Free Republic

Charting the Past: Surveys map two lost harbors of Phoenicia Sid Perkins By analyzing long tubes of sediment drilled from locations in and around the Mediterranean ports of Tyre and Sidon, scientists have discovered the locations of the harbors from which legions of ancient Phoenician mariners set sail. Tyre and Sidon, located in what is now Lebanon, were the two most important city-states of Phoenicia, a trading empire founded more than 3,000 years ago. Although archaeologists knew much about the two cities and Phoenician civilization, they have long debated the sizes and locations of the ancient harbors, says Christophe Morhange,...

When the sixth teenage suicide hit, Anne Einhorn, a Cherry Hill mother and school board member, remembers sitting helplessly in her kitchen as her son and his friends vented over why it kept happening. The first was a girl, in 2000. The last one, an eighth grader, took his life, with no apparent warning, in the spring of 2004. "It was frightening," Einhorn said. "And it seemed they were getting younger as time went on." The Cherry Hill school district wasn't going to wait for another. Last year, substance abuse counselor Jen DiStefano brought in a screening process -- one...

One of the perennial issues facing Americans, especially lawmakers, is gun control. Those of us who defend private ownership of firearms are continually battling those who wish to restrict guns in private hands. Opponents of gun ownership approach their goal from many directions. Some of their proposals seem at first to be common-sense measures whose aim is to protect us from ourselves. One of the most recent of these measures making the rounds in state legislatures is something called "safe storage" of firearms. These laws require gun owners to keep firearms locked in some way so curious children cannot get...

George W. Bush's overall job approval ratings have dropped from a month ago even as Americans who approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president are turning more optimistic about their personal financial situations according to the latest survey from the American Research Group. Among all Americans, 36% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 58% disapprove. When it comes to Bush's handling of the economy, 33% approve and 62% disapprove. Among Americans registered to vote, 38% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 56% disapprove, and...

Success has many parents; failure is an orphan. That's the kind of fickle armchair opinions offered by some public figures and media commentators who are waffling supporters or critics of our mission in Iraq. Without embarrassment, their speeches and writings bounce around with the day's headlines. Who cares? They're just a bunch of talking heads anyway. And, with the expansion of choices in media, people are able to choose which ones reinforce their own dispositions. Surveys show that supporters tend to watch Fox, and opponents tend to watch CNN. The importance is two-fold. First, the larger middle is affected and...

NEW YORK Even as a new Gallup poll shows that the public values “values” less than November exit polls suggested, another survey from the same outfit released today showed a historic surge in Republican party affiliation. In Gallup's latest poll this month, those identifying themselves as Republicans jumped to 37% of the public, with Democrats now clearly trailing with 32%. Democrats have long held more party members than Republicans. During the Clinton years, the bulge was about 5% to 6%. As recently as late-October of this year the Democratic edge was 37% to 34%. Gallup noted today: “Post-election shifts in...

Zogby Questions for tomorrow's survey: State? Are you registered to vote? How likely are you to vote in national elections? In the 2000 presidential election, the candidates were Democrat Al Gore, Republican George W. Bush, Reform Party's Pat Buchanan, Libertarian Party's Harry Browne and the Green Party's Ralph Nader. For whom did you vote? In which party are you either registered to vote or do you consider yourself to be a member ... If the election for president were held today, for whom would you vote - Republican George W. Bush or Democrat John Kerry? If the election for president...

State by State 2004: Default View Bush: 298 Electoral Votes (144 likely, 154 uncertain)Kerry: 240 Electoral Votes (150 likely, 90 uncertain) Current View: Default View Default view bases electoral calculations on the latest available poll, regardless of whether or not the poll includes Ralph Nader, whether it samples likely voters, registered voters, or 'other' (Zogby), and regardless of the pollster who conducted the poll. Latest Polls Added: GA: Bush +19% (Strategic Vision 10/12 - 10/14) MN: Kerry +3% (Strategic Vision 10/12 - 10/14) MN: Kerry +2% (Strategic Vision 10/12 - 10/14) MI: Kerry +9% (Strategic Vision 10/12 - 10/14)...

PHOENIX (AP) - Iraqis are likely to say they want to live in a democracy, though they don't necessarily understand how it works. Some pollsters who have done nationwide surveys of Iraq in recent months talked about their findings at a meeting this week of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. One barrier to democracy is that many in the country need more information about how it would work, their research suggests. ``There's the sense that people in Iraq know they want democracy, but they don't know how to get there,'' said Christoph Sahm, director of Oxford Research International....

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- While abortion advocates marched in Washington on Sunday, pro-life groups were touting the results of a new poll showing that a majority of Americans, including African Americans and students, are pro-life on abortion. In a poll released Friday by Zogby International, a respected polling firm, a total of 56 percent agreed with one of the following pro-life views: abortion should never be legal (18 percent), legal only when the life of the mother is in danger (15 percent) or legal only when the life of the mother is in danger or in cases of rape or...

WASHINGTON — Friday brought good news on the economic front, with the Labor Department reporting that 308,000 jobs were added last month. But total payroll employment still appears sickly if one looks back over the last three years. There have been two million jobs lost since March 2001. Or have there? It depends, as usual, on which statistics you use. And there is reason to doubt the numbers from the payroll survey, which the Labor Department has used since 1939, because they give a misleading picture of the 2004 economy. The payroll survey counts jobs, not workers. But counting payroll...

<p>Growing optimism about the economy and a spike in support for going to war in Iraq have given President Bush a sharp year-end boost in his approval ratings... The boost for Bush comes after the capture of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and a succession of brighter economic indicators that helped to reverse a decline in his ratings that began in the early fall. His overall approval rating stands at 59 percent in the poll, the highest since August, when increased U.S. casualties and terrorist attacks in Iraq led the public to question his policies.</p>

<p>Twenty-five years ago, Charles Cleveland, then a Drake University professor, captured attention with a computer program designed to identify people's attitudes based on what they said or wrote.</p> <p>A 1978 Des Moines Register story about the project stirred up a hornets' nest. Privacy advocates worried that government agencies would use the program to develop psychological profiles that would lead to the dark futures portrayed by novelists George Orwell and Aldous Huxley.</p>

Pupils as young as 13 are being encouraged to disclose sensitive information about their parents to the Government to help discover why they might be failing at school. Details of problems such as drink and drug abuse, depression, eating disorders and frequent domestic rows would be sought by advisers. The data,gathered without the consent of parents by the Connexions Service, which supplies careers and personal advisers to schools, could be shared with a number of government departments, the police and health authorities. The methods used to collect this data, its storage and future use, is worrying child mental health...