Free Republic

GRyan re-nominated for Nobel Peace Prize Thursday, January 29, 2004 By The Leader-Champaign/Urbana Bureau CHAMPAIGN -- Last week, former Governor George Ryan was re-nominated for Nobel Peace Prize by Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law and Human Rights at the University of Illinois. "During the past year George Ryan has attempted to generate a wave of opposition to the death penalty all over the world. George Ryan has done more effective work against the death penalty than all of us American Abolitionists put together," Boyle said this week. "For these reasons I believe that George Ryan has, in the words...

Star Trek legend Nichelle Nichols suffered a mild stroke last night at her home in Los Angeles, according to a statement on her official Facebook page. "She is currently undergoing testing to determine how severe the stroke was," the statement read. "Please keep her in your thoughts." Nichols, who is 82 years old, earned her place in both Star Trek and entertainment history with her portrayal of Uhura in Star Trek: The Original Series and the six TOS feature films. She's also been a constant, joyous presence at Star Trek and sci-fi conventions all over the world. Additionally, Nichols achieved...

Voiceover by Luke Skywalker? Cameo by gray-haired Han Solo? Another cameo by the black Stormtrooper? Not gonna lie. I plotzed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngElkyQ6Rhs

The fifth season of HBO’s Game of Thrones is upon us. Winter is still coming. Millions will tune in for more of Tyrion’s witty ripostes and for some more smoldering romance between Jon Snow and his Wildling paramour Ygritte. Wait, Ygritte is still alive, right? Honestly there’s been so much carnage on this show I don’t even remember. What ever happened to that hunk who befriended Arya? Didn’t Bran have a younger brother? Where did we leave off on the Hound, exactly? Test your knowledge with this quiz.

“Game of Thrones” is returning for its fifth season on Sunday, you might have heard, riding a wave of the kind of intense anticipation usually reserved for royal offspring and new Apple products. Potential snag: It’s been 10 months since the last episode and this story is complicated, overstuffed with oddly named characters and labyrinthine alliances that shift from week to week. So below, in the name of service journalism, we offer a primer on where things currently stand with most of the show’s major characters. Tyrion Lannister Last seen: Crated in King’s Landing. A lifetime of cruelty from his...

This is the era in which we are all being drafted in the Culture War. It doesn’t matter if you’re secular or religious, political or apolitical, frat boys or geeks, hipsters or bros. Nobody gets to be neutral or sit on the sidelines, because we’ll all be expected to make our obeisance to the latest politically correct opinion handed down to us by a Twitter mob. By now, we know the basic ingredients of a typical skirmish in Culture War 4.0. It goes something like this: a) a leftist claque starts loudly pushing the “correct” Culture War position onto b)...

Dear Colleagues, When we helped to form the Space Exploration Alliance it was with great excitement that at last the various citizen and constituency groups for space were coming together to support the opening of space to humanity. Our enthusiasm was centered on our shared belief that the president's policy announced for NASA in early 2004 was an exciting and bold vision that could be used to transform and energize our national space efforts – producing, after some 30 years of stagnation and dead ends, a new goal-oriented direction for our space agency – which would "extend a human presence...