We usually get to the airport for our flight a couple of hours early. Long lines indicate that we have found the right boarding gate. We walk through a metal detector. Travel bags are scanned and sometimes opened and checked. Our belts and shoes are often the subject of much scrutiny and review.

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In a Rasmussen telephone poll taken recently, voters were asked whether America's best days were ahead or behind it. In the poll's findings, 32% of those polled thought that the nation's best days were yet to come. However, more than 50% of Americans thought that the country's best days were already in the past.

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Most major international stock indices are dropping fast. In fact, stock markets in Asia, the United Kingdom, and Europe have all now seen the fury of the bear. A bear market is generally defined as a drop of twenty percent from the market's previous high. Indeed, it was only last October, when all of these global stock markets were about twenty percent higher than the levels of today.

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Its price tag was 500 million dollars in 1990. It certainly was a lot of money to pay for a telescope that circled the Earth and could not focus. A faulty mirror on the Hubble was the reason the expensive space telescope could not see. The Hubble would quickly become an object of ridicule and the subject of numerous jokes on late night television.

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Updated on Thursday, July 31, 2008 at 04:49PM by Tom Smith

Mars is a planet that has received considerable attention from Hollywood over the years. For decades, in the mid to late 20th century, Hollywood would produce movie after movie depicting Martians as little green men who were nasty Earth invaders. Sometimes men from Mars simply sported green face paint, but they almost always wore a jumpsuit of some type.

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The vote was 324-84 as the United States House of Representatives recently approved legislation allowing the Justice Department to sue members of OPEC . The House bill blames OPEC for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices. In effect, it says that gas and oil prices in America are too high and that OPEC should therefore produce more product.

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There are several stories of science and nature that have been featured in the national news over the last few months. For scientists, an explanation for disappearing bees and dying bats still remains elusive. The risk to the polar bear is a function of continued global warming with the potential for its extinction still over a century away.

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There is a long history of the use of the honey bee in war. Roman catapults, with bee hives as projectiles, unleashed the fury of angry bees on an advancing enemy. Bee hives booby trapped to topple over with trip wires were used to the advantage of both sides during battles in World War I. In Vietnam, the Viet Cong often used sabotaged Apis dorsata nests against the American soldier.

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I have watched the same question posed to Barrack Obama in several debates now. It is not a question based on the "change" sign that appears everywhere as the platform slogan of his campaign. No, this dubious debate question concerns why he does not wear a flag pin on the lapel of his suit.

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It's an election year in the United States. The politicians of both major political parties continue to outline their initiatives for their first Presidential term in office. Democratic candidate Barrack Obama outlines a long list of new spending promises under the slogan "Yes we can". Meanwhile, Republican John McCain wants to continue spending on the Iraq war well into the future. In the Congress, there is no desire to cut federal spending and the dubious practice of spending "earmarks" continues without any real reform.

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In 2008, products that contain lead continue to arrive from China and appear everyday on American store shelves. The purchase of many of these products can result in a variety of potential health risks to the unsuspecting consumer.

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He was called the Sheriff of Wall Street for his dogged pursuit of rule breakers in the mutual fund industry as the Attorney General of New York. He would later use the favorable publicity of a compliant media as a springboard to become the elected governor of the state of New York in 1996. His rapid political rise had many people projecting him as a serious potential candidate for the Presidency in 2012.

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Southern Methodist University (SMU) is the likely site of the George Bush (43) Presidential Library. His library will reportedly be the most expensive Presidential Library ever built with an estimated construction cost of $500 million. This planned Bush Library will join the Presidential Libraries of all of our most recent Presidents. Former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George Bush (41), Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon now keep their papers records and archives in one.

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Updated on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 at 12:42PM by James Smith

When you think of the proud history of the United States Marines, you think of the courage of its men and women for the last two hundred years. The Marines have fought to protect this country in places such as Tripoli, Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima, Chosin Reservoir in North Korea, and the Persian Gulf. Indeed, throughout their history, the Marines have been involved in some of the most important battles in the world.

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Panic and fear are everywhere in early 2008. An economic recession in the United States is now the topic on everyone's mind. Most of the world’s stock markets have already lost more than twenty percent of their value in the last couple of months. This dramatic drop in stock market values signals a new bear market for domestic and international equities.

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Politicians give speeches to rally support from voters. Some have a gift for oratory. Many politicians do not. In 2008, it's election season in America and the speeches come at us from every side of the political spectrum. We can see excerpts from candidates' speeches on television commercials, in debates and, on the nightly news.

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The Declaration Of Independence clearly states that the business of government is to secure our rights. I am wondering at exactly what point did the goal of our elected government change from "securing our rights" to the regulation our personal behavior.

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I watched the mainstream television media's nightly news programs over the last several days. I even turned the channel so I could hear different programs. The one thing I learned from these broadcasts comes from what these networks are not reporting. There was not any news on Iraq. Not a single story. No daily suicide bombings. No massacres. No civil war with chaos and conflict. No stories about the American quagmire.

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The day has faded from our national collective conscience. In a couple of weeks it will be sixty six years since the events of that awful morning in Hawaii. More than six decades of time has conspired to dim the national recollection of what happened that day. There will not be an all day memorial coverage from Fox News or CNN. Now, only the history books or a program on the Discovery Channel will tell us about the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan on December 7, 1941.

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The only underwater laboratory in the world is located in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. This underwater lab is located more than three miles offshore at a depth of 63 feet. It is attached to a base plate which secures the laboratory about 13 feet off the bottom of the sea. The laboratory is known as Aquarius and is owned as a joint venture between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of North Carolina.

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