Free Republic

In yet another manifestation of the "maverick's" fealty to a failed president, John McCain is stuck trying to explain why he and Bush remain united in their opposition to a new, bipartisan G.I. Bill that would benefit our returning troops. McCain felt compelled to defend himself again yesterday, during his Memorial Day speech, and no wonder. This is quite the political dilemma. By standing with President Bush, he risks being perceived as standing against the soldiers - which is not exactly the ideal profile for a Republican candidate. In his speech yesterday, he at least tried to argue his case...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney's pregnant lesbian daughter Mary will make a "fine mom," President George W. Bush said, sidestepping his past comment that a child ideally would be raised by a mother and father. Mary Cheney, 37, and her longtime partner, Heather Poe, are expecting their first child, which would be the sixth grandchild for the vice president. Cheney was hired last year as an executive for America Online. "I think Mary is going to be a loving soul to her child. And I'm happy for her," Bush said in an interview with People magazine.

Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna said he thought Darwin's theories on evolution deserve to be studied in schools, along with the scientific question marks that remain. It is right to teach "the science of Darwin, not ideological Darwinism," Cardinal Schonborn said Aug. 23. He spoke at a meeting in Rimini sponsored by the Catholic lay movement Communion and Liberation, and his remarks were reported by Italian newspapers. In 2005, Cardinal Schonborn helped fuel the debate over evolution and intelligent design when he wrote in The New York Times that science offers "overwhelming evidence for design in biology." He later...

Following her discussion of dinosaurs examined in Part II of this series, Coulter (2006, 219) ventured this: For over a hundred years, evolutionists proudly pointed to the same sad birdlike animal, Archaeopteryx, as their lone transitional fossil linking dinosaurs and birds. Discovered a few years after Darwin published The Origin of Species, Archaeopteryx was instantly hailed as the transitional species that proved Darwin's theory. This unfortunate creature had wings, feathers, teeth, claws, and a long, bony tail. If it flew at all, it didn't fly very well. Alas, it is now agreed that poor Archaeopteryx is no relation of modern...

What are Darwinists so afraid of? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: July 27, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Jonathan Witt © 2006 As a doctoral student at the University of Kansas in the '90s, I found that my professors came in all stripes, and that lazy ideas didn't get off easy. If some professor wanted to preach the virtues of communism after it had failed miserably in the Soviet Union, he was free to do so, but students were also free to hear from other professors who critically analyzed that position. Conversely, students who believed capitalism and democracy were the great engines of...

Ten years ago, an international team of scientists reported evidence, in a controversial cover story in the journal Nature, that life on Earth began more than 3.8 billion years ago—400 million years earlier than previously thought. A UCLA professor who was not part of that team and two of the original authors will report in late July that the evidence is stronger than ever. Craig E. Manning, lead author of the new study and a professor of geology and geochemistry in the UCLA Department of Earth and Space Sciences, painstakingly mapped an area on Akilia Island in West Greenland where...

An interview by Jamie Glazov with Larry Arnhart, a professor of political science at Northern Illinois University, about his new book Darwinian Conservatism. Glazov: Larry Arnhart, thanks for taking the time out to talk about your new book. Arnhart: It’s a pleasure. Thank you for inviting me. Glazov: Tell us briefly what your book is about and your main argument. Arnhart: I am trying to persuade conservatives that they need Charles Darwin. Conservatives need to see that a Darwinian science of human nature supports their realist view of human imperfectability, and it refutes the utopian view of the Left that...

The ability to spot venomous snakes may have played a major role in the evolution of monkeys, apes and humans, according to a new hypothesis by Lynne Isbell, professor of anthropology at UC Davis. The work is published in the July issue of the Journal of Human Evolution. Primates have good vision, enlarged brains, and grasping hands and feet, and use their vision to guide reaching and grasping. Scientists have thought that these characteristics evolved together as early primates used their hands and eyes to grab insects and other small prey, or to handle and examine fruit and other foods....

Plans are being drawn up to build a £3.3m working replica of the boat that took Charles Darwin around the world at Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire. Fundraising for the project, which would mark the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth in 2009, is under way. The aim is to built a seaworthy vessel identical to the HMS Beagle on the outside, but with a modern interior. Darwin, who showed how natural selection could explain evolution, sailed on the Beagle between 1831-36. Sitting opposite him on the expedition was mate and surveyor John Lort Stokes. One of Stokes' descendents, Pembrokeshire farmer David...

May 1, 2006 Letters Gay Adoption A fair summary of the April 1 letter to the editor regarding gay adoption would be that foster children adopted by gay people are more vulnerable to sexual predators than children adopted by heterosexual parents. As attorneys, such a provocative and wholly unsupported statement should be troubling to us all. As a former police officer who now practices family law, I am keenly aware of and sensitive to the plight of abused children. The letter writer offers no evidence whatsoever of a nexus between the reaction of a child to the advances of a...

See for example this thread first. A man off’ring door-to-door tests (for free) upon women’s breasts should make it quite clear to all who can hear: Don’t trust uninvited house-guests!

Two women who had taken care of Koko, a gorilla who communicates with humans by sign language, have settled a lawsuit charging the president of its sanctuary urged them to show their breasts to the ape, a lawyer said on Thursday. Nancy Alperin and Kendra Keller had sued the Woodside, California-based Gorilla Foundation, claiming its president had pressed them to bare their breasts for Koko to help bond with the gorilla. The two said foundation President Francine Patterson would interpret hand movements by Koko as a demand to see human nipples. They declined and were later fired in an act...

By 1 hour, 10 minutes ago OAKLAND, California (Reuters) - As U.S. gays and lesbians prepare to battle a raft of state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage that will likely be on the ballot next fall, activists are recasting the issue as one that needs to be fought on moral rather than political grounds. That is the message Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the oldest and leading U.S. grass-roots gay and lesbian coalition, has taken to more than 2,500 gay rights organizers at its annual conference held in Oakland this week. "What I...

Some prefer blondes. Some prefer brunettes. Still others prefer whips, spanking benches or women made up like horses - saddles included. To each his or her own yesterday at the 25th installment of the Fetish Fair Fleamarket, a production of the New England Leather Alliance at the Boston Center for the Arts/Cyclorama. Leather abounded, of course, but plenty of other kinks were on display: latex, saddles, corsets, paddles, whips, adult diapers, S&M videos and several women and men dressed as women being led around the market in chains. By comparison, Medford's Robert Mohas seemed tame, though still exuberant enough to...

What is considered sexy? What is a fetish? No, this isn't part of a Victoria's Secret advertisement, these were some of the topics addressed at Valerie Steele's lecture yesterday entitled "Fetish, Fashion, Sex and Power." Sarah Thomas, Carl A. Kroch University Librarian, introduced Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of the museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, who conducted some of her research at Cornell Library's Human Sexuality Collection. "The whole idea of fetishism has been studied from so many different angles," Steele said, speaking to a packed Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium in Goldwin Smith Hall. For her research...

This is the funniest thing I have ever seen... he is getting SMASHED by Alan Simpson.... SMASHED!!! Delicious! Bones

The inevitable other shoe in Vermont's civil-union law is dropping — in Westchester County, New York. That's where two lesbian partners, civilly joined in Vermont but living in New York, are the parties in a contested dissolution case. The case has the potential to raise numerous issues predicted by those who criticize the idea of civil unions as legally recognized domestic relations in some but not all states. New York law does not treat the filing of dissolutions as a matter of public record, so the specifics of the case are not publicly known, including the names of the...

WHITEMARSH, Pa. -- A Canadian porn actress found stabbed to death last month may have been killed while shooting a film that was to have simulated the murder of a woman during sex, prosecutors said. DNA clues and a scrawled note referring to a "snuff" video connect photographer Anthony J. Frederick to the death of 23-year-old Natel King, whose body was found in a trash-filled ravine in March, District Attorney Bruce Castor said at a preliminary hearing Friday. Frederick's attorney, Daniel-Paul Alva, said his client had nothing to do with snuff videos. "We don't know who killed her," he said....

(CNSNews.com) - A homosexual motorcycle club expects thousands of leather fetish enthusiasts and dozens of erotic merchandise vendors to fill the streets and hotels of the nation's capital over the upcoming Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend. But City Hall and one animal rights group are at odds over the social merits of the Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend. According to Mike Dembski, spokesman for the Centaur Motorcycle Club (MC), "The office of the mayor and the D.C. City Council routinely present Mid-Atlantic Leather (MAL) Weekend organizers with a city-wide declaration honoring and recognizing Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend for its commitment in...