Free Republic

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Thursday that Congress could pass the “transformational” Competes Act before July 4, saying they hope to celebrate its passage before the holiday. The Competes Act of 2022 would approve billions of dollars for programs to accelerate U.S. manufacturing of critical supplies and goods such as semiconductor chips, increasing U.S. might in sectors dominated largely by China. The bill is also intended to address the supply chain disruptions still plaguing the nation, which have helped fuel high inflation. At her weekly press conference, Pelosi said there is currently “a big lobbying effort” in Congress...

Women take sexy selfies to compete with other women in economically unequal environments, rather than out of patriarchal oppression, according to UNSW researchers. A study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, found women took sexy selfies in environments with greater economic inequality, rather than where they might be oppressed because of their gender. The researchers analysed more than 68,000 sexualised self-portrait photographs, or "selfies," posted on social media platforms Instagram and Twitter across 113 countries. They also looked at where in the world the most selfies were taken. The researchers found the association between...

The conference room in the Mountain View, Calif., headquarters of LinkedIn was packed with the stars of Silicon Valley. Top executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter gathered around a table; the billionaire Sean Parker looked on from a back row. The guest of honor: Cory A. Booker, the mayor of Newark. "He's part of this tide," said Gina Bianchini, an entrepreneur who was at the meeting, in May 2009. "It feels like he's one of us." Mr. Booker personally has obtained money for the start-up, called Waywire, from influential investors, including Eric E. Schmidt, Google's executive chairman. A year after...

  Story and Photo by U.S. Army SFC Matthew Chlosta  KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan law students didn't let the Feb. 26 attack by insurgents on their hotel keep them from competing in the first international academic competition Mar. 8 at Kabul University. Three teams from Kabul, Al-Biruni and Nangarhar law and Shari’ a law faculties competed on Mar. 6-7 during two preliminary rounds. Al-Biruni University and Kabul University teams moved forward to compete in the regional finals and the Al-Biruni team won the right to go to Washington D.C. Mar. 21-27 as the Afghan national champion to represent their...

It's been a while since I've read our foundational documents, so my memory is a bit fuzzy, but isn't it specifically spelled out that the Govt is *forbidden* from competing with public and private businesses?

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. (Feb. 5, 2008) -- Despite the rain and cool temperatures, approximately 25 people dressed in cammies, flight suits and even ghillie suits, carrying machine guns, assault rifles and pistols competed in an airsoft tournament at Sportsman’s Lodge here Jan. 26. A few of the participants were Camp Lejeune Marines with the Wounded Warrior Battalion-East, Wounded Warrior Regiment, Manpower and Reserve Affairs. “For the wounded warriors who can play, it's great physical therapy,” said Lance Cpl. Brian Densmore, a wounded warrior and enlisted advisor with the Science and Technology Department, II Marine Expeditionary Force. “It really motivates us to...

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - Democratic presidential hopefuls warmed up for Sunday's big debate by trying to impress about 1,000 activists at the Iowa Democratic Party's Hall of Fame dinner on Saturday. The lineup included New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd (news, bio, voting record) and Delaware Sen. Joe Biden. The evening's speeches touched mainly on the war in Iraq, health care and renewable energy, with plenty of barbs aimed at the Bush administration. "It is time for the president of the United States to ask...

News media reports from meetings organized by billionaire George Soros say he and some rich allies are now funding groups intended to counter the efforts on college campuses of the Leadership Institute and other conservative educational organizations. Although Soros and his allies hope through their spending to increase the effectiveness of the left on campus, I do not fear that activities they bankroll will significantly increase the left's campus influence. Nor can Soros stop the growth of campus conservative activities. My Leadership Institute's Campus Leadership Program, for example, grew its number of active, independent, conservative campus groups from 216 in...

CAN AMERICANS COMPETE?Is America the World's 97-lb. Weakling? In the relentless, global, tech-driven, cost-cutting struggle for business, America isn’t ready—here’s what to do about it. By Geoffrey Colvin It’s a crisis of confidence unlike anything America has felt in a generation. Residents of tiny Newton, Iowa, wake up to the distressing news that a Chinese firm—What’s it called? Haier? That’s Chinese?—wants to buy their biggest employer, the famed but foundering Maytag appliance company. Two days later, out of nowhere, a massive, government-owned Chinese oil company muscles into the bidding for America’s Unocal. The very next day a ship in Xinsha,...

WASHINGTON - Seventh-grader Tyler Curtis says he's never had to worry much about doing well at his studies, and he's not about to start now. That's saying something. Tyler is facing 272 of the country's best young spellers — and the biggest prize ever — at the 78th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee running Wednesday and Thursday. "It would be nice to win," the 13-year-old from Camden, Tenn., said Tuesday. "But I'm not going to get all stressed out over it." His competitors include 145 boys and 127 girls aged 9 to 14, mostly from around the country and U.S....

PARIS, July 1 (AFP) - The co-president of the European Aeronautic Space and Defence Group (EADS), Philippe Camus, weighed into a debate Thursday over France's 35-hour working week, calling for greater flexibility in the policy. "The regulations on the 35-hour work week have widened the gulf between France and the United States, its main competitor, in terms of hours worked. "This law must be softened because it has amputated recent productivity gains and immobilises young cadres and engineers," Camus said during a meeting of an association for the French aeronautics and space industries. He also threatened to move EADS operations...

BAGHDAD — This war-torn country is not yet ready to challenge the United States, Russia or the world’s top sporting nations on the Olympic medal chart, but hopes are growing that Iraq will send a sizable delegation to the games in Athens, Greece, this summer. Two athletes already have received invitations: Raad Abbas Rasheed will participate in tae kwon do and sprinter Al’aa Hikmet will compete in the 100- and 200-meter events. The country’s National Olympic Committee, reformed after the fall of Saddam Hussein, also has aspirants in boxing, weightlifting, swimming, wrestling, and track and field. But Iraq’s biggest sports...

Spy agencies compete to find Saddam secrets Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow, Julian Borger in Washington, Ian Black and Richard Norton-Taylor Friday April 11, 2003 The Guardian US forces in Baghdad have secured the Iraqi interior ministry for the CIA in the hope of finding documents on the ousted regime's human rights abuses and the development of weapons of mass destruction, according to intelligence sources. The development comes amid reports that Russian agents have been scouring Baghdad, as the scramble by foreign governments to secure the prized archives of the Iraqi intelligence agencies and Saddam's regime gathers pace. Russian newspapers...

Boys compete 'for the sake of it' 09:30 25 August 02 Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition Boys will compete just for the sake of it, but girls will not waste effort on competition unless it pays, a Canadian study has revealed. Rosanne Roy from McGill University in Montreal and her colleagues got 40 groups of four boys or four girls, aged 5 to 6 or 9 to 10, to play two specially designed games. In one, for instance, the children had to thread beads on a stick until it was full, taking the beads from either a common pot...