What Caught My Eye Today

I took a few days off to visit with the family. So let's see what's new with this crazy planet of ours...

Space Station - Astronauts installed Europe's shiny new $2 billion lab on Monday. The astronauts shouted and cheered when the 23-foot, 14-ton lab finally reached its docking port on the station, after a slow move out of Atlantis' payload bay. The European Space Agency waited years to see Columbus fly. The lab was supposed to go up in 1992 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the sailing of Christopher Columbus, but space station and then shuttle problems delayed everything. The addition of Columbus expanded the almost 10-year-old space station to eight rooms. It was attached directly to the Harmony compartment that arrived last fall. Another of Harmony's docking ports will be occupied by Japan's new lab once it launches in the spring. Well done. After the long stretch of bad luck and delays that have beset this construction project, some good news was long overdue.

2008 Presidential Race - Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton squared off today in primaries in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. With 168 delegates at stake, Obama hopes to erase the lead Clinton has held since the campaign began. Obama won a string of contests in all regions of the country over the weekend, routing Clinton in a Louisiana primary as well as caucuses in Nebraska, Washington state and Maine. Among Republicans, John McCain, the faraway front-runner, hoped to rebound in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia from a poor weekend showing. There were 116 GOP delegates at stake. McCain lost caucuses in Kansas and a primary in Louisiana on Saturday to Mike Huckabee, his last remaining major rival. He won caucuses in Washington state. I don't want to say that the GOP nomination is a foregone conclusion at this point (even if it is), because there are still an awful lot of voters who haven't had their say yet. In the Democratic race, the voters' opinions may not matter. If this race remains as close as it has, these so-called 'super delegates' could very likely determine who the candidate will be for the Democratic party. Ain't democracy grand? I suppose this sort of thing shouldn't be that surprising. After all, we proved in 2004 that the candidate who wins the popular vote doesn't always win the election.

Racism - President Bush said that recent displays of nooses are disturbing and indicate that some Americans may be losing sight of the suffering that blacks have endured across the nation. You don't say? "The noose is not a symbol of prairie justice, but of gross injustice," the president said. "Displaying one is not a harmless prank. Lynching is not a word to be mentioned in jest." I point out this particular news items, because is is a rarity these days to hear Bush say something that we can all agree on. This is one of those occasions. Lest you think that this is a topic that doesn't need to be addressed in this day and age, consider the following... The FBI reported in November that hate-crime incidents in the United States rose in 2006 by nearly 8%. Police across the nation reported 7,722 criminal incidents in 2006 targeting victims or property as a result of bias against a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnic or national origin or physical or mental disability. That was up 7.8% from the 7,163 incidents reported in 2005.

Iraq - The speaker of Iraq's fragmented parliament threatened to disband the legislature, saying it is so riddled with distrust it appears unable to adopt the budget or agree on a law setting a date for provincial elections. I hope you all were sitting down for that one. Shocking revelation, isn't it? Disbanding parliament would prompt new elections within 60 days and further undermine Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's shaky government, which is limping along with nearly half of the 40 Cabinet posts vacant. 'Limping'? More like on life support if you ask me. The disarray undermines the purpose of last year's U.S. troop "surge" — to bring down violence enough to allow the Iraqi government and parliament to focus on measures to reconcile differences among minority Sunnis and Kurds and the majority Shiites. Violence is down dramatically, but political progress languishes. My problem with postponing the withdrawal of U.S. troops because of problems within the government, is that one has nothing to do with the other. Clearly, the presence of additional U.S. troops hasn't made much of a difference politically. As for the reduction in violence, I'm sure the troops had some impact, but the far greater impact came when the Sunnis decided to stop supporting terrorist groups. No one wants to see Iraq fail, but maintaining the current U.S. troop levels isn't going to solve the problem facing Iraq. It may postpone it for a little while, but it will solve nothing.

East Timor - I've been laying it on Africa pretty harshly the past couple of days. How about we cut them a bit of a break and check out what's going on in Asia these days. Armored U.N. vehicles guarded East Timor's leaders today under a state of emergency declared after rebel soldiers critically wounded the Nobel Peace Prize-winning president and fired at the prime minister's convoy. East Timor, a poor Southeast Asian nation of 1 million people, won independence from Indonesia in 2002 after a U.N.-sponsored ballot. It has struggled to achieve stability since an outbreak of violence in 2006, when 37 people were killed in clashes between rival security forces. Ramos-Horta, who shared the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for nonviolent resistance during 24 years of Indonesian occupation, was shot in the chest and stomach on the road in front of his house in an apparent coup attempt by a group of disgruntled soldiers. His guards returned fire, killing wanted rebel leader Alfredo Reinado — who was blamed for the 2006 violence and vowed publicly just two weeks ago to try again to destabilize the government. Reinado was among 600 mutinous soldiers dismissed by the government in 2006 — a move that triggered widespread looting, arson and gang warfare that forced 155,000 out of their homes and the resignation of the country's first post-independence prime minister. How is it that 600 malcontents are capable of causing this much upheaval? It makes you wonder just who is in charge of this country.

Life Expectancy - Surprising new research from the University of Rochester suggests that even people who develop heart disease or diabetes late in life have a decent shot at reaching the century mark. Researchers did phone interviews and health assessments of more than 500 women and 200 men who had reached 100. They found that roughly two-thirds of them had avoided significant age-related ailments. A second, larger study, conducted by Harvard University, of men in their 70s found that those who avoided smoking, obesity, inactivity, diabetes and high blood pressure greatly improved their chances of living into their 90s. In fact, they had a 54% chance of living that long. Their survival decreased with each risk factor, and those with all five had only a 4% chance of living into their 90s. Those who managed to avoid lifestyle-related ailments also increased their chances of functioning well physically and mentally two decades later. the United States has more than 55,000 centenarians, and that Americans 85 and older are the country's fastest-growing group of older adults. I'm all for a healthy lifestyle, but here's my problem with studies like these. All of the stuff that they suggest you avoid in order to live a long life are the things that make life worth living in the first place. Who wants to live to be 100 if you cannot partake in those things that you enjoy? Call me crazy, but there are worse ways to shuffle off this mortal coil than fat, dumb and happy...and a few years shy of 100.