of images of the solar corona recorded during the solar eclipse of February 26, 1998 by Andreas Gada. ... Astronomy

The Greenest Green Fuel 1969-12-31 17:59:59 "Looking for a clean fuel that grows anywhere, needs only sunlight and water, and could produce enough oil to free the U.S. from its petroleum addiction? Here?s one start-up?s plan for converting oil from algae?yes, algae"Read more at www.popsci.com ...

Video; Waking Life: Evolution 1969-12-31 17:59:59 ...