Free Republic

3/1/2006 - KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. (AFPN) -- When launched in 2010, a football-field-in-length demonstrator radar antenna, weighing more than 5 tons, will serve as the forerunner for the future of America's intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets in space. Administered by the Air Force Research Laboratory's Space Vehicles Directorate here, the innovative space-based radar antenna technology, or ISAT, program focuses on developing systems to deploy extremely large (up to 300 yards) electronically scanning radar antennas flying 5,700 miles above the Earth's surface and providing improved ground target detection to the warfighter. "These huge antennas will enable the revolutionary performance...

One exciting thing about the free market is that you can't predict what the market will create. Big-government advocates tell you exactly what will happen when their plans work (as if they actually would work!), but we who trust the free market can only say that people will compete and good ideas will win. We do know that competition works. It works because it gives people the chance to be creative...

Environmental activists from six states descended yesterday on the Nashville office of Al Gore in an ongoing campaign to convince the former vice president to use his position as an Apple board member to urge the electronics manufacturer to recycle its computers. The Computer TakeBack Campaign, a national coalition of environmental organizations, turned its attentions to Apple Computer after successfully getting HP and Dell to support producer take-back recycling of toxic discarded products carrying their brand names. According to the group's website, Apple electronic wastes contain dangerous toxic chemicals. "The iLife isn't quite as harmonious as it seems. Lurking underneath...

FORT HUACHUCA — This year and next will be the toughest for the Army in Iraq and Afghanistan, the service’s top enlisted soldier said Friday. Equating too many things coming together at once to the movie “The Perfect Storm,” Sgt. Maj. of the Army Kenneth O. Preston said the Army is in the midst of a major transformation of creating more brigade combat teams, movement of forces from overseas locations, base closures and realignments, recruiting more soldiers and continuing to fight terrorism. What cannot be lost is protecting the nation, he told nearly 700 noncommissioned soldiers and officers during a...

Cold and Deep: Antarctica's Lake Vostok has two big neighbors Sid Perkins GREAT LAKES. Lake Vostok and the newly described 90°E and Sovetskaya Lakes lie beneath a kilometers-thick blanket of ice. The black square in the inset shows the outline of this satellite image on a map of Antarctica; the cross indicates the South Pole. R.E. Bell, et al. Trapped beneath Antarctica's kilometers-thick ice sheet are two bodies of water that rival North America's Great Lakes, new analyses suggest. The geological setting of these huge, unfrozen lakes hints that they may harbor ecosystems that have been isolated for millions of...

From: Korean Friendship Association/Corey Kobernik Sent: Sunday, February 5, 2006 1:54 PM Subject: Birth Anniversary of Leader KIM JONG IL Dear Friends, The 64th anniversary of the birth of Leader Kim Jong Il takes place on the 16th of February. This is a very joyous holiday in which the Korean people celebrate in a myriad of ways. People all around the world will be involved in marking the occasion as well through various activities including sending their own personal congratulatory greetings. We highly encourage you to avail yourself of this opportunity to honor Leader Kim Jong Il on his birth...

Mobile economy big winner after Katrina Wednesday, January 11, 2006 By ANDREA JAMES Business Reporter When talking about the fallout from Hurricane Katrina, economists often lump Alabama with Mississippi and Louisiana, but a new federal report indicates that the states' economic conditions are drastically different. In the third quarter of 2005, Mississippi had the highest unemployment rate in the country at 7.9 percent, followed by Louisiana at 7.6 percent. Alabama's figure was among the nation's lowest -- just under 4 percent. In quarterly job growth, Alabama ranked 29th nationally, while Mississippi and Louisiana experienced net losses and finished among the...

Government Prepares for Next Big Disaster By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Before the next big hurricane's winds howl ashore, Homeland Security officials want an emergency communications network operating, emergency medical facilities treating patients, and teams dispatched to search for victims at the likely ground zero. In the wake of congressional hearings that exposed the breathtaking failures of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration is retooling its disaster plan to react more quickly to the next catastrophe. Michael Brown, now the ex-chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, became the public face of Katrina's failure....

New York, New York (AHN) - Three people were stabbed Wednesday at a party celebrating a new record featuring murdered rapper Notorious B.I.G.About 3:10 a.m., police officers heard gunfire at a parking garage close to the club. They found three men inside with gunshot wounds. They are in stable condition at the hospital.A short time later, a 911 call was made about a stabbing at a Manhattan club called Exit. Police found two men who were cut in the face and one who was stabbed in the stomach. They were all hospitalized.Detectives are unclear whether the two incidents are connected....

Minneapolis-St. Paul is the "friendliest" major metropolitan area for people trying to quit smoking, according to an analysis released by GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare on Monday.

Big brain means small testes, finds bat study 12:16 07 December 2005 NewScientist.com news service Gaia Vince Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences The brainier male bats are, the smaller their testicles, according to a new study. Researchers suggest the correlation exists because both organs require a lot of energy to grow and maintain, leading individual species to find the optimum balance. The analysis of 334 species of bat found that in species where the females were promiscuous, the males had evolved larger testes but had relatively small brains. In species, where the females were monogamous, the situation...

Preserving the Earth, One Joke at a Time By MICHAEL JANOFSKY Published: November 19, 2005 Jeffrey Tambor performing at the comedy show "Earth to America." Isaac Brekken for The New York TimesLAS VEGAS, Nov. 18 - Ice caps are melting. Oceans are rising. Villages are disappearing. Wild animals are not quite sure what is going on. Pretty funny stuff, eh? Well, on Thursday night it was, as a parade of comedians and a few serious actors joined forces here at Caesars Palace for two and a half hours of environmental consciousness-raising in a live show called "Earth to America," focused...

Is Big Brother under your hood? Monday, October 24, 2005 By Kyla King The Grand Rapids Press They're not black or even really boxes, but those data recorders inside some vehicles are raising questions about personal privacy. Should you be told they are in your car? Who gets access to them? How can the information be used? What are your rights? That's what state Sen. Tony Stamas, R-Midland, wants to figure out. Stamas says he expects to introduce legislation this week that addresses "personal privacy" issues and requires car makers to disclose which models have them. Advertisement State Sen. Wayne...

Big Easy 5K Run Aids Hurricane Victims The run raised more than $6,200 for the American Red Cross Hurricane Relief Fund. By U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Timmons 22nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment FORWARD OPERATING BASE SPEICHER, TIKRIT, Iraq, Oct. 21, 2005 — While Iraqi citizens were helping themselves take a step forward to a representative government during the constitutional referendum, some U.S. soldiers were helping those struck hard by Hurricane Katrina by donating time and money to the Big Easy 5K run held here Oct. 16. "I like to run and it was a good cause." U.S. Army...

Lawyers representing a co-defendant of indicted House Majority Leader Tom DeLay have sent a letter to the makers of a new film about the DeLay investigation, saying they will seek a subpoena that would order the filmmakers to turn over a copy of the film and all unused footage from the project. The Big Buy chronicles Travis County, Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle as he pursued the investigation that led to DeLay's indictment on conspiracy charges last week and on money-laundering charges yesterday. Filmmakers Mark Birnbaum and Jim Schermbeck describe the film as "a Texas noir political detective story" about the...

Threatened with eviction at gunpoint, the Big Easy holdouts are now hailed as heroes By Toby Harnden in New Orleans (Filed: 18/09/2005)A Starving Pit Bull Attacks A Bull Beside The New Orleans Bayou Just days since they were being urged, sometimes at gunpoint, to leave their homes, the hardy band of residents who sat tight in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina are now being encouraged to stay put and help to restart the city. In a remarkable U-turn, the authorities - who had previously reviled, goaded and even threatened force against the few hundred remaining "holdouts" - are hailing them...

Small brain did not stop Hobbit having big ideas By Nic Fleming and Roger Highfield in Dublin (Filed: 08/09/2005) A fossil of a diminutive human nicknamed "the Hobbit" does indeed represent a previously unrecognised species of early Man, according to a new technique that suggests it was a cultured little fellow. Sceptics had argued that the Hobbit, discovered in Indonesia and first announced last year, could have been an individual who suffered from microcephalya, a disorder that limits brain growth. The fossils' discoverers had suggested that the Hobbit was either a pygmy form of a known species or a previously...

HAT KHRAI, Thailand - The monster fish announced itself with four huge whacks of its tail, thrashing against the net that had trapped it in the pale brown water of the Mekong River. It was a rare giant catfish the size of a grizzly bear, and it took five boatmen an hour to pull it in and 10 men to lift it when they reached the shore in this remote village in northern Thailand. Only after their catch had been chopped into pieces and sold did they learn how special it was. At nine feet in length and weighing 646...

Big-Name Journalists Spar Over Sources at NYC Gathering Wed Aug 17, 6:35 PM ET From l., panelists Richard Cohen (Washington Post), Nicholas Lemann (Columbia), First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams and Time honcho Norman Pearlstine NEW YORK This morning, Court TV gathered a group of columnists, editors, attorneys, and academics to discuss the rule of the law vs. the rule of journalism" at the popular media haunt Michael's in mid-town New York. With panelists Norman Pearlstine, Floyd Abrams, Nicholas Lemann, Richard Cohen, Michael Goodwin, Michael Wolff, Paul Holmes, and moderator Catherine Crier, the allotted hour was barely enough time to kick...

The Rolling Stones’ music has been downright awful since Tattoo You (1981) – but Mick Jagger’s big lips keep on yammering. Mick, the great arrogant hypocrite, with a net worth of $500,000,000.00, and 7 children he couldn’t give a damn about, is now lecturing American conservatives about morality: The Rolling Stones, not exactly a band at the forefront of rock 'n' roll activism, are taking aim at the American right with a new song on their upcoming album, according to Newsweek magazine. The track, "Sweet Neo Con," boasts the line, "You call yourself a Christian, I call you a hypocrite/You...

Millionaire charged with taking kickbacks from teachers' pension fund By Andy Shaw Stuart Levine August 3, 2005 — A politically connected businessman has been indicted for a second time on federal fraud charges. Stuart Levine is linked to a scam involving the Illinois Teachers Pension Fund along with one of the Democratic party's biggest fund raisers, Joseph Cari. The message from the feds Wednesday is crystal clear: Chicago City Hall is only one of the fronts in the war on government corruption. It also appears to be rampant at the boards and commissions that oversee billions of dollars in state...

CAFTA deal-making infuriates opponents Sunday, July 31, 2005 By Warren Vieth, Los Angeles Times Senate Democratic Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., left, listens to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., right, during their press conference on the steps of the Capital Building Friday, July 29, 2005 in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) WASHINGTON -- Rep. Robert B. Aderholt's cell phone rang Wednesday as the Alabama Republican was standing in the House gallery with some constituents. It was President Bush. **SNIP** As expected, the House had divided largely along partisan lines. But 27 Republicans bucked their party and president by casting...

The view from space: and underwater: and classically:

WASHINGTON - Big Bird and National Public Radio won a reprieve Thursday as the House restored $100 million that had been proposed as a budget cut for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting The 284-140 vote demonstrated the enduring political strength of public broadcasting, whose supporters rallied behind popular programs such as “Sesame Street,” “Postcards From Buster” and “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.” The Public Broadcasting Service undertook a high-profile campaign to rescind the proposed cut. Lawmakers were flooded with letters and phone calls.

Conn. Gov. Vetoes School Junk Food Bill 2 hours, 30 minutes ago HARTFORD, Conn. - The governor vetoed a bill Tuesday that would have banned most soft drinks and junk food from Connecticut schools. Soft drink companies had lobbied fiercely against the bill, and schools expressed concerns about losing revenue from sales. Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell said the effort to impose state standards on school districts for nutrition and physical education "undermines the control and responsibility of parents with school-aged children." The bill would have banned sodas and snacks deemed unhealthy by the state Department of Education from school...

World marks green day; big city mayors sign pacts 1 hour, 29 minutes ago World Wildlife Fund (WWF) members put up a giant faucet in front of the 'Christ the Redeemer' statue, atop Corcovado mountain, in front of one of Rio de Janeiro's best-known tourist attractions, Sugar Loaf mountain, during celebrations of World Environment Day in Rio de Janeiro, June 5, 2005. (Reuters/Bruno Domingos) SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Big city mayors from around the world signed a series of pacts on Sunday to improve the conditions of urban centers, capping a five-day U.N. World Environment conference in San Francisco, the...

Clinton: ‘I paid a big price’The former president on his legacy, his health and his wife's future By Brian Williams Anchor & “Nightly News” Managing Editor NBC News Updated: 6:52 p.m. ET June 1, 2005 CHAPPAQUA, N.Y. - Former president Bill Clinton is just back from a grueling 14-day, 12-nation, 16-stop tour. **SNIP** I asked the president a blunt question about his legacy and any regrets he may have that impeachment will always play a prominent role in how his presidency is remembered. Clinton: It probably would, because — but to be fair, you said you're being blunt with me....

....This ones got the right stuff...

A DeLayed Response 1 hour, 8 minutes ago Media: The criminal trial of David Rosen, a former staffer of Sen. Hillary Clinton, began Tuesday, but who'd know? Not a public that's been swamped with news of Rep. Tom DeLay's troubles. But what laws has DeLay broken? And what laws has he been accused of breaking? While it's not possible to answer the former with any degree of certainty, the answer to the latter is: none. Rosen, on the other hand, is on trial for filing false campaign-finance statements. The FBI says he deliberately understated by two-thirds the cost of a...

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., second from left, accompanied by fellow members of the Senate Democratic Caucus, getsures during a news conference at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, Thursday, April 28, 2005 to discuss the Republican campaign to change Senate rules on filibustering judicial nominees. From left are, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., Schumer, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

As usual, the Star Tribune's March 22 editorial "Moderate ground/Support Dorman-Greiling" couldn't be further from the truth. First, Rep. Mindy Greiling, DFL-Roseville, is an unabashed liberal who during her tenure in the Legislature has been a consistent voice for higher taxes and unlimited spending. Secondly, as it turns out, after six years in office, Republican Rep. Dan Dorman, R-Albert Lea, is not the fiscal conservative he promised his constituents he would be in that all-important first election. Instead he has morphed into a veritable tax-and-spend liberal -- most recently joining with Greiling in proposing a whopping $358 million increase in...

No spending opportunity left behind WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY By Howard Fineman Newsweek Updated: 5:53 p.m. ET March 16, 2005 March 16 - Here’s a quick quiz on political labels for you junkies out there. Of the two major political parties, which one is spending money like water, creating new welfare entitlements, rapidly expanding the power of the federal government and launching idealistic wars of liberation around the globe? For 60 years—from the dawn of the New Deal in 1933 to the advent of Hillary Healthcare in 1993—the answer was the Democratic Party. But 1993 also was the year George W. Bush...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - For more than a decade, a trade group representing the nation's biggest drug companies was content to sit on the sidelines of California's legislative races. But after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed four bills in September that would have made it easier for Californians to buy cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America Alliance quickly emerged as one of California's major players and one of the governor's key supporters. The PhRMA group jumped into state legislative races late in the 2004 campaign - only two weeks after Schwarzenegger's Sept. 29 veto of the...

Of all the factors contributing to California’s fiscal woes, one of the most fundamental and pervasive is the collapse of the constitutional process by which the state budget is developed in the first place. Ever since the Magna Carta, it has been a settled principle of governance that the authority that requests funds should not be the same one that approves them. This is the heart of our separation of powers, and the most important single mechanism to check the excesses and abuses that occur whenever mere mortals are spending other people’s money. Following this principle, California’s constitution sets forth...

President Bush's second-term agenda would expand not only the size of the federal government but also its influence over the lives of millions of Americans by imposing new national restrictions on high schools, court cases and marriages. In a clear break from Republican campaigns of the 1990s to downsize government and devolve power to the states, Bush is fostering what amounts to an era of new federalism in which the national government shapes, not shrinks, programs and institutions to comport with various conservative ideals, according to Republicans inside and outside the White House.....

Big Joe Burrell died today at the Medical Center Hospital of VT

Memo to Media Establishment: Ignore Blogs at Your Peril By Frank Bajak January 25, 2005 AP Technology Editor CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) -- The managing editor of The New York Times threw down the gauntlet as she stared across a big O-shaped table at the prophets of blogging. Did they have any idea, asked Jill Abramson, what it cost her newspaper to maintain its Baghdad bureau last year? The unspoken subtext was clear: How can you possibly believe you can toss a laptop into a backpack, head for Iraq's Sunni Triangle and pretend to even come close to telling it like...

Thousands Drawn to Help Inaugural volunteers have been streaming into Washington, joining thousands of local volunteers for a momentous task that is honor, duty and job networking all rolled into one, and more of them are scheduled to arrive this week. Florists from Hawaii, Boy Scouts from Texas, students from Wisconsin and former political candidates from Oklahoma are among the many crashing on friends' couches, sleeping in hotels at the inaugural committee's expense or footing their own bills. Each volunteer has small tasks that might seem minor, from giving directions to a ticket holder to stripping the thorns from roses...

Rice faces big test with Senate hearings Tough questioning expected this week By James Brosnan SCRIPPS HOWARD January 16, 2005 WASHINGTON – National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, who in college feared she was destined to play show tunes in a piano bar, faces a demanding gig next week before climbing another rung up from the segregation of her childhood in Alabama. On the eve of President Bush's inauguration Thursday, his nominee for secretary of state is expected to face tough questions at Senate confirmation hearings about her own credibility and administration policies in Iraq, where more than 1,300 U.S. service...

Big Brother Bloomberg is watching. Smokers who've been buying cigarettes from Internet sites to beat the city's $1.50-a-pack tax are in for a shock: tax collectors know who you are and are now sending out thousands of bills going back more than two years, The Post has learned. Andrew Hoffer, a utility worker who lives in Queens, told The Post he was flabbergasted to get a threatening letter from the Finance Department demanding $1,005 for the taxes due on purchases he made back to July 2002. "I had a feeling of violation," said Hoffer, 37. "Internet purchases are traditionally...

Astronomers have recorded the most powerful eruption of energy yet observed in the universe. It comes from a gigantic black hole, a billion times more massive than our sun, which is swallowing vast amounts of material from its surrounding galaxy. The eruption was discovered with the Chandra X-ray observatory operated by Nasa, the US space agency, and is reported in the journal Nature. Brian McNamara of Ohio University, the study leader, said he had previously observed vast cosmic bubbles of hot gas extending outward from "supermassive" black holes in distant galaxies, but "what literally almost knocked me off my chair...

Bush Calls for 'Big Things' From Congress 2 hours, 31 minutes ago By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - President Bush welcomed newly elected members of Congress to town Monday with a call "to achieve big things," beginning with help for foreigners devastated by the tsunami. Bush has pledged $350 million for countries hit by waves after an earthquake shook the floor of the Indian Ocean and has held out prospects for more aid. He said he'll call on Congress to make good on the pledge and to support the U.S. military's effort to bring relief in the region....

Setting the stage for controversial tracking technology, the satellite telecommunications company ORBCOMM has signed an agreement with VeriChip Corp., maker of the world's first implantable radio frequency identification microchip. VeriChip, a subsidiary of Applied Digital, will work with ORBCOMM to develop and market new military, security and healthcare applications in the U.S. and around the world, the company said. As WorldNetDaily reported, Applied Digital has created and successfully field-tested a prototype of an implant for humans with GPS, or global positioning satellite, technology. Once inserted into a human, it can be tracked by GPS technology and the information relayed wirelessly...

Departing congressmen cash in for big bucks By MATT STEARNS Posted on Tue, Dec. 21, 2004 Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - For many congressmen and senators, Congress is something like the Eagles' song "Hotel California": Members check out, but they never really leave. With the 108th Congress now passed into history, another Washington tradition is playing out this month as departing members of Congress, rather than returning home, trade their years of service for big paychecks from lobbying groups, investment banks and law firms. Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., is sifting among offers. Rep. Jack Quinn, R-N.Y., will join one of...

DOCTOR: NOT DIOXIN, PROBABLY BEAN DIP"Came right off with a washcloth..."DEVELOPING

No Child Left Unmedicated by Phyllis Schlafly, November 24, 2004 Big Brother is on the march. A plan to subject all children to mental health screening is underway, and the pharmaceuticals are gearing up for bigger sales of psychotropic drugs. Like most liberal big-spending ideas, this one was slipped into the law under cover of soft semantics. Its genesis was the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (NFCMH) created by President George W. Bush in 2002. The NFCMH recommends "routine and comprehensive" testing and mental health screening for every child in America, including preschoolers. President Bush has instructed 25 federal...

The Big Fat filmaker Michael Moore is going to be in Tampa, Florida today at 5:30 PM at the headquarters of Moveon.org (2307 West Azeele Street). http://www.sptimes.com/2004/11/01/Hillsborough/Filmaker_Moore_to_sp.shtml

Chris Giorni knows his plops. As a herpetologist, his ear is trained to distinguish the distinctive belly-flops of rare frogs landing in remote ditches, creeks and coves. But oh what a splash one of his latest discoveries has caused. Lying in wait, khakis waist deep in water, camera at the ready, Giorni says he encountered a California red-legged frog on a piece of Half Moon Bay property slated for one of the biggest developments the coast has seen in two decades. Giorni's photos of the threatened frog have put the brakes on the controversial Wavecrest Village. They've also raised suspicion...

The Michigan Republican Party wants filmmaker Michael Moore prosecuted for giving college students packets of underwear and noodles in return for their promise to vote. GOP Executive Director Greg McNeilly made the request Tuesday to Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III after last week’s visit to Michigan State University of Moore’s “Slacker Uprising Tour.” During his appearance at MSU and elsewhere on campuses around the country, Moore has been passing out underwear, food and even promises to clean dorm rooms in exchange for a commitment to vote in the presidential election with the goal of ousting President George W. Bush....