Free Republic

Marketing operations don't get any slicker than the one behind AARP. Their invitation to join arrived in my mail box even before I turned 50. I joined for one year, but never renewed because I knew the truth about this famous group. That truth is this: Millions join AARP and in return receive a host of useful services and resources. But their money and influence are hijacked to support causes that are absolutely inimical to their best interests. The hijacking is the work of AARP's Washington staff, which is an integral part of the tireless liberal lobbying machine that runs...

There can be little doubt that Barack Obama's promise to fix the U.S. health care system was an important ingredient in his recent triumph over John McCain. However, while a majority of voters obviously favor some sort of reform, it isn't at all clear that they understand what the President-elect and his health advisors have planned for them. Indeed, a recent Zogby poll suggests that the President-elect's supporters have managed to remain remarkably innocent about his history and proposals.

Global Warming Might Spur Earthquakes and Volcanoes Andrea Thompson LiveScience Staff Writer LiveScience.com Thu Aug 30, 5:40 PM ET Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and landslides are some of the additional catastrophes that climate change and its rising sea levels and melting glaciers could bring, a geologist says. The impact of human-induced global warming on Earth's ice and oceans is already noticeable: Greenland's glaciers are melting at an increasing rate, and sea level rose by a little more than half a foot (0.17 meters) globally in the 20th century, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. With these trends in...

Sweden is considering allowing freeze-drying as a new method to bury the dead instead of traditional burials and cremations, Culture Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth told the Swedish church's weekly paper on Wednesday. "I would like to push for the issue of freeze-drying. I think it is interesting and based on what I have heard I have a positive view of the method," Adelsohn Liljeroth, whose brief covers burial laws, told Kyrkans Tidning. The freeze-drying method offers an environmentally friendly burial transforming corpses into organic compost. Traditional burials and cremations hurt the environment by polluting air and water, as a corpse...

Catastrophic mudslide could last 100 years, say scientists · Land in East Java likely to collapse as thousands flee· Attempts to seal channels will 'probably not succeed' John Aglionby in Jakarta Tuesday September 26, 2006 The Guardian (UK) Smoke rises from the site of the mudslide in East Java. Photograph: Vinai Dithajohn/EPA Mud, gas and boiling water that have been gushing out of the ground in East Java since May, submerging half a dozen villages and 20 factories, could continue for a century with "catastrophic consequences", European experts said yesterday. Efforts to seal the channels through which the mud is...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iran is prepared to negotiate a suspension of its most sensitive nuclear work if it receives fair guarantees in talks with major powers, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday. He said talks with the European Union on Iran's nuclear program were on the right track and he hoped no one would try to sabotage them, an apparent reference to the United States. He said talks with the European Union on Iran's nuclear program were on the right track and he hoped no one would try to sabotage them, an apparent reference to the United States....

Iran could cut West's oil supplies in event of war, warns American chief in Gulf By Alec Russell in Washington (Filed: 21/09/2006) Iran could trigger a global terrorist campaign and choke the West's oil supplies in the event of war with America, the top US commander in the region has warned. In a rare public discussion of how a war with Iran might unfold, Gen John Abizaid, the chief of the US Central Command, gave a sobering assessment of Iran's military potential. He warned that in a war Iran would rely on unconventional means to challenge America's superiority. "Number one,...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7, 2006 – Thousands of Kentuckians are expected to show their patriotism at the Sept. 10 Freedom Walk in Louisville, Ky., a volunteer organizer for the event said yesterday. “I think it’s more than appropriate that we show support for our troops who have their lives on the line daily to ensure that we have freedom,” Wayne Hettinger told American Forces Press Service during a telephone interview from his office in Louisville. “The response we’ve had in the Louisville area has been phenomenal,” Hettinger said, noting he and other Louisville Freedom Walk organizers are preparing for a large...

The federal government has mapped out a few places that could be targets for a major terrorist attack. NORAD, in Colorado Springs, Colo., for one. The West Wing of the White House. Or another New York City landmark. But the director of an organization that analyzes the country's level of disaster response offers up one more — Tucson's elementary schools. In his new book "Americans at Risk," Irwin Redlener blasts what he calls a slow emergency response by the government to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and last year's Hurricane Katrina. He lists five worst-case scenarios to further illustrate...

Pentagon's satellite-saving plan could backfire 16:37 15 August 2006 NewScientist.com news service Jeff Hecht Protecting hundreds of low-Earth-orbit satellites from destruction seems a laudable idea, and the US Pentagon wants to do just that. But the scheme could backfire, by shutting down civilian and military communications and impairing Global Positioning System signals. The Pentagon is concerned that a high-altitude nuclear explosion or an intense solar storm could fill near-Earth space with charged particles, crippling the operation of many satellites. It has proposed a plan called “radiation belt remediation” to clean it up. The idea is to orbit satellites that would...

Anti-terror raids could spark riots, says police chief By Ben Leapman, Home Affairs Correspondent (Filed: 25/06/2006) Anti-terror raids could spark rioting unless police maintain a strong relationship with the Muslim community, according to a senior officer. James Hart, who retired on Friday as Commissioner for the City of London Police, compared today's situation with the tensions that led to the Brixton and Broadwater Farm riots in the 1980s - both sparked by bungled police operations. James Hart: 'We have seen all this before' This month's botched terror raid in Forest Gate, east London, in which a suspect was shot and...

Beijing shopgirl could be descendant of Confucius By Richard Spencer in Beijing (Filed: 20/06/2006) Kong Tao is a 24-year-old sales assistant from a humble village background in eastern China, living in Beijing. But popular belief has it that she is a descendant of Confucius, the Great Sage. Now Miss Kong, with three million other people worldwide, may be able to find out whether her claim to fame is well-merited, or whether she can return to obscurity. The Chinese Academy of Science has said it is willing to offer DNA tests to anyone claiming Confucius as an ancestor. Since Confucius's proper...

Cats could hold key to spread of avian flu virus By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 13/06/2006) Cats should become a new focus of efforts to understand and prevent the spread of avian flu, according to government advisers. In a review of the science underpinning the contingency plans drawn up by the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra), Prof Jeffrey Waage, a member of Defra's Science Advisory Group's Epidemic Diseases sub-group, said: "The ability of mammals to contract and transmit the avian influenza virus has important human health implications. "We know about cats as a potential host for...

Flu pandemic could cost billions 14:21 04 May 2006 NewScientist.com news service Shaoni Bhattacharya, Singapore A human influenza pandemic may cost billions, and perhaps trillions of dollars, a top health economist has warned at a meeting of bird flu experts in Singapore on Thursday. However, Martin Meltzer, at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Georgia, US, argues that economic models can help governments and healthcare systems to reduce the impact vastly – keeping key healthcare workers in place and hospitals running. Analysing the costs of a pandemic, combined with epidemiological information, can help make crucial decisions...

This could be your oldest relative . . . April 29, 2006 By Anna Cox They lived more than two million years ago and almost 700 000 years apart. They belonged to the same species and they have finally been reunited at Maropeng at the Cradle of Humankind. In what has been described as an historic and important event by academics, the skull of Mrs, Mr or Ms Ples (the gender has not been agreed on) and the bones of the Taung child - a fossilised child's skull found in a quarry at Taung, in the North Western province -...

Fears that chicken farm's 'safe' bird flu virus could mutate By David Sapsted (Filed: 28/04/2006) As ministry vets prepared to gas 35,000 chickens to curb an outbreak of bird flu, a prominent virologist warned the government not to be sanguine over this supposedly "safe" strain of the disease. Prof Albert Osterhaus, a Dutch virologist, said that the H7 strain found in the flock just outside Dereham, Norfolk, had the potential to mutate into a form just as hazardous as the H5N1 strain, which has killed more than 100 people in Asia. The farm in Hockering, Norfolk, where 35,000 chickens are...

Iraq civil war could spread, say Saudis By Anton La Guardia in Riyadh (Filed: 20/04/2006) Saudi Arabia issued a stark warning yesterday that Iraq was in the grip of civil war which threatened to "suck in" neighbouring countries. On a day when at least 17 more people were killed across Iraq, Riyadh expressed alarm that events were spiralling out of control. Prince Saud al-Faisal:b at odds with Britain over Iraq "Civil war is a war between civilians and there is already war between civilians," Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, said. "The threat of break-up in Iraq is a...

Horse antibodies could combat a bird flu outbreak 12:16 28 March 2006 NewScientist.com news service Debora MacKenzie An old-fashioned method may offer a cheap and quick way to protect against the H5N1 bird flu virus. Chinese scientists have produced antibodies in horses that are an effective treatment for bird flu – at least in mice. Jiahai Lu at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou and colleagues repeatedly inoculated horses with a chicken vaccine against H5N1 bird flu to make them produce antibodies. They then collected the horses’ blood, separated out the antibodies and split them to make them less likely to...

Before Scandinavia: These could be the first skiers By Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor BEIJING – Move over Bode. You may have competition you don't know about - among a sturdy skiing clan in northwest China. They are central Asians, Mongols, and Kazaks, living in the remote Altay mountains of Xinjiang province, where some claim skiing was first conceived. Using curved planks whose design dates back 2,000 years, the Altaic peoples are formidable skiers. They might not win a medal on perfectly groomed Olympic trails. But they can break their own paths, track elk for...

Earth rocks could have taken life to Titan 18:08 17 March 2006 NewScientist.com news service Maggie McKee, Houston Titan may offer a 'soft' landing for life-carrying boulders blasted from Earth (Image: NASA/JPL)Related Boulders blasted away from the Earth's surface after a major impact could have travelled all the way to the outer solar system, new calculations reveal. The work suggests that terrestrial microbes on the rocks could in theory have landed on Saturn's giant moon, Titan. But whether they could have survived once there remains unclear. The fact that meteorites from the Moon and Mars have landed on Earth confirms...

Britain 'could be harbouring 20 more Abu Hamzas' By Philip Johnston and George Jones (Filed: 15/02/2006) Britain could be harbouring 20 more foreign radical imams like Abu Hamza, the Government's anti-terrorism watchdog said yesterday. Lord Carlile QC, who carried out an official review of counter-terrorism laws, said radicals such as Hamza had been able to operate because not enough had been done to check the credentials of people arriving from abroad. Hamza was jailed for seven years last week for inciting murder and preaching hatred. Lord Carlile, a Liberal Democrat peer, said he feared that other extremists were continuing to...

'Wrecking ball' could break the ice on Mars 11:58 26 January 2006 NewScientist.com news service MAggie McKee Orbital images show what appear to be glacier-like features in the mid-latitudes of Mars (Image: A Nahm/Brown University) A plan to drop a quarter-tonne copper ball through Mars's atmosphere and study the ejecta it blasts away from the planet's surface on impact is to be proposed to NASA. The mission, called THOR, would test models suggesting the planet's tilt – and therefore its climate – swings through extreme changes every 50,000 years. Robotic landers and rovers have previously visited the Red Planet's equatorial...

Iran 'could go nuclear within three years' By Con Coughlin, Defence and Security Editor (Filed: 16/01/2006) Iranian scientists are expected to start work this week on the highly technical task of enriching tons of uranium to a level where it could be used in the production of atomic weapons, say the latest reports received by western intelligence agencies. The work is to be undertaken at the top-secret Natanz uranium enrichment facility 90 miles north-east of the capital, Teheran. The very existence of the plant was concealed from the outside world until two years ago, when an Iranian exile group produced...

Week of Dec. 3, 2005 Vol. 168, No. 23 , p. 366 Pomegranate juice could fight Alzheimer's Christen Brownlee From Washington, D.C., at a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience Drinking pomegranate juice has been linked to a host of positive health effects, such as reduced risks of heart disease and cancer. Researchers may soon add another benefit to drinking the deep-red drink: slowing progression of Alzheimer's disease. Richard Hartman of Loma Linda (Calif.) University and his colleagues worked with mice that were genetically predisposed to develop Alzheimer's-like symptoms, including buildups in the brain of a protein called beta-amyloid. The...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16, 2005 — On Dec. 22, 1941, 4,600 American soldiers marched off transport ships docked in Brisbane, their deployment to The Philippines having been diverted days earlier by rapid Japanese advances in the Pacific. Pearl Harbor had just been attacked. Darwin would be bombed three months later. Those servicemen disembarking in Brisbane were the first of some one million US troops who would pass through Australia over the next four years during World War II. As one woman wrote: "Suddenly the Yanks were here ... They all seemed to have big mouths and square teeth, and came from...

Envoy: Somalia Could Become Terror Haven Thursday November 10, 2005 1:16 AM By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press Writer UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Somalia could become a terrorist haven because it is a failed state where the number of extremist groups is growing, the top U.N. envoy for the country warned Wednesday. Francois Lonseny Fall said he told a closed meeting of the U.N. Security Council that ``extremist groups were growing not only in Mogadishu (the capital) but in the rest of the territory'' and were sometimes carrying out assassinations. ``This is a real threat not only for Somalia but...

Bird flu 'could cost $283bn'Mark Tran Thursday November 3, 2005 The economic cost of bird flu for Asian countries could rise to as much as $283bn (£159.6bn), the Asian Development Bank (ADB) warned today. The ADB gives two scenarios. In the less serious scenario, Asia could face an economic shock equivalent to $99bn in its 2006 GDP, the equivalent of 2.3 percentage points lost. In the second scenario, Asian consumers and investors would reduce their activity and the rest of the world would cut back on consumption. The estimated loss to the region could be $283bn, or around 6.5 percentage...

How the bird flu pandemic could spread (Filed: 18/10/2005) Worst-case scenarioFlu viruses mutate all the time and previous pandemics have originated in birds. It only takes a single virus to mutate into a deadly form. The H5N1 strain is one of the most virulent bird viruses ever seen. Half of all people infected directly from birds have died and many infections may not have been recorded. The new strain is most likely to emerge in Asia, where exposure to bird flu is greatest, possibly in rural areas away from the gaze of health officials. By the time the world realises...

High doses of vitamin C injected into the bloodstream may be effective at combating cancer, new research suggests. Scientists found that vitamin C in the form of ascorbate killed cancer cells in the laboratory. But the effective dose was so high it could only be delivered to patients by infusion into the bloodstream. The findings appear to contradict earlier studies showing no cancer benefit from vitamin C. However the researchers point out that those trials only investigated orally taken vitamins. Vitamin C kills cancer cells but leaves normal cells intact In the latest study a US team led by Dr...

Influenza pandemic 'could be avoided' By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 04/08/2005) A global influenza outbreak with the potential to kill millions could be stopped in its tracks with concerted action and enough antiviral drugs for three million people. Britain would be "overwhelmed" if a deadly strain was allowed to reach its shores, said an author of one of two international studies published today in the journals Nature and Science. The World Health Organisation has given warning that the current outbreak of bird flu in the Far East could seed a human pandemic.However, for the first time it appears to...

Unrest 'could double' oil price By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Filed: 27/06/2005) A warning of a possible near doubling in the cost of oil was issued yesterday as UK prices rose to more than £4 a gallon and the AA Motoring Trust said the price of diesel was approaching £5 a gallon. Further rises were expected next week, it said. The price of crude oil could soon reach $100 a barrel, compared with the present historic high of $60, if there was further supply disruption in Russia or a political upset in Saudi Arabia, a leading German institute said. The IFW World...

Jones soda has a contest where you submit pics and if enough people vote for the pic then they pic it to put on a label for jones soda so I submitted a pic of my dog brutus for the contest so if you would like to see brutus and vote for his picture you can here http://www.jonessoda.com/gallery/view.php?ID=406982&offset=27 all votes would be greatly appriciated and i will let you know if my pic was selected for the label in here

Could Iran Checkmate America? Rachel Neuwirth, April 25, 2005 On March 29, 2005 the London Arab daily Al-Hayat published a report on Iran's current preparedness for an American or Israeli attack. The report was translated by www.memri.org (Middle East Media Research Institute). MEMRI introduced the report as follows: In recent months, commanders of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and armed forces have announced their complete preparedness for a possible military attack on Iran's nuclear installations and other sensitive sites. Iranian spokesmen have declared that Iran's response would be formidable. The interview indicates the hostility, confidence, determination and intractability of the Iranian leadership....

Global Warming Could Worsen U.S. Pollution: Report Sat Feb 19, 3:57 PM ET Science - Reuters WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Global warming could stifle cleansing summer winds across parts of the northern United States over the next 50 years and worsen air pollution, U.S. researchers said on Saturday. Further warming of the atmosphere, as is happening now, would block cold fronts bringing cooler, cleaner air from Canada and allow stagnant air and ozone pollution to build up over cities in the Northeast and Midwest, they predicted. "The air just cooks," said Loretta Mickley of Harvard University's Division of Engineering and Applied...

Source: University of Kansas Released: Sat 12-Feb-2005, 09:00 ET Embargo expired: Tue 15-Feb-2005, 00:00 ET Discovery Could Change Dates for Human Arrival on the Great Plains Dated by carbon-14 methods at 12,200 years old, recently discovered bones could be the oldest evidence of human occupation in Kansas, and they may be the oldest evidence of humans on the Great Plains. For photos related to the story, go to http://www.kgs.ku.edu/General/News/2005/kanorado.html Newswise — Bones of now-extinct animals and a rock fragment discovered last summer in northwestern Kansas could rewrite the history of humans on the Great Plains. The bones, which appear to...

Nearly 26,000 Could Vote at 5 U.S. Sites Fri Jan 28, 3:59 AM ET By DEE-ANN DURBIN, Associated Press Writer DETROIT - Before the weekend's over, nearly 26,000 Iraqis from coast to coast will have the chance to cast absentee ballots in their homeland's first free elections in more than 50 years. They'll pull back the curtain, step into the voting booth and do something historic — but also mostly symbolic. They simply don't have enough strength in numbers to significantly alter the results, and most of them know it. "The sense is more often about having the right to...

President Bush's second-term plans to reshape Social Security, immigration laws and other domestic programs are facing a stiff challenge from a group that was reliably accommodating in the president's first four years: congressional Republicans. After essentially rubber-stamping much of Bush's first-term agenda, many House and Senate Republicans plan to assert themselves more forcefully to put their mark on domestic policy in the new year, according to several lawmakers. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) has privately criticized White House handling of the recent intelligence bill and Bush's plan to postpone tax reform until 2006 or later. Rep. Thomas M. Davis...

'Chaos in Iraq could produce another Hitler' By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor (Filed: 14/12/2004) The chronic instability and widespread feeling of humiliation in Iraq could give birth to an "Iraqi Hitler", the country's president, Ghazi al-Yawar, said yesterday as a suicide car bomber killed at least seven people in Baghdad. The explosion at the entrance of the "Green Zone", the capital's fortified government and diplomatic compound, left 19 people wounded. All the victims were reported to be Iraqis. An US soldier surveys the blast zone in Baghdad The blast came on the anniversary of the capture of Saddam Hussein....

Teenagers, Young Men Warned of Laptop Health Risk 1 hour, 34 minutes ago By Patricia Reaney LONDON (Reuters) - Teenagers and young men should keep their laptops off their laps because they could damage fertility, an expert said Thursday. Laptops, which reach high internal operating temperatures, can heat up the scrotum which could affect the quality and quantity of men's sperm. "The increase in scrotal temperature is significant enough to cause changes in sperm parameters," said Dr Yefim Sheynkin, an associate professor of urology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. "It is very difficult to predict...

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!

<p>WASHINGTON (SMW) - Democrats are sensing that the always-unpredictable youth vote may be swinging their way in the 2004 presidential election.</p> <p>Four years ago, Americans between the ages of 18 and 30 split their vote roughly evenly between President Bush and Democrat Al Gore. Since then, Republican officials have pointed to surveys showing that young people were taking a growing shine to the president.</p>

Terrorists 'could have Iraq's WMD' By Toby Harnden in Baghdad (Filed: 12/07/2004) Foreign fighters battling Iraq's interim government could have seized materials for weapons of mass destruction during the "security vacuum" after last year's invasion, the country's national security adviser said yesterday. Declaring that Iraq would be "a country free of weapons of mass destruction", Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie said 1.8 tons of low-enriched uranium and nearly 1,000 radioactive sources had been transferred to the United States to keep them away from terrorists. But some material might already have been acquired by insurgents after the fall of Saddam Hussein. "There were so...

Bus Drivers Say They'll Picket Convention Picket Lines Could Cause Dilemma For Kerry POSTED: 9:50 am EDT July 7, 2004 UPDATED: 9:53 am EDT July 7, 2004 BOSTON -- More potential labor problems for the Democratic National Convention. The union representing about 1,200 Boston school bus drivers told the Boston Globe that some of its members plan to picket outside the FleetCenter during the convention. Unlike the unions representing police and firefighters, the school bus drivers are not technically considered city employees, since they work for a private contractor that provides school bus service for Boston. The drivers have been...

'A backlash could become insurrection' The kingdom must confront al-Qaida Thursday June 17, 2004 The Guardian (UK) Newsday Editorial, US, June 16 "The Saudi government, facing its most significant crisis yet in the surge of al-Qaida terrorism against foreigners and its own subjects, is taking serious and unprecedented steps to confront this threat to its own existence. But as a new report by the council on foreign relations [CFR] shows, the Saudi monarchy isn't doing quite enough to eradicate a cancer it allowed to grow - even encouraged - within its own society... "It has now dawned on the House...

SHAITIYA, Lebanon (June 15) - A Lebanese woman who has documents saying she was born in 1877 -- making her at least 126 years old -- could be the oldest person in the world. Hamida Musulmani, frail and wrinkled but still working on her family's farm in south Lebanon, showed Reuters this week a document from Lebanon's 1932 census which lists her birth year as 1877. Musulmani holds 10-month-old Mohammed, her youngest descendant. She feels well, she said, but complained of failing sight. Local officials said her papers were authentic, although they date from a year when she would already...

A super-powered neutrino generator could in theory be used to instantly destroy nuclear weapons anywhere on the planet, according to a team of Japanese scientists. If it was ever built, a state could use the device to obliterate the nuclear arsenal of its enemy by firing a beam of neutrinos straight through the Earth. But the generator would need to be more than a hundred times more powerful than any existing particle accelerator and over 1000 kilometres wide. "It is really quite futuristic," Alfons Weber, a neutrino scientist at Oxford University, UK, told New Scientist. "But the maths and physics...

Africa coup 'plotters' could face execution By Tim Butcher in Johannesburg (Filed: 11/03/2004) Zimbabwe yesterday accused Britain, the United States and Spain of plotting a coup in the oil-rich African nation of Equatorial Guinea and threatened 67 alleged mercenaries arrested at Harare airport with the death penalty. President Thabo Mbeki and Robert Mugabe Kembo Mohadi, Zimbabwe's home affairs minister, claimed that Simon Mann, the British leader of the group and a former member of the SAS, confessed under police questioning to a plan to oust President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea. The leader of the small west African state...

So is the long range plan by Texas Democrats to have House Democrats follow Senate Democrats to New Mexico? 1200 WOAI's Robert Wood reports from the Capitol that rumors are buzzing that at the end of the current special session, the 11 Senate Democrats who are currently in New Mexico will return at the end of the current special session, and then 51 House Democrats will leave the state, to prevent that Republican backed Congressional redistricting plan from passing. "We're in the process of trying to get together and make a determination as a group about what our next step...

North Korea 'could nuke Japan' The CIA believes North Korea has the technology to build mini nuclear warheads to fit missiles capable of hitting Japan. Spy satellites have identified equipment that could create the sophisticated weapons within a year, United States intelligence officials told the New York Times. "This would give them the range they never had before, and the chance to spread their threat far beyond South Korea," one official said. The miniaturised warheads would be light enough to put on to North Korea's growing arsenal of medium and long-range missiles. The extended range of the new weapons would...

Minor-league Cubs player strikes out at osprey in nest Posted: April 23, 20035:40 p.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com A minor-league pitcher in the Chicago Cubs organization has created a major flap after aiming for and knocking down an osprey from its perch with a baseball. Pitcher Jae-kuk Ryu South Korean Jae-kuk Ryu of the Daytona Cubs could face animal cruelty charges for striking out at the bird Monday night at Florida's Jackie Robinson Ballpark. "The bird's eye was gushing blood," Chad Efron, a trainer with the Port St. Lucie Mets told the Daytona Beach News-Journal. "I started yelling at [Ryu]. I got...