Free Republic

The balance in international military power may be shifting again. In the last two years, Russia, India and China have all announced or clarified major defense programs that include everything from the development of advanced fighters to upgrading aircraft carriers.

Chimps don't mind being chumps in raisin game 19:53 04 October 2007 NewScientist.com news service Roxanne Khamsi Unlike humans, chimpanzees will gladly accept a rotten deal from one another, suggesting they have a very different concept of fairness, a new study shows. Experiments reveal that chimps are more focused on the immediate outcome of a transaction than the overall fairness of the deal. By contrast, people generally place a huge emphasis on equity in deal brokering – so much so that it will cause them to make irrational economic decisions. This is demonstrated, for example, in what's known as the...

Representative Howard Coble of North Carolina . . . Representative Steven C. LaTourette of Ohio . . . Representative John J. Duncan Jr. of Tennessee . . . Representative Walter B. Jones of North Carolina . . . Representative Ric Keller, a Florida Republican . . . Representative Heather Wilson, a New Mexico Republican . . . Republican Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine . . .

NEW YORK While the Iraq Study Group report earned generally positive reviews at newspapers across the country today, Thursday's front page of the New York Post took a far different (but typically outrageous) approach, picturing James Baker and Lee Hamilton, the chairmen of the panel, as "surrender monkeys" -- with their faces pasted on the heads of actual chimps. The front page story by Niles Latham declares, "The Iraq Study Group report delivered to President Bush yesterday contains 79 separate recommendations - but not one that explains how American forces can defeat the terrorist insurgents, only ways to bring the...

CAIMITO, Cuba (Reuters) - They do not come to Cuba for the beaches and tropical mystique that draw more than 2 million other visitors each year. Instead they come to spend their vacations working in the countryside under a blazing sun, eating rice and beans and sharing a room without air-conditioning or toilet with seven others. They are so-called revolutionary tourists who arrive each year from about 50 countries for a "total immersion" in one of the world's few remaining socialist countries. "I call it a revolutionary vacation. I dedicate my free time to doing something concrete for the Cuban...

In mid-afternoon trading, the Dow industrials were down 204.99 to 11,214.90, the Nasdaq composite had fallen 28.57 to 2,200.56 and the Standard & Poor's 500 index was down 19.44 at 1,272.64.

by Mark Finkelstein May 17, 2006 If the Da Vinci Code was already feeding the flames of controversy with its challenge to the basic tenets of Christianity, actor Ian McKellen managed to throw a refinery tank's worth of gasoline on the fire on this morning's Today show, asserting that the Bible should carry a disclaimer saying that it is "fiction." Matt Lauer, on his second day "On The Road With The Code," was in Cannes for the film festival, where the Code will have its debut. It has already been screened to some critics, who have given it decidedly mixed...

GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER'S vetoes of several bills that would have strengthened the enforcement of business tax laws were cheered by the usual suspects. Business and anti-tax groups have reason to rejoice, but their happiness comes at a cost to the rest of the state. The Legislature's tax-collection measures were passed this session on the heels of a resoundingly successful program that collected billions of dollars in unpaid corporate taxes by offering an amnesty, in combination with bigger penalties for those who don't pay up. Schwarzenegger had credited that program for allowing him to restore $1.3 billion in sorely needed transportation...

This is a long read which is an update from a thread I wrote in January 2004. Please read, if you can help.Family Adoption: Did We Do the Right Thing? (Freeper Advice Requested) Being a Conservative goes beyond posting to FreeRepublic. Or, it should. So, when a family member got into some legal trouble and couldn’t care for her child, my wife and I stepped in. Not the first time. When you come from a family with six kids, chances are that one may not turn out to be a productive member of society. My mom raised six of us...

Go ahead and post your predictions for this weekend's games here.

President George W Bush's personal chef has been humiliated by a team of French practical jokers who tempted him with a job offer to desert his employer and go to work for President Jacques Chirac.The stunt, which is threatening to spiral into a diplomatic incident, happened when Walter Scheib visited Paris in his capacity as president of the Chefs des Chefs d'Etat, a club for those who cook for the world's heads of state.On Wednesday evening he was due to attend a party at the Elysee Palace given by the French leader's wife, Bernadette. That afternoon a French television company...