Posts by Alex Miller

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Asteroid Sleuth: The Case of the Manhole Mishap

On October 15, 2019 at 3:15 AM EDT, a crew of Verizon workers raised a heavy iron manhole cover in the Columbus Circle section of Manhattan, to be assaulted by a putrid smell. Investigation into the vault below found the badly decomposed body of a man, partially consumed by rats, who had clearly been dead for some time. The mystery of how the corpse got under the 300 pound manhole cover, which normally takes two people to lift it, was resolved by examination of surveillance footage of the area.

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DNI DOA: Trump’s War on Intel

On Thursday, February 20th, Donald Trump ejected acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire from his post, replacing him with partisan hack Richard Grenell. The position was created in the wake of the 9-11 attacks to coordinate the output of 17 intelligence agencies and provide useful, integrated information to the President and Congress, relating to national security. All Executive Branch employees serve at the pleasure of the President, and Trump was well within his rights to make this change. The question is: why now?

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AAA Profile: Michael Bloomberg

Roiling the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination of late is former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the ninth-richest man in the US. Bloomberg’s political consistency has been his inconsistency: a registered Democrat until 2001, he became a Republican to run for mayor, then during his second term dumped that Party affiliation while he successfully prosecuted the case for ending New York’s mayoral term limits, winning a third term in 2009 as an Independent. In 2018 he once again registered as a Democrat, before announcing his entry into the 2020 presidential race on November 24, 2019.

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Happy Presidents Day!

Today is the day in the US when we celebrate all those crazy kids who brought us here, the men who grabbed the reins of American power and guided, propelled or dragged the country along with them, for a span of time. Some were giants, some could have been Munchkin extras in “The Wizard of Oz”.

 

Mostly, being a capitalist country, we honor their service and sacrifice with reduced prices on cars and large appliances, a chilly mid-February day off to break the monotony of work or school, and possibly their own category on “Jeopardy!

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2020 Oscar Recap

Well, one out of four ain’t bad. I’m referring to my pre-Oscar predictions, where I sussed out the chances of victory for the various contenders, based solely on their PNA (Personal-Named Asteroid) interactions with the chart for the 92nd Academy Awards on February 9th.   It was an incredibly tapped-in lineup, with 13 of the 20 acting award nominees connected to the Sun of the event, 14 connected to asteroid Oskar, 12 angular and 11 linked with the Moon. Of course, the day’s sky has a powerful impact, but in a field so evenly distributed with cosmic potential, a lot will come down to the natal chart. And now, with the winners firmly in hand, we can see just how that played out.

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Aster-Obit: Kirk Douglas

On February 5th, 2020, Academy Award nominee Kirk Douglas died at the age of 103. He was a film icon in the ‘50s and ‘60s, with starring roles in such notable films as “Champion” (1949), “Young Man with a Horn” (1950), “The Bad and the Beautiful” (1952), “Lust for Life” (1956) and “Spartacus” (1960). Nominated as Best Actor three times, Douglas never snagged that top accolade, but was given an honorary Oscar in 1996 for “50 years as a moral and creative force in the motion picture community.” Not merely an on-screen presence, Douglas also wrote and produced, and founded a Hollywood dynasty, including his son, actor/producer Michael.

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