Free Republic

Peanuts, as familiar to air travelers as tray tables and landing gear, could be grounded by the federal government. And Georgia’s peanut industry is fighting the idea. A recent proposal from the U.S. Department of Transportation for a variety of rules affecting air travel includes plans to consider new restrictions on peanut snacks -- or even an outright ban -- to accommodate fliers with allergies. The DOT is considering banning peanuts and peanut products from being served on airline flights; banning them from flights where an allergic passenger has asked for a peanut-free flight in advance; or requiring a peanut-free...

After laying hands on the record-breaking 61.5 mph speedboat, built for a British sporting adventurer, the Iranian navy plans to arm it with the reputedly fastest torpedo in the world, the Russian-designed Shkval (Squall), which moves at speeds of 360 kph. debkafile's military sources report Tehran is aiming for a seaborne weapon able to sink a US carrier in the Persian Gulf. Blogs tracking the international weapons trade and the Financial Times reported Monday, April 5, that after purchasing the Bladerunner 51 powerboat from a Florida boatyard in 2005, the British sailor Neil McGrigor smashed the Italian-held record for the...

It is seldom recognized, commented historian René Dubos, that each society and every civilization creates its own diseases.1 Is the peanut allergy epidemic man-made? And if so, how has it been created in millions of children in just 20 years and who or what are its architects? The features of the epidemic continue to puzzle doctors. In the US alone, 5.6 million people – 2% of the population – are allergic topeanuts and nuts almost all having experienced onset as toddlers. This epidemic tipped into critical mass around 1998 when the first flood of allergic children entered kindergarten sending a...

Former US president Jimmy Carter accused Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of placing "several obstacles on the road to peace" on Monday, addressing the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee one day after Netanyahu laid out his policy during an internationally-televised speech. "In my opinion, Netanyahu brought up several obstacles to peace in his speech that others before him have not placed," Carter, who is visiting Israel as part of a larger Middle East tour, told the committee. "He insists on settlement expansion and demands that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, even though 20% of Israel's citizens are...

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich compares President Obama to Jimmy Carter because of his "sense of confusion" of who our enemies are. Gingrich also criticizes Obama for his "unwillingness" to be "bold and positive about America when overseas."

A new study finds that a botanical drug could provide the key to new treatments for peanut allergies. The findings are published online in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Lead author Xiu-Min Li, MD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Director of Center for Chinese Herbal Therapy for Allergy and Asthma at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and colleagues found Food Allergy Herbal Formula (FAHF-2) produced long-term protection following treatment against peanut-induced anaphylaxis in mice. FAHF-2 treatment protected peanut allergic mice from anaphylaxis for more than 36 weeks after treatment was discontinued.

Today former President Jimmy Carter met with several Palestinian leaders, including a member of Hamas. Following a brief and yet cordial embrace between the two men Hamas issued a press statement describing the meeting. “It was our pleasure to exchange mutual embraces of goodwill between ourselves and President Jimmy Carter. As most people around the world now know President Carter was the man truly elected in Florida, and unlike the criminal Bush, who has killed so many Palestinians and Iraqis, President Carter is the man who best represents the will of the American people. Like so many life-long Democrats President...

Jimmy Carter Lays A Wreath at Arafat's Tomb By Julie Stahl CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief April 15, 2008 Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter laid a wreath of red roses at the grave of Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat during a visit to the West Bank City of Ramallah on Tuesday. "He and Mrs. Carter and his son Jeff wanted to pay their respects to President Arafat," Carter's trip director Rick Jasculca told Cybercast News Service. But the former president didn't make any comments there, he said. Dubbed the "godfather of terrorism," Arafat was linked to the...

Former US president Jimmy Carter said Tuesday he was refused permission to enter the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, despite his aim of paying a visit while on a well-publicized trip to the region. He did not say who would not allow him to enter the salient, but Israel controls the main crossing points from its territory to the enclave. Carter made the remarks to reporters in Ramallah, where he was to meet Palestinian leaders and officials, including representatives of Hamas, which the United States boycotts because of the Islamist organization's adamant refusal to change its charter to recognise Israel's right to...

Jimmy Carter Is Clueless About Hamas April 14, 2008 By: Geoff Metcalf “Stupidity talks, vanity acts.” — Victor Hugo Former President Jimmy Carter’s latest brain flatulence synthesizes stupidity and vanity. With age is supposed to come wisdom and gravitas . . . unless apparently you are a myopic arrogant peanut farmer from Georgia who carries the distinction of being the worst U.S. president in modern history. Forget the 22 percent interest rates, 13 percent inflation, the Iranian hostage debacles, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, his creation of the Departments of Energy and Education as Cabinet positions, or his refusal to...

Former President Carter and Al Gore have discussed plans to tell Hillary Rodham Clinton that she must abandon her presidential bid, for the sake of the Democratic Party. "They're in discussions," a source close to Carter told the Scotland on Sunday newspaper. "Carter has been talking to Gore. They will act, possibly together, or in sequence." The newspaper said the message will be delivered — it's just a matter of when. Barack Obama leads Clinton in the race for pledged delegates, and political experts say its nearly impossible for her to catch. But she retains a lead among superdelegates, and...

Former President of the United States, Jimmy Carter has hinted that he might cast his vote for Senator Barack Obama to aid his emergence as the candidate for the Democrats in America’s bid to elect a new President. Carter, who is a Super Delegate from Georgia State, gave this hint at a media interaction after the Carter Center Awards for Guinea Worm Eradication in Abuja yesterday. Carter, who was accompanied by his wife Rosalynn, did not profess a direct support for Obama but rather choose to make a veiled statement. “We are very interested in the primaries. Don’t forget that...

Congress can still act decisively this year to right a wrong that is hurting both small American farmers and the poorest people on the planet. A long-overdue debate is taking place on reform of the 1933 farm bill, passed during the Great Depression to alleviate the suffering of America's family farmers. I was a farm boy then, and the primary cash crops on my father's farm were peanuts and cotton. My first paying job was working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, measuring farmers' fields to ensure that they limited their acreage and total production in order to qualify for...

Here is a photograph of the Ron Paul 2008 national office in Arlington, Virginia. We have the entire second floor; about 3,000 square feet. The photograph was taken around 6:00 o'clock this morning.

Americus, Ga. (AP) -- Former President Carter welcomed Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards to Georgia on Wednesday, embracing the fellow Southerner as a kindred spirit on poverty and the environment. Carter and Edwards shared the stage at Carter's alma mater, Georgia Southwestern State University. Carter stopped short of endorsing the former senator from North Carolina but called him "a candidate whom I really admire." "I can say without equivocation that no one who is running for president has presented anywhere near as comprehensive and accurate a prediction of what our country ought to do in the field of environmental quality,...

Peanuts may be elbowing their way into the biodiesel fuel market. Agricultural Research Service scientists are searching for economically feasible peanut varieties for that very purpose. Agronomist Wilson Faircloth at the Agricultural Research Service National Peanut Research Laboratory in Dawson, Ga., and Daniel Geller, a collaborative engineer at the University of Georgia, are testing a peanut called Georganic. It’s not suited to current commercial edible standards for peanuts, but is high in oil and has low production input costs. Georganic — or similar varieties — will likely be the future of peanut biodiesel because it can be planted and grown...

The United States and European Union should recognize the terrorist organization Hamas as a legitimate component of the Palestinian government, former President Jimmy Carter said at a human rights conference in Dublin, Ireland, June 19. Hamas, he said, had won free and fair elections in 2006, making the United States' refusal to aid the Palestinian faction and recognize its right to govern a "criminal" act. Carter said he believes both Western governments and Israel are favoring the rival Fatah party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, which now only governs the West Bank. Fatah also governed the Gaza Strip until...

As if a light were switched off, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlevi, portrayed for 20 years as a progressive modern ruler by Islamic standards, was suddenly, in 1977-1978, turned into this foaming at the mouth monster by the international left media. Soon after becoming President in 1977, Jimmy Carter launched a deliberate campaign to undermine the Shah. The Soviets and their left-wing apparatchiks would coordinate with Carter by smearing the Shah in a campaign of lies meant to topple his throne. The result would be the establishment of a Marxist/Islamic state in Iran headed by the tyrannical Ayatollah...

Carter pipes up, calls Bush’s way ‘worst in history’ Foreign relations at ebb, he says Copyright 2007, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. BY FRANK LOCKWOOD ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE In a stinging rebuke to President Bush, former President Carter on Friday called the current administration “the worst in history” when it comes to international relations. During a telephone interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette from the Carter Center in Atlanta, the ex-president also accused the current White House occupant of eliminating the line between church and state and of abandoning “America’s basic values.” “I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around...

Carter Accuses Jewish Group of ‘Slander’ After Questioning Controversial Book Wednesday, February 07, 2007 By Melissa Drosjack WASHINGTON — Jimmy Carter has accused an international Jewish human rights group of "falsehood and slander" for launching a petition that resulted in thousands of signatures being sent to the former president in protest of his controversial book about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "I don't believe Simon Wiesenthal would have resorted to falsehood and slander to raise funds," Carter wrote last month in a handwritten letter to the head of the human rights center that bears the name of the late Holocaust survivor and...