Free Republic

While by now everyone should know the answer, for those curious why the US unemployment rate just slid once more to a meager 5.9%, the lowest print since the summer of 2008, the answer is the same one we have shown every month since 2010: the collapse in the labor force participation rate, which in September slide from an already three decade low 62.8% to 62.7% - the lowest in over 36 years, matching the February 1978 lows. And while according to the Household Survey, 232K people found jobs, what is more disturbing is that the people not in the...

Clocks in Rocks? Radioactive Dating, Part 1 by Vernon R. Cupps, Ph.D. * Radioactive dating is a key concept in determining the age of the earth. Many secular scientists use it to dismantle the faith of Christians and cause them to accept uniformitarian assumptions that, in addition to being scientifically erroneous, demand a figurative and distorted interpretation of Genesis. Being knowledgeable about such a widespread dating method is essential for Christians to address opposing arguments and critics. Is radioactive dating valid?

Some of the opinions I’ve heard recently have made me realize that I disagree with progressives – not just ideologically but for mental health reasons. One of the main strands of progressive insanity is, of course, the idea that all cultures are equal: even gay-hating, women-hating, Jew-hating ones, apparently. Yes, I’ve looked into it and there doesn’t appear to be any sort of qualificational threshold on this. We have to treat all cultures with equal respect . . . except, of course, for western culture, which is racist and imperialist and should be trumped whenever possible. It’s what we call...

I spoke to a group of students at The Ohio State University on Monday evening [regarding abortion]... I realized the importance of distinguishing between the people we are trying to reach...people who are either already committedly pro-life, doggedly pro-abortion or still undecided. Once we understand our goals with each group we are trying to reach, we can effectively impact the convinced, the opposed, and the undecided.... The Convinced You may not think there’s much value in trying to reach those who are already convinced Christianity is true, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the more I...

The Northeast, once the nation’s political engine that produced presidents, House speakers and Senate giants including the late Edward M. Kennedy, is losing clout in Washington as citizens flee the high-tax region, according to experts worried about the trend. The Census Bureau reports that population growth has shifted to the South and the result is that the 11 states that make up the Northeast are being bled dry of representation in Washington. Critics blame rising taxes in states such as Massachusetts and Connecticut for limiting population growth in the Northeast to just 15 percent from 1983 to 2013, while the...

Have you ever been verbally assaulted by someone on the political left with a ferocity you didn’t quite understand? Have you seen it happen to friends and colleagues, or watched in horror as the media establishment does it to a public figure? At some point or other, nearly everyone on the political right has witnessed or been the victim of an attack designed not to elucidate facts, but rather to paint him or her as a villain. My attention was recently drawn to a typical such calumny from a Facebook exchange: Republicans hate anything that isn’t white, wealthy, and christian...

Nowadays, the Kochs, with their billionaire accomplices, secretly donate funds to their countermovement lackeys whilst operating in the shadows, like Al-Qaeda, operating out of caves, and, similar to how the Weathermen operated, aka: the Weather Underground Organization, circa 1970s, whose goal was overthrow of the U.S. government. In point of fact, they may eventually be classified as white-collar terrorists, but they have every appearance of honest, upstanding citizenship. On any given Sunday, you’d probably exchange a smile with them at church without suspecting in the least that you are acknowledging a terrorist.

The Northeast, once the nation’s political engine that produced presidents, House speakers and Senate giants including the late Edward M. Kennedy, is losing clout in Washington as citizens flee the high-tax region, according to experts worried about the trend. The Census Bureau reports that population growth has shifted to the South and the result is that the 11 states that make up the Northeast are being bled dry of representation in Washington. Critics blame rising taxes in states such as Massachusetts and Connecticut for limiting population growth in the Northeast to just 15 percent from 1983 to 2013, while the...

RUSH: Here's Pam in Homer, Alaska, as we head back to the phones. Thank you for calling. Great to have you here, Pam. Hi. CALLER: Hi. I'm so excited to talk to you. I've got so many questions for you, but I'm gonna -- RUSH: Well, fire away. CALLER: (giggling) RUSH: I love answering questions. I absolutely adore questions, and there's nobody better you could ask. CALLER: (giggling) RUSH: So this is gonna work well. CALLER: I want to bypass my questions for a second 'cause I think there's a more important thing I want to tell you, and it's...

I have often been accused by friends (black, white and all others in between) of being too logical, to the point that I am inhibited from seeing other people’s point of view ( I am not sure if that is a compliment or insult). They say that I enter into discussions with the false assumption that others are just as logical and rational as I am. I have been told this so often that I have conceded that perhaps they are telling the truth (they know me well enough to make such claims). Because I have finally accepted the charge...

At least since the early part of the 20th century, aside from oil, the Arab world has produced and exported two products. It has produced essentially no technology, medicine or anything else in the world of science. It has almost no contributions to world literature, art or to intellectual development. According to the most recent United Nations Arab Human Development Reports (2003-2005), written by Arab intellectuals, Greece, with a population of 11 million, annually translates five times more books from English than the entire Arab world, population 370 million. Nor is this a new development. The total number of books...

Written Aug. 31, 2014 – Before recent days, who among us had ever heard of Ferguson, Missouri? Because of what happened there, the brief but intense experience of state repression, its name will be transmitted by millions of Black mouths to millions of Black ears, and it will become a watchword for resistance, like Watts, like Newark, Harlem and LA. But Ferguson wasn’t 60 years ago – it’s today. And for young Blacks from Ferguson and beyond, it was a stark, vivid history lesson – and also a reality lesson. When they dared protest the state street murder of one...

Random thoughts on the passing scene: What a non-judgmental society amounts to is that common decency is optional — which means that decency is likely to become less common. The biggest issue in this fall's election is whether the Obama administration will end when Barack Obama leaves the White House or whether it will continue on, by appointing federal judges with lifetime appointments who share President Obama's contempt for the Constitution. Whether such judges will be confirmed by the Senate depends on whether the Senate continues to be controlled by Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid. Why in the world would...

Imagine you consult an attorney with an important case. He says, “I'll accept your case, but I have to tell you at the start, I don't respect you. In fact, you're a coward.” The Obama administration entrusted the most important cases of our nation to an attorney general who held the people he was hired to represent in contempt. Presidential administrations have mottos. Theodore Roosevelt spoke softly but carried a big stick; John Kennedy pointed to new frontiers and self-sacrifice; Lyndon Johnson spoke of a great society. As Eric Holder departs, in order to recover from his verbal abuse of...

Altered Pasts: Counterfactuals in History by Richard J. Evans (Brandeis University Press) As everyone knows, the supreme court 
ruled six–three for Al Gore in the great dispute over the Florida recount in 2000. As everyone also knows, Gore emerged as the ultimate victor in that recount, and with his poetic and moving inauguration address he managed to unify a badly divided nation. For a long period, the Gore years continued the peace and prosperity established under President Clinton, punctuated by the successful prevention of an apparent terrorist plot in 2001, by the enactment of health care reform in 2003 (mocked...

Journalists. Bless their hearts. As a rule of thumb, any time we read a news story about a subject or incident we already know a lot about, it turns out that about 25% of what’s reported is simply wrong. This is why knowledgeable gun owners distrust many news stories involving guns: because too many “journalists” display an ignorance of firearms that would be laughable if it weren’t so appalling. If they can’t get their facts straight about gun technology and shooting, then we don’t trust them on much else. For over 24 years as a patent attorney, I’ve taken pride...

Sorry - I'm not sure what our posting policy is regarding TimeMag, so I'm just posting the link.

Cambrian Fossil Intensifies Evolutionary Conundrum by Brian Thomas, M.S. * New fossil finds further verify one of evolution's biggest problems: the Cambrian explosion. According to evolutionary reckoning, a massive explosion of new life supposedly spawned dozens of brand-new fully formed body plans about 530 million years ago. How could so many novel body plans emerge in such a short time while today's emergence rate of new body plans is zero? Details from newly discovered Canadian fossil fish intensify this Cambrian conundrum.1 Very few fossils show up in rock layers below the Cambrian—some sponges, cnidarians, a mollusk, what look like worm...

Moonbat Of The Week – MSNBC’s Melissa Harris Perry: OK Beheading Is “Workplace Violence”, How Dare Any One Suggest A Muslim Connection?

The most recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll says that a clear-cut majority is disgusted with the present political scene and retains little hope that future generations will fare as well as we have. As candidates get down and dirty in the lead-up to midterm elections, 60 percent say the country is in a general state of decline. A mere 19 percent of those polled have a favorable opinion of Republicans in Congress; their Democratic colleagues (or “colleagues”) poll at 31 percent. But the most remarkable number is 79: that’s the percentage of the politicized public that presently voices its discontent...