Nine Years Ago Today the Columbia Shuttle Exploded

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Last Launch of Columbia 2003

From The New York Times

When the first space shuttle, Columbia, blasted off in 1981, the craft were meant by NASA to be the workhorses of a new era in space exploration. When the program came to an end in 2011, the shuttles had come to be synonymous with tragedy — the accidents that destroyed the Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003 — and a great leap forward in our ability to understand the universe.

Unlike the rockets that brought astronauts to the moon, the shuttles were orbiters designed for repeated use on missions into space. Each shuttle also had the ability to carry satellites and other large payloads into space, and could transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

After decades of use, the shuttles had just about reached the end of their useful lives. The Bush administration announced in 2004 that it would bring the program to a close.

First Shuttle Launch 1981 - Columbia

The end came as the space shuttle Atlantis rolled to a stop just before 6 a.m. on July 21, 2011. During its 13-day mission, Atlantis had ferried 8,000 pounds of supplies and spare parts to the International Space Station; with the retirement of the shuttles, the space station will now rely on Russian, European and Japanese rockets to bring up supplies.

In all, NASA built five shuttles for space flight — Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. The first flight was made by Columbia on April 12, 1981. Three of the shuttles still exist today.

Columbia Explodes Before Landing

The Challenger exploded after takeoff on its 10th mission in 1986, killing all seven astronauts on board, including a New Hampshire civilian. And the Columbia broke apart as it was reentering the atmosphere in 2003, also killing its seven astronauts. After both disasters, review panels issued scathing reports, saying that pressures to complete missions and a more general culture of complacency had led officials to underestimate risks.

End of an Era

The program leaves behind a giant question mark over the future of manned space flight, with a replacement a distant reality.
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At the direction of the Obama administration and Congress, NASA is developing a large new rocket to send deep into space. No destination has been selected, however, and money is tight. NASA is also trying to nurture a commercial industry that will loft astronauts toward the stars. But the ventures, which involve partnerships with private-sector companies like SpaceX and Boeing, focus on hardware development and so far have no declared goals beyond low orbits around the planet. The shuttles did that for decades, starting in 1981.

NASA is also counting on two commercial companies, the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation of Hawthorne, Calif., and the Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va., to begin cargo flights in 2012.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz - She's No Sarah Palin

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Obama's Democrat Mouthpiece Toes the Obama Line

If you are not a professional politician or member of the Lame Street Media then by now you must be missing the over-shadowing presence of one Sarah Palin from the daily campaign scene.  No one politician has ever rattled the cages of the establishment and liberal media like Palin and it did not matter if she did or said anything.  As long as she was a viable spokesperson for the Tea Party, the Momma Grizzlies or any other group of anti-establishment people, she riled the liberal media and Democrats like no one could.

By the end of the 2008 campaign the GOP lost the election but by only 7% of the vote.  With Obama running against the most unpopular president in history, the economy in a shambles, America in decline, two endless wars killing our youth, millions losing jobs and millions more losing their homes, it is hard to believe Obama could not win by a landslide.

Palin was most responsible for keeping the GOP ticket in the race, a fact that will never be agreed to by the media and Democrats whose faces still turn red with hatred or envy when they think of this shotgun toting Alaska firecracker.

Well Obama must have wanted his own Sarah Palin knowing that she was the only thorn in his side during the campaign so he named his answer to Sarah, a Congressional Democrat named Debbie Wasserman Schultz from Florida.

In some ways she has seemed to parrot Sarah Palin because she has demonstrated an ability to polarize the public, to annoy the Republicans with her half baked arguments against anything relating to the GOP, and with her total disregard for Republicans, Independents and reality.

However, she is just an Obama spokesperson and no Obama spokesperson is allowed to have a mind of their own or a concern for anything non-Obama.  If one were to fact check her stream of consciousness blurted out in sound bites over the liberal media every day it would take a virtual encyclopedia to correct the record.  Then again, she uses the traditional political party spokesperson model of throwing truth to the wind when talking to the people.  Forget the facts, just stick with the party line.

Wasserman Shultz is no Sarah Palin and her attempts to emulate the success and power of the conservative media star of the Tea Party have about as much chance of succeeding as the Obama economic recovery program.

Many a politician tried to control Palin and failed.  Even the McCain campaign could not silence her and her ideas on what was wrong with America.  Long after she lost the election her bitter enemies continued to try and destroy her reputation and her life but she survived attack after attack and made herself into something of a folk hero for standing up to the ruthless establishment in Washington, D.C.

Slowly the Obama party line voiced by Debbie Wasserman Schultz may just draw the real Sarah Palin back in to the presidential campaign as a counter point to the deluge of babble and we most surely could use the common sense and lightning impact of Sarah in offsetting the billion dollar re-election campaign promised by the president.

Stay tuned...

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Obamaville - February 1 - Florida Primary Recap

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GOP Candidates Take Aim at Obama Economy

The people spoke and once again the pundits are wrong.  Just last week The New York Times said Newt Gingrich had a 73.3% chance of winning the Florida primary.  He got buried by 14% by the Romney organization.  But the real story which should be of concern to Obama's Chicago campaign team was the breakdown of the vote.

Romney strengthened his position in nearly every important demographic including women, the Tea Party, Catholics, conservatives, Latinos and others who make up the core of the Independent vote in America.  Slowly but surely, as if a slumbering elephant coming back to life, the message of Mitt Romney is starting to resonate with the voters.

America's future is about jobs and strengthening the economy.  It is not about excuses.  It is about promises broken and policies gone wrong.  It is about a regulatory assault on small business and the American economic engine.  It is about a president who chooses to ignore the reality of capitalism and who pins his hopes on three years of failed social engineering.

It is about a track record of enthusiastic promises, followed by dismal results.  In a word, it is about the difference when the president of the United States fails to provide leadership, even when he controlled the congress.  The president blames Republicans for all his many woes yet he did nothing to change the massive problems he so successfully articulated when he controlled the House and the Senate for two years with a solid Democratic majority.

A $16 trillion national debt.  A trillion dollar budget deficit every year he has been preisdent.  No strengthening of Social Security or Medicare.  An increase in unemployment.  A recovery that has failed to restore 5 million jobs lost in the recession.  Stimulus and bailouts that failed to generate economic growth. A failuire to even address the need for energy independence.  A health care reform program, Obamacare, that has seen health care costs and health insurance premiums continue to soar.  The collapse of the housing market and failure to address the foreclosure nightmare.

For the first time in post election speeches the three major candidates focused on the president and not each other.  Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul each gave passionate and quite different attacks on the president's performance since being elected and laid out a wealth of ideas on how the president is vulnerable.

Romney won the primary handily and there is evidence the GOP is coming together in their mission to stop Obama from further damaging the America the people want to see restored.  No matter how much trivia the media and White House throw at Romney and the other candidates, no matter how negative the campaign ads may get, all Republicans and about 50% of Independents are becoming united in the determination to throw out the politicians including President Obama.

The worst fear of the president is that he might have to run on his record as president.  Because when it comes to domestic issues there is no record.  You cannot defend doing nothing and contributing to the malaise in our nation's capitol.

Stay tuned for the next efforts of the media and Obama administration to try and divert attention from the record.  The Congressional Budget Office (non-partisan) and many others keep warning us that we are far from out of the economic danger and we are doing nothing to address the long term problems facing our nation.

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Health Care in America - Where Politicians Fear to Tread

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The Broken American Health Care System

Do you notice something wrong with the following statistics?

Chldren 3-17 years of age ever diagnosed with ADHD: 5.2 million

Cildren now on prescription drugs to treat ADHD - 16 million

Adults with Type 2 diabetes in 2010: 25.8 million

Adults treated with Metformin HLC for diabetes: 48.3 million

Adults with chronic pain: 56 million

Adults prescribed Vicodin for chronic pain: 131.2 million

Adults with high cholesterol: 36 million

Adults prescribed Zocor for high cholesterol: 94.1 million

Adults with high blood pressure: 75 million

Adults prescribed Prinivil for high blood pressure: 87.4 million

Adults prescribed Norvasc for high blood pressure: 57.2 million

Adults prescribed Hydrodiuril for high blood pressure: 47.8 million

Adults prescribed just 3 drugs for high blood pressure: 192.4 million

We have a problem in America, a problem people and politicians do not want to hear or think about.  America spends more money than any other nation on health care, far more than most nations, yet we have a mediocre health care system.

Health care costs have been rising for several years.  Expenditures in the United States on health care surpassed $2.3 trillion in 2008, more than three times the $714 billion spent in 1990, and over eight times the $253 billion spent in 1980.

In 2008, U.S. health care spending was about $7,681 per resident and accounted for 16.2% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP); this is among the highest of all industrialized countries. Total health care expenditures grew at an annual rate of 4.4 percent in 2008, a slower rate than recent years, yet still outpacing inflation and the growth in national income.

The following chart shows how much we spend on health care.

We now spend about $2.6 trillion on health care.  The average cost of a family health insurance policy offered by employers was $13,375 this year, up 5% from 2008, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust survey found.

So where does this spending leave us in terms of the quality of our health care system compared to the rest of the world?

Here is the ranking:

Americans spend twice as much as residents of other developed countries on healthcare, but get lower quality, less efficiency and have the least equitable system, according to a report released on Wednesday.

The United States ranked last when compared to six other countries -- Britain, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand, the Commonwealth Fund report found.

How about in terms of developed and undeveloped nations?

1.         France

2.         Italy

3.         San Marino

4.         Andorra

5.         Malta

6.         Singapore

7.         Spain

8.         Oman

9.         Austria

10.       Japan

11.        Norway

12.       Portugal

13.       Monaco

14.       Greece

15.       Iceland

16.       Luxemburg

17.       Netherlands

18.       United Kingdom

19.       Ireland

20.      Switzerland

21.       Belgium

22.      Columbia

23.       Sweden

24.       Cyprus

25.       Germany

26.       Saudi Arabia

27.       U.A.E.

28.      Israel

29.       Morocco

30.      Canada

31.       Finland

32.       Australia

33.       Chile

34.       Denmark

35.       Dominica

36.       Costa Rica

37.      United States

Astonishing!  Our quality of health care is not even as good as nations spending ten times less per capita as we do.  That is not a logical problem, or a cultural problem, it is a criminal problem that our profit driven health care industry and our corrupted political system perpetuate.

There are ways out of the mess.  They will not come from Washington, D.C. however.  Not when billions of dollars are being spent by the industry to protect what they own.

For the past three years and the next four years insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, HMOs and other healthcare profiteers will spend billions in advertising and more billions in lobbying to convince us that we have the BEST healthcare system in the world.  The truth is far from that claim.

That is why I am starting a series of articles on the broken American Health Care system, and what it will take to give us the quality of health care we deserve for the money we spend on health care.

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Obamaville - January 31 - The Beginning of the End

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4 States Down - 46 To Go

With just four states having now voted and nine more months of campaigning in the 2012 presidential election what have we learned?

The lessons may fall on deaf ears but a lot has been exposed about the character and nature of this race for the White House. To really understand the significance we must first identify the motives of the voices trying to influence the election outcome.

Make no mistake, the clearest message so far has been that there may be no objective media left in America as the news services, network and cable stations and newspapers are now dominated by ideological and political dogma, not but any concern for giving us a fair and balanced report on the candidates or campaigns.

It seems as if there can be no one left in Americawho is for what is good for the nation just what is good for their favorite party or politician. Things have gotten so far from reality that so called news stations like MSNBC and CNN have condemned Romney for singing "America the Beautiful".

Last week Obama did a couple of second sound bite of a song by the Al Green , without a doubt a great gospel and soul singer, and the media wanted to put Obama on American Idol as the next king of soul.

Yesterday Romney sang an entire stanza of America the Beautiful, perhaps one of the most beloved patriotic songs in America, and he was condemned by television news media. Since when did it become bad for our political leaders to sing patriotic songs?

These must be the same voices that have been trying to rid America of the "Pledge of Allegiance", remove "In God We Trust" from all mention, and ban the Nativity scene from all public places. Next they will try to remove the words from the Constitution saying people "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights".

Having been involved in music I can say that Romney's a cappella performance of a very difficult piece of patriotic music displayed more guts than any politician in a long while and was much closer to pitch than many performances by professional singers who have butchered the Star Spangled Banner at sports events.

So before Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski from MSNBC and Soledad O'Brien, CNN and all the other news celebrities condemn our politicians for being patriotic they should sing their own version of God Bless America or the Star Spangled Banner to thank the nation for letting them be successful.

Then there is Obama and his dog. As if the Republicans can't get in enough mischief by themselves the liberal media has served us up their version of patriotism thanks to the president's top campaign advisor, Chicago aide David Axelrod.

He took a nasty swipe at Romney who earlier said his family dog liked to ride in a kennel on the roof of the car rather than inside the car with five kids. I was in a family with a bunch of rowdy kids and I would have paid to ride on the roof away from the chaos.

But Axelrod says we don't love our dog unless we treat them like Obama and he tweeted a photo of the president and his dog Bo riding in the presidential limo. Somehow a Chicago city boy like Axelrod or Obama thinks pets belong in limos, which most Americans don't have, with the president holding them by the neck.

That might be the problem with America. Our leaders want to keep dogs locked in a limo with their hands around their neck. The same way they want to control people. All my dogs loved freedom and would have bit anyone strangling them for a photo op. Given a choice, I can't imagine a dog that would rather be strangled in a limo than in the back of a pick up or even in a cage if they are a hunting dog on the way to the fields for they live for the freedom, not for confinement.

Enough for the silliness brought to you by the news media. Long ago we learned not to seek the news from the news people.

The campaign got rather nasty but no true American ever ran from a fight. Before Florida the media said Romney did not defend himself, now they say he was too aggressive. The people voting will tell us what they thought.

One thing the media really forgot is how Florida is the microcosm of America. There is no other state more representative of Americathan the Gator state. Southern Florida is more like New York or New Jersey than many places in New York thanks to the many retired Yankees. Northern Floridais more southern. The Hispanic vote is equally split with Cubans south and Puerto Ricans north.

There are eight very different television markets, it is the fourth largest state, it has nearly double digit unemployment, leads the nation in foreclosures and exemplifies the nation in religious diversification. There are more seniors, more rich and more poor than most places.

Tourism is huge, environmental issues are crucial, the space program is essential, and of course it is the entertainment capital of the country. In politics we have elected officials ranging from the most conservative to liberal, from Marco Rubio, US Senator and GOP Vice Presidential favorite, to Debbie Wasserman Schultz, mouthpiece for Obama and the liberal Democratic party.

In fact, Florida is so diverse that the New York Yankees have spring training camp there and the Miami Heat rule the NBA press machine with a team built around a Cleveland native, Lebron James. If that isn't enough, Florida has everything from the super rich in South Beach to the alligators of the Everglades.

I say the media should just sit back and report the news and let the Americans of Florida make the news. History will always teach us that when the media and politics fail we always can count on the people to show us the way to the light. Just give the public the chance to make sense of the election and they will. That is the power and strength of America.

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Obamaville - January 30 - Florida Primary Eve

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Any Surprises Tomorrow?

In a word, no. Romney, as expected before the media driven Gingrich surge, has equaled his surge in the polls with a retreat about as dramatic. In the process he has left a lot of people perplexed.

The volatile Republican candidate who wants to take on our Democratic President, in which there would have been a clash of wills over who is the most intelligent, most knowing and most scholarly, has fallen by the wayside in spite of media efforts to prop up his flailing campaign.

The problem is Newt can never live up to his exaggerated opinion of himself. The second problem is he might be a senior member of the establishment, but it was an establishment that lost control long ago.

While the media wants him to remain in the race to rip Mitt Romney apart and leave Romney vulnerable to the expected billion dollar attack by the president this fall, I believe the media, Obama and his Chicago gang are way out of touch with the public.

Newt's petulant and insolent attacks on Romney just make Newt look smaller and smaller in the eyes of the public. He shows no signs of being interested in what the public wants, only satisfying his raging animosity toward a candidate who is simply walloping the schoolyard bully.

Revenge, anger, and jealously are hardly becoming a GOP candidate for president and the more he sho9ws his true colors the faster his fall from grace in the eyes of the public.

As for Romney, he is getting a Harvard education in the primary because as soon as he wins the nomination, the Harvard president will try the same tactics only then Romney will have the experience and class to keep the election focused on the economy.

Barack Obama, through his mouthpieces in the media and campaign, is doing everything possible to encourage Gingrich because the biggest obstacle to his re-election is not Romney, it is the truth. This president has failed to address high unemployment, his $1.3 trillion a year deficit, and his ballooning nearly $16 trillion national debt.

As a result, there is no growth in the economy and no way health care costs can be controlled, Social Security can be saved, and Medicare can be protected. We are in a whale of trouble is the president is not held responsible for what he didn't do, and what he shows no signs of wanting to address in the immediate future.

ObamaCare does nothing to reduce health care or health insurance costs, and most certainly will not make Americans healthier. Just tell us the truth, that the problem is greater than they thought and is not being addressed.

The same with the unemployment, deficit and debt. We are not over the recession, but we could be, if the White House would admit they failed with social engineering to solve our problems and now must listen to the people who want less government, less regulation and most certainly a lot less hot air from our nation's capitol.

There is nothing wrong with admitting we still have a problem. Honesty is always better than cover ups, misinformation and distortion. We have had three years of intellectual thought. We need solutions, not theories. We need a will to take on the problems, not ignore them. We need foresight to tackle issues like Social Security and Medicare reform, not act as if they will take care of themselves.

Right now Romney is the only candidate relentlessly pursuing an agenda of the concerns of the people. Yes, he must deviate for a short time to secure the primary nomination and if that means to defeat Gingrich then so be it. But rest assured he will focus on the issues, the national issues, and that is the president's Achilles heel.

Now as I mentioned before, at this time the last campaign Obama and Hillary were in a brutal battle over the attempts (according to Obama) by Bill Clinton to use the race issue to defeat Obama. Now that sounds a lot meaner than today when Romney's tax returns showing $3 million in taxes paid and $3 million in charitable contributions seems to be the big concern?

Need I remind us all that maybe we need a president that can't be bought. Maybe we need a president who spends his time on the people's business instead of campaign fundraising. Maybe we need hope and change. Maybe we can get it this time.

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The Moon over Mihammi, Florida that is...

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For someone who spent his entire lifetime as a Reagan Republican Newt Gingrich has some views of the world, or is it universe, that don't seem to follow the Reagan doctrine.  During the Florida primary campaign he has spent a good deal of time talking about his promise of the day, what used to be called pork barrel, in which you promise something to the voters of every place you go.

In the last campaign Barack Obama made about 546 such promises, most of which have now been deferred until a second term.  Newt has a habit of doing the same whether it is new shipping ports, highways, cleaning up the Florida Everglades, or whatever.  In fact during the last debate Mitt Romney rattled Newt by asking him how he could be making all  these promises when he knows the nation must cut spending radically.

But in recent days and during the debate Newt hit a new pinnacle of promises in an effort to win over the NASA Space community, which has a huge presence in Florida.  Since our current president has virtually abandoned the space program and we now have to hitch a ride with the Russians to the International Space station, NASA is in trouble.

Newt's promise is totally John F. Kennedyish and beyond.  For those of you not familiar with modern history when Kennedy was sworn in he promised to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade.  Since we had barely got a man into Earth orbit at the time it was a bold promise but fulfilled when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in 1969.

Never one to miss a chance to one up history, Gingrich promised Florida he would build a space colony on the moon and 13,000 people would live there.  And he promised to have it built by the end of his second term.  Now Kennedy promised one man in a decade, Newt 13,000 in eight years.

Of course there are a few problems like we don't even have a way to get one person to the moon since the Space shuttle program was scrapped by Obama.  It would take years just to have a new shuttle, let alone the vast fleet of shuttles to move a city and 13,000 people to the moon.  Not to mention the trillions and trillions of dollars involved when we are nearing $16 trillion in debt today.

Newt has grandiose visions, but this one might be, well, out of this world.  Still, you have to acknowledge that Newt has done his best to give us all something to think about, and that is sharing a colony on the moon with the other aliens of the universe.

Jon Stewart, on The Daily Show immediately after the debate had the crowd rolling with the image of Newt Moon Face you see in this story and his proposal to make Ron Paul a cabinet member moon minister.

Ron Paul might have had the best answer to Newt's dream.  His response, I don't know about a moon colony but I know a lot of politicians I'd like to send there.  Add Mr. Moon and his moon colony to the entertainment we have experienced in this political season.

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