Free Republic

And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a tiny, soulless technocrat to tell everyone else how to live their lives.” So God made a Bloomberg.God said, “I need a know-it-all Wall Street banker who made more money by getting fired than most men will make their entire lives working an honest job.” So God made a Bloomberg.“I need somebody with hands strong enough to carry a stool and a booster seat wherever he goes, but gentle enough to sign the voter registration papers as a Democrat, and then a Republican, and...

A Northern California couple out walking their dog on their property stumbled across a modern-day bonanza: $10 million in rare, mint-condition gold coins buried in the shadow of an old tree. Nearly all of the 1,427 coins, dating from 1847 to 1894, are in uncirculated, mint condition, said David Hall, co-founder of Professional Coin Grading Service of Santa Ana, which recently authenticated them. Although the face value of the gold pieces only adds up to more than $28,000, some of them are so rare that coin experts say they could fetch nearly $1 million apiece. [continued at link]

Reuters reports that the NSA paid massive computer security firm RSA $10 million to promote a flawed encryption system so that the surveillance organization could wiggle its way around security. In other words, the NSA bribed the firm to leave the back door to computers all over the world open. Thanks to documents leaked by Edward Snowden, we already knew the NSA played a central role in promoting a flawed formula for generating random numbers, which if used in encryption, essentially gives the spies easy access to computing systems. A piece of RSA software, bSafe, became the most significant vector...

Ex-CFO Dawn Schlegel Two women who were once top executives at DHB Industries were arrested yesterday on charges they made millions in ill-gotten gains by cooking the books of the company, which supplies body armor to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dawn Schlegel, DHB's chief financial officer until she resigned early this year, and Sandra Hatfield, the company's chief operating officer before she stepped down late last year, turned themselves in to FBI agents in Melville, L.I., early yesterday. U.S. prosecutors in Brooklyn said they're still investigating DHB, which last month reached a $35 million settlement with irate...

Fossil frogs yield 'soft tissues' By Helen Briggs Science reporter, BBC News The specimens were found in Spain Scientists have extracted marrow from the bones of frogs and salamanders that died 10 million years ago in the muddy swamps of north-eastern Spain. The first fossilised bone marrow known to science provides a rare insight into the make-up of prehistoric animals. It is preserved in remarkable detail; usually only hard tissue such as bone survives in the fossil record. The soft tissue may yield traces of protein and DNA, researchers report in the journal Geology. Bone marrow is the tissue that...

I know this is early, but heck I'm excited.

DETROIT - Determined to counter President Bush (news - web sites)'s effort to portray him as a tax-raiser, Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) said Friday he would lower corporate taxes by 5 percent to promote job creation while eliminating tax incentives that sends work overseas. "Some may be surprised to hear a Democrat calling for lower corporate tax rates," Kerry told an audience at Wayne State University. "The fact is, I don't care about the old debates. I care about getting the job done and creating jobs here in the United States of America." Kerry, speaking to Michigan...

Laredo's largest marijuana load seized Time staff report Customs and Border Protection inspectors in Laredo seized a load of marijuana valued at more than $10 million, the largest in port history, on Monday. The confiscation did not produce an arrest, but an investigation is underway, officials said. The seizure occurred at World Trade Bridge when Customs and Border Protection inspectors referred a 1996 Freightliner tractor hauling a shipment of synthetic wall panels for a secondary examination. A non-intrusive imaging system scan indicated anomalies in the shipment. Inspectors found packages hidden between the panels. Canine "Miaka" alerted to the odor of...