Free Republic

Frozen capital markets are putting the chill on a fast-growing California solar company, a sign that the economic downturn is being felt even in the state's thriving renewable-energy sector. Hayward-based OptiSolar Inc. confirmed Monday that it dismissed nearly half its 600-member workforce last week, cutting 185 jobs at its Hayward facility and 105 at a plant in Sacramento. The privately owned start-up, which develops utility-scale solar farms, hasn't been able to secure financing to complete a planned expansion of its photovoltaic panel assembly facilities, according to company spokesman Alan Bernheimer. "The equity markets just froze up last fall," he said....

RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas, Jan. 2, 2009 – For the past 15 months, Leo Knight-Inglesby has pushed himself beyond the limits he and his loved ones ever thought possible. Leo Knight-Inglesby, left, reviews his Air Force enlistment contract with his recruiter, Air Force Staff Sgt. Ty Lopez, in the Rockville, Md., recruiting office. The 22-year-old lost more than 160 pounds to join the Air Force. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Ty Lopez   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The 22-year-old Silver Spring, Md., native shed more than 160 pounds to meet the physical standard of...

Okay, I'll start: 1) Blagojevich walks scott free 2) My salary continues to remain stagnate 3) The bailout results in a massive debt to taxpayers with zero benefit to them 4) Iran aquires nuclear weapons and we (including Bush) failed to do anything about it 5) Jamie Gertz continue's to become even more attractive as she ages

The peak oil story has not been nullified by the scramble to unload every asset for cash -- including whomping gobs of oil contracts -- during this desperate season of bank liquidation. The main implication of the peak oil story is that we won't be able to generate the kind of economic growth that defined our way of life for decades because the primary energy resources needed for it will be contracting. Just as global oil production peaked, our economy evolved into a morbid hypertrophy, and the chief manifestation of it was the suburban sprawl-building fiesta that has now climaxed...

Though Citicorp is deemed too big to fail, it's hardly reassuring to know that it's been allowed to sink its fangs into the Mother Zombie that the US Treasury has become and sucked out a multi-billion dollar dose of embalming fluid so it can go on pretending to be a bank for a while longer. I employ this somewhat clunky metaphor to point out that the US Government is no more solvent than the financial zombies it is keeping on walking-dead support. And so this serial mummery of weekend bailout schemes is as much of a fraud and a swindle...

It strikes me as very curious that the perky Katie Couric couldn't come up with her own questions for Gov. Palin during her first interview with the newly minted VP nominee. Well, I guess she has a staff that does her thinking for her, but this one must have been out of their league. That is probably why they had to resort to has been dim functionaries like Sam Nunn. I'll bet Charlie Gibson did the same with his Bush Doctrine question. The bottom line is that Sarah Palin scares the hell out of the msm types, just like Ronald...

Who do you believe the leaders of the future should be? Extra credit, explain why the person merits our support. For double-secret credit, who has worn out their welcome and should be shown the door?

We need some new thinking to get us out of the wilderness as soon as possible....like in two years. We can definitely do it. Here are a couple of my thoughts. I encourage Republicans to think out of the box on ways to repackage and reposition without giving up any core values or pandering. A SHADOW CABINET We need to adopt the British model. Establish an official, high profile, Republican shadow cabinet that issues press releases on what they would do differently if they were governing. Whoever is in this shadow cabinet should be in campaign mode for the next...

Received a note from a few people inside the Louisiana State House. Jindal is in and he's ready for war. This is not a Vanity. This is a tip.

Now the Democrats have their one big shot at putting in place the sort of policies that they believe will change the USA and the world.

No matter who the next President is and no matter what the total political makeup will be at each and every political level, conservatives throughout the entire U.S. seriously need to plan their next moves for both the short-term and the long-term! Leftists in total control of everything important are a very dangerous bunch, and they really will totally ruin the entire country, possibly forever and with no end in sight! Leftists will probably succeed in ending free speech, appointing federal activist judges with a far-leftist bent, and completely suppressing everyone and everything that's non-leftist on all of the issues!...

PRESS TO PLAY Give me back my broken night my mirrored room, my secret life it's lonely here, there's no one left to torture Give me absolute control over every living soul And lie beside me, baby, that's an order! Give me crack and anal sex Take the only tree that's left and stuff it up the hole in your culture Give me back the Berlin wall give me Stalin and St Paul I've seen the future, brother: it is murder. Things are going to slide, slide in all directions Won't be nothing Nothing you can measure anymore The blizzard,...

I am not a doomsday sort of guy. But if you want in showing friends, relatives, etc the reason Obama is the wrong guy for the job, have them read this. Truly, I think McCain is going to win. But when I read this, I just had to start praying even harder...

The love of chrome-and-glass modern restaurants is probably due to one place, which I’ve mentioned before – the Erie Jr. in Detroit Lakes, MN. It had a counter, a high ceiling, plastic booths in vivid hues, a roof that looked like it space ships could dock in the back, and it had that space-age vibe that shimmered off so many new things when I was very young. We had a keen sense of the future then; we knew the toys we had today would be the tools of the future. You know how you put your hand out the window...

The zero energy future does not exist. This kind of future is often seriously discussed at peak oil sites, where they say that after say one hundred years there will be no more oil and civilization will revert to a pre-oil status. Biofuels are already here and can be scaled up. There is already over 1 million barrel per day of oil equivalent in ethanol and biodiesel. The world uses 86-88 million barrels per day of oil or oil equivalent liquids in 2008. [42 gallons in a barrel. 365 days. 15330 gallons/year is one barrel per day.] The projection shown...

Terrorist strikes on four American cities. Russia rolling into Eastern Europe. Israel hit by a nuclear bomb. Gay marriage in every state. The end of the Boy Scouts. All are plausible scenarios if Democrat Barack Obama is elected president, according to a new addition to the campaign conversation called "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America," produced by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family Action. The imagined look into the future is part of an escalation in rhetoric from Christian right activists who are trying to paint Obama in the worst possible terms as the campaign heads into the...

I have ranted long enough. Whether my points were made or not doesn’t change a thing. I will leave you with these thoughts. It is long but a very good read. There is a crisis in the making. 2010 Was Not A Good Year To Be President Welcome to Toastmasters, June 13, 2033. That’s right: 2033. Continued...

Dow Futures Drop 550 Points U.S. stock futures pointed to another precipitous drop Friday, as a wave of profit warnings sent stocks plunging in Asia and Europe. December futures in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 both fell by the maximum amount allowed, a further sign of extreme market stress. More than two hours before the start of trading, S&P futures remained locked at 855.2, a fall of 60 points. DJIA futures, earlier at limit down at 8224, a 550-point fall, were seeing intermittent trade a few points above this level.

Comments of a KGB defector

Hope Personified What was the purpose of this presidential debate? Cross posted from Deb Hamilton's Right TruthAfter watching the debate tonight between Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama, I wondered just who this debate was for? Certainly this was not intended for Obama's supporters, they are hardcore behind him. If this little face-to-face was for the moderates and independents, or the former Hillary supporters, surely they have already made up their minds and nothing said tonight swayed their votes. That only leaves the 'undecided' voters to entice and if any eligible American voter is undecided at this late date,...

The G-7 world, the club of "developed" western nations plus Japan, has commenced an ordeal of suddenly waking up much poorer. All the desperate work-arounds being engineered by governments and central banks on an al fresco basis are intended to overcome this stunning basic fact, and none of them will. The benchmarks of everything are in flux -- stocks, bond values and yields, commodity prices, most especially currencies -- but these tend to disguise the basic fact of growing and spreading impoverishment. Is oil priced at $80 a barrel this morning? That's nice. Except if the company that employs you...

Election Could Decide Future of Abortion for Decades Washington, DC -- The Los Angeles Times, in a weekend article clearly articulated the massive stakes for the pro-life movement in the upcoming presidential election. The newspaper confirms the importance pro-life groups have placed on the election -- saying that it could determine the fate of legal abortions for decades because of the power the next president will have to shape the Supreme Court. This is important as Barack Obama has pledged to only appoint pro-abortion judges while John McCain promises jurists who won't make up the law from the bench.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24, 2008 – The partnership between the coalition and the Iraqi government has been enormously productive and is continuing to pay dividends, Brig. Gen. David Perkins, a coalition spokesman in Baghdad, said. Perkins and Iraqi Army Maj. Gen. Qasim Atta spoke about a range of subjects during a news conference today. Atta, the spokesman for the Iraqi Army’s Baghdad Operations Center, said that as the holy month of Ramadan closes and Iraqis begin to celebrate the Feast of Eid on Oct. 1, security forces will take extra precautions, such as not allowing vehicles to enter parks where the...

Coming: God's Solutions to the World's Problems Nearly everywhere we look, the world seems to be spinning out of control. Why do we see so many problems? Can we find a solution? Does the Bible offer hope for answers? by Roger Foster Everywhere we look, we see the storm clouds of global peril. Disasters of all shapes and sizes are increasingly transforming how we live. Skyrocketing oil prices and a housing/debt crisis shake the economy. A worldwide economic slowdown seems imminent. Floods and drought contribute to food shortages, riots, hunger and starvation. Even diseases once considered conquered are making a...

9/8/2008 - HAWR RAJAB, Iraq (AFPN) -- Six months ago, the town of Hawr Rajab was a mere shell of its former self. Local shops were closed, their windows boarded up. The streets were abandoned. Homes were badly damaged. The town was once an al-Qaida in Iraq stronghold where violence and intimidation forced residents to flee their homes. But today Hawr Rajab is a different place. Capt. Michael Askegren, Patrol Base Stone site officer in charge, had an eyewitness view of the city's gradual transformation. "It's a recovering city. You can see the progress," Captain Askegren said. "At 10 in...

Malcolm Little: 22843 Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist and prominent leader in the American civil rights movement. A Baptist minister, King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–6) and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1957), serving as its first president. His efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. There, he raised public consciousness of the civil rights movement and established himself as one...

HAWR RAJAB — Six months ago, the town of Hawr Rajab was a mere shell of its former self. Local shops were closed, their windows boarded up. The streets were abandoned. Homes were badly damaged. The town was once an al Qaida in Iraq (AQI) stronghold where violence and intimidation forced residents to flee their homes. But today Hawr Rajab is a different place. Air Force Capt. Michael Askegren, Patrol Base Stone site officer in charge, is deployed from Hurlburt Field, Fla. He had an eye-witness view of the city’s gradual transformation. “It’s a recovering city. You can see the...

I'm 54, with all that entails. Gray hair, trick knee, trickier memory. I still play a mean game of hockey, and my love life requires no pharmaceutical enhancement. But entropy looms ever larger. Suffice it to say, I would love to believe that we are rapidly approaching “the singularity.” Like paradise, technological singularity comes in many versions, but most involve bionic brain boosting. At first, we'll become cyborgs, as stupendously powerful brain chips soup up our perception, memory, and intelligence and maybe even eliminate the need for annoying TV remotes. Eventually, we will abandon our flesh-and-blood selves entirely and upload...

OIL'S FUTURE PRICE IS REALLY DEPENDENT ON WHO YOU ASK By JOHN AIDAN BYRNE, Post wires Posted: 3:21 am August 24, 2008 Drivers looking for insight into how much they'll be paying at the pump this winter shouldn't look to Wall Street for any guidance - oil analysts on the Street don't seem to have a clue. Take the gaping difference between the estimates of oil analysts at two firms - Goldman Sachs and Hong Kong-based GaveKal Research. Goldman is predicting oil, which settled at $114.63 a barrel on Friday, will not continue its easing pattern but do an about-face...

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, Aug. 19, 2008 – U.S. forces here are using commercial banking services to bolster Afghanistan’s economy by putting about $100 million worth of monthly business transactions into private banks. Abdul Qadeer Fitrat, the Central Bank of Afghanistan’s governor, and Army Maj. Noah Cloud, 101st Joint Logistics Command finance officer, meet at Camp Eggers, Afghanistan, Aug. 7, 2008, to sign a memorandum that changes the banking relationship between U.S. forces and the Central Bank of Afghanistan. U.S. Army photo by 1st Lt. Meagan Newsom  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Abdul Qadeer Fitrat, the Central Bank of...

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, Aug. 13, 2008 – The talents of 21 military members and civilians here combined with the work of about 1,000 Afghan nationals at any given time blend together to facilitate the steady flow of projects designed to improve and expand Bagram Airfield. A civilian contractor shows Air Force Maj. Kyle Torster, a facility engineer team member at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, the progress of a construction project. Ongoing projects at Bagram include a new $2.7 million Combined Joint Task Force 101 administrative building that is nearing completion. Courtesy photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Five officers,...

A new survey of corporate executives considering relocating their firms provides fresh reasons to worry about California's economy. The Development Counsellors International survey found CEOs ranked California dead-last in attractiveness among the 50 states because of its high taxes and business-hobbling regulations. California's reputation is likely to grow even worse in the next few weeks when a 2008-09 state budget is finally adopted, given the probability it will raise taxes. But what is truly depressing to contemplate is what happens come January 2011, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger departs and is likely to be replaced by a Democrat. We have griped...

KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 6, 2008 – Wherever U.S. forces are deployed across Afghanistan -- whether conducting combat operations alongside coalition forces in the east and south or security and stability operations in the west and north -- they do so from forward operating bases. U.S. soldiers and Marines, along with Afghan National Army soldiers, detonate explosives near an enemy fighting position during combat operations near the Naghlu Reservoir in Afghanistan’s Kapisa province. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Shawn Graham, Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Army Capt. Richard Roberts’ team of...

An Iraqi boy cheers on his neighborhood's soccer team during the Ramadi Youth Conference soccer tournament, July 23, 2008. Photo by Lance Cpl. Casey Jones. RAMADI -- Nearly 3,000 school-aged children from various neighborhoods in Ramadi joined recently for the city’s inaugural Ramadi Youth Conference; one more sign the region is on the right road to recovery after years of intense violence. The city’s officials, in conjunction with the Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team-Ramadi and 1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 1, hosted the conference at the south Ramadi indoor olympic gym, July 21-24, 2008, to help improve the...

Obviously over the last number of weeks we have on Sunday nights been addressing issues that are on our minds and hearts at this time in our nation when we had been subjected to terrorists' attacks. I'm trying to keep up with all of the nuances, all of the twists and turns in the road as we go and try to shed some biblical light on the issues at hand. One of the new features in our country in recent weeks is this obsession with "God Bless America." In itself certainly a nice tune and a well-crafted song that was...

July 24th, 2016.Josef Konsumer, a home-based employee and portfolio manager for ICBC/CiticorpChase, a Chinese-owned multinational investment bank, wakes up to hear his alarm clock go off at 8am, and gets out of bed, his 47-year old body aching from an aggressive personal trainer session from the day before. His morning double espresso with frothed skim milk and mocha is already waiting for him, thanks to his new Korean-made LG RoboCafe, which brews and extracts a perfect crema every time using pre-portioned, mess-free nitrogen-sealed pods imported from Brazil. He considers nudging his wife, Mindy, to get up and make him breakfast,...

What would you do if you had the bully pulpit? What policies would you promote. What are the best ways to preserve the US and make the world a better place for our children? This is obviously a vanity, but there is a wide range of opinion represented here and clearly not enough vision is coming out of our elected government. What would you do?

BAGHDAD — Within hours of being in country, the Soldiers of the 46th Engineer Combat Battalion picked up their tools and went to work on various projects around the city of Baghdad. The 46th Eng. Bn. is assigned to the 926th Engineer Brigade serving with Multi-National Division - Baghdad. It was just the first week of June when the engineers left their homes at two different posts - Fort Polk, Louisiana and Fort Rucker, Alabama - and boarded planes for Kuwait. At Camp Buehring, Kuwait, the battalion linked up with the 955 Engineer Company, a Missouri-based Army Reserve Company. Together...

THINGS TO COME Deuteronomy 32:35; John 16:13; Romans 8:38; first Corinthians 3:22; Revelation 1:19. Isaiah 40 5:11; Colossians 2:17; Hebrews 9:11; Hebrews 10:1; Hebrews 11:20 The Word of God tells us of the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Ages that are gone, the Present Age, and the Age that is to come, are all set forth in the Inspired Record which tells us of Jehovah's ways, threefold in point of time as the wondrous name itself implies. God has spoken of old time unto the father's by the Prophets, And in the End of These Days in the...

Gold futures close at two-and-a-half-month high Dollar weakness, strength in oil feed gold's risk aversion traits By Polya Lesova & Myra P. Saefong, MarketWatch Last update: 4:23 p.m. EDT July 1, 2008 SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures climbed Tuesday to close at their highest level since mid-April, as weakness in the dollar and rising crude-oil prices burnished the precious metal's investment appeal. Carrying forward with its recent rally, gold for August delivery rose $16.20 to finish the session at $944.50 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It climbed as high as $948.50 earlier in the session. Gold's...

We asked technology innovators, luminaries, and users what the Web might be in five to ten years. Sir Tim Berners-LeeDirector of the World Wide Web Consortium and inventor of the Web; Cambridge, MA"I would like to see the Internet reach people in rural areas and help alleviate poverty. I would like to see more people reaching the Web from devices big and small, fixed and mobile. I look forward to more voice technology--in hands-busy scenarios such as driving, and also to increase accessibility (e.g., for people with low vision). The long tail of video on the Web is creating a...

'Speak when you're spoken to!' The Queen sharply interrupted her. 'But if everybody obeyed that rule,' said Alice, who was always ready for a little argument, 'and if you only spoke when you were spoken to, and the other person always waited for you to begin, you see nobody would ever say anything, so that -- ' --Lewis CarrollBritish Justice. BrokenEver wonder where the American Justice system will wind up? How about the propensity of Judges to disregard legislation, make up law, tell elected officials how to run the nation? Apparently, they inhabit a make-believe world wherein they are kings....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- As spiking fuel and food prices rattle markets and consumers worldwide, the U.S. government on Tuesday formed an interagency task force to assess developments in oil and other commodity markets. The task force is comprised of staff from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the departments of Treasury, Energy and Agriculture. It will examine oil supply and demand factors, investor practices and the role of new players in the markets, such as speculators and index traders, according to a CFTC release. With gasoline prices exceeding $4 a gallon, government...

BASRA – The Gulf Region South Corps of Engineers turned over two facilities to the Government of Iraq in Basra, Iraq June 8. The Abo Al Khaseeb Votech Center and a Primary Healthcare Center in the Hai Al Muhandiseen area were handed over to their respective Ministries as they near total completion. The Votech Center has undergone major renovations during the last nine months as the Corps of Engineers coordinated efforts of several Iraqi construction companies to rebuild parts of the existing structure and install a new perimeter fence. More than 600 students are already attending classes at the center...

IN 2004, ARJUN N. MURTI, A TOP ENERGY ANALYST AT GOLDMAN SACHS, published a report predicting "a potentially large upward spike in crude oil, natural gas and refining margins at some point this decade." It was a controversial call, with crude around $40 a barrel at the time. But it was right on the money... ...We are getting closer to the end game here, where despite eight years of rising energy prices, supply looks like it is going to barely grow this year. We have been bullish, but we didn't expect such a slow growth rate of supply. And demand...

'Time-travelling' bugs resist antibiotics of the future 12:42 06 June 2008 NewScientist.com news service Ewen Callaway Bacteria lurking in soil in the 1960s and 70s resist an antibiotic that didn't exist until decades later. Three strains of what amount to future-predicting bacteria showed extreme resistance to six common antibiotics, including ciprofloxacin, which was first sold in 1989. "You can pretty safely say that there is no way these bacteria have seen them before," says Cristiane San Miguel, a microbiologist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, US. She presented the findings this week at the American Society for Microbiology's...

Dramatic photographs ofpreviously unfound Amazon Indians have highlighted theprecariousness of the few remaining "lost" tribes and thedangers they face from contact with outsiders. The bow-and-arrow wielding Indians in the pictures releasedon Thursday are likely the remnants of a larger tribe who wereforced deeper into the forest by encroaching settlement,experts said. Rather than being "lost", they have likely had plenty ofcontact with other indigenous groups over the years, saidThomas Lovejoy, an Amazon expert who is president of The HeinzCenter in Washington. "I think there is an ethical question whether you can inthe end keep them from any contact and I think...

In August 1980, with no hope left of winning the nomination, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy conceded defeat to incumbent Jimmy Carter in the Democratic presidential race. "For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end," Kennedy said at the Democratic National Convention in New York. "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die." And with that, at age 48, Kennedy returned to the Senate, where he committed himself to a career as a legislator, crafting landmark bills on health...

TSU -- A doctor accused of illegally possessing guns has been slapped with a new charge of manufacturing bullets without permission, law enforcers said. Mie Prefectural Police have sent to the Tsu District Public Prosecutors Office additional papers accusing Kenji Abo, 58, a doctor from Tsu, of violating the Ordnance Manufacturing Law. "I wanted to make (bullets) by myself," Abo was quoted as telling police as he admitted to the charges. Abo had earlier been indicted on charges of violating the Firearms and Swords Control Law after he was found in possession of 18 guns and 1,000 bullets at is...

"Once they invent the Sexaroid, that's it for marriage" — Cliff Spears Whither the Droid? The personal servant/buddy/crapworker robot was a staple of the Wonderful World Of Tomorrow that we kids of the '60s were sold back in the olden days. That world turned out to be a BIG FAT LIE — and no part of it more so than the foretold robot pal. I can live withot my rocket belt and flying car, but, dammit, why didn't I get the robo-butler I was promised? It's not due to any lack of effort on the part of industry. The factories...