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Barack Obama is going to appoint the nation's first CTO. What are the top priorities?

There was a lack of trust, a loss of confidence, a popular revolt. Nearly every major political leader in the U.S. supported the $700 billion financial-bailout bill. The President. The Vice President. The Treasury Secretary. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve. The Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Democratic and Republican nominees for President. The Democratic and Republican leadership of the House and Senate. All of them said the same thing: vote yes.

Amid a severe kidney-donor shortage, an idea long considered anathema in the medical community is gaining new currency: payments for people willing to give up a kidney. One of the most outspoken voices on the topic isn't a free-market libertarian, but a prominent transplant surgeon named Arthur Matas. Dr. Matas, 59 years old, is a Canadian-born physician best known for his research at the University of Minnesota. Lately, he's been traveling the country trying to make the case that barring kidney sales is tantamount to sentencing some patients to death. "There's one clear argument for sales," Dr. Matas told a...

Relationship experts report that too many couples fail to ask each other critical questions before marrying. Here are a few key ones that couples should consider asking: 1) Have we discussed whether or not to have children, and if the answer is yes, who is going to be the primary care giver? 2) Do we have a clear idea of each other’s financial obligations and goals, and do our ideas about spending and saving mesh? 3) Have we discussed our expectations for how the household will be maintained, and are we in agreement on who will manage the chores? 4)...

NEW YORK (AP) - Al-Qaida and other Islamic extremist groups have poisoned the Muslim public's view of the United States through deft use of the Internet and other modern communications methods that the American government has failed to master, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday. In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Rumsfeld sounded a theme he frequently raises as a key to eventually winning the global war on terrorism: countering anti-Western messages from Islamic extremists. "Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but for the most part we - our country,...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Iraqi insurgency is in its last throes. The economy is booming. Anybody who leaks a CIA agent's identity will be fired. Add another piece of White House rhetoric that doesn't match the public's view of reality: Help is on the way, Gulf Coast. As New Orleans descended into anarchy, top Bush administration officials congratulated each other for jobs well done and spoke of water, food and troops pouring into the ravaged city. Television pictures told a different story. "What it reminded me of the other day is 'Baghdad Bob' saying there are no Americans at the...

ASPEN, Colo. (AP) - A panel discussion on whether cable debate shows like CNN's recently canceled "Crossfire" have screamed themselves out of business ended in - what else - a shouting match. Panelists including comedian Janeane Garofalo, conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham and former White House press secretary Joe Lockhart were alternately cheered and jeered at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival Saturday. Garofalo rankled some audience members with her comment that not only does "the Republican message dominate the public conversation, but that in my opinion, 90 percent of it is false." Ingraham retorted, "The American left is so...

Patty Berg, who helped start the LPGA Tour and won more major championships than any other woman, disclosed Wednesday that she has Alzheimer's disease. Berg, 86, wrote a poignant letter that the LPGA Tour released on its Web site. "As much as I wish it weren't so, I find myself in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease and, accordingly, am forced to curtail somewhat my participation in LPGA affairs," Berg wrote. "I'll still show up whenever I can, and if possible will attend functions to which I am asked to take part. I'll hold onto my LPGA membership, too, for...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - A new heavy-duty Boeing rocket designed to haul super-sized military satellites into space failed during a test flight to put a dummy satellite into its intended orbit, officials said Wednesday. Boeing said the failure Tuesday was apparently caused by a shorter-than-planned firing of the Delta 4 Heavy rocket's three main engines. Fired simultaneously, each of the three hydrogen-powered main engines generates 17 million horsepower. A dummy satellite carried in the rocket's nose cone was to have been delivered to a circular geosynchronous orbit - a spot 22,300 miles from Earth where the satellite would remain...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush has ordered plans for temporarily disabling the U.S. network of global positioning satellites during a national crisis to prevent terrorists from using the navigational technology, the White House said Wednesday. Any shutdown of the network inside the United States would come under only the most remarkable circumstances, said a Bush administration official who spoke to a small group of reporters at the White House on condition of anonymity. The GPS system is vital to commercial aviation and marine shipping. The president also instructed the Defense Department to develop plans to disable, in certain areas, an...

BURLINGTON, Iowa (AP) - A psychiatrist who police say smeared excrement on dollars bills used to pay a parking ticket has been fined $250. Ronald Preston McPike, 52, of Bonaparte, was charged with harassment of a public official after officials received an envelop in July labeled "Foreign brown substance on bills." The envelope contained several dollar bills and a parking ticket made up to McPike, police said. Tests indicated the brown substance was fecal matter that had been smeared on the bills. McPike told police the money fell into a toilet and was retrieved to pay the $5 parking ticket,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Too many house-rich Americans are borrowing money against their homes to play the stock market, brokerages regulator NASD warned on Wednesday. In an alert to brokers who may be encouraging the trend, the NASD reminded Wall Street that it has a responsibility to steer investors away from unsuitable financial strategies. "Many homeowners have become wealthier -- at least on paper -- because of escalating home values. And more of them than ever before are tapping into their increased home equity to purchase securities," said NASD Vice Chairman Mary Schapiro. "But turning equity into cash to make financial...

I ran across this site and thought it would provide usefull info to freepers interested in immigration reform. The site has lots of detailed information on each member of congress and their records on immigration reform. Most of my representative scored very low :-( You can link to www.betterimmigration.com here The text below is from their web site on how they do the gradings. How Grades Are Calculated Americans for Better Immigration (ABI) seeks to grade all Congressional actions since 1989 that affected -- or would have affected -- the numerical level of immigration and illegal migration into the U.S....

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 - For nearly 50 years, a director of central intelligence has stood at the pinnacle of American intelligence agencies. Now that role is to be played by a new, even more powerful figure, a national intelligence director, created by Congress as part of its response to a series of catastrophic intelligence failures. The question is whether the changes will make much of a difference in combating terrorism and weapons proliferation, two of the major national security challenges facing the intelligence services. On that question, even some supporters of the legislation to overhaul intelligence acknowledge their own agnosticism....

3:02 PM EST,December 7, 2004 NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- The FBI announced Tuesday that it will offer a $1 million reward for information leading to the capture of Victor Manuel Gerena, a former Wells Fargo guard accused of robbing an armored truck of $7 million in 1983. The robbery of the Wells Fargo truck in West Hartford is considered an act of domestic terrorism because it was allegedly carried out by 19 members of the Puerto Rican nationalist group Macheteros, or Cane Cutters, the FBI said. The reward is the largest offered for a fugitive in Connecticut history and sends...

<p>NEW YORK -- The jury in the multibillion dollar insurance case between World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein and nine of the insurers who provided coverage on the Twin Towers decided Monday that the attacks constituted two occurrences for all nine insurers.</p>

Peter G. Peterson sees fiscal trouble ahead for U.S. NEW YORK (CBS.MW) - Rising deficits, the falling dollar, a low savings rate and soaring Medicaid and Social Security costs threaten to cripple the U.S. economy, pundit Peter G. Peterson warned on Monday. "We are on an unsustainable path," Peterson told about 100 people at a Global Finance Leadership Forum held at Forbes Magazine. Peterson, chairman of private equity firm The Blackstone Group and the U.S. Secretary of Commerce under Richard Nixon, outlined the thesis of his new book, "Running on Empty." Peterson said both Democratic and Republican parties are "bankrupting...

Every time I heard anyone talk about what a measly contribution other countries were making to the Iraq war in terms of troops, I wondered what the relative contribution of troops was based on a country’s military budget, since that would in some way determine a countries ability to contribute. I put together the following table and ranked the order by the number of troops contributed as a percentage of that country’s military budget. I threw in GDP and troops contributed as a percentage of total troops as reference points. I thought it was interesting. Sources of data was CIA...

Bank Of Amer Sees Paying Departing Vice Chairman Up To $37 Million WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Bank of America Corp. (BAC) said Friday that it expects to pay James H. Hance Jr., its departing vice chairman, a retirement package with an actuarial value of up to $37 million. Bank of America said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that Hance, who has been with the Charlotte-based company for nearly 18 years, has accrued about $2.69 million in annual retirement benefits under three Bank of America plans. As announced in a press release Thursday, Hance plans to step down as vice...