Free Republic

Photo 1: Storm front over Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station (Niagara Falls Air Base), New York on 4 October 2006. Photographer: Senior Master Sgt. Ray Lloyd, United States Air Force. Big image link: http://jccc.afis.osd.mil/images/hres.pl?Lbox_cap=1402598&dir=Photo (Mirror). Above photo, caption info via: http://ChamorroBible.org/gpw/gpw-20061021.htm Photo 2: An adult bald eagle at NASA Kennedy Space Center, Florida, decides that the tasty mid-day road meal can wait, and makes a hasty flight to avoid the oncoming vehicle. Photographer: Gary Rothstein, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Links: http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/images/large/06pd2061.jpg (big image), http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=29961 (the source). Above photo, caption info via: http://ChamorroBible.org/gpw/gpw-20060927.htm

NEW YORK - The $300 billion the United States has spent prosecuting the war in Iraq could have been better used stabilizing Afghanistan against the resurgence of the Taliban, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in an interview broadcast Sunday. “Three hundred billion dollars? You give that to Afghanistan and we will be heaven in less than a year,” Karzai said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

IF politics is showbiz for ugly people, John Howard has just won an Oscar. In front of a packed press conference in the White House, US President George W Bush outlined the reasons for his close friendship with the Australian prime minister - and it sure isn't his looks. In the space of one answer, Mr Bush described the man standing by his side as bald and no oil painting - but a terrific leader. And Mr Bush put paid to any thought that Mr Howard might be retiring at the end of this year, saying he did not expect...

Just passing this along for some distraction and encouragement. SEMPER FI

TALL, dark and handsome is the classic description of the perfect man. But when it comes to perfect husbands, shorter men stand head and shoulders above the rest, a study has found. Women regard taller men as excellent for a fling but see short men as better companions to settle down with. This could explain why Nicole Kidman married Tom Cruise, who at 170.2cm is 10cm shorter than her. But she only ever dated the 190cm Steve Bing. Or why Penny Lancaster, a rangy 180cm plus, chose the shorter Rod Stewart as her husband-to-be. So did his 183cm ex-wife, Rachel...

Almost half U.S. women do not mind if a man is losing his hair, but 99 percent are against comb-overs, a new survey has found. Forty-eight percent of the women in the online poll for Cargo magazine say men shouldn't even worry about hair loss, while 32 recommend going with the flow and cutting all hair off. But only 1 percent suggest hiding a balding head under a cap or a comb-over. Fifty-eight percent of the women say men look sexiest in jeans and a t-shirt, but they hate men in anything too trendy: 92 percent hated leather pants, 91...

Bush official: Bald eagle will be off threatened list this year Last modified: May 15, 2004 6:28PM By DON THOMPSON Associated Press Writer SACRAMENTO -- The American bald eagle - the national symbol whose decline helped spur the Endangered Species Act and a ban on the pesticide DDT - will be off the threatened species list this year, a top Bush administration official promised Saturday. Craig Manson, the administration's point man on the Endangered Species Act, agreed with a leading environmental group which said it's time to concentrate recovery efforts on other, more needy species. The Interior Department will outline...

<p>WASHINGTON — Officials at the National Zoo (search) suspect that a large cat got into a bald eagle's enclosure and killed the bird, perhaps already weakened by fierce storms and unable to fly.</p> <p>It is the latest in a series of animal deaths at the zoo.</p>

"Lammentations of a Dieter" Posted by Doc Farmer < http://www.chronwatch.com/site_search.asp?auth=90 > Saturday, May 24, 2003 I've made no secret of the fact that I'm fat, bald, and ugly. For those who think I'm putting myself down, though, I'm not. There's a difference between that and simple honesty of self. If I can't be honest with myself, how can I be expected to be honest with anybody else? That said, though, I don't like being fat. Bald is okay, mind you (thank God for the Gillette Mach 3) and ugly keeps me from being mistaken for a Hollywood type. But fat...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. ANN ARBOR, MI – University of Michigan graduate student David Van Mater knew something strange was going on when he noticed stubble on the shaved skin of experimental mice in his laboratory. Instead of the tumors he had originally expected to see, the mice were growing hair. Van Mater had stumbled on the discovery that beta-catenin (“bay-tuh-kuh-TEEN-in”), a signaling protein involved in embryonic development and several types of cancer, also triggers changes in adult mouse hair follicles that lead to the growth of new hair. The discovery by Van Mater and...