Free Republic

A trial that has become a symbol, in Wisconsin and across the U.S., of government criminalization of farmers for providing food directly to consumers has been rescheduled for January. But the delay from the previously scheduled September court date is expected to focus even more attention on the dispute that has dragged Wisconsin dairy farmer Vernon Hershberger to the court’s defendant’s table in the Sauk County Circuit Court, presided over by Judge Guy Reynolds. The state’s case against the Loganville farmer has him accused of four misdemeanor counts of violating Wisconsin’s food and dairy code. Officials with the Farm to...

SHREWSBURY, Mass. — Ida Davidson is the first to admit her weight goes up and down, but the Shrewsbury resident said she was stunned when a new primary care physician said she could not become a patient because she weighed more than 200 pounds.

On the surface, it appears that a corporation that was formed just days before a signature petition drive was started to create a ballot proposal that would lock a forced unionization of home health care workers into the state constitution, is the major player behind the ballot proposal. But one doesn't have to dig too deep to figure out that it is almost certainly the Service Employees International Union that is behind the company promoting the "Keep Home Care Safe" initiative. "Citizens for Affordable Quality Home Health Care" is the name of the campaign committee for the proposal. According to...

One of my mother's favorite sayings is to do the best you can with what you have at the time. She should know. She was the first in her family to go to college, graduating from Auburn University in three years. She taught high school mathematics at a time when few math teachers were women. As a single mother of two adolescent girls, she encouraged us both through college. While I was in high school, she dealt with her own mother's failing health. On weekends, she drove two hours each way in Georgia from Carrollton to Columbus to check on...

Nature assesses the aftermath of a series of nanotechnology-lab bombings in Mexico — and asks how the country became a target of eco-anarchists. The shoe-box-sized package was addressed to Armando Herrera Corral. It stated that he was the recipient of an award and it was covered in official-looking stamps. Herrera, a computer scientist at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education in Mexico City, shook the box a number of times, and something solid jiggled inside. What could it be? He was excited and a little nervous — so much so, that he walked down the hall to the...

Genetics and healthy diets matter more for longevity. To those who enjoy the pleasures of the dining table, the news may come as a relief: drastically cutting back on calories does not seem to lengthen lifespan in primates. The verdict, from a 25-year study in rhesus monkeys fed 30% less than control animals, represents another setback for the notion that a simple, diet-triggered switch can slow ageing. Instead, the findings, published this week in Nature1, suggest that genetics and dietary composition matter more for longevity than a simple calorie count. “To think that a simple decrease in calories caused such...

A US court on Friday shot down orders to slap graphic anti-tobacco messages on cigarette packs, saying the government overstepped its authority by trying to "browbeat" smokers into quitting. In line with campaigns in several other nations, the United States planned from September 22 to require images on cigarette packs including a man smoking through a hole in his throat and a body with chest staples on an autopsy table. In a 2-1 decision, the US Court of Appeals in Washington said that the images planned on cigarette packs were not necessarily false but they went beyond "pure attempts to...

Alcohol a Threat to Kim Guardianship Role By Park Seong Guk [2012-08-24 12:16 ] Despite treatment in China for her dependence on alcohol, 66-year old Chosun Workers’ Party Secretary Kim Kyung Hee has been unable to stop drinking and is in increasingly ill-health as a consequence, Daily NK has been informed. A Japanese source explained on the 24th, “Due to the long term damage caused by her drinking, Kim Kyung Hee went to China in secret for treatment. However, she still has not been able to quit drinking, to the point where her poor health may make it hard for...

News headlines over the past few years have linked cat ownership to everything from cancer to craziness, but new studies suggest that cats are actually beneficial to human health, and may even reduce our risk for cancer and other diseases. Reports in this week's issue of Biology Letters, for example, counter the tabloid-suggested link between cats and human brain cancer. Marion Vittecoq of the Tour du Valat research center and her colleagues conclude that cats should not be blamed for human cancer. In fact, studies show just the opposite. Vittecoq told Discovery News that "according to our knowledge, studies that...

School Bans Coca-Cola at Football Games Posted in Top Stories | 22 comments School Bans Coca-Cola at Football Games Aug 20, 2012 By Todd Starnes Attention high school football fans in Maine: B.Y.O.C. – Bring your own Coke. The Portland Public School system will no longer allow soft drinks to be sold on school property – including at high school football games. School officials are also banning the sale of gridiron staples like buttered popcorn and potato chips. Instead, football fans will be encouraged to nosh on baked tortilla chips, reduced fat string cheese and hummus. The total ban on...

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign released a new television advertisement today titled “Nothing’s Free” that takes the first direct attack at Obamacare and President Barack Obama’s support of it.“President Obama’s healthcare law has come at a high cost. Whether it is taxing wheelchairs and pacemakers or cutting Medicare, free healthcare has come at a very high price,’ the campaign said.While pro-life advocates strongly opposed Obamacare over its abortion-funding components, the Romney campaign hits Obamacare over other aspects.“Some think Obamacare is the same as free healthcare,” the ad says. “But nothing is free. Obama is raiding $716 billion from Medicare, changing the...

If you live in the U.S. and try to use Google Shopping to buy vitamins, supplements, personal care products, and even many health foods, your search queries will now turn up blank, as Google has apparently blocked access to all vitamins and natural products for American customers.

DENVER (AP) -- There will be more whole grains on school lunch menus this year, along with a wider selection of fruits and vegetables and other healthy options. The challenge is getting children to eat them. "We don't want healthy trash cans. We want kids who are eating this stuff," said Kern Halls, a former Disney World restaurant manager who now works in school nutrition at Orange County Public Schools in Florida. At a School Nutrition Association conference in Denver this summer, food workers heard tips about how to get children to make healthy food choices in the cafeteria.

The prepper can take many lessons from the situation that developed in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. One lesson is that when the social order breaks down for a period of days or weeks, adequate medical care will disappear. So preparedness requires a medical kit. And no medical survival kit is complete without a good book or two on emergency medicine, anatomy, drug reference and medical terminology. Some good ones to choose from are:

In a book set for publication Tuesday, a politics and government professor at The Citadel claims President Obama’s 2009 health care reform law was, in part, a union-driven effort to organize 21 million health care workers. In ”Shadowbosses: Government Unions Control America and Rob Taxpayers Blind,” Mallory Factor describes a December 9, 2008 memo from Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Healthcare president Dennis Rivera to the Obama-Biden transition team. That memo outlined a legislative proposal calling for “increasing the capacity of the health care workforce” as part of a larger health care reform initiative.

When President Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, aka "Obamacare") goes fully into effect in 2014, the American people will only then begin to see the implications of its thorough government takeover of health care, in all its glory. But what they are not expecting is the massively expanded role of the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") in our lives, as the IRS is the chief agency responsible for enforcing the Act.That is explained in a new paper by Dan Pilla, just published by the Heartland Institute, "Implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act." Pilla is a tax...

Yes, transit in the Milwaukee region should be improved to give citizens, especially the many inner city residents without driver's licenses, better transportation options. And, yes, the state should ramp up transit aid and road maintenance even at the expense of new highway projects. But none of that means that reconstruction of the Zoo Interchange in Milwaukee County should be delayed and that planning for the interchange rebuild should go back to square one, as a lawsuit filed last week seeks to do. The interchange, the busiest in Wisconsin, is vital to commerce and the state's economy. It needs the...

Just as you were ready to tuck into a nice three-egg omelet again, comforted by the reassuring news that eggs are not so bad for you, here comes a study warning that for those over 40, the number of egg yolks consumed per week accelerates the thickening of arteries almost as severely as does cigarette smoking. Server, can you make that an egg-white omelet instead, please?

Taryn Hook with Larry, a beloved boa constrictor whose affliction prompted the lifelong keeper of reptiles to get in touch with a researcher who hunts down viruses. Snake story IBD afflicts pythons and boa constrictors, causing a host of strange symptoms. The snakes tie themselves in knots, they projectile vomit and engage in an eerie behavior called stargazing; the snakes raise their heads over and over, stare into thin air, and sway drunkenly from side to side.  ... The scientists put out a call for samples of diseased and nondiseased snakes ... the Steinhart Aquarium ... had a sudden...

"Nearly a year after several advocacy groups threatened a boycott against Johnson & Johnson over the use of potentially harmful chemicals in its Baby Shampoo and other products, the healthcare giant has agreed to remove carcinogens and other toxic chemicals from numerous adult toiletries and cosmetic products by the end of 2015. In all, J&J will reformulate hundreds of items that are sold in 57 countries. The move was announced by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, which is a coalition of more than 175 nonprofit organizations that raised awareness of the issue over the past two years and succeeded last...