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CHICAGO - The staff at his neighborhood hardware store can spot John Carter from a distance. He's the slightly befuddled guy who often comes in declaring, "I have no idea what I'm doing. Can you at least get me through tonight?" The 26-year-old Chicagoan, who's been slowly rehabbing the condo he bought last year, is part of a generation of young homeowners who admit they often have no clue how to handle home projects. Story continues below « -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- advertisement -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For them, shop class was optional. It also was more common for their parents to hire contractors, leaving fewer...

Really? THE FACTS Most parents and school nurses have a time-honored approach to treating a small wound: clean it up, stop the bleeding and then let it get some air. The point of this approach, as described in medical texts, is to lower the odds of infection and to speed the healing process. But over the years, researchers have found that what many people know about treating small cuts and scrapes is wrong. Exposing a wound to the air so it can breathe is a terrible mistake, experts say, because it creates a dry environment that promotes cell death. A...

In the iconic TV show "The Simpsons," Homer Simpson is constantly jealous of his neighbor Ned Flanders' prosperity -- so jealous that when the left-handed Flanders opens a store for left-handed people (the Leftorium), Simpson never tells any of his left-handed friends about it. "My kingdom for a left-handed tin opener," yells Mr. Burns, the richest man in the fictional town of Springfield, but Simpson keeps quiet as the Leftorium shuts down for lack of customers. The show's creators may not have known it then, but they were on to something -- Homer Simpson probably has a good reason to...

A STUDY of men and women age 70 to 79 found that those who downed one to seven alcoholic drinks a week had a significantly lower risk of heart problems or death than those who did not imbibe, researchers said today. Why the apparent protective effect exists is not clear, the report from the US Institute on Ageing and the University of Florida said, but it does not appear to be related to speculation that alcohol consumption has an anti-inflammatory effect. The study involved 2487 men and women, without heart disease and between the ages of 70 and 79, who...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) -- Gas escaping from the ocean floor may provide some answers to understanding historical global warming cycles and provide information on current climate changes, according to a team of scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The findings are reported in the July 20 on-line version of the scientific journal, Global Biogeochemical Cycles. Remarkable and unexpected support for this idea occurred when divers and scientists from UC Santa Barbara observed and videotaped a massive blowout of methane from the ocean floor. It happened in an area of gas and oil seepage coming out of small volcanoes...

GOTTA SEE THIS - War for Enduring Freedom 7/17/06 - Beirut, Dahyieh Junubiya, al-Ghubeiri, Beir al-Abed, Bourj Shimali, Choueifat, Jiyeh, Khiam, Nabatiyeh, Ouzai, Saida, Sawfar, Taanayel, Tyre, Kiryat Shmona, Zebqine, Masnaa, Jdaydet Yabous, Damascus, Haifa, Tel Aviv, Cyprus, Poriat, Kabul, Bagram, Fallujah, Baghdad, Samawa BREAKING: Israel ground forces enter Lebanon BREAKING: Beirut - Israeli airstrike on the terrorist strongholds BREAKING: Dahyieh Junubiya - Israeli airstrike on the terrorist stronghold BREAKING: Bourj Shimali - Israeli airstrike on the terrorist stronghold BREAKING: Choueifat - Israeli airstrike on the terrorist stronghold BREAKING: Jiyeh - Israeli airstrike on the terrorist stronghold BREAKING: Khiam -...

Here is a link to live streaming Israeli TV with about 10 channels to surf. There are no captions or subs but if you want to see whats going on - you might want to check this out.

New research indicates that demand for home networks -- to connect home theaters, security cameras, home lighting systems, and the like -- is increasing rapidly, even though the percentage of new homes which feature these broadband powered networks still remains relatively small. Experts are telling United Press International's Networking column that many home buyers are asking builders to install the networks as a standard feature in new homes today. By Gene Koprowski

A well-financed California startup is promising to build a solar-cell factory that could finally make solar power affordable. This week, Nanosolar, a startup in Palo Alto, CA, announced plans to build a production facility with the capacity to make enough solar cells annually to generate 430 megawatts. This output would represent a substantial portion of the worldwide production of solar energy. According to Nanosolar's CEO Martin Roscheisen, the company will be able to produce solar cells much less expensively than is done with existing photovoltaics because its new method allows for the mass-production of the devices. In fact, maintains Roscheisen,...

Freepers I need your help. We're very seriously thinking of moving out of Southern California. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1636409/posts We've read the books "50 Fabulous Places to Raise Your Family" and the comprehensive "Cities Ranked and Rated". We've used the websites www.bestplaces.net and www.findyourspot.com. We've received the travel guides from over 40 states we're thinking of travelling or moving to. But I think the people of FreeRepulic might be the best resource of all for recommending places to raise a homeschooling family in the US. Many of the people here travel quite a bit and have noticed trends that affect families. So if...

An experimental vaccine is showing promise against Alzheimer's disease, reducing brain deposits that are blamed for the disorder. The deposits have been cut by between 15.5 percent and 38.5 percent in mice, with no major side effects, researchers said Monday in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Tests of the DNA-based vaccine are under way in monkeys, and if those are successful, testing in people could begin, perhaps within three years, said lead researcher Yoh Matsumoto of the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Neuroscience in Japan. If all goes well, this type of treatment might be...

Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate catastrophe "The Inconvenient Truth" is indeed inconvenient to alarmists "Scientists have an independent obligation to respect and present the truth as they see it," Al Gore sensibly asserts in his film "An Inconvenient Truth", showing at Cumberland 4 Cinemas in Toronto since Jun 2. With that outlook in mind, what do world climate experts actually think about the science of his movie? Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they...

Despite lifelong beliefs that have been ingrained in my faith since childhood, I have to admit that like almost everyone else I have from time to time wondered if my existence will simply come to an end on the day I draw my last breath. There is, after all, no way to prove one way or the other that human life continues in another realm after the body ceases to function. Nobody has come back to testify about it, with one notable exception of course, and those who reject his divinity also tend to doubt what he had to say...

Immortality is within our grasp . . . In Fantastic Voyage, high-tech visionary Ray Kurzweil teams up with life-extension expert Terry Grossman, M.D., to consider the awesome benefits to human health and longevity promised by the leading edge of medical science--and what you can do today to take full advantage of these startling advances. Citing extensive research findings that sound as radical as the most speculative science fiction, Kurzweil and Grossman offer a program designed to slow aging and disease processes to such a degree that you should be in good health and good spirits when the more extreme...

A new book out today, Showdown: Why China Wants War with the United States, argues that China is bent on picking a fight with the world’s remaining superpower—and shows just how that war might play out, in scenarios that read like episodes from a Tom Clancy novel. Jed Babbin, Showdown co-author (with Edward Timperlake), agreed to answer some questions about the new book, and about what the U.S. needs to do to counter the China threat. Babbin served as deputy undersecretary for defense in the first Bush administration and is the author of Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and...

Imagine dumping the big V-8 in your SUV for a 25-pound, 2.4 liter engine that gives you 150 miles per gallon on biodiesel - with a boost in horsepower and torque to boot. Meet Raphial Morgado and the little engine that could... With up to 40 times the power to weight ratio of a conventional engine, flexible fuel compatibility, a displacement of 850 cubic inches and the torque of a 32-cylinder engine, the MYT is the beginning of a new paradigm for engines in the 21st century! "The inspiration for the MYT Engine design came from the need to have...

Drinking coffee 'is good for the heart' By Celia Hall, Medical Editor (Filed: 12/05/2006) One to three cups of coffee a day may protect people from heart disease and strokes, according to research which contradicts numerous studies that have suggested that coffee is bad for you. The good news for coffee drinkers comes from a report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and is based on a study of 27,000 older women, followed for 15 years. It found a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease by about 30 per cent in women who had a moderate intake of coffee. The...

I’m going to try something entirely new to Free Republic………..start a thread restricted to practical, positive. pro-active things that this huge forum filled with good people who love this country can actually DO about helping to solve the illegal immigration problem, and how we can ‘encourage’ our leaders at all levels to get their acts together. This is not a thread for venting or attacking (Heaven knows, that‘s been done plenty around here!). Let’s keep it entirely positive……..no attacks on the President and ‘Bushbots’ or the GOP………or on each other, from EITHER side. No threats to ’kick the GOP bums...

Californians for Justice filed a writ in April demanding that the state drop its requirement that students must pass the math and English test in order to receive a diploma. "Students who put in their time should graduate," said Tonto Moro, one of the students who failed the test. "They don't require prisoners who serve their time to pass a test in order to get out of jail. It is unfair to us who have committed no crime to be treated worse." Alameda County Superior Court Judge Robert Freedman previously granted this year's senior class a reprieve from passing the...

NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE News story: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sent an 18-page letter to President Bush. No word on whether it was handwritten in tiny type, margin to margin, and wrapped in tinfoil. Herewith are some excerpts: Dear Infidel Crusader Zionist sock-puppet Saudi-lackey despoiler of Mesopotamia woman-touching pigdog fiendish (293 words excised) shah-licking son of a toad's offal: I trust this finds you well. I have much on my mind, and have taken the pen to unburden my breast. I have enclosed a self-addressed, stamped envelope should you wish to reply. (429 words concerning Jewish penetration of the Postal...