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The American Chemical Society (ACS) - celebrated it's 125th anniversary last year. An incredible amount of chemical industry information is available from their home page at www.acs.org. If you are in the chemical business you owe yourself a visit to this site. SHAMELESS PROMOTIONS DEPARTMENT Visit our new Back Issues feature
THE SOAPBOX Once again America has observed a sad anniversary in our history. 2 years ago commercial passenger airplanes were used as weapons and over 3,000 died. Innocents who thought they were safe, not expecting what came. Heroes who rushed into the face of certain death to save those innocents. Let us also remember the casualties of Flight 93, brave Americans, the first to fight back, the first casualties in the war against terror, who said "let's roll". Now count the dead an injured from our armed forces since that day a little over two years ago and compare. It is remarkable how quickly we forget what happened that day, how many dead and injured, who did it and most importantly, why they did it. We hear words like "quagmire" and phrases like "death toll", "KIA" and other terms to make us squeamish about the cost, in blood and dollars, of this war, this world war, we are waging. But it is war, both a shooting war and an ideological war. I return to the why we were attacked. It is our freedom, our economic system and the steady march of human rights movements worldwide that the jihadists are against. They are fascists wrapped up as Islamic zealots, bent on returning the world to a system abandoned by the western world nearly a millennium ago. Their greatest fear is a moderate Islamic democratic society. And that makes it a world war. A war between the extremist Muslims and free, democratic political rule, the rule of law, the dignity of human life and the freedom of religious practice. A world war of ideas, ideas of how best man can live together with their fellow man. Or in their case, without. For they are sworn to the total destruction of the western world. You can bet they won't stop until they succeed or are dead. Be honest. Which do you prefer? This is not about Christianity. This is not a new crusade by the Christian world. It is about intolerance, anyone not Wahabi jihadist. It includes Shia and Sunni, Hebrew and Christian, Hindu and Shinto. Be steadfast, patient and resolute readers, for this will be a long war with many small skirmishes punctuated by manic periods of major combat. Most importantly, remember that the rebuilding of shattered countries, especially ones that have not known freedom and human rights, takes time. And money. Remember also that there is not now nor was there ever a blueprint on how to do this, just lots of trial and error. We cannot lose this war, nor any of the major battlefields, like Iraq and Afganistan. Because what is at stake is the civilization of man. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board has released it's final report and NASA is pulling itself together to resume manned spaceflight. Like most human endeavors, spaceflight using chemical rockets is an extremely risky business. Remarkable, actually, that America has not suffered from more tragedy; clearly this is testament to the work-ethic and culture of NASA, despite the criticisms contained in the report. This year we celebrate 100 years of flight, 100 years since the Wright flyer first took to the air in Kitty Hawk, NC. Stop and think about that for a minute. Now, is there any way you can imagine that manned orbital flights could be routine when we've only mastered heavier that air controlled flight for 100 years? Manned spaceflight is risky business. Early in the shuttle program an estimate was made of a 2% catastrophic failure rate. That estimate looks pretty right on to me. It is a risk rate every test-pilot, which most astronauts are, is more than willing to take. But we need another way to orbit humans, and then safely de-orbit them. Those are the two cardinal problems of spaceflight, problems that so far have defied the best technology we have. We have spent large amounts of money on this problem and will no doubt spend more. Perhaps the private sector has some ideas. Perhaps we are about to enter the second golden age of aviation. The economy is still weak and the Federal Reserve has promised to keep the money pumped into the economy. Many jobs have been lost and they don't seem to be coming back. I hope they do, so does everyone. But economies move in cycles and after 8+ years of growth (the big inhale) now things have been soft for over 2 years (the big exhale). I am sure you will all join me in hoping that things get better soon. Wicked and malicious viruses and trojan horses are circulating through the Internet, infecting computers, consuming bandwidth at an alarming rate. No doubt they are beta tests for future infections that will likely cause more harm. The perpetrators of these things might even be jihadists. They are certainly as maligned as the jihadists. Get a firewall. Get a good anti-virus program. Keep them and your operating system fully patched and up to date. Beware of e-mail from people you don't know and never, EVER open attachments from them. For that matter don't open any attachments from people you DO know that haven't been virus-checked by a reliable program. We continue to get raw material price increases for the new (not surplus or distressed) chemicals we must buy. Anything with an "ethyl" in it has been hammered. Which is to say almost everything. We shop around as hard as we can but there is no arguing with the cost of gas and feedstocks. Once everyone has gone up in price equally there is nowhere else to go. But you can save money by buying surplus materials, so browse our site, check the listings and find an item you need. We'll save you money and help your profits! the webmaster
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ON THE LIGHTER SIDE * Larry looks around the room and sees that it is in a perfect order, * A second grader came home from school and said to her mother, "Mom, Guess what? We learned how to make babies today." * This guy walks into a bar with his golden retriever. ''Hey, can I get a drink on the house if my dog talks for you?'' *
* It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms; the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause, who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worse, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. Theodore Roosevelt * We sure liberated the hell out of this place. Anonymous * In war there is no substitute for victory. Douglas MacArthur * Work as if you were to live a hundred years, Benjamin Franklin * A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable. Thomas Jefferson *
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