While looking for the John Russell of two centuries ago, who did pastels of the moon, I came across this little side-add . I could not believe my eyes. Is this true? Is there really a real estate agency that thinks it owns the moon and can sell it?

Official Moon Property
Buy real lunar land claims here.
Prices start at less than US$20.
LunarRegistry.com

Moon owners?

I plan to personally stake my claim on the moon as soon as I collect on my Moon Tour Reservation, which I earned through membership in the Science-Fiction Book Club back in 1955.



-hal (that's right, got it for $1, American) friday

But you can't be serious! We sliced and crumbled up earth in all those litte parcels , so that individual tiny landowners fight over a neighbour's happily growing patch of ferns on their
boundery.
I just want to know the truth. Is this real? Lunacy! Please. tell me if you know. You must be kidding.

[... Remember: the only recognized historic precedent in international law for property ownership is actual occupation of that property... ]

Well, that precedent should be X-rayed then. How silly.
You can sell holy water, you can sell fried air in tin cans, you can cheat the world when it wants to be cheated, but you can't sell the moon.

-Bran (no points) Shea

BS, from the FAQ at your link:

Remember: the only recognized historic precedent in international law for property ownership is actual occupation of that property...

-joe (nine points) friday

Besides, realtors don't own the land they sell; they are merely acting as agents for those who do.

I own two square inches of land on the moon, but they're not contiguous. And I ain't selling.

I checked and found that Faldage does own two sguare inches of non-contiguous barren craterland on the moon, but the reason he ain't selling is that his property is located on the darkside of the moon where the sun don't shine and that is why and where he is stuck and can stick it.

Best beware, BrabShea, of moon hustlers like Faldage and tsuwm, they'll try to sell you what ain't there. Ever see a breathtakingly beautiful full moon that seems to occupy half of the evening sky? That is one of their tricks. Take a picture and you'll barely see a little orange dot. All they want is your money.

Yes Faldage, but then could you tell me straight:
Who? Who in the world thinks he or she does own the moon? (if you know)
( don't try to sell me 'the man in the moon') He is not there.


[Quote Best beware, BrabShea, of moon hustlers like Faldage and tsuwm, they'll try to sell you what ain't there. Ever see a breathtakingly beautiful full moon that seems to occupy half of the evening sky? That is one of their tricks. Take a picture and you'll barely see a little orange dot. All they want is your money. ]

Milum! re: but the reason he ain't selling is that his property is located on the darkside of the moon where the sun don't shine and that is why and where he is stuck and can stick it.

The sun, at some point shines on every part of the moon.

We here on earth only get to see the same side of the moon, the sun is graces all of then moon
--your resident lunitic, moon mad me

Buy real lunar land claims here.

They're not selling land, but land claims.

Presently, over the internet, the number of ownership claims by various enterprises and business is astronomical. -Wikipedia, Moon for sale

heh.

"darkside of the moon where the sun don't shine" - Milo

ha! (good call, helen)

-joe (buyuranus.com) bfstplk

Makes no difference : both in and out of the sun it's hell.

Temperatures on the surface of the Moon swing wildly from one extreme to the other, from an average of -184°C (-300°F) in the shade to an average of 101°C (214°F) in the sun, precisely because of the lack of atmosphere there.

I'll send an S.Y.S. to the Moon. (Sting)

There are a number of literary tales of those who buy/sell moon property, and the potential legal consequences of such.

I can definitely sell any one here my rights to any portion of the moon you desire.

That's it, the jig's up, I'm caught, dress me in red and call me Mattie! Never should I wax poetic when I'm up to my neck in an admiring bog of pedant alligators who insist I call the sweet wetlands a dark and dank swamp.

Yes, Helen, moonmaid, et al, I agree, perception is not reality . There is but one reality; one is a romantic reality and the other reality is one made up of electrons and other nebulous stuff. Come let us discern reality together...

Why does the full moon and the rising and setting sun appear so big when seen on the horizon?

Fair notice: Only me and seven other people on Earth know the correct answer to this question.
And remember...

Be kind to our web footed friends
For the duck maybe somebody's brother
Who lives all alone in the swamp
Where it's cold and damp.
You may think that this is the end.
Well it is.

i love wet lands milo-- i used to enjoy to no end the 2 minite a day interlude when the LIRR passed through the local wetlands!

as for the moon looking bigger, optical illusion. (a wonderful one though, isn't it?)

i love to look at the moon --romantically, poetically, and properly!

PS, i know it as:
Be kind to our web footed friends
For a duck maybe somebody's mother,
be kind to your friends in the swamp
Where it's dark, cold and damp.
You may think that this is the end.
Well it is.

(but then i know peter, peter as:
Peter Peter, pumpkin eater
Had a wife, couldn't keep 'er.
Had another, couldn't lov 'er,
Up the chimney he did shove 'er!
(i learned fractured nursery rhymes, what can i say?)

Oh heck! Helen, you forgot that all things optical are, in effect, an illusion. Sorry. I must now remove you from my list of the seven people on Earth who fully understand the reason why the sun and moon seem to loom so large when on the horizon.

-----------

Bye-the-sweet bye and bye, just curious Helen; did you all, like we all, sing "Web Footed Friends" to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"?

The illusion of the large sun or moon near the horizon (vs in the 'dome of sky' above has to do with the human field of sight.

at the horizion, the moon looks larger (compaired to trees, building, and even in comparision to the horizontal fielf of vision.

in the dome of sky above, with no distractions, we see it (the moon) for what it is, a scant 5° of the 180° (more or less) that the dome of sky is.

as a NYC dweller, i love the moon--its bright enough not to be faded by ambient light (venus and several of the planets are visible too,) but all but the brightest star are impossible to see. i now live 10 miles closer to manhattan, and see fewer constillation now in my more urban digs, then i saw in my more suburban neighborhood.

and no, not battle hymn of the republic, but to stars and stripes forever (sousa) but i did used to know several kids song that were sung to the Battle hymn--(including "john brown's body lies a molding in the grave")

Close, Helena, but no cigarillo. The frame of reference idea is partly "how"; but not "why".
Hint: Put a dime in your outstreached hand and with it you can block out your harvest moon.
Keep trying and I might, just maybe, put you back on the list of the seven most incisive people on Earth.

You've already scored two points for pointing out that the childhood rhyme about the web footed duck was sang to tune of "Stars and Stripes Forever" and not the "Battle Hymn of the Republic".

It also explains why I was thrown out of my high school marching band.

Just out of curiosity, Milo, do any two of the seven people on your list agree with each other?

What a strange question.

Well no, Faldage, so far I've only explained to about a hundred or so people why our moon and sun when seen on the horizon appears to be extraordinarily large, but only seven people (and you were one of them) nodded their heads either physically or figuratively as if to say that they understood what I said.

What? You want off my list too?

Well, you Helen and Milum and Faldage, who seem to know all about the sun and the moon on the horizon, can you tell me why the sun sinking into the sea, I mean disappearing behind the horizon seems one day bigger than the other?

And why the moon definitely looks bigger on the horizon than the sun on the horizon and has a orangish color in stead of the chilly white when it is up in the sky?

Gee, BranShea, you ask some good questions.
I can answer all but one, but being polite, I'll let my esteemed colleagues have first go.

Ok, colleagues...go!

here ya go, Milo; debunk this.

-joe (one moon is both the same) friday

Was I smiling figuratively when I was nodding figuratively?

If you were smart, my dear Faldage, you were not nodding but looking up towards heaven with your hands high in the air giving humble thanks to me and the Allmighty for removing the scales from your eyes.

That is, if you were smart.

Ok Joe, here I go, I hope you have the elan to applaud it.

For a long time man was not a man but a pack. We were pre-people who hunted far and wide to feed the ingroup. Central to our continuance was the need of an ability to find our way back home, and in deep woods a critical guide was the cardinal points, half of which are East and West.

Simply put: Like all animals we humans see only that which enables us to continue through time. So being pack hunters for the most part of our career as a species, our eyes evolved highlighting receptors to better see the position of the setting Sun and Moon. This visual enhancement helped us find our way back home and kept us from being eaten too often by other dumb animals.

Simple huh?

well Milo, posting your own crackpot theory isn't exactly the same as debunking everyone else's crackpot therories, now is it.

-jimmy (crackpot) friday

Simple is not always true.
We do not only see what we need to survive as a species.(We see more and we do not always want to see.)We just err and succeed.Or maybe not in the end.
Did you forget that there are moonless days? And clouded days. So are you going to tell us next that there was:
"no moon today and overcast sky, lets stay at home and do some(crack) pottery"?


These sentences:

[ In fact, it is not only the Moon that seems larger when we perceive it near the horizon. In a photo of a distant scene, all distant objects are perceived as smaller than when we observe them directly using our vision.]

A photo always gives an exagerated perspective , even more so when you use a large angle lens. A camera "sees" with one " eye", while we see with two.


[ "No single theory has emerged victorious" ]
( I love this )

Wasn't "John Brown's body lies a-moldering in the grave" the original lyrics, with the Battle Hymn coming along later?

John Brown's Body is a kid's song?

The tune to which Be kind to your web-footed friends is usually sung is John Philip Sousa's The Stars and Stripes Forever. Although, I'm sure anything is place. The original lyrics also by Sousa, first stanza, are:

Let martial note in triumph float
And liberty extend its mighty hand
A flag appears 'mid thunderous cheers,
The banner of the Western land.
The emblem of the brave and true
Its folds protect no tyrant crew;
The red and white and starry blue
Is freedom's shield and hope.

The water fowl lyrics are usually attribed to Fred Allen, the late, great comedian.

The Battle Hymn of the Republic provided the tune for a great set of lyrics that all kids hold dear to themselves:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school:
We have tortured all the teachers; we have broken ev'ry rule.
&c.

And I'm chopped liver?

And I'm chopped liver?

Pâtez-vous moi.

fractured lyrics.. not the original ones! (the refrain remained but the verses were changed.

Fractured livers.

in this case, no, you're not. as I read it, Cur was responding to your post.

JBB>BHotR

The original circa 1856 lyric was:
Say, Brother, won't you meet us?
<repeats>
On Canaan's happy shore.
Glory, glory hallelujah!
<repeats>
For ever, evermore.

JBB came along about 3-4 years later quite closely followed by BHotR.

HEY! We can turn this into a word thread:

I have read a fiery Gospel writ in burnished rows of steel;
“As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal”;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,

I had heard all the other verses before, but never this (the third).