Free Republic

President Obama can't hold off Congress much longer. In the form of hearings, media appearances and possibly a vote, Congress is determined to have its say on the Libyan conflict when lawmakers return to Washington next week. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been grumbling ever since the president ordered U.S. missile strikes on Muammar al-Qaddafi's regime in support of a U.N.-authorized no-fly zone Saturday. But the unrest is reaching a boiling point and from the top down, elected officials are pressing for questions about the U.S. role in the assault to get a full airing on Capitol...

Facing sharp criticism from Republicans on Capitol Hill, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski defended his agency’s new “net neutrality” rules to regulate traffic on the Internet at a congressional hearing Wednesday morning. “Some people say that our open Internet framework doesn’t go far enough. Some people say it goes too far. I think we got it about right,” the chairman told the panel in his opening statement. Rep. Greg Walden, the Oregon Republican who chairs the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, which oversees communications policy, has called the FCC action adopted late last year a regulatory overreach. Mr. Walden,...

Israel's new UN ambassador, Ron Prosor, will face an atmosphere of support for Palestinian causes in the UN and an uphill battle in generating sympathy for Israeli causes. Palestinians are vigorously working to get the United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement building passed. They are working quickly to get support from the organization's general assembly before Israel's new UN ambassador Ron Prosor, takes up his position. Israel will appoint their new UN ambassador after half a year spent with a temporary representative. Prosor, who has been serving as the ambassador in London will soon send his credentials to...

Seth Foster, 23, said he found his family garage in disarray last summer and sent his dog in the building to investigate. Grizz, a blue heeler, returned with the culprit, a young raccoon. As two teenage boys watched, one of them filming its actions with a cell phone, Grizz killed the coon, Foster said. Now, Foster is facing a misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty resulting in death, which is punishable by a maximum of 90 days in jail and a $500 fine. A jury trial is scheduled for Feb. 25 in Jackson County District Court.

Women What feature makes a face attractive? Is it the average proportions of that face? We examined this popular theory ("averageness hypothesis") by conducting an experiment: We asked subjects to rate the attractiveness of all original faces and composites, which were calculated from 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, or 64 original faces. The results are: The attractiveness ratings of the transformed faces depend on the number of original faces that have been used to create them. The more original images were used to create the composite, the more attractive it was rated. (r = 0.57 ** for female faces,...

Return trip on Air Force One costs up to $1million £63,000 to fly Michelle and daughters to Hawaii $134,000 for 24 White House staff to stay at hotel President Obama has splashed out more than $1.5million on a sunshine break in Hawaii while many Americans are still struggling in the aftermath of the economic meltdown. With Washington in a deep freeze, Mr Obama yesterday extended his stay on Oahu until next Monday. But he is facing claims on the island that he could have been more frugal in his two-week getaway with wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha at...

Faces of the Tea Party - 'We are not the KKK'Kari Huus says: Emery McClendon is a husband, father, Air Force retiree, Christian, a FedEx driver, amateur radio guy and photographer. In general, his race is beside the point. But this series is about the Tea Party, a movement that struggles to persuade some observers that it is not merely a racist reaction to a black president. The 59-year-old McClendon, as can clearly be seen in James Cheng’s photo, is a black man. He is also a prominent voice in the Tea Party movement. McClendon was among the highlighted speakers...

She's best known for that scene in Basic Instinct - and it appears that Sharon Stone still lives by the maxim if you've got it, flaunt it, on the set of a recent movie. The star stripped down to a tiny bikini in low-budget comedy Five Bucks A Day, directed by Calendar Girls and Made In Dagenham British film maker Nigel Cole. In fact, the budget seems to have been so low that the props department couldn't afford to loan Sharon a handbag.

A mass rally-demonstration entitled “For the truth, for Israel” will be held in Rome this Thursday. It is being organized by Fiamma Nirenstein – journalist, MP, and vice president of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Italian Chamber of Deputies –and other leading European personalities. Information at www.truthforisrael.eu, www.fiammanirenstein.com. This article was commissioned for it. Potentially, Israel faces a Second Holocaust. Indeed, many Europeans continue Hitler’s war against the Jews by supporting fifty seven Islamic apartheid nation states against the single Jewish democratic state. The worldwide media has become totally “Palestinianized” and Stalinized. Palestinians—even the haters, terrorists, and torturers,...

Arab states have cut financial aid to the Palestinian Authority so far this year, according to PA figures seen by Reuters, and the United Nations has warned of a looming Palestinian cash crisis. "The Arabs are not paying. We urge them to meet their financial pledges," said Saleh Rafat, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee (Snip) The failure of some wealthy Arab states to pay up is frustrating Western governments, which are big contributors to the Palestinian territories

After playing a one-off show with Simply Red singer Mick Hucknall last year, The Faces are gearing up for their first tour since breaking up in 1975. Their only gig on the books now is for August 18th in England, but Faces keyboardist Ian McLagan tells Rolling Stone many more are coming that month followed by a longer run from December to March. "And then we should play the world for f---s sake," he says. "I’ve been trying to make this happen since 1975!" The main reason the reunion has taken so long was Rod Stewart’s reluctance to take a...

A British man is facing six months in a Dubai jail for making an offensive gesture towards an Iraqi. Simon Andrews, 56, is said to have lost his temper during an argument with aviation student Mahmud Rasheed and 'flicked his finger' at him. Mr Rasheed complained to police and the Briton was arrested for outraging public decency and has been banned from leaving the country as he awaits trial.

A study by the Korea Food and Drug Administration seems to contradict the stereotype that Koreans have bigger faces than Caucasians. The KFDA measured the facial dimensions of 387 adults and 304 children and adolescents between 2007 and 2009 and found that the average Korean male's face was 419 sq. cm in area or about 92 percent the size of Caucasian males' 453 sq. cm. The face of the average Korean woman measured 371 sq. cm, a little smaller than the average Caucasian woman's 380 sq. cm. Experts say the faces of Koreans appear to be bigger due to a kind...

The widely read and influential Islamic news website Islam Online was on the brink of collapse yesterday after a mass walkout and strike in its Cairo-based newsroom. More than 300 employees of the site, which is run by a Qatar-based religious non-governmental organisation, were negotiating a severance deal that could gut the website’s staff. “By Sunday there probably won’t be an Islam Online. It will be an empty building,” a striking employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

To emphasize Barack Obama's frustration with what Republicans were saying at Thursday's healthcare summit, CNN aired a montage of the faces the President was making as prominent members of the GOP spoke. Candy Crowley introduced the segment on Sunday's "State of the Union": As we mentioned earlier, President Obama's face said a lot last week. I was in the studio where you can watch what which call an ISO, that's the camera focused only on the president as Republicans made their points. We wanted to share.

A new study gives new meaning to being blue — or red — in the face. People can pretty accurately discern whether someone is a Democrat or Republican just by looking at their mugs, according to research by two Tufts University social psychologists. In a series of experiments, college students were shown headshots of people and asked to guess their party affiliation. The students were correct 60% of the time, according to the study, greater than random chance would indicate. The researchers said students made their decisions based on their stereotypes of what Republicans and Democrats looked like.

A new study suggests that people from different cultures read facial expressions differently. East Asian participants in the study focused mostly on the eyes, but those from the West scanned the whole face. In the research carried out by a team from Glasgow University, East Asian observers found it more difficult to distinguish some facial expressions. The work published in Current Biology journal challenges the idea facial expressions are universally understood. In the study, East Asians were more likely than Westerners to read the expression for "fear" as "surprise", and "disgust" as "anger". The researchers say the confusion arises because...

Since Mr Obama took office, the rate of threats against the president has increased 400 per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under President George W. Bush, according to Ronald Kessler, author of In the President's Secret Service. Some threats to Mr Obama, whose Secret Service codename is Renegade, have been publicised, including an alleged plot by white supremacists in Tennessee late last year to rob a gun store, shoot 88 black people, decapitate another 14 and then assassinate the first black president in American history.

Since 2003, Bangladeshi journalist and peace activist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury has been investigated by Bangladeshi authorities on charges of sedition, treason and insulting religious belief. Choudhury, 44, has spent years opposing Muslim extremism through his writings, especially the Weekly Blitz which he started in 2003. He has called for interfaith dialogue and for normalizing relations between Muslim countries and Israel. On Wednesday, Choudhury returns to court. He is accused of insulting Islam and harming the state's reputation abroad, charges which, when couched as "sedition," carry a possible death penalty.

Ron Wood has confirmed long-standing reports that the Faces are gearing up for a reunion tour next year. “We had a few fantastic rehearsals last week and we’re ready to go,” Wood tells Rolling Stone. “It’s like no time has passed by.” Rod Stewart’s touring bassist Conrad Korsch sat in on bass, replacing original Faces bassist Ronnie Lane who died in 1997. “There’s a lot of guest bass players that want to do it — including Flea,” says Wood. They plan on hitting the road sometime in 2009, though no dates have been set. “We just have to sort out...