Free Republic

Why is Free Republic so slow to load, and when it does, it throws me off and I get the "Cannot connect" message from Windows. And it's NOT just during debates. It's happening all the time now. Is it just MY computer? I know HuffPo is down because of the storm, but FR is out of California. In the 12 years I've been here I've never had so much trouble with this site. Until about a month ago.

Michelle Obama seems to have tried out a new campaign slogan at today's fundraiser in Las Vegas. "I’m not going to kid you," the first lady said at the fundraiser, according to the pool report. "This journey is going to be long. And it’s going to be hard. And there are going to be plenty of twists and turns along the way. That’s how change always happens in this country. The reality is real change is slow and it never happens all at once." Seems like a winning slogan to me! "Change is slow."

Talk about snail mail! The nearly 60-year journey of a postcard through at least four states is finally winding down, although the little Georgia boy whose parents wrote him during a trip to Chicago is now 71 years old. The postcard, with a picture of the Windy City's Shedd Aquarium on the front and a 2-cent stamp on the back, landed in the mailbox of Elizabeth Fulcher, of South Daytona, Fla., last week.

Sorry for the vanity, but I wanted to throw this out there in case it hadn't been observed/discussed before. If it has, my apologies. I noticed this morning on my laptop that Free Republic was loading BLAZINGLY fast. The main listing of articles appeared almost instantly as well as any article selected appeared instantly. I thought, WOW! They've really done some work to get the site to run this fast! Later on my desktop, I saw that the site was the speed I was accustomed to (sorry, not complaining!!) but it was quite a bit slower to list and view...

For about a week now, in multiple browsers and from iPad and iMac, Free Republic has been deadly slow. Frequently it times out waiting to load. This is on FIOS at top speed, both wireless and wired. No other site is even slightly slow for me. I don't see any other threads mentioning this, and I've posted to the yahoo group with no responses, so I am assuming it's me. What could I be doing wrong? Or has this been your experience too? What's up?

What could possibly be the reason why the US has such (loading article, please wait…) There’s a fascinating piece on Engadget that discusses at length why many Europeans are paying less for faster internet connections than US citizens on average. The reason why this is the case, says the report, is one simple word: government. As a case in point, the article discusses the situation in the UK because it was, at one point, like the US – little competition, high costs and poorer quality services. It wasn’t until the government forced the incumbent industries to participate in “local loop...

We would like to present you, a relaxing video of an adorable little kitten playing in the garden. It's filmed entirely on the Phantom HD with framerates ranging from 400 to 800 frames per second. A gallery of the kitten is available @ http://www.phantomhd.eu/m/zdjecia/6/?... Footage shot by: Michael Szymczak Editing: Arek Arciszewski

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Just two people in New Jersey will begin receiving coverage Monday under new plans created by federal health care reforms. NJ Protect plans are available to those who have been without insurance for at least six months and submit evidence of pre-existing health conditions. The state will receive $141 million in federal subsidies to cover claims that exceed the premiums paid by the beneficiaries. Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Jersey spokesman Tom Vincz expects more people will enroll in the coming weeks.

KABUL, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber wearing a vest laden with explosives was killed by locals Thursday in eastern Afghanistan before he was able to detonate, police said. (More at link)

WASHINGTON – The nation's top Forest Service official says national forests can store more carbon to slow global warming, but he warns that such a goal must be balanced against the risk of catastrophic wildfires. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told a Senate panel on Wednesday that his agency is trying to manage forests to combat climate change while still easing the risk of wildfires.

Despite a solid Democratic majority in the Senate, President Obama is on pace to set a record for the fewest judges confirmed during a president's first year in the White House. So far, only six of Obama's nominees to the lower federal courts have won approval. By comparison, President George W. Bush had 28 judges confirmed in his first year in office, even though Democrats held a narrow majority for much of the year. President Clinton put 27 new judges on the bench in his first year. The slow pace of approving judges has gotten little attention while Democrats and...

If the flu pandemic becomes as severe as some experts fear, it could end up infecting the Internet. That's the conclusion of the General Accountability Office, which issued a report this week that warned about a potential meltdown of the Web. If the H1N1 flu strain spreads widely enough, keeping millions of workers and students confined to their homes, the Internet's infrastructure could be overwhelmed by people logging in from home. That surge in telecommuting, the report concluded, could slow down local networks to the point of gridlock. According to the Department of Homeland Security, "increased demand during a severe...

It was announced today in the New York Times that Senate Mensa candidates Barbara Boxer and John Kerry had conceived a bill regarding Climate Change. The legislative coupling that produced the bill was nine moths in making, and both authors concede that [they]“have no pretensions, and neither does Barbara, that this will be the final product. It is a starting point, a commitment, full-fledged, across party lines to do what we need to do to protect the planet for the next century.”

In their first unified voice on the subject, Texas Medical Center leaders Monday sent a message to Congress as it tries to reform America's troubled health care system: slow down. Appearing at a news conference sponsored by U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, many of the medical center's biggest names said the issue is too important to rush through legislation that could have unforeseen harmful consequences. “This is a monumental piece of legislation that is going to impact people for many years, both the 300 million people who have insurance and the 47 million who don't,” said Dan Wolterman, CEO...

WASHINGTON — Friday's better-than-expected employment report from the Labor Department gave another sign that the U.S. economy may be bottoming out, but the jump in the unemployment rate is a reminder for millions of Americans that the outlook for jobs will remain bleak for some time.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The White House said Monday it hoped Iran would change the way it does business, in a cautious response to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's reaction to President Barack Obama's video address. Obama's spokesman Robert Gibbs gave a first reaction to the statement by Iran's supreme leader at the weekend that the Islamic republic was ready to reciprocate if the United States changed its attitude towards his country.

WARSAW (AFP) – The world financial crisis must not become an excuse for backsliding on efforts to curb global carbon emissions, a top UN environmental official warned Thursday. While acknowledging the severity of the financial turmoil, Yvo de Boer, who oversees the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said: "To use the financial crisis as an excuse not to act on climate change would basically amount to setting yourself up for the next financial crisis." De Boer spoke at a Warsaw conference of governments and leaders from the energy, steel, cement and aluminium sectors, which are among the major...

OK - ever so often I see a thread or a comment about FreeRepublic being very slow, that the server is responding slowly, or that there are problems with posting. I too have noticed major slowdowns and lately have seen more and more "server not responding" errors. What is odd - a ping of 209.157.64.201 (the IP address of FR) comes back just fine and quite speedy. Yet the errors and slow response when opening threads and posting are getting worse. Have I missed something? I have actually spent more time here on FR in the last few weeks than...

Imagine a form of life so unusual that we cannot figure out how it dies. That’s exactly what researchers are finding beneath the floor of the sea off Peru. The microbes being studied there — single-celled organisms called Archaea — live in time frames that can perhaps best be described as geological. Consider: A bacteria like Escherichia Coli divides and reproduces every twenty minutes or so. But the microbes in the so-called Peruvian Margin take hundreds or thousands of years to divide. “In essence, these microbes are almost, practically dead by our normal standards,” says Christopher H. House (Penn State)....

What's up with FR being sooooooooo slooooooowwwwww???? It's behaving as if I'm connected with a 300 baud dial-up modem and I've got a cable modem. FR is the only site acting like this. I can go anywhere else instantly.