Free Republic

Profit levels in the semiconductor industry have dropped to alarmingly low levels, said Steve Newberry, CEO at Lam Research Corp. (Fremont, Calif.). For more than half of the top 40 semiconductor companies, current levels of profitability are “minimally sufficient” to fund new investments, he said in a presentation at the SEMI Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS 2008), being held this week at Half Moon Bay, Calif. Steve Newberry, CEO, Lam Research Corp. “Although we’ve experienced unprecedented year-over-year IC unit growth, we’re trending toward an era of profitless prosperity,” he said, defined as an industry running flat out without generating sufficient return...

Once the word was out, there was no stopping them. Within minutes of one lucky customer finding out that the cash machine at his local supermarket was giving out double the requested withdrawal, the news spread like wildfire. Customers popping down to their Sainsbury's Local store for a few basics got in on the act - and they were soon joined by hundreds of others as they alerted family and friends to the ultimate supermarket bargain. At one stage, the queue for the cash machine was a 100-strong - with many making multiple withdrawals in the hope they will not...

In his hour of political need,Barack Obama went to his base - the media. He delivered a speech about the nation's racial divisions that couldn't possibly get anything but lavish praise from the press, burying for now the controversy over his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. A gifted writer, Obama can plumb depths most politicians can't, and he spoke truths about the state of race relations in America in an unusually frank and subtle way. But Obama's speech, like his congregation at Trinity United Church of Christ that he described so lyrically, contains multitudes. Swaddled in all the high-mindedness...

I am working on my usual Holy Week meditation/letter to you, but I am pausing for a few moments to write you out of the pain I feel for a ministerial colleague in the UCC and the concern I have for the portrayal of one of our UCC congregations and our whole church in the media.  This morning as I did my morning work out on the machines at the health club, at least 5 of the 8 TV sets (the others were sports channels) had brief video clips of Pastor Jeremiah Wright sermons, and then breathless commentary by pundits...

DEMING, N.M. (AP) - The police chief of a Mexican border town has requested asylum in the United States, where he told authorities his two officers have fled and he does not know their whereabouts. The Luna County Sheriff’s Department and the U.S. Border Patrol say Emilio Perez of Palomas came to the port of entry at Columbus late Tuesday night, requesting political asylum. The agent-in-charge of the Border Patrol station in Deming, Rick Moody, says Perez is in the protection of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Authorities have reported an increase in drug-related violence in Palomas, where at...

Expenses At U.N. Balloon 25 Percent U.S. Demands on Body Help Drive Up Budget UNITED NATIONS -- Despite long-standing efforts by successive U.S. administrations to rein in U.N. spending, the United Nations this month presented its top donors with a request for nearly $1.1 billion in additional funds over the next two years -- boosting current U.N. expenses by 25 percent and marking the global body's highest-ever administrative budget, according to internal U.N. memos. Much of the increased spending flows from Bush administration demands for a more ambitious U.N. role around the world. During President Bush's tenure, the United States...

No question, Bear Stearns Cos. evokes the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed it. Politicians are already making analogies to Herbert Hoover, the demon of that period, and Franklin Roosevelt, the angel. On March 16, Senator Schumer of New York said on television: "We're in the most serious economic problem we've been in a very long time — much worse than 2001. The president's hands-off attitude is reminiscent of Herbert Hoover in 1929 and 1930." Within 24 hours, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, a Democrat of Illinois, was weighing in with his own 1930s comparison. Roosevelt had pulled a...

When Rev. Jeremiah Wright spoke in Columbus, Ohio, at an annual Martin Luther King Breakfast in 2004, he said, “The God of Harriet Tubman is not the God of G.W.” Meaning G. W. Bush, of course. It turns out that people in Columbus were treated to a small sample of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s oratory when he came though town in 2004 to speak at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast at the convention center. In that speech, Barack Obama’s controversial pastor criticized President Bush, saying, “The God of Harriet Tubman is not the God of G.W,” according to a...

BEIJING: China is worried that the Tibet issue will spill over to the US election debate after Friday’s visit by Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, to Dharamsala. Beijing noted that Tibetan monks waved the American flag, which was eagerly acknowledged by Pelosi. "Pelosi was mainly responsible for the Dalai Lama getting the Congressional Gold Medal in the US last year. We are not surprised by her visit to Dharamsala. But this has happened at a wrong time for China. We are worried the Tibet issue may figure in the US election as candidates may be...

 WASHINGTON — Jesus is black. Merging Marxism with Christian Gospel may show the way to a better tomorrow. The white church in America is the Antichrist because it supported slavery and segregation. Those are some of the more provocative doctrines that animate the theology at the core of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Barack Obama's church.Obama's speech Tuesday on race in America was hailed as a masterful handling of the controversy over divisive sermons by the longtime pastor of Trinity United, the recently retired Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.But in repudiating and putting in context Wright's inflammatory...

At least one source is reporting that the State Department official in charge of the department during breaches into Sen. Barack Obama's passport files has a direct tie to Bill and Hillary Clinton.According to Capitol Hill Blue: Maura Harty was in charge of the Bureau Of Consular Affairs during the first two breaches of Obama's passport. Former President Bill Clinton appointed her to an ambassadorship during his Presidency.Harty retired last month from the State Department. She joined the State Department in 2002 after serving as ambassador to Paraguay for two years of Bill Clinton's Presidential term. Sources within the State...

ELIOT'S SEXUAL HEALING By LUKAS I. ALPERT March 21, 2008 -- Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer has gone into therapy in the wake of the hooker scandal that swept him out of office, a Spitzer insider told The Post yesterday. As part of the therapy, Spitzer will explore whether he has an addiction to sex, the source said. The last time Spitzer was seen publicly was on Saturday, when he hopped behind the wheel of an SUV outside his Upper East Side building with his wife, Silda, two of their daughters, and their Wheaton terrier, James, and made a beeline to...

FEDERAL COURT: A federal judge sentenced seven members of a notorious state prison gang to life in prison yesterday. The sentence by U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw capped an extensive investigation into the Mexican Mafia that targeted upper echelon members of the gang on racketeering and conspiracy charges. The seven members of the gang sentenced yesterday were convicted by a jury after a monthlong trial that ended Jan. 4. The defendants were charged with a variety of crimes, including two murders, attempted murder, drug sales and money laundering. In October, two top members of the gang, Raul Leon and Salvador...

One big fact has largely been lost in the recent coverage of the Democratic presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning. Her own campaign acknowledges there is no way that she will finish ahead in pledged delegates. That means the only way she wins is if Democratic superdelegates are ready to risk a backlash of historic proportions from the party’s most reliable constituency. Unless Clinton is able to at least win the primary popular vote — which also would take nothing less than an electoral miracle — and use that achievement to pressure superdelegates, she has...

"But when I did learn about it, I also learned that some evil lurks in my heart. I shouldn’t be feeling even a touch of glee over seeing a firm that has been such a major source of really nefarious economic nonsense get in trouble."

(Precious metals' value leads many to sell jewelry stashes) (WI) At Greater Milwaukee Coin in Brookfield, Belinda Campanelli unloaded her husband's wedding band - from his first wife. Cindy Stegeman said so long to a few old charms from an ex-beau who'd long ago lost his. And at Derzon Coin Co. in West Allis, Helena Horich parted with the keepsake coins she's collected since emigrating from Poland 25 years ago. The recent run-up in prices for gold and silver - even after a two-day free fall, gold closed Thursday at $920 an ounce - has Milwaukee-area residents digging through attics...

Snow plows, sanders and salters hit the highways and streets before dawn today as a major winter storm descended on southern Wisconsin. Some areas are expected to get up to 15 inches of heavy snow before the storm ends later tonight, according to the National Weather Service. The morning commute won't be too difficult, since the big flakes are, for the most part, melting on the warmer pavement, but as the snow starts to come down heavier, expect roads to get snow covered and slippery. County salters, sanders and plows are hitting county roads and major highways, while city crews...

Hillary Clinton has been regaling supporters on the campaign trail with hair-raising tales of a trip she made to Bosnia in March 1996. In her retelling, she was sent to places that her husband, President Clinton, could not go because they were "too dangerous." When her account was challenged by one of her traveling companions, the comedian Sinbad, she upped the ante and injected even more drama into the story. In a speech earlier this week, she talked about "landing under sniper fire" and running for safety with "our heads down."There are numerous problems with Clinton's version of events. The...

Twenty members of the Madison-based Army National Guard's public affairs detachment are ready for a second tour of active duty since the start of the Iraq war five years ago. This time, the 112th Mobile Public Affairs detachment will spend a year at the military prison base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for the primary purpose of showing the world that things at the prison are not the same as what was portrayed years ago when there was an international uproar over American treatment of prisoners held there.Commander Rick Morehouse said the group's goal is to portray the camp in its...

Adults Forced Back Into Parents' Homes Middle-Aged Children Starting Over With Mom, Dad UPDATED: 2:45 pm EDT March 21, 2008 MILWAUKEE -- After being laid off from her job as an events planner at an upscale resort, Jo Ann Bauer struggled financially. She worked at several lower-paying jobs, relocated to a new city and even declared bankruptcy. Then in December, she finally accepted her parents' invitation to move into their home -- at age 52. "I'm back living in the bedroom that I grew up in," she said. Taking shelter with parents isn't uncommon for young people in their 20s,...