Free Republic

Japan and Spain have been in the news quite a bit lately. Japan is notorious for selling more adult diapers than baby diapers (a sign of an aging population) while Spain’s fiscal woes have been the talk of Europe (European authorities will transfer 35 billion euros to Spain’s state bank rescue fund on December 15 in exchange for massive layoffs at Spain’s four nationalized banks, including state-rescued Bankia). In addition to their demographic (Japan) and fiscal (Spain) woes, both countries have been experiencing a deflation in house prices. While Spain had a housing bubble that burst in recent years (2008)...

Americans were stunned last week, coming to the startling reality that citizens from all 50 states, hundreds of thousands of signatories, thus far, have petitioned their state to secede from the union, with at least seven states, as of Sunday, having the 25,000 signatures necessary to, supposedly, officially force a White House response. It's not something many Americans want to think about, or be forced to come to terms with, however. To think the United States of America would ever be in a position of having to deal with multiple states having enough citizens to attempt seceding from the union...

Throw President Obama and his constituency over the "Fiscal Cliff." The fiscal cliff affects all Americans and that is not good. It is time that America understands what Obama’s four year strings of trillion dollar deficits are doing. President Obama expects four more years of the same regarding yearly federal debt and that will cost all Americans. The post-progressives are going to be happy since the American people will have developed into a nation with social equality. However, the rub for the American people is that social equality will mean that everyone will have an equally low standard of living....

(Associated Posers) - DETROIT, Michigan - Large portions of the city are abandoned, many large buildings are delapidated and not worth repairing according to a report from Coopers & Lie-brand Consulting. The city of Detroit faces a bleak future as its population dwindles, as does it's tax base. "It's a death spiral" said Urban Planner Douglas Spikes "Nobody wants to admit or talk about it, not the Mayor, not the City Council". Flashy television commercials and half-time concerts at Detroit Lions games don't change the fact that the city that has fallen so far from its heyday in the...

The first steps towards interstellar travel have been taken, but the stars are very far away. Voyager 1 is about 17 light-hours distant from Earth and is traveling with a velocity of 0.006 percent of light speed, meaning it will take about 17,000 years to travel one light-year. Fortunately, the elusive "warp drive" now appears to be evolving past difficulties with new theoretical advances and a NASA test rig under development to measure artificially generated warping of space-time. The warp drive broke away from being a wholly fictional concept in 1994, when physicist Miguel Alcubierre suggested that faster-than-light (FTL) travel...

Hoping to encourage other Americans to participate in "Small Business Saturday" as an alternative to big chain-friendly Black Friday, President Obama today visited an Arlington, Va., bookstore to cross some items off his family's Christmas list. Accompanied by his daughters Sasha and Malia, the president journeyed across the river to One More Page Books, which the White House described as an "independent, neighborhood bookstore." After consulting his Blackberry for an apparent holiday wish list, he purchased 15 children's books before even browsing the store. "Preparation," he told shop owner Eileen McGervey, according to the reporter who covered the visit for...

The U.S. government plans to spend another $1 billion in Uganda through 2015 -- and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will devote an additional $17.5 million specifically towards helping its Uganda unit to become more "adaptive, modern" and "effective." The $1 billion figure is part of the Obama Administration's $3.5 billion 2011-2015 Ugandan strategy, which aims to cut that nation's poverty in half ("$3.5 Billion 'Plan Uganda' Seeks to Cut Poverty in Half -- While Reducing 'Cattle Raiding,' Too" ; U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor, 5/18/11). The agency will hire a private contractor to carry out this "monitoring,...

The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it. -Mother TeresaWas Mother Teresa a self-interested individual? Was it the pursuit of personal happiness that led her to Calcutta and to the building of one of history's great charitable organizations (Missionaries of Charity)? Would she have found contentment working her way up from account rep to CEO of IBM?Was Steve Jobs a self-interested individual? Was it the pursuit of personal happiness that led him to build one of history's great enterprises? Would he have found contentment as a volunteer for the Peace Corps?Let's...

The Republicans had "a minor outbreak of sanity" (Jehu's words) when they floated a paper that questioned current intellectual property law. Then they quickly decided that they didn't mean it. The mass of corporations in this country go with the flow, and if that means supporting the Democrats, then they do so. The Republicans can't seem to figure out that their theoretical support for business and markets doesn't translate into support for their party; quite the opposite. In particular, their support for nearly perpetual copyright and tough copyright enforcement benefits those corporations that are most hostile to the Republicans, corporations...

I have been accused of using invectives and exaggeration in describing the current administration, which now has four more years to dismantle our Constitution. How dare I call the EPA a rogue organization? It's director, Lisa Jackson decided to enforce a mandate that oil refiners blend cellulosic ethanol into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. There is one little problem though. It does not yet exist commercially. That is apparently of little concern to Lisa. The EPA fined refiners $6.8 million for not following their edict. They appealed her decision. She thanked them for their concern, but said the decision will...

Since the presidential election, more than 750,000 people from all 50 states have signed petitions on the White House website saying they want their state to secede from the union. This is either the start of the second Civil War or the biggest case of sour grapes ever. Not that I blame people. When George W. Bush won a second term, I wanted to abandon the country on grounds that I couldn't live among people who would willingly re-elect a guy who: A) Couldn't pronounce the word "nuclear;" B) Practiced "strategery;" and C) Went after Saddam Hussein when Osama bin...

BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. — Manufacturer TriMas Corp. plans to shut its Goshen, Ind., plant and lay off all 450 workers there. The company said production at the Cequent Performance Product plant, which makes hitches, weight-distribution systems, fifth wheels and other items, will shift to its plant in Reynosa, Mexico. TriMas will also close a warehouse in Huntington, Ind., the company said. The moves will occur throughout 2013. The Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based company has about 4,500 employees...

The first U.S. multi-family condo built of used shipping containers is slated to break ground in Detroit early next year. Strong, durable and portable, shipping containers stack easily and link together like Legos. About 25 million of these 20-by-40 feet multicolored boxes move through U.S. container ports a year, hauling children’s toys, flat-screen TVs, computers, car parts, sneakers and sweaters. But so much travel takes its toll, and eventually the containers wear out and are retired. That’s when architects and designers, especially those with a “green” bent, step in to turn these cast-off boxes into student housing in Amsterdam, artists’...

Some architects believe that in order to build the sustainable cities of the future, we need to look back to the log cabin era and build “skyscrapers” out of wood. Just over a century ago, the architects and engineers who invented the skyscraper set us on the path to becoming an urban world. Tall buildings of concrete and steel helped make urban density—and the increased sustainability that comes with it—possible. But the buildings themselves come at a heavy, and often hidden, environmental price. Concrete and steel are some of the most energy-intensive materials on the planet. The manufacture and transport...

The final pieces are coming together in the General Motors' restructuring puzzle as the company has, not surprisingly, won its bid to repurchase government-owned Ally Financial's European and Latin American lending operations. GM was forced to spin off all but 10% of Ally Financial back when it was known as GMAC. Back in late 2008, the spigots of taxpayer money were open and GM had its cup out. In order for GM's lending arm (GMAC) to receive TARP funds, GM had to divest all but less than 10% of the company so that GMAC could be granted status as a...

New York Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli who oversees the state's massive $153 billion pension fund is accused in an ethics complaint with acting as a public tool for plaintiffs' lawyers in their legal battle against Chevron Corporation as reported by Danny Hakin for The New York Times: "the complaint, which was made to the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, claims that Mr. DiNapoli and the plaintiffs' lawyers had 'an illicit and unethical quid pro quo arrangement' in which the comptroller received campaign donations and other benefits in exchange for pressuring Chevron." Among other things Chevron in its complaint "points to...

Black Friday always brings out the worst: long lines, short tempers and random outbreaks of shoppers’ rage. This year, Big Labor will ratchet up the Strikesgiving tension with professional grievance-mongers and workers picketing at 1,000 Wal-Mart stores nationwide. Attention, Wal-Mart directors: Mob appeasement never works. They’ve tried repeatedly to stave off union thuggery through political “partnerships” and capitulation. It has failed and failed and failed. As you may recall, the discount retail giant shocked many observers in 2009 when it announced it was embracing the principles of President Obama’s federal health care mandate. The nation’s largest private (and non-union) employer...

Car thieves avoiding Toyota Prius By Zach Bowman RSS feed Posted Nov 21st 2012 4:30PM The National Insurance Crime Bureau has taken a closer look at how often car thieves target the Toyota Prius. As it turns out, the most popular hybrid on US roads has a very low theft rate, and when it does get stolen, law enforcement are quick to return the machine to its rightful owners. All told, 2008-2012 Prius models saw a theft rate of one in 606 vehicles compared to one in 78 for all models on the road from the same model year period....

The University of the District of Columbia is asking the city for $4 million as it prepares to lay off dozens of professors and staffers whose union protections entitle them to big payouts, school officials told The Washington Examiner. But Mayor Vincent Gray isn't immediately ponying up, saying he has issues with the university's "right-sizing plan" and wants UDC to put more effort into its request for more city funds. "We've got to see a lot more than what we've seen," Gray said. "We've gotten a two-page letter from them." The District's only public university released a plan in October...

The video takes only fifteen minutes to watch but has many hours worth of excellent ideas. Here is a link to a recent presentation by Bill Whittle. Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to embed it so if you want to see it, please go to the link. This screen shot is the best I could do. I won't try to rephrase Mr. Whittle's comments here; he says it far better than I could.