Both Dem candidates want to make history so bad they are forgetting about our future. I see that they have forgotten one thing all those who made history in the U.S.A all did it by bringing a new idea and change for the better for all. THe Dems are only looking at I will be the first of my kind to be elected. I will not be happy with ither one of them until they decide to team up and make that change. No matter what it will still be a First. Firts Female president and black vice president. First black president and first female VP. No matter what the First still is their history is made, let's put pride aside and fight for the people! The people, the economy , the enviorment, and our future is what is important If we worry so much about making history we can really be history. To all I say choose well in your voting and remember no pressure bust pipes and also makes diamonds. Have a nice day

Wyclef Jean Announces Initiative To Help Haiti, Plans To Raise $48 Mil
written by Brandi Hopper
Wednesday - May 21, 2008

A month after food riots and an outbreak of violence rocked Haiti and resulted in at least six deaths, island-born performer Wyclef Jean is reaching out to help his homeland.

According to Reuters, Jean launched a new initiative "Together for Haiti" yesterday, with a goal to raise $48 million over the next six months that will create jobs and assistance for farmers and help feed the impoverished country.

"We have come together to launch this new initiative because I believe we can do more and better for Haiti when we act together," Jean said at a Manhattan news conference. "We are not only interested in feeding people in response to the current crisis, but we want to offer them an alternative that can help them in a sustainable way."

The project is backed by the World Food Program, the Pan American Development Foundation and Yele Haiti, Jean's charitable foundation for Haiti.

The program aims to provide jobs for 1,800 people everyday, distribute food to 1.5 million people and provide fertilizers to 55,000 farmers. It also aims to offer 9,000 grants to families so start their own small businesses.

"We want to give them the opportunity to set up a small business which they can live on instead of assisting them every time there is a crisis," Jean told Reuters.

As SOHH previously reported, Wyclef was appointed by Haitian President Rene Preval to serve as a roving ambassador to improve the nation's image abroad. He recorded a radio spot last month pleading with Haitians to stop the violence. One of the poorest countries in the Americas, Haiti has battled a rash of kidnap-for-ransom crimes.

Browse the article How Antimatter Spacecraft Will Work
How Antimatter Spacecraft Will Work
by Kevin Bonsor

Introduction to How Antimatter Spacecraft Will Work

"Engineering, stand by for warp drive." With that command, the "Star Trek" crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise prepared to hurl the spaceship through the cosmos at superluminal speeds. Warp drive is another one of those science fiction technologies, like teleportation and time travel, that have some scientific basis. It just hasn't been achieved yet. However, scientists are working on developing an interstellar spacecraft engine that is similar to the matter-antimatter engine of the Enterprise.

Space Shuttle Image Gallery

Photo courtesy NASA
Antimatter spacecraft like this one could some day shorten a trip to Mars from 11 months to one month. Check out current spaceflight technology in these pictures of the space shuttle.


No engine is likely to generate superluminal speeds; the laws of physics prevent us from doing that, but we will be able to go many times faster than our current propulsion methods allow. A matter-antimatter engine will take us far beyond our solar system and let us reach nearby stars in a fraction of the time it would take a spacecraft propelled by a liquid-hydrogen engine, like the one used in the space shuttle. It's like the difference between driving an Indy race car and a 1971 Ford Pinto. In the Pinto, you'll eventually get to the finish line, but it will take 10 times longer than in the Indy car.

In this article, we will peer a few decades into the future of space travel to look at an antimatter spacecraft, and find out what antimatter actually is and how it will be used for an advanced propulsion system.

What is Antimatter?

This isn't a trick question. Antimatter is exactly what you might think it is -- the opposite of normal matter, of which the majority of our universe is made. Until just recently, the presence of antimatter in our universe was considered to be only theoretical. In 1928, British physicist Paul A.M. Dirac revised Einstein's famous equation E=mc2. Dirac said that Einstein didn't consider that the "m" in the equation -- mass -- could have negative properties as well as positive. Dirac's equation (E = + or - mc2) allowed for the existence of anti-particles in our universe. Scientists have since proven that several anti-particles exist.

Photo by NASA/Getty Images
In this composite image of the Crab Nebula, matter and antimatter are propelled nearly to the speed of light by the Crab pulsar. The images came from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope.
These anti-particles are, literally, mirror images of normal matter. Each anti-particle has the same mass as its corresponding particle, but the electrical charges are reversed. Here are some antimatter discoveries of the 20th century:

Positrons - Electrons with a positive instead of negative charge. Discovered by Carl Anderson in 1932, positrons were the first evidence that antimatter existed.
Anti-protons - Protons that have a negative instead of the usual positive charge. In 1955, researchers at the Berkeley Bevatron produced an antiproton.
Anti-atoms - Pairing together positrons and antiprotons, scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, created the first anti-atom. Nine anti-hydrogen atoms were created, each lasting only 40 nanoseconds. As of 1998, CERN researchers were pushing the production of anti-hydrogen atoms to 2,000 per hour.
When antimatter comes into contact with normal matter, these equal but opposite particles collide to produce an explosion emitting pure radiation, which travels out of the point of the explosion at the speed of light. Both particles that created the explosion are completely annihilated, leaving behind other subatomic particles. The explosion that occurs when antimatter and matter interact transfers the entire mass of both objects into energy. Scientists believe that this energy is more powerful than any that can be generated by other propulsion methods.
So, why haven't we built a matter-antimatter reaction engine? The problem with developing antimatter propulsion is that there is a lack of antimatter existing in the universe. If there were equal amounts of matter and antimatter, we would likely see these reactions around us. Since antimatter doesn't exist around us, we don't see the light that would result from it colliding with matter.

It is possible that particles outnumbered anti-particles at the time of the Big Bang. As stated above, the collision of particles and anti-particles destroys both. And because there may have been more particles in the universe to start with, those are all that's left. There may be no naturally-existing anti-particles in our universe today. However, scientists discovered a possible deposit of antimatter near the center of the galaxy in 1977. If that does exist, it would mean that antimatter exists naturally, and the need to make our own antimatter would be eliminated.

For now, we will have to create our own antimatter. Luckily, there is technology available to create antimatter through the use of high-energy particle colliders, also called "atom smashers." Atom smashers, like CERN, are large tunnels lined with powerful supermagnets that circle around to propel atoms at near-light speeds. When an atom is sent through this accelerator, it slams into a target, creating particles. Some of these particles are antiparticles that are separated out by the magnetic field. These high-energy particle accelerators only produce one or two picograms of antiprotons each year. A picogram is a trillionth of a gram. All of the antiprotons produced at CERN in one year would be enough to light a 100-watt electric light bulb for three seconds. It will take tons of antiprotons to travel to interstellar destinations.

Matter-Antimatter Engine

Photo courtesy Laboratory for Energetic Particle Science at Penn State University
Antimatter spacecraft like the one in this artist concept could carry us beyond the solar system at amazing speeds.

NASA is possibly only a few decades away from developing an antimatter spacecraft that would cut fuel costs to a fraction of what they are today. In October 2000, NASA scientists announced early designs for an antimatter engine that could generate enormous thrust with only small amounts of antimatter fueling it. The amount of antimatter needed to supply the engine for a one-year trip to Mars could be as little as a millionth of a gram, according to a report in that month's issue of Journal of Propulsion and Power.
Matter-antimatter propulsion will be the most efficient propulsion ever developed, because 100 percent of the mass of the matter and antimatter is converted into energy. When matter and antimatter collide, the energy released by their annihilation releases about 10 billion times the energy that chemical energy such as hydrogen and oxygen combustion, the kind used by the space shuttle, releases. Matter-antimatter reactions are 1,000 times more powerful than the nuclear fission produced in nuclear power plants and 300 times more powerful than nuclear fusion energy. So, matter-antimatter engines have the potential to take us farther with less fuel. The problem is creating and storing the antimatter. There are three main components to a matter-antimatter engine:

Magnetic storage rings - Antimatter must be separated from normal matter so storage rings with magnetic fields can move the antimatter around the ring until it is needed to create energy.
Feed system - When the spacecraft needs more power, the antimatter will be released to collide with a target of matter, which releases energy.
Magnetic rocket nozzle thruster - Like a particle collider on Earth, a long magnetic nozzle will move the energy created by the matter-antimatter through a thruster.

Photo courtesy Laboratory for Energetic Particle Science at Penn State University
The storage rings on the spacecraft will hold the antimatter.


Approximately 10 grams of antiprotons would be enough fuel to send a manned spacecraft to Mars in one month. Today, it takes nearly a year for an unmanned spacecraft to reach Mars. In 1996, the Mars Global Surveyor took 11 months to arrive at Mars. Scientists believe that the speed of an matter-antimatter powered spacecraft would allow man to go where no man has gone before in space. It would be possible to make trips to Jupiter and even beyond the heliopause, the point at which the sun's radiation ends. But it will still be a long time before astronauts are asking their starship's helmsman to take them to warp speed.

Be a People Builder

Today's Scripture

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up…” (I Thessalonians 5:11).

Today's Word from Joel and Victoria

God designed us to live in relationship with others. He wants us to help each other grow. None of us will reach our highest potential by ourselves. We need people in our lives to encourage us, and we need to encourage the people in our lives and help them reach their potential. The word “encourage” means to “urge forward.” Many times you can see things in other people that they don’t see themselves. You can see their strengths and talents. You can see that God has a special plan for them even though they may be going through a difficult time. Don’t assume that people see what you see in them. Take a moment and encourage them either with a kind word or a simple note. There might be a special gift you can give that will remind them of their goal or dream. In whatever way you can, urge the people in your life to keep moving forward. If you’ll be a people builder and help others fulfill their dreams, God will help you fulfill your dreams also, and you’ll live in blessing all the days of your life.

A Prayer for Today

Father in heaven, thank You for the people You have placed in my life. Help me build them up and find creative ways to urge them forward to Your glory. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

I was on another date and my date treated me to a McDonald’s dinner. We spared no expense at the drive through we super sized our meals. After we paid and received our meals I told my date to check and make sure everything is in the bag. She does so and found that onions were in her burger even though she told them no onions. She asked me to return to the McDonalds in order to give them a peace of her mind.
She really gave them an earful to a point were I was embarrassed for the person behind the register. After the tongue lashing that she laid on them she received a new burger and a coupon for free ice-cream. Once we were alone I asked her was it really necessary to be that aggressive because of an onion incident? It was probably a mistake and that person making the sandwich was tired and it slipped their mind. We are all human and we make mistakes, we should pick and choose our battles.
She tells me she knows what I am talking about but that is just how she was raised. She was always told to “get more for your buck and never settle for less”. It is good to strive for the best but why take advantage of one who is behind the register? She tells me it is a capitalist system and we cannot let these companies get away with mediocre service when they are taking our money without remorse. In her mind she is sticking it to the man; in my mind she is being spoiled.
As a person who worked behind an unforgiving register I have empathy for those who are in that position. I work with them even though I may not get my way I work with them. By n means am I a saint but I am a nice guy not looking to hurt anyone in anyway. I extend courtesy to all without expecting to receive it back. This is one thing I seen happen and was amazed to see the outcome.
A young lady backed her car into a motorist behind her and caused a collision to happen. She gets out of her car and asked the other driver what happened he states that she backed into him and she say “why would I back into your car”? When the police arrive they go through the process and give the male driver the ticket even though he did not hit the young ladies car. Since I was driving dirty I did not get into the argument but I did tell the officer I saw the lady back her car into the gentleman’s car. The officer told me to keep moving.
Ladies and Gentleman for the past week I have seen many attributes in human beings that make me question our future. I have seen fathers raise their son’s as if they are little pit bulls toughening them up so they do not become the victim of bullies, which in turn has made their child the bully. I have seen parents use money to satisfy their children because they are divorced, let’s not forget those who use a child and marriage as a paycheck. It is amazing to see that the love of money has made people rude, crude, and lewd.