Free Republic

For the first time, the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation has adopted a policy in favor of high-density housing developments in rural areas to preserve farmland.But the state's largest organization of farmers, with 43,000 member families, also recommended that the current power of cities and villages to impose their zoning regulations three miles outside their borders be severely cut back. The policies, which set the farm bureau's legislative priorities for next year, were approved by 250 delegates representing members of the 61 county chapters around the state. Paul Zimmerman, executive director of public affairs for the farm bureau, said preservation of...

I dreamed of a white Christmas and woke up disillusioned with New Urbanism. We've had 23 inches of white so far this month in Milwaukee. By itself, this is nice. My days have not been merry and bright, however, and it's because of my alley. When we bought our house in an old neighborhood, we bought into the idea of alleys, or I did and I persuaded Mrs. McIlheran to go along. An alley meant a safer sidewalk, since cars wouldn't back out of driveways and run over our kids as they rode Big Wheels. A garage opening right onto...

Highways The Texas Department of Transportation plans to let contracts for $4.1 billion in construction in 2008 are in jeopardy after having to return around $950 million to Washington over the past 18 months. The mood in Austin is uncertain, although voters approved Proposition 12 in November, authorizing the next Texas Legislature in 2009 to issue up to $5 billion in bonds (paid from general revenue) to build highway projects. A required independent audit of the Texas Department of Transportation during 2007 recommended that the department “should continue to pursue Comprehensive Development Agreements (CDA) and toll pricing at levels that...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU — The road to economic prosperity south of Baghdad is being paved by Soldiers of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga. With assistance from the 2nd BCT embedded provincial reconstruction team, local government councils and Iraqi contractors, the task of restoring roads and improving roads damaged by war is in full swing. “It’s all about … helping the agricultural market in our area,” said Capt. Brian Love, ePRT military liason. The area, comprised of Arab Jabour, Hawr Rajab, Al Buaytha and Adwaniyah, is mainly agriculturally-based. The improvements, which began in October,...

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, Dec. 10, 2007 – Commanders of two coalition task forces met with Afghan government officials yesterday to discuss rebuilding infrastructure and developing health care in the country’s Parwan province. Army Col. Jonathon Ives, Task Force Cincinnatus commander, and Army Col. Bart Iddins Task Force Med commander, first met with the sub-governor of Jabal Saraj about the local bazaar. Earlier this year, a flood wiped out a bridge and several shops at the Jabal Saraj Bazaar. The river basin is now nearly twice as wide as it was in the spring. Bagram Provincial Reconstruction Team engineers have...

WASHINGTON: Psychologists at the Temple University have revealed that old-fashioned toys allow children to experiment with their imagination and creativity, thus proving much healthier for them. Researchers think that simpler toys like rubber balls and building blocks are healthier for the creative development of the child, as compared to expensive electronic gizmos. "Old-fashioned retro toys, such as red rubber balls, simple building blocks, clay and crayons, that don't cost so much and are usually hidden in the back shelves are usually much healthier for children than the electronic educational toys that have fancier boxes and cost $89.99," said Kathy Hirsh-Pasek,...

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, Nov. 14, 2007 – For more than 1,500 years they stood watch over the people of Afghanistan’s Bamyan province. The Buddhas of Bamyan remained untouched, nestled in the heart of the Hindu Kush Mountains until they were destroyed by the Taliban in March 2001. An Afghan National Army soldier stands guard at the ruins of the Buddhas of Bamyan. The Buddhas of Bamyan were two monumental statues of standing Buddhas carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley of central Afghanistan. Photo by Senior Airman Dilia DeGrego, USAF  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10, 2007 – The Army is exploring new ways to accelerate the development of leaders prepared for the broad challenges they’ll face in what’s expected to be an era of persistent conflict, the Army’s chief of staff said here yesterday. “We are committed to investing in our officer, warrant officer, noncommissioned officer and civilian leaders,” Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. told attendees at the annual Association of the U.S. Army convention. “In this era of persistent conflict, it is absolutely essential that we develop leaders that can handle the challenges of full-spectrum operations.” Full-spectrum operations include the...

Governments need to scrap subsidies for biofuels, as the current rush to support alternative energy sources will lead to surging food prices and the potential destruction of natural habitats, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development will warn on Tuesday. The OECD will say in a report to be discussed by ministers on Tuesday that politicians are rigging the market in favour of an untried technology that will have only limited impact on climate change. “The current push to expand the use of biofuels is creating unsustainable tensions that will disrupt markets without generating significant environmental benefits,” say the authors...

It turns out that popular baby videos don't create geniuses, and may even hinder development. University of Washington researchers warned in a report released Tuesday that Baby Einstein, Brainy Baby and other videos for infants may make a child slower in picking up vocabulary in the first two years of life. Every hour babies spent watching videos, they understood an average of six to eight fewer words than a baby who didn't watch the programs, researchers found. Babies who watched the videos scored 17 percent worse on language-skills assessments than babies who didn't, said Dr. Dimitri Christakis, co-author of the...

New research shows us that people around the world, including in the West, are satisfied with their lives and are enjoying a rising quality of life. So why are westerners so pessimistic, asks Nima Sanandaji, of think-tank Captus. Our planet is a happier place these days. That, at least, is what the Pew Research Center is telling us. Their latest survey of global attitudes in 47 nations has found a number of trends that are worth analyzing. According to Pew, people in the developing world are growing ever more satisfied with their personal and financial situations. In Latin America, 59...

Rocketeers By Michael Belfiore Smithsonian, 305 pages, $26.95 American space exploration had a rough time of it on Thursday. NASA's already bruised reputation took a one-two punch with revelations that on at least two occasions astronauts were allowed to fly even though they were intoxicated and that a computer due to be delivered to the International Space Station in August had been sabotaged. The news might have bolstered the case for the increasingly robust efforts at privately funded space ventures, except Thursday also brought news of a deadly explosion at a Mojave Desert airport where a propellant system for a...

A top adviser on foreign economic policy to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice encouraged Russia on Wednesday to give foreign companies a bigger role in developing its vast but remote oil and gas reserves in the Arctic and Eastern Siberia. Reuben Jeffery III called Russia a "key player in the global energy equation," noting that Russian supplies were "critical to global energy security." He was speaking on his first official trip overseas since taking up the post of U.S. undersecretary of state for economic, energy and agricultural affairs in June. Russia, the biggest producer and exporter of gas in...

13:32 | 14/ 07/ 2007 Moscow. - President Putin has frequently complained that international reporting on Russia is biased and unfair, that the media focus on the bad news rather than on positive developments. There is certainly some truth in this - Western reporting on the Soviet Union and on Yeltsin and Putin's Russia has varied between brilliant and insightful and downright incompetent. Nevertheless, Putin's comments display a profound failure to understand what drives the 24/7 international news agenda. And as new reports by the World Bank and the Swedish Defense Research Agency make clear, it is hard to put...

Gov. Sarah Palin has signed her Alaska Gasline Inducement Act. Alaska is home free for more revenue. Right? Wrong. Some wonder whether any company will offer to build the gas line from Prudhoe Bay, not for fear of rising construction costs but for fear of the cost of political clout needed to obtain construction permits. A strong new industry has sprouted up to oppose development of any kind in Alaska. It's the professional environmentalists — the Sierra Club, the Alaska Coalition, the Wilderness Society, Southeast Alaska Conservation Council and others. One of the newest and most influential is the Alaska...

June 11, 2007 An Unsustainable Development Click here to launch the Podcast Player If there's a hell on earth, it's probably Zimbabwe. Life expectancies in the landlocked nation in the South of Africa are the world's lowest. Reports say women live an average of 35 years; men a bit longer. Four in five people are unemployed. Government printing presses run day and night to produce enough money to keep the military from rebelling, so inflation is at an annual rate of 3,700 percent and rising. Cash loses over ten percent of its value everyday. It wasn't always that way. Before...

Each year Mexicans in the United States send billions of dollars in remittances back to Mexico. In 2006, Mexicans working north of the border sent back US$23 billion. Remittances have become (after petroleum) the second highest legal source of income for Mexico. And that’s one of several reasons why Mexican leaders don’t want emigration to end. But are these billions of dollars really helping Mexico? You might think so, but if you look at the Mexican regions that receive high levels of remittances, they’re not exactly booming economically. Take for example Michoacan, President Felipe Calderon’s home state. That state is...

California government is in the midst of a major push into information-technology development that envisions 1,000 IT new hires over the next few years; more attention to larger, more complex contracts; and a dramatic ramping-up of the office that will ride herd on the state's computer systems. For the first time, those plans--already approved by the governor and described in his 2007-08 budget--include financing the office of the chief information officer. The budget's $7.9 million proposal includes up to four-dozen staff members, half of them to track and negotiate IT contracts, said state CIO J. Clark Kelso. Thus far, the...

The conversion of cornfields to subdivisions is a familiar phenomenon by now, as growth booms in ever-larger rings around Chicago. It means new housing for growing families, increased tax revenues for local government. But what does it mean for farmers? Will County is a good place to look for an answer. It is the second-fastest growing Illinois county, experiencing a 33 percent population increase from 2000 to 2006, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. So one might expect an outcry from the farming community over the loss of land. "When I started at Will County I thought I was going...

State might need new nickname Commercial development trend accelerates SUSAN GORDON; The News Tribune Published: April 1st, 2007 01:00 AM Hundreds of thousands of acres of Western Washington forests are being converted to home sites, hobby farms and commercial developments. The sell-off of commercial timberland is changing the regional landscape in ways residents and government officials never anticipated. The result is not only suburban sprawl but also what some decry as a permanent scar on the face of the Evergreen State. “We’re dismantling the forest, tearing it up, breaking it down into little parcels. It isn’t the forest it used...