Free Republic

CNN — The results of this month’s election point toward a 2024 presidential contest that will likely be decided by a tiny sliver of voters in a rapidly shrinking list of swing states realistically within reach for either party. With only a few exceptions, this year’s results showed each side further consolidating its hold over the states that already lean in its direction. And in 2024 that will likely leave control of the White House in the hands of a very small number of states that are themselves divided almost exactly in half between the parties – a list that...

Horror show: Netflix losing more customers than expected on price hike, stock plunges 19 pctSAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Netflix's decision to raise prices by as much as 60 percent is turning into a horror show. The customer backlash against the higher rates, kicking in this month, has been much harsher than Netflix Inc. anticipated. That prompted management to predict Thursday that the company --the largest U.S. video subscription service-- will end September with 600,000 fewer U.S. customers than it had in June.

*** Among the 2,323 bills introduced by lawmakers this year are ones to revise the definition of olive oil and enact 'Spay Day' to encourage spaying of animals. But Gov. Jerry Brown and others say that's too many as the state grapples with fiscal crisis. *** Reporting from Sacramento — In addition to addressing the state's $25-billion deficit this year, the Legislature is making time for some other less pressing matters: Caffeinated beer. Spaceships. How to properly describe a dog pound. Proposals on those subjects are among the 2,323 bills lawmakers have introduced this year. Others would revise the definition...

I ASKED A 17-year-old I know what he thought about Kwanzaa and he said, "That Jewish holiday?" Uh, no. Clearly, his high school hasn't embraced the multicultural thing and isn't teaching students about the 44-year-old Afrocentric holiday. But I don't knock his ignorance because the truth is that Kwanzaa has never caught on with the majority of black Americans. At the same time, though, it has grown in mainstream acceptance as evidenced by the Kwanzaa postal stamps and greeting cards.

The number of American Jews who consider themselves religiously observant has dropped by more than 20 percent over the last 20 years, a survey found. The share of Jews who consider themselves secular has risen. The results of the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey, as reported by the Associated Press, showed that around 3.4 million U.S. Jews say they are religious, out of a total American Jewish population of about 5.4 million. The relative share of Jews who identify themselves as only culturally Jewish rose from 20 percent in 1990 to 37 percent in 2008, the survey established. During the...

Hurricanes and tropical storms will become less frequent by the end of the century as a result of climate change, US researchers have suggested. But the scientists added their data also showed that there would be a "modest increase" in the intensity of these extreme weather events. The findings are at odds with some other studies, which forecast a greater number of hurricanes in a warmer world. The researchers' results appear in the journal Nature Geoscience. The team from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (Noaa) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) said its findings did not support the notion that...

WASHINGTON, April 11, 2008 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said today he is confident there will be fewer U.S. troops in Iraq in 2009, but added that the drawdown process has gone somewhat more slowly than he thought it would last year. This comes as Army Gen. David H. Petraeus returns to Iraq after a week of testimony and meetings in and around the nation’s capital to begin what Gates called a “major force realignment” there. Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Navy Adm. Mike Mullen met with journalists at the Pentagon today. All five surge brigades are expected...

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - A non-profit corporation has purchased a large number of the buildings where prostitutes pose in windows in Amsterdam's Red Light district, the city said Thursday, in a deal that may lead to a third of the windows being shuttered. The move is intended to break a logjam in an multi-year effort by the city to cut back on the windows, which it says are a magnet for crime and money laundering. Mayor Job Cohen said the move was not intended to get rid of prostitution entirely, since it is part of the area's history and a major...

WASHINGTON, July 27, 2007 – Insurgent attacks in Iraq’s Ninewah province have dropped significantly, and if the trend continues, fewer U.S. troops will be needed in the region, an Army commander in the area said today. A sign of the improved security situation in the province is the fact that the province -- which includes Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city -- will transfer to Iraqi provincial control sometime next month, said Army Col. Stephen Twitty, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division’s 4th Brigade, during a briefing with Pentagon reporters via telephone. The Ninewah provincial government has made great strides and can...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27, 2007 – The Defense Department is committed to implementing changes in policy that will mean fewer, shorter and more predictable deployments for reserve-component troops, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told the National Guard’s 54 adjutants general today. Army Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, left, chief of the National Guard Bureau, speaks with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates during the National Guard Bureau's Senior Leadership Meeting in Washington, D.C., Feb. 27. Photo by Cherie A. Thurlby  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Speaking to the Adjutants General Association of the United States mid-winter conference, Gates said his...

On the surface, the numbers would hardly seem to furrow any eyebrows -- or fan waves of concern through the state's education community. The California Legislative Analyst's Office reports that K-12 public school enrollment -- or average daily attendance -- will drop next year by 6,000 students from a total of more than 6 million pupils statewide. Though seemingly modest, the drop signals considerable challenges for schools as statewide enrollment is expected to continue falling through 2010 as the children of the post World War II baby boom generation move beyond school age. The statewide numbers may seem insignificant because...

Reflecting a year of cooperation with Democratic lawmakers, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger marked the end of the legislative bill-signing period Saturday, vetoing bills at a lower rate than in the first two years of his term and approving several measures he had previously rejected. The flurry of last-minute signings came as analysts said Schwarzenegger has taken more moderate public positions this year and departed from the more conservative and strident tone of last fall's special election campaign. "The signing decisions are more reminiscent of 2004 than 2005," said Tim Hodson, executive director of the Center for California Studies at California State...

BISBEE — Three or four years ago, Jim Dickson, CEO of Bisbee’s Copper Queen Community Hospital, was not feeling very upbeat. He had had to cut back on employees and hours, shutter his skilled nursing facility and close the hospital’s maternity ward. The reductions, he says, were largely due to a massive influx of patients from Mexico — illegal immigrants or residents of nearby Naco, Sonora — who could not pay for services. Today, however, things are looking brighter for the hospital and its CEO. Federal funds that provide partial compensation for treating undocumented immigrants have finally started to come...

TUCSON — Apprehensions of illegal immigrants in Cochise County in March is down by more than 50 percent, according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector. The reduction is about 7 percent sectorwide, Shannon Stevens said Thursday. The emphasis in the county is paying off, she said, adding the number of agents, use of unmanned aerial systems and other technology also will be used to establish operational control in the Tucson Sector’s west desert area. The West Desert Corridor is now absorbing the most illegal immigrant traffic. “We’re concentrating as many assets as we can (in the...

FORT HUACHUCA — Last month, 177 illegal immigrant were detained by post law enforcement and turned over to the U.S. Border Patrol. The number held on the fort last month is about 100 less than February 2005, according to statistics provided by the post public affairs office. Since Oct. 1 through the end of last month 546 illegal immigrants were detained on the fort compared to 940 for the first five months of the previous federal budget year.

Until the 18th century, there was basically only one kind of Judaism, that which is now called Orthodox. It meant living by the religion's 613 laws, and doing so suffused Jews' lives with their faith. Then, starting with the thinker Baruch Spinoza (1632-77) and moving briskly during the Haskala, or "enlightenment," from the late 18th century, Jews developed a wide variety of alternate interpretations of their religion, most of which diminished the role of faith in their lives and led to a concomitant reduction in Jewish affiliation.These alternatives and other developments, in particular the Holocaust, caused the ranks of the...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - NBC's broadcast of the 2004 Olympics has gotten off to as bumpy a start as the U.S. Olympic team itself, with prime-time ratings for the first three days of the Summer Games down slightly from four years ago, according to figures released on Monday. NBC's prime-time Olympics coverage still towered over the usual summer sitcoms, reality shows and reruns offered on rival U.S. networks during the first three days of the Athens Games, posting a hefty household rating of 14.1 and a full quarter share of all viewers watching TV on those evenings. But compared with...

Don't Commemorate Sept. 11 Fewer flags, please, and more grit. By Christopher Hitchens Posted Monday, September 8, 2003, at 9:30 AM PT Unless I have badly mistaken the mood of everyone I know and almost everyone I meet, practically nobody has any particular use for the second anniversary that will soon be upon us. But it is vaguely felt in many quarters that something ought to be done by way of an observance. The first mentality is in my opinion the right one, even if people feel bad about harboring it, and the second one is defensible but somewhat sickly...

Has the nation's television audience burned out on serious news? American soldiers are dying in Iraq almost daily; questions continue to swirl around the Bush administration's case for the invasion there in March; and U.S. Marines are poised off the coast of Liberia. At home, decisions by the Supreme Court prompted national debates on affirmative action and gay rights; a basketball star stands accused of sexual assault; and the California governorship hangs in the balance. And yet, television news viewers are tuning out. The total evening news audience on the broadcast networks has been lower this summer than it was...

Source: Imperial College Of Science, Technology And Medicine Date: 2003-07-23 Fewer Earthbound Asteroids Will Hit Home; Scientists Say Pancake Model Of Asteroid Impact Won’t Stick July 16, 2003 -- Scientists report in Nature today that significantly fewer asteroids could hit the Earth's surface than previously reckoned. Researchers from Imperial College London and the Russian Academy of Sciences have built a computer simulation that predicts whether asteroids with a diameter up to one kilometre (km) will explode in the atmosphere or hit the surface. The results indicate that asteroids with a diameter greater than 200 metres (the length of two football...