Free Republic

Most people are already aware that electric vehicles (EVs) cost more to buy, have a more limited range, are expensive to repair, and that charging stations in rural areas are few and far between. This winter we learned that many EVs are incapacitated by cold weather. Now that the EVs have been on the road awhile owners are having pay $1,500 to replace all the tires after about 8,000-10,000 miles of driving. Not only is this more expensive than for gasoline-powered cars whose tires typically last four times as long. It is also highly polluting. Breathing in the four-times as...

What is already arguably America's worst public transit project is about to get a whole lot more expensive. The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) is moving ahead with plans to build a 2-mile extension to the city's 2.7-mile streetcar line, with an estimated price tag of $230 million. The Center Square reports that the first batch of that new spending—an $11.5 million contract awarded to a firm that will design the extension—was doled out last week. The project is being funded by a half-cent increase in the Atlanta sales tax, and the extension is scheduled to open in 2028....

The IRS failed to adequately store, backup, and search official records for use in Freedom of Information requests and other litigation, according to a new report released by the Treasury Inspector General of Tax Administration. Performing an independent audit, TIGTA found: The IRS’s current e-mail system and record retention policies do not ensure that e-mail records are saved and can be searched and retrieved for as long as needed. Additionally, repeated changes in electronic media storage policies, combined with a reliance on employees to maintain records on computer hard drives, has resulted in cases in which Federal records were lost...

Puerto Rico, already trying to dig itself out of a historic financial crisis, is now facing a direct hit by a major hurricane that could destroy any progress the U.S. territory has made under a year-old economic rehab plan ─ and set it back further. Hurricane Maria is forecast to hit Puerto Rico early Wednesday, testing the local government's ability to respond to a humanitarian disaster. While the Caribbean island of 3.4 million people is accustomed to tropical storms, it hasn't been hit by a Category 4 or 5 hurricane since 1928.

Former minister points to 'incompetence' in NHS Service was given 'too much money too quickly', and strategy blamed for trusts' severe budget shortfalls A nurse checks his fob watch as the government announces proposals to allow patients to shop around for treatment. Photograph: Ian Waldie/Getty Images The management of the NHS has been characterised by "monumental incompetence" driven by "too much money given too quickly", which has left some trusts facing severe budget shortfalls, according to a former Labour health minister. Lord Warner, who served in Tony Blair's administration, said he was not surprised by the tide of red ink...

A big reason why the government is inefficient and ineffective is because Washington has outdated technology, with federal workers having better computers at home than in the office. This startling admission came Thursday from Peter Orszag, who manages the federal bureaucracy for President Barack Obama. The public is getting a bad return on its tax dollars because government workers are operating with outdated technologies, Orszag said in a statement that kicked off a summit between Obama and dozens of corporate CEOs.

The welfare system in America is cheating tax payers in all sorts of ways. One thing is certain, many on welfare do not really need it but need a good kick in the rear. People who are perfectly capable of working are using welfare to avoid getting a job like the rest of us. They sit around in section 8 housing smoking, drinking, using illegal narcotics, just sitting around in front of their big screens, contributing nothing at all while we the tax payers must foot the bill by working harder. Its not just welfare cheaters who are making our...

NEW YORK - A time-lapse video of a man trapped in an elevator for 41 hours has become something of an Internet sensation after surveillance camera footage emerged after nearly a decade...

WASHINGTON - The Capitol Limited, an Amtrak train from Chicago, is scheduled to arrive in Washington every day at 1:30 p.m. But frequent rider Edda Ramos knows better than to make plans for the afternoon or evening. She knows a late arrival — sometimes by an hour or two, sometimes by seven or eight — "is the one thing you can count on." The 764-mile route is among Amtrak's most dismal performers, with just 11 percent of trains arriving within 30 minutes of their scheduled time last year. But the problem exists to one degree or another on the majority...

It was late 2003, and a contractor, Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), had spent months writing 730,000 lines of computer code for the Virtual Case File (VCF), a networked system for tracking criminal cases that was designed to replace the bureau's antiquated paper files and, finally, shove J. Edgar Hoover's FBI into the 21st century.he warned FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III that the $170 million system was in serious trouble. A year later, it was dead. The nation's premier law enforcement and counterterrorism agency, burdened with one of the government's most archaic computer systems, would have to start from...

One year ago a tsunami walloped a huge swathe of the world from Indonesia all the way to Africa. Some 300,000 people were swept to their deaths, from the grandson of the king of Thailand and the daughter and granddaughter of film director Richard Attenborough to Njoroge, a Nairobi car mechanic, who picked the wrong day for his first visit to the beautiful East African coast and died a statistical fluke, his country's solitary fatality from the disaster. Across the Western world, TV viewers reached into their wallets, chipped in the best part of $5 billion, and left it in...

FEMA, typically for a federal agency, continues to run rampant, exercising its federal muscle with little or no regard for folks at the local level. After all, "they are from Washington and they are here to help us" so we are told. As it turns out, some of the folks that needed real help as a result of the two hurricanes that struck the Gulf Coast this year had a lot more trouble getting it than others did. An editorial in the Monroe, Louisiana "News-Star" recently noted: "While devastated hurricane victims wrangled with red tape, delays and FEMA changes, it...

/begin my translationNo Future for China's Resource Wasteful EconomyCho Young-haeng2005.07.04 13:06 41'The current structure of Chinese economy, which requires consuming world's resources at an astonishing speed, will keep Chinese economy from sustaining its growth, reported Hong Kong's South China Morning Post(SCMP) on July 4. The paper pointed out that, despite impressive economic growth of China, its economic model is resource-intensive, wasteful of energy, and destructive to its environment.The recent rate of Chinese consumption of raw materials is startling. China now has 30 million automobiles, and its oil import is the second in the world. This year, its oil consumption rate...

Facing Global Sanctions, Iran Uses Oil Fields to Seek Alliances By JAD MOUAWAD Published: April 19, 2005 EHRAN, Iran - As it faces the threat of global sanctions from the United States and Europe because of suspicions that it is turning its nuclear program to weapons production, Iran is fighting back with a powerful weapon of its own: its vast oil and gas resources. Iran's ruling clerics are meticulously arranging energy sales and building partnerships with influential countries, including China and India, as a way to win stronger friendships around the world. Abedin Taherkenareh/European Pressphoto AgencyAn oil terminal in the...