Free Republic

Almost overnight, the concept of man-made global warming has become an accepted fact. Debate on this issue is rarely tolerated and millions of people are fearful that man’s activities are leading to a gradual global catastrophe. Cries to reduce auto emissions, burn less fossil fuels and shrink our carbon footprint have made people uncertain what the future holds for planet earth.

With Congress ready to spend $700 billion to prop up the U.S. economy, enacting health-care reform may seem about as likely as the Dow hitting 10,000 again before the end of the year. But it may be more doable than you think, provided we dispel a few myths about how health care works and how much reform Americans are willing to stomach. 1. America has the best health care in the world. Let's bury this one once and for all. The United States is No. 1 in only one sense: the amount we shell out for health care. We have...

Memo to CEOs: Ask for a bailout, and your company will be reduced to a caricature. Recent congressional hearings on the plight of GM, Ford, and Chrysler have illuminated a few important issues—like how the Detroit executives travel when on business. Populist politicians and gotcha journalists delighted at the prospect of rich CEOs riding corporate jets to ask for taxpayer money. There was a little talk about jobs and cars and the foundering economy, too. But you might have missed that part, or gotten confused by a welter of misperceptions that emerged from the spectacle of supplicant CEOs trying last-ditch...

Whenever the economy stumbles, politicians and interest groups commonly argue that government spending should be increased. Based on a theory known as Keynesianism, this increase is supposed to boost economic performance. Yet the notion that bigger government leads to more growth is both theoretically unsound and empirically false. This strange theory was first put forth back during the 1930s, when America was suffering from a deep downturn. An economist named John Maynard Keynes argued that the economy could be boosted if the government borrowed money and spent it. According to this Keynesian approach, this new spending would put money in...

Atlanta & Savannah Victory Rallies with Mitt Romney~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~                                      Please Join Senator Saxby Chambliss&Governor Mitt Romney Atlanta Victory Rally 2008 Friday, November 21, 200810:30 am - 11:30 am InterContinental HotelVenetian Ballroom3315 Peachtree Rd NEAtlanta, GA 30326 Savannah Victory Rally 2008 Friday, November 21, 20082:30 pm - 3:30 pm Charles H. Morris Center10 East Broad StreetSavannah, GA 31401 Please RSVP to RSVP@saxby.org or call (678)589-4888

The election of Barack Hussein Obama, the first man of African decent elected President of the United States, will provide continuous changes for a very long time. Gone now is the handy excuse many Blacks have used for refusing to act and speak like members of our American society. “It’s not worth my even trying because ‘the man’ will never let me get ahead” died on Nov 4, 2008. ‘The man’ actually elected a Black Commander in Chief, so demanding Ebonics as the price for school attendance is over. The days of Black self imposed isolation from American society are...

After a losing presidential campaign, the candidate quickly (and often cruelly) is painted as an object lesson in what not to do — but that should not happen in 2008. In order to truly revive itself, the GOP should be more like the real John McCain in the future, and less like the conservative cast of the past decade: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Tom Delay. And it certainly should not look to the likes of Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin to lead a restoration. You do the math: America has a moderate majority — 50% of Americans are...

Please pay attention Roger Wicker and Greg Davis There are many myths in southern culture. One of the latest is the myth of the modern day, "conservative" Mississippi Democrat. Currently, Senator Roger Wicker (R) and Greg Davis are locked into real battles with former Governor Ronnie Musgrove (D) and Rep. Travis Childers (D), respectively, for federal contests. Let's start this conversation with two basic facts. First, Mississippi is overwhelmingly conservative. That's a given. To even have a prayer (pardon the pun), a Democrat for statewide office must be conservative on God, guns and abortion. That's just a fact. A "true...

You’ve seen them in interactive focus groups, and most recently in the Town hall debate: The Undecideds. It makes a normal voter wonder, “Where in the heck to they find these people?” The answer was inadvertently revealed at by Domenico Montanaro in his interview with “undecided” voter Oliver Clark, one of the Town hall debate questioners … …the Sunday before last, I received a call from the Gallop Poll. They asked a few questions regarding my choice in the Presidential election. They asked who I would vote for. I said most likely I would be voting for Barack Obama. They...

The other night on CNBC my friend Barry Ritholtz told a good story. He said that for the time in credit market history loans between 2002 and 2006 were made on the basis of the ability to cut up and syndicate the debt, as opposed to lenders' ability to pay. It's a good story. But is it true? No, other than in the most superficial sense. I'm assuming Barry was really saying that it was the first time loans were made because there was an external appetite for the loans as byproducts, instead of lender concern about prudently putting out...

There are myths, misconceptions and fallacies peppering the American landscape that linger like holiday-season in-laws. Contrary to popular belief, Charles Manson did not audition for the Monkees television show in the 1960s, Channel “One” was not left off of VHS television set dials because it was reserved for military use, and marking “Jedi” as your religion on a census form will not force the federal government to grant it official status. Another fable often spun by class warriors and peddled to – and believed – by a good portion the American public is that the “rich” in this country do...

Thank you, FOX News!

Joe Biden once got in trouble for plagiarizing a speech and inflating his academic record. So it will not surprise you to find that his famous working-class background turns out to be mythical. But it may surprise you to learn that Biden isn't the one who has trouble with the facts. In his Wednesday night speech at the Democratic convention, Biden referred to "those of us who grew up in middle-class neighborhoods like Scranton and Wilmington." In the video preceding his address, he said that the people he knew as a boy didn't regard themselves as working class but as...

A few weeks back, I wrote a column titled, "Who Wrote 'Dreams From My Father'?" My research led me to the conclusion that a literary neophyte like Obama could not have written the memoir on his own. It was simply too well crafted. I was also suspicious about his claim that publishers had sought him out, while still unknown, contract in hand. I doubted, too, that the publisher would have paid him a hefty advance. And I refused to believe that his publisher would have invested the hefty ghostwriting fee needed to rescue the project after four years of amateurish...

Mr Obama is making a big pitch to Republicans. He has spoken glowingly of Ronald Reagan, is friendly to religious voters and has invested heavily in advertising and staffing not just in the swing states of the Midwest but also in such Republican strongholds as Texas. Yet there are a number of myths about "Obamacans" (as Mr Obama calls them) or "Obamacons" (as pundits do). Their numbers are overestimated and their import is misunderstood. It is neither on foreign policy nor on economics but on religious values that Mr Obama has made his big pitch to party-switchers. There has been...

Reid Wilson of Real Clear Politics had a column yesterday, "Dems finding success in the center" about how democrats have been having success winning House seats by recruiting "conservative" democrat candidates, and they were following the model again in 2008. While it is true that the democrat party has had success in executing this tactic, this success is due more to their ability to fool the public about these candidates than anything else. Wilson mentioned a few members such as John Barrow of Georgia and Heath Shuler of North Carolina (perhaps better known in the South for his college football...

Myth of Dwarf Dinos in Dracula Country Confirmed Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News June 13, 2008 -- In 1900, the sister of an eccentric Austro-Hungarian aristocrat named Baron von Nopsca found a tiny bone on the baron's family estate in Transylvania, a historical region in present-day Romania. The baron, who was a dinosaur buff, identified the bone as belonging to a dwarf dino that likely once lived on an island in the region. The motorcycle-riding baron's outrageous theories were ridiculed and largely dismissed, but now new evidence suggests his proposed island of dwarf dinosaurs did indeed exist in the land of...

(CNSNews.com) - Reports circulating on the Internet tell of an oil field spanning parts of western North Dakota and eastern Montana where 400 billion barrels of oil supposedly are just waiting to be tapped. However, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) tells Cybercast News Service that those huge estimates are "a myth." A USGS report issued in April estimates that there are between 3 billion to 4.3 billion barrels of oil in what is referred to as "the Bakken Formation" -- well below the 400 billion barrels discussed on the Web, but up from the previous estimate of 151 million...

For years those who have repeated the simple truth that while there are Muslims who are moderate, there is no moderate Islam, have been vilified as bigots and “Islamophobes,” and marginalized in the same way by Beltway analysts and the mainstream media (both liberal and faux-fearless conservative) in favor of those who were determined to “engage moderate Muslims.”

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney's office acknowledged on Thursday that he was mistaken when he asserted that China, at Cuba's behest, is drilling for oil in waters 60 miles from the Florida coast. In a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Cheney said on Wednesday that waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, long off limits to oil companies, should be opened to drilling because China is already there pumping oil. ''Oil is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast of Florida,'' the vice president said. ''We're not doing it, the Chinese are, in cooperation...