Free Republic

Remember, the values at which subprime mortgage bonds were trading at reflected "irrational fear" and "unreasonable expectations of default." More than a year later, it is clear: There was no panic; this was a JUSTIFIED level of trading and reflects the ugly reality - the investors in those bonds will NEVER get their money back. They were swindled, to be blunt. "AA" bonds trading at 4 cents and "AAA" at 28? Remember folks, "AAA" credits are supposed to have a probability of default roughly equivalent to that of the Sun colliding with the earth. There is not now and never...

Daily Tracking Poll

Todays tracking polling on Obama' decline

An April 26 article in the New York Times reported: The need for more doctors comes up at almost every congressional hearing and White House forum on health care. “We’re not producing enough primary-care physicians,”Obama said at one forum. “The costs of medical education are so high that people feel that they’ve got to specialize.” This quote demonstrates precisely the stilted logic based on flimsy assumptions that characterizes the intellect of our statist new presidential administration. That primary care physicians are in short supply is not in dispute, but the shortage certainly doesn’t stem from the cost of medical education,...

MAD Magazine is about to put out its 500th issue. Fantastic! But starting in April, the mag is cutting down to only four issues per year. Nooooo!

...Kopelman presented a scenario for the rise of the "implicit" Internet. I'm simplifying, but he was referring to the vast web of personal data that until now has existed relatively undisturbed in different corners of the data world. For example, you may have made a reservation over the Internet one day, or bought a book from an online reseller on another. But that that data is going to get collected from heretofore separate "silos" as companies that figure out ways to break through the barriers and deliver information based on that implicit cyber data. That shouldn't strike anybody as a...

The Bush administration has ear-marked $20 million in its 2009 budget toward the US Department of Energy's efforts to design nuclear power plants in the 250-to-500 megawatt range as part of its Global Nuclear Energy Program (GNEP). The money marks the first substantial commitment to building the new plants since President Bush announced the program in February 2006. The latest nuclear plants designed for US domestic use have capacities about 1300 megawatts. GNEP, which now includes 21 member countries, hopes to begin construction of its first reactor in a country currently without nuclear power in 2015, saying the plants will...

The DOD is developing a parallel to Planet Earth, with billions of individual "nodes" to reflect every man, woman, and child this side of the dividing line between reality and AR. Called the Sentient World Simulation (SWS), it will be a "synthetic mirror of the real world with automated continuous calibration with respect to current real-world information", according to a concept paper for the project. SWS provides an environment for testing Psychological Operations (PSYOP)," the paper reads, so that military leaders can "develop and test multiple courses of action to anticipate and shape behaviors of adversaries, neutrals, and partners" SWS...

snip. Researchers at Virginia Tech, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and the University of Georgia propose using polysaccharides, or sugary carbohydrates, from biomass to directly produce low-cost hydrogen for the new hydrogen economy. snip. Using synthetic biology approaches, Zhang and colleagues Barbara R. Evans and Jonathan R. Mielenz of ORNL, and Robert C. Hopkins and Michael W.W. Adams of the University of Georgia, are using a combination of 13 enzymes never found together in nature to completely convert polysaccharides (C6H10O5) and water into hydrogen when and where that form of energy is needed. This “synthetic enzymatic pathway” research appears in...

March 19, 2007 Many respected engineers have been trying for years to bring a compressed air car to market, believing strongly that compressed air can power a viable "zero pollution" car. Now the first commercial compressed air car is on the verge of production and beginning to attract a lot of attention, and with a recently signed partnership with Tata, India’s largest automotive manufacturer, the prospects of very cost-effective mass production are now a distinct possibility. The MiniC.A.T is a simple, light urban car, with a tubular chassis that is glued not welded and a body of fibreglass. The heart...

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (AP) - This is one cleaning that could pass anybody's white-glove test. A high-tech dust rag developed by a research chemist at a nuclear weapons plant can pick up potentially deadly beryllium particles that are 20 times smaller than what can be seen with the naked eye. Its inventor, Ron Simandl, says it could be used to mop up industrial accidents or wipe down semiconductor "clean rooms." And look out Swiffer dusters: The "Negligible-Residue Non-tacky Tack Cloth" could be bound for the consumer market, albeit with a catchier name. Simandl, who is used to working in a...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University Medical Center researchers have discovered that activation of a particular brain region predicts whether people tend to be selfish or altruistic. "Although understanding the function of this brain region may not necessarily identify what drives people like Mother Theresa, it may give clues to the origins of important social behaviors like altruism," said study investigator Scott A. Huettel, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center. Results of the study appear Sunday, Jan. 21, in the advance online edition of Nature Neuroscience and will be published in the February 2007 print issue of...

The Dalai Lama says that were Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden killed that hatred would cause another 10 like him to spring up, in an interview with a British newspaper. He also revealed the workings of his relationship with US President George W. Bush, said Westerners had become too self-absorbed and repeated his opposition to homosexuality in a wide-ranging interview. The Dalai Lama said modern terrorism was born out of jealousy of Western lifestyles. "Fundamentalism is terrifying because it is based purely on emotion, rather than intelligence," the 70-year-old monk said at the seat of his government-in-exile in the northern...

...The Internet will reach its full potential as a medium and facilitator for global economic expansion and development in an environment free from burdensome intergovernmental oversight and control. The success of the Internet lies in its inherently decentralized nature, with the most significant growth taking place at the outer edges of the network through innovative new applications and services. Burdensome, bureaucratic oversight is out of place in an Internet structure that has worked so well for many around the globe. We regret the recent positions on Internet governance(i.e., the “new cooperation model”) offered by the European Union, the Presidency of...

When you arrive in the land I am giving you and you harvest your first crops, bring the priest some grain from the first portion of your grain harvest. On the first day after the Sabbath, the priest will lift it up before the Lord so it may be accepted on your behalf. ... This is a permanent law for you, and it must be observed wherever you live. —Leviticus 23:9-11, 14 (NLT) Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others. —Cicero, Pro Plancio, 54 B.C. As our skepticism about God has increased,...

IT'S OFFICIAL: 2005 WILL BE the newspaper industry's worst year since the last ad industry recession. And things aren't looking much better for next year either, according to a top Wall Street firm's report on newspaper publishing. "Sadly, 2005 is shaping up as the industry's worst year from a revenue growth perspective since the recession impacted 2001-2002 period," says the report from Goldman Sachs, adding a warning that meaningful growth in 2006 is "very unlikely."

The sign out front said "Saddam Hussein's Nuclear Mastermind." Inside, Mahdi Obeidi, former head of Iraq's centrifuge program for uranium enrichment, told more than 200 people, including Department of Energy employees, that he wants to help stop one of humanity's greatest nightmares - global weapons of mass destruction. "We cannot afford one mistake," Obeidi said. "Everybody should be concerned." Obeidi, who emigrated to the United States in 2003, spoke on Wednesday morning at the Pollard Auditorium at Oak Ridge Associated Universities. His visit was sponsored by the Oak Ridge Office of Counterintelligence and funded by the U.S. State Department, according...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A drug dubbed CX717, made by Cortex Pharmaceuticals, Irvine, California, reverses the biological and behavioral effects of sleep deprivation, according to results of animal studies. In an article in the research journal PLoS Biology, Dr. Sam A. Deadwyler and his associates propose that CX717 would particularly benefit individuals affected by extended work hours or night shifts. To test this possibility, they taught monkeys to perform a "delayed-match-to-sample task," in which they were presented with a single image on a computer screen, then would use a cursor to identify that image in a group of several...

OAK RIDGE, TN, United States (UPI) -- U.S. grocery stores, schools, hotels and hospitals are likely candidates for a high-efficiency system that provides heating, cooling and electric power. The PureComfort system -- developed through a partnership between Oak Ridge National Laboratory and United Technologies Research Center -- features a combination of 60-kilowatt microturbines and a new direct exhaust-fired double-effect absorption chiller-heater that recycles exhaust streams. The system provides simultaneous electric power and cooling. Bob DeVault of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory`s Engineering Science and Technology Division said the system could be configured to provide emergency backup power to the customer...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A record amount of tax revenue flowed into federal coffers in July, helping to keep the government on track to significantly lower the budget deficit this year. The Treasury Department reported Wednesday that revenue collections jumped 5.7 percent last month from a year ago, pushing total receipts to $142.09 billion, the largest amount ever collected by the federal government in the month of July. The Bush administration last month significantly lowered its estimate for this year's budget deficit - to $332.65 billion, down 22 percent from its February estimate that the deficit this year would total $427...