Is it just me or does this thing look like a missile launcher?

They have this beastie over at Pioneer Loan and Jewelry (a Las Vegas pawn shop).

The guy that pawned it put a lot of effort into the brackets connecting these two telescopes just so he could use them simultaneously.

He said the bottom telescope is for viewing the stars and the top telescope has a camera adapter to capture nebulae.

Ya know….. I’m reasonably certain that the guy built it to look at the stars, but I bet if some voyeur found this under the tree at Christmas it would make his whole year.

(I wonder what would the neighbors say if I put this contraption on my roof and started tracking airplanes?)

Telescope or Missile Launcher? is a post from: Galactic Poolhall

First the reasonable part:
Coca-Cola is being sued by a non-profit public interest group, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, on the grounds that the company’s vitaminwater products make unwarranted health claims.

WASHINGTON—A federal judge has denied Coca-Cola’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit over what the Center for Science in the Public Interest says are deceptive and unsubstantiated claims on the company’s “vitaminwater” line of soft drinks. The company claims that vitaminwater variously reduces the risk of chronic disease, reduces the risk of eye disease, promotes healthy joints, and supports optimal immune function, and uses health buzz words such as “defense,” “rescue,” “energy,” and “endurance” on labels.

Now the WTF? part:
Coca-Cola’s defense is that “no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitaminwater was a healthy beverage.”

The judge also rejected Coke’s argument that disclosing sugar content on Nutrition Facts labels eliminates the possibility that consumers may be misled into thinking the product has only water and vitamins, and little or no sugar. Gleeson cited a similar case involving deceptive fruit imagery on packages for Gerber’s Fruit Juice Snacks, which are mostly corn syrup and sugar. That court held that “reasonable consumers should [not] be expected to look beyond misleading representations on the front of the box to discover the truth from the ingredient list in small print on the side of the box.” Vitaminwater has 33 grams of sugar in each 20-ounce bottle.

Coca-Cola Admits Their Vitaminwater is Bad for You is a post from: Galactic Poolhall

A friend just returned from the South Pacific with a bottle of Vin de Tahiti, vin rouge.

The vineyard is located on the atoll of Rangiroa, 221 miles from Tahiti, and according to their their website is run by these gentlemen: “Mr Dominique AUROY, a wines fine connoisseur as well as a successful entrepreneur and business man who has been living in Tahiti for the past 35 years, and Mr Bernard HUDELOT, a viticulturist in the Burgundy region and a professor at the Vines and Wines University in Dijon.”

This level of expertise bodes well for a red, so we grabbed four t-bones, cranked up the BBQ, and poured ourselves a glass.

Our resident wine “expert”, who, having taken a wine tasting course, knows more about the subject than the rest of us, swirled and sniffed and took a small sip, rolled it around in her mouth, spit it out, and declared it to be “a not very good year for a Châteauneuf-du-K-Mart.”

I took a sip and decided that that was a terrible insult to K-Mart.

Perhaps we got a bad bottle, but it strikes me as being a tourist trap kind of product. Something you buy for the novelty, not to actually drink, like Cobra Snake whiskey. (something else I’ll never taste again.)

Tahitian Wine is a post from: Galactic Poolhall