Free Republic

The New York Times, the New York Daily News, Newsday, U.S.A Today, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, FOX News and a host of other news organizations recently reported that gun sales across the country increased 10 percent after Barack Obama defeated John McCain. Many of the gun shop owners that were interviewed on camera stated they had never seen sales increase to this level in 15 to 20 years. Those purchasing guns said they were doing so because of a growing fear that the spiraling economy will force desperate people to commit criminal acts. Others bought them because they believe an...

Although it might sound like a press release from the paranoid, prison-obsessed Center for Constitutional Rights, the Green Party's under-medicated presidential candidate is accusing the U.S. Department of Defense of executing 5,000 prisoners Chinese-style and dumping their bodies in a Louisiana swamp. FoxNews.com reports: Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney, known for her provocative statements when she was a congresswoman from Georgia, accused the Department of Defense this week of using Hurricane Katrina to cover up the slaughter of 5,000 prisoners. At a news conference in Oakland, Calif., on Sunday, McKinney claimed the Pentagon authorized the execution of the prisoners...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Researchers from Spain have found a strong and independent link between cannabis use and the onset of psychosis at a younger age. The association, they say, cannot be explained by chance, and is not related to gender or the use of other drugs. It is, however, related to the amount of cannabis used.

In June, Governor Brad Henry vetoed the “Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act,” a piece of legislature authored by Sen. James Williamson and infamous fundamentalist Rep. Sally Kern. If passed, this bill would have, among other things, guaranteed that “students may express their beliefs about religion in homework, artwork and other written and oral assignments free from discrimination based on the religious content of their submissions.” You read that correctly. Answer on a test that the universe began 6,000 years ago with a few words from the mouth of an invisible, magical entity rather than 13.73 billion years ago with the expansion...

Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election? Before you dismiss that possibility, consider the role of one Randy Scheunemann, for four years a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government, ending his official lobbying connection only in March, months after he became Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain's senior foreign policy adviser. Previously, Scheunemann was best known as one of the neoconservatives who engineered the war in...

COLUMBIA, SC (AP) - More than 200 students and faculty members at Furman University have signed a statement protesting President Bush's visit to speak at the South Carolina school's commencement later this month. Bush is scheduled to speak at Furman's graduation ceremonies May 31. The 222 co-signers say in a statement on the school's Web site that they object to the president's visit for several reasons, including the war in Iraq. They also cite the administration's "obstructing progress on reducing greenhouse gases while favoring billions in tax breaks and subsidies to oil companies that are earning record profits." English professor...

SYDNEY/LONDON (Reuters) - People switched off lights across the world on Saturday, dimming buildings, hotels, restaurants and bars to show concern at global warming. Up to 30 million people were expected to switch off their lights for 60 minutes by the time "Earth Hour" -- which started at 8 p.m. in Suva in Fiji and Christchurch in New Zealand -- completed its cycle westwards.More than 380 towns and cities and 3,500 businesses in 35 countries signed up for the campaign that is only in its second year after it began in 2007 in Sydney alone."Earth Hour shows that everyday people...

Don Welter’s letter in the Jan. 28 Tribune contains too many errors to respond to in one letter. Although fetal tissue being human and alive is neither enlightening nor controversial, the idea such tissue is a person is an issue of Catholic superstition and not biological fact. That women, however, are persons, is a fact with which even the anti-abortionists must agree. Bernie Nathanson prostituted himself to the Catholic Church. After becoming a toady, he called himself a self-declared liar. Why in the world should we believe him now? Christopher Tietsie, a biostatistician, said the number of women killed annually...

She’s French, works in Hollywood, and has volunteered for Greenpeace. Surprise.There are some sins, my friends, that even the Pickler/Burnett rule can’t expunge. “I think we’re lied to about a number of things,” she said, singling out September 11.Referring to the two passenger jets flown into the World Trade Centre, Miss Cotillard said: “We see other towers of the same kind being hit by planes, are they burned? There was a tower, I believe it was in Spain, which burned for 24 hours.It never collapsed. None of these towers collapsed. And there [New York], in a few minutes, the whole...

Chicago, IL. -- A federal judge refused to allow enforcement of an ill-fated state law requiring teenage girls to notify their parents before getting abortions, potentially ending any chance the decades-old measure will ever take effect. Abortion rights groups on Saturday hailed the ruling on the legislation that was passed in 1984 and updated in 1995 but has never been enforced because of complex legal wrangling. "We're very pleased," said Lorie Chaiten of the Illinois chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. "This should be the end of that law." Anti-abortion forces decried the judge's ruling on the law, which...

The recent criticism of hate speech on campus is entirely appropriate. But we ought to make one exception to this rule: the “religious right,” a retrograde coterie of unattractive common folk who seek to impose their irrational beliefs on the rest of us. These fundamentalists lie awake at night, plotting the imposition of the truths they have received by revelation from God. God has decreed the necessity of prohibiting abortion and gay marriage, lest the land be scourged by His wrath, so the unquestioning hordes of Jesus-freaks flood the polls on election day. The few who are at Yale (here...

This post needs to be made regarding Super Tuesday. My observations include the fact the "underground" Trust Huckabee operation did its job well dividing conservative votes and enabling McCain to win Missouri. This group not officially associated with Huckabee is paving the way for McCain. It looks National Right To Life used its state affiliates endorsements of Huckabee to assist in the Establishment plan to divide conservatives and help McCain win. Romney can still fight back but he'll have to get into the Saturday events in Washington and Kansas where I think he can do well. And he'll have to...

My favorite headline of the year so far comes from the Daily Mail in Britain: "Government Renames Islamic Terrorism As anti-Islamic Activity' To Woo Muslims." Her Majesty's government is not alone in feeling it's not always helpful to link Islam and the, ah, various unpleasantnesses with suicide bombers and whatnot. Even in his cowboy Crusader heyday, President Bush liked to cool down the crowd with a lot of religion-of-peace stuff. But the British have now decided that kind of mealy-mouthed "respect" is no longer sufficient. So, henceforth, any terrorism perpetrated by persons of an Islamic persuasion will be designated "anti-Islamic...

Rangel: Only Progress in Iraq Is to 'Get the Hell Out!' By Josiah Ryan CNSNews.com Staff Writer January 18, 2008 On the Spot (CNSNews.com) - Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) told Cybercast News Service Thursday that he does not consider legislation passed last Saturday by the Iraqi Parliament, which permits former members of Saddam's Ba'ath Party to reclaim government jobs, a sign of political progress. "The only thing that is progress is to get the hell out of there," said Rangel. (Hear Audio) The legislation, which allows low-ranking Ba'athist Sunnis to participate in the new Shia-controlled government, has been cited by...

i really do loathe myself today...this blogging has got to end, Posted at 5:55 PM oh my God! I am so sorry for sounding like I don't like Oprah or Obama. I do. Oprah has been a force for good for a long time, and I just got carried away with my preference for Hilary over Obama. I think she is smarter and better than he is, but either of them is better than any Republican I am sorry Oprah, I really do admire and love you for all the good you do and have done in this country and...

Recession in the US 'has arrived' Merrill said Friday's employment figures confirmed the recession The feared recession in the US economy has already arrived, according to a report from Merrill Lynch. It said that Friday's employment report, which sent shares tumbling worldwide, confirmed that the US is in the first month of a recession. Its view is controversial, with banks such as Lehman Brothers disagreeing. But a reserve member of the committee that sets US rates warned that it could do little about the below-trend growth expected in the next six months. "I am concerned that developments on the inflation...

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida has followed the lead of the ACLU of Central Florida, the ACLU of Monroe County Florida, and the ACLU of the Treasure Coast (Florida), all of which followed the lead of the ACLU of Southern California in backing impeachment and calling for the National ACLU to do the same. The ACLU was a prominent supporter of Richard Nixon’s impeachment. In 2006 an ACLU panel argued for impeachment. In recent years, the national ACLU has lobbied against numerous offenses that appear quintessentially impeachable, but refused , despite intense lobbying by its members and...

After catching Harold Meyerson's latest Washington Post hatemongering against religion in general, Christians in particular, and Republicans especially, all I could say was just WOW! This thing is nearly unhinged and if you took the word Christian out and replaced it with any of the favored, protected minorities that the MSM guards like mother hens, it would be indistinguishable from the kind of pure bigotry that would result in Meyerson's utter ostracizing should it have been written about those protected classes. Calling Republicans/Christians torturers, abusers of immigrants, members of the KKK, bigots and even mean, Meyerson skipped only the Nazi...

Chandler police will not alter their description of the Chandler Rapist despite complaints from a Valley radio station about the department’s use of the word “Hispanic” to describe the attacker. “I think this is racial profiling,” said Mayra Nieves, vice president of programming for KMYL (1190 AM). Nieves said Hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race -- and many Hispanics are white or black. She said ethnicity should not be used when describing an attacker. Instead she said she would describe the Chandler Rapist as having “dark skin.” But Chandler police spokesman Sgt. Rick Griner said his department will stand...

In the magazine Foreign Policy, [Howard Gardner] argued in the spring for upper limits on the amount of income an American should be allowed to keep and the amount of wealth that can be passed on to beneficiaries ($4 million a year and $200 million, respectively). “It makes sense to be moderate politically only if there are two sides willing to engage,” he says. “The right wing isn’t just taking over the country, it’s shanghaiing all our values. If there’s a Republican administration after the next election, I would join in efforts for some sort of secession. It’s not the...

An American researcher who believes she has found the final resting place of Jesus Christ is campaigning to exhume a body at a Muslim shrine in Kashmir for scientific tests. Suzanne Marie Olsson, a New York-based researcher is currently in Srinagar, studying the Muslim shrine of Rozabal. While Muslims say Rozabal houses the tomb of Yuza Asaf, a Muslim saint, many researchers believe it contains the body of Jesus Christ. To put an end to speculation Olsson has suggested exhuming the remains at Rozabal for DNA testing and carbon dating. quot;This will trace him (the saint) to his origin ......

Bellmead, TX - Damarcus Blackwell's four-year-old son was lining-up to get on the bus after school last month, when he was accused of rubbing his face in the chest of a female employee. The principal of La Vega Primary School sent a letter to the Blackwells that said the pre-kindergartener demonstrated "inappropriate physical behavior interpreted as sexual contact and/or sexual harassment." Blackwell says it's ridiculous that the aide would misread a hug from a four-year-old. Blackwell wrote to administrators demanding that the whole incident be expunged from his son?s academic file because his son is too young to know what...

I don't normally follow Ted Rall's work. But when J.M., a member of our military serving in Iraq, wrote NB about Rall's recent column and cartoon, I had a look. I'd say our soldier was being restrained in describing Rall's work as "particularly offensive." I'm displaying one panel from his cartoon of October 22nd. You can view the whole of it here. As you'll note, the point is to celebrate the death of our soldiers, since they are "idiots" whose removal from the gene pool causes the average IQ back home to soar. His column of October 23rd, "HEY, SOLDIERS:...

NEW YORK (AFP) - New York's iconic Empire State Building is to be lit up green from Friday in honor of the Muslim holiday of Eid, the biggest festival in the Muslim calendar marking the end of Ramadan, officials said. "This is the first time that the Empire State Building will be illuminated for Eid, and the lighting will become an annual event in the same tradition of the yearly lightings for Christmas and Hannukah," according to a statement. Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the fasting month, is expected to be celebrated in New York from Friday, depending...

Tonight at Daily Kos, the new mainstream voice of the Democratic Party, they’ve found a new angle from which to attack General Petraeus: Hey, MoveOn! Petraeus Wore Fraud Medal At Testimony.Examining General Petraeus’s medals, his official bios and then comparing three reports of events on 3/30/2003 in Najaf, Iraq - two by prize-winning embedded journalists and one understood to be by Army personnel (which document this diarist will produce to a responsible party at any time) - this diarist cannot conclude other than that General David Petraeus wore a medal for combat valor in his testimony before Congress that was...

I knew it. This headline draws attention these days. As the world wakes up to the fact that all currencies are created out of thin air by a simple entry into the electronic ledgers of the world's central banks investors begin to look for investments whose safety does not depend on an agency rating. This chart from the World Gold Council may help your investment decisions. GRAPH: This chart is a very graphic description what happens once nations abolish the gold standard in favor of unbacked fiat currencies. Remember: No fiat currency has existed longer than a human's lifespan and...

One of the world's leading experts on credit derivatives (financial instruments that transfer credit risk from one party to another), Das is the author of a 4,200-page reference work on the subject, among a half-dozen tomes... Das is pretty droll for a math whiz, but his message is dead serious. He thinks we're on the verge of a bear market of epic proportions... The cause: Massive levels of debt underlying the world economic system are about to unwind in a profound and persistent way. He's not sure if it will play out like the 13-year decline of 90% in Japan...

Karl Rove may have resigned as the President’s chief strategist, but the dirty and secretive tricks that have characterized the Republican Party in recent years are still here to stay. Leading California Republicans are promoting a dishonest initiative that steals electoral votes from California, a democratic state. Republicans attempting to steal votes in a major election? This smells all too familiar. The initiative, crafted by a lawyer for the California Republican Party and member of the group misleadingly called "Californians for Equal Representation,” proposes to divide California's electoral votes based on results in each congressional district, rather than award the...

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan was arrested Monday in or near the hearing room where General David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker are testifying on the situation in Iraq, according to the U.S. Capitol Police. Four anti-war protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct. One of them, who was not named, is being taken to George Washington Hospital “due to complaint of injury” is also charged with assault on a police officer. According to the information from the Capitol Police, Sheehan and the other three were shouting in a hallway.

Cannabis users are 40% more likely than non-users to suffer a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia, say UK experts. Writing in the Lancet, a team led by Dr Stanley Zammit from Bristol and Cardiff Universities said young people needed to be made aware of the dangers. In an additional article, experts said up to 800 schizophrenia cases a year in the UK could be linked to cannabis use.

It’s fall, the temperature is falling, the leaves are turning and with November here, we have some repeats to watch on the cable networks. The History Channel will show one of their favorites, ABC’s documentary “Beyond Conspiracy” featuring Peter Jennings and a computer animation which shows a bullet that hit President Kennedy’s back four inches below his collar but then the bullet allegedly exited his neck after nicking the upper part of the knot of his tie, and then it goes down at approximately a 25 degree down angle to hit Governor Connally in his back. It’s amazing what computers...

3 to 6 inches of snow, as low as 5,500 feet in South Lake Tahoe, CA. To read the story, click on the link, then click on the "Top California headlines" for this story.

It was only after his murder last week that the wider world got to hear about the life of Stevens Nyembo-Ya-Muteba, aged 40, a notably good and clever man. In 1998, he had fled the war in Congo for the apparent safety of Britain, where he started a maths course: his talent was such that he was offered a place at Cambridge but preferred to study at the University of London, closer to his home in the Holly Street estate in Hackney. Mr Nyembo-Ya-Muteba, a regular churchgoer, supported his wife and two daughters by working as a delivery driver at...

Bush Not Credible On The Economy August 16, 2006 As the Bush Economy continues to stall, leaving millions of hard-working Americans in the cold, the American people continue to be fed up with Republicans' failed economic policies that have led to stagnating wages, rising gas prices and millions more Americans joining the ranks of the uninsured. They are also fed up with the rubber-stamp Republican Congress that has blindly supported these economic policies that have hurt millions of middle class families. "Despite the President's rosy rhetoric and campaign slogans, the American people know the Bush economy doesn't work for them,...

Many conservatives are absolutely perplexed by the question of what motivates liberals to take the patently wrong political positions they do. It’s difficult to explain it without believing such obviously wrong ideas like “liberals are just stupid”, or “they want to destroy our country”, but sometimes we resort to those explanations out of pure frustration. But what is the explanation? Why do seemingly good, intelligent people take positions that cause so much harm in the face of all the facts? I’ve finally stumbled upon the answer, and it’s so stunningly simple, yet profound in its implications, that it’s absolutely mind-boggling....

Check it out..and look at the hairdo..

In the old days, along with such colonial powers as France, Spain, Holland and Germany, England indulged in what you might call unenlightened self-interest. The prevailing practice was to gut their colonies in Asia and Africa of all the natural resources they could get their hands on while the folks who mined the coal, picked the crops, and dug for the diamonds, lived in abject squalor. It may not have been nice, it may have been selfish and even brutal, but it made perfect sense. When some English noble stoked his fire, he probably never gave a second thought to...

ARLINGTON, Virginia, DEC. 23, 2005 (Zenit.org).- A sound psychology must rekindle man's innate spirituality by taking sin seriously, contends a Catholic therapist. Andrew Sodergren is a therapist at the Alpha Omega Clinic and Consultation Services, and a doctoral candidate at the recently accredited Institute for the Psychological Sciences. In the second part of this interview with ZENIT he shares his views of an integrated psychology that is true to human nature and acknowledges human freedom. Part 1 appeared Thursday. Q: How can a sense of sin and vice contribute to the field of psychology? Sodergren: In 1995, Pope John Paul...

ARLINGTON, Virginia, DEC. 22, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Psychology needs to examine the role of sin in mental health, in the light of Christian anthropology, says a Catholic therapist. Andrew Sodergren is a therapist at the Alpha Omega Clinic and Consultation Services, and a doctoral candidate at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences (IPS). The recently accredited institute is dedicated to the development of a psychology that is consistent with Church teachings while in constructive dialogue with the world. In this two-part interview with ZENIT, Sodergren shares his views on psychology's tendency to "medicalize" human behavior and the implication for society. Q:...

EUGENE, Ore. — In an effort to promote diversity at the University of Oregon, a plan has been developed that would hire, fire and promote professors not just on the quality of their teaching and research, but on their so-called “cultural competency." Freshmen would take a class on the subject and faculty would be trained in it. The problem is that nowhere in the 22-page diversity draft plan is “cultural competency” defined. "I can imagine huge amounts of time that should be going to research and teaching being tied up with this sort of thing — and making life extremely...

Oct.12, 2005 (Washington) -- Children growing up in same-sex parental households do not necessarily have differences in self-esteem, gender identity, or emotional problems from children growing up in heterosexual parent homes."There are a lot of children with at least one gay or lesbian parent," says Ellen C. Perrin, MD, professor of pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. She revealed the findings at the American Academy of Pediatrics Conference and Exhibition.Between 1 million and 6 million children in the U.S. are being reared by committed lesbian or gay couples, she says. Children being raised by same-sex parents were...

The Miller Crusade Diminishes the Press By Joe Conason Very few of the journalists rallying behind New York Times reporter Judith Miller seem thrilled about defending her, no matter how strongly they believe in shielding sources. While they may admire her guts in going to jail, their lack of enthusiasm for her case is understandable. She leaves much to be desired as a martyr for the First Amendment. Based on both past performance and present circumstance, she actually symbolizes a terrible betrayal of the public trust by the national media. And whatever she and her employers think they’re achieving in...

One of the most popular complaints or indictments against liberals – individual minions, not just the public figures – is that they are out of touch with reality. They are. So what? What does this have to do with our country, really? When it comes to national issues, Liberals find it most difficult to sort them out and identify topics as friend or foe. To them, personally, I mean. For them, societal issues are injustices, not facts of life or opportunities for object lessons to youth. For all the lip service the Left pays to reality, liberals are betraying their...

STAR Trek legend Mr Spock has boldly gone on his bravest enterprise yet — photographing fat women NAKED. Actor Leonard Nimoy has focused on a group of very large women — many with tattoos and in a variety of poses. The sci-fi hero’s website is full of the pictures titled Full Body Project. They have even been included in an exhibition at a New York gallery. Leonard, 74, said yesterday: “I have discovered my artistic enthusiasm for photographing voluptuous naked women. I am snapping them now with great abandon.” A source said: “Leonard’s Star Trek character was strange and this...

Freed former world chess champion Bobby Fischer on Thursday blasted US President George W Bush for his eight months in detention in Japan as he got ready for a new life in Iceland. A visibly tired Fischer, sporting a long white beard and with a protruding belly, called Bush a "criminal" over the US efforts to extradite him for a 1992 match he played in Yugoslavia in defiance of sanctions. "I was kidnapped," Fischer told reporters in brief remarks as he entered Narita Airport outside Tokyo to fly to Iceland via Copenhagen. Asked how he felt about Japan's role in...

Cannabis use as a teenager increases the risk of developing schizophrenia in later life, a study using research on New Zealand youths has revealed. A report in the British Medical Journal showed those who used cannabis as a teenager had a 10 per cent chance of developing psychosis by the age of 26. The general public have a 3 per cent risk. The conclusions were based on a study by the Institute of Psychiatry in London of 759 people born in Dunedin, New Zealand, between 1972 and 1973. That report was used and supported by Dutch researcher Dr Jim van...

"Imagine taking every single emotion, memory, experience, tablet all into one … and those fighting each other to see who is the victor." - Danny, 22. "It just f… with your head. I had to sleep with a knife under my bed 'cos I used to think people were going to come in and bash me during the night or something. Just for me mull or something, yeah." - Danni, 17. A whole generation of Australians has grown up believing that smoking pot is a harmless pastime. They need to think again. The view of cannabis as a benign drug...

Shocking research reveals teenagers who smoke cannabis are twice as likely to develop psychosis. The ABC's Four Corners TV program tomorrow night airs research that shows the human brain does not fully develop until the early 20s, placing pot-smoking teenagers at risk of suffering significant and permanent damage. The New Zealand research destroys the myth that cannabis is a soft drug and experts say today's hydroponic marijuana is being "morphed" into a different substance from that smoked by the hippie generation. Psychiatrist Dr Andrew Campbell said the widespread use among young people – one in five teenagers uses cannabis –...

The study asked people about their cannabis use Smoking cannabis virtually doubles the risk of developing mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, researchers say. The New Zealand scientists said their study suggested this was probably due to chemical changes in the brain which resulted from smoking the drug. The study, published in the journal Addiction, followed over 1,000 people born in 1977 for 25 years. UK mental health campaigners said it was more evidence of a "drug-induced mental health crisis". The researchers, from the University of Otago, interviewed people taking part in the Christchurch Health and Development Study about their cannabis...

After a passenger is critically hurt, experts say stress is fueling problems. January 5, 2005 Central Florida's latest reported road-rage incident involved female drivers, which doesn't surprise behavioral experts who say women, succumbing to media influences and the everyday pressures of work and family life, are being more combative on the roads. "Men are usually more aggressive, but that doesn't mean they are the only ones who are aggressive," said Jim Hoffheimer, president of the American Institute for Public Safety, a marketing company in North Miami that offers the RoadRageous Aggressive Driver Course as an instructional tool. The incident Monday...