Free Republic

• "Even if drilling works, it'll take a decade or more for the oil to flow." This is quite an argument coming from the Democratic Party, which has made keeping oil off the market a linchpin of its energy policy for decades. If President Clinton hadn't vetoed the idea of drilling in ANWR back in 1995, we'd have that oil on the market today. Ditto if Congress had approved ANWR drilling in 2002, when President Bush requested it. Even so, the larger point is false anyway. New oil will be flowing in some cases within three to four years, according...

Gun Facts version 5.0 is now available A new version of Gun Facts is now available, both as a free e-book and as a printed version. Gun Facts debunks all common gun control myths. Organized by gun control myths and with over 480 detailed citations, firearm policy wonks can rapidly refute the Brady Campaign, the Violence Policy Center, the Legal Community Against Violence, and other cauldrons of canards. Gun Facts 5.0 has 94 packed pages of information. Gun Facts is grouped into chapters on common gun control topics (assault weapons, ballistic finger printing, firearm availability, international, etc.) which make finding...

VILLANOVA, Pennsylvania: As the 60th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift approaches, recycled myths about its accomplishments drop from the sky like candy into the waiting arms of Americans hungry for a foreign policy alternative to endless war and secret torture. But politicians and pundits looking for a humanitarian policy to win the world's hearts and minds should look back to the airlift with caution. Sixty years after British and American planes began to fly supplies to West Berliners facing a Soviet blockade, even the faux news program "Colbert Report" has reprised the Cold War refrain that the airlift saved the...

1. A vice presidential candidate should win his or her home state for the party. It probably hasn't made much difference to the outcome since 1960, when Lyndon B. Johnson helped put Texas in John F. Kennedy's column 2. Ideological and regional balance are vital to a ticket. This assumption, too, was once valid but no longer holds. In the 19th century, the heyday of political machines, voters felt a strong allegiance to one party or the other, and a race's outcome was determined by how well the 3. Reaching across the aisle to form a bipartisan ticket would be...

Everyone’s heard these medical myths, and your mom (and maybe even your doctor!) may have been guilty of spreading a few of them: High blood pressure causes headaches. High blood pressure usually has no symptoms. Neither does it cause dizziness, although dizziness is a common side effect of treatments for high blood pressure. Women should examine their breasts. Research shows that routine breast self-examinations aren’t sensitive enough to detect many lumps, and may subject women to increased anxiety. It’s dangerous to mix alcohol and antibiotics. Alcohol doesn’t interact with antibiotics. Metronidazole (Flagyl) is an exception, however, and can cause vomiting....

The Unreal Ronald Kessler by: M. Stanton Evans, May 06, 2008 Herewith a letter sent to The Wall Street Journal a week ago in response to the recent anti-McCarthy article by Ronald Kessler....(snip)I have held off on circulating this letter until The Wall Street Journal had ample chance to run it....(snip) Like many other critics of Joe McCarthy, Ronald Kessler would be more persuasive if he knew something of the subject. Kessler’s Journal essay ("The Real Joe McCarthy," April 22), attacking the Wisconsin senator and taking a sidewise shot at my recent book about him, is an odd amalgam of...

For years, Texas has been planning a privately financed super turnpike from Mexico to the Oklahoma border. But like rush-hour traffic, the plan for a Trans-Texas Corridor is only inching along. "It ran into a firestorm of controversy in Texas,� said Neal McCaleb, a former Oklahoma transportation secretary. Critics have a wide range of concerns about the corridor, which has a key stretch that would parallel Interstate 35. (Another stretch would extend from the Texarkana/Shreveport area to Mexico.) Particularly upset are landowners who may be in the corridor's path. The Texas Transportation Department calls many concerns myths. The department says,...

Myth One: Airline mergers cause big job losses. Reality: Bankruptcies and high oil prices have caused significantly more job losses than mergers. Record fuel prices have led to the shutdown or bankruptcy filings of five U.S. carriers. Myth Two: This deal will jeopardize employees' benefits.Reality: The merger will create a financially stronger airline, better positioned to protect jobs, compensation and benefits. The transaction will make employee pensions and benefits more secure. Myth Three: Prices will go up as a result of the merger.Reality: In this industry, prices are set by market forces and competition. There is very little overlap between...

Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 4:20 PM Subject: CLOSED Congress Session Last Night: Only 4th Time In 176 Years ! SPECIAL "CLOSED SESSION" OF U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES DISCUSSED A LOT MORE THAN THE PENDING SECURITY SURVEILLANCE PROVISIONS! This was only the fourth time in 176 years that Congress has closed its doors to the public. What was it that they were discussing that they do NOT want us to know about? Word has begun leaking from last nights special, closed-door session of the United States House of Representatives. Not only did members discuss new surveillance provisions as was the...

Three months ago, at a birthday party, I met a dour young man wearing a “9/11 was an inside job” T-shirt. I’d already been noticing a lot of “inside job” stickers and graffiti around town, and now, faced with a real-life Truther, I found that I couldn’t stop staring at him: He was at a celebration of a friend’s life and he was wearing a shirt announcing that nearly 3,000 American citizens were killed by our own government. It’s easy to dismiss a guy like this as a lone wolf, but he’s actually not alone: A 2006 Scripps Survey Research...

As the Bush administration winds down, neoconservatism has become the most feared and reviled intellectual movement in American history. The neoconservatives have become the subject of numerous myths, mostly spread by their numerous detractors. They're seen as dangerous heretics by livid liberals as well as by traditional conservatives such as William F. Buckley Jr. and Patrick Buchanan. So "neocon" has become a handy term of condemnation, routinely deployed to try to silence liberal hawks such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut or right-wing interventionists such as former deputy secretary of defense Paul D. Wolfowitz and the former Pentagon official Richard...

As a Swede I get to hear a lot of the myths of how wonderful a country Sweden supposedly is — the "prosperous socialism" it stands for, a role model for the rest of the world. For instance, quite a few friends from around the world have commended me on Swedish recycling polices and the Swedish government's take on coercive environmentalism. The way it has been presented to me, Sweden has succeeded with what most other governments at best dream about: creating an efficient and profitable national system for saving the environment through large-scale recycling. And the people are all...

The US economy is slowing down, but the long-term trends for the country are more favourable than many think. There has also been a sharp improvement in many of America's social pathologies, such as violent crime and drug abuse Anyone who reads the serious press about the condition of the US might be excused for believing that the country is headed towards a series of deep crises. This impression is exacerbated by economic slowdown and by the presidential primaries, in which candidates announce bold plans to rescue the country from disaster. But even in more normal times there are three...

We haven't even made it to the New Hampshire primary, but millions of Americans are already sick of hearing about the 2008 race. Bad as the torrent of news is, I find the repetition of myths about voters and voting even more galling. Whether you're arguing with friends or watching the news, you hear many claims about how American democracy works that just aren't true. 1. People vote their self-interest. In fact, there is only the tiniest correlation between income and party. The country is not divided into two camps: the poor, who vote Democrat, and the rich, who vote...

Juan Cole has written a embarrassing post which just proves to me that liberals are so invested in the defeat of our country that they will ignore reality and instead pawn off myths as some kind of facts, and facts as myths.  This time he lists the "top 10 myths" about Iraq.  Some of his doozies are that there really is no reconciliation going on in Iraq between the rival factions.  Of course this ignores recent studies that show a majority of Sunni's and Shia describing themselves as Iraqi's above all else and almost no one inside Iraq believe separating...

Teenage girls have long been warned by their mothers that shaving their legs will make the hair grow back thicker and faster. However, this conventional wisdom is just a myth, according to researchers in the US who say the thickening is just an optical illusion. Scientists at the Indiana University School of Medicine trawled through numerous scientific studies to debunk this, and six other commonly held beliefs which have no basis in truth. They discovered hair did not grow back faster and darker if shaven, contrary to what most people believe. The illusion of thicker locks is created because the...

Popular culture is loaded with myths and half-truths. Most are harmless. But when doctors start believing medical myths, perhaps it's time to worry. In the British Medical Journal this week, researchers looked into several common misconceptions, from the belief that a person should drink eight glasses of water per day to the notion that reading in low light ruins your eyesight. "We got fired up about this because we knew that physicians accepted these beliefs and were passing this information along to their patients," said Dr. Aaron Carroll, assistant professor of pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine. "And...

...Several American business leaders have come to believe that the American health-care system is not only bad for our health but also for national competitiveness. In the automotive industry, General Motors claims that it spends about $1,600 per car on health care. In Japan, according to GM, Toyota's per automobile healthcare expenditure is just $110. Health coverage is indeed becoming more expensive for businesses. Over the past eight years, the percentage of firms offering health benefits to employees has dropped significantly, to 60% from 69%. This decline, however, is almost completely accounted for by businesses with fewer than 10 employees....

In the global economy, today's winners can become tomorrow's losers in a twinkling, and vice versa. Not so long ago, American pundits and economic analysts were snidely touting U.S. economic superiority to the "sick old man" of Europe. What a difference a few months can make. Today, with the stock market jittery over Iraq, the mortgage crisis, huge budget and trade deficits, and declining growth in productivity, investors are wringing their hands about the U.S. economy. Meanwhile, analysts point to the roaring economies of China and India as the only bright spots on the global horizon. But what about Europe?...

To reassure themselves that liberals are smart, left-wing social scientists periodically conduct research that proves conservatives are Neanderthals. Their latest foray, by New York University researchers squandering $1.2 million in federal grants, concluded the usual stuff — conservatives are simpleminded, less adaptive to change, etc. — plus Ronald Reagan's brain worked like Adolf Hitler's and conservative drivers have difficulty finding their way home when faced with a detour. Their conclusions were based on research subjects' responses to reflexive tests, as if their ability to answer an either-or question correctly in a fraction of a second is predictive of their ability...

Every so often, someone decides that the world is too corrupt to reform. And they start a political party. Sometimes this makes sense. More often, though, it's just foolishness, and bad stewardship to boot. And for Christians today, that's exactly where things stand. Third party advocates will sputter and fume at this. They'll talk about conscience, as though there are no issues of conscience concerning the second-order consequences of their actions when they help a leftist win. They'll pontificate about how God could sovereignly raise up an army of believers for their new party, as if He cannot do the...

The choice is ours: Big Oil or Chavez? As we wait for emerging energy forms to develop, we should create policies that support oil companies In the coming century, the world will transition from cars that run on liquid fuels to cars that run on something else, perhaps electricity or hydrogen. Until then, we have a choice. Either support the "Big Oil" companies that are SEC and IRS regulated, traded on the major stock exchanges, contribute to our economy and national security, and whose employees are our neighbors, or butt into energy myths and stand by idly (gleefully?) while Hugo...

Journalism: The Dow had just pierced 13,000, but TV news anchors couldn't fathom why. All the data, they noted, showed the economy doing worse, not better. But therein lies a problem with media market analysis. Now, we'll gladly stipulate that knowing why the stock market is acting the way it is on any given day is difficult, if not impossible. Yes, you can guess, as many do, but no one knows for sure. The real reason doesn't usually become clear until months later. But that's the point. Daily market action usually doesn't reflect current conditions, let alone old government data....

There is a huge amount of propaganda and myths circulating about illegal aliens, particularly illegal Mexican, Salvadorian, Guatemalan and Honduran aliens. #1. Illegal aliens generally do NOT want U.S. citizenship. Americans are very vain thinking that everybody in the world wants to be a U.S. citizen. Mexicans, and other nationalities want to remain citizens of their home countries while obtaining the benefits offered by the United States such as employment, medical care, instate tuition, government subsidized housing and free education for their offspring. Their main attraction is employment and their loyalty usually remains at home. They want benefits earned and...

WASHINGTON, May 30, 2007 – A U.S. general serving with Multinational Force Iraq recently took time out of his mid-deployment leave to let the American public know that the situation in Iraq is different from what they might think. Army Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson, deputy chief of staff for resources and sustainment, today spoke with representatives of veterans service organizations, outlining a speech he gave earlier at James Madison University about what he believes are 10 myths about the conflict in Iraq. “There are some signs that our new strategy is working,” Anderson said in a teleconference from Baghdad....

20. Eve ate a bad apple An apple a day might keep the doctor away, but they have still had bad publicity as the "forbidden fruit" that Eve tasted in the Garden of Eden, thereby making life difficult for all of us. Yet nowhere in the biblical story of Adam and Eve is an apple mentioned. It is simply called "the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden" (Genesis 3:3). OK, it COULD have been an apple, but it might just as well have been an apricot, a mango, or any other sort of fruit....

Vitamin supplements taken by millions of people every day for their health could be increasing their risk of death a new Danish-led study suggests. The study is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The international research team reviewed the published evidence on beta carotene, vitamin A, vitamin E, Vitamin C and selenium. The team was led by Dr Goran Bjelakovic, from Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark. These dietary supplements are marketed as antioxidants and people take them in the hope they will improve health and guard against diseases like cancer and heart disease by eliminating the free radicals...

Catholic Legends Windsor's Response The large gap that exists between Roman Catholic historical scholarship and Roman Catholic apologists is a large one indeed. One often finds the historians admitting what the apologists will not regarding the truths of history that are so often utterly contradictory to later Roman dogmatic claims. This is especially true regarding such modern doctrinal developments as the Marian dogmas and the infallible Papacy. Over the past few years Roman Catholic apologists have been producing a great deal of written material of varying levels of quality. Books and magazines of this nature gain a wide audience....

Video that explains why 9/11 myths are wrong. It's good to review if you have a conspiracy theorist in your life. The Day America Stood Still

...This is the most widely held myth about education in America--and the one most directly at odds with the available evidence. Few people are aware that our education spending per pupil has been growing steadily for 50 years. At the end of World War II, public schools in the United States spent a total of $1,214 per student in inflation-adjusted 2002 dollars. By the middle of the 1950s that figure had roughly doubled to $2,345. By 1972 it had almost doubled again, reaching $4,479. And since then, it has doubled a third time, climbing to $8,745 in 2002. Since the...

The TRUTH About the Holy Beautiful Ethical Great Talmud Interesting  Sites  True Quotes 'An Eye for an Eye' Literally? Not according to Holy Talmud FACTS!  What Is?  Talmud = Peace!  Ethics  More Samples "Receive - Embrace All Human Beings with Cheer and Joy." - Talmud --- "Do not do unto others that which you dislike." - Talmud How interesting it is that Haters from the Islamo Militant Propaganda Camp, that claim to have a 'beef' with Zionism only, mix the Old Lies on Talmud (already exposed) with their Political Agenda. 1) (Even if one disagrees with A. Sharon's Defense Policies),...

A documentary says French special forces had Osama bin Laden in their sights twice about three years ago but their U.S. superiors never ordered them to fire. The French military, however, said that the incidents never happened and the report was "erroneous information." The documentary, due to air next year and seen by Reuters on Tuesday, says the troops could have killed the al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan but the order to shoot never came, possibly because it took too long to request it. "In 2003 and 2004 we had bin Laden in our sights. The sniper said 'I have...

10. American manufacturing is obsolete Media myth: All the manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas, and the only ones left are in the almost empty plants of the Big Three automakers. The media turned to manufacturing layoffs to illustrate worker woes, though The Economist magazine explained in its July 1, 2006, issue that the American manufacturing sector was flourishing – even with the much-publicized problems at General Motors and Ford. “Net profits have risen by nearly 9 percent a year since the recession in 2001 and productivity has been growing even more rapidly than is usual during economic expansions,” stated...

TO THE unsuspecting visitor, Patrick Henry College looks like a typical American liberal-arts college tucked away amidst the rolling green farmlands of Virginia. Its curriculum is far from typical, however, and anything but liberal. Witness this lecture on faith and reason in an idyllic red-brick college building reminiscent of colonial America. As the speaker takes to the podium, several students silence their cellphones. One puts down his copy of The Wall Street Journal and takes out his Bible. They bow their heads and pray to Jesus, then stand up and sing a hymn, belting out "Holy, holy, holy" with gusto....

INCORRECT NEWSWEEK CLAIM: “The 2003 invasion of Iraq did more than divert essential resources from Afghanistan; it created a test lab for new insurgent weapons and tactics that have since been adopted by the Taliban.�RESPONSE: The assertion that the Iraq invasion “diverted� resources from Afghanistan is a talking point of critics of the Bush administration. It is an opinion, not a fact.Resources to Afghanistan have increased since Operation Iraqi Freedom began. In March 2003, the United States had about 9,500 troops in Afghanistan. Today, there are more than 21,000 U.S. forces either under U.S. or NATO command in Afghanistan...

In an Oct. 4, 2006 editorial, “How to Lose a War,� the Washington Post makes a series of unfounded accusations, based largely on three books on Iraq written by its reporters. A few of the most egregious errors of fact are corrected below:INCORRECT WASHINGTON POST CLAIM:  “President Bush and his most senior aides meanwhile stubbornly refused to listen to advisers who warned of the consequences of their policies.�RESPONSE:  The president listened to the advice and recommendations of a broad range of people with differing views on how to approach the situation in Iraq. The suggestion that he may have...

Dear Students: First of all, I would like to thank each of you for signing up for my class this semester at UNC-Wilmington. Part of my job as your professor is to dispel certain myths you learn in your other classes, especially sociology. If you decide to question these myths in Sociology 101, your professor is likely to assign you to sensitivity training sessions. Because our university faculty is so overwhelmingly liberal, many of these myths constitute arrogant dismissals of conservative ideas – ideas that your professors would take more seriously if they had a little more experience interacting with...

Science may have found an answer to that question made famous by Maureen Dowd: Are men necessary? If other creatures are anything to go by, men are essential to keeping our species healthy, and would still be necessary even if women started making their own sperm. That's more or less what happened to the male clam shrimp, a puddle and pond dweller that thrives in all continents except Antarctica. One day millions of years ago a mutant female started producing both sperm and eggs; that mutation spread until all the females were replaced by hermaphrodites. You'd think that would spell...

From their website : ---------------------------------- Welcome to Truth in Science, a new organisation to promote good science education in the UK. Our initial focus will be on the origin of life and its diversity. For many years, much of what has been taught in school science lessons about the origin of the living world has been dogmatic and imbalanced. The theory of Darwinian evolution has been presented as scientifically uncontroversial and the only credible explanation of origins. This is despite the National Curriculum which states: Pupils should be taught… "how scientific controversies can arise from different ways of interpreting empirical...

The Guardian of Islamic Extremism http://www.aina.org/news/20060921100346.htm ................................................................................................... Churches Firebombed By Members Of The "Religion of Peace" http://www.postchronicle.com/commentary/article_21240687.shtml ...................................................................................................If Islam is the religion of peace, it should act like it http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2006/092006/09212006/223419 The Free Lance-Star, VA - Sep 21, 2006... My next complaint is the lame argument that says something along the lines of "Islam (the religion of peace) doesn't promote violence; remember Christians are ......................................................................................................Death threats from the 'religion of peace' http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52078

Muslims want Pontiff out Clerics, scholars call for Benedict removal after controversial Islam remarks by AP LAHORE, Pakistan -- About 1,000 Muslim clerics and religious scholars meeting yesterday in eastern Pakistan demanded the removal of Pope Benedict for making what they called "insulting remarks" against Islam.

If you call me a killer one more time, I'm gonna kill ya http://moonagewebdream.blogs.com/moonage_political_webream/2006/09/if_you_call_me_.html September 20, 2006 If you call me a killer one more time, I'm gonna killa ya. `Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." Those are the words Pope Benedict uttered that has caused quite a stir. Those words were originally uttered in the 14th century by the Byzantine Emporor Manuel II. Now, contrary to the replies from Muslim fanatics, Byzantine was...

Muslims, Islam, Pope Benedict Religion of Peace Dying to Kill Again Al Qaeda terror commander hints at big attack on N.Y., Washington... The new al-Qaeda field commander recently interviewed in Afghanistan, is calling for Muslims to leave the U.S. -- particularly Washington and New York -- in anticipation of a major terror attack to rival Sept. 11, says the Canada Free Press story. Like most peace loving free people of the western world, I'd like very much to believe that Islam is indeed a peaceful religion seeking a peaceful coexistence with all peaceful peoples of the world. It's just hard...

Searching For Moderate MuslimsBy David Keene September 20, 2006 The Islamic world, along with the politically correct world, is in a snit because Pope Benedict had the bad judgment in an academic forum to quote a Byzantine emperor's criticism of Islam's justification of forced conversion during his time. Islamic spokesmen reacted quickly, asserting that theirs is a religion of peace, condemning the Pope and blaming him as their followers began a new round of torching Christian churches around the world and killing those who attend them. I am agnostic on the question of whether Islam is at its heart peaceful...

While thousands came on 9/11/2006 to honor and remember the 3,000 murdered five years ago by Islamofascists terrorists, a couple hundred people came to repeat scurrilous accusations. Their gathering to express these views is free speech yet their gathering on 9/11, at Ground Zero, says a lot about their lack of character.CLICK ON THE IMAGE ABOVE FOR DETAILSThe leader of these self-proclaimed "9/11 truthers" is Alex Jones, who was also there Monday. He is the guy in the sunglasses in the bottom left of the photo below. The truth is the last thing these ghouls want for their otherwise mundane...

Next time you stop at the pump and pay through-the-stratosphere prices to fill your car's tank, just ponder this: We are not — repeat, we are not running out of oil. There is no good reason you should be paying through the nose. There are only bad reasons for it. If you are also angry about illegal aliens pouring over the border, you should know that illegal immigration is the price we are paying to keep to keep gas prices from going even higher, maybe two or three times higher.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Evolution and the environment, not just gluttony, has led to a global obesity pandemic, with an estimated 1.5 billion people overweight -- more than the number of undernourished people -- an obesity conference was told on Monday. The mounting epidemic of obesity in children would see many die before their parents, said Kate Steinbeck, co-chair of the 10th International Congress on Obesity in Sydney. [Snip] McGill, senior lecturer in Population Health at the University of Auckland, said humans were designed to maximise their energy intake because their large brains used about one-quarter of their total energy expenditure....

FORT MEADE, Md., August 2, 2006 -- A step through the doors of the Military Entrance Processing Station here blows away the myths that the military is struggling to get enough recruits, dropping its standards to get those it does, or glossing over the fact that it’s recruiting into a wartime force. July 31 was the last day of a month in which all the services had already met their quotas for recruits. It was a relatively slow day at the station -- one of 65 dotting the country. Yet the station buzzed with activity as 102 men and women...

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) recently issued a press release titled, "Myth Versus Reality." A more accurate title might have been, "Myth Versus PR Response." What’s missing in large measure is the Reality. Media outlets that receive this press release should do some fact checking before presenting it to the public without qualification. Granted it is difficult to address every issue in black and white terms. However, TxDOT has a vested interest in making every pig’s ear of the TTC a silk purse. At CorridorWatch.org our goal is education and to call a pig’s ear a pig’s ear. We...

Despite news stories and antiwar partisans claiming that military recruitment numbers are down and not meeting Defense Department goals, a Pentagon report shows otherwise. Each of the branches of the military -- Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force -- have met or exceeded their recruitment goals for the 13th month in a row, in spite of not being allowed on many college and high school campuses. The Pentagon report states, "Active-duty recruiting numbers, both for June and for the first nine months of fiscal 2006, continued to exceed 100 percent of goal across the board." The DoD also said that...