Yesterday I had a chance to see the future of personal Jet travel. It's the Eclipse. Bill Gates is an investor.

Why is it revolutionary? Because it costs less than a million bucks, and is inexpensive to operate. Yeah, this plane isn't for me and you, but it means a whole new class of folks will soon have their own jet planes. Not just the Jobs/Gates/Ellison's of the world.

It costs about $.56 a mile to operate, which is one fourth what other airplanes in this class cost to operate.

My take? It was one of the best attended exhibits at the Sun 'N Fun airshow in Lakeland Florida (Sun 'N Fun is one of the largest aviation shows in the world with 750,000 attendees).

I sat in the Eclipse. It's a comfortable six passenger affair. Not many frills, but nice inside too. I certainly would love to own one.

Even if you have the million, it'll be several years before you'll be able to get your hands on one. They've sold out the first few batches of them (they've sold more than a thousand and are just now building the first ones).

Looks like Gates has another winner on his hands, though.

Well, Rogers Cadenhead just wrote me and said that the article is real BUT that he had to pay $2.50 to look it up on the Orlando Sentinel site. Since it's not freely available, I won't reproduce it here, although it does have an interesting viewpoint on the Israel/Palestine conflict.

Here's the email that Rogers sent to me:

-----Original Message----- From: rogers@cadenhead.org [mailto:rogers@cadenhead.org] Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 7:45 PM To: scoble@userland.com Subject: Radio UserLand: Mail from Rogers Cadenhead

Rogers Cadenhead [1] sent this email to you through the Radio UserLand [2] community server, re this page [3].

Charley Reese retired recently from the Orlando Sentinel after writing op-ed columns for the paper for many years. He really did write a piece for the paper on Feb. 8 with the title, "A POP QUIZ ON THE MIDDLE EAST - ANSWERS MAY SURPRISE YOU."

I can't pull up the full article without paying for it, but the Sentinel's web site archive offers this abstract for free: Orlando Sentinel; Orlando, Fla.; Feb 8, 1998; Charley Reese, of The Sentinel Staff;

Words in Document: 446

Abstract: Just so you can keep up with the perpetual crisis in the Middle East, I have a little quiz for you.

Q: Which country in the Middle East refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections?

Q: Which country in the Middle East seized the sovereign territory of other nations by military force and continues to occupy it in defiance of United ...

If you search Google for a phrase from the column such as "Which country in the Middle East seized the sovereign territory of other nations," you'll find it all over the place, usually attributed to Reese but sometimes others. I'm guessing a lot of those have been creatively edited before they were passed on, like a chain letter.

Feel free to use any of this information in your weblog. I thought about posting it on my new Radio blog, but it's a bit far afield of what I normally cover -- programming and tech publishing.

[1] http://rcs.myelin.cjb.net/users/0000001/ [2] http://radio.userland.com/ [3] http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2002/04/08.html

I just pulled something I wrote yesterday. This note from Bill Lazar nails why. It also shows why Weblogs work, even when they don't. Untruths get pointed out. I got taken by a post in a newsgroup.

Further, a little investigation shows there is no Charley Reese on the Orlando Sentinel staff:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/about/orl-newsroom.htmlstory

Very disappointing that you would fall prey to Internet BS. Or was your page hacked?

Common Dreams, where I suppose you saw it, claims it is form 1998:

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0405-12.htm

But if it was not a bunch of crap they made up why would they just publish it now? How did they even find it since it isn't on the Sentinel website? And even if it was really published in 1998 in the Orlando Sentinel, it still is a big steaming load and I find it difficult to believe you posted it. Since when do you copy and paste copywritten material as a whole rather than link and comment? Bad enough that thieves like Common Dreams do this.