Ok, we all know that this Professor likes to post some cheesecake on his blog every now and then.

But this Professor?

Good way to get some attention. . .

Coming soon, the XXX prize.

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The Alabama Court of the Judiciary voted today to remove Judge Roy Moore from office as a result of his defiance of a federal court's order to remove the graven image of the [Baptist version of the] Ten Commandments from the rotunda of the Alabama State Supreme Court building.

About da*n time. This joker has no business presiding over the highest court of any state in the Union, even Alabama. Although the order he defied was based on a 1st Amendment Establishment Clause basis, this need not be a federal issue. Judge Moore quite clearly defied the letter of the Alabama Constitution, section 3 of which reads:

[That the great, general, and essential principles of liberty and free government may be recognized and established, we declare]: that no religion shall be established by law; that no preference shall be given by law to any religious sect, society, denomination, or mode of worship; that no one shall be compelled by law to attend any place of worship; nor to pay any tithes, taxes, or other rate for building or repairing any place of worship, or for maintaining any minister or ministry; that no religious test shall be required as a
qualification to any office or public trust under this state; and that the civil rights, privileges, and capacities of any citizen shall not be in any manner affected by his religious principles.

As I have discussed elsewhere, the very listing of the 10 Commandments on "Roy's Rock" slights both the Jewish and the Catholic/Lutheran traditions. By presenting the Southern Baptist list of the Decalogue, Judge Moore gave preference to the Southern Baptists in the building that housed the highest court in the State of Alabama. Forget the federal case, this guy thumbed his nose at the Alabama Constitution.

It will be interesting to see what Roy does next, as he clearly shows no signs of fading away into the background. He should read his bible: "a man's pride will bring him low." (Proverbs 29:23).

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Via EGB, this site allows you to drag the original Enterprise next to the airship Hindenburg to compare their relative sizes. Then, you can compare the Star Trek IV "Whale Ship" to the Death Star II. Geek out.

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Again via Professor Hall (whose site seems to be rapidly linking up several like-minded neo-bloggers!) I have discovered SFSignal. Click on over and scroll up and down.

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I must have read Douglas Hofstadter's Goedel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid five times or more during my senior year of high school and first two years of college. It is definitely a classic that rewards multiple readings.

Via the inestimable Professor Hall, I am happy to discover The Eternal Golden Braid, which covers space, SF, space, Legos, more space, and more SF. My kind of blog! Check it out.

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SpaceRef posts XCOR's press release announcing that it has cleared a major regulatory hurdle.

In a letter dated October 29, 2003, the FAA's Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (AST) informed XCOR that its launch license application had been deemed "sufficiently complete."

This means that AST has to either issue a launch license to XCOR within 180 days or explain to Congress why it has failed to do so (see 49 USC 70105).

According to the AST's letter, this is the first sufficiently complete reusable Reusable Launch Vehicle mission license application to be received and evaluated by AST. Congratulations to XCOR!

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What economic school are you a member of? Take the Ludwig von Mises Institute Quiz here. I got a score of 78 out of 100. I chose the "Austrian" answer 15 times, the "Chicago" answer eight times, and the Keynesian-Neoclassical answer twice. (Scoring = 4 points per Austrian answer, 2 points per Chicago answer, 1 point per Keynesian-Neoclassical answer, and 0 points per Socialist answer).

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William Gibson wrote your book. Technology
terrifies and delights you.
Which Author's Fiction are You?
brought to you by QuizillaBummer (sort of). I was hoping to be Heinlein. It was my taste in beer (not booze) and women that apparently made the difference here.

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I think I need to organize my links better. I've been adding to them pretty haphazardly.

One of my most recent additions is the Vodkapundit Stephen Green, an interview of whom can be found here (link via Instapundit). Read the whole thing, as they say.

I, like Green, found The Fountainhead to be a more enjoyable read than Atlas Shrugged (although I heartily recommend reading both). It's been a few years since I've read either one, but my wife is reading Atlas Shrugged with her book club, so I get to vicariously enjoy it again.

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And while we are on the subject of veterans, Happy Birthday to the USMC, which celebrated its 228th birthday yesterday.

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Take a moment to remember those who served to preserve our freedoms, and if you know any veterans, thank them for their service.

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I have been doing far more reading than writing recently, plowing my way through a 3-month backlog of Analogs, starting the Terminal Experiment, continuing to read The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers out loud to my oldest son, and re-reading Gary Hudson's testimony (see November 5 entry below). Check back soon for expanded commentary. I have to confess that I am also trying again to beat Halo playing solo on the "Legendary" setting ;-) I managed to beat it on Easy, Normal, and Heroic.

My goal is to defeat it on Legendary before the sequel comes out. I am currently stalled at the gravity lift in the "Truth and Reconciliation" level. So that should also account for the lack of free ice cream around here recently.

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Via AMCGLTD, I found this seemingly apocryphal story about Air Force bomber pilots teaching some US Marine aviators a little bit of humility.

(Setup: sometime in the 1960s, some Marine F-4 Phantom pilots, to escape a hurricane on the Gulf Coast, are temporarily stationed inland at an Air Force base and proceed to brag about how they are flying the fastest planes in the world and generally ragging on the "low slow" bomber pilots. Hint: the "bombers" these particular Air Force pilots were flying were B-58 Hustlers).

Of course the Marines should have just gone double-or-nothing whether the Hustler pilots could land on a pitching carrier deck in the dark.

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NRO's John Miller points out that we space geeks can expect an extra Christmas present this year: the ESA's Mars Express is scheduled to deposit the Beagle-2 lander in Mars' atmosphere on December 25.

Miller also gives a couple of favorable reviews of space-themed coffee table books. I have added Magnificent Mars to my Amazon wish list.

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I came across science writer Carl Zimmer's excellent blog "The Loom" for the first time today. Take the time to read through his entire site.

If you enjoyed the Gene Expression article I linked to last week, you should definitely read Zimmer's October 26 entry on mapping evolutionary trees. Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison analyzed the phylogeny of seven species of yeast whose genomes had been completely sequenced. Using a set of 106 genes, they were able to map the evolutionary family tree of the yeast with 100% confidence at each node. More importantly, they were able to achieve the same result by paring down the number of genes examined to 20.

It will be interesting to see how this technique can be extended to more complex organisms in the coming years.

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Gary Hudson has provided testimony to the U.S. House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics for the 5
November 2003 hearing on H.R. 3245 - The Commercial Space Act of 2003.

I have only just begun to review and digest this, so I reserve the right to update or post more later.

Hudson, who developed the concept of the Phoenix SSTO vehicle and who was a driving force behind the DC-X and was the CEO of Rotary Rocket, describes the regulatory policy hurdles faced by our nascent commercial launch industry:

"However, the desire to fulfill international treaty obligations and to protect public safety has led us to a cul-de-sac in the road to a hopeful future. We have stumbled in our ability to promote the space flight industry, imposing an unclear, overly bureaucratic regulatory environment that is stif[l]ing innovation,
progress and commerce. We need to rethink our approach from first principles; that is the purpose of this white paper. "

He first recaps the 20-year old debate regarding licensing of commercial space activities:

"The origin of the debate goes back two decades. At that time, private rocketeers faced a number of Federal Agencies each who claimed they were in charge. These ranged from the FAA, which had the legitimate authority under the existing law, to the Department of State, which wanted to regulate rocket launches under the absurd notion that they were "exports." The professed goal of the sponsors of the first Commercial Space Act was to put an end to this problem and provide a "one-stop-shop" for launch approvals. I supported that unreservedly. "

But I lost the battle to limit the scope of the Act. Instead, a completely new entity was created: the Office of Commercial Space Transportation, as well as a completely new concept: Federal launch licenses. At the time, some of us complained that the new entity wasn't needed, that the existing law was adequate with minor revisions, and that the new OCST would not be able to figure out what to do about piloted reusable rockets. Our concerns were brushed
aside. They have now emerged as crucial to the future survival of an industry in crisis."

He criticizes the launch license process as overly burdensome:

"AST has grown increasingly bureaucratic. Launch Licenses are now Major Federal Actions. In spite of my warnings and counsel of the past five years, we have now reached a crisis. Experimental flight-testing of suborbital passenger vehicles has begun. AST is not up to the challenge of this development."

He then recommends the sure-to-be-controversial disestablishment of the AST:

"Therefore, I recommend the disestablishment of AST, and the elimination of the need for US persons to seek launch licenses. In its place, I propose that we return to the pre-1984 law governed by Federal Aviation Regulations. This will be sufficient to protect the safety of third parties and to fulfill international obligations. Piloted rocket aircraft of a variety of types will then be regulated by the FAA under experimental type certificates. Several rocket aircraft already have been issued such certificates."

But he attempts to address the expected objections before they are made:

"The strongest objection to such an approach comes from colleagues who wish to begin offering immediate passenger rides who fear the cost of FAA certification. I understand their position, and sympathize. And I believe that a barnstorming era for space transportation is desperately needed. But we can reach that result by other forthright action.

"Current FAA rules generally prohibit revenue flying of experimental aircraft. I propose we simply change the rule. Congress can permit certain experimental aircraft defined as space vehicles to operate under a limited exemption for a period of time -- 20 years. Coincidentally this is the same period from the Wright Brothers first flight to the establishment of the first Civil Aeronautics Authority in 1926. Some have asked how we protect the passengers on these flights? HR 3245 correctly supplies the solution by defining "spaceflight participants" as someone who would give their informed consent to fly."

Burt Rutan's first instinct was also to treat the White Knight/SpaceShipOne as an experimental aircraft to avoid applying for a federal launch license. Rand Simberg was quite critical of this approach, even citing a description of Rutan as a "bull in a china shop."

Based on the above, I obviously need to give this some more thought. I also need to read through the testimony of the other witnesses. You should do the same.

More later.

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Rocket Man profiles TGV Rockets and their X-Prize entrant, the MICHELLE-B.

This is an interesting concept vehicle, and reminds me a bit of a cross between Roton and the DC-X, but with an aerobrake (think: upside down parachute) instead of rotors to slow the craft's reentry.

Rocket Man analyzes the design trade-offs, and particularly critiques the weight penalty of six separate propulsion and fuel systems for what he perceives to be the minimal added value of "graceful degradation." But he does have kind words for the aerobraking concept and the craft's planned method of powered landing after the manner of the DC-X. Rocket Man notes that he "would love to see a continuation of [the DC-X style of landing] testing with the MICHELLE-B." I'm sure he knows that the Japanese JAXA is in fact currently conducting experiments much like the DC-X in their reusable vehicle testing campaign.

TGV Rockets only has blueprints at this point, but they have a business plan and hint at funding to continue development of the MICHELLE-B even if another team wins the X-Prize.

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David Letterman became a dad Monday night, naming the baby after David's father.

Letterman, whose show has been struggling in the ratings against Jay Leno's Tonight show, has seemed notably mellower since his brush with mortality a few years ago.

I've always preferred Letterman to Leno, in much the same way that I prefer Monty Python's Flying Circus to the Benny Hill show. I wish him and his family all the best, and look forward to his take on this new adventure.

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Eugene Volokh, who has forgotten more about commercial free speech than I have ever learned, cites a local government official's desire to outlaw a creative billboard that uses a donkey's hindquarters to sell large industrial fans.

The company, Big Ass Fans, took its name from its customers' spontaneous initial reactions to its up-to-24-foot diameter products. Big Ass Fans' marketing "guy" describes the marketing campaign as tasteful. I agree with Prof. Volokh that, while crude, this is certainly not obscene.

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Well I finally bit the bullet and taught myself some HTML.

I drafted this site mostly from scratch in plain text (in Notepad), cutting and pasting some bits from the old Blogger template.

Please let me know if you have any comments on the new look.

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