Free Republic

Eric Isbister, the C.E.O. of GenMet, a metal-fabricating manufacturer outside Milwaukee, told me that he would hire as many skilled workers as show up at his door. Last year, he received 1,051 applications and found only 25 people who were qualified. He hired all of them, but soon had to fire 15. Part of Isbister’s pickiness, he says, comes from an avoidance of workers with experience in a “union-type job.” Isbister, after all, doesn’t abide by strict work rules and $30-an-hour salaries. At GenMet, the starting pay is $10 an hour. Those with an associate degree can make $15, which...

“Imagine an NFL coach,” writes Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, in his important new book, Fixing the Game, “holding a press conference on Wednesday to announce that he predicts a win by 9 points on Sunday, and that bettors should recognize that the current spread of 6 points is too low. Or picture the team’s quarterback standing up in the postgame press conference and apologizing for having only won by 3 points when the final betting spread was 9 points in his team’s favor. While it’s laughable to imagine coaches or...

From the top of their website: ------------------------------------ A bailout of the people by the people Rolling Jubilee is a Strike Debt project that buys debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, abolishes it. Together we can liberate debtors at random through a campaign of mutual support, good will, and collective refusal. Debt resistance is just the beginning. Join us as we imagine and create a new world based on the common good, not Wall Street profits. -------------------------------------

WHITEHORSE, YK—Try to imagine a town where the government paid each of the residents a living income, regardless of who they were and what they did, and a Soviet hamlet in the early 1980s may come to mind. But this experiment happened much closer to home. For a four-year period in the '70s, the poorest families in Dauphin, Manitoba, were granted a guaranteed minimum income by the federal and provincial governments. Thirty-five years later all that remains of the experiment are 2,000 boxes of documents that have gathered dust in the Canadian archives building in Winnipeg. Until now little has...

Before rank-and-file conservatives ask, "What went wrong?", they should ask themselves a question every bit as important: "Why were we the last to realize that things were going wrong for us?" . . . It ought to be an eye-opening moment. But I expect that it'll be quickly forgotten, that none of the conservatives who touted a polling conspiracy will be discredited, and that the right will continue to operate at an information disadvantage. After all, it's not like they'll trust the analysis of a non-conservative like me more than the numerous fellow conservatives who constantly tell them things that...

As any poker player knows, those 8 percent chances do come up once in a while. If it happens this year, then a lot of polling firms will have to re-examine their assumptions — and we will have to re-examine ours about how trustworthy the polls are. But the odds are that Mr. Obama will win another term.

OBAMA: Here's what I said, was that our number one priority was stopping the economic contraction and putting people back to work. Now, we have stopped the economic contraction. The economy is growing again, and we did create or save several million of jobs. That's not my opinion. That's the opinion of conservative economists as well as liberal economists, was that the Recovery Act, which is a combination of tax cuts, infrastructure improvements, helping states stabilize their budgets -- all those things helped to lessen the fall. But we've still lost 7 million jobs. So, I understand why the American...

PRAGUE -- The head of U.S. Central Command, General David Petraeus, has told RFE/RL he thinks that "on balance" the expected closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and abandonment of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques will "help" U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the struggle against transnational extremist violence.

An academic whose estimates of civilian deaths during the Iraq war sparked controversy has been criticised for not fully co-operating with an inquiry. Gilbert Burnham said in the Lancet medical journal in 2006 that 650,000 civilians had died since 2003 - a figure far higher than other estimates.

. . . NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a...

http://saaristo.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=2233219%3ATopic%3A1035 Just follow the link and let the pictures speak for themselves.

I'm sick of all your rules They're so man made You treat them all like fools You put my name to shame I'm everything you're not I give them love My ways you have forgot You put yourselves above I'll testify It's time to see Religion die The truth can't lie It's time to see Religion die Who cares? Who's right? It's time to see Religion die I'll crush the fight It's time to see Religion die My Church is not inside Your building walls On Sundays you all hide While the world just falls Now go into the world...

The House overwhelmingly approved legislation Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure.

I was looking at the top of the Latest Posts page and noticed that the link to the GiulianiTruthFiles and the RomneyTruthFiles was gone. I can understand why the GiulianiTruthFiles link is gone since he withdrew from the race. But why was the RomneyTruthFiles link taken down? Do those facts no longer have any bearing? Should conservatives ignore what was there now? Has Romney officially replaced FRed as the official candidate of choice for FR?

AG Gonzales "There was not a war declaration, either in connection with Al Qaida or in Iraq. It was an authorization to use military force. I only want to clarify that, because there are implications. Obviously, when you talk about a war declaration, you're possibly talking about affecting treaties, diplomatic relations. And so there is a distinction in law and in practice. And we're not talking about a war declaration. This is an authorization only to use military force."

There have been 27 republican primary polls taken this calendar year WITHOUT referencing Ron Paul. And only 5 polls with Ron Paul.

NEW YORK, Oct 17 (Reuters) - The dollar fell broadly on Wednesday after a report showed housing starts dropped to their lowest level in 14 years in September, adding to concerns that the housing market may drag on the U.S. economy.

GROVELAND, Fla. -- A large military explosive device found along SR-50 near County Road 565A in Groveland has forced the road to be closed. State Road 50 is closed from County Road 565A to 12th Street in Clermont. Officials said the device was found just off SR-50 and may weigh as much as 250 to 500 pounds. The bomb squad is on the scene. Military officials are also on the way, due to the fact that it's a U.S. military device. The Lake County Sheriff's Office is asking that drivers avoid the area, as the road will likely be closed...

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (Reuters) - It was showtime at the Republican presidential debate on Tuesday, and the big surprise was the man in the spotlight -- Ron Paul, the longest of longshots. Paul, a nine-term congressman from Texas and the Libertarian Party candidate for the White House in 1988, stood out in a field of 10 Republican presidential candidates by standing up to front-runner Rudolph Giuliani in a spat over the September 11 attacks.