Free Republic

GRAND JUNCTION — John Faulkner and his wife, Brenda, thought Wednesday was a good day to buy a handgun. "I'm 37 years old, and this is the first time in my life that I am really scared for our future," said Faulkner, an oil field worker, as he perused the collection of weaponry in A Pawn Shop here. At Aurora's Firing Line gun shop, Steve Wickham was also purchasing. "Anything I can get my hands on," he said as he cradled a $699 9mm handgun. Same thing in Lakewood: "I was selling guns before I even opened the door," said...

Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware said Friday that Nevadans shouldn’t listen to claims he and Barack Obama would take away the right to bear arms. “I get a kick out of, sometimes, the NRA saying we’re going to take your shotguns away,” he said in a telephone interview with the Nevada Appeal. “I’ve got three shotguns, although my son thinks one of them, the over-under, is his.” “Both of us believe strongly in the Second Amendment,” Biden said. “We do not believe in registration. We do believe in limits on some of the weapons. You can’t have...

Coloradans are overloaded with 18 individual state ballot questions this year, more than at any time since 1912. Simplistic, misleading and inflammatory radio and TV ads - on all sides - generate more heat than light. While I've discussed many of these at length on my radio show, there's only room here for a brief summary and my recommendations.

NEW YORK--You don't need a rich imagination to picture the scene. In the Alaska governor's mansion, a pair of parents and their visibly pregnant teenage daughter sit on a dead bear sprawled across a couch they had to have shipped because there isn't an Ethan Allen in Anchorage. On a second sofa, on the opposite side of a glass coffee table festooned by the exoskeleton of a giant crab, fidget a second set of parents and their son, a.k.a. The Extremely Nervous Boyfriend. Heads of dead animals line the walls.

GENEVA (Reuters) - The world's most powerful particle accelerator, aimed at unlocking secrets of the universe, will be launched on September 10, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) said on Thursday. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), housed in an underground tunnel 27 kilometers (17 miles) in circumference, will recreate conditions just after the Big Bang which many scientists believe gave birth to the universe. It will seek to collide two beams of particles at close to the speed of light. "The first attempt to circulate a beam in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be made on September 10,"...

It’s our favorite libertarian-ish anti-idiotarian magicians, with a whole episode of Bullsh*t! devoted to ... yes ... creationism and its repackaged descendant, “intelligent design.” (Screams and pandemonium ensue.) Featuring footage from the Creation Museum, and interviews with some people whose names are often invoked during the LGF Evolution Wars, including Duane Gish of the Institute for Creation Research. The 3-part show carries a mild language warning; if you’ve ever seen Penn and Teller, you know what to expect.

I did a search, and it's been 4 years since this quiz was posted. I though it would be fun to see where everybody scores! While the quiz certainly has its flaws (what in the world does that fact that I recognize that astrology is superstitious nonsense have to do with my politics?) it at least puts politics on an X-Y axis instead of a simple left-right line. What's more, my score does seem pretty dead on: Economic Left/Right +8.5, Social Libertarian/Authoritarian -0.56. What are your numbers?

Maybe the reason the misperception persists that there are no atheists in foxholes is that nonbelievers must either shut up about their views or be hounded out of the military. Just ask Army Spc. Jeremy Hall, who is making a splash in the news because of the way his atheism was attacked by superiors and fellow soldiers while he was risking his life in service to his country. Hall, 23, served two combat tours in Iraq, winning the Combat Action Badge. But he's now stationed at Fort Riley, Kan., having been returned stateside early because the Army couldn't ensure his...

For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. 'If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,' he said with no trace of remorse. Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British solider in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city's Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then...

A telescope on the far side of the moon could probe the "dark ages" of the universe while blocking out the radio-wavelength noise of Earth civilizations. Up to one hundred thousand antennas would form the Dark Ages Lunar Interferometer (DALI), the largest telescope ever built, and allow astronomers to hear faint whispering signals from a time when no stars even existed. "This will look at one of the most fundamental questions ever conceived, back when the universe was made up almost entirely of hydrogen and helium — no stars, no galaxies," said Kurt Weiler, senior astronomer at the U.S. Naval...

CHICAGO (CBS) ― A state lawmaker from Chicago has gotten some not-so-adoring attention from news-talk show host Keith Olbermann for her rant against an atheist activist. State Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago), who represents parts of the South Side, was named the "Worst Person in the World" on Tuesday because of her rant against Rob Sherman, an atheist activist who was testifying last week about the constitutionality of a plan to donate money to rebuild Pilgrim Baptist Church. "This is the Land of Lincoln, where people believe in God; where people believe in protecting their children. We don't want – in...

VALPARAISO, Indiana (CNN) — Hillary Clinton appealed to Second Amendment supporters on Saturday by hinting that she has some experience of her own pulling triggers. “I disagree with Sen. Obama’s assertion that people in our country cling to guns and have certain attitudes about trade and immigration simply out of frustration,” she began, referring to the Obama comments on small-town Americans that set off a political tumult on Friday. She then introduced a fond memory from her youth. “You know, my dad took me out behind the cottage that my grandfather built on a little lake called Lake Winola outside...

POLK COUNTY, Fla. -- Thirty people were arrested and an anti-tank grenade launcher was seized along with numerous guns and stolen motorcycles in what may be one of the largest organized crime busts in Central Florida history, the Polk County Sheriff's Office said Thursday. The crime ring was operating in at least three Central Florida counties. Detectives started investigating a rash of motorcycle thefts in Polk County and stumbled onto something bigger than they ever imagined that included both Osceola and Orange counties. U.S. Marshal's arrested the ring leader at a house in Osceola County in January, but a federal...

Two evolutionary biologists — P. Z. Myers of the University of Minnesota, Morris, and Richard Dawkins of Oxford — tried to go to the movies at the Mall of America in Minneapolis Thursday evening. Dr. Dawkins got in. Dr. Myers did not.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Grand Canyon, carved out over the eons by rushing river water, began to form 17 million years ago, making it nearly three times older than previously thought, scientists said on Thursday. The general consensus among geologists had been that the famed natural landmark in Arizona was about 6 million years old. But now University of New Mexico scientists say it is far older based on their findings using a technique called uranium-lead isotope to date mineral deposits in caves from nine sites in the canyon's walls. The cave formations provided a record of a dropping water...