Free Republic

U.S. Department of Energy official testifies to committee: Energy stimulus program plagued by problems The Department of Energy’s inspector general said Wednesday that the 2009 stimulus program for green energy was so at odds with the realities on the ground that it was akin to “attaching a lawn mower to a fire hydrant.” Inspector General Gregory Friedman, testifying to the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s panel on stimulus oversight, outlined a range of problems, from a flood of $35 billion in stimulus money that overwhelmed the department’s $27 billion annual budget to weatherization programs of such shoddy quality that more...

Dear Computer-wise Freepers, I was messing around with my computer and have deleted something very serious. I now only have the "My Computer" icon and the "Recycle Bin" icons on my desktop. My wife's and my accounts were on this computer and it is the same issue with her desktop. My program folders are still there and can been by going to My Documents through another route. I can not send an icon to the desktop of any program though. In control panel, I can not go to "My programs" -- nothing shows. Can anyone help me reverse this disaster?...

A former Food and Drug Administration official who helped get the vision correction surgery LASIK approved back in the 1990s but later spoke out against the procedure is taking his concerns directly to current regulators at the FDA. Morris Waxler, who is now an independent regulatory consultant, filed a citizens petition today urging the agency to take steps to stop what he calls "the epidemic of permanent vision problems" caused by LASIK. Waxler's petition implores the FDA to take actions to crack down on the procedure, including issuing a public health advisory that warns the public about the dangers associated...

What’s the Secret Sandra Bullock, Tiger & Elin & YOU need to know? With divorce rates sky high and dissatisfaction levels low within so many marriages today, is there some secret to staying happily married? YES! So says marriage expert Mort Fertel, who has the one key to a happy marriage. Some people search for this ‘missing ingredient’ in social settings, at work, or even on social media sites such as Facebook (see article below), but for happy marriage, people need to cultivate and maintain this necessary nugget within their marriage. Mort says there is significance in the phrase, “I...

After getting frustrated out of the lemons his problems gave him, David Miller made his own corporate lemonade. Due to the frustration of always having to call technical support to solve his own frequent hardware problems, he started taking the initiative to educate himself.

Before the lunch break, prosecutors turned the questioning to yet another alleged shakedown by Blagojevich -- this one involving then-U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel and an experimental school on the Northwest Side operated by the Academy for Urban School Leadership. Emanuel, now the White House chief of staff, had long been a close political ally of Blagojevich and even was elected to succeed Blagojevich in Congress when he became governor. The academy facility at 3400 N. Austin Blvd. was in Emanuel’s district, which of course was Blagojevich’s old district too. The academy, which trains future teachers and focuses on developing programs...

Well, it finally happened… I’m at a point in my life where I have too many problems to keep up with. I just can’t dedicate enough time anymore to worrying about them. And, it’s too hard to decide which one to worry about first or which one to worry about the most, so I made a decision, I turned them all over to God and the burdens have been lifted. I feel great!!!!! Are the problems still there? Yes, they haven’t gone anywhere, the only difference now is that I’m not in charge of them, God is. Do they still...

"Have a nice day" is a classic Americanism. Many of our day-to-day interactions end with, "Have a nice day." Often the people saying it don't really mean it, but they say it anyway. So what does it mean to have a nice day? I would guess it is to have a day that is, well, nice – a day that is void of any problems, a day in which there is no sickness, no conflict and no hardship. It is a day that is basically nice. That is how some people like to think of God. They imagine him almost...

<p>The Massachusetts secretary of state is discounting reports of voter irregularities in the state's Senate special election.</p> <p>A spokesman for Secretary of State William Galvin said Tuesday two reports of spoiled ballots could not be verified or found to be widespread.</p>

FORWARD OPERATING BASE CAFERETTA, NIMRUZ PROVINCE, Afghanistan – Afghan men listen as a member of the Afghan National Police speaks during a shura here Jan. 9. (Official Marine Corps Photo by Cpl. Zachary J. Nola) Regimental Combat Team-7, 1st Marine Division Public Affairs Story by Cpl. Zachary NolaFORWARD OPERATING BASE CAFERETTA, Nimruz province, Afghanistan – Third Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment blended the old with the new when they hosted a large shura, Jan. 9, where tribal elders from the city of Delaram, surrounding villages, and towns situated in the nearby provinces of Farah and Helmand, came to talk with one...

It is easy for us to read the Old Testament story of Job and critique him on certain points. But let's keep in mind that Job never read the Book of Job. He didn't know that things would turn out well in the end. He didn't know about the conversations that had taken place between God and Satan up in heaven. He didn't know why all this was happening. All Job knew was that one day everything was going beautifully, and the next day, the bottom dropped out of his life with no real explanation that he could see. Yet...

Credibility is power. When you have it, it's like a rock in your fist. But despite its power, it can be as fragile as an eggshell -- handle it with care or it'll shatter into a gooey mess. That's what I believe the California Air Resources Board members have on their hands as they bull forward with the diesel emissions rules they passed last December based on a health report written by CARB researcher Hien Tran. Tran lied about having a Ph.D in statistics from Davis. He was outted to both CARB staffers and at least one board member prior...

If we're lucky, the recession is winding down, and life will start to feel a bit more comfortable before long. But that doesn't mean things will go back to the way they used to be. The global recession that began in America's housing market has shaken the world's economic order and possibly knocked the United States down a notch or two. The spendthrift American consumer is out of money. American wages are flat. Despite some hopeful signs, the U.S. economy could muddle along for years. Meanwhile, actions in China—rather than the United States—may have been the initial trigger for a...

Massachusetts' Commonwealth Connector health reforms have reduced the state's uninsured population to less than 3% of residents, the lowest among all states. But a recent survey found an uptick last fall in adults reporting difficulty accessing certain types of care. The outcome of the Massachusetts health system reforms has national implications. Democrats in Congress have offered or are drafting health reform bills based on many of the state-adopted principles, including a health insurance exchange, subsidized private health insurance for low-and moderate-income residents, a requirement for individuals to have health insurance, and a mandate for employers to offer health insurance to...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California's struggle to fund its budget deficit faced fresh problems on Thursday, after U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner refused to use bank bailout money to help state finances, and the state's fiscal watchdog objected to a plan to sell warrants to raise cash. California faces thousands of job cuts and deep spending cuts to state health, education and other services as the nationwide economic slump has reduced tax revenues. On Wednesday, voters soundly defeated ballot measures to bolster the state's finances, leaving Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers facing a budget gap of more than $21 billion. Early...

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Even if the government takes a large common equity stake in Citigroup Inc, worries are likely to persist about the bank's ability to absorb soaring losses in a deepening recession. The third-largest U.S. bank by assets is in talks with federal regulators on plans for the government to increase its stake, a person familiar with the matter said. Converting $45 billion of preferred stock that the government obtained last fall to common stock is one of many options, the source said. Shares of Citigroup, which fell below $2 on Friday, rose as much as 23.1 percent...

With all of the past, present, and future "damage" that leftists, both within the U.S. and all over the entire world, have and will successfully create upon everybody, how can conservatives, from all over the entire world, successfully "fix" all of the short-term damage and all of the long-term damage on all of the issues and for always? This is the definitive question that seriously needs to be brainstormed to the best of abilities! It will definitely be much more difficult to even communicate with each other soon enough, after leftists successfully suppress all non-leftist activities for as long as...

Anyone else experiencing weird things with FR or is it just my computer?

WASHINGTON – U.S. policy to win in Afghanistan must recognize the poor nation's limitations and its neighborhood, especially its intertwined relationship with U.S. terrorism-fighting ally Pakistan, the top U.S. military commander in the region said Thursday. Army Gen. David Petraeus, who became a household name overseeing the war in Iraq, now oversees the older, smaller and less promising fight in Afghanistan as well. He predicted a long war in Afghanistan, without quantifying it.

Wellington, New Zealand -- A second new study points to the link between abortion and subsequent mental health problems for the women who have them. This new study, conducted by a New Zealand professor, comes after American researchers released their own study connecting abortion with numerous negative aftereffects. Researchers at Otago University reported their findings in the British Journal of Psychiatry and found that women who have abortions have an increased risk of developing mental health problems. The study found that women who had abortions had rates of mental health problems about 30% higher than other women. The conditions most...

Several callers to the Moon Griffon program, a statewide news/talk radio show that airs Monday through Friday in Louisiana, reported that they were unable to cast a vote in the United States Senate race this morning. Incumbent Mary Landrieu (D-New Orleans) is seeking a 3rd term. She is being challenged by Republican state treasurer John Kennedy. Landrieu has been elected twice in close elections.

The left's months-long assault on the film "An American Carol" has been shameful, albeit not a surprise. They've used lots of different techniques and tactics in this assault. This morning, we received news of another one: I thought you'd be interested to know that in Santa Monica, there were theatres showing American Carol over the weekend, but they didn't put the title on the marquee. Also heard that a projectionist in Santa Monica showed it off--center on the screen. The same person said that her friend's ticket didn't even have the name of the movie printed on it. I...

What a bunch of whiners we are! (Part 2) In What a bunch of whiners we are, I reported on some really shameful poll numbers describing an America where people think things are just soooooooo terrible. I tried to get the point across that things are NOT so terrible, and that we should all stop whining. Apparently, America didn't get the message, otherwise Mr. I'll give you hope and change never mind what it will be I said change damn it change wouldn't be riding so high in the polls.So let me say it again. The fact that Jen wasn't...

Where in the world can we do the most good? Supplying the micronutrients vitamin A and zinc to 80 percent of the 140 million children who lack them in developing countries is ranked as the highest priority by the expert panel at the Copenhagen Consensus 2008 Conference. The cost is $60 million per year, yielding benefits in health and cognitive development of over $1 billion. Eight leading economists, including five Nobelists, were asked to prioritize 30 different proposed solutions to ten of the world's biggest problems. The proposed solutions were developed by more than 50 specialist scholars over the past...

Mobile phone use linked to behavioural problems in children By David Thomas Last Updated: 12:06AM BST 19/05/2008 The children of mothers who use mobile phones while pregnant are more likely to develop behavioural problems, new research suggests. A study of more than 13,000 children in Denmark claims to show a link between use of handheld telephones by pregnant women and problems such as hyperactivity in their children. The risks are increased if the child then uses a mobile themselves before the age of seven, according to the report to be published in the journal Epidemiology. The study raises renewed questions...

Nemtsov begins by pointing out that Putin enjoyed an average oil price more than double what Yeltsin had to work with, five times greater in recent months, and that Putin has not used any of the oil windfall to “carry out economic reforms, create a modern army, and establish public health and pension systems.” All but the economy, he says, have degraded, and the economy has merely been “stabilized through a stroke of luck” having nothing to do with Putin. He shows that there were already clear signs of recovery before Putin came to power, and argues convincingly that the...

SACRAMENTO – California's first inspection of slot machines at Indian casinos has found widespread software lapses that could be short-changing tribes, the state and millions of gamblers, the state's gambling commission warns in a new report. State inspectors approved just 60 percent of the slots that were examined last year at seven casinos, which included some of the most successful and sophisticated in the nation. But tribal representatives and commission staff members disagreed sharply about the severity of the software shortcomings flagged in nearly 500 machines examined at the casinos, including those operated by the Pala, Pauma and Viejas tribes...

More election clerks are heading to Benson to help relieve long lines and wait times at the polls. Callers to the News 4 Newsroom have complained of two to three hour waits. Elections Officer Tom Shelling tells News 4, two more clerks have been added to the staff there, with two more on the way. That's a grand total of ten clerks. New voting regulations require polling places to have at least 2,000 registered voters each under their jurisdiction, says Shelling. That means many smaller polling places had to consolidate, and Shelling says they weren't quite ready for the rush....

SIERRA VISTA — Long lines and not enough poll workers at one presidential preference polling place in Cochise County are leading officials to find more help, County Elections Officer Tom Schelling said. Precinct 13 at the Sierra Vista United Methodist Church was experiencing problems in processing people who are showing up to vote, Schelling said late Tuesday morning. Only one person was available to check if people are authorized to vote at the polling place at 3225 S. St. Andrews Drive, he said. “We’re trying to find more people to help,” he said. One man left the church’s area claiming...

Article begins with some anecdotal accounts of budget problems in a variety of cities. Then there are these paragraphs: "...The mortgage crisis cuts into tax revenue in several ways. The most obvious victim is property tax collection. Homeowners in foreclosure don't pay taxes on time. And as foreclosures spread, property values drop -- dragging down assessments and collections. To take one example: In wealthy Fairfax County, Va., property values were jumping 20% a year. Now values are flat or falling. The number of foreclosures has exploded, from fewer than 200 two years ago to about 4,000 this year. The resulting...

In our daily business, good and bad seems to come our way and we definitely need a solution for all issues and to talk with someone about these issues.

In a study published in May, researchers at Harvard and McGill Universities reported that participants who slept after playing this game scored significantly higher on a retest than those who did not sleep. While asleep they apparently figured out what they didn’t while awake... “We think what’s happening during sleep is that you open the aperture of memory and are able to see this bigger picture,” said the study’s senior author, Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist who is now at the University of California, Berkeley. He added that many such insights occurred “only when you enter this wonder-world of sleep.” Scientists...

LONDON - Some of the assertions in Al Gore's Oscar-winning environmental documentary are not supported by scientific evidence, a British judge said in ruling on a challenge from a school official who did not want the film shown to students. The ruling was published Wednesday and it detailed High Court Judge Michael Burton's decision this month to allow film showings to go ahead in English secondary schools. But the judge said that written guidance to teachers designed to ensure Gore's views are not presented uncritically must accompany the showings. Burton said he had no doubt the points raised in "An...

MINNEAPOLIS - Minnesota officials were warned as early as 1990 that the bridge that collapsed into the Mississippi River was "structurally deficient," yet they relied on patchwork repairs and stepped-up inspections that unraveled amid a thunderous plunge of concrete and automobiles. "We thought we had done all we could," state bridge engineer Dan Dorgan told reporters not far from the mangled remains of the span. "Obviously something went terribly wrong." Questions about the cause of the collapse and whether it could have been prevented arose Thursday as authorities shifted from rescue efforts to a grim recovery operation, searching for bodies...

WASHINGTON - It won't be a summer of love for Howard Dean, with peace and understanding in short supply. The Democratic National Committee chairman faces several formidable challenges. Some states are determined to move up the dates of their presidential primaries despite the potential for upending the nomination process, and the party's convention in Denver in 2008 is already dealing with nettlesome labor and financial woes. Dean's biggest test will come next year when the DNC will primarily serve as a shadow campaign operation for the party's presidential nominee. But first he must contend with Florida, whose decision to push...

WASHINGTON, June 5, 2007 – As he finishes his tour in Iraq this week, the senior U.S. military official in charge of training the Iraqi police and army offered a candid assessment of the coalition-led training regimen: significant challenges remain, but progress in key areas has been realized. Army Lt. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, commander of Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq, has spent almost three of the last four years in Iraq. Looking back on the development of the Iraqi army, local police and national police over that time, he said the shifts in those institutions’ growth curves have...

EMMETSBURG, Iowa - Memo to Hillary Rodham Clinton: Your deputy campaign manager was right. An internal campaign memo late last month urged the Democratic front-runner to bypass first-up and momentum-generating Iowa because of Clinton's lackluster showing despite drawing large crowds — a memo she immediately disavowed. Yet, the reality from Des Moines to Dubuque lends credence to deputy campaign manager Mike Henry's assessment that for Clinton, Iowa is "our consistently weakest state." Presidential rival John Edwards has capitalized on the remnants of his 2004 presidential operation in the state, the freedom to visit in the absence of a day job...

Former Iowa congressman Jim Nussle isn't worried that Rudy Giuliani is getting a late start in the state's first-in-the-nation caucuses. In fact, Nussle says, the former New York mayor isn't behind schedule at all. "George W. Bush first set foot in Iowa in what would amount to June of this year (in 1999) and still won the (state party's Ames) straw poll," recalled Nussle, Giuliani's top supporter in the state. Still, when Giuliani touches down in Iowa Tuesday for the first time since his presidential bid began, the leader in GOP polls arrives with considerable expectations -- but also many...

The company said after U.S. markets closed that an audit panel had found accounting errors and evidence of misconduct. Dell also said it will delay filing its Form 10-K until it has completed an internal investigation.

214 Massachusetts Avenue, NE Washington, DC 20002 20 March 2007 The Honorable Nancy Pelosi Speaker U.S. House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 The Honorable John Boehner Minority Leader U.S. House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 The Honorable Harry Reid Majority Leader U.S. Senate Washington, DC 20510 The Honorable Mitch McConnell Minority Leader U.S. Senate Washington, DC 20510 Re: Constitutional Problems with Congress's Attempted Micromanagement of the War Dear Congressional Leaders: As lawyers and law professors specializing in the Constitution and national security, we write to express our growing concern with the potential abuse of Congress's authority in attempting to unreasonably...

Just breaking on CNN

WASHINGTON, Nov. 27, 2006 -- It’s imperative that the United States, its allies and the Iraqi government stop Islamic extremists from achieving their goal of controlling Iraq and the surrounding region, a senior U.S. military officer said on CBS’s “60 Minutes” yesterday. “We have to stabilize Iraq and the broader regional dynamic in order to make the region less conducive to extremism, because if we don’t, the extremist values will become mainstream and we will have a much worse security situation develop in the future,” Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, told CBS reporter Lara...

This article comes from the New Zealand Herald, part of the Independent (UK) chain. They will not let us post their material on FR. However, this article is well written and contains a good summary of some of the issues facing Airbus. The author concludes that the A380's $14 billion development cost, combined with at least $7 billion in lost profits from the A380's delays, combined with the estimated $12 billion that will be required to come up with the 350XWB answer to the 787 Dreamliner, may be too much for Airbus to overcome. Aviation buffs should find this article...

...Ms. Thompson belongs to a fringe of Internet users now renouncing MySpace and other social-networking sites -- not in spite of their popularity, but because of it. That highlights a dilemma facing News Corp.'s MySpace and Facebook Inc.: While it takes a critical mass of users to make these sites work, having too many users alienates some, especially when they attract an ever-growing cacophony of advertising and in some cases, spam. ...advertisers take advantage of the "friend request" function and send out requests that are really just advertisements. And programs have cropped up that can automatically send mass friend requests...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21, 2006 – Although progress has been profound and his country continues to move forward, terrorists have stepped up their efforts to derail that progress, Afghanistan’s president told the United Nations General Assembly in New York yesterday. “We have seen terrorism rebounding as terrorists have infiltrated our borders to step up their murderous campaign against our people,” Hamid Karzai said. Terrorists, he told the assembly, see a successful and prosperous Afghanistan as a knockout blow for their aims there. “That is why our schools and clinics get burned down and our … teachers and our doctors get killed,”...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12, 2006 – Different parts of Iraq have different security environments, and that is important to recognize as Americans assess stories coming out of the country, Pentagon officials said today. Recent stories about the insurgency in Anbar province paint a very bleak picture of the security situation in western Iraq. The stories reference a classified Marine assessment of the state of the insurgency in the province. The 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, out of Camp Pendleton, Calif., commands the Multinational Force West, headquartered at Camp Fallujah. In a written response to the articles, Marine Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer, commander...

Does it matter that Harvard’s curriculum is a vacant vessel? It is no secret, after all, that to the Harvard faculty, undergraduate education is at best of secondary interest. What is laughingly called the Core Curriculum—precisely what Summers sought to repair—is distinguished by the absence of any core of studies generally required. In practice, moreover, a significant number of the courses in Harvard College are taught by graduate students, not as assistants to professors but in full control of the content. Although they are called “tutors,” evoking an image of learned Oxbridge dons passing on their wisdom one-on-one, what they...

There is trouble brewing on BOTH sides of the Border. In Mexico,unsuccessful presidential candidate Obrador is threatening to take over the government on 9/16/06. In the USA,especially in the Border states,increasingly fed-up locals are threatening to take matters into their own hands - even if it means civil war !

he worst of times: Evangelicalism in critical condition With the wild popularity of so many evangelical fads like "Forty Days of Purpose"; the lucrative success of the Christian publishing and contemporary Christian music industries; the growing influence of the "emerging church" phenomenon; and a recent cover story by Time magazine featuring "The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America," lots of evangelicals might be tempted to think these are the best of times for their movement. My own assessment would be that evangelicalism's spiritual condition at the beginning of the twenty-first century is reminiscent of the medieval church just prior to...

When Correctional Officer Shayne Allyn Ziska was charged with conspiring to help prison gang members kill other inmates at the California Institution for Men, it wasn't the first time he'd been accused of misconduct. But it was the first time he faced any consequences. Ziska was convicted in February by a U.S. District Court judge on charges of conspiracy, civil rights violations and violent crime in aid of racketeering. He was sentenced last month to 17 years in federal prison. At his trial, several witnesses told how Ziska allowed inmates associated with the white supremacist Nazi Low Riders out of...