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The VA has proposed removing the net worth reporting requirement for veterans seeking VA healthcare. In a proposal scheduled to be filed in the Federal Register on October 20, the VA seeks to make permanent its temporary practice of not requiring a veteran to submit a net-worth statement when they apply for healthcare. The VA will also no longer require annual net-worth statements from veterans who are currently enrolled in its healthcare programs. ... The VA now seeks to remove any wording in the law related to its collection of net-worth data to prevent any confusion and make it permanently...

BEIJING – Chinese police are investigating if two distillers in the southwestern region of Guangxi added impotence treatment drug Viagra to their liquor in the latest food-safety scare in China. The Liuzhou Food and Drug Administration said that it found the Guikun Alcohol Plant and the Deshun Alcohol Plant in Guangxi's Liuzhou city were putting Sildenafil, more commonly known as Viagra, into three of their baijiu products. Baijiu is a fiery grain liquor that commands high prices in China.

A book by a French economist who became a darling of 99 percenters and his lefty peers is riddled with errors, cherry-picked data and flawed premises, according to two new studies. Thomas Piketty's “Capital in the 21st Century,” which New York Times columnist and Nobel-prize winner Paul Krugman called “the most important economics book of the year — and maybe of the decade,” calls for an 80 percent income tax to stop wealth inequality from increasing. The book earned its author an invitation to the White House to meet with Obama administration Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. ... ... The recent...

I received an unusual email from FR today: On Mon Sep 16 12:23:52 2013 somebody at the Internet address 138.162.0.42 requested this information to be sent to you. Your screen name is: Bob Your password is: ----------- (removed) To log into your account, please visit: http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/login When I looked up the requesting IP address, this is what was returned: Overview for 138.162.0.42 Updated 0 seconds ago NetRange: 138.162.0.0 - 138.162.255.255 CIDR: 138.162.0.0/16 OriginAS: NetName: NMCI-NET-ORF NetHandle: NET-138-162-0-0-1 Parent: NET-138-0-0-0-0 NetType: Direct Assignment RegDate: 1990-05-07 Updated: 2011-02-23 Ref: http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-138-162-0-0-1 OrgName: Navy Network Information Center (NNIC) OrgId: NNICN-1 Address: 2465 GUADALCANAL ROAD...

Has anyone else run into a posting glitch using Chrome on an Android device? After receiving a Chrome browser update yesterday, I can no longer post to FR from my phone. (I had never encountered any difficulties before this update.) The first word that I enter as a reply to a thread gets repeated when I hit the space following it. Trying to position after the repeated word to delete it just repeats that same first word over and over. I've tried logging out of FR and back in again with no change. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks, Bob.

Sorry for the vanity but this was too funny not to post: If not Obama, Who! Seriously.? Even I'd be a little more worried if one of the younger generation republicans were running like Eric Cantor, or Paul Ryan because less is known about them. Everyone knows the more you know about a Republican the less attractive they become. But not one of the clowns running presently stands a chance once they get the nomination. Romneys worse of a debater than Sarah Palin. Obama's steering this country in the right direction and pretty comfortable with him driving. What the hell...

Politicians are never far from controversy, and local government is no exception. From Detroit's Kwame Kilpatrick to D.C.'s Marion Barry, we take a look at the outrageous mayoral scandals that have made headlines over the years.

I just answered a question on Yahoo Answers which really makes me wonder about the current state of math education. Here's the question: ALGEBRA 2 HELP !!!!!!? 1. Select the best possible first step to solving the system by first eliminating the y variable. 5x - y = 5 7x - 3y = -1 A) Multiply the first equation by -3. B) Multiply the second equation by -3. C) Multiply the first equation by 3. D) Multiply the second equation by 3. (more at link)

Dear iFlowReader User, Thank you for being one of our valued customers. We are writing to you today to make a very sad announcement. BeamItDown Software and the iFlow Reader will cease operations as of May 31, 2011. We absolutely do not want to do this, but Apple has made it completely impossible for anyone but Apple to make a profit selling contemporary ebooks on any iOS device. We cannot survive selling books at a loss and so we are forced to go out of business. We bet everything on Apple and iOS and then Apple killed us by changing...

I recently received news about a new version of Realbasic that generates fastcgi applications for websites. Is anyone here using it and, if so, what has been your experience with it? Since I've done quite a bit of Realbasic coding over the years, I'm considering giving their new Web Edition a try.

On Yahoo answers today, I came across a disturbing question asked by, presumably, a high school math student. Here is the question: Please, please explain these answers to me!! I am so frustrated!? No matter how hard I try, I can not understand domain and range!!! The definition in my book says domain is all the x alues and range is all the y values. That's it. Soo, how the heck do you figuire this out? 1. f(x) = x+2/x Domain: x does not equal zero Range: f(x) = any real # 2. f(x) 2/x Domain: x does not equal...

I noticed something amusing about the signs at my local "United Democratic Campaign" headquarters in Morgan Hill, CA today. For most of the candidates, there was no party identification at all. Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom apparently are running as independents: Bill Monning and Forrest Williams appear to be as well. Luis Alejo owns up to his party but Jerry McNerney doesn't: A few people seem to differ:

Many dozens of patriots turned out this morning in Morgan Hill, CA. Waving US flags, holding signs, and listening to patriotic music, a lively group of patriots gathered at a downtown intersection earlier today. (My estimate of the mid-morning crowd size was 80-100.) There were people lining both sides of the street as well as a good number in the median strip. The drivers of many of the cars driving through flashed thumbs-up and honked their horns. Music is being provided by a Patriot Guard Rider on his motorcycle. He has been cruising through the area repeatedly for the past...

I recall an earlier post regarding the legalities of collection agency practices but I can't find it. Background: Last March, I got a new MetroPCS phone and was assigned a number which had previously belonged to someone who's being tracked down by a number of collection agencies. Over the past year, I have received quite a few (probably dozens) calls from various companies regarding this guy's outstanding debts. Each time, I've explained that I'm not him and that I have no idea how they can contact him. It's been annoying but not really a problem since one call each was...

Last week, my Dell Inspiron laptop ingested a cup of coffee (with cream and sugar, of course) and I would appreciate any suggestions. At this point, while it does shut down frequently and sporadically during the boot process, it has gotten as far as the Vista login screen. (Many of the keys aren't responding so I can't log in.) Since so much of it is working, my thought is that a good internal cleaning to remove the coffee/cream/sugar gunk would be a good next step. Can anyone offer any guidance on disassembling this computer and how to best clean it...

Proposition 8 may have an easier time succeeding than I had imagined. In the heavily liberal, south bay area town of Morgan Hill today, I observed two events regarding Proposition 8. The first event occurred this morning where about a dozen people were displaying their 'Yes on 8' signs and waving to people driving by. There were a huge number of drivers honking and giving a thumbs-up to the folks on the corner. I'm guessing that half or more of the drivers expressed their approval. This afternoon, three high-school-aged(?) girls brought their home-made 'No on 8' signs downtown. (Admittedly, it's...

Frag-12 shotgun round is a series of special purpose shotgun grenades, including high explosive blast, fragmentation, and HEAP grenades intended to be fired from any 12-ga shotgun. It has been proposed as an armament for modern UAVs and is currently being tested for military deployment.

Frag-12 shotgun round is a series of special purpose shotgun grenades, including high explosive blast, fragmentation, and HEAP grenades intended to be fired from any 12-ga shotgun. It has been proposed as an armament for modern UAVs and is currently being tested for military deployment.

Power plant operates without oversight Planned monitoring station hung up by logistical problems By DANIEL DEBOLT Pinnacle staff writer Nearly five years after the Calpine Metcalf power plant was given the go-ahead and four months after it's been online, there is still no air pollution monitor in place to determine its effects on the already notoriously dirty air in South Valley. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District cites logistical problems for the delay in installing a monitor, but citizens who live nearby say that the delay just benefits the power plant, which is currently emitting an unknown amount of...

GOP's Proud Black Legacy [part way down the article] The House Policy Committee's 2005 Republican Freedom Calendar offers 365 examples of GOP support for women, blacks, and other minorities, often over Democratic objections. Among its highlights: "To stop the Democrats' pro-slavery agenda, anti-slavery activists founded the Republican party, starting with a few dozen men and women in Ripon, Wisconsin on March 20, 1854," the calendar notes. "Democratic opposition to Republican efforts to protect the civil rights of all Americans lasted not only throughout Reconstruction, but well into the 20th century. In the south, those Democrats who most bitterly opposed equality...