Tony Snow reported last night that his contacts within the Kerry campaign indicated that they are conceeding Florida and will transfer resources to other battleground states. This is surprising. Both candidates have practically lived in Florida over the past few months, and the overall polling data still shows a tight race. Kerry’s internal polling must reflect the CNN/USA Today/Time numbers… Read more →
The Narrow Field Landing
Every pilot learns to perform short-field landings. Indeed, we take pride in demonstrating the skill with which we extract maximum performance from our aircraft. But a ‘narrow field’ landing? Who ever heard of that? And in a Boeing 747? There’s something you don’t see every day. Yet that was the task facing the flight crew of this South African Airways… Read more →
Ewww
I just returned from the gym. One of my favorite parts of working out at 24 Hour Fitness is that they have a dry heat sauna, and the temperature is always set just right. It’s even better when there’s no one else in there and you can soak up the heat in solitude. Well today I was in there by… Read more →
Good News for UC Irvine
What’s this? A bit of good news on the California education scene? I hardly know what to do with myself. By pumping money into a few select departments and aggressively recruiting top researchers, UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine have hauled in more Nobels in recent years than UC Berkeley and UCLA, the system’s traditional centers of scholarship. University leaders… Read more →
More Proof that Rap is Crap
As if the legion of aspiring rap ‘artists’ who come upon the House of Rapp and conclude that I must be able to help them with their careers isn’t enough, here’s new evidence that rap causes brain rot: (via VodkaPundit) If Osama bin Laden ever buys a rap album, he’ll probably start with a CD by KRS-One. The hip-hop anarchist… Read more →
How ‘Bout Some Coffee, Johnny?
I suppose a few comments on the third and final presidential debate would be in order, since I did force myself to sit down and watch the whole thi-Zzzzzz..wmmmfmw….zzzzz…. Okayokay, I’m awake. I wasn’t sleeping, just resting my eyes. After ninety minutes of talking points, one begins to think the Zucker brothers were watching a presidential debate when they wrote… Read more →
Commercial Development of Space
Glenn Reynolds has a good article on the legislative shenanigans in Congress on commercial development of space flight. Glenn pointed out correctly in an email to me that the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation has been behaving itself thus far. But even so, I cannot help but feel that if history is any indication, the FAA will soon be… Read more →
Glider Training
I was out at Hemet-Ryan Airport today continuing toward my commercial glider rating. Man, I love going out there. For one thing, it gives me an excuse to fly. Not that an excuse is required, but it’s nice to use the aviation system for personal transportation. I’ve made the trip out to Hemet by car before, and it’s no fun.… Read more →
SpaceShipOne Team Wins the X Prize
The Rutan team (aka Mojave Aerospace Ventures, Scaled Composites, TierOne, or SpaceShipOne ) claimed the $10 million Ansari X Prize victory today with a second flight outside the earth’s atmosphere. But forget the money. You know you’ve really made it big when Google puts you on their search engine banner. Not only did SS1 claim the prize, but also set… Read more →
The Debate
I managed to catch the Bush-Kerry debate this evening, and I have to say it felt like Sen. Kerry came out on top. My expectations for President Bush were high, despite his reputation as a poor public speaker. The thing about Bush is, he’s improved a lot as a speechmaker in the years since the last election, and although the… Read more →