Free Republic

For the second day in a row, chunks of ice fell from the Freedom Tower — but this time streets remained open and Port Authority officials didn’t close the nearby PATH station. Instead, pedestrians had to fend for themselves, scurrying for cover about 11 a.m. Saturday in the shadow of the nation’s tallest building. “We just saw ice falling down the building,” said startled Austrian tourist Katharina Amann, 24, who is visiting the city with her family. “It was scary. Then I heard it shatter.” Ice also fell from 7 World Trade Center, which is 52 stories tall, some chunks...

UPDATE - Breitbart News exclusively learned on Thursday afternoon that ESPN will air the original ad on Saturday from Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center with the words "Jesus" and "God." ESPN issued this statement to Breitbart News on Thursday: “We have again reviewed the ads submitted for the SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center and have concluded that we will accept the original requested commercial. It will run in Saturday’s VCU at Northern Iowa basketball game on ESPNU. This decision is consistent with our practice of individual review of all ads under our commercial advocacy standards.”

Explanation: The bulging center of our Milky Way Galaxy rests on a pillar of light in this luminous skyscape. Recorded on September 22nd in dark South African skies, rivers of dust seem to flow downward from the galactic center towards Antares, yellowish alpha star of the constellation Scorpius, near the top of the scene. The brightest celestial beacon present is not a star at all though, but planet Venus, still dominant in the western sky after sunset. Of course, the pillar of light stretching upward from the horizon is Zodiacal light. Sunlight scattered by dust along the plane of the...

(CNSNews.com) – Co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center Morris Dees said his group’s “Hate Map” “doesn’t cause anybody to attack,” despite Floyd Lee Corkins’ admission that he targeted the Family Research Council (FRC) after going to the center’s website. As Corkins told the FBI after his arrest, he learned of the FRC online, “It was a, uh, Southern Poverty Law, lists, anti-gay groups. I found them online. I did a little bit of research, went to the website, stuff like that.” Corkins attempted a mass shooting on Aug. 15, 2012, opening fire at the Family Research Council and wounding...

The White House announced the opening of a new government supercomputing center in northern Maryland this week. Patricia Falcone of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) attended a ceremony to mark the occasion along with Maryland Senator Ben Cardin and various army officials: OSTP’s Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs Dr. Patricia Falcone provided keynote remarks yesterday at a ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating the opening of the US Army Research Laboratory’s (ARL) new supercomputing center at Aberdeen Proving Ground in northern Maryland... The new ARL Supercomputing Center—containing two new IBM iDataPlex computers with the capacity...

Want to take a ride on a real camel in northeast Fresno to get an experience of the Middle East? The Islamic Cultural Center of Fresno is offering camel rides -- and more -- at its first bazaar, which will be from 4 to 10 p.m. Oct. 27 at the center, 2111 E. Nees Ave. The center is making arrangements to bring the camel from the Los Angeles area. Huda Munjy, chairwoman of the bazaar and a board member at the center, says the camel rides are to provide the community with an experience they can enjoy and remember for...

U.S. President Barack Obama plans to usher in what he hopes will be a second four-year term in the White House at an election-night rally at a huge convention center near downtown Chicago, campaign and city officials said on Wednesday. The event will likely draw thousands of supporters to the McCormick Place convention center in Chicago, Obama's hometown and the site of his re-election campaign headquarters. Supporters are expected to watch the voting results come in and then hear a speech by the incumbent Democrat who faces Republican Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and private equity executive, in the...

(CNSNews.com) – The man who shot a security guard at the Family Research Council (FRC) on Wednesday was “given a license” to do so because of groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) that have labeled the FRC a “hate group,” said FRC President Tony Perkins. The conservative Christian group is posted on a “Hate Map” on the SPLC’s Web site. There are 13 groups listed for the District of Columbia on the “Hate Map,” and the Family Research Council is among them, according to the SPLC, because of its support for traditional marriage and Christian morality.

CENTER, TX (KSLA) - An East Texas student was told he could not attend prom because of an incident involving a drama department prop. Center High School juniors and seniors will go to prom Saturday night, but Center High School Student Avery Tindol will not be among them because of an incident involving a toy gun. Tindol says he and other students were cleaning out the drama room's prop closet when he was handed a toy gun before the bell rang dismissing class. "I realized I had it in my pocket and as soon as a did I took it...

<p>I'm a freelance journalist, currently doing magazine work for Southern Poverty Law Center's "Hatewatch" news blog and "Intelligence Report" magazine. My current assignment is to write a half-dozen. 400-word profiles, including one on you, for the IR magazine.</p> <p>Obviously I can find a lot about you on the Internet, but would like to extend this opportunity for you to say something about yourself -- what you represent and what you don't represent, some biographical background, place of birth, military experience, college, work experiences, political-religious philosophy, etc..</p>

In the United States, for some odd reason, we’ve adopted French nomenclature for where one stands in the wider range of political opinion. That would be left, right and center. Short history lesson – that terminology came from 1789 around the beginnings of the French Revolution in the National Assembly of France. Those who supported the king sat on the right and those opposed sat on the left. As time marched on and the French Royalty were guillotined practically to extinction, the newer legislatures and assemblies more or less took up the same seating arrangement – more traditional people on...

Two months ago, Washington was abuzz with speculation that Barack Obama was going to follow Bill Clinton's re-election strategy and move to the center, forsaking his liberal agenda that cost him control of the House in 2010. Now, it is evident that he has decided to come down hard left and wage his re-election fight from his liberal bunker, firing shots at Republican cuts in Medicare, pushing tax increases on the rich and attributing the gas price increase to speculators. Very possibly the decision to tack to the left was not entirely voluntary. With the Republicans constantly confronting him with...

TUCSON — A lawyer for environmental activists wants a federal judge to order two U.S. agencies — The Fish and Wildlife Service and the Army — to renegotiate a biological opinion concerning the San Pedro River and its environs contending the two entities have failed to follow the Endangered Species Act. The plaintiff’s attorney, McCrystie Adams, said the continuing growth in the Sierra Vista area is caused by the existence of Fort Huachuca and as more people come to the area, they “are draining the aquifer year after year.” However, a U.S. Department of Justice attorney contends all the requirements...

Midwest Communist Party USA members set up a phone bank this week to call up 1500 people who have recently joined the party online.

The next focus of demonstrators protesting collective bargaining reforms should be Columbus, Ohio where thousands, if not tens-of-thousands, of protestors are expected to gather Tuesday and shout their views about a controversial bill that puts labor unions in the crosshairs of a determined governor intent on salvaging his state's financial situation. The protests should look and sound much like the ones from Madison, Wisconsin that have gripped the nation in the recent days and marries an uncomfortable economic reality with political opportunity. "It's to put our children first. It's to do the things without regard to political considerations and try...

<p>Dover, DE -- The abortion industry has been forced to suspend to abortion businesses that employed embattled abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell, who has been the subject of national controversy over his abortion business in Philadelphia.</p> <p>Gosnell’s facility was the subject of a grand jury report for its horrifying conditions and Gosnell and several staffers have been arrested for killing a woman in a botched abortion and seven counts of murder related to the infanticide deaths of babies Gosnell would purposefully birth and kill with medical scissors.</p>

Attorney General to Probe Second Gosnell Abortion Center Dover, DE -- Much of the attention in the national attention-getting case of Kermit Gosnell has been focused on the Pennsylvania abortion center he ran where he killed and injured women in failed abortions and kills newborn infants by snipping their spinal cords. Now the focus is turning towards an abortion center in Delaware that employed him. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/01/28/attorney-general-to-probe-second-gosnell-abortion-center/

Reporting from Washington — President Obama has recast his White House team for the second half of his term, giving top jobs to a pair of Clinton-era veterans in a signal to business leaders and independent voters that he is resolved to steer a more centrist course after two years of intense partisan clashes. Obama announced Thursday that he was installing William Daley as chief of staff, entrusting the White House operation and perhaps the future of his presidency to a former Commerce secretary who has warned that pressing a liberal agenda risks scaring away an all-important bloc of moderate...

Should Obama pull a Clinton? This has been a burning question inside the Beltway ever since the polls showed the Great Shellacking bearing down on the White House. As most know by now, pulling a Clinton isn’t anything kinky; it simply means moving to the center, or “triangulating” between the unpopular Left and the unpopular Right. That’s what President Clinton did after the Democrats’ historic drubbing at the polls in 1994, and it’s what a lot of would-be sages argue President Obama must do now after the rout of 2010. But the argument is deeply flawed for a few simple...

If Republicans succeed in taking over the House and come even close to gaining a majority in the Senate, expect calls for the president to "move to the center." These will come not only from Republicans but also from conservative Democrats, other prominent Dems who have been defeated, Fox Republican News, mainstream pundits, and White House political advisors. After the 1994 midterm, when Dems lost the House and Senate, Bill Clinton was told to "move to the center." He obliged by hiring pollster Dick Morris, declaring the "era of big government is over," abandoning much of his original agenda, and...