Free Republic

SNIP SNIP Local government planning should, first of all, protect the private property rights of its citizens. The legitimate function of local planning is to facilitate the safe and coordinated exercise of the free market in real estate and commerce. Social engineering, on the other hand, is the result of professional planners creating a vision of what they think a community should be in the future. What the landowners may want is not a factor in the design. What the planners think the broader community will want, such as open space and protected wildlife areas, outweighs private property rights or...

(CNSNews.com) – In 2005, Michael and Chantell Sackett were working toward what many American families work toward, their own home on their own land, until the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) halted their plans by declaring it a “wetland.” On Monday, Jan. 9, the Sacketts and their attorneys will ask the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court to not only restore the right to use their own land – but to break the absolute power the EPA has over protected wetlands. The Sacketts, small business owners in Idaho, located a lot in the northern part of the state in a...

ATLANTA — Republican presidential candidate front-runner Newt Gingrich has scheduled an announcement inside the Georgia State Capitol on Tuesday, officials confirmed to Channel 2 Action News. Gov. Nathan Deal's office told Channel 2 political reporter Lori Geary that Gingrich is expected to hold a news conference in the north wing of the Capitol at 1 p.m. Deal is chairman of Gingrich's campaign in Georgia. The Gingrich campaign would not release the purpose of the trip to his home state, however an endorsement from fellow Georgian Herman Cain could be a huge boost to the Gingrich campaign. Cain suspended his presidential...

All too often when a disaster strikes, our four-legged friends are left to fend for themselves and sometimes end up lost, injured or killed. The best way to avoid this tragic scenario is to have a well-thought-out disaster plan that includes pets...

As a labor union leader, Councilman Steve Ross knows what union negotiations entail — and he’s urging Las Vegas firefighters to go back to the table and reach an agreement with the city for next year. “We’re really not that far apart,” Ross said at Wednesday’s Las Vegas City Council meeting, where council members were told negotiations had stalled with a difference of about $3 million and that an outside arbitrator is being brought in to resolve the differences.

Executive Order--Regulation and Independent Regulatory Agencies By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to improve regulation and regulatory review, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Policy. (a) Wise regulatory decisions depend on public participation and on careful analysis of the likely consequences of regulation. Such decisions are informed and improved by allowing interested members of the public to have a meaningful opportunity to participate in rulemaking. To the extent permitted by law, such decisions should be made only after consideration of their...

Oak Park, Michigan resident Julie Bass faces a possible 90-day jail sentence for planting an “unsuitable” vegetable garden in the front yard of her home. “We came up with the idea as both a way to cut back on our food bill and to teach our kids some useful skills,” Bass said. “Now, every kid in the neighborhood is over here playing ‘farmer.’ They’re also a lot more eager to eat their vegetables after growing them themselves.” Oak Park City Planner Kevin Rulkowski has ruled that the garden violates city code. “Ms. Bass’s household budget, nutritional and educational objectives are...

Several people have become interested in a quite controversial topic called "AGENDA 21." They have requested being on a ping list for this topic. While I do not have time to do a thorough treatment of this subject, nor am I in any way an expert, I am willing at least for a time,to ping people as I run across articles which might pertain to this concern. It might be good to start with an examination of just what it is or might be. To kick this discussion and exploration off,I did a Google search (just for fun) on "Agenda...

PARIS (AFP) – A planned fund to channel hundreds of billions of dollars to poor countries exposed to climate change has overcome an early obstacle, the UN said on Friday. Members of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change have agreed on the make-up of a 40-seat transitional committee to design the Green Climate Fund (GCF), an issue that had been debated for weeks, the UNFCCC said. Established at the UNFCCC's conference in Cancun last December, the GCF aims at administering aid, potentially worth 100 billion dollars a year by 2020, to developing countries at risk from rising seas, worsening...

Quote: Make A Plan www.ready.gov/america/npm10/makeaplan.html Make sure you have a family emergency plan. Your family may not be together when disaster strikes, so it is important to plan in advance: how you will contact one another; how you will get back together; and what you will do in different situations. Family Emergency Plan: It may be easier to make a long-distance phone call than to call across town, so an out-of-town contact may be in a better position to communicate among separated family members. Be sure every member of your family knows the phone number and has coins or a...

Last month, the Public Service Commission rejected Baltimore Gas & Electric Co.'s "smart grid" proposal. From start to finish, the whole affair demonstrated everything that is wrong with Maryland's socialized electricity industry. To begin with, BGE's plan was a dud. The whole idea of "smart grid" is to inform customers how much electricity costs in real time so that they have an incentive to use less electricity during times of peak demand (usually hot summer afternoons), when electricity is expensive to generate and transmit. There are a number of ways to achieve this price signal, but BGE chose an ill-defined,...

Given Russia's reputation for excessive bureaucracy, it's only right that a company would exist to help businesspeople to set up, find the right translators, and also provide the right legal guidance to navigate the Byzantine direction of Russia's business bureaucracy. Center of Economic Planning consists of a professional team of skilled translators, auditors and IT specialists who will also not just help foreign businesses, but also help native Russians build their businesses.

North Korea recently threatened to "mercilessly destroy" its foes. That didn't elicit much reaction abroad. After all, the terms were similar to threats uttered countless times during and since the 1950-53 Korean War. "Pundits describing the North Korean threat often downplay it because it appears obvious that North Korea's military - despite its large size - is unlikely to be able to unify the peninsula," said Bruce Bechtol, professor of international relations at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College and an expert on the North Korean military. This time, though, the regime added that it might employ its nuclear...

WASHINGTON, April 27, 2010 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today expressed satisfaction with the level of planning by the Defense Department and other elements of the U.S. government to counter threats from Iran. “I'm very satisfied with the planning process both within this building and in the interagency,” Gates told Pentagon reporters. “We spend a lot of time on Iran, and we'll continue to do so.”Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, appearing alongside Gates after a meeting at the Pentagon, endorsed diplomatic efforts and sanctions to steer Iran away from its nuclear ambitions.“We think that they should be blocked,” Barak...

Meeting the demand for family planning in poor nations is a cheap and effective way to cut CO2 emissions, a new website initiative claims. The UK-based Optimum Population Trust says fast-rising population levels lead to growing emissions. The website is urging wealthy people to offset their own CO2 emissions by funding contraception programmes

Taiwan's air force said Friday it was planning to upgrade the island's U.S.-made and indigenous fighter jets to maintain the balance of air power across the Taiwan Strait. The upgrades are aimed at boosting the fighters' performance and avoid a "gap in Taiwan's war-fighting capabilities," the island's semi- official Central News Agency reported Friday. The upgrades would seek to address "the trend of the tipping of the military balance in the Taiwan Strait," the air force reportedly said, without elaborating. On Thursday Defense Minister Kao Hua-chu told lawmakers that the military was considering mothballing the some 60 French-made Mirage models...

We did not need to wait until the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 10,000. It has been clear for some time that global equity markets are bubbling again. On the surface, this looks like 2003 and 2004 when the previous housing, credit, commodity and equity bubbles started to inflate, helped by low nominal interest rates and a lack of inflation. There is one big difference, though. This bubble will burst sooner. So how do we know this is a bubble? My two favourite metrics of stock market valuation are Cape, which stands for the cyclically adjusted price/earnings ratio, and Q....

Iran plans to install a more advanced type of centrifuge at its newly revealed uranium enrichment site, an Iranian newspaper reported Tuesday, a development certain to add to international concerns about the country's nuclear work. Iranian scientists have carried out research and development in recent months for the new generation of more efficient centrifuges, and most of the machines' components are made domestically, said the head of Iran's nuclear agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, according to the Kayhan daily newspaper.

Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of A desert. Congress said, "someone may steal from it at night.." So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.. Then Congress said, "How does the watchman do his job without instruction?" So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions, and one person to do time studies. Then Congress said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing The tasks correctly?" So they created a Quality Control department and hired two...

Do you set aside time every day to plan your day (or end of day to plan next day)? A Daily Poll.

Many cities in the US’s so-called “rust belt” have been in decline for years—losing both jobs and population. Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County, Michigan has proposed leveling portions of these cities in order to reach a more optimal balance between living accommodations and needs. “The idea is that rather than continuing to waste society’s resources maintaining unnecessary housing, we demolish the surplus units and move people closer together to gain economies of scale,” Kildee said. While Kildee’s focus is on cities already in a decaying state, the Obama Administration’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Shaun Donovan, sees a...

Note: The following text is a quote: Comprehensive Preparedness Guide 101 A Guide for All-Hazard Emergency Operations Planning Overview The FEMA Comprehensive Preparedness Guide, CPG 101 provides general guidelines on developing Emergency Operations Plans (EOPs). It promotes a common understanding of the fundamentals of planning and decision making to help emergency planners examine a hazard and produce integrated, coordinated, and synchronized plans. This Guide helps emergency managers in State, Territorial, Local, and Tribal governments in their efforts to develop and maintain a viable all-hazard EOP. CPG 101 continues the more than 50-year effort to provide guidance about emergency operations planning...

While chatting with fellow freepers, I realized I have some expertise (I'm no expert) in the ways of making a household more economical. I preserve foods by canning and freezing, I hunt, plant a garden, dry clothes outside, and so on. I do not pretend to be an expert in any of these endeavors, but I do my best. I have been told in the past that I mustn't be so thrifty, because it is that unwillingness to spend that hurts our economy. Got it. However, I live this way because I am building and planning for a grand future....

TOWN OF FRANKLIN, Wis. -- Daniel Borntreger's Jackson County home looks like hundreds of other Wisconsin farmhouses. But it could cost him thousands of dollars in fines. The Amish farmer built it without a permit.

Many California planning and environmental groups are heralding the passage of legislation designed to address global warming by curbing suburban sprawl as a watershed moment, perhaps the state's most important land-use law in more than 30 years. "It's a sea change in the way we're planning and funding growth and development," said Stephanie Reyes, senior policy advocate with San Francisco's Greenbelt Alliance. "The winds are shifting, and this is the time to get on board." But she and other advocates acknowledge that the importance of SB375, signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in late September, lies as much in...

“I think we expect the climate to become much more restrictive for high-income taxpayers. The things that had been done in the past -- whether they are perceived loopholes or actual loopholes --- [are] going to be reduced dramatically under an Obama presidency,” said Phil Tortorich, a partner and tax expert at Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP in Chicago. Obama campaigned under a promise to cut taxes for American families making less than $250,000 a year while raising top federal income-tax rates from 35% to 39.6%. Of course, promises made on the campaign trail don't necessarily make it into law, and...

Great Apes Think Ahead: Conclusive Evidence Of Advanced Planning CapacitiesIn a series of four experiments, Mathias and Helena Osvath investigated whether chimpanzees and orangutans could override immediate drives in favor of future needs, and therefore demonstrate both self-control and the ability to plan ahead, rather than simply fulfill immediate needs through impulsive behavior. (Credit: iStockphoto/Michael Steden) ScienceDaily (Jun. 19, 2008) — Apes can plan for their future needs just as we humans can – by using self-control and imagining future events. Mathias and Helena Osvath’s research, from Lunds University Cognitive Science in Sweden, is the first to provide conclusive evidence...

American visitors to Paris, Rome, Prague, or Barcelona, comparing what they see with what is familiar from their own continent, will recognize how careless their countrymen often have been in their attempts to create cities. But the American who leaves the routes prescribed by the Ministries of Tourism will quickly see that Paris is miraculous in no small measure because modern architects have not been able to get their hands on it. Elsewhere, European cities are going the way of cities in America: high-rise offices in the center, surrounded first by a ring of lawless dereliction, and then by the...

Journey to the Truth May 23rd, 2008 by Anna Pier Day I argued with the priest — the strong-willed one — who sat opposite me in the confessional. For every argument I presented, though, his response was the same: a calm, understanding, but firm, “There are no exceptions to the Church’s teaching against contraception.”Truth be told, if the Church had been less wise and had made exceptions, our family situation might have qualified as one. A few months earlier, after the birth of our youngest son, I had suffered from an acute depression with accompanying suicidal thoughts and a brief...

I have always associated classical architecture with gravitas -- the large imposing columns and pediments that grace the front of serious places, like courthouses and banks. It hasn't seemed a living tradition that can inform land-use planning and the architecture of everyday life. But that was before I interviewed several architects who describe themselves as "modern classicists." They espouse a practical, no-nonsense approach to design that extends beyond individual buildings to encompass neighborhoods and whole towns. They don't limit themselves to the details and proportioning systems used by the original classicists, the builders of ancient Greece and Rome. They also...

Al-Qaida's nuclear attack against the US is in planning stages, top American intelligence officials have said. Deposing before a Congressional Committee on Homeland Security early this week, these US intelligence officials told US lawmakers that the threat of nuclear attack by the Taliban was growing and there is need to enhance its security measures. Charles Allen, Undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis and Chief Intelligence Officer at the Department of Homeland Security; and Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, the director of Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence for the Department of Energy testified before this key Congressional committee on nuclear terrorism on April 2. ''There's...

A massive housing project may mean the end for Neenach, in the Antelope Valley. ___ Eight hundred people, give or take, live in Neenach. Recreation consists largely of trying to grow a bigger squash than your neighbor or trying to buy his truck. One man races pigeons. The school closed a few years back when they ran out of kids, and its rose-painted walls are still the brightest thing on the prairie. When the abutting development is built -- if it is built -- it will be called Centennial. It would be the end, for all intents and purposes, of...

(IsraelNN.com) A Kuwaiti newspaper reports that Hizbullah terrorist chief Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in a car-bomb attack in Damascus on Tuesday, was in the midst of planning major terrorist attacks in moderate Arab countries when he was killed. Al-Watan reports that American intelligence had learned that Mughniyeh arrived in Damascus three days earlier with instructions from, and in coordination with, the Iranians. His objective was to meet with Hizbullah leaders and coordinate a mass attack, for which he was to receive help from Syrian intelligence. The American involvement in the killing is explained as being in retaliation for a...

Regime collapse in Pyongyang January 21, 2008 By Daniel L. Davis - On Nov. 7, Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited his South Korean counterpart Kim Jang-soo to underscore the solidarity between the United States and the Republic of Korea with regard to the oft-intransigent North Korea. Sending an unmistakable message to Pyongyang — and Asia in general — about how seriously America views the security situation on the Korean Peninsula, Mr. Gates was accompanied by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the admiral commanding all American forces in the Pacific, and the four-star general commanding all troops in...

Saenz expands administration to reflect changing role of agency AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Texas Department of Transportation today announced selections for the final three members of Executive Director Amadeo Saenz's leadership team. The new Assistant Executive Director for Engineering Operations is John Barton of Beaumont. The newly-formed office of Assistant Executive Director for District Operations will be lead by David Casteel of San Antonio. The newly-formed office of Assistant Executive Director for Innovative Project Development will be lead by Phil Russell of Austin. "John, David and Phil are all outstanding professionals," said Saenz. "All of them understand...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1, 2007 – Planning, constructing and renovating the world’s largest-capacity office building is the focus of a new Pentagon Channel documentary. “The Pentagon has become more than a symbol of the United States’ military might,” Air Force Master Sgt. Daniela Marchus, host of the documentary said. “It’s also an example of what American determination and ingenuity can achieve.” “Recon: An American Icon” debuts tomorrow at noon Eastern Time on the Pentagon Channel and will encore throughout October. It also will be available via podcast and video on demand at www.PentagonChannel.mil Combining interviews with those who witnessed the...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iranian operatives are training fighters in Iraq and helping to plan attacks there despite diplomatic pressure on Tehran to halt such interference, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. The latest accusation leveled against Iran by the U.S. military followed rare diplomatic talks in Baghdad last month between the two old adversaries to discuss Washington's concerns in Iraq. "There absolutely is evidence of Iranian operatives holding weapons, training fighters, providing resources, helping plan operations, resourcing secret cells that is destabilizing Iraq," said military spokesman Brigadier-General Kevin Bergner. "We would like very much to see some action on their part...

LONDON (Reuters) - Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky said he is planning a revolution in Russia to topple President Vladimir Putin, in comments published on Friday. "We need to use force to change this regime," Berezovsky, who has received asylum in Britain, told the Guardian newspaper. "It isn't possible to change this regime through democratic means. There can be no change without force, pressure." Asked if he was fomenting a revolution, he said: "You are absolutely correct." Berezovsky, a vocal critic of Putin, said he was in contact with members of Russia's political elite. He said these people -- who he...

Minor League Baseball and Boy Scouts Step Up to the Plate to Encourage Families to Prepare for Emergencies http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/releases/pr_1175712102184.shtm Release Date: April 4, 2007 For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary Contact: 202-282-8010 2007 Season Participating Minor League Baseball Teams and Schedule of Ready Games (PDF, 2 pages - 10 KB) Minor League Baseball and the Boy Scouts of America are teaming up with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Ready Campaign for the fourth consecutive year to educate and encourage Americans to prepare for emergencies. Forty-nine baseball teams are joining many local Boy Scout councils in stepping up...

Fernando Costa is a familiar sight at Fort Worth City Council meetings, giving presentations on one aspect or another of the city’s past, present, or future. As city planning director, he is the hub where many spokes on the city’s wheel connect. Whether the issue is zoning, road planning, or making commercial developments work, Costa is in the middle. On issues from Trinity River Vision to big ranches being subdivided for housing on Fort Worth’s ever-expanding edges to revitalizing older neighborhoods in Cowtown’s heart, his voice is perhaps the most influential in the city — Fort Worth’s “secret weapon,” as...

Planning and Democracy Democracy is essentially a means, a utilitarian device for safeguarding internal peace and individual freedom. As such it is by no means infallible or certain. When it becomes dominated by a collectivist creed, democracy will inevitably destroy itself. It would be impossible for any mind to comprehend the infinite variety of different needs of different people which compete for the available resources and to attach a definite weight to each. We can unfortunately not indefinitely extend the sphere of common action and still leave the individual free in his own sphere. That planning creates a situation which...

CHICAGO - Two Chicago-area cousins were arrested Wednesday on federal charges out of Cleveland accusing them of conspiring to wage holy war against Americans overseas, including U.S. military forces in Iraq. Zubair A. Ahmed, 27, of suburban North Chicago, and Khaleel Ahmed, 26, of Chicago, were accused along with three other men from the Toledo, Ohio, area who already had been under indictment on charges of plotting acts of terrorism against Americans overseas. The fresh indictment returned by a grand jury in Cleveland added the two Chicago-area men to the roster of defendants and brought additional charges against the three...

Here are further excerpts from F. A. Hayek’s incredible little book, The Road to Serfdom . Quotes from Chapters I & II can be viewed here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1775089/posts Chapter III: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1778528/posts The Road to Serfdom (Ch IV) The “Inevitability” of Planning We were the first to assert that the more complicated the forms assumed by civilization, the more restricted the freedom of the individual must become. Benito Mussolini Most (planners) affirm that we can no longer choose but are compelled by circumstances beyond our control to substitute planning for competition. The myth is deliberately cultivated that we are embarking on the...

There are a number of smart, talented and acclaimed planners and architects who spend virtually all day every day thinking about a better future for New Orleans. Spend a week in the life of one, the prince of 'new urbanism,' Andres Duany. To hear some people talk, you'd think architect and urban planner Andrés Duany is the devil. They'd have us resist with religious zeal his designs for a newer, better post-Katrina New Orleans. Given a chance, Duany would damn the Crescent City to a future of cleanliness, orderliness and artificiality. He would do to us what he did to...

SAN DIEGO ---- Regional planners are polling San Diego County residents to see if they would support a special "quality of life" tax to fund beach-sand replenishment, open-space purchases, habitat restoration and water-quality programs, an agency official said Thursday. The funding source could come in the form of a sales, property, hotel or rental-car tax, and could appear on the county ballot in 2008, said Rob Rundle, principal planner for the San Diego Association of Governments, the county's regional planning agency. Rundle said results of the telephone poll of 2,000 county registered voters will be reported to the association board...

Currently, the majority of San Diego's affordable housing options have been limited to rental units, leaving little available for middle and lower-income households wishing to buy. To help alleviate this problem, Centre City Development Corp. (CCDC) is now offering an attractive incentive to builders to bring more affordable homes to the city and one of the largest new developments in the area is the first to sign on. According to Robb Walker, vice president of KMA Architecture & Engineering, by law developers have the option to pay in-lieu fees as an alternative to actually incorporating affordable units within new projects....

NOTE: If you have security concerns,please respond with private message. Hijacking 4 airliners on 9/11 required a helluva lot of planning - especially as to "flight plans". It might have been "relatively simple" to hijack the planes ,and, since some of the hijackers had taken lessons,they could operate aircraft controls to some degree ; but how about the navigation? Think about it for a minute.You take over an aircraft,but cannot reliably predict how long the takeover efforts will require,and what your location will be when this occurs. You now have to change course and altitude precisely so you hit your...

Bishop Howard J. Hubbard of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany hopes involving members of the diocese -- from its top clerical leaders to its average parishioners -- will stifle apprehension as the Catholic church begins a two-year pastoral planning process that will reshape the diocese and close some churches. "I believe we have before us ... an opportunity to dream a new church into being; an opportunity to evangelize and re-evangelize," Hubbard said Monday in a prepared speech to diocese leaders in Albany. The meeting was closed to the public, but copies of his speech were provided to the...

US 'planning to keep 50,000 troops in Iraq for many years' By Francis Harris in Washington (Filed: 12/06/2006) America plans to retain a garrison of 50,000 troops, one tenth of its entire army, in Iraq for years to come, according to US media reports. The revelation came as George W Bush summoned his top political, military and intelligence aides to a summit on Iraq's future today at the presidential retreat at Camp David. America has indicated that it may raise troop levels in Iraq in the short-term Tomorrow the Americans will talk by video link to Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime...

WASHINGTON, May 24, 2006 – With hurricane season nearing, the Defense Department has tremendous assets to offer a civilian-led response to a major disaster, a top DoD official involved in the process told reporters here yesterday. "Those assets are ready for deployment, and ... we are better prepared than at any point in our nation's history to move that assistance as rapidly as is humanly possible," Paul McHale, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, said. DoD defense coordinating officers will be assigned full-time to each of the 10 Federal Emergency Management Agency's regional offices to ensure coordinated planning and operational...