Free Republic

A total of $1.2 billion in federal student loan debt will be automatically discharged for 153,000 borrowers enrolled in President Joe Biden’s “most generous ever” repayment plan, the U.S. Department of Education said on Wednesday. To be eligible for the latest round of student loan debt cancellation, the borrowers must be enrolled in the new income-driven repayment (IDR) plan, dubbed SAVE, have been making at least 10 years of payments, and have originally taken out $12,000 or less for college. For every $1,000 borrowed above $12,000, a borrower can receive debt discharge after an additional year of payments. For example,...

Updated from the beta program OS 10.11.1 to the recently full release version. Immediately, every link to a discussion on Freerepublic returns this: MacBook Pro OS X 10.11.1 (El Capitan)

Health insurance benefits for same-sex couples and domestic partners will soon be offered by the nation's largest retailer. According to CNNMoney.com, Walmart sent workers a postcard this week informing them that domestic partners of U.S. employees will be eligible to receive benefits starting Jan. 1. Domestic partners of opposite genders that have been in a committed relationship and living together for at least one year will also be covered under the upcoming changes, according to the article. Workers will be able to enroll from Oct. 12 through Nov. 1.

After posting a notable and excellent Reagan quote, one of my Facebook "friends" commented about selective memory of those who lift Reagan up, and specifically mentioned his and his administration's role in the "Iran-Contra" mess.

According to many customers, sites hosted by major web host and domain registrar GoDaddy are down. According to the official GoDaddy Twitter account the company is aware of the issue and is working to resolve it. Update: customers are complaining that GoDaddy hosted e-mail accounts are down as well, along with GoDaddy phone service and all sites using GoDaddy’s DNS service. Update 2: Anonymous is claiming responsibility. A member of Anonymous known as AnonymousOwn3r is claiming responsibility, and makes it clear this is not an Anonymous collective action. The service Down For Everyone Or Just Me says the GoDaddy company...

In one of those great ironies of technology, an increased incidence of malware is a sign that your product has been a success in the market. Apple’s been astonishingly successful with its Mac hardware in recent years. The dark side of that success is the attention they’ve begun to attract from online criminals. Apple and its customers got a hint of what was in store with last year’s Mac Defender outbreak. This year, a much larger and more disturbing outbreak has infected more than 600,000 Macs with a piece of malware called Flashback.The entire Flashback episode has in fact exposed...

Brief Background: My Step-father was killed in a vehicle accident recently (hit head-on by a drunk driver). He and my mother had been married nearly 26 years. He had started drawing Social Security benefits a few years back (full retirement age), though he was still working. My mother, who has paid in to Social Security for many years and is a college teacher recently retired (Texas Teacher Retirement)and they moved back up to MIchigan. She is also "retirement age", but is still teaching essentially "full time". She has been taking care of final stuff - and ran into something she...

Every one of us who actually PAY for our phone service (land line or mobile) pay a fee each and every month for each phone line - it is called the "universal service charge". For many years, this "fund" sat unused, but collected by law. Fairly recently the government finally decided to put it to use - so they implemented a program for "low income" individuals to receive a prepaid cell phone with an allotment of minutes each day. Many of us have probably seen or heard the ads on TV, radio, and even on the 'net. I wasn't really...

Objections fly with rainbow flag President Obama has declared June "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month" -- and to the dismay of a pro-family group based in Richmond, Virginia, the Federal Reserve Bank is joining in the celebration. Though The Family Foundation's new office in Richmond has a beautiful view of the state capitol and the flags, the rainbow flag fluttering above the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond is also in view. Foundation president Victoria Cobb does not expect it to fly away any time soon. "Our expectation is it'll be flying all month," she predicts. "We think the...

Seagate has acquired Samsung Electronics’ hard disk drive (HDD) operations for $1.37 billion in a move that boils the market down to two players. Seagate and Western Digital now control 90 percent of the HDD market with Toshiba a distant third. Under the terms of the deal, Samsung will lump its HDD unit into Seagate in exchange for a cash and stock deal worth $1.375 billion. Samsung will own nearly 10 percent of Seagate and the two companies will cross-license patents. Samsung will also provide NAND flash memory for Seagate’s solid-state drives. In addition, Seagate will supply drives for Samsung’s...

Low-flow toilets cause a stink in SF Phillip Matier,Andrew Ross Monday, February 28, 2011 San Francisco's big push for low-flow toilets has turned into a multimillion-dollar plumbing stink. Skimping on toilet water has resulted in more sludge backing up inside the sewer pipes, said Tyrone Jue, spokesman for the city Public Utilities Commission. That has created a rotten-egg stench near AT&T Park and elsewhere, especially during the dry summer months. The city has already spent $100 million over the past five years to upgrade its sewer system and sewage plants, in part to combat the odor problem. Now officials are...

In loving memory of Anthony Eugene "Budge" Rahe, Jr. December 3, 1934 - February 1, 2011 Anthony "Budge" Rahe, Jr., 76, of Pine Bluff, died Monday, February 1, 2011. He was born December 3, 1934 in Houston, Texas, son of the late Anthony Rahe, Sr. and Margaret Insirillo Rahe. Mr. Rahe was reared and received his early education in Houston, graduating from Beaumont High School. After moving to Pine Bluff, Budge worked as a radio disk jockey for KOTN for many years and recently as a Wal-Mart greeter. Survivors include two nephews, Kyle Ponder and Brad Ponder. Memorial services will...

‘Modern day martyr’ studied to evangelize his home country JACKSONVILLE — Michael Loua was a passionate Christian — he loved his family, he loved his home country of Guinea, West Africa, but most importantly, he loved his God. This weekend, Michael was killed because of his passion to lead those in his home country to his Lord. “He was a preacher; he was an evangelist, so he loved to evangelize people and to lead people to the Lord,” said Michael’s widow, Elisabeth Loua. Elis-abeth said now her children are uncomfortable with the idea of going back to Guinea. “When I...

Does Purgatory Deny the Sufficiency of Christ's Sacrifice? by: Matt Slick According to the Handbook for Today's Catholic, page 47, "If you die in the love of God but possess any stains of sin, such stains are cleansed away in a purifying process called Purgatory. These stains of sin are primarily the temporal punishment due to venial or mortal sins already forgiven but for which sufficient penance was not done during your lifetime." The Catholic Catechism, paragraph 1030, says that Purgatory is for "All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their...

Dear___________: Since 2005, Walmart has been committed to achieving three broad sustainability goals — to be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy; to create zero waste; and to sell products that sustain people and the environment. We are now ready to announce another major step as we broaden and accelerate Walmart's efforts to become a more sustainable company. Please join us for a live webcast on Thursday, Feb. 25 from 11 a.m. to noon (CST) for this announcement by Walmart President and CEO Mike Duke, along with remarks by Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp. Please visit WalmartCommunity.com to sign-up...

I am a Mac user by choice, but my work computer is an HP Pavilion laptop running Vista. I am in NO way trying to bash MS (though I generally am no fan of Gates and his MS beast), but I am seeking real discourse and help. I am a fairly experienced computer users, and have spent a good deal of time over the last few years helping in the technology department at my previous employment. Back in the spring (machine was still under warranty), the HD died (supposedly, I am not convinced) right after a large Windows update (that...

A U.S. Navy helicopter conducting surveillance off the coast of Somalia was fired upon Wednesday by pirates aboard a Taiwanese-flagged vessel, where some 30 crewmembers are being held hostage, according to U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. The Somali pirates fired what appeared to be a large-caliber weapon at the U.S. Navy SH-60B but didn’t strike it, according to the Navy. No one was injured in the incident and the crew did not return fire, the Navy said. The Taiwanese ship Win Far was seized April 6. Since then, it has been used as a "mother ship" for the launching of...

An Open Letter to Pastor Rick Warren By Jan Markell On July 5 the Washington Times online reported that Pastor Rick Warren told his Islamic audience, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA,) that he envisions "a coalition of faith." Whether Pastor Warren knows this or not, this is just another term for the coming one-world religion outlined in Revelation 13. It is further outlined in Revelation 17. I have not taken on the issue of Rick Warren all that often, but after reading what the Washington Times has to say about his message to a group of spiritually lost...

OK - so - I do 90% of my work using my Macs - a 12" iBook (last generation) and a PowerMac Dual G5 desktop. The other 10% I spend with an HP Pavilion Laptop (Vista). So - Working with Powerpoint on both platforms - I have found that there is a huge difference in functionality - with the Mac version generally being for more tolerant of media files (both audio and video) With Powerpoint 2008 (Mac), I can throw pretty much any popular format audio file or video file and it just works. Take that same presentation (saved on...

OK... I will make this as brief as I can: My Step-Father is a Real Estate agent just outside of Houston, TX (Tomball and the Woodlands area). He uses Windows XP, and has a history of computer troubles, mostly related to scripts and worms that for some reason every Anti-Virus he has ever used just won't seem to keep out. I have jokingly told him to buy a Macintosh next time around... but he has held to his Realtor-related business requires Windows. Fine... Well, about every two weeks, his Internet Explorer (latest version) will not work at all - it...