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What are you afraid of, Mr. President? I know it must be tough dragging yourself to these glitzy fund-raisers and mingling with rich people who shower you with money and affection. Who needs an unfriendly reporter shouting an unscripted question at you, or checking to see whether any of the guests are getting government contracts? We all know Obama has an aversion to tough questions. During the campaign, he would refuse to engage with most local media, and reporters who camped out at the rope line got a stern talking-to from a campaign staffer. But using the White House press...

CONCORD, N.H. -- Amid chants from the gallery and thousands of demonstrators in the Statehouse plaza, New Hampshire's Republican-dominated House approved a $10.2 billion budget yesterday that makes deep cuts to social programs and strips public unions of much of their bargaining power. The House debated the budget for five hours before Republicans pushed it through, 243-124.

The White House postponed an event scheduled for Wednesday afternoon where President Obama was supposed to receive an award for a commitment to transparency due to unspecified “changes to the president’s schedule.” The award was to be presented by organizers of the Freedom of Information Day conference in conjunction with “Sunshine Week” for the president’s “deep commitment to an open and transparent government—of, by, and for the people.” The Associated Press reported this week that despite pledges of increased transparency, the Obama administration last year responded to fewer Freedom of Information Act requests than the year before. In 2010 there...

The marching orders from Congress and the White House to NASA were pretty straightforward. Go out and build a new big rocket to replace the retiring space shuttle fleet. Unlike the shuttle, the new rocket has to be powerful enough to get out of low Earth orbit and carry humans to an asteroid and eventually Mars, perhaps even the moon. There must also be a test flight by 2016. But at this point, NASA officials are warning of a potentially devastating setback to future space exploration. Its first new rocket in 40 years may not happen because the agency doesn't

Responding to the growing furor over the paychecks of executives at companies that received billions of dollars in the government’s financial rescue, the Obama administration will order the companies that received the most aid to deeply slash the compensation to their highest paid executives, an official involved in the decision said on Wednesday.

Ice flow alone explains why fjords are cut so deep 20 May 2008 NewScientist.com news service Fjords form when ice sheets gouge out a valley below sea level - but what makes the ice bite so deep? A variety of factors was thought to be behind the rapid and deep incisions made as ice sheets flow down from the mountains. For example, if the sheet moves from a region where it is frozen to the bedrock to a region where the rock surface is slightly warmer, the ice might start to slide against the rock, eroding it more rapidly. Mark...

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration intends to slash counterterrorism funding for police, firefighters and rescue departments across the country by more than half next year, according to budget documents obtained by The Associated Press. The Homeland Security Department has given $23 billion to states and local communities to fight terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks, but one document says the administration is not convinced that the money has been well spent and thinks the nation's highest-risk cities have largely satisfied their security needs. The department wanted to provide $3.2 billion to help states and cities protect against terrorist attacks in...

A very dark spot on Mars could be an entrance to a deep hole or cavern, according to scientists studying imagery taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The geological oddity measures some 330 feet (100 meters) across and is located on an otherwise bright dusty lava plain to the northeast of Arsia Mons, one of the four giant Tharsis volcanoes on the red planet. The hole might be the sort of place that could support life or serve as a habitat for future astronauts, researchers speculated. Must be deep The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) used its High Resolution Imaging Science...

allegedly included dog feces along with his payment for a parking ticket has been charged with disorderly conduct. The 22-year-old man was charged with the misdemeanor May 11 in a criminal complaint filed in Mower County District Court. The man's vehicle was ticketed on April 18 while it was parked in front of his residence. He put an envelope containing his payment and dog feces in a drop box at the law enforcement center, the complaint stated. On April 25, an office employee for the Austin Police Department smelled a rank odor as she gathered envelopes from the box. Opening...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 11, 2007 – The Defense Department’s America Supports You program transcends politics in its mission to support the men and women of the U.S. armed forces, a senior defense official said today in an appearance on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends" program. “I think we have a great history of that through our America Supports You program,” Allison Barber, deputy assistant secretary of defense for internal communications and public liaison, said. “Over the past two and a half years, we’ve seen hundreds and thousands of people who say, ‘We’ll debate the policy of the (Iraq) war...

Deeply disturbing, Google lawyer saysA court in Dallas, Texas has found a website operator liable for copyright infringement because his site linked to an 'audio webcast' without permission. Observers have criticised the judge for failing to understand the internet. Robert Davis runs Supercrosslive.com and put direct links on his site to audio streams of motorcycle racing. Those streams were created, owned and hosted by SFX Motor Sports, which is behind some of the events covered. A preliminary injunction was granted on 12th December by Judge Sam Lindsay in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Judge Lindsay...

Delving deep into Britain's past By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News Neanderthals probably made this hand axe from Swanscombe in Kent Scientists are to begin work on the second phase of a project aimed at piecing together the history of human colonisation in Britain. Phase one of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project (AHOB) discovered people were here 200,000 years earlier than previously thought. Phase two has now secured funds to the tune of £1m and will run until 2010. Team members hope to find out more about Britain's earliest settlers and perhaps unearth their fossil remains. They...

Stupid Investment of the Week If you treasure your money, steer clear of this stock,(Brolin haha!) By Chuck Jaffe, MarketWatch Last Update: 9:06 AM ET Apr 28, 2006 BOSTON (MarketWatch) -- Uncovering new, tiny companies with the potential for success is a bit like hunting for treasure. You need to read the map of financials, understand the landscape of the business and do the right calculations or you are just going to wind up throwing a lot of money away with nothing to show for it. So when a company promises to be a treasure, literally and figuratively, investors should...

Despite a commanding financial advantage, state Controller Steve Westly could have trouble overcoming the union muscle that will direct voters toward his rival, state Treasurer Phil Angelides, in the Democratic primary for governor. The failure of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's public works bond to reach the June ballot means there will be little to attract the moderate voters Westly needs to counteract the died-in-the-wool Democrats that unions are expected to drive toward Angelides. "The challenge for Steve Westly is going to be getting people who are not so tightly affiliated with the Democratic Party to show up and vote," said Bruce...

China admits to 'deep-seated conflicts' amid economic boom By Richard Spencer in Beijing (Filed: 06/03/2006) China's prime minister gave a surprisingly gloomy assessment of the state of the country's booming economy and fast-changing society in his annual speech to parliament yesterday. In the face of near-euphoria among governments and businesses in the western world about the pace of its growth, Wen Jiabao said long-term economic health was at risk while society faced "deep-seated conflicts". Wen Jiabao delivers the annual ‘work report’ yesterday For years, Communist leaders have worried about the growing wealth gap between the expanding cities of the east...

Digging deep for a clue to a global mysteryThe search for the ancient skulls of Peking Man, missing since 1941, sits firmly on Beijing's agenda, GEOFFREY YORK writes GEOFFREY YORK ZHOUKOUDIAN, CHINA -- For more than two decades, Yang Shoukai had hoarded his secret, unsure what to do with a possible clue to one of China's most baffling mysteries. As construction supervisor on the site of an abandoned U.S. military barracks in Tianjin in 1982, he had discovered a strange cement box in the basement of the old wartime barracks. He tried to dig it up, but lacked the proper...

Cold and Deep: Antarctica's Lake Vostok has two big neighbors Sid Perkins GREAT LAKES. Lake Vostok and the newly described 90°E and Sovetskaya Lakes lie beneath a kilometers-thick blanket of ice. The black square in the inset shows the outline of this satellite image on a map of Antarctica; the cross indicates the South Pole. R.E. Bell, et al. Trapped beneath Antarctica's kilometers-thick ice sheet are two bodies of water that rival North America's Great Lakes, new analyses suggest. The geological setting of these huge, unfrozen lakes hints that they may harbor ecosystems that have been isolated for millions of...

Deep-sea robot photographs ancient Greek shipwreck Deborah Halber, News Office Correspondent February 2, 2006Image © / Chios 2005 Shipwreck Survey -- WHOI, Hellenic Ministry of Culture: Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities, Hellenic Center for Marine ResearchThis image shows a sample of the data collected by the SeaBed autonomous underwater vehicle as it swam over the Chios shipwreck in July 2005. The 3-D color mesh represents a topographic map of the sea floor, created using data collected by multibeam sonar. The brown strip shows the area captured in digital images, which were used to create the photomosaic of the wreck. Sometime in...

Recent events in American politics suggest liberals are clowns with zero sense of perspective. No wonder Americans don't elect them anymore. Canadians need to wise up and get in on the joke. Last week, the liberal media fell over itself as a U.S. special prosecutor charged vice-presidential aide "Scooter" Libby with lying, during the investigation of a non-crime, about whether he first heard a CIA operative's name from a reporter or from somewhere else. Who cares? We've got the president of Iran rapping like Eminem about "wiping Israel off the map," and the liberal priority, as articulated by Democratic Senate...

Think of it as the Mars Rover but at the bottom of the ocean, remotely exploring our own planet's most alien landscape for scientists back at mission control. "This is how the science is going to be done," said Deborah Kelley, a University of Washington oceanographer. In 2000, Kelley led an expedition using a manned submersible to explore the deep Atlantic Ocean. Her team stumbled upon something never seen before. The researchers discovered a startlingly massive collection of limestone towers located miles away from the tectonic "spreading" cracks in the seafloor that typically produce such structures. Some of these hydrothermal...

As the sands of the hour glass fall, some may feel they're lost. Anxieties increase when a strong foundation is not around to guide or back one's own thoughts on many matters that confront you in your daily lives...

The U-2513 is what's known as a Type 21 German U-boat. In the 1940s, the Type 21 was a secret weapon that threatened to change the course of two wars: WWII, and then later, the Cold War. During WWII, German hopes were riding on it, and the Allies were terrified of it. After the war, the British, Americans, and Russians couldn't wait to get their hands on it. It was a weapon that had the potential to change the balance of world power and determine the outcome of the Cold War. Join our Deep Sea Detectives, John Chatterton and Richie...

Outting Time: Exposing a Conservative Source is a Coup not a Sacrifice. By N. Beaujon July 2, 2005 The second that Time Magazine's spokesman launched into his sanctimonious press conference to dutifully explained how, as a publicly traded corporation, they had to abide by the rule of law and give up their source, I knew their “Deep Throat” was likely Karl Rove and, most assuredly, a Republican. Liberals care nothing about the rule of law as they proved time and again during Watergate, the Pentagon Papers and countless other calculated leaks designed to bring down our government. Each time they...

Out of the Shadows Why the Deep Throat disclosures are good for the media—and could help Hillary Clinton shape a bid for the White House WEB EXCLUSIVE By Eleanor Clift Newsweek Updated: 4:50 p.m. ET June 3, 2005 June 3 - At a Memorial Day picnic in Washington, the talk inevitably turned to Hillary Clinton and her likely run for president. “What motivates her?” one man wanted to know. He wouldn’t think of asking that question about any of the male contenders for president. Wanting to hold the highest elective office in the land is a given for them, but...

Former FBI second-in-command Mark Felt, who recently stepped forward as Watergate's "Deep Throat," was a foe of both presidential corruption and domestic terrorism. It’s difficult to know if radio ranter Michael Savage seriously believes that 91-year-old former FBI second-in-command Mark Felt, freshly revealed as the Watergate whistleblower known as "Deep Throat," should be thrown in prison, along with his daughter Joan. During his June 1 program, Savage reasoned (if the word can be tortured into applying here) that since Joan Felt had long known her father’s secret, she had the duty to turn him in to the authorities for prosecution....

Deep Throat: Liberal Icon a Criminal. What a Surprise. By N. Beaujon June 1, 2005 Well, well, the man who brought down Richard Nixon has finally come forward to solve the decades-long mystery of “who was ‘Deep Throat’”? The mole who tipped off Washington Post columnists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to the burglary and subsequent cover-up at the Watergate Hotel was W. Richard Felt, former deputy director under J. Edgar Hoover and second in command at the FBI. It turns out Felt's moral compass kicked in just about the time Richard Nixon passed him over for his entitled position...

'Someone in a Position to Know Told Me' J$P Instant Transcript! Eric Burns tells Shepard Smith that he knows the identity of Deep Throat. From Studio-B with Shepard Smith, February 18 2005: SHEPARD SMITH [FOX NEWS]: Well it's a mystery that's gripped the nation for large periods of time over the last three decades. Who was it that tipped off the reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein about the Watergate scandal, leading to the collapse of the Nixon White House? Fox's media analyst Eric Burns says he knows. How do you know? Who is it? ERIC BURNS [FOX NEWS]:...

When it comes to space exploration, where scientists often measure their needs in milli-this and micro-that, Deep Impact, as its name suggests, has all the subtlety of a punch in the mouth. Barring unforeseen delays, NASA will launch on Wednesday a 1,325-pound spacecraft on a one-way trip to the comet Tempel 1. On July 3, the spacecraft will jettison an 820-pound copper projectile in the comet's path and get out of the way as comet and projectile meet at a relative speed of 23,000 mph. This, perhaps not surprisingly, will happen on July 4, and if you are somewhere in...

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!

"I know it when I see it" was the famous response by a U.S. Supreme Court justice to the vexed problem of defining pornography. Terrorism may be no less difficult to define, but the wanton killing of schoolchildren, of mourners at a funeral, or workers at their desks in skyscrapers surely fits the know-it-when-I-see-it definition.The press, however, generally shies away from the word terrorist, preferring euphemisms. Take the assault that led to the deaths of some 400 people, many of them children, in Beslan, Russia, on September 3. Journalists have delved deep into their thesauruses, finding at least twenty euphemisms...

Volunteers listen to lots of whoop-de-do By Jules Crittenden Sunday, July 11, 2004 Memo to Dale Carnegie reps - When instructing the Democratic National Convention hospitality volunteers; ixnay on the Arzenegger-schway. ``No one ever got muscles by watching me work out,'' quoted an instructor in the feel-good arts, citing the wisdom of Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Dale Carnegie guru was urging the DNC volunteers to take a little affirmative action to make sure the out-of-town delegates will all feel at home. Among those volunteers was one we'll call ``Deep Vote.'' Volunteers are instructed not to speak to the...

LOS ANGELES, April 2, 2004—Jody Eldred Productions today announced it has just completed filming and is in the final stages of production on an inspirational documentary called, “Changed Lives: Miracles of The Passion,” which will air nationwide Easter weekend. With rave reviews from Diane Sawyer on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s “Scarborough Country,” this one-hour T.V. special was shot in High Definition and documents the true stories of people whose lives have been forever changed by Mel Gibson’s incredible motion picture “The Passion of The Christ.” “I knew instantly that people’s lives were going to be...

Friday, 21 July, 2000, 18:05 GMT 19:05 UK A 10 billion billion billion megaton bomb in space KPD1930+2752 is in the constellation of Cygnus By BBC News Online science editor Dr David Whitehouse Astronomers have found a star that will produce one of the biggest explosions in our Universe. The star, known as KPD1930+2752, will explode within the next 200 million years. UK researchers believe it is the first star of its kind to be found. They say it may hold the clues to where the stuff that makes up our bodies comes from and perhaps to the future of...

'Potato' Earth's deep secrets By Jonathan Amos BBC News Online science staff It is a map the like of which you have probably never seen before. Gravity highs are marked red; gravity lows are blue The sweep of colours shows minute variations in the Earth's gravitational field. If you were to fly over the red areas, you would be tugged ever so slightly downwards; the blues mark regions where the planet's attraction is much weaker. These gravity anomalies, as they are known, are imperceptible to the human senses, and so the scientists have wrapped the data on to a sphere...

Was Noah’s Flood Universal? Was the Flood of Genesis universal, covering all the earth? Or was it merely a regional inundation engulfing only a small area ? This question has troubled many readers of the Genesis story. How can we discover the truth? by Arnold MendezFor many, the theory of evolution is the foundational underpinning for the geological and biological sciences. Since evolution is so widely accepted in much of the academic community, many believe that the geological record can only be interpreted using evolutionary guidelines. These widely accepted guidelines supposedly show that the present is the key to the...

Pariah Against A Prophet By Marc Miyake, Amritas.Com Many conservatives regard Chomsky as a linguist who falters out of his field. Unfortunately, they are giving Chomsky too much credit. Chomsky's linguistics are as warped as his politics. As someone with a PhD in linguistics, I think I am qualified to judge his professional credentials. Prior to Chomsky, linguists engaged in a lot of data collection to understand the diversity of human language. I'm vehemently anti-PC, but in this case, I think the word 'diversity' is justified. There's a lot out there, and someone's got to catalog it. However, Chomsky...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 February 25 M42: Wisps of the Orion Nebula Credit & Copyright: John P. Gleason (Celestial Images) Explanation: The Great Nebula in Orion, an immense, nearby starbirth region, is probably the most famous of all astronomical nebulas. Here, glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1500 light-years away. In the above deep image, faint wisps and sheets of dust...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 February 14 The Heart in NGC 346 Credit: Y.Nazé (Université de Liège) et al., CXC, NASA Explanation: Yes, it's Valentine's Day (!) and looking toward star cluster NGC 346 in our neighboring galaxy the Small Magellanic Cloud, astronomers have noted this heart-shaped cloud of hot, x-ray emitting gas in the cluster's central region. The false-color Chandra Observatory x-ray image also shows a strong x-ray source just above...

Female circumcision tradition has deep roots February 06 2003 at 05:53AM By Coumba Sylla In parts of Senegal, where female circumcision has been practised for centuries, campaigns like the one now before African leaders in Ethiopia to end the "silent tragedy" are brushed off as misinformation. African leaders and international organisations were taking part in a conference in the Ethiopian capital on Wednesday set to end with a call for zero- tolerance of the practice of female genital mutilation. "My parents did it, and, there is no question in my mind, I am going to continue the tradition," Cherif Koundoul,...

Two volcanic systems 'connected deep beneath surface' Geologists say an outpouring of lava from the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii that began last May may have stemmed from activity beneath neighbouring Mauna Loa. The statement revives a decades-old debate over whether the two volcanic systems are connected. "We have detected a correlation between these events at a very short time scale," scientists reported in the current issue of the journal Nature. The scientists have long believed that Mauna Loa, the world's largest volcano, and Kilauea are connected deep beneath the Earth's surface. But the new study suggests there is a shallow...

Warning that war could plunge world into deep recessionCost of toppling Saddam Hussein may run into hundreds of billions of dollars and this time America will have to foot the bill itself By Andrew Gumbel 16 November 2002 A war against Iraq could cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars, play havoc with an already depressed domestic economy and tip the world into recession because of the adverse effect on oil prices, inflation and interest rates, an academic study has warned. According to William Nordhaus, Sterling professor of economics at Yale University, the best-case scenario of a short,...

<p>Two years after the strangest presidential race in history, California was providing the nation with a tantalizing finish to its gubernatorial contest.</p> <p>Despite leading handily in all the public polls, Gov. Gray Davis clung to a narrow lead over Republican Bill Simon as votes were counted into the night Tuesday.</p>

Passions run deep under the Iranian chador as young lovers outfox the hardline clerics By Leonard Doyle in Isfahan, Iran 02 November 2002 Nazar Street in the heart of the ancient Persian city of Isfahan is crackling with sexual energy as Iran's Saviour Day holiday gets into full swing. When darkness falls, the shopping street heaves with young people, men in jeans and T-shirts, women hidden behind chadors, with a heavy police presence ensuring things do not get out of hand. There is the occasional thwack of night-stick across the shoulders of Isfahan's young blades, to keep them moving and...

Less Than 20 Days to Help Democrats Win! Dear Idiot Dimocratic mind numbed robot, We've asked you repeatedly to help the Democratic Party over the past several weeks -- and time and again you have been there for the Democratic Party. (HA! if you only knew) But America is in crisis. As we face the most important elections of our time this November, America could lose the precious checks and balances that keep the presidency accountable to the nation, and to you and your family. That's why we urgently need your contribution today. Democrats are only holding onto the majority...

    Update About Cuba Underwater Megalithic Research 2002 by Linda Moulton Howe A half mile down in the waters of Cabo de San Antoniooff the western tip of Cuba's Guanahacabibes marked by red X is a 20-kilometersquare area of clean, white sand punctuated by tall, megalithic stones or structures first reported in May 2001 by Paulina Zelitsky, Ocean Engineer, Havana, Cuba. "They (megalithic stones) are very unique structures. They really are not easy to understand and I do not have any easy explanation for them in a natural geological process." ­ Manuel Iturralde-Vinent, Ph.D., Geologist, National Museum of...