Free Republic

Sep. 24, 2010 (Business Wire) -- Mayo Clinic has initiated the first clinical Hand Transplant Program in the United States and is now enrolling patients. This program offers hand transplantation as a clinically available option for patients with bilateral hand injuries or amputations. This allows patients to embark on this option of reconstructive surgery without being required to enroll in experimental trials.

When President Barack Obama announced in the Rose Garden last week that he had sacked Gen. Stanley McChrystal, he also made a point of telling his fractious Afghanistan team that he welcomed “debate” but would not abide “division.” The poster child for that all-for-one approach was standing directly on the president’s right: Vice President Joe Biden. On Afghanistan, Obama’s most problematic foreign policy issue, Biden has earned the president’s respect and confidence by being both private skeptic and public cheerleader for administration policy. With a combination of subtlety and discretion that belie his reputation as a glad-handing chatterbox, Biden has...

Tonight, we pray for that courage. We pray for the people of the Gulf. And we pray that a hand may guide us through the storm towards a brighter day. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

UPDATE: Apparently according to some readers my attempt at a clever pun of a headline for this post: "Palin's Palm Pilot Should Reid (meaning "read"...haha, but not really) Into The Flattery of Imitation".... didn't work too well, so it has been changed to something that "makes sense" in the hopes people will want to look at it this time...post starts now: Harry Reid is starting to make me think I've been channeling way too much energy into painting Biden as a gaffe factory Reid mocks Palin's hand-prompter Its bad enough that Harry Reid views the Senate as a sort...

Harry Reid is starting to make me think I've been channeling way too much energy into painting Biden as a gaffe factory Reid mocks Palin's hand-prompter Its bad enough that Harry Reid views the Senate as a sort of open mic night at some smokey Vegas chuckle shack with only one patron busting out punchlines like Obama can hide his negro dialect, and ObamaCare opponents would fight for slavery, but now I'm starting to worry that he has run out of ideas for his own material. I mean really, the Palin hand joke...again? (Why the club so smokey if...

Editor's note: The key moment comes at the :14 second mark.

The left thought they had another surefire Sarah Palin attack on their hands (pun intended) when she was caught using hand notes during a speech and Q&A session. It didn't take long for the attack to bite them on the ass tho. Video flashback of Senator Dianne Feinstein using hand notes during a debate: [VIDEO AT SITE] Even better, the rules of the debate forbade the use of notes. On the hands or on paper. Palin used it during a speech, not a debate. Read more at floppingaces.net...

Shopping Day at the Zoo..The left hand of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs shows a shopping list featuring "Eggs, Milk, Hope and Change", the latter two words used heavily in U.S. President Barack Obama's 2008 Presidential campaign, during Gibbs' daily news briefing at the White House in Washington February 9, 2010. REUTERS/Jason Reed (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS SOCIETY)

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs flashed his hand at the White House press corps to jab former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Among the things he'd written in dark pen were "eggs, milk, bread," Gibbs said. This was, of course, a reference to Palin's notes she wrote on her hand during the question-and-answer portion of her address to the Tea Party Nation this weekend in Nashville. As the reporters in the room laughed, Gibbs added that he'd also written down "hope and change."

No presidential statement or White House press briefing was held on it. In fact, all that can be found about it on the official White House Web site is the Dec. 17 announcement and one-paragraph text of President Obama's Executive Order 12425, with this innocuous headline: "Amending Executive Order 12425 Designating Interpol as a public international organization entitled to enjoy certain privileges, exemptions, and immunities."In fact, this new directive from Obama may be the most destructive blow ever struck against American constitutional civil liberties. No wonder the White House said as little as possible about it.

LANCASTER, Pa. – The mother of the nation's first double hand transplant patient says he's out of the hospital and looking forward to returning to his wife and daughter in Georgia. Doris Schafer told the Intelligencer Journal-Lancaster New Era that her son, Jeff Kepner, visited her over the weekend in Lancaster. She says he plans to return to Augusta, Ga., at the end of this week. Schafer says Kepner is considerably happier than when she saw him in June at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, about a month after the transplant. She says her son still has no feeling...

Alcohol hand gel meant to combat swine flu has been banned from a prison after inmates became embroiled in a drunken brawl after drinking it. Hand gels supplied to a prison to combat the risk of swine flu have been removed after inmates realised it contained alcohol and began drinking it to try to get drunk. At least one prisoner at HMP The Verne on Portland, Dorset, was found intoxicated. The Prison Service confirmed that this case was being investigated but meanwhile antibacterial gel pumps had been removed as a "precautionary measure". Andy Fear, a member of the Verne's Prison...

CRESCO - A state trooper checking on a Monroe County man who failed to report to his job made a horrifying discovery: the unconscious victim lying in his home, his right hand bitten off by a pit bull inside the residence. John M. Venezia, 48, of Cresco, was taken to Pocono Medical Center, where state police at Swiftwater said he remained in intensive care Thursday. According to police, a trooper who went to Mr. Venezia's home on Red Rock Road in Paradise Twp. on Tuesday about 8:45 a.m. found the victim in the hallway, unconscious due to a medical condition....

This is the latest 60 second video from Priests for Life.

WASHINGTON, July 9, 2007 – In the month after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Mike Talleda was searching for a way to help the country and motivate others to do the same. His answer was the “9-11 HelpAmerica Foundation.” “The 9-11 HelpAmerica Foundation’s mission is to recognize and support the families of … fallen and wounded warriors,” Talleda, the foundation’s president, said. “(It’s) huge for families to know that people have not forgotten their sacrifice.” For the past six years, the foundation has focused on providing monthly financial support to wounded servicemembers and families of the fallen. That support...

A Japanese robot maker on Tuesday unveiled what it called the world's first prototype of an artificial hand with "air muscles" that can do even delicate work like picking up a raw egg.

WASHINGTON, April 9, 2007 – The Pentagon Federal Credit Union Foundation is lending a helping hand to those serving in the global war on terrorism, a foundation official said The group was founded in December 2001 to assist servicemembers and military families who face financial issues due to predatory lending. Pentagon Federal Credit Union Foundation is a member of America Supports You, the Defense Department program established in November 2004 to directly connect military members to the support of the America people and to offer a tool to the general public in their quest to find meaningful ways to support the...

Warning for Muslim WPc who refused to shake Met chief's hand By Ben Fenton Last Updated: 12:35am GMT 22/01/2007 Scotland Yard said yesterday that a Muslim woman police who refused to shake hands with the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police at her passing-out ceremony would be dismissed if she did not "engage" with people as other officers do. Sir Ian Blair personally congratulated all 200 recruits at a ceremony in London last month, but shook hands with only 199 after the woman specifically requested that she should not be required to do so, apparently for religious reasons. She also asked...

A Muslim woman police officer has sparked a new debate by refusing to shake hands with Britain's most senior police chief for religious reasons. The incident happened at a passing-out parade where Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair was inspecting a line-up of 200 recruits. In addition to refusing a traditional congratulatory handshake from Sir Ian, the WPC - who wore a traditional Muslim hijab headscarf - also declined to be photographed with him as she did not want the picture used for 'propaganda purposes'. The woman had earlier insisted that it was contrary to her religious teaching for her...

Spc. Carrielynn Spillis (left) of Toledo, Ohio, a medic with Company C, 210th Brigade Support Battalion attached to 4-31, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, examines a young Iraqi girl. Spc. Chris McCann, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division Public Affairs. RUSHDI MULLA -- The first few were hesitant, coming in by ones and twos, but soon the floodgates opened and the citizens here came from all over town to receive medical care for a variety of ailments Oct. 19 at a Multi-National Division - Baghdad medical operation. The Soldiers of 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division,...