Free Republic

241 Germania $>100 trillion 164 Eva $>100 trillion 90 Antiope $>100 trillion 253 Mathilde $>100 trillion 132 Aethra $>100 trillion 84 Klio $>100 trillion 2 Pallas $>100 trillion 1 Ceres $67.45 trillion 1910 KU $64.42 trillion Each white dot is an asteroid.

Call it the Evangelical vote or Value vote. I heard Rush talk about it a few days ago and an Evangelical in Ohio on FNC this morning. The Evangelical vote stayed home in 2008 but was back in full force in the 2010 mid-terms which were blow out wins for the GOP. Nothing has changed in 2012 and the Evangelicals are going to be deciding factors in many races nationwide. This is what Evangelicals have seen over the last few years. 1. Obama's assault on marriage, life and contraception 2. Obamacare (need I say more) 3. The attack on faith...

My company is contemplating the installation of a 1.2 MW solar photovoltaic (PV) generation solar panel project on the roof of our facility. We are located on Long Island and are powered by LIPA. LIPA has a new green initiative program called CLEAN. LIPA's CLEAN Solar Initiative will pay customers $0.22/kWh for PV plants between 50 kW and 20 MW under 20-year contracts. LIPA will begin accepting applications under the program on July 16th, 2012. The United States experiments with feed-in tariffs at the local level. A number of U.S utilities, municipalities and states have approved feed-in tariffs, however such...

Let's think about the kind of mess that we're in. Federal 2010 Medicare and Medicaid expenditures totaled $800 billion. The projected annual growth of both programs is about 7 percent. Social Security expenditures are more than $700 billion a year. According to the 2009 Social Security and Medicare trustees reports, by 2030, 49 percent of federal revenues will go for Social Security and Medicare payments. The unfunded liability of both programs is already $106 trillion.But not to worry. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it's possible to sustain today's level of federal spending and even achieve a balanced budget. All...

To realize The value of a sister/brother Ask someone Who doesn't have one. To realize The value of ten years: Ask a newly Divorced couple. To realize The value of four years: Ask a graduate. To realize The value of one year: Ask a student who Has failed a final exam. To realize The value of nine months: Ask a mother who gave birth to a stillborn. To realize The value of one month: Ask a mother Who has given birth to A premature baby. To realize The value of one week: Ask an editor of a weekly newspaper. To...

Property values fall, yet taxes go upCharles Thomas Friday, September 23, 2011 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- Cook County property tax bills will go out next month, and homeowners will be asked to pay more for having less. Even though most property values have dropped over the past three years, most property tax bills will be going up again. Falling property values and rising property taxes have turned the American dream for many into a nightmare in virtually every county in the state. Nowhere in Cook County have home prices fallen more dramatically than in the northern and northwestern suburbs -- anywhere...

In recent weeks, there has been some discussion over how to handle the soaring public debt of the United States; how that debt--its extent & the method by which it is managed--affects the credit worthiness of the United States & the likelihood of default on that debt; finally, the effect of such phenomena on the future economic well being of the people of the United States. There was also a hue & cry, when a popular financial rating agency issued a minor downgrade of the quality of that debt. In this essay, we will focus on the question of debt...

A San Francisco State University instructor writes in Poynter today that the media is misrepresenting some basic features of the debate over the value of a college education. In reviewing recent coverage, Sarah Fidelibus argues that journalists are taking surveys out of context in making the case that a college education isn't worth young people's time and money anymore. The critique comes on the heels of a piece in the New Republic titled "Why the media is always wrong about the value of a college degree." In the latter article, Education Sector's Kevin Carey mocks media stories that profile woeful...

DEERFIELD, Ill., May 2, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- One hundred colleges and universities out of some 2,000 U.S. schools that offer four-year degrees have been ranked as the top values by Consumers Digest. The rankings are based on attributes that validate or define the institutions' academic prowess factored against annual cost of tuition, fees and room and board. Among 50 public institutions cited, Truman State University, Kirksville, Mo., ranked No. 1. Among 25 private institutions, Yale University took top honors. Among 25 private liberal-arts schools, Grove City College, Grove City, Pa., held the first slot. The rankings, published in CD's June...

Believe it or not Ripley! The People’s Bank of China(PBOC) recommended yesterday that 1 billion Chinese consider buying gold as a hedge against inflation and to preserve values in a world where currencies can fall. The PBOC Financial Markets Review came out just as several major currencies were indeed declining in value against gold; the dollar,1%, the Swiss franc,2.5%, t he British pound, 2%, and the Japanese yen, 2%. Wow! Be like the Fed telling you to buy oil stocks or crude oil futures due to expectation higher gasoline prices this summer. So, add the PBOC to other secular influences...

Gold rose to within $10 of a record high on Friday, closing out an unprecedented tenth annual gain as the combination of a weaker dollar and global economic uncertainty seemed to pave the way higher next year. The entire precious metals complex had a stellar run in 2010, led by palladium's 97 percent rise, in a broad commodities rally that pushed the 19-commodity Reuters-Jefferies CRB index up 15 percent. Spot silver, too, swept higher for an 83 percent gain on the year, as investors sought the white metal as an alternative to gold. It was the best-performing assets in the...

The US dollar has hit a 15-year low against the yen after the G20 nations agreed to avoid a currency war. The weekend talks, in South Korea, saw the group of 20 major advanced and developing nations, agree to avoid competing to lower their currencies.

In their latest Business Review, Harvard, that fashion-obsessed place a quick private plane ride north of us, had an analyst assess the monetary value Michelle Obama has on fashion labels she wears publicly. Apparently when Michelle wears something, that company's stock spikes upward. If it's not the label seeing a gain, stores that carry the labels, like Saks, stand to benefit. From November 2008 to December 2009, David Yermack counted that Michelle made 189 public appearances, and wore items by or sold at 29 publicly traded companies, including J.Crew, the Gap, Dillard's, and DSW.

If you've recently had your house reappraised for sale or refinancing, and wonder where the equity went, consider this:Since the real estate boom ground to a painful close about 31/2 years ago, the nation's housing stock has shed from about $4 trillion to $7.1 trillion in value.The amount depends on who's counting. A study by Equifax Inc. and Moody's Analytics Inc. says the downturn began in early 2007 and cost $4 trillion through March. The Federal Reserve says the downturn began in the fourth quarter of 2006 and cost $7.1 trillion through March.

The United States is headed into a very important election in November of 2010, if the political pollsters are to be believed. Americans, besieged by a weak dollar and an even weaker economy, are reassessing some of their most basic assumptions about how the country works. RealClearMarkets has recently published columns on the mistakes of the Bush Administration along with others calling for higher taxes to pay down the national debt. Important as these subjects may be, they are only symptoms of a much larger malady. The public is really scratching its head as long held assumptions prove to be...

If there's one truism that goes virtually unchallenged these days, it's that a college degree has great value. Beyond the great books, beyond the critical reasoning skills, and beyond the experience itself, there's another way that a college degree has value: Over the course of a working life, college graduates earn more than high school graduates. Over the past decade, research estimates have pegged that figure at $900,00, $1.2 million, and $1.6 million. But new research suggests that the monetary value of a college degree may be vastly overblown. According to a study conducted by PayScale for Bloomberg Businessweek, the...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama may end up playing a rather hands-off role in this fall's elections, a surprising turn for a political phenomenon who excited millions of voters just two years ago. Recent elections have tarnished Obama's luster a bit, and Democratic candidates are likely to be selective in seeking his help. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania became the fourth Democrat in seven months to lose a high-profile race despite the president's active involvement. Specter's career-ending loss raises questions of whether Obama can transfer even small portions of the political charm that catapulted him to the White House. Campaign...

Nearly a decade after the United States began to focus its military training and equipment purchases almost exclusively on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. military strategists are quietly shifting gears, saying that large-scale counterinsurgency efforts cost too much and last too long. The domestic economic crisis and the Obama administration's commitment to withdraw from Iraq and begin drawing down in Afghanistan next year are factors in the change. The biggest spur, however, is a growing recognition that large-scale counterinsurgency battles have high casualty rates for troops and civilians, eat up equipment that must be replaced and rarely end...

Here is the current top ten list of the most expensive items to ever appear on the show ‘Antique Roadshow.’ These 'national treasures' are in the hands of some very lucky people. SEE TOP 10...

Over the past several years, companies have increasingly spent their advertising and marketing dollars on search engines such as Google or Yahoo and social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. But how much business do they actually bring into a company? And how can companies improve their online presence to generate more sales? Those questions have dominated the Online Marketing Summit, a four-day conference concluding today at Paradise Point Resort in Mission Bay. “What’s working in social media is that it’s a great way to engage your customers and have a real dialogue with them,” said Thad Kahlow,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner held out hope to Congress that a hefty investment to bail out insurer AIG (AIG.N) and avert its catastrophic failure will gain value as the economy improves. In prepared remarks for delivery on Wednesday to the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Geithner defended the controversial 2008 rescue and said it was done solely to protect U.S. taxpayers' interests. ... The committee will question both Geithner and his predecessor as Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, about the AIG bailout that has stirred widespread anger and raised questions about Geithner's role in...

Another huge value-de stroying hurricane is about to slam America, destroying billions of dollars of value. Another Katrina? No, another Christmas. This voluntary December calamity is explained in a darkly amusing little book about the size of an iPhone. "Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays" comes from a distinguished publisher, Princeton University Press, and an eminent author, Joel Waldfogel of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business school. He says that the crux of Yuletide economics, which common sense suggests and research confirms, is:

In our American society, what a person finds important, of value, is vitally connected to what one’s society finds important. The safety of a nation is surely related to what it values. Good and healthy values maintain the existence of a nation. Our “UNALIENABLE RIGHTS. . . Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” are in jeopardy. They are not to be transferred to a new owner. “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34). As our nation abandons its historic healthy foundation, it will be unable to survive the tests of rightness and...

Despite signs that the real estate market is bottoming out, millions of homeowners are likely to find themselves in worse shape within the next two years. Nearly half of the nation’s 52 million mortgage borrowers will have negative equity by the end of the first quarter of 2011, up from the 14 million at the end of this year’s first quarter, according to estimates in an Aug. 5 report by Deutsche Bank (DB). With so many borrowers underwater – or owing more on their home than it’s worth – the risk is high that they’ll default and their homes will...

Fiscal Policy: Given the number of new tax ideas making the rounds, you'd think we were in a rip-roaring expansion. But we're not, and new taxes are exactly the wrong thing to be proposing.In addition to kicking up taxes on the so-called wealthy, various members of the current administration seem to have lots of new ideas for separating Americans from their money. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's top aide, is health care adviser to Obama's budget director, Peter Orszag. He wants a 10% value-added tax (VAT), similar to the European Union's, to "pay" for health care reform....

With budget deficits soaring and President Obama pushing a trillion-dollar-plus expansion of health coverage, some Washington policymakers are taking a fresh look at a money-making idea long considered politically taboo: a national sales tax. Common around the world, including in Europe, such a tax -- called a value-added tax, or VAT -- has not been seriously considered in the United States. But advocates say few other options can generate the kind of money the nation will need to avert fiscal calamity. At a White House conference earlier this year on the government's budget problems, a roomful of tax experts pleaded...

by Gina L. DiorioNote: Yesterday marked the 149th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life – more commonly known as The Origin of Species. I wrote the following piece several years ago but believe this week in particular merits its reprint here. ***Revival of the Fittest: The Reestablishment of ManHumanity is in danger of extinction. Earth’s physical environment does not seek to destroy the human race; neither does any non-human species attempt to extinguish it. Rather, humanity presents...

Steak or salmon? Try Big Mac or Gordita. The high-end restaurant business is bracing itself for a slowdown as customers opt to save instead of spend. That’s good news for fast-food chains like McDonald’s. In October, sales at the Golden Arches jumped 8.2% globally, thanks in part to their budget-friendly dollar menu. But how far can your dollar go when it comes to taste? We asked Zach Brooks, editor of SeriousEatsNewYork.com and founder of MidtownLunch.com, to taste-test the best deals at five fast-food chains with outlets throughout the five boroughs, and dish on his findings. KFC“I love fried chicken. The...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25, 2008 – The Joint Staff’s operations director told participants in the third annual America Supports You National Summit here today it would be impossible to put a price tag on what they give the country’s men and women in uniform. Army Lt. Gen. Carter F. Ham told more than 180 representatives of 122 troop-support groups at the Pentagon for the all-day summit that the work they do and the support of the American people provide “the center of gravity for our operations.” Troops rely on equipment, supplies, food and other resources to carry out their mission. But...

Chris Meney | Friday, 31 August 2007 Marriage deserves more because it gives more The continued provision of preferential support for parents and children over other types of unions is vital for society. The ongoing debate in Australia over the access of same-sex couples to social benefits and so-called entitlements is a distraction from the real issue at hand. The real issue is not one concerning any infringement of rights. Rather, it is about what heterosexual marriage can offer society that other forms of relationships cannot. Married heterosexual unions are not simply a legal invention with an associated bunch...

DALLAS, May 3, 2007 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today expressed thanks to Americans who support the troops and urged people to check out the Defense Department’s America Supports You program. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates delivers a luncheon speech to the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce, May 3, 2007. U.S. Air Force photo by Michael Tolzmann   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Gates told several hundred members of the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce here that he’s grateful for the support many are providing their employees serving in the National Guard and reserves. “You value these...

What price tag would you put on your house: a real estate agent's suggested price, the price a nearby home recently sold at, an appraiser's estimate, or another number? ...Location, location, location" still applies — now more than ever, agents and appraisers say. Home values can vary by whether the neighborhood's clean and quiet, in a good school district or even by its proximity to an upscale supermarket. So factor area amenities into the pricing equation ...Great kitchens and baths, with new fixtures, help sell homes. But buyers are getting more energy-conscious and real estate agents say efficient heating and...

The rise of the self-esteem movement From the late 1960s on self-esteem became a fashionable and influential idea. One of the first exponents was a young psychology professor called Stanley Coopersmith from California. A more influential figure was Nathaniel Branden. Branden was a psychtherapist and devotee of the philosopher Ayn Rand. He has written countless books on self-esteem and is considered the intellectual father of the self-esteem movement. As we shall see in another section, Branden’s work is sophisticated and his definition of self-esteem, and notions of how it can be boosted, is a far cry from the exhortations to...

I shall refute here the proposition that “the economic value of all goods and services is derived from the cost of their production and ultimately from the labor expended on their creation—be it measured in terms of the time, effort, or disutility required to produce the goods or services in question—and the labor expended on the creation of goods necessarily endows them with economic value.” This proposition is the essence of the labor theory of value, a false view nonetheless embraced by such notable thinkers as Thomas Aquinas and Adam Smith and used by Karl Marx to justify socialism. I...

Almost a year after its last flight, NASA has begun the countdown to attempt a flight of the space shuttle this coming weekend (weather permitting — a tropical disturbance currently in the Caribbean threatens Cape Canaveral and central Florida with rain, clouds, and lightning, which could potentially result in repeated daily postponements until the system moves on). If they do launch, it will be only the second flight in the almost three and a half years since the loss of Columbia over the skies of Texas on February 1, 2003, and the first since last summer’s return to flight, in...

Workers pour a concrete foundation in front of an unfinished housing development in a Denver, Colorado suburb April 19, 2005. The pace of U.S. housing construction rose more than expected in May after three months of declines as groundbreaking on both single-family and multifamily units jumped, a government report showed on Tuesday. (Rick Wilking/Reuters) The pace of U.S. housing construction rose more than expected in May after three months of declines as groundbreaking on both single-family and multifamily units jumped but permits for future projects fell, a government report showed on Tuesday. The Commerce Department said May housing starts...

KABUL, Afghanistan, May 11, 2006 – The Afghan National Police recently took major strides toward recognizing the equal rights of men and women, as well as the important contributions made by its female officers. Gen. Aziza Nazeri (center), the Afghan National Police''s most senior female officer, presides over the Gender Awareness Day conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, May 8, as Gen. Ahmad Madadzai and Jerilyn Glick Holsapple look on. Madadzai is head of the Human Rights Department of the Ministry of Interior, and Holsapple is a special agent with the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Photo by Staff...

Part of the problem is that the people who decide national policy are headquartered in Washington, D.C., where large plots of private property are rare. Those of us who live in urban or suburban areas imagine endangered species protection to be as simple as being kind to blue whales, grizzly bears and bald eagles. We don’t stop to consider the dilemmas facing people thousands of miles away from us. Bill Snape, Chairman of the Endangered Species Coalition, is an example of one who lives in either ignorance or denial. “There just aren’t private landowners that I can identify where the...

CANBERRA, Australia (Reuters) -- A tiger's roar might be scary, but Australian researchers have found that the predator's poo is just as potent. Researchers at the University of Queensland said on Friday they had successfully trailed a tiger poo repellant, warding off wild goats for at least three days.

Selfishness Has Its Value to the EconomyBy Peter Brown Self-interest gets a bad rap these days. It is both the driving principle of capitalism and a fact of human nature. And, it explains so much about many Americans' ambivalence toward Wal-Mart. A survey of attitudes toward the nation's largest retailer among New Yorkers, who might be expected to be among the least supportive of the firm and its practices, explains much about that love/hate relationship. They don't like the company and wish it were operated differently. But in a New York minute they are on their way to shop there....

A new site promises sophisticated home valuations and -- one day -- an end to 6% commissions. NEW YORK (MONEY) - Say "goodbye" to appraisers -- and possibly real estate agents. At least that's the promise of Zillow.com, launched Wednesday, which is headed by the founder of Internet travel company Expedia........... Plug in an address and you get a price. You can even pull back to a satellite photo of a particular street, complete with price estimates for every house on the block. Those price guesses, which the branding-savvy Zillow folks call a "Zestimate," take into account the size of...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27, 2005 – Insurgents targeted the Baghdad's Palestine Hotel for its inherent media value, a senior U.S. military official said today during a news conference in Baghdad. "Half the battle is in the battlefield of the media," Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, said. "The terrorists will use the media as a combat multiplier to hide their limited capabilities." The general said terrorists recognize the value of the media. Al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, expressed this sentiment in a letter to Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, believed to be leading insurgent...

Like many motorists, Albert Menaster has watched with alarm as gasoline prices zoomed past $3 a gallon. But when he drives his 1998 Ford Windstar into Silverlake 76, Menaster stops at the lone full-serve nozzle, where customers can bark a command heard mostly in old movies: Fill 'er up! ADVERTISEMENT In a world gone self-serve, Menaster belongs to a pool of full-serve holdouts who pay as much as 50 cents more per gallon than their self-serve brethren. If he pumped his own gas, Menaster could save $4.50 with each fill-up. But he and others say not even the unrelenting rise...

As they happily watch their houses swell in value, Americans are changing their attitudes toward mortgage debt. Increasingly, a home is no longer a nest egg whose equity should never be touched, but a seemingly magical ATM enabling the owner to live it up or just live. Homeowners took $59 billion in cash out of their houses in the second quarter, double the amount in the 2004 quarter and 16 times the average rate of the mid-1990s, according to data released this month by mortgage giant Freddie Mac. People are cashing out so quickly that the term "homeowner" may soon...

Though assisted dying seems to have been out of the news, several quiet developments have furthered its cause in the UK. First we have the highest judge in the land, Lord Chief Justice Woolf, supporting a move by the Home Office to set gradations of sentences for murder. When asked about mandatory sentences, Woolf noted the differences in murder: 'If you intend to kill someone deliberately then a life sentence may be the only appropriate sentence. But you can have someone who has a relative who is suffering pain of severity which someone in my position can only try to...

I still think the chickens -- big budget deficits, huge trade deficits and crushing consumer debt -- will come home to roost. The dollar will fall, interest rates will rise and the economy will stumble -- just later than everyone predicted. The predictions made at the beginning of 2005 were a victim of lag, one of the worst problems in economic forecasting. Economics is relatively good at telling us what should happen next, but it's downright awful at telling us when next is. For example, if consumers keep borrowing more and more to spend more and more, at some point,...

Sometimes it seems as if liberals have a genius for producing an unending stream of ideas that are counterproductive for the poor, whom they claim to be helping. Few of these notions are more counterproductive than the idea of "menial work" or "dead-end jobs." Think about it: Why do employers pay people to do "menial" work? Because the work has to be done. What useful purpose is served by stigmatizing work that someone is going to have to do anyway? Is emptying bed pans in a hospital menial work? What would happen if bed pans didn't get emptied? Let people...

Hate wasting good bandwidth on a vanity. I figured if anybody knew the answers to my qustion it would be a freeper. I have received from a deceased relative a deleon no 4 knife. The handle is stag and the blade is appx 3 inches long. I believe it is a skinning knife but does not have a gut hook. It appears to be one of deleons earlier knives. It is well worn with the blade having some marks and the handle has lost its whiteish yellow colour. I dont have a digital cam right now so I cant post...

Democratic Party rethinks take on abortion Democrats studying how to regain votes they lost over 'moral value' issues Sunday, March 6, 2005 By Mary M. Shaffrey JOURNAL WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON When it comes to the issue of abortion, the Democratic Party is at a crossroads. The majority of the party, including its chairman, its previous presidential nominees as far back as one can recall, and most grass-roots activists as well as national leaders are decidedly for abortion rights. They favor minimal restrictions on access to abortion. "We are a very pro-choice country," said Karen M. White, the national political director...

John does not allow selling of items on FR and rightly so. My husband of 21 years, Dennis passed away on Oct 29th of a sudden massive heart attack. He was a 2 way radio tech for 34 years. There is a signaficant amount of test equipment, portable radios, and transmitter items that must be dealt with. The items are not part of any business, just what he's collected over the past several years in doing his job or left over from a defunct business.I am NOT trying to sell anything here, BUT I need help in assessing if these...