Free Republic

It's easy to make fun of Glenn Beck. We've done it here, and Beck even does it himself (as on the November cover of his Fusion magazine). But over the last couple of weeks, as Beck lay recuperating from appendicitis, he's been the target of numerous satirical skewerings, from such parodists as 'Saturday Night Live,' 'The Daily Show,' and 'South Park.' Some of these barbs have gone beyond mocking his on-air antics and have gotten viciously personal. Not that we want to be the Beck-lash police, but to paraphrase a well-known Britney Spears fan, is it time to leave Glenn...

DINWIDDIE, Va. – The driver of a Miley Cyrus tour bus was killed Friday when the bus overturned, but the 16-year-old "Hannah Montana" star wasn't on board, Virginia State Police said. Sgt. Thomas Molnar said the bus ran off the left side of Interstate 85, struck an embankment and overturned. The accident occurred around 8:15 a.m. in Dinwiddie County, about 40 miles south of Richmond. Speed and weather weren't considered factors. The driver, William G. Douglas, 53, of Austin, Texas, died at the scene, police said.

Geithner Pushes Back, Blames Bush Administration for Problems Echoing comments made by a Democratic lawmaker Wednesday night, two Republican members of the Joint Economic Committee today called for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to resign. "It's been a year since the president was elected," the panel's ranking Republican, Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, said at a hearing this morning featuring Geithner. "It's appropriate for the American people to assess how well the administration's economic policies are working. They are not. They have failed." "Unemployment has skyrocketed far past the White House's projections and promises. America continues to shed jobs: More than...

Looking for evidence of Obama's past, Fox News contacted 400 Columbia University students from the period when Obama claims to have been there, but none remembered him. Wayne Allyn Root was, like Obama, a political science major at Columbia who also graduated in 1983. In 2008, Root says of Obama, "I don't know a single person at Columbia that knew him, and they all know me. I don't have a classmate who ever knew Barack Obama at Columbia. Ever! Nobody recalls him. I'm not exaggerating, I'm not kidding." Root adds that he was also, like Obama, "Class of '83 political...

Officials at North Carolina's Fort Bragg reportedly laid down a strict set of do's and don'ts for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin during a book signing event there on Monday. But at Fort Hood, the largest military base in the nation, she'll be treated just like anyone else.Fort Bragg officials on Thursday said the news media would be barred from covering Palin's book-signing event scheduled for next Monday out of fear that it could turn into an anti-Obama rally. Their decision reportedly also barred Palin from giving any speeches, autographs or taking photos with troops. Base officials later relented, allowing...

After arresting a young black man last night in Sara Sims Park, two white Boynton Beach Police officers faced down an angry crowd threatening violence. Cooney, who authored the incident report, noted here that there were some 100 people in the park and the surrounding area. He wrote: The crowd was also yelling loudly and closing in on officers. Kelley was still screaming obscenities. Kelley was then approximately five feet from officers (Connor) Haugh and (Jeffrey) Williams when he was advised again to leave the area or be placed under arrest. Kelley then stated, 'F

A majority of Pittsburgh City Council members said yesterday that they'll vote for a tuition tax, but that won't stop the universities -- and maybe the students -- from trying to derail the effort. [snip] Mayor Luke Ravenstahl gathered five council members in his conference room yesterday to deliver a message: We don't want to tax students, but unless the universities pay voluntarily, we have no choice. [snip] "If this tax is implemented, it will not be the fault of Mayor Ravenstahl," said Mr. Burgess. "It will not be the fault of council. It will solely be on backs of...

In a report highlighting the "open carry" gun movement, KTVU's Lloyd LaCuesta interviewed locals who are hanging out in public, packing heat and exerting their Second Amendment right for all the world to see. Advocates across the country are picnicking together, going to zoos, going to church and picking up trash. Most notably, supporters protested Obama this past summer. In the Bay area, David Julian, 27, and others are hanging out at a Cupertino Starbucks, sipping their Venti coffees with guns holstered to their hips.

Amateur fossil hunters Jamie and Jonathan Hiscocks were looking for dinosaur remains in East Sussex, UK, when they instead found tiny spider webs trapped inside a piece of ancient amber. Oxford University paleobiologist Martin Brasier inspected the amber, which was assigned an age of over 100 million years. He concluded that spiders back then were able to spin webs just like today’s garden spiders.The amber-encased webbing formed concentric circles like those that contemporary orb-weaver spiders manufacture. Also evident were “little sticky droplets along the web threads to trap prey,� Brasier told the Daily Mail. He added, “You can match the...

Not to mince words - the modern synthesis is gone --snip-- "The discovery of pervasive HGT and the overall dynamics of the genetic universe destroys not only the tree of life as we knew it but also another central tenet of the modern synthesis inherited from Darwin, namely gradualism. In a world dominated by HGT, gene duplication, gene loss and such momentous events as endosymbiosis, the idea of evolution being driven primarily by infinitesimal heritable changes in the Darwinian tradition has become untenable." ...

“The Speaker is not happy with me” --Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) commenting on Nancy Pelosi’s reaction to his amendment that would prohibit taxpayer-funded abortion in healthcare reform. The healthcare bills working their way through Congress should be opposed, and for so many reasons. They would ration care, expand entitlements, make all Americans dependent on government-approved insurance plans and add to our already stifling national debt. The bill passed by the House is horrendous. Whatever emerges from the Senate and later from the congressional conference committee should be opposed full stop. That said, there is an interesting debate taking place among...

ManBearPig! A funny thing happened on the road to global warming. Mother Nature is simply not cooperating. Germany's Der Spiegel noted this "problem" for global warming alarmists yesterday: Global warming appears to have stalled. Climatologists are puzzled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years. Some attribute the trend to a lack of sunspots, while others explain it through ocean currents. ...The Earth's average temperatures have stopped climbing since the beginning of the millennium, and it even looks as though global warming could come to a standstill this year.

Though the Irish-American comedian and former talk show host said she would no longer comment on the breakup rumors swirling around her relationship, she once again broke her silence, revealing on Sirius Satellite radio that her partner of five years moved out of their home years ago. The confession came after a pet psychic read the mind of O’Donnell’s Chihuahua. "Where did you get her from Rosie? Because she says she came from somewhere. And she said she’s happier with you,” psychic Sonya Fitzpatrick said of O’Donnell’s dog Misty. “She's so spoiled and she loves to burrow." The former “View”...

European Union leaders named Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy as the first "president of Europe" Thursday, edging out former British Prime Minister Tony Blair for a still-vaguely defined job. "I did not seek this high position, and I didn't take any steps to achieve it," Van Rompuy said in accepting the job. "But tonight, I take on this task with conviction and with enthusiasm." Van Rompuy, a 62-year-old, soft-spoken fan of Japanese poetry, will become the face of European Union and represent its 27 member nations at summits overseas. His conservative government took office in December 2008.

The Rev. James David Manning is the pastor of Atlah World Missionary Church in Harlem. He has been outspoken in his criticisms of Barack Hussein Obama's unwillingness to prove that he is in fact eligible under the Constitution to serve as president of the United States. He has accurately described Obama's intention to overthrow the Constitution and establish a national socialist dictatorship over the American people. He has presented scripturally based arguments aiming to show that Obama represents the evil whose emergence in human affairs Christ prophesied as one of the hallmarks of the last days. He has criticized the...

Author Larry Sinclair, who insists he had sex and did cocaine with Barack Obama, is taking his campaign for revenge to Congress - and insiders say the furious First Lady vows to crush him! GLOBE bares all the details of the bitter battle in an exclusive you can't afford to miss

Three interviews with a pee-wee football coach. Hilarious.

READ THE BILL: SENATE VERSION OF OBAMACARE NOW ONLINE Senator Jim DeMint Website ^ | 11/19/2009 | Jim DeMint staff Posted on Thursday, November 19, 2009 5:26:51 PM by snippy_about_it Read the Bill: Senate Version of ObamaCare Now Online Saturday night set for initial health care vote AP ^ | 11/18/09 | AP Posted on Thursday, November 19, 2009 5:53:08 PM by mdittmar WASHINGTON — The Senate will hold its first vote on health care legislation on Saturday night and Democrats will need 60 votes to prevail. Majority Leader Harry Reid announced the schedule on the Senate floor, one day...

LAKE FOREST –– Orange County Sheriff deputies responded to a 911 call at 2:06 p.m. in the 21700 block of Lake Vista Drive. A woman reported she had heard her sliding door being opened followed with suspicious noises on the ground floor of her home. ((snip)) Deputies responded immediately and checked the house but found no evidence of a forced entry or anyone in the house, Dawes said. "The woman requested that the deputies Google Earth her house and keep it on satellite surveillance overnight," Dawes said.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Inmate Robert Lee Thompson was executed Thursday evening for his part in a fatal Houston store holdup after the Texas governor rejected a parole board's recommendation to spare him because he wasn't the gunman. Thompson, 34, was an accomplice to triggerman Sammy Butler who gunned down 29-year-old store clerk Mansoor Bhai Rahim Mohammed 13 years ago. Butler received life in prison. A jury gave Thompson death. Thompson's lawyer told the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles Thompson's punishment wasn't fair and the panel voted 5-2 Wednesday to recommend his sentence be commuted to life. Gov. Rick Perry...

Now that every nut in America is equipped with a laptop computer, you're likely to run afoul of a nut on the loose almost anywhere. I observed in this space earlier this week that Barack Obama's curious need to travel the world to make endless apologies for America might stem from his spending the most formative years of his childhood growing up in the Third World. I mentioned two observable facts, neither in any way accusatory or rude, that his father was a Kenyan (Marxist) and the mother who raised him was obviously attracted to men of the Third World,...

NASHVILLE, Tenn.- The World Toilet Organization declared November 19 as World Toilet Day when the organization, committed to improving toilet and sanitation conditions world wide, was founded in 2001. Vanderbilt University used World Toilet Day to remind people to save water. Vanderbilt is using innovative technology on campus to save money and natural resources. Kendra Abkowitz, a sustainability professional at Vanderbilt said, “All of our water-saving fixtures has saved about 9 million gallons of water a year for Vanderbilt's Campus.” Vanderbilt is using waterless urinals and dual flush toilets on campus, saving enough water to cover an entire football field...

The democrats in the Congress are not worried about losing their seats in 2010 because of healthcare.

Video at site. Federal Reserve officials on Thursday downplayed the consequences of the falling U.S. dollar, pounting to deflation as a lingering threat. The dollar has fallen 7 percent so far this year and likely has become a funding vehicle for bets on higher-yielding currencies in growing emerging markets. So how should investors guard their portfolios? Jim Rickards, senior managing director of market intelligence at Omnis, shared his insights.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment could be re-started on Saturday morning at the earliest, officials have said. Engineers are preparing to send a beam of sub-atomic particles all the way round the 27km-long circular tunnel which houses the LHC. The £6bn machine on the French-Swiss border is designed to shed light on fundamental questions about the cosmos. The LHC has been shut down for repairs since an accident in September 2008.

Oprah Winfrey just announced to her staff ... next season will be the last for her TV show. An Oprah insider tells TMZ "Oprah announced there will be layoffs after this season." The final show will air in Sept 2011. 2011 marks the 25th year of the show -- one of the most successful in TV.

Has Palm finally given up on the great cat/mouse/iTunes chase of ‘09? November 17th, 2009 Posted in Technology The number of times Apple and Palm went back and forth trading clever coding tactics was beginning to wear thin. At first I found myself saying “yay for the little guy”. But after Apple made it very clear from the get go that they weren’t feeling the cross platform love, Palm decided to kick it up a notch. And so began the cat and mouse game that went on for weeks. The latest Palm OS update, 1.3.1, that was released recently failed...

The Secret Bowow doesn't want anyone to see or figure out about the War in Afghanistan is the Poppy fields.... The Mob gets a tremendous amount of "free" money from the drug trade and Afghanistan is now the largest source of that poppy crop....they are getting shut down around the world, so much so that they are fighting for thier lives to keep the poppy fields in Afghanistan functional Bowow is the mob's man in DC, and with the coordination of the Chicago American Mafia and their boys at SEIU, they are preventing the Army from cleaning up and shutting...

Creationists are ‘liars' (?): Geologist Donald Prothero doesn’t like the fact that we don’t agree with his ideas on evolution. I love the attitude some evolutionists have toward professional, scientific debate. Because creationist scientists do not agree with their biased, subjective and unsubstantiated ideas they spit the dummy and call us liars. The latest tirade from geologist Donald Prothero is in an opinion piece in NewScientist entitled ‘Evolution: What missing link?’1 I like that title. His article was picked up by the Telegraph newspaper in the UK which reported, ‘Creationists “peddle lies about the fossil record�.’2 Lies? Are creationists really...

TORONTO -- That pesky liberal anti-Sarah Palin media conspiracy is spreading. The former Alaska governor and U.S. vice presidential candidate is complaining over Newsweek's choice for a magazine cover shot. Now it turns out the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.'s flagship newscast "The National" put the wrong Palin book cover image on air Monday night as it introduced an item for her current "Going Rogue" book tour. Rather than display the cover for "Going Rogue: An American Life," Palin's memoir, "National" viewers saw the graphic for the anti-Palin essay collection "Going Rouge: Sarah Palin, an American Nightmare," by the Nation editors Richard...

11/18/09 London, England – The newspapers are a-buzz with stories of Obama’s trip to China. The Financial Times tells us what “he should have said.” According to the FT, the American president should have told the Chinese that he wasn’t going to put the US into depression just to protect the value of China’s dollar holdings. ‘We didn’t ask you to stock up all those dollars,’ as Obama might have put it. ‘It’s not our fault if the dollar goes down and you lose money.’ Perhaps Mr. Obama should have quoted the immortal words of a former US Secretary of...

Let me get this straight. Obama insisted that we immediately mortgage unborn generations lives to squander trillions of dollars on misbegotten bills which no one had a chance to read in order to enact stimulus programs and socialist interventionist programs not scheduled to fully fund until the next presidential campaign for the sake of corrupt businesses which he and his tax-cheating minions insist are "too big to fail" (or file bankruptcy) and because "we cannot afford to do nothing." And yet he has all the time in the world to decide whether or not to issue an order to man-up...

"In the video, he takes off his jacket, he takes off his ID and puts it in his pocket and he stands there with his fists clenched waiting for the right moment. And he attacked her from behind. I don't mean he hit her once or twice, he hit her probably 30 or 40 times," explained Crystal. She added, "She had visible swelling and redness to her cheek, her ear, she had lumps all over her head, large lumps." Crystal wants the surveillance video released to the public. But the Hazelwood School District is refusing. School district spokesperson Diana Gulotta...

The vast, racist conspiracy against Barack Obama is no longer limited to evil 9/12 protesters, Fox News, and those who utter the obviously racist code word "socialist." According to an MSNBC talk show host, it has spread to Wall Street, which is deliberately prolonging the recession to keep the black man down. On Tuesday night's episode of The Ed Show, host Ed Schultz asked NAACP president Ben Jealous if he agreed America was in recession because "there are maybe some institutions on Wall Street that do not want to see a black president succeed?" Jealous, surprisingly, disagreed. (See the...

TETON COUNTY - An 11-year-old boy has shot and killed a black bear at point blank range in Teton County. The Teton Valley News reports that the boy was home alone with two younger sisters and was afraid the bear would make its way into the house just like the bear that Fish and Game trapped and euthanized two weeks ago. The boy tried to get the bear to leave initially. Fish and Game says that the family isn't in trouble, and that they would have likely put this bear down themselves.

For the second time in just over a week, Fox News is coming under fire for misusing old news footage. The latest flap is leading some people to charge that the cable news network is intentionally misleading its audience, while Fox claims a "production error." Wednesday's incident occurred when Fox News host Gregg Jarrett mentioned that a Sarah Palin appearance and book signing in Grand Rapids, Michigan had a massive turnout. As footage rolled of a smiling and waving Palin amidst a throng of fans, Jarrett noted that the former Republican vice-presidential candidate is "continuing to draw huge crowds while...

The cover of Nobel Laureate Al Gore's new book "Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis" was intentionally doctored to exaggerate the appearance of hurricanes in the northern hemisphere as well as reduce the amount of ice present in the Arctic. Maybe even more ominously, Florida was so diminished it's almost totally gone. As reported by Florida State University hurricane expert Ryan Maue at the website Watts Up With That, the truth was apparently inconvenient for the Global Warmingist-in-Chief (h/t NBer Blonde): The cover opens and closes half and half - so you only see one hurricane...as in...

An enraged Highland Park, Michigan father is accused of killing his son - as he begged for his life - after learning the teen may have sexually abused a toddler. Jamar Pinkney Sr., 37, irate over hearing his 15-year-old son Jamar Pinkney Jr. had sexual contact with a 3-year-old girl made the teen strip at gunpoint, marched him to a vacant lot and shot him to death despite pleas from the boy and his mother, a relative said. Michigan authorities filed a first-degree murder charge Wednesday against Pinkney Sr. in his son's shooting death Monday. Defense attorney Corbett O'Meara said...

Al Gore’s new book had a problem – no big hurricanes since Katrina to put in the book to look “threatening” to the USA. Any imagined link between hurricanes and global warming has evaporated. Solution: the artists airbrush. The cover opens and closes half and half — so you only see one hurricane…as in the press release photo or the one on Amazon. But this is the real picture sequence from the book which I looked at Borders today and took cell-phone pictures, original (before the retouching by some “artist”) Note all of the Arctic ice and the size of...

Former Vice President Dick Cheney's gay daughter is a mommy twice over. Mary Cheney gave birth to a six-pound-14-ounce baby girl Wednesday morning at Washington, DC's Sibley Hospital. The newborn, named Sarah Lynne Cheney, is the second child for the 40-year-old Cheney and her longtime partner, 48-year-old Heather Poe. The couple welcomed Samuel David Cheney into the world back in 2007. His birth sent shock waves through the Republican party and rekindled the debate over gay marriage. Cheney is the birth mother for both children. The couple has not revealed who is the biological father of either child.

Winston Churchill once predicted that it would be possible to grow chicken breasts and wings more efficiently without having to keep an actual chicken. And in fact scientists have since figured out how to grow tiny nuggets of lab meat and say it will one day be possible to produce steaks in vats, sans any livestock. Pork chops or burgers cultivated in labs could eliminate contamination problems that regularly generate headlines these days, as well as address environmental concerns that come with industrial livestock farms. However, such research opens up strange and perhaps even disturbing possibilities once considered only the...

The daughter of Sen. John Kerry has been arrested in Hollywood for allegedly driving drunk. Los Angeles police say 36-year-old Alexandra Kerry was stopped by officers on a Hollywood street at about 12:40 a.m. Thursday and tested for driving under the influence. Officer Bruce Borihanh says she was booked at the Hollywood police station and was held for about five hours. She was released at about 5:30 a.m. after posting $5,000 bail. Borihanh didn't immediately have other details. Alexandra Kerry is the eldest daughter of the Massachusetts senator and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate. She has produced documentaries and has had...

Bringing Home the Turkey On many American tables the focal point of the Thanksgiving dinner is a roast turkey. In recent years, turkey — which stores often promote as a sale item for Thanksgiving and the holiday season — has usually been less expensive during November and December than in other months. However, with the exception of September, the average price of whole, frozen turkey was higher during November and December than in most other months in 2008.

The labor market improved slightly last month but offered little hope that the economy would soon emerge from its prolonged weakness. American employers added 39,000 jobs in August, roughly in line with the modest growth of recent months, the Labor Department reported yesterday, but the entire gain came from the hiring of new airport security guards and other government workers. Companies remain reluctant to hire until economic growth improves. The unemployment rate fell to 5.7 percent last month, from 5.9 percent in July, but economists at the Labor Department and on Wall Street called the decline almost meaningless. The rate,...

The Great Rift Valley extends some 4,000 miles southward from Syria north of Israel, through the Gulf of Aqaba, through Ethiopia, and all the way to Mozambique in southeast Africa. It harbors a giant fault, which has been under investigation as a model for sea floor spreading. A recent geologic event rent a gaping crack through the desert of Ethiopia, causing safety concerns for locals. These crustal plate motions may foreshadow rifting events further north in the Great Rift Valley...

Thanksgiving Dinner * 14.5 million turkeys were produced in Indiana in 2008. The Hoosier state accounted for 5.3 percent of national turkey production. This output was less than one-third of Minnesota's leading production of 48 million turkeys. * The value of Indiana's 2008 turkey production totaled $306.3 million. Indiana ranked fifth in value of turkeys raised, following Minnesota, North Carolina, Missouri and Arkansas. * The total weight of all Hoosier turkeys was 519.1 million pounds, compared to 1.3 billion pounjds in Minnesota and 1.2 billion pounds in North Carolina. * The typical whole turkey purchased at a store is a...

Bert Chapman, a faculty member at Purdue University, has drawn a lot of resentment and protest since writing a blog last month. Mr. Chapman blogs at Conservative web page Townhall.com. His views are extremely conservative, and his blog posting of Oct. 17, 2009 is no different. In the post, Mr. Chapman shows his opinion on homosexuality, citing his disagreement with the lifestyle based upon religious principle. Throughout the article, he brings in statistics on the costs of treating AIDS, the problems of tainted blood supplies, the forcing of medical personnel to treat STDs. All of these he seems to throw...

Brooke Phillips, a pregnant Nevada brothel worker who appeared in an HBO reality series "Cathouse," and another 22-year-old mom-to-be, had been fatally shot before firefighters discovered their bodies in a burning Oklahoma City home, investigators said last Friday. Oklahoma City Police Department spokesman Sgt. Gary Knight said Nov. 13 the Medical Examiner's Office determined that Brooke Phillips and Milagrous Barrera — both 22 years old and pregnant — had died of gunshot wounds.

The goal is to create an academic home where a variety of disciplines, including history, psychology, religious studies, anthropology and political science, can be brought together to focus on hate. It's the same sort of effort that led to the creation of disciplines like black studies or women's studies, Mohr said. Such academic efforts are not without controversy. Some skeptics fear they are little more than attacks on the dominant power structure. "This stuff tends to be one dimensional and presumes the guilt of an archetypal white male," said Glenn Ricketts, spokesman for the National Association of Scholars. Indeed, De...