*NEWS FLASH!* and traval plans

Phillip E. Pournelle writes:

@:)	    Having talked to an astronomer at Caltech, the methodology
@:) to detect these planets is to exmine the minute variation in the
@:) stars rotation....	Therefore we have no direct evidence of these
@:) planets existing (i.e not directly observed).  So there is still
@:) some discussion about the accuracy of these reports.

  In fact Scientific American's latest issue has a short sub-article
about one researcher's suggestion that the star 51 Pegasi may not in
fact have a planet orbiting it at all.	Apparently the guy is taking
all kinds of flak because everybody wants a planet to be there, but no
one's been able to actually contest his evidence yet.  We'll have to
wait and see.

  As for the floating fantom frogs, the phenomenon is apparently
well-known, though as yet unused on frogs, and the experiment with
photos is described at http://www-hfml.sci.kun.nl/hfml/levitate.html.
(did somebody post this already?  I'm trying to combine all my spam
into one message at least).  I understand from the furious and
pointless argument on sci.space that diamagnetic repulsion is the
weakest kind of magnetic interaction, after paramagnetic repulsion and
ferromagnetic repulsion.  Which means, alas, that if you want to build
a frog railgun, you'd be better off stuffing your frogs with buckshot
before firing them.

  On the other hand, it might be interesting to fire a devestating
hail of rail-shell at your opponent, followed by a much slower moving
cloud of frogs.  The implication of biblical righteousness this would
afford your side might well break the spirits of the enemy.

-joachim