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The FR main page/display bug seems to have returned... ... No sidebar... Minimum first pages displayed Time to GIT-R-DONE.... (again)

We’ve all run across the pill bug in our gardens. At the first sign of danger, the tiny paranoid crustacean suddenly turns into a ball — in hopes the danger will have passed when he unrolls. That roly-poly bug can serve as a fair symbol of present-day U.S. foreign policy, especially in our understandable weariness over Iraq, Afghanistan, and the scandals that are overwhelming the Obama administration.

What's an FR enthusiast to d

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - The National Security Agency has been collecting the telephone records of millions of U.S. customers of Verizon under a top secret court order, according to a report in Britain's Guardian newspaper.</p> <p>The order was granted by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on April 25 and is good until July 19, the newspaper reported Wednesday. The order requires Verizon, one of the nation's largest telecommunications companies, on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries.</p>

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday accused a Kentucky Democratic super-PAC of bugging his campaign office and asked the FBI to investigate. McConnell lashed out at the group Progress Kentucky after the release of a recording from a Feb. 2 meeting between the senator and his aides in which they debate the merits of attacking actress Ashley Judd’s mental health, views on religion and attitudes about family.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is alerting clinicians of an emerging untreatable multidrug-resistant organism in the United States. There are many forms of Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), but of the 37 forms reported in the U.S., 15 have been reported in less than a year. The CDC said the increase in CRE means health care providers need to “act aggressively to prevent the emergence and spread of these unusual CRE organisms.” Enterobacteriaceae lives in water, soil and the human gut. These “surperbugs” have developed high levels of resistance to antibiotics – even carbapanems. Individuals who usually develop CRE infections...

Sorry that the truncating pages and missing sidebars problem is back again. I'm trying to reach John so he can fix it. No luck so far. Hope he checks his messages soon. I've also asked him what causes this, but he hasn't answered. Hoping we can get a permanent fix soon. Meanwhile, the work around is to set the number of results and items per page to 20 each. Look for the "My Preferences" link under "Account" at the top of any of the latest posts index pages. Thanks

The My Comments page shows over 45 comments for: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2979208/posts When I view that post, only 15 comments load.

It won’t retrieve the global economy from the ditch, but there is bacteria that consumes a toxic metal to produce pure gold. Our colleagues over at Slate have produced a video explaining how the super-strong bacteria Cupriavidus metallidurans goes about its precious dirty business But before you grab your lab coat and rush out to nab some of the gold -pooping bacteria, stop. It is about as rare as the precious metal itself. And if you’re thinking you can synthesize the reaction in your basement using your gold jewelry, think again. The bacteria is grown on large concentrations of gold...

However, Facebook denied that there had been a privacy breach and claimed the messages were old public messages that were being reposted because of a bug. Some users said that messages they had sent privately on the social network between 2007 and 2009 were being republished into their public timelines on the site. Though it was not clear how many people were affected, there were complaints from users in Britain, America and in Europe. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and chief executive, was hit by the bug. His profile showed a message to a friend that said "2009 is going to...

I sincerely apologize for taking up so much time from fellow FReepers, but now my computer is acting up. I'm hoping I want have to have the thing wiped clean and Windows reinstalled, but I am not a tecchie and have no idea what to do. My problem is with one of those frequent and usually welcome security updates heralded by the little yellow shield with the exclamation mark. I got this earlier today and it told me three updates were ready to be installed. So I installed them. Problem: the little yellow shield comes back on every time I...

ATLANTA (AP) -- Half the meat and poultry sold in the supermarket may be tainted with the staph germ, a new report suggests. The new estimate is based on just 136 samples of beef, chicken, pork and turkey purchased from grocery stores in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Flagstaff, Ariz. and Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Proper cooking kills the germs, and federal health officials estimate staph accounts for less than 3 percent of foodborne illnesses, far less than more common bugs like salmonella and E. coli.

An invasive kudzu-eating bug that swept across Georgia last year has now been detected in Alabama. Though you might be tempted to celebrate the arrival of a bug that eats The Vine That Ate the South, this kudzu bug stinks. Both literally and figuratively. When temperatures drop, the pea-sized bugs -- also known as the lablab bug or the globular stink bug -- invades homes in hordes. When threatened or crushed, they emit a foul odor. University of Georgia entomology Professor Wayne A. Gardner said he's found them 30 stories high, coating the window sills of Atlanta condo high rises,...

(Would those of us in the West eat bugs if they looked like a Big Mac?) Swansea University in the UK, is the host to this year’s Royal Entomology Society conference and one of the speakers at this year’s conference will be talking about insect protein being a solution to getting rid of famine. On the one hand I say, “Ew.” On the other, I say, “Why not? Other people should eat bugs.” I remember watching a young Christian Bale in the film “Empire of the Sun” His character is in an internment camp, and he's told that if he...

More than a year after doomsday reports hinted that the Conficker worm would bring down the Internet, one-in-10 Windows PCs still have not been patched to plug the hole the worm wriggles through, new data shows. And 25 of every 1,000 systems are currently infected with the worm. According to Qualys, a security risk and compliance management provider, about 10% of the hundreds of thousands of Windows systems it monitors for customers have not yet applied Microsoft's MS08-067 security update. MS08-067, an out-of-band release that shipped in October 2008, patched a bug in the service Windows uses to connect to...

Credit and debit cards contain software that can't process number ‘2010’ BERLIN - Millions of German bank cards have been affected by a "millennium bug"-like problem because they contain software that can't process the number 2010, an industry group said Tuesday.

As Bug Fighting Goes Year Round, Fans Bemoan Role of Performance-Enhancing Drugs, Money Like the baseball calendar in the U.S., China's cricket-fighting season is getting longer and longer. Purists fret that the pastime is being threatened by a money culture. Helping lead the effort to upend thousands of years of Chinese tradition is Xu Moxiao, a man determined to lengthen the customary autumn fighting season. He thinks year-round bug fights are better for fans and for the people who make money off the sport. "What I'm doing is trying to expand the good things," says Mr. Xu. Cricket fighting has...

Experts say the insects are from Asia and first appeared in Allentown, Pennsylvania back in 1996. They then spread throughout our area and beyond. There are no known predators, so the bugs continue to creep into homes through cracks and crevices. Experts say while last year was bad, this year will be worse. "I thought I heard something rattling in the baseboard and there were hundreds in one window," Wade added. Residents say they are under attack inside and outside of their home. "I was battling them out of the way," Milhaupt said. Milhaupt says she snags them with tissue,...

LS9, Inc., a privately-held industrial biotechnology company based in South San Francisco, specializes in the genetic alteration of bugs -- single-cell organisms, each a fraction of a billionth the size of an ant -- so that when they feed on agricultural waste like woodchips or wheat straw, they excrete crude oil.

Britain in grip of norovirus as cases hit 3m By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor Last Updated: 1:50am GMT 12/01/2008 Three million people have been struck down by the winter vomiting bug - with experts fearing that cases could rise through this month and next. The norovirus season began a month earlier than normal this winter. Cases of the bug increased rapidly, with more than 200,000 people a week now catching the infection, official figures claim. Those with symptoms are urged to engage in good hygiene to prevent the virus spreading further Hospitals struggling to cope have closed hundreds of wards...