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Continued Light Blogging

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We’re back in a (presumably) termite-free house, but it needs to be recombobulated, and we’re leaving first thing in the morning for a family reunion in Michigan, and won’t be back until Monday. So expect less bloggage than usual.

[Update late Saturday night]

Just checking in. Had a party at my brother’s house on a lake in Linden, with long-lost relatives, burgers and Koegels hot dogs, cole slaw from cabbage fresh from the garden, and abundant beer. Blogging will continue to be light.

12 thoughts on “Continued Light Blogging”

  3. Had to get the place tented to be sure of getting all the bugs, eh? I had to do that to a house I owned a few years back. We should compare notes sometime – I’l bet it costs a lot more in LA than it did in rural Arizona. I’m amazed they even allow such brutal treatment of our fellow living beings in California…

    I’m having fun too, mind. Waiting to hear back from the AC repair guy. There’s still a small chance I won’t need a new compressor for fifteen hundred bucks. Meanwhile it’s hundred-n-teens out, and the portable AC is barely keeping one room under ninety – as long as I don’t run the main computer, which puts out way too much heat. Fun fun fun!

  5. glad you got the bugs out, Rand. We did that two months ago and it was a major pain; lost some plants–literally, no one can find them.
    Enjoy your family reunion. I hope Flint is not as dismal as it was when I visited a few years ago. Houses near Angelo’s were stripped bare–no walls, wiring, floors.

  6. When you get back to normal, I’d appreciate your comment if any on the German effort to design a reusable rocket (HT: Slashdot).

  7. Just checking in. Had a party at my brother’s house on a lake in Linden, with long-lost relatives, burgers and Koegels hot dogs, cole slaw from cabbage fresh from the garden, and abundant beer. Blogging will continue to be light.

    Abundant beer has never been an impediment to my blogging.

  9. Another item that might catch your interest:

    Important as they are, our political divisions are the iceberg’s tip. When pollsters ask the American people whether they are likely to vote Republican or Democrat in the next presidential election, Republicans win growing pluralities. But whenever pollsters add the preferences “undecided,” “none of the above,” or “tea party,” these win handily, the Democrats come in second, and the Republicans trail far behind. That is because while most of the voters who call themselves Democrats say that Democratic officials represent them well, only a fourth of the voters who identify themselves as Republicans tell pollsters that Republican officeholders represent them well. Hence officeholders, Democrats and Republicans, gladden the hearts of some one-third of the electorate — most Democratic voters, plus a few Republicans. This means that Democratic politicians are the ruling class’s prime legitimate representatives and that because Republican politicians are supported by only a fourth of their voters while the rest vote for them reluctantly, most are aspirants for a junior role in the ruling class. In short, the ruling class has a party, the Democrats. But some two-thirds of Americans — a few Democratic voters, most Republican voters, and all independents — lack a vehicle in electoral politics.

    http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/print

  10. gs: If you check ESA member state contributions, most funding comes from France, Germany, and Italy. These countries, besides ESA funding, also have substantial national space programs.

    Germany has been doing RLV research for a long time. You can probably google for the Saenger II and DLR Phoenix concepts. Usually their concepts are excessively ambitious and lack funding to proceed to the end. Still this is interesting work which will reduce risk if ESA ever decides to fund a reusable vehicle in the future.

  12. It has been my experience that the only thing wrong with abundant beer is that it gets in the way of even more beer.

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