Free Republic

With record numbers of college graduates underemployed in jobs that don’t actually require degrees, economists are joking that even aspiring janitors may soon have to get master’s degrees to compete for jobs. A study released Monday by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity found that 37 percent of employed graduates didn’t need to attend college at all to successfully perform their current jobs. The study was co-authored by Dr. Richard Vedder, an economics professor at Ohio University and director of CCAP; Jonathan Robe, a CCAP researcher; and Christopher Denhart, an economics student at the university. “Just as a bachelor’s...

The Department for Transport has unveiled its plans for the northern section of the controversial HS2 railway, but has faced anger from Tories representing constituencies along the route who say it will destroy large swathes of the countryside and “blight” lives. The 225-mph trains will link London with Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds by 2033. It emerged that plans to connect the £32-billion ($50 billion) train line directly to Heathrow have been put on hold until the Davies Commission on airport capacity has reported. …

Farmer Mark Schroeder of Elgin, Minn., knew something was seriously wrong when he heard a noise from his new windmill that sounded like a helicopter landing on the roof of his house. "You could hear the noise 2 or 3 miles away," he said. The windmill shook furiously atop its 160-foot tower. Black smoke billowed from the control unit. Schroeder said he tried shutting off the power, but the windmill's three 25-foot-long blades continued spinning furiously. One of the 500-pound blades eventually sheared off and flew about 100 yards into a field, bringing Schroeder's dream of energy independence crashing to...

California’s Democratic Governor Jerry Brown compared efforts by the California state government to build the first-ever high speed rail project in the United States to the popular children’s story “The Little Engine That Could.” … Earlier in his remarks, Brown cited high-speed rail projects in countries such as China, Spain, and Morocco as part of the justification for the project in California. …

The mystery of the trainload of biodiesel that crossed back and forth across the Sarnia-Port Huron border without ever unloading its cargo, as reported by CBC News, has been solved.

there was no grand celebration this month as Silicon Valley marked 25 years of light rail... The near-empty trolleys that often shuttle by at barely faster than jogging speeds serve as a constant reminder that the car is still king in Silicon Valley -- and that the Valley Transportation Authority's trains are among the least successful in the nation by any metric.

The radio show “Marketplace” wanted to chat this morning about the news that the Obama administration might extend its mortgage-refinancing programs to include borrowers whose mortgages aren’t backed by the government. It’s one thing for the Administration to pressure loan modifications (with Congress’ blessing) for the FHA insured mortgages. It is even a bigger stretch for the Administration to pressure Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHFA to perform loan modifications (specifically principal writedowns since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are private corporations … in conservatorship. But it quite another thing for the Administration to pressure non-government entities to make principal...

SolarCity US DOE loan approval fails According to news reports, US-based solar installation firm, SolarCity will not be able to complete and comply with documentation deadlines of September 30th to be considered for a US Department of Energy loan, previously announced. Earlier this month, the DOE had made a conditional commitment for a partial loan guarantee to SolarCity for PV system installations on residential and other buildings at US military bases. The US$344 million loan would go towards 371MW of new solar power generation capacity. The project, code named SolarStrong, will be led by SolarCity, with USRG Renewable Finance acting...

Solar panel installer SolarCity said on Friday it was the second company in as many days that will not get finalization of U.S. government loan aid by a September 30 deadline. The Department of Energy informed SolarCity of its inability to close the loan 48 hours ago, blaming increased paperwork resulting from a Congressional investigation into the Department of Energy's $535 million loan guarantee awarded to bankrupt solar company Solyndra, SolarCity said in a letter to the Republican lawmakers heading the probe.The DOE loan guarantee program, which is under fire for missing signs its first recipient of loan aid, Solyndra,...

Only 15 states have told HHS that they will develop their own online insurance exchanges. This means the government has to design 35 different sites, with 35 different criteria for coverage -- all by next year. From CNBC: Only 15 states have told the federal government they plan to operate health insurance exchanges under President Barack Obama's reform law, leaving Washington with the daunting task of creating online marketplaces for two-thirds of the country. On the eve of a federal deadline for states to say whether they will run their own exchanges, a top health care policy official told lawmakers...

Amtrak announced plans Thursday to replace its fleet of high-speed trains on the East Coast. The railroad said that early next year, it would begin the process of replacing its 20 existing Acela Express train sets, which run on the Northeast Corridor rail line between Boston and Washington, DC. … Amtrak said Thursday that it had scrapped a previous plan to add 40 new passenger cars to the existing fleet, deeming it too expensive and “insufficient to handle new ridership growth projections.” …

A United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has so far spent $12.8 billion, has been charged by critics with ineptitude and unwillingness to protect civilians from murder, rape and other atrocities. Skepticism about the 19,000-strong U.N. force, known since 2010 as MONUSCO, has swelled to the point that some critics are questioning the wisdom of using the U.N. to prop up Congo, which is engaged in a bloody struggle with a rebel group known as the March 23 Movement (M23). Meantime, the U.N. continues to spend roughly $1.4 billion a year on MONUSCO, with the...

Virginia, Massachusetts and Rhode Island will be the first three states to sell leases for the right to develop offshore wind farms, U.S. government officials said Friday. The leases will be auctioned online, probably in the first half of 2013, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior, the federal agency overseeing the sales. The auctions will determine which energy company, utility or entrepreneur gets to build huge wind turbines and reap clean electricity from them in designated areas in the Atlantic Ocean. Costs are expected to be in the billions.No offshore wind farms exist today in the United States,...

Just how many new riders would jump on a train to one of Silicon Valley's most desired destinations? About 200, it turns out -- and it would cost taxpayers up to $175 million to build the rail line to Los Gatos. The new projections come from the Valley Transportation Authority's updated forecast for a long-envisioned light-rail extension. Still years from reality, the Los Gatos line would be one of the least-used light-rail extensions planned in the nation -- and would reduce South Bay vehicle traffic by a mere 0.01 percent.

...Here are some other PTC tidbits that those smooth-talking AWEA hucksters won’t be mentioning… A one year extension of the PTC will cost taxpayers over $12 Billion — how is that a good idea? All that $12+ Billion will increase our deficit — how is that a good idea? Almost all of that $12+ Billion will be borrowed from China — how is that a good idea? A large part of that $12+ Billion will go to foreign conglomerates — how is that a good idea?

The California High-Speed Rail Authority said Thursday that it was adding 12 months to the construction schedule for 130 miles of track in the Central Valley, easing what some outside experts have contended was an overly aggressive and risky timeline. Construction industry experts have said that the job of building the $6 billion of track through the Central Valley would require spending $3.5 million per day, one of the fastest rates of transportation project spending in history.

Six newly refurbished, bi-level commuter rail cars made their first test run from Pontiac to Jackson and back Tuesday night, passing through Ann Arbor. Officials involved in the Ann Arbor-to-Detroit commuter rail initiative are hoping to hear back sometime next week whether the cars passed the test, which is required to be cleared for service. And if that happens, the public could be invited to ride demonstration trains starting next year. "Things seemed to go well," said Carmine Palombo, director of transportation programs for the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments. Tuesday's train, led by an Amtrak locomotive, made stops in...

It’s been two weeks since Hurricane Sandy killed 113 people, wiped out portions of towns, and knocked out power to millions. It has also been two weeks since Barack Obama pledged, “No bureaucracy. No red tape.” However, according to multiple public and private sources, unions and union-related red tape are causing workers from out of state to be turned back, as well as workers contracted by FEMA, as well as tons of supplies, already in New York and New Jersey to sit idle—at a cost of millions to taxpayers. It has already been well publicized though the Daily Caller how...

If you were looking for that last-minute pre-poll pitch to that favorite undecided voter in your life, you are done shopping. If any fence sitters needed convincing that the liberal agenda is costly, and hypocritical, let them feast their eyes on the following. David Williams of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance has uncovered a history of abuse of your tax dollars to fund “environmentally responsible” projects across the globe that have done little but fatten wallets and in at lest one case has resulted in the destruction of a village. The TPA is calling it “The Environmental Shakedown of American Taxpayers”...

A new U.N. fund meant to manage billions of dollars to help developing nations combat climate change will be based in South Korea, leaders of the fund agreed on Saturday. The Green Climate Fund is to be sited in Songdo, Incheon City, South Korea, the board of the fund said. Germany, Mexico, Namibia, Poland and Switzerland had also sought to be the headquarters. Developed nations agreed in 2009 to raise climate aid, now about $10 billion a year, to an annual $100 billion from 2020 to help developing countries curb greenhouse gas emissions and cope with floods, droughts, heatwaves and...