Free Republic

If you wanted to know all about the Big Bang, you'd ring up Carl Sagan, right ? And if you wanted to know about desert warfare, the man to call would be Norman Schwarzkopf, no question about it. But who would you call if you wanted the top expert on American usage, to tell you the meaning of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution ? That was the question I asked A.C. Brocki, editorial coordinator of the Los Angeles Unified School District and formerly senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Publishers -- who himself had been recommended to me...

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...

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – The FDNY is at a high-rise under construction in Midtown where a crane has collapsed. The call came in around 2:30 p.m. Monday at the building on West 57th Street. The top of the crane, about 75-stories up, could be seen dangling down from the luxury building. WATCH LIVE: CBS 2 | LISTEN NOW: 1010 WINS | WCBS 880 All residents of buildings on West 57th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues have been ordered to move to lower floors. All others have been told to avoid the area. There is no falling debris, but the...

It's the eight-legged discovery of the millennium! An endangered species of spider not seen in more than three decades unexpectedly appeared in Northwest San Antonio two weeks ago. Biologists and science buffs, rejoice. There's just one downside if you're an area commuter: The spider, no bigger than a dime, showed up in the middle of a $15.1 million highway underpass project on Texas 151 at Loop 1604. And in this particular case of nature vs. man-made road, the arachnid wins. The highway project is on hold indefinitely. SNIP . . . No other spiders have been spotted in the hole...

Photos are from: The World Trade Center: A Tribute by Bill Harris Requiem World Trade Center: Once Upon a Time in New York City by Hideaki Sato

The U.S. State Dept. today revealed that it has begun searching for contractors to design and build a new embassy compound at The Hague in The Netherlands, a project that could cost as much $210 million, according to its own estimates. Development of the 10-acre site will include a new office building, Marine security guard quarters, shops annex, utility building, "perimeter security, vehicle and pedestrian access control facilities, utility building, surface parking and a vehicular emergency egress bridge," according to a solicitation that U.S. Trade & Monitor located via routine database research. State's Bureau of Overseas Building Operations first will...

TransCanada Corp. said Monday it plans to begin building a major portion of the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline despite the Obama administration's decision to reject a key permit for the project. The company told the State Department in a letter Monday that it will begin construction of a section of the pipeline that runs from Cushing, Okla., to refineries on the Gulf Coast. The stand-alone portion of the project, which TransCanada dubbed the Gulf Coast Project, will cost $2.3 billion and will be completed in mid-to-late 2013, according to the company. The project must still receive other regulatory approvals....

<p>Giant projects such as the reconstruction of 1 World Trade Center, or Freedom Tower (pictured), always end up costing more than the original estimates because “that’s just part of the way the world works,” Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday.</p> <p>“It would be really naive on any big project to say it’s never going to come in for more,” Bloomberg said.</p>

Single-family originations will likely dip in 2012 because of fewer refinances, according to Frank Nothaft, chief economist at Freddie Mac. The market will see a refinance burnout, Nothaft said, with a dwindling pool of eligible borrowers and higher mortgage rates by the second half of 2012. Nothaft projects $1.3 trillion in single-family mortgage originations in 2011, compared to $1.14 trillion in 2012 and $1.07 trillion in 2013. The Freddie Mac projections for 2012 come as a Pew Research Center study showed a record-low number of adults married in the U.S. About 51% of all adults were married as of 2010,...

Made In America (Video of home built entirely of American made products)

Pyongyang's construction drive said to kill hundreds of college students 2011-11-29 14:26 North Korean college students have reportedly died in a spate of accidents at construction sites amid intense efforts by Pyongyang to prepare for a milestone political event next year, a source familiar with the issue said Tuesday. The alleged accidents sparked rumors that an estimated 200 college students have died at various construction sites in the North's showcase capital city of Pyongyang, the source said. He did not elaborate on the alleged deaths and asked not to be identified, citing the issue's sensitivity. The development comes as the...

This is not some set left over from The Lord of the Rings. This hobbit house is an honest-to-goodness man-sized home. Not only does it fit a family of four, but it cost just over $4,650 to build.

White House reporters have tried all their sneakiest reporter tricks to find out what is really going on behind the green construction wall on the North Lawn. The 44 blog recently witnessed one journalist trying to extract details from a utility worker, to no avail. Trucks come and go from the White House construction site, their company logos covered for security. There is jackhammering, and digging. The cement truck tires get washed off before they leave the site -- no one wants a messy White House driveway.

Outlays for U.S. construction projects rose 1.4% in August on public and private spending gains...Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected overall construction spending to decline 0.3%

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Builders started construction on fewer new homes in August, government data showed Tuesday, underscoring how the depressed U.S. real estate market shows little sign of recovering. Housing starts fell 5% to an annual rate of 571,000 last month, compared with a downwardly revised 601,000 in July, the Commerce Department said. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected housing starts to fall to 590,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes dipped slightly in September to remain in very low territory, according to an index released Monday. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index fell by a point to 14, on a seasonally adjusted index where readings above 50 are considered good. The index, which correlates closely with single-family housing starts, has held between 13 and 16 for the last six months.

Vladivostok Teeming with N.Korean Laborers In the scorching afternoon heat last Thursday, two Asian laborers sat in front of a grocery store near a building site in Vladivostok, Russia, cooling themselves with mugs of draft beer. When asked if they were North Koreans, the men asked, "Are you from South Korea?" One of the laborers, who was in his 40s, then said there were around 50 workers from all over North Korea, including Pyongyang and Nampo, at this particular site alone, and they can be seen at practically every construction site in Vladivostok. The entire Siberian city has turned into...

/begin my excerpts N. Korean Colleges in 'Shutdown,' and Did Not Even Admit Freshman Class Yang Hee-jung, Washington 2011-08-03 Last week, after returning from his visit to N. Korean colleges, a Russian expert on Korean affairs criticized the extended shutdown of colleges in Pyongyang from June this year to April next year in an attempt to build 'Strong and Powerful Nation,' calling it a waste of human resources unheard of even in socialist Russia(Soviet Union?.) Yang Hee-jung reports: Georgy Toloraya, Director of Korean Programs at Russian Academy of Sciences, said that it does not help producing N. Korea's professional talents...