Man with a Mars Mission:

The Making of Beagle 2: "On Christmas Day, if all goes as planned, the Beagle 2 -- a small, pocket-watch-shaped laboratory that is Europe's first planetary explorer - will bounce to a stop somewhere in a big crater on Mars, pop itself open and announce its arrival with a rockin' little refrain by British rock band Blur, as its cameras and spectrometers calibrate themselves to the vibrant colors of a painting by contemporary artist Damien Hirst, and as its mothership, Mars Express, positions itself into a polar orbit.

Dubbed the 'hippest ever venture to another planet,' the Beagle 2 has already captured the imagination of Europe, especially Britain, where it was conceived and born. Although too few Americans have even heard of the Beagle 2, this puppy has all the makings of a star among the likes of NASA's Sojourner, only with a colorful backstory that may well turn out to be among the most remarkable in space exploration history."

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New York Post Online Edition

news : "December 29, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - Startling new Army statistics show that strife-torn Baghdad - considered the most dangerous city in the world - now has a lower murder rate than New York. The newest numbers, released by the Army's 1st Infantry Division, reveal that over the past three months, murders and other crimes in Baghdad are decreasing dramatically and that in the month of October, there were fewer murders per capita there than the Big Apple, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. The Bush administration and outside experts are touting these new figures as a sign that, eight months after the fall of Saddam Hussein, major progress is starting to be made in the oft-criticized effort by the United States and coalition partners to restore order and rebuild Iraq. 'If these numbers are accurate, they show that the systems we put in place four months ago to develop a police force based on the principles of a free and democratic society are starting to

Forum: The fish that threatened national security : "At La Guardia we proceeded to security and the X-ray inspection point run by the Transportation Security Administration. I have learned by now that, post-9/11, a traveler is better off safe than sorry when proceeding through security. I wasn't prepared, however, for the TSA to stop me right at the entrance, proclaiming that no small pets, including fish, were permitted through security. I had, however, just received the blessing of the ticket agents at US Airways and pre-assured MJ's travels with Pittsburgh International Airport security weeks before our travel date. I tried to explain this to the screener who stood between me and the gates, but she would have none of it. I was led back to the US Airways ticket counter, stocking-footed and alone, where the agents reasserted that they did not see a problem for me to have a fish on board, properly packaged in plastic fish bag and secured with a rubber band as MJ was.

Sophont

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