Free Republic

Hong Kong - a beacon of hope to the American worker? (photo: Randal Rayborn) The pundits told us the great transition from the Industrial Age to Information Age would be easy. Nothing like the wrenching social dislocations of the 1800’s, when people left behind the grinding poverty of rural agrarian life to earn better wages laboring in urban factories. This time, the transition would require nothing more difficult than a bit of retraining. Add a few computer skills to your resume, those pundits assured us, and all the golden rewards of the new Age would rain down upon you....

A 16-year-old man, named only as Wu, became the fourth reported victim in two weeks. The Health ministry said he had fallen ill in Guizhou on January 8 and was then transferred to a hospital in the neighbouring province of Hunan. He has since died. Two of the other victims, a 27-year-old woman in Shandong province and a 19-year-old woman in Beijing, also died. The third, a two-year-old girl in Shanxi province, is critically ill. Her mother, meanwhile, has died from kidney failure but has not been confirmed with the H5N1 virus. There is a growing sense of panic ahead...

The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning in effect through 6 a.m. Thursday with 3 to 6 inches of snow possible, even in the lowest levels of the Las Vegas Valley, including the Strip. Snow was falling this afternoon in much of the Las Vegas Valley. Forecasters said heavy snow is possible in the valley and desert areas of Clark, Lincoln and southern Nye counties. An advisory from the weather service this afternoon called the snow event "extremely rare." Forecasters said snow will continue to fall through the afternoon before tapering off Thursday morning. Up to 10...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Too young to retire, too old to get a new job. That's how many older workers are feeling these days. While it's not easy to land a job in this weak economy, older workers are in a particularly tough spot. Corporate downsizings are hitting this group hard, with many companies looking to shed the higher-paid positions these employees often occupy. Even worse, older job seekers are discovering the search is even rougher as many employers shy away from hiring those closer to retirement than to the start of their careers. The downsizings come at a bad...

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton gathered emotional endorsements Friday from two prominent black women who implored blacks to set aside their excitement about her rival Barack Obama's campaign to be the first In the run-up to Saturday's South Carolina Democratic primary, the first in which blacks could play a pivotal role, Clinton has spoken to mostly white audiences while her husband, Bill, the former president, has courted blacks. But that changed Friday when she made an explicit pitch for black support in a speech at a historically black college in South Carolina's state capital surrounded by prominent black...

HATTIESBURG, Miss. - They are returning home with a sense of accomplishment, but also with feelings of anger and frustration, even despair. They speak proudly about building up the Iraqi security force, restoring electricity and watching Iraqis walk miles to vote. But they wonder whether it will be enough to secure Iraq's future, and at times, express bitterness toward the people they wanted to help. "They're using our good will, our good-nature policy against us," says Sgt. Bobby Walls, a 38-year-old Pennsylvania National Guard member. "The fact that we fight as the good guys sometimes turns around and kicks us...

VALPARAISO, Ind. - A house erroneously valued at $400 million is being blamed for budget shortfalls and possible layoffs in municipalities and school districts in northwest Indiana. An outside user of Porter County's computer system may have triggered the mess by accidentally changing the value of the Valparaiso house, said Sharon Lippens, director of the county's information technologies and service department. The house had been valued at $121,900 before the glitch. County Treasurer Jim Murphy said the home usually carried about $1,500 in property taxes; this year, it was billed $8 million. The homeowner, Dennis Charnetzky, declined to comment about...

ExtremeTech Staff - Mon Feb 6, 7:54 AM ET Hourly wages for tech professionals hit a record high during the fourth quarter of 2005, according to a report released Monday. According to the Yoh Index of Technology Wages, hourly pay increased by 3.1 percent to an average of $30.27 per hour between October 10, 2005 and November 6, 2005. Since the fourth quarter of 2001, wages for "high-impact technology professionals" have rise nearly 11 percent, the frm found. The positions in the most demand include SAP functional consultants, who commanded an average of $75.09 pr hour. Data warehouse architects,...

Christopher Knight, aka Peter Brady of "The Brady Bunch," and Adrianne Curry are planning a wedding and reality TV cameras will be there. The couple met on VH1's "The Surreal Life" and became engaged on the season finale of "My Fair Brady." Now Knight, 48, and Curry, 23, will return for a second season of "My Fair Brady," VH1 announced Tuesday. Curry first gained fame as the winner of "America's Next Top Model." In a statement, Knight said love had prevailed despite "our individual quirks and flaws. ... We look forward to planning the rest of our lives together and...

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. (AP) -- The Sacramento Kings bought full-page ads in two newspapers to apologize for showing derogatory images of Detroit on video screens prior to their home opener against the Pistons. When the Pistons were introduced Tuesday night, the Arco Arena scoreboard flashed pictures of abandoned buildings, burned-out cars, piles of rubble and other negative images of Detroit. The Pistons won the game 102-88. The Kings apologized that night and owners Joe and Gavin Maloof bought a full-page ad that ran in Thursday editions of The Detroit News, expressing ``great respect for Detroit's long and rich tradition as...

WASHINGTON - The difference between the sexes has long been a rich source of humor. Now it turns out, humor is one of the differences. Women seem more likely than men to enjoy a good joke, mainly because they don't always expect it to be funny. "The long trip to Mars or Venus is hardly necessary to see that men and women often perceive the world differently," a research team led by Dr. Allan L. Reiss of the Stanford University School of Medicine reports in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. But they were surprised when...

YSCLOSKEY, La. -- His wife safely settled in a donated house in Tennessee, Ricky Robin, a Cajun-speaking native of this historic low country, will in a few days point his 56-foot shrimp trawler the Lil' Rick toward the Gulf of Mexico, make a wide right turn west and head for parts unknown. A shrimper has to make a living, and there's no living here now.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - At least 20 oil rigs and platforms are missing in the Gulf of Mexico and a ruptured gas pipeline is on fire after Hurricane Katrina tore through the region, a US Coast Guard official said. "We have confirmed at least 20 rigs or platforms missing, either sunk or adrift, and one confirmed fire where a rig was," Petty Officer Robert Reed of the Louisiana Coast Guard told AFP. All of the missing rigs were in the Gulf of Mexico, Reed said citing Coast Guard overflights of the area and information from oil companies. He could not confirm...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hurricane Katrina is likely to have only a modest impact on the U.S. economy as long as the hit to the energy sector proves transitory, White House economic adviser Ben Bernanke said on Wednesday. "Clearly, it's going to affect the Gulf Coast economy quite a bit," Bernanke told CNBC television. "That's going to be enough to have at least a noticeable or at least some impact on the aggregate (national) data. "Looking forward ... reconstruction is going to add jobs and growth to the economy," he added. "As long as we find that the energy impact is...

As the debate over the existence of a real estate bubble rages, the most persuasive case in favor continues to be made by those firmly committed to the opposite point of view. Such was the case with several recent articles that should give even the most ardent real estate bulls cause for concern. A New York Times article of April 17, 2005 entitled "Seeking Nest Eggs Investors Buy Nests," chronicles the recent deals of several New York actual, and wannabe, real estate moguls. Although the figures profiled varied largely in terms of wealth and experience, two threads that united them...

Pelosi calls privatization plan a 'rip-off' She talks to seniors about Social Security plan at meeting in S.F. Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Political Writer Thursday, February 24, 2005 Democratic Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, launching what she vowed will be an aggressive effort against President Bush's Social Security privatization, told cheering supporters in San Francisco on Wednesday that the plan is a costly "diversionary tactic'' by the administration and a blatant "attempt to divide the generations" on the values of a crucial social program. "It's absolutely stunning, the rip-off that it is,'' Pelosi told a town hall meeting on Social...

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Nine-year-old Jean Carlos Chera, who stands 1.37 meters (4-foot-6), is attracting interest from Manchester United and other top European football teams. Chera, who weighs 35 kilograms (77 pounds), currently plays for the youth teams of Associacao Desportiva Atletica, a small club in the southern Brazilian state of Parana. "Seven or eight European clubs have already contacted us to know more about Jean," team president Adilson Batista Prado said on Thursday. "They want to know what he is all about, and I tell them he's a phenomenon, probably the best player to come out of Brazil."...

INNSBRUCK, Austria - Avalanches killed two skiers and seriously injured another Monday, and experts warned that recent storms have created unstable conditions ripe for more snow slides in Austria's Alps. A 41-year-old American and a 39-year-old German died in an avalanche in Lech am Arlberg in the southwestern province of Vorarlberg that also critically injured the American's wife, also 41, the Austria Press Agency reported. Officials did not immediately release the names or hometowns of the victims, who were located after a 30-minute search by 15 mountain rescue experts using a pair of specially trained dogs. They said the German...

Washington, DC, Oct. 25 (UPI) -- Through a warp in the space-time continuum, there landed on my desk this morning the Bear's Lair for Monday, November 3, 2008. It makes depressing reading. "As we head into the most divisive election in history, the lesson must be clear: economic distress breeds extremism. Democrat Hillary Clinton, running on a program of nationalization of the oil industry and establishment of a state-funded National Health Service, faces off against Republican Newt Gingrich, on a platform of privatization of social security and abolition of the departments of Education, Labor, Energy and State. Four years ago,...

Ivan's Massive Waves Caught Energy Industry Off Guard NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Waves and storm surges that were more massive than previously thought may explain why Hurricane Ivan did such severe damage to the platforms and pipelines in its path. Chris Oynes, regional director for the U.S. Minerals Management Service, said preliminary data from the government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show the central Gulf of Mexico was hit by mammoth waves - including perhaps the tallest ever recorded in the Gulf - that exceeded the design requirements of the area's infrastructure. "There were some extremely large waves," he said...