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I've spent the last few days extolling the virtues of the British police and intelligence community. So in this time let me also give them a show of solidarity as they butt heads with those who would rather remain "politically...

Rafael Palmeiro is taking a 10-day vacation. Rafael Palmeiro was suspended 10 days for violating Major League Baseball's steroids policy Monday, nearly five months after the Baltimore Orioles first baseman told Congress that "I have never used steroids. Period." In...

Ask What You Can Do To Get To Mars

If God had meant for man to fly in space, he would have given him a brain to figure out how to build and navigate spaceships! Now, that THAT issue is settled, the Chief strongly believes that we need to be pushing ourselves into that great beyond.

For many years people have asked the ever so important question, "Why Mars - why should we go to Mars?" For every individual who ponders this question there is a unique response. There is no correct answer to the conundrum and there is no single best answer either. Everyone must challenge their own intellect and form their own opinions on why, or why not, which brings about the focus of this rant. The driving question for those of us already dedicated to human space exploration should not be "Why Mars", but rather "What?" Mars. As in, what will you do to help set the human race on the path to Mars? It is as cliché as "everyone has to do their part" and as direct as John F. Kennedy?s famous speech "ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."

It's a universal principle that anything that exists is either expanding and growing, or else it is contracting and dying. This applies to humanity as well as anything else. We need to be moving along...if we don't we will surely go down the tubes.

Mars is a goal worthy of only the greatest efforts that we as a civilization can offer. We cannot garner the social, political and economic momentum on the blind faith of assured success alone. We cannot fly to Mars "on the wings of love," or even fuel our rockets with hopes and dreams. Instead, it is by the sweat of our brow, the ache of our muscles and the drive of our will that we have always blazed the trail of exploration, and will continue to do so in the future.

There's more - take a look at it.

Here's a story in today's Rapid City Journal, which mentions the record level of funding for South Dakota in the just adopted highway bill:South Dakota's share represents a 30 percent increase for the state over the previous transportation bill, passed...

A brain dead woman gives birth. No, not Brittany Spears....

Washington Post:Shackled for months by a familiar brand of Washington gridlock, President Bush and the Republican leaders in Congress last week suddenly found a key. A long-stalled energy bill, an international trade accord and a massive highway appropriations measure all...

Backlash ends Chinese bid for Unocal

China's CNOOC Ltd. on Tuesday abandoned a bold $18.5 billion offer to acquire Unocal Corp. (UCL) in the face of strident political opposition

This generated enough of an uproar, that the ChiComs' CNOOC gave up on trying to snarf up UNOCAL in an $18B+ deal. IT seems that lots of folks here felt pretty queasy about this one, and that concern managed to penetrate into Congress and elsewhere in D.C. Finally the ChiComs decided that it was more trouble than it was worth.

The Chief has a hunch that there's a bit more to it than that - perhaps the backdown was to keep us from getting too riled up at them before they're ready for their moves on Taiwan. In other words, they want to keep the sleeping giant asleep. Hopefully it doesn't work out for them that way.

This information may be used for whatever partisan purpose you desire. No wonder 2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has been silent as a churchmouse about Karl Rove while her Democratic colleagues call for his prosecution for leaking classified information about...

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