Free Republic

Germany is not the well-functioning, environmentally super-conscious, high-tech nation it used to be. You go to a train station, half the trains are cancelled, the other half is delayed, the escalators are broken, the announcements are barely audible, and in the unlikely event that you can connect to the wifi it’s so slow that by the time the news is streaming it’s become a historical documentary. Or maybe it’s quantum wifi, collapses the moment you touch it

For roughly a century, the United States has had the world's biggest economy. One of its strengths has been its infrastructure, from the rails and telegraph lines laid in the 19th century to the airports and fiber-optic networks of today. But as the United States struggles to stay ahead of China, is its aging infrastructure slowing it down? In almost every area - from waterworks to bridges and dams, highways to mass transit - many experts have answered "yes." A report card by the American Society of Civil Engineers, issued in 2005, gave the nation C's and D's in 14...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, considered a likely presidential contender in 2008, told supporters of her 2006 Senate reelection bid on Monday that America can no longer "give in" to the Republican agenda. The administration of President Bush wants to stifle debate and suppress facts on issues from the deficit to global warming, Clinton told a crowd of more than 900 people at a "New York Women for Hillary" fund-raiser. "There has never been an administration, I don't think in our history, more intent on consolidating and abusing power to further their own agenda," said Clinton.SNIP"I...