I wonder how many people are familiar with the Sierra Nevada Corporation. They are an aerospace company which just won a contract to resupply the international space station and believe me when I tell you that their new reusable spacecraft is the coolest thing out there. It has what is known as a lift body and is really a space shuttle, but smaller than the ones we used previously. It fits on the nose of a rocket in a cocoon and when the rocket reaches a certain altitude the cocoon falls away and the shuttle is boosted again by a smaller a rocket. When it comes back you can land anywhere, meaning at any airport and it has no toxic fuel to contaminate anything. After seeing this beautiful craft in action, I’d say the rest of the aerospace companies must be a little worried. The new shuttle is called the Dream Chaser. NASA had turned it down previously, because they didn’t believe the company could get it ready on time, but this was appealed and the company was awarded a contract worth billions of dollars.

I guess I probably should mention the election in Iowa since this is a news article. There are a million different opinions about what these figures suggest both for the Democrats and Republicans. Some believe that Trump never really thought he could win, while others think this was a crushing defeat for him. Ted Cruz is thinking that he will win the presidential election and have a majority of delegates in the other states, but the pundits claim he’s a one trick pony and this may be his only glory day. As for Marco Rubio there is no doubt his star is ascending. One of the problems Republicans seem to have is when you have three candidates who bring in numbers close to each other, they are stealing votes from each other. It doesn’t look like any of the top three will ever want to drop out of the race for the nomination, but the rest of the guys and woman are just wasting their time. On the Democratic side Hillary Clinton, while probably winning the race, won by such a slight margin that it is almost a virtual tie and that says a lot. A candidate of her stature for president should have had an overwhelming victory, so she is looking weak. Pundits say things will be different in the other states outside of Vermont because of the large minorities. I think minorities have the same wants and desires as everyone else and there is a possibility even though I think she will probably win, that Sen. Sanders will have a much stronger showing than anybody expected.
A lot of people who are invested in the stock market are getting nervous. It is just the fact that on some days stocks have lost a lot of money. Many retirement plans are funded by stocks and bonds and if their value decreases and their dividends disappear, it can certainly hurt those on a fixed income. There has been a lot of talk lately about people putting their money into gold and silver to avoid what some think will be a market crash which will wipe out the value of our money. One thing people don’t want to do is panic. Investors have always said that you should never put your eggs all into one basket meaning nobody should just depend on stocks if they are building for their retirement income. There should be a well-balanced group of assets.

The United Nations has decided to conduct talks aimed at ending the fighting in Syria. We know that as of the writing of this article these talks have broken down. What hasn’t been mentioned in the main news media is that Russian welcomed these talks, but didn’t hold out much of a hope of success, because they say that the terrorists in that country have to be gotten rid of. The problem is one man’s terrorist is another man’s hero and the people the Russians are calling terrorists are the ones that we are supporting who are trying to overthrow the government in Syria. Russian media called the talks the most important news of the week since they involve stopping a war.

A county in Taiwan has built an incredibly large glass shoe. It’s a tribute to local women who had suffered from a debilitating foot disease. It’s 55 feet tall and is located at the southwest end of the island in Chiayi County. The shoe is actually a building which is to be used as a wedding hall and a tourist attraction. The foot disease we are talking about was caused by arsenic poisoning from well water which caused gangrene which is sometimes known as Blackfeet. Many of the women had to have their feet amputated and this caused them to face discrimination and they were unable to marry or start families.

I don’t know how many people saw the article that showed a woman from an Asian country who was arrested for being one of the scam artists who claim to be from the Internal Revenue Service and call people trying to bulk them out of as much money as they can? What really annoyed me was the fact a deal was made with her stating if she cooperated she would be allowed to stay in this country. She said she couldn’t wait to go to school. I have to wonder how many people who have lost their pension money or a good portion of their assets by paying them to people like this feel about this news? I think the only deal to be made here was between life in prison and perhaps 10 years. Unfortunately our laws are far too weak in these situations and it turns out that others who were working with her were merely deported and will probably just continue to conduct the scams only from their home country. Deportation doesn’t seem to me to be a punishment, it seems more like another chance to commit crimes and try and sneak back into the country.

We know that Europe is having a big problem with immigrants coming in to countries there and committing crimes, but while we hear about many of these crimes it seems there are a lot more which are being covered up. Swedish police ordered an investigation into allegations that officers covered up sexual assaults by mostly migrant youths at a music festival in Stockholm. It makes me wonder how much more of these criminal actions have been covered up for political correctness. Remember these are the same people that our government wants us to take in here. While we know that there are probably a lot more good people than bad ones, the problem is we do not know who is who.