Saturday, April 26, 2003

Republicans have been going on record about Senator Santorum's recent remarks. for the record ... George Bush through White House spokesman Ari Fleischer to reporters Friday: "It's up to individual senators, of course, to make decisions about their leadership post." "But the president believes that the senator is an inclusive man. ... The president has confidence in Senator Santorum and thinks he's doing a good job as senator -- including in his leadership post." Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., in a statement Tuesday: "Rick is a consistent voice for inclusion and compassion in the Republican Party and in the Senate, and to suggest otherwise is just politics." Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, in a statement Wednesday: "Discrimination and bigotry have no place in our society, and I believe Senator Santorum's remarks undermine Republican principles of inclusion and opportunity." Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., in a public statement: "I have known Rick Santorum for the better part of two decades, and I can say with certainty he is not a bigot." Asked in a New York Times article if this statement might cause problems for Santorum, Specter responded, "It depends on how it plays out. Washington is a town filled with cannibals. The cannibals devoured Trent Lott without cause. If the cannibals are after you, you are in deep trouble. It depends on whether the cannibals are hungry. My guess is that it will blow over." Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, in a "Public Affairs" interview Thursday: "He's not a person who wants to put down anybody. He's not a mean-spirited person. Regardless of the words he used, he wouldn't try to hurt anybody ... We have 51 Republicans and I don't think anyone's a spokesman for the Republican Party." "We have a double standard. It seems that the press, when a conservative Republican says something, they jump on it, but they never jump on things Democrats say. So he's partly going to be a victim of that double standard." Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in an interview Wednesday on MSNBC: "I think that he may have been inartful in the way that he described it." "I believe that -- coming from a person who has made several serious gaffs in my career -- that the best thing to do is to apologize if you've offended anyone. Because I'm sure that Rick did not intend to offend anyone. Apologize if you did and move on." Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., on CNBC Wednesday: "Rick Santorum has done a great job, and is solid as a rock, and he's not going anywhere." Mr Santorum is defending his position, but he seems to have offended a polygamist in Utah. 5:58:25 PM     The Sun is currently very active .. if you live in Northern areas it makes sense to check for auroral activity over the next two or three days. The type of sunspot activity (delta class for those of you who worry about space weather) associated with X class flares (really huge flares) has appeared, although it is unlikely that we will see anything that strong on Earth. 1:15:54 PM     Aviation Week and Space Technology has more information on Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne spaceplane. The White Knight carrier aircraft is also unusual - it is probably the slowest aircraft powered by afterburning turbojets. To characterize the design philosophy as minimalist is something of an understatement. Such designs minimize the risk of making the craft work in a short amount of time, but tend to ignore human risks - the probability for accidents tends to rise. Somehow I doubt that this would be popular with the rich and famous if one blew up every few months. Then again think of the terrific reality TV it would make. Check out the simulator ride. The computing task is handled by X-Plane .. 7:07:17 AM     Partiview is coming to OS X in one form or another in the near future. Very good news! 6:51:00 AM     Nisus has made a beta of their OS X word processor available. Years ago I used (and loved) Nisus Writer when it offered a small and mostly useful feature set (it didn't have a zillion useless functions and had a few that you didn't find in the swiss army knife tools). In theory Nisus Writer Express can read and write .doc files so you can live with Microsoft users. (Most of these translators are less than perfect, but the same came be said about different versions of MS Word). I haven't spent any real time with it yet, but it looks promising so far as a normal word processing tool (as opposed to something one would use for producing an equation filled technical paper). ___ Speaking of equations ... Apple's Keynote is a very nice replacement for PowerPoint, but it is devoid of an equation editor (the editor for PP is awful, but replacements exist). I've been using the LaTeX Equation Editor with great results (note that you have to know how to use LaTeX) ... recommended! 6:37:39 AM

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