Archive for March, 2012

When I say/think “I want a new scope” the song “I want a new drug” keeps going through my head, strange.   I have been contemplating buying a new telescope for a couple years now, but always held off because of my wife, now ex-wife.  It is a long story and I have no intention on going into it here.  All that said and done, in resent weeks my taste for astronomy has been on the up tick, especially since the discovery of a new supernova in the Galaxy M95.

When I was a teenager, I fell in love with the stars and stargazing.  The first Messier object I ever observer was M42, which you can see with the naked eye and is spectacular in normal 10×50 binoculars.  I soon found binoculars very limitings and want more power, more light, more magnification.  So I approached my dad and asked him if he would buy me a telescope.  To my amazement my dad never batted an eye and said yes (I don’t think he talked to my mom about it this purchase)  So I started to shop around and after many weeks I found someone who was selling a  home made telescope for $200.00, and believe me that was a staggering amount of money when I was kid.  My first telescope was a Newtonian Reflector with a 6″ hand ground mirror and had a whopping f-stop of f/13.5 (the light tube was taller than I was).  The telescope came with a hand made mount made from cement, steel tubing and plumbing pipe and was surprisingly stable, considering I could have attached a hose and used as a sprinkler to water the garden.

So with my brand new/used/home made telescope I began to explore to the heavens, and a few neighbours windows, but we won’t talk about that here.  For years I use to freeze my ass off in winter (when we had winters) and in the summertime I use gather large crowds at Sauble Beach.  It was a hoot showing people the red spot of Jupiter and rings of Saturn.  I would literately have 20 to 40 people laying in the cool summer sands of the beach, staring up at the stars, it was like people had never seen them before.  Soon, it was known that some geeky kid was giving free astronomy shows each Saturday night on the beach.  It was great fun seeing children squeal with joy when they saw Saturn, Jupiter and moon under high power magnification.

After 15 years of use, my old telescope gave up the ghost.  The soft iron shafts and brass bushings began to wear and there was to much free play in the mount.  The main mirror started to oxidize and the silver coating was actually starting to wear out in places.

Since then I stopped stargazing because other things took over in my life, and doing astronomy is not conducive to a marriage, unless your significant other likes it or doesn’t mind not seeing during the night for hours on end.

So now here I am, single again, with time on my hands and my eyes wander towards the heavens, but I do not have a decent size scope.  Ok, I do have a Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain D90 F/11.11 with dual focus, but it’s useful limits are really restricted to Mag +12 (under excellent view conditions) and I do not have an even half-ways decent mount for it.  It would make for an excellent piggyback scope and I do have the adapter rings to attach my Nikon D80 SDLR to it.

In the end, I want a scope,… and I have been shopping around and have narrowed my choice down to Meade LX90 series with either a Schmidt-Cassegrain 8″ F/10 or 10″ F/10 or the Celestron SGT series with a either a Schmidt-Cassegrain 8″ F/10 or 9.25″ F/10.

Any fellow nerds or nerdettes out there with an opinion on these kits or with a recommendation for a different setup?

Celeston SGT Schmidt-Cassegrain

Meade LX90 Schmidt-Cassegrain

The Daily Zorpheous

If I missed any please let me know, I may added them.

The Daily Zorpheous

(wow two in one day)

When we know about who Pierre Poutine is, I’ll update the credits for this Daily Zorpheous.

Now I am not faulting Elections Canada here,

“Over 700 Canadians from across the country have informed us of specific circumstances where they believe similar wrongdoing took place,” the statement said. “I appreciate the interest that Canadians have shown in this matter and thank them for their continued collaboration.”

Now the last time I checked there were more than 700 people living in Guelph and according to my atlas, Canada is not confined to city boundaries of the City of Guelph.  Yet all the HarperBots seem to think that this is now a dead issue because there are only 700 complaints.  The only thing that this number demonstrates is the apathetic response of Canadians when it comes to reporting a crime of this nature.  Consider the fact that Elections Canada reported that 281 call back phone calls were made to the Poutine “Burner” phone on election day.

Thankfully, Elections Canada isn’t listening to the Ezra’s and the CPC HarperBots, they at least understand their duty when it comes this matter, although it may have been slow to the initial response.

There is a YouTube video making the circuits right now on Twittter, I saw it last night, but it is only now starting to pickup steam. It is suppose to be Michael Sona “Confessing” to the RoboCalls crime. To be honest, it does look like Michael Sona, but if you actually take to time to compare it to known pictures of Michael you will see the differences.

And compare it to known picture of Sona

First off, Michael Sona’s nose is noticeably crooked in the picture with “dear Leader” and the “Michael Sona” in the video, his nose is nicely straight, so unless Michael has recently had some serious rhinoplasty work done,… Next the chins of the two Michaels are different as well. Lastly, the ear are different as well. The “Michael” in the videos ears lay flatter on his skull, while the real Michael Sona’s ears are more like the classic “Prince Charles” ears.

Who ever did this, should be really ashamed of themsleves. Ignoring the fact that his is screwing with someones life and reputation, it is also mudding the waters of RoboCon/RoboCalls investigation. I think is qualifies as defamation of character and may even be criminal.

I just saw Dean del astroRoboto on CTV’s Power Play and he just flat out claim that there is no 226 area code in Ontario and that no carrier carries the area. “Go look it up,..” Dean del MastroRoboto crowed.

Ok, lets do just that.

List of Ontario area codes

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This is a list of area codes in the province of Ontario:

• 226: London, Kitchener–Waterloo, Windsor, and most of Southwestern Ontario; overlays with 519
• 249: Most of Northeastern and Central Ontario; overlays 705

Well I’m not sure what Deaniie Boy’s problem is, is he a retarded idiot, or a liar, or a retard idiot that lies?

You decide.

Oh, and if your are going that claim that Wikipedia can be altered, well go and GOOGLE “Area code 226″

UPDATE - Dean del Mstro said Exchange, not area code.  So I am going to get the phone number in question and check it out.

UPDATE #3 - The phone number reported to have been 226-209-3758 used by the Liberals is infact a dead exchange. It might be a temporary or dump exchange, but without evidence from the Liberal party (bell phone records), I have to admit Dean del Mastro is correct.

Still at the end of the day, this violation of the Elections Canada Act is akin to littering and the Voter Suppression is first degree merder.

The news is just out, the identity of Pierre Poutine maybe released tomorrow sometime.

The news that Elections Canada investigators are aware of the IP address that “Pierre Poutine” used to set up the Guelph robocall account has convinced a suspect to step forward and accept responsibility for the deceptive calls, sources say.

If this guy is linked to the CPC then there will be serious shit to pay.  If he is linked to Liberals or NDP, then there will be serious shit to pay.  If he is a lone wolf, independent of any party then there will some serious questions to answer, mainly, how did he get the callers list.

UPDATE - if Pierre Poutine is connected to one of Canada’s political parties, one thing is certain, they are shitting buckets right now.  As for myself, I am making a crow pie just encase all my speculation and deductions have been wrong.  Yet, no matter what, who ever is responsible should suffer the full weight of the law.

I’m not huge fan of Warren Kinsella (he once told me to go fuck myself, made me cry ~sniff~), but he seem to be accurately predicting the future by examining the past when he penned;

Phase Two:  As in the sponsorship affair, this is the phase where arrests will commence.  All of the targets will lawyer up, and none will want to take a bullet for the Conservative Party, particularly since they are facing jail time.  This phase will cover late 2013 and into 2014.

So late night, while I was grabbing a quick nap, this story reared its ugly head in the media, Guelph Tory worker cancels meeting with Elections Canada investigator.  Seems the deputy campaign manager for the CPC candidate Marty Burke, Andrew Prescott, has decided that it is now time to Lawyer Up and STFU.  Might I suggest LawyerLocate.ca (plug for one of friends, I’m sure they’ll even take money from the CPC, just no pre-paid VISA “burner” credit cards, thnx)

On the advice of his lawyer, a key player in the 2011 Conservative campaign for Guelph is refusing to answer more questions from Elections Canada investigators probing fraudulent robo-calls in the riding.

Ok, so Warren isn’t completely right, they’re Lawyering Up before the arrests have started and it is happen now instead of 2013, but hey, why not get a head of game and all that good stuff.

Now what is it that the Law & Order crowd over at the CPC HarperBots like to say about people who start to Lawyer Up?

• Only guilty people need a lawyer,… blah, blah, blah,…
• If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear,… yadda, yadda, yadda,…
• (insert generic Law and Order crowd comment here),…

Now to be honest, I don’t blame Andrew Prescott one bit.  After all the CPC already tried to pin the whole affair on campaign worker Michael Sona when Defence Minister Peter MacKay threw him under the CPC Blue Bus by suggesting Sona was responsible for the misdirection in Guelph.  So who can blame Andrew for Lawyering Up when the CPC has already tried to make speed bump out of Michael Sona, I’m sure Andrew Prescott is starting to hear the CPC Blame Bus bearing down on him.

So all of this happened on Thursday when Andrew Prescott cancelled an in person interview with the Elections Canada investigation,

Prescott cancelled a face-to-face meeting with Mr. Mathews that had been scheduled for Thursday in Guelph, Ont.

His lawyer advised Mr. Prescott against taking the meeting because of intense media focus on his role in the 2011 campaign, the source says.

Sure, it is obviously more important to worry about how this spins in the media than cooperating with a criminal investigation, oh wait,… if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear,…. Truth Will Out! and all that good stuff.  It keeps getting worse for the CPC HarperBots doesn’t?  Of course Andrew Prescott has every right not cooperate with the investigation (I’m sure that won’t spin badly in the media either) and I’m sure that in Mondays Question Period we will continue hear how the CPC is cooperating fully with the investigation, queue the Dean del MastroRoboto sound track.

In Other News, Julian Fantino seems to caught in a campaign finance scandal that is looking a lot like the CPC In and Out scandal.  Jesus, don’t these idiots ever learn to follow the freaking rules.  But I guess that is the Law and Order crowd for you.  Does Fantino have an answer to 300,000 dollar question?  It had better be a really good answer.  I’d love to cover this story in greater detail, but I suck when it comes to accounting, so if you want a really good source on this scandal might I suggest reading UNFUCKWITHABLE.CA as good place to start.

I think the first rule in the Harper Rule Book For Elections is there are no rules and if there are rules, they are only suggestions.

The latest revelation about the origins of Pierre Poutine RoboList comes from the Toronto Star today.   Seems Allan Woods was at Elections Canada’s Offices today and managed to over hear some of the investigators,…

“Every single person I’ve contacted has been (born) between 1947 and 1949,” said one unidentified Elections Canada employee who was following up on the complaints Friday morning.

So we now know more about the nature of the data that Pierre Poutine pulled from.  The voters database that he pulled from was able to do the following

1. Differentiate between CPC supporters and non-CPC Supporters
2. Had detailed information on voter and polling station correlation
3. Age specific information

Now why is this important?  Well, I have had several discussion with a few HarperBots who believe that this assault on our democracy was the work of anarchists or more likely University of Guelph students.  They seem to think that this/these students,

1. walked around the streets of Guelph and made a list of people who had Liberal campaign signs
2. recorded their street addresses
3. then used Canada411 (or something like it) to look up the phone numbers
4. compiled phone list in excel
5. uploaded it to Rack-9, yada, yada, yada,…

Ya, they are in serious denial and will believe anything that doesn’t point to the CPC and Harper.  From the first list above we can now tell a very sophisticate Contact Information Management System database was used to pull the Poutine RoboList, and who has the most sophisticated, encompassing and reliable database? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

So I think we can now put to rest, once and for all where Pierre Poutine got his data.  There is only one campaign that it could have come from.  Pierre Poutine is definitely in the CPC camp and senior enough to have CIMS access that allowed him write custom queries to pull very selective data from the CIMS database.

So the next time a HarperBot says, “there no proof the CPC are involve”, “you don’t know where the list came from” and “there’s no proof that Poutine is linked to the CPC”, just point them here and serve them up a huge steaming pile of STFU!