Free Republic

Economic anxiety defines the Detroit bankruptcy, and not just in Michigan and the Midwest. Detroit is the urban nightmare, symbolic of America's downward cultural spiral since the 1960s, when optimism about what Americans could accomplish was the national elixir. The automobile was the national icon: powerful, beautiful and reliable. Detroit's advertising slogans reflected America's immeasurable self-confidence. Cadillac boasted that it was "the standard of the world." Buick promised that "when better cars are built, Buick will build them." Packard, then Detroit's ultimate expression of luxury, smugly advised, "Ask the man who owns one." The car was the example of infinite...

It's tough to find a job everywhere: in the US, in China, in Europe, and in India. Think education is the answer? I don't. Economic Times reports amillion engineers in India struggling to get placed in an extremely challenging marketSomewhere between a fifth to a third of the million students graduating out of India's engineering colleges run the risk of being unemployed. Others will take jobs well below their technical qualifications in a market where there are few jobs for India's overflowing technical talent pool. Beset by a flood of institutes (offering a varying degree of education) and a shrinking...

The parents of a U.S. engineer found dead in Singapore last year said on Wednesday they will not take part in the rest of a coroner’s inquiry into his death, which they say was linked to a project involving the transfer of sensitive technology to China. In a statement issued through their lawyers, Rick and Mary Todd said they had lost confidence in the system investigating the death of their 31-year-old son, Shane, who was found hanging in his Singapore apartment last June. The Todds did not appear in court on Wednesday, the day after a U.S. medical examiner they...

Called the supercapacitor, this revolutionary device can charge cell phones within 20 seconds. The brainchild of 18-year-old Esha Khare of Saratoga, California, the lucky teen collected $50,000 at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix, Arizona this week.LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic online) - The device is sure to make waiting around for your cell phone to recharge a thing of the past, In addition, the gizmo packs more energy into a smaller space than traditional phone batteries -- and holds the charge longer. Khare traveled from her California home to Phoenix last week for the Intel International Science...

Canada and the United States foiled an attempted attack by al Qaeda today, arresting Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser. Among other things, Esseghaier, it has been learned, was a PhD student at INRS University in Quebec. On Esseghaier's Linkedin profile, he posted this picture as his profile: His profile lists various colleges that he has attended, including INRS, Université de Sherbrooke, and IPEST in Tunis. Esseghaier states that he is able to speak Arabic, French, and English. Esseghaier explains in a short biography he wrote on a personal website: Born in Tunis, Tunisia. I got Engineer degree in Industrial Biology...

A technical department in a Soviet university. An introductory lecture. The professor: For a start I'll explain to you, who an engineer is. There is a factory which receives daily a truckload of alcohol necessary for its operating. The factory has a huge tank with a tap to hold the alcohol. A female employee uses the tap to distribute the alcohol according to written orders. After each shift the tank is emptied with the same tap. Now I have a question to you all: How will an engineer steel some alcohol from the tank?"

I'm looking for a summer job as a Pile Driving Analyst (PDA) operator. I know this is a political website, but I know there's a bunch of successful businessmen and engineers who visit this site.

The Philippine military says it has killed three senior militants from al-Qaeda-linked groups in a raid in the south of the country. The air raid took place on Thursday in an area known as a militant stronghold. Officials said two Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) leaders and one Abu Sayyaf leader were among a total of 15 people killed. Malaysian Zulkifli bin Hir, or Marwan, who was on the US FBI's most wanted list with a $5m (£3.2m) reward offered for his capture, was reported killed. According to the military, the militants were killed in the town of Parang on Jolo island,...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (May 19, 2011) — Finding $400 billion in additional defense spending reductions over the next 12 years will require careful thought that considers the risks the reductions create, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said here today. In a question-and-answer session with students at the U.S. Army Engineer School here, Gates warned against what he called the “managerial cowardice” of across-the-board cuts, advocating instead an approach that retains excellence in the missions the military keeps while cutting missions and programs that have value but would pose an acceptable level of risk if eliminated ... Gates said “politically...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (April 7, 2011) — Top Army engineers are gathering this week for the annual ENFORCE conference at Fort Leonard Wood, but people wearing stars and birds won’t be the only ones speaking. Lt. Col. Timothy O’Brien, who serves as the conference coordinator, emphasized that the senior leaders’ conference is an opportunity for those in key decision-making positions to hear from lower-level engineers who have recently returned from combat in Afghanistan or Iraq. Much of the focus of the conference will be on lessons learned, and that requires up-to-date information. “We will have (a) panel which is...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (April 8, 2011) — Army personnel didn’t heavily publicize it because the World War II museum chapel on post was already expected to be filled beyond capacity, but engineer soldiers held a service for fallen engineers Thursday night and unveiled a memorial to engineers who have died in the current War on Terror. The memorial is made of marble and engraved with the names of all engineer soldiers who have died in combat since the Sept. 11, 2011 terrorist attacks, said Lt. Col. Tim O’Brien, who is coordinating the ENFORCE engineer senior leader conference currently underway...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (April 7, 2011) — Top Army engineers are gathering this week for the annual ENFORCE conference at Fort Leonard Wood, but people wearing stars and birds won’t be the only ones speaking. Lt. Col. Timothy O’Brien, who serves as the conference coordinator, emphasized that the senior leaders’ conference is an opportunity for those in key decision-making positions to hear from lower-level engineers who have recently returned from combat in Afghanistan or Iraq. Much of the focus of the conference will be on lessons learned, and that requires up-to-date information. “We will have (a) panel which is...

RALEIGH -- David N. Cox says he was merely exercising his right to petition the government, but a state Department of Transportation official has raised allegations that Cox committed a misdemeanor: practicing engineering without a license. Cox and his North Raleigh neighbors are lobbying city and state officials to add traffic signals at two intersections as part of a planned widening of Falls of Neuse Road. After an engineering consultant hired by the city said that the signals were not needed, Cox and the North Raleigh Coalition of Homeowners' Associations responded with a sophisticated analysis of their own.

Four men including former PNCR Member of Parliament Abdul Kadir were yesterday charged by United States law enforcement officials with allegedly conspiring to blow up the John F Kennedy International airport as well as tanks storing aviation fuel and underground fuel pipelines. Those charged with Kadir are former JFK worker Russell Defreitas, a Guyanese-born US citizen; Kareem Ibrahim, an imam from Trinidad; and Guyanese Abdel Nur. Kadir and Ibrahim were arrested in Trinidad, while Defreitas was held in New York. Up to press time, however, Nur had not been apprehended and was thought to be still at large in Trinidad....

SNIPPET: "OTTAWA — The May 18 firebombing of an Ottawa bank was feared to be just the start of a "domestic terrorism" campaign launched by three anarchists bent on acts of destruction at the G20 summit in Toronto, with one of the accused firebombers stockpiling boxes of ammunition and gunpowder, the Ottawa Citizen has learned." SNIPPET: "Ottawa Police Chief Vern White had publicly branded those who attacked the bank branch as terrorists days after the firebombing, which was filmed and posted online in a "catch-me-if-you-can" video by a group called FFFC-Ottawa. The acronym stands for Fight for Freedom Coalition, according...

Pakistani officers arrested a man at Karachi airport after batteries and an electrical circuit were found in his shoes as he tried to board a plane for the Middle East, an official said. The 30-year-old civil engineer allegedly told interrogators he came from Pakistan's northwestern province Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where Taliban and Islamist militants have a presence, and had been scheduled to travel to Muscat by Thai Airways. Mohammad Munir, Airport Security Force spokesman, said the bearded man, whom he named as Faiz Mohammad, was arrested when a scanner sounded an alarm. The suspect was not found in possession of explosives,...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHARANA, Afghanistan (Feb. 17, 2010) — Late in the afternoon a convoy on a route clearance patrol mission rolled into an Afghan village which would serve as the furthest point of the day’s patrol. Members of the 203rd Engineer Battalion, Missouri Army National Guard, and 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery (the 5-3), 17th Fires Brigade, an active duty unit based at Fort Lewis, Wash., were working together in road conditions made hazardous by melting snow as well as insurgent-planted explosives. Two-thirds of the way through the village the convoy’s lead vehicle, commanded by Staff Sgt. Gary Rhodes...

KUNAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan , March 3, 2010 – Robert J. Goggins started his college career with the goal of becoming a mechanical engineer. Instead, he joined the Army as an infantryman. Army Pfc. Robert J. Goggins shakes hands with a resident of Kandagal village in the Manogai district of eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar province, Feb. 21, 2010. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Albert L. Kelley   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. His life as a soldier in Afghanistan is markedly different from his life as a NASA intern and as a student at the University of Virginia, but he said...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE FENTI, Afghanistan (Jan. 14, 2010) — As time for the pre-mission brief drew near, crews began to gather around 1st Lt. Chris Johnson, their platoon leader. Dawn had begun to break and a winter chill hung in the air. As Johnson prepared to speak, a senior NCO waved the crews closer to form a semi-circle facing the junior officer. “Intelligence says there was a cache found [nearby] containing quite a bit of bomb-making materials, but other than that, there is nothing new,” said Johnson, of Basehor, Kan. “We’ll be the first mission down this route in a...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Feb. 13, 2010) — Servicemembers who think they’re some of the toughest military engineers are being invited to compete in this spring’s “Best Sapper” competition from April 17 to 21 at Fort Leonard Wood. The competition, which is the Army engineer equivalent to the Army’s “Best Ranger” competition, is open not only to soldiers in the 21-series MOS engineer category but also other soldiers, sailors, airmen or Marines who have earned the “Sapper” shoulder tab. The event “will test the mental and physical stamina, as well as the tactical and technical skills of the participants,” according...