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The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved today a resolution authorizing an agreement between the county and the Multicultural Institute, which will now operate the county's Day Worker Program. The San Mateo County Human Services Agency noted in a report that members of the Redwood City community have voice concern about day workers congregating to seek employment. To mitigate those concerns, the county, in contract with El Concilio, launched a pilot day worker program in the North Fair Oaks unincorporated area of Redwood City, according to the report. Now, as a result of today's unanimous vote, the Multicultural...

How to spend $3 billion for stem cell research is proving to be a monumental and sometimes divisive task for California's Institute for Regenerative Medicine. What's the low hanging fruit in stem cell research that could move the science forward? Should funding priority be given to research that could help the largest number of people, or should it be directed to orphan diseases that affect a small segment of society and aren't of interest to big pharmaceutical companies? How much money should be spent inventing tools that could help scientists involved in stem cell research? As the stem cell institute...

The traditional perspective on Vatican Council II Interview with Fr. Gabet, Msgr. SchmitzBrian Mershon April 4, 2006 This is the third and final part of a series of articles, taken from interviews with Msgr. Michael Schmitz, who is vicar general and provincial superior of the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest (ICKSP) in the U.S., and Fr. George Gabet, the North American District Superior for the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP). As the previous articles have shown, much attention has been focused on the eventual plight of the Society of St. Pius X, especially in light of the...

N ew Hampshire had New England's lowest per capita taxes, and it was the only state in the union whose residents didn't see a tax increase in 2005. Nationally, states collected a total of $649 billion in taxes in the 2005 budget year, which ended in June for most states, according to a report yesterday by the Census Bureau. That's $2,192 per person. The numbers include only taxes collected by states. They do not include federal or local taxes, which can greatly increase a person's taxes. All states collected more taxes in 2005 than they did in 2004. And every...

Vatican sees U.S. situation as hopeful, but at crossroadsInterview With Fr. Gabet, Msgr. Schmitz Brian Mershon March 22, 2006 (From the March 23 edition of The Wanderer) In light of reported activities at the highest levels of the Church to possibly find a canonical solution and regularization for the bishops and priests of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), The Wanderer decided to interview the U.S. and North American superiors for the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest (ICKSP), and the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP). (Two related articles will follow this one.) Providentially, the interview with...

During the past week we witnessed a virtual frenzy with Senators, Congressmen, and then Governors jumping over each other to take the lead in bashing the 'Dubai port deal', the UAE, or the Bush administration. It's all being done, critics say, in the name of national security. In reality, however, what is taking place here is nothing more than crass political posturing and an irresponsible and ill-informed attack on an Arab country that has been a strong ally of the United States. At its essence, there are three factors that are driving this ruckus: It's an election year, the public...

LOS ANGELES – Philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad donated $25 million to build a stem cell research center at the University of Southern California, school officials said Thursday. Groundbreaking for the center, which will be named the Broad Institute for Integrative Biology and Stem Cell Research, will begin in the fall. The 215,000-square-foot facility is expected to be the largest stem cell research center in the state when it opens in 2008, the university said. The Broad Institute will bring together various scientific disciplines to study stem cells, which some believe hold promise for treating an array of diseases like...

Invent the Lever Dennis Polhill / Alex Schroeder Opinion Editorial July 13, 2005 If one could put $100 in the bank and get back $4000, one would be a fool to not do it. A $10 million prize offered by a St. Louis group has stimulated $400 million in research and development since 1996. Equally important, the X-Prize accomplished in eight years what NASA considered impossible. The contest motivated Burt Rutan to build the world's first privately funded spacecraft. Space Ship One went into space for the third time on October 4, 2004 to win the X-Prize. Since X-Prize inception,...

A majority of likely voters (52-40%) favor proposals to allow younger workers the choice to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in personal accounts, according to a new poll conducted by Zogby International for the Cato Institute. Younger voters support the chance to invest by an enormous majority (66-23% among voters under 30). The poll also found that Americans believe that opponents of President Bush's Social Security reform proposals have an obligation to put forward an alternative plan to solve the financial crisis that is about to engulf the current system. By an overwhelming 70-22% margin, voters said...

Forty-three of John Bolton's former colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute want to set the record straight: They've sent a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, defending Bolton's conduct and management style. "We were colleagues of John Bolton during his tenure as senior vice president of the American Enterprise Institute from January 1997 through May 2001. We are writing to tell you and your colleagues that the various allegations that have been raised before your Committee, concerning Mr. Bolton's management style and conduct in other organizations and circumstances, are radically at odds with our experiences in more than four...

Climate change computer models aren't much better than ancient oracles. In ancient times, priestesses at the Oracle at Delphi often answered important political questions with enigmatic predictions derived from dreams, signs, casting lots or reading animal entrails. Today, in the realm of climate change, that function is served by scientific priests and priestesses who offer forecasts of dubious value, derived from computer models. Investing in the stock market, like planning next summer’s vacation, is a dicey proposition. But if someone offered to eliminate the uncertainty — by using computer models to pick surefire investments and perfect weather windows at idyllic...

Keeping developing countries cute, indigenous, electricity-poor — and impoverished Critics are "lying about environmentalists" and "willfully representing facts" about them and their views, concerns and agendas. So says a recent commentary by the Earth Island Institute and Environmental News Network. A principle object of their wrath was a recent article by this author, shredding lofty claims about wind turbines, much as these towering "Cuisinarts of the air" eviscerate birds and bats. They particularly objected to this statement: The Earth Island Institute longs for the day when Africa’s poor made clothing for their neighbors "on foot-pedal-powered sewing machines" and says, "once...

WASHINGTON - A year ago, an activist group from the Seattle area gave Howard Dean (news - web sites) a thin, golden statue of a backbone. The Oscar-like award honored the former Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont governor for standing up against the Iraq (news - web sites) war and other Bush administration policies. Now, as Dean settles into his new role as head of the Democratic Party, that golden spine has come to represent, for many liberal Democrats, Dean's potential to develop a tougher, take-no-prisoners attitude among the party faithful. "There's no gut-check required for Dean. Dean just needs...

If you think Ward Churchill is controversial in his academic setting, you should see how divisive a force he is in the Indian world. The University of Colorado professor, who has set off a firestorm with the publicizing of his 3-year-old essay rationalizing the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, has been a lightning rod for years among those involved in American Indian arts, academics and activism. He simultaneously inspires great admiration and loathing. "He is horribly divisive, and he is a thug," said Suzan Shown Harjo, president of the Morningstar Institute in Washington, a national American Indian rights organization. "He's gone...

A private memo has just been released that demonstrates the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Committee intentionally watered down its report on city finances in 2002. This is the clearest evidence to date that the Mayor knew of the city’s financial crisis back in 2002. The memo also makes a troubling reference to concerns over the City’s ball park bonds and credit rating in the context of the Blue Ribbon Report being watered down. The memo is available online at www.sandiegobudget.org so you can read and judge for yourself. Below is our press release; the link to the San Diego City Beat...

Anti-American think tank, The Canadian Institute of International Affairs (CIIA), made news on the front page of the National Post today with results of a "major study" concluding that Canada has become an irrelevant force on the international stage. Canada Free Press rates CIIA as anti-American because it links to left.org on its website. After protesting the inauguration of President George W. Bush last week, left.org now plans on marking Not My President’s Day on February 21. For the major study, CIIA dispatched Robert Greenhill, the former President of Bombardier Inc. and author of Canada’s role in the wold, on...

The Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia at Princeton University Announces Its Theme for 2005-2006 and Invites Applications for a Research Fellowship 2005-2006 Theme: "Society under Occupation: Contemporary Palestinian Politics, Culture and Identity" Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip has now persisted for over thirty-seven years, during which time the number of Israeli settlers in the occupied territories has grown to hundreds of thousands and Israeli control over the territories has been strengthened by the use of checkpoints, by-pass roads, military engagement and, most recently, the construction of...

Muqtedar Khan of the Brookings Institution has announced, in a recent article in the Daily Times of Lahore, the coming into existence on Dec. 13, 2004, of yet another organization of American Muslims claiming to be moderates. It does not lack for ambitions: “Now with the constitution of the American Muslim Group for Policy Planning, Moderate Muslims in America have a name and an address.” Unfortunately, in its initial form, the AMGPP does not at all appear to be moderate. Rather, it resembles the Progressive Muslim Union (which opened its virtual doors a month earlier, and which I have analyzed...

With less than a week before the debut of the state's new $3-billion stem cell institute, intense behind-the-scenes debate is growing over who should head the agency and whether a Friday deadline for filling the post will allow the best candidates to be considered. The debate is expected to crest Monday when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and three other elected state officials must, under the tight deadlines set by the state's embryonic stem cell initiative, put forward their nominees to lead the new agency. On Friday, board members — many still to be named — are scheduled to meet in San...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!