Space shuttle Atlantis lands safely after final flight
by Marc Kaufman, 6:38 AM
The 135th and final flight of America’s space shuttle fleet landed safely at the Kennedy Space Center early Thursday – ending the three-decade lifetime of a technologically remarkable and versatile spacecraft, the likes of which the world is unlikely to see for a very long time.
The shuttle Atlantis and its four crewmembers touched down in Florida at 5:56 a.m., shortly before sunrise, after a 13-day mission to the International Space Station, the now-completed space laboratory that could never have been built without the huge cargo-carrying capacity of the shuttle.
Bonuses for Billionaires
Published: July 20, 2011
“The first few times I heard House Republicans talk about our budget mess, I worried that they had plunged off the deep end. But as I kept on listening, a buzzer went off in my mind, and I came to understand how much sense the Tea Party caucus makes…”
“Cut, Cap and Balance would go even further than the Ryan budget plan in starving the beast of government. Sure, that’ll mean cuts in Social Security, Medicare and other programs, but so what? Who needs food safety? How do we know we really need air traffic control unless we try a day without it?”
GOP leaders must free themselves from the Tea Party’s grip
By E.J. Dionne Jr.,
“Media reports are touting the Senate’s Gang of Six and its new budget outline. But the news that explains why the nation is caught in this debt-ceiling fiasco is the gang warfare inside the Republican Party. We are witnessing the disintegration of Tea Party Republicanism.
“The Tea Party’s followers have endangered the nation’s credit rating and the GOP by pushing both House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor away from their own best instincts…”
“Republicans are going to have to shake themselves loose from the Tea Party. Quite simply, the Tea Party’s legions are not interested in governing, at least as governing is normally understood in a democracy with separated powers. They believe that because the Republicans won one house of Congress in one election, they have a mandate to do whatever the right wing wants. A Democratic president and Senate are dismissed as irrelevant nuisances, although they were elected, too.
“The Tea Party lives in an intellectual bubble where the answers to every problem lie in books by F.A. Hayek, Glenn Beck or Ayn Rand. Rand’s anti-government writings, regarded by her followers as modern-day scripture — Rand, an atheist, would have bridled at that comparison — are particularly instructive…”
“Republicans need to decide whether they want to be responsible conservatives or whether they will let the Tea Party destroy the House That Lincoln Built in a glorious explosion. Such pyrotechnics may look great to some people on the pages of a novel or in a movie, but they’re rather unpleasant when experienced in real life.”
Posted at 03:56 PM ET, 07/20/2011
Debt-ceiling drama: Beginning of the end of craziness?
“…Whatever Congress comes up with and Obama agrees to isn’t going to be popular, but it must be done. As Carson told me, “At some point, we need politicians that stand up and do the right things and [are] not just worried about if they become the next jobless claim in the next election.”
Cassi Creek: The shuttle landing is a historical landmark. It marks the end of near-earth travel and the apparent completion of the ISS. What future challenges we meet and conquer in exploring our universe will take centuries to discover and record. Merely leaving the atmosphere and gravitational field of Earth may prove to be the easiest challenge we face.
There is another historic landing that we may soon see documented. If Congress allows the teavangelists to prevent resolution of our debt-ceiling problem, the landing in question will be an economic low that will most likely eclipse and outlast the Great Depression of 1929. I’m hounding our congressman, a teavangelist who will resist compromise of any sort. I suggest everyone do the same. The teavangelists must not be allowed to destroy this nation. Left alone, they surely will.
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