Free Republic

The Nation, a left-leaning magazine, published an article about House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's influence over NASA and its budget. The article largely rehashes the issues most regular readers of this blog are familiar with: DeLay's addition of JSC into his Congressional district, his last-minute move to top off NASA’s FY05 budget request, and the recent reorganization of the House Appropriation Committee's subcommittee structure. Like many such articles, it includes an arguably questionable comment from John Pike: "With NASA changing its spending priorities to support President Bush's vision for space exploration that will return humans to the moon and take...

I was intending to write an article about how the ISS needs to be a key part of the Vision for Space Exploration. What I have learned recently, though, made me realize there is something much more important to talk about. There have been several discussions in the mass media of late about “tipping points” in history. Some say that the recent elections in Iraq are a major tipping point that will reshape the Middle East and the West’s relationship with it. While the elections in Iraq and the courage of the people braving threats to vote are by no...

LIKE many funerals, the service for Pope John Paul II brought friends and foes together. Alphabetical seating forced sworn enemies to sit side by side, with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami placed next to Israeli President Moshe Katsav. "Maybe today will make us hope of a future of peace, not of conflict and hatred," Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said before the funeral. State leaders and dignitaries from more than half the world's nations attended the funeral. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan chatted with several leaders beforehand. US President George W. Bush was accompanied by his wife Laura. Former US president Bill Clinton,...

Fourteen men reportedly have had vision loss while taking the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra, say ophthalmologists at the University of Minnesota. The men lost only part of their vision. Cases appear to be very rare. Most of the affected men had other health problems and the structure of their optic nerve (the nerve that handles vision) raised their risk of the condition. “The number of cases is extremely small,” says Howard Pomeranz, MD, PhD, who details seven of those cases in a new report. The condition is called nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION). “The likelihood of this happening in...

What happened? Hello? Hello? Anybody home? "MESSAGE TO DISABLED FLORIDIANS" December 1998, Florida By Governor-elect Jeb Bush "Talking with a variety of Floridians with disabilities and their families has helped understand a lot more about the lives, challenges and dreams of those with disabilities. However, I know that my education continues with everyone new I meet. People with disabilities are no different than anyone else. They want to work, have families, and live independently. As Governor, I would work hard to create an environment that gives people with disabilities every opportunity to be independent and play an active role in...

Chennai: A mother of two visually-impaired sons committed suicide to donate her eyes to them. However, her wish could not be fulfilled as doctors examined the eyes and declared them unsuitable for transplant. Following doctors’ advice that an eye transplant was the only way to help the boys get vision, Tamilselvi (37) and her husband Sankar of Kodungaiyur, desperately tried to get donors for their sons, Kumaran (17) and Mohan Kumar (15), but failed. Pledging to bring light to their lives, Tamilselvi had reportedly registered with an eye bank to donate her eyes to her sons. After her husband, a...

CARACAS, Mar 3 (IPS) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez called for the creation of a debtor nations' club, the adoption of a Social Charter by the Organisation of American States (OAS), and the forging of a new socialist model for the 21st century during the 4th Social Debt Summit in Caracas. ”We must abandon the capitalist model of development, because it is incapable of serving as a framework to overcome the drama of poverty and inequality,” said Chávez, a former lieutenant-colonel now heading a ”Bolivarian Revolution” of peaceful political and social transformations (named for Simon Bolívar, the founding father of...

Europe decides that Bush may be right after all. Friday, February 25, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST Visits by U.S. Presidents to Europe tend to have a template-making quality: Wilson, the peace maker, in Paris, 1919; Truman, the victor, at Potsdam, 1945; Kennedy, the stalwart, in Berlin, 1963; Reagan, the visionary, in Berlin, 1987. If President Bush's trip this week has some kind of new theme, the word for it is probably conciliation. But our sense is that Mr. Bush is really following in Reagan's footsteps. Admittedly, this thought is not original: Der Spiegel beat us to it. Still, it says...

“Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, God will honor.” Jesus (John 12:26) In July, 2002, Dallas Willard spoke at the Washington, D.C. Servant Leadership School. In conversation over lunch one day, Gordon Cosby asked Dallas, “Why do churches and ministries so often lose the essence of their founding vision, to the point that the resulting institution, years later, is quite unlike the original dream? What happens along the way?” This essay is Dallas’s response to that question. We are grateful to him for his gift of words...

A REVOLUTIONARY night-vision system developed for the Dutch military makes night-time video images look as clear and colourful as those shot in broad daylight. The idea was to improve on the fuzzy grey or green pictures that are the hallmark of today's night-vision systems. Although these monochrome images are an improvement on unaided night vision, their lack of colour can make them hard to interpret. Full-colour night vision would help emergency services and the military better assess their surroundings, says Alex Toet of the TNO research lab in Soesterberg, the Netherlands, who led the team that developed the system. He...

Sharon & Abu Mazen Invited to the White House 22:30 Feb 07, '05 / 28 Shevat 5765 US President George W. Bush has extended invitations to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and PA leader Abu Mazen to visit the White House separately in the springtime.

My introduction to floaters came on a sunny September afternoon in the orchard. I was high on a ladder picking Jonagold apples when I felt a pop in my left eye, followed by blurriness. I thought that maybe a branch had slapped across my glasses, dirtying the lens, and I went inside to clean it. But the blurriness - a sort of floating haze - persisted overnight. After hearing the symptoms, my ophthalmologist, Dr. William Kirber, diagnosed a posterior vitreous detachment, one of several causes of floaters, sensations that many people describe as specks, bugs or cobwebs floating in their...

REALLY? THE FACTS Glasses can bring a blurry world into focus, but some people suspect that by doing all the heavy lifting the glasses may speed the natural decline of vision. But ophthalmologists say this is an illusion. How well a person can see is largely determined by the size of the eyeball, something a pair of glasses cannot change. The average eye is about an inch from the cornea, in the front, to the retina, in the back. When the eyes are either too large (shortsightedness) or too small (farsightedness), the cornea cannot properly focus images on the retina,...

Some of you may have heard of this guy when I posted about his Bear-proof Suit. Others may have seen him on t.v. with his Fire paste. It is now my pleasure to bring you the latest product of this modern Edison. Well, no, not Edison. I don't think Edison was a nutjob. Anyway, enjoy the rubber science for what amusement it's worth. Troy Hurtubise has done the seemingly impossible with his newest invention and defied all known rules of physics, he says. The Angel Light—Hurtubise claims the concept came to him in a recurring dream—can reportedly see through...

HOUSTON – When NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart over East Texas almost two years ago, killing its crew of seven, many wondered: What will become of the struggling space agency? Prior to the accident, there was growing criticism of cost overruns, poor management, and lack of a clear mission. After the accident, NASA found itself without a shuttle to continue its work on the International Space Station; even today, the shuttle is incomplete. And leading the agency through these years of turmoil was a self-described bean counter with no aerospace experience. Now, after three years, Sean O'Keefe has announced...

FEDERAL WAY, Wash. -- World Vision, a Christian relief agency with operations in some of the world's riskiest areas, has pulled out of Iraq after the shooting death of one of its Iraqi workers. "It's just too dangerous," spokesman Dean Owen said Friday...

Men who spend hours staring at a computer screen may be at increased risk for glaucoma, a disease that can cause blindness, Japanese doctors say. Researchers studied more than 10,200 workers with an average age of 43 for signs of glaucoma, a gradual disease of the optic nerve leading to loss of peripheral vision. The workers were randomly selected for testing at their medical check-up. Participants filled out questionnaires about their eye health and use of computers at home and in the office. Dr. Masayuki Tatemichi of Toho University School of Medicine in Tokyo and his colleagues found one-third of...

"I think it's very important for our friends, the Israelis, to have a peaceful Palestinian state living on their border. And it's very important for the Palestinian people to have a peaceful, hopeful future." So spoke President Bush just two days after his re-election, just exactly as news reports were leaking Yasser Arafat's demise.The combination of Mr. Bush's stunning new mandate and Mr. Arafat's near-death condition will lead, I predict, to a quick revival of Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy after months of relative doldrums and to massive dangers to Israel.The doldrums will cease because the Bush administration views Mr. Arafat as the...

Nearly four years have elapsed since the Oslo process (1993-2000) between Israelis and Palestinians foundered in bloodshed. Over that period, two U.S. administrations have tried to forge policies that would reduce the violence and point toward a solution to the conflict.It has not been a single-minded pursuit. Since September 11, 2001, the prime focus of Washington has been the management of unprecedented U.S. military interventions in the region, which removed regimes from power in Afghanistan and Iraq. The notion of Israeli-Palestinian peace as the key to regional stability has been replaced by the war on terror and the insistence on...

Representatives of Bush, Kerry Debate Space By Colin Clark Space News Staff Writer posted: 15 October 2004 11:44 am ET WASHINGTON -- It may not have had the global audience of the last Bush-Kerry debate, but about 100 members of the civil space community watched with rapt attention as representatives of the two campaigns conducted a spirited debate Oct. 14 about the future of space between representatives of the two campaigns. Former NASA associate administrator for policy and plans, Lori Garver, represented Sen. John Kerry. Frank Sietzen, an aerospace journalist, represented President George Bush. Kerry would adopt “a strong...