the Meteor showers online site:

http://meteorshowersonline.com/orionids.html

Quotes from there:

“The Orionids generally begin on October 15 and end on October 29, with maximum generally occurring during the morning hours of October 20-22. The Orionids are barely detectable on the beginning and ending dates, but observers in the Northern Hemisphere will see around 20 meteors per hour at maximum, while observers in the Southern Hemisphere will see around 40 meteors per hour. The maximum can last two or three nights, although there is evidence of some fluctuation from year to year.

& also

“The discovery of the Orionid meteor shower should be credited to E. C. Herrick (Connecticut, USA). In 1839, he made the ambiguous statement that activity seemed to be present.”

So that’s the 180th anniversary of the Orionid showers discovery this year!

Happy 180th birthday Orionids – here’s hoping you have a storming celebration!

Finally, one more quote if I may please this time from:

http://www.examiner.com/x-8054-St-Louis-Astronomy-Examiner~y2009m10d16-Halleys-Comet-Returnssort-of

“The astronomer C. P. Olivier (Virginia, USA) noted in 1911 that the orbit of the Orionids was quite similar to the orbit of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower. This was an intriguing idea because it had already been determined that the latter shower was produced by the famous Halley’s Comet. A debate followed because the orbit of Halley’s Comet did not come close enough to Earth in October to produce such a strong shower. The debate continued for over 7 decades. Finally, in 1983, B. A. McIntosh (Ottawa, Canada) and A. Hajduk (Bratislava, Czechoslovakia) noted, “the meteoroids simply exist in orbits where the comet was many revolutions ago.” Indeed, the orbit of the Orionids almost perfectly matched the orbit that Halley’s Comet moved in about 2300 years ago.

Hope y’all find that interesting & worthwhile. Feel free to forward on & edit this if anyone wishes to do so.

‘Rogue nations’ I would define as …
threaten world peace (Iraq invasion on a bed of lies, anyone?)
… and stability (supplying arms to Afghanistan vs Russia and flattening half a country to kill one man who they’re still looking for)
… and act against an international concensus (that’s why the reports to get the world to agree to invading Iraq were fabricated, as nobody agreed until they were lied to) to cause trouble and present a menace to their neighbours.

So are you the pot or the kettle ? Both are black.

Unfortunately, China owns our asses, space “high ground” or not. Have a look at how much of the national debt is owned by China. Care to think about what happens to the US if they cash in all that debt? They don’t NEED space to be telling us and our children what to do.

True enough and very regrettable in my view but I also have to agree with Gadfly’s comemnt in post 15:

TechyDad and DaveS, Yes China owns an enormous percentage of our debt. But if they cash it in they’d actually destroy their own economy at the same time. Why? because calling in the debt would devalue American dollars to the point where the debt would be worthless to them crashing their economy. They can hold the sword over our heads but, push come to shove, they don’t dare cut us with it.

Besides China holding an economic threat over our heads doesn’t make it acceptable for them to hold military or technological advantage over us too. No, indeedy it only makes it worse. If they do have economic leverage then that’s all the *more* reason for us to keep our “high ground” space lead to offset that form of power.

@ 14. TechyDad Says:

@DaveS, Actually, I’d look not at how much national debt is owned by China, but at the “manufactured in” labels. Seriously, go into a store and start looking at labels. I’ll guarantee that at least half of the items are made in China. Go to a toy store and it might be closer to 80%. The US has given up almost all of its manufacturing capability to China to save a few bucks.

You know why this is of course – China can produce things much cheaper
because its environmental, labour, health & safety standards are lower. Its exploiting its workers worse, destroying its environment more and holds human life very cheaply indeed. So much for the “level playing field” & so much for the Socialist workers utopia.

@ 10. Dave Brown Says:

#8 “While the USA is not without faults it is generally a good hearted, well-intentioned nation. ”

So was that big dog that knocked my daughter over when it tried to lick her face. But the bruises still hurt. There are few things worse than well intentioned incompetence.

Try sadistic malevolent savagery instead.

If we follow your analogy here then America might be a big dopey,friendly labrador that knocks a very small kid over by accident then tries to lick its wounds better.

China, OTOH, would be a vicious rabid pit bull that races at the same kid on purpose and grabs it by the throat quickly and happily mauling it to death.

That’s the difference – and I think there are many things far worse than incompetence.

@23. IBY Says:

@spectroscope I view rogue nation as a rhetoric device by the US, one designed to rile up as much people in order to go to unecessary wars. Frankly, US itself is a bit of a rogue nation as well, what with its highly emotional reactions to events and breaking several international laws while at it.

Well you are entitled to your opinion and, equally, I’m entitled to think you are quite wrong.

The USA is a superpower and a leader of the free Western world. It is also a democracy with many checks and balances – the hullabaloo with protests etc .. against the war in Iraq would never be permitted in China, Iran or North Korea where dissenters such as you would be taken out and imprisoned or executed.

Did we go to war unnecessarily? Easy to say in hindsight, but everyone at the time thought Iraq had WMDs and anyway that’s a whole other debate. Saddam Hussein was an evil tyrant who murdered thousands and ruled his people by brute force and terror – and supported terrorism against Israel. I don’t know about you but I didn’t shed any tears over his overthrow or death.

Rhetoric? Maybe to some extent but I think it does also mean something beyond the simply rhetorical.

@ 21. The Chemist Says:

@ Spectroscope What, pray tell, is a “rogue nation”? I hear it a lot, I just don’t think the phrase has any real meaning.

‘Rogue nations’ I would define as those seeking to threaten world peace and stability and act against an international concensus to cause trouble and present a menace to their neighbours.

Iran is a rogue nation because it is a crazy Islamofascist theocracy with delusions of grandeur that has repeated threatened to annhiliate the Jewish state -and whose leader has repeatedly denied the Holocaust – as well as the existence of gays in his nation. It is seeking to build nuclear weapons or power despite having huge stocks of oil and is belicose about developing a powerful military. Its the place where mobs are incited to chant “Death to America” & mean it – & it sponsers the terrorist groups Hamas and Hizbollah that sends homicide bombers to blow up buses and restaurants fullof innocent civilians.

Do you think this is all fine & dandy & not qualifying of rogue nation status?

North Korea is a starving, drug-speddling, nuclear bomb testing power ruled by the very bizarre and one can only say utter whackjob Communist Dictator Kim Jong Il. It helps ship arms & nuclear components to Iran, peddles drugs around the world and has repeatedly violated its treaties and agreements, it has kidnapped Japanese schoolgirls to use as agents, has starved brutalised and brain-washed its populace and, oh yeah, is technically still at war with South Korea which it constantly menaces.

Is that not your idea of a rogue nation? If not why?

As I said everyone’s entitled to their opinion, this is after all a free country. You are even allowed to have opinions that undermine & disrespect that freedom if you so choose although in the long run if we get enough people thinking your way then we lose that very freedom.

Personally, I like living in a free and democratic nation where I can speak my mind and not be punished for it and have a say in what my nation does. I think Western values are a good thing. I’d hate to live in China or Iran or North Korea – and if course if I lived there I couldn’t speak as freely as you do or I’m doing now.

Please try to think about that for a while before you post again. Not that I can make you or anything it’d just be nice.

Anyway, I was enjoying my walk and a rare (for me) chance to look at the stars. I saw three meteors in that time, all in/near Orion. One was so bright I actually said “Oooh”. I tried to remember when the Orionids are, but couldn’t.

So I started the day off by independently rediscovering a meteor shower. And somehow I managed not to break my leg or wander in front of a car. Much better than finding a forgotten 20 in your pocket!