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Hello, Would anyone be willing to recommend a software download that can optimize my hard drive? I'm looking for something that will catch and delete old, unwanted junk files, etc. I know I can get my PC running at least 50% faster than it is now. It's "only" two years old. I've tried System Mechanic and TuneUp Utilities 2004 and thought they were so-so. Is there a better software that I'm missing? Many thanks for any info. Kind Regards...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House on Wednesday warned of a presidential veto of a $142.5 billion spending bill if Democrats pushed through an amendment that would block new Labor Department rules about overtime pay. House Democrats contend that millions of workers could lose their overtime pay under the rules. Lawmakers said they had enough Republican support to approve the amendment, leading the GOP leadership to put off a vote Wednesday. "They want to pull the bill so they have another chance to twist arms overnight," said Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin. He is the top Democrat on the Appropriations...

CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) - A postal worker was sentenced Wednesday to a year of probation for causing the deaths of his two young sons by leaving them in the back of his sport-utility vehicle in midday heat. Derrick Strothers, 39, could have received up to six years in prison on each of two charges of involuntary manslaughter. Federal prosecutors had sought five years of probation. Authorities said Strothers dropped off his wife at her job on Aug. 15, 2003, then headed to the East Orange post office where he worked. His sons - Derrick Jr., 2, and Dylan, 1 -...

HAMBURG, Germany (AP) - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on Wednesday called for a "clear and careful analysis" of last week's hostage drama at a school in southern Russia and argued that parliament should be involved in the investigation. President Vladimir Putin has said his government will conduct an internal investigation into the attack in Beslan in North Ossetia but argued that a parliamentary probe could turn into a "political show." "The public expects a clear and careful analysis of this situation," Gorbachev told reporters in Hamburg, where he was attending a conference. He added that it would be appropriate...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Memories of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 are burned deeply into the nation's consciousness, and Americans today are as fearful of becoming a victim of terrorism as they are of losing their job or having their home burglarized. In a measure of the trauma of that day, an Associated Press poll found that 98 percent remember exactly what they were doing three years ago when hijackers flew jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing almost 3,000. Those memories can resurface with the most routine cues, a plane flying overhead, a siren from a...

MOSCOW (AP) - The militants who raided a school in southern Russia last week were led by a man dubbed the Colonel, who enforced obedience by killing three fellow attackers - two by detonating the explosives they had strapped to their bodies. Two days later, the attackers were moving the explosives they rigged around the gym where hundreds of hostages were held, and a bomb went off accidentally. That began the spiral of panic that led to the bloody conclusion of the standoff, in which more than 320 people were killed. Those details were among several disclosed by Prosecutor-General Vladimir...

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - Echoing the ruling of another local court, a Thurston County judge ruled Tuesday that Washington state's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. A King County judge had ruled in favor of gay marriage rights in a separate case last month. Both cases will now go to the state Supreme Court, where they will likely be consolidated. "For the government this is not a moral issue. It is a legal issue," wrote Thurston County Superior Court Judge Richard Hicks in his ruling, posted Tuesday on the court's Web site. Hicks acknowledged that the intent of the state's...

MOSCOW (AP) - Russian authorities have arrested two people suspected of involvement in the attacks on two Russian planes that crashed nearly simultaneously after explosions on board two weeks ago, killing all 90 people on board, prosecutors said Tuesday. The Russian prosecutor general's office did not identify the detainees or say how they were thought to be involved. The Interfax news agency cited an unnamed source as saying one of the men is suspected of selling plane tickets to two Chechen woman believed to have carried out the Aug. 24 bombings. The man, originally from southern Russia's Krasnodar region, made...

My apologies upfront for this vanity; however, I wanted to see what other FReepers would suggest as to how I can discredit another poster's pro-free health care for everyone stance. I would be most grateful if you're able to direct me to any links or post really, really good one-liners. One-liners are sometimes the most effective since you can reply to paragraph after paragraph of socialist nonsense and make a very good point in 7 to 15 words. Here's this guy's post. Any comments would be highly appreciated. Thank you very much.... Over here (in the U.K.) we dont pay...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - French envoys held crisis talks with Muslim clerics in Iraq on Thursday in a desperate bid to free two kidnapped journalists, while a militant group released a video purportedly showing the killing of three Turkish hostages and warning foreigners to leave the country. The video coincided with the discovery by Iraqi police of the bodies of two Turkish citizens and an unidentified man at a rural farm in northern Iraq. It could not immediately be confirmed whether the bodies belonged to the men in the video. Representatives of the French Council for the Muslim Faith, which...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Gunmen killed an Associated Press driver near his home in Baghdad on Thursday, his relatives and police said. Attackers riddled the car of Ismail Taher Mohsin with bullets about 7:15 a.m. in the Ghazaliya district, a predominantly Sunni Muslim neighborhood where support for Saddam Hussein had been strong. More than 20 empty bullet shells littered the street, his relatives said. Relatives said he had received no threats or warnings. The attackers' identity or motives were not known. Scores of Iraqis working for foreign companies have been killed during the 16-month-old insurgency that followed the overthrow of...

PARIS (AP) - Millions of French students returned to school Thursday as a new law that bans Islamic head scarves from classrooms went into effect amid demands by Islamic radicals holding two French hostages in Iraq that the law be scrapped. Muslim leaders in France, who had largely opposed the law, urged calm for the return to class. It was not immediately clear whether any girls defied the law by wearing head scarves, as the opening of classes was staggered throughout the day. "The hostage-takers are just waiting for a provocation," Mohammed Bechari, a vice president of the French Council...

MOSCOW, Sept. 2 (Xinhuanet) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday in his first public remarks on the hostage-taking crisis in southern Russia that saving the lives of the hostages is the main goal. "Our main purpose in the current situation is, of course, to save the lives and protect the health of those who have found themselves taken hostage. All activity of our forces engaged in releasing the hostages will be concentrated on and aimed at resolving exclusively this problem," Putin said in meeting with King Abdallah II of Jordan in the Kremlin. A group of heavily armed...

Taxi and Limousine Commission officials said yesterday that their agents had acted "somewhat overzealously'' in arresting Mike Wallace earlier this month and that the disorderly conduct charge against him would be dropped. On Aug. 10, Mr. Wallace, the 86-year-old "60 Minutes'' correspondent, was handcuffed and taken to a police station by two inspectors. He had just come out of an Upper East Side restaurant bearing a meatloaf dinner, when he found his driver, who was double parked, being questioned by the agents. Mr. Wallace said he got into the car, then got out again, figuring his meatloaf was getting cold....

WASHINGTON (AP) - The State Department said Tuesday it has information that terrorists may be planning attacks in Uzbekistan in early September during the country's Independence Day celebrations. The warning to Americans traveling or living in the Central Asian nation comes less than a month after triple suicide bombings at the U.S. and Israeli embassies and the general prosecutor's office in Tashkent. Uzbek authorities in the predominantly Muslim nation blamed the July 30 attacks on al-Qaida-linked radical Islamic groups based outside the country. They said the same groups were responsible for a series of explosions and assaults on police in...

The Republican convention is not going to be the economic shot in the arm New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg had promised and businesses had hoped, the NY TIMES is planning to report on Page One Tuesday. Many shows on Broadway will be shut down; some restaurants are closing for the week and you can get reservations at others that normally need a month's notice. Hotel rooms are to be had for the asking. NYT reporter Lydia Polgreen is developing the thesis, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE. Impacting...