Free Republic

In 61 years on this earth, I have never needed an oscillating multitool until now. But I’m working on a project that requires one (for cutting away a couple inches of baseboard on either side of a door, to accommodate door replacement and new casing). So, I headed to our local Walmart. I will probably only use it for this project and never need it again, so I didn’t need to spend much. I found four options: a $20 multitool, a $35 model, a $45 model, and a $70 model. Different brands, different power levels, probably different quality levels, but...

"Sorry, ma'am, we've been out for months. They're on order from Asia." "Yes, sir, I know we're out of them. They've been shipped from Asia, sir; they're on their way... but it's taking forever. No, sir, I don't know why." Most retailers have had to make the above statement dozens of times each day for the past six to nine months. Sadder still is that even American-made goods are also unavailable, because so many American-made products are dependent on components or raw materials from Asia. Why? Why on earth does international shipping take so long nowadays? THE MAGIC OF INTERMODAL...

Communist ChinaÂ’s leaders are afraid because they feel a parallel to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which hardened everyoneÂ’s resolve and awakened a sleeping giant. The Chinese communists are afraid. You might not guess it from the invertebrate and borderline anti-national corporate media parroting Chinese state propaganda, but they are. Beijing is shaken. Their dream of dominating the globe eventually, with the slow overstretch and collapse of the Pax Americana, was considered a matter of destiny.Then suddenly, it all was shaken. A combination of incompetence, criminal negligence, and totalitarian suppression of a new devastating virus originating from the raw...

Expected post-Lunar New Year cargo growth will accelerate equipment, cargo handling and other costs going forward, maintain ocean carrier executives. While the full impact on ocean carrier deployments to U.S. West Coat ports has yet to be measured, major players comprising the Transpacific Stabilization Agreement (TSA) are standing firm on raising rates. According to TSA spokesman, Niels Erich, container shipping lines have begun the slow work of repairing their networks as U.S. West Coast congestion difficulties ease. “At the same time, forward bookings suggest that post-Lunar New Year cargo demand will resume after the week-long Asia holidays and continue to...

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew unsure about the sequence or pacing of reforms.

NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUES DON'T END AT THE BORDER For over a decade, the British Crown had been at war with the American colonies. One could argue that April 6, 1776 was the day that the American colonies had finally had it. The sundering of the bonds between two peoples is not something that happens in a day. The relationship between Great Britain and what was to become the United States of America began as a close-knit bond. The link between these frontier territories and their mother country was tight and fond at first; Americans were proud to think of themselves...

Artificially-Sweetened Prices Sarah Carlsruh, November 11, 2009 Do America’s sugar policies harm consumers? “America’s highest remaining trade barriers are aimed at products mostly grown and made by poor people abroad and disproportionately consumed by poor people at home,” wrote Daniel Griswold in a September 29th Washington Times article. He then identified numerous government trade policies that adversely affect low-income populations: Chinese tire tariffs increased the price of low-cost tires, cash-for-clunkers increased the price of used vehicles, and the 2008 farm bill imposed tariffs on staples such as “imported sugar, milk and cheese.” Daniel Griswold, director of the Center for Trade...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. restrictions on trade with Cuba and family travel to the island would be eased under legislation passed by the House of Representatives on Wednesday but the changes could encounter trouble in the Senate. Supporters hope congressional action will be the first step toward reviewing and possibly reversing the decades-old U.S. policy of shunning Cuba. Tucked into a larger spending bill, most of the changes would expire on September 30 unless there is a move to extend them by Congress or President Barack Obama. Obama has made clear he favors relaxing limits on family travel and cash...

On Tuesday afternoon El Paso Mayor John Cook vetoed a resolution unanimously passed by city council that would have asked the U.S. government to begin a serious debate on legalizing narcotics. Earlier in the day city council passed a resolution, rationing that the best way to stop the drug wars in Juarez may be to legalize the drugs here in the United States. It was part of a larger resolution outlining several steps for the United States and Mexico to take in order to cut down on the number of murders between rival drug cartels. Last year more than 1,600...

Some readers have asked me to re-visit a few of my concerns regarding the Trans-Texas Corridor or TTC, because I have mentioned the project in my last two columns. Recently, I introduced what I like to call Nosygate. I think that is an appropriate name for the advertising campaign and subsequent information gathering effort, by a private company, on behalf of the Texas Department of Transportation or TxDOT. A brief re-cap is probably in order. Unsuspecting motorists had their license tag numbers photographed while traveling and minding their own business. Their tag numbers were then traced to their home address.Their...

THERE'S GOOD NEWS in the latest Ports-to-Plains progress report for Lubbock and West Texas residents who recognize the evolving trade route's potential economic benefit to our area. Extending from the most active U.S.-Mexico border port, Laredo, through Lubbock and West Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Colorado, the Ports-to-Plains Corridor links the nation's plains states to the border centers of commerce. The Texas Department of Transportation is analyzing funding alternatives including opportunities for private investment and partnerships to pay for moving freight and utilities along the trade route. Using Ports-to-Plains as a case study, TxDOT will research the best potential applications...

Tensions between China and Japan often bubble to the surface in the international media, particularly over visits in recent times by Prime Minister Kozuimi to the Yakusuni shrine. These occasional tensions are rarely examined by the western media, however, any foreigner who visits China and turns on state television would be shocked by the incessant anti-Japanese rhetoric that fills the programming from the news stories to the documentaries.

California's foreign trade offices--taxpayer-funded enterprises disbanded three years ago amid scandal and budget woes--are staging a comeback despite lingering questions about their usefulness. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and some legislators are once again trumpeting the value of trade promotion for the sixth-largest economy in the world. In recent months, the governor has established an undersecretary for international trade, while lawmakers have proposed resurrecting outposts in Seoul, South Korea, and Johannesburg, South Africa. In coming weeks, the Legislature is expected to take up bills that call for developing a comprehensive trade strategy and moving the state back into the business of operating...

In his recent bestseller, "The World Is Flat," Thomas Friedman warned Americans about the challenges of an era of increased globalization and international competition. In an ever "flattening" world, many jobs can easily be outsourced to skilled, lower-cost workers in other countries. Today, American workers have to compete against workers from around the world. Friedman explained what this should mean to American students by recounting a warning he offered his daughters: "Girls, when I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, 'Tom, finish your dinner. People in China and India are starving.' My advice to you is:...

"the separateness of these two mechanisms, one for understanding the physical world and one for understanding the social world, gives rise to a duality of experience. We experience the world of material things as separate from the world of goals and desires. ...We have what the anthropologist Pascal Boyer has called a hypertrophy of social cognition. We see purpose, intention, design, even when it is not there." -- Paul Bloom, writing in The Atlantic Paul Bloom's essay "Is God an Accident?" in the latest issue of The Atlantic, suggests that humans' belief in God, Intelligent Design, and the afterlife is...

Martin gets tough with Bush Ottawa prepared to litigate softwood dispute, PM tells U.S. President BY RHÉAL SÉGUIN AND BRIAN LAGHI -- Prime Minister Paul Martin stepped up his campaign to get the United States to respect a NAFTA ruling on softwood lumber yesterday, making the Canadian case in a frank telephone conversation with President George W. Bush. Mr. Martin said he would take Ottawa's claim directly to the American public if Washington doesn't agree to repay $5-billion in tariffs. "At the core of NAFTA is the dispute settlement mechanism," Mr. Martin told reporters yesterday. "Effectively in terms of softwood,...

If the feds really want to help the economy post-Katrina, here are four words: lumber, cement, shrimp and steel. They all have prices higher than necessary because of U.S. anti-dumping trade law. Start with lumber and cement, which will soon be in great demand to rebuild the tens of thousands of damaged homes. Prices are sure to rise as reconstruction begins, but thanks to U.S. tariffs as high as 27% on Canadian lumber, American home buyers already pay an extra $1,000 on average for their shelter. The same goes for U.S. duties on Mexican cement, which have averaged 55% since...

Let's say you are an 18-year-old kid with a really big brain. You're trying to figure out which field of study you should devote your life to, so you can understand the forces that will be shaping history for decades to come. Go into the field that barely exists: cultural geography. Study why and how people cluster, why certain national traits endure over centuries, why certain cultures embrace technology and economic growth and others resist them. This is the line of inquiry that is now impolite to pursue. The gospel of multiculturalism preaches that all groups and cultures are equally...

Nothing has changed during the war on terror as much as our definition of the enemy. In the days after Sept. 11, it was commonly believed that the conflict between the jihadists and the West was a conflict between medievalism and modernism. Terrorists, it was said, emerge from cultures that are isolated from the Enlightenment ideas of the West. They feel disoriented by the pluralism of the modern age and humiliated by the relative backwardness of the Arab world. They are trapped in stagnant, dysfunctional regimes, amid mass unemployment, with little hope of leading productive lives. Humiliated and oppressed, they...

For so many years, America's economy was so dominant on the world stage, so out front in so many key areas, that we fell into the habit of thinking we were competing largely against ourselves. If we fell behind in one area or another - whether it was math and science skills, broadband capacity or wireless infrastructure - we took the view that: "Oh well, we'll fix that problem when we get to it. After all, we're just competing against ourselves." In recent years, though, with the flattening of the global playing field, it should be apparent that we are...