Free Republic

Now that the left is successfully employing this wedge argument over insurance birth control mandates, what can we do on an individual basis to counteract it? I am suddenly seeing local boards and even my face book page being flooded with emotional posts by hysterical women who claim their uteruses (uteri?) are being attacked. They are being successfully distracted from the real issues and seem quite anxious to throw their vote away for red herrings. They have been tricked and I am trying to figure out the best way to dodge their emotional arguments and enlighten them. Some (most) of...

Watch live all weekend at this link. It will all come to an incredible crescendo on Sunday when the tough keep going and the kids get some smiles. If you haven't seen it before, watch it - even for a few minutes. The Penn State students are the absolute best. Search youtube for "thon" videos and try to bring back a dry eye. I love you Penn State.

It was a big week for John Besh, even by his eventful standards.... Apparently, several attendees of the “workshop” took Besh to task for lecturing about healthy eating on one hand while serving high calorie food at his restaurants on the other. “I went on to address a complex issue in very simple terms only to only be heckled by those that feel we can regulate restaurants to the point that our children will be happy and healthy,” Besh writes in his blog, which appears on epicurious.com. “In response to these suggestions, I pointed to a variety of other options...

A new study of a promising Alzheimer's treatment has doctors buzzing that the drug may reverse the deadly neurodegenerative disease. But the new treatment isn't a new drug at all, rather a skin cancer pill that's been FDA-approved for more than a decade. The drug, bexarotene, reversed signs of Alzheimer's in mice brains and also improved their memory in as little as 72 hours, according to the study. "This is an unprecedented finding," study author Paige Cramer, a PhD candidate at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, said in a university written statement. "Previously, the best existing treatment for Alzheimer's...

"This constitutional trifecta — the state invading the autonomy of religious institutions, private companies and the individual citizen — should not surprise. It is what happens when the state takes over one-sixth of the economy."

Did any of you Freepers ever thought you would see the day where now we have The Obama Chicago Thug Machine sending "Lunch Nazi's" to Kindergartens and Grade Schools? And yet polls say 50% of Americans still approve of Obama and Michelle running the country? What next? A Restroom Nazi making sure we only use 4 sheets of Charmin to wipe ourselves? Or maybe a Burger Czar sneaking into McDonalds observing what are kids are ordering for lunch? Lets all hope the term "Moochelle The Soup Nazi" gets around. The Left Wing Media wont know how how handle it.

The name Jaya in Hindi means victorious. And little Jaya Maharaj was just that, when she became one of the smallest recipients of a pacemaker when she was just 15 minutes old. A team of doctors at Stanford University's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital determined the girl born nine weeks premature had only hours to live if they did not perform the surgery.

I belong to a women's club (bit like Junior League AKA sorority for grown-ups) in our area where we raise money for various charities. We have normally given to the Komen Foundation in the past. Today, the President of the club said that we now are going to give to "Relay for Life" because of the controversy (thank God!) Does anyone know about this organization? Do they also contribute to the destruction of life? Someone in the meeting said they are tied to the American Cancer Society and that it was "OK"....but reading online.....not so much. Any insight, greatly appreciated.

Last Friday, the White House announced that it would revise the controversial ObamaCare birth-control mandate to address religious-liberty concerns. Its proposed modifications are a farce. The Department of Health and Human Services would still require employers with religious objections to select an insurance company to provide contraceptives and drugs that induce abortions to its employees. The employers would pay for the drugs through higher premiums. For those employers that self-insure, like the Archdiocese of Washington, the farce is even more blatant. The birth-control coverage mandate violates the First Amendment's bar against the "free exercise" of religion. But it also violates...

Antibiotics don't help fight most sinus infections, although doctors routinely prescribe them for that purpose, according to a U.S. study. Researchers whose work was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that antibiotics didn't ease patients' symptoms or get them back to work any sooner than an inactive placebo pill. Antibiotics are known to fuel the evolution of drug-resistant bacteria and experts have grown increasingly worried about overuse. This is a particular concern with sinus infections, because doctors can't tell if the disease is caused by bacteria or by a virus, in which case antibiotics are useless....

Jaroslav Flegr is no kook. And yet, for years, he suspected his mind had been taken over by parasites that had invaded his brain. So the prolific biologist took his science-fiction hunch into the lab. What he’s now discovering will startle you. Could tiny organisms carried by house cats be creeping into our brains, causing everything from car wrecks to schizophrenia? No one would accuse Jaroslav Flegr of being a conformist. A self-described “sloppy dresser,” the 63-year-old Czech scientist has the contemplative air of someone habitually lost in thought, and his still-youthful, square-jawed face is framed by frizzy red hair...

BOULDER, Colo. -- They're shiny, tiny and in demand. Buckyballs are powerful little magnets you can form into any shape. But a Colorado mom learned the hard way the powerful magnets can also be life-threatening. CALL7 Investigator Theresa Marchetta found out how such a dangerous toy could so easily end up in the hands of a child. "It could have been dire. Really dire," said Stephanie Thompson. In September, her 5-year-old son, Finn, had emergency surgery. The scar on his stomach is healing, but for his mom, the emotional wound is still fresh.

Right-wingers tend to be less intelligent than left-wingers, and people with low childhood intelligence tend to grow up to have racist and anti-gay views, says a controversial new study. Conservative politics work almost as a 'gateway' into prejudice against others, say the Canadian academics. The paper analyzed large UK studies which compared childhood intelligence with political views in adulthood across more than 15,000 people. The authors claim that people with low intelligence gravitate towards right-wing views because they make them feel safe. Crucially, people's educational level is not what determines whether they are racist or not—it's innate intelligence, according to...

Shyness, bereavement and eccentric behavior could be classed as a mental illness under new guidelines, leaving millions of people at risk of being diagnosed as having a psychiatric disorder, experts fear. Under changes planned to the diagnosis handbook used by doctors in the US, common behavioral traits are likely to be listed as a mental illness, it was reported. The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders could also include internet addiction and gambling as a medical problem. … "We need to be very careful before further broadening the boundaries of illness and disorder," Simon...

Eating chocolate cake as part of a full breakfast can help you lose weight, say scientists. It sounds too good to be true, but new research says having dessert—along with the traditional fry-up—burns off the pounds. Morning is the best time to consume sweets, because that's when the body's metabolism is most active—and we have the rest of the day to work off the calories, a new study shows. Eating cookies or chocolate as part of a breakfast that includes proteins and carbs also helps stem the craving for sweets later. Researchers split 193 clinically obese, non-diabetic adults into two...

When is it okay to kill a zombie? The Walking Dead returns tomorrow night in the wake of a moral dilemma: Should zombies be killed on sight, or quarantined as sick humans? We look at some of the issues surrounding zombie murder, and want to hear what you think about the ethics of killing these infection-spreading cannibals. We open at the beginning of the zombie pandemic. There are rumblings of an infection on the news, of people who have turned suddenly violent and spreading disease through their bites. You look out the window and see a bloody-mouthed being shuffling in...

An American Indian tribe sued some of the world's largest beer makers Thursday, claiming they knowingly contributed to alcohol-related problems on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota said it is demanding $500 million in damages for the cost of health care, social services and child rehabilitation caused by chronic alcoholism on the reservation.

The arrow on this MRI of a brain shows areas where researchers applied electrical stimulation. In an experiment likely to raise new hopes for those with memory-robbing diseases such as Alzheimer's, researchers have found that sending an electrical jolt to a part of the brain that plays a key role in memory improved people's ability to learn — and remember — their way across an unfamiliar landscape. The study, conducted at UCLA and published in Thursday's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, was small and highly preliminary, involving just seven patients with epilepsy. But deep brain stimulation helped...

The Oglala Sioux Tribe has filed a lawsuit against brewers, retailers and distributors of alcohol sold in Whiteclay, Nebraska. The lawsuit was announced today at a news conference hosted by Nebraskans for Peace. Attorney Tom White, legal counsel for the Oglala Sioux Tribe, said the defendants are engaged in a common enterprise focused on assisting and participating in the illegal importation of alcohol sold at Whiteclay onto the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The sale, possession and consumption of alcohol is illegal on the Pine Ridge, where tribal members suffer from crippling poverty and alcoholism rates. Whiteclay lies less than 250...

There are no hospitals in space. The closest E.R. is back on Earth, and astronauts can't exactly jump in a cab to get there. So what happens if the sun burps out a massive blast of radiation while an astronaut is space-amblin' by? The NASA Biocapsule—made of carbon nanotubes—will be able to "diagnose" and instantly treat an astronaut without him or her even knowing there's something amiss. It would be like having your own personal Dr. McCoy—implanted under your skin. It represents one of the most significant breakthroughs in the history of medicine, and yes, it'll work on Earth, too....

I have cataracts and dry macular degeneration and after years of changing eyeglass prescriptions...

(WXYZ) - Sipping on coffee and downing energy drinks could soon be a thing of the past. A new product called AeroShot is an inhalable form of caffeine. Sound futuristic? It’s not. AeroShot is already on the shelves in New York and Massachusetts, plus you can purchase it online.

My wife just returned from her annual physical. She was told she is in fine health. That's the good news. The bad news is that ObamaCare requires one's physician to formally note in the records of Medicare recipients the following question: "If paramedics are called to your house because of a medical emergency, do you want to be revived?" At first I thought she was joking. She was not. I know they had to pass ObamaCare "so we could find out what was in it." Isn't it delightful now as we discover all the surprises it contains? Palin was 100%...

Cardinal-designate Edwin F. O'Brien said in a strongly worded letter that the Archdiocese of Baltimore will not comply with federal law requiring churches to offer birth control coverage even it means dropping health insurance for its 3,500 employees. "We cannot – we will not – comply with this unjust law," O'Brien wrote in the letter, which was read during last Sunday's Mass at the area's 153 Roman Catholic parishes. O'Brien's letter highlights a continuing dispute over federal health care reform, and a policy that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says is designed to improve care for women....

You can’t argue with the research… Researchers have long known that people who have frequent sex are generally healthier Most health benefits seem to be linked to penile-vaginal intercourse Frequent sex may also bring longer life, fewer coronary events, lower blood pressure Researchers have long known that not only is sex fun (when done with the right person, of course), but that people who have frequent sex tend to live longer and have healthier hearts and lower rates of certain cancers. These studies also show that men with an active sex life have healthier sperm, and sexually active women have...

"A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that seniors who receive Social Security cannot reject their legal right to Medicare benefits, in a rare case of Americans suing to get out of a government entitlement......"

Some of you may have a Berkey water purifier. It is touted as the best there is. From their wabsite: "Berkey® Systems are the World’s Most Powerful and Cost Effective Personal Water purification Systems Providing Reliable and User-friendly Water Purification in Both Normal and Hostile Filtration Environments." "Moreover, Berkey® systems are capable of purifying both treated water and untreated raw water from such sources as remote lakes, streams, stagnant ponds and water supplies in foreign countries, where regulations may be substandard at best. So powerful, this system is able to remove red food coloring from water without removing the beneficial...

(CBS) Doctors and engineers have joined forces to bring the world its first lower jaw transplant, using a prosthetic jaw made by a 3D printer. An 83-year-old Belgian woman underwent the operation last June, after suffering from an infection that rapidly ate away her jaw. In order to keep breathing, chewing, talking and feeling in her jaw, the patient had no option other than the complete removal of her mandible (lower jaw). Scientists at the University of Hasselt BIOMED Research Institute in Belgium developed a custom made implant using 3D printing of titanium powder. The design, processing and production of...

Researchers hoping to develop a promising new approach to treating cancer in people are trying it in another group: pet dogs. The aim of personalized medicine is to design an optimum cancer therapy after analyzing genes in a patient's tumor. Dogs, which have strong genetic similarities with humans, get many of the same types of cancers as people and have similar responses to cancer-fighting drugs. When diagnosed, dogs often have a shorter survival time than humans, allowing researchers to see if a drug is making a difference in a shorter period. In people, it can take three to five years...

Uh-oh, looks like it's time to have "the talk." According to a new study, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are climbing among a certain segment of the population. You'll be relieved to know that it's not your teen you need to worry about — it's your parents!

Last week, Rick Santorum and his family offered us a reminder of what really matters. When his 3-year-old daughter, Bella, born with Trisomy 18, was hospitalized with pneumonia, Rick left the campaign trail to be by her bedside. In the middle of this very heated campaign season, many of us prayed through tears for Bella’s health and added prayers of thankfulness for a public example of someone’s sacrifice made with the right priorities. (snip) During the 2008 presidential campaign, on rope lines at rallies across the country, my husband, Todd, and I met so many of these families and caretakers,...

Forgive me for getting on mushy on Superbowl weekend, but here's a video you will want to share with your Valentine. A little film about a super mom who takes care of everyone except herself"

One Smart Doctor I think this just may be the best pro-life message I've seen. A Point well made!!! A worried woman went to her gynecologist and said: 'Doctor, I have a serious problem and desperately need your help! My baby is not even 1 year old and I'm pregnant again. I don't want kids so close together. So the doctor said: 'Ok and what do you want me to do?' She said: 'I want you to end my pregnancy, and I'm counting on your help with this. The doctor thought for a little, and after some silence he said...

Lance Armstrong, cancer survivor, champion cyclist and LIVESTRONG founder and chairman, issued the following statement: “For 15 years, the Lance Armstrong Foundation has served people and families affected by cancer, especially those in underserved communities. We join Mayor Bloomberg and our partners in the philanthropic community today in their efforts to preserve access to cancer screening for women throughout the U.S. The Lance Armstrong Foundation will add an additional $100,000 to Mayor Bloomberg’s matching challenge for Planned Parenthood’s cancer services fund. As Dr. King said, “there is no greater injustice than inequality in health care.” Cancer, on the other hand,...

SAN CLEMENTE (CBS) — An employee at the San Onofre nuclear plant fell into a reactor pool last week, but did not present any radiation threat, federal regulators said Friday. KNX 1070′s Tom Reopelle reports the news marks the second recent incident at the plant northern San Diego County Victor Dricks with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the unidentified employee did not receive a significant radiation dose after he lost his balance while leaning over to retrieve a flashlight and fell into the reactor pool in Unit 2 on Jan. 27. “The exposure came largely because he ingested or swallowed...

On January 28 pro-lifers gathered to pray at the New Woman All Women abortion mill in Birmingham, Alabama, one week after there had been two botched abortions committed in the span of 30 minutes there. During that week the clinic, apparently stressed for business, had prepared a huge “Call for Abortions” sign, which you’ll see in the following little video clip. Apparently angry about all the pro-life attention to their botches the week before, the clinic had also prepared another more ominous sign, photo above. You’ll also it in the video to the left of and a little behind the...

I have a routine as most people do. I wake up, triple yawn my way to the kitchen, make my morning shake, eat half a piece of toast, shower, beautify, and walk to work. At work I turn on my computer, plug in my iPhone, check my voicemail/e-mail and prepare myself for the day’s following duties. Sometimes, I will admit, my routine is slightly “thrown off”. For example, I could be partnering with Mary Wagner and sidewalk counseling until she gets dragged off by police for aiding women in the waiting room of abortuaries, debating random strangers on the sidewalk...

HANNIBAL, Missouri, February 3, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Criminals say that the most difficult part of a murder is what to do with the body. This was apparently true for an abortionist who operated a clandestine abortion facility from his home more than 60 years ago in the small town of Hannibal, Missouri. Contractors recently hired to renovate the old home discovered in the basement the remains of two tiny babies floating in a preservative solution inside two dusty jars with screw-on lids. “I know they did medical procedures and stuff,” said the property’s owner William C. Neff to Connecttristates.com. “I...

February 3, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a new statement on the Susan G Komen Foundation website, the organization says it wants “to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.” The statement is from Susan G. Komen Board of Directors and Founder and CEO Nancy G. Brinker. It purports the foundation will amend its funding criteria to indicate “disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political.” Congressman Cliff Stearns of Florida launched an investigation of Planned Parenthood to determine whether it misuses federal...

On the morning of April 21, 1995, my elder brother, Worth (short for Ellsworth), put his mouth to a microphone in a garage in Lexington, Kentucky, and in the strict sense of having been "shocked to death," was electrocuted. He and his band, the Moviegoers, had stopped for a day to rehearse on their way from Chicago to a concert in Tennessee, where I was in school. Just a couple of days earlier, he had called to ask if there were any songs I wanted to hear at the show. I asked for something new, a song he'd written and...

Barbara Boxer has taken to the pages of the Huffington Post to explain why the administration’s mandate that all insurers provide birth control, including drugs that induce abortion, advances rather than restricts, religious freedom. If you like Orwell’s Newspeak, Boxer’s writing is a thing of beauty and will certainly be a joy forever as a model of obfuscation and deceit. I think it deserves a nice fisking, I really do:

On the Today Show, Kathy Lee Gifford and co-host are laughing their heads so much that they can hardly talk. Apparently in their little pea brains, they think it's hilarious there is a birth control recall because there's too many sugar pills in the packets.

CPUC TO VOTE WED. ON FLAWED SMART METER OPT-OUT POLICY Critics say Extortionate Fees are Illegal; Entire Program Should be Scrapped San Francisco -- The California Public Utilities Commission—whose members are appointed by the Governor, not elected by the people—is set to vote on a plan this Wednesday to charge Californians hundreds of dollars per year simply to retain standard electric and gas analog meters on their homes.

Students at a high school in Boca Raton, Florida, must step over rivers of urine and endure the stench of rancid waste after a plan to bring 'green' waterless urinals into bathrooms backfired. School officials at Spanish River High School thought they had found an environmentally-friendly, cost-saving solution for their bathrooms when they installed Falcon Waterfree urinals in their boys bathrooms.

An Australian woman who was a strong supporter of home births has died tragically, delivering her own baby daughter at home. Caroline Lovell, 36, was rushed to hospital in a critical condition after giving birth but could not be saved. Her daughter Zahra was delivered healthily.

Jamie Oliver has won an apparent victory by persuading McDonald’s to remove a form of ‘reclaimed meat’ from its burgers. It’s a victory built on ignorant scaremongering. News from America, where McDonald’s has responded to a segment in Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution by removing an ingredient called ‘finely textured lean beef trimmings’ from its burgers. This luxurious-sounding product is in fact another form of ‘reclaimed meat’, where meat processors try to get every last bit of meat from an animal’s carcass. In the segment, Oliver shows a group of parents and children a cow and explains the value of each...

News services were quick to pick up the story last week of a Massachusetts Appellate Court overturning a ghastly decision by Probate Judge Christina Harms (pictured right) that would have forced a 32-yr-old mentally ill pregnant mother to get a late-term abortion (at 21 weeks) against her will and also be sterilized. Women’s groups and pro-abortion politicians, eager for the unusual opportunity to demonstrate they were pro-”choice” and not just pro-abortion, piled on. Pro-abortion website Jezebel called Harms a “horrible judge.” Robin Marty at RH Reality Check lectured, “Just as we will condemn those who force women to continue pregnancies...

PROVIDENCE, RI, January 30, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street movement threw condoms on Catholic schoolgirls, refused to allow a Catholic priest to give a closing prayer, and shouted down a pro-life speaker at a Rhode Island right to life rally on Thursday, according to its organizer. The event marked the third time protesters associated with the movement have disrupted a pro-life meeting in a week. About two-dozen members of Occupy Providence hiked from Burnside Park to the 39th Annual Pro-Life State House Rally organized by the Rhode Island State Right to Life Committee on Thursday. The...

SILVERTON — Turkish sheepdogs prized for their fierceness are raising concerns they may be a little too tough for the southwest Colorado communities where ranchers are using them. The Akbash dogs weigh up to 120 pounds and are especially aggressive toward animals near the sheep they guard. But that can include hikers and other backcountry tourists, prompting debate about whether the breed should be regulated. The Durango Herald reports that Silverton town trustees met last week to discuss Akbash conflictsU.S. Forest Service officials, sheepherders and outdoors enthusiasts have also entered the debate over regulations surrounding the use of the breed.

THREE million children in this country take drugs for problems in focusing. Toward the end of last year, many of their parents were deeply alarmed because there was a shortage of drugs like Ritalin and Adderall that they considered absolutely essential to their children’s functioning. But are these drugs really helping children? Should we really keep expanding the number of prescriptions filled? In 30 years there has been a twentyfold increase in the consumption of drugs for attention-deficit disorder. As a psychologist who has been studying the development of troubled children for more than 40 years, I believe we should...