Free Republic

Christian Orthodox priest assassinated in Moscow for his missionary work among Muslim immigrants. More at the link

May I suggest amending Harry Reid's Health Care Plan to Connect it DIRECTLY to future Senatorial Junketing Funds? If, in any future year, This {Reid's} plan adds to the National Debt; the SENATE MUST cut it's next year's Junketing Budget by 50% {from THE Prior Year's funding}. While "The House" writes each Year's actual Bill, IT [The House] Must respect & include this Portion of this Bill. A 'Sense of the Senate' letter to Pelosi {suggesting a similar addition to the House Junket Budget process} would be a Natural.

Zhou Yongjun, 42, faces a third prison term in China after being handed over to the mainland by the police in Hong Kong. Mr Zhou, who has lived in the United States since seeking political asylum in 1992, was arrested last September. His subsequent transfer to the authorities in China, who have accused him of travelling on a false passport, has ignited fury in Hong Kong, which remains regulated by British law. Mr Zhou's lawyer, Chen Zerui, said the charges were without foundation. Mr Zhou emerged into the spotlight when he and two other students knelt on the steps of...

The Senate is set to vote Saturday night, right before the holiday, on a motion to proceed on its latest health care government take-over bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is pushing for yet another weekend vote (commonplace now for the party of “transparency”) because he knows that the American people will be none too happy about the Democrats’ proposal the longer they have to look it over. A vote against the Democrats’ motion will help stop Obamacare before it gets any closer to becoming a reality. While this Saturday night vote might seem like a procedural matter, at the...

We’re All Right-Wing Bastards Now—that is, if the NEA’s logic is to be believed. 20 November 2009 On the last day of the National Education Association’s convention this summer, its outgoing general counsel, Bob Chanin, gave a speech for the ages. After sharing fond recollections of his 41 years as the NEA’s top lawyer, he switched gears and started lobbing grenades at “conservative and right-wing bastards,” including Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. The NEA and its affiliates, by contrast, were “the nation’s leading advocates for public education and the type of liberal social and economic agenda that...

Pure evil. As if the parents of special needs children don’t suffer enough. Dems will increase taxes on the parents of special needs children in their nationalized health care bill. LifeSite News reported: The statistics are scary when it comes to the percentage of unborn children born with special needs who become victims of abortion. One fiscal conservative group says the task for parents raising such children is made more difficult by extra taxes found in Harry Reid’s new Senate health care bill. The measure has already been condemned by pro-life groups and the Catholic bishops for its abortion funding...

"How in the world would I sum up my life except to say 'God, at the end of the day I have really nothing but my faith, my reliance on You Lord…'" ...

Prime-minister Herman Van Rompuy (Christian Democrat), who’s name is widely circulating as the first European President, attended a Bilderberg dinner at Hertoginnendal, Brussels last night.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A Pennsylvania university's requirement that overweight undergraduates take a fitness course to receive their degrees has raised the hackles of students and the eyebrows of health and legal experts. Officials at historically black Lincoln University said Friday that the school is simply concerned about high rates of obesity and diabetes, especially in the African-American community. "We know we're in the midst of an obesity epidemic," said James L. DeBoy, chairman of Lincoln's department of health, physical education and recreation. "We have an obligation to address this head on, knowing full well there's going to be some fallout."...

E-Mail List of Democrat Senate Staffers (and a few weak sisters)- Stop ObamaCare! Friday, November 20, 2009 | caphillbabe Posted on Friday, November 20, 2009 10:21:45 AM by kristinn Moderate Dems Pivotal in Saturday Health Care Vote NYTimes ^ | November 20th, 2009 Posted on Friday, November 20, 2009 11:24:38 PM by Steelfish Moderate Dems Pivotal in Saturday Health Care Vote ASSOCIATED PRESS November 20, 2009 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Suitably opaque, Section 2006 takes up only a few dozen lines in a sweeping health care bill that runs to 2,074 pages and mentions neither Sen. Mary Landrieu nor her state...

The Senate is set to vote Saturday night, right before the holiday, on a motion to proceed on its latest health care government take-over bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is pushing for yet another weekend vote (commonplace now for the party of “transparency”) because he knows that the American people will be none too happy about the Democrats’ proposal the longer they have to look it over. A vote against the Democrats’ motion will help stop Obamacare before it gets any closer to becoming a reality. While this Saturday night vote might seem like a procedural matter, at the...

How would you grade Bill's interview with Sarah Palin? A B C D F

Democrats are the equivalent of political suicide bombers. They have strapped political bombs to themselves and they are hell-bent on taking out as many Americans as they can with them. This is how this must be looked at. There is nothing remotely good about any of this. There's nothing compassionate about any of this. Just before they detonate their political bombs -- which is what their votes against the wishes of the people they serve are -- they may as well shout "Death to freedom!" They may as well shout "Death to freedom!" as they cast their vote....

Porn Mogul's Son To Be Tried In Girlfriend's Death The Associated Press Nov. 20, 2009 SAN RAFAEL, Calif. -- The son of a late San Francisco pornography mogul will stand trial on accusations that he crushed his ex-girlfriend's skull with a baseball bat. Marin County Judge Kelly Simmons ruled Thursday the evidence was sufficient to put 27-year-old James Raphael Mitchell on trial for first-degree murder in the July 12 bludgeoning death of Danielle Keller. Mitchell is the son of the late "Behind the Green Door" director Jim Mitchell. Simmons' decision followed a preliminary hearing that included testimony from James Mitchell's...

Some Democrats worried in 2007 that President Bush’s funding request to enable B-2 bombers to deliver effective deep penetration ordinance, could be a sign of plans for an attack on Iran.

Ashley Kizer saw the call for entries in a teaching magazine. Make a winning video about how technol ogy is used in the class room and win $30,000 in technology. Kizer, a fifth-grade teacher at Adamsville El ementary School, had ev erything to gain. This was his chance to outfit his class with a Smart board that can be used by two stu dents at a time, Internet notebooks, and hand-held devices that would allow ev ery child to answer his ques tions electronically.

A Vatican researcher claims to have discovered Christ's 'death certificate' on the Turin Shroud. The historian and researcher at the secret Vatican archive said she has found the words "Jesus Nazarene" on the shroud, proving it was the linen cloth which was wrapped around Christ's body. Computer analysis of photographs of the shroud revealed extremely faint words She said computer analysis of photographs of the shroud revealed extremely faint words written in Greek, Aramaic and Latin which attested to its authenticity. Her claim was immediately contested by scholars who said that radiocarbon dating tests in 1988 showed the shroud to...

RESCUE: Snowmachiners come to aid of passengers, including infant twins. Without a word, with the plane at 4,500 feet, pilot Bradley Amos tapped something on the instrument panel. Seven passengers -- including twin 8-month-old girls -- were in the cabin. Soon came a loud popping sound. The plane's single propeller suddenly stopped turning and the smell of engine smoke filtered past the seats. The Cessna 207 glided without power above the tundra in Southwest Alaska. That was the low point of the Wednesday night flight. Here's the highlight: Within what felt like two minutes, the plane was on the ground....

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Were ethical lines crossed when the city purchased the property that will be the future site of the new west police precinct? One concerned citizen thinks so and is taking his complaint to the Tennessee Ethics Commission Related: Watch This Story His question about the property comes down to who owned it, a familiar name on the trust with Metro ties, and a price tag he says is way too high. Mike Peden believes something isn't right when it comes to the old Ford dealership on Charlotte Pike. Metro just bought it to become the future site...

Moderate Dems Pivotal in Saturday Health Care Vote ASSOCIATED PRESS November 20, 2009 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Suitably opaque, Section 2006 takes up only a few dozen lines in a sweeping health care bill that runs to 2,074 pages and mentions neither Sen. Mary Landrieu nor her state of Louisiana. But the section's purpose is indisputable: to deliver $100 million or more in federal funds to the state. And in the process clear the way for one of three moderate Democratic fence-sitters -- Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas are the others -- to help propel the legislation...

Dutch researcher Eva Kaptijn succeeded in discovering -- based on 100,000 finds -- that the Zerqa Valley in Jordan had been successively inhabited and irrigated for more than 13,000 years. But it was not just communities that built irrigation systems: the irrigation systems also built communities... she has been applying an intensive field exploration technique: 15 metres apart, the researchers would walk forward for 50 metres. On the outward leg, they'd pick up all the earthenware and, on the way back, all of the other material. This resulted in more than 100,000 finds, varying from about 13,000 years to just...

SARAH PALIN’S sit-down with Oprah Winfrey this week may have been the most tense TV encounter of the year, a palpable mix of suspicion and mutual need. Oprah was good for Obama, but she’s also good for books, and Palin is good for TV. When the two shook hands across the chasm of a coffee table, you wondered if the studio circuitry would blow. It didn’t, but of all of the interlocutors Palin faced in this week’s “Going Rogue’’ media blitz, only Winfrey managed to cut through Palin’s efforts to cast herself as a victim. Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly...

...So why the run on the CoinStar machines? Answer: Those piggy banks (or coffee cans or cookie tins or whatever) are no longer just fun little ways of saving back a few bucks. They’re grocery money, or school supplies, or maybe the electric bill. People are being weighed down with bills they can’t pay and the load is getting heavier. I took my big $22.68 and bought food. It was either that or draw money against my next paycheck. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out this is a bad sign. People are running out of money. And...

The animals, which included mammoths, elephant-sized mastodons and beavers the size of black bears, were probably picked off by more inept hunters who only much later developed specialised weapons when their prize catches became scarce. "Some people thought humans arrived and decimated the populations of these animals in a few hundred years, but what we've found is not consistent with that rapid 'blitzkrieg' overkill of large animals," said Jacquelyn Gill, a PhD student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who led the research team... Gill's team rules this out by putting a more accurate date on the decline and fall...

When Hilly Met Milly: The Mail Imagines The Political Romance Of The Year DAILY MAIL REPORTER 21st November 2009 This week saw the start of a great political romance. It began when Hillary Clinton, 62, told Vogue magazine about a 'big crush' on David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary. 'He's vibrant, vital, attractive, smart,' she gushed. ' He's a really good guy - and he is so young.' Miliband, a mere 44, sighed: 'She's delightful to deal with one-on-one. She's someone who laughs and can tease...' Here, in a spirit of fun, we imagine their heartwarming story. [Check URL]

It appears the fate of the Senate Health Care Bill is now in the hands of two Democrat senators - Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska has announced he will vote for cloture tomorrow, which would open the way for the bill to be taken up on the Senate Floor and receive an up or down vote. If Democrats can cobble together the 60 votes needed to invoke Cloture tomorrow, they will then only need 50 votes (plus VP Joe Biden) to gain final passage of the bill. Fifty votes would appear...

Inability to grasp tactical and technical reality leads to sensationalistic and misleading reporting. I am no great fan of the Army's M1126 Stryker infantry combat vehicle (ICV), the eight-wheeled battle taxi hastily adopted by the Army in 2001 to provide an air-transportable vehicle offering more protection and carrying capacity than a HMMWV. It's too big (at 23 feet long and 9 feet wide, it's the size of a bus) and too heavy (about 20 tons in fighting trim) to fit comfortably on a C-130 Hercules transport plane or to be dropped by parachute. Its cross-country mobility leaves something to be...

The gardens were built when the Abbey of Cernes was transformed into a country mansion in the mid-16th century after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. One resident who may have been responsible for the gardens was Denzil Holles, a characterful MP who fought for the Parliamentarians but was a Royalist at heart and who occupied the house from 1642-66. The Rev John Hutchins, a local historian writing in 1774, claimed that he was told that the giant was "a modern thing" cut by Lord Holles. The National Trust, which owns the field where the giant is carved, suggests that the...

WASHINGTON — First mammograms. Now -- in an apparent coincidence -- Pap smears. New guidelines by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists say most women in their 20s can have a Pap smear every two years instead of annually to catch slow-growing cervical cancer. The change comes amid a separate debate over when regular mammograms to detect breast cancer should begin...

Robbery victim won't be charged. Prosecutors have decided not to file charges against the man accused of killing 18-year old Tim Jackson, saying he was acting in self-defense. Investigators say Jackson and another man tried to rob a man identified as P.W. as he walked in the Midtown Greenway near 28th Ave. and Hiawatha in Minneapolis. P.W. told police he stabbed Jackson in the stomach as Jackson tried to hit him in the head. "Minnesota law is pretty clear, folks are entitled to walk in the streets, if someone assualts you, you have a right to respond with reasonable force"...

Below are direct quotes from either from the Democrat Party or from the Communist Party USA. The challenge is to read each comment, categorized by topic, then decide if the quote came from the Democrats or the Communists...

The fate of eastern Europe was once decided in the Crimean resort town of Yalta. When Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister, and his Ukrainian counterpart, Yulia Tymoshenko, meet there today the region will be watching closely. Relations between Russia and its former vassal are at a post-cold war low. And, as Europe heads into winter unsure of whether Ukraine will be able to pay for natural gas supplies from Russia, the goodwill of its larger neighbour could be critical. Experts fear that strained relations between the two could lead to a repeat of January's gas crisis, which left tens of...

The day started just like any other for life-time dairy farmer Clement Gervais. But that all changed at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, when an immigration official and two state troopers walked into his barn and handed him a subpoena. "I've read about it in magazines in different parts of the country but I didn't really expect them to pull into my yard," Gervais said. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency-- otherwise known as ICE-- is now asking him to hand over documents and financial records proving all his workers are here legally. Gervais has 22 workers-- nine of them are Mexican....

According to a new study of clay pots and ceramic tablets discovered almost 70 years ago in Harappa, now in Pakistan, the people of the Indus Valley had a detailed system of commodity value, weights and measures. Dr Bryan Wells, a researcher based at India's Institute of Mathematical Sciences, told The Daily Telegraph he had begun work on his thesis ten years ago when he first saw photographs of the clay pots with markings which appeared to be in proportion to their relative size. But he was not able to test his thesis until he visited New Delhi earlier this...

Five police officers were killed yesterday in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico in a two separate incidents. In the first attack, two officers were killed while on patrol. Witnesses say gunmen killed one officer in his vehicle and the other as he tried to escape. In the second attack, four police officers were shot at while filling up their vehicles at a gas station. Two died on the scene, another died at a local hospital, and the fourth officer is being treated for his injuries. The total number of police officers killed to 47 this year, making it one of the most...

LOCK HAVEN - Student government leaders at Lock Haven University could be facing impeachment over a controversial trip to California and an alleged cover-up about attendance at a national conference there. A large group of angry students turned out Wednesday night at a Student Cooperative Council meeting, demanding action against leaders who did not attend a conference despite traveling to Los Angeles and staying for nearly a week. University officials also came under fire for allegedly failing to follow university policy in regard to the trip. The student Senate made a motion to impeach SCC President Christopher Lunden, Vice President...

WASHINGTON: The United States has come perilously close to calling Pakistan a terrorist state by alleging that the country’s spy agency ISI recently spirited Taliban leader Mullah Omar to Karachi to save him from American drone attacks in Quetta. In the most direct charge of its kind, current and former US intelligence officers are saying on background that the one-eyed leader and illiterate leader of the Afghan Taliban, ''has fled a Pakistani city on the border with Afghanistan and found refuge from potential US attacks in Karachi with the assistance of Pakistan's intelligence service.'' Washington believes that Omar was in...

JUST ONCE in a lifetime are we all called to stand and be counted for what is right. This is our time. LET US stand tall and never assent to our TAX DOLLARS being used to KILL BABIES. LET US record our names FOR ALL, INCLUDING GOD to see and pledge to GO TO JAIL before we let one cent of our money be used to finance the blood sport of killing babies and fill the God forsaken coffers of Planned Parenthood and their ilk. THROW ME IN JAIL. I WILL NOT PAY THE GOVERNMENT TO KILL BABIES.

NOVEMBER 21, 2009 The Henry Ford of Heart Surgery In India, a Factory Model for Hospitals Is Cutting Costs and Yielding GEETA ANAND. BANGALORE -- Hair tucked into a surgical cap, eyes hidden behind thick-framed magnifying glasses, Devi Shetty leans over the sawed open chest of an 11-year-old boy, using bright blue thread to sew an artificial aorta onto his stopped heart. As Dr. Shetty pulls the thread tight with scissors, an assistant reads aloud a proposed agreement for him to build a new hospital in the Cayman Islands that would primarily serve Americans in search of lower-cost medical care....

Alberto Hodari performs abortions as casually as others pick their teeth, and with just as much thought. He has bragged about being involved in tens of thousands of abortions. Tens of thousands! He has wiped out literally several small towns in terms of population. And he's proud of it. But Hodari's past doesn't just include tens of thousands of dead babies. Probably due to his proclivity of lying to his potential patients to steer them towards an abortion, something he freely admitted to college students at Wayne State University, saying that he has a "license to lie, he's killed 4...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The mother of the man former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol had planned to marry has been sentenced to three years in prison. Sherry Johnston was sentenced Friday in Palmer, about 45 miles northeast of Anchorage. She pleaded guilty in August to one count of possession with intent to deliver the painkiller OxyContin. Five other felony counts were dropped in the deal, which called for a five-year prison sentence with two years suspended.

It’s tempting to blame this on the media for shoving the dopey PTSD narrative down people’s throats initially, but the hard fact of the matter is that there’s been plenty of reporting on the terrorism angle by now. Search our archives for the keyword “Hasan” and see for yourself how much. And it keeps coming. Just today, we’ve had a new bombshell at ABC about Hasan telling his jihadbot cleric pal that he couldn’t wait to join him in the afterlife; a report at the Wash Times on testimony by a retired general about detecting jihadis in the ranks; a...

US admiral defends Obama's Japan bow (AFP) – 1 day ago WASHINGTON — The former top commander of US troops in Asia on Thursday strongly defended President Barack Obama against critics of his bow to Japan's Emperor Akihito, calling it a gesture of respect. Admiral Timothy Keating, who retired last month ...

US admiral defends Obama's Japan bow (AFP) – 1 day ago WASHINGTON — The former top commander of US troops in Asia on Thursday strongly defended President Barack Obama against critics of his bow to Japan's Emperor Akihito, calling it a gesture of respect. Admiral Timothy Keating, who retired last month ...

Three days after the book dropped, having already produced an enormous first run, they’re forced to ramp it up by two-thirds to meet demand. Amazing. Imagine the number if the book was being carried in San Francisco. To put this in perspective, revisit this passage from yesterday’s Daily Beast item announcing that she’d moved 300,000 units on day one: Going Rogue is going gangbusters, and it looks like both Palin and her publisher, HarperCollins, are going to make some serious money off of it. According to industry insiders, Palin got a $7 million advance for her book. She’s earning a...

I want to watch a sci-fi show, not a gay make out on tv.

A billboard showing President Barack Obama wearing a turban has sparked a lot of attention at the suburban Denver used car dealership that put it up. The sign, completed Thursday by artist David Lee of Arvada, shows a grinning, cartoonish Obama and bears the words: “PRESIDENT or JIHAD?” Underneath the image is a yellow square with the phrase, “BIRTH CERTIFICATE, PROVE IT!” The words “WAKE UP AMERICA! REMEMBER FT. HOOD” appear at the bottom of the billboard at Wolf Interstate Leasing and Sales about seven miles west of Denver.

The chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, Representative Ike Skelton, cast doubt on Friday about the Obama administration's decision to try the September 11, 2001, conspirators in a U.S. criminal court. Skelton, a fellow Democrat of President Barack Obama, asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to brief the committee about the decision to use the criminal courts instead of the revamped military commissions. "As a former prosecutor, I am not yet convinced that the right decision was made in these cases, nor that the presumption in favor of federal criminal trials over military...

Militia Movement Resurfaces Across Nation Resurgence in part coincides with the arrival of Obama administration Rachel D'Oro / AP Ray Southwell, left, and Norm Olson, members of the Alaska Citizens Militia, stand by the woods near their home in Nikiski, Alaska, on Sept. 29. Olson's militia is small at the moment, but there has been a resurgence of the militia movement nationwide. By RACHEL D'ORO Associated Press Writer Nov . 20, 2009 NIKISKI, Alaska - Norm Olson's genial tone belies his reputation as a radical militiaman, yet here he is, at 63, an affable grandfather explaining why Americans should arm...

Jews had long suspected that the entrance to the real burial chamber must be here, and because of that they placed their prayer slips of paper in wall cracks on the exterior of the building at this same location... Dr. Jevin... recounted to Nachrichten aus Israel (News from Israel) how he forced himself through a narrow entrance, went down 16 steps and crawled along a 20-meters long, 60-cm high and 100-cm wide tunnel in order to finally reach a 3.5 x 3.5 meter room. The chamber, tunnel and steps were all made of the same worked stones as the building...