Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House on Wednesday said higher oil prices caused by Middle East unrest must be monitored but would not stall the U.S. recovery, while reiterating a warning on the risks posed by global imbalances. "Thus far, they're up, but we're not forecasting -- and you haven't seen the private forecasters forecasting -- that at these levels they would derail the recovery," said top White House economist Austan Goolsbee. U.S. crude oil reached a 28-month high of $100 a barrel on Wednesday as violence in OPEC producer Libya caused output there to be reduced and investors bet...

I've spent the last year working on an education product and trying to get it into as many classrooms as possible. This has given me a unique perspective into how many areas of universities operate - from the students, to the professors, to the administration. I've also done grad school, and my partner at Top Hat Monocle is a recently minted PhD. I think I've gotten a pretty good feel for the higher-education system (at least in Canada and the US.) Unfortunately what I've found is that it's really pretty badly broken. I'm certainly not the first person to say...

The left continues to try to renovate Van Jones' reputation. Jones, the former green jobs czar who disappeared from the White House in a late-night resignation after it was revealed he had signed a 9/11 Truther petition, is one of the headliners at the Hamptons Institute gathering of lefties this weekend. Jones joins liberal financier George Soros and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark for "a weekend summer symposium gathering some of the greatest minds in the arts, the economy, and the media" this coming weekend. To prep for the event, Jones was interviewed by New Deal 2.0 and he responded predictably...

Stock futures are sharply higher. Incredible volatility ahead. Link here: Click here.

(CNSNews.com) – During his 26 years in Congress, former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) consistently supported tax hikes, opposed tax cuts and had tough words for tax scofflaws. “Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter,” Daschle said in 1998, according to the Congressional Record. Daschle, nominated to serve as President Barack Obama’s secretary of Health and Human Services, paid $128,203 in back taxes and $11,964 in interest last week. The tax and penalties stem from a free car service provided to Daschle from 2005 through 2007. Although the service was...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Crude futures halted a weeklong price slide Tuesday, nudging higher after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the stimulus package being crafted by President-elect Barack Obama and Congress could provide a "significant boost" to the sinking U.S. economy. After rebounding to a high of $50.47 one week ago, crude has fallen 30 percent as worries about the weakening global economy overshadow Mideast tensions, OPEC production cuts, the Russian-Ukraine natural gas dispute and a winter season expected to deliver the coldest weather in a decade.

SACRAMENTO - Joe Six-pack will have to pay a lot more to get his buzz on if Assemblyman Jim Beall has his way. The San Jose Democrat on Thursday proposed raising the beer tax by $1.80 per six-pack, or 30 cents per can or bottle. The current tax is 2 cents per can. That's an increase of about 1,500 percent. Beall said the tax would generate $2 billion a year to fund health care services, crime prevention and programs to prevent underage drinking and addiction. "The people who use alcohol should pay for part of the cost to society, just...

Course Description: Just because you happen to be a gay man doesn't mean that you don't have to learn how to become one. This course will examine the general topic of the role that initiation plays in the formation of gay male identity. We will approach it from three angles: (1) as a sub-cultural practice — subtle, complex, and difficult to theorize — which a small but significant body of work in queer studies has begun to explore; (2) as a theme in gay male writing; and (3) as a class project, since the course itself will constitute an experiment...

As the Los Angeles Times recently reported, undergraduates at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary now have the opportunity to concentrate in homemaking within the humanities major. For women only, the concentration teaches cookie-baking, conversation-starting, child-raising, husband-supporting and the patriarchal theology that makes each of those tasks fulfilling. As an undergraduate anthropology major at a Christian liberal arts college, I once asked a droll professor what I could do with my major. He answered, "Pump gas in a cross-cultural gas station."A homemaking concentration, on the other hand, has a clear outcome: Women are prepared to be wives, mothers and home-schoolers. At 20,...

More than 760,000 California homeowners who buy earthquake insurance through a state-run authority could see their premiums rise under a bill signed Friday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. But the measure's supporters say that without the legislation homeowners could be hit with even bigger rate increases. The measure by Sen. Mike Machado, D-Linden, creates a new $1.3 billion underwriting requirement for insurance companies participating in the California Earthquake Authority program. That $1.3 billion requirement will replace a $2.2 billion insurance industry commitment that's scheduled to expire on Dec. 1, 2008. State Treasurer Bill Lockyer opposed the legislation, predicting it would force...

The eldest children in families tend to develop slightly higher I.Q.s than their younger siblings, researchers are reporting, based on a large study that could effectively settle more than a half-century of scientific debate about the relationship between I.Q. and birth order.

The “Weekly Standard” profiled libertarian-leaning conservative and political commentator turned documentarian Evan Coyne Maloney, whose new documentary about the leftist ideological indoctrination and pervasive political correctness in the US higher education system is called “Indoctrinate U”. Saturday May 19, CSPAN ran a segment about his film on the network’s “Washington Journal”, but CSPAN posts footage of the shows online (when they have it up, I'll post it. His spot is at the two-hour mark). You can see a clip of his film on YouTube as well as the film's website, Indoctrinate-U.com. “Indoctrinate U” focuses on the pervasive trampling of free...

HOUSTON (Reuters) - There is an above-average chance that a major hurricane will hit the U.S. Gulf Coast this year, marking a possible return to the destructive seasons of 2004 and 2005, leading storm forecasters predicted on Tuesday. Hurricanes in 2005 devastated New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast, and knocked out a swath of the country's offshore oil platforms and coastal refineries, pushing oil prices to then-record highs. In 2004, four strong hurricanes struck Florida, the country's biggest citrus producer. AccuWeather and Colorado State University said Tuesday at a storm conference in Houston the chance that a...

WASHINGTON - The Homeland Security Department is studying whether legal immigrants seeking citizenship and other benefits should pay higher application fees. The fees now charged don't reflect the full cost of doing business, Emilio Gonzalez, director of the department's Citizenship and Immigration Services, said Wednesday. Applying for citizenship now costs $330. Applying for a green card conveying legal residency costs $325. Applicants also now pay a $70 fingerprinting fee in each case. "American citizenship is priceless," said Gonzalez, a naturalized citizen. "I think people will pay." The study will review costs of facility improvements, training, equipment and technology and determine...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed $131.1 billion state budget won praise Monday from the nonpartisan legislative analyst, even as she warned that a deal the governor reached with teachers could increase debt in future years. The analysis came as Democratic lawmakers voiced concerns about some aspects of the spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Among other issues, they questioned the amount of money set aside for public transit and whether $400 million Schwarzenegger proposed for bird flu preparations might better be spent on welfare increases. Still, Democrats said a tax windfall estimated at $7.5 billion has led...

SACRAMENTO - California lawmakers should scale back a planned increase in education funding, raise the gas tax and let college fees rise, state Legislative Analyst Liz Hill said Thursday in her annual critique of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed budget. The nonpartisan analyst recommended cutting $2.3 billion from Schwarzenegger's proposed $125 billion spending plan for fiscal 2006-07, including slashing $1 billion from education. Her recommendations, she said, would help reduce the state's long-term structural budget deficit and eliminate some of the "autopilot" spending measures that tie state officials' hands in designing budgets. "If you think of California as a patient fighting...

Source: JAMA and Archives Journals Date: 2006-01-19 Avian Flu Transmission To Humans May Be Higher Than Thought A new study suggests that there is an association between direct contact with dead or sick poultry and flu-like illness in humans and that the transmission is probably more common than expected, according to a new study in the January 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Anna Thorson, M.D., Ph.D., from the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues analyzed data from household interviews conducted in FilaBavi, a Vietnamese demographic surveillance site in Bavi district, northwest Vietnam, with...

IMPORTANT: Please note that the previous signatures have been voided for your protection. Do not re-sign this petition. Each day I will remove all of the signatures so only I have access to them. Please do not feel uncomfortable to put your name, email, address, and tel. number on this petition. It is secure. If you know of people who have not signed this petition due to fear of their information being public, inform them of this. Thank you. I ask for all information for this petition (name, address, and tel. number) for validation purposes only. It will not be...

Key points • Texting makes you less intelligent, it is revealed • Brains suffer from information overload, apparently • Solution is: switch off! Key quote"The impairment only lasts for as long as the distraction. But you have to ask whether our current obsession with constant communication is causing long-term damage to concentration and mental ability." - Dr Glenn Wilson, psychologist at the University of London Story in fullCONSTANT text messaging and e-mailing causes a reduction in mental capability equivalent to the loss of ten IQ points, according to research. Tapping away on a mobile phone or computer keypad or checking...

Mr. Bush's Stealthy Tax Increase President Bush is presiding over a big middle-class tax hike. As recently as 2000, only about one million taxpayers owed the alternative minimum tax, created by a provision in the federal tax code that is supposed to prevent multimillionaires from using loopholes to avoid paying their fair share. But by the time Americans file their 2005 taxes, some 3 million taxpayers will owe the alternative tax and by 2010, nearly 30 million taxpayers will be hit - among them, a staggering 94 percent of married filers who have children and make $75,000 to $100,000. Big...