September List

September is shaping up to be an interesting month. Here in the US, we'll likely have the remaining holdouts decide if they want to throw their hats in the Presidential ring (Perry, Palin, and possibly Giuliani). We'll move out of the last of the straw polls and gear up for the Iowa caucus in January.

Meanwhile, the UN is going to vote to recognize Palestine as a sovereign nation (around Sept. 21). The Palestinians are now organizing themselves for large scale marches coinciding with the votes. Although they claim that they will be peaceful, history tells us that some violent actions will probably emerge out of these.

On the astronomical front, Comet Elenin will be moving directly in line between the Earth and the Sun around Sept. 26. Elenin is too small to create anything like a true eclipse, but it is possible that the debris cloud could be large enough to have some dimming effects for a day or so, to say nothing of the potential meteor showers that we might be able to see by being in the comet's tail. That could be cool.

And on the personal front, I've got a major design review that we won't be ready for on the 15th. That will cause a bit of consternation and bellyaching but hopefully nothing worse than that. Still, I'll be quite glad when that thing is over. There's very little worse than being assigned to a project with too little resources in a tight span of time. It gives one a sense of doom and failure that I don't particularly like.