The State of Kansas motto:

Ad astra per aspera -- to the stars through difficulties. This motto refers not only to the pioneering spirit of the early settlers, but also the difficult times Kansas went through before becoming a state. The anti-slavery forces and slavery proponents waged battles in the electoral process as well as on the battle field. Kansas earned the nickname “Bloody Kansas” because of the war regarding slavery, much of which was fought on Kansas' soil.

A choral work:

<< ad astra per aspera >>
To Seek, To Strive, To Excel

Chorus
Reach for the stars, ad astra per aspera
Reach for the stars, standing tall,
For what we all believe
The way is far
But we're moving forward everyday
We know we are
And we're reaching for the stars
We're reaching for the stars

Verse 1
To seek, to look ahead, constantly
To strive, to build our competency
To excel among the best
To be better than the rest
This is the way we try to be

Verse 2
To make a mark at home and beyond our shores
Reaching out, beginning from the core
The values that we care
The courage that we share
Integrity, Commitment, Compassion brought to bear

**Chorus
Reach for the stars, ad astra per aspera
Reach for the stars, standing tall,
For what we all believe
The way is far
But we're moving forward everyday
We know we are
And we're reaching for the stars

Mid-Section
We're always looking to the future
Trying to be better than before
With new ideas we develop through the years
We're Singapore Technologies
Working hard, creatively

Repeat **Chorus 2 times

The plaque on Launch Complex 34:

Launch Complex 34

Friday, 27 Jaunary 1967

1831 Hours

Dedicated to the living memory of the crew of the Apollo 1:

U.S.A.F. Lt. Colonel Virgil I. Grissom

U.S.A.F. Lt. Colonel Edward H. White, II

U.S.N. Lt. Commander Roger B. Chaffee

They gave their lives in service to their country in the ongoing exploration of humankind's final frontier. Remember them not for how they died but for those ideals for which they lived.

An aspera is literally a rough road.

I'm sad for the seven who died in the Columbia. For their families. For everyone who is hurting at NASA.

I'm frustrated that this space bus crashed on a routine neighborhood mission. It's like the tires coming off on the freeway.

I'm angry that congressmen for the last 30 years haven't fully funded space exploration. The Columbia should have been bringing back tourists from the moon, settlers from Mars. And this wouldn't have been the 28th mission but the 1000th.

I'm angry that I feel so strongly for the few, to the point of tears, but not for the millions who will die this year of AIDS, hunger, and war.

Glenfiddich Havana Reserve, a really, really nice scotch whisky that's matured in Cuban rum barrels, has been banned from import into the US because, somehow, that violates the embargo against trade with Cuba. 

The company has been trying unsuccessfully to have the six-year-old Helms-Burton trade barrier relaxed through its legal representatives in New York.

The act tightened the four-decade-old economic embargo against Cuba and seeks to punish foreign-owned companies that engage in the "wrongful trafficking in property confiscated by the Castro regime".
Now, William Grant is introducing its precious malt to Canada, which has no such Cuban crisis and a waiting list to keep up with demand.

Link Discuss (via Fark)

Priorities!

From Business Week, February 10, 2003 issue :

BUSH LEAGUE
Stats: Now You See 'em...

Since President Bush took office two years ago, the economy has lost some 1.7 million jobs, making job creation a sore point around the White House. Now, either by coincidence or by design, two agencies have taken actions that make the Administration's unremarkable record on jobs a little harder to spot.

The President's own Council of Economic Advisers has yanked off its Web site a study predicting mediocre job growth from Bush's proposed $674 billion economic stimulus plan. The study forecast a modest 170,000 more jobs than would otherwise be created--0.1% of the workforce--every year through 2007, on average. The study was pulled within two days of Bush's Jan. 7 speech. In spite of its action, the council says it stands behind the numbers.

And on Christmas Eve, the Bureau of Labor Statistics quietly announced that it would no longer publish the mass-layoff statistics it had been putting out since 1994. The stats used to be used by states to help determine where to spend on job-retraining programs. "We're losing information we really need," complains Henry Jackson, director of Illinois' Division of Economic Information & Analysis. Labor officials say that the resulting savings of $6.6 million annually will be diverted directly to states for job training.
By Peter Coy and Laura Cohn

Something like $60 billion a year is spent by companies and workers making the labor markets work. $6.6m is a rounding error. Government stats are some of the cheapest planning tools you can trust. Government neutrality, longevity, and transparency make the data valuable. This kind of expense, centralized, creates value; spread among 50+ state agencies: paperclips.

Shortsighted.

Can you imagine any non-political reason for supressing the truth? Perhaps terrorists are involved?

Just shrubbery.