Free Republic

Federal Reserve officials agreed to shrink the central bank’s balance sheet by a maximum of $95 billion each month, minutes from the March meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee revealed on Wednesday. Fed officials in March hiked the target for overnight lending and the interest paid on reserves by a quarter of a percentage point, to a range of 0.25 to 0.5 percent. The minutes released Wednesday revealed previously undisclosed details about the Fed’s plans to shrink its enormous stockpile of bond holdings.

Thick Ice Sheets: How Old Are They Really? by Jake Hebert, Ph.D. * Secular scientists claim that ice in deep cores extracted from the thick Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets is hundreds of thousands of years old. Do these ice cores prove an old earth? Although these scientists believe the ice sheets to be millions of years old, vast amounts of time are not necessarily required for their formation. “Back of the envelope” calculations show that if current average snowfall rates have always been the norm, then the Greenland ice sheet could form in about 5,000 years and the Antarctic...

The Iranian parliament’s nuclear committee has released a fact sheet regarding the framework agreement reached in Lausanne over its nuclear program, and it differs significantly from a previous US version. The US released its fact sheet after Washington and other major powers reached a framework agreement with Iran on April 2 on curbing the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, which is supposed to lead to a final deal by June 30. “The [Iranian] fact sheet urges operation of 10,000 centrifuge machines at Natanz and Fordow, a maximum five-year-long duration for the deal and for Iran’s nuclear limitations, [and] replacement of the...

The shooting happened just before midnight Tuesday at a home on Antha near Bertwood in North Houston. Homicide detectives were investigating the case Wednesday. They confiscated several guns in the man's home. The elderly man said he let the victim inside his home before this time he feared for his life. If you sit down with Jack Hands, you'll hear plenty of stories that span over his 91 years. This story, however, is one he never thought he'd tell police. Hands shot and killed a man inside his home Tuesday night. "That's where he fell and I stood right here,"...

WASHINGTON, April 29, 2009 – People who are interested in learning more about the Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review process can do so by just accessing the QDR fact sheet that was posted today on Defenselink, the Pentagon’s public-internet web page. To access the fact sheet, simply select the “press advisories” button located in the left column of the page, or click on the web link attached below. “The QDR takes a long-term, strategic view of the Department of Defense and will explore ways to balance achieving success in current conflicts with preparing for long-term challenges,” Deputy Defense Secretary...

After a day of campaigning in Virginia, Barack Obama is overnighting in Richmond tonight as the guest of Gov. Tim Kaine, Politico has learned from Old Dominion sources.

I often find myself in discussions with Obama supporters in which I need to know Obama's policy positions. So, I've listed some of them here along with websites where you can get more information, in case you find yourself in the same situation.. I've tried to list positions I know many Freepers would disagree with. I know some of us agree with some of these, that's inevitable. (There are many goals I agree with, I just don't think government is responsible for getting us there.) I also know I've missed a lot - Obama is often quite vague on policy,...

Followers of the weekly Geopic will know that Iceland has quite a few picturesque waterfalls. But this one just makes my eyes widen a bit. Two pictures for demonstration. The first is a reduced-size desktop; click for full size. I guess they won't mind advertising.

California Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez has quit the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, accusing its chairman, fellow Democrat Joe Baca, of calling her a "whore.” Sanchez was insulted when she found out that Baca had made the disparaging remark about her to California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and other lawmakers last year, Rep. Sanchez told The Politico. Nunez "is a friend of mine,” an angry Sanchez said. "Did he think he wouldn’t tell me?” Sanchez also cited concerns regarding the legality of Baca’s election to the chairman post in November, and about his attitude toward female legislators. Earlier this month, four female lawmakers...

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Glacial earthquakes rock Greenland ice sheet 12:36 24 March 2006 NewScientist.com news service Jeff Hecht A rapid increase in “glacial earthquakes” – caused by sudden large movements of glaciers – over the past few years indicates that warmer temperatures will destroy the Greenland ice sheet faster than expected, a new study warns. Surface meltwater is not dribbling away, as if from a giant ice block melting slowly, but is seeping through cracks to the bottom of the glacier. Once there it forms a layer that "helps lift the glacier up from the rock" so it flows faster to the sea,...

Tiny amounts of salt and dust trapped in the Antarctic ice sheet for the last 740,000 years shed new light on changes to the Earth's climate. The results, published this week in the journal Nature, come from the team who extracted a 3 km long ice core from Dome C, high on East Antarctica's plateau - the oldest continuous climate record obtained from ice cores so far. Since reporting in 2004 that the Earth experienced eight climate cycles (each consisting of an ice age and warm period) the team have been analysing the chemical impurities in the cores to unravel...

Today, President Bush Addressed Members Of The Veterans Of Foreign Wars On Progress On Our Strategy For Victory In Iraq. The President discussed the political, security, and economic elements of the strategy for victory in the central front of the War on Terror, what has been achieved, the challenges faced at the start of 2006, and what the American people can expect to see in the year ahead. The Political Component Of Victory In Iraq: In The Past 12 Months, Iraq Has Undergone A Political Transformation That Is Virtually Without Precedent. Iraqis have completed three successful nationwide elections, voted for...

BLURRY snaps could be a thing of the past with the development of a digital camera that refocuses photos after they have been taken. The camera could be useful for action shots taken by sports photographers or for CCTV surveillance cameras, which often produce fuzzy shots due to poor lighting. In an ordinary digital camera, a sensor behind the lens records the light level that hits each pixel on its surface. If the light rays reaching the sensor are not in focus, the image will appear blurry. Now, Pat Hanrahan and his team at Stanford University have figured out how...

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<p>We will look at them and with a friendly voice ask, 'Well, where have you guys been?"</p>

Glenn’s outline on how to explain the upcoming Iraqi war to all the pinheads! 1. We should send more inspectors! - Analogize it to your kid caught smoking weed, who denies everything and is defensive and accusatory. At what point do you actually punish the child for smoking weed? Do you just keep hiring babysitters ad nauseam to watch over him? At some point you have to lay down the law and Mean What You Say. 2. There is always time for war: this should be a time for peace and we need more time. - 12 years is...