Free Republic

A handful of tree ring samples stored in an old cigar box have shed unexpected light on the ancient world, thanks to research by archaeologist Sturt Manning and collaborators at Cornell, Arizona, Chicago, Oxford and Vienna, forthcoming in the June issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science. The samples were taken from an Egyptian coffin; Manning also examined wood from funeral boats buried near the pyramid of Sesostris III. He used a technique called “dendro radiocarbon wiggle matching,” which calibrates radiocarbon isotopes found in the sample tree rings with patterns known from other places in the world that have already...

In an odd play on words, the DNC called GOP policies those of "mad men," after referencing the finale of MadMen. The meme, which the DNC released on the 25th, and then again on the 26th, states that "MadMen is going away until next year, but the GOP's mad men policies remain:" Initially, the pun appears to call Republicans characters of the show. However, it does not. First, the words MadMen in the post has no space when the Democrats are referring to the show, but has one when referring to Republicans. Second, the word "Mad" is highlighted in red...

Lupica: Santa Barbara rampage shows it's too easy to get guns that make mass murder easier There are no sure safeguards against madness, but it does not change the fact that it's too simple for sick people to get guns — legally or illegally — especially the kinds of semiautomatic weapons that Elliot Rodger used in his shooting rampage in Isla Vista, Calif So this is Memorial Day in 2014, when we are supposed to remember and honor those who died serving this country and end up mourning the latest to die at the hands of a madman with guns...

Russian media used shots of Ukrainian peacekeeping operation two years ago in their report about Donbas. Russian media reported false information about the anti-terrorist operation in Donbas, using video recording, which was almost two years old to compromise Ukrainian helicopters in Slovyansk. This information is provided by the regional media centre of the MoD of Ukraine in Chernigiv on Friday, 17th of May. Reports Correspondent. “Some Russian media (channel “Vesti”) were reporting that helicopters with symbols of the United Nations were taking part in the anti-terrorist operation. In reality, on the video is the Ukrainian peacekeeping operation in Congo, which...

A retired United States Army colonel expects as many as 30 million like-minded individuals will descend on Washington, DC this week and demand that President Barack Obama and other members of his administration be booted from office. Those are just some of the demands that Col. Harry Riley, founder of “Operation American Spring,” said he’ll ask the Obama administration to adhere to when militia members and patriots of all sorts arrive in the nation’s capital on Friday and begin demonstrating against a government the group considers to be in violation of the principles established by the founders of the country....

Conservatives who believe that winning back control of the Senate will destroy any chance of amnesty legislation passing are sorely mistaken. In fact, a Republican-controlled Congress may make it easier to provide a path to citizenship for all of the country's illegal immigrants if this Congress fails to do so. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who has his eye on the GOP presidential nomination and was the central figure who backed the Senate's amnesty bill that passed last year, said that Republicans in the Senate would "absolutely" take up amnesty legislation again if they gain a net of six seats to...

President Barack Obama's top adviser and confidant told a group of global elites on Thursday in Las Vegas, Nevada that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has made a commitment to the White House to try to pass amnesty legislation this year. After hailing the Senate's amnesty bill that the Congressional Budget Office determined would lower the wages of American workers, Valerie Jarrett, Obama's senior advisor, told attendees at the yearly invitation-only SkyBridge Alternatives Conference that Boehner would help the White House make a push get immigration reform enacted in the next three months. “I think we have a window this...

The bloody crisis between the pro-Western two thirds of Ukraine and pro-Russian third of the country is about taxes. The recent $17 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan required Ukraine on May 1st to raise taxes and increase natural gas prices by 50%. With about 58% of the Ukraine’s industry in the eastern zone and workers there making about 50% higher wages, the east is paying the majority of the tax increase. Although residential users will not feel pain from the natural gas price increase until fall, eastern heavy industry is feeling the pain immediately. With the corrupt west raising...

***WARNING GRAPHIC VIOLENCE*** Ignore propaganda from both sides. Watch video at link and make up your own opinion. Two more videos from different angles at bottom of post.

Political analysts say Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyhau is making desperate maneuvers to try and prevent MK Reuven Rivlin (Likud-Beytenu) from being elected president in the coming weeks. The Knesset began its summer session Monday, a session that will focus on the process of electing a president, as Shimon Peres's term nears its end. Peres's term ends in July, and a successor is to be elected by the Knesset between 30 and 90 days before then. Netanyahu reportedly is still trying to bring about a six-month postponement of the election, after failing to do so until now. Sources close to him...

Israeli rabbi Michael Finkel says the Jewish community is on high alert because of the influence of the neo-Nazi's within Kiev's temporary government. "This is Right Sector. This is the peole who are marching in Nazi uniforms with SF on their arms and on their military uniforms," Finkel says. According to the rabbi, it is possible that Ukraine could turn into a country similar to Lebanon. "In Lebanon, there's an official government and there is Hezbollah, which is a terrrorist organization linked to the government. They're members of the parliament, and there's a Hezbollah militia over thre, a separate army,...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Well, well, well, looky here. Koko Jr. at RushLimbaugh.com just sent me a quick note. "Documents released Friday..." This is from July of 2010, folks, so it's from the archives at RushLimbaugh.com. "Documents released Friday by the Nixon Presidential Library show members of President Richard Nixon's inner circle discussing the possibilities of global warming more than 30 years ago. "Advisor Daniel Patrick Moynihan, notable as a Democrat in the [Nixon] administration, urged the [Nixon] administration to initiate a worldwide system of monitoring carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, decades before the issue of global warming came to the...

Just heard Rush talk about this so I went and looked it up! YORBA LINDA, Calif. — Documents released Friday by the Nixon Presidential Library show members of President Richard Nixon's inner circle discussing the possibilities of global warming more than 30 years ago. Adviser Daniel Patrick Moynihan, notable as a Democrat in the administration, urged the administration to initiate a worldwide system of monitoring carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, decades before the issue of global warming came to the public's attention. There is widespread agreement that carbon dioxide content will rise 25 percent by 2000, Moynihan wrote in a...

Israel spies on the United States more than any other ally does and these activities have reached an alarming level, Newsweek magazine reported on Tuesday. The main targets are US industrial and technical secrets, the weekly said, quoting classified briefings on legislation that would make it easier for Israeli citizens to get visas to enter America. Newsweek said a congressional staffer familiar with a briefing last January called the testimony "very sobering ... alarming ... even terrifying", and quoted another as saying the behavior was "damaging." "No other country close to the United States continues to cross the line on...

We have written a couple of times about street artists, especially in Southern California, who are conducting a guerrilla campaign against the Obama administration. That campaign has escalated, as this is well beyond street art: a nicely produced parody movie poster titled “Saving Barack Obama.” It mimics this famous poster for “Saving Private Ryan.” Note the identical font and the teleprompters. The text says, “A Steven Spielberg ploy,” and at the bottom, “the mission is a fraud.” According to the Free Beacon, the posters “have appeared on bus stops and benches throughout Los Angeles, including just outside Melrose Avenue, the...

Video speaks for itself. There is division in the Ukraine police force in Odessa after yesterday's massacre. Many of the police put down their shields and walked off the job.

Booming production of oil and natural gas has exacted a little-known price on some of the nation’s roads, contributing to a spike in traffic fatalities in states where many streets and highways are choked with large trucks and heavy drilling equipment. An Associated Press analysis of traffic deaths and U.S. census data in six drilling states shows that in some places, fatalities have more than quadrupled since 2004—a period when most American roads have become much safer even as the population has grown. “We are just so swamped,” said Sheriff Dwayne Villanueva of Karnes County, Texas, where authorities have been...

TEHRAN (FNA) - Saudi Arabia has sent a large number of Takfiri fighters in Syria to Ukraine to fight the pro-Russian protesters in the European country. "A large number of terrorist Takfiri fighters in Syria, who bear Saudi and Chechnian nationalities and receive financial and military backup from the Saudi intelligence agency, have been transferred to the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, on several planes to help the Ukrainian army in its fight against the pro-Russian population," an Arab security official told FNA on Sunday on the condition of anonymity due to the secrecy of the issue. "The forces have been immediately...

Reality checks needed during war DON SELLAR Halabja (pop. 80,000) is a small Kurdish city in northern Iraq. On Wednesday, the Star reminded readers that Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army killed 5,000 Kurds in a 1988 chemical weapons attack on Halabja near the end of a bloody, eight-year war with Iran. The statement that Saddam was responsible for gassing the Kurds — his own people — was straightforward. Indeed, U.S. President George W. Bush has used similar language about the disaster at Halabja in making a case for a military strike to oust Saddam. Yet the Star also reported, in a...

Residents of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk have lashed out at troops entering the city’s streets with outrage and insults. The soldiers were supposed to be "liberating the people from pro-Russian terrorists,” according to the Kiev government. The ongoing military crackdown on anti-government activists in eastern Ukraine has been portrayed as a noble quest of freeing the locals “kept hostage” by the so-called “terrorists” and “separatists.” Coup-imposed Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov recently branded the campaign “an anti-terrorist operation against the sabotage group of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the Russian Federation” on his Facebook page. Curiously, however,...