Free Republic

...What that basically means is that in an emergency situation, such as a declaration of martial law, chipping stations will be immediately deployed. It will be for you and your family, and will ensure that you’ll receive emergency rations and other services in the event of a serious catastrophe. Next, they’ll require all government healthcare recipients to be chipped in order to prevent rampant fraud. An off-shoot may be to implement nationwide chipping programs for those receiving any government benefits including social security, Medicaid, Medicare, and Supplemental Nutritional Assistance. Prisoners and even detainees will be part of the first adopter...

(Medical Xpress) -- Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a way to stimulate a rat’s stem cells after a liver transplant as a means of preventing rejection of the new organ without the need for lifelong immunosuppressant drugs. The need for anti-rejection medicines, which carry serious side effects, is a major obstacle to successful long-term transplant survival in people. With a combination of a very low, short-term dose of an immunosuppressive drug to prevent immediate rejection and four doses of a medication that frees the recipient’s stem cells from the bone marrow to seek out and populate the donor organ, the...

This week, the House Budget Committee and Energy and Commerce Committee held hearings to examine the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), a board of unelected bureaucrats tasked under Obamacare to reduce the growth in Medicare spending. During the Budget Committee hearing, Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, described the board: [T]he IPAB is unprecedented in the power given to unelected officials to direct hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending. The IPAB will give unelected, unaccountable government appointees the power to make decisions about payment policy in Medicare that will ultimately determine whether millions of seniors have access...

Boston’s chattering classes are struggling with the stunning political defeat of one of Harvard’s most popular academics at the hands of Canadian voters, painting Michael Ignatieff’s historic loss as Liberal leader as a new low in Canadian politics. A series of editorials and articles published this week in the Harvard Crimson, Boston Globe and elsewhere have blamed Canadians for being close-minded and anti-American when they handed Mr. Ignatieff and the Liberals the party’s worst defeat in history. “Harvard sees itself as the centre of the universe, so I’m sure it felt it very deeply,” said Graham Wilson, chair of Boston...

California man's rage at having his marriage proposal rejected by his girlfriend almost turned deadly this week when he allegedly tried to run her down with his car. Mario Francisco Hernandez, 22, showed up at a Burger Stop restaurant in Pico Rivera, Calif., on Wednesday with flowers and "Will you marry me?" written on his car. His girlfriend, who police have not identified, apparently said no.

WASHINGTON – Federal health regulators have decided not to approve an experimental diet pill called Qnexa, which had been touted by many experts as the most promising weight-loss drug in more than a decade. The drug's maker, Vivus Inc., said in a statement Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration declined to approve the drug in its present form. The agency asked for more study results and additional information on its possible health risks, including major cardiovascular events and risks for women of childbearing potential.

I am in the same boat as the developer whose app was rejected (and later approved under pressure) by Apple. So far, our app has been rejected three times by Apple because "... it contains content that ridicules public figures". Our app is a countdown timer to the 2010 midterm elections, 2012 presidential election, and 2013 inauguration. The images are included below. Can you help a fellow Freeper get his iPhone app published by Apple?    

House GOP leaders who unveiled their “vision” for healthcare reform made clear that a major provision endorsed by 2008 GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) was not included. Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), chairman of the Health Care Solutions Group that spent months writing a "comprehensive" reform plan, said that McCain's proposal to tax employer-based benefits was "certainly not part of our plan."

I would like this thread to be a compilation of stories from those of you who have friends or acquantances who voted for Obama, and are now souring and letting it be known. I've been reading comments from time to time in varying threads from posters saying that they have family/friends, etc., that are turning on obummer. Let's warm our cockles by assembling the anecdotal evidence here!

LONDON (AFP) - A British employment tribunal on Monday awarded a Muslim woman 4,000 pounds (8,900 dollars, 5,100 euros) after a hair salon owner refused to employ her because she wears a headscarf. The tribunal dismissed a claim of direct discrimination, but found that woman, Bushra Noah, had suffered indirect discrimination and awarded her the settlement for "injury to feelings". The tribunal owner said she needed stylists to reflect the "funky, urban" image of her central London salon, and that new hires who have conventional hairstyles are requested to re-style it in a more "alternative" way. In its judgement the...

The Pope rules out feminist theology By Malcolm Moore in Rome Last Updated: 2:17am GMT 01/03/2008 The Vatican has cracked down on feminist interpretations of the liturgy, ruling that God must always be recognised as Our Father. In a move designed to counter the spread of gender-neutral phrases, the Holy See said that anyone baptised using alternative terms, such as "Creator", "Redeemer" and "Sanctifier" would have to be re-baptised using the traditional ceremony. The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith said yesterday: "These variations arise from so-called feminist theology and are an attempt to avoid using the words Father...

BAGHDAD — The deputy commander of Multi-National Division-West and the governor of Al-Anbar province held a press conference at the Combined Press Information Center Tuesday. U.S.Marine Corps Brig. Gen. John Allen, deputy commander of MND-W, and Mamoun Sami Rashid Al-Awani, the governor of Al-Anbar province, discussed the progression of security and stability in Al-Anbar province. “The Al-Anbar province is in transition,” said Allen. “The recent improvement in the security situation across the province has created significant political and economic opportunities.” Recently, Al-Anbar citizens have made several big steps engaging al-Qaeda in the province and have grown politically and economically closer...

You probably think you know what frightens most men. A long-weekend at the in-laws' place. Antiquing. Running out of beer in the third quarter. But that's just the stuff he'll admit to being afraid of, which, by definition, means they're not his true deep fears. So how can you determine what those are? Easy: They're the ones he'll almost never talk about. But I will. Let's count down through the Scary Fifteen: #15 Hair in the drain. #14 Getting caught noticing another woman. #13 Rejection. #12 Super Nanny. #11 Speedos. #10 His dad's death. #9 Her tears. #8 Being a...

TOKYO - Democratic gains in Congress were seen around the world Wednesday as a rejection of the U.S. war in Iraq that led some observers to expect a reassessment of the American course there. The shift in power also was seen as a signal in some capitals that the United States would put a greater emphasis on trade policy and human rights. Many watching the election said the results were a significant blow to President Bush's presidency. "Although his term will not end within the next year, I think Bush is already turning into a lame duck," Yuzo Yamamoto, 60,...

Human stem cells trigger immune attackJessica Ebert Doubt cast on therapeutic use of embryonic cell lines. Exposure to molecules from animals might have made human stem cells unacceptable.© ANDREW LEONARD / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Most human embryonic stem-cell lines, including those available to federally funded researchers in the United States, may be useless for therapeutic applications. The body's immune defences would probably attack the cells, say US researchers. When embryonic stem cells are added to serum from human blood, antibodies stick to the cells. This suggests the cells are seen as foreign, and that transplanting them into the body would...

The College Rejection Bonanza April 7th, 2006 “April is the cruelest month” – T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland It is rejection time for almost all the applicants to elite colleges and universities. America’s most prestigious schools, which pride themselves on their ever-lower acceptance rates, are basking in their record rejections of hopeful aspirants. Harvard, Yale and Princeton rejected 91% of applicants, Stanford and Columbia 89%, Brown 86%, Dartmouth 85%, Penn 82%. MIT, Amherst, Williams and Swarthmore all rejected 80% or more of their applicants. Among the top state schools, Berkeley rejected 76%, and UCLA 73% of applicants. I suspect Duke, given...

Churchgoers Shift towards Conservatives Driven by Moral Issues like Gay “Marriage” By Terry Vanderheyden OTTAWA, March 7, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Conservative Party popularity among churchgoers, and especially among Protestants, increased significantly this past federal election – driven largely by moral issues such as same-sex “marriage.” Protestant churchgoers were 25% more likely to vote Conservative as compared to previous elections, according to an Ipsos-Reid Poll. And among churchgoing Catholics in Quebec, votes for the Liberal party were cut roughly in half compared to 2004. “For the first time in the history of polling, Catholics who are regular churchgoers shifted away from...

Monday, November 07, 2005 15:49 IST JNW HEADLINE NEWS 'Rejection of Israel fuels terror' By Ryan Jones November 6th, 2005 Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini suggested at the weekend that rejection of Israel's right to exist is the driving force behind Islamic terrorism against the Jewish state and Jews everywhere. “Not recognizing Israel's right to exist is an incentive for terrorism, because the moment you don't recognize a state's right to exist you don't recognize a people's right to exist,” Fini told the Milan daily Corriere della Sera. Fini was reacting to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent statement that Israel...

Liberals often lamented, during the election of 2004, that the presence of war gave a natural advantage to Republicans. For some unknown reason, most Americans do not trust Liberals to run a war, or treat the military well, or even put America’s international interests above pet social causes. The anti-war left responded to this belief with a set of standard talking points: Liberals oppose the war, but they support the troops. They hate the President’s policies, but they respect and honor the military and their sacrifice. Somebody, however, forgot to send the memo to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors,...

But Barnier expressed confidence that the French government could yet change voters ' minds despite new opinion polls confirming that most voters oppose the historic text, due to be put to the vote on May 29.                                   FRANCE WARNS NO PLAN B IF VOTERS REJECT EU CONSTITUTIONReceived Saturday, 16 April 2005 09:18:00 GMTLUXEMBOURG, April 16 (AFP) - French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier warned Saturday that Paris has no plan B if voters reject the EU constitution in a referendum next month, reiterating that a "no" would seriously weaken France.    But Barnier expressed confidence that the French government could yet change...

Managua, Jan 10 (EFE).- Nicaraguans overwhelmingly reject the new political accord between the Liberals and the Sandinistas to ratify the constitutional reforms they are pushing that reduce the president's power, according to a poll released Monday. The telephone survey by M&R Consultores, conducted Saturday among 620 people of both sexes aged 16-65 and published Monday in the daily La Prensa, shows that 77 percent of the public does not approve of the pact between the country's two largest political forces.

The New York Times may be one of the most anti-Israel newspapers this side of any Arab media. Thursday, December 30th the NYT front page is correctly filled with columns and photos showing the effects of the South Asian mega-disaster. But, just turn the page and there is an article more than a third of page 3 speaking about some antiquity forgers in Israel. However, the NYT hasn’t written a word about Israel’s generous offers of aid to the Muslim communities that were devastated in the Sunday, December 26th 9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunamis that washed away whole villages. The...

After the recent presidential election, American Liberals must be feeling a little ill. Not often does a nation so overwhelmingly reject out of hand an ideology. Nevertheless, make no mistake the results at the polls on November 2, 2004 were a complete rejection of the leftist mentality that the American political left would foist upon this great nation. To get the proper perspective on just how convincing the Republican victory was consider these facts. President George W. Bush received more votes than any presidential candidate has ever received, nearly 60 million of them, well over 3 million more than his...

Ivins writes: Do you know how to cure a chicken-killin' dog? Now, you know you cannot keep a dog that kills chickens, no matter how fine a dog it is otherwise. Some people think you cannot break a dog that has got in the habit of killin' chickens, but my friend John Henry always claimed you could. He said the way to do it is to take one of the chickens the dog has killed and wire the thing around the dog's neck, good and strong.

San Francisco voters rejected local sales and business tax increases, while two bond measures that would have raised property taxes to finance homeless and affordable housing development and preserve historic buildings failed to garner the two-thirds of the vote needed to pass, according to late election returns. Mayor Gavin Newsom had campaigned vigorously for the sales and business tax increases, calling them necessary to keep local government services intact.

NEW YORK - The city's decision to deny a permit to protesters for a rally on Central Park's Great Lawn on the weekend before the Republican National Convention is about preserving the lawn, not suppressing speech, lawyers for the city said in federal court Friday. The lawn would be ruined if 75,000 people gathered there for a rally on Aug. 28 and then 250,000 people used the lawn for another rally the next day, said Gail Donoghue, representing the city. "I think two is too many back to back. The lawn would have no time to recover," Donoghue told U.S....

Kerry Told to Speak Up, Shut Up About Religion Compiled by Ted Olsen | posted 06/22/2004 12:00 p.m. Kerry campaign muzzles religion outreach director as New York Times columnist urges religion talk David Brooks is supposedly The New York Times op-ed page's conservative columnist in a sea of more left-leaning writers. But in today's column, he notes, "Bush has had the worst year of any president since Nixon in 1973 or L.B.J. in 1968." So why isn't John Kerry dominating the polls? "One big reason," says Brooks, is that Kerry's campaign is too secular: Clinton seems to understand, as many...

Where Faith Flourishes While one should walk by faith in all of life, they are obvious times when it is activated more than others. Each person has his inner issues and outer issues in life. His inner issues involve such things as doubts, secret sins, feelings of rejection, worry, etc. Whereas, his outer issues tend to be much more visible and definitive, i.e., finances, health, family issues. I have long observed in my experience that the more tangible a circumstance is, the more taxing it is on my faith. It is much easier for me to dismiss the intangible issues...

THE UK Independence Party has won the support of one in five British voters in the European elections and is set to gain four times as many MEPs, senior party figures predicted last night. They forecast that the party, which wants to pull out of the European Union, has captured 20% of the vote, boosting their strength in the European parliament from three to at least 12 seats. The result would put it in third place just behind Labour, which is expected to poll only a few per cent more, and ahead of the Liberal Democrats. While the Tories are...

Opening Prayer Mary, my Mother, you were the first to live the Way of the Cross.You felt every pain and every humiliation. You were unafraid of the ridicule heaped upon you by the crowds. Your eyes were ever on Jesus and His Pain. Is that the secret of your miraculous strength? How did your loving heart bear such a burden and such a weight? As you watched Himstumble and fall, were you tortured by the memory of all the yesterdays-His birth, His hidden life and His ministry?You were so desirous of everyone loving Him. What a heartache it wasto see...

Genetically modified pig kidneys have survived long after being transplanted into baboons. Researchers hope that this early success may pave the way for animal-to-human organ transplants. The pigs used in the experiment were engineered to have human-friendly organs in 2002. They lack a key sugar molecule that normally prompts the human and monkey immune system to launch an aggressive and fatal attack on foreign tissues. Now David Sachs, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Cambridge, and his team have transplanted kidneys from the genetically modified pigs into eight baboons. The new organs enabled the animals to survive for up to 81...

<p>WASHINGTON — North Korea offered last week to scrap its long-range missile and nuclear weapons programs in return for fuel oil and other concessions, but an agreement with the Bush administration remains unlikely. "They did put forward a plan that would ultimately deal with their nuclear capability and their missile activities, but they of course expect something considerable in return," Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday.</p>

Rumsfeld's rejection of Islamic state angers Shias By Phil Reeves in Baghdad 26 April 2003 Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of State, will have won plaudits from his zealous friends by declaring that an "Iranian-style" Islamic government "is not going to happen" in Iraq. But his words fell on stony ground outside the al-Muhsen mosque in Baghdad yesterday. Members of the huge Shia crowd gathered for Friday prayers were quick to spot the contradiction in his position. "I thought the Americans said they wanted a democracy in Iraq," said Kassem al-Sa'adi, a 41-year-old merchant. "If it is a democracy, why...

  Protests May Say More About Protestors Than About What They Object To      COLLEGE STATION, March 26, 2003 - As the price of war continues to mount, both in lives and dollars, so too do the protests, but the act of protesting may say more about the protestors than it does about the subject they are demonstrating against, according to a study by Texas A&M University's Laboratory for Studies of Social Deviance.      Laboratory director Howard B. Kaplan says protesters may be attempting to reduce negative feelings about themselves that have been caused by repeated experiences of rejection and failure...

What happened to the posting seen earlier? Pulled? Assuming it was true, the address and direct dial telephone number of the motel is: RAMADA LIMITED, HELEN, GA 30545, (706) 878-1451 should anyone want to FReep them.

HILO - About 400 residents in the Pepeekeo area have signed a petition opposing C. Brewer Environmental Industries' proposal for a waste - to - energy plant in their backyard. At least that is what Pepeekeo Roy Skogstrom said Tuesday at a public hearing here on the draft addendum to the county's 1994 Integrated Solid Waste Management plan (ISWMP). Skogstrom said C. Brewer within the last year has conducted several public meetings in the Pepeekeo area, revealing its incinerator proposal would mean 250 tons of trash per day would trucked from Hilo to Pepeekeo, then 50 tons of ash generated...

The Archdiocese of Boston abruptly backed out of a settlement agreement with 86 people who have accused now-defrocked priest John Geoghan of child molestion,saying Friday that the deal would strip it of too many resources. Rejecting Cardinal Bernard Law's request to sign the deal, the archdicese's finance council refused to fund the agreement,estimated to be worth $15 million to $30 million.

Even top students feel the sting of rejection By Maureen Fitzgerald Inquirer Suburban StaffSince starting high school, Irina Belinsky has had her heart set on going to a great college.She earned a 3.98 grade point average in an all-honors program, 1,380 on her college boards, and a rank of third in her class of 370 at Cherry Hill High School West.Belinsky also threw herself into extracurricular activities, such as coordinating a holiday party for 800 handicapped children and starting a tutoring program in Camden.Yet she was rejected by Columbia University, her top choice, and by Tufts University. The University of...