Free Republic

Interesting scientific discovery: A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest chemical element yet known to science. The new element has been tentatively named "Governmentium ". Governmentium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 11 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount...

Insight magazine examines the gold price suppression scheme : All That Glitters Is Not Gold By Kelly Patricia O'Meara Insight Magazine March 4, 2002, edition http://www.insightmag.com/media/paper441/template/ templatemedia/subscription.html Even though Enron employees and the company's accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, have destroyed mountains of documents, enough information remains in the ruins of the nation's largest corporate bankruptcy to provide a clear picture of what happened to wreck what once was the seventh-largest U.S. corporation. Obfuscation, secrecy, and accounting tricks appear to have catapulted the Houston-based trader of oil and gas to the top of the Fortune 100, only to be brought ...

Reporting from Northern Ohio. Our weather this season is unusually warm. It has been in the high 60's for most days in November and the latter half of October. The next ten days projected highs are in the high 50's and mid-to-high 60's. It is certainly easy to take, however, today I saw what looked like Forsythia starting to bloom. Characteristically the pond has been freezing come December 10th. Last Thanksgiving the wind and cold were brutal. Our propane use was enormous, comparatively. I'm curious as to what other parts of the country are experiencing weather-wise.

Bullying Seen as Key Factor in School Shootings By Sue Pleming WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Students at the biggest risk of opening fire at school are likely to be friendless boys, aged 16-18, with easy access to guns and who are seeking revenge for bullying, according to a student survey released on Tuesday. The survey of 2,017 students in grades 7-12 nationwide, looked at what teen-agers thought about school shootings, who was most likely to commit them and whether they ever felt driven to shoot other students themselves. ``We found students seem to know who in their schools have the potential ...

Breaking news. 17 Dead when Plane from Burbank to Aspen crashed just before landing NW of Airport. 17 dead. No word on cause or identities.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - About one third of US children are born out-of-wedlock, but the make up of this new American family is different from the common public perception, researchers report. National statistics show that only a minority of these births are to teenage mothers, and many single mothers are living with their babies' fathers. In 1970, only 11% of children were born outside marriage, and half of these births were to teenage mothers. By 1999, one in every three American children were born to single parents, with teen moms accounting for fewer than 30% of these births, ...

Wednesday March 7 10:04 AM ET The 15-year-old boy at the center of the latest school shooting was a gentle, thoughtful person who was traumatized by bullying at his California school, his former girlfriend said on Wednesday. Before moving to California with his father last year, Charles Andrew Williams lived in rural Maryland, where his former girlfriend Kathleen Seek said he was very popular and had lots of friends. ``He was an excellent young man. He stuck out for anyone who was hurting. If you were down he would ask what was wrong. He would put himself in a position ...

Bush unveils education package January 23, 2001 Web posted at: 1:16 p.m. EST (1816 GMT) WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Seeking to move quickly on his signature campaign issue, President Bush on Tuesday unveiled his own legislative package for education reform during a White House ceremony. "This is an important moment of my administration because I spent such a long time campaigning on education reform," Bush said as he took to the podium. "Both parties have been talking about education reform for quite awhile, it's time to come together to get it done so we can truthfully say 'no child in America ...

Iowa Farmers at Risk for Disease, Newspaper Reports DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - National and state health researchers are delving into whether farm chemicals used on corn and other crops in Iowa may be the cause of high rates of Parkinson's disease there, the Des Moines Register reported on Sunday. The newspaper report comes after a national study suggesting Iowans are far more likely than most Americans to contract the debilitating brain disease. Iowa is the largest U.S. corn producing state. The Parkinson's Institute is sending investigators to Iowa this spring to compare rural residents who have the disease ...

Poll: Do you support Clinton's limits on national forest use? Currently: Yes: 67% 38911 votes No: 33% 18829 votes 57741 votes total.

Make Way for Hillary She's arrived in the Senate, and she's transformed herself again. I return from 10 days away to find on the front page of every newspaper in America the official swearing-in of Hillary Clinton, Sen. Clinton, dressed in a pantsuit of robin's-egg blue, her right hand raised, a radiant smile upon her face. Moments later, Strom Thurmond rose and asked if he could hug her, which made everyone in the chamber chuckle. And so it begins. And appropriately enough with what appears to be another of Mrs. Clinton's transformations. She appears to be in the middle ...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The California Public Utilities Commission approved on Thursday a temporary increase in electricity rates for the state's two largest utilities, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and Southern California Edison (SCE). The increase, approved unanimously by CPUC's five commissioners, raises electricity rates for 90 days by 9 percent for residential customers, 7 percent for small businesses, 12 percent for medium-sized businesses, and 15 percent for large industrial companies. The cash-strapped utilities had sought far higher increases -- 26 percent for Pacific Gas and Electric, a unit of PG&E Corp., and 30 percent for Southern California Edison, ...

Beatiful cold wintery morning here in Northern Ohio. The thermometer's pushing its way past the 20 degree mark. The propane man drives up. Dog barks wildly, propane tank commences to be filled. Bill is slipped into door.The picturesque last day of vacation is marred. The cost to heat this small energy efficient house, supplemented with a woodburning stove, jumped from 84 cents per gallon to $1.73 from this time last year. This means our bill went from $220 to $478. Damn. That's a lot of increase. Kinda looks like inflation looming on the horizon, no?

During the midst of the most important election in history for gun owners, an AT&T Broadband cable station removed an NRA infomercial from its programming lineup. For its efforts to silence NRA's message to American voters, AT&T received an "Apple Pie Award" from the Million Mom March.Running on a station in the St. Louis area, NRA's infomercial was seen by a MMM member who complained about the programming. AT&T then stopped airing the show. When NRA memebers learned of AT&T's action and complained, they received a form response in which the company denied responsibility for the removal, blaming it on ...

U.S. Introduces New Organic Food Labels By Randy Fabi WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- American shoppers will soon find a USDA label on organic fruits, vegetables and meats produced without pesticides or hormones, the Clinton administration said on Wednesday as it rolled out new rules on organic food. The organic standards had been eagerly sought by US food companies, environmentalists and some lawmakers to help guide consumers seeking alternatives to genetically modified crops and hormone-injected livestock. ``This is the strongest and most comprehensive organic standard in the world,'' US Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said at a news conference held outside a ...

Turn away from the crowd and it's fruitless pursuit of fame and gold. Never look back as you close your door to the sorry tumult of greed and ambition. Wipe away your tears of failure and misfortune. Lay aside your heavy load and rest until your heart is still. Be at peace. Already it is later than you think, for your earthly life, at best, is only the blink of an eye between two eternities. Be unafraid. Nothing here can harm you except yourself. Do that which you dread and cherish those victories with pride. Concentrate your energy. To be ...

Asking for information. I thought they were meeting this afternoon at 2PM.

Just Go! The amazing thing isn't how close it was. The amazing thing is that Al Gore didn't win in a landslide. He's an incumbent with a booming economy during peacetime. On the basis of all historical precedent, Al Gore should have won without breaking a sweat. It should have been a cakewalk. Instead, he's busily whining about a close election he lost, refusing to concede, and insisting on a recount. The sore loser seems to think he can steal a national election by turning it into an impeachment-level media shout-fest. It's over. Gore lost, and Bush won. Once ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) - Federal laws designed to identify and treat learning disabled children are a powerful incentive to public schools to overdiagnose and medicate children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a panel told lawmakers Friday on Capitol Hill. Witnesses told an education subcommittee that the federal government is largely to blame for the astounding rise in diagnosis and treatment of ADHD among American schoolchildren over the last decade. Diagnosis of the disorder has jumped nearly fivefold, to stand at over 5 million children today. Some attributed the rise to the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which steers ...

OSLO (Reuters) - The wave of fuel price protests sweeping through Europe regained momentum Monday after a weekend lull, while shaken governments scrambled to limit the political fallout. Monday's protests centered on Scandinavia but blockades sprang up at the Spanish port of Barcelona and in Slovenia, while Israeli truckers threatened to stage their own demonstrations from Tuesday. In Norway, demonstrators blocked 11 oil terminals at key ports along the south and west coasts, but later called off their protest under the threat of police action. Swedish truckers and farmers partially blockaded southern ports and ferries Monday in protest at ...