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American households are under stress again, according to the latest consumer distress index by CredAbility. “Despite the growth in jobs and an improved housing market, our index shows that the average U.S. household has seen little improvement in the past year and took a step back in 2013’s first quarter,” according to Phil Baldwin, CEO of CredAbility. Baldwin is referring to the rise in payroll taxes at the start of the year, which has forced people to save more. CredAbility adds that 49 million people are still on food stamps, and nearly 12 million are still unemployed. American households on...

Subbing for mylife...

Research firm Forrester says IT isn't interested in Windows 8, and that the platform's success relies on consumers and BYOD. Given that consumers aren't exactly embracing the new OS, Win8's prospects are easy to dismiss -- so much so that Frank X. Shaw, Redmond's VP of corporate communications, recently felt compelled to reprimand the media for its emphatically bleak appraisal of his company's plight. But here's the thing: Shaw could be right. Windows 8's consumer appeal is about to get a major upgrade. An important note: this prediction presupposes that the OS's usability issues are addressed in Windows 8.1, a...

There are plenty of examples of structures built from recycled materials—even Buddhist temples have been made from them. In Sima Valley, California, an entire village known as Grandma Prisbey’s Bottle Village was constructed from reused glass. But this is no new concept—back in 1960, executives at the Heineken brewery drew up a plan for a “brick that holds beer,” a rectangular beer bottle that could also be used to build homes. Gerard Adriaan Heineken acquired the “Haystack” brewery in 1864 in Amsterdam, marking the formal beginning of the eponymous brand that is now one of the most successful international breweries....

<p>It's all about the odds, and one lone ticket in Florida has beaten them all by matching each of the numbers drawn for the highest Powerball jackpot in history at an estimated $590.5 million, lottery officials said Sunday.</p> <p>The single winner was sold at a supermarket in Zephyrhills, Fla., according to Florida Lottery executive Cindy O'Connell. She told The Associated Press by telephone that more details would be released later.</p>

There is little doubt that the smartphone world is dominated by two operating systems — Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.The latest market data released by the International Data Corporation (IDC), which showed that both these platforms accounted for 92.3 percent of all smartphone OS shipments during the first quarter of 2013, proves this dominance in numbers.IDC says Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million devices worldwide during Q1 2013, which was up 59.1 percent from the 125.4 million units shipped during the same quarter in 2012.Android remained the market leader with a 75 percent share of the...

As families celebrate graduation around the country, former Secretary of Education William J. Bennett asks if this is really cause to celebrate. He and coauthor David Wilezol discuss their book Is College Worth It?: A Former United States Secretary of Education and a Liberal Arts Graduate Expose the Broken Promise of Higher Education with National Review Online’s Kathryn Jean Lopez. KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: “Students pay $100,000 or more for what they could get for almost nothing. With new technology and online breakthroughs, you could get a better education in a coffee shop or your parents’ basement than you will get...

House lawmakers reach tentative deal to revamp immigration ... Prospects for passage of a major immigration bill improved on Thursday when a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House of Representatives declared they had reached a tentative deal, resolving disputes that had threatened to torpedo negotiations. The breakthrough came at the end of a two-hour private meeting of seven Republican and Democratic negotiators. The eighth negotiator in this so-called House Gang of Eight was unavailable after undergoing surgery on Wednesday. – ReutersDominant Social Theme: Welcome this rationalization of a difficult problem. Congress shall decide.Free-Market Analysis: In the US legislative system,...

The European Union is to ban olive oil jugs and dipping bowls from restaurant tables in a move described by one of Britain’s top cooks as authoritarian and damaging to artisan food makers. The small glass jugs filled with green- or gold-colored extra virgin olive oil are familiar and traditional for restaurant goers across Europe, but they will be banned from 1 January 2014 after a decision taken in an obscure Brussels committee earlier this week. From next year, olive oil “presented at a restaurant table” must be in prepackaged factory bottles with a tamper-proof dispensing nozzle and labeling in...

When it comes to hunting down humans running speeds, MIT's cheetah might come second to Boston Dynamics' own high-velocity quadruped, but by substituting pneumatics with motors, MIT's version apparently runs far more efficiently. At the recent International Conference on Robotics and Automation, the Institute of Technology showed of its newest version, which reached a top speed of 13.7 mph. To accomplish this, the runner still needs parallel support bars to constrain movement in one dimension, reducing any roll, yaw -- and the chances of a pretty expensive fall. The team says the new version's cost of transport (COT is...

The bad dream of a season for Fox’s “American Idol” ended Thursday with a ratings nightmare, as the singing competition lost a staggering 7 million viewers from last season’s finale. Thursday’s finale, in which Candice Glover won the coveted prize, averaged 14.3 million viewers, according to overnight ratings. That’s down a third from more than 21 million last year — and the news gets worse. Two years ago the finale had more than 29 million viewers, meaning “Idol” has shed half its audience in two years. And from Fox’s viewpoint, that’s not even the worst number. Thursday’s share of the...

By now workers at every late-term abortion clinic in America (and there are way more than four) are buzzing about Kermit Gosnell’s conviction this week of murdering three abortion survivors. Clinic staff have also likely noticed that four of Gosnell’s employees were swept up into his junk and have pleaded guilty of murder, and four others to lesser charges. Then yesterday came revelations of another hack who allegedly murdered living babies he had just aborted. Three former employees of late-term abortionist Douglas Karpen of Houston, Texas, have come forward, with photographic and video evidence that he murdered born babies in...

The last three late-term abortion clinics of what was once was a chain of six in Northern California is closing this week, reports Wynette Sills of 40 Days for Life Sacramento. Choice Medical Group once committed abortions in Concord, Fremont, Sacramento, Salinas, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Salinas clinic closed a few years ago, Concord followed last year, and San Francisco this past March. image image image When a member of Wynette’s group called the Sacramento office last week, they got a pleasant surprise. A receptionist told her that clinic and the Fremont and San Jose clinics were all...

As Europe ends another week comfortably in the green (near all-time highs) - the short answer - not many...as the region's longest recession in history rolls on...

At first glance, things could not be going worse for Microsoft. Its long-dreaded nightmare scenario is playing out. The PC industry as we've known it is collapsing. PC sales fell 14% in the first quarter, according to IDC, the worst ever drop in history. Microsoft's new Windows 8 operating system is accelerating the collapse, says IDC. The new tile-interface is scaring consumers. Microsoft is scrambling to fix Windows 8 to address these concerns. And even if Microsoft fixes Windows 8, it could be too late. Its biggest rivals — Apple and Google — have taken complete control of the next...

As the cost of education continues to rise, people are questioning the value of a degree. And according to Penelope Trunk, the founder of Brazen Careerist, 85% of people today are wasting their money — and time — in college. “Colleges have been selling this idea that going to college will get you a job, but this isn't the case any more,” she says. And if getting a college degree no longer guarantees you a job offer, then you need to really pinpoint your reasons for going. In fact, unless you're really great at school or got accepted into a...

Just got my monthly prescriptions refilled, 97 bucks more than last month, 200 bucks more than last December, same stuff, same amounts.I'm helping someone get their sex change operation, thanks, OBAMACARE!

Once upon a time, a teacher would teach American History. On exams, students would be asked questions about American history. Testing was straightforward and needed little discussion. In the modern era, however, content is disparaged and facts are scorned. The goal, seemingly, is to keep kids busy but to teach as little as possible. The big problem is, how do you design exams when the teacher hasn’t taught much, the kids don’t know much, and there is little actual knowledge that the school intends the children to retain? In this fact-free world, what would a valid examination look like? At...

I watch Bob Beckel on the Five and he asserts that we're "out to get Hillary" because we think we can keep her from running for president if we pin the Benghzi scandal on her. This is premised on the notion that she wants to run and the Democrats want her to run. What if she does not want to run, and the Democrats don't really want her to run, or not nearly as much as they pretend to want her to run? I don't think they love Hillary as much as they FEAR her. They don't seem to be...

We can't count the number of times we've wanted to enact vengeance on some inconsiderate audience member whose cell phone goes off during a performance. But, like most people, we just bottle that fury up deep down inside and take it out on the break room vending machine later. Not Kevin Williamson. Last night the National Review writer was in attendance at the marvelous new musical Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 when one theatergoer's incessant cell phone use finally drove him over the edge... into vigilantism. The stellar production—a swinging cabaret-type musical adaptation loosely adapted from Leo...

In its ninth annual survey of CEO opinion about the best and worst states in which to do business, 736 CEOs—the highest response on record—rendered their verdict. Business leaders were asked to grade states with which they are familiar on a variety of competitive metrics that CEOs themselves regard as critical. These include: 1) taxation and regulation; 2) quality of workforce; and 3) living environment. The tax and regulatory grade includes a measure of how CEOs grade a state’s attitude toward business, a key indicator. In the minds of most leaders, a state’s friendliness is closely aligned with its tax...

By 2030, roughly two-thirds of the world’s middle class will be in the Asia Pacific region, largely in China, according to a report by Ernst & Young. Currently at around 150 million people, the Chinese middle class is expected to reach 1 billion. Representing a $250 billion market for American companies today, according to the U.S.-China Business Council estimates the country, it’s worth noting the American companies that can take advantage of the enormous opportunity. Some of the nation’s biggest brands have already managed to be the Chinese market leaders in their particular segments. Apple sells more tablets than any...

William J. Bennett and David Wilezol’s “Is College Worth It?” asks and authoritatively answers one of life’s biggest questions. The orthodox answer to the question, the authors write, is “Of course it is. Though the cost of attendance is ever increasing, those who go to college make more than those who don’t. And while the job market is bad, it's worse for those without college degree.” “Is College Worth It?” provides a thoroughgoing deconstruction of the “of course it is” delusion. It turns out that for too many, and maybe even most of our young people, the answer to this...

Junk-food starved Gazans can now order Kentucky Fried Chicken to go thanks to a new smuggling service which brings takeout from Egypt via a network of underground tunnels. It’s not exactly “fast”—taking several hours to arrive, with the Palestinian delivery company behind it charging hefty prices to cover the cost of fuel and transport. … Tight restrictions on Gazans entering Egypt mean those with a craving for chicken cooked to Colonel’s Secret Recipe cannot just pop over the border and pick up a bucket. Instead, some residents seem quite happy to shell out ₪130 (£23; $35) for just 20 pieces...

We're not sure if this is a good sign for Microsoft or a bad sign for BlackBerry, but Windows Phone is now the third largest smartphone operating system, according to IDC. Since we're optimists, we'll say it's a good sign for Microsoft. It's trying to catch up to Apple's iOS and Google's Android operating systems. It has a very long way to go before it catches either of them, but it had to start somewhere. Perhaps this is the start of the most unlikely come-from-behind victory in history. Here's the IDC numbers, via All Things D:

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. claims that the Moore’s law will survive in the long-term, despite of all issues and lack of its economic feasibility for many chip designers. However, future chips will not only gain logic transistors to drive performance up, but will absorb a lot of untraditional (by today’s standards) functionality. “If anybody pushes Moore's Law to extremes, TSMC will be there too, but that is not all we do. We also have specialized technologies such as embedded flash, high-voltage, power transistors, MEMS and image sensors – a spectrum of technologies. And as we move monolithic CMOS on to...

Wednesday's Poll Do you blame President Barack Obama for the current IRS scandal? Yes No

he Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges. According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data. "This is an action involving the corruption and abuse of power...

Dear Dave, I’m a stay-at-home mom now, and my husband brings home $2,600 a month. We’re trying to get out of debt, but we need more money coming in. I want to go back to work, but emotionally part of me feels like I should stay home with our 2-year-old daughter. What do you think? Kayla Dear Kayla, I understand the feelings involved, especially if you’ve spent all of your time home with your child. But don’t make the mistake of blaming the debt if you simply want to go back to work. You’re not a bad person if you...

Is There Such a Thing? All one needs to do is read the way that Google and Yahoo spin headlines to realize what the young people are absorbing.....time for a different server/host?????? Anyone??????

Nearly half — 47 percent — of employers use credit checks when making a hiring decision, according to a 2012 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management. Most businesses use credit checks only to screen for certain positions, but one in eight, the survey found, does a credit check before every hire. “We’ve heard from dozens of people over the past several years who say they’re being denied jobs specifically because of a credit check,” Ms. Ludwig said. The people contacting her group, she said, are “mostly lower-wage workers,” especially those applying to big retail chains. “Prohibiting the use...

Conservative groups seeking information from the Environmental Protection Agency have been routinely hindered by fees normally waived for media and watchdog groups, while fees for more than 90 percent of requests from green groups were waived, according to requests reviewed by the Conservative Enterprise Institute.

Private colleges are offering record financial assistance to keep classrooms full, according to the Wall Street Journal's Ruth Simon. Some schools are seeing just 20% of the students they accepted enrolling, versus the usual rate of 33%. These schools have raised tuition discount rate — the price after grants and scholarships — to an all-time high of 45%. Meanwhile, the median sticker price increased just 3.9% last fall, the smallest gains in 12 years. And at public schools, the sticker price climbed just 4.8%, also a 12-year low. For the Washington Examiner's Michael Barone, this makes it official: the college...

When Apple introduced the iPad in 2009, it rolled out its own suite of Microsoft Office-like applications. It had "Pages" for word processing, "Numbers" for spreadsheets, and "Keynote" for presentations. Since Microsoft never rolled out a version of Office for the iPad, each of those three apps sold well for Apple. Pages is the most popular paid app of all-time. Keynote is the tenth most popular and Numbers is eleventh. After Apple introduced those apps in 2009, it's largely left them alone. There have been some minor tweaks, but nothing major. That could be about to change. Apple has been...

Teen smokers who rationalize their use of cigarettes by saying, “At least, I’m not doing drugs,” may not always be able to use that line. New research to be presented Sunday, May 5, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Washington, DC, supports the theory that cigarettes are a gateway drug to marijuana. “Contrary to what we would expect, we also found that students who smoked both tobacco and marijuana were more likely to smoke more tobacco than those who smoked only tobacco,” said study author Megan Moreno, MD, MSEd, MPH, FAAP, an investigator at Seattle Children’s Research...

The Freeper community is so intelligent and comes from a wide variety of backgrounds. I only ask this because I am (partially) stumped by this question. I am working on a project to get information about deaths to the public in a more organized and timely way. This topic may be interest to you, because other than one man in history, we will all go through this at some point. One of the problems is that when you start asking people at hospitals, mortuaries and government questions about this, people tend to clam up, as it is relatively foreboding issue....

President Barack Obama travelled to Michigan this week and made his case for class war in defense of the welfare state. We need to take more money from the rich, he said, or schools will not be able to afford books, students will not be able to afford college, and disabled children will not get health care. "Our economic success has never come from the top down," said Obama. "It comes from the middle out. It comes from the bottom up." Obama spoke these words a few miles from Detroit — the reductio ad absurdum of his argument. If America...

His bigger fears lie in the IRS administration of Obamacare where he is concerned that "No stent for you," will be heard when the powers that be know what groups you support, what thoughts you have, and what area you live in. Think he is exaggerating? Did you really believe the tin-foil hat wearers conspiracies that the IRS was doing this before it became mainstream news?

A sudden bidding war for the famed Delta Queen could ultimately take the historic paddlewheel riverboat away from Chattanooga. Cornel Martin, who is leading a group of investors trying to purchase and refurbish the Delta Queen, said he would like to have it fixed back up and plying the nation's inland waterways again by next summer. The former president of the Waterways Council in Washington, D.C., said his group began scurrying when it learned that a rival group in Sacramento, Calif., has made an offer for the Delta Queen. It is owned by Xanterra Parks and Resorts of Denver and...

The agitated sandwich shop customer disliked the pickles. Now she’s in one with the cops. A Massachusetts woman who ordered a steak-and-cheese sub at a subway station was so angry about “too many pickles” on her sandwich that she punched an employee and shoved two jars of pickles at her, transit police said Monday. The jars shattered and the customer fled—without the sandwich—but the brine-covered employee managed to catch up with her and hold her until transit and local police arrived …. The incident happened Saturday at the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs at the Quincy subway station, the transit police...

"Crocodile Dundee" star Paul Hogan has taken legal action in a US court to recover $34 million held in a Swiss bank account which he alleges has been misappropriated, reports said Monday. The Australian, who was catapulted to stardom by the success of the 1986 film about the laconic, knife-wielding crocodile hunter, says his once-trusted tax advisor has disappeared with the cash. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Californian district court documents allege Philip Egglishaw "absconded with or spent all" of Hogan's millions, in a filing by the actor's representative, Schuyler "Sky" Moore. The money was held at the Corner...

Mini doc on Central Texas Tools of Abilene TX, 3 generations of machinists. 7:35

. Gerald Celente on “the biggest element that could change the world in a positive way” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gerald Celente is singular in his field. Founder of the Trends Institute and their signature publication Trends Journal, he features new energy in his forecasting work. An early subscriber to Infinite Energy magazine and friend to Eugene Mallove, Celente has been following and writing about cold fusion since 1989. Why is he so alone among forecasters? Gerald Celente answers in this CFN exclusive. “Whether it’s infinite energy, or the economy or geopolitics, people have belief systems, and it’s very hard to break out...

The cars roll endlessly off the local assembly lines of the industry’s biggest automakers, more than 10,000 a day, into the eager hands of Brazil’s new middle class. The shiny new Fords, Fiats, and Chevrolets tell the tale of an economy in full bloom that now boasts the fourth largest auto market in the world. What happens once those vehicles hit the streets, however, is shaping up as a national tragedy, experts say, with thousands of Brazilians dying every year in auto accidents that in many cases shouldn’t have proven fatal. The culprits are the cars themselves, produced with weaker...

... Does the mere possibility that a phone call or e-mail will soon arrive drain your brain power? And does distraction matter — do interruptions make us dumber? Quite a bit, according to new research by Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer Interaction Lab. There’s a lot of debate among brain researchers about the impact of gadgets on our brains. Most discussion has focused on the deleterious effect of multitasking. Early results show what most of us know implicitly: if you do two things at once, both efforts suffer. In fact, multitasking is a misnomer. In most situations, the person juggling e-mail,...

Today in show business news: NBC is cleaning house while CBS is adding more clutter, including a Robin Williams/Sarah Michelle Gellar show. Yes, you read that right. More cancellation news from the Peacock as the network gets ready to present its new schedule to advertisers at next week's upfront presentation in New York. Yesterday it was Whitney and 1600 Penn, today it's Matthew Perry's freshman sitcom Go On and Brian Williams's weekly news magazine Rock Center. They are really cleaning house as they do yet another yearly overhaul, hoping that this is the one that works. This leaves The New...

Financial journalism lost one of its leading lights on Thursday when Alan Abelson died at the age of 87. Alan had served Barron's as a writer, editor, and chief columnist for the past 57 years. For many readers, there can be no substitute for Alan's witty, wise, and wonderfully written comments each week in Up & Down Wall Street. But Alan's contributions to Barron's, and to financial journalism, go beyond his marvelous column. During his career, Alan trained dozens of journalists to be skeptical, to be exacting, to help average investors, and to be on the lookout for Wall Street's...

Why is Tim Tebow out in the cold? Why are general managers and coaches willing to roll the dice with a QB who has never played an NFL down or a struggling QB versus one who holds a winning record and notched a stylish, memorable playoff victory over the vaunted Pittsburgh defense?Part of Tebow’s fate falls to timing.   In past posts,  I’ve referenced economist Zvi Griliches iconic article “Hybrid Corn: An Exploration in the Economics of Technological Change”. He demonstrated the acreage planted with hybrid seed took over across states, slowly, at first few adopters, then gaining steam, and...

The Washington Redskins will NEVER change their name, insists owner as he breaks silence on 'racist' term The owner of the Washington Redskins has insisted that the name of the team will never change despite growing controversy over its origins as a derogatory term for Native Americans. Daniel Snyder told USA Today : ‘We’ll never change the name. It’s simple. NEVER’. The team has been under fire from some critics who say the term is a racial slur because of its origins in bounties placed on the scalps of Native Americans by British settlers. The director of the National Museum...

Today's college graduates carry an average student loan balance of $25,000. Is college and a mountain of debt the only path to employment?Public Policy Promotes College. Though the majority of jobs today require specialized training beyond the high school level, many jobs do not require a four-year degree. In fact, economists have noted that degrees serve as credentials on a potential employee’s resume, but they are no guarantee of needed skills.1 The federal government has poured billions of dollars into college aid to those who want to pursue a college degree. The U.S. Department of Education now makes below market-rate...