Free Republic

February 24, 2009, NASA's 280 million dollar Orbiting Carbon Observatory fell into the Antarctic after it failed to make orbit. Now, I'm not a Truther who believes 9/11 was an inside job produced by George Bush, nor am I certain BO is a U.S. citizen, but where there's smoke, there's fire from a burning birth certificate somewhere . . . NASA's carbon checking satellite was launched with the intention of definitively mapping the amount and effects of that evil atom, carbon, on the earth, which has alone been responsible for loading western universities with a non diversity of well funded...

A revolutionary new operation which could effectively cure high blood pressure has been developed by scientists, offering hope to hundreds of thousands of sufferers. In what is being hailed as the most exciting development in the field for 50 years, doctors can treat the condition with a simple procedure in under an hour. It could allow some sufferers to come off medication completely and offer hope for those for whom existing treatments have no effect.

A Pennsylvania Walmart Supercenter videotaped employees and customers in a unisex bathroom, several former and current Walmart employees alleged in a lawsuit filed this week. Seven former and current employees from the Tire and Lube department at the Walmart in Easton, Pa., filed a lawsuit in county court against the Arkansas-based corporation and four local managers Dec. 21. Several employees discovered an "off-the-shelf" video camera in a store bathroom March 31, 2008, according to the court filing. The unisex bathroom, which also served as a changing room, was used by employees and customers. Customers and employees were not notifed of...

The Talk Shows Sunday, December 27th, 2009 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich.; Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; Sens. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., Arlen Specter, D-Pa., Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and Jim DeMint, R-S.C.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): White House press secretary Robert Gibbs; New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.; Gov. Deval Patrick, D-Mass.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Gibbs; Reps. James Clyburn, D-S.C., and Peter King, R-N.Y.THIS WEEK (ABC): Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano; Gibbs; Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Homeland Security...

LANTANA, Florida — It started with a cough, a cool-season hack that refused to go away. Then came the fevers. They bathed and chilled the skinny frame of Oswaldo Juarez, a 19-year-old Peruvian visiting to study English. His lungs clattered, his chest tightened and he ached with every gasp. During a wheezing fit at 4 a.m., Juarez felt a warm knot rise from his throat. He ran to the bathroom sink and spewed a mouthful of blood. I'm dying, he told himself, "because when you cough blood, it's something really bad." It was really bad, and not just for him....

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37 million dollars!!! What a world of good that amount of money would do tin he world. I like Nicolas Cage as an actor...but read more

Seniors are just not useful, says Tom Daschle, the prominent Obama Democrat who continues to play a key role in shaping Obamacare, and it is time for them to accept the "pain" of less access to healthcare.

On Saturday night in Tehran, members of a pro-government militia broke into a mosque where former President Mohammad Khatami, a reformist leader, was speaking, forcing him to break off before concluding his remarks. As my colleague Nazila Fathi reports, “about 50 vigilantes armed with chains, batons and pepper spray disrupted a speech by Mr. Khatami at Jamaran Mosque in Tehran, the home mosque of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.”

What is the overriding lesson learned about this year of promised “hope” and “change,” given the politics, public scandals and shifting social behavior that have permeated American pop culture? I don't think Americans know yet what they want. But they are pretty clear on what they don't want. They don't want Bush, they don't want a bailout of Wall Street banks or Detroit automakers, and they don't want Washington to try to spend its way to some minimal recovery. They didn't want New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine and, now, they don't seem to want House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader...

Have you ever lost a child in a crowd? Have you ever thought that your spouse was doing something while your spouse thought you were doing the same thing? There is a case for some communications training.,,read more...

In the wake of Climategate, common sense deniers like to say that there is lots of other evidence for global warming, in addition to that which has been debunked by the East Anglia whistleblower. Actually, however, the scientific evidence for AGW is remarkably weak. At (Icecap) Lee Gerhard, geologist and reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, sums up the key scientific evidence with admirable brevity: It is crucial that scientists are factually accurate when they do speak out, that they ignore media hype and maintain a clinical detachment from social or other agendas. There are facts and data...

As previously reported, the Republican Senate caucus and at least ten attorneys general are preparing political, procedural, and legal challenges to the health-care reform legislation proposed by President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-8), and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). But freedom activists are trying to encourage State legislatures in as many States as possible to present another challenge: nullification. Nullification is any action taken by a particular government that makes the laws passed and enacted by a higher-level government null and void within the lower-level government's jurisdiction, or at least causes enforcement of the higher-level law to...

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese archeologists have unearthed a large third-century tomb, which they say could be that of Cao Cao, the legendary politician and general famous throughout East Asia for his Machiavellian tactics. The tomb, discovered in Xigaoxue village near the ancient Chinese city of Anyang, Henan Province, has an epitaph and inscription that appear to refer to Cao Cao, Central China Television said on Sunday. A Chinese proverb, "speak of Cao Cao and he appears," is the equivalent of "speak of the devil" in English.

A Pastor, a Rabbi and an Imam - It May Sound Like a Joke Setup, but the "Interfaith Amigos" are Serious about their Mission (CBS) As more details of an attempted Christmas terror attack emerge, it's clear that achieving peace on earth remains elusive. But three clerics of different faiths have teamed up to chase it, by provoking laughter and thought, as CBS News correspondent John Blackstone reports.

PRAGUE — For many Czechs, it is a historical reckoning that is 20 years too late. Two decades after the Velvet Revolution overthrew Communist rule here in 1989, a group of Czech senators is pressing to ban the Communist Party, the only surviving one in the former Soviet bloc in Europe and, to its many critics, a national embarrassment and aberration. “The Communists ruined this country and oppressed freedom and yet here they are 20 years later in our Parliament,” said David Cerny, the iconoclastic Czech artist, who in 1991 painted a Soviet tank pink, transforming a memorial to the...

Category: Political -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pity the poor Black Congressional Caucus (CBC), its members must be so frustrated over not being able to blame a White Republican President for the mess being reported out of Haiti. A just released Pan American Development Foundation’s report brings news that “at least 225,000 children in Haiti’s have been sold into slavery as unpaid household servants.” This number was “far more than previously thought.” Question: If this is more than “previously thought,” why haven’t these very concerned Pan American Development Foundation liberals raised this issue and done something about it already? Answer: Their job is to...

TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian security forces opened fire on anti-government protesters in the capital Sunday, killing at least four people in the fiercest clashes in months, opposition Web sites and witnesses said.

"In what the White House called an attempted act of terrorism ..." Thus begins the Arizona Republic'sstory on the attack on Northwest Flight 253 (though the Republic's story is credited to the Washington Post, there are significant differences between the Republic's version and that in the Post, found here). Two things leapt to mind as I read the opening: 1) Just why is it important that the White House called it terrorism? Is the subtext that President Obama is somehow "tough" on terrorism? Would it matter if the reporter's Aunt Mame defined it for us? Isn't any reader with a...

Among conservatives, the GOP is often referred to as the "Stupid Party" for its tonedeaf, ham-handed, wrong-footed management of key issues like taxes and government spending. With the Senate's passage of government-run health care legislation, Democrats are making their bid to replace the GOP as not just the Stupid Party, but the stupidest party since the Whigs owned the title in the first half of the 19th century. But conservatives need to insist that the GOP press its opposition to big-government health care right through the 2010 elections. Think it's unnecessary to insist? Think again. Moderate Republicans have very little...

Spurgeon's Morning & Evening - December 27 -------------------------------- Morning Devotional "Can the rush grow up without mire?" - Job 8:11 The rush is spongy and hollow, and even so is a hypocrite; there is no substance or stability in him. It is shaken to and fro in every wind just as formalists yield to every influence; for this reason the rush is not broken by the tempest, neither are hypocrites troubled with persecution. I would not willingly be a deceiver or be deceived; perhaps the text for this day may help me to try myself whether I be a hypocrite...

'Fatal clashes erupt' in Tehran Fierce clashes have erupted between Iranian security forces and opposition demonstrators trying to gather in the centre of the capital, Tehran. Unconfirmed reports say at least one person has been shot dead. Iranian opposition parties had called on people to take to the streets as the Shia Muslim festival of Ashura reached a climax. People were chanting "Khamenei will be toppled", opposition sources said, a reference to Iran's Supreme Leader. Initial reports said the security forces fired in the air as they moved to disperse demonstrators, but there are several different reports all saying that...

Islamist terror’s Christmas present to America — a deadly fireball over Detroit International Airport — failed to materialize late Friday morning, but not for lack of ingenuity or dedication on the terrorist’s part. The incendiary device carried aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 by a Nigerian national identified by authorities as Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab didn’t work as designed — thus sparing 278 passengers and 11 crew members gruesome deaths. But he did manage to carry inflammable chemicals aboard the aircraft — and come perilously close to igniting them. Just how Abdulmutallab came to be on the aircraft is a compelling mystery....

Tens of thousands of anti-regime protesters took to the streets throughout Iran last week to mark the death of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a leader of the 1979 revolution who later became one of the mullahs’ chief critics. Such protests, which are reportedly growing ever more strident in their rejection of the Islamic regime, have been a persistent fixture of Iranian life ever since the stolen presidential elections in June. “Death to the dictator” — a reference to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (and, increasingly, to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei) — is seemingly as popular a chant as “Death to America”...

Where the Battle is Won or Lost "’If you will return, O Israel,’ says the Lord . . ." —Jeremiah 4:1 Our battles are first won or lost in the secret places of our will in God’s presence, never in full view of the world. The Spirit of God seizes me and I am compelled to get alone with God and fight the battle before Him. Until I do this, I will lose every time. The battle may take one minute or one year, but that will depend on me, not God. However long it takes, I must wrestle...

Its interesting to think that some of the great present day families of England may have knowledge of the history of the Holy Grail.

WASHINGTON — With the U.S. Senate having approved major health care reform legislation Thursday during an extraordinary Christmas Eve vote, Barack Obama moved one step closer to reshaping American medicine and accomplishing that which has eluded previous Democratic presidents. But looming as Obama’s final obstacle to signing a bill into law are negotiations to reconcile the $871 billion Senate legislation with a $1.2 trillion health care package passed by the House of Representatives back in mid November. Whether through a formal conference committee of several Senatorsand Congressmen, or driven from the top down by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.)...

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The mystery surrounding Lord Brooke Fulke Greville and William Shakespeare is creating huge interest around the World,with many people questioning if William Shakespeare really was the poet Fulke Greville or at the very least Shakespeares Master.

Much fuss is made at this forum regarding the presumed haziness of the “common Defense and general Welfare” clause and the enumerated powers that follow in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. If you are not sure, or think this section is ambiguous, or actually does grant unlimited power to Congress you are in wide company. You are confused at best, but at least you have lots of company. Our 18th Century Framers were precise grammarians. It took months of often heated debate in the stuffy, hot, State House in Philly to thrash out every concept, idea, detail, clause...

There's much more to Snow Leopard than just a few tweaks. Apple set out – as they put it themselves – to "build a better Leopard", and it shows in every streamlined action and snappy response time.What that means for you, the user, is that you get some of your precious time back: time that you're not spending waiting for an application to launch or a spring-loaded folder to open. That in turn means less frustration: Snow Leopard (and Mac OS X in general) is about technology that respects the user by keeping out of their way. What about Apple's...

Burlington Northern warned of a weak economy and tepid recovery ahead of its merger with Berkshire Hathaway. Wall Street, take note. A PESSIMISTIC BUSINESS FORECAST BY THE management of Burlington Northern Santa Fe as the railroad considered Berkshire Hathaway's merger proposal in late October may mean U.S. industrial activity will be less robust in 2010 than many on Wall Street anticipate. Railroads, which transport more than 40% of the country's freight, are an excellent gauge of economic activity. If Burlington's (ticker: BNI) outlook proves accurate, the nation's other major railroads -- CSX (CSX), Norfolk Southern (NSC) and Union Pacific (UNP)...

As we say farewell to this rather dismal decade, which opened with Millennial celebrations of a New World Order and The End of History, and has been thoroughly disfigured by terrorism, economic stupidity, inept political leadership and untrammeled vulgarity of public tastes, I dare to hope for somewhat better things (for the world as well as my family and self).... The flip-side of this controversy is the emerging U.S. economic miracle, which at this point officially promises increased taxes, faster economic growth, 50% to 100% annual increases in money supply without inflation, for a decade of trillion dollar annual federal...

Israeli company finds oil beneath Rosh Ha'ayin By Lior Zano, The Marker Last Update: 24/12/2009 13:36 An Israeli oil exploration company on Thursday announced that it had found a huge amount of oil and gas during drilling below the city of Rosh Ha'ayin this week. Givot Olam Oil Exploration Limited Partnership said that more than 60 percent gas was measured in the drill, indicating the first such find in Israel. Advertisement The company said it was too soon to determine what significance the find would bring to Israel, but added that it would become clear over the next few months...

Sechelt dogs that "without provocation" chase any animal — be it a rat, squirrel, seagull, bear or cougar — would violate a dog licensing and control amendment bylaw that passed three readings at the Dec. 16 council meeting. The first draft of the bylaw, prepared by District of Sechelt staff, would only have stopped dogs from chasing, biting or attacking domesticated animals. But at committee of the whole Dec. 9, Coun. Keith Thirkell suggested expanding the bylaw to include wild animals and birds as well. Thirkell argued that this would bring it in line with provincial and federal legislation that...

The guy was caught and nobody was hurt, but it is still too early for the obvious joke of the futility of bombing Detroit. So, as everybody already knows, on a Northwest Airlines flight to the Motor City, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to set his underwear on fire, hoping for an explosion. No jokes there, either. The print media has, unlike the Fort Hood shooting, immediately labeled the failed attack terrorism (or man caused disaster, if you’re an Obama supporter). They have also diligently pointed out that Abdulmutallab was a Christian. Just kidding! He was actually a Buddhist. Another joke!...

They are objects of derision.  Influential government officials refer to them as unproductive, of less value than others in society. The political party running the government aggressively denies them access to health services while putting in place bureaucracies devoted, in effect, to ending their lives. The Jews in Nazi Germany?  In the Soviet Union of Stalin? In a socialist paradise set up by the rabidly anti-Semitic United Nations? No, seniors in a United States governed by the party of President Barack Obama and his allies on the Democratic left. The Democratic Party senate healthcare bill makes it official: Seniors are...

Grasping bankers bring back fears of class warfare Americans will remember 2009 as the year that class warfare reared its ugly head Irwin Stelzer American Account No sense in wasting too much of this year-end report on what you already know. The financial sector is back from the brink. The largest banks have been able to raise capital and earnings sufficiently to repay their government bailout loans and have enough left over for generous bonuses. Share prices have recovered half the losses made since they peaked. Sales of existing homes are at close to a three-year high, but the sector...

While Homeland Security officials said Saturday that passengers may notice extra security, travelers at O'Hare International and Midway airports were delayed more by snow than new regulations.

Man who shot Pope John Paul II to be released, wants to be baptised by Pope Benedict Mehmet Ali Agca, who shot Pope John Paul II four times in St. Peter's Square on May 13, 1981, is eligible for release next month, January 2010. Agca was originally sentenced to life in prison for the shooting, but was pardoned in June 2000 by Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, with the Pope's blessings. Pope John Paul II had met with Agca in prison on Dec. 27, 1983 and forgave him. Agca spent 19 years and one month in the Italian prison. At...

Last night’s cloture vote on the Obama-Reid Big Government Healthcare Bill brought an end to any discussion of fiscal conservative or “moderate” Democrats. Two so-called moderate Democrats Ben Nelson and Arlen Specter betrayed taxpayers by violating their Taxpayer Protection Pledges and voting along with 58 other Democrats in support of the healthcare bill. (For a comprehensive list of all the tax hikes in this bill, click here.) They were the only remaining Democrat Pledge Signers not to have violated their Pledges on at least one occasion. House Democrats including Brad Ellsworth, Ben Chandler, Rob Andrews, and Gene Taylor have all...

U.K., France, Spain Risk Losing Top Credit Rating In a fresh blow to the standing of some of Europe's fattest economies, France, Spain and the U.K. are at risk of having their credit rating slashed due to their skyrocketing public debt, Fitch warned Tuesday. The ratings agency said unless the three take more concrete measures to reduce their public debt, it will downgrade their sovereign ratings from AAA, the highest rating available. If the three countries' public debt keeps rising at the current pace, it will amount to over 90 percent of their GDP by 2011, Fitch predicted. By contrast,...

Why did Chinese premier Wen Jiabao choose to publicly humiliate Barack Obama at Copenhagen? In their eyes, and those of much of the world, he has lost face, and with it, power and influence. While getting widespread play overseas, this story has been kept very quiet by our disinterested, nonpartisan media (I haven't seen it mentioned in any major U.S. outlet). After promising to meet the Messiah at 7:00 p.m., Premier Wen stiffed him in favor of a meeting with the leaders of India, South Africa, and Brazil. Rather than wait, a no-doubt infuriated Obama stalked into the room in...

Michele Bachmann Is Welcome At Tea Parties The Republican congresswoman from Minnesota has become a rare elected official to be embraced by the vocal small-government activists. And the GOP is taking note. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has been criticized by both parties for hyperbole, but has developed a rapport with anti-establishment conservative groups. Kathleen Hennessey December 27, 2009 Reporting from Washington - When Michele Bachmann took the podium at a rally against health legislation this month, she dutifully hit the highlights of the Republican argument against the bill: It's too expensive, it will depress wages, it punishes the middle class....

I think it’s fairly obvious that had it not been for the Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros, Barrack Obama would not be President of the United States today. Soros, who made most of his billions through the currency speculation which he first commenced during the post-war hyper inflation in Hungary in 1946, has become the world’s top financial supporter of statism and socialism. He is a “soft fascist”, as author Mark Levin would say, that is to say, someone who would foist a socialist totalitarian government on us by incremental steps. American liberty, our most sacred possession, is in severe peril....

While Obama primps and preens for the international press, our friends in Europe, and his friends on the lunatic left, Islamic fascists are on the march. They will not relent in their pursuit of America's destruction, and their biggest ally in that goal is The President of The United States.

Over at The Atlantic, Marc Ambinder explains... In his Farenheit 9/11, filmmaker Michael Moore juxtaposes images and words of a terrorist attack in Israel with President Bush's first words about the incident, spoken to a press pool on a golf course, with him leaning casually against a tree. Today, as the nation's law enforcement agencies respond to an attempted terrorist attack on U.S. soil, as the cable news channels and news websites pull in reinforcements to cover the incident from all angles, President Obama has been silent. In fact, he's been golfing. He received a counterterrorism briefing early this morning,...

This is a video showing the incredible destructive power present in even a small amount of a binary explosive. These devices are easy to make and very hard to detect. It's pretty scary stuff.

The Obama White House has been aggressive in its press outreach regarding the Northwest Airlines terrorist incident. Some of the earliest stories on accused terrorist Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab's attempt to set off an explosive device on board Northwest Flight 253 were sourced to the White House, and White House officials were quick to label the incident an "attempted act of terrorism." The White House wants the public to know that President Obama, on vacation at a luxurious oceanfront home in Hawaii, has received conference call updates and is keeping close tabs on the situation.

Occasionally, when all the other news is quite and the momentum is on our side I venture across the lines to see what problems are brewing on the other side of the wire. What I've found is leadership with teeth (even though they don't agree with us) seems to be better than lots of speeches and no follow through. The lefties are moving in with both guns blazing...a couple articles in the Huff Po rail on Obama. Sometimes I feel they're just closet constitutionalists in hiding and need a couple more pushes to bring them into the light. Point of...