Word: exceptionality
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...politically pivotal Florida--and that gives it a lot of support. In July, House Democrats negotiated a provision out of a budget bill that would have codified the 2010 deadline. And Science Committee chairman Representative Sherwood Boehlert of New York remains a loyal shuttle supporter. "Nothing is in jeopardy except the schedule," he said...
...President Bush's choice of a successor to Justice O'Connor can go a long way toward fostering oneness in this country and bolstering his popularity. Democrats and Republicans alike, except for extremists on both sides, admired her flexibility in the court's contentious decisions. Justice O'Connor eschewed rigidity in favor of nuance in each controversial case, and the U.S. has been the better for it. Gloria Kottick Iowa City, Iowa...
Throwaway rockets can fail too. Last month a French-built Ariane exploded on lift-off. No one cared, except the insurance companies that covered the payload, because there was no crew aboard. NASA's insistence on sending a crew on every shuttle flight means risking precious human life for mindless tasks that automated devices can easily carry out. Did Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon really have to be there to push a couple of buttons on the Mediterranean Israeli Dust Experiment, the payload package he died to accompany to space...
...built into the very idea. Columbia, the fleet's pioneer, was named after an old Boston sloop that was the first American ship to circumnavigate the globe, carrying a cargo of otter skins to China. Any risk much repeated can become routine, and so it was for shuttle flights, except when they become tragic. That's when we are reminded that knowledge doesn't come easy and that many consequences are unintended, especially when we set off on an adventure...
...Clearly, Tongans enjoyed bodysurfing. And they were good at it. Less clear is why, not long after Vason admired them, they abruptly dropped the pastime. Except for Vason's, missionaries' accounts of Tonga during the 1800s make no mention of fanifo or any aquatic activity that could be mistaken for it. What happened? The widely accepted theory is that someone convinced Tonga's ruling chiefs to ban the sport. That someone was not Vason, who arrived with eight others sent by the London Missionary Society. Amid civil war, three of Vason's colleagues were killed; the others fled. Vason...