Free Republic

Given California's infinite diversity and its maddeningly diffused governmental apparatus, it's rare for the state's politicians to undertake a comprehensive and expansive change of public policy. The decades-long stalemate on water, the state's perpetual budget crisis and the failure of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's health care plan are merely three examples of the political system's chronic inability to act decisively and effectively. And even on those rare occasions when major new policies are adopted, they tend to fall well short of their purported benefits, a sterling example being the unanimous approval of electric energy "deregulation" in 1996 that became a colossal...

Three walks a week 'cuts heart risk' By Nic Fleming, Medical Correspondent Last Updated: 1:26am BST 15/08/2007 Walking for just 30 minutes three times a week can lower blood pressure and heart disease risk, scientists say. Guidelines from the Chief Medical Officer suggest adults do moderately intense exercise five times a week. However, researchers found that those who take three brisk walks a week had reduced waist and hip circumference and lower blood pressure. The authors of the study, published yesterday in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, said their findings could help those with sedentary lifestyles take up...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12, 2007 – Air travel is still the safest way to transport troops and supplies in Iraq, despite the recent rash of downed helicopter incidents, a top official there said yesterday. Six helicopters have either been shot down or crashed since Jan. 20, Army Maj. Gen. James E. Simmons, deputy commanding general for support for Multinational Corps Iraq, said. In the past three weeks, two Army UH-60 Black Hawks and two AH-64 Apaches have been shot down, killing 16 soldiers, he said. A Marine CH-46 Sea Knight went down outside Baghdad on Feb. 7, killing all seven...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 2007 – Military personnel going to Iraq or Afghanistan are trained, equipped and ready to do their jobs, but there is more to defending the United States and its interests than counterinsurgency operations, the nation’s top military officer said today. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Peter Pace listens to comments made by the members of the House Armed Services Committee Feb. 7. Photo by Staff Sgt. D. Myles Cullen, USAF  '(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services...

Mom, dad risk arrest if child misbehaves Monday, January 15, 2007 By RENA HAVNER Staff Reporter Bayou La Batre parents can now be arrested and fined $100 if their children misbehave in school or have excessive unexcused absences, according to a recently passed city ordinance. State education officials say Bayou La Batre is the only municipality in Alabama to have such a policy. To that, Bayou La Batre Mayor Stan Wright said: "Shame on all the other cities."In Bayou La Batre, if a student "comes to school and continues to beat the other children up, curses the teacher, mistreats his...

Abe risks China fury over war comments By Colin Joyce in Tokyo (Filed: 07/10/2006) The new prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, risked outrage yesterday when he stated that Japanese war criminals were not guilty under domestic law and should have been pardoned when Tokyo regained self-government. Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe: revisionist Mr Abe's comments were a direct reference to 28 Japanese "Class A" Second World War criminals at the trial staged by the Americans in Tokyo from 1946 to 1948. They were deemed to bear the most responsibility for starting the war in the Pacific and for atrocities....

Italy Weighs the Risks of Leading UN Mission Tony Barber in Rome Updated: 10:41 p.m. ET Aug. 24, 2006 With 8,600 soldiers deployed in 28 security and peacekeeping operations around the world, Italy will have a wealth of experience to call upon, should it be asked to lead a United Nations mission in Lebanon.But the closer that Italy's centre-left government gets to committing itself in Lebanon, the more opposition politicians – and some army generals, too – are warning that it may be a step fraught with dangerous consequences. The concerns centre on whether Italian troops will find themselves caught...

Biotech company executives in the Bay Area met Tuesday to begin working with California's sputtering stem-cell research institute, which was jump-started last week by the $150 million boost it got from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. ``I feel we are at a very important point in history here,'' said Michael West, chairman and chief scientific officer of Advanced Cell Technology of Alameda. He added that it was essential ``do do everything we possibly can to see that money is well spent.'' Still, the executives who met in San Francisco with officials at the stem-cell institute, created in 2004 when California voters passed...

U.S. Marine Corps 1st Lt. Rick Posselt Lieutenant Risks Life to Save Another in Iraq By Sgt. Roe F. SeigleRegimental Combat Team 7 HADITHA, Iraq, June 27, 2006 — Marines here say a lieutenant who was leading Marines and Iraqi soldiers through the volatile streets of Haditha, Iraq, June 14, showed uncommon valor when he ran into a barrage of enemy gunfire to pull a wounded Marine to safety. 1st Lt. Rick Posselt, a 25-year-old from Crystal River, Fla., said he is not the Marine who deserves the recognition. Cpl. Michael Estrella, who was killed by sniper fire during...

Hamas risks Israeli action by making 'rocket man' security chief By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem (Filed: 21/04/2006) Hamas defied the international community and risked provoking a violent response from Israel yesterday when it appointed a notorious militant as Palestinian security chief. Jamal Abu Samhadana, who is responsible for a continuing wave of rocket attacks on Israel, will occupy a new position overseeing the dozen or so police forces and security services operating in the Palestinian territories. The Islamic organisation stated its determination to bring order to "end the security chaos", but it is hard to imagine a move more inflammatory...

Cat bird flu risks 'overlooked' Cats who eat infected chickens can contract the deadly H5N1 virus It is vital to restrict the spread of bird flu in cats in order to protect human health, scientists warn. Writing in Nature, scientists from Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, say the risk is being overlooked. They say cats can contract the virus by eating infected chicken or through close contact with other cats - both new ways of mammals becoming infected. However, animal health experts said there was a "limited risk" to humans from infected mammals with H5N1 flu. The first report of domestic...

Former top judge says US risks edging near to dictatorship · Sandra Day O'Connor warns of rightwing attacks · Lawyers 'must speak up' to protect judiciary Julian Borger in Washington Monday March 13, 2006 The Guardian (UK) Sandra Day O'Connor, a Republican-appointed judge who retired last month after 24 years on the supreme court, has said the US is in danger of edging towards dictatorship if the party's rightwingers continue to attack the judiciary. In a strongly worded speech at Georgetown University, reported by National Public Radio and the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, Ms O'Connor took aim at Republican leaders...

Straw risks US fury over 'gulag' Guantanamo By George Jones (Filed: 22/02/2006) The confusion within the Government over Britain's attitude to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp deepened yesterday when Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, compared it to a Soviet-style "gulag". It was the most critical description yet by a member of the Cabinet of the camp where terrorist suspects are held indefinitely by the United States authorities. Jack Straw: comments are likely to anger the US Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, called last week for its closure, but Tony Blair said only that it was an "anomaly" which would...

CAMP AL ASAD, Iraq (Jan. 9, 2006) -- Retired Marine Maj. Gene Duncan once defined Navy hospital corpsmen as, “Usually a young, long haired, bearded, Marine-hatin' Sailor with certain medical skills, who will go through the very gates of Hell to get to a wounded Marine.” Though “long haired” is open to subjective interpretation, beards have officially gone the way of bell-bottomed dungarees in the Navy and levels of disdain for their brothers in green vary from Sailor to Sailor, most Marines and corpsmen find a level of truth in Duncan’s definition. Take, for example, Petty Officer 3rd Class William...

1. An inability to figure out what sexually dimorphic species implys. 2. Obsession with perverted sexual behavior. 3. Ask yourself why every homosexual posting to this site turns virtually every subject thread to homosexual behavior discussions, homosexuals are victims, help homosexuals fight "bigotry." 4. Claiming that the Will and Grace show is what the homosexual lifestyle is all about. 5. Ah, AIDS is a disease associated primarily with aberrant behavior. 6. A million cases of AIDS in U.S. and they haven't seem to figure out why?? 7. The placement of one's sex organs in another same sex's excretory routes. 8....

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's clemency review this week to determine whether to execute Crips gang co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams could influence the governor's ability to rebound from political setbacks. Convicted of four brutal killings a quarter century ago, Williams has generated a big public campaign calling for clemency because of his anti-gang books aimed at inner-city youth. The Republican governor will hear from prosecutors and defense attorneys at the clemency hearing behind closed doors on Thursday. He will only have a few days if he wants to halt the December 13 execution by lethal injection at...

Two weeks before a man being taken into custody by Santa Rosa police died of drug-induced delirium, the manufacturer of the Taser stun gun issued a bulletin warning law enforcement that people with that condition were at risk from repeated or prolonged shocking. Santa Rosa police, however, said information in the bulletin, issued June 28 by Taser International of Scottsdale, Ariz., wasn't anything new. "That information is in our training," said Sgt. Clay Van Artsdalen, Santa Rosa's training officer. "There is nothing new in the bulletin." Police used Tasers, as well as pepper spray and a neck restraint, to subdue...

Burma rebuilding risks Pagan jewel By Andrew Harding BBC News, Burma Pagan's temples are one of Asia's most important cultural sites The sunsets are still spectacular - a golden glow brushing the curves of 2,000 ancient temples and pagodas clustered on the edge of the Irrawaddy River in central Burma. But today some of the world's leading experts have accused Burma's military regime of waging "archaeological blitzkrieg" against the legendary Buddhist treasures of Pagan. "They're ruining it," said Richard Engelhardt, regional advisor for the UN's cultural arm, Unesco. "It makes me feel hopeless and helpless and angry and disappointed," he...

Having an abortion almost doubles a woman's risk of giving birth dangerously early in a later pregnancy, according to research that will provoke fresh debate over the most controversial of all medical procedures. A French study of 2,837 births - the first to investigate the link between terminations and extremely premature births - found that mothers who had previously had an abortion were 1.7 times more likely to give birth to a baby at less than 28 weeks' gestation. Many babies born this early die soon after birth, and a large number who survive suffer serious disability. Peter Bowen-Simpkins: 'termination...

"The Greatest Century That Ever Was: 25 Miraculous Trends of the Past 100 Years" is the appropriate title of a 1999 article authored by Stephen Moore and the late Julian L. Simon and published by the Washington-based Cato Institute. Let's highlight some of the phenomenal progress Americans made during the 20th century. During that century, life expectancy rose from 47 to 77 years of age. Deaths from infectious diseases fell from 700 to 50 per 100,000 of the population. Major killer diseases such as tuberculosis, polio, typhoid fever and whooping cough were virtually eliminated. Infant mortality plummeted. The 20th century...

I believe I may be the only person in America who isn’t for or against President Bush’s proposal to save Social Security. Unlike everybody else who seems positive that it is either brilliant and benevolent or stupid and evil, I really don’t have an opinion. As a result, I’m highly suspicious of everyone who claims to have a real handle on the pluses and minuses of his proposal. I mean, facts are facts, and an awful lot of you watch “The Fear Factor” and voted for Kerry and Edwards. Why on earth would I believe you when it’s about something...

SPACE CENTER, Houston - After a two-year struggle to keep big chunks of foam from coming off the shuttle fuel tank during launch, NASA acknowledged Tuesday even marshmallow-size pieces could doom the spacecraft under the worst circumstances. Shuttle systems engineering manager John Muratore said it is a risk NASA and the nation must accept for flights to resume anytime soon. It would take years and a total redesign of the fuel tank to completely eliminate foam loss and to ensure the 2003 Columbia tragedy would never be repeated, Muratore and other officials said. NASA expects pieces of insulating foam no...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Could Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have another "woman problem" on his hands? He has made headlines in recent months by deriding political opponents as "girlie men" and publicly ridiculing a group of nurses at a state women's conference. His latest effort to paint the state's teachers as little more than a balky special interest group has angered many critics, who have begun to question why constituencies dominated by women have been singled out for such tough talk. "He behaves like an arrogant patriarch with respect to women's occupations," said Rose Ann De Moro, executive director of the...

Next week marks the thirty-eighth anniversary of the launch pad fire of Apollo 1, which took the lives of Astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee. In a grim irony, that same week also marks the nineteenth anniversary of the Challenger disaster, as well as the second anniversary of the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia. Though memorials are certainly in order, a closer examination of the nature and cause of each catastrophe reveals much about the nation throughout the past four decades. Particularly in the wake of the Columbia tragedy and its ensuing investigations, disturbing trends in NASA...

Social Security: The Real Risks By Peter Ferrara on 10/20/2004 This op/ed was originally published in the New York Post. John Kerry's bitter denunciations of President Bush over Social Security are craven, opportunistic and false. Worse yet, Kerry's approach to the program's crisis risks disaster. Kerry charges that Bush secretly plans to cut benefits or hike Social Security taxes to fund his "scheme" to privatize the program. In fact, Bush has spelled out seven principles of reform, including no tax hikes or benefit cuts. Kerry's claim that Bush's plan will cost trillions is another canard. Consider just one plan —...

Case 41: FAA Unlawful Racial Quotas '04 The case is officially known as "Michael C. Ryan vs. Norman Y. Mineta" Civil Action No. 99-4128 (Mineta is named in this action in his official capacity as administrator of the U.S. Dept. of Transportation) The FAA's discrimination against Mr. Ryan pitted merit promotion principles against the FAA's illegal racial quota hiring program. It took Mr. Ryan over nine years of hearings and litigation to win his right to equal treatment under the law without regard to his skin color. (1) Overview [Adversity.Net Report Oct. 12, 2004] -- Michael C. Ryan is a...

NEW YORK (AP) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has much to offer President Bush and the GOP when he appears at this week's Republican convention, from unmatched star power to moderate politics that appeals to voters outside the Republican base. Schwarzenegger also stands to gain some political gravitas and a debt of gratitude from the party that could pay dividends for California. But there are risks on both sides. Schwarzenegger could tarnish his bipartisan image by aligning himself with a president and party that are unpopular in his home state, while Bush risks getting overshadowed by a one-of-a-kind star who...

SACRAMENTO - Despite rosy talk of shared sacrifice and bipartisanship, the budget accord struck by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders could augur gloomier budget negotiations in coming years. The tentative $105.3 billion deal reached late Monday still awaits legislative approval later this week. In many ways, it resembles the revised spending plan Schwarzenegger proposed in May, a pastiche of borrowing, one-time fixes and side deals that come with future IOUs. As budget negotiators spent weeks tinkering with two laws and creating new fiscal protections for cities and counties, critics contend they neglected a far more troublesome issue: California's penchant...

WASHINGTON – Over the years, presidential downtime has fleshed out the image of the man - whether it be clearing brush (Reagan and Bush II) or speed-boating (Bush I) or hunting (Teddy Roosevelt). All presidents need to show the public they're not captured by work, and that they know how to recharge their batteries. But what about presidential- candidate downtime? As Democratic standard-bearer John Kerry relaxes at his home in Ketchum, Idaho, there's a calculation at work that he can vanish from public view for five days without the Bush campaign filling the void with the definitive (read: negative) take...

THE CASE FOR ARTICLE TWO, SECTION ONE by Timothy Rollins, Editor and Publisher February 24, 2004 Sunday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) was making the rounds on the talk-show circuit. Schwarzenegger is in the nation's capital with his fellow governors to meet with one of their own - President Bush - for their winter meetings with him. During the course of his discussion with Tim Russert of NBC's "Meet the Press", the Governator opined that anyone who has been a United States Citizen for at least 20 years should be eligible to run for the nation's highest office. A proposed constitutional...

<p>California taxpayers pay their legislators about $125,000 per year in salary and living expenses, yet more than 30 lawmakers own businesses or hold part-time jobs on the side, state financial disclosure records show.</p> <p>Roughly one of every four legislators earns outside income -- and nine members make as much or more money outside the Capitol as in it.</p>

<p>The Alameda County coroner's office is investigating the case of an 18- year-old East Bay woman who died Wednesday, days after reportedly taking the abortion pill RU-486.</p> <p>The victim's father told The Chronicle that his 18-year-old daughter had gotten a prescription for RU-486 at a Planned Parenthood office in Hayward on Sept. 10 to end her seven-week pregnancy.</p>

One of the reasons the North won the Civil War is that President Lincoln was willing to sack incompetent generals and President Davis was not. Some recent remarks by the American commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, suggest that it is time for President Bush to emulate Mr. Lincoln. According to the Sept. 7 Cleveland Plain Dealer, during Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's recent visit to Iraq, General Sanchez said, "There is no risk at the tactical, operational or strategic level... A platoon out of any one of my battalions could defeat the threat, readily." The first of these statements...

Damage: Tongue and lip piercings can increase the risk of gum disease, infections and tooth loss, researchers say. People who jab gold studs through their lips and pierce their tongues with silver bars aren't usual eager to hear a learned discourse on gum disease. But Dr. John K. Brooks tries anyway: Oral jewelry, he tells them, can cost you a tooth. "The patients I've been successful with are the ones that had pain and infection. They're much more ready to be convinced," the Mount Airy dentist says. Brooks and two colleagues at the University of Maryland Dental School say there...

The prestigious Journal of the American Public Health Association has devoted a substantial portion of its latest edition (AJPH -- Table of Contents (June 1 2003, 93 [6]).) to the risks associated with homosexual practices. The following statement is one of several that glare at readers from the journal's cover: "I gave my lover everything including HIV. I didn't mean to. We made a mistake. Maybe deep down we felt it would be better if we both had it..."The journal contents read like a litany of bad news, one article following another. Consider the following: Mary E. Northbridge, Ph.D., MPH,...

<p>California's reliance on borrowing to help pay its bills in the short term and fill an unprecedented deficit in the long term amounts to "the financial equivalent of a high-wire act," according to a letter to state finance officials from an influential Wall Street investment firm.</p>

Too Much Coffee During Pregnancy Risks Stillbirth Study: 8 Cups Daily Raises Risk By 300 Percent POSTED: 12:34 p.m. EST February 21, 2003 If you didn't think drinking coffee during pregnancy was dangerous before, a new study may change your mind. Pregnant women who drink eight or more cups of coffee a day run more than twice the risk of stillbirth compared with women who do not drink coffee, according to a study published in this week's issue of the British Medical Journal. Researchers in Denmark identified 18,478 pregnant women booking for delivery at Aarhus University Hospital from 1989 and...

Senior Bush administration officials are for the first time openly discussing a subject they have sidestepped during the buildup of forces around Iraq: what could go wrong, and not only during an attack but also in the aftermath of an invasion. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has a four- to five-page, typewritten catalog of risks that senior aides say he keeps in his desk drawer. He refers to it constantly, updating it with his own ideas and suggestions from senior military commanders, and discussing it with President Bush. His list includes a "concern about Saddam Hussein using weapons of...

(WASHINGTON) Senior Bush administration officials are for the first time openly discussing a subject they have sidestepped during the massive buildup of forces around Iraq: what could go wrong not only during an attack, but especially in the aftermath of an invasion. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has a four-to-five-page typewritten catalog of risks he keeps in his desk drawer. He refers to it constantly, updates it regularly and has incorporated suggestions from senior military commanders into it and discussed it with President George W. Bush. The list includes a "concern about Saddam Hussein using weapons of mass destruction against his...

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration should tell health workers being offered the smallpox vaccine that it carries real risks and they are likely to receive only minimal compensation if they are injured, scientific experts said today. "The committee suggests explicitly stating that the benefit of the vaccination program is to increase the nation's public health preparedness, but that the benefit of vaccination to any one individual might be very low," the panel reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The panel, convened by the Institute of Medicine, also urged the White House to analyze the first round of...

Viagra can promote blood clots and may be dangerous for people already at risk of heart disease and stroke, researchers said yesterday. The findings could explain incidents of fatal cardiovascular disease in a small number of men taking the drug, they said. However, because the study was carried out on blood cells in a test-tube rather than in people, others urged caution. Pfizer, the company that makes Viagra, said there was no evidence that the drug, taken by 20 million men worldwide, increased the risk of heart disease or stroke. Viagra was originally developed as a treatment for angina. It...

Friday, 4 October, 2002, 10:02 GMT 11:02 UK Doctors warn of bioterrorism risks Doctors warn getting hold of anthrax is 'not that difficult' Doctors are warning about the dangers of bioterror attacks. At a meeting of the World Medical Association in Washington, US, they are warning that health officials need to be on their guard against such an attack - and say terrorists could get hold of biological weapons quite easily. Professor Donald Henderson, senior advisor on bioterrorism to the US government, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "At the top of the list is smallpox, followed by anthrax, by...

Abortion Increases Women's Mortality Rate Springfield, IL -- A study published in the latest issue of the Southern Medical Journal reveals that women who have abortions are at significantly higher risk of death than women who give birth. This finding contradicts the widely accepted opinion that abortion is safer than childbirth. Researchers examined death records linked to Medi-Cal payments for births and abortions for approximately 173,000 low income Californian women. They discovered that women who had abortions were almost twice as likely to die in the following two years and that the elevated mortality rate of aborting women persisted over...

Why the Buzz on Hammer Just Won't QuitJust in case you haven't been paying attention, AMD's upcoming 8th generation processor has been generating a steady buzz of discussion almost since the first of the year.  This has led to an occasional outburst of exasperation from editors at various websites, some of whom have complained the web community in general is too focused upon Hammer.  Hammer is, their argument goes, an unproven product with a distant and uncertain launch date, and should not be focused on so heavily.  It's also been suggested by some that much of the Hammer hype itself...