Free Republic

BALTIMORE — The Ever Forward returned Friday to the Seagirt Marine Terminal in Baltimore to pick up its containers. The ship ran aground on March 13 in the Chesapeake Bay after leaving Baltimore. The 1,095-foot vessel, which could fit three football fields end to end, did not move for 35 days. A couple of attempts in March failed to free the ship. Crews tried dredging and push/pull tugboat operations. Then, from April 9-16, hundreds of containers were off-loaded from the stuck ship so crews could try for a third time to refloat it, the Coast Guard said. Crews then refloated...

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media. I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 1 Timothy 2:1-2 Religion Forum threads labeled “Prayer” are closed to debate of any kind.

For more than a century, business experts have been trying to dial up the United States’ efficiency. Ever since Frederick Taylor published “The Principles of Scientific Management” in 1911, companies have focused on doing things more quickly, and raising consumers’ expectations as a result. But Taylor’s ideas didn’t take into account the havoc a pandemic might do to supply chains — and how that would blunt what a few months ago seemed like a looming resumption of modern daily life’s zippy pace. Across the country, Americans’ expectations of speedy service and easy access to consumer products have been crushed like...

Systemic risk. I guarantee that most ordinary folks have no idea that if trucks stopped rolling all across America, within a short period of time nearly all Americans would all be in a life-threatening situation from major delivery shortages. 70% of all freight that is moved in the U.S. is done so by truck. You (we) depend on that ‘stuff’ for our survival. A major disruption in truck travel would immediately impact seven major industries, and would bring America to its knees within days due in part to “just in time manufacturing”, zero-inventory, and the fact that our modern way...

A senior defense official last month disclosed key elements of the U.S. military and allied supply routes into Afghanistan. David Sedney, assistant defense secretary for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Afghanistan lacks rail lines and roads needed for supplying forces in Afghanistan through a new Northern Distribution Network (NDN), a system of roads used to truck in military supplies. The supply routes are the most significant strategic elements of the U.S. strategy of pacification of the Taliban and the bolstering of Afghan police and military forces.