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Low Vitamin D Levels Appear Common In Healthy Children ScienceDaily (Jun. 6, 2008) — Many healthy infants and toddlers may have low levels of vitamin D, and about one-third of those appear to have some evidence of reduced bone mineral content on X-rays, according to a new report. Reports of a resurgence of vitamin D deficiency and rickets, the resulting bone-weakening disease, have emerged in several states, according to background information in the article. Vitamin D deficiency also appears to be high in other countries, including Greece, China, Canada and England. Catherine M. Gordon, M.D., M.Sc., and colleagues at Children's...

The Bosch Group anticipates increasing sales of its common-rail diesel direct injection technology by nearly 18% to more than eight million systems in 2007, up from 6.8 million last year. Bosch alone has equipped more than 33 million passenger-car and commercial-vehicle engines with this technology since 1997. Ten years ago, Bosch was the first company to put a common-rail system for passenger cars on the market. The first vehicles to feature the technology were the Alfa Romeo 156 JTD and the Mercedes-Benz 220 CDI. In conjunction with turbocharging, the injection system has helped the diesel engine achieve a market breakthrough...

Office of Representative Heath Shuler Representing North Carolina’s Eleventh Congressional District For Immediate ReleaseMay 8, 2007Contact: Andrew Whalen, Communications Directoroffice: (202) 225-6401 / cell: (202) 731-5116 ________________________________________________________________________ Congressman Heath Shuler to Senate: No Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants Washington, D.C. – Representative Heath Shuler joined with several fellow members of Congress todayto urge the Senate to resist attempts to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants. “This is an issue that Democrats and Republicans should stand together on,” said Rep. Shuler. “We should stand for the rule of law and what is right. We cannot, we must not, and we should not reward...

Daley aims to pass new gun laws By Gary Washburn Tribune staff reporter Published January 4, 2007 Buoyed by the General Assembly's passage of a gun-control measure amid a long string of rejections, Mayor Richard Daley on Wednesday unveiled the city's 2007 legislative agenda with a renewed emphasis on handgun violence. Daley called for passage of half a dozen bills, to be introduced by local state lawmakers, that would restrict sales and the types and numbers of weapons that Illinoisans could buy. E-mail this story Printable format Search archives RSS Noting that guns were involved in more than 80 percent...

A former national security adviser to President Clinton, Samuel Berger, stashed highly classified documents under a trailer in downtown Washington in order to evade detection by National Archives personnel, a government report released yesterday said. The report from the inspector-general for the National Archives, Paul Brachfeld, said Mr. Berger executed the cloak-and-dagger maneuver in October 2003 while taking a break from reviewing Clinton-era documents in connection with the work of the so-called September 11 commission. " Mr. Berger exited the archive onto Pennsylvania Avenue," the report says, recounting the story the former national security chief told investigators. "He did not...

"Because of the prohibition of the First Amendment against the enactment of any law "respecting an establishment of religion," which is made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, state officials may not compose an official state prayer and require that it be recited in the public schools of the State at the beginning of each school day - even if the prayer is denominationally neutral and pupils who wish to do so may remain silent or be excused from the room while the prayer is being recited." --Justice Black(?), Engel v. Vitale, 1962 Contrast the 10th A. ignoring...

US attacks used 'common anthrax' At least five people died in anthrax attacks in 2001 Investigators believe anthrax used in a series of attacks in the US in 2001 was not of military grade as originally thought, a US newspaper reports. The Washington Post paper says the FBI has widened its investigation into the source of the anthrax after finding it was of a more common variety. "There is no significant signature in the powder that points to a domestic source," an expert told the paper. Anthrax powder, sent by mail, killed five people in the US in October 2001....

Proposed Doctrine for the Network. Can it be improved? YES, very much so. The Common Cause Partners of the Anglican Communion Network are being asked to adopt the doctrinal statement printed below at its meeting at the beginning of August 2006. “Proposed Theological Statement of the Common Cause Partners We, the representatives of the Common Cause Partners, do declare we believe the following affirmations and commentary to contain the chief elements of Anglican Reformed Catholicism, and to be essential for membership. 1) We receive the Canonical Books of the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Scripture as the inspired...

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (July 13, 2006) -- Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Glen Wesley and his family spent the afternoon July 13 sharing the Stanley Cup with II Marine Expeditionary Force wounded warriors. Wesley brought the fabled hockey icon to the Wounded Warrior Barracks to raise spirits and pay respect to veterans of the current War on Terrorism. Amid a crowd of excited sports fanatics and combat veterans, the silver trophy was brought in and given a place of honor so all could gaze upon the 114-year-old artifact, touched by hundreds of National Hockey League legends. “I’ve been a...

FORT BLISS, Texas (Army News Service, May 15, 2006) – It’s safer than rolling across the battlefield in a steel tank and allows Soldiers to fire a remote weapon system from inside the tank without the gunner hatch open. Members of Company D, 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment recently became the first U.S.-based unit to have the Common Remotely Operated Weapons Station, and the only unit in the world to have it mounted on Abrams tanks. “The CROWS mount on the tank gives an urban advantage so the tank commander doesn’t have to stick out of the hatch,” said 2nd...

1. "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."---June 2004 2. "...and you know what I'm talkin' 'bout!!"---at the Rosa Parks memorial service, 2005.

The idea of persistent surveillance as a transformational capability has circulated within the national intelligence community and the Department of Defense (DOD) for at least 3 years.1 Persistent surveillance, also known as persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); persistent stare; and pervasive knowledge of the adversary, is an often-used term to describe the need for and application of future ISR capabilities to qualitatively transform intelligence support to operational and tactical commands.2 The idea surfaces in many forms, including defense program reviews and congressional testimony.3 Each expression envisions a system achieving near-perfect knowledge and removing uncertainty in war. Persistence means that...

Congressman Marty Meehan of Massachusetts is a career politician. And like other career politicians he is a big fan of memory holes. You know, as in George Orwell's "1984," wherein Big Brother put inconvenient facts down the memory hole, not to be spoken or read or remembered. The Lowell Sun reports that Meehan's congressional staff, on taxpayer time, altered his biography on Wikipedia. That's the Internet website billed as the world's largest encyclopedia. Gone down the memory hole went this entry: "Meehan first ran for Congress in 1992 on a platform of reform. As part of that platform Meehan made...

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Guys, watch out the next time anger threatens to overtake common sense. You could wind up in the hospital. That's the conclusion of a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher who found that anger increased the risk of injury, especially for men, after interviewing more than 2,400 emergency-room patients at three Missouri hospitals. The study, published Tuesday in the Annals of Family Medicine journal, found that people who described themselves as feeling "hostile" before getting hurt faced twice the risk of injury. And compared to women, men were more likely to injure themselves when angry. "When we men start...

Jews and Evangelicals explore the boundaries of their relationship at New York conference. At the end of his presentation last week in a panel titled "Christian America?" Rev. Richard Cizik, an Evangelical lobbyist in Washington, was confronted with an unexpected question: Does he believe Jews go to heaven? Caught off guard, Cizik, who is vice president for governmental affairs at the National Association of Evangelicals, said his practice was to "do my best to avoid answering that question because it leads us to a place where we don't necessarily need to go." The question — prompted by the 2002 declaration...

Earth might seem like a more active and dangerous place than ever, given the constant media reports of multiple natural disasters recently. But a broader view reveals that it's not Mother Nature who's changed, but we humans. Drawn by undeveloped land and fertile soil, people are flocking to disaster-prone regions. This creates a situation in which ordinary events like earthquakes and hurricanes become increasingly elevated to the level of natural disasters that reap heavy losses in human life and property. Meanwhile, in any given year, the death toll at the hands of Mother Nature varies greatly, as do the sorts...

What do Ceausescu, Hitler and Bush have in common? OK, sorry. But what else do they have in common? By Michael Leidig in Bucharest (Filed: 25/09/2005) It seemed like a good idea at the time: a light-hearted advertising campaign to persuade Romanians to adopt a stray dog, using pictures of three well-known 'historical figures’ with their pets. Posters across the capital showed Adolf Hitler, Nicolae Ceausescu — Romania’s former dictator — and George W Bush, over the slogan: 'A dog loves you just the way you are.’ But the American Embassy did not find the association of Mr Bush with...

PHOENIX (AP) - When burglars broke into Rep. Jim Kolbe's cabin last month, they ignored an antique rifle and other valuables. Instead, the intruders ate some food, used the shower and took some clothes from the home less than 30 miles from the Mexican border, near the nation's busiest corridor for illegal immigrants. Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada regularly hears about migrants burglarizing homes as they cross the Arizona desert. Two or three such break-ins are reported in the county each month, and residents complain about trespassers every day, he said Thursday. "It happens. And it probably happens more...

Tony Blair and George Bush have "far more blood on their hands" than the terrorists who carried out the London tube bombings, George Galloway said today. Mr Galloway, Respect MP for Bethnal Green, said that the attacks on the capital by Islamic extremists could not be separated from the invasion of Iraq and Britain's treatment of the Muslim world. He said that the "al-Qaida phenomenon" had arisen directly as a result of western policies in the Middle East. Mr Galloway had already attracted criticism for remarks made to Syrian television, attacking Arab governments which collaborated with foreigners in the "rape"...

SALISBURY - Rowan County officials paid private investigators more than $23,000 over the past five years to search for the writer of anonymous letters criticizing county spending. According to the private eyes, that person turned out to be one of the county's own. The Board of Commissioners never discussed or approved spending for the investigation at any formal meeting. Only County Manager Tim Russell, his assistants and possibly two commissioners' chairmen knew of the investigation, The Salisbury Post reported. Russell said he hired the agency because of the letters' threatening tone. The investigation was revealed after Kiker Investigations issued a...

Mounting evidence suggests a plastic additive common in baby and sports bottles and used to line the inside of soda and tin cans is accumulating in our bodies at levels far beyond those known to cause considerable health problems in lab animals. At least that's the conclusion in research underwritten by the government or an independent source such as a university, a new review of 115 peer-reviewed publications has found. Industry-sponsored research has so far found no problem with the additive, bisphenol-A. And that, say the authors of a report published in the current edition of Environmental Health Perspectives, contributes...

WASHINGTON (AP) - When California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger nabbed an endorsement from Common Cause for his plan to redraw political district lines, some Democrats and open-government activists were dismayed. How could the respected good government group sign on with a governor who's been criticized for his supercharged fund-raising? Why was Common Cause embracing a plan that's picked up little or no backing from other nonprofit groups? "Common Cause is star-struck and so they're lending the governor their brand," said Jamie Court, president of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a Santa Monica-based consumer group that's among Schwarzenegger's chief critics....

New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has long been rumored as desperately seeking the democratic nomination for president in 2008. And while many political observers fully expect the power hungry former First Lady to hit the campaign trail within only a few months of being re-elected as a US Senator in 2006, US News & World report claims to have a confirmation of sorts. From USNews.Com's Washington Whispers: Hillary's in… You don't have to take it from us about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's desire to run for president. Her brothers, Hugh and Tony Rodham, say it's true. Friends...

12/27/04Human Sacrifice Was Common in Burnt City Tehran (Iranian Cultural Heritage News Agency) -- According to archeological research in the 5000-year-old burnt city, in eastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan, sacrificing human beings was a common practice in ancient times. After excavating a number of graves in the cemetery of the burnt city, the Iranian archeological team came across signs of murder and generally beheaded bodies.“During excavations in the burnt city cemetery, we came across a grave with only one skull buried along with gifts and personal items needed for the afterlife. There was also another grave in the form of a...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Do the media give aid and comfort to terrorists by giving their violence maximum exposure and impact at times while sanitizing the perpetrators and tainting their victims at others? It is standard procedure for many media outlets to describe the perpetrators of terrorist acts - the premeditated slaughter of civilians - with a range of euphemisms, "militants" being the most common. Thus, The New York Times can headline a report on the killing of a hostage as "Iraq Militants Said to Behead a Truck Driver From Bulgaria." Similarly, terrorists killed in a military strike can be described in another as...

When is it “OK” for an innocent bystander to be brutalized at the whim of a common thug? Amid the collection of worldviews we endeavor to rationalize in our pluralistic cultural, brutalizing ones neighbor and stranger alike is still repugnant to most. Who among us, whether atheist, Christian, or secular humanist will praise and commend the actions of a judge who in the name of love and understanding does not penalize the lawbreaking thief, rapist, and murderer. Why is it so difficult for the average person to apply this simple example of reality to God? If the Creator God...

ISSUE 5 "We have to find a way not to have the politics that looks for the lowest common denominator, but one that reaches for the highest common denominator …"  Sen. John Kerry, Speech To The American Legion National Convention, Nashville, TN, 9/1/04KERRY'S COMMON DENOMINATOR___________________________________________________________________HIGHEST OR LOWEST? John Edwards (D-NC):   “The best I can tell, his health care plan is pray you don’t get sick.”  (Liz Sidoti, “Edwards Delivering Stronger Criticism Of Bush, Cheney - With A Smile,” The Associated Press, 9/13/04)Teresa Heinz Kerry:  “The price of this president’s failed health-care policies is paid in the coin of human suffering,...

ISSUE 3"We have to find a way not to have the politics that looks for the lowest common denominator, but one that reaches for the highest common denominator …"  Sen. John Kerry, Speech To The American Legion National Convention, Nashville, TN, 9/1/04KERRY'S COMMON DENOMINATOR___________________________________________________________________HIGHEST OR LOWEST?    Sen. John Kerry (D-MA):   "'This president has talked about compassion, but he's walked right by. He's seen people in need but crossed right by,' Kerry said. … 'We are not going to allow them to put a "do not enter" sign on the White House door,' Kerry said at the Washington Convention Center."  (Jim...

ISSUE 2 "We have to find a way not to have the politics that looks for the lowest common denominator, but one that reaches for the highest common denominator …"  Sen. John Kerry, Speech To The American Legion National Convention, Nashville, TN, 9/1/04KERRY'S COMMON DENOMINATOR___________________________________________________________________HIGHEST OR LOWEST? Sen. John Kerry (D-MA): "Senator John Kerry turned to the Bible on Thursday to go after President Bush, warning a black Baptist audience here to 'beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing.'"  (Jodi Wilgoren, "Kerry Invokes The Bible In Appeal For Black Votes," The New York Times, 9/10/04)Sen. Kerry: "For...

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-Cuba), speaking at a Democratic party fundraiser in San Francisco yesterday, was remarkably frank about the Democrats' intentions to use socialist redistribution policies if the party gains power after the November elections.As reported by the Associated Press, Sen. Clinton said, "Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you. We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."With her blunt statement,...

..."Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you," Sen. Clinton said. "We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."

Left-handedness common in Ice Age By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor A right-hand print signifys left-handedness The fraction of left-handed people today is about the same as it was during the Ice Age, according to data from prehistoric handprints. They were found in caves painted during the Upper Palaeolithic period, between 30,000 and 10,000 years ago. Left-handedness may have conferred prehistoric man advantages, such as in combat, say the researchers. The research is published in the February issue of the journal Biology Letters. Evolutionary advantages When Stone Age man produced their remarkable cave paintings they often left...

Houston accountant Mike Willingham doesn't own enough stock to sit on the stockholder committee for Atlanta's bankrupt Mirant Corp. But he's on it, thanks to an unusual campaign he launched when the struggling energy company filed for Chapter 11 protection this summer. Willingham, known as Hammr6 on the Internet, holds the committee's Yahoo seat. He represents Westlurker, JohnGalt, Arizzzona, Oledude and hundreds of other Mirant stockholders who frequent a Yahoo Internet chat room now banished in post-bankruptcy ignominy to a Web site location only the already initiated can find. Through proxies from more than 400 of those Yahoo-ers, Willingham now...

BOSTON - The widely used PSA blood test, designed to detect early signs of prostate cancer, misses 82% of tumors in men younger than 60, a new study found. In men older than 60, the prostate-specific antigen test missed 65% of cancers, today's New England Journal of Medicine reports. Harvard School of Public Health researchers recommended lowering the level of PSA test results considered to be "healthy." The American Cancer Society says a PSA level above 4 but less than 10 indicates a 25% chance of having prostate cancer. If the level goes above 10, the cancer risk is more...

The Tax Cut by AnonymousLet's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this: The first four men - the poorest - would pay nothing The fifth would pay $1 The sixth would pay $3 The seventh $7 The eighth $12 The ninth $18 The tenth man - the richest - would pay $59. That's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner...

A Cook County Circuit Court judge slammed a south suburban school district Thursday for its "zero tolerance" discipline policy and for expelling a 9-year-old boy who accidentally brought his aunt's box cutters to school with him. Judge Aaron Jaffe ordered the Community Consolidated School District 168 in Sauk Village to let the boy rejoin his classmates in fifth grade starting Wednesday and to give him any tutoring he needs to make up what he missed when he was expelled from fourth grade halfway through last school year. Jaffe suggested the school district might want to rethink its one-size-fits-all policy because...

Cannabis poses a greater threat to health than tobacco, lung experts have warned. The warning comes on the day that Home Secretary David Blunkett is due to make a Commons statement about the future of government drug policy. Many young people are simply not aware that smoking cannabis may put them at increased risk of respiratory cancers and infections . Dame Helena Shovelton: The Home Affairs Select Committee has recommended that cannabis is downgraded from a class B drug to class C. This would mean that possession would lead to a caution, rather than arrest. The British Lung Foundation is...

Democrats assailed on finance reforms Party soft on soft money ban, group says By JULIA MALONE Cox News Service WASHINGTON -- A private, nonpartisan group Friday accused the Democratic Party of undercutting the campaign finance law that the party had publicly championed. Common Cause, a citizen-action organization that had worked closely with Democrats to pass the legislation last March, protested that Democratic lawyers are now seeking to weaken its ban on unlimited "soft money" contributions to the national parties. Common Cause President Scott Harshbarger, standing outside of the Democratic National Committee headquarters, singled out party Chairman Terry McAuliffe for undermining...