Free Republic

I am from Ohio so I don't really have a dog in this fight. But over the last couple of days. The situation in California has divided the Republican Party nationally. There is a lot of in-fighting. A lot of people who are fighting. Sarah Palin is being attacked for no good reason. I think the solution is simple. You are not going to win the nomination. Put out the fire, fold up the tent and support the best of the last remaining two candidates. With you on the ballot, the only possible roll you have is spoiler. So please,...

While the Republican party is on track to score big victories in 2010, it's in grave danger of committing long-term suicide unless it's rescued from right-wing madness. Riding a wave of anger at Democrats for spending too much and failing to solve the nation's economic crisis -- yet -- Republicans may even capture control of the House this year. But consistent -- sometimes ugly -- opposition to immigration overhaul, resistance to climate change remedies, hostility toward gay rights, incendiary language at tea party rallies and waging primaries as ideological purification rituals all represent long-term threats to the party. So does...

Archie Comic Publications announced it is adding a gay teen to its popular U.S. comic book series. Kevin Keller -- described as openly gay -- will make his debut at Riverdale High Sept. 1 as part of Veronica Comics No. 202, "Isn't It Bromantic?," the New York publishers announced in a news release. Archie Comics Editor Victor Gorelick told The Washington Post, "Everyone seems to know where Kevin is coming from except Veronica." And they don't tell her right away, he added. "They let her stew in it for a while. But he hangs out with Jughead -- they seem...

Researchers said a dead gray whale discovered on West Seattle’s Arroyo Beach last Wednesday was filled with a variety of debris, reported KIRO 7 Eyewitness News. Cascadia Research Collective, which has performed hundreds of whale necropsies, said it has never seen so much debris in the stomach of a gray whale. Researchers said items found inside the gray whale included small towels, sweatpants, plastic bags, surgical gloves, a golf ball and small bits of plastic. Though the volume of junk was unusual, scientists said the debris was probably not what killed the whale. The cause of the whale's death is...

Let’s see how well this one follows the Palin “scandal” template. Step one: Some provocative yet murky detail emerges about something she said or did. In this case, that’d be her admission that as a kid her family once crossed the border to seek medical care for her brother in Canada. Step two: The media assumes the worst and beams out the shocking allegations. Can it be true? America’s conservative champion bypassing the 45-minute trip to Anchorage so that her brother could indulge in some freebie socialized medicine 15 hours away? Step three: The truth. First, the full quote from...

A woman who must be holding a baby from the sounds on the video sees a bear coming onto her porch from inside. She attempts to shoo it away, but obviously the bear does not even know she is inside watching through a window. It seems the bear wants her garbage, and the moment the bear gingerly grabs a plastic bag of garbage a cat appears and confronts the bear. What we have next is a standoff that the bear is not sure he wants to get into. Eventually he does get the garbage bag, but he takes all precaution...

EXCLUSIVE: This column has learned that Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie are planning a massive 25th anniversary re-recording of “We Are the World.” The timing couldn’t be better, sadly enough. The duo is summoning lots and lots of talent from Grammy weekend to stay an extra night — Monday Feb. 1 — and come to the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. There, they will celebrate a quarter century since Ken Kragen, Richie and Michael Jackson organized the original “We Are the World” with Quincy. This time the artists invited include Usher, Natalie Cole, and John Legend. But you can bet...

* Sanitary conditions deteriorate as survivors camp out * Thousands eat, sleep, wash and defecate in open camps * Health risks mount, emergency latrines needed PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jan 21 (Reuters) - A child squats to defecate yards away from a sidewalk where women press plantain into bite-sized pieces for frying and a naked toddler plays with a pile of rice on the filthy ground. Nearby, a dead body has been dumped on the street, right in front of a sea of morose people sitting on grubby mattresses, and a garbage collector uses a shovel to scoop up soggy black mounds of...

When the issue of Abortion arises, there are essentially two camps – Pro-Choice and Pro-Life. Contemporary politics, or at least common uses of the labels, would lead you to believe the following about the two groups. The first believes in a woman’s right to have dominion over her own body and hence, believes she has the “choice” to determine if she will carry a pregnancy to term. The latter believes that life begins at conception, and that any subsequent taking of that life is the moral and/or legal equivalent to murder. The second camp is the home of the group...

As we prepare for the final round of debate over health reform, perhaps the most contentious issue will be financing. Both the Senate and House agree that most of the financing for reform should come from scaling back overpayments to Medicare insurers and providers, as well as excise taxes on some of the sectors that will most benefit from 30 million newly insured consumers. But the two houses remain apart on where to find the remaining dollars. In the Senate, the gap is closed by relying on the "Cadillac tax," a 40 percent assessment on insurance plans with premiums of...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama's Democratic allies will pay in November 2010 mid-term elections for the "garbage" legislation they pushed through the US Congress, a top Republican lawmaker warned Thursday. Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner took aim at Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's remark Wednesday that she was "always in campaign mode" and would sell voters next year on Democratic achievements. "I hope she does a great job of marketing all the garbage they passed this past year," he said at a year-end press conference, vowing "we're going to continue to be the party of better solutions." Recent...

Mo. schools complain over supplies with Obama logoOriginally published Monday, December 7, 2009 at 12:46 PM The Associated Press COLUMBIA, Mo. - Several Missouri schools are complaining about notebooks and pencils with designs similar to the logos from President Barack Obama's campaign. The Columbia Daily Tribune reported that complaints from unhappy officials at three Missouri schools have prompted the supply company responsible for the materials to travel across the state recalling notebooks and pencils. The design at issue includes a picture of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. Above the coins is the phrase: "CHANGE" and underneath it reads: "WE CAN...

As scientists, Governments and Industry look for viable replacements to our quickly dwindling supply of fossil fuels, attention has again turned to biofuels and the potential they offer. You’ve all no doubt heard of Ethanol, rapeseed and other popular bio-diesel crops, but it is now possible to turn our quickly growing garbage mountains into biofuels. Scientists have now discovered some amazingly effective, mutually beneficial, symbiotic processes that could single-handedly solve both imminent problems with the creation of “bio-fuels” and “synthetic fuels” derived directly from our trash and garbage. Full article is: http://www.oilprice.com/article-biofuel-of-the-future-turning-our-garbage-into-energy.html

Stay classy, MSNBC. On the day after the Republican Party showed gains in a few statewide elections and with key health care and cap-and-trade legislation pending, MSNBC went back to the well to do what it does best - attack the character of one of the network' favorite targets, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. On the Nov. 4 broadcast of MSNBC's "Countdown," with fill-in host Lawrence O'Donnell substituting for Keith Olbermann (still MIA since New Jersey gubernatorial race went Republican), Michael Musto, gay columnist for The Village Voice and author of "La Dolce Musto" dressed up as Palin and reenacted...

September, 9 A.D., Kalkriese Hill, northern Germany: the Germanic warriors waited in grim silence. Three Roman legions, commanded by General Publius Quintilius Varus, advanced across the Rhine into Anglo-Saxon territory. The Romans hoped to expand Roman power, Roman law, and Roman culture. The Germans hoped to preserve their Teutonic laws and institutions and their way of life.  Probably neither side realized that the Battle of Teutoburg Forest would decide the course of Western law and Western civilization for millennia to come.  And now, in the year 2009, the 2,000th anniversary of the battle, very few Americans have even heard of...

Levi Johnston 'To Take Sarah Palin To Court' Over Child Custody The teenager who fathered Sarah Palin's 10-month-old grandson has delivered a fresh blow to the former Republican vice presidential candidate by saying he will "definitely" take her to court to gain access to his child. By Nick Allen in Los Angeles 30 Oct 2009 Levi Johnston, 19, who had a son called Tripp with Mrs Palin's eldest daughter Bristol, has been considering legal action for months but now says it is "inevitable" and that Mrs Palin is preventing him from seeing the boy. A court case over Tripp, during...

Levi Johnston says he's keeping some "huge" things about Sarah Palin from the public. In Part One of a two-part exclusive interview with "Early Show" co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez, which aired Wednesday, the father of Palin's grandson says, "There are some things that I have that are huge. And I haven't said them because I'm not gonna hurt her that way. " ... I have things that can, you know -- that would get her in trouble, and could hurt her. Will hurt her. But I'm not gonna go that far. You know, I mean, if I really wanted to hurt...

The media’s been pointing to the balloon boy story as the ne plus ultra of celebrity-seeking scumbaggery, but there’s an even better example around, isn’t there? Honestly, at this point, the most rational interpretation of his behavior is that he’s trying to get people to hate him. “Sounds like you really resent her now,” she asks Levi during the interview, which was taped in advance. “Well now I’ve heard all the things she’s said. You know, the Sarah Palin I knew before, it was — it was her putting on a front, it was her being fake to me and...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Police in Philadelphia say a homeless man sleeping in a trash bin wound up in the back of a garbage truck and was killed by the vehicle's compactor. Investigators say the truck collected the contents of the trash bin at about 4 a.m. Wednesday in North Philadelphia. The truck's driver activated the compactor a little later. Police say the driver told officers he thought he heard someone say, "Yo! Yo! Yo!" but did not know where the voice was coming from. He heard the cry again, fainter, at his next stop and alerted authorities.

Dinosaurs are a popular topic of study, whether in the public imagination or in scientific research. The scientific community, however, has a dirty little secret regarding the manner in which that research is handled. If dinosaur DNA doesn't "look like chicken" (or a crocodile), it will most likely be discarded as "unreliable data" prior to publication--and thus be effectively censored from public access. Why? Because evolutionary scientists are committed to only publish dinosaur DNA data that match their naturalistic tale of origins. Despite the amazing discoveries of soft tissue from dinosaur bones,[1] dinosaur DNA research results (and other dinosaur "connective...