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FORT LESLEY J. MCNAIR, D.C., Sept. 9, 2008 – The United States will continue to reduce its troop strength in Iraq, but will increase its footprint in Afghanistan, President Bush said here today. The president accepted the recommendations of military leaders to reduce U.S. troop levels in Iraq by 8,000 through January. If security conditions continue to improve in the country, further reductions will be possible, Bush said at the National Defense University. Bush also announced plans to deploy a Marine battalion to train Afghan National Army troops in November and to send an Army brigade to Afghanistan in January....

This is six minute video that will blow your mind! Link to Shift Happens

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10, 2008 – Documents released by U.S. military officials in Iraq detail the deterioration of al Qaeda in Iraq, as hundreds of its fighters have deserted to fight alongside the coalition or have been killed or captured. Navy Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith, a Multinational Force Iraq spokesman, briefed reporters today on a letter and a diary recovered in raids by coalition forces, both thought to be written by senior leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq. The documents are believed to have been written last year, and detail a shift in support as citizens who formerly supported al...

BAGHDAD - The abandoned apartment block known as the Pepsi building vanished in seconds, leaving a 30-foot-deep blast crater and a ring of destruction for a quarter mile in every direction through a shanty district in Mosul. Then on Thursday — even before the final death count was tallied — came more bloodshed: A suicide bomber killed a police chief and two other officers as they toured the devastation from the previous day. Residents with insurgent sympathies taunted the chief moments before the attack. Two deadly days have underscored what some U.S. military commanders fear is ahead for the northern...

CHARLESTON, S.C., Jan. 20 -- Three months ago, beauty shop owner Shanaya Hammond was a somewhat reluctant supporter of Sen. Barack Obama. A campaign aide persuaded her to put two Obama posters in the window of her Passion Slice salon and she planned to vote for him, but, she allowed, "I won't be mad if Hillary wins." No more. She is all in for Obama now, having been convinced after the senator from Illinois won the Iowa Democratic caucuses that America is ready to vote for a black man for president. "I was like, okay, it's happening for us," said...

Two new Rasmussen polls show movement in both the Republican and Democratic primaries. Fred Thompson has begun to ascend, but mostly at the expense of Mike Huckabee after his takedown of the Arkansas governor in the last debate. Hillary Clinton has eaten up half of Barack Obama's previous lead as well, with only eight days to go before the primary: Over the past several days, the only real movement in South Carolina’s Republican Presidential Primary has been a four-point gain for Fred Thompson and a five-point decline for Mike Huckabee. The big winner from that trade-off is John McCain. The...

DES MOINES, Iowa - Democrat Barack Obama cast himself Saturday as the leader the United States needs for it to stand up to and engage renegade nations such as North Korea. 'We need a president who'll have the strength and courage to go toe to toe with the leaders of rogue nations, because that's what it takes to protect our security," the Illinois senator told Democrats at a rally. "That's what I'll do as your next commander in chief." Obama and rival Hillary Rodham Clinton have had a running argument since clashing in last week's debate over how far the...

WASHINGTON - Republican and Democratic congressional leaders both forecast a change in President Bush's Iraq war policy as the president prepared to sign legislation Friday providing funds for military operations through Sept. 30. "I think the president's policy is going to begin to unravel now," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), who described the just-passed measure as a disappointment because it did not force an end to U.S. participation in the conflict. At a separate news conference, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (news, bio, voting record) predicted a change, and said Bush would show the way. "I...

With great fanfare, in March, Al Gore took Capitol Hill like a conquering hero as he testified on Global Warming before both houses of Congress. Fresh from conquests at the Academy Awards where his adoring Hollywood elites showered him with coveted golden statues for spreading their favorite propaganda, Gore was determined to turn his personal conquest into draconian federal law and ultimate human misery. Gore's words to Congress were predictable. The earth is warming. The polar ice caps are melting. Polar bears are on the run. And it's man's fault. Solution? Ban or control human activities. The mantra of the...

The petrodollar pipeline that recycles billions from oil producers back to the U.S. economy has turned crude-laden nations from Norway to Iran into the world’s biggest sources of global savings. These nations are also key sources of foreign demand for U.S. assets. Now new research predicts a trend that could affect the U.S. economy nearly as much as swings on crude exchanges: Oil producers might be looking to diversify how they spend and invest their cash. Such changes are worth watching — mainly because the flood of money generated for oil exporters by sustained high crude prices has become a...

OSLO (Reuters) - Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore predicted on Tuesday that President George W. Bush would shift to do more to fight global warming, under Republican pressure from California to New York. "I think there is a better than 50-50 chance that President Bush will change his policy in the next two years," Gore told an audience in Oslo after showing his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" about global warming during a tour of Europe. "Many of his strongest supporters are changing their positions and are becoming vocal in asking him to change," Gore told about 300 people including...

As the Senate prepares to consider anew the nomination of John Bolton as United Nations ambassador, Senators Schumer and Clinton are facing increasing pressure from pro-Israel groups to renounce another Democratic filibuster in light of the escalating war in the Middle East. The Foreign Relations Committee is set to hold a hearing on the nomination tomorrow, and several Democrats on the panel have voiced their unswerving opposition to Mr. Bolton's nomination. From New York's senators, however, there has been nothing but silence. Mr. Schumer and Mrs. Clinton voted to block Mr. Bolton's confirmation a year ago, but they have not...

WASHINGTON, July 24, 2006 – Commanders will shift U.S. forces in Iraq to deal with insurgent threats, but this does not mean more American troops will go into the country, nor that the announced rotation will change. Multinational Force Iraq commander Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. will shift forces already in Iraq to Baghdad, Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, said in an interview with New York Times reporter Michael Gordon. "There is a very serious effort to make sure that it is not just weighted with additional U.S. capability, but also additional Iraqi capability,"...

NEW YORK - An important wind circulation pattern over the Pacific Ocean has begun to weaken because of global warming caused by human activity, something that could alter climate and the marine food chain in the region, new research suggests. It's not clear what climate changes might arise in the area or possibly beyond, but the long-term effect might resemble some aspects of an El Nino event, a study author said. El Ninos boost rainfall in the southern United States and western South America and bring dry weather or even drought to Indonesia, Malaysia and elsewhere in the western Pacific....

Rice signals shift in Iran policy Rice says she wants to support the aspirations of Iranians The US secretary of state is seeking new funds for a policy aimed at putting pressure on Iran's government and promoting internal opposition to it. Condoleezza Rice asked Congress for $75m to increase TV and radio broadcasts and fund dissident groups. Correspondents say the move comes amid US fears that the world community will not countenance tough action over Iran's nuclear ambitions. Critics of the US plan say the funds are not enough to make a difference. Former Clinton administration official Martin Indyk told...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Earth's north magnetic pole is drifting from North America at such a clip that it could end up in Siberia in the next 50 years, scientists said Thursday. Despite accelerated movement over the past century, the possibility that Earth's fading magnetic field will collapse or that the magnetic poles will flip is remote. But the shift could mean that Alaska may no longer be able to see the high-altitude shimmering displays of colorful lights called the aurora borealis, or northern lights. Scientists have long known that magnetic poles migrate and in rare cases, swap places. But exactly

Will Schiff Shift? "To shift, or not to shift: that is the question." -- Schiffspeare Today Alabama Senator Richard Shelby (Republican) said he would be willing to give up some of his allotted Federal monies for pork projects in his state to help fund recovery efforts from Hurricane Katrina. Which raises the question whether California Congressman Adam Schiff (Democrat-29th District) would be willing to shift funds as well? Do you think Schiff should shift $500,000 from Children's Hospital cancer research to aid children's real-time medical needs in the Gulf? Should he shift $1 million for Griffith Park Observatory for "educational"...

ABORTION STAND HALTS CLINTON'S SHIFT TO MIDDLE By IAN BISHOP Post Correspondent May 6, 2005 -- WASHINGTON — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is putting the brakes on her move to the political middle by opposing legislation that would bar helping underage girls cross state lines for an abortion without their parents' consent. Clinton — despite preaching moderation in recent speeches — will toe the Democratic line in the Senate in an effort to block a GOP-backed bill that just passed the House and makes it illegal for anyone to help a girl get a secret out-of-state abortion. "I don't believe...

SACRAMENTO -- A day after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger expressed his willingness to postpone the start of new legislative districts, a major backer of his ballot measure blasted the governor Thursday for retreating from his earlier demand for swift change. Los Angeles businessman Bill Mundell said his committee has gathered 900,000 signatures to place the proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot, and added he is not interested in delaying its implementation past 2006. "We believed the governor when he told us that the timeline was non-negotiable," Mundell said in a prepared statement. "The people want redistricting reform now. The people have...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - A major shift in the century-old policy for suppressing the wildfire danger in Southern California's national forests could be coming this summer. Unchecked growth has left the region's woodlands dangerously overgrown and the new plans will be part legacy of 2003's deadly firestorms, part science and part popular opinion. U.S. Forest Service planners have worked three years on the new management guidelines and they are now poring over nearly 11,000 separate concerns contained in more than 3,000 letters and e-mails sent in response to an initial draft released last year. Plans for the San Bernardino, Cleveland, Los...

2 county officials make shift to GOP By Kurt Allen/Assistant Managing Editor When Robyn Flowers and Barbara Hale were trying to find their place in the world of politics, it was almost a given it would be the Democratic Party. Growing up in the South, Democrats ruled the region, and there was little thought given to being Republican. "I think probably, like most people my age, if you were born and raised in Texas, you've been a Democrat because that's what your family did," said Hale, Walker County's court-at-law judge. How the times do change. Now the South, and Texas...

Until the 18th century, there was basically only one kind of Judaism, that which is now called Orthodox. It meant living by the religion's 613 laws, and doing so suffused Jews' lives with their faith. Then, starting with the thinker Baruch Spinoza (1632-77) and moving briskly during the Haskala, or "enlightenment," from the late 18th century, Jews developed a wide variety of alternate interpretations of their religion, most of which diminished the role of faith in their lives and led to a concomitant reduction in Jewish affiliation.These alternatives and other developments, in particular the Holocaust, caused the ranks of the...

Throughout the 1990s, Turkish foreign policy analysts had an easy job. After all, Turkish foreign policy was predictable. Ankara cooperated enthusiastically with Washington, whether in the Middle East or in the Balkans. Turkey aligned itself with Israel and kept at arms length from Middle Eastern neighbors such as Syria and Iran. In Europe, Ankara traded heavily with the European Union (EU) but did not allow the EU to dictate foreign policy. The European Union's frequent allegations and criticism of human rights abuses in Turkey, especially with regard to Turkey's fight against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK, Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan) terrorists, soured...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Life After Daschle Will a 55-seat majority be enough to end Senate obstructionism? BY KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL Friday, November 5, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST The pressure builds on those red-state Senators up for election in 2006. Is New Mexico's Jeff Bingaman going to vote down a Miguel Estrada nomination, with a state home to the largest proportion of Hispanics in the country? Look too for Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Bill Nelson of Florida, and Kent Conrad of North Dakota to be heeding the Ghost of Daschle's Past. The GOP's best shot for leveraging this fear of home state voters is...

NEW YORK For the second day in a row, the Los Angeles Times and USA Today were the only newspaper sites to shift their electoral-college numbers in E&P's exclusive tracking of seven major newspaper Web sites with electoral-college maps. Sen. John Kerry lost votes on both sites. President Bush's vote count remained steady at USA Today and increased at the L.A. Times. Bush now has an average of 199 votes to Kerry's average 188 across the seven sites. At least 270 electoral votes are needed for election. The Los Angeles Times pushed Michigan's 17 electoral votes from Kerry to the...

In the past we became frustrated at Republicans when they tried too hard to make people like them by acting like liberals. Rush called it "trying to outliberal the liberals". But lately I have watched the Democrats, especially the 'Rats who have to run in tough races. The tone has shifted. The 'Rats are now trying to "out-conservative the conservatives"! We have seen about 30 states reverse their concealed carry policies to a more correct one of "shall issue". We have forced a liberal president to sign welfare reform. We have seen three tax cuts in three years. We have...

The "Inland Empire" region of Southern California - Riverside and San Bernardino counties - achieved a dubious distinction the other day. The Texas Transportation Institute elevated, if that's the word, the region into the list of the nation's five most traffic-congested areas - and it found itself in familiar company. The adjacent Los Angeles region (including portions of Orange and Ventura counties) retained its long-standing title as the nation's most congested, and the San Francisco Bay Area continued in its No. 2 ranking. Understanding California's dominance of the traffic jam sweepstakes doesn't take a degree in astrophysics. Simple arithmetic will...

US secret shift on West Bank attacked By Inigo Gilmore in Tel Aviv (Filed: 23/08/2004) Ahmed Qureia, the Palestinian prime minister, expressed alarm yesterday at an apparently secret shift in American policy after Washington indicated that it would accept the growth of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The move could "thwart and destroy" the "road map" peace plan and hopes of negotiations with Israel for a Palestinian state, he said. His comments followed reports in America and Israel that the Bush administration had modified its long-standing policy over the building of settlements in the West Bank to try to...

WASHINGTON - President Bush is to announce on Monday that the United States will withdraw up to 70,000 troops from Europe and Asia in the most significant rearrangement of the American military since the end of the Cold War, an administration official said Saturday.   Bush will also announce in a speech on Monday that the withdrawal will affect an additional 100,000 military support staff and family members, who will leave the regions as well.    Bush's plan, first reported by the Financial Times of London, comes at a time when the Army is stretched thin by large deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan,...

A physics professor will try to turn back time in an experiment at the Miami Museum of Science. It's back to the future all over again -- at least, that's what Carlos Dolz has in mind. The Florida International University physics professor plans to take time to task at 10 a.m. Wednesday, when he presents an experiment that involves using acceleration to speed up a digital clock by four seconds. Dolz's experiment -- which takes six hours to finish -- will become part of Playing With Time, the current exhibit at the Miami Museum of Science. Dolz, who has been...

Scientists Find Another Huge Mini-World in Outer Solar System The most distant object ever seen orbiting the Sun is nearly as large as Pluto, expanding astronomers notions of how the solar system formed and what resides in its outskirts. The round world is currently three times farther away than Pluto from the Sun, a distance that expands even further on its 10,000-year orbit. It sits in a part of the solar system that some astronomers had thought empty. It is redder and brighter than anything astronomers have seen in the outer solar system, and scientists don't know why. The object...

 As the author of these columns describing cutting edge physics and astronomy, I get quite a few letters and E-mail from readers who are more interested in ?over-the-edge physics and astronomy?.  One recurring theme is various alternatives to the standard model of Big Bang cosmology.  Perhaps the universe is not expanding; it?s just that light ?gets tired? on its path from far away and loses some of its energy.  Perhaps quasars are closer than we think, particularly since some of them appear to be linked to closer galaxies.  Perhaps relativity is wrong, and it?s the speed of light that is...

<p>WASHINGTON - The Bush Administration's push for wholesale change in U.S. nuclear weapons policy was put into motion Thursday, after the House Armed Services Committee passed a sweeping set of policies that move toward development and testing of nuclear weapons.</p>

In 1904, geographer Sir Halford John Mackinder unveiled his famous thesis entitled the "Geographical Pivot of History," in which he argued there existed a pivotal area "in the closed heart-land of Euro-Asia" that was isolated from sea power, and thus immune from the influences of oceanic states. In Mackinder's famous three-point summation: Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island commands the World. Mackinder envisioned a struggle between Germany and Russia for the "heartland," essentially dismissing the effects of sea power, which already had been touted by the...

Moon model: a superplume from inside the Moon when it was just 500 million years old might explain a lot - and not just about the Moon (Pic: University of California).  A mighty 'burp' early in the Moon's life may explain something that has puzzled scientists ever since Apollo astronauts brought back rock samples; why are there so many ancient magnetised rocks lying on the surface? Research published in the journal Nature this week from the University of California at Berkeley, in the United States, suggests that an expunged column of hot rock - like a blob rising to...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- The 1994 revolution that gave Republicans control of the House of Representatives produced a seismic shift in federal spending, moving tens of billions of dollars from Democratic to GOP districts, an Associated Press analysis shows.</p> <p>Rather than pork barrel projects for new GOP districts, the change was driven mostly by Republican policies that moved spending from poor rural and urban areas to the more affluent suburbs and GOP-leaning farm country, the computer analysis showed.</p>

Al Qeada appears to have shifted its strategy away from the United States and against Israel, a report said.The shift in Al Qaeda policy was first detected in April.Al Qaeda members have made intensive use of the Internet and launched electronic journals in response to criticism by Egypt that Saudi fugitive Osama Bin Laden has ignored the Palestinians.Focus on Al Qaeda-Many Al Qaeda relocating in North Africa: Algeria May Become New Base.Backgrounder Column: Ukraine Arrests Smuggler Attempting to Send Missile Guidance Components to IranPutin Orders Arms Sales SecretEgyptian Ministers Warns of New Al Qaeda AttacksTerror Alert in Nothern EuropePakistan Ready...

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea denied on Wednesday that it had invited former U.S. President Bill Clinton to visit the country to play a role in mediating with the United States and to cool rhetoric from Washington. A North Korean official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters on Monday that the North's leader Kim Jong-il had hoped Clinton could play a mediating role similar to one played by another former Democrat president, Jimmy Carter, who visited Pyongyang amid a nuclear crisis in 1994 to broker talks. In a statement issued a day after the United States confirmed that North...