Free Republic

Didn't Hillary's Assistant Campaign Manager, Huma Weiner, push some woman in the face a few months ago? Where is the assault charge for that?

Populations who have had a primarily vegetarian diet for generations carried a genetic mutation which raised risk of cancer and heart disease Long term vegetarianism can lead to genetic mutations which raise the risk of heart disease and cancer, scientists have found. Populations who have had a primarily vegetarian diet for generations were found to be far more likely to carry DNA which makes them susceptible to inflammation. Scientists in the US believe that the mutation occured to make it easier for vegetarians to absorb essential fatty acids from plants. But it has the knock-on effect of boosting the production...

I don’t buy organic foods. In fact I specifically avoid doing so. It’s not my place to tell anyone else what to do, but I’d like to lay out three, seriously considered factors that have shaped my personal stance on organic: 1. Informed confidence that we are safe buying “conventional” foods 2. Recognizing that some of the best farming practices from an environmental perspective are not always allowed or practical under the organic rules 2.An ethical problem with the tactics that some organic advocates and marketers employ which seriously misrepresents their “conventional” competition...... As for the safety issue. When most...

I'm considering starting a CSA, with which I would provide a basket of vegetables from my garden (uncertified organic) to 10 (the first year) families each week for 18 weeks. Using the CSA model, the customers sign up and prepay for the season, knowing the risks of crop failure. I have experience with intensive planting and growing a lot on a little land. Additionally, my neighbor will allow me the use of his field for free . . .

Last week, 117 "members of the Republican national security community" signed an open letter condemning Donald Trump. It made me think the bellicose billionaire, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, is not quite as bad as I thought. "His vision of American influence and power in the world is wildly inconsistent and unmoored in principle," the letter complains. "He swings from isolationism to military adventurism within the space of one sentence." Although there is some truth to that critique, an inconsistent skepticism of foreign intervention is better than none at all. That is why I have trouble agreeing with...

To the House of Representatives: I return without my approval House bill number ten thousand two hundred and three, entitled "An Act to enable the Commissioner of Agriculture to make a special distribution of seeds in drought-stricken counties of Texas, and making an appropriation therefor."It is represented that a long-continued and extensive drought has existed in certain portions of the State of Texas, resulting in a failure of crops and consequent distress and destitution.Though there has been some difference in statements concerning the extent of the people's needs in the localities thus affected, there seems to be no doubt that...

After months of debate and public comments, President Obama’s controversial Clean Power Plan (CPP) was issued in August 2015 and published in the Federal Register on October 23, 2015. But that is hardly the end of the story. Instead the saga is just beginning—with the ending to be written sometime in 2017 and the outcome highly dependent on who resides in the White House. The CPP is the newest set of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations that the Atlantic states: “anchors the Obama administration’s climate-change policy. It seeks to guide local utilities away from coal-fired electricity generation, and toward renewable...

Weight Watchers reports earnings Thursday, and even if the numbers aren't good, there's one figure that should make investors in dieting hopeful: 582 million. That's how many pounds Americans gained collectively in 2015. Through births, immigration and overeating, there has been the equivalent of 1,400 blue whales added to the human biomass of our country in just a year, pointing to the need for groups like Weight Watchers to get the country lean and mean again. Figures from the U.S. Census Bureau and weight data collected by Gallup tell the story.

Retailers that accept food stamps would have to start stocking a wider variety of healthy foods or face the loss of consumers under proposed rules expected to be announced by the Agriculture Department on Tuesday. The rules are designed to ensure that the more than 46 million Americans who use food stamps have better access to healthy foods although they don't dictate what people buy or eat. A person using food stamp dollars could still purchase as much junk food as they wanted, but they would at least have more options in the store to buy fruits, vegetables, dairy, meats...

OK. So I forgot that today is Valentine's Day. Does that make me a criminal or something? Maybe in Minnesota. So I rushed right down to the store to buy my sweetie some chocolates. It was like when they had that news story about chocolate being an afrodes.....aprodez.....love potion for women. The men cleared out all the chocolate in the store that day. Yes sir.....miles and miles of empty shelves that day. You should have seen all the sad faces on the guys the next day. If I owned a turnip ranch, I'd just start a rumor that turnips made...

It is awful watching the news media objectify Cliven Bundy and there is no easy corrective to the situation. It may help, however, to know a little more about Bundy’s history and what he means when he says that his family has ranched in the area since the late nineteenth century.

It is obvious that no significant connection between microcephaly and the Zika virus has been found. It's not even close. So far, therefore, there is absolutely no reason to trumpet an epidemic of Zika. Doing so is quite insane, by any reasonable standard. Here are the principal facts in the article (after which I'll comment): * As of January 30, 2016, 4,783 suspected cases of microcephaly were reported in Brazil. * Of those, 3,670 suspected cases of microcephaly, covering the entire country of Brazil, are being investigated. * Of those 3,670, 404 cases have been confirmed as microcephaly or "other...

ST. CLOUD, Fla. - Several residents in Osceola County have found catfish in their mailboxes and yards, prompting questions whether it's a prank or something more serious. Maddison Fertic said she received an unusual delivery Monday morning when her postman discovered a large, dead catfish inside her mailbox. "I was honestly in shock because it doesn't make any sense," Fertic said. "It's just one of those things where it's, just, 'Why?'" Fertic said the fish was 12 inches long, and she had to use a stick to pull it out. "It looked like it could have been a live fish...

Since it made its debut in April 2007, the publication has hewed to its own course, focusing on everything Southern from ham biscuits to bird-dog trainers... it remains tightly focused on food, drink, the land, travel, and the sporting life, including bird hunting and shotguns. Roughly 72% of subscribers live in the Southeast or Southwest... “Our audiences are very different,” said Sid Evans, the former editor-in-chief of Garden & Gun who now edits Southern Living. He noted that more than 90% of Southern Living’s subscribers are female. Women account for about 47% of Garden & Gun’s subscribers.... At a time...

A county in Central Texas is winning the war on feral hogs one tail at a time. Caldwell County has become the Lone Star State's front line in the fight to curb the exploding population of the wild beasts, which cause millions of dollars in property and environmental damage every year. A volunteer task force has found success using a host of strategies including $5 tail bounties, helicopter hunts and smartphone-controlled corrals. "We're probably the most coordinated program in the state," Nick Dornak, founder of the county's Feral Hog Task Force, told FoxNews.com. In the two years since it was...

At left, a deformed sample of pure metal; at right, the strong new metal made of magnesium with silicon carbide nanoparticles. Each central micropillar is about 4 micrometers across. Credit: UCLA Scifacturing Laboratory ============================================================================================================= A team led by researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has created a super-strong yet light structural metal with extremely high specific strength and modulus, or stiffness-to-weight ratio. The new metal is composed of magnesium infused with a dense and even dispersal of ceramic silicon carbide nanoparticles. It could be used to make lighter airplanes, spacecraft, and cars, helping to...

Orange-colored galls, such as these pictured in 2010, from the beech tree forests of Patagonia have been found to harbor the yeast that makes lager beer possible. Five hundred years ago, in the age of sail and when the trans-Atlantic trade was just beginning, the yeast somehow made its way from Patagonia to the caves and monastery cellars of Bavaria where the first lager beers were fermented. University of Wisconsin-Madison Genetics Professor Chris Todd Hittinger and colleagues have discovered a quick and efficient way to fuse different strains of yeast to make hybrids similar to the lager beer hybrid, an...

Ethanol, which is produced from corn, is commonly-used as an additive in engine fuel as a way to reduce harmful emissions and scale back U.S. reliance on foreign oil. But since ethanol is an oxygenated fuel, its use results in a lower energy output, as well as increased damage to engines via corrosion. But now a research team, led by William Jones at the University of Rochester, has developed a series of reactions that results in the selective conversion of ethanol to butanol, without producing unwanted byproducts. "Butanol is much better than ethanol as an alternative to gasoline," said Jones,...

Cannabis indica. Credit: Wikipedia ========================================================================================================================================= Several studies have demonstrated that the primary active constituent of cannabis, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (∆9-THC), induces transient psychosis-like effects in healthy subjects similar to those observed in schizophrenia. However, the mechanisms underlying these effects are not clear. A new study, published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, reports that ∆9-THC increases random neural activity, termed neural noise, in the brains of healthy human subjects. The findings suggest that increased neural noise may play a role in the psychosis-like effects of cannabis. "At doses roughly equivalent to half or a single joint, ∆9-THC produced psychosis-like effects and increased neural...

The oldest peach pits have been found near a bus station in China, according to a new study that sheds new light on the little-known evolutionary history of the fruit. The eight fossilized peach endocarps, or pits, date back more than two and a half million years. They were found by Tao Su, associate professor at Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, when road construction near his house in Kunming, capital of Yunnan in southwest China, exposed a rock outcrop from the late Pliocene. Preserved within the Pliocene layers, the fossils looked "strikingly modern," according to Su. With colleague Peter Wilf, a...