Free Republic

Enlarge ImageWind school. Placing vertically aligned turbines closer together gives more wattage for the buck.Credit: Mariah Power Arranging wind turbines like a school of fish could reduce the amount of land they take up by 100-fold while maintaining their electrical output, say researchers. Wind farms based on the approach might also be considerably safer for migrating birds. Whether it's Lance Armstrong bicycling behind his teammates in the Tour de France or a storm of fish slicing their way through the ocean, animals benefit from drafting. The leader breaks through the calm air or water, while the followers enjoy the...

KISSIMMEE — Stealing power from utilities has become the recession's crime of choice for penny-pinching suspects large and small across Central Florida. A supermarket CEO, cash-strapped homeowners and even pot growers have landed in jail in recent months, all charged with meter tampering for allegedly stealing electricity — a crime costing local utility companies millions each year. Industry spokesmen say power thefts have spiked as unemployment and housing foreclosures have increased during the past two years.

To regain its strength, an out-of-power party like the Republicans needs ideas to fuel its recovery and leaders to promote and deliver them. In this war of ideas, those committed to presenting a sensible, philosophically grounded conservative case to Americans play a special role. Because conservatives are distrustful of concentrated power, it is awkward to select just seven Washington power players, but here are my picks...

http://www.wiseandfrugalgovernment.blogspot.com/ I am no historian. But, my read of the Revolutionary War goes something like this: The Red Coats outnumbered, out-gunned and out-generaled Washington's Continental Army at every turn. In the beginning. But Washington had one advantage. He taught himself how to think like the enemy, when to retreat, wait. And, finally strike. So far the early health care battles go to the enemy. Despite lack of public support, Nancy Pelosi twisted arms to make deals under cover of darkness and eked out a slim majority for passage of Nancycare. Yet, in the latest Rasmussen poll conducted the day following...

NOW is the time for all of you to become PRECINCT COMMITTEE MEN/WOMEN! It's how we take back the Republican Party! PCO's have VOTING POWERS....they elect their County GOP Chair, make State House Appointments, provide input into the PLATFORM, help choose candidates, activate voters, and some are ELECTORS of the ELECTORAL COLLEGE. If you don't know what a PCP is go to your local County or State GOP page (or even the local DEMOCRAT webpage!)....or freep mail me...and I'll email info. You represent your immediate Precinct/neighborhood. It's TIME!!! HISTORY IS CALLING YOU! It's 1775 AGAIN....what are YOU going to do....

http://money.cnn.com/POLLSERVER/results/49044.html CNN poll halfway down on right. 1. What should U.S. nuclear power policy be? It's a safe, clean alternative right now...77% More safety testing is needed...11% We shouldn't use it...11%

With flu vaccination season in full swing, research from the University of Rochester Medical Center cautions that use of many common pain killers – Advil, Tylenol, aspirin – at the time of injection may blunt the effect of the shot and have a negative effect on the immune system. Richard P. Phipps, Ph.D., professor of Environmental Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology, and of Pediatrics, has been studying this issue for years and recently presented his latest findings to an international conference on inflammatory diseases. (http://bioactivelipidsconf.wayne.edu/) “What we’ve been saying all along, and continue to stress, is that it’s probably not a...

Minnesota Power is seeking an almost 20 percent increase in rates for its residential customers to cover investments made in cleaner, greener energy. For the average residential customer, that amounts to $13 per month. “We know this is unwelcome news at an unwelcome time,” said Pat Mullen, the company’s vice president of marketing and public affairs. “These are improvements that need to be made. It is creating an environment that we all value.”

Dye-sensitized cells get a double boost from nanowires and optical fiber. Dye-sensitized solar cells are flexible and cheap to make, but they tend to be inefficient at converting light into electricity. One way to boost the performance of any solar cell is to increase the surface area available to incoming light. So a group of researchers at Georgia Tech has made dye-sensitized solar cells with a much higher effective surface area by wrapping the cells around optical fibers. These fiber solar cells are six times more efficient than a zinc oxide solar cell with the same surface area, and if...

Now, I can see where many of you would think this was a terrible thing to go through. You’re right, it is terrible but it has also been a time of great blessings. God has definitely taught me some valuable lessons about how our thoughts effect us. I want to share with you what I learned first hand, and I pray it will have a positive effect on your life as well.

There is little doubt that Cash for Clunkers gave auto sales a big boost in late July and most of August, but there has been considerable debate as to how much help taxpayers' $3 billion provided. Customers who purchased a new car or truck were rewarded in many ways, especially when you consider the U.S. government paid out a median price of about $4,000 per clunker. Those customers are also saving at the pump, as each car turned in was 4-10 mpg better than the vehicle it replaced. Dealers sold more cars. States received more tax dollars. So the program...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled a retooled health care overhaul plan Thursday intended to bridge differences among Democrats and open a history-making floor debate on extending health insurance to nearly all Americans. Speaking on the West Front of the Capitol surrounded by Democratic lawmakers, Pelosi, D-Calif., said the House's version of a health care reform bill will include a government-run insurance option and extend coverage to 36 million uninsured Americans. She said the bill will lower patient costs and reduce the national deficit. "The Affordable Health Care Act will ensure, again, affordability for the middle class, security for our seniors,...

Dem bill urges new US powers over financial firmsTue Oct 27, 2009 8:16pm EDT By Kevin Drawbaugh and Rachelle Younglai * Financial Services Oversight Council would be set up * Treasury would head council to monitor, address risks * Federal Reserve, FDIC would get new authorities * Obama says bill urgent, crucial (Updates with Obama letter to Frank) WASHINGTON, Oct 27 (Reuters) - The U.S. government would gain far-reaching new powers to regulate, and even shut down, large financial firms that threaten economic stability under a draft bill released in Congress on Tuesday. Congressional Democrats and the Obama administration agreed...

Would you sign up for a discount with your power company in exchange for surrendering control of your thermostat? What if it means that, one day, your auto insurance company will know that you regularly arrive home on weekends at 2:15 a.m., just after the bars close? Welcome to the complex world of the Smart Grid, which may very well pit environmental concerns against thorny privacy issues. If you think such debates are purely philosophical, you’re behind the times.

According to the CDC, swine flu infections have already peaked, and the pandemic is on its way out. Peak infection time was the middle of October, where one in five U.S. children experienced the flu, says the CDC. Out of nearly 14,000 suspected flu cases tested during the week ending on October 10, 2009, 99.6% of those were influenza A, and the vast majority of those were confirmed as H1N1 swine flu infections. Even though the H1N1 pandemic appears to have peaked out, U.S. President Barack Obama has now declared a national emergency over swine flu infections. The reasoning behind...

Random Rants-A Friday Feature http://www.wiseandfrugalgovernment.blogspot.com On The Question of Power White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel said in an interview: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before." (His grammar, not mine, click on link below.) This is the same Rahm Emanuel that sent a dead fish to a pollster who made him angry. According to a Time Magazine profile (link below) he: once worked for Mayor Richard M. Daley, was a member of the Clinton Administration...

A new kind of portable electrochemical battery that can produce thousands of hours of power - and soon replace the expensive regular or rechargeable batteries in hearing aids and sensors and eventually in cellphones, laptop computers and even electric cars - has been developed at Haifa's Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. The unique battery is based on silicon as a fuel that reverts to its original sand. The battery can also be left on the shelf for years and inserted into a device to provide immediate power. It was developed over the last two-and-a-half years by Prof. Yair Ein-Eli of the...

Science-fiction is well on the way to becoming science fact with engineers from Activelink, a Kyoto-based subsidiary of Panasonic, developing an exoskeleton suit inspired by the "Power Loader" suit Ripley wore in her climactic battle with the Queen Alien in Aliens. And, just like in the movie, the Power Loader suit is designed to give its wearer superhuman strength for the lifting of heavy objects – in the movie it was cargo, but Activelink also has construction and disaster relief operations in its sights. The suit is constructed from an aluminum-alloy frame and weighs 230kg (507 lbs). Similar to...

Mark 9:23 Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” In reading about the life of Stephen, I asked myself this question. How would I like to be full of faith and power, and do great wonders and signs among the people? (Acts 6:8) Do you know that this is possible, even today, especially today? I have some good news for you. Flowing in the power that Stephen did is available to us right now. To understand about the faith that Stephen operated in, listed are types of faith described in Scripture....

This is the entire argument in a nutshell: Concentrations of power are to be resisted. Government involvement in an individual’s healthcare is a concentration of power. Therefore it must be resisted.

What if Barack Obama’s most important radical connection has been hiding in plain sight all along? Obama has had an intimate and long-term association with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn), the largest radical group in America. If I told you Obama had close ties with MoveOn.org or Code Pink, you’d know what I was talking about. Acorn is at least as radical as these better-known groups, arguably more so. Yet because Acorn works locally, in carefully selected urban areas, its national profile is lower. Acorn likes it that way. And so, I’d wager, does Barack Obama.

An Enlightened, Committed People Who Understand The Principles Of Our Constitution - The Most Effective Means Of Preserving Liberty "Although all men are born free, slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Ignorant - they have been cheated; asleep - they have been surprised; divided - the yoke has been forced upon them. But what is the lesson? ...the people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government they should watch over it.... It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently free."- James Madison America's...

WASHINGTON (AP) - For the first time in nearly 30 years, the Environmental Protection Agency plans to strengthen standards for water pollution from coal-fired power plants. The agency said Tuesday that equipment required to reduce air pollution has increased the harmful contaminants in water discharged by power plants. It also said that existing regulations are not enough to protect water quality and wildlife.

A great explosion of purity is about to come , But "not" as before(as Katrina) ,something straight from my kingdom , The heavenlies are about to applaud , I AM The Lord behold I alone am God ! Yet for my children of my rod and staff , They shall rest in my bossom of Zion and laugh , For the Joy of The Lord is their strength , And these are my children of victiory that have gone the full length , Obedience to me has become their rod , My staff is their com(fort) for I AM their...

Chicago is known as “The Windy City” not because it is windy (although anyone who tries to use an umbrella during a heavy rain in the Loop knows how difficult that can prove) but because of the blowhard politicians it has produced throughout the centuries. Chicago’s scandalous history of political corruption began in the l9th century around the time of the Chicago Fire continuing through today, most notably, Governor Blagojevich’s attempt to “sell” President Obama’s Senate seat. Political malfeasance doesn’t begin and end in Illinois, though. Other states have equal or worse reputations. The Wall Street Journal, in an article...

NEW YORK – A government that is constitutionally required to offer each citizen a "useful" job in the farms or industries of the nation. A country whose leadership intercedes to ensure every farmer can sell his product for a good return. A nation that has the power to act against "unfair competition" and monopolies in business. This is not a description of Cuba, communist China, or the USSR until 1991. It's the vision of the future of the U.S, as mandated by a radical new "bill of rights" drawn up and pushed by President Obama's newly confirmed regulatory czar, Cass...

You owe your life — and everything else — to the sovereign. The rights of subjects are not natural rights, but merely grants from the sovereign. There is no right even to complain about the actions of the sovereign, except insofar as the sovereign allows the subject to complain. These are the principles of unlimited, arbitrary, and absolute power, the principles of such rulers as Louis XIV. Intellectuals have assiduously promoted them; think of Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes. A new intellectual champion of absolutism has now emerged. Mild-mannered University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein has been advancing the...

As Scoring Soars, One Professor Sees Parallels in Nature; the 'River Basin' Theory When the Pittsburgh Steelers and Tennessee Titans open the NFL season Thursday night, they will headline a brand of football that is nearly unrecognizable from the days when Jack Lambert and Mean Joe Greene were pulverizing ball carriers at the line of scrimmage. Today's NFL offenses spread out across the field, stretching defenses and creating wider holes of flow and penetration. In this game, balletic receivers like Pittsburgh's Santonio Holmes are the NFL's defining talents. The NFL has become so fast and efficient that last season, teams...

If we do not believe that the President is stupid, then what do we believe? The only reasonable alternative seems to be that he wanted to get this massive government takeover of medical care passed into law before the public understood what was in it. Moreover, he wanted to get re-elected in 2012 before the public experienced what its actual consequences would be. Unfortunately, this way of doing things is all too typical of the way this administration has acted on a wide range of issues.

In 2008, Spain accounted for half the world's new solar-power installations in terms of wattage, thanks to government subsidies to promote clean energy. But late last year, as the global economic crisis worsened, the government dramatically scaled back those subsidies and capped the amount of subsidized solar power that could be installed. Factories world-wide that had ramped up production of solar-power components found that demand for solar panels was plummeting, leaving a glut in supply and pushing prices down. Job cuts followed. "The solar industry in 2009 has been undermined by [a] collapse in demand due to the decision by...

President Obama finds himself the target of similar criticism he leveled at his predecessor for trying to increase executive power. --- Candidate Barack Obama criticized President Bush for trying to increase executive power. Now President Obama finds himself the target of similar criticism as his growing army of czars raises concerns and questions about his authority. Candidate Obama's complaints were usually about Bush excluding Congress from national security and civil liberty matters. But Republicans say his czars are shutting Congress out of health care and environmental issues. By some accounts, there are close to three dozen so-called czars in the...

No one can say how many cigarettes it will take to cause cancer in a person. Likewise, no one can say how much centralized control it will take to cause irreparable damage to a nation. The answer becomes clear only in retrospect. But once control of large segments of the economy becomes solidified, and once control of our health care − and therefore our lives − becomes entrenched, it will be difficult or impossible to reverse the trend. No one can say where the tipping point for America may be. Let us repair the damage now, before it is too...

Electronics such as phones and laptops may start shedding their power cords within a year. Wireless electricity may soon make tangled power cords a thing of the past. That's the prediction of Eric Giler, CEO of WiTricity, a company that's able to power light bulbs using wireless electricity that travels several feet from a power socket. WiTricity's version of wireless electricity -- which converts power into a magnetic field and sends it sailing through the air at a particular frequency -- still needs to be refined a bit, he said, but should be commercially available soon. Giler, whose company is...

Barack Hussein Obama already has the legal authority to enslave the United States citizenry. That power was allocated to the office of President of the United States in a series of executive orders signed into law one by one throughout the last several administrations. The persuasion for enacting these orders was to postulate some imaginary crisis that MIGHT occur -- devastating hurricane, massive terrorist attack, virulent pandemic, anddefine draconian authority for the president to deal with the hypothetical emergency. The tools for a Marxist takeover of the United States are already in place. All that remains is to manufacture a...

Britain is facing the prospect of widespread power cuts for the first time since the 1970s, government projections show. Demand for power from homes and businesses will exceed supply from the national grid within eight years, according to official figures. The shortage of supplies will hit the equivalent of many as 16 million families for at least one hour during the year, it is forecast. Not since the early 1970s when the three-day week was introduced to preserve coal has Britain faced the prospect of reationing energy use. The gap between Britain’s energy needs and demand throws fresh doubt on...

We stand at a crossroads in our nation's history. Barack Obama and his minions are attempting an unprecedented power grab. If they are allowed to succeed, it will forever change our country, and it will definitely diminish the rights of every American citizen. Obama has appointed no less than 37 czars that answer only to him. Even the House and Senate have no power over them. These czars have very radical backgrounds. John Holdren, the science czar, advocated population control and mandatory abortions. Van Jones, the environmental czar, was profiled byGlenn Beck extensively last week on his popular Fox News...

Two big questions hang over President Obama's radical "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones. Is he still a communist? Is he a security threat? Many have assumed that Van Jones' committment to communism ended when the organization he helped to lead STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement) dissolved in 2002. Yet a 2004 treatise Reclaiming Revolution: History, Summation, and Lessons from the Work of Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement written and endorsed by a majority of former STORM members makes it clear that most ex STORMers are still committed to the revolutionary movement; From page 49. When...

First Lady Michelle Obama, about to round out the summer with a stay on Martha's Vineyard, perhaps packing those shorts for the trip, debuted on the Forbes list of 100 Most Powerful Women -- at No. 40. Given that the list is heavily tilted to CEOs and world leaders, it seems a reasonable slot. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was No. 1 and Sheila Bair,

With the world seemingly unable to stop Iran's nuclear march, other countries in the region are now pushing forward with their own plans to build nuclear power plants. The Saudi newspaper Al-Watan reported on Thursday that the Saudi minister of water and electricity, Abdullah al-Hosain, said the kingdom was working on plans for its first nuclear power plant. The US inked civil nuclear power deals with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates last year.

In September 1787, our founding fathers procured a document after months of deliberation and revision. The document was the U.S. Constitution (read and bookmark that link), the document that scrapped the Articles of Confederation and provided the framework for the Federal government that we have today. Or so it would seem. Our Federal government is nearly unrecognizable to the one explained in the Constitution of the U.S. Our government ignores the framework and instead creates its own, one that can stretch to accommodate everything on their liberal wish-list. What was supposed to be a limited and small government, has expanded...

BACKSTORY At a Little Rock restaurant, after Mr. Clinton was elected president, Emanuel ticked off a list of disloyal Democrats and other political enemies, stabs the table with his knife screaming, ''Dead!'' ''Dead!'' ''Dead!'' after each name. Seven months after moving into the West Wing as Obama's COS, Emanuel is emerging as perhaps the most influential White House COS in a generation. But with his prominence in almost everything important going on comes a high degree of risk. As the principal author of Mr. Obama’s do-everything-at-once strategy, he stands to become a figure of consequence in his own right if...

Emanuel Wields Power Freely, and Faces the Risks PETER BAKER and JEFF ZELENY August 15, 2009 WASHINGTON — As White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel was the one to bring the hammer down on Sidney Blumenthal. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton wanted to hire Mr. Blumenthal, a loyal confidant who had helped her promote the idea of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” more than a decade ago. But President Obama’s campaign veterans had not forgotten his role in spreading harsh attacks against their candidate in the primary showdown with Mrs. Clinton last year. So Mr. Emanuel got hold of...

Shortly before the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette was reportedly told that the peasants were growing increasingly restless, particularly because of widespread bread shortages. As the legend goes, she callously replied, "Let them eat cake." The revolt exploded shortly thereafter.

What is the status of the U.S. nuclear industry? There are currently 104 commercial nuclear reactors at 65 nuclear power plants in 31 States. Since 1990, the share of the Nation’s total electricity supply provided by nuclear power generation has averaged about 20%, with the level of nuclear generation growing at roughly the same rate as overall electricity use. Between 1980 and 1996, 33 new reactors were placed in service. In addition, nuclear generation has increased as a result of higher utilization of existing capacity and from technical modifications to increase nuclear plant capacity (expressed in megawatts). In response to...

Both Clintons are suddenly back on the world stage - but this time the third person in their marriage isn't an intern, it's a president. From New York, Philip Sherwell dissects the ultimate in power couples.It was vintage Bill Clinton. The former US president had been lying low and licking his wounds after being slammed for some intemperate outbursts during his wife's failed run for the White House. But that semi-seclusion ended in headline-grabbing fashion last week as he burst back on to the world stage with a foray to North Korea to collect two jailed US journalists sentenced to...

Something occurred to me after watching all of the footage of the various town hall meetings and the citizen's vocal reaction to what their elected representatives are doing. These 50 or 100 people are really an insignificant percentage of the congress person's constituents. Unions members, television advertising, slick marketing, ACORN and Obama-bots will more than make up for even a relatively large group of pissed off citizens. Today, each representative has 700,000 constituents. That is not the way it has always been. The framers of the constitution intended that number to be between 50,000 and 60,000. The number of congressional...

WASHINGTON – After weeks of secretive talks, a bipartisan group in the Senate edged closer Monday to a health care compromise that omits a requirement for businesses to offer coverage to their workers and lacks a government insurance option that President Barack Obama favors, according to numerous officials. Like bills drafted by Democrats, the proposal under discussion by six members on the Senate Finance Committee would bar insurance companies from denying coverage to any applicant. Nor could insurers charge higher premiums on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions. But it jettisons other core Democratic provisions in a reach for bipartisanship...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama, citing a new White House study suggesting that small businesses pay far more per employee for health insurance than big companies, said Saturday the disparity is "unsustainable — it's unacceptable." "And it's going to change when I sign health insurance reform into law," the president said in his weekly Internet and radio address. A new study by the White House Council of Economic Advisers said small businesses pay up to 18 percent more to provide health insurance for their employees. As a result, fewer of them do so and the number has been shrinking further...

The "chosen" Czars: Our beloved community organizer is taking our country toward socialism and he is enlisting Pit Bulls to assist! Is anyone alarmed by the number of Czars appointed by President Obama–-over 30 (and counting) in just six months in office? In fact, you can find a "tweet" on John McCain’s twitter page, “Obama has more czars than the Romanovs - who ruled Russia for three centuries.” Apparently, in the United States, the title “Czar” is an informal term of a certain high-level official who directs and oversees federal operations on a given topic. Czars have been around for...

WASHINGTON – A defiant President Barack Obama sought Monday to revive his faltering plan to overhaul health care, delivering a full-throated promise to get comprehensive legislation and summoning lawmakers crucial to his effort to the White House. "Don't bet against us. We are going to make this thing happen," Obama told a news conference intended to focus on his nominee for surgeon general, Dr. Regina Benjamin. The appearance in the Rose Garden was the president's first public outing since his weeklong overseas trip — and the first after an up-and-down week in Congress. Consensus on his top domestic priority has...