What Caught My Eye Today

Space Shuttle - Discovery and its crew returned to Earth on Wednesday and concluded a 15-day space station build and repair mission that was among the most challenging in shuttle history. The seven shuttle astronauts and three residents of the international space station teamed up during the docked mission to save a mangled solar wing. It was one of the most difficult and dangerous repairs ever attempted in orbit. The astronauts knew they were in for one of the most challenging and complicated space station construction missions ever. They had no trouble installing a pressurized compartment named Harmony and moving a girder from one side of the space station to another, and even managed to peek into a clogged joint needed to turn the right-sided set of solar wings. But the flight took a dramatic turn Oct. 30 when it came time to unfurl the solar wings on the relocated girder on the left side of the space station. The first wing popped out fine, but the second one became snagged in a clump of tangled wires and ripped in two places. Flight controllers rushed to come up with a repair plan. Astronaut Scott Parazynski floated outside with wire cutters, pliers and some homemade tools and fixed the torn wing. No one had ever ventured so far from the safe confines of the space station before or worked right up against a solar wing coursing with more than 100 volts of electricity and swaying back and forth. He was propped on the end of a 90-foot extension beam that just barely reached the wing's damaged section. The repair allows the space agency to press ahead with the next shuttle flight to the space station in early December. Atlantis will deliver a European laboratory. Okay, so maybe I'm a closet space geek, but you have to admit--they guess are pretty cool. How many times have you tried to repair something and messed up all up? Big deal, you go to the hardware store or call in the handyman. These guys didn't have that option. One misstep and we're talking billions of dollars down the toilet.

Iran - Iran has reached a milestone in its nuclear program, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday, suggesting that the country now has 3,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges fully operating. "We have now reached 3,000 machines," Ahmadinejad said. An official with knowledge of Iran's nuclear activities said that Iran does now have nearly 3,000 centrifuges operating at Natanz. But that official said it would take years for all the centrifuges to run smoothly without frequent breakdowns. The number 3,000 is the commonly accepted figure for a nuclear enrichment program that is past the experimental stage and can be used as a platform for a full industrial-scale program that could churn out enough enriched material for dozens of nuclear weapons, should Iran chose to go the route. Mr. President, admittedly I am an infidel and a citizen of the Great Satan, so I don't expect you to necessary heed this little tidbit of advice, but calling centrifuges, 'machines,' pretty much makes you sound like an imbicile. If it sounds like a centrifuge, looks like a centrifuge and produces enriched uranium like a centrifuge, you might as well call it a centrifuge. I'm just saying.

Pakistan - President Bush, personally intervening in the political crisis in Pakistan, told President Pervez Musharraf he must hold parliamentary elections soon and step down as army leader. Musharraf, who has been promising to restore democracy since seizing power in a 1999 coup, has ousted independent-minded judges, put a stranglehold on the media and has put thousands of Pakistanis in jail or under house arrest since assuming emergency powers last weekend. Musharraf said his decisions to suspend the constitution and oust its top judge were necessary to prevent a takeover by Islamic extremists. It was Bush's first contact with Musharraf since he declared emergency rule on Saturday and granted sweeping powers to authorities to crush political dissent. For days, the White House has faced questions about why Bush was taking a softer line on Pakistan than he did, for instance, against Myanmar where military rulers cracked down on pro-democracy protesters in September. I was wondering when someone was going to bring up Myanmar. See, I have a slightly different theory (gee, what a surprise). I'm thinking that if Pakistan was all buddy-buddy with the likes of China, Bush might be applying the same tactics as he did in Myanmar...basically nothing.

2008 Presidential Campaign - Televangelist Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, endorsed Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani. The former New York mayor backs abortion rights and gay rights, positions that put him in conflict with conservative GOP orthodoxy, and has been trying to persuade evangelical conservatives like Robertson to overlook their differences on those issues. Giuliani is best known for leading New York in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Shortly after 9/11, Robertson released a statement in which he said the attacks occurred because Americans had insulted God and lost the protection of heaven by allowing abortion and "rampant Internet pornography." Talk about a match made in heaven. I so want to know what horse-trading (or arm-twisting) went on behind closed doors, to make this happen. How much do you want to bet that Giuliani had to be talked into this by his campaign staff? I just don't see this guy voluntarily soliciting Robertson's support.

Stock Market - Wall Street suffered its second big drop in a week today, with investors worried about spreading fallout from the credit crisis at banks and about a dollar that just keeps getting weaker. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 360 points. Meanwhile, the dollar swooned amid speculation that China will seek to diversify some of its foreign currency stockpiles beyond the greenback and General Motors Corp. further dampened sentiment by posting a record loss tied to an accounting adjustment. Oil hit a record, rising above $98 per barrel before retreating, and gold pushed higher, moves exacerbated by an anemic dollar. This just in...Prices on handguns and bullets in the Manhattan area have shot up as demand for self-inflicted gunshot wounds among white collar professionals has spiked to levels not seen since the Great Depression. Alright, maybe that is a bit dramatic, but honestly, how much depressing news do we have to be subjected to in one article?