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Larry Page has his flying cars. Sergey Brin shall have an airship. Brin, the Google co-founder, has secretly been building a massive airship inside of Hangar 2 at the NASA Ames Research Center, according to four people with knowledge of the project. It's unclear whether the craft, which looks like a zeppelin, is a hobby or something Brin hopes to turn into a business. "Sorry, I don't have anything to say about this topic right now," Brin wrote in an email. The people familiar with the project said Brin has long been fascinated by airships. His interest in the crafts...

The two leading Republican candidates not named Donald J. Trump who most need a victory in the New Hampshire primary have wooed voters here by promoting their experience, their tough-mindedness and their seriousness. Now, as Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Jeb Bush grasp for some way to dissuade the proud New Hampshire electorate from supporting Mr. Trump, they are turning to a new, blunter instrument: guilt. "America is counting on you," Mr. Christie said Sunday night in the century-old town hall here, his 40th question-and-answer session in the state. He repeated himself a few sentences later, in case...

Coming soon to a Capitol skyline near you: Giant blimps at 10,000 feet? The woman at the helm of the House Administration Committee thinks the Capitol needs eyes in the sky, after authorities failed to detect Florida mailman Douglas Hughes’ April 15 gyrocopter flight. Chairwoman Candice S. Miller, R-Mich., visited U.S. Customs and Border Patrol ground stations along the Southern border in January and was amazed at the clarity of the Tethered Aerostat Radar System, or TARS. She is suggesting the “sophisticated technology” might suit the Capitol. That would mean giant blimps stretching along the Washington, D.C., skyline at...

Before the week is done, one of the longest single "days" in the history of the Senate is expected to finally come to an end. Amid a long-running dispute over decades-old filibuster rules, Senate leaders have used a parliamentary trick to leave the chamber in a state of suspended animation - in reality adjourned since Jan. 5 but officially considered in a long recess that's part of the same individual legislative day. This nearly three-week break has taken place in large part so leadership could hold private negotiations to consider how to deal with a group of Democrats agitating to...

« Edwin Salpeter and the Gasbags of Jupiter By Larry Klaes‘The Gasbags of Jupiter’ sounds for all the world like the title of an early 1930s novel that would have run in a venue like Science Wonder Stories. In fact, as Larry Klaes tells us below, the idea grew out of Carl Sagan’s speculations about free-floating life-forms that might populate the atmospheres of gas giant planets like Jupiter. Cornell physicist Edwin Salpeter had much to do with the evolution of that concept, helping Sagan produce a paper that was a classic of informed imagination (and one that led to...

The Judicial Hearing on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to a circuit judge is playing on C-SPAN 3

Lockheed wins a Pentagon contract to build a high-altitude blimp aimed at testing missile warning systems.After two years on the drawing board, an experimental, unmanned blimp designed to float in “near space” to help the U.S. military test missile warning systems is now set to take shape in a hangar in Akron, Ohio. The United States’ Missile Defense Agency on Thursday awarded defense contractor Lockheed Martin $150 million to build a prototype of its high-altitude airship, a 400-feet long, solar-powered, and sensor-laden blimp. The aircraft will float in the outer fringes of the atmosphere, high above rough weather and the...

RUSH: (story) "Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department aims without exception to expel all those who enter the United States illegally. "Our goal at DHS (Homeland Security) is to completely eliminate the 'catch and release' enforcement problem, and return every single illegal entrant, no exceptions. 'It should be possible to achieve significant and measurable progress to this end in less than a year,' Chertoff told a Senate hearing. Thousands of 'Mexicans who are caught entering the United States illegally are returned immediately to Mexico. But other parts of the system have nearly collapsed under the weight of numbers....

HAVANA -- About 200 intellectuals, activists and artists from Latin America and elsewhere issued a letter Monday urging the top United Nations human rights watchdog to side with Cuba in an expected battle over the communist country's rights record. A U.S.-backed resolution to condemn the island's record is usually presented at every spring meeting in Geneva of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, which this year was to open Monday and run through April 22. No resolution targeting the island has emerged this year, but Cuba expects such a proposal will be presented and considered in mid-April. Last year's resolution passed...

FR needs an official AIR AMERICA DEAD POOL! Enter your prediction for the date the AIRBAG EXPLODES! The winnner will win a Free Republic T-shirt from 0cents.com FREE REPUBLIC MERCHANDISE COLLECTION. The rules: 1. Enter the date for the last Air America broadcast. 2. Multiple winners will all get a t-shirt. SPONSORED BY RIGHTALK/RADIO FREEREPUBLIC

YOO-HOO DON HEWITT WANT A LITTLE MORE EDGE? Former Sen. Bob Dole says he's displeased with first '60 Minutes' debate AP | 3/08/03   GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) -- Former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole says he's displeased with the first of at least 10 debates against former President Bill Clinton that will air on "60 Minutes." The two 1996 presidential opponents taped a debate Thursday morning about the wisdom of a tax cut in wartime. It will air Sunday. "I think it needs to be a little tougher," Dole said Friday before speaking at a Lincoln Day dinner held by Guilford...