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Supreme Court: Forget unconvincing liberal demands that Clarence Thomas recuse himself from the ObamaCare case because his wife is a Tea Partyer. Ex-Obama operative Elena Kagan has a true conflict. To buttress the flimsy case of leftist groups like Common Cause that he step down from judging whether ObamaCare is unconstitutional, 20 House Democrats last week called for an investigation into Justice Thomas' not filling out financial disclosure forms to their satisfaction regarding his wife's political activities. Ginni Thomas' pro-limited government activist group Liberty Central has indeed gone after ObamaCare. But as Mrs. Thomas pointed out last year, there are...

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, goes on Fox News to discuss the ongoing investigation of who in the Justice Department and ATF were aware of and authorized the deadly Operation Fast & Furious, as well as protecting the rights of federal whistle-blowers.

The Des Moines Register poll showing Republican Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann in a tie for first place with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney among likely Iowa Caucus goers has turned the presidential race on its ear. (Snip) She is going to be scrutinized now like she has never been because, let’s face it, the current polls show that in the current presidential race, she could go far. Which means her surge is likely going to come to a quick and perhaps even spectacular end.

By WILLIE SOON AND PAUL DRIESSEN The Environmental Protection Agency recently issued 946 pages of new rules requiring that U.S. power plants sharply reduce their (already low) emissions of mercury and other air pollutants. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson claims that while the regulations will cost electricity producers $10.9 billion annually, they will save 17,000 lives and generate up to $140 billion in health benefits. There is no factual basis for these assertions. To build its case against mercury, the EPA systematically ignored evidence and clinical studies that contradict its regulatory agenda, which is to punish hydrocarbon use. Mercury has always...

Sarah Palin blasts the “$4-per-gallon president,” via Facebook: Is it really any surprise that oil and gas prices are surging toward the record highs we saw in 2008 just prior to the economic collapse? Despite the President’s strange assertions in his press conference last week, his Administration is not a passive observer to the trends that have inflated oil prices to dangerous levels. His war on domestic oil and gas exploration and production has caused us pain at the pump, endangered our already sluggish economic recovery, and threatened our national security.

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) -- Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Saturday urged a roaring crowd of Republicans to exhaust themselves over the next two weeks to take back California and the country for the "little guy." The former vice presidential candidate addressed more than 2,000 supporters at a Republican National Committee rally in Orange County, a conservative stronghold in a state where Republicans hope to make gains this year.

“Scientific debates should be played out in the academic arena,” insists University of Virginia environmental sciences professor David Carr. “If Michael Mann’s conclusions are unsupported by his data, his scientific critics will eventually demonstrate this.” Carr and 809 other Virginia scientists and academics signed a petition launched by the activist Union of Concerned Scientists, protesting Commonwealth Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s investigation of former University of Virginia professor Michael Mann. The American Association of University Professors likewise opposes Cuccinelli, who is seeking documents from UVA, to determine whether there are grounds to prosecute Mann for violating the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act,...

(This is NEWS - Please Keep This in Breaking News, Admin Moderators. It is not about "religion". It is about Current Events!) 1 Thessalonians 4: 13 - 18: But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord...

Could not sleep. So much going on. It's obvious we are moving into unchartered waters in our nation's and in the world's history. What to do? Watch and pray! Did just that - ended up at Prophecy News Watch and message board there, finding the linked beauty. Prophecy News Watch: http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/ Pray for America (Holy Spirit inspired)

Willie Soon, a Harvard University astrophysicist and geophysicist with scores of peer-reviewed papers and books to his credit, said he is “embarrassed and puzzled” by the shallow science in papers asserting the Earth faces a climate crisis caused by global warming. Soon told the second International Conference on Climate Change on March in New York City, “We have a system [of peer reviewing scientific literature] that is truly, truly appalling.” Soon’s criticisms echoed an earlier presentation at the 2-1/2-day conference that was attended by about 700 scientists, economists, and policymakers considering the issue of “Global Warming: Was it ever really...

It’s the Sun, Stupid! By Dr. Willie Soon The theory that climate change is chiefly caused by solar influences “is no longer tenable,” says US National Academy of Sciences president Ralph Cicerone. Carbon dioxide, he argues, is the key driver of recent climate change. I beg to differ. The amount and distribution of solar energy that we receive varies as the Earth revolves around the Sun and also in response to changes in the Sun’s activity. Scientists have now been studying solar influences on climate for 5000 years. Chinese imperial astronomers kept detailed sunspot records. They noticed that more sunspots...

Follow the link to take a look. Mentioned on hotair.com.

DESPITE THE BEAR STEARNS BAILOUT AND THE FED'S rate cut, a sense of foreboding is still abroad on Wall and Main Streets. Few investors feel good with an economic slowdown gathering force, the dollar in the dumps and contagion threatening to hit financial sectors previously unscathed or not even suspected of being at risk. This in mind, we contacted James Finucane, a 67-year-old stock strategist who now works as a consultant in West Lafayette, Ind., home of Purdue University... ...To him, we're now at yet another extraordinary low, especially with the unprecedented actions taken by the Fed of late to...

CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden will be issuing a new message timed to the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, a militant Web site with close connections to the group said Wednesday. "Urgent, very soon by the will of God," read the announcement of the new message "the response is what you see and not what you hear, by the warrior sheik, Osama bin Laden." Iraq marked the fifth anniversary of the war on Wednesday. The announcement was text only and showed no pictures of the elusive militant leader. The message would be bin Laden's...

I don't claim to be a prophet, but I do try to pay attention to things and connect the dots. Many times, this gets me in trouble as I see things coming that are beyond the horizon of folks who are not trying to pay attention and blissfully unaware of the dots scattered all around their feet. They just write me off as a nut or a bore or both when I sound off these warnings. Later, when what I warned about goes down, they are panicked and act all surprised and get upset. Most of them don't remember that...

It's increasingly clear that much of our standard economic vocabulary needs revising, supplementing or at least explaining. The customary words we use don't fully convey what's actually happening in the real world. Let me illustrate with two basic economic terms: inflation and recession. There are also larger lessons. Start with inflation. You may have noticed that last week's release of the March consumer price index — the government's main inflation indicator — inspired much optimism. "Inflation Fears Relax," headlined The Wall Street Journal. Stock prices jumped on the supposedly good news. But if you actually examined the CPI report, you...

Research into procrastination shows surprising findings A University of Calgary professor in the Haskayne School of Business has recently published his magnum opus on the subject of procrastination – and it's only taken him 10 years. Joking aside, Dr. Piers Steel is probably the world's foremost expert on the subject of putting off until tomorrow what should be done today. His comprehensive analysis of procrastination research, published in the recent edition of the American Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin, presents some surprising conclusions on the subject, such as: Most people's New Year's resolutions are doomed to failure Most self-help books have...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - There can be a guilty little pleasure in buying that $350 iPod or $1,200 laptop online: avoiding the sales tax you'd have to pay at a local store. Technically, online purchasers owe sales tax to their home states and sometimes their cities or towns at combined rates averaging nearly 7.5%. (Except if they're from Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire or Oregon, which don't impose sales taxes.) But the Supreme Court has ruled a state can't constitutionally require a merchant to collect the tax unless the merchant has some physical connection to that state--say, a warehouse or a store...

WASHINGTON, July 12, 2006 – United Service Organizations of Metropolitan Washington will get a sizeable boost from Northrop Grumman Corporation tomorrow to help establish its newest military airport lounge, at Washington Dulles International Airport here. Jerry Agee, the company's corporate vice president, will present a $50,000 check to Elaine B. Rogers, president of the USO of Metropolitan Washington, to begin development of the lounge. Northrop Grumman has committed another $375,000 over a five-year period to support USO's operating budget at Dulles, said Adrienne Trout, vice president of communication and development for USO of Metropolitan Washington. "USO is very excited," she...

PLYMOUTH, Mass. (July 2) - In this village settled by thrifty Pilgrims, you can still buy penny candy for a penny, but tourist Alan Ferguson doubts he'll be able to dig any 1-cent pieces out of his pockets. He rarely carries pennies because "they take up a lot of room for how much value they have." Instead, like so many other Americans, he dumps his pennies into a bucket back home in Sarasota, Fla. Pity the poor penny! It packs so little value that merry kids chuck pennies into the fountain near the candy store, just to watch them splash...

Iran is a sticky subject. It is no wonder that the Bush administration doesn't want to talk too much about Iran, why they felt it a good idea to shed any talks or discussions with Iran to the supposed EU3 (Germany, France and Britain). With the work going on in Iraq right now, the Bush administration doesn't need a mess in Iran, too. That is for certain. But, the Iranians are forcing the issue with their attempts to develop nuclear weapons. So, what should we do? We certainly cannot allow the Iranians to get a nuclear bomb the way their...

Ancient maps to soon go online By Jamie Schuman : The Herald-Sun jschuman@heraldsun.com Feb 19, 2006 : 5:43 pm ET CHAPEL HILL -- While they may study places and people that are thousands of years old, scholars at UNC are at the forefront of modernizing antiquity. Researchers long have had to dip into hefty and static atlases to study the stomping grounds of Alexander the Great or the Roman emperors, but they soon will be able to do so on a comprehensive, open-source database on the Internet -- thanks to UNC's Ancient World Mapping Center. The group started the project...

MILLINGTON, Tenn. (NNS) -- Although 2006 is not a presidential election year, the elections being held across the country this year are just as important. The 2006 election season officially starts March 7, with the Texas State Primary. The Navy Voting Assistance Program is committed to making the process of registration and voting as easy as possible for Sailors and their families. The Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) is available to all U.S. citizens from local voting assistance officers and the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) Web site at www.fvap.gov. Once filled out, the applications should be mailed to the...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2005 – Leaving Iraq before the mission there is finished will make America less, not more, secure and will send a dangerous message that will ring around the world, President Bush said today here at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. Speaking the day before Iraq's national elections, Bush disputed critics who claim the United States would be safer and Iraq less violent if the United States withdrew its forces there. "This view presumes that if we were not in Iraq, the terrorists would be leaving us alone," Bush said. In reality, the president said, terrorists have been...

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C. (Sept. 21, 2005) -- It was in Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 movie “Full Metal Jacket” that R. Lee Ermey portrayed Gunnery Sgt. Hartman, the quintessential Marine Corps drill instructor and for many Marines, a movie version of the nightmare they overcame in training. The movie is a staple on nearly every Marines shelf and has easily become the most quoted and re-enacted film in Corps history … for now. In the coming months and into 2006, the film industry will again turn its focus to telling the Marine Corps story. On Nov. 4, "Jarhead”...

In his new book, Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies—And What It Means to Be Human, (Random House, 2005), author Joel Garreau describes research so cutting edge it seems mind-boggling: • A telekinetic monkey at Duke University in North Carolina uses its mind to move a robotic arm 600 miles (a thousand kilometers) away in Cambridge, Massachusetts. • At a Pentagon R-and-D facility in Virginia, program managers aim to create the ultimate warriors—soldiers that can fight without sleeping, tell their bodies to stop bleeding, and regrow lost hands and limbs. Garreau notes that regular...

Scientists may soon get glimpse of mummy's face 6/26/2005, 5:49 p.m. ET The Associated Press NEW WILMINGTON, Pa. (AP) — Pesed has called a western Pennsylvania college home for about 120 years, but her caretakers don't know what she looks like. But that might change now that researchers have a CT scan of the 2,300-year-old Egyptian mummy. Officials believe the scan will provide enough information to allow a forensic artist to construct a bust of Pesed, a mummy from the Nile River town of Akhmim, about 350 miles south of Cairo. Pesed has been the property of Westminster College, located...

http://netwmd.com/articles/article890.html After a first term marked by schizophrenic Iran policy initiatives, the Bush White House will soon develop a coordinated policy to promote peaceful regime change in Iran. The Bush administration is heartened by the apparent success of the Iraqi election and believes that Iranians are ready to exert their democratic rights. Bush policy is motivated by the grave and growing threat from the Islamic Republic's nuclear weapons program, and the realization that neither Iran nor the European Union are sincere in preventing Iran's acquisition of nuclear weaponry. The Islamic Republic's potential threat to American security emanates from Tehran's determination...

For the second straight night on Tuesday, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann devoted more than a fourth of his 8pm EST Countdown show to indulging his fantasies about how a few supposed voting glitches, none of which would alter the results, justify contesting the presidential vote outcome. He complained about "the deafening silence from the mainstream media on this story" and denounced his journalistic colleagues as "wimps" for not joining his cause. Olbermann trumpeted how he received 7,500 e-mails about his Monday show with "the ratio of positive to negative holding at about 22 to 1," a sign his program is...

Democrats Pressure McGreevey to Leave Soon 1 hour, 25 minutes ago By JOHN P. McALPIN, Associated Press Writer TRENTON, N.J. - High-level New Jersey Democrats said Sunday that pressure is building among members of Gov. James E. McGreevey's own party for him to step down before his announced Nov. 15 resignation date. A senior administration official and a Democratic consultant, both speaking on condition of anonymity, said several top Democrats are worried an FBI investigation into the governor's same-sex relationship with a former aide will expose more politically damaging details. "There's a deepening concern that it will get uglier and...

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!

HOUSTON - Kenneth Lay, Enron Corp.'s founder and former chairman, could be indicted on charges stemming from its 2001 collapse by the end of June, sources close to the case told The Associated Press on Saturday. Two sources who spoke on condition of anonymity said federal prosecutors are aggressively pursuing Lay, and witnesses with information about him have recently testified before a special grand jury probing Enron's December 2001 collapse. Barring any delays, federal prosecutors aim to ask the grand jury for an indictment before the Fourth of July, the sources said. The Houston Chronicle first reported the possible indictment...

'We know something will happen again - and soon' By Damien McElroy in Riyadh and David Wastell (Filed: 13/06/2004) The white saloon, its boot wide open, sits on a Riyadh highway in front of an American-owned hotel for two days. The hotel security staff gaze at it but take no action. The occupants of a police car drive by and ignore it. In a city where nerves are on edge, it is a frightening spectacle - a suspect vehicle that the security forces haven't towed away. It confirms the fear of expatriates that Saudi security remains too lax to cope...

SARS special report: Too soon to celebrate 10:00 06 July 03 Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Beijing's Forbidden City is no longer off-limits. Tourists have been spotted at Hong Kong's bustling Stanley market. Life in the cities worst hit by SARS is quickly returning to normal. But behind laboratory doors it is a different story. "No one thinks we've eradicated the virus off the face of the Earth," says Daniel Chin of the World Health Organization in Beijing. "There's no guarantee against re-emergence, least of all in China." Doctors like Chin are still jittery because so many fundamental questions...