Free Republic

This just in! New study shows little kids watch lots of TV! Yeah, I know you’re “Shocked, shocked!” What may surprise you, though, is the extent to which these children are being exposed to television and why. Kids aren’t just gravitating to the tube; the one-eyed monster is being used as a babysitter by parents who think they’re too busy for them and by folks who see giving a child his own tube as a way of allowing them to gorge on TV. According to the latest Media Family report conducted by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation: * While...

Homewood Mountain Resort's ski area occupies the largest piece of developable property remaining in the Lake Tahoe basin. With elevations reaching 1,600 feet above the lake's famed blue waters, the views from its slopes are spectacular. The property includes two lakes and crosses three watersheds. And it's for sale. If owner Jeff Yurosek has his way, 1,086 acres will be sold to the U.S. Forest Service under a deal that will keep the struggling ski business open. The estimated $60 million to $65 million the property is likely to fetch will be used to build an expanded commercial center on...

IRAN has 40,000 trained suicide bombers ready to strike at US and British targets if the nation's nuclear sites are attacked by the West. In Iran, the main force of suicide bombers, named the Special Unit of Martyr Seekers in the Revolutionary Guards, was first seen last month when members marched in a military parade, dressed in olive-green uniforms with explosive packs around their waists and detonators held high. Hassan Abbasi, head of the Centre for Doctrinal Strategic Studies in the Revolutionary Guards, said about 29 Western targets had been identified. "We are ready to attack American and British sensitive...

Smart growth. Low-impact construction. Sustainable development. Open-space ordinances. Greenway planning. These land-use buzz phrases are not new, but some environmentalists think they're also not used nearly enough by local planners, developers, contractors and even homeowners. Enter the Chicago Wilderness consortium, an alliance of 190 organizations in the Chicago metro region -- including several in Northwest Indiana -- eager to assist, educate and work hands-on with new developments. One development -- singled out by consortium members as a model development in the making -- is Portage's effort to recapture part of the Lake Michigan shoreline and create a beachfront park through...

4/14/2006 - WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- Unmanned aerial vehicles are successfully transforming the way the Air Force does business, and the service is committed to supporting and developing more of them. Innovative UAV tactics have transformed the battle space as witnessed in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Maj. Gen. Stanley Gorenc, Air Force deputy chief of staff for air and space operations, at testimony before the House Armed Services Committee subcommittee on tactical air and land forces April 6. "UAVs are transforming the way Air Force and the joint team fight, and are a critical component of the future joint force," the...

ANAHEIM, Calif.--While city officials have long micromanaged land-use decisions and appropriated private property for economic redevelopment, it was not until the Supreme Court's Kelo v. City of New London decision last summer that many Americans noticed the degree to which big government has set up shop on Main Street. Take Garden Grove, an aging working-class city of gaudy strip malls and tract houses 34 miles south of Los Angeles. In 2002, officials planned to bulldoze a large, decent neighborhood to make way for a theme park, issuing bond debt to finance subsidies to help its developer. The project failed amid...

Indiana Is Open for Business Mitch “the Blade” Daniels is putting the state on the free-market cutting edge. By Bret Swanson There’s about to be a building boom in Indiana, which is desperate good news for a state that has been severely challenged by the global manufacturing shift and years of ambivalent leadership. The chief architect of the boom is the state’s decisive Governor Mitch Daniels, President Bush’s former budget director. In Washington, Daniels drew scorn from congressional big spenders, acquiring the nickname “the blade” for his cost-cutting and privatizing ways. (The moniker could just as easily apply to his...

WASHINGTON, April 3, 2006 – Recognizing that children of servicemembers often face challenges that other children do not, the nonprofit child development organization "Zero To Three" launched a special project geared specifically toward military families. "Supporting military children is an essential element of supporting military families in general," Dorinda Williams, a Zero To Three training and consultation specialist, said in an interview. "Zero To Three recognizes that military parents often face extreme and emotionally draining circumstances, and we try to provide support through information and resources that translate into increased capacity to meet the emotional needs of babies and toddlers."...

A large-scale study of brain development pinpoints the anatomical changes that are linked to IQ.The brains of more intelligent children appear to develop in a characteristic way, growing quickly over an extended period between the ages of 5 and 12. These findings -- some of the most detailed research on brain development and IQ -- resulted from a 15-year study done by the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH.) The study, which used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to gain a detailed picture of how the brains of children change over time, found that in kids who did better on standard...

WASHINGTON, March 27, 2006 – Over the past three years Iraq has witnessed a tremendous boom in reconstruction and economic development, the U.S. director of the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office said. "It's useful to remember where we were in 2003 with liberation," Ambassador Daniel Speckhard said during a press conference in Baghdad March 24. "In 2003, Iraq had the highest debt ... as a share of gross domestic product in the world. And today about two-thirds of that debt has been written off as a result of the support by the international community." Iraq's per capita income had fallen from...

If Paul Flessner and his SQL Server team have their way, traditional beta releases may soon be a thing of the past. And they aren't the only Softies who are pushing to overhaul the way Microsoft builds software to more closely emulate the open source process. Consider the beta. Beta testing has been the cornerstone of the software development process for Microsoft and most other commercial software makers for as long as they've been writing software. But if certain powers-that-be in Redmond have their way, betas may soon be a thing of the past for Microsoft, its partners and its...

WASHINGTON, March 1, 2006 – The National Guard Youth Foundation honored a U.S. senator, two governors' wives and the chief of the National Guard Bureau at the organization's first ChalleNGe Champions dinner held here last night. Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu and Nancy Murkowski and Kim Henry, the wives of the governors of Alaska and Oklahoma, respectively, all received ChalleNGe Champion awards, while Army Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum was honored with a National Mentoring Partnership Award during ceremonies at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. During his remarks to dinner attendees, Blum noted that the foundation's National Guard...

I love the Beatles' music. My respect for individual members of the legendary band end there. Paul McCartney has spent a lifetime making incredible music while uttering pure gibberish on issues that matter. It seems that if he can’t put a rhyme and a tune to it, his brain turns to mush.

We in Ocean City, NJ have been fighting since 1998 to preserve a circa 1885 Historic Life-Saving Station from destruction. The property is located in our City's Historic District and is afforded specific levels of protection from development. The current property owner bought the property knowing those protections were in place, but used his political connections to get approvals to demolish the Life-Saving station and replace it with 6 condo units. Through various legal battles, we finally had Court affirmation that the developer had to follow our City's ordinances regarding Historic Preservation. Those ordinances define the requirement for maintaining his...

HA HA HA America   A translated harangue from China to the US that laughs at our missteps.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3, 2006 – President Bush cited the Defense Department's development of the Internet during a speech yesterday as an example of the ingenuity he hopes to promote through his American Competitiveness Agenda to ensure the United States maintains its leadership role in the world. Speaking to workers at the 3M corporate headquarters in Maplewood, Minn., the president used DoD's investment in the research and development that ultimately led to the Internet as a model for the innovation he hopes to spark nationwide. "I don't know if people realize this, but the Internet began as a Defense Department project...

Town of Mukwonago - The Town Board has begun laying the groundwork for a likely referendum on whether farm land and open space should be preserved by using tax money to purchase development rights. Last week, the board hired a consultant to conduct a public education campaign to explain the goals of a purchase of development rights program, how it is paid for and how it works. Town Chairman David Dubey said much depends on the public response to the educational campaign, but that "a referendum is likely what we'll get to" either this November or the spring of 2007....

Public benefits EDITOR: The Jan. 20 Press Democrat editorial asks, how much is too much for a city council to ask of a developer? This is like asking how much Apple should charge for an iPod. The obvious answer in a free market context is, "Whatever the market will bear." City and county officials should approach a development proposal as a business proposition, taking all community costs and benefits into full consideration. If the community benefit of the project exceeds the costs, approve the project. Otherwise, deny it. The job of the city council is to look out for the...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Children who are short for their age may perform more poorly on tests of intelligence than their taller peers, a new study suggests. The findings, say researchers, imply that some environmental factors may negatively affect both early childhood height and mental development. What those factors are is uncertain, but a stressful home life is one possibility, according to Dr. Scott Montgomery of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, the study's lead author. "Childhood stress can slow growth significantly," he told Reuters Health, pointing to evidence that children's growth can be impaired when parents divorce or...

Ohio Supreme Court hears eminent domain arguments The Ohio Supreme Court last week heard arguments challenging a local government are right of eminent domain to acquire private property for the benefit of commercial development. The court is being asked to overturn rulings favoring the city of Norwood's acquisition of private property from unwilling sellers to be developed by private investors - not the city. Lawyers for the city argue the private development project would generate more tax revenue for the municipality. A divided U.S. Supreme Court last year ruled in favor of a government's right to eminent domain in such...