Free Republic

Even vegetarians may not be safe from 'mad cow' prions 10:34 26 June 2008 NewScientist.com news service Ewen Callaway Fancy a dose of prions with your vegetables? A new study suggests that infectious prions - thought to be the causative agents in mad cow disease and human vCJD – can survive wastewater decontamination and wind up in fertiliser, potentially contaminating fruit and vegetables. The prions would be present in such low quantities that they are unlikely to pose a health threat, but as a precaution, "we should prevent the entry of prions into wastewater treatment plants," says microbiologist Joel Pedersen,...

"My Fellow Americans: As you all know, the defeat of the Iraq regime has been completed. Since congress does not want to spend any more money on this war, our mission in Iraq is complete. This morning I gave the order for a complete removal of all American forces from Iraq This action will be complete within 30 days. It is now ti me to begin the reckoning. Before me, I have two lists. One list contains the names of countries which have stood by our side during the Iraq conflict. This list is short . The United Kingdom ,...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is fond of quoting a particular passage of Scripture. The quote, however, does not appear in the Bible and is "fictional," according to biblical scholars. In her April 22 Earth Day news release, Pelosi said, "The Bible tells us in the Old Testament, 'To minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.' On this Earth Day, and every day, let us pledge to our children, and our children's children, that they will have clean air to breathe, clean water...

HUMAN-cow embryos have been created in a world first at Newcastle University in England, hailed by the scientific community, but labelled "monstrous" by opponents. A team has grown hybrid embryos after injecting human DNA into eggs taken from cows' ovaries, which had most of their genetic material removed...

PARENTS of sick children in Britain will be allowed to use IVF to create "spare-part babies" under controversial laws published yesterday. The legislation will dramatically relax rules on IVF clinics creating "saviour siblings" who can help cure their older brothers and sisters of medical conditions such as leukemia. Experts said that one day they could create a "designer baby" with kidneys perfectly compatible with a sibling suffering renal failure. More immediately, saviour siblings could give umbilical cord blood or bone marrow to family members in the hope of treating conditions such as sickle cell anaemia. The Government's Human Fertilisation and...

What kept the Cold War from spinning dangerously out of control was a bilateral foreign policy developed around Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) of civilian population centers. MAD worked because it developed out of a mutual experience. The Soviets, Americans and almost everyone else caught in between experienced the devastation wrought by WWII. Deterrence from war meant ensuring both sides were evenly balanced in the art and supplies of conventional and non-conventional warfare. The Cold War had a relatively clear set of rules that sprung from the shared experience of WWII. When they talk about terrorism today, politicians and an international...

An enraged Alec Baldwin unleashed a volcanic tirade of threats and insults on his 11-year-old daughter, Ireland, calling her a "thoughtless little pig," and bashing her mother Kim Basinger -- and TMZ has obtained the whole thing unfiltered and raw. And, we've learned, the tape could cost Baldwin his visitation rights.

Ok, I just need to vent. I know FR frowns upon Vanity. But now with this Sadr putz calling on his followers to attack Americans, I say nertz to him. What we should have done a year ago is say to Saddam "our bad" re-install him to power, and let t˙e ingrates like Sadr and the rest realize how good they could have had it with us there. I am really getting fed up with the ingrates.

Blood on their handsArticle Online Here:http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54942Posted: March 30, 2007 1:00 a.m. Eastern The shameful members of the U.S. Senate (48 Democrats plus two despicable Republicans) who voted to undercut the missions of our troops in Iraq have a lot to answer for when the history books are written. No matter how many times the terrorists have cited America's lack of resolve to fight the war on terrorism, the politicians in Congress cannot grasp that their cowardly actions encourage the terrorists to steal across Iraqi borders, carrying stockpiles of Iranian-designed and produced bombs and weaponry with which to murder more innocents...

How 'Mad' King George's heirs put the Empire together one piece at a time By Caroline Davies Last Updated: 2:37am GMT 23/03/2007 Kew Palace slotted an important piece of its royal history back into place yesterday when it unveiled a cabinet of jigsaw maps used to teach King George III's children. This jigsaw map of Scotland is one of many used to teach geography to King George III's children The mahogany cabinet houses a collection of dissected maps – precursors of the jigsaw puzzle – and was a main feature in the nursery at Kew, the King's main home, in...

"Dora Young has something to say while City Council Speaker Chrstine Quinn looks on."

I have lots of conservative friends and often speak to Republican-leaning groups. I have something surprising to report: they're pretty cheerful. They're well aware that President Bush's numbers are terrible--and that Al Gore got an Academy Award. Yet my fellow conservatives and Republicans are pretty upbeat. After a rough 2006, conservative magazines are seeing an uptick in subscription renewals, right-wing websites are getting more hits, and Republican and conservative groups here at Harvard (yes, Harvard!) seem invigorated. What's going on? Here are five reasons conservatives and Republicans might have some cause for their cheer. 1. The surge. Nothing was more...

Decades ago, we expected total victory against the Germans and the Japanese. We demanded it, for we knew what anything less would bring to our homeland--and yes, it was our homeland, regardless of our place of birth. We were united, together in the absolute, unshakeable belief that freedom was worth blood, even our own lives. Many years later, the American Left called for the defeat and humiliation of our military, even going so far as to support the barbaric hordes of Islam in their quest to destroy America. The college-age hippies of 1969 were now parents and grandparents, with families...

The left’s fiery obsession with removing Ten Commandments monuments from public property throughout the United States may seem odd and irrational but actually reflects the deepest values of contemporary liberalism. A bedouin sells blankets on the summit of Mount Moses in the Sinai Peninsula at sunrise, October 3, 2006. According to the Old Testament this is where Moses received the ten commandments from God. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic (EGYPT) In the last five years alone, the tireless fanatics at the ACLU have invested tens of millions of dollars and countless hours of legal time in lawsuits to yank the Commandments from long-standing...

Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols says a high-ranking FBI official "apparently" was directing Timothy McVeigh in the plot to blow up a government building and might have changed the original target of the attack, according to a new affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Utah. The official and other conspirators are being protected by the federal government "in a cover-up to escape its responsibility for the loss of life in Oklahoma," Nichols claims in a Feb. 9 affidavit. Documents that supposedly help back up his allegations have been sealed to protect information in them, such as Social Security...

<p>February 19, 2007 -- BILL Clinton was my personal private tutor. In the Russian Tea Room. At a party for his former Cabinet Secre tary Bill Cohen and wife Janet Langhart's book "Love in Black and White." The lesson was in handshaking. While a nice refined group waited turns to press whatever of the presidential flesh they could politely grab onto, I asked how's he do it.</p>

(AP) ALBANY -- Former President Bill Clinton was one of the most popular presidents with black voters. Now he's hoping that popularity will rub off on his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. On Sunday, the former president was slated to speak as the Senator's surrogate at the annual meeting of the New York State Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators. He remains highly popular in New York and helps his wife attract minority voters away from Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who is black. "He's one of those individuals that has a reputation as a liberator for minority communities,"...

Muslims "seem to be about to take over Europe,” which has "given up” efforts to maintain its culture, said world-renowned Middle Eastern and Islamic scholar Bernard Lewis. Lewis, a professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton, told the Jerusalem Post that soon the only important question regarding Europe’s future would be, "Will it be an Islamized Europe or Europeanized Islam?" Lewis, whose many books include the recent "What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East,” said the Islamic takeover of Europe would be assisted by "immigration and democracy." Instead of fighting the threat, he added,...

Hannity Plays ‘Path to 9-11’ Scenes Clinton Requested be Cut Posted by Noel Sheppard on January 28, 2007 - 23:20. NewsBusters readers are certainly aware of the controversy created by ABC’s docudrama “The Path to 9/11.” In fact, we reported extensively on this issue here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. To bring people back up to speed, the left and former President Bill Clinton went absolutely berserk the week before this program aired due to some of the content. In fact, it culminated in ABC finally giving into all the pressure, and cutting some scenes from the...

On Nov. 27, 2006, Jimmy Carter appeared on Larry King Live to discuss his book, Palestine: Peace not Apartheid. During the interview, Carter repeated an assertion that he has made in various venues: "Everything in the book, I might say, is completely accurate." In line with this defense, the former president repeatedly has argued that his critics, who supposedly have no grounds to criticize the factual accuracy of the book, have resorted to name-calling and ad hominem attacks. He told Wolf Blitzer that "Most of the criticisms of the book have been the one word in the title, ‘apartheid,’ and...

Ex-President for Sale It now turns out that Jimmy Carter--who is accusing the Jews of buying the silence of the media and politicians regarding criticism of Israel--has been bought and paid for by Arab money. In his recent book tour to promote Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, Carter has been peddling a particularly nasty bit of bigotry. The canard is that Jews own and control the media, and prevent newspapers and the broadcast media from presenting an objective assessment of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and that Jews have bought and paid for every single member of Congress so as to prevent any...

Senator Kerry is making a trip to Iraq. I just wanted everyone to know that I am emailing the troops I have addresses for, and asking them not to pose in photos with him. The sole purpose of the trip is to show the American public that everything is o.k. and to get photo ops to send to the AP. This is shameful. Debbie Argel Bastian, Proud mother of Capt. Derek Argel, USAF Combat Control, KIA Memorial Day 2005, Diayla Iraq

Tainted spinach traced to California By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 43 minutes ago WASHINGTON - A California natural foods company was linked Friday to a nationwide E. coli outbreak that has killed one person and sickened nearly 100 others. Supermarkets across the country pulled spinach from shelves, and consumers tossed out the leafy green. Food and Drug Administration officials said that they had received reports of illness in 19 states. Twenty-nine people have been hospitalized, 14 of them with kidney failure. The outbreak was traced to Natural Selection Foods, a holding company based in San Juan Bautista,...

BLACKSBURG, VA., November 30, 2006 -- Jim A. Kuypers, assistant professor of communication in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech, reveals a disturbing world of media bias in his new book Bush's War: Media Bias and Justifications for War in a Terrorist Age (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2006). Convincingly and without resorting to partisan politics, Kuypers strongly illustrates in eight chapters “how the press failed America in its coverage on the War on Terror.” In each comparison, Kuypers “detected massive bias on the part of the press.” In fact, Kuypers calls the mainstream news...

MILWAUKEE, WI (AP) -- Attempts to arrange flyovers by the 440th Airlift Wing at Lambeau Field and Soldier Field next month before the Milwaukee-based Air Force Reserve unit is relocated to North Carolina next year have fallen through, wing officials say. "Our attempt was to go out with both flyovers because it's the last time the 440th will be in town," Col. Merle Hart, the wing commander, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Unit spokesman Dennis Mehring said he contacted the Chicago Bears and discussed doing a flyover for the Dec. 31 game in which the Bears are playing the Green...

Senator Kerry Nov. 1, 2006 Damn you. You are a bumbling idiot. My son, Cory, left the Computer Engineering Program at West Virginia University, a superlative educational institution to volunteer to serve in the United States Marine Corps. He made it to Recon in less than one year, completing over a dozen schools,finishing with top scores in every single one of them. Cory, along with every Recon Marine, was/is a brilliant young man. They all volunteered - there is no draft as there was when you were in the Armed Forces. Cory, along with 3 other Recon Marines, died as...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., speaks at a Democratic rally at the Hyatt Regency Hotel on Capitol Hill in Washington Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2006. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)

Subject: Thank you for your message Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2006 14:51:34 -0700 From: info@johnkerry.com To: info@johnkerry.com Thank you very much for your comments. As a combat veteran, I want to make it clear to anyone in uniform and to their loved ones: my poorly stated joke at a rally was not about, and never intended to refer to any troop. This is the finest military that we've ever had. I have fought a lifetime on behalf of veterans. We have the finest young men and women serving us in the United States military that we've ever had, and I’m...

UPDATE: Reader David Ward writes: Thank you for your great work and especially the coverage of the picture of the soldiers mocking "Jon Carry." My daughter is on the far right in the picture. We spoke to her last night and again this morning. They are quite astounded at the coverage. They were furious at Kerry's remarks and wanted to do something. I guess they did. Yours truly, David Ward

EXCLUSIVE EXCERPTS FROM: "AMERICAN MOURNING" CINDY WAS in Crawford, trying to flush President Bush out, when a process server found her and handed over the lawsuit that would end her marriage. Casey’s father filed for divorce on August 12, 2005, at 2:47 p.m. Pacific time. He cited irreconcilable differences. Court papers show that Cindy and Pat separated on June 1, 2005, after twenty-eight years and two months together. Cindy wasn’t surprised when she received the divorce papers. She had a boyfriend and decided not to reconcile with Pat, even though he wanted to forgive her and fix their relationship. Pat...

Friday will be a week since former President Bill Clinton's angry, finger-pointing reaction to Chris Wallace's questions about his record on fighting terrorism. It's a story that continues to have legs — which Wallace considers a compliment. We talked briefly with the host of Fox News Sunday to find out more about what went on behind the scenes during the interview, which was taped Friday and telecast Sunday. Q: Chris, are you tired of talking about this? A: Yeah, I'm getting tired of me. Q: There seems to be a consensus that the interview did Clinton some good. What's your...

The failure to get bin Laden has returned to haunt him IN a passionate and emotional television interview, former US president Bill Clinton has launched an extraordinary attack on the analysis that he failed to properly respond to the rising terror threat posed by Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida. In doing so, Mr Clinton has highlighted his acute sensitivity to an issue that haunts his legacy in the wake of al-Qa'ida's September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington DC. For some commentators, Mr Clinton's outburst has been an exercise in narcissistic revisionism. For others, by confronting the issue...

Children Were On School-Approved Field Trip FRISCO, Texas -- A award-winning Texas art teacher who was reprimanded after one of her fifth-grade students saw a nude sculpture during a trip to a museum has lost her job. The school board in Frisco has voted not to renew Sydney McGee's contract after 28 years. She has been on administrative leave. The teacher took her students on an approved field trip to a Dallas museum, and now some parents are upset. The Fisher Elementary school art teacher came under fire last April when she took 89 fifth graders on a field trip...

Bush: "Texas has lost one of its great daughters" WASHINGTON President Bush has paid tribute today to Ann Richards, whom he ousted and succeeded as governor in 1995. The former Democratic governor of Texas died last night at her Austin home after a battle against esophageal cancer. She was 73. In a statement issued by the White House, the president said he and first lady Laura Bush "are deeply saddened by the passing of Governor Ann Richards of Texas." He said Richards "loved Texas, and Texans loved her," and that "as a public servant she earned respect and admiration." The...

Did anyone else see the exchange between President Bush and the Today show's Matt Lauer this morning on the Today show? I tuned in near the end, and it looked pretty intense. Lauer was a very aggressive in his hand gestures, repeatedly pointing a stern finger into the president's chest. Almost looked like it would turn physical. Would appreciate a link to any online video.

Junk mail postman 'still in job'   Roger Annies advised people how to reduce their junk mail A postman suspended for telling people how to stop receiving junk mail says he remains a Royal Mail employee, but will know if he is to be sacked in a week. Roger Annies, 45, attended a disciplinary hearing after circulating his own leaflet on his round in Barry, south Wales, about unsolicited mail. Royal Mail said their "door to door" service was vital to its business and keeping costs to customers down. Some residents in Barry said they may start a petition...

JUST ASKIN’ XXXll © by Norman Liebmann Just askin’: Is the constant shifting of sand dunes in the desert God’s way of keeping Arabs from finding water? Just askin’: When will America’s George Bush/Vicente Fox co-Presidency end? And shouldn’t George Bush give up trying to surrender the Alamo, inasmuch as Hollywood has already surrendered it five or six times. Just askin’: Is the ACLU poised to file a law suit for discrimination against the Vatican because there has never been Pontiff named Pope Jamal? Just askin’: If Don Imus looks like that rumpled all day, what must he look like...

Today, CNN’s Kyra Phillips got caught, well, with her skirt down. Someone in CNN left her mic open and on the air as she went to the loo in the middle of President Bush’s speech commemorating the Katrina anniversary. So instead of getting the president’s remarks, CNN’s audience got that and Phillips in some girl-chat. Click to watch/listen.

'PHARM' PARTIES ON RISE IN AREA The Events Can Expose Participants To A Potentially Deadly Mix Of Drugs YOUNGSTOWN -- They call it pharming, but young people who engage in the practice aren't planting a field of corn or plowing the back 40 acres. They're taking prescription drugs from the family medicine cabinet or from grandma's nightstand to take to a pharm party. Pharm is short for pharmaceuticals, which can cover a wide variety of prescription medications. These might include painkillers like OxyContin, Fentanyl and Vicodin and sedatives like Xanax. Mind-altering drugs like Zoloft or Prozac might also be added...

The following is the complete text of Mel Gibson's statement regarding his arrest for investigation of driving under the influence of alcohol: "After drinking alcohol on Thursday night, I did a number of things that were very wrong and for which I am ashamed. I drove a car when I should not have, and was stopped by the L.A. County sheriffs. The arresting officer was just doing his job and I feel fortunate that I was apprehended before I caused injury to any other person. "I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said...

PA GOP: SESTAK'S GOT NO R-E-S-P-E-C-T FOR UNIFORM Violates Military Uniform Code by wearing uniform while campaigning, Wears officer's uniform that does not match rank at which he retired HARRISBURG - Republican State Committee Executive Director Scott Migli today questioned Joe Sestak, Democratic candidate in Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District, for his repeated violations of federal law and U.S. Navy regulations as it relates to appropriate conduct for the wearing of military uniforms. Those violations include wearing his uniform while engaged in campaign activities and wearing a uniform that displays a rank above what the grade at which he retired from...

Week of July 15, 2006; Vol. 170, No. 3 , p. 45 Mad cow disease might linger longer Nathan Seppa A rare but deadly human illness spread by cannibalism has an incubation period in some individuals of about 4 decades, researchers in New Guinea have discovered. The finding implies that a related human illness caused by eating beef from cattle with mad cow disease could also lie dormant for many years. HEADS UP. The box shows the area in New Guinea where until the 1950s, people practiced cannibalism, a ritual that spread the prion disease kuru. S. Norcross Scientists have...

A Brief History of MADness Mutually Assured Destruction. MAD. It is a doctrine that came into being during the Cold War. The superpowers on the world stage consisted of two nations: the United States of America and the Soviet Union. The USA: a capitalist constitutional republic that believes that the government should serve the people, protecting the inalienable rights given to us by God. The USSR: a union of countries ruled by communism that believes that the government dictates what is best for the people, and that the government determines the rights of the people. Two polar opposites. Both were...

Reprinted from NewsMax.com Hit or Miss: Grading U.S. Missile Defense Dave Eberhart, NewsMaxFriday, July 7, 2006 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- On July 5, just hours after the provocative North Korean test-launch of seven missiles, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stated that the threat remained clear and present. The communist country's launch included a missile capable of hitting the U.S. Northwest. Critics charge that U.S. missile defense remains a long way from being a reliable sentinel against that clear and present danger. Bryan Whitman, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) revealed after the North Korean launches, "Each and every...

TORONTO (CP) - It could take half a century or more for someone infected with prions - the cause of mad cow-like diseases - to start showing symptoms, say researchers, who drew that conclusion after studying a similar illness among Papua New Guinean people who once feasted on their dead. Their findings suggest that the number of human cases of variant Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (vCJD) could end up being much larger than originally suspected, say the researchers, whose study is published in Friday's edition of The Lancet. With 160 cases, the United Kingdom has the highest number of recorded cases in...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran is pressing ahead with research tests on nuclear fusion, a type of atomic reaction which has yet to be developed for commercial power generation, a senior Iranian official said on Monday. Iran said in the 1990s it was working on nuclear fusion research but this is the first mention in years that the work is continuing and comes at a time of heightened tension over Iran's nuclear program. Iran has been hauled before the U.N. Security Council for failing to convince the world that its atomic work is not being used to make bombs. Tehran insists...

May 7, 2006 BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST "America, you lose," said Zacarias Moussaoui as he was led away from the court last week. Hard to disagree. Not just because he'll be living a long life at taxpayers' expense. He'd have had a good stretch of that even if he'd been "sentenced to death," which in America means you now spend more years sitting on Death Row exhausting your appeals than the average "life" sentence in Europe. America "lost" for a more basic reason: turning a war into a court case and upgrading the enemy to a defendant ensures you...

I am not sure exactly how it works, but this is amazingly accurate. Read the full description before looking at the picture. The picture below has 2 identical dolphins in it. It was used in a case study on stress levels at St. Mary's Hospital. Look at both dolphins jumping out of the water. The dolphins are identical. A closely monitored, scientific study revealed that, in spite of the fact that the dolphins are identical, a person under stress would find differences in the two dolphins. The more differences a person finds between the dolphins, the more stress that person...

This is work safe. My bro sent me this. It's a video of a show in Brasil. The theme here is that they are by a reputedly "haunted" graveyard late at night. The host has decided to place a robotic skeleton on a moped with a speaker, then drive it by unwary pedestrians. Enjoy! Graveyard driveby

Recently I had e-mailed Harry Reid about his ugly partisan attacks against the president, particularly in his ungenerous characterizations of the president using the focus-grouped, Democratic boilerplate "Dangerously incompetent." Here is my original e-mail. Following that is Reid's reply and then my response to his e-mail (and yes I know it's just a boilerplate letter; I don't think he's actually replying himself): Senator Reid: I see you today again used the same ungenerous and mean-spirited description of the president describing him with the focus-grouped "dangerously incompetent" boilerplate label all Democrats are reading off the same script in using. If Bush...