Free Republic

With few exceptions, states are losing the battle with aging bridges in need of repair or replacement. Even states with low percentages of bridges rated poor are finding it difficult to keep up with bridge and road systems that in many cases are 50 years old or older. Utah, which ranks fourth for the lowest percentage of poor bridges, programs a bridge for repair or replacement in the year after it drops to a poor rating, completing the project within four or five years. The Utah Department of Transportation notes, though, that the number of bridges falling from good to...

The worst fears of our Founding Fathers have become reality. Two things the founders were unable to protect our great republic from were the evil machinations of corrupt men and an inbred craven citizenry. Thus, both of these illegitimate vagrancies have led America to the very precipice of destruction vis-a-vis the satanic transmogrification of government – a precipice, I might add, President Trump for the moment has spared us from going over. During our Revolutionary War, only 17 percent of the people were supportive of the fight for independence from England. But those 17 percent carried the day until the...

President Donald Trump’s $1 trillion plan to rebuild America’s infrastructure may be unprecedented in size and ambition, but it mimics a controversial scheme championed by Vice President Mike Pence when he was the governor of Indiana. That’s why Pence is the public face of the Trump initiative, and executives from financial firms that helped privatize Indiana’s toll road are in the White House, busily sculpting Trump’s national plan. Pence and his allies like to boast about how Indiana sold control of major roads to private firms, claiming the move prompted corporations to invest money in infrastructure that would otherwise have...

It's a shame, because Venezuela is a beautiful country. However, both stuff and freedom are in short supply and there appears to be more interest in stuff than in freedom, My wife and I arrived at a splendid marina, Mare Mares in Puerto la Cruz, Venezuela in (as I now recall) November of 1996 and remained there until we sailed to the island of Bonaire about a year later. We generally returned to Venezuela -- a pleasant overnight sail with the wind from abeam -- every six months or so to stock up on booze and fuel at very low...

Pollsters poll on the strangest questions, don't they? Some genius at Bloomberg thought asking the question if the respondent personally was "better or worse off" than two years ago. Duh: "The survey, conducted Dec. 4-7, finds that 51 percent of respondents think their situation has deteriorated, compared with 35 percent who say they're doing better. The balance isn't sure. Americans have grown more downbeat about the country's future in just the last couple of months, the poll shows. The pessimism cuts across political parties and age groups, and is common to both sexes. The negative sentiment may cast a pall...

Mortgage Deterioration Ratio Climbs: LPS Report 12/02/2009 BY: CARRIE BAY The nationwide loan deterioration ratio is higher than three to one, according to the latest mortgage market report from Lender Processing Services, Inc. (LPS). What this LPS indicator means is that for every one loan improved, three more loans are deteriorating. The Florida-based company’s November Mortgage Monitor puts that number into perspective. Of home loans that were current as of December 2008, more than two million, or 4.02 percent, were delinquent or in foreclosure by the end of October 2009. LPS said high rates of deterioration are particularly evident in...

Dark days see warnings of worse to come By Alan Beattie in London Published: November 21 2008 17:03 | Last updated: November 21 2008 17:03 The weekly newsletter sent out on Friday by Fathom, a London-based economic consultancy, said it all. “It’s getting really ugly out there,” it said. “It may be true that we have passed the first phase of this crisis, but that does not mean the next phase will not be worse, perhaps very much worse.” The investors reading those dire warnings will already have spent their week seeing a heap of evidence piling up that the...

This is the state of our academia today. If you're conservative then you must be shouted down, not allowed to speak, rush the stage or throw pies in your face. Former top Bush aide Karl Rove didn’t get the friendliest of receptions at the University of Iowa Sunday, CNN affiliate KCRG reports. Rove, who was paid $40,000 to speak at the University, was confronted with an at-times hostile crowd of 1,000, and was interrupted on several occasions.At one point during the speech, Rove reportedly lashed out at some of the students, saying, “You got a chance to ask your questions...

May 2006 Vol. 89, No. 5       print-friendly pdf By John A. Tirpak, Executive Editor Are We Losing Nuke Expertise?; Modernizing the Arsenal; Iran, North Korea, and Friends ....  Strategic Strike: Fund It or Lose It Unless steps are taken to create new programs and attract new expertise, US strategic missile capabilities will soon become extinct, warns a Defense Science Board task force. In a March report titled “Future Strategic Strike Skills,” the DSB task force said the Defense Department has failed to make long-term plans for strategic systems or adequately fund their modernization. This neglect, the DSB said,...

We hear a lot of talk these days about the need to protect and strengthen the traditional American family. Certainly, it is true that the institution of marriage is under attack from every side. But the real threat comes from the multitudes of couples that fail to honor their marriage vows. Adultery is one of the most terrible “facts of life” in contemporary America. If you watch the daily soap operas on TV – many of which are just soft-core pornography – you might get the impression that there are more people cheating on their spouses than remaining faithful. And...

What is the price, the cost, of ignorance? How much does it steal from all of us when ignorant people are allowed to not only foist their mental shortcomings upon us, but also enact changes in standards and laws? In particular, how much cost to our great nation, and collective American culture, does ignorance exact? How much has America lost over the past few generations because of how we teach history? How many Americans today have no clue as to what America’s history is? A couple of very recent examples might help to illustrate the extreme cost of historical ignorance...

After a couple of lighthearted columns about my trip to Havana - the latest about Canadians participating in a political march and trying to dance - I came under some criticism from readers who felt that my perspective on the island "was unusually low-key and even somewhat clueless." I was trivializing the massive problems faced by Cuba and making a mockery of serious political processes. My column was "more of a postcard sent from a half-drunk co-ed to her sorority sisters." For the record, I was fully drunk. While I cannot entirely disagree with those assessments, I am unapologetic for...

A Glimpse Ahead Timothy Snodgrass The Impossible Will Come Alive In 2005 01/28/05 In January of 2004, as we began to intercede for the New Year the Holy Spirit gave us the prophetic slogan, "The Seas will Roar in 2004". This year we were given a new slogan, "The Impossible will come Alive in 2005". As the veil of darkness begins to come down over nations and regions, along with great shakings will come great breakthroughs; signs, wonders, healings and a spectacular release of miracles in impossible circumstances. This year, although we are ultimately poised to gain much ground, there...

Now that the conservatives have made their voice more loud and clear by reelecting G.W. Bush, we must not relent in turning back the liberal tide that has vexed our nation.

/begin my translationN. Korea To Restart Full Ideological Checks Of Citizens Three years after 'July 1st Economic Management Improvement Decree' was implemented in 2002, prices of various goods have been sky-rocketing in N. Korea, making living conditions of N. Koreans much worse than before, it has been learned. A reliable diplomatic source in Beijing on (Aug.) 23rd commented, "Since July 1st Decree, price of rice went up sharply, exchange rate for a (U.S.) dollar is now more than 2,000 (N. Korean) Won, the frustration of (N. Korean) citizens is mounting to the serious level." According to him, right after July...

For explanation of the genesis of educated apostasy I find myself returning with great frequency to the episode involving heaven’s final (and unsuccessful) entreaty of the liberal bishop in C. S. Lewis’s Great Divorce. The picture is not of a man who thinks his way carefully into unbelief, as that sort of unbeliever almost always portrays himself, but rather of one who, when he discovers there are rewards for abandoning orthodoxy, and that retaining his faith has a price in both the world and in the church, drifts into unbelief by way of what one might call purposive negligence—a strange...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - High intake of the vitamin niacin, particularly from food sources, may reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease and age-related mental decline, according to a new report. The study in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry points out that severe niacin deficiency is known to cause dementia. However, the researchers note that it is unclear if more subtle variations in niacin intake influence the risk of mental deterioration. "There have been no epidemiologic studies to look at the association between dietary niacin and Alzheimer's disease or cognitive decline," lead author Dr. Martha C. Morris, from...

<p>So, Californians are going to decide whether to remove their hapless governor, Gray Davis, in a recall vote and elect a new one. The big date is Oct. 7, and the liberal elitists are shaking in their Ferragamo shoes.</p> <p>Art Torres, California's Democrat Party chairman, complains that the recall ``just exacerbates the impression that we're a bunch of wackos out here.''</p>

I don't know for sure when this was first published, but I found in the archives at Oregon Magazine; it's a hoot! PBS is so low-brow! Much Ado About Nothing: PBS Airs New Production of La Bohemeby Plato Hamburger, Drama Editor of The Peg's Bottom GazetteA new production of La Boheme, the story of a French embroidery heroine lost in an Italian opera by Puccini (pronounced pooch-eenie) was aired on PBS....For those of you who were lucky enough not to tune in, and so are unfamiliar with the piece, it is, next to Days of Our Lives and All My...