Free Republic

When something breaks, the temptation is to simply go out and buy a new one. ... The repairs may not be pretty but, for the most part, they seem to do their job. From a pair of shoes fashioned out of cling film, to a hand-drawn clock and torches sellotaped to a car bonnet to replace broken lamps, there's ingenuity in spades in the gallery below.

What (basically) free market will "suddenly" turn into a crisis and need fixing by Zero and his troops in the next few months or years? Housing? Energy? Education? Food? Religion? Press? Private Property? Speech?

California will face persistent budget deficits over the next 20 years unless officials take corrective steps that could include ending state support for the University of California and asking voters to raise property taxes to pay for public works projects, Treasurer Bill Lockyer said Monday. The annual debt affordability report prepared by the treasurer's office projects an average yearly gap between revenue and spending of 3.5 percent, which would translate to a $14.6 billion shortfall in the fiscal year starting July 1, 2027, according to Lockyer. "The sooner we get to fixing this problem, the easier and the smaller is...

SACRAMENTO State lawmakers are betting that voters eager to avoid a Katrina-style disaster in California will rally behind a $4.1 billion bond on the November ballot to shore up the state's fragile levees. While few experts disagree that California needs to rebuild its aging levee system, an Associated Press review of the bond has found the measure requires voters to take a leap of faith that the state will spend the money the way lawmakers have promised. An extensive examination of the measure, reviews of state and federal studies, and interviews with two dozen water experts, lawmakers and environmentalists have...

Washington DC -- April 4, 2006: In an alarming wake-up call to voting rights activists accross the country, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand last week a decision by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The lower court ruled (Landes v Tartaglione, et al) that Philadelphia journalist and voting rights activist, Lynn Landes, had no standing to challenge the constitutionality of election laws which Landes claimed deny direct access to a tangible ballot and meaningful transparency to the election process.Specifically, Landes challenged the use of voting machines and absentee voting in elections for public office. The defendants in the...

Despite all the hoopla about the introduction of Windows Vista, the truth of the matter is that the new OS isn't due for at least another seven to nine months — and it will probably be even longer before most of us start adopting it. Meanwhile, we've still got to deal with Win XP. In order to make the waiting easier, we've decided to assemble the greatest tips in the history of Windows XP. Here you'll find the tips that give you the most bang for your buck; that are most useful in terms of security, functionality, and PC performance;...

The system of compensating workers for job-related injuries and illnesses that California created nearly a century ago was a double-barreled benefit for employers. A no-fault system would protect employers from lawsuits that injured workers otherwise might file, and a quasi-public State Compensation Insurance Fund would be an insurer of last resort and thus protect employers from arbitrary rate increases by private insurance firms. What we have now, however, is not your grandfather's workers' compensation system. It's become very litigious and very political, and the State Fund is the insurer of first resort, writing more than half of all coverage. When...

A "good" Internet worm and a new malicious mass-mailing computer virus are creating an enormous amount of network traffic, slowing some corporate systems, security experts said Tuesday. The Internet worm--called MSBlast.D, W32.Welchia or W32/Nachi--started compromising computers Monday and has overwhelmed some corporate networks with its aggressive scans for vulnerable hosts. Meanwhile, a new variant of the mass-mailing Sobig virus, called W32/SoBig.F, took off on Tuesday, swamping many companies' mail servers. The double whammy caused problems on some corporate networks but not for the Internet at large. SoBig.F disrupted e-mail systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, while the MSBlast variant,...

Ok, I have a problem with my home computer that I have never seen or heard of before. I can not find anyone else who has ever seen or heard of this problem before either. So here is whats going on. Please excuse my lack of technical and proper computer language and terms. When I turn on my computer it enters the "memory test." Normally i can hit ESC to get out of it and it starts right up. Or I can hit DEL and enter "Set Up." I always just hit ESC, though it rarely enters the memory test...