I heard Barack Obama has been on primetime TV as many times in his 6 months in office than George W. Bush was in his entire 8 year stint. I cannot confirm this fact, but it sure does seem like it. I am sure State of the Union addresses didn't count towards the figure.
I remember a Saturday night live skit about Al Gore, and what if he were president. The joke was that he would come into people's living rooms every night on primetime TV with an economics textbook and proceed to give the nightly lesson.
Little did they know how prophetic their skit would be. The very next democratic candidate to ascend to office, Mr. Obama, has brought that skit straight from the TV set into real life.
It seems like everytime I turn on the TV, there he is again, talking down to us like we are all grade-schoolers. I wondered if I was alone in my observation. Apparently not, as the latest polls are showing what is being termed "Obama Fatigue."
http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/07/obama-vs-regular-tv-poll.html
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Catholics and Star Wars
Ever been tempted to answer "May the Force be with you", with, "And also with you"?
If so, you might be a devout Catholic.
If so, you might be a devout Catholic.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Great post from a Facebook group!
To Clear Up Confusion: Catholic is Christian. All the Protestant Denominations branched off of Catholicism beginning with Martin Luther (why Lutheranism is close to Catholicism)
We say this every Sunday.
Nicene Creed - Profession of Faith
We believe in God, the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
and all that is seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he was born of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered, died, and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in fulfilment of the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead,
and His kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son
he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.
Amen.
That is what we believe in--- God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
You can only get to Heaven through Jesus Christ. Not good works, not confession, not volunteering and good deeds. Jesus Christ is it.
"For at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in Heaven and Earth and below the earth." Phillipians 2:10
We do not worship Mary--- we honor her as being the mother of our Lord.
We do not worship Saints--- we look up to them as role models.
Just as you ask your family and friends to pray for you for a sick relative or for courage, we ask Mary and the Saints for intercession--- to pray for us and with us to Jesus.
Jesus is the Christ in Christianity.
We follow the word of God and the teachings and traditions of the apostles.
Our Cross is a crucifix (with Jesus on it) because without Jesus, it's just a cross. Many were crucified (there were two robbers beside Jesus) but only one man died for our sins, and it's his cross that matters.
God Bless Everyone!
We say this every Sunday.
Nicene Creed - Profession of Faith
We believe in God, the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
and all that is seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he was born of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered, died, and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in fulfilment of the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead,
and His kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son
he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.
Amen.
That is what we believe in--- God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
You can only get to Heaven through Jesus Christ. Not good works, not confession, not volunteering and good deeds. Jesus Christ is it.
"For at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in Heaven and Earth and below the earth." Phillipians 2:10
We do not worship Mary--- we honor her as being the mother of our Lord.
We do not worship Saints--- we look up to them as role models.
Just as you ask your family and friends to pray for you for a sick relative or for courage, we ask Mary and the Saints for intercession--- to pray for us and with us to Jesus.
Jesus is the Christ in Christianity.
We follow the word of God and the teachings and traditions of the apostles.
Our Cross is a crucifix (with Jesus on it) because without Jesus, it's just a cross. Many were crucified (there were two robbers beside Jesus) but only one man died for our sins, and it's his cross that matters.
God Bless Everyone!
Deep thoughts by Jack Handey
Joe L. was one lucky (insert expletive of choice here).
That is all I have to say this morning.
Have a great weekend!
That is all I have to say this morning.
Have a great weekend!
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Heavy reading
I started reading this book. I used to be a fan of Loraine Boettner. I have read his book "The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination" several times through. I never got around to reading his treatise on Roman Catholicism. The book I am currently reading is a refute of Boettner's work.
My favorite part so far is Boettner's critique of ex cathedra doctrine. He actually claims that because archaeology tells us that the chair the Pope sets in is not actually Peter's physical chair, the doctrine is invalid! He claims archaeology contradicts Catholic doctrine on this matter.
Oh my. It is hard to believe that someone who graduated from Princeton could be this intellectually, well, let's be nice and say disingenuous.
Friday, July 3, 2009
The MartinLogan Story
People often assume that MartinLogan was founded by a couple of guys named Martin and Logan, which is sort of true: Gayle Martin Sanders and Ron Logan Sutherland. MartinLogan "just sounded better than SandersSutherland," Sanders explains. (Apparently they never considered GayleRon.)
The two met in the late '70s at a high-end audio store Sanders managed in Lawrence, Kansas. Despite very different backgrounds—Sanders had trained in architecture and advertising, Sutherland in electrical engineering—they shared a passion for music and, they soon discovered, electrostatic loudspeakers.
For anyone seeking the ultimate in sonic purity and clarity, electrostatics held enormous appeal. Unfortunately, designing and building one that will also produce the sound levels and bass extension most people expect from a loudspeaker is a formidable challenge, even today. Back then, only a relative handful of electrostatic speakers had ever been brought to market. Although most were failures, a few, such as the KLH Model 9 and Quad ESL, were legendary among audio enthusiasts.
The KLH probably came closer than any other full-range electrostatic speaker of its day to competing effectively with conventional speakers in bass and output capability. It was very big, however, and finicky and expensive, and it didn't fit in at all with the rest of KLH's line. Consequently, sales were modest, and eventually the Model 9 went out of production. The Quad ESL was much more successful, especially in its native England, and until MartinLogan's products came on the scene it was arguably the only commercially significant electrostatic loudspeaker in history. It suffered the classic limitations of the breed, however. Though the original Quad electrostatic was widely regarded as the world's finest reproducer of chamber music, fans of rock and even symphonic music were inclined to look elsewhere.
Sanders and Sutherland convinced each other they could do better. They were sure they could build an electrostatic speaker that would produce adequate bass, output, and sound dispersion without arcing, blowing up amplifiers, or otherwise offending people not interested in a living-room science project. Sanders organized a small research and development team to transform an original design he had tinkered with for more than a decade into a practical, marketable electrostatic transducer.
The first prototype was ready in 1980. Naturally, it still had that science-project quality—a flat aluminum panel sprouting wires, struts, transformers, and power supplies, connected to an amplifier in Sanders' living room. It sounded even better than expected, but when they turned up the volume, a lightning storm erupted across the panel and music was replaced by a plume of smoke drifting toward the ceiling. Still, they knew they were close.
The team began a series of experiments with new aerospace materials that led to a design breakthrough. Constructed with state-of-the-art conductive coatings, insulation, and adhesives, their revised transducer sandwiched a clear, ultra-light Mylar diaphragm between two perforated-steel stators.
The new speaker looked elegant and could play loudly without arcing, but Sanders still struggled with how to achieve satisfactory high-frequency dispersion without compromising sound quality. (Large transducers tend to radiate high frequencies in a narrow beam rather than fanning them over a wide area.) The solution came in a midnight session when Sutherland sketched a theoretical sound wave to illustrate how sound disperses. Sanders envisioned a horizontally curved panel, the curvilinear line-source, or CLS, transducer central to the design of every MartinLogan electrostat since.
With only a mock-up and some photographs, Sanders and Sutherland exhibited their speaker concept at the 1982 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago. An instant hit, the design was honored with a CES Design and Engineering Award. Excited by the response, they headed home to Kansas to translate their ideas into a working prototype.
Up to Speed
Through a network of high-technology manufacturers, Sanders and Sutherland enlisted the help of other engineers with cutting-edge expertise and interest in the project. The company that fabricated the space shuttle's filtered windows and the people who created Teflon-coated cookware joined the design team. From their combined effort emerged a patented vapor-deposition process, an optically transparent diaphragm that could support a 5,000-volt charge, and a conformal coating that uniformly insulated each perforated stator to a charge of up to 10,000 volts.
By the time of the 1983 CES, they had developed a full-range hybrid electrostatic loudspeaker they called the Monolith. A renowned high-end audio company used a prototype pair in its room at the show to demonstrate its electronics. Dealers who heard them were bowled over by the sound of the visually stunning, see-through Monoliths and, more importantly, eager to sell them. It was at this point that Sanders and Sutherland put their middle names to the venture and set about satisfying the demand they had created. MartinLogan finally took flight.
The first couple of years were touch and go. Working with just one full-time and one part-time employee, they built and shipped the first 10 pairs of Monoliths. Despite specially designed cartons, three pair were ruined in freight—a near-catastrophic loss for the young company. Undeterred, they rebuilt the speakers and pressed on, establishing in the process the guaranteed-satisfaction policy that stands behind MartinLogan quality and workmanship to this day.
Sales started to surge in 1985, and the company was finally on a firm footing. Sutherland departed to return to his first love, electronics. The next year MartinLogan moved to its current location at 2001 Delaware Street. At the same time international distribution for the Monolith took off with startling success.
Steady growth followed. By 1988 sales had increased tenfold and the plant had expanded to include a large, dedicated production space. In 1989, and again in 1990, Inc. magazine recognized MartinLogan as one of the 500 fastest-growing privately held companies in the United States.
In the early 1990's MartinLogan released the world's first electrostatic center-channel and on-wall surround-channel speakers, establishing MartinLogan as a major player in the emerging home theater market. It was during this time in the early 90's that some of MartinLogan's most beloved classic electrostatic speakers were introduced, including the Aerius, SL3, Quest, and Cinema.
MartinLogan's most ambitious product to date began to take form in 1997. The resulting 2000-pound Statement e2 loudspeaker shocked the audio world and today is still considered by many to be the apex of no-holds-barred loudspeaker design. The innovative design and engineering behind the Statement e2 fueled the next generation of MartinLogan electrostatic speakers (not to mention ML's first non-electrostatic product). Released in 1999, the Prodigy electrostatic loudspeaker incorporated much of the design and engineering knowledge gained during the Statement project. Prodigy in turn inspired an entire new generation of electrostatic products including the Odyssey, Ascent, Aeon and Theater. All the while sales and distribution continued to expand.
What followed was one the greatest challenges ever faced by MartinLogan engineers - the design of MartinLogan's first non-electrostatic product. In 2001 the legendary Descent subwoofer (featuring servo-control and BalancedForce technologies) took the market by storm establishing MartinLogan as a major player in the growing subwoofer market.
In 2003 Design Series was launched. MartinLogan's high-end pedigree and years of design know-how allowed the design and engineering team to produce this increasingly smaller and more affordable line of speakers without sacrificing the quality and performance that the MartinLogan name has come to represent.
Now firmly established as a loudspeaker 'technology' company (not just an 'electrostatic' company) MartinLogan ventured where few high-performance speaker companies dare to tread... inside of a wall. The Voyage and Passage in-wall loudspeakers (released 2004) challenged the entire audio industry by releasing in-wall speakers with true high-performance sound.
In January of 2005 MartinLogan once again raised the bar for high-performance audio with the release of the Summit electrostat. A major departure from all things that came before, Summit combines dual independently powered woofers with MartinLogan's most advanced electrostatic transducer to date - the XStat.
In October of 2005 ML was acquired by a subsidiary of ShoreView Industries. ShoreView is a financial firm that makes investments in entrepreneurial, well-run private companies. Like you, ShoreView recognizes MartinLogan's commitment to quality performance audio products. ShoreView is a passive investor that is not from the loudspeaker or audio business and is not involved in day to day operations.
Today, MartinLogan is a growing company with an internationally recognized brand, a top-notch team, superior design and technology and smart customers who value the best speakers on the planet.
The two met in the late '70s at a high-end audio store Sanders managed in Lawrence, Kansas. Despite very different backgrounds—Sanders had trained in architecture and advertising, Sutherland in electrical engineering—they shared a passion for music and, they soon discovered, electrostatic loudspeakers.
For anyone seeking the ultimate in sonic purity and clarity, electrostatics held enormous appeal. Unfortunately, designing and building one that will also produce the sound levels and bass extension most people expect from a loudspeaker is a formidable challenge, even today. Back then, only a relative handful of electrostatic speakers had ever been brought to market. Although most were failures, a few, such as the KLH Model 9 and Quad ESL, were legendary among audio enthusiasts.
The KLH probably came closer than any other full-range electrostatic speaker of its day to competing effectively with conventional speakers in bass and output capability. It was very big, however, and finicky and expensive, and it didn't fit in at all with the rest of KLH's line. Consequently, sales were modest, and eventually the Model 9 went out of production. The Quad ESL was much more successful, especially in its native England, and until MartinLogan's products came on the scene it was arguably the only commercially significant electrostatic loudspeaker in history. It suffered the classic limitations of the breed, however. Though the original Quad electrostatic was widely regarded as the world's finest reproducer of chamber music, fans of rock and even symphonic music were inclined to look elsewhere.
Sanders and Sutherland convinced each other they could do better. They were sure they could build an electrostatic speaker that would produce adequate bass, output, and sound dispersion without arcing, blowing up amplifiers, or otherwise offending people not interested in a living-room science project. Sanders organized a small research and development team to transform an original design he had tinkered with for more than a decade into a practical, marketable electrostatic transducer.
The first prototype was ready in 1980. Naturally, it still had that science-project quality—a flat aluminum panel sprouting wires, struts, transformers, and power supplies, connected to an amplifier in Sanders' living room. It sounded even better than expected, but when they turned up the volume, a lightning storm erupted across the panel and music was replaced by a plume of smoke drifting toward the ceiling. Still, they knew they were close.
The team began a series of experiments with new aerospace materials that led to a design breakthrough. Constructed with state-of-the-art conductive coatings, insulation, and adhesives, their revised transducer sandwiched a clear, ultra-light Mylar diaphragm between two perforated-steel stators.
The new speaker looked elegant and could play loudly without arcing, but Sanders still struggled with how to achieve satisfactory high-frequency dispersion without compromising sound quality. (Large transducers tend to radiate high frequencies in a narrow beam rather than fanning them over a wide area.) The solution came in a midnight session when Sutherland sketched a theoretical sound wave to illustrate how sound disperses. Sanders envisioned a horizontally curved panel, the curvilinear line-source, or CLS, transducer central to the design of every MartinLogan electrostat since.
With only a mock-up and some photographs, Sanders and Sutherland exhibited their speaker concept at the 1982 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago. An instant hit, the design was honored with a CES Design and Engineering Award. Excited by the response, they headed home to Kansas to translate their ideas into a working prototype.
Up to Speed
Through a network of high-technology manufacturers, Sanders and Sutherland enlisted the help of other engineers with cutting-edge expertise and interest in the project. The company that fabricated the space shuttle's filtered windows and the people who created Teflon-coated cookware joined the design team. From their combined effort emerged a patented vapor-deposition process, an optically transparent diaphragm that could support a 5,000-volt charge, and a conformal coating that uniformly insulated each perforated stator to a charge of up to 10,000 volts.
By the time of the 1983 CES, they had developed a full-range hybrid electrostatic loudspeaker they called the Monolith. A renowned high-end audio company used a prototype pair in its room at the show to demonstrate its electronics. Dealers who heard them were bowled over by the sound of the visually stunning, see-through Monoliths and, more importantly, eager to sell them. It was at this point that Sanders and Sutherland put their middle names to the venture and set about satisfying the demand they had created. MartinLogan finally took flight.
The first couple of years were touch and go. Working with just one full-time and one part-time employee, they built and shipped the first 10 pairs of Monoliths. Despite specially designed cartons, three pair were ruined in freight—a near-catastrophic loss for the young company. Undeterred, they rebuilt the speakers and pressed on, establishing in the process the guaranteed-satisfaction policy that stands behind MartinLogan quality and workmanship to this day.
Sales started to surge in 1985, and the company was finally on a firm footing. Sutherland departed to return to his first love, electronics. The next year MartinLogan moved to its current location at 2001 Delaware Street. At the same time international distribution for the Monolith took off with startling success.
Steady growth followed. By 1988 sales had increased tenfold and the plant had expanded to include a large, dedicated production space. In 1989, and again in 1990, Inc. magazine recognized MartinLogan as one of the 500 fastest-growing privately held companies in the United States.
In the early 1990's MartinLogan released the world's first electrostatic center-channel and on-wall surround-channel speakers, establishing MartinLogan as a major player in the emerging home theater market. It was during this time in the early 90's that some of MartinLogan's most beloved classic electrostatic speakers were introduced, including the Aerius, SL3, Quest, and Cinema.
MartinLogan's most ambitious product to date began to take form in 1997. The resulting 2000-pound Statement e2 loudspeaker shocked the audio world and today is still considered by many to be the apex of no-holds-barred loudspeaker design. The innovative design and engineering behind the Statement e2 fueled the next generation of MartinLogan electrostatic speakers (not to mention ML's first non-electrostatic product). Released in 1999, the Prodigy electrostatic loudspeaker incorporated much of the design and engineering knowledge gained during the Statement project. Prodigy in turn inspired an entire new generation of electrostatic products including the Odyssey, Ascent, Aeon and Theater. All the while sales and distribution continued to expand.
What followed was one the greatest challenges ever faced by MartinLogan engineers - the design of MartinLogan's first non-electrostatic product. In 2001 the legendary Descent subwoofer (featuring servo-control and BalancedForce technologies) took the market by storm establishing MartinLogan as a major player in the growing subwoofer market.
In 2003 Design Series was launched. MartinLogan's high-end pedigree and years of design know-how allowed the design and engineering team to produce this increasingly smaller and more affordable line of speakers without sacrificing the quality and performance that the MartinLogan name has come to represent.
Now firmly established as a loudspeaker 'technology' company (not just an 'electrostatic' company) MartinLogan ventured where few high-performance speaker companies dare to tread... inside of a wall. The Voyage and Passage in-wall loudspeakers (released 2004) challenged the entire audio industry by releasing in-wall speakers with true high-performance sound.
In January of 2005 MartinLogan once again raised the bar for high-performance audio with the release of the Summit electrostat. A major departure from all things that came before, Summit combines dual independently powered woofers with MartinLogan's most advanced electrostatic transducer to date - the XStat.
In October of 2005 ML was acquired by a subsidiary of ShoreView Industries. ShoreView is a financial firm that makes investments in entrepreneurial, well-run private companies. Like you, ShoreView recognizes MartinLogan's commitment to quality performance audio products. ShoreView is a passive investor that is not from the loudspeaker or audio business and is not involved in day to day operations.
Today, MartinLogan is a growing company with an internationally recognized brand, a top-notch team, superior design and technology and smart customers who value the best speakers on the planet.
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