Free Republic

While billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson may have rescued Newt Gingrich’s campaign in its early days, today, he may have just buried it. Bloomberg News reports that Adelson, who has donated $11 million to Gingrich’s Super PAC, does not plan to send any more money Gingrich’s way. Bloomberg is citing an anonymous source “familiar with their deliberations,” though an Adelson spokesman declined to comment. The move seems to be weeks in the making. After poor showings by Gingrich in the last several races and the re-resurgence of Rick Santorum, the former House speaker has once again been pushed to the...

League ID#: 84990 League Name: Defenders of the Constitution Password: jimrob Custom League URL: http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/league/freerepublic Season Type: Full Draft Type: Live Draft Draft Time: Sat Mar 14 7:00pm EDT Max Teams: 14 Scoring Type: Head-to-Head Player Universe: All baseball New Players Become Available: As soon as Yahoo! adds them Max Moves: 100 Max Trades: No maximum Trade Reject Time: 1 Trade End Date: August 16, 2009 Waiver Time: 1 day Can't Cut List Provider: None Trade Review: League Votes Post Draft Players: Follow Waiver Rules Max Acquisitions per Week: No maximum Min Innings Pitched: 30 Weekly Deadline: Daily - Tomorrow...

The 2008 United States Senate race in Minnesota is one of the closest electoral contests in recent history: as of this writing, out of over 2.9 million ballots cast only 206 votes separate incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman and his Democratic challenger, Al Franken. The Minnesota Senate race is slated to be recounted starting on November 19, 2008, and a key issue in the recount will be the approximately 34 thousand residual votes associated with it. A Senate residual vote is, roughly speaking, the product of a ballot that lacks a recorded Senate vote, and in the Minnesota Senate race...

Obama Wins Scholastic News Election Poll Almost 250,000 (a quarter of a million) kids voted by paper ballot or online It's official. At least for the kids! The Scholastic Presidential Election Poll results are in: Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama won with 57 percent of the vote, to 39 percent for Republican nominee Senator John McCain. The poll was open to kids from grades 1 to 12 in Scholastic News and Junior Scholastic magazines. Almost 250,000 (a quarter of a million) kids voted by paper ballot or online at www.scholastic.com/news. The poll closed on October 10. Since 1940, the results...

President Abraham Lincoln was buttbuttinated by an armed buttailant after a life devoted to the reform of the US consbreastution. Not an extract from an essay by a particularly poor history student, but a selection of the nonsense phrases created by automatic software designed to remove offensive words from articles posted on the internet. The phenomena, known as “The Clbuttic Mistake” after a mangling of the word “classic” that is believed to be the first identified instance of the problem, can be found on tens of thousands of websites. The error is caused by poorly programmed anti-obscenity filters – similar...

Extraordinarily lifelike characters are to begin appearing in films and computer games thanks to a new type of animation technology. Emily - the woman in the above animation ^ - was produced using a new modelling technology that enables the most minute details of a facial expression to be captured and recreated. She is considered to be one of the first animations to have overleapt a long-standing barrier known as 'uncanny valley' - which refers to the perception that animation looks less realistic as it approaches human likeness. Researchers at a Californian company which makes computer-generated imagery for Hollywood films...

The debate about what counts as a living thing is fuelled today by the discovery of the first virus that is able to fall "ill" by being infected with another virus. Viruses are glorified scraps of genetic code that are exquisitely designed to pirate a host to reproduce: the common cold virus needs cells in the nose and respiratory tract to reproduce, before being spread with a sneeze. But the discovery of a giant virus that itself falls ill through infection by another virus seems to suggest they too are alive, highlighting how there is no watertight definition of what...

Our inability to produce a chemical present in every other primate may be linked to a series of chronic diseases. Roger Highfield explains more What does it mean to be human? For most people, it all comes down to that extraordinary object between our ears, and how it blesses us with language, laughter and logic. But not for Ajit Varki, a doctor-cum-scientist who works in California. Not so rare: a molecule absorbed by eating red meat has been linked to inflammation and auto-immune illnesses Not so rare: a molecule absorbed by eating red meat has been linked to inflammation and...

Ex-NBA referee Tim Donaghy told the feds two refs fixed the outcome of one playoff series - and that officials were told not to eject star players from games for fear of hurting ticket sales. The bombshell allegations are contained in a court document filed Tuesday by Donaghy's lawyer. It describes the “inner workings" of the NBA in which top league executives used referees to manipulate games. Donaghy, who pleaded guilty in Brooklyn Federal Court to charges of betting on games he officiated, told FBI agents “league officials would tell referees that they should withhold calling technical fouls on certain...

Jeff suggested a spoof on the already popular Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle so we decided to write up a few phrases that shed Hillary in a not so positive light. I wrote the site real quick and Hillary is Mom Jeans was born.The difference is that ours let’s you submit a phrase of your own.

Who do you want to answer the phone? posted 06 January 2008 by YouTube user readynow22209

TITLE: "Children" LENGTH: 30 seconds AIRING: Texas SCRIPT: Announcer: "It's 3 a.m. and your children are safe asleep. But there's a phone in the White House and it's ringing. Something's happening in the world." (Sound of a phone ringing.) "Your vote will decide who answers that call, whether it's someone who already knows the world's leaders, knows the military, someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world. It's 3 a.m. and your children are safely asleep. Who do you want answering the phone?" Hillary Rodham Clinton: "I'm Hillary Clinton and I approve this message." KEY IMAGES: The darkened...

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) challenged Republicans on Tuesday to get off their “dead asses” and start raising money for the National Republican Congressional Committee. And the Republican leader wasn’t the only lawmaker berating his GOP colleagues to raise more money for the committee’s March 12 fundraising dinner: According to sources in the room, NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) also used a closed-door session at the Capitol Hill Club on Tuesday to challenge Republicans to raise more campaign cash. The normally upbeat Cole told Republicans that if they don’t start raising more...

1) The Clinton campaign is accused of circulating a photo of Barack Obama wearing Somali garb on a visit to Africa, and declines to deny that someone on the campaign may have been responsible. 2) The Clinton campaign says that, regardless, there's nothing wrong with Obama's wearing that clothing, and that it's absurd to call it "divisive." 1) On "Morning Joe," Hillary supporter Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones says that the Clinton campaign would not "condone" the circulation of such a photo, and that "I would not personally have done it." But she adds, 2) "I have no shame, or no...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal grand jury has indicted Republican U.S. Rep. Richard Renzi of Arizona on 35 criminal counts including conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and official extortion, according to court papers unsealed on Friday. The indictment stems from plan by Renzi and an associate to benefit from a land-exchange plan in order to receive Renzi's support for necessary federal legislation, court documents said. "It was an object of the conspiracy for Renzi to enrich (his associate) and personally benefit himself," the indictment said. It also accuses Renzi of embezzling premiums from clients of an insurance business to fund...

Cedric Willis is an independent voter craving change; Louis and Karen Becerra are Republicans demanding an equitable immigration policy; Michael Panesar is a Democrat looking for a president who would exhibit cultural sensitivity in the Middle East. Although they expressed dramatically divergent views on national and world affairs, Willis, Panesar, the Becerras and others were in complete agreement on one point: 2008 is shaping up to be the most exciting political year in recent memory. The political enthusiasts were among the first to cast their ballots Tuesday as Harris County opened 35 polling spots for early primary voting. By the...

4 days until Pitchers & Catchers Report!Join League ID#: 38204 League Name: Defenders of the Constitution '08 Password: jimrob Custom League URL: http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/league/freerepublic Season Type: Full Draft Type: Live Draft Draft Time: Fri Mar 14 8:00pm EDT Max Teams: 14 Scoring Type: Head-to-Head Player Universe: All baseball Max Moves: 100 Max Trades: No maximum Trade Reject Time: 1 Trade End Date: August 10, 2008 Waiver Time: 1 day Can't Cut List Provider: None Trade Review: League Votes Post Draft Players: Follow Waiver Rules Max Acquisitions per Week: No maximum Min Innings Pitched: 30 Weekly Deadline: Daily - Tomorrow Start...

California 21 (all of Tulare County and the eastern half of Fresno County) Mitt Romney, 18,477 (36.1) John McCain, 18,261 (35.7) California 49 (much of Northern San Diego County and southwestern Riverside County) Mitt Romney, 24,264 (38.8) John McCain, 23,608 (37.7) California 52 (parts of Imperial and San Diego counties) Mitt Romney, 30,034 (40.3) John McCain, 27,844 (37.4) District 25: Romney down 1.9% (91% reporting) District 26: Romney down 7.4% (83.8% reporting) District 41: Romney down 5.7% (76.5% reporting) District 42: Romney down 0.2% (97.6% reporting) District 43: Romney down 11.2% (68.4% reporting) If things stay this way, the tally...

Suffolk also polled Florida and did great, calling it for McCain +3.SUMMARY: McCain: 39 Romney: 32 Huckabee: 8 Paul: 4 75% of those polled said it was unlikely they would change their mind before Tuesday, and with the debate over with, it's hard to see what could do so, anyway. 59% didn't watch the debate, but Romney "won" it 37 to McCain's 25. The Economy and Illegal Immigration are the top two issues in the race, with 65% answering with one of those two choices.