Free Republic

Local entities involved in the proposed Interstate 15 Siphon Road interchange signed off this week on plans to start construction on a project expected to dramatically increase the Pocatello area’s population and greatly improve the local economy. Those behind the effort to build the interchange say that with its construction, the area north of Pocatello and Chubbuck will see massive development in the future, including a technology park employing thousands of people, shopping centers, dozens of new neighborhoods, parks, trails and even new concert venues. But before such unheralded growth can occur, the interchange needs to be built. While the...

The legacy of Protestant missionaries a century later is higher literacy rates, better public health and stronger institutions than places where Catholic missionaries were or state sanctioned Protestants worked.

In his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance recalled his upbringing in Middletown, Ohio, explaining the psyche of communities neglected by the “Obama economy” as jobs were lost to the effects of globalization. The election of Donald Trump shed light on these communities of disenfranchised voters of Middle America. As globalization moved jobs overseas, industrial manufacturing communities in the U.S. fell on hard times. Blue-collar factory jobs in places like Macomb County, Michigan; Youngstown, Ohio; and South Bend, Indiana gave way to drug use, joblessness and despair. We are now faced with the question of how to help these communities going...

BADEN-BADEN, Germany — Governments need to do more to create growth that benefits everyone, and the U.S. should spend more on roads, highways, bridges and airports, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Friday. The body, which includes the world's better-off countries, said in a report that governments should focus on providing better access to high-quality education and supporting employment for women through measures like affordable child care. It also highlighted the need for more spending on infrastructure. OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria called for an "upskilling of the workforce" to address worker anxiety about the future of their jobs...

The “Scenic Route” sign on Highway 12 announces the obvious to motorists heading into the Valley of the Moon. It’s cradled by mountains, dotted with giant oaks, horse ranches, vineyards, remnants of old orchards and the odd water tower. The road delivers inspiring views of imposing Hood Mountain, its craggy face standing sentinel over a historic route from Santa Rosa to Sonoma that carried stagecoaches and trains before the automobile took over. But today, the two-lane highway is crowded with traffic generated by commuters, residential and commercial development, sightseers and visitors headed to wineries and tasting rooms. The northern arm...

County leaders are hopeful that the $1 trillion infrastructure investment promised by Republican president-elect Donald Trump will have a big impact on the region. Trump has promised to prioritize infrastructure spending in his first 100 days in office. The move is one that Democrats, now in minority positions in both houses of Congress, have said they're willing to support. The plan, which is not yet fully fleshed out, looks to rely heavily on billions of dollars of infrastructure tax credits to private entities. And while Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen warned recently that weighing down the national debt with...

Hidden among all the recent great news affecting Birmingham’s amazing rebirth is the story of the long-awaited opening of I-22, or Corridor X. That’s a shame, because no single success in our recent past may prove to be more important and have greater long-term favorable impact on this region than today’s ribbon cutting. Since the days of the Roman Empire and the famous Appian Way, roads (and particularly crossroads) have always played a critically important role in the economic growth and prosperity of cities. In the earliest days of our country, waterway intersections were the places where communities grew into...

David R. Hall | - Green Mountain Daily www.greenmountaindaily.com/tag/david-r-hall/ Jun 15, 2016 ... Hall is the Utah-based engineer/developer and Mormon (member of the utopian community in Sharon (the birthplace of LDS founder Joseph Smith). Hall plans on plunking down New Vista and its 20,000 inhabitants in rural Vermont and other developments across the nation.

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh recently joined 16 other state Attorneys General to launch, in their own words, “an unprecedented, multi-state effort to investigate and prosecute the ‘high-funded and morally vacant forces’ that have stymied attempts to combat global warming—starting with holding ExxonMobil and other industry giants accountable for fraud and suppression of key climate science.” In explaining his support of “AGs United for Clean Power,” Frosh said: “There is no doubt that climate change is an existential threat to our society and to our entire planet….I am deeply troubled that oil companies have contributed to the problem by intentionally...

Despite the recent recession in the West, absolute poverty is continuing to retreat in fast-growing developing countries. The escape from poverty that was once limited to the industrialized countries of the West is also happening in "the rest." Unfortunately, many people remain unaware of the dramatic decline in global poverty, let alone the reasons for it. According to an announcement released this week by the World Bank, "less than 10% of the world's population will be living in extreme poverty by the end of 2015." The bank has "used a new income figure of $1.90 per day to define extreme...

What is sustainable development? The United Nations defines sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”... What are the Sustainable Development Goals to be adopted today? [snip] But what are the goals exactly? End poverty in all forms; end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture; ensure inclusive and equitable quality education; achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls; ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all; ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy...

Interstate 11 is getting another boost with execution of a memorandum of understanding between Arizona and Mexico. One of the four international cooperation agreements to be signed by Gov. Doug Ducey and the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs Jose Antonio Meade extends I-11 from Nogales into Mexico to Hermosillo and Mexico City. The international commerce corridor MOU grew out of a conversation between Arizona business leaders, Ducey and Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim at the Phoenix Business Journal’s Global Market Discovery series earlier this year. People on the Move Victor Foggie Victor Foggie Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Arizona Brian...

n a sweeping, sometimes apocalyptic encyclical, Pope Francis on Thursday blasted the Obama administration and other world governments for not doing nearly enough to confront climate change, and said mankind is squandering the planet given to it by God and must abandon fossil fuels as soon as possible. “The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth,” the pontiff said in his 184-page climate-change encyclical, a long-awaited document released publicly Thursday by the Vatican.”These situations have caused sister earth, along with all the abandoned of our world, to cry out, pleading that...

It is an obvious truth we too often forget. At the Albert Einstein Memorial, on the grounds of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., an explanatory sign states a simple fact that refutes the argument President Barack Obama's science adviser once made for redistributing wealth and limiting human population so as to save the human race from a poverty he claimed must inevitably intensify as our numbers increase. "At Einstein's feet lies a circular sky map representing the planets, sun, moon, and stars, positioned as observed by astronomers from the U.S. Naval Observatory at noon on the day...

Six years ago, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid celebrated what he called a "love fest" of government support for the construction of a proposed 150,000-home community in the Nevada desert and the lobbyist-turned-developer behind it, Harvey Whittemore. Last week, a federal grand jury charged Mr. Whittemore with making illegal political contributions to Mr. Reid, a Democrat. Even before the indictment, Mr. Reid and other politicians had begun to distance themselves from Mr. Whittemore—long one of Nevada's most powerful lobbyists—by pledging to charity money to offset donations they had gotten from him. ~~snip~~ The allegations against Mr. Whittemore stem from a...

During the State of the Union Address on Tuesday, President Barack Obama announced an executive order for federal contractors to pay employees at least $10.10 an hour. He also urged mayors, governors and state legislators to raise wages as well. On Friday, New London Mayor Daryl Justin Finizio announced that he has proposed a minimum wage ordinance. He wants to raise the city’s minimum wage for municipal employees and contractors to $10.10.   “I believe New London should answer President Obama’s call to action,” Mayor Daryl Justin Finizio said in a statement. 

You probably figure that like most prominent artists and entertainment celebrities, U2 frontman Bono would be a typical left-liberal. But you’d be wrong. The Values & Capitalism blog of the American Enterprise Institute observes that “For a rock star whose travels to developing nations and advocacy of foreign aid are well known, this focus on commerce has surprised many observers—and apparently the man himself.” In a recent speech at Georgetown University’s Global Social Enterprise Event, Bono admitted that even he himself finds it hard to accept that he has become a rock star who preaches capitalism. “Wow; sometimes I hear...

CSS is a mess. First introduced in ~1995, it was meant to style basic text documents. Not websites. Not applications. Text documents. It has come a long way since then. Probably a bit too long. A lot of things were not intended in the first place like multi-column layouts, responsive web design and more; this is why it has become a language full of hacks and glitches, like some kind of odd steam machine with a bunch of extensions. On the bright side, this is what makes CSS fun (or kinda)! And this is also why we have jobs. Because...

Cardinal Antonio Maria Veglio, president of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, published a message regarding the celebration of World Tourism Day which will take place on September 27th, 2013. The theme of this year’s World Tourism Day is “Tourism and water: protecting our common future” which is line with the International Year of Cooperation for Water proclaimed by the UN General Assembly. “The Holy See also wishes to join in this commemoration, bringing its contribution from its own perspective, aware of the importance of the phenomenon of tourism at the present time and the challenges and opportunities...

The U.S. government is embarking upon, and partly financing, a series of groundwater remediation initiatives in China -- despite the fact that China already plans to pump (USD) $5.5 billion of its own money into such actions through 2020. According to a Scope of Work (SOW) that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor has located, the U.S. Trade & Development Agency (USTDA) initially will fund what is known as a "definitional mission," or DM, to China (#RFQ-CO201261140). The agency will outsource this preliminary endeavor to a private contractor, who would then travel to Beijing and two other cities that the Chinese...