Free Republic

Pollution, tainted food and education are causing many of the country’s wealthy to flee, survey finds. Earlier this year, the best company at surveying the rich in China announced that more than 60% of the people it surveyed had already immigrated to another country, or were considering doing so. The question for the Hurun Report, which publishes an annual China rich list, was why? Was pollution driving people abroad, weariness over China’s political crackdowns, or something else entirely? It turns out the questions also nagged Rupert Hoogewerf, founder of Hurun. At the time, his best guess was that pollution and...

~snip~ “There are fewer risks than people think, and that makes sense to me,” Pacey said. “The single thing that affects fertility is how big your testicles are. If you’re blessed with big testicles, you’ll produce more sperm.”

The U.S. added 217,000 jobs in May as labor markets seem to be gaining the kind of sustained momentum that has proven elusive as the economy has struggled to recover from the 2008 financial crisis. The headline unemployment rate was 6.3%, according to figures released Friday by the Labor Department. That rate is the same as in April, when 288,000 jobs were created, far more than had been expected. Economists had predicted an addition of 218,000 jobs in May and that the unemployment rate would tick higher to 6.4%. With May's additions the economy has now recovered all of the...

Several people have been injured after Sikh groups brandishing swords clashed at India's Golden Temple as special prayers were held to mark the deadly military offensive there in 1984. Reports said the fight at Sikhism's holiest shrine was over who would speak first at the ceremony and that a scuffle broke out over a microphone. Footage showed men running down temple steps lashing out with their swords. Reports said at least three people had been taken to hospital with injuries. The Indian government says 400 people and 87 soldiers were killed during the 1984 military raid to flush out Sikh...

My great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was Aaron Ruse Sr. who was born in Virginia circa 1764. I know the name of his son and his son and his son and so on down to my own father. I know the names of their brothers and sisters. I know the names of their children. I know where most of these family members were born and where most of them died.There is a house in Loudon County, Virginia that is called the John Ruse House, where Aaron Ruse’s grandson John—my great-great-grandfather—lived. I have seen this house.With a little effort, I could find the name...

Southern Baptists Face a Moment of Decision on Gay Marriage (and You Will Too) Al Mohler | President, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary | Monday, June 02, 2014 ChristianHeadlines.com SOUTHERN BAPTISTS FACE A MOMENT OF DECISION ON GAY MARRIAGE (AND YOU WILL TOO) 10 Comments Print Email #gay marriage #church #opinion #southern baptists Southern Baptists will be heading for Baltimore in just a few days, and the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention is to be held in a city that has not hosted the convention since 1940. This time, Baptists attending the meeting will face an issue that would...

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced on Thursday that the more than 500,000 illegal aliens who qualified for legal status through a DHS directive issued in June 2012 can now “renew” their status for two more years. But the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, now applies not only to those who were brought to this country illegally by their also illegal parents. It states that those who crossed illegally on their own as children may also be eligible, because they are “Despite the acrimony and partisanship that now exists in Washington, almost all of us agree...

On 6 June 1944, President Franklin D Roosevelt solemnly declared, “You don’t just walk to Berlin”. He was speaking at a White House press conference, where he had just announced that Allied troops had landed in northern France. The gathering was a homely affair, with none of the bombast associated with similar events today. In fact, it was an occasion of masterly understatement. What he could have said was that the largest naval invasion in the history of the world was finally under way. ~snip~ The long-awaited amphibious invasion of France was not a secret, and it came as no...

On 26 May 2014, a steel-hulled Chinese fishing vessel chased down and ran over Vietnamese fishing boat DNa 90152 approximately 150 nautical miles off the coast of Vietnam, 17 nautical miles from the location of where China’s Haiyang Shiyou 981 drilling rig is currently operating.

Today should have been a day of celebration at the end of the school year here at Seattle Pacific University; instead it's a day of tragedy and of loss. Once again, the epidemic of gun violence has come to Seattle – the epidemic of gun violence that is haunting this nation.

The Rolling Stones concert in Tel Aviv, their first in Israel, was a huge success -- musically and politically. Mick Jagger shrugged off pleas to cancel from the usual anti-Israel suspects. The Israel-boycott movement was left with another defeat.

Among the revelations in her new book (//www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clintons-hard-choices-bergdahl-benghazi-and-more/) , Hard Choices — Benghazi (//nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/05/hillary-clinton-defiant-benghazi-chapter-hard-choices.html) , Bin Laden, Iraq, Syria, and Russia all required hard choices — Hillary Clinton writes, "it was [former Secretary of State] George Shultz who gave me the best gift of all: A teddy bear that sang 'Don't Worry, Be Happy' when its paw was squeezed. I kept it in my office, first as a joke, but every so often it really did help to squeeze the bear and hear that song." Can America really rely on a commander-in-chief who needs a teddy bear and novelty hit...

A GPS device hidden inside a teddy bear on Tuesday led police to a thief. Athens-Clarke County police said that Mid-Atlantic Clothing Recycling had recently been experiencing thefts of clothing from its collection bin at Georgia Square Mall. To combat the thefts, a company manager concealed a GPS device inside a teddy bear and he placed it in a bag of clothing that was then tossed into the collection bin, according to police. At about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, the manager called police to report that the teddy bear was on the move, headed toward Timothy Road. An officer in the...

For writing messages such as "It's right to rebel" during a semester abroad in China, Newton school officials barred Henry DeGroot from his prom. DeGroot sees it differently. He says his rights were abridged by the Newton school system which taught him the importance of civil disobedience and speaking his mind, but punished him when he practiced what he learned.

The feminist film critics can exhale now. Someone has finally concocted their dream movie: an "abortion comedy." Because apparently nothing sounds funnier than an unplanned one-night stand and a courageous destruction of God's most beautiful and most innocent creation. It's called "Obvious Child." Feminist lingo sells this monstrosity. Former "Saturday Night Live" cast member Jenny Slate plays Donna Stern, a standup comedian who "is forced to face the uncomfortable realities of independent womanhood for the first time." A "drunken hookup -- and epic lapse in prophylactic judgment -- turns out to be the beginning of a hilarious and totally unplanned...

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy put herself at the mercy of the Internet on Wednesday by taking part in a question-and-answer session on the popular forum reddit. "Ask Me Anything," McCarthy wrote. reddit's users obliged. The account Gina_EPA, endorsed by McCarthy's Twitter account and the EPA website as authentic, answered 15 questions over the span of two hours. Many users seemed underwhelmed by her responses.

Five more foot soldiers are headed back to the front lines of the real war on women thanks to President Obama. Abdul Haq Wasiq was a deputy minister of intelligence for the Taliban and helped al-Qaida. He has been accused of murder and torture. Mullah Norullah Noori was a military commander for the Taliban. He fought American forces in Afghanistan and, according to Fox News, "Noori has been implicated in the murder of thousands of Shiites in Northern Afghanistan." Noori said the killings were necessary as the Taliban worked to create their "ideal state." Mullah Mohammad Fazi is the...

Ten years ago this month, U.S. Marine Wassef Ali Hassoun disappeared from Camp Fallujah in Iraq. After a five-month military investigation, he was charged with desertion and theft, brought back to Virginia's Quantico Marine base and then transferred to North Carolina's Camp Lejeune for trial. Yet, a full decade later, Hassoun is as free as a bird. The accused deserter's whereabouts are unknown. No trial ever began. No punishment ensued. And our leaders in Washington don't seem to be doing a thing about this. Hassoun was born in Lebanon and immigrated with his family to Utah in 1999. A few...

San Antonio - The Border Patrol has upped its estimate of the number of unaccompanied minor children who will cross the U.S. border this year from 60,000 to 90,000 as the children continue flooding across the border and threatening to overwhelm Border Patrol officers and other federal officials, 1200 WOAI news reports. Some social workers who work with the children say many are told by immigrant smuggling gangs, who are driving this wave of unaccompanied children, that 'all you have to do is show up,' and the US will take you in. The children have also been checked repeatedly for...

Upon a declaration of a “war” against the product, advocates against the consumption of soda state that it should also include in its labels the risks for developing diseases such as obesity and diabetes. By doing so, they will be using an approach quite similar to the tobacco’s.