Free Republic

After a record number of public school students being gunned down in their classes in recent decades, elected officials from one state finally said enough is enough. News Flash: Oklahoma just passed a law authorizing teachers to pack heat during school hours to protect children! Oklahoma State Representative Jeff Coody sponsored the bill authorizing handguns to be carried both by teachers and staff. Coody defended his bill in less than 10 words, saying: “A gun-free zone is a target, a soft target.” Gun Owners of America Executive Director Larry Pratt responded to the news with a blunt suggeston, saying: “Ask...

Actually, it was for Cellulosic Ethanol, but those Projections are Equally Unrealistic WASHINGTON — American Energy Alliance President Thomas Pyle issued the following statement on EPA’s proposed volume requirements for the 2014, 2015, and 2016 Renewable Fuel Standard: “Once again, EPA has deluded itself into thinking it can simply mandate the commercial cellulosic biofuel industry out of thin air. EPA’s unrealistic projections for cellulosic biofuel underscore the incompetence of federal bureaucrats and the arrogance of Washington politicians who think they know what’s best for the economy and the American people. “The RFS has been broken from the beginning. It distorts...

An Orange County software consultant said today his divorce prompted him to write an initiative that would end alimony. “I was able to experience first-hand the many pitfalls associated with the process,” said Steve Clark, executive director of the Huntington Beach- based CalAlimonyReform.org. “The amount of time and money coupled with the emotional stress was more than I could have ever anticipated.” Backers of the initiative received permission this week from Secretary of State Alex Padilla to begin gathering signatures. The group has until Nov. 2 to obtain valid signatures from 365,880 registered voters -- 5 percent of the total...

In Love: A Musing on Yom Yerushalaim 28 Iyar 5775, Rabbi David Lapin http://rabbilapin.com/ "The world’s growing intolerance for a Jewish State – like anti-Semitism – is an emotional issue, not a rational one. Emotion cannot be countered with reason. Emotion can only be countered with emotion." *** I left Israel for the UK on June 4th, 1967, a day before the outbreak of the Six-Day War. Barely seventeen, I arrived there a few weeks earlier to start my Yeshiva career in Kefar Hassidim, a small agricultural village eight miles south-east of Haifa and less than 40 miles from the...

This week, Bill Novak and Norman MacArthur will go from being father and son to a married couple. Before you jump to conclusions, consider this: Novak and MacArthur are not father and son biologically. Rather, their relationship through adoption was solely a technicality to enable the rights they desperately wanted but were not legally able to attain as a married couple. The same-sex couple, who have been together for more than 50 years, registered as domestic partners in New York City in 1994. After moving to Bucks County, they learned that Pennsylvania law does not recognize domestic partners and prohibits...

Americans often go to great lengths to keep the government off their assets. But last month, as Peter and Joan Petrasek had wished in their wills, a cashier’s check for $847,215.57 was made out to the Department of Treasury. The Petraseks had left their total accumulated wealth, of cash in the bank and sale of their West Seattle home, “to the government of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.” The Petraseks had no children. Why the unusual will? Why not a charity or some cause?

I have had the privilege to work with some amazing leaders and help them and their companies on the way to success. I am always impressed with what they accomplish, and have noticed that most of them have many, if not all, of the following characteristics. What's surprising about these traits is that they tend to run counter to the ones pop culture depicts entrepreneurs and leaders having. 1. Rarely brag A true leader is the last to talk about his or her accomplishments. When someone is constantly bragging and trying to one-up people, it's a sign of insecurity and...

What do you get if you take the blades off a wind turbine? A better wind turbine. That sounds like a joke, but that’s actually more or less the model of a new wind turbine prototype. Instead of blades that turn in the breeze, the turbine is just a hollow straw that sticks up 40 feet from the ground and vibrates like a guitar string when the wind thrums by. The Spanish engineers who founded Vortex Bladeless in 2010 said they were inspired by the Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster (maybe not the best pitch for clean energy to a disaster-wary...

A surveillance video clip shows a man driving into his garage when three armed men come in as the garage door is attempting to close. The man, an off-duty police officer, was with his wife in the car. Things turn violent quickly, as one of the armed robbers starts to open the man’s car door while he has a gun in his hand. Within a second, both men fire a shot. The victim seems to get his shot off just a split second before the armed robber. The ‘victim’ fires several more rounds at the man, which hit his intended...

Robert Chardon, mayor of the French town of Venelles, has allegedly been forced into a mental institution for tweeting, “We must ban the Muslim faith in France.” This revelation came to us via the Agence France-Presse, a highly regarded news entity that claimed Chardon was involuntarily hospitalized last Friday. Chardon also tweeted that France should revoke a centuries-old secularism law and instead “promote the practice of the Christian faith.” All this rhetoric reportedly angered Nicolas Sarkozy, leader of the Union for a Popular Movement, the same party to which Chardon belongs. “I condemn this proposal even if secularism also means...

On May 8, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 5th grader Aarin Moody reached into his pocket to retrieve a “late note” from his mother and a Nerf gun foam “bullet” fell out. Officials at the Atlantic City School District categorized the toy bullet as a “self-constructed weapon” because “it had a toothpick stuck in it.”

The countdown is beginning for today’s launch of the Atlas 5 rocket to haul the Air Force’s X-37B reusable spaceplane back into orbit. Clocks are picking up the seven-hour sequence of work that will prepare the booster, payload and ground systems for blastoff at 11:05 a.m. EDT (1505 GMT). Soon the launch team will begin powering up the rocket to commence standard pre-flight tests. Over the subsequent few hours, final preps for the Centaur's liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen systems will be performed, along with a test of the rocket's guidance system and the first stage propulsion and hydraulic preps,...

“Todd Myers is an eco-mythbuster. He exposes trends among modern environmentalists that are based more on ‘feel-good’ sentimentality than on scientific reality. If you truly care about the environment, then you should read this book.” Alex B. Berezow, Ph.D., Editor of RealClearScience.com Wherever we turn, politicians, businesses and activists are promoting the latest fashionable “green” policy or product. Green buildings, biofuels, electric cars, compact fluorescent lightbulbs and a variety of other technologies are touted as the next key step in protecting the environment and promoting a sustainable future. Increasingly, however, scientific and economic information regarding environmental problems takes a back...

People who are trying to do good for their families and the planet by living a simple life based on traditional skills are facing yet another assault. Artisanal soap makers say new regulations, proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), will put them out of business. Many soap makers are rural “kitchen table” operations that rely on the income to fund their simple living lifestyle. Some use milk from goats they raise and ingredients they harvest from the land. The Handmade Cosmetic Alliance posted this form on its website that can be used to reach out...

The proposed $60bn flotation of Glencore was plunged into a sexism row after the chairman of the world's largest commodities trader claimed young women were a risk to hire because they get married and become pregnant. Vince Cable criticised the remarks by septuagenarian Simon Murray as "unbelievably primitive" and indicated that they could be used to justify any affirmative action in British boardrooms. Murray, who is based in Hong Kong and was only appointed as chairman this month to facilitate the flotation, was forced into a humbling apology after saying that there should not be quotas for women in boardrooms.

LYNNWOOD, Wash. -- A robber got more than he bargained for this week at a Lynnwood Baskin Robbins when a worker pummeled him and chased him out of the store. Police say a man wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses walked into the Baskin Robbins Wednesday afternoon. He approached the employee, Rachael Bishop, and demanded she hand over all the money in the cash register. Bishop refused, so the robber tried to grab the money himself. That turned out to be a mistake, as Bishop began to pummel him with punches to the head. "I just really didn't want him...

Potential GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush is calling on Congress to confirm attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch, whose confirmation hearings took place in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in January. In February, Lynch was voted out of the committee and approved 12-8. Due to the legislative schedule and fighting over bills already in motion, a full Senate vote on her confirmation has not yet taken place. More from POLITICO: “I think presidents have the right to pick their team,” Bush said, according to reports of his stop at the “Politics and Pie” forum in Concord, New Hampshire, on Thursday...

Maine finally took a bold step forward in welfare reform and it’s paying huge dividends. Last year Maine passed a measure that would require recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, otherwise known as SNAP, to complete a certain number of work, volunteer, or job-training hours before being eligible for assistance. Main Governor Paul LaPage passed the measure last year and the resulting drop in food-stamp enrollees has been dramatic. At the close of 2014 approximately 12,000 individuals were enrolled in the state assistance program. Keep in mind that these individuals are adults who aren’t disabled and who don’t have...

Get ready for another historic SpaceX rocket landing attempt scheduled for Monday, April 13. This will be the second time that SpaceX will try to land a massive, 140-foot-tall first stage Falcon 9 rocket onto a platform that's floating offshore in the Atlantic ocean. (The first landing attempt took place last January and ended with a fiery explosion.)

A woman died and her husband was injured after they drove off the ramp to the demolished Cline Avenue bridge, which has been closed since 2009. Zohra Hussain, a 51-year-old woman from Chicago, died of burns at the closed Riley Road exit of Cline Avenue, according to the Lake County coroner's office. Her husband, Iftikhar Hussain, 64, survived the plunge of 37.5 feet off an elevated section of highway. He was able to get out of their 2014 Nissan Sentra after it smashed into the ground below, on property owned by BP. But the car erupted into flame while his...