Free Republic

Chuck and Stephanie Fromm already have been fined $300 for holding Bible studies for their friends at their home, and they face the potential for additional fines of $500 for each study held, according to a legal team taking their case to court. The newest conflict over Bible studies in homes in America arose in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., where city officials say city code section 9-3.301 prohibits religious organizations in residential neighborhoods without a conditional-use permit, a sometimes very expensive procedure. The code cites "churches, temples, synagogues, monasteries, religious retreats, and other places of religious worship and other fraternal...

They set out to sell ice-cold lemonade, but now three Washington, D.C. protesters might need some legal aid. Capitol police arrested three people Saturday afternoon for selling lemonade on the West Lawn of the Capitol Building. They were participating in “Lemonade Freedom Day” — a national demonstration against a spate of recent lemonade stand shutdowns by police and health inspectors. According to the D.C. group’s Facebook event page, three lemonistas — Meg Mclain, K.n. Dill and Will Duffield — were taken into custody by Capitol Police. It is not known what the protesters were charged with. The Capitol Police did...

Politics: Has corruption tainted even the battle over free trade? If not, why has the White House buried its own study of a jobs "retraining" program that it insists Congress must vote for as a condition for signing three trade deals? A Labor Department study on the effectiveness of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), a $1.3 billion program for workers who claim their jobs were lost to foreign competition, has not only missed its deadline by four years, but is also being withheld until the end of the year, the Wall Street Journal reports. Based on how this White House operates,...

SEDRO-WOOLLEY, Wash. --(Ammoland.com)- Angus Hobdell, the Team CZ shooter from Tempe, Ariz., won the Production division title this past weekend at the 2011 USPSA Area 1 Regional Handgun Championship, Presented by Springfield Armory. Hobdell, who started the match in third place, behind the early leader Cody McKenna of Mesa, Ariz., moved into the lead with the first of his five stage wins on the fourth stage of the match. After moving to first place Hobdell never looked back and finished the match with a division winning score of 1159.9220 points. “Angus has long been among the top Production division shooters...

Perhaps this will feel a little counterintuitive after seeing today’s jobless numbers, but it actually makes a lot of sense. Gallup’s latest poll on soak-the-rich tax policies show that Americans are less open to redistributionism than at the peak of the pre-Great Recession economy, with a plurality rejecting “heavy taxes on the rich”: Americans break into two roughly evenly matched camps on the question of whether the government should enact heavy taxes on the rich to redistribute wealth in the U.S. Forty-seven percent believe the government should redistribute wealth in this way, while 49% disagree, similar to views Gallup found...

After decades of increasing tobacco taxes at the federal, state, and local levels, some states are beginning to buck this fiscally burdensome and irresponsible trend. On March 17, the New Hampshire House of Representatives passed a bill that would cut the state’s cigarette tax by a dime, to $1.68 per pack. Two other states with high tobacco taxes—New Jersey and Rhode Island—are also considering proposals to reduce taxes on tobacco products to make their state’s tax rates more competitive. This reversal in policy would be fiscally responsible and especially beneficial to low-income people. Many economists have noted that many states’...

Paul: Well, I think competition makes things better. You have to compete with other late-night comedians; I have to compete with other physicians. I think competition makes us better. Think if you didn’t have that guy, what’s his name, you have to compete with?

It is the ultimate accolade for a keen vegetable grower – a 73-year-old has been told not enter his village gardening competition because he is too good. David Stirzaker has been asked by the organisers of the North Cadbury and District Horticultural Society, in Somerset, not to exhibit his produce at its annual show, because his impressive record at the event is discouraging others from taking part. Mr Stirzaker – who has won 12 cups at the show in just four years, for his prize-winning carrots, parsnips and tomatoes – has pledged to take the matter to the Royal Horticultural...

'I made a mistake': Al Gore's U-turn on corn ethanol as he admits the food-vs-fuel competition is real By Daily Mail Reporter Last updated at 4:43 AM on 23rd November 2010 Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said support for corn-based ethanol in the United States was 'not a good policy', weeks before tax credits are up for renewal. U.S. blending tax breaks for ethanol make it profitable for refiners to use the fuel even when it is more expensive than gasoline. The credits are up for renewal on December 31. Total U.S. ethanol subsidies reached $7.7billion last year according...

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that would give the Attorney General the right to shut down websites with a court order if copyright infringement is deemed “central to the activity” of the site — regardless if the website has actually committed a crime. The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) is among the most draconian laws ever considered to combat digital piracy, and contains what some have called the “nuclear option,” which would essentially allow the Attorney General to turn suspected websites “off.” COICA is the latest effort by Hollywood, the recording industry and...

What if they held an Industrial Revolution . . .and we weren't invited?

It‘s something of a stretch to compare a soccer game among eleven-year-old boys with the fate of the democratic world, but I’ve always managed to see big issues in small things. My son is playing on a local soccer team which has lost every one of its games, often by humiliating scores. The coach is a nice guy, but seems an archetype of contemporary thinking: he tells the kids not to care about whether they win, puts players at any positions they want, and doesn’t listen to their suggestions. He never criticizes a player or suggests how a player could...

The average U.S. household has to pay an exorbitant amount of money for an Internet connection that the rest of the industrial world would find mediocre. According to a recent report by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, broadband Internet service in the U.S. is not just slower and more expensive than it is in tech-savvy nations such as South Korea and Japan; the U.S. has fallen behind infrastructure-challenged countries such as Portugal and Italy as well.... Phone companies have to compete for your business. Even though there may be just one telephone jack in your...

Meet Ian Gilyeat, a Conservative candidate that puts Principles over Party!

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee chairman Wednesday accused freight railroads of increasingly charging excessive rates for the shipment of goods and indicated he would renew a push for legislation to re-regulate the industry. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W.Va.), frustrated by the industry's lobbying against a bill that would give new powers to regulators to police prices, released a report showing the four major freight railroads registered a nearly 13% profit margin over the past decade. Meanwhile, the companies have increased shipping rates an average of 5% annually, above inflation, since 2004, the report states. Rockefeller, speaking at...

Sweden has overtaken the United States and Singapore in a new ranking of the world’s most competitive economies published by the World Economic Forum. Sweden best in EU for competition: ranking (9 May 10) Many foreign-born in Sweden lack work: study (26 Jan 10) Employers concerned by union pay raise demands (2 Nov 09) Sweden climbed two spots in the Geneva-based organisation’s annual Global Competitiveness Report, landing in second place behind Switzerland, which topped the rankings for the second year in a row. The United States, which held the number two spot last year, moved down to the fourth position,...

The World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report finds the United States has fallen to fourth position behind top-ranked Switzerland, Sweden and Singapore in its competitiveness rankings of 139 countries. The report notes China has moved up in the rankings and sub-Saharan African countries continue to hold the bottom. The report finds the recent economic crisis is having an impact on its competitiveness rankings. It notes the United States is continuing its decline. After being toppled from first to second position last year, it now has fallen two more places to fourth position. Despite this, co-author of the Global Competitiveness Report,...

Parents of middle school aged children may want to be aware that the national MathCounts Foundation has changed the rules for homeschoolers this year. MathCounts provides an opportunity for 6th through 8th grade students to compete in academic problem solving and mathematical competitions which may be of particular interest to gifted middle schoolers.

Henry Abbott of ESPN’s excellent True Hoop blog has a great post today about why stadium food is so lousy: If you open a mom-and-pop restaurant out there in the real world, and you treat your customers so shoddily, you’ll lose money and eventually go out of business. It’s almost guaranteed. With that idea simmering around the clock, day in and day out, as the owner you’d hire very carefully, obsess about things like hand washing procedures and pitch a fit if you found employees blending insects into the frozen drinks

Last year, Zhao Bowen was part of a team that cracked the genetic code of the cucumber. These days, he's probing the genetic basis for human IQ. Zhao is 17. Centuries after it led the world in technological prowess -- think gunpowder, irrigation and the printed word -- China has barged back into the ranks of the great powers in science. With the brashness of a teenager, in some cases literally, China's scientists and inventors are driving a resurgence in potentially world-changing research. Unburdened by social and legal constraints common in the West, China's trailblazing scientists are also pushing the...