Free Republic

excerpts from the interview with Bradbury.... [Q]: What forms of censorship do your regard as the most dangerous today? Bradbury: There are none in our country. We have too many groups for censorship to be possible. We have Catholics and Jews and Protestants, and Republicans and Democrats, and women's libbers, and lesbians and homosexuals and bisexuals, and young and old...We're all watching each other...The main problem is the idiot TV. If you watch local news, your head will turn to mush. [Q]: There seems to have been a decline in standards of journalistic objectivity, to put it mildly. Bradbury: It's...

excerpts from the interview with Bradbury.... [Q]: What forms of censorship do your regard as the most dangerous today? Bradbury: There are none in our country. We have too many groups for censorship to be possible. We have Catholics and Jews and Protestants, and Republicans and Democrats, and women's libbers, and lesbians and homosexuals and bisexuals, and young and old...We're all watching each other...The main problem is the idiot TV. If you watch local news, your head will turn to mush. [Q]: There seems to have been a decline in standards of journalistic objectivity, to put it mildly. Bradbury: It's...

Oxford scientists believe that applying a small current to a specific part of the brain helps people learn. Nick Collins tested their deviceI’ve got rubber pads strapped to my head and someone is about to fire an electric current through my brain. It’s meant to make me cleverer, but this doesn’t feel too smart to me. My palms are sticky, my fingers are trembling and it’s hard to tell if that’s sweat pouring down my temples or water from the sponge that will conduct the charge through my skin.

The clown who sent in yesterday's death threat has written in again this morning, pretending to be someone else. His reference to "Mr yahoo" is to himself, writing under a different name, yesterday. His IP is 196.201.207.191, which traces to Djibouti, but he has claimed to be in New York and other places while I've been there. In this he is probably lying, but I am told that it is possible that his Djibouti IP is spoofed, and he is actually elsewhere. Anyway, there are several points here: 1. If I were a Muslim, these regular death threats would be...

Defense officials worried that Petraeus’s comments are harbinger of weakened ties While almost a week has passed since Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the United States Military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) testified before the Senate and dropped his bombshell about Israel, concern within the defense establishment has only grown. While the assumption among the top IDF brass is that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen does not support Petraeus’s widely-reported claim that Israeli intransigence was a problem for the US military in the Middle East and was fomenting conflict, the comments still worry Israel for a number...

One of the more thought-provoking columns I make sure I read every week is called Spiritual Wealth. It's written by my good friend Alex Green, who is Investment Director of the Oxford Club. Alex gave me permission to share one of his columns with you, with the request that I also tell you about his new book. I'm delighted to do both. See the end of today's column for details on how you can receive his column every week and learn about The Secret of Shelter Island, his inspiring and informative new book. According to A.C. Nielson Co., the average...

European settlers of America included Puritans, all who came here in order to live by a moral code free from government interference, and Pirates, who came here in order to make their fortunes. These attitudes are ingrained in our culture so that every American is a Puritan, or a Pirate, or a mix of both. Liberal Pirates now control our national government.

the following is taken from the "Speech on Middlesex Elections" given to the House of Commons in 1771 "That the people should not choose their own representative is a saying that shakes the constitution: that this House should name the representative is a saying which, followed by practice, subverts the constitution. They have a right of electing; you have a right of expelling: they of choosing; you of judging, and only of judging, of the choice. What bounds shall be set to the freedom of that choice? Their right is prior to ours: we all originate there. They are the...

Liberals love to think of themselves as intellectual and nuanced, but liberalism is incredibly simplistic. It's nothing more than "childlike emotionalism applied to adult issues." Very seldom does any issue that doesn't involve pandering to their supporters boil down at its core level to more than feeling "nice" or "mean" to liberals. This makes liberals ill equipped to deal with complex issues. Since liberals tend to support or oppose policies based on how those policies make them feel about themselves, they do very little intellectual examination of whether the policies they advocate work or not. That's because it doesn't matter...

CARLISLE BARRACKS, Pa. -- Officers studying at the Army War College walk the ground at nearby Gettysburg where Pickett's men walked across an open field under fire. They wonder: How did Confederate officers get men to do that? The lesson: Men can be led to places they cannot be sent. Today's officers lead an Army that was sent into Iraq in 2003, and by 2004 the operation became, as an officer here says, "a deployment in search of a mission." Since then, missions have multiplied. Today's is to make possible an exit strategy. Gen. David Petraeus's Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field...

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for...

Vanity

BAGHDADI, Iraq, Aug. 29, 2006 — A Marine’s quick thinking, coupled with a series of well-aimed shots, saved lives July 27, according to Marines and Iraqi soldiers serving here. Cpl. Jeff Globis’ split-second decision to verbally warn near-by Marines and Iraqi soldiers of an approaching suicide bomber while he was standing post at a military outpost here allowed others to avoid a potentially life-threatening explosion. Manning an observation point at the combat outpost, the 23-year-old infantryman saw the speeding truck break through the base’s protective barriers. Globis opened fire on the vehicle, which was loaded with hundreds of pounds of...

A liquor store customer was arrested for allegedly pulling a knife on a clerk he thought was a "Muslim militia terrorist," police said. Elias Michael Banales, 31, was arrested and booked for investigation of brandishing a knife, making terrorist threats and hate crime allegations. He remained in jail with bail set at $50,000. Banales allegedly told the clerk at Speedy Liquor and Mart on Spring Street that "he hated Muslims and that they should all be killed," according to the police report. The name of the clerk and his nationality and religious background weren't disclosed. Banales fled when a customer...

News Published online: 16 February 2006; | doi:10.1038/news060213-9 Why you should go with your gut Study says unconscious consideration yields most satisfying decisions. Helen Pearson Which would you choose? Studies say you should list the pros and cons, then sleep on it. © Punchstock The best way to make a tough decision is to put your feet up and think about something else. So says an investigation of people shopping for cars, clothes and furniture. Many people assume that the best way to tackle a difficult choice is to list the pros and cons and ponder them deeply. Others believe...

Scientists have some remarkable new advice for anyone who is struggling to make a difficult decision: Stop thinking about it. ...when the time comes to decide, go with what feels right. ''It is much better to follow your gut," said Ap Dijksterhuis, a professor of psychology at the University of Amsterdam, who led the research.

There's no helping you. This site is now just a diversion -- like a train wreck. This site is inherently for and about raving egomaniacs, and Jim's site policies -- which amount to excluding reality and actual dialogue in favor of political/militaristic pornography -- is conducive to cognitive dissonance, which at the times your worldview is threatened leads you into psychotic breaks (on the political cognitive plane, that is, and just maybe in other realms too). Not to mention that your baseline politics is based in mythology about American demographics, science, economics, ethics etc. You spoonfeed each other in the...

What was Lesch thinking? In the slapstick comedy "Pee-wee's Big Adventure," Pee-wee Herman's bike is stolen. He goes to a fortune teller to help him find it and is told that it's in the basement of the Alamo. But when he gets to San Antonio he learns there is no basement in the famous fort. The look on his face is priceless. We imagine state Rep. John Lesch, DFL-St. Paul, had a similar look on his face when he got to Iraq and realized that just wandering around a war zone, unescorted, wasn't such a good idea. Indeed, the naiveté...

For some time I have been suggesting here that the aim of Republican strategy has been a Republican Party that permanently runs the United States and a United States that permanently runs the world. The two aims have been driven by a common purpose: to steadily and irreversibly increase and consolidate power in GOP hands, leading in the direction of a one-party state at home and a global American empire abroad. The most critical question has been whether American democracy, severely eroded but still breathing, would bring down the Republican machine, or whether the Republican machine--call it the budding one-party...

The kerfuffle over Bill Bennett’s recent remarks on his radio show – like the earlier kerfuffle over Harvard President Larry Summer’s remarks at a seminar, and like a dozen other such kerfuffles I no longer can recall – all stem from the same root: Creative and intelligent people – artists, writers, scientists, sociologists, economists and other public intellectuals – play with ideas. This is how they organize their thoughts, fuse them into new forms and eventually create the “finished” products that reach the public in the form of paintings, novels, scientific papers that change our understanding of nature, or essays...