Free Republic

WASHINGTON, Nov. 26, 2007 – The best way to confront Iran’s nuclear weapons program is through international diplomatic pressure, and military force should remain a last resort, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said today at Kansas State University. Gates told participants in the Landon Lecture series in Manhattan, Kan., he supports diplomatic pressure to get Iran to abandon its nuclear efforts. “We are engaged in diplomacy with Iran,” he said. “More importantly, we are engaged in diplomacy with a number of countries around the world and trying to secure their support for economic sanctions to bring pressure on the...

Source: University of Chicago Date: September 30, 2007 Doctors Learn To Control Their Own Brains' Pain Responses To Better Treat Patients Science Daily — Physicians apparently learn to "shut off" the portion of their brain that helps them appreciate the pain their patients experience while treating them and instead activate a portion of the brain connected with controlling emotions, according to new research using brain scans at the University of Chicago. Because doctors sometimes have to inflict pain on their patients as part of the healing process, they also must develop the ability to not be distracted by the suffering,...

LONDON - Gordon Brown doesn't do charisma. In contrast to Tony Blair, the new British leader has offered no emotive sound bites, no promises of tough new laws and no talk of a "war on terror" since the failed attacks in London and Glasgow. The stern Scot's few public statements have been somber, measured and brief. Many Britons welcome the change, saying the lower-key approach may better reassure a rattled nation and prevent racial tensions from exploding. "We need to be calm about it," said Duncan Walls, 64, a retired lawyer walking through a London on "critical" terror alert after...

Democratic Response of Senator Jim Webb To the President’s State of the Union Address **Exclusive** Tue Jan 23 2007 19:10:01 ET [EMBARGOED UNTIL 8:45pm ET] Good evening. I’m Senator Jim Webb, from Virginia, where this year we will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown – an event that marked the first step in the long journey that has made us the greatest and most prosperous nation on earth. It would not be possible in this short amount of time to actually rebut the President’s message, nor would it be useful. Let me simply say that we...

An Israeli Journalist's response to Pope Benedict regarding recent talk about Muhammad's Sword Muhammad's Sword: The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: How did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to "spread the faith by the sword"? For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece . Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or...

A West Point Cadet sends this along with the photo below: I'm a cadet at West Point, and tonight at our game against the Air Force Academy, a big sign emerged, and it was shown to the Corps of Cadets, who cheered wildly, and then shown to the Air Force cadets, who also cheered.

I was freeping here the other day and someone posted that ABC news was soliciting for more Foley emails. I went to the link and sure enough they where, so I sent them..... Hi, I was an intern and I had sex many times with a high ranking Government official, we used sex toys, we had phone sex many times, please contact me for details. This is the responce..... I'm the Senior Investigative Producer of the Brian Ross and your message was sent to me. I would be very interested in speaking with you. Please feel free to call me...

By now, nearly everybody who cares has probably seen former President Bill Clinton's -- let's say 'animated' -- response to 'Fox News Sunday' host Chris Wallace's questions about his administration's failed efforts to demolish al-Qaeda before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But Wallace himself hit on the key media bias question ... Trying to explain Clinton's hot reaction, Wallace said he read the transcripts of the ex-President's other media appearances in the last few days -- on NBC's 'Meet the Press,' CNN's 'Larry King Live,' FNC's 'On the Record with Greta van Susteren,' among other programs. Wallace said he was "astonished"...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Energy has released a plan to control greenhouse gas emissions by avoiding, reducing or capturing them. Government officials said The Climate Change Technology Program represents the technology component of a strategy introduced by U.S. President George Bush in 2002 to combat climate change that include measures to slow the growth of greenhouse gas emissions through voluntary, incentive-based and mandatory partnerships, advance climate change science, spur clean energy technology development and deployment and promote international collaboration. "The technologies outlined in the plan -- hydrogen, biorefining, clean coal, carbon sequestration, nuclear fission (!!)...

Unreasonable Response Benedict XVI hasn’t revived the Crusades. By Thomas F. Madden -------------------------------------------- In November 1095 Pope Urban II called the First Crusade. To judge from the comments issuing from some Muslim groups and politicians, Pope Benedict XVI has done the same thing. According to Salih Kapusuz, a deputy leader of the majority party in Turkey, Benedict, “has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle Ages. He is a poor thing that has not benefited from the spirit of reform in the Christian world.” Kapusuz maintains that the pope is engaged in “an effort to revive...

Can we organize, mobilize, FReeperize.

‘Strong Angel III’ Tests Military-Civil Disaster Response By Donna MilesAmerican Forces Press Service SAN DIEGO, Aug. 25, 2006 – More than 600 military members, Defense Department employees and contractors, first responders, nongovernmental organization representatives and technologists are here this week exploring better ways to coordinate their disaster response. Members of the Disaster Relief and Strategic Telecommunications Infrastructure Co. demonstrate their satellite equipment during Strong Angel III in San Diego, Aug. 24. Strong Angel, hosted by San Diego State University, is a disaster response demonstration and exercise involving various nongovernmental and commercial organizations as well as the U.S. armed forces....

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10, 2006 – American officials are on guard in light of arrests made in Great Britain overnight in connection with a terror plot targeting trans-Atlantic commercial flights, senior Defense Department officials said today. British authorities’ discovery of the terror plot has led to a ripple effect around the world. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his agency has raised the nation’s threat level to Severe, or Red, for commercial airline flights originating in the United Kingdom bound for the United States. This mirrors Great Britain’s precautions. “Consistent with these higher threat levels, the Transportation Security Administration is coordinating...

SACRAMENTO – For the first time, California has started to map an all-in-one strategy to safeguard an economically vital network of highways, railroads and energy supply lines crisscrossing the heart of the state. This post-Hurricane Katrina response broadens the state's initial list of priorities beyond levees and aqueducts to target overlooked lifelines centered in the Sacramento Delta that are just as vital to the state's fiscal well-being, from San Diego to Silicon Valley. A natural disaster in the delta could disrupt the delivery of goods and services along roads, rail lines and deep-water ports. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. facilities...

A speech, attributed to a Navy Captain from NAS Pensacola,details a number of warlike acts carried out against the US prior to 9/11.

WASHINGTON, July 14, 2006 – Coalition and Iraqi forces have killed or captured numerous terrorism suspects yesterday and today, and military officials praised the teamwork involved among responding forces after a coalition helicopter crashed yesterday. Coalition forces captured an al Qaeda in Iraq terrorist and two other suspects during a raid today near Baghdad, military officials reported. The targeted individual is reported to be an "Umar Brigade" member and recruiter with control of several terrorist fighting cells, officials said. The Umar Brigade is an al Qaeda-sponsored Iraqi insurgent group known to target Shiite Moslems and specifically intending to incite sectarian...

WASHINGTON, June 28, 2006 – Operation First Response, an organization dedicated to supporting the nation's wounded servicemembers and their families, got a little support of its own recently. The nonprofit group found itself on the receiving end of a $50,000 grant from the Military Order of the Purple Service Foundation in late May. Both organizations share a similar goal of helping veterans and wounded servicemembers, Dick Gallant, executive director of the foundation, said. "That's our only reason for being," he said. "If anybody doesn't have that reason, they shouldn't be in this field." The grant means a lot to...

6/6/2006 - LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFPN) -- Commanders at Wilford Hall Medical Center have approved a plan slated to improve medical responses to hurricane emergencies throughout the continental United States. The 59th Medical Wing’s Critical Care Air Transport Team Rapid Hurricane Response Plan was approved and adopted May 26. Hurricane season began June 1. “The newly designed program’s aim is to be forward-thinking and have people consider what could possibly happen in a hurricane prior to the event,” said Capt. Shaun Westphal, CCATT pilot unit nurse manager and creator of the response team program. “The program is slated...

WASHINGTON, May 24, 2006 – With hurricane season nearing, the Defense Department has tremendous assets to offer a civilian-led response to a major disaster, a top DoD official involved in the process told reporters here yesterday. "Those assets are ready for deployment, and ... we are better prepared than at any point in our nation's history to move that assistance as rapidly as is humanly possible," Paul McHale, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, said. DoD defense coordinating officers will be assigned full-time to each of the 10 Federal Emergency Management Agency's regional offices to ensure coordinated planning and operational...

WASHINGTON, May 17, 2006 – A full-scale bio-exercise in the Pentagon parking lot today tested how the Pentagon police, in partnership with local emergency services, would respond to a biological attack at the military headquarters. Red Cross volunteers, acting as potentially anthrax-exposed Pentagon employees, remove their "contaminated" clothing before being "decontaminated" during Gallant Fox 06 May 17 in a Pentagon parking lot. The exercise tested the response of Pentagon police and local and federal agencies to a biological attack at the Pentagon. Photo by Sgt. Sara Wood, USA  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The Pentagon Force Protection Agency,...