Senator Judd Gregg has seen the light. He has had a moment of pure, crystalline insight and has witnessed truth and clarity unfold before his eyes.
Yeah, right.
You have to wonder what kind of pressures were put to bear on him to reject the nomination for commerce secretary. A personal call from Rush Limbaugh? A whisper campaign from conservative cells? Perhaps criticism from the official organ of GOP doctrine, Fox News, was just too much for him. Then again, he might be fickle.
This resignation reduces to one more soldier lining up in the GOP phalanx, preparing for extended battle with the Democrats. It is striking how uniformly GOP soldiers have rejected what many thought was axiomatic– that bipartisanship was, if not necessary, at least highly desirable for the good of the whole.
During the 2008 campaign, the concept of cooperation between parties was pulled frequently from its carrying case by candidate McCain and displayed like sacred icon of civics.
But McCain’s claim of bipartisanship was evidence of the true nature of his bohemian political composition. Bipartisanship and whatever civic merit it might represent is certainly not a plank in the GOP platform. Sen. McCain has shut his maverick hole and is now playing ball with his team.
Sen. Gregg will be rubbed with GOP annointing oil and when the delerium has cleared, he’ll sheepinshly fall into line with the rest.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
Alright, this is completely off the political topic but it does focus on a favorite subject of your: AIRPLANES.
I was reading yet another story about the tragic flight in Buffalo. My question to the Gaussling or any sane reader :
WHY CAN’T WE MAKE AIRPLANE WINGS THAT DON’T FREEZE OVER?
IDEAS (Patents pending)
1. Cover the wings with heater elements like on the rear window of your car.
or
2. Canisters of PEG/alcohol which spray out onto the wings.
or
3. A thin skin of material over the wing which can be jettisoned from the wing under emergency conditions.
or
4. get one of those creatures from the twilight zone movie to continuously buff the wings. (ha ha)
Obviously idea #1 is pretty damn practical.
Hi Mike, Aiplanes are one of my many weaknesses. A weatherman in Buffalo reported the evening of the crsh that the surface temperature was 33 F and at approx. 2000 ft agl the temperature was 28 F. At 1000 ft was a broken layer of clouds. The airplane crashed in Cheektowaga, just a few miles south of the airport in Buffalo.
From the Detroit Sectional- http://skyvector.com/#45-14-3-4680-1156
BUF http://www.buffaloairport.com/
The inflight recorder revealed that the crew was aware of ice. One has to assume that the crew was too busy flying a rapidly uncontrollable aircraft to radio in an emergency. Declaring an emergency leads to an FAA investigation, so any pilot contemplating an emergency call wants to be sure he/she has a real emergency. Whatever the case, a declaration of emergency would not have helped this flight get to the ground safely.
Ice forms very easily on airframes in temperatures within a few degrees of freezing. If there is supercooled mist due to a recent drop in temperatures aloft, ice accretion can form very rapidly.
Ice adds weight, but just as importantly it alters the shape of flight surfaces- wings, empannage, and propellor blades. Leading edges and protuberances are particularly prone to ice accumulation.
As an airplane descends, the air typically gets warmer. As it warms, icing can halt or even reverse. The plane was lining up for final approach by catching the localizer beam. In doing so, it was also being maneuvered into position to catch the standard glideslope for its landing descent. Naturally, the aircrew was hoping that the descent into warmer air would halt the icing problem. Undoubtedly, they had encountered icing before.
There are several kinds of schemes to deal with icing. Turbine powered craft can vent hot gases into ducts along the leading edge of the wing to prevent icing. Some aircraft have black colored wing and empannage leading edges indicating the presence of either electric heating elements or inflatable rubber boots that rapidly expand to break and slough off ice.
My general impression is that prop planes have more icing problems than jets. Perhaps just because of their smaller size (thus a little bit of ice has a greater influence). Obviously with prop planes the air is flowing over the wing so this produces a different dynamic.
I try to avoid prop planes like the plague.
Hi Mike- Propellor driven commercial aircraft do not fly as high as pure turbine driven aircraft. As a result, they spend a larger proportion of their time at lower altitudes and in icing conditions. Have a look at this NASA video-
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2238323060735779946
Interestingly, the Continental flight that crashed was found to have the autopilot engaged. Changes in control forces might be masked by the automation.
As the NASA video shows, the horizontal stabiliser is prone to instability as ice accretes onto it. The job of the horizontal stabilizer is to provide downward lift. Too much loss of this downward moment can cause the aircraft to pitch nose down. This failure mode tends to show up during configuration changes like the extension of flaps on approach to landing.
I really dig turbo-prop planes. I especially like the Beech 1900 twin turbo-prop. It is a 19 seater. These things are rockets. Takeoff is a rush.