| Illinois police agencies gladly take military's hand-me-downs | | Posted Friday, January 26, 2007 3:14:11 PM by Blog57 Team | | B.J. Wilkinson can't help but feel puffed up about his police force's cadre of gear in little Litchfield. The central Illinois town of just 7,500 has a couple of camouflaged Chevy Blazers, a trio of all-terrain vehicles and Kevlar helmets, even night-vision binoculars and a half dozen bomb-resistant blankets.Sound excessive, especially for taxpayers in the community not known to be rough and tumble? Wilkinson is quick to assure money is no object.Like many police agencies across the state, Wilkinson's department got all the stuff for pennies on the dollar, thanks to a program that gives police the U.S. military's hand-me-downs _ everything from computers to helicopters, boats, armored personnel carries and weapons.An Associated Press analysis shows that about 16,000 U.S. police agencies took advantage of the giveaway, getting more than 380,000 pieces of equipment worth $124 million in fiscal 2005.... | |
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| | | Nikon 82mm Outfit Fieldscope | | Posted Tuesday, January 23, 2007 1:01:38 PM by Blog57 Team | | Nikon is a precision optical company with worldwide manufacturing, research and marketing capabilities. The Nikon name is equated with extraordinary photographic performance, innovation, precision and optical quality.PRODUCT FEATURES: 82mm Fieldscope ED Straight Body; 25-56x Zoom Eyepiece; Bogen (R) Full-Size Tripod; Window Mount; Vue-Thru Case.... | |
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| | | Bright Comet | | Posted Tuesday, January 09, 2007 1:22:28 PM by Blog57 Team | | Comet McNaught is plunging toward the sun and brightening dramatically. It is now visible to the unaided eye both at sunset and at dawn. Amateur photographers have found that they can take pictures of the comet using off-the-shelf digital cameras with exposure times less than a second. Estimated visual magnitude: between 0 and -1. To see Comet McNaught, a clear view of the horizon is essential. In the morning, go outside and face east. The comet emerges just ahead of the rising sun. In the evening, face the other way--west. The comet pops out of the western twilight as soon as the sun sets. Binoculars reveal a pretty, gaseous tail. Northern observers are favored. The long, dark mornings and evenings of Canada, Scandinavia and Alaska are ideal for viewing this comet so close to the Sun. But the comet has been sighted in other places, too, as far south as Kansas in the United States and Italy in Europe.... | |
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| | | Mother, son pass out on small plane | | Posted Saturday, December 30, 2006 3:06:37 PM by Blog57 Team | | Tom Kroll just wanted to take his mom to a nice dinner. By night, both were lying unconscious in a small airplane, neither responding to an airport tower's repeated calls. Here's what happened in the time between, according to family, friends, safety officials and airport personnel: .... | |
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| | | The Pro Viewer BinoCam is a set of powerful binoculars that is ... | | Posted Monday, November 27, 2006 1:17:03 PM by Blog57 Team | | Take a few seconds to digest all that. You can use the 8X zoom to get fine detail on whatever you want to shoot, then click and save it, as either still or video, onto an SD card. The company is bandying about the large number of 5 for the number of megapixels you can achieve when recording video. Did we mention that the thing has a viewscreen right on top? The price isn't all that bad, either, especially for a 5MP device. You'll pay just US$200. Read [Via gizmodo.com] .... | |
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| | | Kim Grizzard column: From a distance | | Posted Tuesday, November 14, 2006 11:39:08 AM by Blog57 Team | | "Bring binoculars." You don't usually hear those words when women are planning to go to a football game. "Bring sunscreen." OK. "Bring a good book to read." Maybe "Bring some cold chicken and a blanket for a picnic." Sure. But when I heard a woman planning for Saturday's ECU game say "Bring binoculars," I wondered for a minute if she could possibly be interested in getting a close-up view of the action on the field. It turned out the only close-up she wanted was one of Matthew McConaughey. When rumors started circulating last week that the actor, who stars in the upcoming film "We are Marshall," might be attending the ECU-Marshall game, football tickets suddenly became a hot ticket for lots of women. After all, in 2005 McConaughey was named People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive." One of my editors asked me to write a story about it.... | |
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| | | Orcas Island offers a healing isolation | | Posted Sunday, November 12, 2006 11:13:17 PM by Blog57 Team | | They are back again this morning. The two fawns inch their way to our front porch, munching the greenery along the path. Their mother, an Appaloosa-colored doe, follows a few feet behind, fully aware of the two humans peeking out the front window of the Isle Dream cottage. The blacktail deer of the San Juan Islands have no natural predator, so this family shows no fear claiming our flower bed as a personal cafeteria. My husband, Gary, slowly opens the door and snaps a photo. The doe lifts her head and shoots him a look of utter disdain (another tourist!). To them, we are just the latest occupants of the fairy-tale cabin overlooking the East Sound of Orcas Island. The one-room cottage, about the size of a two-car garage, sits on a slope of fir forest in central Orcas, one of 450 islands that make up the San Juan archipelago.... | |
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| | | The face of Afghanistan five years after fall of the Taleban | | Posted Saturday, November 11, 2006 11:28:39 AM by Blog57 Team | | IT WAS nearly five years to the day since I had last seen Gul Haider. Sitting in a Kabul garden with the trilling of caged songbirds drifting across the rose beds, that last encounter seemed a lifetime away. Then, on the morning of November 13, 2001, the Mujahidin commander was about to lead his victorious Northern Alliance forces to recapture Kabul from the Taleban. There were no trimmed beards or birdsong in that battle. Instead, clothed in a grimy combat smock, his head wrapped in a dismal scarf, Gul sat on the wall of a shelled strongpoint on the Shamali frontline. His peg leg stuck out accusingly toward the Taleban positions ? like so many Afghans he had his foot blown off by a mine. Binoculars around his neck, radio in hand, he looked like a raiding pirateer, a Makarov pistol in place of a cutlass.... | |
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| | | Events Calendar Week of Nov 9 - 15 | | Posted Friday, November 10, 2006 4:45:51 AM by Blog57 Team | | "An Evening with the Artists." 6 to 9 p.m. today. Evening features art by Judy Ann and Jer Houston, music by Jim Chalifoux, silent auction, wine, hors d'oeuvres, dessert and more. Presented by and benefits the Sexual Assault Recovery and Prevention (SARP) Center of San Luis Obispo County. Edna Valley Vineyard, 2585 Biddle Ranch Road, San Luis Obispo. $40. 545-8888. Cayucos Wine and Food Festival. 4 to 8 p.m. Friday. Event includes food and wine tasting from local vendors. Cayucos Veterans Memorial Lions Hall, 10 Cayucos Drive, Cayucos. $1 to $20. 441-5406. San Luis Obispo Poetry Festival: Language of the Soul. 7 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and Nov. 17 to 19. Presented by Corners of the Mouth and Cal Poly WriterSpeak. $2 to $3. 547-1318 or languageofthesoul.org. - Friday.... | |
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| | | Boeing plane test run sparks community fears of disaster | | Posted Wednesday, November 08, 2006 7:12:05 AM by Blog57 Team | | It was a flyby shocker in Ferndale, but the biggest thing to not hit the Eel River Valley in years turned out to be an approved flight that prompted unnecessary emergency response. When a Boeing 777-300ER engaged in simulated takeoff, landing and aerial maneuvers starting around 4:30 p.m. on Monday, drivers gawked, volunteer firefighters raced on call and neighbors grabbed their binoculars. Some headed to the rooftops to catch a better look at the 242-foot-4-inch-long jet that appeared headed for disaster."I thought it was an airline going down in the Ferndale bottoms," said Tom Mattson, director of public works for Humboldt County. He was driving down Fortuna's Main Street when he saw an airplane "diving steep and very low. It was big. I was in such a state of shock."So were all the emergency management teams, none of whom had advance warning of a training flight to be conducted by a plane that would not ordinarily land in Humboldt County.... | |
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