Free Republic

America's obesity epidemic is so deeply rooted that it will take dramatic and systemic measures - from overhauling farm policies and zoning laws to, possibly, introducing a soda tax - to fix it, the influential Institute of Medicine said on Tuesday. In an ambitious 478-page report, the IOM refutes the idea that obesity is largely the result of a lack of willpower on the part of individuals. Instead, it embraces policy proposals that have met with stiff resistance from the food industry and lawmakers, arguing that multiple strategies will be needed to make the U.S. environment less "obesogenic." The IOM,...

Hostess Brands Inc. on Friday sent out letters notifying its more-than 18,000 workers that they could be laid off in the next two months. The maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread on Friday mailed out WARN Act notices to all of its employees, a Hostess spokeswoman confirmed to Bankruptcy Beat Monday. The federal WARN Act requires companies to give employees 60 days notice before closing a facility or ordering mass layoffs. However, sending the notices doesn’t mean a company is definitely going to lay off the recipients.

MINSK, May 7 (Itar-Tass) — Police in the Belarussian capital detained a group of Egyptian citizens, travelling to European Union countries “with extremist aims”, reported on Monday the police department of the Minsk city government. “As a result of holding search measures, Minsk law enforcers detained five Egyptian citizens who illegally arrived in our country so as to go later to European Union countries. During investigations, it turned out that the detainees had participated in combat operations in Egypt and are heading for EU countries with extremist aims,” noted the police department. According to information of Minsk police, while searching...

Running into a rabid bear can pretty much ruin your morning, according to two men who survived to tell the tale of Virginia's first-ever reported rabid bear, an encounter that occurred in the neighborhood of the hiker-heavy Appalachian Trail and the family-friendly Skyline Drive. It started out a pretty typical day for Bobby Bryant, the farm manager at Royal Orchard, the 2,800-acre estate on Afton Mountain that used to provide Albemarle Pippins to Queen Victoria and is owned by the Scott family of Scott Stadium and Scott & Stringfellow brokerage-firm fame. Bryant, a 56-year-old Afton native who's worked on the...

More than 1 million Americans who have taken out mortgages in the past two years now owe more on their loans than their homes are worth, and Federal Housing Administration loans that require only a tiny down payment are partly to blame. That figure, provided to Reuters by tracking firm CoreLogic, represents about one out of 10 home loans made during that period. It is a sobering indication the U.S. housing market remains deeply troubled, with home values still falling in many parts of the country, and raises the question of whether low-down payment loans backed by the FHA are...

The number of unemployed people reached 5,639,500 at the end of March, with the unemployment rate hitting 24.4%, the national statistics agency said. The figures came hours after rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded Spanish sovereign debt. Official figures due out on Monday are expected to confirm that Spain has fallen back into recession. Earlier this week, the Bank of Spain said the economy contracted by 0.4% in first three months of this year, after shrinking by 0.3% in the final quarter of last year.

They told me the big black Lab's name was Reggie, as I looked at him lying in his pen. The shelter was clean, no-kill, and the people really friendly. I'd only been in the area for six months, but everywhere I went in the small college town, people were welcoming and open. Everyone waves when you pass them on the street. But something was still missing as I attempted to settle in to my new life here, and I thought a dog couldn't hurt. Give me someone to talk to. And I had just seen Reggie's advertisement on the local...

This yahoo poll needs some freeping. Being a yahoo poll I would have thought Obama would be further ahead.

This damning, inconvenient truth needs to be posted on EVERY Facebook page, and reTweeted over and over. Truth is always the enemy of Liberalism/Socialism.

“With Barack Obama in the White house, there is simply no one in the administration to make fun of. It’s been a very frustrating few years. On the other hand, if Romney is elected, there will be limitless material. Romney is funny, you see. The Obamas? I mean, there is just nothing that lends itself to parody.” - Anonymous NBC producer

“Saturday Night Live” alum Jon Lovitz sounds like he’s pretty fed up with President Barack Obama. “This whole thing with Obama saying the rich don’t pay their taxes is f---ing bulls---. And I voted for the guy and I’m a Democrat. What a f---ing asshole,” Lovitz recently said on his podcast “The ABC's of SNL." The episode was recorded in January and released on Sunday.

The objects displayed in Michigan's newest museum range from the ordinary, such as simple ashtrays and fishing lures, to the grotesque — a full-size replica of a lynching tree. But all are united by a common theme: They are steeped in racism so intense that it makes visitors cringe. That's the idea behind the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, which says it has amassed the nation's largest public collection of artifacts spanning the segregation era, from Reconstruction until the civil rights movement, and beyond. The museum in a gleaming new exhibit hall at Ferris State University "is all about...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ9VRrfzIKo

The U.S. Secret Service is investigating faded '70s rock star Ted Nugent for his recent insistence he'll be "dead or in jail" in a year's time if President Barack Obama is re-elected in November. At a convention of the National Rifle Association over the weekend, the longtime gun advocate compared Obama and the Democrats to a coyote who should be shot. "It isn't the enemy that ruined America," he said as he reaffirmed his endorsement of Republican front-runner Mitt Romney.

You know that monolithic, far-left Jewish vote? HAHAHAHAHA! Take a look at what this sampling of Jewish women think of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and the Democrat Party.

The Jewish Revolt that led to the destruction of the Second Temple is erroneously held to be the start of Roman anti-Semitism, while it is actually more of the same - the belief Jews are sinister, evil and threatening. That anti-Jewish prejudice features among Latin authors of the early Principate cannot be doubted. For example, in the Cena Trimalchionis, which is a part of the satirical novel Satyricon, written during Nero’s reign, two freedmen- Habinnas and Trimalchio- have a discussion on the slaves they own. The former mentions a particular favorite of his, but adds that his “duo vitia” (“two...

An Army soldier who lost his arms and legs during his third tour in Afghanistan last week underwent surgery Monday as supporters from around the globe offer prayers and messages of hope on a family website. Army Staff Sgt. Travis Mills, of Vassar, Mich., was injured when he stepped on an IED April 10 while serving with the 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. He is recuperating at a hospital in Germany and hopes to return stateside on Tuesday, three days after his 25th birthday, his father told FoxNews.com. "He's in a tremendous amount of pain...

Weather Channel TORCON (Tornado Conditions) Index for Saturday: IA southwest - 6 to 7 IA northwest - 5 IA central, northeast night - 4 to 5 KS central, northeast - 8 KS southeast night - 6 MN southwest - 4 MN south, east-central night - 5 MO northwest night - 6 NE central, northeast - 5 NE southeast - 7 OK west, north-central (except panhandle) - 7 OK central, northeast night - 7 SD southeast - 4 TX northwest near Wichita Falls - 6 TX central night, west of I-35 - 4 WI west-central night - 5 The highest TORCON...

Accidents in which drivers mistakenly hit the gas instead of the brake tend to involve older female drivers in parking lots, a new government study has found. One of the study's most striking and consistent findings was that nearly two-thirds of drivers who had such accidents were female. When looking at all crashes, the reverse is true — about 60 percent of drivers involved in crashes are male, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study noted. Another finding: Gas pedal accidents tend to occur more frequently among drivers over age 76 and under age 20. The age disparity showed up...

This dufus poll is on the lower right Yahoo main page.